Saturday, March 27, 2010

Learn With Me

Check out this new product for home schooling families at
Learn With Me!
Our goal is to provide home educators and teachers resources that bring life and depth to a student's study of reading and writing. Our feature product is Read With Me. This book contains the core principles of reading with purpose; we call this strategic reading. These strategies are taught through activities, writing prompts, unique ideas, literary terms and much more. Read With Me is a must have resource for any language arts educator.
Our line of literature study guides are crafted to elicit discussion, foster literary analysis and also inspire change. These are available in book form or digital download.

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

March News

DHSA needs your help. We have had some wonderful mom meetings and parties this year and I am very grateful to the moms who have stepped up and helped. But I know there are many more moms with talents and gifts in our organization and we need your help too. We are all busy, but if each of us does a little bit, DHSA will flourish. These are some of the things we need.

Somebody to build a webpage.

Somebody to put together a newsletter.

Somebody to plan a fieldtrip or two.

Somebody to be in charge of boxtops.

Somebody to plan and host mom's meetings (especially in the Boise side of the valley).

Somebody to plan other activities, like a science fair, spelling bee, or anything else you can think of.

Somebody to help plan a closing social/activity to elect a new board.


Email janetcox123@gmail.com if you are willing to be "Somebody."

Please help us end the year with a BANG!



Hunting for Easter Eggs

Several years ago when we lived in Utah, there was a gospel doctrine teacher for Sunday School who seemed like he must be crazy. We moved in in July and every week he would talk about Easter eggs he had found during the previous week. It was several months later that he finally explained to some visitors what he meant by Easter eggs and it all started to make sense.

At Easter, we hide eggs and baskets for children to find because it is fun and enjoyable for them. We hide them in a way that with a little effort they can find them. We're not trying to make the task impossible, but we don't want to make it too easy and just hand them a basket of eggs already gathered.
Neither of those options would be as fulfilling for the children.

The Sunday School teacher explained that there are figurative Easter eggs hidden in the scriptures. Gems of hidden knowledge, inspiration, and insight that Heavenly Father wants us to receive and has made available for us to find if we take the time to look for them. He knows we will remember these insights better if we earn them and own them. Even when someone else shares an insight, we are
less likely to remember it unless it ties into our life in some way.

Over time, I have come to love this concept and found it applies to many other aspects of life as well, especially mothering and homeschooling. The “Easter eggs” are the special little moments that help you know what you are doing is worth it. Little treasures that are often hidden by our daily activities that are easy to miss unless you are looking. I've learned to write them down, so I can look back over these treasures on the hard days. I want to share some recent Easter egg moments from my family in the hopes that you will start noticing and treasuring the Easter eggs in your homeschool.


Tyler, who struggled to learn to read and has finally “got it,” commented, “Books are so much more fun once you can read what they say.”


We started a DVD about Lewis and Clark and Ryan told his dad, “I know EVERYTHING about Lewis and Clark. Mom had me read 2 books about them and we spent one whole day (hour) learning about them at co-op.” He then had dad stop the movie 4 different times to tell us more information about something the DVD talked about.


Our cat got hurt and her leg looked pretty bad. The kids were working on schoolwork when they saw it and Tyler stopped working to ask if I would help him start a fast so she would get better.

I couldn't find a library book, so I offered the kids a $1 reward. Ryan went racing to his bedroom, (where library books are not allowed) just as I found it. He was disappointed and told me, "I was going to my room to say a prayer because I know Heavenly Father would help me find it and then I would get the money."


One morning I had an important phone call and let the kids watch PBS during it. When I finished and we started school, Jeanisha commented, “I wish I could have done math while you were on the phone, I like school lots better than TV.”


****We have plenty of hard moments as well, but remembering these little moments help me find the joy in homeschooling. Many of these would slip past if I wasn't trying to look for them and I probably wouldn't even notice them.