Little Learning Lovies: 5 Months of Lovie Pack Downloads Flash Giveaway

Disclosure: I am an affiliate with Little Learning Lovies and receive a small commission on purchases made through my links. Thank you for your support. All opinions expressed in this post are my own and are in no way swayed by any compensation I may receive. 

Little Learning Lovies is having another celebration!

It is almost time for the new Lovie Packs to come out. This will be the 6th month that Sandra, from Little Learning Lovies is offering the Lovie Packs. Each month's Lovie Packs have revolved around a different subject.

April: On the Farm
May: Spring Buggies
June: Happy Campers
July: Neverland
August: Fun in the Sun

The thing is, with the Lovie Packs, they are only available for one month and then they are gone.  She realizes that people may have found her site after some of the Lovie Packs were already retired, so in celebration of the 6th month of Lovie Packs, she will be bringing all of the Lovie Packs back! But only for one day, 24 hours.

Tomorrow, on September 1st, you will be able to purchase ANY or ALL of the Lovie Packs from April through the new one for September.

And if this isn't good news enough, today there is a flash giveaway.
The winner will win all 5 Lovie Packs in Digital Download format!

Just enter in the Rafflecopter below!
Ends tonight at midnight!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Disclosure: I am an affiliate with Little Learning Lovies and receive a small commission on purchases made through my links. Thank you for your support. All opinions expressed in this post are my own and are in no way swayed by any compensation I may receive. 

Lovin' the Weekend Blog Hops: August 30-September 1, 2013

Welcome to Lovin' The Weekend Blog Hops with your co-hosts:

Karen from Tots and Me, Rena from An Ordinary Housewife and Angie from Snack Cups and Smiles.

Thank you to every one who has stopped by, whether this is your first visit or you have been a faithful ongoing participant! 

We would love for you to stop by each of the co-hosts and follow us, then feel free to add your links to any or all of the following linkies.

 We also randomly choose a Featured host each week from the Lovin' The Readers linky. This week we are featuring Erin at The Grass Skirt.

Here's what she has to say:
"Erin is a wife, mother, and the writer behind The Grass Skirt- a total lifestyle blog.  She's also a certified holistic health coach with a passion for all things related to wellness and nutrition.  She started her blog in January 2011 as a way to show how she maintains a healthy lifestyle and to share her love for all things beauty, organization, and family life. She's a massive Lionel Richie fan, and even though she's health-conscious, she has never met a cookie that she didn't like! You can follow her on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest. "

Don't forget to link up to the Lovin' the Readers Hop if you would like a chance to be a Featured host next week. Please comment with a way to contact you, especially if there is not an obvious way mentioned on your blog. We would love to include a little write up about you and your blog in the next week's Lovin' The Weekend Blog Hop post, including a link to your blog. And you will get to include the linky codes on your blog. Sound fun? We're looking forward to getting to know our readers better.

Here's how this blog hop works. We would appreciate it if you would follow Tots and Me, An Ordinary Housewife and Snack Cups and Smiles. And please don't forget to visit our Featured Host. If you no longer have GFC please follow in some other way. After that there are three different linkies you can link to. Whichever one you choose to link to, please grab that button and share it on your blog (the codes are on Tot's and Me's sidebar). We'd love it if you could tweet or in some other way share about this blog hop, the more people who know about it, the more potential visitors and new followers of your blog. We'd love to meet some new friends this weekend.  

Some people are more interested in just increasing their numbers, while others really want people who appreciate their blog and want to keep up with their posts. So, there are two separate blog hop linkies. 

The third linky is for you to link up your giveaways.

If you are interested in increasing the number of followers to your blog via GFC, Linky Followers, email, Twitter, Facebook or Google+ link up here. We will follow you back if you follow us (just note which one you are linking to):

If you are interested in gaining followers to your blog who will read and comment and truly find an interest in your blog, link up here:

If you have family friendly giveaways to link up, here's your spot. Please make sure to include an end date for your giveaway.

We are so glad you stopped by. Please leave a comment if you link up and we will be sure to stop by and follow back.

Don't forget to check out my "Blog Hops" page for other great blog hops!!

Kids and a Mom in the Kitchen #53: Pasta Salad

Time for Kids and a Mom in the Kitchen

(A weekly linky where you can share your special time in the kitchen, such a great place for learning. You can also link up Kid-Friendly Recipes)

The linky is at the bottom.

We had a gathering to go to the other day and I decided to take something easy to make, my pasta salad. The girls wanted to help, so of course I let them. Though it has nothing to do with our topic, this is our Kids and a Mom in the Kitchen for this week.

Pasta Salad:
(This was enough to take to share.)

1 1/2 boxes of tri-color rotini
8 oz cheese
Small can of sliced olives
Pepperoni
Bell Pepper (whichever color you prefer)
Italian dressing

Cook the pasta according to package directions. Drain and return to pan. Pour a little Italian dressing in and stir to keep it from sticking. 

While the pasta cools cut the cheese.

We started out by using the Funbites cutter, but it wasn't quite small enough. I decided to cut it myself into smaller pieces. You can also use shredded cheese. 

Tabitha helped cut the pepper.

While I cut the pepperoni slices into quarters. 

I don't really measure how much pepperoni I use, but it was less than half a bag of sliced pepperoni. 

Hannah helped stir the ingredients in.

For a smaller pasta salad I will use a small jar of Italian dressing, for this larger amount I used almost the entire big jar. 

Do you have your children help you in the kitchen?  What lessons do they learn? Do you have any kid friendly recipes to share?

I'd love to see your posts, whether you have done something this week or some time in the past. Just link up below. This is a weekly linky.

I am linking up to:

 

   

Melt in Your Mouth Monday
Try a New Recipe Tuesday at Home to Four Kiddos
The Gathering Spot at Mamal Diane
Tempt My Tummy at Blessed with Grace
Friday Food Frenzy at Close to Home
Fantastic Thursday at Five Little Chefs

And here is my Kids and a Mom in the Kitchen linky

2013-2014 A Day in the Life of our Homeschool

Well, I feel I am better organized this year in regards to our homeschool/lesson time. I am still trying to get our schedule done to how it will work best for us. The following schedule is the one we are using right now, it has already changed a bit since last week (our first week of school).

Morning Routine

I start my day with at least one load of laundry that I try to remember to start before I even go downstairs. 

The next 1-2 hours are for me to have my quiet time with the Lord, get some blogging done and check work in the girls' workboxes and get the new day's workboxes set up. 

On the occasion that one of the girls comes down early, they may lay quietly on the couch or have some time on starfall.com or something similar.

When I am ready I will set the table for breakfast, usually cereal and juice. 

The girls are to get dressed and are supposed to make their beds (though that doesn't always happen). Sometimes I find them upstairs playing.

When they are all dressed we will have breakfast.

And I will do their hair. (Yes, I do their hair while we are eating. Otherwise it takes all morning to get ready.)

When we are done with breakfast, Harold gets to play,

While we clear the table and,

empty the dishwasher from the load that was cleaned overnight.

The girls then get approximately 10-15 minutes each on the WiiFit Plus.

While they are occupied I will get our school area ready for Gathering Time.

Gathering Time

(Gathering time is what we are now calling our "circle" time. Circle time just felt so... schooly and we are not technically in a circle.)

The children pretend to travel to school to see Mrs. Bearly (that is my teacher name).  Sometimes they take the bus or train (the couch),

other times they may take a row boat.

After they have greeted Mrs. Bearly and I have welcomed them to school, we start our gathering time with prayer. We all take a turn thanking God for at least one thing. 

Then it is time for the Pledge of Allegiance and the Pledge to the Bible.

We then sing the B-I-B-L-E.

During the 1st verse we sign B, I, B, L, E, book, and me. And then we stand up. We sing the second verse and walk around the dining table. They take turns each day being the leader. Even Harold love join in, he thinks it is great fun!

After the children are back in their seat we get ready to do the calendar. We sing "This is the Day the Lord has Made" while one of the children points to the words on our poster. The poster is then opened to do our calendar.

The children used to take turns pointing to the calendar, but calendar has been taking so long, I have decided to see if I can speed it along by being the one doing the pointing while they add the day, month, date, year and season to the poster.

We then sing our "What is the Weather?" song and they check out the windows.

We then move into our letter/sound. There are different things we do each day with our word cards and picture cards. On the first day of a unit either I or one of the older girls will hold the word card and sound it out and they will take turns finding the picture and putting it on our poster.

On other days we take them off or play a "take one away" game, I have also had them hand me the one that rhymes with a word I am saying. We also work on our Words to Remember at this time. 

Lesson Time

I will read them some books based on our topic.

And we have our Bible time from the MFW manual.

At this time we may also have a project and we will learn Spanish.

I am still working out the order of things, but what seems to work best is to have a small snack next.

Then the older two work on their workboxes. This may include student sheets from MFW or additional worksheets I find or make. They also have their math curriculum that goes in one box. 

While they are working on that, I will work with Hannah.

Harold will sit at the table and I will give him activities. 

Putting straws through a paper towel cardboard roll.

And if I stand next to him he may just put things in my pocket.

Putting pompoms in a container.

As the older two finish their workboxes they tag the sticky notes off the box and put it on their All Done sheet.

When workboxes are done they will play with playdough while I make lunch. This is one of the new things we are trying. They used to watch a show while I make lunch.

Lunch Time

Rest Time

Then they relax on the floor and watch their show.

Afternoon Work Time

After the show is done the girls will do their calendar notebooks which consists of writing the date in the calendar and figuring out some information about the date, plus they write the time and record the weather.

Tabitha (and sometimes Amelia) will work on cursive.

Amelia also works on Time4Learning, but I don't have any pictures of that.

I then make dinner and we eat before daddy's leaves for work.  

The girls have after dinner "helpful jobs." If they do these in a timely manner and without behavior issues they get to play on NintendoLand or some other video game. 

And that is a quick look at our "normal" day.