Rosetta Stone Homeschool Curriculum

Rosetta Stone is a company that makes a curriculum teaching foreign languages. It's not the one we currently use (C is learning French, with PowerGlide), but I've heard good things about Rosetta Stone - it is, after all, the #1 foreign language curriculum choice for homeschoolers. Anyway - they are launching an all new program on March 24. They are also having a giveaway. Here are the details:

Rosetta Stone has been the #1 foreign language curriculum among homeschoolers for a while -- next week they are unleashing a brand new curriculum, and you can WIN the *all new* Rosetta Stone Homeschool Version 3… FOR FREE!

This is a $219 program (and believe me it's worth every penny!) and the winner gets to pick from any of these 14 languages: Spanish (Spain or Latin America), English (American or British), Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Irish, Hebrew, or Russian.

This will also include a headset with microphone, and students will participate in lifelike conversations and actually produce language to advance through the program. Rosetta Stone still incorporates listening, reading and writing as well, in addition to speaking. Many homeschoolers requested grammar and vocabulary exercises, and with Rosetta Stone Homeschool Version 3, they're included! For parents, the new Parent Administrative Tools are integrated into the program and allow parents to easily enroll students in any of 12 predetermined lesson plans, monitor student progress, and view and print reports.

To win this most excellent program -- in the language of your choice -- copy these (blue) paragraphs and post it in (or as) your next blog post -- then to enter the contest, go to the original contest page HERE: http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/JenIG/501132/ and leave a comment with the link showing where you blogged about it. And please make sure the link works to get back to the original contest page when you post it. And good luck! The winner will be picked randomly on March 26, and will be notified thru the link they left to their blog pg. And if you have more than one blog, you can post them and enter those separately for more chances to win. Yay for free stuff!

So - if you're interested, follow the directions above!

Prince the Pony

K has had a growing interest in horses, thanks to an introduction to them through her Auntie P, who now lives in Washington. Auntie P used to live about 3 miles away from us, and she had horses. Sometimes she would take K to her house to work with the horses, and sometimes ride them. K grew to love them, and we decided to let her join the local equine 4H club last year, in order to learn more. Neither A or myself knows much of anything about horses. I was been doing a fair amount of reading, but reading doesn't replace experience. We began to think about getting a horse, and then last summer found an ad for Prince, a little 5 year old pony. We went to see him, and after some thought and prayer, decided to buy him. He came to live with us last July. K really enjoyed spending time with him - riding him bareback, riding him down the road (with Mom or Dad along), grooming him, etc. But . . . he's stubborn. He's lacking in manners, and needs to learn some respect. He also spooks sometimes. He nips. We really should have purchased an older, settled, bombproof horse instead. Green as we were, we shouldn't have bought him without getting the advice of an experienced horse-person, which I kind of knew, but didn't want to inconvenience anyone by having them come with us to a bunch of places to look at horses.

Last fall we decided to sell him, and I advertised on the internet. We got several calls about him, but no one even came to look at him. Probably because I was very candid and told everyone all his bad points! I didn't want anyone buying him for the wrong reasons, or the wrong situation for him.

Anyway - enough background - today I got a call from one of the leaders in K's 4H club. She offered to take Prince to her place for a few weeks, and work with him to see what he's like and try to teach him some manners, if possible. I was thrilled. This is an answer to prayer! Then, if all goes well, she will have K come over and teach her what he knows, and how to continue working with him. I hope it all works out well.

I really like this 4H leader who offered to take him. She's a believer, and during the first 4H meeting this year, she spoke to the girls (there are no boys!) about how she felt that horses are a gift of God - created to be beautiful by Him so we could enjoy them. I wish I could remember everything she said, but it was nice.

I've enjoyed this verse:

"Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me." Psalm 139:5

Little by little . . .

Yesterday I did some work on K's duvet cover that I posted pics of a while back. I sewed all the denim strips together and then trimmed it to the size of the comforter (plus a seam allowance). I had bought a brown twin-sized sheet for the backing, but need to add some strips of cloth around the edges because it's not quite big enough. I think I'll use the red paisley print I bought. I'm going to be taking apart an eyelet bedskirt and adding a tier of brown bandannas, cut in half, and sewn together. Also want to add red to the bedskirt somehow - maybe edge the eyelet or shorten the eyelet tier, and add a red tier behind it?? I'm not much of an abstract thinker, which doesn't help matters! Hopefully it will look half-decent when it's all finished. I'm going to cover a square pillow with a brown bandanna on one side, red and brown horse print on the other, with a small red & white check ruffle around it. I need to come up with something for curtains. And I need to repaint her headboard. About a year and a half ago, I found this good, solid headboard with a shelf at MCC for $5. I love the deals I get there sometimes.

Raw Milk

I posted a while back about raw milk. Here's a new article from Dr. Mercola's newsletter about it:

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/3/15/more-dairies-go-raw-as-consumers-learn-the-benefits-of-unpasteurized-milk.aspx

I would LOVE to be able to get raw milk for our family. I'm convinced it's much healthier than pasteurized and homogenized milk. But, unfortunately, the government has not left us the option. :o(

I hope that someday, they come to their senses, realize the benefits, and allow it to be sold here.

Fun Stuff

Yesterday C and I went sledding at the hill in the local park. First time sledding this year, and it was great fun! We invited another homeschooling family with 4 boys to join us, and really enjoyed ourselves. Conditions were perfect (well, until the wind came up) - a fresh dusting of snow over the hill, some good temps, and good company. It made for a really nice afternoon, and it was great to get out of the house and get some exercise!

This afternoon C and I went to a dress rehearsal for "Singing in the Rain" that's being put on by a Mennonite high school in a neighboring town. Traditionally, they invite local school kids to come watch the dress rehearsal, and homeschoolers are invited, too. They did a spectacular job, and had real rain! The section for homeschoolers was front and center, right behind the "orchestra" which consisted of a piano, flute, violin and drums. It was very well done - we were impressed.

For some reason, a migraine started on the way home, so once home I went to lie down with my trusty ice pack, and stayed home from prayer meeting this evening with K, who has a bad cold. We took a little nap this evening, and I was feeling much better after that.

Trip to Grand Forks - Uff Da!

Today we drove to Grand Forks to meet my sister and brother-in-law and their two kids. It was really good to see them again. We had a late lunch together, and did a little shopping, and made plans for a birthday get-together for Dad, who is turning 70 next month.

There was ground drifting on the way there, and a lot of snow was sticking to the highway, making for slippery roads, and we couldn't go full speed so we were about 1/2 hour late getting there. We were consoling ourselves with the fact that it looked like there wasn't so much blowing snow on the northbound lanes of the interestate, so we thought the trip home would be better. In actual fact, on the way home, the northbound lanes were ice covered and slick, and we drove about 55 km/hr most of the way. It was a white-knuckle trip. There were MANY cars in the ditch, emergency vehicles out and about, and we even saw one van in the ditch on it's roof, on fire. What should take 1 1/2 hours took 10 minutes shy of 3 hours. It felt so good to pull into our driveway.

But look what I brought home . . .something I really miss from Minnesota. Lefse is a Norwegian staple, a kind of flatbread made from potatoes. I can't get it anywhere around here. Check out the pics:

I get a kick out of the name "Freddy's". Freddy isn't exactly your typical Norwegian name. Knute or Ole or Lars would be more like it. Here's a pic of one piece:

I grew up eating it as a snack, spread with butter and sprinkled with sugar, then rolled up like this:

Yummy! I love it. Uff da!

The Bakery

J was involved with a bake sale on Saturday. She's taking a class called SEVEC this semester - it's an exchange with another school, to work on community projects together. Her class will be going to Toronto for a week, and also hosting kids from Toronto for a week. They do their own fundraising, thus the bake sale. We did a lot of baking! Cookies, muffins, and brownies. I found a good recipe for Double Chocolate Muffins. Also made monster cookies, chocolate cookies with peanut butter chips and S'more muffins. Yum. Too yum! The sale was a good success - they mostly sold out!