It’s All Free Today!

February 1, 2012

Bib-lio-phile: noun a lover of books especially for qualities of format; also : a book collector

That’s me! :)

So when a home schooling friend offered me over 1000 home school books and resources for FREE – I was almost giddy!

So what does one do with boxes and boxes and boxes of books?

Books
First you spend hours pouring through every box, touching each and every book and resource. This takes hours because you get distracting and start reading them.

Then you make big piles of the books that you cannot live without and try to fit them on your already full bookshelves.

Meanwhile – your children are also going through each and every box, touching each and every book  and also have large piles of books that they cannot live without – because you trained them from a young age to love books – especially when they are free. :)

More BooksThen you take the many, many, many boxes of books that still remain – and lay them all out neatly in the basement. All over the basement – as in – you must rearrange the basement to make room for them all.
FriendsThen you call your homeschooling friends and invite them over for a book party – an “everything is free so please fill as many boxes as you wish and take them to live at your house” book party.

Would you believe they went through each and every box and touched each and every resource and made big piles of books that they just could not live without?

And then their children did the same thing. :)

After a wonderful afternoon  they took their boxes of books and stuffed in the van with all the children and are probably – right at this very minute – trying to fit them on already full bookshelves.

How do I know this?

Because I’m a bibliophile. It’s what we do.

By Country Gal | Posted in Friends, Home School, Thrifty Ideas | Tagged , , | Comments (7)

November Snow

November 9, 2011

Dear children of mine,

I interrupt your regularly scheduled school day to bring you this special report.

Last night while we slept – it snowed.
SnowSix inches of wet sticky snow.

And although you may think that it’s really quite exciting and even somewhat pretty, I must bring a touch of reality to your morning.

The heavy snow has knocked down the electric fence and all the cows are all out.

While you were drinking your hot chocolate for breakfast – they were walking across downed wire and eating the hay bales set aside for their winter consumption.

snowPlease drop whatever you are doing and immediately put on your winter coats, snow boots, gloves and hats.

You will find them still in the tubs in the basement where we put them last spring -because your mother somehow missed the 6 inches of snow in the forecast last night and was not prepared.

Then report to the back pasture for a morning of adventure.

We’ll call it PE.

Thank you,

Your mother

 

By Country Gal | Posted in Home School, Weather, Winter | Tagged , , | Comments (4)

Playing Hooky – Again

November 2, 2011

Yes. It’s true. I played hooky – again.

I’m becoming a habitual offender! :)

At least this time I brought the kids with me!

the moms We met up with several other home school moms and their kiddos at a local park to enjoy one of the last wonderful days of fall.

While the kids played and played and played -

The moms sat and talked – catching up on life, sharing ideas, and just soaking up the sunshine.

Our biggest entertainment -

babiesWatching the babies be cute.

It was one of those “easy” kind of days that makes me so glad to be home schooling.

kiddosI’m thinking the kids were kind of glad, too!

 

By Country Gal | Posted in Autumn, Community, Home School, Memories | Tagged , , | Comments (2)

Our First Day of School & Other Surprises

August 20, 2010

We started school this week.

Okay – pick yourselves up now.

For those of you who know me well – you know that I don’t like to start school until at least after Labor Day.  I want a really long – very s t r e t c h e d out summer.

Stuff

Yet – here we are starting school in the middle of August – before even the public schools have started.

What’s up with that?

Well…usually I’m up to my eyebrows in veggies to can and freeze right now, but this year the garden is really behind.

And…for years we didn’t have air conditioning and it was just too hot to even think – let alone do math.

But…mostly we started early because we have something really exciting planned.

I mean really exciting!

Are you ready for this?

In September, we’re going on a massive 10 day trip out west – with all five kids – and we’ll be camping.

That’s right – all seven of us for 10 days – camping.

But not in this RV – no, that would be too easy. It has a kitchen and an indoor bathroom.

No, that’s not us. We’ll be the ones driving a 15 year old suburban pulling a 35 year old pop-up camper.

Think Brady Bunch.

We’ll see the Tetons, Yellowstone and the Black Hills while enjoying the comfort and lack of indoor plumbing of a 35 year old Starcraft pop-up. It sleeps eight, is very clean and most importantly – it’s free.

Vintage Coleman Pop-Up

Did you notice that I called this a “trip” not a vacation? A vacation happens when you stay in hotels and eat in restaurants and don’t have children with you.

No – this is most definitely a trip – an epic adventure that will go down in the annuls of family history.

It will be a major memory making event and the excitement is building!

But for now, we have an entire week of school under our belts. Then in a few weeks – when everyone else is doing math problems and diagramming sentences – we’ll be hiking in the Tetons and watching Old Faithful.

Just one more reason to love home schooling!

RV picture courtesy of Michael Gil.

By Country Gal | Posted in Family Traditions, Home School, Memories | Tagged , , , | Comments (10)

Civil War Days

September 17, 2009

Our weekend got off to an unusual start – we stepped back in history!

We attended a local Civil War Re-enactment – complete with period clothing, guns, and attitude!

First we checked out the Union camp (not just because that’s where our sympathies lie – but it was closer!)

After a demonstration on how to load and fire an authentic civil war rifle,  we moved up to heavy artillery.

While we were admiring the big guns, an older gent in Union blues came out and asked the kids if they would like to shoot the cannon.

Their eyes got big!

“Really – we can actually shoot it?”

And they did!

Do you have any idea how many steps were required to fire out one shot from the cannon? I lost count at 8.

It took 4 men (in our case – 4 kids) – and they had to remember all these steps while the enemy is shooting at them.

Civil Wars Days Then we moved on the northern entrenchment – which is basically a big hole in the ground with places to shoot from.

The northern one was nice – but not nearly as nice as the southern one!

We were very impressed with the quality of the work on the southern workmanship.

They had deluxe accommodations -

Civil Wars Days Trench – sod covered tarps to protect the men.

-reinforced walls

-gradually earthen steps down into the entrenchment (they Northern one was just a slope – that I slide down of course)

-lots more room

It could have almost graced the cover of a home improvement magazine (okay – so I exaggerate a little – but my pride is still a little bruised after my fall into the Northern one!)

We next traveled on up the hill to the Confederate Camp. It was there we learned that these re-enactors actually take the role of a real regiment in the Southern army.

They study these regiments – reading books and journals – until they know the history well.

Most of them had relatives who fought for the South – and all are proud to wear the Confederate grey (if only for a weekend).

And they all really got into this!

But then – so did we! My history loving – sword fighting – very imaginative family – all loved seeing the past come to life.

And the sweetest part of all – we could count it as school!

By Country Gal | Posted in Family Traditions, Home School, Memories | Tagged , , , | Comment (1)