Home School in the Woods {Schoolhouse Crew Review}

Usually I wait until we finish a project before I show it off on my blog. Our latest review product is only partway finished, but I couldn't wait any longer to share it.

Home School in the Woods specializes in hands-on history materials, and we've been engrossed in their "The 20th Century in America" Lap Pak for the past several weeks.

I downloaded the lap pak materials and found it fairly easy to navigate among the individual pages to get everything printed correctly. I found the instructions to be very clear in terms of printing and assembling everything, and I especially appreciated the diagrams showing where to attach all of the mini projects to the final lapbook. The downloaded materials also include a text booklet containing much of the background information needed to complete the assignments.

Brennan (6th grade), Addison (9th grade) and I worked together on the projects for our lap paks. For some of the sections, there were lengthy passages to be read out of the text booklet. These sections provided great note-taking practice for both students. Addison took her notes and wrote a paragraph summarizing the information, and Brennan used his notes to dictate key points for me to write down in the project booklet.

As we worked through different projects, we appreciated that we weren't doing the same thing every day. The mini booklets in this lap pak are each carefully (and creatively) designed to reflect the topic at hand. We not only studied a different topic each day, we created a different final project each day. Addison particularly praised the wonderful graphics that were so much fun to color.

There are 22 different projects included in the lap pak, each touching on a different aspect of American Life in the 20th Century. So far, we have studied World Wars, political events, social movements, disasters, medical advancements, and more. This week it looks like we'll be covering architecture, literature, music, and sports figures. Many of the topics have enough information in the text booklet, but we often found ourselves using the basic text as a jumping off point for further exploration using either online searches or materials I already had on our bookshelves.

We look forward to finishing the project and having all of the assignments added to our lap books (as they are in the following sample picture from Home School in the Woods).

Home School in the Woods recommends using these materials with third through eighth graders. Based on our family's experiences we'd recommend waiting until late elementary or middle school to begin this project. Addison, my ninth grader, was perhaps the person that loved it most, and it was a great supplement to her high school American History course this year.

"The 20th Century in America" Lap Pak from Home School in the Woods costs $21.95 for the downloadable version and $22.95 (plus shipping) for a CD containing all of the pdf files.

Rarely am I as impressed with a review product as I have been with this Lap Pak from Home School in the Woods. The creative activities coordinated well with our regular curriculum. More importantly, these projects inspired us to dig deeper into the subject matter and explore topics in greater depth than we normally do.

Addison lists this product as one of her all-time favorite review products, and my enthusiastic recommendation too.


©2009-2013 Through the Calm and Through the Storm. All rights reserved. Photos and content may not be reproduced. http://throughthecalmandthroughthestorm.blogspot.com

Be alert! {Scripture and a Snapshot}

"Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour." 1 Peter 5:8 (NIV)

"Keep a cool head. Stay alert. The Devil is poised to pounce, and would like nothing better than to catch you napping." 1 Peter 5:8 (MSG)

I took this picture of Brennan waiting anxiously to see where the batter would hit the next pitch. He was alert and ready in case the ball came his way. The way he was anxiously watching the batter made me think of the way we should be alert at all times. I couldn't decide which translation of 1 Peter 5:8 I liked better so I chose both.

©2009-2013 Through the Calm and Through the Storm. All rights reserved. Photos and content may not be reproduced. http://throughthecalmandthroughthestorm.blogspot.com

Random Five on Friday April 26th

1. Last Saturday morning, I turned on the radio and Mandisa's "Good Morning" song came on. As I sang along (rather loudly), Lauren remarked, "Isn't this a good way to start our day?"

2. My email inbox is down to the single digits. I wish I had paid attention to how many were in there about a week ago. I know there was at least a hundred unread emails, and I may have been around 1000 emails in there all together.

3. As I type this, my oldest daughter is sound asleep on the tile floor of our living room. She's trying out a new sleeping mat in preparation for next weekend's hiking/camping trip. I hope she got a good night's sleep.

4. I'm busy planning our school curriculum for next year, and our box of books from Sonlight is scheduled to arrive later today. I can't wait to see what's in store for Addison next year.

5. Since two of the words in Random Five on Friday start with the letter F, I'm also going to count this post as my contribution to Blogging Through the Alphabet this week.

©2009-2013 Through the Calm and Through the Storm. All rights reserved. Photos and content may not be reproduced. http://throughthecalmandthroughthestorm.blogspot.com

Think Back Thursday: Rainbows

Debbie's Think Back Thursday post this week is featuring pictures of rainbows (or rain). In looking back through my files, I found three sets of rainbow pictures that I could share.

I've never seen a rainbow quite as bright or a sky quite so blue as the one I saw while driving near our house in Arizona. (Note: I didn't touch up the color in this picture, and I still think it looked better in real life.)

One cloudy, rainy evening in Arkansas, Lauren was playing outside and came in to tell me about this rainbow. We made the rainbow craft project the next morning.

Even though I shared this picture recently as part of a Scripture and a Snapshot post, I can't help but including it here too. I took the picture of this rainbow from the window of Lauren's room at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. It reminds me of the hope God gave us during those long days of waiting.

I'm including my rainbow pictures with the others that are participating in the Think-Back-Thursday challenge at Debbie's Digest. Click the button below if you'd like to participate.

©2009-2013 Through the Calm and Through the Storm. All rights reserved. Photos and content may not be reproduced. http://throughthecalmandthroughthestorm.blogspot.com

A long-overdue read-aloud update

My friend Debra at Footprints in the Butter has a long-standing read aloud challenge that I've often participated in. I've been reading aloud to my children over the past few weeks, but I haven't taken the time to blog about what we've been reading.

Brennan: A couple months ago, we read The Wednesday Wars in which the main character (a boy roughly Brennan's age) mentions several times that his favorite book is Treasure Island. We decided that we should read it next, and we ended up doing a unit study from Progeny Press to go along with it. We finished Treasure Island last Friday, and yesterday Brennan suggested that we read A Week in the Woods. It's his absolute favorite book, and he's listened to it on audiobook a gazillion times. He wanted me to read it to him, though, and I'm happy to spend a week reading something easy and enjoyable.

Lauren: We're still reading along through the Betsy-Tacy books, and we're on Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill. There's one more ebook in the anthology I purchased, and then I think it's my turn to choose the next book.

During our school time, we're working on an American Girl lapbook, and I've been reading Meet Molly to her. This lapbook didn't turn out to be as much fun as hoped, though, so we probably won't be continuing on with the other characters. I found a lapbook that corresponds to Charlotte's Web that we may start next.

Lauren's also been listening to lots of audiobooks lately. It's fun to hear some of my childhood favorites by Beverly Cleary and Judy Blume, but also a bit odd to hear the newer books about Ramona and Fudge.

©2009-2013 Through the Calm and Through the Storm. All rights reserved. Photos and content may not be reproduced. http://throughthecalmandthroughthestorm.blogspot.com

A Simplified Goal Planning Monday (or Tuesday)

I've fallen in sort of a rut with my Goal Planning Monday posts, and I sometimes find myself just coming up with a goal so that I have something to write. Many of my original long-term goals have become habits so it's not really necessary for me to post them each and every week.

Yesterday I was reading an ebook about organization, and it recommended starting each day by prioritizing one single task -- only one, the one single thing that you must get done that day. I can't limit myself to one task per week, but I can reduce the number of jobs I'm trying to tackle at one time. Therefore, I am whittling down my traditional goal planning update this week.

My top priorities for this week:

1. Put all of the winter clothes away. There may be a few cool evenings at the baseball game in the next few weeks, but I seriously doubt that I still need snow pants hanging in the laundry room.

2. Streamline some of the things I need to organize. I've already set up google calendars and have it syncing on all of the devices I regularly use. I need to work some more on cleaning out and organizing my gmail accounts and figuring out what other tools would be useful. I'm reading Paperless Home Organization and trying to implement some of her strategies.

©2009-2013 Through the Calm and Through the Storm. All rights reserved. Photos and content may not be reproduced. http://throughthecalmandthroughthestorm.blogspot.com

Progeny Press Literature Guide to Treasure Island {Schoolhouse Crew Review}

I think I mentioned about a month ago about how Brennan's read-aloud had frequent references to Treasure Island. I considered adding Treasure Island to our reading list and then was excited to see that Progeny Press was offering their Treasure Island Study Guide for crew members to review.

Last year, Addison and Brennan used two of the Progeny Press literature guides for a review, and we were very pleased with how they worked for our family.

The Treasure Island Study Guide suggests that the student read through the entire novel in the first week of their study. Over the next eight to ten weeks, the student can work through the study guide at a pace of one section per week. Since I was reading the book with Brennan as a read-aloud, we were not able to read it completely in a single week. Instead, we read through a section of the book over the course of a few days and then paused to discuss the corresponding questions. We spent roughly a week on each of the six sections in Treasure Island and a few additional days on the pre-reading and overview sections.

Since Treasure Island was divided into sections when Robert Louis Stevenson wrote it, the study guide follows along with those same divisions. Each part of the guide has a vocabulary assignment, factual questions about the story, a "Thinking About the Story" section, and a "Dig Deeper" section.

The "Thinking About the Story" section often introduces a literary analysis term such as mood or dialect. For one section of Treasure Island, the questions asked us to figure out which of the chapters ended in a cliffhanger. The "Dig Deeper" section typically asks the student to look up several scripture references and then answer questions about characters in the story.

Brennan and I worked through this study together. Although it is designed for middle school aged students (5th through 8th grade), Treasure Island is a bit too advanced for Brennan's reading level, especially considering the pirate dialect used throughout.

As we worked, I often found myself referring to the teacher's guide. For instance, in Part II, we were given the quote, "You're a lad, you are, but you're as smart as paint." We were supposed to give both the literal meaning and the understood meaning of the phrase "smart as paint," and I was thankful to find out that we weren't alone in thinking that it didn't make sense to favorably compare a person's intelligence to an inanimate object.

In other instances, I thought that our discussion was more complete with an outline of some points to make while answering the question. For instance, several of the questions in the materials for Part III talked about the way Stevenson changes the point of view and uses different narrators. The answer guide suggests that this change of narrator allows the author to write vividly about events taking place simultaneously. Also, the entire story becomes richer when we get to experience the action in multiple locations and get a closer look at multiple characters.

According to the way Progeny Press divides their studies on the website, it appeared as if the Treasure Island Study Guide was intended for a middle school audience of fifth through eighth graders. Brennan, my sixth grader, was not able to use this Progeny Press study guide independently. I later found that the guide itself gives a recommended grade level of seventh through tenth graders. In our case, it did work out for us to work together and discuss the topics addressed in the study guide. It would perhaps work better with an older student or with a strong reader that is already skilled at literary analysis.

All of Progeny Press's Middle School study guides cost $16.99 for an instant download of the materials. Other studies available at this level include The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis, Holes by Louis Sachar, Carry On, Mr. Bowditch by Jean Lee Latham, and others of varying difficulty.


©2009-2013 Through the Calm and Through the Storm. All rights reserved. Photos and content may not be reproduced. http://throughthecalmandthroughthestorm.blogspot.com

Random Five on Friday, April 19th

1. Eighteen years ago I was close enough to feel the blast from the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City.

2. I started doing laundry on Monday morning, and it's still not all put away. Some weeks are like that.

3. Brennan spent much of his free time this week working on this cool way of displaying his Nerf guns. (Is there any way I count that as an educational activity for the week?)

4. If you dehydrate onions for a camping meal, it's a good idea to put the dehydrator outside. Even then, the smell is awfully strong.

5. Today is Blue and Green day for Donate Life America. Lauren and I picked up a Donate Life temporary tattoo when we were at the hospital this week, and she'll be wearing it proudly. I'd like to offer a very special thank you to everyone who has registered to be an organ donor.

©2009-2013 Through the Calm and Through the Storm. All rights reserved. Photos and content may not be reproduced. http://throughthecalmandthroughthestorm.blogspot.com

Timeline Builder from Knowledge Quest {Schoolhouse Crew Review}

I've tried to use various styles of timelines over the past nine years of homeschooling my children, but I always struggled with wanting everything to turn out perfect. When faced with the blank pages in the timeline notebook that Addison got as a first grader, I worried about what would happen if we wrote the information too big and ran out of room to put things in it next year. When I pulled out a few sheets of cardstock to tape together my own timeline, I worried about correctly spacing the dates on the line. Too often I just left the timeline activities undone.

When I heard that Knowledge Quest has a new Timeline Builder app for the iPad, I thought it would be perfect. With an app, I can continue to tweak things until everything is arranged as perfectly as I want to make it.

One of the first things I did after I installed the app was to teach Lauren about Timelines -- what information they can contain and how they are organized. I love the way that we could pick our own photos to illustrate each event. (Note: The exact dates would normally be included on the timeline; I erased them for privacy purposes.)

Lauren caught on to the timeline concept very quickly and started creating her own timelines. Here's a screenshot of one that she made for one of her American Girl dolls. She made another one showing her own lifetime, including the dates of her birthday party, when we moved, and when we saw a local theater production.

I then asked Addison to see how the Timeline app worked with some of her high school level work. She unfortunately had expectations that this app couldn't quite meet. Her first attempt was using the app to create a timeline to correspond with the week's worth of history events that she normally puts on a paper timeline. It's possible to zoom in to make all of the events/dates readable, but it's difficult to get an overview of that period in history when everything is mushed together.

Addison didn't like the way that each person's lifetime was put on the same exact line as everyone else's which resulted in just a thick blue line at the bottom of her timeline. She had hoped that the timeline could look more like a bar graph with each famous person having a separate line to indicate their life. She also wished that there was a way to make a timeline covering people of the 19th Century but including their correct birth dates. As you can see from the screenshot above, she has the correct year of each person's death but had to set their birth to the first year on this specific timeline (1800 AD).

We found that the Timeline Builder app works best for either a short period of history or a period that doesn't have a lot of important dates. We created this timeline on the day that we were studying science and invention for our 20th Century lapbook. One of our favorite parts of doing this timeline was looking up the pictures to use as illustrations. The Timeline Builder app easily links to wikipedia so that we could find a suitable picture. We found all sorts of other fun information while we were clicking around to find the perfect image.

Although Timeline Builder hasn't completely replaced paper timelines in our house, it has its own valuable place. When Lauren thinks she's just playing with the app, she's actually learning a lot of basic thinking skills about organizing information, determining the sequence of events, visualizing time concepts, and more. When we're studying a relatively small number of events on a single subject, the Timeline Builder app helps us organize the information for easy reference.

I look forward to seeing what other information we can organize using Timeline Builder. Maybe I should make a quick timeline of Lauren's past medical history so that I can refer to it during appointments. Wouldn't that be cool?

Timeline Builder is available for use on iPads and normally costs $6.99. Right now, it looks like it is discounted to $4.99. I have no idea how long it will remain at the lower price.



©2009-2013 Through the Calm and Through the Storm. All rights reserved. Photos and content may not be reproduced. http://throughthecalmandthroughthestorm.blogspot.com

Eighteen Years Ago

I can't remember exactly what I was doing eighteen years ago today.

I do know that I was just weeks (days) away from my college graduation. I was fine-tuning my teaching resume and sending it out to all the school districts in our area. I was probably cleaning up our tiny campus apartment so that I could show it off to my family when they came. I was also probably deciding what to pack when we moved to our temporary home in Texas for Tim's summer internship.

This Friday is April 19th. I definitely remember what I was doing on April 19, 1995.

My last semester of college classes was relatively light. I finished my student teaching in the fall, and I was just taking the remainder of the odds-and-ends classes needed for graduation. All of my classes except one were on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I made arrangements with the professor to complete that class without actually showing up for her lectures. I usually woke up on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays when the phone rang with the automated substitute teacher system from one of the school districts in our area.

On Wednesday, April 19, 1995, none of the schools in the area needed me to substitute, and I decided to go to that child development class, the one I rarely attended. Shortly after class started, the windows in our building rattled and the ground seemed to shake. We had no idea what was happening.

At 9:02 a.m. a bomb exploded in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City, about 12 miles south of campus. More than 680 people were injured and 168 people were killed, including 19 children under the age of 6.

Eighteen years ago I learned that bad things happen to good people.

I didn't understand then, and I still don't understand. I don't understand 9-11, Sandy Hook, or the bombings at the Boston Marathon either.

Eighteen years ago, I learned that love can triumph over evil. I learned that stories of kindness and faith and hope can be found in the midst of tragedy.

Eighteen years ago, I learned that sometimes the best thing that you can do is pray and that sometimes your heart aches wishing you could do more.

Eighteen years ago, I trusted that God was still in control, even when things don't make sense . . .  perhaps especially when things don't make sense.


Since Eighteen starts with E, I'm going to count it as my contribution to Blogging Through the Alphabet this week.

©2009-2013 Through the Calm and Through the Storm. All rights reserved. Photos and content may not be reproduced. http://throughthecalmandthroughthestorm.blogspot.com

Leadership Garden Legacy {Schoolhouse Crew Review}

Leader Garden Press believes that one of the most important things we can do as parents or teachers is to encourage children to be good leaders. Their Leadership Garden metaphor shows children how to grow good leadership skills and how to weed out negative thoughts, feelings, or behaviors.

For the purposes of the review, I received the U.N.I.Q.U.E.: Growing the Leader Within book, the U.N.I.Q.U.E. Kids: Growing My Leadership Garden for children ages 5-12, and The Leadership Garden Guidebook. I also received mp3 audio downloads for both books and printable pdf files to use with my children.

I was initially impressed with the approach these materials take in terms of defining leadership.

"True leadership grows when you combine good choices together, and bind them with love and respect." (U.N.I.Q.U.E. Kids, page 33)

The U.N.I.Q.U.E. Kids book was designed to appeal to younger children with colorful, pleasing pictures on nearly every two-paged spread. According to its Lexile measurement, it appears that the independent reading level similar to that of Charlotte's Web.

These materials are not designed for children to read independently, though. According to the website description, the book is "designed as an interactive leadership development tool with the participation of grownups or older students who can read the book with children (ages 5-12) and provide mentoring and reinforcement of the concepts and discussion." I agree that the materials were too difficult to be used by a student working independently, and in fact, I found the ideas to be too complex for me to use with my younger children (ages 7 and 12).

After introducing the concept of growing helpful seeds in a leadership garden, the book discusses six qualities that help a leader grow -- the words that make up the U.N.I.Q.U.E. acronym. Within each of these six qualities, there are multiple sub-points. Often these subpoints could be full lessons in themselves and would need more explanations than were given in the text. For instance, in the Nurturing Meadow the book lists six leader-friendly gardening practices, including such concepts as being non-judgmental, eliminating blame, and eradicating victimization. Each one gives a two sentence explanation, but my children need me to provide more examples and ways to practically apply the concept to their everyday lives.

Since Addison is older than the recommended age for the kids book, I offered her the choice to read part of either the kids book or the adult book. She was intrigued by the idea of becoming a better leader, but she wasn't sure that the concepts in this book were a good fit for her. She read some of the passages that talked about "digging out the harmful, feelings, and behaviors that grow into weeds" and felt like there was a huge something missing. She wishes the program could have addressed the role of God in bringing about such changes and find it difficult to imagine being able to do all of this by her own power (i.e. without relying on God's help).

As I read through the U.N.I.Q.U.E.: Growing the Leader Within book myself, I found a lot of sections where I really had to slow down and concentrate on what was being discussed. It was not a book that I could read through while I was distracted by other things going on in the same room; I had to set aside time where I could concentrate on the material. It definitely has some good thoughts, perhaps even some ideas that I should mull over for a while. I hesitate to recommend it to other busy moms, though, because I know that I do much better with books that are organized for reading in short bursts between caring for my children.

The U.N.I.Q.U.E.: Growing the Leader Within and U.N.I.Q.U.E. Kids: Growing My Leadership Garden paperback books each cost $18.95. An mp3 audiobook version of the adult book costs $14.95 and an mp3 version of the kids book costs $8.95. In addition, Leadership Garden Legacy also offers The Leadership Garden Guidebook for $18.95 and a U.N.I.Q.U.E. Kids Activity Guide and Journal as a pdf download for $8.95.

For a limited time, Leadership Garden Legacy is offering the TOS Community a "Spring Special Discount" of 20% on all of their Empowerment Toools. To receive your discount, enter the code: TOS-SS20D upon checkout. This code will expire on May 31, 2013.


©2009-2013 Through the Calm and Through the Storm. All rights reserved. Photos and content may not be reproduced. http://throughthecalmandthroughthestorm.blogspot.com

Supercharged Science {Schoolhouse Crew Review}

Every once in a while a review opportunity comes along that challenges me to move out of my comfort zone. I've always taken a traditional approach to science instruction. I'll read (or assign) a section of a science book to my kids, and then after they are introduced to the concept, I'll consider adding in a science demonstration or experiment to reinforce what we just learned. Often, those hands-on science activities are seen as "extras" and fall by the wayside.

Supercharged Science uses a completely different way of teaching science, one that's completely opposite of the way I've always done. Their e-Science program starts with the experiments. Not only does it start with experiments, it's all about the experiments.

Perhaps the best way to explain their approach is to quote briefly from the The Best Way to Learn Science portion of their website:

We recommend teaching science from the inside-out, meaning that you start with an experiment or two that really hooks your kids . . . the kind that makes them (and you) say: "Wow!" or "Cool!"

Let them roll around and play with the experiment for awhile, and when they come running back to you with questions like "Why did that happen?" or "What's going on here?", then they've signaled you that they are ready for the more academic reading and lesson videos.

Shortly after receiving my e-Science subscription, I had Brennan look around at some of the "Getting Started" activities. He first made a flying contraption made of an index card and a straw. He then asked me to find the correct type of water bottle so that he could make the hovercraft pictured below.

One thing that I really appreciated about these materials is that the directions for each experiment are given as short video clips. Although Brennan could read the instructions for an experiment, I know that he's more likely to do the project the way it was designed if he can just watch a video. For students that learn well with videos, some of the lesson materials are also video based.

Many of the science activities only required supplies that were easily found around the house and others were easily found when I was out running my regular errands (at the grocery store, Target, etc). For instance, Brennan explored three different types of levers by using an old board that we found in the backyard, a toolbox, some books, and a heavy box. Many of his other activities used some of the gazillion balls we have thrown in a bag in the garage. The required materials for each unit are conveniently listed in a single shopping list so that I could plan ahead when choosing an area to explore.

The lessons cover both basic concepts and very complex subjects. I've often seen activity ideas suitable for teaching elementary science concepts, but I've never seen so many ideas for teaching high schoolers as there are in this curriculum. Addison helped Brennan with an acceleration demonstration that would've been perfect for her Physical Science class a few years ago. I hoped that I could convince her to do some of the High School level Chemistry experiments as a supplement to the class she is taking this year, but many of those required materials from a chemistry kit that would have to be ordered. Actually, when I looked at the two chemistry units, I realized that Supercharged Science would have given her an excellent high-school level science course. It includes tons of hands-on work as well as readings that remind me of my college textbooks. Perhaps I should've just chosen Supercharged Science in the first place.

We've been using Supercharged Science for about six weeks, and we've probably done more hands-on science in the past six weeks than we did in the past six years combined. This is by far the best way that I've ever seen to add hands-on learning to any science curriculum. Better yet, this program makes it possible to turn science lessons inside-out, focus on doing science (as opposed to reading about science), and create enthusiastic science students. I can't say that I now have budding scientists begging to do science activities every day, but I suspect we all just need more time to wrap our minds around such a completely different approach to our studies.

The activities in e-Science are organized into 20 different units (and a few extra areas such as the scientific method, science fair ideas, parent resources, etc). Online access to all of the materials for Kindergarten through 8th graders is $37 per month, and access to the materials for students in Kindergarten through 12th graders is $57 per month. During the first month of an e-Science subscription, the family gets access to the first 7 units plus the additional extra sections. Each month their subscription continues, they get access to the next 2 units in order. If there is a later unit or two that someone wants to access early, they can send an email requesting access to it immediately so that they do not have to wait for it to be unlocked.

If you would like to try e-Science for yourself, Supercharged Science is giving away a complete mini-program so that you can try some of the activities and see how they work for your kids. You can request the free sample by entering your email address on the Science Activity and Video offer page set up especially for Schoolhouse Review Crew readers.


 
©2009-2013 Through the Calm and Through the Storm. All rights reserved. Photos and content may not be reproduced. http://throughthecalmandthroughthestorm.blogspot.com

Random 5 on Friday {April 12th}

1. At first glance, black rice looks a bit like caviar.

2. I need a new crochet or knitting pattern . . . now. I have some sock yarn and lots of other yarns in my stash, but I don't have anything that I'm in the middle of doing right now. My hands are getting restless, especially during read-aloud time.

3. My SuperMommy feat for this week was repurposing one of Lauren's face masks into a hairband to keep her hair out of the way when she was at the doctor the other day. It wasn't pretty, but it worked.

4. I went to a specialty running shoe store this afternoon and the street in front of it was closed due to a horrible motorcycle accident. I had to park about a block away, but I decided it would have been really lame to not buy running shoes because I couldn't find a parking spot close enough.

5. Lauren finished a Princess lapbook that she's really proud of, and I'm giving away a copy, too.
(You can click on her picture to go enter the contest.)

©2009-2013 Through the Calm and Through the Storm. All rights reserved. Photos and content may not be reproduced. http://throughthecalmandthroughthestorm.blogspot.com