Wordless Wednesday: Last Home Game

To join in or see more Wordless Wednesday pictures visit Simply Heathers Blog

Monday Medicine

Want a good laugh on this Monday? Check out this site: www.peopleofwalmart.com

It is hilarious pictures of actual people/cars/etc. in actual Walmarts. Don't view it with kids around though. Sometimes the people in the pictures are wearing clothing with bad words on it or sometimes not enough clothing at all! It is great for a laugh though!

Homeschool Talk: Lapbooks

I had heard many homeschoolers talk about lapbooks, but I had never done one. They seemed neat, but I wasn't quite sure how to put them together. Well, I just attended a class on how to do them. Thanks to my friend Lynda
(The Adventures of A Princess and The Bear) for setting it up! My daughter did the child's class and I did the adult one. Now I'm hooked! She is a very visual learner and likes the coloring, cutting, and gluing involved. Lapbooks fit with her learning style perfectly!

In the child's class she made a Johnny Appleseed lapbook. It is a 2 folder one, most of them are 3 folder. She told me when we got home that she wanted to take another class! She had a lot of fun with it so we will definately be incorporating these into her curriculum.

Claire's Johnny Appleseed Lapbook

In the adult class I made an Autumn one. It is not complete. Claire will complete it this month. Her literature unit for this month is Cinderella so the autumn/pumpkin theme of the lapbook will fit in well.

Here is the site of the company that did the workshop for us:

A Journey Through Learning

I really recommend their lapbooks. They are very well laid out and easy to understand.

(Their link is also in the Homeschooling Corner in my blog margin.)

Here is a great site with free lapbook templates:
http://www.homeschoolhelperonline.com/lapbooks.htm

If you know of any other sites with free lapbook templates I'd love to hear about them. Feel free to share them in the comment section of this post.

Postcard Friendship Friday #25

Welcome to another Postcard Friendship Friday hosted by Marie at Cpaphil Vintage Postcards . Stop by her site to join in or see other postcards.









Here's a postcard we picked up on our cruise to the bahamas last February. It was a great trip...wish we were back there right now!

Freebies

I've come across some good freebies lately so I thought I'd share some on my blog.



http://www.shop4freebies.com/ This site has lots of freebies every day. My son just received a free issue of Baseball America from it. Check it out.



This Saturday is the Smithsonian Free museum day. Go here to find a museum near you. http://microsite.smithsonianmag.com/museumday/



If you are in the Dallas area you can get in free to the State Fair of Texas on Oct. 2 if you have a gold press pass from the Star-Telegram. OR

Go to http://shopacrosstexas.com/hitherandyonder/how-to-get-into-the-state-fair-of-texas-with-a-discount/ to see other discounts for the state fair.

Wordless Wednesday: After the rain...

To join in or see more Wordless Wednesday pictures visit Simply Heathers Blog or Sweet Serendipity

Happy Fall!

Today is the first day of fall! Yea, that's my favorite season!! Since I live in Texas the first day of fall is usually still pretty warm (or sometimes downright hot!). Not today! We got some storms and a cool front last night. The temperature on my car thermometer read 63 degrees a little while ago.

I love this weather! When we were in high school my best friend and I started calling it "boyfriend weather" because we always got the first cool front around the time football started, and homecoming, etc. You know, that time of year when everyone is back and in school and you start liking that boy or dating someone new. I still call it boyfriend weather though I'm glad now I have a husband to cuddle up with! I think its now his favorite time of year too! He's been telling me for a couple days now that its going to be boyfriend weather soon!

Monday Medicine

One of my favorite comic strips- Real Life Adventures by Gary Wise & Lance Aldrich...

If you want a few more laughs today head over to www.gocomics.com That's where I found this one. Unfortunatly, our paper doesn't run it anymore so I have to surf the internet to read it now.

Homeschool Talk: our newest reader

Reading always came easy for me. It also came very easy for my son who learned to read at age 4. However, it has not come easy for my daughter. My 2 kids have proven to be polar opposites when it comes to learning! This has presented some major challenges to me as a homeschooler. My son has the same learning style I have so teaching him always came easy. My daughter does not learn the same way we do so I am having to figure out her style.

She has struggled and struggled with reading. In kinder we started the Sing, Spell, Read and Write curriculum. We got to lesson 16 and could not get any further. We even had her tested for dyslexia. (We saw several red flags and it runs in the family.) They told us she's not dyslexic, but she is at risk. Not sure what that means exactly, so I try my best to keep on top of her learning. Its reasons like this that make me so happy to homeschool. I can give her the individual attention she needs so that she won't fall behind.

This summer she participated in the library's summer reading club. We got lots of very basic beginner books for her to read. She read them, but thought they were boring. However, I think they got her over that wall we seemed to hit last year in school. This year we started back up with the Sing Spell Read and Write curriculum where we left off last year. She is doing so much better with it. And she has even started reading for pleasure! This makes me so happy!! She has found a series of books at the library that are beginner readers, but they have characters and stories she likes. (Word Bird books by Moncure) They are simple but what excites me the most is that she reads them on her own because she WANTS to.

So the point of my post today is to hang in there. If you have a child that is just not getting something, hang in there. They will get it. Children can be very different and what works for one might not work for another. Just keep trying different things until you find the one that works. I'm also reading Discover your Child's Learning Style by Mariaemma Willis and Victoria Kindle Hodson. I really recommend this book if you are trying to teach a child with a different learning style than yours.

Postcard Friendship Friday #24

Welcome to another Postcard Friendship Friday hosted by Marie at Cpaphil Vintage Postcards . Stop by her site to join in or see other postcards.




This is a postcard of a painting. I got it at the Stark Museum of Art in Orange, TX. The painting is Mount Saint Helens Erupting, 1847, by Paul Kane.

I bought it because there was just something about the painting that I liked! I really like the layers of depth in it. I wish I could paint like that!

Wordless Wednesday: 5 inches and counting!

And we still have rain in the forecast!

To join in or see more Wordless Wednesday pictures visit Simply Heathers Blog or Sweet Serendipity

Monday Medicine

Since we homeschool I found today's Bizarro comic really funny...so did my son!

Check out more Bizarro comics at:

http://www.comicstriparchive.com/Bizarro/

Homeschool Talk: Creative Machines

This week my son was studying simple machines in Science. One of the labs was to build simple machines out of random stuff around the house and then build a complex machine too. Well, my daughter was very interested in this as well so I gave them a box of random things and went to take a nap. (I was sick. Normally, I'd join them.) Well, they both had a blast!



I thought what a great rainy day activity. So, if your kids are bored one day try this! Our box had random wooden ends and pieces, beads, yarn, thick cardboard squares that were left over from another project, craft sticks, bottle caps, toothpicks, pipe cleaners, and a few other things I don't remember now. Wooden spools were suggested by the text book, but I didn't have any. You can use anything really.

My son made a ramp, and a balance out of bottle caps and craft sticks. My daughter needed a little help getting everything to stay together. I helped her tape some items together and she ended up making a little wagon.

It was fun and educational! Afterward, I let them play with a set of gears that I picked up for a couple of bucks at a thrift store. They really liked those as well and spent quite a while assembling them into different configurations.

Postcard Friendship Friday #23

Welcome to another Postcard Friendship Friday hosted by Marie at Cpaphil Vintage Postcards . Stop by her site to join in or see other postcards.

Text on the back of the card reads:

Hi

Hope everything is going fine. We've just been up in the Rockies and in the snow. It is just beautiful. Mandy is traveling real well. She didn't care to much for the cold wind on the mountain top. We've been in Cheyenne two days-leaving in the AM.

Daley (?) Or maybe Galey?

I bought this card at an antique mall. It's postmarked Cheyenne, 1978. It has a 10 cent People's Right to Petition for Redress stamp on it. I've never seen that stamp before so I looked it up...

According to Wikipedia...

The right to petition in the United States is guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution, and specifically prohibits Congress from abridging "the right of the people...to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

And also according to Wikipedia...

The Americana series was a series of United States definitive postage stamps issued between 1975 and 1981. Denominations ranged from one cent to five dollars. It superseded the Prominent Americans series, and was in turn superseded by the Great Americans series and the Transportation coils.
The issue was notable for its distinctive style, with text (generally relating to American history or freedoms) along two sides of the stamp. While the stamps were not part of the Bicentennial Series of stamps issued from 1971-1983, the historical theme fit in well. The twenty sheet stamps, placed in denomination order in blocks of four, form five blocks of four all with text entirely on the outside. Three of the blocks have themes: The first, "Roots of Democracy", the second and third lack themes, the fourth, "Pioneer America", and the fifth, "America's Light".

Thursday Tirade

Well, I started this week off sick! Yep, spent my holiday weekend sick! I guess the eye watering thing from last week was a little foreshadowing of this week. I've been sick with allergies/sinus infection/something of the sort since Sunday. Not fun! Can't sleep because I can't breathe so I'm really tired too.



Oh, and I took my van into the shop about the gasoline smell...a mere $730! You might remember that we just spent $1400 a couple weeks ago to fix my husband's car. I hope the mechanic's kids enjoy college compliments of my husband and I! I'm trying to plan a vacation for next spring, but if our cars keep breaking like this we are going to end up in a Motel 6 a couple miles down the road! At least I got it back in one day. They had my husband's car for 4 days. And gasoline was leaking onto the engine so I guess I should be grateful that it didn't catch on fire while I was driving it!



I guess that's it...I'm too tired to complain anymore!


To join the tirade visit Just Add Walter

Wordless Wednesday

To join in or see more Wordless Wednesday pictures visithttp://simplyheathersblog.blogspot.com/ orSweet Serendipity

Monday Medicine

Since today is Labor Day I'm posting a little workplace humor courtesy of www.comedy-zone.net.

A young executive was leaving the office late one evening when he found the CEO standing in front of a shredder with a piece of paper in his hand."Listen," said the CEO, "this is a very sensitive and important document here, and my secretary has gone for the night. Can you make this thing work?""Certainly," said the young executive. He turned the machine on, inserted the paper, and pressed the start button."Excellent, excellent!" said the CEO as his paper disappeared inside the machine. "I just need one copy."

Homeschool Talk: Books are a Treasure!

Today's homeschool talk is about one of the great classics...Treasure Island!

My son is reading this book for his homeschool book club this month so I thought I'd share some resources and ideas. This semester he is actually reading several books by Robert Louis Stevenson. Click the following link to go to the Robert Louis Stevenson Website. http://dinamico2.unibg.it/rls/rls.htm

My son is 11 so he's not really into doing crafts that go along with the books, but if your child is here is a good website: http://www.easyfunschool.com/article2275.html

When we meet for book club this month we will be meeting at a park. I'm going to send the kids on a treasure hunt. I'm going to stick clues all around the park and when they collect all of the clues and put them together the back of them will reveal a treasure map. This map will lead them to a hidden treasure chest full of goodies. Now, I must admit, this is going to be as much fun for me as it will be for the kids! Since books are treasures themselves I think I'll include a book for each child in the chest as well as some treats to snack on during our book discussion.

Before the treasure hunt all of the kids will have to have a pirate name. I'm going to have them draw from 2 different cans of names and use their first name as the middle name. For example, if my son, Nathan draws Salty and Fourfingers then his name would be Salty Nathan Fourfingers!

I've always thought pirates were interesting and pirate parties really fun. (We did one a few years ago for my son.) I've listed some pirate links in the "homeschool corner" section of my margin. Check them out...they are a lot of fun!

At every book club we discuss the book. These kids are 10-12 yrs. old and they get really into it. I've always been surprised at just how much they get out of reading. We also will watch the movie if one exists. EVERY movie we've ever watched has resulted in me hearing the same thing from the kids...THE BOOK WAS BETTER! That phrase just makes me feel so good!

One last link: http://www.teachervision.fen.com/tv/printables/penguin/treasureisland_penguin.pdf

This is a complete guide to Treasure Island by Penguin Books. Its the one I'm using for my son and you can download it free!

Postcard Friendship Friday #22

Welcome to another Postcard Friendship Friday hosted by Marie at Cpaphil Vintage Postcards . Stop by her site to join in or see other postcards.



Today's postcard is the last from our mission tour in San Antonio last fall. This one is, of course, the Alamo.

Here are a few pics from inside the walls...

This was a model of the Alamo grounds from 1836.

You can see only a small part exists today as the Alamo.

Halloween giveaway

Would you like to win a fabulous Halloween giveaway? If so head over to The Polka Dot Daisy and enter!

Hurry, the drawing is Monday, Sept. 7!

Thursday Tirade

Well, last week I didn't have much to whine about, but I'm making up for it this week!





We'll start with last Thursday (after I posted my tirade). My washing maching stopped spinning and agitating...my 1 1/2 yr. old washing machine! Well, my husband still had stuff to do in the yard this weekend so he didn't get around to looking at it until Sunday. (Don't you just love men?) He says call a repairman. I do on Monday morning. One comes out, tells me to call a certified GE repair center. The new ones all have computerized motors and stuff and unless you are GE certified you can't fix them. So, I call GE. They, of course, can't come out on Monday. They can come Tuesday afternoon...only I can't be home then so I have to wait until Wednesday morning! Did I mention Laundry Day is Monday? Also, they inform me that the cost of the service call is $84.50. The thing that keeps going through my mind is IT'S NOT EVEN 2 YEARS OLD!!!! So, long story short, the guy came out on Wednesday and fixed it for $214. I was not happy with GE and I expressed that to him so he gave me the customer service number and said to call them that they might be able to do something for me. I did and they refunded me $95 of the repair. While that was good, I still have to pay $119 to fix a washer that is NOT EVEN 2 YEARS OLD!!!! So much for saving money with the energy star model!

GE...they bring good things to life, and then they die less than two years later!





On Monday we went to the Ranger game. It was really nice weather, but the pitching stunk and we lost 18-10! We got home late, got up late on Tuesday and everyone was tired and in a bad mood! To top it all off, my left eye started watering on Monday, watered all through the game, and is still watering! I thought it was just allergies, but who knows? My husband and I were watching a show the other night about anger. The philosopher Seneca said that we get angry because we have too much hope...hope that things will go really well. Then, when they don't that's when we get angry. So, I told my husband, "That's it! I need to be more pessimistic!" (I'm a pretty big pessimist as it is!) So, I've decided to believe that I have some rare eye disease that will blind and eventually kill me. Now, when it just turns out to be allergies or an infection, I won't be mad! :)





Like I said, Tuesday we were all tired. Well, that was our first day back at PE. I volunteered to run the games for the 4-6 yr olds....didn't know there would be 21 of them! Didn't have much help with them either, and my eye was watering the whole time. So, I was really hot and tired and PE ran late so we had to go so Claire could go to gymnastics. I didn't anticipate being there that long so we ran out of water in our bottles. So, I stop at Sonic on the way to gymnastics. I order my sweet raspberry tea and start to drive off. Guess what? It wasn't sweet! I hate tea that's not sweet, but we were already running late for gymnastics so I just left. Gymnastics is in an unairconditioned gym so I drank the tea without sugar because I was so thirsty. :-(








Wednesday: GE guy fixed the machine so I did 6 loads of laundry. When the last one was already finished washing, I walked into my bathroom and realized I forgot a towel! Normally, something like that wouldn't make it onto my tirade post, but this week it was just one more frustrating thing!





Wednesday is my workout day so I went to the Y. Got there and realized I forgot my MP3 player! My son never leaves home without his except for that day (no pockets in his shorts!) so I couldn't borrow his. So, I only worked out for half the time. I hate working out without music!



And my daughter has misbehaved in school all week. And my car smells like gasoline everytime I start it. Its been like that for a while, but this week it's been worse. I don't want to take it to the mechanic because I'm sure it will be something expensive and I can't take another expensive car repair! It will probably catch on fire as I'm driving down the road and leave me stranded! (Thanks, Seneca, for the advice!)





I feel like Alexander in Alexander and the terrible horrible no good very bad day!


I think I'll move to Australia!

To join the tirade visit Just Add Walter

Wordless Wednesday: Dress up!

To join in or see more Wordless Wednesday pictures visit
http://simplyheathersblog.blogspot.com/ or
Sweet Serendipity

Carnival and Crazy Tuesdays

Wow, this has been a hectic day! First of all, the carnival of homeschooling is up. Hopefully I'll get to finsih reading the entries soon! http://www.homegrownmommy.com/2009/09/01/carnival-of-homeschooling/

This was our first day back at homeschool PE. We have PE every Tuesday. This year we are also going to have art. We are lucky enough to have a mom in our group that teaches art. She has made her schedule to accomodate those of us that go to PE. That is really great, but it is going to make my Tuesdays crazy! We start art next week so this is what my Tuesdays will look like:

9 am: start school

10-11:30: Art for Nathan (I'm planning to bring Claire back home and finish school with her at this time. We'll see how that goes!)

11:30: Pick up Nathan, feed the kids lunch

1:00-1:45: Art for Claire (Nathan will bring his remaining school work with him to work on there.)

2:00-3:00: PE

4:00-5:00: Claire's gymnastics (Nathan will finish whatever school work is left here.)

Today almost wiped me out and we haven't even started art yet! I'm going to need to get REALLY organized. My biggest problem is meals. I'm going to try real hard to have quick to prepare things ready to heat up for lunch and dinner. I might have to get a better crock pot too. Mine doesn't have the bowl that lifts out so I never use it. I'm trying to cook a large meal once a week so I can freeze part of it for a future meal! I'm trying not to grab fast food on the go every week. Its especially tough because Claire has gymnastics until 5:00 2 days a week so I need a quick meal twice a week.

What's your favorite prepare ahead of time meal? I'm going to need more ideas so we don't end up with chicken enchiladas every week!