Special Connection Homeschool

My Gess has been saved and really tries to participate in the church service.  One thing I want to do is teach her how to take notes and pay attention to the sermon and one day on Pinterest I saw this FREE Church Service Worship Notes for Kiddos from mmmcrafts .  It's really great!  Click on the image to get the full size PDF to print at the mmmcrafts website!

I posted about our home-made laundry soap a little over a year ago.  It really does work well and saves you lots of money.  I did notice though that some of my whites were becoming a bit dingy so I did add some Oxyclean into the mix.  Now that we know we like it, we make a huge batch at once.  It should last us at least 6 months.  Here is the recipe: 1 Box Mule Team Borax (4lb 12oz box) 1 Box Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda (3lb box) 1 Box Arm & Hammer Baking Soda (4 lb box) 1 Container Oxyclean (1.3lb) 4 bars of Ivory Soap (Or Fels Naptha or any soap you prefer) It is really easy to make the soap and not all that messy.  All you do is dump the box ingredients into your storage container. Grate the bar soap in the food processor. Then just mix it up.  Look at all that soap!  This means I won't have to make laundry soap for half a year!  Better yet I won't have to buy it.  I save so much money with very...

I have been "officially" homeschooling Gess who has Down syndrome for almost 6 years now.  She is technically in the 5th grade although her skill level may vary in certain subjects.  I remember when she was born how we struggled with whether or not we could actually homeschool because of her special needs and I am here to tell you, yes you can ! I felt all alone when I first started.  Living in a small town I found that our homeschool support group was already small and there were not any other parents who had a child with special needs. I am also involved in a Down syndrome support group but none of those moms were homeschooling.  It is frightening to think you are doing this alone, especially since you don't know what to expect.  I had never homeschooled at all before so finding out that the child I intended to homeschool also had special needs made me really reconsider my options. One of the major factors that changed my perspective was hearing the horr...

Because I have a daughter with special needs I have yet to try a full curriculum package.  There is just so much I have to adapt and modify that I find it easier to choose each subject separately.  However, when I had the chance to review Moving Beyond the Page for the Schoolhouse Review Crew I was anxious to give it a try because it is not like your average curriculum. Moving Beyond the Page does exactly what it's title says, it teaches students by moving beyond the page of the text.  This complete homeschooling curriculum has the best of all worlds when it comes to learning styles.  Its unit studies connect subjects like language arts, science and social studies together, offers project-based instruction for hands on learning, and teaches critical and creative thinking skills.  While they currently have products for ages 5-13 for the purpose of our review we were given the following two units from the 7 to 9 year old level.  Tornado online lan...

The  Voice of the Martyrs Kids of Courage website offers 31 Bold Believer Activity Books that cover different countries and topics.  You will find cultural information, activities, games, recipes, stories and more.  Visit their website to view a free sample and download your FREE Bold Believer Activity Books .

I turned 46 on Friday.  It was actually a pretty interesting birthday.  The morning started off at Jr. High Church Camp.  I was there as a counselor, not a student of course.  Gess stayed home with daddy as her camp is next week.  The day before my birthday our team dressed me up as their mascot.  We were the Blue Flaming Pandas.  What a way to spend your last day at 45!  We left camp after lunch so my husband planned a very special dinner for me that evening.  I love watching Gordon Ramsay cooking shows and ever since I first saw the dish Beef Wellington I just had to try it. Well we found Gordon's recipe online and my hubby made it for me!  Here is Gordon making a special holiday version, but we left out the chestnuts and made individual ones instead of one big one. They turned out lovely and were very delicious!   While it was fun to get away and hang out with the teenagers I was very glad to get back home to my...

As I mentioned in my previous Summer Reading post, we are studying about animals and where things come from.  To follow up on our lesson, Hooray for Dairy Farming we actually visited one.  We first read these two books that told us exactly how the milk gets from the cow to the store. Then we visited an actual dairy farm.  It was really cool to see what we saw pictured in the book actually happening in real life. First they bring the cows to the milking barn, or whatever you call that building.  They must be milked twice a day or the udder will become sore and swollen. Then they bring the cows into the milking area. They hook them up to a milking machine.  The pump sucks the milk through the rubber-lined cups.  Once they reach a certain amount of milk they automatically pop off. It actually doesn't take very long.   Gess thought it was pretty cool. The milking machine is connected to a large tank in another room ...

123Homeschool4Me is offering a set of FREE homeschool annual organization forms which includes: Withdraw from Public School Letter Intent to Homeschool Form Daily Schedule Curriculum Planning Field trip Planning Extra Curricular Activities Planning Weekly, Bi-Weekly, and Monthly Lesson Planners Preschool / FIAR Planning Sheet Annual Attendance Sheet K12 Grades Tracker Follow the link above to find these FREE homeschooling forms to help you get organized.

Some of our summer school has us learning about animals and we had a very dear friend invite us out to see their chickens and goats.  We had a great day and Gess really got see how goats run by running right along with them.  She absolutely loved it. The chickens were interesting too but she didn't get to run around with them.