How to make your own audiobooks!

As I have mentioned our 8yr old daughter is working her way through her dyslexia curriculum and doing very well with it. We however wanted to continue to challenge her mind and encourage her to expand to books meant for her age range. We began a 3rd grade literature program at the beginning of this school year and while the books are right on for her developmental age the words are above her current reading level. We started out reading the books together as a family. That worked well as long as I was able to find a quiet moment in the day when none of the other 5 children needed my attention. As you can imagine that didn't happen often. We decided to switch to audiobooks and have her read along in her own book.  We are loving the audiobooks and the independence she is able to have with her reading. She reads her books when and where she wants, such an amazing thing! The trouble? Not all of her books are available as audiobooks and lets face it audiobooks can be expensive!

I decided to start recording our own audiobooks. Of course I had no clue how to go about recording the books. I mean do they make cassette players anymore? Am I showing my age? I asked around and was directed to a small digital recorder available on amazon. I wasn't so sure I wanted to spend $30-40 on a digital recorder so I kept searching and decided to see if my android phone had a digital recorder app available. Of course it did......and for FREE. Okay I am sold!

We chose to install the Titanium Recorder for several reasons.

• It was free
• Ease of use. Push the blue microphone to turn it on then push the red microphone to turn it off
• Ability to label the recordings (book name,chapter numbers, child intended for, etc)
• Able to sync recordings with dropbox and then be used on any of my devices

We completed a few test runs and we were quickly up and running. I sit down in the evening after all the kids are in bed and look through the teachers manual for our daughters literature program. I record the chapters based on the way they are broken down in the curriculum. So if she needs to read 2 chapters per day I record both chapters in one recording. This makes it easier for her to know when her lesson is finished and keeps her from playing around with any of the settings on my phone.

So how long does it take to make our recordings? Well lets start by saying I am not reading War and Peace here. These are chapter books intended for young children. As you can see above each 2 chapter set took roughly 6-7min to accomplish. I spent about 30 minutes reading this one book into the recorder. I could have broken it down to just 10-15 min a night if I had needed to do so.

I do have a few tips:

• Make sure you are recording in a quiet environment. You want your child focused on the words they are "reading" not someone talking in the background.
• Speak slowly. My first recording was apparently rushed and our daughter had trouble keeping up in her book.
• Have some water nearby. I found I needed a water break after every recording session.
• Keep the recorder close to you but not too close...clear as mud? I kept mine at chest height and it works out well.
• Have your child use headphones while listening. It helps to keep them "in the book" and makes hearing the recording easier.

I would love to hear about your experiences making your own audiobooks!

Space!

This month we have been studying one of my husband's favorite topics.....SPACE! 

Our "textbook" for this unit was the National Geographic Kids First Big Book of Space. I have found that you really can't go wrong with anything from the National Geographic brand. The book was very clearly written and easy for our 10 and 8 yr old to understand. Each page was filled with amazing photographs from space and small easy to digest facts and terms. The book was broken down into 5 chapters so we decided to schedule one chapter per week.

The first week was all about "Looking up from Earth" so we spent the week learning about the sun and the moon. We had a wonderful time learning the phases of the moon thanks to Oreo cookies! I found this free worksheet detailing the phases of the moon on education.com and then had the kids reproduces the phases with Oreos. It looks easier than it was. The cookies kept crumbling and breaking when the kids tried to cut them into the correct shapes. We did eventually get it finished however and the kids were more than willing to eat all of the "oops" cookies. Come to think of it they may have broken a few just so they had more to eat. I wouldn't put it past them!

 

The next chapter in the book was "Earth's Neighborhood". After reading about all of the different planets in our solar system the girls were getting pretty confused. It was a lot of information to retain and they had never covered the planets in public school. I found a free printable that outlined the popular "My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Noodles" mnemonic for remembering the order of the planets. The free option seems to have disappeared but there is a $6 unit still available. 

We also printed out these free planet cards and then turned them into a simple planet themed books. The girls just stapled together 9 pieces of construction paper into a book and then cut out the facts about the planets and glued them on the appropriate pages.

  What would a unit about the planets be without a model of the solar system? We decided to do a 3D poster board using a foam board, Styrofoam balls of different sizes, paint, and chalk.We simply cut the balls in half and then the girls researched what each planet looked like in order to paint it correctly. Once the planets were painted we glued them on to the foam board and added the orbits around the sun with chalk.

The next chapter we covered was "Earth's Other Neighbors"  which covered asteroids, meteors, dwarf planets, and comets. We decided to add these to our solar system model as well. The girls had a blast using white beans to make the asteroid belt.

Next up was the chapter "Far Far Away" which covered stars and constellations.  We found a free map of the summer constellations and used mini marshmallows and toothpicks to attempt to recreate them.

Of course the kids may have invented a few of their own along the way......

The last chapter in the book was titled "Exploring Space" and had to do with space travel. I was able to find several free Apps from NASA that showed actual photo's from space, updates on what NASA is currently working on, past missions, etc. They are some really cool apps! You should be able to find them simply by searching NASA in the google play store.

What kind of homeschool mom would I be if we didn't finish up our chapter about exploring space without some sort of rocket launch? I researched several options and finally settled with this Stomp Rocket Kit.  At $12 it was in our budget, it is foam so I don't have to worry about anyone putting an eye out, and it can be reused over and over again. WIN!

Over all we had an amazing month studying Space and I honestly can't wait to do the unit again with our younger kids! I would love to hear about your own Space units!

Frugal Accomplishments 11/30-12/7

That time of the week again! This week has been a whirlwind of activity thanks to a shift change at the hubby's work. I already rambled about that however so I will try not to do so again.

This week we have kept our budget software updated and reconciled the account transactions at least every other day. I am not overly thrilled with completing this task but I have found that if I do it more often it is a lot less stressful. Things just line up easier when you are only adding in 3 transactions at a time instead of 23.

We have stayed on target for our budget categories and have managed to even underspend some of them!

Our 3yr old little man is currently potty training so we are saving a fortune on diapers for him at the moment. He uses 1 disposable on the way to school, 1 disposable on the way home, and 1 at bedtime. So far he is doing amazing with staying dry during the day as long as we remind him every hour to try to potty. We are really hoping to have him 100% potty trained very soon.

We have been using our cloth diapers during the day for our 1 yr old and 1 disposable at night. We tried cloth at night but have found she sleeps better with a disposable on. So far it has only added 1 extra load of laundry per week which is doable for me. Back in the day I had 4 in cloth diapers so as you can imagine I was washing a load of diapers a day. Having to just wash one load a week seems like a vacation compared to that!

The kids and I have eaten at home for all our meals this week. My husband was working killer 12 hour shift and I had a really hard time sending him with enough food to keep him full for the entire time. We eventually conceded to his eating fast food when he needed to do so.

Remember how I shut off the electricity to the second floor of our house last week as a lesson to the girls about leaving lights on? Our electric bill was $100 less this month! I am still in shock over that one.

I think that is about all we have been up to this week. I would love to hear about your frugal accomplishments this week!

Our December grocery story continued......

As I mentioned in a recent post we are tracking our grocery shopping by week for one month to show how we primarily live off our pantry storage. I am a numbers person so I of course had to include the grocery totals and the corresponding menus.

We have had a crazy busy week this week thanks to my husband's work implementing a shift change. He went from working afternoons and evenings to working 12 hour shifts over night. As you can imagine that was a bit brutal on our family, we averaged about 30min a day with him if we were lucky. With him being out of the house for 12 hours at a time it became difficult to provide him with enough food in his lunch box to sustain him the entire time he was gone.  We tried for a few days but the poor guy was running out of food and going hungry. So I pulled some cash from our grocery budget to put towards his eating out when he needed to do so.

 I also forgot that our daughters had to pay their Girl Scout dues this week, it is $10 per month. I of course forgot to budget that into this weeks categories. All I had with me was the grocery budget money and that was all in $20's. So the grocery budget became short another $20 and we are now paid up till the first of February. Guess that is a bit of a win for next months grocery budget.

All of that rambling means that this weeks grocery budget was $52. For the record I do NOT advocate "stealing" from your grocery budget for things like fast food or wants (Girl Scout dues is a want not a need). I could have easily adjusted the other budget categories to cover the eating out or the girl scout dues. I however chose not to do so. I knew that we could eat well out of the remaining grocery budget so I decided to "let it ride". Please understand that the needs of your family come first and I do not advocate taking funds from a need category to pay for a want category.

Anyways back to the topic.........Obviously the majority of our meal items this week will be coming from our pantry stockpile. It is times like these that I am VERY happy that we learned how to stock pile our necessary staple items. You know the old fable about the grasshopper and the ant? It is very applicable in this situation.

So how do we feed 8 people for 7 days on $52? It could get really bleak if we didn't have a fully stocked pantry and freezer!

Breakfasts:
Baked Oatmeal
Blueberry Pancakes
Waffles
Toast with eggs
French toast casserole
Biscuits and gravy

*All breakfasts include fruit and milk

Lunch:
Leftovers
Sandwiches (peanut butter, turkey, or ham)
Homemade soups (chicken noodle, chicken and dumpling, etc)

Dinners:
Homemade Pizza
London Broil with potatoes and green beans
Pork chops with broccoli
General Tso chicken with rice and mixed veggies
BBQ pulled pork sandwiches with green beans
Fried chicken with mashed potatoes and corn
Chili with cornbread

So how did the grocery shopping turn out?

Store 1

Pepperoni $2.16
1 lb Dried  pinto beans $0.95
1 lb Dried dark red beans $1.29
1.2 lbs Kale $1.04
1.8 lbs Collard Greens $0.72
Plastic Forks $0.96 Someone keeps throwing our real silverware away. I suspect the 1 yr old.
Plastic Spoons $0.96
Mom treat $0.62 Sometimes you just gotta have a treat!
Oldest Daughter treat $1.10 Going shopping with mom is always a coveted job.

Total: $10.29

Aldi

3lbs Apples $3.29
2 gallons skim milk $5.98
5 loafs of white bread $4.45
2 dozen large eggs $2.78
2lbs butter $4.58
Half gallon egg nog $2.99 The only thing my husband asked for this week
Mayo $1.95
Chocolate chips $1.49 We are making cookies this week as a thank you gift for our rabbit sitter.
Peanut butter $3.49
2 bottles of syrup $3.58

Total: $34.68

That brings us in at $44.97. We have roughly $7 left for any incidentals that are needed this week. My guess is that we will need more sliced bread at some point. Our 8yr old is going through a phase where she eats nothing but white bread and peanut butter. I keep telling myself that she will outgrow it but I am not too sure at this point. Kid is stubborn! I guess she comes by it honestly!

The amazing news is that my husband has a three day weekend happening at the moment and is going back to his normal shift on Monday. I am VERY happy to only have to worry about sending him with one meal while he is away and thrilled to see him for more than 15min twice a day!  I would say things are settling down here but I know not to jinx myself with that kind of talk.

I hope you all have an amazing week and I look forward to hearing about any adventures you have going on!

Spicy BBQ Sauce

As I mentioned we bought a 6lb can of tomato sauce while at Costco doing our bimonthly pantry stockup. I figured what better way to use it up then to make lots of tomato based meals this week. Tonight's creation was a super yummy spicy BBQ sauce.

Spicy BBQ Sauce

2 cups tomato sauce
1 cup water
1/2c white vinegar
8 Tbsp brown sugar
1/2 Tbsp black pepper
1/2 Tbsp ground mustard
2 1/2 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper

Combine all ingredients in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a low and simmer for 45min until sauce thickens up and reduces down. Use immediately or cool and store in your fridge for later use.

This was a bit too spicy for me to eat straight up but it was tamed down and really yummy on a slow roasted london broil slider. So good not a speck of meat survived dinner. I am totally planning on a BBQ chicken pizza sometime in the next week.

Black Friday Shopping

Last week I posted a list of ways we cut our grocery bill down to only $600 a month to feed our family of 8. I started thinking it might be helpful if I posted some actual numbers and meals.

As I mentioned in my post last week we vary our grocery budget throughout the year:

 Six months of the year we spend $400 a month
Six months of the year we spend $500 a month and stock up on pantry items
Two months of the year we spend $900 a month and stock up on meat items

This month is a pantry stock up month so we have a budget of $500 for the entire month. I break that down to $100 a week for meal items and $100 for pantry stock up items. I usually do our stock up shopping on the first of the month and this month I wasn't letting a little thing like Black Friday stand in my way. I did however sleep in till noon (thanks hubby!) and take my sweet time getting to the store. I had no interest in joining in with the insanity of Black Friday shopping so I stuck with just Costco and Aldi.

Costco 

Pantry Items:
25lbs sugar $10.49
25lbs flour $7.99
5lbs broccoli $6.39
5lbs green beans $5.99
3lbs coffee $10.99Chicken Base $5.99
10lbs rice $4.99

Meal Items:
5 lbs Mozzarella $14.39
#10 can tomato sauce $2.69
64oz eggnog $4.29

Total: $74.20

Aldi

Pantry:
10lbs potatoes $1.99
3 dozen eggs $4.77
Baking cocoa $2.19
Black pepper $1.99
Olive oil $2.99
3lbs butter $6.87
Freezer bags $1.69

Meal Items:
10 loafs Wheat bread $4.90
Turkey Deli Meat $3.29
Ham deli Meat $3.29
Iceberg lettuce $1.19
Diapers $4.99
Carrots $1.39
Salami $2.99
Breakfast sausage $4.78
Baby carrots $1.29
Biscuits $4.36
Bell peppers $1.59
2 gallons Skim milk $5.62
Peanut butter $3.49
Pancake syrup $1.79
Oyster crackers $0.89

Toiletries:
Deodorant $2.59
Mouthwash $1.79
Body wash $0.99
Toilet paper $6.99

Total: $82.19

 While I am buying bulk items I like to plan that weeks meals around at least one of the bulk items I purchase. This week I planned my menu around a $2.69  #10 can of tomato sauce. For those unfamiliar with the #10 cans available at Costco they are MASSIVE cans usually meant for use in a cafeteria or restaurant. The #10 can of tomato sauce is 105 ounces, or 6lbs 5oz, of sauce. That is a lot of sauce! You have two options when dealing with such a large cans, portioning it out into individual baggies and freezing them for later use or using the food item in several meals. I think it is much easier to just store the food item in the fridge and use it throughout the week. So this week I am planning to use the sauce in pizza sauce, spaghetti sauce, BBQ sauce, and sloppy joe's,

Some of the meals we have planned this week include:
Breakfast:
Baked Oatmeal
Pancakes
Sausage Biscuits
Sausage gravy and Biscuits
Scrambled eggs with turkey and cheese

Lunch:
Sandwiches
Chicken noodle soup
Leftovers

Dinner:
Pizza
Sloppy Joes
BBQ Brisket
Spaghetti
Italian Pork Chops
Chicken sliders
Leftovers

Did you do any amazing shopping this holiday weekend? I am quite happy with my pantry stock up items!

Frugal accomplishments November 23-29th

That time of the week again...lets see how we did with our fugal accomplishments this week.

We stuck with our goal to update the budget each night and balance out the categories. I kind of failed on this one however due to getting a due date on a bill wrong. The good point was that I had it set to direct debit so the company got paid, but the bad part was that I forgot to add it into our budget. It got paid but it sure did cause some scrambling on my part to get the budget back into line. Lesson learned and the budget is up to date for this month with the correct due date.

We ate at home throughout the week which lets face it sometimes is a massive struggle. It helps that we live 30min from "civilization" so not like I can just pop into a fast food place to get something to eat.

We stuck to our grocery budget and brought in our Thanksgiving dinner on budget at $11. It was very good and actually made enough food for 2 dinners and a lunch.

I skipped the Black Friday insanity and purposely avoided all email and online advertising. I did find 2 free ebooks about creative writing for the girls thanks to a sale on amazon. I couldn't pass up free! I spent Black Friday doing our grocery shopping for the week. More about this to come in a later post!

We have been using our cloth diapers more this week. I admit I tend to slide back into the ease of disposables when I am busy or behind in laundry. I am trying to get this under control since our son is a very big boy and finding diapers in his size is getting expensive.

After trying to find our daughters new literature book through an inter-library loan and failing miserably I gave up and ordered it via amazon. I did however buy it used and saved a few dollars. It showed up today and looks to be in brand new condition. I am sure she will adore reading it (not!).  I am still looking for the last workbook in our handwriting curriculum for our oldest daughter. It retails for $15 with shipping which isn't a bank breaker but if I can find it cheaper I would like to do so. There are several book stores running sales for Cyber Monday tomorrow so I am hoping to find a really good deal.

I have been monitoring our electricity usage and have been driven a bit batty by all the lights left turned on. I lectured the kids that if they didn't start turning their lights off when they left the room I was going to turn the electricity off to the second floor of the house. The next day I turned their bathroom light off as I was walking to my room for a shower. After my shower I walk out to see the light on again. So I went straight to the garage to flip the breaker to the upstairs lights and outlets. I didn't get two steps in from the garage before I was met by a child informing me that their bathroom light wasn't working. *Sigh* I left the electric off to the second floor all day only turning it back on once it got dark outside. The shock value seems to have worked for the time being and I have only had to turn off a few lights here and there versus ALL the lights multiple times a day.

My husband received his paycheck on Black Friday (dangerous time to get paid!). I moved the required money to sinking funds for future bills and pulled out the cash we will need for this week and loaded up my cash wallet system. I am really liking having the cash on hand as it makes updating the budget categories much easier throughout the month.

All in all we had a really good week here and I am happy to be starting December with a plan in place. How are things going with you all?