Joyful Momma's Top Picks

For a large part of last year, whenever our homeschooling co-op sent out an Excel file, I couldn't open it. I may have lots of cool web design and graphics programs on my computer, but I don't have Microsoft Office (and didn't really see the need, apart from an inability to open Excel Docs). A few months ago, a friend of mine told me about a free, open source set of programs that does what Microsoft Office does, but for free.

Open Office is a free, open source set of programs. It includes OpenOffice Write, which is comparable to Word, OpenOfficeBase and OpenOfficeCalc, which can open and create databases and spreadsheets, and OpenOfficeImpress, which makes Power-Point style multimedia presentations. There is also OpenOfficeMath which are used for mathematical operations and OpenOfficeDraw for creating Vector drawings.

This free software suite is pretty easy to use, and has many different uses within your family. I know my own children like making Slideshows and multimedia presentations with Impress, and drawing with Draw.

Labels: freebies, software

My children are creative kids, as I think most kids are. They are fortunate to live in a day when there are more opportunities to express that creativity! Back when I was a kid, the way we animated things was by making one of those lame flip books which was not all that exciting, way too much work for little results, and really hurt your thumbs to use.

Today, if you have a child who wants to learn stop-motion animation, they can have their parents or grandparents purchase the Stop Motion Animation Kit from NR Productions. They may even buy it themselves.

A few months ago, I first saw someone commenting on this clever kit, put together by some homeschoolers, and I wanted one. The thing that stopped me, to be honest, was the price, as the kit includes not only a very helpful book, but software and a camera. I thought to myself, "I'd rather just have the book--we already have too much software and a camera". However, the software they packaged with this kit, and the camera, make stop motion animation a breeze. As I looked at it, and watched the sample videos, my son came in the room, and said, "I want that!" We've made stop motion vidoes before with just a digital camera, and uploading each picture frame by frame into Power Director (can you say time consuming?) but this looked much easier....and it is!

Over the next few months, Judah saved up some money towards it and I decided, after much hemming and hawing over it, to take the plunge. We are so grateful.

I *love* this kit.

Right out of the box, we were able to do something with it. In fact, the day it arrived, I could barely open the box, as I had five children, all excited about it, trying to catch a glimpse. We opened it, loaded it onto the computer, and within a few minutes, my 13 year old son had produced this 4 second video. the little characters are the Cubboyds we purchased from NR Productions too.
.Literally, folks...not 15 minutes later, we had this video:



Why am I showing you this? because though this is a 4 second, somewhat rough video, I think it demonstrates just how easy it is to use this software, camera, book and kit. Actually...ahem...my son didn't read the book yet (the girls, as always, are reading it first...he just jumped ahead to the good part--hands on).

Do you have little filmmakers in your household? This momma highly recommends NR Productions Animation Kit!

Labels: Art, Creativity, Filmmaking

When I started homeschooling, most of what I read really pooh-poohed the use of workbooks--and probably for a good reason. Most of life is not handed to us in workbook format, and workbooks can be pretty boring. It was not until after I had a rather diffult time with my son, who has some learning disabilities in the reading department, that I began to look for a phonics program that would work for him--preferably not costing hundreds of dollars. While at a local bookstore that carries many homeschooling resources, the Adventures in Phonics workbooks caught my eye. They were simple, yet full of "meat" for teaching phonics. Because I've used Alphaphonics by Samuel Blumenfeld for most of our reading instruction, I was especially pleased to see that it looked like I could easily use the workbooks along side of Alphaphonics. I was almost afraid to turn it over to look for the price, but sighed sweet relief that it was under $10. But, would it help?

Within a few months of using Adventures in Phonics with my then-7 year old struggling reader, I soon was back at the store buying a copy of the appropriate workbook for each of my younger children as well. My youngest is now in the last workbook of Adventures in Phonics, and I can't recommend this enough. No matter how you plan to teach phonics, Adventures in Phonics levels A, B, or C are great for reinforcing the basic phonics principals both for reading and for spelling. I have also used Adventures in Phonics as a stand alone phonics curriculum with my youngest, who has really enjoyed doing her schoolwork.

I especially enjoy the fact that the sentences that are used in the assignments reinforce good character traits and Bible truths.

Any downsides? If I had one complaint it would be that some of the clip art is downright cryptic. We have had many laughs around the table as we all pass the workbook around and try to guess what the picture is using a word that fits into todays phonics rule!! Of course, I do cheat by not buying the teacher's guide, as most of the lessons are self explainatory for a mom who has a reasonable handle on her phonics, but those clip arts have been a challenge at times. ;)

Level A is designed for Kindergarten and is super basic, teaching the consonant sounds slowly, one at a time, and then introducing blends and short vowel sounds before teaching long vowel sounds and vowel digraphs. Level B reviews what was taught in Level A, and then introduces new material. Level C is a year long review of basic phonics and spelling.

If you are looking for a great curriculum for teaching your children phonics, check out Adventures in Phonics from Christian Liberty Press.

Labels: homeschooling, phonics

Assigning chores, especially if you have a large crew or household help that comes in to help you, can be a job in and of itself. I don't know about you, but sometimes I get really overwhelmed trying to keep track of what household chores need to be done, when they were last done, who is supposed to do them, and keeping all of the details straight. If only there were something in my computer to spit out a chores schedule for me!

Well, guess what? I FOUND just such a thing last week. Woo Hoo.

Let's Clean Up is a very inexpensive piece of software available from a mom who wanted to set up a program to schedule her chores. Lisa Way is a professional software designer, specializing in user-friendly databases. She developed Let's Clean Up to help manage her own household, and she has made it available to help other households as well.

Let's Clean Up allows you to easily create a database of chores that need to be done around your house, how frequently each job should be done, which day of the week it should be done, the skill level required to do this job (numbered 1-10), and the name of the person responsible for the job. When you are done setting up your tasks, you can print out a task list for that day, listing all of the jobs that need to be done, and who should do them. Alternatively, you can print out a separate sheet for every worker, so that everyone has their own checklist.

We downloaded our free 30 Day trial version of Let's Clean Up a week ago, and it has already helped us with our household chores. What a blessing to have all of our assignments printed out on one sheet with a click of the button!

Let's Clean Up costs US$9.95, and is available from www.lets-clean-up.com

Labels: chores, housework