Homeschool Nations - Utah - Homeschool Blogger

The Schoolhouse Planner- Wow!!!

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 22:44:00 -0500

We are so excited to announce that our much-anticipated Schoolhouse Planner is READY!

The Schoolhouse Planner has so many wonderful features. You told us what you wanted in a planner, and we have delivered!

Some of the main features include:

Calendars in various forms - yearly, monthly, weekly, and daily

Planners for your homeschool - in various styles to meet your individual needs

Household planning forms

12 "homeschool must-know" items, one for each month of the year

12 essays from some of our favorite authors in the homeschool community - you absolutely won't want to miss these!

24 easy main-dish recipes from some top homeschoolers around the nation

and so much more!

PLUS, the Schoolhouse Planner is interactive! You can type right into the pdf! If you have Adobe Acrobat, you'll be able to save the changes you make. (Note: If you only have Adobe Reader, you can type in your planner information, print it, but will not be able to save these changes.)

Don't forget, monthly planner add-ons are available for purchase every month. We already have some great holiday related information ready for July's planner supplement!

We're there with you each month to make your home and school planning as easy and fun as possible throughout the year!

Have a friend who likes an organized home and school? Let them know about the Schoolhouse Planner.

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We want to say a very special "thank you" to those of you who pre-purchased the planner.

If you pre-ordered the TOS Planner, you will receive download instructions within the next 48 hours. Watch your inbox! If you haven't ordered your Shoolhouse Planner, now is the time to order your copy. The new school year is quickly approaching!

ORDER HERE!

We are so excited and hope that you are, too.

Sincerely,

The Old Schoolhouse Magazine

A Special Gift for YOU!

As part of our celebration, we want to share our special report Homeschool with Confidence with you.

TOS is all about encouragement and support!

Homeschool with Confidence is a wonderful resource for those new to homeschooling, veteran homeschoolers, and those considering homeschooling.

Please feel free to share it with your friends!

Download YOUR free copy here.

Huge Moon illusion tonight

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 14:50:00 -0500

Hi all, For those studying astronomy, or those just interested because
they think it's cool, the moon is going to appear huge tonight. Here is
the article that explains a little more as to they why.

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/080617-moon-illusion.html

Enjoy

Father's Day

Wed, 4 Jun 2008 10:15:00 -0500

Win fabulous videos for your father at the Schoolhouse Store!

We are giving away Franklin Springs' DVD "A Journey Home" to the first five customers of the day that spend $40 or more in the store. This fun offer ends June 5th, 2008!

But wait, there's more!

The person who has the biggest ticket of the day will receive the Franklin Springs' Father's Day Film Pack ($47.95 value).

Includes: A Journey Home, Still Standing: The Stonewall Jackson Story, and An American Adventure: The Living Legacy of Jimmy Gentry

Start shopping NOW, offer ends June 5, 2008! And remember, shipping is always FREE at the Schoolhouse Store

Good news for Homeschooling in California

Wed, 21 May 2008 12:29:00 -0500

Spring Activities

Tue, 6 May 2008 19:38:00 -0500

We are winding down our academic subjects by this time of year, so I like to do some fun school-ish type things for fun. Here are some things we have tried:

DLTK- don't you just love this site?!! They have an entire page of spring flower activities, including crafts (lots of crafts), coloring pages, even the simple carnation science experiment. Print off a few things and have a ball. And don't miss the Insect page- poems, printables, crafts and even some recipes for things like marshmallow spiders. Yum

There are also some great spring activities for kids on apples4theteacher. We checked out some of the recommended spring books, printed out some of the short stories that caught our eye to make our own books, and worked on some word puzzles.

We also spent some time on one of my favorite printable sites- Jan Brett's site. I love her books, The Mitten is still my favorite, and her site is very generous with freebies. We made a GingerbreadBaby board game, learned to draw Hedgie the hedgehog, and used her stationery to write letters to family.

And to send you off with a cheery note, here is a poem we used for copywork this week.

The Call of Spring
by Norman Schlichter

When spring begins
Again to light
Our happy world
With colors bright,

The robins all come
Back to see
How beautiful
The earth will be,

With crocus gold,
And daffodils
Lighting meadows,
Fields, and hills;

With leaves of green
And tulips gay,
And birds arriving
Every day.

Preschoolers in the House?

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 09:51:00 -0500

As a mom who has had preschoolers for about 15 years now, I was always looking for something to do with them. When we started homeschooling the older ones I looked even harder, how did I keep them busy and happy while I worked with the big kids? This article from TOS gives great ideas and advice. Enjoy

Homeschool Freebies
Jamin, Freebie Finder

I LOVE teaching preschoolers! It is so much fun to share the joy of discovery with my little ones. I have a LOT of fun teaching my preschoolers and I have a lot of posts on my blog about what we do. So instead of sharing freebies from the Internet today, I am going to share the resources I already have on my blog.

How I Teach My Preschoolers is a post I wrote about teaching preschoolers by doing a unit study based on the alphabet. This is an easy way to introduce your preschooler to a lot of great information without spending a lot of money.

One of my favorite things to use when teaching my preschoolers is felt board stories. In this post I tell about how I have made over 40 felt board stories to use with my preschoolers! (My older kids like them too!) Likewise Craft Ideas for Preschoolers highlights crafts I have done with my kids and gives links to craft pages I have used with my preschoolers.

Phonics Fun talks about a few simple games you can make to play with your littles to help them learn their letter sounds. In Fashionable Phonics I show how I made a fun phonics t-shirt for my daughter.

Don't forget Lapbooking! My littles LOVE to lapbook! Here are three preschool lapbooks we have done. Creation, Senses, and Goodnight Moon. These are free and you will find links to the printables in the posts. HERE is a post about an ABC Scrapbook my daughter and I did together. We did a craft for each letter of the alphabet and then put them in a scrapbook. She treasures this to this day!

Here are two posts I wrote about things to do with your littles while you are working with your older children. School & Little Ones - Part 1 and Part 2. And then Keeping An Active Five Year Old Happy! gives all kinds of ideas for simple things younger kids can do while mom is busy doing something else.

One last thing, as much as I love teaching my preschoolers, I also love to include them in what the rest of us are doing. Here are three posts where you can see all my kids learning together and loving it: Dissecting Owl Pellets, The Feast, and How to Mummify a Barbie!

Happy Homeschooling,
Jamin

UHEA convention

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 11:48:00 -0500

From the UHEA website :

UHEA 2008 Convention & Curriculum Fair

The UHEA 28th Annual Convention & Curriculum Fair will be held May 24, 2008 at the Salt Palace Convention Center. The UHEA Convention is the largest home education event in Utah. Approximately 1,500 home educators from all over the United States will gather in Salt Lake City to participate in this event.

We are pleased to announce that our adult keynote speaker will be David Albert and our teen keynote speaker will be Brent DeGraff.

Join us at the Salt Palace Convention Center on May 24, 2008 for this great event!

Graduation

Graduation will be soon upon us and UHEA is sponsoring a homeschool graduation ceremony. We would like to invite you and your homeschooled seniors to participate with us. We have gowns available for use, and will provide a certificate of achievement as well as a graduate book with photos and biographies of the graduates. This ceremony makes for a wonderful evening for families and is very personalized for the graduates.

Convention Volunteers

UHEA needs your help with the 2008 UHEA Convention & Curriculum Fair! Some positions require more time than others. Some can be done before convention and others the day of convention.

Currently we are looking for help with:

Adult Convention Coordinator & Co-coordinator
Teen Convention Coordinator & Co-coordinator
Publicity Chair with marketing skills

If you are interested in any of these positions, or would like to help on the day of Convention, please contact Tonette Harris.

Freebies for spring

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 11:35:00 -0500

We have had a really long (bad) week, sick kids, stolen purse, cars breaking down and did I mention sick kids. Yuck! I needed something fun to get us all in a good mood again.

The Great Sunflower Project offers a free pack of sunflower seeds for you to plant in your yard. All you have to do is watch and count the bees you see coming to your garden and send in the count, either online or by mail. This is a great one for me, I LOVE sunflowers, they are so bright and cheerful.

Now, when those sunflowers are up and looking pretty, you can sketch them with oil pastels. The fun part is - Pentel is giving away a free 12 piece oil pastel set. Here is the link: http://www.pentelarts.com/offer.php

Use promo code SA2008

Enjoy the spring weather, on the days it actually behaves like spring that is.

April is a promise that May is bound to keep. ~Hal Borland

Spring Promo- Blog and win!!!!

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 20:50:00 -0500

The HSB Front Porch is having a contest and you can win a $50 gift certificate just for blogging about The Old Schoolhouse Magazine Spring Promo before midnight April 30, 2008. Subscribe now to The Old Schoolhouse Magazine and receive 25 BONUS gifts valued at over $550! The Winter Promo sold out, don't miss out on the free gifts this time!

They are also giving away a $150 gift certificate to the Schoolhouse Store. All print subscribers (new or renewing) between April 3 - 30, 2008 will be automatically entered into a drawing. No purchase neccessary to win. To enter without subscribing, please send a postcard with your name, address, telephone number, and email address to:
The Old Schoolhouse Magazine Spring Promo Contest
PO BOX 8426
Gray, TN 37615

Earth Day 2008

Mon, 7 Apr 2008 09:27:00 -0500

Here is a great link for Earth Day; includes information about the history of Earth Day, world-wide activities and lots of ideas to help learn about keeping the earth healthy. Be sure to try the link for the Teachers Network. It contains "over 300 standard-based lessons, school greening tips, grants for teachers, and more than 25,000 teachers to share ideas with." My favorite part was the online virtual tour of Walden's Pond, the pictures were beautiful.

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Here are some local ideas to celebrate Earth Day:

Wasatch Mountain State Park

Birds of Prey- Celebrate the earth and learn about one of this area's most beautiful and fascinating predators. Get up close and personal to a live bird of prey. Free admission. Saturday, April 12th 11 a.m. to noon.

Recycled Papermaking: Celebrate the earth and learn how to make your own recycled paper using materials you have in your own home. Saturday, April 26th 11 a.m. to noon
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Red Butte Gardens Saturday, April 19th 10 AM - 11:30 AM Let's celebrate Earth Day by planting trees! We'll begin with a walk through the Garden to learn about our favorite trees and why they are so important to the planet. Later, we'll head back to Em's Sprout House and plant a seedling to take home. Garden Adventures start promptly at 10 AM in Em's Sprout House.

Hogle Zoo Saturday, April 26th 10-3 Party for the Planet Party with Hogle Zoo and other zoos and aquariums around the nation as we celebrate the planet. Learn what Hogle Zoo is doing to help the planet, from recyclable plates in our concessions areas to solar panel use on top of our elephant building, also learn what you can do at home too! Enjoy a planet full of live music and dance from different cultures throughout the event, including Irish Folk Dancers, African Dancing and Native American Hoop Dancing. “Green minded” organizations will be on grounds to let you know what they are doing to keep our Earth beautiful, and to help you think locally to make a difference globally.

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Celebrate Earth Day by making fun recyclable crafts at your local library

April 18th Kearns Library 2:30 pm Sprague Library 2 pm

April 22nd Anderson-Foothill Library 2pm Main Library 2pm

April 25th Chapman Library 3 pm
April 26th Day-Riverside Library 2 pm Sweet Library 2 pm