Heads Up!

Since school is just around the corner and I love deals, I just thought I'd pass this list to you of some great deals on school supplies...have already hit Walgreen's and stocked up on some great deals (and if they are out of stock, I found out that you can request rain checks!!).  I love stocking up for the year as well as some extra for Operation Christmas Child and art presents and such.  Hope it helps you!

Happy shopping!

WalMart

• Composition Notebooks (only black) – $.25
• 2 pocket folder with prongs – $.15
  
• 4 pack Dry Erase Markers – $3.49
  
• 2 pack Elmer’s glue sticks – $.25
• Elmer’s Glue – $.25
• 70 Page Spiral Notebooks – $.15
• 24 Crayola Crayons – $.25
• 12 Pack Colored Pencils – $1
• 8 Pack Crayola Washable Markers $2
• Dry Erase Markers – $3.59
• 12 inch School Supply Box – $.60
• 150 ct. paper – $.75 Unless you really want to finish your shopping, hold off on this one – I've heard that  it’ll go down to at least $.25 before school starts!)

***Also watch out for grapes on sale $.99/lb. - I

Office Max

• 1 subject poly Notebooks (lots of colors) – $2.00
• SHARPIE Black fine point permanent markers – $3.00
• All UNI-BALL 207 Gel Pens - 3pack – $3.00

Walgreens - just found out today that they also offer Rainchecks if they are out of product!! :)

• Wooden ruler, 2 pocket folder, or highlighter – $.09 each
  
• One subject notebook, 2 pack pink erasers, 10 pack sheet protectors - $.29 each
  
• 3 pack glue sticks, Splash Poly Portfolio, school box, or 5 pack BIC Brite Liner Highlighters (several colors!) – $.49 each
  
• Printworks Multipurpose Paper 400 sheets (use in-ad coupon) – $1.99
• Pilot G2 Pens 2 pack  (use instant value coupon) – $.19
• Backpacks, Duffel Bags, Bags, and Book Totes - Buy 1 at $9.99, get 1 free
  
• Expo 6-pack Washable Markers (use in-ad coupon)– $2.99
• SHARPIE 2-4 pack Pens or 8 pack Markers - $3.99
  

Office Depot

• Post-It Removable Label Pads – reg. $5.99 - only $.99
• Permanent 3M Labels - Buy 1 get 1 Free

A Money -Maker For Our Family ~ Part 2

Okay, so cleaning out all our nooks and crannies, for the most part, is done and now we are on to making some sense of the craziness in our garage! :)  I had so many books and school oriented supplies to sell that I have already had a major sale for local homeschoolers but now I am armed and ready to make battle on the rest.  My oldest two have had the job of sorting the bags and bags of clothes (amazing that they actually beg me to do this!) and half of it is already done.  Since my van had to be worked on this week, it cut us short on going out to look for boxes but my dear mother came to our rescue and brought some boxes and baskets she had at her house.  So, now, we begin to work on a variety of things to get ready for our sale next weekend.

One interesting thing I allow my children to do at this time, and even before now, is to think of other ways they would like to raise money on their own in addition to our garage sale profit.  They will be paid a small percentage of what we earn and some will be added to their savings accounts but they are in charge of deciding whether they want to earn more.  This week, we have talked about having a table for my daughter to sell beaded jewelry she has made as well as ribboned hair accessories.  My son is more food minded and wants a refreshments table.  Since this is their entrepreneurial deal, we let them buy the supplies needed unless they use things around the house.  I will probably help them make cookies (I try to make up batches the weekend before and freeze cookie dough balls so it is not time consuming the weekend of the sale) but my son is an excellent brownie cook so he will make those.  Then we allow them to figure the cost of buying drinks and for how much to sell them......a few questions they have to deal with is buying name brand versus generic, the price of items, and how much profit they would like versus marking too high where people won't buy them.   They make their signs and take turns sitting at their table during the sale as well.

Speaking of making signs, we always make ours big and fluorescent!  We live right near North Hills Street so a couple of those placed in strategic places always brings customers as well.  I try to give the children time to color the letters big and bold but if that has slipped through the cracks in my brain, I am frantically coloring in big bubble letters the night before the sale!   I also post our sale in the paper as well as Craigslist.com and am thinking of allowing my children to take a survey this year of where our customers saw our sale so I know which is the most beneficial (and for the main reason of tacking on one more mathematical experience to our sale for my kids!)  Since our sale is Friday and Saturday, we put them up Thursday night and take them down Saturday afternoon.  One of my big pet peeves is the fact that some people seem to think it's someone else's job to clean up after them and actually never go back to take these down.  In my little opinion, I believe these people need to ticketed with littering....maybe a little money out of their pocketbooks would make some realize that it does not in any way make our city look better....and it's not like we don't know where they live since their address is on the piece of litter!

Stepping off my soap box, I'll get down to the nitty gritty.  I buy the little color circle stickers and try to label as much as I can.  If you get on a roll, this really does not take as long as people think.....especially with my kids helping (another great teaching moment as well.  If my children will write neatly, I allow them to price stickers as well as tell me what they think an item will sell for.  It is amazing how much they will charge for things until I ask them if they would pay the same price for an item!  They begin to have a better understanding of marketing when they are allowed to do this with me, and to tell you the truth, they make a huge job much smaller for me with their helpfulness and enthusiasm!

One of the most thrilling things for my kids to do when we have a sale is to operate the cash register.  We have a  used one that my parents passed on to us that we take down for every sale and set up to help with adding several items and cash back....even though I am pretty good with money, this has saved my tattered brain on those mornings before my first cup of coffee.   When traffic is slower, I allow my children to practice making change and using the register, but when traffic gets higher, they are allowed to stand beside me and observe and also help with bagging items.

All in all, making your children a part of your garage sale is one of the best learning experiences if you take the time (and patience) to make it so.  And, in time, I hopefully will just be able to sit down and kick back while my children fine tune their skills.....while, of course, chomping down on our tradition of Krispy Kreme garage sale morning donuts and a big cup of coffee! 

A Money -Maker For Our Family ~ Part 1

 Many people don't realize the financial prowess us homeschool moms have to attain to keep down the costs of homeschooling our children.  If you are new to homeschooling, you will immediately begin to pick up ways to "pinch those pennies."  For those of us that have been homeschooling a few years, we have picked up many tried and true ways that keep our homeschooling budget from delving into the family budget.  One of our family's ways of doing this is to have a yearly gigantic garage sale......not something I grandly look forward to but something that makes for a better school year on our pocketbook and in the end, teaches our children several vital lessons in the process.

We start as soon as the last garage sale ends in bagging up anything not needed or wanted anymore and putting it up in the attic. By Christmas time, my husband is starting to grumble when he has to get past the bags of garage sale items to get our Christmas decorations, but I always remind him that it pays off and by the time he has wrestled with hauling the Christmas decorations down and the attic door is closed, he agrees with me......that is, until he has to put the Christmas decorations back up there!  Once our school is done in May, we start working through all the rooms in our house and getting rid of even more "stuff"...it's amazing what piles up when you're not looking!

This is a wonderful teaching moment with older children in training them that the less we have, the less we have to clean....interesting how that always prompts my children to get rid of a few more items they were hanging on to but rarely play with! At the moment, we have made it through all the rooms in our house except for the little girls closet, my closet, and the schoolroom. After that, we will begin to pull down bags from the attic and start sorting.

Yet again, this another skill to hand over to my older children. Last year, they went through our bags of clothes (this is a monumental task since we have other family members donating clothes as well as other items for our sale!) and sorted all sizes into different boxes for buyers. I think this has been a key for our family in having such a successful garage sale.....we organize as much as possible for the buyer.....and it's wonderful to see my children take such pride in putting things in their "category." This means that if a buyer comes in wanting 4T clothes, my children will immediately direct them to box containing those clothes.

Driving around the week before the garage sale usually provides us with enough boxes to separate all the clothes. As for prices? I learned a valuable lesson from my mother-in-law (who always had fantastic successful garage sales) about pricing at garage sales that has carried me far. Price to sell.....it's that simple. People do not come to garage sales wanting clothes that cost $5 or more. They come for deals. If I have an expensive nice clothing item, I usually opt for consignment or lately, the Sweet Pea Swap here in Meridian. Other than that, clothes in boxes are fifty cents and hanging clothes for the most part are one to two dollars. I know you would think that we can hardly make any money with those rules but one, we usually have a LOT of clothes (since again, we have people giving us clothes for the sale as well as being a family of six), and two, people tend to buy MORE and stay LONGER at a garage sale if the prices are LOW.

Now, I have definitely enjoyed my time at garage sales in the past for those "special deals,"(just too exhausting lugging all the kids to them these days), but I can tell you that when I have entered a garage sale and looked at a few prices of the items, I can usually tell if the seller wants to get rid of their items and make money or the seller wants to sell things at what they think their value is and supposedly make a large amount of money. A seller that wants to get rid of their items will have them priced low and it is a place where I tend to take my time looking for the deals I know are there..... and in my experience, (since I have tried both ways!) you will usually make more money if you entice your customers to stay with your low prices.

Well, I've had enough time at the computer for now....time to start cleaning more out! Next time, we'll talk of the great teaching experiences you can give your children with the garage sale. I can say that even with all the work it entails, my children look forward to and learn so much from our garage sales when I take the time to teach valuable skills to them while we are processing all our items and during our sale.

Learning Letters

It seems parents suffer a great deal of  apprehension at the thought of teaching their child to read. I know I did! When I started teaching our firstborn, I brought a full curriculum to help me know exactly what to say and how to say it.  I went over every chart and sound the the book told me to, and made sure we did every exercise it said as well. I guess we all go by the book with our first child, but as perseverance paid off, in a few months my son was on his way to reading quite well.  When our second child was old enough, it was she who wanted to be included in "school time". Like her brother, she seemed to easily pick up on the reading. I'm convinced that allowing  children to be familiarized with books at a very early age helps not only  reading but comprehension as well.

Now, as our third child turns four, I wasn't sure if I would be able to pull it off yet again. Then I realized, all the "pre" reading activities we do as a family contributes to my children seeming to have such an easy time once they begin to be taught the phonics part of reading. Of course, we sing the alphabet song a lot, but there are so many other ways which seem to be as fruitful in making my children aware of their letters. From the time they can sit up, my children have several books they can look through and touch. I'm careful not to put too much expense into these early books so that I don't have to be concerned if the pages are torn or 'drooled on'.  All that is necessary at that young  age is for them to familiarize themselves with the feel of the book and it's pages. It's so amazing how still and quiet a toddler can become when given a basket of books. 


As they grow older, we teach responsibility by making sure they take care of their treasured books. Wonderful series can be found at our local library. In these series, we concentrate on one letter for each book. I think having a story to go with the letter really has made an impression. Especially on my third child who happens to have the gift of natural storytelling. Very early on she not only knew her letters but their sounds as well.


Some fun times in their learning is the game I SPY which works wonderfully on trips. Instead of colors, we look for certain letters.  My little ones feel so proud when they find our secret letter before the older ones!  And then there is one of our all time favorite games for learning letters, 'Let's Fish'. Several years ago I made this game from foam letters and some string on the end of a stick. Placing a small magnet on each letter, then at the end of the string so the children could go fishing for letters. This game has never gotten old as it's survived three children so far!   Sidewalk chalk is another useful tool. The child can either write their own letters or step along a LARGE letter which you have drawn for them.


As the years have gone by and I have become more comfortable in teaching my own children, I have discovered that incorporating letters and sounds into everyday games and talk has been the most successful way to make sure our children quickly catch on when it is time for them to start reading. By that time, it just seems to be second nature. For instance, my third child has just proven that talking about and playing with letters, along with looking at books, can quickly evolve into reading on their own.  Last week, I picked up an easy reader and after playing with the letter sounds a bit,   she read her first sentence triumphantly amidst the celebrated kudos and applause by her older brother and sister, and her daddy.  As I looked into those eyes, so filled with the joy of the moment, I knew once again that I had made the right decision for us in teaching our children to read. There is nothing on earth I would take which would replace that momentous step into each of their lives. 

Reading is the gateway to much success. I encourage you to sit down with your little ones and familiarize them with letters in whatever way you choose. I hope I've given you some ideas to get started, and if you have any questions, you know where to find me. Happy reading!

Reflections on Mother's Day

 Been gone awhile, I know, but I've been knee deep in finishing up our school year, making our goals for next year, and ordering and purchasing our  new school material.  Phew!!

But, of course, I had to stop for a minute and get some thoughts down for the grand occasion of Mother's Day.  Now, I know we should all be telling our mothers all through the year how much we appreciate and love them, but on this day, it is wonderful to pause and remember those childhood memories we all hold so dear.

My memories of my mother amaze me......especially now that I'm a mother.  Even with all the stress and responsibilities of being a mother, I remember my mother always taking the time to show us the world around us and revel in it.  We would go on walks in the woods and enter ino a magical world of my mother's making....one where I was an Indian princess and my brother the brave warrior who would gallantly protect us.  To a child, the most wonderful thing you can do is to enter into their world, and my mother never failed to disappoint my brother and I in helping create our fantasy worlds.   I know without a shadow of a doubt that I have been able to be a more 'carefree, get down and dirty with the playdo and paints, imaginative mother' because of my mother taking the time AND PATIENCE to make these things possible in my young life.

Another blessed thing I had in my mother was the ability to talk about anything with her without condemnation or criticism.  My brother and I could talk at any hour of any day on any topic and my mother was there to listen....and listen....and listen.............and listen.  Once I became a mother myself and I realized how talkative children can be, I asked her how on earth she never made it seem a problem to her.  Her response?  "If you don't make the effort to listen to them when they are young, they won't bother to confide in you when they are older.".  So, even though I fail at times, I do make a conscious effort to make sure to spend moments during the day where I focus on each child and listen to them without interruption....it's hard to do in our house of six and sometimes it's when everyone is in bed and I cuddle up beside them in the dark and listen to them recount their day or describe the dreams they have or even tell me when their feelings were hurt or have a question about God.   Like I said, it is a challenge, but after having the ability to have my mother listen to what I had to say growing up, I always want to make sure that as a mother, I too give my children the confidence that makes them feel they are worth being listened to and respected.

So, reflecting back at the many ways my mother excelled in raising me, I can attest that the two things which mattered most to me were her ability to enter our imaginative world and kick back and have fun with us, and the knack she had for listening to us whenever we needed it.

THANK YOU, MOM!!  You have always made me want to be a better person, but most of all, a wonderful mother like you.

I love you! :)

My Favorite Is....

How well does your family know each other? These days, families consist of  many diverse individuals living in the same home, but if you think about these people, could you tell me off the top of your head their favorite color, favorite animal, best memory, or even their favorite dessert?
We have a tradition in our family that helps us know more about each person that's simply called  "What's Your Favorite?".  My husband started this at the dinner table one night and it has endured the test of time with zest! 

In our family, we use dinner every night at the table to discuss matters, but you might want to do this on car rides or even as a before bedtime routine.   We usually let our four year old begin with, "My favorite color is _(red)__, what's your favorite color, ___?  ....and she gets to tell us her favorite color as well as ask each member of the family their favorite as well.  She absolutely loves to be in charge and it has helped her become more involved in family discussions.  Then we allow someone else to start that can think of another question to ask.  It doesn't always start off with "What's your favorite....?"  It has also been "If you could go anywhere.....?", "If you could be anything,.....?", or even "What superhero power would you want?"  We have never stopped being amazed at the in-depth answers our children can come up with, and even after twelve years of marriage, my husband and I can surprise each other with an answer or two ourselves!  Of course, around birthday or Christmas time or even for special family times, this has been a very useful game for me.  I can find out many "favorites" and surprise them without being obvious about it!

  Now don't think this is just a children's game.  When my husband was deployed for a year and half, we used questions by e-mails to make our phone conversations more meaningful.  Each day, we would e-mail each other one to three questions we had thought about and that night we would answer them over the phone.  It's amazing how much we learned about each other with just a few simple questions.

All in all, we don't remember every exact answer we each give to the questions, but the family camaraderie, conversations, and understanding about each other we gain is priceless. We believe it builds a closeness to home that will be with them throughout their lives!

Now Showing!

My husband is one of the coolest people I know!  He comes up with such great ideas that make for some simply wonderful memories!  And this past Saturday, he did just that.

Every Saturday is family night.  Our family looks forward all week to homemade pizza and homemade chocolate chip cookies! :)  On this night, we eat and play games and then afterwards, we all snuggle in to watch an episode from Little House on the Prairie....we just love the shows and for Christmas, I got our family two of the seasons on DVD.  A few months ago, my husband discovered that he could make for an even better movie experience with our movie projector that he shines up on the big wall in our living room.  It's like being in our own personal movie theater! 

Well, Saturday afternoon, I recognized the gleam in my husband's eye as he told me his latest idea.  He was bringing the projector outside so we could watch our movie on the garage door!!  I just never in a million years would have thought to do something like that!  So while he rigged the electronics part up, I popped several bags of popcorn, got drinks ready, and found blankets to lay on for the kids.  I then went outside to find that our kids had broadcast it to the other kids in our neighborhood, and we now had children with blankets and pillows in our driveway to enjoy our outdoor movie experience as well!  How neat is that?   Our kids were just beaming with delight at the entire experience and with pride that their daddy had come up with the whole thing!

So as my husband pushed play and everyone settled in munching away at the big bowls of popcorn, I looked around and silently thanked God for my four little blessings and my wonderful husband that had surprised me once again with yet another wonderful family memory!