Review: Global Art

It's no secret that my kiddos are art lovers. It mixes in with every subject they learn. So I was excited to get to do a review for Gryphon House of their book "Global Art: Activities, Projects, and Inventions from Around the World." This 189 page book sells for $16.95 on their site and is geared for Kindergarten through 5th graders, although I think that it is good for older than that too.

This book is different from other art books we have. First off, it is divided up by continent. How cool is that? I love anything that helps me to integrate subjects and this book does just that. Each continent chapter has many different art projects to chose from, and is broken down into countries or regions. There are more than 130 projects in all. Another thing I like about this book is that the projects are open-ended. Meaning that they don't show you one concrete end result, but instead they teach you how to do something. It might have to do with a custom or celebration that happens in a certain location, or be something they are known for in their area. The kids enjoyed this. They don't like to be told exactly what the project needs to be all the time, but prefer to be creative on their own.

Each lesson has a supply list, then explains the process. Then there is a section called "Did you know?" that tells more about the area and briefly ties it into the project. There is also a picture of a globe on each page with a star on where the activity takes place. That's cool to me too. I had the kids look up each place on our big globe and we talked about what is around there, or what happened there on our timeline. At the top of each page, there are three little squares with icons in them telling about the experience level needed for the project, art technique, and how much planning and prep work you mom will need to put into it. Sometimes there will be a 4th icon for caution: you need parents help!

The back of the book has some great indexes that should probably be at the front of the book. ;) The front just divides it by continent, but in the back, they show you lists of projects (and pages) divided by medium (ie. collage, construction, drawing, sculpture, etc), experience level, and how much prep work is involved in the projects. They might add one on how much clean up is involved for mom after the kids complete the project - lol!

Our church has a mission team in Africa right now, so we chose some activities from there so we could "connect" to them. We also studied Africa in Cycle 1 CC last year, so they were familiar with the locations. I love reinforcing things they have learned by bringing them up again months later.  We started in Africa but did something from each continent while we reviewed this. The time each project takes varies...by project and by child. Sometimes they would want to spend more time and do it really well, or do more than one. And other times, it could be completed in 15 minutes and they moved on.

Here are some of the favorite projects we made.

handmade soap

Face painting - tempera paint and lotion - who knew?!?

Quilled Paper Art

Drinking straw flutes

I should mention that they also loved making thaumatropes, but the pictures wouldn't come out. The camera sees faster than the eye ;) I have one of the ones they made hanging over my computer now. It was fun to use all different supplies each time to make such a variety of crafts. We have really enjoyed reviewing this and I think there is something for everyone in there. For the price, this is a great deal. You could use this for several years without repeating your crafts. I plan to match them up to the area we are studying in CC this fall and let them kids pick one or two to make each Friday. I think they will enjoy this addition to their school week.

Making a list and checking it twice...

That's right, guys...it's back to school planning time. I have lists coming out my wazoo over here. Lists for everything from CC to each kid's school year plans, bills, groceries, and general "to do" lists. Some are longer than others, and some are easier to accomplish than others.

Ahhh...lists. I do love a good list. I'm all about planning and could spend days researching and planning things to death. I can easily spend more time planning and making lists than I spend actually doing the things on the lists. As I sit here making the newest and coolest lesson plan "list" for T and P so they will wake up every single day excited to check everything off (hey, I can dream, right?), I'm reminded of Proverbs 19:21:

The Lord's purpose. That's what I want to be top on every list I make. Not my will, but Yours be done. I pray that in this season of lists, I will remember to focus on Him and make sure my lists line up with His will and purpose.

This school year, I'm backing off a lot of "fluff." We are going to focus on the things that are important so we aren't so wrapped up in our plans, and checking "temporary" things off our lists, that we miss out on being directly involved in His purpose. How exciting that the King of all creation wants to use me and my family in His plan and to help His purpose prevail.

nickel and diming...

As I was cutting Captain C's hair tonight, it made me wonder how much I have saved over the years by cutting the boys' hair at home.

Big Daddy - at least 7 times a year X 16 years X $10 = $1120

Captain C - at least 7 times a year X 11 years X $10 =  $770

Terrific T - at least 7 times a year X 8 X $10 = 560

Total.....at least $2450...and I was being very generous. I know we cut hair more often than that and I only started counting them at age 2 for this list. For the sake of not having to pull out a calculator, I assumed they could get a cheap cut and left out tips.

We have bought two (or maybe three) sets of clippers, but always buy them on sale so haven't spent even $100 on them. There are plenty of videos online that will show you what to do and it really isn't that hard. The good thing about boys....if it looks bad, just cut it shorter and pretend you meant to. They hate when I say "Oops!" while cutting, but I've never had to shave them bald, so it hasn't been that bad.

$2500 can make a pretty nice vacation, right? Little things add up!

Review: Picaboo Yearbook {photobook}

This review was a blast for me. Back in the day, I was quite the scrapbooker (paper) and even had a room devoted to scrapbooking. Enter baby #3, and that all got boxed up and forgotten. But I still love to look at my old books and wish I had kept it up. So, when Picaboo Yearbooks came up for review, I was excited to have a deadline for making a photobook.  They graciously offered a free 20 page, 8.5" x 11" soft cover yearbook for us to review.

Our CC community makes a yearbook each year, but I have never made one for just our family. I decided to make a joint yearbook for all three of the kiddos of our homeschool year. It was so much fun and I'm kicking myself I didn't start doing this our first year of homeschooling! Oh well, it isn't likely that I will do any past ones, but I will definitely make it a point to do one each summer of our family.

Building your yearbook with Picaboo is all done online. There is nothing to download or take up space on your computer. I like that! You make an account and log in, and each time you log in after that you can select which book you would like to work on or order copies.

I have used several online photobook companies so didn't have any trouble getting started with making my book. I found the process to be painless and once I figured it all out, I was able to make the entire album in just a few nights. The longest part of the process was selecting which pictures to use!

Here is a sample of the creation process. I uploaded the pictures I wanted and it stored them all along the bottom of the screen. Then I selected the background I wanted on the paper and any "stickers" to use to embellish it (tons to choose from and all included for free!!). I even chose how I wanted to lay my pictures out from a list of options and then dropped the pictures into each slot. You can change the font and text size, enlarge or shrink pictures, move things around, etc, all with a click of the mouse. It really was easy.

After I completed all 20 pages, I had to preview each one and then "locked" them when I was sure there were no more changes. Then there is a place to click to order and that was that.

At first, I didn't think I would like having to decide how many pages for each section when I was making it and thought I would probably just put 20 pages "all" or something to skip this step. But...as I was working, I really liked being able to move a section around and found it was actually easy to add more pages to a section.

A 20 page, 8.5x11, softbound book is $8.49 (additional pages are .22 each). The shipping for my book was $10.99, but it looks like they have lowered the shipping price to $8.99. Even at $20, it is a nice memory that I'm thrilled to have. Oh and they say there is a 3 week turnaround, but mine came much quicker than that!

...and it was beautiful!

The cover feels like it is laminated and the pages are nice quality. I feel like the pictures printed nicely and it all looks awesome! There is apparently an option to get a free ebook with it but you have to pick that at the checkout and I didn't notice that option. Bummer. Be on the lookout if you order.

Do you do a homeschool yearbook? You should. Click here to see what others thought of Picaboo.

Revew: 25 Truths book

 I had the privilege the past few weeks of reviewing a great little book by Ed Douglas Publications called 25 Truths: Life Principles of the Happiest and Most Successful Among Us.
This inspirational, 150 page paperback book retails for $12.50 and is full of great topics for leading a prosperous life.

I flipped through it to get a feel for it, then gave it to Captain C to read through. He would read a chapter at a time (and I would skim it) and we would discuss it together. Right off the bat, first chapter is on protecting your reputation. Nice start! At first, C kinda blew it off as a joke (such a fun age), but then as we went through the questions and I asked him if he new anyone with a "bad reputation" and he immediately said a name and that "no one can stand him." We got to talk about why he has that reputation and how C can be sure to NOT get a rep like that. Good stuff.

The book is laid out in 25 short chapters, each focusing on a different "truth." Mr. Douglas mixes in scripture, stories, movie/book quotes, etc and it is a very easy read. The chapters are only about 4 pages each, and then he gives a one line summary and a page of discussion questions. There is space after each question to answer in the book, but we chose to do it orally.

This book isn't a devotional or Bible study and it won't replace your daily quiet time. While the topics are good sound topics, they would relate to all people, not just Christians. Topics include things like "See the Glass as Half Full," "Don't talk Negatively about Others," and "Spend Time with Your Family." "See the Glass Half Full" was perfect for C, who has a tendency to be negative. While some of the stories didn't relate to him right now, the discussion time was where we tied it into his own life and circumstances.

I let C pick 3 chapters to do each week. I thought he would jump around, but he just wanted to go through them in order. We had some interesting discussions because of this book. Each chapter is quick enough that he was willing to do it without a fuss, but the information was really good. I skipped ahead and pointed out some topics that caught my eye and he surprised my by saying he had already read those. People, he isn't one to go read for pleasure (much to my chagrin - ugh) so it was huge to me that he had taken his own time and read through more than I asked him to.

I think this is a good value for this book. I have enjoyed the time together that we have spent discussing the topics. It is best suited for 6th-12th grade, but you could easily read them aloud to the entire family and discuss them. It only takes about 5 minutes to read the chapter so you could do it at dinner each night and have a nice discussion.I wanted to work through it all with C first before beginning it with the other two. Somethings are higher than their level, but have worked well for C, who is about to begin 8th grade (yikes).

Check it out and let me know what you think. To read other Crew members reviews, click on the banner below.


 

Shhhh...Mums the word on this new app!

I'm not normally one who will spend $10 on an app. Ice cream? Sure. A fourth pair of sunglasses for me to lose in approximately 24 hours? You bet. But an app...I'm way too cheap for that. But then I heard about Dragon Box and I changed my tune. I don't even remember where I heard about it actually. But it claims to "secretly teach Algebra to your children." What?!?

I bought it last night on an "I'm still awake after midnight so might as well spend some money" whim and stayed up until almost 2am playing it myself.

In a nutshell, there are VERY minimal directions - it is all on the job training, so to speak. it shows you how to do something and then you do it and keep building on that. It starts with cute little characters that you have to get away from that box so the dragon will come out from hiding in it. He won't come out unless everything else is on the other side of the screen from him. See him hiding in that red box on the left? Poor thing is scared and needs those birds (?) and insects (?) away from him. Help! Help!
 

 As the game progresses, it starts switching the little pictures to letters and numbers, but the same things make them disappear. A "negatice" snake will cancel out a normal snake, just like a negative "F" will cancel out a positive "f"...and the dragon in the box becomes an "X" and oops....you are now solving for x, but think you are saving a dragon. Crazy, huh?

Before you realize it, you are doing full blown math, but THINK you are still playing a game.

So SNEAKY! I love it!! This morning, I threw down a challenge....an "innocent" challenge. "I bet I can get further than you can."  Oh, it was on. Captain C was all over that, since anything I can do, he (thinks) he can do better.

Then BAM! About 30 minutes in, C said, "HEY! This is just like Algebra!" I acted all shocked (and offended) and casually asked what made him think that. And he totally busted me, using real math words, and I made him swear to not tell the other two. He didn't, but wasn't going to play anymore since he had been tricked into doing math, of all things.

So...then T wakes up and he started playing, and passed both me and C. (without suspecting any math learning was going on - phew!). That ticked C off so he started playing again and we are all back in the challenge. Yahoo. P is even playing...and getting it. They have done about 60 levels already!

I bought the 12+ one instead of the 5+ one and they can all do it. Amazing.BTW, I am not working for this company. I get nothing for saying this. This isn't an "official" review or anything. I was just so excited that I had to share this awesome concept!

Now I've gotta go do a few more levels. The little stinkers passed me while I was typing this up!

At least the house is clean...

We received our "number" from the state a couple of weeks ago so we could officially care for foster kids. Since then, we have received 3 or 4 different calls for kiddos that we couldn't take. At this stage in the game, we have to make sure we have our own kids best interests at heart, much as it pains me to say no when we get a call that we can't help. As I was chatting with a wise beyond her years friend, she reminded me that "God is still sovereign and He is still good. It'll be okay. Someone will take them" I need to print that up. Another friend keeps reminding me "NO GUILT!" I'm blessed with some great friends!

Tonight, I thought we had a promising call. He said he would call a few more foster families to see if he found someone that can take all the siblings together (always preferred!) and to keep the phone close.

I yelled for the kids to GET CLEANING. P put new sheets on her beds (there were two girls so she offered to sleep in our room or on the floor in T's room so they could have her bed since we only have one spare bed.), we cleaned all three bathrooms, swept and vacuumed and made the place look nice....and waited.

We were praying if they were supposed to be here, they would call, if not, that they would find a great home fast.

God answered. They never called back so we assume they found a better fit. So close.

As we were cleaning, P ran in and said, "We need to go get them Bibles!"

I get teary just thinking of her saying that. How sweet. I'm in here yelling at the kids to vacuum and straighten up, and she is thinking we need to run to Mardel asap. I love that!

I learn from my kids daily. It isn't always pretty when I'm humbled by an 8 year old, but I'm so thankful.

God knows the perfect little girl for our family for this next season and we can't wait to meet her. Right now, the house is clean and we will be sure to pick up a little Bible so we will be officially, officially ready!

Moving on up...

In an effort to be slightly less white-trash than before, we now have an actual clothes line. And I love it!

Digging very carefully since we didn't call before we dug. All was good.

The kids jumped in to help with the cement mixing. It wasn't raining, C had just sprayed me through the window.

Nice and straight!

Ahhhh....so much more classy, right?

I love the smell of freshly dried laundry. I love that it doesn't heat up the house and cost a fortune to dry our clothes. I love the little bits of Vitamin D I get while out there hanging the clothes. I love that the kids can now swing and dry clothes at the same time. haha. Seriously, it's the little things in this crazy, busy world, that make me happy. Thanks, Big Daddy, for the hard work to make this happen!

Review - CC Prescripts: Cursive Words and Drawing

 

For obvious reasons, I was pumped to get to review the newest offerings from Classical Conversations:  PreScripts Cursive Words and Drawing with Princess P. I looked them over at our CC Practicum last month, and liked what I saw, but wondered how it would go in reality. They have four different books in the series; this one is recommended for ages 5-10.

I love this quote from the note to parents in the beginning of the book: "Just as we learn to speak by mimicking our parents' words, we can learn to write well by copying the words that others have written."

This 2nd book in the PreScripts series assumes you know basically how to form your cursive letters. If you don't, you might want to start with their first book: PreScripts Cursive Letters and Coloring (for ages 3-7). P has taught herself most of the cursive letters but I haven't been good about keeping up with her handwriting curriculum in the past. She hates writing the same letter over and over for pages at a time, so I haven't pushed it.

I thought she might be annoyed by the spiral at the bottom of the page, but she never mentioned it, so I didn't either. :)

The book begins having them write all the letters one time, capital and lowercase, then starts taking them letter by letter. Each letter has its own page and its own Bible verse. So for "Aa" day, P wrote the letter "a" a few times, then "All" a few times, then Romans 3:23, which says, "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Now, I'll be honest, she can't even read all those words in cursive yet, which was frustrating her at first. I would go over them with her and told her to just trust the system (something I've learned being in CC for 4 years already!). She traced the verse and wrote the verse on her own. After each letter page, there is a drawing page. These were big pulls for her since she loves to draw. "If you finish your writing, you can do the drawing." Bribe. Pull. Call it what you will. It helps get the job done so I like it! It only takes about 15 minutes a day for her to do the lesson, and then however long she wants to do the drawing. Sometimes she takes her time and draws a lot and sometimes, like in the picture shown here, she did the bare minimum and called it done. Either way is fine with me!

For the drawing part, they start out learning all the simple shapes (that match up with what we do the first 6 weeks of CC!) and then start putting those shapes together to make different pictures. As we went on through the book, she stopped complaining about not knowing what to do, and started just doing it. I love that she is writing scripture and learning as she goes. After we finished the letters, we moved on to writing numbers, and are looking forward to the "tricky letter combinations" that are coming up soon using James chapter 1.

She is enjoying this book and her writing it definitely getting neater. So glad I trusted the program. ;) I plan to keep working through this book the rest of the summer. There are enough pages to use for an entire school year if you use one a day. P is doing 2+ a day so I'm planning to finish it earlier. I liked it so much that I bought two of the next book in the series, for both P and T. It is called Prescripts Cursive Sentences and Art Lessons (for ages 7-12). I like that it has all their history sentences for Cycle 2 in it so we will do it on the weeks we are in CC, and continue with this original one for P on the off weeks when we don't have new history sentences.

The books are $12.99 each and nice, spiral bound books. I'm thankful we were able to review this and excited to continue to see improvement in her penmanship.

Where for art thou, summer?

Can it really be July? This tells me that yes, it is indeed the first week of July.

But how can that be? First of all, it has been a gorgeous 85* for a high for the past week. An Okie girl could get used to this! Loving it so much! I have a million mosquito bites on my legs that can attest to how much we have been outside (but still no tan...never gonna happen).

I always have such big plans for summer. All the things we don't have time to do during the school year WILL get done in the summer...in theory. Then it hits. We try. We really do. But sleeping in and climbing trees takes over. I have knocked out several things that I really wanted to accomplish with Terrific T and Princess P this summer, so I'm happy there. Still so much I want to do, and get done.

July 4th was a wake up call for me. Summer is cruising along, whether we like it or not. Time to get busy...6 more weeks until CC starts. We have books to read and math to master. Better cut this short and get moving. I have planning I need to be doing for my own kids as well as for CC, pictures to edit and order, oh, and the dishes could use some attention today too.

Happy July 5th, guys! Make it a great one.

Review: Institute for Excellence in Writing

I'll admit that I have a love of all things IEW and I might have a slight homeschool crush on Andrew Pudewa himself. I always go to his workshops at OCHEC and leave inspired to be a better homeschool mom.  When he came to talk to our local CC groups last year, I made Big Daddy join us....and he then understood the crush. It's all good. The Institute for Excellence in Writing is well known in the homeschool world for it's exceptional language arts material, so I was thrilled to get to review some of their products for you. I'm reviewing both  Teaching with Structure and Style Set (TWSS) and Student Writing Intensive Level A (SWI).

When the products arrived in the mail, I was so excited to dive in. The TWSS is the backbone of all the IEW writing curriculum and packed full of valuable information for teaching your kids. It is broken into 10 DVDs that includes 10 hours of Andrew Pudewa modeling how to teach all 9 models of writing taught in IEW. There is also a 2 hour "tricks and tips" DVD that is more of a refresher course and covers everything more quickly. Then there are 3 more DVDs full of student work, so you get an idea of how you can scale the program for each level you are teaching. A lot An abundance of information for you money!

I watched the videos alone, after getting the notebook set up. I had planned to watch it with a friend, and the timing just hasn't worked out yet. We are still planning to watch them together again...next week, I hope! I actually would like all of our CC Essentials families to view them with us before we start the fall semester since this will help them so much in teaching at home during the year (We use IEW's History Based Writing books as our source text in Essentials). The videos were so helpful for understanding the program. Seeing the big picture is a huge benefit in understand how to better teach our kids to write well.

Instead of teaching to think so they can write, this program teaches kids how to to write so they can think. This is backwards for so many people but make complete sense after watching the videos. Mr. Pudewa takes the thinking out of writing, and tells you exactly what to write and how to do it. He breaks it down into bite size pieces and makes it so you can be successful in anything you write. And it works! I've seen how well this worked for Captain C so am excited to use it for the other two too.

There are 9 units in the program that can be used to teach the structure of writing to students in grades 2-10

• Unit 1 - Note Making and Outlines (so important to start here and not skip ahead as this is used through all the other units!)
• Unit 2 - Summarizing from Notes
• Unit 3 - Summarizing Narrative Stories (or rather "some-a-rizing" stories...telling SOME, not the SUM of what you know. lol)
• Unit 4 - Summarizing References and Writing Reports
• Unit 5 - Writing from Pictures (Captain C's favorite unit!)
• Unit 6 - Writing Reports from Multiple Sources
• Unit 7 - Creative Writing with Structure (Terrific T's fave)
• Unit 8 - Essays
• Unit 9 - Critiques

 Once the kids (and adults) learn HOW to write well, then they can begin writing about what they choose and do it well. Mixed in with each of the above structures are the various style techniques that make the writing pretty magnificent.. Using the "dress-ups and decorations" he teaches, students can make sure they get their point across exactly as they mean it. It is so important to be able to community effectively in life. These DVDs should be in everyone's homeschool arsenal!

We also received SWI level A DVD set. This is for grades 3-5 and I decided to teach it to both P (just finished 2nd) and T (just finished 4th) together. We got the notebook set up and started in on the first lesson/DVD. There are a full year of lesson plans included and tell you exactly what to do each day. The lesson plans are divided into 5 days a week of assignments. Since it is summer, we only did this three days a week and doubled up where needed or when it gave two extra stories to use for practice, we just did one. It let us still get a feel for it without burning the kids out.

T has done All Things Fun and Fascinating before so was familiar with the method of IEW, but P had never done it at all and T has never watched the videos. The first thing we did was get notebook paper added to our binders and PENS (Mr. Pudewa doesn't want them being neat and using pencils and worrying about erasing and getting it perfect - he won the kids over right there!) and sit in the living room to watch together.  After watching the segment for the first day (lesson plans tell how many minutes to watch each day - some days don't have any video to watch), we started in on the work. T could do it much more quickly, because he knew what he was doing here. This was perfect so he could "lead" P through the process and be practicing without realizing it as he teaches her.  We continued on through the first 6 weeks (3 lessons) and they are both doing well. I can't wait for them to keep learning.

I love that Mr. Pudewa says, "This is writing, there's no right or wrong. It's not math." haha! My kids get so frustrated with math having to always be "right," but with writing, they can relax a little. And I can relax a little with them.  As long as the kids are doing what they are asked, it is ok if it is long or short, as long as you have added in all the things asked. It is ok if it is about dogs or pigs, as long as they have completed the assignment given. The content isn't important in this learning phase. This program can be used with any content, so it is easy to scale it to all the different skill levels. The kids enjoyed the random topics in the SWI A lessons...writing a story on Rolie Polies (Pillbugs) was fun.

Pricing: TWSS is $169 and includes the Seminar Workbook. SWI A is $109 - there are other levels too - SWI B is for grades 6-8 and SWI C is for grades 9-12. Or buy both the TWSS and a SWI level together for $249 and save $29.    I plan to re-watch each DVD during the school year before I teach the lessons so I can remember what I wanted to say. There is SO much information in here that is so great, but it was so much to watch it all together that I'll never remember everything. This is definitely not a "watch one time and be done with it" DVD set.  We will be watching these often. I'm so thankful to have this in our home and know we will all be better exceptional writers for having received it.      

TOS 2013-2014 planners are here and a giveaway

*****congrats to Jennp***** You are the winner of this giveaway. :)


 I am continually amazed at the things they are adding to SchoolHouseTeachers.com. Every time I log in, there are new thing popping up over there. I love that they have fellow Okie and CCer, Jennifer Courtney writing lessons for them even. There are so many resources on this site that it is totally worth the cost of the subscription.


Some of my favorite things there are the downloadable planners. They just released the new 2013-2014 planner and they are amazing! There are several different planners, all come free with your subscription (which is only $3 the first month and $12.95/month after that).


First is The Big Mama Planner is almost 800 (yes, EIGHT HUNDRED) pages long. Insanity! Now there is no way I would print all that, but I do go through and pick and choose what I will use and print it up. It is so much more than a typical planner; it has articles, charts, pages of important information as well as calendars and planning pages. It is all you need to organize your life and homeschool.

Then there are 4 other planners for the kids - one for everyone:

• Special Learners
• Primary
• Intermediate
• High School

Each of these are close to 200 pages that again, you can pick and chose what you print. They include articles, helpful information and again, tons of options for planning pages, then things specific to each student, like recipes, homeschool IEPs, financial info and so much more. Very cool!

And even cooler? They are letting me give away one FREE Big Mama Planner and a child's planner of your choice to one of you. YAY!


To be entered in the drawing, all you have to do is follow my blog (on GFC or Linky...both found on the right sidebar) and leave me a comment telling me which of the planners you would like to win, along with the Big Mama.

That's it! For one additional entry, you can go like my blog page on Facebook and leave a separate comment telling me you did it.

I'll be drawing one winner on July 12th and TOS will send you the link for your planners shortly after. Good luck!


Disclaimer: As a member of the Schoolhouse Review Crew, I have been given membership to SchoolhouseTeachers.com,  which includes access to the Schoolhouse Planners. The links included are my affiliate links.