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Really, I’m fine

14 June 2011, 9:07 am

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Congratulations! You have been to to Ship Full O' Pirates over 100 times! Just thought you'd like to know.

It’s just that I’ve been busy with real life.  But in my email today I found something very share-worthy.

Free, printable, baby birth announcements.  Almost makes me want another baby.  Well, I kinda always want another baby, while at the same time am always glad that God is wiser than me.  Does that make sense?

But I also found these cute, puppy announcements!  Fun!  Don’t really want another puppy at this point either, but at the same time I know there will be another puppy in our not too distant future.  Am I making any sense to y’all today, or just to me?

Filed under Free Stuff.
1 Comment

Online Unit Studies, aka Free Homeschooling!

9 June 2011, 5:28 am

First, I looked around online and there are approximately 473 millionbilliontrillion literature based unit studies/lapbook/notebook plans already out there, and some of it is even free for the printing!

Overwhelming?  Just a tad.

I had to sleep on it.

I came up with a S.T.E.L.L.A.R. plan.

Shop right here on my book shelves, choose several books to find unit studies for.

Lemme ‘splain it to ya, Lucy.  I’m talking about lessons for my littles who are 13, 11, and 8.  I need a combo of unit study/lapbook/notebook type stuff.

These are the books I chose off my very own shelves, and each is followed by resource links I think might be useful.

Mountain Born by Elizabeth Yates

  • eThemes – Plenty of info, not much for smaller kids.
  • Loyal Books Blog – A review of Mountain Born, but no links or lessons.  Interesting blog.
  • A New Coat for Anna -A book about wool, from sheep to clothing.
  • Pele’s New Suit – Another book about wool, from sheep to clothing.  Alas, this one is a bit too young for my crew.

    The Sign of the Beaver – by Elizabeth George Speare

    • Homeschool Share has an entire unit study on this book just waiting to be printed off.  It has a fairly loose feel to it.  It’s arranged by chapter instead of day-by-day.  Might just use it all.
    • Squidoo has several beaver coloring pages.

    By the Great Horn Spoon! – by Sid Fleischman

      The Cricket in Times Square

      • Homeschool Share is on the ball again.  And again, it’s all laid out by chapter.  Lots of useful, fun stuff here.  Vocabulary Bingo! I can’t wait!  Seriously folks, click the bingo link.  You can do this, make it yourself or use this grid, and make a list from whatever you are reading to  your kids.  It’s that easy.
      • This one is deep, lots of language arts pages here.  I was just wanting a page like this one to re-enforce my recent teaching of contractions.
      • Lesson Pathways has a few neat resources linked here.

      Sarah, Plain and Tall – by Patricia MacLachlan

      Some of these books don’t have much available to use with them online so I’ll be:

      • making my own vocabulary lists and playing Vocabulary Bingo.
      • creating my own “Unscramble the Words” pages.
      • copying some of the artwork right out of the book to use as coloring pages for Rachel.
      • using the illustrations in the books as inspiration for art lessons.
      • flying by the seat of my pants, as it were.

       

      Filed under Books, Free Stuff, Homemade Stuff, Homeschooling, Makin' Do, Read Aloud, Unit Studies.
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      All Android App Advice Accepted and Appreciated

      7 June 2011, 5:23 am

      If I don’t have much to say this week it’s because I’m busy learning my new phone.

      Well, that, and catching up on the laundry.

      So, everybody, what apps shall I explore?  Any and All Android App Advice Accepted and Appreciated.

      Amazing alliteration, aye?

      Hey, maybe there’s a laundry app.  How cool would that be?  I’d pay money for that!

      Filed under Extra-Categorical.
      2 Comments

      Girly Girl

      6 June 2011, 5:46 am

      Saturday night during the movie….

      Her hair is straight as a board and doesn’t hold a curl so we bought a big tub of gel.

      Slumber caps are the very next best thing to a tiara to make a girl feel princess-y. She was a real champ, slept in that get-up all night and not one complaint!

      She let a little personality show in this picture.  :)

      Now, even on a straight hair day the girl has a Tigger sized bounce to her step, but today there was monumental bouncing, which when you think about it, doesn’t seem like much.  I mean, how much could a monument bounce.  Seems like a monument would just crumble into a pile of rubble and that would be that.  What were we talking about?

      Oh yeah, bouncy, flouncy, trouncy, pouncy, fun, fun, fun, fun, FUN!

      She loved those curls so much she almost didn’t want to go swimming this afternoon.  Almost.

      But right after swimming she brought me the curlers and that big ol’ tub o’ gel….

      No, not on a Sunday night.  See me next Saturday afternoon, Curly Top.

       

       

      Filed under Rachel.
      7 Comments

      It’s like a joke, only it really happened, sorta.

      3 June 2011, 5:43 am

      Psst ~ There’s a link for free clip art at the end of this post, so read the whole thing, ok?  Ok.

      I play several instruments, guitar, piano, ukulele and so on.  I come from a family of artists on one side and musicians on the other.  Long history of creativity.  My dad taught me to play Malaguena on the guitar when I was about 13 or so.  When Boone bought his guitar I taught him to play Malaguena.  

      A few days ago we pilled all the kids into the Suburban and went to our favorite guitar store in town and bought Jacob his birthday present.  He’s been wanting a guitar since forever.  Now he has one.

      While I was helping him choose his new precious and paying for the purchase, my hubs was talking to the owner of the store.  She asked him which of us were musicians and if we take lessons or if we’re self taught.  She wanted to explain to him about all the many wonderful guitar instructors that they have there at the store.   Those of you who know me, know that I don’t abide other folks teaching my kids (usually) and I really don’t abide following other folks’ schedules for lessons.  Anyway, John is more polite than I am, and he just begged off politely.  We were done with our transaction anyway, and we left.

      He told me about the conversation once we were in the car.  I laughed and said he should have told her how we start the kids out teaching them to play Malaguena on the guitar.  See?  He’s way more polite than me.

      The beauty part is that Boone is now teaching Jacob to play Malaguena on his shiny new guitar.  Jake’s starting to get it.

      What?  You say you don’t know Malaguena?  Oh my, you are in for a treat!

      Click here to go to YouTube to watch and listen to Jose Feliciano play our beloved Malaguena!

      It’s a difficult song, he does a fair job of it.  ;)

      Yes, we are self taught guitar players.  Maybe we don’t play as well as we would if we took lessons and observed a regimented practice schedule (makes me break out in a rash just thinking about it).  And maybe we play better than if we jumped through all those hoops.  The thing is, we’re happy learning on our own, and we enjoy playing our guitars.

      For those of you who use clip art, I found this wonderful site today.  It’s called Gospel Gifs, and there are tons of graphics you may use for free.  That’s where I got the nifty guitar image I used in this post.

      Filed under Birthdays, Boone, Fun Stuff, Homeschooling, Jacob, Music.
      4 Comments

      Aesop’s Fables Copywork

      2 June 2011, 5:49 am

      Aesop’s Fables are (some of them) longer than Mother Goose Rhymes (ahem, some of them).  When you are using longer passages for copywork, assign only PART of the passage each day.

      Here are the Fables.  Just copy and paste them into the form of your choosing on the WorksheetWorks site.  Then print out some of the coloring pages.

      • TheColor has simple, yet not plain, Aesop’s coloring pages.
      • KidsPages has some playful versions.

      Or you can use this site. It’s called ThatResourceSite.  They are Catholic, I am not, for this purpose I don’t think it’s an issue.  Aesop is covered very thoroughly here, copywork pages of the fables, coloring pages, they even have a book study resource page that I can’t wait to scour.  Very nice set up here.

      The reason I LOVE this idea of making my own themed copywork books is that I totally chafe at being told what to teach my very own kids, and when and where and how.  This-a-way I can call all the shots!  Control-Freak? Eh, I prefer Militant Homeschool Mom.  This is one of the reasons the whole idea of homeschooling caught my eye so easily.

      Hmm, not have to line up my entire life to revolve around the GOVERNMENT SCHOOL SCHEDULE?  I’m in!


      Filed under Copywork, Free Stuff, Fun Stuff, Homemade Stuff, Homeschooling, Poetry.
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      Water Safety

      1 June 2011, 9:12 am

      There is a pool in the back yard.  What a luxury!  We live in Texas where there is swimming weather for much of the year.   We’re spoiled, and we know it!  I love being able to let the kids go swimming every day.  

      I used to be very freaked out with the possibility of one of the kids drowning.  But the longer we live with a pool in the back yard, I find, the less worked up I get.

      On one level that’s a grand thing.  Nobody wants to deal with a freaked out mom. Not the kids, not the husband.  It’s just not fun at all.

      But on the other hand, drowning only takes a few minutes and it doesn’t look like what we think it looks like.  I linked to this article about what drowning DOES look like last year, but we all need to read it again since it’s swimming weather for most of us already.  My friend, Michelle, linked it on FB today and I decided I’d share it with y’all again.

      Be careful.  Keep your kids safe.  It’s worth a few minutes diligence, right?

      At a party we had recently, one of the men present, let’s call him Stan, because that’s his name (I crack me up!)  Anyway, Stan had brought his little son, I think he’s about 2 years old.  Stan and the boy didn’t swim, but they did hang out on the back patio (where the pool is).  So Stan did the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.  He had his son wear a life vest the whole time they were here.  The kid ate in the vest, he played on the playground in the vest, he tagged along behind Stan all day wearing a life vest.  Stan didn’t make a big to-do over the deal, he just put the vest on the kid and that was that.  Very cool, Stan!

      Now, I’m not gonna ask every parent who visits here with littles in tow to put a life vest on them and leave it there until they wave goodbye down the driveway.  And probably the wearing of a life vest isn’t gonna save the life of every kid every time they fall into water.  But my guess is that it ain’t gonna hurt either, and that kid wearing the vest has way better odds than someone without.

      Now I’m gonna step down offa my soap-box and give you a link to the article about what drowning does look like.

      Thanks for the reminder Michelle.

      Filed under Safety, Summer Fun!.
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      Mother Goose Copywork

      1 June 2011, 5:36 am

      Last week I found a wonderful site for making your own copywork pages. It’s called WorksheetWorks and the page I am thrilled to the bone about is the Handwriting Practice page.  I was looking for a way to make math copywork pages where I could put each fact and then have a nice line, including the mid-line dashes, for the child to write the fact just below.  This site does that and so much more.  I’ll be using this site to create all our copy work from now on!  I’m very excited about this find!  And the best part is it’s FRE-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E!!! (And just so you can drool over this as much as me – it’s copy/paste friendly!!!)

      Here are some beautiful, Mother Goose coloring pages to print for your littles.

      Karen’s Whimsey – lovely stuff here.

      Super Coloring – gigantic site, I linked straight to the lovely, sweet part.

      Mother Goose for Kids has several simple Mother Goose pages.

      Coloring Book Pages has a nice selection of Mother Goose pictures to color.

      Some of the above links have Mother Goose coloring pages that include the text.  Let your child make a whole Mother Goose book and you print off some of the accompanying copywork.  I’m really diggin’ this whole Mother Goose coloring book/copywork book idea.

      Now I’m off to find some Aesop’s Fables links.

      Filed under Copywork, Homemade Stuff, Homeschooling, Poetry.
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      Counting my chickens before they are hatched…

      31 May 2011, 12:11 am

      Also known as CANDLING THE EGGS!

      Today is day 15 out of 21.  (Today meaning Monday, May 30th, around 11 p.m.)

      For the past half hour or so I’ve been peering into the future.    I was out in the barracks, in the dark, holding a flashlight, looking at secrets.

      I got to see life inside the shell.

      With each egg that I picked up I held my breath until I could get the right angle with the flashlight to show me for sure.  And the angle is everything.

      Some of the eggs seemed to not want to show me any sign of life, and that was discouraging.  But as I went on I found more and more eggs with blood vessels and moving peeps inside.  I felt compelled to go back and have another look at the “lifeless” ones.  You have to turn, look, turn, look, turn, look… a lot on some of them, but my technique improved the longer I kept at it.  There are still a small group, maybe 4, that I couldn’t be sure of, but out of the 35 (gosh, I forgot how many we have, I think 35 is right) it looks like a very high percentage are lively.

      The first time we candled these eggs was Friday the 20th, so that would have been day 5.  At that time it looked like about half of the eggs weren’t viable, and I sorted them as I went.  When I was done I looked at the array and found, to my amusement, that the ones I thought were lively were white and the ones I thought were duds were brown (with about 3 exceptions).  When you’re reading your chicken book and see that they tell you that it’s harder to see through that brown shell… they mean it.  Consequently, we let all the eggs stay in the incubator even though I couldn’t see anything good in roughly half of them.

      And we’ve done the same thing this time.  There was actually one that we’re fairly certain is a dud, so we marked it’s location and we’ll look again in a few days and see what’s what.

      We’ve been very diligent, turning the eggs 3x/day.  This time next week we ought to have a bunch of peeps!  Very exciting!

      Just in case you haven’t been following, these eggs are from a mixed flock of Silver Laced Wyandottes, Barred Rocks, New Hampshire Red, and Brown Leghorns.  Our rooster is a Wyandotte.  So some of these peeps could be pure Wyandotte, and the rest would be mixes.  You can catch up on all our chicken goings-on in the “chickens” category.

      I would have been happy to take photos of the whole operation, but the kids were in bed and I had a flashlight in one hand and an egg in the other.  It’s a tricky business, candling eggs.  And you have to be careful.  More than once I almost let one slip out of my fingers a bit too far above the resting spot.

      Since I was unable to take photos, here are three different sites that teach about candling eggs.   They all have photos.

      Image(s) courtesy VintageHolidayCrafts.com

      Filed under Chickens.
      1 Comment

      Custom Cross Stitch Pattern Maker

      30 May 2011, 5:29 am

      I just found three sites that are gonna come in so handy when my kids get married and start having children.  Babies are the only reason to cross stitch.  Really.

      Here are all the nursery rhymes.

      Here is the cross stitch pattern maker for the text.

      Here is the cross stitch pattern maker for the images.

      In my head I have a very cozy image of my daughters-in-law (of the future, mind you) sitting at the table with my precious grandchildren saying, “Here, Honey, use this cross stitch sampler Granny made for you and do your copywork.”

       

      Cute, huh?  OK, maybe I won’t get around to doing the cross stitch, but it’s a nice thought.

      What are Little Boys Made Of?

      What are little boys made of?

      Snips and snails,

      And puppy dog tails,

      That’s what little boys are made of.

      What are Little Girls Made Of?

      What are little girls made of?
      Sugar and spice,
      And everything nice,
      That’s what little girls are made of.

       

      Filed under Copywork, Free Stuff, Fun Stuff, Homemade Stuff, Homemaking, Homeschooling.
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