Starting March 31st, the Homeschool Village is hosting a Garden Challenge that anyone can participate in ~ even if you don’t have garden space!

You don’t need acres of land, intricately planned plots…just a desire to learn and have fun as a family. Plant one tomato plant or plant twenty, it doesn’t matter!

Find out more about the Garden Challenge at the Homeschool Village. They will be hosting a monthly link-up where everyone can share what they are doing, planning and progress on their gardens and/or containers.

The most IMPORTANT link-up comes next Thursday, March 31st at 10am, so be sure to mark your calendars!! The first 10 participants to link up March 31st will receive a $15.00 CurrClick Gift Certificate!! And to make it even more fun, there will be a special ‘add-on’ preschool pack to go along with my Garden Preschool Pack that I will be releasing on Monday ~ available only to participants in the Garden Challenge!

Quick! Pull out some pots, soil and seed, start planting, and link up next Thursday! You know you’ll have fun doing it!

Today the panel at The Homeschool Village is answering the following question:

If you could hire a substitute homeschool teacher – who would you want to teach for the day? (famous or not) WHY?

Are the wheels turning in your head? You’ll have to head over to the Homeschool Village and see whom the panel {and that includes me!} would like to fill in for them!

From 2008 until 2010 I was a part of the TOS Homeschool Crew review team. For me, it was a great opportunity to review products that I might not have otherwise heard of ~ some that have become a staple in our homeschool curriculum {All About Spelling would be one of those!}. Through my time working with the Crew I also became a better reviewer and developed relationships with several of the companies that I reviewed products for.

The current crew is almost finished with their year and they are in the beginning stages of looking for a team for the upcoming year. If you are interested in becoming a part of the 2011-2012 Crew, check to see if the following describe you:

1. You can be flexible with your curriculum plan. You will have to set aside some of your curriculum plans in order to do some of the reviews. There are times that you will be asked to review a product when you already have a specific curriculum in place for that subject.

2. You have an established blog, post regularly, and have a minimum of 25 followers.

3. You have a Facebook account (either personal or for your blog). This is to help with communications within the team.

If you are interested in joining next year’s crew, read through the application: TOS 2011-2011 Crew Application

Looking for a few things to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with your little one? Here are links to some of the great resources we’ve used from some sites I love! I’m all about using what is already available is someone has gone through the trouble to put it together and it fits what we need!

Rainbows & Leprechauns ~ science experiments, a sensory tub, a cooking idea, links and more fun ideas for learning about rainbows and leprechans.

Rainbow Lapbook ~ printables and links from Carisa @ 1+1+1=1

R is for Rainbow ~ Michelle @ Delightful Learning linked up with her preschool rainbow ideas ~ she has some great ones to share!

St. Patrick’s Day Unit ~ Mama’s Monkeys

Little Laplinks {April} ~ Links to some lapbook printables and other sites that have completed rainbow lapbooks

Shamrock File Folder Games ~ a variety of different file folder games. Pick one to use with your kiddos!

Shaving Cream Shamrocks ~ Cindy @ Along the Way shares a fun {but messy} craft

Lucky Charms Graphing ~ sort cereal and graph the results of what’s in your bowl.

R is for Rainbow ~ Erica has some GREAT printables all about rainbows. We used several of them this week. Don’t forget that you can make the printables smaller {i.e. fit more than one on a page} if you are worried about printing off too much.

Roll a Leprechaun ~ Whatever number you roll allows you to draw another piece of your leprechaun.

Rainbow ideas from Making Learning Fun

Usually this isn’t something that I post about, but since I’ve gotten a few great deals {and expect more}, I wanted to share some great new sites that I’ve found recently {one thanks to Carisa at 1+1+1=1}. If you are familiar with sites like Living Social and Groupon, then you are going to love these two sites also! We both did some research into both of the sites and have purchased from the first one too, so we know they are legit!

Moolala offers an online daily deal to members where you get 50-90% off a retail offer. If you see something you like, you can purchase the deal and then share the deal with friends. They have a great rewards program where you can earn 2% of the deal values ~ not bad! Check out the main Moolala page and you can see how the rewards program works!

The current Moolala deal is from Mixbook ~ for $10, get $50 worth of photo books, stationery, customizable calendars, and more, all from Mixbook. You can purchase up to two deals per person! I took advantage of this one already and can’t wait to get started making a book {since it’s the closest I’ll get to scrapbooking for now!}.

Socialdish will be unveiling at some point this month, but you can sign up now and receive an email when the deals start. The site is similar to how Moolala is set up and also has a reward program for members. Best of all, it’s also a free site!

I am a member of both Moolala and Socialdish and part of their rewards programs. I was not compensated for this post, but would love it if you decide to join by clicking on my links above ~ it will help both Carisa and I since we joined under each other! :)