Kidscorner Kzn Math Counting Board - Helpful Homeschool Materials {Product Review}

Today I’m sharing the love for local brand @kidscornerkzn and their wonderful range of educational goodies & learning tools.
This is their Counting Board which is not just great for learning number symbols and quantity relation, but it’s also fantastic fine motor practice.

{This product forms part of a trade exchange between myself & Kidscorner KZN. I only share products that we genuinely love and use in our home}

The board can also be used to introduce the concept of even & odd numbers (talk about the numbers that have ‘pairs’ and the ones that are ‘alone’).

A nice extension activity is to use flashcards to add to the activity (these pretty number flashcards are from Stephanie Hathaway Designs) and feature really beautiful illustrations along with the number symbol and word.

This counting board is a really lovely addition to our homeschool classroom and both Everly and Aaron have been drawn to the board (for different reasons). Everly loves to play with the beads (loads of ‘accidental learning’ takes place as she makes cups of ‘tea’ with the beads…counting them out as she goes and moving them from the board to a tea cup). Aaron likes the pompoms, and likes to ‘cook’ with them, also counting as he goes moving the pompoms from the board to a bowl and into the oven in our little play kitchen.

The board comes with tweezers, a packet of 55 beads and a packet of 55 pompoms. It retails for R195.

All in all, a very budget friendly addition to your maths & number based lessons and would be a wonderful tool to have at home for your little ones to play with, even if you aren’t doing any formal homeschooling.

The ladies at Kidscorner have very kindly given my readers & followers a 10% discount code >>> Use the code Roxy10 to get 10% off your order at checkout on the website

Our homeschool journey - the beginning

For the time being, I’ve decided not to enrol Everly (4.5 yrs) in Grade RR…possibly even beyond that…and to rather spend this year following a loose homeschool/play based learning approach for both her and Aaron (3yrs)…with a bit of little Mason (6 months!) thrown into the mix too.

We will see how this goes (I’m also totally giving myself permission to change my mind at any time) but it’s been fun so far! As I am a teacher by training (and because I’m so passionate about play based learning) this has been a natural progression for me.

I do still send them both once/twice a week to the local pre-school for some social time and for a change of scenery. These stories & posts will document our adventures (and the prep that goes on behind the scenes).

I am often asked about my decision/interest in homeschooling and wanted to share more about it here for those who would like to know more. I hope you enjoy these posts and stories!

Why Homeschool?

Wondering why I’m interested in homeschooling my kids? It’s not just about the financial burden of mainstream education (although that is a factor when you have 3 kids!) but my reasons go far beyond that:

• I’m a qualified teacher and want to be involved/have a say in what my kids are learning

• I refuse to send them to school in masks

• I want to structure their day around their interests and their capacity (ie around nap times)

• School for us has a long travel time, and it’s not something I could easily do with a little baby in tow

• I love being crafty (printing & laminating make me so happy)

• I love a challenge!

• I’m a firm believer in routine so I know I will be able to figure out a nice (loose) structure for all 3 kids

There are as many ways (ie methodologies and paths) to homeschool as there are stars in the sky but here are a few things that do interest me and are elements that I would like to try incorporate:

• Montessori (especially their approach to maths & literacy)

• Forest Schooling (being outside)

• Reggio Emelia (child led learning & open ended exploration of materials)

• Charlotte Mason (her whole philophosy is incredibly inspiring…no formal learning until the age of 6/7)

• Routine and structure (to a degree…this is how I function best so it’s important I at least am able to follow a plan of some kind)

• The ‘pretty’ (I will always make things as pretty as I can while still trying to keep things simple. This also goes for what and how I share what we are doing…I love styled photos but everything I share will still be authentic, I may just move a few bits of junk out of the way when taking a photo etc)

I hope you enjoy these posts and if you have any questions along the way, please pop me a comment below. I love hearing from you!

Canon Pixma G3411 Refillable Ink Tank Printer for Homeschool, Photos & Home office Use - A Review

I have been on the lookout for a new printer for ages, something that is easy & (ideally) cheap to refill, and that does really good quality printing. I need it to be able to print worksheets and other fun activity pages for my little ones, and I also need it to be able to print really good quality photographs as we live in the middle of nowhere and getting photos printed is such a pain.

If you Google eco-tank printer, chances are the Epson Eco-Tanks will pop up. And while I was very tempted by them (and they have loads of great reviews!) unless you are going for the high end printer, it seems the photo quality isn’t that great. This was a big one for me as I want to be able to print photographs for scrapbooks, baby books and for frames around the house. And this is where the Canon Pixma comes in.

The one I eventually chose is the G3411…it does all your basic printery things (scan, copy & print), has wifi connectivity (I print straight from my iPhone and from my Mac…this has been a little tricky especially from my Mac because downloading drivers for a printer isn’t as straightforward as a PC but it’s doable!) and the best part is that the ink is refillable.

What’s in the box?

The G3411 is a midrange priced printer (I bought mine from Incredible Connection where it was on special for R2999 and it came with free delivery…it arrived out here on the farm within 5 working days!). The box comes with:

• actual printer & cables

• 2 black ink bottles

• 3 colour ink bottles (CMY)

The Set Up

I was slightly nervous when it came to setting up the printer, as I’m usually pretty slap dash and don’t read instructions. My mom was visiting, so that really helped as she read the instructions and I was able to actually follow them step by step. It took about 25 mins for the entire thing to be set up (it has to calibrate the ink and the black calibrates separately to the coloured ink) but it was very straightforward.

The actual printing took me a lot longer, as I needed to download the Canon Print app (I have an iPhone but the app is free and available for both Apple & Android) . Then to print photos vs documents is a little different from your phone. I used the Print app for for both photos & documents. And then to print from my Mac was a little trickier, as I have to connect to the printer via wifi (this means I can’t actually be on the Internet wifi…which was a bit of a pain as I have to disconnect from the Wifi and connect to the printer, and then connect back to the Internet when I’m done). I think I read somewhere that there aren’t any actual cables to connect this printer to a Mac…so just bear that in mind it would be much simpler if I was able to connect my laptop to the printer via a cable. But, as I work on a laptop and not a desktop, this isn’t such a big deal.

I have been blown away at the quality of the photograph printing most of all! The Print app is easy to use and you can print different sizes and collage using the photos on your phone. I tested the quality of my iPhone shot photos vs my camera images (I use Google Drive to on my Mac to upload my camera images to the cloud and then I download them from the Drive app on my phone) and I am very impressed.

Refillable Ink Bottle Prices

The ink is usually where you really get caught when it comes to home printers, but the refill bottles for this printer are pretty reasonable at R180 for colour & R270 for black (this is the online price at Incredible Connection right now). But, apparently I shouldn’t need to buy ink for at least a year (and then some!). So I’m hoping this proves to be the case even with printing kiddie related bits and pieces as well as photographs.

Filling up the ink tanks was very easy (you simply pour the ink into the little jars) and then once full the printer calibrates the colours. There is an easy to see ink level on the front so you can see how much ink you’ve used and when you need to buy more.

The nitty gritty product features of the Canon Pixma G3411 3-in-1 printer

• Print, scan, & copy 

• Ideal for those who do not require speed but low cost per copy 

• Ideal for regular printing  

• Page Yields: 12 000 pages mono / 7000 pages colour

• Productive low-cost printing 

• Wireless Connectivity 

• Rear paper feeding 

• Borderless printing 

• 12 Month Warranty 

So far I’ve printed a number of photographs and a lovely workbook from Under The Acacia (a nature based homeschool curriculum for little ones…even though I haven’t actually started it with Everly yet) and I am really impressed with the printer so far.

Next on my list is a laminator (any recommendations for a good one? I’ve been told it’s the laminating sheets that are the expensive thing?) This seems to be like most tech where the actual machine is relatively inexpensive, but the extras are what end up being so expensive.

I’m very happy with this printer, and will keep you updated as to how it goes and how long the ink lasts.