Want To Be Featured in Coffee Connections?

Hello, friends! As many of you know, Learning 4 Keeps will be sending out a brand new weekly newsletter beginning the last week of April called Coffee Connections. This resource will have freebies, tips, and ideas for you to use in your classroom or homeschool! Haven't signed up yet?? Click the link on the right side of your screen! As a bonus for subscribing, you will receive a downloadable Math Game by Learning 4 Keeps for FREE!

I am so excited to share with you all through this new resource; however, I know that true knowledge and learning comes through collaboration! No one has all the answers nor do we corner the market on the greatest resources available. That is why I am opening up Coffee Connections to be a collaborative effort so that we can all share our wealth of knowledge with one another.

Perhaps you would like to be featured? Do you have a tip or trick that you have found helpful? Maybe you have a resource or freebie that you want us to know about. Perhaps you are a blogger who would like to be the Featured Fingers! Just fill out this form below for your chance to be included! If your submission is chosen, your site and social media platforms will be promoted. Click the button below to be a part of this great resource for educators everywhere!

I look forward to your submissions and I am looking forward to the launch of this brand new resource! Have a fantastic day!

April Favorite and Giveaway: My Memories Suite

Hi, friends! As busy as this past month has been, I have been filling up my camera with family pictures and holiday moments. But, if you are anything like me, you never seem to get the pictures printed. They accumulate on the SD card until you have 1,200 unprinted memories that you can no longer afford to print all at one time. Even worse, you don't know which ones you want to print and display because you like them all!

This is where my April favorite steps in and saves the day! Introducing the  My Memories Software, a digital scrapbooking software.

This software allows you to easily import your pictures to create a scrapbook, movie, slideshow, calendar, you name it! I was so excited to download my software and dive in!

After the online download, I was very impressed with the easy to use interface. You can create presentations from scratch or use pre-existing templates based on a theme or look. I chose to create a presentation with my latest Easter pictures. A design template was already available with 6 different decorated slides. It  included places to insert my pictures and some of the cutest design elements that matched my Easter theme. Take a peek at a few of my pages:

Are these not the cutest?! It took minutes to insert the pictures and even add my lettering! I also moved some of my elements around a bit and added a bit of my own. This scrapbooking software is super easy to use and they offer the cutest packages to add the WOW factor to your pages. There is a certain amount freely given in your package but more scrapbooking kits are available on their site for very reasonable prices! 

Here are some of the highlights of this program:

• Easy to Use Interface
• Beautiful background papers and embellishments
• Ready to use Photo layouts or you can create your own!
• Insert text and Word Art quickly
• Insert videos and multimedia
• Insert music and narration
• Share albums by printing from home or send to My Memories to be professionally printed and bound into a photo album
• Share with others by creating slideshows with music and narration, create movies that can be played on your DVD player, create Ipod ready movies and interactive albums.
• Online tutorials are available on Youtube to ensure that you are getting the best out of your software!

To celebrate my April favorite, one lucky winner will be receiving the My Memory Suite FREE by signing into the rafflecopter below! There are many ways to earn entries and I wish you the best of luck!

Don't want to wait to purchase this great program? You can use my code below to receive $10 discount off the purchase of the My Memories Suite Scrapbook software and a $10 coupon for the MyMemories.com store - $20 value! Just type in STMMMS38656 at checkout! When you use this code, you will receive a discount and I will receive commission from your purchase.

Best of luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway
Disclaimer:  I received a free copy of this product in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way. All opinions I have expressed are my own or those of my family. I am disclosing this in accordance with the FTC Regulations.

Homeschool Freebie: Scheduling

Hello, friends!! Easter is over and we feel that we have survived a bit of a whirlwind around our house. We have spent time with friends and family, had a fantastic Easter celebration at church, shared a meal with our church family, and just spent some time together! Can it get any better than that?

We took yesterday off as an added bonus so we spent the day doing some cool new things you will hear about this week. But today, it is back to the grinding stone... the schoolroom. We started off our week with a Bible lesson and then began our weekly schedule meetings. This is something new that I have been doing as I would like to teach my girls how to schedule and take responsibility of their time. As they get older, I would like to see them develop time management skills and this is the first step to that. We begin our meeting with our stack of books and this form:

Learning 4 Keeps Homeschool Schedule Printable

If you will notice, it has places for a weekly goal and then a calendar for weekly routines. The weekly goals are what we would like to accomplish by the end of the week. The weekly routines are things that are either lessons, group activities, or trips like the library. At the bottom, I have included a reminder section with special notes to keep in mind throughout the week. For instance, we are planning a camping trip on Friday with a large group. By listing it on their "chart" as they call it, they can use their excitement for their trip to assist them in completing their goals. It is not a reward for completing school just something to which they can look forward.

Here is a sample chart that I completed with my daughter. We had not quite completed it but it does have most of her assignments listed.

Completed Schedule

My girls now work to complete their assignments and are learning the art of managing their time. As of now, they are eager to complete lessons to mark off their goals. I explained that if they choose to complete their history assignments in a day, they would be finished with that subject for the week and would free them up for other things. I know that they will still need me to help pace them, but I also know that if they can learn to manage their time now, it will greatly help them in the future.

Just in case this is something that you would be interested in, I have created a freebie for you to download! I have included a few different versions including a blank chart for you to insert your child's current subjects. I hope it is something you can use! Just click on the picture below to download!