Veterans Day

Veterans Day is another holiday that has kind of gone by the way side except for the post office and banks.  There was a segment on the news this morning were a group of students at a local school that were making cards for people in the armed forces .  I thought that this was a good idea.  I subscribe to Taste of Home magazine and they have  a site here about people sending baked goods to deployed trooops.
Annie has a page on Veterans which has links to various branches of the military. (Annie has pages for alot of holiday's .  A good starting point for any kind of study).
The Thifty Diva blog has a link to a free download of military band music.  12 songs in all.  It does require that you download Amazons downloader but if they do what they did last year and offer a free song everyday in December it is so worth it.  The Thifty Diva blog is a great blog to follow as they have links all the time to various free or coupons things.   

Movies

This past weekend My husband , Myself and our two daughters went to see Disney's Christmas Carol.  It was very good and was very close to the original story by Dickens so if you were planning to do a study on the novella this holiday I highly recommend seeing the movie.  I do caution though it is scary in parts and young children may be frightened.  It definately was not given the usual Disney treatment.  Here is a review by Focus on the Family's Plugged In.  I receive this newsletter everyweek in my e-mail and find it very helpful.

Disney also released their movie Up on Dvd this week.  We really enjoyed this movie and have added it to our collection.  It is a pixar film so the animation is great. (I forgot to mention that the animation in Christmas Carol was very realistic.  My Husband even commented that at times it was hard to tell that it was animation).  Here is the review from Plugged In.  

The story of a Toilet

On Friday our oldest daughter dropped the top of the toilet tank on the toilet and broke it.

Luckily Dave was able to come home this weekend and we spent the day Saturday working on the task of replacing the toilet.

First Dave had to remove the toilet.  Thanks to the internet and Home Depot website we had step by step instructions on how to accomplish this.

First the tank had to be removed.

next was the removal of the bowl.

plug the hole so those nasty sewer gases don't escape (some escaped anyway and the smell wasn't too pleasant.

 

Removal of the wax ring. 

Next was a trip to Home Depot but we stopped at Kentucky Fried Chicken for lunch.

While we were at Home Depot we decided since we already had the toilet out tha maybe we should do some much needed repairs on the floor.  So we picked out our toilet then picked out some sub flooring.

We then had the nice man at Home Depot help us put our wood in the trunk ( after it was cut so it would fit).

Measure a gazillion times

and cut once

now back to installing the toilet

time out for some fun.  popping bubble wrap.

check the handy dandy instructions we got from Home Depot website.

We got the toilet with everything included.

final touch

a job well down .  What was suppose to take about 3 hours for a novice took about 10 hours for us!!

A Christmas Carol

Ever since my oldest was old enough that I thought that he could read A Christmas Carol I have made it our literature selection for December.  With the new Disney coming out today I thought it was even more prudent that we continue the tradition. I try to add something different in our studies.  So the links I have are all about this subject.

Wired for books has an audio presentation of the novella.

This  is just a little poem that combines A Christmas Carol with a little of Poe"s The Raven.

Here is a Grammar unit with questions, vocabulary and grammer lessons.

This study guide has analysis of each of the staves and a couple of test yourself quizzes

Here  you can order a Bible study based on the novella.

This page has most of the links I have already listed but does contain a link to a vocabulary pdf file and has some ideas for creative writing.

I am looking forward to seeing thew movie and studying this great story!! 

More Thanksgiving sites

I decided to make this post about more Thanksgiving sites that I have been getting info about in my e-mail.

This Site  is a about a Mohawk Iroquois Village.

I am going to be starting this next site next week with Hannah.  Painted Pilgims is a little unti study on different paintings of the Pilgrims.  It looks like a pretty good study for art.

Another site that I might start next week is this one.  It also uses paintings for the study but these are primary sources found in the Library of Congress.

Only three weeks till Thanksgiving so its time to start those Thanksgiving studies if you already haven't.

Cold

It is a brisk fall morning here in Pa.  I will say that although the cold is not my favorite I do like the change of color with the leaves changing and the beauty of the snow when it falls. 

I got an e-mail in my box this morning offering 30 days of Thanksgiving ideas.  I do think that Thanksgiving is kind of glossed over so I think this is a good site get some ideas of ways to bring thanks-giving back to your children.  Here is the site.   

Hubby is on His way to Canada

And that means we will not be able to speak to each other until probably Friday (unless there is an emergancy) because the cell phone rates are way to high.  I will probably want to talk to him several times over that time.  We regularly text each other every day and usually talk at least every other day but nothing makes me want to talk to him more than when I know I can't. 

The weather here in south east Pa has turned a bit on the chilly side but according to the weatherman this morning it will be warmer this weekend and for the first time in several weeks it is not supppose to rain. Yeah!!!

here is a short study on the First Thanksgiving.  It has discussion questions to go along with it.

This is a full American History Curriculmn. I think I will be using this next year .    

Old Shoolhouse Freebie

The old schoolhouse magatzine is offering a great freebie.  It is a Holiday edition of their great magazine.  Here  is the link.  Enjoy

You've Got Mail

I am an e-mail junkie.  I get 100's of e-mails a day.  I belong to all kinds of e-mail groups.  Homeschol groups, recipe, groups , Disney groups ( yes I am a Disney fan), weight loss groups, crafts groups to name a few.  Recently I went through and unscribed to a bunch of the groups that I didn't read and went to web only on ones that are really seasonal only like the Christmas groups.  I also have my saved e-mails divided into several different folders.  I will occasionally go through them and delete abunch.  Even with my abundance of e-mails I have used only 3% of my space.  I can't imagine how many e-mails a person would have to get to use up even 50% of their space.  Yesterday I went through some of my recipe emails and delted a few and strted using the online recipe boxes that some of the sites make available ( that is another hobby of mine collecting recpes).


This site has some teaching material for teaching Geography.  Although I haven't used it the material looks interesting.

Nice day to snuggle up in a blanket and read

Which is what I plan on during later today.  If you are in need of a good book sugestion head over to She reads for a good selection of several good Christian fiction.  Christian fiction has gotten better and better and not everything ends up in a nice neat little package (just like real life).  They feature give aways at times and if you belong to book club they provide you with extra resources to help you.  Check it out.

Errands that need to be done

Today I will have to perform several errands that are not very pleasant to do.  One is getting my picture for my license.  Ugh, I don't feel like I photograph well to begin with and NO one looks good in these pictures.  Of course if I am careful and obey the law maybe no one will see it.  But then there are always those rare times when I have to show it as an ID and I just sit and grimace as they look at this totoally awful picture to make sure I am who I say I am.
Next errand is the annual sign up of benefits at my work.  I don't sign up for anything because we use my hubby's insurance but I still have to go to the office hand in my papers and have them make a copy of my insurance card. (my job is a rare job where they give me a little bit every month because I don't take the insurance.  They need to make sure I am covered though and just not opting out to get the money).   
These I consider nuisance errands, errands that are just annoying but need to be done.  There are errands that I find enjoyable like going to the fabric or craft store to get the items needed for making that special something for someone, buying presents for birthdays, Christmas shopping and even occasionally grocery shopping when I am gaithering the ingrediants for a special meal or treat.

If you want to start a study on Thanksgiving here are a few places to start.  Here is a sight that explores what was really eaten on that first Thanksgiving.  This is a site that offers a scavenger hunt that your children can do.  And this site  has some Thanksgiving themed online games .
    

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

My review of this book is here

Cherry Cheesecake Murder by Joanne Fluke

My review of this book is here

Holidays

Now that he holidays are upon us I have noticed that more and more of the emails I have been getting are dealing with different crafts, food, decorating ideas to do with each of the holidays.

One site I try to visit everyday I have already listed here but it never hurts to plug a good site.  Homeschool Freebie of the day  has a great freebie today.  It is a pdf e- book of what other homeschool families do for the holidays.  The direct link is  here.

When my two older kids were younger I made this game.  They spent hours playing this game and became quite good at it.  We used marbles for the tokens that you move. 

Yesterday was the anniversary of the dedication of the Statue of Liberty.  Here is a paper craft you can print out and glue together to make your own Statue.

Hope everyone has a great day.

Rainy Days

It is dark now when I drive home at 6:30 a.m. from work.  This morning it was raining and the glare was pretty bad in places tha I had a hard time seeing where the lanes were.  I dislike when that happens. I really don't like driving home in the dark when  it is suppose to be light ( according to my body clock anyway).  Sunday is the time change don't forget to fall back an hour.

Got this in my email today Car schooling.  This is a great resource whenyou are always running around to all those lessons, clubs and whatever (I use to joke with my hubby that I don't know why it is called homeschooling as we were always in the van, times have changed though since I only have one I don't do as much running around but still do a good bit.)

What a weekend

This weekend was a tiring weekend emotional and physically.  My Husband was home which was a good thing.  We spent some good quality time together.  We have decided to do a Bible study together on 1 Corinthians. will post more on that in later posts.  My youngest daughter had a bit  of a sore throat over the weekend.  She gets them quite often but they won't take out her tonsils because she doesn't get strep throat enough during the year so she has to suffer through sore throat after sore throat.
Then my oldest daughters boyfriend of two years broke up with her.  She didn't see it coming and was devasted.  This is her first boyfriend so it was really hard (not that every break up isn't hard).  I was trying to console her but I kept thinking of all the cliche things that people say and I didn't want to say any of those things  because they really don't lessen the pain so I just sat and listened.  I will just pray and be there for her.

The homeschool freebie tha I found today is this site.  It is a site that takes you through the process of building a castle and makes a great unit for studying middle ages. 

Unit Study on Book Of Virtues

I was cleaning out my email and I came upon this link to a free unit study on The Book of Virtues by William Bennett.  It looks excellent and the lady who put it together did an excellent job.  The unit study can be found here.  It is a little ways down the right hand side under Book of Virtues. 

Chili weekend

No that isn't a misspelling in the title.  I thought I would post my chili recipe in this post as the weather has turned and I turn to this recipe often.  My family loves this chili and it even has a place in our Christmas celebration as it is what we eat whieldecorating the Christmas tree.  I guess it is considered Cincinnati chili as it is little different than what most people think of when they think of chili.

Mindy's chili
I am just guessing at the amounts as I just kinda eye everything

Elbow macaroni  depending on how soupy you like you chili 1 cup to 2cups
1 can of chili beans
1 envelope of onion soup mix
hamburger  again depend on how much you like 1pound  (I usually use about 1 1/2 pounds as we like our chili meaty)
one can of tomato juice (the large cans found in the juice aisle)

put macaroni on to cook (cook till tender).  meanwhile brown hamburger.  I open both cans and add a bit of chili powder and the onion soup mix to the tomato juice.  drain macaroni and mix all ingredients together.  Add chili powder to taste.  Simmer until heated through.  serve with crackers.  Is even better the next day.





    

Failures