Schoolhouse Expo, Will you be there?

Don't miss the Schoolhouse EXPO!! All the excitement of a homeschool convention with the convience of staying at home!  This is going to be so much fun! Great Speakers, a Goodie Bag from some awesome Sponsors, Door Prizes, Vendor Hall, and convient downloads so you can listen later and be inspired all over again...

**** Update*****

I am downloading all the wonderful e-books from the Goodie Bag....the Conference is 29.95 and the Goodie Bag is nearly $300 in fun, useful tools for homeschool and home...Unit Studies, copywork, coloring books, activity books, lapbooks, and more. You really don't want to miss this... Besides the wonderful speakers.... You are going to be Inspired!

Trip Across Canada

Sunflower Schoolhouse has posted the next step in the Trip Across Canada Unit Study. Have you stopped by and picked up all the great resources?

Honey has posted tons of great links as well as worksheets, activities, a cover for your notebook, and coloring pages. While we won't be actually starting our unit until next week I downloaded and saved everything I will need. What a great resource.

Download 'n Go: Down Under

Have you always wanted to venture Down Under? Well if you haven't had the chance and want to share Australia with your children, Amanda Bennett's Download N Go unit will help you with just such a trip. Cameron recently did a continents unit with his 1st grade co-op class so picking up a single continent was the logical next step. Since I have been to Australia (albeit, almost 20 years ago) I was able to share personal experiences and add it to the wonderful unit. I love the  format and simplicity of the Download N Go units, a good variety of activities for various ages.  Learning about the world we live in outside our own country is so important and this unit did just that. Cameron was able to do the unit as a simple add on to our usual workbox activities and I didn't have to do much prep work, which is always a bonus. I tend to print most of our printables in grayscale and was happy with how the graphics printed. I will be storing this unit for future revisit in our Download N Go Binder, if you plan to try any of these units and if you get hooked like we have you will want to visit the Old School House website and download the Binder Cover and Check list in the freebie section.

Lakeshore Learning: writing books

Since we were in the Lake Oswego area I figured it couldn't hurt to check our Lakeshore Learning's local store. I knew the address sounded familiar but it wasn't until we were almost there that I realized it was the South Lake Center and was actually in the location of an old J.K.Gill store that I use to travel to when I worked at the Hillsboro store years ago (almost 20 to be exact). Anyway, Mike and I were on a mission to find something for Nathan and Cameron to practice printing skills. I had thought about stamps , while Mike was thinking stencils for tracing... We found both but decided on wipe off books . I picked up the upper and lower case as well as the numbers edition.  I also found 2 basic paper journal books for Cameron to continue on his journaling adventures. Mike also found a solar balloon so his upcoming science unit on hot air balloons. Should be interesting...

Wonderful Writing Practice

Recently we were blessed by winning a blog drawing Sheri Graham and receiving "Pictures and Writing" by Diane Hurst. I had actually forgotten about the blog drawing until I received the email from Diane. We looked over the e-book and decided it would be gerat for Cameron to use for writing practice. After about 2 weeks, he loves it. The book is filled with writing/ drawing prompts and lots of space. The student draws/ makes a picture based on a prompt, then writes about the picture. It is that simple and at the same time it has given Cameron and wonderful outlet to create and feel like his sentence practice has a purpose.  Diane has created a wonderful tool for younger children that want to create and enjoy sentence writing. All I can say is "Thank you" both Sheri and Diane for a wonderful addition to our homeschool workboxes.

Cameron has the entire book in a binder that is placed in workbox number 5. He looks forward to box #5 and having a child look forward to something in school that is not recess or food related is a blessing.

Trip Across Canada: an online unit study

Want to come along? Honey over at Sunflower School house is hosting an online unit study " A Trip Across Canada" . Hop on over and get the links to get started. Most of the travel guides about Canada from the links can actually be downloaded as PDF files, how awesome is that...  I can't wait to add these to our workboxes as lately we have gone back to just teh basics (Math and phonics) so the boys are looking forward to adding unit studies back into the mix.

Time4Learning: a Review

Recently the boys and I received a one month trial of Time4Learning. I set each of the boys up with their own account, Nathan on Preschool and Cameron on Early Elementary.
So since they each had their own accounts I am going to have them narrate their own reviews, my parent review will follow after theirs.

Mommy: "Nathan, what was your favorite part of Time4Learning?"
Nathan: "Playground"
Mommy; "what other things did you like?"
Nathan: " the bright colors, and the sounds, me also liked the mousie.."

Mommy: "Cameron , what about you?"
Cameron: " when I played Time4Learning on your computer,  there was a really cool space game,  that worked on reading."
Mommy:"  What other things did you like?"
Cameron: " I liked the playground too , even though I didn't play there a lot."
Mommy: " Cameron, what did you not like about it?"
Cameron:" I didn't like the math games"

Ok so there is the boys' reviews.  Thinking about what the boys said and what I say, I think that sums it up. There are a couple things I struggled with; the parent reports are actually within the student sign-on area, I would have preferred the reports be in the parent administrator area, also the price but for some people that isn't a huge issue. I think the program is a great supplemental program and if I had the extra $34.95 a month I would have extended and upgraded our membership.  Overall the program has great graphics and is engaging for the kids and fun to work with them or let them work on their own.