Back To School Homeschool: Cut Out the Busywork . . . try Notebooking!

Before notebooking, our school days were chocked full of a variety of learning activities and curriculums, but the learning was so dry and dull. By the end of the day, and I mean the-END-of-the-day, the kids were wiped out and so was I. Do you have days like these?
Notebooking will refresh and rejuvenate your homeschooling. It opens the door for meaningful learning while saving you time, money, and those precious hours you currently spend (if you’re like most homeschooling moms) trying to tweak everything that you currently do to make your day better.
Today, I want to help you get started. Notebooking is a very simple tool. Basically, we just want to help our children get what’s in their brain onto paper using both what they can “see” and what they can verbalize. I have been amazed out how effective this has worked with my children. Over the past few years, we have been able to completely eliminate the worksheet/test method from our schooling. We now use notebooking for just about e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g!
We have saved time, money, and SO much frustration by using this tool. Now, instead of a trashcan (or tote that gets tucked away in the back of the closet) full of oodles of paperwork that we’ll never look at again, we have beautifully crafted and individualized notebooks full of their best work–their OWN work–their very OWN homemade books! You will pull these notebooks out time and time again throughout the years, just like your old photo albums, to treasure over and over again.
To give you some getting started pointers, I have prepared a detailed description of how to start your first pages and how to gently add notebooking to your day. We still follow these basic principles outlined in this article with our children today: Read more . . .
(Reprinted with permission from Debra Reed, NotebookingPages.com)

Visit NotebookingPages.com to learn more about their LIFETIME memberships
and their notebooking (& copywork) web-app, The Notebooking Publisher™
I personally use these Notebooking pages and love them, I even bought the lifetime membership! Because I love my notebooks so much, I wanted to share Debra's website with you too. Start your year off right and print some of the free samples, I bet you will fall in love with these notebooking pages just like I did!

Just Do It! Homeschool Them! #atozchallenge

So you feel the tug on your heart to homeschool you kids? Maybe for several years now you have thought about it, prayed about it, almost started to do it and something held you back.

I am telling you now Just Do It!

You will be blessed and your family bond will grow stronger. It is not an easy road, and you will face days that are frustrating, tearful and gut wrenching. But, joy, laughter and raising lifelong learners will overshadow all the bad days.

I started out trying to resist the direction that God was leading our family's life. For at least 3 years I felt that God was leading me down the homeschool path, but I refused to listen to his call. We tried private Christian schools (2 different ones) and I started to realize, as our 3rd child came along, that paying for an education when I could do the exact same thing at home was just not making much sense.

We embarked on a homeschool journey, taking a leap of faith and trusting God to lead and guide our education. We have been so blessed because we followed God's will for our family.

So if you are feeling that pull, like something is missing from you children's education, maybe some prayerful time with The Lord will lead you down the path you are seeking.

 

 

 

Mondays in the Parallel Universe still Suck!!

This pretty much sums up my Monday's perfectly, since I work every weekend Saturday and Sunday at a fast pace, by the time I get home on Sunday nights, this chick is worn slap out, tired and head bobbing as she sits on the couch trying to catch up work that I might have missed. Savage Chickens is prefect to depict my mood right now at 2:22 am........Zzzzzzz, image a mommy head bobbing back and forth now, a mommy head who needs to close the computer and get her butt in bed.
 

 

I do hope to turn my Monday around into a more positive light that will shine for others, especially my children today.

Have a blessed day!

Pink Lemonade Pound Cake~~yum

Oh my goodness, I am going to have to make this today, saw it on Pinterest and knew that it would need to be shared here. Thank you to "Baby sugar Aprons" for the great recipe idea 

Pink Lemonade Pound Cake

1 (18.25 ounce) package lemon cake mix
1 (3 ounce) package instant lemon pudding mix
4 eggs
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup pink lemonade concentrate
4 drops pink or red food color, optional

Glaze:
1 cup frozen pink lemonade concentrate, thawed
1/2 cup white sugar


Recipe
1) Preheat oven to 350. Grease and flour one 10-inch tube pan or
bundt pan.

2) Combine the cake mix, lemon pudding mix, eggs, vegetable oil, 1/2
cup lemon concentrate and the milk. Mix until smooth. Pour the batter
into the prepared pan.

3) Bake at 350 for 50 minutes to 1 hour. If your oven runs hot be
sure to adjust accordingly!

Remove from oven and prick cake all over with a fork. Immediately
pour lemonade glaze over top of cake.

Let cake stand in pan until almost cool.

LEMONADE GLAZE:
Combine the remaining thawed frozen lemonade and the white sugar. Mix
thoroughly and pour over still warm cake.

I guess you could use this for a Valentine dessert or get together, you can even change the color and use yellow, or green for lemon/limeade flavor, maybe even some strawberries to a strawberry limeade cake.....hmmmmm.

So Easy, and I have all the ingredients in my kitchen already, yipee!!

Have a fab day!!

 

Until you spread your wings..

 

 

~ Touched by the Love of Angels ~

May angels rest beside your door,
May you hear their voices sing.
May you feel their loving care for you,
May you hear their peace bells ring.
May angels always care for you,
And not let you trip and fall,
May they bear you up on angel's wings,
May they keep you standing tall.
May they whisper wisdom in your ear,
May they touch you when you need,
May they remove from you each trace of fear,
May they keep you from feeling greed.
May they fill you with their presence,
May they show you love untold,
May they always stand beside you
And make you ever bold.
May they teach you what you need to know
About life here and here-after.
May they fill you always with their love
And give you the gift of laughter ♥ ♥ ♥

 

 

Life is too Short... Take the Chance

Oh how true this very statement is, why don't we heed this warning that our mother most likely sometime in our younger life said to us. I don't know about you, but as a young girl, I knew it all and my parents did not. Oh they have proved me so wrong since then, and I have had to eat much crow. Always know that your mother is a very smart chick, because she has been thru the fire and come out stronger for it. Yes we as moms make mistakes but we also grow from those mistakes and God sets us back on a path that is even and more clear.
Nobody said that it would be easy.... They just promised it would be worth it.....

~~ Leslie~~
aka: not a know it all mom ;)

Stay tuned for some fun field trip picture from our Friday, will try to post them this weekend.

Lucy our newest joy ~

A very small creature was all it took for our household to be turned upside down, our big strong teenager brought home this wee little kitten that he rescued so it would not get run over near a very busy road. "Lucy" as he named her, has captured the hearts of everyone here, except for our oldest cat (who growls at her always) and the dogs can't really figure her out yet,Buttons mostly barks at her all the time. She leaps like a rabbit with her little stubby tail (not sure why she has no tail, just a little stubble) that she loves to wag or wiggle back are forth as she runs sideways down our hallway. Today she discovered the bathtub and the top to a shampoo bottle, what fun she had for at least an hour.She was also fascinated with the TV and Xbox Live, all the guns and moving soldiers on the big screen got her into climbing trouble.She has single handed, or pawed, taken out my recycled newspaper pile on the sun-porch and has it all over the floor now. She loves to get in my hair or sleep on my neck if I am on the couch working on my laptop, I guess I am warm and fluffy. Having a kitten is just like having another toddler, same mess, same excitement.

Meet Miss Lucy~~

Please consider adopting your pets or rescue pets that all need homes and spay and neuter to help prevent unwanted and abused animals all over the world. Be a responsible pet owner!! 

 

Faith is...

Faith is trusting God daily

Faith is stepping out of the box

Faith is knowing he is there

even in the stillness of the night

Faith is contained in your tears as they fall

and knowing God catches them all.....

So why do you still question his answers?

~~Leslie~~

Is the Moon made of Cheese?

 
That was the question of the week as we learned about the solar system and space. Ms S was intrigued by the moon, especially the "half moon" for some reason, so using that curiosity and excitement I was off......

We read our science book and searched the internet for "kid friendly" solar systems to learn all about our wonderful world way up in the "heavens" as she called it.
So many things you can do learning with a topic like space, you can incorporate the alphabet, numbers, vocabulary ,spelling, history of space travel, art, ........and more.
Here are a few of the great links I found online :

http://www.kidsastronomy.com/solar_system.htm (love this one)
http://www.kidsastronomy.com/the_planets.htm
Free posters for your classroom/homeschool Here-just pay for shipping

http://www.busybeekidsprintables.com/Space-Printables.html
http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/ --a great site for all things Nasa and space! tons of resources here I found and a facebook page too.
http://www.frontiernet.net/~kidpower/astronomy.html  http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/StarChild.html

One of my favorite sites that I will spend money each year for a membership (only $20 yr) is Enchanted Learning very much worth it. I have used this site for at least 6 yrs now for all 3 kids. Tons of info and printable lessons, crafts, books etc.
They have lots of Astronomy stuff  HERE

There are many more links on the web, just search Google and find a world on knowledge. We also have several books at home on science and space that we use to study the solar system. Best advice is take what your child likes and run with it. This week our lesson just happened to revolve around a moon and some cheese. Yes we did eat some swiss cheese and crackers for snack too.....