Fantastic Giveaway of 20 LIFETIME Memberships to Notebooking Pages.com

I interrupt this scheduled programming (Insert the sound of a screeching record player...Wow! That really shows my age!) to tell you about a giveaway happening that you DON'T want to miss!! (This post contains affiliate links.)

Starting today, April 29th at 11 am EST and going until 10 pm EST, Notebooking Pages.com will be giving away 20 free LIFETIME memberships to their fantastic on-line notebooking products.  

In addition, after the sale ends April 29th at 10 pm EST, they will be drastically reducing their lifetime membership fee to only $50 until May 5th.  

If you are not familiar with Notebooking Pages and want to know more, be sure to read how I use notebooking pages for all ages.  

Happy notebooking!

Why You Should Make Time for Timelines

"So, what was happening with God's people at that very same time?"

she asks nearly every day.  

This year, we're learning Ancient Grecian history.  And while my daughter is enjoying this particular study, she is not satisfied with bits and pieces of information.  She wants to know the relationship between one culture and the other.  She wants to see how one part fits together with the whole.  She wants to connect the dots from what she is learning about Ancient Greece to what she has learned from God's Word.  To put it simply, she wants me to pull out our ever-growing timeline and show her the completed puzzle of history.  

What Reading Time Looks Like In My Homeschool

What does reading time look like at your home?  Do you make your kids read out loud to you?  Do you have particular reading books they have to read from or do you just let them read whatever they want?

I've received these and other reading-type questions lately.

While our reading time has morphed a bit over the years due to the dynamic and differing personalities of my children, this is what reading currently looks like in my home.

Project Based Learning When You Live in a Tiny House

Water color paintings

Here's a simple homeschool math story problem to start your day...

If you crammed seven people into an acutely tiny house and encouraged the smallest five of those people to create and explore through a daily process of delight-directed learning, how likely are you to have project supplies covering every inch of the dining room table when it is time to eat a meal?

If you guessed "three times a day, nearly every day," you are correct!

Good Friday Nature Walk Printable Pack

On Good Friday, weather permitting, I will meet our homeschool Nature Club at a nearby state park for an Easter-themed nature walk. I have instructed all the participants to bring a clipboard or other hard writing surface and a few colored pencils.

Homeschool Convention Show-n-Tell 2014

After a refreshing weekend away with The Hubs at our annual homeschool convention, I came home with two important things. (This post contains affiliate links. Please see my disclosure policy for full details.)

1. A smile on my face.
2. A basket of fun goodies just waiting to be unpacked and enjoyed.

While I tend to be a rather frugal shopper in every other area of my life, I have no desire to penny-pinch when it comes to homeschooling.  Don't get me wrong, I stay within my budget.  I buy gently-used and utilize several free-homeschooling resources whenever possible.  But, I'm also a firm believer that homeschooling is like most areas of life...you usually get what you pay for.

Top 10 Things to Pack for a Homeschool Convention

Tomorrow's the day!

In less than 24 hours, I'll be on my way to my state's annual homeschool convention. Twenty-one hours and fifty-two minutes to be exact. But, who's counting?!

I tend to be a last minute packer...it drives The Hubs nuts. He's more of a pack-the-week-before kind of fella'.

So, as I toss in the last few items into my suitcase, I thought I'd just share with you what I'll be taking with me to ensure a successful convention weekend.

Here they are in no particular order...

5 Tips for Finding FREE {or almost free} Books for Homeschool

The posting of my monthly What We're Reading lists coupled with the fact that we use TruthQuest History, a living literature-style history program which requires us to read dozens and dozens of fantastic, albeit somewhat hard to find, books has compelled many to ask...

How can you afford all of those books?

The truth is, while we do own some books, our one-income-debt-free lifestyle and our itty-bitty house make it impossible to hoard more than a couple of bookshelves' worth. While I would love to pack our home with all manner of literary perfection (I'd live in a house MADE of books, if I could!), I have to be rather snobbish in my selections.

15 Minute Art Project: Hand-Painted Tissue Paper {for gift bags}

Art at our home is a MUST.  No matter how harried our homeschool days seem to be, once a week, I intentionally carve out a time and a space to create!  

While, many of our art lessons are the slow-and-steady, enjoy-the-journey kind, sometimes they have to be the create-a-masterpiece-in-three-easy-steps kind.  Because, let's face it, some weeks are more harried than others and art time has to be squeezed into the speed of a blink.  

This, 15 minute hand-painted tissue paper project, was not only fast, it was USEABLE.  We were able to stash our creations away to be used in a one-of-a-kind gift bag for a friend's birthday.  

Book Club Unit: The Duchess Bakes a Cake

What do you get when you combine a delightful children's classic about a baking project gone awry, a marshmallow catapult, and four adorable little boys?

(This post contains affiliate links. Please see my disclosure policy for full details.)

My favorite book club meeting of the entire year!

This past month, it was my turn to lead the Littles in their bi-weekly book club.

 
I was given the task of designing a unit around the Virginia Kahl classic, The Duchess Bakes a Cake, and to be honest, I wasn't all that thrilled to be assigned to a book about baking...knowing that I'd be teaching a pack of boys.

BUT...