Homeschooling with K12

     I will start my homeschool curriculum reviews with K12 because I find that is what a lot of people ask about since they do a lot of advertising. First off, k12 has two divisions; public and independent. I have not personally used the public portion, but I will share what little I do know. The public division is public schooling at home. It is free, but requires you to have Internet. They even send your child a laptop. They send you all the books and necessary materials. You are required to log on every day and record how much time was spent on school, because there is a minimum requirement. Everyday when the student logs on, he will see his list of daily assignments. Some days he will log on to a virtual classroom and listen to a teacher give a lesson. When it's "that time of year" he will have to go to an approved testing center to take the standardized tests.

     Independent k12 has a lot of similarities to the public version minus the government nosing into things. Basically, you pay for all of the supplies, including access to a teacher if you want, and access to the online class for 1 year. You pay for your own computer (how many houses don't already have one of these), but do not have a time requirement.  You can sign up any time and have access to it for 1 year. If the student is still not complete with the course, you can then pay for monthly access. If he finishes early, then you can go ahead and purchase the next grade level.

     We used only k12 for 2 years, but decided to try and cut costs this year. I'll tell more about that some other time. K12 was the solution I had been looking for and needed in my life at that time. (That's the beauty about homeschooling. It can change as your needs change.) I had 3 kids in school and a baby. Plus we were pretty heavy into putting a lot of hours into our house we are building while living in it. (Yeah, that's another 50 posts.) I did not have the time, energy, or brain power to develop 3 different lesson plans, or even to create one that could encompass the age range I had. We had tried a computer based curriculum before but I didn't want the kids spending that much time looking at a screen. We had used a curriculum that I printed everything out, including what to say when, but I didn't have that amount of time to spend with 3 kids while tending to a baby and house building.

     K12 is a blend of computer lessons, book work, teacher/mom involvement, and student led. The younger the child, the more parental involvement is needed. Parents are gradually phased out so that high school is entirely student led. This one of my favorite parts of K12. I didn't want to just drop the ball on my kids and say, "Hey, you're on your own this year."

My kids really enjoyed the art program. I really liked all the books that came, saving me hours upon hours at the library, looking for the right book to cover a specific topic for a certain grade level. I had to make a rule that school books (in the desks) could not be read until it was moved to the open bookshelves when that unit was completed. Otherwise, the kids would go around reading all the books and inevitably the book we needed for school would come up missing. I also really enjoyed the history books used. I'll link up some of the books here:

Food Storage Banana Bread

My kids have been wanting me to make banana bread with freeze dried bananas. Mostly because we never seem to have bananas when they want banana bread. Well, I finally did it and it wasn't bad. It was actually good. Fresh ingredients are still my first choice but if those are not available, I can make banana bread that my family will enjoy. Here's how I did it.

I started with my usual chocolate chip banana bread recipe from a Hershey's Chocolate Cookbookand made a few substitutions.

First I blended some Freeze-Dried Banana Slices and water in my Magic Bullet. I needed about 1 cup of mashed banana so I just eyeballed it. Next time, I'll measure it out for you.



That got dumped into the mixing bowl. Then I measured in the fresh ground hard white wheat flour and sugar.

Next came the baking powder, salt, and baking soda.

Then I pushed the Whole Egg Powder through a little sieve, because sometimes, if it's lumpy, it doesn't blend well.

In went the palm shortening.

Started the Mixer and dumped in the needed water to make up for the egg powder. Based on the amount of egg powder I used, I needed 4 tablespoons of water. The dough still seemed too thick, so I added 1 more tablespoon. Once I got the right consistency, I mixed in the chocolate chips. Then it went in a greased bread pan and then in the oven. It barely had time to cool after baking before it was devoured. I forgot to take a finished picture. Sorry.

Here's the original recipe from this Hershey's chocolate cookbook with my substitutions next to it.


2 cups unsifted all purpose flour....ground hard white wheat
1 cup sugar
1 t baking powder
1 t salt
1/2 t baking soda
1 cup mashed ripe bananas (about 3 small)....freeze dried banana slices (about 1 1/2 cups) and water blended to banana consistency
1/2 cup shortening....palm shortening
2 eggs....4 T whole egg powder and 4 T water (more or less as needed)
1 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup walnuts


Grease bottom only of 9x5x3 inch loaf pan; set aside. Combine all ingredients except chips and nuts in large mixer bowl; blend well on medium speed. Stir in chips and nuts.
Pour into prepared pan. Bake at 350 for 60-70 minutes or until cake tester comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pan. Cool completely on wire rack.


P.S. I'll add pictures as soon as I figure out how to.

Homeschooling

     As soon as someone finds out we homeschool, the questions and comments that come out of their mouth are about as predictable as the sunrise. How long? Why? How? I could never do that. Curriculum? Forgive me if I don't answer those questions with jump out my chair excitement, but I've had the same conversation a million times. If per chance you do not homeschool, and you meet someone who does, dont feel the need to ask those questions in order to make polite conversation. Really. If you're not interested in homeschooling, it is okay to talk to us about other stuff.  Homeschooling moms actually love to talk about anything non-school non-kid related, even if it is hard to do sometimes. Our brains spend so much time focused on kids and school, it can be hard to focus it on other things.  However, I do love talking homeschool with people who are genuinely interested, especially if the other person has something to give to the conversation.

     There are a million and two websites discussing all things homeschool.  Seriously, I don't think it's humanly possible to read them all. The common thread you will see on all of them is that what works for one person/kid/parent won't necessarily be what works for another.  I will share our stories, thoughts, and reasons here on this blog. Our whole story would be way too long for one post so it will be in bits and pieces as I find the time.

Here are some homeschooling books to get you started. The first few I picked up for free on March 3,  2013. The Milton Hershey book is because I want to take my kids to Hershey, PA. Wouldn't that be a fun history field trip!

 

Keeping Up With My Readers

     I love my children and I am happy that I've instilled a love of reading in them. Maybe it had nothing to do with me. Maybe it is a gene they were born with. Either way, there is one downside. In an effort to avoid hearing the dreaded phrase, "there's nothing to read", I am on a constant search for good books for them.

     We bought the oldest a Kindle last year. It took a while but I think we are finally utilizing it. First, we installed the Kindle app on our Apple devices (it's available for desktops, laptops, and Android, too). With an Amazon Prime membership, kindle users can borrow one digital book a month for free. That is not nearly enough for my readers so we installed the Overdrive app on our devices. Overdrive Media allows access to library e-catalogs allowing you to check out e-books and audio books.
   
     Another way to extend your access to Kindle books is by joining Lendle. Lendle is basically a book sharing club. Did you know that some Kindle books are lendable? To find out if a book you have is lendable, open the kindle book description in Amazon, scroll down to the Product Details section, and then look for the label Lending. It will either say enabled or not enabled. Join Lendle and register all of your lendable books and then you can start searching the database for books you would like to borrow. For more in depth details about how it works, read the Lendle FAQs page. Lendle also sends out a daily newsletter listing a couple of bargain books and several free books.

     My kids definitely are not all electronic. They still love the feel of a book in their hands, and they still beg to go to the library. We stop going to the library for months at a time because: 1. The driving distance; 2. The amount of late fees we rack up is insane; 3. Even with a 10 book each allowance, all library books have been read within 2 days (sometimes the same day). We buy books from library sales, go to book swaps, and gift books. Books really are the kids favorite Christmas and Birthday gifts.  Our bookshelves are full and have to be periodically culled. Usually they are taken to a book swap but occasionally they are given to friends or donated to the library. In order for a book to stay in our permanent collection it must meet one or more of the following criteria:

• Is a classic
• Is educational
• Is a modern "going to be a classic someday"

Some books in our permanent collection are the Michael Vey series, the Artemis Fowl series, Swiss Family Robinson, Hardy Boys, and various school books we've picked up over the last 10 years of homeschooling.

Here are some free kindle books for kids today, March 1, 2013: (please double check the price before purchasing)

Really, Another Blog

     I enjoy reading blogs, but really there is a never ending supply of things to read on the web. Do I really need to put more out there? No, not really, but I am any way. Why? The next 3 paragraphs may not seem related at all, but, don't worry, in the end they will come together.

     My husband and I moved to the country 12 years ago and started learning about country life and provident living. Things like raising chickens, wells, solar energy, and more. We are not experts at any of these things but we do have plenty of real life experience. Suburban expansion is at full throttle and we meet so many people who want to know about our experiences and glean from the knowledge we have gained.

     We shop online a lot. One of our favorite online sites is Amazon. Don't get me wrong, we shop around for best prices, best shipping value, and reputability of the store. Quite frequently Amazon fits the bill but not always. So when we are asked, "where do I get one of those?", the answer is almost always, "Amazon.” I was in a gathering of moms recently when the topic of what do we buy from Amazon came up. The consensus was, "everything."

    I have been following a lovely blog that posted free kindle books on the topics of homesteading, health, and homeschool. I am always on the lookout for good quality and good priced books for my voracious readers. She recently revealed just how she finds all those free books. I started looking for books and posting a few on Facebook. Amazon recently made changes so that blogger no longer offers the free service of finding those free books. Out of curiosity I looked into the Amazon program she had been affiliated with and what changes were causing so much uproar in the free book blogosphere.

     What I found is basically a referral or commission program. The change was that in order to receive referral fees you cannot only advertise free books. I thought I should join because I am constantly sending people to Amazon. I needed a website to post the links and figured that, if I did it in blog form, I could write up posts about all the things we have learned. Then we don't have to keep having the same conversation with different people.

     Here's the format I am planning on using. I will write about things like our homeschool journey, my constant search for good books, and provident living. Whenever I mention a product, I will hyperlink it to where we purchased ours, if possible. If you go through any Amazon link on my blog and make a purchase, I will get a tiny percentage of your entire purchase. So, if you are planning on making a purchase, please use my blog as a portal to get you there.

     There you have it. I am combining what I am already doing (online shopping) an what I need to do (put our stories/experiences out there to make sharing them easier and so we don't forget) with the possibility of earning a little extra to help provide books for my readers.