If you are familiar with XHeader then I’m sure you’ll be as excited by this news as I am.

If you’re not familiar with XHeader where have you been for the last year?   They have given away over 100,000 copies of this free software in the past year.  I use it all the time and it is so helpful for creating header graphics.

Anyway, it is an amazing piece of software that lets you quickly and easily design header graphics for web sites and blogs.  Just click on the websites tab above and you can see what I have been able to accomplish in minutes using this handy software.

Amazingly XHeader is completely free and comes with 500 professionally designed header graphic templates.

In all honesty Paul could have charged $97 for this software and thousands of people would have gladly paid it – it’s that good!

If you’ve not already got a copy of the free version grab yourself a copy right now by going to:

Free XHeader Software

I don’t know whether Paul will decide to start charging for the free version once the premium version is released, but I hope not as it’s been a godsend to so many people who would otherwise struggle with designing their web site and blog header graphics.

Either way, if you don’t have it I’d grab a copy now by going to the link above. If you do already have it do watch out for my blog post later in the week when I will give you the low-down on the new premium version of the software.

I was recently invited to participate in a telesummit with Susan Whitehead of MRS Homeschool.com.  The entire event revolves around homeschool families and entrepreneurship…two things that are very dear to my heart.

The Homeschool Biz Expo starts on Monday, February 22^nd and will feature a new expert interview every day for 10 days…and it is all free!  I’m not sure where my interview will land amidst the 10, but I’m sure you won’t want to miss any of them if you have a business that you run while you homeschool, or hope to in the near future.

I shared some of the ways our family deals with the challenges of homeschooling with teens and toddlers, as well as how we integrate our business into our daily lives.

Be sure to go and register for your pass before its too late.

www.HomeschoolBizExpo.com

Blessings,

Terri Johnson

P.S. I look forward to hearing your feedback on my session.

www.HomeschoolBizExpo.com

This sounds like a recipe for disaster, doesn’t it?  But, I am here to say that this doesn’t need to be the case.  We can do better than this.  We can not only survive homeschooling through the rest of the year, BUT we can THRIVE!!  We can give our children a better education than the public schools.  We can promote unity and cooperation between siblings and with parents.  We can have kids that have good attitudes and are self-motivated.  We can develop READERS rather than TV watchers.

Here is some help from someone who is enjoying our 12th year of homeschooling, but who has felt those mid-winter “blahs” almost every year.

Step 1

Memorize this statement, “Everything that is worth doing requires effort.”  Yes, this is true.  Think about it…  What are the things in this life that are worthwhile?  Here is a short list:

• Marriage
• Parenting
• Bible reading
• Prayer
• Eating/cooking healthy
• Exercise
• Housekeeping
• Reconciliation

On the flip side, what are some things that come really easy?  Here is a short list:

• Fast food
• TV watching
• Leaving stuff lying around
• Sleeping in
• Surfing the net
• Fighting

I am not judging any of the things in the second list (frankly, I do them all but in moderation), but I am saying that these are easy things.  They do not require effort and they are not worthwhile.  They do not have lasting effects or long-term benefits.  They are just easy, lazy things.

It is not easy being a parent, but it is worthwhile.  It is not easy to homeschool, but it is worthwhile.  If public school is the wide road, then homeschooling is the narrow road.  Homeschooling parents have taken on an extra burden, something that is often difficult and requires effort, but this burden can bring great joy and rewards.  To you and to your children.

The other day, I took my first spin cycle class (trust me, this is related to the topic – it is my object lesson or visual, if you will).  You know the kind of class where you all get on your bikes and take a ride together, but you do not leave the gym.  Yeah, well, in case you have never taken a class like this before, let me tell you, it’s tough.  At about 20-30 minutes into it, my thighs were screaming and I was ready to quit.  In fact, I looked down and I saw water droplets falling from my face onto the bike.  I thought it was just sweat, but then I realized that I was crying.  That’s bad!  But you know what, I got through that difficult part and the second half of the ride was so much better and much more enjoyable.

So, what does this have to do with homeschooling?  We hit the most difficult part of the year in January and February.  Sometimes, this time of the year can bring tears and a screaming desire to quit.  But, guess what?  It gets better!  How do I know?  Because I have homeschooled through 12 winters and experienced Spring on the backside of each and every one of them.  Halleluia!

Here are 5 tips for getting through the winter doldrums.  Trust me, this stuff works.

1. Pray – pray alone and pray with your kids.  Start and end each day in prayer.  The Lord will sustain you.  Plus, when you pray with your children, you can find out how they want to be prayed for.  You can find out what is difficult for them.  They can pray for each other and they can pray for you.  This is the best way I know to begin each day.

2. Develop routines.  Use a schedule to decide how your day will progress and then stick with it.  Once a schedule is in place, your children can develop routines that can develop into good lifelong habits.  Plus, once something has become routine or habit, you no longer have to tell your children to do what they are supposed to do.  They can simply do what they are supposed to do before school, during school, in the afternoon hours, in the evening.  It becomes second-nature.  (Note – do not become a slave to your schedule; rather let the schedule be your servant.  If it gets too bossy or demanding, change it or veer from it for a time, just to show it who’s boss!)

3. Count on your friends.  Internet friends are great, but nothing can substitute for a good, old fashioned, local friend who is walking the same road as you are.  Like-minded, homeschooling friends can act as a guide for you – showing you the way to go; they might draft for you – so that your burden is lifted; they might push you – when you feel that you simply cannot go on.  I have many friends that have acted in all of these roles for me, during different seasons and phases of homeschooling.  You must let your friends help you through the rough times.  In the same way, you can help them when the going gets tough.

4. Change it up.  Mid-winter is a good time to try a new curriculum, do a unit study, go on a field trip, or throw a historical feast.  When you are feeling the blues or the blahs, throw in something new to wake everyone up.  One of the reasons why we homeschool is so that we can teach differently and learn in new ways.  This is a great time to shake things up a bit by trying something new.  Go ahead, it will be fun and you won’t get behind.  Your children can learn outside of the books for a day, a week, or more and still stay on schedule to graduate to the next grade come June.

5. Get help.  If you are truly at a place where you think that you aren’t going to make it; that you think your kids would be better off in school, then seek help.  Maybe a book will help, maybe time with a friend will do the trick.  Or maybe you need to take a class.  This is exactly why we created Homeschooling ABCs and Upper Level Homeschool.  Check these out before you throw in the towel!

God bless and hang in there.

Atlas and Outline Maps of World History

Ready for your third adventure?

Grab your children by the hand.  It’s time to explore our world throughout history.  Let’s pick up our trek where we left off and explore the New World time period.

*** You can pick up your free maps on the Knowledge Quest web page here – http://www.knowledgequestmaps.com/MapTrek3.html ***

We have heard your comments throughout the years and have set out to provide THE most attractive and highly useful map book for home educators.  You have said that you want…

1. Historical maps that will help you navigate through history studies.
2. Accurate maps that show what the world was like THEN and NOW.
3. Maps that are easily downloadable yet inexpensive to print.
4. Attractive maps that you and your children will be proud to display.
5. Lesson plans that will show you what to do with them each week.

Map Trek meets all five of these demands and more.  Here’s what the new Map Trek will provide you:

1. A full color teacher’s answer map that will help you tremendously.  Here is a sample below.  Go ahead and download this map that depicts some of the early battles of the American Revolution.  Right click and choose “save image as” to save to your computer.

*** You can pick up your free maps on the Knowledge Quest web page here – http://www.knowledgequestmaps.com/MapTrek3.html ***

2. An unlabeled student map for your child to color in and label. Notice a few key features on this map. There is a slight color shading on the ocean/water areas to help your child determine which parts of the map are land and which are water. BUT the shading is minimal so as to not interfere with his creative coloring process OR to use much ink when printing from your printer. Feel free to save a copy of this sample map to your computer and print one out to see for yourself.  Right click and “save image as” to save to your computer.

Here are a couple more for you to download today!

*** You can pick up your free maps on the Knowledge Quest web page here – http://www.knowledgequestmaps.com/MapTrek3.html ***

3. Lesson Plans to help you know what to assign to each of your children at their various stages of learning.  There are lesson plans included for all 32  outline maps and are broken down into 3 levels – Level A (grades 1-4), Level B (grades 5-8) and Level C (grades 9-12)

4. Grid maps and blank grids to help your kids learn to draw the land masses of our world in a fun and painless way!

*** You can pick up your free maps on the Knowledge Quest web page here – http://www.knowledgequestmaps.com/MapTrek3.html ***

We’d love to hear what you think.  You can leave us any comments, questions or suggestions on our Facebook wall or right here on my blog.  Here is the link to Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/KnowledgeQuest

January 21 – PATH Co-op meets at Edgewood Bible Church in Edgewood, WA. The address is 1720 Meridian St. E., Edgewood, WA 98371. I will be speaking at the meeting on Thursday, January 21st at 7pm.

February 8 – CCHE meets at First Church of God, First Church of God, 3300 NE 78th St., Room 120, Vancouver, WA 98665-0656.  I will be speaking at the meeting on Monday, February 8th at 7pm.

April 8-10 – Midwest Homeschool Convention, Duke Energy Convention Center in Cincinnati, Ohio.  I will have 3 workshops at various times/locations throughout the weekend.

Please feel free to come to any of these.  I would love to meet you and answer any questions you might have.  I’ll have books and materials with me that I can show you.  I also love to give away freebies.  Just send an email to me if you need more information about these meetings.

So, this year I have changed my focus.  What I really want to improve on in my life is home management.  I do a decent job at homeschooling the kids and working for our business, Knowledge Quest.  Where I need improvement is keeping the children pleasantly occupied after they finish their school work and keeping the house running like clock work.  My kids have their schedules and chore charts, but need to be reminded constantly to actually do the things that are written on them.

Let’s take morning chores for example… The kids are supposed to clean up breakfast, start the next load of laundry, feed the pets, etc. before beginning their school work.  However, nearly every morning we gather at the table at 9:00 for our morning Bible time and I ask if they have done their chores and the answer (often, usually) is “no, not yet.”  And why this has not happened is because I did not remind them.  Do they need reminders every day?  I should think not.  So, I am working through the process of training the children to see their part in keeping the house running smoothly.  Besides, I really don’t want to be the nag – just the facilitator.

Funny, this does not happen at all with school work.  When they finish one thing, they move right on to the next until all of the school work is completed.  I don’t have to say a word.  How can I transfer this concept to chores, reading time and other afternoon activities.  Still working it through…

Any ideas?  I’m all ears!

However, I also knew that there would be some who would receive this Christmas card that do not believe as I do – either they believe differently about God or perhaps not at all.  There are some that celebrate different holidays during the month of December.  Did I want to alienate them by sending my Christmas card?  Absolutely not!  These are my friends – people who read my newsletters and communicate with me through email and over the phone.   I value them in my life, whether we have the same religious beliefs or not.  And I do not want to lose any friendships that I have gained over the years in the event that I might be used of God in some way in their lives down the road into the future.

And so, I took the Paul approach – speaking the truth while acknowledging other belief systems.  Paul had an amazing way of connecting with people by talking with them from a place of common ground.  He wrote to the Athenians, “I see that you are a very religious people with temples to many gods…” (paraphrase)  Did he put them down or shame them for this belief?  Did he alienate them?  No, he did not.  He acknowledged their religious belief system and then built upon it.  This was my goal – to acknowledge that we might currently believe differently and yet to proclaim the good news clearly – God sent His son to save us all!

After my card went out, I was criticized by people whom I thought would understand me best – my fellow Christians.  I was judged for coming across as politically correct or not strong enough in my core beliefs.  Those that know me well know that this is not true.  I believe in friendship evangelism.  Preachiness almost always drives away friends.  Then what have we gained for eternity?  Understanding and honesty will often soften the hardest of hearts.

I prayed over sending my card, just as I have prayed over writing this response.  Judge me if you will.  I have learned over the years that there will always be those that will judge you – it is a part of life on this planet.  But I will continue on the path that the Lord has laid out for me – to share His love with those that do not know it through compassion and understanding and truthful words.  Come what may…

I hope that you had a very Merry Christmas and experience God’s full blessings during 2010!

(Would you prefer this information packaged in an easy step-by-step curriculum that will guide your child in learning world geography in as few as 7 months? Download our complimentary Globalmania ebook here – www.knowledgequestmaps.com/Globalmania.html. Enjoy!)

ONLINE GAMES AND QUIZZES

1. Seterra is free software that you can download onto your computer and play many geography based games. Locate countries, capitals, cities and more. Take quizzes and test your knowledge. The software will record the highest scores, so you can keep playing to get your score higher and higher. Great tool for your kids and yourself – http://www.wartoft.nu/software/seterra/

2. Sheppard Software has provided many free and fun to play geography games at their website – http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/Geography.htm. There are various levels of play so that your beginners and advanced students alike can find something to hold their interest. You do need to have Flash Player 6 or higher on your computer to be able to play these games, but no other downloading is necessary. The instructions are minimal, so it takes a few minutes to get the hang of the games in some instances (or at least it did for me!). Also, they do have other games across the curriculum, so feel free to check out their science and vocabulary games as well – plus many others!

3. If you or your children like puzzles, then you will love this website! At this website – http://www.yourchildlearns.com/geography.htm – you can either play with the on-line puzzle maps, or you can download them to your own computer. If you would rather not download them, here is the direct link to the online map puzzles – http://www.yourchildlearns.com/map-puzzles.htm. These are a lot of fun and a great learning tool for kids of all ages (yes, even adults!).

4. Take National Geographic’s Geography Bee quiz! These questions can be fairly tough, but you get a second and even third chance to get them right (there are only 3 choices per question) thereby allowing you to KNOW the answer, which you are unlikely to forget. Also, the questions are new every day, so you can play every day and get new questions to answer. Very fun! Here’s the website – http://www.nationalgeographic.com/geobee

5. Test your knowledge of world or regional geography with this fun quiz at http://www.lizardpoint.com/fun/geoquiz/. A great aspect of this game is that children can see improvement quickly, even by their second round at the same quiz. Builds confidence and knowledge!

6. This quiz site – http://www.ilike2learn.com/ilike2learn/geography.asp – allows you to not only learn about the countries and capitals of the world, but also the mountains and bodies of water. If you need a hint, or the answer, it comes in the form of a pop-up, so you may need to disable your pop-up blocker. This site seems to add new games frequently. Great learning tool!

7. Another great quiz site – http://www.actionquiz.com/quiz.php?trivia=geography. Here you can play against other kids and teachers and see if you can win. You do not have to use your real name (no reason to, so don’t!) and the game uses a pop-up window. So, if your computer blocks pop-ups, you either have to disable that feature to play, or if you get a message that allows you to open the pop-up, you can go about it that way. Warning: this is a fun game to play and rather addicting. After playing five times against some strong opponents, I finally won!

8. This website – http://www.geosense.net – also allows you to play alone of against another player. You are asked to not only identify countries of the world but cities as well. It is quite challenging and also very addicting. I played six rounds against my opponent and only won twice (and I thought I knew my geography like the back of my hand – reality check!). If you do not mind that your scores are not recorded in their log, you can play as a guest. Or create a login ID to keep track of your scores and establish an identity at this site. (Parental caution: there is a chat element on the home page which would be best to avoid for your younger children certainly, and probably for your older children as well. I recommend that you navigate past the home page before turning the computer over to your child.)

9. This quiz site – http://www.garyradley.com/games – has both “find” games and “quiz” games giving your students a well-rounded familiarity with the countries of the world. My only trouble with these particular games was that it was sometimes difficult to click on the correct country because the hand spread over more than one country area. But overall, this is a great site to round out your online geography games.

GREAT REPORT SITES

Atlapedia and CountryReports are two great sites for general information. If your child or student needs to find some facts on a given country or view/print some maps for a particular region of the world, Atlapedia is a great all purpose website for gathering information for research papers, etc. – The website is http://www.atlapedia.com/index.html. Full color physical and political maps are available. Also, CountryReports lets you drill down on a world map to the country you are interested in and gives you some great facts and information and maps of that area. The website is http://www.countryreports.org/.

JUST MAPS – BUT REALLY COOL MAPS!

Do your kids like all kinds of maps – satellite, physical, political, even weather? Then they will enjoy creating their own maps at this site – http://plasma.nationalgeographic.com/mapmachine/index.html.

Would you like to see what the earth looks like a night as seen from space. This view of the world was taken from photos of the earth at night from a satellite. The earth is lit only from the city lights of civilization. Spectacular! – http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap001127.html

Okay, everyone knows about Google Earth, right? This is an incredible piece of software that is taken from actual photographs of the earth. In fact you can zoom right down into your own backyard. Mind-boggling! The software needs to be downloaded onto your computer. It is located here – http://earth.google.com/

FUN VIDEO SITES

Yes, this is one of my favorites! At this website – http://www.animatedatlas.com – you can watch a five or ten minute video about the growth of our nation. Superb and educational!

TEACHER RESOURCES

Are you in need of some worksheets to print out that will reinforce the geography you are teaching to your students. Here is a great site with lots of printables (my computer tells me that is not a word, but I think you know what I mean) – http://www.tlsbooks.com/geographyworksheets.htm.

This site gives you contact information of places where you can receive free geography materials – http://www.ed.gov/pubs/parents/Geography/free.html

And don’t forget the free downloads available from Knowledge Quest – just sign up for our newsletter and we’ll send the information right over to you.

This has been so exciting researching these free sites for you. If these games are played often and these resources tapped into and used, your students will gain tremendous knowledge and retention in the realm of geography (SO WILL YOU!). And it will be painless! That is the part I love! Have fun!

Linda S.

Michelle

Susan

Dawn

Jennilyn

If you wrote a comment and your name is here, then please contact me and we’ll get your mailing address so we can send this to you in time for Christmas.  And have a very Merry Christmas – to each and every one of you.

Here’s my email address – terri@knowledgequestmaps.com.

And for those of you that are interested in purchasing the book at 40% off, or the set of 3 at 47% off, then follow this link – http://www.knowledgequestmaps.com/What-Really-Happened-During-the-Middle-Ages.html.

Merry Christmas!