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Summer Is a Great Time to Work on Art Projects (and you can count the time spent on summer art as part of next year's homeschool days - WIN/WIN!!)

 So, one pretty terrific trick of the trade that I discovered during my quarter of a century of home education was that the classes & online courses & lessons (including sports lessons) my kiddos participated in during the summer months could be counted toward their school days the following year.


(In our neck of the woods, 180 teacher contact days were required to fulfill the academic requirements legally - so we aimed to hit that number each year.)


Take skating lessons for my children - I would simply keep track of all the time spent at the ice rink during the summer in my planner and before we started the new school year, I would add up the hours spent on the ice and calculate how many days of "schoolwork" it counted for. 


I also kept track of art camps, books they read, online courses they took, missions trips and service projects, and even things like rebuilding a lawn mower engine or painting a bedroom (small engine repair and life skills/home economics are real classes taught in "real" schools, and if it counts there, it counted here!)


And even though my kids are all grown, and my homeschooling days have come to an end, I still have a whole lot of friends in the homeschool world. And one of my favorite people is Justina of Jus' Classical.


Justina has a pretty niche focus on Christian encouragement & classical resources for the homeschool family. Her sweet spot is music, and she puts her all into her classes and courses - she even dresses up as a classic composer for some of her content! It's fabulous!



So if you are A) looking for some options to entertain your kiddos this summer and B) you are a bit intrigued by the idea of counting summer "stuff" as part of your homeschool work, then Justina's sales for the summer of 2022 could be just the ticket for ya!

You can find all the info below -  and she also has a pretty awesome 5 Day Decluttering freebie (that should pop up for you as you look around her site). I bet you could have your kids help with some serious decluttering this summer and find ways to count those tasks as part of your Life Skills & Home Ec course work (that's a total WIN/WIN!).



Let me lay out her summer offerings that will be discounted right here - 


June 1-4 
Drawing with Rembrandt - a beginning drawing course for elementary students
Regular price: $57
Sale is 25% off
Coupon code: GETDRAWING

June 6-10 
The Artist Detective Volume 1 - art appreciation for families geared towards elementary and middle school students
Volume 1 covers Renaissance artists: Giotto di Bondone, Lorenzo Ghiberti, Fra Angelico, Albrecht Durer, Michelangelo Buonarroti, El Greco
Regular price: $67
Sale is 25% off
Coupon code: GETART

June 13-17 
The Composer Detective full course or any unit or bundle
Full course is 10 units covering the orchestra, George Frideric Handel, Johann Sebastian Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Johannes Brahms, Antonin Dvorak, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Claude Debussy, Igor Stravinsky
Regular price:
Full course: $187
Unit $29
Bundle $87 (4 units - Investigating the Orchestra plus three composers)
Sale is 25% off
Coupon code: MUSICWORKS

June 27 - July 1 
Regular price: $97
Sale is $40 off
Coupon code: THRIVE22




I hope you check out her website and consider making a purchase, which is also an investment in your child's education. And I do have to say that it breaks my heart to see the Fine Arts getting the short end of the stick in children's lives. It is such a blessing that within the homeschool community we can keep music and the arts as a prominent part of education (unlike public education that often cuts funding to those areas whenever they feel a "crunch"). 

And Justina will be speaking at the Homeschool Mom Summer Summit, too! You can get info about that HERE (don't miss signing up for the FREE ticket option - I gotta tell ya, when I was attending conferences there was no free online option so whenever you see me pushing that, it's because I tend to push the things I needed when I was in the midst of all things homeschool! Sign up - if you decided to upgrade and spend a few bucks on the summit cuz it's super beneficial and encouraging, then great! But you'll never get any of the benefits of this summit if you don't at least have a free ticket option to catch the workshops that are just what you need in this season of your homeschool journey.) 

And I'd also like to share about one of my books, A 60-Day Prayer Journal for Parents (it's available as a softcover book via Amazon). The summer months are a great time to spend investing in focused prayer for our children, and I created this prayer journal to make it easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy for parents to pray for their children for a concentrated period of time easily, while having a record of those prayers (and space to record the way God answers!). It's a great way to invest your time this summer. (And I'm gearing up to do a summer long weekly prayer focus in my prayer retreat group - you can join that group here, if you'd like... it's free and believe me you, if you want to be covered in prayer, then this is the group to be in!)

Take advantage of some or all of these options this summer.

You're doing such a crucial work by training up your children - I thank you, and in the future, the world will be thankful, too. Because we know it is true that the hand that rocks the cradle is the hand the rules the world!

God bless!

~ Jan L. Burt

the award-winning podcast with a focus on getting the promises of God into the people of God



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