Needless to say, not much time is afforded for upkeep of our beloved website that we have labored over!  Although not much has changed in our situation, summer has given me some moments to turn my thoughts toward HMHS.

In fact, Michael and I have been talking quite a bit about it.  We have some plans that are very exciting!  First of all, we have decided to remove the forum.  With the popularity of Facebook, Twitter, and the likes, we felt the forum was just not needed in our community here.  We will be keeping up with the blogs, including recipes, daily thoughts and activities, mini web-based unit studies, and those wonderful posts from Grammy Sheryl.  Big Den will still chime in with his language arts blogs and Michael is great with instruction on technical aspects of the internet, computers, and social networking.  We have also set up a very cool commenting system for our blogs called Disqus.  It is very easy to use along with your Facebook and/or Twitter accounts.  We are very anxious to continue our plan for homeschool podcasting, which should be great fun!  Actually, we have 3 shows already in the works.

I hope that everything is well with each of your families in these difficult times.  We look forward to continuing our community here and are excited for our future plans.  Try out our new commenting system and let us know how your families are doing!  It’s fun and we’d love to hear from you.

Our reader participation giveaway is over! Actually it ended at the stroke of midnight in the wee hours of Tuesday, but we had to do something exciting yesterday -which we’ll talk about in a little bit – and couldn’t get to the results until this morning.

Being the nature of things on the Internet, we received just 7 comments, but what great comments they were! Our new email subscribers don’t line up with the comments that were made, though. In fact, some of the comments left have email addresses that don’t match any of our email subscribers. I’m scratching my head. Perhaps I didn’t clearly explain what the rules should be when Shelly was writing the original post. We received more subscribers than comments, and since getting folks to comment and share their ideas was the more important part of the drawing, we are focusing on those.

Each of the 7 very helpful people that left a comment will be receiving our PDF “Thank-You Notes” via email. What they get is a lesson on how to write a proper Thank-You Letter, which includes stationary, inspirational quotes, and links to other resources. We hope that they enjoy this product. There are several styles of stationary included that can be used for almost any occasion: Birthdays, Christmas (it’s not too late to send Thank-You letters!), and general all-purpose occasions when a simple letter of “Thanks” will bless the reader and writer alike. We want to express our gratitude to each of you that left comments!

Yesterday we drove up to the Nashville Int’l Airport to pick up Shelly’s parents Grammy Sheryl and Big Den! They are going to spend the next three weeks with us. Right now the house is a-buzz with school lessons. As you’ve read Grammy Sheryl’s posts on our blog you’ll know that she has a background in Home Economics. She came prepared with lesson plans on cooking, sewing, and other wonderful things. We’ll document and post them here – complete with pictures. We may even interview her on our 1st episode of The Famtasticast for the debut of the HMHS Podcast Network! Likewise, Big Den, as you know is an English Major with a career in editing, so the kids are going to get some great lessons in the proper use of English.

If you have any questions about Home Economics, or Grammar please post them here, or send us an email and we’ll have Grammy Sheryl or Big Den give an answer.

Thank you all, and we’ll see you next time!

P.S. Perhaps I should have had Big Den proof-read this post.

All this relaxing being done now, I hit a bump when it comes to getting back to daily “normal” life.  It is a difficult thing for me to return to a proper schedule or routine  (Not to mention getting back into blogging and the daily operation of this website)!  Being about halfway through the school year should be a good time to reevaluate our educational plans and what has been working or not working.  But, for some reason this is difficult for me to do.  I need advice.  Sooo, that being said, we have a little contest for our homeschooling friends.  In return for your help and advice, we are having a giveaway of our “Thank You Notes” lesson and stationary.  Here’s what you do before January 13:

• Leave a comment here on this post sharing your experiences and sage advice on how to make the best transition from holiday mode to school mode!  How do you plan, how far in advance to you prepare, how do you prepare the kids to start, or do you even allow your kids time off?  Let us know!
• Sign up for our email subscription in the sidebar.

Any new email addresses added within that week, will be entered into a drawing to receive our “Thank You Notes” set for free.  We will put all the email addresses in a hat and have the kids draw a winner!  We will contact the winner Wednesday, January 14 with your free download!  So, leave those comments to help me and the community as a whole.  There’s plenty of others in the same conundrum!  Tell all your friends!

Happy New Year from Homemade Homeschoolers!

We sure would appreciate it if you would take a few seconds to vote for Homemade Homeschoolers. There are prizes to be won, but honestly we haven’t looked at what those might be; the important thing is the exposure that the Homemade Homeschoolers (HMHS) Community website has already had thanks to the fine people at the Homeschool Blog Awards. We, like any other website are seeking to share our resources with as many internet users as possible in order to build up the homeschooling community in any way we can. So, if you would please visit the post called “Let the voting begin“, scroll down to the “Best New Homeschool Blog” category (the second from the bottom), and cast your vote for us! Maybe even tell your friends about it too.

Voting ends at Midnight, November 21st.

Thanking you in advance,

Michael & Shelly

Twitter is an Internet multimedia form known as “Micro-Blogging” where users are able to post interesting (or, in some cases not) updates in 140 words or less. Twitter has grown by an amazing rate recently and is used by some of the worlds largest businesses and news outlets, as well as common people such as you and I. Signing up for a Twitter page takes all of about 30 seconds and you are able to modify your profile theme to make it all your own. It is actually really fun to see what people can say in 140 characters or less! A wonderful use for Twitter is posting links to things that you find important and would like to share with your friends. Extra long URL links are automatically shortened by Twitter into a “tiny URL” so that they will fit into your allotted character field and have room to spare for some extra text. If you use the “Share/Save” option at the bottom of each post on Homemade Homeschoolers you will notice an option for sharing a favorite post on Twitter. Just click the Twitter button and it will post to your account so that your friends can find it too. Once you start using those options you’ll find yourself sharing all sorts of neat things with your friends.

Sign up and follow Homemade Homeschoolers on Twitter and keep up on all the latest news. It’s fun! We’ve included a video called “Twitter in Plain English” by those same, easy to understand guys that produced the “Podcasting in Plain English” video posted here a while back.

We’ll see you there.

Here’s a hodge-podge of things we wanted to share with you about what is going on at Homemade Homeschoolers:

We want to thank all those who have downloaded the free Mr. Skeleton craft. There have been a surprising number of downloads! We’ll keep that up for the next couple days for those who haven’t downloaded it yet. Please post pictures of your Mr. Skeleton on the HMHS Refrigerator, and share your family’s creation with other homeschoolers. When you register for the photo gallery you can post pictures and leave comments on others; it’s fun!

Next thing is the HMHS Community Forum. We’re scouring the internet for items of interest to the homeschooling community, such as news articles and press releases. You can expect postings of local area regulations and such as well as information on upcoming homeschool conferences and conventions. We ask that you would help out with the same. Feel free to post links that would be beneficial to the community at large, add information on items posted, and just general chit-chat. Admittedly, it is hard to get a forum “really going” when folks are checking the forum at different times of day, but check it often and contribute in anyway that you can. Tell your friends about it, and we promise that it will grow.

The HMHS Podcast Network its ramping up for release! We have several families that are working on Video podcasts; and from the sound of them they are going to be really fun. We at Homemade Homeschoolers Headquarters are also working on an audio podcast which will be a little variety show with news and views, music, comedy, recipes, unit study ideas, and a whole lot more. The neat thing about the HMHS Podcast Network will be the variety of information and entertainment by homeschoolers just like you! If you would like to join us please let us know. Our HMHS Contact Form is the simplest way.

The HMHS Store is almost ready. We are hand-crafting downloadable Notebooking Pages, Unit Studies, and more to aide you in home-educating your precious children. But, we will have more than those things available; homemade arts and crafts will be added too. Eventually we will have a general store where others can offer their own homemade products as well. Watch this site for more information.

Finally, the last few months have shown an over 60 percent increase in visitors each month! That is an exponential growth that isn’t necessarily expected to continue (it would be nice, though); a new site should have large growth numbers at the start. We do appreciate all the visitors to Homemade Homeschoolers, and hope that you will continue to return.  The “share” options at the bottom of each post are very easy and handy for sharing favorite posts with friends. Please hover over the “Share/Save” button under this post and see all the options that are just a click away! The easiest, of course is the “Email This” option. Also, use the subscribe options in the side bar.

One last thing: We are now affiliates with both Christianbooks.com and Amazon.com. If you use either of those sites to make purchases would you consider using the search boxes on our site in the side bar? Those purchases will help us pay for this website by providing us with referral fees. We sure would appreciate it.

Well, that’s it for now. Thank you so much for being a part of the Homemade Homeschoolers Community!

After much thought and planning, we at Homemade Homeschoolers are ready to launch a new (and possibly the most fun) feature: The HMHS Podcast Network! We need your participation, though. Our desire is to feature homemade podcasts from “do it yourself” Homemade Homeschoolers everywhere. Not sure of what a “podcast” is? Watch this video on YouTube called “Podcasting In Plain English” for a simple, easy to understand explanation:

Not only would this be a wonderful learning experience for our children (and parents too, in many cases), it will also be a great way to showcase the talents of your families and children! Some suggestions on podcast material and subjects are:

• Audio Theater
• Talk Radio
• Comedy Sketches
• News Programs
• Family Music Recitals
• Singing
• Book Reviews
• Movie Reviews
• Educational Material

We can also host video on the HMHS Podcast Network. Some ideas for video include:

• Plays
• Documentaries
• Music Videos
• Educational Tutorials
• Nature Studies
• Conference Trips
• Extracurricular Activities

These are just suggestions; the possibilities are truly endless! Let your children and family’s creativity shine through on the HMHS Podcast Network.

Each family that joins the HMHS Podcast Network will receive a direct link to their own program such as “hmhomeschoolers.com/yourpodastname” to make it easy for grandma to keep track of all your “episodes”. There will also be a subscription option for people to have new episodes sent directly to them whenever they are posted (much like subscribing to the Homemade Homeschoolers RSS Feed), for extra convenience.

Podcasting really is very simple. I should know; I am a “podcaster” and my shows have been downloaded over 75,000 times. If you are interested in joining the HMHS Podcast Network, or have any questions, please contact us through the website and I will assist you in any way that I can. And remember, friends: these podcast don’t have to be “professional” quality; and they can be as short as 5 minutes, or as long as half an hour to an hour – though I wouldn’t suggest going much longer than 30 minutes.

Please join the HMHS Podcast Network, and let’s have some fun while learning!

To discuss this and other things about Homemade Homeschooling, please visit our community forum.

We are so excited to share our newest feature on Homemade Homeschoolers:  the HMHS Community Refrigerator!  It is a photo gallery designed for homeschoolers to showcase their accomplishments and inspire others with their ideas.  Our hope is for the Refrigerator to be yet one more way for us all to connect and truly become a sharing community.  Display your creativity!

The HMHS Refrigerator is set up in three separate sections.  We have a section for Homeschooler Artwork in which to display your child’s finished drawings, paintings, coloring pages, crafts, lapbooks, notebooks, timelines, or any other artwork.  We have a section for Homeschoolers Photos in which you can upload pictures of field trips, conferences, family vacations, group activities, and other fun stuff.  Finally, we have a section for Homeschool Classrooms in order to show others your classroom or study area, as well as, much needed ideas for organization!

Registered users have a wide variety of options:  uploading photos including captions and titles, as well as leaving friendly comments on other users’ photos.  By going in to edit the photos after uploading, you can give them each a title and summary that will link them for easy reference.  If you register for the Blog, you should automatically be registered for the Refrigerator as well.  You will utilize the same username and password.

At any time when browsing the HMHS Refrigerator, you will find a direct link back to the HMHS homesite and a link to the Refrigerator hompage in the banner for ease of navigation.

We have also added two sections to our Forum.  Homemade Homeschoolers Website Help to ask any questions regarding the use of features on any of the HMHS webpages and Alert HMHS to alert us of any problems that you encounter while visiting Homemade Homeschoolers.

We hope to see you there!

For more information on the HMHS Community Refrigerator, visit the Homemade Homeschoolers Discussion Forum.

Just a quick note to let you know why we haven’t updated the blog recently. We have some old friends in town – refugees from Hurricane Gustav.  We have a house full of adults, kids, and a whole pack of dogs! It is a wonderful time of rekindling old friendships and family fun. We also just sent home Grammy Sheryl and Big Den from their two week visit. That’s a lot of action here at Homemade Homeschoolers Headquarters!

In the meantime, make sure you check out the new Carnival of Homeschooling Labor Day edition.  We submitted Shelly’s “famous” article on a mouse unit-study.  Plus you’ll find a bunch of other neat articles regarding Homeschooling.

Make sure you join us over at the Homemade Homeschoolers Community Forum, and please tell a friend.

Today, I have a special introduction to a new blogger – My Mama!  She is an unlimited fount of information for me in cooking, cleaning, home management, and child rearing.  I greatly value her knowledge, and I know you will as well.  She is from an era when care of your family and home were thought of as great accomplishments.  Which is what many families, especially homeschoolers and ours in particular are returning to now.  She has agreed to contribute a blog now and again, so check back often or, better yet, subscribe to the blog to get automatic notices!  With no further ado, here is her introduction!  -  Shelly

I am a graduate of Iowa State University with a BS degree in home economics education.  After teaching in Iowa, I took a position as a Home Economist for the electric company in Wisconsin.  There, I met my husband and we moved to California.  I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom so I started a babysitting and home sewing business.  My 2 children were not home schooled as such, but we took every opportunity to increase their education through trips that we took and turning everyday living into an educational experience.

Home Economics is no longer taught in schools like it used to be.  It seems to have been left behind for all the college prep curriculum.  I have always felt, though, that kids need to know basics in cooking, simple sewing, household management, and child development to get along in life.  I am proud of my daughter and son-in-law home schooling their 3 children, and am working with them on some lesson plans to include “home economics” in their children’s curriculum.  I will be sharing some ideas with you as well, from time to time, through this blog.

Stop by tomorrow for my advice on the perfect hard boiled eggs!  See you then!

Grammy Sheryl (and Poppy too!)

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