Category Archives: education

November 6, 2013 · 11:01 am

Exploring Creation With Chemistry and Physics . . . A T.O.S. Review

If you are looking for a hands on, Charlotte Mason Style Homeschool Science Curriculum with a definite Christian world view, you will certainly find it in Exploring Creation With Chemistry And Physics, written by Jeanie Fulbright and published by Apologia. This curriculum is written for children anywhere from kindergarten through grade six, and is perfect, in my opinion, for working together as a group, even in a multi-age group.

As reviewers, we were allowed to select any two of the notebooking journals which go along with the text book. Because I had hopes that at least one of my kids (“The Artist”) would be able to use the Regular Notebooking Journal, I asked for it . . .

Along with a copy of the Junior Notebooking Journal.

Because of a mistake in shipping, I actually received two of the Junior Notebooking Journals. Apologia was kind enough to replace the missing journals for those of us who received the wrong ones, and ESPECIALLY kind enough to allow us to keep the wrong ones! In the meanwhile, I was able to acquire two more Junior Notebooking Journals from other reviewers. 🙂 As it happened, this turned out to be a real blessing, because although “The Artist” probably CAN handle the regular Notebooking Journal, he definitely preferred the Jr. one.

The Notebooking Journals are very similar, but the Junior Notebooking Journal actually has a lot more in it for someone who likes art, and the Regular Notebooking Journal has significantly more writing to do, something “The Artist” gets balky about if he has to do it with handwriting as opposed to using the computer.

One of the best things about the Apologia is that when we use it as a read-aloud (and we do!), the text is very easy to understand, and there are plenty of good quality color pictures to go along with the text.

Spread throughout each chapter (Lesson) are boxes with the heading “Try This!”. It may be a small experiment, a game, or something else, but it always goes right along with what is being taught in that section. Some of the “Try This!” sections we have done are:

The 20 Questions Game, which teaches the skill of being able to describe the properties of matter.

Figuring out the volume of a small rock using the method discovered by Archimedes . . .

during which we discovered that this small rock from our yard came in at about 50 cubic centimeters.

We began learning about density using two eggs, two glasses of warm water, and one half cup of salt . . .

We learned more about mass, volume and density by seeing whether different objects would sink or float in a bowl of water . . .

And we also did one other “Try This” to learn about buoyancy. The idea was to build a foil boat, put it into our “ocean” of warm salt water . . .

then begin adding pennies (pirate treasure) to see how many it took to make the boat sink . . .

In case you were wondering, it took 56 pennies!

In the main text-book “Exploring Creation With Chemistry and Physics“, there are 14 lessons. The breakdown of the lesson plans are in the Notebooking Journal and the Junior Notebooking Journal, with the suggested pace of two days per week, doing one lesson per week. As usual, we are slowing this down quite a bit, in order that all of my children can really get as much as possible out of this curriculum. I think that’s one of the best things about homeschooling, the fact that we can go at our own pace, tweaking here and there as needed to accommodate the various special needs my kids have.

There are also a multitude of lapbook style things in both of the Notebooking Journals for the student to cut out, fill in, and then glue to the appropriate page of their notebook. We are just getting ready to begin one of them, in fact!

There are vocabulary activities, such as crossword puzzles, word find puzzles, match-up sheets, vocabulary puzzle pieces, etc, and, should you need them, the answers are all in the back of the Notebooking Journal!

Here are just a couple of pictures from our Notebooking Journals:

From the Junior Notebooking Journal, you can see that my kids are not carbon copies of one another when it comes to coloring!

Here is the one picture I managed to get of “The Artist” beginning a crossword puzzle in the regular Notebooking Journal, before going back to the Junior Notebooking Journal, which he very much prefers! 🙂

Apologia is a good fit for my family, and we will continue to use it, but with one small adjustment in addition to slowing the pace down quite a bit. The only other change I will make is that when they have a copywork page with a Bible verse, I will be having them use our King James Bible, rather than the version used in the curriculum. As my regular readers are aware, that is my one pet peeve with Christian homeschool curriculum, it is mostly written using other versions these days. I would love it if this were offered with the option of being published using the King James Version for those of us who will use no other version of the Bible. In the meantime, I guess I will just continue to adjust for that by typing the verses out from the King James Bible and then adhering them to the Notebooking Journal over the other version.

The Textbook “Exploring Creation With Chemistry and Physics” by Jeanie Fulbright can be found here at the cost of $39.00.

The “Chemistry and Physics Notebooking Journal for Exploring Creation With Chemistry and Physics” can be found here for $24.00.

The “Junior Chemistry and Physics Notebooking Journal for Exploring Creation With Chemistry and Physics” is available here for $24.00.

My children and I are very much enjoying this Homeschool Science Curriculum, and I hope you will, too!

To find out what other Schoolhouse Review Crew members thought of “Exploring Creation With Chemistry and Physics“, please click on the graphic below!

As always, I would love it if you would join me on all of “My Journeys Through Life”! Just go to the “sign me up” button at the top of the blog and enter your email information. Also, if you enjoy “My Journeys”, please, go here and “Like” our Facebook page. Never miss an update again! 🙂

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Filed under Apologia, Christian faith, education, family, home education, homeschool products, Homeschool Science Curriculum, homeschooling, Kids, Lapbooking, Schoolhouse Review Crew Post, special needs education, TOS Post, TOS Review

Tagged as Apologia, children, Christian Faith, Exploring Creation With Chemistry and Physics, family, Hands on Christian World View Science, home education, homeschool product review, homeschool products, Homeschool Science Curriculum, homeschooling, kids, Lapbooking, Notebooking, Schoolhouse Review Crew, special needs, TOS Review

November 1, 2013 · 1:00 pm

Weekly Wrap-Up . . . Oh What A Busy Week We Had! :-)

I think that Monday was the ONLY day we stayed at home! Tuesday, as I posted earlier in the week, Our church homeschool group had a field trip to McCall’s Pumpkin Patch, in Moriarty NM, followed by Ladies Bible Study at church that evening for me.

Then Wednesday of course, “The Batman” and “The Artist” had Teen Choir, after which we had Bible Study and Prayer Meeting at church. On the way home after church, we needed to stop and buy milk, because nobody had told me the day before that we were almost out (I don’t drink it, so I didn’t know).

Last night, our church had the annual Chile Cook-off and Fall Festival. I’ll be doing a post in the next few days with pictures from that, but here’s one picture of some of the Chile entries before we began sampling! 🙂

This morning, our church homeschool group met for our November activity, which was a missions project, as our missions conference is this month. We divided into groups, three families per group, and we each filled a box with gifts for our assigned missionary family, along with a box for one of our college students who are away at school.

Here are our packages, with the kids in our group . . .

I’ll do a full post about that later, too, with more pictures. Meanwhile, that’s how our week has been, and now I am finishing this post, doing laundry, getting things together for a Close To My Heart Gathering being held tomorrow, and then getting my ministry card that I do each week made.

So, how was YOUR week? Why don’t you write about it on Fridays and join the weekly wrap-up linky? Just click the graphic below to find out how!

As always, I would love it if you would join me on all of “My Journeys Through Life”, by entering your email information in the “sign me up” button at the top of the blog. And please, do also go here and “Like” our Facebook page! 🙂

If You Were Me and Lived In . . . A T.O.S. Review

We were sent four cute little books from Carol P. Roman with Away We Go Media to review in our homeschool.

We received:

If You Were Me and Lived In . . . South Korea . . .

“If You Were Me And Lived In . . . France . . .”

“If You Were Me And Lived In . . . Mexico”

and . . .

“If You Were Me And Lived In . . . Norway . . .”

The author was also kind enough to gift us with an inflatable globe, a couple of pencils with international flags printed on them, and a play passport set, all of which my boys thought were very cool, most especially the globe. 🙂

These books are the beginning of a series of books that can be used to introduce other countries and cultures to younger children. They are intended for children ranging from Pre-K through age 8, but my kids enjoyed them as well.

They range in price from $8.99 to $10.79 in the paperback editions, which is what we received, or $.99 to $1.99 in Kindle format, which some of the other Review Crew Members received.

Each of these books follows the same basic formula. It is a short book, approximately 25 to 30 pages long, exploring the culture of a different country.

At the very beginning, we get a picture of the country featured in the book, which has a star marking the capital. Then, we go right into the little story with a boy and girl pointing to their country on a globe. This is followed up by talking briefly about the capital city, and a picture of a scene from that city. Next, there is a picture of the boy and girl in a scene relating to where they are, and talking about three different names you might have if you are a boy, and three names that would be popular for a girl in that country. Next, along with a cute picture of the children doing something with their parents, we learn what you would call your mom and your dad in that language! From there, we next see the children in a place of business, and we discover what their money is called, what they might be buying there, and what the business would be called in their language. In the different books, we learn about a popular sport, a favorite vacation place, a holiday, special things they might eat, and their school. All of these things use words in the language of the country the book is covering.

At the end of the book is a page with a glossary of all of the foreign language words. This is perhaps the one thing I would change, I would have preferred to have the translations perhaps within parentheses right next to the actual words, that way, we would not have needed to go back and forth every time we came upon a word in a different language. 🙂

we did do our best though, to try to guess what the words meant, and occasionally, we were actually successful!

I think these books are nicely done, and very cute. As it turned out, they were a bit young for my older kids, but my twins like them, and I’ve seen them reading them again. And, the bonus is that all of the boys were looking for, and finding the different countries on the globe and on a map we have from a previous review. 🙂

To read what other Schoolhouse Review Crew members thought of these books, please click on the graphic below!

As always, I would just love it if you would join me on all of “My Journeys Through Life”! Just enter your email information into the “sign me up!” button at the top right of the blog, and please, also go here and “like” our Facebook page!

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Filed under Away We Go Media, education, family, Foreign language homeschooling, home education, homeschool products, homeschooling, Kids, Language Arts, Learn to Read, read-alouds, Reading, Schoolhouse Review Crew Post, special needs education, TOS Post, TOS Review, Ultimate Blog Challenge 2013

Tagged as Away We Go Media, children, family, home education, homeschool product review, homeschool products, homeschooling, kids, Schoolhouse Review Crew, TOS Review, Ultimate Blog Challenge 2013

October 30, 2013 · 3:50 pm

A Day At McCall’s Pumpkin Patch!

Yesterday, we spent the day at McCall’s Pumpkin Patch with the homeschool group from our church. It is about an hour away from where we live, but it turned out to be worth the drive!

Here is our group . . .

I, of course, totally messed up and didn’t get any pictures in the actual pumpkin field, but here we are in the hay wagon for the ride there and back, shortly after we arrived . . .

First, here is “The Batman”, “The Artist”, one of their friends, “Mr. Loquacious” and “The Puzzler” . . .

And here I am, with one of my friends, the grandmother of the extra boy in the previous picture!

There were a lot of really cool opportunities for fun photos.

Here are all of my boys with my friend’s grandkids in one of the teepees . . .

Although I forgot to take pictures when they were choosing their pumpkins, we did find some really nice arrangements that were PERFECT for photos!

There were these very neat antique trucks filled with hay and pumpkins . . .

An antique tractor . . .

This cool hay wagon . . .

The Soda Wagon . . .

One of my favorites, the giant rocking chair!

I liked this spot, too . . .

They had a “corn bin”, which was like a sandbox, but filled with corn kernels!

“The Puzzler” . . .

“Mr. Loquacious” . . .

“The Artist” . . .

“The Batman” . . .

“Here is “The Artist”, letting the younger kids bury him in the corn!

Here, “The Batman” is feeding the goats . . .

And last but not least, here we all are, being the farm animals!

As you can see, we had a really good day, with lots of time walking around in the fresh air. It was a beautiful day, and so nice to be doing this at the end of October, and NOT needing winter coats! 🙂

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Filed under Christian faith, Church, education, family, home education, Home-school Group, Homeschool Field Trip, homeschooling, Kids, McCall's Pumpkin Patch, Mesa Baptist Church, NM, Travel, Ultimate Blog Challenge 2013

Tagged as children, Christian Faith, family, home education, Homeschool Field Trip, homeschooling, kids, McCall's Pumpkin Patch, Mesa Baptist Church, new life, Ultimate Blog Challenge 2013

October 29, 2013 · 4:08 pm

Reasons For Homeschooling . . .

I came across this really good article “Comparing Homeschooling vs Public Schooling: Ten Reasons For Homeschooling (A Public School Teacher Tells All)“. I think it’s well worth reading, so I wanted to share it with you.

Some of MY reasons for homeschooling are:

It is the absolute best choice for my kids. That is more important than making the best choice for ME.

My kids are not being indoctrinated with a secular worldview.

My kids have a variety of special needs, so homeschooling allows us to work at their own paces, and in the ways they each learn best.

My kids do NOT need the sort of “socialization” found in schools, whether public or private.

We are not tied to a formal schedule. We can take off days for other things as we wish to do so, and we can work school in around life, as opposed to the other way around.

I’m sure if I sat here and thought about it, I could list a whole bunch of other reasons, but these are just the ones that came to mind right now.

Whether you homeschool, or your kids are in public or private school, I hope your choice is being made solely based upon what is best for YOUR children, not based on what other people may think of your decision. It’s not their decision, it is yours. Make it count.

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Filed under Christian faith, education, encouragement, family, home education, just me, Kids, special needs education, Ultimate Blog Challenge 2013

Tagged as children, choices, Christian Faith, family, home education, homeschooling, kids, lifestyle, special needs, Ultimate Blog Challenge 2013

October 25, 2013 · 3:38 pm

Weekly Wrap-Up . . . A new Series For us

I have been following the blog “Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers for some time, ever since I stumbled upon it a while back. This blogger turned me on to a weekly link up called “Weekly Wrap-Up”, which I’ve decided to take part in, beginning now.

So, here is how OUR week has gone . . .

Sunday evening, our church‘s Sunshine Kids Choir performed the special music during service. My younger two boys, “Mr. Loquacious” and “The Puzzler” are members of the choir, and also had lines in the skit this time!

On Monday night, I got to go to a Mom’s Night Out with other moms from our church. This is important to me. As a homeschooling mom, most of my time is spent primarily with my children, so it’s really nice to have that monthly night out, just for a couple of hours to eat dinner and sit and talk with other moms. We had a great time! 🙂

Tuesday night, I went to Ladies Bible Study, held at our church, We are studying the book ” Changed Into His Image: God’s Plan For Transforming Your Life” by Jim Berg. This study is very deep, and is really affecting all of us who are working through it! We are taking it very slowly, it may take us three or four sessions to complete it. Our current session will end the beginning of December, and the next one will start probably sometime in January.

Meanwhile, this week the boys and I worked on some Schoolhouse Review Crew products.

We worked on VocabularySpellingCity.com, we worked on a couple of upcoming review products, including a set of books called “If You Were Me And Lived In . . .”, an Apologia product, “Exploring Creation Through Chemistry and Physics”, and “French essentials”

In addition, “The Artist” has spent time each day adding to the story he is writing on the computer, “The Batman” has spent considerable time immersed in his “Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego” computer game, and the twins have been working on learning their song for the next time the Sunshine Kids Choir performs. Also, “The Artist” has a part in the upcoming Christmas drama which will be put on by our teens at our church, so he has been practicing hard on his scene, since he has to go to play practice beginning this Saturday.

Thursday, we went to homeschool parkday with a group of homeschoolers here in our area. Thursdays have now become definite slowcooker days, which will be even more essential in a few weeks when “The Batman”, “The Artist” and I begin piano lessons again, finally. Which reminds me, we got a nice piano bench to use with our keyboard this week from a fellow freecycler!

I would once again encourage you, no matter what part of the country you live in, to check out and participate in your local freecycle group! It helps keep things out of landfills, it allows you to bless others with things you no longer need or want, and you can get things (for free) that others no longer need or want, but which are still perfectly good!

I received an order for hand-crafted Christmas cards from my wonderful hairstylist, and I’ve also been planning my ministry cards for this week.

So, it’s been a full week! I wonder what next week will bring! 🙂

If you’d like to join the “Weekly-Wrap Up” postings, check out the guidelines here. I hope to see you there! 🙂

As always, I would love to have you join me on all of “My Journeys Through Life”. Please enter your email information into the “sign me up” button at the top of the blog, and please, go to our Facebook page here and “Like” it. Never miss another update! 🙂

Homeschooling? Want to “Try Before You Buy?”

I am coming to the end of my very first year as a member of the Schoolhouse Review Crew team, and I have loved every second of it! It has been very interesting, being allowed to thoroughly test out all kinds of educational things with my children, as well as a few things that we were given to review that were just for us moms! My boys, “The Batman”, “The Artist”, “Mr. Loquacious” and “The Puzzler” have enjoyed this past year as well (mostly, anyway!), and have been able to give a good deal of their own input as to what was good, or not so good, about different products. Even my husband got into the act a couple of times, like when we reviewed a math program with “The Artist” which they both liked enough that my husband had me go ahead and purchase the rest of the grades we would need!

Why am I telling you this now? Well, I’m SO glad you asked that question!

The Schoolhouse Review Crew will be taking applications for the 2014 Review year from October 24 – November 8!

Are you a homeschool blogger?
Are you a curriculum junkie?
Do you enjoy writing reviews?

Then you might be perfect for the Crew!

Some requirements for being a part of the Crew include the following:

First of all you must be a homeschool mom or dad. You don’t have to homeschool all of your children, but you must homeschool at least one.

You must be willing to use the review products for about six weeks in your homeschool, before writing your review. Review periods have deadlines and requirements for the reviews. You must be willing to follow these requirements. No, that doesn’t mean you must write a positive review. But it does mean that there are certain elements that are required. And the deadlines are firm. If you are often late for deadlines, the Crew is probably not for you.

You must have a blog on which to publish your reviews, and be sure you have an active blog with a following. By active blog, I mean that you should be blogging regularly, at least weekly, about your family and homeschool (in addition to your reviews). Your blog should have followers — RSS feed or email subscribers, as well as in social media. The Crew does not accept brand new bloggers who just set up their blogs for the purposes of applying to the team.

Are you using social media to promote your blog? Activity on at least one social media platform is a requirement to serve on the Crew. Which one is up to you — Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest or Google Plus are the options. You will need to be willing to promote your reviews there and post a widget or plug-in publicly on your blog, indicating how many followers you have in social media.

You must be willing to check into the Crew’s Review Management forum. This is where information is disseminated to the team. The leadership does everything possible to make things easy for us, outside of writing the actual review, but you need to be willing to participate by checking in almost daily.

Sample reviews are helpful. If you’ve never written a review on your blog, go ahead and write one for curriculum you are currently using in your homeschool. This will help the leaders see how you approach writing reviews.

Why should you want to be a part?

Our Crew of over 250 review bloggers has been serving the homeschool community for more than 5 years. As a respected review team, we take this job very seriously and will insist you do as well. The leadership provides an incredible amount of assistance to help us be the best bloggers, homeschool parents, and of course, reviewers we can be. They provide a mentoring program for new members, a social media networking group, many blog and social media tutorials, and lots of incredible opportunities for our team, including blog carnivals, the opportunity to guest post on the Crew blog, and the blessing of some incredible friendships.

Click here to read about how being on the Crew has specifically blessed ten different families, including mine! You will see each of our perspectives on being a crew member, and perhaps something that one of us has said will strike a chord for you! After reading what we have to say, consider applying to join us, I think it’s a huge blessing, and maybe it will be for you, too! 🙂

How can you apply?
After making sure you meet all of the requirements, if you believe you would to an asset to the Schoolhouse Review Crew and wish to join us, please click over to the Schoolhouse Review Crew blog to apply.

Come be a part of The Old Schoolhouse family!

I hope to see you join us for the 2014 year with the Crew!

As always, I would love it if you joined me on all of “my Journeys Through Life”! Just enter your email information into the “sign me up” button at the top of the blog, and please, go “like” my Facebook fan page, too! 🙂

VocabularySpellingCity . . . A T.O.S. Review

Do you want a value packed, full of fun online language arts program for your homeschoolers? Well, the VocabularySpellingCity Premium Membership might just be what you are looking for.

When I first looked at this program, in the process of deciding whether or not to request the review, my reaction was W.O.W., there is SO much available there, and this program is good for any students from kindergarten through 12th grade!

I have four boys, with very different learning abilities and styles, and VocabularySpellingCity is a site they are ALL enjoying.

My twins, “Mr. Loquacious” and “The Puzzler” are, as you know, still working on learning to read. They are getting better, but VocabularySpellingCity seems to be actually helping them to comprehend the words a little better, as well. I have them working with “Word Family” lists, which are available in weekly segments, along with a great number of other types of lists, which you are free to import into your account and use.

With my older boys, “The Batman” and “The Artist”, I decided to use (at this time) themed lists, such as “October – Harvest”, for example.

VocabularySpellingCity takes a word list and wrings everything it possibly can from it. By the time they are done, your children will know pretty much everything they can about the words on the list you have assigned them!

Here is the assignment section from one of “Mr. Loquacious’s” weeks . . .

Activity Completed On Time on Task Status Score Missed Words Total 37 min
Spelling TeachMe 10/22/2013 4:11 pm 1 min Complete

Test-N-Teach 10/22/2013 4:12 pm 2 mins Complete

Audio Word Match 10/22/2013 4:15 pm 1 min Complete

HangMouse 10/22/2013 4:16 pm 7 mins Complete

MatchIt Definitions 10/22/2013 4:23 pm 4 mins Complete

Sentence Unscramble 10/22/2013 4:27 pm 13 mins Complete

Spelling TestMe 10/22/2013 4:41 pm 1 min Complete 100 %

Vocabulary TestMe 10/22/2013 4:46 pm 2 mins Complete 75 % get, set

WordFind 10/22/2013 4:48 pm 5 mins Complete

Word Unscramble 10/22/2013 4:54 pm 1 min Complete

As you can see, even though he doesn’t HAVE to do everything in one day, he was having so much fun, he just kept going! I will admit, though, that after the first couple of weeks, I realized they were all doing one or two assigned activities and then just moving right over to playing the games, so I’ve switched things around somewhat and told them they have to do the assigned things first! 🙂

Some of the learning activities that can be assigned are pictured below:

The Word-O-Rama game . . .

Flash Card . . .

Letter Fall

Full disclosure, neither “Mr. Loquacious” or “The Puzzler” were very fond of “Letter Fall”, and asked me to change to something else on their assignments. They had a hard time with this activity, and the speed of it.

It is very easy though, to switch up the activities in an assignment. You are given a good size list of options, each one taking your chosen word list and teaching all sorts of things with it, from spelling, vocabulary (definitions, use it in a sentence, etc), there are word find activities, crosswords, just so many ideas that you can use to keep your kids interested long enough to really learn those words!

Here is a look at what you can offer to them as assignments . . .

Here are “The Batman” and “The Artist”, both working on their VocabularySpellingCity assignments . . .

And here are “Mr. Loquacious” and “The Puzzler”, working on theirs!

Watch this short video to learn more about VocabularySpellingCity Premium Membership . . .

Now, while you CAN get a free membership to VocabularySpellingCity, which would definitely give you a lot, including spelling lists, the parent page, printables and spelling tests, along with some other resources, I think the VocabularySpellingCity Premium Membership is a great deal. The cost is just $29.99 for an entire year, which covers up to five students.

Here, you can see a comparison checklist between the free membership and the premium checklist . . .

As you can see, there is SO much available when you go with the premium membership! This has for sure turned into one of those products that the boys will have included into their educational schedule for this year, because, as you probably already are aware, I feel strongly that whenever possible, education can, and should, be fun. This is fun. When I have boys actually asking if they can go again after their brothers have finished doing their time on VocabularySpellingCity, well then, I think we definitely have a winner, don’t you?

To find out what other Schoolhouse Review Crew members thought of VocabularySpellingCity, please click the graphic below!

As always, I would love it if you would join me on all of “My Journeys Through Life”! Please enter your email information in the “sign me up” button at the top of the blog, and also, do please go here, and “like” our Facebook page! Never miss another update! 🙂

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Filed under education, educational games, home education, homeschool products, homeschooling, Kids, Language Arts, Learn to Read, Reading, Schoolhouse Review Crew Post, special needs education, TOS Review, Ultimate Blog Challenge 2013, VocabularySpellingCity

Tagged as children, home education, homeschool product review, homeschool products, homeschooling, kids, Language Arts, Schoolhouse Review Crew, special needs, TOS Review, Ultimate Blog Challenge 2013, VocabularySpellingCity

October 18, 2013 · 8:59 am

Diary Of A Real Payne . . . A T.O.S. Review

OK, full disclosure here . . . when I saw the description of this novel from Barbour Publishing, I applied for the review because *I* wanted to read it! I did not CARE if my boys wanted it or not, I thought it looked like a fun read-aloud! So I was very pleased to be chosen for this one. 🙂

The book Diary Of A Real Payne Book 1: True Story written by Annie Tipton, is VERY entertaining!

Diary Of A Real Pain is written from the viewpoint of Emma Jean Payne (E.J. for short), a ten-year-old girl who dreams of leaving her small town Spooner, Wisconsin, so she can do BIG things when she grows up. She just KNOWS that small towns like Spooner are not where big things will ever happen, and that it is the “boringest” place there is.

The book goes back and forth between an entry in E.J.’s diary (which her mother thought would be a “good outlet” for her), and the story narration in the rest of each chapter. E.J. has big dreams, and they are regularly changing, as you’ll find out in both her diary entries and the continuation of the story within each chapter.

E.J.’s father is the pastor of the local church, and this novel has the Christian world view I prefer for my children to read whenever possible. Add to that the absolute hilarious-ness of E.J’s life, and all the trouble she finds herself getting into as a result of her extremely vivid imagination, and we had a winner for this particular read-aloud.

This story is about a girl, and I have, as you know, all boys, but they LOVED it! So many times, as I read from this book, one or another of my boys would suddenly exclaim “uh oh, I can see where THIS is going”, or “Oooh, she’s about to get herself into trouble again, isn’t she?”

E.J. zooms from career idea to career idea, and we get to have a front row seat as her imagination takes flight each time. Even when she, her little brother Isaac (or “the space invader”, according to E.J.”, and her friend Macie go door to door collecting for the school food drive, they decide to perform a mini circus at each home, complete with costumes. Of course, before long, we are reading E.J.’s account of their performance as if they are in a REAL circus!

As we read each chapter, the narrative goes immediately from what is actually happening right into E.J.’s imaginative account of what is happening in HER view, at least until something happens to bring her back to reality. And something ALWAYS does, too, like almost knocking down an entire store display while being a “famous female race-car driver”, for example.

Sometimes, E.J.’s imaginary interactions involve her nemesis, Coralee McCallister, the girl who is generally not very nice to her, and occasionally pulls a fast one to beat out E.J. at something (like deliberately making her nervous during the spelling bee, for instance)

We discover pretty quickly, as I said above, that E.J. believes nothing big ever can happen in Spooner, that she can never do the “big things” she is surely destined for. So, she imagines them, while waiting to grow up, move away, and then DO them.

When we got to chapter 14, though, something happened in the story that began to make E.J. realize this wasn’t necessarily true, that people can be part of doing “big things” anywhere, even in a boring little town like Spooner, Wisconsin. I’m not going to reveal to you what it is that causes her to realize this, but know one thing, although this book is juvenile fiction, when we got to chapter 14, it brought ME to tears.

Diary of a Real Payne Book 1: True Story by Annie Tipton is an EXCELLENT read-aloud. It is actually recommended for ages 8 – 12, but as we discovered, it was a fun experience for all of us. My boys were rolling with laughter, and even managed to learn a few things about how good their own life is, and how we never really know what others may be going through.

The novel Diary Of A Real Payne Book 1: True Story is 192 pages long, and is currently on sale for $4.49, with a regular price of $5.99. You may order it here.

We made the pleasant discovery at the end of the book that there is a second volume in the works, “Diary Of A Real Payne: Church Camp Chaos” which will be coming out in March of 2014. My kids and I are excited about that, as we really, really enjoyed this one!

In the mean-while, E.J. has her own Facebook page, where you can keep up with her “latest antics, diary entries, contests and more!”

To read what other Schoolhouse Review Crew Members thought of this book, please click below!

As always, I would love it if you join me on all of “My Journeys Through Life”! Just enter your email information at the “sign me up” button at the top of the page, and never miss an update again!

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Filed under Annie Tipton, Christian faith, Diary of a Real Payne, education, family, home education, homeschool products, Kids, read-alouds, Reading, Schoolhouse Review Crew Post, TOS Review, Ultimate Blog Challenge 2013

Tagged as Annie Tipton, children, Christian Faith, Diary of a Real Payne, home education, homeschool product review, homeschool products, homeschooling, kids, Pleasure Reading, Schoolhouse Review Crew, TOS Review, Ultimate Blog Challenge 2013

October 18, 2013 · 7:49 am

We’re FINALLY Back to Park Days Again!

Since I had surgery on BOTH of my feet in May of this year, the boys and I have not been able to attend the weekly home-school park days all summer. 😦 First, I couldn’t walk, or drive, then, I could walk only using a walker, then eventually a cane.

In the meanwhile, there had been a change in where the weekly park day would be held, so we’re at a new to us park. We like this park, and it’s a little easier and quicker for us to get to! 🙂

Happily, two weeks ago, the boys and I were finally able to go again, which we did for the very first time since before I had surgery back on May 15. I took my camera with me. And then, I forgot to take it out and actually USE it!

Last week, we didn’t attend. As you know, last Thursday we had company, friends who came in from Oklahoma to go to the International Balloon Fiesta.

So, yesterday, we were able to go to our home-school park day again, after another week off. It turns out though, that last Thursday, with the wind and rain in the area of the park, it pretty much didn’t happen anyway. THIS week, I remembered that I had my camera!

Here is the “The Batman”, waiting for a ball to be sent his way . . .

“The Puzzler”, on his way to join the game (and unfortunately, it’s the only shot I got of him, which is why it’s somewhat blurry) . . .

“Mr. Loquacious” was walking around, looking for “things to build stuff with” . . .

And “The Artist” was just walking back to where we were to get some water and a snack . . .

Meanwhile, *I* was sitting with a bunch of other moms . . .

. . . truly enjoying the time I get each week to interact with other homeschooling moms, while my kids spend time with other home-school kids, and the added bonus that they are out in the fresh air, playing, running around. We do not have a good yard to play in, or a park right by our house, so they don’t get this all that often, unless we can get to a park day.

It’s also great for me to be with other moms on a regular basis who “get it” when it comes to my special needs kids, who have varying disabilities, including developmental delays and mental retardation. 🙂

If you are achomeschooling family, I strongly encourage you to become involved in a local park day group. This group is a pretty good bunch, and my boys and I are quite happy to be part of it!

As always, I would love it if you join me on all of “My Journeys Through Life”! Just enter your email information at the “sign me up” button at the top of the page, and never miss an update again!

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Filed under 2013, ABQparkday.com, Albuquerque, education, exercise, family, health, home education, Home-school Group, Homeschool Park Day, homeschooling, Kids, moving, special needs education, Transitions, Ultimate Blog Challenge 2013

Tagged as ABQparkday.com, Albuquerque, children, family, health, home education, Home-school Park Day, homeschooling, kids, moving, new life, special needs, Transitions, Ultimate Blog Challenge 2013

Category Archives: education

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VocabularySpellingCity . . . A T.O.S. Review

Diary Of A Real Payne . . . A T.O.S. Review

We’re FINALLY Back to Park Days Again!

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