Can you tell I have homeschooling on the brain?

Well, what about this… Is it weird that I’m excited that I purchased our very own electric Pencil Sharpener? 

Some other super cool things we’ve gotten…

The first one is a Laminator!  I’ve printed some file folder games and other printable games, so they needed to be laminated! Unfortunately, I no longer have access to FREE LAMINATING at school.  Boo hoo! I called around to check prices and was shocked at the answers I got!  The Teacher Box in Gastonia was the cheapest at 60¢ a foot all the way up to a whopping $2 and $4.50 a foot at Office Max and Office Depot!  Seriously, who would pay $4.50 a foot??

I got the Scotch Thermal Laminator at Walmart for only $26.88. The only big expense will be refilling the laminating pouches. Walmart had the 50 pack for $13.88. I’ll need to go to the Teacher Box for any big stuff, but this will be nice to have right on hand!  I can definitely say I’m already addicted to laminating everything in sight!!  You can grow your own addiction too with a price tag like that!

I also got some some magnetic letters in the toy section at Walmart for only a buck to use for  a cool idea for spelling word practice on a cookie sheet… as well as this spelling activity… Word, Write, Build  :)

You put the word strip under the “word” section, then you build the word with the magnetic letters under the “build” section, and then you write the word under the “write” section using a dry erase marker.  Pretty simple, but I think fun.  :)

Speaking of Spelling, as I started keying in all Haylee’s spelling lists into Spelling City, I was happy to discover that someone else had already done it!  You can search for yours by clicking on “Forum” then the “List Sharing” thread.  From there you can look for posts naming your curriculum.

Here’s the link to my list of Abeka 2nd grade Spelling Lists as well as the link to grades 1-8.  If you haven’t tried Spelling City, you gotta check it out.  It’s a great way to make Spelling Practice a bit more fun! If you do find the lists you need already published, all you have to do is click “Import” next to each list (after you’ve created an account) and it will automatically bump it onto your page.  :)

Another tip… make your Spelling City page an icon on your desktop so your budding student can get on the site for practice without your assistance…

Here are my recently created games…

 

Skip Counting Practice

Ice Cream Place Value

 

…as well as two file folder games I picked up at the Dollar Tree… Guess what?  They were only a DOLLAR!

I also recently discovered that we get several Christian channels with Direct TV like BYU (channel 374), TCT (channel 377), and TBN (channel 372)… among others. 

They have Christian animated shows like Adventures in Odyssey, Animated Stories of Old/New Testament, Animated Stories of Virtue, NEST animated Bible stories, not to mention that when I first switched to one of the channels, Anne of Green Gables was on!!!

I’ve already set the DVR to record the shows, so I can record them to DVD’s and use them for Bible on our Fun Fridays!  If you have Direct TV, you should check to see if you’re getting them too!

I think it’s amazing how much I’m gaining just from reading stories of other hs’ing moms out there… Very thankful that those who have “gone before” have shared their goods!