Homeschool Room Open House Day 3

Hi Friends,
Hope you are enjoying the open house.  Today I'm showing you my reading wall, nothing complicated or fancy.  The basic idea is that every book we read is written on a star and attached to the wall.  I've done this for several years and my kids LOVE it!  They love to see the wall fill up as we read.  You can print shapes from the computer or the dollar store usually has cute cut out shapes you could use too!

Another thing I do is plan our fun reading books.  These would be the books I don't have to read for curriculum, just the fun, cuddle with the kids reading books.  I've found that if I have a bookshelf filled with books a few things happens: 

1. The books get ignored
2. When I ask the kids to pick a book for us to read they pick the same favorite ones - over and over and over!  Leaving many books unread on the bookshelf and my mind mush as I read the same book for the 800th time!
3. When my kids were little the books would always end up in a huge mess on the floor (why do little kids love throwing books off the bookshelf?)

 I decided it was time for a book intervention!  Introducing - Planned Reading Books:

At the beginning of each month I head to the kids bookshelf  and pull out books to read for the month.  I split the books between 5 rubber maids and try to keep each box with 10 - 15 books in them.  Some books are too big to fit in the rubber maids, those ones I just stack on the side (The Wind in the Willows and All of a Kind Family in the above picture)  I try to mix up the books - some fun easy reads like Amelia Bedelia or Henry and Mudge.  I'll also have a couple of bigger chapter books that might take us a couple of days to get through.  If I know we are studying a subject in school or a character trait that might effect what I put in the buckets too! 

I keep a basket under our coffee table with our books for the week.  I've found that with the books right next to the couch and changing on a weekly basis we read together often.  It's also a lot easier to squeeze reading a book in while cooking dinner if the books are accessible and ready to grab.  Larger books that we can't get through in one week I'll leave in the basket until we are done, but the rest of the books get changed out every week, even if we didn't read them!  

The only book that stays in my basket all the time and never changes is my Egermeier's Bible Story Book - if you don't have this book I highly recommend it.  Stories are written through the Bible with the passages included.  The stories are detailed and information packed.  We all learn and enjoy reading these stories together daily!  (Click Here) if you want to check the Egermeier's Bible Story Book out on Amazon (this is an old book and a little pricey, but worth every penny!)

I've been really happy with my book organization and know that we read many more books with the system in place. I'd love to hear if you have a book system or how you plan the books you read with your kids.  

One other thing I do with my kids is have them keep a book log for yearly records.  In the Grow Homeschool Planner we had a Book Log - (Click Here) if you missed that post and the FREE Book Log PRINTABLE. 

If you have any questions or comments feel free to email me jenny@growaustin.org

In His Grace,
Jenny

Homeschool Room Open House Day 2

Hi Friends,
Today is Day 2 in my homeschool room open house.  My heart is that as we walk through pieces of my room it will spark ideas, thoughts, and creativity for your homeschool space and day.  Feel free to ask questions and of course please share ideas on how you do things in your homeschool room too!  I would love to see your homeschool space, hear your ideas, and be sparked with new creativity because of you!

I don't know about you, but I do a lot of reading during my homeschool day.  Whether its reading a book, history textbook, science textbook, or reading fun books it seems like a lot of my day is spent reading.  I have found that busy hands make good listeners.  Simple things like legos, crocheting, and making rubber band bracelets are all great ways to keep kids minds engaged while reading.  

I rotate different activities for my children to do on different days of the week.  Here is one bulletin board station you will see in my homeschool room:

I'll call this the "Mail Station".  My kids love sending and receiving cards and pictures in the mail.  The white mailbox in the picture above is from Target.  As my children are working on coloring or drawing pictures and writing cards they leave them in this box.  It helps me not accidentally throw away a coloring page left out that was a treasure my children were working on for an aunt or friend! (I don't like mess, if it's left out I throw it away!  We needed a system for the papers everywhere and this was my solution!)  

On the hook below the mailbox you see a ring with Christmas cards attached.  I wrote a blog in great detail about my address ring for my kids (Click Here) to read more, but the cliff notes of that blog is that I stick the address on the back of the Christmas photo and then my kids can address their own envelopes, saving me so much time looking up addresses for my kids!  

The cute picture of the mailman comes from my Grandma.  She was a teacher and saved every bulletin board decoration she ever used.  I was blessed to be able to inherit this box of decorations and I love them.  These bulletin board pictures are old, some are so funny (I seriously need to do a blog post just on the funny pictures) and all of the president posters end at Nixon, but it's sweet and I love having a little bit of my Grandma's heritage in my homeschool room.  You will see more of these posters in days ahead! 

The board on the right in the photo is my "Dates 2 Remember" board.  I add friends and families birthdays, anniversaries, or other special days we want to remember and I make sure that if there are dates in the month that need pictures and cards made we work ahead and get them in the mail early! Don't know if you have a "Dates 2 Remember" print out, but if you want one I made a FREE Printable that matches our 2014 -2015 Homeschool Planner.  To get this Free Printable (Click Here)

Here is another favorite for my kids during reading time.  These are simple step by step drawing pictures.  I found those cute little paper holders at Michael's in the dollar bins and they are just perfect for the kids to practice drawing these simple pictures on. (white index cards on a ring would work great too)  I love step by step drawing because it needs no explanation they can sit and do these while I'm reading and learn how to draw something new at the same time!  Often I'll see these pictures they have learned to draw, re-drawn in birthday cards or in mail that is being sent out.  It's a fun way to pass the time while I read!  I keep these in a bucket on one of desks in the homeschool room

The last spot I'll show you is my file hanger.  I won't get into all the details now, I'll just talk about the coloring page file for now.  Both my Bible Curriculum, Answsers Bible Curriculum and our Science curriculum, Apologia have coloring pages that go with each week of lessons.  I keep these coloring pages in the coloring pages file and one day in the week the kids will color these pages.

Stay tuned this week for more peeks into my homeschool room.  Questions or comments feel free to email me jenny@growaustin.org

In His Grace,
Jenny

Homeschool Room Open House Day 1

Hi Friends,
Today is the first day I start sharing pictures of my homeschool room and showing you around.  I was going to do this all in one post, but seriously it would have been overwhelming long and no one would bother reading it - so small chunks over the next few days to show you around my room I'm hoping will be much better!  

As always let me say feel free to ask questions, comment, and ignore any and all of what I say.  I'm just showing you around, hopefully sparking some fun creativity or organization for your homeschool room, and maybe and idea or 2 that will make this school year a little easier for you!

Today I'm simply talking themes with you.  Here are my very unfinished boards (don't worry, they will be more finished in future pictures!)

We are doing a year of American History.  My oldest is doing American the Beautiful with Notgrass and I'm doing a modified version with my youngers.  Since we are learning American History I was planning on doing some kind of patriotic blue and red themed room and then I found this:

Really, can you get any cuter and more American than cute kid cowboys?!?  How could I resist these faces?!?  

And so I bought this cute fabric and my cowboy American homeschool decorations began.  

Themes are such a fun way to add creativity and color to your homeschool classroom and space.  

Here are a few thoughts on themes:

• Pick themes your kids will love: If your kids love legos do a lego homeschool room, if they like Frozen start cutting out those snowflakes!  Decorations made at home are great!
• Pick themes around what you will be learning.  Doing a study on bugs - get bugs all over your room, world history - globes and airplanes and suitcases would be fun!
• Don't forget seasons!  During the holidays make sure you add some holiday cheer to your homeschool space too!  This can be as simple as having your kids make turkeys out of paper plates that you hang on the wall.  You don't have to buy decorations - kids crafts make great decorations!
• Put up photos of your children in the theme.  If you decorate the room in dinosaurs, take a trip to dinosaur park and have your children pose with a T-Rex!   Print out the pictures and stick them on the wall = instant decoration!  If your kids are like mine - they love having pictures of themselves in the room, too!
• Don't let the decorations distract from what needs to be accomplished in the room.  Meaning don't hang beach balls for a ocean room and expect your kids not to hit the beach balls!  Simple decorations are always best.  
• Need some ideas one classroom themes?  Mardel in Cedar Park is packed full of great classroom decorations or head to Hobby Lobby and check out their fabric for ideas.  Another great place to find themes for your homeschool room is at your local party supply store.  Ask your kids what they would like the theme to be - you might be surprised on the ideas they give.  And Pinterest is packed with fun ideas for decorating homeschool rooms too!  Grow has a Pinterest page so check us out: (Click Here)

Alright that's all for today, more to come in the days ahead - wait till you see what I did to Spike our tortious's tank! hehehe!
Questions/Comments feel free to email me, LOVE being a support to you!  
jenny@growaustin.org

My Kitchen Command Center

Hi Friends,
Today I'm sharing a quick simple project I did about a month ago that I am completely in LOVE with!  It's a kitchen command center.  What is a kitchen command center?  Glad you asked!  It's the place to keep your calendar, shopping lists, chores for the kids, really anything you use all the time in one convenient place!

Now if you go to Pinterest there are a million amazing and cute kitchen command centers that are super cute and super pricy!

I had a couple of issues on my kitchen command center: I have no wall space in my kitchen which only left me with the side of my fridge to use.  The fridge presents all kinds of challenges because you can't screw or nail anything to the fridge so everything must be magnetic or able to be held up by a magnet!

The end result turned out so good and I'll go through each piece with you!  But first let me share a couple overview things with you:

• The labels you see: Menu, Chores, Calendar, and so on I printed on line I could have used chalkboard labels which would have been cute too!  (might still do that!)  
• I used a Wiki black and white polk a dot tape to divide all the sections.  Originally I just put it all up without the Wiki tape, but my OCD head couldn't handle it, I needed sections clearly marked out!  
• Yes, I know we live in the digital age, but I still need a paper calendar.  The one on my fridge does not match my command center, but I've used it all year and can't switch now and unfortunate thing that will drive this OCD girl nuts until January!  
• The bottom pocket I also bought from Target and hung with magnet hooks, it's just a place to keep paperwork I need.  

Alright now I'll go through each of these sections with you!

Menu: This is a white board magnet menu I bought at Target, it's perfect as I can plan out the meals for the week.  I plan out our meals and add ingredients I need right to the shopping lists, that I'll show you in a minute.

 Shopping List: You can see in the top picture I have 3 separate shopping lists : Costco, Whole Foods, and Other, these are chalkboard labels that I stuck right on my fridge!  These lists I found in the dollar bins at target. I tore them up, there are only a few sheets under each section so that the magnet could hold it up (again I'm working with a fridge here!)  As I run out of items throughout the week I put them on these lists and then when I'm ready to head to costco I  just tear off the list and take it with me!  I also add items to the list as I'm planning our weekly food.  Pretty simple!  And the best part - my husband and kids add things to the list as they run out of things!  So nice!

 Chores: I have done chore systems 800 ways and the moment I'm needing simple chore life and kids helping for no reward, just simply because they are members of this house and we all pitch in together.  I printed these chores from my computer, laminated them (if you don't have a laminator packing tape is a great solution!) and then threw a magnet on the back!  Our family chores include: Taking out the trash, cleaning the bathroom, bringing dirty laundry to the laundry room, bringing dirty sheets to the laundry room, taking clean clothes back to bedrooms, folding laundry, emptying the dishwasher, sweeping the floors, cleaning bedroom, and cleaning the playroom.  Once the chore has been completed my children move the chore off the board and onto the bucket I'll show you next!

Bucket of Pens & Chores: This certainly didn't need it's own label, I'm not that OCD (no comment! LOL) I needed a place to keep a pen, white board markers and the chore cards as my children completed them.  Again I found this bucket in the dollar section at target and stuck it on a magnet hook.  Now everything I could need is in one easy to find place!

 Verse: I make it a goal to learn at least 1 verse a week, currently I'm going through Colossians Chapter 3 one verse at a time.  I print the verse multiple times and stick it up everywhere - the mirror in the bathroom, my washing machine, the coffee maker, and now on my kitchen command center too!  I stink at memorizing and if it isn't posted everywhere for me to read, I'll completely forget to memorize! I have all of Chapter 3 printed on cards like this and they are in that bottom pocket on the command center so I'm ready to add on the next one!

Well, there you have it, my happy little command center, don't know how I lived without it for so long!  This was a very inexpensive project that has brought so much order to my home!  I'm still swooning over it!

More OCD projects to come!
Jenny

We are OPEN!!!

Hi Friends,
Some of you may remember that once, a long time ago - I used to have an Etsy store that had many of my homemade products in it.  I stopped selling when we moved to Texas and hadn't picked it up again.  But, I have exciting news - my store if finally up and running again and I couldn't be more excited to share these products with you!

Currently there are Essential Oil holders, Sugar Scrubs in 5 delicious Young Living flavors, hand salve, laundry detergent, and dishwasher detergent posted in The Vintage Burlap Barn

store.  Stay tuned as more products will be headed to the store soon (bug repellent, deodorant, lotion, and cleaners are just a few things to come)

Every product in my store are products that I use daily with my family.  Each product is made of the best natural ingredients and Young Living Essential Oils!  And for those who have been long time lovers of my sugar scrub - the sugar scrub on Etsy is my new recipe and it is amazing, if I do say so myself.  Packed full of Vitamin E oil, jojoba oil, and raw honey - all great things that help our skin look younger!  I couldn't be more excited about the sugar scrub!

Here is the link to check out my store: Vintage Burlap Barn

In His Grace,
Jenny

Road Trip!

Hi Friends,

Summer vacations can be so much fun, but lets be honest road trips with our kids can be a little daunting and overwhelming at times!  I just returned from a 4,000 mile road trip with my family and I'm happy to report the children are all alive and my husband and I kept our sanity!  Miracle of Miracles, but it can be done with a little bit of planning and prep work.  Here are 7 tips for surviving road trips with the family.

1. Stock the Car:  Baby Wipes, Napkins, Hand Sanitizer, Plastic Trash bags (which can also serve as barf bags if need arises!) Tissues, and a First Aid Kit are staples you should keep in the car.

2. Snacks: If you are expecting your kids to be well behaved for hours in the car, don't load them up with soda and sweets, they will be bouncing off the walls of the car and you will be losing your mind!  Some easy snacks are fruits, veggies, muffins, applesauce, crackers, granola bars, cereal bars, dried fruits, and nuts are just a few ideas.  If you have space bring a small ice chest for string cheese, yogurt, and lunch meat.  A loaf of bread, peanut butter, and jelly are simple and will keep the kids happy and full in the car too. 

3. Bathroom Breaks: NO MATTER WHAT everyone uses the restroom every time we stop. Enough said, you’ll thank me later!

4. Audio Books: Our favorite activity while on trip is listening to audio books.  If you have younger children there are numerous audio picture book for your children to look through and listen at the same time.  The library is a great place to find audio books.  We love Lamplighters Theater for captivating and character building audio books that will keep children riveted for hours!  Another great audio to listen to is the Bible.  Most Bible apps on smart phones have an option to listen to scripture being read.  Some of my favorite conversations while on a road trip came while listening to scripture.

5. Music: A fresh batch of music can always make a road trip more enjoyable.  I especially love Seeds Family Worship CD's while driving in the car.  Seeds songs are straight scripture, which means your children are memorizing God's Word while learning some fun songs!  It's a great use of time while in the car!  

       6.    Activities: Coloring books, Look and Find books, and word searches can all be great activities for the car.  Before leaving take a trip to your local dollar store and grab some fun new activities to take on the road.  Don’t give your children everything at once, give them just one activity at a time; it will keep them excited about what surprise you are going to pull out next and will keep them engaged.  I print car bingo sheets (these are FREE on the internet) and a blank USA map for marking state license plates.  These keep the kids entertained throughout the road trips and are educational -practicing geography, states and capitals.  Simple crafts like bracelets or crocheting and plastic action figures can be fun treats too!

       7.    Conversation Starters: Final idea I’m going to mention print or buy conversation starters.  There are many, but one great game called the UnGame is full of fun questions to keep your family talking, laughing, and passing the miles for hours!

Hope you enjoyed these ideas, we would love to hear ideas that you use for family vacations too! 

In His Grace,

Jenny 

Our families favorite audio books!  Lamplighters!