Christmas Book, Hot Chocolate, & More Give Away

     I love reading Christmas books after Thanksgiving. There is just something about the atmosphere that makes me enjoy a great book with a nice cup of hot chocolate or coffee filled with a luscious flavored creamer. I would like to share the atmosphere with another wonderful blog reader. Here's a wonderful give away to set your atmosphere and a great book for the moment.

Here's a pic of what you will receive in the give away.

    I have not read this entire book. My children & I will be working through it after Thanksgiving as a jump starter in to our family devotion. We will read the story from this book, look up the scriptures in the Bible that goes along with the story, & read the prayer that is in the book to motivate our mind toward the Savior throughout our day. The book apppears to be a great book.
    If you are interested in this give away just leave a comment below & if you know of a great Christmas book that I might would enjoy please leave the title in your comment. That's all it takes & you will be entered into the drawing. The winner will be selected on November 28, 2011. I will contact the winner so I can get your gift in the mail so you can enjoy the weeks before Christmas. Just leave your comment!

Social Studies Made Simple Give Away Winner

I would like to say thanks to the few that entered my Give Away. If you did not win this Give Away there will be more opportunities. Just keep dropping by to be on the look out for others.
The blessed winner this time is Judy @ http://contentedathome.com Congratulations, I hope these books will be a blessing to your homeschooling.

Educating From Library Books To Encyclopedias To Erupting Volcanos & Even A Blog Give Away

In My Life This Week:
    My scales are going in the wrong direction. I'm not sure if it's the week I don't pay much mind to the scales because of mother nature or if I've been enjoying too much food. Regardless of the case, it aggravated me that the scales went in the wrong direction after I counted calories & carbs, 20 carbs or less each day & less than 1600 calories per day, with excercising. Can you believe that? Uhh!!!!

Uhh!!!

Me trying to thin down

I'm Grateful This Week For:
    the relationships I have with my children. I know we only have that closeness due to all the time we spend together. Here's a link to a post with a pic of the card my DD left on my desk for me.
I have special tea parties with my children (individually) to build our relationship. My DD sends me little notes & cards from time to time laying a few building blocks to the relationship. I'm grateful that we are both working on the building.

I've Been Inspired By:
    two tapes that I checked out from our local library this week. They are by Inge P. Cannon. I have not heard of her before this week. It appears that she has lots of books/audio tapes that I am interested in reading/listening to. The two that I listened to this week are: Schooling or Educating: Which Are You Doing? & Eliminating Crucial Gaps While Individualizing Education. She never mentions Charlotte Mason, but her teachings could very well pass for CM methods. These tapes were a great encouragement this week to remind me (again) that we don't have to move at the pace of the public school system. We can remain in our subjects/topics for as long as we desire.

In Our Homeschooling This Week:
    we accomplished three math lessons in Saxon 8/7. My children are enjoying their lessons right now. The lessons have had geometry & prime & composit numbers. Their words are, "This is easy. We like this." My son has decided this week that he wants him some drafting tools.
We have not yet returned back to our Exploring Creation with Physical Science through Apologia yet. Hopefully that will be next week. We chose another library book this week. It is:

Exploring The Sky By Day by Terence Dickinson

    This book is easing us in to the different types of clouds & the water cycle. Our next Module in our Physical Science is going to be on water so I just eased this book in to introduce them to the water cycle a bit more in debth than what we have studied in the past. I like to ease in a library book for a review from time to time.
    We place two different bowls of water outside for an experiment, one in the shade & one in the sun. We are checking the temp. of the water each day & measuring the debth to see the warmth & how much it is evaporating. This is to reinforce our Module that was bringing out humidity. We've been testing to see if there was already enough of moisture in the air already or not. We've also checked the sky for clouds to see if we could identify them.
    We are still reading Little Pilgrim's Progress for Literature. We should have this finished up by next week. My son said this has become one of his most favorite books.
History has been a pretty relaxed week. We finished reading our book about Pompeii & pulled down the encyclopedia for further reading. After that Sarah & Matthew drew maps of Italy for some geography skills. Here are the pics of their maps.

Sarah's map of Italy

Matthew's map of Italy

    We've done this in the past, but my children thought it only right that we do another volcano experiment since Pompeii was buried by Vesuvius erupting. Here are some pics of them recreating Mount Vesuvius's eruption burying Pompeii again.

This is the Lab Tray

They are filling the 2 litter bottles with their mixtures

Matthew's volcano erupting and destroying Pompeii.

Sarah's volcano erupting. We used to big of a bottle and not enough mixture to have a more powerful eruption. So now we are planning to do it again for the third time to get it right.

    For English/Grammar this week they wrote narrations on what they have learned about Pompeii. Here are their essays.

Sarah's Essay on Pompeii

Matthew's Essay on Pompeii

    Other than getting in a drawing lesson today, I think this about Wraps up our week.
I am linking up with Kris over at the Weekly Wrap Up & with Sue for the Homeschool Mother's Journal. If you'd like to read more about other's weeks, drop over to one of these blogs & check out the others that linked up also.

On another note, I am having a give away on my blog. Click here to check it out.

Give Away: Social Studies Made Simple

     I have quite a bit of work books that I was blessed with that I am not using so I am going to do some give-aways over the next few months trying to clear my home of them.
    The first give-away consists of 3 work books that would go with American history. These books are not informational enough to stand as a full curriculum, but could be used as a Scope & Sequence that you could check out library books to go along with the worksheet/activities to have a fun schooling.
Here's a few pics of the books.

    The three books range from 2nd to 4th grade level (what front of book recommends). I personally don't pay any mind to what the book says if it is something I think I can use.
    The book jacket on back reads like this: Social Studies Made Simple will spark the interest and imagination of children as they explore the worlds of civics, the creative arts, economics, geography, history, and language arts.
    The Social Studies Made Simple series is packed with interesting activities and projects that are designed to reinforce the knowledge, skills, and values children need to become informed and involved citizens.
    I will choose a winner on November the 1st so I can mail the books out that week after I contact the winner.
    I have several types of work books to give away from math, history, a few science books, reading comprehension, geography, etc. that I will be giving away over the next few months. Hopefully they can be a blessing for someone.
    I don't have a lot of blog traffic on my blog, so if you think any of my give aways will be something one of your blogging friends would like, feel free to invite them over to post a comment on the give away to enter the drawing that is going on.
    Some books I have several copies of so as I do the give away I'll contact the winner to see if they will need more than one copy for their family.
    Hope this give away can be a blessing to someone. Just leave a comment to be entered in to the drawing.

Pay It Forward

   Hi everyone, I am so excited because I just recieved my Letterbox of Love from Makita over at Academia Celestia. There were three chosen to recieve the gifts and I was thankfully blessed to be one of them.

   We were amazed to learn of the Thunderegg, Oregon's state rock.

   This rock will definitely be a nice addition to our rock collection.

   Then there's Oregon's Myrtlewood Tree which is known as a tree of beauty. The Mytlewood has tiny buds that burst into small white clusters of blossoms at Christmas. Then they turn into a greenish-yellow olive-like fruit . Many woodcrafters buy the wood from this tree to create beautiful works that will last and last.

   This Myrtlewood Tube Squeezer was one of our gifts and works great. Thanks Makita!

   We also love our postcards!

   Mt. Bachelor, Smith Rock State Park and Crater Lake. We decided that we would love to go there someday.
   Ft. Bridger is a definate being we love the Ft. Bridger series by Al & Joanna Lacy.

   Now it's my turn to Pay it forward to three blessed bloggers.
The one and only guideline for the Pay It Forward fun is that as a recipient you must also Pay It Forward.
   With that said, If you would like to recieve a surprise of a gift from me, then comment me and let me know that you want a letterbox of love and are willing to Pay It Forward to someone else. I will draw three names and contact the winners! But, I must have at least 3 comments.
   This is very fun and not expensive, so come on and share your state or country now.

Traci