Half-Pint House

Books for Sale at the St. Louis Used Resource Sale on March 14, 2009

30 Math Games by Catherine Connolly $2
American Art Quiz; An educational card game $4
American Girls Collection Curriculum:
America at School : A Unit that Integrates Social Studies, Literature, & Language Arts with Activity Cards $10
Articulation 10 Quick-Play Folder Games by LinguiSystems $8
(the) Baker Bible Dictionary for Kids $5
Emphasis: Art by Wachowiak/Ramsay $1
(the) Exploratorium Home Laboratory: Hands-on science fun for families $2
Fun Excuses to Talk About God: 48 No-Fuss Family Devotions by Joani Schultz with Discussion Guide (2 books) $4
Games for Learning by Peggy Kaye $4
Games for Reading by Peggy Kaye $4
Getty & Dubay Italic Handwriting Series Instruction Manual $4
Good Kids Bad Habits by Jennifer Trachtenberg $3
Heroes for Young Readers by YWAM Publishing $4 Each:
    Gladys Aylward
    William Carey
    David Livingston
Home School Family Fitness; A Complete Curriculum Guide by Bruce Whitney $8
If You’re Trying To Teach Kids How To Write… by Marjorie Frank $2
Keepers of the Faith Materials:
    Contenders for the Faith (A Handbook for Young Men) $5
    Director’s Manual 2
    (the) Joy of Womanhood $3
    Parent’s Guide to Productive Pursuits and Practical Skills for Children $2
    Write Upon My Heart: Compassion, A Bible Study $2
Ken Taylor’s Favorite Bible Stories $4
Keyboard Capers by Rebecca Doyle Stout with Laminated Manipulatives Kit $30
(the) Kids’ Multicultural Art Book by Alexandra Terzian $3
Quiet Times with God by Mack Thomas $3
Scott Foresman Exploring Mathematics Level 1 Complete, includes printed schedule $15
Seasons and Holidays Articulation Games by LinguiSystems $25
Sequential Spelling Student Response Book (2 copies) Unused, Clean $3 each
Snip and Tell Bible Stories by Karyn Henley $4
Sticks and Stones and Ice Cream Cones; The Craft Book for Children by Phyllis Fiarotta $1
Tanagrams by Judy Goodnow $1
TOPS Learning Systems #32 Electricity $7
TOPS Learning Systems #33 Magnetism $7
Touchpoints,  The Essential Reference by T. Berry Brazelton $2
World Wildlife Fund: Take Action by Ann Love $1

7 Quick Takes Friday

1. I went out with a bunch of ladies last night to The Cheesecake Factory. I knew a handful of them, didn't know another handful of them, had a great time with all of them. I'm telling you I was a joking extrovert last night. For almost three whole hours. It was a lot of fun.

2. I will pay for my attempted extroversion today. But I'm okay with that.

3. In college I made myself score high on the outgoing scale for two years. I *thought* I was an extrovert. I acted like an extrovert. I didn't own my true personality until my junior year. What a relief. For the next 15 years I've scored as an ISTJ on the Myers-Briggs scale. Three days ago, Craig and I were flipping through a book on the Myers-Briggs temperaments. As I read over the ISTJ again I had an epiphany: the description didn't totally fit me. We read over the profile of the ISFJ and guess what? My personality has changed again. Or maybe that's the way it's always been but I've been in denial. Folks, I'm an ISFJ. Wow.

4. Craig's still an INTJ. Always has been, always will be. You can find out what you are by clicking here. What are you? Do tell.

5. In other news, I have a pet peeve of the blogosphere: I can't stand being referred to as "internets" on anyone's blog. I'm not an internet; I'm a person. A person's a person no matter how small. Incidentally, I'm not thinking of anyone in particular as I write this, but I feel the need to come clean. If someone I regularly read and know in real life does this, I forgive, but if I'm checking out a blog for the first time and come across this misuse of the English language, I'm so out of there. There. It's out. What are your blogging pet peeves? Please don't say, "Misuse of the comma." We've established already that I have issues in that department. That's why I have an editor.

6. Just found this Trader Joe's song from Corrin's twitter feed. Hilarious.

7. I brought home one-sixth of a butchered cow today. This is our second time to particpate in a group cow purchase. The poor guy sure is tasty; he's one of those all grass-fed, hormone-free varieties. Last time we had one, someone accidentally left the freezer door ajar and we lost a fair amount of the meat. I think I may have mentioned this before, but it bears repeating. The loss of all that meat made me cry. I now check the freezer door seal every time I walk down to the basement.

7b. I had to google "door seal" because the spelling didn't look right when I typed it there. Apparently it is, though.

7c. When I have to google simple words like "seal" for spelling it means I'm tired. Gotta go now.

For more Quick Takes, visit Jennifer's Conversion Diary.

Community Vs. Socialization

Socialization is a topic long discussed among the educationally minded, but honestly, it’s a tired debate. Those who argue against homeschooling claim homeschoolers do not provide proper opportunities for their children to be involved with other kids so as to know how to behave; those who argue for homeschooling say their kids are so involved in outside activities with peers that they have trouble getting their homework done... 

The rest of the post is available at WORLDMag Online.

A Time to Talk

A Time to Talk
by Robert Frost

When a friend calls to me from the road
And slows his horse to a meaning walk,
I don't stand still and look around
On all the hills I haven't hoed,
and shout from where I am, What is it?
No, not as there is a time to talk.
I thrust my hoe in the mellow ground,
Blade-end up and five feet tall,
And plod: I go up to the stone wall
For a friendly visit.

The church we've been attending is going through a series on community building. It's been good, and, in light of some significant changes we're in the process of making as a family, very timely.

It is easy for me to hide in my house behind my responsibilities and behind my personality. However, I'm finding that not only do I do myself a disservice with this behavior, but I'm less inclined to allow my children the freedom to build community with their friends as well. It isn't exactly that we don't have time; I just don't choose to make the time we do have work to that advantage.

Tonight I'm joining the ladies from the small group for coffee. Tomorrow night I'm going out with a group of like-minded homeschooling mamas I know.

It's time - time I normally reserve for jammies and reading and computer and sewing and...me. I've missed out in real life by not pursuing these opportunities. Tonight I will attempt to begin to change.

I will take a time to talk. I will slow my horse to a meaning walk. I'm thrusting my hoe in the (frozen) ground and going up to the stone wall.

I hope for a friendly visit. And also for community to begin in my heart and in my life.

Bloggy Giveaway Take Two

Oh, what the heck. Here's another giveaway. This time EVERYBODY wins! I write for a publication called God's World News, and WORLD Magazine Online. God's World News is like WORLD for kids. There are four levels available:

• Early Edition (PreK-1st grade)
• Taking Off (2nd-3rd grade)
• News Current (4th-5th grade)
• Top Story (6th-9th grade)

Right now anybody can order a sample issue of any level of God's World News for free. Click here for details.

In addition to the free hard copy sample, you can download a full-length version of all four mags digitally by clicking here. The issues highlighted in red are the ones free for anyone to download.

Enjoy!

For more giveaways, visit the Bloggy Giveaway Carnival.

Important Note: Okay, I have no idea what's going on. I can place an order without entering a credit card number, but I've heard from some of you that you still aren't able. If you can't get your order to go through, email me at halfpinthouse at gmail dot com with your address and sample request and I'll submit it on your behalf.

Sorry for the trouble!

Bloggy Giveaway

I thought about not doing this this time, but I need something to post tonight, so I figured I might as well participate in the Quarterly Bloggy Giveaway.

Here it is; my version of the giveaway:

I just made a few more tea wallets for some after-Christmas orders. The following photos show the fabrics you can choose from to pick two tea wallets for the giveaway. The buttons will probably be different than what you see here because I get my buttons from vintage stores and you never know what's in the jar!

The insides look like this:
 

I'm willing to ship these internationally, but will take out the tea in the event someone overseas wins.

If you care to order any, you can find information for doing so here.

Comment away if you care to win! Contest will end at 12 noon CST on Friday. Winner announced shortly thereafter.

Also, I'm still in limbo regarding what to do about getting my 10-year-old's ears re-pierced. If you have some thoughts on that, would you weigh in here por favor?

Updated at 12:00 CST on Friday to say that comments are officially closed. Winner announced shortly!

The winning number was 86! Congrats to Hedi. Hedi, I've sent you an email already

Thanks to everyone for playing along!

The Sneaky Birthday

You'd think that with this being the 7th time I'm experiencing this I would have it down by now. You'd also think that with her reminding me of the count down every day for the past two weeks that I'd have it down by now. Neither would be true. K6 will be turning into K7 next week. Every year it sneaks up on me.

She's the child who shares her birthday with Craig, who couldn't care less about his birthday except for the fact that he shares it with K6, which redeems it for him. In terms of a January-December calendar year, they go first in our family. In terms of the order of birthday season, though, they go last. Birthday season kicks off in August each year. From there we have a birthday (in our immediate family) in August, October, November, December, and finally February. When you consider that the three major holiday players are also thrown into that batch, it's easier to see how after the first week of January we sigh deeply and think we're done.

Not so much.

I never know what to get this one. She's number three so we've pretty much got it already. We're only about five weeks out from Christmas by the time her birthday gets here so there's nothing much she needs. And yet here we are. Birthday looming, mother unprepared.

I have no idea why I let this happen every single year but I do. I may have to quickly start back up a sewing stretch for this. She could use some new clothes and I've been meaning to make her a personalized pillow case.

Regardless of what we come up with, it's fun to see "Sassy" girl become more of a little girl and less of a baby girl. She's silly and sensitive and sweet. And in just ten days she will be seven.

Time to start thinking about it now, don't you think?

Kumon-Hack

Remember when I was thinking about enrolling my oldest in a Kumon program? I took her to an assessment and learned about the program. I'm telling you, I was tempted. I was tempted because I thought it would take all the pressure off of me to get her up to speed on her math.

Then reason kicked in. Reason in the form of $100/month tuition. I gathered from the assessment that the goal is mastery plus speed. They figure out where the kids have mastered concepts quickly and start them there to build confidence. They then work them up little by little. They do homework every single day. They don't do any direct teaching. And the $100/month is for what again? Paper I guess.

Anyway, being the loyal Math-U-See users that we are, I went to the MUS website and played around with the worksheet generator. I made my own "Kumon" like packets for M10. The file on my computer is called "Memon." Get it? Because it's me making the worksheets instead of Kumon? *groan*

Anyway, I made several worksheets with 125 problems on them each. She was blazing through them in about 4 minutes each and getting 100% right. Success. And confidence. We've had no math struggles this week, even in her normal MUS lessons. She just needs it proved to herself that she can do this.

Today we moved up to concepts one step harder. Again, 100% correct and fast.

The goober has been yanking my chain all this time. She can do this. SHE CAN DO THIS!

I think she has surprised herself. She likes that I'm making the sheets for her. She sort of even likes the timing aspect of it. We'll eventually move up to the hard-for-her stuff that she so easily gets stuck on, but I think by the time we get there she just might have forgotten that she's "supposed" to hate math.

And we're accomplishing this for the price of some printer paper and ink. No tuition, no drive across town.

That's my kind of math program.

7 Quick Takes Friday

1. K6 (aside from making a plethora of silly videos of herself) has been busy learning to read this year. She will complete lesson 100 of Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons this morning. I told her in November that if she made it all the way through I'd take them all out to see a movie. Problem: there aren't a lot of great choices in kid movies available in the theater right now. I'm rather picky about movie selections when paying to take four kids to the theater. She wants to see Hotel for Dogs. I'm kind of leaning toward Inkheart. We'll see later on this morning I guess.

2. I've purchased the 100 Easy Lessons book twice now. When I was teaching M10 to read (many moons ago), this was THE book. When it was C8's turn, The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading became THE book. In truth, I like Ordinary Parent's Guide much better and it did a great job with C8 at that time. As such, I gave away my copy of 100 Easy Lessons because I figured I didn't need it anymore. Wrong. K6 really needed that method with the arrows and such. She needs the constant reminder to go from left to right. The OPG wasn't doing it for her, so I had to repurchase 100 Easy Lessons.

Moral of the story? Don't get rid of anything until all of your kids are past the age of needing it. You never know - what didn't work for one very well might be just the ticket for another. I learned that in 1 Easy Lesson. One easy, expensive lesson.

3. A lot more of my high school class has joined Facebook recently. They are now posting pictures. Pictures like this one:

I'm the jailbird in the front row. 6th grade, 1986. It has been officially confirmed that yes, I was indeed the dork I remember myself to be.

By the way, the teacher in this photo is one of my favorite teachers of all time. She taught Social Studies and really made us feel like we'd been to the countries we were studying. She went to many of the countries herself and had all kinds of things to show us and food to share. It was a great class. Good job, Miss Ballinger!

4. I'm not sure I like remembering what a dork I was in school.

5. I had a raging headache from 11:45pm Wednesday through 5:00pm Thursday. I had no hope it would go away at 3:00 Thursday and canceled everything I had scheduled for the rest of the day. It finally went away. So thankful.

6. We've been back in the full swing of school for a good three weeks now. I need another extended break so I can get my planning act together again. I discovered this free web-based lesson planner and hour tracker last week. It could very well be the solution I've been looking for. Now I need the time to figure it out and input everything.

7. The girls and I took a picnic lunch to the seminary today and enjoyed it with one Andi Ashworth. The weather was cool, but not cold. The company was delightful. I only see her once every 18-24 months. It is worth the wait every time.

For more quick takes, visit Jennifer at the Conversion Diary.

Conduit for the Holy Spirit

I helped out at the Covenant Seminary Bookstore today for a couple of hours. When I walked in, Nick was on the phone and I heard him tell the person he was talking to that he would send The Holy Spirit right out to them.

And all this time I thought it was God who did that. Now we know.