Fun Educational Coloring Books

You will notice that I do a lot of shopping on Amazon. These bad boys just got delivered today and I was so happy to see how great the images inside were! These are a great way to make education fun for kids. My son won't be using them right away because he's only 3, but I'll have them put away for a time when he will benefit from them the most. The "Wonders of the World" coloring book was $0.01 plus shipping. Yes that's right. One friggin penny. There are tons of Dover coloring books on Amazon for a penny. Granted the shipping is normally $3.99, but its still a good deal versus buying the things for $4-$5 plus shipping too from other sites.

The "Human Body Book" was not a penny, but still got it at a great price of $2.91 with free shipping on my order of over $35. I've perfected the 'get lots of great stuff cheap' method of using Amazon, and I'm here to tell you that people who knock Amazon are doing something wrong! If you have at least $60 just to spend on you or your child, you can buy one pricey object (or a couple) That add up to $35 you can find lots of very cheap items such as books that have the "Prime" icon next to them. The only way to get free shipping is if it ships directly from Amazon and not other companies who are selling through Amazon, and the "Prime" icon appears next to any of the Amazon direct products. Following this logic, you can get a mini library of books, coloring books, and other things for your child for $25 plus your $35 and free shipping on all! People, that's not bad!

Now, I'll admit that I tend to spend too much on there, but I'm not blowing money on things we will never use. I got Kade's Thomas Roller Coaster there for only $80 and he loves it so much!

He was so excited he couldn't be still. These things run anywhere from $150-$200 in stores so $80 was a great deal!

No, I'm not here to promote Amazon at all. I'm simply telling you all of this because I know that we all have a hard time spending money wisely, or at least I do (obviously), but my point was that there are ways to get what you need and want for less and Amazon is one of those ways. Now, not everything is cheaper on Amazon of course, but given some time to dig around you can find great ways to help teach your child, stimulate their imagination, and give them something fun to do. And also it's fun for me too. I'm not saying that you have to buy things to make your child happy, but it's nice sometimes. The real reason for this post was for the educational coloring books, and there's so much more to be found there. There are countless penny items on Amazon which are technically $4.00 because of shipping, but that's still decent compared to buying those same items off other web sites.

I'm always looking for material to add to my son's curriculum, and these two coloring books are perfect for giving a "break" during learning to color pictures. They just happen to be pictures he can still learn from.

Hope you enjoyed my rant.
Have a great Day!

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Introduction

Hi there. My name is Kelly. I am a single mom with a 3 year old boy who's about to turn 4 in January. We've gone through some hardships, and left his father about a year ago (August 19th 2014). But we've come a long way in the past year. For instance, I am now Assistant Manager at my job (yay me!) and my son can count to 100, knows all of his colors, shapes, body parts, and animals, and just started Head Start 4 days ago. Obviously he knew that stuff before he got there. After his first day I spoke with his teacher. He said, "Well, he's super smart! How does he know all of this already?" My response of course is that "I am homeschooling him so he doesn't really need the education that you are providing. What he needs is social interaction, and a chance to learn better ways of behaving through observation as children do for the most part."

See, he is rarely ever around other kids and there is only so much my mom and I can do as we try to teach him the difference between appropriate and inappropriate behaviors in different social settings. He's had a lot of freedom in his 3 and a half years. I didn't feel the need to have a set schedule for him as far as bath time, bed time, nap time, learning time, or even meal time. I hear many times that he needs to have a schedule because it helps later on to understand that there is a time and place for everything, but the rebel in me said "Let him be who he wants to be! If he's not hungry I'm not going to make him eat. If he's not sleepy I'm not going to make him sleep."

At this point, I regret my decision. I'm glad that he has had so much freedom in many ways, because he may have not had enough concentration to learn the things that he did so quickly. He was free to explore and free to do things on HIS schedule and not mine. He started walking early, and barely crawled before that. He did a lot of things early, regardless of what contributed to that fact. But right at this moment in his life, I have found that it is important that he learn things that others thought he should have learned sooner. He is socially awkward. Mostly because we didn't have any family where he was born, and was never around anyone other than a first time mom who had no idea what she was doing (me) and a father who didn't care. I mean I did, and am doing my best but I can only do so much without prior experience on how to raise a child. I did a lot of reading and researching, tried many things, some successfully and some failed. But the most important thing to me is my son's development and ability to function in this world as an intelligent person.

Goodness I rant! My point is that he really needs to be around other kids and see how they are interacting with each other and the world around him. He is in his own little world because I had allowed him to be so most of the time, but now I'm having trouble getting him out of it so he can learn how to be productive in this world. I may sound like a complete loon, but I'm learning on this journey as I go. Sometimes I will make mistakes just like everyone else, and sometimes I can correct them or learn a better way. In any event, he is attending Head Start 2 days of the week. I'm hoping that it helps his social skills.

So, A little about me? I am an Ordained Pagan Minister, have been studying paganism for about  20 years, and have been practicing Witchcraft in various forms for nearly 19 years (as of September 2015). I love to sing, paint, write, and read. I am also interested in Photography and have my own amateur photography that I'm quite proud of. I enjoy researching interesting subject, reading spiritual texts from various sources, and creating digitally enhanced images like the Header Image at the top of this blog. I love cats. Mine is a black cat named Fairuza (with permission from F.B.). And I tend to ramble if you haven't noticed.

A bit about my son? His Name is Kadanz Lisife which was chosen before his conceptions. It means "Song of the Lightbringer". We call him Kade for short. He was conceived durring a Beltane rite in 2011 and came to us later in January of 2012. I say (with affection) that we conjured him straight from the pits of the underworld because he can be a little beast when he wants to. We held his Paganing on the following Beltane 2012 and presented him to our Gods and friends at that time. He's a funny little guy. He's obsessed with Thomas the Tank Engine and he's spoiled with way too many trains including a Thomas roller coaster in our living room. It's pretty awesome. His favorite song right now is called "Primo Victoria" which is a cover by Van Canto (original by Sabaton). It's about Normandy June 6th, 1944. He knows every word, and I think it's great because he learns a lot through music. Now he's learning history. lol

So that's me and my boy. I hope that I'll be able to share some useful information for you in upcoming posts about pagan parenting and pagan homeshcooling. I am learning as I go, so why can't you?

Have a wonderful week!