Monday, July 6, 2009

25% Off Bundled Titles

I'm offering 25% off all my bundled sets, now through Monday, July 13.  Now is a great time to stock up for your upcoming school year! 

Some examples of the discounts available...



Regular bundle price - $18.50 - Sale $13.87







Regular bundle price - $10.00 - Sale $7.50






Regular bundle price - $10.00 - Sale $7.50





Regular bundle price - $4.00 - Sale $3.00




Click here to see a full listing of all our bundled titles

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Ice Blocking Youth Activity

I'm a youth leader at my church and we have about 40-50 youth ranging from ages 12-18 that meet each week.  We are always trying to come up with fun activities for them and this one is always a favorite with the kids.  This would make a great homeschool activity as well.  All you need is an ice block, towel and a nice steep hill.  This is tons of fun!  Even some of the leaders love to get involved.  I would have too but ended up wearing tan pants and didn't want grass stains :(

video

Sorry about the wiggly camera!  I forgot to turn it off and then ended up taping more kids heading down the hill.

The girl with the crazy arm and leg action at the beginning of the video is my 17 year old daughter, Cassie - she's great!

video

Monday, June 8, 2009

Hummingbird Nest


We have a cabin in Southern Utah that over looks Zion National Park.  We love spending time outside in the cool air and watching the numerous hummingbirds that come around.  There are so many varieties.  My husband and sons were heading into one of our storage sheds to get out their fishing poles to go fishing and they found a hummingbird nest with an egg.  The hummingbird had build its nest on the fishing pole using what looked like small twigs and spider web - it was very cool to see.  


Monday, May 18, 2009

Special Discounts this Week Only!

Joyful Steward Student Planner Combo Set - $6.95 ($21.00 Value)    

Each is a 36 Week Planner

Included in the Primary Level:
  • Weekly Copywork / Memory Work
  • Weekly Student Checklist
  • Weekly Obedient Checklist
  • Book of the Week
  • Trait of the Week
  • Weekly Calendar
Included in the Intermediate Level Planners:
  • Weekly Copywork / Memory Verse
  • Weekly Subject Checklist
  • Weekly Chore Checklist
  • Book Assignments
  • Character & Life Skills
  • Weekly Calendar
Extra Pages:
  • Several Assignment Pages to Choose From
  • Book Log

The Joyful Steward Student Planners Combo Set is our best selling product and I've recieved so many personal emails thanking me for this product.  I'm so happy to hear so many of you love using these planners in your homeschool.  I want to give others the opportunity to purchase these planners at a discount and hope you will  find as much joy in using them as so many other homeschool families have.


Medieval World Combo - $8.95 ($26.00 Value)

This combo set includes:

  • Famous People and Events of the Middle Ages Notebooking Pages
  • Daily Life in the Medieval World Notebooking Pages
  • The Vikings Notebooking Pages

All sets includes cover pages, basic and primary-lined pages and lots of additional templates for further study.  You will also receive a bonus timeline with cover page/  This set has 800 pages to choose which means you will not have to go searching for additional resources to finish a great notebook.

My goal always is to offer homeschooling parents the best quality products at the lowest prices around.  I appreciate your continued support and pray you all have a wonderful week with your kiddos!

Saturday, May 16, 2009

Copywork - What's it All About?

Copywork is exactly what it sounds like... copying!   Your child will spend a few minutes each day copying great pieces of work from a wide variety of sources – literature, poetry, scripture, fables, quotes, and so on.  While your child is copying these great works, emphasize the importance of using their very best penmanship and making their copy as close to the original as possible.  By using this method, your child will see the proper way to punctuate, usage of different parts of speech, as well as capitalization.  Basically, they will see how a great piece literature should look and be written. 


Copywork will allow your child to see different writing styles and structure, which in turn, if consistent, will help them become better writers.  If your child can manage it, have them look and write the whole word instead of letter by letter, this will assist them in becoming better spellers.   My younger children who started out doing copywork from the start are much better writers and spellers.  They don't seem to have to work so hard at spelling.  While my older children, who began copywork later struggled a bit more.  That’s not to say copywork was a for sure cure for spelling, however, I do believe it helped a lot.


If your child is very young, you can start with the formation of their letters.  Spend only as much time as your child can handle doing this.  Once this is mastered you will move on to words, sentences, paragraphs, poems, scripture, quotes... I think you get the point. 


Allow them to illustrate their pages or find pages that are made for copywork practice.  Placing these pages in a notebook is a great way to store their work.  This allows them to not only be able to show off their beautiful penmanship to grandparents and friends, but also allows both you and your child to see their progression.  My kids often like to illustrate or color a picture that goes along with their copywork for the day.   Some children enjoy illustrating their own pictures while others enjoy coloring pictures already provided for them.  Copywork notebooks allow your child to add any illustration, making them very personal.   


Over the years I've done different things to get my children motivated about doing their copywork – I used to keep separate jars with scripture verses, quotes, and poems and they would pull them out and that was their copywork for the day. We still alternate days doing a verse, quote, poem, literature and their choice for each day of the week.   However, some selections take more than one day to complete.  One bookshelf in my schoolroom is dedicated to keeping books of poetry, fables, quotes and so forth.  I also keep a notebook where I continually add verses, poems and quotes to be used for copywork. 


In short, if you choose to use this method, you will find that your child will become better at spelling, writing, grammar and penmanship.  It is so easy to implement, there really is no reason to not give it a try!


We offer a large selection of copywork notebooks - click here to take a look!

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Freebie - Notebook Cover Pages

Black and White Cover Pages for Notebooks

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Freebie - Ruth & Naomi - Bible Notebooking Pages


This file has an activity for primary age children and comprehension questions for older students.  Also included are 15 notebooking pages in both primary and basic-lines.  




The Book of Ruth Copywork Notebooks available for only $4.00 for the complete set.  The notebooks also include memorization cards and pockets that could be added to a lapbook.  A great compliment to these notebooking pages and activities.

Sunday, May 10, 2009

Freebie - Samuel - Bible Notebooking Pages





Primary and Basic-lined pages included

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Freebie - Antarctic Penguin Puzzle and Penguin Cards


 I made these up while we were reading Mr. Popper's Penguins.  

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Completed State Notebooks

Here are my two youngest kids completed state notebooks.  They finished these about 2 months ago.  

This first one is my 12 year old daughter's.




This one belongs to my 9 year old son.



Click here to purchase your own set of these notebooking pages.  They are available individually or as a complete set of all 50 states.

Mother's Day Freebies at CurrClick



Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Freebie - Trumpeter Swan Notebooking Pages

Notebooking pages that would be great while studying The Trumpet of the Swan, by E. B. White.  Available in both basic and primary-lines.

Freebie - Five Week Menu Planner


A few years ago I attended a homeschool conference and one of the workshops I attended had a homeschool mom that spoke about menu planning.  She talked about how she would plan 5 weeks of menus, which made her shopping much easier.  Her family had the same things for breakfast and lunch every week.  Meaning, Monday was always the same thing, etc.  She would plan themes for each dinner; crock pot, pasta, BBQ, casserole, ethnic, etc.  We use this plan and it works wonderfully.  I've created pages to help in putting together this plan.  


 

Our New School Room

We are considering having desks made but going to put that off for a while.  The old folding desks have worked great for many years.
Paper storage
Small storage and built-in bookshelves above
We are having desks made that are just about finished for each of the dormer windows.  I'll probably replace this pic once those are finished.

Built in shelves and shorage
Built-in storage in between the dormer windows
Storage closed 
Two white boards with built-in shelves surrounding
Both white boards are also murphy beds.  We left one bedroom out when we rebuilt the house and this is where our oldest stays when she is home.  It's great because she can bring a friend along.

Friday, May 1, 2009

Freebie - Monthly Calendars

 

Colorful calendars for each month of the year.  

Fire Pics and the Resurrection

I've had a few people ask to see pictures of our new house.  I'm happy to show them but I thought I'd add some of the day of the fire first.  

The day our house burned down I was 2 hours away in Las Vegas Christmas shopping with my oldest daughter.  When I heard about the house, we were having lunch with my sisters and mom, thankfully.   I actually never got to one store that day and my sister drove us home. 

When I first got there I thought my house looked pretty good from the outside and had no idea what to except throughout the remainder of the day. Our house was insulated with straw bales and it burned very slow - about 12 hours.  The firefighters finally knocked down the exterior walls because they said it would have smoldered for weeks.  Basically, the entire roof burned off the house and all the exterior walls were knocked down.  There was also an enormous amount of water damage.  The wind had also been blowing terribly bad that day from the north and the south side of the house was burnt very badly.  

My neighbor took lots of pictures that day and now I'm really glad he did.  He waited until our new house was finished before he gave them to us and again I'm really glad he waited.  By the way, our house burned down December 10, 2007.
 


The blue room above was our school room :(

If you look closely at the pic above you will see a large book case just to the left of the palm tree.  This is where we housed all the books we had collected throughout the years.  It was 9 feet tall and 16 feet long and busting at the seams with books.  The next day when I saw the books I thought some looked okay, but they were swollen with water and others were melted to the selves.  Oh.... I really miss all our books!  That was by far the biggest lose for me.  I still cry when I think about it too much.  So, of course I try not to :)


Okay, now for the good part! :)  Our new house was completed enough for us to move in on November 8, 2008.  We were the general contractors so we were very involved each and every day.  It was a ton of work but we were afraid if we weren't in charge it would not have been completed in a timely manner.   Our last house took 14 months to build and this house, which is slightly bigger took about 6 months from start date to finish.

We built our new house on the same foundation, however we redesigned the house and had to put in new footings and move the plumbing around.  We are absolutely thrilled with the house and look forward to making lots of wonderful memories here with our children and future grandchildren.


The house was completely framed with windows in in about 5 weeks.  


I'll have to add some pics of the inside another time.  I've got a little cleaning to do first :)  My daughter just moved out of her dorm for the summer and everything she owns is spread out throughout our house :)


E-Notebooking

My 2 youngest children enjoy traditional notebooking and lapbooking very much.  However, my 10 year old son does tire of writing and ask often if I will write for him.  I have done this many times and now that he is older I will have him type out his narrations.  The end result is a beautiful e-notebooking page that he can still be very proud of.  Here are a couple examples of what he has created.  



My 12 year old daughter is also enjoying e-notebooking.  Here is a sample of one of her pages.


Spring Back from the Recession SALE






Thursday, April 30, 2009

Freebies - Geography Terms Notebooking Pages

Two sets of Geography Terms Notebooking Pages.  Each set has a cover page and 6 notebooking pages to choose from.  One file has basic lines and the other primary.


Geography Terms Notebooking Pages - Primary Lines

Check out our set of Geography Terms Flash Cards for just $1.00!

  • 63 Geography Terms Flashcards that your child will illustrate and write in their own definition.
  • Geography terms pictures included for the child who would rather not illustrate their cards themselves. 
  • A pocket that could be added to a lapbook.
  • Freebie - State Study Notebooking Pages

    Two page state study notebooking pages.  


    For a more comprehensive set of notebooking pages, check out our Study Study Notebooking Pages.  Each set includes 67 pages to choose from with both primary and basic-lined options.  You can see a full preview for each set available.  

    State Study notebooks are sold in a 50 notebook set for $18.50 or you can purchase states individually for $3.25 each.