Showing posts with label homeschooling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label homeschooling. Show all posts

Friday, May 10, 2013

As anybody can clearly see, Brandi and I haven't made much  headway in keeping this blog updated. We have many good reasons and time consuming activities that have wholly consumed all available time between the two of us.Last time we posted (aside from Christmas wishes) was May of 2012. A full year later, and some things have changed, and some have stayed the same. We are both finished with another year of schooling, and Brandi has been inducted into an honor society as well.

"Almost, Maine" set
Promotional poster
Princesses, a tiger, & Zombies!
"If I only had a brain..."

I have helped build the sets for "Dirty, Rotten Scoundrels," "Almost, Maine," and "Women of Lockerbie," all presented by Clark State Community College in Springfield, OH. I have had two good semesters, grade-wise, including a 4.0 this Spring. Brandi has just finished running a gauntlet of 20 credit hours of classes in one semester, and so far has another very respectable GPA. As we sit here resting before the next sprint, we are trying to evaluate our effectiveness as parents, homeschoolers, students, homeowners, etc. etc. As wild as this is right now, it will eventually be worth it. As for right now, our schooling has presented us with some unique opportunities for homeschooling. These included getting to see theatrical light shows and being human canvases for a makeup class. The girls loved getting dolled up, and the other students enjoyed working with them. The boys, however, made the best of the opportunity by asking to be turned into "zombies." I've learned a great deal more about theatre than I ever thought possible in such a short time including both on and offstage aspects as well as history and future. We are quite excited about our future with these degrees which we should finish in Spring of 2014.

Friday, March 2, 2012

Um . . . Spring Break?

I'm halfway through my first semester back at college.  I am now officially on spring break.  Sort of.  I have so much to catch up around the house and so much schoolwork to do over break that it won't seem like much of a break.

 In fact, I also plan to get some jammed packed days of homeschooling done with the kids.  I did that last fall in anticipation of going back to school and it worked out well.  We're still on target for finishing our required amount of school time! 

So, now I go to jump neck deep into writing outlines, writing papers, and lesson planning.  Oh, yeah.  I need to clean too!  I'll write more, if I get a chance to come up for air.

Have a great day!

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Whistles and Chocolates



Yesterday, the kids and I went on a field trip with a homeschool field trip group. Our first stop was the American Whistle factory. We each got a whistle at the end of the tour, and I bought different colored lanyards for each of us. The kids were really good and I didn't have to confiscate any whistles. This is in Columbus, OH. The tour costs $4.00 per person and you get a whistle. If you can't make it to the factory, they were featured on How It's Made season 10 episode 12 and will be featured on Factory Made.

My kids are on the right end of each row.
Top row: Birdie and Froggie
Middle row: Monkey and Kitty Kat
Bottom row: Puppy Dog and Little Bear
I think one of the moms told the kids to make funny faces.


We ate lunch after the whistle factory tour and then went to the Anthony-Thomas candy factory.

This huge buckeye weighs 235 lbs. and costs $3500.00! The girls asked how old it was and found out it is seven years old. At the end of the tour, we got to sample the normal sized buckeyes. Some of my kids liked them, but most of us prefer homemade buckeyes.

Yeah, it's about time for Little Bear to clean off his temporary tattoos.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Tuesday (because I'm not feeling creative today)




I was totally worn out from our travels yesterday. Therefore, our meals today were rather blah.

Breakfast: banana oatmeal

Lunch: leftovers and bananas

Supper: french fries with browned ground beef, cheese, and ketchup

Snacks: fruit snacks (kids)

I did get a loaf of banana bread made and some bananas frozen. We'll have the bread for breakfast in the morning. In total, I took care of seventeen of the bananas Jon brought home. We used five bananas from what we already had here for lunch.

On the homeschool front:

I only had the kids work on unfinished assignments and take Spelling tests. They were supposed to take the tests on Friday, but they got carried away with their Science assignments and we ran out of time. Before the tests three of the girls sat in a circle and gave each other a "fun test" (Monkey's name for it) for review. Those who had tests to take did well (nothing below a B+, three got A or A+). Puppy Dog fussed that "someone" lost his Spelling list, so he couldn't study. He got all twelve of his words and his bonus word correct!

Tomorrow we're going to have to work extra hard so that we can go to evening church.

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Today and Way to Go Birdie!

Last night I remembered some more things that had to be done before I went to bed. I did get the bread started last night. I was still up when Jon came home from work, and I didn't get to bed until after three in the morning. Since I was up so late, I decided to allow ourselves to head out at eleven instead of ten.

I printed off my blog post last night so I would have my list handy. It was a good thing! I decided to check my list and was reminded to have my devotional time. I chose Philippians chapter four for my Bible reading, because I knew I would need it. I actually had planned on reading from the Old Testament, but Philippians four came to mind while I was praying. My mindset today was much better than last night.

before 10:00 am list

We got everything done on my before 10:00 am list. I did make some minor adjustments. Instead of oatmeal and yogurt, we had oatmeal and milk to save time. I also heated water in the tea kettle and used that to make the oatmeal instead of cooking it on the stove and having to watch over it. I nixed the potatoes and carrots so that I wouldn't have to spend the time fixing them this morning. I had planned on putting together some cross word puzzles for the kids to use to practice their spelling words. The links on the site I had bookmarked to do that with just kept taking me in circles last night. I knew I didn't have time to do four different puzzles on my own. I didn't get the children's things ready. I let them do it! Instead of cleaning the whole kitchen I did some dishes last night and this morning. Our dishwasher is ancient and doesn't work right, so we have to hand wash.

10:00 am - ? list

We headed out just after eleven this morning. The children were pretty good about doing their homework and helping out. I was much more at peace about things today. I did call Jon before I headed home and he turned off the oven for me. I fixed mashed potatoes and peas and carrots to go with our meatloaf and bread-and-butter. We still ate lunch around two.

2:30 - ? list

Jon left for work a little later than usual. He was spending time with the kids and forgot to watch the clock. He was still on time, but just didn't get there as early as he likes to in order to get his equipment for the night claimed. I rested while the kids avoided resting. When I got up, I mandated rest time. We haven't gotten back to school. Jon suggested that we do a half day today and a half day tomorrow in order to paint the living room. I'm taking him up on it. We had a late snack. I still need to fix supper after I am done posting this. I'll probably have the children do their chores while I'm fixing supper. I really don't feel like browning the ground beef tonight. I checked the date on the meat an I still have a few days. I'll do that tomorrow.


Way to go, Birdie!

Birdie has trouble with visual perception and fine motor skills. Due to this, her writing is rarely legible. Last year, she could focus to write legibly for about the time it took her to copy two or three words. The word would often be mirror images of what I had given her as an example. Sometimes the word would be up-side-down and sometimes backward.

Following are Birdie's penmanship papers from last week and this week. For some reason, our scanner did some weird things with the pages. I didn't feel like messing with it, so I left them as they were.

Last week, I printed out part of our memory verse for her to copy. I intended to have her do part of the verse each day, Wednesday through Friday. The verse is Matthew 5:14. Everyone had it memorized Wednesday, so I gave them a break on penmanship for rest of our first week back to school.

This is Birdie's penmanship from last week. I was pleased that I could make out some of the words.


This is Birdie's penmanship from yesterday. The verse was on our white board and I didn't make a copy for her. I wanted to see what she could do. I was also pleased with this. I can make out some of the words and this was a more difficult task for her.


Today, Birdie's penmanship REALLY impressed me! Since we weren't at home and I didn't want Birdie trying to copy from yesterday's penmanship (as the others were doing), I had Kitty Kat print out a sample for Birdie to copy from.




Didn't she do a great job?

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

So, what do you think?

Yesterday, is a blur to me. lol I didn't post last night because I was too tired, and today I'm drawing a blank. I'll try to remember, anyway.

We started out with cold cereal. After doing some chores and other things, we had lunch meat sandwiches on wheat bread with lettuce, tomato, and cheese. We also had bananas. We then ran some errands. I had put a roast with potatoes, carrots, and onions in our slow cooker in the morning. We had that and sour dough bread with Country Crock for supper. Then Jon had a drama rehearsal and while we were waiting on him the kids worked on their schoolwork while I read to them. We had another stop to make after the rehearsal and we snacked on fruit chews in the van on the way. We got home and snacked on chips and salsa (just Jon and me) and Cheez-Its (just the kids). After putting the kids to bed, Jon and I had jalapeno poppers and pop.

Jon made some food purchases this week that came up to about $30.oo.

I had stopped getting whole wheat flour when finances got tight at the end of last year. Jon wants to go back to whole wheat now, so we are. Yay! I haven't found the time this week to make tortillas. We were at Wal-mart to get a few things yesterday and we picked up two packs of tortillas and a bag of WW flour. Our food total at Wal-mart was $7.30.

During our errand running we took our aluminum cans (35 lbs.) to the recycle center. The price of aluminum had dropped to 25 cents/lb. so we got $8.75 for the cans.

So for this week our total food spending to date is $174.99.

NOW FOR THE TITLE OF THIS POST

What do you think? Should I continue to post everything we eat each day, or should I just keep a running total of our food expenditures? Please, put your thoughts in the comments section. Thank you!

Saturday, March 28, 2009

Today Was Better Than Yesterday

I think a big part of today being better than yesterday was that I started my day out with God. The pets woke me and I had to take care of them, but none of the kids bothered me until I was done with my devotions. I take that back. I sent two girls back to bed. Puppy Dog came to our room while I was praying and laid down beside Jon. P.D. was quiet though and let me do my devos. without interruption. I went back to sleep after my devos. LOL

When the kids all started to congregate in the dining room, I told them that we were having cold cereal for breakfast. Some time went by and they started fussing about really being hungry. Apparently, I have catered to them too much this past winter. It only took a small verbal nudge to convince them to fix their own cereal though. I came out while they were fixing theirs, fixed mine, and added some banana slices to everyone's bowls.

Lunch was Sloppy Joes, baby carrots, applesauce, and milk. We used Manwich, because it was a good price this week and Jon wanted it. I used two pounds of ground beef and two cans of sauce. We had enough left over for Jon to have enough for a sandwich at work later this week. The buns were also storebought. They were on sale and I had a coupon.

Jon took the rest of our leftover chili, a yogurt, and some pop for his work lunch. He usually drinks water and eats some of the fruit that his workplace keeps out for employees as well.

The kids and I had yogurt for an afternoon snack while we waited for our bread to cool for supper. I also made rolls for tomorrow.

Tonight's supper was egg salad (homemade) sandwiches (homemade bread), baby carrots, cottage cheese with pineapple rings, and water. We had enough egg salad for Jon to have a sandwich later.

This is Little Bear's plate from supper. As the youngest, he got the priveledge of having the heals of the bread. The younger three children tend to take turns eating the heals. If they fight, then I get them.

I assigned How-to reports to three of the children this week. Kitty Kat decided on "How to Make Old Fashioned Sugar Cookies", Froggie chose "How to Make Meatloaf", Monkey chose "How to Make Chocolate Tea Bread", Puppy Dog chose "How to Make Chocolate Chip Cookies", Birdie wants help deciding, and I haven't heard from Little Bear yet. Did you catch that five children are planning their reports when I only assigned reports to three?

Kitty Kat decided to use the recipe on the back of a sugar package. I tried to dissuade her, but she wouldn't budge. I let her try the recipe without interference at first. She would ask my opinion from time to time.

One of those times was when the "dough" was supposed to be ready to go in the fridge to chill. It looked like quick bread batter. I went through the ingredients with her and double checked the measurements she used. It turns out that she measured the milk before adding the lemon juice to it (as a replacement for buttermilk). I had told her a day or two ago to first put the lemon juice in and then to finish measuring the milk. Apparently, she forgot. She also confessed to having the milk a little over the mark on the measuring cup. Add that to the fact that the eggs we have right now are extra large and there was definitely too much moisture. I had her add a little extra flour a 1/4 cup at a time to get a better consistency. She added 1/2 cup and we decided to try it.

I let her work on the cookies alone after the "dough" chilled. I came to help her check on them when the first set was ready to come out of the oven. The cookies were a little burnt. I helped her get them off the pans quickly and then the kids and I ate those cookies as a bedtime snack. The oven temp. was at 400 degrees and she baked the cookies for 7 minutes. I checked and she had followed the directions. I then proceded to help her by getting the rest of the cookie "dough" onto the pans and she added the cinnamon sugar. I made the cookies bigger than the recipe called for, left the temp. the same, and had her time them for 5 minutes and then reset the timer as needed. She ended up with enough nice cookies that she can take them to her small group at church tomorrow evening and leave a couple for Jon to have later. She will be trying a different recipe before writing her report though. I tasted the raw batter and it tasted just like the batter minus the bananas of a banana bread recipe that I once made from a recipe on the back of the same brand of sugar. I have never made that recipe again because the banana bread turned out bland.

The kids were in bed before 10pm tonight. I actually sent them to bed before 9:30 but I had to fuss with the boys to get them to stay in bed. Once the boys were in bed, they fell right to sleep. I did have to go upstairs to send the girls back to bed a little while ago, but I think they have settled down. Hopefully, they will get enough sleep, because we are going to be at church a lot tomorrow.

Saturday, March 14, 2009

My Little Chef

In the past I have tried to have each child take turns helping in the kitchen. Usually, we get out of the habit for one reason or another. We're trying again. Each of my children has a day of the week that he/she is responsible for certain prayers (meals and before school), but that's another story. Anyway, each child is now going to be my kitchen helper for at least one meal on the day he/she is to pray. I hope to keep up with it by blogging about each child's turn at least at first.

Today it was Little Bear's turn. Here he is with the pepperoni and pineapple pan pizza he made for supper.

Friday, January 30, 2009

Midwest HOMESCHOOL Convention in Cincinnati



The Midwest HOMESCHOOL Convention in Cincinnati is April 16-18, 2009. I've never been to one of these conventions, but I have a sister-in-law who has been to the one in Cincinnati and says it is really worth going. It's going to have a HUGE EXHIBIT HALL, INCREDIBLE Speaker Line-Up, and AFFORDABLE REGISTRATION. You can even enter to win:
  • One (1) FREE Family Registration to the convention.
  • One (1) FREE hotel room for Thursday, April 16 and Friday, April 17
  • One (1) complete set of the recorded Sessions/Workshops from the convention.
  • $50 cash to spend in the HUGE Exhibit Hall!
Four other lucky winners will receive a family pass to the convention and $25 cash to spend in the vendor hall. Entry details are here.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Monkey's Creative Writing 2/25/05

Monkey was looking through one of her old Creative Writing notebooks this morning. She got a laugh out of this recipe that she came up with. She said I could share it with you as long as I put the date of the assignment. LOL

A round sandwich

ingredients:

2 square slices of swiss cheese
2 slices of 100% whole wheat bread
1 hamburger dill slice
1 stick of pepperoni
1 apple chopped into 4 pieces
1 strawberry chopped into 4 pieces
2 acorns chop each acorn into 3 pieces
3 sunflower seeds

directions:

Mix all ingredients except bread and cheese. Then you spread the mixture on one slice of bread with a wooden spoon. Next, put the slices of cheese on top of the mixture. Put the other slice of bread on the very top. Cut a circle out of the middle of the sandwich with a very long knife (that goes across the living room). You have to be where God is to do it.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Creative Writing

Yesterday, I had the children do some creative writing. I won't grade their creative writing. Later, I will start having them circle the words they think may be misspelled. As they learn about different things in their other classes, I will start having them edit and rewrite their entries. For now, creative writing is just a time for them to have fun writing and drawing. Obviously, they all have areas they need to work on. I am pleased though. They all put forth more effort than they had at the end of last year.



Birdie, Puppy Dog, and Baby Bear were to draw a picture of a newborn baby:

Birdie says hers "looks like a baby in the manger with grass".


Puppy Dog's:

Baby Bear's is one of two things. Yesterday, he said it was baby Jesus's blanket. Today, he says it is baby Jesus's bed.

Monkey was to pretend she was a newborn baby and write about a day in her life:

"Waaaa! Waaaaaa!

I wos cold.

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

waaa! ssssssssssssss.

SSssszssssss.

I was sleqing Then I waokuq.

I was waringy A rose pink Dres!


Froggie and Kitty Kat were to suppose they were able to visit the time and place of Jesus's birthday and write a letter to their parents describing the events:

Froggie first wrote from a calf's perspective and then from Mary's perspective:

Imoo

I am a cafe

who is happy

That I am

olade

That I can

see the newbo Baby

goodbye


I will love to be happy to be marry

I will be expeting NewBorne
Baby And he will bwe Name

a Baby god's son And she will call him
Boy
Jesus When Jesus Was 30
year's old He cam to the that

god hade made then

When he was kind and then

he went Away Far away From

his diciples houses

and then Santan is so mean
that he wed didnotnouticthat

termping him

and then he died on the crose


I think Kitty Kat was trying to write a book:

11/10/08
Dear Mom and Dad,

my work is going very well. Yesterday something happened. I was sweeping in the inn, like I always do at high noon. The inn was as full as a basket filled to the very top. I was sweeping the dust out into the street, when I saw two peaple and a donkey coming down the road. They stopped in front of the inn, and a man helped a woman of the donkey. They went inside the inn, and I followed them in. As I was putting the broom away, I heard the inn keeper tell them, "Sorry, We do not have a room you can use, but you can use the cave we use as a stable, but you will have to sleep with the animals." Then the innkeeper called me and said, "Take this couple's donkey and lead them to the stable, but let the woman ride the donkey, she is pregnant." Then we went outside, and the man lifted his wife onto the donkey, and we headed for the stable. Once we got there, the man helped his wife inside, and I followed, still leading the donkey. When the donkey was in a stall, and had water and food, I said, "I will be out here later today to take care of the animals. I will also bring some food and water with me for your dinner. But, do you need some right now?" I asked. The man said, "Yes, we would like some food, as soon as you can, please." I went back to the inn. When I found the innkeeper, I said, "Master, the couple asked me for some food and water. I sit all right if I get food and water and take it to them?" The innkeeper said, "Yes, but run back as soon as youcan. You need to finish your chores befor you have to go feed the animals." I said, "When I go to feed the animals, I need to take the couple some dinner. Is that all right?" He said, "Yes." So I got the food and water, took it to the couple, and then I ran back so that I could finish my chores. When I got done, the innkeeper gave me my dinner, and while I was eating, he said, "Take an extra lamp with you tonight, so that the couple does not have to sit in the dark, and take the lamp as soon as you are done eating. If they need anything, get it for them befor you come back to get the feed from the storage room. And don't forget their dinner." As soon as I got done, I grabed the food, the lamps, and a bucket to carry the things to the stable. When I got there, I got the unlit lamp, lit it with the other lamp, and set it on a shelf, then I gave the couple the food and then I walked to the spring, filled the bucket with water, went back to the stable, and gave them two cups so that they could get their own water. Then I ran back to the inn, grabed the feed and another bucket, and went back to the stable to feed the animals. I fed the animals, then I went to the stream. On the way, I figuered out how many trips it would take me to do it with one bucket. When I came back with my tenth bucket, I heard cries of pain coming from the stable. Then I heard silence. Suddenly, I a new born baby's cries. I walked as fast as I could back to the stable. When I got there, in the manger was a baby boy. I very, very slowly walked closer. When I got a cubit away from the happy couple, I said, "What is the baby's name?" They looked at me, and the woman said, "His name is Jesus, Son of the living God." Right as she said this, the inn keeper walked in. When he saw me standing by the happy couple, looking with love at the manger, he looked at the manger to. When he saw the baby, the woman said again, "His name is Jesus." Then the Inn keeper and I went back to the inn.

With Love,

Your Datter


A Little of This And a Bit of That

First, Lucille at Who's Going to Tell You? wants to know if she should keep blogging. She says she will continue if she gets fifty comments. She did not specify that the comments had to be from fifty different people, but wouldn't it be neat if she did get comments from fifty different people? I've started her off with ten comments. I'm just ornery that way. LOL So, everyone head on over to Lucille's place. I'll wait. I need to change around the loads of laundry anyway.



Second, I don't think I mentioned before that Jon, Kitty Kat, and Monkey are in a Christmas play the Stage Right drama group at our church is putting on. The play is (if I have it right) "Scrooge Revisited". Jon got the lead part of Scrooge. The girls are extras in a scene or two and are the great-great- great...granddaughters of Scrooge in a modern day scene. The girls had their lines memorized for their audition. Jon, on the other hand, has a total of ninety-nine lines to have memorized. He is finding that it is a lot harder to memorize lines now than it was when he had less responsibilities.



Third, things have been crazy around here.

The two aforementioned girls had to be at church every day but Friday a couple weeks ago. Sunday: we had morning and evening services and activities. Monday: the girls and I had Sunflower Scouts. Tuesday: Jon, Kitty Kat, and Monkey had play practice. Wednesday: Baby Bear had his Wed. night class; Puppy Dog, Monkey, and Birdie had children's choir; Kitty Kat and Froggie had small group; Jon had Men's Fraternity; and I had Teacher Training. Thursday: we had homeschool P.E. Saturday: our church had their Fall Festival and Trunk and Treat.


This past week was all mixed up.

A week ago Saturday, Birdie was playing ghost in a sleeping bag after I warned the kids to put the bags away before someone got hurt. Birdie tripped and chipped four of her teeth.

A week ago Monday, I dropped the other kids off at Mom's and took Kaycie to the dentist. Jon met us at Mom and Dad's and we ate supper with them before the girls and I had to run off to Sunflower Scouts.


Last Tuesday was election day so we tried to focus on the elections. The kids and I went over to Jon's Mom's place and picked up her pop cans (to recycle) and ran her vacuum. We took all our cans to the recycle center and then picked up lunch. We ate lunch at Jon's workplace. It was a nice day so the kids and I played games (i.e. Mommy Says instead of Simon Says) on the lawn while we waited for Jon to get off work. When Jon got off work, we went together in the van to go vote. The kids did great! They only got riled up when one of the poll workers started encouraging them. The workers were bored and enjoyed the lively chatter of the children. After we voted, we went shopping and then picked up Jon's car. The evening was spent watching the voting results, watching an online video about how the voting process works, etc.


Wednesday Birdie had an appointment at the E.N.T. doctor. Monkey, Kitty Kat, and Froggie stayed in the reception area and read. The boys went back to the examination room with Birdie and me. They all behaved well at the doctor's office.


Thursday the kids had their homeschool P.E. class and I got a chance to talk with some of the other homeschool moms from our church. We also had to run some errands.


Friday the kids and I (my mom came too) went to watch Jon at a forklift rodeo. As the day's events ended, Jon was in first place in the masters division. Jon's supervisor invited the children and I to go eat with them afterwards at Lone Star.


Saturday was the final day of the rodeo. We went again hoping that Jon would stay in the top six. During the final half hour, he was knocked down to seventh (I think) place. Needless to say, he was very disappointed. Jon stayed for the catered award ceremony while my mom, dad, the children, and I went to Frisch's. We then went back to our MESSY :. ( house for pumpkin pie that my mom had brought.

We also were getting back into our early rising routine this past week and dealing with the time change. Our pets are still messed up over the time change.

The children were really trying my patience this last week or so. They have been fighting and arguing, talking back, grumbling, complaining, deliberately disobeying, and making messes without cleaning them up. Between our busy week and trying to fit in school we didn't have much time to keep up the house. When we were working on the house, it was like we would take one or two steps forward and at least five steps back. I'm still trying to find the optimistic side of things.

This morning before he left for work, Jon told me I really needed to enforce a mandatory nap time "right now". He gave them all a talking to as well. The kids were already at each others throats before 6:30 am this morning! The kids have been watching preschool programs this morning ever since breakfast was over. They're not allowed to mess around or the T.V goes off. The girls won't take a nap anymore, so this down time is about as close as we'll get to naps. I was hoping the boys would fall asleep, but they're not. They are close though. We might just have to start our school day with story time. We've really got to get the kids back into a better routine.

This post is getting pretty long, so I'll end it here. I'll have another post up soon with yesterday's creative writing assignments.

Saturday, August 30, 2008

More Homeschool Freebies

Do you remember when I posted about the Homeschool Freebie of the Day?

This weekend only, the site is hosting a "Homeschool Freebie of the Day Labor Day Weekend/ End of Summer BASH!.

They are adding new freebies all weekend that remain free for the whole weekend. There is also a scavenger hunt to find past freebies that are available again for this weekend. I went through the whole hunt and found all eight items in just a couple minutes. That's saying a lot since we have dial-up.

This is what our computer desktop looks like right now. It's fitting, huh?!

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Homeschool Freebies

Homeschooling can get expensive. There are so many resources available online to defray the cost that it's astounding. One such site is Homeschool Freebie of the Day. If you sign up you will get e-mails once a week (if you prefer) with a list of freebies for the week (usually one per day). Each freebie is only available for free for the specified day. Once you download the freebies you can use them, but your friends need to go to the site to download their own copies.

If you're interested, check out the above link. Today's freebie is actually two freebies. This is from my e-mail from Homeschool Freebie of the Day:

Tuesday, July 29: "Favorite Kids' Recipes"
120 yummy recipes for kids, many of which they can make themselves!
Plus Extra resource!
"A Little Girl's Cookbook" - more old-time recipes & lessons

Enjoy, everyone!