HSBA, COH, and ME

This weeks Carnival of Homeschooling is up at Under the Golden Apple Tree. My recent post about Birthdays and Homeschooling can be found there as well as many fine homeschooling posts that I am looking forward to sampling in the days to come.

I will be hosting next weeks COH and submissions can be emailed to CarnivalOfHomeschooling@gmail.com Be sure to include the following:

Title of Post

URL of Post

Name of Blog

URL of Blog

Brief summary of the post

You can also send submissions in via Blog Carnival

There is a carnival atmosphere around the internet due to the recent nomination announcement at the HSBA. I am excited that this blog has been again nominated in the Best Dad blog category as well as Funniest Homeschool blog. You can check out all the fine nominations and vote for my blog and the rest of your favirites by clicking here.

Besides shameless self promotion of the awards I will also be revealing which blogs I voted for in various categories during the voting period which ends November 17th.

In the first category, Favorite Homeschool Mom Blog I voted for Homespun Juggling. This is by far my favorie homeschooling blog that I don't write myself (see previous sentence about shameless self promotion.), As a reminder of why I like her blog so much read this.

So check out the carnival, submit a post for next week, check out the HSBA nominations and vote for your favorites *Hint Hint :)*

Next Time: HSD Rewind.

Birthdays and Home Schooling

Like many home school parents, I was not home educated. Unlike my kids I went to school rather than stay at home. One of my favorite days to "go" to school was on my birthday. I loved going on my birthday, bringing candy for my class. I also loved when it was someone elses birthday and they brought in candy.

At our home school we have a tradition of taking the day off school on our children's birthdays. Last week Spider Droid went all double digits on us.

When SD was younger he really enjoyed trains. He loved playing with trains, watching and reading Thomas the Tank engine stories, visiting train museums, riding trains. He loved all things trains. As he has become interested in other things like robotics, Lego's and soccer, his train love has waned a bit. Thomas is old news, and he only plays with his trains when younger kids come to visit. He still likes to ride trains, though.

So for his birthday we went on a short family train trip. 2 of his friends, brothers who had gone to Joplin with us, came with. We took a Chicago commuter train from one suburb to another. Our destination was a place called the Choo Choo Cafe. It is a real cool restaurant that serves your food on a model train.

Here are some pics or Spider Droids special day. . .

After we ate lunch the train brought out some ice cream for the kids.

Not all our birthday celebrations are so elaborate. This was a nice birthday/field trip. So I got to wondering how other home educators spend birthdays. If you are visiting from this weeks Carnival of Homeschooling please comment and tell me what you do for birthdays. To get back to the Carnival click here.

Next Time: HSBA Challenge

Sunday's Cool: Bunny Circus

Sunday's Cool

A Link Up & A Look Ahead

A Link Up: In September and October when I was all but an absent figure in the blogosphere, I was also not pushing my children's presence there. Now that things at the Izola Becker Home School or more or less to back to normal, I hope my kids will get back to blogging as well.

On Friday, Bunny Girl wrote a post about our trip to the Circus. You can get to that post my clicking on the picture of the 12 year old ringmaster or by clicking here.

A Look Ahead: This week I plan to blog about birthdays. My son's that just passed and a birthday my late brother would have loved. I also will be working on the Carnival of Homeschooling that I will be hosting on the 16th of this month.

Next Time: Birthday Training