How I got sucked into Pinterest

Have you started pinning yet? If you have no idea what I'm talking about then you are probably male. Or maybe you already know all about Pinterest but are thinking “I can barely keep up with Facebook, let alone anything else!” If so, I understand completely. But here's what happened to me.

About six months ago on my personal blog, Teaching My Baby to Read, I started noticing that a growing traffic source was this thing I had never heard of called “Pinterest.” So I clicked over and discovered that moms all over the country were pinning me. Whoa!

Their favorite post was one I had written about CVC Flip Books. These were little books I made out of construction paper for my daughter to learn to read consonant-vowel-consonant words like “cat” and “rat.” I don't know how many times my CVC post has been repinned, but that one page has now been viewed 5,364 times. I've gone viral!

So I decided to sign up for Pinterest, too.

I love gleaning ideas from other people on Pinterest to do with my kids at home. One project we have tried is the make-your-own-lava-lamp activity that has been floating around Pinterest for a while now. My kids and I made one at home this summer, and it was “totally groovy.”

Here are the instructions :

Materials:
• Glass or plastic bottles with a lid (I used mason jars)
• Food coloring
• Cheap cooking oil
• Alka-Seltzer tablets

Directions:
Fill your jar with about half oil and half water. Add 10 drops of food coloring, or maybe a little less. Then add a little bit of an Alka-Seltzer tablet. Don't add too much or your whole jar might explode. Close the lid and watch what happens.