Homeschool Planning, Racing to the Colosseum, and a {Giveaway}!

I don’t know about you, but when spring rolls around, I get excited for new beginnings.

New growth on trees, new seeds planted waiting for the end of frosty mornings to be transplanted to the garden, renewed excitement about our homeschool and new plans to get through the final months…

I get crazy with spring cleaning, decluttering (as much as possible with 5 children!), and planning for a great last few months of homeschool while starting to look ahead to next school year. Each year that I have homeschooled my children, my planning has looked a little bit different. This year, I’m feeling ahead of the game and not only have I considered what we’re doing next year, I’ve purchased some books (partly because we’ll need them before this year is up), and I’m working on preliminary plans based on a set of goals I’m creating for each child.

Recently I’ve been reading a new-to-me blog, Everyday Snapshots . Pam is a homeschooling mom and the mind behind some great tools for homeschool families. I wish she and I could sit down with our kids playing outside, and spend a lovely afternoon together! Since we can’t, I’m going to share her blog and a few her homeschool helps with you. It’s my hope that you’ll enjoy what she has to offer just as much as I do! I am an affiliate for Everyday Snapshots, so this is my upfront FYI that if you order from her store, I do make a percentage back and the specific things I am reviewing were offered to me free of charge. I will also honestly tell you that I would pay for these things, and because I think Pam’s printables are so great, I am sharing them with you.

First up: a game for families learning Latin! Race to the Colosseum is a simple and fun game to help practice all those new words from Prima Latina.

Last week, my 9 yr old and I set it up for the first time, and enjoyed it so much we played about 7 rounds in a row. I printed our game on cardstock, so I am not going to laminate all the cards but you certainly can do that. In fact, I can’t wait to finish up here on the computer so we can go play Race to the Colosseum again! You don’t have to have completed all the lessons to play the game–you can either not use the cards of words you don’t know yet, or use them for an extra challenge! This game is going to be a keeper in our house, for several years with each of my kiddos learning Latin! Thanks, Pam–this is making Latin more fun! I am certain we’ll be playing through the summer for fun on crazy-hot afternoons, and to keep our Latin vocabulary fresh in our minds!

Next up: planning pages. You will first want to go over to Everyday Snapshots and grab the free pages Pam has designed. Got them? Good! Now, read on for my thoughts on the expansion pack. The expansion pack is JAM-PACKED full of planning goodness! When I downloaded it and started opening up the pages to see what was inside, I was practically giddy. It was like Christmas for my planning-crazy mind. (yes, I do get a little carried away sometimes, but come on, ladies? Don’t we all love some great planning pages?)

There are pages in here that are good for ANY family, not just homeschool families, also! You could use the Family Skills Tracker, the Chores Checklist, the monthly pages–and more!–in your home binders.

This Family Skills Tracker is up on my fridge, so I can add skills and note progress as we go. An important goal for me is to teach my children all kinds of helpful and necessary home-keeping tasks, and starting now is the best time! This tracker will help keep me on track as I teach them.

I like this page, with the months-at-a-glance from July 2014-June 2015. It gives me a quick way to see the year, circle our tentative start-date, cross-out no-school days, and see when holidays fall. This will be at the front of my planner! Another of my faves–so far–is the Morning Time Agenda page, which helps me keep all the most important things in order: our prayer, memory work, read-alouds, and other things I hope to accomplish all together before my kids split and do their own thing.

From monthly planner pages to daily schedules and weekly schedules, the Plan Your Year pages have your homeschool planning needs covered. Here comes the fun part: Pam is going to give away one item from her store to a lucky reader!

To enter, head over to Pam’s blog Everyday Snapshots and sign up for her email updates. You will want to be in the know when she releases new printables! Then, share the giveaway, and finally comment here (in your comment, be sure to tell me if you shared and signed up for her newsletter). You will be given one entry for each, for a total of three entries. Please be honest! The entry period will run for 4 days, ending on April 14th. I will post the winner (using random.org to choose) on April 15th.

For all my blog readers, Pam is also offering 30% off until April 17th! What a deal! Use code GINA2014 when you checkout to receive the discount.