Wednesday 30 November 2011

Tuesday's Treasures {19}

This week ...

This week has been a rather busy one and as a result Tuesday's Treasures is a day late my apologies. This morning my order from The Book Depository arrived.  I confess I am impressed.

I was over at Confessions of a Homeschooler and Erica has put together a unit study titled: The World's Greatest Artists Vol 1 (and the best part is it's FREE). I have been watching her children's adventures and thought that Sir N might enjoy doing some of those things. I downloaded the FREE instructors guide which contains: Lesson plans for each, week Lap Book printables, Artist Notebooking page, Art Puzzles and Artist Flashcards.



All I had to do was invest in the source books which were AU$6-75 each including postage.  The source books are from the series: Getting to Know the worlds Greatest Artists by Mike Venezia. Six of the eight books arrived in the mail today and I spent a while looking through them and I confess I am impressed.  One or two of the pictures I don't want to show Sir N but I will simply cover them with a sheet of paper, however the information about the artist and their style is excellent.  What I know about the art community and art appreciation is minimal so I will be learning alongside Sir N on this journey.


The eight artist you will meet in the series are:
These are NOT affiliate links.
The books are available from Amazon where you can take a sneak peak inside each one as well as from The Book Depository.

To see the study in action take a look at what Erica and her family have done so far:

I shall be starting this adventure with Sir N next week.

What have you been using for art and the study of artists ?

Blessings



 Welcome to Tuesdays Treasures.  I started these posts as a way of sharing great books in honour of my friend in New Zealand who would arrive with the treasures she had unearthed at her weekly trip to the library!

There are so many wonderful books out there hiding on shelves so I invite you to blog about a book on your shelf, one you're reading or one you found at the library and add your post in the linky below. 





Friday 25 November 2011

Homeschool Mother's Journal {2}


The Home school Mother’s Journal began as a single post on a Friday morning over at The Homeschool Chick, and turned into a link-up for homeschool mothers across the blog-O-sphere to share a piece of their journey with one another each week. The link party is open from Friday to Monday so join me in The Homeschool Journal and lets encourage one another on our homeschool journey.

In my life this week…
 
In our homeschool this week…
  • This week our rhythm started to fall into place and Sir N  (Can you see my smile?)
  • We took out our timeline book and coloured in some time line figures and added them to the book.  I love Amy Pak's drawings and thanks to Sonlight the figures are pre gummed so all we had to do was colour in, peel and stick.
  • We worked on skip counting by 10's and we are practicing our numbers between 10 and 20. 
  • There are many little kits available at Spotlight at the moment, as a treat after each days completed work we have made something.

Helpful homeschooling tips or advice to share…
  • Find a few things that work really well for you and stick with those.  It is far better to do two or three things with excellence than ten things with mediocrity.
I am inspired by…
Places we’re going and people we’re seeing…
  • We went to a friends to celebrate his 7th birthday yesterday.
  • Visited Granny and had lunch with her.
  • Catching up with a new friend and her son today after lunch.
  • Tonight we are going with a friend to see Medimime presentation of The Grinch who Stole Christmas.(update: This was super Fantastic We enjoyed it so much. photo and video to come)
  • Tomorrow we will be going to a surprise birthday party for a cousin / nephew.  Can't wait to see his face !

We made some pink, green and purple cupcakes and went to visit a friend to celebrate the children achieving their swimming certificates and progressing to the next level.  Well done E for getting your Maxi Pink, great job L for achieving your Maxi Green and well done to Sir N for achieving your Swordy Green.  Proud of you three !


My favorite thing this week was…
  • Watching Sir N's excitement about going camping with his Dad and some friends for a Father Son night away at Mount Franklin Reserve.  It's been wonderful watching his enthusiasm and joy at helping to pack and prepare.

What’s working/not working for us…

Questions/thoughts I have…
  • I have been pondering the structure of my days and thinking about character training, instilling excellent values and how to make this a natural part of our day.

Things I’m working on…
  • First Time Obedience for Sir N and training myself to stop being a repeating parent.  I am quite surprised at how often I repeat requests / instructions. I think I am the one in need of more training rather than my children.
  • I also want to redo the chore list and make one with pictures that Sir N can use by himself.
  • I would also like to have a regular time each week when the two of us can invest in a Nature Journal.  I have been looking around Handbook of Nature Study Blog and have been inspired to make this a regular part of our homeschooling.
I’m reading…
  • Have not managed to read much this week.  I have been playing with my latest gift from Paul.  He has blessed me with a Kindle. I have been putting off purchasing one of these as I really love the feel and smell of a real book especially a brand new book.  I love the weight of a book in my hand when I read. I must confess though that I am impressed with my Kindle and loving the free books on Amazon.

I’m cooking…

I’m grateful for…
  • The faithfulness of friends.  
  • The joy of giving and sharing new knowledge.

A photo, video, link, or quote to share…
I love this photo because of the pleasure Sir N took in drawing in his nature journal.


Blessings







This post is linking to:

The Homeschool Mother's Journal

Thursday 24 November 2011

Five Finger Charts

Pin It  

I heard about and saw these charts in action in New Zealand about 10 years ago.  I think the idea is originally from the book What Every Child Should Know Along the Way by Gail Martin

The idea is that you chose five things that your child can do unsupervised every morning and evening. You make a visual chart to help them accomplish these tasks. The goal is supervised Independence.  It also frees you up from having to repeat every morning go get dressed, go brush your teeth etc.

The next step is to find pictures that represent the five things you would like your child to do by themselves.  You can use the net, Microsoft clip art (this is what we used), photographs or words if your child can read.


  • We used two A4 sheets of paper.
  • Next trace around each hand. One on each sheet. (or both on one sheet)
  • In the one hand place a sun to represent the morning chart.
  • Next place in order the things you would like your child to do.
  • On the second hand place a moon to represent evening things.






Place the chart in a spot where your child can easily refer to it.

Sir N calls them his missions.  So this evening while I was busy in the kitchen and it was time for the evening routine I simply called him and said it's time to do your missions.  He took himself off to his room and went through the list and waited for me in bed when he was done.  He so enjoyed doing his jobs.









Blessings






Christmas Blog Hop

On Thursdays Gae from over at Cherished hearts at home has offered to host a weekly sharing of posts, feel free to come over and join the party.

Here is a smorgasbord of where my thoughts meander in the wider world of blogging:

 I am so looking forward to Advent which starts this Sunday. This year I really want to take the time to do a few more things from home as Sir N missed out last year because I had started working at Big W but this year I will be home....

In preparation for Advent / Christmas I have been looking for ideas and discovered this blog hop. Gosh these ladies have some really great ideas.

12Ways_wrapping Ways of Reading Ways of Table Decor Ways of Planning for the Holidays Ways of Cooking Ways of Cards Ways of Wreaths Ways of Decorating Trees Ways of Outreach Ways of Family Traditions Ways of Mantle Decor Ways of Frugal Gifting


Here are a few others that are blogging ideas for the advent season and Christmas:



1+1+1=1


Carisa over at 1+1+1=1 has shared some great ideas for gifts check out these two posts:


coahbutton

Erica over at Confessions of a Home schooler has also put together a Christmas Gift List post that has some interesting things on it.




Cherished Hearts Blog Button 2
Gae has some different ideas for advent over at Cherished Hearts at Home

Erin over at Seven little Australians has some great Advent traditions as well.




Erin has inspired me to join Pinterest and I have found some really interesting Christmas craft ideas there.
Follow Me on Pinterest

Your Sacred Calling
Stacy over at Your Sacred Calling has written some rather thought provoking articles on Christmas

And don't forget to go over to A Wise Woman builds her house and enter the give away.

A-Wise-Woman-Builds-Her-Home



May you be as blessed as I was

Tuesday 22 November 2011

$600 voucher give away at a Wise Woman builds Her House

A-Wise-Woman-Builds-Her-Home

I was over at A Wise Woman Builds Her House on Facebook where June placed a link to her blog about a  give away consisting of one $300 voucher, one $ 200 voucher and one $ 100 voucher making a total of $600 worth of vouchers to be used at Vision Forum. I scanned the post to see if it was limited to any specific country entrants and messaged her on Facebook to see if anyone may enter.  The answer was a resounding yes.  No matter where you live you can enter.  Hop on over to A Wise Woman Builds her House and leave a comment to go into the draw and for extra entries blog about the giveaway.

Vision Forum is a Christian Book store with a difference.  Their range focuses on books that build and encourage the family, their products are encouraging, Christ-honoring resources.  The mission of Vision Forum is to communicate a vision of victory to Christian families. Vision Forum is dedicated to the restoration of Christian family culture.

Click on the image to see Vision Forum catalog.

Blessings

Tuesdays Treasures {18}

 Welcome to Tuesdays Treasures.  I started these posts as a way of sharing great books in honour of my friend in New Zealand who would arrive with the treasures she had unearthed at her weekly trip to the library!

There are so many wonderful books out there hiding on shelves so I invite you to blog about a book on your shelf, one you're reading or one you found at the library and add your post in the linky below. 

This week ...

When I was at Daylesford Paul took me to a second hand bookshelf that came highly recommended where  I discovered this series of books by Joy Berry that was first published in 1988 called Help Me be Good. I was quite pleased to find that these books are still available for purchase from Joy Berry Books: Store


There are 29 books in the series
Bad Sport
Being Bossy
Being Bullied
Being Careless
Being Forgetful
Being Greedy
Being Lazy
Being Mean
Being Messy
Being Rude
Being Selfish
Being Wasteful
Breaking Promises
Cheating
Complaining
Disobeying
Fighting
Gossiping
Lying
Overdoing it
Showing Off
Snooping
Stealing
Tattling
Teasing
Throwing Tantrums
Whining
Or purchase them as a boxed set of 28 books.

Joy has written a short 10 part series on character development  which addresses a few misconceptions, equips parents with guidelines in teaching character to children in different age brackets,  standards and goals are among the topics.

Why I like these little books...
I love these little books as each story clearly illustrates the topic at hand but does not stop there it speaks into the life of the child by empowering them with the information to make a right choice in a number of different areas. Joy talks about the effect of the wrong choice not only to the child but to the family and greater community. If you can find these in your local opp shop do not hesitate to buy them.  They are worth their weight in gold.


Blessings






Please link back to this post before 
Using the linky below to add your treasure:





Monday 21 November 2011

Home Made Laundry Soap

I was over at Creating with Wisdom a few weeks ago and was inspired by Vicky who was making home made soap and thought I would like to try that but not yet.

A couple of days later I found Our Simple Country Life and Esther hosts a weekly Hearts for Home link up and there was a post in the link party titled 10 Money Saving Tips over at Hopeful Future I was intrigued so went to have a look.  One of the tips was about making your own laundry soap so decided to give it a go. Her recipe and the one I have tried is from The Family Homestead.com . Making Homemade Laundry Soap By Crystal Miller

Ingredients

  • 1/3 bar of soap (approx 50 grams) you need a pure soap not synthetic.
  • 1/2 cup Washing Soda this is the RED bag (It is not lectric soda or bicarb)
  • 1/2 cup Borax Powder (done some reading about this as we have a grey water system and the laundry water is used to water the garden so will be leaving this ingredient out in my next batch as too much can kill worms in the garden)
  • Water ( 6 cups hot water + 4 cups boiling water + 5.5 Litres cold water = 8 Lt)
I found all my items at the local Woolworths supermarket in the laundry isle.

Method
  • Measure out the borax and washing soda and set aside


  • Grate the soap into a pot 
  • Add 6 cups of hot water 




  • Heat on medium stove stir till soap is dissolved
  • Add borax and washing soda and stir till all the powder is dissolved.  When you add the powder the mix bubbles up in the pot so add it slowly.
  • Pour into a bucket
  • Add 4 cups of boiling water and mix well.  ( I did some research and another lady used cold water one day and it made the soap separate so stick with the boiling water)
  • Now add 5.5 Litres of tap water and mix well.


  • Leave it to stand over night and set.

  • Use 1/4 cup per load of washing.
The process took me 15 min to do and was not very complex.  I did find that the finer you grate the soap the faster it dissolves.

While I was searching for information I discovered a great pdf. document by by Tashia Calhoun with photo's and step by steps to down load and print: Guide to Homemade Laundry Soap


I have been using this soap for nearly a week now and I am impressed with the quality of the wash.  I was a little skeptical with the first load as there were no bubbles but the colour of the water after the wash convinced me that it works.

Other Bloggers making soap ....

Megan from over at Mommy Minded sent me a powder recipe as an alternative to liquid soap.
Julie from over at Towards Sustainability has a powder recipe which I think I will try next.
Lyn from over at Mom starting from Scratch has some interesting Green Home Making Recipe's 
Green House Healing has a great page on natural products to use at home
Vicky over at Creating with Wisdom made some soap bars.

If you have blogged about your recipe let me know and I'll add your links in here :)


The Cost Comparison:

I normally use Home brand Laundry Powder at A$3-69 for 4 kg.  The recommended dose of 125 grams per load = 12 cents per load

Home Made Laundry Soap cost me:
100 grams Borax = 86 cents
130 grams Soda = 44 cents
50 grams pure soap = 32 cents
8 litre water = 1 cent
8 Litre divided by 4 = 32 loads of washing
Total product used to make soap = $1-62 / 32 loads = 4 cents per load.

Have you made laundry soap and how well did it work for you ? I keen to see other recipes and if you know of any recipes without borax ?

My mission now is to find a better way to store my soap rather than this 8 litre container in the basin.  Ideas anyone ????

Blessings