If You Fail to Plan…

 What do you do when you look up and the day is almost gone?  Wondering where the time went, you realize that you still need to prepare your weekly menu and grocery shopping list, put together a financial budget for your husband, find a stack of library books to return, send out birthday cards for the month,  and somehow put together next week’s lesson plans for your three children.  In the middle of trying to figure out where to start, you get a phone call from a friend who wants a chronological list of the miracles of Jesus for Sunday School.   As you hang up the phone your oldest child needs to know the capital of Mongolia for a report.  Playing army men, your seven year old asks how many wars the US has been involved in for the past 100 years.   Your daughter wants a list of good books to read.   And, you still have to plan and make dinner!  What do you do? 

No, you don’t crawl back into bed and wait for tomorrow to come! 

You pull out your 2010 Schoolhouse Planner from The Old Schoolhouse Magazine and in a few short minutes you have everything you need at the touch of your fingers. 

The Schoolhouse Planner is the most versatile and resourceful product I have ever owned.  Created by busy moms who juggle work, school, and home responsibilities – just like you – they understand your needs.  It is a treasure of 614 pages filled with a wealth of information.  In it you will find reproducible and interactive forms such as calendars, organizational forms, household forms, and homeschool forms.   With over 120 homeschool forms alone, you will find everything you need to have a successful year including curriculum forms, goal/objective forms, planning sheets, report cards, schedule forms, log sheets, science lab sheets, field trip forms, book report forms, and much more.   The calendars and household forms are a “must have” for today’s busy mothers.   The recipes and miscellaneous information is invaluable.  And the Bible reading schedule, prayer journal and study notes are great resources for not just mom, but everyone in the family. 

 At just $39 and downloadable at The Old Schoolhouse, this planner is a jewel!  It will be used daily in the Williams’ home this year!  After all, there is some truth to the saying, “If you fail to plan you can plan on failing.”   

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 Disclaimer: As a member of the TOS Crew, I wrote this blog post while participating in the The Old Schoolhouse advertising campaign, making me eligible to get a prize. I received a free copy of the planner to facilitate the writing of this blog post.

SpellQuizzer Review and Giveaway!

 The month of June at the Williams home is a time for swimming, basketball, popsicles, VBS, grilled food, vacations, and lots of visiting. Our computers and schoolbooks are put away for a season as we enjoy the summer months. That is why when Dan Hite, founder of Tedco Software, contacted me about a review for his software program, SpellQuizzer, I was somewhat apprehensive. I was not too sure about how my children would respond with coming in from the pool to work on spelling and vocabulary words. However, my fears were quickly put to rest. All of my children love this program. It is fun, easy to use, and very beneficial. Let me explain…  

 
 SpellQuizzer is an educational program developed for Windows that help children learn their spelling and vocabulary words. With SpellQuizzer,  you enter the child’s spelling words into the software making a sound recording of each word. SpellQuizzer then quizzes your child on his or her words. The program was so user friendly that in a few short minutes I was able to explain to Andrew, my 7 year old, how to create his own spelling list himself. He loved being quizzed by his own voice.   
 
In addition to being extremely easy to setup, my favorite feature of this software is that it is not designed with any one spelling curriculum in mind. I will use this program with my 2nd grader, 6th grader, and 8th grader.    From kindergarten to high school, this program will compliment virtually any spelling curriculum. In fact, a program like this would have been quite valuable to me two decades ago when I was in college taking medical terminology classes.    

 The software has a built-in spell checker that warns the user when entering a word that appears to be spelled incorrectly. And there is a community area on their web site with discussion forums.  Also on the web site is an area where users can easily export and import SpellQuizzer spelling list to share with other SpellQuizzer users.  

  As a home schooling parent, I am very selective in my curriculum choices. Not only does it need to be a good value for my money but also must have practical value. This program is both and is one that I would recommend for those in home education.

However, it is not just for those who homeschool. I will recommend this to anyone with children who might struggle with spelling or just want to have fun learning new words.    

Let me suggest that you go to the website, view the video demonstrations, and download your free trial version of the SpellQuizzer. Dan Hite at Tedco Software has been so kind to offer a free license ($29.00 value) to one of my blessed readers. To register drop me an email, kimberlyw1@wildblue.net with the subject line SpellQuizzer. I will announce the winner on July 1st  

And be sure to tell your friends!