TOS Crewmember!

Awhile ago, I got an email from The Old Schoolhouse magazine. They asked people if they would be interested in being a product reviewer for TOS. I thought is something that I could do! So I emailed them back. Well, after a short process later, I was picked as one of their reviewers! Out of 500 applicants, they chose 100. So I am one of 100! We are still the new phase of the program which should last for about 9 months. I will probably review about 50 homeschool products.

TOS gets to use anything I write, and I get to keep the products!
So, keep an eye out for a few reviews, cause that's what i'm doing! That's how we are getting "paid". I believe that they are also going to put a diddy about each of us in the actual magazine, once our nine months is about up.

I've always thought it would be fun to write for a magazine.. and i'm one step closer! How cool is that?

Oct 2008

There's a lot that's been going on in my neck of the woods lately. Sept. 22nd, Rod started courses at SVC for Computer Information Systems. If all goes as planned, he'll end up with a CIS certificate. Still waiting for unemployment to approve or not approve an unemployment extension. He's begun, and he's enjoying it.

We just got a used piano. Someone through our co-op posted on our First Class Google Group that she had a friend who wanted to get rid of her piano. I've been wishing I could get my hands on one for years. Even going to far as to look through craigslist to see if I could find one for free. But I was really reluctant to get one that way. I've thought about getting a keyboard, but I just didn't want my kids learning on one.. even though, i'm sure we'll end up with one eventually.

We were able to get ahold of the piano lady & it must have been ordained. I actually know her! Well, I did in highschool anyway. She was the mom of one of my very good friends! So we were able to talk & catch up. A few days later, we went to her house to look at it. Turns out, it was the same 'kind' that I've always wanted. It's an upright grand. Heavy as the house, though! We have another friend, Mike, who owns a party rental business (www.airplayrental.com). He has a lift truck! So him and another friend Matt went with Josiah and Rod and moved the piano. So I didn't pay anything for the piano or to move it!

A couple of gals from Friday School have loaned me a couple of kids piano books. I don't know what I did with the one that I used to have from when we lived at the church. I suppose i'll find it eventually!

Kids have officially begun school. We are also doing swimming lessons. Looks like I will be adding music lessons to that as well. I played flute for years, and we've only had the piano a few days and I'm quite surprised with how much I've picked up. The boys have been teasing me saying things like "I thought you didn't know how to play piano, Mom!" I'll take that as a compliment, thank you!

Friday School started a couple of weeks ago as well. I'm making espresso. I have definately gotten better at it. Rod's teaching three Rockin' classes: Extreme Toothpick Engineering, Pop Bottle Explorer and Let's Play Chess. All three of those is going well. It took quite a bit of prepwork to get the toothpick class together! Josiah is taking Faith's spanish class and loving it! I was hoping that would be a good choice for him. He loves his name translated into Spanish Josias with the emphasis on "si".

Personally I've been taking a couple of Digital Scrapbooking classes online through www.jessicasprague.com using my Photoshop CS3 that I got not too long ago. One of the layouts I've done is at the top of this post. That's been going well, my new layouts are really fun. I'll have to post a few more. I really have been enjoying it because it's challenging, fun and making me use the digital materials and photos that i have. Definately curbs the creative bug that I have!
I guess that's all for now....

The Old Schoolhouse Fall 2008 -PLUS Free Digital Back Issue!

For those of you who don't know what TOS is, it is a couple of things...
It is a place to keep up to date on what's going on in the homeschooling world.
It is a place to find curriculum and other homeschooling products.
It is a place to get connected and encouraged.
It is a magazine that Homeschooling Moms should have!

I wanted to tell you all about The Old Schoolhouse Magazine's Fall
Special. You can get two years of the magazine, 6 fabulous physical
gifts (no downloads!) worth over $120, plus the current issue of The
Old Schoolhouse Magazine that is full of ideas for the new school
year, so you start receiving your magazine in a flash!

It really is one of their best deals ever and you don't want to miss
out. In fact, they've got a really cute Homeschooling with Heart tote
bag (valued at $13.95) for the first 1000 to subscribe. About half of
them are gone, but you should still be able to get one if you hurry!
(They will remove the info from the subscription page when the bags
are all gone.) The total value is over $212, but you receive it all
for only $39 - 50% off of cover price! Plus subscribers get their
online monthly Teacher's Toolbox which focuses on a different topic
each month, giving you words of encouragement, hands-on teaching
ideas, book recommendations, field trip ideas, and a bonus download
item. To subscribe or get more information, click on the TOS picture!

If you want to take a sneak peek - click on this link to get a free Digital Back issue of TOS!

Product Review: TOS' Digital Magazine

Have you ever read a magazine and thought to yourself, "I need to remember that web page!" Subscribe to the The Old Schoolhouse magazine in digital format and you won't need to!

You will absolutely love reading a digital magazine, as long as you can get over the fact you are not holding a paper magazine in your hand! You won't have any bent-page magazines to recycle either - and that's definitely a bonus. You get the same magazine, only digital, at a discounted price. Plus you have access to it 24/7 via your computer.

The digital interface is friendly and easy to use. There is a toolbar across the top with many options to personalize your reading experience. Turn the digital pages by clicking the left and right arrows. Figuring out how to adjust the settings to meet your personal visual needs is self explanatory.

Two of the toolbar items that are helpful in navigating the magazine are the "Contents" tab and the "Pages" tab. By clicking on "Contents" you fill find links to the contents of the entire magazine. By clicking on "Pages" you will see the entire magazine in thumbnail sized pages (that are clickable to full pages).

The best reason to subscribe to The Old Schoolhouse digital magazine is the clickable links. You have access to clickable links for homeschool related articles and homeschool related products. If you are interested in a homeschool product, you don't have to find their url and type in in the address bar correctly... you just click on it and it magically takes you to their site!

View the sample Summer 2007 edition of The Old Schoolhouse HERE.

Subscribe to TOS HERE.

If you would like to receive a free one-year subscription to the digital version of The Old Schoolhouse magazine, leave me a comment in the comment box on my blog before the end of August be entered into my drawing! Forward this on to friends to give them the chance to win a subscription too! www.homeschooling4life.com

Product Review: The Schoolhouse Planner by TOS

The Schoolhouse Planner is a downloadable ebook for homeschooling moms. An all inclusive planner that has just about every conceivable fill-in-able form that any homeschooling mom would ever want.

It should have been called
"TOS' Great Big Book of Everything!"

So, what's inside?
*July 2008-June 2009 Monthly Calendars
*2008 & 2009 At-A-Glance Calendars
*Recipes for each calendar month
*Monthly Teaching Tips on writing, unit studies, foreign language, and more.
*Monthly Resource Lists that correlate with the teaching tips.
*Almost every homeschool form you can think of (from curriculum planning pages to nature journal pages).
*Household forms (from chore charts to meal planning).
*Over 240 pages of helpful planning materials!

The Schoolhouse Planner has two *incredible* features:
First, the table of contents items are clickable to the actual pages of the items; which means that if you want to find the "field trip log," you can click on "field trip log" in the table of contents and it will click you there!

Second, unlike many .pdf files you open in adobe acrobat, TOS has published the planner so that you may fill in the blanks and save the file with your own personal information in it! Fill it in, save it and print it out at your discretion. Thank you TOS!

Print only the pages you use and put them into a binder for your own personal use!

You'll find The Schoolhouse Planner HERE at The Old Schoolhouse Store!

Not familiar with ebooks? Save it to your hard drive, and view it with a PDF viewer, such as Adobe Acrobat (a free download at www.adobe.com).

To see a special sneek peek click HERE.

Post kudos on my blog (by clicking on "comments" below) and I will put you into a drawing for a free copy of The Schoolhouse Planner at the end of August! www.homeschooling4life.com