The Computer in Our Hands
Since I am typing this on the internet to be posted on a blog, I can safely assume that one thing most of us have in our hands is internet access. The internet is a double-bladed gift, of course. It can be a great time waster, a gossip fest, a source to feed our discontents, and an tool for great evil. It can also be a source of encouragement, ideas, a library, the largest cookbook in the universe, spiritual sustenance, and more. The difference is in what we choose. Here are a few tools for frugality we've found on the internet:
Sheet music, free, printable sheet music of all sorts. Here are some we chose last year:
We put together a folder of sheet music for our fifth child, including things like: downloadable sheet music copies of Beethoven music here (Moonlight Sonata)
Molly Malone and London Derry Town from here
A Nessun dorma (from 'Turandot') arrangement, Eine kleine Nachtmusik, In the Hall of the Mountain King, a Boccherini Minuet, for piano from here.
Cyberhymnal is probably familiar to everybody. You do need special software to open their sheet music.
Several of the sites above also offer music scores for other instruments.
Envelopes for sachet or drawer fresheners: Adjust the sizes as desired using this template. Paste it together and fill with scented contents of your choice. I've used old dryer sheets, a cotton ball scented with essential oils, a mixture of lavendar buds, dried orange peel shavings, and esential oils. Make your little gift more personal by rubber stamping an image on the front, or writing down some suitable quote.
Pinwheel- print out template and instructions and give to a child who likes to construct things.
Paper house- for girls or boys- boys might enjoy this in a block town or in a town to be destroyed by giant teddy bears.
These paper toys are a bit more complex, but fun.
Printable miniatures for the dollhouse- more than enough to keep a child occupied productively for days.
Games- printable games to play, some suitable for travel. Battleship, mazes, tangrams to print out, cut and design with (I would laminate the tangram pieces).
Proverbs 31 Stuff:
Recipes- there are more recipes than you can shake a stick at online. You probably could get by with never owning another cookbook again, providing the computer doesn't crash and you don't need to cook something when the power goes out. This means you can also print out a cookbook for a friend, perhaps a young friend just out in a place with his or her own kitchen. Here are a couple of my favorite sites
"Dump" recipes- these are easy freezer meals. You take the raw ingredients, dump them in a bag and freeze them. On cooking day you thaw them and cook in the oven or crockpot. A nice (and not too difficult)gift for an older couple would be a stack of freezer meals- two chicken breasts or pork chops per freezer bag,
Hillbilly Housewife- every frugal cook should have this one bookmarked.
Meals for You- this has some frugal recipes, but largely I find it more useful when I have been given some meat I might not otherwise purchase, found a really good deal on some ordinarily more pricey ingredient, or have the luxury of more money than time a given week. You can change proportions so that the meals are all servings sizes of 2 or 10 or any other number. You can print out your shopping list once you've chosen meals- whether you choose a week's or a month's worth. You can select recipes based on nutritional content, preparation time, carb levels, and more. It's a lot of fun to play with.
Everybody knows Flylady. I couldn't handle the avalanche of messages and the fluffy feel good stuff. I like The Grand Plan.
Helping with the Christian Walk
The Audio Bible Online: Andrew Scourby, British Accents, Word of God, listen to it while you blog, work, or eat your breakast, and it's free. What more do you need?
In case you're wondering, it takes only 3 minutes and 27 seconds to listen to Proverbs 23. It takes approximately fifteen minutes to listen to everybody's Mt. Everest of Bible chapters, Psalms 119. Fifteen Minutes!
Paws and Tales: This is a children's program Chuck Swindoll's group does. The characters are all animals. I don't find them all equally worthy, but Corrections Course is a favorite with my youngest two and with me. The children/animals are very naughty and disobedient, they are corrected, they are repentant, and there's a hilarious bit of business where one of them has been wearing what he thought was an antique crown on his head only to discover it's a 19th century chamber pot. There's also a fun little song at the end about 'When you're wrong, you're wrong.' Most satisfactory.
Homeschooling, culture, literature:
BBC Radio Classic Serial programs Currently airing Dr. Zhivago, but this changes regularly
Eye in the Ear- dramatized stories from history and legend- require a bit of fiddling with to get them in the right sequence.
Libravox- several books to listen to, from Aesop to Austen to Twain and more.
Donna Young's free printable resources.
Amblesideonline, a free Charlotte Mason curriculum with links to things like folk songs, poetry, art prints, etexts, and Miss Mason's original writings, all free.
The MathWorksheetSite- The Mathworksheet site has two parts- you can get several of their features for free, or you can subscribe to get even more, and it is a lot more. Scott Bryce, a homeschooling father, has been working on these for some time, and they are dandy. You can get instructions in Spanish or English. You can print out worksheets on counting change, and you can choose Canadian, American, or British money. You can print out simple pages for counting, learning to write numbers, and skip counting, or you can print out complicated pages with algebra, geometry, and stuff over my head. You can get the answer keys, too, in case it's also over your head.
Enature.com- this is the online field guide to all kinds of wildlife. You can use this site to help with bird, flower, tree, and other identification, and you can even play most of the bird calls, which is uber cool, and gladsome even.
When you're done homeschooling and your student graduates, you can pass on the link to the Homeschool Alumni website. This was a great idea whose time had come, and so two brothers figured it out and started out. It's growing by leaps and bounds, and it's free. So what's the deal? Here's what they say about it: Hundreds of homeschool graduates are meeting, sharing ideas and finding a thriving community at HomeschoolALUMNI.org. The Alumni Network has graduate profiles, biographies and networking tools to help graduates connect. There are also events, online forums, news, articles and essays reflecting the unique perspective of the rising generation of homeschool graduates.
The young people over there are swapping stories, reading and discussing books together, asking each other questions to help them with their own writing projects, encouraging one another, and working together forming networks, associations, and friendships. If you are a homeschool grad or know one, pass along the info. They'd love to hear from you.
Those are just a few useful links that can make your life easier, richer, fuller. Sometimes when I have a handful of ingredients on hand I google them to find a recipe to use them- my google search might look like this:
cooked chicken sweet potatoes celery cups
I always include a unit of measurement such as I might find in a recipe, because otherwise I end up with too many links to online menus for restaurants and not enough actual recipes. And look at what came up! It looks quite interesting.
Without making any effort at all the internet can just suck up hours of your time before you know it. But with a little discipline and attention, it can help you make the most of your time and of what's in your hand.
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3 Responses to “The Computer in Our Hands”
December 22nd, 2007 at 8:07 am
I appreciate the reminder that “teh interwebs” (as the hipsters say) can be a source of good stuff, too. I’ve given up quite a bit of computer time because I found it to be almost the soul-less timesuck that television is anymore. But no! At least not “as much”.
December 22nd, 2007 at 10:47 am
I also vouch for the Homeschool Alumni website for homeschool graduates! It’s so encouraging to see what’s going on in the lives of grown-up homeschoolers.
December 23rd, 2007 at 12:32 pm
I like the site http://www.SibeliusMusic.com for sheet music. You have to download the Scorch plugin, but then they have lots of sheet music. Some of it is free, and some of it costs small amounts of money.
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