So, Tuesday was “The Artist’s” Birthday, and I had spent several weeks seeking out things that went along with his request for drawing materials. REAL drawing materials, artist quality. He noticed that I had bought for myself a set of black sketching pencils complete with one of those kneaded erasers (because I am attempting to learn Zentangle, which I’ll write about in a future post), so I got him a set too, at Michael’s.
Here are a few photos of “The Artist” opening his gift . . .
First, the big box!
Here are the aforementioned pencils . . .
And a set of artist quality color pencils he had specifically requested . . .
“The Artist” also received a variety of sketch books and sketch pads to put his artwork into . . .
Last, but certainly not least, “The Artist” received his much requested Nintendo Eshop card. , which is now burning a hole in his pocket, lol!
We went out to dinner at a local Chinese place called Tao’s Chinese Bistro, which was quite good, and left enough extra that everyone had more for lunch on Wednesday!
As far as homeschool stuff this week, we were kind of laid back, as I’ve not been feeling well lately. We worked on a couple of review products that I posted about here and here, we did our piano practice (one of these days, I WILL remember to video either the practice or lesson time, or both, and post that), and we went to both Homeschool Park Day and Piano Lesson yesterday. Yes, we are able to go to Park Days in February, and we LOVE that! 🙂
So, how was YOUR week? Why don’t you blog about it, and then link up at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers, like I’m doing? It’s really easy, just click the graphic below for the guidelines . . .
Write your post, then go here and link up at the bottom of the post. That’s all there is to it! While you’re there, check out all of the other bloggers writing about THEIR weeks! 🙂
As always, I’d love it if you joined me on all of “My Journeys Through Life”! Just enter your email into the “sign me up” button at the top of the blog, and never miss another update! And, if you do enjoy “My Journeys”, please go to our Facebook page and “like” it. I’d sure appreciate it if you would! 🙂
I am very excited to be a part of the book launch team for “Asia: Its People And History“, for a variety of reasons.
The author, Bonnie Rose, is part of The Old Schoolhouse Magazine family, serving as a member of The Old Schoolhouse Magazine’s Star Contributors Team, creating material for SchoolhouseTeachers.com, and working as an editorial assistant for The Old Schoolhouse Magazine®. You all know how much I love being part of The Old Schoolhouse Family as a Review Crew member, so it’s very special to me, being included as part of the launch team for a book written by one of our own! 🙂
So . . . you may be wondering, just what is this book, anyway? Well, it’s a curriculum, but I find it to be more than that, personally.
Book Description:
Welcome to Asia: Its People and History! Is the land of Asia a mystery to your kids? Do they know who lives there? Do they know how to pray for them? Asia is home to more than fifty countries and territories and roughly three-fifths of the world’s population. Could you use some help introducing your family to this vast land? This sixteen-week course presents a brief picture of six nations. It is by no means all encompassing. Its purpose is to introduce your students to the people of Asia, share their stories, and spark curiosity.
I pray that the course does much more than that, however. I pray that through meeting just a few of our brothers and sisters who live in cities and villages with names that are hard to pronounce that your children feel more connected with those who are suffering for their faith in Christ. Through stories and activities, we’ll meet the people of Laos, Bangladesh, Nepal, China, Iran, and Vietnam. We’ll get to know the children of these lands and hear about their experiences. Most of all, we’ll pray for them and their families. Won’t you join us?
Here is a lovely video trailer that you can watch about this book:
Asia: Its People And History covers these six countries in 16 weeks . . . Laos, Bangladesh, Nepal, China, Iran and Viet Nam. I most especially wanted to go through this book because I happen to have family who are missionaries to one of these countries, so my children (and I!) wanted to learn more about it.
Each country in the book covers weeks. We begin with week one: Story with discussion questions. Then, in week two, we have Let’s Talk About (that week’s country), Part One, week three: Story with discussion questions, wrapping up in week four with Story with discussion questions. This format is used for each of the six countries in the book.
I am happy to tell you that the author, Bonnie Rose, has provided bonus content absolutely free, that you can download here. This includes the following:
History and Geography-themed copy work (three handwriting styles)
Facts about Bangladesh
Facts about China
Facts about Iran
Facts about Laos
Facts about Nepal
Facts about Vietnam
Word Puzzles
Asia Nations and Capitals Word Puzzle-enjoy a fun decoding activity to decipher the six nations we are studying.
Letter Scramble-Central and South Asia
Letter Scramble-East and Southeast Asia
Letter Scramble-Middle East
I think my family is going to really enjoy going through this book more fully, now that this short review/launch period is completed!
Paperback available from Amazon.com coming soon in
full color and black-and-white versions.
Ebook available from The Old Schoolhouse Magazine.
Kindle, Nook, iBookstore, and Sony eReader versions available from Smashwords.com.
As always, I would love it if you join me on all of “My Journeys Through Life”! Just enter your email into the “sign me up” button at the top of the blog, and never miss an update again! And, if you enjoy, “My Journeys”, please go to out Facebook page and “like” it. I’d sure aPPRECIATE IT IF YOU DID! 🙂
Many of you are aware that our boys really, really enjoy things that are, in their words, “science-y”. You may NOT be aware though, that I am NOT a “science-y” type person, so this topic has always been sort of a “learn it as it comes up” kind of thing. Well, being given the chance to review an online science curriculum called Science4Us.com Online Subscription turned out to be something of a God-send!
Science4Us.com offers a FULL online science curriculum for your K-2 students. However, don’t let that grade range limit you at all. It can also be used as review for older students. MY kids are having a great time with it!
Here is a video of “Mr. Loquacious”, talking just a little bit about the program . . .
As you can see, he tends to lose his “Mr. Loquacious” title when being put on a video, LOL!
I feel that this curriculum is very good for either the homeschool parent who wants to set up lessons for their children (or is required to do so by their state), or for the homeschool parent like me, who is more of a “fly by the seat of your pants” type. I do not use a lesson planner, I have never lived in a state which required me to keep records of any kind, which is the way I, personally, feel homeschooling ought to be. We do a lot of “interest led” homeschooling, and believe me, the Science4Us.com Online Subscription works BEAUTIFULLY for our homeschooling method!
Lest you think it won’t be for you though, because you prefer (or are required) to keep records, have lesson plans, etc, this curriculum works for you, too! The Science4Us.com Online Subscription gives you, the parent and/or teacher, well done lesson plans, already prepared for you! The program is set up to allow you to check on your child’s progress, and see what and how they are doing. You have the capability to set specific assignments for your children, and can even set it up with start dates and end dates, or just set the assignment up to end when they have completed it.
MY kids like that when they log in, everything they have already completed now has a gold star on it, and they know to go to the next thing. They also enjoy the animated lessons, the games, and surprisingly, they like taking the “evaluates”, or quizzes at the end of each topic they do. 🙂
The Science4Us.com Online Subscription is EXTREMELY easy to navigate! Even my boys, once I showed them how to log on with their individual memberships, were able to move around with great ease, needing only to ask for help the very first time they were on. That says a lot to a homeschool mom like me who has special needs kids, and almost always has to tweak whatever we are using to work with my children. 🙂
Here is an example of what your child will see after he or she logs in . . .
At that point, they may either choose one of the books at the top right, which my kids did to begin, and then thereafter, they chose from the “recent activity” box, going to the next circle without a star.
Here is “The Puzzler”, who, by the way, asks multiple times a day if he can “do the science thing” . . .
And here is a shot of “Mr. Loquacious, also working on his own . . .
Your subscription will include a good overview of the following main topics: Science Inquiry, Earth/Space Science, Life Science, and Physical Science, as well as numerous subtopics. I do feel it’s important for me to mention that the Earth History topic does come from an evolutionary viewpoint, and because of that, it was the one limit I put on my kids. We did not use that portion of the curriculum. I allowed them each to choose their main overview topic, and required that they stick with that one until finishing the unit, but other than that, they were free to work on their own, at their own pace.
If it is important to you to use a “standards based” curriculum, Science4Us.com Online Subscription states that it falls within that. This is not something that matters to me, but I know that some of my readers do feel it is important.
I feel that the price for what you will be receiving is excellent! There are Over 350 Online Lessons, Hands-On Activities and Worksheets, it is web-based, and there will be availability to use it on the iPad in 2014. For those to whom it matters, this curriculum does correlate to state and national standards. In addition to science, Science4Us.com Online Subscription also helps build math and language skills. Here is a picture I took while “Mr. Puzzler” was working on something that added in language arts . . .
Finally, if you need or want it, there is automated Reporting for Homeschool Portfolios.
All of this comes to you for the very reasonable price of $7.95 per month, per child.
To find out what my crewmates thought of the Science4Us.com Online Subscription, please click the graphic below!
As always, I’d love it if you joined me on all of “My Journeys Through Life”! Just enter your email into the “sign me up” button at the top of this blog, and you’ll never miss an update again. And, if you DO enjoy “My Journeys Through Life”, please go to our Facebook page and “like” it. I’d sure appreciate it if you did! 🙂
The KinderBach Online Membership with Teacher Corner was not something I initially was planning to review, but ended up doing so anyway, as I thought my two younger boys, “Mr. Loquacious” and “The Puzzler” would get some fun out of it, and add to their beginning music education. My older boys and myself take actual piano lessons, where we go to our piano teacher’s home, but the younger two are simply not ready for that as yet.
KinderBach says that the best time to introduce your children to making music, and the fun that will come from doing so, is between the ages of 3 and 7. As most of you already are aware, “Mr. Loquacious” and “The Puzzler” are actually age 12, but they do have some developmental delays, so this program has been fun for them. They especially like the coloring pages that come with the program! 🙂
There are pages to use for most of the lessons, and you can print them out from within the lesson, such as this one here . . .
There are also activity books available to print out all at once, if you like.
Even if you don’t yet have a piano or keyboard, KinderBach has printable keyboard sheets which will get your students started for the first few weeks.
KinderBach Online Piano Lessons With Teacher Corner yearly membership will give you access to 6 levels of fun and worthwhile musical education for the 3 – 7-year-old, which also includes (to my delight!) a physical component, as you can see in the photos below . . .
Here we see Frisco doing both “up” and “down” motions for the students to follow
And here are “Mr. Loquacious” and “The Puzzler” following along!
KinderBach is “Child Paced“, making it a very good program for the special needs child or the child with a short attention span, but still is advanced enough for the child in the suggested age range.
To read the curriculum syllabus by level, please look here.
You will receive all web lessons, via your computer, iPad, Android Tablet, Kindle Fire or Nook. You will also have the availability of all of the Teacher Corner materials, plus the ability to download all of the story books, song books, and coloring pages.
At this time, there are over $400 worth of books in the Teacher’s Corner and more will be added soon. With your membership, you never have to pay more for a new edition. Your membership permits you the to download all updates.
To sum things up, “Mr. Loquacious” and “The Puzzler” have been enjoying their first Crew Review of this new year, and so have I!
To read what other crew members thought of KinderBach, please click the graphic below:
As always, I would love it if you joined me on all of “My Journeys Through Life”! Just go and enter your email into the “sign Me Up” button at the top of the page and never miss an update again! Also, if you enjoy “My Journeys”, please go to our Facebook Page and “like” it. I’d sure appreciate it if you did! 🙂
I didn’t manage a weekly wrap-up last week. I’ve been ill off and on for the past couple of weeks, and then last week, I broke my glasses!!! All is well on that front though, this week I got a replacement pair, though I’m still waiting on my prescription sunglasses (a needful thing in a state with at least 300 sunny days per year).
Anyway, back on February 7, we had another co-op day with our church homeschool group. This time, it was all about nutrition, manners, and physical activity.
My friend Aimee, one of our fabulous homeschool moms, was in charge of putting this one together, and she really made it fun! Here, she is teaching the kids what would NOT be good table manners, LOL!
Aimee discussed with the kids the importance of good nutrition, and of drinking enough water every day, especially living here in the desert.
The kids learned about the importance of good posture, and in this video, you can see some of them attempting to practice USING good posture!
After all of this, we moved to another room, where we worked on stretching . . .
Exercises . . .
And a game to work on good sportsmanship!
This is one of MY favorite photos of the day, two of our toddler friends! 🙂
So, this was a good homeschool day, in the midst of my not feeling well off and on. My kids really enjoy our co-op!
This post is being linked up at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers. To get the guidelines for the weekly wrap up link-up, click the graphic below:
As always, I’d love it if you joined me on all of “My Journeys Through Life”. Just go and enter your email into the “sign me up” button at the top of the blog, and never miss an update! And, if you enjoy “My Journeys”, please, go to our Facebook Page and “like” it. I’d sure appreciate it if you did! 🙂
Well, it takes a lot of years to train a husband, but I think he did WAY GOOD this year, without even any “PLEASE do something for Valentine’s Day” stuff from me!
Here is a beautiful vase of roses, with a sweet note . . .
and a closer view of the Silpada ring I wanted, to go with a necklace I’d gotten from hosting a party last month!
As always, if you click on the pictures, you can make them bigger to see all of the beautiful detail!
23 years into this marriage, he’s coming along, wouldn’t you say? 🙂
As always, I’d love it if you’d join me on all of “My Journeys Through Life”. Just enter your email into the “sign me up” button at the top of the blog, and never miss an update! And, if you enjoy “My Journeys”, please go to our Facebook Page and “like” it. I’d sure appreciate it if you did!
, which is now burning a hole in his pocket, lol!
My Journeys Through Life . . . Herding Cats In New Mexico! 