Reviewer Giveaway!

I came across a new blog today full of reviews and goodies.

Here is a link to a great review of Safeway Bright Green products as well as a giveaway.

Summer School

Since the forecast today is 80 degrees I decided to let the boys have school outside today.

Cameron got out one of the tents and set it up; Mommy helped him put a top on the tent for some extra shade.

[caption id="attachment_221" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Cameron is trying out the summer school tent"][/caption]

Isn't homeschool great!

Art Appreciation Sale at In the Hands of a Child

The wonderful ladies at In the Hands of a Child have done it again! This time an awesome deal on art related project packs.

Help Your Child Develop an Appreciation and
Knowledge for the Arts with These
Exciting Project Packs!

Save 40% on these Feature Units!
e-Book Format Only!

Mary Cassatt
Art Appreciation
Mozart
Music Appreciation

Use Code: Artful09

Hurry!  This offer is only good until June 1, 2009

Expires June 1, 2009
Code good for eBook format only.
Cannot be combined with any other offer,
special, discount, coupon or sale.
Tax & Shipping not included in calculating discount price.
Not valid toward prior purchases.

Rosetta Stone Latin III Giveaway.

Jenefer is hosting a giveaway contest for Rosetta Stone! Rosetta Stone is the fastest way to learn a language and has been the #1 foreign language curriculum among homeschoolers for a while — and you can WIN the *all new* version 3 Rosetta Stone Homeschool LATIN program… FOR FREE! This is the first year you can get Latin in the brand new Version III update. This is a $259 program (and believe me it’s worth every penny!) This is a computer based curriculum and Rosetta Stone will also include a headset with microphone, and a supplementary “Audio Companion” CD so you can practice lessons in the car, on the go, or where-ever! Students participate in life-like conversations and actually produce language to advance through the program. Rosetta Stone incorporates listening, reading, grammar, vocabulary and writing along with speaking and pronunciation lessons. For parents, the new Parent Administrative Tools are integrated into the program to allow parents to easily enroll up to ten students in any of 12 predetermined lesson plans, monitor student progress, grade completed work (the program grades the work automatically as the students progress- I love that!), and you can view and print reports for transcripts. Homeschooling a lot of kids at your house? This program is designed to enroll and track up to ten students (five users on two computers) and will work for nearly all ages — from beginning readers up to college students. To win this most excellent Latin program copy these paragraphs and post them in (or as) your next blog post, and/OR link to the contest from your facebook page and/OR email the information to your homeschool support group – Then go to the original page http://jeneralities.com/?p=541986 for all the info. It really is EASY to enter!

Lapbooking Workshops to be offered locally!

I figured I would post to the blog rather than sending out mulitple emails to different groups about Lapbooking workshops.

1. I will host a workshop locally at Unionvale Countryside Church (date and time to be determined)

2. I am looking for hosts in the Salem/Keizer, McMinnville/Newberg, and Portland Metro Areas. If you would like to host a workshop either at your home or at a local church or library please let me know. We would prefer to find locations that charge little or nothing to host an event at.

What is the workshop?

I will spend about 20 minutes talking about Unit Studies and Lapbooking with In the Hands of a Child. We will look at examples as well as a current list of all that In the Hands of a Child offers. Finally we will try our hand at a mini book or two. The entire event should not last more than 1 hour. I will have special pricing for the event as well.

Would you like to host an event?

Comment here with an email that I can contact you at and we can set up an event.

Free Family Friendly movie Festival

Regal Cinemas is once again offering their Free Family Film Festival this summer. I have linked to Oregon theaters list, but you can search from the site for other theaters offering the program.

What a great way to see some PG and G rated movies during the summer.

Titanic Adventures

With our Titanic unit in full swing we decided to head out for a field trip. Luckily our unit matches up with the traveling exhibit from Country Financial Services.
I will write more about the exhibit later, but for now I will leave you with a photo from the activity.

[caption id="attachment_204" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Cameron, Nathan, Gamma, and Mommy "][/caption]

Used Curriculum Sales

I thought I would share with my readers the same info I shared with my group on The Homeschool Lounge.
These are Curriculum Sales that are local to me (Oregon and Washington). You can check out www.OCEANetwork.com for additional information.

Wednesday Jun. 3
McMinnville
Contact: K Hosley
ELT Used Curriculum Sale
Hosted by Enjoying Learning Together 1-3 pm at Church on the Hill 700 NW Hill Rd. There is no fee for a table, however please arrive early and get your own table out and then put your own table away. No baked goods or "garage sale" type items.

Thursday Jun. 4
Salem Evangelical Church Activity Center
Contact: Tammy Goff
503-371-3084
goff_family8@msn.com SACHSN Used Curriculum Sale
New time and new location. Thursday 2-4pm. $1 donation per family. For more information regarding sale click on link listed below.
http://www.oceanetwork.org/currents/SalemUCS.pdf

Thursday Jun. 4
Canby
Contact: Carla Allemann
503-829-8290
carla.allemann@juno.com Canby Area Used Curriculum/Book Sale
New Life Foursquare Church Hospitality Tent at the corner of 99E and Territorial Rd in Canby. 9:30-10:30am drop off books. 11:00-12:30pm Used book sale (cash only) 2:30pm pick up unsold items. For selling info contact Carla Allemann.

Saturday Jun. 6
Santa Clara Church of Christ, Eugene
Contact: Renea Buchholz
rbuccholz@lighthomeschooling.org LIGHT's Christian Home Education Faire
9am-3:30pm This is a great place to see many new homeschool products, books, software and methods of educating. There will be both new & used curriculum available to purchase, as well as vendor workshops and special speakers.
http://lighthomeschooling.org

Saturday Jun. 6
Beaverton
Contact: Judy Fast
Beaverton Used Book and Homeschool Curriculum Used
Featuring thousands of books, games, curriculum and other educational materials will be held on June 6, 2009. The sale will be held at Southwest Hills Baptist Church 9100 SW 135th and will be open from 10-12:30. For more information please see website.
http://www.kfast.org/booksale/

Tuesday Jun. 9
Faith Evangelical Free Church
Contact: Vicki Pope
503-623-6880
lptinc@juno.com Polk County Christian Home Educators Used Curriculum Sale
6-8pm This is a wonderful opportunity to sell some of your curriculum, buy someone else's or both. For more information, please call or email Vicki Pope. Helpers are allowed early-shopper privileges. Please call or email right away to fill a position.

Friday Jun. 19
Vancouver, WA
cche@cchomeed.org CCHE Used Curriculum Sale
Variety of educational books on every subject, biographies/readers/fiction, home school curriculum, educational games/toys, videos/audios/cassettes, science tools, manipulatives, parent helps, character and Bible training.
http://www.ccsale.org

Checking in and Changing styles

Just a quick note... checking in and adjusting the colors a little... I thought it was hard to read... What do you think?
I am still trying to design a new header, hopefully next week.

CAPE Conference Review

Mike and I are just home from another great homeschool conference. We spent Friday and Saturday in Yakima, WA at CAPE. I so want to share the fun and exciting world of lapbooking with everyone and these conferences are giving me that opportunity. We were blessed in talking with moms and dads about the fun hands on learning that lapbooking offers as well as blessed by other vendors and the people at the conference. Mike attended several of the talks and also spoke in depth with a couple of the vendors. We are both growing in our spiritual journey through these conferences and the time we spent together as a couple on the drive to and from and the time at the conference.
I have to thank April and Kelly and the rest of the crew at CAPE for making this a fun weekend. For those that stopped by our booth and either purchased an In the Hands of a Child project or simply inquired about the ideas, THANK YOU!
I will be at 2 conference in June. Both are in Oregon. First June 6 at LIGHT in Eugene and second at OCEANetwork June 12, 13 in Portland. If you are planning to attend either of those conferences stop by and say hi...

New Releases from In the Hands of a Child

Niki, Katie, and Kimm have been busy with several new releases at In the Hands of a Child.
Just re.leased this week (Friday) are two units. First, Emergency Services and Personal Safety for K-6th grade focusing on Community Helpers and How to Stay Safe in Your Neighborhood. In e-book form it retails for $20.00 and has a Project Pack Kit available for only $12.00. With the age range covered this will be a great kit for families, and could easily be adapted for middle school and high school students by adding some extra research activities. This would also make a great lead in for field trips to your local fire station, police station, hospital, etc... Could also be a great careers unit and open opportunities for volunteering in the community.

The second unit released this week, Environmental Science is graded for high school. Here is a great summary direct from the website " Every living thing has a place in nature. The Earth can be considered one giant Ecosystem that includes soil, air, climate, natural resources, and many communitiesliving and relying on each other.." The unit in e-book form retails for $25.00 and has a Project Pack Kit available for only $15.00. Being this is a high school unit there are more hands on graphic activities as well as extension activities. And , if you have younger students joining your highschoolers in homeschool activities don't forget to download the semi-annual freebie "EcoSystems".

Titanic Unit:

We have been preparing for our In the Hands of a Child Co-op Unit The Unsinkable Titanic by reading various books about Titanic and watching documentaries.
Currently we are reading "Tonight on the Titanic" Magic Tree House #17 by Mary Pope Osbourne. This is a wonderful book series featuring 2 children and their adventures in the Magic Tree House.. We will be adding these to our library of books. If you haven't checked these books out, head over to Random House website and find the extra activities that go along with the books including a passport for the kids to collect "stickers" for reading the books and responding to the questions.

Back to Titanic; Cameron is fascinated with the ship and her story, so I have let him watch both National Geographic documentaries about the ship and the work to find and preserve her final resting place. I remember as a child being fascinated with the ship's story as well so this is a great time for the two of us to share our passion about something and learn together.

Hands of a Child: V is for Volcano

We recently finished our volcano unit study. We completed 2 add on experiments outside and made the lapbook V is for Volcano from In the Hands of a Child.
Cameron loved the graphics as well as the activities themselves.
If you haven't had an opportunity to try a lapbook project pack from In the Hands of a Child, I would highly recommend V is for Volcano for PreK-2nd grade. The traceable font and the matching style activities are great for the early learner level, while the concepts are solid enough to really understand volcanos and their workings.

The ladies at In the Hands of a Child make the whole learning process and the planning process simple for moms and fun for the kids. We spent about 6 class days working on the project and Cameron loves showing off his completed lapbook.

Another great thing about In the Hands of a Child... they offer a semi-annual freebie. Currently (through the end of June 2009) the project pack freebie is Ecosystems. You can download the freebie as well as a current catalog from the website and try out a project pack.

Weekend Enlightenment.

Today is here but tomorrow is not a guarantee... Are you comfortable with where you are going?
Over the last 2 months I have been asked that question from carious angles. I heard it while watching "Fireproof" the movie and then this past weekend at the Christian Heritage Home Educators Conference it was presented from a different perspective but essentially asked the same question.

Along with the few session of the Truth Project at our local Community Church asking "Do you really believe what you believe is really real?"
and a general feeling lately that something wasn't right in my life. I am beginning to sense that I was going to hear and see things in a new light. I was blessed this past weekend while at CHHEW and realized that my actions don't reflect my desire and passion for my faith. I always thought the large church (when I say large I am referring to a congregation of well over 500) was not my style. I want to be part of the process, part of the workings of the church I attend, but over the weekend my eyes were opened to the idea that no matter what size the church is , if the people are real and honest in their faith then a community church or a large church are just the same.

Christianity as a generalized idea has been warped by society for so long that there are days I ask myself , what do I really believe and how does it fit into the definition of Christianity? I guess I would first have to define Christianity on a personal level.