Quick Update: I just received an email from my friends at Lesson Pathways, letting me know that since the first 500 slots went unexpectedly quickly, they are going to extend the opportunity to enroll for the free Beta Testing program until Monday 8/10/09 at midnight, EST.

This is great news, as I know that there were a lot of groups who just heard about this offer, and I was afraid that everyone who wanted to wouldn’t be able to get a slot.

Have fun!

Note: this post has been edited to correct a typo.  I had accidentally put the date as Monday, 9/10/09 (which doesn’t exist!) instead of Monday 8/10/09.   Just to be clear, the deadline is tomorrow night at midnight!  (Assuming you are reading this on Sunday, 8/9/09.)

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Some of you may remember last year when ChoosyHomeschooler.com was hiring homeschoolers to write reviews of homeschooling resources to jump-start their review website.  Well, I responded to their call for reviewers, and then one thing led to another (and another), and since then I started working with ChoosyHomeschooler to oversee the creation of a new subscription-based online homeschooling resource, Lesson Pathways.

I’m thrilled to say that it is now (finally!) ready for testing!  They hired homeschooling parents to create entire curriclua in all of the main subject areas for grades k-3 (with more grades to come), composed entirely of internet-based resources: lessons, games, videos, worksheets and printouts, hands-on projects, and more.  The site is not only great for supplementing your traditional homeschooling curriculum, but it can even be used to replace your traditional materials if you find that the versatility of online learning is better suited to your child’s learning style.  It’s also fantastic for unit studies, or for reviewing topics to keep them fresh in your child’s mind.  Not only does the site have topics arranged in full 36 week year schedules for each grade level, but they have also custom developed a nifty, yet simple, planning tool that lets you create your own customized teaching plan for each child.

Those of you who are using Mosaic Part 1 will find that there are numerous units that line up perfectly to supplement your explorations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, China and Rome. There are lots of online activities and ideas for projects that are great helps for adapting the curriculum to suit your children who like to learn online for a change, or who like games and projects to reinforce their learning.

I just wanted to let you know that Lesson Pathways is now recruiting beta testers to help give feedback, find bugs, and generally guide development of this site as they prepare for its public launch.  They are offering free 12 month subscriptions to the first 500 families who are interested in volunteering to test the resource.

This has been in the works for a long time now, and I was lucky enough to get to oversee the entire project until a little earlier this year, when I had to step back because of health problems.    Even though I haven’t been able to continue working the past few months, I still feel like it is my baby, and a very worthy project, to boot!  So many of you responded positively to me when I sent around the info about the review website, that I wanted to be sure you all had access to this info as well.    I’m just proud to have been a part of bringing this about, and I am happy to be able to let you all know about a free offer.  Please do feel free to spread the word to others that you may think would find this resource helpful.  (I’ve included the “official” spiel below, for ease of forwarding.)  And do let me know what you think!

Oh, and here’s the website, where you can get more info and sign up if you are interested in testing:

www.lessonpathways.com

LessonPathways.com is an innovative new tool that will save you time and money in planning your child’s homeschool education.  Using prescreened, high-quality, online resources, we have created a series of dynamic topic unit “Pathways“ for grades K-3.  Each Pathway contains resources that cater to a variety of learning styles and instructional methods.

Follow our Guided Journeys for an easy-to-use, full-year Pathway curriculum OR use our integrated Planner to create a custom plan for your child.  With LessonPathways.com, you’ll have all the tools you need to provide your child with a customized, multisensory education.

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Some friends and family are planning a group trip to the beach this summer.  Do you know how inexpensive a beach house can be, divided 10 ways or so?  Sure, we’ll have upwards of 30 people in this poor house, counting all the children, but it’ll certainly be a memorable trip!

One of the things I’ve been doing to help make the trip memorable for more than just massive overcrowding is creating beach themed activity books for each of the kids.  My twins and I have been collecting links to coloring pages, mazes, hidden pictures, dot-to-dots, maps for the license plate game, and more.  I also used some clip-art and whipped up an “Adventure Book” cover and a couple of activity pages of my own.

You can view all the tips and details, plus downloads of the cover and my activity pages, and all the links for the free printables that we used in our book, on the Bringing Up Learners Website.

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I am peeking out of what has turned out to be a 7 month black hole!  During that time, my health took a totally unexpected turn for the worse, and I was eventually diagnosed with fibromyalgia, which is a chronic condition in which the brain interprets normal sensation as extremely painful.  The brain malfunction also comes with insomnia and fatigue that has been overwhelming for me at times.

I’ve been slowly but surely learning how to live with all this, though, and to pace myself so that I don’t overdo things and end up in a place I’d much rather not be!  Obviously, I’ve been a little too preoccupied to work on the website, but it has always been in my mind.  I keep working on little projects that I’ll think would be perfect to put up on the website, but I felt too overwhelmed to actually get it on here.

What I have come to terms with from my experiments with more carefully pacing myself is that it will be much too overwhelming to continue into levels 3 and 4 of the Mosaic free curriculum right now, so we will have to work with the two levels that we already have available.  Also, I’d love to make the Mosaic 2 level as pretty and polished as Level 1, but I’m okay for now with leaving it as a spreadsheet that will give those who want some guidance a great starting place for studying Medieval history.

I do, however, really want to contine this website.  I have any number of other ideas for articles, printables, and activities that are a bit smaller in scope, and it’s occurred to me to eventually create a section for homeschoolers who have chronic illness, as well.  So, I’m coming back to add in additional content, at a pace that won’t be an undue strain!  I’m very much looking forward to it, and hope you will find some of my newer additions helpful!

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I’m sure some of you thought I might have abandoned this little project!  Come on now, admit it – the thought crossed your mind . . .

Not to worry – I can be pretty determined when I set my mind to it, so despite the personal issues we’ve been dealing with, and the not inconsiderable time demands of the new project I’m working on, I’ve finally completed the formal instructions for week 5.

I’ve had to streamline things slightly – I had too much duplicative work involved in the way I had been setting up my pages, and it took way too long to format and upload each page.  So from here on out, I’ll be creating one download for each week that will contain all five lesson checklists for the week.  I’ll also be going back and redoing the previous four weeks to match, at some point.  As usual, you can count on having a version for use with LHOTW and another version for use with SOTW.

Now that I’ve gotten things significantly streamlined, but still quite useable, I should be able to keep up and get the rest of the materials ready in a more timely fashion.

I just wanted to take a moment to thank everyone who has used and commented on the Mosaic lesson plans Years 1 and 2, thus far.  I’ve received some very touching and thoughtful emails of appreciation and kind words that pretty much serve to keep me motivated and determined to continue, despite the obstacles that we all face from time to time.  Many thanks, also to those who have suggested improvements, made corrections, and generally served as unpaid copyeditors!

My kids are loving Medieval history this year, despite the interruptions we’ve had in our school schedule, and I can’t wait to get to the Vikings this week!

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Many, many thanks to everyone for bearing with me during this tough time.  My friend passed away last weekend, and while we are sad to lose her, we are glad that she isn’t suffering anymore.

I except that things will be able to fall back into more of a normal routine soon, so I’m going to get ready to start back up with the lesson plans.

In the meantime, I thought I’d share a little goodie I ran across that you and your children might enjoy tonight – A color your own election map!  You can save and print this image to color in as the voting results start rolling in:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/egp/2997125355/sizes/l/

I recommend downloading either the Large or Original sizes for best print quality.

Enjoy!

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Just wanted to let everyone know that I won’t be able to make quite as much progress with updating the Mosaic 2 curriculum over the next couple of weeks as I would like. I apologize if you are trying to use the lessons this year and find that you pass me!

A friend of mine needs as much help as she can get for various projects as she goes under the care of hospice, and into her last couple weeks of life.  We’re trying to help her get some things in order for her little girl.

I don’t want anyone to think I am abandoning this project!  But I’m having to prioritize fairly ruthlessly right now.

And one of my priorities this week is to hug my girls tight, and count all the wonderful blessings that we sometimes take for granted.

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This week I’m beginning to enter lesson plans for week 4 in Mosaic 2.  Meanwhile, we’ve started back to school in our household.  We only got through one week of lessons before I contracted bronchitis, so our school year has gotten off to a slow start.  The girls are learning so much (already!) this year, and I can’t wait to get to all the great books we have ahead of us!  We just finished The Kitchen Knight today, and the kids loved it.

I’ve mentioned before that I do work for the new homeschool review site, ChoosyHomeschooler.com.  Well, I just wanted to pass along that they are sponsoring a new contest!  It’s called the “Wednesday Winner” contest- They are giving away a prize each week to a randomly drawn subscriber of their free newsletter.  The first drawing is this Wednesday, and they are giving away a $50 gift certificate to Rainbow Resource!  There’s a new winner each week, and all you have to do to enter is sign up for their newsletter.  As long as you’re subscribed, you’ll be entered every week that the contest runs.  Here’s the link to find out more.

Enjoy!

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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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