First Time Mom and Losing It

**This post is part of a sponsored campaign. I received compensation for my participation, but my review and opinions are my own.


I have been homeschooling my 3 year old for over a year now loosely and for about a month now more structured. I found a curriculum I like and I wasted paper and ink on tons of sheets and activities and bound them up. It was hard for my 3 year old to sit still while I went through the curriculum. When I heard about Learn with Homer I jumped at the opportunity to try it out with my daughter. Learn with Homer is a learning program that was developed by top literacy experts and proven to give results. The program is perfect for children ages 3-7.


She has been expertly using an iPad even before she was one so I thought the Learn with Homer program on her iPad would be more interesting to her. I asked her to hand me her iPad and went to the app store to download the Learn with Homer. She was excited that I was getting her a new app. I asked her if she wanted to play with me and she quickly agreed.


I logged in and set up her profile. She loved that she got to take a picture of herself and pick a hat for her profile picture. Then we went to the sections of learning and picked learn to read first. The first lesson was the "ah" sound and with the colors, cute characters and fun lessons my daughter surprisingly got all of the answers right. At the end she had fun recording her voice and listening to herself say the "ah" sound.


We continued to work on the lessons, read the stories and poems for a while and then I was the one to tell my daughter she can have a break. She was having so much fun learning with the Learn with Homer app that she didn't even realize that we were doing a learning activity. I love that she can begin to learn to read without my help. It is more than just practice drills like most of the reading apps out there. It actually teaches the basics of reading and doesn't assume that she already knows certain things.


The Learn with Homer program offers more than 1,000 lessons and activities including stories, games, history, science, art and music and real world context. The program is even better now with a new navigation set up and an introduction of a new interactive themed world.

The Learn with Homer is available for free 30-day trial from learnwithhomer.com or on the App Store on iPad. Unlimited access to the entire curriculum is available for $7.95 per month or $79.95 for a full year’s membership. Use my link to get 50% off of one year of Learn With Homer.

My daugher loves playing dress up with her dolls. She is forever taking off outfits and putting on different ones with her Barbies. She got this really cool Doc McStuffins magnetic play doll that she loved to change the clothes on so I decided to make that like more educational. I designed a paper doll and some clothes, laminated it and added some sticky velcro. Then I made flash cards for each article of clothing so she could begin reading and memorizing how the words are spelled.

To make your own Educational Paper Dolls and Clothes:

1. Print out the following printables: doll, clothes, flash cards.


2. Carefully cut out the pieces of clothing.

3. Place the pieces of clothing into a laminating sheet sleeve. Make sure none of the pieces of clothes overlap and has a little bit of space all around.

4. Laminate the entire sheet of the doll printable.


5. Cut fourteen little pieces of velcro. Remove the paper backing of 5 pieces of velcro and place the soft part of the velcro onto the doll where indicated.


6. Take the pieces of the rough part of the velcro, remove the paper backing and place it on top of the pieces of velcro that you added to the doll earlier. Place the pieces of clothing correctly on top of the doll and press down so that the sticky part of the rough pieces of velcro stick onto the clothing. Repeat this step for all of the pieces of clothing.


After playing with the dolls for a while my daughter now knows what each piece of clothing is called. I started showing her the flashcards and reading them to her and now she knows how to read hat and shoes. I know that she will be reading all of the words in no time.