Weekly Wrap Up 44

This week was fast paced and lots of running so it was not my kind of week at all.

Baseball is going to be the death of me. I was happy during the regular season but Kevin allowed Zachary to join the All Star team and it has ran me to death. Practice a lot and for almost 2 and a half hours 2 or 3 days a week on top of the games that where an hour and 10 minutes away. Sadly his team lost and since it was double elimination they are out. They did have a locked spot for state finals and thankfully they are in our home town this year. No more traveling but still practice.

The week started nutty. On Monday we had a very eventful day. The boys where playing a game they "made up" and all of a sudden I heard breaking of glass and it totally freaked me out and I don't remember going down the steps to them but I was there! Looking at the fluorescent light in a thousand pieces. They started apologizing and saying "sorry momma" but I was just worried about who was hurt. No one was, thankfully.

Then I was mowing and since we have a huge picture window as our living room window I never mow toward the house so to my amazement after mowing Zachary comes running and said "momma look at this on the door, what happened?"

I didn't even want to go look but I was glad it wasn't the window!

The best thing that happened Monday was we finished Christian Kids Explore - Biology! We have loved this curriculum and already have Christian Kids Explore - Chemistry to start in September.

Zachary has done wonderful this week with his multiplication facts. I am so surprised at his progress. He is using MUS Delta with Lexi. We are sharing the lessons and they are lesson 4 at the end of the week. He is reading so much better. However this week he really struggled with his spelling words. We will review them next week too.

Alexis has had some issues with Zachary doing the same math as her but I explained that he will slow down once it gets to harder facts. She finished her Helen Keller unit Monday as well and I tell you she loved that unit study from Moving Beyond the Page! Another review item she is liking is PreScripts from Classical Conversations. She said this week " mom I didn't realize this was Classical Conversations, no wonder its so awesome." See she loves the songs and memory verses from CC. Also I am going to praise her for getting a 100 on her Grammar lesson!

Kyle was a busy beaver this week. He completed 2 lessons in Math, it was really just clicking with him and I allowed him to keep moving. He is almost finished with his Christian Hero's book about David Livingstone. He also is still enjoying his WWI & WWII study, its just taking him longer than the review period wanted but I have no personal problem with the time.

Saturday was an extremely long day. The kids and I left for a ball game bright and early at 10:30. We hurried home to change into church clothes and made great time at 4 mintues in the house then we came running back to the car to hurry and meet Daddy at work 30 minutes away to drive 2 hours for him to preach. Preaching was wonderful. Afterwards we stopped to eat at Olive Garden and the town was shooting fireworks that we got to enjoy! The babies fell asleep fast!

Hope your week was wonderful!

Remember to enter our Lilla Rose Giveaway - Ends July 6.

 

Lilla Rose Review & Giveaway

I was contacted by a lovely lady named Andrea Donaldson, she is a consultant with Lilla Rose. I also know that she is the oldest out of 14 homeschooled children! She offered me a Flexi Clip to try and review and since I always do the same ol' thing with my hair I thought to myself - Why not give it a different look at least.

I've heard a little about Lilla Rose but have never looked inside the store or knew anything about the company. This is a true success story from the beginning when they felt like giving up and couldn't even make rent however after much trying and finally understanding the product needed some demonstration the company was off!

I went into Andrea's store and looked around at all the awesome, colorful and elegant Flexi Clips that were to offer! I was simply amazed at the selection. I choose the Who's Hoo Flexi Clip.

This is another one of my favorites that I want!

And with July 4th coming up this one is perfect!

Upon looking inside her store I found myself getting confused about sizing. I after all didn't want to get something that wasn't going to work so guess what? They have this wonderful video that isn't long at all and is so worth the time to watch it because the video explained sizing for my hair and explained what size for the way I wear my hair mostly.

Watch it here. I highly recommend this!

After getting my Flexi Clip I immediantly ran to the bathroom to put it into my hair. First I thought how is this going to go into my hair and actually stay put? I am so glad that it is easy to use and it stayed in my hair perfectly! It didn't move or fall out. I wore it all day the first day. Then I played around with styling my hair and placing it in to see if I again would be successful with placing it in my hair without problems. I am blessed to report that I again had no problems.

I love the look it gives with simplicity. The Flexi Clip is very durable and come in a huge assortment of varieties. I absolutely love it.

Andrea is offering a Buy 3 Get 1 Free Offer to her new customers right now (Free Item up to $16)

If you are a new customer and have 3 items you would like to purchase, simply follow these steps:

-Place your 3 items in your cart and complete your purchase.  Don't include your 4th item.

-Email Andrea at HairElegancebyAndrea AT gmail DOT com with your order number and the name and item number of the 4th Flexi you would like to get.

-Your 4th item will then be sent to you, separately from the rest of your order.

 

Now for the Giveaway.

You - yes you are given the opportunity to choose 1 Flexi Clip (value $16) from Andrea's store! Have fun looking around! 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Details of Giveaway:

This giveaway will run from June 29th - July 6. 

This giveaway is for new customer of existing customers of Andrea Donaldson to avoid stealing clients from other consultants. 

Only for residents of the United States. 

Upon Rafflecopter picking the winner I will need confirmation within 48 hours of sending you an email of I will go to the next person. 

Andrea will be shipping this to you personally.

Moving Beyond the Page - Schoolhouse Review

I have the pleasure of introducing you to a wonderful company that my family has been reviewing for the Schoolhouse Review Crew, Moving Beyond the Page. They offer complete homeschool curriculum. They have a literature based curriculum that helps promote critical and creative thinking, provides challenging projects and supports different learning styles. 

A favorite thing about this company is that they also provide you the opportunity to just purchase a topic of interest!

Moving Beyond the Page provided me with two separate units for my two oldest children.

Alexis choose Who was Helen Keller? The age range for this product was 7-9 years old, she is 9. We received the literature unit online version of "Who was Helen Keller?" however we received the 2 physical books that went with the study by mail, Who Was Helen Keller and a biography about Alexander Graham Bell. 

How this worked was I had to go online to activate the unit. It stays active 3 months however the unit is scheduled to last around 19 days so this gives you a lot of space to work within and the best part is even if you do not get the unit complete within the 3 months it will not expire! 

Once I activated our unit, I then printed out the components to the Helen Keller unit and placed them within a 3 ring binder with all her items she would need. 

We used this daily in our normal school routine. She completed this right on schedule! She loved the reading and I loved that all the instructions where very clear for her to follow. Since she picked what topic she wanted to study she took a special interest in reading a few more books about Helen and Alexander Graham Bell. 

Not only did it have clear instructions for her to follow but the questions always made her think and use her feelings about the book. She really enjoyed all the activities that were provided.

I was first worried that it would just be reading and answering questions but let me a sure you - No it's not!! This is so much more than just reading the text and answering questions.

You can purchase this unit for $22.87

Now for the second unit! 

Kyle picked World War I & WWII social studies unit. This unit is different than the other one because this was a printed unit that was sent to us, so no printing or extra anything needed. The WWI & WWII unit is for ages 10-12 and Kyle is 12.

The day the unit came everyone dug into the box to see the new goodies! Even Daddy, below you will see him reading through the A History of US book he really enjoyed reading this.

The unit came with 3 items. The student workbook, which has parent notes in the back and it, includes answers to the questions in the units, Where the Poppies Grow and A History of US. I needed nothing else to get this unit rolling. 

Kyle has needed a little help throughout this unit. The reading material is heavy for him and that is not his strong point so to help him not get discouraged and overwhelmed we have been reading some passages over an entire day and then doing the activities and questions the next. The units are taking him longer than expected but personally I don't mind. I want him to have fun and learn all he can and NOT get frustrated with the reading material because then we will defeat the purpose of this thing called learning.

He really has learned a lot so far about WWI & WWII, he loves the activities and again I was really nervous about it just being reading and questions but it's not! That is what makes these units come to life, it makes them appealing to a reluctant reader too!

You can purchase this unit for $42.89

Overall we have had no complaints with anything! 

The material is great and all the prep has been done for the parent. My children have truly enjoyed their units and I am a happy mother because of it.

For more reviews on different topics from Moving Beyond the Page please visit the Schoolhouse Review Crew's blog.

 

Wordless Wednesday 44

Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel HSS Unit

I have been so bad at one not posting about our studies,
two I've been bad at not following through with them and providing them like I use to, three not using lapbooks or unit studies.

I understand by now I should be over the whole adjustment period of moving but hey lets just get over it already...
 Its been hard on me...

Zachary needed to have lapbooks or unit studies weekly the way we used to. Starting back this week with a unit I wanted to make sure of a few thing:

We could have fun.

It would be something that would keep his interest.

I do believe that I was able to find the perfect fit in choosing Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel from Homeschool Share. If you haven't ever heard of Homeschool Share you need to check them out. They offer free unit studies, free lapbooks, free connection pages and the best community of ladies inside their forum that you can find!! 

Find them on Facebook, On their blog or here on their site. 

Here is a little about how our adventure with Mike and Mary Ann went!

We started the unit by reading the book of course. We discussed several parts of the book afterwards just among ourselves. We then stuck to the lesson plans that are provided. We talked and learned about energy. How there are different types of energy and what it is used for. He done very well on all of these topics. 

We then moved on to states of matter. We have spoken with the older kids about this but to my surprise he understood and knew the differences without much explanation. He completed the sorting activity within minutes. We also took an ice cube out and allowed it to melt. Then placed it into a small sauce pan and boiled it. So that one small ice cube became all the states of matter. He enjoyed the lab of course.

Then we talked about being faithful in friendship, brotherhood, and in God. He has had many talked about once you start something you stick with it until it's finished. You help people in need, etc. But being loyal was something he really didn't know so I explained it was the same as being faithful. He related this back to how Mike felt over Mary Ann. I talked about no matter how hard we try we will fail and make mistakes but God is always faithful to us and forgives us when we are truly sorry. That he is the one true object that will never leave us.

In the book it spoke a lot of different landforms that Mike and Mary Ann had once helped build and dig. We reviewed them with cards and explained the meanings and referred back in the book for pictures.

He enjoyed the math story problems added in. He loves math and is doing great at it and just construction topics having math was a great addition for him. He is all boy and loves anything that is a construction piece. Last we colored some of the coloring pictures that was provided in the download.

Blessings ~

N is for New Recipes!

I love cooking however I will admit sometimes I just don't want to!

I have seemed to find out why I lack the desire and it stems from normally not having a plan. I have started back to posting my Menu Monday weekly and just to be honest it has helped me tons.

I have to plan out my meals for the week. I normally plan two weeks at a time. Then I grocery shop for that to help make it easier.

I don't like cooking the same ol' thing all the time and I'm sure you don't either. 

I enjoy searching Pinterest for new recipes. It's actually one of my favorite places to look when I need ideas!

I share my successful recipes often so that others can try new meals too.

Sweet & Sour Chicken  

It turned out wonderfully!

Microwave Mug Cake

It's a perfect fast recipe that also came from Pinterest.

Doritos Chicken Casserole

This is awesome, one of my families favorites since finding it. We also had a beef version that was delightful!

Parm Chicken with Bow Ties

I cook this at least once a month.

Last but not least a personal favorite of mine because it is so easy and good!!

Easy No Bake Cheesecake

If you  have read this blog often you understand the love I have for cheesecake and man this is great!