Monday, August 23, 2010

Getting things ready...

Have you started school yet this year? We haven't - I mean, we've been counting things that are "school" type things to our school year calendar as Missouri allows us but we haven't "officially" started school yet. My goal is to get some things finished up around the house (pack up unneeded items for Goodwill, etc) and start after Labor Day...I figured it was good enough for me when I was a kid...it's good enough now too! :)

I have been working on getting this next school year organized, ordering books and making the "Figure Eight" that we will be starting. Thanks to Dianne Craft and her "Smart Kids who Hate to Write" and her knowledge of "Dygraphia" which is what my daughter has been struggling with. She's a VERY smart girl but she is right handed and left eye dominant which means she has a bit of difficulty processing when writing.

Dianne Craft sold a figure 8 "paper" layout at the homeschool conference here in St. Louis. She said I would need to duplicate it and have my daughter do the figure 8 daily with crayons and use 1 layout per week...say what!?! I'm all for duplication of a product but each week making this thing just got the wheels in my head spinning on HOW I could do this WITHOUT making a new one each week.



Thankfully, at the CHEF conference in June I went by the Rainbow Resource table and saw they had these wipe off Centimeter Grid Boards that were blank on the other side. I thought 4 of them put together would make a nice size layout to work on. I laid them grid side up and duck taped (isn't that used for everything!?! LOL) them together at the seems and flipped them over and used clear tape on the front. I traced everything but the letters on there with a permanent Sharpie (LOVE THOSE!) - I then cut the letters out and taped them across the bottom and top.After practicing with it I realize that I'll need to put a clear coat of laminate type stuff over it. When the dry erase markers are used over the sharpie and you erase it takes away the sharpie (permanent) lines also. I'll go to KMart later today and get the clear shelf liner/contact paper and see if that will allow me to write with the dry erase and also wipe it away. We shall see.

I think it turned out GREAT!!!

Friday, August 6, 2010

A week of fun...

We just spent a week volunteering our time out at the Strong Tower Ranch in Wright City ministering the gospel to children in the area. Our camp week had 98 kids that attended and there were several that gave their lives to Christ. I oversaw the crafts and it was alot of fun. Here are some pictures from the week:

This is the activity of "choice" for ALL the kids that attend...swimming in the pond!


A little boating...


What camp week would be complete without holding a snake???


Getting ready for the pig catch...is this Ham or Bacon??? LOL




My beautiful girl...



Us...



Wish we would have gotten a full group shot of our new friends from Marysville, Kansas. They all did an AWESOME job being counselors and helpers. These are the Roper girl leaders Ms. Kassie, Ms. Robin, Ms. Elainey.

 
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