A Summary of My Homeschooling Essentials--and a Giveaway!

Over the last 5 days I shared posts dedicated to five different things that I consider Homeschooling Essentials: #1 Love #2 My Laminator #3 Flexibility #4 My Printer #5 Other Homeschoolers
I hope you will take a moment to read one or two or all of them and if you homeschool, let me know what you think. Are any of these on YOUR essentials list?
I also want to remind you to get entered to win the iPad Mini we have up for grabs!!

Click *HERE* to get entered! All of my email and Facebook subscribers get a free entry each!

Five Days of Homeschooling Essentials~Homeschoolers Unite!

Have you ever been to a big convention of some sort? It's a rush! I experienced my very first one (of my own choosing--tractor shows aren't my thing LOL!) last spring when I was able to go to the Great Homeschooling Convention in Cincinnati, OH. Wow. It was amazing. A building FULL of homeschoolers! I think the absolute coolest thing is that you could start conversations with ANYONE there. I shared experiences in curriculum. I advised about manipulatives. I commiserated with scheduling. And I didn't know a single person I was talking with.

Homeschoolers share a special bond because we are blazing a path contrary to what's expected. We need each other which is why it is an essential for homeschooling!

#5 Other Homeschoolers

Let's face it. There is no easy way to say it. "Traditional Academia" frowns on homeschooling and frankly, most people don't really understand what present day homeschooling is even like. Most of society today is confused and misinformed about homeschoolers. And if we are honest with ourselves we must admit that it's just easier to avoid what we don't know much about.

Let me use an analogy: 

Let's say I go to the grocery store and head into the produce section. Boy, there are TONS of fruit to pick from. Apples in several varieties. Oranges big and small. Grapefruit, lemon, pineapple, cherries, grapes and yes the beautiful simple banana. There are even a few mango, papaya and kiwis. All the fruit that I know and am familiar with. The fruit I see all the time and that I know everyone enjoys. There is also coconut, limes and a...hmm. What is this thing? 

It's kind of unusual looking. There aren't many of them here. Hmm. The sign says it's a star fruit?! Well I've heard of that before. And I kinda know what it is--but not very much because I mean...who buys star fruit for their fruit salad or to snack on? They are kinda weird now that I look at them. I don't really know anyone who eats them--well maybe just one person who has ever tried it. I don't know what it looks like inside...or how it tastes and it's something different and I probably won't like it. So I'm just going to stay away from this weird fruit and go back to the normal fruits. I mean clearly they must taste bad since stores don't carry many of them and if they were good, then I'm sure I'd have been told about it--now where is that bag of apples I wanted?

Most parents with school age children believe that it's safer and better to just go with what they know in regards to education for their children. I know. This was me. I'd based my opinion of homeschooling on what I knew from a distance. I had a just a few homeschooled friends growing up. Like two. But I didn't bother asking them about it because they were my friends and they were clearly normal (since they were MY friends. LOL!) so it didn't matter and I didn't give it any thought. I also saw some less than spectacular examples of homeschooling growing up and decided that must represent the homeschooling world at large (except for MY friends of course. LOL). I was public schooled. I planned on doing the same for my children. 

Until I was faced with a choice at the brink of starting Kindergarten with my son. Do I choose the red apple education (and I have absolutely nothing against the parents who do--I was even in college to get my education degree at the time) or do I dare to try the lesser known star fruit variety?? I noticed that a large amount of my close friends were reaching for the star fruit of homeschooling and claimed it was amazing. And so with a sense of excitement and eagerness we chose the "star fruit" and we've discovered a rich vibrant world of education we never knew even existed!

That's why homeschoolers NEED other homeschoolers. Because unlike everyone else, we get what the big deal about homeschooling is. We speak the same language. We speak the language of "star fruit". We know what it's like to not be the norm. We know what it's like to deal with the facial expressions after we say "Oh we don't attend public school. We choose to homeschool." We get the experiences with the crazy questions (you know the ones I mean). We know the drill. And we know how awesomely amazing homeschooling really is!

We need each other for so many reasons. I need my homeschooling friends so I can share my teaching triumphs and my woes. To have someone to say "Oh I've so been there! It will get better!". To have a homeschool friend send you silly text messages to make you smile on a day when you are battling the "Monday's" with your kids. 

One of my best friends who homeschools like me. We send each other texts all the time.

To be able to share insight on curriculum. To collaborate on ideas and help each other solve problems. We need to experience group settings with other homeschooled families so that our children can see that they AREN'T alone. That it's NOT weird to be homeschooled. To learn how to interact with other children being taught the same morals and character as they are. 

We need to hang out with other homeschoolers to remember just how amazing homeschoolers really are! Look at the star fruit...it gets it's name because when you slice it cross-wise, it makes beautiful perfect stars with every slice. No other fruit does that! Star fruits make traditional fruit look--ordinary! The same can be said about homeschoolers--they are extraordinary when compared with the mainstream educational system!

Having access to other homeschoolers is a homeschooling essential, because we need each other to make it through the homeschooling experience.

Here are some things that a few of my fellow homeschooling friends shared when I asked them why homeschoolers needed to communicate with and/or be around other homeschoolers:

*a shoutout to my friend Laura who shared some of her own homeschooling photos with me for today's post*

Teresa: I need to learn how to better plan/organize my day/time. I need the social interaction. My son needs to see on a more regular basis that other children go in the potty too and that being a scary dinosaur to his friends isn't socially acceptable.

Renee: My children especially need to see that they are not the only "weird" kids who don't want to go to public school, and that having common decency and manners is actually expected of children other than themselves.

Ruth: I need support from other homeschooling parents, just as much as my kids need support from their homeschooling peers. I need to be able to ask questions and vent my concerns and frustrations to people who understand what it is like to homeschool. My kids need to see that there are other kids just like them and understand they are not alone.

Stacey: We all need friends, especially those who will reinforce the values we are striving for. I find that I typically connect more quickly with other homeschooling moms than I do with moms in general. The commitment to homeschooling is such a big part of my life, and I already have that in common with other homeschooling mothers.

My son doesn't have the blessing of a co-op to be a part of and we live far from any other homeschooled friends. Thankfully, I am willing to do whatever it takes to get him around other homeschooled children; therefore, I meet up for nice field trips with my homeschooling friends up in Cincinnati about two hours away. We have a delightful group and the kids, as well as the moms, enjoy being together. I am also extremely grateful for the internet as it keeps me in easy communication with my fellow homeschooling moms from all backgrounds.

My son's best friend is homeschooled far away in Georgia. His mom and I schedule them times to Skype at least every other week. It has kept them close. In fact they did an online class together which they loved.

I do what it takes to keep my boys (and myself!) in communication with other homeschooling families. It's an essential part of our homeschooling experience and one of the most vital! I can't WAIT to head back to the GHC convention this year and experience the incredible rush of being surrounded by thousands of fellow homeschoolers--all of us star fruit gathered together to shine!

If you homeschool, how often are you able to meet up with other homeschooling families?

This post concludes my week talking about my homeschooling essentials of love, my laminator, flexibility, my printer and other homeschoolers...I hope that you've enjoyed my posts and I hope I "see" you around again sometime!

Don't forget about the GIVEAWAY going on now thru January 28th!!

Head on over to our anchor post to see the full list of participants in this week's blog series...or if the thought of 80+ blogs is overwhelming...here is a great group of nine to get started with!

Laura @ Day by Day in Our World
Julie @ Nurturing Learning
DaLynn @ For the Display of His Splendor
Lori @ At Home: where life happens
Nicole @ Journey to Excellence
Adriana @ Homeschool Ways
Brandy @ Kingdom Academy Homeschool
Meg @ Adventures with Jude
Sarah @ Delivering Grace

Make sure you get entered in our giveaway for this week--we've got a iPad mini up for grabs which is a great prize and a homeschooling essential for many! You can get entered to win, and because I am one of the co-hosts for the giveaway all of my Facebook fans and email subscribers get free entries (one for each!)! Deadline to enter is midnight January 28th, so don't wait!

Five Days of Homeschooling Essentials: Print Me Baby, One More Time!

When I started out homeschooling back in 2010 we had the printer that had been in our office since 2003. That's a long time for a personal office printer! And then one sad sad day--after a big round of printing, it died a terrible death. And I panicked! Homeschooling with out a printer?!! For me that was IMPOSSIBLE!!!

The printer is one of my top homeschooling essentials! I can't homeschool without it!

#4 Printer

Okay. So maybe I am exaggerating a teensy bit. I mean, printers haven't been around for very long in the grand scheme of the world's existence. And generations of teachers have been homeschooling with out them. But that was then...now with the beauty and glory of the mighty internet (another homeschooling essential!) a printer is pretty much a must-have.

Here are just a few ways that I am using my printer this year:

*Online Curriculum requiring printouts

*Unit appropriate printables

*Lesson planning forms

*Lapbook sheets

*Blog Forms

*Copies of narrations and dictations

*Calendar cards

*Blank handwriting sheets

*Graph paper

*Scanning in Artwork so I don't have to keep the originals

This only scratches the surface of the things that come off my printer each year for homeschooling but give you a good idea on how it's being used.

As I said in my introduction, my first printer died shortly after we started homeschooling. So when I went to purchase a new one, here is the list I used for finding "the perfect printer".

1. Wireless!

Our other printer was not wireless so we were having to print it all off our desktop computer. We now own two laptops and needed to be able to print from any room. A wireless printer does that.

2. Collapsible

Our first printer took up a lot room, even when it wasn't in use. I wanted one that I could fold down during the times I wasn't using it.

3. Print-Scan-Copy

I loved the PSC characteristics of the last printer and wanted that again. 

4. Back Paper Feed

My other printer fed paper through the front and that not only took longer for printing, but smeared ink, had a lot more paper jams and didn't work with cardstock very well. I needed one that fed paper in from the back this time around.

5. Not an Ink Hog

My last printer was very good with ink. I needed that again as my printing was increasing and I didn't want to spend a small fortune replacing ink cartridges!

These were the five things I needed in a new printer and we found one that met all of them! Ironically it was just a "next generation" of the one that had died. But it had been an HP and we've always had great experiences with HP products so it was fine to go that direction again.

[This post contains affiliate links]

Here is the printer that I went with:

HP Deskjet 3050 All-In-One (PSC)

I love this printer. It's everything I wanted it to be. And it really doesn't suck ink. I have it set for a default to always print black. I go through WAYYYYY less ink this way. Especially on color. 

Since I purchased this one back in 2010, they've actually come out with a few more HP All-In-One models. I'm sure that when this one dies (but not anytime soon please!) I will still go with another HP PSC model because I've had such success. I highly recommend them.

As for ink--I buy mine refurbished. I have not had more than 2 cartridges ever be duds and had excellent service. I buy through a few sellers on ebay. I can get it for a fraction of the cost of new--sometimes almost half. So I stock up every year and get a years worth of ink at the beginning of every school year. Another nice thing about this model of HP is that I can opt to get the XL versions of the ink which have more than the standard amount of ink in them. 

What's left from my order at the beginning of last year...almost time to re-order!

So I get my ink refurbished...but what about paper?? When it comes to paper for my printer--I go bulk! I buy a box with about 8 reams of printer paper at Costco Wholesale. You can get it at Sam's Club too, I think. It only costs me about $23 for the 8 reams. That is an incredible price when you figure a ream of good quality at Walmart can run you about $4 each.

Here are some of the printers that a couple of my homeschooling friends use in their classroom:

Linda says: We have the Kodak ESP 7250. We love it, because it's a printer/copier/scanner/fax (if it is hooked up). Also because, and this is the big one, it prints photos wonderfully, It has a separate tray for 4x6/5x7 prints. I usually get ink at Staples and the costs run about Color $19.99/ Black $12.99 or Combo for $30.00 (roughly).

Amber says: I have a Canon PSC. Can't remember the model. We love it! I can get ink pretty low at refill places. I think it's about $8 or $9 for refills at Costco.

Julie says: I love my Brother HL-2140. The toner lasts and lasts and refills cost $50 for the name brand, but in over a year, we only had to replace it once! The pages are crisp and professional and no jams! She's old faithful!

Yes, with the wonder of modern technology, laptops, online curriculum, and the big beautiful internet, my print is most definitely a primary homeschool essential!

So I've chatted about my homeschooling essentials of love, my laminator, flexibility and my printer...I have just one final essential to share with you this week. And this one is possibly one of the absolute most important--so make sure you pop in tomorrow as I conclude this series! And don't forget about the GIVEAWAY going on now thru January 28th!!

Do you have a printer you love?

Head on over to our anchor post to see the full list of participants in this week's blog series...or if the thought of 80+ blogs is overwhelming...here is a great group of nine to get started with!

Laura @ Day by Day in Our World
Julie @ Nurturing Learning
DaLynn @ For the Display of His Splendor
Lori @ At Home: where life happens
Nicole @ Journey to Excellence
Adriana @ Homeschool Ways
Brandy @ Kingdom Academy Homeschool
Meg @ Adventures with Jude
Sarah @ Delivering Grace

Make sure you get entered in our giveaway for this week--we've got a iPad mini up for grabs which is a great prize and a homeschooling essential for many! You can get entered to win, and because I am one of the co-hosts for the giveaway all of my Facebook fans and email subscribers get free entries (one for each!)! Deadline to enter is midnight January 28th, so don't wait!

5 Days of Homeschooling Essentials: Gotta be Flexible

Can you find my next homeschooling essential hiding in the following paragraph? Kids are sick. The dog ate your teachers guide. You are sick. You lost electricity. You don't have all the supplies you need for the animal cell model you were going to make for Science. Your kids are loving the lesson on jellyfish and want to learn more. Babycakes kept you up all night long. You ran out of coffee and that's not good because you are currently propping your eyelids up with toothpicks. The kids have a horrid case of the Monday's. It's taking you two hours to do a 30 minute math lesson. Your computer crashed in the middle of printing a lapbook you needed yesterday. Your little hesitant reader suddenly took off and is going so fast in the material that you are going to finish your curriculum early. There is a great exhibit coming to the museum that ties perfectly in with your current studies, but you already took a day off from school this week.
Can you see it? What do all these things have in common as relating to homeschooling? They all require you to adjust your plans...

#3 Flexibility Now let me stop and say right now.  I have always been pretty much a go-with-the-flow kind of person. And I always assumed that it would carry over into our homeschooling environment.
WRONG ANSWER!
It turns out that I have a horrible time flying by the seat of my pants. I like things scheduled so I can tick them off and know I have them done. Up to now I've desired an "open the box and use" curriculum with structure and start and stop times. I've got a calendar for the year filled out with our "free days" scheduled.
Do you see the problem??
Pick ANY of the scenarios in my first paragraph above and we've got a crisis! 
"Ack! I don't have TIME for this!" and "I only have _____ days to get this done!" becomes my mantra! Suddenly my well laid plans and best of intentions come flying back in my face thanks to the merry-go-round called life! 
So what do I do? Throw my schedule out the door? Stop planning things so far in advance? Just give up and take the chips as they fall?
Absolutely...not! If I did that my homeschool would fall apart! Instead I have to "schedule" flexibility into our routine. 

Here's the 4 simple reasons why I have to have flexibility in our homeschool...

But, scheduling flexibility... Isn't that an oxymoron? Well no. I leave myself "backdoors". I have Plan B (and C, D, E). I have a "sick plan" for when I or anyone else in our homeschool is not feeling up to snuff. 
But you know what is the hardest for me?  Actually USING those things. Allowing myself a measure of grace when I have to be flexible and adapt to changes. I am hard on myself. I don't want to miss a moment of education time. I, for some crazy reason, give myself deadlines to meet, instead of just allowing things to be done when they are done. 
So flexibility is an essential...but it's hard for this mama to do sometimes. Which is when I go back to those four reasons I listed for the need for flexibility.

I have to be flexible because I teach children. Children get sick. Children get bored. Children get excited. Children are slow to change. Children are quick to demand change. Children need boundaries. Children need freedom. I need to feed their interests and guide their work. And sometimes that means I need to put my schedule on the back burner and fan the flames of new discovery...even if it does mean we will be a day "behind" (whatever that means to the homeschool classroom! LOL!)

I have to be flexible because life is crazy. I have no idea what this merry-go-round called life is going to throw at me next, so I have to be able to roll with the punches. I have to be able to make changes. I have to be able to juggle 20 balls at once and then catch the flaming sword that just got thrown in by the peanut gallery. You know, like when you barely have enough time to get home from your co-op day and get all the rest of school done, and then you get stuck in a traffic jam for an hour. So now you have to re-arrange your entire day--perhaps even week. Rigid scheduling doesn't allow for that.

I have to be flexible because I will get burned out. Because the kids will get burned out. I have to play around with the schedule and try new things. Add in new ideas. Follow rabbit trails because it keeps it interesting and fun. I have to recognize when to let some part of a curriculum go...and allow myself grace when I do that! And I have to know when to call a "teacher in-service" day...or when to call it a day after just 2 subjects and let the kids have the rest of the day to just be kids. When I allow for that flexibility, I decrease my burn out--and my children's burn out!

I have to be flexible because that's what I loved about homeschooling to begin with! No manuals telling me exactly what to teach, for how long and when. No testing. Recess can be 15 minutes or an hour. We can do Science all day long or not at all. Tomorrow may be art day and we explore with colors until our paint runs out. We can spend 15 minutes reading a book--or finish the whole thing because we just have to know what happens next. I can take road trips to visit relatives in other states without having to call school officials--and I can throw in extra field trips whenever they pop up without permission slips!

Flexibility is most definitely a homeschooling essential in our family because frankly...it keeps me sane!

So far I've shared that I've got to have love, my laminator and flexibility as our homeschooling essentials...come back tomorrow when I reveal the other must have physical essential on my list and something I use even MORE than my laminator. *****

Head on over to our anchor post to see the full list of participants in this week's blog series...or if the thought of 80+ blogs is overwhelming...here is a great group of nine to get started with!

Laura @ Day by Day in Our World
Julie @ Nurturing Learning
DaLynn @ For the Display of His Splendor
Lori @ At Home: where life happens
Nicole @ Journey to Excellence
Adriana @ Homeschool Ways
Brandy @ Kingdom Academy Homeschool
Meg @ Adventures with Jude
Sarah @ Delivering Grace

Make sure you get entered in our giveaway for this week--we've got a iPad mini up for grabs which is a great prize and a homeschooling essential for many! You can get entered to win, and because I am one of the co-hosts for the giveaway all of my Facebook fans and email subscribers get free entries (one for each!)! Deadline to enter is midnight January 28th, so don't wait!

5 Days of Homeschooling Essentials: Keep Calm and Laminate On!

Just as the Dr. Who villain Dalek has the battle cry of "Exterminate!", my cry as a frugal homeschool teacher would be "LAMINATE!" My laminator is a dearly beloved and much used homeschooling essential and one of just two physical items on my homeschool essentials list this week.

#2 My Laminator
I big pink puffy heart my laminator. I bought it for just $19.99 at Costco the first year that we homeschooled. Honestly, I think I laminated nearly every single day of that school year--or at LEAST three times a week! When you are trying to save money, repeatedly printing out paper after paper is not money wise. Neither is printing out a game, a puzzle, flash cards, calendar cards or anything else that is going to be handled a lot, without protecting it. Do you plan on reusing curriculum material like bingo boards? Or charts? Phonics helps? If you don't cover them with something, you won't be able too!

That's where my laminator comes in handy. When I get a new curriculum--say a boxed curriculum like our My Fathers World curriculum--I sort thru it and pull out anything that is reusable. Once I've got all those type of papers out, I heat up my laminator and get to work! It takes a bit of time, but knowing that I won't have to worry about tearing or marking it up and it becoming unuseable is worth the time it takes! I have things from Kindergarten that I laminated because I knew I'd need them again when my youngest Baby Britches is old enough for school.

Another VERY good use is for things that go in a calendar notebook. Instead of printing out a lot of sheets, I see if I can laminate any of it. Then I can hole punch it and know that with a simple wipe of a rag it's cleared off for the next use. No wasted paper! This is the same for any worksheets that I am going to use repeatedly--print once, laminate and then use over and over!

If you are going this route, my tip to you is that the Vis-a-Vis pens work the best for writing on laminated items...

Did you buy some online units or games? Are they in color? Are you worried they will tear and you will have to reprint and waste ink? Print them off once and then laminate them! I do this, then stick the game and it's pieces [all laminated if possible of course!] into ziplock bags for storage. I'm far more likely to play a game if it's got a laminated game board.

For me, the teacher...well I laminate my forms too! I laminate a weekly schedule, a calendar, blog forms...anything that will get high useage and could save paper...it gets laminated!

So if a laminator is a homeschooling essential, what kind is the best?

Any kind!

{This post contains affiliate links...thank you for your support!}

That's the lame answer I know...but truly, if you just find yourself a good laminator whether $5, $10, $15 or $100 you are going to get your money's worth! My particular laminator was special product for Costco. You can find the next generation of it on Amazon...

Purple Cows Hot and Cold Laminator

I have a Purple Cows brand laminator and I have had no problems with it at all! I've even had to completely take it apart to get something out of the rollers and it went back together and still works great!

Another laminator option is by Scotch:

Scotch Thermal Laminator

Here is what my friend Diana has to say about her Scotch laminator:
I have the Scotch Laminator and I love it. It's easy to use, heats up quickly and laminates evenly and quickly. We've used it at co-op without overheating or jamming (think 30 kids' projects in less than an hour).

Many of my friends like Diana, have and use the Scotch Thermal Laminator and love it...others have a Purple Cows brand either like mine or the one above. Regardless of which brand of laminator you get, I recommend going for one that won't take up much room. Mine is barely longer than a ruler and just about 3 1/2" wide so it's easy for me to use, then put away until the next time. (which like never happens since I use it so much. But I COULD do it if I wanted to. LOL!)

Now--laminator sleeves...that is where you can get spendy if you are trying to stay with name brand pockets. Here's the secret--your laminator doesn't know the difference! Once I used up all the sleeves that came initially with my laminator, I searched around on Amazon.com and discovered sellers who sold them in bulk 100pc boxes. Would you believe I have to buy one of those every school year?? But laminating is great for so many things...including posters for your walls, important photos, paper puzzles.

Yes, I could wax eloquently about all the things I've laminated over the last few years...and I will be holding a funeral the day that my dearly beloved homeschooling essential finally kicks the bucket! May it not be soon!

So far my list of homeschooling essentials includes love and my laminator...tomorrow we will talk about something that is essential to my homeschool---but something I need to "stretch" myself on!

***

Head on over to our anchor post to see the full list of participants in this week's blog series...or if the thought of 80+ blogs is overwhelming...here is a great group of nine to get started with!

Laura @ Day by Day in Our World
Julie @ Nurturing Learning
DaLynn @ For the Display of His Splendor
Lori @ At Home: where life happens
Nicole @ Journey to Excellence
Adriana @ Homeschool Ways
Brandy @ Kingdom Academy Homeschool
Meg @ Adventures with Jude
Sarah @ Delivering Grace

Make sure you get entered in our giveaway for this week--we've got a iPad mini up for grabs which is a great prize and a homeschooling essential for many! You can get entered to win, and because I am one of the co-hosts for the giveaway all of my Facebook fans and email subscribers get free entries (one for each!)! Deadline to enter is midnight January 28th, so don't wait!

5 Days of Homeschooling Essentials: Crazy Little Thing Called Love

Homeschooling Essentials...You might automatically think that these would be the same items a teacher of public school would use in her classroom, right? Hmmm, that IS a logical assumption, but is it accurate? This week several members of the Schoohouse Review Crew and I are going to share what we each believe are the must-haves in our own homeschooling environment! I think you might be surprised at what some of them are--though I do believe coffee made the list at least 10 times!! 

So what do I consider as the essentials of homeschooling? Paper? Pens? Pencils? Well sure. But to me those are like the obvious things and I really don't expect you to keep reading as I wax eloquently on the sheer quantity of paper we go through in any given month! LOL!

So I thought about things that might not be so obvious, but are still integral pieces of my homeschooling "supply" cabinet...and only two of my essentials are physical objects! Who says it has to be something I can touch and/or be consumed to be an essential?? Today I am going to talk about one of the intangible homeschool essentials...

#1 Love

I love my children. I seek out the best I can provide for them and make it happen if at all possible. Therefore, I homeschool because I LOVE them. 

My husband and I knew that in our love for them we couldn't put them into public school. The things we hold high and value are things that the public school scenario can't really provide...most importantly a faith based education. 

So why is LOVE a homeschooling essential?
Because love is what makes our homeschool experience work.

It's because I love them that I try to provide the boys the best curriculum I can afford. 

It's because I love them that I am willing to throw out things that don't work. 

It's because I love them that I have to keep their noses to the grindstone on subjects they don't really like but need to do anyway. 

It's because I love them that every now and then, when tempers flare and eyes go crossed, that we close the books and go outside and just play.

It's because I love them that I willingly let my kitchen get destroyed with science projects and experiments.

It's because I love them that I drive two hours just so they can have a field trip with other homeschooled friends.

It's because I love them that on days when I'm at my wits end I get on my knees and pray for more "wits"...then get up, turn music on, and make them dance with me.

Do I need to go on?

Without love, our homeschool would fall apart.
It's as simple as that.

Love is my first homeschooling essential...but what might some other homeschooling mom's choose as their first essential? To find out, head on over to our anchor post to see the full list of participants...or if the thought of 80+ blogs is overwhelming...here is a great group of nine to get started with!

Laura @ Day by Day in Our World
Julie @ Nurturing Learning
DaLynn @ For the Display of His Splendor
Lori @ At Home: where life happens
Nicole @ Journey to Excellence
Adriana @ Homeschool Ways
Brandy @ Kingdom Academy Homeschool
Meg @ Adventures with Jude
Sarah @ Delivering Grace

Make sure you get entered in our giveaway for this week--we've got a iPad mini up for grabs which is a great prize and a homeschooling essential for many! You can get entered to win, and because I am one of the co-hosts for the giveaway all of my Facebook fans and email subscribers get free entries (one for each!)! Deadline to enter is midnight January 28th, so don't wait!

See you back here tomorrow as we investigate the next item on my homeschooling essential list...I'll give you a clue--it rhymes with "Exterminator"! (giggle)

5 Days of Homeschooling Essentials: an iPad Mini Giveaway!

We have great week coming up January 20-25th--80+ members of the Schoolhouse Review Crew are joining in a five day blog series all about Homeschooling Essentials. As part of the series, twenty of the bloggers have chipped in to offer a great giveaway--an iPad Mini!!

[This post contains affiliate links]

I'm one of the bloggers contributing to this fabulous prize and I hope that all my readers take advantage of getting entered to win this iPad Mini 16GB WiFi. Then make sure you check back in on Monday when we kick off this great series!

The giveaway will run from Jan 18 at midnight ET thru Jan 28 at midnight ET. Residents of the U.S. only.  Void where prohibited by law. Must be at least 18 years of age. See other Terms and Conditions in the Rafflecopter widget.

To enter simply use this Rafflecopter widget below...

a Rafflecopter giveaway