I’ve been updating the site this week to get Mosaic 2 ready for the beginning of school!  The complete book and resource list is now up, and I’ve also got the online lesson plans going, with the first week of lesson plans complete and uploaded.  You can view the weekly summary and detailed lessons for each day, plus you can print out daily checklists to help you keep up with everything.

Uploading and formatting the lesson plans is time consuming, especially since I am trying to make the plans more aesthetically pleasing, with beautiful artwork on as many pages as possible.  I believe, however, that I will be able to keep well ahead of the pace that you all will be able to work through the materials!

I think that this online format will make it much easier for me to update the lesson plans, keeping links current and fixing errors as they come up.  Users can print out checklists a few days or weeks ahead at a time, knowing that they have the most up-to-date version of the lessons at any given time.

I’d love to hear what you think, either here or in the users group!

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I just added a page to the main site on one of my favorite topics - school supplies!  This little project was inspired by a post I wrote on one of my email lists, and I thought I’d share some of the ideas with you, since I’d already gone to the trouble of typing it all up.  I added a few supplies I’d forgotten, and viola!  The list has simple items, as well as some creative solutions and ideas that even veteran homeschoolers might appreciate!  Feel free to add your own favorites in the comments to this post.  I’d love to see what you all can’t do without!

School Supplies: What to Get and Fun Ways to Use Them

Enjoy!

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Get a behind the scenes glimpse of the spreadsheet I’m currently using to develop the schedule for Mosaic 2.  Fancy it is not!  But it is lining everything up, day by day, so that I’ll be able to construct each day’s lesson plans from it.

I’m uploading a couple of editable versions to the Mosaic users group, so you can download and view in your Excel or OpenOffice programs if you prefer.  Note that this is a work in progress, and definitely subject to change.  In particular, there is a Shakespeare unit near the very end that will have several more resources added ASAP.  I’ll continue to post updates as I get them ready!

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I thought some of you might appreciate this shot of my “desk” (also know in some cultures as the “kitchen table”).   Those piles are all the books I’m currently weeding through, trying to decide which ones make the final cut.  I’ve almost gotten all the history scheduled.  I’ve organized the poetry, as well.  Now I just need to finalize the literature selections, schedule in the map work and timeline assignments, research the websites I want to include, and work on the lapbook type activities that I REALLY want to design.  As an added incentive to get me moving on that, I just purchased a year’s subscription to ClipArt.com.  Now that I spent $160 on the graphics, AND posted about it here, I’m pretty much locked in to following through!  (I’ve found that I have to use psychology like that on myself in order to get anywhere with big projects.)

It sounds like a lot, but it is amazing how much you can get done by working an hour here and a half hour there.  With the history scheduling, though, there’s no way around spending a big block of time plowing through all the spines to get the reading assignments cohesively organized.  So, a couple of weeks ago (when I was feeling enough under the weather that I didn’t feel obligated to clean house) I spent one whole day patching most everything together.  I’ve got a few more odds and ends I’m waiting on to finalize the history scheduling, and then I’ll post a first draft for your perusal!

I’m “this” close to being able to eat on our table again!

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I’m excited to report that I’ve got history assignments almost completed for the SOTW version of Mosaic 2.   I just have about 15-20 more lessons to account for, but the tricky work of coordinating the encyclopedia and SOTW in a way that makes coherent sense is done, and most of the activities/supplemental books are done, too.  So now I need to work on finishing that up and then working on the Little History of the World version, plus scheduling the historical fiction and all the other add-ons.  I have to tell you that I loved ancient civilizations so much I thought I would have a hard time getting primed for the middle ages, but now that I’m into it, I LOVE IT!  I just love history so much, and the Middle Ages are going to be every bit as fun for the kids as the ancient civilizations are!

I’m at the “carried away” stage right now, dreaming up dozens of cool improvements like adding in free picture study materials and discussion questions and even copywork and notebooking pages and a free lapbook.  I’m sure reality will settle in shortly, when the reality of how much time this all takes sets in!  So we’ll see how much I can get done before the reality check comes!  In the meantime, let me know what features YOU think are the most valuable.  Perhaps that will help me prioritize my time!  You can email me, or add your comments to this post, or, if you are on the Yahoo Group, you can chime in with your thoughts there.  (And do sign up, if you aren’t already a member of the group - We have some great ladies over there who are starting to chime in with supplemental book suggestions, modifications, etc!)

In other news about Mosaic 2, I’m very happy to have in my hands an advance copy (called the “galleys”) of an upcoming activity book (due to be released the first of September) called “Great Medieval Projects You Can Build Yourself”.  I emailed the publisher when I found out it was being released soon, and I begged them to let me look at a copy so that I would be able to schedule out all the projects in time for fall.  I love this book, and the fact that the projects range from simple to quite complex, which means it will be easy for those with older or younger kids to adapt for their needs.  Another potential bonus of using this book is that many of the other books in this series are available as free downloads at Wowio.com - I don’t know yet if this one will be included, or exactly when that would happen if it is, but it is another possibility that is exciting.  I know ebooks aren’t always the easiest to use, but a project book, where you only refer to selected pages, can be a good use of the medium.  Or, at the very least, it’s a great way to try the book out before you decide if you want to buy it!  Either way, though, I think this book will make a great selection for the Mosaic 2 curriculum.

A quick note about Wowio, in case you are interested in finding out more about this service - They are apparently doing an upfit on their site, to allow international customers to use it, so the site should be live again sometime near mid to late July.  If you aren’t familiar with Wowio, they enter into agreements with selected publishers to make available free downloads of their books.  The books are paid for by inserting ad pages in a few places.  (The ones I downloaded were sponsored by Verizon.)  The ads are NOT at all obtrusive, and the whole project is a great idea!   I hope that they are very successful with this venture.

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UPDATE: I have received word from ChoosyHomeschooler that due to outstanding response, they have received as many applicants for paid reviewers as they can handle at this time.  I’ll be sure to pass the word along if they require more participants in the future!   In the meantime, the review site is now in a public preview phase, and you are welcome to check it out!  Use the contact feature to let them know if you have any issues or suggestions for improvement with the site so far.  They are busy tweaking it to make things as useful as possible!

I just wanted to let you know that the company I work for part time is looking for homeschoolers who would like to be paid for writing reviews about how educational products worked (or didn’t work!) for their families.  They are paying $10 per review for 350 words or more, until they have enough reviews to make their new site very useful to homeschoolers.  They also have an opportunity for you to fill out a survey about your homeschooling preferences for $15.  (They are trying to determine how to structure their website so that it is most helpful.)

The company is called ChoosyHomeschoolers, and they are getting ready to launch their new reviews website.  I’ve been helping them out part time, writing and consulting, and they have been just wonderful to work with!  Rich Rasmus, the owner (and former CEO of K12), has been super nice to communicate with via email and phone conversations, and Jennifer Gray, the editor, is great, too.  I know it is hard to find good ways to earn a little extra spending money from home, amidst all the scams and pyramid schemes and junk out there, so I just wanted to let you all know that this is a legitimate small company.  They want to employ homeschoolers for as many of their staff positions as they can, so it is even possible that a few of these reviewer positions could turn into further employment opportunities.  (That’s how I got started with them.)  When I found out that they were advertising for new contributors, I asked them to let me put in a good word for them, in case any of you heard about it and were wondering if it was on the up and up!

You can go here: http://choosyhomeschooler.googlepages.com/temp for more info!  (And let me know if you have any other questions or such about my experience with them.)

In the interests of full disclosure, I wasn’t asked to pass this information along, nor am I being paid to do it - It just seemed like a good opportunity that I wanted my readers to know about!

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If you are a member of the Mosaic users’ group, especially if you are on “no mail” and read messages on the group website, I wanted to give you a heads up:

I updated the group name to reflect the new website, and that means that the address for accessing the group and the address for sending emails to the group has changed.

The new email for sending posts to the Yahoo group is: bringinguplearnersmosaic@yahoogroups.com

The new address for accessing the Yahoo group website is: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bringinguplearnersmosaic

If you have email filters, etc, set up for the old group name you may want to change it, and if you keep bookmarks of the homepages of your groups, you may want to update that as well!

I’ve really enjoyed all the good ideas and conversation lately, and I especially appreciate those of you who have been chiming in with your own tweaks, ideas, schedules and resources that help make this Mosaic curriculum work for even more people!

Thanks again for helping get this group successfully launched!  I’m looking forward to many great discussions and resources ahead!

(Also, if you are not currently a member, but want to get in on the fun, you can join us at any time here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bringinguplearnersmosaic)

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I’ve been hard at work screening candidates for inclusion in the upcoming Mosaic Introduction to World History, Part 2: The Middle Ages.  Today, I uploaded a preliminary list of books that may be used, and I’ll be adding more as I get my hands on them.  Also, I’m planning to include some books useful for supplementing for older children who need slightly more advanced resources than in the current curriculum.  This is very much a work in progress, with much more to come!

Feel free to check out the list, and let me know if you have any questions or suggestions!

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The new redirects are up and running, so you should find yourself on Bringing Up Learners, now, instead of Lunablog.net!  Let me know if there are any kinks or other issues!

The good news is that I think I’ve got things set up so that you will not have to re-subscribe to get the email or rss feed from the new blog.  Hopefully you will continue to get all the updates, as normal!  (Again, click on the contact tab at the top of the page to let me know if you run into any issues with this!)

From now on, the feature articles and free resources will be on the main site, found under the links in the left sidebar.  I will be using the new blog portion of the website to talk about all updates to the site, bring up homeschooling news, pass on interesting links, and generally chat about brief topics that are time sensitive.  If you ever find that you are getting more emails than you would like, and you don’t mind waiting a few days to learn about updates, you can always cancel the feed and sign up for the Bringing Up Learners Newsletter, which will provide you with a periodic summary of all updates, news, and information.  To sign up for the newsletter, simply enter your email address in the form in the right sidebar.  You will then receive a confirmation email in your inbox.  Be sure to click on the link in your confirmation email to activate your subscription!  You can always unsubscribe from any Bringing Up Learners newsletter, feed, or users group at any time!

I appreciate all the readers and subscribers who have come to this blog over the past year, and I am so excited to see what the new year will bring!

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This was too funny not to pass on to others!

Are you one of those organized overachieving homeschoolers that makes everyone else look bad? Find out with this hilarious tongue-in-cheek quiz! A great work of creativity in and of itself, I think this quiz puts its creator squarely in the overachieving camp! Take a look and see what you think!

Updated on 6/13 to include the link to the actual quiz, instead of just the results page!  (Although it was funny, too!)

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