Please visit me at http://homeschoolblogger.com/kovach.

When did my husband and I become such softies?

My husband put off giving a dog to the kids for over 6 years. When we married, I agreed to a dog as long as it would live outside. Two years ago we got his choice of a dog-1/2 German Shepherd, 1/2 Belgian Malinois. Broki was so little that I was afraid the hawks would carry her away and let her stay inside until she was big enough. At 70 pounds, she still "isn't big enough." Now she has her own room-the sunroom built from a screen porch. Lately, she has been sharing it though.
Enter Duchy (Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge), a little Border Collie mix of some sort who I found lying beside our trash cans. She was mangy, flea-bitten, and a sorry sight. We took her in, much to Kyle's chagrin, and nursed her to health with the help of my vet tech sister and our wonderful vet. Hubby told us not to name her, but that was after we had already named her. Oops.  A few days later, the kids and I hear him sneaking down stairs to the garage to visit our little rescue pup. Hmmm. When I confronted him, in a loving way, he said he knew we would end up keeping her so he might as well be friendly.
We waited until Duchy's mange was gone to acquaint big girl Broki with little girl Duchy. At 20 pounds, Duchy is no pushover, though Broki does enjoy teaching her who really runs the house. So unless someone really special comes along to take Duchy, I am afraid she is here to stay. Now I understand my sister's strict questionnaires for people wanting to adopt her rescue pups.
I despise animal hair/smells in my house. Yet, I allow these dogs to invade. What is wrong with me?

Books That Make Math More Enjoyable

Most math books read dry and boring, so when I discovered these at the library, we used them to enrich our math class. Look for them at your local library, used bookstore, or Amazon.
MathStart Series by Stuart J. Murphy.  Titles include A Fair Bear Share (regrouping), Lemonade for Sale (bar graphs), A Pair of Socks (matching),Betcha (estimating), and Get Up and Go (timelines).
Jerry Pallotta wrote much on math. Some of his books include Twizzlers Percentages Book, The Hershey's Kisses Addition Book, The Grapes of Math, Apple Fractions, and The Hershey's Fractions Book.
Janice Van Cleave books belong in every homeschool home. For math, she wrote  Janice VanCleave's Math for Every Kid: Easy Activities that Make Learning Math Fun.
Hopefully, you will find some of these fine books near you!

Find the Master in the Morning

Find the Master in the morning,

Ere you start upon your way;

Find the Master in the morning,

And He’ll walk with you all day.

Find the Master in the morning

As you walk along life’s road;

Find the Master in the morning,

And He’ll share with you life’s load.

Find the Master in the morning,

No matter where you roam;

Find the Master ev’ry morning

And He’ll bring you safely home.

by Adlai Albert Esteb

Soap Nuts?

What are Soap Nuts? People who enjoy washing things? Kids who like playing in the bubbles?

Nope, Soap Nuts, created by God, produce saponin or natural soap. Seems crazy, right? Richelle of Virginia Soaps and Scents explained to me that women have washed with these for years. She gets hers from Indonesia. (Told my pastor’s wife to be on the lookout for these when she leaves for the mission field!) Out of curiosity, I bought 8 oz. containers for $10.95 and put to the test of towels, underwear, and dirty jeans. Putting five soapnuts into the provided muslin bag, I threw them into my HE machine. Towels usually are run through the washer twice, so did this with the Soap Nuts, too. Though wet Soap Nuts smell vinegary, the dried clothes have no smell. No stinky scent, no chemicals. Just clean.  Regular loads such as “lights” or “darks” are successfully run through once. Clean, clean, clean.

Talk about “green” or natural cleaners, these are incredible and truly all natural. Each muslin bag of 5  nuts can be used up to 10 loads. They can also soak in water which can then be used as a multi-purpose cleaner. I haven’t counted how many nuts are in each 8 oz. purchase, but I have been using mine since April! Love, love, love this product.

I did not receive these as a review item, but wanted to share a fantastic natural find from a wonderful woman of God. Please say a quick prayer for her son, Sam, who was injured in a car accident just before Memorial Day.

Visit http://www.va-soaps.com/ for ordering information on the Soap Nuts and other delectably scented soaps and laundry soap kits. Tell her Kimberly sent you. She has been one of my favorite TOS Homeschool Crew vendors from several years ago. Love her as much as her products!  Find my TOS review of some of her other products at  http://homeschoolblogger.com/kovach/737497/

Welcome Teacher Toolbox Fans

If you are visiting my blog from the Teacher Toolbox-Welcome! I love homeschooling and encouraging others along the way. My husband and I live in northwest GA with our three children and one dog.
Creating unusual fun unit studies and printables is one of my favorite “teacher” things to do, so hopefully you will enjoy my efforts. The Old Schoolhouse magazine is a great magazine to begin with, but now with the online addition of the Teacher Toolbox, you are in for a real treat. My children eagerly pored through my printables as I was creating them for you. Hope they will enjoy them when they actually have to do them! I am so excited to be on this team as well as on the Curiosity Files team. If you have not familiarized yourself with the Curiosity Files, take a look at them here.
Just a few of the offerings include:

• This Day in History calendar with accompanying printables
• Unit studies
• Tons and tons of freebies
• Devotionals
• Ability to access the online versions of The Old Schoolhouse Magazine
• Menus with lots of recipes

Even as a vegetarian, I find the menu ideas interesting. I am used to substituting vegetarian products for actual meat in recipes that look yummy, so this month should be fun. Did you see the day full of desserts? Yummy!
I could not believe ALL the freebie articles and ebooks that were included. Even one of the WannaBe units is free. How can TOS give away so much for the low cost of a subscription? However they do it, I am glad.
This month my kids will be looking at the printable monthly history calendar and also doing some of the printables going along with each day. What a lot of history knowledge they will easily receive. So much work has been done to ease the homeschool parent’s workload.
If you are a subscriber already then enjoy the Teacher Toolbox. If you are not a subscriber yet, subscribe now!
http://thehomeschoolmagazine.com/teachers_toolbox

Watching Historical Movies

We live in a media-entrenched society, so adding a visual to history study is fairly easy.  Still studying the middle ages, we finished watching El Cid last night.  While the movie strayed from the epic poem, both of which may be more legend than fact, it allowed us a glimpse into Spanish life during the Moorish invasions. Spain was one of my favorite countries to visit when I was in an Austrian school, however I never knew much about their history until now.  We visited Valencia and nearby Sagunto College, but certainly did not know that this was the area El Cid conquered from the Moors.  All I remember about Valencia: the beautiful orange groves by the sea, eating a true, huge Valencia orange outside a large department store which a few years ago was bombed, and eating a sandwich in a cafe with a knife and fork. El Cid is buried in Burgos, located on the way to Santiago de Compostela where supposedly the bones of St. James are buried.  At the time I only knew it as a top Christian pilgrimage site.  This site led the Christian Spanish soldiers to shout “Santiago” as they rose up against the Moors.
A few nights ago, we jumped out of the Middle Ages and watched some of Pride and Prejudice, another movie which shows much of the culture of the British Regency era.  My daughter adores Jane Austen, so we are in process of watching EVERY movie portraying her books. This will take a while! So far Sense and Sensibility with Emma Thompson is our favorite. We love the Regency costumes and manners, but are certainly glad not to be living in such a time.
To complete our historical movie week, we watched The Scarlet Pimpernel with friends who are helping us review a study guide for the movie from Zeezok. Watch for my thoughts on the study guide after we are completely finished.  Anthony Andrews plays the perfect fop, secretly a hero who rescues French aristocrats from the guillotine. His lines are memorable and the beautiful Jane Seymour is elegant as ever.  My favorite part is when she realizes the identity of the Scarlet Pimpernel. This movie is a must see, if you have not.
Titanic and Pearl Harbor are movies that must be screened and fast forwarded or partly watched with the dialogue turned off, but many of the scenes are great at showing the fear, the enormity, the reality of the event.
The Alamo with John Wayne is another epic saga like El Cid. I know Braveheart is an amazing movie, but my husband said it is far too graphic. What are some historical movies you have enjoyed, that can be appropriate for young people?