We can all use a few more hands
A lady on a police wife group (From Heart to Farm LLC) is making first responder ornaments and I am in love! I think I’ll be getting some for gifts for those close to us.
The ornaments are currently priced at $10 with free shipping. You can find both the personalized firefighter ornament and the personalized police ornament on Etsy. Her cutoff date for Christmas delivery is December 7th, so order soon!
Yes, it’s Tuesday, but Monday was pretty busy. It wasn’t due to Cyber Monday, as I mostly took a break from that. Here’s what we plan to make this week
Tuesday: Black bean burritos
Wednesday: Fajita Chicken Casserole, broccoli, salad
Thursday: Chicken and brown rice soup
Friday: Burgers, green bean fries, rice
Saturday: Dinner Out with friends
Sunday: Dinner with church
Christmas is such a fun time to dress up, be goofy, and have a little fun. UglyChristmasSweater.com reached out to us recently to check out their products and I’m so glad we did! Not only do they offer ugly Christmas sweaters, but they also have fun leggings, jumpsuits, and jackets. At UglyChristmasSweater.com, you’ll find lots of fun sweaters and accessories from your favorite movies. As a word of caution, some of them may not be appropriate for little eyes to view on the website.
UglyChristmasSweater.com has had their ugly sweaters featured on The Today Show, Live with Kellyand Ryan, Good Morning America, and the Ellen Show. They are also a national partner of charity organizations such as Toys for Tots, Arthritis.org, and the
Smithsonian Zoo.
The older 2 kids and I picked out an “Ugly Christmas Sweater” and we are thrilled with the results. I went with the Grinch sweater, my daughter picked the Santa! I Know Him! sweater, and my son picked an awesome Star Wars sweater.
The sweaters we received are pretty comfortable, and not scratchy and itchy. Truly, they are a lot of fun and we had a blast taking pictures in them! We’ve received so many compliments already on wearing the sweaters out and about. I know we are going to get a lot of wear out of our “Ugly Christmas Sweaters” this year.
My husband has been reading a book that talks about traditions being vital to family dynamics. The other day, we asked our children what traditions are most important to them. Among them were Thanksgiving with the local sheriff deputies, Easter with the cousins, and Stone Mountain Christmas.
I have to agree that Stone Mountain Christmas is such a precious and fun time as a family. I love strolling down the walk and seeing all the Christmas lights, riding the sing-a-long train, and checking out fun shows while drinking hot chocolate and eating cinnamon bread. Of course there is always the parade and Snow Angel feature to top it all off. This year, a special guest and fireworks appeared before the parade! It was so magical!
My son and I have started a tradition where we try to copy the dancers as they go through the parade. He loves to dance and it’s a great time to break loose and have a little fun. We got a few funny looks, but mostly smiles and we danced.
This year we decided to watch a few more shows instead of just visiting the main attractions. We watched Christmas in the City, which was a musical production. It blew us away! Even our 3 year old had his eyes glued to the show! I definitely recommend taking the time to watch that show.
At the end of the night, our hearts grew 3 sizes and we made yet another wonderful memory at Stone Mountain Park with Stone Mountain Christmas. Our kids are getting older now and time is passing so quickly. I love knowing that my kids are storing these wonderful memories in their memory bank. We can hardly wait to go back again next year!
For more information on Stone Mountain Christmas, please visit Stone Mountain’s website.
We haven’t used an official reading curriculum in the past with our kids, but I always have wondered about a few different ones. We were recently given the opportunity to review All About Reading Deluxe Kit Level 2 from Timberdoodle and we jumped at the chance. All About Reading is available in Pre-Reading, Level 1, 2, 3, and 4.
The All About Reading Deluxe Kit Level 2 is offered on Timberdoodle’s website for $163.80. Included in the All About Reading Deluxe Kit Level 2 is the following:
I admit at this point in our homeschooling journey, I really appreciate curriculum that spells everything out for me so I don’t have to spend hours and hours planning. The first thing that I noticed with All About Reading Level 2 is that step-by-step lesson plans are included in the Teacher’s Manual.
The first step in preparing the program was getting the letter tiles ready. I simply was able to separate the letter tiles and then apply the magnets to the back of the letter tiles. A magnetic white board is preferred for this program, but we did fine just organizing the letters in front of us and skipping the white board. After this, I prepared the syllable tags and the Reading Review Box.
I was a little nervous starting this program on Level 2 since we do not have any prior experience with this program. I wondered if the kids would be able to follow along with the program without having the Level 1 complete. It turned out to be just fine.
Each lesson includes a “Before You Begin” section to guide parents on how to prepare for that day’s lesson. It’s very important to read this section before you start. Next, there is a review section where the program directs the teacher on which phonogram cards and words to review for that day. The “New Teaching” section introduces something new for the day. Throughout everything, teacher’s are guided and it is very easy to follow. At the end, the teacher is encouraged to read aloud for 20 minutes, keep a record, and mark the progress chart.
There are 57 lessons in the All About Reading Level 2. It’s important to note that it’s not expected to complete a lesson every day. Lessons can take as much or as little time as needed to understand the material.
The program grants permission to photocopy the student materials in the book for household use only. That is an important feature for large families like mine!
As I mentioned earlier, we have been using the program for a a few weeks as part of our homeschooling. In that time, I’ve grown to love this program. I decided to use the program with both my 7 and 9 year old girls. I felt that both girls could benefit from extra reading practice.
So far, it’s been a success! The hands-on activities have greatly helped my tactile learner improve her reading skills. The girls also like doing the activities. I find when my children enjoy learning something, they retain the information far better. This program is easy to use with more than one child at the same time.
One of the things that we created with the program is the flip book pictured above. My girls cut out the ending sounds to blend with the “st” sound. It was pretty neat to flip through and see all the different words that can be created.
We look forward to continuing All About Reading Level 2 throughout this school year and will probably continue with the program. I greatly appreciate Timberdoodle for providing this awesome product for us to review and find another program that works wonderfully for my children.
We had a lovely weekend and are looking forward to another crazy week of homeschool, rainy weather, and life. I’m loving this fall weather! We drove up to the mountains and the leaves are changing. It’s absolutely gorgeous out! Here’s the meal plan for this week:
Monday: Happy Birthday to my hubby! He’s requested Chicken and Dumplings
Tuesday: Pork Roast
Wednesday: Omelettes, sausage
Thursday: Cajun Cream Chicken, okra
Friday: Dinner Out
Saturday: Leftovers
Sunday: Bean burritos
Hope you all have a great week!
I’m such a math geek. I love math and enjoyed math in school. Several of my kids take after their dad and aren’t math fans. Since they have been trying out Math-Whizz for this review, they are actually asking to do more math!
Math-Whizz is geared toward kids ages 5-13. With just 45 minutes a week of practice, the program can help accelerate your child’s learning. The program features over 1200 interactive and animated math lessons and games.
Math-Whizz is fairly simple in concept. Once an account is created, kids log in for their placement test. This will give you your children’s approximate “math age” and gauge what areas need work. Once complete, my kids were able to start the “Tutor” section and begin to work. The tutoring is provided in game-like form, similar to the math games I remember doing as a kid.
There is a parent login and individual logins for children. We used the program with my 12 year old son and 7 year old daughter. Both really enjoy the program and look forward to that time of day. I often find myself telling my son that it’s time to move along to something else.
My 7 year old is currently in 2nd grade. She did struggle a bit with the program when it had her jump into multiplication. She hasn’t been taught it yet in our curriculum. I was able to sit down with her and us work on it together. She seems to be getting the hang of it now and I hope this makes it easier when it comes time to learn multiplication.
After they work on concepts, I can login to the parent dashboard and see how they did. I can see what concept they worked on, if they needed help on something, and how long they worked. The little green arrow means that they did well and were able to “skip” the rest of the problems of that section since they did so well. The program will also email me if a child needs help on a concept. I really like that feature.
As my children progressed, they were rewarded with credits to spend in the online “store” to play with in their login area. They were able to “buy” fish, toys, and other random items. This gave them the incentive needed to login each day and keep going. My son has a snake and is currently saving to buy a hamster.
In the parent login, I can see where they are in compared to their average math age. The vertical green dotted line is the average. Gray is where they were when they started and the blue shows where they have improvement. It’s neat watching the change!
I really like the Math-Whizz program, especially with the kids enjoying it and watching it enhance their math each day. We received a year of the program for the kids and I do believe we will renew it once we are finished.
This program is available as a free trial with limited lessons or you can subscribe. Subscriptions are $12 a month for the first child and $9 for an additional child. You can also get a yearly subscription for $124 and additional children at $90.
I feel this value is very fair considering your children get instant feedback and rewards based on their performance.
To find out more, please visit Math-Whizz . You can also find our more by clicking the banner below to read other reviews on this product from homeschooling families.
Please also visit Math-Whizz on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Google+.
We had a pretty good weekend. For the most part, we stayed at home, relaxed, cleaned, and tried to get things caught up. Lately it’s been hard to stay on track with 5 kids, homeschooling, life, etc. One day at a time.
I hope everyone has a great week. Don’t forget to check out our list of Fall Activities and make a plan for things to do this week!
Monday: Totally Dope Chicken from the Trim Healthy Table cookbook
Tuesday: Sandwiches
Wednesday: Pizza
Thursday: Bean Soup
Friday: Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup
Saturday: Hamburgers, veggies
Sunday: Dinner with church
It’s a beautiful Monday morning! I’m enjoying all of this cooler weather we are having in Georgia now. Over the weekend, we celebrated my 2nd born child’s birthday with family. He had a great time! Today is his actual birthday so we are going to take him out to eat tonight. Can’t believe he’s 12 now!
Monday: Dinner out
Tuesday: Chicken Enchiladas
Wednesday: Roast, veggies
Thursday: Meatloaf, Salad
Friday: Leftovers
Saturday: Kielbasa and brussels
Sunday: Dinner with church
Happy Monday everyone! We’ve had a pretty good weekend. My nephew came home from Scottish Rite on Friday. We are so happy to have him home with his family. The picture above shows all 10 cousins!
The week ahead, we are hopping back into the homeschool scene and working on getting things back in order. It’s been a little hectic around here. I’m so thankful that we homeschool so we can be flexible with things as they come about.
Monday: Dinner with family
Tuesday: Hamburgers, veggies
Wednesday: Beef enchiladas
Thursday: Lazy Lasagna
Friday: Southwest Chicken in the Crockpot
Saturday: Pizza
Sunday: Dinner with friends
