Wordless Wednesday: Library of Congress

Geronimo Stilton: A FAB-U-MOUSE Adventure

We discovered a series of books about an adventurous journalist mouse by the name of Geronimo Stilton. This is a wonderful series of books written for kids 8-12 years old and appeals to Ironhide's need for action based stories. This series uses different colored text and Onomatopoeia to bring the story alive. It covers topics from the Amazon, Ancient Egypt and the Ice Age. Ironhide starts reading them standing in line at the library.

I am working on a Lapbook for a couple of the titles and should have them on the blog before Christmas.

So come join us for a Fab-U-Mouse Adventure.

Newflash: Homeschooler SAVES more than $700 on books

How? We simply use the local library for the majority of homeschool books and resources. About six weeks ago our nearest Library, which is less than 2 miles from our house, closed for updating so we had to drive a whole 8 miles to use other township’s library. Boooooo!

Considering the price of gas I was a little testy but thankfully the new library had a bigger selection of books. Yeahhhhhhh!

The other great thing is because of Texas’ library share program we do not have to pay an out-of-district charge (savings $45.00 a year). Super Yeah!

In addition, we have found some awesome homeschool families who attend story time so we are not the only 5+ at arts and craft time. Hooray!

Did I mention craft time? Free art with friends once a week and they even do fieldtrips where you met the librarian at offsite locations. Whoopie!

Online book request allows me to pick most of our FIAR titles in the comfort of home so they are waiting for us. Plus they have an email and phone system that calls you 3 days before things are due to help avoid fines. Tears of JOY!

The coolest thing is at the bottom of your receipt they print out how much you have saved on books at the library.

Get OUT!

This is what I proudly displayed for hubby Saturday.

That’s right Dude $728 dollars in just books in six weeks!

So doing that math….you know I have to because I am an engineer….

Savings on books	$728
Free Art Class	$85 monthly
Out of District Fee	$45
Extra Gas (4 trips a month)	-$16.00
DVD movies rental for whole family	$10 monthly
Total Savings To Date	$852.00

So I can have the Mocha with a little less guilt.

Peace and Blessings

The Super Student’s first Lapbook

After the conference, I asked the TS what did he want to do that week. The expression on his face was comical because normally I have our week planned out and present it calendar form after Monday breakfast. (I know…I know anal but I am a recovering engineering manager.) He recovered quickly to list all of his favorite things:

“After breakfast let’s do Slip N Slide, then the park and lunch date. Ohhhh call SK( aka Sidekick who is TS’s brother from another mother) so we can go to Pump N Jump, then The Big Park, then Putt Putt Golf, then a playdate with all my forever friends (I will explain his hierarchy later.), the library music show, pick up my summer reading prize with my friends and then the have my friends over for Slip N Slide. Hey, Mommmie can I please learn about Pandas? I know Kung Fu Panda’s not real but I want know about real Pandas.”

Okay first I was tired just mapping out his week of activities, not to mention getting queasy at the thought of gas prices. Then I was a little embarrassed because he has been asking about Pandas since seeing KFP but I brushed it off as movie related commercialism.

Bad Mommie. We negotiated on some of the activities and hit the Slip N Slide. Okay why do adults stop playing these games? Can you say easy fun?

So while we ate lunch I did a little Google research and found a free Panda Lapbook at Homeschool Share. I had planned to introduce the concept of lapbooking and notebooking in the Fall, but here it was free and in his interest area. We watched the video on lapbooking and he was so excited to start. So, we headed to the library for what he was calling Pandamania.

We found the book they recommended along with four other Panda related titles and spent the week learning about Pandas. We had a blast! He said he like the lapbook because all his things was in one place and he could touch what he learned and share it.