Guess what came to our house?!!

Oh yeah! The ice cream truck!! I was right in front of him in the neighborhood, and I called Joel to bring the girls out. He turned around a few houses before us (we are the last on a dead end), so I turned around and chased him down (oh yes, I did!). I asked if he'd come back down, so my girls got to get ice cream from the ice cream truck!! It really is the small things in life, isn't it? What fun!

Where do you get your great ideas?

I would be nothing without the generous people on the internet!!

Here are some places I go a lot!

~ Yahoo! has groups for almost anything you can imagine! Here is a great one for workboxers!

~ Homeschool Share is a great resource! It is mostly based on Five In A Row (FIAR) and designed for lapbooks and notebooks, but you can often use the resources in many other ways (filefolder games, extra practice, etc). They are going to have a workbox section soon! (Homeschool share also has a yahoo! group.)

~ I have a Delicious account. It is a networking site for bookmarks. You can see mine by clicking here. You can get on lots of trails to more great stuff. the blue numbers on the right of each description shows how many other people have bookmarked the same page. You can click on different users to see what they have listed. Fun stuff!

~ There are many homeschool message boards. I have recently joined The Homeschool Lounge. It looks to be very active, and full of good information.

Okay, your turn! What are your favorite places to visit? Do you have a Delicious account to share with us? Do tell!

I will do a post soon of some of my favorite homeschool bloggers, but you can look on my profile at blogs that I follow for a great list!

Tot School

Have you read about Tot School? I am going to be using this for a lot of ideas for Anna this year. Go here to read all about it. That link has a page of all the bloggers who participate in tot school, and gives a great description of what it's all about. You can even use many of these ideas in workboxes!

Are you planning for your next school year?

As you know from my previous posts, I am in planning mode! I am working towards a schedule to keep us on track so that I can manage our home, school, socializing, and still enjoy down time and fun time.

Here are some nuggets I'm trying to remember as I make plans and set priorities.

~ I will plan my quiet time for early in the morning. I draw my strength from Christ, and do not want to train my children or relate to my family outside of Him. I will begin my day in the Word and in prayer, so that I will be working in His strength.
~ I will exercise more regularly. I need the energy and good health to keep up!
~ I am going to work on training my children to do more chores. The more help I have the more time I have to do fun things with my family.
~ I am going to schedule planning time into each week so that I can sit down to focus on our calendar or events, our school plans, menu plans, and the like. When I have a plan, I can get more accomplished and spend less time wondering what we will be doing, eating, going, etc.

I am going to plan school time for each of the girls this year. I have not been focusing enough on Anna, and while I don't think she needs formal schooling, she needs some intentional time from me. I am going to be compiling a list of themes, skills, and the like that I want to do this year.

I love planning time!!

What are some new goals you have for the upcoming year?

What I'm Reading

We are headed to the beach tomorrow, and I have my reading bag ready! Want to know what I'm planning to read? Of course you do! Right?

Anyways, I'm going to tell you either way :)
~Managers of Their Homes by Steve and Teri Maxwell ~ This is a great book about scheduling for homeschool families. I've borrowed a book from another lady, but I will be ordering the book when my homeschool budget recovers from convention! The book includes a scheduling kit, and I know this is a book that I will re-read every year.

~Just Around the Corner by Steve and Teri Maxwell ~ This one is a devotion book by the same people who wrote Managers of Their Homes. She has written a series of devotions for moms and he has written them for dads. I am being encouraged and challenged by each one. This collection is from about five years (1996-2001 I think). They are still writing these monthly, and you can subscribe to them for free on their website.

Teri Maxwell has also written several other books including Managers of Their Chores, Managers of Their Schools, and Homeschooling with a Meek and Quiet Spirit. You can read all about them on their website at www.titus2.com (They will be in my town this fall, and I can't wait!!).

The other two books in my bag are To Train Up a Child by Michael Pearl and Shepherding a Child's Heart by Tedd Trip. I am about half way through Shepherding a Child's Heart and it has been wonderful so far.

What's on your reading list for this summer?

Workbox Intro

The Work of Childhood blog is hosting a carnival of homeschoolers who are using the workbox system. She's titled it Thinking Outside the Box. This week we are introducing ourselves and telling a bit about our homeschool. . . If you are thinking about or doing workboxes, this should be a great place for information, ideas, and inspiration!

Here are some questions she posed on her blog.

How many boxes do you fill? Right now, my 5 year old is doing 9 boxes. I hope to move up to 12 before Christmas. My 3 year old will start with 6 boxes in Augusst or September.
Do you expect your children to go in order? Mary Helen (5) goes in order. I think I will probably let Anna (3) do in any order.
Do you use the schedule strips? no, but I am considering it beginning in the fall.
How long does it take you to fill the boxes? I try to plan ahead, which takes about an hour a week, then about 10-15 minutes daily.
Do you fill your work boxes EACH night with all new items? Some of our boxes are themed, so I just pull the next math worksheet out of the book or add a new Bob book to the box. I am trying to have 4-6 that are the same theme, but not really the same exact all the time.
What do your kids do with the empty boxes? They go right back to their spots.
Do you put away the ‘supplies’ each night? or do your kids? I have a box on top of the workbox shelf where she puts completed items. I put them away weekly usually.
Anything else you want to add? I'm excited to get more done and we spend more time together. I am also using lots of the "extras" that I've purchased along the way. I hope I can do this successfully with Anna (3) this fall!

Planning Time!

We're still doing beach week here, but that's not what I'm blogging about today.

Even though I plan to do school year-round, I can't help but see Fall as our "new year". I am gearing up to get us on a different schedule, one that will include some more things for Anna. I am going to do some "Tot-School" with her, and she is going to have her own workboxes.

So, I am evaluating and setting some priorities and goals for our family. I am prayerfully considering what our days, weeks, and months will look like next year.

I am making lists of cleaning jobs that have to be done, menu idea, theme ideas, workbox ideas, field trip ideas, things I want Anna to learn, etc.

Are you setting goals for next year? What would you like to accomplish in 09/10? What are you going to do to see that it gets done?

Editing after Mama Snail's comment ~

In your homeschool calendar, are you doing like 6 weeks on, 6 weeks off. Or 9 on 9 off? Or 3 on, 3 off? Or just take time off when you want? We don't set a calendar per se, but we will pretty much go all year. We will be taking breaks when life gets hectic, when we take vacations, or when we get overwhelmed with house duties such as deep cleaning or yard work :)

When will your girls "graduate" to the next grade level? In August? Which is why you think of it being the new year.... What about a first day of school tradition/ceremony...are you going to do something for that? Mary Helen began Kindergarten in March. If she were in the school system, she would be wrapping up her Pre K year now. We will continue on with Kindergarten this coming year, and she will move to first grade in the Summer or Fall of 2010. We will celebrate when we decide to end Kindergarten, and have our picture made for the first day of 1st grade. I don't know yet what I'm going to use to determine that she "passes" kindergarten :)

Are you going to make a home management binder? I have a home management binder, and I plan to do some purging, some adding, and hopefully a lot more utilizing of it for this year! I also plan to order Managers of Their Homes when my homeschool budget recovers from convention so I can fit everything into our day, and hopefully make better use of our time.

I am curriculum/material shopping planning now. I haven't set goals yet. But to make sure it gets done...I have you to help me! I am SO glad we have each other for accountability now! We will have to get together with our binders one day and all our plans, etc!