I’ll be back!!!!!

It’s official:  I’ll be returning to the Schoolhouse Review Crew for 2014!!!!

I’m so excited.  I got up with the worst splitting sinus headache this morning…and then there it was…the invitation in my inbox.  It made my day! 

I have been trying not to think about it too much.  We weren’t supposed to hear one way or the other until perhaps tomorrow.  I’ve been distracting myself with other things and enjoying the banter of fellow 2013 Crew Alumni as they made predictions and teased each other as they waited. 

Then there it was…totally unexpected on this fall morning.  A whoop of excitement and a sigh of relief came from my body almost immediately.  I finally let the air out!

I’m totally looking forward to meeting this challenge for another season.  I hope you all will join me in seeing what wonderful new products The Old Schoolhouse Magazine has in store for us over the course of the year.  Now that my oldest is in public charter school and I just have the two younger ones at home, I can focus my reviews a bit more on elementary level products instead of spanning the gambit from preschool to high school.  I will have one in 1st grade and one in 5th grade next school year, with the 5th grader doing some 6th grade level work, so I should get to spill over into middle school materials for some subjects like math in particular. 

Haylee has benefited so much this year from many of the great products we reviewed.  She definitely learns differently than Hayden did at her age, and the opportunity to try out new products to see what fits her best has been wonderful for her.  Spanish for You!, ARTistic Pursuits, and VocabularySpellingCity all became part of her curriculum for this school year.  She enjoyed the 20th Century in America Lap-Pak so much that we bought other Time Traveler products from Home School in the Woods to use with our Civil War to Industrial Revolution studies this year.  She has totally fallen in love with Apologia Elementary Science programs like Zoology 3 and Chemistry & Physics.  And I enjoyed Couponing Made Simple so much that I’ve continued to use some of her principles to save money in my grocery budget each month, making it easier to use coupons than ever before.  I could go on and on.  The bottom line is that being on the Crew is fun, challenging, fulfilling, and beneficial.  I get to serve others in the homeschooling community by giving honest reviews that help families make informed curriculum decisions, I get to have a “job” that makes me accountable outside of my own family and enjoy exercising my love of writing, and my kids get to find what works best for them individually without worrying about my own curriculum budget.  It’s a win-win all around!

I’m sharing a photo of my family that was taken at church on Sunday.  You’d think someone was torturing them to get them all in one spot long enough to snap the camera!  LOL. 

Happy fall to you all!