tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9236832558822150852024-03-13T03:22:44.149-07:00Accidentally HomeschoolingAccidentally Homeschooling - Our Homeschool Rooms...Dawnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17115020696572836849noreply@blogger.comBlogger36125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-923683255882215085.post-66995499433455254702013-11-02T13:20:00.000-07:002013-11-02T13:20:54.891-07:00Spotlight On....<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Today I'm starting something new as I try to get this blog going again and life back into some sort of order. Usually on the weekends I visit some of my favorite blogs for homeschooling ideas or find new ones and I look for advice from veteran homeschoolers who share their knowledge with those of us on the learning path with our kids. Since there are so many blogs and websites out there its almost impossible to have the time to find all the incredible ideas. Pinterest has helped in this area because its a lot easier to quickly scan through pictures than to read entire blog posts. <br />
I'm however going to start a <strong><em>"Spotlight on..."</em></strong> series - of blogs or websites I've looked at during the week and think there's something there to share with others. <br />
So, here are the first ones.....I hope you find them helpful or inspiring in some way.... <br />
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1) <a href="http://laughingwithaspergers.typepad.com/my-blog/resources/" target="_blank">Topic Jar - From Laughing With Aspergers</a> <br />
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Fantastic idea for child led learning (or any learning) having your child or children choose the topics they would like to cover for the year and have them randomly pick them from a jar. It covers that "remember when I wanted to learn...?" and naturally you have forgotten it amongst the five-hundred other things thrown out into the air that you were supposed to catch and make a note of and you didn't and of course its the one thing he comes back to four months later and he can't quite get why you don't remember him mentioning it - nevermind that it was probably in the middle of you cooking dinner or doing the laundry and you were supposed to jot it down and well, frankly you just didn't have a pen and paper handy in the laundry room. (Not that my child would do anything like that)<br />
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2) <a href="http://www.bluebellsandcockleshells.com/2013/10/the-budding-botanistfall-seeds.html" target="_blank">Fall Seeds - From Blue Bells and Cockle Shells</a><br />
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This nature walk looking for fall seeds comes at just the right time as I'm about to take orange Halloween Pumpkins and harvest them for seeds for a backyard pumpkin patch for next year and storing and baking the pumpkin meat into pumpkin pies and pumpkin bread for the holiday's. <br />
In this time of high food prices and lean finances, I find myself trying to make things stretch...therefore pumpkins were Halloween decorations and now a food source for us at home and for our holiday baking for friends. <br />
Come back later this week for how to use orange pumpkins in your baking...Yes, you can bake with them no matter what everyone else tells you...<br />
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Meanwhile...here's my <a href="http://amomseverydayliferecipes.blogspot.com/2013/11/pumpkin-bread-recipe.html" target="_blank">Pumpkin Bread Recipe</a>. I'll be posting my Pumpkin Pie Recipe later this week as well once I check out a new recipe for making my own crust. The crust was the one thing that wasn't homemade in my pies and I'm working on finding just the right recipe. <br />
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3) Wondering what to do with ALL of that candy.....use it for lessons. <br />
* <a href="http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Fun-Fractions-with-MMs-346003" target="_blank">Fractions using M&Ms</a> - free downloadable worksheet from TPT (Teachers Pay Teachers)<br />
* <a href="http://www.readingconfetti.com/2013/10/candy-corn-counting-and-math.html" target="_blank">Candy corn counting and math</a> - cute fall tree cut out, easy number dots, with links for additional candy learning. <br />
* <a href="http://www.toddlerapproved.com/2011/09/autumn-mix-candy-sequencing.html" target="_blank">Autumn mix candy sequencing</a> - with templates - love the group idea on here too! <br />
* <a href="http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/a-project-for-halloween-candy-68567" target="_blank">Calendar project for halloween candy</a> - great idea for calendar work with a reward for snack time!<br />
* <a href="http://www.pinterest.com/pin/557531628839155072/" target="_blank">Halloween candy graph</a> - a pin from Pinterest.<br />
* <a href="http://teachmama.com/5-cool-ways-to-use-halloween-candy/" target="_blank">5 cool ways to use halloween candy</a> - seriously cool ideas! <br />
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Trust me this is only a sampling of countless ideas on using that candy. <br />
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Dawnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17115020696572836849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-923683255882215085.post-13865747260504654922013-10-29T23:41:00.000-07:002013-10-29T23:41:11.674-07:00Quick Halloween fun - card game and cupcakes!Its been ages but here we go....<br />
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Just in time for Halloween some of our new favorite things that we've tried out from Pinterest. <br />
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<strong>Pumpkin Life Cycle War Card game -</strong> <br />
We tried this out for free at our homeschool library group (below) and everyone enjoyed it, as of this writing its still available for free download (you do have to sign up for an account but its also free) from TPT also known as Teachers Pay Teachers. It's quick to print out and have on hand. <br />
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And here is the link to go and grab it for yourself - <a href="http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Pumpkin-Life-Cycle-War-card-game-center-843842" target="_blank">Pumpkin Life Cycle War card game</a><br />
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Here are three great designs for pull-a-part cupcakes, we made the ghost one and the whole tombstone. Kids seem to <strong><em><u>LOVE</u></em></strong> these things...and there's no right or wrong way to decorate them. <br />
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<br />Dawnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17115020696572836849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-923683255882215085.post-91499163866974183602013-10-29T23:36:00.000-07:002013-10-30T11:03:45.261-07:00Curricula we use - Our spines<strong>What we use for each grade level each year</strong>. <br />
(***UPDATED*** 10/30/2013<br />
The Red Ranger is now in 5th grade and we still use the same spines for our homeschool. We have added a couple and those will be noted below. )<br />
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I've been chatting online in many areas with new homeschoolers and I can remember how lost I was when we started as accidental homeschoolers. I decided to add a post about our spines, our starting points for our studies. Over the past couple of years its been hit or miss with some curricula out there but these work for us. Having said that, I'll warn you that not everything works for every student or family and to top it off each child learns differently even in the same family. The good thing about homeschooling is that you can find what works for each individual child instead of just using a blanket system for all. <br />
These are just our base line we add lots of other materials both at home and online. <br />
I'll also add links to future blog posts about how we use some of the below as they are written. <br />
<em><strong>NOTE:</strong> If there isn't a link to a company website it usually means that those resources are out of print and must be obtained used. I find my used materials through Ebay, Amazon, PaperBack Swap and Barnes & Noble used sellers.</em> <br />
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<strong>Complete Curriculum</strong> - <br />
<em>Learn at Home Series </em>- / <br />
available for grades kindergarten through grade 6. Gives you a weekly schedule/map to begin with and you can tweak it from there. <br />
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<em>Flashkids Complete Curriculum</em> - / <br />
we use this with the Learn at Home series, they seem to compliment each other. <br />
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<em>What Your ? Grader Needs to Know series</em> - E.D. Hirsch / <a href="http://books.coreknowledge.org/home.php?cat=298" target="_blank">Core Knowledge Website</a><br />
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<strong>History</strong> - <br />
<em>Story of the World</em> - <em>History for the Classical Child</em> - Volumes 1-4 - Susan Wise Bauer / <br />
<a href="http://www.welltrainedmind.com/store/history-and-geography/story-of-the-world.html" target="_blank">Story of the World - Well Trained Mind Website</a><br />
Volume 1 - Ancient Times: From the Earliest Nomads to the Last Roman Emperor - 5000BC to 400AD.<br />
Volume 2 - The Middle Ages: From the Fall of Rome to the Rise of the Renaissance - 400AD to 1600AD. <br />
Volume 3 - Early Modern Times: From Elizabeth the First to the Forty-Niners - 1600AD to 1850AD. <br />
Volume 4 - The Modern Age: From Victoria's Empire to the End of the USSR. <br />
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Each set has a text book of stories, an activity book, a test and answer book, audio tapes or CD's. <br />
We use only the first three items for each era/age. Each Volume Set has grade levels associated with it, however prior to us starting The Ancient Times in January 2013 we've been using parts of all volumes for our history studies as certain days approached on the calendar or if we've done a unit study on a certain time period. <br />
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<strong>Math</strong> - <br />
<em>Math-U-See</em> - Steven P. Demme / <a href="http://store.mathusee.com/" target="_blank">Math-U-See Website</a> <br />
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<strong>English - Language Arts - Grammar -</strong> <strong>Reading</strong> - <strong>Spelling</strong> -<strong> Writing -</strong> <br />
<em><strong>Reading</strong> -</em> <br />
<em>McGuffey's Reader's / <a href="http://www.mcguffeyreaders.com/" target="_blank">McGuffey's Readers World/Ray's Arithmetic</a> </em><br />
Along with many books of choice and classics. <br />
<strong><em>Language Arts and Grammar -</em></strong> <br />
<em>Easy Grammar & Daily Grams</em> - Wanda C. Phillips / <a href="http://easygrammar.com/" target="_blank">Easy Grammar Systems Website</a> <br />
Used along with the components from both complete curriculum books listed above. <br />
<strong>*NEW*</strong><br />
<strong><em>Spelling -</em></strong> <br />
<em>All About Spelling</em> - Marie Rippel / <a href="http://www.allaboutlearningpress.com/all-about-spelling">http://www.allaboutlearningpress.com/all-about-spelling</a><br />
<strong>*NEW*</strong><br />
<strong><em>Writing/Handwriting -</em></strong> <br />
<em>Handwriting Without Tears</em> - Jan Olsen / <a href="http://www.hwtears.com/hwt">http://www.hwtears.com/hwt</a><br />
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<strong>Geography</strong> - <br />
Currently studying countries with Little Passports. <br />
<em>Little Passports</em> / <a href="http://littlepassports.com/product.html" target="_blank">Little Passports Website</a> <br />
<em>Great World Expedition - WebQuest</em> / Brodie Education Consulting available through CurrClick.com. <a href="http://www.currclick.com/index.php?manufacturers_id=592" target="_blank">CurrClick - Brodie Education Publisher Page</a> <br />
<em>Our Homeschool Geography Club</em><br />
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<strong>Daily Skills</strong> - <br />
This is a daily warm-up or skill building review area that I've added using the following resources each day. Each day there are 3 or sometimes 4 sheets in this folder depending on the content from each source. <br />
<em>Daily Grams from Easy Grammar</em> above - / <br />
<em>Daily Learning Drills</em> - Brighter Child Series - / <br />
<em>Flashkids Summer Skills</em> and/or <em>The Summer Bridge Series</em> - / <a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/u/Flash-Kids/379002009/" target="_blank">Flash-Kids Products - Barnes & Noble</a> <br />
<a href="http://www.carsondellosa.com/cd2/searchcatalog.aspx?k=productTypeGroup_facet%3a%22Books%22+topic_facet%3a%22Summer+Bridge+Activities%22+awards_facet%3a%22Dr.+Toy+Best+Picks+New+Product+Award%22" target="_blank">Carson Dellosa - Summer Bridge Activities</a> <br />
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<strong><em>Please Note:</em></strong> We use <a href="http://currclick.com/">CurrClick.com</a> for a lot of subjects. The site is searchable for many materials and also has some free materials each month. <br />
We also use lots of supplemental materials for each subject and we also use online sites. <br />
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<br />Dawnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17115020696572836849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-923683255882215085.post-39295155164780261562012-12-29T20:04:00.000-08:002012-12-29T20:04:01.708-08:00New house - New year - New stuffIts been a very busy few months - okay - half a year...<br />
At the beginning of the summer we started looking for a house to purchase, we were lucky enough to find a great one in a wonderful neighborhood and moved in over this past Labor Day Holiday (2012). Things were going very well and then my husband's employer of 26+ years laid him off just before Halloween. It has been stressful but we've enjoyed the holiday's and even though we are worried we are trying very hard to get ourselves back on track here.<br />
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Part of getting back on track is getting the Red Ranger's homeschool stuff organized and ready and the first thing is this great calendar/weather/daily skills practice notebook that I found to replace our board work. I'm not using all the pages in this lady's packet but choose what I wanted and I'm supplementing with other things to give the Red Ranger some busy work.<br />
We are also starting the 1st book of Story of the World history series by Susan Wise Bauer. We've been using it when history dates come up but now we are going to start with Volume 1 - Ancient Times.<br />
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I am also starting him on All About Spelling, I got several great resources from some of the holiday sales that I'm really looking forward to adding to our homeschool journey. Two things that the Red Ranger got in his stocking this year from Santa were the next two sets of Rory's Story Cubes (Actions and Voyages). The other day I found that he had opened both sets and taken them into his room to make up stories. I never once told him to try them out but I love that he did!<br />
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And these were some of the other things under the tree that have a specific homeschool use.<br />
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I also have added a Facebook page for more daily postings. If you are on Facebook please join us over there - <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/Braddock-School-Rooms/433635353345013" target="_blank">Braddock School Rooms</a><br />
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Here's the blog that I downloaded from and some pictures of what we are going to be using starting next week. <a href="http://www.ouraussiehomeschool.com/2012/03/calendar-notebook.html" target="_blank">http://www.ouraussiehomeschool.com/2012/03/calendar-notebook.html</a><br />
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Here's our Notebook pack....<br />
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<br />Dawnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17115020696572836849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-923683255882215085.post-86882825579402839412012-06-12T19:21:00.000-07:002012-06-12T19:42:03.272-07:00Dry Erase Houses and McDonald's Happy Meal Boxes<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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A long time ago I started using Happy Meal boxes from McDonald's to store game pieces, themed games, card games, spelling and vocabulary index cards, story sequence cards, etc. They were cute most of the time because they were all from movies and all about kids, the lids even close up. What could be a better place to store extra's without them being in plain site if you are short on space. <br />
The Night at the Museum ones worked for just about anything related to a museum and the Disney Pirate and Princess ones...well they were great for anything from fairy tales to anything to do with pirates. I usually just put a "post it" with whatever problem or task I wanted The Red Ranger to complete and he tossed the appropriate cards or game pieces inside the top. <br />
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Last week I was shopping the outlet section of Really Good Stuff's website and found a set of Word Family Houses with word cards and the houses each have a dry erase strip to write on with a dry erase marker or dry erase crayon with a slit to slide the cards through. I ordered the set and love it, it was only $6.99 to start with (at the time this post was written) and will go much further than just the word families because of the dry erase strip. <br />
Here's the link to the <a href="http://www.reallygoodstuff.com/product/word+family+houses+and+word+cards+set.do?sortby=ourPicks&from=Search" target="_blank">Word family houses product from Really Good Stuff</a> .<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs9c9DlW7OQWc3jSyQ4uh4CeNiczzHCYKRAaYe24HLLULy1vbi5-cat8wSiMgdnlor2rz19X1W9OFUh_aRpWNpREjw6hKXxjKRijJItb2F4psDwKUJVBi_OHmDRJuh-Zst0SipCy6IE3g/s1600/DSC06708.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs9c9DlW7OQWc3jSyQ4uh4CeNiczzHCYKRAaYe24HLLULy1vbi5-cat8wSiMgdnlor2rz19X1W9OFUh_aRpWNpREjw6hKXxjKRijJItb2F4psDwKUJVBi_OHmDRJuh-Zst0SipCy6IE3g/s320/DSC06708.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Really Good Stuff Houses</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<em>Then I looked at my happy meal boxes -</em> <br />
As any thrifty homeschooling mom or teacher will tell you...one idea will get our minds to working on three other ideas! <br />
Yep, I have re-purposed the happy meal boxes again - who knew they had such a long life....<br />
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First off, let me say that I love the ones I bought. I highly recommend them, but they are on clearance, so who knows how long they will be available. <br />
Second, my husband is a manager at McDonald's - I get <strong>a lot</strong> of Happy Meal boxes...<br />
Third, I have a lot of scrapbooking supplies....:-) <br />
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The HM boxes to use are the plain old red ones with the smile on them and of course have no food stains inside. They make it much easier because there are no designs or pictures to worry about but I'm happy with what I ended up with - <br />
<em>and so is Rexy the dinosaur, the card slot is right below his mouth....</em><br />
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1) I started with those "Hello, my name is" labels, I cut the red parts off so that I would only have the white sticky part left, you'll end up with a strip about 3 3/8" X 1 1/2". <br />
2) Then I took page protectors (glossy matte) and cut one down the side so that it opened and then cut a long lengthwise strip that matched the 3 3/8". I then cut this down with the 1 1/2" measurement, this then gave me seven pieces to work with. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmACQJiqkmGjUAwo5kooveV-g7pHzHed59B4b7Ov6Oldb6u0E3xzeg63EfJuoT0hyphenhyphensrqY5U5M5pOFcmqUAxw6kek7ig5Gp1KkDYEJ5YDHZ23QkQPApvbGBB8hho5-BJnWo1ej9RUV6Aqw/s1600/DSC06700.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmACQJiqkmGjUAwo5kooveV-g7pHzHed59B4b7Ov6Oldb6u0E3xzeg63EfJuoT0hyphenhyphensrqY5U5M5pOFcmqUAxw6kek7ig5Gp1KkDYEJ5YDHZ23QkQPApvbGBB8hho5-BJnWo1ej9RUV6Aqw/s320/DSC06700.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Step 1</td></tr>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvG83n8ISKBydEQ9yzVnFUFr-oSFs3NwTNB3uYwDc2b0DxUkPnrrJU4Drx3HRxkUUAjX6l79IK1tAPcGfuPj5SFEXx4VbhE3hseR-58AVqOBLvgqXLJCpNNGhwa08fSEpUFkBay7FjE6M/s1600/DSC06701.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvG83n8ISKBydEQ9yzVnFUFr-oSFs3NwTNB3uYwDc2b0DxUkPnrrJU4Drx3HRxkUUAjX6l79IK1tAPcGfuPj5SFEXx4VbhE3hseR-58AVqOBLvgqXLJCpNNGhwa08fSEpUFkBay7FjE6M/s320/DSC06701.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Step 2</td></tr>
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3) I ran the clear plastic strips through my little Xyron 150 sticker maker, I did have to cut the strip down a little lengthwise to fit in the top of my Xyron. Since it was a clear item that I was running through I had to pay close attention so I knew when to add the next piece in, you'll end up with a long strip. <br />
4) Then I peeled the now sticky plastic strip off the paper and covered the white sticker strip (that was left over from the "Hello" tags). <br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjk5G4txSbSOqyQFiE4Iwm39f0KBaj9Olbis6iQrGMtarT5H15Ij33eQZsEW_fCU6tqS-gjXx9z3QVVwt6nJyLseyokq7Lr39m1D1XKCK4Vw46Y9M1DhZeT8P1_31Oyo8YVd9Yay6t5its/s1600/DSC06702.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjk5G4txSbSOqyQFiE4Iwm39f0KBaj9Olbis6iQrGMtarT5H15Ij33eQZsEW_fCU6tqS-gjXx9z3QVVwt6nJyLseyokq7Lr39m1D1XKCK4Vw46Y9M1DhZeT8P1_31Oyo8YVd9Yay6t5its/s320/DSC06702.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Step 3</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZMg9zqZ5YnV3QZVxfQW_1Mw2TdY-sNt_wcVyda7ilcrppcV2RBGwlqHGdaFvOug5lanWGVf-yy6VXG0dmrapvSR1oX4CMprKwoFTbvtkGOfqSJYgChPhcyauMMlejHnQ56-V-VjUPzS4/s1600/DSC06703.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZMg9zqZ5YnV3QZVxfQW_1Mw2TdY-sNt_wcVyda7ilcrppcV2RBGwlqHGdaFvOug5lanWGVf-yy6VXG0dmrapvSR1oX4CMprKwoFTbvtkGOfqSJYgChPhcyauMMlejHnQ56-V-VjUPzS4/s320/DSC06703.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Step 4 - Part 1</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXP2K3I9cJQMHpBjGjJCYfRCNsTbu359V7IxXm3cKH5SCXKtUdA43AU-hDwv19oJJjocyUDogfJCvFwxsFUgSaLq5ea-2PU4LikmWS_kkBEhRO5j71ohwTJC89acNNVA1l79zNx0a-Ki0/s1600/DSC06704.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXP2K3I9cJQMHpBjGjJCYfRCNsTbu359V7IxXm3cKH5SCXKtUdA43AU-hDwv19oJJjocyUDogfJCvFwxsFUgSaLq5ea-2PU4LikmWS_kkBEhRO5j71ohwTJC89acNNVA1l79zNx0a-Ki0/s320/DSC06704.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Step 4 - Part 2<br />
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5) Then I just placed combined stickers on the boxes where I wanted to place them. Then cut a slit for the cards to go through with a utility knife. (I think I'll add a colored tape on the slits to make them more noticable.)<br />
6) Using a dry erase marker write the facts/lesson that you want learned or reviewed. It easy wipes off using your fingers or tissue. <br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMxyQ7X6gAV_0W9HV9ORMUxGYfm-fJLQC8kgJGahf6HMrprlC_3NoQadG0OcJprZuHMOEuIC9gqiNzSI8E2wzYYCdNjG3Pt09nn4T756ECmFuMCnlP-u5Sh5tSY04hud5IwGPtG95PVyE/s1600/DSC06705.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMxyQ7X6gAV_0W9HV9ORMUxGYfm-fJLQC8kgJGahf6HMrprlC_3NoQadG0OcJprZuHMOEuIC9gqiNzSI8E2wzYYCdNjG3Pt09nn4T756ECmFuMCnlP-u5Sh5tSY04hud5IwGPtG95PVyE/s320/DSC06705.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Steps 5 & 6</td></tr>
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After your child is done with the activity or center you can have them move onto something else while you check to see what ended up in the boxes. Better yet have them check how many they got right with a master sheet. <br />
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I see these being used a lot because they'll be adaptable for any subject. In fact after I was done making them and organizing the draft for this blog post The Red Ranger was already into them!<br />
<em>I can't ask for more than that....</em><br />
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Check out other blogs on <a href="http://noordinarybloghop.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">No Ordinary Blog Hop</a><br />
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<br />Dawnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17115020696572836849noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-923683255882215085.post-35190543392218951982012-06-11T11:52:00.000-07:002012-06-11T11:52:16.224-07:00New Homeschooling Pages on blog...After my judging gig I decided to start revamping my blog pages for easier navigation, something I learned while visiting other blogs. I'll be adding dedicated homeschooling pages to the menu bars above, I've already added two - <strong><em>Homeschooling Tips</em></strong> and<strong><em> Curricula</em></strong> - hopefully this will clean up the blog. Both of the new pages came from recent conversations with new homeschoolers looking for advice, I thought that it would be easier to say, "I have a post on my blog about this with lots of information and links to other homeschooling blogs". <br />
I'll be going more in depth with certain pages and posts and others will just be a collection resource landing page with links. I hope this helps and hopefully some of the ideas I've had, those that I've found out about or have been shared with me by other homeschoolers will be passed on to others. <br />
I've also added a "search" box function, "pinterest" link and a "labels" box to help with navigation. <br />Dawnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17115020696572836849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-923683255882215085.post-58053464456288098952012-05-28T00:53:00.001-07:002012-06-02T13:13:11.060-07:00End of a school year - Well, yes and no...<em></em><br />
<em>No more pencils<br />No more books<br />No more teacher's dirty looks<br />Out for
summer<br />Out till fall<br />We might not go back at all.....</em><br />
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<strong>Summer Vacation - </strong><br />
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Remember that little ditty? <br />
Did you sing it? <br />
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As homeschooler's summer vacation is not exactly the same as it was for my husband and I when we were kids going to a traditional brick and mortar school. We don't have the testing now for our 9 year-old son that we had to gear up for, we don't have that longing for summer and no school that the months of May and June brought to us as kids. <br />
Our son, The Red Ranger, has a totally different outlook - May and June are time to take off a little more time for family summer activities before everyone else has off and does them. He gets to enjoy the days without the crowds that will eventually come. We take breaks a bit more often and spend more time on history as Memorial Day and the historical events that early June bring - Midway and D-Day.<br />
We homeschool year-round now, it just seemed to happen that way over time. We transition into the next grade over the summer months giving extra time to maybe subjects that were a little harder this year or might need a little extra practice. We move ahead in subjects where The Red Ranger excels so that he doesn't get bored. We tend to hit the books harder in July and August when being outside is harder for me with my asthma or just too hot for being outside. It's easy to adjust with a year-round schedule, at least for us, to still enjoy the summer but get that learning in when we can or need to depending on the day. We take a break at the beginning of the brick and mortar school year in September to again enjoy less crowds and shorter lines during the weekdays. <br />
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It all just seems easier in this fast paced society we all find ourselves in, the rush here and there, the demands <strong><em>everywhere</em></strong> from countless people. It just seems to work for us this way, to enjoy that time together as a family when the moments appear rather than wait for the weekend or summer vacation. I'm sure it would be different if my husband had weekends off instead, but he's schedule varies and more often than not he's off one or two weekdays and so we adjusted. <br />
We adjusted when we began to homeschool and its been adjusting ever since to a point where its more comfortable and it works well...for now...will we need to adjust again? <br />
Probably - most likely. <br />
Most definately when we finally buy our house at the end of summer, early September. <br />
<br />
So, here we will still have pencils and erasable pens (The Red Rangers fav!) and books....<br />
but we'll also have...airplane carriers and battleships, fighters and subs as we learn more this year about World War II and Midway and then that will transition into America's fight for independence for July and so on....its like that mouse and its cookie and milk isn't it? <br />
.....Then in September when its all about back to school.....<br />
we'll be at the zoo or shore, something like that....maybe just maybe we'll make up our own little ditty - <br />
<br />
<em>Homeschooling is.....</em><br />
<em>math in your pj's, </em><br />
<em>science in the fridge, (Oh, I hope not!)</em><br />
<em>history at a battlefield or on the history channel, </em><br />
<em>poetry in the park or writing in the sand by the ocean...</em><br />
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:-)<br />
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If you are gearing up for end of the year - have fun! <br />
If you are schooling year round, clink the lemonade glass with us! <br />
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<br />Dawnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17115020696572836849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-923683255882215085.post-64377924093667545802012-01-03T13:25:00.000-08:002012-01-03T14:11:34.576-08:00Story Cubes and Math DiceFor Christmas, The Red Ranger, received two presents that we had placed on our Amazon Wish List with the intent of using them for lessons. Oddly enough, since opening them yesterday for our homeschool, he has continued to play with them - last night and into today, one of our days off. <br />
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I consider this a BONUS! <br />
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Many times I use or re-purpose games for use in our homeschool, make stuff up as we go and every now and then I find perfect games to fit in with what we are doing. <br />
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The first gift were Rory's Story Cubes from GameWright. <br />
There are 9 six-sided cubes each with a different picture on each side. There are several ways to play but basically the idea is throw "X" number of cubes and use those images as a story starter. Great for creative writing, oral storytime, party games. <br />
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We had a ton of fun playing with these and they will work great for The Red Ranger's writing. <br />
They say ages 8+ but I don't see why younger children couldn't use 1-3 or 4 dice to tell stories. Since there are several ways to play with them all ages should benefit from them. <br />
There is also a set of Action/Verb - Story Cubes....which just so happens to be next on our list of purchases when my Amazon Gift Cards start piling up again from my SwagBucks! <br />
They do have a website, although ours were purchased through Amazon, in fact we haven't even checked out the website...we are simply having too much fun playing with them. <br />
The Website is: <a href="http://www.storycubes.com/">www.storycubes.com</a> <br />
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The other gift was Math Dice from Thinkfun. <br />
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You roll the two 12-sided dice first add or multiply the numbers and that becomes your "target number", then roll the three blue 6-sided dice - combine those numbers and see whose roll comes closet to the "target number". <br />
They can be used for addition/subtraction/multiplication/division/powers/roots and more. <br />
Ages 8-Adult (again I'm sure they can be used for younger children), all ages and math levels and multiple players. <br />
We haven't checked out their website either but here's the web address for it - <a href="http://www.thinkfun.com/mathdice">www.thinkfun.com/mathdice</a> <br />
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We are loving both of these and can't wait to get the other Verb Story Cubes, I've also added them to the new Amazon Store here on the blog, I've added a tab for the Store at the top of the blog. Its one way of showing you the items we use in our homeschool and in general in one spot in case you are interested in getting them for yourself. Sometimes the things we use are out of print or discontinued, in fact quite a few were purchased through Amazon Associates and through Ebay used. <br />
So far through Amazon Associates I've made a whopping .71 cents in a year and a half...good thing I'm not doing this for money...LOL! <br />
I remember starting out homeschooling and being completely lost, we were accidental homeschoolers, I hadn't planned on it at all. Finding the tools, curriculum, everything was very hard and from time to time I found blogs and other homeschoolers that had paved the way for me - it didn't mean that what worked in their homeschools or homes would work for us but a lot of times it did and I was always very grateful - still am.......so if I can add things from time to time to help out - I will....<br />
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Check out what others are blogging about at....<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://noordinarybloghop.blogspot.com/" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fYDpVv32mQY/TwN64FYbbkI/AAAAAAAAAcc/rXWQg_-m4-w/s1600/jan2012bloghop.jpg" /></a><a href="http://noordinarybloghop.blogspot.com/">Click here to visit them!</a></div>Dawnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17115020696572836849noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-923683255882215085.post-37603733479005996842011-12-31T14:21:00.000-08:002011-12-31T14:21:13.415-08:00School starts back up on Monday!I can't wait! The Red Ranger I'm sure can...too bad...its back to schoolwork we go. <br />
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We have a new tablet now to start using with our schoolwork and we've just lined up a history Skype-ing series with friends of ours for probably March on the Oregon Trail. <br />
Lots of new stuff from Christmas to add to our homeschool, some that The Red Ranger doesn't even realize are school things.....shhhhhhh, don't you dare tell him! <br />
This weekend I'm working on getting things ready for Monday morning...its my New Year's thing to do instead of drinking....I'm such a party animal.....:-) <br />
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Hope everyone is well, have a safe and Happy New Year!Dawnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17115020696572836849noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-923683255882215085.post-8770533579443868292011-12-31T14:12:00.000-08:002011-12-31T14:12:39.570-08:00Trying to get back on track since the rollercoaster slipped the tracks...<h2 class="date-header"><span><span style="color: #222222;">Saturday, December 31, 2011</span></span></h2><a href="http://amomseverydaylife.blogspot.com/2011/12/trying-to-get-back-on-track-since.html"><span style="color: #993300;">Trying to get back on track since the rollercoaster slipped the tracks...</span></a> <br />
<div class="date-posts"><div class="post-outer"><div class="post hentry"> <div class="post-header"> <div class="post-header-line-1"></div></div><div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-8957871448132743317">I'm trying to clean up the blog and get back to posting after a hectic, trying couple of months. <br />
I'm hoping that the new year will bring some peace, tranquilty, stability, sanity to us. <br />
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We hope that your Christmas and New Year's were wonderful and magical, we did manage to have quite a bit of fun finally! I've got the contests to work on and reviews as well...here's hoping 2012 is less hectic and less drama-filled! <br />
I've added to the<a href="http://amomslifereading.blogspot.com/"><span style="color: #993300;"> "Reading"</span></a> page already and will get the other updates done this week. <br />
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Have a wonderful, wonderful 2012!!! </div></div></div></div>Dawnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17115020696572836849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-923683255882215085.post-87836032542037108852011-09-02T22:11:00.000-07:002011-09-08T08:06:23.436-07:00MathBlaster Review and Giveaway!!Its September and I have a few giveaways lined up this month while doing some reviews! <br />
Feel free to spread the word about any or all of them as they come along! <br />
First up has been a long time coming.....life kept getting in the way of doing this review but here it finally is: <br />
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<strong>MathBlaster, from the makers of JumpStart!!</strong><br />
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MathBlaster launched this past winter 2011 and we have been enjoying it since spring. <br />
Basically, your child/children become cadets in a space station training, rescuing and saving little critters and the station itself. All while reinforcing their math skills in fast-paced games that require fast answers in order to achieve scores and win races. <br />
Here are some of The Red Rangers favorites - in order: <br />
1) <strong>Monster Morph Lab</strong> - Excellent for measuring and completing tasks with checklist. Reinforces memory skills. Once you collect the ingredients around the station you make a morph which you then use on your fellow cadets while running around the station, basically "tag, your it" but you don't actually have to chase after them. The Red Ranger just loves changing, sorry<em> morphing</em>, the other players! <br />
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The music even reminds me of "Munsters" tv show......lol.<br />
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2) <strong>Galaxy Grand Prix</strong> - A race course where you play, build and run races against fellow cadets. <br />
He loves it because its so fast....mom can barely move on the track without crashing into a wall! <br />
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3)<strong> Zapper Turret Training</strong> - Finally...Math Problems! <br />
The training pod will remind you of Millennium Falcon<strong>. </strong>You or your child chooses adding/subtraction/combo of +/-, multiplication, division, or a combo of both. Then you choose easy/medium/hard and there are five choices for sums. The math problem is displayed and your student must shoot the correct answer. What's great about it, as with several of the other games, is that it tests your child quickly in the facts in order to progress through the game. <br />
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4)<strong> B-Force Blaster</strong> - Target Practice for points. The Red Ranger loves it because it gives high scores. <br />
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He also loves the "Red Alert" siren that goes off where cadets race to one of the turrets to save the station from enemy spacecraft. <br />
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There are three other areas that we use for our math studies. <br />
* <strong>Hyperblast Training</strong> - Cadets race through space tunnels in a vehicle shooting for points, then at certain intervals (I believe there are three creatures) they come upon a many tentacled creature with math problems, you have to solve the problems in order to proceed speeding through the space tube tunnels. This game has the same math choices as the above mentioned Zapper Turret Training. <br />
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* <strong>Alien Wrangler</strong> - Is an Alien Bronco. Your cadet must rapidly answer math problems to stay on the creatures back. It offers the same math choices as Zapper Turret Training and Hyperblast Training. <br />
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*<strong> The Job Board</strong> - Is in the first area cadets enter. It offers many choices in math such as place value, money, fractions and geometric shapes on a conveyor belt, an ooze pit with platforms, rollerball alley and other tasks all while solving the math problems. <br />
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There are training areas and they even have to capture little critters (they truly remind me of Tribbles from Star Trek!) that are around the station and place them back into their container. <br />
There's also parental controls for talking with other players with pre-determined phrases. <br />
<br />
We have discovered its nice option to our math studies.<br />
We orginally started with the free version after reading about and seeing commercials for the product. Then we were contacted by MathBlaster to do a review of the membership level. Membership not only gives you access to all the cool features above but also gives you secondary membership to the JumpStart Website. You also can have up to 6 children in your home under the one membership, which is a huge plus and each child gets to create their own avatar. The age level is 6-12 years of age. <br />
<br />
Now, here's the membership info: <br />
For up to 6 children its either $7.99 monthly, $74.99 Annually or for Lifetime membership $149.99.<br />
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<strong><u>However, MathBlaster has given me the chance to giveaway to one of my readers a FREE 3 month full membership!</u></strong><br />
Here's how you can enter: (For each one please come back and comment so that you can be credited)<br />
1) 1 entry by following my blog.<br />
2) 1 entry by reposting or Tweeting this post.<br />
3) 1 entry per friend if they "follow" me, be sure they mention your name!<br />
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Entries close on Saturday, September 17, 2011 and a winner will be chosen by Random.org on Sunday, September 18, 2011. <br />
<em>(Please note that the ending date for this giveaway has been extended 9/17/2011)</em><br />
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Meanwhile you can try the FREE version here: <a href="http://www.mathblaster.com/Default.aspx">MathBlaster.com</a> <br />
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**DISCLAIMER** ~ <span style="font-family: Garamond;"><span style="font-family: Garamond;"><em>I was provided with a membership good for Math Blaster and Knowledge Adventure at no cost by Knowledge Adventure in order to test the products’ abilities and give my own personal opinions on it. The opinions I have given are mine and may differ from others but were not influenced by the company or the free product provided. </em></span></span><br />
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We've linked up with other Hip Homeschool Moms, they too are hosting give-aways. <br />
Go check them out!! <a href="http://www.hiphomeschoolmoms.com/">Hip Homeschool Moms</a><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtTKGDeg_gpdDgFBxOza-JPxuJ4_Eo7xZhwPnU0btIQj0P68NhZZAD_PCqj73qbZIV8Am76CC_uQ02WM2SxYHTYTJUVQdvYiQuu4ut4zMp3F0KrOD14c_fq-el1HWI73u6VEE4kQnC4cE/s1600/Giveaway-Day-Button-copy.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtTKGDeg_gpdDgFBxOza-JPxuJ4_Eo7xZhwPnU0btIQj0P68NhZZAD_PCqj73qbZIV8Am76CC_uQ02WM2SxYHTYTJUVQdvYiQuu4ut4zMp3F0KrOD14c_fq-el1HWI73u6VEE4kQnC4cE/s1600/Giveaway-Day-Button-copy.png" /></a></div><br />
<em>Join the </em><a href="http://noordinarybloghop.blogspot.com/">No Ordinary Blog Hop</a><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu9PQ0U1W4JpOR5UnkolO7oaESia_9CQgDOO0cDmbVEfLar4eLiFO6Lizq0rDd_2z0mJ2F8nCPVvyp2RrATxVCPUdUk0HkVf9c57GM8ei72Hzc05eX6ifPoMc5CtkgwuEAAbsF6Ag7pM8/s1600/911-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu9PQ0U1W4JpOR5UnkolO7oaESia_9CQgDOO0cDmbVEfLar4eLiFO6Lizq0rDd_2z0mJ2F8nCPVvyp2RrATxVCPUdUk0HkVf9c57GM8ei72Hzc05eX6ifPoMc5CtkgwuEAAbsF6Ag7pM8/s1600/911-1.jpg" /></a></div>Dawnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17115020696572836849noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-923683255882215085.post-54402830710498086412011-08-31T10:39:00.000-07:002011-08-31T10:39:17.303-07:00Vocabulary/Spelling City...One of my favorite sites asked for reviewers of their premium membership for my honest review of their site. Hopefully, I won't be too biased about it, you see we've used the free membership for about two years now when it was just Spelling City...I still have a hard time calling it Vocabulary/Spelling City!! In fact this is the same company that sent me 5 vendor hall passes for the ISTE this past July in Philadelphia and I was quite happy to forward two of those passes onto a fellow homeschooler. <br />
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So, yes......I (we) love Spelling City but I.....errrrrr....my son, yeah my son....hasn't had the chance yet to use the vocabulary part of the site. I'm.....ahhhhhh.....HE's quite anxious to try it out since playing a bit with it at the ISTE convention. <br />
We, yes we, can't wait to try everything out now. My disclosure is below and this review will be coming up in three weeks. <br />
Meanwhile, you can try the Spelling City functions for free to see if you might be interested in winning a Premium Membership later. <br />
Oh....and its not just for homeschoolers by the way. There are a lot of school spelling lists and you can easily add your child's spelling list from your homeschool or public school to give the kids a different and fun way of learning and testing themselves. The link for their site is below the disclosure information. <br />
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Disclosure: <br />
<br />
I've been given a premium membership to VocabularySpellingCity.com for a candid, personal, online review. <br />
<br />
VocabularySpellingCity.com helps students study word lists using 25 different learning activities such as MatchIt Sentences, HangMouse, and Word-O-Rama. Parents can create their own spelling lists, find published lists already available on the site, or use any of dozens of free teaching resources on topics such as analogies and compound words. Be sure to come back in three weeks to read about my experience.<br />
There might be more free memberships available for bloggers. If you're interested, find out how you can review VocabularySpellingCity.com.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.spellingcity.com/">http://www.spellingcity.com/</a><br />
Dawnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17115020696572836849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-923683255882215085.post-54748374268196786772011-08-09T14:21:00.000-07:002011-08-09T14:21:31.657-07:00Best laid plans.....HAH!<i>Life is what happens when you are busy making plans....</i><br />
<br />
Oh, so true!<br />
Today was going to be all about telling and sharing pictures of our first two days of 3rd grade with you...Ahem, WAS going to be...<br />
Instead, a virus wiped out my laptop - along with ALL of the lessons I JUST got organized - <br />
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We do have the next two days off, because DH is off from work and we will pick things back up on Friday. By then I hope to have some of the stuff back that I need and I'll share the next installment of the "Not Back to School Hop", which is a peek inside our classroom. I can however still do the MathBlaster review and giveaway because I need DH computer anyway for that. So, check back tomorrow or Thursday for that.<br />
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Right now, I'm going to go kick "Life" in the butt.....<br />
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Dawnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17115020696572836849noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-923683255882215085.post-12539542832183686532011-08-07T00:22:00.000-07:002011-08-07T21:54:41.406-07:00Curriculum Week 2011 - Not Back To School Blog Hop<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj92DGOLVRUTLo1HWrL3ngjYvYFf2PdnAc4nKvW4payaRzi79AkcSZa6FdvqDTHOyWqk-46b2YjXDOBeC7mE8Z_YI_9hY8oaCHi26y_nqPRtLW4nHPyYvOpU34mVbq-N6ln9zYRVTrSzk4/s1600/august-2011-calendar.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="264" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj92DGOLVRUTLo1HWrL3ngjYvYFf2PdnAc4nKvW4payaRzi79AkcSZa6FdvqDTHOyWqk-46b2YjXDOBeC7mE8Z_YI_9hY8oaCHi26y_nqPRtLW4nHPyYvOpU34mVbq-N6ln9zYRVTrSzk4/s320/august-2011-calendar.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Its time for a new homeschool year, we are actually starting this coming Monday, August 8th. Its also time for the Not Back To School Blog Hop from <a href="http://heartofthematteronline.com/nbtsbh-2011-week-1/">Heart of the Matter Online</a>.<br />
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Week 1 is Curriculum week and here is what we've chosen this year for third grade for our son.<br />
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<b>Base Comprehensive Curriculum</b> - Learn at Home, grade 3 and Flashkids grade 3 (from B&N).<br />
<b>Math</b> - Math U See Foundations (finishing up) into Gamma series. And <i><b>MathBlaster</b></i> Website.<br />
<b>Grammar</b> - Finishing Easy Grammar Daily Guided for 2nd/3rd Grades, then starting Easy Grammar and Daily Grams 3rd and 4th Grade.<br />
<b>History</b> - Story of the World - all volumes with Activity Guides, calendar/holiday led and Historical Timeline.<br />
<b>Reading</b> - Finishing McGuffey's 1st Reader to be followed with McGuffey's 2nd Reader. Also, Thomas Jefferson Education Classics (TJED) and Learn at Home weekly curriculum reading (LAH).<br />
<b>Spelling</b> - McGuffey's Reader's and <a href="http://www.spellingcity.com/"><i><b>Vocabulary/Spelling City</b></i></a> Website.<br />
<b>Vocabulary</b> - Seasonal/Monthly and LAH.<br />
<b>Geography</b> - USA and World/Country studies through various sources.<b> </b><br />
<b> Science</b> - LAH and <i><b>Supercharged Science</b></i> website.<br />
<br />
**For some <b>FREE</b> online science lessons you can use this link:<br />
401 Science Activity Manual and Video Collection ($30 value) <br />
<a href="http://www.sciencelearningspace.com/members/go.php?r=5556&i=l23">http://www.sciencelearningspace.com/members/go.php?r=5556&i=l23</a> <br />
<br />
***Or you can order the whole thing from this link:<br />
<div><div class="small"><span class="code"><a href="http://www.sciencelearningspace.com/members/go.php?r=5556&i=l3">Try e-Science - 30-day money-back guarantee</a></span></div></div><br />
We started both Math U See and Easy Grammar programs recently and found that they really work beautifully with the LAH and Flashkids base curriculum's. The Red Ranger also wants to learn cursive writing so we have a couple of books to start using to see how it all goes. We also have lots of supplemental materials to work with but that's for another week's blog.<br />
I'll also be adding more on both the Mathblaster website, including a giveaway and <a href="http://www.spellingcity.com/">Vocabulary/Spelling City</a>.<br />
Both sites offer free content for you and your children to try out. If you are interested then I'll be having that giveaway for <a href="http://www.mathblaster.com/Default.aspx">Mathblaster</a>, which is a full 3 month subscription coming up soon. <br />
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Next week is School Room Week in the blog hop. Have a look and join in.<br />
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I have a few pictures to share but we still are waiting on a couple of books to be delivered so here is what we have so far.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>Learn At Home Series Week 1 - All Subjects<br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Join the blog hop! </div><a href="http://heartofthematteronline.com/"><img alt="Not Back to School Blog Hop" height="125" src="http://heartofthematteronline.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/nbts-blog-hop-2011.png" width="125" /></a><br />
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</div>Dawnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17115020696572836849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-923683255882215085.post-51830981513049301472011-07-18T19:56:00.000-07:002011-07-18T20:01:55.197-07:00Revamping for a new year....Again, things have been crazy. At some point I'll get this homeschooling and blogging thingy working together.....<i>Right</i>???<br />
Right now I'm writing reviews for a couple of giveaways and re-doing our workbox/hanging folder system so that I can give more detailed posts on them. I'm also getting all of our 3rd grade materials together, why is it so time consuming?<br />
Please come back and check.Dawnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17115020696572836849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-923683255882215085.post-46527330712760817662011-04-26T08:49:00.000-07:002011-04-26T09:06:34.320-07:00Vidcasts from MIT - 150 Symposium Earth, Air, Ocean and Space: The Future of Exploration<div class="event-label">MIT150 Symposium</div><h1 class="event-title">Earth, Air, Ocean and Space: The Future of Exploration</h1><br />
A friend of mine from MIT posted on Facebook today about these video podcasts and I'm passing on some of the information so that you can view it.<br />
Right now is a Spacevidcast with Astronauts including Buzz Aldrin here's the line up for the first one:<br />
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<div class="text_exposed_root text_exposed" id="id_4db6e4e2cdcc65485652569"><span data-jsid="text">Here's the panel: </span></div><div class="text_exposed_root text_exposed" id="id_4db6e4e2cdcc65485652569"><span data-jsid="text">* Buzz Aldrin ScD '63 - Gemini 12, Apollo 11</span></div><div class="text_exposed_root text_exposed" id="id_4db6e4e2cdcc65485652569"><span data-jsid="text">* Timothy J. (TJ) Creamer SM '92, Soyuz TMA-17, Expedition 22/23<span class="text_exposed_show"> </span></span></div><div class="text_exposed_root text_exposed" id="id_4db6e4e2cdcc65485652569"><span data-jsid="text"><span class="text_exposed_show">* Terry J. Hart SM '69 - STS 41-C</span></span></div><div class="text_exposed_root text_exposed" id="id_4db6e4e2cdcc65485652569"><span data-jsid="text"><span class="text_exposed_show">* Frederick H. (Rick) Hauck SM '66 - STS-7, STS-51-A, STS-26</span></span></div><div class="text_exposed_root text_exposed" id="id_4db6e4e2cdcc65485652569"><span data-jsid="text"><span class="text_exposed_show">* Byron Lichtenberg SM '75, ScD '79 - STS-9, STS-45</span></span></div><div class="text_exposed_root text_exposed" id="id_4db6e4e2cdcc65485652569"><span data-jsid="text"><span class="text_exposed_show">* Michael J. Massimino SM '88, ENG '90, ME '90, PhD '92 - STS-109, STS-125. </span></span></div><div class="text_exposed_root text_exposed" id="id_4db6e4e2cdcc65485652569"><span data-jsid="text"><span class="text_exposed_show"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="text_exposed_root text_exposed" id="id_4db6e4e2cdcc65485652569"><span data-jsid="text"><span class="text_exposed_show">Here's the link for watching it live right now <a href="http://www.spacevidcast.com/">http://www.spacevidcast.com/</a> . </span></span></div><div class="text_exposed_root text_exposed" id="id_4db6e4e2cdcc65485652569"><b><span data-jsid="text"><span class="text_exposed_show">I'll post the link once they have it up for watching after the live feed later, so be sure to check back. </span></span></b></div><div class="text_exposed_root text_exposed" id="id_4db6e4e2cdcc65485652569"><span data-jsid="text"><span class="text_exposed_show"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="text_exposed_root text_exposed" id="id_4db6e4e2cdcc65485652569"><span data-jsid="text"><span class="text_exposed_show">The next will be on "The Future of Nuclear Fuel". Timely indeed.....</span></span></div><div class="text_exposed_root text_exposed" id="id_4db6e4e2cdcc65485652569"><span data-jsid="text"><span class="text_exposed_show"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="text_exposed_root text_exposed" id="id_4db6e4e2cdcc65485652569"><span data-jsid="text"><span class="text_exposed_show">The following link will take you to the information page and you can also check the "agenda" tab for the future podcasts. </span></span></div><div class="text_exposed_root text_exposed" id="id_4db6e4e2cdcc65485652569"><span data-jsid="text"><span class="text_exposed_show"><a href="http://mit150.mit.edu/symposia/exploration">http://mit150.mit.edu/symposia/exploration </a></span></span><br />
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</span></span><br />
<span data-jsid="text"><span class="text_exposed_show">You might want to also check out MIT's 150th main site for lots more to use for homeschooling: </span></span><br />
<span data-jsid="text"><span class="text_exposed_show"><a href="http://mit150.mit.edu/">http://mit150.mit.edu/ </a><br />
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<span data-jsid="text"><span class="text_exposed_show">And for history check this link: </span></span><br />
<span data-jsid="text"><span class="text_exposed_show"><a href="http://mit150.mit.edu/multimedia/collection/35">http://mit150.mit.edu/multimedia/collection/35</a></span></span><br />
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</span></span><br />
<span data-jsid="text"><span class="text_exposed_show"><b>Remember to check back for the archived videos later.</b> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span data-jsid="text"><span class="text_exposed_show">Check out what other bloggers are writing about at: </span></span><br />
<a href="http://noordinarybloghop.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><br />
<img border="0" src="http://i957.photobucket.com/albums/ae52/lschultz31/Blog%20Hop/dreamstimefree_587243-1.jpg" /></a></div><div class="text_exposed_root text_exposed" id="id_4db6e4e2cdcc65485652569"></div><div class="text_exposed_root text_exposed" id="id_4db6e4e2cdcc65485652569"></div>Dawnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17115020696572836849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-923683255882215085.post-159582770329122792011-04-12T17:11:00.000-07:002011-04-12T17:11:44.974-07:00Very Hungry Caterpillar read online only in AprilThe Very Hungry Caterpillar is this month's read aloud (April 2011) at Barnes and Nobles online site.<br />
Read by Eric Carle which is the extra special treat. <br />
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Here's the link...enjoy...<br />
<a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/storytime/index.asp">http://www.barnesandnoble.com/storytime/index.asp</a>Dawnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17115020696572836849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-923683255882215085.post-42455197473985297702011-04-11T07:35:00.000-07:002011-04-11T07:36:41.521-07:00Free live science tele-class TODAY given by a real rocket scientist!We did this last time and got hooked. Usually she gives away free science kits, DVD's and almost always gives you a month of access to the online science lessons for only $1 during the teleclass (normally it costs $37 a month). Once you try the classes out - online - you might just want to keep going with them for awhile. Its one of the things I just started splurging on for homeschooling. Nothing like a real rocket scientist giving your kid science lessons!<br />
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Tele-class starts at 3pm Eastern time USA....we'll be there!<br />
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<span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>Subject: </b>In Case You Forgot,It Happens in 4 Hours</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">In case you forgot, Aurora’s live hands-on science video tele-class will be starting in just a few hours.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">(Great science lesson for this week)</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">In this free video tele-class she’ll show us how to make microscopes and telescopes. Not to mention giving us the scoop on seeing this month’s meteor shower.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Pretty cool.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">You can still register at:</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="Object" id="OBJ_PREFIX_DWT44"><a href="http://click.icptrack.com/icp/relay.php?r=25970303&msgid=158051&act=U9UX&c=850078&destination=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sciencelearningspace.com%2Fmembers%2Fgo.php%3Fr%3D%255baffiliate_id%255d%26i%3Dl25" target="_blank">www.sciencelearningspace.com/members/go.php?r=5556&i=l25</a></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">I know that last time she did one of these the tele-class was maxxed out (over 3,700 people wanted to participate, but they only had 3000 spots available online). </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">I don’t know how close they are to their limit right now, but if you want to be sure to avoid getting shut out, you can still register now with the link above.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">See you in a few hours!</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Dawn</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">P.S. Grab a spot by registering at:</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="Object" id="OBJ_PREFIX_DWT45"><a href="http://click.icptrack.com/icp/relay.php?r=25970303&msgid=158051&act=U9UX&c=850078&destination=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sciencelearningspace.com%2Fmembers%2Fgo.php%3Fr%3D%255baffiliate_id%255d%26i%3Dl25" target="_blank">www.sciencelearningspace.com/members/go.php?r=5556&i=l25 </a></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="Object" id="OBJ_PREFIX_DWT45"><br />
</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="Object" id="OBJ_PREFIX_DWT45">Go check out what others are blogging about at </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="Object" id="OBJ_PREFIX_DWT45"><br />
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<a href="http://noordinarybloghop.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><br />
<img border="0" src="http://i957.photobucket.com/albums/ae52/lschultz31/Blog%20Hop/dreamstimefree_587243-1.jpg" /></a>Dawnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17115020696572836849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-923683255882215085.post-75542345334315501762011-04-10T22:30:00.000-07:002011-04-10T22:34:10.750-07:00Two propellers and a gear-pulley....We had an interesting packet delivered to us this weekend containing two plastic propellers and a gear-pulley.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizFlbdO0ZMVW6UFg_4n7Oy6seJXIkAVBE84TACkdOzweTkDDUy2u51_eBaRWrq41rukaGHvzj17fZj7tQoHOBBRUOhOink7Bt4Y5d-uj2inRKC-1Ck4Eo4_sOVVU45m_jh4QD21zQHd74/s1600/marchapril2011+033.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizFlbdO0ZMVW6UFg_4n7Oy6seJXIkAVBE84TACkdOzweTkDDUy2u51_eBaRWrq41rukaGHvzj17fZj7tQoHOBBRUOhOink7Bt4Y5d-uj2inRKC-1Ck4Eo4_sOVVU45m_jh4QD21zQHd74/s320/marchapril2011+033.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
Okay, this might seem strange to some but when you are a homeschooling family...well its like the Forrest Gump box of chocolates isn't it? You never know what you're gonna get!<br />
I had previously posted how we had joined up with an online science program, we've just haven't had the time to really begin doing the lessons because of stress and life getting in the way. Seems like someone noticed and wanted to spark up some interest......so we get two propellers and a gear-pulley......<br />
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Encouragement received and looks like it time for some science experiments....it seems these items are sometimes hard to find but we need them for three different projects.<br />
The Hovercraft project, the Jigglebot Robotics project (Yeah, I know....I can't wait to try that one either, Jigglebot!) and the Laser Light Show. <br />
I'll be sure to post our experiments so you can see how much fun we have doing them. If you are interested in some of the free science lessons they offer you can read more about them in my previous posting.<br />
<a href="http://amomseverydaylifehomeschooling.blogspot.com/2011/03/free-science-experiments.html">Free-science-experiments </a> <br />
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So nice to get something in the mail that wasn't a bill!<br />
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Go check out what others are blogging about at<br />
<br />
<a href="http://noordinarybloghop.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><br />
<img border="0" src="http://i957.photobucket.com/albums/ae52/lschultz31/Blog%20Hop/dreamstimefree_587243-1.jpg" /></a>Dawnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17115020696572836849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-923683255882215085.post-88340912888891022092011-04-09T13:52:00.000-07:002011-04-09T13:53:09.920-07:00Mini-books for preschool and kindergarten......I was just wandering around reading a couple of blogs and saw a post on one (<a href="http://confessionsofahomeschooler.blogspot.com/2011/04/k4-level-curriculum-my-first-books.html">Confessions of a Homeschooler</a>) about mini-books for pre-schoolers. I left info in the comments section and thought I would share today, since I haven't posted in weeks, the site that helped us when we <b>suddenly</b> became homeschoolers.<br />
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Before our son started kindergarten I had found online <a href="http://www.dltk-kids.com/">DLTK</a>, a wonderful resource site for all things that I needed before he started school and then <i>big time </i>when we pulled him out of kindergarten. I used just about everything on the site and the sister sites, <a href="http://www.kidzone.ws/">Kidzone ws</a> , <a href="http://www.coloring.ws/">Coloring ws</a> and the other sites related to DLTK (all of the links are on their site).<br />
The Red Ranger(TRR) practiced writing his letters, numbers, shapes, etc. Once you expore the sites you'll see why I can't name everything but if you have preschoolers and/or kindergarten children you'll see lots to use.<br />
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Since the other blog (one of my go-to blogs by the way!) posted about the mini-books I thought I would share what we did when we used the mini-books off of DLTK'S site.<br />
We started off with the AlphaBuddies books for each letter of the alphabet and The Red Ranger(TRR) loved them.<br />
When you print the books you can either print in color or b&w, we always choose b&w so TRR could also practice his coloring skills. At first he cut the pages and we stapled them together, but we didn't like the unfinished look they had so TRR folded the pages in half, once they were printed out, put all the pages in order, stapled them down the middle and then we made the last page a pocket to hold another mini-mini-book (we'll get to that in a bit). We used each book every month as we did a letter a day with our other resources, each time doing something different and adding other activities as we progressed through phonics. Once he had mastered the reading portion and had finished the coloring we started doing sounds with the books. When we did the letter "A" one time he cut out pictures, used stamps or drew pictures of the beginning sound, which we then pasted (another skill!) into the inside front cover of his "A" book. Next time around it was ending sounds again pasting the pictures or stamping on the inside back cover. For middle sounds we used a separate piece of paper which then fit inside that back pocket we had made.<br />
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The back pocket also stored our brainstorming lists of other words around the house that began with the same letter, we would just walk around and he had to find other items to add to his list, many a day he had a list ready in head anyway even though he never knew which letter we would be working on ahead of time. Part of what we did first thing was pick out of a pile a letter and number for each day and then we built the day's learning around each one.<br />
We also included in the pocket the mini-mini-book for all of the consonants which were called <a href="http://www.kidzone.ws/kindergarten/learning-letters/books.htm">Itsy Bitsy Books</a> , these I printed on blue paper (The Alphabuddies books were all on white paper for coloring) just to identify them in a pile of schoolwork to be done.<br />
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As for the other mini-books we used just about all of them - holidays and seasons came in very handy. Bible stories and riddles were popular as were the general ones. There is also a very cool option to make your own custom books with your child's name and other information printed out. This way they can have their very own book about themselves. You can even use some of the books for 1st and 2nd graders.<br />
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Every now and then when TRR gets a chance he pulls out some of the books just to read through again, he must have enjoyed them because he always tells me about the work 'we' put into them!!<br />
I guess working on the books with mommy was a cherished time......one of the perks of homeschooling!Dawnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17115020696572836849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-923683255882215085.post-5725335971924315022011-03-08T09:33:00.000-08:002011-03-08T09:33:12.798-08:00Free Science ExperimentsA few months ago I got a link for science experiments, we tried a couple and liked them but didn't for some reason keep going back to do more. Then last month we did one of the online classes for a rocket launch experiment with over 3000 other families...we became hooked. When our son found out that the woman on the other end was really....for sure....a for real.....ROCKET SCIENTIST....he was psyched!<br />
And so were we.<br />
We then signed up for a month of lessons, there are over 600 to choose from. If you are worried about teaching science to your children then this is a great way to get a science curriculum that you don't even have to teach.<br />
So, now that we are hooked I've signed up as an affiliate with them and that means I get to pass out free science links to the lessons!!<br />
I have two links to pass out today:<br />
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1) Your kids build a miniature hovercraft out of an old CD and a water bottle - it's pretty cool. <div style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0in;"> Here's the link to it:</div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><span class="Object" id="OBJ_PREFIX_DWT42"><a href="http://www.sciencelearningspace.com/members/go.php?r=5556&i=l16" target="_blank">www.sciencelearningspace.com/members/go.php?r=5556&i=l16 </a></span></div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><span class="Object" id="OBJ_PREFIX_DWT42"> </span></div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><span class="Object" id="OBJ_PREFIX_DWT42">2) 30 complete experiments (normally costs $25) and it includes a free newsletter that gives you another free science experiment weekly in your email box. </span></div><div style="font-weight: bold;"> </div><a href="http://www.sciencelearningspace.com/members/go.php?r=5556&i=l22">400 Science Experiment Guide</a> <br />
http://www.sciencelearningspace.com/members/go.php?r=5556&i=l22 <br />
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The lessons are free...completely....they always give you the option of joining but you don't have too.<br />
We didn't for months and then did the live-teleclass and got hooked, the kid was excited and mom and dad were just as excited, maybe more so...<br />
Even if you aren't looking for a curriculum they are just plain cool to try out at home.<br />
Feel free to pass them on as well.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPLp85A8f0M1B-BgbwjYLgapY12arXVTbMkk-Lp2giDO6Ls73z30iTTIHNlmvQQBVOfxgBGqcaMjZKUx0up9CFflqgiSuV-5mvAsBBR707EKMkc3w1woMsulvhRWfhUAryHqAx2mrFmFE/s1600/free-science-guidebook-sq.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPLp85A8f0M1B-BgbwjYLgapY12arXVTbMkk-Lp2giDO6Ls73z30iTTIHNlmvQQBVOfxgBGqcaMjZKUx0up9CFflqgiSuV-5mvAsBBR707EKMkc3w1woMsulvhRWfhUAryHqAx2mrFmFE/s1600/free-science-guidebook-sq.jpg" /></a></div><br />
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</span></div>Dawnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17115020696572836849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-923683255882215085.post-53641283883192531642011-03-03T13:11:00.001-08:002011-03-03T13:15:36.568-08:00My Review of Hot Dots,#174; Refills Set<div class="hreview"><div class="item"><a href="http://www.learningresources.com/product/teachers/shop+by+brand/hot+dots--174-/hot+dots--174-+refills+set.do">Originally submitted at Learning Resources</a><br />
<div><img align="left" class="photo" src="http://images.powerreviews.com/images_products/02/04/6768616_100.jpg" style="margin: 0pt 0.5em 0pt 0pt;" /><br />
<div style="margin-top: 0pt;">Bring ordinary worksheets to life with fun lights and sound effects! </div><div style="margin-top: 0pt;">Transforms existing worksheets into interactive electronic activities when used with Talking Hot Dots® Pen (EI-2770, available separately).</div><div style="margin-top: 0pt;">Includes 450 self-adhesive, conductive ink dots (150 for correct answers, 300 for negatives) </div></div><a class="url fn" href="http://www.learningresources.com/product/teachers/shop+by+brand/hot+dots--174-/hot+dots--174-+refills+set.do" style="display: none;"><span class="fn">Hot Dots,#174; Refills Set</span></a></div><br />
<b class="summary">Versatile product - Love it...</b><br />
<div>By <b>stargazerusa</b> from <b>Blackwood, NJ</b> on <b><abbr class="dtreviewed" style="border: medium none; text-decoration: none;" title="201133T1200-0800">3/3/2011</abbr></b></div><div class="prStars prStarsSmall" style="background-image: url(http://images.powerreviews.com/images_merchants/stars/10545_stars_small.gif); background-position: 0px -180px; height: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0pt; width: 83px;"></div><div style="display: none;"><span class="rating">5</span>out of 5</div><b>Pros: </b>Durable, Educational, Lots of Fun, Engaging, Interactive, Adaptable<br />
<b>Best Uses: </b>Travel, Older Children, Special Needs, Young Children, Entertainment, Indoor<br />
<b>Describe Yourself: </b>Homeschooling Teacher, Education Oriented, Stay At Home Parent<br />
<b>Was this a gift?: </b>No<br />
<div class="description" style="margin-top: 1em;">We love using the refill dots for our own flash cards and tests. Since money is always tight at home and in schools I reuse what I can wherever I can. I use the cardboard given in kids meals from fast food restaurants, the kind when collector cards are part of the toy, to make the pieces for the multiple choice dots. <br xmlns:pr="xalan://com.pufferfish.core.beans.xmlbuilders.xsl.Functions" />I cut the cards in half and in quarters, wrap them in tissue/construction/wrapping paper and add one positive and the 3 negative dots. Then I attach small pieces of velcro to the back to be used on our made up flash cards. The half size ones get used on 5x8" cards and the quarters on 3x5" ones. This way the wrapped pieces with the dots can be turned and used over and over on different cards and if you are careful on placement of your answer selections you are able to change where the green hot dot is placed so kids aren't always sure where the "right" answer is located. <br />
Its one of my favorite tools!</div><div style="margin-top: 0.5em;">(<a href="http://www.powerreviews.com/legal/terms_of_use.html" rel="license">legalese</a>)</div></div>Dawnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17115020696572836849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-923683255882215085.post-68321597360230594382011-02-03T10:10:00.000-08:002011-02-03T10:19:55.032-08:00Questions asked, answered and no wonder....Yesterday was a good day, it always amazes me how "good days" just sort of pop up on their own on what's supposed to be an ordinary day. It was Groundhog's Day and I had everything planned out, so I'm not sure how we didn't get to all of it.....but I have an idea :-)<br />
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First of all I've come to realize why our son thinks I have the answer to everything and is shocked if I don't "know" something right away. Most of the time the answers are there somewhere in the cobwebs of my mind, they just need to dusted off and brought out to the light. Every now and then though our son comes up with something that as he says, "I didn't that coming".<br />
Yesterday it started simple enough, I simply made him a cup of hot chocolate. Come on, take a guess.....<br />
Yep, it led to The Red Ranger asking me who invented hot chocolate.<br />
Somehow the file cabinets of my mind didn't have that answer saved.<br />
So, as any good mom and most especially a homeschooling mom would do.......<br />
We looked it up!<br />
There were a few steps to the answer.......are you curious?<br />
<br />
It started with the Aztecs only they served it cold and used cocoa beans as currency. They also flavored it with wine and chili peppers (wine = good, chili peppers = yuck!).<br />
Cortez brought it back to Europe in the early 1500's and Spain changed it to a hot drink, sweetened and without the peppers (Yay...Spain!).<br />
When it came to London in the 1700's the British started adding milk to it and enjoyed it as an after-dinner beverage. <br />
Our short answer was that it wasn't a person that invented hot chocolate but a country, Spain.<br />
Then we went on to look at the cocoa beans themselves and the process of how we get that powder in the cup. Which then led to how its put into trucks and delivered to stores.....etc., etc., etc!<br />
If you are so inclined to read more...lol...here is the link for <a href="http://coffeetea.about.com/cs/chocolate/a/chochistory.htm">The History of Hot Chocolate </a>.<br />
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Okay, admit it...you just made yourself a cup of hot chocolate didn't you??<br />
If you didn't....what are you waiting for?? Go get a cup and come back to hear about our Groundhog Day stuff.........<br />
<br />
We started off our day changing everything over for the month.<br />
All of our calendar work which included adding all the special days this month including Groundhog Day.<br />
We did our History Scribe holiday sheet which gives you a blurb about the holiday, a space for a drawing and journal practice. We then checked online to see what that pesky little groundhog had to say.<br />
In case you didn't hear.....spring is coming early.......hmmmm....I'm looking out the window at all of the snow and thinking he may just be wrong about that one!<br />
We then continued online with lots of stories, poems and shadow puppets on the wall. Our shadow puppets sort of took over the rest of the Groundhog Day stuff I had planned......we just couldn't stop making more and more of them. I also discovered that The Red Ranger loved the Robert Louis Stevenson poem, "My Shadow". I mean LOVED it.......now I'm looking into more Stevenson works for him.<br />
Since we didn't finish all of the material we'll just use it during the week as fun stuff.<br />
We also did our spelling introducing the match game cards I made up and we also went over all of our February vocabulary words and used some of them in the vocabulary match game that I also made. Both of these will now be added to our Scrambler Wheel for the month. <br />
We spun the Scrambler Wheel for math as well and it landed on Dominoes and then...................<br />
<br />
We had tears.................................<br />
And a 5 minute break using the microwave timer.............................<br />
When The Red Ranger came back (on his own after he heard the ding of the microwave) he was still teary and it took me a bit to find out what was bothering him. He said he hated math because it was too hard.<br />
Not sure where this came from because he's great at math, it comes easily to him. I told him how proud I am of how well he does in math and that sometimes he surprises me with how well he does. The tears finally stopped and we got back to the dominoes and he was fine.<br />
All I can think of is that he was doubting himself and needed to know that he was good at math or that he just didn't want to do math yesterday.....LOL!<br />
In the end we picked three tiles at a time and used each side of the tile as a digit in a larger number and then made up our problems. He really didn't want to do the "big" number problems but I showed him that he does know how to break the problem down to get to the answer. In some cases we used the tiles for 3 and 4 digit numbers, we try to change it up as we go and it helps that he has to write the problems on the chalkboard or his dry erase board.<br />
We also did our reading with our two books we have going at the moment and of course our weather work.<br />
Can't forget the weather work! Since it was also the beginning of the month we took our January weather calendar and graphed the amount of sunny, cloudy, rainy, snowy days and how many days we had temperatures in the teen's, 20's, 30's, etc. and how some days the wind chill bring those temperatures down even lower....sometimes into single digit numbers!!<br />
Where's my hot chocolate??!!<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1tFz8gFbp49eD1SfhGik5ItC8yYOlU3xq1wDt1h80XrBZEhWvWCC8dM0Mu2OsENkqYaVIQXM4vnf4-i5oy_BHv1Lf3wVmvPgDDr_Jjz6scqGER1WIdGNxzoY8hTBENuKkMPXqq7v8tSQ/s1600/school+008.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1tFz8gFbp49eD1SfhGik5ItC8yYOlU3xq1wDt1h80XrBZEhWvWCC8dM0Mu2OsENkqYaVIQXM4vnf4-i5oy_BHv1Lf3wVmvPgDDr_Jjz6scqGER1WIdGNxzoY8hTBENuKkMPXqq7v8tSQ/s320/school+008.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
For the match game spelling and vocabulary I just cut blank index cards in half and glue construction paper to the back making two's of all of the words.<br />
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Join the Hop for February!<br />
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<img border="0" src="http://i957.photobucket.com/albums/ae52/lschultz31/My%20Hearts%20Creations/dreamstimefree_4168163-1.jpg" /></a>Dawnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17115020696572836849noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-923683255882215085.post-45505135500818632802011-01-24T14:00:00.000-08:002011-01-24T14:02:54.158-08:00HOT DEAL for free - Mighty Book Jr. Website!<b> Just got this from a friend on Facebook via another friend...</b><br />
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Books can be read to your child or there is a you read selection on some. <br />
<br />
FREE 1 year subscription!<br />
<a href="http://www.mightybookjr.com/Mightybook_Jr_Home.php">http://www.mightybookjr.com/Mightybook_Jr_Home.php</a><br />
<h6 class="uiStreamMessage" data-ft="{"type":"msg"}"><span class="messageBody">A deal for free 1 yr subscription ($99 reg. price!) for online kids books, songs, lesson plans, etc!! </span></h6><h6 class="uiStreamMessage" data-ft="{"type":"msg"}"><span class="messageBody">Click 'subscribe now' in the top right corner and use code "learntoread" </span></h6><h6 class="uiStreamMessage" data-ft="{"type":"msg"}"><span class="messageBody"> </span></h6><h6 class="uiStreamMessage" data-ft="{"type":"msg"}"><span class="messageBody">You'll love it....thanks Renee! </span></h6><h6 class="uiStreamMessage" data-ft="{"type":"msg"}"><span class="messageBody"><br />
</span></h6>Dawnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17115020696572836849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-923683255882215085.post-19480923940785857452011-01-06T21:20:00.000-08:002012-12-28T13:32:27.892-08:00Rough couple of days.....Granted we aren't feeling 100% yet but the "get back into the school - groove thing" was NOT working too well the past two days. It really bugged me because I was introducing some new things to give The Red Ranger more control over how he learns so that mom isn't (Ahem) "so bossy"......figured he will get more of a chance to control his own destiny with these ideas but we were butting heads enough that we both needed a couple of 5 minute time-outs in our corners. How do I handle those moments? Simple, I set the microwave timer to 5 minutes and we both don't talk to each other until we hear it go off. Then, we meet back at the table and pick up where we were before we had to re-group. I'm not exactly sure what he does during those 5 minutes (but its a NO tv, game, etc. time) but me.....I hide my face in both hands and do what Drew Barrymore does in the movie Ever After - 'just breathe'............great movie by the way, a version of Cinderella and never talked about enough.<br />
Remember what I said before.....less stress this year!!!<br />
<br />
Back to The Red Ranger controlling his own destiny.....<br />
We've had this in place from last year and it was a nice chance of getting an "out" of a particular lesson/worksheet he really just couldn't bear to do. In our folder system which looks like this:<br />
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<b>THE BUMP FOLDER: </b><br />
We have what we call a "bump" folder, it goes in the very top pocket when in use (Its actually a Transformers folder!). The idea of the "bump" is simply we come to let's say a math worksheet that he can't bear to do, he is allowed to "bump" one thing per day into the "bump" folder to be done the next school day. The catch is that it must be done <i>before </i>any of the other folders on the next school day we have. He also is allowed to swap the lesson in the folder if during the day he finds something else he wants to do even less than that 'math worksheet' used above, he can take out the math worksheet add the other item to the "bump" folder and the math worksheet then must be done.<br />
Only one thing a day can be bumped.<br />
<br />
The new thing I just introduced him too was this -<br />
<b>THE TWISTER SCRAMBLER:</b><br />
The only reason we are calling it this is because we are using the spinner from our Twister Scram game for the colors...lol.<br />
This is how it works. For each day that The Red Ranger has a 'good day' he gets a ticket/token to be used in the future. At the moment we are only using it for math, spelling and vocabulary but may expand it if it works out really well. If we happen to be doing a math or spelling lesson that he thinks is "boring" he may use one of his tickets to spin The Twister Scrambler, depending on the color the spinner lands on he plays a math or spelling game instead of the normal lesson in his folder that day.<br />
We broke it down this way:<br />
<i><b>MATH: </b></i>Yellow = toss across math, Green = file folder games, Blue = bag math or pizza fraction bingo, Red = dominoes or card games.<br />
<i><b>SPELLING:</b></i> Yellow = match game, Green = sandwich game, Blue = scrabble slam card game, Red = letter spell.<br />
<b>Math</b> - <br />
<i>Dominoes and card games</i> are really simple for using for math lessons. Draw so many cards (depending on your child's age) add/subtract/multiply/mix them as is or use each separate card as a digit in a larger problem. He then writes the problems out on his dry erase board and does them.<br />
<i>File folder games</i> are either ones we've made or have picked up along the way and he can choose any of them in the subject to play. Two come to mind right away, "Place Value Picnic" and " Take it to the Bank" both $ store buys. <br />
<i>Bag math</i> is using the bags of manipulatives that have been premade and using those bags for the math problems.<br />
<i>Toss Across Math</i> - I took his Toss Across game and re-purposed it for math by using those clear photo corners from my scrapbook desk and index cards. On the index cards I write numbers that get get placed over the "X" and "O"'s of the game (they can be removed if we go back to playing the Toss Across game), I also place a math symbol at the top so that he knows what problems he's doing or we agree to do 5 of this or that. <br />
<b>Spelling</b> - <br />
<i>Match game</i> is simply a memory game for his 10 spelling words each week, we use <i>Scrabble Slam</i> for spelling his words and also for changing them from one to the other, <i>letter spell</i> is using our regular Scrabble set and any other letters in the house for spelling the weekly words. The <i>sandwich game </i>is using cards that look like bread, meats, lettuce, tomato, cheese, etc. to spell out his words. <br />
For <b>Vocabulary</b> its mainly the <i>match game</i> until I can think of something else. I'm trying to think of a way to use our new Syllable Rally game for vocab., I'll most likely have to make up my own cards each month for it. <br />
We'll be adding more to the rotation as we come across games or make up new ones ourselves. Here are some pictures of some of the games we use.<br />
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Now for some pictures of our Morning Meeting boards -<br />
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The stand up pocket easels hold spelling word index cards, numbers/days of the week/special dates for the calendar, consonant/vowel tags and letters index cards. <br />
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For Geography he identifies and colors the US state on a blank map sheet, which will also be updated later with capital cities, birds, flowers, flags, etc. for each state. For the world we are doing continents and oceans, which will then be expanded on with countries within, rivers, etc. <br />
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In these two pictures you can just barely make out a green sheet that is a monthly calendar that we record daily weather and temps on for graphing at the end of the month. We also have the cloud identifier and season spinner.<br />
I tell you kids clothes hangers and clothespins really come in handy!<br />
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We had today off because Daddy was off from work but back at it tomorrow....help.....and its supposed to snow a bit. If you have any questions about anything on the boards feel free to ask away, hopefully when we play the games above I can take some pictures and expand on how they are played.<br />
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<span id="goog_1665971372"></span><span id="goog_1665971373"></span>Dawnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17115020696572836849noreply@blogger.com7