Mom-Schooling Encouragement!

(Guest post by Amanda Osenga)

Let’s talk about Mom School.

We often hear moms saying they don’t have the time. Moms are busy. We get that! Which is why we think Mom School is especially important. It’s an opportunity for you to feed your mind, set an example for your kids, and unwind.

Consider this- even one page per day is enough for you to fill multiple Mom School journals in a year. Stop scrolling- you have time for one page a day. Even if you only get one page for 180 days- that’s a full Mom School journal.

There is also a big mental impact of “should-ing” yourself and feeling like you’re not accomplishing something. Think about how great you’ll feel at the end of the year when you’ve filled a journal or two with only one page per day! 15 minutes or so is all you need. You’ll have learned new things, helped your brain think in new ways, and balance your thoughts.

Our journals are designed to help decrease stress and bring more ease to your days. Give yourself permission to take time for yourself. Moms struggle with this.

We suggest 4-6 pages per day most days of the week for full Mom School. Working up incrementally is the easiest way to build a habit. Start with one page. In 6 weeks, start doing two; 6 weeks after that add a 3rd- no need to jump all in right away.

If you can get someone to hang with the kids or a program for them to go to a few hours once a week, give yourself a regular Mom School date! Pull out your secret stash of snacks, make your favorite drink, and spend time learning something new. It’s tempting to binge-watch your favorite shows when you get a moment alone- there’s nothing wrong with that- try starting with a bit of Mom School first.

🌸ALL Mom School PDFs are 50% off!
– INCLUDING Brain Games and the Bird Watching Journal 🐣
😍 Mom School Handbook Paperbacks are $15.75
🦆Bird Watching Paperback is $12.50 🦉
☕ Coffee Time Paperback is $17.50
🌺 Homeschooling Handbook Paperback is $17.50
🤩 All Brain Games Paperbacks are $10 or less
🌹 90-day Pocket Planners are all $5 or less
We hope this helps you on your Mom School journey!

Peek inside all of these and more next week- RSVP here https://www.facebook.com/events/641466461327932/

May is Mom School Month, and we are excited to share more tips, resources, and ideas with you. Make sure and join us at our main Fun-Schooling group for great content, giveaways and discounts, and encouraging discussions! And our Mom-specific Fun-Schooling group has a regular giveaway each week! Hope to see you there!

On the Fence About Fun-Schooling?

People are curious about this refreshing way to educate their children–a way that nurtures a love of learning, accommodates learning differences, and gives children the freedom to learn about what they love while developing their researching skills, independence, and critical thinking.

So many learning styles are addressed as students write, scrapbook, color, complete Art & Logic exercises, draw, research, do puzzles, try experiments…the entire approach is very creative!

This blog and and our online presence has exploded with activity just in the past week or so:

We’ve had numerous great giveaways recently (don’t miss this one right here at the blog!) and LOTS of journals are currently marked down significantly.

If you’ve been waiting to try Fun-Schooling, there has never been a better time to dip a toe in…or just JUMP IN feet first!

If you’ve already fully immersed your family, share this post with a curious friend!

Art & Logic Therapy Sale!

I’ve put my Brain Games books at the lowest possible price, Amazon will earn their penny, and will also give everyone with Prime free shipping. I won’t earn much, maybe a few cents, but you all will have the opportunity to get our therapy books as a “loss leader” to help us get back on our feet and get these books back up into their “bestseller” rating. I just think we all should get a blessing out of this opportunity.

Last time I offered these books for less they $5 we hit #185 of all books on Amazon! We’ve already hit the Best Seller list again with several of these journals!

Since we got canceled and reinstated things turned upside-down, this boost will help.

Less than $4 or $5 per book!

Candlelight: https://bit.ly/3HwTV8Z

Morning Light: https://bit.ly/40roBkK

Wind & Rain: https://bit.ly/3HXbIYo

Full list of Flash Sale Books here on Facebook!

Stock up for your co-op!!!

BeYOUtiful

My goal for our main Fun-Schooling Mom Support Group is to equip mothers to guide and teach their children according to their own values, world view, religious beliefs and political perspectives while empowering the children to think for themselves and ask hard questions.

This is why most Thinking Tree Books are so open-ended and research based.

I often recommend resources that we enjoy in our family. I often share pictures and stories of our unique experiences and celebrations, But I don’t do this because I think every other family should look like mine.

So, perhaps we are a Christian family with Jewish roots and love our Jewish foods and holidays. And maybe we celebrate Christmas and Easter traditions just as I learned to in my childhood. And maybe we embrace some Libertarian values, and drive Teslas…We believe in adoption, and even adopted some struggling older kids! I love herbal tea, but like coffee too. We have chickens in the back yard, and a hungry fox living in the front. There are a million dreams we haven’t even started living here on Earth, yet our treasures are best kept in Heaven. It’s a beautiful life and your life is beautiful too!

I don’t think you should be just like me. I don’t think your unique family should be anything like mine. Love what you love. Dream your dreams. Live out your vision. Follow your calling. Be you! Yet be willing to grow.

I’m investing in the homeschooling community in order to empower moms to create a FUN learning environment in their homes, and I have lots of tips and ideas!

Some of my older writings are geared towards the community I used to be most involved in – Conservative homeschoolers- but I never fit in. I was often encouraging those moms to quit “acting” and be real, and be realistic.

Our community has THANKFULLY grown to embrace a far greater homeschooling movement! And I’m loving it!!! If you want a homeschooling Facebook group that is clique-ish there are many. That’s not us, though many of us are outliers, eclectic, and neuro-divergent thinkers who don’t fit into any mold!!!

I’m growing a lot because of the diversity of thought in our group! I’m changing. I’m making friends who are opening my eyes to a bigger story, while staying true to my core values. I love the learning that happens in our community! I love the uniqueness and the vast diversity of homeschooling moms who make themselves at home!!! We are all welcome here. Come join us!

Update: Where Have All the Journals Gone (and how you can help!)

UPDATE 2/3/23:

So, yes. The books are back. They have unpublished all our books, but they are selling everything they currently have in stock.

They contacted us and said “upon further review we are reinstating your account.”

But now we have to figure out the process of republishing the books. We are also going to work towards printing and shipping through a smaller publishing house because we could loose access to Amazon at any moment upon the whims of their bots and inept employees.

I found out that I can publish books with a color interior for a very affordable price with Barnes & Noble so in the future we will have a color version of many of our books for almost the same price as Amazon’s B&W!!!


You may have noticed that our journals are no longer available on Amazon. There is a lot involved.

Basically, Amazon seriously deleted 400 of my books, and it’s as if the books were never there. Thousands of reviews, mostly 5 stars, gone. They are even keeping all the royalties that we earned over the past 60 to 90 days. Lots of you bought my books on Amazon in November, December and January and Amazon is stealing all those royalties (about $60,000 in royalties that is owed to the Thinking Tree and 20+ authors around the world who contributed to the books)!

What did we do wrong?

First they said it was copyright violation, so we provided documentation to prove our integrity, we had permission to print Minecraft books.

So they came back and said they reviewed our case and will close it for “Misleading Content” so we provided more documentation to prove our integrity.

So they came back and said they will close it because our account is associated with a previously banned account!

We had no other active or banned account.

The only account that was banned, that I can imagine, was someone who was using KDP to sell our books, with different covers. Lots of you contacted Amazon to get that person shut down.

I hope to sort things out and get our royalties. Much of what we earn is paid out to our authors who really count on the income! Some are missionaries in Ukraine, India & Guatemala.

I don’t think I want to associate with Amazon anymore. I am putting some books up on Barnes & Noble soon. I’ll probably be able to add five books a week until I publish the top 50% of my books.

How can you help right now?

–Come and visit our website, and grab your PDF journals there (a small handful are currently $7.50 right now, and many others have been discounted very nicely)! If you buy a PDF we earn every cent.

–Bring awareness to the homeschooling community concerning their unethical termination of our Homeschooling Books.

–Buy my new releases in paperback at Barnes & Noble and ask them to carry my new releases in their stores. Use your 20% off Homeschooling/Teachers discount at Barnes and Noble to buy my books, and be sure to leave reviews.

–Shop for Thinking Tree Paperbacks at Rainbow Resource.

–Get Sarah’s Biography for just $4 here: https://www.funschooling.com/bookstore-all-pdfs

–We have a new review feature on the website, so you can leave reviews for all of the journals you’ve bought. This is an amazing way to show some much-needed support! It costs nothing but a little time.

–Write these individuals, and explain that one of your favorite authors published through KDP and share your testimonial and a picture of your favorite books you have bought and share how unethical it is for Amazon to suddenly terminate The Thinking Tree. Maybe explain how you were so excited to purchase the new release and now it’s gone! Mission to Mars or Mythological Creatures, with all original artwork including artwork by teenagers. Kids could even write real letters to the addresses with pictures of their books.

Here are the Exec.’s emails:

Vincent Duong
Customer Success Manager
vduong@amazon.com
410 Terry Avenue North Seattle, WA 98109

Doug Herring
CEO
dherring@amazon.com
410 Terry Avenue North Seattle, WA 98109

Andrew Jassy
President and Chief Executive Officer
ajassy@amazon.com
410 Terry Avenue North Seattle, WA 98109

Camille Fabre
Head of Content and Marketing, Kindle Direct Publishing at Amazon
cfabre@amazon.com

Thank you ALL so much for your support!!!

PDF Journals–All You Need to Know!

Click this image to take you to our bookstore for a complete list of PDFs!

Special thanks to Amanda Osenga for writing this guest post to help all of our lovely Fun-Schoolers during this season of change!

When you think of PDFs, I bet your first thought goes to a pile of printed pages. What if I told you there are dozens of options for using PDFs? Including options involving zero printing at all. You can even get them printed into a physical book! I hope these tips will help you find new ways to use PDFs.

Binding and printing options-

Yes, you can go the standard route of print and staple. There’s nothing wrong with this! It’s a tried and true binding technique. Here are a few other options-

  • “Booklet” style.
                This is a setting in Adobe. This will print the size of a standard book. You can fold them in half, staple them, or even hand-stitch them. We find printing about 48 pages at once easiest to work with. Otherwise, it gets too thick.
  • Bookbinding
                Most local print shops can print PDFs as a book for you. Lots of Fun-School moms tell us Barnes & Noble Press does a beautiful job for close to the price of having individual pages printed through a print shop. https://press.barnesandnoble.com/print-on-demand/
  • Disc-bound binding
                These are most well known through the “Happy Planner.” A benefit is the ability to move pages around. Moms love this method for rearranging journals and/or combining multiple journals. You can purchase disc-bound punches at craft stores and office supply stores. This option functions similarly to a spiral notebook and can be folded back or laid flat.  This also allows you to reuse the same rings- saving money and resources!
  • File folder
                Use expandable or hanging file folders to sort, organize, and file PDFs. Print with your desired number of pages per sheet and organize to your heart’s content! Some moms organize by day, others by journal- and others by type of page (Reading Time, Screen Time, Math, etc.)
  • Multiple pages per sheet
                Consider printing two or four pages per sheet. This will save paper and money! It is also a great option for kids overwhelmed by writing because it reduces the space to write on. Moms with kids who love to color often choose to print the coloring pages full-size.
  • Three-ring binders
                Similar to the disc-bound method, this allows you a lot of flexibility. Fun-Schooling families often recommend the Five Star Flex binders because the cover bends backward and lays flat. Any binder will do!
  • Spiral bind
                Spiral binding is another classic printing method. Local shops and box stores can bind for you. Binding machines are also available for purchase, including some with reusable spines. Sometimes churches, schools, or community centers will allow families to use their binding machines.
  • Combine methods!
                Print a PDF booklet style and use it with disc-bound disks. Or print multiple pages/sheets and stick them in a binder. Play around with different methods until you find what you and your children like best. Remember, each kid may like a different method!

Making Family Count is a homeschool printing company operated by a Fun-Schooling family. There are also several other homeschool-based printing companies out there.

Your Local Print Shop

If you haven’t dropped into a local print shop lately, I encourage you to do so. One shop I visited had over 20 different ways they could print and bind PDFs! It’s worth it to head in and ask for their ideas.

Printing Considerations and Tips

Here are a few tips and considerations-

  • Ask your local library
                Many libraries have printing allowances for those with a library card. Some will do discounted or free printing for homeschoolers.
  • Reach out to local churches– especially those with homeschool programs
                We’ve heard from many moms who can print free or cheap this way!
  • Community centers sometimes have free or cheap printing available too
  • Do you, a spouse, or a relative have a printer at work? Ask about paying a small fee or providing your own paper to use printer
  • The Epson Eco Tank printer seems to be the lowest-cost option for an at-home printer This one is on sale at the time of this posting for $169.00 (discounted from $249.99!!)
  • Subscribe to email newsletters from box store office supply companies. They do deeply discounted paper a few times a year.
  • If money is extremely tight- ask your neighborhood Buy Nothing, Freecycle, or Neighbors Helping Neighbors group to see if anyone would be willing to print for you if you provide the paper.
  • Some moms combine multiple journals for an entire week, month, semester, or school year. You can rearrange journal pages with some of the flexible binding methods mentioned above. There are also programs available online to merge and reorganize PDFs!
  • If your print shop has any concerns regarding printing copyrighted material, you can email contact@funschooling.com and request a printing release.

Skip Printing and Use PDFs Digitally

You can use PDFs digitally with the following apps/programs- tutorials can be found on YouTube for using them

Goodnotes

Kami

Notability

Liquid Text

PDF Expert

Krita

Microsoft Edge has a built-in PDF editor

You can also get the paid version of Adobe and edit directly on the PDF.


*Note- these are programs Fun-School Moms have suggested. We have yet to test all of them. This is not considered an endorsement of these programs. Do your research to verify their privacy rules, advertising, etc.

We hope these tips help you to get the most out of your PDFs! Let us know if you do something else unique with your PDFs.

Fun-Schooling Fans, We Need Your Help!

Hi Friends, could you pray for a quick resolution of a serious problem? We publish our books through Amazon and over 50% of our family income comes from Amazon sales, along with royalties we pay out to many other authors including several missionaries.

Amazon has glitches because it is managed by robots and algorithms and they mistakenly deleted our entire publishing account and say they will not pay us our royalties for all the books sold over the past 60 days.

This kind of thing has happened before and creates serious issues. And it’s very unethical.

So please pray it gets resolved. Last time it happened we didn’t get it resolved until the concern got to Jeff Bezos desk. But it did because so many of our customers complained.

You can still get our books through Rainbow Resources and PDFs through FunSchooling.com

If you are one of our customers who orders through Amazon you can help us by writing to Jeff and telling him that you love our Thinking Tree Books by Sarah Janisse Brown.

Email jeff@amazon.com for direct attention from Bezos or his Executive Team.

It actually worked last time.

Fun-Schooling Themes for 2023!

Make sure you never miss out on special sales, coupons, and giveaways this year as we feature journals for these themes in the coming year! Join us in our Mom’s Homeschooling Support Group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/FunSchoolingwithThinkingTreeBooks/

January- Language Arts

February- Math

March- Animals

April- Social Studies

May- Mom School

June- Core Journals

July- Science/ Technology

August- Back-to-School

September- Minecraft

October- Fashion

November- Cooking & Food

December- Holiday School

New Year Savings!

🎉 We’re ringing in the new year with a coupon!!

Use CODE 2023FunSchoolingTime

for $23 off your purchase of $25 or more*

at https://www.funschooling.com/

🎇 Code works for anything bought directly on our website.

🥳 Expires January 4th.

🌠 What will your family do to welcome 2023?

*not valid on Amazon or the Dyslexia Games website

Special Media Event: Celebrating with Anna!

A special media announcement just went live! Anna’s musical, His Story, will be opening at Grandscape in Dallas Fort Worth area, and tickets are now available–click here! Opening night is May 18th! This will be a 360-degree theatrical production performed in a beautiful 1,300-seat Italian show tent on the grounds. They are expecting 10,000+ unique visitors each week, so get your tickets now! Special rates available for groups of 12+. Learn more by emailing groups@hisstorythemusical.com or by calling the toll free number (855) HISSTORY / (855) 447-7867.

Read more about the musical here. Here is a link to the live event from Grandscape. Hear Anna share some thoughts about her inspiration and beautifully sing portions from the score, Bruce Lazarus and Willie and Korie Robertson (Producers) share some background and thoughts, see the stunning performance location, hear Richard Boyer, (Mayor of The Colony) and Kronda Thimesch (Texas State Rep), Jeff Calhoun (Director) and Jeff Lind (President of Grandscape) share some supportive words. Let’s celebrate with Anna!

From the His Story: The Musical website:

Anna started writing His Story, The Musical at the age of 16 while on a mission to Africa. A dyslexic, unable to read or write before 9 years old, homeschooled, Anna focused instead on the arts before writing her first songs at 15. As a social-media-savvy Gen Z, she sees a chance to reach her generation with the timeless story of light and hope. Anna is an author and illustrator of over a dozen educational books, some bestsellers, for children, especially kids with Dyslexia and teens with their passions and career goals. Anna currently lives in Dallas and travels often doing research for writing projects, which include several new musicals.

Our company “The Thinking Tree, LLC” produced the original concept album of His Story the Musical, and is now co-producer of the theatrical performance.

Shop Anna’s Books: