Summer is over, and by now I’m sure your Homeschool classes are back in full swing.  One of the best ways to reinforce what you are teaching in the home (in Science, History, Bible, and more) is to take a trip to the Creation Museum (located in the Greater Cincinnati area).

The Creation Museum presents a unique and unparalleled experience, a walk through time portraying significant, life-altering events from the past, illuminating the effects of biblical history on our present and future world.  Be prepared to experience history in a completely unprecedented way.  Our state-of-the-art exhibits, Stargazer’s planetarium, life-sized dinosaur animatronics and beautiful outdoor gardens with paved walking trails and petting zoo make this an exciting addition to every homeschool curriculum.

For the months of September and October (Sept. 7 – Oct. 28), the Creation Museum will be running a special promotion especially for Homeschool families.

Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday’s are Homeschool Days. Admission to the Museum is only $10 for adults (13 and up) and $7 for children (5-12).  The Stargazer’s Planetarium is also specially priced at only $4.

To take advantage of this special Homeschool offer, simply present the printed PDF form at the Creation Museum on the day of your visit.  This pricing is ONLY available with the PDF coupon.

Please pass this along to any, and all, homeschooling families you know. This is not a group rate.  It is available to ALL Homeschool families.  When you forward this message on, please be sure to include the attachment.  You can access it here: http://tinyurl.com/37z8atr

Matthew Bullington is a homeschool graduate who was paid to go to college, and has now produced a variety of resources specifically targeted to help homeschoolers prepare for college.

Along with resources, he also gives workshops.  He is going to be traveling through Illinois the week of September 20^th through August 25^th, and if I can find an interested group in the area I would be willing to give a 90 minute free workshop on one or two of the below topics of your choice:

-Earning College Credit: Details on Dual Enrollment and Credit by Examination

-Financing College: Details on How to Locate Scholarships, Grants and Alternative Ways to Reduce the Cost of a College Education

-Standardized Exams: Preparing for the ACT and SAT

-Homeschooling High-School: How to Approach College Preparation with Confidence

-The Application Process:  How to Make Yourself Marketable to Colleges and Universities

-Is College the Right Choice?  College and the Alternatives

If you would be interested or know of a group that might be interested in having a workshop and would like to know more details please contact Matthew by e-mail or cell.  Please feel free to forward this to other groups!

Contact: Matthew Bullington

Phone: 615-653-6816 (Cell)

Website: www.UniversityReady.com or www.HomeschoolCollegePrep.com

Email: Matthew@HomeschoolCollegePrep.com

“Wonderful!!! Full of information but taught with the heart of a homeschooler.  Just what our family needed to start our college prep with confidence!”

–Jamie K, previous workshop attendee

“The wealth of information that you gave that will ultimately save me boat-loads of time. Plus I feel that I got incredibly beneficial information that I wish that I had known in my highschool/college career.  Now I feel that we can get funding for college.”

–Kim A, previous workshop attendee

“Matthew Bullington, honors graduate of both his homeschool high school and his 3 1/2 years at Middle Tennessee State University, has produced an excellent and very thorough two-part DVD series giving homeschool parents and their Junior and Senior high school students step-by-step guidelines to prepare for all aspects of college.  In conjunction with the DVD series, Matthew has also developed a web site at www.HomeschoolCollegePrep.com and workshops to assist homeschool families in this journey from homeschool to college.  We highly recommend Matthew to you as an excellent coach and his DVD series as a most-helpful road map to guide you and your students alon the path to a successful transition from your homeschool to college.”

–Claiborne and Lana Thornton, parents of three, homeschooling over 25 years, President of the Tennessee Home Education Association

CHESS homeschool group is offering the following classes on CPR, First Aid, and dissection to support your homeschool.

Class size is limited ~ register early!

To register for the following classes:

email Sandi Grutzius at sgrutzius@ymail.com and designate the class and time you would prefer and then a second option if the class is full. Upon confirmation of availability, send a check made out to CHESS to Sandi Grutzius, 16620 Grant Avenue, Orland Park, IL 60467.

CPR and First Aid Training

The instructor will be Robert Niemic, father of five homeschooled children, Firefighter/Paramedic for the last 18 years, American Heart Association CPR instructor, and founder of How 2 Save a Life. How to Save a Life was created to provide CPR and First Aid training using the American Heart Association guidelines.

The CPR instruction

This class offers three hours of training in adult, child, and infant CPR. Bob will demonstrate the use of an AED or Automated External Defibrillator and will teach skills needed to help an infant, child, or adult who has stopped breathing, is choking, or has a cardiac emergency. Upon completion, students will receive an AHA CPR certification card.

CPR Class – Tuesday, October 26 9:00 – Noon, or 6:00 – 9:00.

The First Aid class

In this three hour class students learn how to handle a wide variety of medical emergencies including heart attacks, diabetic emergencies, stroke, shock, trauma, environmental emergencies and more, should you ever be faced with one. As a student you will leave the class feeling confident that you will know how to handle many difficult situations in public or at home. At the end of the class, you will receive an AHA First Aid certification card.

First Aid Class – Tuesday, October 26 1:00 – 4:00

Both classes meet on the same day, October 26. Each class has a fee of $16 for CHESS members.

After the September meeting, both classes will be open to non-CHESS members for a fee of $20.

Classes meet at Grace Fellowship Church in Oak Forest, IL and are open to ages 12 and up. Parents are welcome to certify. Payment is due upon registration

.

YUCK 103

(for Jr. and Sr. High students)

Dr. Lainna Callentine has a great love for teaching. She is a pediatrician, home school mother, and former classroom teacher with a certification and masters in elementary education. Dr. Callentine continues to have wonderment for the beauty of God’s creation in the human body. She left formal medicine in the ER to stay home and home school her three children. However, she still practices her hobby of medicine at a Christian clinic in Bolingbrook

Yuck 103 – The Circulatory System

- Young scientists will be able to experience and examine some of the vile and wonderfully disgusting elements of life. In this hands-on lab, students will study the circulatory system. Activities include dissecting sheep pluck (trachea, heart, and lung unit), blood typing, and investigating the forensic chemistry of blood types. See the fascinating innards of God’s creation. Two sessions of this 2 hour class are available.

Thursday, November 4 ~ cost $20/student for CHESS members

9:30 – 11:30 or 1:00 – 3:00

cost $22/student for non-CHESS members

Coming in 2011

- Plan to join us for YUCK 104 and YUCK 105 in the winter and spring as we investigate the digestive system and the central nervous system.

Camp Timber-Lee, located just to the North in East Troy, Wisconsin, offers a homeschool science program for the serious high school science student.

This class spans the full school year and includes time spent at camp, books to read, lab work, and written assignments. Building on Jay Wile’s well known science texts from Apologia, these experienced teachers challenge the students to grow in their faith and academics.

The early bird discount period has already ended, but it is not too late to get in on the class for the upcoming school year. Find all the details on the Timber-Lee site.

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Keeping things light for the summer months? Here is a great video that will tackle Bible time and science all in one, and leave you in awe in the process.

Thanks to Michelle and her daughter for sending this my way.

It will take a few minutes of your time, but will give you a glimpse of how microbiology can show God’s work in the details. Teaching my children to trust and obey Christ is an integral part of my homeschool, and to “stumble” on something like this, helps tie it all together.

Master S. Morris Lawson of Barrington Martial Arts would like to offer classes geared specifically to homeschoolers during this upcoming school year. Their academy is located just off the corner of Lake Cook & Barrington Road, in downtown Barrington.

This new home schooled youth Taekwondo & Karate program would be open to all home schoolers ages 7 and up. They will offer one instructor for every ten students, with make up classes for all missed classes. For these special classes they will offer a 25% discount for students in their home schooled Tae kwon do & Karate classes.
Family discounts are also available, with half  off a one time registration fee and a FREE uniform and student handbook.

They are currently working to establish what days and times during the afternoon would work best for this new program.  They plan to have this all finalized by the 2nd or 3rd week of July and should add it to their website at that time. Please contact them soon if you are interested, and pass this information along to other local homeschool families as well.

Organization Name: Barrington Martial Arts

Address:
123 Barrington Commons Plaza
Barrington, IL 60010

Organization Email Address: Morris@barringtonmartialarts.net

Organization Website: www.barringtonmartialarts.com

Organization’s Phone: 847-382-9599

This may be a quiet time of year in terms of homeschool specifc events, but there is still lots of fun, even educational fun, to be had.

Came across this information packed site, called Chicago Kids. There you can find details about the happenings in Millennium Park among other things.

If you are looking for activities to spice up your summer, feel free to check through their ideas of free activities as well as many that charge admission. They have a calendar that can give you dozens of ideas for any day of the week.

Also, don’t forget the Museum Adventure Pass that is around for another couple months and has some great deals.

Last year I had the joy of reviewing products for The Old Schoolhouse Magazine Crew (aka TOS Crew). Now and then I posted those reviews here, but most of them found their home on my regular blog, Delighting in His Richness.

This year, as I head into my second year on the voyage, I decided to relocate the reviews to this website as they pertain to homeschooling and homeschoolers and I thought my readers here would benefit more from hearing about all of these great products.

So, starting sometime this summer you will begin to see reviews on this site every week or so. These reviews will share with you my honest opinion about the products, and how they worked (or didn’t) in a real live homeschooling family’s home. I’ll tell you what we loved and what we struggled with, and of course I’ll tell you where you can get your hands on them as well.

While you are waiting, let me share my absolute favorites from this past year (click the product name to see my review):

All About Spelling — I love, love, love this program! We received Levels 1 and 2 and also the corresponding readers. This program was amazing for my middle daughter that I started it with and we can’t wait to use it with the rest of the younger kids as well. This program is absolutely amazing and helps bring reading, writing, and spelling all together and helps kids really make connections that make sense.

Super Star Speech — Many products are available to homeschoolers for math, reading, spelling, science, and history. Even music, foreign language, and geography make a good showing. But, what about Speech Therapy? I was definitely intimidated to tackle this one at home. Super Star Speech has made it easy and the success we have found through the tools, knowledge, and methods spelled out in this book have been impressive. Excellent resource!

Mystery of History 3 from Bright Ideas Press — History can either be dry or too detailed, but this series has found the great balance of offering enough information to keep you interested, and enough hands on activities to make it stick. I definitely plan on purchasing other volumes from this series when we finish up with this one. Great material, beautiful text, and lots of great resources to go along with it on an accompanying CD.

There were lots of other great products, and you can see all my reviews here, and be sure to check back in here for other great reviews in the year ahead.

Disclaimer: These products were provided to me free of charge as part of my participation in The Old Schoolhouse Homeschool Crew. I received no additional compensation and the opinions expressed here come from my personal experiences and sincere thoughts.

Hat tip to Tracy . . .

Next week you will be able to get into all 392 national parks for free!

Read about it on the National Park Service website, and see if any of these parks could fit into some homeschool or travel plans for your family.

Now, there is only one in Illinois that usually charges, (and will be free next week) and it is down near St. Louis. But, there are a couple in Indiana, Michigan, and Iowa. Take a look at the full list here.

Granted, 246 of the national parks don’t usually charge an admission, so you can enjoy those for free any day of the year.

You can check out the few others that are in Illinois, or elsewhere as well.