YES, YOU CAN! PUBLICATIONS - Homeschool Blogger

A Christmas Treat for Book Lovers!

Mon, 24 Dec 2007 15:10:00 -0600

One of my favorite books is 84 Charing Cross Road, the correspondence between New Yorker Helene Hanff and a London Bookstore just after the close of World War II. The book is hilarious and touching but most of all a tribute to the love of buying and owning books.

The BBC has a much heralded new radio drama of the story which they've made the centerpiece of their Christmas Day schedule this year.

The program airs at 13:00 GMT on Christmas Day but you can listen to it here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/arts/afternoon_play.shtml
for up to a week after Christmas Day after which it won't be available.

I highly recommend making time this week to sit back and relax with your hubbie or children to enjoy this play!

(As most of you know, I grew up in England. I had the pleasure of visiting 84 Charing Cross Road in London when I was 18 which brought me to tears. There I happened to find Helene's Hanff's book about NYC which partly lead to me marrying my New York husband. She has a lot to answer for!)

blessings for a wonderful Christmas!

Michelle

ps
We've super busy at Yes, You Can! Publications writing and releasing our first two ebooks! I was so excited about the above link, I made the effort to get to this blog. I'll write another post about our books however ... there's no time like the present to stock up for Christmas ... next year!

Go to http://www.yesyoucanpublications.com/adventebook07.html
If you order this week and email me at the contact address on the download page with Homeschoolblogger in the subject line, I'll send you a free ebook!

Wuthering Arbortetum!

Tue, 6 Mar 2007 15:33:00 -0600

Last night we had gale force winds.

Our home backs onto the 250+ acre Arboretum in Boston and one of my favorite sounds is the roaring of the wind in the treetops on Peter's Hill on just such a night as last night. It makes me so glad to be safe indoors.

My eldest daughter commented this morning, "Now I know what the moors sounded like!" She's referring to "The Secret Garden" where Frances Hodgson Burnett described the 'wuthering' on the Yorkshire moors on a gale driven night.

Don't you love the common thread of books, weaving through our lives the sense of description from generations past? I was so happy to share the connection of a loved book with my teenage daughter this morning.

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Check out our new ART OF SEEING email Newsletter:

*coupons for great new art titles
*free reviews of art curriculum
*unique discounts on our upcoming products and more!

http://www.yesyoucanpublications.com/artofseeing.html
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Biblical Literacy ... what you need to know!

Thu, 1 Mar 2007 14:22:00 -0600

Click on the link below to read a recent report of what college professors are looking for in new students when it comes to knowledge of the bible.

http://www.bibleliteracy.org/bibcdocs/BibleLiteracyReport2006.pdf

The Best Book Sale Ever!

Wed, 1 Nov 2006 22:36:00 -0600

Looking for excellent children's literature, especially out-of-print classics fast disappearing from public libraries?

Having listed books for sale on the HOME LIBRARY BUILDER Yahoo Group for over two years, I need to be faithful with the writing projects on my heart and to be done selling used books.

So we've decided to have one last big books-for-sale hurrah ...

The low down:

*Over 1,000 books ... our complete inventory!

*All available for just **$2.50 each**
(whether it's a new THE WAY THINGS WORK, or an out-of-print treasure ... and some books will be cheaper!)

*Sale date: Wednesday, November 8--Tuesday, November 14, 2006

*Emails sent promptly 5pm Eastern each day

*Home Library Builder members only ... Link to join at the end!

*One last list of unsold items on the last day, $1 each!

Don't miss out! Mark your calendars now for November 8 ... the day after election day! Also feel free to pass on the word to fellow booklovers.

More details: Go to
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/homelibrarybuilder/
and join so you can participate in the sale.

A GREAT LISTEN!

Tue, 3 Oct 2006 15:09:00 -0500

I grew up listening weekly to umpteen BBC radio productions ... Listen with Mother, the Afternoon Play, the Book at Bedtime ...

Moving to the US more than 16 years ago, I missed this daily influence and joy.

But now thanks to the Internet, anyone worldwide can not only listen daily, but the digital radio station BBC7 makes archives of previously broadcast classics available as well.

My children have recently been enjoying episodes of P.G. Wodehouse's dramatized Jeeves and Wooster stories while we eat lunch or do art projects in the afternoon. And this week we were delighted to find a childhood favorite.

Would your children enjoy listening to THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS read by one of England's greatest actors ... in your own home?!

THE FIRST EPISODE

... just 15 minutes
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbc7/listenagain/monday/rams/1145.ram

NB You have to fast forward about a minute to get the start of the program!

THE NEXT EPISODES

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/mainframe.shtml?http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/bbc7_asx.shtml

1) Scroll down the "A-Z list of all shows"

2) Click on "Wind in the Willows" for the day you'd like to listen.

3) Fast forward two minutes to get straight to the start of the program.

Programs are archived for the six previous days. You could listen on Friday to the whole week at a time.

WANT TO HEAR MORE?!

Get the inside scoop!

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/YesYouCanPublications/

Can You Even Teach QUANTUM PHYSICS using Living Books?!

Fri, 22 Sep 2006 21:19:00 -0500

Now I know it's possible to teach ANYTHING using living books!

Would you think there's a title that makes Quantum Physics understandable for children? Try UNCLE ALBERT AND THE QUANTUM QUEST by Russell Stannard, a college Physics professor from England who happens to have seven children and a great way of conveying complicated ideas via a story. It's our current lunchtime readaloud.

Reading aloud is such a pleasurable, low stress activity especially when accompanied by lunch or afternoon tea (I grew up in England, remember!). It makes me look forward to the homeschool year, not shrink in dread at the thought of all that hard work. (This year we have our first highschool freshman, as well as eighth, fifth and second graders, a preschooler and yes ... baby Abigail who just turned three months old ... and has just figured out how to belly laugh.)

Stannard's MANY OTHER SPACE AND SCIENCE related titles are alll as simple yet profound ... CHECK THEM OUT!

Yes, You Can!

Tue, 1 Aug 2006 10:33:00 -0500

Well baby Abigail is here!

She arrived on June 19 after a surprisingly easy labor (more on that later when I finally get a photo hosted and up). Now after a six week furlough of gazing into baby's eyes, enjoying the heat (my last four babies were born in winter and it's wonderful to be up at night nursing and not freezing as well!) and marvelling at God's kindness to us ... it's time to take up our business ideas and start jogging with them again.

I think I must be allergic to negativity because nothing drives me crazier than folks continually finding one more objection as to why something is impossible.

So today I've been encouraged reading about Mary Engelbreit's beginnings as an artist and also an entrepreneur. Having been rejected by a publisher to illustrate books, the suggestion was made that she try illustrating greetings cards instead. At first this stung her pride but then she decided to give it a try and found some success. However she soon became tired of the constraints imposed by working for others. ...

In 1983, she began producing and designing her own cards. At the time, she was eight months pregnant. She shrugs off the risky move with a typical homespun Mary-ism: "Proper timing is overrated," she says. "There's always a reason not to do things � it's too expensive, or it's not the best time, or this, or that � but I believe there are wonderful opportunities sailing by, and you have to be ready to grab them."
from ABOUT MARY at MaryEngelbreit.com

Encouraged to know I'm not the only crazy lady who decides to launch into an adventure when so pregnant!

People either ask, "Why?" or "Why not?!" of an idea. I appreciate my husband's healthy CPA skeptism that balances out my often reckless enthusiasm, but even he has learned to say of an exciting possibility ... "What would we have to do to make it happen?"

That's one common denominator I see in the attitude of those who succeed. So I'm not surprised to read it brimming over in Mary Engelbreit's life.

What are you having trouble believing you can do? Whether it's a business idea or finding your child has a learning disability or homeschooling highschool for the first time (We find ourselves facing all three at the moment) ... take heart and assume the best not the worst!

(And come back soon to see adorable Abigail Grace!)

SUMMER RECIPE FOR SUCCESS

Tue, 13 Jun 2006 16:38:00 -0500

I'm typing in the cool of my basement office. I am officially nine months pregnant (yesterday) and as the afternoon heats up, thoughts turn to ice cold food and the ice pops in the freezer ... The homemade kind that don't dye your tongue or turn your kids into hyper-monkeys! My eldest daughter (who turned 14 on Saturday!) just invented a delicious new ice pop and I'm eager to give one a try. Just for scientific purposes of course.

Dear eldest daughter has been doing ALL the cooking lately, for which I'm very thankful. She's also writing an e-product aimed at teaching older children/young teens to cook. Having learned so much from making mistakes, it's definitely going to have a comedy element! Her love of experimenting in the kitchen has quickly taught her to learn why an ingredient is needed and how it could be adapted. Mmmm ... sometimes the experiment backfires, like rather too much cayenne pepper in several gallons of chicken soup that we had to eat for days (with a lot to drink at hand) ... but on the other hand if she didn't take a risk she'd never experience success.

I've been pondering recently what it takes to succeed, as a homeschooler and as an entrepreneur ...

And the willingness to take a risk is high on the list.

"What if this ingredient ruins the recipe? What if I increase my children's educational freedom and they don't measure up to my expectations? What if I take a risk and act on a business idea that doesn't work?"

Well, maybe the recipe will be a hit. Your children may far exceed your expectations, their love of learning taking off exponentially. And that crazy business idea could flourish!

It's painful when I see my children try and fail. But the willingness to make mistakes has a value not even success can measure. The overcoming of fear; the living by faith, in the adventurous realm of the 'possible impossible.' How many adults do you know living with the regret of a "What if," never tried?

Well, back to earth and the ice pop question. "Ice pops all round!"

Let's see if this is another noble effort put down as 'an experience' ... or another joyful, "Yeah, it worked!"

THE ICE POP EXPERIMENT THAT WORKED!

Freezer pop moulds or disposable cups with a spoon in each.
100% Grape juice
100% Apple juice
Small amount of natural vanilla ice cream
Mixed frozen berries such as blueberries, raspberries and strawberries

*Place a happy sized spoonful of the frozen fruit at the bottom of each cup or freezer pop mould
*Add a generous spoonful of the ice cream to each
*Fill to the top with a mixture of the two juices
*Freeze!

And of course, eat.

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To learn more about Anna's ANY CHILD CAN COOK course, go to
http://www.YesYouCanPublications.com/ and sign up for our newsletter. You'll be the first to know about its release ... with some generous special offers for first comers!

Need some recipe inspiration of your own? I just posted A LEARNING SMORGASBORD OF RECIPE BOOKS on my used-books-for-sale list, Home Library Builder. You can check out the inexpensive titles here.
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NATURE NOTES: Dawn in the Arboretum

Sat, 3 Jun 2006 02:16:00 -0500

The LORD provided us with our heart's desire this past year: a home still in the city of Boston, where we've lived all our married life, yet one surrounded by wildlife. (God can do ANYthing!)

With a week off work recently as we prepare for the birth of little Geffken #6, my husband fulfilled another desire: he and the children woke one morning around 4am and quietly set off to see the sunrise from one of the hills in the Arboretum behind our home. Having interviewed everyone involved over a pancake breakfast afterwards, I compiled the following eyewitness report ...

The first faint stirrings of the dawn chorus could be heard as they headed out, flashlight swinging to and fro along our street. In it's light was caught the dew on the grass and the frozen flight of an early bird. Eerily, a neighbor's giant purple flag irises shone with a lunar glow. And mist hung over the city of Boston.

At the iron-gated entrance, a rabbit ran across the path and paused to glance at the children before hopping into the half light. Then they climbed Peter's Hill, past our favorite blossom tree fragrant and still in bloom though dulled by the darkness. They could just make out two bats fluttering in a crazy pattern overhead, searching out the morning bugs. Rummaging about near a bush on the path's edge, a petite wren gave away her presence.

As they climbed, the color in the sky rose until at the peak of the hill, layer upon layer of rich ruby to pale pink streaks of mist melted away towards the ocean. And spread out below were 250 acres of rising dense birdsong: varied, rich; rare, common; migrant, resident ... like the city itself. A car alarm -- subdued and distant -- told that the sounds of the city were waking too.

After silently taking in the changing scene, they turned and descended, running, for the joy of moving. And halted. There was the wren near the path still foraging and busy and bats restlessly skitting home via their dot-to-dot of last morsels.

My family emerged into the world of the stirring city as the last of the glow dispersed and it was a new day.

SUMMER READING CHALLENGE!

Wed, 31 May 2006 01:20:00 -0500

READY TO TAKE THE SUMMER READING CHALLENGE?

What books have you been meaning to read ... just for yourself as a mom?! Are there homeschool resources you've meant to delve into but never seem to find the time? Are there readalouds that would bless your children this summer and you need motivation to get going ... or finished?

There's still time to sign up for the Summer Reading Challenge. Click on the Challenge button above or below or go to http://ttbookjunkie.blogspot.com/ and scroll down to the Summer Reading Challenge button there. Leave a comment that you'd like to join in ... but don't delay ... the deadline is May 31st!

The challenge lasts from June 1 to August 31. Once you've signed up, ponder your goals. Post them at the above blog and then post each time you achieve one.

Also for those who sign up, there's a forum to enjoy the fellowship of shared reading (and the suffering of missed goals!).

http://summerreadingchallenge200.phpbbnow.com/index.php

I'm going to post my reading goals for the summer here as well. If I can find time to read, anyone can! Though I have to say that getting up in the night to nurse a newborn is one of my favorite quiet moments for reading (and gazing!).

Don't miss the deadline of May 31st!

blessings,

Michelle