Today is the first time I’m participating in the long-running “Works for me Wednesday” hosted at WeAreThatFamily. I thought I’d share my Homeschool Binder (aka my HS brain!). I made this after the same idea I got for my Home Management Binder you can view here.

This year marks our first-official homeschool year. After a year in preschool and a year in public kindergarten my oldest is learning first grade at home. I have a lot of reasons why I decided to do this and I shared some of my thoughts in this post.

I spent months researching just about anything that had to do with homeschool it seems and made my decision to give it a go.

We started homeschool last week and I’m loving it and the boys (I have a 4 yr old too) are enjoying also- though my oldest doesn’t always want to do his work. Thats expected. Things don’t go smoothly always but since we aren’t constrained to the clock thats okay. I love-love-love…LOVE the freedom we have! And I love getting to be in charge. I really feel like this is natural and the way its suppose to be for us. Maybe in 9 months I’ll feel differently, we’ll have to wait and see

I bought a binder about…maybe 3″ wide and the “special” kind of tabs that also come as sheet protectors. They fit great with sheet protector pages. If you don’t want sheet protectors to hide your tabs you want this kind. I used my scrapbook supplies to make my own custom front/back design.

The monthly tabs I really like. Behind each tab are some if not all of the following forms. We may or may not use most of them.

• Daily Check List
• An objective list for the month or whatever time frame.
• Reading List
• Extracurricular Activities
• Field Trip Log
• Read my post here for some great homeschooling resources (including FREE).

I  looked at a number of different forms and I experimented with some. I’m using some other forms like a master /hourly form also but I’m very flexible. I REALLY REALLY like this Daily Checklist because it provides me with an easy way to record what we actually are accomplishing daily. I feel like I NEED this since we don’t follow the hourly schedule to a T and my homeschooling approach is very “eclectic” and flexible.

Some of the other dividers include a section for each of my boys. They each have their own notebooks but I keep some lesson plans, etc in my notebook for them. I also have a legal section to store my “approval” to homeschool letter from our school district.

Well, this is what works for me, for sure!  If you’re homeschooling, what works for you?

Subscribe here to get my updates by email or RSS!

Yoplait Spritz Promotion & Prize Pack!

My family had  an opportunity to try some Yoplait Yogurt  recently. I chose the Yoplait Trix that came with the reusable freezer stick so you can make yogurt-pops. Just stick the stick through the foil top and freeze. After about 4 hrs or so you can take off the foil top and  run some warm water over the container so you can slide the yogurt pop out. Thats a great idea!  You only get one stick per pack though, but you can collect them all (maybe 6 of them?) and then you have a set for later

Well, Yoplait and MyBlogSpark have teamed up to provide you with an opportunity to enter to win a SWEET insulated picnic tote and roll-up picnic blanket! I can say the tote is SWEET because they gave me a set too.  Do you want a chance to win one for your family or to give as a gift to someone?

All you have to do to enter is tell me which flavor of  Yoplait Splitz is your favorite or which  you’d like to try. They have 3 flavors…Rainbow Sherbet, Strawberry Banana Split, and Strawberry Sundae.

That’s it!

Contest begins today and ends Friday September 17, 2010. I will be pick a winner via Random.org!

*I received a free Yoplait product to try at home as well as my Yoplait Prize Pack from Yoplait via MyBlogSpark for this review/giveaway.

Subscribe here to be sure you get Hall of Fame Mom’s posts delivered to your email inbox or RSS feed.

“Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.” Galations 3:24″

“So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” Romans 10:17

“And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” Galations 3:29

Its about faith, not works. Read more here.

*If you’d like to read the previous 10 weeks in this series, click here.

I thought I’d just introduce my “bloggy-self”  to my new readers. If you’d like to have a better idea of what I and my blog are about  you can read about it here.

Oh! And my blog is going through a “makeover” right now-so please forgive the empty spaces and lack of balance. I’m a  wife and mom first, blogger fits down the list somewhere after these!

And thank you for following my blog

I mentioned in this post that we bought a new family membership from a far-away museum because the price was the best I’d found and it included the zoo and science museum reciprocal program. This means there are a lot of zoos and science museums around the USA that we can get into for free or at a discounted price.

The first place we visited with  our new membership was the Akron Zoo! We all got in free, parking was $2. The zoo was a lot nicer than I remembered it years ago.

Okay, so we all know zoos have animals. I’ll show some of the “other” things we found at the Akron Zoo…I’ll still throw in a few animals for good measure though

Photo Ops!

Play Areas!

{Below is a climbing wall  play area near the jellyfish and the small touch-pool. }.

Buy a cracker and feed an animal!

Tigers!

Jellyfish! {my favorite – and what a variety they have!}

Beautiful, huge garden area!

What a great place to take the family!

Subscribe here to get my updates by email or RSS. Who knows where we’ll go next

We don’t have dental insurance – and I imagine many other families go without this too – however, dental care still is a must. I’ll admit, I don’t even like having my teeth cleaned much less a cavity filled.  We’ve handled the “no dental insurance” in 3 different ways on various occasions.

1. Don’t go. (My favorite position, seeing I don’t like dental work anyways.)
2. Go to the local technical college where the dental hygenist students work on you. We’ve been to Stark State College and I love! their set up and the atmosphere (and the price… under $10). The drawback is that because they’re learning and their work has to be reviewed (not a bad thing though) they tell you to prepare to be there for 3 hours.
3. Go to clinic where they use a sliding fee scale.

Okay so, let me tell you. I had my reservations about going to a “clinic”. There’s just this “thing” about it that gives people (or is it me?) the impression that its just not going to be as good as going somewhere where I have to shell out lots of money or swipe that credit card and go into debt for a little while. Its a stigma that I’ve  allowed to get in my way for a long time.

Well, it may be okay for me not to go to the dentist (at least for awhile ) but my kids have to go.

And so we went.

And I learned a lesson. A lesson I already knew.

“Don’t judge a book by its cover.”

In spite of the fact that the dental clinic is obviously for those who can’t afford to shell out hundreds of dollars in dental care and they share a building with other low income services and yeah, it looks like a low-income clinic…

We had a great experience! My kids got their teeth examined and cleaned without tears. They even got a few goodies at the end of the visit. There is a minimal $20 charge and then it can go up from there. Still very affordable.

And next month, its my turn.

*By the way, I am NOT opposed to low income services. In the past we have used WIC and currently, even though I don’t think you have to be low income for this, my youngest is under BCMH (Bureau for Medically Handicapped children) due to being born with a partial cleft soft-palate

If you’d like to receive my blog post updates by email or RSS, click here to Subscribe!