Homeschooling and Unschooling- Homeschooling Times

Totally Addicted to “Draw Something” App !

Lisa - Homeschooling Mom — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 17:43:21 +0000

“Draw Something” is an app for iphone, ipad, android, etc. It is sort of across between pictionary and hangman.
You can play against your friends and family by searching for them via email or Facebook- or just have random games with random people around the world.
You get a choice of three words easy, medium and hard and earn 1-3 coins if other person guesses your word.
You Draw images that help your team mate guess, There is also a letter scramble below to help them guess.
Doesn’t sound like much but REALLY fun! I like it because you can play with any ages- I play with my 8 year old son. It is nice way to connect with him when hje stays at his dads. He plays on his itouch and I play on my android ( Motorola RAZR )

You would be AMAZED at some of the drawings people come up with!
You don’t have to be a a talanted artist to play- I am AWFUL at drawing but can be pretty clever with choice of images and word play. i.e.
convey the word “blonde” with 3 stickman, one with black hair, one with yellow hair and third with red hair and then draw arrow to the yellow hair.

Check these out:

Believe me ours dont look much like this!!!!!
Although my say bf came up with a really good “Rocky” last night. will see if I can get him to duplicate tonight.

What is your favourite Draw Something picture?

Top Female Role Models of 2012

Lisa - Homeschooling Mom — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 18:25:38 +0000

I have to say I am really pleased with the response The Hunger Games has had. A book featuring a female character, Catniss Everdeen and her “female-ness” is secondary to the story line.
If you read the book you a struck by how she cares little for her appearance, her hair and her clothes. What she does send time on is her relationships with her family and people close to her. Catniss also fights for something she believes in – her values not a man or a vampire :-). Not the man she loves but a system of beliefs. All very honorable and admirable.

Next way on the other end of the spectrum is Adele. So REFRESHING. We are oh so politically correct when saying the we are not judgemental when it comes to women being overweight and fat can be beautiful but how often do we see fat chick on the cover of Vogue Guess what??? Now we do!
Finally a real woman a real girl who is GORGEOUS and who embraces her curves. An overweight girl that young girls and teens WANT to look like!
Adele has really broken though this barrier and shown that you can be overweight and sexy and confident at the same time.

What women do you admire this year?

Scary Times at Kids Hockey this Week

Lisa - Homeschooling Mom — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 17:46:24 +0000

One of my best friends is heavily involved with hockey with two of her kids- She has homeschooled for 20+ years! Yikes. Her youngest is 4 so she has LONG road ahead of her.
She had CAT scan on the weekend and another today. She seems to be improving. She cannot do anything that involves brain activity!!!!! How you can manage not to “think” is beyond me. For starters, no reading, TV, computer and no sports… I think the idea is to give her brain a rest.
My thoughts are with them today as they head out to hospital.

Download Free Hunger Games Font

Lisa - Homeschooling Mom — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 17:23:48 +0000

Fonts have become more and more popular for teens as an outlet for creativity. You can download and add them to your computer by downloading the zipped file, unzip and then copy and paste the font ( fontname.ttf ) into Control Panel-> Appearance -> Fonts. Ii is just that simple. Your font will now appear in Word, Adobe Photoshop, etc.

Here is very popular Hunger Games font: download HERE

Just Finished Reading The Hunger Games Series and LOVED it!

Lisa - Homeschooling Mom — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 04:18:49 +0000

I have posted quite a bit that I have not been able to read much in the past few years because of an eye condition, keratoconus, and cannot see without special contact lenses in my eye. I can only wear the lenses for about 8 hours so there was no bedtime reading for me. HEARTBREAKING until I got an e-reader where I can change the font to super large. I have a Kindle
and in love with it.
Been reading like a mad woman and last week I plowed through all three of the Hunger Games books, The Hunger Games Trilogy Set , the three books are : The Hunger Games, Catching Fire and Mockingjay
I was looking for something a bit mindless to read and had been disappointed in a couple of the books I had just read ( The Postmistress being one of them)

I plunked down on the couch and put on a fire prepared to be entertained if not mildly bored. Boy was I WRONG! I was totally entranced by the story.
Set sometime in the future the main character, Katniss lives in a dreary village or district as its called in books. There are 13 districts that are supply regions for the “Capitol” He district, District 12 supplies coal.
Katniss is a STRONG female lead with plenty of depth as well as survival skills- which she will need when she volunteers to act as tribute as substitute for some one else and go to “The Hunger Games” with 23 other tributes – 2 teens between 12-18 from each district – 1 boy and 1 girl.
The Hunger Games are a punishment to the districts for an uprising that took place about 75 years before.
The plot is pretty dark however has its moments and the characters spring to life with lots of plot twists- for the most part very plausible.
What I enjoyed most about the book was that the female character really is the lead- no damsel in distress here!

While not quite in Harry Potter league it is very very good and I highly recommend. It is not sappy and boys will also enjoy.
There is Hunger Games movie being released in March after seeing trailer ( below ) starring Jennifer Lawrence who was wonderful in Winter’s Bone (she received Oscar nomination) I cannot wait!

Watch Hunger Games Trailer