Exam Center Program

most of you know we love boks in our home. We volunteer at our library's exam center. This is where publishers donate brand new books to our library. The only catch is that some one must read nad review them before they are put into circulation. my family and I have read and reviewed about 1,000 book for them so far. we are glad that we can help. Here is my problem. William wants to get the books and read them  but hardly ever wants to help write the review! This leaves me to do the "dirty work" What should I do? He says that he needs me to ask him questions about the book to get him mind flowing for the review. Any tips? The form asks the review this:

In a brief paragraph, please explain what the book is about. Who are the main characters? What are some important events or themes? What did you like or not like about the book? Would you recommend this book? Why or why not? Please explain and be specific!

I would also like to get my girls (ages 5 and 7) to help write reviews as well. How can I do this? I guess we need a book report writing 101 class!

Magnolia Spring State Park Field Trip

We have been having some GREAT spring weather here in South Georgia. I decided to take the kids to one of our favorite state parks, Magnolia Springs. I usually wait until Lawton can go with us but I decide to fly solo and see how things went! We had a very nice day!

We went on a nature walk on one of the trails.

We fed the fish and turtles.

We explored the reamins of an old Civil War Prision Camp.

We looked for several geocaches but came up empty! We will be back to find them soon!

Amanda Bennett Unit Studies

I am now an affiliate!  If you purchase through me I get a commission!  We love these unit studies!

Click here to visit Unit Studies by Amanda Bennett.

Kite Capers Download N Go Review

The girls and I had a great time with the Download and Go Unit study by Amanda Bennet called Kite Capers!  March winds bring april flowers so now is the prefect time to fly a kite and learn more about them!

With the unit you will learn about the history of kites, weather, famous scientist who worked with kites and so much more. The book list that is included with the unit is great! You do not need the books however. All you need is included. There are links to websites, games, and videos to enhance your child’s learning. We always start our units off with a trip to the library. We didn’t find many of the specific titles but we did find plenty to keep us learning all week! Also included in the unit is family fun ideas and of course receipes!!

With each of these units there is a lapbook to print. Don't worry if you have never done it before, it includes very clear instructions on how to put it all together. If you are more into notebooking the unit also includes worksheets that you can print as well.  The options are really endless with these studies! You can print as little or as much as you want! This is a small sample of what is included:

Day 1: What Is a Kite?
Day 2: The History of Kites
Day 3: Kite People and Places
Day 4: Science Secrets of Kites
Day 5: Goodies and Gadgets of Kites

I was given a copy of this unit study for free for my honest review!� Each Download N Go unit is one week in length. The age range for these units are K-4th grade. There are five days of activities, notebooking pages and lapbook components, book lists, internet links.
You can read about all the fun others had this week here:

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Saint Patrick's Day!

We set our trap but we didn't catch the leprechaun!  He did leave us some goodies though!

For our math lesson we did a little graphing with Lucky Charms!

Then we headed out to do some geocaching!  It was a beautiful day!

We only found one before the girls got tired.  We are out of practice!  We really do need to go our more often.

St. Patrick's Day Unit

We have been doing a St. Patrick's day unit this week.  We are using the lapbook from HSS as our base and adding in some crafts!  We tried this ornament craft.  It did not end up exactly like the pictures on the site but we enjoyed making them.  It's a multi step process with lots of drying time!

This is how ours turned out!

We made paper plate leprechauns!

We are still working on our leprechaun trap!  We have to add a ladder that will lead him to the top of the trap under the rainbow where there is a HOLE!  We hope to trap him!  Leagend has it that if we catch him he must give us his GOLD :)

My Emma is 6!

Wow!  It's hard to belive that my Emma is six today!

She is such a hoot.  She really keeps us on our toes.  Sometime the things that she does leaves me wondering if  I should laugh of cry! She loves to create!  Markers, crayons, glue, crayons, paper and art supplies are a few of her favorite things!  She will draw on ANYTHING!  Yes even herself!  This is the time that she decided to color her teeth purple!

She is also the roughest, toughest kid of ours!  She is always into something!  Here she is around this time last year what a HUGE black eye.  She and Evamarie were playing tag and she ran right into the countertop!  Ouch!

She has such a big heart.  She always thinks of others first and is willing to share whatever she has. I love her kisses and hugs. I love her hear her say "what are we going to learn about today mama?"  She loves animals and can often be seen carrying one of our cats around like a baby.

She love to dress up and create her own outfits!

She loves the beach and the water!  She can been see wearing a bathing suit any chance she gets!  She has been known to put a bathing suit on in the dead of winter and put other clothes on over it!

Our family is blessed to have Emma in our lives!  We are happy that she is happy and healthy!  Never a dull moment, she makes sure of that! We love you Emma Ansley Sack! Happy Birthday!

Heroes of History Class

Over the past 8 weeks I have taught a group of girls in our homeschool group a class we have called Heroes of History. We used a video series from Discovery Education called Animated Hero Classics as our base.  It was hard to choose 8 folks to focus on.  We would watch the video, discuss it and them have some sort of hands on activity based on the person that we learned about that day.

One week we watched Animated Hero Classics: President Abraham Lincoln.  Our craft for that day was to make top hats like Lincoln wore!  We found the idea here

Here we are hard at work:

William helps me with the class, he is such a good sport.  The girls love having him join us!

The Final Project!

I took this picture of the hats after the girls ran off for some play time. 

Our week with Harry the Dirty Dog

Emma's unit of the week was based on the book Harry the Dirty Dog. We did the lapbook from homeschool share!

We went to the play based on the book.

We also visited PetCo to look around at all the pet choices.  It was a fun week!

Earn swagbucks for printing and using coupons

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I just read about about the Kellogg’s Share Your Breakfast program.  You snap a quick pic of your breakfast and text it or upload it, and Kellogg’s makes a donation to Action for Healthy Kids, who in turn provides more breakfasts to kids in schools.

Nearly 1 in 4 kids in America live in food insecure households….
This is a simple way that we can help!

Our New Home on the Web!

My old blog over at Homeschool blogger has been giving me fits!  I have decided to make the switch to blogger!  Bear with me as I learn the ropes here :)