Homeschooling

The One Thing You’d Save

July 31, 2021 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product (The One Thing You’d Save) through Raincoast Books. Affiliate Links will be used, thank you for your support of my blog, costs you nothing to do so. 🙂

What a fun assignment. Imagine there’s been some sort of catastrophe. Your family, friends, and pets are safe. Now… pick one thing, doesn’t matter the size, shape, or even it’s weight, that you would save. What would that one thing be? This is the question in “The One Thing You’d Save”. Newberry Medalist Linda Sue Park brings us this question inspired by the Korean poety form sijo.

The Basic Facts

The One Thing You’d Save by Linda Sue Parks takes a singular question and allows many different voices to answer it. Voices raised in discussion and thought about what they deem most important to save. This 3-7th grade read is published by Clarion Books, a division of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Encompassing 72 pages of lively discussion found in carefully written verse. You can almost hear the students talking with each other.

More Details on The One Thing You’d Save

Oh, I laughed at times. Kids bantering with each other, pushing each other a bit, and learning from each other. It was just so real! It wasn’t all laughter though, sometimes hard things happen when you’re a child and even fun exercises like this can bring that out.

The teacher’s words are always in a different font as well as darker in colour.

Just are the words of the children affected me, they also affected her. The things we learn about each other influences what we think and feel doesn’t it?

Simple grayscale pencil drawings highlight the thoughts of the children. Sometimes joining the words on the page, and sometimes following after, letting you absorb the words spoken.

All in all, such a well done book.

Add it to your bookshelf?

Oh, this is a hard one to answer.

I think as a one time read I’d rather borrow from the library. BUT if I wanted to keep it to share with multiple children, or use it in a co-op class, or a classroom situation, then I’d definitely want to have my own copy. It would be an exercise I think would be well worth doing several times with different classes/groups.

I really enjoyed reading The One Thing You’d Save and would happily read it again. Part of that is I love books that encourage the reader to think. I’ve been pondering all night, what would I save if my house was on fire? And I still don’t know, but I have ideas….

I wonder what yours might be?

The Book of Tiny Creatures

July 28, 2021 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product (The Book of Tiny Creatures) through Raincoast Books. Affiliate Links will be used, thank you for your support of my blog, costs you nothing to do so. 🙂

When I saw this book in my pile of book to review from Raincoast I was so delighted. My lad would have loved The Book of Tiny Creatures as a child. I hope that I can find just the right child to gift this to as I know it will bring delight to any child fascinated by the tiny creatures around us.

There are SO many tiny creatures around us, worms, beetles, snails, flying, crawling, slithering, everywhere living teeny tiny critters invading our world. Let’s welcome them shall we? 🙂 Seriously!

Learning about Tiny Creatures

The Book of Tiny Creatures was produced by Princeton Architectural Press. Instructively written by Nathalie Tordjman and realistically illustrated by Julien Norwood and Emmanuelle Tchoukriel. 72 pages encased in a hardcover binding, written for youth 5-9 years old. Reviewed for Raincoast Books.

Digging Deeper

You will find five overall sections, each with five subsections.

Who are the Tiny Creatures?
Life in the sky
Close to the Ground
In the Water
Incredible Creatures

You’ll find oodles of pictures that are so intricately drawn it’s delightful to see. Good descriptions of select creatures as well. Plus information pages to round out ideas and get children thinking.

Quiz pages in each section. Not all the answers are given (at least not that I saw quickly), which allows you to do some research, and find more questions to ask (and answer) about these amazing critters of the world. Finding books that encourage excellent questions are always a boon to me. Feeding curiousity in others makes my heart smile, does it do the same to yours?

Plus things to do! Build a terrarium, explore at the seashore, or create shelters in your backyard. STEM activities at their best! Learn, create, and grow! Don’t you just love STEM activities? Such an excellent way to put all the knowledge you are gathering to good purpose.

I LOVe how the information is laid out and the variety of creature life featured. I would have spent more than one night pouring over the pages with my lad and so many questions would be raised.

Should The Book of Tiny Creatures be yours?

FOR SURE! If you have any interest in these little creatures of the world, get this book. If you have a child like mine who is fascinated by them and comes up with good questions, get this book so they can come up with MORE good questions. Feed interests! Help them learn and to love doing so!

The book of tiny creatures with it’s excellent illustrations and good information is a winner! Add it to your bookshelves as soon as you can! 🙂 It will be a good start to a study on insects, ocean creatures, Pollinators, pesky bugs, and more.

Staying Cool Under Pressure

July 26, 2021 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

As I’m writing this post I’m sitting in an hotel room a couple hours from home. I’m here doing a job and trusting my guys to take care of everything at home. It’s HARD to trust them with the bunnies especially when I have a rat problem that’s raised it’s ugly and rather horrifying head again. It’s created some stress for me to be honest. So as I pondered the word prompt “staying cool” what popped into my head is the art of staying cool under pressure. How does one do it? The answers aren’t the same for everyone, but perhaps we can figure a few things out eh?

The Art of Staying Cool Under Pressure

There is indeed an “art” to it I suppose. Everyone handles pressure and stress differently. My go-to that normally works is going for long walks or burying myself in a book. Both give me time to step away and by the time I’m back to the real world I’m thinking differently about the situation.

Reading a book gives my brain a chance to totally focus on something else which allows my subconcious to work it’s magic. Going for long talks gives me time to prayer, yell at God, cry (sometimes), mutter under my breath where no one can hear me, and just use those endorphins raised by exercise to work their magic

What other methods work?

Talking with people NOT connected with the stress. Sharing our burdens or concerns with others allows ease our burdens. A load shared is a load reduced. It often will give us a different perspective on the situation as well.
Any form of exercise: stationary bike, a workout routine, gardening, literally… whatever works for you WORKS. We don’t always have the freedom to go for long walks, sometimes we have to clean a room and tell the family OUT, let me clean! You can still be present (if you have people you can’t leave alone), but still work out your thoughts and feelings through hard work.
Prayer and meditation upon God’s word. Sometimes just stepping back into a moment of peace is exactly what you’d to do. And if you can’t pray, you might know a friend who can. Let God step into that moment. Accept the peace he offers you. Listen to what he has to say.
Medical intervention! My recent bout of stress has had me clenching my jaw in my sleep resulting in a sore jaw. You know what helps? Softer foods and…. muscle relaxants! (no drowsy). Helps me function better…and then I’m not as stressed about the pain of eating! 🙂
Sitting down and writing out what the problem is and just what you might do about it. Sometimes the whole problem with stress is we keep it all in our minds. But if we take the time to write it down then you are more able for say “this I can deal with”, “THAT can wait for another day”, “this I might have a partial solution for” and so forth. For instance, while I’m away and hubby hurt himself trying to care for my buns I called a friend and asked, could you help a day or two…you’ll get bunny cuddle time as a result? She was happy to help. Worry over a young litter of bunnies… son is bringing them in the house overnight when the rats are active.

Additional Ways of Staying Cool

What other things can you do to help with staying cool under pressure?

Eat well. Seriously, reduce your sugars and salts, eat good quality food.
Maybe Essential Oils will help? They work just the ticket for many folks. I’ve never found they helped me as they seem like just an odd smell in the air to me. 🙂 But for others… smells are so connected to memories, that just the right odor can be calming.
Music, play whatever soothes your heart and mind.
Do something different: Puzzle, knit, play a game, learn a new skill, start a new project (only if it won’t make things worse).
Tick things off your to-do list.
Remind yourself of all the good things in life. Like on my scary ride home today, I got back and I kept reminding myself..I’m here, I’m safe, and no one got hurt. Scared yes, but physically no. It’s all good!
Make different life choices if the decisions you are making are not working for you.
If you are feeling caught in the middle between two hard decisions make the one that causes you less internal strife long term.
Take courses or read articles about how to deal with the stress you are under.

Did you know that SchoolhouseTeachers has a number of resources for parents. I’ve shown images above of some of the courses that they offer to parents. I actually spent some time this morning listening to a teaching on children who fall away from the church and why they do so.

Shy Willow

July 21, 2021 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product (Shy Willow) through Raincoast Books. Affiliate Links will be used, thank you for your support of my blog, costs you nothing to do so. 🙂

Imagine if you would, for just a moment that the world is a big scary place. You have a place to call home where all is good in the world. You are safe from the scary world.

Now imagine that if have the occasion to help someone, but you’ll have to do something very scary, but you want so badly to help. What will you do? Shy Willow faces such a decision. Will she follow her heart’s desire?

Shy Willow, the details

Cat Min writes a sweet story of a shy cautious rabbit learning to do big brave things. Cat Min not only wrote this sweet story, but she also provides the illustrations to make her words come to life. Published by Levine Querido, a 48 page hardcover geared for Preschool through grade 2. A rabbit, dealing with hard emotions, making decisions to help others, and through that managing to survive new experiences.

Cat Min is an illustrator, animator, and writer. She grew up in Hong Kong, a shy child who filled her time drawing and making comic books with her best friend. New York University is where she studied animation and filmas well she completed the Illustration & Visual Storytelling Summer Residency Program at the School of Visual Arts in New York.

I am reviewing Shy Willow for Raincoast Books.

Sharing the Sweetness

You will adore the conversational tone and the simplicity of the story. The font is a good size for reading with a group of children, or with a child snuggled up beside. Those ears sticking out of the mailbox captured my interest already. Wouldn’t this image provoke a good conversation with a child?

Little Willow has to problem-solve throughout. How was she going to meet her objective? What would she do if her decisions ended in failure? Would she give up? Isn’t it great when a book includes not only positive results of experiences, but also the negative?

Now, was it all believable? No. BUT does it matter? I guess that’s the question you have to answer. Even if some of Willow’s solutions, in real life might not work, the story is, is that she did not give up. Willow persisted in meeting her heart’s objective.

Should Shy Willow be on Your Bookshelf?

Of course it should be. 🙂 Shy Willow is such a sweet story about a bunny who wondered if something would be possible and despite intense fear did what was needed. Isn’t this what we all need to do? See a possibility, know that if we are brave enough, we might be the solution needed! Shy Willow shows her readers the way.

An excellent book for helping children deal with new situations, gather up determination to do hard things, and to just read for fun. 🙂

I was just checking the price on Amazon… it’s a great price today… go pick it up!

Cleaning the Weber BBQ

July 19, 2021 By Annette1 1 Comment

The crew challenge this week (BBq and Grilling) left me a bit stumped initially and then well… I ran into a problem. That problem gave me a solution. Cleaning the Weber BBQ.

You know what I did the other day?

I cleaned our BBQ. Do you want to know why?

The last time we used it… I couldn’t put it out! The fire that resulted after use was, well, rather frightening! We got it out using a liberal amount of baking soda.. NOTE.. I need to add baking soda to my shopping list!

So… let’s talk cleaning a bbq! I will be using affiliate links to make it easy to talk about what I did.

Our BBQ

We own a weber. It has got to be one of the nicest bbq’s I have ever had. Hubby did a pile of research before we purchased it. Our criteria. Needed to be transportable. Able to run on either a propane cylinder, or one of those smaller tubes or a line. We needed to be able to get long hose attachments for it depending on what our camping set up. AND it needed to be good for at home use as well. It needed to be easy to clean. This BBQ does it all for us. Feel free to learn more on the Weber BBQ page.

Oh boy, has our bbq travelled with us. Trips up to the near north, camping for 1-2 weeks at a time. Trips to Toronto for short stays while sight-seeing, to the beach for picnic Sundays, to the park to celebrate birthdays and well… in our own lovely backyard as well. 🙂 Fits six burgers nicely which is perfect for our family, 8 can be squeezed on if needed.

The Preceding Issue

It comes with a catch basin for grease, which needs to be cleaned out regularly. Normally this is done at the end of the camping season (Novemberish). Tray is usually 3/4’s full at the point and realitively easy to do.

Guess what we (I) forgot to do this year? I’m blaming COVID year. Guess what caught fire?

Oh boy, don’t think I’ll forget to do that again!!! (Covid not withstanding!)

It was in all aspects a rather glorious fire. Would have been perfect in a campfire situation, but on on a grill.. perhaps not so much. 🙂

Cleaning the Weber BBQ

Honestly, I wish I had taken the time to get more pictures. I have none of the BBQ actually on fire, we were too busy dealing with the problem. 🙂

We used baking soda to put out the fire. Water and grease don’t mix. Closing the lid didn’t remove enough airflow. So smothering it with baking soda was the best option. Arm and Hammer in case anyone’s interested. 🙂

I’m going to say this as clearly as I can. Next time I clean the bbq.. I will wear disposable gloves. BBQ grease.. honestly, it’s disgusting! It’s black, and clingy and well… ICK! Stains the hands and gets under fingernails. So WEAR DISPOSABLE GLOVES!

The Ease of a Weber BBQ

Weber BBQ’s pull apart easily. Remove the top grill simply by lifting it off. Pull out the catch tray. Removing the tray will open up the hole in the bottom of the bbq.

The BBQ itself was easy enough to clean. Pull out the icky tray, use a metal flipper to scrap out the ick into the garbage bag. Use the same scraper to knock out the build up inside the BBQ into a pail (handy hole in the bottom of the grill is great!). Dump that into the compost.

Get a large tote of some sort, place the catch pan on the bottom, place the grill on top of the catch pan. Sprinkle baking soda liberally over the top of it all. Add vinegar enough to cover the grill at least a bit. Let that whole works just sit and bubble as long as you want. I left it over night.

DO NOT make the same mistake I did. Do not use your newest dishbrush, use an old ratty one! It will get permanently stained black and be greasy to the touch. Likewise use old steel scourers. Wash with good hot water and catch the gick with one of those kitchen sink catchers (mine is like this but green). You’ll want to run hot water down your drain for a bit just to make sure no grease is left floating in your trap.

I used a knife to knock lose accumulated particles. Looks so much better than when I started!

Homeschooling Tie-in

My 16 year old was unexpectedly rather interested in this whole process. “How you going to clean that mess mom? What caused it? Ohh…that’s gross! You going to use up that whole box? Need me to get the vinegar?” He would have gotten right in there with me… but you know… broken arm …. cast… can’t get it filthy too quickly!

He was as fascinated as I was by the chunks floating off in the bubbly soda-vinegar mixture. Memories of all those past volcanoes….. THIS is where teaching and letting a child experiment has paid off! 🙂 Let science do the work. It certainly made cleaning the weber bbq easy.

Have you had to clean your bbq? Or is this one of the things that have been forgotten? Go do it eh? Prevent a fire!

Chickenology

July 17, 2021 By Annette1 2 Comments

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product (Chickenology) through Raincoast Books.

Did you know that I love chickens? I think chickens are such neat birds and they come in so many colours, sizes, feather styles, and temperaments. You’ll get egg layers, meat birds, and dual purpose. Chickens that lay eggs of many colours, and chickens known for their parenting abilities. Chickenology introduces us to those birds and so much more. Come! Let’s delve into the ultimate encyclopedia of chickens!

What do you get and who produced Chickenology?

Chickenology: The ultimate encyclopedia was produced by Princeton Architectural Press. It has a completely different look and style than the other Chicken book I’ve reviewed called Backyard Chickens. The aim of Chickenology is to touch on a number of different areas with chickens from all around the world, that live for a variety of purposes. Wild and domestic chickens are featured. Written with children 5-9 years old in mind.

Five sections

Discovering the World of Chickens (11 subsections)
What’s a Chicken made of (11 subsections)
The Egg Up Close (5 subsections)
Chickens and Humans (8 subsections)
A world of Chicken Breeds (5 subsections)

73 pages that are well coloured with a good sized font for reading. This book one in the farm animals series. A wonderful hardcover that is oversized but comfortable to hold. Chickenology is written by Barabara Sandri and Francesco Giubbilini and cheerfully illustrated by Camilla Pintonato. My review copy comes from Raincoast Books.

Getting More Specific

Check out the colours and the variety in these chickens! Small chickens, large chickens, all kinds of chickens!

As you browse through the pages you’ll see the development of a chick into an adult, see how big (or small) chickens are, explore their feathers, discover different comb shapes, poultry diseases, and the many ways to cook eggs up!

Chickenology provides lots of room on their pages for illustrations, lines, and text. Nothing feels crowded and lots of colour will draw your attention. I love the details provided on most pages about different features, such as this one about a chicken feather.

What do I think of Chickenology?

Would I call Chickenology the ultimate encyclopedia of Chickens? Not really, I didn’t find all the information accurate. BUT it is a fun read, an interesting read, and I learned a few things new about chickens! AND it is a very good start!

If you are doing a project about chickens, this lovely tome by Sandri, Giubbilini and Pintonato will come in handy. Or if you just want to have fun and learn some interesting facts about chickens, you’ll enjoy it.

Did you know that chickens have played an important role throughout history being featured in stories, being used as symbols, and feeding large portions of the world’s population. I’d be curious to know more, aren’t you?

Rescue at Lake Wild

July 14, 2021 By Annette1 2 Comments

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product (Rescue at Lake Wild) through Raincoast Books. Affiliate links will be used in this review to help support my time in bringing good books to you.

Even though this is an upper elementary/lower middle school, Rescue at Lake Wild was a fun mystery to solve that involved the cutest of rescues… baby beavers!

I even found this video that talks a bit about rescuing beavers.

Madison, Jack and Aaron, three intrepid friends, who like to solve mysteries and take care of critters needing help have a mystery to solve after they discover two baby beavers needing help. Will they be able to keep those baby beavers safe while they figure out who killed their parents? You’ll have to read the book to find out as I don’t give away secrets! 🙂

Rescue at Lake Wild, the basic Facts

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt are the publishers of this hardcover book I received from Raincoast Books in exchange for my review. At 208 pages it, for me is an easy read couple hours read, but upper elementary students could well take longer to finish. But want to finish it they shall as the action is quick-paced and draws you further into the story. Written to youth 1-12 years old. Chapter introductions feature one of two beaver scenes.

There is very little in the way of illustrations in the rest of this chapter book, you will find some side of page decoration but for the most part, the story holds it’s own.

The three youth are an interesting mix of youngsters and they each bring their own skill set to their adventures. Madison with her knowledge of taking care of critters, Aaron with his intelligence and ability to physically get in get things done, and Jack with his tracking dog and people connections. They’ll need all these skills to not only help the baby beavers, but all the beavers in their county. Will they be able to get the adults to listen? Will they be able to find out who’s been hurting the beavers?

Rescue at Lake Wild involves family squabbles, and both parents and children learning important ways to improve themselves. They all pull together to make everything work out in the end. Both boys and girls should enjoy this book, and following Madi and her friends in their adventures. The dog Lid provides humour with some of his antics.

Other Terry Lynn Johnston Books

I have reviewed a number of books by Terry Lynn Johnston. I find her books have true-to-life characters, and always have a good resolution in the end.

Should you Get Rescue at Lake Wild?

YES! If you like a mystery, seeing baby animals rescued, and good friends working together! Mom and Dad play an important role as well, and the family connections play a vital role in helping things turn out well in the end.

With it’s focus on caring for the environment, and the silliness of the dog Lid, younger middleschoolers will find this a fun, easy read. Larger font, easier word choice, and the thrill of a mystery, combinded with animals make it an excellent read. I would not hesitate to give as a birthday gift to any 8-10 year old boy or girl.

A good add-on to a study on environmentalism, beavers, caring for wildlife, and community activism.