Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Activity, Change, Progress

Welcome

31 Days of Dinner Ideas for July. Rock Your Homeschool.

| Leave a Comment
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

July 31 Days of dinner ideas at Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Today, I have 31 days of dinner ideas for July.

Coping Like Career Moms

For many years I have planned for 31 days regardless of the amount of days in a month.

That is one of the key tips to sticking to 31 day menu planning.

Don’t get bogged down by looking ahead to see what all holidays, appointments and other things that are planned for the month.

It’s okay to do that, if you have time. Some months, I do plan slower and look ahead to be sure on a day when I am out running errands that I have a crockpot meal recipe planned for that day.

However, not all months are like that.

Instead of planning perfectly, I plan wisely by being sure  I have 31 days of dinner ideas.

31 Day Planning means Flexibility, Saving Money and Being Healthier. That Equals Smarter

Too, I have no gasps of being in the middle of cooking and not having one key ingredient needed to complete the meal. I hate when that happens and I refuse to do it.

Keep in mind I have repeated only a very few recipes because variety is what makes cooking for your family satisfying. Can you make that your challenge?

Download here July 31 Days of Dinner Ideas with Linked Recipes @ Tina’s Dynamic Homeschool Plus

If you need some more ideas, grab some of the other 31 days of dinner ideas.

January dinner ideas along with an editable menu planner
February dinner ideas
March dinner ideas
April dinner ideas
May dinner ideas
June dinner ideas

Are you struggling with this? In what area?

Hugs and love ya,

Signature T

Don’t forget to follow BOTH of my Pinterest accounts for more AWESOME pins.

Visit Tina Robertson’s profile on Pinterest.

Visit Tinas Dynamic Homeschool ‘s profile on Pinterest.

Save

Save

Save

Medieval Chemistry and Homeschool History – Fun Hands-On Activity

| 19 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Medieval chemistry and homeschool history is about hand on today. Medieval Chemistry had early beginnings although we don’t always think about the medieval period as that time. Also, look at my free 4 week Middle Ages Unit Study for more fun.

I shared Medieval Homeschool History – 4 Surefire Ways to Beat a Boring Study when we started using Beautiful Feet living history books.

Medieval Chemistry and Homeschool History. Alchemy was a 'science' back in Medieval times. Look at this fun hands-on activity over @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

We have been loving reading about the Middle Ages, but I wanted to add some science in with our history and reading.

Although the Middle Ages is not really known for its scientific discovery, the ‘science’ of alchemy was a popular idea.

The Forerunner of Chemistry in the Middle Ages

Trying to turn different base metals into gold I’m sure kept early alchemists busy discovering new things.

Today, I thought I would do some basic chemistry with Tiny so that he understands how early alchemist felt.

Alchemical_Laboratory

Alchemy was probably the forerunner to chemistry today.Though Tiny now knows that he can’t turn egg yolks into gold, he used to think about that.

However, he is always up for some fun chemistry.

Medieval Chemistry and Homeschool History

Look at this easy hands-on activity to do when learning about Medieval history. Color changing is about as close to gold changing as we get to today.

Grab these items.

  • 5 small jars
  • 1/2 head of red cabbage
  • sprite or I used diet 7up
  • cream of tartar
  • baking soda
  • vinegar
  • lemons or lemon juice
  • big microwavable bowl
  • colander
  • pitcher
Medieval Chemistry 1 @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus
Medieval Chemistry 2 @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

After Tiny grabbed everything, I used half of a head of red cabbage and put enough water to cover it somewhat.

Medieval Chemistry 3 @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus
Medieval Chemistry 4 @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Then, we put  the bowl in the microwave for about 10 minutes.

While the cabbage is in the microwave, Tiny put a 1/2 tablespoon of vinegar in one jar, 1/2 tablespoon of lemon juice in one jar and we repeated this for each item.

One ingredient in each jar.

Medieval Chemistry 5 @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus
Medieval Chemistry 6 @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

When the time was up for the red cabbage in the microwave, I used a colander to put on top of the pitcher and strained the juice. (Whoops, ignore my morning glass of cold iced coffee. I do love my coffee. )

Since the water is hot, it makes it easier to experiment if your kid can pour it into each jar using a small pitcher.

Because the cabbage juice is a ph balance indicator, each ingredient will turn different colors depending on it’s acidity or alkalinity.

Water has a ph balance of 7 and acids will have a lower number and alkaline items will have a higher number.

Medieval Chemistry 7 @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus
Medieval Chemistry 8 @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

For example the lemons have a low number and the baking soda turned blue-ish because it has high alkaline.

Look at this nifty scale for understanding about ph balance.

Medieval Chemistry and Homeschool History - Fun Hands-On Activity

You can experiment with more ingredients. Just remember this is chemistry so be sure you know what you’re doing because it can be dangerous combining ingredients.

I felt pretty comfortable with these things because I did them with my oldest kids.

However, there is nothing like your youngest child being able to do the things he had just watched his older siblings doing when he was little.

Besides, this fun activity helps Tiny to get into the spirit of discovery like they did in the Medieval times.

We used Beautiful Feet’s Medieval history because we love living literature!

Medieval Chemistry and Homeschool History - Fun Hands-On Activity

Can you add a bit of chemistry to your study of Medieval history?

Also, look at Medieval History for Homeschool Middle School.

Hugs and love ya,

Signature T

Look at how we used Beautiful Feet before in When We Used Beautiful Feet Books as our History Spine and also look at How to Use a History Spine to Build Your Study of History.

Free Homeschool Academic Year Calendar – 2016 to 2017 – Cherry Fizz Color

| 11 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

2016 to 2017 Academic Year at a Glance Cherry Fizz form @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool PlusToday, I have the second color choice for the free homeschool academic year calendar for the 2016 to 2017 school year, which I am calling cherry fizz. I think it’s my summer brain thinking of all these delicious sounding names like ice cream and now cherry fizz.

Curriculum Pages for Planner

Don’t forget this is JUST a calendar for you to glance at the school year and make a few notes at the bottom.

I also make a planning your school calendar which gives you room to plan your school year. It is found every year on Step 5a. Choose Unique forms JUST for You. The current planning your school year calendars is kept at that page/step.

Look below at the picture so you can see the fine, but huge difference between just calendars like the one I have today and an actual planning form with a calendar and room to plan your year.

2016 to 2017 Year Around School Planning Powder Puff 231x @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Do not try to write in your plans for the year on this calendar, I give you plenty of room on the tracking calendar.

Also, this calendar is not for writing appointments because you can grab a huge 2 page spread for noting appointments on Step 2. Choose Calendar/Appointment Keepers. The current 2 page appointment keepers are kept there.

Look at a picture below from one of the previous years of the 2 page spread calendar, which gives you room to write appointments.

2015-2-pages-per-month-Dreaming-4_thumb.png

I hope these pictures make it more clear that the calendar I have today is just that. It is perfect for glancing at the year and for reference in your planner.

Save it and print off as many as necessary when you print your planner.

I always have two or more spread throughout my planner. I put one close to my lesson planning section, one close to the front of my planner and sometimes I even put in the back so I don’t have to hunt very long for it.

Grab your free copy below!

Hope you like cherry fizz..

2016 to 2017 Academic Year at a Glance Cherry Fizz @ Tina’s Dynamic Homeschool Plus

If you’re ready to start building the MOST unique planner ever because YOU built it, start below!

7 Easy Steps – “Tons of Options & Pretty Color”

Step 1. Choose a Pretty Front/Back Cover

Step. 2. Choose Calendars/Appointment Keepers

Step 3. Choose Goals/Objectives

Step 4. Choose Lesson Planning Pages Right For You!

Step 5a. Choose Unique forms JUST for You! Not a kazillion other people

Step 5b. Choose MORE Unique Forms JUST for You!

Step 5c. Choose MORE MORE Unique Forms Just for You!

Step 6. Personalize It

Step 7. Bind it! Love it!

Hugs and love ya,

Signature T

Don’t forget to follow BOTH of my Pinterest accounts for more AWESOME pins.

Visit Tina Robertson’s profile on Pinterest.


Visit Tinas Dynamic Homeschool ‘s profile on Pinterest.

Linking up @ these places:

Happiness Is Homemade |Good Morning Mondays |Family Joy|Practical Mondays |Motivation Monday|Merry Monday |Mommy Monday |The Homeschool Nook |Inspire Me Monday |Lou Lou Girls Fabulous Party |Hip Homeschool Hop |Tuesday Talk |Hearts for Home |

Free Art Notebooking Pack – Grade 8 (Other Grades too)

| 7 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Free 8th Grade Art Curriculum and notebooking pages. Grab them over @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

 

Free Art Curriculum & Notebooking Pages

I have another set done of my free art notebooking pages. You know how I feel about art. It is one of those subjects that should be enjoyed from K to gray.

First, did you miss my other sets and the free art curriculum guide to go along with it?

Download Grades 1, 3,4, 5, 6, and 7 Notebooking Pages AND the FREE Guides to go with each set on my Art Notebooking Page.

Even though the free art curriculum guide at Concordia University Chicago – Art Lessons that I am following to create printables divides the art into grade levels, I did not create the art notebooking pages baby-ish.

This way whatever the ages of your children are, they can use any grade level guide of their choosing along with the printables I created to have a complete art program for each year.

After all, if you haven’t covered an artists or art work before, then does it matter which grade you do?

Besides, you can use the guide questions in the upper grade art if you want to cover some of lower grade art and vice versa.

I know the questions in the upper grade level hone in more on artistic design, composition and principles of design. And though the lower grade guides provides the same framework, they do not do it as in depth.

Again, I hope this makes sense because you should be able to do any packet you choose by using the free curriculum guides from either an upper or lower grade depending on the ages of your children.

Keep in mind, that you need BOTH the free Curriculum Guide from Concordia University ALONG with my notebooking packets to have a complete art program for the year.

Today, the 8th grade set is ready. I have completed grades 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and now 8. I only have grade 2 to do before I am completed.

If you cover one artist per month, then each grade level will take you one year. So free art for a year!

One last thing I need to remind you of because I have some new faces here is that I also create TWO SETS of the SAME art notebooking page, but each set is slightly different.

I know, I know, I like things perfect to have options and I love for you to have them too.

Look below at the graphic I created to show how each set is slightly different.

One set has all text boxes in case you have a kid or two like I do that doesn’t want to sketch the art.

You’ll Love these Chalk Pastel Lesson by a Talented Homeschool Mom
Bird Video Art Course for All Ages
Especially at the high school level, my oldest son just wanted to make it more about art history.

So he wasn’t interest in sketching every piece. He just wanted to read the background information about each artist, read about the artwork and move one. Oh yes, I used some of these packets for high school art credit.

The second set has one small sketch box instead of the text box because then I have another kid who wants to sketch the art that we were learning about. Too, I keep the sketch box not too big so it doesn’t become a project to sigh about.

How to Use - Art Notebooking Pages 1

So the art is the SAME for both pages.

Too, this allows you to choose from either set depending on the time you have for that month. For example, one piece my sons may want to write, so I would print off that page. The next art piece they would want to sketch so I would print off that page from the other set.

Homeschool Art When You Don’t Want to Make a Mess

Give your child options and don’t think you have to use ALL the same pages from one set. I mixed and match depending on the mood for the day or month.

I have a more pictures from each set to show you. This is how the pages look from the set that has sketch boxes and

3rd grade Artist Study Packet 1 with 3 text and 1 sketch box 23rd grade Artist Study Packet 1 with 3 text and 1 sketch box 3

this is how the pages look from the set that has ALL text boxes.

3rd grade Artist Study Packet 1 with 4 text boxes 13rd grade Artist Study Packet 1 with 4 text boxes 2

Again, BOTH sets have the same art and are the same except for that one box.

Choices in any subject makes learning about it more enjoyable. We don’t feel so hemmed in.

I hope you enjoy this next grade level, which is Grade 8 according to Concordia University AND be sure to download both packets so you can decide which set best suits your needs for each art piece.

Download each notebooking packet below.

Artist Study Packet (8th grade) with 3 text – 1 sketch box

Artist Study Packet (8th grade) with 4 text boxes

Don’t you want the free art study packets for other grades? I know you do.

Click here to go to the other grades 1st through 7th Grade Free Art Curriculum.

Hugs and love ya,

Signature T

Don’t forget to follow BOTH of my Pinterest accounts for more AWESOME pins.

Visit Tina Robertson’s profile on Pinterest.

Visit Tinas Dynamic Homeschool ‘s profile on Pinterest.

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

How to Grow to Love Being a Homeschooler

| Leave a Comment
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

How to Grow to Love Being a Homeschooler. You can begin to homeschool without adopting the homeschool lifestyle but you would be missing out @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Whether it was a last-ditch decision or you planned for years to homeschool before your first child was born, everybody who begins to homeschool has to make the decision to grow to love being a homeschooler or not.

It can just be an educational choice or you can decide to passionately live the homeschool lifestyle.

Enjoying the benefits of the homeschool approach without adopting the lifestyle is possible, but not without being short-changed.

How can you adopt the homeschool lifestyle or be sure that you are embracing it to the fullest extent that your circumstances allow?

Look at these three ways how to measure your growth.

ONE | You have stopped trying to find the perfect curriculum.

It was about five years into my homeschooling journey when I learned that the challenge of choosing curriculum wasn’t going away. I knew that teaching my sons through everyday life was paramount.

Nurturing a Love for Lasting Learning

Living the homeschool lifestyle means that curriculum is now just a tool and you learn that it doesn’t really teach anything.

Sure, I need to have objectives and choose curriculum that gives me the freedom to teach my worldview, but I am doing the teaching.

What you are willing to do to teach your children is way more valuable than what you are willing to buy to teach them.

The challenge in homeschooling is not the endless pursuit of curriculum, but in helping your child to maintain his love of learning that he had when he was young.

Adopting the homeschool lifestyle means that you have moved beyond curriculum, progress reports, tests and needing accolades from friends and family that you are doing a super job.

Now, you simply don’t care what other people think. Did I mention it’s really liberating?

Learning that your life, no matter how boring you may think it is, it’s full of rich meaning for your children.

TWO | You maintain a homeschool routine, but not necessarily a rigid schedule.

Another tell-tale sign that you have embraced natural learning is that no longer do you fight to maintain your homeschool routine, but now homeschooling is not something extra you do in the day. It is the way you spend your day and everything else now revolves around it.

It’s hard for anything you begin to become a lifestyle overnight.

I think about being newly married or when I lost a lot of sleep when I brought my first son home from the hospital. Significant changes in my life called for significant effort to make them part of my life. It’s not long after the new changes in your life that you realize it’s hard to remember a time without your kids or your spouse.

Homeschooling becomes the same way. You are not constantly worried about completing curriculum or making grades and testing. Like life, you realize homeschooling has certain tests that need to be met, bt you meet them like you do anything else in your household.

THREE | You learned that you can’t homeschool on an ‘island.’

Associating with and joining with homeschoolers is like being immersed in learning another language. Until you do it, you can’t see where you’re coming up short.

For example, I didn’t fully appreciate how much faster we could learn another language until we had moved overseas. Having studied Spanish for many years, I had a good command of the vocabulary, but it was fragmented.

After we moved to South America and received total language immersion, it made me fully appreciate the language, lifestyle and culture.

When you refrain from meeting up with other homeschoolers or isolate you and your kids, it’s not only unhealthy, but it’s unnatural.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not telling you that you have to be a social butterfly and join every possible homeschool groups. Some groups are just too extreme for my taste and I tend to be very picky.

How Are You Measuring Up in Adopting the Homeschool Lifestyle?

What I am saying is that when you and your family stand in stark contrast to those in your neighborhood or your friends, you need a support system with others who are like-minded.

Instead of being overly critical of other homeschoolers’ choices when you meet with them, look at what you can learn from them. I received tips on how to homeschool multiple children, make time for myself and move ahead on curriculum when we were hitting a brick wall. Without the tips, I would have struggled longer.

Growing is part of everyday life and it’s amazing. If something or someone is not growing, it’s always a sign that something is wrong.

Have you adopted the homeschool lifestyle?

Grab some more ways to be an empowered homeschooler below:

3 Reasons Why Homeschoolers Are Take Charge People
Go Ahead and Make a Mistake: Homeschool Without Fear
10 Books That Boost Your Homeschool Zen (When It May Be Sagging)

Hugs and love ya,

Signature T

Don’t forget to follow BOTH of my Pinterest accounts for more AWESOME pins.

Visit Tina Robertson’s profile on Pinterest.


Visit Tinas Dynamic Homeschool ‘s profile on Pinterest.

 

Save

Save