You know you are a homeschooler when you get stopped by the crossing guard and sternly told the rules of the cross walk while a crossing guard is present.
The other day Biggun was riding his bike from work back to our house. Something he does often. Well my husband came by work to pick Biggun up early. So Biggun rode his bike home. It happen to be when the elementary school was getting out, and the crossing guard was there. We have never been out at that time, and it never occurred to me to go over Crossing Guard rules w/ my son. He did stop at the stop sign and made sure it was clear then crossed. Well when he go to the other side the Crossing Guard had some stern words to say to my son. Biggun said yes sir and came home.
We have since explained the reason for the Crossing Guard and Biggun will always remember his run in w/ the Crossing Guard!!!
Florida: Governor Declares Home Education Week March 30-April 6
Dear HSLDA Members and Friends
Good news! Governor Charlie Crist has declared March 30-April 6 to be Home Education Week in Florida! This is the second year in a row that Governor Crist has issued a homeschool proclamation.
Regina Hicks of Florida Parent Educators Association (FPEA) and Kendall Hicks of the Christian Home Educators of the Sunshine State (CHESS) contacted the governor's office to secure this proclamation, making some additions from last year.
We recommend all homeschoolers in Florida to widely distribute this proclamation and celebrate homeschooling during the designated week!
Many of you might now that I am a support group leader for a local homeschool group. Well our theme for March's meeting is March Madness.
Madness you say? YES! Let’s have some FUN! This is not your ordinary meeting where we inform or empower, but more of a town hall gathering! We are going to swap idea’s, Play fun games and throw caution to the wind as we let loose and learn from one another. Our topics will include strategies to get the most out of your convention experience. How to Save Money. How to make it your family vacation or your once a year GIRLFRIEND GETAWAY! Learn how to pick your workshops to help you meet your goals. While we’re on the subject of saving money, learn all about our HUGE Annual Used Curriculum sale! You can not only MAKE money, but save some as well! Remember we’re better together and so we need you there. You’re important! We only have two meetings left for this school year, Let’s go out with a BANG! Childcare is available for a minimal charge.
Now here is where I need ideas. I would love to play lots of games. I on the other hand can only think of one game. Any ideas on games that might pertain to above theme? I have lots of prizes to give away. I just need the games to go w/ it. So what ideas do ya'll have?
Each week w/ meet w/ friends and have our own mini co-op. We call ourselves FLT - Friends Learning Together. Two weeks ago we went to Mosi on our day. Here are some of the fun things we did.
Here we are setting the rules for the day. Knight #2, Maiden, Baby Bear, Soldier, Biggun, and Knight #1.
Thanks to Ms. D. for the above picture. Check out her post about this day.
Here the kids are in Disasterville. This place was a little scary for some of our kids. I think it was all to real. Biggun playing learning, w/ one of the displays.
Here we are waiting for a Mosi employee to teach our kids how cells split. They learned a lot by the hands on example.
Baby Bear finally got out of ht stroller to play in kids in charge section. What a fun day.
What does a 11 month old do at a Civil War Re-enactment ........
She slept through all the cannons and guns going off. Oh and did I mention it was REALLY COLD for this Florida girl. I want to say it was like 50 w/ a feels like w/ wind of like 40. But it was really neat to watch.
What a great night. Miller Pad and Paper came to our local support group meeting. Renee' Miller is such a wonderful person. She was very warm and kind. After talking to her for 5 minutes you felt like you had known her forever. I feel blessed that I was able to meet her.
Everyone at the meeting was able to get a nice shot in the arm for the middle of the year. Renee' gave some great ideas on how to use art in EVERY subject. I think everyone walked out w/ a bundle of items.
What a blessing it was to have Miller Pad and Paper join us.
Ok Homeschoolers see if you can pass the Worlds Easiest Test. Passing requires 4 correct answers
1) How long did the Hundred Years' War last?
2) Which country makes Panama hats?
3) From which animal do we get cat gut?
4) In which month do Russians celebrate the October Revolution?
5) What is a camel's hair brush made of?
6) The Canary Islands in the Pacific are named after what animal?
7) What was King George VI's first name?
8) What color is a purple finch?
9) Where are Chinese gooseberries from?
10) What is the color of the black box in a commercial airplane?
Remember, you need 4 correct answers to pass. Check your answers below.
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>ANSWERS TO THE QUIZ
1) How long did the Hundred Years War last? 116 years
2) Which country makes Panama hats? Ecuador
3) From which animal do we get cat gut? Sheep and Horses
4) In which month do Russians celebrate the October Revolution? November
5) What is a camel's hair brush made of? Squirrel fur
6) The Canary Islands in the Pacific are named after what animal? Dogs
7) What was King George VI's first name? Albert
8) What color is a purple finch? Crimson
9) Where are Chinese gooseberries from? New Zealand
10) What is the color of the black box in a commercial airplane? Orange (of course)
We started out with economics today. When Biggun got out of bed he realized he had no underwear clean. Thus he had to wash his clothes. (We did find 1 pair to wear today.)
Next we took a trip on the world, oh I mean around the world. We laid a very LARGE map of the world on the floor, with Baby Bears help we labeled a chart that had countries and what the called Santa on it. We had to find the continent these countries were in.
After that we enjoyed our Language Arts, w// our story on CD. The Secrets of Castle Cant., We have learned how to take an everyday item, like chewing gum, and make it a major part of a story. See in this book chewing gum is no good.
We went and visited Gamma and M at work. Here we saw how the public school system works for our teen Moms. (Gamma and M take care of the children of teen Mom's while they go to school)
After this we went to lunch, saw how commerce worked. What is the best deal for 2 of us to eat on. We agreed it was financially better to have a 3 part lunch combo w/ an extra soup then it was to order a kids meal and an adult lunch meal.
Lastly we head to work where Biggun starts his school work and I start my work. Biggun is able to pass the 2's times table level on his Times Attack game. What a great achievement for him. He has worked so hard at this.
Now for some great imaginary play out side. Oh I can hear the conversation of at least 4 different characters going on right now.
I have been holding off posting because I have really enjoyed looking up my blog to get to my Friends Page, to read all of your updates, and seeing those cute pictures of Baby Bear and Biggun. But I knew at some point I would need to post.
We are starting Christmas School. Meaning all we do is Christmas related. I have set a goal of what we are going to do, I say goal because we always now that Christmas is a busy time of year.
I think we have all aspects of Christmas covered. In our family we don't do Santa. We have always taught Biggun the real meaning, the Birth of Jesus. Biggun is very good at knowing that Santa is based on the story of St. Nicholas. But the cartoon character Santa, he knows is just that a cartoon character. He is good about not talking about it infront of other people/kids too. We have taught him to respect other families and their traditions. So since we have laid those foundations for our son, we are able to do the Grinch lapbook. I love all the great stuff it includes. My favorite part is about story plot. We will start that in a few days. We already started on the Christmas Traditions, Biggun finished the Nativity book in 2 days. it was all coloring and cutting. It was more for fun. We have to wait on the Best Christmas Pageant ever, when our friend Ms. D finishes the book w/ her kids.
Today is soooo beautiful here in Sunny Florida. Temp is 57degrees and Sunny. Biggun and Mom talk about school.
Biggun - "Mom I want to do school outside."
Mom - "How are we going to do time4learning.com outside?"
Biggun - "I don't know do I HAVE to do school?"
Sneaky one that kids is.....
Mom - "I can print out worksheets for you to do outside. If you want to work outside so bad. But you have to do somekind of School Work."
Biggun - "Ok I can handle that."
So we printed out a Math Multiplication sheet (2's), a Copy work sheet on Honor your Mother and Father, (Biggun has been mouthy yesterday and this morining.) and Two fun Thanksgiving sheets - a word search and a find as many words in HAPPY THANKSGIVING as you can.
FLT (Friends Learning Together) is just about finished w/ our Thanksgiving Lapbook. My dear friend posted on her blog all about our day last week and a little about today. She did such a great job I just copied her post here. (((Blushing Smile))) Thanks Ms. D.
Last week at FLT (Friends Learning Together) we made Cornucopias! We were finishing up the mini books for our Thanksgiving Lapbook.
Cornucopia. I love this picture of him!
M with his!
Our friend Biggun. **My Son**
Our other friend A.
Of course we can't forget BabyBear!
B with her Cornucopia.
J with his
M, Ms. D's son took the next 2 pictures. He did a great job.
Here is Baby Bear being the center of attention...
I think I have blogged about 4 or 5 entries in one shot. See what happends when you get pictures uploaded to the computer. (((BIG SMILE))
Momma Mary is trying to help me w/ the Baby Bear because she had been being clingy. But she ended up being very happy w/ Momma Mary ....
I ended up speaking w/ the wrap over my shoulder but I think I did ok. At least that is what I was told. Infact now the Ms. L who is in charge of our Conference wants me to speak there too on Scrapbook Portfolio and Lapbooks
There was a ton of wisdom there.
It was a wonderful night. Oh and btw I decided I am a relaxed ecletic. We go with the flow and enjoy it as we go.
I have been asked to speak at an up coming South County Support Group Meeting about Lapbooking. (Already did this for Mid County) There are going to be all kinds of homeschoolers there, but I am going to cover Lapbooking. The leader Mamma Mary asked me what my Philosophy was?
Mmmmmm What Philosopy? Oh you mean homeschool? I had not given it much thought. We do what works for Biggun and keep doing it until it does not work anymore. Then we move on to see what else will work instead.
Mamma Mary seems to think I am a "Tradtional homeschooler w/ Lapbooks." But when I go to see what a "Traditional" I don' t think we fall into that catagory. "Traditional" homeschoolers use text books, at least that is what I understand. I don't use text books. Unless they are for some kind of info for a Lapbook.
We tried following Charlottte Mason a year or so ago, Biggun loved the reading but I did not think he was getting enough from it. The basics were not being met. Or I just was not doing it wright? I don't know.
We do a little of this one week then a little of that the next. I love that we have found www.time4learning.com because now I don't worry if he is getting the basics anymore. I can have fun w/ the little bit of this and little bit of that. Or if we don't do any school in the morning. I don't feel so guilty because I know the basics are being covered in the afternoon.
So to sum us up. We might read in the am for a few weeks and that is it. We might do car schooling for a week or two, or even just a day of two. We might work on lapbooks, or do nothing at all. But we get our basics w/ Time4Learning.
Does this make me Eclectic?
I guess I need to work on this some more before next Tuesday night.
Biggun is moving right along w/ his schooling. Each day of homeschooling is another adventure. Math has been hard for him lately. This is not normal for us. He is usually the math wize. It is taking him a little longer to catch on to the concept of borrowing past the tens in subtraction. Like
300 145
We are happy to know that they have resource sheets to help us do extra work. We have been doing all of them that are in the subtraction section. He took the test today and got 80%. I will be adding some more worksheets, because I am not happy that he has this down pat yet.
Language Arts has been really fun for Biggun lately. We moved on to 1st grade Language Extention. I went through and made a list of the sounds that he needs to work on. See the way the LA Ext. are set up is by suject like Oceans, Native Americans, Weather and so on. Each subject has 2 sets of lessons. One is on a story written about oceans and the second one is based around a certain sound such as ay, or er. We can't do all of these LA Ext. we need to move on the 2nd grade LA, but I did go through and find the sounds that Biggun needs to do some work on.
Biggun is really enjoying the LA Ext. We only have 1 more set before he moves back to the 2nd Grade LA.
Check out Time4Learning.com for yourself and tell them BStrouse sent you.
I have not had time to do Web Link Wednesday for the last few weeks. But found two really neat weblinks I wanted to share. So I made sure to make time to share them.
This link was listed on a forum I read. It really makes you stop and think about your schooling and how you approach things. It might even help you to re-evaluate your situation. I know it did me.
Tracy over at The Homeschool Boutique is generously offering to give away free Homeschool T-shirts for moms. There are a limited quantity so hurry on over and pick one up for yourself. There are several styles to choose from. Stop over to support a fellow homeschooling family.
We use this web site as our CORE Curriculum. We tried it out for 2 weeks free and kept it because my son loved it soooo much. It has really helped his reading too. Everyone I have talked to who has used it has loved it.
(I add lapbooks, bible and what ever else I feel like to our day)
Biggun and I got together with some friends. We call it our "Friends Learning Together"
We just finished our first Lapbook. We chose to do a free pre-made lapbook as this was our first attempt at doing this together.
We chose Apples!
We did all kinds of thing from tasting real apples, cutting them up to see how they can be devided into 4ths, we also learned about Johnny Appleseed and even made our own applesauce.
Biggun drew an Apple tree next to a Castle because he likes Castles.
Here are all our friends lapbooks.
Here is the whole crew, showing off their apple sauce.
We are going to work on a Thanks Giving Lapbook one we found for free from www.liveandlearnpress.com
when you join their yahoo group you have access to about 5 really neat lapbooks. We figure that after you count in things like sickness and stuff we will get done by Thanks Giving.
We are using a The Complete Book of Bible Activites you can get from Sam's Club. It is for 2nd -4th Grade. All the pages are full of different kinds of worksheets. Some of the pages don't have bible verses with them, so they are just phonics and math review. This is great but I am looking for something that is just "Bible"
Like today we read Luke 19:1-10 and we filled out a word tree by answering questions about the verses.
I want something like this for every day. That will take us to different bible verses and then we fill out a fun page. Biggun has enjoyed this. I want him to keep enjoying bible.
My question to anyone who reads this post is do you have a fun Bible program like this? Or do you know of one?
We finished our Swiss Family Robinson Lapbook about 2 weeks ago but I have not had time or energy to post about it. So here it is.
We read an abbreviated version of the book. We will read the full version when Biggun is older. But we had fun reading this version. Bigguns favorite part was the Salt Experiment.
The blue on the left is languages spoken in Sweden.
The pink is spelling words we worked on.
The white at the top is a drawing of the boat the Robinson's were on and a drawing of the tub boat they built. The green on the right is a list of items that you would need to start a colony.
Salt Experiment! Bigguns favorite part was tasting the salt at the beginging and the end.
It took us about 4 weeks to evaporate the water from the salt. That was keeping it in the garage.
We are almost done w/ our Mini-Co-op Friends Learning Together.
I will have pictures of the Apple Lapbook we did soon.
Tomorrow is the Mid County Support Group Meeting for PPEA.
I am not only the Leader; but this month I am speaking. I am so nervous. Normally I have no problem w/ saying hello and doing announcments then passing the meeting over to a speaker. Well this month I am the speaker.
This month I am speaking on Lapbooking. I have been doing Lapbooks since I started homeschooling. I went to one of my first homeschool meetings and it was about lapbooking. I loved the idea and have tried to do a few each year. I have even taught a lapbooking class in a co-op. I called that class Adventure Books. The kids chosed the subject and we went on an adventure finding out more about the subject they chose.
I am concerned that I will not come accross clear and that there will not be any people at the meeting. Just those who are working the meeting.
I have been working on this presetation all weekend. I am praying that things go good.
No summer schedule anymore. Biggun is a little suprised by this. I have been warning him about it for a few weeks. Here is what we have decided our schudule will be for a while at least.
AM -
AM Devotionals - The Complete Book Of Bible Activites.
Sight Word Book by Flash Skills
Read Books from Library
Histroy Fair Project or Lapbook Project (science/history)
Horizon Math (when needed)
PM - After Lunch - At the Office
I have set up a chart for Biggun to keep track of what he is doing. We are doing our Time4Learning a little different then the program ask for. The timer seemed to bother Biggun. He gets so caught up on the timer that he slows down or completely shuts down. We love this program and still want to use it, so we changed things up.
We need to catch up w/ our Language and finish up the Math we started over the summer. So I sat down and figured out how much Language Arts we needed to get done by Thanksgiving, this includes doing 3 Language Arts Extentions for this level. I also figured out how much Math needs to be done to get him on track by Oct 1.
We have done this for a while and it is working GREAT!!!!
I love this program. It covers everything in a wonderful fun way.
Now don't get me wrong the time limit might work for some kids but this works better for us. Biggun HAS to finish a certain amount in one day. Then if he wants to do more he can earn computer time on his favorite game Dragon Fable
Well everyone has Back To School activities. We had a NOT Back to School Day! Our local public schools started today, so we jumped on the idea of MOSI being empty, and it was. We went today, a friend from church, JM, with us. She goes to private school and does not start until next Monday.
Future News Anchors. It was strange because they pretended to report on a hurricane and there was a real one hitting Mexico. The program was pre set up.
Biggun's favorite place was the Grossology section.
And let me share it really was GROSS!
Just the way BOY's like it.
We saw a IMAX movie on the Deep Sea.
Then we ened our day at a 3D show on Deep Sea Diving.
JM could not keep her 3D glasses on her face. It was rather funny.
The PPEA (Pinellas Parent Educators Association) is hosting our first History Fair. I was not going to have Biggun participate because I just did not think we would have time to do it. But something was bugging me about it. (Funny how God does that)
I asked Biggun if he wanted to do it. He's question is to me was "What will I get for doing it. " Typical 8 year old response. I explained to him that he would get the knowledge he learned while putting this project together and also maybe a ribbon. After he heard the ribbon part he said "Yeah Mom I want to get a ribbon." After I corrected his Yeah to Yes Ma'am, I did explain to him that he might not get one but he was ok w/ that.
We started off looking at a Time Line Book and he wanted to do something about Knights and Castles and stuff. (Biggun's words) He pointed to The Hundred Years War, there was a picture of people fighting w/ swords and stuff. We went to the library and only found 1 book on this topic and it was for adults not kids. I don't have time to go surf the web to find the info for Biggun. I would much rather have books for him to look at and use.
So we started to think again. We have tons of books at home about Castles and Knights. We came up w/ the idea of making a model of a Castle. W/ little cards all around that will tell you about the different features of it.
Biggun is all excited and I am too. We will go to Michaels this weekend to see what we can find to get this idea underway. Granted Biggun has to pick out what Castle he wants to learn more about.
Here is the day we started brian vitamins May 31, 2007
Here is a sample of the same words from today Aug 9th 2007
What a difference!!! The one (1) is backwards and some of the words are spelt wrong. But Biggun caught himself when he wrote the d wrong on the word "hard" and wrote it correct. You can't see the erase marks but they are there. I am so proud of him.
Want to understand about brain vitamins click here to read the original post.
I was reimbursed some money that I had spent on homeschooling. So I feel that this money was already spent on homeschooling I should put it toward something else homeschooling related.
I have been kicking around all day the idea of getting a family membership to MOSI (Museum of Science and Industry) The membership is $99.00. The money I was reimbursed is only $50.00. If we were to do this I would have to find that additional $49.00.
When I got home today in my mail was a check for $40.00 from some reviews I wrote for Time4Learning.com. Thus this money was earned spreading the word about a curriculum I really feel passionate about, making it homeschool money also.
I think we can find $9.00 in our budget for this family membership. God is so GOOD!!!
This program surprises me more and more everyday. I posted about this program here on my Blog and they sent me a thank you mug.
My son was so excited to see this mug. He used it right away. Then requested to go online to Time4Learning.com
They have a great referral program, contact me and I will share more w/ you.
Back to my son. I am playing around w/ his levels now. I think we need to go back a level in his reading. He is doing ok but is having trouble, too. I don't want him to get discouraged so I think we will look a this level over the next few days. If I find that the level needs to be changed then all I have to do is email them and they will change the level.
Check out the different levels to see what I am trying to decide.
My next change to make w/ this program is to let my son pick out a folder to hold all his print outs instead of just putting them in a pile. I think we might actually start using the T4L more then just a suplement starting in Sept. when we go back to schooling 5 days a week.
We are doing a summer schedule of 3 days a week of schooling (m,w,f) On Tuesdays we go to the free movies and Biggun goes to the Library w/ a friend then on Thursdays we go bowling and he plays at a friends house afterwads.
Maybe we will not have such a break down like we did earlier this week. If we do more T4L then Paces.
All my friends in Blogger World I need your help. I am the Mid-County Support Leader for our area. This is the subject that we are working w/ for August.
Mid County Support Group Meeting Brandy Strouse
Monday, August 6, 7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.
Hope Presbyterian Church
1698 South Belcher Road
Clearwater, FL 33764
Getting Off to a Great Start Get your school year up and running! Tips for setting goals and staying on track. Bring your ideas to share with others. We will also have information on all the classes and activities to supplement your school year. You could even win a free one year subscription to “The Old School House” magazine!
I need any ideas on what you do to get your school year up and running! Any tips you want to share on Goals and Staying on Track. What do you use? Any traditions you use to get started? Please share all your ideas. Thanks
Our local Bowling alley offeres 80 free games for the summer to school age kids. All you have to do is show a report card. Well we don't do report cards so I took in our yearly evaluation form and signed Biggun up. We are going on Thursdays and get to bowl 2 to 3 games. Here are some pictures of our summer Physical Education!!! ( Yes this will go into the Scrapbook Portflio for next year)
I need to sit down one night w/ my camera and do a lot of blogging but I have been so busy. W/ work, baby, school, and life in general.
But I wanted to make note of something I noticed yesterday. I have not been doing a good job this past week on remembering to give Biggun his "Brain Vitamins" See here to know what they are. I know Bad Mommy. I need to do better because all of a sudden I get this in our school work yesterday.
I wrote next to the wrong one the write way. So he could see what he had done wrong. He fixed the Blue money bag. He usually writes his 5 and 6 backwards but not the whole number backwords like this. Where the numbers are in the wrong place.
He did the same type things today. Not good. And again I forgot Brain Vitamins. I am going to have to find away NOT to forget those!!
I have mentioned www.time4learning.com when we started it back at the end of April. I have shown you a picture of Biggun using it. Now I want to share w/ you how it is going.
We have been doingTime 4 Learning for 2 1/2 months now. Biggun has really enjoyed this program. Biggun just turned 8 years old and is having trouble catching on to reading. We started him on T4L and he has been slowly turning around.
In 2 weeks time I finished all the science for 1rst grade level and the social studies for 2nd grade level. He has moving right along w/ his Math and Language Arts. Biggun has always needed to have bright colors w/ his school work. This program is very bright in colors. Even the printable resource that are offered have some color to them. http://www.time4learning.com/hints/Hints_50.shtml Biggun likes to create the picture that he writes a story about. The characters are fun to watch and are funny too. Biggun will go on and on about what a character did or said.
I have also noticed that Biggun is learning to type. He used to have to search and search for letters on the key board but now I hear him say mmmmmm I know that m is on the bottom.
Bigguns fluncy has improved a lot, too. We still have trouble but he gets so proud of himself when he improves even just a little. This program has really improved his self esteme in it all.
It is great at how easy it is to sign in, As a parent it is great that Biggun can go and sign in on his own. I like that his password is not stared out, (*****) instead it actually shows him the letters he typed.
As I am writing this Biggun just asked if he could go on to T4L. It is 7:30pm Not during our school day. That makes me very happy. Everyone that I have talked to who is using this program is having the same type of response, their kids want to do this program on and off all day long.
Oh and did I mention that there is a great parents forum. http://www.time4learning.net/forum/ You can ask any questions you want. Or you can just read through it and get answers or hear other stories from other people.
We love this program. I have added the link to my link list on the side. I recommend that everyone check it out. You might find a great curriculum or a great supplement.
Iread the first chapter of Swiss Family Robinson to Biggun the other day. He LOVED it and aske do hear more. After that I went and found what I could to make this into a lapbook. We found a great web site that gave all kinds of ideas for each chapter.
We went to the libray and found books on Penguins, Flamingos, Switzerland, suger cane and Ships.
That will get us into the first part of the book.
Of course my son came up w/ his own question today after reading the second chapter. How do they get Salt our of the Water? No I am on the hunt for a simple science experiment on how to get salt out of water.
This might be a while before we get this lapbook complete but it will be neat and fun while we do it.
Today was really strange. I asked my son to do a math page in his Horizon Math. Lesson 3 front and back page. Everything on this page he knows how to do. The strange part was that he missed almost everything on side one of the page. It had clocks and two didget adding on it.
Needless to say when I had him slow down and do it all over again he got them all right. It was very strange. When he went back a couple hours later to do he 2nd side of the sheet he got all of those correct w/o any issues.
Knight #2, Maiden, Baby Bear, Soldier, Biggun, and Knight #1.
Biggun 
Baby Bear finally got out of ht stroller to play in kids in charge section. What a fun day.
M with his!
Our friend Biggun. **My Son**
Our other friend A. 
Of course we can't forget BabyBear!
B with her Cornucopia.
J with his 
it. 
