So Thankful…

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ThanksgivingThis morning we gathered with some other homeschool families to celebrate Thanksgiving, and of course at one point we asked the kids to list the things they were thankful for.  We’d had a hideous morning so far, and my kids’ answers did nothing to improve my mood: toys, cars, chairs, strollers, cups… basically just anything they saw in front of them.  They were just not getting into the mindset we were trying to encourage, and I’m sure I didn’t help the situation, since I’d been in tears several times over the past couple hours and was barely holding myself together to lead the discussion.

However, the experience got me thinking, and as the day progressed I tried to be intentional about focusing on gratitude in the midst of frustrating circumstances.  I am so thankful for these blessings today:

  • my sweet friend who told me not to stress when I realized our celebration started in 10 minutes not in 2 hours
  • our neighbor, herself a busy homeschooling mom of four, who took the time to come jump start my car when the battery was dead for the fourth time in as many weeks, even though she needed to leave herself
  • another dear friend who sent her older kids to whisk my little ones away to the playground and help clean up the mess from my leaky containers of food for our feast
  • multiple friends jumping to take over my clean-up responsibilities when I expressed how overwhelmed I was and just needed to go home
  • A healthy 3-month old who interrupted his nursing just to smile and coo at me when I finally escaped to my bedroom for an hour of peace.  Every day I get teary and praise God for him, remembering his rough beginning and how I longed to hold him while he was getting strong in the NICU.
  • A day at home tomorrow.  The last few days of early holiday celebrations have been too much for this introvert and I am thoroughly “peopled out.”
  • God’s mercies which are new every morning.  There are many moments today that I wish I could take back, but I’ll settle for moving forward and resting in His sweet mercies.

Of course there are so many things I could add, but the important thing isn’t what’s on the list but the simple act of setting aside my tears and frustration to notice even a few of the myriad blessings God pours out on me each day.  Truly, my cup overflows.

Posted in Personal

Wrapping Up Week 16 (2015-16)

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Weekly Wrap Up 2015-16
 Last week it finally felt like we were back to our routine (though since it’s taken me a couple extra days to write about it, I’m obviously not quite as top of things as I like to think).  Still, I was happy with what we managed to get through, especially since we took a day off for Elijah’s sixth birthday.  He takes great delight in building things, so most of his gifts followed that interest.  I may decide to have him work through the designs in Architecto as part of his school work.

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Preschool

Arianna is back into Reading Eggs and is doing really well as she repeats the first couple dozen lessons.  I’m really glad I set her progress back, because she has so much more confidence this time around and is working much more independently.  She really wants to be doing work on the computer like the boys, so I let her spend time both with Reading Eggs and with La La Logic [Edited to remove link as this online curriculum is no longer available] . which we’d taken a break from when we moved at the beginning of the summer and never started back up again.  Both she and Elijah spent quite a bit of time on it this past week.

Read Alouds

We finished up our King Arthur stories by reading The Kitchen Knight as retold by Margaret Hodges.  I had planned on reading more, but it just felt like time to stop.  I’m sure at some point in years to come, we’ll go back and read more stories about the knights of the round table, but the weeks we’ve spent on it this year have definitely given Ian (and Elijah, to the extent that he was following along) a good introduction.

  We started reading an adaptation of Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe by Marianna Mayer with beautiful illustrations by John Rush.  This version is highly simplified, but Ian enjoyed the story and spent a long time admiring the pictures.  It fit well with his history lessons as well.

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We also read a few more chapters in Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi, though not as much as Ian would like.  (Since we’re taking turns choosing our non-history related chapter books, he’s anxious to get through my selection and onto his next choice.

Independent (Computer) Lessons

Math

Ian has reached multiplication in his Teaching Textbooks Math 3 lessons.  I’m not quite ready to start him on practicing his multiplication facts on xtramath.org, just because he’s got a few more subtraction facts to master.  Instead I’m slowing down our pace with Teaching Textbooks, doing just a couple lessons a week, and spending time with some fun games to help him (and Elijah) practice the facts as they’re introduced.  (So far aside from learning the rule for 0’s and 1’s he’s done the 10’s, 2’s, 5’s, and 4’s.)

For dessert one night I split the kids into teams: Ian and Nico vs. Elijah and Arianna.  (The little ones love shouting out numbers, even if they have no clue what the point is, but since Ian and Elijah are pretty evenly matched, the teams are as fair as I could make them).  We went through flashcards with all those fact families, giving M&M’s to each member of the team who got the correct answer first.  They got in some good practice and everyone ended up with a handful of candy by the time we finished.

History

I continue to be amazed by how much Ian is enjoying the Veritas Press Self-Paced History Course on the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Reformation.  We had taken a week off for our road trip, so we’re behind where I had planned to be.  Still, I wanted to enjoy our week on cathedrals.  It was a bit of a review since we discussed them last year during a unit study, so I didn’t go too in depth.  I have Ian a choice of which video he wanted to re-watch, and he chose Building the Great Cathedrals, which my Kindergarten architect enjoyed a lot as well.

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Ian actually finished all the lessons for the week early, and then we I told him he didn’t have any more history to do, he dived into the next week’s lessons on the Crusades.  I’m hoping we’ll get caught up and back on schedule without doing history all the way up to Christmas.  It’s wonderful that he loves the program so much.  Elijah keeps asking me when he’ll be old enough to do history as well.  (He already watches Ian do his lessons every day and has the song memorized.)  I wish there were a way to purchase the Veritas Press online courses to use over and over again, because I just don’t see this being something we can afford every year, especially for multiple students.

A few final thoughts

I can’t believe how quickly this year is flying by.  On Friday the kids had their final music classes with the exception of choir, which will wrap up with a final performance this week.  Before we know it, Christmas will be upon us!

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Posted in Weekly Wrap Up

2015 Schoolhouse Review Crew Awards!

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2015 Reviews Collage
The Schoolhouse Review Crew’s year is officially over, and it has been a pleasure to be a part of it for the second year in a row.  The Crew has reviewed so many great products this year, and we’ve come together to vote for our favorites.  Before I get to that, however, here are the products our family had a chance to check out in 2015 (with links to my reviews if you want to find out more):

What We’re Still Using

Just in case you’re wondering, I thought I’d make note of which products we’ve continued to use even after their review periods were concluded:

  1. CTC Math is Elijah’s regular daily math curriculum.  He has completed the Kindergarten and first grade lessons and is about halfway through second grade.
  2. La La Logic continues to be a favorite around here, especially with Arianna and Elijah
  3. Horizons 1st Grade Penmanship is another part of Elijah’s daily routine
  4. Middlebury Interactive Languages doesn’t get used daily, but the boys still do lessons regularly, and I’d like to see them both complete the 2nd semester of Spanish before our subscription runs out.
  5. The Timeline of Classics and A Word Write Now from IEW are handy references we still turn to on occasion.
  6. The three audio dramas aren’t currently getting played, but I know the boys (especially Ian) will return to them in the future.

CTC Math and Middlebury Interactive Languages were actually returning favorites from our 2014 Review Year.  Ian is also continuing to use Spelling You See, and now that the boys are getting a little older I want to go back to SchoolhouseTeachers.com to see if there are any courses they’d like to try.

Crew Favorites

There are many products other members of the Crew reviewed in addition to those our family used, so if you want to see what products were the most popular with Crew families, check out the 2015 Blue Ribbon Awards!

2015 Schoolhouse Review Crew Blue Ribbon Awards

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Goodnight, Manger by Laura Sassi (Book Review)

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We have an extensive collection of Christmas picture books, but that doesn’t mean I’ve stopped searching for treasures for my children to enjoy during Advent.  I was pleased to receive a copy of Goodnight, Manger by Laura Sassi to review, and look forward to sharing it with my children when we launch our annual picture book countdown to Christmas in a few weeks.

I was delightfully surprised by this winsome book.  We have a new baby in the house, and with four other children who find it difficult to contain their youthful exuberance, I can relate all too well to the story of trying to quiet down the excited crowd so the little one can get some sleep.  In Goodnight, Manger, Laura Sassi uses simple rhymes to tell about the wiggly baby Jesus trying to go to sleep amidst a noisy audience of animals, angels, shepherds, and kings.  Mary finally convinces everyone to join in a quiet lullaby and at last the baby drifts off.

Award winning artist Jane Chapman’s beautiful illustrations enhance the already charming story.  Each picture catches the eye its warm, vibrant colors.  The Holy Family is refreshingly portrayed with authentic ethnic coloring.  And the characters exude a joy that pulls the reader into the jubilant stable and makes them want to join the festivities.

If you’re looking for a serious, straight forward telling of the story of Jesus’ birth, this is not the book for you.  However, if you’re looking for a sweet bedtime story to share with your children, this book is sure to delight your entire family, not just at Christmas, but all year long!

 

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Posted in Book reviews, Holidays

Comic Relief for a Frazzled Mom

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This morning did not get off to a great start.  The boys had their IEW class at 10, so in addition to the normal morning tasks of trying to get everyone fed and dressed, we were trying to squeeze in a little math, plus they needed to finish their homework before we left.  It soon became obvious that no one else was going to jump on board my efficiency train however, so I found myself dealing with chaos:

  • Ian arguing about wanting to do different math.
  • Arianna battling over my refusal to let her wear a nice church dress to her class because they usually go outside and play in the sand and I didn’t want it ruined.
  • Both boys rushing off sloppy stick figure sketches instead of doing their best work and then breaking down in tears when I required them to go back and improve their illustrations.
  • Nicholas droning on and on, “Why, Mama?” like a broken record about nothing in particular, not trying to cause trouble but annoying me to no end as I tried to tend to everyone else.
  • And behind it all, the background noise of Nathaniel crying incessantly, mostly because I dared to set him down to fix breakfast, help get people dressed, or change the diaper that I didn’t notice was dirty until I started buckling Nico into his car seat.

Ordinarily I might have just cancelled school for the day, but I didn’t want the boys to miss class, plus we have a birthday and a field trip later this week so we really did need to get something accomplished.  By the time we left the house, I had apologized to at least three children for making them frustrated and for letting my stress get the better of me.

We made it to church (where their writing class is held) and got everyone settled in the appropriate rooms.  I swung by the bookstore/coffee bar on site for an iced mocha and a pecan roll to finish off my breakfast (since chocolate seemed like a necessity at that moment).  Then I popped into the women’s Bible study for a bit of peace while I nursed the baby before joining the boys in their class.  Settling in, I took a deep breath, determined to soak in the quiet of a [mostly] child-free moment, and prepared my heart as my friend Elizabeth opened with a reading from Psalm 56 (NLT).

O God, have mercy on me,
    for people are hounding me.
    My foes attack me all day long.
 I am constantly hounded by those who slander me,
    and many are boldly attacking me…

I almost started laughing out loud as the words made me picture our morning and my children as the “foes.”

I praise God for what he has promised.
    I trust in God, so why should I be afraid?
    What can mere mortals do to me?

They are always twisting what I say;
    they spend their days plotting to harm me.
They come together to spy on me—
    watching my every step, eager to kill me…

Okay, well at least it hasn’t gone that far, I chuckled, feeling slightly guilty that this psalm was striking me as something humorous when there are people in the world facing truly deadly situations.

My enemies will retreat when I call to you for help.
    This I know: God is on my side!
I praise God for what he has promised;
    yes, I praise the Lord for what he has promised.
I trust in God, so why should I be afraid?
    What can mere mortals do to me?

BlessingsFor years, I clung to the promise God had given me in a vision when I was just fifteen, a promise of a husband and children.  I longed for the life I have now and dreamed of getting to spend each day discipling the children He would give me.  So even though I know it’s a gross misinterpretation of this Scripture, the words of the Psalm were a gentle reminder for this frazzled mom that I have so much for which to be thankful.  Even on the stressful days, I want to make sure I am praising God, especially for these five precious blessings, “mere mortals” from whom I have nothing to fear.

I will fulfill my vows to you, O God,
    and will offer a sacrifice of thanks for your help.
For you have rescued me from death;
    you have kept my feet from slipping.
So now I can walk in your presence, O God,
    in your life-giving light.

Oh, let it be so, dear Lord.  Thank you for making me smile in the midst of my stress and for the reminder to turn my eyes upon you so that I can bask in the glory of your “life-giving light.”

Posted in Personal

Wrapping Up Week 15 (2015-16)

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Weekly Wrap Up 2015-16
 

Last week was mostly spent recovering from our road trip.  At home we focused mostly on math and history.  The boys also had their IEW class and all the kids were happy to be back to their Friday music classes.  I’m both looking forward to and dreading the holidays, because while a break is always nice, it’s hard for us to get back in the swing of things!

Sir GawainWe continued enjoying King Arthur stories by reading Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, as told by Michael Morpurgo and beautifully illustrated by Michael Foreman.  Ian enjoyed the book, though I found myself wondering if I should have skipped this one.  During part of the story, Gawain is tempted by the wife of his host, and I became a little uncomfortable.  We talked about the story of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife, comparing the wisdom Joseph showed by fleeing with Gawain’s foolishness in allowing someone else’s wife to spend time alone with him and accepting her kisses.  It wasn’t exactly a discussion I would have planned for my 2nd grader, but once it had come up I didn’t want to just ignore the situation and give the impression that I was okay with such behavior.

Elijah really enjoyed mapping our trip and keeping track of which states we passed through, so I tried to give him time to practice the geography he had learned.  He really enjoyed looking at maps of the US and putting together a wooden puzzle of the states.  I love that we were able to make the map come alive for him, and I’m looking forward to exploring more of the country in the years to come!

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Upcoming Reviews

Our review season is almost wrapped up!  Watch for these last couple reviews in the next few days:

Posted in Weekly Wrap Up

“Stick Figuring” Through the Bible (Crew Review)

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Nothing is more important in our homeschool than learning about the Bible, though I don’t often mention it on this blog anymore because we do Bible time in the evenings with Daddy and I don’t think of it as part of our school day.  I often wrestle with wanting to spend more time in the Word with my kids during the day, however, so I was excited when GrapeVine Studies gave us a chance to review their materials for Old Testament 1: Level 1 Creation to Jacob, including a Teacher Book, and two student books: the Level 1 book for ages 6-8 and the Traceable Level 1 book for ages 3-5.

About GrapeVine Studies

Grapevine Studies Review

GrapeVine Studies lead children on a chronological journey through the Bible, guiding them through stick figure drawings for each story to help them learn.  Old Testament 1: Creation to Jacob consists of 12 lessons designed for the whole family (preschool- 8th grade) to go through together, with age-appropriate student books for multiple levels.  The lessons are intended to be done over the course of about 4 days, so this entire book can be used for 12 weeks of school (about 45 separate sessions).

Grapevine Studies Review
As this chart shows, there is an Old Testament Overview designed specifically for preschool and Kindergarten students (the “Beginner” level), but the lessons don’t correspond with the other levels (it only covers Creation to Babel in the first book).  To include younger children in the older ones’ lessons, there is a Traceable Level 1 book that has the drawings already marked with gray lines, which is a really helpful option for families like ours with both preschoolers and older children.

Grapevine Studies ReviewThe Old Testament Overview for Levels 1-4 is presented in four books, with Part 1 covering the major stories of Genesis from Creation to Jacob.  Our family all worked at Level 1, with the boys (2nd grade and Kindergarten) using the regular student book and Arianna (age 3) using the traceable version (which was identical except for the addition of the gray line drawings).  The 82-page student book has blank timeline pages with the names of each story for the students to fill in as the teacher guides them through the lessons.  Level 1 is really just about introducing the major stories and characters, helping the children see how they are all related by creating them a physical timeline so they have a mental frame of reference to place each story in context.  (Older students go deeper with memory verses and additional material for each lesson.)

Traceable
Teacher involvement is essential.  The main part of each lesson comes from the material in the 100-page teacher book.  That’s where you’ll find the Bible verses to go along with each picture, as well as details about what should be drawn.  The color illustrations are intended to be drawn on a whiteboard for the students to copy as you progress through the lesson.

Our Experience

My kids really looked forward to our Bible lessons with GrapeVine studies.  The boys appreciated the simplicity of the stick figure drawings, and Arianna loved being able to join us for this part of “school.”  (She reminded me every day that we needed to do our Bible lessons!)  She did really well tracing the pictures and then coloring them in, and the boys like sneaking glimpses of her pages to make sure they knew what their figures should look like.  Once or twice they asked me to give them her pages (I received the books in pdf form so we just printed them out, though they are available to purchase as softbound student books as well), but eventually they realized their drawings didn’t need to look exactly like hers, and they had fun being creative.

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Once we had done a few lessons and gotten into a groove I enjoyed the lessons as well, but I felt like we got off to a bit of a rocky start.  There was a lot of introductory material in the Teacher Book about the studies themselves and the philosophy behind them, but not a lot of guidance for a newbie wanting jump into teaching.  Although I rarely follow lesson plans exactly, I found myself really wishing the first lesson in particular (which was a little different from all the others because it was solely about the timeline) had a suggested script.  The kids were so excited about doing their pages that they wanted to race through each event, and I wasn’t sure whether to try to explain in picture or just save that for when we did the later lessons on each story.

The kids didn’t seem to notice my floundering, however, and the later lessons did get easier for me to teach as I learned when to make them set their drawing pages aside so we could actually read in our Bibles and talk about each story.  Most of these stories were familiar to Ian and Elijah, so it was a fun way to review them.

I was really glad my kids enjoyed our time with GrapeVine Studies, but it required a bit more preparation and teacher involvement than I’m ready to give at this point in our family’s journey.  I do love the idea of everyone being able to participate at their own level, however, so I will definitely keep these studies in mind once the babies are old enough to join us.

Grapevine Studies Review
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Posted in Bible lessons, Homeschool Resources, Product reviews

Rabbits, Rabbits Everywhere: A Fibonacci Tale (Crew Book Review)

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I’ve got a little guy who is absolutely enthralled with numbers, so I jumped when Ann McCallum Books gave us a chance to review Rabbits, Rabbits Everywhere: A Fibonacci Tale.  It teaches about the Fibonacci sequence: a pattern of numbers that occurs throughout nature (written about in 1202 by an Italian man nicknamed Fibonacci).  In the sequence, each number is the sum of the previous two numbers: 0…1…1…2…3…5…8…13…21…34… You get idea.

Rabbits, Rabbits Everywhere: A Fibonacci Tale is a 32-page softcover book based on an idea Fibonacci himself used, about pairs of rabbits that reproduce according to this pattern.  In the book a town called Chee becomes overrun by rabbits due to a wizard’s spell, and when the infamous Pied Piper is unable to get rid of them, a clever little girl named Amanda looks at how the growing number of rabbits each day follows a specific pattern.  Once she figures it out, she is able to break the spell and lead the rabbits out of town.  (The original pair of rabbits are named “Fib” and “Knot,” so in the years to come, people talk about “The Tale of Fib and Knot in Chee,” which becomes “The Tale of Fibonacci,” a clever way to help children remember the name of the number sequence.)

This book was a cute and clever way to introduce the idea of Fibonacci numbers.  I read it with two of my children who showed interest when they spotted the book after it arrived.  Arianna (3) enjoyed the story just for its own sake (especially the colorful illustrations by Gideon Kendall), but Elijah, my 5-year old numberphile, realized there was more going on.  He loved the details in the illustrations that showed how Amanda began trying to figure out the pattern.DSCN0785

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The book makes the pattern so clear, it’s easy to find the wonder of the Fibonacci sequence, especially when you read the last page, which gives examples of where Fibonacci numbers can be found in nature.  Though the book doesn’t mention God, I think it’s a great tool for talking about how our world shows evidence of intelligent design, and I know we’ll read this story over and over in the years to come.  I think children of all ages, even those typically “beyond” picture books, will enjoy this story because of the fascination factor.

Ann McCallum has written several books to help children find delight in learning, not just about math, but several other subjects as well.  Members of the Crew received various titles to review, so if you want to bring a little extra fun to your school day, be sure to check out their reviews by clicking on the banner below.

Ann McCallum Books Review
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Posted in Book reviews, Homeschool Resources, Product reviews

When Lightning Struck! The Story of Martin Luther (Book Review)

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When Lightning Struck cover

If you’ve read more than one of my blog posts, you’ve probably caught onto the fact that I love history.  I love teaching it.  I love reading about it.  And I love finding great books to help my kids fall in love with it as well.

So when I heard about When Lightning Struck! The Story of Martin Luther, a new book by Danika Cooley, I knew I was going to have to check it out, especially since we’ll be covering the Reformation later this year.

Summary

When Lightning Struck! begins with his years at school studying law, followed by his dramatic decision to become a monk.  Martin feels the weight of sin acutely, but the teachings of the church do little to comfort him.  Determined to earn his salvation, he practices self-denial: starving himself, beating himself, and sleeping on the hard wooden floor (or even in the snow) to try to pay for his sins. Not only does Martin struggle with knowledge of his salvation, he is dismayed by the corruption and unbiblical practices he observes within the Church.

After receiving a Bible, Martin immerses himself in Scripture, and he at last comes to realize that Jesus has already paid for them. His lectures at the University draw grace-hungry crowds—and eventually the wrath of Rome.  Troubled by the Church’s practice of selling indulgences, Martin posts his now famous Ninety-Five Theses to open a public forum to discuss the matter, certain that the Pope and other wise religious leaders will change their position once they see the objections from Scripture laid out plainly.

The idea that theology should come from Scripture alone does not sit well with the powerful church leaders, and after Martin refuses to recant his position he is declared a heretic.  Others, however, are emboldened by Martin’s stand against the church, and a great Reformation sweeps through Germany and then other parts of Europe.  Martin spends the rest of his life trying to help maintain unity within the Protestant church, though at times he and other leaders are deeply divided over doctrine.

About the Book

Danika Cooley does not shy away from Martin Luther’s harsher side, but attempts to present an accurate portrait of the man known as the “Father of the Reformation.”  In no way does this book present Martin as a perfect man.  His temper flares often, and he stubbornly sets himself upon anyone whose interpretation of Scripture differs from his own.   I love what Cooley writes in her note at the end of the book:

Would Luther have been effective had he been a gentler, kinder soul in our contemporary estimation? No one can say. Martin Luther certainly didn’t think so. He believed God chose him because of his fiery spirit. We can trust that God is sovereign over history (p.233).

I was already familiar with Danika Cooley because of Bible Road Trip, her amazing Bible study curriculum for Preschool through grade 12.  My experience using BRT convinced me that she is a kindred spirit who shares my passion for teaching about both the Bible and what God has done in history, and that passion comes through in her presentation of Martin Luther’s life.  While the material has been painstakingly researched (as evidenced by abundant footnotes), Cooley makes sure that she tells an exciting story, with plenty of dialogue to move the story along through the entire 265-page book.

Her thorough research and enthusiasm for her subject matter are contagious, so I was excited that on her website you can find a unit study for grades 7-12 (free for subscribers) and a discussion guide (suitable for grades 3-12) to go along with When Lightning Struck! to help students get even more out of the story.

unit study   discussion guide

Final thoughts

I read through When Lightning Struck! on my own for this review in order to see if it was something I’d want to use later this year with Ian.  While I think he’d enjoy the story, I’ve decided to hold off on it for now.  I think he would have trouble understanding parts of it (such as the extreme measures Martin goes to in order to try to earn his salvation, and the issue of transubstantiation that gets Martin so upset in the later part of the story).  There are so many important discussions that can come out of this book, so I think I’m going to save it for a later study of the Reformation.  Then Elijah will be able to join us and we can enjoy deeper conversations about faith, grace, and the legacy of Martin Luther.

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Posted in Book reviews, Homeschool Resources
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