GiveAway: $40 to SPEND whoohoo!

Thank You Small Change Adds Up  for the opportunity to win $40 and you can enter too (ENDS 7/7)

GiveAway: SpellQuizzer: CUSTOMIZABLE Spelling Software (download)

Until the Day Dawn is offering SpellQuizzer.  Go ck out what the  TOS Crew says.  Ends 7/1.

Importance of Reading

Are you a book lover? I hate to admit this, but my book cases have overflowed, and now my hubby has built some new ones that are double deep~meaning they are five book cases two wide horizontally with three in the front that slide back and forth so that we can shelve all of our books! Recently as we were shelving and cataloging them~oh now this was a pain, I pulled out about 200 from our collection. We have found books to be very important in our lives. I remember reading information sheets encouraging reading to the children and parents to demonstrate a value for reading.  Too late!  We already loved books!

Reading is crucial for a child in ways unimaginable!

Reading builds vocabulary skills,listening skills, writing skills, speech skills, cognitive processes and more!

When our children were little, we read Dr. Suess's ABC  so much we ALL could recite it by heart! I love that book to this day, and look forward to reading it to my grandchildren!

If you have a young child, read to your little person. Talk to your little person and teach them to love books! Of course the love for reading is developed over time and with skill. Children learn  to read when they want to KNOW the story~the book's contents! Frequent library trips, read alouds, books on tape, mp3 download stories for children all develop those wonderful skills!

My friend N. told me about her family's study of Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Tonight her children saw the caterpillar emerge from its cocoon. I heard the wonderment and joy of her young children who witnessed their little caterpillar changing into the beautiful moth or butterfly it was becoming.

THIS IS HOMESCHOOLING at its best!!!!!!!!

Read, Read, Read, and Read some more! 

You can't read enough to your children!

If you are like me and have older children who are independent learners, have them read to you.  I continued reading to them until last year, but on occasion I STILL read to them! I use audio books and downloads as well as dictation to hone in those listening skills for strengthening in auditory processing!

Do you need the mega book case?
Do you make trips to the library?
Do you have a co-op resource for books?

Tap it! 

The importance of reading can't be overstated! AND in a few years, you will see your own littles emerge from their cocoons and stretching their wings to flight as beautiful creatures of joy and delight!

Reading is Fantastic! Oh wait, I need my book . . .
(Don't forget that the TOS Magazine $7.95 SALE til the 18th!)

It's The End of The Line~Finishing UP!

Beginning our journey in homeschooling in HOPE~just where do we want to be when we are done?  DONE! Just the word makes me tremble inside, not because I want them gone or don't want to finish, it's the awesome responsibility that I have to do a good job~to "finish well" with them and for them that has me feeling so! But the HOPE is wrapped up in dreams and processes that will bring us to the finish line~final days, hours and minutes of home education~but really the learning NEVER will stop nor will the parenting~Like my mother of almost seventy likes to remind this mid-forty gal~YOU WILL ALWAYS BE MY CHILD~and I will always KNOW more than you! Such wisdom, but I remember when I did not believe such was posssible, that I would NEVER know as much as my Mama~she's always going to have lived and expereinced more than me. . .so much knowledge and judgement!

Our children will find this out one day too, if they haven't already.  When they were young, we were their heroes, but now in the teen years I am seeing the rise of their own independence and ideas...it's not all bad~tough as the teen years are for so many reasons!  But where does this all lead us?

Our children and ourselves must come together as families to discover their dreams and goals for the journey and finish of homeschooling in their lives! We cannot educate them if they refuse, nor can they become educated as well without parents.  It's a partnership to the FINISH LINE~to the end of it. 

Goals, dreams wrapped in HOPE will bring about processes to get to the end.  Just like a good athlete, measurable goals and marks are set and strived for~reached for~desired!

Where do we want to end up?  Do our children share our desires and vision?  It starts here and ends somewhere down the road after all the effort and time has passed. . .but HOPE will remain for the future; it won't leave just because one stop along our journey is completed.  Oh no! HOPE will continue to be with us as long as life gives rise to breath and we continue to move. . .forward. . .

Finishing up? Just beginning?  HOPE won't leave even after...happily ever after...

The Hand That Rocks The Cradle...

It's so sweet to snuggle a baby.  Their smell and feel is unlike any other, and for mother this is a special time in her life and her baby's life. The effects of motherhood have been tremendous on every facet of society since time began.  It's really true that the hand that rocks the cradle rocks the world.  Motherhood is a sacred right and obligation for women who bear children.  It's unique and unlike any relationship with any other.  Mother and child is a bond that is crucial for healthy development.


I am all over Facebook.  I know this is of no consequence to many, but as I have read and commented, I have noticed beginning in the recent weeks a disturbing ad,  "Obama wants women to return to college. You can get your degree..."  Don't get me wrong, I am not against education for women.  I BELIEVE in it! But I am not thrilled with the wholesale advertisement to bring women in general out of their homes with their little ones or big ones to gain an education that could remove mothers from the place of honor, the home with their children~our children.  I realize I am speaking contrary to the popular practices of our day.  I feel it is not in our national best interest or the interest of our children to encourage dissatisfaction for the women who seek to raise their children at home. 

Mothering is so important to not just our children, but to our society and nation.  Become educated! No problem, but not at the expense of our children! Rock your cradle, and remember you are 'rocking' the world because only God knows WHO our children will be as they grow and mature to serve, and it all began in mother's arms in mother's home. Rock on!

blessings,

HSLDA Report Card on Homeschooling vs...

If you have folks in your life worried about your children who are homeschooled, you need to send them straight over to this TELLING HSLDA (Home School Legal Defense Assoc) who is reporting a study done on homeschoolers. . .NAW~we've got little to worry us as long as WE ARE educating our children to their academic best! READ it http://www.hslda.org/docs/news/200908100.asp !! I can say that for YEARS I have worried and still do to some degree~the proof will be in the pudd'n as they say! But I want my children educated and prepared. What a total shame if someone calls homeschooling by its name and does not teach or prepare the child! I can say in over eight years, this being our nineth, I HAVE NEVER MET A FAMILY WHO WAS NOT SCHOOLING!!!!!!and I have lived in three states and been in three homeschooler groups. NOT ONE family! ONE!

This is encouraging! KEEP up the GREAT WORK parents! GOD IS GOOD!
blessings
SisterTipster<3