Author Archives: Leslie

About Leslie

Wife. Daughter. Sister. Mother of 6. Follower of Christ. Teacher. Resource Specialist. Wearer of Many Proverbial Hats.

Learning On the Go!

Wow, it has been a busy month! Where did September go???

We are in Week 10 of school this week. That feels great to type that out! Overall, we’ve had a great start and now just 3 weeks shy of a third of our year complete … well, we’ve accomplished a lot I hope.

In this post, I thought I’d try to catch up on some photos and learning opportunities we experienced while on the go this past month.

First up, we have attended a few field trips with the tutorial we are attending. One was historical in scope, one was geared toward science and yet another a live performance on the stage.

A Civil-War Era Plantation somewhere in the South …
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A Different Sort of Post

When I began this new blog, I knew it would be a lot less about the topics that seemed to be the meat of my other blog. I don’t talk about adoption on here for the sake of talking about it, promoting it, advocating for children or for any other reasons that I used to talk about it.

I also don’t talk about God much on here. I know that is probably a turn-off to some and probably welcoming to others. It is not that I don’t want to or don’t feel I should. I guess I’ve just been in a season where I didn’t have much to say. And I still don’t I don’t think, because I don’t understand a lot of what is currently about our family. Continue reading

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SHAPES Freebie!

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This FREEBIE has been in my Teachers Pay Teachers store for a long time, but I recently updated it due to some customer requests. After an appearance in the TpT Sunday FREEBIES Newsletter, it has been downloaded a LOT and the feedback has been positive. I wanted to be sure all of my blog readers knew about it and also that anyone who has it might want to download the updated version, which includes 3 new shapes: cone, hexagon and octagon!

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We use this a LOT in our homeschool, particularly my three-year-old, but it is so versatile you can use it with many ages and abilities. It has a self-correcting version of shapes names as well as two more versions that require your students to read and decipher which name matches which shape.

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If you haven’t stopped by my store lately, why not come by and check out my recently uploaded products? I’d love to have you visit!

 I am giving 10% of all net sales from my TpT store to the Love Without Boundaries Unity Fund.

Please know that for every purchase through my TpT store, you will be directly helping children in China to NOT become orphaned and to have the blessing of staying with their birth families, and you will be helping those families who find themselves in a desperate and seemingly hopeless situation with an ill child for whom they have no means to provide medical care. You can help make a difference!

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Around Stay Awhile Farm

I have so many photos that haven’t made their way onto the blog. These photos are just us living life together learning and growing on our little mini-farm. I still am amazed and so very thankful we get to live here!

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The Prez and three of the boys headed out on a dove hunt. Li’l Bro has a BB gun in tow, while Larry and Mo have their 20-gauge shotguns.

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The hunt didn’t yield any birds, but it yielded a successful day of practicing safe gun handling and enjoying the nature surrounding us.

The ladies (our hens) like to graze in the yard as does Mr. Squawks, however they need to stay out of our garden.

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A recent skeet shoot-out from the top of our property, in which Momma came in second to Mo, who is 11 years old. As for the Prez … ahem … he missed all but one of his skeets. Momma … well I shot all of mine down but one. 😀

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Labor Day 2013

Labor Day for us was another school day. Well a half-day of school anyway. I won’t say my students were excited to hear they wouldn’t get a full holiday last Monday, but they worked hard on studies before lunch and then they worked hard on outdoor life school! Please note no child labor laws were broken … I promise they had fun painting our hen house with the Prez.

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What Is On Your Desk?

A recent thread on a forum I visit on a popular teacher site got me to thinking about coming clean (no pun intended). I am quite organized overall, BUT I have issues when it comes to my desk.

I thought it would be therapeutic perhaps and hopefully helpful to a fellow teacher with desk organization issues to write out a list.

5 Things I Don’t Want Anyone to Know About My Desk

1. I can’t actually sit there and do anything.

Well I do have a chair but there is absolutely no space on which to do any work, especially involving a space to perhaps lay a piece of paper upon it.

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Learning in All Shapes, Sizes … and Colors

In case anyone reading thinks I have lesson plans … ahem, well, let me set the record straight. I really don’t. I have year-long “maps” of what I hope to accomplish with each child, particularly concerning ELA, math and independent reading book assignments. I also have assignment books that serve as a record of what they actually do, which by and large follows those assignment books and maps closely.

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Last week, I wanted to add in some interactiveness to our middle school boys’ math lessons, and I wanted to have more of a theme for our younger three. I didn’t think long and hard. I just went with what came to me and came together. It turned out to be a colorful week with rainbow-themed learning at the forefront. Some of it was review, and some of it was new concepts. All of it was good for our learners! Continue reading

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