Homeschool Crafty Fun

Today we had several sick children at our house, so we weren't able to go to church. With the whole day ahead of us to keep them quiet and entertained we moved up two craft projects we were to do later this week. The projects had been chosen to kick off our "Summer Homeschool" with a little fun.


The first craft was making homemade crayons from all our old bits and pieces. It's really simple, so let me explain what we did:


1. First mommy or daddy cuts all the crayon papers with an exacto knife and piles them where the kids can reach.
2. The kids pull off the paper wrappers - this is so much easier than trying to rip it off!
3. Everyone breaks the crayons into smaller pieces and piles according to color groups, reds in one area, greens in another, and so on.
4. Preheat the oven to 275 degrees F.
5. Fill an old muffin tin with crayons of your choice. We filled each cup about half full.
6. Bake until melted, 8-15 minutes depending on your crayons (we had some jumbo crayons that took longer than thin crayons).
7. Cool completely, then pop out of the muffin pan and color away!

Here is our second project, each child covered a pen with sculpey clay and baked it. It is an easy project too. The only thing to know is that you need a pen that the ink comes out of for the baking part - we used the cheap BIC pens we had laying around. After mixing your sculpey colors, rolling flat, and wrapping your pen barrel, just bake for 15 minutes per 1/4 inch of thickness at 275 degrees F. Cool completely then put the ink back in the pen and get writing! Here are ours:

One of my Favorite Days

Last night was one of my favorite homeschool events of the year: the used curriculum sale at my local homeschool group! For the last few years I have brought items we are no longer using in our homeschool to sell so I have more room in the house. Of course I never plan on selling much, but my goal is to BUY less than I sell, or at least have the totals come out close.

The used curriculum sale is fun for another reason - I get to find great deals on things we will use, and I get to flip through things I've always wanted to see. Oh, and I get to see things I never knew existed too! It is just a fun evening.

Well, with the economy the way it is I was expecting sales to be nearly non-existent. I did see some things while many things returned home with me. I am always surprised what sells. You never know what another family is looking for. I sold $34.00 in stuff. And I stayed close to that in my spending! I spent $37.00, so my out of pocket was only $3.00. Would you like to see what I got?

I will list things here, with the price it costs new beside it. I did NOT pay those prices, but it is always fun to see how much I would have spent to buy these new.

Primary Bucket Balance ($18.99)

Geography Songs ($22.99)

Math U See Delta teacher's kit ($35.00)

Sesame Street Number Flash Cards ($3.00?)

Bible Eights 2 sets ($6.00?)

Apologia's Exploring Creation with Astronomy ( $35.00)

Shoes book and cassette ($8.95)

The M & M's Counting Book ($13.93)

Take It To Your Seat Geography Centers gr 1-2 ($21.99)

Take It To Your Seat Geography Centers gr 2-3 ($21.99)

Dinah Zike's Teaching Social Studies with Foldables video ($10.00?)

Jump Start Typing cd-rom ages 7-10 ($19.99)

Jump Start Spanish cd-rom ages 3-6 ($9.99)

Carmen Sandiego Junior Detective cd-rom ages 5-8 ($8.55)

Backyard Scientist Series One ($8.50)

Letter Dot to Dot 2 copies ($3.95 ea)

Phonics Blends 2 copies ($3.95 ea)

Phonics Vowels 2 copies ($3.95 ea)

Early Learning Activities English & Spanish ($26.99)

Practice Pals First Words dry erase book ($4.00?)

I Can Print A-Z dry erase book ($4.50)

I Can Count to 20 dry erase book ($4.50)

I can Count to 10 dry erase book ($4.50)

The grand total new: $313.06 +tax!!!!

I saved $276.06, spent $37.00, and made $34.00 at the same sale so my out of pocket expense for over $300.00 in materials was $3.00.

Now do you see why I love the curriculum sale?

The Tale of the Potion on the Dog

Once upon a time there was a dog named Roseeyosey. She had a enemy, it was a dragon . Its name was Tuturea.
On a dark night in a secret hiding place Roseeyosey drank a magic potion. Tuturea had left the potion. She turned into a bullfrog. She was the color of a hundred colors. Roseeyosey screamed for her daddy.
He couldn’t hear her because she was too far away and all she could do was croak like this: Croooak.
She built a time machine. She went back to when she was a dog. This time she gave the potion to the dragon. She said it was juice and Tuturea drank it. The dragon turned into a colorful little frog with a hundred colors.
The End.

by Makayla

Learning Never Stops

Sometimes people wonder if they are teaching their children enough. In their worry and self-inflicted guilt they push their children to work harder, faster, longer. They take fewer breaks. They push. I have been guilty of it too, so don't feel bad.

Homeschooling year round is one way I keep that feeling from becoming overwhelming. If you don't take a 3 month break the kids don't forget half of what they spent the last 9 months learning. Instead we take our shorter, more frequent breaks. However, I occasionally get the "look" from a non-homeschooling adult who has asked yet again what we are doing in homeschool right now only to hear we are on break - again. You know, it is that look that says, "Are you sure you know what you are doing? Shouldn't they be working more and playing less?"

We are finishing up one of those short breaks this week, starting into the next school year on Monday. I have had reaffirmed by my children the facts that:

1. Breaks are healthy.

2. Learning never stops.

Last night Makayla wrote a story of her own free will and choice (NOT something she does for fun usually). I'll put it in the next post if she gives me permission.

Today I got this picture of Makayla:

That is her science textbook for next year, which we won't start until fall. She has spent a few hours reading through it both alone and with her younger siblings. She's getting excited by what she is finding too.

Here is one more picture from today:

It is hard to tell, but Makayla is busy teaching her siblings. Emma and Joseph asked her to help them do some worksheets(writing letters). Once they started that Daniel brought his bag of crayons to Makayla so he could join in at the desks. Makayla patiently helped him do a dot to dot puzzle and then let him color in the picture he made.

Scenes like this have been repeated in some variation for the last two weeks. Reading books, doing art projects, writing letters, and more. All initiated by the kids.

So take a deep breath. Take a break. And watch to see what spontaneous learning your children do.

Memorial Day Makeover

Today was a great Memorial Day out in the sun with a lot of family. We didn't get home until 5:00pm and we were tired. In our exhaustion we decided it was time to do our first big house project, ripping out the carpet in the dining room.

I love our house. Finding a house to buy in our minuscule budget that would meet the needs our growing family full of kids took lots of prayer. We have lived here for 2 years. The only thing I really did not like about our house: the dining room was carpeted in light beige. Not a good idea when most of the family is still learning how to use a fork and spoon! We've had lots of spills and stains, and a lot of carpet catching crumbs. So the plan was to pull the carpet this summer, and maybe refinish the floors next summer.
All in all the process went better than expected. Jason and I got it done around the kids in under 2 hours. The only spot we didn't do tonight was under our massive bookcase. We knew we didn't have the energy and time to take all those books off shelves, unbolt the bookcase, move it, remove the carpet, put the shelves back, and reshelve all the books. We will do that on another weekend, preferably when someone is here to play with the kids in the backyard.
Now we didn't know for sure what was under that carpet other than hardwood floors that would need refinished(we had asked the person we bought the house from). It turns out the floors are in great condition and mostly need some paint removed. Enjoy the pictures!

Year Round Homeschooling

We are one of those happy homeschooling families who enjoys schooling year round. There are lots of reasons for this, here are some of ours:
1. We miss the memory loss that comes with a 3 month break from academics, which saves us weeks of review in the fall.
2. We get to take breaks off all year long, when it suits our family. This is huge because we love being able to take time off with daddy and do fun trips when places are not as busy.
3. We get to do 4 day school weeks! Daddy happens to have Mondays off and so do we!
4. We can take a break anytime mommy is having major morning sickness or that first month with a new baby. In most families that might not happen very often, I suppose. In our family we have been pregnant 7 times in 8 years of marriage! Except between our oldest two we have not had a gap between pregnancies that is longer than 11 months. By the time our babies turn 1 we are celebrating another pregnancy right along with their birthday. What a blessing!
5. We can have some constructive time inside during those hot summer afternoons, instead of using the TV for entertainment.
6. We can keep a routine going in summertime that helps keep away those words every parent dreads to hear, "I'm bored".


What this means for us is we have been enjoying a short break and we will pick back up with homeschool the first week of June. That means I have been working out a new schedule. Remember all those happy posts about how Managers of Their Homes(MOTH) has blessed our family? Check them out HERE.

This will be our first summer schedule using what I learned from MOTH, and today I finalized Summer Schedule version 1.0, subject to change as needed. Here it is:

6:00am - This is Mommy's hour. I wake up, read scriptures, and hopefully get some exercise in before the little feet start pattering down the stairs. What? You think it is too hard to get up before the kids? If I can do it while still getting up at night with 2 kids(Daniel and Oliver), you can do it too! Trust me, that time in the scriptures is priceless.

7:00am - Time to wake the kids. The only one I don't wake up is Oliver. Babies under a year old don't have a morning wake up time at my house. Once you are a year, up you get. From 7am to approximately 8:30am we will do the following: eat breakfast, do circle time at the table(this is scripture memory, song, weather, calendar), get dressed, and do chores.

8:30am - 10:30am - Once the above jobs are done we will be heading outside to play and work in the garden. This is the coolest part of the day, we're not wasting it in the house unless someone is sick.

10:30am - 11:30am - Inside for a quick snack and the first round of homeschool. Remember we use workboxes, so the day to day order of homeschool may change, but the times won't. For sake of an example, during this time the kids will do math. Makayla will do Math U See, Joseph and Emma will do the Funtastic Frogs books and manipulatives, and Daniel will do anything he can grab. Other workboxes will be fun activities.

11:30am - 12:00pm - Lunchtime.

12:00pm - 1:00pm - Homeschool round 2. For sake of example this may be writing time, so Makayla will write a story some days and work on grammar on others. Joseph and Emma will be working on writing letters with dry erase boards, worksheets, or work on Starfall.com. Daniel will use the dry erase boards.

1:00pm - 2:00pm - Quiet Time. Everyone rests with books in their beds.

2:00pm - 3:00pm - Homeschool Round 3. Usually this will be the time we watch a Signing Time dvd and play some sign games together. Or we'll pull out card games, board games, etc.

3:00pm - 3:30pm - Snacktime and any chores that need done.

3:30pm to bedtime is free. We do have things that happen, like family scripture study with daddy, baths, more playing outside, bowling, and so on, but no real schedule.


Now there are things I will do throughout the day that I didn't write down because they just happen around what is going on. Washing laundry, baking bread, etc. I tend to switch laundry loads at meals and snacks(we have at least 2 loads a day: 1 regular clothes, 1 cloth diapers. More if I'm washing towels and sheets). Bread takes just a few minutes to mix, then it rises without me(while we are playing outside). A minute to toss in the oven and it bakes without me. A minute to pull out of the oven and then it's over. If I have to grind the wheat it adds a few minutes for that, but the grinder can run while I'm washing up dishes in the morning.

Watercolors and Paintbrushes

These are pictures from yesterday. The kids painted some pictures. The biggest 3 children used watercolor paints, while Daniel was given finger paints. Of course he wanted to use a paintbrush, just like his big brother. Horray! Less mess for me to clean up later. Everyone had a good time and painted two masterpieces.

Kids Bowl Free Summer

I mentioned in my last post that we would be bowling as a family this summer and that it was free. Let me explain it a little more. Technically, the kids will be bowling all summer for free. They can bowl two games a day totally free. We also purchased a Family pass so that four adults can bowl with the kids for 2 games every day all summer. On the pass we put mommy, daddy, and two grandparents. We've got a bowling date with the grandparents each week, and lots of bowling date as a family! The family pass was $24.00 if you are wondering. For less than the price of one game of bowling for my whole family we can bowl every day from June 1st through August 27th. Sounds like a great deal to me!

This is a program available across the country, so check out this website HERE to see if there is a bowling center participating in your area!

Focus for Summer

Summer is fast approaching. We have officially finished our second grade year with Makayla and are taking a few weeks off. After that we're starting our summer schedule. We like to keep up some educational work during the summer to facilitate our school years that are frequently interrupted by the birth of a new baby, or the antics of a toddler, or just life in general. So this summer we'll have just a few academic subjects and lots of fun ones, generally on a Tuesday through Friday schedule.

Makayla's academic focus will be math and writing. She is beginning Math U See with the Alpha level to redo that foundation for a strong base in math. For her writing focus the activities will be a mix of writing often and working through a grammar book we have on homonyms, synonyms, and antonyms. Makayla enjoys grammar, so why not indulge that?

Joseph and Emma's academic focus for the summer will be writing/phonics and froggy math. They will practice writing the lowercase letters and their names, as well as keep up with the phonics practice. This will involve lots of dry erase boards, letter tiles, paint, crayons, markers, and so on. Anything to keep it fun. The math is totally manipulative based, with frog counters called Funtastic Frogs. I also will see if they are interested in the Math U See blocks Makayla will be using.

The whole family will work on two things together this summer. The first is sign language. We use sign some in our family (read an earlier post about why HERE), but Daniel has not chosen to use it up to now. That is causing a small problem. He is 19 months old, and is just beginning to say some words in a mostly understandable way. The problem comes in his frustration level. He doesn't have the words to tell us what he is trying to say, and doesn't have the signs either. The result has been a lot of tantrums in just the last few weeks. We're working on the speaking, but we are also going to be working of the signing because that will come along faster. All the older kids enjoy signing to some degree, and so this summer we'll be playing lots of games with sign language and consistently using our dvds and working on specific signs with Daniel.

The second thing we're working on as a family isn't anything new, just song and scripture memory work. We usually memorize one song and scripture a month, plus practicing the Articles of Faith. For the summer we're going to try learning a few more, starting with two a month.

Some of the fun things we'll do this summer are:
learning to sew for Makayla and Mommy
gardening
bowling (FREE! I'll post more about this later)
art projects
our library's summer reading program
camping
stargazing
some read alouds

Do you have any great (and cheap) summer fun ideas?

A Picture Post of Quiet Time - Shhh!

Boys are so....Boyish!

Yesterday afternoon I got this sweet picture of my two biggest boys. They had been sitting together on the recliner after lunch and Daniel fell asleep on Joseph's shoulder. I snapped the picture and then carried Daniel upstairs for naptime.

These next two pictures are from this morning. My kids all like to play with Legos and Duplos. However, Joseph is the Lego-gifted child. We have a fun board game called Lego Creator where you collect pieces that match your blueprint card, and ultimately build a lego boat, robot, helicopter, etc. He's great at it and asks for it nearly every day. Seriously. Yesterday we got out our big tub of Legos(really, really big tub). After playing for a while daddy had gathered the pieces for our pirate ship set that we've had for a long time. He put it together and gave it to Joseph. When the Lego tub was put away the pirate ship stayed out to play.

This morning Joseph got a little bored with the pirate ship, so he took it apart. Every single piece was taken apart. I got a little worried because I had no clue how to rebuild the thing and Daddy is not going to be home until bedtime today. What was I going to do when Joseph decided he really really wanted to play with the pirate ship again? I should have known better than to worry about it. Joseph just put it together all by himself.

Did I mention he didn't have any instructions?

Honestly, I was amazed. My visual memory is next to nothing. I really don't see pictures in my head, nor can I remember the details of something I've seen without lots of repeated exposure, and sometimes not even then. Obviously my 4 year old son is nothing like his mother!

Is it just a boy thing? He can take apart things and remember how to put them back together. If I try to help him sort Legos into different sets(he has a small Indiana Jones set, and some of daddy's old star wars sets that are these tiny podracers) I really just sort blocks by color. Blue over here, orange over there, black here... and the whole time Joseph takes things out of my piles and puts them in the right bags. While telling me over and over "Moooommm! Not there! That goes with this set."

Oops.

What We're Learning

I don't often share what we're working on for gospel learning so I thought I would do a quick post on our current projects. We use the Primary themes each month and post the monthly scripture on our circle time board. Every day we recite the new scripture. We recite a different Article of Faith each week. We learn a new song each month that goes with the theme and sing it every day.


For May the theme is:

Baptism and confirmation are ordinances that bless my family.



The scripture:

"Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God" John 3:5



Our song is Baptism. You can listen to it and print the music HERE.



Our Article of Faith is number 12:

"We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law."

By the end of a month Emma, Joseph, and Makayla all know the scripture and song, and Makayla knows the Articles of Faith from that month usually too.

The other thing we try to do is read the scriptures every day as a family. We have done this in a lot of different ways over the years. Sometimes we read directly out of the scriptures and talk about what we read. Sometimes we use the church's Gospel Art Picture Kit and each child tells about the picture they are handed, and we read the story from the back of the picture. Other times we read the Scripture Stories books the church has made. We even enjoy acting out the scriptures, and have done that for a month at a time.

Currently we are reading directly from the scriptures. We are reading The Book of Mormon and started in Mosiah this time with the stories of King Benjamin. We don't read a lot at once, a chapter at most, because we want to talk about what we're reading with the kids and help them remember the stories and principles the stories are teaching. It is always neat to read a story and have the kids interrupt you to tell the story in their own words because it is one they remember. They remember far more than I expect, even the younger children. I love it. And I notice the difference in our family when we are lax about our scripture reading, because life just seems to be a bit bumpier. My husband and I will look at each other and ask "What is going on?", then we realize we have let what matters most give way for the busy things that crowd our days. Then we pick those scriptures up and everything smoothes out again. It just really makes a difference.

Buns Take Two

Yet another baking day has come. I was feeling lazy this morning, so instead of grinding up more wheat I used what I had (just 2 cups) with white flour and oatmeal to make some oatmeal bread. No, I don't have a recipe. I just use my basic wheat bread recipe and change the flour around with whatever is on hand. If you want the basic bread recipe click on the baking label in my sidebar and it will pull up all my recipes. The kids wanted to help today so they made these buns with some of the bread dough:

Does anyone have advice for making lighter hamburger buns? These are good, as a matter of fact the picture shows what was left after the kids and I ate some hot with butter, jelly, or peanut butter. But I guess I'm thinking more along the lines of a roll recipe that does NOT have eggs. I can always find one online, but I like using recipes someone else has tried already. Just leave a comment if you have one to recommend.

Our Office Max Deal

Our local Office Max is closing. I think the store has been open just over a year and while I like using it, it is never busy. The choice of location wasn't the best I think. It just seems out of the way. Regardless, when a store closes that means everything goes on clearance. Which is good for me.

We have been looking into buying a black and white laser printer. We do a lot of copying with all our reproducible books for homeschool. We do a lot of printing with internet freebies and lapbooks. We print things for the kids for family home evening crafts. We just like to print. Our inkjet printer/scanner/copier works well, but the cost of ink in the quantity we use is a bit ridiculous. A black and white cartridge gets us about 200 sheets printed if we're lucky and costs $18.00. That is 9 cents a page.

We took the kids to Office Max yesterday to see what we could find. We were down to a few sheets of printer paper, so we knew we would be picking up paper if nothing else. We wanted to check out the laser printers. Our requirements were simple: black ink and a scanner/copier built in. (We don't do a lot of color printing.)

We found a nice Brother laser printer that was well rated, had the copier/scanner we needed, and was only $200.00. Oh, and that was before the clearance discount. We also picked up an extra toner cartridge for it, again, it was clearanced. Toner runs $42.00. And we got half a case of paper. Between those 3 items, with tax, we were out the door for the original price of just the printer. Horray!

Just for comparison, the laser prints about 1500 sheets on one toner cartridge. One cartridge costs $42.00. That is 2 cents a page. To print that many pages with our inkjet would take 7.5 cartridges, costing $135.00 for the same 1500 pages!!!! Ouch.

Now I'm working on selling the old printer to recoup some of the price. Good old Craigslist. Hopefully we'll sell it this weekend.

Table Fun

I got some pictures today of all the kids working away at the table. Makayla had done a page about homonyms from an internet freebie I got last week.

Quick, what is a homonym??? Come on, you've got to remember what a homonym is! After 12 or more years of public education I expect faster answers!

It's okay, I had to think a bit to remember what it was too. Homonyms are words that sound the same, are spelled differently, and have different meanings. Like bare/bear, week/weak, write/right.

As I was saying, Makayla did a page about the homonyms flour and flower. Each page is set up similarly with a spot to write and spell each word, lines to write the definitions after you look them up in a dictionary, boxes to draw a picture to represent each word, a hands-on way to remember the differences, and lines to use each word in a sentence. The book this page came from is by Barker Creek and is called Homonyms, Synonyms, and Antonyms. It is part of their Reading Fundamentals series. We're going to work through this book whenever the mood strikes(or when it shows up in a workbox!).

Joseph and Emma did pages writing the letter A, both uppercase and lowercase, coloring the apples labeled with either upper or lower case letters the right color, and then coloring pages and dot to dot pictures. Daniel colored a picture. Oliver slept.

Circle Time Board Revisited

It has been a long time since I posted about our circle time board. We are overdue for an update. The first thing I'm sure you are wondering is:

Are you still using the board? Umm, sometimes. We go in cycles where we use it every single day, and then every few days, and sometimes not at all. We finally put it up on the wall, which I love. It is there to see every day, so even if I'm not using it daily with the kids, they are seeing it daily and can review without me.

This past weekend we did a few edits to the board to add a better calendar practice area with some of the things I bought at Dollar Tree. Each day someone flips the date card over and we practice counting to that number.

Moving West Complete

Ahh. I love when something is finished. It just suits my organized self to have things "checked off". Today Makayla finished her final history unit for 2nd grade about the westward expansion.

Originally I planned on reading some of the Little House on the Prairie books to the kids while Makayla worked through the Evan-Moor History Pocket book Moving West. We read a few chapters. It flopped, which is unusual. The kids love being read to but just didn't like the first book. We'll try it again some other time I'm sure, but they weren't enjoying it so we shelved the books. Instead Makayla has just worked through the History Pockets.

If you are not familiar with Evan-Moor's pockets series let me explain. Each pocket is a topic or subtopic with reproducible stories and activities. Makayla enjoyed some activities more than others, and everyone enjoyed the stories.

We added each pocket into her notebook that already has the Charlotte's Web and Platypus stuff. She plans to print copies of her writing and poetry work from this year into the last few pages of the notebook.

Order #2 Arrived

The second order from Book Closeouts did arrive last week and I am just now getting to blogging about it. Here is what was inside:

Funtastic Frogs Number Patterns - these are activity cards using frog counters, perfect for workboxes!

Funtastic Frogs Operations and Place Value - activity sheets for the frogs

Funtastic Frogs Making Graphs - more activity sheets

Gorilla Mountain - beautiful documentary for kids about a gorilla family and poachers

City Bear - beautiful documentary about a polar bear growing up who wanders into town

Big Cat Summer - beautiful documentary about lioness' journey to find food for her family

Measurement: A hands on approach - this is grades 2-3, each lesson connects learning with real life applications

Daily Problems and Weekly Puzzlers Science - this is grade 2 approximately and has 68 daily problems and 20 weekly puzzlers. The daily problems take just a day, while the weekly puzzlers involve longer projects. Science topics covered from all the general areas of science.

Super Science Themes PreK-1 - This will be a great resources to involve the middle kids in Makayla's science year next year. Each theme is centered around an animal and has a story, interactive display, activities, and printables related to the theme.

A Little Bit of Everything Grade 1 - this is a reproducible book of over 200 activity sheets in 10 curricular areas for first graders

A Little Bit of Everything Grade 4 - similar to the reproducible first grade book but covers 6 curricular areas more in depth for 4th graders

That is my haul! Everything was 99 cents. Totally worth it.

Famous Homeschoolers

Okay, I really want you to read this list. It is amazing to me some of the names on the list. If you don't have time to read it right this minute be sure to come back later.


Constitutional Convention Delegates

· Richard Basseti - Governor of DE
· William Blount - U.S. Senator
· George Clymer - U.S. Representative
· William Few - U.S. Senator
· Benjamin Franklin
· William Houston – Lawyer
· William S. Johnson
· William Livingston - Governor of NJ
· James Madison - 4th U.S. President
· George Mason - Justice of VA
· John Francis Mercer - U.S. Rep.
· Charles Pickney III - Governor of SC
· John Rutledge - Chief Justice
· Richard D. Spaight - Governor of NC
· George Washington
· John Witherspoon
· George Wythe - Justice of VA

Presidents

· John Adams
· John Quincy Adams
· Grover Cleveland
· James Garfield
· William Henry Harrison
· Andrew Jackson
· Thomas Jefferson
· Abraham Lincoln
· James Madison
· Franklin Delano Roosevelt
· Theodore Roosevelt
· John Tyler
· George Washington
· Woodrow Wilson

Statesmen

· Konrad Adenauer
· Henry Fountain Ashurst
· William Jennings Bryan
· Winston Churchill
· Henry Clay
· Pierre du Pont
· Benjamin Franklin
· Alexander Hamilton
· Patrick Henry
· William Penn
· Daniel Webster

Military Leaders

· John Barry - Senior Navy Officer
· Stonewall Jackson - Civil War General
· John Paul Jones - Father of the American Navy
· Robert E. Lee - Civil War General
· Douglas MacArthur - U.S. General
· George Patton - U.S. General
· Matthew Perry - naval officer who opened up trade with Japan
· John Pershing - U.S. General
· David Dixon Porter - Civil War Admiral

U.S. Supreme Court Judges

· John Jay
· John Marshall
· John Rutledge
· Sandra Day O'Connor

Scientists

· George Washington Carver
· Pierre Curie
· Albert Einstein
· Michael Faraday - electrochemist
· Oliver Heaviside - physicist and electromagnetism researcher
· T.H. Huxley
· Blaise Pascal
· Booker T. Washington
· Erik Demaine - Popular Science Mag: One of the Most Brilliant Scientists in America

Artists

· William Blake
· John Singleton Copley
· Claude Monet
· Grandma Moses
· Charles Peale
· Leonardo da Vinci
· Andrew Wyeth
· Jamie Wyeth

Religious Leaders

· Joan of Arc
· William Carey
· Jonathan Edwards
· Philipp Melancthon
· Dwight L. Moody
· John Newton
· John Owen
· Hudson Taylor
· John & Charles Wesley
· Brigham Young

Inventors

· Alexander Graham Bell - invented the telephone
· John Moses Browning - firearms inventor and designer
· Peter Cooper - invented skyscraper, built first U.S. commercial locomotive
· Thomas Edison - invented the stock ticker, mimeograph, phonograph, and perfected the electric light bulb
· Benjamin Franklin - invented the lightning rod
· Elias Howe - invented sewing machine
· William Lear - airplane creator
· Cyrus McCormick - invented grain reaper
· Guglielmo Marconi - developed radio
· Eli Whitney - invented the cotton gin
· Sir Frank Whittle - invented turbo jet engine
· Orville and Wilbur Wright - built the first successful airplane

Composers

· Irving Berlin
· Anton Bruckner
· Noel Coward
· Felix Mendelssohn
· Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
· Francis Poulenc
· John Philip Sousa

Writers

· Hans Christian Anderson
· Margaret Atwood
· Pearl S. Buck
· William F. Buckley, Jr.
· Willa Cather
· Agatha Christie
· Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)
· Charles Dickens
· Robert Frost - Pulitzer Prize-winning poet
· Charlotte Perkins Gilman
· Alex Haley
· Brett Harte
· L. Ron Hubbard
· C.S. Lewis
· Amy Lowell
· Gabriela Mistral
· Sean O'Casey
· Christopher Paolini - author of #1 NY Times bestseller, Eragon
· Isabel Paterson
· Beatrix Potter - author of the beloved Peter Rabbit Tales
· Carl Sandburg
· George Bernard Shaw
· Mattie J. T. Stepanek - 11-year-old author of Heartsongs
· Mercy Warren
· Phillis Wheatley
· Walt Whitman
· Laura Ingalls Wilder

Educators

· Amos Bronson Alcott - innovative teacher, father of Louisa May Alcott
· Catharine Beecher - co-founder of the Hartford Female Seminary
· Jill Ker Conway - first woman president of Smith College
· Timothy Dwight - President of Yale University
· William Samuel Johnson - President of Columbia College
· Horace Mann - "Father of the American Common School"
· Charlotte Mason - Founder of Charlotte Mason College of Education
· Fred Terman - President of Stanford University
· Frank Vandiver - President of Texas A&M University
· Booker T. Washington - Founder of Tuskegee Institute
· John Witherspoon - President of Princeton University

Performing Artists

· Louis Armstrong - king of jazz
· Charlie Chaplin - actor
· Whoopi Goldberg - actress
· Hanson - sibling singing group
· Jennifer Love Hewitt - actress
· Yehudi Menuhin - child prodigy violinist
· Moffatts - Canadian version of Hanson
· Frankie Muniz - child actor
· LeAnne Rimes - teen-prodigy country music singer
· Barlow Girl - Alyssa, Rebecca, and Lauren Contemporary Christian Music
· Jonas Brothers - Kevin, Joe, and Nick Performers
· Jacob Clemente - Broadway Actor

Business Entrepreneurs

· Andrew Carnegie - wealthy steel industrialist
· Amadeo Giannini - Bank of America’s founder
· Horace Greeley - New York Tribune founder
· Soichiro Honda - creator of the Honda automobile company
· Peter Kindersley - book illustrator and publisher
· Ray Kroc - founder of McDonald's fast food restaurant chain
· Jimmy Lai - newspaper publisher; founder of Giordano International
· Dr. Orison Swett Marden - founder, Success magazine
· Adolph Ochs - New York Times founder
· Joseph Pulitzer - newspaper publisher; established Pulitzer Prize
· Colonel Harland Sanders - started Kentucky Fried Chicken
· Dave Thomas - founder of the Wendy’s restaurant chain
· Mariah Witcher - founder of Mariahs Famous Cookies
· Daniel Mills - founder of Salem Ridge Press

Others

· Abigail Adams - Wife of John Adams; mother of John Quincy Adams
· Ansel Adams - Photographer
· Susan B. Anthony - reformer and women’s rights leader
· John James Audubon - ornithologist and artist
· Clara Barton - Started the Red Cross
· Elizabeth Blackwell - first woman in the U.S. to receive a medical degree
· John Burroughs - Naturalist
· George Rogers Clark - Explorer
· Davy Crockett - frontiersman
· Eric Hoffer - social philosopher
· Sam Houston - lawyer; first president of the Republic of Texas
· Charles Evans Hughes - jurist; Chief Justice
· Mary D. Leakey - fossil hunter; wife of Richard Leakey
· Tamara McKinney - World Cup Skier
· Harriet Martineau - first woman sociologist
· Margaret Mead - cultural anthropologist
· John Stuart Mill - Free-market Economist
· Charles Louis Montesquieu - Philosopher
· John Muir - naturalist
· Florence Nightingale - Nurse
· Thomas Paine - political writer during the American Revolution
· Bill Ridell - Newspaperman
· Will Rogers - Humorist
· Bertrand Russell - Logician
· Jim Ryan - World Runner
· Albert Schweitzer - Physician
· Sir Ernest Shackleton - Explorer
· Herbert Spencer - philosopher, sociologist
· Gloria Steinem - founder and long-time editor of Ms. magazine
· Jason Taylor - plays in the National Football League
· Mary Walker - Civil War physician; recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor
· Lester Frank Ward - "Father of American Sociology"
· Martha Washington - wife of George Washington
· Frances E. C. Willard - educator, temperance leader, and suffragist
· Frank Lloyd Wright - Architect
· Elijah ben Solomon Zalman - Jewish scholar
· Balaram Stack - Award winning Surfer
· Lia Del Priore - Award Winning Gymnast
· Taylor Gladstone - Ballerina

Famous Homeschool Parents

Will Smith - singer, actor
· Michael Card - singer, songwriter
· Mike Farris - lawyer and co-founder of Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA)
· Robert Frost - Pulitzer Prize-winning poet
· Christopher Klicka - attorney and Senior Counsel of Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA)
· Len Munsil - attorney and President of The Center for Arizona Policy (CAP)
· Paul Overstreet - musician, songwriter
· Kelly Preston - actress, wife of John Travolta
· Mike Smith - lawyer and co-founder of Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA)
· John Travolta - actor, pilot
· Lisa Whelchel - former actress, "The Facts of Life", now a pastor's wife and author
· Darrell Waltrip - NASCAR Racer
· John Travolta - actor, pilot

Hamburger Buns

This is my first attempt at making hamburger buns. Not too bad. I just used my regular bread dough, rolled some balls, and baked in a 13 X9 baking dish. I did not let the dough rise. Next time I will use less dough for each ball as these still rose some in the oven and made quite large buns. By the time you add in the meat and toppings your sandwich is pretty tall, way too big for kids to get a bite of. They were yummy though!

Want Free Giftcards and More?

Who doesn't love free stuff? I recently discovered a search engine called Swagbucks. You can sign up and as you use their search engine, turn in used cell phones, or do several other things you can earn "swagbucks". You use those in their store for free items, including giftcards! We all search the internet on occasion, so why not use Swagbucks engine and work towards free items? My swagbucks are going for Amazon.com giftcards so I can get books(for homeschooling of course!). I've only had my account 2 days and I've earned 12 swagbucks just by using their search engine. Here is a secret: If you sign up for Swagbucks using this link HERE you will get free swagbucks and so will I! (You can click on the banner below too, I still get credit. Or use the button in my sidebar. I'm trying to make this easy for you.) So even if you never plan on using it(though I can't see why not) click on my link and sign up. You're helping my children get books, and I will hug you for it!



Feel free to ask any questions in the comments section and I'll answer what I can.

PS. HERE is the link again just in case you missed it!

I Love my Post Office

Today I received another package for homeschool. I love getting mail. So do the kids. About a week ago BookCloseouts.com had a one day educator sale. When you order from these sales you never know for a few days if everything you ordered was in or not because things sell out so fast. I actually made two orders that day. This is only the first one. Everything I ordered was in! The other order is on its way from New York still. Here is a picture of my first order:
Want to know the best part? I didn't pay over 99 cents for ANY item on that table! If I had bought the items outside of the sale day that table would have cost me over $230.00. I only spent $28.00.

I got quite a variety of items with some in mind for my middle children's workboxes next year, some for Makayla, and some for everyone. Here is a list if you are curious:
In the Tree - a flannel board set with activity guide. Even Daniel will enjoy this one!
Magnetic Phonics - two sets of magnetic tiles for the beginning readers to use.
Picture Sequencing Grade K - fun cut and paste reproducibles.
My Little Heavenly Helper Hidden Pictures and Mazes Grade K - these will come to church with us in page protectors probably so the kids can use dry erase markers on them.
Zoo Animals Dot to dots - for Joseph and Emma to work on numbers
Make Your Own Emergent Readers:Weather and Seasons - reproducible little books for writing and learning about weather
Science Pocket:Human Senses and Body Parts age 7-11 - reproducible science fun
Great American Patriots Grade 3 - covers some famous Americans
He Was President When... Middle/High School - this has neat activity and research pages about events in history that connect with different presidents' terms of office. We will only cover a few next year, but they will be used later on as well.
Brighter Child Geography - I got 3 books, grades 4, 5, and 6. These will be used for our 50 states/geography year next fall.
Getting the Main Idea, Reading Comprehension Grades 2-4 - for Makayla
Proofreading Grade 3 - Makayla again
Skill Drill Grammar - I got two books, grade 2-3, and 4-5. These are reproducible and we'll use next fall.
Story Frames Grade 4-5 - this has stories with blanks to fill in to work on vocabulary and grammar.
Wipe Away Subtraction - dry erase and doable for Emma, Joseph, and Makayla
Math Discoveries with Tangrams - two books, grades K-1, and 2-3. All the kids love tangrams. These are reproducibles too.
Math Minders Using Money - grade 4
Math Minders Graphing - grade 4
Math Discoveries about Geometry with Manipulatives - grade 3-4, we've already got all the manipulatives for this I think and it will make for some fun math
Daily Warmups Math Problems and Puzzles - 2 books, grade K and grade 4.
Simple Centers for 2nd Grade - themed activity centers for each month of the school year, reproducibles included. Can I hear workboxes in my future?
Just Think: Activites for the Gifted Classroom Grade 2-5 - this book is about creative thinking and has many activity pages in different areas, should be fun!

Whew! And we still have another box coming! That one is smaller, only 10 or so items I think. It will be exciting to see what actually comes in that one. I'll post pictures when it arrives.

Summer Haircut

I have been thinking about getting a haircut for a few weeks now. I rarely get my hair cut, but I was ready to go shorter for summer. I have had my hair long, short, and in between. The picture above is from this morning. I still had not decided when I would get my hair done. This afternoon a postcard came in the mail from my favorite salon. It read: Happy Birthday, Come in for FREE haircut.

Do you think it was time to get it done? I did. So here is the new cut. I like it, though it will take me a while to get used to styling shorter hair. The best part? None of the kids cried when I came home!

I Love Dollar Tree

If you have a Dollar Tree store in your area I highly recommend checking it out regularly. You never know what you will find. Today I went because a mom on one of my homeschool groups mentioned finding some neat things for workboxes at the one in her state. I hit the jackpot! Honestly, none of these items was more than $1.00, and most of them fulfill some aspect of plans I had in place for next year. Others are just a great bonus! I took pictures so I can just tell you about each one. These are your basic months of the year and calendar cards for a pocket chart. We have the pocket chart already and while Makayla is great on calendar skills, it will be a great way for Joseph and Emma to practice counting to 31 and saying days of the week and months of the year during circle time.

On the left in this picture are simple incentive charts. They are great for any goal you want kids to work toward. They simply add a sticker each time they complete the task. For example each time my oldest reads her scriptures she can add a sticker and when the chart is full she can get a special surprise. Or for Joseph each time he cleans his bedroom at night (he's the messy child) he gets a sticker, again, working toward some reward or surprise. To the right in the picture is a reproducible book about the science of geography. Timely with our 50 states year on the horizon. It will be great to get some basics on geography with this.

To go along with our 50 States year I found this Maps of the US coloring book. It is a lot like the Dover one, but only a dollar! As we cover each state the kids will be able to color the maps which have info about the state like it's name, or the state bird or plant to color, rivers to label, and so on. On the right is a series of books called Beaver Ed's Beaver Tales. If you've seen Mad Libs books you know what these are like. This will be a great grammar practice for Makayla. Each book has stories with blanks to fill in with nouns, verbs, adjectives, and so on. This series even gives you lists of words to use for younger students if needed. We had just done some mad lib type printables from the internet yesterday and Makayla really enjoyed them.

These books are about dinosaurs. When they show up in the younger kids' workboxes they will be able to build the dino models inside and read and act out the stories. I feel a dinosaur unit coming up!

These are file folder games for grade 4-6! I was thrilled to find these. We won't use all of them right away unless Makayla is interested, but here are the topics: Blast Off is an astronomy facts game. Trivia 500 is a race track theme and it looks like a variety of science standards based questions. Element Connection is based on the periodic table of elements. Road Trip USA is about the 50 States!!! Whoo Hoo! Jackpot.

This picture shows a mix of things. Across the top are quiz cards in 3 topics: Chemical Elements, American History, and Analogies. Along the bottom are a 4pk of spinners(we'll use for math games), a 5pk of dry erase geoboards, and a 5pk of dry erase coordinate planes. Some of those will just be interesting to see how the kids use them, others will be used as they were intended.

This last photo is another thing I was excited to find. Each pack is a set of 8 photos based on a theme(Animals in Habitat, Birds, Nature, Historical Perspective, Geography, and Energy and Motion). On the back of each photo card are writing prompts related to the picture. For younger kids we can just talk about the picture, narrate a story, or write a story. As kids get older they can use the prompts on the back too. Makayla will definitely be getting a card in her workboxes for fun writing assignments. I will also use them in an art box for her to try drawing the photo on her own.

Now do you see why I love Dollar Tree?