Z is for Zippy and Jake–boy’s best friends

c is a total animal lover!  He took to my MILs dogs straight away and could often be found hanging with dogs!

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Y is for YES YOU CAN (Homeschool)!

I often times have people tell me, “I could never do what you do”, “I could never homeschool”, etc…

I want to tell them YES YOU CAN!  If you WANT to homeschool…YOU CAN!

I do NOT have any magic powers.

I am NOT super mom.

I am NOT Miss Perfect.

I am an ordinary stay at home mom and I homeschool. 

Plain and simple.

I do NOT have the patience of a saint.

I do NOT have June Cleaver days every day.

I am NOT as put together and organized as you think.

My life is NOT easy all the time. 

Yes, I do have a MA in Education, but I do NOT do anything that others could NOT do.

What I do have is a LOVE for my children and a DESIRE to give them the best education I can.

I WANT to homeschool them.

I have FAITH that I know what is best for them and that I can provide it.

I have HELP from a great husband who is understanding when the house is not spotless and willing to help me out however he can.

Do you WANT to homeschool?  If you DO, YOU CAN TOO!

There are so many resources available to make homeschooling a greater possibility for anyone and everyone who has a strong DESIRE to do so!

YES YOU CAN!!

Will it always be easy?  NO

Will some days be better than others?  YES

But the LOVE of my children and the DESIRE to homeschool drives me….it will drive you too!

Me and countless other homeschool moms around the world are HERE FOR YOU!   Let me know how I can help YOU!

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X is for–What does the foX say?

FREE for Kindle (at the time of posting, please double check price before purchasing)
What sound does a fox really make?  by Popular Science – includes music video of song, and several videos of real foxes and the noises they really make.
Red Fox Coloring Sheet from education.com
Fox Notebooking Page from homeschool helper online
Cursive Handwriting F is for Fox page from education.com
Fox Color by Sight Word page from education.com
Fox dot-to-dot from connect the dots 101
F is for Fox craft from Totally Tots
More fox crafts from activity village (finger puppet, origami, etc)
Fox printables from activity village (acrostic poem, notebooking pages, etc)
F is for Fox from first-school.ws (handwriting page, color page, etc)
F is for Fox dot page from the measured mom
Unit Study from Homeschooling in the Rose Garden
Printable Pack from Mud Pies and Make Up

Wild Dogs:  Red Foxes unit at Currclick
Watch:  The Fox and the Hound (available streaming on Netflix)

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Field Trip #118 Friday Blog Hop–W is for Wet–n-Wild Water Park

Field Trip Friday!

Blog Hop designed to share 'FIELD TRIP' related Blog Posts

(does not have to be a 'home school field trip', can be any trip to any place with your children!)

Please stop by and visit my co-host’s blog and give them a shout out!
Lisa @ Our 4 Kiddos   It had been sometime since we last went to the water park here in Hawaii.  Once my youngest (well then my youngest before baby came) started walking, it was just too hard to play 3 to 1 when water was involved!  But they made me promise that we would go before leaving the islands…and we did!
C was big enough to ride all but one ride, Z rode several, and c loved hanging out in the kiddie section!  Luckily I had the hubby and my mom with us, so I just hung with baby girl!   It was overcast, and the water was COLD!  brrr!  It was one of the few things that the kids asked to do before leaving the island, that and buying some pickled mango!  

**NOTE:  Before linking up please review guidelines HERE

 

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V is for Virginia Field Trip Ideas (Field Trip Friday Link Up)

Field Trip Friday!

Blog Hop designed to share 'FIELD TRIP' related Blog Posts

(does not have to be a 'home school field trip', can be any trip to any place with your children!)

Please stop by and visit my co-host’s blog and give them a shout out!
Lisa @ Our 4 Kiddos

Since we are headed back to the East Coast and will be spending a week or two with  my parents in Virginia waiting for our household goods to arrive from Hawaii, I thought it would be fun to explore what there is to see and do in Virginia.  We are also doing US History this year and Virginia is full of it!

Variety of Field Trip idea lists I found:

Cool places for grade schoolers in Virginia

Virginia field trips

List of Virginia home school field trips

Virginia field trips

Virginia is for field trips

Virginia field trip ideas

Virginia is for homeschoolers from A Glimpse of our Life

Recommendations from other Homeschoolers:

Children’s Museum of Virginia

Chrysler Museum of Art

Commodore Theatre

Norfolk Botanical Garden

Virginia Zoo

Nauticus and Battleship Wisconsin

Children's Museum of Portsmouth

Virginia Aquarium

Hunt Club Farm

Brookdale Farm

Virginia Living Museum

State Science Museum in Richmond

Virginia Safari Park

Luray Caverns

Yorktown Victory Center

Jamestown Settlement

Blog Posts from other Homeschoolers:

Virginia Air & Space Museum from Our 4 Kiddos

Williamsburg from A Slice of Homeschool Pie
Williamsburg from Broad Horizons School
More Williamsburg from Broad Horizons School


Claude Moore Farm from Broad Horizons School

Barter Theatre from Broad Horizons School

Arlington House from Broad Horizons School

Natural Bridge from The Arrowhead Zoo
Natural Bridge from To the Moon and Back

Mount Vernon from Adventures with Jude

Historic spots from To the Moon and Back

List of places in Virginia that have Homeschool Days at a discount

Any other recommendations?  I can’t wait to visit these places and others….it’s so exciting to try new places!!

Any other suggestions?  Leave a comment below!

**NOTE:  Before linking up please review guidelines HERE

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U is for - How We USE Tablets in our Homeschool

We have two types of tablets in our home.  I have an iPad, and my husband and two oldest each have a Kindle Fire HD.

On my iPad I keep all my PDF manuals, as well as unit studies (such as Unit Studies by Amanda Bennett).  It is a great way to save on paper, and have access to them all at once.  I have them saved on SkyDrive, and open them in iBooks as I need them.  I love that iBooks also holds my place, so it’s easily found next time I open the book.

Homeschool Helper app helps me keep track of attendance days.  It can also be used for grading (but at this point, we don’t grade) and planning assignments for each child.

We use Discovery Streaming, accessible via the web browser, and watch short films of various topics (coinciding with our studies) during circle time.

Netflix, Hulu Plus and Amazon Streaming are also places we visit to watch theme related movies, shows or documentaries.

We use Brain Pop Jr (app) during circle time as well.

We use the app Photon Browser for websites that need a Flash Player, this allows my kids to easily use the systems via a touch screen instead of trying to use my very temperamental laptop touchpad.  We have used starfall.com, abcmouse.com, science4Us.com and more with this app. 

I am also overloaded with a large variety of learning apps (most of which were found free from the website www.smartappsforkids.com)

Now for the Kindle -

Why I chose Kindle for my kids:

I really wanted to get another iPad, mostly because I already had so many apps, which have get more for Kindle?  But I love the FREETIME app for Kindle.  It’s an awesome parental control feature (though I have had some minor issues with it).  It allows parents to control what time the kindle can be turned on, what time it has be be turned off.  How long they are allowed to read, how much they have to read before they can play games, how long they have to play educational games before they can play other games (though this is the part that has an annoying glitch they are suppose to be working on) and how long they can play games in all.   You can limit movie viewing, if you have movies installed.  You also control what apps, books and movies they have access too.  All of these features are FREE.  There is a subscription available that gives more access to features, but I do not subscribe. 

The app availability for Kindle is much more limited than iPad, but I have been able to find some free apps through the website www.androidappsforkids.com.   Kindle also frequently has FREE books, and daily kindle deals for ~$1.99 (I got the first 6 books of Diary of a Whimpy Kid for $1.99 ea). 

Also, the cost of TWO Kindles was cheaper than the cost of ONE refurbished iPad. 

Some of the kids favorite apps are:

Preschool:

Curious George Zoo

(each section of the Kindle app is purchased separately)

Endless Alphabet


Monkey Preschool Lunchbox (this is a great series of apps, we also like Monkey Preschool Math)


ABC Zooborns


Kids Academy Number Tracing

ABC Ninja

(Like Fruit Ninja but ABCs)

Lego Duplo Train


Early Elementary:
Where’s My Water? 2


Brain Pop Jr


Madagascar Math Ops

(If your child likes Angry Birds…this is similar, but with Math problems!)

Stack the States


Math Town

Math Slicer

(Like Fruit Ninja but with math problems!)

For rewards or to change things up a bit, I’ll make assignments to play specific games on my iPad for specific subjects. 

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