Department and electronics stores aren’t the only ones with amazing deals this week.

If you find yourself with some extra money in your budget, or relatives asking what you would like for Christmas, or maybe you just want something a little educational to give your kids this Christmas season . . . you will want to check out the amazing sales taking place at various homeschool vendors.

I’m sure to miss some, but here are a few of the deals that I have come across recently:

First, a freebie from The Old Schoolhouse Magazine — a holiday planning guide. Free to download!

If you do some shopping in their store and spend more than $50 you also receive over $300 in bonus gifts for free. They have additional bonuses if your total increases. Check out their 4th annual Black Friday Special for details.

CurrClick always has great freebies everyweek, and this week they will also have a Black Friday giveaway. Be sure to check out their website during the day this Friday, November 27th. They are sure to have some great stuff both at great prices and free for the taking.

Notebookingpages.com also promises to have some great deals in honor of Black Friday. They will offer 35% off most of their products starting November 24 and continuing through the 30th. While at their site, make sure to check out their freebies also. Great inspiration that will cost you nothing.

Hands of a Child also has deals, especially for the Super Members. They have extended this, and I just got this email:

You’re in luck because we’ve extended the sale for everyone staring November 26th through midnight on November 29th (EST Zone)

All Project Packs in any format are 35% off

Everthing else on our site is 20% off

Visit our website at www.HandsofaChild.com to shop starting on November 26th!

Code: BlackFriday

Be sure to hit apply to see the discount in your cart during step 4 of checkout.

And, don’t forget the Scholastic Sale right here in the Chicago area.

Great deals abound at the Scholastic Warehouse sales!

These sales can be more a temptation than a blessing at times, but we have found some great finds at the Scholastic Warehouse sales, and with Christmas around the corner, you just might be in the market for some gifts.

Check out their website for locations and hours. They have a number of them around the greater Chicago area, and chances are you might find one within driving distance for you.

Also, make sure to take advantage of registering online. Then you will receive a coupon good for an additional $10 off your purchase of $50-$100. From experience, it is pretty easy to hit that $50. Not because their items are expensive, but because they have so much to choose from. You will come away with a nice stash of books and goodies for that amount of money.

Happy shopping!

Check out this great opportunity for educators and it says it includes home educators as well. It might be good to bring some kind of card verifying your homeschool status if you have one:

The buzz around the blog world is a free book from the Magic School Bus series.

Here is the info from the EPA website:

“The Magic School Bus Gets Cleaned Up”

EPA’s Clean School Bus USA program has partnered with Scholastic to write, illustrate, and publish a new book in the popular “Magic School Bus” children’s series. In this acclaimed educational series of books and videos for children from kindergarten through fourth grade, a teacher named Ms. Frizzle takes her class on several science-oriented field trips, riding in their magical school bus.

In “The Magic School Bus Gets Cleaned Up,” the children and Ms. Frizzle explore the pollution emitted from their own diesel school bus and learn about how to reduce the emissions as they find themselves traveling through a diesel engine. The children learn about idle reduction and ways the community can help reduce the health risks from diesel exhaust. At the end of the book, the “Magic School Bus” gets its own pollution control device, a diesel particulate-matter filter.

Released on October 18th, this special-edition book is intended to be used by libraries, schools, state and local air programs, non-profit education and outreach campaigns, and for other targeted opportunities to increase awareness of the importance of reducing diesel emissions.

The books are free and can be ordered from the National Service Center for Environmental Publications, EPA’s publication warehouse. They may not be sold.

Quantities are limited due to the popularity of the book. Individuals, schools, and libraries may order up to 20 copies. Non-profit organizations working on diesel emissions issues and outreach may order up to 500. Other organizations, including for-profit companies, may order up to 100. Larger requests will be considered on a case-by-case basis.

For more information give them a call at: 1-800-490-9198 and request item number EPA420-K-07-001

It may not be as subject appropriate for homeschoolers as the topic addressed is making a school bus more environmentally friendly, but you can still learn about the engine workings and the impact on the environment. And, of course, it’s Magic School Bus, and FREE!

Pull out your lesson plan books and the white out, because you might need to make some room for this.

Brand new this year to the Chicago area is a program sponsored by Macy’s, various library systems, the Sun-Times, and Lite FM. This program allows library card holders to “check out” a free museum pass each week starting September 1.

Because this hasn’t started yet, I can’t tell exactly how this will work, and even the librarians don’t have all the answers. But, you will definitely want to make visiting your local library a weekly event, and leave lots of room for FREE field trips.

Through the Museum Adventure Pass Program, library card holders can go to their library, choose from the available passes they would like to use that week and receive a print out that expires one week later. After the expiration date (whether they used it or not), they may return for a new pass. The program involves twelve various sites this year including Brookfield Zoo and the Chicago Botanic Garden.

What to do:

- Check the list of libraries to make sure yours participates in the program

- Check the list of cooperating museums for the various passes available (you won’t know until you go to the library for sure what the availability is at that time, but this website will show you what the possibilities might include).

- Visit your participating library to check out a pass (one per library card, and these are not transferable)

- Take a field trip!

- Thank the museum and other program sponsors for making this available to us!

The passes do vary (and all this is spelled out on the website). Some include four admissions, some only two, some offer other specials and discounts (buy one, get one; gift store discounts, etc.) Read them carefully, and make sure you understand what you are getting.

This is brand new to our area, so you might get some funny looks the first time you use the passes. A great chance to practice patience. And, you might want to call ahead to confirm their acceptance of the pass.

If you want to see how this has the potential to grow, check out the Detroit area website and the Minnesota websites which have already enjoyed this program and continue to expand the number of museums offering free tickets.

What an incredible opportunity, don’t forget to take advantage of this!

(If you want to make sure that you don’t miss out on all the great resources and tips to enhance your homeschool, please subscribe to the Chicagoland Homeschool Network using the buttons on the right sidebar. And, if you are on Facebook, you can become a fan and receive reminders and notifications there as well).

Received this interesting tidbit thanks to homeschool.com:

Laurel Springs School is giving away FREE copies of “Homeschooling and Loving It.” Normally, this popular book sells for $15.95.

Here’s the Coupon Code: LSS
Go To: http://store.laurelsprings.com/
Limit 5 copies per person. While supplies last.

Be sure to watch the short video on the ordering page, telling all about the book. I used the “Homeschooling & Loving It” method with my own children and my son has just gone off to the college of his choice. It works. I don’t know how long the copies will last so be sure to get your copy right away.

A representative from Legoland Discovery Center in Schaumburg contacted me recently about letting you all in on a great deal. More than likely you have heard about this exciting facility, and maybe you have visited. However, maybe you haven’t. Maybe the admission prices made you reconsider, especially when you start adding up all of the members of your family. Maybe you didn’t know what to expect when you arrived.

If that sounds anything like you, or if you have any Lego lovers in your home, then you will want to check out this offer they have put together especially with the homeschool family in mind:

If you end up loving it, you can become a member (just $32 a year per person if purchased online) and enjoy it even more frequently, but either way you will more than likely come away with some great memories. Please feel free to spread the word about this fun learning opportunity.

It gets even better . . .

To help spread the word about these specially designed homeschool days, Legoland Discovery Center is giving away a free pass for one family (2 adults and up to four children) to enjoy their facility.

If you would like to enter this drawing you must leave a comment on this post. Everyone gets one free entry just by leaving a comment below. You can earn additional entries by spreading the word. If you facebook, blog, or tweet about the homeschool days at Legoland Discovery Center and this contest you can earn another entry, just come back and comment again each time, telling where you spread the word.

Contest closes on September 15 at 10:00 pm and the winner will be announced at that time.

“Look, Mom. I just finished my third copy of the Old Testament stick figures.”

I guess we can say this one’s a keeper. Paige voluntarily drew three sets of the Old Testament stick figures from Adam to the 400 years of silence. All of my kids enjoyed Grapevine Studies‘ hands on approach to Bible study in which they actually get to draw the story.

The first two weeks we sped through the entire Old Testament, highlighting all the major stories in a stick figure time line. Since then we have gone back to the beginning for a more detailed look at the events that started the world on its downward spiral of sin while those individuals kept their eyes seeking desperately forward to the promised Messiah.

Even for the non-artisan this is an excellent curriculum. It allows for creativity of expression, but also can simply provide a framework for reinforcing the story. They can just draw what they are shown, or they can run with it. You can draw the pictures yourself as you teach, or you can hold up the book for them to duplicate or gather inspiration.

- Getting the overall picture of God’s working through the Old Testament (we are still really at the beginning, but I can see my kids really putting together the red thread that ties all these well loved stories together)

- The simplicity of stick figuring. I am not a great artist and many of my kids take after me in that regard. This is something anyone can do. My five year old sometimes comes up with a better rendition than I have put together. Everyone gets to do their own thing as long as they accurately represent Scripture

- I love that we do this all together. From my four year old (who doodles along on his white board), to my 12 year old (who zips through the basic drawings and moves on to pondering the deeper messages of the Scripture passages), they all learn at their level, yet we go through it together. The Level 1 book was easily adaptable for all of them to benefit from. Getting a higher level book and expecting less of the younger students would most likely work as well. And, they do also have mutli-level studies available.

- The application is not book driven. The writer intentionally does this so as not to limit the products to any specific doctrinal background. We loved it. Our conversation each day took a personal path. We dug through Scripture, discussed what these events had to do with our daily lives, and benefited from the thinking patterns of each individual in the family. God speaks so clearly through His Word, that this provides us the order to follow and the framework for learning, and we take it from there.

- The memory verses. I like that they have a weekly memory verse, and that ones from earlier weeks are reviewed periodically to keep them from getting unmemorized. I wrote the verses out on note cards and we reviewed multiple verses each day. This way even when we have multiple verses to review we should get through most of them every week (or two), always keeping them fresh.

- The cards that are drawn up to summarize the lesson are helpful to bring it all together. I allowed my younger ones to draw the summary points (with stick figures) rather than write the many words out. We also did not use the actual page from the book, but rather used a simple 3×5 card for these review cards.

- Dealing with the different speeds at which the kids worked and their level of interest in creating detailed drawings. To allow for this we went through the drawings together and discussed the verses and applications. Then if they needed extra time, they could use our read aloud time (which immediately follows Bible time) to finish up their drawings for the day.

Probably. When we first started, I thought probably not. As much as we were enjoying it, I personally have a strong Biblical knowledge base and I didn’t think a program like this would add much to what I could do on my own. However, it gives us a great framework and direction for our Bible times this school year. The kids are personally involved in recording the story so they really connect with it.I enjoy how easy it is to use, and yet how adaptable it is as well.

Definitely. Memory work, multiple learning styles, easy to use format, reasonable price, all in one package. They have a New Testament survey as well which I might consider purchasing for next year.

If you do decide this is something that you would like for your homeschool, right now you can get it for an even better price.Grapevine has allowed you to enjoy 30% off their products for the next 30 days. Use this code: crews to receive your discount.You can choose between ebooks and regular books, whole Testament studies or special topics. The whole Testament overviews can take a full year to work through, but there are shorter studies available as well (Esther, Birth of Jesus, etc.)

The products that I actually used included the Old Testament Overview Level 1 student ebook ($25.95 for use in family), and the Level 1/2 Teacher book ($45.95 for the book or $22.95 for the ebook).

If you would like to read other reviews on Grapevine Studies, check out the TOS Crew blog.

More sales . . .

I have personally enjoyed shopping this sale to stock up on free reading books, craft sets, and even stocking stuffers. Much of the warehouse is available at 50% off or more, they often have items for $1, and you can print out a coupon for $10 off a $50 purchase when you register in advance. I don’t usually have a hard time finding $50 worth of items to fill my cart with.

Please add BookFairs@emailer.scholastic.com to your address book. Stock Up for the New School Year at Our Clearance Sale! • Deep discounts on selected titles • 100’s of items below $5 • Build home, school, and classroom libraries at a fraction of the price Sign Up Now to Receive a Valuable Coupon! Go online to pre-register (enter source code: EMAIL) for a sale and get your Fast-Cart Pass. You’ll skip the sign-in lines and receive a coupon for $10 off a purchase of $60-$100 or $15 off a purchase greater than $100! > Find a Sale Near You Exclusively for educators and Book Fair chairpeople / volunteers. Sale applies ONLY to preselected items marked down for clearance. Visit Scholastic.com Book Fairs | Find a Warehouse Sale | Contact Us

We rely on Office Max for lots of little, and occasionally big, items throughout our homeschool year.

Here is an event I have enjoyed in recent years (important note: check your local store for dates. Some have held these already, and others may not be on this same day, call ahead to make check your local details) :

*Valid August 9, 2009. Offer available to MaxPerks® Rewards for Teachers members or new teacher member sign-ups only.
All merchandise must fit inside this bag to qualify for the 15% discount. 15% discount applies to all regular, sale and clearance priced items, before taxes. 15% discount offer not valid on purchases of computers, monitors, printers, gift certificates, OfficeMax brand gift cards, general-use prepaid cards, phone cards, MaxAssurance® or assembly. Merchandise must be in original packaging. Discount applies to in-stock items only. Discount may only be used once. Special orders are not eligible for the 15% discount. Not valid with any other coupon offer, Associate discount card(s) and/or Retail ConnectSM Card pricing. No price adjustments from previous ads will be made. One bag per customer. Valid in-store only. No rainchecks will be given for this 15% discount. Void if copied, sold, transferred, taxed or where prohibited. Not valid on prior purchases or for credit card payments. No cash or credit back. Cash value .001¢. © 2009 OMX, Inc.
In the event the store runs out of the reusable bags, a substitute bag will be provided for use with the 15% discount. See store associate for complete details and exclusions.

♦Offer valid for MaxPerks® Rewards for Teachers members or new teacher member sign-ups only. 15% Bonus Reward valid on any printer purchase. Bonus Reward offer is available from August 9, 2009 to August 15, 2009. Items, and related Bonus Rewards, are available while supplies last. Member’s MaxPerks ID card and coupon must be presented at time of purchase; no Bonus Reward adjustments will be made after purchase. Bonus Reward offer valid in-store only. For percentage based Bonus Reward, percentage of Bonus Rewards issued is based upon price actually paid by Member, as advertised price can be reduced by any applicable coupon or discount. Bonus Rewards will be issued in the next statement cycle. Bonus Rewards for these offers, along with any other Bonus Rewards a Member may have earned during the same period, will be issued in the form of a reward card redeemable toward future purchases. Reward card expires 90 days from date of issuance except for reward cards for FL Members, which expire 1 year from date of issuance.

Private in-store event is for personal use only. Excludes gift cards. We reserve the right to limit quantities. Commercial credit cannot be used for payment. No other coupons will be honored at this event. Delivery items included. Not responsible for printing or typographical errors. All amounts represented in this email are subject to change. OfficeMax®, officemax.com, OfficeMax Express®, OfficeMax ImPress® and FurnitureMax® are registered trademarks of OMX, Inc.