The Adventures of Bear

We Choose Virtues - a TOS review

2012-01-16T10:00:00.002-06:00

We Choose Virtues is a character development tool that was created by Heather McMillan when...

"...she realized that she wanted to teach children how to change. Not just a momentary change of actions, but a more lasting change in their attitudes as well. Her observation is that children needed to be inspired by simple, positive and consistent instructions, and parents and teachers needed an effective language with which to communicate these instructions.

It was out of this necessity that Heather created the original list of virtues and their unforgettable catchphrases. She used them at home with their four children, taught them in her own Preschool classroom, introduced them to fellow teachers, parents, and professional counselors." - from website.

How it works is that you introduce the virtues, demonstrate them, memorize the catchphrases, then learn the antonyms, and capture teachable moments in which the virtue is or isn't being used. The parent or teacher cards actually have teaching tips and such on them. (see photo)

I haven't used those, but we did receive a Teacher's handbook PDF that gave us some tips.

We received the brand new Virtue Clues from We Choose Virtues. These are handy little cards in full color, which feature the Virtue Kids, their names, the Virtue catchphrase and antonyms, and on the back, a "You can do it" challenge. The best part is that they come in a nice little plastic pouch, protecting them if you choose to carry them in your purse. Bear and I both delight in that little pouch! It has a Velcro closure that she adores due the butterfly sticker that's there to hide the back of the Velcro.

Bear loves the Virtue Kids! She has those cards out all the time to read them. She loves their rhyming names because they are cute (Cake Jake, Stop Sign Madeline, Hockey Stick Nick...). The names are cleverly thought up. Each name starts with the first letter of the virtue. Cake Jake = I am Content. Stop Sign Madeline = I am Self-controlled. No two virtues start with the same letter so the Virtue Kids' names are meant to help the children remember the virtues better. Worked for Bear. I thought it was clever and it earned the whole program bonus points from me.

Each card is a different color as well. This also helps with keeping the virtues straight. I love all the thought that has gone into this!

Another sound pedagogical component to the cards is that they not only define the virtue (I am Gentle. I speak quietly and touch softly.), but they provide antonyms or non-examples (I am NOT...rough, harsh, or loud, and I don't destroy things or hurt people!). When I took my teacher training years ago, I distinctly remember our social studies professor telling us that abstract ideas need to be defined with both examples and non-examples and that is just what We Choose Virtues has done. More bonus points!

We also received the Kids of VirtueVille Coloring Book. It is available on the We Choose Virtues website for $3.00 as a download only. In it are coloring pages of all the kids. I haven't printed it out, but it would be a nice go-along and I know Bear would love it.

To help us with our experience with the Virtue Clues, Heather sent us PDFs of 2 freebies (a family character assessment and the Kids Memory verses, Bible Heroes and Truths) that are always available as downloads from the store and the Teacher's handbook ($4.95 for the PDF download or $15.00 for the print copy). The Teacher's handbook made a huge difference in how we used the cards (before I came up with what we are doing now with the cards - see near the end of the post), but what I would most love to try are the parenting cards. Those have the activities and teachings to do for each virtue. I love the Virtue Clues for the reasons listed above, but while the Virtue Clues are fun, alone (without the rest of the We Choose Virtues products - specifically the teaching cards) they may not be enough to instill the virtues in my children. Of course, the Virtue Clues are MEANT to be used IN CONJUNCTION with the rest of the We Choose Virtues curriculum. Not having reviewed or used any of the other parts of the curriculum, I can't say whether the Virtue Clues are a necessary part of the curriculum, but we love them and have adapted them so they can be useful without the parenting cards. Have they changed the behaviors in my children? Not completely. I didn't expect them too, not when I still struggle with some of those virtues! However, they have made Bear more aware of what some virtues are and how she should act, or not act, for each virtue.

I am saving up for a light table for the children, so although I really, really want the parenting cards (I wonder how good the teaching tips and activities are?) and may purchase them in the future, I can't right now. Instead, I modified some resources I already had (Parenting with Scripture and the PDF Heather sent of the Memory verses, Bible Heroes and Truths) to make my Virtue Clues more useful for us. In case you are curious as to what exactly we do: We choose a virtue, read the pages from Parenting with Scripture that best fit, then memorize the memory verse from the PDF. I also read the story of whichever Bible hero is assigned to the virtue.

The Virtue Clues are $5.99 for 13 cards in a nice carrying pouch. They were shipped in a padded envelope too!

Read what others thought about We Choose Virtues here.

Disclaimer: I received these cards in exchange for this review. No other compensation was received. The opinions expressed are my own.

Counting while playing

2012-01-09T12:52:00.000-06:00

One of the play things in our yard are the ten stumps I salvaged from the neighbors when they had their tall pines removed last year.

They are great for displaying nature and leaving popcorn out for the birds.

And equally, or even more, great for leaping across.

I wrote numbers on them in sidewalk chalk...

..to help J-jo with number recognition as he counted the stumps on his journeys across them.

Once he has mastered 1-10, we'll write 11-20 on them, and then skip count the tens to 100.

We could write letters on them too, or sight words...when he gets to sight words.

linked to Math Monday.

Maestro Classics - The Story of Swan Lake

2012-01-08T20:27:00.002-06:00

The Story of Swan Lake from Maestro Classics has become a new favorite in the car these days. Bear and J-jo love hearing the story of the prince who falls in love with a swan princess. The story is interspersed with Tchaikovski's beautiful and enchanting music. I was very pleased with this CD and it makes for a wonderful addition to our homeschool for music appreciation. Although the CD is geared for ages 5+, my 2 and 4 year old enjoyed it tremendously.

Maestro Classics offers many more stories set to music. Visit Maestro Classics and listen to some of the music samples. Each CD comes with a 24 page activity guide with additional information and activities such as a biography of Tchaikovsky, information on acoustic and electric guitars, sheet music and words for a sing-along song, explanation of major and minor keys, puzzles and more.

The curriculum guides Maestro Classics offers (free) for each CD allows a parent to use each CD as a wonderful unit study if desired. I love that this is all there, even though we haven't used it yet. I love that when I am ready to do a more directed study of Tchaikovsky with the kids, I have a place to go for the information and activity ideas.

Maestro Classics offers their selections on CD ($16.98) or as downloadable MP3s ($9.98). You can also find Maestro Classics on Facebook and Twitter.

Disclaimer: As a member of the TOS Homeschool Crew I received a free copy of "The Story of Swan Lake" for giving my honest opinion of this product.

Fetching Jonas Blake

2012-01-08T18:05:00.002-06:00

I've always wanted to know an author and it just so happens that Bear's history and drama teacher this year at Master's Academy is a bona fide author! When I found out her young adult novel, Fetching Jonas Blake, had just been published, I asked if I could read it and she was kind enough to give me a copy in exchange for a review.

The story takes place during the Revolutionary War. Anne, her twin brother Tom, and their sister Betsy, are trying to maintain their Virginian farm on their own, as their mother has died and their father is ill. When Will Norrington comes trying to take their farm, Anne realizes that even though she is an independent young woman, she needs a man to protect what is theirs. She and her siblings embark on a journey to find Jonas Blake, the brave militia captain who once worked on their farm. Will Jonas want to help them, though?

I stayed up nights to read this. Margaret McKinney has written Fetching Jonas Blake in such an engaging style that I didn't want to put the book down. Not only that, but the story involves the use of flashbacks in every other chapter, which conveniently leave you hanging, desperate to read the following chapter to get to the next flashback to find out what happened. Fetching Jonas Blake has the perfect mix of wit and humor, with Betsy, the protagonist's sister providing a lot of comic relief with her attitude and behavior.

It's hard to find decent young adult literature that isn't about vampires or teens full of angst. This was a refreshing read and while it included romance, it was definitely G-rated. I'd recommend it for ages 12 up. I am eagerly awaiting her sequel, told from the point of view of Anne's sister Betsy.

Fetching Jonas Blake is available to purchase from Tate Publishing as a paperback ($16.99) or as an eBook download ($9.99).

You can also visit Margaret McKinney's website and read a sample chapter of the book or delight in some other writing she has done.

Montessori Monday

2012-01-08T14:48:00.000-06:00

We were blessed with some really good Montessori work periods last week. Here are some of the highlights.

Math:

J-jo worked on the number rods with me. We combined it with the counting cards I reviewed here, which he had chosen from the shelf. He was able to match the numeral to the numeral on each card (on the reverse of the cards, not shown in the photo).

Bear worked on the stamp game - dynamic subtraction. She can do these alone now.

Sensorial:

Bear enjoyed the pink tower and broad stair, creating her own extension.

And working on her favorite traditional extension as well.

They cooperated to return them to their spots, each carrying the next one in the correct order. I was impressed with J-jo's ability to do this without his sister telling him which block came next.

J-jo tried to put this away. I had left it out like this as an invitation. He got frustrated. It was too hard for him. Bear was going to do it, but she was working on her pink tower stuff and I couldn't help myself. I LOVE the knobbed cylinders.

J-jo likes the binomial cube. He can almost do it alone in the box.

Bear was up to the challenge of trying to complete the binomial and trinomial out of the box. Mission accomplished! First she practiced the trinomial in the box, because it had been a long time since she had last done this.

And on another day, to make sure she could still do it.

Linked to Montessori Monday.

S is for Sun

2012-01-06T20:15:00.001-06:00

I was feeling that J-jo had no direction in his days. He wandered aimlessly while Bear did some school work in the morning. Since she isn't doing much Montessori anymore, he isn't drawn to the shelves at all. Wanting to spend more time with him and knowing the shelves and Montessori material weren't going to allow that, I purchased the My Father's World Kindergarten curriculum to use with him. Obviously, he isn't ready to learn to read and though the MFW K curriculum does focus on that, it also focuses a lot on scripture and wonderful letter of the week themes that allow for a lot of learning about science and nature. So far, he is thriving with the structure and I feel a huge relief that everything is already planned out for me (though that hasn't stopped me from adding fun activities into the mix). I LOVE this curriculum and how it allows Bear and J-jo to combine school. We're still doing Montessori, but this focuses the morning before we move on to Montessori.

The first theme is S is for Sun.

We experienced walking in the dark and noticed how the sun helps us see so that we won't trip. We learned that Jesus is the light of the world and that he also helps us see and not trip.

We made raisins by placing grapes in the sun (Mommy often had to sneak them into the oven after baking to speed up the process as the winter sun isn't really hot enough to turn grapes into raisins.

We used a flashlight to represent the sun and used our globe to show how the earth rotating causes night and day and how night is really just a shadow.

We made a sundial and measured the passage of time with the sun. We were able to go outside the second day and realize that it was after 12 by looking at our sundial.

We read Frank Asch's Bear Shadow, which is a delightful little story of how Bear tries to get rid of his shadow. We went outside and noticed shadows, including our own, and we played shadow tag.

We made sunprints, using nature this time instead of buttons.

At the end of the week, I had Bear tell me what she remembered learning about the sun. I wrote it down for her and she cut a circle for a sun. She didn't want to put rays on it, even though her brother had for his sun craft.

Books we read:
Bear Shadow

Sun Up, Sun Down,

What Makes a Shadow

Who likes the Sun?

The Sun is Always Shining Somewhere (very simple. Great for a 2 year old)

The sound /s/ work

The curriculum is laid out so that each day you work on one sheet with your student and work through some activities for that week's sound. I really like how it is set up. It is very Montessori-inspired, except for the fact that the student isn't choosing. However, there are sound sorts, textured letters to trace,and tactile tracing activities. I don't do all the sheets with J-jo. The handwriting practice, for example, gets given to Bear.

On the math day, in which he chooses numbers and writes them and then draws that many items in a box, I have him choose a number stamp and stamp his number. He then used a sun stamp this week to stamp out the correct number of suns for the number he had chosen. I help with this and count with him as he stamps the suns.

Day 5 has the child write and draw pictures for the letter sound, so instead I have printed out all the ABC sheets from 1+1+1=1 (see photo) for him to color. I give him the letter we are working on for the week.

They make a badge every week to go with the Bible lesson and theme of the week. The sun also addressed abab patterns with the rays. The sheet is glued on is printed from Mama Jenn, who also is doing the MFW K curriculum. There was cutting work (which he did!) and gluing work - see the sheet to the right of the sun. He also did a sticker activity that I made up, which I explain below.

I bought a barely-used used Deluxe package and it came with the cuisenaire rods and the Cuisenaire Rods Alphabet Book, which I think is great for spatial development, but is a little too tricky for J-jo. Bear usually does the pages...sometimes.

Here's a sound sort type of activity. J-jo is to put the token on the pictures that begin with the letter sound. He isn't quite ready for this. It's hit and miss - some days he gets them all right and other days all wrong.

The same thing happens with the sound sorts. He's really not in the Sensitive period for word sorts. I keep trying them in the hopes of catching him when he hits that period.

His favorite activity was finding the "s" stickers and placing them on paper suns and then gluing the suns on a red paper.

We sing the phonetic alphabet song using the flashcards everyday. With the three letters, he is asked to give me the /s/ as I mix up the letters. The smaller cards are pictures of things that start with /s/. He'll do sound sorts with them later, after more letters have been introduced.

He used wiki sticks to make the letter s.

Here's how he finds his trays set up when he comes to the school room.

Our week went so smoothly and we had some great Montessori work periods too. However, J-jo is starting to resist naps (I don't wanna!) though he still sleeps 2 hours once I put him down. His naps are also starting to run too close to bedtime so he can't fall asleep at his regular (early) bedtime. It looks like I will be having to drop his nap soon.

Next week we add our Classical Conversations readings and memory work into the mix and it will be interesting to see how I manage to do that!

linked to Weekly Wrap up, Preschool Corner and 5K too, and Tot School

REAL Homeschool Spanish - a TOS review

2012-01-04T22:55:00.000-06:00

I was fortunate to try out another Spanish curriculum. This one is called R.E.A.L Homeschool Spanish and I was duly impressed by its organization. The book is really well laid out.

R.E.A.L is an acronym for relax, enjoy, aspire, learn Spanish. The program is designed for the whole family to learn together. It is geared toward grades K-8, but according to the website a high school supplement will be available soon.

The entire beginning section of the Teacher book includes tips and ideas of how to use the curriculum. The guide states if there are "35 Vocabulary clusters, and approximately 32-38 ‘school year’ weeks, some highschoolers might be able to comfortably work through the material in one school year...A preschooler and or early elementary school child, could spread the learning out over two and a half to three years." There is a lot to cover in this R.E.A.L Homeschool Spanish, but there is no rush to get through it. A curriculum planning guide is included to help you spread the material out as best fits your family.

The 35 vocabulary clusters include: greetings, colors, numbers, telling time, food, family, the body, clothes and weather, places, days of the week, transportation, sports, animals, and more. Grammar and verbs are infused within each unit.

The activity book has a lot of written activities, for which Bear isn't ready, so we simply skipped them; but at least I know I have these to go back to when she is older.

The audio is clear and the speaker is a native Spanish speaker so the accent is authentic. I did find some echo in some of the dialogues. I didn't end up using the audio because I can speak Spanish and it was more fun to use puppets to act out the dialogues.

There are SO many ideas for ways to proceed with the lesson and introduce the vocabulary. It isn't scripted. You can choose which activities will work for your family. A page or two of ideas follows each unit. Activities vary for different aged students. Puppet shows, board games like Candyland but using the vocabulary cards to play, using magazines to find pictures that represent the vocabulary and way, way more.

I like this curriculum so far, but find it challenging to use it off the computer. I will likely end up printing most of the pages so I can highlight and mark the activities I want to do with the kids. If I had had to purchase my own copy, I would have opted buy the print version.

R.E.A.L. Homeschool Spanish is available as a bundle that includes book, activity book, answer book, and audio files. A download version is available for $49.95 without the daily curriculum guide and $59.95 with the curriculum guide. A print version is $89.99 w/o curriculum guide and $99.95 with the guide.

Visit the Crew blog to see what other TOS crew members thought of REAL Homeschool Spanish.

Disclaimer: I received this product in exchange for a review. This is my honest opinion. No additional compensations were given.

Bear's room featured on Oh Dee Doh

2012-01-04T16:05:00.000-06:00

Bear's room has been featured at Oh Dee Doh! Check it out here.

Twelve Things for 2012

2012-01-03T21:51:00.000-06:00

A new year of course means resolutions. Here's a quick list of what I am hoping to work on this year.

1. Read 12 books for me. That's one a month and when I look at it that way, it seems extremely manageable.

2. Develop a meal plan that works for my family. I despise cooking. I never know what to cook and my kids are EXTREMELY picky. I want to make my life easier with a meal plan.

3. Limit my computer time and focus more on my family. I spend too much time looking for the "perfect" things to do with my kids instead of spending quality time with them just doing whatever they want to. I keep reminding myself that it is me they want, not the activity I've planned.

4. Do at least 12 of the things I have pinned on Pinterest. Looking forward to this!

5. Spend more time in nature. I used to hike a lot and haven't in years, so I plan on doing at least 2 hikes/nature walks per month. I'd obviously like more, but the point is to accomplish these twelve things, so I will start small.

6. Start a garden. I always say I have a black thumb, but Bear really wants to have a garden this year. Maybe she can turn my black thumb into a green one.

7. Take more field trips. I'd like to visit at least 6 museums/parks in our city that we haven't yet seen.

8. Learn to use Photoshop. I feel I take decent pictures of my children (not talking about the blog's photos), but would love the help of Photoshop to make them even better.

9.Try to sleep 8 hours a night. This means an earlier bedtime. This is REALLY hard for me. We'll see how I do. I used to be a morning person, but having kids has flip-flopped me into a night owl and it is rare I go to bed before midnight. I know that a lot of my impatience could be cured by more sleep.

10. Use my copy of Parenting With Scripture more. I love this book and need to get in the habit of using it more instead of losing my patience.

11. Not get sucked into letting my children watch Disney movies. So far, the few things they have watched have not helped their behavior at all. (Nemo tells his father he hates him and tonight Bear decided to try out that line on her dad, which led us to bring out Parenting With Scripture and have a long talk with her.) And on that note, although we love Frances books, the TV show is a no-go, as she uses the word hate in it as well and now J-jo loves to chant "Frances says Hate." What's with the word hate on TV? Don't they want kids to grow up LOVING others?

12. Review this list monthly, because what is the point of making it if I later forget about it?

I pray to fare better this year with my resolutions than I did last year. How many of you have made resolutions? Feel free to leave your links in the comments if you have blogged about your resolutions.

Montessori Monday

2011-12-18T20:37:00.001-06:00

It's been so long since I joined this linky...

Bear's Montessori work gets done when she is bored during free time or as a choice in replacement of certain workboxes (for example, she can opt out of Singapore, Miquon, or Rightstart - haha still looking for the right fit for us - and choose Montessori math instead). It's fun to see what she chooses now that it isn't our main curriculum. As I posted earlier, I just can't seem to keep up with the presentations for Bear with all the TOS reviews and feel out of my comfort zone as she approaches the elementary level. Even though, I would ideally love to continue with Elementary Montessori, I feel "safer" going to something a little more prescribed - and, of course, I can always (and most likely will) tweak it. Besides, the beauty of homeschooling is that we can choose what works best and gives us the least stress, parent or child!

Sensorial

Inspired by Discovery Days and Montessori Moments, Bear used the metal insets to make a gingerbread house and then proceeded to add the Holy family in it. There was a bit of a meltdown about not having placed the house high enough to place the wise men in front of baby Jesus, but she came up with her own solution that the wise men had already gone and had left their gifts instead.

She chose to do extensions with the broad stair and pink tower several times.

Language

All About Spelling. I am so glad I bought this curriculum. We LOVE it. Even Bear loves it. The letter tiles are like the moveable alphabet, but the program itself teaches spelling rules. I happen to be a naturally good speller and wouldn't know those rules. I also like how it teaches a child ALL the sounds a letter makes. For example, the letter a has the sounds /a/ like in cat, /ae/ like in cake, and also /aw/ like in water. The phonogram "ch" doesn't just include /ch/ like in church, but also /k/ like in school, and /sh/ like in, well, I can't think of one right now, but it does have a /sh/ sound too. I like that there is a script for me to follow, and how you can progress at your own pace. Even though it is structured and scripted, it has allowed Bear to be creative as she loves coming up with alternative phrases and sentences for dictation. (I get a small commission if you decide to purchase AAS through the above link or the one on the sidebar. Thank you if you decided to use it.)

Her favorite way to do the word lists, phrases and sentences is on the erasable lap board using alternate colors. She reversed her z in zero.so it looks wrong.

Math

She loves to choose the hundred board. She works on it in random order, although occasionally needs help doing so.

On another day, she went out of her way to try to find them in order.

She loves Dreambox and is already in the second grade level in the games. Here she is playing a maze game in which she has to complete certain tasks (like find mushrooms and escape from trolls) before exiting the maze. She only has a certain amount of moves to do this in.

Cultural

One morning I discovered all the president cards laid out in order on the floor.

She did an internal organs three part cards and a booklet (from Montessori Print Shop).

She still loves booklets. I just found a poinsettia one (thank you, Jenevra) and printed it out for this coming week, ~~totally forgetting to jot down the link. Sigh. If any one has seen it and can let me know the link in a comment; I would love to pass it on.~~

Bear found this work of matching the state cards to the state quarters. We'd done it together last year. It's fun when she rediscovers a work from the past and chooses it of her own volition.

Art

We did a lot of Homeschool Creations Gingerbread Baby printables just for fun and also the Five Senses Gingerbread man book that she's been doing since she was 2! She loves this every year. I posted more about it in my Tot School post.

She and J-jo had so much fun decorating this. We had saved all their Halloween candy to decorate the kit house I had purchased.

See other Montessori work at Living Montessori Now and One Hook Wonder.

Tot School

2011-12-17T22:20:00.000-06:00

J-jo is now 28 months and loves gluing and cutting. He uses his beginner scissors from Timberdoodle, but has started using real scissors, too! I debated purchasing the beginner scissors four months ago, but am very glad I did. They have helped strengthen J-jo's hands and he is now ready to use real scissors. If you have a toddler who has never tried to hold regular scissors, then I recommend them. They are confusing if you already have tried real scissors.

J-jo's still confusing a lot of shapes and colors. He can point them out if I ask for them, but he can't name them yet. However, he knows 90% of his letter sounds (naming them). This doesn't make sense to me, although he does watch a lot of Letter Factory and that could explain his letter sound knowledge. He also does letter activities and crafts in the nursery on Classical Conversation days. I need a good video for shapes and colors. Anyone know of any?

Here's what we've been doing:

Decorating a gingerbread house.

Scooping and pouring colored alphabet pasta.

Reading to himself. He loves to read.

His new favorite puzzle. It came with the MFW K package, which I found used (but it hadn't really been used) for a great price. I got MFW (My Father's World) K to combine Bear and J-jo. We'll see how much J-jo picks up. Bear is way too advanced for K language and math, but can benefit from Bible, character development, and the science topics. She loves crafts. This will be a more laid back, but structured school for us. Montessori is ending up advancing her WAY too fast. She gets concepts so quickly and we move on, but perhaps that isn't the best way. I don't want my baby graduating too early! I would rather see her happy, than have her burn out at age 6 on academics. And J-jo isn't getting enough attention from me because I am trying to keep up with Bear. I am really hoping MFW will help us. In the Fall, I will get MFW creation to Greeks to coincide with the Classical Conversations Cycle 1; however, I will modify it so it isn't too much work for Bear and I will continue K with J-jo and he can join us for the hands-on stuff and any read-alouds he wants.

Being silly.

A great, loved tray. (The alphabet pasta got switched out for red and green rice, which I was in the process of making.) Pour, transfer back into pitcher with the spoon, or pour back via the funnel.

The green and red rice.

Pouring through the funnel. He kept finishing the cycle and announcing "I do it again!"

We spent all of last week doing the Gingerbread printables from Homeschool Creations. I pick and choose. I didn't take photos. Below is a five senses gingerbread book we did.

I can touch my gingerbread baby (felt and foam pieces to touch).

I can smell my gingerbread baby (cloves, cinnamon, ginger).

I can see my gingerbread baby (bling, googly eyes).

I can hear my gingerbread baby (he's missing his bell).

I can taste my gingerbread baby (we took a "bite" by tearing the leg off).

Playing with the Rush Hour board - good logic puzzle as to how to fit them all back onto the board.

latches board. (Bear's Christmas present two years ago.)

Finding the pieces of his ABC puzzle in the rice.

See and Spell. A favorite of his.

We're also working on Truth in the Tinsel ornaments and Jesse Tree readings.

linked to Tot School and Montessori Monday.

World's Greatest Story - a TOS review

2011-12-14T14:51:00.002-06:00

I suspected we would really like World's Greatest Stories, and after listening to it, we loved it!

(excerpt from the website)

The current audio series consists of 23 stories on 6 CD's, each volume being about an hour long. We got to review Volume 1: The Prophets, which included the stories of The Blazing Furnace, The Handwriting on the Wall, Daniel in the Lion's Den (Bear's favorite), Elijah and the Prophets of Baal, and The Prophecy of Jonah. The text of these stories is taken directly from scriptures. The stories are superbly narrated, by actor George W. Sarris, with lots of expression and drama and put together with the sound effects, you really feel as if you are there. It has been a blessing to be able to listen to such exciting Bible stories in the car. J-jo (2) doesn't care for stories on "tape" yet, but Bear asks for our Prophets CD every time we get in the car.

World's Greatest Stories is available in NIV or KJV. Each volume is available as a CD or cassette tape as well. They cost $7.95 each and you can purchase them here.

Read what others had to say about World's Greatest Stories on the TOS crew blog.

Disclaimer: I received this product in exchange for a frank and honest review. The opinions expressed are my own and no other compensation was received.

Vintage Remedies - a TOS review

2011-12-12T10:30:00.000-06:00

I like to eat healthy and I want my children to know about eating real food, as opposed to highly processed ones. We have green smoothies nearly every day and juice quite a bit as well. We avoid processed foods and refined sugars and I am forever reading labels when faced with new products. We don't eat perfectly, but we try.

I was interested to hear about Vintage Remedies for Kids by Jessie Hawkins (the owner and CEO of Vintage Remedies, Inc.). I find its title does not do it justice as to what kind of book it is. Its a little gem of a book packed with information to teach children aged 2 to 6 all about wellness, from eating the right foods (and why) to staying healthy to taking care of the world.

It was beautifully packaged and came with a gift of The Kitchen Herbal too! What a nice gesture! I was confused at first, until I opened the brown package on the right and discovered the letter that explained the additional book. Then I was delighted:)

The 202 pages in the spiral bound book contain 18 lessons. Each lesson includes a parents section, a "read to me" section, additional comments, thinking it over questions, leading by example section, a featured project (often a recipe), and additional projects. Bear and I are truly enjoying reading through it. Even though I tell Bear (and J-jo) everyday why we eat what we eat and why we make the food decisions we make in our family, I think Bear sometimes feels she is the only one not allowed to eat candy or other such things. It's incredibly nice to have this book that re-iterates everything I've told her so that she knows there are other people out there who think like I do about food and healthy living.

J-jo helping make zucchini carrot muffins.

I love all the hands-on projects included. We haven't done many of the projects exactly as written, since the kids already participate a lot in cooking with me, making smoothies and juices, and making rainbows of food on their plates to make sure they are eating a wide variety of foods. The projects in Vintage Remedies for Kids are easy to follow, and simple enough for a 2 year old to assist. I love how the "read to me" sections do not talk down to the kids, but read in a nice conversational style with words that are easy to understand. It's great to see how well Bear has listened by asking her the Thinking it Over questions. She always surprises me with how much she remembers.

One of the projects was to make homemade pizza - we do this weekly already:)

There are no photographs or illustrations in the book; however, there are coloring pages available to download from their website if one needed something to keep a child focused during the "read to me" sections. I expected pages that would go along with the topics in the book, but they are just pictures of individual fruits and vegetables.

Vintage Remedies for Kids is $25 and can be purchased here.

Read other Vintage Remedies reviews (Vintage Remedies for Guys, Vintage Remedies for Girls, and Vintage Remedies for Kids) on the TOS blog.

Disclaimer: I was given this product free in exchange for an honest review. No other compensation was given.

Easy and Fast Project for Organizing our Week

2011-12-11T20:55:00.000-06:00

I found this idea via Pinterest. It's a cheap frame ($10 or $12) from Walmart for eight 4x6 photos. The original idea used nice scrapbook paper, but I found it a bit too busy. I looked for more subtle scrapbook paper at WM, but didn't like any of the available choices. Not wanting to wait until a trip to JoAnn's or Michaels to implement this super idea, I just stuck plain light blue construction paper behind the glass.

You write on the glass with whiteboard markers! I can erase and change things and now Bear knows exactly what is coming up in her week. I can color code too. I make a green star in green for the day we're on. Blue is for special days (it's not up in the photo, but we have Santa Lucia on Tuesday written in blue). The red is for reviews I have coming up:)

Scotch Laminator Sale

2011-12-09T11:05:00.000-06:00

If anyone is looking for a laminator, it is on sale on Amazon. This is the one I have and love. I use it a lot and got it last year when it was on sale. Just thought I'd pass on a good deal. (It is an affialiate link. Thank you if you use it.)

More Peg People for the Advent Wreath

2011-12-06T20:44:00.000-06:00

I just finished a blitz of painting and finished some more people for our advent spiral - the 3 wise men, Our Lady of Guadalupe, Juan Diego, Mary and Joseph, and my star boy for Santa Lucia day.

Not very happy with the crowns. I think I will buy gold shiny paper and start over (the crown part).

The side view photos are in case anyone wanted to paint their own and wanted more views.

Getting Ready for the Second Half of Classical Conversations Cycle 3

2011-12-05T21:49:00.000-06:00

Unless doing Classical Conversations or American History with your child, this post is very long and may not be of too much interest.

I need plans. I feel disorganized. I really just wanted to find an already made curriculum that fit for us, but haven't had any luck. Not much is geared for such a young audience that follows this specific Classical Conversation Cycle 3 timeline. I figure if I write my plans here, I can access them more quickly and from anywhere, and I can help anyone else with 4 to 6 year olds going through Classical Conversations. I didn't want that many hands-on activities anyway. We're not ready to do written narrations, or worksheets/lapbooks of any kind. We truly don't have enough time to do all I want to do and mostly, Bear retains exceptionally well when she hears stories of people and when she reads herself the books. Thus, many of the books listed are level 3 and 4 readers because Bear is already comfortably reading these and I am able to start transitioning her to reading for information. I still read these aloud to her, but often I find her rereading the stories to herself. We'll be going through Cycle 3 again when Bear is 7 and 10 so she will get many chances to go deeper with American History and use more literary works. We read plenty of good literature about early US history. I am just finding it much harder to find such works that are suitable for a 4 year old for more modern US history.

I started going through the library catalog and seeing which books on my list were available there. You'll see my note to myself (library) next to some books, but I haven't gone through all of them. Honestly, at this time, I feel just buying them, though it is spending money, would allow me to slip the books into a file folder system to allow me to be even more organized this second semester. I felt completely disorganized and not prepared all through the Fall. Anything that helps me be more organized is money well-spent. Also, the books would serve me three more times through the cycles as stepping stones to more challenging and meaty books. Still not completely decided.

January 9th Week 13: Tell Me about the 14th Amendment (week 12 was about the end of the Civil War so we've already read plenty about slavery. I want to focus more on life of the African Americans after the war and before the Civil Rights movement.)

read Rosetta, Rosetta, Sit by Me! and White Socks Only (library)
read Freedom Summer (library)

January 16th Week 14: Tell me about tycoons like Vanderbilt

read An Age of Extremes 1880 - 1917 (library - in adult department so may be just for me to read and then weave into stories for Bear)
inventions/age of industrialization: Eat My Dust! Henry Ford's First Race,
Listen Up! Alexander Graham Bell's Talking Machine, First Flight: The Story of Rome Tate and the Wright Brothers, Ben Franklin and the Magic Squares (all are readers)

January 23rd Week 15: Tell me about Theodore Roosevelt

read The Legend of the Teddy Bear
read You're on your way, Teddy Roosevelt (library)

January 30th Week 16 Tell me about immigrants coming to America

read The Long Way to a New Land and sequel The Long Way Westward
read If your Name was Changed at Ellis Island (library)

February 6th Week 17: Tell me about President Wilson (World War 1)
Not really seeing much for World War 1. The book I have is more of an after the war one about the Depression. If anyone has ideas, I'd appreciate it in a comment! Thanks.

read Dust for Dinner
print out the Cher Ami coloring book and do some of those pages.

February 13th Week 18: Tell me about Pearl Harbor (World War 2)
I will have to preview these books. I want to shelter Bear from the horror of war. I searched on Amazon for titles that seemed to talk about what happened in a gentle way. There's no way I can know for certain without reading them first. If anyone has read these and thinks I shouldn't read them to Bear, please let me know.

Always Remember Me
One Splendid Tree
One Thousand Paper Cranes
I will Come Back for You
(This last one seems quite appropriate as it is listed for ages 5 and up and the preview I could read seemed gentle.)

February 20th Week 19: Tell me about NATO
??? Mmmm. Communism for a 4 year old? Anyone?

February 27th Week 20: Tell Me about Brown v. Board of Education

read Rosa Parks book

I am Rosa Parks

The Story of Rosa Parks

A Picture Book of Rosa Parks

read about heroes of the Civil Rights Movement

Week 21: Tell me about U.S. Astronauts

read Moonwalk: The first trip to the moon

Week 22: Tell me about September 11, 2001

revisit the book The Man who Walked Between the Towers
Fireboat: The Heroic Adventures of the John J. Harvey
The Little Chapel That Stood

Week 23: Tell me the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution

some lesson plans on the constitution

Week 24: Tell me the Bill of Rights
Now exhausted from gathering all this information in one sitting. Plan on finding appropriate book about the branches of government and the passing of a bill to go with this week.

Next up...planning Science.

Advent

2011-11-30T21:08:00.000-06:00

We're using a mix of Tired, Need Sleep's ornaments and Feel Like Home blog's Jesse Tree PDF. The latter has a song and a verse to go with the ornament and scripture story of the day (He's got the whole world in his hands for Day 1, Jesus Loves Me for Day 2, Arky, Arky for Day 3 and so on). We love the addition of songs.

I started using Tired, Need Sleep's ornaments in 2009 when I didn't have a printer, so our ornaments are watercolors done by me, based on the other ornaments. I love that you could just print them out and have your child color them though.

We're also using Truth in the Tinsel - instant love. I got in on the Black Friday deal, but it is very much worth the full price (and that is not an affiliate link, although you can get one). I won't be photographing us doing this though, as it wouldn't be fair to Amanda to give away all her ornament crafts!

I also won an advent spiral last year from Nicole at One Hook Wonder. I was wondering what we would do with it, as I hadn't purchased the wooden stars to affix to the little dowel pieces, when the kids started playing with Santa Lucia and Saint Nicholas along the "path." This gave me the idea of making some wooden peg people for each day of December until Christmas.

I attempted to see if it might be doable with Bear. We had just read Merry Christmas, Strega Nona and Country Angels, so we made angel peg people. Bear's is the one with the smudged face. I had to salvage the eyes a bit :)

I was thinking we'd do people from the Nativity (Mary, Jospeh, shepherds, kings) and maybe some other saints who have feast days in December. I haven't made a list though, or even looked into it. It may indeed be a project that gets started this year and finished the next. Or perhaps, I'll make two peg people per year to give the kids on December 6th (Saint Nicholas' feast day). I haven't worked it all out, obviously.

A closer look at Saint Nick. I made him last year, after drooling over the expensive (and sold out) Ostheimer figure.

A closer look at Santa Lucia. I want to try to make a boy one (they wear tall conical star hats) this year for J-jo.

Do you have a link to your Advent activities you would like to share? Leave it in the comments. I love to get new ideas to add to our traditions.

We LOVE Artistic Pursuits - a TOS Review

2011-11-30T20:27:00.000-06:00

I feel SO blessed to have had the chance to review the ARTistic Pursuits curriculum! ARTistic Pursuits is a curriculum that spans preschool through 12th grade. We got to review ARTistic Pursuits book 1 geared for K-3. The link shows you sample pages of two of the lessons. You can preview lessons from each of the books.

Each of the k-3 books (there are 3) are $42.95. The books are bound with thick pages. The first book, the one we reviewed, covers lessons on What Artists Do, What Artists See, and Where We Find Art. Each lesson is 3 pages. The first page is an introduction to the theme. In lesson 1, Artists Compose, the introduction talks about how artists place things together to create something new. The text reads well and is written to the student. The second page of each lesson is for art appreciation. Photos of great art are found, with blurbs explaining a bit about it. In the case of lesson one, the blurb mentions the composition of the piece. There are also questions to ask the student (or for the student to read) to have him focus on certain things in the painting. I absolutely LOVE this. The third page of each lesson is the project for the student. The directions for the project are clear and easy to follow and includes photos of a student sample.

The first volume focuses on Ancient art. This will tie in perfectly with our Classical Conversations Cycle 1 next Fall. In the meanwhile, we have been working our way through the first 17 lessons, which are more about what artists do when they create art.

Bear loves this curriculum and so do I. I was right there drawing with her and was so absorbed, I forgot to take pictures:) I will be purchasing the other volumes after we finish this first one. It reminds me a lot of the Artists and Art lessons I do with Bear, but with ALL the work done for me already. I've come to the conclusion this year that I would rather pay money to have it done for me and use the extra time to be with my children.

You can purchase ARTistic Pursuits Level 1 for $42.95. ARTistic Pursuits also sells the artist supplies required by the curriculum (or you can find them at your nearest art store).

You can see what other TOS crew members thought of ARTistic Pursuits on the Crew Blog.

Disclaimer: I received ARTistic Pursuits Volume 1 in exchange for this honest review.

Christmas Montessori Practical Life Trays

2011-11-29T21:08:00.001-06:00

Christmas Trays:

I created these with J-jo (2) in mind. So far, only Bear (4) has gravitated toward them. J-jo thinks the mini presents are candy. And he squirreled away all the erasers from the second photo for his own purposes.

Color sorting presents (Bear NEVER wanted to sort as a 2 and 3 year old, so I should have expected J-jo to be the same).

Sorting the Christmas erasers. As stated above., these erasers are now elsewhere, getting better use. :)

Tweezing the candy (from a mini tree garland that I cut up) into the paint tray.

Bear loves the idea of candy (she hardly gets to eat it) and of course gravitated to this often since I've set it up.

Putting lollipop (also mini tree ornaments) into floral foam (Dollar Tree). Another favorite of Bear's. The only tray attempted by J-jo.

Necklace making tray. Yet to be used.

Pattern block Christmas mats from prekinders.com. She has other Christmas printables we may use.

That's all for now. I'm sure we will add to this. I dumped anything else Christmas related around the house into the bin I normally use for sensory bin for them to just use in play (things like red and green silvery pompoms and the extra candy and presents from the above trays).

Next week we'll be doing gingerbread related activities but I think I'll just leave these trays out until Christmas.

El Espanol Facil! Junior - a TOS Review

2011-11-28T10:35:00.004-06:00

It's hard to find a Spanish curriculum that is a good fit for our current situation. My husband speaks to the children in Spanish 99% of the time and they understand it all. The problem is that they speak to him 99% in English. My search for a curriculum is to find one that will encourage my children to speak more readily in Spanish. So far, El Espanol Facil, or the Easy Spanish, is helping, not to the point that they are now fluent with their father, but enough that they are interested in repeating in Spanish when prompted.

The Easy Spanish! Junior from Great Commission Languages has a good mix of written and fun, hands-on activities. The curriculum is based on Charlotte Mason and Dr. Jeanne Chall and their theories that language is learned by transferring your identity into the language. The lessons are short audio stories from a CD. You can follow along in the soft-covered textbook. Most lessons have a go-along worksheet, available to print out from the CD. The stories progress from easy to more challenging, and are a mix of Spanish sentences with some English responses, allowing you to figure out on your own what words mean. Each lesson track is followed by a vocabulary track and everything is spoken slowly enough to really hear how the words are and this is very helpful if you are a visual person and "see" the words in your head as you hear them.

Some of the fun things we've done have included a search for "cosas viejas o nuevas en la casa" (old or new things around the house), a search for "cosas grandes y pequenas," (big and small items), and a game of "escondidos" (hide and seek). We've also been filling out an All about Me booklet (in Spanish - also on said CD), which, at this level, is mostly just letting the child draw and then perhaps label with the Spanish words. Bear has been LOVING this curriculum. She asks for it when she doesn't see it in her boxes. One day, I forgot to tell her to draw her house for the All About Me component, but she found the sheet and completed it herself! That All About Me book sure is close to her heart.

One thing I have not liked with The Easy Spanish is the constant reference to the Ultimate Lap book Handbook - the use of lapbook components with this program is often listed as one of the possible activities. I think it would have been good to list this as a needed or optional resource near the front of the book, but it just started popping up in the activities and threw me a bit off, making me feel like I missed something. Also, I would love to pay just a bit more to have the lapbook components ready for you to print and cutout - like the viejo y nuevo flapbook. I don't particularly want to be looking for photos of old and new items to paste into the flapbook, but if, like at Homeschool Share, I could just print it out and then cut, glue and paste, life would be even easier!

The Easy Spanish Junior is a good curriculum for children 5 to 8 and is $69.95 at the Great Commission Languages website. I think a child as young as 3 could enjoy it. Great Commission Languages also has The Easy French, as well as Spanish and French resources, and curriculum for older children.

Disclaimer: I was provided with a copy of The Easy Spanish for review purposes only. I did not receive monetary compensation. The opinions expressed are my own. To read other reviews of The Easy Spanish or even of The Easy French, please visit the TOS blog.

Five in a Row - The Bee Tree

2011-11-26T23:21:00.000-06:00

We rowed the Bee Tree after our row of Mirette on the High Wire. The Bee Tree is a book by Patricia Polacco which tells the story of a little girl and her grandpa who chase the bees to their hive. Along the way, a myriad of people join in. It is a fun little story.

A lot of my craft ideas came from my Pinterest board.

Bee jars.

We each made one

We filled the bee jars with "pollen" (yellow pompoms) and later used them as math manipulatives to help with adding and subtracting.

I also created a game in which we rolled a die and had to collect the correct amount of pollen from the flower for our bee jar.

Two Teaching Mommies has a great Bee printable pack. We did a lot from it.

I altered this one a bit to fit J-jo. He loves to glue. Upper case and lower case matching. He is surprisingly extremely good at this, even without being able to tell me the letter sounds. (He does point to the correct letter sound when asked though.)

Roll and make a bee. Bear enjoyed this.

Spin and graph. Bear LOVED.

Count and clip. Too hard for J-jo alone and too easy for Bear.

Craft - make thumbprint bees.

And Do-A-Dot the letter Bb.

Of course, we also did most activities and discussions in the FIAR manual, but you'll need the book for those:) We used Homeschool Share for those resources. They included learning about Michigan and onomatopeia, to list our two favorites.

Here is the flapbook for onomatopoeia.

We did some work on the parts of bees too. Mostly in French. I found a lot of French resources for bees, surprisingly, and I even found a book, from my childhood, about bees on the shelf.

I threw in a couple of Montessori practical life items.

Tweezing pollen, or spooning it, or simply using your pincer grasp. Skill - one-to-one correspondence.

Tweezing bees - Dollar Tree beads, sharpie, wax liners from empty cereal box (parchment paper would work too) for the wings.

The best part was making our very own paper mache beehive!

Five in a Row - Mirette on the High Wire

2011-11-26T09:49:00.001-06:00

I am so behind in my Five in a Row posts. I haven't even taken the photos off my camera for a month! This is usually something I do weekly.

Mirette on the High Wire is a wonderful story of a little girl so determined to walk on the high wire after seeing Bellini do so. She tries over and over again until she is able to do it. I love the message to persevere.

We did a circus theme to go with the story.

I used resources from

Homeschool Share

All of a Kind Family (copywork sheet)

Homeschool Creations Circus Preschool Pack (I only used the prewriting skills section)

Enchanted Learning (the French circus book)

I unfortunately did not source the printable preschool pack shown in part below (Circus Snacks, Balloon Patterns). It came with a circus poem too. ~~If anyone stumbles across it (I've been looking for 30 minutes and am tired of it...sigh) I'd appreciate the link~~. edited: The pack came from Homeschool Share. Thank you, Jessica!

We made circus themed snacks.

Monkey face sandwich

Clown icecream

Played carnival games.

Ping pong ball into cups.

Knock down the tower.

Leaping through hoop of flames.

I even found a clown wig at WM after Halloween for $1.

You can see my pinterest board for more carnival and circus ideas.

Delightful Learning, as usual, was a wonderful source of inspiration.

Last Minute Thanksgiving Montessori Practical Life

2011-11-22T22:06:00.000-06:00

I opened a box looking for our Christmas tray material and found last year's Thanksgiving stuff.

Clothespin turkeys.

The yellow tray is a water transfer using interesting dishes instead of bowls. I wanted to use a baster to make it more turkey related, but ours has disappeared.

Button turkey which was inspired from Counting Coconuts.

And then I added this - stamp a turkey stamp and then color it. Bear and her friend made lots of drawings based on this work with the stamp.

I've been setting up our December trays and photographing them and should have them posted soon.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Setting up Workboxes

2011-11-21T22:26:00.001-06:00

November has been such a hard month for me. I've only been able to do the bare minimum in the evenings, feeling so drained, trying to keep up with teaching at Bear's two homeschool activities and the deadlines for my TOS crew reviews. I truly feel like I am drowning. I apologize for the lack of posts and the seemingly enormous amount of reviews!

We have rowed The Bee Tree (post to come) and Mirette on the High Wire (way back in October and I have yet to write the post!) and changed our schoolroom around to include workboxes. These have worked wonderfully for Bear and she is now eager to start school again each day. The big-girl desk (Daddy's hand me down) keeps J-jo from getting into her schoolwork too. We're still doing a lot of Montessori sensorial and practical life, especially with J-jo, and Montessori math but letting Bear roam free in the schoolroom to choose works was no longer working for us. I have cards that say sensorial, practical life, and Montessori math that go into the workboxes and when she gets to those boxes, then she gets free choice.

We tried workboxes in the summer and both felt frustrated, but I think it was due to the boxes I chose. Looking around the internet one night I saw Spell Outloud's post about Cassie's itso boxes for workboxes. I didn't want to go out and buy those and not have the system work once again, but I had my books upstairs organized in magazine folders. I emptied twelve of these, put the books back on the shelf, and took the magazine folders downstairs to the schoolroom. Before, we couldn't see at a glance what was in the box because we were using the Ikea Trofast boxes. Now, both of us can see what is coming next and being VISUAL we like that. It's amazing how sometimes a simple change makes such a huge difference.

What's usually in the box?
1) writing - she's working through the Zaner Bloser handwriting book right now
2) sensorial/practical life cards or vocabulary workbook
3) math - either the Singapore or Miquon workbook or the Montessori materials
Break
4) First Language Lessons (I actually read the lesson to her while the kids eat snack)
5) French lesson of some sort - usually tied to FIAR
6) Spanish lessons of some sort - reviewing Easy Spanish right now
Lunch
7) All About Spelling - this is once J-jo is down for his nap
8) read to Mommy and History read aloud by Mommy
9) practice piano
10) Computer time
11) usually the FIAR printables that are just for her - we do the reading portion of FIAR at breakfast with J-jo
12) Daily Geography
Outside play time

She doesn't usually complete all twelve boxes. We basically focus on boxes 1-4 and 7-9, anything else is extra and rotated around throughout the week.
Ideally I would have put AAS first thing, but I'm trying to focus a lot more on J-jo right now so I need Bear's first two or three activities to be ones she can do completely independently. Of course, now that I've made it so that I do have time to do "school" with J-jo, he wants nothing to do with it. LOL.

Top Trumps: The United States

2011-11-17T19:18:00.000-06:00

Since we're learning the 50 states and their capitals this year, I thought Top Trumps: The United States would be a fun game for us to try.

The game is similar to War (the card game) but you win cards by having the highest statistic for a category on the card. The first player decides on which stat to call (population, size, number of counties, distance from DC, admission to union). The person whose card has the highest stat wins the round and then decides which stat to call in the next round.

This is a game I can wholeheartedly recommend, especially if you have a stats loving person in your family. Even if you don't, you'll will find this game addicting. Playing it with my husband, we discovered that you really need to think about quite a few factors as you decide which stat to use on your card. Was Texas or Alaska already played? Yes. Okay, then maybe going with the stat for size would be good. Or is your card one of the first thirteen colonies? Then definitely call for the year of admission to the union. It was also interesting to see how large states sometimes have fewer counties than larger states. I know that seems like a fact we all take for granted as adults, but I think by playing this game, a child might come to that conclusion on his own, and what a neat discovery that could be.

The cards have beautiful photos, as well as a blurb of interesting information, to represent each state. For instance, did you know there is a circus museum in Wisconsin? Or that in Michigan, a person can never be more than 6 miles from a natural water source? Each card also has a picture of the flag, the State Seal, the State Flower, and the State bird. There is lots to be learned from these cards.

Of course, J-jo is still a bit young, and Bear plays without strategy, but we'll have fun bringing this highly portable game with us at Thanksgiving and Christmas family get-togethers to play with other adults and older children.

You can purchase Top Trumps: The Unites States at Timberdoodle for $7.99, earning 8 Doodle Dollars from your purchase. Timberdoodle has a great gift guide that lists all types of gifts for any time of the year. You can like Timberdoodle on Facebook too:)

Disclosure: I received Top Trumps: The United States in exchange for this review, but I have shared my unbiased, honest opinion of the cards.

Math Mammoth Light Blue Series Second Grade - a TOS review

2011-11-11T21:00:00.001-06:00

Math Mammoth offers complete math curriculum for grades 1 to 4. It is mastery-oriented curriculum that focuses on a topic at length before moving on. It focuses on conceptual understanding and mastery of mental math and provides lots of visual models. We were sent the download for the complete second grade curriculum. The download included both 2A and 2B, answer keys, tests, cumulative reviews, a worksheet maker, and Soft-Pak.

I am very pleased with Math Mammoth. The lessons are thorough and well explained. Each chapter includes links to free online games for extra (fun) practice. There are links to Math Mammoth videos as well, to use if extra tips are needed for a concept.

There is no need for a text book or teacher's manual, as each lesson begins with clear instructions and explanations, and sample worked problems. There are review lessons at the end of each chapter and I found that these were useful in knowing what Bear still needed to work on. We've been able to work on fact families (which included double digit numbers), doubling, halves, and are just starting on time to the minutes.

Bear isn't fond of worksheets and I sometimes write in answers for her (as seen above).

The exercises are challenging. It is an advanced curriculum, but I chose second grade because we already had a full first grade curriculum and Bear seemed to need more challenge. Math Mammoth is challenging. She is managing but needs a bit more scaffolding to ensure she is understanding. There are placement tests to help you choose the best level for your child (I just didn't see these until I was writing the review!) and if you still aren't sure, you can email Maria Miller, the author of Math Mammoth books, and she will help you with finding the right level.

The second grade curriculum focuses on memorizing the basic addition and subtraction facts with single-digit numbers, developing fluency with multidigit addition and subtraction, and place value with 3-digit numbers. Other topics studied are reading the clock to the five-minute intervals; measuring length, weight, and volume; shapes and a few simple geometry concepts; and money topics. (from the website) A wonderful thing about the Math Mammoth curriculum is that the money chapter is included in 5 currencies, making this a great curriculum for international families.

The Math Mammoth Complete Curriculum for second grade (the light blue series) is available as a download for $34.00. If you prefer a hard copy, you can purchase it for $53.40 at Rainbow Resource.

Math Mammoth also offers supplemental materials, like worksheets by grade or topic.

I received a free copy of the second grade Light Blue Series in order to write this review and have shared my honest opinion. If you would like to read more reviews please visit the TOS Homeschool Crew blog.

Five in a Row - Cranberry Thanksgiving

2011-11-09T22:19:00.001-06:00

We rowed this in October during the week of Canadian Thanksgiving because I was pretty sure I wouldn't manage to get the book from the library close to our Thanksgiving date. The kids love this book so much though that I ended up buying it on ebay to use as one of their Christmas presents.

Here are the activities we did.

Practical Life and Sensory:

Spooning cranberries (aka "feed the turkey")

Fall sensory bin

Fall/Thanksgiving Stereognostic bag - We took pairs of some of the items from the sensory bin, and also some Indian corn. One from each pair was lined up on the mat and the other were placed in a drawstring bag. J-jo or Bear picked one of the objects on the mat and then tried to find it from the objects in the drawstring bag, relying only on their sense of touch.

Leaf matching and discrimination (I had these from last year so I am not sure where they came from, maybe prekinders.com?).

It turned into a multiplication lesson. I was writing upside down so please excuse the funny 2's.

We had other Fall themed work out that I already wrote about here and here.

Geography:

New England states lapbook components from Homeschool share.
(New England States and also here and here)

Science:

Cranberries - We saw how cranberries are harvested in this photo tour and then Bear completed a flap book from Homeschool Share.

Starch - we sprayed laundry starch on cloth napkins and then I ironed them and we watched the starch stiffen the fabric. We did the discussion from the FIAR guide. I didn't have iodine so we couldn't test for starch in food, but we discussed starchy food and the food group of carbohydrates. I had Bear find me foods from the pantry and fridge that were from that food group.

Art:

How to draw a turkey (or here or here for a more realistic one)

Silhouettes - Bear did silhouettes for a project at Master's Academy of Fine Arts in September, so we just talked about that project and didn't bother doing another one. A good artist tie-in here would be Roy Henry Vickers. I love that Canadian artist. We also did silhouettes when Bear was younger.

Learning about cool colors and warm colors and comparing the same scene painted different palettes (in the illustrations). This could have been a great painting project too, but we ran out of time.

Leaf collages

History:

Wrote with a "quill" to experience how the pilgrims might have written letters.

Read the following of the go-along books from the book list from Blog She wrote.

Thanksgiving on Plymouth Plantation by Diane Stanley
The Thanksgiving Story by Alice Dalgliesh

...If you Sailed on the Mayflower by Ann McGovern
The Story of Squanto First Friend to the Pilgrims by Cathy Dubowski

Thanksgiving is for Giving Thanks by Margaret Sutherland
The Pilgrims of Plimouth by Marcia Sewall

Memories:
We drank cranberry juice and made cranberry wreaths (we glued them on with white glue) and of course the cranberry bread recipe from the book!

We also watched a retelling of the story on YouTube, which was similar but different, and lent itself well to discussion about the similarities and differences between the two. The actual story starts after a bit, not right at the beginning. The kids enjoyed it.

It was a great row!

Linked to Homeschool Creations' Preschool Corner and 5K too.

Calico Critters

2011-11-03T20:37:00.000-05:00

When I was growing up, my sister had a doll house called Best Friends Cottage. She had a rabbit family to go with it and furniture too. It was the thing we played with the most and she has since passed it down to her 2 year old daughter. I am not sure if the Best Friends cottage was made by the same company as Calico Critters; I couldn't find any information. However, when I received the Calico Critters Margaret and Halley's Shop Play Set, I couldn't help but reminisce about my childhood days playing with my sister's cottage as the bears I received were so similar to her family of rabbits.

Calico Critters are fuzzy little animals that you can dress and play with in one of the many Calico Critters houses. Beautiful, extravagant houses, like this one that I would love to live in myself!

The set we received came beautifully packaged in a box that looked like a little shop and it looked like we were peeking into the shop window at Margaret and Halley as they shopped for a new outfit. Just the packaging alone inspired play.

Bear hasn't played with them as much as J-jo, but she isn't interested right now in little things; she is in a baby doll stage. I think it would have helped Bear be more interested in them if we had more of them or a house for them. J-jo on the other hand is constantly asking me to change their outfits for them. He is in the stage of holding little items in his hands and carrying them around with him everywhere and Calico Critters are perfect for that. I think that because Margaret and Halley are a mother and a baby, he also relates to that relationship and you can often hear him making voices for the baby saying, "mama, hat" or "mama, toy."

The figures are well made and soft to the touch. The clothing is a bit difficult to put on and take off, especially on the mother bear, but nothing a parent or older child can't handle:) I can't believe people can actually sew that small! The dresses are very well made. Calico Critters toys are of very good quality. I definitely recommend them, especially if you are looking for a collection type toy. Calico Critters joins the ranks of Duplo and Playmobil as well constructed, durable toys for imaginative play that can be passed on to the next generation.

The set includes the Margaret and Halley dolls, 2 dresses, 2 mannequins, a hat, a handbag, a hand mirror, 2 headbands, a baby toy and a wall portrait. (There are many small parts that could be choking hazards so use your judgment and supervision if a child younger than three is playing.) You can find the Margaret and Halley set, as well as a large variety of different Calico Critters animals and accessories at Growing Tree Toys.

Disclaimer: I received a product from Growing Tree Toys to try out. These are my own personal opinions. I did not receive any monetary compensation from Growing Tree Toys to write this post.

The Person I Marry - a TOS review

2011-11-02T19:45:00.000-05:00

Even though Bear and J-jo are but 4 and 2, I already pray for their future spouses. I pray that both Bear and J-jo will seek spouses that have noble characters and that they will not be drawn to people that will lead them astray in their faith.

When I heard about The Person I Marry from Bower books, I was very interested. Here is a book that would teach them what qualities to look for to ensure a longlasting marriage. Upon receiving my electronic copy of the book, I was delighted and knew I would be purchasing the hardcover book for our family. The book is beautiful! The illustrations are lifelike oil paintings by award-winning artist Jan Bower and the text by Gary Bower is poetic and inspiring.

J-jo won't sit through it yet, but Bear does. Every time I read it to her, she admires the paintings of the children. She has chosen favorites already. As she gazes at the pictures, I know that she is also reading the fancy scripts of the traits on the pages, and internalizing the words. I love this book because it is telling my daughter (and later my son) exactly what I would want to tell them, but in a much better way. Moreover, if it is in a book, then Mommy must know what she is talking about, right? It validates what my husband and I tell them by being an "outside source."

The Person I Marry won the 2010 Book of the Year from the Christian Small Publisher Association. It is part of the Bright Future Series of books which include What do Heros Wear?, There’s a Party in Heaven, and The Jingle in My Pocket.

Watch this video to get a glimpse at the inside of the the book and to hear bits of the poetic text.
The Person I Marry from Bower Books on Vimeo.

The Person I Marry is available in hardcover from Bower Books for $11.99. You can get it autographed for free, just request it in checkout. Also, Bower Books offers free shipping on orders over $30.

Disclosure: I am a member of TOS and I was given this product free for review purposes only. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. To see what other members of the Crew thought of this product click here.

Ooka Island - a TOS review

2011-10-31T18:11:00.005-05:00

Bear is loving Ooka Island. She wants to play it everyday. What is Ooka Island?

From their website

"The Ooka Island Adventure is a downloadable hero-mission in 3D designed to teach young children how to read fluently and well. The Ooka Island Adventure combines the highly engaging components of a state-of-the-art virtual world with the scientifically proven OokaMethod that builds literacy skills.

Carefully embedded within the Ooka Island Adventure are dozens of interactive instructional activities that captivate the child and motivate them as they learn essential pre-reading, reading, spelling, and writing skills. After completing the Ooka Island Adventure, children will be on their way to reading fluently and well for life."

I like it too. The island map graphic is beautiful. Even my husband, who is VERY picky loves that map and the look of the games. I also love how their method of reading places so much emphasis on phonological awareness rather than on sight word recognition.

I don't prefer the avatar. I think it looks a bit distorted. Not to mention that Bear was extremely unhappy when we first started and her avatar got stuck looking a certain way (because of Mommy trying something). She was not able to change the avatar until she earned enough points to go to the Pencil Playground, part of Ooka Island's reward system. But I can look beyond this.

If you have a strong reader, Ooka Island Adventure will be too easy. It really is best for a child ready to learn to read. It is an impressive program and will train your Bear can read beyond the scope of the program which is for K-2nd grade. I actually contacted Ooka Island about why there was no way to skip levels or something and got a wonderful explanation from the representative, as well as an option to have the Ooka Compass turned on to assess her reading so she could at least skip the first books in the Popcorn Library. Here is the explanation that was sent.

In the Ooka Island Adventure there isn't a way to bypass the activities to higher levels as it's very important that the sequence of phonemic and phonetic activities (e.g. Cave of Sounds) are followed through so the child is strong and secure in the sound system. However, we do have an assessment tool, called the Ooka Compass, that will allow the child to skip books in the Popcorn Library to the appropriate reading level.... In the near future the ability to turn on this feature in the game will be available to all user accounts through the Ooka Lighthouse Dashboard. I'll turn on the Ooka Compass now and she'll be able to complete the assessment the next time she logs in.

Although Bear can read proficiently at a middle of third grade level, I found these games still helpful for enhancing listening skills. One such game involves listening to a series of sounds and clicking the screen when you hear the sound they asked for at the beginning of the series. Another is to listen to the segmented sounds of a word and click on the image of the word that was being segmented. Yet another game is to hear a sound and then pop the bubble with the correct representation (letters) for that sound. Ooka Island certainly trains a child's ear for reading.

The Cake Factory - one of Bear's favorite places where she gets to decorate cookies with the sound they call out.

I kept asking Bear why she liked Ooka Island so much and what made her want to play it all the time. She just gave me blank looks. When pressed to at least tell me her favorite part, she informed me it was finding the new book under the sea. They get to search with this crane like thing amongst things at the bottom of the sea and find the next reader. The readers get read to them (at least in the beginning) and I like that as they are read, questions are asked to get the child thinking about the text. The narrator asks them to look at the illustrations for clues and asks other reading comprehension questions. I like this; so, even though part of me wants to mute the computer so Bear can read it alone, I don't. I think Bear can learn a lot about the important aspect of questioning as you read from this part of Ooka Island. There are comprehension questions at the end of each reader and vocabulary questions as well. It really is a well-made program and I can tell a lot of thought went into the pedagogy of it.

If you are interested in Ooka Island for your beginning reader the family pricing is as follows:

Disclosure: I am a member of TOS and I was given this product free for review purposes only. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. To see what other members of the Crew thought of this product click here.

Five in a Row - Mirette on the High Wire - Geography

2011-10-30T19:41:00.000-05:00

We've been rowing Mirette on the High Wire this week.

It is a lovely book about a girl whose mom runs a boardinghouse in Paris. One day the great Bellini comes to stay and Mirette sees him walk on a clothesline in the yard. She becames entranced with the idea of walking the high wire and though Bellini at first won't teach her, she is not deterred and practices on her own. When Bellini sees her determination, he agrees to take her in as his pupil.

We haven't finished the row. We have some circus fun planned for the coming week, but I wanted to share a bit of it now, as it ties in to the Blog Hop that Leann of Montessori Tidbits is hosting.

The book takes place in Paris, France. So first, I printed out some pictures of Euros and French stamps, pulled out the Arc de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower from our collection of Toob things, and retrieved the French flag Bear made last week at her homeschool class (they were studying the French Revolution and how it affected the colonies) and put these items on a tray for our geography shelf.

I talked about France a bit...wishing I had remembered to also sign out Crepes by Suzette to go along with this row. We found France on the map. We remembered that Claude Monet was from France and we admired his paintings on our three-part cards. Our display from our waterlily art project is still up too.

Then I made omelets for lunch. We ate them with baguette.

And crepes for snack. I used my mother's recipe (I grew up on crepes, being French Canadian) but was sneaky and added spinach that I processed in the food processor to the batter. The kids have had plenty of omelets and crepes in the past, but Bear delighted in the fact that she was having a French lunch and snack.

Stay tuned later this week for the work done with this row.

Multiplication - skip counting and Montessori materials

2011-10-28T23:07:00.000-05:00

Bear does skip counting every week at Classical Conversations. They sing songs to memorize this. They skip count all the way to the 15's and then learn the squares and cubes. I decided to show Bear how what she was memorizing was related to some of our Montessori materials.

We took out our bead chains - the eights.

Next (not on the same day - actually weeks later), I took out the multiplication board (which I have had printed out from Montessori for Everyone for a year!) and the red pushpins. Bear caught on right away and even realized that she didn't need to push the pins in the board to find her answers; she could just sing them.

So this week, I introduced multiplication with the stamp game.

Here she is taking 46 three times. She finds the answers by skip counting - she came up with doing it that way on her own. In the above example she sang 6,12, 18 and then traded ten out. Then she skip counted the 4 tens - 4, 8, 12 and had to trade. This was her last question of the day but before it I had presented how to do multiplication with trading. She can do multiplication with these concrete materials, but has no idea how to follow the algorithm on paper, nor do I expect her to for a few years.

Linked to Montessori Monday at Living Montessori Now.

Fall Montessori Work

2011-10-24T21:34:00.000-05:00

Here's what has been on our shelves the past couple of weeks for practical life and sensorial.

Sorting leaves

Tweezing spiders.

This evolved into tweezing spiders onto a pencil stuck in styrofoam

Beads on a pipecleaner.

Transferring acorns with tongs.

A Fall sensory box with all the extra Fall manipulatives that weren't out. I placed a sorting tray next to it and tweezers and tongs and two little jugs for pouring the erasers if wanted.

From last year (inspired by My Montessori Journey) - a leaf button snake. Just cut a small slit into those silk leaves.

J-jo found his homemade toys from when he was still under two. Look at that concentration!

Instead of pompoms (although I do have Fall colored ones) I gave him acorns to push into the hole.

And then I challenged him to use tongs!

Linked to Montessori Mondays at One Hook Wonder and Living Montessori Now.

Learning to Read - overcoming challenges

2011-10-22T22:23:00.000-05:00

There's a lot of talk about Dwyer in the Montessori circles. Unfortunately, I didn't find out about her until after Bear had already learned to read. Many people have been emailing me recently, asking me how I taught Bear to read and what advice can I give for problem x or y. After learning all her letter sounds (see this post as I am doing exactly the same thing with J-jo as I did with Bear) she began recognizing words she saw frequently like cat and dog and many others. But we did hit a snag when she started to need to blend words she hadn't seen frequently (ie those she hadn't memorized). She could tell me instantly what a word was when I segmented it, but could not hear the word when she segmented a word herself. I continued to model segmenting and then going faster and faster until I could hear the word. It also helped to use words with letter sounds that were more continuous - like m, and n, and l (as opposed to d and t which are clipped) to practice blending. Eventually, she got it. It didn't take long. We all just had to be patient.

If your child is struggling with blending, Reading Rockets has some great games to play. Another thing that helped was to use trap door readers that I got from Walk Beside Me.

Do you have any additional tips for helping a child blend?

Funny and Heartwarming Books

2011-10-22T21:13:00.000-05:00

Limelight Larry and The Three Billy Goats Fluff are two Tiger Tales books we are enjoying reading these days.

In Limelight Larry, a vain peacock wants to star solo in his book, but keeps getting joined by more and more friends. Initially upset by their presence, Larry finally realizes that company is a pretty good thing.

While I found Limelight Larry amusing and enjoyed the illustrations - especially the full page spread of Larry Peacock - I loved The Three Billy Goats Fluff. Considering how often I've had to reread The Three Billy Goats Fluff, I'd say it's a favorite of the kids too.

The Three Billy Goats Fluff is a fractured fairytale telling the story of how the three billy goats fluff befriend the troll. I love this story. It is up there with Fox in the Dark and The Best Pet Ever as my Tiger Tales All Time Favorites. I love how the notes from the troll rhyme, how the mother comes up with an ingenious plan to quiet the trip-trapping hooves, and how the illustrator used bright, cheerful colors. I love reading the troll parts in a big scary voice:)

What funny or heartwarming book have you read to your child lately?

Disclaimer: I received these books from Tiger Tales Books in exchange for a review. The opinions expressed are my own.

Learning to Read - first the letter sounds

2011-10-21T06:36:00.001-05:00

J-jo (26 months) is working his way through the letter sounds. Although I love Dwyer's method of teaching reading, I decided to still teach him the symbols to go with the sounds as I did with Bear. I am a visual learner, Bear is a visual/auditory learner, and just in case J-jo is a visual learner, I am showing him the letters. Dwyer would focus just on the I-Spy games without the symbols. I have grouped the letters and we do activities to go with a group (of 4 or 5) per week. When we reach z, I will present him the phonograms (ee, ai, etc). That way he will still be exposed to all the sounds of the language the way Dwyer and Gettman emphasize.

First, I show him a sandpaper letter (let's say m) and give him the first period lesson for it. "This is the picture of the sound /m/ (letter sound, not name) Can you say /m/? This is /m/" According to Reading Reflex (which is how I was trained to teach reading prior to finding out about Montessori and Dwyer), I really should say "This represents the sound /m/" EACH time, but it is really cumbersome to do so.

We play "I Spy something that starts with (insert letter sound)" with the objects from our alphabet box for the letter just introduced.

I will introduce the additional letters from the group for the week either at that time if his attention span hasn't depleted, or later in the day, or the following day. Once he has had the first period lesson for all the 4 letters, we play "Swat the sound." This is really just the second period lesson, "show me the (letter sound)." However, to make it more fun and to use the fly swatter we purchased way back to do fly swatter painting, I have him swat the sandpaper letter.

Then we will do a sort together. I give him an object and he places it with the right beginning sound. He can be successful with this if I only give him two letters and two objects for each letter. I finished the one below for him so I could take a picture lol.

He's not at the third period yet. Perhaps he knows, but he won't tell me what the letter sound is when I point to a letter and ask, "What sound is this?" Sometimes he will, but whether he will or not is not consistent.

I also leave out his beginning sounds alphabet puzzle - only the letters from the current group - for him to work on, as he is really into puzzles right now.

Educating the Wholehearted Child - a TOS review

2011-10-17T08:50:00.000-05:00

Educating the Wholehearted Child, by Clay and Sally Clarkson, is a fabulous book. It lays out a model of education that starts out with the firm foundation of a Christian home and then focuses a lot on living books.

The WholeHearted Learning model is a discipleship-based, home-centered, whole-book approach to Christian home education that integrates real books, real life, and real relationships in a life-giving expression of God’s biblical design for the family. Educating the WholeHearted Child p. 115

I wish I had had Educating the Wholehearted Child to read two years ago, when we first started our homeschooling journey. It is so full of information and advice that I don't even know where to begin in writing this review. One important aspect of the book is that it doesn't just focus on the academic aspect of school, but addresses raising children as a whole. It has helped me be more visionary with regards to the children, looking to the future, as opposed to just looking ahead for the current year.

It was a bit overwhelming to dive into the book when I first received it. The layout was distracting to me - the sidebars are as full of information and great quotes and scriptures as the main text. To help myself focus, I started off by reading all the little boxes labeled "In Our Home" that are scattered throughout the book. These are blurbs in which the Clarksons give us a bit of insight into how homeschooling worked in their home and they were very inspiring. Being inspired, and having gained focus, I proceeded to start at the beginning and started reading.

One of my desires as a homeschooler is for my children to love God and to seek a relationship with Him. The base of the Clarksons' Wholehearted educational model is discipleship studies and this is well explained in the book. I loved the chapter on "shepherding your child's spirit to long for God."

Educating the Wholehearted Child also emphasizes nurturing the love of reading good books, which resonates with my family's favorite activity of snuggling on the couch with a pile of books toppling over at our side. The Clarksons reassure that a curriculum is not necessary for an effective education. They offer a plethora of ideas on how to get around not using curriculum. It helped me tremendously to read this advice as I sometimes struggle with wanting a curriculum to solve all my homeschool problems. My entire book is peppered with post-its and miscellaneous wrappers - whatever I could get my hand on - to hold the page of some interesting idea, piece of wisdom, heartfelt conviction, etc.

In fact, I loved this book so much that I went ahead and puchased their daughter's book, Read for the Heart, a companion book that consists of hundreds of reviews of living books. You can read the TOS reviews from last year of this book here.

Educating the Wholehearted Child is a book that deserves a place on the bookshelf of all Christian homeschooling families. I am so thankful to have discovered it. It is now my go-to book and the number one (non-Montessori) book I will recommend to anyone just starting their journey in homeschooling.

I encourage you to go view the sample chapter and the table of contents here. You can purchase the book from Apologia for $22.00.

Artists and Art - Claude Monet

2011-10-14T21:45:00.001-05:00

One afternoon, I was extremely tired and headachy so I let the children watch Linnea in Monet's Garden on Netflix. Then, I remembered an art project from Fairy Dust Teaching and that we owned Claude Monet - Sunshine and Waterlilies by Stephen Plackard (a Smart about Art book), so I whipped together some Claude Monet art cards, printed out the waterlily painting for the frame and changed up the art shelf.

I let Bear use my acrylic paints and we followed the steps at Fairy Dust Teaching (see above link).

As you can see, we used a stencil for the lily pad. She ended up getting unwanted green on the blue, but I showed her how to paint over it - the beauty of acrylics is it covers up previous paint really well. If I were to do this again, I would skip the stencil and let her free draw it. I was really proud of how well she respected the paint and was extra careful not to get it on herself. I totally forgot to remind her to get a smock.

Bear's rendition of the water lilies.

Bear kept telling me she was just like Claude Monet because she layered her colors. Thank you Fairy Dust Teaching for a great art project.

e-mealz - a TOS review

2011-10-14T07:25:00.000-05:00

I have such a hard time with dinner. In a time before children, I enjoyed cooking. Now, I would rather be doing anything else. It overwhelms me. I've tried making menu plans and trying to organize freezer meals and it always works for a time, and then I fall back into the same old rut. The dinner question mostly brings up feelings of panic for me.

Consequently, I was really excited to review E-Mealz. E-Mealz is a simple system for grocery budgeting and menu planning. The weekly menu prints out as a single page and includes a corresponding grocery list. It really is a time saver in terms of planning. There are many choices for meal plans such as store-based (use the weekly specials as the basis for their meals), vegetarian, low-carb, Gluten-Free, and others. Moreover, E-Mealz has been exclusively recommended by Dave Ramsey since 2007.You can see view all the available meal plans and samples of each here.

I wondered if E-Mealz would work for us. My kids are picky. I am picky. My husband says he's not picky, but he kind of is, too. Maybe this is why I don't like making dinner!

I chose a vegetarian meal plan because, although we aren't vegetarian, we do not prefer to eat pork or beef. It was love at first sight. The vegetarian meal printed out as two pages of menus and included lots of vegetables and fruit. The dinners for the first week sounded appealing, too.

Well, maybe not egg salad sandwiches. I also added in chicken to quite a few meals, since there is no way my husband would be satisfied with a vegetarian diet:)

The shopping list was easy to follow. I love how each ingredient has the corresponding meal number next to it (on the left). This makes it easy to adjust the menu and know quickly which items I won't need if I cut out a recipe. I also like that there is extra room to write other things I might need. I appreciate that the list includes the staples I should have on hand (in case I might not, or might have run out).

The first meal, Orange Tofu with an addition of grilled chicken was a great success with both of us.

The second meal - Greek pita pizzas - was equally successful and I ate it before I remembered to photograph it!

The third meal was also a success. (Eggplant and provolone sandwiches with pesto)

My husband raved about these vegetables on the grill (and he is not a vegetable lover).

The next meal, Tamale Pie, was such a flop that I didn't photograph it, but I think the cornbread mix I bought is to blame. The inside of the pie was good.

The peppers were a bit too soggy for my husband, but I enjoyed them. However, after being stuck with all the leftovers, I was quite done.

And the same with this almond penne. He really did not like this one and the recipe made a lot. I ate leftovers of this for a week.

I didn't expect to love every recipe so I was still excited. I felt we had had two great weeks of meals. However, the next two plans only had a few options that seemed appealing to us. Did I mention my husband and I are picky? (And why am I not mentioning the kids, you wonder? If you think they even tried one morsel of any of this food, you do not realize just how picky they are!)

That puts us at this week, the week the review is due. I switched plans in the middle of last week (you are allowed one switch per month) because everyone on our private TOS forum was raving about delicious fish and chicken recipes. We switched to a Publix Family Meal Plan. Again, because we are picky eaters, I am having a hard time with the menu. I have deviated from it a lot, but at least I can accumulate some fish and chicken recipes for my husband for the next few weeks until our three month subscription is over.

The Low-Down

Cons:

You are billed for 3 months and it is automatically billed to your credit card UNLESS you go to the website and cancel.

If you or anyone in your family is picky (like ours), E-Mealz is probably not a good fit. You are better off creating your own meal plans of family favorites.

Pros:

ALL the planning work is done for you.

The recipes are nutritious and have good variety.

The recipes are simple to follow and do not take much time to put together (not including cooking time)

The E-Mealz program is inexpensive - it works out to $5 per month.

The recipes are budget friendly.

I love the concept of E-Mealz, but ultimately and unfortunately, we are a bunch of picky eaters, and I need to see a few more weeks of meal plans to know for sure if it can work for us.

Fall Math

2011-10-11T19:44:00.000-05:00

I've only put out a bit of Fall material. We've been spending hours outside enjoying Fall and picking and drying gorgeous leaves though.

Cards and counters using acrylic pumpkins. We did this last year. These are for J-jo as a Mommy-and-J-jo work.

Completed work.

One to one correspondence of pumpkins. These are larger than the ones in the cards and counters.

Counting pumpkins after rolling the Education Cube.

Using a number line to see relationships between numbers. If you are at 10 and want to go to 7, how many jumps? Or, if you are at 3 and want to go to 9? We will be spending more time doing work like this. I need to make her little cards to go with it to make it an independent choice.

The stamp game comes out almost every day. She's done addition and subtraction, both static and dynamic, and I'll soon be introducing multiplication. I recently read that it is important to word the problems as a number taken X times. For example 2x3 would be worded 2 taken 3 times, and not 2 times 3. When you think of how the child takes the tiles from the compartments, that wording makes more sense. I will be presenting multiplication with the golden beads first to make it more concrete, then returning to the stamp game.

Panning for Gem Stones and Digging for Fossils

2011-10-09T21:30:00.000-05:00

A few weekends ago we went to a neat science museum and planetarium.

We saw the biggest truck ever.

We saw some dinosaurs and other neat creatures.

We also saw lots and lots of rocks and gems.

But best of all, we got to pan for gemstones

and dig up fossils.

And the even better part is that we got to take our treasures home:)

A Heart Pincushion - 4 year old sewing project

2011-10-07T21:57:00.000-05:00

Bear's wonderful Keepers of the Home teacher sent home a little project, already cut out, for the girls to sew.

I added the little dots with a pen so that Bear could independently complete the project. The dots allowed her to know exactly where to put in the needle to keep her stitches equally distanced from each other and from the edge.

She stuffed it with cotton balls and I held the edges closed for her as she sewed the last of the edges.

She's planning to make some for her loved ones as Christmas presents.

Apple and Amos and another Giveaway!

2011-10-06T20:01:00.000-05:00

Apple and Amos has the most beautiful wooden toys. He has recently added some fall toys that would have been perfect for our row of How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World.

These acorns are so inviting for counting or pretend play.

I am so in love with this breakfast cherries and berries set.

This lighthouse bowling would be perfect to go with the book The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge.

All above images are from Apple and Amos' etsy shop.

Apple n Amos sent us a Let's Go Match Me game.

It came in a wonderful little pouch and the first thing J-jo did was spend time taking the wooden discs in and out of the pouch.

The disks feel so smooth and the pictures are delightful. Both kids like holding a disk in each hand and rubbing them. They are fun to stack, as well as to play memory.

Apple n Amos is giving away one Match Me game as well as offering a 15% off coupon code THEBEAR15 for my readers!

How to enter the giveaway:

1. Follow the Apple n Amos blog and leave me a comment saying that you do.

For a second chance to win:

2. Like the Apple n Amos facebook page and leave a SECOND comment saying that you do.

Giveaway closes Tuesday, October 11th.

Disclaimer: I received the Match Me game in exchange for this review, but all opinions are my own.

Education Cubes - I can't believe I resisted this long!

2011-09-30T22:11:00.000-05:00

I love, love, love our new Education Cubes. I purchased our cubes from Constructive Playthings and then waited, rather impatiently, for them to arrive.

As soon as they did, I started printing from the Education Cubes membership site.

States

Blank cards to write the Science memory work (from Classical Conversations)

Numbers

I wanted the cubes mostly for reviewing our Classical Conversation memory work in a fun way.

We have been reviewing states and capitals everyday by rolling the cubes and then coloring in the states rolled.

We review the science memory work by rolling and answering the question that has been rolled.

Meanwhile, J-jo practices counting pumpkins or whatever other manipulative on hand for the number rolled (this is a Mommy assisted activity).

We also roll the numbers (up to 12) to start off our skip counting songs. If the cube landed on 6 for example, we would sing the sixes song.

After two weeks, we've only just scratched the surface of how we will be able to use these in our homeschool. I am so excited and can't wait to share more ideas. I've already printed out the fractions and the ten frame counting cards to use soon. And I know J-jo will love to roll his letters.

By joining the Education Cubes, you get access to over 200 sets of insert cards, plus access to any cards created after you join. The membership is a one time fee of $12.

So far, the membership is saving me a whole lot of work. One thing I would love, though, would be for the blank cards to be an editable PDF file so I could type in the info I want there. Nevertheless, these cards are great and my kids love them. I bring them to my Classical Conversation class and the children all clamor to be the first to roll.

Now for the BEST PART!

Jenn generously offered one membership subscription for a giveaway

fine print:

The giveaway is for the membership only. The winner will have to purchase their own blocks. If the winner already has an Education Cubes membership, Jenn will refund their money. So, even members can enter to win!

How to win:

Mandatory Entry:

Subscribe to The Adventures of Bear by email and leave me a comment saying you do.

Additional Entry:

Visit Education Cubes and leave a comment telling me which insert cards you would print first.

Make sure you leave an email address for me to contact you.

Random generator will pick a winner Friday, October 7, 2011.

Winner will have 48 hours to contact me or random generator will choose another winner.

Disclaimer: I purchased my blocks, but received a membership free of charge in exchange for this post. The opinions expressed are my own.

Homeschool Questions

2011-09-27T10:20:00.000-05:00

I was tagged by Growing a Godly Girl to do this meme. Here are my answers...

One homeschooling book you have enjoyed:

I can't limit myself to one. Here is a list my favorite Montessori books.

One resource you wouldn't be without:

The internet! So much of my inspiration comes from other blogs. When I first started with Bear (3 years ago), 1+1+1=1 and Chasing Cheerios were important. Now I look to Delightful Learning and Living Montessori Now for most of my inspiration.

One resource you wish you'd never bought:

I can't think of anything I've purchased that hasn't been used and that I haven't liked. I research pretty extensively before purchasing things as I am quite frugal. I would say that the item that gets used least are the wooden blocks, but I don't think that means I shouldn't have bought them:) I just need to inspire them to use them more.

One resource you enjoyed last year:

All About Spelling. We love this spelling program that is so similar to the Montessori moveable alphabet. It's multisensory and follows the Orton-Gillingham methods. It's a keeper and I have already bought the next two books.

One resource you will be using next year:

We will be continuing the Montessori sequence with Bear and J-jo, but moving away from Montessori a bit with Bear. I don't think I can manage to do elementary Montessori at home. I would want to be trained and that is not feasible right now. We've started easing into that transition this year by introducing Singapore and Miquon Math (though we still mostly do Montessori method and materials for math, I wanted her to experience math in another way) and joining Classical Conversations. I am also introducing Bear to a work contract next year (one day a week this year as transition) that will be like workboxes, but as a checklist. We tried a modified workbox approach (with boxes) in the summer and Bear did not like it. She has gotten so used to the freedom of Montessori.

One resource you would like to buy:

I have always been really drawn to Sonlight, even though it doesn't follow the Classical method, which we prefer, because of its emphasis on literature and living history books. Whether we will purchase it next year remains to be seen. I've been praying about it a lot!

One resource you wish existed:

A French or Spanish equivalent of Homeschool Share!

One homeschool catalog you enjoy reading:

Timberdoodle, Sonlight, My Father's World, Ambleside Online (for the booklists), Veritas Press. I peruse the booklists over and over and Timberdoodle just has great, fun brain toys! I also love my Montessori Services catalog for practical life supplies. Catalogs are fun to browse:)

I'm supposed to tag 6 other blogs, but I actually should be reading this, which for an upcoming review. It is much thicker than I expected and only just arrived tonight.

Five in a Row - Mr. Gumpy's Motorcar - Weather

2011-09-26T20:32:00.000-05:00

Often, when we row a Five in a Row (or Before Five in a Row) book, I don't plan any extra things. I just do the discussions suggested in the manual. This is how I intended to row Mr. Gumpy's Motorcar, but at the last minute, I found I had most things on hand to add in a few weather related practical life activities and science lessons. Check out the links at the bottom to find out where all the ideas came from.

In Mr. Gumpy's Motorcar, a girl, a boy, and a wide variety of animals all ask Mr. Gumpy if they can come along for a ride. Mr. Gumpy agrees, but when a rain shower results in the car getting stuck, will his passengers get out to help?

Practical Life:

Cutting strips with motor cars and clouds. I made these using Word and clipart.

Pin pricking a cloud shape (drawn on scrap of cardstock)

Spooning "raindrops" (clear flat marbles).

Tonging "clouds" (cotton balls)

Opening umbrellas and sticking them in styrofoam (idea from Counting Coconuts). Only Bear could do this, as when J-jo tried, the umbrellas were just a tad to fragile for him.

Pouring "rain" (water).

Sensorial:

Shaving cream clouds

Just mix some white glue into the shaving cream.

Language:

Poetry basket
I put a print out of the song and these cloud people (found via pinterest) to put out as their names come up in the poem.

Types of clouds three part cards - and making cloud booklets using cotton balls.

Songs

Our favorite was one to the tune of "She'll be comin' 'round the mountain when she comes" that teaches the terms evaporation, condensation, and precipitation.

Books

Social Studies:

cooperation

We had a quick discussion about how the characters had to cooperate and how we could cooperate to help each other in the home.

Science:

We observed clouds using our cloud inspector tool (see here),

And then I got tired of taking photos and wanted to live in the moment!

We made a cloud from an ivory soap bar (see links below).

We observed the water cycle in a water bottle that happened to be on the window sill.

We did the raincloud cotton ball demonstration.

We played with cars and compared cars going up ramps and cars going down ramps. Which was easier?

For a look at Friction, we sprayed some oil spray on our hard wood floor to see if we would slip more than when the oil wasn't there. We then discussed why we don't slip as much on carpet (friction).

Fun:

Splashing in puddles after a big rain storm.

Art:

Painting with a bath scrub to make clouds. Well, maybe tomorrow....we haven't gotten to this yet.

Loads of Links:
Water cycle and clouds
Cloud paint and sensory cloud
Cloud People
Weather activities from Counting Coconuts
Cloud Nomenclature Cards
Cloud Dough
Shaving Cream clouds
Ivory Soap Cloud
More cloud cards

Linked to Tot School at 1+1+1=1; Preschool Corner at Homeschool Creations and

Montessori Mondays at Living Montessori Now and One Hook Wonder

Naughty Toes

2011-09-25T13:50:00.000-05:00

Naughty Toes, another fun book from Tiger Tales, is one Bear can relate to, having been in ballet last year. In the story, Chloe and her sister both take ballet. However, while Belinda is graceful and coordinated, Chloe is not. Chloe learns to "follow her feet" and find what she is good at.

I love that message. I think it is important for children to understand that they don't need to be good at every extra-curricular thing they try.

Bear thought the illustrations were really pretty with light and pastel colors. "And there was lots of pink!" She recommends the book to any little girl who loves to dance.

Disclosure: I received this book from Tiger Tales in exchange for an honest and frank review.

Artists and Art - Paul Cezanne

2011-09-21T18:55:00.000-05:00

I considered signing up Bear for an art class, but reconsidered after observing said art class. Instead, I am going to start up my Artists and Art lessons instead. Today I whipped up a Paul Cezanne lesson. Of course, I decided this last minute, so had NO library books to go along, although I did put a few on hold to read later.

I did find a gem called An Apple a Day. It's an interactive book that is read to you and it is based on Paul Cezanne's still life of apples and a pot of primroses. We listened to this and looked at some of Cezanne's art work, read his biography, and looked closely at the apples on his painting.

I draped a white table cloth over her floor table and Bear went to work placing the apples.

We had to move the floor table on top of her work table because Bear couldn't see it from where she was sitting.

Then we each drew the composition and painted it with tempera paint.

I finished first, so while Bear worked, I quickly set up a Paul Cezanne display. I already had the three part cards. Was I planning a Cezanne lesson earlier this year that I forgot about?

Another great tie in with our Five in a Row book: How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World.

Raising Real Men

2011-09-21T05:36:00.000-05:00

When Joy from Timberdoodle sent an email out looking for bloggers to review Raising Real Men, I jumped at the chance. Here I am with a little boy who is SO different from his big sister and I, being a GIRL, am so ill-equipped to understand him! I prayed this book would give me some insight into my delightful, yet challenging, little boy.

I didn't agree with a particular point in the book, a point that was especially prevalent in the first part, but there were so many GOOD parts that were helping me understand J-jo and so many GOOD parts that were giving me ways to help raise J-jo to be a good, Godly man, that I couldn't help but finish it. The point or idea that bothered me was not important enough to hinder my overall appreciation of the book. In fact, I will be keeping this book nearby to refresh my memory over the years, as there were certainly things that didn't apply at the moment with a two year old, but will apply in about six or eight years, such topics as teaching about finances.

Here's an example of how How to Raise Real Men got me reevaluating. I always had very negative thoughts about guns, and just believed they were dangerous and should be banned, but the authors pointed out that we teach our children how to use lawn mowers, sharp knives, electric saws and other dangerous tools and that perhaps it is best to teach gun safety as opposed to banning (toy) guns completely from the house.

This book is worth reading, especially if you are a parent of boys. The authors, Hal and Melanie Young, with the experience of having raised 6 sons, provide a lot of useful ideas as to how to "train them up."

Raising Real Men can be purchased from Timberdoodle (the same place where I bought J-jo's nifty scissors). Timberdoodle also offers other parenting helps and some neat boy-friendly outdoor learning items, and Timberdoodle will also happily send you a free homeschool catalog.

Read what other moms thought of Raising Real Men at Because Mom Said.

Disclosure:
As a member of Timberdoodle's Blogger Review Team I received a free copy of Raising Real Men in exchange for a frank and unbiased review.

A Purpl What? A Purpllinker.

2011-09-20T20:02:00.000-05:00

I chose to review the Purpllinker because
a) it has a funny name
b) Timberdoodle sells it and Timberdoodle carries high quality educational tools that have been carefully selected
c) it looked like it had potential as a versatile learning tool
d) all of the above

Did you choose d)?

The Purpllinker is part of Timberdoodle's preschool curriculum kit (but can be purchased separately). It has seven arms that can be moved to form letters, numbers and shapes. The arms are stiff enough that they keep the shape formed, but loose enough that even the two year old can manipulate them.

This has been a neat learning tool in our house. The Purpllinker's packaging doubles as the instructions for letter and number formation, but if you accidentally rip the packaging, throw it out, or lose it, you can download the instructions as a PDF.

We've made geometric shapes, (I really wish the Purpllinker had EIGHT arms instead of seven so we could make an OCTAGON), swords, mountains and valleys, pointers for the flipchart morning songs.

And of course...letters.

We don't bother much with instructions, but just kind of try to do it on our own.

While it is a different way to make letters and reinforce letter recognition and knowledge, I much prefer it as a tool for geometric shapes. I find that the letters are too boxy. Of course, this fact did not bother Bear and J-jo.

Little hands get a good workout using the Purpllinker. It's a great tool to add to your purse for waiting time or in the car, as it folds up quite small. I don't think it's a necessary tool, but if you are looking for something fun, yet educational, to add to a workbox, or if your child needs extra fine motor work that is NOT pen and paper work, the Purpllinker might just be for you.

Find Timberdoodle on Facebook.

Request a free homeschool catalog.

See what other moms thought of the Purpllinker at Because Mom Said.

Disclosure:
As a member of Timberdoodle's Blogger Review Team I received a free Purpllinker in exchange for a frank and unbiased review.

A child's sewing project

2011-09-20T19:02:00.000-05:00

Bear is part of a Keepers of the Home group that meets after our Classical Conversations group. Today they did a project that I just had to post for you.

First cut a 20 inch circle out of fabric. You can change that measurement to the size you want.

Put pins all around the circle at 1.5 inch increments. Show how to pinch the fabric to get the pins in. This is also a great measurement lesson.

Now take a pin out. Pinch the fabric and make a 1/4 inch cut.

Repeat all around the circle, making a cut at each pin (after you remove it). The pins are just place holders.

Thread a ribbon in and out of each slit.

Tie a knot at the end of the ribbon and pull, gathering the edges of the circle together to make a purse.

Bear ran off to find things to put inside before I could take a photo of her and the purse:)

Bear made this all by herself, with a bit of guidance from the leader. I came in a few times to observe. It took a lot of concentration and effort (and lots of pincer grasp work) for Bear. She was very proud of her efforts.

Shape Sorter Painting

2011-09-19T07:33:00.000-05:00

One of Bear's favorite painting activities when she was J-jo's age was painting using the plastic shape sorter as stamps. I brought out this activity for J-jo the other day and he had a lot of fun with it.

The Best Pet Ever

2011-09-17T22:03:00.000-05:00

When we received our box of Tiger Tale books, the first book the kids picked out was The Best Pet Ever. This was three weeks ago as we left for vacation. I have been asked to read that book over and over and over for three weeks now. This is how much my children love it. J-jo who just turned two last month can recite whole pages to me and absolutely loves the page in which the balloon explodes.

The book is really sweet. Walking past a pet store, a little girl asks her mom for a pet, to which the mom replies, "We'll see." So the little girl sees and with her imagination, ordinary things, like a rock, a mitten, a candy wrapper, and a balloon all become a pet...for a day or two. The little girl proves she is ready for a pet though, and by the time her last imaginary pet has popped, her mother is ready with a real pet. The illustrations are cheerful and draw the reader into this humorous story. The repetitive phrases make it a great book to use with a pre-reader.

We all loved it!

Thank you, Tiger Tales, for another great book.

Disclaimer: I received The Best Pet Ever from Tiger Tales in exchange for this review. All thoughts expressed are my own.

Five in a Row - How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World

2011-09-17T11:19:00.000-05:00

Practical Life:

Tweezing little apples (Walmart home decorating section), pin punching apple (abcteach freebie), apple pie and apple halves cutting strips, spooning salt

grating cinnamon

J-jo is determined to cut. Loves practicing this. Our scissors just cracked one day as we he was squeezing them shut to cut and we were devastated, but Timberdoodle was great and sent us a new pair immediately.

Language:

Labeling parts of an apple. The fraction game I posted here is also on this shelf.

Labeling parts of the chicken. Found via Homeschool Share. Bear really wanted parts of a cow too, ("what about the cow?") but I couldn't find one with blanks and really wasn't up to the work of creating one.

It's a very colorful chicken.

Not apple pie related, but we did do All About Spelling this week too.

Math:

Fraction game in use.

Fraction puzzles (I took out the sets that went with the book - pie, apple, and eggs).

Science:

I brought out the parts of the tree and parts of a flower puzzle to tie in with the life cycle cards from Montessori from Everyone.

Art:

We made a paper plate pie.

You need two plates. Paint one a pie crust yellowish brown color. Let dry. Cut slits in the "crust" and glue a piece of red paper under the slits. Staple or glue to a plain white plate for the pie tin. (Or you could paint that plate too.)

Serve up your delicious pie wearing an apple print dress:)

My favorite photos this week:

J-jo always looks to Bear to see what to do:)

We still have many apple activities to do. We actually had to return the library book and so we didn't do all the FIAR activities in the guide this week. I have the book on hold and will do those (like salt evaporation and a few others) once we have the book back. We read it multiple times each day while on vacation and it is still a favorite so perhaps I should just buy it.

We'll be going to an apple farm this weekend and baking our real pie after that.

Links:
printables we never got to
apple play dough

apple part labeling and apple stained glass
(we haven't gotten to the stained glass yet either...the week just isn't long enough!)

apple lifecycle

chicken lifecycle

sequencing cards for the story
Delightful Learning 's fantastic row of this book.

Linked to Tot School at 1+1+1=1; Preschool Corner at Homeschool Creations and the Weekly Wrap-up at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers,

Montessori Mondays at Living Montessori Now and One Hook Wonder

Before Five in a Row - a TOS review

2011-09-14T10:39:00.003-05:00

Before Five in a Row includes 23 Five in a Row-style mini-units centered around great children's books for ages 2 to 4. The second half of the manual has a large section of playful learning readiness activities.

One of the things I love best about Before Five in a Row is that it is not complicated. We can read the picture book while we snuggle in bed or on the couch and I can read the paragraph of the day to accompany the story. Learning happens even if we don't do a worksheet, create a lapbook, use any manipulatives, do some themed work from the shelves. Sure, I create all those activities for our shelves for both Five in a Row and Before Five in a Row, but this is totally unnecessary. Before Five in a Row is the perfect book for the busy mom who has older kids to attend to but wants to catch a few special moments with her little ones. It's also the perfect book for a mom of a single child who wants more direction in her read alouds.

Before Five in a Row is arranged such that for each picture book there is a summary of the book and a Bible verse that is illustrated through the picture book. There are several paragraphs relating to various "subjects" like Science, Vocabulary, Art, Math, Language, Music, Character. These vary from story to story. One story may not touch upon all these categories. Under each heading is a paragraph informing the parent points to talk about. These are just simple activities or discussions. Most don't require any special materials.

For example, for The Little Rabbit, Before Five in a Row suggests looking at the illustrations and pointing out to the child how they differ from other Before Five in a Row illustrations (they are photographs). She recommends finding other photographs of rabbits and comparing these to the illustrations in The Runaway Bunny and The Tale of Peter Rabbit. The next heading is colors. Under this heading, the paragraph suggests using a big box of crayons to match colors to the vivid colors in the photographs of the book. The science paragraph talks a bit about camouflage of the brown bunny versus the white bunny and also about eyes and ears on a rabbit and how the location of the eyes allow the rabbit to see better. There is a paragraph on toys and stories which gives the idea to make a special memory by purchasing a stuffed animal that resembles the little white rabbit. There are six more headings for this book. The idea is to focus on one area per day, but sometimes we end up talking about more than one of the topics. Sometimes we do an activity that is related to an idea in the book. This is where our Montessori theme work comes in. However, when I first started with the Five in a Row volume 1 last summer, we only read the book and discussed the topic. We did a few art projects but none of the more Mommy-work- intensive (but fun) activities I have done so far this year with Before Five in a Row. The beauty of Before Five in a Row is that it can be as simple, or as involved, as you want it to be.

Before Five in a Row costs $35 and can be bought at www.rainbowresource.com. You can learn more about Before Five in a Row and Five in a Row, and see sample lessons, on their website.

A week at the beach

2011-09-10T22:14:00.000-05:00

We've just come home from the best vacation yet at beautiful Hilton Head. I won't bore you with too many photos. Here are just five.

One highlight is that we climbed up a little lighthouse, which I had promised we would do during our row of The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge (love that book, btw).

We pretty much just lounged at the beach all day every day:)

We had fantastic weather except for the second day, which was, as you can see from the picture, not too bad at all.

We keep talking of trying out another beach for our vacation, but just seem to end up back here, year after year. Hilton Head is a great place for vacationing.

What beaches do you like? I'm open to suggestions for next year:)

Teach Your Child to Count

2011-09-08T22:07:00.000-05:00

I don't generally like flashcards, so when Charisse from ChildUp contacted me about reviewing these, my first instinct was to say no. However, I went to their website to learn more about their product before deciding and discovered that these are not really flashcards, but more like playing cards with pictures to count.

"The ChildUp Early Learning Game Cards are a series of interactive and educational tools for parents, caregivers, and early teachers who intend to develop, by playing in an interactive way, the learning, cognitive and social skills of their children – boys and girls from 1 to 5 years old – and to best prepare them for school and future academic excellence."

Charisse sent me two sets of cards: Teach Your Child to Count to 10 and Teach Your Child to Count to 20. Each set comes with parent cards that explain the Early Learning Method and provide some parenting advice. ChildUp advocates early learning, but does state that this "should not be a race, but instead a long, pleasant walk. Pushing children too hard or too fast is not the appropriate method to stimulate their curiosity...."

The use of the Child Cards is simple. There are two sides to each Child Card and each side complements the other. One side shows a number of animals and the other shows the numeral.

ChildUp emphasizes that these are NOT flashcards because the child is not memorizing the series of animals, but associating the parent counting the animals with the numeral on the back. They are a learning tool to be accompanied with counting everything all the time anywhere you happen to be. Most of us do this naturally with our little ones. "How many stairs are we climbing? Let's count them!"

What I like about the cards

The cards feature animals to count so you can do a lot of learning activities just with the animals. The Count to 10 cards feature Sea Animals, Farm Animals, and African Animals. The Count to 20 cards feature Australian Animals, Rain Forest Animals, and Insects. One card from each set (the 10 card or the 20 card) has one sentence about each creature. I love how versatile this makes the cards. I can also put out a set of these cards on our math shelves for quite a variety of themes.

I like how both sets of cards introduce adding and subtracting by having more than one kind of animal on them to count (see photo above of 6 chimps and 1 giraffe = 7).

I like how they show zero (card on the left).

J-jo takes these out of their boxes all the time. His favorite activity with them is putting them all back in the box. He takes them out numerous times throughout the day and asks me to count the animals with him.

The cards can also be purchased through Amazon (these are not affiliate links).

Count to 10

Count to 20
There is also an iPhone/iPod and iPad app available.

Bottom Line: These are great cards. There is much learning that can be had from them. I can keep a pack in my purse for "school on the go." I am glad we now own them, as I wouldn't have gone hunting for something like this on Amazon. Now that I have them, though, I can think of a few concrete extensions we can do with our collection of Toob animals in conjunction with these cards and look forward to trying these with the kids. Are they a MUST HAVE? Probably not. Are they a NICE TO HAVE? Yes.

Disclosure: I received the two packs of counting cards from ChildUp in exchange for this review. The opinions expressed are my own and were not influenced by receiving this product free of charge.

Apple fraction game

2011-09-08T04:35:00.000-05:00

While browsing the local teacher store I came upon these little apple cutouts and thought, I can somehow use these at home. I ended up turning them into a fraction game. Bear puts the apples upside down, then flips over five apples. There are corresponding fraction cards and Bear puts the corresponding card with each color set. For example in the photo above, Bear would put the 3/5 card on the green apples (any of the green ones would do) because 3/5 of the apples are green, and a 1/5 card on each the red and yellow apple (I have more than one 1/5 and 2/5 card but didn't photograph this). Of course, J-jo can play as well, but for his game, I use our Montessori number tiles (although foam numbers would work just as well).

Time 4 Learning - a TOS review

2011-09-07T11:12:00.003-05:00

Time 4 Learning is an online, interactive preK to 8th grade curriculum that can be used for homeschool, afterschool or throughout the summer. It can be used as your core homeschooling curriculum or be used as reinforcement to lessons you are doing or have done. It is a complete curriculum in that there are lessons for math, language arts, science, and socials. The lessons are interactive videos and games. There are also worksheets that can be printed. T4L tracks your child's progress and time doing the activities. There is a playground area, which consists of links to educational sites, like PBSkids.org. You can choose not to show the playground or to use it for reward time after doing a lesson. You can set timers for how long the child must do lessons before going to the playground, and for how much time they may play in the playground before having to go back to a lesson.

When you sign in as the parent, you are able to view which lessons your child completed, which lessons were started but not finished, and which quizzes were taken and scores for those quizzes.

Time4Learning is $19.95 per month for the first child and $14.95 per month for each additional child. It seems expensive, but if you consider that it can be a complete curriculum, the price makes sense. Also, consider the cost of a single subject workbook and textbook and that will also put the price into perspective.

Our experience:

Who this is great for: a family with many kids. One child can work on Time 4 Learning while other child gets one on one time with Mom. I was able to get a little bonus J-jo time while Bear watched and did the lessons. The program is very independent. The little animated lessons are short and kept her interest. We especially liked the math lessons. Bear hasn't been keen on doing math lately but she readily asked for Time 4 Learning and always chose math lessons there.

I loved that I could have control of the educational level. The language arts section was too easy when I placed her in first grade so we were able to easily (click of a button on parent page) change her to the 2nd grade level. Similarly for math we were able to switch from Kindergarten to first grade. It was great too, how T4L allows you to access lessons from the grade below and the grade above your child's current level.For Language Arts, we were able to have access to the third grade lessons and alternate between 2nd and third grade by clicking the level we wanted at the top of the screen.

One thing that bothers me about the program though is that to enter the lessons a new screen pops up and asks you to click "here" to enter lessons once again, and then another screen pops up. It was too many screens and my computer didn't agree with it sometimes. The picture below shows what I mean.

I still feel guilty putting my child in front of a screen to learn. I much prefer her having that time with me. My favorite way to use Time for Learning has been during J-jo's naps with Bear sitting on my lap:) However, with more than one child, that becomes increasingly difficult. I still want Bear to learn to occupy herself in a constructive manner while I am busy teaching J-jo, and I don't want her to become dependent on a computer to occupy her time. That said, if I am going to turn to the computer to occupy and teach my child, Time 4 Learning is a site I would recommend, especially if you want math and reading (and more), if you want the teaching/review to be done for you (as opposed to a site that only does practice questions), if you want the ability to change your child's grade level, and if you want to be able to keep track of their online learning.

Disclosure: I am a member of TOS and I was given this product free for a month for review purposes only. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. To see what other members of the Crew thought click the picture below.

Apple Pie Playdough

2011-09-06T12:21:00.000-05:00

I made a batch of playdough and split it in half. To half I added red food coloring - from Wilton's as it is the only one I have found that makes it red, not pink - and apple pie spice.We used the white half to make pie crusts, and the red part to make apples for the inside. We did this last year too. I think the idea is from My Montessori Journey. I was using her blog a lot last year for inspiration:)

Another activity to go with our How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World row for Five in a Row.

Apple Prints

2011-09-04T12:01:00.001-05:00

We've been reading a large amounts of books about apples and rowing How to See an Apple Pie and See the World from Five in a Row.

It was such a fast and fun activity to cut an apple in half horizontally to expose the star of carpals (the pockets where the seeds are) and then make prints.

Our Week in Photos - remnants of our Goodnight Moon row

2011-09-01T20:58:00.001-05:00

Books to go with the row of Goodnight Moon.

Books to go with upcoming apple theme (and row of How to Make and Apple Pie and See the World).

Pink tower. He was proud:) He'll figure it out eventually.

He's much better at the stairs.

Meanwhile Bear was working on dynamic addition (addition with carrying). She gets this. She does not like this work though.

J-jo moved on to hammering tees, but decided the hammer wasn't very handy.

He used our Goodnight Moon Sensory Tub a lot. I added some number tiles and we counted objects in the bin.

I added cards from Homeschool Share for him to match objects too. I added a few more objects too.

I was helping Bear with something and turned around to see this! "Me dusting," he announced. Yikes! I quickly showed him a "dustier" place to dust!

Maybe he'll be a future chef? He loves to help me cook. He can pretty much do all the steps of a lasagna himself if I supply the ingredients.

On another day, Bear led him through his colors and shapes songs from his Sing Along Flip Chart. She does this while I do dishes some mornings.

Bear sometimes disappears and then I remember to look behind the armchair where we have this cozy reading corner for them.

They painted phases of the moon. Bear cut her moons out while I cut J-jo's. Then they glued (J-jo had lots of help) and labeled using the French words for the phases.

Phases of the moon three part cards, rabbit three part cards (homemade), and a nocturnal/diurnal sort (from Spell Outloud).

We got our stamp game part way through the week and Bear was happy to have a change from the golden bead material. This is the initial presentation in which the child learns the equivalents. It isn't much of a stretch since they have already matched the beads to the number tiles.

Here Bear is building a number with the tiles instead of the golden beads. "I love this so much better than the golden beads, Mommy!" she said. Yet she didn't really want to build more than 3 numbers.

J-jo worked on the clock numbers while I presented the stamp game.

Changing the calendar to September.

J-jo working on the nocturnal/diurnal sort. He is only really sure of the owl and the butterfly. He usually leaves his work after placing those two.

Working on All About Spelling lesson (the first of the second book).

Bear decided she wanted to draw a map of the schoolroom. She quickly got frustrated because her drawing didn't look like what she was envisioning so I suggested I draw the schoolroom for her while she told me where to draw what. She then painted the map.

Apple prints to show the star in the middle of the apple - learning the word carpel - the hole where the seed resides.

Washing snack (grapes).

We got a really good work day in today(Thursday) - a three hour work period. It felt great. I hope tomorrow will be a repeat of that. Our Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays we are so busy with other things that we don't get a large chunk of uninterrupted school time so right now Thursdays and Fridays are our only true Montessori days (this is okay because Bear is too young for reporting for homeschooling). When she gets old enough to report (age 6 in our state), I will make sure we hit the required amount of days and hours:)

Linked to Tot School at 1+1+1=1; Preschool Corner at Homeschool Creations and the Weekly Wrap-up at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

Flea Circus - a TOS review

2011-08-31T09:45:00.023-05:00

In this game by R&R games, you try to attract dogs and cats (the points) to your show by putting out your best flea circus acts (your cards). The person with the most spectators (cats and dogs) wins the game.

This is a fun game, perfect for families that love having game night. We've played it on numerous occasions in the time we've had it. The bright colorful box includes an equally bright and colorful set of cards and a number of plastic dogs and cats (which are choking hazards, a warning clearly stated on the webpage) and directions. Our box came without instructions for some unknown reason, but, thankfully, the directions are online. The directions are in FULL color, which makes them beautiful to look at,

but I didn't want to use up all my ink and print it. This did put me off a bit, because I would keep having to go back to my computer to check when we first started playing and I couldn't seem to keep the rules straight.

The directions are a little confusing, but not in how they are written, just in the number of different cards and what each card means and trying to retain all that information when you play the first few times. The number of points and the place from where the points are taken (the middle pile, the player to your right, any player of your choice) varies depending on the card . Once I could retain all of that, the game became much easier and faster.

Although it is a game geared for 6 years and up, my 4 year old enjoys it a lot. Truthfully, I think it has something to do with having little plastic cats and dogs to collect as you play your cards. I admit that my husband and I enjoy that part too. :)

I do occasionally have to remind her how many points to gather for certain cards as we play but one thing I like about the point system is that dogs are worth 2 points and cats only 1. When your daughter only wants dogs, she quickly learns about trading in her cat to pick up two dogs when she needs 3 points. What a great way to get some extra math practice.

If you would like to purchase this game, R&R games is offering a coupon code: CREW20 for 20% off any purchase from their website until the end of the year.

Company: R&R Games
Product: Flea Circus
Price: $15.95
Ages: 6 and up (my 4 year old could play as long as I told reminded her how many points to pick up)
Number of Players: 2 to 6
Other products by R&R Games: card games, family games, party games, and strategy games

Disclosure: I am a member of TOS and I was given this product free for review purposes only. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. To see what other members of the Crew thought click the picture below.

How to Have a H.E.A.R.T For Your Kids - A TOS Review

2011-08-29T12:06:00.005-05:00

Known for great Science curriculum, Apologia also offers some parent resource books such as

How to Have a H.E.A.R.T. For Your Kids by Rachael Carma, which I was sent to review.

From the publisher:

How well do you really know your kids? What has God shown you about who they are and who they will become? He has sent these children into your home at this specific time for His glorious purposes. Indeed, you have been invited on the adventure of a lifetime, a journey on which you will see walls fall, seas parted, and giants slain. You don't need special skills or training for this journey—you need only to seek God and hold tight to His mighty hand! As with so many things, the first step to having a heart for your children is knowing your heavenly Father. As you seek daily to share His heart for your children, keep this inspirational book close at hand.

This little $13.00 book teaches you through 5 chapters, one dedicated to each of the letters of the acronym, how to have a H.E.A.R.T. for your kids. This is achievable by Having a Heart for the things of God, Enriching your marriage, Accepting your kids, Releasing them to God, and Teaching them the Truth.

This came at a perfect time in my life. It's as if God himself sent it to me. I read "Though we have been given emotions, it is His desire that we keep them in check and rule over them instead of allowing them to rule over us," and I recall a less-than-stellar parenting moment from the morning. Certain parts of this book are certainly convicting my poor sinful soul (and inspiring me to stick to those morning devotions and prayer time).

The end of each chapter has what the author calls a "Heart Checkup," a few questions to get you thinking about the things just read about. Doing these little exercises at the end of the chapters helped put things in perspective and helped revisit the key points of each chapter.

I especially liked her reminders of the importance of teaching our children about God's Truth and that "this is the foundation upon which all other knowledge is built." Sure, as a Christian, I know that, but I think I've let that slip more than I would like and this book has brought to the forefront some things my family should be praying about and changing in our daily walk with Jesus.

The book certainly did not teach me anything I didn't know, but as I said at the beginning, it must have been sent to me by God and it was the book I needed at that moment. It served as a mirror so I could really see myself and my family and see the states of our hearts. It served as an inspiration to do better.

I don't know that How to Have a H.E.A.R.T. for Your Kids would be the perfect fit for everyone. However, I personally enjoyed it, was convicted and encouraged by it and would at least recommend reading the sample chapter available here to see if it would be interesting to you.

Disclosure: I am a member of TOS and I was given this product free for review purposes only. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. To see what other members of the Crew thought click the picture below.

Classical Conversations

2011-08-28T19:01:00.000-05:00

I've mentioned we started Classical Conversations this year. After our first week of it, I am so glad we chose this for Bear and J-jo (J-jo isn't in the program yet, but attends a toddler program in the same church with the rest of the toddler siblings the morning of Classical Conversations). I could try to explain it all, but I just found this post that does it so well for those that may be interested in learning more about it.