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If your looking for good free Bible studies/activities for children I really like the sites below. I plan to mix them in with our daily Bible devotions. |
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Someone shared this wonderful site with me recently. We plan to use it with our music studies this year. You can lesson to music and read bio's of the composers along with photos. |
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This weeks wonderful freebie at CurrClick is a study on butterfly's!! What child doesn't love them?! Make sure to stop by and grab your freebie, it's only up for this week. |
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Cindy Rushton is kicking of her newest seminar this weekend! Let's Get Organized For The New School Year! Are you struggling with planning? Or maybe record keeping? Just don't know were to start? Come and join in for a wonderful weekend of help and inspiration. You can lesson in live for free or buy a ticket to access the audio downloads latter and all the wonderful free gifts! Click here for more information! July 11-12 |
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We made it out to the Learning House homeschool store on Sat. I've been wanting to visit there for a long time now and since they were having their yearly yard sale it was the perfect time! We arrived about mid morning and I found lots of great stuff on the clearance tables. I had to be strong LOL. I picked out the Five In A Row Holiday book and a human body activity booklet. Then went on to get the other things on my list. They had a nice play area set up for the kids and comfy chairs to. So dh was happy to sit and play with the kids while I looked around. I made one change to my plans this year. I'm going to use the Exploring Creation with Botany with Botany instead of God's Design. I have been looking over the samples of them for a while and really liked it when I got to sit and peek through. I wont need to supplement it at all unless I want to. With the GD book I would have had to do all the lessons from supplemental books to fit my children's ages. And I love the project ideas, it fits in well with our notebooking/lapbooking love. I also picked up the following that were on our list:
I also picked out some of the story books for B4 FIAR that we needed and dh picked out a really nice story bible for dd6. After we were finished there we walked down to the big craft show that was going on that weekend. It was huge! We had to be really strong there were so many nice things LOL. We did buy each of the girls a nice kerchief though as they all managed to forget their hats. We had a nice lunch and lessoned to some of the music playing. |
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Last week when we went shopping the library was having their annual book sale, it's by donation. I stopped to look and picked out a nice box of children's books! Some of them are for the Before Five in A Row and Five In A Row program we use. I was so excited about that! I also found some nice history story books. We happened to be back in town a few days latter and they were still having the sale. So I just had to peek again. LOL I found another book to go with the B4FIAR and some nice children's farming books! I'm planning to do a farming unit this fall with the kids. The International Plowing Match will be in our area and we are planning an all day field trip there. Dh is really looking forward to that to. I also picked up some wonderful animal videos for the kids and some documentaries for us. Dh also picked out a encyclopedia set on natural history. I'm hoping to get to a homeschool book store this weekend. My shopping list has been gone over and over..I'm still tweaking it. So far I'm thinking of getting this:
Our plans this year are: 2 year old. I'm going to use B4FIAR with her at a slow pace. Should be fun! 4 year old PreK
6 year old, grade 1
DD6 and 4 will also be starting on some hand crafts, keep working on crochet and maybe simple sewing.
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Have you heard about the Ultimate Homeschool Expo 2008? It is an AMAZING online homeschool convention hosted by Cindy Rushton. I find many conventions in my area imposable to get to, either a family commitment comes up or they simply don't allow children to attend. Being a mother with 4 small children if my kids aren't welcome neither am I! You see one of the neat things about the Ultimate Homeschool Expo is that everything is ONLINE. Cindy builds a private, exclusive Membership Site that includes everything from the UHSE in one place--it has audios (from all of the sessions and from the bonus gifts that her speakers give to us), ebooks, complete unit study guides, articles, printable notebooking pages, cookbooks, on and on. I can't believe all of the things that we receive for only $40. It is truly ULTIMATE! Since EVERYTHING is recorded and saved online it gives me the freedom to join in live if I can or download all the sessions and free gifts when it's convenient for me. Cindy has given me permission to give you a sampler of one of her free gifts that is included on the Membership Site. I am so excited to share this with you! It is a audio and ebook set that she sells on her website, but she is giving away on the Membership Site. Here is the link:
Need ideas for encouraging your young writers and QUICK? Ready for a FUN way to encourage your most reluctant writer to write AND like it??? This fun-filled, hands-on workshop is one that you simply CANNOT miss!! Cindy Rushton, who has become known through the years as THE BINDER QUEEN, uses Notebooking for EVERYTHING! She will show you how to begin whether your child is a toddler or the most skeptical high schoolers. This workshop is sure to light a fire that will equip YOU to help your children deepen their studies and document learning all along the way! TOPICS FOR THIS WORKSHOP INCLUDE: Hey! Do I Have A Chance At This??; Why On Earth Notebook???; Down to the Nitty Gritty...WHAT Do I Need and HOW Do I Do It?; Step-by-Step Through Notebooking; Scrapbooking! YES! You CAN Have Fun Homeschooling; Hey? What is Legal? What All Goes Into A Notebook???; Developing FUN Studies That Teach and Inspire!!; Copywork...Answers to ALL of Your Questions; Taking the Writer From Reluctant to Researching; Ideas, Ideas, Ideas, There’s Gotta Be One for You; PLUS Much, Much More! PLUS! Cindy doesn't stop with the workshop, she also includes the Q/A Session after the workshop AND her handouts/samples of student notebooks. Awesome! Let’s Try Notebooking Audio Mp3: (Questions and Answers)
Samples of Student Notebooks:
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I forgot to post this, this morning! If anyone is interested in watching there will be a full lunar eclipse tonight! I'm hoping the clouds clear so we can watch and get some photos.
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This weeks freebie from the Homeschool Estore is a lapbook on Sled Dogs by Hands of a Child. Get your copy soon, remember they are only up for one week! |
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Well good deals on books were easy to find last week. Friday I stopped at the library to get some ancient Egypt books. They were having a book sale!! I picked up a book on the arctic cost, 2 cookbooks, a worst case scenario survival handbook student edition, 2 books from the Little House series, 2 copies of Blake Beauty (one for younger readers and one full story), a Toddlers Bible, and another book of Bible stories. And all together it was only 2.00 !!!
I also stopped at one other small library sale and found another Little House set book I didn't have yet for .20. We also stopped at a moving sale on the way home from picking up an order of rabbit caging material. We found some great deals there to! This set of World Book Life Skills library:
And World Book Encyclopedia of Science:
And also another set of Child Craft books. There was a complete base set and then on of the extra year additions I didn't have yet. I've been trying to collect a set of child craft for each child. They would be wonderful to pass down to there children one day to. All the above books were only 10.00!! These are going to make grate additions to our school library here.
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The Homeschool Estore is offering an Egyptian mummies kit from Hands of a Child as this weeks free download. |
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Last Wednesday afternoon our chrysalis started to hatch! It was so much fun watching the butterfly's come out over the next few days. Unfortunately I couldn't get the hatching on film. It's very hard to get good butterfly photos in the house!
Here is one drying it's wings, newly hatched.
Oh so pretty!!
When we took the first hatching group out to release one of them landed on dd(3yr) dress. She was so happy! I bet that butterfly though she was a flower with the bright flowers all over her dress!
 They also loved my phlox!
 Ok last one. We had so much fun with this we'll definitely do it again!
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Well this morning I went to take out the cloth I had across the top of the butterfly terrarium. I figured by now they would be large enough not to get through the little vent holes lol. Well surprise! Over night a lot of them started to make chrysalis! They have attached them selves to the cloth with the little silk button. The ones starting to do this look like a hook shape.
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Here are a few photos of our little painted lady caterpillars. The kit I ordered comes with a terrarium, and little containers to keep the caterpillars in. I decided in stead of having one or two caterpillars in the tiny little cups to put them all in the terrarium now. It's much easier to see! Also they LOVE to eat thistle leaves. I pick 3 or 4 large ones each day for them.
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Yahoo! Our tadpoles and caterpillars came yesterday! They are all set up happily in there tanks. We have to make a quick trip to town today. My filter for my aquarium is going to be way to strong for these little guys. So I need a small pump and air stone. I also had a container of gold fish food that has gone AWOL! So I need some of that for the tadpoles. I've heard that boiling romaine lettuce then chopping it works to.
Everyone is having so much fun watching our new critters. I'll be taking some photos latter, I need to pick up new batteries for my camera to.
This is going to make such a fun unit study with the girls!
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I just got an email that my butterfly and frog kits have been mailed!! They should be here today or maybe tomorrow. Oh I can't wait!!!
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Check out this weeks free download from the Homeschool Estore.
Free printable Roman numeral flash cards!
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I thought this site was great! So tiny and cute. |
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One other important thing taking up a lot of my time lately is planning our school year. We were very blessed to get a tax return this year, while not huge it was a help. Especially when we've had to pay for the last few years. We decided to use this to buy our homeschooling materials for the next few years. I lean mostly toward the classical methods and really wanted items that could be used with multiple age groups.
I decided to go with math U see. And I'm glad I did! I just received there free information DVD today and watched it. I have to say I'm actually excited waiting for this to come lol!! There see it, write it, say it approach really makes sense. And I think using the manipulative blocks will really help our kids learn this.
For science I decided to go with God's design series. I like that its multi age level and creation based.
I also picked out Five in a Row to start with and will be doing a mix of their ideas and lapbooking with it.
I have read Teaching the Trivium and loved that! I'm also waiting on The Well Trained Mind and The 3 R's. As part of our history we decided to go with the Story of the World books, by the same author as the Well Trained Mind.
So I'm all set for our math, science and history for the next few years. I'll post some reviews of the products when I receive and read through them. I'll also post my lesson plans as I put them together. I like having a plan to work with, as long as it doesn't rule me! I like to be flexible and have fun. One of the nicest things about homeschooling is having the freedom to explore different interests as they pop up.
I'm still waiting on our butterfly and frog kits to get here. It should be next week!
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I just ordered a kit for raising painted lady butterfly's and another for grass frogs. The girls and I can't wait to get them!
I ordered from Boreal in Canada, they also have a site for the USA.
It's going to be so fun watching the caterpillars and tadpoles grow!
Grass frogs are also called Leopard frogs. I used to see them all the time when I was a child. Now I'm lucky to see a few a year. And some years I don't see any at all.
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