Homeschooling Hearts & Minds

Friday Freebies: Art Resources

2012-01-27T14:19:00.002-05:00

Earlier this week, I talked about exploring art in an informal way, but we do pursue some more formal art studies in our homeschool.

Here are some of the things we use:

Meet the Masters is a free to download 247 page pdf that includes all you need to introduce elementary kiddos (K-5) to history’s great painters. Includes full color prints of the masters’ works (you can print them on high quality paper or just view them on your computer), discussion questions, and art activities.

A well-known illustrator of children’s books, Jan Brett, has a page of video drawing lessons on her site.

The ABCs of Art is a series of handouts in the elements and principles of art from Awesome Artists, available both in color and in black and white.

The Art Project powered by Google has virtual tours of art museums around the world.

Famous Paintings: Art Appreciation Lessons for Kids has been a wonderful resource for art appreciation. I ask the children to choose a picture that interests them and then we explore that artist. Includes biographical information and other works.

The National Gallery of Art Kids (NGA Kids) has a plethora of interactive online activities for exploring art.

Do you have any free resources that you use for art in your homeschool?

Honey Moles from Redwall, a recipe

2012-01-23T15:25:00.002-05:00

My oldest son is a big fan of the Redwall series and decided today that he was going to try to make the “honey moles” described in one of the books. They are little pastry bundles with honey and fruit (berries, I think?).

Of course, it being the middle of winter, I didn’t have any fresh berries. I did have some cranberries in the freezer, though. ;0)

This recipe is David's own invention. He found the pastry recipe. He gathered the ingredients. He assembled it all. I did help roll out the dough. But the rest is his.

To make 16-18 “Honey Moles,” you will need:

pie dough (we used the Easy Buttermilk Pastry recipe for a 2-crust pie in the Betty Crocker Cookbook)
rinsed cranberries (or other berries), 3 small berries per “mole”
honey
brown sugar
a round cookie cutter or cup (about 2”-2-1/2” across)
plenty of patience
someone to clean your kitchen

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
Roll out your dough (he divided it into 2 batches) like you would for a pie crust.
Using your cookie cutter or cup (be sure to dip in flour), cut out circles.
Remove excess dough and eat it (or save it to reroll).
Place 3 cranberries in the center of each circle.
Squirt a generous blob of honey on top.
Gather up the edges and seal them together to form a little bundle (taco style works best).
Transfer to a cookie sheet sprayed with no stick spray (they do leak), leaving a couple of inches between bundles.
Put a bit of brown sugar on top of each one (fingers work best, you have to kinda squish it).
Bake for approximately 25 minutes, or until golden.
Remove from the sheet to some wax paper, so they don’t get stuck.
Cool, but eat while still warm.

And the verdict?

Yum! Flaky, crispy, slightly sweet, and tart.

We did have some pop open. But they were just as yummy. You could try baking them in muffin cups.

It has been a non-Monday-ish Monday. We need to do this sort of thing more often. And it was definitely a learning experience.

How was your Monday?

The Art of Exploration

2012-01-23T08:00:00.010-05:00

This is week 4 of the Virtual Curriculum Fair and our homeschool topic this week is---

Seeking Beauty: the Arts and Everything that Brings Beauty to Our World

I will be linking to the other participants’ posts at the end of this post as I receive their links.

Art is a big part of one very special boy’s everyday life.

With a pencil in had, Peter (age 6) can conquer math facts, battle monsters, and even understand some pretty complicated (and gross) aspects of the animal kingdom.

Case in point, on Saturday the boys learned about assassin bugs. Ever heard of assassin bugs?

An assassin bug basically stabs its prey (another bug, don’t worry it’s not out to get you) with its proboscis and injects it with toxic saliva, which dissolves the prey’s innards, whereupon the assassin bug has a little buggy shake.

Peter decided that if God created an assassin bug, He must have created an assassin for the assassin bug. This is his suggested design for an assassin bug killer. ;0)

You see, he has a head-lopping claw, poison spikes, and ichor suckers. I think he’s got it covered.

ichor (from Wiktionary.org)

the liquid that in Greek Mythology was said to flow in place of blood in the veins of the gods
(poetic) any bloodlike fluid
a watery, fetid discharge from a sore
yellow bile

My older son informs me that “ichor” is bug blood and guts and Peter confirms. Um okay, I’ll go with that.

And they say that homeschoolers are limited by their parents’ knowledge. I guarantee they didn’t learn that from me.

Here’s the assassin bug killer in action.

And here’s the “10 monster” that Peter defeats every time he practices his math facts.

Peter also tells stories through his drawings, he has real knack for visual narration.

I was driving when my car broke down

so I went to town for help!

then suddenly

ALIENS!

He’s even explored theological concepts through his drawings.

Souls waiting for Jesus to release them upon his descent into Hell.

Peter draws constantly. Drawing is his way of processing the world around him.

If he’s bored, he draws and then he’s not bored anymore.

If he’s excited, he draws to calm down and get the ideas out of his head.

He can explain everything with a few pencil strokes instead of a few thousand words.

Sometimes he takes it 3-D.

Chinese Dragon

To Peter, art is more than just something pretty to look it, it’s a way to help him explore his world and to share it with others.

While we are doing art appreciation this year and my oldest is using a formal art curriculum (Artistic Pursuits), today I just wanted to encourage you to look at art from a less formal perspective.

We always keep drawing materials readily available to all the kiddos and plenty of paper.

Drawing can be a story-telling, a form of self-expression, an affirmation of understanding (Peter often draws narrations of things he’s learned during the day), and even a way to calm the fidgets.

But it needn’t stop with drawing. Imagine sculpting while hearing your history lesson, for instance. Wouldn’t that be fun!

Homeschoolers are pretty good at working hands-on crafty type projects into their studies, we make little lapbooks or build pyramids out of sugar cubes. We color coloring pages and weave cloth from hand-spun threads. Or some such.

And that’s all good stuff. But it’s all extras, the icing, things for reinforcing the main event, right?

Getting the real point across.

What if you turned it around?

Take another look at that Chinese dragon. Peter wanted to make a Chinese dragon that would be 3-dimensional and stand up on its own. He designed and drew all the pieces. He even drew dotted lines for folding. I helped with the cutting out and assembly, because he asked me to. He learned that he needed both right and left feet (symmetry) from the doing. He learned about form. He learned that his folds were in the wrong places. He learned lots of things. And you can bet he’ll remember those things the next time he wants to make a paper creation.

He’s internalized them. He’s ready to make connections.

But he didn’t set out to learn all those things. He set out to make a Chinese dragon. And he did. He learned in the doing and all that conceptual learning was the icing, not the main event. He didn’t need an assignment telling him to explore symmetry and form by creating a 3-D object. He simply did it.

What the mind needs to know, it will learn in order to achieve its purposes.

Sometimes the children need some direction and guidance. And other times, they just need a chance to explore.

I invite you to visit these other great homeschool bloggers who are talking about Seeking Beauty this week. (I will update this post with links as I receive them)

Memory Making by Christine @ Crunchy Country Catholic

Learning Art at Our House by Jessica @ Modest Mama

history, up close by Jennifer @ a glimpse of our life

Fitting in the Arts When Homeschooling by Laura O in AK @ Day by Day in Our World

Appreciating the Arts by Cindy Horton @ Fenced in Family

Beauty in Homeschooling? by Cindy @ For One Another

Heart of Dakota- The Fine Details- Part 4 Poetry & Bible by Lynn @ Ladybug Chronicles

The Art of Art by Brenda Emmett @ Garden of Learning

The Beauty of the Arts - Where Does It Fit? by Joelle @ Homeschooling for His Glory

Learning and Art Library by Angie @ Petra School

Seeking Beauty: The Arts and Everything that Brings Beauty to Our World by Christa Darr @ Fairfield Corner Academy

How to Fit "The Arts" in School by Christine @ Our Homeschool Reviews

Keurig MINI vs. Tassimo T20: A side-by-side comparison

2012-01-21T19:08:00.001-05:00

This is an unsponsored, unsolicited review. I won the Tassimo T20 on someone’s blog several weeks ago, and then we received the Keurig MINI as a Christmas gift. It just seemed natural to do a side-by-side comparison between the 2 machines, because if I was in the market for one of these brewers, I’d want to see a side-by-side comparison.

I am not comparing the quality or taste of the coffee in this video review, but how the machines work and what they can do, for 2 reasons:

Taste in coffee is so very personal. I, for one, am not crazy about Starbucks coffee, but know that many are.
There are so many varieties available for each brewer and I’ve only tried a few. Can I say that I’m utterly amazed at the number of “donut” varieties available for the Keurig? ;0)

One of these machines will be staying in my kitchen, while the other will have a new home in my husband’s office, because there is a limit to how many coffee brewers I need in my house at any given time. Or, at least there’s a limit to much space I have for coffee brewers. And coffee brewing paraphernalia. Ahem.

For the record, I’m keeping the Tassimo at home simply because I think it’s more versatile. Hubby doesn’t care as much about versatility, he just wants coffee.

So, without further ado, here’s my review.

For those of you who don’t want to listen to me blather on about coffee for 18 minutes (or have a sleeping child in arms), the key points:

Keurig MINI (pictured on the right)

retails for $80-$100, other models available too
single cup machine with no water reservoir (must refill for each cup), other more expensive Keurigs do have a water reservoir
proprietary K-cups
punctures the K-cup with very sharp metal spikes which are exposed when you open the machine to clean it (they call them “needles”)
very short cord
can accommodate a regular coffee mug or cup, not large travel mugs (larger Keurigs can accommodate a larger cup)
can brew up to 10 oz., you choose the amount of water to use (6-10 oz)
automatically shuts off if you forget, so no energy waste
easy clean up
brews coffee, flavored coffee, tea, and hot chocolate
can find K-cups at most grocers, Wal-mart, etc.

Tassimo T20 (pictured on the left)

retails for $100, other models available too
single cup machine with a water reservoir
bar code reader that determines water amount, temp, etc.
can adjust the brew somewhat with more or less water
proprietary T-discs
longer cord than the Keurig
no auto shut-off
can accommodate from a demitasse cup to a tall travel mug with an adjustable platform
splatters some if the gap between spout and cup is too big (would like to be able to fine tune that adjustment)
easy clean up
brews coffee, flavored coffee, espresso, crema, tea, and hot chocolate
T-discs are harder to find in store, at least in my neck of the woods.

On Daleks, Bobcats, Houseboats, and other things

2012-01-20T13:47:00.001-05:00

This week, my husband and I celebrated our 14th wedding anniversary.

We got our wedding bands back from the jeweler

mine sized down, because it slipped off my finger and got lost at a Christmas party and was thankfully returned,

his sized up because he broke his hand last year and forever changed the shape of his knuckle.

And I gave him a CubeeCraft Bad Wolf Tardis and the 9th Doctor by Cyberdrone. Doesn’t seem like much, but how does one find the time to build more than that and keep it a secret when the kiddos are always around, hmm?

Of course, once the kiddos found out about these, they each had to have their own dalek.

David is flying his around the room right now, saying “EXTERMINATE!”

They also have ideas about building all the doctors. And, of course, Sarah Jane Smith. And Ace. And the other companions. But I’ve vetoed Tegan.

Because, yeah, we’re a little geeky around here.

And paper crafts can be a fun homeschool project, as long they aren’t too complicated.

Took Peter and Mary for well-child checks. At the same time. With the other kiddos in tow.

Because sometimes that’s how schedules work out.

Won’t do that again.

Mary needs a spine study, because at the tender age of 8, she shows some signs of scoliosis. No curvature, it’s in the muscle development.

I have scoliosis, my Dad had it, my brother has it, and my husband’s sister actually had her spine fused for scoliosis, so this is no surprise.

Sometimes genetics stink.

Talked to the doctor about some other stuff. Like Mary’s anxiety issues. She fears natural disasters. She fears small animals. She fears, well, everything.

Not really abnormal stuff on the face of it, but she tends to go to extremes. And it makes me crazy.

Because I feel utterly at a loss when it comes to helping her with this. I need to find a way to help her.

Being afraid all the time surely stinks.

So we talked and agreed that talking to a pediatric counselor might be helpful to her.

And that brings me to the other lunatic in our house. Ok, he’s not really a lunatic, but he sure makes me crazy some times.

Peter.

That’s not his problem, by the way, it’s mine.

The past 6 years have been a constant struggle to work at improving Peter’s quality of life and to learn how to parent him.

He stretches me in so many different directions. Sometimes it is very painful.

But it’s always very worth it.

It’s just been very stressful lately.

I’ve talked before how Peter is very different. He processes things differently. He reacts differently from the average kid.

His ped ophthalmologist suggested Asperger’s Syndrome. Just certain behaviors he was noticing. Of course, it’s more complicated than that. Because there isn’t an average anything in real life, not even an average kid with Asperger’s. If that’s even a part of what’s going on with Peter.

And so we talked about Peter, our family doctor and I, things I know he does, things the doctor notices.

Things I’ve read about. I’ll talk about this more in-depth at some point, but I don’t want to bog you down with details right this minute.

His glasses really have helped some things.

But he still has issues. And so we will talk to a counselor and have him evaluated to see if we can put together the particular pieces of his special puzzle.

The good news is that he’s doing much better with the glasses.

And he’s almost completed the Cub Scout requirements for Bobcat, which required a good bit of memorization (he has to know the Cub Scout promise, Law of the Pack and so forth) that I wasn’t sure he could handle…he’s getting it!

Cub scouts has been really good for him. We didn’t know how he would do there. Peter typically doesn’t do well in big groups, but his den is very small (like a half dozen boys?) and everyone has been very supportive and accepting of him. He’s thriving and feels at home with this group.

This week we’ve been trying some different things “school” wise.

I hate that word. School.

My kiddos hate it, too. ;0)

At some point, soon, promise, I’m going to share with you some of the thoughts spinning around in my head, but, again, I don’t want to bog you down here.

Let’s leave it at: we need to make some changes.

Again? Yeah, again, sigh.

One of those changes is more family read alouds. Because we had gotten away from that.

This week we started The Wind in the Willows.

I wasn’t sure about this particular book, because it seemed like it just might be a little too, well, prosaic for Peter and Emma.

But they listened in rapt attention to the first chapter yesterday. Absolutely enthralled.

Oh, this didn’t keep Peter from peppering the air with constant questions every other line…

“When they got home, the Rat made a bright fire in the parlour,---“

“What’s a parlour?”

“It’s a room where you visit with guests in your home. ---and planted the Mole in an arm-chair---“

“What’s ‘planted’ mean?”

“It’s another way of saying he put him in the chair. ---in front of it, having fetched down a dressing-gown---a dressing gown is like a robe--- and slippers for him and told him river stories till super-time. Very thrilling stories, too, to an earth-dwelling---“

“What’s ‘dwelling’ mean?”

And so on.

He’s paying such close attention. This one is very sharp. He misses nothing.

But, understandably, reading to him can be quite exhausting at times. And there’s a tendency (at least in me) to stick with well known or simple stories because reading more difficult books becomes a marathon.

There were a number of things and animals mentioned in that chapter, things the kiddos knew nothing about and explanations seemed so…inadequate, so today has been a little research day. I located images, articles and even a few videos on the web to help them better picture what they were hearing about. It’s a whole different world, you know. So, we learned about punts and houseboats. And water rats. And moorhens.

And I thought I’d share those links here with you. These are just some of the things mentioned in the first chapter of The Wind in the Willows. What a learning experience!

Illustrations of the Wind in the Willows, includes Toad in his wager boat
http://bradney.com/joblogs/?p=1205

On rowing and various row boats
http://thames.me.uk/Wood.htm

Various rowing and sculling boats
http://www.jim-shead.com/waterways/boats.php?wpage=BC5

Punt boat, includes diagrams
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punt_%28boat%29
Poling the planet---vid by two punters who make their living offering punting tours of the River Cam in Cambridge, England.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SosxwBk8_8&feature=related

Houseboats (lots of great pictures included of houseboats around the world)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houseboat
Manufacturer of houseboats (lots of pictures of houseboats with modern conveniences)
http://www.sharpehouseboat.com/
http://thoroughbredhouseboats.com/

How was your week?

Friday Freebies for Learning, Lots of Good Stuff

2012-01-20T08:00:00.000-05:00

As promised, 100% free learning resources for your homeschool!

In this week’s post for the Virtual Curriculum Fair, one resource I talked about was Ellen McHenry’s Mapping the World with Art. Ellen also has tons of freebies for download on her site! Many of them seem to be activities excerpted from the curricula she sells, so this is a great way to “try before you buy,” but they are also great just stand alones to supplement what you are already doing.

We really liked the “brain hats.” She’s got several things for studying anatomy, but also other sciences, history, geography, math, and more.

You can find all of Ellen’s freebies at Ellen McHenry’s Basement Workshop.

Here’s another freebie for you…how about a complete K-6 science curriculum?

Math Science Nucleus includes free, downloadable teacher guides, lab instructions, student worksheets, and even animated science storybooks you can view online. This is a very meaty curriculum.

Note: while the teaching materials are free, many of the labs call for materials you might not have lying around the house. Math Science Nucleus is a secular curriculum, and does present evolution and an old earth as fact, from what I have previewed.

Disclosure: I have no connections with the producers of these resources, just sharing some cool freebies I found on the web.

Mapping Out Our Social Studies

2012-01-16T06:00:00.007-05:00

Welcome to Week 3 of the Virtual Curriculum Fair! You’ll find the links to all the other homeschool participants at the bottom of this post. (Update: a total of 19 posts this week!)

Our theme this week is:

Exploring Our World: Social Studies and more Science. This theme can include history, geography, world cultures, worldview, biology, botany, geology, etc., etc., etc.

In other words, we are all over the map (literally and figuratively)!

Obviously I can’t talk about it all in this post and I’m not going to. I’ll be giving you a brief overview of what we have done in the social studies department for the past 5 years, ending with the history and geography curriculum my 6th grader is studying this year. I like to share materials that are “off the beaten path,” and this one fits that description. ;0)

In the Beginning…unit studies from scratch

When we first started educating our children at home, David, our oldest, was in 2nd grade, Mary was preschool age, and Peter was a baby. One of our challenges was getting David excited about learning again. His school experience officially turned him off. I needed to turn him back on. Unit studies seemed to be the answer, but due to a lack of funds and not being able to find just what I wanted, I decided to create my own rather than buy a guide and a box full of books. Buying a guide and borrowing the books from the library wasn’t an option, as our bitty library simply didn’t have the books. I needed to improvise.

We started with a short unit on Daniel Boone over the summer. Created a lapbook from scratch. Made a board game. Did Daniel Boone math. It was very good.

I gained some confidence. David became interested. And so we ran on into a year long unit study on ancient world history.

Educationally, it was an excellent year. But, frankly, all the prep work, the research, the locating of books, the planning, finding free online resources…it all got to be too much. And I was dealing with Peter’s special needs. It seemed like I was living and breathing homeschooling plus Peter’s medical issues. I simply burned out.

We also tried some pre-designed lapbooks.

We do like creating lapbooks. From scratch. Somehow all the cutting and pasting and filling in of blanks of the pre-designed type takes all the joy out of it for us. It’s like a 3-D fill in the blanks worksheet. And the kiddos very quickly slip into “get her done” mode. I have a number of digital lapbook files I’ve picked up here and there, and we do occasionally use some bits and pieces. But not really our thing. There’s something about creating it from nothing that helps them to synthesize what they have learned better. So we do the occasional lapbook, but as it’s a truly involved affair, we don’t do them too often.

I didn’t want to just give up on unit studies…enter Patchwork Primers

We tried Patchwork Primers Vol. 2: Inventions and Discoveries. That’s out of print, but you may still be able to find it used. What I liked about Patchwork Primers was that it was set up as an outline with topics to cover, complete with discussion and activity suggestions, but what what actual books and materials you used is up to you. I didn’t have to find any particular books, I could use what was available at my library or through interlibrary loan. Patchwork Primers actually tries to cover not social studies and science, but art, music, grammar, Bible, literature, and even math. So, for instance, in Inventions and Discoveries, while you were studying communication inventions, like the printing press, the typewriter, Braille, the telegraph, the telephone, and the radio, you were also studying how the eyes and ears work, and how sound travels. And various elements of art and music. And so on.

By this point we were living in a new area with a stellar library system, which did help. But I still burned out. There were simply too many choices. My ADD/OCD brain isn’t very good about picking and choosing and wants to do it all! And I was beginning to feel like trying to work every subject into a unit study was just…too forced. Maybe it would be better to stick with a strictly history or literature or even science based unit…hmmm?

Time Travelers from Homeschool in the Woods

I really love Amy Pak’s work. She’s a talented artist. So, when we decided to study the New World Explorers and then American history, The Time Travelers Series seemed like a perfect fit. Unit Study, artsy stuff, the right time period, all the work done for me, what’s not to like?

The New World Explorers study is probably the dullest unit study we have ever done. I thought we’d love it. We love maps. We love adventure. We got about halfway through and then moved on to Colonial Times. Because if we did one more map overlay, somebody was going to scream. ;0)

I don’t fault the unit study, it simply didn't fit us as well as I thought it would. And we certainly didn’t have to do all the maps. Ok, we didn’t do all the maps. Or all the vocab cards. Or all the other cut-y out-y things. Not that you have to, as with any unit study, you have to pick and choose what you want to do. But there’s a whole lot of cutting out and coloring with one of these Time Traveler units and after a while it's gets tedious. We did enjoy learning to tie knots. And some other things. But I found that the text was not really capturing their interest and the activities became too repetitive. Once more were slipping into “get her done” mode.

Plus, the age and ability gap between my oldest child and the next two was becoming more and more apparent (4 year difference between my oldest and my next oldest). I was holding my oldest back a little and expecting too much of his sister.

So this year we tried something totally new and different.

All together, we are doing some Classical Studies. Our read alouds include daily Bible stories and then once a week we read from the D’Aulaires Book of Greek Myths and from Famous Men of Rome. We follow the readings up with narrations. Oral narrations for the two oldest children and Peter draws his narrations.

In addition to the Classical Studies, David is also doing an independent study, Mapping the World with Art by Ellen McHenry. You really should check out Ellen’s site, she has a number of freebies available.

David loves to draw. And he loves to draw MAPS! What’s unique about this curriculum is that in addition to reading and learning about the history of map-making, he is learning to draw the whole world. Mapping the World with Art has 3 parts:

Readings
Activities
Mapping

This program is designed for about 5th grade and up. The readings are relatively short, the front and back of a page. More research could be added for an older student (David is almost 12 and this is about right for him).

The course is basically a survey of world history from the perspective of mapmaking. So you’ll learn about the very first maps, early navigation, latitude and longitude, the explorers, and so on. The activities vary, some are simply watching a video on youtube or reading articles online. Others are hands-on, like creating an edible map (everybody loved this one). And then there are games, making navigational tools, and so on. Many of the activities are appropriate for younger children. The course includes detailed instructions for making the maps, both in the book as well as videos on DVD.

Overall, this has been a good choice for David. Monday, he does a reading and then a short written narration (there are no discussion questions included). Wednesday he does the map or maps for that lesson. Friday he does one or more activities for that lesson, with the younger children joining in if it’s appropriate for them.

Occasionally we hit an online activity where the link is no good, but I can generally find a replacement. And occasionally we hit a hands-on activity that simply requires too much prep for us, and we just skip it. There are plenty of other activities, so that’s not really an issue. His favorite part, of course, is the maps.

I can honestly say that this was a good buy ($47 plus ship for the physical copy plus DVDs and the whole book on CD-rom) and a good choice for David’s first truly independent social studies program. He can do it entirely on his own.

And what will we do next year? I don’t know, yet. But I’ll fill you in when I figure it out. ;0)

That’s enough about what we are doing, now go see what the other participants are doing in their homes (I’ll add the links as I receive them):

Science and Worldview by Beth @ Ozark Ramblings

Nature Study as Science by Christine @ Crunchy Country Catholic

Virtual Curriculum Fair Week 3- Social Studies and more Science by Leah Courtney @ The Courtney Six Homeschool Family

Curriculum Fair–Exploring Our World by Angie @ Petra School

Paths of Exploration by Jen @ Forever, For Always

Learning Geography at Our House by Jessica @ Modest Mama

The Fascinating World Around Us by Cindy Horton @ Fenced in Family

More Heart of Dakota Praises by Nicole @ Schooling in the Sun

Our History by Melissa @ Grace Christian Homeschool

Playful US Geography for First Grade by Pam @ Everyday Snapshots

Heart of Dakota-The Fine Details-Part 3 History by Lynn @ Ladybug Chronicles

Exploring Our World Through History & Science by Brenda Emmett @ Garden of Learning

Two History Must-haves by Letha @ justpitchingmytent

Learning About The World Around Us by Laura O from AK

Social Studies and Science - What do we do? by Joelle @ Homechooling for His Glory

History Chronologically and with Living Books by Debbie @ Debbie's Digest

Why History? by MissMOE @ Homeschooling While Living the Life of Easier

Exploring Our World by Christa Darr @ Fairfield Corner Academy

Our Homeschool Week: Seeing the World More Clearly

2012-01-14T21:33:00.001-05:00

It’s been a long week. But in a good way. I’m going to start from the end and rewind to the beginning.

Peter finally has his glasses!

Doesn’t he look like a cute, little professor?

He had his new eye exam early this week and it was full of revelations. Not only is he very farsighted (more so in one eye than the other), but he has astigmatism in one eye, so he needs very special lenses. And frames to fit a biggish head. But we already knew about the big head. ;0)

This kid gets more and more unique by the minute.

I’m trying hard not to question why his “special” vision wasn’t revealed by all the eye exams he had in the first few years of his life, especially as they are telling us now that he’s had these issues since birth. I just need to put that aside for my sake and his. For some reason, we didn’t find out until now. His progress in math and reading astounds me, given the challenges he’s endured. The important things is that his eyes are getting the correction they need and this is good!

Getting the glasses was an all day affair, as the nearest place that could accommodate his vision needs and get them on his face quickly (how could we make him wait another week or more?) was an hour drive away each way. I missed the reveal because I stayed home with the other kids.

According to Chris, Peter’s first words after trying on his new glasses for the first time: “Everything’s so BIG!” Some things were a little scary. Like stairs. You have to understand, so much was a blur to him before. Now there are all these edges. It will take time for his brain to learn to process all the new information. He goes to back to the eye doctor in 3-4 months.

I’m already seeing a positive impact. He’s watching a movie right now and sitting on the sofa with the rest of the kids instead of 2 feet from the TV. ;0)

Our academics this week were kind of mixed up, between Peter’s eye exam (that was an all day affair, too) and taking the day off on Monday for Mary’s birthday.

Mary is now 8!

You’ll notice a little furry critter in that scrapbook page. That would be Hamlet, the other big change in our family this week!

Hamlet is a Chinese dwarf hamster, and our gift to Mary for her birthday. She’s been wanting to have a hamster for several months and has actually done a whole bunch of reading and research on them.

The first few days, all anyone wanted to do was watch Hamlet. Hamsters are pretty easy to care for, I give them a thumbs up if you want a small pet.

The only caveat: never ever leave the 2-year-old alone in the same room with the hamster cage. Seriously. Don’t even consider it.

So what did we learn, other than about Peter’s eyes (maybe it’s time to do another quick study on eyes and vision…hmm, I think I have just the thing) and about hamsters and how to feed them and care for them? Isn’t that enough?

Peter and Mary both started an online supplemental program called K5 (I’ll be reviewing that some time in the coming weeks). Covers phonics, reading, math, math facts, and spelling. So far Peter really likes it. He did much better on the assessment than I expected. Mary’s doing well with it, too, but doesn’t like it as much as he does.

Peter is also making progress in Right Start Math. He learned about the commutative property. Actually, he already knew about it, he just knows what it’s called, now. He investigated making larger rectangles and squares out of smaller rectangles and squares.

But that was boring, so he started making robots instead.

He read 2 books from level 3 of the I See Sam readers.

And he explored his own spin on theology.

After having a discussion with Daddy about Jesus dying on the cross and descending to open the gates of Hell, freeing the good souls that had been waiting there, Peter drew this. It’s the waiting room where the souls are waiting. The skeleton is reading a book because that’s what you do in waiting rooms when you are bored. This is actually the bottom of a 3-panel picture. The tippy top has a picture of heaven with a sign on it saying “W R Closd.” Because the Resurrection hasn’t happened yet.

Emma is still waiting for the non-washable dry erase marker to wear off of her body. But it’s fading.

Mary is reading Mary Poppins. She’s learned addition with regrouping. She is 2 steps away from finishing level 2 of All About Spelling---this is actually a source of a disagreement between us. She thinks she shouldn’t have to do any more spelling for the rest of the year , but I think she’s wrong about that. ;0)

David read about John Cabot, read about the Battle of the Bulge, converted fractions into equivalent fractions, learned about averages, and found averages from data in a grid. He’s reading My Royal Pain Quest.

He also played with Peter’s math manipulatives.

What is it with math manipulatives that makes everyone what to build with them?

We all experimented with gravity and mass using a Physics Quest kit that I forgot I had.

Overall, it was a busy, but good week.

Linking to Weekly Wrap Up at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

You might also like:

Learning Unintended Lessons

Building Imaginary Caves and Forts

Setting Goals: The Kiddos Have Their Say

Giveaway: My Memories Suite V3

2012-01-14T08:00:00.004-05:00

Whether you use some of the included papers and embellishments,

drop your own photos into a Quick Page from the My Memories Store,

or start from scratch with jpegs or pngs stored on your hard drive,

creating with My Memories Suite is super easy, yet sophisticated enough even for the advanced scrapper.

Even my 8-year-old can use it. She created these bookmarks for her Daddy for Christmas (we just cut them out and laminated them).

And she’s playing around with making family pages.

I especially like the “what on earth are you doing Emma?” ;0)

We even designed some custom stationery together.

I’ve enjoyed playing around with the newest release of My Memories Suite v3, this program just gets better and better.

What I love:

Create custom page sizes in v3! No more creating a huge page and then cutting it down in another graphics program to make a blog header or button! Minimum size is 200 x 200 pixels. My current header and button were created using My Memories Suite v3.
Use any jpegs or pngs with this program. To find them easily, just paste your files into the embellishment and paper files in My Memories Suite’s program files. You can create your own folders within those main folders so you can find them and open them within the program.
Create interactive albums, burn them to cd-rom or dvd and share them with your loved ones. You can add hotspots with video, sound files, and even hyperlinks.
Export and share as a jpeg, png, interactive movie, ipod ready file, DVD ready file, or even create a calendar.
Add shadows to add dimension.
Use the color picker to custom match your photo mats and text.
Use the Word Art feature to create eye-catching text.
Buy kits from the My Memories Store and install them right into the software for easy access.

I’m having visions of creating a yearly journal for our homeschool, say a page for each week of the year, complete with photos, captions, video, and sound-bytes…wouldn’t that be a great way to relive the year?

There are a few things that could be improved (is there any software program that couldn’t be improved?):

I would love to be able to set my own defaults for certain settings, like the page zoom (I like mine set to view the whole page at once, I just zoom occasionally to look more closely at elements), and the guides. Currently, whenever I open the program or any album saved in the program, it’s set automatically to 100% zoom with margin guides on. It takes only a few key strokes to get it how I want it, but I would love the convenience of setting my own preferences.
It can be a little tricky to find just the embelly or paper I’m looking for. It’s not like I can lay it all out on a table and pick and choose like I can with real papers and supplies. Not sure how this could be solved…perhaps a search feature of some kind?
Even smaller page sizes would be great, for when you want to create a blog button or a signature graphic.
When adding elements to a smaller page (say a blog header), the elements come in at their full size, larger than the page many times. It can be a little tricky to size them down without “losing” them (I’ve right-clicked and changed the element’s size, only to have it totally disappear off the edge of the page to no where land). Having the program automatically resize the elements to fit within the bounds the page would solve this.

My Memories Suite is incredibly versatile and a pleasure to use. But don’t take my word for it, download the trial version of My Memories Suite and try it for yourself (scroll down until you see “try it free” on the right).

Available for both Windows (XP, Vista, Windows 7) or Mac. You can see the full system requirements for My Memories Suite v3 here.

And you can get $10 off when you purchase My Memories Suite v3 with my affiliate code: STMMMS52587

But one of you is going to win your very own copy of My Memories Suite (download)! To enter, simply use the handy dandy Rafflecopter widget.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Disclosure: I received this product for free for review purposes. All opinions expressed here are my own and you know I always tell you the real deal. This post contains an affiliate code that entitles the user to a discount and me to a commission. This is the only company I’m currently an affiliate for, and that’s because I really do love this product.

Friday Freebies: Funtastic Science Unit Studies

2012-01-13T09:35:00.000-05:00

Here’s a new feature at Homeschooling Hearts & Minds, each Friday I’m going to post a couple of freebies from the web to spice up your homeschool.

This week’s freebie is from Susan Kilbride, creator of Funtastic Unit Studies! She’s sent me a copy of her book, Science Unit Studies for Homeschoolers and Teachers, which I’ll be reviewing sometime in the next few weeks. In the meantime, here are a couple of sample units from the book:

A Plant Unit Study for ages 4-7:

http://funtasticunitstudies.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/plant-chapter.pdf

An Atoms & Molecules Unit Study for ages 8-13:

http://funtasticunitstudies.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/atoms-and-molecules-chapter.pdf

1st, 2nd, 6th Grade Math in Our Homeschool: How We Got HERE

2012-01-09T06:00:00.011-05:00

This week’s homeschool topic for the Virtual Curriculum Fair is---

Discovering Patterns: Mathematics, Logic, and some Science. This theme can include anything to do with mathematics, mathematical thinking, numbers, arithmetic, symbolic logic, critical thinking, and math-y sciences (physics, chemistry, etc.).

Make sure you check the end of this post to see all the wonderful articles that have been contributed to this topic! (Update: We are up to 21 24 posts total for this week!)

And since I don’t believe in absolute rules when it comes to education…you just might see some posts on sciences that are not so “mathy,” too. I’ve always some some trouble dividing things up into strict categories and generally only do it to fulfill our state requirements anyway. ;0)

This week, I’ll be giving you a glimpse of what we are using for mathematics in our homeschool.

Three of our kiddos are doing math this year: David (age 11), Mary (age 8), and Peter (age 6). The interesting (crazy?) thing is that each of them is using an entirely different math program! We didn’t end up here intentionally, in fact I tried really hard to use the same math program with each child, but these are 3 very different children. I’m going to start with a little history of…

How We Got to Where We are Now (or, previous Math FAILURES!)

David is in 6th grade going strictly by age, but his skills in various subjects cover a wide range of abilities. He’s definitely an individual, not fitting into the accepted “norms,” and, frankly, this has a lot to do with why we homeschool.

David attended kindergarten and first grade at a small Catholic school. He excelled in the language arts, in fact they simply couldn’t (wouldn’t?) accommodate his advanced reading and spelling. But he was bored by their colorful workbooks and what’s more, he really wasn’t getting it.

When we brought him home, we tried workbook approach for math first, because I didn’t really know yet how much it wasn’t sinking in. You see, he could do the workbook pages fine, but he didn’t really understand what he was doing. Plus, having survived and graduated from public school myself, I really didn’t know what other approach to take. Sometimes you have to learn from your mistakes.

So, in spite of spending plenty of time on addition, subtraction, telling time, “counting” money, etc., by the end of 3th grade he didn’t really know these things. He knew the mechanics. Sort of. But math facts just fell right out his head (I wouldn’t learn until further on that he has a slight learning glitch that makes transferring those facts into long-term memory more difficult). Timed quizzes were pure torture. We needed a change.

So we tried…

Math on the Level

Math on the Level is a complete math program that can be used with multiple kiddos from kindy on up to pre-algebra. To say that it was about as far as you can get from workbooks is putting it mildly. I’m not going to go into a complete description of the program today (or I’d be writing yet another book), just a brief overview of what it’s about (you can check their website for more info) and why we ended up putting it aside.

What I really love about MotL:

Mastery based, with built in review
Completely keyed to your child’s level of knowledge and maturity
- Concepts are built on top of each other, you’ll never be teaching a topic that they haven’t gotten the proper background
- You never have to teach topics until your child is developmentally ready for them
It’s possible to teach multiple-levels at the same time
Heavy emphasis on using real-life math and learning “adventures”
Sounds expensive (costs about $300 for the set, ouch), but that covers you for grades kindergarten through about 7th or 8th
Provides all the background material you need to actively teach the material to your kiddos
There’s a free forum for getting ideas and advice on using the program

Hmmm, I really do love this program and sometimes thinking about getting it back out (I do use it for reference). I’m so changeable. ;0)

Why we had to put MotL aside:

While the hands-on, teacher-intensive aspect of the program was a big selling point for me, I felt like I was constantly preparing to teach math. Plus, I had a little baby to take care of and, at that time, Peter was only 4 and not at all interested. Each day would have a teaching element, but also a review element (called “5-a-days”) where the children would practice concepts already taught. This review element was crucial for David, by the way, and the fact that it only consisted of 5 problems or questions made it as painless as possible. But, to work optimally, you have to update your reviews daily (you shuffle concepts to be reviewed daily, 2 or three times a week, weekly, etc.) to reflect materials that have been mastered and materials that need more review. This didn’t take a huge amount of time, but it was time spent each and every evening before the next school day, and that time adds up.

Plus, the program is not strictly scripted, you can’t just pick it up and teach, you need to read ahead, prepare what topics you will teach, find manipulatives and life experiences to reinforce the teaching, etc., etc. The tremendous flexibility, much as it was exactly what I thought I wanted, became a burden to me.

Plus, David still was not getting his basic math facts and I did find MotL lacking on suggestions in that area. They basically do timed drills. Just like what we did before (we used Calculadders). And he simply doesn’t learn that way (more on this in a bit and how David is finally mastering his multiplication facts).

The other side is that as much as I love the idea of a hands-on, non-traditional curriculum, 8-year-old Mary is my workbook gal. She doesn’t think it’s real math unless it’s in a workbook. Really. And finding worksheets to supplement exactly what I was teaching, while easy enough, still was a time drain (not to mention a printer ink drain).

That said, I still believe in the program, I’m just not sure I’m the one to carry if off. Especially now that that baby is 2-year-old little Miss-Chief (if you know what I mean).

We’ve also tried…

Math Mammoth

Oh, David hated that. Mary did, too. I like the way Maria makes you think in her curriculum, but the children found the pages to be too full. Not enough white space and the answer blanks were too small for their handwriting. I would have them do half-pages, but they still found it daunting.

So last year I did a ton of research. I really loved the idea of a mastery-based, hands-on curriculum, but I needed something that would tell me what to do each day. I needed to have all the manipulatives on hand. And it would be great if all the kids could use the same program. My husband and I talked it over and plunged into buying…

RightStart Math (Peter’s Math)

I wish that I could say that this was the last stop in our elementary math journey. But RightStart was a dud for both Mary and David, and you can click over to this post to read why (no reason to repeat what I’ve already written ;0). We are using it with Peter this year and it seems to be a pretty good fit for him, because…

He likes using the abacus.
He’s a hands-on kinda kid.
This is the first real math program he’s done, so he’s not having to repeat stuff he knows.
It’s easy for me to set the pace to his speed.
He needs the one-on-one time to get it.
In addition to basic addition, months, days, time, and more are also taught.

Here’s what a typical lesson looks like:

Here’s Peter’s staircase on the abacus:

RightStart places a big emphasis on recognizing patterns. The “staircase” is a visual reminder of all the numbers that add up to 10. The abacus is not used for counting, in fact children are trained to slide beads over by complete numbers, not singly. For example, if I ask Peter to add 2 and 5, he would slide over 2 beads together, and then 5 beads (or vice versa, he knows about the commutative property, though he doesn’t know what it’s called). The bead colors (you’ll notice that for the first rows, the first five beads are blue and the second five are yellow and then it reverses for the next five rows) are designed to get them to see at a glance patterns, like that 7 is 2 more than 5.

In addition to the abacus, we also use other manipulatives including bead cards, abacus tiles (each tile represents a complete abacus, so 100 beads---this is to help demonstrate how to partition hundreds, just as you partition tens), game cards, a clock, a balance, and more.

Written work is minimal. While each level has a workbook, in the lower levels you rarely get it out and usually we just do those problems on a whiteboard. While Peter does not object to writing, it is developmentally challenging for him, so less is more.

How do you like his “ten monster?”

RightStart is, for the most part, non-consumable, you can use it over and over again. You will need to buy a new workbook for each child (unless you choose to just write the workbook problems on a whiteboard).

What I don’t like about RightStart: It’s still not really a pick up and teach curriculum. While it’s all scripted out and includes manipulatives, many of the bits and pieces need to be copied and cut out or otherwise prepared, or involve grabbing some toys or blocks from the toy bin. It’s a little messy to keep all organized. I do need to look over each lesson the night before to make sure I have all the bits and pieces and I’m a little lazy about that. And Peter needs the manipulatives. Abstractions are too abstract for him at this point.

It has been working well for Peter, with some minor tweaking. Most of the lessons (there are about 120 in the book) are meant to be completed in a day (there’s a warm-up, a review and then the new teaching), and some are intended to take 2-3 days. I’ve actually slowed down the pace much more than that with Peter. He is a young 1st grader (he turned 6 at the end of September), and somewhat delayed developmentally (maybe by a few months) due to his unique physical condition. He’s very capable of learning the material (book A would have bored him), but needs shorter sessions. Personally, with any child this age, I might divide each lesson up into 2 shorter sessions and do one in the morning and one in the afternoon, but one short session each day is best for him.

So, we are progressing through the book, but much more slowly. I would expect to finish it in about a year and half or so at our current rate.

JUMP At Home (Mary’s Math)

This program is new to the American market, it was developed in Canada. JUMP stands for Junior Undiscovered Math Prodigy. It’s a great fit for Mary. She is using Grade 2 this year, which has a little overlap, but she wasn’t quite ready for Grade 3. She is going through it at a faster pace.

JUMP looks like a black and white workbook, but it’s really more than that.

What I love:

It makes Mary think, something she doesn’t really like to do.
The emphasis is on understanding the why behind the procedure, not on memorizing a procedure.
She can work on it independently, one-on-one teaching is brief.
It’s cheap, each book is less the $20 (it is consumable).
Not too much on a page. The pages are clear and simple.
It’s more than a workbook, the front section contains a whole bunch of suggestions for games and other activities for reinforcing concepts.

Mary thinks it’s okay. She doesn’t care for the use of visuals like number lines and dots (she’s a left-brainer, abstract kinda girl). But she’s learning the material. Here’s a look at a couple of pages on adding with regrouping:

Mary also seems to be allergic to Calculadders for math facts, so for extra practice on the math facts, we supplement with Add-It, a game from the Math-It program.

The idea is to place the cards on the correct sum as quickly as possible (you can try to place them all while holding your breath for fun ;0).

David was also able to use Add-It to shore up his addition facts.

Key to Fractions (David’s Math)

We started this school year with David using Life of Fred Fractions. Much as we like the novelty of Fred, we found it to be a poor fit for David. He is concept strong, but procedurally weak, and Fred did not give him enough practice using what he’d learned. When he doesn’t use it daily, he forgets it, to the point where he needs to totally relearn it. There simply isn’t enough material in Fred to cement things for him without heavy supplementation, which we were actually doing, but in the end I found it simply wasn’t enough. It was like doing Math on the Level, making up 5-a-days without actually using Math on the Level. If I didn’t rotate the procedural things right, he would forget how to do something he had demonstrated complete mastery of just a week before.

Learning glitches stink!

But, I came to a conclusion: Life of Fred did not have enough building up of smaller concepts. And it didn’t take advantage of his strong visual memory. So we switched to Key to Fractions by Key Curriculum Press in December. I’m still reserving my opinion, but so far so good.

Fractions is just one of several topics available in the series and is covered in 4 thin books (topics vary in size, so each topic has a different number of books), plus an answer key.

What I like:

The topic is broken down into little chunks.
The books encourage David to think and truly understand why he’s doing what he’s doing.
Even though they are black and white, they are actually pretty visual and allow the child plenty of opportunities to color the concepts to help them stick.
They are cheap. I paid about $15 for the 4 workbooks and answer key from Rainbow Resource. (This is consumable)

These are from the first book. I had him start about midway into the book, which will overlap some with what he already knows, but the review won’t hurt him.

I love these strings of equal fractions. One of the procedures David really had trouble with in Fred was adding together fractions with different denominators. He could never remember how to find a common denominator. This is going to really make it click for him, I think.

In addition to Key to Fractions, David continues to work with his custom multiplication flash cards.

Using some tips from Dianne Craft, David’s cards are written in colors and each has the complete fact. He has a semi-photographic memory and the cards capitalize on that gift by helping him lock strong pictures of the facts in his head. I use 4”x6” cards. You could use 5”x8” if you want. Or colored cards. Or add vivid pictures to the facts. We tried it this way first and it seemed to be sticking so we have stuck with it.

Looking up while viewing the card helps, believe it or not.

He had a little bit of fact loss over the break, but not too much.

In the new year, David also started using Time-Travel Math: An Advanced Geometry Adventure for Grades 4-5 (I ignore grade labels, this is appropriate for his current skill level). It’s too soon to tell if this is going to work well (David’s already complaining about it, but that’s not an accurate sign ;0). This is a thinky book, it encourages him to think things out and to represent his understanding through simple diagrams and then convert them into abstract equations. Pretty sophisticated, really. And the worksheets for doing the exploratory activities are reproducible, so I’ll be able to use this with Mary when she’s older.

OK, I could talk more about the little informal things we do in math, but I’m going to stop there because I promised myself I would write less than last time. And I have. Just barely. ;0)

I invite you to bookmark this page and visit the other bloggers participating this week in the Virtual Curriculum Fair. I will link their posts here as I receive them:

Math Lapbooks---Virtual Curriculum Fair Week 2 Angie Wright @ Petra School

Virtual Curriculum Fair Week Two: Discover Patterns, Mathematics, Logic and Some Science by Leah @ The Courtney Six Homeschool

Our Choices For Math by Melissa @ Grace Christian Homeschool

A Magnificent Math Manipulative by Letha Paulk @ justpitchingmytent

Our Math Choices - Virtual Curriculum Fair by Tristan @ Our Busy Homeschool

Math Literature?!?! by Christine @ Crunchy Country Catholic

Learning Math at My House by Jessica @ Modest Mama

Math Using Hamburger Paper by Debbie @ Debbie's Digest

Math Facts or Fun? Why Not Both! by Beth @ Ozark Ramblings

Heart of Dakota- The Fine Details- Part 2 Science by Lynn @ Ladybug Chronicles

Learning Math Block by Block by Laura O in AK @ Day by Day in Our World

Plugging Along with Math by Cindy Horton @ Fenced in Family

What's Working and What's Not: Math Edition by Leann @ Montessori Tidbits

Math Anyone? by Cindy @ For One Another

Ahh, Math. by Nicole @ Schooling in the Sun

Flying Without a Parachute: Math with no Curriculum by Pam @ Everyday Snapshots

Math in Our Homeschool by Christine T @ Our Homeschool Reviews

Math, Math, and More Math by Dawn Chandler @ tractors & tire swings

Thinking Mathematically- How I Choose Math Curriculum by Kristen @ Sunrise to Sunset

Discovering Patterns: Math, Logic, and Some Science by Christa Darr @ Fairfield Corner Academy

The Science of Math by Brenda Emmett @ Garden of Learning

"Mom, did we do math today?" by Chrissy at Learning is an Adventure

Math, Math, and More Math by Joelle @ Homeschooling for His Glory

Tutorial: Kit for Building Imaginary Caves and Forts

2012-01-08T08:00:00.000-05:00

This was maybe the best Christmas gift the kids opened. It was also the cheapest.

What kid wouldn’t love a bag full of sheets to build their dream forts with?

Now, I don’t take credit for the main idea of a “fort kit.” I was seeing a sundry of homemade versions all over the internet in the weeks leading up to Christmas. Who knows who did it first. Some manufacturer even has a mass produced variety, I think. Go ahead, do an internet search for lots of possibilities.

But it’s an old idea, anyway.

What kid hasn’t pulled his bedsheet over his head, grabbed a flashlight and pretended he was caving for hidden treasures?

Or dragged his bedspread down the stairs and thrown it over the couch to make a bad guy hideout?

But who hasn’t tried to get that blanket to stay just so, only to have 2-year-old sis yank it off, or the precariously balanced toys used as weights simply slip over the edge?

Our blankets were forever being dragged around. I have limited blankets and well, sometimes you need them to keep warm. ;0)

So, I came up with my own version of the cave/fort kit, using primarily materials I already had. The store bought extras are optional. A tutorial follows.

The main innovation for the kit is adding ties to the edges of your sheets (or blankets, or cloth) so they can be joined together or tied to other things. Most of the instructions I saw called for using bias tape or ribbon or some other straight trim, whatever is cheap or on hand.

I used…velcro! Because I had it already and because half of my kids don’t know how to tie. Or at least, not without irrevocably knotting the string whatever they are tying. I have to say that I think the velcro is a definite improvement. These were cheap 1 yard generic hanks that cost $1-$2 each. You need 1 yard for each sheet. They were just sitting around not getting used in my house.

Most of the kit instructions recommend using old or new flat bed sheets. Twin is fine.

I used…fabric! Because I had it already (it was meant for a home project at our old house but we found out we were moving before said project was completed), and what kid wouldn’t like to to hide under trees or butterflies or a starry night sky?

Now, you can often find super cheap fabrics on Walmart’s bargain table (for as little as $1/yd), or at other fabric stores, so even if you don’t already have the fabric, if you are thinking about buying new product to make this, fabric is definitely a viable option.

Most of the kit instructions recommend making a bag to keep it all in out of a pillow case or matching sheet. I thought about my kiddos trying to fold everything just so and stuff it into a pillow case…uh, not going to happen.

I used…a nice roomy reusable bag that I got for free. I have a few promotional totes sitting around, this one just has a dedicated use, now. It has the added advantage of being easy to spot.

And there’s plenty of room in their for the bag of “skirt clips” ($2.50 at Walmart---these are actually designed for clipping onto a bottom of a plastic hanger to change it into a skirt hanger, but they are much sturdier than cheap clothespins and work great for this), and 3 small flashlights (got a 3 pack in the seasonal aisle for $5).

Ok, so here’s what you need to do to make your fort kit. It took me a little over an hour to make this one.

Materials:

2-4 twin sheets or 2-1/2 yard lengths of fabric (I used 45” wide, but 60” would be closer to sheet size)
1 yard of velcro per sheet or length of fabric, cut into 6 6” lengths
matching (or non-matching) thread
a sewing machine or adequate hand-sewing skills

optional:

a bag of some kind to keep it in
flashlights or a lantern, headlamps would be cool
clips or clamps to increase their attachment options

Prewash your sheets or fabric. If you are using fabric, you may want to zigzag the ends to cut down on fraying. Important: I cannot stress this enough, always prewash washable fabric, sheets, etc. In addition to not having later troubles due to shrinkage, fabric manufacturers treat their product with all kinds of nasty chemicals (including formaldehyde) to keep bugs from eating it. Did you know bugs will eat any natural fiber fabric, not just wool? Those chemicals are not good for you or your kids, but they wash out, so wash them!
If you are using sheets, go to step 3. If you are using fabric, make a narrow hem at each end of your length of fabric. Just fold it over 2x and sew. I used a zigzag Doesn’t need to be perfect and this is one instance where I give you permission to skip pressing it. You can hem the selvedges if you want, but it’s not really necessary.
Now You are going to sew your velcro on. Take a 6” strip with both sides (the loopy side and the scratchy side) lined up and stuck together. Unstick them at one end and sandwich the corner of your sheet between them at that end. Stitch a straight stitch over the sandwich back and forth, several times. It’ll look like this: When you want to use the velcro, you unstick from itself and stick it to a corresponding piece or wrap it around something (like a chair or banister) and stick it to itself. When not in use, the velcro sticks to itself so it doesn’t get stuck to other things. Plus, you can throw it in the wash without having a mess on your hands.
Sew another strip to each of the other 3 corners the same way. Then find the midway point along both long sides and sew 1 strip on each of those sides.
Repeat steps 1-4 for as many sheets or lengths of fabric as you have and you are done.

Now enjoy!

You might also like:

Funky, Furry Scarf Tutorial

Collector Box Tutorial

Cloak Tutorial

Week 2 of the Virtual Curriculum Fair Has Started!

2012-01-07T22:12:00.001-05:00

My next post for the Virtual Curriculum Fair goes live Monday morning, but entries from my fellow homeschool bloggers are already coming in for Week 2 of the Fair!

The theme:

January 9th---Discovering Patterns: Mathematics, Logic, and some Science. This theme can include anything to do with mathematics, mathematical thinking, numbers, arithmetic, symbolic logic, critical thinking, and math-y sciences (physics, chemistry, etc.).

There are about 30 bloggers signed up who are participating during 1 or more weeks during the Fair (we had 21 entries last week on Language Arts!), and it’s not too late to join the fun (until the fair is over ;0). Email me if you are interested in joining this week. susanadale@gmail.com

To understand what the Virtual Curriculum Fair is all about, read this. The deadlines have changed slightly to allow more blogging flexibility. Entries can post anytime between today and Monday at 9pm EST.

Setting Goals in Our Homeschool, the Kiddos Have Their Say

2012-01-07T08:00:00.000-05:00

At the beginning of each new year, I ask each of the kiddos about their dreams and goals for the year. It’s become a tradition, something that I started when we made the cross country trip a couple of years ago, because, well…

it’s easy for me, the teaching mama, to get so wrapped up in my own goals for them that I can forget they have their own goals, their own dreams.

So each year I ask them what they want to learn more about and what they would like to personally accomplish. And I do my best to give them any help they need to reach those goals.

So from youngest to oldest…

Emma (age 2) was mum on this subject. We’ll try again next year. ;0)

Peter (age 6)

Wants to learn

about dragon myths and everything else about dragons
how to take care of monsters
how to bake and how to put stuff in the oven
how to draw realistically
how to not be bad
how to tame a dinosaur
how to be serious
how to be a bunny
how to be a dragon
how to make computer games
how to be a ghost
how to let David have a turn
how to be a Peter
how not to steal milk

As you can see, learning how to be serious may prove to be a serious challenge. :0)

Mary (age 8 next week)

Wants to learn

all about hamsters (she may be getting one for her birthday)
all about white tigers
how to crochet (she learned how to knit this year)

Wants to

improve her knitting
make a scarf for Peter
master the guitar

David (age 11)

Wants to

learn about anteaters
figure out why people build towers instead of underground…aren’t underground buildings more resistant to hurricanes, tsunamis, tornadoes, and volcanoes?
make plans to build something out of something
learn how a jet engine works
understand why Einstein said that it’s impossible to go faster than the speed of light
learn more about Tesla (the inventor, not the rock band)
to learn how to cook his favorite foods
write well
learn how to make computer games

Sounds like it’s going to be a busy year in our homeschool!

What would your children like to learn about this year?

You might also like:

Touching Our Dreams

Be Their Cheerleader

Top Ten Ways to Raise Super Learners

Our Homeschool Week in Review: Learning Unintended Lessons

2012-01-06T16:57:00.001-05:00

We got through it! Yeah!

Ok, that doesn’t sound particularly positive, does it?

I admit that it has been a challenging week. One fraught with adjustment and discombobulation. I seem to be surrounded by little people who like to discombobulate me (and each other).

from Dictionary.com:

dis·com·bob·u·late [dis-kuhm-bob-yuh-leyt]

verb (used with object), -lat·ed, -lat·ing.
to confuse or disconcert; upset; frustrate: The speaker was completely discombobulated by the hecklers.

I feel an affinity with that speaker. Lately I have trouble putting 2 thoughts together. kkhnk jknmjhjjm m mmkmkjiojn

Thank you, Emma for your input. You see what happens when I get up from the computer to attend to a child’s needs?

As I was saying, it never helps when I have a cold. It’s as if my cold voice sinks to a particular register that makes it impossible for people under 15 to hear me.

So please pardon my rambling, there’s a buzzing in my brain due to congestion and constant talking in my ears by little people. ;0)

Ahem, seriously, I am counting this as a successful week of learning. Not only did the kiddos learn some of the things I actually planned for them to learn (after we dealt with the holiday brain-drain), I learned some things.

First, the kiddos:

Emma (age 2) learned that if you draw all over yourself with a regular dry-erase marker instead of with a washable dry-erase marker, that the marks will not wash off and you will probably look like a Tattooed Lady wannabe for a week.

Ok, that wasn’t exactly planned, but I really do hope she gets the message this time. And why does she have to be so dang cute when she’s being naughty?

Peter (age 6) learned that if Mama says she’s going to take Wii away if he doesn’t stop busting into his sister’s room, that she really means it.

Ok, that wasn’t exactly planned, either, but learning that rudeness will go unrewarded is a good thing.

He also went through the entire 2nd Phonics set for the LeapPad (short vowels, this was a good review after the break), read the reader and then proceeded to write me a note using several of the words from the book, spelling them all correctly. Yeah!

Mary (almost 8) learned that she can already spell all the words on the –oi, –oy spelling list in level 2 of All About Spelling. She is also just 2 steps away from completing this level. She also learned how to add 2 digit numbers together with re-grouping.

Mary and David (age 11) both learned more about the facts of life and the birds and the bees this week. They are growing up before I want them to! This was about their reaction:

David: “I don’t wanna do it (grow up).”

Mary: “But what can I do now to prepare myself?”

This about sums up their general reaction to life.

David is continuing to learn about fractions. This week he practiced converting improper fractions to mixed fractions. He also read about Columbus’ second voyage and drew a map of the Greater and Lesser Antilles.

All of the children learned about animals down under. David’s favorite was the Echidna. And there were bunches of other little things, but these are the highlights.

And what did I learn?

That the physical and emotional gap between my 2 oldest kiddos was smaller than I imagined.

That having a light transition week after the holiday was a good idea, especially as Daddy’s schedule has been a little different from usual.

That I wouldn’t want to be a professional blogger. Organizing the Virtual Curriculum Fair has had too much of a monopoly on my thoughts.

And that I need to come up with some good personal goals this year.

How about you? What did you and your kiddos learn this week?

Linking to the Weekly Wrap-up at weird, unsocialized homeschoolers.

You might also like:

Christmas Portraits

Artsy Keepsake From the Kids

The Week of Discoveries

Get Homeschool Giveaways in Your Inbox

2012-01-05T17:40:00.003-05:00

Have you heard about Homeschool Giveaways? It's a great new site featuring just that, homeschool giveaways. ;0)

The best way to find out how to win is to subscribe for email updates, and right now they are having a little fun competition...who can refer the most new subscribers.

Do me a favor, hop over to Homeschool Giveaways, subscribe (you'll see a subscription box at the top right), and tell them I sent ya (my email address is susanadale@gmail.com). The top 5 referrers will be put in a pot for a chance to win a $50 GC to their sister site, Hearts at Home Curriculum, and just in time for their 30% off sale that starts next week.

The best part as that once you subscribe, you can start sending referrals yourself. Ends 1-6-12 (that's tomorrow, folks). Spread the word.

Coming soon, review of K5 Learning

2012-01-05T14:25:00.002-05:00

K5 Learning has an online reading and math program for kindergarten to grade 5 students. I've been given a 6 week free trial to test and write a review of their program. If you are a blogger, you may want to check out their open invitation to write an online learning review of their program.

On Learning to Spell

2012-01-02T06:00:00.021-05:00

Welcome to the first week of the Virtual Curriculum Fair! Each Monday in the month of January, a whole gaggle of wonderful homeschooling mamas will be exploring a new theme as it pertains to how we educate our kiddos.

Update: If you are visiting from the Carnival of Homeschooling, thank you for coming over to check out our little Fair. This post is quite long (could have been a series all by itself, lol), but you will find posts by 19 other homeschool bloggers linked at its end on the subject of language arts, so don't be afraid to skim or bookmark me and come back when you have more time.

January can be a hump month, a time when we start looking forward to what’s to come. Or pulling our hair out because things aren’t going “according to plan.” ;0)

We hope to both challenge and inspire as you ponder where you’ve been so far and dream about where your journey will take you.

And as practical helps certainly won’t hurt, there will be plenty of those, too.

The Fair is meant to give you a real view of what goes on when it comes to educating our kiddos, with a focus on what’s working and why.

This first week’s theme is:

Playing with Words: the Language Arts

At the end of this post, I will be linking to the other ladies’ posts as I receive their links. I encourage you to bookmark this page and visit the other posts throughout the week…as we have about 30 bloggers signed up (!) to participate for some to all of the Fair, it’s bound to be a bit too much for a single sitting (update: there's a total of 20 articles this week).

On Learning to Spell

Today I’m going to be focusing on spelling. I’ve been meaning to write about this topic for awhile, but the Fair finally gave me the kick in the pants I needed to sit down and expound upon my endless ruminations on spelling. Yes, spelling keeps me up nights. I know I’m a geek and I’m ok with that.

Now, I’m not a spelling expert, by any means. These thoughts come from my personal experiences in helping my own children learn to spell. I’m going to talk about what we have done, what worked (or is working), and what didn’t work. And why. Along the way, I’ll also talk about how spelling really made it sink in how differently different children learn the same information and how sometimes it’s just best to not teach something. This is going to be a looong post (um, it’s a book, okay, it’s a least a pamphlet), so I'll add some headings to help the skimmers out there to navigate. I’m not arrogant enough to think that everybody wants to read every word I write. Geesh!

Sometimes It’s Better to Skip Spelling

When I started homeschooling my oldest, David, who is now in 6th grade, I didn’t teach him how to spell. He was in 2nd grade and he already knew how to spell. He could spell anything he could read and he was reading at a 5th-7th grade level.

A year or so later I started thinking that I needed to incorporate a spelling program. Somehow. Because, you know, you are supposed to teach spelling, right? I mean, spelling is part of a well-rounded language arts program, isn’t it? See, I was paying to much attention to what other folks were doing.

And he would occasionally hit a word he couldn’t spell. Or mispronounce a word he came across in his reading that he wasn’t already familiar with.

Spelling rules. He needed to learn the spelling rules. Right? Maybe?

So I bought Natural Speller by Kathryn Stout. It seemed like a good choice since he seemed to be a natural speller. And I started quizzing him on the word lists. I’d give him a new list every day of 10 or more words. It was a couple of weeks before I hit a word here or there that he spelled incorrectly, and invariably it was an –ie or –ei word. It took took several weeks before I compiled a list of 10 words to work with him on.

I’m not telling you this to make you think my son is brilliant. Spelling simply comes easy to him (many other things do not). I’m telling you this to show you what a dope I am. Did he really need to go back and learn all the spelling rules just to master the few hiccups he had in spelling? Why was I wasting my time (and his) trying to find the words he couldn’t spell? Wouldn’t it have made more sense to simply be alert to misspellings in his work and go from there?

And after a few months, that’s what I finally did. Does my son know all the spelling rules? Nope. Can he spell every single word from memory. Probably not, but he does have a semi-photographic memory and if he has seen it in print, chances are he can spell it. Since he’s a voracious reader, he’s read a lot of words.

He does occasionally misspell a word in his writing, and I simply use that as an opportunity to teach that word and other words that fit its pattern…Natural Speller makes a great resource for these instances. He does occasionally mispronounce a word he’s read but not heard…the curse of book learning! And a good opportunity to talk about what he’s reading.

Someone out there is shaking their head and thinking…but he’ll never know all the phonemes! He’ll never know all the rules!

That is true. He’ll never know all of anything. As human beings, we have no hope of not having gaps in our knowledge (that’s a topic for another discussion), so we simply must make choices about what to teach and what to learn. It makes a whole lot more sense to spend the time and energy on something he needs help with rather than on something he’s getting by just fine on his own with.

My Natural Speller

But not all of my children are natural spellers.

Teaching to Each Child

We’ve all seen programs, and maybe bought a few, that were sold as “use with all your children, this program can be used over and over again!” Wouldn’t it be great if you could buy exactly one set of materials and it would work with every single child? And, what’s more, you could teach it exactly the same way each time?

It sure would save me a lot of time and money. But what I’ve found is that each my children is an individual and what one gets (and gets right away) another won’t. Spelling is no exception.

While my oldest is a natural speller and has no trouble at all duplicating the picture of a word he has in head on his paper, his (nearly) 8-year-old sister used to struggle with spelling. Mary is now in 2nd grade and an excellent reader (of the same caliber as her brother at this age). But she doesn’t see the words in her head the way he does. And her temperament is very different. She is rule oriented. When she writes words, she doesn’t write them from her memory of how she saw them on the page, she sounds them out and writes them phonetically.

And so a program that is based on phonemes and learning the rules makes perfect sense for her.

My Rule Follower

All About Spelling, a Rules-Based Spelling Program

Mary is learning to spell using All About Spelling (AAS) by Marie Rippel. I was fortunate enough to receive this program for review over 3 years ago, when Mary wasn’t even reading yet. Would I be using it if I hadn’t received it for review? I honestly don’t know. I might have chosen a different program. But AAS has been a good fit for her with some minor modifications. Some of those modifications might have been necessary with any rules-based spelling program because I feel there are some inherent limitations in this approach to spelling (more on that in a bit).

This is our 2nd year using AAS with Mary and she’s nearly finished with level 2. Her spelling has improved by leaps and bounds. Judging from what I’ve seen some of her peers doing and the word lists in Kathryn Stout’s book , I would say that it’s slightly above 2nd grade level. Not up to her reading level, but slowly getting there. One of the disadvantages of this approach is that it is slow. But it seems to stick, and that’s the important thing.

AAS’s Inherent Limitations and Why Spelling English is So DARN Hard

One of the biggest problems with a rules-based program is that English doesn’t always seem to follow the rules. Some people say there are too many exceptions. Or too many rules (and there are a lot of rules).

One thing at play is that English follows different sets of rules depending upon the origin of the word in question.

So we can say, for instance, that English words don’t end in “i,” and still have words like “ski” and “yeti.” These are words that our language has adopted in their original form, and so they don’t follow the same spelling patterns.

There are also cases where language has grown and changed (sometimes in pronunciation, usage, and spelling). Any language that’s been around for hundreds of years will change---the reason Latin is “dead” is not because it’s not spoken much (it’s actually spoken a lot) but because it’s not undergoing a constant evolutionary process like vernacular languages. This may explain why so many of our constantly used verbs are irregular when less common verbs are not (is, are, was, were vs. types, type, typed, typed).

And then there are all those homonyms that can probably be explained between different origins and usage changes, like to, too, and two.

Not to mention changes in dialect. In some parts of the US root and route are pronounced the same way, and in others they definitely are not. And I understand that linguistic research is showing that English in Shakespeare’s time was pronounced quite differently from what you might hear today on the BBC. He was much punnier than we supposed.

So spelling by the rules sounds simple, but has some inherent limitations. One of the ways that AAS tries to counteract the difficulty with, for instance, differences in dialect is to reinforce the notion of pronouncing words correctly (um, yeah, who’s to say for sure which pronunciation is correct?) and to remind the student to pronounce or say the word to spell it. Can you see the problem? It’s a circular directive. I can’t say it to spell it unless I already know how it’s spelled, and then I don’t need to say it to spell it because I already know how to spell it. ;0)

If I remember correctly, the instructor’s notes also remind you, the teacher, to pronounce the words the way they are spelled. Well I don’t do that. When I introduce a word, perhaps, but not regularly. But, frankly, we need to be able to spell the words regardless of who is speaking them. Understanding one another and being able to communicate is the whole point of writing, after all.

While AAS is billed as being based on the rules, there’s a whole lot of memorizing of individual words going on.

Homonyms, for example. As each is introduced separately, you give it in a sentence so the definition is clear. The student needs to learn to associate that particular definition with that particular spelling.

And then there’s the different ways a particular sound can be spelled. Long e can be “ea,” “e-e”, “ee, “ “y,” and “ey” (did I forget any?). There’s no particular rule to tell you which it is in each case…remember words origins and changes in usage probably come into play here. You simply learn a list of words that follow this particular rule and memorize (by practice) which words are on that list.

An ideal rules-based spelling program would probably also simultaneously teach word roots and origins, but that still wouldn’t account for changes over time in usage, spelling, and pronunciation. I’ve found that AAS works best for Mary with some minor modifications.

How We Use All About Spelling

AAS is designed so that your child progresses at their own pace. You don’t move onto the next lesson until they have mastered the previous one. I know some people take a week for each lesson (there are 25 lessons in level 2). We are currently going through 2-3 lessons a week, but we slow down if we hit a difficult lesson. Typically I do the new teaching one day, through to spelling the words using the letter tiles, and then spelling on paper and dictation of phrases and sentences the next day. We do spelling 4-5 days a week, depending on our schedule.

One of the attractions of AAS is that it has a kinesthetic aspect to it, the word tiles. The lesson is meant to be given using the word tiles and the first time you give new words your child is supposed to spell them using the tiles.

The consonants are blue, the vowels red, and then you have some consonant and vowel teams, plus special tiles. Marie Rippel recommends using a 3’ x 2’ magnetic board. A white board is best for optimal versatility. We use a smaller board (I think it’s about 24” x 18”) for 2 reasons: easier to store and shorter reach (short arms get tired). We actually first started by using the side of the fridge, but Mary got tired of always standing and reaching here and there, and I got tired of chasing down the tiles that her baby sister stole and stuffed under the fridge (you’ll notice they are different shades of blue and red? I had to make new tiles ;0). This size works well enough that I can’t justify the expense and storing issue of a larger board. Plus Mary doesn’t want a bigger board! She says this is far enough to reach.

We don’t use the board for every lesson. Mary’s not a fan of manipulatives in general and she always groans when I get out the board. Sometimes we just use a white board (I have a peel and stick one on front of the fridge) and different colored dry erase markers. The physical act of writing the words helps her.

While the manual directs you to have the child put the letters all back in order after spelling each word before spelling the next, I don’t do that.

As each word list has a “pattern” to it, I find that having her rearrange letters (and picking up new ones as needed) to make each new word helps to reinforce the pattern. Plus, it takes much less time.

AAS has you use an index card box with phoneme cards, key cards (some of the rules) and word cards. I don’t use the word cards at all. I simply put a tick mark by any she misses with a pencil and make sure I use those words in copywork or sentence dictation. It’s one less thing for me to get out and there are a lot of word cards. Plus, the extra words in the book don’t have cards at all. It’s just easier to have all my notations in one place.

Sometimes Mary writes her dictation on lined paper and sometimes she writes it on a lined white board.

This cuts down on paper usage and clutter and it helps with the doldrums.

Some of the lessons will have optional words in addition to the 10 spelling words that follow the same rule. I always have her spell the extra words, even if she gets all the spelling words with no problems. And I have found that she sometimes has difficulty with the extra words and didn’t with the first 10 words.

One aspect of AAS is the word banks. There are a few different lists of words that follow particular patterns (they are printed on cardstock sheets) that you are supposed to give to your child and have them look over periodically so they can visualize the words that fit that pattern (remember the different spellings of long e?). This is essentially an aid to memorizing and the words in the word banks are just words (including the extra words) from the lessons.

Mary is really not a visual learner. She doesn’t remember how she saw a word spelled. She can read a word one minute and not be able to spell it instantly after that. Her brain just doesn’t work that way. So we don’t use the word banks at all. I give her practice with those words by giving her additional sentence dictation using them and copywork. The physical act of writing the word helps it stick. Every few days I throw in some scriptural copywork or have her copy some other words I want her to learn that are beyond where she’s at in AAS.

I do this because her vocabulary and reading level is much higher than where she’s at in AAS and it’s frustrating for her when she wants to use these words in her own writing. Between both All About Spelling and other copywork, her spelling has really improved and is much closer to her true verbal level.

I’ll add that before I started AAS with her, I had Mary do plenty of copywork and handwriting practice, but it didn’t seem to improve her spelling on its own. The addition of a rules-based program has been a real win for her.

I’ll conclude here by saying that I didn’t start formal spelling instruction with Mary until she was reading independently. It simply felt right to do it that way with her. Trying to learn to read and spell at the same time was too frustrating for her---she wasn’t connecting the one with the other enough for it to help. You might think that learning phonetic spelling rules would be helpful in learning to read. Not so in her case.

However, her 6-year-old brother, Peter, is learning to read and making progress. He is not yet an independent reader, but he wants to write words. And has some of the most amazing phonetic spellings. I think I may start spelling with him soon. ;0)

Linked to the Carnival of Homeschooling

Take some time this week to visit some of the other Virtual Curriculum Fair participants. I promise you, they didn’t all write books like I did. ;0)

Reading on Time by Cindy Horton @ Fenced in Family

Playing with Words: the Language Arts by Christa Darr @ Fairfield Corner Academy

Reading and Beyond: Language Arts in Our Homeschool by Laura O in AK @ Day by Day in Our World

Language Arts that Work for Us by Melissa @ Grace Christian School

Learning Language at Our House by Jessica @ Modest Mama

Virtual Curriculum Fair: Language Arts by Christine T. @ Our Homeschool Reviews

The Learning of Language by Dawn @ tractors & tire swings

Reading and Spelling: Modifying the Magic by Pam @ Pam and Everyday Snapshots

An In Depth Look at All About Spelling by Missouri Mama @ Ozark Ramblings

Virtual Curriculum Fair: Let's Talk About Words by Debra @ Footprints in the Butter

Why We Love Classical Conversations Essentials (and how I know that is not a complete sentence!) by Nicole @ Schooling in the Sun

Virtual Curriculum Fair---Playing with Words: the Language Arts by Angie @ Petra School

Whole Language vs. Phonics by Christine @ Crunchy Country Catholic

It's All About the Art of Language by Brenda Emmett @ Garden of Learning

Watching Movies for Language Arts Class by Debbie @ Debbie's Digest

Only 5 Spelling Tests a Year! (Can we do that?) by LP @ justpitchingmytent

Playing with Words by Chrissy @ Learning is an Adventure

Language Art at Our House by Joelle @ Homeschooling for His Glory

Virtual Curriculum Fair Week One Playing with Words: the Language Arts by Leah Courtney @ The Courtney Six Homeschool Blog

Playing with Words, the Language Arts by Cindy @ For One Another

Heart of Dakota- The Fine Details part 1- Language Arts by Lynn @ Ladybug Chronicles

A Very Happy New Year!

2012-01-02T00:09:00.001-05:00

May you are yours have a wonderful year!

Working on some goals for this year…why do I always always put things off to the very last minute?

But, now that I’ve put my first post for the Virtual Curriculum Fair to bed, I can start thinking more seriously about my personal dreams.

Let’s see if I can make things happen this year instead of giving up and bowing my head in shame.

And I’ll leave you with this pic of my dear husband with his grandmother and 3 of the kiddos. I love this.

Fitness Kick-Start Team: The End?

2011-12-30T13:26:00.003-05:00

.. .

Fitness, of course, is a lifelong journey (struggle?) that we all pursue in our own ways, but with the end of this month we reach the end of the Fitness Kick-Start Team. It’s been fun and inspiring to have a whole team of ladies all working towards better fitness together. ;0)

And how was this last week? This week of Christmas feasts and entertaining?

Hmmm, let’s talk about what I learned not to do.

I will not dispense with writing out the water and caffeine I’ve consumed, believing I can remember and keep it straight in my head, no matter how busy I am. Seeing those little tick marks on my pad is a big motivator. I totally messed up in this department this week and I believe not have the tick marks contributed to that.
I will not keep the containers of cookies on the counter if full view at all times. Putting the tempting goodies away helps to keep my munching in line (I don’t typically have a munching problem, but I did this week with the influx of party tidbits and not enough cabinet space to hide them).
I will not stay up to all hours, especially when I know that I need to get up extra early to start the cooking the feast. And 2 straight days of little more than cooking, cleaning, and chasing the kiddos out of the kitchen might get the job done, but leaves me worn out and resentful. Not at all good for my mental fitness. The body and spirit both need rest.

And did I actually meet any of my goals?

I was making progress in the drink more water and less caffeine department, but messed up the past 4 days. I was too focused on making my home homey for guests and preparing food and not very good about taking care of myself. But I think I can turn this around again when we get back to our normal groove next week.

Still getting a good workout from de-cluttering the house and rearranging furniture. Although this is getting to be a bit of a drag. ;0) There’s something draining about going through all the artifacts of your own life. I’m planning to do some more fun things in the movement department, but haven’t decided yet what those will be.

Computer time is still a challenge for me, but having a couple of days this week when I did virtually nothing on the computer was really good. I was much more productive and my mood was much better. So, the next step is to come up with a plan for managing my computer time better---it’s so easy to sink into aimless surfing and checking your email every 30 seconds. I’m not sure what this plan is going to look like, yet, but I’ll keep you posted.

Overall---this month didn’t end up anything like what I expected, but sometimes the unexpected is a good thing. I’m getting my physical house in order, which is good for both my physical and mental fitness. And I’m discovering what my limitations are: sometimes I need to make it easier to do the healthy thing by modifying my environment and giving myself more accountability. Not a 100% success, but I’m moving forward, and that’s the important thing.

Please visit the other Fitness Kick-Start Team members to see how they did this week (I’ll be adding links as they go live):

Sharon @ the Legacy of Home

Kathy @ Teaching Good Things

Dawn @ Guiding Light Homeschool

Angie @ Petra School

Shannon @ Mom Loves Books

Heather @ Marine Corps Nomads

Briana @ I Can't Decide

You might also enjoy:
Fitness Kick-Start Team week 1
Fitness Kick-Start Team week 2
Fitness Kick-Start Team week 3

The Virtual Curriculum Fair Starts Monday!

2011-12-30T08:00:00.004-05:00

Wow, the end of the year just flew by and we’re getting ready to ring in the new year with the Virtual Curriculum Fair! Each Monday in the month of January, grab a hot cup of tea (or coffee or hot cocoa) and take a break to read about how other Mamas are educating their kiddos at home. We hope to inspire you and maybe give you some ideas for the new year.

For a list of the topics for each week, click this link or the 2012 Virtual Curriculum Fair tab at the top of my blog.

In the meantime, here are the participants so you can visit and get to know them better. ;0)

Each of these ladies will be sharing some in depth info on how they do what they do.

Susan @ Homeschooling Hearts & Minds

Janet @ I Blog 4 Boys

Melissa @ Grace Christian School

Brenda Emmett @ Garden of Learning

Tristan @ Our Busy Homeschool

Leann @ Montessori Tidbits

Angie @ Petra School

Lori @ NotSoSuperwoman’s Homeschool, Reviews and More

Laura O in AK @ Day by Day in Our World

Debra @ Footprints in the Butter

LP @ JustPitchingMyTent

Nicole @ Schooling in the Sun

Leah Courtney @ The Courtney Six Homeschool Blog

Kristen H. @ Sunrise to Sunset

Cindy Horton @ Fenced in Family

Christine @ Our Homeschool Reviews

Lynn @ Ladybug Chronicles

Sarah @ Casteluzzo - in search of a dream to call home

Jesse @ Orange Marmalade Mama

Jessica @ Modest Mama

Lori Boling @ Loving Learning at Home

Christine @ Crunchy Country Catholic

Alexis Love @ Love Life

Cindy Lemay @ For One Another

Jennifer @ a glimpse of our life

Debbie Phillips @ Debbie’s Digest

Christa Darr @ Fairfield Corner Academy: The Story of Our Life

Dawn @ tractors & tire swings

Missouri Mama @ Ozark Ramblings

Joelle @ Homeschooling for His Glory

Pam @ Pam and Everyday Snapshots

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-24T22:28:00.001-05:00

And people wonder why I don’t get professional portraits, lol!

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

Christmas Eve Keepsake

2011-12-24T14:59:00.001-05:00

One of the great things about going through everything you own to cut out clutter and simplify your life is that you are bound to find something you forgot you had.

Last year I picked up this inexpensive craft kit for making foam picture ornaments. The idea is to glue a picture of a kid onto each ornament and let the kiddos decorate them with little sticky-back foam pieces.

We never got around to making them last year. Or maybe I bought them on clearance after Christmas? Who remembers?

I thought they’d make a nice, quiet craft for the kiddos to do this morning. But, being my kids, they thought of a new way to use them.

Why not make them into frames for miniature works of art instead?

We added magnets to the backs so they can be displayed throughout the year. Won’t the Grands love their mini masterpieces?

Now, I used the foam kit because I happened to have it. ;0)

But, there’s no reason why you couldn’t use this same idea with whatever bits you happen to have on hand. I had the children draw their pictures on cardstock circles so they wouldn’t warp when glued to the ornaments.

You could use jar lids, and tie a pretty ribbon around the outside. Or juice can lids, the metal ones from frozen juice concentrate. Even pieces of cardstock or construction paper would work. Don’t forget to add the child’s name and the year. to the back.

The Simple Life: DE-Clutter Week 1

2011-12-23T17:26:00.001-05:00

Remember this?

This is what it looks like now:

David is so happy with his new, warm bedroom. He needs some work on making a bed, though. ;0)

So, where did all the stuff go? Some has been temporarily moved into the attic until I have more time to go through it. Some has been given away. And some has been thrown away. Emma’s dresser/changing table has been temporarily moved to the hallway.

Our once overflowing toy bins in the living room have also been tamed:

Yeah!

Hubby started going through our books and our movie collection. All the VHS tapes are now GONE (boohoo!). Severely damaged or sickeningly drippy kids books are GONE.

In the past week, we threw out 2 big black trash bags worth of stuff and packed up 5 or 6 boxes to donate to the local thrift store. But, my home is currently a wreck with more stuff still to go through.

It’s more than a little daunting. But let me say, it has already been a positive experience.

The play kitchen set (the one I’ve had since I was a little girl) has found new life now that the kids can find all the play food and pots and pans to go with it. Emma loves throwing tea parties.

Trains have overtaken the floor. And Em is becoming a regular Duplo architect.

Less is definitely more. Lately, the kiddos would come to me whining during play time that they were bored and had nothing to do. I’m not saying that the whining has totally stopped, but they are definitely finding things to do.

No, if I could just get them to help out more with the actual de-cluttering process (never try to go weed out the kiddos’ toys when they’re in the same room, ok?).

The living room is pretty much done, that is except for the stacks of boxes that are temporary stuck in there from other parts of the house so we can go through them, ahem. David’s new room is nearly done, we want to move his own dresser in there.

One room at a time will get us there. I can’t do the one bag a day or even one box a day thing. I need to see a real dent. A completed project, it keeps me going.

Will we finish before the New Year? Eh, probably not, but I’m still going to try. And if not, we’ll definitely continue into January. I’m on fire! ;0)

The Fitness Kick-Off Team, week 3: Cutting the Clutter

2011-12-23T13:33:00.002-05:00

This week’s report of my fitness progress is brought to you by my desire for the Simple Life, lol!

What does the word “fitness” mean to you? That’s a good question.

Let me mention here: I’m not good at fitting myself into a box. I’m not exactly a rebel, but my 40 years of life have shown me how completely impossible it is to compartmentalize most things. Everything in life flows into more than one category and “fitness” is no exception.

That said, I’m going to go with this definition from The American Heritage® Stedman's Medical Dictionary:

fitness fit·ness (fĭt'nĭs)
n.

The state or condition of being physically sound and healthy, especially as the result of exercise and proper nutrition.
A state of general mental and physical well-being.
The state of being suitably adapted to an environment.

Particularly #2 and #3. While eating right and getting exercise are important, fitness is really more than that, and I feel that focusing too much on what I’m eating and whether or not I’m doing enough “workouts” could prove to be detrimental to my personal mental well-being.

Note, I’m speaking solely of myself, here. I think everyone has the opportunity to work on their own personal fitness and what that means to them. I’ve simply chosen not to worry too much about everybody else’s definition of fitness. That, and I wanted to explain why I’ve put things like “reducing computer time” on my list of things to work on.

So physical limitations don’t necessarily mean that one cannot be fit. And monitoring every bite we take does not necessarily make us fit. I think the true key is finding balance and that’s what I’m striving for.

On that score, let’s see how I did on balance this week.

Water consumption was good, with 5-8 glasses of water each day. Caffeine consumption somewhat reduced, down to 1 cup of regular coffee yesterday and 1 cup today (so far, let’s see if I can hold the line). I do sometimes have decaf in the afternoon because I like the taste.

Last week I said I would be taking it easy on Friday and getting my movement at a dance. Well, I lied. I actually spent most of the day working on de-cluttering and cleaning house! Plenty of squats, heavy lifting and jogging up and down stairs…if that’s not a workout, I don’t know what is. Unfortunately I was too tired to dance at the party, lol!

My exercise this past week has continued in that vein, with moving furniture and boxes, rearranging things and removing bags of garbage and donations from the house. I count this as a success, as it has definitely gotten me off my rear end more hours than any workout schedule would have, has helped clear my home of frustrating clutter, and has helped to clear my mind. It has also taken my mind off of my physical discomfort and even relieved some of it. All pluses for my fitness.

My computer use has not been as low as I would like, lower, due to spending more time doing other things, but not low enough. I’m looking forward to taking a self-imposed internet sabbatical for the next couple of days (pray I don’t cheat).

So, how was your week?

As each of the other Team Members go live with their posts this week, I’ll paste them here:

Sharon @ The Legacy of Home

Dawn @ Guiding Light Homeschool

Angie @ Petra School

Kathy @ Teaching Good Things

Shannon @ Moms Loves Books

Renita @ Weighing Hearts

Briana @ I Can’t Decide

You might also enjoy:
Fitness Kick-Start Team week 1
Fitness Kick-Start Team week 2
Fitness Kick-Start Team week 4

Shh…Santa Might Hear!

2011-12-21T23:00:00.001-05:00

What a clever idea, perfect for the digital age. The folks at iCaughtSanta have made it possible for anyone with a digital camera to snap a shot of the Man in the Red Suit himself in their own home…and it doesn’t require staying up all night Christmas Eve, donning a costume, hiring an actor, or even fancy editing software (or technical know-how).

In just a few minutes I was able to upload a pic of our Christmas tree, select from 20 different Santa poses, size him just right and adjust the brightness of his red suit to fit the lighting in the photo. Don’t you think the kids will be surprised?

Hmm, I dunno, perhaps picture proof positive of the season’s favorite myth is going a bit far in our house…but it’s a fun idea to play around with.

I thought about planting Santa on the roof, pointing up, and adding a quote in my own photo editor, “Come back Rudolph!” My kids would LOVE that.

The set-up at iCaughtSanta is super easy to use (go try it) and I received my hi-res photo instantly for download (you can also download it in smaller sizes). You can print your photo yourself or have it done locally.

Price: $9.99 for one photo (get a bundle with 4 different photos for $10 more) Right now, you can create your very own personal Santa capture and get 50% off your entire order with this code: :SANTA50

Disclosure: I received my ICaughtSanta photos for free to facilitate my blog post. I’ve also been entered into a drawing.

The Simple Life: Conquering Mount Stuff-More

2011-12-18T20:33:00.001-05:00

We try to live simply.

But in spite of the fact that we try to be careful about bringing more stuff into our home…

and frankly, I just can’t afford the latest, greatest, big, new thing anyway…

Mount Stuff-More continues to grow.

It grows with every piece of mail that enters my home.

It grows with every drawing a kid insists that I keep forever.

It grows with every book we add to our library.

It grows with every gift from a grandparent.

It grows with every outgrown garment.

It grows with every cardboard tube I keep to re-use.

It grows with every “village” built from cardboard boxes.

It grows and grows.

Now, we have a, I would say, biggish home. Not a half-million dollar modern mansion with all the newest conveniences, by any means.

But we have space enough for each member of our family to have breathing space. And there’s an attic and a basement besides.

And yet, the stuff, it gets to me. And I’m the hoarder, the pack-rat, the frugal inventor, the one who won’t throw anything useful away.

But I look at that stuffed closet, or rather the tiny spare room being used as a closet, and l see the stack of 80’s vinyl records (when’s the last time you even saw a 45? I don’t even have a turn-table to play them on.) and I think to myself: “it’s time to let go. I’m tired of the baggage.”

I don’t really have a ton of stuff. Moving over 1000 miles twice in 5 years required lightening our load. But I need less stuff, yet.

And I need a fool-proof way to organize what I do have. You know, so I won’t say: “Ah, yeah, I’ve got a piece of fluffy fleece somewhere that would be perfect for that costume, if only I could remember where I packed it away.”

There’s no point in having stuff at all if you can’t find it when you need it, right?

So, this is my pre-New Year’s project. At least I hope to complete it before the New Year. ;0)

My gift to myself and to my family: to lighten our load, de-clutter our home, and simplify our lives.

And I’m starting here:

We have 5 bedrooms, but the girls have been sharing a room, so Emma’s bitty room sort of became a diaper-changing/storage room, simply because it was a heck of a lot easier to store things in there than to drag them up to the 3rd floor attic. The attic was nearly empty (except for suitcases and the air conditioners) when I shot this pic.

But, my oldest needs to switch rooms, because his room has 2 exterior walls and is over an un-insulated enclosed porch---it’s impossible to keep his room above frigid when the temps drop at night, even with 2 radiators. We are looking into insulating the porch and the room, but that’s a long-term project that will require an investment we can’t make right now and it just seemed to make more sense to have him use a warmer room that wasn’t really being used to its full potential.

I’ll probably post some updates (I’ve already emptied this room and got his bed in there, so he won’t feel a need to wear a hat tonight) as I move along. And if I come up with a foolproof way to organize the stuff I do keep, I’ll share it here.

This isn’t the first time I’ve simplified. The last time was almost 2 years ago! I think are overdue.

What resolution or mission are you pursuing for the New Year? Have you ever tried to simplify your life? How’d you do it?

You might also like to read about my January 2010 simplifying adventure:

The Simple Life: Day 1

The Simple Life, Day ???

A funny thing happened…

The Fitness Kick-Off Team, week 2: Cutting out the Whine!

2011-12-16T13:16:00.003-05:00

My report after the second week of the Fitness Kick-Off Team!

Sometimes what you need is a kick in the pants and a change of attitude.

My physical limitations have continued this week, but I’ve been better about pushing myself to get active. And you know what? It really hasn’t been bad. Last week, walking was a challenge. I just couldn’t do it.

This week, I decided I was going to get moving, period. Instead of making things worse (has in the past), the activity actually helped give me some relief this time.

So here’s a summary of what I did this week:

Didn’t get outside very much, unfortunately, due to sick kiddos, but Sunday I had a brisk walk to and from Church.
Did 20-30 minute workouts with the Wii Fit Plus 3 times this week.
Drank 5-7 glasses of water each day.
Drank no more than 2 cups of regular tea or coffee each day (my old habit was about 3-4 strong cups of tea a day, sometimes a cup of coffee as well).
I do sometimes have a cup of decaf in the afternoon or with dinner
Computer: oh, this was a big BIG fail. Don’t ever brainstorm a big month long blog event when you’re trying to cut down on your computer time. Seriously. But the planning stages are DONE, so I am planning to cut way back next week.

What did I learn?

That my attitude makes a big difference.

Drinking enough water when I’m out and about is a challenge…and I need to solve it.

And that while my weight is in a good range and I’m a little svelter than Christmases past (I can fit perfectly into an 8 year old dress that I’ll be wearing to a Christmas party this evening…with no gap-o-sis!), I am SO out of shape! My calves are not at all happy with me. And getting out of bed this morning made me feel like a crochet-y old woman. My muscles need a little rest, so this evening will be for dancing only. ;0)

Please visit the other Fitness Kick-Start Team members and cheer them on! (I’ll add links as they go live.)

Mrs. White - The Legacy of Home - http://thelegacyofhome.blogspot.com/2011/12/fitness-team-and-60-day-slim-down-dvd.html (60 Day Slim Down system - Giveaway)

Kathy @ Teaching Good Things - http://teachinggoodthings.com/blog/fitness-team-week-2-juice-video/

Angie at Petra School - http://pebblekeeper.wordpress.com/2011/12/16/intentional-fitness-wk-2/

Briana @ I Can't Decide - http://briana-icantdecide.blogspot.com/2011/12/how-can-i-lose-3-and-gain-2-pounds.html

Heather @ Marine Corps Nomads - http://marinecorpsnomads.com/2011/12/kick-start-fitness-week-2.html (Silk Milk Giveaway - 5 winners)

Dawn @ Guiding Light http://guidinglighths.com/fitness-kick-start-check-in-week-2/

Gina @ A Cherished Keeper http://www.acherishedkeeper.com/2011/12/thinking-governmentally-about-weight.html

Renita @ Weighing Hearts http://weighinghearts.blogspot.com/2011/12/another-week.html

1You might also enjoy:
Fitness Kick-Start Team week 1
Fitness Kick-Start Team week 3
Fitness Kick-Start Team week 4

Virtual Homeschool Curriculum Fair Update!

2011-12-14T22:41:00.003-05:00

As 2-year-old Emmie would say: Oh my Gawsh!

When I put out a call looking for bloggers who would be interested in helping to create a virtual homeschool curriculum fair during the month of January, I was hoping to find a team of 5-6 homeschoolers who were willing to share some in-depth posts on what is working in each area of their kiddos’ home education.

I now have a list of 18 bloggers who’ve expressed an interest in participating! And I’m still getting messages. And some questions about how this is all going to work…

Can I say that I’m excited to get started…but also a little flustered with so many people watching?

But, you know what? This isn’t about me. I can see that this is going to be an awesome event that we can all benefit from.

So, let’s get down to brass tacks.

What is the 2012 Virtual Curriculum Fair all About?

It’s end of the calendar year and, for many, the middle of the “school” year, a time when home educators tend to evaluate what they are doing with their kiddos and how well it is working. Sometimes we realize we need to make a change, either right away or for the coming year.

But we’re not always sure, exactly, what that change needs to be. There’s a plethora of homeschool reviews on the internet (I’ve written quite a few myself), but reviews often don’t give you the whole picture. There have been plenty of things I’ve reviewed that seemed great the first few weeks I used them…but 8, 9 weeks later, suddenly the gears start grinding and what I thought was a perfect fit for one of my kiddos needs some major tweaking or even a replacement.

Sometimes a sound, well crafted program just isn’t the right program for your child.

The idea behind the Virtual Curriculum Fair is to give other homeschoolers a peek into what you are doing with your kiddos that works for you and why.

You can write about a particular curriculum that you use. You can talk about a particular method. You can talk about a book that you use as the basis for a study. The purpose is not to promote any particular product or service, but to share wisdom. What you write about is totally up to you (I will give a few guidelines later, but I promise, they are brief and meant to help, not hinder).

Give us a true picture of how you do things in your learning environment. We don’t expect unicorns and rainbows.

What changes did you make? What did you throw out or ignore? Is there a subject you simply don’t cover? Why? Is your child having specific issues that you needed to address? Did you try 4 different expensive math programs, only to find out that a free program on the internet was the answer for you? Tell us about your journey.

When I got the idea to create this Virtual Curriculum Fair, I wanted to benefit as many people as possible, not just this circle of readers or that circle of readers. With so many participants, that might be a bit of a challenge, but this is what I’ve come up with.

This will be a “blog carnival,” running through the month of January 2012 and hosted here at Homeschooling Hearts & Minds.

Each Monday, a new theme will be introduced that concentrates on a field (or fields) of study:

January 2nd---Playing with Words: the Language Arts. This theme can include phonics, reading, writing, grammar, spelling, speech, literature, etc., etc., etc. Latin and foreign language studies could also go here.
January 9th---Discovering Patterns: Mathematics, Logic, and some Science. This theme can include anything to do with mathematics, mathematical thinking, numbers, arithmetic, symbolic logic, critical thinking, and math-y sciences (physics, chemistry, etc.).
January 16th---Exploring Our World: Social Studies and more Science. This theme can include history, geography, world cultures, worldview, biology, botany, geology, etc., etc., etc.
January 23rd---Seeking Beauty: the Arts and Everything that Brings Beauty to Our World. This theme can include any of the arts, as well as handicrafts.
January 30rd---The Nuts & Bolts: Pulling it all Together! This theme can be really practical, and include any helps you use for organizing, making plans, keeping little ones occupied, remembering to do your laundry, etc., etc. Or you could take a spiritual approach to it. I encourage you to use this week to explore how you get it done,whether it’s due to scheduling and planning or putting your faith in a higher power or somewhere in between.

Each Monday, participants will post their article for that week’s theme and send their links to me. At the end of the day, I’ll add all the links to my post here and email participants the complete list of articles which they can then add to the bottom of their own posts

So, how can I Participate?

The question has been asked: Do I need to write a post every week to participate?

No. Much as I would love to have each and every participant write about each of the themes, I know all about how we all have lives outside of our bloggy selves. You may participate as much or as little as you like and still be a part of this project.

Here’s what you need to do:

Email me at susanadale@gmail.com or leave a comment on this blog post with the following information (note, I will post an intro to the Fair before the end of the year with everyone’s blog links):
1. your name as you would like it to appear
2. your blog’s name
3. your blog’s url
4. your email (I won’t share it with anyone, but I need to be able to contact you, you’ll see why in a minute.)
Start thinking about what you want to share, now and get writing.
I will send out a reminder via email of the next week’s theme each Friday. Not to nag you, but because we all forget things sometimes.
(UPDATED) Post your article to your blog anytime between the Saturday before that week's topic goes live on the host blog and Monday at 9pm EST (that’s UTC/GMT -5 hours). In other words, for the second week, you can post anytime between Saturday, January 7 and Monday, January 9 at 9pm.
Email me at susanadale@gmail.com with the direct link to your post and the post title.
Once I have all the post links, I will send emails out to all participants with the complete list. I ask that everyone copy the list and add it to the end of their own post. You will be giving your readers instant access to all of the articles and the backlinks will be good for everyone’s blog.
Encourage your readers to take their time throughout the week visiting the other blogs and reading the articles. If the Virtual Curriculum Fair goes well, we just might do it again in 2013!

Are there any post guidelines?

Just two: be honest and be civil.

I think you’ll see that the themes are pretty fluid and some subjects could easily fit into more than one theme. If you feel your post topic fits with the theme, go for it! As long it is about how your are educating your children, you will not get a message from me telling you to post it next week or whatever. Seriously, this is your Curriculum Fair as much as it is mine.

You can write about curriculum, yes, but you can also write about teaching techniques, philosophy of education, resources you use, a favorite book you like to use, pretty much anything.

It does not have to be all positive, either. Maybe you’d rather talk about what didn’t work, was a bad fit, or a waste of money. That’s perfectly fine. Just be specific. The more details you can give, the more you are helping others.

Maybe the way one of your children learns math is completely different from how another does…and you want to talk about how you were still able to accommodate them both with the same curriculum by supplementing or making other adjustments. That’s just the type of thing we want to hear about.

You can compare competing products (as long as you’ve used them both yourself). Or tell us how you combine products. That’s also fine. I know often when someone is reviewing a product, they are not allowed to mention other products by other companies. That’s not the case here.

I encourage you to include pictures or even video of your children using whatever you are writing about. Especially if it’s a project based curriculum, we would love to see what the hands-on activities are really like. Pictures can make things much clearer.

But, most of all, have fun with it. Participate as much as you would like, but don’t feel obligated if you are busy with life one week (or more). If you find that you have more than one post to contribute in a week, I suggest that you post any additional ones later in the week and then make sure that your Monday post links to them.

How can I show everyone I’m in the Virtual Curriculum Fair?

This is totally optional, so only display it if you want to. It points to the “2012 Virtual Curriculum Fair” tab above where I will link all the relevant posts and information. The button will display at 150x150 pixels which will fit most sidebars comfortably:

Did I leave anything out? Feel free to email me or post any questions in the comments. Thank you so much!

Make Collector Boxes for Their Collections

2011-12-13T06:00:00.000-05:00

So, your kids like to collect rocks, or seashells, or buttons, or seeds, or whatever…and you’re tired of stepping on the durn things and slipping across the floor?

It’s time for each the kiddos to have his or her very own collection box. And all it takes is an empty egg carton and a few supplies you probably have on hand.

This can be a gift you make for them, or easy craft project they do for themselves. There’s a lot of flexibility, use what you have. I’ll tell you what I used and give you some alternative suggestions.

You will need:

1 clean, dry egg carton---I used an 18 ct styrofoam one, but you could use the paper kind, a 12 ct, or even a 6 ct.
scissors
tacky glue
paper to make your labels. I used sticker paper that I printed with my inkjet because I happened to have it. You could use decorated scrapbook paper, magazine cut-outs, plain paper decorated with kid drawings, whatever you like. Be creative, create a collage or even add some 3-D elements.
optional: a paper cutter can come in handy for straight cuts, but it’s not crucial
optional: clear contact paper can add a glossy finish and make your label more durable. I don’t happen to have any at the moment, so I didn’t use it.

Here’s what you do:

Decide how you want to decorate your box. This will be influenced by the shape of your box top (there are many different styles). The carton I used has 2 areas just under 5” square. so I printed two 4-1/2” squares with rounded corners on sticker paper and cut them out. But take a look at yours and see how you’d like to cover it. Maybe it has long, skinny areas instead. A row of single seashells would be neat at the bottom of this one:
I used pictures from this website. They are free for personal use and there are plenty of other sources of free pics online (just make sure you have permission to use them!). But, kid art, magazine cut outs, scrapbook paper and anything else you can think of will work just as well.
Add your child’s name or a title for the collection, a poem or verse, whatever you like.
For the interior of the box, I cut and pasted 2 cardstock squares to cover the nutritional information. I used a light colored cardstock so the words wouldn’t show through. You could create a special label of some kind, or decorate these, too, but I chose to leave them plain for recording info about the collection.
Optional: Cover the labels on the outside of the box with clear contact paper for durability.

And you are done, enjoy!

You might also like:

Duct Tape Short Sword or Dagger Tutorial

Handmade Holidays Tutorials

The Cloak: A Tutorial

Mid-Year Curricula Look-See?

2011-12-12T06:00:00.001-05:00

It’s December, that time of the year when many of us are taking a close look at our educational plans for the year, re-evaluating our chosen curricula after using it for several weeks, pondering next year, and some are even gearing up for a new “school” year within the next couple of months (yep, lots of homeschoolers don’t follow the traditional Fall to Summer schedule).

Sometimes you get to this point in the year and you just want to scream.

And then there are times that your realize you’ve discovered some real gems and that all your tweaking and perseverance has been worth it.

It would be a shame to not share some of those gems, so I was thinking about doing some in-depth reviews this month of products that we purchased to use with the kiddos this year. Especially since some of the things we are using aren’t exactly mainstream or easy to find reviews on.

But, oy, December, not really the month I want to take on a big project.

Then I started pacing and talking with my hands and had a bigger idea.

I get big ideas sometimes. I don’t have a huge ego or anything like that, I just like to dream big. So here it goes…

What about making the month of January a Virtual Curricula Fair or a “Look-See” into how others really use things?

Reviews are great, and there are a ton of them on the internet, but I’m thinking of something a little different from listing the pros and cons of a product with bullet points and all.

Sometimes it helps, if you can’t actually handle or use the materials yourself before buying, to get a real peek into how people are using something in their own home. This might include:

pictures
video
a break down of what you a doing on what day of the week
which child you’re using it with
what parts of it appeal to that child and why
which child you definitely wouldn’t use it with and why
what parts you had to change or throw over
other resources you are using with it, even if they are by a competitor

This is very early planning stages, but here’s the basic idea: Each week in the month of January will be devoted to a particular subject area or group of subjects. The first week might be mathematics, the second language arts, and so on. I’m open to brainstorming.

I am looking for homeschoolers who are possibly interested in joining me by blogging an in-depth ‘Look-See” into how a particular part of their chosen curriculum fits into their children’s education. It can be a particular program that you love. It can be a book. It can be an ongoing project. It can a free resource you found on the web. It can be pretty much anything that somehow improves your homeschool. You can do more than one post or a series of posts if you want to participate during more than one week. I’d like to get together a “team” of participants.

There will not be a particular format you need to follow, how you write your post will be up to you. I only ask that it not be a sponsored post. You can write about something that you received as a reviewer from a vendor in the past, I only ask that this be a “several weeks later” (or even years later) and we are still using it, here’s why” kinda post.

I’m still thinking about the logistics. It would be super easy to just use a linky, but I think it might be better for this type of project to have everyone’s links embedded in the post. Still working that part out.

And you have time to think about it and work on it. We won’t be starting until January. But, if this sounds like something you’d like to participate in, leave me a comment here or send me an email (susanadale at gmail dot com). No commitment at this point, just measuring interest.

You'll find an update with all the details you need on the Virtual Curriculum Fair here.

Free Digi-scrap Designer Pack

2011-12-11T13:57:00.001-05:00

Download this cute designer pack from My Memories Suite, it's absolutely free and can be used with any graphics software! No purchase necessary (you don’t even need to give them your email---how’s that for no strings?).

Contains papers, quick pages, and embellies. It’s super easy to add your own special touch.

This page was created in My Memories Suite v3, using papers and embellishments included in the free Designer Pack. The ribbons were created by using the stripped paper as an element, cropping, and adding some transparency and shadows.

For more info on My Memories Suite, or to download a free trial of the program, please visit My Memories. For a $10 discount off the purchase price of the software (you will also receive $10 off coupon good towards future purchases in the My Memories Store when you receive your software), you can use my affiliate code: STMMMS52587

Disclosure: This post contains an affiliate code. I received My Memories Suite for free to review last year.

Family Portrait

2011-12-10T12:00:00.000-05:00

Here’s my beautiful family. And it only took 2 shots to get this! I think it captures their personalities pretty well.

Emma (I’m a) Photographer

2011-12-10T11:09:00.001-05:00

You never know what you might find saved on your camera’s disc after the 2-year-old has had it a few minutes.

The Fitness Kick-Off Team, week 1

2011-12-09T12:38:00.005-05:00

My report after the first week of the Fitness Kick-Off Team!

Definitely a lackluster week, sigh.

I’ve been plagued with a minor physical affliction this week that has curbed my physical activity. Ahem. No details, please. Let’s just say it’s been a painful week and it’s been impossible to get comfortable. This is something that unexpectedly plagues me from time to time, but it’s not a major concern, so don’t worry. It just keeps me from being able to do a lot of the activities I want to do.

I totally flubbed the less computer time thing. Because the desk chair is the most comfortable chair in the house and there’s nothing I hate more than sitting and doing nothing. Even when you’re in pain, you need to occupy your brain somehow and much as I would have preferred to gather all the children around me to listen to a book or something…the ick weather and Mama’s frowny face seemed to bring out all their prickles.

But, don’t worry, I consider this a minor setback. I did get some walking in on Thursday, plus I did several loads of laundry which involves going up and down 2 flights of stairs. My water intake is better, my caffeine is slowly decreasing. Baby steps will get me there. Next week will be better.

Remember: Just because you don’t get everything done on your list doesn’t mean you should give up.

Let’s take a look at this week’s accomplishments:

Monday:
- Tea and coffee 3 cups
- Water 7 glasses
Tuesday
- Tea and coffee 3 cups
- Water 7 glasses
Wednesday
- Tea and coffee 2 cups
- Water 6 glasses
Thursday
- Tea and coffee 2 cups
- Water 6 glasses
Friday (so far)
- Tea 2 cups
- Water 4 glasses

I’ll be adding the other ladies’ links as they report in:

Heather at Marine Corps Nomads

Dawn at Guiding Light Homeschool

Angie at Petra School

Mrs. White at The Legacy of Home

Briana at I Can't Decide

Gina at A Cherished Keeper

Kathy at Teaching Good Things

Shannon at Mom Loves Books

You might also enjoy:

Fitness Kick-Start Team week 2
Fitness Kick-Start Team week 3
Fitness Kick-Start Team week 4

The Lie of Averages

2011-12-07T06:00:00.000-05:00

Imagine that you walk into a shoe store.

“I’d like to see this style in a size 10, please.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry, ma’am, but we only carry a ladies’ size 6.”

“What?”

“A 6 is the average size, you see, so the buyer for the store figured it would fit more people than any other size and he got a great deal on buying a hundred pairs of the same style in the same size.”

Now, imagine that you walk into a restaurant and ordered an iced tea.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, ma’am, but we only carry one beverage: Coke.”

“What?”

“Yes, you see, we took a poll on what people prefer to drink and found that the greatest number were willing to drink Coke. So the manager decided to save money by buying Coke in bulk. It saves us a lot of trouble, actually. We don’t ever have to ask anybody what they would like to drink. We just give them Coke.”

Ridiculous, right? This is clearly hyperbole. I mean, there’s no way we would put up with that, am I right?

We all know that just because something is average doesn’t mean it will work for everyone. It doesn’t even mean it will work for most people.

Consider the “1.7 kids” statistic (or whatever decimal it is). How many people actually have 1.7 kids? And even those who do won’t once that “bun in the oven” is done.

“Average” is a statistical abstraction. It doesn’t exist in real life. It’s an ideal (Is it? Maybe “compromise” is a better word.) that we come up with by adding up the possibilities and dividing.

It’s plain that the average shoe size won’t fit everybody. It won’t even fit most people.

Now, clearly this is hyperbole. I can buy shoes in my own size. But have you ever noticed how sometimes you have to try on several different styles of shoe in your size until you find a pair that fits comfortably and looks great?

Not every size 10 foot is the same (yeah, I have big feet ;0). Some people have higher arches. Some people have squarer toes. Some people have long narrow feet. Or their feet are wide in the front and narrow at the heel.

Even in my own size, I’m not “average.”

So if we understand that most people cannot wear the average shoe, why do we keep believing the myth that an “average” education will fit most people?

I can go into a shoe store and pick from several different styles and sizes until I find the pair that fits me (both my foot and my personality).

But I do often find myself worrying about how my kiddos measure up to others at their “grade level. And why are those boxed curricula with planned out schedules and all the books you need so enticing?

It would be so much easier if there was an average that could fit everybody based on their age, wouldn’t it? It would be a lot easier if I didn’t have kids with difficulties learning or other issues.

The fact is, my children’s education more important than a pair of cute shoes. And a whole lot more complicated.

Just as I might need to try on several pairs of shoes to find a good fit, I might need to try out different curricula to find what works best. For each kid.

And something that fits one child like a glove in the math department might not stretch around another kid at all.

When a curriculum developer creates their materials, they have to have some particular audience for them in mind. They don’t create them for one particular user (usually, although there are some pretty creative homeschooling parents out there who do just that), but for a group of users they can market to.

They have some kind of “average” user in mind for their product.

The only problem is that the “average” user isn’t truly average at all. Each and every student is a unique individual. Unless you happen to hit upon the curriculum that was written just for your kiddo’s particular idiosyncrasies, chances are that no one program will ever be a 100% perfect fit.

And this is a big part of the reason our family homeschools. It gives us the freedom to tailor each child’s education to that particular child’s needs and talents. I’m not beholden to a school board. I can choose my own curricula.

If I need to drop a book, I can.

If it will take a little longer than a year to finish that math book, so be it.

Or if we’ll make it through 2 math books in a year, we can do that, too.

That gives me a lot of freedom as an educator, but it’s more than a little scary, too. Educating our children is an awesome responsibility, one that we take very seriously around here. So sometimes we compare our children to others to help us see how they are doing, but we continually try to remember that LIE of Averages is just that…a lie.

And none of us really want our children to be average, anyway, do we? We want them to be the very best they can be.

Duct Tape Short Sword or Dagger Tutorial

2011-12-06T06:00:00.001-05:00

So you say that you’re studying the Middle Ages and the boys have become obsessed with Medieval weaponry and will talk of nothing else. Maybe they would enjoy a little hands-on project.

I have no doubt they’ll want to figure out accurate blade shapes and the like…this could turn into a full-fledged research project.

Years ago, back when David was about 5 or 6, I made him a whole kit out of duct tape and cardboard, including a sword and a shield. Years later his younger brother had me making shurikens from duct tape and cardboard. Most recently, I made a force pike to go with his Halloween costume! Duct tape weapons seem to be ever present in our household.

This tutorial will show you a basic technique for creating duct tape weapons. I encourage you to consider this a springboard and experiment, using what you have on hand. Duct tape works especially well for things like this because it stretches and tears easily to allow you to fit unique forms. I have never been disappointed by our duct tape creations.

For a dagger or short sword, you will need:

Scissors
a pen, pencil, or marker
duct tape---I used “chrome” for the blade and regular for the handle and hand guard, because I happened to have both. You can use whatever color you like.
an empty cardboard tube from a roll of paper towels---for a short sword or even longer sword, you’ll need 2 or 3.
a piece of cardboard---I used a flap from a box

Important Note: Whenever possible, tear the duct tape, don’t cut it. It will gum up your scissors real good and doesn’t cut well, anyway. You can tear it easily both lengthwise and widthwise.

Here’s how to do it.

Using the end of your cardboard tube, draw a circle on your piece of cardboard, allowing about an 1/8-1/4” allowance all the way around (the hole needs to eventually go over the tube, so it can’t be exactly the same size---cardboard doesn’t stretch folks. Ask me how I know ;0). If you mess up, it’s ok. This will be covered up when you are done, so draw away until you are happy with it.
The cardboard piece will be a “hand guard” at the bottom of your blade. It can be as big or as small as you like, I freehanded this one and actually modified it somewhat when I cut it out.
Poke a hole in the center with your scissor point and then cut from the center to the circle in several places around the circle.
Bend down the bits in the middle along your circle.
Push the tube through the hole.
Position it about where you want tube. If you want to make a short sword, you can stuff the end of the long side of the tube into another tube. Add yet another for a longer sword.
Use a few small pieces of duct tape to anchor the guard in place.
Start covering the guard with duct tape. You want to cover every part of it. Use small pieces, and don’t be afraid to tear it in places and stretch it to get a smooth finish. That last pic is the underneath, which I could have gotten a bit smoother…but, you know what? They probably won’t care. ;0)
Tear off a couple of longer strips of duct tape (long enough to go completely around the tube. Wrap the first one around the tube, just under the hand guard, covering the folded down bits, and stretching it a bit to get it smooth. Mess up? In most cases duct tape is pretty forgiving, you can try removing it and do it again (the Chrome type is less forgiving than the regular type).
Continue to cover the rest of the handle the same way, slightly overlapping each strip. I left the bottom open, (did not cover the end), but you could cover that over with a short piece before applying the strip around the bottom.
Flatten the un-taped part of the tube.
Cut the un-taped end of the tube to form your point. You can cut along the sides as well, just make it whatever you want the finished shape to be. Keep in mind that when you flat the tube, it will be wider than it started out, so trim the width accordingly. I decided to make this one fatter.
Start covering the point with narrow strips of duct tape (I used Chrome.), overlapping, and tearing the tape at right angles, stretching to get it smooth.
Once the curved parts are covered, you can tear off strips of the duct tape to wrap around the remainder of the tube.
Finished!

Now to decide which of the boys gets this one. ;0)

Updated to add an Important note: Safety always comes first. Please be sure that your kiddos exercise caution, and stay away from especially vulnerable areas like the face when using play weapons. It is possible to injure someone with any toy, homemade or not.

You might also like:

Cloak Tutorial

On Germination?

The Fitness Kick-Start Team!

2011-12-05T08:27:00.000-05:00

I’m an indoor homebody, ‘tis true. I shudder at mud on shoes. Even more at muddy bare toes. Blame it on my spic and span upbringing and my OCD brain, whatever. Somehow I can live with my schoolhouse clutter, not so much clumps of nature brought indoors.

But it’s really wet outside. Every time it starts to dry out, it rains again. The local playground is surrounded by marsh land. Our own backyard is a mud pit.

I’m having a real hard time getting out with the kiddos. My ick hang-ups are doing me in.

So, I end up sitting around a lot. My quotient of physical activity time to time spent with my eyes glazing in front of the computer is at an all time low. And my aches, pains and eyestrain are showing it.

So, when I found out that Mrs. White over at The Legacy of Home was lining up a group of bloggers interested in improving their fitness…and that she had one slot left, well I knew that slot was meant for me.

Over the next 4 weeks, each of these lovely ladies will be sharing their journey to better fitness every Friday. Maybe you can get a Fitness Kick-Start by joining us? Mrs. White is offering a Walmart Gift Card Giveaway at The Legacy of Home to help you get motivated!

So, let's talk about how I will be improving my fitness. I tried this last year around this time and ended up failing miserably...I simply tried to do too much too quickly. Improving my health is going to be an exercise in forming good habits...and habits take time. Better to start small and slowly build up so I don't find myself unable to achieve my goals.

The goals I’ll be working on over the next 4 weeks (don’t laugh, please ;0):

Increase water intake (I’ve been slightly dehydrated lately, and in spite of what the EU thinks, I know more water will help.)
decrease caffeine intake (I’ve been a bit edgy lately.)
partake in some physical activity each day, at least 15 minutes (outdoors if the weather is pleasant, even if it is muddy outside),
decrease the amount of time I spend in front of the computer (Why is Facebook so dang addictive?)

And every Friday I’ll share my accomplishments (and failures, you know I always keep it real around here) with y’all.

For more inspiration, please visit the other 9 Fitness Kick-Start Members:

Mrs. White at The Legacy of Home

Shannon at Mom Loves Books

Gina at A Cherished Keeper

Briana at I Can’t Decide

Heather at Marine Corps Nomads

Dawn at Guiding Light Homeschool

Renita at Weighing Hearts

Kathy at Teaching Good Things

Angie at Petra School

NaNoWriMo Winners!

2011-12-04T21:14:00.001-05:00

November is over and congratulations go to David and Mary! I’m so proud of them, they met their word count goals for National Novel Writing Month! Yeah!

David wrote 7,110 words (his goal was 7,000 words). His novel, The Helm, is an action-packed fantasy adventure (with steam-punkish accents) that takes place in an alternate universe where the protagonists are all critters.

Mary wrote 2,042 words (her goal was 2,000 words). Her novel, Attack of the Bunnies, is a fantasy adventure about a twin brother and sister who must defeat giant extra-terrestrial rabbits. You weren’t expecting that, were you, lol!

Love is Patient, Love is Kind

2011-12-04T11:36:00.002-05:00

Overheard at a thrift store, not intentionally:

Mom: “Hold this!”

12ish girl: “Here, hold this!”

Mom: “Don’t be rude!”

Girl: “You were rude!”

Mom: “Go stand over there and be quiet, I’m not talking to you!”

Oh, I felt sorry for that girl, who is very nearly a young woman. Visions of my own childhood danced in my head. Nobody likes to be ordered around. Nobody likes to be treated with rudeness as though they are deserving of it. I so wanted to open my mouth and say something to that Mom. But an angel made me bite my tongue.

Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, “Let me take the speck out of your eye,” when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye. (Matthew 7:1-5)

You know that I don’t make a habit of spouting off scripture, but this came to mind. It would be very easy for me to point my finger at that Mom and say: “See? You’re accusing her of the same thing you are doing! You need to straighten up!”

What is it about human beings that we are always so quick to point at other people before recognizing our own faults? There I go pointing my finger, again!

What I meant to say was: Why am I so quick to recognize the faults of others, especially my own children, when I have plenty of my own faults to attend to?

I was meant to overhear that conversation. God was speaking to me.

How many times have I spoken to my children like a drill sergeant, rather than treating them with the dignity and respect that all creatures of God deserve as God’s creation? And then expect them to treat me with respect?

Um, just about daily.

“Come on, we need to go in 5 minutes! Got your shoes on NOW!”

“What do you mean you haven’t brushed your teeth, YET?!”

“”Here, put this away!”

And so on. Okay, maybe it’s more often than daily. I think I need to take a personal inventory.

As a parent, I am the steward of my children. While “Thou shalt not be rude” isn’t on the list of commandments, and “Honor thy father and my mother” is, so is “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”

The greatest of the commandments is Love. And while Loving my children does require that I correct them at times, it also requires that I model for them what it means to be a child of God.

It means I must be patient.

It means I must be kind.

It means I must respect them.

It means I must not be rude to them.

My rights before God are not greater than theirs. I am not some superhuman who somehow deserves to be bowed down to and catered to. If I wish to be respected, I must be respectful.

How can they possibly know what it means to be respectful of others if I don’t show them how?

And on a psychological note: kindness generally does breed kindness, and respect generally does breed respect. While I won’t convert every person I come in contact with by treating them well, it is wise and just to give what I would like to receive.

Returning to that young lady in the thrift store: While I could not correct her Mom, I could be kind to her. She stood there looking glum and I whispered to her, “Please excuse me,” as I passed by. She doesn’t know it, but I was asking for more than being pardoned for crossing her path.

The Week of Discoveries

2011-12-03T13:07:00.001-05:00

Have you ever had one of those weeks when you wish things could just be a little easier? When you are just tired of not being “normal.”

When you look at all the people around you and feel a little resentful because their kids all seem to get it…and they don’t seem to have any challenges dealing with the world at large? And all the moms have it together, right?

This was one of those weeks for me.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I don’t resent my kids in any way. Each of them is a truly remarkable individual and I love them all dearly.

I just wish things didn’t have to be so hard for them (especially my boys). And sometimes I feel a tremendous amount of pressure. I can’t just pass the baton off to someone else.

But, in spite of the frustrations, some really positive things happened this week, so let me talk about that.

Early this week, Peter got a “foreign body” stuck to his eyeball. We think it was a skin flake but we’ll never be positive on that. Anyway, it caused a small abrasion, so he’s getting antibiotic ointment in that eye. (Please pray it doesn’t become infected, he has a high risk of infection).

The pediatric eye doctor also says that he is very definitely farsighted and probably has some issues with eye strain. But we need to wait a bit to do a better exam (eye needs to heal) to get an accurate script for specs.

So I did some reading about farsightedness in kids…and little lightbulbs started exploding in my head. It seems farsightedness in kids doesn’t look the same as it does in adults. And what I read was explaining some peculiar behaviors he has. And it could have been present at birth, though they may not have caught it in all his pre-school age eye exams since he couldn’t read charts.

Now, the earliest the eye doctor can get him in the schedule is the 2nd week of January…I so want to get him in glasses before then. But I’m sticking with this doctor, and here’s why:

The doctor told my husband (I was home with the other kiddos) that Peter was exhibiting certain behaviors that might point to Asperger’s.

I’ve wondered about this for a while. I’ve asked doctors about Peter’s development and behavior. Generally they say something along the lines of: “I think he’s developing quite well, considering.”

You see, I think they have a rough time seeing beyond his Ichthyosis. As if to say: “Isn’t it bad enough that he has to deal with this? Let’s not burden him with something else.”

Of course, that doesn’t change the reality. Peter’s reality. His family’s reality.

And so, I’ve wondered about this often. I’ve read about the “signs” and wondered.

Some of Peter’s signs:

Peter has some definite social issues, but mostly with people he doesn’t know.
He’s very impatient in a situation where someone is presenting to a group (he constantly interrupts).
He has a few particular routines that he seems to have to follow in order to hold it together (the “good-bye” routine is very involved).
He is obsessed with drawing.
He is currently obsessed with mythological creatures. And will argue with books that give information he thinks is incorrect about mythological creatures.
He has difficulty controlling his temper, he’s quick to lash out.
He stims a lot. He needs constant stimulation to concentrate. For instance, he will hook his feet on the bottom of the chair next to him and rock it. Constantly. He can’t help himself. This, by the way, is one of the areas where he and his older brother lock horns. It drives David bananas.
He draws constantly. He can’t sit still at all if he’s not drawing.

But, then there are other things that don’t seem to fit.

He’s extremely sociable with people he knows. And he does much better in small groups. He doesn’t take things literally. He loves to make and laugh at jokes, especially puns. He has an incredible ability to play pretend (and has had from a very young age). He’s sensitive and loving. He’s the full-body-hug kid. He’s very observant: he notices details, points out inconsistences in illustrations of books, etc.

So, I don’t know. Yes, it is called the “autism spectrum” for a reason. Every individual is different, so perhaps he’s on the particularly mild part. But, would he be like this without the Ichthyosis? His entire physical reality is very different from the average kid’s. The first few months of his life outside of the womb were very intense. I have no doubt that his experiences have contributed to who he is and have impacted his psychological and social development.

And we don’t know, yet, what impact his eyesight might be having. I have a feeling his physical reality is going to change for the better once he’s wearing glasses.

Plus, he’s very self-conscious about how others perceive him. I don’t remember his social dealings with others becoming such a big deal until he was old enough to be aware of how people look at him.

He was one happy kid when he was 2. But sometime around the age of 4 or 5 that started to change. And he started intimating to me that he felt like other kids see him as a monster. So, he tends to act out that monster role. We do our best to educate the public and the kids he plays with, but people still react. And he reads their reactions---another reason why I’m not so sure we’re talking about autism, here.

We’ll be talking to his pediatrician soon to see about getting him evaluated. Even if the cause is not AS, he needs some help and I want to find out the best way to help him.

I said this was a positive thing, right? Sometimes I have a tendency to just say: Peter is just being Peter. And while that is true, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t need some special help. It’s kind of a defeatist attitude, really, so having a someone else notice his behavior and give it a name has helped me get my butt in gear.

More importantly, putting a possible label on Peter’s issues has really helped my husband better understand him. He would sometimes get really annoyed with Peter’s clinginess (the “good-bye” routine) and other idiosyncrasies. Peter’s very intense. Chris told me that he understands better now. And that helps, a lot.

While we’re on the topic of discoveries, I’ve decided to put aside Life of Fred Fractions for David.

Could I make it work? Sure. But this has been taking a lot of supplementation on my part. And re-teaching of the material. He forgets it as soon as he learns it. and there simply has to be a better way. It’s not sticking with him.

While he enjoys the format of Fred, he really needs something more incremental with more practice, and probably something more visual. I can add in extra practice. There’s a plethora of free worksheets on the web, or I can just give him my own problems. But when it comes to re-teaching the material and helping him cement it in his noggin…well, I’m getting a bit frustrating.

I have to say, I’m very happy he’s learning this at home, because I don’t know what he would do in a classroom of 30, with a teacher who simply doesn’t have the time to help him specifically with his learning issues. He might simply get left behind. But I know he is capable of getting this.

So, I’m looking at other possibilities over this month. I’ve thought about the Key to series. Or I may look at something else.

But this is a good thing.

Another good thing is that he really is finally mastering his multiplication facts. And he’s able to finally do long multiplication and division on his own without reminders on what the next step is. Yeah for David! I’m so proud of his perseverance. This is really been a long, hard road for him.

What discoveries have you made this week?

You might also like:

Are you comfy in your own skin?

Conquering Math Facts

HandMade Holidays Wrap-up and a Question

2011-12-03T10:39:00.001-05:00

This week's craft tutes have been a lot of fun and I’ve appreciated the kind comments. I'm thinking about adding a weekly or monthly feature on the ole blog. Let me know if that's something that would interest y'all.

I'm also thinking about possibly doing another series of posts for next week. Topic: Awesome Kid Gifts Made from Recyclables!

Oh, yes, I’ve definitely lost my mind, now! We’ve had our week of fun, easy crafty things you can make for the ladies on your list. But what about the kiddos? We can’t forget about them.

And time’s running short…I don’t know about you, but the idea of weekend shopping (the only time I can shop without one of the kids in tow) is not at all appealing to me after Thanksgiving.

I really don’t do well with crowds. And long waits.

And aisles over-packed with…stuff. I get claustrophobic. I lose my train of thought. I get a headache. I get grumpy.

No, let’s skip that. Or at least save it for the grocery shopping. And avoid going to the store if we can possibly help it.

There’s also the simple fact is that I don’t have a bunch of cash to spend. We don’t borrow money for Christmas. It’s simply not in the spirit of Christ’s birth. Giving of ourselves, yes. But racking up credit card bills, no.

And buying gifts for 4 kids adds up very quickly.

The key here is taking something that you were going to throw away or put in the recycling bin and turn it into something EXCEPTIONAL (not crummy).

I should warn you: I’m a duct tape queen. My kids are all convinced that I can make just about anything with duct tape and cardboard. There would be at least one project involving duct tape. I suspect it will have something to do with something a knight might carry.

So, I was all set to do the work to do this and…

I suddenly started feeling very unmotivated. I can’t tell you the number of hours I put in to make last week’s event happen. Really. Between photographing every step, or fighting with my anemic tripod…and then writing it all up. It’s a lot of work.

So, I’m going to ask: Is this something y’all are honestly interest in?

Classy Drop Earrings Tutorial

2011-12-02T06:00:00.000-05:00

This is the last of the Handmade Holidays Tutorials this week, I hope that you have enjoyed them. ;0)

Today we will be making these lovely earrings.

I’ll be teaching you a very simple wire-wrapping technique. You will need a tool for this, a pair of special pliers.

See how the tips are rounded? That will help you make a nice loop for attaching your earring to the ear wire. These are called “round nose” or “rosary” pliers and can be found at craft stores where they sell beading supplies (I think Walmart even sells them). While you could pay a hefty price tag on high quality pliers, the cheap ones (under $10) are good enough to do this project and help you to decide whether you want to become a beader and invest more in a better pair in the future. And they’ll last. You’ll get many many pairs of earrings out of them.

For one pair of earrings, you will also need:

a pair of ear wires. I used leverback earrings, but you can use any style you like. You can also use posts if they have a little loop for attaching your earring. These earrings are base metal. You can use sterling, if you like.
2 headpins in a finish to match your ear wires. These are about 1-1/2 - 2” long. On the headpins, choose lightweight wire ones that are easy to bend. If they are perfectly straight as a rod in the package, you don’t want them, you want something that will be easy to manipulate. Don’t be afraid if they are slightly bent in the package, you can straighten them.
At least one bead per earring.
optional: I added beadcaps (the little cup shaped beads) and some smaller accent beads. If the head of the headpin goes right through the hole of your main bead, put a smaller accent bead (with a small hole) on first.

Pick up a headpin. It looks a little like a really thin nail. The “head” of the pin will be the bottom of your earring.

Thread on a small accent bead. I chose a silvertone bicone.

Thread on your main bead. This is a glass 8mm two-tone firepolished bead. Add your bead cap if you are using one.

Now, notice that this beadcap has a large hole which means it doesn’t want to sit straight on the bead? I added a small, round bead that fits in the hole and keeps it in place.

Next, grab your wire just above the beads with your pliers, like so.

With your fingers, bend the headpin against the pliers so it forms a 90 degree angle.

Now, grab the headpin just above the bend with the tips of your pliers, like so.

You are going to use the rounded pliers as a sort of mandrel to form a loop. Gently bend the wire (with your fingers) back over the plier tip.

Keep bending it around until you have a loop..

Thread your ear wire onto the end of the head pin and slide it into the loop.

Now, grab the loop you made flat in your pliers.

Grab the end of your headpin with your fingers, and gently start wrapping it around itself, just above the beads and just below the loop you made.

Gently use your pliers to make sure the end is wrapped tightly and your coil is nice and neat.

Once you get the hang of it, you can use this technique to make more complicated designs, even chandelier earrings.

In addition to all the other prizes in the Handmade Holidays Giveaway, our winner will also receive these 2 pairs of earrings!

Be sure to check out the Handmade Holidays Linkup for more ideas for simply crafty gifts.

Beaded Bookmark Tutorial

2011-12-01T06:00:00.000-05:00

Today’s Handmade Holidays Tutorial will show you how to make these simple, but elegant bookmarks. All you need are beads and some stringing material of some kind---I used waxed linen and cotton, for the samples, but you can use ribbon, leather cord, shoelaces, whatever you choose, as long as your bead holes are compatible with your string (more tips on that are provided in the video).

Overall cost will depend on your chosen materials, but these can be made for less than a dollar a piece. This is a great project for the whole family.

Please visit the Handmade Tutorials and Linkup page for more easy gift ideas. And be sure to enter the Handmade Holidays Giveaway…the winner will receive their choice of 3 of these bookmarks, plus several other prizes.

Funky, Furry Scarf Tutorial

2011-11-30T06:00:00.000-05:00

Today I’m going to show you how to make this scarf with eyelash yarn.

This is a 10 minute project. No foolin’!

You will need 24 yards of eyelash yarn (see the video for what that looks like) for one 5-foot scarf. I have it looped around my neck twice here, and I’m not short (5’7”), so you may want to make it shorter for a shorter gift recipient. ;0)

Most eyelash yarn comes approximately 50 yards to a skein, so you can get 2 scarves from one skein. I paid about $3 for the skein I used in the video. $1.50 for a high fashion scarf? Who can beat that? (Edited to add: prices will vary by area and store, but you should be able to find something between $3 and $5 a skein. Take advantage of those holiday sales!)

The winner of the Handmade Holidays Giveaway will receive the scarf pictured here, plus several other prizes.

Digi-Scrap Freebie!

2011-11-29T08:00:00.000-05:00

Just in time for your Christmas creations, look what I have for you! A brand new mini digi-scrapping kit from My Memories.

It includes a couple of quick pages and the elements you see here. This is 100% free to download, no strings attached. I don’t think they even ask for an email…how’s that for easy?

I opened up one of the freebie quick pages in My Memories Suite v3, added one of my favorite new photos and some other embellishments…

You can use this set in any photo/graphic editing software, not just My Memories Suite. But I think you might like to check it out…they’ve just released a new version and I’m really happy with it so far…custom page sizes! I see a new header and a blog button in my future. I’ll be reviewing it as soon as I have time to take a closer look.

In the meantime, here’s a promo code for $10 off My Memories Suite v3, just in case you can’t wait: STMMMS52587

Disclosure: I am a My Memories affiliate and do receive cash back from purchases of the software made using my discount code. I’m an affiliate because I love this program. All proceeds help to support my homeschooling habit.

Beaded Door Hanger Tutorial

2011-11-29T06:00:00.000-05:00

Bring a little PEACE, LOVE, and JOY into your loved ones’ homes with these easy door hangers the whole family can help you make.

The winner of the Handmade Holiday Challenge Giveaway will receive a set of these 3 darling door hangers. They also make great tree ornaments or gift toppers (and I wouldn’t be surprised if I catch the girls wearing them as bracelets. ;0)

Today, you get to hear my voice! There are some tips and tricks included to make working with beads more fun, so check it out.

You’ll find links to all of this week’s tutorials, plus a linky you can add your own links to at the Handmade Holiday Linkup.

Outdoor Nativity Set, a review

2011-11-28T08:00:00.000-05:00

Years and years ago, my Grandpa used to make silhouettes out of wood and paint them black. You know the ones I’m talking about.

The silhouette of a man with a pipe, leaning against the side of a building.

Or a dog chasing a cat up a tree.

They were the rage for awhile. It seemed like every woodwork enthusiast had bought some patterns and set up shop.

They were cute. But the paint would chip and fade. The wood would warp or wear out after several seasons.

After a while they just didn’t look so good.

One of the owners of Teak Isle Manufacturing came across one of those silhouettes. It was a nativity, painted white. And he bought it.

But then he had an idea. What if, instead of being made from plywood, it was made from marine grade plastic? Because that’s what Teak Isle does best. They manufacture marine grade goods that can stand up to the power of the ocean. Certainly they could stand up to the wind, rain, sun and snow on the average front lawn.

And what if the set was designed to be be shipped (and stored) flat and easily assembled?

Maybe they could ship them all over the country. And maybe they could save some jobs, because the economy was hard on family-owned Teak Isle. People just weren’t buying marine goods over the holidays.

And those employees had families to feed.

www.OutdoorNavitySets.com was born, and not only did they save 8 jobs, they found themselves working overtime to meet the demand. How’s that for American ingenuity?

I received the Holy Night Outdoor Nativity Set for review. My set arrived on my doorstep in a flat box and I thought to myself: what have I gotten myself into?

But, I’d been assured that this set was very easy to assemble (Outdoor Nativity Sets even include video instructions on their site), so I got brave and opened it up.

I was pleasantly surprised. I found full-color assembly instructions, all the parts I needed (including optional reinforcement pieces) and full-color instructions on how to repack the pieces into the box when it’s time to put it away after Christmas.

How many times have you tried to stuff something back into the box it came in…only to find out it’s impossible, or that it’s going to take a few hours of tinkering? So you give up and stuff it in a trash bag and shove it in a corner somewhere.

I’ll know exactly how to pack my Outdoor Nativity Set to keep it shipshape year after year. Padding and bracing materials are included to keep it from sliding and bumping around.

Assembly was quite simple. The pieces fit together almost like a 3-D puzzle (with no trick pieces).

Stakes and reinforcing hardware were included.

While the reinforcing hardware is optional, I recommend using it, especially if you get any wind. The front pieces do bend some and I can see a hard wind lifting this whole thing off the ground without them. Those metal rods go several inches into the ground, making my Nativity Set quite secure.

The nativity is fairly lightweight easily moved by one person, in spite of it’s bulk (don’t think I could say that about a wooden set).

The pieces are about 3/4” thick and have some flexibility to them (that’s actually handy for assembling on somewhat un-level ground).

The sheep are separate pieces to be positioned however you like. Their feet are stake-shaped for easy placement.

Overall, I’m pretty impressed. This is a classic style that won’t go out of fashion and I think I’ll be looking forward to years of wiping it down and packing it away for the next Christmas season. The flat box should make it easy to store (good when storage space is at a premium).

The overall size (50” high to the top of the star) fits nicely, even in our smallish yard (larger sets are available). And I can add more pieces later, if I want (they have angels, shepherds, and more).

Best of all, in spite of being made from plastic, it doesn’t look at all plastic-y! We’ve all seen tacky plastic nativities…and this isn’t one of them. I like it a lot. And I love that it’s made in the USA.

The Holy Night Nativity Set sells for $149.50 direct from Outdoor Nativity Sets.

Also available:

Please visit Outdoor Nativity Sets for more info and pricing.

Disclosure: I received this product for free in order to facilitate my review. I received no compensation and was not in any way obligated to pen a positive review. As always, the opinions expressed here are my own.

Kaleidoscope Needlepoint Coasters Tutorial

2011-11-28T06:00:00.000-05:00

Plastic canvas, yarn, and kids…a match made in heaven! Needlepoint is an easy skill to learn, encourages manual dexterity, and offers some sensory input---this is a great thing to keep their hands occupied when they have the fidgets.

Plus, they love to watch patterns emerge as they try different stitch combinations---it’s a great hands-on way to demonstrate geometric concepts like symmetry.

And if Mom needs to keep her own fingers occupied (while watching a movie or even while talking on the phone), needlepoint is an easy, inexpensive project.

Children as young as 6 or 7 can make these Kaleidoscope Needlepoint Coasters---the finished product is useful, beautiful, and durable (I’ve even thrown needlepoint coasters in the washer and dryer, really!).

The winner of the Handmade Holidays Challenge Giveaway will receive a set of 6 Kaleidoscope Coasters PLUS a Kaleidoscope Bookmark as part of the prize package. See the Handmade Holidays Giveaway post for more details. This and all other Handmade Holidays Tutorials will be linked to the Handmade Holidays Linkup as they go live.

So, let’s learn how to work with plastic canvas. Once you have mastered the basics, you can use this as a springboard to other projects: ornaments, boxes, pencil cups, placemats, whatever floats your boat. After the coaster tutorial, I’ve added a little bonus: a needlepoint bookmark.

This project uses 7 count plastic canvas (that’s 7 holes to the inch and the most common size). One sheet is approximately 10” x 13” and will make a set of 6 coasters, plus leave you extra to make some bookmarks or other little doodads. You can buy precut squares, but the standard sheets are more economical…they usually sell for under a buck regular price, and can be found on sale for as little as 4/$1!

Materials for 6 needlpoint coasters (you’ll have extra to make bookmarks):

1 sheet of 7 count plastic canvas
tapestry or plastic canvas needle (around $2 for a set of 4)
yarn (cheap RedHeart works well for about $3 a skein): I used a variegated yarn, because I like the effect, but you can use a solid.

This is what your plastic canvas will look like.

Cutting the Canvas

When cutting it, you want to count the lines, not the holes. For each coaster, you will cut a square that is 24 lines by 24 lines.

So, count over 24 from the edge (including the edge), and cut right next to the 24th line, all the way across the piece (length-wise or widthwise, doesn’t matter).

Then count 24 over from one end of that strip (including the edge).

Cut straight across and you will have a square.

The end of your strip will have little plastic sticky-outy doobers on the end.

Cut them off to have a clean edge(over the trash can!).

Now that you have a clean edge, you can use your first square as a template to cut more (no more counting!).

You will get 2 squares width-wise, or 3 length-wise. Repeat, cutting more strips (don’t forget to trim the doobers), and squares, until you have 6. And some excess. Save the excess for other projects, like the bookmark that follows.

Ok, let’s take a look at the pattern, again.

This pattern was created using a basic needlepoint stitch and a 5x5 square. The squares mirror each other to create the kaleidoscope effect.

I stitched it in this order:

single stitched border
4 rows of squares
overcast the edge

The Border

Thread your needle with an approximately 4 foot long piece of yarn. Do not put a knot in it.

Starting at the far left edge, second hole down, push your needle up through the hole, while holding the end of the yarn on the back of the canvas with your finger.

Pull the yarn all the way through, but don’t let go of the end. Put the needle tip down through the hole to the right and up one row.

Again, don’t let go of your end. Pull the yarn all the way through.

Now, come up in the hole immediately below that hole.

Let’s look at the back.

As you can see, you will be stitching over the end to keep it from pulling out.

Back to the front. Stitch one to the right and up like before.

You are making little half Xs. Here’s a few stitches later:

And back:

The end is totally covered now, with no funky lump from a knot.

Stitch to the end of the row.

Turn 90 degrees counter-clockwise, and continue to stitch, so all your stitches go in the same direction.

Notice that the half Xs go in the opposite direction from you perspective (since you turned it). Continue your border all the way around.

When you get back to where you started, turn it over to the wrong side.

To finish it off, you will slide your needle under several stitches.

Pull it through and trim close to the stitching.

The 5x5 Squares

Next is the first row of 5x5 squares. Cut another length of yarn about 4-5 feet long and thread your needle.

Start right next to the border on the left, one row down from the top border, holding your end behind like before.

This first stitch is like the ones you made in the border, you go one the the right and up one. For the next stitch, you come up one immediately below where you came up for the first stitch.

And go back down one to the right of where you went down for the last stitch.

Hold your yarn end kinda of a diagonal so it will be caught in the square.

Next stitch:

Continue in this way until you have 5 progressively longer stitches:

Here’s the back:

Now you will stitch the other half of the square. Come up immediately to the right of where you came up for the last stitch.

And go down immediately below where you went down for the last stitch.

“And so on, until you complete the square.

The back:

This is the basic unit of this pattern. To achieve the kaleidoscope, you will mirror the pattern for subsequent squares, like so:

To finish the row, run the yarn under the stitches in the back, like before (you can do this under your square or under the border).

Each subsequent row will be a mirror image of the previous one.

The Overcast Edge

You can do this one of two ways, with your yarn doubled or with it single. I chose to finish this set with the yarn doubled because:

It’s quicker.
It gives a thicker edge.

If you use a single length of yarn, you will go through each hole twice (corners 3 or 4 times). With the yarn doubled, you will go through each hole once (corners 2 times).

Either cut one length 4-5 feet long and thread your needle, or cut your yarn 8-10 feet long, threading your needle to the halfway mark and folding the yarn in half.

You can stitch over the end of the yarn (just like before) when you overcast, but I prefer to start the yarn by running under the back of existing stitches (it avoids an awkward lump).

Put the needle up through one of the edge holes (not at a corner).

Pull it through, wrap the yarn over the edge. If you are using your yarn singly, come back up through the same hole. If you are using doubled yarn, come back up through the hole immediately to the right.

Pull it through, wrap it over the edge, and continue in the same way until you reach the corner. Remember, if you are using your yarn singly, you will go through each hole 2x, 1x if you are using doubled yarn.

Single:

Double:

The yarn will tend to twist up. Try to keep it as smooth as you can.

When you get to the corner, go through that hole 2x (3x if you are using your yarn singly), and then continue on to the next side. After you have overcast all 4 sides,wrap the yarn once more over the edge and run your needle under 5-6 border stitches on the back to finish.

Here’s what the completed coaster looks like on the back.

You can hand sew a square of felt onto the back to cover your stitches, but I don’t really think it’s necessary with this pattern.

Time to complete one coaster (once you get the hang of it) 30-45 minutes. Just right for TV viewing.

For a shorter project, try the Kaleidoscope Bookmark:

For each bookmark, you will need:

2 squares of 7 count plastic canvas 12 lines by 12 lines
tapestry or plastic canvas needle
yarn

Cut your plastic canvas squares 12 lines by 12 lines. These are small, so I didn’t bother will a border. Simply stitch 4 5x5 squares that mirror each other. You can see that I made the God’s eye pattern on one and the cross pattern on the other. Here’s how to finish:

Cut a 5 foot length of yarn and thread your needle. Starting in the center of one edge of one square, start your overcast stitch (stitch over your yarn end to catch it):

We are using the yarn singly, so you will want to go through each hole 2x, 3x for the corner. Continue around until you reach the halfway mark of the opposite side.

Now, grab your other square and line it up about 12” or so from the first one, like so:

Insert you needle through the center hole on the side facing the first square. Overcast over the edge of the right half of the 2nd square.

Run the end of the yarn under stitches on the back to finish it off.
Cut another piece of year 4-5 feet long. Repeat to finish off and connect the squares on the other side. Make sure both connecting strands are the same length.

To finish, tie an overhand knot close to each square.

Stayed tuned this week for more tutorials of easy crafts appropriate for holiday gift giving. Be sure to check out the Handmade Holidays Linkup post where you can link up your own handmade gift tips and ideas.

And one lucky reader will receive a box full of handmade holiday gifts! See the Handmade Holidays Giveaway post for details on how you can enter.

Minotaurs Only!

2011-11-27T19:55:00.001-05:00

In case you hadn’t guessed, Peter is on a mythology kick lately.

Hercules and the Hydra

2011-11-27T19:37:00.001-05:00

One of Peter’s creations