Ballerinas

The girls are set to begin ballet classes next week. We went dancewear shopping yesterday. We came home and fixed their hair and put on "stage" make-up for their Daddy to see. They were beautiful (as always).

Adding a Few More

1962

1976

(The year I was born.)

1984

(My hair was big in the nineties, but it was never this big.)

1986

(If I really had this hair I'm not so sure I'd be smiling about it.)

Okay, unless I decide or find the time to dig through pics and yearbook my husband, I am done with the yearbooking stuff.

I Yearbooked Myself

1966

1968

1974

(This is my kids favorite)

1992

(I did look a lot like this then.)

1996

(The kids like this one, too. Why, I have no idea.)

I don't have the link at the moment. But, just search for yearbook yourself.

Let me know if you do it so I can laugh at yours, too.

Free Grammar and Writing Workbook

I may have posted about this when I posted what we are doing this year, but I thought it deserved it's very own post.

My girls were very behind on their writing skills. I needed something that would brush them up on grammar (although, I do think that you get most of the grammar that you actually need from this workbook), but would especially teach them good sentence and paragraph structure and how to get their ideas on paper in a way that makes sense to whoever reads it. I was completely willing to purchase a Language program. I had narrowed it down to Abeka or Bob Jones. Then I happened upon this free online (printable) grammar and writing handbook from Scott Foresman. Since I actually know some homeschoolers that use Scott Foresman (and know it is used in public schools as well) I decided that we had nothing to lose by trying. So, we began to use it this summer. You only have to do one side of one worksheet per day, or you could arrange it however would fit your schedule. My girls are doing 4 pages a day, so that they can catch up to the level that they need to be working. Anyway, I am extremely pleased with it. The girls seem to enjoy doing it. Kelsi has done about 90 pages and Keeli has done around 70 and I have already seen a drastic improvement. Try it, you just might really like it!

Scott Foresman Grammar and Writing


I'm beginning to think that with a little effort on the teacher's part, you actually could homeschool your child for FREE!

AAA

I found a couple of neat links for math and spelling. I pretty much found them by accident. I wanted to find a list of what you should learn each year of math. With your help your children could essentially use either of these as their curriculum for math and spelling (for free I might add) or you could just use them when they need a little practice.

AAAKNOW (Math)

AAASPELLING

Bible Drive-thru

Okay. I found another really great link. A woman has written devotions for children and put them on blogger. She works her way through many books of the Bible. If you use them I would suggest starting in January (when she started posting). She also has them divided into topics on her sidebar. Enjoy!

Bible Drive-Thru

Learn To Read Links

I'm in the process of doing a good bit of web searching. I'm just searching for sites that might help us in various areas. I have found a couple of really good reading sites.

Succeed To Read This site helps you learn to teach your child to read. It teaches you step by step. There are some neat games to play to help your child. I think I will be using some of these methods with Mason. There is also a cute game to play to improve short term memory. So, I will probably try that game out with Keeli, I think it may help some of her processing issues.

Starfall This site has tons of activities, games, etc. That aid tremendously in teaching your child to read.

I hope that someone else finds these helpful. I'll be adding links to other sites that I find helpful.

More Freebies

I found another cool website with lots of ideas to learn things for free online. There's even some things for the grown-up like language courses. Check it out.

FreelyEducate

Look What I Did

I started with these:

I was able to buy 40 lbs. of Ginger Gold apples for $16.50.

I decided to try something new.

So, I did this:

Then this :

Which turned into this:

Then I mashed them up, put them in jars, placed them in my brand new :

Water Bath Canner:

This is what they looked like when they were finished:

And here was the very first bowl of homemade applesauce. Which was very quickly gobbled up by my applesauce loving son, who at least for the moment thinks I am the greatest Mom ever!

This was my first attempt at using apples to can. I have made strawberry jam for the freezer and canned and have canned salsa with a friend, but this was the very first time that I ever canned anything on my own. I definitely did it the good old-fashioned hard way. I do not have an apple pealer or a sieve. So, I peeled the apples with a knife (my hubby helped a little) and after they cooked I mashed them with a potato masher. It's more like chunky applesauce, but that's good here, because most of the picky people around here are picky about texture and prefer it this way. I also don't have a big stock pot, so each of my batches only yielded 4 jars. I think I will borrow my Mom's stock pot next time.

My next project is apple butter!

Neat Links

Thanks to Laurie, I recently found Biblical Womanhood's website.

She has made a really neat list of all her favorite links and I thought some of you might find them interesting as well.

http://www.biblicalwomanhoodonline.com/links.htm

Multiplication Help

Does anyone have any tips on memorizing the multiplication tables? Have you used anything in particular that you found to be particularly helpful? I would love to know what worked for you.

Homeschool Freebies

Laurie, one of my favorite bloggers, posted some really neat freebies. So, I thought I would share them here, too.

Homeschoolshare has lots of neat freebies. Unit Studies, Lapbooks, etc.

BBC offers free foreign language courses online.

Looks like some pretty neat stuff. Thanks for sharing Laurie!

The Latest

Well, my friend Jordan tagged me, but I am either too dumb or too uninteresting to come up with any good answers. So, I guess I'll wait on my brain to kick in before I do the tag.

We've been schooling hot and heavy. We did a good bit of school over the summer, but we are working on a routine right now. I've also been assigning them more work. We're just being more structured than we were during the summer. That means we are a lot busier around here. Co-op starts in 3 weeks and dance starts in 4, so things are really gonna pick up around here soon.

The kids are doing really well with their schooling for the most part (due to many things we are hurriedly playing catch-up, but that's the beauty of homeschooling, we actually can catch up without any ill effects in the future). We are still having our meltdowns at least a couple of times a week. Although, as she gets older they are becoming milder.

Well, that's the best I can do for the moment. Have lots to do today. The kids are going to stay with my brother and sister-in-law overnight. That means P and I are getting a much needed night out together. Woo-Hoo!!!!

In His Steps

I just finished reading "In His Steps" by Charles Sheldon. It was an amazing book. Inspiring and Convicting. I HIGHLY Recommend it!

You can check out a review HERE .

You can also read the book online HERE.

I think this author must have coined the phrase "What Would Jesus Do?". The book is written about a Pastor who challenges his church to spend a year making decisions and acting only after asking the question "What would Jesus Do?". This is a very old book, but it is very, very good. You will love it!

Just curious

"When a woman speaks in a room to her husband and children, does she make any sound?"

Just wondering!