All in a day of school...dry vacuum canning marshmallows

A few weeks ago I happened upon a steal of a deal at my local Goodwill...I LOVE it when that happens!

I snagged a deal on this handy little guy (in black)

picture borrowed from Amazon.com

(that I must confess I didn't have the SLIGHTEST idea what to do with until I hit some youtube videos)

Got him for $9.95...I know a steal of a deal when I see it!

I bought him for the vacuum part not so much the sealing part. I then purchased the jar attachments and hose so I could begin dry canning some goods that have been hanging out in bags for quite some time.

Hope you enjoy this fun little video of our marshmallow canning:



Happy Friday!

Some FREE Homeschool resources/reviews

If you're a blogger - Time 4 Learning - is allowing a FREE 30 day account for your blog review of their online curriculum.

I'm sure you already know about the Homeschool Buyers Co-Op but just in case you don't...you should join, it's FREE and allows curriculum buying power like public schools.

I happened upon this great FREE homeschool currciulum site Lesson Pathways - it has ALL subjects for grades K-5...it looks pretty interesting.

And I found ALL of the above great resources thanks to The Homeschool Mom site - what a great resource. GO and check out the reviews from other homeschool mom's concerning the curricular they have listed...Thanks "The Homeschool Mom"!!!

Looking forward to the new school year

We started school on Sept 10 and we've been having fun. This year we are doing a modified version of the Student of the Word curriculum. We're liking it so far and I am SO thankful to have followed the leading of the Holy Spirit and made the change. Our science this year consists exclusively of Anatomy...YIKES - I guess that will include "ALL" of our anatomy...that part I'm not looking so forward to! LOL Right now we are doing the Missouri Daillies work book for our history - our main part of history will begin around Christmas when we will begin the life of Christ.

She's taking some additional classes for science, art & sticks. She was going to take violin until I picked up the case and the violin dropped out onto the garage floor and cracked up the center. :( SO sad!!!

Here's to another great homeschooling year!!!

An update to the Figure 8 layout

The Sharpie kept coming off with my dry erase markers so I purchased some clear contact paper and placed it over the top. The dry erase marker wouldn't come off of that without the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser so we gave washable markers a try and they worked coming off with a wet wipe!

Blessings...

During lunch today my daughter sat down with her food while I was cutting up mine with my back to her at the counter. She said "thank you", I said "for what?", she said "for staying home with me each day and homeschooling me"...WOW - that was awesome!!! I almost cried! I didn't think she'd EVER like/appreciate being homeschooled...Thank you God!!!

We "unofficially" started school today...

I thought we'd "ease" into this new school year so we just did some things on the computer and such today. I was going to install her Teaching Textbooks and have her do math but lo-n-behold the cd's weren't in the package...yikes. I purchased this at the St. Louis Homeschool Expo in April and never even opened it until today. Thankfully, I still had my receipt (I keep them ALL :) and gave them a call...a sweet girl on the other line took a look at my account and is going to send them to me...Thank you Lord!!!

Here's a recent pic from her losing her tooth the other night:

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!!!