Random Thoughts on Planning Homeschool

The boys are at their Grandma's house for the weekend and I am home playing catch up for a nasty bug I has this last week. I'm planning and prepping some of our summer school ideas and decided to think out loud a little bit.

Flash Cards: Didn't realize they would be so hard to find online. Glad I'm able to create my own...

Flash Cards: Make a craft activity out of them. We will be creating a set of flash cards with each of our Units/LapBooks, I decided that one of our craft time projects will be making the flashcards..

Early Reading Books: I love some of the stories we have found. "Mouse Makes Words", "Sir Small and the Dragonfly", and "A Dozen Dogs" will be our first 3 for reading time. I haven't found a Cars (Disney) one yet, hopefully this next week as our big summer unit will be using Cars and Route 66. We have a Super Size LapBook, a field trip, and lots of fun activities planned to go with it. I suppose a trip to Walmart is in order to check for an early reader Cars book.

Games: Computer Games, I'm so glad I found the open-source community. I have come across a ton of games and educational links so I can set the boys' school computer up knowing the games will be educational and fun.

Balance: This is the goal... I hope I can come up with a balanced schedule that is effective and friendly.

Old Computers salvaged and running smoothly...

You guys know I don't have new computers.... so today I pulled out my laptop (vintage Windows ME installed originally) and started tweaking... I am deleting as much of the Windows as I can (I still will have Windows on the machine for 3 programs that depend on it...) but hope to run Ubuntu as the main OS. Currently I'm running Ubuntu from CD (amazingly enough my CD-Rom drive is actually working today...). I can't believe how much smoother this poor laptop runs even running from the CD... I have 3 tabs of FireFox open and haven't seen any slow down... I don't have much else running and I'm working my graphics stuff on the desktop today (can't run anything else or it will overload... )

Next project, try to reclock the processors in both machines to see if we can't get a little more speed and response out of them... Some day I will be able to afford a newer machine (custom built to my specs with lots of RAM, and lots of Graphics RAM, tons of Harddrive, and a quick processor...)

So You Think you Can Dance

So we watched the first 2 episodes and will hopefully get to watch Thursday's tomorrow after I pick up my boys from their grandma's house... My Mom recorded it for me as my VCR can't record from my TV (long story... ). Anyway, watching the first 2 installments I can tell this is going to be an awesome season. I was inspired by some of the talent even if their style wasn't one of my favorites, sorry but I'm a traditional Jazz/Lyrical/Tap/Ballet kind of girl... I like some of the contemporary but the hip/hop, pop, breakdancing stuff doesn't really get me like the classical... Some of the ballroom and Latin stuff is fun to watch though.
Anyway, can't wait for the season to get going and the competition to start taking shape.

Transitional Begining

Tonight is Preschool Graduation for Cameron. He doesn't want school to end (blessed words to a Mother's ears) so we are starting the homeschool year June 2nd. I am creating as much as I can at home and will only be buying minimal supplies and a few reading books. Since my scrapbooking has left me with all kinds of papers, stickers, etc... I will use those whenever possible. We are also going to create our flash cards using Digital Scrapbooking techniques and then store them in a file box grouped together. Hopefully this way we can reuse them and keep them from getting too lost.

So here it is, a new begining.

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So You Think you can Dance Premiers tonight!!!

Now that American Idol is over, let the dancing begin... We love So You Think You Can Dance on Fox and it premiers tonight... It actually works out perfectly as the usual Thursday TV line up goes YUCK during the summer and Dance is a mostly family friendly show. Best yet, my boys (all 3!) love it...

I love it too, must have something to do with my life in dance...

Anyway, I will most likely be posting a Friday / weekend bit about Dance through out the summer... Stay Tuned!!!

5,6,7,8......

Summer School Planning

Since we are considering homeschool as the option for Bug, I decided that Summer School would be the best opportunity to try it out... We are going to study cars and route 66 as well as travel. I hope to complete 2 lapbooks with him. 1 will be about Route 66 and will include ABC activities as well as counting, a map, matching, a picture story cards. The second will tie into the summer theme of travel and planning using Flat Stanely. If you are interested in hosting one of our Flats this summer let me know... I want to use Flat Stanley as a way to show him maps, location, the post office, letter writing, mailing, etc... I hope it will be fun...

Menue Madness

So it is Monday and I have a sick husband so meals are a little tweaked this week...

Today: Chicken Rice Casserole: (brown rice, canned chicken, black beans, corn, and salsa)
Tuesday: Leftover Beef Stew
Wednesday: Chicken /Spinach Lasagna
Thursday: At my Mom's so whatever she fixes
Friday: Burgers


There it is... I feel better now.. Check out http://orgjunkie.com/ for more menu planning and fun organizational ideas.

The Joys of Mother's Day or whatever you call this

So with a sick husband and an allergy/cold riddled baby my Mother's Day was lets just say chaotic.
I got breakfast made (didn't turn out like the recipe but it was good.), got the boys and myself dressed and off to church, sang and ran the soundboard for church service , came home made lunch, did dishes, made dinner, babied the husband (he has a cold), and colored with Cameron. I did manage to get 3 digital scrapbook pages done. Check out my GDS Gallery for my latest layouts.

So it was just another day here in chaos, oh and yes I did talk to my Mom today and I think Mike talked to his Mom...

Happy Mother's Day to all the Mom's out there.

Computer Help and Training

So I've decided to start offering Computer Help and Training Time. I've been helping friends and family on their computers for a while now and realized that this could be a way to fill in the gap money wise... People that know me , know I am a borderline computer geek. I like to figure out what is wrong and fix it when I can . I only call in for help once I've tried every angle I know. So starting this last week I began charging for my services $20 an hour on-site $40 and hour phone service... I am teaching computer basics (how to send attachments, burn cd's, basics using WORD, EXCEL, etc.., and general computer help. ) as well as general system maintenance. I am also going to help get people on board with some of my favorites in open source (Open Office, Firefox, and Thunderbird as well as ClamWin) I figure going Open Source saves all of us some money...
If you are local to me an need some computer help or training give me a call...

Menu Madness

So it is already Tuesday and i haven't posted my Menu...

Last night (Monday) Crock pot pasta and meatballs
Tuesday: Citrus Pesto Chicken Pasta (my own recipe inspired by Rachael Ray) and Salad
Wednesday: Cameron's fish and fries (I let Cameron arrange the fish and fries on the baking sheet and put them in the oven...)
Thursday: At my Mom's so it will be her call
Friday: BBQ wrapped steaks (grocery Outlet find)
Saturday: ???? Not sure what the plan is yet
Sunday: Mother's Day (I'm hoping Mike will cook)

So there it is gang... I'll share the pesto chicken recipe later..

Summer School

So Cameron and I were talking about summer and the fact that their really isn't school during the summer. We talked about Vacation Bible School, but he wasn't convinced so I decided to search the internet for some freebies that we could do summer "home"school. He likes crafty projects and I have a ton of supplies so I thought about lapbooks. One of my business customers is a homeschooler and I remembered seeing some of the lapbooks her girls had done. Thankfully I found several sites offering free lapbook guides, so this summer our activities will hopefully all tie into a lapbook for Cameron to create... I know Day out with Thomas will be a good Train lapbook, and the annual Concours d'Elegance car show will be a good Route 66/ car lapbook, and our VBS will be a good space lapbook... that should keep him busy... I'm sure we will find some more along the way as well