Books and Things Seminar

For Mother's Day, my sweet husband blessed me with The Books and Things Seminar from Simply Charlotte Mason.   Today I had time to watch the first session and I can tell you that one can never stop learning about the amazing methods of Charlotte Mason.  Something new jumps out at me every time.  Sonya Shafer does a terrific job of making CM so very doable.  I cannot wait to watch the other three sessions.  I love teacher training  :O)

Free Homemaking Lessons

This wonderful (and very useful) handbook used to be available only in hard copy, but the lessons are now also online FREE of charge. What a blessing. Thank you Laurie Latour of Future Christian Homemakers.

Worth its Weight in Gold

This tool is literaly saving me HOURS of work. My favorite feature is that it adjusts based on what we actually do. For example, if I schedule Allie to read chapter 7 in Oliver Twist on Monday, and she doesn't get to it, the scheduler automatically moves that assignment to the next day. No more scribbling out my plans and recopying everything over and over..... and over. GENIUS!

CM moms...this is worth it!

If you have never tried it, you can sign up for a free 30-day trial. You can also watch some videos to give you an idea of how it works.

Parts of Speech in FULL color and then some.........

I enjoy teaching grammar to eight year old Caleb gently using sentences from his books and from his spelling dictations. I thought it would be fun to color code the parts of speech and label sentences on a white board. I made a PDF with the eight regular parts of speech, plus labels for articles, which I know are technically adjectives, but just go with it :O) I laminated my pieces and placed small magnet squares on the backs. Grammar now feels like a game. Feel free to download the labels and make your own set!

Rainbow Parts of Speech

Here are more advanced labels that I made for my junior high age daughter. She uses the Michael Clay Thompson Grammar Town series from Royal Fireworks Press and just loves it!

Rainbow Grammar

GREAT History Resource

WOW! I just downloaded The History Scribe for the bargain price of $16. What an awesome resource for notebooking pages. This is a must see!

Good Reading

Another great, FREE, resource from the folks at Simply Charlotte Mason.

Smooth and Easy Days

Who wouldn't love days like that?

Handy Software

I found a software program that I am very excited to share. Maybe you've heard of it. It's called Startwrite. This program allows you to create your own handwriting practice sheets, copywork, etc. in your choice of popular handwriting fonts. I chose this program because it has the italic font that I am teaching my kids. I like that you can adjust the font size, and even make the letters a traceable light gray for the younger ones. With my youngest just learning to write, I feel that the $39.95 price tag is a real value. You can download a free trial at the website.

A very useful narration handbook

My friend Christy suggested the greatest little resource to me today and I just have to share it with all of you. This little gem is at lulu.com and is titled "My Little Handbook of Written Narrations" by Angela Wilson. It is written to students in grades 4-8 and is a step-by-step guide to writing narrations. It is 36 pages in length and includes, in addition to the 5 steps, graphic organizers, samples of narrations, a grammar guide, proofreading marks and what they mean, and finally a lesson plan and grading rubric for the teacher (if you keep grades). It is well worth the $4.50 download price. My daughter was very happy to add this handbook to her language notebook!