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As much as I hate to give up my computer to anyone – ever – I do occasionally for my children.  Because I love them.  More than my computer.  And they love to play on the computer.

Over the years, I’ve been able to find some fun, educational sites with games they absolutely enjoy, which also happen to be COMPLETELY FREE.  And I thought I’d share them with you.  And I hope you’ll also share your favorite sites with me, too!

Fisher-Price Online Games – This is the first site we found, and thus the most explored.  It has games for infants (really?!), toddlers, and preschoolers.  It has some very good phonics/reading games that we like, along with some simple coloring games.  It tries to hit on all the subjects with music and math as well.

It is funded by Fisher-Price, though, so a lot of the games and all of the coloring pages feature characters from their toys.  *cough* Gimmick! *cough* I don’t mind – my kids don’t watch commercials.  :-)

It is a nicely organized site where everything is laid out clearly and you know what you’re clicking.  It is also easy enough for very young children to play independently, depending on what game you choose.

PBS Kids Online Games – This is a new one for us.  We have yet to explore the nooks and crannies.  The games it offers are fun; my children were on it just today, creating parade floats with Clifford the Big Red Dog.  They can also be very educational and include some phonics/reading games that rival my children’s Leapster games.

If your children are familiar with the PBS television shows and their characters, they’ll enjoy it even more as they recognize familiar faces. (Different from Fisher-Price’s advertising gimmick because PBS is FREE!)

However, it is nowhere nearly as easy to navigate as Fisher-Price’s website.  The games were not as clearly labeled or laid out.  I didn’t know what I was clicking on until the page loaded (is it a coloring page I’d have to print?  or a game my daughter can play right now?  Or an online book that she can’t even read and isn’t read aloud?)  I’ll keep tinkering with it.  It definitely has potential as I figure out where all the good games are hidden.

Color with Leo – This website was actually introduced to me a couple weeks ago by the creator*.  It is his passion to mold “the next generation of artists and creative thinkers” and so he created this website to suite that purpose.  As opposed to the previous two sites, it focuses purely on teaching art to children through fun games.

It is very cleanly laid out and easy to access.  It uses real masterpieces from artists such as Van Gogh, and Mary Cassatt.  It is easy enough that my four-year-old can play it independently.  As a homeschooling mom, I can definitely see a place for this site in our curriculum!

Starfall - This site is the newest to me.  Upon opening it the first time, I have to admit I was doubtful; the initial appearance lacked the professionalism of the previous sites.  But after clicking around, you can bet I bookmarked it!  It is a homeschooling mother’s (or any teacher, really) dream website!  It mainly focuses on reading, split into four levels filled with wonderful games, songs, and lessons of phonemic awareness, but it also has neat activities for special days and seasons of the year (100th day!).

It is very neatly organized, manageable, and well labeled.  If on the right age level, I’m sure my almost-three-year-old would be able to play these games as well as my four-year-old.

My Wrap-Up – So I use Fisher-Price for it’s ease-of-use, all-around fun, and mild educational factor, Color With Leo for art class, Starfall for phonics (and special day activities), and PBS Kids for a back-up fun site when they get bored with the other three – I’ll just have to make sure I’m right there to navigate it for them (not while I’m making dinner!)

What are your favorite websites for your kids? Tell me and you could WIN one of the following:

Two (2!) Color with Leo children’s shirts (size 4):

One 12″ Leo doll

That’s right, THREE WINNERS. All you have to do is leave a comment below (one entry per person, duplicate entries won’t count) telling me your favorite free kid’s website.  This contest will go until 11:59 p.m. (EST) on Sunday night.  Then comments will be left open (I still want to know your favorite sites!), but the giveaway will be closed and I will contact you (please leave your email!) if you won.

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Disclaimer:  The creator of Color with Leo did contact me, hoping to spread the word about his website.  All he asked for was a mention; the review was my idea, and my truthful opinion.  In gratitude for the mention, he did send me and my family some art supplies and promotional material.  We, being a poor, homeschooling family, are keeping the art supplies (water colors, construction paper, crayons, etc), and gifting you with the promotional material.

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This post is a contribution to Frugal Friday.

But, also, I’d like you to notice the little red dot on my cheek, to the left of my nose (your left). No, not the dot on my upper lip. That’s where Benjamin clawed me. Right before I cut his fingernails. The dot on my cheek. See it?

That’s my pregnancy mark. Meet my Mark. It comes at around 13 weeks and leaves sometime after birth. It’s come with all three of my babies. Does anyone else get anything like that?

(And if you still can’t find it underneath all that Mary Kay, click the picture and the link will take you to my Picasa page, where I’ve labeled the Mark more clearly.)

I don’t really have too many more pictures this week, as I was busy getting to know my SEWING MACHINE (but that’s a different post). Here are the few I have:

I had fun taking pictures of my eyes. The refection in them is our living room window and dying hyacinth.

I asked Olivia if I could take a picture of her eyes. She said no. Then proceeded to scowl at me and bury her face if I came near her with the camera.

I asked Benjamin if I could take a picture of his eyes. He said yes. But refused to sit still and/or look at the camera. This is the best I got:

Has anyone seen my hair clip?

And that’s it for today. Sorry. But I’ll have a post later on all the craftiness that’s been going on around here. Kind of a boast-y post. Cuz I’m pretty proud of it all.

Hope you took more pictures than I did! Can’t wait to see your family/pets/hobbies! Link your post to Mr. Linky below.

(Are you potty-training?  Need encouragement?  Find it here.)

We are recently giving up taking a break from all the efforts over here because, really, I’m not sure what else I can do to get her ready besides sit here and wait for her to declare, “I FEEL THE URGE TO PEE AND I WANT TO PUT IT IN THE POTTY, PLEASE.”

We haven’t bought any potty books.  We haven’t bought any potty videos.  Because they cost money.  And being as our cloth diapers are already paid for (and I’m already running a wash every other day for her little brother), the cheaper option seemed to just wait until she deemed herself ready.

Until!  Today!  An opportunity to claim a free potty-training DVD popped up in my inbox!

(Thanks, Melissa!)

And I had to share the love.

So, potty-training mommies (and daddies, though I doubt there are too many of the latter reading this blog), sign your self up right here and see if it won’t help to have someone else teach your child how to go in the potty. 

Wouldn’t that just be lovely?  If all we had to do was plop them down in front of the television and presto chango, they never used a diaper again?  I’m gonna give it a shot anyway…

(And if you’re into free/frugal (who isn’t?!) you can always check out this site for more excitment.)

But all we could find was Christmas wrapping paper. Neither my husband nor I wanted to go out and buy wrapping paper. My husband reasoned that a one-year-old wouldn’t know the difference and set out to wrap his gifts in red and green.

But I knew the truth. I knew that pictures would be taken. I knew that this one-year-old would one day look at this picture as a twenty-five-year-old and would raise his thick, bushy eyebrows and ask in an incredulous, baritone voice, “Christmas wrapping paper? For my birthday?” And then his fiance would look over his shoulder at the album and would vow to herself she would never be such a failure of a mother as I so obviously was.

So something had to be done.

Noting that the back of the paper was a clean, matte white; brilliance struck. “Wrap it inside out!” I exclaimed.

My husband then raised his thick, bushy eyebrows and asked in an incredulous, baritone voice, “Inside out?”

Being a good man, he obeyed.

And we did this:

(That would be Olivia and Grandma hard at work… Good little slaves… Good…)

And the finished product:

Leap Frog Fridge Phonics – $20
Wooden train set – $10
Hand-made wrapping paper – Priceless.

(I do apologize for the Mastercard thing. I know it’s been overdone. But it was a perfect segue!)

I knew that Christmas wrapping paper can be bought ridiculously cheap after the holidays, but I had never stocked up before. I just might start doing this now…

Anyone else have frugal wrapping paper stories they want to tell?

Obviously then, you do not know about the Hulu.

Hulu is free! television! shows! From the current season of The Office to the prematurely discontinued Arrested Development all the way back to The Mary Tyler Moore Show and beyond.

(They also offer movies, but charge money for them. So I am not as excited about the movies.)

So cancel your cable bill! Throw out the DirectTV! You’ve got better right here! Cuz it’s FREE!

Because sometimes I need some motivational music to get me off my duff and get stuff done.

Pandora.com is, and I hesitate to say this, because it’s quite the understatement, an online radio, of sorts. Since 2000, it’s been hard at work on what it calls the “Music Genome Project,” which they describes as “the most comprehensive analysis of music ever undertaken.”

From their site:

Together our team of fifty musician-analysts has been listening to music, one song at a time, studying and collecting literally hundreds of musical details on every song. It takes 20-30 minutes per song to capture all of the little details that give each recording its magical sound – melody, harmony, instrumentation, rhythm, vocals, lyrics … and more – close to 400 attributes!

Why, you ask, does such an overdone analysis of music strike The Natural Mommy as cause for its own blog post?

Because of this Music Genome Project, Pandora.com learns what music you prefer. You type in which artist you are in the mood for (try Third Day… good stuff) and they will line up every artist they have on their database whose attributes are similar.

And if they play something you don’t like, simply click the Thumbs Down button. When you hear a song you love, click Thumbs Up. When you hear a song for the umpteenth time, click “I’m tired of this song – don’t play it for a month.”

And you can create your own stations based on a particular artist. Our two favorite stations around the house these days are Jack Johnson and Third Day.

Easy. Free. Gets the dishes done. If you haven’t heard it yet, go check it out.

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The Natural Mommy was given nothing in exchange for this rave review. Nothing but good music, that is. She just wanted to share with you because she loves you.

Awwwww.

But I thought the only options were A) use margarine or B) spend lots of money on the spreadable butter.

I started researching all the different things I could do to get cheaper, spreadable butter.

I looked into Butter Bells, but shuddered at forking over $20 for even so cute a product as this.  While reading reviews and discussing the matter thoroughly with a friend, it was revealed to me that butter does not have to be refrigerated.

Yes, for long term storage, ease of measuring and cutting, and especially in hot weather, it is best to keep butter in the fridge.  But for the sole purpose of spreading onto fresh bread or toast, especially in the middle of the winter, it is perfectly allowable to keep a stick of butter on your counter (in a covered tray of course.)

And especially (that seems to be the word of the night) if your family goes through the butter like mine does.  Because we consume a pound of butter each week.

There.  I said it.  One family, four people, four sticks of butter per week.  That’s one stick per person per week.  And that equation includes an 11 month old so I’m afraid it might even be worse that that.

Anyway, at our current butter consumption rate, it is best to save the pennies wherever we can.  And I have found that forgoing the fancy schmancy Country Crock Spreadable Butter saves me money.

Melt 7/8 tablespoon butter, cool a minute, then add to 7/8 cup milk. Mix well, and you’ve got yourself a full cup of half and half!

I’ve got a recipe that calls for one cup half and half. The smallest container I can find at the store holds two cups. I don’t make this recipe often and all, and I don’t have any other recipe that calls for half and half (and we don’t drink coffee). Normally, that second cup just goes bad in our fridge. This way, I can make it a cup at a time!

Not to mention it’s a lot cheaper, this way, too!

What do you substitute when you’re cooking to save money?

Ingredients:

7.5 oz water, 80 degrees
3 Tbs honey
2 c bread flour
1 c oats, quick or old fashioned
1.5 Tbs dry milk
1.25 tsp salt
1.5 Tbs butter, cut into four pieces
2 tsp active dry yeast

1. Get out ye handy dandy bread machine.
2. Add water and honey.
3. Add dry ingredients.
4. Tap to settle ingredients, make a well in the middle for your yeast. (Just a slight well, make sure no water is peeking through.)
5. Place one piece of butter in each corner, and put the yeast in the middle.
6. Set machine for basic.
7. Watch while kneading – if it is crumbly, add water 1 Tbs at a time. If it is sticking to the sides after 5 minutes of kneading, add flour 1 Tbs at a time.
8. Wait four hours with butter in one hand and knife in the other.
9. Enjoy.

There are 20 cups in a 5 lb bag of flour that costs 1.49 = $0.149/loaf
There are 15 cups in a 42 oz. container of old fashioned oats that costs 1.39 = $0.093
There are 32 Tbs in 24 oz of honey that costs 2.99 = $0.28
There are 35.5 tsp in 4 oz of active dry yeast that costs roughly $5 = $0.282
All other ingredients are negligible.

Total cost for 1.5 lb loaf of bread = $0.80/loaf.

Of course, if I wanted to make plain white bread, it would be cheaper still and yield a larger loaf (same weight, less dense), but what’s the fun in that? Besides, this is healthier.

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What’s your favorite bread machine recipe?

See, being the Natural Mommy, I try my darnedest to get the family to eat such healthy breakfast foods as granola, oatmeal, and shredded wheat.

My husband tends to prefer Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

So, in order to stretch this sweet deal, and also to compromise with the Natural Mommy’s Breakfast Philosophy, I filled half of a storage container with plain, generic Cheerios, and then topped it off with Apple Cinnamon Cheerios.

And then I shook that thing like it was going out of style.

(Can I use that analogy there?)

(Maybe if I was reffering to the shaking as going out of style, as opposed to the container of mixed Cheerios.)

The result? A healthier version of a sweet breakfast food. AND, those $0.50 boxes of Apple Cinnamon Cheerios will last twice as long.

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That’s my frugal tip of the week. What’s yours? See Biblical Womanhood for more!