Tag Archives: kids

August 22, 2013 · 11:29 am

“A Trip to the Library” (In the Hands of a Child Lapbook Review for T.O.S.

I must confess, my kids and I have had previous (a long time ago) experience with the company In The Hands Of A Child“, and had even at one time, had a Super Membership that I purchased when attending a mega-curriculum fair back in Michigan. However, back then, I found many of the Project Packs to be too much for my kids, so we haven’t done any from In The Hands of a Child for quite some time. As you’ll see from my review, I was pleasantly surprised at how much better they did with a Project Pack from this company now than they did several years ago!

In The Hands Of A Child was created and is still run, by a pair of home-schooling moms. You can read about them here. Whenever possible, if I am buying materials for my home-schooling, I do prefer to support fellow home-schoolers, and this is a good one to support, for sure!

When given the list of products to choose from, I chose the Project Pack A Trip To The Library, because when we lived in Michigan, my kids loved going to the library, and even after being here in NM for a year now, we had not yet even found our local library branch, let alone gotten library cards, so I thought this would be a good incentive to get that off of the “to do” list!

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The Project Pack A Trip To The Library is written for students in grades K – 3, and is available right now for $5.00! The regular price is $10.00.

I received a download of this Project Pack, which is the format I prefer, as I can then use it for more than one of my children, and can also save it for use in later years.

When you think about A Trip To The Library, you may be just thinking about getting there, letting your kids choose some books,, a story-time hour if your kids are little, and going on home, but as your children will learn while doing this Project Pack, there is a lot of information about the library that they are capable of understanding.

From the website:

“With this unit study you will be able to teach your early elementary classroom about the library. Libraries have a lot of books, but they also have a lot of other information and resources. Teach your students about the types of libraries, common areas inside a library, library rules, how to find a book, librarians, book classification systems, the parts of a book, and more. Make your lesson planning easy with the Trip to the Library Curriculum from In the Hands of a Child. This pack includes a 5-day Planning Guide, Related Reading List, 11 Hands-On Activities PLUS 6 Fun Extension Activities, and a 7-page Research Guide to complete a project all about the library!”

You may even download a sample here.

I knew my children would enjoy doing this, because over the past few years as their skills have improved, we have added in more and more lap-booking materials to our educational experience. I am a scrap-booker/card maker, and my kids watch me, and like to take whatever materials I end up not using to create on their own, so it was fun for them to do the cutting, putting together, and laying things out in their file folder books we made.

Here are “The Puzzler”, “The Batman” & “Mr. Loquacious” gluing the definitions to their vocabulary words, which we then put together with brads from my scrap-booking stash . . .

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and here is “The Artist” working on his . . .

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We made quite a mess, with all of the cutting! I decided to just let it all fall to the floor and clean it up at the end of each session. This is just a SMALL part of the mess . . . it grew and grew!

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As I mentioned above, one of the main reasons I chose this particular Project Pack was to use it as an incentive to get moving on finding the library here in our new city, and get library cards. So, one day while we were in the middle of working on A Trip To The Library, since I had some errands to run that morning, we decided to just include a trip to OUR library, once I had searched it on Google so I could use the gps on my phone to get us there (as my husband is fond of saying, I am completely geographically challenged!).

Once we found that there was a branch of the Albuquerque/Bernalillo County Library fairly close to our home, we decided to go on our way home from the errands. What I planned as a QUICK stop turned into a couple of hours, but that was OK, the boys had fun, and we all have our new library cards now. 🙂

Here are the boys, signing their new library cards . . .

“The Batman”

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“The Artist”

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“Mr. Loquacious”

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“The Puzzler”

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All four of the boys working intently on their layouts . . .

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Here is part of the inside of a finished Project Pack . . .

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. . . and the other part of the inside is here . . .

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You can see in the first example above, the boys added the pictures of themselves signing their new library cards. We had also saved all of the little extra illustrations in the Project Pack print out, and they used them to decorate the empty spaces in their file folder books. In this case, it helped with covering the manufacturer’s printed material that was showing on the insides of the folders.

I took all four of their brand new library cards and scattered them onto the copier part of my printer to make a picture for the covers of their file folder books, and then used a cute font I have to make a title for them. This is how we decided it should look . . .

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And here are all four boys showing off their finished Project Packs!

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We did not need to purchase anything extra at all to do this, and you probably won’t, either. I always have a box of file folders on hand. For each file folder book, we took two file folders and folded each into the middle, making it gate-fold into the center. Then, we attached the two together with double-sided tape, which I also keep on hand for various projects. I could not find the brads I had bought at an office supply store the last time we did a lap-book, so I let them use the ones I had in my scrap-booking stash. Of course, we already had on hand pencils, glue sticks, colored pencils & a stapler, so we were good to go!

My kids and I think you should give Project Packs from In The Hands Of A Child a try. They really are a fun, hands on way to learn about a topic, and this company has a TON of topics for you to use! In The Hands Of A Child regularly offers free Project Packs here, so you can even try before you buy!

There is an ever-growing list of their units here, and it ranges from pre-school all the way through the 12th grade, in differing styles from lap-book Project Packs to Note-booking Packages.

Way back at the beginning of this review, I mentioned having had a Super Membership at one time. A Super Membership is a good value, in my opinion. It includes two free Project Packs each month that you are a member, plus 15% off all e-book lap-book units and $10.00 off of the price on custom ordered units. It’s a good deal!

There is a newsletter you can sign up for here, to receive the latest updates, money-saving deals and free tips.

In The Hands Of A Child also has their own blog which you may find helpful as a home-schooling parent.

I do recommend the company In The Hands Of A Child, and not just for home-schoolers, either! They make fine supplemental packages for kids in public or private school, as well as fun, hands-on educational projects for summer vacation or any time your kids would be interested in learning more about a given topic. But when it comes to home-schooling, you really could just about build a whole year curriculum from Project Packs written by In The Hands Of A Child! Take a look at their curriculum page, and just see if they don’t have pretty much any topic you (or your kids!) would like to cover, and you’ll see that learning doesn’t have to be drudgery. It can be fun, hands-on, and relatively inexpensive!

Now that my kids are better able to handle these projects, I absolutely plan to delve back into my stock-pile of downloaded Project Packs from many years ago. I think they will be much more able to do them now, and we do enjoy it when we can learn about a variety of topics in a hands-on, fun way! 🙂

My fellow crew members reviewed a variety of products from “In The Hands of a Child” . . . please click below to discover their thoughts!

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August 19, 2013 · 2:54 pm

Understanding Child Brain Development: Family Hope Center . . . A T.O.S. Review

As the parent of multiple children with special needs, I was interested in reviewing the DVD “Understanding Child Brain Development” from Family Hope Center by Matthew and Carol Newell, for the Schoolhouse Review Crew.

This DVD runs about two hours, and is a LOT to go through in one sitting, but you can watch it in sections by using the chapter menu, thereby managing to take breaks without needing to leave your DVD player on pause for any length of time.

This DVD is a recording of a live presentation given by Matthew and Carol Newell. I had some issues with the sound quality ( I needed to turn the sound up quite a bit on the TV in order to hear it clearly ), and was unable to read the visual aids they used, but with the DVD you’ll receive a link for an e-book with all of the slides in it for use while following along.

The Family Hope Center’s purpose (and their belief in the possibility) is to help special needs children and their parents to overcome and “correct” brain dysfunctions and disabilities. Both Matthew and Carol Newell are certified in Craniosacral and Myofascial Release Therapy. They have been trained to work with special needs children, and they also used these theories with their own daughter.

The first part of the program gives a TON of really good information about child brain development, and how different things affect it. Things like getting more time to crawl around, instead of being put mostly into walkers, bouncers, car seats, and cribs. They also talked about how much better it is for the development of the brain for babies to be put to sleep on their stomachs, which surprised me, as I’ve been hearing the phrase “BACK to sleep” for years now, referring to the need to put babies on their backs when putting them to bed. We are told on the DVD that sleeping on their stomachs helps the baby’s digestion, and also aids the baby in learning to creep and crawl, which, as I mentioned above, is important in aiding the brain development.

While I found all of the information on child brain development to be fascinating, and am in complete agreement with the idea of limiting TV, electronic games, etc . . ., and that children should spend much more time playing, eating more nutritious foods and drinking a whole lot more water than they generally do (the water thing is a constant battle with our kids!), I did have issues with some of the things recommended to help and treat children with developmental disabilities.

I felt that this was yet one more time of being criticized if, as parents, we have chosen to allow our children to be put on medications. I do believe that for many children, medications are definitely called for, and that their disabilities cannot simply be treated and cured with alternative methods. There were things that I have heard before, such as not using microwave ovens, not allowing the use of cell phones, etc . . . that I, personally, have never seen any real proof of their scientific value. Admittedly, I have a bias when it comes to cell phones, as our income comes from my husband’s job with a major cell phone company, but truly, I don’t believe the theories that cell phone use causes medical problems to have been even close to proven. Nonetheless, our children don’t have them. Not because we believe these theories, but because we don’t believe children need to HAVE cell phones! 🙂

I will say that my oldest child, who has fetal alcohol syndrome, was the main reason I was interested in reviewing this DVD. He was adopted at age two, and is developmentally delayed. He also has some mental retardation and is on the autism spectrum. I got the impression from the Family Hope Center that developmental disabilities can be “cured” with their treatments, and I simply don’t believe it to be true. I do believe that they give a lot of good information that parents can do on their own to help their child, in fact, a lot of the ideas were things we did way back when “The Batman” was much younger. I agree whole-heartedly that we should be working with our children to help them be all that they can be, and to progress as far as they can, however, at the same time, I know that even as my son has progressed much further than the “experts” told us he would when we adopted him, he is very unlikely to progress past a certain point, which is why we have been given legal guardianship over him that will never expire now that he is over the age of 18.

Even though I do have more trust in medical science than I do in alternative medical advice, I know many people who absolutely swear by alternative healthcare, even some who will ONLY use alternative methods. If you fall into that category, then I think this DVD may be something you will want, if you have a child with special needs. In fact, if you don’t have a child with special needs, and even if, like me, you don’t believe quite so firmly in alternative methods of healthcare, I think you’ll find all of the information on child brain development to be very informative and interesting.

If you would like to view the DVD “Understanding Child Brain Development”, you may order it by calling (610)397-1737, or you can order directly from the Institute for Excellence in Writing, for the cost of $19.00

Other Schoolhouse Review Crew Members also watched and reviewed this DVD. To read what they thought, please click the graphic below

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August 16, 2013 · 8:24 am

A Fun Way For My Struggling Readers To Learn: Reading Kingdom . . . A T.O.S. Review

I wasn’t sure how well the online program Reading Kingdom would go over with my twins “Mr. Loquacious” and “The Puzzler” when it came to us for review, but so far, they are really liking it!

Reading Kingdom is an online subscription program that is individualized to each student, so your child will not be competing with his or her siblings, rather, they will move along at their own pace and ability level.

While it is not as flashy and exciting as other educational games they have used, they are enjoying the process of moving along at their own pace. “Mr. Loquacious”, however, does have a strong competitive streak, and frequently tries to get me to tell him where his twin is in the program, most likely because “The Puzzler”, being more interested in reading, has, on his own, taught himself a lot of reading just by pushing himself and asking for help, even before we began this review. “Mr. Loquacious” would rather just be read to, and often pretends he cannot read.

Here are some of the things your child will see at different points in the Reading Kingdom program:

I really have always liked phonics based reading programs, but have come to agree with Reading Kingdom in believing that more than just phonics are needed. The American English language is not the easiest to learn, considering that so much of it has roots from so very many other languages! Add to that the fact that the phonics “rules” simply don’t always apply, and there are a significant number of words which cannot be “sounded out” using those phonics rules, well, it proves that phonics just isn’t enough for many people.

Reading is a NECESSARY skill, for anything one wants to do in life. Therefore, why not use whatever will help our children get there without the frustration often associated with using a solely phonics based program?

Here is a snippet of information from the Reading Kingdom website about their approach to learning to read:

“It’s because of these problems with phonics and whole language that schools across the nation show only 30% of children reading at a “proficient” level, while a staggering 35%-40%, across all socio-economic backgrounds, are failing to master this crucial skill (Source: US Dept. of Education) and those who are succeeding are taking longer to learn than they need to.”

My husband and I both grew up reading for pleasure. In fact, the first purchase we made together when we were getting married were bookcases, to hold our many books, after which, we also had to go through and cull out all of our duplicates! I mention this only to explain why it is so important to me that my children learn to read, not just foe educational purposes, but also for pure enjoyment.

When we first received our login information from the Reading Kingdom company, I got the boys all set up, and they were chomping at the bit to get going.

When a child first begins the program, there is an assessment phase, which helps the program decide where to place him/her. This program is completely customized to the individual student, beginning with the Skills Survey:

“This customization process begins right at the beginning with the Skills Survey. It assesses each student’s skills in reading and writing, and based on the results, the program places each child at the point that is just right for his or her skill level. This prevents students from becoming bored and wasting time learning something they already know or being frustrated by tasks that they are not yet ready for.”

Interestingly, considering that “The Puzzler” has actually pushed himself to read, while “Mr. Loquacious” has mostly resisted learning, the skills survey actually put “Mr. Loquacious” further along in the program. Upon further investigation, I discovered that this is because “The Puzzler” needed help with keyboarding skills, so the program started him in the “Letter Land” format. “Mr. Loquacious” was also placed in Letter Land, but progressed out of it rather quickly, while “The Puzzler” is at this point, 84% completed with this level. I’m fairly sure it’s mostly because “Mr. Puzzler” is developmentally much younger than his twin, so he isn’t quite as quick when it comes to these skills. “Mr. Loquacious” is currently in “Reading/Writing Level 1, with 14 % completed in this level.

By the way, there is another great thing about this program, the online (and emailed!) reports for me, the parent! You see, the program information states right away that other than helping the student get logged on, the parent/teacher is to stay hands off, and not help in any way, other than technological assistance. I like this aspect, and so do the boys, although at first, “Mr. Loquacious” did not, wanting me to tell him if he had the right answers before he would type them in. 🙂

According to the information from Reading Kingdom, their program is “the only system that teaches the following six skills. When children are taught all six skills, they easily master both reading and writing. By focusing on these skills, Reading Kingdom teaches children 4-10 years of age how to read and write at a third grade level. So teach a child to read today and give the gift that lasts a lifetime.”

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Reading Kingdom offers information on their site to help you decide if your child is ready for this program, with topics such as early readers, accelerated readers, and struggling readers.

To learn more about how Reading Kingdom is fundamentally different from other reading systems available today, you can download this very informative pdf

My twins are enjoying Reading Kingdom very much, and frequently ask to do it. In fact, “Mr. Loquacious” often asks to continue on after his official session is done! This is a win/win for me, since he, especially, doesn’t like to stick with one thing for very long.

If you’d like to check it out, there are tons of sample lessons here, including part one and part 2 of the skills survey. There are also a good number of other resources, including printable worksheets to help re-enforce what your child is learning.

Reading Kingdom is an online, subscription based program, which can be purchased for $19.99 per month. You can get the entire year at once, for $199.00, and additional students are $9.99 per month or $99.00 for the whole year.

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Furthermore, for those who truly cannot afford it, Reading Kingdom has a scholarship program! To apply, go here.

Other Schoolhouse Review Crew Members are using Reading Kingdom with their children as well . . . to find out what they think of this program, please click below.

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As always, I would love it if you follow my blog via email! Never miss an update by clicking on the “sign me up” button at the top of the page and entering your information. Hope to have you join me for all of my “Journeys Through Life”! 🙂

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August 9, 2013 · 10:14 am

Transitions Part 6: A 1700 Mile Adventure

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When we left off yesterday, my boys and I had just left Oklahoma City and headed toward Texas, where we would be spending one final night on the road. I was feeling pretty proud of myself, as I had never driven so far on my own before. I had been out west, as far as Phoenix and California, many years ago, but had gone by plane, never driving. I had honestly had my doubts about how well I would manage, and thought I would get lost, even with my GPS lady talking to me through my phone blue tooth, and my printed out directions from place to place. But so far, I had done well, even on the stretches where we had changed hotels, and thus changed directions!

My husband had warned me to put the AC on re-circulate for a while after crossing the Texas border, and he was RIGHT! I’ve never driven through cow country before, and the smell is very strong! We did enjoy looking at the scenery while going through the state though. I think Texas is where we saw a massive windmill farm. The boys thought that was pretty cool. They had been seeing lots of horse trailers on the freeway for a while, too, which was new to them.

At one point, we stopped for gas, and I took a picture of the sign for the sole purpose of posting it to Facebook, back to our friends in Port Huron, because when I left Port Huron, I paid nearly four dollars per gallon for my gas!

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We also took the opportunity to have everyone go to the bathroom. In the ladies bathroom, they had put up large sections of paper for travelers to write something about their trip. I added “moving from Pt. Huron MI to Albuquerque NM”

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Eventually, later than planned again, we reached our motel in Amarillo Texas. My husband had booked us into a Super 8, where we ended up with a surprising room! I got us checked in, and we went to the room we were directed to, but once I opened the door and went in, I was SURE they had us in the wrong room. I told the kids to stay put while I went back to the lobby to find out what was up. I asked the lady who checked us in if this was the room my husband booked us into, and she said yes, it was. Still concerned, because I honestly thought that perhaps after seeing that I had all the kids with me she had switched us to a bigger room without saying so, I asked how much they were charging me for this room. “$72.99”, she said. “Seriously?” I asked. “But it’s a suite!” She then told me that all of their rooms were like that, and that it was the only Super 8 in the country set up like this. So, if you ever need to stay in Amarillo Texas, go here!

When I texted my husband to tell him, he cracked up, because the only reason we were at that Super 8 was that the one he had stayed in when HE moved to Albuquerque the month previously was all booked up! 🙂

Here are all the boys relaxing in the living room of our little suite . . .

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The couch pulled out to a bed for the twins, so no using their inflatable sleeping bags that night!

Our eat-in kitchen area, where we chose to eat supper. Rather than going out, I ordered in a pizza for the boys and a salad for me . . .

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Here is the bedroom . . .

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Since we didn’t have to check out until 11:00 a.m., we didn’t! It was a comfortable room, and really, we needed to kill some time anyway. Our plan was to arrive at our new home AFTER my husband had gotten out of work that day, since I didn’t yet have keys to the house.

We left the Super 8 at around 11:00 a.m., and hit the road for New Mexico. According to my directions list from Google, which matched my GPS turn for turn, it would be about 5 hours (I think) to Albuquerque, so I figured it would work out just fine for getting there AFTER my husband was home. But then, as we crossed the state line into New Mexico, there it was. The big sign that said “you are now entering mountain time”. I had forgotten we would be going through one last time change, and it would suddenly be an hour earlier! So, I decided we needed to stop for lunch and kill another hour!

We got off the freeway at “Historic Santa Rosa NM”, where we saw signs saying we were on historic Route 66, and found this restaurant . . .

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From the Santa Rosa, NM website:

“Route 66 Restaurant

Offering the best in American and Mexican food, including home-made specialties like chile rellenos. Walking distance to major motels.
Historic Route 66
Contact: Patricia Velasquez
Phone: 472 9925”

We really enjoyed our experience there, the food was very good, and the children’s menu had Mexican dishes for my twins, which they liked. The place is decorated with historical Route 66 pictures and memorabilia, and my kids were snapping pictures of everything, using their camera functions on their electronic games. I would definitely go there again. It’s locally owned and operated, which is something my husband and I really like.

Stopping for lunch used up just the right amount of time, and we crossed into Albuquerque shortly after 4:00 p.m., right in the middle of big city (to me!) rush hour traffic. It scared me half to death! We had just moved from Port Huron, MI, a city of about 7 square miles in area, to Albuquerque, a city of about 187 square miles in area, and I had not had a lot of experience with this amount of traffic, at least not in a very long time. But, we made it to the house, getting there about 5 minutes before my husband. He took us in, and we saw our new home for the first time, filled with moving boxes that had finally arrived.

This is our front room, which is now a combination playroom, TV room, music room, library and craft room.

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The dining room area, just off the kitchen . . .

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Master bedroom . . .

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and master bath . . .

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As you can see, a lot of work was ahead, to get all of those boxes unpacked and put away! One of the first things on my agenda was to get the master bedroom in order, so we’d have a comfortable sanctuary at the end of each day . . .

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But before getting started on putting things to order, I just wanted to sit. This is me, in my new living room, after going around to look at all of my new home . . .

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Then, my husband took us out to supper at IHop, since we’d not had one in Port Huron, and the boys had never been. It was good, but I was tired, so once we got home again, I think it wasn’t too long before we all went to bed, because, as I said, there was a lot of work ahead! 🙂

I’ve come to the end of the 2013 Summer Blog Hop, and have enjoyed it, so much so that I think I’ll probably participate in the next blog hop hosted by the Review Crew, so stay tuned! And as always, to make it easier for you to stay tuned, I invite you to follow me via email, by clicking the “sign me up” button at the top of the page. I’d love to have you join me on my “journeys through life”!

and hop on over to the main blog post, to check out the other 89 bloggers participating, by clicking below . . .

Summer Blog Hop

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Filed under 1700 Mile Adventure, Albuquerque, Blog Hop Aug. 5 - 9, family, food, moving, Schoolhouse Review Crew Post, Transitions, Travel

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August 8, 2013 · 12:49 pm

Transitions Part 5: A 1700 Mile Adventure

lorim (2)

Well, we’ve come to Saturday, August 4, 2012 now, and have left Republic, MO to head toward Owasso, OK, where an old and dear friend of mine lives with his wife. When he found out we would be driving cross country to move to Albuquerque, he was wonderful enough to offer their hospitality to us, inviting the boys and me to come there for the night. Owasso is a suburb of Tulsa, OK, and I found it quite pretty during our drive to Chip and Sheila’s home.

We arrived to find Chip and Sheila preparing a wonderful cookout dinner. Chip was grilling burgers, while Sheila had made really good potato salad, and all sorts of other things I don’t remember, but it was all very good! They made us feel very welcome, and were very patient with my boys.

The boys especially loved the pool in the back yard, and because their swimwear was packed separately since we’d begun our trip at Torch Lake in northern MI, I was able to easily get it for them. They spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening in the pool.

Here, all four boys are playing in the water . . .

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Here is “The Puzzler” jumping in . . .

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and now, “Mr. Loquacious” taking the plunge as well!

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They had, as you can see, a great time!

When we noticed that there was something floating in the air, Chip and Sheila explained it was ash from the wild fires. Heading west, this was our first real experience with the wild-fire season, and they told us that we might not even be able to continue on the next day, as the freeway we were taking to Oklahoma City had been closed because of the fires, and could get closed again. I had seen signs on the freeway warning about not driving through smoke, something I’ve never seen on freeway signage before! All was well though, and we were able to continue on the next day.

We were so glad we got to stop and spend that time with our friends, I hadn’t seen Chip since his nephew’s wedding, about eight years ago, so it was great to see him and to meet his new wife. All to soon, it was time to get on the road for our next stop, Oklahoma City.

Here we are, getting our good-bye pictures!

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We continued on our adventure, stopping in Oklahoma City, OK. There, we were meeting up for lunch with a friend of mine from an online home-schooling group called CCU (Christ Centered Unschooling). This was exciting for me, we’d never met in person, and it’s just the second time for me to meet a friend from the list who lives far away. Deanna doesn’t actually live IN Oklahoma City, I believe she drove about 80 miles to meet us! We met at this really cool fast food place called City Bites. It was not your usual fast food place though. They had fabulous salads and subs, with lots of mix and match ingredients. My kids really loved the décor in the restaurant, it was all sort of a jungle theme! Here are some pictures . . .

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Here we all are, with my friend Deanna West Piercy, from CCU. You can get to know her at one of HER blogs, Tea With Dee. She actually has a few different blogs, I imagine they can be found through Tea With Dee. 🙂

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It was so much fun to spend this time at lunch with my friend, and I’m very glad we made the stop.

Eventually, it was time for City Bites to close for the day, so it was time to hit the road again. We said our good-byes, and headed toward Texas, where we would spend our final night on the road. I’ll tell you about that, and about our arrival to our new home, tomorrow, in my last post for this year’s Summer Blog Hop, so be sure to come back!

And as always, if you sign up to follow by email using the “sign me up” button at the top of the blog, you’ll never miss another post! I’d love to have you join me on my journeys!

Hop on over to the main Summer Blog Hop post to see what 89 other bloggers are talking about! You can go through the topics and find things to inspire, to learn from, or just fun things to enjoy!

Summer Blog Hop

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Filed under Albuquerque, Blog Hop Aug. 5 - 9, Christian faith, family, Kids, Transitions, Travel

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August 7, 2013 · 8:53 am

Almanzo Wilder: Life Before Laura . . .a T.O.S. Review

I was really pleased to have the chance to review the DVD Almanzo Wilder: Life Before Laura, as I’ve been a long-time fan of Little House On The Prairie. I am old enough to have watched the television show every week when it was first broadcast, and now my children enjoy watching as well! My children and I are also going through all of the books as read alouds, and we began with Farmer Boy in preparation for this review.

This documentary is produced by Dean Butler and Legacy Documentaries, who portrayed Almanzo in the TV series, and has for nearly 30 years had an ongoing association with the series and the Laura Ingalls Wilder community.

From the website:

“ALMANZO WILDER: Life Before Laura” is an all-new documentary produced in partnership with the Almanzo and Laura Ingalls Wilder Association in Burke, NY. The program offers a unique look at Almanzo’s early life through original footage and re-creations shot on location at the Wilder Homestead, supported by visual and text excerpts from Farmer Boy”

This DVD documentary runs almost an hour, and is hosted by Dean Butler. Some of my kids were excited that we were going to sit down and watch it, although “The Batman” wanted to forgo this in favor of playing his Nintendo 3-DS. Mom prevailed, and we settled in one afternoon to view Almanzo Wilder: Life Before Laura.

It really didn’t take very long before even “The Batman” was enjoying it, because we had, as I said, prepared by reading Farmer Boy. The documentary is filled with re-enactments from the book, and my boys were quick to point them out, talking all throughout the program about each one as it was shown, and what they remembered from the book.

Three of my boys are very literal children, and the two younger ones, “Mr. Loquacious” and “The Puzzler” kept asking how come “Laura” didn’t look like Laura. I had to explain several times that this was not the TV show that they watch, but that it was a program telling us about the “real” Almanzo when he was a boy, and (briefly) the “real” Laura, when she first met Almanzo.

Being boys who love to eat, they loved all of the descriptions of food in the documentary, as they had loved them in the book. One of the narrators talked about that as well, saying that most likely, a lot of those descriptions were exaggerated by Laura in her writing. She and her family had been poor, while in comparison, Almanzo’s family would have been considered rich by her, most likely.

The boys were really interested to see that the incident in Farmer Boy, when the new teacher restored order in the school with a big whip, was also in the documentary. As Dean Butler commented during that portion, it may seem harsh to some readers, but it certainly was a time when young people were held accountable for their actions!

My children enjoyed hearing about Almanzo’s growing up years, his longing for a colt of his own, how he spent his days. The descriptions of barn chores and such made them realize they are not as overworked as they sometimes make out to be, LOL!

The documentary Almanzo Wilder: Life Before Laura is available for $21.95.

My boys and I absolutely recommend this DVD to you! It would be a good addition to home-schoolers studying American History in the mid-1800’s, or doing a unit on Laura Ingalls Wilder. It’s great for learning about how people lived during that time! Beyond that, it’s a good, wholesome, family DVD! I will not hesitate to let my children watch it without me, anytime they like. In this day and age, that’s kind of a rarity, and we have to be careful of what we let them view on their own. I would say that this DVD would be good for any age, beginning with children who are old enough to sit and listen to the book Farmer Boy being read to them.

All in all, we really enjoyed this documentary, and now the boys are ready to finish reading the book and move on to reading the rest of the series. I think you will enjoy it, too!

To read what other crew members thought, please click below . . .
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August 7, 2013 · 8:01 am

Transitions Part 4: A 1700 Mile Adventure

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Well, I should have mentioned this yesterday, but I didn’t even realize it until I was going to bed last night! Yesterday, August 6, 2013, my kids and I had officially been here in NM for a whole year! Honestly, it doesn’t seem like it’s been a whole year since we arrived! It’s been a year full of change, and has had its ups and downs. My husband and I have, between us, gone through three surgeries, we found a wonderful church family, my kids and I got booted out of the first home-school group we joined (which turned out to be a good thing, but I digress!). Our first winter here was the best winter I’ve ever been through, as you can guess, having come from Michigan. We really do like being here! So now, let’s get on with our journey from Michigan to New Mexico, with our day in St. Louis, MO!

We had a very nice sleep Thursday night, in our beautiful room that my cousin Anne had gotten for us, and woke ready to have a great day in St. Louis! After everyone was showered and dressed, we went to the very good breakfast that came with our room. I think the hotel lost money on the breakfast that my boys had that day, lol! Then, while waiting for Anne to arrive, we went ahead and got packed back up and put our belongings back into the minivan.

When Anne arrived, we piled into the minivan and headed to the St. Louis Arch . . .

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Which is part of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, and is a National Park.

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We parked on what I *think* I was told is a levee, right at the river, where we saw this riverboat cruise boat.

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Stretched across the area where we parked were many of these very heavy chains. You can see in the picture of the riverboat that they are used for mooring. The boys found them interesting, and were pretending to try to lift them (they were, of course, way too heavy!)

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So, we walked along the river front to a point where we could get to the Arch, which is really quite beautiful, as you can see in the picture higher up in this post. There are a TON of steps to climb to get to the Arch!

Here is “The Artist” stopping on the way up . . .

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and here am I, with “Mr. Loquacious”

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I’m going to stop right here and tell you, I was really nervous about this excursion! My improved health from my weight loss was still relatively new, and I worried over whether I would really be able to handle all of the steps, etc. Well, as you can see, I did! I was also able to get through all of the little turnstiles inside, as well as fit into the tiny little carriers that we went to the top in. Here are pictures of each of us inside the one they have set up for photos . . .

First, “The Artist” . . .

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“Mr. Loquacious” . . .

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“The Batman” . . .

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“The Puzzler” . . .

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And me!

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Now, you can see how small those things are, right? Now imagine all six of us, crammed into one for the ride to the top. A year previously, I would never have managed, not at 320 pounds. I also would have been quite miserable upon moving to Albuquerque, where we are almost a mile higher in elevation than we were in Pt. Huron. The weight loss journey is one I am so glad to have taken, for many reasons!

Anne went and got our tickets to go to the top of the Arch, and then we had a little over an hour before our scheduled ride, so we used that time to walk through as much of the museum as we could. We really enjoyed it!

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All of the boys in front of one of the exhibits . . .

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all the boys with Anne . . .

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Anne and me . . .

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one of the views through the windows at the top of the Arch . . .

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After we had finished at the Arch, we drove back over to the hotel to pick up Anne’s car, and then went to eat an early supper at a restaurant nearby, for BBQ. It was very good, I’d never had BBQ done the way they do it! I don’t recall the name of the restaurant, but it was right across the parking lot from the hotel, and we loved it!

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After our dinner, we said our good-byes. Anne headed off to her home, and we headed on to Republic, MO, where we spent the night at a motel and then the next morning, Saturday, we spent the morning visiting with another cousin, Anne’s brother Ed and his family. Unfortunately, I forgot to have my camera with me during that visit, so I have no pictures. 😦

From Republic, we headed toward Oklahoma, where we would be spending the night at the home of a long time dear friend of mine, which I will tell you about tomorrow, if you come back! 🙂

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Meanwhile, please, hop on over to the main crew post to see what the other Summer Blog Hop participants are up to!

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August 5, 2013 · 11:30 am

Transitions Part 2, A 1700 Mile Adventure!

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Hello, my blog reading friends! You may recall that back on July 10, 2013, I began a series of posts called “Transitions“, promising to continue the series a little later. Well, the continuation begins today, as part of the Review Crew’s Summer Blog Hop! I think you’ll find the Summer Blog Hop to be a fun ride, with 90 bloggers and 450 posts on a wide variety of topics. So, without further ado, let’s get on with the Hop! 🙂

If you went back and read the first Transitions post, you will recall that we had finally gotten our belongings loaded up, and were about to set off for our big move to Albuquerque, NM. And so we did, rather later in the day than we planned, after the delay of waiting for the moving truck to arrive until much later than expected. But, finally, we were ready to go, on the afternoon of July 30, 2012!

We headed west out of Port Huron, MI to Flint, MI, so we could make a brief (hahaha, as if brief visits and good-byes EVER happens in this family!) stop at my brother’s, to say good-bye to him, my sister-in-law, one of my nieces and her beautiful little girl.

Here is “The Batman” playing with my great-niece, Penny before we left to head on to another little side trip . . .

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And here are all of the boys and Penny together!

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From there, we headed to Northern Michigan, more specifically Rapid City and Bellaire, MI, to see my mother’s last surviving siblings, Aunt Marge and Uncle Jim, and their respective spouses, Uncle Leon and Aunt Ann. They are all elderly, and I wanted very much to see them before we moved so far away, so my husband made it workable for us. I’m so grateful to him for doing that for me . . .

With our late start, and then a longer stop than we planned in Flint, we didn’t get to our motel (The All Seasons Motel in Bellaire) until about 10:00 p.m., but they were ready for us, after my husband had called them to say we were delayed. It was a small, basic room, which was fine for us. We just needed a place to sleep, shower and change, as we spent most of our time there either with my aunts and uncles, or swimming, or roaming around the village of Alden, showing the kids some of the places we went to when I was younger.

“The Batman” and “The Artist, bedding down for the night . . .

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Mr. “Loquacious”, sound asleep . . .

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And the “Puzzler”, totally zonked out!

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Spending the morning at Torch Lake, in Rapid City MI . . .

“Mom! Are you SURE this water is warm enough?!” (Torch Lake is a spring fed lake, and cold when first going in, lol!

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They soon decided it was worth it, though!

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In Alden, MI wandering around before heading back over to see the aunts and uncles one final time before heading west . . .

This sign is right at the edge of the lake in the village of Alden . . .

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Torch Lake has been rated by National Geographic as the cleanest lake in America, and the third cleanest in the world!

One of the shops we like in Alden . . .

Carter’s Candles, I still have a Petoskey stone magnet from this store that my husband and I bought on our honeymoon 23 years ago!

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Love the new Alden sign posts!

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At this point, we’d checked out of the motel, and gone back to see my aunts and uncles one last time. Here are the boys with my Aunt Marge and Uncle Leon . . .

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And here is the only picture that came out of me with them, I look half asleep, lol!

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After saying good-bye one last time, we headed down the road to my Uncle Jim’s house to see him and his wife, my Aunt Ann, one final time . . .

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It was a difficult good-bye for me. As I said before, my Aunt Marge and my Uncle Jim are my mother’s last surviving siblings, and they and their spouses are all in their late seventies and eighties, so this was very likely my last time I will ever see them. It was very quiet in the car for a while after we left . . .

We then headed west, and as we were going through the area of Holland Michigan, I phoned my Aunt Carol, who lives there with her new husband. She is my Uncle Keith’s widow, and I so loved him, and her, so I was hoping we could meet up briefly. She didn’t answer her phone, but called me back shortly after we passed Holland. We turned back, and met her at a road-side farmer’s market.

Here are the boys, entertaining themselves while we wait for Carol to meet us . . .

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We followed her over to the beach on Lake Michigan, someplace we’d never been, which meant we’d now driven from the east coast of Michigan (Port Huron) to the west coast of Michigan!

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Here are the boys with my Aunt Carol . . .

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and here’s one with just me and my aunt!

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And now, we were truly leaving Michigan, on August 1, 2012, with our next stop being a quick night in a motel in Indiana. Stay tuned tomorrow for the next leg of the journey, because it starts out super FUN (see the sarcasm there, lol?)

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Hop on over to the main blog hop post, so you can check out all the other participating bloggers!

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June 30, 2013 · 10:14 am

Moving Beyond the Page . . . a TOS Review

During the past few weeks, my boys and I have had the pleasure of reviewing a “new to us” curriculum from Moving Beyond the Page.

Each reviewer from the Schoolhouse Review Crew was given two different unit studies, a language arts unit and either a social studies or science unit. One was a physical copy, and the other was an online unit study, with the necessary books being mailed to us.

My family received Unit 3, “American Heroes” (Language Arts), and “People Change the World” (Social Studies). These are both geared for ages 7 – 9, and are designed to work together, although any of the units sold by Moving Beyond the Page can also be stand alone products. In our case, the language arts unit was the one we received as an online unit, and the social studies unit was the physical copy mailed to us. This way, we would get a good look at how each works, and be able to tell you what we thought of each method.

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Here is a picture of what we received, for use with both units.

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As you can see, we received the printed copy of the social studies curriculum “People Change the World“, and the accompanying story books “The Starry Messenger” by Peter Sis and “Miss Rumphius” by Barbara Cooney. The Social Studies unit we received sells for $32.97 if you want the physical copy mailed to you, and $28.91 if you wish to purchase the online version. We also received a physical copy of the book “50 American Heroes” by Dennis Denenberg and Lorraine Roscoe. As I said before, we received the online version of the language arts unit, which sells for $ 27.88, while the physical copy sells for $$31.94.

The only big differences between the online version and the physical copy were that with the online version, the curriculum and worksheets are online, so I read the lessons on my tablet and then printed out whatever activity sheets were necessary for each lesson, whereas with the physical copy, all of that was in the printed curriculum book. Because of copyright issues, you cannot make copies of the activity sheets from the book, which is the one downside to the printed version. However, the one downside to the online version is that you have access for only three months. Now, each unit is designed to be finished within about three weeks, so of course, that does give you plenty of time to complete your unit, but personally, my whole goal in purchasing online, downloadable material, is so that it can be used again with younger siblings. With access being given only for a few months, it feels more as if it’s a rental than a purchase. At the same time, because the download version is licensed to a family, you may print out activity pages for each child doing the unit, while the printed version doesn’t permit that.

In our case, we do a LOT of things as a group, because I have special needs children. Between that, and the fact that I am STILL recovering from surgery, and mostly stuck on the couch with my feet on pillows, we did this as a group, and mostly orally, which is one way I tweak a lot of curriculum to fit the abilities of my children. When there was an activity page that could be printed out that they were able to handle, that’s what we did.

Each day, my boys would gather around in the family room and listen while I read to them from the lessons. I read the story books out loud to them as well. Although most of the actual activities were too much for them, we WERE able to go through them orally, as a group, which led to lots of good discussions, and questions. In fact, pretty much every day when their dad got home from work, all of the boys went on their own and told him all about what they had learned, and talked about that day while doing these units. 🙂

Here are all of my boys working on an assignment . . .

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In this assignment, they were matching contractions to the words they were made from, and then writing sentences that went with what they had learned that day, with each sentence containing one contraction from the list on their activity page. Off to the side, you can see a stack of drawings. They had each drawn three pictures of inventions or discoveries they felt had changed the world, an assignment from that day’s social studies lesson. Not surprisingly, each and every one of them chose television as one of the inventions! 🙂

From the website:

“All children can benefit from our unique approach to education. This is especially true for hands-on, creative, and gifted learners. A traditional or classical approach will often leave these children bored and uninspired.”

Now, my children are not considered “gifted” children, but even so, they did get quite a lot out of both of these units. I was actually very surprised, frankly, because I wasn’t sure at all that even with major tweaking (which I often need to do with purchased curriculum), that they would be able to handle it. But, I am very pleased to tell you that even with a curriculum that states right up front that it is at least in part geared to “gifted” students, if you take the time to do it in a different way, your special needs children can learn from this, too. My children learned more in-depth about several people (Harriet Tubman, Galileo, etc) than they might have otherwise, BECAUSE we did these units orally, and because I was stuck on the couch and couldn’t do much of anything else, we had the time to devote to their questions, and their discussions. My children were interested and eager each day to get to these units, which makes me happy, because as most of you already know, I am a firm believer that there is no reason at all that learning cannot, or should not, be enjoyable, if that is at all possible. My boys enjoyed this, so I enjoyed it, too.

To read what my fellow crew mates thought of this and other units from Moving Beyond the Page, please click the graphic below!

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June 23, 2013 · 10:27 am

Baker Publishing Group, a Review of The Adventures of Lily Lapp, for the Schoolhouse Review Crew

At least in part because I’m currently recovering from surgery on both of my feet, and (mostly) stuck on the couch with my feet elevated, I was very glad to be chosen for this review. Also, to be honest, I have always enjoyed reading Amish fiction, and this is the first time for me to be reading Amish fiction centered around a child.

Baker Publishing Group has thus far published two of the expected four books in a series called The Adventures of Lily Lapp, and we received both of them to read and review! Book one is titled “Life with Lily“,

and book two is titled “A New Home for Lily“.

These books are geared toward children aged 8 – 12, and you might think they are written for girls, but don’t let either of those things stop you! As most of you know, I have no girls, I have four boys. Every one of my boys came drifting out to the living room, as I lay on the couch, feet propped on pillows, to hear me read these charming stories out loud,

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and every one of my boys sat on the floor while I was reading, and did the coloring pages and word searches that go with each book, and can be downloaded from here.

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Here are some of the finished pages . . .

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The books in this series are a combination of the real life childhood memories of Mary Ann Kinsinger, who was raised Old Order Amish but chose to leave as an adult with her husband, and the best selling writing of Suzanne Woods Fisher. Mary Ann Kinsinger now writes the popular blog A Joyful Chaos, while Suzanne Woods Fisher, author of several Amish novels which include the Lancaster County Secrets series and The Keeper, is the host of the internet radio show Amish Wisdom.

We have very much enjoyed reading both of these books! It was so funny, one of my boys, “Mr. Loquacious” was constantly saying “uh oh”, at different times in the book, because he KNEW that whatever Lily, or one of her younger brothers, was about to get up to was going to get them into trouble. 🙂

My boys were consistent throughout the book in pointing out things like “you say that all the time, mom”, when one of Lily’s parents would give them a bit of a talking to about something. While the Amish don’t necessarily believe EXACTLY the same in all ways as we do regarding matters of faith, there were many areas where my kids spotted right away that it was the same, such as their belief that it wasn’t God honoring to celebrate Halloween, for example.

In “Life with Lily” (you can read an excerpt here), we meet five-year old Lily, who lives in upstate New York and who is learning to deal with lots of new things. She gets a new baby brother (although she really would like to have a sister!), she begins going to school for the first time, she has to learn to deal with having a girl at school who is pretty mean to her, and to others. She also loses her much-loved teacher, after she (the teacher) is badly injured in an accident, and then she and the other students must deal with a new, mean teacher. Because of the way the new teacher treats the students, she is not asked back, and the students end up home-schooling the following year while waiting to find a new teacher for their school. Lily also turns six during this time.

My boys were surprised to find out in the story that Amish children generally go to school only through the eight grade. A lot of other things surprised them, like having no electricity, no cars, etc. They kept saying it was “the olden days”, and having to be reminded that it really wasn’t, that the Amish live this way now.

Toward the end of book one, “Life with Lily“, Lily has yet another difficult thing to deal with, her family decides to move to another Amish community in Pennsylvania. Now Lily has to watch many of their belongings be auctioned off before the big move, which struck a chord with me, and with my boys, remembering less than a year ago when my husband’s job caused us to have to move 1700 miles from everything and everyone we’d ever known. My boys pointed out that it was like when I was sorting through deciding what to put into our moving sale, how hard that was.

In book two, “A New Home for Lily” (an excerpt is available here), we see the family move into their new home, a place Lily really, really dislikes. She doesn’t like the color of the house, or the kitchen counter. She learns that different Amish communities have different rules about dress (Lily’s mother must make all new clothes for them, and new head coverings for both herself and Lily), about technology (here, they are not allowed to have the refrigerator (which is not electric) kept in the kitchen, so they must put theirs on the porch. And Lily discovers that no matter where you go, there will still be disagreeable people to deal with, when she meets yet another mean girl in school.

This book carries us all the way through when Lily is promoted to the fourth grade. In this school, she once again has a teacher she can love, and makes new friends. She and her brothers do continue to get into mischief, though, and she also gains yet another baby brother.

I very much enjoy the writing in these books, it is so descriptive! A favorite sentence is toward the end of the second book, “A New Home for Lily” . . .

“The sun went down and darkness crept over the land like a big velvety blanket that was coming to tuck everything in for the night”

These stories are just full of descriptive writing like that!

There are two additional books planned for this series, “A Big Year for Lily” (read an excerpt here), due to be released in July, 2013, and in September 2013, book four, “A Surprise for Lily“, for which there is no excerpt available as yet.

I have already had to promise my kids that we’ll order the next two books, so that they can find out what else happens to Lily, and her brothers Joseph, Dannie and Paul! 🙂

The books are available for purchase at the cost of $12.99, which is a very fair price. These are not little, thin picture books. “Life with Lily” has 280 pages, and 39 short, easy to read chapters. “A New Home for Lily” is 266 pages, with 36 chapters. In both books, each chapter can stand alone as a self-contained story from Mary Ann Kinsinger’s childhood.

To read more reviews of The Adventures of Lily Lapp, please click below!

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