Where the World is Our Classroom - Homeschool Blogger

We Are Moving!

Tue, 4 Aug 2009 20:53:00 -0500

Ok don't get to excited! Now that I have your attention!

I just wanted you to know that we are in the process of moving our

blog over to blogspot. Our new blog is located at www.LightsOnTheLake.blogspot.com

I have toyed with the idea of moving over the past year. But of course I did not want to

have to pack it all up. If anyone has ever blogged before you know why.

I have many archived entries here, and of course we have spent over 2 years here.

So I have so many records and blog entries. I hope to be able to move over many of them.

A couple reasons why we are moving:

1. Blogspot offers a very nice search field. So if you want to find something on our new blog it is

as easy as typing it in the search field.

2. The Entries are organized much better and easier to keep up with.

3. You can upload photos directly to the blog. Right now I spend alot of time uploading

to photobucket and then downloading to hsblogger.

I do have to admit that we have enjoyed our stay here. Homeschool blogger has been good to us and provided for our needs while we have been here. It is just that our needs have changed.

We hope to see you at our new site.

I have also moved our Little Hands Website over to blogspot as well.

You can now find us here.

Curriculum Giveaways!

Tue, 4 Aug 2009 10:15:00 -0500

Everyone loves free curriculum don't they! Read on to find out more about some great giveaways.

Tristan over at Our Busy Homeschool currently has 7 giveaways. You can visit her blog to find out more and enter by clicking here.

Maureen over at Spell Out Loud also has a giveaway for Sequential Spelling.

Coffee and Conversation is having a also giving away a copy of Spell Quizzer software.

From the Teacher's Desk-Our Fall Semester Plan

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 19:15:00 -0500

Well we start our homeschooling schedule this coming Monday August 4th. We will school for 7 weeks and then take 2 weeks off. For our first week back, I wanted to do something really fun and out of the ordinary. So I thought we would do an Ice Cream Unit. There is a great FREE Literature Based Unit and Lapbook at Homeschool Share. We will be learning about the history of ice cream. The process, pastuerization, dairy cows, and also making some of our own concoctions.

Then for the next 6 weeks we will be using Apologia's Zoology 1 -Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day as our spine. Now It really isn't a spine book, but we will use this as our base and do unit studies from FIAR and HSS around what we are studying.

I don't have the order all figured out yet, but here are some of the units we plan to do alongside our Aplogia study.

Here are some of the resources I will be using:

Apologia Zoology Yahoo group.-They have other members that are currently using this curriculum along with notebook pages and schedules.

I also plan to use the mini books for Apologia Zoology 1. They can be obtained on Notebooking to Learn yahoo group.

There is also a notebook cover page on The Notebooking Nook yahoo group.

Truman's Aunt Farm -FIAR also using parts of the free ant lapbook.

The Bee Tree-FIAR

When Mosquitos Buzz in Peoples Ears

Honey Bee Lapbook

Eric Carle Insect Study

A Pocketful of Cricket

Butterfly Unit and lapbook

Dragonfly Study and Lapbook

Praying Mantis Animal Unit Study and Lapbook

And I will also be using theInsect Connections page at HSS. They connect studies for you.

I belive these units will keep us busy all semester. So whatever we do not get to in the first 7 weeks, we will do in the last half of the first semester. I hope to finish up flying insects before Thanksgiving.

Homeschoolshare's Back to School Blast Contest

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 18:44:00 -0500

Well I got exciting news! I was one of the Back To School Contest winners. I teamed up with Maureen at Spell Out Loud. We did a unit study on Christmas Around the World. (Look under Multi Age units).

Maureen made up the lapbook components while I researched several countries. We also had other people contribute research and I compiled the information and added where necessary. You can see more about the unit here on her blog.

We took first place in the Tag Team category.

This is a great unit to learn more about the customs of different cultures and countries around the world. We included songs, traditions, oranaments they make, recipes etc. I plan to use the unit this December to launch our Galloping the Globe study in the Winter/Spring semester.

I won a Time Traveler of my choice, a Learning Grammar through literature pack and A Jim Weiss CD.

DD's First Grade Sampler Notebook

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 20:09:00 -0500

Each year I take a sampling of the kids work and put it in a folder. (Believe me I have a whole lot more than this.) WIth all the lapbooks we do and our memory albums and each child has an art portfolio too.

But this serves as a sampler of all their work. This way we can see the progression year to year.

I just use an inexpensive folder. I laminated a picture of her with the grade underneath and glued it to the front of the folder. It came out really nice. (And didn't cost much.)

Scrapbook area in my school room.

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 20:02:00 -0500

Along with re-organizing the schoolroom, I also reorganized my scrapbook area.

This lime green shelf my dh painted and put up for me. (Using left over paint from the dining room-if you can believe it.) Those neat little storage boxes came from Dollar General $3.00 each.

I keep paper scraps in them.

This is a good view of my scrapbook area. (The table can be used for inviting others over for crops.) Here is my stamp station and paper storage.

I decided to label the drawers just to make it easier to find everything.

I put my stamp sets in this cabinet.

I am really excited about the fact that now I can actually locate what I am looking for!

School Room Reorganization

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 19:47:00 -0500

I decided to take advantage of Big Lot's 20% sale the other night. I bought 2 bookshelves. I know you are probably wondering why I am putting them together... Well I wanted them done today! (And wasn't willing to wait for dh to get to them.)

Here they are up with stuff organized on them.

Of course this made me realize the wall was now unbalanced because of the short bookcase on the opposite side of the school cabinet. So I went back and bought a third shelf!

Inside the supply cabinet is pretty neat now.

The other book shelves, white board and animal classification board. More storage in the dresser. (I know it isn't real attractive, but it stores a ton of stuff, so it is being used for now.) On the closet door I added a clear shoe organizer for supplies. I bought this pretty little storage container at big lots too. It was the perfect size for our Science Experiments in a Bag and you can just raise the lid to pull one out.

I numbered the work drawers.

This is ds's workdrawers and his curriculum is on the shelves around his set.

(So I can easily pull stuff for him each day. Here is dd's drawers and her curriculum is on this shelf. The storage containers on the right hold various things. One has our music curriculum (Pianimals) another I keep curriculum magazines in and another is for curriculum we are not quite ready for yet. I got these from ABC Distributing a few years back for around $7.95 for the whole set! I wish I could find them again!

I also got these canvas storage bins at Big Lots. I just made tags to label the contents. The white hanging shelf also came from Big Lots, and I went back today to get more and they were gone! Sigh

Peyton's Name Art

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 19:45:00 -0500

This was one of my projects to get done this summer.

I made these frames with my cricut for my son's room.

A mamma bear and her cubs...Only feet away!

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 21:09:00 -0500

Well I must admit that the highlight of our day, was at the end of the day. We were driving on one of the roads just inside the Smoky Mountain National Park and we came across this.

This picture gives you a better idea how close this bear was! There is the side mirror. Of course that was on Lisa's side of the van...Since had I been driving it would have been a closed window with a bear that close!

Here the mamma bear decides to cross the road in front of us! I think they need bear crossing signs!

Jr. Ranger Program in the Smokies Let's Be A Scientist

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 21:06:00 -0500

The next class we attended for the Jr .Ranger program was the Let's Be a Scientist class at Sugarlands Visitor Center.

We learned about insects and how they affect the environment. We used screens to catch falling bugs off trees. A shaker box, and these cool suck em up thingies.

Libby holding a millipede.

Getting a closer look at what we found.