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The House Fairy

Guess who visited our house tonight?

THE HOUSE FAIRY!

If you have not heard of this lovely lady, she is the neatest invention since air conditioning! She visits your child's room once a week to inspect the room's cleanliness. If she likes what she sees, she leaves a small gift, if she doesn't, she just leaves fairy dust. She also generally leaves a note of some kind for the kids to enjoy. You never know when she will visit, so you ALWAYS have to be ready. My girls LOVE HER. She is a friend of The Flylady. You can find ALL about her HERE.

Here is what happened when she visited us this evening:

The girls were out shopping with their grandparents, so I think that The House Fairy seized the opportunity to check out their room.

Their eyes lit up when they realized that she had been in their room!


We saw evidence (fairy dust) of her entry at the window. This confirmed for us that The House Fairy DOES indeed have wings.


She must love tea, because she had a cup and then washed her own dishes...


She left a picture of herself for the girls, with a message for them...


The girls had a clean room, so they received a gift from her!


I have to say, I am just as excited as these two little girls! I got to enjoy their clean room, and I didn't remind them even ONCE this week to clean it!

If I could only get the boys on board...

Preschool Activity Box

Here is a familiar scenario at our house:

1. I find great ideas to use with preschoolers during school time (mostly from you wonderful homeschool bloggers!)
2. I think to myself...I will remember to do that...
3. I FORGET! Or I forgot WHERE I put that idea for reference...

So, a few years back, I started collecting those ideas with the intent of putting them together into a box that I could go to when I needed some inspiration. I needed all the ideas in ONE PLACE! Well, I FINALLY sat down to do that this morning.

Here's what it looks like:

I started with colored index cards and a card box with dividers.


I thought up how I wanted to divide my activities...here is what I came up with...


Now, time to add the activities...

If the activity needed directions, I usually just put it on one card, like this...


But, for the most part, I tried to do groups of cards like this...


I couldn't see flipping through thousands of cards looking for an idea during a school day. I needed easy, so less is best for me...

Now, when I find an idea I can take two seconds and just add it to a card!

A few WONDERFUL places to get ideas for keeping your preschooler busy during school time:

• 101 Activities to Do with Your Toddler
• This Page is FABULOUS! Tons of ideas and links to ideas...
• Article by Karen Andreola on Preschoolers

A few GREAT blogs that I know of for ideas:

• ABC and 123
• 1+1+1=1
• Totally Tots

If you know of any others, please share! I'm going to put links in my sidebar for preschool idea sites.

I think I might go play with my kids now...I have suddenly stumbled upon a few hundred great ideas :)

The Many Uses of Super Sliders

Well, since it is summer and we are in full swing of being just plain lazy, I thought that I would give you a glimpse of our find today...Super Sliders. Who knew that those little coasters that move furniture could be so fun? Our kids. So here's our list of today's educational, and not so educational uses of Super Sliders.

• Floor Air Hockey
• Regular Indoor Hockey
• The Many Forms of Dance, including but not limited to Break Dancing
• Massage Tools
• For Defining Friction
• Teething Toys
• Exercise
• Sledding
• Indoor Cross Country Skiing
• Calculating Distance Traveled
• Shuffleboard
• Baby Shuffleboard
• Weight Distribution
• Stencils
• Frisbees
  
• Actual Coasters

The way I see it, you could just buy a couple of sets of these, throw away your home gyms, your air hockey tables, and your teething toys, and then just replace them with these little gems. They would be much easier to put away...toss them in a draw and be done! How fabulous.

AND, because I'm feeling incredibly ornery this evening...here's J~'s favorite use...




Or, you could just be normal and use them to move furniture...

Homeschooling Humor Blog Carnival - First Edition

Welcome to the very first edition of the Homeschooling Humor Blog Carnival! We have a few funny stories to offer up for your Monday perusal! Enjoy!


Dana Hanley at Principled Discovery gives us a glimpse into the mind of a four year old with, The Insanity of Itsy Bitsy.


Tammi Kay at Now Boarding Gate 3 shares a late night homeschooling funny with, So It's Late at Night...



Karen at Spunky Homeschool gives a humorous rebuttal to an anti-homeschooling article with, The Case Against Homeschooling.



Rebecca at Leaving Footprints presents Golly Gee (our family blog actually).






Thank you for submitting your stories! I enjoyed them, and I hope that others will as well! Please consider helping to promote this blog carnival so it will grow and we can enjoy our Mondays with a little Homeschooling Humor! If you would like to submit a funny story, you can do so HERE.

Laughing a Little More Today,

Our Educational Priorities

As I am in the middle of reviewing goals and planning for this next year, I have not been writing as much as I would like to about our day to day activities. I hope to change that soon. Until then, I thought that I would share something Ben made for me at the beginning of last year. (I had planned to put some pretty dried flowers on it...ah well, someday...) It is up in our kitchen and will continue to be, for as long as we have children at home. It sums up our educational goals and helps to remind us of our priorities.


I really like the English Standard Version which says

"For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge..."

Knowledge is the supplement not the number one goal.

Custom Coloring Pages

Want to see something cool? Your own personal coloring pages!

Paint.net is a downloadable program that is a lot of fun. You can edit photos or create your own. The pencil sketch application did this one...


J~'s obviously thrilled to be in the pack-n-play. However, I bet my girls will enjoy coloring him!

Have fun!

Charlotte's Writings

Look what I found at our local used homeschool book store!

I found the whole set. I have read A Charlotte Mason Companion, but have never read any of Charlotte's own writings. You can read them online at Ambleside, but there is just something about holding a book! Guess I will start at the beginning...Slowly...

Parental Rights

If you have not already done so, PLEASE check this out.

There are some pretty crazy things going on right now with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in England.

Thankful for Our Freedoms,

90 Day Bible Challenge - Day 1

I have a confession.

I have NEVER, not EVER, read the Bible all the way through, much less in 90 days. I have been a Christian for a lot of years, and I'm pretty sure that I have read every book, but never in the 'read the Bible in a year' kind of way. I have tried MANY times. I don't know how many times I have read the book of Genesis! I have tried numerous reading plans, and for whatever reason, have failed every time.

THAT is why I WANT to do this. I want to be obedient to what God has laid on my heart to do.

That said, here are a few thoughts that are swimming around my head today with regard to this 90 Day Challenge.

1. I DON'T have to read all the chapters at one time. (I can't take 16 breaths in the same location, much less read 16 chapters at one sitting :) - DIVISION

2. I DON'T have to read first thing in the morning. (I tend to think this way: That if my quiet time isn't quiet then it doesn't count...crazy I know) - ANYTIME

3. I CAN read aloud to my children. (Funny story, while I was reading aloud to them today, they decorated me with streamers!) - TOGETHER

4. I DON'T want to skip over parts that I think I know, but read them fully with the expectation of learning something new. - THOROUGHNESS

5. I WILL make this a priority. - PRIORITY

6. I WILL use quiet opportunities to read my Bible (my time nursing J~) - OPPORTUNITY

7. I WILL pray. - PRAYER

8. I WON'T, I repeat, WILL NOT be a perfectionist in this. If I fall behind, I WILL NOT quit. - PERSEVERANCE

These are my resolutions.



I made the above at Wordle. You can make your own or you are welcome to snag mine. They are printable! It's saved publicly under 90 Day Bible Challenge.

Persevering after only one day :)

Rocks of Remembrance

God has taken me through some pretty rough times. Nothing that is uncommon to man, but from my selfish perspective, some rough times. Thing is, He has always walked with me. He is sovereign, and for whatever reason, He chose those trials for me. To grow me, to mold me, to take this stubborn clay pot and shape it closer to the image of His perfect Son.

He has also poured out tremendous blessing upon me. Not for anything that I have done, but because He is a loving Father who loves to give good gifts to His children. The fact that I am one of His children is proof of His abundant lovingkindness (and patience:)

In Joshua 4, God commands the Israelites to set up a memorial of stones to remember what He had done for them in crossing the Jordan.

"Go over before the ark of the LORD your God into the middle of the Jordan. Each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, to serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, 'What do these stones mean?' tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD.

The stones were to serve as a reminder, a conversation piece, of what God had done for them.

I thought I would share a picture of my 'Rocks of Remembrance'. Each one has a special meaning, either of a trial that God taken me through, or a blessing that He has bestowed.


I hope that as this little bowl sits out on a shelf, it will be a beautiful reminder of where God has taken me and how He as never left me nor forsaken me. I also look forward to the days my children say "Mama, what are those rocks?" It will give me one more chance to tell them of God's faithfulness.

Blog Map Geography

Several days ago I added a Flag Counter to both of our blogs. I thought it would be fun for the kids and I to see if we could 'collect' all 50 flags. Then I remembered that I had this book, so we decided to put it to use!

I copied a map for everyone, gave them a sticker sheet, and then set the Flag Counter in front of them.

For the girls, I told them the state and they found them on the map.

For my boys, they had to first identify the state by the flag itself or the abbreviation, then find it on the map.


They had fun decorating their maps...notice the hearts :)


They added a compass rose, which Q~ says means "Never Eat Soggy Worms".


We are over halfway to all 50!


Stickers are always fun, but they were an especially big hit this rainy morning!

Our Lifestyle of Learning - 90 Day Bible Challenge

If you are a homeschooler who has not heard of Our Lifestyle of Learning, please, go check it out! It is a fairly new online homeschooling community that has been a great encouragement to me. There are so many experienced moms there to answer questions, encourage, and give ideas.

Right now, there are about 30 different groups that you can plug into,,,depending upon your interest, and I just started a summer group - The 90 Day Bible Challenge.


If you would like to read the Bible cover to cover in 90 days, we are starting June 15th and would love to have you join in! I'm looking forward to the fellowship and ACCOUNTABILITY to help me finish this challenge.

There are even reading plans for kids of all ages, so they can join in too. Talk about a summer reading program!

If you aren't a homeschooler, please grab the information in the sidebar and join with me! Don't forget to email me so I can link to you!

Looking forward to growing in Him this summer,

Homeschool Record Book

It's that time of year again...planning time. I actually like planning. I'm weird that way, I know. I have tried so many different planning ideas, books, pages, etc...that when it came to planning time last year, I was frustrated. Frustrated to the point that I decided to make my own. I saw an idea on an old CM Blog Carnival for making a plan/record book and decided to try it for this year. I have loved it! I changed a few things to make it work for our family, but I love looking back at all the things we have accomplished.

I made two books. 1 planning book (for goals and plans) and 1 recording book (for things we actually finished).


(Mental note to self: Make sure books are two VERY different colors this year!) I ended up putting the kids artwork in between the two covers so I could tell the difference between books. It worked out well though, because I think it made the kids feel special to see their work on the front of my book!


Since showing both books would make this post a mile long, I will break it up and show only the record book for this post.

As I said before, I have LOVED looking back at all we have accomplished. So many times in my planning, I have planned too much, or inappropriately (i.e. 3 pages of math when 1 would have been better). This has left things in my planning books that aren't 'checked' off. I don't know if it's my personality or what, but this DRIVES ME CRAZY! Soooo...having a book that only has things we accomplished has been a real motivator for me this year.

Unlike my planning book, my record book only has four sections:

Attendance, Recording Pages, Assessments/Reviews, Misc.

The first section is attendance. I just created a simple title page to put the tab onto then put one attendance sheet per child in this section.

Donna Young has some great attendance forms. I just noticed that she has some new Colonial style forms. They look beautiful!

The second and by far the biggest section is for my weekly record forms.

I got the majority of my ideas for forms from the Tanglewood Corebook. That being said, I'm not going to upload my forms onto Homeschool Launch because I don't want to infringe upon their rights. Plus, their downloadable book is only $5 and well worth it I might add! I just took the ideas and made them work for our family...

Here is one week's worth of independent work for one child. I have forty of these pages per child in my book. I highlighted each child's name in a different color to easily distinguish what page I was looking for.


This is the record page for all the things we do together...I loved the idea of just circling the day we did things...I think this is Tanglewood's sparkling gem!....again, 40 of these total.


At the end of each week, I put a journal page, so I could review the week. This one IS my creation, so it is on my Homeschool Launch page. My file actually has nine different pages with different pictures. I used things that we would be studying this year to mix it up a little. I'm so crazy like that:)


So that I wouldn't have to flip between pages so often, I arranged all the record forms by week. So my record pages look like this: First, independent work pages for child 1, child 2, child 3, and child 4, Then, together work form, and Finally, the journal page. I copied front to back to save on paper and space. I put this combination together forty times and put it behind the tab. Whew!

The third section is for assessments and reviews. The Tanglewood Corebook has a neat system for reviewing goals every six weeks and we used pages from that for this section. I also put my Math u See, Spelling Power, and Sight word recording pages here.


The last section is just a misc. section: Things I want to do differently next year, to do pages, etc...whatever strikes my fancy...

I also put a pocket folder in the back to hold misc. papers and such. I took everything to Kinkos and had it bound. I'm glad I did, because they bound it much nicer than I could have. I had them put two covers on it...1 regular and 1 clear plastic. It has lasted all year.

Where as I will pitch my planning book in the trash this year, my record book is one that I will treasure! It's everything that God has given us the grace to finish!