Oh, what a week… March 9, 2009

And, yes, it’s only Monday. 

Sometimes Mondays just go a bit haywire, don’t they?  For whatever reason, it was like pulling teeth today to get the kids to do anything.  They’ve been pretty grumpy since we left Grandma’s in Utah.  I think all the traveling in the car was just more than they could take, and it’s still effecting them.  But, what are ya gonna do?  I tried to distract them with other activities today, but it pretty much backfired on me.  Oh, well.  At least I tried.  It wasn’t all bad, though.  Logan tested out of another math chapter.  Easy-cheesy.  It’s soooo good to see him have some confidence with math again!  Hooray!!  We also went and picked up a punching bag off Craigslist.  I really felt like the kids, especially the boys, needed a healthy place to let out anger and frustrations, so a punching bag seemed like a good idea.  I almost fell out of my seat when I priced them out at stores.  Thankfully, I was able to locate just what I was looking for on Craigslist for a fraction of the price!  Hooray for that! 

Well, hopefully tomorrow will be more productive than today.  Maybe I’ll start the day with something silly, to get the kids in a better mood.  I’ll let you know.

Another great treasure! May 27, 2008

I just love the DI!  I try to go every couple of weeks or so, just to see if I can find any treasures.  I went again today, and like last time, found a ton of Living Scripture workbooks!  This time, I got 57!  Can you believe that?!  I think I’ve got to have nearly all of the New Testament and Hero Classics now!  These things are so full of learning resources.  What a find!  I’m also using these to create Sunday Folders for the kids.  I also got for $.50 each, a book about the Gettysburg Address and a book about questions about animals, called I Wonder Why Camels Have Humps.  Yeah!  I love bargains.  I’m definitely going to have to check out the little used book stores in the libraries, like Erin suggested! 

Progress and Rewards May 15, 2008

Well, I’m doing much better now.  I think I’m over my Yikes moment, for now.  I’m sure there will be more in the future.  As I’ve read, I’ve come to discover that homeschooling takes some getting used to and some trial and error.  I have every confidence that we will be able to make things work out well.  I’ve started already, with some small things with the kids, and so far so good.  We’ve also got our classroom all ready.  That was a lot of work, but it was actually really fun to do.  The kids helped a bit with it too, as well as Grandma.  I’ll have some pictures of it up in a day or two.  And, a special thank you goes out to my friend Erin, who discovered two amazing books that outline and detail grade by grade curriculum and expectations.  Hooray!

Also, this week I’ve discovered the rewards of telling people that you are a homeschool teacher.  First I went to Learning Is Fun.  When the sweet lady asked me if I was on their mailing list, I replied that I wasn’t, but should be since I was going to be homeschooling four kiddos.  So, when I told them that, they not only put me on their list, but also gave me some teacher magazines, but also some of the coupons teachers get to hand out to their students to get a prize at Learning Is Fun.  Then, when I took our calendar over to OfficeMax to get laminated, I was asked if I was a teacher, and I told them I was a homeschool teacher.  Then, they gave me their teacher discount and reward card.  So, that’s pretty cool.  These stores are now on my newly created list of homeschool friendly businesses. 

Best Book I’ve Found, So Far May 5, 2008

I found this book online, somewhere, called Homeschool Your Child for Free.  So, I went and checked it out from the library, and wow, is it a wealth of information.  It’s full of lots of great ideas from the author, as well as other parents.  The bulk of the book is spent on listing different websites, broken down by category, with descriptions of the sites.  This has been exceedingly helpful to me, especially as I look for lesson ideas.  She’s got the book separated into sections, including resource sections like curriculum and education essentials, and then into subject sections like language, math, social studies, etc.  It was published back in 2000, so some of the websites are no good now, but most are.  Also, I just read something from the author where she said she is now working on a new edition of the book.  I was planning on going out and buying this book, but I think I’ll wait until the new one comes out. 

Today’s Exciting Find May 5, 2008

Today I went to DI and found a great treasure for our classroom!  There were tons of coloring and activity books from Living Scriptures.  Gavin and I sorted through them all for the ones that didn’t have any coloring in them, and managed to get 20!  We’ve got books from their Animated Hero Classics, Church History, Book of Mormon, New Testament, and Old Testament.  I couldn’t believe it, and for only $.50 each!  These will be a great resource for us to use as I teach various subjects, not just history and religion.  I plan on copying the pages as we use them, so that we can keep using them for a long time.  (And, I checked and the publisher says it’s ok to copy for personal or classroom use.)  The kids were pretty excited about these too.