Ahhhh...A Day Of Rest...

Winter blahs got you down? 

Surprise the kids today on Valentines Day!!

Shut those school books,

Let that laundry pile grow higher,

Grab some pillows and blankets,

Head to the living room and camp out for the day!

Some days you just need to chill out and this is one of those!

Enjoy those little ones while they are still yet little,

Play games with your junior high kids,

Hang with your teenagers...

Let them all have cookies and hot cocoa for lunch,

If you have the fixin's create some fun treats like the guy below.

Homeschool Mom, you are doing great! Create memories that last a lifetime with your kids and 

crack the school books open tomorrow...

Moe

p.s. It's Valentines Day, grab a nice hot shower before hubby comes home and have the kids do a quick 15 minute pick up of the living room before dad gets home.

Homeschooling from your bookshelves? It's possible come see how!.

Time to get ready for the new school year!!! Unless you school year round like us.
Well I'm all for frugal!
Most of us homeschoolers have enough materials on hand to educate a small army...lol.
This summer go through your bookshelves and make 3 piles:

THROW AWAY
KEEP
SELL/GIVEAWAY

Throw Away Pile: The first pile is just plain old junk, stuff that is used up, scribbled on, torn up etc. Get RID OF IT!! Including that workbook you bought on Ebay that smells like nasty musty YUCK!!

Keep Pile: This is stuff that you can use, organize it by subject, I like to buy magazine holders from the Dollar Tree or use cereal boxes with the top and side cut out and some cute wrapping paper to cover them. They are very durable if you put some clear packing tape on the bottoms. Use these for booklets, workbooks and things like that. Put subjects on them and on free days or Mom is sick days, tell our son to go and pick out an activity and spend an hour working on it. It makes learning fun because he can pick what he wants to do. Jot down what you have and later on in the summer when you really start planning out the coming school year you can see what you have to work with.

The sell/giveaway/trade pile is for stuff that is still usable, but you don't need it anymore or it did not work for your child. I have gathered up enough stuff to sell that I was able to buy some new goodies at the homeschool convention that I might not have otherwise been able to afford. The giveaway items are things that are still in usable condition that you can bless another homeschool family with. PaperBackSwap is another great way to get rid of books you no longer need. Check them out to see how they work. Or read my blog post on how it works.

By looking through what you have, you can make a plan of action for your coming school year. I am betting that everyone has at least 1 full subject that they can teach this next school year without having to buy a thing. Take some time and get digging around, see what you can find to
THROW AWAY
KEEP
SELL/GIVEAWAY

Post on here to let us know what you find!
Moe

2014 RUNNER UP for the top blog post

Homeschooling Websites To Kick Off The New School Year

Kicking off the new school year with some of my favorite homeschool websites!!!

Some are oldies but goodies and some are ones you may have never seen before. Come get encouraged about the new year! These are in no certain order, just some different sites that I really enjoy and get a lot of help from. I also have these listed in a SAFE folder for the Homeschooled Young Man. So when he has his computer time he can click on any of these sites and freely peruse them. Please let me know if any of the links are bad and I will see about fixing them.
Happy schooling!
Moe
http://www.homeschool-your-boys.com/index.html
Homeschooling boys
http://www.spellingcity.com/
LOVE this site! I entered in an entire year of spelling words and each week he uses this site to learn them. There is a ‘teach’, ‘play’ and ‘test’ area. He loves this site.
http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/
Make your own comics, this is a great tool for creative thinking
Thanksgiving ideas
http://localhs.com/holiday/thanksgiving_elemetary.asp
Math games
http://sheppardsoftware.com/math.htm
Tests grade school through high school
http://www.thatquiz.org/
Math games
http://www.quia.com/mathjourney.html
Word scramble and puzzle makers
http://www.theteacherscorner.net/printable-worksheets/make-your-own/word-scramble/
Math & grammar games
http://www.funbrain.com/
Math games
http://www.lizardpoint.com/math/add-ws.html
http://www.keepersofthefaith.com/
Keepers of the Faith
Christianity Today home school info
http://www.christianitytoday.com/momsense/homeschoolcenter/
Lots of neat stuff here for Bible believing homeschoolers & Bible studies & character studies
http://highland.hitcho.com.au/bibleforms.htm
http://www.tlsbooks.com/
Worksheets for different grades
http://www.squidoo.com/50statesnotebook
Great ideas for state notebooks
http://www.bjupress.com/resources/ecamp/
Bob Jones University kids website
http://www.barbarafrankonline.com/
The Imperfect Homeschooler (great encouragement)
Workbox system-we use this system and LOVE IT!
http://wayzleyacademy.homeschooljournal.net/2009/07/31/my-workbox-system/
http://www.wfmu.org/onthedownload.php/album/5654
Neat Christian science/nature programs
http://www.johnsburglibrary.org/
home school resource library
Let’s play math
http://letsplaymath.wordpress.com/
Lessons plans using Legos
http://www.weirdrichard.com/activity.htm
Lego site
http://forum.littlebrickschoolhouse.com/index.php
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/
Lots of printable lessons
http://www.sonlight.com/TF4.html
I don’t use Sonlight curriculum, but the website offers up lots of great info on home schooling, books and has book lists by grades. I enjoy the emails they send too.
Lots of printables
http://www.canteach.ca/
http://www.canteach.ca/links/linkhomeschool.html home school area of above website
http://www.homeschoolmath.net/worksheets/grade_4.php
Math games & printables
http://www.ntm.org/kidstuff/index.html
New Tribes Mission kids website
Info and printables
http://homeschooling.about.com/
http://www.homeschooldiner.com/
Arts & crafts
http://www.sundayschoolresources.com/clipartcoloringpages.htm
Lesson plans
http://www.educationworld.com/a_lesson/dailylp/dailylp/dailylp067.shtml
Resources for Christian teachers
http://www.teacherhelp.org/hs.htm
Crafts/Art
http://www.teacherhelp.org/crafts.htm#recipes
home school info
http://delicious.com/LifeSchool
Physical science
http://www.physicscentral.com/experiment/physicsathome/index.cfm
Free resources
http://www.learningresources.com/category/teachers/resource+center/for+your+classroom/free+activity+masters.do?code=PROMO-WIND09
Coloring pages & resources from National Geographic
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/coloringbook/archive/
http://highland.hitcho.com.au/index.htm
Neat stuff
http://www.unshackled.org/
Pacific Garden Mission-great place to take a field trip.
http://www.thehomeschoolmom.com/
Good info & printables
http://www.distance-education.org/Articles/100-COMPLETELY-FREE-Distance-Learning-Resources-for-Homeschoolers-125.html
Neat free stuff
Homeschool articles
bonajo/index.htm
Homeschool programs
http://caa-archeology.org/html/programs.htm
Math curriculum & games
http://www.mathusee.com/
Evangelism tools for kids & fun stuff
http://www.wycliffe.org/Resources/Kids/RecommendedResources.aspx
Homeschool Classifieds
http://www.homeschoolclassifieds.com/planner_form.asp
This is a funny home school blog a few great articles & links to home school websites
http://www.weirdunsocializedhomeschoolers.com/2009/07/my-ten-must-haves-from-back-to-school.html
Timeline helps
http://www.homeschoolinthewoods.com/HTTA/TimelineHelps/
Frugal website (sometimes has home school content, but otherwise about saving money with kids & being frugal.
http://www.livingonadime.com/articles/deprivingkids.htm
Interesting home school blog
http://chocolateonmycranium.blogspot.com/2007/10/homeschool-resources.html
Science homeschooling
http://www.hometrainingtools.com/Default.asp?bhcd2=1256956745
Socialization of homeschoolers
http://www.angelfire.com/mo/sasschool/socialization.html
home schooling forms to print
http://www.donnayoung.org/forms/index.htm
Candy science experiments
http://www.candyexperiments.com/
Geography worksheets
http://www.superteacherworksheets.com/geography.html
Scholastic
http://www.scholastic.com/parents/play/games/
Neighborhood Bible Time kids site
http://www.nbtime.org/kidscorner.html
Weather
http://urbanext.illinois.edu/treehouse/
History
http://www.historyglobe.com/jamestown/
Lego building projects
http://creative.lego.com/en-us/FamilyTime/buildinginstructionssecret/BuildingInstructionsBoxSecret.aspx?domainredir=legofamilytime.com
Homemade Homeschoolers
http://hmhomeschoolers.com/blog/category/games-for-learning

Cool Flashcard Ideas

I came across this really cool website while the homeschooled young man was listing to a podcast on the Leah4Sci.com blog, she had this cool post about flashcards.

I'm always looking for something fun and interesting to do in our homeschool. I tended to think of flashcards as a way to learn math facts (addition, multiplication) and not as just another way to study. Well Leah has opened up my eyes to a whole new world!

Head on over to her blog and see what she has to offer.

Moe

Free Kindle Book:Getting Better Grades: A Strategic Approach for Inside and Outside the Classroom

Click here to get a free copy of Getting Better Grades: A Strategic Approach for Inside and Outside the Classroom.  FREE Kindle Book

I have not read it yet, but it looks good! Let me know what you think of it.

Thanks,
Moe

Changes To One Of My Favorite Homeschooling Websites...

Khan Academy has some new updates and a new dashboard! Sign up today and check them out.
Khan Academy has TONS of subject areas, videos, worktext problems, solutions and much more! I do know that the science is NOT Bible based, but there is still some decent info that can be gleaned from Khan Academy.

Sal is an AWESOME teacher and I just love how he goes about teaching, he is also very funny. I have to laugh he sounds exactly like a guy that I use to DJ with back in the 80's. One of those weird kinda things that when you close your eyes you can picture that person....lol. I do that every time I hear Sal's voice.

Our Homeschool young man enjoyed watching the medical video's that are on Khan Academy. Lots of pretty cool stuff on there. I remember back in the first years of Khan Academy, there were just lists of videos to watch. With the NEW and improved Khan Academy there are parent/student accounts, a dashboard, a reminder system, points system and suggestions of materials to look at and learn.

Check them out!

Worried About Socialization In Your Homeschool?

Thinking of homeschooling your only child? Or many you have more than 1 and you worry about socialization, read on....
When we first started home educating 6 years ago (has it REALLY been that long?) I worried and worried about socialization. Now as my dear homeschooling friend Christine says "My kids don't know a stranger!" I would totally agree. Even with our son being an only child, he is chatty, bubbly and full of all sorts of chatter. He is able to converse with toddlers, little kids, elementary & junior high kids, high school & college students, grown adults, the elderly and so many more types of people. His pediatrician and him discuss gardening and their love of sauteed zucchini, garlic and olive oil...lol. Yes, my son and his doctor sit around and discuss the finer things in life during his well checkups. He gets lot of comments on his phone etiquette and how he handles himself in various social situations. I think that comes from him being in many different situations throughout the day.

He does struggle to understand how other kids around him that are in the "school" setting are embarrassed to answer questions, say "I don't know" & "I dunno" all the time, are embarrassed to get up and speak or afraid to speak up about things. So he does see a difference in himself and other kids, but is this really a bad thing? Our son has been interviewed on radio & TV, he has written newspaper articles as well as being interviewed by newspapers. He has given many different types of speeches to a variety of audience ages, he has done piano recitals and played piano at church. Yes he has flopped at times, but has used those as learning experiences. He figures that he is young and learning. What a blessing to not be bummed out, but to think on "How can I do this better next time, what would I change or how can I use this experience to further my learning?"
HipHomeSchoolMoms has a pretty HIP article on socialization and the only child. Check it out before the new school year starts.

Have you socialized your child today?

 

Very exciting times here!

  Very exciting times here! I am so thrilled to be able to bring you product reviews in the coming year through The Old Schoolhouse Magazine's Review Crew.  Homeschooling is such a great opportunity for our children and what better way to learn than by finding out about new and innovative products to use in our homeschools.
I'm keeping busy with all the details and reading required for being on the Review Crew, but I can't wait to get started reviewing products.
Keep checking back for some great ideas. Moe

Thanksgiving & Christmas FREEBIE

Use the following code to get FREE notebooking pages from currclick. freehomeschooldeals4thanks at checkout
Currclick is one of our favorite homeschooling websites. We take classes from them and also get some really great lapbooking and notebooking projects there too.

 What are you planning on doing for Thanksgiving in your homeschool?

Moe

Come see what I made during my mental health day!

I was wanting to spruce up our school room and with the recent discussions about Workboxes, I thought I would start there. So I decided to get out my Cricut machine and goof around a bit on my mental health day. LOL.......here is what I made.

I used the Locker Talk Cricut Cartridge and laminated the items that I made. These were very easy to make. Here are a few close up shots.

Here is our pencil, ink pen/marker and Post-It Note bins.

The infamous Post-It Note drawer......lol.  My guys won't let me live this one down!

 

 Our reading & language bin, DS says we need to change this to Literature this year since he is in Junior High now.....we shall see about that  ;O)

 

 As I read through the Too Much Stuff book from author Kathryn Porter I have come to realize that I have some clutter issues, one that I found was POST-IT Notes, I have about 15,000 sheets of Post-It Notes. I got them on sale one time and thought, I would use them. So lets just say I have a drawer full. I will post a picture with my book review next week. Back to the Workboxes, I had a lot of fun making these and the mental health days was good for me. I spent the afternoon listening to homeschool convention tapes (yes cassette tapes, I borrowed from a friend, but the information was still very relevant.)

Hubby was pretty impressed with these new Workbox labels, he says it makes me a better mom when I take some time for me on occasion.

 

Take some time for you and have some fun this weekend!

Moe

 

 

LEGOS, LEGOS, LEGOS!!!

Can any child have TOO many Legos? Well with having an only child, I'm thinking that we have too many here! lol.
This week was the 'cleaning of the Legos' here. They were all dusty and really needed cleaned up. Our son likes to keep his Lego creations out on display, well guess what? Dust loves Legos and we have dust mite allergies around here.

So into the bathtub went the Legos.

 Now they are all drying, this is just one small batch......LOL.

Through all this we learned about buoyancy and how things float or sink. We learned just how much dust can accumulate and how dust ends up acting like mud in water.

There are some great learning opportunities for our only children that we homeschool, in regards to Lego products. There are Lego 4-H groups, Lego Robotics 4-H groups, Lego Library Clubs,  and so much more!  There are also some cute builds to make over at Lego.com. Join the mailing list and they will send you a monthly item to build: make sure you print out the instructions when you get them, since the build will become locked after that month and you can't print it out after that. And of course there is the field trip of a life time LegoLand!!!  We have been to one of the LegoLands and had a lot of fun.

How have you incorporated Legos in to your homeschooling? One thing that we have done is purchase one of the Lego Sticker books such as Lego Minifigure Ultimate Sticker Collection.

We then take a notebook and our son puts stickers on the notebook paper and then writes a Lego story about the Mini-figures. It's been a lot of fun for us. And it helps with spelling, handwriting, creative writing and grammar  :O)       All in an easy fun format, it does not even feel like school. Yes, hahaha, it's that sneaky homeschool learning that our kids get in and don't even know it. Sometimes I will just have him grab the notebook and put a few stickers in and take off in the car on a busy day. I don't grade for penmanship on the days he is writing in the car though, as it's hard to write neatly in a moving car. Sometimes the stories conclude that day and other times the stories continue on. Why not write out a Lego lesson plan today! Surprise your child with some Lego fun.

  

Now for the million dollar question, how do yo organize all your child's Legos? We have been just dumping them into Rough Tote containers. But we are looking for something new and different. Our son wants those Lego drawers, but I refuse to pay $40 for them!

I can't wait to hear from you and get some organizing ideas.

Have a great week!

Moe



Changes for next school year?

We finished school back in April, so we are looking forward to next year. What things worked for you this year and what things would you change for next year?

We school year round and really enjoy it. We get nice breaks in October, December, February, April and May. We do the easy subjects in the summer like history and science, when we can lay under the shade trees and read. And get messy outside with science experiments!

We are working on Latin and think we might try a different program, we are using Prima Latina. Also looking at some items from the Critical Thinking Company, but not sure how to add those things in just yet. Still in the planning stages. For Bible we have switched from BJU to RBP (Regular Baptist Press)and are using the adult Sunday School materials, have been very impressed with the quality of their materials. We are also working through the book of Proverbs with several different materials (all seem to compliment each other) from www.thelearningparent.com/products.asp?pagecontrol=1&cat=29&product=21 , http://generationswithvision.com/Store/2011/06/proverbs-collection-12/ and Picture Proverbs Deluxe DVD Set from SolveFamilyProblems.com. The Picture Proverbs is a bit expensive, we got a discount on it since we saw S.M. Davis speak at a conference, but it's well worth the $$ spent and I would pay full price for it. There is nothing like hearing father/son say lets go watch a DVD and they are watching Picture Proverbs for an hour! As a family we have gotten so much out of these 3 resources.

We went through the Focus On The Family series called The Truth Project and got so much out of that, we may attend it again if it's offered, there was so much to glean from in that. Our son was only 11 when we went through the series and he was interacting with the adults during discussion time, so please don't think that our kids don't have a clue about what it going on. Treat your children knowing that they will rise to the occasion, instead of dumbing them down with little Bible stories, many kids no longer need the milk and honey, they are ready for solid Biblical food.

Do you have any curriculum items that you are interested in sharing about?

Moe

Getting It All Done........"I'm behind in our homeschool!"

I know many have contacted me to say that they are struggling with getting the school year finished up and worrying that they will never make it to the next grade level because they are behind. Remember you are NEVER behind in the homeschool, in most states we do not have to follow the public school calendar, which is a blessing since we homeschool year round. I do remember our 2nd year of homeschooling (we had homeschooled preschool and then again in the 4th grade). I would dream that our son was a big tall boy STILL in the 4th grade......lol. I could never get him out of the 4th grade in my dreams, we did tons of school and he was still a 4th grader! It was now October of the following school year and he was still a 4th grader in my dreams. lol. We did end up finishing the 4th grade right on target, but those dreams haunted me day and night.

If you think you are behind, sit down with a calendar and your student books. Look through and see exactly where you are, you've had to make some progress unless you have been laying in bed with a pillow over your head for 9 months!  LOL.  Glance through what is left, most of it could be review, look and see if there are any review items that your child really needs, if they did well on all the areas move forward, skip the review. If they struggled with factoring trees or roman numerals or multiplications tables, (or whatever math you are working on that year) take those review pages and work on them. Work on any new materials and then move on. Don't get bogged down with what the curriculum tells you needs to be done, work with your child on what he needs. I know a lot of material has tons of review days before a test, if your child has that materials down pat, move forward with the test. I usually ask if he is ready for the test and he will either say "YES" or he might say, can we work on a few more problems in the area of XYZ."  Or "Would you go over this section with me again?" So in some areas you can move through several lessons in a day. Also who says school must be M-F from 8:20am-3:00pm? Sometimes we will work on stuff in the evenings, a few math problems or some reading. Some of our best school times have been snuggled on the couch on a Sat or Sun afternoon doing spelling words or working on sentence structure. Learning is what you make of it, if you make it out to be drudgery, then the kids will see it has a hardship.

Enjoy your time with your kids, you only get 12 school years with them and that goes by pretty fast!

Back to school day!

How is your back to school day going? We did school on and off during Christmas break since we like to take time off in February for cabin fever.

Our first day back starts with homeschool bowling, our son loves PE and bowling is a fine way to get it in.

Are you starting anything new and exciting this semester? We are going to finish up Latin and start on Proverbs People from The Learning Parent, love all the materials from the Boyer family. Click the link to see what they have going on. They are running a sale right now and a lot of items. They are Godly conference speakers and have 14 kids and started homeschooing back in 1980. Check them out!

Have a wonderful day back.
Moe

Waiting, Waiting, Waiting

That is what life seems to be all about.
2 Thessalonians 3:5
"And the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the patient waiting for Christ."

Tomorrow I see the first of many specialist, so we shall see what he has to say about it all.

I've kept busy here, decluttering and tossing stuff. I gathered up a large box full of scrapbooking supplies and gave them to a girl at church. And ya know those piles of papers that we all have, I've been sorting through those and have a rather large 'to be read pile!'. (yes, you know those hidden away piles of misc. papers, magazines, flyers and such that you had good intentions of reading.....lol).

I've also stumbled across a few Christmas gifts that need to be wrapped. Along with the latest homeschool class schedule for the spring semester, would like to sign our son up for a few classes, but not sure what the future holds as I have to wait 6-8 weeks before the doctors say that they will do any testing, that right there cuts into the Spring semester.

School has been going well, our son is working on a huge research paper on The Battle of Britain, I'm working on teaching him how to hone in on the topic, as he is pulling in way too much information (thinks he is doing a college paper!). He needs to narrow it down a bit, there is a TON of really neat info, but he needs to fine tune it.

The chickens are freezing their tail feathers off........lol. Not really but their water has been frozen over every morning. So it's for sure winter time. They are enjoying some goodies, we sliced up pumpkins yesterday and they like those. We have 1 watermelon left, I'm saving that for a mid winter treat, hoping it lasts.

Husband is burying himself in his work, that is how he deals with all this. No Christmas tree up yet, but I have a few snowmen out. I think we will forgo the tree this year since I just don't have the strength or energy to deal with it. In thinking along those lines, there was never any mention of Christmas decorations in the Bible, so I don't think that we are missing out on much this year, decorating seems to be a world's view of Christmas. We have been enjoying Christmas music and seeing the lights displayed on many homes near us. One tradition that we will keep for sure this year is driving to look at light displays. It just dawned on me that we did not get a Christmas tree up last year either, we were in the middle of a remodeling project and there was just no room for it. I used my Cricut Machine to make a cute cut out of a tree with a train underneath it.

What are some low key Christmas traditions that you enjoy as a family?

Moe

A mom somewhere............

A mom somewhere in your neighborhood is preparing lessons to teach her children. In the minute it takes you to read this, moms all over the USA are using their "freedoms" and always investing their own money in their child's literacy, prosperity and future. She does this because she knows government run schools are not working anymore! Pray for a homeschool mom, love a homeschool mom, and appreciate a homeschool mom!

I love this sign!! Have a great weekend!!!