Tina Robertson

11 Amazing Tips To Grow Pinterest That You Need to Know NOW

October 3, 2015 | 21 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Back in the day when hardly many people knew about Pinterest, algorithms didn’t take rocket science to figure out and you didn’t have to have a full time staff of social media people like a lot of businesses do now.

I grew my 33K followers some by trial and error, but there are some secret tips that you want to know about. And guess what? My whole social media staff is just me.

You can do it.

Today in 11 amazing tips to grow Pinterest that you need to know now, I want you to know about some of these basic and maybe not so basic insider’s tips to grow your blog reach through Pinterest.

Pinterest Secret Tips – Only Secret Until You Know Them.

Don’t use an avatar, or number, or something weird nobody can understand on your profile picture.

Put your pretty face right up there. Pinterest is people friendly and we want to see that on your profile picture.

Be sure your Pinterest account is not only verified, but that you have connected some social media on it.

I have my twitter connected because I have a facebook page instead of profile.

If you have a facebook profile, connect that too.

Switch to a business account because you have some great tools like the analytics and because you can use your blog name.
I also made a Pinterest board just for my blog posts.

Everyone wants a choice of how to follow a blog.

If my followers want to follow me on my blog through Pinterest, then they can.

All my blog posts go on that board first before other boards. Too, because my social media is basically just me, that board is my first go to place when I need to promote my pins. They are all rounded up in one place.

I also keep my boards in alphabetical order and rotate them with the season.

Try to remember that about the first two rows are what most potential followers see before they scroll down.

Keep your prime boards up there or the ones you want your followers to see first.

Too, it’s even more important these days to be m0re picky about what your first four or five boards are because many people use smaller devices like tablets or mobile phones.

Make your call to action, which is to Pin very clear on your blog.

Not everybody is techie and uses social sharing bars.

So I make sure that a PIN IT button hoovers over every photo I choose.

Some photos pre-pinterest I don’t want to encourage pinning until I have time to update them.

More on that in a minute. The social plugins, which do not mess with the css of my images are Frizzly and SumoMe.

This brings me to my next tip, which is if you use a plugin like Frizzly, you can set the dimensions of the photos for the PIN IT button to hoover over.

This is the Plugin I use and I created my own Pin It Button, which is 100 x 100 in Pic Monkey to match the font of my blog and color.

Frizzly lets you upload your own image and link to it without any coding knowledge.

Believe me, though I am loving techie things now, it never has been my favorite thing to do, but this is just easy peazy.

As I was explaining if you have a lot of small pictures on your blog, pre-Pinterest, then set the dimensions on the plugin for the images that can be pinned.

I have my settings for the PIN IT to not appear on a image that is less than 350x. My Pin It button won’t hoover over any image less than 350x.

Though it won’t prevent anybody from pinning that image, it would discourage them until you have a chance to resize a photo used for a blog post.

Schedule your pins.

Though I was accepted by Ahalogy as a content partner, this doesn’t mean I strictly have to use their scheduler.

ViralWoot is free for about 100 pins per month.

Change a few images a day on your blog that are older.

I try to change at least two images a day that were pre-Pinterest and then Pin those images.

Plod along a little bit each day to change images and you will be surprised how much you get done by doing a little each day.

Share your Pinterest boards on social media.

I share my Pinterest boards on twitter, google plus and facebook.

Embed Pinterest boards on posts and pages.

Another thing that is easier now (it required rocket science before to know coding language) is to embed boards on posts and pages.

I have some more pinterest posts coming soon, but this will start you on a solid foundation to grow your pinterest board to more than just a few hundred or few thousand followers

Have you been faithfully pinning every day?

Love ya and hugs,

Follow Me on Pinterest
Visit Tinas Dynamic Homeschool Plus’s profile on Pinterest.

Also grab iBlog Pro for taking your blog to the next level and read more about my Pinterest tips.

Linking up @ these awesome places:

Digital Books Free Form – Free 7 Step Homeschool Planner. Over 475 Free Pages & Growing!!

October 2, 2015 | Leave a Comment
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

I love it when I get your comments about a new form the 7 Step Homeschool Planner and am able to deliver one.

Look at this email from Jackie:

I am trying to organize my Kindle books on my I Pad. I have been looking for a form that I can use to list the books and copyright date of each book and then a form that I can put the name of the book, Then the page/recipe number and the name of the recipes I want to use. I know you are busy but when I make the forms the look blah.

I am tickled today to share the latest form, which is a Digital Books list.

I am especially excited about sharing it because I did a round up post, Digital Homeschool Curriculum – Big Ol’ List because we are using more digital curriculum.

This mean that planning takes a bit more time and having a page like this to list my books and page numbers when needed as reference is a great list to add to my planner.

I made two forms. One is color and the other is gray-ish.

I figured I would start off with the color copy and then use the gray-ish copy as I added more of my digital content.

Each form allows you to add 20 books to each page.

I also made the list into boxes so that you could further organize by genre or topic if you wanted to.

The top box in each set allows you to put history, geography, writing helps or even an author’s name and keep your digital content organized that way.

The large box at the very top is enough room to write notes that you want to remember about this group of boxes on the page.

The first column is to write the name of the book, the second column is for you to write down what you want to remember, like a recipe, or teaching page or even illustration. And the last column gives you enough room to jot down the page number.

Digital Books List Color @ Tina’s Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Digital Books List Gray @ Tina’s Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Kudos to Jackie for her email and I hope you love the new form when organizing your digital books.

Hugs and love ya,

Linking up @ these awesome places:

When a Homeschooled Sophomore Struggles

October 1, 2015 | 7 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

What is it about the second year in high school that makes a homeschooled sophomore struggle?

When Mr. Senior 2013 was a sophomore I thought it was the devastating news of my husband’s heart attack that knocked us off course, but no it wasn’t altogether just that. When Mr. Awesome 2015 was a sophomore we were bouncing along just fine or so I thought. He too had the sophomore tussle.

Looking back now, I see with both of my older sons that there was just an itch in the sophomore year that they both had to get past.

I learned a few things about helping them past this middle hump in their high school years.

The sophomore year is a time to re-plan.

Part of the problem in the sophomore year was that what we started off using for curriculum in the freshman year was not a good match now for both of my boys.

For example, Mr. Senior 2013 wanted to be introduced to Mandarin Chinese and was not interested in Spanish that I so hoped he would lap up.

When a Homeschooled Sophomore Struggles

Mr. Awesome 2015 wasn’t interested in any foreign language study at all, but wanted more focus on computers.

Adjusting to fit their growing academic strengths was a must.

Letting go of what I had planned for all four years was necessary because they were coming into their own persons.

They wrestled with the slump of hormones.

Some days they were on top of the world, other days they felt overwhelmed.

Boys and girls both deal with not only the changes in the brain, but with their body needing more rest.

I was surprised at how much sleep they needed, but also equally surprised that they could go through their day pretty quickly and focus when they had to.

Listening to them when they talked to me about their stress of getting their work done for the day, I had to decipher when they just felt the pressure of pending adulthood and when they really needed input on switching around their day.

Adding extra curricular activities had to be analyzed.

At first, I thought the solution was to let go of things they enjoyed like ball room dancing and piano, but I am glad I didn’t so easily cave when they told me they were overwhelmed.

Isolating the problem wasn’t easy either because sometimes they weren’t quite sure what didn’t feel right.

The solution wasn’t limiting their physical activity or the social interaction.

Activities with other teens wasn’t something they didn’t just look forward to, but was a huge motivator in the week for getting their school done.

Balance was not easy because academics are such a heavy load in high school, but paramount to a sophomore too is a change of pace for the week and something to look forward to each week.

I realized that some of the math that Mr. Senior 2013 was doing, he was flying through and so he cut back some of the lessons to move on to something more challenging.

Conversation with a Homeschooled Teen is An Art

I wasn’t having no stranger in my house.

As your teen starts driving, having a job and spending more time away from you, which too is normal and preparation for adulthood, that is the time they need you the most.

Talking with my frustrated teens took not only patience, but it seemed like some decoding prowess on my part.

Meaningful conversations were the only way I knew that something was or was not working.

For example, Mr. Senior 2013 liked having the options to switch out curriculum mid-year and lounge around in his learning, but Mr. Awesome 2015 needed a clear cut plan because his plan was to finish as fast as he could get through high school.

Not having the choices to switch mid-year stressed Mr. Senior 2013 and have too many academic choices with no clear cut end in sight was a stress inducer for Mr. Awesome 2015.

Try to figure that one out over a year or two.

Homeschool High School

The point is I eventually figured out their budding personalities as it changed in the sophomore years.

Struggling for us seems easier to take at times than it does for our children. And to us, our teens still feel like little children, but I learned that when my teens coped with struggles it was part of the metamorphosis into adulthood.

They come out of a struggle with coping ability and the best thing of all is that they come out with a better understanding of who they are, which serves them well into adulthood.

Are you struggling with a homeschooled tenth grader this year?

Lastly, I hope these tips help you to not let them give up so easily and return to public school and don’t give up things they have a passion for either.

Shocking Things that Homeschooled Boys Want to Write About. Should We Let Them?

September 30, 2015 | 6 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

It was a sweet little dream.

All my boys enthusiastically sitting around our red writing desks ready to brainstorm writing genre that was moral, upright and worthy.

Shocking Things that Homeschooled Boys Want to Write About.

Flashing back to my childhood of reading The Secret Garden, Heidi and then on to my favorite, mysteries like Nancy Drew, I just knew their choice of writing topics would mesh with my ideas.

Reality set in soon when my boys mentioned gore, violence and video games.

Wait! We aren’t those types of parents.

We were raising our boys to be peace loving Christian men. Screen time was censored and movies always had to be approved and besides we never allowed things like that in our home.

Writing about blood and guts aren’t topics that I thought were appropriate to write about. And no matter what we did by not allowing them to play with guns, they would still find some way to form a gun out of a peanut butter sandwich or in one case a picture stand.

As I have learned through the years, writing topics boys want to write about are immensely different than what interest girls, including me.

Understanding that boys are naturally curious about topics that are opposite my feminine personality took me a while to scrutinize.

Knowing too that what fills their minds when they take pen to paper is just as important as giving them free choice, I had to devise a plan or standard.

Six Useful Tips Teaching Homeschooled Boys to Write

I learned . .

That because of the fact they are boys, their minds go to different places. It means that I need to embrace the differences instead of being miffed over them;
I had to let go of the thinking that my feminine writing topics were superior,they are not;
That I can’t give them freedom of choice and then take it back the minute they exercise it;
That boys, like girls, do need a standard of what is acceptable and what is not acceptable;
That instead of writing about gore, I had to let go and let them write about games; and
That instead of writing about violence, write about the valor or find virtue in it.

Boys tend to hyper focus on details that are not important to me when I put on my teacher writing hat.

Instead of criticizing their details, I try to find the good in it because I know as boys they do think differently than I do.

Many times in my journey I have come across passages that my boys are suppose to focus on and model in their narratives.

For many years, I wondered why my boys just didn’t get it. I even switched writing curriculum before I could put my finger on what was the difficulty.

It wasn’t the genre they did not get, it was the undertone in the message that bored them, which was a lesson created by a woman teacher for girls.

No, not all of them were that way, but I knew my boys were just not engaged and that is a must.

To be fair, I had to think about this way.

Give a girl an assignment to write about football stats.

Do I hear shrieks of agony and moans of boring? But, that is just what I was doing with my boys. I can put myself in their boots.

Learning to take whatever elements a writing curriculum wanted my sons to write about and then giving them freedom to write what inspired them, I had more success.

No, I didn’t get why some of what they wrote and read to each other they found drop dead funny. I was the one then that felt out of place.

From that lesson, it helped me to change the way I approached writing.

I adjusted, but setting limits on some subjects. Look at some of these topics my boys find appealing and that I let them write about.

Video games;
Sports. All kinds of sports with football being my boys favorite;
Funny things that I don’t find particularly funny, but it’s also the topic they spend the most time on to get the details just right;
Describing weapons;
Science fiction; and yes
Graphic Novels too.

I have read many boy compositions and now find the humor in them because they are expressions of their inner voice.

Are you struggling with a boy writer who just does make a connection to what you want him to write about?

I hope some of these tips will help you to ditch the curriculum and teach the boy.

Boys will lead you to what topics captivate them. Will you embrace the differences?

Hugs and love ya,

Homeschool Unit Study Human Body. Hands-On Activity. DIY Heart Pump

September 29, 2015 | 36 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

We are really embracing all the fun and easy hands-on ideas we are finding to do with our homeschool unit study on the human body.Also I have this Human Body Crafts page for more fun ideas.

This second project which is a model heart pump or a model of one of the heart’s chambers was a bit time consuming, but well worth it and I’ll share a few of our mistakes too.

Unit Study Human Body

This is a great project for middle school kids.

Human body unit study DIY Heart Pump @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

(Note: I filled the bottle back up on the right side so you could see it in the picture, but the bottle on the right side will empty into the other bottle.)

All of these items we had on hand, though we had to change it around some.

DIY Heart Pump @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

More Human Body Crafts

Look at this list:

One empty plastic bottle about 16 oz.
Two plastic bottles the same size. (We could have used glass glasses too and it’s easier if they are shorter than the 16 oz. bottle.)
3 bendy straws.
scissors.
3 medium size balloons.
glue gun.
water.
red food coloring.
tape.
small dish.
ear syringe (too, don’t do like us and use a small one. It was hard for us to get our heart pumping. Use one of those ear syringes with the long neck. But, then we had to use what we could find here in Ecuador.)

Kids DIY Heart Pump Activity

2. DIY Heart Pump @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

(Picture 2.)

First, make two valves. Cut a small slit on one balloon, just big enough for the straw to fit through and for it to be tight.

We made the mistake of cutting the hole too big.

The balloon needs to be snug around the straw. Pull the straw through the mouth of the balloon.

One valve (top shown above) keep the bottom of the straw in the balloon.

For the second valve (second one shown above), keep the bendy part in the straw. Also cut some of the top part off the balloon to make a wider mouth.

3. DIY Heart Pump @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Next you will need to cut two holes in the plastic bottle. One hole will be half way down on one side and the other hole will be about a third of the way up on the opposite side.

Homeschool Unit Study Human Body

Cut them large enough for straws to fit through, but not too big.

If you make the holes too big, you can seal it with the hot glue gun.

4. DIY Heart Pump @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

This next part is a bit hard and our balloon came off the straw inside the bottle. So we had to use another balloon.

But first put the “bottom valve” (Picture 2 above), which has part of the balloon mouth cut off, stick it through the top hole you made on the plastic bottle.

We had to gently twist the balloon and take our time.

The other valve goes in the bottom hole on the other side of the plastic bottle.

Stick the straw end into the hole.

5. DIY Heart Pump @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Use the third straw to bend the valve (straw) inside the bottle to point down so the water will flow correctly.

6. DIY Heart Pump @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Here you can see where we made a mistake because we intended on using the measuring cup turned over to elevate the plastic bottle, but our other two bottles were too tall.

Heart Activity for Kids

We solved the problem by finding a pitcher. It worked great.

So that is what I mean when I said earlier that you could use glasses shorter than your plastic bottle.

We elevated the right side with a dish and made sure our straw was pretty good ways in.

The other bottle we stuck the balloon end from the straw in it.

Too, you will notice on this part, that we taped everything down as good as we could get it.

That also helped for the bottles to not move.

I even taped the bottle on the right side to the dish.

7. DIY Heart Pump @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Then a hot glue gun solves everything. I glued this part for Tiny.

I just glued around the straw and hole to seal any holes we had made too big.

This also helped the straws to stay in place after we bent them.

8. DIY Heart Pump @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Then fill the container up on the right side with water. Add some red food coloring.

I think Tiny added like 8 drops (5 would of done, but whatever) or so and make sure the water is well above the straw’s end.

Next, take the third balloon and cut off some of the mouth and a very small hole at the closed end, just big enough for the neck of the ear syringe to fit in.

You are making a band that will fit tight and snug over the ear syringe when it is pulled up over it when the ear syringe is in the neck of the bottle. Lay it aside for just one minute.

9. DIY Heart Pump @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Next, add water to your middle bottle and enough to cover the bottom straw about two inches over.

Hands-on Science

Next, the third balloon that you cut the mouth off and that has a small opening on the other side, place over the middle plastic bottle mouth.

Stick the syringe through the bottle and pull the balloon up over the up to make a seal between the bottle and the syringe.

(Note: Tiny already took off the seal for our syringe because we had a pretty tight seal without the balloon seal.)

The pump is ready. Squeeze and release the “heart”. The heart squeezes to pump blood.

The water should be going from one side or from the filled bottle to the empty bottle. When you squeeze the ear syringe, air pushes on the water and on the balloon inside the middle bottle.

The water exited through the straw on the left side and air pressure closed the balloon (valve) inside the middle bottle.

When you let go of the syringe, air pushed water on the two outside bottles.

The difference in pressure, pulled water into the balloon inside the middle bottom and closed the balloon (valve) on the right bottle.

Heart Minibook

The human body lapbook was free for a limited time.

Human Body Lapbook

Dynamic and Fun Human Body Lapbook for Multiple Ages
$5.00 Add to cart

More Human Body Unit Study Resources

What is blood hands on activity and free blood components minibook for a human body homeschool unit study @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus featured — https://www.tinasdynamichomeschoolplus.com/homeschool-unit-study-human-body-4/

Homeschool Unit Study Human Body. Hands-on Activity 5. Edible Skin + Skin and Major Body Systems Minibook @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus Featured — https://www.tinasdynamichomeschoolplus.com/homeschool-unit-study-human-body-4/

Hugs and love ya,

Tina Robertson

11 Amazing Tips To Grow Pinterest That You Need to Know NOW

Pinterest Secret Tips – Only Secret Until You Know Them.

Follow Me on Pinterest
Visit Tinas Dynamic Homeschool Plus’s profile on Pinterest.

Also grab iBlog Pro for taking your blog to the next level and read more about my Pinterest tips.

Digital Books Free Form – Free 7 Step Homeschool Planner. Over 475 Free Pages & Growing!!

Digital Books List Color @ Tina’s Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Digital Books List Gray @ Tina’s Dynamic Homeschool Plus

When a Homeschooled Sophomore Struggles

When a Homeschooled Sophomore Struggles

Conversation with a Homeschooled Teen is An Art

Homeschool High School

Shocking Things that Homeschooled Boys Want to Write About. Should We Let Them?

Shocking Things that Homeschooled Boys Want to Write About.

Six Useful Tips Teaching Homeschooled Boys to Write

Homeschool Unit Study Human Body. Hands-On Activity. DIY Heart Pump

Unit Study Human Body

More Human Body Crafts

Kids DIY Heart Pump Activity

Homeschool Unit Study Human Body

Heart Activity for Kids

Hands-on Science

Heart Minibook

Human Body Lapbook

Dynamic and Fun Human Body Lapbook for Multiple Ages

More Human Body Unit Study Resources

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Tina Robertson

Pinterest Secret Tips – Only Secret Until You Know Them.

Follow Me on Pinterest Visit Tinas Dynamic Homeschool Plus’s profile on Pinterest.

Also grab iBlog Pro for taking your blog to the next level and read more about my Pinterest tips.

Digital Books List Color @ Tina’s Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Digital Books List Gray @ Tina’s Dynamic Homeschool Plus

When a Homeschooled Sophomore Struggles

Conversation with a Homeschooled Teen is An Art

Homeschool High School

Shocking Things that Homeschooled Boys Want to Write About.

Six Useful Tips Teaching Homeschooled Boys to Write

Unit Study Human Body

More Human Body Crafts

Kids DIY Heart Pump Activity

Homeschool Unit Study Human Body

Heart Activity for Kids

Hands-on Science

Heart Minibook

Human Body Lapbook

Dynamic and Fun Human Body Lapbook for Multiple Ages

More Human Body Unit Study Resources

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Categories

Archives

Follow Me on Pinterest
Visit Tinas Dynamic Homeschool Plus’s profile on Pinterest.