jaminacema

Well, it seems my online life has been full of lemons over the last few weeks.  But, as I have come to expect with God, He has taken the lemons and is making some wonderful lemonade! So here is what is going on with me… I am making progress at getting my blog back up [...]

I got the official word today from Eric at HSB that the organizational changes I made to my blog using HTML coding will not be returning.  I thought that was going to be the answer, but I was still hoping I was wrong.  :^(  I can’t tell you how much I appreciate Eric and the [...]

MY SUBSCRIBERS ARE AMAZING AT PRAYING! I sent out an email over the weekend to let my subscribers know about the problems I have been having since the HSB updates. I got hundreds of responses that they were all praying! Then today I finally had time to click around the templates and get creative AND [...]

Breathing in, breathing out…..Trying not to FREAK!!!! Okay, in case you don’t know homeschoolblogger.com is in the process of making some BIG changes! I signed on today to find that ALL my organizational efforts I have put in over nearly 5 years are GONE. I keep thinking of the Six Million Dollar Man… “Gentlemen, we [...]

Last night I tried a new recipe for dinner and it was AWESOME!  As a matter of fact it got a 100% approval rate from the family!  This is rare, usually there is at least one dissenter to whatever I cook.  Here is the recipe: http://www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/browse-all-recipes/chicken-curry-hurry-10000001586856/index.html We did all decide that we would like the [...]

Math Emergency Sale!   Stressing over year-end testing? No need to worry. Times Tales can help your student master his multiplication facts in just a couple hours. Really! Help your child raise test scores or simply be sure that he has his facts down before wrapping up for the year. Now through May 15th you [...]

My 2 littles were in a play yesterday at church.  The play was all about God’s promises and at the end each of the kids was suppose to say the name of a person in the Bible and the promise God gave them. My 6 year old’s line was "Abraham – I will bless you [...]

I keep waiting for the veggie garden to be "finished" so I can post pics of it.  I realized last night that this is probably going to be a constant "work in progress", so here is what we have so far! In the raised beds we in the front we have beans, squash, carrots, onions, [...]

“…pray for kings and all who are in authority, in order that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity.” –1Timothy 2:1,2 Today is the National Day of Prayer. Our church has committed to praying for our country for 12 hours straight.  I will be praying from 10:00 to 10:30 [...]

It’s that time of year again!  Time to dress up my squad of geeks and travel back in time…. The littles ready for some geeky fun! The littles with the King, Queen and Bishop of the Fair. My oldest son was quickly dubbed "Lord Brown" by all the people in character at the fair.  He [...]

Okay,  so waaaaayyy back last year when we started American Girl Club we started with Samantha (1904).  After we finished with Samantha we decided to go through all the books in chronological order and work our way through them all.  So that is what we have been doing, and we have made our way back [...]

I LOVE it when I get to have a date night with just one of my kids at a time.  Saturday night I got to have a take out youngest son for some mother/son time.  Here are a few great things I learned Saturday night on our date.  :^) 1. My son has an imaginary [...]

Whew, things have been busy here and I haven’t had time to put a coherent post together in a few days…. Let’s see what’s going on? We are working on putting our vegetable garden in.  We have 2 tomato towers and a raised bed area.  There will also be Topsy Turvy’s for peppers and strawberries.  [...]

Another year of Awana is drawing to a close!  Last night was the last night of regular club for the year and next week is Awards Night.  Both of my littles finished their books for the year.  I am proud of them!  They have worked very hard and have learned a lot of Bible verses [...]

Last night was our last night of Addy!  Wow, that 6 weeks went fast!  We finished up our Addy study by having a potluck like Addy had to celebrate the end of the Civil War.  We read the Emancipation Proclamation aloud.  We also learned about Jubilee and Juneteenth celebration that still happen today to celebrate [...]

Twenty one years ago today I was a bride!  I have NO idea where 21 years have gone….But, I am very blessed to have a wonderful husband who loves me and still makes me laugh every day! Happy Anniversary honey! For your viewing pleasure here is our engagement picture… Yes, my hair is hysterically funny!  [...]

One of the only crafts the girls in American Girl Club have ever requested is an Ida Bean doll! In one of the early books in the Addy series Addy’s mom makes her a rag doll filled with beans.  Addy named it Ida Bean, and the girls have been wanting to make one ever since! [...]

Our latest Mad Science class was all about taste!  Here are the kids mixing up some blue food coloring to….. ….use to dye their tongues!  This was to help make their taste buds more easily visible so they could get a good look at their partners tongue. After examining each others tongues the kids learned [...]

This month for Boys Book Club we read The Adventures of Wishbone Salty Dog.  This is a retelling of Treasure Island as only Wishbone can do it!  Since the weather is great right now the mom that leads the book club decided we would have it at the park!  It was a GREAT idea!  She [...]

Here is how I solved the "problem" of my rent-a-kid taking too many good pics of my kids! I found this COOL frame that holds 18 5′X7′ photos! I love it! I also framed 5′X7′ pics of each of the kids in Black and White with their siblings peeking out behind them… and this one [...]

Happy Homeschooling, Jamin

Our April Kid’s Day with our homeschool group was a Resurrection Party.  We had a Disciple Egg Hunt, games and the Resurrection Egg story.  Then we had a HUGE potluck lunch! Here are some pics… The story Egg Golfing….Plastic eggs filled with beans and taped shut replaced golf balls.  The kids LOVED it! Egg Toss [...]

I never thought I would write a post about mowing….but then again I never thought my 9 year old daughter would LOVE to mow!  LOL  I think it’s similar to the way I LOVE to iron.  (Yes, I LOVE to iron!)  There is just something satisfying about taking something messy and making it look good [...]

Last week for Mad Science we learned about Rockets! Here the kids are learning about the parts of the rocket. It was fun having my rent-a-kid here for Mad Science.  His family hosted Mad Science for 2 years when my oldest son was younger. So the boys have LOTS of good Mad Science memories. Here [...]

Happy Birthday Addy! For week 4 of Addy we celebrated Addy’s birthday by learning about the toys and play of 1864. We started out the night playing with Jump ropes like Addy did in book 4… My daughter jumping! Two girls turning the rope for one of their friends. Then we sang happy birthday to [...]

One of the things we did during Spring Break was to celebrate Passover.  This is the 4th year we have observed a Messianic Passover Seder, and the first year we have done it on our own.  I am very glad we had the chance to attend other Passovers before we did our own.  I was [...]

Yesterday before we took my rent-a-kid to the airport we stopped by the park so he could take some pics of my kids.  They came out AMAZING! Here are a few of my favorites… 1 2 3 4 5 6 Now for some black and white… I am telling you the boy has talent! Now, [...]

My rent-a-kid leaves today.  :^(  Our week together went super fast!  But, we had a great time and I am SO glad he got to come and spend Spring Break with us! Here are a few pics from Easter day. The kids right after church. Me with my big boys! My rent-a-kid is a great [...]

I LOVE APRIL FOOL’S DAY!  I think all year about what FUN prank I can play on my kids!  Here are pics from this year! Before my oldest son and my rent-a-kid (aka: oldest son’s best friend.) woke up I lined 200 styrofoam cups up in front of their bedroom doors! I wish ! would [...]

Whoooo Hooooo!  We are one SPRING BREAK this week!  To make things even better…my rent-a-kid is here for the week!  YAY!!!!!  The weather is suppose to be gorgeous all week and we have TONS of things planned!  So I am taking a blog Spring Break too!  I want to enjoy every minute I can with [...]

Yesterday I was working on making the sample craft for next week’s American Girl Club.  My daughter came by and said "Is that a Hobble Horse?"  I said "It’s called a Hobby Horse."  "Oh, HOBBY"  she replied "Like my hobby is beading and your hobby is being a mom?"  LOL Yeah, like that!  Here is [...]

This week we read the Christmas book in the Addy series.  One of the things that happened in the book was that Addy saw a red scarf in the window of a second hand store that she wants to buy for Mama.  She decides to save up her money and buy it as a surprise.  [...]

I was sitting at the table working on Math with my daughter yesterday.  She was dawdling and complaining.  Finally I said to her very seriously "Look, you need to pay attention and get this work done.  We have to finish this book this school year."  My daughter looks at me and says innocently "Why?"  I [...]

This week for Mad Science we studied SLIME!  We learned that: Polymers are long chains of molecules Polymers are formed by "cross linking" (or holding hands.) Polymers give things elasticity and can be found in plastics, rubber and skin. We experimented with Silly Putty and observed it’s properties… Bouncing Silly Puttty Getting the news to [...]

The boys book club my youngest son joined last month met again yesterday.  The boys are now going to be reading the Wishbone books!  I am very excited about this because I have such great memories of reading them with my oldest son. Although these books are now out of print, my oldest son LOVED [...]

A note from my daughter… In case you can’t read it in the picture it says… Why I Love Home Shcooling I love homeshcooling Because it is fun! We Get to read cool Books & do Kid day’s and hav Mad Science.  it is so much fun!  i love my mom. the End! :^) Happy [...]

Awhile back I gave a quick 15 minute talk about organizing lapbooks at our monthly homeschool meeting.  I have been meaning to post the info here too, so here it goes! Here are the basics… When we start a new lapbook I print out all the pages and put them in a folder.  If all [...]

Week 2 of Addy was SUPER busy!  We started out the night with a Spelling Bee!  I had emailed out a list of spelling words last week for the girls to study.  Since the girls range from Kindergarten to 6th grade we split them in 2 groups.  (K-3 and 4-6)  We did a double elimination [...]

In book two of the Addy series Addy goes to school for the first time.  One of the tools she uses at school is an Abacus.  I wanted to girls to get to experiment with an Abacus, so I thought I would make one for them to try out. I found the directions to make [...]

Our much anticipated Soups Around the World Kid’s Day was last Friday and it was a BLAST!  Here is a summary with LOTS of pictures! We were part of the China table.  Here are my littles with two of their friends who are from China. Our whole China group. Love, love, love her  and her [...]

Today our homeschool group is hosting Soups Around the World for our monthly Kid’s Day.  We will be having 6 tables with soup and information from 6 different locations. Alaska, Africa, Hawaii, China, Italy and Mexico.  (More info to come later!) We are part of the China table so I thought I would have the [...]

For week one of Addy we started out with the question "Why do we study history?"  The girls threw out a few good observations and then we talked about this quote: "Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it." George Santayana We talked about how whether the part of history we are [...]

My daughter with her Addy doll that she picked out for her birthday last month. This week we will start our study of Addy in American Girl Club.  This week will mark the 35th week that we have met for American Girl Club!  (We did 6 weeks each on Kaya, Felicity, Josefina, Kirsten and 10 [...]

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Last week we had the 3rd of our eight Mad Science classes for the year.  These classes have been SO fun!  This one was on Light and Color.  Here is a little of what we learned. How our eyes see colors using light. How colors mixed together appear as white. How color solutions mixed together [...]

After much anticipation my youngest son FINALLY got to go to his very first Boys Book Club!  YAY!!! The book was Flat Stanley and he LOVED it!  Here are the boys answering questions about the book. The boys working on a crossword about Flat Stanley. My little man making his own Flat Stanley version of [...]

For week 5 of Kirsten the girls quilted a pattern on a potholder.  One of the mom’s made the potholders ahead of time and brought them to club.  Then the girls used brown paper to cut out a pattern and quilt on their pot holder.  Simple things like hearts, square, leaves, and flowers worked best. [...]

The kids and I recently went to see Slim Goodbody.  We have been to the Slim Goodbody show twice now.  The pics below are from our most recent time.  It’s a great fast paced show with lots of good information about how our bodies work.  If he’s going to be in your area I highly [...]

Welcome to Freebie Friday! I frequently am asked about freebies for the high school level. Now that I have a highschooler I am realizing how handy it can be to have some free online resources bookmarked.  This week I am sharing resources for highschooler.  Although if you are not ready for high school freebies be [...]

9!  She is NINE!  YIKES!  We are in her last year of single digits….Time passes soooooooo fast!  Happy, Happy Birthday to my sweet little girl! Here are a few pics taken 9 years ago today….. Happy Homeschooling, Jamin