What is it?  Leave your guesses in the comments.

• someone at church meets you for the first time and says, “Nice to meet you. Wow! Either you don’t use birth control, or it’s not working!”
• you are at a thrift store and people ask if you run a daycare – before they look at your children and notice they all look alike.
• you can strike fear into the heart of your misbehaving toddler: as you actually get up, while carrying the nursing newborn, and step over the baby gate without falling.
• you label the 8 brooms and dustpans with the names of where they “live”, so that when you find them all over the house, you can put them away easily. Even if they’ve been taken apart so the handle is the spear and the broom part is the Spartan helmet ornament…
• you’ve been pregnant and/or nursing for so many years that one day your children ask you, “Mom, can you run?” and you answer, “Sure. But why?”

Supplies needed:

• clipboards – I purchased three 3-packs at Sam’s Club
• heavy duty sheet protectors – already had these (purchased from Sam’s Club)
• card stock – you can also use paper, perhaps with some scavenged thin cardboard
• old rags, chamois clothes, microfiber cloths – whatever you have

Tools needed:

• scissors

Insert the card stock into the plastic sheet protector.  Cut the hole-punched edge off of the sheet protector.  Clip the sheet to the clipboard.  Now that I think of it, you could also leave that edge on, and just stick this in a binder!

I’ve found that washed and dried chamois cloths make an excellent homemade microfiber cloths.  I actually bought microfiber cloths for cleaning, so I put my old do-it-yourself cloths to good use – I cut them into pieces for homemade erasers.  Works great!

It’s that easy!  My children use these for schoolwork.  For my younger children who need to practice handwriting, it is so easy to print out something free from the internet that they can trace over and over.  My kids will sometimes put the “whiteboard” aside and use it as a portable desk for drawing while I read aloud.

Check out my other WFMW tips.

Linked to: Works For Me Wednesday

Now I have nothing against healthy fats and oils – they’re good for you! When you are canning stock, however, you are supposed to de-fat it – get most of the fat out, otherwise the oil prevents a good seal on the jar lids. The usual way to do this is to take your hot stock, and chill it until the fat hardens so you can easily scrape it off.

Well, that seemed to me like I was doing double-duty on the heating thing. The stock was already hot, and it needed to be hot for the canning process. It didn’t want to double-heat it. So I skimmed as much fat off as I could with a ladle. That was slightly tedious.

I remembered the idea behind a little gizmo that allows you to pour broth in a measuring cup, with the spout on the bottom so the clear liquid pours out, leaving the fat to float on top. Those work wonderfully, but I haven’t seen one that will hold more than a quart – usually they only hold a pint. That’s when the idea hit me. I pulled out my one-gallon drink dispenser, preheated the glass with some hot water first, then poured in the stock. After a few minutes, the fat settled on top, and I began filling my jars. That was a little tedious, so I just filled a stock pot.

As the liquid neared the bottom, I had to tip the jar a bit to keep the fat from flowing through the spout.

There were a few drops of fat left on top, which I blotted up with a quick dab of paper towel.

And THAT time-saving, labor-saving, energy-saving tip definitely works for me!

Check out my other WFMW tips.

Linked to: Works For Me Wednesday

Linked to:
Wordless Wednesday
5 Minutes For Mom

Cool Math 4 Kids – has great step-by-step Long Division Lessons that my kids understood. I also like the Number Monster which allows you to pick operations and difficulty levels, and keeps track of your score.

Math Drills has addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division worksheet pages (complete with answer keys!).

Khan Academy – Heard about this from a friend at church. It’s comprised of thousands of YouTube instruction videos and is a HUGE site that goes way up to college level math. There’s even an iPhone app for this one.

Multiplication.com’s worksheet downloads, tests and quizzes downloads, and online tests and quizzes.

Big Brainz – Used to be known as Timez Attack as it only had times table practice. Now it has multiplication and division, and a beta version of addition and subtraction. Pretty high-tech game interface for what my children are used to – I limit the use of it (FYI you have to pick either a male or female green ogre/alien/thingy character). I do appreciate the fact that it really forces my children to learn ALL the facts – until they do, they are stuck in the “Dungeon of Ignoruntz.” Free download has base versions (not many different venues – just a dungeon, palace, a bit of a space station and a bit of jungle) and all the addition, subtraction, multiplication and division tables. You have the option to upgrade to paid, fancier versions – I haven’t upgraded and don’t plan to.

Xtramath – Just heard about this from my friend Jenny. “A free web program for students, teachers, and parents to help kids master basic math facts.” A neat feature is it will email you progress reports on all your enrolled students – and will let you know if they haven’t practiced for a few days.

Do YOU have a favorite free online math site?
Please share it in the comments below. Thanks!

At first I have to admit that I wasn’t sure about being interested in a coloring book that had anything to do with chemistry. There’s a little history here – in high school I dropped chemistry before I could fail it… My children have not taken chemistry yet in our homeschool program – thankfully! My husband promises he will help teach it.

Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised. The Periodic Table of Elements Coloring Book has a “simplified periodic table” that immediately got my attention. When it comes to chemistry – I need simple. So it turns out that my past experience with chemistry may have given me a great perspective on reviewing this book!

From the introduction:

The intention of this material is to help the child become familiar and comfortable with the elements their world is made of, the periodic table and its concept, and the idea of chemistry as nothing to fear. With this in mind, the more complex elements and the man made elements are not included in this book.

Apparently the author, Teresa Bondora, had some resistance from the scientific community when she first started this concept. She strongly believes that it’s okay to “leave stuff out” when introducing elementary age children to the periodic table. Her premise is that if children have a good experience with a simplified periodic table when they’re younger, then they won’t be so overwhelmed and turned off when they see it in high school. In fact, Teresa hopes students might be eager, enjoy it, and end up with a lifelong love of science. (For more information, visit Teresa’s How To Teach Science site.)

For each element, there is:

• a list of facts about the element
• a bit of history
• a coloring page with the name, atomic symbol, and items that contain that element

I actually found this interesting – it was short and simple, and I enjoyed reading the list of facts and history on each element. In using this with my children, I plan to make sure they read the list first, then they would be able to color the pages. The pictures are easy to color, and have to do with the element – for hydrogen there is volcanoes, water, rockets.

If you need some guidance for how to use this book in daily lessons, you can visit the How To Teach Science store and find 2 guides to using the periodic table, lesson plans, and even some science flash cards. From that link, you can purchase the book through Amazon for $25 – it is also available through Christian Book Distributors. You can also “Like” the Periodic Table of Elements Coloring Book on Facebook.

Review Disclaimer: Please note that I have been provided a complimentary copy of this resource by The Homeschool Village specifically for review purposes. All opinions are 100% my own.

I’m sitting in bed right now, blogging on my iPhone, bundled in a sweatsuit and a HAT that I plan to wear while I sleep. It’s cold in Florida right now. My Michigan relatives tell me otherwise, but… after 15 years in Florida, I’m acclimated. And I’m cold!

And yes, I still have plans for this blog, despite the fact that I’ve neglected it for two months! That’s right – my last post was waaay back in October. I tried to keep my Facebook page somewhat updated, so that’s the best place to catch up right now. But I will at least tell you that the main reason for the blog slowdown can be summed up in one word: BALLET. More on that happy development another time.

Our next batch of meat chickens arrives on January 20th, in chick form. I like to call it baby meat.

Wednesday we have a couple of dentist appointments, and possibly a couple of doctor appointments. A few kids have fevers that won’t go away, and pneumonia is going around in our area, so we need to get that checked out.

And since it is now high midnight (the opposite is “high noon”, right?) – I need to get to sleep.

May you and yours experience God’s richest blessings in 2012!

The Adventures of Munford books, by Jamie Aramini, are just that – a delightful blend of history, geography, and science – all told through the adventures of a water molecule. Well, he’s pictured as a water droplet because, as the book points out, you can’t actually see a single water molecule.

Our family was able to review one of The Adventures of Munford books: Munford Meets Robert Fulton. We began using it as a read-aloud, and found it enjoyable. It was easy to read (it’s written at an elementary reading level) with short chapters, so I could fit a little in here and there for school breaks. Then I just let my children finish the book. While very simple for the older children to read, it had enough detailed and new information in it for them. They commented several times how well-written it was, and how naturally the learning was woven in to the story. The younger children were just completely captivated by the adventures of the cute little water droplet.

In this book, we followed the story of Robert Fulton, who designed the first commercially successful steamship in America. The story follows him from his boyhood in colonial America, and along the way we meet Benjamin Franklin and Napolean Bonaparte. This is possible because little Munford – being water – can be rain, snow, sleet, or steam, and travel anywhere in the world!

For science, there’s the concepts of steam (vaporized Munford gets squished with a bunch of other steam molecules, and ends up propelling the steamship), clouds (his grandfather had warned him about all the types of clouds), and explosions (the gunpowder in fireworks) – just to name a few.

There’s also just enough goofy fun for the children in these books, too. Everyone cheered when Munford got into some gunpowder and ended up blown into the sky in a fireworks rocket. The children chortled with glee (while a few said “ew”) when he ended up in someone’s nose, and then was sneezed onto someone else’s watch!

There are three other Munford books so far about Lewis & Clark, The Klondike Gold Rush, and The American Revolution. Right now Geography Matters, the publishers of The Adventures of Munford have set up a coupon code so that if you want to buy, you can buy 3 books and get 1 free. That means you can get all the books that are published as of this date! The code – 4MUNFORD43 – is available for use on the Geography Matters website, and it expires October 31.

If you’d like to follow the author, Jamie Aramini, you can visit her website, or follow her on Facebook and Twitter.

I also found out that Munford is now really famous – he has his own Facebook page! Check it out!

Enter The Homeschool Village giveaway for an opportunity to win a set of all four books in The Adventures of Munford series! You can also read the other reviews from the great HSV review team.

Review Disclaimer: Please note that I have been provided a complimentary copy of this resource by The Homeschool Village specifically for review purposes. All opinions are 100% my own.

Have you ever read through the entire Bible? I have a few times in my life, most recently with Mom’s Toolbox using the Bible in 90 Days schedule – I finished in 80 days.

We decided to keep reading through the Bible, though at a slightly slower place – about half, to be exact. I searched for a 180-day reading plan, and didn’t find one that suited me. So I made my own – with a little help from the customizable Bible reading software that comes with Balancing the Sword. I carefully went through the suggested schedule generated by that program, tweaking it so readings don’t end in the middle of chapters, and a few other things.

The file is available by clicking on the following link:

Read The Bible in 180 Days.

You’ll need Adobe Reader to open it (it’s a free download). Then you can save it to your computer, or print.

Check out other tips that work for me.