Phonograms Auto Flashcards

Well, I admit I am computer illiterate. But, I made a slideshow of phonograms complete with audio. These are intended to help kids memorize the phonograms of Romalda Spalding's Writing road to reading quickly. They will work best and with audio with Open Office which is a free download (google it).
Just send me a message and I'll send you a free link.
If anyone knows how to publish this with the audio to the web just let me know.
For the first phonograms (a-z) song just click on my other blog

http://homeschoolblogger.com/libertyacademy

and scroll down. It's a video song on the right hand side.
I may re-do these phonograms and put them into a video but it was harder to do the graphics there and they don't look as good.
While you're here please remember to help support this site by linking to curriculum on the left hand side or linking to amazon through my homeschoolblogger site.

My ad links

I just added a bunch of ad links on the left side...if you're going to buy from any of these places please link from my blog.
I have my Amazon link on the homeschoolblogger.com/libertyacademy blog. Please link to that for Amazon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8CEiQhfT90

This link is to a gal from LDFR who is a pioneer woman!

Cloth diaper changing station

My hubby created a wonderful diapering station for me. We have 2 sinks, one of which is constantly clogging. Don Aslet, cleaning guru, says to watch what you're creating when you make your house and don't make more than you need so, hubby took out a faucet and we laid a board over the sink, then the changing pad. Now there is plenty of room for my diapers, diaper pail, toilet handy, and plenty of shelving for extra diapers.
We'll see if it's efficient tomorrow.

I would post a picture but...

Well, I would post a picture but someone set a folder on my camera and jammed it. I now need to see if stuff-mart will have pity on me and let me exchange it after 2 months or I will need to take it to a camera repair store which really irks me but, it's too bad isn't it?

http://www.groceryoutlets.com/3dollars-a-day.pdf

This is a site with a few weeks of menus for $3.00 per day. We all like cheap, right?

WIN A BEAUTIFUL QUILT

See the sidebar for a beautiful quilt. And...what a fun contest and a great way to get the word out. My camera is broken or I would post a youtube video also. Here is the link to enter...
http://www.oldredbarnco.blogspot.com/2008/07/win-this-quilt.html

My school room

Well, I tried to upload the slideshow to a post but can't figure it out soooo...here's the link instead. For all my hs friends who want to see each other's rooms...

Click here for my pictures of the schoolroom

Let's hope that worked. For more information click on the individual pictures and read below.

What's your name?

Thanks to along plum creek for this...

1. Rock Star Name: Ruffles Escort (first pet & current car)
2. Gangsta Name: Raspberry Snickerdoodle (fave ice cream flavor & favorite cookie)
3. "Fly" Girl/Guy Name: D Amo (First initial of first name, first three letters of your last name)
4.Detective Name: Green Goat (Favorite color, favorite animal)
5. Soap Opera Name: Lou Phoenix (Middle name, city where you were born.)
6. Star Wars Name: DanAmPePho (This is a longer one- 1st 3 letters of your 1st name+1st 2 letters of your last name then 1st two letters of mother's maiden name + 1st 3 letters of town you were born in.)
7. Superhero Name: The Purple Milk ("The"+ 2nd favorite color, favorite drink )
8. Nascar Name: Lehman Lou (The first names of your grandfathers.)
9. Stripper Name: Tranquility Chocolate (favorite perfume/cologne/scent, favorite candy)
10.Witness Protection Name: Lou Lehman (parents middle names)
11. TV Weather Anchor Name: Quist-hmmm what's a city with Q? (your 5th grade teacher's last name, a major city that starts with the same letter)
12. Spy Name: Fall Rose (Your favorite holiday/season, favorite flower)
13. Cartoon Name: Strawberry Pants (Favorite Fruit, article of clothing you are wearing right now+ "ie" or "y")
14. Hippy Name: Biscuit Cherry (What you ate for breakfast, your favorite tree)
15. Rockstar Tour Name: The Learning Snow Tour ("The"+ your favorite hobby/craft, fave weather element+"Tour" )

So what's your name?

An email from Scotland

I don't necessarily support this candidate but it's a great joke!


An email from Scotland to their counterparts in the States...


Here's a point to ponder despite your political affiliation:

'We, in Scotland, can't figure out why people are even bothering to hold an election in the United States .

On one side, you have a pants wearing lawyer, married to a lawyer who can't keep his pants on, who just lost a long and heated primary against a lawyer who goes to the wrong church who is married to yet another lawyer who doesn't even like the country her husband wants to run.

Now... On the other side, you have a nice old war hero whose name starts with the appropriate Mc terminology married to a good looking younger woman who owns a beer distributorship.

What is there to decide? What are you lads thinking over there in the colonies?

Does God exist?

A man went to a barbershop to have his hair cut and his beard trimmed. As the barber began to work, they began to have a good conversation. They talked about so many things and various subjects. When they eventually touched on the subject of God, the barber said: "I don't believe that God exists."

"Why do you say that?" asked the customer.

"Well, you just have to go out in the street to realize that God doesn't exist. Tell me, if God exists, would there be so many sick people? Would there be abandoned children? If God existed, there would be neither suffering nor pain. I can't imagine a loving God who would allow all of these things."

The customer thought for a moment, but didn't respond because he didn't want to start an argument. The barber finished his job and the customer left the shop.

Just after he left the barbershop, he saw a man in the street with long, stringy, dirty hair and an untrimmed beard. He looked dirty and unkempt. The customer turned back and entered the barber shop again and he said to the barber: "You know what? Barbers do not exist."

"How can you say that?" asked the surprised barber. "I am here, and I am a barber. And I just worked on you!"

"No!" the customer exclaimed. "Barbers don't exist because if they did, there would be no people with dirty long hair and untrimmed beards, like that man outside."

"Ah, but barbers DO exist! That's what happens when people do not come to me."

"Exactly!" affirmed the customer. "That's the point! God, too, DOES exist! That's what happens when people do not go to Him and don't look to Him for help. That's why there's so much pain and suffering in the world."

GREAT NEWS!!!

Wow! Birthmom relinquished today. No details on the blog but I will be so happy when the adoption is finalized and we'll post the cutest pictures ever!

The Prudent Homemaker

My friend from LDFR made a new website and I thought I'd post it here.

http://theprudenthomemaker.com

It has lots of menus and great ideas.

The best summer milkshake

mmmmmmmmmmmmm, I made the best summer milkshake today. 1/2 a vitamix full of ice, 2 c. freshly frozen peaches, 1/2 c fresh from the hive honey, fresh raw goat's milk to cover it all...blend it up. Oh it was heavenly.
I am so thankful for all that God has given us...we pray for our farm, produce, and animals and I do believe that helps with the bountiful harvest.

The Declaration of Educational Independence
By Linda Dobson, reprinted with permission

WHEN in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for Families to
dissolve the Educational Bands which have connected them to a faltering Society,
and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to
which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent Respect to
the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel
them to the Separation.

WE hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that
they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among
these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness­That to secure these
Rights, Education is instituted among Men, deriving its just Powers from the
Consent of the Educated, that whenever any Form of Education becomes destructive
of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to
institute new Education, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and
organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect
their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that a Public
Education System long established should not be changed for light and transient
Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more
disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by
Abolishing the Public Education System to
which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations,
pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under
absolute Government Control, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off
such Public Education System, and to provide new Guards for their future
Security. Such has been the patient Sufferance of these Families; and such is
now the Necessity which constrains them to alter their former Educational
System. The History of the Government-Controlled, Public Education System is a
History of repeated Injuries and

Usurpations, all having in direct Object the Establishment of an absolute
Control over these Families. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid
World.

THE GOVERNMENT has refused its Assent to Freedom in Education, the most
wholesome and necessary for the public Good.

IT has forbidden its Children Freedom of immediate and pressing Importance...

IT has refused Freedom for the Accommodation of large Numbers of Families,
unless those Families would register with the State, a violation of freedom and
privacy to them, and formidable to Absolute Control only.

IT has called together the Nation's Children at Places unusual, uncomfortable,
and distant from the warmth and nurturance of their Parents, for the sole
Purpose of fatiguing them into Compliance with its Measures.

IT has dissolved Alternatives repeatedly with its unceasing bureaucratic
requirements, for opposing with manly Firmness its Invasions on the Rights of
the People.

IT has refused for a long Time, after such dissolutions, to cause other
Alternatives to be carried out; whereby the Educational Powers, incapable of
Improvement, have returned to the failing System at large for their exercise;
the Family remaining in the mean time exposed to all the Dangers of Invasion
from without, and Convulsions within.

IT has endeavored to prevent the True Education of the Population of these
States; for that Purpose obstructing the Natural Process of Learning; refusing
to pass others to encourage their Individual Efforts...

IT has obstructed the Administration of True Education, by refusing to recognize
the Sovereignty of Family.

IT has made Public School Employees dependent on its Will alone, for the Tenure
of their Offices, and the Amount and Payment of their Salaries.

IT has erected a Multitude of new Laws, and sent hither Swarms of Its Employees
to harass our People, and eat out their Substance.

IT has kept among us, often against the People's Will, Standing Armies of Social
Workers.

IT has affected to render the Education Establishment independent of and
superior to the Civil Power.

IT has...subject us to a Jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution, and
unacknowledged by our Laws; giving its Assent to...Acts of...Legislation:

FOR quartering large Bodies of Compelling Troops among us:

FOR protecting them, by a mock Trial, from Punishment for any usurpation of
Family Sovereignty which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

FOR cutting off our Connection with True Education:

FOR imposing Taxes on us used to Oppress us:

FOR depriving us, in many Cases, of the Benefits of Family Time;

FOR transporting our Children for large blocks of their time;

FOR taking away our Family Autonomy, abolishing our most valuable Family
Connections, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Families:

FOR suspending our Parental Authority, and declaring itself invested with Power
to control for us in all cases whatsoever.

IT has abdicated Control here, by failing us its Protection and waging
Educational War against us.

IT has plundered our Pocketbooks, ravaged our Family Lives, burnt our Trust, and
destroyed the Lives of our People.

IT is, at this time, forging new Laws to compleat the Works of Despair,
Desolation, and Tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and
Perfidy, scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous Ages, and totally unworthy
the Government School System of a civilized Nation.

IT has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive in our Nation's Classrooms,
to become the Competitors of their Friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves
by their Hands.

IT has excited domestic Insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on
the Inhabitants of our Nation, the merciless Conditioning, whose known Rule of
Warfare, is an undistinguished Destruction, of all Ages, Sexes and Conditions.

IN every stage of these Oppressions we have Petitioned for Redress in the most
humble Terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated Injury.
A Public Education System, whose Character is thus marked by every act which may
define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the Educational Controller of a free People.

NOR have we been wanting in Attentions to our Legislators. We have warned them
from time to time of Attempts by their very Government to extend an
unwarrantable Educational Jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the
Circumstances that brought us to this point. We have appealed to their native
Justice and Magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the Ties of our common
Kindred to disavow these Usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our
Connections and Correspondence. They too have been deaf to the Voice of Justice
and of Consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the Necessity, which
denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of Mankind, Enemies
in War, in Peace, Friends.

WE, therefore, the Families of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, in GENERAL
AGREEMENT, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World for the
Rectitude of our Intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of Sound, Sane
Parental Consciousness, solemnly Publish and Declare, That these United People
are, and of Right ought to be, FREE AND INDEPENDENT FAMILIES, they have full
Power to levy Choice in Family Education, consider the Family's Values and Time
Needs to choose the extent of participation in and support of the Public
Education System, contract Alliances, establish Family Priorities and Values,
and to do all other Acts and Things which INDEPENDENT FAMILIES may of right do.
And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm Reliance on the Protection
of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes,
and our sacred Honor.