Eclectic Education - Homeschool Blogger

Lapbooking Ideas

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 16:51:00 -0600

Winter can be a difficult time in homeschool. Christmas has come and gone and so has the break that comes with it. Summer is still a LONG way off and so is spring, but around this time, itching for spring can start. Kids are stuck inside more and everyone is getting antsy. Now would be a great time to shake up your studies a bit and do something fun! Here is a list of lapbooking resources:

Winter Lapbook
Martin Luther King Jr. Lapbook
Chinese New Year Lapbook
Mardi Gras Lapbook
Groundhog Day Lapbook
Valentine's Day Lapbook
President's Day Lapbook
Iditarod Lapook
St. Patrick's Day Lapbook

Plant Lapbook
Space Lapbook
Weather Lapbook

Here are some resources for studies on polar Animals:

Caribou Animal Study
Ermine Animal Study
Lemmings Animal Study
Polar Bear Animal Study
Penguin Animal Study

Hope you have a fun and rewarding winter!

Create personalized gifts at Zazzle.

Getting Your Homeschool Organized in the New Year

Mon, 28 Dec 2009 12:45:00 -0600

Awww... New Year's, the time to set new goals for yourself. I like so many others out there, am setting new goals for myself and for our homeschool. I want to be more organized in the next year. My life is really busy. Besides homeschooling (and of course taking care of kids and house all day), I also work from home. I feel like I have very little free time. In addition to this, I am determined to get myself healthy this years which is going to take extra time (to learn more about this, check out Get Fit in 2010!) and to add Bible study into my day (yes, this has been sadly lacking), so I need to get really organized to add a few more hours into my time. Here are some resources and tips on getting organized for the New Years.

Get your household in order-

If your household is falling apart, your homeschool probably will too. Get your household routines down, so you can spend the time in your homeschool that you need.

Some helps for getting your household organized-

A home management binder- A home management binder will help you keep all your schedules and important information together. To learn how to put together a home management binder and to get resources, check out this link:http://bit.ly/46irl0
Motived Moms- I LOVE this program!!! Motived Moms is a very inexpensive program that you can buy that helps you organize your house work and to remind you daily of the tasks that need to be done. It breaks the work into simple chunks, so not to overwhelm your schedule. You can learn more about Motived Moms at their website: Motived Moms

For getting your homeschool organized, I recommend having a homeschool planner of some type. To learn how to make one and to get resources for it, check out this page: http://www.bukisa.com/articles/65016_make-a-homeschool-planner

Other tips-

1. Make sure you set aside time for homeschool. Try to avoid interuptions during this time. Your homeschool will stay much more organized if your time is not always being interupted. Here is an article on How to Avoid Interruptions while Homeschooling.

2. Keep your homeschool stuff in one spot. Whether you have an actual schoolroom or not, it is a good idea to keep your things together so you are not using valuable homeschool time searching for what you need.

3. Prepare ahead of time. Have copies and printouts already prepared before hand. Doing this during school time, will greatly impact the time that you are using for schooling.

One last thing- if you have a child that has trouble focusing on school work and has trouble completing it in a timely maner, then you may want to consider a small reward for when they complete their work. This could be like an hour of tv time, computer time, video games or outside time, something that they look forward to when they get all their work completed. This may help the day go more smoothly.

I hope everyone has a wonderful New Year!!!

Christmas Products

Mon, 7 Dec 2009 17:44:00 -0600

make custom gifts at Zazzle

Christmas Resources

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 16:17:00 -0600

Wow! Time is going so fast. I can't believe it is almost December!!! I don't know about you, but I usually start adding Christmas into our homeschool right after Thanksgiving is over. I am hoping to do an interactive notebook this year of Christmas Around the World, but I will have to see if my printer is fixed in time. Unfortunately, it started leaking. Ugh!!! Well, I wanted to share some resources that I have put together for Christmas.

Here are my homeschool Christmas resources:

Christmas Lapbook
Christmas Around the World with Children
Christmas Unit Study
Reindeer Animal Study

Here are some other resources for Christmas:

An Organized Christmas
Gift Giving Guide- Do you still need to get a gift for someone? Here's help!
Make Christmas Cards
Hot Chocolate for the Holidays

I hope these resources help make your Christmas more enjoyable.

Click in the graphic for more details!

Neat Homeschool Project

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 20:21:00 -0600

I just wanted to let you all know about a a neat project some of my friends are doing on eHow. Several of them are going to be sending a doll around the country and taking the doll to different landmarks and places in their community. They will be taking pictures and writing about the adventures. The project can be followed at this link: http://www.squidoo.com/ehowdollysgrandadventure This would make a really good geography project. I will say, though, a couple of the people sometimes have a uhm... colorful sense of humor, so I would preview it before showing it to your kids. lol!!! Just in case. Dolly is about to arrive at her first destination which is Maine. This project will be going on through the winter and possibly into the spring. Each person will be adding their adventures as they do them.

Swine Flu!

Mon, 2 Nov 2009 21:59:00 -0600

Ugh! I've had a rough month! My 2 sons came down with the Swine Flu on Oct. 7th and I followed on Oct. 8th. My kids are doing ok. I am still fighting to get well. That is why I haven't written at all for so long. I've been very sick. I've seen the doctor's 4 times and had to get chest X-rays. They say if my cough is not better by the end of the week, I may be getting more X-rays. *sigh* I was having trouble eating and couldn't keep my food down. I lost a total of 12- 14 pounds and I was getting dehydrated. If I hadn't started keeping my food down over the weekend, my husband was suppose to take me to the hospital on Sunday night. Luckily, I started keeping it down!!! I think I am finally on the mend, but I still have a ways to go, so my post may be light for another week or two. Hopefully by then, I'll be doing better.

Make Homeschooling Fun

Sat, 3 Oct 2009 22:00:00 -0500

School does not have to be a drag! There are many ways to jazz up your homeschool, allowing your child to have fun and get a good education. Here are some tips:

1. Use living books instead of textbooks when possible. Children can get into stories much easier than they can a dry textbook. Use the living books as a jumping off point to learn more about the subject. You can build an entire study around the book.

2. Make lapbooks or an interactive notebook to go along with your studies. Most children love colored paper, stickers, colorful markers, cutting and pasting. Use this love to do something creative, fun and educational.

3. Use puzzles. Puzzles require thought and so they are educational, in among themselves, but if you do a puzzle of the United States, the World Map, fine artwork or something, then you have an added benefit. By studying the pieces, your child is learning the parts of the map or is studying the fine detail of that makes up the artwork.

4. Go on nature walks. Studying nature not only teaches your child about the world around them, but it helps them develop important observational skills.

5. Play games. There are some games, like Made for Trade , that are made to be educational even though they are fun. Then there are games like, Monopoly that were not made for educational purposes, but still have many educational components. Games are a wonderful way to have fun, but learn also.

6. Add movies and videos to your school day. Ok, I know this is a controversial one, but I truly believe there are some awesome shows and movies that teach. A few that my son loves are Word Girl (teaches vocabulary), Cyber Chase (math), Magic School Bus (science), Liberty's Kids (American History) and Between the Lions (Reading). Now obviously, you don’t want to try to watch them all in one day, but one or two of them a day a few days a week is a good balance. Kids love the idea of getting to watch tv in school and a lot of the educational shows are packed with information. It’s a good use of the 30 minutes.

7. Make sure art, nature, music and physical activity is a part of the daily activities. These extras are fun as well as good for your child.

8. Make scrapbooks for learning. These can be for history, science, geography, or even art. It’s a fun and educational way to display what your child learns and they can get creative putting it together (if they are old enough).

I hope these tips help you make your homeschool fun as well as educational!

A Craft Apron and Craft Bag you can order for your child:

Child Craft Apron by lynnhsmomof2
Design your own apron at Zazzle

Craft Bag by lynnhsmomof2
More Crafts Bags

Mummies, Flowers and Blue Dolphins

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 13:12:00 -0500

Ok, it's been a few weeks since I have posted about our school work. We've had some unorganized weeks, but I finally feel like I'm on track again. Here is a sampling of what we have done.

In the School House:

I finished the Magic Tree House book Mummies in the Morning with Little One. Then we made an interactive notebook page for the story.

I am really liking the format of an interactive notebook for the Magic Tree House series. We basically just do enough minibooks to fit in a two page spread (or a two page spread with flap) and when we are done, I glue them in on a page labeled with the title. This allows us to extend the study to include other things like geography without spending a lot of time on it. I try to do 1 book every week to a week and a half. Since there are so many books in the series, I don't want to spend a ton of time on each of them. That is why about 5-7 minibooks for each book is ideal. I try to find stickers to go along with the studies (if I can) to make the pages more colorful and stand out. They are not necessary, but since I am a scrapbooker and have tons of extra stickers, I might as well use them.

If you would like to do you own study of Mummies in the Morning (or just an Egyptian study) here are some resources:
http://www.squidoo.com/magictreehouse--mummies-in-the-morning-studyguide
http://www.squidoo.com/magic-tree-house-study-guides (this has a directory of other MTH books)
http://www.squidoo.com/interactive-notebook

Both of the boys did some indoor nature studies since the weather has not been cooperating lately. I brought some wildflowers in from our garden for them to draw.

Prince Caspian's Drawing:

Little One's Drawings:

and

Here are some resources for your own nature studies:
http://www.squidoo.com/naturestudywithchildren
http://www.squidoo.com/homeschool-nature-studies

Prince Caspian was reading the book Island of the Blue Dolphin and he was to notebook what he read. Here is a page he did:

The notebook page is a part of the Basic Primary and Regular- Lined Notebooking Pages set by NotebookingPages.com. You can find them here: Notebooking Pages I love notebooking with older children. It gives them more practice in writing and it involves more thought than just circling a,b or c.

Being a WAHM:

I've also been busy working! I've gotten some of my Christmas line out on Zazzle. Here are a few examples:

Christmas Mug by lynnhsmomof2
Make a customized t shirt online at zazzle.com

Christmas Apron by lynnhsmomof2
Get a tee at zazzle

Nativity Stamp by lynnhsmomof2
Design customized shirts on zazzle.com

to see more, go here:

http://www.squidoo.com/christmas-zazzle-dazzle

I plan to add a lot more in the following weeks.

Well, that was our wrap up. To see more wrap ups, check out: My Heart's Desire Have a great week!

Here Comes Autumn!

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 21:42:00 -0500

It's hard to believe that autumn is here!!! It's funny it felt more like autumn during the summer, than it does now. lol!!! I for one am looking forward to the cooler weather. I just wish we would have had a better (warmer, dryer) summer.

Well, I have been busy on fall stuff. I have put together fall resources for lapbooking if you are interested. You can get them here: Fall Lapbook.

I have also been busy designing Autumn products for my store. Here are a few of what I have done.

Barn Sticker by lynnhsmomof2
Design custom stickers using zazzle.com

Autumn Bag by lynnhsmomof2
See more Harvest Bags

Autumn Blessings by lynnhsmomof2
Create canvas tote bags from zazzle

Autumn Window by lynnhsmomof2
Make custom stamps online at zazzle.com

Autumn Pumpkins by lynnhsmomof2
Create your own stamps with zazzle

To see the rest of my products, go to My Zazzle Store at: www.zazzle.com/lynnhsmomof2 or check out my Squidoo lens: Celebrate Fall

Yummy Recipes!

Sun, 20 Sep 2009 17:03:00 -0500

One of my friends has some yummy recipes that I wanted to share!

Here they are: (Just click the title)

Caramel S'mores
Chocolate Almond Butter
Dark Chocolate Dipped Strawberries
Vitamin Rich Soup (ok, the recipe sounds better that the title! lol!!!)

Enjoy!