Felt Creatures

I'm having fun making lots of different felt creatures.  Here is a camel.  You can see some others at the new Etsy shop, Fuzzlemania.

Make Your Own Cleansers and More!

Do you know how vinegar got its name?  How to make your own homemade vapor rub, face scrub, antiseptic ointment, sink and shower cleanser, wood paneling cleaner, silver polish, and stain remover?

Did you know making all these things is a lot easier than you might have expected? That is, if you have some tried and true recipes, like those in this book, to tell you how to do it . . .

Lisa Barthuly has used natural cleaning products and health care/beauty aids with her own family for many years, and has written this very conversational and friendly book, to share her findings with others.

She says, "No need to keep cupboards stocked with a different commercial cleaner for every room, every appliance, every gadget, every surface, every THING at my homestead."

She tells us about some very simple natural ingredients that can be used to work wonders as cleansers and disinfectants.  She also has some great recipes for things like bug repellant and skin lotion.  Lisa offered me a review copy of her e-book, and I was impressed with how much practical info is included; I'm ready to start trying out some of these cleansers and recipes-- we have some sinks with stains, and I want to try that homemade paste that cleans scuff marks and crayons off walls . . .

This book is available in both e-book and printed versions, at www.HomesteadOriginals.com.

Copy and Draw - Penmanship practice WITH Art

Copy and Draw work page e-books are here!  Do you have kindergarten or early elementary-aged kids who would like to draw pictures along with their penmanship practice? Here is a set of 68 work pages in PDF format-- can be printed out as needed.

For some examples of completed pages, see Gentle Shepherd's website art gallery.

With many drafts and revisions, this e-book project has taken almost a year and a half to complete-- from beta test stage to final draft.  And what used to be one set of work pages turned into SIX different e-books.  That is because there are 6 versions-- two different writing line styles multiplied by three different penmanship styles.

If you are using Italic or Manuscript for penmanship, Copy and Draw is available in both of those styles, as well as in the custom font it started out with.

Come take a look; you can see sample pages for all the versions by clicking the links on THIS PAGE.

Handmade Spinner Game-- Parts of Speech

This is the spinner from the game James and I were playing recently. It uses a game board that looks like this:

It's basically a trail game . . . you start at one end and follow along to the other end.  If you land on a pink dot, you jump ahead to the next pink dot-- except for the very last pink dot; if you land there you have to jump backwards to the previous pink dot.

The spinner in this game assigns a number for each of the 8 parts of speech.  So whatever you land on is the part of speech you must use on your turn AND the number of spaces to hop along with.

It doesn't have any fancy name; we call it the "parts of speech sentence board game."  It's easy to play, and can also be a lot of fun.  Last time we played it the sentences turned into an ongoing story . . . it was suspenseful and interesting.  But we don't usually play it that way.  The only requirement on your turn is that you make a sentence that uses whatever the part of speech is that the spinner lands on.  Then you can go the number of hops indicated, along the game path.

This game is really easy to make-- I found the clear plastic spinners at a school supply store-- the pink background with words and markings is just taped onto the spinner with small pieces of clear tape on two opposite sides.  The game board (14" x 22") is a piece of poster board with hand-cut paper circles glued on.  We use game pieces from a Parcheesi game.

It's great for a review of the parts of speech-- if kids don't know them all while playing, that's OK, too--you can give some examples if they don't know what kind of words to use for a certain part of speech. 

Do you like to make games?  Do you know of any others (homemade or not) that have helped in learning/practicing the parts of speech?

A Handy Handbook . . . for Using Ebooks!

   
     Are you thinking about getting an ebook reader?  Or just wanting more info about ebooks in general-- how to use them and organize them?  Did you know there is a free software that will help you convert files to different formats (that may be needed for different e-reader devices) as well as easily catalog the ebooks (even if you don't use a device).

     What are the advantages of ebooks for home education?  Lisa Hodgen, of Me and My House Ministries, says, "Ebooks can save you space and money, two things home educators tend to be short on."

     I learned some interesting things from her short ebook, Putting the 'E' in Home Education, and now I can clearly see the pros and cons of e-readers vs reading on computer or tablet.

     We haven't used ebooks for reading long chapter books, but Lisa's handbook explains how this can have advantages.  How would you like to carry a library of a thousand or so books in your purse?  As a book-lover, this sounds great to me.

     Of course, e-readers aren't needed for ebooks that are meant to have pages printed out (worksheets, materials to self-construct)-- as all of our Gentle Shepherd ebooks are at this point.

     But I found Lisa's book very interesting and just maybe we'll be entering the rest of the 21st century and doing some of our reading on an ebook device sometime soon!

     You can find Lisa's ebook handbook (only $3 as a special introductory sale), Putting the "E" in Home Education, Freedom and & Simplicity Guide, at http://frommeandmyhouse.com/led-fsebooks.htm

Sidetracked Sarah

On Friday, I had the opportunity to make a guest post on the homeschooling blog, Sidetracked Sarah.  There are several pictures, and the post tells about a hobby I like to do-- hand-sewing with felt.  Here is a link: http://www.sidetrackedsarah.com/2012/04/hand-sewing-with-felt/

Real Science! Really New E-books, too!

There are three new e-books on our Gentle Shepherd website!  These are review activities to accompany Gravitas Publications' Real Science-4-Kids level I science textbooks.  You can see sample pages for all three e-books (Chemistry, Physics, Biology) at http://tinyurl.com/8ynakws.