Archive by Author | Lisa McAfee

Attention Shutterbugs! Photo submissions for Atlas

Mar12

Do you have a student who likes to take pictures? Here’s a chance to have some of their photos in a student atlas. If you are familiar with Uncle Josh’s outline maps, Trail Guides to Geography Series, or Galloping the Globe series, this is the company that would like to publish  their work. Read on to find out how to submit your student’s photographic masterpieces. I hope their picture is selected!

“GEOMATTERS NEEDS YOU!Attention budding photographers, here’s a chance to have your pictures published. We are very excited to announce that our team is putting together a beautiful, full-color United States desk atlas written by Jamie Aramini. The book will contain amazing custom illustrations, but we want to include photos taken by you, our loyal customers! Each photo selected will be printed in the atlas and will include the photographer’s name alongside the picture. We’ve created a list of photos that we need to complete the project. You can submit photos of any one (or more than one) of the subjects listed. If you have other images that you feel are representative of your state, feel free to submit them as well, but remember that we only have limited space, so we cannot include every image that we receive.

Visit our blog to read the complete guidelines and how to submit your photos. We can’t wait to hear from you!”

Living on Jupiter: Encouragement and Musings

Mar5

Yes, I live on Jupiter. Jupiter Court. You may have noticed that I gave my personal thoughts that heading. Sometimes I feel as though I am out on another planet! Sometimes I think it would be better if I were on another planet.  From time to time I will broadcast a message from there that will have my musings, reflections, and most importantly, bring encouragement to you.

So, here is an encouraging thought for today: The first day of Spring is less than a month away. “Hip! Hip! Hooray!”  I say.

I am yearning to plant the early crops of  spinach, lettuce, and green onions. I am devising plans to fight off bugs, rabbits, and deer to save something for us from my savory harvest. I have already ordered annuals from one of my home school students and I am beginning to think of new veggies and flowers to plant this year. I am looking forward to going to the home school convention here in town with a friend. And I have saved the best spring activity for last, I am looking with great anticipation to supporting you, my home school colleagues, with portfolio reviews. I wanted to let you know you are giving the best gift you possible can to your children; a personalized education and time spent with you! Have a great week.

Reading Hide and Seek

Feb27

I just began tutoring for a fantastic family who has a beginning reader.  I love what I saw the mom doing with her son in reinforcing concepts. She writes words they are studying on a small whiteboard that is a “master list”. (You could use any large piece of paper as a master list if you don’t have a small whiteboard.) She places flashcards of these individual words throughout the downstairs and her son must find the card, match it with the word on the whiteboard, and say it aloud. She also is doing this with addition problems. He must find the addition problems on flashcards throughout the house, add them together, and match the sum on the whiteboard. This is such a great way to get children involved in the memorizing of facts, as well as give them an opportunity to burn off some energy. I think this can be applied in almost any area of academics. Here are some more ideas:

Science– terms on flashcard, definitions on the whiteboard

Money– pictures of coins on the cards, values on the board

Time– faces of clocks on the cards, analog time on the board

Numbers– match items on the cards to numerals on the whiteboard

Colors– a color swatch on the flashcards, color word on the board

Health– pictures of food on cards, food groups or servings on the board

Geography– capitals on flashcards, states or countries on the board

Do you have any ideas to add? I’d love to hear about them.

Home Organization

Feb20

Are you feeling crowded by clutter? Are you wishing your pantry looked like this?  Is this a picture of my pantry? No! This is what I aspire to have my pantry look like and  I saw this posting  on a home school forum about home organization that just might help some of us.

Home Storage Solutions 101 is a website that helps you with organizing your home.  It is organized into weekly categories that address different rooms in your home. While it does start in January, you can jump in at any time. I think her ideas are practical and are broken down into manageable pieces, which is something I  need. I also like that she begins organizing in the kitchen since this seems to be where the majority of us home school moms spend our day!

Just remember to start with one area or room of your house and then when that is finished, move on to another one. Set aside a portion of your day to do this, 30 minutes I think would be good. Once you have an area organized, take pictures to help family members (and yourself) have a visual of where things go when you are straightening up. Don’t let all of your hard work fall back into a cluttered mess as that only leads to frustration. I had a friend whose son was extremely messy and she took pictures of his room once it was organized. She broke it up into categories for his desk, dresser, closet, and bed. She taped the photos on the back of his bedroom door for quick reference.

I like parties so maybe I could entice a few friends to come over for a “home organizing party”, what do you think? 🙂

Get Set for Kindergarten: a book series

Feb13

I saw this trio of books at the library the other day and thought they would be a valuable resource to anyone with children who are preschool/kindergarten age. Rosemary Wells is one of my favorite author/ illustrators and I hope you enjoy them. You can read the book without doing the suggested extension activities, but these would be great for a student who is ready for “The Next Step” as the book has stated. I have only listed three, but there are more books in the series to enjoy.

In The World Around Us children learn about communities, community helpers, holidays, and maps.

Adding it Up introduces the concepts of addition, money, simple fractions, graphs, and patterns.

Letters and Sounds introduces not only the alphabet, but also rhyming words and syllabication.