Books of the Bible
TOS 2+ sale
Here is how the sale works.
On Monday, November 15, the price for a one-year U.S. or Canadian print subscription to
The Old Schoolhouse Magazine® Magazine is $10.
On Tuesday, November 16, the price goes to $12.
On Wednesday, November 17, the price is $14.
Each day we add $2 until Saturday and Sunday, when the price is $20. At midnight PST on Sunday, November 21, the price goes back to its regular level.
Plus, every 12th customer to purchase a subscription gets a tote bag.
Every 14th customer to purchase a subscription gets a copy of the E-Book: The 2010-2011 Schoolhouse Planner.
Every 16th customer to purchase a subscription gets a $25 gift card to the Totally TOS category in the Schoolhouse Store. This excludes Molly Green and Download N Go™.
As an added bonus, the highest ticket of the day on Monday, November 15 through Wednesday, November 17, will win a $200 gift card to the Schoolhouse Store. This can be used for any company in the Store,except Download N Go™.
So, put 2 and 2 together and shop early! The earlier you grab your one-year new or renewing
subscription, the better the price you'll pay. Plus, you could receive one of the bonus gifts. Or, you might be the highest ticket of the day!
If you are eligible for a bonus gift, you will receive an email from a member of the Schoolhouse Store team.
Craft pages
all sorts of crafty things. rather a neat site indeed. :)
ARTS AND CRAFTS PROJECTS FOR KIDS: Crafts Ideas by Materials Used, Theme, and also Trash to Treasure Crafts Projects and Coloring Pages. These Will Entertain your Preschoolers, Teens, Toddlers, and Young Children.
A Variety of Things
Medieval Japan Is is a lapbook/unit study that dynamic mom is making with her family. She also has one on the Renaissance.
Apples 4 teachers. Note this site will ask you to join a newsletter.
Elementary Creative Arts and Crafts
Interactive educational games and online activities for kids
Hoagies Gifted Education Page
(Free) Online High School Courses & Curriculum Materials |
Doorposts
52 character building thoughts for children
Notebooking.com
I got a membership for a year into the Treasury, which gives me full access to their whole site. Their yearly price I thought was quite reasonable.
As much as I'm not into a lot of copywork I find they give good outlines for doing bird studies, or people studies and what not. They also have good quotation pages.
I also just discovered today that they have a planners section. :)
Anyways, here's a link to the freebies on their site.
Review: Expedition Australia

Let me start off by saying that I got a copy of this unit study in return for reviewing it.
I've been interested in the expedition series ever since I first heard about them as country study I find fascinating. These unit studies are well done. They've done all the research for you, while allowing side trips if you want to take them.
Well, let me explain that my five year old has been not feeling well for the past couple of weeks and this week his head and chest have exploded into a rather nasty cold. This has caused us to go slowly with our homeschooling efforts.
So we managed to get day one done of this study. Woot woot! We will over the next 4 weeks cover the rest of this study. :) Here is day two's review. :)
We took our time with it and just had fun with it.
There is a map of the world that we're supposed to colour code, they gave suggested colours...but "mommy! can I do it differenter than that"?
"Sure buddy, just pick whatever colours you want".
And...so he did. :) We did our own version of colour coding the world.
Today we looked at how far Canberra is from us, and learned that going backwards was faster to get to Australia then going over Africa. He found that immensely funny and then proceeded to exercise that new knowledge by testing out shorter ways to get from one place to another in our house and by drawing different maps on pieces of paper. Oh.. we couldn't get the link - the one included for seeing how far it was from our town to Canberra - to work for us for some reason (possibly because we live in a small town) so we went to google maps. Google maps made us both laugh as they suggested we kayak across the ocean. :)
NOTE: we are in the middle of renovating our living room so having a five year old doing things "backwards" as he practiced finding shorter cut going backwards was at times a bit of a talking through challenge. :) White footprints (plaster dust) in places one doesn't expect always adds interest in life doesn't it? :) Humour is good.
We learned today just how big the great barrier reef was....the lad found that fascinating. One of the videos they include has a plane flying over the barrier reef. All those little items was just a cause for curiousity.
Some of this study is over the head of a five year old, and the animal of the day being koalas...well what can I say. I can definitively say that the lad DOES NOT LIKE koala bears (which incidentally aren't bears, they are marsupials). Marsupials have pouches which is for some reason very funny. How can a mommy carry a baby in a pouch? Doesn't it fall out? How does it get out? Does it bounce when the mommy jumps? that baby must get all wiggly.... complete with a five year old doing a wiggly dance of a dizzy koala baby. (I had to keep him from hitting his head on the coffee table). :)

Day one: Where on Earth is Australia
Day two: Some of the special places in Australia
Day three: A bit of Australian History
Day four: Cool things to know about Australia
Day five: Fun and Games in Australia
Each day includes videos. Activity sheets. An animal of the day. Vocabulary words and so much more. It's a well done study.
And hey! DownloadNGo is doing an Australia map giveaway! Go there, enter. My philosophy...if you don't enter you can't win. And well...winning is fun! :)
If you go here, you'll learn how you can get Expedition Australia for $5.95 from now through Nov 8.
Also available at the Old Schoolhouse. :)
You'll find more reviews listed here.
Sketch Tuesday - something made in China

Sketch Tuesday - something made in China.
The lad decided that he should draw a plate and some tea....after all we all know that tea comes from China, and his favourite plates were made in China as well. ...they aren't green (one blue, one red)....but apparently they want to be green. No...I don't understand it either. :)
The tea is the small green drawing in the bottom corner opposite my writing.
Next week it will be put up at Harmony Mom. So stayed tuned. :)
IXL
Gives all the math things that a child is to know in Kindergarten. Very neat. :)
it's also very neat that they give examples of what they mean in case you have no earthly clue. (face it...kindergarten was a fair time ago). :)
Numbers and counting up to 3
- A.1 Count to 3
- A.2 Represent numbers up to 3
- A.3 Count by typing
Numbers and counting up to 5
- B.1 Count to 5
- B.2 Represent numbers up to 5
- B.3 Count by typing
- B.4 Count up
- B.5 Count down
Numbers and counting up to 10
Numbers and counting up to 20
- D.1 Count to 20
- D.2 Represent numbers up to 20
- D.3 Count by typing
- D.4 Count up and down
- D.5 Tally marks
- D.6 Number lines
- D.7 Before, after, and between
- D.8 Count forward and backward
- D.9 Names of numbers
- D.10 Complete a sequence
- D.11 Count tens and ones
Numbers and counting beyond 20
- E.1 Count to 30
- E.2 Count to 100
- E.3 Count groups of ten
- E.4 Number lines
- E.5 Count tens and ones
Skip-counting
Comparing
Patterns
Subtracting
Positions
Fractions
Time
Sorting, ordering, and classifying
- N.1 Same
- N.2 Different
- N.3 Same and different
- N.4 Classify by color
- N.5 Venn diagrams
- N.6 Put numbers up to 10 in order
- N.7 Put numbers up to 30 in order
Data and graphs
- O.1 Making graphs
Probability
Measurement
- Q.1 Long and short
- Q.2 Tall and short
- Q.3 Light and heavy
- Q.4 Holds more or less
- Q.5 Compare size, weight, and capacity
Money
Geometry
Vocabulary
The Gallon man
Do you need a way to remember unit conversion effortlessly and forever? Or just a way to calculate how many cups there are in a gallon?
Here’s how to figure it out. Draw a gallon man!
First, draw a really big capital G. (This is the gallon.)
Inside the G, draw four big Qs. (These are the quarts.)
Inside each Q, draw two Ps. (These are the pints.)
Inside each P, draw two cs. (These are the cups.)
For the final flourish, draw an arrow to one of the cs and write “8 ounces.” (There are eight ounces in every cup.)
Gallon Man is totally visual and works for many learning styles. You can SEE how many quarts are INSIDE a gallon. Gallon Man is intuitive for all grade levels (unlike dimensional analysis, you don’t have to worry about the numerators or denominators). Gallon Man is practical. You can use it in your kitchen or in the grocery store. Gallon Man is easy to remember. And Gallon Man is fun to draw!
Terrific Tigers - Day Four

Did you know that there are only 12-90 Amoy (South Chinese) Tigers left in the world? At the most there are 30 in the wild, the rest are in zoos or on reserves. The lad learned that this means that the amoy tiger is endangered.
Our bathroom is as long as a male south chinese tiger is long.
We had fun roaring through the house today. The lad went upstairs to each room and roared. I sat at the computer and listened. Then it was my turn. He stayed at the top of the stairs listening for my roar. He couldn't hear me from the back bathroom. In the wild a tiger roar can be heard for 2 miles!
We had fun though a lad with a cold had a hard time staying on task today. :) He'll spend most of the rest of the day relaxing and rebuilding his energies. Lots of fluid and couch rest. :)
Teaching Finances
Kids Money
As parents, you have a unique opportunity to give your kids a financial education. You can not only teach them skills but you can also let them learn from their own experience and develop sound habits that will last them a lifetime.Financial on-line games.
The internet is filled with fun games that teach kids about money.Financial Literacy Resources.
The Mint.
Some people call it financial literacy, personal finance or money management – but at the end of the day, it’s all about making the most of your money.Sense and Dollars.
What We Learned this week - Oct 25-29.
Well this week has been a good week thus far. Having a general outline/schedule is very helpful. :)
We did day three of of the unit study from Download N Go on Terrific Tigers.
We learned that Sumatran tigers have webbed feet, watched good videos, and just had fun learning about tigers. Justin made a mural of tigers on a mountain.
We started to work on Expedition Australia, we just got to the first part of day one. This is a harder study for a five year old lad. He's currently working on colouring in the world map. There is a whole whack of information in it, he was fascinated by the giant clam in one of the first videos that we watched. This is also a DownloadnGo product.
We volunteered at the Rummage Sale for the local hospital. We were there for two hours and the lad helped with putting price tags on items and helping me sort out the cutlery.
He did gymnastics on Monday.
He did gym on Tuesday with the homeschool group. This was held at the Startford YMCA and costs $6 for 8 weeks. He had a hoot learning some kickboxing moves and playing hockey with the big boys.
On Wednesday he was part of Story Club while I was at bible study at the local Christian Reformed Church. We are studying the Psalms, they are working through creation (as far as I can tell). He made a great craft and learned more about Adam and Eve, how God made each one of us in his own image.
Today we'll be making hallowe'en cupcakes and doing a study on Hallowe'en. The study called Happy halloween that we are doing is good for a variety of ages, and comes from the Simple Homeschool. It has a maze, copy work, listen and remember exercises and so forth. I like it, and the lad is looking forward to doing it.
I have to interject this.
My boyo sometimes makes me laugh. The maze had two friends looking for a path to the candy corn. So he drew two paths. One friend kept on going the wrong way (complete with "uh, wrong way" being muttered under his breath) and had to retrace his steps and then mommy had to help the other friend show the first friend which way to go (with comments of --- yea!, see, this is how you go, see he's helping my friend find the candy! YEA!! you helped me!!! (this last being the lost friend talking)). He just makes me chuckle. :)
we will also be doing this unit from Ingles on Hallowe'en. Oops...not this exact one, but one similar that has a game in it. Spooktacular letters that's the one we are doing. :)
Pics of what we did today.
First you start with some muffins :)


You add some smarties (sorry trick or treaters, you won't be getting them).

the finished product, they all ended up with three "friend" smarties sitting with each other on top.

AND tomorrow he'll be doing the last HOPE day with dad for the fall season.
HOPE meeting
Here's the blurb I got
The topic for the evening is "Choosing the Better Thing". John Gould will be speaking on how to keep Christ the centre of our homeschooling journey. Come out for a positive and encouraging evening designed to help us keep our focus on the priority of Christ in the middle of the busyness of life.I thought it was a good message.
It was a good reminder of one of the biggest advantages we have as Christian homeschoolers....we have the whole day to point out God to our children. To show our children how we can bring glory to God in all that we do in our lives. :)
Schedule - October 24, 2010
We sit down together and see what we can figure out.
Some things are set...gymnastics, bible study, gym time and HOPE, the rest is subject to the whimsies of life.
New will be a set getting up time, and a set going to bed time.
Plus we'll be trying to have one full stay at home day.

Terrific Tigers - DownLoad N Go Review/Contest
I then learned that I could earn this unit study free by doing a review on it for DNG. I was thrilled! So I haven't gotten my free unit study yet (because I haven't told them what I want), but regardless I just find doing reviews fun. :)
Anyways, the lad enjoys this study very much. I've reported that we've done day one and two and three and Day four and finally we got to Day Five. I have had a couple of really crazy weeks so we haven't done a whole lot with the rest of the unit study beyond looking at what we'll be studying and watching some of the videos.

What can I tell you about this study. It can be done as a lap book, used as a unit study, or you can do your own thing with it.
The boy loves it. :)
We did not do it as a lapbook. We simply took one day at a time and printed out the pages, watched the videos, answered questions and did crafts.
THIS UNIT IS PACKED!
Crafts, videos, information about tigers who are related to cats. :) Books to read - some tiger informative, and others just using tigers as the main character), places to explore (the countries that cats come from), and cats to visit. We took some side detours to visit other cats,
So what do you learn?
Day two: Getting to know Tigers
Day three: where are the tigers?
Day four: The science of tigers
Day five: Cool things about Tigers

Did you know that a tiger can run faster than cars are supposed to go down our street?
"whoa mommy, they are fast!"
Did you know that tigers have webbed feet? From what I recall...not every tiger does, but the sumatran definitely does. This elicited a HUH? from my lad.
Made me smile one day ... We talked about tigers having cubs. So what does the lad do for the rest of the morning? C - U - B, Cubs, tigers have cubs. C - U - B, cub, tigers have cubs! Over and over and over again.
I have to admit, that a five year old can not do everything in this study, but that's the joy of homeschooling right? We have the luxury of being able to change things, add things, write things down that are verbally spoken and so forth.
One of the fun things that we did in this study was to act out a mommy tiger teaching her young cub what to eat. We played young tigers going to school with their mommies and they had to do everything the "teacher tiger" told them to. So mommy tiger taught the baby tiger how to pounce and on what type of animals they pounced on. We had a hoot playing out on our neighbours lawn (who has a huge lawn and could care-less if we play on her lawn). :) The lad laughed and learned which is what was wanted.
Looking ahead to day four I can see us having fun roaring like a tiger and seeing how far away we can hear each other. Can we roar as loud as a tiger can?
This has been a really fun study thus far and we are looking forward to doing the rest of it.
Before I forget... here are more reviews on this unit study for you to look at. :)
Oh! Almost forgot that I'm allowed to give away one copy of this study to a reader. Isn't that cool? :)
Okay, so what hoop will I have you jump through?
Well.. tell me that you stopped by. Make sure I have a way to contact you without having to jump through hoops trying to find your email address. If you tell someone else about the contest, let me know with a separate post (for instance, facebook it, blog it, tweet it etc). You have until next Wednesday (October 27) to do this. It will be a random draw (as in your name goes in a hat and the lad will pick it out).
IF you are a TOS/DNG affiliates including the DNG Review Team and TOS Crew you are not eligible (sorry those are the rules).
Letter D Lapbook
Diddle Diddle Dumpling
Dog Poem - might not use this though, might only take the pictures for letter D words.
D fan book -- I like the idea of this but I"m not crazy on the words/pictures. So will probably do something similar, but different.
D Files. Took the trifold hand, and the d is for drawing page.
Kidzone letter D poem. plus this one from the same site. Discover the picture.
Found this neat maze of the letter D.
My lad was quite intrigued by this different type of maze.
Sketch Tuesday - something you drink
Sketch something you drink.

Justin's Something You Drink Picture.
This is Kool-aid (red, his favourite colour), sitting beside the kool-aid is the empty glass drying.
As always, they'll be published on Tuesday at Harmony Mom Sketch Tuesday's site.
My Passport to India
watch and learn about India. :)
the lad is THOROUGHLY enjoying it. :)
Put on by Mission to India and Sonlight curriculum.
Currently on day two, eagerly awaiting day three and beyond.....
My Passport to IndiaJoin Mission India and Sonlight Curriculum for an amazing adventure in the nation of India!
Crafting sites
Here is a list of websites/stores that have craft projects or classes for kids
www.Michaels.com - Michael's even has a website with video crafts to do at home. Here are some fun Thanksgiving projects, and here are some free classes and demos.
www.Joann.com - craft supplies, videos and craft ideas.
Krafts for Children at Kaboose.
Activity village.
The Home Depot does a wooden craft the second Saturday of the month (at least in the London area).
The Activity Cupboard.
They're ornaments, and they turn out beautifully. You can make them in all sizes and hang them around the house. You can add sequins, bows, or anything else pretty to them. Here are some instructions: http://www.marthastewart.com/article/snowy-ornaments
The crafty crow.
Bible based crafts.
Gifts in a Jar (I think J and I might do this for Christmas this year).
The Letter "C" Lapbook
Circle Cat.
Dot to Dot.
What begins with C?
A "c" poem.
Lapbook Lessons. I tooka variety of things from the C book under alphabuddies.
Each lapbook I do also has the sign language letter in it as well. :) Can't recall where I found the sheet but there are different sheets throughout the web. :)
i also made a maze using this site. If you go here, you can see a list of a variety of puzzles that you can make.
Letter A Lapbook
First we printed off a bunch of cat pictures whose names began with "a". My boy is a cat crazy lad so this made sense to me.
Then we did this page. It's a word search and a copy letter page.
We checked out this apple shaped book. Alligator Pie Poem, and a-sorting.
I went to Lapbook lessons and did parts of the Adam and Eve Lapbook.
We made this Aquarium craft simply because it's fun to make crafts. :)
Enchanted Learning has a variety of activities as well.
Molly's October Digest

She starts off the digest with a variety of recipes, they look pretty decent. She also included this REALLY neat bird wall thing that I just thought was very cool and made me think that even I could do something nifty like that for my walls. :) Following this was a menu plan to help you maximize your food... so using leftovers to make a brand new meal and such like. Some of those recipes looked downright yummy.
Knowing that it was on Socks, Suds and Savings made me somewhat skeptical. Why on earth would I want to read something about laundry? After all laundry is something one does once a week, and you just get her done.. one doesn't dwell on it. :)
It's packed full of information.. from how to sort, how to read labels, to tips to help you not have to do as much ironing (which incidentally I despise doing and tend to totally not do). It is just chock full of links to various sites as well.
I can't say I learned a whole lot new as my mother took her job seriously about teaching me homemaking skills BUT I did indeed learn something new and even my hubby learned it as I excitedly turned around and told him that we could make our own wooler balls! (as opposed to buying those expensive blue plastic things). :)
I did wish that the children's sorting area had been increased a bit, to make the explanation fuller. But overall I thought it was a product well put together, and for those in need of laundry assistance, to definitely pick it up for themselves.
You can purchase your very own copy by going here.