Art Museum Writing Contest

Today we enjoyed a Field Trip to the Morris Museum of Art in Augusta, Georgia. The tour was a whirlwind because we were supposed to concentrate on only 5 pieces of art and then the kids are supposed to pick one and write a story or poem relating to that one piece of art. We had never visitied that museum before, so it was good to see some of it and we will go back when we can stay longer.

There is a writing contest in conjunction with these 5 pieces of artwork that my kids will be entering. Maybe they will win something...there are small cash prizes. But both of them like writing and they like art, so this is going to be a neat combination of both.

If you are around the Augusta area, the Morris Museum of Art is FREE on Sundays and they usually have fun, FREE activities about every other Sunday (art, ornament making, etc. are coming up). If you are intersted in the writing contest, it is called Combining Voices Writing Contest, see the info at their website...you do NOT have to visit the Museum to enter, but I believe you have to live in the area and be in grades 3-12 (public, private, or homechool). Maybe I'll post their poems or stories when they are done.

Book Adventure

Have you ever heard of Book Adventure? If you are looking for a place that quizzes Reading Comprehension, then Book Aventures would be perfect! It's a book quiz website run by Sylvan Learning Centers. I found this website years ago when I was just starting out homeschooling and all of my daughter's friends (in public school) were taking AR tests and winning points that they got to "spend" at the AR store at school...I wanted my daughter to be able to participate in something like that, too...take quizzes on books and get points to turn in for prizes.

That's when I discovered Book Adventures. You can search for just the right book for your interests and you can take quizzes in the "Quiz-O-Matic" section...they have all kinds of books (grade K-8) and if you get most of the questions right, you win points that you can turn in for prizes.

What kind of prizes? Well, most of the prizes on the website are pretty lame...Under "Prize Library" you'll find stickers, bookmarks, etc....although they do have a free 6 month subscription for Highlights Magazine for 2000 points. Not bad...I also saw a few small paperback books and they do change the prizes regularly.

BUT if you register as a teacher (Teacher's Lounge) and have your students sign up under your class, you can design all kinds of personalized reward certificates for any number of points you decide. These are found under "Prize Library" but all the way at the bottom you will see "Personal Incentive Plan (PIP)" **Note: you possibly could do the same if you register as a parent, but I do not know**

For example, under Bailey's account, she has PIP prizes ranging from an ice cream sundae (200 points) to 2 new Wii/Computer Games (3000 points)...her other prizes are things like:

"1 Free Day Off of School" (500 points)
"1 Free Book" (700 points)
"2 Free Books" (1000 points)
"1 New Computer Game" (1000 points)
"Anything from the Dollar Tree" (200 points)
"A Night at the Movies" (500 points)
"Lunch at McAllister's" (700 points)
"1 New Webkinz" (1500 points)

**I see that she has 5450 points right now! Not sure why she hasn't cashed them in yet...she must be saving up for something...maybe EVERYTHING!

She helped me to come up with things she wanted to work for...you can individualize the prizes to each of your kids, which is neat. If you have more than 1 kid, some of the prizes can be universal for everyone, but then add prizes that are specifically for that kid...something that they really enjoy or collect or whatever. That will keep them encouraged to read more books.

Now, I do have to buy the prizes, but this has encouraged her to read SO MANY books that I want to keep her encouraged and I don't mind spending the money for this reason...although, these prizes were added to Book Adventures about 2 years ago BEFORE we were budgeting our money so carefully, but I will find a way...it's for a good cause...the love of reading!

One last note: I think this site is hard to navigate. Except for the Kid's Zone and Quiz-O-Matic, it's hard to find where to go to add prizes, change prizes, etc...I have to relearn each time I go to this site...kind of frustrating at first...maybe if I used it more? Anyway, go into the Teacher's Lounge and then click on Personal Incentive Plan and it should take you there...Have fun and start reading!

Best Ever Roasted Chicken!!!

The kids love cooking with me (and without me, too :) Lately, we have been baking our own breads and rolls/buns, freezer cooking extra meals for later, and canning (I'll show you all my canned stuff later).

We dug out this chicken recipe because whole chickens were on sale for $ .39/lb a few weeks back and I bought one. I have been making this recipe for years now, and have recently rediscovered how delicious it is. The whole family loves it, it's super tender and it is so easy to make you will not believe it!

I got the recipe off the internet years ago, and before publishing it here (so I could give credit), I searched for the same recipe and there it was! It's called Mimi's Sticky Chicken. You will need to start the night before so the chicken can marinate AND you have to start it 5 HOURS before you want to eat, but other than that prep work, it's easy easy!

Here's the recipe:
2 t. salt
1 t. paprika
3/4 t. cayenne paper
1/2 t. onion powder
1/2 t. thyme
1/2 t. white pepper
1/4 t. garlic powder
1/4 t. black pepper
3 lb whole roasting chicken
1 c. chopped onions **plus other additions, see below

Combine spices, clean chicken, rub spice mixture over skin, under skin, and inside chicken. Place in a Ziplock baggie, seal and refrigerate overnight. Preheat oven 250 degrees F. Stuff cavity with onions (**I also stuff in anything else I have on hand...celery, lemons, fresh rosemary, fresh thyme, etc). Place chicken breast down in a roasting pan. Roast for about 5 hours...basting occasionally with pan juices. Serves 4.

Since the oven is so low, it's hard to cook someting else in there with the chicken, but you could throw some sweet potatoes in and cook them a lot longer than normal (2-3 hours?) or let the warm oven rise your bread (not IN the oven though) and cook it right after you pull the chicken out - you can let the chicken sit for 15-20 min. or so anyway for the juices to distribute. Make some gravy out of the juices too...it turns out great.

So, if you want to try this recipe:

1. Start marinating the night before


2. Start 5 hours before you want to eat dinner...basically you will have to be at home that day (weekends or if you stay at home like me, ANYDAY!) ENJOY!

Here it is after 5 hours of cooking. Yum!

Saxon Math Worksheets

We love Saxon Math. Continual Review is the basis of their curriculum and that works great for my kids. Instead of having 30 questions that are all the same, they have a few questions of the new material and the rest of the 30 questions are review of earlier material.

We always do the Lesson Reading, Practice Problems, and ALL of the questions from the current lesson...then we choose some that we do not need to review and omit them.

Amanda is working on Advanced Mathematics and does about 20-25 problems (we are doing 1/2 the book this year=Geometry...so she has 2 days to do this many problems).

Bailey is working on Saxon Math 7/6...right now most of her lessons are still review or she doesn't have a problem doing them, so she is only doing about 10 problems a day. Later in the book, I think she will have to do more problems.

Starting early on, the kids had trouble lining up their math problems when working on notebook paper (and we did not have the Worksheets/Tests books from Saxon because I didn't want to give tests, so I didn't buy them). We used graph paper, which was a real pain for me because I had to make lines to divide up the problems. Then we found out that the Worksheets/Test books had problem worksheets to copy for each lesson. It was all nice and boxed with problem numbers, graph grids so you could easily line up problems (and I could check easier). I liked them alot, and my kid's work got lots neater!

Then one day I was exploring around on the DonnaYoung.org and found some really cute graph paper/problem worksheets you could print out for free and my kids like these even better. One of them even has graph paper lines in PINK!! DonnaYoung.org has TONS of great worksheets, bookmarks, graph papers, schedules, etc. for all the popular homeschool curriculum. You should check out her whole site and see what you can find for your use. Math & Science are awesome!



Here's the math sheets we like:
Bailey: "Show Your Work Math Paper with Grid" with multiplication facts






Amanda: "4- Joined Rows - One-Half of Paper is Graph" - she uses this for problems with graphing, polar coordinates, etc. (look near bottom of website page)








I saved the pdf files on my computer and when we need more copies, I just bring them up and print a few more out. Very handy!

Snow Ball Effect

I have had many people ask me about how we have managed to pay off our *huge* credit card debt when we were only paying the minimums? Really, I made this up myself, but then I found out that it has a name when we went to a financial counselor who was helping people at our church...it's called the "Snow Ball Effect". Paying off the smallest bill first and then adding that payment to your next bill, and so on.

#1 RULE: To NOT use our credit cards anymore...at all...ever...and that was hard because we were so used to buying whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted. But after starting our pay-off plan, we just set our minds to doing it. We made a budget, and are sticking to it.

#2 RULE: Pay with CASH! We are using the Cash Envelope System (or here) for most expenses, debit card for gas only (easier at the pump), online bill pay for all other bills even utilities, and saving for any items we want that are not budgeted for. The Cash Envelope system is really working! It is so much harder to overspend when you have to shell out cash instead of whipping out a debit card! Our envelopes are simple right now, "Groceries" "Me" "Him" and "Other" (other is pet, cleaning, paper, beauty, school, fun, etc) but each family will have to make their own envelopes and priorities. We plan to add more after our credit cards are paid off (like Christmas, gift, car maintenance, school, etc)

So here's what I did for our credit card pay-off:

1. Listed all of our CC info in a spreadsheet, with balances, interest rates, and the minimum payments across the top (in order from smallest to largest balance)and month and amount paid down the side. **you could do all this with pencil/paper**
2. Start entering payments/new balance for each month. NOTE: We only were paying the MINIMUMS for each bill! Our TOTAL credit card payment is the SAME each month.
3. When the smallest bill was paid off, that minimum payment is now added to the next smallest bill, and so on, until each one is paid off!
4. All of this is printed out and when a bill is due, I look at the spreadsheet to see how much to pay.

Seems easy enough, but it it is still taking us 18 months to pay them all. And it seems really scary when you are writing that MUCH BIGGER check for the next bill...are we going to have enough to cover that? it's a lot more than the minimum, maybe we don't need to pay ALL that, etc...we had all kinds of excuses that get us off track. What do we do to stay on track? That brings me to our next rule.

#3 RULE: We printed out that spreadsheet and POSTED IT ON THE REFRIGERATOR! We see it all the time...it reminds us to be good stewards of our money...it reminds us of all the hard work we have already done...it reminds us to wait to buy that new item until we have saved enough to cover it...it reminds our kids of what we are working for so they don't constantly ask for this and that.

#4 RULE: What to do with extra income? What I do is plan in any extra money that we will be getting (ie. TAXES, gifts). I estimate how much refund we will be getting back and add that to our total payment amount in March/April. And there are 2 months a year that we get 3 paychecks, so I add extra to our total payment then, too. So add any extra to your smallest bill to try to pay it off sooner.

At first, my husband questioned my method (or madness) about this until he saw the whole thing working really well. He thought we should be paying off the highest interest rate credit card first. But I kept plodding along until soon, we had paid off one credit card, then another...we have now paid off 5 of those stupid things! (Yes we still have a few more:( But we are sticking to our plan)

Tonight we are celebrating...we have paid off one-third (33%) of our debt!!! Yay!! So we are going to go out to eat (using coupons ;) and we are going to show ourselves and our kids what a lot of hard work and determination can lead to. And that leads me to my final rule...

#5 RULE: Budget some fun/mad money every once in a while so you don't get discouraged...treat yourself to a little pampering (like getting your nails done for $10)...or take your hubby out for a cheap date (Applebee's 2 for $20 deal?)...or go to the movies (we are going to see New Moon for FREE using the General Mills Free Movie Ticket deal)...stuff like this keeps our spririts up and keeps us from falling into our old routines.

Grocery Deals

Here are some free or almost free grocery store and pharmacy deals for the week of 11/15.

• Publix (BOGO=buy one get one free)

  Chinet Napkins 40-90 ct (BOGO $1.89=$.94 ea)
  -$1 off any Chinet product printable = makes it FREE!
  **Check out all the deals at Southern Savers *especially the Krusteaz Muffin Mix, Green Giant Valley Fresh Steamers, and Lysol spray cleaners* I love any deals less than $1 ;)

• Bi-Lo **they double coupons up to 60¢**
  PETS *BOGO*
  Goodlife Recipe Dog Treats, 7.6oz., Cat Treats, 3oz., $2.51 ($1.25 ea)
  -$1 off Goodlife Dog Treats, Red Plum newspaper insert 8/16 or 10/04 (makes it 26¢)
  
  CLEANING *BOGO*
  All Liquid Laundry Detergent, 32-50oz., at $5.24 ($2.62 ea)
  -$1 off All Detergent, Red Plum 10/04 (makes it $1.62)
  
  Sun Light Auto Dish Detergent, 75oz. or 20ct., at $4.26 ($2.13 ea)
  -.25/1 Sun Light, Smart Source insert 5/31 & 10/04
  -.35/1 Sun Light, Smart Source 5/31 & 10/04 (makes it $1.43)
  
  Endust Free Dusting Spray, 10oz., at $2.65 ($1.33 ea)
  -$2 off Endust Free, RP 11/08 (makes it free)
  -.55/1 Endust product, RP 11/08 (doubled, makes it 23¢ ea)
  
  ONE MORE DEAL
  Frozen Grade A Turkey, 10lb.+, $0.49 lb.** (plus get an extra 10¢ off per gallon, our Bi-Lo just started doing the gas deal...yea!)
  
  **For all the Bi-Lo deals go to Southern Savers
  

Money Saving Solutions

For the past 6 months, we have been working very hard to pay off all of our debt (except our house, which may come later...one step at a time...we have now paid off 1/3 of our debt!!! Yippee!!) Anyway, I have been scouring the internet looking for the best (and easiest, I'm lazy) money saving ideas and tips. Because we still had the same bills and the same income, we were just trying to prioritize our money spending, so naturally, some things like the newest, neatest homeschool curriculums and nice, brand new books to read got pushed to the back burner...I still needed most of those things things though. So how to pay for them?

I found several money-saving websites, frugal living websites, and couponing websites. All of these gave me some great ideas on how to live on less and get more, while also saving money for big things we needed/wanted in the future (like homeschool curriculum or even trips to Disneyworld!) Here are my absolute favorite sites that I check more than once a day to see if there are any new bargains to be had:

• Southern Savers - has deals from store like Publix, Kroger, Bi-Lo, Harris Teeter, Food Lion, and pharmacies too (Walgreens, CVS, and Rite Aid) LOVE THIS SITE!!

• Couponing to Disney - she is saving money from using coupons, surveys, rebates, and more to fund a trip to Disney. She's doing great, too!

• Money Saving Mom - they are paying CASH for a new house!!! Great ideas and inspiration.

With all these ideas from great sites like these, we have been able to cut our grocery bill from upwards of $400 a month to about $170. I use coupons, sales, rebates, surveys, stockpiling, etc. to do this. And we eat well, too. It's not all beans & rice! I have a freezer full of meat and vegetables right now, as well as tons of canned/dry foods.

Also, we have added about $120 a month into "Savings" - automatic withdrawal - that is primarily for emergencies, etc. Honestly, we have never had anything in savings before, not even a little for emergencies. If something would have happened, we would have had to turn to family or who knows! So now we have some peace of mind...and a little savings account that's growing every month.

But we still have tons of neat homeschool curriculum/books this year. We have everything we needed, I just had to be creative about how we got it all. Ebay and the library are my new best friends...we have used curriculum and checked out books for ALMOST everything. Some books we had to buy (they are not in any library around here) but we have saved up money just for that purpose (see my Swagbuck post). So those books are free, the curriculum is cheap, and all the other books are free from the library. Since we haven't spent too much on books/curriculum, I feel we can spend on other things like the China Kit, GeoPuzzles, and Travel Scrapbooks ...all the fun things that we like to do in our homeschool haven't felt the budget cut!

Christmas Deals

Can you believe there's only 7 weeks until Christmas?!? Where has the year gone? I am a little behind this year for buying Christmas gifts...probably because we have been concentrating so hard on paying off all of our debt that we are not thinking about SPENDING money, we are thinking about SAVING money...

Imagine my surprise when I realized Christmas was right around the corner! So recently I have been on the look out for any special deals on gifts. Here are a few that I am looking at right now:

• Target - did you know that you can print out Target coupons? They have TONS of toy coupons (bikes too) out right now. If there is a manufacture coupon on the same item, you can use both!! My favorite: $10 off 2 Wii or PSP games (some are priced at $14.99. Last week they had Buy 2 Get 1 Free and let me use 3 coupons for 6 games...we saved a TON!!) **Also check here to see how you can use the Target/manufacture coupons for various toys

• Big Lots - this week they have select Wii and DS games for $10!!

• UP/Monsters Inc. Combo deal - both videos for FREE or cheap, go here and see how Couponing to Disney works it to get these movies free-$5 each (with coupons and rebates)

• WalMart.com - pre-order many different movies right now for $9.98 plus free shipping (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Night at the Museum 2, G-Force, and more!) All should make it before Christmas :)

• Amazon.com - also doing the pre-order thing, but have to order $25 to get free shipping

When more deals come out, I'll keep you posted!

SWAGBUCKS GIFT CARD

I just got a FREE $5 Amazon gift card through SWAGBUCKS just for doing regular, everyday searches on the internet. It's really easy and so far we have earned 7- $5 Amazon Gift Cards through Swagbucks. We've only been doing this since September! I have been using the gift cards to get books for homeschooling and we had thought we might use some of the money for Christmas presents :) We'll just see how much we get before then.

I "win" about 2-3 "Swagbucks" each day. They pop up randomly when you do normal searches. You can also find "SwagCodes" occasionally on the Blog or Twitter and enter them on the Swagbucks Home Page for 1 Swagbuck (I do that rarely). When you sign up right now, I think they give you 3 Swagbucks just for registering. Also, you should download the search bar and make Swagbucks your default web browser...it will make it easier to remember to use it daily.

Once you get 45 Swagbuck (every 2-3 weeks if you search every day) you can redeem them for prizes...my favorite and I think the most useful is the $5 Amazon Gift Card. You can use that on anything on Amazon. I think it's great! Sign up using my link (click on box below) and I will win each time you win! Happy Searching!

BOTANY LINKS AND IDEAS

Bailey has really been enjoying Botany (Exploring Creation with Botany). She truly loves anything to do with science, but this year, she tells me every time she reads her book that she really likes Botany. Exploring Creation with Botany is part of the Apologia Young Explorers curriculum and was written for ages 6-12. Bailey is able to do almost all of the reading and activities by herself, but the author emaphsizes that younger children can just as easily learn and retain this material using the Charlotte Mason method of narration and dictation. It was written to be a 1 year study, but we have a plan: do Botany for 1/2 a year and also Zoology 1 this year, then Zoology 2 & 3 next year (6th grade), then start Apologia Physical Science in 7th grade.

Exploring Creation with Botany has natural stopping points, so Bailey reads about 4-5 pages a day and stops at the reviews called "What Do You Remember?" We have printed out Jeannie Fulbright's notebook pages which are great: they already have lines ready to be filled with all that Bailey remembers from what she just read (or could dictate) and there is usually a place to draw or paste a picture as well. Bailey has a great Botany Notebook going right now. And it will serve as a wonderful review for the future!

Other activities in the book are Notebook Activities and Experiments. So far, all of the experiments have been useful and fairly easy to do with common household supplies. We had ordered the experiment kit that was recommended with this series, so any supplies that turn out to not be so "common," we will have on hand. Here is a list of all that is included:


modeling clay (1/4 lb)
syrofoam cups with lids (5)
manila floder
jiffy pellet
lamp socket adapter
magnifying glass
peat moss ruler
safety gloves
basil seeds
lima bean seeds
pumpkin seeds
sponge
string
tape measure
thermometer
tongue depressors (10)
sodium tetraborate (30 g)
glycerin soap base (8 oz)
construction paper (12 sheets)
15-watt flourescent spiral bulb

In addition to the Notebook Activities included in the book, we have been adding all kinds of goodies to her Botany study. We look up neat video clips or interesting pictures on the inernet, cut our extra pictures to add to her Notebook, and do almost all of the Experiments plus a few I found that coincide with her studies.

Right now we are working on a Leaf Collection. With all the fall colors of leaves, it will end up being very pretty. Here is a neat link to help identify leaves. Online Leaf Key

Some other fun links that we used with Chapter 6: Leaves
Leaf Margins
Leaf Shapes
Microscopic view of a leaf stomata
Microscopic view of the inside of a leaf

Art Links:
Pastel Fall Leaves, Leaf Print Triptych, Watercolor Batik
Paper Snowflake leaf patterns