My New Blog Archives - home is where my story begins...

My Main Website

Becca — Wed, 09 May 2012 01:00:00 +0000

A few months ago I decided I needed a space on the web to call home. I needed some better organization of my online hobby of blogging.

As many of you know, I write three blogs.

1) Of course, there is this blog, that you’re reading now, which focuses on things going on around my house. I love to share sewing, cooking, baking, and gardening projects. I think I was born in the wrong generation because I absolutely love everything about the art of homemaking.

2) I also write an early childhood literacy blog. My goal with this blog is to share ideas on literacy in the home. Literacy is so much more than just making sure your kids read every night. Our literacy lives are impacted by every single life experience we have. I feel strongly about that and I’m hoping to share this message with families.

3) My kindergarten blog is mainly for parents of the students in my class, but recently other kindergarten teachers from around the country have been following it as well. In the olden days, I would write a weekly parent letter, letting families know what we were doing in the classroom. We’d photocopy the letter and send it home every Friday. In those days, we actually had a budget for making copies. With a very slim budget in public education, I had to get creative. A blog seemed like a perfect way to show families what we were doing.

My webpage, www.homeiswheremystorybegins.com, was developed to house all of these blogs. In addition, I decided that I could use this as a place to store and organize resources for parents and blog readers. The resources tab, at the top, has lots of different categories within the link. I’m excited to share ideas, websites, and links as they come up. It’s also an easy way for me to share my work with my teacher friends. I’m lucky enough to provide demonstration lessons in literacy for other primary teachers. Often times, they will ask me where I found a particular resource or if I’d be willing to share a unit I have written. I’m all for sharing! My main website can hold all of these resources and then people can access them as often as they’d like. I have to warn you, if you’re clicking over to find some great ideas, I’m still working on this. I’m in the very beginning stages. One area that is filling up quite quickly, though, is the Printables section under the Resources tab. As I make new writing templates I place them here so parents can print them at home and write with their kids.

I’d love your feedback. Is this something you’d use? Does it make sense? Is it easy to navigate? I really hope you like it, because I added this just for you. My goal is to help people enjoy homelife, love literacy, nurture confident kids, and improve their quality of life. My hope is that my website and blogs provide you with a few resources to do just that.

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My Name is Becca and I’m Addicted to Blogging – My New Blog

Becca — Mon, 23 May 2011 00:00:00 +0000

I started this blog over a year ago. I love to do projects around the house, cook, bake, sew, garden, refinish furniture, and let my kids help with all of my projects. I thought this blog would be a great place to share my projects and practice my new hobby of photography. It has been so much fun! I’ve made many new friends and have had really fun conversations about all things home related with my in-real-life-friends. This blog has been a really good thing. It still surprises me that people care about what I had for dinner or the fabric I bought over the weekend, but they do! I have had over 100,000 hits on my blog, not including people who read through a reader, like google, and I now have over 450 followers. Wow!

Once I discovered the power of sharing through words and photos with Blogger, I took my blogging life to work with me.

Hilltop Kindergarten Kids
I started Hilltop Kindergarten Kids because we don’t have money to send parent letters anymore. The copy costs for parent letters are too high. My weekly emails were boring and ugly. I decided that a classroom blog would be a great way to tell parents about the projects we are working on in class, and also be able to share photos. Most of the parents in my class work full time, and don’t get to see what goes on in kindergarten.

That brings me to my newest blog. (I told you I was addicted!)

Love, Laughter, and Literacy

Love, Laughter, and Literacy combines my passion for home and family with my love for teaching and early childhood.. I believe all kids need to experience life like it is a field trip. Literacy development is the sum of all of our experiences. I love to plan learning experiences for my kids. The more my kids experience, the more background knowledge they will have when it comes to reading and writing.

In my new blog, I share experiences to have with your kids, favorite children’s books, and great products which promote literacy development.

Here is a display of garden books. My daughter is loving these right now! Just by rotating favorite books and finding special nooks, I’ve created interest in some new books and tied it into the work we are doing outside right now.

I owe this literacy activity to my daughter’s teacher. The recipe for the strawberry shortcake came straight from the book my daughter’s teacher sent home. She now has a connection to this text that she will never forget. Not only was it fun, but educational too!

I hope you’ll join me in creating fun activities, which are “project-like” in nature. Our homes reflect the things we value. To show that we value reading, writing, art, creativity, nature, and outdoor play, we need to create a home environment which promotes these things. Come on over and play!

lovelaughterandliteracy.blogspot.com

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