September Reviews, Giveaways and Discounts!!

It looks like on top of homeschooling that I'll be very busy reviewing this month. Which is cool, because it means some pretty great give-aways and discounts from some places for all of you!
Most of them are related to education and will be featured on my "Homeschooling" tab, one (so far) will be featured here on this page.

So far, for September reviews we have:

MATHBLASTER ~ Currently going on and ending on September 17th, 2011 from the makers of JumpStart. Please check out my review and all the details for the free 3-month full membership to their website!

Upcoming reviews include;
* Vocabulary and Spelling City
* Click-n-kids (Click-n-Read, Click-n-Spell and Looney Tunes Phonics), this one will be a recurring monthly give-away!
* Weigl/AV2 Publishers
* My Memories Suite (for scrapbooking)

These websites will be offering give-aways, discounts and in some cases both things.
There maybe other websites, offerings coming this month as well...please check back for them as well as these upcoming reviews.
Most of these sites are websites we were already using or discovered at a recent education conference. I'm very happy to work with these companies on getting their products out to my homeschooling friends and to families and teachers as well.


Join the HOP - No Ordinary Blog Hop

Okay...Life....Uncle already!

Remember that stress free life I was going to have......

I'm still trying to find it...meanwhile those wrenches and other assorted tools keep getting thrown in our path....watch out! That was a hammer I'm sure of it! If I see a chainsaw I'm going back to bed....
The good thing about all of this is how I'm personally handling it (I think), I'm trying to not get as upset as I used to. I'm succeeding more times than not....that's a plus, right? I'm determined though, okay except for the chainsaw...I have my limits, so I keep plugging along. I'd scream sometimes but my voice still hasn't come back all the way from being sick, and just what the he-double hockey sticks WAS this bug we had anyway. The Red Ranger bounced back okay even though it really got to him too but my husband and I....Uncle, Uncle, UNCLE!

Let's see right now I'm working on finding the rest of the house after holidays and being sick for months. Even purchased more plastic drawers for the ever expanding homeschool piles. Bought clothes for The Red Ranger because he's 8 next month and 51" tall.....that's 4'3"....just one foot shorter than his mother here!! He is now out of the car seat! Where is this right in the world?! Where is my baby?! Do you realize I can't even reach back now and tickle knee-caps at traffic lights? Yet, another fun thing taken away from mom...jeez....what did I do, anyway? I'm trying to decide about a Thomas Jefferson Education for our son, so I'm reading up on it but I've sorta added some aspects already such as the reading of classics's. You can read more about that over on the Reading tab. Red Ranger went to Lowe's this Saturday and did another project which we then went over to his friend's house to play with, along with numerous other things. We loved spending the day at our friend's house, it was relaxing and enjoyable.
We have been watching Lily & Hope again this winter and there are (at last count last night) 2 more baby bear cubs in the den. Thankfully, sort of, I missed the birth's this time because last year when little Hope was born I was grunting and groaning for Lily, poor thing all alone in a dark, cold den having her baby all alone. The Red Ranger loves checking in on them and hearing the cubs, he's even started to name them (Bruce and Rocko) but I tried explaining that we don't know yet if the new cubs are boy's or girl's or one of each.
There has been so much going on that I can't even think of it all to post here.....it just boggles the mind.

I'm tired and weary and this Twister like path of destruction in front of me is getting a bit old BUT my attitude is better...that's half the battle right?!
So now off I go to organize homeschool stuff yet again, back to lesson's, take care of the hermit crabs, our cats inside and the poor feral ones outside, wait...was that a chainsaw going by? Is my bed calling me back?
Darn it.....nope guess not, back to my list....cleaning, dinner plans (what the devil am I making?), etc., etc., and so on....

Hope everyone has a lovely day!
We sure are going to try!!!

The Red Ranger with new duds and haircut...what's with the posing?

The Red Ranger and Kid Jedi

Over at Kid Jedi's house playing with the Lowe's project they made

 
 

Little one is sick but we had a homeschool triumph.....

The Red Ranger is sick...:-(

Some nasty virus that has given him a fever and laryngitis so its going to be a rough couple of days. 
However, we had two triumphs yesterday. One was while waiting to be seen in the clinic our son did some of his spelling words, I just think that's so cool! His brain really wasn't in to it but he did about three of them, me saying them and him writing them down. 
Now comes mommy's triumph...a few weeks ago and I'll have to find the blog again to post the link, I read a blog about how we as homeschooling parents give our children the "shame" of being homeschooled. I can't tell you how many times I have hesitated, my husband has or The Red Ranger himself when asked about "what school do you go to?". We as parents know the stigma attached to it and our son, as all kids do, learn from our actions. So the poor Red Ranger would feel ashamed of saying "I'm homeschooled". 
Well, no more.....this mommy yesterday when asked by a few fellow customers in Walgreen's proudly said "We homeschool so it really doesn't matter. As long as he's better on Tuesday when all the other kids go back to school and we go to Chuck E Cheese instead" when they commented on him being sick right before school started. (Is that cheers I hear?!)
My son took notice even in his weakened state and when he was directly asked about school 3 more times he lifted his head and said "I'm homeschooled". (I hear more cheers right?)

This was HUGE for us and it probably would be for so many homeschoolers out there. 
We made the right decision for our son and for us...period. 
We don't agree with the way the school system herds the kids, we don't agree with many of the value's that they are teaching. More and more each day, month and year now as we see other families deal with issues in schools. This was not our plan, homeschooling, but it is the way we do things now. Will it change, possibly. At first the thought of homeschooling was scary and still is at times, I'm much more confidant this year and I'm planning more than we did as we need more structure in our 2nd grade year. Our new systems are working well and have eliminated the constant "How much do we have to do?", "How much longer?", "Are we done yet?" questions that used to frustrate both of us. Will we continue past third or fourth grade? I really don't know. Once we started on this I figured I would do this for a year or two and then send him back to public school (basically when I think I won't be able to teach him any longer, my failing not his). I figured by then we would be in a house instead of an apartment, be in a better school district (mind you thought that the school district that we had problems with is supposed to be one of the best in the state and that the school he went to was the best). We'll take those questions as they come...for now we homeschool and are proud of it.....and that is as it should be.

Sharing Homeschooling tips and Hermit Crab update...

I didn't really update the homeschool tab today, I really sort of made it useful, at least I hope so.
I added some book lists and some tips and supplies that I've come up with and more importantly tips from other homeschoolers that have become absolutes in our home. I don't believe I could survive teaching 2nd grade to our son without some of these timely solutions, I've had to adapt some of them, but I wouldn't want to be without them now. I am so grateful for some of the blogs that I have come across and used so much over the past year, some of my favorites are Confessions of a Homeschooler , Homeschool Creations , Heart of the Matter and Light, Liberty and Learning . My thanks goes out to these ladies for sharing with other homeschoolers, especially those of us starting out on this journey which can be very scary.

Not really anything else today other than the Hermit Crabs are all set up.....

LOL....honestly the hermit crabs do not have a computer keyboard in their tank, that's just a reflection.....really it is!

Hermit Crabs, Smile.ly - something new to try and trying to figure things out...

 Well, its been interesting again!
Remember that Hermit Crab I wrote about, the one Red Ranger picked up in Wildwood, NJ?
Guess what...hermit crab's take a lot more care than you are led to believe on the boardwalk, A LOT more care. I suppose that I should be ashamed at not knowing that they required more attention than I've (and probably you) have been led to believe, but I really, really didn't know.
First off, hermit crabs are NOT hermit's. Keeping only one is really cruel because they should be in at least pairs or more. Second, they do not do well in those little habitat cages, containers and whatnot. They need real aquariums with temperature and humidity controlled, they need fresh water and sea water (don't use table salt to make sea water, it will kill them), they need playtime with other hermit crabs and also with the caregivers (in this case The Red Ranger and me!), they need better food than just pellets (some fruits and veggies), and they must be kept clean, be allowed to burrow (so that stinking aquarium gravel is not good for them).
WHO KNEW???!!!
Not us that's for sure but now we do, thankfully I'm anal enough (shut-up DH of mine) (AND for that matter ANY of my close friends that wish to comment on that!) to have looked up their care as soon as we got home that night. Did you know they can live 30+ years?? Shocked...I sure was!
So, we are well on our way to a total commitment to two hermit crabs...Little Guy and Mister, so much for an easy pet!! LOL!!

I've also tried to make seeing recent posts on the various pages of this blog easier to find, well at least once you are here. On the top right you will not see "recent posts on our pages", this way if I don't happen to post to our "Everyday Life" but I do to our "Homeschooling" tab you can at least see it right away when you visit. You can of course still "follow" the pages individually as following one doesn't mean you will get the updates from the others. Sigh...and I thought blogging would be easy......
I've also added a "Reading" page and will at some point get that "Cooking" one going as well as adding my "Scrapbooking" to it. My poor scrapbook materials miss me so much, but once we started homeschooling scrapbooking got set aside. 

Hopefully the following will at least be a fun diversion for me.


Smile.ly
Testing Products:
Today was the first day that I got an email for a test product from Smile.ly, you can click on the Smile.ly link here and join up yourself, I'm excited about giving this all a try. Basically its this Smile.ly members get inside and exclusive looks at new brands, new products, and new online content. They send you products and you write reviews of them and give feedback. My first one will be for Ideal® No Calorie Sweetener, I'll let you know how it is once I receive it. 

Oh and I've posted today on both the new "Reading" tab and "Homeschooling" one. 

Waning days of summer and homeschooling....

The end of summer (officially for most) is almost here, we haven't done as much school work as I expected us too but we got some in (check the homeschooling tab for the posting) and we've enjoyed some time at the shore and The Red Ranger came home with a new pet......

This is Little Guy......oddly enough he will fit in perfectly with our ocean studies.
We enjoyed a party over a friend's house for Kung Zhu's (Zhu zhu pets for boys) and have an upcoming one with Nano Hexbugs, something which looks to fit in with homeschooling.
We are waiting for everyone else to go back to school, sorry, so that we can enjoy all those places that are just too packed during the summer. We'll make day trips down to the shore during the week and we have some museums to visit during the first couple of weeks of Sept. hopefully before most schools can set up field trips. Depending on DH's schedule and the weather, Sept. 7th, the day the kids go back to school we will play hooky.....yeah hooky....its not just for brick and mortar schools you know! We are either heading for Wildwood, NJ or Chuck E Cheese, we are also hoping to make our local Not Back To School picnic the first week of school as well, its being held at one of our favorite parks, Red Bank Battlefield in National Park, NJ.  A place where we held lots of picnic's for the playgroup I ran and plenty of history lessons to be had there as well along with river studies and transportation/aviation studies as its right on the Delaware River and across from Philadelphia International Airport.....lots of boats and planes.
Hopefully the routine will start soon and I'll get to posting more during the weeks but for right now DH has Sunday, Monday and Thursday off this coming week so we will simply enjoy those days.
Hoping that my Usborne books start to take off soon. I held one mystery hostess online party in August but it didn't do as well as I expected. The one lady that wanted to order from me didn't, I ordered books for The Red Ranger's studies and I did get a surprise web order but not exactly what I was hoping for.

Hope you enjoy the end of summer and we'll see you next week!!

Posted on the homeschool page and Usborne Books....

Just finished with a post on the homeschool page today about teaching time to The Red Ranger and how sometimes he ends up teaching me.....
I've also just finished the Mystery Hostess E-Show on my Usborne Books site.
Feel free to pass this along the party ends on August 17th.

Link for the Online Party: www.ubah.com/HOS177386 
Link for Facebook Page: The Usborne Kid's Book Train

Whew.....

I just got done posting my curriculum for The Red Ranger on the homeschooling page for a blog hop and I'm beat. That was a lot of work and last night I was up late putting our workbooks, curriculum into binders, BUT we are now organized!! I just have to finish putting up subject headers on our centers and to finish our revamped morning meeting boards and I think.....hmmmmm....we are good to go......or should I say HOPE we are good to go. Now that we have the file hanging pockets system worked out and our center's placed, just a few pictures for the centers to be done for the hanging folders and we are ready. So ready in fact that I think we'll start next week, 2nd grade that is, we haven't stopped working on our summer skills but I think we are ready now for the 2nd grade work to begin. Then we'll take a two week break when public schools go back and we'll enjoy places that are usually crowded, CEC/museums/zoos, with people. Of course we'll stop and enjoy some of those last summer days, if the weather is on our side, on daddy's day's off for the beach and so on.  A missed day here and there isn't going to hurt and since we are starting a unit on continent's and ocean's of the world, including life in the seas's, it works with beach trips. Collecting shell's is always a lot of fun.