Make a Book With Kodak Gallery

I enjoy making picture books, but my skills in design need some major honing. That’s why simple drag and drop book builders make sense to me. Something that makes me look good? Why of course, thank you! Kodak Gallery allows you and your children to create picture books and photo books with easy to use online software. Yes, that’s online. The software does take a little bit of time to load, but it’s worthwhile. If you have over 400 photos to upload, there is a software download option. Kodak has several sizes of photo books. They come in small, medium … Continue reading →

Make a Picture Book With Mixbook

I’m a sucker for no downloading, and that’s what attracted me to Mixbook as a photo book editor. If you’re like me and your computer gets easily overloaded, pitches a fit, and runs away from new software downloads, you might want to consider a web-based photo book editor. Mixbook has created a site that is part social networking, part photo book creator. You can add friends and collaborate on projects together. For a teen’s book project, this would be a wonderful tool. Compared to the Blurb photo book creator, Mixbook has a smaller selection of book sizes. However, the size … Continue reading →

Making a Book With Blurb

If you’re making a photo book, there are many, many (did I mention many?) web sites out there to choose from. Let’s wade into the book publishing world with an introduction to a few of the self publish web sites out there. The first one we’ll explore is Blurb. If you’re hesitant to download, Blurb may not be for you. Some sites require you to upload your photos and store them on the site. Blurb asks you to download their software. I must say that I’m a reluctant downloader. The more stuff I can store on the great interweb, the … Continue reading →

Make a Book!

Every year, my daughter and I make a book. We do this as a Christmas gift for relatives. We also do it as a way to record her artwork and writing and way of being for another year. In the beginning, this book was a record of her adventures during the year, documented in photographs. As she grew, we added artwork. At first the art was scribbling with a bit of an explanation on the side. For the last three years, she has created a story with multimedia artwork to accompany it. This year’s tome will be a compendium of … Continue reading →

Teaching about Capital Letters

The terms “uppercase” and “lowercase” refer to the old days of typesetting when some letters were kept higher, in the upper cases, and others were kept in the lower cases. This is a cool bit of trivia for us parents, but try explaining this concept to your little student and you’ll get a blank look in return. I ran into this while teaching my daughter, my firstborn. Then I tried the whole “big letter, little letter” approach, but that didn’t work, either. The letters were nearly the same size—what do you mean, this one’s a big letter and that one’s … Continue reading →

Writing or Creating Stories?

There’s a lost art in the age of the computer, and it’s called penmanship. Given that I am currently sitting at a computer and writing this, I realize that I’ve lost it almost completely. I’ve always been terrible at writing things out by hand. I find my printing and handwriting slow, tedious, and entirely un-beautiful. I am sad that I do not have my grandmother’s or grandfather’s penmanship, but I don’t really have the inclination to pursue it as an art in itself. In those days so long, long ago – say, a few decades ago – before the age … Continue reading →

Does Your Child Want to Be a Writer?

I was a child who wanted to be a writer. I was a writer, in fact. When I was in elementary school, my best friend and I created plays that the entire class performed for the school. I published my first poems when I was a teen. Back then in the day, I did it the archaic way: I mailed my poems to journals (gasp)! These days, the internet has created new pathways for young writers. There’s blogging, of course. Your teen can even create a niche web site should he wish. He could go a la Charles Dickens and … Continue reading →

Creating Creative Writing Prompts

My kids always enjoyed creative writing when we were home schooling. They come by it naturally since I’ve loved writing ever since I could hold a crayon (though I quickly learned that walls weren’t to be used as giant pieces of paper). Thankfully, my kids never had the urge to scribble on our bare white walls. Even when they were very young, all I had to do is hand them a tablet and a pack of crayons, then offer them a creative writing prompt and they were content for hourse. Back then they could only draw stick figures and gibberish, … Continue reading →

How I Became a Reformed Copy Work Supporter

Okay, I’ll admit it: I once thought copy work was dumb. I mean, where’s the critical thinking in copying exactly what’s written before you? What’s the point? No thinking, no analyzing, just plain old copying. But I have been reformed. In case you’re not familiar with the idea of copywork, it is really a Charlotte Mason idea. The idea is that you take great quotes from literature and have the children copy it. Ironically, the curriculum I use has regular copywork assignments, which until recently, I skipped over. It has to be just about the only thing I didn’t like … Continue reading →

The Lapbooking Series: An Introduction

I have considered for some time now, writing a series of blogs in homeschooling on the wonders of lapbooking. (If you are not sure what lapbooking is, check out his blog.) But you see, I’m a novice. My kids’ lapbooks don’t look as nice as Tammy Duby’s (from Tobin’s Lab). My twins are constantly interrupting the process, and I just haven’t quite gotten it all worked out. Then it occurred to me that this is kind of the point of lapbooking. It’s not supposed to be perfect. It’s supposed to be done as you go, and it’s supposed to reflect … Continue reading →