No Post Friday

Well, I started creating a post but never finished, so no post Friday. I had to mow the lawn after school, and was still not done at dinner so went back out to finish after dinner. Then a shower and a movie with hubby.  That post is saved for me to work more on later.

Saturday we have a major league baseball game to attend, free tickets thanks to all the popcorn my Boy Scout sold in the fall. The weather report predicts we will watch the ball game in the rain.  ::sigh::

Sunday our church has a community outreach followed by a picnic. Maybe. Weather still supposed to be rainy.

All that to say: Not sure when I will post the post I meant for today. It might not be published until Monday.

Hope you have a lovely, dry, sunny spring weekend... not like the one I am supposed to have.

Late post tonight...

I had intended to create a post about Narration, but the day slipped away from me, so I will have to do that post tomorrow.

Full day of homeschool, cleaned a bathroom, did two loads of laundry, and took a quick trip to the pediatrician to follow up on a nagging cough (bronchitis gone; just allergies). Home again, mowed some long lawn, then made a quick dinner, then off to Awana's. Home from Awana's, a little clean-up, down time, baths and bed, then a little sewing.



Working on six pairs of fleece booties for my favorite charity, Online Angels. These will go to keep newborn toesies warm!

Will try to post on Narration tomorrow.

Oh, a big welcome to all you new subscribers! If you like my blog, please tell others. I am trying to get to that magical 100 number of subscribers, and as I write this I have 8. I have a long way to go, but with a little help from my friends!...

D

Free Lapbooks!

Ah... Yesterday Notebooking, and today Lapbooking...

Lapbooking is another fun way to work with your kids to study a subject in-depth and create an item that not only shows what they have been studying, what they have learned, but also is so much fun that they will go back to it again and again to look at it, show it to people, explain it, and thus review the material. In theory. This doesn't work with every child, my child being in the doesn't work category, but I myself still love lapbooks.

So first let me give you the link to today's great free resource, and then I will give you some links to read more about Lapbooking.

The online homeschool resource company, CurrClick, has a weekly newsletter they send out. Each week they give something away. This week they are giving away a butterfly lapbook (for grades K-4th) by Hands of a Child, which is one of the major lapbook creators. Hands of a Child, by the way, also gives away lapbooks -- a new free lapbook twice a year. Their free lap-book right now is called The Big Snow (grades K-2nd). So now you have TWO free lapbooks from Hands of a Child, and they are very nice lapbooks indeed!

But seeing that second free lapbook from Hands of a Child reminded me that there are other sources for free lapbooks available on the internet that you might now know about, so in addition to the links I will give you about lapbooking I will try to also provide some links for more free lapbooks.

Some more great free "how to" resources:
Lapbook Lessons
Homeschooling on a Shoestring
Squidoo
Lapbooking 101 on Bravehost
Jamin's Lapbooks

 Other great, but not free resources:
One of my favorite sources of information for how to lapbook is Cindy Rushton. She has lots to say about lapbooking in her pdf e-book called Let's Make a Lapbook.  It is like a "Lapbooking 101" course.

Well, there's so much more out there, but I need to go make dessert for a function tonight so I need to get off the computer. Maybe I'll add to this post later.

Blessings!

D

Notebooking and a Great Sale at NotebookingPages.com

One of the methods of reinforcing what is being covered is if you decide to have your children use the learning method of "Notebooking".  Notebooking means creating a notebook for each subject or topic, and having the child fill out a page for different specific elements within that topic.

For example, my son and I spent several years expanding his knowledge of the birds that live in our area. So, we created a Bird Notebook (this can be a 3-ring binder, or it can be a composition notebook, a homemade book... whatever format you decide upon).  Each page in the book focused on a particular book. One page is the robin redbreast, with a color picture we printed out from a computer image from someone's website, etc. We didn't go into too much depth with this, because he was first grade, but you could go into depth. The page could include the geographic area this bird is found, what the bird eats, whether the bird migrates in winter, any predators, etc.

The Homeschooling Times has a great introduction to Notebooking, and Cindy Rushton's Notebooking ABC's is even better! Or you can do an internet search on the topic and see what you can find.  I have learned a lot about Notebooking from a blog I love called Harmony Art Mom.  Barb, the author, uses Charlotte Mason methods combined with Tapestry of Grace, and shows examples of how she has her sons use notebook pages to record and reinforce what they are learning.

Debra Reed, a homeschool mom out there has created her own small business with Notebooking. She creates templates for Notebooking for various subjects. Her business is NotebookingPages.com.  In addition to the fact that she has a lot free templates for various subjects, she has a membership page where you can access all her oodles and oodles of templates. The Notebooking Treasury is currently available at an amazing discount price! Please go take a  look and consider subscribing to her Notebooking Treasury page.

Here is a blurb from her email telling about the sale:

"We've teamed up with some of our old partners and have also added quite a few new ones too! They are offering fabulous gifts & prizes . . . I'm so excited to be able to bring these to you for our 5th Birthday Sale-a-Bration! You have got to go see what they're offering . . . amazing.

"All new members AND all renewing members will receive an e-gift package worth over $80 when purchasing between May 9th-May 27th. Check out the details:

Notebooking Treasury

I am a subscriber to the treasury, and I just love it. Thanks for considering!

D

Happy Mother's Day!

I just wanted to wish everyone a wonderful Mother's Day! Hope you have a wonderful day.

D

Listen to Audio Books for Free

Did you know that you can listen to audio books for free? I don't mean just from your library; I mean there are resources on the internet.

You can download or listen to free audio books online at OnlineAudioStories.com, Librivox.org, Storynory.com, AudioBooksForFree.com, and TheStoryHome.com .

There is also a weekly online storytime at BarnesandNoble.com. These are apparently picture book level, and are read showing the pictures, with music playing in the background. Very captivating for the little ones.  This month, the story is Charlie the Ranch Dog, read by the author and featuring the illustrations from the book.

Aren't these links amazing? My kudos go out to Molly Green (of The Old Schoolhouse Magazine) and her Econobusters blog  for her tip and her Freebie Friday entries each week (on Friday, of course). I love her blog!

Diana

Experiments in Atmospheric Pressure

From the Bizarre Labs website:

Collapsing a can with air pressure

Atmospheric pressure is strong enough to crumple a metal can. This can also be done using an aluminum soda (pop) can. Put a little water in it (app. 3cm) and heat on a hot plate until it begins to steam. If you must do this over a gas or other flame, don’t use a very high flame or an empty can; the paint may burn or, worse, the aluminum may melt. Using tongs, quickly flip it upside down into a small tray of ice water, which should be 6 or so inches (15cm) deep. The water will prevent the outside air from entering. A little of the ice water will be drawn up into the can, but not enough to equalize the pressure, and the can will crush.

Egg in a bottle

There are plenty of things to do with eggs, one being the egg in the bottle trick. Use a shelled, hard-boiled egg. The egg needs to be free from cracks in the white and smooth. Find a bottle with a neck just small enough that the egg won’t fall in (a carafe, milk bottle, or some baby bottles–possibly an ice tea bottle). Wad up a little piece of paper and drop it in the bottle (you can also use 2 or 3 wooden matches). Light the paper or matches, allow to burn out, and immediately put the egg in the bottleneck, where it should be sucked in (making a very interesting sound in the process). Actually, the egg isn’t sucked in, it’s pushed. The fire heats the air, causing it to become less dense and to rise out of the bottle. This causes a decrease in air pressure inside the bottle. The higher pressure outside the bottle pushes the egg in.



A reader recently reminded me that you can easily get the egg out again by turning the bottle upside down and blowing into it very hard. When you take your mouth away, the egg should pop out due to the increased air pressure in the bottle.

Free Ideas for "Bible Time"

Okay, I’m going to put together ideas for Bible time for your free homeschooling.

Ambleside Online format of daily time, that I have been using for many years, constitutes (1) Bible reading (you could consider Penny Gardner’s scripture highlights from Old or New Testament, or Bible Gateway); (2) Bible Memory, and (3) Hymn.

I just found a great Bible reading plan that is entirely free, where you go through the Bible in four years. It comes with discussion questions and periodic tests. My hyperlinks aren’t working in this post… Go to the AnchorCross website (http://anchorcross.org/books.shtml) and scroll down to "Through the Bible with my Child". Paragraph 3 says “The entire content of Through the Bible with My Child can be downloaded and read from this website free of charge. To view the book in pdf format, click here.” Click on the word “here” on that web page and a pdf document will download for you to use for your daily Bible time.

Today I also got a really great suggestion from a blog of doing the daily Keys for Kids each day, to keep it fun for the kids. I don’t know how that will work with my ten-year-old (going on 30 in his head), but I might give it a try.

Free English Grammar Curriculum

Okay, I know I had seen this site previously, but for some reason I never made a blog entry about free grammar resources. I'm sure this is not the only one out there (in fact, I KNOW of another one too, but don't have the website handy...). But I was looking at this one today, and it looks quite good!

This site is made in a way that an established student, say... beyond elementary, maybe... could work through the lessons alone, daily, and progress at his/her own speed.   However, in my opinion it could also be adapted to use with younger ones, with mom at the side, reading to the little'un, and asking questions, then filling in the provided (by young'un) answers.

This is intended to be used, used, and re-used forever, to completely cement all the correct grammar issues into the student's brain. It could be all you ever need for grammar. It even has tests.

It also has a "Premium" selection (a.k.a. you must pay something) that also looks great, like it gives immediate feedback and probably grades tests, etc. for $40/year, which is incredibly reasonable. I don't think I'll use that this year, cause the free stuff alone is amazing enough for me. But I might consider it for next year. (My kiddo is 5th, btw, with a reading level of reading whatever he wants and refusing to read what he doesn't want... So I'll sit with him on this one.)

So, give it a look-see. That web-address again is:
http://www.englishgrammar101.com/

[Disclaimer: I am listing all sites for my own and other homeschoolers' benefit. I get NO kick-back, nor affiliate privileges.]

A New Puppy in the House

Didn’t know how long we would wait to get a new dog, but some of the family were really wanting/needing a new furbaby to love.

We searched long and hard. Didn’t know for sure what we wanted. Didn’t want a pit bull, which our local shelter is full of.

Did want a yellow labrador puppy; one didn’t come along at the right time. Looked at one black dog, one year old; too much dog for us, and probably part pit bull.
Finally settled on one whose papers say they think he is 1/2 chocolate lab and 1/2 German Shorthaired Pointer.

I want my friends to tell me what they think.
Here are photos of the puppy we brought: