Places To Go, Things To Do

There's still a little over a month to go before the school year ends, so plenty of time to add some pizazz to the end of the year! Jazz up your studies with some field trips to some fun but educational places like an animal rescue, a nearby interactive Science Center, or a doughnut store. For some great end-of-the-year ideas, check out a great homeschool resource: Homeschool.Com. My friend, Rebecca Kochenderfer is amazing and her site has everything you can think of (and lots more that you can't even begin to imagine!), including ideas that will help you as you begin to plan and prepare for next year. Two of her books, Homeschooling & Loving It and Homeschooling For Success, are filled with wonderful ideas to fuel your creative juices and enliven your lesson plans. Catch Rebecca's latest book, Joy Journal, for a chance to reflect and relax at the end of the day. Happy Homeschooling!

Freelancing

Freelancing as a writer opens up a world of opportunities to express oneself, for instance, I have finished a non-fiction children's book and it will be published this summer; I write magazine articles-most recently for The Old Schoolhouse Magazine; and now I'm beginning a new venture of writing and syndicating a newspaper column for homeschooling! I've researched the process of how to do it and have written three sample columns, a cover letter, and sent them off to approximately 50 papers. Everyday, I research more papers and send off the sample columns. I figure the success rate is in the numbers-the more I send out, the more chance they will be picked up! It will be a great way to combine my love of writing with my love of homeschooling. It will be a weekly column and as it is syndicated, I will let everyone know the names of the papers. I will be organizing this blog in a similar fashion: Tuesdays/Wednesdays I will blog about writing, and then Thursdays/Fridays I will blog about homeschooling. In each blog, I will be describing things going on in my life as well as tips on the topic of the week. I will also do excerpts from my books and articles beginning next month. Please comment and send me your experiences on both writing and/or homeschooling, I'm always interested in what others are doing. Thanks!