Tomorrow is the first day...

...of the Schoolhouse Expo!  I can't wait!  I sure hope I can get DH to keep little one occupied so that I can give the sessions my full attention.

I was checking out the door prizes for the event the other day.  What a lot of stuff!  I was lucky enough to win three prizes last year!  It was pretty exciting.  I love how they do the door prizes.  At the beginning of each session they post a link to a form for you to fill in with your name and email address.  Once you submit it your name goes in for the draw for the door prize for the session.  Also, after sessions sometimes they do special prize quizzes.  They ask questions about the session or the speaker or about Schoolhouse products and you have to answer in the chat box of the session.  Before the give the question they say that the "nth" person to answer will win and if you're lucky enough to answer at the right time you win.  I actually won one of my prizes that way last year.  It's so much fun!

One of the door prizes that I'm particularly interested in this year is the Visual World Geography.  I've never heard of it before and it sounds very interesting to me.  There's other prizes that caught my eye too and I will be spending more time checking them out when I get the chance.

If you were smart and got your ticket to the expo already, you are one of the lucky ones because the live sessions are sold out!  If you have your ticket, don't forget to sign on for the sessions so that you will get a chance for the prizes.

If you missed the chance to get a ticket to the live expo you are not totally out of luck.  You can still purchase the Expo to Go.  Unfortunately that doesn't give you a chance at the door prizes but you do get some free gifts with your purchase. It's also still worth your time to check out the door prizes.  You just might find something that interests you and might be something you'd like to purchase for your homeschool.


That's what's on my mind tonight.

Missing posts and my resulting adventures.

My attempt to post here every day in the month of May was thwarted by bloggers unexpected troubles.  Late in the evening on the 12th I tried to log in to do my daily post but was greeted with a page that said there was trouble in blogger land.  I wish I had thought about taking a screen shot of the page, but I didn't.  I was bummed.  I kept trying to get in to no avail.  Even the next day I couldn't get in.

Panic struck! What was I going to do?  I needed to blog!

I needed to blog not only for this blog but also for my 365 Days of Children's Books Blog.  I've been making daily posts there since the first of the new year.  Luckily I had managed to post my daily post there on the 12th before bloggers trouble started so I was safe for that day but I couldn't miss a day.  I had to do something!

Then I had an idea.  I headed over to wordpress.  I knew that I had started a wordpress blog a long time ago but I couldn't remember the name of it or how to get into it so I decided to just sign up for a new blog.  My main concern was my Children's books blog so I set that one up first.  I got a blog set up there with the same name no problem.  Then I figured I may as well set one up for my jabberings too.  That's when I found out what my old wordpress blog was called.

I tried to set up a blog at wordpress with the same title as this blog only to find that I had already done that many years ago, before I started this one actually.  That one, however, I had set up specifically to share about my journeys through the Bible.  I only lasted there a couple of month.  I stopped posting there when I started this blog.  I wish I could get back into that blog but I can't yet discovered how to access it.  I haven't entirely given up hope though.  If I do manage to access it I may revive it in some form.  We'll see.

Because I couldn't get a blog with the address I wanted and I really wanted to make a post so as not to miss a day and blogger was still down, so I set up a new blog with a slightly different name - Jacqueline Jabbers.  That's where you'll find my post for the 13th.

I thought about moving that post over here, and I may still do that yet, haven't quite decided, but I'm leaving it there for now.  Nothing exciting about the post it just talks about my need to blog and why I had to start a new blog over there.

I had thought about double posting to the blog there and here, and doing the same with my children's books blog in both places, but I wasn't sure if that would be a good thing to do or not so I asked some people that I thought would know.  They advised me against it so I'm going to follow there advice and not double post.  Now, however, I have to decide what I'm going to do with the blogs over a wordpress.  I do want to learn how to use wordpress, partly because I just love learning new things and partly so that when someone asks me about it I can help them.  I've had people ask me about wordpress before but I couldn't help.  I'd like to be able to.  I figure there's nothing wrong with learning how to use both platforms, but I have to figure out what exactly I want to use those blogs for.  I have some ideas so we'll see what happens.

That's what's on my mind today

Homeschoolers and socialization

Why is it that people automatically assume that if you are homeschooling your kids are going to miss out socially and turn out to be social misfits?  I know an awful lot of homeschoolers who prove the exact opposite.  They are some of the most social and well adjusted people that I know!  Sure, there probably are some homeschoolers that struggle socially, but there are also public schooled children that struggle socially.  A lot of the time it's personality, not schooling, that causes the struggles.

That's what's on my mind tonight.

The Roller Coaster of Life

Life has it's ups and downs.

I was disappointed yesterday to receive an email from the editor of our local paper, The Nor'Wester, saying that he had to cancel my column to help free up funds to hire a summer student.  I had been doing a weekly column highlighting children's books written by Newfoundland authors.  He invited me to contact him again when the summer is over.

I was excited today to have James Rumford visit my 365 Days of Children's Books blog and leave a comment on my post about his great book Calabash Cat and his Amazing Journey.

It doesn't take much to get me down - and it doesn't take much to get me back up again.  Such is the roller coaster of life.

That's what's on my mind tonight.

Just one week away...

....seven more days...until Schoolhouse Expo!  Yeah!  I can't wait!

That's what's on my mind at the moment.

Mommy Memories

I don't know why but I've been having lots of mommy memories lately.  I'm privileged to be the mom of four wonderful children, three of whom have grown into wonderful adults, and one that still has a way to go but thinks she's there already at just 5.  :)  The last few days I've been thinking back to the baby and toddler days of each of my children.  I've found myself sitting with a goofy grin on a lot as I remember all the precious moments.  My heart is warmed.  Sure there were bad times, but the good far outweighed the bad.  I am so blessed.

That's what's on my mind today.

Money Matters

Recently a friend of mine started talking about Dave Ramsey and Dan Miller and their thoughts on money and life matters. I had heard about Dave Ramsey before from some online blogs but didn't know much about him.  I hadn't heard about Dan Miller before.  I liked a lot of what my friend was telling me about them so I decided to do some research.  I discovered that they both had podcasts available through iTunes so I have been faithfully listening to Dave Ramsey and Dan Miller for a couple of weeks now.

I think my husband thought I was crazy for listening to them at first.  Correction, I know he thought I was crazy.  He thought that before I started listening to them, but that's beside the point.  He's been on holidays the last two weeks and he's been doing some work on our house so he's been subjected to hearing some of the podcasts whether he liked it or not.  I'm glad it worked out that way.  He got to listen in without me asking him to and without having to actually admit that he has been listening in.

We've been married over 20 years and have never seen eye to eye on money matters, or most anything else, truthfully, but I think our money problems have been the worst of it. I am not a spender at all. I've been wanting to get a handle on our money for 20 years, but we can't seem to work together on it at all.  Over those 20 years there have been two distinct times, about 10 years apart, when I remember seriously trying to work at getting a handle on our financial situation but failing miserably because he wasn't with the program at all and wasn't interested in working at it.  I couldn't do it alone.  I quit.  It hasn't been a fun 20 years.

Tonight I listened as he talked about money matters for about an hour with the friend that first got me interested in Dave Ramsey and Dan Miller.  Is there hope for the future?  I sure hope so.

That's what's on my mind tonight.

It's Conference season!

All across Canada, and the United States too I think, there are homeschool conferences happening.  I'm reading about it all through my friends blogs and facebook pages.

I spent some time today working on some things for our provincial homeschool conference which is coming up June 17 & 18.  I love this time because it means I get to see homeschoolers from across our province.  We are a very small and spread out homeschool group and I think this time to get together is so important.

I'm also looking forward to the Schoolhouse Expo online homeschool conference which starts May 16, just 11 days away!  I love that conference because I get to connect with an even bigger group of homeschoolers and they are from all around the world!

That's what's on my mind today.

Teaching opportunities just pop up

Today while reading with my little one I noticed that the title of the section of the book we were reading was written with alliteration.  We had started another book earlier in the week that also had alliteration in the division titles for the book and I had pointed out to her the fact that the words in the different section all started with the same letter and we chatted about it for a while and had some fun saying them.  When I noticed it again today I decided to introduce her to the word alliteration.  She's only 5 but she loves new words so I figured I'd give her another one.  Today I reminded her of the alliteration in the other book and we chatted about it and had some fun again.  I don't expect her to totally grasp the idea or remember the special name for it yet but she may just surprise me next time we come across it.

I love taking advantage of natural learning moments like that.  I wish that I had taken the initiative to journal about all the times it's happened to us.  She's learned so much that didn't come from planned out teaching lessons.  Actually, the few teaching lessons that I've planned out for her have turned out anything but stellar. It's these natural learning moments that have really boosted her knowledge.  

I wouldn't have known anything about these moments if it wasn't for homeschooling.  I was a teacher in the public school system before I started homeschooling my children.  I thought that learning could only take place in a very structured environment with a very well laid out plan.  Man had I missed the boat!  I'm so glad that I've discovered how natural and enjoyable learning and teaching can be.

That's what's on my mind today.

How do I want to record the books I've read?

I've been struggling with how I want to go about keeping a record of the books I read.

I love to read, but I don't always get the time to read that I'd like.  I have a 5 year old that I'm trying to homeschool and a house I try to keep in order.  Add to that the fact that I have a husband that hates to read and thinks reading is a waste of time so I try my best not to read too much when he's around.  Doesn't leave me with much time left to read.  I do, however, squeeze it in whenever I can.

A few days ago I actually set up a Reading Log page on my blog and made a list of the books I could remember that I've read, or started, so far this year.  I'm debating with myself as to whether to leave it at that or do more.  Should I do a blog post about each book giving a short synopsis of the book and my thoughts on it and then link that post to the book title in the list or should I add that information to the Reading Log page somehow?  I can't seem to make up my mind, and in the mean time I'm doing nothing.

I read a very interesting blog post about that just yesterday - And this donkey died because....  I'd never heard of the "medieval logic dilemma" that he describes and I thought it was pretty funny.  He used it to make a very good point.  If you are trying to make a decision and you can't make up your mind so you just don't do anything, then you are still deciding on something - your deciding to do nothing, and really that's not going to get you anywhere.

That's about where I am in trying to figure out what to do about recording the books I read - doing nothing but thinking about it.  It's soon going to be time to make a different decision and actually do something.


And that's what's on my mind today.

What does it take to get renos completed?

I don't ever remember a time when there wasn't some kind of renovations happening in our house.  I also don't ever remember a time when a reno that was started was actually totally completed.  

We have been in the same house for over 20 years.  

We are presently in the process of fixing our house up to sell.  I actually now have a tub surround installed around the new tub that was put in about 6 years ago.  I now have doors to the kitchen cupboards that were put in about 10 years ago.  Actually, that's not totally true. The truth is that the cupboards that were put in 10 years ago have been taken down and new cupboards have been put up, but the doors actually went on at the same time.  Today I finally got a range hood installed over my stove!  It only took 20 years.  It's amazing what can get done in a house when you are about to leave it.  

So, if your house is like mine with renos in progress, just remember that they probably won't ever be completed until right before you go to sell it.

(sigh)

That's what's on my mind today.

Voting Day 2011 - plus other stuff

Voting Day 2011
Today is voting day for our country's 21st General Election.  I'm proud to say that I exercised my right to vote today.  I'm sad to say that I haven't always done that.  For many years I had taken my right to vote for granted.  I found the whole process confusing and pointless.  Then I started to learn more about it.  I had to learn, because I wanted to teach my children.  That's when I started getting interested in the whole political scene.  I still don't know a whole lot about it, but I know a whole lot more than I used to and I am continually trying to learn more.

This year I had the privilege of presenting an information session about the election and our electoral system to our local homeschool group.  During our last federal election I had discovered the StudentVote site, which puts off a parallel election for students under the voting age so that they will become educated about the process.  When I told our homeschool group about StudentVote this year they were excited to take part in the StudentVote program during our 21st General Election.  Because of school holidays in our province we had to hold our Student Vote earlier than most provinces so we didn't have as much time to spend learning about the whole process as we would have liked, but we still had a great time.  I created a Student Vote 2011 Zapd website on my iPhone using pictures I took with my iPhone at our StudentVote. They are seriously looking forward to the next election so that they can do this again. Hopefully these kids will be inspired and educated enough that they will never take their right to vote for granted.

Mixed Feelings about the Big World News Story
Something else making big news in our country, and many others, today is the death of Bin Laden, as reported on the CBC News site.  While I am not sad that Bin Laden is dead, I am also not celebrating his death, as many others are.

I think much like Dara, of Readily a Parent, in what she has to say in her Why I Won't Be Celebrating Bin Laden's Death post.  I can't say that I'm fearful, because my hope rests in God, but I am sad to think about what happened and what potentially could happen still.

Just Two Weeks to Expo Time!
The Old Schoolhouse Spring 2011 Expo, an online homeschool conference, starts on May 16th, just two weeks away!  I can't wait!  I really enjoyed the last Expo that I took in and I'm expecting no less from this one.  If you don't already have your ticket purchased to take in the Expo live, you are out of luck!  The tickets have sold out!  That said, however, you're not totally out of luck because you can still purchase the Expo-to-Go.  If I were you, I'd hop to it.  You seriously don't want to miss it.


And that's what on my mind today.

Can I manage to post daily?

I had made a promise to myself that during the month of May I am going to try to make at least a short post daily to this blog. As I climbed into bed a few moments ago I remembered that promise and realized I hadn't posted here today. It's a good thing I take my iPhone to bed with me. :)

It's not so easy writing my post on my iPhone so I'm going to have to work harder at remembering to get my post done before I crawl into bed. But it's nice to know that if I forget I can still post something, though it will be rather short and less polished than if I'd done it earlier

Think I'll leave it at that for tonight. Lots on my mind I'd like to share but typing on here is too bothersome. Hopefully I didn't make too many mistakes while typing this. Not only is it hard to type, it's also hard to see the small screen, especially as my eyes are wanting to close in sleep. At least I haven't failed at my goal on the first day. :)

So, that's what's on my mind at the moment and now I'm hoping to clear my
mind of all thoughts and sleep well.

Can I post from my iPhone?

I have been spending less time at my laptop lately and more time with my iPhone so I'm wondering how difficult it would be to do a blogpost on my phone. I decided to try it out to see what I thought. I struggle with the typing so that makes it a little difficult. I'm not sure if I want to do it this way or not. I guess we'll see.

2011-2012 Schoolhouse Planners now available!

Passing on this notice from The Old Schoolhouse.

Need a tool to help maintain a well-organized home and homeschool?
Want to get your kids organized too?
Get ready to plan another great year with The 2011-12 Schoolhouse Planner, the brand-new 2011-12 Special Needs Schoolhouse Planner, and the 2011-12 Student Schoolhouse Planners for students from kindergarten to high school.
Erase the frazzled feeling of disorganization with The 2011-12 Schoolhouse Planner and bring order and efficiency to your school year.
Packed with relevant articles, clever calendars, useful forms, handy lists, and so much more, this planner is the key to meeting your many goals for the 2011-12 school year.With over 175 new forms, you'll have all the organizational tools you need to make this the best school year ever.
New forms this year will help you:

• Plan beautiful holiday celebrations.

• Run a successful home business.

• Plan a course of study over four years.

• Run a well-organized home from top to bottom.

And so much more!

Whether organizing your homeschool curriculum, household tasks, a home-based business, or jotting down lists of things you hope to do some day . . .
The 2011-12 Schoolhouse Planner has all of the planning components you will need to make this year a great success.  http://www.theoldschoolhousestore.com/index.phpmain_page=index&cPath=191_193
Don't wait! Take advantage of great prices with the special presale going on now until April 14.

These are available in digital format so I assume you can print off only what you need.  Sounds interesting!

World Read Aloud Day Report

March 9, 2011 was World Read Aloud Day.  Anna and I celebrated at to two events.

Our local library has a story time every Wednesday afternoon. I told our librarian about World Read Aloud Day and she talked to the kids about it during story time and then explained about it to the parents present.

Our local homeschool group got together for a special World Read Aloud Day celebration.  We talked about how privileged we are to be able to read and the advantages it gives us.  Then each child shared a favourite reading from a book they brought with them.  It was great fun to see each child's personality reflected in what they had chosen to read.  One of the boys chose to challenge us by reading clues from little fact cards about different animals and plants and having us guess what it was before he read us the answer. His brother read one of his favourite verses from the Bible (1 Thessalonians 4:11), while their sister read her favourite Bible story (Jesus feeding the five thousand).  Another boy read one of his favourite poems.  Another child read a favourite book of his dad's while his sister read a passage for a new book she just got the day before.  My 5 year old daughter did her first public read aloud at the event.  She read Splat!, a first reader, and everyone congratulated her on her great reading.  I read a couple of our favourite read alouds, What if Your Mom Made Raisin Buns by Newfoundland author Catherin Hogan Safer, and Watch Out Big Bro's Coming by Jez Alborough.  There were about 16 of us present and we all had a great time sharing about the joys of reading.

If you did something to celebrate World Read Aloud Day be sure to send in a report about it.

Weekly Character Projects

Doorposts, a company who's mission is to supply you with "Bible-based, parent-designed, family-tested products to help you apply Scripture in your home" has a new blog titled Doorposts of Your House.

One of the features on their blog is a weekly character project.  The first project is on How to Develop Patience Towards Others and it suggests a real simple, practical way to work on this.  I know it's something we all need to work on in our family and I'm glad I came across this great idea.  I'm looking forward to future character projects.

TOS Homeschool Expo Preshow

The TOS Homeschool Spring Expo takes place May 16-20, but they have bonus Pre-show nights on March 16 and April 12 for those that register early for the Expo.  Sooooo, last night was the first pre-show!

I almost missed it!  I didn't even realize it was happening until it was started and I was scrabbling to get everything set up so I wouldn't miss it.

The first session was Teaching with Technology: Boon or Bust with Terri Johnson.  I loved a statement she made early in the session.  The gist of it is that the education community is experiencing these "New Revelations" in Education, but in reality they are just learning what homeschoolers already know!  Things like you don't need desks, teacher lectures, peer groups, or classrooms to learn.  She then talked about what technology is and what it isn't and how it's changes over time and shared number of interesting quotes.  My favourite was "In times of change, it is the learners that will inherit the earth while the learned will find themselves beautifully equipped for a world that no longer exists. –Eric Hoffer".  It is important for us to teach our children how to learn and to take advantage of all the tools that will help.  Then Terri introduced us to a number of apps that can help our children in their quest to learn.  Great session!

The second session was Home Business and Homeschooling: The Dynamics of Delegation with Malia Russell.  She made a great point about how important it is to delegate and even pointed out in scripture that delegation was important to God.  One statement that she made that really stuck with me was that if you are over worked you are doing things you shouldn't be doing! - either doing things that someone else should be doing or doing things that nobody should be doing.  Another great session.

Unfortunately I didn't get to take in the last session because I had to put my little one to bed.  I can't wait to get the MP3s so that I can see what I missed.

I'm looking forward to the next pre-show in April!

Canadian Homeschoolers - make sure you are counted!

Homeschool Horizons is having a fun challenge to see which is the top homeschooling province in Canada.  Really, it is not an actual account of homeschoolers in each province, just an account of how many homeschoolers in each province have filled in the Homeschool Horizons Survey, but it's still fun. Along with giving you a chance to have your province more accurately represented in numbers, the survey also gives you a chance to help ensure that Homeschool Horizons will meet the needs of homeschoolers across Canada.  They post updates of the results each week on their facebook page.  Come join in the fun.

Here are how the provinces stand right now:

Ontario 30%

Alberta 21%

British Columbia 13%

Saskatchewan 10%

Newfoundland 8%

Nova Scotia 7%

Quebec 6%

Manitoa 4%

New Brunswick 3%

Prince Edward Island 0%

I can't believe that their are no Homeschoolers in Prince Edward Island!  I know that is wrong.  I also can't believe that the numbers are so low in some of the other provinces.  I also know that it is not a true reflection of the numbers.  People need to help get the word out and get these numbers up!

Why don't you help?  If you are a homeschooling in Canada, make sure you fill in the survey so that you are counted.  If you have friends that are homeschooling, point them to the form and stay after them until they, too, fill it in.  Post about it on your facebook, on your blog, in your provincial forums or email lists.  Talk about it at support group meetings.  Get the word out!  Let's get those numbers up and have some fun!

Which province do you think has the most homeschoolers?  Where do you think your province falls?

What are you doing for World Read Aloud Day, March 9, 2011?

You'll find suggestions for how to celebrate, a tally sheet, a certificate, and lots of other things on the WRAD activities page.

If you're looking for some suggestions for books to read aloud for World Read Aloud Day tomorrow, check out my 365 Days of Children's Books blog.  There are lots of suggestions there.  Why not check out at least one book by a Newfoundland Author and at least one book by a Canadian author?  While you're there, check out the March Reading Challenge.  I'd love to have you join and hear about what you read, even if it's just on World Read Aloud Day.

Anna and I will be attending Story Hour at our local library as well as participating in a special WRAD celebration with our local homeschoolers.  We love any excuse to enjoy books!