Journey to Excellence

(Attention Thursday Quick Tips readers: This tip is a little wordy. I was actually just writing this post as a regular rant-and-rave post, but then decided to link it up. The actual tip is at the end if you want to skip over the mumbo-jumbo.) Lately, our school just hasn't been fun. We are accompishing a lot on a daily basis with the necessaries. We do lots of reading, lots and lots of writing, grammar, spelling, and some pretty difficult math (our curriculum has the kids doing double digit math and subtraction in their heads ... HARD!). And we have managed to stick to our guns in making nature a priority, which has been a real joy in our week. But by the end of the day we are kind of worn out. We grab our unit study, but really just want to be done for the day so don't give it all we've got. We have done some seasonal studies and have supplemented with Five in a Row . But, I'm not too excited about it, and the kids aren't either. Sometimes I get annoyed whe...

This tip has nothing to do with homeschooling, but my family blog is Private, so I can't link up to it.  Hopefully this handy kitchen tip will be helpful to some of you. I don't use a lot of brown sugar in my cooking. But each time I need some, the sugar in my bag is in large rock solid chunks! I know there are special stones you can buy to put in the bag, or you can put an apple slice in it, but I don't have a stone and I hate the way the apple turns nasty. So here is what I do ... I take the amount of brown sugar I need and chop it up in my electric mini-chopper. Then the sugar is as good as new. Join Marcy at Ben and Me for more Thursday Quick Tips.

I have learned that we do much better in our day, and accomplish more, if I don't have a minute-by-minute schedule. (I can't believe I am putting that in print.) Instead, I have a planner page that includes each subject and I write in the lessons I want to accomplish each day. For the first couple of weeks, we started at the top and worked our way down. But that even got monotonous for me, and I love order. I felt like the kids were getting a little bored, too. So, I came up with an easy system to allow our days to vary just a bit. I wrote each subject on a large craft stick and put it in a mason jar adorned with a ribbon. We always start with our Bible lesson. After that, the kids take turns pulling out  a stick to tell us which subject to do next. This puts a little mystery into our day, and helps with the slumps and grumbles that were occurring as we approached the subjects that were the least favorite. I'm linking up with Marcy at Ben and Me . Le...

I am joining Marcy at Ben and Me today to share a Quick Tip on this Thursday . I have already posted about the Grumble-Meter , but I thought it was awesome enough to deserve it's own post. Eli is a grumbler. It really doesn't matter what you announce that you are getting ready to do, good or bad. His initial response is a grumble. That makes for a LOOOOOONG homeschooling day! I knew that I did NOT want to listen to that all day every day. Eli also does not respond well to losing privileges. That means, it really just doesn't affect him. But he THRIVES on EARNING things! So that's where the idea of the Grumble-Meter and award system came into play. The Grumble-Meter is a fancy contraption made from half of a paper plate colored in green, yellow, orange and red. It has a black construction paper arrow attached with a brad. I am currently selling these for $50. Just kidding! It is attached with an ever-so-fancy clothespin to a sketch pad sitting on an ...