Vacation Education

  Have you ever thought that something you do or say, or maybe a letter you write, would be saved for years to come? Does it every occur to you that your story might become a legend thousands of years later? There is much lore and legend in the story of St. Valentine, and yet every year millions of dollars worth of food, flowers, vacations, and romantic gestures are made in his very name. The general legend goes something like this… Valentine was a doctor who turned priest in the Roman Catholic church during the reign of Claudius II. This Roman Emperor was so set on building his army that he didn’t want the men of Rome to be distracted by wives and families. As a side note, this seems very short-sighted, because if men don’t have wives and families, then there wouldn’t be much of Rome left to rule after one generation. But, apparently, this was not Claudius’ main concern. He was so adamant about this issue that he actually made it illegal for priests to perform weddings. However, t...

Have you seen the show Storage Wars? Well, apparently, much of it isn't real. However, you can actually buy, at auction, the contents of a storage locker that someone has failed to pay for. I have been wanting to try it for years Now, keep in mind, the renter gets ample opportunity to get their stuff out, so chances are the things they leave behind are worthless in their opinion. But, sometimes there are treasures, and often enough, there is a profit to be made in the long run. I have been researching this idea since I saw the first episode of the show. I've interviewed buyers and storage unit owners to get as much data as I could before trying out this mystery shopping adventure for myself. I also attended a few estate auctions where I could buy a pallet for a few dollars filled with boxes of assorted goods. I found I could sell enough in my Ebay store and the rest in a yard sale to make it worth my while. So, I watched and I waited for a storage auction near me. They are...

There is no school today. It's Saturday, it's June, the sun is shining and the bugs and blooms are out. I have one graduate this year... we DID it! I still have all the books and papers lining the shelves and they call out to me as I sit and enjoy the quiet stillness in a house where I get up long before the rest of it's inhabitants. But, the days do not stay quiet. There is busyness coming. Even with no school today, there are always things to be done. These days in between the teaching and the textbooks have tasks of their own. One of those many tasks is the Spring Sort. It begins with the hauling of ALL the clothing bins from the basement. Then, they get stacked in order from smallest sizes to biggest sizes. With six boys and one girl at home, I tackle the boys clothes first. I start with the baby clothes and I purge and I fold and I touch every piece. Yes, I touch every piece. If you know me, then you know that a lot of clothes ended up on FB marketplace ...

It has been a cold week here is Wisconsin, with temperatures around -30 and wind chills down approaching -60. So, with everything cancelled, schools and classes closed, even our mail service suspended for the safety of postal workers, we have been hunkered down inside for awhile. This afternoon the temps got up to -17 so we decided to give the boiling water turned instantly to snow experiment a try. Here are our results: What is happening here? Boiling water is being thrown into the air, separating the water and increasing the surface area of the molecules and they are freezing rapidly in the cold air creating a storm of snow crystals. Try this one on your next snow day!

The Timeline Game is a great way to learn and remember major events in history in chronological order. You can make your own timeline game to go with any subject you are studying. We have several versions of the  Timeline Game  from Asmodee. They come in various themes and usually in small packages so they are a game that travels easily. To make the game really compact, you can wrap a rubber band around just the deck of cards and be on your way. The canister does help keep it all together though and doesn't take up that much space. You can use these cards as they are, by subject such as "Music and Cinema" or "Inventions" but we chose to combine our cards and sort them into time period decks. So, when we are studying ancient history, we use all the cards that are "BC" so before the first year of our Lord, for example. We also make our own cards to fit with units we are studying. The Asmodee Timeline Game comes with very small cards, and ...

I'd wanted to try this recipe for homemade laundry soap for a long time after first seeing it featured on the show "17 Kids and Counting" featuring the Duggar family. It also appears in her book titled,  "20 and Counting!" The recipe is available on several websites. I prefer this one  Laundry Soap Recipe  because she gets right to the recipe without a lot of advertising, storytelling or begging readers to join or subscribe before reading the actual article. I cut the recipe in half simply because it claims to make 10 gallons and I am raising 9 kids in a 1400 square foot house - so, while I would love to have 10 gallons of laundry soap on hand, we just don't have the storage space. I followed the directions and ended up with 5 gallons of laundry soap. I transferred it into old laundry soap containers I had been saving for this purpose and have been using it exclusively for about 3 weeks now. We do several loads of laundry every day, including a load of...

This game has several features we liked, such as size. It is very compact and easy to take on a trip. Truly, a pocket sized game! It has a pretty good excitement level as the scoring is such than one person could score anywhere from 5000 points to zero points in a single round. It isn't all just luck either since each player decides when to stop rolling based on their score and the number of dice available to roll. The game comes in a cardboard box, just a little bigger than a deck of cards. It has a cardboard hanging hook in the shape of a dollar sign and we wrecked ours right away. It's a quick, fun game and great for travel. In terms of actual game play it is basically Yatzhee with some twists. Basic objective: roll six dice to create patterns that are worth points. High score wins. It comes with a score pad on the back of the rules, which I think is a waste because there is only room for four games and the score is just as easily kept on paper. Unlike Yahtzee...