Well, it has been a busy summer, we started out with a graduation party for my niece Jasmine.  A wedding for my other niece Brooke and her new husband Taylor. And we will be closing the summer with Melanie's Sweet Sixteen party.  Jeff (my husband) was the minister for the new couple and the picture below is my daughter Melanie dancing with Taylor.  Really nice guy and I am very happy for them.  Well with the summer closing I just want to remind the Home school families here in Iowa that our laws have changes for signing up for the new school year.

If you have question, please get a hold of your supervising teachers
or Home School legal defense.  www.hslda.org. Have a great
school year.

Geography

I just received this link from one of the Home school groups I belong to. Here is the link, Post Crossing. It was really easy for me to sign us up. Here is how it works, go to the link and sign up, then you can start sending post cards to any where in the world. You can send up to five at a time. And while you are sending out your post cards, other people are looking at your profile and sending you post cards. It looks so fun and it would be great with geography. So happy sending and have fun. Tanya

Cooking and Crafting

This year, I have been pulling Melanie into the kitchen. I really want her to learn how to cook and read recipes. She learned how to read the recipe for some homemade pancakes. She did really well and they tasted so good.




Here is what they looked like, so good.

Another area I have been trying to put into her week is arts and crafts. Melanie is so creative and the best way to get her creative juices flowing is by giving her the time to create. I have also been using the Keeper at Home book to give me ideas to help her create. She is learning about stamping. We bought a bunch of stamps a couple of years ago, but we did not have the time to mess with them. Here is Melanie creating some master piece. She is really good.






I made this one, the stamp needed me to press harder in the middle of it, I did not get all the giving stamped down.

This one is Melanie's creation. She love working with the stamps and creating a neat picture. This would be great as cards. She started cross stitching, so hopefully I will be able to show you some of her project. I hope ya enjoyed the pictures and remember, crafts are fun. Tanya

Science Projects

This year Mel and I are doing the "Beyond Five in a Row" Curriculum. I have really enjoyed it and Mel has been doing some really interesting Science projects. She is currently reading "The Boxcar Children". Beyond Five in a Row has the children read books and then there are subject that are wrapped around that book. It is set up like a unit study, but she has done most of the work for you. So, her first science project was Evaporation, Precipitation and Condensation. Here is a diagram for you to look at. If you would like more information, check out the National Weather website.


So to get the effect of evaporation, we used a kettle and we let it get really hot to get it to whistle and let out the steam.


Once it started to whistle and steam started rising from it, we placed a clear glass over the steam without getting burned and watched the steam fill the glass. This formed condensation on the inside of the glass. The steam went into the glass and droplets of water fell out of the glass.

It was basic, but very interesting.














Here are some websites that can help with easy science labs, They are fun and practical. Here is the first one, it is called Science is fun home experiments, This website not only has science, but lots of other subjects as well and there are some other links that you can go to, this website is called Easy Science Experiments. This site had quite a bit of experiments, enjoy, it is call Science Bob. I just go to Bing or google and I just type in what I need and you would be surprised all of the sites you can use. Have fun. Tanya

Special Needs

Well, here we are on another year of school. This summer we realized that our daughter Melanie might be Dyslexic. Our son Luke was diagnosed with it when he was younger. Now our daughter is showing signs of it. So, I did some research and talked to many different people. Here are some suggestions if you are seeing some educational issues with your child. First, call Home School Legal defence and talk to their special needs coordinator. They really helped me with some areas of concern. Also, if you know of a supervising teacher with special needs abilities, call them and pick their brains. It is always good to have people who have seen these signs before. Do research and find someone out there who can test your child, it will be pricey, but it will help you to know exactly what the problem is. Most of all, do not be discouraged or upset. Make decisions and then stick with them. And most of all, keep a schedule, this is very important. Here are some site that you can check out, The Gift of Dyslexia, this is a good book and it made me look at Dyslexia in a positive way and not in a negative. He has curriculum that you can buy and the book it so good. You can also go on You tube and see some of his videos. Diane Craft, she has a site for left/right brain learners. She also touches on Dyslexia. Mel and I are in the process of doing her left brain right brain test each morning. I think that it is really helping Melanie. This is the Dyslexic Association website, lots of suggestions here. Also, just google or Bing Dyslexia, you will be so surprised at all the sites that are out there. Again, do not get overwhelmed, just take your time and do the research. I hope this all helps and happy hunting.

Our Son's New Adventure

Hello everyone! I know, it has been a while since I have been on here. I have to tell ya, I really should keep this blog up and going. So much information on the world wide web for Home school families. I will be posting some blog post for families with Special Needs kids. I have lots to tell you in the next couple of blogs. But I would like to share the biggest news of all, our son Luke
and our niece Tasha graduated in May. It was a busy time, but it was also a very deep time of reflection for me. As a home school mom, I often worry about my kids education. Did I do enough, will they have enough knowledge to make it out there. So, this was a big step for me and a hard one. I was very blessed to have three other mothers going through graduations with there sons. So this really helped me.

I do not want to tell you this to worry you. Home schooling is a privilege and should not be taken lightly, but should be honored and serious. We have the opportunity to train our kids in a way that is not offered in Public school. We get to teach them about creation, God and family traditions. So this year, I will be homeschooling one child, our daughter Melanie. I am really honored to be able to teach her one on one. This will be a great year to teach.


This picture above is Jeff, me, Luke, Tasha, Charlene my sister, Jim who is holding JJ. This was on the day of the graduation. We had lots of friends show up and support us. Lots of food and a DVD showing of Luke and Tasha. It was a really great day. We had a blast. Here is the site that I ordered Luke's diploma and class ring, go here
Well, it was great to be back and I will be posting some more blogs in the coming days. Talk to ya later, Tanya

Good afternoon, I thought I would post some blog sites that I have stubbled on. I have been tweeting on Twitter and found some fellow home school moms. I would like to share their sites with you. Here is an awesome English site, on this site, there is eight rules to english, diagraming sentences and why you should teach poetry. Another site that I stubbled on is for mom's teaching children with special needs it is called, home school calling. ADD, Autisim, and other needs should look at this site. I even think I could pull off of this site for my hands on kids. This next site is called Trivium pursuit, it is for families who are teaching classic home schooling through Christ. Great site with lots of helps and information. One last site and this one is more geared for mom's, This is called Home school Lounge. You have to sign up if you want more of the site and they will have to appove you. But it is a good site with lots of encouragment and information for you.

Wow, I have not been on this blog for some time. We have been so busy with school that I have had to put some of my hobbies on hold. We started school in July and we have been working straight through. I have stubbled onto some sights that I want to share and I know that they will come in handy.

On October 20th, there will be a green comet that you will be able to see with the naked eye. And a Home school group sent me this site. It is called Space weather, here is the site www.spaceweather.com. Another cool site is www.space.com. Jeff and I have Zune's and I wanted to listen to books on MP3. So here are some sites that you can down load books for free. Here is the link to go to the site. If you are on Twitter, there is a site you can go for grammar. There are test, information about 8 steps to language etc. It is a great resource.

For mom's with early reader, do not forget Starfall. This is a great website for kids, plenty of games and you can order books from their site. As always so many sites to choose from and I just enjoy the Internet and its benefits. I have not spent a lot of time on the Internet looking for different sites. I hope to sit down in a couple of weeks and do some more research. If you have a site that you would like me to look at, please leave me a message or comment.

One more piece of information, Kent Hovind's son has taken over the ministry and there are some awesome items on their website on creation. If you need curriculum or DVD's on creation here is the site www.drdino.com . God bless all of you and have a great week. Tanya