The Schoolhouse Expo
Do you homeschool? Then, you won’t want to miss this!!
Registration is open for The Schoolhouse Expo! 3 days of online, homeschool encouragement. Susan Wise Bauer, Clay and Sally Clarkson, and more! Save $5 by registering now. Over $300 in free gifts when you register. Plus, check out the March Madness sale while you’re purchasing your ticket-items up to 80% off.
Visit: http://www.schoolhouseexpo.com today and register!
Finding the Perfect Curriculum…
Even though our current school year is in full swing, I’m already planning ahead for next fall: curriculums, schedules, planners, start date, etc. I’ve also noticed the array of catalogs that are piling up in our mailbox each week from many different homeschool vendors. I LOVE browsing through the catalogs, seeking out that “perfect” curriculum. But you know what? I haven’t found the “perfect” curriculum and I probably never will. And that’s okay. Our family is unique and not every curriculum is going to work with how my children learn (or how I teach).
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the six years we’ve been homeschooling it’s that we’re not a static family. We are constantly changing and growing and adapting. Our interests change, our horizons broaden and we adapt to new circumstances, situations and learning ideas. What worked for us this year may not work for us next year and what we used last year may be something we want to try again in two years when my children are older. And, what works for my family may not work for yours. And that’s okay, too. The beautiful thing about homeschooling is the fluidness of it – like changing curriculums mid-year if the children are so frustrated that their eyes pop out of their heads at the mere mention of the subject.
So, as your family considers curriculums and schedules for next fall take it all in stride. Throw stress out the window and kick its partner, worry, to the curb. No matter what curriculum you choose or what schedule you plan, place it all in God’s hands. As the superintendent of our school (my hubby is the principal), God is in control. When we honor God in our school and place Him above all else, the rest just falls into place.
Free Printables
I always love it when I find new free printables for our homeschool. I came across this website – Sunflower Schoolhouse – today and there are lots of printables for everything from the Alphabet to Workboxes. I bet you find something you can use!
Rainy Day Fun
This year, it seems as if there has been more rain than ever. Some of you have seen a lot of snow and have been snowed in your homes with the kiddos. If you’ve been snowed in or just stuck inside on a rainy day, here are a couple of fun and edible ways to brighten up your day!
First, on our agenda is a recipe for Play Dough Cookies. I have tried this recipe, and had a ton of fun making them! A friend and I decided to make them during Christmas, although neither of us have children. My nephew thought the cookies “looked cool”, like a large lollipop. I’m sure that children of any age would enjoy this! They are fun, bright and very delicious! We found this recipe on The Secret is in the Sauce blog.
Play Dough Cookies
3/4 cup butter
3 ounces cream cheese
1 cup white sugar
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 and 3/4 cup flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
assorted food coloring (gel or paste works best)
*We used gel food coloring, and it was an absolute success!*
1. In a bowl cream butter, cream cheese and sugar until fluffy. Add egg and vanilla. Beat until smooth.
2. In a bowl combine flour, baking powder, and salt. Add dry ingredients to the creamed mixture. Stir until soft dough forms. Divide dough into Fourths. Tint each with a different food coloring.
Wrap in plastic and chill for two hours. (I stuck it in the freezer for 15 minutes because I hate to wait!)
3. Preheat oven to 350. Shape colors into 3/4 inch balls.
For each cookie place one pink, one orange, one green, and one blue ball together and roll to make one giant ball. Roll into a 12 inch long snake, and then starting at one end coil roll to make a cookie.Place cookies 2 to 3 inches apart on greased cookie sheet to allow for spreading.
4. Bake for 8 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool and store in an airtight container. Enjoy!
We found that by placing the rolled balls back in the freezer for about 15 to 20 minutes, they were easier to roll out into snakes for some adorable cookies! Here, they are – the finished product!
Next, we are going to make homemade Play-Doh! Since it is homemade, it is also edible. I know that, as a child, my brother and I often considered eating the store bought kind. So mothers, never fear! Your child is safe to eat your “Play Dough”.
Play Dough for Kids
Ingredients:
1 cup flour
2 tsp. cream of tartar
1 tbsp. oil
1/2 cup salt
1 cup water
Food coloring/flavoring (optional)
Directions:
Mix all ingredients. Cook over medium heat for 1 minute or until mixture begins to get thick. Pour onto wax paper and knead. Put into a zipper bag to keep fresh and soft.
To color:
Put amount of dough you wish to color in a zipper bag. Drop food coloring into bag with dough and knead while in bag.
I hope you have a fantastic time making the “Play Dough” and Play Dough cookies! The cookies are absolutely delicious, and definitely picture worthy! I have had a great time making each of these recipes. It might be said that I, too am just a big kid.
So, if you ever find yourself (and your children) stuck inside on a cold, nasty day grab up these recipes and prepare to brighten your day!
The Prairie Girl’s Guide to Life – Book Review and Giveaway
The Prairie Girls Guide to Life:
How to Sew a Sampler Quilt & 49 Other Pioneer Projects for the Modern Girl
This delightful little book is sure to win your heart if you love timeless wisdom, crafts, and recipes. The Prairie Girl’s Guide to Life by Jennifer Worrick is chock full of ideas to feed your pioneer’s spirit. Learn how to:
- predict the weather
- embroider a pillow
- bake a rhubarb pie
- make bread and butter pickles
- knit a shawl
- make a night cream
- braid hair
- prepare sweet cherries
- lay a fire
- pan for gold
- make rock candy
- braid a rug
- make candles
- spin yarn
- milk a cow
- and much more!
I wanted to share a particularly fun recipe from the book with you. When I was a kid, rock candy was such a treat! We would go down to the shops in Warm Springs, GA (close to where I grew up) and buy rock candy. So, when I saw this recipe, I knew I wanted to make it with my own kids.
Rock Candy
What you need:
- clean glass jar
- 6-inch ice cream sticks
- pencil
- tape
- 4 cups sugar
- 1 cup water
- food coloring
In a saucepan, heat (but do not boil) 2 cups of the sugar and the water. Stir slowly until the sugar is completely dissolved. Gradually add a few drops of food coloring – your choice – and the remaining sugar, stirring continuously until all the sugar is dissolved.
Pour your colorful sugar water into a clean glass jar. Tape the sticks to a pencil and suspend them across the mouth of the jar so that the ends hang into the liquid.
Crystals suitable to eat will form in a hour and continue to grow for several days to a week. Pieces can be broken off and eaten after the first hour, but try to resist the urge to suck on them.
Although you may see modest results quickly, larger rock-candy crystals will take time to form. Good things come to those who wait, and pretty sticks of candy are yours to be had if you show a bit of patience.
Yields 12 ounces
I am fairly certain you will find a wealth of ideas here in this book. And, if you homeschool girls, this book is a perfect addition to your home economics course! If you would like to win a copy of this book comment here and on Friday of next week – February 5th – I will draw a name!
Homeschooling with Workboxes
On Friday I talked about my new File Crate System for staying organized. I so excited about that!
Workboxes
Well, I have a new way of doing things for our homeschool, too – Workboxes. Apparently this new craze began this past spring, but as we are winding down our homeschool each year, I am just getting cranked up for Campmeeting which takes all of my attention in the Spring, so I missed this one! If you are like me and have not heard about the Workbox system, you can purchase the e-book over at CurrClick. I did not purchase the book because after reading here, here, and here I decided to make my own “system” which may very well be inferior to the actual Workbox system, but I am very excited about it and I think my own version will benefit our family very well.
The original system was developed by a homeschooling mom, Sue Patrick, for her autistic child. She has specific reasons for doing things the way she did them, so you may really want to read her book to discover all of her reasonings and techniques.
The original system has a shelving unit and 12 clear plastic “shoeboxes” for each child. I thought about that, but honestly 12 boxes x 4 girls… I have no room as it is! In the past I have used one large plastic drawer labeled with each child’s name for them to keep their personal school stuff in. Well, this year, just like my new file crate system, I purchased 4 more file crates – 2 pale ink and 2 lime green from Wal-Mart at $5.00 a piece. I bought 2 boxes of hanging folders (25 folders per box) at about $7.50 each. I placed 12 folders in each child’s crate and labeled them 1 – 12.
Each evening before bed or perhaps in the afternoon after school has been completed each day, I will fill each file folder with a new assignment for the next day. The twelve folders will have a different lesson or activity in a different order each day. I plan to add in some fun activities and mix it up so the girls have a surprise and something to look forward to each day. Each folder will be a surprise. They won’t get to look in the folders until it is time to do the lesson.
For lessons where the girls share a book, I am laminating 4 x 6 cards decorated and printed with the name of the book. Then, I will place those lessons in alternating folders so they don’t have the same lesson at the same time. All four of the girls are excited about this new system. I am thinking that this new system will help keep my children focused on the task at hand and encourage them to work through their lessons without much prodding.
There is a Yahoo! Group that you can join to discuss with other moms creative ideas about what to place in your workboxes. And as Amy said, this is the perfect opportunity to use all those fun homeschool “extras” that you have around the house that never got used in the past because you didn’t have time.
In the back of our “work box crates” the girls will keep their binders with their pencil holders, and their clip boards . This way, they have most of their supplies right at hand. They can carry their crates over to set next to their chairs at the table (or sofa) and work efficiently through their assignments.
Some of the ideas I have for extra goodies in our workboxes:
- recipes – Emily wants to learn how to make my Sweet Sourdough Bread, so one of her first fun assignments will be to learn to bake the bread!
- watercolors
- nature journaling
- a card telling the kids to go play outside for 30 minutes
- a card telling the kids to go on a walk with mom
- games
- fun worksheets
- crafts
- mad libs
- sewing projects
- playdough
- garden seeds in the Spring
- movie time
- story prompts
- flash cards
- Leap Pad
- Draw Write Now
- library books
- one on one time with mom
- paper toys
- paper dolls
- audio books
- lapbooks
- unit study materials
- holiday activities
- post cards to write to friends/ family
- Pathfinder Club home work
Oh! And if you hop on over to Homeschool Share, you will find lots of new “workboxables” to print out and use in your own program!
My New File Crate System
July has been a really good month for ideas! As I began preparing for our new homeschool year, I came across some new ideas that really captured my attention. I am very very excited about some changes I am making!
The File Crate System
Okay, so I have been sharing with women for over eight years about how to get their lives organized. I came across this idea over at Dawn’s blog. She has been apparently using this system for several years.
I have been using my Household Notebook “system” for a very long time – years! And it works great. It helps me stay on top of my chores, menus, and schedules. In fact, you can print off some pages for your own Household Notebook over on my side bar to the right. But the Household Notebook did not solve my major issue with papers, ideas, and -um- papers.
So, I plan to use a variation of Dawn’s system.
I purchased a super cute file crate for $5.00 at Wal-Mart. I love pale pink! It has to be my favorite color! Wal-Mart has these really cute crates right now for the “Back to School” season. They have several colors – pale pink, dark pink, purple, lime green, orange, and blue.
I also purchased a box of hanging file folders and labeled the tabs. Twelve of them are the months of the year. Dawn labeled hers in two month increments, using only 6 folders – January/ February, March/ April, etc.
I know, it is hard to see the labeled hanging files in the picture above. I also added some hanging files in the back for the major aspects and events of my life: Children’s Ministry, Campmeeting, A Virtuous Woman, Gardening, Camping, etc.
And in the very front, I added a hanging folder that I plan to leave in the spot for daily use – Homeschool Records. In years past these records have made their home in my Household Notebook. This year, I decided to try Daily Journaling for our homeschooling. I could have printed off pages for this and placed them in my Household Notebook, but I decided instead to purchase a pretty composition notebook and use it like a real journal. So, I put the composition notebook in the Homeschool Records folder.
In each of my monthly hanging folders I have labeled a file folder (I purchased the Fall Colors File Folders from Office Depot) for each week. Since I plan to begin my “new year” in August I began the first folder with Sunday, August 2 – August 8, 2009. So, this means I will have 52 folders – one for each week, plus extras for the different categories. For instance, in my Children’s Ministry folder, I will have a folder for VBS 2010, Sabbath School, Pathfinders, etc.
You can read more about how Dawn uses her file crate system. I am looking forward to this year!
Learning to Read
I just came across a new reading program that is totally free and looks awesome! Progressive Phonics has free downloadable/ printable reading book along with handwriting activity books!
The program is free for registered members!
I have probably mentioned it before, but another great phonics website is: Starfall.com. My daughters enjoyed using this program online last year. For those of you with young readers, these programs are a “must”!
The One Year Adventure Novel
Have you seen this curriculum? I was looking at their website tonight and really, really, want this for my girls. My daughter Sarah especially wants to do this instead of our planned curriculum Learning Language Arts through Literature. Emily, doesn’t really care as she really doesn’t care for writing. However, everything I have read suggests that this curriculum will make even the reluctant writer excited about writing! Plus, the TOS Crew loved this curriculum!
My problem? For two children this will cost $224.00. Yikes! My budget for ALL of our books for all four of my girls this year was only $200.00. Obviously, if I am going to be able to buy this curriculum for them, I will need to come up with some more money. I am going to try to sell some of our used books that we don’t need anymore. Hopefully, we will be able to purchase this. It sounds so much fun! School should be exciting right! I think so.
If you have not seen this curriculum, visit their website and watch the info video on the main page. Just watching the video inspires a feeling of adventure – making you want to sit down and write something exciting! You can download free sample lessons here and even get a free demo DVD here.
Bat in the House and Other Nature Stories
This has been an exciting week for us. We found two bats in our house on two different days. They were very cute. We caught them with our handy dandy butterfly nets and released them outside, but not before looking at them (not touching!!) and taking a good number of pictures. We are thinking we may have a nest up in the attic, but haven’t checked yet. We aren’t sure what to do it we do find a nest. I really don’t want to have to exterminate them.
Yesterday we found a Brown Snake in the garden. We caught it, brought it inside to watch and study.. and woke up to find it loose in the house…
We purchased a new bird feeder – one of those with a suction cup to stick to your window and within hours we discovered that the Tufted Titmice (which happen to be one of my favorites) love the location of it since it is near our large Rhododendron bush. Now that a few days have past, we have enjoyed hours of watching five Tufted Titmice eat from it daily, we discovered with have Morning Doves that like to eat the seeds that fall from the feeder. We also saw for the first time a small flock of sweet little Carolina Wrens and a Mocking Bird. The Blue Jays and Cardinals have also enjoyed the fallen seeds. Oh, and I almost forgot the Chickadees! They love to fly up to the feeder along with the Titmice. What joy!
We also purchased a hung up our first Humming Bird feeder and bought a second one that I hope to get hung up soon.
The recipe for Humming Bird nectar:
1 part cane sugar
3 parts water
Mix together well so that the sugar dissolves and place in feeder. Clean feeder about once a month with a bottle feeder without using soap – add a small amount of bleach to your water when washing. Do not add red dye to your nectar.
We saw a many selling bird houses on the side of the road for only $3.00 each and bought one for each of the girls. We came home and let them each paint them.
We went berry picking and picked 23 pounds total of blueberries and blackberries! Unfortunately for my daughter Emily there was poison ivy growing in the blueberries and we did not catch it soon enough. Her “picking arm” itches pretty bad.
I have made cobblers and jams and will be finishing up the canning today of not only the berries but peaches and cucumber pickles. Homemade ice cream is on the menu with peach topping…
It has been a really nice week with my girls and the weather has been sooooo spring like. I love it!
