This isn’t specific to homeschoolers, but most of us have more books that we need, but still not as many as we think we need.
If you feel this way, you might find some interesting books at the Messenger Public Library in North Aurora.
This is just about to wrap up for today, but will be open again tomorrow, August 1 from 9-3.
Check out their website for all the details and directions.
Barnes and Noble has a free ebook reader available right now. Also, when you download it and create an account you also get six free ebooks including Little Women and Pride and Prejudice.
Just looking over the E-Reader quickly, I am excited about using this tool to read and organize the many ebooks that I have come to acquire. The program gives you a way to organize your books on various “bookshelves” and while reading you may jump to certain pages and chapters as you desire. Also, you can take notes as you read for future reference.
For free, there is not much to complain about in this handy device which you can download to your phone or computer. And, since Little Women was on our list to read this year, that comes as an added bonus.
Another great edition of Homeschool Showcase is up over at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers. As we gear up for another school year, check out some of the great posts for ideas to get your school year off with a bang.
One post that I noted includes 100 links to sites where you can buy, sell, trade, and even write books. So, if you are looking to expand (or clear out) your book inventory, you’ll want to check that out.
There’s lots more to enjoy so be sure to meander through the links.
Came across this at Five J’s blog.
If you are looking for some information to supplement your science lessons, or to stimulate your own thinking on the topic of Creation vs. Evolution here is what you can expect to find in these pages:
This book describes Dr. Martin’s personal journey from an evolution-trained scientist to a Bible-believing creationist. Dr. Martin examines many of the claims and theories of prominent evolutionists, comparing their often incredible, inconsistent, pseudo-scientific explanations of origins to the clear and simple description of the Creation as depicted in the Bible.
This book is available for a free ebook download, or for purchase of a paperback book.
Got some curriculum you would like to bless another homeschool family with?
Would you like to win some gently used, new-to-you homeschool books?
Then, I have found the bl0g event for you . . .
Jolanthe, over at Homeschool Creations (a fellow CREW member), is hosting a Curriculum Cleanout Giveaway the beginning of August.
Read her site for all the details, but basically she is asking homeschoolers to look through their shelves and come up with a new or gently used item to give away the first couple weeks of August (the second through fifteenth). You can post about it on your blog or just leave a comment with an email address for people to enter to win your giveaway.
You are responsible for shipping costs on any books you give away.
Any one can enter to win, so be sure to check out her site in a couple weeks and see if someone might be giving away something you have been wanting to own. You just might get it for free!
Head on over and check it out. Get your goodies together to giveaway, and get ready for entering some drawings for homeschool books and curriculum.
I received the following email with details on an upcoming marriage conference:
The conference will be held at
6700 W. Gunnison, Harwood Heights, IL
Saturday, June 27th, from 9:00 AM – 3:30 PM. Doors will open at 8:15 AM for registration.
Why not invite another couple to join you and your spouse for this special presentation of Bob Moeller’s challenging, husband-friendly and life-changing marriage conference, For Better, For Worse, For Keeps. Even strong marriages will benefit from the teaching, challenges and insights Bob shares.
There is no charge to attend and it’s open to all couples who want to refresh, renew and enjoy even more their marriage relationship. Even lunch is provided!
If you’re planning to attend please call the church office at (708) 867-9111 or e-mail bethanybc@sbcglobal.net and make your reservation today. Space is limited and couples are expected to attend from all over the Chicago-land area so register please right away to save a place.
Here’s the schedule for the marriage conference on Saturday, June 27th:
8:15 Am – 9:00 AM Registration
9:00 Am Session One – Communication and Conflict
10:15 Am Break and Snacks
10:45 Am Session Two –
Building Emotional Intimacy
12:00 Pm Lunch Provided
1:00 Pm Session Three –
Seven Secrets to a Great Sex Life
2:00 Pm Break and Snacks
2:15 Pm Session Four –
Staying Close for a Lifetime
3:30 Pm Conference Ends
Bob has been married to Cheryl for 30 years and is a homeschool dad of 6. He is a TV host for five years (Total Living Network), radio personality, (The Marriage Minute on Moody Broadcasting, WMBI- 90.1FM/1110 AM) conference speaker, pastor, and author.
Here’s what Gary Chapman, author of the Five Love Languages, said about Bob and Cheryl’s book, For Better, For Worse, For Keeps, “This book can give hope and perspective to any marriage. I highly recommend it!”
Summer tends to be planning season in homeschooling households, and just in time for the formulating frenzy, The Old Schoolhouse has released its brand new 2009 Schoolhouse Planner.
This planner offers far more than stability and structure for your homeschool days. As we all know, the role of mother, home manager, teacher, negotiator, etc. overlap throughout each day. And, likewise, the parameters of the 2009 Schoolhouse Planner stretch into these roles as well.
A sampling of what you will enjoy with this tool:
Calendars — including ideas appropriate for each month from July (starting in just a couple weeks!) through June 2010; yearly calendars up to 2012; along with recipes and resources appropriate for each month
Inspiration — from well known homeschool authors (including Jay Wile and Amanda Bennett), addressing topics pertinent to homeschool families.
Must-know lists and compiled charts — from presidents to cloud types to geographical terms, the periodical table as well as miracles and parables.
Record Keeping — fill in schedules (for two, three, four, and five children), grade tracking, field trip planning, activity managers, inventory sheets, goals, etc. This book offers 120 pages of homeschool related forms and schedules!
Household help — they don’t send a person, but all of these resources can help everything run more smoothly. This also gives you a place and format to compile essential information. They help you organize chores, medical information, schedules, menus, gardening, pets, parties, and budgets. Over 60 pages of these useful tools.
Each of the forms is made to either print and write on, or type right onto and print out filled in, whatever you prefer. You can save your changes for further modification, or to build on, or print and save the hard copy.
The only downside I have found is that if you want to keep more than one computer based copy of one of the forms, you would need to save the whole planner more than once on your computer. Since I plan on storing hard copies of the record sheets, this did not diminish its usefulness for me, but it was something I had to consider when printing out the various copies for each of my kids. However, if you own a copy of Adobe Acrobat (not Acrobat Reader, the free download, but a rather expensive software), it has the capability of saving individual pages in modified format.
I have big plans for organizing this summer and pulling together all the information and strategies that I need for the year ahead. This wonderful planner has given me the framework and tools to make it all a reality. I had already started before receiving the planner, but the 2009 Schoolhouse Planner has done a lot of the work for me, and now I don’t need to go searching all over the internet to get it done, making my precious planning time even more efficient.
And, since it is all in an ebook format you can print and reprint the various pages as you need to keep them visible around your home and keep your family all on the same page.
All of these resources, 375 overflowing pages, are packed into this one e-book for $39.00. You would want to purchase it soon to take full advantage of the planning and ideas available even to enrich your celebration and study of the Fourth of July, and to have all the information in place for the new school year.
If you missed out on the various book sales around the area the last couple months, here is your opportunity to connect with buyers and sellers of homeschool curriculum around the Chicagoland area:
SPECIAL EDITION:
NORTHERN ILLINOIS HOMESCHOOL MONTHLY
USED BOOK SALE
Are you looking for materials for your homeschool?
Or
Are you cleaning out old materials to make room for new materials?
Saturday, 6/13/09, there will be a special edition of Northern Illinois Homeschool Monthly devoted to helping homeschoolers in Northern Illinois buy and sell their used homeschool books, curriculum and items of interested to fellow homeschooling families.
If you have something to sell, please send a list of your items with prices, your first name, your e-mail address and your phone number toN.Il.HomeschoolMonthly@gmail.com by midnight on Friday, 6/12/09.
If you are looking to buy a certain book, curriculum or something your family needs that another homeschooling family might be ready to pass along, send your request with your first name, your e-mail address and your phone number to N.Il.HomeschoolMonthly@gmail.com by midnight on Friday, 06/12/09.
Please note: The editor (Julie Schnepper) is not responsible for typos in your e-mail, money disputes between buyers and sellers or any other problems that might occur as you conduct business with other buyers and sellers.
Remember: The deadline is Friday, 6/12/09 at midnight!
It’s hard to believe that so many months have passed and it’s time to kick off our SECOND ANNUAL SUMMER READING SPLASH! We had so much fun last year and hope that you and your children did as well. We’re looking forward to another summer filled with lots of reading and great books! (This reading program is open to ANY homeschooled student – you do not have to be a TOS magazine or E-newsletter subscriber in order for your children to participate.) As a matter of fact, we are so passionate about getting children to read, we’d love for you to share this information with EVERYONE you know! Please forward this e-mail to all your homeschooling friends and share the news about the Summer Reading Splash!
Over the next 3 months, we’ll provide lots of great information and creative ideas for encouraging your children to read. Below, you will see (in more detail) what all we have available to you NOW. As the summer progresses, we will add more resources to Splish’s blog. You’ll want to check back often! In the coming weeks and months, we will be offering several freebies and downloads to enrich your family’s reading fun!
Summer is a fantastic time to promote reading to your child(ren). Take a break from your regular studies and just spend some time reading to and with them. We are looking forward to another fun summer and hope that you will encourage your children to participate. Please continue reading below to learn more about some of the awesome things we have planned for the summer. Then, go pick up a book and READ!
We will be providing you with downloadable record-keeping sheets; these are available in two formats- for younger students and older students.
We encourage you to help your children set attainable reading goals this summer. Let your children take an active role in helping to set their own goals; they will be more eager to read if they are doing it for themselves! At the end of our 10-week program, you’ll have opportunity to share your child’s reading logs and he/she will automatically be entered in a drawing for free books!
This year, we have decided to kick things off with a fun coloring contest! We have two coloring pages – both featuring our mascot, Splish the frog – one for older kids and one for younger kids.
To enter the contest, click here. Download the appropriate coloring page(s) and print. Then, follow the rules for submitting your entries. (Be sure to read the entire page.)
The winning entries will be “popping up” throughout the summer on Splish’s blog. And, the best part … we’ve got a great prize package of summer reading material for the winners as well! So, get those crayons, markers, and colored pencils out and get to work!
All submissions due by June 16th.
We hope that you will encourage your children to participate in the SECOND ANNUAL SUMMER READING SPLASH, not only by reading books this summer, but by playing along in our weekly scavenger hunts. Please feel free to contact us with any questions you may have.
Sincerely,
Splish and the rest of your friends at The Old Schoolhouse(r) Magazine
A couple years ago I started looking for a program that would allow me to mentor my growing girls on a spiritual and practical level. I wanted some type of Christian Girl Scout experience.
In looking around, I came across a company called American Heritage Girls that looked rather interesting. It is a “nonprofit organization dedicated to the mission of building women of integrity through service to God, family, community and country.” It sounds like a well organized, exciting program. However, as I looked at the expenses involved it would cost at least $75 per student per year without even considering books and uniforms. That falls out of the affordability of most homeschool families I know that might have some interest in joining a club with us. They probably offer a great program, a solid framework to fit into, easy to start up, and lots of support for the coordinator if needed, just not right for my family and situation.
I continued my search.
Then I came across another club, also designed with young Christian girls in mind. The Keepers at Home club developed by the Keepers of the Faith organization. After looking over the materials, objectives, framework and flexibility of the program I knew this was what I was looking for.
I ordered a couple of the handbooks and the director’s guide and began studying the program in earnest. As fall approached I realized that I had stumbled upon a great thing and other homeschool families might want to jump in on this also. I sent an email to my homeschool group expecting one or two other families to begin this journey with. Well, by the time of our first meeting in November we had 9 families with a total of 20 children!
I love the heart of this program, to raise godly girls prepared to be godly keepers at home. I love the flexibility also. We meet only once a month. You could meet once a week, but our schedules are too busy to add something that often. Once a month we get together at my house and have explored decoupage, stenciling, prayer, pets, baking, and letter writing. We begin with a devotional time, then the kids have an opportunity to share any projects they have worked on since our last meeting, and then have the lesson or project time.
The book for the club is simple, but packed full of ideas for learning, discipleship and mentoring the young girls into adult hood. The book costs about $15, but is used for the duration of the program. The ideas (over 100 of them), depending on how quickly you go through them, could easily last you for 8-10 years and many could be repeated at greater depth as the girls grow older.
We set our club cost at $40 per child for the year including the book and sash. Next year for returning students they will only need $25 for the year to cover all of the projects and activities that we offer. This easily fits in my desire to mentor my girls while keeping a frugal, simple lifestyle. We all look forward to club time each month and have had great opportunities to grow our relationship through crafts and projects with spiritual significance.
There is also a club for boys, Contenders of the Faith, which we are looking to incorporate even more next year for the boys that have joined our group as well. These are great programs that offer a framework and concepts to build into the lives of our children.
And, while the end result is priceless, we don’t need to break the bank to get there. This wonderful program has definitely worked for us.
