Fry’s First Fidget Challenge takes a new spin on helping children master Fry’s first 1000 sight words. If you aren’t familiar with Fry’s Instant Words, it is a list of 1000 commonly used words compiled by Dr. Edward B. Fry. It is similar to the Dolch list, but includes more words and is a more modern compilation. These words comprise up to 90% of everyday reading material. Many schools have students master these words to make their reading experiences more smooth as they progress into higher level reading.

Since this list of words is so useful to learn, I decided to take those blasted fidget spinners and make them functional in this endeavor. The idea is to have the child set the fidget spinner down at the top of the page, spin it as hard and fast as they can and then read as many of the words on the page as possible before the fidget spinner stops. Ideally, you’ll use a clean and smoothly moving spinner for this so that they can read more than just a few words. Our little people don’t keep them very clean, so we have a designated reading spinner. My son learned the hard way with his Batman spinner that they don’t react well when left on the lawn overnight to be watered. It hasn’t spun the same since!

So, make that fidget spinner do more! Have your child practice reading their sight words with these fun and free pages! Place the fidget spinner on the circle, spin it, and read! It usually takes my son a few flicks of the spinner to complete a page, though this is unique to the quality of the spinner and the reader’s level. Mix it up by reading the list backward, or only reading odd or even numbered words. Or maybe color code the words. Get creative and have fun!

Internet friends, my three-year-old is OBSESSED with the Statue of Liberty. He carts around a small replica of her all over the place. We went to a playgroup at the park today and once we got there, guess what I found stashed away in the basket of his little sister’s stroller. Yup, he had helped Lovely Lady Liberty stow away. And yes, he was indeed wearing his new shirt featuring his favorite woman, a.k.a. “The Liberty of Statue.”

When your kid is this obsessed with something, and you have a body full of crafting bones, it is only natural to create a useable item featuring said obsession. I see it all the time in my favorite crafting groups on Facebook. (Click here to see one of them.) Moms just love to make things they know their kids will love!

This shirt was supposed to be for his birthday in a few weeks, but with Independence Day coming up, I had to give it to him now. (Instead of the shirt, he’ll be getting a bunch of Statue of Liberty kids’ books. Shhh…don’t tell him!) The moment I showed it to him, he ripped off the shirt he was already wearing and held out his hands for his new one. I’m starting to think maybe I should have just made several of these since he is going to want to wear it 24/7. Alas, small child, all things in moderation.

I hope that a random three-year-old’s present fixation has worked to your benefit and that this free file will come in handy for you! I mean who doesn’t love the Statue of Liberty? She represents so many great values and ideals. And that copper patina, yowza! She has been working on that lovely shade of green for 131 years! This little tribute to her doesn’t do her justice, but I hope you (or your child) will appreciate it nonetheless. Happy Independence Day!

It is just about time for us to celebrate Independence Day in the U.S. That means it’s time for me to temporarily switch out those framed summer printables for more relevant ones. I have one patriotic print that I’ve used for the last few years, but it was a subway art style print that I didn’t love much. So, I came up with a couple of original designs to remind us about the liberty and privileges we enjoy in our country.

One print features the iconic Liberty Bell. Did you know that makers of the first Liberty Bell melted it down shortly after it was made because it cracked on its first test ring? Read more about the bell’s history here. In addition to the bell, this print also includes the phrase, “Let Freedom Ring” from the song “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee.”

The second print displays the continental United States with the phrase, “Land that I Love.” My grade school memory was better than my current one, so if you are like me and struggle to keep your patriotic songs straight, this line is from “God Bless America.”

My hope in sharing these prints with you is that you’ll have a little something in your home to remind you of those who came before us. They lived in such a different world than we know today and had to fight for rights that we now take for granted every day. So, download, print, and hang these freebies and remember all the hard work and sacrifice that delivered your freedoms to you.

(Keep an eye out for a Statue of Liberty file coming soon too. My three year old is obsessed with her and his birthday is coming up soon, so I have a fun t-shirt in mind to make for him. Naturally, I’ll share the file with you too!)

I don’t know about you guys, but for me, the initial excitement of summer break has already worn off. The kids are home all the time (and fighting) and I find myself kicking them into the backyard while I Netflix and fold laundry. Then I struggle to turn off the t.v. and get back up off the couch. But, no more! It’s time to kick the cycle and soak up this beautiful summer!

One of my friends posted their family bucket list for the summer on Facebook and I thought it was awesome. It’s a great way to visually organize the activities we want to do and the perfect thing to remind me that we have a lot of options for how to spend our summer days. Even though I did not include Netflix or laundry on our list, realistically I can’t avoid either of them for very long. So, maybe it would be wise of me to hang this up next to the t.v. so that it is staring me in the face when I start wasting time.

Anyhow, obviously everyone has different items to go on their bucket list. This list is our summer to-dos for this year only so it includes really specific things like going to the Blue Angels airshow on July 22nd and watching the complete solar eclipse on the 21st of August. Since these things are particular to our area, they might not be applicable to you.

Good news though! You can personalize the text on this summer list if you have Adobe Acrobat Pro DC (instructions are below). If you don’t have Adobe Acrobat Pro DC you can get a free trial of it here. And if you don’t have it and don’t want to get the free trial, you can just hop on YouTube and watch some videos of those specific events and then cross those things off your list. Or just cross them off right away, whatever you want to do since it will now be your list. There are also some blank lines so you can add items to make your list even more awesome as the summer progresses.

I hope you are as pumped to embrace all that summer has to offer as I am. As busy as this list will keep us, I’m really hoping that the brotherly fighting at our house will slow down quite a bit. If not I’m sending them to Grandma’s in one of those “get along t-shirts” and going to the nearest amusement park for some mom time!

This is for all of my fellow artsy-craftsy people out there with access to vinyl cutting machines. The summer prints I created are cute and functional by themselves, but think of all the things you can do with the vector version in your hands! Have at it and please share photos of your creations with me, I love to see where my files end up! And if you haven’t already gotten the 8×10 printables file, you can find it down below. Happy summer!

(Note: I did not include a vector version of the print with the watercolor sunglasses. All the designs in the images in this page are included in the SVG file.)