Getting Your Exercise On The Cheap

Let's face it there are many forms of exercise a person can do to keep in shape. Joining gyms, YMCAs, etc. can be very expensive. Even classes like spinning, Jazzercise, Zumba, can get costly if you are going frequently. I am a current lover of all things Zumba and started attending classes back in October of last year, sometimes going 3-4 times a week. That is $6.00 a class or a punch card for 10 classes @$48.00. Going to classes four times a week at six dollars a class becomes like $24.00 a week.  Not to mention the gas going back and forth to classes. That can get costly really quickly. Over the past couple of months I have slowed down my trips to Zumba class and replaced it with cheaper alternatives at home. I have a few ways I get my exercise on without any money to be spent:

• Netflix - I love my subscription to Netflix. Our plan allows us to to get DVDs and watch live streaming. There are some live streaming exercise videos but in my opinion they are not very good. If I chose to use Netflix for an exercise class I use the DVD by mail choice. This also works great to preview exercise DVDs before purchasing and finding out it was not at all what you expected.
• Youtube - As far as Zumba goes, Youtube has been a lifesaver lately. There are tons and tons of videos that instructors all over the country have uploaded to Youtube. Before you start saying "Yeah, but that is Zumba, they won't have what I like to do", well you would be wrong on that count. Obviously they have every kind of exercise imaginable. The videos in the neighborhood of 3-5 minutes long. This means you will need to search for "like" videos and save them somewhere. My current preference is on Realplayer. I was just saving the videos to my favorites and that worked pretty well. The one real problem is my Internet, it became harder and harder to watch an entire video with it skipping, getting stuck, etc. So hubby to the rescue, he showed me how to download Realplayer and search the videos through them then download the video into my exercise library. Now it works like a charm and I love it. When I get tired of the current videos, I just go search for more.
• Exercise Equipment - Most families have exercise equipment at their home that rarely gets used. Treadmills, stationary bikes, and weights. If you don't they can be purchased very cheaply through Craigslist, yard sales, etc. Maybe once a week I will use one of the items I have at home to do something different. It is true that your body gets used to whatever routine you are doing, so it is important to switch it up a lot.
• Walking/Hiking - Okay, anybody can do this one. Our family has started taking one day a week to go hiking. We are blessed to live in an area that has hundreds of hiking trails and many state parks. Sometimes we do have to pay a small $5.00 entrance fee to the park. Walking costs nothing. I walk a couple of times a week to give my knees and heels some time off  from the Zumba which is very intense on your joints. 

I still try to attend one Zumba class a week for the camaraderie and support I get from the Zumba community. Plus it is just a lot of fun to attend a class. Kind of like a party. Loud music, dancing, fellowship.

Times are tough all over and we are not immune to the financial struggles that everyone is going through. This means tightening our belts everywhere. One class a week now only costs me $6.00 which I can take out of my spare change jar. One family outing of hiking a week is $5.00. We view the hiking as entertainment. So for family entertainment and exercise I spend $11.00 a week down from $25.00 - $30.00(class expense and gas). That definitely adds up over the months. 

Exercise is so important, don't let the lack of money stop you from getting in shape and being the healthiest you can be. This hit very close to home to us recently. On Monday night I was coming back from my walk and passed our neighbor washing his car. One hour later there was an ambulance picking him up and taking him to the hospital. He is in his late 40s and having chest pains. When he arrived at the hospital they discovered he was definitely having a heart attack, one of his main arteries was completely blocked. I am sure this was a real wake up call for him. 

I am on a mission to keep my family healthy. That means exercising and eating better. Exercise keeps me sane and has allowed me to come off of my medication that helps with my anxiety. I have been off of it 6-8 months. Now I want to be off of my acid reflux medication which causes so much harm to people and they don't even know it. That it a whole other post for another day. All I'm saying is be active and work your way up to more strenuous exercise. It will greatly improve your outlook on life.

What I Did on July 4th

Around here it was definitely an atypical July 4th. The weather shut everything down. Rain for three days straight and more to come. This made the fireworks in town go away, a party we were invited to got rescheduled for the weekend, and we were broke to boot. So it was a stay at home, boring kind of day. I decided to make the best of it and get some planning stuff crossed off my every growing list. Yesterday I was able to finish all of the preplanning for Grace's 9th grade school year. Everything I planned is loose so that we can go with the flow if needed at times during the year. Here is the proposed weekly scheduled I have planned for Grace starting in August:

Mondays

English - Marie's Words
              King Alfred's English - Grace reads
              Literature Reading - Grace reads

History - Famous Men Book of the Middle Ages Book and Study Guide - Grace reads
              Accompanying chosen history book - read aloud

Church History - 4 chosen books throughout the year - read aloud

Science - See assignments sheet to choose activity
              Read chosen book - Grace reads

Math - Algebra 1 - one lesson
           Math Skills - one page

Vintage Remedies - would like to finally finish this book this semester

Spanish - one lesson a day

Bible - Who is My Neighbor for devotional time - read aloud
           Independent Bible reading - Grace reads

Exercise
Watch CNN Student News

Tuesdays

English - Marie's Words
             Language Lessons

Geography - one lesson from Memoria Press Geography 1

Personal Development - Read one chapter from 25 Truths - Grace reads
                                   High School Prep Genius - read aloud

Cooperative - Creative Writing
                     Lego Design
                     Drama
                     Yearbook

Watch CNN Student News

Wednesdays

English - Marie's Words
             Story Starters - Creative Writing
             Literature Reading - Grace's reads

History - Famous Men Book Book and Study Guide
             Accompanying Book reading - read aloud

Church History - 4 books to read throughout the year - read aloud

Science - refer to monthly assignments
              Read chosen book - Grace reads

Math - Algebra 1 - one lesson
          Math Skills - one page

Herb Study

Spanish - one lesson

Bible - Who is My Neighbor - morning devotions read aloud
           Individual Bible reading - Grace reads

Exercise
Watch CNN Student News

Thursdays

English - Marie's Words
             Literature reading - Grace reads
             Language Lessons

History - Famous Men Book and Study Guide
             Accompanying book - read aloud

Church History - 4 chosen books for the year - read aloud

Science - Refer to assignment sheet
              Read chosen book - Grace reads

Geography - one lesson

Math - Algebra 1 - one lesson

Spanish - one lesson

Bible - Who is My Neighbor - morning devotions -read aloud
           Individual Bible reading - Grace reads

Exercise
Watch CNN Student News
Possible Art Class outside of the home mid-day

Fridays

English - Teaching the Classics Literary Analysis
              Literature Reading - Grace reads

History - Famous Men book and Study guide
             Accompanying Book - read aloud

Science - Assignments Sheet
             Read chosen book - Grace reads

Math - Algebra 1 - one lesson
          Math Skills - one page

Spanish - one lesson

Bible - Who is My Neighbor - read aloud
           Individual Bible reading - Grace reads

Exercise
Watch CNN STudent News

If you have made it this long you are a true bloggy friend. Mostly I posted this myself to keep me accountable. Now that all of Grace's lessons are planned for the next year I need to move on to planning for the four classes I will be teaching at the Cooperative starting in August. I need to plan for:

• Fun with Literature (using what I learned from Teaching the Classics)
• Yearbook Staff (using Picaboo Yearbooks/Memory Books)
• Puppetry Arts
• Elementary Art (using DVD lessons from See the Light)

Poultry Lessons - Blogging Through the Alphabet

Many of my readers are aware of the fact that we have chickens. We started raising chickens about 3-4 years ago mostly for the eggs, but occasionally we do harvest a few to eat. The harvested birds are usually roosters, troublemakers, etc. Many of my readers also know that I have been in the process of creating an ornithology science class for Grace's 9th grade year. Yesterday I was writing lesson plans for this class and the idea came to me to also include some study of chickens into her bird study. The book above is one of my favorites, mainly because of the beautiful watercolor pictures inside. This book also has much of the basic information a newbie chicken owner would need to know. So I thought I would share the Poultry Study with everyone else in case you were ever interested in doing it with your child. It is very simplistic and can be added to or taken away from to make this more in depth or easier for the young people. The pictures above from the book represent what we started out with. Our original flock was 6 old english game hens and 1 americana. Then about six months later we added 6 Buff Orpingtons. Then we had one go broody and didn't have any eggs to sit under her. We acquired 6 more eggs from a friend that were Buffs and Barred Rocks. Now anything else that hatches are mixes of all the above mentioned breeds. My birds have been very healthy and I am always reluctant to bring in any birds from other sources. So we just breed our own and end up mostly with mixes. Everyone but the Old English hens are good layers.

Grace will read the above book which is The Illustrated Guide to Chickens. It is 187 pages long and I plan on her reading 10 pages a day along with the other scheduled materials for this study. Here are a list of questions she will need to research and answer:

1. What happens when a chicken goes broody?
2. What temperature is best for baby chicks?
3. Who are the biggest predators of chickens?
4. What breeds are the best egg layers?
5. What are young male chickens called?
6. What are adult male chickens called?
7. What are young female chickens called?
8. What are adult female chickens called?
9. At what age do most chickens start laying?
10. What is molting?
11. How many hend do you need to feed a family of four?
12. What are some important items you need in a chicken coop?
13. How long does it take for an egg to hatch?
14. How many eggs will a hen lay in her lifetime?
15. How much room in a run should each bird have?
16. What is free ranging?

Our newest batch of babies.

Activities I have planned:

• Collect eggs from different breeds, weigh the eggs and compare.
• Incubate a set of eggs.
• Draw and paint favorite breeds of chickens or photograph.
• Create egg recipes and dishes.
• Pick a breed of chicken to research and discuss.

One of the babies that hatched in April.

I am linking up with Blogging Through the Alphabet at Ben and Me and The Barn Hop at The Prairie Homestead.

TOS Review - Institute For Excellence In Writing - Teaching the Classics

Just about everyone in the homeschool world knows who Andrew Pudewa is and his company, Institute For Excellence in Writing. His writing products are the cream of the crop. Many folks may not know that his company carries other products as well, like grammar, speech and debate, micro business for teens, and the product our family reviewed Teaching the Classics.I had the pleasure in March of finally getting to attend an Andrew Pudewa seminar and listening to him live. But as great as he is this post and review is not about him or writing. This post is about learning to read literature and analyze it.

I am reluctant to admit that I remember very little about analyzing literature in high school or college. A handful of literary terms are all that I remember. Now I find myself with a soon to be 9th grader who also only knows a handful of literary terms. After watching/attending via DVD this seminar, that is something that is dramatically about to change. Of course in my excited state, I am getting ahead of myself. Let's start from the beginning.

Six week ago I was asked to watch/use/review Teaching the Classics by Adam and Missy Andrews. This product came to me as a physical spiral-bound softcover book and 4 DVDs. It currently retails for $89.00 through the IEW website. The Andrews are on a mission to teach parents and students the basic techniques to analyze literature. They both profess to be "bookworms" and felt called to serve the homeschooling community. This culminated in the product Teaching the Classics. The author uses the Socratic Method to help teach the interpretation of literature. Some may ask what is the Socratic Method? Basically it is asking questions while in a discussion of said material. Named after the great Greek philosopher, Socrates, it was a technique he used. This method teaches the students how to think. Many families that teach with the classical methods are already doing this. For others this may be a new method of teaching to consider. The running time for this seminar is 5 hours and 37 minutes. I broke it down and used it over a couple of weeks.

Teaching the Classics teaches parents and students how to look at a story and step by step analyze it. The DVDs are sectioned into six sessions:

• Preparing For Literary Analysis
• Plot and Conflict
• Setting
• Character
• Theme
• Practicum, Scope & Sequence

The practical knowledge that is taught in this seminar can be used in books, movies, poems, short stories, history books and so much more. Several different short stories are used to teach literary elements, like: context, style, theme, conflict, character, and setting. My favorite story he used was Casey At Bat. I always loved this poem and as I went step by step with him, I learned more about the author and the poem. Mr. Andrews goes further in depth with discussion of the Socratic Method and Socratic List which was somewhat new to me. The provided story charts were very helpful and there was plenty of room to write answers to questions and notes from the discussion. The book also includes several story charts already filled out to help any parent teach classics like MacBeth, Great Expectations and To Kill a Mockingbird. I will surely use these as Grace gets older and reading some of these selected classics. 

Once the viewer finishes the six sessions of the seminar they will move into how to apply what they have learned in a classroom setting. Also provided are booklists, lesson plans, a blank story chart, and questions from the Socratic List. The last two pages provides over 50 literary terms and definitions. The workbook has 97 pages and is invaluable with the material it provides. Mr. Andrews was very pleasant to listen to and certainly seemed to have a love for literature and history. One aspect that makes this product so appealing is the fact that it can be used to teach literature to just about any age. Elementary up through College. Mr. Andrews recommends starting off with picture books to teach the literary elements. After the concepts are learned then you apply the process to the literature your student is reading. I learned so much from this product and it has given me the confidence I need to progress on many levels. If you haven't noticed already, I really enjoyed this product.

How I Plan to Use This Product

Starting in August every Friday I will use the concepts I learned to teach Grace literary analysis. This will continue throughout the year. We will start with story books/picture books until she feels comfortable with the concepts herself, then we will start applying it to her selected literature books for the year. Of course this process will be ongoing for the next four years of high school and will better prepare her for college literature classes.

This has also given me the confidence I needed to teach a literature class for our cooperative. So also starting in August I will be applying what I learned from Teaching the Classics to elementary students in a class, Fun with Literature. The class will revolve entirely around picture books. I went to the library a few days ago and picked books directly from the list provided. I have started looking through them to see which ones I will use to teach each concept or literary term. I am very excited about utilizing this in a classroom setting.

Be sure to visit Institute For Excellence In Writing and check out all the wonderful products that are available, especially Teaching the Classics by Adam and Missy Andrews.

Also visit the TOS Review Crew to see what other families thought about their review products.

The Finances of Eating Gluten Free

Many times in life there are choices to be made and nine times out of ten the choices are based on how financially you will tackle that choice. Buying houses and cars, where to send your kids to college, vacations, etc. Well financially speaking eating gluten free is one of those financial choices too. Granted for health reasons it has to be done, but financially it can be very daunting. Just about everything in the kitchen, pantry, and fridge needs to be readjusted. That costs a lot of money. Buying regular groceries cost a lot these days, add to that the fact of purchasing gluten free this and gluten free that and it will add up very quickly. Now that my family is eating mostly gluten free with me that also adds to the amount of gluten free food roaming around the kitchen. But that is okay because cooking one meal instead of two each night is much less hectic and easier on my brain. Over the past month there have been a few ways of purchasing gluten free food that has made my life easier. The following are choices I made for the beginning of my gluten free journey. Buying packaged food has given me time to do research. Now it is my turn to start creating my own dishes and trying out recipes I have found. In the meantime this is what has kept us afloat:

• A friend in my community has recently started a small cottage business out of her home. Keep It Simple has kept me sane this first month of my gluten free journey. She sells mixes at very affordable prices as well as some fresh baked goods. Currently I purchase my bread, pizza crust, muffin mix, blondie mix, pancake mix, biscuit mix, and Crazy Good Granola from her. This may change over time as I get more adjusted to the gluten free lifestyle. Buying from Keep It Simple has allowed me time to figure out a list of exactly what my pantry needs. Also I haven't had to spend all the money for the different types of flour to create my own mixes. Seriously most of her mixes range in the $3.00 range which is way less expensive than the grocery store or Amazon. I did find out from her that she yesterday that she can ship mixes if anyone is interested.
• Buying in bulk from Amazon has also been a blessing. This week I purchased a six pack of snickerdoodle cookies made by Enjoy Life and a four pack variety of crackers from glutino. I currently am also creating wishlist items to purchase from Amazon a few at a time so it is easier on the pocket book.
• Surprisingly Wal-mart carries my favorite gluten free pasta made by Heartland. Very inexpensive for the gluten free world.
• Also I am surprised by the amount of gluten free products carried by our local Ingles. Much more than Wal-mart.

Yesterday I spent most of the afternoon looking through gluten free recipes on Pinterest. Seriously what did we all do with our time before Pinterest came about. The saved recipes has also given me an idea of the items I need to purchase for the pantry. So far this is my wish list below that I will purchase a little a time. The one thing I am missing terribly right now is flour tortillas. I really don't care for the brown rice variety so I will be trying my hand at creating my own here very soon.

Quinoa

Blanched Almond Flour

Tapioca flour

Potato starch

Rice Flour

Sweet Rice Flour

Xantham Gum

Powdered Egg Whites

Tortilla press

Food processor

Grand total comes in around 190.00. I can get all of the products from Amazon with free shipping. Any of you gluten free folks out there that have great places to buy products or recipes or advice, please chime in.

Weekly Wrap Up - A Mixture of Items to Report

Currently we are only "doing" some school work twice a week. Usually on Fridays and Saturdays because that is when hubby is away at work. We treat Monday - Thursday as our weekend time since he is home. My following thoughts on this week are in no particular order:

Thursday I had 9 girls over to for our art journaling group. The theme for the day was patriotic in honor of July 4th coming up next week. Lots of laughter and creating. I love spending time with all of these girls.

This week I started planning most of Grace's upcoming 9th grade year. I wish I could say that she was a self learner and enjoyed looking up and researching things on her own, alas, that just isn't her. She wants to be more rigorous in her studies but doesn't want to put the time in to make that happen. This means I have to plan everything and hand it to her to do. Even then it doesn't always turn out well, but that is for a whole other post. You can see Part 1 and Part 2 of the planning stages so far. I still have multiple subjects to wade through, there will be a part 3, 4 and maybe even more.

This was the third week in a row that we went hiking. On Wednesday we went no further than our own town and took to the Greenways to walk a mile or two. In the process we got to get real close to ground hog/wood chuck.

We also basically finished with the review for Moving Beyond the Page. I really love this product. Since me and Grace took it real slow with this product we still have some loose ends to tie up. Even though the review is finished and we could technically stop using the product, we won't. I really love the product and Grace is okay with it. We are learning a lot about Ancient Asia and the other study is about Greek Mythology. For the Greek Mythology study it uses D'Aularies book of Greek Myths. After reading some of the stories today I told Grace that it seems like Rick Riordan (author of Percy Jackson series) must keep the same book on his desk. Just about every story we have come across has been included in the Percy Jackson books. It just makes Grace enjoy the stories that much more. We are uber excited about Sea of Monsters coming out in August. Can't wait to see that one at the movies. 

Believe it or not it is almost July and we have not gone swimming. Hubby and Grace tried the river a couple of weeks ago but it was like ice. They are trying again this week with the Kayaks for the river or lake. I know Grace is just itching to go swimming somewhere.

Grace's favorite thing from this week was probably seeing the groundhog. We are not using many educational items right now so no favorites there. Hoping everyone is having a fun and relaxing summer.

We are linking up with Kris at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

Planning for 9th Grade Part 2

History for 9th grade will center around the spine book of Famous Men of the Middle Ages. I picked up the Greenleaf study guide to the Famous Men book at a used book sale a few years ago and knew at some point that I wanted to use it. I am ashamed to say that over all these years we have studied very little about the Middle Ages or Medieval Times. The study guide is broken down into 34 chapters. We will accomplish one lesson a week which should finish us up by the end of the school year. Each lesson contains vocabulary work, questions to answer, other resources to utilize, map work, and charts to fill out. I was able to snag Famous Men of the Middle Ages free on Kindle as well as two other books we will use to accompany this unit. The only other book I need to purchase for this study that is used routinely throughout the study is The New Penguin Atlas of Medieval History. I will order it in late July.

To have enough work to create a whole credit for history this year I have added a few other activities to the yearly schedule. Four times during the year I will ask Grace to select a person of interest from the studies to research further and write or type a two page paper on. Also she will be required to present two oral presentations on something that was invented in the Middle Ages.

The accompanying book list for this study which will be used as read alouds are:

• The Door in the Wall
• Adam of the Road
• King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table
• Ivanhoe
• Sir Knight of the Splendid Way
• The Children of Odin
• Otto of the Silver Hand

The above list of books will be read aloud by me daily Monday - Friday with the exception of Tuesday. I enjoy the books as much as Grace if not more. So I like to include at least two books a day that we use as read alouds. This year that will be history and church history. She will be responsible for her science literature books.

Another history credit we will start working on is Early Church History. I intend for us to work through the 12 books from Salem Ridge Press about early church history. We will read 4 books a year. By the end of her senior year we will have finished the 12 book series and hopefully reached close to 150 hours for a credit in the subject. I will also ask Grace to fill out a book report form after each book is finished. We originally became intrigued with this series of books when we did a review of one for the TOS Review Crew. You can find the review here - Margarethe. So the 4 books on tap for this year are:

• Glaucia The Greek Slave
• The Captives
• Out of the Mouth of the Lion
• Sowing Beside All Waters

We will read 10 pages a day from these books Monday - Friday with the exception of Tuesday to finish them all up by the end of the school year. Tuesday is co-op day and I am scheduling very little in the morning on Tuesdays.