New Notebooking Pages

It is hard to believe that the end of the year is here. 2013 flew by didn't it? Hopefully everyone had the chance to enjoy every moment of it. I worked on some notebooking pages during December. I thought I would share them with you. This is a picture of the blank page I made. Click on it to download.

 The other pages look like this but they have drawings from  A Christmas Carol on them. You can find them on my HSLaunch page HERE. Be sure to check them out and let me know if you like them and find them helpful. Blessings! ~ Nikki

Preparing For A New School Year

Now that is is July I decided to get ahead and start working on getting things together for this Fall. I'm working on my planner and will post some pictures in a few days. This year I will only be homeschooling two of my Blessings. Tman graduated this Spring and is now enrolled in our local community college. He is taking his Emergency Responder class this summer and will start his EMT classes this Fall. BabyGirl of course is working on her Associates degree in English at the same school ( I am also enrolled in Nursing school at the same college and we all love it). So this year it is just Hoopy, Roosie and me :) Time is going by way too fast.
In the spirit of preparing, I thought I would post some links to printables I have created over the years. I keep them on my HSLaunch page, which is an amazing sight! So much FREE stuff! Be sure to check it out if you haven't already.

Today's links are for my upper level spelling test form : DOWNLOAD

 

and the lower level spelling test form : DOWNLOAD 

There Be Whale....Sharks :)

Roosie has always dreamed of seeing whale sharks. These large animals have fascinated her for many years.So, for her 13th birthday we took her on a trip to the Georgia aquarium where they have not only a whale shark but FOUR whale sharks. Now, to be honest, overall I don't rate the aquarium itself very high. We had to wait in a line almost two blocks long for well over an hour to try and buy tickets.(We were already tired from the four hour drive.) Finally an attendant came along and told us there was another line for people who were going to pay with a debit card...a shorter line...much shorter. Then we found out the tickets were time stamped. You could only enter the aquarium at the allotted time on your ticket. Luckily for us we were able to get some of the LAST tickets for the 2:00 entry although by this time the dolphin show was sold out. They did discount our tickets by $5 though. By this time our patience was stretched pretty thin and we were ready to get inside. Inside the aquarium was packed and I mean packed...like sardines in a squished can. The displays were small (as in small viewing areas) and people were very rude (yes, almost everyone was very rude). Kids and adults alike were shoving us (and others) out of the way. If you were lucky you got to go up to a viewing window and see something, mind you only got to see it for five seconds but hey at least ya saw it. The "flow" from exhibit to exhibit was weird and difficult to navigate. Plus it was so loud and noisy you couldn't hear yourself think and you had to yell to communicate.Was there anything good about the trip you ask? Why yes, the whale sharks. Believe it or not we actually had no problem getting into the viewing area and finding good seating. We watched them for a long time. It was so amazing that something so large could glide so serenely and easily through the water. The whale sharks alone made the trip worthwhile....or more specifically, the joy it brought to Roosie to see them. And the manta rays....awesome! They were huge and may I say a bit show offy but it was so much fun to watch them. We may go again someday .... a slim maybe, just to see the whale sharks again. My opinion though is that the Ripley's aquarium we have in Gatlinburg is a much nicer aquarium. When it is crowded you can't really tell it. The flow is still good and it is still peaceful and quiet.The exhibits are amazing too. If only we had whale sharks up here it would be perfect :)

Anyway, I thought I would share some neat resources with you in case you were interested in learning more about whale sharks. Enjoy the links! Blessings ~ Nikki
Fact sheet with link for a PDF

Another fact sheet

Whale shark color sheets, even has a blank stencil so you could make a shape book for lap/notebooking.

Great printables for a shark report  

One thing I do love about the Georgia aquarium...Ocean Voyager webcam. Watch whale sharks :) 

Little House Links , Printables and such

Roosie is doing a study on the Little House series. To start off she is reading Little House in the Big Woods (after our break). We will be notebooking and other activities. I thought I would share with you some links where we find our resources. Enjoy!

little house unit study
prairie pages

PDF for Little House In The Big Woods

http://homeschoolblogger.com/jaminacema/page/2/

Black Widow Notebooking/Lapbooking Pages

I created some notebooking pages to use for studying Black Widows. You can find them on my file list on my HSLaunch page by using this link Nikki's page or by using the link widget on the right sidebar. Blessings! ~ Nikki

Gearing Up For School

Now that I have a break from Summer classes I am working on the finishing touches for our upcoming school year. I have a love / hate relationship with school planning lol. I love the thought of a new school year but sometimes the details can get very "boggy" and I feel like I'm in a rut. It will pass though; it always does. This year I will have a 6th grader and a 9th grader. My eldest son goes to our church school and my eldest daughter graduated last year. We will be doing lots more nature study per requests of Roosie my 11 year old. I will be posting more links on the pages here for neat sites that I find for all subjects so be sure to check them out.

While working in our flower bed last week we found an interesting  tenant under a flower pot; a black widow spider. So that will be the first subject of our nature studies.I found a great info link here BLACK WIDOWS ; its from our local university. I think you will find it very informative especially if you live in Tennessee. Also the ironweed and goldenrod is already beginning to bloom here so we will do a study on that too. Sometimes we follow the Outdoor Hour Challenge using the Handbook of Nature study but we also kind of go rogue with it sometimes and pick our own thing that catches our eye. We use different websites and things for our info too. I found a great book, ABCs of Nature at our library's book sale for a $1 and it has been a great tool.

Click to buy at Amazon

I try to find some free lapbooks or notebooking pages to use with our studies. If I can't find any ,then I make them. I encourage you as a homeschool family to buy either Microsoft Word or Print Shop software. They are both excellent tools for making worksheets.Worksheets I make I will post on my HSLaunch page. If you are not familiar with that site please go check it out. There are some really great printables there.

Do any of you have any different resources you use for nature study? tell me about them. Blessings! ~ Nikki

Spring Time Nature Study Idea

A quaint little nest made with twigs, moss and carpet fiber.

Spring time is here and with it comes warm temps, sunshine, flowers and of course, birds. Birdwatching and feeding are excellent ways to spend some time doing Spring nature studies. Bird feeders and even birdhouses can often be made for free with items around your house or for a low cost. Here are some pictures of some of our yard guests over the years.

How many worms can one robin bill hold anyway?

Nesters in our basketball goal pole

Are you interested in feeding the birds? Most "feeder" birds prefer black oil sunflower seeds although they will eat others. Some birds love fruit too.Popcorn and peanuts are always a hit with our blue jays. here are some neat feeder ideas.
1.pine cone smeared in peanut butter and rolled in birdseed. Tie a string around it and hang .
2.old baking pans or cookie sheets. Fill with seed and place on the ground,an old tree stump or mount on a wooden post .
There are tons of great sites online with FREE bird feeder plans. Here are just a few. They range from the simple to WOW :)
http://wayneofthewoods.com/bird-feeder-plans.html
http://www.birdwatching-bliss.com/bird-feeder-plans.html
http://www.bird-house-bath.com/wp/bird-feeder/suet-bird-feeder-plans-build-a-simple-suet-feeder/
http://lessonplans.craftgossip.com/simple-bird-feeder-craft/2011/04/10
http://www.ribena.co.uk/download/Ribena%20Activities%20-%20Make%20a%20Bird%20Feeder.pdf
And how about if you want to host a family of birds? Well check out these links (and search online for more) to find great ideas and plans for making birdhouses.
http://www.nabluebirdsociety.org/nestboxplans.htm
http://www.50birds.com/d50bh.htm
http://www.freebirdhouseplans.net/freebuildingbirdhouseplans.html
http://www.makingfriends.com/animal/birdhouse.htm
http://www.nesquik.com/adults/activities/makesomethingfun/birdhouse.aspx
 And for those who like to notebook their studies:
http://www.coloring.ws/birds5.htm
http://www.first-school.ws/theme/animals/cp_birds.htm
http://www.birds.cornell.edu/bbimages/PDFs/ColoringBook.pdf
I hope you enjoy these links and the birds :) Blessings! ~ Nikki

Outdoor Hour Challenge & Free Notebook Pages

Yesterday I was looking at the Handbook of Nature blog and decided we would start up nature study again. Barb has so many great ideas and challenges. She also has some wonderful notebook pages to download and use. I can't help it though, I had to make some too. I love making stuff for our notebooks. I made some pages for the acorn and oak tree and the squirrel challenge. I uploaded them to HSLaunch if anyone wants to use them. Any more that I make I will upload too so keep checking my widget to see new stuff (right sidebar). Be sure to join the challenge though. Break time is over so gotta run. Blessings! ~ Nikki

Free Lesson Plan and Grade Keeper Book and Calenders

Hi all! Just wanted to let you know that I have uploaded some new stuff at HS Launch. You can check it out through the widget on the right sidebar. I created a F.R.O.G. Folder lesson planner with some other neat pages in it. There is a page to keep up with appointments , a menu planner , a chore planner and a grade keeping page. On the grade keeping page I created it so that  I can keep grades for each week using a four block system. There is a block for the pretest grade, one for the test grade, one for a project grade if we have one and one for any extra credit assignments. You may not be able to use it but if you can then enjoy! I also created some frog calenders for August 2009 til July 2010. you can download them from HS Launch too. Come by and let me know what you think about the new stuff and if it was helpful to you. Also I wanted to share this new site I found . I wasn't able to fix the pdf so that you could type in it and then print it out because I am using the free version of Primo pdf to create my stuff. But I did find a place, PDFFiller.com, where you can upload my pdf and it creates an image of it that you can type on and then you can print it out. Hope that helps! :) Have a blessed day ! ~ Nikki

A List Of Thanksgiving Coloring Pages And Worksheets

I put together a list of links for Thanksgiving pages. I have used some of these pictures to make a lapbook/notebook project. I will post a picture when we finish them. Enjoy these links.Blessings! ~ Nikki

Some nice clipart of Pilgrims.

http://www.avalanchejournal.com/thanksgiving/games.shtml

coloring pages

http://www.coloring.ws/thanksgiving.html

http://www.kidscolorpages.com/thanksgiving.htm

http://www.freecoloringpages.com/coloring/november.html

http://www.npl.lib.va.us/bibl/holidays/thanksgiving/thanksgiving.html

Totally Frugal Thanksgiving Coloring Pages

http://www.dltk-holidays.com/thanksgiving/mthanksgivingposter.html

http://www.sail1620.org/teaching_games.shtml

http://www.plimoth.org/kids/coloring.php

Coloring Pages for pilgrims Progress : http://www.pilgrimworks.com/cpages.htm

http://www.sherriallen.com/coloring/holidays.html

http://www.familycorner.com/dir/Family/Kids/Coloring_Pages/People/

They even have a placemat to color. http://www.coloringbookshop.com/thanksgiving.html

http://www.kidprintables.com/coloring/thanksgiving/

Worksheets and stuff

http://www.tlsbooks.com/holidaypages.htm

Thanksgiving Notebooking Pages

I uploaded a free ebook of Thanksgiving notebooking pages to my HSLaunch page. You can pick them up here. Blessings! ~ Nikki

School For Today

Well it has been a nice cold, cloudy day here. You can tell Autumn is here and that winter is not far away. I would like to encourage everyone to join the Autumn Poetry Party. We have some great poems that have been posted. Be sure to check out the links on the Mr. Linky above.

We had a great day in school today. The dreaded long division for Hoopy was easily conquered and Roosie didn't have too much trouble with adding and carrying today. BabyGirl and Tman have been doing great in their math so far too.

I thought I would share some pictures with you of our Social Studies/HIStory notebooks. We have been studying the African continent and our country study right now is Egypt. We are using a wonderful ebook I bought at Currclick. Our family is ancient Egypt crazy. We could study it for months. Here is a picture of the unit study we are using.

 It is on sale at currclick right now for $8.50. If you would like to purchase it please use this Currclick link.

Here are some pictures of our notebooks. They are a mix of pages from the above study plus pages from Enchanted Learning, Our Los Banos , other websites and some things I have created. The reason you see a clownfish in these pictures is because we also studied what lives in the coral reef in the Red Sea. We found those great pages at Enchanted Learning. The subscription only cost us $20 for a year and it has been great and well worth it. Hopefully you have seen something in this post to inspire you in your homeschool journey. Blessings! ~ Nikki

New Files

I have uploaded some new files to my HSLaunch Page.I finished the F.R.O.G. folder calendars and made a fall themed one for Sepember.I also uploaded some Egypt themed pages I made for our studies this year. There is a link to my HSLaunch page on my right sidebar.Gotta run for now. ~ Nikki

11-7-07

We finished our study on Jamestown yesterday . We had fun with it . We made the mini Jamestown that we found free at Homeschool In The Woods . We made our lapbooks out of cardstock that we taped together to form the spine so that we can fold them and they fit into our page protectors in our notebooks . We used templates from Homeschool Helper in our lapbooks . They have lots of good ones and of course they are free .We also played this game , Jamestown Adventure , and printed our results to put in our notebooks . The kids really enjoyed it . They kept playing it after school :) We took them to the Winterfest Celebration last night . Perfect weather for it because it was freezing ! We were all so cold that we left to get something to eat but we came back and watched the lights being turned on and the fireworks . Of course we watched from the comfort of our warm vehichle :) For all you Veggie Tales fans out there , (come on ...who doesn't love a talking cucumber ? GO LARRY !), Big Ideas is releasing a new movie The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything  . It looks like it will be real funny . Well folks I guess thats all for now . Have a great day !

Free Beatitudes Copywork Pages

Here are some free notebooking pages for you . They are Beatitudes copywork .

Set 1                              

Set 2

Our local Staples store is having a 1 cent sale thru Wednesday . You can get pencils , pencil cases , sharpeners and folders . You may want to check your local store .

UPDATE : 1-15-08 For some reason I missed the last comment on this post and didn't know about it til today (oops) , here is the link where you can download the Beatitude copywork pages . Sorry about that everyone . Click here to get to the pages : Notebooking Pages

New Printables For July 4 , FREE !

Here are some new printables I made for notebooking . I hope you find them useful .

 

Liberty Bell Facts Notebooking Page

Liberty Bell Notebooking Page

July 4 Notebooking Page

Flag Facts Notebooking Page

 

New Printables

I fixed the broken links ( my file host went down and I never was notified , my apologies to everyone who has tried to access notebooking and devotion printables from my sites ) on the printables page and added some new ones . They are gardening journal pages . You can go to our homeschool sight and get the notebooking printables here .

My DD has started a new blog . She is a big POTC fan and a great writer . Her new blog is for her fan fiction she has written . Check it out here and let her know what you think about her writing .

Free printable

I posted some Easter papers on the website . They are free for you to use .

Notebooking Printables

All the notebooking printables can be found by clicking on the Simcox Homeschool website link on the right .

Christian themed valentines

I posted some valentines with Scripture on the notebooking site . You will find the links on the right . ~ Nikki