TOS Schoolhouse Labor of Love Sale

Homeschooling is a labor of love but there are times we all get discouraged. We have a bad day, our children don’t cooperate, we feel drained, blogged down and feel as though we need a recharge. Do you some days feel you are all alone in your homeschool journey? Maybe you need some fresh ideas or a change in curriculum?  Maybe you don’t have a support network of other homeschool families? Maybe there times you need some uplifting and encouragement but are not sure where to find it?

A subscription to the The Old Schoolhouse Magazine could be just what you are looking for! This is my favorite homeschooling magazine. (it really is!)  I have read several homeschool magazines  and while I like them I keep coming back to TOS magazine. I love it! As soon as my magazine arrives I cannot wait to find a quiet, comfy spot and just dig into the articles. I come away encouraged and uplifted and renewed. I feel like I am connected to other homeschool families who share the same struggles, goals and dreams that I have for my homeschool.  I always come away with a new perspective on a topic whether it be teaching multiple ages, organizing our homeschool, living a frugal life style or learning about a new curriculum! I am encouraged, inspired and recharged. Homeschooling is truly a labor of love.

Starting at Midnight August 30th The Old Schoolhouse Magazine is having a wonderful Labor of Love sale!

The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine is extending an extraordinary subscription offer to homeschool families. Receive a one-year print subscription for just $7.95 or a one-year plus current issue subscription for $12.95. One-year subscriptions start with the winter issue. The one-year plus current issue starts with the fall issue. Only 5000 of these special subscriptions are available from August 31 through midnight on September 15. Once the 5000 are gone, they’re gone! Hurry and grab this crazy price today! Click here or on the link above to get your subscription to The Old Schoohouse Magazine!

disclosure: In exchange for this notification and promotion of the TOS magazine I will receive the EXPO on the Go MP3 and freebies package from TOS in October 2010. I received no other monetary compensation for this promotion.  All opinions expressed on this blog are strictly my own

Beautiful Butterflies!

I just love butterflies and we have had a ton of them this summer!

 

ASL Free Resource

I came across this ASL (American Sign Language) resource today and wanted to share it with you! Click on the “free lessons”.

American Sign Language Resource Site

Thanks Money Saving Mom!

Weekend Randomness

It’s the weekend! They sure do roll around fast don’t they! The weather for the past few days has been beautiful! breezy and low humidity. We were able to turn off our air conditioning and open the windows! (my electric bill is so happy!) We’ve been busy here this past week. School will be in full swing for us soon. We are starting our first official day in 2 weeks. We have been doing some units for Download N Go which the boys love! (me too!). We are currently working on pizza party.  I have a bunch of school planning that needs doing (post coming on that soon) and I need to get back to my freezer cooking posts! I sort of got sidetracked with other things here.

Things like cleaning out our house from top to bottom. We started this last week. Our church was collecting donations for a church in Philadelphia that we support as one of our missions. They were collecting items for the church thrift store. We ended up dropping off two trunk loads of items that we no longer want or need. You know we are blessed with so much, too much I think at times, and this was an opportunity to give something to someone who has a bigger need then we do. I have gone through all of our summer clothes and passed on what we no longer use. The boys went through their toys and they found some that they could part with.  Our church took the items donated this morning and when I stopped at the church hall yesterday there was a massive amount of donations!

This morning while daddy was here (he works later today) I took the time to run some errands. I filled the car with gas and picked up my Sunday papers, gotta get those coupons you know, and in our area the Sunday paper is available on Saturday.  I ran to Rite Aid and scored some deals there I was able to get $28.93 worth of items for $8.35 and earned $6 in Up Rewards. As an added bonus I got to participate in a fire drill! The fire alarm starting going off in the middle of my shopping and the manager announced that all employees and customers needed to evacuate! Here the alarm company was there working on the alarm system and they set it off. Phew I was glad I didn’t want to leave my cart of good deals sitting there! lol. Rite Aid really is becoming my favorite drug store to shop in, it ranks right up there with CVS! For the month of August I am getting back $12 in single check rebates and a $5 Rite Aid card!  I also stopped at Walmart and scored 2 packages of Ball Park hotdogs for free!  I love having an hour or so to myself to recharge and think without someone needing me!

This afternoon I think I will continue with the cleaning out here and do some more decluttering. I want go clean every drawer, cabinet and closet and get rid of what we don’t need over the next few weeks.  These items will be donated to our local thrift store.  My house needs to have some space to breathe! It also needs a heavy duty cleaning. I want to start our school year off organized! Which is something I have yet to achieve!  I cleaned the oven last week after a minor oven fire. Don’t worry it was nothing big but it could have been had I not been here! Thank goodness I keep baking soda right near the stove! Can you please tell me what possessed me to ever buy an oven with no window in the door,only one large burner (the other three are all small), no oven light and no self cleaning feature? It is self cleaning if I am cleaning it mySelf! I guess I cannot complain since I do have a working oven! 

I am also working on a furniture project. Larry, wonderful husband that he is, was nice enough after much errr….encouraging from me to stop and pick up a piece of furniture on the trash that I wanted. There will be a post on that coming up as well.  

Now that the oven is clean I think I’ll roast a couple of chickens today for meals through out the week. The boys also want to go to the pool and play outside. This is on the agenda for this afternoon. This evening after baths we are going to continue our read aloud of Narnia. We are currently reading Prince Caspian. We are all loving it! 

I have several review items coming in the next week. So stay tuned for those! I’m trying to catch everything up before our four day vacation in a few weeks. I’d like to come back to a fresh house and not too far behind on reviews, school and other things here!

So what are your weekend plans?

Serving Melon~How I save time!

We really like watermelon here and summer is the best time to purchase it since it is in season and relatively inexpensive.  We usually buy a whole watermelon from the local roadside stand or farmers market. Many years ago my grandma taught me her method of preparing a watermelon for eating! She used an ice cream scoop! It was super simple to scoop those pieces of melon out of the rind and into a container all ready for eating!

While I don’t technically  use an ice cream scoop I do use one of those spring loaded scoops. I have two different sizes (I also use them for all of my cookies) and use the smaller size for both watermelon as well as honeydew and cantaloupe.  It is so easy and quick. I only have to do it once and the melon is ready to be eaten.

I really love my scoops! I think I bought one from The Pampered Chef and the other might have come from a kitchen store. They get lots of use and save me a lot of time! I’m all about saving time in the kitchen!

 

Free kids downloadable recipe book from Taste of Home

Do you have an aspiring young cook in your family who likes to bake and cook as well as color? If you do you might be interested in this free downloadable cookbook from Taste of Home magazine. There are 35 pages in all, which  includes the cover, of recipes to make and color!   You do have to download each page separately if you want the entire book which was a pain but it looks like a fun activity to do with your child. I’ll be using it with my budding cook (he refuses to be called a chef!) Kaden. 

Bible Jumbles for Kids~Review

Does your child like to solve puzzles? Do they want to learn more about the Bible? Then Bible Jumbles  might be what  you are looking for! This is a neat little book containing 200 different Biblical puzzles to solve. There are six different types of puzzles in this book.

• Traditional Jumbles
• Mystery Person Jumbles
• Jumble Detective
• Jumble Criss-Cross
• Find the Jumbles
• Bible Passage Jumbles

There is one puzzle per page and each puzzle has a scripture passage to look up to help you solve the puzzle, a box containing 5 clues and 5 jumbles to decipher.  There is an answer key in the back of the book if you get stuck.  This is for the 9-12 reading level. I personally think that many adults would love solving these puzzles as well.

I love this book and will be using it with my 9 year old as part of our Bible time each day. I really like that there are scripture passages to look up to encourage Bible reading and not just solving the puzzle.  The puzzles are short but challenging.  This is totally portable and would be great to take along to a doctor appointment or anywhere you would have to wait and your child (or you!) need something to do!

Bible Jumble for Kids is available at Amazon and Christian Book Distributors. 

disclosure: I was provided a complimentary copy of Bible Jumble for Kids from Tyndale House Publishers in exchange for my honest review. All reviews and opinions on this blog are strictly my own.

Download N Go Roller Coaster Giveaway Winner!

The winner is:  Debbie! Congratulations Debbie! I will be in touch with you.

Debbie said...

We did the Amelia Earhart Download N Go and really enjoyed it. I'd love to try this one.  

For those of you who did not win you will want to stop back. I’ll be giving away another Download N Go soon! Up next is Pizza Party!

What’s in your purse?

Yesterday I decided my purse needed a good cleaning out. Really. It was so messy and full of who knows what?

Having two boys I always have interesting things that they stash in there when we are out and about.  So here is my list.

Receipts: There seemed to be about 10,000 of these in there.

Fortune cookies: These were from our last trip (or maybe last two trips) to our favorite Chinese resturant. They were crushed beyond recognition.

Coupons: You know I am a couponer and there always seems to be an envelope of coupons in there.

Rain checks: These are gold and they went back into the coupon envelope

Feather: Yes there was a bird feather in there. Kaden is always giving me feathers and leaves for me to hold

Rocks: Both boys love rocks and there are always rocks in my purse or in the car and in the house! One day we had rock collecting hour, meaning we collected all the stray rocks living in the house and took them to live outdoors.

MP3 Player: Not even mine but Kaden’s. He has been looking for it for sometime now! Mystery solved!

3 pairs of sunglasses: Only one pair was mine the other two belong to above mentioned boys!

Ride tickets from the boardwalk: We went to Ocean City a couple of weeks ago and  we had some left over. We’ll be saving those for next year or our next trip whichever comes first

Prizes from the fair: We have been attending the local fair and I am the lucky one that gets to hold all the prizes!

Bookmarks and pencils: We visit our library weekly and they always have these out for the taking. We seem to come home with several each week! I don’t think we’ll run out of either anytime soon!

Pens: I never can find my pens. Know why? When I am going somewhere I think I need a pen and cannot seem to see one in my purse I throw one in. Then I get an accumulation of say 10 pens. I decided to solve this dilemma by putting two bright pink (think neon) pens in there so I can easily see them!

Tissues: I had three travel packs of tissues in there! Three! I guess I did not want to run out.

Lots of change: I just throw it in the bottom of my purse. I really need a change purse. I actually have one but never use it!

Various other things that actually belong like my wallet, a small portable fold up bag that I use when I need to carry something, my phone. 

My purse is now clean and breathing a sigh of relief! The change and rocks alone were dragging me down! Does your purse accumulate a lot of “stuff”? What is the most interesting thing you’ve found?

 

A Night at the fair!

A couple of weeks ago we spent a night at our local 4-H Fair. We always have a fun time visiting with the animals, We love seeing the huge brahma  bulls, goats, horses, cows, chickens and pigs! The little pig in the picture below was crazy! He (or she) was jumping all around on all the other pigs and kept biting all their ears! It was too funny!  Justin and Kaden had a blast going from tractor to tractor and sitting on them! This year the boys had a chance to milk the goats~Kaden refused but Justin was game for it, pump water from a hand pump and shell corn! I grew up on a farm but had never seen a corn sheller before!  We just love the fair!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Yummy Sandwich~Bacon Chicken Sub

Last weekend we were looking for something different to eat.  We wanted to go and buy a sub or hoagie but decided we really did not want to spend the money.  I had seen this recipe at Life as Mom and thought this might just hit the spot. It was yummy!  

This was one yummy sandwich! Would I change anything? Yes once it comes out of the oven I would add lettuce and tomato (and onion if you prefer) to make it a more traditional Jersey sub!

Schoolhouse Expo!

Did you attend the Schoolhouse Expo back in May?

If you did then you know there were a lot of wonderful speakers to encourage us on our homeschool journey!

Sometimes we as homeschoolers need some uplifting and encouragement.

We need to hear from folks who have walked the road we are walking. 

If you are a seasoned homeschooler or just starting your homeschooling journey we can all use some encouragement.  Enjoy listening to the speakers right in the comfort of your own home.(even in your pj’s!) No traveling or costs associated with going to a convention!  This week is a great time to get your tickets because the Old Schoolhouse is having a sale! Below you will find a list of some of the guest speakers and more information about the Schoolhouse Expo!

It's back to homeschool time and registration is open for the online
Schoolhouse Expo, October 4-8. It's five days of top homeschool
speakers, fellowship, and fun door prizes.
Save $5 per ticket! Register between August 16 and midnight August 22,
and you'll pay only $19.99. Plus you'll receive over $200 in free
E-Books.
You'll be inspired by speakers including: Zan Tyler, Dr. Jay Wile, Jeannie
Fulbright, Carol Barnier, Diana Waring, Todd Wilson, Davis Carman, Kim
Kautzer, Lee Binz, and many more!

A special teen track is planned--the entire family will definitely
want to listen to these special sessions. We've also planned a special
focus on a topic that touches every homeschool--writing. Plus, an
array of other topics that will inform and inspire you throughout your
homeschooling years.
Don't forget, MP3 copies of each session comes with your LIVE event ticket.
Two special preconference shows on August 24 and September 21 with Dr.
Jay Wile, Jeannie Fulbright, and Kim Kautzer!
Register starting 12:01 a.m. on Monday, August 16.
The theme this fall is "Celebrate Homeschooling!" We're going to
celebrate the unique blessings of homeschooling, the beginning of
another school year, our families, and the freedom to tailor our
children's education to best meet their needs.

If you cannot make the Live event,  then the October Expo To Go is
just your ticket! You'll reserve MP3s from all of the workshops. This
week only, pay just $14.95!
You can visit either of these links here and here to get more information.

disclosure: In exchange for this notification and promotion of the TOS EXPO I will receive the EXPO on the Go MP3 and freebies package from TOS in October 2010. I received no other monetary compensation for this promotion.  All opinions expressed on this blog are strictly my own.

Download N Go Roller Coaster~Review & Giveaway!

I’m really excited! I was chosen to be on the review team for the Download N Go units written by Amanda Bennett!  I have been interested in these units for sometime and just before I joined the review team I purchased the Sunny Seashells unit. We will be using that in a couple of weeks as our official opening to our new school year.  I’m excited to dig into that one! Today though I am going to tell you about roller coasters!

We have spent the last week learning about roller coasters. I did not know how much my boys would enjoy this unit since neither of them has ever ridden on a rollercoaster and both are very reluctant to do so.  Well I was wrong! (of course I was wrong these boys want to learn something new all the time)They have loved this unit!

Each Download N Go unit is one week in length. The age range for these units are K-4th grade. There are five days of activities, notebooking pages and lapbook components, book lists, internet links, .  Below is an overview of the roller coaster unit.

Day 1: What is a Roller Coaster?

Day 2: The History of Roller Coasters

Day 3: People and Places of Roller Coasters

Day 4: Science Secrets of Roller Coasters and Rides

Day 4: Goodies and Gadgets of Roller Coasters

If you think that this is a skimpy unit you are in for a wonderful surprise! These units are in no way skimpy or just thrown together. Your students will learn about geography, history, science and much more. There are book suggestions for each day. I counted  an average of 7-10 different books listed for each day. In no way do you have to use all of these books they are suggested reading. I did pick up many of the books for this first unit to see exactly what was available at my library.  I had no trouble finding most of them. We do have a larger library system here.  Depending on your library you may have a bit different result. If you can not find the books mentioned you could easily substitute what you can find and what is available to you.  Honestly you could actually do this unit without any books at all and your students will come away having learned quite a bit about roller coasters, the books add enrichment to the unit.

sample pages of Roller Coasters

 

There is a wealth of notebooking pages that go with this unit. You can use them all or choose the ones you only want to use. You can print them in color or black and white. I did a combination of both and also printed some pages on colored paper.  The pages I printed in black and white Kaden my 5 year old loved as he loves to color. We also did the lapbook components that accompanies this unit. We love to do lapbooks! 

In all honesty I did not know how much Kaden would enjoy this unit, as I mentioned above he is 5 and Justin is 9.  This unit was a great fit for us.  Kaden loved coloring and drawing pictures and watching the videos. I was surprised at how much he retained and was excited to do each days activities. Justin loved it and was very excited to learn about roller coasters! So what did we learn this week? Below are a couple of fun things we did.  We learned much more than these two things and even went off on a rabbit trail to find out what a patent was! I really can’t say enough good things about this unit!

 We built roller coasters out of train tracks and learned about gravity.

   We learned about Physics! These little balloon cars went perfectly with this unit.

(note: it is not necessary to go out and purchase these cars or anything else for that matter. I just had them on hand.)

Some of our lapbook components. I did not get our lapbook/notebook put together.

(we had a kitty emergency. I’ll have it up later this week once I get them together)

 The Roller Coaster Download N Go unit is available for the low price of $7.95 if you would like to purchase a copy. 

Would you like to win a copy of the Roller Coasters unit? Download N Go has generously provided me the opportunity to give one copy away to one of my readers!

For one chance to win leave a comment on this post along with your email address so I can contact you if you are the winner. I will draw a winner in one week from today, Monday August 22, 2010 at 8 pm using random.org

For additional chances to win (you will get one entry for each of the following)

Become a follower of my blog and leave an additional comment on this post. (if you are already a follower you can leave a comment too!)

Go to the Download N Go website and tell me what your favorite unit is

Like Download N Go on Facebook and post here in the comments taht you did.

Blog, post on facebook or twitter about this giveaway and then link back here in a separate comment.

You can read more reviews of Roller Coasters here.

disclosure: I was provided a free copy of the Download N Go Roller Coasters in exchange for my honest review.  All opinions on this blog are my own.

 

Bacon and Cheddar Puffs

Last month I posted about making Pepperoni Pizza Puffs. We love these and they are now a staple in our house for a quick snack.  I decided to try a different variation of these and replaced the pepperoni and mozzarella cheese with bacon and cheddar cheese. the result. Amazing! These are so good! My only problem is that I have a difficult time making up enough ahead to put in the freezer! The bacon and cheddar puffs are better than any store bought frozen product out there!

Bacon and Cheddar Puffs

3/4 cup flour

3/4 tsp. baking powder

3/4 cup milk (whole, reduced fat or skim works)

1 egg

1 cup bacon

1 cup cheddar cheese

Mix first four ingredients together.  Add bacon and cheese.  Fill mini muffin tins 3/4 full of batter. Bake in a 375 degree oven for 20-25 minutes.

note: I doubled this recipe and used 1 1/2 cups each bacon and cheese (instead of doubling to 2 cups of each) with good results. You could also substitute the bacon for turkey bacon or sausage or ham for even more variety.

 

It pays to ask or I got a rain check!

Today I was shopping at my new favorite drugstore. Today is the last day of this weeks sale. I wanted to pick up several things and score some really good deals. I had some +Up rewards I needed to use today.  Well they were out of several items I wanted! I was bummed about that and it messed up my shopping trip.  What to do? I went to the cashier (who happened to be the manager) and asked if they had any more razors, shaving cream and Honey Nut Cherrios. She said they were out of stock but would I like a rain check? Well sure! I had actually forgotten about rain checks! Rite Aid gives rain checks for any item that is out of stock.

If you are not familiar  about rain checks they are a little form that the cashier fills out with the item, date and sale price. You bring it back to the store when the items are back in stock and present your rain check and get those items for the sale price even when they are no longer on sale!  So in all I was able to get four rain checks to come back when the items were restocked.  The razor was on sale for $5.99 and I have a $5 coupon! I love getting good deals!  Now of course you would not get any +Up rewards for a rain check and the items I was going to purchase did not have have any +Up rewards linked to them.

Oh and for the record. I still did pretty well today. I picked up a 16 pack of Scott toilet tissue, 2 bottles of Garnier conditioner and a crest pro health. Total before coupons was $19.98. After coupons and +Up rewards from a previous visit $7.98 out of pocket, $3.00 in +Up rewards earned and a $2.69 rebate on the way.  So I ended up with only $2.29 out of pocket!  

Download N Go Expedition Mexico FREE!!

If you have wanted to try one of the Download N Go units but have been on the fence about it. Now would be a good time to jump off that fence and head over to The Old Schoolhouse! You can try Expedition Mexico free! FREE(you know how I like free!) You will find it in the Teacher’s Toolbox.  You can download it until August 27th.

Imagine this~Star Wars Subway Car

Imagine having this happen when you're riding the subway!

A Visit with Beach Comber Betty

Last month we had a visit with Beach Comber Betty (aka Miss Kathy) at our library! Beach Comber Betty had been at the beach of course! She brought back a bunch of treasures (and junk) for the kids to determine weather or not it was a treasure and is everything you find at the beach worth keeping? Things like seashells, a bucket of sand, one sneaker, a ripped sock, an old plastic bottle, sea stars and more! She also told some wonderful stories and encouraged us to dig into a good book!  She told the story of a shark and some little fish! Justin was excited to be chosen to be the shark. He is the not at all shy child in our family and always eager to be picked! The kids had a wonderful time and I am amazed how Beach Comber Betty could remember the names of every single child that attended this program!

 Beach Comber Betty’s display of goodies. Looks like a perfect set up for the beach doesn’t it!

 Beach Comber Betty!

The Shark! I know I was frightened! lol

 The Shark and the two fishies and Beach Comber Betty!

What you’ve never seen a shark and some fish do the hula?!

 Captured in the net!

After that fish Mr. Shark!

Davey Crocket Download N Go 20% off today only!

Do you enjoy unit studies in your homeschool? Maybe you are new to unit studies and want to give one a try but were not sure where to start?  Today only the Davey Crocket Download N Go is 20% off!

Bible in 90 Days~Update

I have not posted an update on my progress with the Bible in 90 days challenge. Confession time. I am behind. Waay behind! I probably will not catch up. This is my second round of trying to accomplish this and so far it has been challenging! The bright side? I am reading everyday just not as much as is recommended.  Right now I am just finishing up Exodus. (I told you I was very behind) I plan on posting some of my thoughts as I go along. I’ll be posting later in the week or over the weekend about that. I just wanted to update you. If you have taken the Bible in 90 days Challenge how are you doing? I know I have read some of my blogger friends posts on their progress and you are doing awesome!

Back to School with Swagbucks! Bonus Swag for new members!

You’ve heard me talk about Swagbucks many times in the past. You know that you can get some great items free from using Swagbucks. My favorite is the Amazon gift cards. If you are still on the fence and have not signed up for Swagbucks yet Thursday (tomorrow) would be a great day to do so! If you are not sure what Swagbucks are you can read my previous posts here and here.

If you sign up tomorrow you will not only get 30 swagbucks for signing up, you will get an additonal 20 swagbucks if you used the code SwagToSchool (this code will be active until Friday at 11:59pm PST Friday evening) That is 50 swagbucks just starting out! And tomorrow there will be 5 codes posted throughout the day.  Now is the time to sign up! A $5 Amazon card is only 450 swagbucks and remember you can earn at least 2 swagbucks a day by completing the daily polls and going to the special offers page and clicking on the no obligation offers.  I’m using my Amazon cards for Christmas shopping this year! So what are you waiting for. Why not sign up! You’ve got nothing to loose!

disclosure: If you sign up using one of my referral links above. I do earn swagbucks. I recieved no compensation from swagbucks for this post.