Make your own Homeschool Lesson Planner

I've created the perfect homeschool lesson planner!!!

Well...for me anyway.

I spent many an hour on the interwebs searching for a planner that I could use for all 4 boys. But there was none to be found (that I liked anyway). I debated for a while on The Well Planned Day, since it was cute and girly and seemed like it might work. But I didn't want to shell out the $25 for it since I was still trying to buy the boys curriculum. Money is quite scarce when your husband is a full time student and you have 4 kids!

So what to do? I decided to make one on my own. It just so happens that I have a very intelligent husband who can make/create/design just about anything...I guess you would call him a jack of all trades! I explained to him what I wanted and it took him about 2 hours to whip something up for me. He also took the time to create a title page for me with the family crest and our homeschool name and motto. 100 blogger points to anyone who knows what it says!

I got the pages I wanted to be included all printed up and put in order. I had read on a couple of other blogs that having papers bound was inexpensive so I ran over to Kinkos to see how much. It was less than $6!

Well I love a blog with pics so here you go!

I cannot find the link to this printable anymore. Here is something similar though.

Also created by my husband, to keep track of the electives we do with our local home school group every week.

I just noticed you can see my owl-ly pj pants in this pic! Lucky you!

Here they are! The awesome lesson planning pages my husband created! LSU colors of course : )

Mystery of History planning pages, found on the MOH Yahoo group page

Apologia Biology lesson plans, from Donna Young's website

Apologia General Science Lesson Plans, also from Donna Young

My off centered tabs from Post It

We are planning to start school on Monday if Tyler and Colby stay well and don't catch the stomach bug going around!!!

Biggest Loser Competition

A couple of weeks ago I decided to see if there was any interest in creating a "Biggest Loser" competition here on campus. I figured if there was a reward, then I might be more motivated to actually lose the weight. Turns out there was lots of interest! 

 

I started researching the best way to organize everything, googling 'biggest loser groups" and seeing how others had done it. Here is what we came up with:

-team and individual winners

-weigh-ins every Monday at 8pm

-$10 per person- $5 for winner and $5 for winning team

-we would judge by percentage lost, not weight

-the competition would last 12 weeks

Here are a few "helps" I found. I will be taking optional measurements every 2 weeks and recording them on this Weight Loss Progress Chart. I was also very excited to find this "Biggest Loser Kit" Excel spreadsheet that will calculate the weight loss percentages for me!

At the last weigh in I was in the lead (woo-hoo!), but we still have 11 weeks to go! I have lost 9.5 pounds so far. My goal is to lose 35lbs total or to get to a size 8, whichever comes first!

Menu for the week

Monday

Breakfast: cereal

Lunch: p&j

Dinner: Jalepeno Popper Chicken

Tuesday

Breakfast: doughnuts

Lunch: BLT's

Dinner: Chicken Pasta

Wednesday

Breakfast: oatmeal

Lunch: turkey sandwiches

Dinner: eat at church

Thursday

Breakfast: cereal

Lunch: tortilla roll ups

Dinner: pulled pork in slow cooker

Friday

Breakfast: cereal

Lunch: meatball subs

Dinner: spaghetti

Saturday

Breakfast: pancakes

Lunch: Frito pies

Dinner: homemade pizza

Snacks: yogurt, no bake cookies, Puppy Chow, bananas, applesauce

Pokemon Party!

We celebrated Jackson's 7th birthday by having a Pokemon pool party last Saturday. We had a great time!

 I had been planning the party for quite a while but I waited until about a week before the party to go buy Pokemon plates and decor at Party City.  When I got there I saw that they didn't sell anything for Pokemon parties and neither did anyplace else in the city. So now I was going to have to make up everything on my own since it was kind of late to order stuff online and plus I really just hate paying shipping! That's where Dollar Tree and Pinterest comes in!

I'll break down what I made/bought for the party and how much it cost. 

(Sorry for the not so great pics! I didn't want to bring my camera to the pool so these are from an iPhone)

 Pokemon Cupcake Holder (<link to the blog I got the idea from)

I got this idea from Pinterest. It cost me about $6 to make. It's made from 3 silver platters and 2 glass candlesticks from Dollar Tree. I spray painted the bottom tray and candlestick white, the middle tray black, and the top candlestick and tray red. I used E6000 glue to put it together but it didn't dry very well because of the paint, so I ended up using a high temp glue gun to secure it.

Pokemon goody bags and personalized Pokemon cards

I copied this idea from my friend Katy, who had a Pokemon party for her son a couple of months ago. Its white lunch bags with red construction paper squares glued on. I used my Cricut and card stock to make the circles. I spent a little over a dollar on the bags and everything else was free because I already had it : )

 The cards were made from this website. It was really easy to do. I printed them on cardstock and had 8 of them laminated at our local school supply store for only 50 cents!

Pokemon Pinata

 For the pinata we bought a beach ball and black, white, and red crepe paper from the Dollar Tree.  We found a recipe for paper mache and over 5 days we layered newspaper strips that had been dipped in a mixture of flour and water on the beach ball, with a day in between each layer for drying. We had some spray glue that we used to attach the crepe paper. We spent $4 on the pinata. (well, not including the candy!)

Here are a few pics of him opening his presents : )

   I found the idea to make little signs for the food on Pinterest from this website. I just found the pictures on the internet and copied them into a word document.

 

(These say Dewott-er, Squirtle Juice, and Prinplup Popsicles)

 

 I bought red and white plates, forks, napkins, and both the red and white tablecloths from the Dollar Tree. I also got Babybel cheese because I think it resembles a Pokemon ball and my kids like them. You can kind of see them on the right under the tablecloth that was blown over : )

This is a pic of  the banner I made. I found some red paper balloon cutouts at the Dollar Tree that were perfect circles with a little triangle sticking out. I simply cut off the triangles and used my Cricut to cut out the white circles and the letters. I bought the black ribbon from Walmart for about $1. So I spent $2 on the banner. (you can click on the pic for a little bit better pic)

 

If I had to guess I'd say I spent about $20 on supplies (not including food) for the party. Jackson had a really good time so I would say it was a success!

Family Photos!

Last fall our pastor and his wife  had an adoption fundraiser on their blog, Gilberts for His Glory.  They were raffling off chance to win a free photo session with photographer Joe Fontenot, and we won! We finally got around to taking pics in April. We had a great time. I was really worried about it being too hot but the Lord blessed us with cooler weather that weekend thankfully. The boys hate taking pictures but they were troopers. But in a majority of the pictures Aidan looks angry and Jackson is hardly ever looking at the camera...crazy boys!

We wanted pictures to remember our time here in New Orleans...so we posed by our apartment : )

This may be the only picture of all of us looking and smiling

Jackson's eyes are closed, but I love the pic in from of the chapel!

Lol, Jackson looks ostracized, poor baby! But I love having the fountain in the pic.

He is so cute...the only child that even remotely resembles me

Don't know if you can really tell here, but his hair is really auburn in the sun.

Is it just me or does he look 15 in this picture?

Our freckle king!

Our little surfer boy

His little eye is so red! I think it was allergies, but its weird that it was only 1 eye. Anyway he is just adorable!

Me and my handsome husband!

He loves me!

I look really awkward standing like that...but it didn't feel awkward when I was doing it...oh well. Kyle looks like he doesn't wanna touch me with his arm..what is that all about? I love the colors in this pic! Too bad we didn't get one of those party horses in the pic!

I love how this one turned out!

What a cute little family!

We had to get a shot in front of the cathedral...

Looks like we were accidentally photo bombed...oh well, at  least he was wearing blue. 

I look like I am wearing a stop sign hat in this one : )

Aidan and Jackson are concerned about the car that is coming behind Joe...

Jackson wasn't even trying in this one, but isn't Aidan so sweet?

We had such a nice time in the Quarter!

We were so blessed to be able to have our pictures done! Thanks Joe!