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Maximize my mornings: waking up!

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I am a planner and goal setter by nature but usually have trouble following through. My goals are lofty and well intentioned, but often come crashing down due to lack of habit. I’ve been floundering with the whole “get up early” and get my day started for a LONG while. Not sure how it happened. Maybe it was the birth of a 3rd child and our new homeschooling endeavor. Whatever it was now is the time to redeciate the mornings to the LORD and not allow my life to slip by without meaning or purpose!

I often find myself sitting down at the PC in the mornings just getting ready to “do something” when my toddler comes running in wanting mommy. While I love holding him and snuggling he is now big enough to wiggle his toes on the keyboard or grad the mouse and make a mess of mommies work:) This tends to make me feel frustrated or irritated that I didn’t get up early enough to accomplish anything without interruption.

I need to get more sleep, better sleep. I need to get to sleep roughly the same time each night and/or take a short nap in the day if our days are long. I need to get children to bed at decent times per their circadian rhythms. (I’ve got two early-birds and 1 night owl. The night owl get lots of ideas between 8:30pm and 11pm.) I need to express to my husband how he can help with bedtime routine even when he works till 9pm, which will allow for me to wrap up my day and plan for tomorrow.

I believe making a list of what needs to be done so the important gets taken care of and not sidetracked by an “urgent” whim. I believe meal planning, Bible reading/listening and school scheduling will take our family life to the next level. One of peace. One of consistency. One of simple expectation.

Join me while I Maximize my Mornings with:

Curriculum- What are we using this year for 3rd and 4th grade?

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Well, this is our 3rd year homeschooling and we have done things differently each year. The 1st year we used a few books that they were used to (A Reason for handwriting and A Reason for spelling) when attending a Christian School. We added free Bridges math, science, history, and geography that I found online. The 2nd year we went a little more eclectic leaning towards unschooling. I thought we were going to study missionaries and variety of countries, but the kids just didn’t seem that interested. We primarily used checklists of subjects/topics for “bare minimum” work and did some lapbooking on topics they chose. We learned about the Arctic and Antarctic from Carisa’s Calendar Connections. We bought an art calendar at Jimmie’s suggestion (but have had to skip some days due to content.)

SO what are we going to do in year 3, you ask? Yet again something different. I learned about Margie Gray’s Prairie Primer during a library workshop about lapbooking. I thought it would be GREAT to do a major unit study approach using a great set of books as the main spine. The variety of topics that can be covered and the rabbit trails to diverse learning sound wonderful to me. I have put off planning specifics in order to keep ME excited about it. I even went a step further and have created a co-op around LHP and Pioneers getting 5-7 other families to join us. I did this for a couple of reasons. 1) To keep me accountable to actually using PP this year and progressing through a number of the books. 2) To help my kids have a set group of homeschoolers they meet with and get to know throughout the year.

(We have struggled the past two years with not having dependable friends that homeschool. We know lots of families in the area that homeschool but do so diversely that it limits what time we can spend together)

Back to this year. I read the entire Little House on the Prairie boxed set this summer to prepare for this year. I kept notes about what I thought would interest my children. I did some extensive searches on those subjects. I joined Prairie Primer Pluses yahoo group and became a moderator to correct broken links and add more links to share with other PP users. I also found and joined Prairie Primer  Homeschool Support on facebook. Both groups offer loads of ideas, recipes, and support. This took a lot of the stress of  planning away knowing that with a few clicks of a button I can have all sorts of videos, virtual tours, worksheets, and unit studies related to over 30 different topics from LHP. We will be studying presidents, states, science, health, bee keeping, railroads, and tons more topics this year!

Art/Drawing: found some great free drawing lesson’s online!

Bible: ABC Scripture cards or Scripture Cards, Seeds of Worship songs

Handwriting: Seeds of Worship from Bible Printables

Math: I found Ray’s Arithmetic in case we go old school. We will also use Living Math with lots of games and real-life hands-on math concepts.

Spelling/Grammar: We will use words that are new from LHP and McGruffey’s Readers and Speller found free online. I also have some old-fashioned primers from various free sources.

History/Geography: worksheets and lapbook elements related to what we read.

Science/Health/Nature Study: will try to incorporate more nature journaling this year.

TOT School (I can’t leave Lil’ Red out! I will be planning lots of tot trays and activities to keep him busy. We will work on numbers, letters, colors, and shapes.)

If you are looking for curriculum and do not know where to turn or have much money to spend check out these websites to get you started:

Homeschool Freebie of the Day- www.homeschoolfreebieoftheday. where I got most of my primers and handbooks for boys and girls

Freely Educate – www.freelyeducate.com loads of info all the way through college classes

Free Homeschool Deals- http://www.freehomeschooldeals.com/ free daily kindle e-book list

Guest Hollow– free science, history, and math. Full curriculum pre-planned using library and online resources.

Donna Young– loads of free EVERYTHING homeschool!

 woo, all that types and just wanted to add a side note; somewhere I started this year’s curriculum list with ideas and such and have no idea where it’s at or even if it’s typed or written down. I’ve racked my brain for 2 days looking on pc, jump drive, and laptop trying to figure out where those words went to no avail:) Just another very late night on my blog.

Special Note: CurrClick is giving everyone 5 freebies! Just click on the graphic  visit iHomeschool Network and get your free products!

Not Back to School Blog Hop
 

 

 

 

Things I’m working on…

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my blog! Well, okay. Here I am sitting down at the PC trying to decide what to do next. There are so many things to learn when you begin blogging like linking Facebook and Twitter to your blog posts as well as learning the “language of twitter”. I found out about Twitter Tuesday and a great group of like-minded bloggers. Then I was encouraged by one of these bloggers to participate even though fast-paced (and crazy fun!) She suggested I focus on 2-3 bloggers to connect with and go from there. Great idea AMY @ Homeschool Blogging! I better prepare with some reading up on using twitter!

Right now do I learn some more tweet etiquette or learn how to link my blog to twitter or just write some more content? I am constantly pulled in various directions (I am a creative, short attention spanned person so I can easily get distracted!) did I mention I am mommy to 3 very active children. I still need to learn better SEO and the whole categories vs. tags thing:) Amy also suggested I make a list and research those things. I got a 3-ring notebook and a 1 subject notebook all for blogging-just like the big girls do (Jolanthe, Mama Jenn, Erica, Amy, Jamerrill)

 Then the whole Facebook blocking thing is a little irksome and on my mind! I’ve been friend/message blocked twice since I started a new page on Facebook! I do not try and solicit people who are not in the same sphere of influence or who aren’t already on my friends list. According to Facebook I have had several people not friend me and so that has caused suspicion. YIKES, I am not trying to do anything shady and spammy, I am just trying to make my mark in blogosphere!

I know that I want to participate in the  “NOT” Back-to-School Blog Hop this month on iHomeschool Network not just for a little PR, but because I feel that I “know” some of those great ladies since I have been following their blogs off and on! When I began to homeschool I did tons of research and continue that research. I also love free stuff and anything homeschool and free is right up my alley. Plus the encouragement is hard to beat when you get a great group of Godly homeschool blogger mom’s connected via blog hop or series or carnival! Off to take some pics and jot some notes about our homeschool curriculum space, students,etc.

Blog Button- I DID it!

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Okay, so it’s nothing too fancy but I MADE and uploaded a blog button! I’m so excited. These beautiful flowers were taken from my cell phone and edited via ipiccy.com. Will continue to enhance my blog, facebook, and twitter. Look out pinterest/ blog world here I come!

So what do you think? Do you like my blog button? Have you made one? Go ahead give it a try. You might just get a little carried away like me:)

New Header Photo Collage

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Thanks to Amy Lynn Andrews @ bloggingwithamy.com for suggesting ipiccy.com! I was able to upload some pics from my non-smart phone and create a great blog header. On to create a blog button and then new profile pics-soon I hope!

Do you like my new header? Have you created a unique cover for your Facebook page? Do you need help with creating your own avatar pic or blog button?