Great Deal for Fellow Homeschool Parents!!

I'm a subscriber to The Old Schoolhouse Magazine and I love it!! I have a two year sub and I've purchased TWO of their limited edition bags in the past... Their blue/brown one and the pink/brown one! Eryn uses the pink/brown one to carry the books we borrow from the library. It's nice to have a bag for her to keep the books in while we walk around, when we leave the library, and to keep them in ONE spot when we are at home! When we have to go to the library, we just pick up the pink/brown one and OFF WE GO!!

But it's not just the bag that I love! The magazine is GREAT! It's filled with wonderful information and great resources! I'm so glad that I subbed for TWO years!! With the cost of the sub only being $19.95, that's LESS than $10 a year!! You can't beat that for a great homeschool magazine!!

I want to share with you how YOU can get this great deal, too!  This time, it comes with a BEAUTIFUL cranberry/cream bag!! WOW!! This bag is GORGEOUS!!

Get a free Homeschooling with Heart Cranberries & Cream  colored tote bag from The Old Schoolhouse Magazine! This limited-edition tote bag is a beautiful cranberries & cream flavor--very festive for Fall and the upcoming holidays. This is the same tote as the brown/blue and brown/pink bags you may have received in the past. Made of sturdy canvas, these bags snap on either end to prevent the contents from falling out. Each bag is a rich, cranberry color with warm, creamy accents. They make gorgeous gifts, too! The Cranberries & Cream bags ship in mid-November and will arrive in time for Christmas gift giving or to enjoy yourself during the holiday season.  

This is time sensitive, so please read carefully.

Receive two years of The Old Schoolhouse Magazine and get a FREE Homeschooling with Heart tote bag in a beautiful Cranberry & Cream color! Plus, you'll receive their Fall 2010 Issue and a wonderful new E-Book: Cranberry Christmas - all FREE.

1. Before midnight PST on Saturday, October 2, purchase a two-year subscription for just $19.95, and you'll also receive:

· New Cranberries & Cream Homeschooling with Heart tote bag --- FREE!
· The Fall 2010 print issue --- FREE!
· The TOS E-Book: Cranberry Christmas: packed full of everything cranberry!

The unique, Cranberry Christmas ebook includes recipes, fun history-of-cranberry information, and activities for the children, including homemade napkin rings and place cards for your Thanksgiving and Christmas table settings.

This offer ends at midnight PST on Saturday, October 2. All subscriptions begin with the Winter Issue, but you'll receive the Fall Issue as a bonus in October!

The sooner you subscribe the more issues you receive. Plus, you'll guarantee you get one of the gorgeous Cranberries & Cream Homeschooling with Heart tote bags.

New and renewing subscribers. U.S. and Canada.

http://www.theoldschoolhousestore.com/index.phpmain_page=index&cPath=460

2. Here is what you get from Sunday, October 3 through midnight PST on Wednesday, October 6, 2010-they're taking away a year! Before midnight PST on Wednesday, October 6, purchase a one-year subscription for just $19.95, and you'll still receive:

· The free Homeschooling with Heart tote bag
· The Fall 2010 Issue
· The TOS E-Book: Cranberry Christmas: packed full of everything cranberry! Includes recipes, fun cranberry information, and activities for the children, including napkin rings and place cards for your Thanksgiving and Christmas table.

All subscriptions begin with the Winter Issue. But you'll also receive the bonus Fall Issue in October!

New and renewing subscribers. U.S. and Canada.

http://www.theoldschoolhousestore.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=460

It's a great deal for a WONDERFUL magazine!!!! 

Home and Happy!

We have been home for a few days now. 

Eryn is doing very well. We have had two plasmapheresis treatments on an outpatient basis at the hospital. So far, so good! She is doing well while on the treatments and not having any problems.

We also just got a phone call from her kidney doctor tonight. He stated that her blood levels are going in the right direction! It seems as though she is keeping more albumin (protein) in her blood and not losing it through her urine and kidney. That is FANTASTIC news! 

We are hoping that this treatment is going to have her going in the right direction and possibly into remission... Keeping all of our limbs crossed!!

We should be receiving Eryn's school stuff from K12 in the next week or so. School here starts on August 9th, so we only have a few weeks left of summer vacation!!! 

So far, we have all good news!!!!!

Great giveaway!!

There is a site called Freely Educate (www.freelyeducate.com) that I visit all the time for some wonderful "freebies" that are out there for education.

They are giving away a great spelling program that totally ROCKS!!

Take a look at their website... there is some GREAT freebies in the past posts! And while you are there, SUBSCRIBE to their email newsletter... This way you won't miss another AWESOME FREEBIE!!!

It's been a while...

I haven't updated here in a LONG time, but I thought that now would be the best time to do it with all of the recent changes we have had!


We got the call on June 23rd that there was a kidney available for Eryn!  We quickly got packed and drove to the hospital in Orlando (about an hour and fifteen minute drive from our house).  We spent the night in the pre-op department while they ran tests to make sure that everything was good.  


On June 24th, Eryn went into surgery for the kidney transplant.  She was in surgery for about 3 hours and all went well.  We saw her a few hours later in the PICU (Pediatric Intensive Care Unit).  She looked good and was doing well.


Unfortunately, on June 25th, we got the news that the disease (FSGS) had returned in the newly transplanted kidney.  They immediately got her scheduled to start a regimen of plasmapheresis.  Her levels have become better while getting this treatment, but the disease has not gone into remission.  We will be doing plasmapheresis treatments on an outpatient basis at the hospital once she is discharged.  It will most likely continue to be every other day, but we will have all of that figured out once we are ready to leave.


The day we received the call I had gone into our school district office to place Eryn's paperwork for her to enter the BVIP (Brevard Virtual Instruction Program) through FLVS (Florida Virtual School).  Eryn had received her report card and was promoted to 4th grade.  If I had pulled her out to be "homeschooled" without the virtual program, there was a very good chance that she would lose her status with the school.  Thomas and I had agreed that putting her into the virtual school would be in her best interest.  Luckily, I submitted that paperwork that day!!


She is already enrolled and I have to be in contact with an advisor (they called on Friday on my home phone).  Hopefully, I will be able to get in contact with them this week so that we can figure out exactly what our next steps are.  We will have to have another IEP meeting in the beginning of the year to make accommodations for her learning.  But overall, we think that this is in her best interest and I know she will continue to learn through the online environment.


The best part is that our district uses the K12 curriculum as well!  So there shouldn't be much change for her other than a new shipment of books.  I have noticed that she definitely needs to be on the 3rd grade level for reading and history and can probably move up to the 4th grade level for math and science. She will also get art and music through the district, which she is not getting right now.  She will continue with the Elementary Spanish I through the school year...


Lots of things are changing, but everything is changing for the better!!


I hope everyone has a Happy and Safe 4th of July!!  I can't wait to update more as we get out of the hospital and settled in our new life!!

OUR FIRST POST

I wanted to introduce ourselves in our first post.


I'm Tara, the mom.  Some say that I have a "full plate".  I am a SAHM (Stay At Home Mom) to two great children, a full-time college student (majoring in Legal Studies), a wife to a wonderful man with a dangerous job, and a caretaker to a child on kidney dialysis.  


My husband is Thomas.  He works a dangerous job (sorry, for security reasons I can't disclose his job) and helps me with the care of our two kids and will be helping us with this next step of homeschooling.


Our daughter, Eryn, will be 10 in July.  She has been in kidney failure since she was 15 months old (October 2001).  She started with a disease called Nephrotic Syndrome that progressed to a disease called FSGS (Focal Segmental Glomerulosclerosis).  She received a kidney transplant in October of 2007.  Unfortunately, the FSGS reoccurred in her transplanted kidney within 24 hours of transplantation.  She was doing well until March of 2010, when she had complications of a kidney biopsy and ended up losing some function of her transplanted kidney.  She then began dialysis for the second time in her life.  Since she would be missing school, we decided to make the "jump" to homeschooling.  In our county, they think that 4 hours a week with a teacher is an adequate substitution for her week of regular school.  After going through two years of this in the past, we KNEW we had to take a stand and make decisions for ourselves.  


Our son, Riley, is 3 years old.  He is the child that drive me up a wall on a daily basis, says things that NO child should ever say, does things even AFTER you tell him NOT to, and is just an all around normal BOY.  It's been a very different experience raising a child that is healthy, let alone a BOY.  He's kept everyone on their toes and keeps us going every day.


We are using the K12 curriculum (information can be found at www.k12.com).  Eryn tested below grade level due to the two years of the hospital/homebound program through the county school district (she received 3 hours per week for Kindergarten and 4 hours per week for First Grade).  She is currently in Third Grade (going into Fourth).  When she took the county's assessment, she was placed in First Grade for Reading and Second Grade for Math.  When she took K12's assessment, she tested in Second Grade for Reading and Third Grade for Math.  K12's program is advanced... there are SO many things that Eryn hasn't even learned.  We are going to be working hard with their program and hope that we can get her caught up on her learning... and possibly push past it!


We are officially starting our homeschooling on May 1st (our first billing day), but we probably won't start our classes until May 3rd (Monday).  We will be using the K12 curriculum as follows:
Second Grade Reading
Second Grade Social Studies
Third Grade Math
Third Grade Science
Elementary Spanish I
Third Grade Handwriting Without Tears (Cursive Edition)


We can't wait to start and I'll be posting our progress as we go along!!


We'd love to hear from other homeschooling families out there...  If you would like to contact us, please email us at taramcooper@me.com.  We'd love some pen pals (both email and snail mail)!!  And please feel free to link us to your blog... we'd love to hear some stories from others as well and see your experiences!!


WELCOME TO HOMESCHOOLING!