Recently in Free Category

Their coffee is pretty good, not Cubano good, but comparable to Bigbucks (which my husband refuses to go to any more).

And free...well, free is always good.

Do you remember my homemade laundry powder? I didn't like storing it in the cracker tin very much, so I've moved it to this old jar.

Originally, this jar held biscotti from Sam's Club. It was someone's gift to my In-laws one Christmas. When it was empty, they passed the jar along to me. That was many years ago. I promptly did my first stencil work - in the form of a yellow rose - on the wooden lid  . For years, the jar held seashells - first, inside the house and, later, on the front porch.

One day recently I was looking around the house for a better laundry powder container and rediscovered this jar. With a good washing, it was ready for its new home atop my dryer. The scoop inside was from an empty Oxy Clean container.

Though the jar is glass, it is heavy and not moved around, so I am not worried that it will break.

Now, I have an eye-pleasing laundry aid which cost me nothing and makes me smile every time I put a load of clothes to wash.

Reading this along with S; it's his literature selection right now. A slim, yet very deep book. Not just for little kids. Links for The Little Prince.

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Along with D for her literature, I'm reading The Epic of Gilgamesh at my Wiki. I wanted an online version I could edit for a twelvethirteen-year-old to read, but Susan Wise Bauer, in The Well-Educated Mind, recommends this one:

Here are some Gilgamesh links.

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On my own, I'm reading the third in the James Herriot series.

I had books 1, 2, and 4, but couldn't finish the series without 3. I recently got it free from PaperBackSwap and am now very happy to be back in the Yorkshire dales.

We are studying Carolus Linnaeus and Taxonomy right now, so I made this:

This will be very helpful in learning about Carolus Linnaeus and Linnaean Taxonomy. It includes a mnemonic for memorizing the correct taxonomic order. There is also a chart which will give my military-loving children a better understanding of how taxonomy works. The small pieces will give the children a chance to practice the taxonomic order and then they can check their work against the chart.

I make many such puzzles (as we call them) for our homeschooling. This one, like the others, is printed on cardstock and covered with Contact paper. I like to keep each puzzle in one of these:

You can make your own Taxonomy puzzle with my Taxonomy.pdf.

Right before the new school year started, I discovered pbwiki and I am so happy with it. This free wiki is just what I needed to consolidate the information I use for school. I've been adding the online helps that I normally print out, so this wiki helps cut down on the paper I use for homeschooling. Saves money and trees. It makes it easier for the kids, too, to be able to go to one page for a topic instead of combing through my links at My Del.icio.us.

Another use for this wiki is editing information. D is going to read Gilgamesh and I've put it on the wiki and am editing out the parts that are not for children.  Also, sometimes I find great information on a site, but the site isn't for young eyes. The wiki enables me to select and use the wheat and leave the chaff behind.

An additional reason I like the wiki is that it enables me to hyperlink text. I've hyperlinked new words in Carl Sandburg's poetry and hyperlinked people, places, and events in Anne White's Titus Flamininus study guide.

Here's the link to my wiki, but be forewarned: it is a cobbled mess right now and is copied and pasted from other sites. I've tried to acknowledge where info came from, but I've had lots of stuff saved in Microsoft Word for a while. Since this is for my personal use, I only feel a little bad if I've missed an acknowledgement. I'm trying to be more careful about linking to original sites and giving appropriate credit, though.

You can get your own wiki here.