These lessons were made to go along with ‘By the Shores of Silver Lake‘ written by Laura Ingalls Wilder. We are planning to go through the whole series and I am keeping track of the different topics we are learning about here on my blog. We hope you enjoy these as much as we have! Continue reading “By the Shores of Silver Lake: Geography And History Lessons”
I had planned to just ‘chill out’ this weekend and maybe work on our next Little House on the Prairie Adventure but lately, things rarely go as planned around here.
Friday had been rearranged for a very important event that didn’t happen because of a HUGE misunderstanding. To say I was disappointed would be a HUGE understatement but this event has been rescheduled for Wednesday, so fingers crossed that everything goes as planned.
Friday evening I had been binge-watching some Fixer Upper when a text came through. It was from Southwestern Produce to let us know that they had rescheduled the veggie pickup due to bad weather… well, that threw a little wrench in Saturday’s plans as I had already scheduled a few other things around the pickup but I quickly got to work a rescheduled things so I wouldn’t have to get up quite so early… yay! I still need to figure out a plan for next weekend as I already had plans for Saturday morning… Continue reading “Monday Message: Seeing Your Blessings Through The Tears”
Hey guys!
Oh my goodness, things have been so crazy here… I wish I could share it all with you but we are trying our best not to ‘jinx’ ourselves but my patience is wearing thin and I’m about ready to scream because I JUST WANT TO TELL THE WHOLE WORLD HOW EXCITED WE ARE! Continue reading “Susie’s Chem Free Zone: Our First Norwex Unboxing”
We have often shared things that we love and use on a daily basis. We’ve been sharing about our Kirby’s Kids Academic Adventures as we read through the Little House on the Prairie stories. (More lessons to come soon, I promise.) We’ve also done our share of ‘free schooling’ and schooling-on-the-fly lately as life can often times get very crazy at the drop of the hat.
You know we’ve had our own share of struggles with special needs, speech issues, and learning disabilities too. We’ve shared a lot of the great programs we use like ABC Mouse, Mystery Science, Kids Cook Real Food, and Character Concepts, plus many great resources like NotebookPages.com, Skill Trek, UnitStudy.com, Kiwi Co, Green Kid Crafts, and Positive Parenting Solutions that have really helped us out with our homeschooling journey.
One of our favorite resources lately has been our Google Home device that we received last year through a product testing opportunity. This thing is AMAZING! Not only has it helped to relieve some of my stressors as I have been able to integrate our Cozi calendar into the system, look up recipes in a pinch but it has also helped out in so many other ways.
Mr. Joey (7) asks approximately 31,252,374 questions a day! I may be on the low side of that estimate though… lol. Mr. Jacob (5) asks at least half that many questions too. This means my mind is constantly in a whirlwind trying to remember how many teeth a timber has or how big a blue whale baby is when it’s born. They are so inquisitive and curious about everything which is where Google has helped out. Now they can just ask Google!
Since I have my Cozi calendar integrated into it, Google can even tell the kids what we are having for dinner. Okay, sometimes I do feel a little bit sorry for Google and tell the kids that Google needs a break.
Not only has this feature helped the kids learn some amazing facts it has also helped them with some of their speech issues. Yep, that’s right. If they don’t say something correctly then Google doesn’t recognize it. This means they must slow down and practice speaking more clearly. Continue reading “Google Home: The Ultimate Homeschool Helper”
**Although I try to provide as many FREE resources as possible this post may contain affiliate links alt no extra cost to you. We may earn a small commission, if a purchase is made through these links, which helps to support our blog and our family. Thank you!
NOTE: My kiddos were 5, 6, 9, 11, and 15 at the time we created study unit. Some ideas may need to be changed/adjusted for older kids.
Tip: If you want to go to a certain week/chapter or topic simply push the ‘ctrl’ and the ‘F’ button down together and a small bar will pop up. Type in the week number or chapter number you want and it will take you to it.
We have been using the Little House on the Prairie Books for our homeschool this year and my kids are loving it. I have scoured the internet for resources to make our learning experience as fun and exciting as possible. This series of posts is a compilation of different resources we have found and used in our home. Please note that some of these may have been FREE at the time I found them and prices and/or availability may have changed. Feel free to leave your own links in the comments section below.
I also want to take a moment to thank all of these wonderful people who put together so many wonderful resources for all of us to use with our children. I know that many hours, blood, sweat, and tears went into these projects but your work is greatly appreciated!
Answer Key found HERE. **ANSWER KEY password: momsrock (highlight blank area)
We will be completing this Lap Book project as we read through this book.
Reading:
We will be reading the noted selection for the week as well as discussing what we have read. I may come up with other questions as well. Kids are curious and I know we will have many questions which may lead to some research in other areas.
We will also be working on reading through a few books, see Kirby’s Kids Grade by Grade Homeschool Reading List , for each different grade level. The older kids will have some independent reading while the younger ones will have a mixture of read alouds, read alongs, and independent reading.
You should keep a record of the books read. You can do this in a notebook or using this printable HERE.
Handwriting:
I did not list handwriting in the weekly work tasks as my kids are using the Spencerian Penmanship for handwriting and will practice this every day.
Vocabulary:
We will be doing various activities for this area. We will be looking up definitions, matching words, putting the words in alphabetical order, and a variety of other activities.
Writing:
There will be a variety of creative writing ideas as well. I have tried to vary them and offer choices to help encourage writing. We will also be doing various writing assignments in some of other areas as well.
Check out PRINTABLE WRITING PAPER- TWENTY FREE TEMPLATES FOR KID’S WRITING for some FREE writing resources!
Other Activities:
These are just some of the other activities that I am incorporating into the lessons with my kiddos as we are all at different learning levels. I put these in here to keep me organized so I don’t ‘forget’ something.
I will add links to worksheets I find or make as we go through the unit. For a general guideline of skills your child should know by grade level click HERE.
I have pulled a lot of the material from the book for the worksheets listed down below.
Many of the ideas have been pulled from the following resources:
You can also find FREE Lessons with these links:
Other resources used:
The younger kids will also have access to various Read-Along books and puppet books. I will update links to those as we go along.
Many of the ideas have been pulled from the following resources:
Note about Ray’s Arithmetic Books: These can be a little confusing at first but the Parent/Teacher guide is so useful! I have found that the books are in order as follows:
I have used a lot of the examples from the book to create the worksheets you will find listed below. **ANSWER KEY password: momsrock (highlight blank area)
You can also find FREE Lessons with these links:
Many of the ideas have been pulled from the following resources:
You can also find FREE Lessons with these links:
Many of the ideas have been pulled from the following resources:
You can also find FREE Lessons with these links:
My kids also enjoyed reading:
Many of the ideas have been pulled from the following resources:
You can also find FREE Lessons ideas with these links:
We often have some ‘Free Play’ outside whenever the weather allows as well.
This area contains our lesson plans for a few different areas that I have included with our ‘Life Skills’. You will find lessons on cooking, cleaning, and organization as well as bible memory work and character training. All of these will go together to help raise our children into the responsible and caring citizens of tomorrow.
You can find a FREE printable log for keeping track of memory work here:
Many of the ideas have been pulled from the following resources:
You can also find FREE Lessons with these links:
We will be focusing on OBEDIENCE this unit. If you don’t have the book we used you can go HERE and download a lesson plan guide to use in your home.
These lesson plans include Music, Arts, and Crafts. Choose one or two ideas/day as desired.
Many of the ideas have been pulled from the following resources:
You can also find FREE Lessons with these links:
We have also bought the following books/products for use with this series:
We have had quite the week again. Fun and crazy as usual. Keep reading to find out about some of our many adventures here in the little house on the pond. We have included affiliate links to some of the products mentioned in this post. These help to support our blog.
Elephant fuzz here, elephant fuzz there, elephant fuzz everywhere… sounds a bit like a children’s book, doesn’t it? So what is elephant fuzz? I asked the same thing when I first saw this all over the house:
The kids were quick to reply that it was ‘elephant fuzz’…. ok, but where did it come from? Here is the answer:
It appears that this little pillow has a hole and is leaking elephant fuzz… lol… kids come up with the darnedest things don’t they? Well, I got the hole taken care of and hopefully that’ll be the end of the elephant fuzz.
Afterwards we made some Haystack Cookies or Noodle Cookies as Mr. Awesome calls them. The kids have been eating them up!
That afternoon Jacob put his Kids Cook Real Food skills to work while helping me make a salad to go with our Red & White Pasta.
Monday our regular club dance was ‘dark’ to support a reunion dance that was being held locally. Here is a short video from the event:
We had a good time and got to see old friends plus we made some new ones while we were there. Afterwards we ate at Texas Roadhouse and an exceptional server named Terrence.
I got a call from the Florida Gardiner Scholarship telling me about a glitch in the system which had caused some of my orders to be denied… this meant I had to go back into the system and resubmit the orders… oh what fun!
I also figured out that I can ‘Air Drop’ pictures from my phone to my tablet… this makes life so much easier!
The kids are loving their new routine chart:
I am working on ordering some different magnets because the stars don’t stick very well. I may also paint or paper the board. There will be a post about this sometime in the future.
We read a chapter from the Laura Ingalls Wilder biography before bed and had a short discussion about the things we learned from the chapter. The kids are super excited about the new school year.
They were also very happy that I had ordered more of their favorite toothpaste:
We all love the lemon flavor and I love the fact that it works so great! I always buy the triple pack and the first time I ordered I bought the multipack so we could try out all the flavors. The kids didn’t care for the peppermint or cinnamon as they thought they was too spicy. Some of us older folks liked the wintergreen flavor but lemon was the majority vote.
I actually found a little time on Tuesday to paint my nails too! Mommas need a little bit of pampering from time to time. 😊
Wednesday morning we changed our breakfast routine a bit. Instead of Muffins the kids had a bowl of fresh fruit and a cup of yogurt.
I’m really loving this new fruit bowl I got earlier this month. It is so much bigger than the one we had, plus it’s not as fragile. The banana holder is a great feature as well. It keeps the kids from dragging out and bruising all of the bananas just to find the ‘perfect’ apple.
While cleaning the bathroom I got a call from Walgreens …. NOT… it was a telemarketer call disguised as a local business. I HATE these kind of calls. They wanted to help me with my interest rate on a card they knew nothing about.
After politely asking a strongly accented Chris Sawyers to remove me from the list I had to threaten to report them to the authorities for FRAUD. He asked me to hold online while he removed me from the list. I did hold, with the phone muted and the receiver set on the shelf, and an hour later I was still on hold… haha Mr. Sawyers from card services you’ve won a mention on my blog. Congrats!
After our morning chores were finished we played one of the new games that we’ve gotten:
Bugs Building is similar to the once popular Jenga game. They had a lot of fun playing the game but then we had some major midweek meltdowns!
Luckily I still had a hidden stash of FREE chocolates…
Hmmm… Thursday was a kinda gloomy day, very rainy and windy too. We didn’t get our laundry done because of the weather but it got finished up on Friday. We were also without power for a little while that morning.
The kids made the best of no electricity and played some board games. I think they thought they were getting out of chores but everyone had to help finish up the chores when the power came back on. Then it was time for some lunch which was Grilled Cheese Sandwiches.
After I got the kids down for quiet time I got this text message from Mr. Awesome:
Oh boy do I love these kind of messages. I dug my outfit out of the closet and got to work on making some dinner. I had planned to make Spaghetti but opted for Sloppy Joes when I realized I didn’t have any noodles.
Unfortunately I didn’t get any pics of the Pink Cadillac Dance or our super cute outfits because my phone was acting up again.
Friday was Moon Day and we celebrated with some Moon Pies for an afternoon snack. That morning we finished up the laundry for the week and caught up on few things that needed done around the house.
After paying a couple of bills I went ahead and renewed our ABC Mouse that the kids have been begging for. They wasted no time getting on their and taking care of their virtual pets. Joey also made sure to update his avatar:
Those glasses look almost like his and they are just too cute!
That afternoon I went to make some our favorite Cream Cheese Chicken with Rice and Green Beans only to realize I didn’t have any cream of chicken soup… I don’t know what happened when I went grocery shopping last week but I guess I didn’t do a good job. I did finish dinner and it was really good with the substitutions I made so I’ll try to get that updated recipe posted soon.
That evening we went to the square dance. Again I didn’t get any pics because my phone died but I did get that video finished. I’ll have it at the end of the post.
I had planned to get the porch cleaned up a bit but the constant thunderstorms kept us inside. The morning was spent tidying up around the house and then we went out to eat at Golden Corral. It wasn’t the best experience and we probably won’t visit that location again but the kids enjoyed it.
After eating we headed to the movies to watch the new Ant Man movie. It was pretty good and everyone had a great time. All in all it was a good week and we are really looking forward to a great time in the upcoming week.
This week I plan to get some of the lessons entered into the Homeschool Manager app and also set a date for us to start school. I will also be working on a couple of more promo videos for square dancing as many clubs will be starting classes in September.
As far as cleaning the FlyLady missions will be in the Master Bedroom this week. I just need to do a tidying up in there so I’m not really sure how much I will get done in there. I would really like to get the porch cleaned off and have some usable space out there but the weather hasn’t been cooperating.
What are your goals for the upcoming week?
Below are some other things that we’ve done this past week and that video we put out for square dancing.
Other books we’ve read this week were:
Be A Good Dragon is a cute book about a dragon with a cold.
Yum! A Preston Pig Story is a variation of the ‘Three Little Pigs’ that kids enjoyed.
We got lots of goodies in the mail this week:
I was really excited to get these books and hopefully the kids will get to use them some this weekend.
This week I also posted these posts here (which may have affiliate links to some of the products above):
We are looking forward to a new week with lots of new surprises. So far we have these activities planned.
Upcoming Events/Holidays:
AMELIA EARHART DAY July 24
Here is that video I promised:
**Please note this post does contain affiliate links to which I may, possibly, earn a small commission from if you click on and purchase an item. For full disclosure click here.
I don’t know about you all but this Christmas has not went as planned here in the little house on the pond. We did manage to get a tree up but it hasn’t been decorated yet… and how many days ’til Christmas? I’m afraid to check.
The kids don’t seem to mind that the tree isn’t decorated as Nanny J let us borrow her fiber optic tree and it is so pretty! They also know that Olivia has wrapped some gifts to place under there as well. Momma hasn’t wrapped a single gift, yet, but I do plan to wrap some later today. Continue reading “Our First Christmas Decoration For The Little House On The Pond!”
I know it’s late but I wanted to get these posted as I have a YouTube video going up soon with some of my latest finds. I wanted to be sure to share those links with everyone because Christmas is sneaking up on us FAST. There are more deals to be found on Kirby’s Koupons on Facebook.
**Please note this post does contain affiliate links to which I may, possibly, earn a small commission from if you click on and purchase an item. For full disclosure click here.
Freebies/Samples:
Check out what I did this weekend! Like and subscribe to our channel if you haven’t already done so!
We have a brand new video up on YouTube… so come on over, check us out, and meet the family! Don’t forget to give us a thumbs up and subscribe to our channel too.
Thank you!
**Please note this post does contain affiliate links to which I may, possibly, earn a small commission from if you click on and purchase an item. For full disclosure click here.
My house has never smelled this clean! These all natural cleaning products I just got from Grove Collaborators are simply AMAZING! (These weren’t FREE but I love them so much I had to share.) Please check out my YouTube video to see these items up close or read about them below.
There was a total of 11 different products in this order and they are as follows:
Continue reading “Product Review: Grove Collaborative Holiday Collection December 2017”
Sunday was DS15’s birthday! Yeah, he is growing up. I am so proud of all the accomplishments and progress he has made over the past few years and I know that he will continue to learn and make progress in the years to come.
In case you don’t already know DS15 has Down’s Syndrome, ADHD, and several other disorders that can make life quite challenging at times. These challenges have been hard for me to overcome sometimes as a single parent and they can overwhelm anyone at times. Life has definitely been a roller coaster over the past few years. Continue reading “Youtube, Yellow Rocks, and Yamato’s”
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