Over the course of our life, I have purchased numerous homeschool materials from textbooks to workbooks, video series to DVD’s.  After doing a multitude of things, I realized that I don’t particularly care for any certain one.  We usually start out strong on something and then after awhile quickly bore of it.  After spending hundreds of dollars on curriculum, I figured there has to be another way.  Then I realized that the internet is FULL of many FREE resources for you to be able to school your children, you just have to know where to look and find the TIME to do it.  Sometimes those two are hard to come by.

At plainandnotsoplain we want you to be able to homeschool your child for FREE .  That is why we are listing our families schooling curriculum on here FREE for you to download.

This is my high school daughters grammar course that we will be using:

It is from Daily Grammar, it is FREE online to use.  Click here for the lesson plans.

This one was easy, someone else did all the work:)

Well, I had to make it work with a schedule for us, so I wrote my own schedule as well as downloaded the tests for my daughter to take and then I can view her progress.

Click here for the tests in a PDF printable format from the Daily Grammar website:

 

Here is the yearly lesson plans broken into a school year:

 

 

 

We like to have a ministry for teenagers at our home and we call it Open Mic.  Once a month we open our home to whoever wants to come and listen to some good Christian music.  Sometimes we get a bunch of teens to get up there and sing, sometimes they just sit and listen.   I  amazed at the talented youth that we have.  I would NEVER get up there and do that, thank goodness my children have Daddy’s musical gene:)  You can click here to view my daughters 16th birthday party and see how we typically held them in our basement.

Now that it is warmer out, we like to hold these outdoors.  But how can you set up a band on your grass?  With free pallets.  We went and made endless trips to our local stores and got pine pallets.  We then screwed ply wood to the top of it.  Wallah!!! We have a stage.

Here my son is doing his sound checks.  He typically plays Manic Drive, Thousand Foot Crutch, Switchfoot, Hawk Nelson, Hillsong United, Plumb,  and Kutless.  I am sure there are more, those are just ones that stuck out in my head:)

Here Lauren and Collin are playing Holy is our King.  They do an amazing version of this song.  

Sometimes we just sit around the fire and sing.  It doesn’t matter, we just try and actively include the teenagers, no matter who they are or where they come from.

Music is such a powerful influence in our lives, especially in teenagers. It can affect our moods, our actions, and our brains.   If we can show them that there is an alternative that sounds like the same type of music that they listen to but with a positive message, then we have done a good job.

Now what is a party without snacks?  We always provide yummy snacks for open mic. Sometimes it is a Mexican bar, sometimes hot dogs, and sometimes snacks.  This time we made some rice krispy treats with the help of little brother Jentzen.  Since we had a bomb fire we did Smores with cookies and graham crackers,  double chocolate crumble and brownie and fruit skewers.

It is much easier to get all of the foods done, if you enlist with some of the teenage help:) Thanks Molly and Lauren for helping make these.  Afterwards they were great to just throw the sticks into the fire.  I will definitely be making these again, they were very tasty like chocolate covered strawberries.