Thursday, August 23, 2012

She Gave Me So Many Beautiful Things



It has been over a month now since I said goodbye to one of my dearest friends, my grandmother Tillie.
Even now I have still not 100% processed the fact that she is gone.  I miss her terribly and just want everyone that reads this to know what a wonderful and amazing woman the world lost that day in July.  I can say with confidence that without her this blog would not exist and I would not be the person who I have become today.  

My Grandmother was no ordinary grandma.  She was smart as a whip up till her last moments on earth.  She possessed a witty humor and such a great albeit ancient level of knowledge.  If it were not for her I doubt that I would have had the love of learning, reading and writing that I possess today.  My childhood began in the suburbs of Cincinnati Ohio about 10 minutes drive from my grandparent's home.  My earliest memories are of my Grandmother and my Papa Irv.  They were such a perfect fit the two f them.  Papa was such a soft, kind and sweet man that was so full of love.  Grandma showed her love in different ways.  She always treated you as a little person not as a child.  You were expected to behave, have manners and always be on the path to bettering yourself.  From an early age we were immersed into the world of books and learning.  Grandma didn't have cable, we didn't watch TV other then the exception of Jeopardy at night and classic musicals rented from the library down the street.  Instead we learned.  We built things, did all kinds of projects, cooked, went to museums, visited zoos, collected books from the library and listened to Grandma and Papa read to us.  And no they didn't read us twaddle they read us fantastic poetry like Rudyard Kipling, Robert Frost and many others.  Then one day we moved away to Pittsburgh PA because my dad had gotten an offer to have several offices there.  I still have those sad letters I wrote to my Papa saved in my scrap book.  It was not until years later though that I received a letter admitting just how deeply saddened he was when we moved away.  Alas that was not the end of our journey.  We began spending summers in Cincinnati with grandma and Papa.  I would go for two weeks and usually end up begging for just a few days more. As we entered into elementary school Grandma stepped up the game.  it was time for better books (think little women) , handwriting practice and to memorize those poems we had listened to our whole young lives thus far.  Still we loved Cincinnati and though at the time we were not fond of the work it molded us gently into who we would become untimely.  They fostered our loves and nurtured our interests which gave us so much knowledge and so many avenues of topics to pursue.  I remember as a child loving human anatomy so much that my grandparent bought me my very own human body encyclopedia.  I tore through that book even taking notes and highlighting at the tender age of seven years old.  I actually sat down and wrote a report on the entire book on my own, outside of school because I loved it that much.  

That support and encouragement never ceased as I aged.  Through my teen years I was not as receptive to her advice and opinions but hey what teen likes to be told what to do and that they could GASP be wrong.  So yes there were some years of disconnect but still those early roots stayed planted and growing in the form of my own poetry.  I wrote hundreds of poems detailing the emotions of my struggles with my Autism throughout my adolescent life.   As my hormones subsided and my maturity began to take hold I rekindled that dear relationship I had with my Grandmother.  She became my confidant and I could tell her anything without fear of rejection.  My Grandmother knew of my darkest days and some of my darkest moments in life.  She supported me through it and she applauded me in my ability to bring myself out of it all and back onto the road of life.  

Then in my late twenties babies entered my life as my first son was born.  I got to watch my grandmother become a great-grandmother finally.  Oh how she doted on my little guy.  I saw a softer side of grandma that I had not seen before and it was beautiful.  I soon began building my son a library of books and they were his earliest friends.  By the time he was a year he had crates full of books in his little playroom.  I began the research on homeschooling him and entered into a new world of knowledge and wisdom.  Then one became two, then three and now here I sit with number four in my belly as I write this.  My youngest son will never get to meet the amazing woman that was his Great-Grandmother but he will know her.  He will now her through the story times and poetry.  He will know her through my words and memories and he will know her for the woman that his mama became.  My Grandmother gave me so many beautiful things but none of them you can put in a box or display on a shelf.  My children will grow up surrounded by the beautiful things my Grandmother gave me and I hope that is inspires them and affect who they become as profoundly as it has for me in my life.  

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Fun green school supplies from Green Apple Supply!




After my recent disappointment with an order of a case of Prang crayons from a seller on Amazon I went searching for a cheaper way to buy the Prang crayons for our schoolroom.  In searching I happened upon a company called Green Apple Supply who carried the Prang soy crayons for way cheaper then amazon.  Not only that but they had goodies, oodles of goodies!  What homeschooling mom can resist the allure of school supplies?  I am crunchier then a lot so school supplies that are non-toxic and made from mostly recycled materials or renewable resources SIGN ME UP!

So the goodies I got are:

Prang soybean crayons!  What I originally got here for.  I got 5, 64 packs and 10, 24 packs.  Gotta stock up after all!


Friendly marker Highlighters.  These have minimal plastic and are totally non-toxic!!

Friendly Dry Erase markers.  Non-toxic dry erase markers woot!  I never even knew you could get these.
Glob paint six color packet kit.  All non-toxic, made from plant and herb dye.  Comes in powder form that you can mix with water to get different consistencies from water color to tempra!

Super cool eraser sticks!  These you sharpen like a pencil but instead of lead they have natural rubber erasers inside.  These were too cool to pass up my kids will love these!
Eco Erasers.  We erase a lot here in kindy and these are cheap and natural!
Jungle Vine Pencils.  In golf pencil size too!!!!  I grabbed up a set of these to put in a nice little mug on our table.  The kids will love writing with these!
Kids KleanEarth Recycled Protractor.  We actually were already in the market for one of these and at 50 cents more then walmart cheapy plastic who can pass it up!


And there you have it folks my green school supplies haul!  Now just have to wait by the door, stalk the poor UPS man and prepare to put it all away in our ikea organizers all neat and tidy!

A funny but true list!

This was posted in my local homeschooling association's yahoo group enjoy!

*Nine Dangerous Things You Were Taught In School*

Be aware of the insidious and unspoken lessons you learned as a child. 
To thrive in the world outside the classroom, you're going to have to 
unlearn them.

Dangerous things you were taught in school:

*1. The people in charge have all the answers.*That's why they are so 
wealthy and happy and healthy and powerful --- ask any teacher.

*2. Learning ends when you leave the classroom.*Your fort building, 
trail forging, frog catching, friend making, game playing, and drawing 
won't earn you any extra credit. Just watch TV.

*3. The best and brightest follow the rules.*You will be rewarded for 
your subordination, just not as much as your superiors, who, of course, 
have their own rules.

*4. What the books say is always true.*Now go read your creationism 
chapter. There will be a test.

*5. There is a very clear, single path to success.*It's called college. 
Everyone can join the top 1% if they do well enough in school and ignore 
the basic math problem inherent in that idea.

*6. Behaving yourself is as important as getting good 
marks.*Whistle-blowing, questioning the status quo, and thinking your 
own thoughts are no-nos. Be quiet and get back on the assembly line.

*7. Standardized tests measure your value.*By value, I'm talking about 
future earning potential, not anything else that might have other kinds 
of value.

*8. Days off are always more fun than sitting in the classroom.*You are 
trained from a young age to base your life around dribbles of allocated 
vacation. Be grateful for them.

*9. The purpose of your education is your future career.*And so you will 
be taught to be a good worker. You have to teach yourself how to be 
something more.

Friday, August 10, 2012

Our awesome new pencil sharpener!



We got this great new pencil sharpener and boy does it ever work well.  Our pencils come out nice and sharp without looking like a dog munched on them.  Plus it came in pretty colors too which is a nice bonus!  We ended up getting the Cool Blue color for our schoolroom which matches nicely.








Thursday, August 9, 2012

We are doing Logic of English this year and loving it!

I will come back and do a more full review later on.  For now though I will post up the fruits of my labor, a full modified schedule for kindergarten level with readers and children's books scheduled alongside the lessons!  Hope this helps some people out!

here is the link ( but it can also be found on my downloads page)
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B_ABMoourebeT29fNnlsemd6SUk


The first 7 weeks were a condensed form of a schedule found for younger kids from BugsMama from the well trained mind forums.  Thanks bugsmama for a head start on my schedule workload!  The books scheduled are from our home library that we already own.  I went through a pre-read them to align them the best I could with the schedule.   You can get the k-12 readers from christian book for relatively cheap.  The Steck Vaughn readers I collected off of ebay also for pretty cheap.  Most of the children's books could either be taken out from your local library or purchased used off of Amazon.  You can also buy the Tag reader and learn to read books off of Amazon.  I luckily already had the full set of learn to read Tag books and they are AWESOME!  We also have more Tag books which you could just have your child free read as they hit into the more advanced lessons in LOE.  I like having a large amount of readers because I can just take out what corresponds with this week's lesson and place them in my son's book box and he can read them during his reading time each day.