My Secret Weapon: Wilton

There is so much online that no one can know everything that is out there.  But here is another thing that I love.  I love it because, with this site, I can give my nut allergic sons something like what others take for granted . . . an awesome professional tasting birthday cake!

Remember Wilton, the company that sells all of the wonderful cake and muffin pans?  Well, like most companies these days they have a website, and part of it is devoted to recipes!  Mmm, yummm!

While I can’t generally go to a bakery and just order a cake for my children for their birthdays (unless it's one of the few nut-free bakeries), I know I can go to Wilton's recipe page and find just the recipe that I want.  I can adjust the ingredients to suit their allergy (ie. use vanilla extract in place of almond extract) And I know that it will even just as good as any bakery cake, probably even better.

All of the cake, cookie, cupcake, dessert, filling, and icing recipes you could want, all in one place.  After trying one of their recipes, you'll never want to buy a can of frosting or a box cake again!

And if you need ideas for decorating your cake, brownies, etc.  they have that too!  Click here for ideas for decorating your favorite baking projects.

This Year's Great Symbolic Butterfly Migration

Here is our class paper butterfly.

I love Journey North for Kids!  I know that I've mentioned them before.  This site is chock full of information, scientific study, videos, printable books, etc.  all about migration and seasonal change.

In that spirit, every fall they have a symbolic butterfly migration alongside the travel and migration of the Monarch's to their winter home in Mexico. 

While we were involved in this last year as well, I really like the way that they organized it this year even better.  Instead of each student making a paper butterfly, there is one sent per class.  The new design of the butterfly being mounted to the folder leaves lots of room for self expression and creativity inside the folder.

The butterfly is mounted on the outside of a folder.  The inside is reserved for information about you class (which for us, is also our family).

They suggest putting information, pictures, and their form letter inside to tell the students in Mexico about your class.  Since we home school we told them about our home school class.  I used this free translation website to translate what we wanted to say into the Spanish language (and dialect) that they would understand. 

After completing our butterfly and preparing the envelope and return envelopes as outlined on Journey North's Symbolic Butterfly Migration website I went to the post office to send it to the Journey North offices where they will process all of the butterflies and then send them on to Mexico.  While there is no cost to be involved in this symbolic migration, they gladly accept any donations offered to help them educate the kids, and study the butterflies.

There the teachers and scientists will teach the school children about the Monarchs and how to protect them and care for their wintering sites.  The class will display our butterfly, and be able to write to us if they choose.  I can also check the Journey North site to see which school received our butterfly.

The students will care for our paper butterfly, as they do for the real butterflies, all winter.  And in the spring our paper butterfly will travel back north with the real butterflies and "land" in one of the schools that sent one out in the fall.  Last year we received a paper butterfly back, with Milkweed seeds, and information about the people working to teach the children about the butterflies and the butterflies themselves.

While yesterday was the postmark date for this year (I mentioned this program in earlier posts), I wanted you to know just how wonderful this  program was "first hand".  Hopefully you will consider it next fall, and in the meantime, use the wonderful resources they offer in their website!

I Have A Confession To Make . . .

My kids love books, books about presidents, and explorers, and scientists.  Just recently my kids devoured books about Ronald Reagan, George Washington, and traveling on the Mayflower.  And at night, we read aloud from the Anne of Green Gables series of books, and my boys love it!  And I love that they love it!  (Even my hubby is enjoying the “Anne books”, but don’t tell him that I told on him ;)

OK, so it’s not a real confession.  I mean I’m sure that many of you have similar stories about your children.  But this is like a whole new world to me.  Within the last two plus years we’ve gone from a family that runs around from one thing to the next, to a family that loves to slow down, declutter, read, learn, and grow.  I’m really enjoying this!

We are now in a new way of thinking then I have ever been, and it’s nice.  Learning fractions is no longer just for math class, it is now learned when the bananas start to turn brown and I assign “The Master Chef” (my oldest son) the duty of making banana bread.  I ask him to double the recipe, and poof, we learning math . . . in the kitchen!  Outside of our language arts studies we also put together a school newspaper, and suddenly “The Bug Whisperer” (my younger son) is searching the information in his favorite nature books for the perfect subject for an article or crossword puzzle.  (You can generate your own crossword puzzles here.)  I open the computer and our little one is begging to work on her phonics on Starfall.  This is fun!

And I am learning with them.  In the past 2+ years I have learned that Monarch Butterflies winter in Mexico.  I have learned more about where the subject and predicates are in a sentence.  And most importantly I have learned that “The Bug Whisperer” thrives and flourishes under the tutelage of a calm teacher, but even more than that needs one on one help from time to time to feel secure.  He is more confident now then ever in school at home.  His love of animals, and nature, weather, and creation is amazing!  And “The Master Chef” is not only a master chef, but he is also a mentor to his siblings, and an excellent student and observer of the things and people around him. His dream is to own a restaurant some day, and I believe he’ll do it!  And it will be a nut-free restaurant ;) Our little one is growing faster than ever through the encouragement of her “brudders”, and is happily invited on (almost) all of their adventures.

I am happier than I have ever been before and I have God, and the Titus 2 homeschoolers that He brought around me, to thank for that!

Blessings!

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Thinkfinity is a great search engine of valuable printables for teachers from many sites across the web.

Super Teacher Worksheets and WorksheetsPLUS are also great resources for the teacher that needs worksheets to help students grasp a particular concept.

Author Jan Brett offers a wealth of cool tidbits to use in a classroom or at home.  She has everything here from printable flashcards and handwriting sheets to wall murals, all with her beautiful illustrations from her books.

Family Education is a wealth of printables based on both educational concepts and even historical events.

 

The Importance of the Titus 2 Woman

In the book of Titus chapter 2  older woman, uh I mean more experienced women, are called to teach the younger women how to behave and to love their husbands and children.  I would venture to say that these women of faith are more needed now than ever!

We have so much marketing hitting us, almost literally, everywhere we go . . . including the stall door of the public restrooms sometimes!  There are so many more choices these days, and with each choice advocates and marketers to push you in the direction of their “perfect choice”.  For woman, some of the debates over the choices that we have to make are fierce, and overwhelming.  After all, who wants to be the “awful mother” that made the wrong choice!

Do I have natural childbirth, or do I accept pain medication during childbirth?  Should the birth be at a hospital or at home?  Once the baby is born, do I breastfeed or bottle feed, or both?  Then before you know it it’s time for school.  Do I send them to a public school, a parochial school, a charter school, or do I home school?  And then there’s all of the homeschooling options!  Arrrrrggggg!  (The arrrrrrggggg is directed at they many decisions we have to make. I like the wealth of homeschooling options ;)

The truth is that are many choices that are fine.  There are advantages and disadvantages to each choice we make, but whatever we do, we need to be informed so that we can make the best choice for our family.  We are in our third year on this homeschooling journey, and the counsel and information of the more experienced women in our support group have enriched and opened our choice to home school into a whole world and wealth of opportunity and joy.  For those new homeschooling moms, strong in their convictions to home school, we need to be that same shelter in this storm of the educational controversy around us.  We need to guide and teach them to be the best that they can be, so that they can grow where they are planted until God should take them down a different educational path.  One of the greatest joys of homeschooling is that in teaching my children, I am also learning a great deal myself through my life with them.

Blessings on your educational journey ;)

It’s a educational opportunity and a lemon-limeade stand all in one!  (Counting money, handling customers, offering a quality product . . . )  Loving the “mascot” ;)

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P.S. Here are a few promised home school resources. 

Edifyathome.com- a home school version of the famous big name auction site

SoftSchools.com offers free educational games and worksheet generators, organized by grade level

WorksheetWorks.com is, by far, my VERY favorite worksheet generator.  It features every kind of worksheet generator that you can imagine!  You can make anything from personalized handwriting sheets to visual multiplication sheets and maps.  This is WELL worth checking out!

Steve Spangler Science is a great resource for buying science supplies, yes.  But also look at the experiment ideas and science videos.

 

 

 

Have I Mentioned That I Like Free (and inexpensive) Resources?

It is a well known fact, that many homeschooling families are one income households.  Not all are, I realize, but the point is that by and large we value the offer of something that is free or inexpensive.  It’s not that we are cheap, but many of us have found a need to be frugal.  In that spirit, and to that end, here are some resources that I’ve compiled over the last two and a half years that you may have missed in your web travels.

Grade Books-For those of you that are interested in a free online grade book/ school calendar/ report and progress report generator, there are others, but I use Snapgrades.  I found it recommended in another home school blog, and I have found it easy to use, and a great resource!  I love the fact that during those weeks that I am questioning whether we are doing enough in school I can easily check the interactive calendar, and rest my nerves.  The irony is that the weeks that I question whether we are doing enough in school, are usually the weeks that I find that I’ve been “cracking the whip” in school and trying to do more than I need to.  The boys love the fact that they receive a report card just like they did when they were “ in school” before we started homeschooling.

Curriculum- Lapbooks, and worksheets, and worksheet generators . . . oh my ;)  There are so many choices when it comes to finding free and inexpensive curriculum, but here are some of the ones that I like.

Homeschool Buyers Co-op and Christianbook.com are awesome websites for deals.  Next to attending a home school curriculum fair, these are the best places to save money on your homeschooling resources. Well worth checking out before you spend more elsewhere!

Homeschool Share is a site full of free lapbooks (including preschool lapbooks!) as well as other wonderful resources.

 Hands of a Child also offers one of their awesome lapbooks free semi-annually.  The others are not free BUT here’s the thing . . . they are reasonable, they are beautiful, they are well researched and thought out, and they almost literally offer lapbooks on just about anything you can think of from World War II to Hot Dogs (it was more cross curricular and in depth then it sounds, really LOL ;).

Learningpage is a wealth of free printables for Pre K- 3rd grade!  Here you’ll find professional worksheets/fun sheets to teach many basic skills like handwriting and counting money, printable themed wall murals that you can color and piece together with themed worksheets to match, and many wonderful free resources by current event in the monthly themed worksheet area.

ReadWriteThink is full of interactive resources to teach kids how to write a postcard or a newspaper, create a crossword puzzle or a action hero trading card (in lieu of a book report ;), or many other fun activities of Language Arts learning.  At the end of the activity you are then able to print your creation.  So much fun!  There are also lesson plan ideas each activity for those that want to use them.

Binding Books Beautifully features a book binding tool that is both inexpensive and versatile. It facilitates the older method of binding books by sewing them together between cloth or paper covered book covers. Imagine not only being able to create a beautiful book out of your kids best school and artwork, but to be able to create your own books and yearbooks, economically.  It is a way to do what the product name suggests . . . bind books beautifully!

Pizza Hut BOOK IT! is also offered to homeschoolers!  I love that Pizza Hut allows our kids to enjoy the free personal pizzas as well!  It starts in October so you may be too late to sign up for this year, but if you haven’t already, you can still try.  

I have more . . . but phew, that will have to wait until next time.  The school bell is about to ring for today, and being that I’m the teacher, well it’s time to go ;)

Until next time, God Bless ;)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Short On Cash? There Are Plenty Of Free Resources Perfect For Homeschoolers

There are sooo many choices when it comes to educational resources for the homeschooling family!  Some are worth paying a little extra for, but at times people pay for resources when there are perfectly good and free alternatives.  You just have to know where to look (like the Journey North Kids Site that I mentioned yesterday).
For instance, are you looking for a phonics program? Starfall is a completely free four stage phonics program.  I loved it and have used it with my younger two now.  Not only is it an awesome interactive phonics site, but if you peruse the Download Center and the Scope and Sequence Page you will find a wealth of printable material.  Also when using the site look for a picture of a little printer at the end of the interactive books and activities for even more free printable worksheets.   (Only one word of caution about Starfall:  They also offer a Kindergarten curriculum which includes in it’s readers a book about Darwin.  Being a Christian, I wasn’t too keen about that to say the least, but there was nothing like that at their phonics site, as far as I know and it’s free.  I’ve looked it over pretty well, but look it over for yourself as well.)
Literactive is also an awesome site for reading AND spelling fun and interactive books, as well as printable activities.  Spelling City is another site for learning to spell as well as games to reinforce what you are learning to spell.  Speaking of Spelling City, if you use AVKO’s Sequential Spelling books, you should know that AVKO's spelling lists are on the Spelling City page!  (For those of you who don’t know about AVKO, I highly suggest that you watch the video demonstrations on their website.  This educational research foundation was founded by dyslexic Don McCabe, so their materials are especially helpful for others with dyslexia, but they are for everyone learning and/or struggling to learn to spell and read!)
Well, now you have a taste of the free and valuable resources bookmarked in my Language Arts bookmark (or favorites) folder.  I’ll try to give you more to “chew on” later.
God Bless!
Hubby and the kids pretending to be run over by a train rendered stationary long ago.  Fun, fun ;)

Fall Is Coming

The official first day of fall is September 22nd this year.  That’s just three short weeks from today, and I am ready!  Fall is my one of my two favorite seasons of the year, and Spring is the other.  I love the mild weather, and the crisp cool nights.  I love hay rides, and campfires, and apple cider, and pumpkin pies with lots of whipped cream (the real stuff!) on top.  (My hubby and older son make the absolute BEST pumpkin pies, by the way!)
Now this year school began “before the rush” for us, so we are actually already into our third week of school, but many of you are just starting or preparing to start.  That’s fine.  So other than curriculum, what’s a home school mom to do to fully enjoy this glorious season with her kids? 
We love nature walks!  It’s funny how obvious this should be as a learning opportunity, but even the things that should be obvious get past us from time to time.  It took me awhile to realize how much fun AND educational this could be.  I mean, like duh, and I live in an area of BEAUTIFUL fall foliage and beauty.  What a wealth of opportunity!  So here’s the next question.  Is a nature walk just a walk?  Not if you check out Journey North Kids! 
Journey North “is a global study of wildlife migration and seasonal change” according their parent site for older children and adults.  That’s the official description of what they do, but there is so much fun to be had here!  This site is full of information about different migrating animals, and even the areas that they migrate to.  There are slideshows about the animals and people around them, printable photo rich books, videos, other teaching resources, and more. 
Also, right now they are asking for people to submit signs of Fall and Fall migration sightings, such as sightings of the Monarch Butterflies that are journeying south to Mexico for the winter.  After you submit sightings, you can look at the interactive map to see what others are observing!  The coming days would be a wonderful time for a nature walk, but take note of the signs of Fall all around you, and maybe you can have your own observation on the map ;)
P. S. And if you act fast you can also send a symbolic paper Monarch to Mexico to help them educate our kids, and kids in Mexico, about caring for the Monarchs as they migrate!  Hurry!  The butterflies for the Symbolic Migration need to be postmarked before October 12th!