Who Doesn't Love a Deal? Scholastic Teacher Express E-Downloads.

I just heard about this awesome deal from a friend of mine and I had to share. From now, until September 20th, you can visit the Scholastic Teacher Express website and choose 10 of the dollar deals downloads (they have over 800 choices to pick from in a variety of subjects). Then when you go to check out, type in 10THANKS in the coupon box and you will get your 10 picks free.....FREE! Ahhh, music to the ears of this homeschooling mama.
http://teacherexpress.scholastic.com/dollardeals

A Week Away: Sunkissed noses and Campfire Songs.

We just got home from a weeks stay at a Christian campground. The week was amazing and I wish we could have stayed for a much longer duration. Six people, five loads of laundry, 550 kms, sunkissed noses, scraped knees, muddy clothes, sticky fingers, campfire songs, and too many giggles to number. Add in some shared moments with friends, sunsets that could take your breath away, and a renewed sense of closeness to a loving God and you have one great week! I am blessed.

My Blog Button.

Well, here it is....my new blog button!

210 Lovely Square Feet, and Curriculum!

Along with the beginning of a new school year comes a new set of books to be organized, lesson plans to be made, art projects to be chosen, etc, etc. Those who homeschool, especially with the more "hands-on" types of curriculum, know how much work, preperation, sweat and love goes into this process. I'm pretty excited right now as we are currently undergoing renovations to make a school room in our new house. We've been here 18 months already, but we had more pressing issues to contend with, such as putting a new roof on the house and changing the furnace. Alas, now that we are sure our house will not flood (via the roof at the very least), and that we will have sufficient heat in the winter, the school room is numero uno on our priority list. 210 whole lovely square feet of space, devoted solely to academic pursuits! *ahh*. Only a teacher/mom can truly appreciate what this means. In a nutshell, more organization, which means less mess, and less stress. Anyway, I will try to get some before and after pictures up here once our project is complete. Wish me luck (not that I believe in luck). The overall appearance of your house ALWAYS gets worse before it gets better when renos are involved.
            On a similar note, I have had many people ask me about what my curriculum choices for the upcoming year will be, so I decided to post the list for all to see. Here goes:

Art: Barry Stubbing Series.
Bible: Christian Light Education.
French: Ecoutez Parlez.
Geography: A Child's Geography & Galloping the Globe.
Gym: Local homeschooling gym class.
Health: Abeka health.
History: The Mystery of History.
Language: Christian Light Education.
Math: Christian Light Education.
Reading: Christian Light Education.
Science: Apologia Zoology 1 and Astronomy.

Add in a ton of "twaddle-free" books, lapbooking, library visits, field trips, swimming lessons and other athletic endeavours of the like and we have ourselves a pretty well rounded out school year :)

Discovering the Rock of Ages

We are already past the midway point of our five day VBS! I am a leader in the grades 5-8 group, and it is amazing how fast the time flies when you are busy singing, playing, watching skits, hearing missionary stories and introducing little ones to Jesus; The Rock of Ages. I am so thankful that I was able to be a part of this. I had been feeling a little off lately, and I think this experience may have been just what I needed. It feels great to be a part of something bigger, working with others who love the Lord, and have a burden for the lost. It's amazing how God can use situations like this to refresh the souls of those involved. What a blessing it is to find that while I give of my time and talents for local children, it is making a difference in my own heart and life. The children and the volunteers are blessed. I have been leaving there everyday feeling encouraged and hopeful. God is good!

Fireworks, Family and a Super Size Washing Machine.

How fast did this past week fly by?! Magic Man had a show in Wawa on Canada Day, so we drove up there early that morning. I had never been that far west before and what a day for it! On the day that Canadians celebrate what a great country we are priviledged to live in, we took in some of the magnificent sights our area has to showcase. As we travelled along the higway that runs parallel to Lake Superior we were in awe (once again) of the sheer beauty of creation. Rocky cliffs gazing down on a flurry of whitecaps, sandy shorelines calling my name. An abundance of greenery as far as the eye could see, gentle flowing creeks, bridges and blossoms. Oh, how I wish we had more time to explore! But alas, it was not to be this time around, so I made sure to note all the "tourist-y" sites that we intend to stop at the next time we travel that way.
         The show was a big success, and the voyage was made all the sweeter as we were able to visit  friends of ours who live in the quaint, waterfront town. I haven't seen my girlfriend in several months, so it was nice to be able to catch up. Her youngest child just turned a year old, and he is such a darling! I was completely enamoured with him. He has a set of baby blue eyes that melt my heart, and he is so smart. Anyway, it was really great to see them all. Magic man finished his show just in time to sit on the beach and watch the spectacular fireworks display put on by the community. So, our Wawa trip in a nutshell looked like this: visiting, magic show, beach, fireworks, chalet, sleep, visiting over breakfast and bon voyage!
         From there, we headed out to the lake where my parents park their trailer year around. The drive took around four hours, but it was worth every minute. My grandparents and my sister were also there, as well as my aunt and uncle (and their children) and we were able to enjoy some long overdue time with them all. We also celebrated the birthday (two days early) of yours truly. We went swimming, made smores and went to bed that night completely exhausted. We wrapped up our trip with church in my hometown, a visit to my grandmother and then the drive home. It was one of those full weekends, that leave you feeling so blessed and thankful. Here's to being thankful for the big things, like friends, family, and freedom, and the little things like being able to enjoy fireworks, and owning a super size washing machine that can tackle the mounds of laundry that three days/two nights away manages to create.

1 Thess 5:18: In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.

I'm Back!

So, as you can see from older posts, it's been way too long since I've been on here blogging. I enjoyed doing it before, but somehow life just managed to creep up on me and now two years have gone by. I will do my best to condense the changes in my life in the last two years. Here goes:

• I resigned from my teaching position with our local public school board. This was definitely a hard decision, but the right one given that attempting to balance homeschooling and teaching was not working out as well as I had hoped.  I LOVE teaching in schools, don't get me wrong, and I miss it a fair bit some days, but my place for the time being is in my home.  I fully intend (Lord willing) to go back into the system once my homeschooling journey is done.

• We bought a new house, and then moved into it! There are quite a few renos that we need to do, but we adore the neighbourhood. It is located in the middle of the city, yet it has a country feel to it, quiet and well treed. We see blue jays, woodpeckers, racoons, and other members of God's creation on a regular basis. Just in the past couple weeks we have had a fox come and visit a few times, much to the delight of the children. My neighour called the MNR, but they assured us that they could do nothing and that it would go away in a couple weeks...hmm.   

• Monkey and Bumblebee are now seven and twelve, turning eight and thirteen in September. They are both doing wonderfully, for the most part. Monkey has certainly lived up to his name, managing to break an arm, fracture a toe, get eight stiches in his knee, pull his intercostal chest muscle, need stiches in his knee (he wasn't able to get them because the tissue around it was damaged scar tissue from the year before when he got the stitches in his knee *sigh*), and on it goes. My husband began calling him "Captain Injury" and the boy wears the name like a badge! What's a mom to do? Bumblebee is less accident-prone, which I am thankful for. We have had no major injuries to speak of. She did have an ear infection once or twice, which I successfully treated at home with garlic and olive oil. They are both thriving, doing well in school and have made some wonderful friends in our neighbourhood, community, and through our local Homeschool Association.

•  My homeschooling style has grown more eclectic. I attribute it to the fact that I am a bonified "research-nerd". I just can't help myself!  I don't want to be a sheep following blindly whoever leads the way, so I HAVE to look into near everything. It could be alot worse I guess. It can be time consuming, but so can alot of things. Say, for instance, if I took up smoking crack....THAT would be time consuming. (And I wouldn't)

• My DH, otherwise known as "Magic Man" for the sake of this blog has been busy also. When he was laid off for six months (about 2 years ago) he decided that he would invest some time into something he was always interested in. So, he went down to the public library, checked out some books on magic/illusions and the rest is history! He now works (as a side business) regularly performing at schools, birthday parties, corporate events, fall fairs, hospitals, libraries and a variety of YMCA and other childrens programs. He usually takes Monkey with him to his performances. It has become a little part time job for him and he runs the video camera, changes music, helps set up, etc. It's been a great learning experience for everyone!

So, the preceeding was obviously just a super-condensed version of the going-ons in our life. There were some big changes and I don't want to overwhelm anyone with a book on my first day back :)