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Labels: Lens, Lens winners

So much going on in the internet world...are you like me, absorbing so much that you forget half of it?

Here is where I try to share internet awesomeness I discovered, though unfortunately, much of it gets lost before I remember to jot it all down.

Some things of note:

**Headsprout Phonics early reading program discount is ending August 31st.
Click to this page; Headsprout Reading online-early reading program
and enter this code to save 25% HS2010BTS1

-you can click over to see my review; Headsprout Phonics, my other homeschool secret weapon
this is one of my favorite picks for homeschool curriculum. :)

Waiting for Superman- a documentary: this is the trailer, and it had me in tears. Something is very wrong with public school education in D.C. (which is astounding considering how much money is poured into the D.C. educational system, much more than anywhere else in the U.S. - a rant/discussion for another blog post maybe...)

Joyful Abode - check out her recipe index on the right margin, she has some delicious looking healthy food recipes and many for food allergy diet needs. I am going to be trying some of these out.

Parenting For Dummies-the very cool Lollie-mom of 5, gives some not-so-typical back to school tips as part of PFD's Make New ifriend Mondays.

Rubit dog tag clips. Clips that make it easy to move your dog's tags from one collar to the next. Comes in cool colors! I'm thinking they look more sturdy then the flimsy clips I got at the pet store for Emma's i.d. tag...

PeaceLoveMom shirt giveaway over at Getting all my Duck's in a Row. Ends Sept. 8

Avocado fries over at Not just another Jen (love love her blog title!) - I have not tried these yet, but they are for sure on my to do list...

Welcome to The LEarning Never Stops Photo Challenge. Today's theme is "Listen".

Linky will close 10p.m. Sunday night. Please link to your entry page, not your main blog page. Please remember to link back to this challenge, and to visit 3 other entries. 2 winners will be chosen, displayed and linked to on Tuesday night.

good luck!

Labels: Lens

Stories are often the best way to capture a boy’s attention, the best way to drive home a moral point, and are also just good fun. With so many kid’s books tied into popular cartoons or shows, I fear our kids are missing out on enjoying and learning from classic books. Our boys would be served and shaped better by spending more time with stories of boys taking on manly responsibilities than by emulating the funny, wise-cracking, sarcastic hero of shows popular right now...

Today,I am writing about sharing classic books with our boys,
over at The Mothers of Boys Society.

click over to read the whole article. *Classic books: an ingredient for boy-building

If you have boys in your life, you will find much encouragement and inspiration over at the M.O.B. Society website! :)

Labels: homeschool, reading basket

Homeschool equals TIME
(this is a reprint/updated article of a post done Jan 9, 2009)

We homeschool for many different reasons. No homework, was not actually on the original list..but it has been an unexpected blessing. I am sitting here, blogging, while 5 kids play on the floor around me. They are not sitting at the table working on homework, but playing with the playmobil sets that live permanently (it seems) in my front room. Another blessing is the reality of 5 kids, ages 15 down to 8, -playing with each other.

I first leaned of the crazy idea of no homework when studying Charlotte Mason's philosophy of education.

"Another attraction of Charlotte's [Mason] philosophy is that her schools never gave homework to students under the age of thirteen. When a child follows her method, there is no need for homework in the elementary years, because the child immediately deals with the literature at hand and proves his mastery by narrating at the time of the reading....
...Instead of homework, my children enjoy cozy evenings with good books and parental attention."
-A Charlotte Mason Companion by Karen Andreola,pg.15

Of great benefit to us, are large blocks of free time. We use this free time for giving the kids space and time to create or master a skill. This free time is a gift for indulging in good old fashioned play- something we feel adds a much needed de-stress cushion to their day. This free time also affords us the opportunity to explore different interests through outside classes and lessons.

The greatest benefit/perk for our family is time to be together. We enjoy and treasure the large chunks of time we spend in each other's company- and we count it a precious commodity in the process of growing up our children to go out and walk their own walk of faith someday.

The last benefit is monetary. If our children were not homeschooled, they would be in private school. The huge savings we gain from not paying the really high tuition rates in our area- is money we are able to channel into lessons for our kids. These lessons would not happen if we were paying for private school.

Homeschooling is a big undertaking. It is a huge investment for mom, time-wise. The returns, however, have been so worth any sacrifice or work.


For us, Homeschooling = time.

my oldest is in 10th grade this year, and is taking a college course. As I drove her to her first day of class...I was slammed with the realization of how fast my time with her has come and is going.

thank you, Lord- for this time.

Labels: homeschool

Labels: Wordless Wednesday

Picking just two winners every week, is really a challenge. We had so many wonderful and different shots this week. Here are two that just jumped out and showcased "sunlight", I thought...

1) My Home in the Smokies

wow, love the pastel blues and the sun peaking out of the clouds. Wonderful!


2) Mom's Mustard Seeds



So many striking things about this photo. First, the range of colors- just wow! Then, I like the sunlight towards the horizon, and then the reflection of the sky in the water is awesome.

Thank you bloggers for sharing with us this week!

Next week's challenge is "Listen"...I'm going to leave that one wide open, find your own interpretation.

Saturday, Sept. 4th the challenge theme will be "begin the story" - for this one, find a shot that could launch a story.... or one that could be on the cover or front page of a storybook.

Labels: Lens, Lens winners

Not-back-to-school 2010 was a success :)

I entered into the new home-school year with some trepidation, I did not get all the organizing done as I had wished to. But, it worked out, the little I did do was enough and we had a really great 1st day.


I did get my homeschool bookcase cleaned and organized. This is where I keep our Sonlight books and also where I keep big magazine type boxes to hold books/notebooks for each child- this is the spot to find books we use on a daily basis. I also bought new 3-ring binders for each student and filled them with a week's worth of work.

I set up my chalk-board wall of power with a list of the short day I had planned, and then I added a drawing of a big hand, with each finger labeled with a task from The Daily 5, which I will be implementing into our day this year. I heart this concept and I heart this book!


We started 1st with a Bible/Character story for the 3 littles from School Days with the Millers.
I still haven't figured out curriculum for Bible..so for now, I will be doing character lessons.

After Bible time, I have scheduled our Daily 5 time-block. Today, I explained to the kids what the Daily 5 is, what it will look like- and then we only tackled 2 of the 5. First, we worked on "write" by having creative journal time. The kids wrote about what they did during the Summer. Next, we did "read out loud to someone" - that someone was me.


I used this time to introduce them to this
Fiction Reading Comprehension program-cards in a box by Teacher Created Resources. I explained how to use them and then worked through one card with each child- doing the comprehension questions on the back together. I love this program, it's going to be great for the kids to use independently during "read to self time".

We then all worked on Math. We are using Math-U-See. After that came handwriting. I had the 3 kids sometimes working on a different subject while I had a reading session with one.


Meg and Josie were working totally independently, but sitting at the table with us. Today, they tackled Math, History and Literature, Grammar and Writing.


After cursive handwriting, we moved onto the all important snack time and play break. Once break was over (about 15 minutes- during which I corrected Math) I had the 3 kids each work in their Explode the Code (phonics) workbooks. Then, we were done!


A bit of a short day, but I wanted to ease into things. I felt really successful in starting the day early- I was aiming for an 8:30 start time, actually starting at 8:45. This was much, much better than the 9-ish or later time (usually later) we were managing at the end of our last school year. Sky helped me get up and out to exercise early this morning. By the start of homeschool, I had walked/exercised, showered & dressed and had breakfast. For the Bridget Jones Homeschool mom- this was a huge feat. It felt really, really good to be ready to take on the day.

Once we were done with our school work, we headed over to Rubio's for a celebratory lunch, and then over to the bookstore for some R & R.



Really a great start, I am actually looking forward to tomorrow! :)

So, to my homeschool friends- have you started back up yet? How was it?

Moms of schooled kids, are yours back yet? How was it? Great, I hope!

Labels: homeschool, homeschool planning, Jen's world

ooh- kaaay where to start?

1.Sky did an intervention on me. He's the linear, logical, civil-engineer guy..remember? So, it was the classic intervention. I had the split second decision to go ballistic on him, but decided I liked how nice he was being- he was approaching it from the trying to be helpful point of view...so I listened. I also listened because he was saying the same things I've been saying in my head the last few weeks. Lastly, I listened because we have this comfortable marriage where we approach life as a team, we are each-other's cheering squad, so I know he is trying to be helpful and I can't just shut him down, he is not the enemy, my soul-life is.

Upshot- I have to wake up at 6:30 a.m. and be productive during the day. No blogging till after dinner. My Summer of Sloth has come to an end.
I guess that means I'm grounded??? Don't answer that.

I guess I can add "be the subject of an intervention" to my bucket list. Since I don't drink, smoke, do any kind of drugs and don't even swear...this was unexpected,
a bit.

2. I did get up at 6:30 Friday, and followed the logical order of events Sky suggested. It went really well. Until I decided to play hookey and hit the beach.
eh...

3. School is starting Monday for us, and as the Bridget Jones Homeschool mom- can anyone be surprised that I am not ready?? Don't answer that.

I planned to begin cleaning and organizing a week before. Then the weekend before.
-Now it is Sunday night and all I managed to do was clean off my big homeschool bookcase and load up all the kids new binders for the week. eh.

4. I asked Sky to do a mini remodel of our bathroom, since a big remodel is not in the budget. I was thinking new vanity top, sink and mirror. Maybe new floor tile if I can talk him into it. Sky remained un-interested. Until this week, he asked with some interest what I wanted, again. I came home 2 days later and found him ripping up the tile.
okay.
It would have been nice to get my stuff out of there and make sure all the cupboards are closed so they don't get drywall dust all over everything.
But, okay.
I do love that Sky can do anything he puts his mind to.
We couldn't just get a marble vanity top, of course the cabinet we saved and made new doors for is not a stock size...so Sky is making a new tile top instead.

5. Did I mention school is starting? I must go to bed now, because Sky will be waking me up at 6:30 a.m. (whimper)

6. I'm still on twitter off and on during the day..the ban did not extend to my iphone...or at least he didn't think of it.

tah-tah for now, see you internets after dinner!

Labels: Jen's world

Welcome to the Sunlight edition of The LEarning Never Stops Photo Challenge.

This week we are exploring capturing sunlight in our photos. Link up a photo that shows the play of sunlight on a subject, a photo that captures sun flare or just a photo that celebrates sunlight. Get creative! I can't wait to see what you come up with!

Need some help with capturing sunflare? What is sun flare??
Click over to How to Capture Sun Flare in photos over at I heart Faces.

Linky closes 10pm pacific time Sunday night, two winners will be chosen, displayed and linked to on Tuesday night. Please enter the link to your entry, not to your main blog page, and please link back in your entry to this contest.

Labels: Lens

This weekend, we said goodbye to our across- the- street neighbors. People I did not have much in common with, except that they had kids, and so did we…but they were great neighbors, and became great friends. They were the Lucy to our Ethel. The opposite of our very quiet, conservative family- and you know what? -we had so much fun with them! They pulled us out of our shells, sometimes out of our comfort-zone and added a spice to our lives.

The Goodbye Kind-read the rest over at SmartlyOC....

I am posting today about gaining and losing heart friends over at SmartlyOC, click over!

Labels: Jen's world

Labels: Wordless Wednesday

I loved seeing the portraits you entered for this challenge! I love changing a photo to black & white to see how the focus can change. I hope this challenge encouraged you to think more often about seeing how a photo might be enhanced by converting it to black & white!

Here are the 2 winners for this week:

1) Life with my Giggly Girls


I love how close she cropped this, really bringing the focus to her face. I also love her Mona Lisa smile!

2) Homeschool Success



I love the departure from the classic smile pose. I love the dramatic personalities-just in your face, what you see is what you get! I also loved that when I grabbed the photo, it was titled "this says it all" !

Exactly!
Congratulations winners!

Come by next week when the challenge is "Sunlight". Let's see what you come up with! :)

Labels: Lens, Lens winners

**False- I did not buy a raspberry coat in an expensive store, I bought a very practical black raincoat. It was $89, which in light of me almost buying a pair of $150 sunglasses at the coach store, the raincoat was a good buy. -I'm still dreaming of those sunglasses...

**False- Our kids did not go to Canada for a circus summer camp. They went to Canada to attend The Summer School of Truth, which is a Bible Camp. We arrived the last day to see the very last session, and hear the kids speak and sing. I was so glad I went, and had the opportunity to hear what is being poured into these kids. We were thinking we would drive the kids back, but they wanted to return on the bus.

**True- I did have the best fries ever, in Vancouver at an Oyster bar. Imagine parmesan-crusted french fries, seasoned and fried to a golden brown in truffle oil. Oh My Word.
Club Jen occupied a table at a front window, where we commenced to people watch with a vengeance, -right in front of the valet parking, primo spot.


**False- My friend Jen does live in Washington State, but this was my first ever visit to Pike's Place. I have lived my whole life in California.

**False-Jen's oldest dd did drive us around downtown Seattle, but not in a new car- she has wisely been handed down the dented old family mini-van. Wisdom this is, because she promptly scratched it.

**True-!! Painfully true! We did have chocolate Nutella strawberry crepes, and I am forever ruined. I knew Nutella was evil. I have concrete proof now.

**False-!! Sky's crepes are better!! But, I did get ideas from these. I think the Nutella was over-done...next time Sky makes crepes, we will just slather on a thin layer of Nutella. Sky uses fruit plus mashed up fruit syrup and brown sugar. These were minus that.

**True- Meg did wish she had brought her violin with her, when she saw many different muscicians out busking. Dollar signs were dancing before her eyes...untill she saw this guy.

"Mom", she said, "I don't think I could compete with the guitar/hermonica/hoola-hoop combination, cuteness will only take me so far." !

**False- I did forget my motion-sickness patches, and I did warn my seat-mate, since take-offs and landings are going to be when *it will happen. My seat-mate informed me that he would have rather have been surprised, instead of sitting in anticipation of the event.
good to know.

Thanks for playing!

Labels: Jen's world

This week, the challenge is Black & White Portrait.

Give us your best shot!
Linky will close 10 pm Sunday night. Please link directly to your entry post, not your main blog page- and remember to visit at least 3 other entries.

Need some inspiration or help converting your photo to black and white?
Check out Black and White Without Actions over at PW's place

Labels: Lens

Last weekend marked another meeting of Club Jen.

Club Jen is also known as girl's night out- here's the twist, -with my best-est girl friend, Jen.
Hence, the cool club name. She's lots of fun, loves to shop and has great taste. So, for me, it's like a fun vacation. It's the only time I ever step foot into a coach store. Cultural literacy is important, people!!

Club Jen took place mostly in Canada.

*I've never been to Canada before. True or false?

*Being world travelers, we instantly knew what the blinking green and yellow signal lights at some intersections meant. True or false?

*Vancouver is more like Orange County than like New York. True or false?

*It rained most of the time, and I forgot my raincoat. True or false?

*not to worry, though- Club Jen is all about shopping! I bought a raspberry colored rain-coat at an expensive store I cannot pronounce. In Canada. True or false?

*Shopping really was not the main event of the trip, we went to pick up our kids at the fun circus Summer camp Meg and 2 of Jen's kids were at. We arrived the last day to see their final act. True or false?

*In Vancouver, I had the best fries I've ever had. We had dinner at an oyster bar and people- watched. True or false?


*My friend Jen lives in Washington State. I visited Pike's Place, a favorite place of mine when I was young and living in Seattle. True or false?

* Jen's oldest dd, who is 16-drove us around in her band-new car. True or False?

*Her girls took us for crepes, we had #16- Crepe Aux Fraises Chocolate- which had chocolate Nutella in it. Up to this moment, I had successfully avoided Nutella. I knew it would be my kryptonite. True or False?

*Sky's crepes are awesome, but I have to admit that these were a tad bit better. True or False?



*Meg saw many musicians out busking. She wished that she had brought her violin, so she could clean up. True or false?

* I never fly without motion-sickness patches. I forgot them this trip, and remembered as I sat down in my seat on the plane. I warned my seat-mate, who was grateful for the warning.
True or False?

Labels: Jen's world, trips

Falling into homeschool

We never planned to be the weird homeschooling family. We sort of fell into it, really. The year before we began to even think it, I had-in all sincerity, asked my sister-in-law, who had announced they were going to homeschool…if, -get ready for this…-if she wasn’t afraid of making her kids weird?...

I am guest posting today over at I Never Grew Up -about homeschooling. She is doing a series on school choices and inviting guest posters to write about public schooling, private schooling and homeschooling. The series features sincere and thoughtful writers. Click over!

Labels: guest posts, homeschool

Labels: Wordless Wednesday

The winners of this week's The LEarning Never Stops photo challenge are;

1) Looking for Strawberries



2) Life In Between The Lines


two different ideas on having fun in the sun!

Thank you for joining up with the challenge, I hope you will think of entering next week's challenge- 'black & white portrait'.

Labels: Lens, Lens winners

This week, The LEarning Never Stops Photo challenge is Fun in the Sun!

let's celebrate Summer!



Linky closes 10pm pacific time, Sunday. Please visit 'round! Winners are announced Tuesday night- you can see future challenge subjects over on the sidebar.

Labels: Lens

I stumbled upon these books at my local Barnes & Nobles- mine has a whole new big educational department. Things at my store were being moved all around, and I had my tail bent out of shape at first- I am at this bookstore once a week or more...so don't go and move things and change things!

But, I do highly approve, now that I got to look through the new Edu-topia upstairs!


So, I found these two books, written for the classroom by two teacher/sisters with years of classroom experience and research. They do seminars and have a website.
-The 2 Sisters

The first book is about setting up a daily literacy routine that fosters independent work in the classroom. We all know I am the schedule-challenged homeschool mom...I am looking for ways to make a workable routine for my kids- and I need all the help I can get. These books look very doable, in a scaled-down way for the home.

The first book is The Daily 5 - which was written first, all about how to set up a routine of 5 activities for literacy. The next book, The Cafe- takes the subject of literacy further and shows you how to set up a notebook to track your student's goals, achievements and individual instruction time you spend with them. Okay, I'm only through half of the first book, but this is what I have taken away from skimming through and from my reading so far... Good stuff!

Next up, Gather.com- Ramona and Beezus review and lesson plan.

my mind is spinning with all the possibilities for a back to school unit study. Ask your students to write about what they were like at age 4, and how they have changed and grown at their current age. Oh the possibilities!! I love connections! :)

How about you, any good back to school finds?

Labels: homeschool, homeschool planning

Labels: hens, Wordless Wednesday

This week's theme was "properties of water"
loved all the creativity I saw out there! This week's winners are:

1) Learning, Laughter, Love

Can you believe that there are 38 drops of water on this penny? You can read about the experiment here: Easy Science Experiment-how much water will a penny hold?


2) Dishwater Dreams

we've got the dynamic water, check! Artistic blurring of colors, check! Bright colors, check!
And joyfulness, check!

Thank you so much, everyone for joining up. I hope you will be back next Saturday for the challenge: "Fun in the Sun".

Labels: Lens, Lens winners

the winner is comment #2-

My plans are not set in stone yet, but here is how our homeschool is shaping up for the 2010-2011 school year:


Amie age 8- She will be using; Explode the Code books 5-7, Headsprout Reading Comprehension program (online) finish up Math U See beta level and start gamma level. Flash kids Writing workbooks-finish grade 2 and then onto grade 3. Sonlight Language Arts 2 intermediate- reading schedule. MCT Grammar Island with Demi
art class, piano study, skate-boarding, marital arts class

Teddy age 10- (auditory processing disorder student) Explode the Code books 3-6.
Finish Math U See Gamma level and move to Delta level. Finish Flash kids Math 4 workbook and move to Math 5. Sonlight LA 2-regular reading schedule.
Soccer, skate-boarding

Demi-Sky age 10- Finish Math U See Gamma level and move to Delta level. Finish Flash kids Math 4 workbook and move to Flash kids Math 5. Flash kids writing workbook grade 4 then onto grade 5. Sonlight Language Arts 2-advanced reading schedule.
MCT Grammar Island with Amie
Art class, piano study, skate-boarding, martial arts class


All 3 youngest students will use together: Abeka handwriting (cursive), Wordly Wise book A,B. (Vocabulary) Spelling workout workbook, Growing with Grammar bk 2 (maybe). Sonlight History Core 2- finish and then begin Core 3. (we started Core 2 in Winter last school year).
Apologia Science-Exploring Creation through Astronomy plus notebook, A Child's Geography by Ann Voskamp, Writing with Ease level 2 by Susan Wise Baur



Josie age 13- MCT  Grammar Voyage, Caesar's English, Paragraph Town, Practice Town, Story of the World vol. 3 plus activity book and various historical fiction tied to this History period


Spelling workout , Mosdos Press Literature Pearl level finish Math U See Epsilon, then
move to Zeta level, Abeka health reader, Little Women literature study. Apologia exploring creation through Astronomy, Prentice Hall Science Workbook grade 8, Writing With Ease vol. 4
Piano music study, Fencing, Tennis, Story club for creative writing, art class, Martial arts

Meg age 15: high school sophomore- Algebra 1 -Math U See (we tried Chalkdust and switched back to Math U See)
Sonlight History Core 120 -American History/Geography
Rosetta Stone Russian, Russian Face to Face textbook and workbook
General Literature and Composition at the Biola Star program
Physical Science at the Biola Star program
Violin study and orchestra, art class, Irish dance, horse riding/working at stable

I am sure I am forgetting something, and it's a work in progress. I will be deciding on exact levels as I go through the ordering process. How about you, are you ready for back-to-school?

Labels: homeschool, homeschool planning

Headsprout Reading online is offering a 25% discount on their online Early Reading Program. This is for lessons 1-80. You might remember I did a review of the program last year. Demi, Teddy and Amie all completed the program, and I was delighted with the results.
Click over to see my review; Headsprout Phonics, my other homeschool secret weapon

Click to this page; Headsprout Reading online-early reading program
and enter this code to save 25% HS2010BTS1

this offer is not good on any other products, and this offer ends August 31, 2010

Labels: reviews