Homeschooling

Art Books off Weebly Account

January 6, 2018 By Annette1 2 Comments

Okay, I have been doing art books on my blog in life FOREVER. 🙂 I love reviewing art books, there are so many options out there it’s amazing. Some books are good, others are meh, but it’s good to review them eh?

I haven’t been able to figure out how to get my weebly posts over here at this point so I thought I’d just a link here and then people can go there to look if they have an art book they want to look at. Who knows, maybe some day I’ll do an actual page just simply listing them off.. that’d be kinda neat too eh?

Anyways, art books from my weebly account can be found here. Also here.

Review: Animal Camouflage

January 6, 2018 By Annette1 2 Comments

Every once in a while you get a book in your hands for reviewing and you just fall in love. As soon as I saw this beautiful book “Animal Camouflage” I was like “Son, look at this book”, and talking to other people about it. I just really, really like this book and thought it a very clever design.

Now I have to admit that my 12 year wasn’t quite an enamoured as his mother was, but he thought it was pretty interesting, and had fun flipping through the pages and finding the more difficult animals to spot. I am also concerned that I won’t be able to show you well the beauty and wonder that is contained within this book.

I’m trying to figure out just what I like so much about it.

First: It’s an unusual rendition of a camouflage book. It’s not animals hiding in their areas, with their colours and stripes and stops within a multi-coloured background. It’s white with dark lines, so the animals are right there and can be seen, some easier than others. But no colours to look for, just shapes and outlines, hidden with all the white and lines.

Second: the information is presented in a clear format. Do you see how each area has a colour? That colour is used for the four pages it takes for each area. This makes it easy to differentiate between areas.

Third: It’s a lovely book to hold. Feels good in the hand. It’s pretty to look at and to exclaim over. I showed it to a friend and she agreed it was a nice book to hold in your hand, and loved the ways the animals/scenery was represented. “It’s very clean”.

Fourth: It’s educational. The text is brief, but more animals are covered than just a couple for each area. I do wish that they talked about the TYPE of camouflage that each animal possessed, like the gazelle with a stripe down it’s belly. The spots of a giraffe helping it blend into the browns of the savannah, and the brown pelt of the cottontail helping it hide in the underbrush.

Fifth: I think that it’s perhaps less about the camouflage of animals, but more how they create a fun camouflage search and find to help children want to learn more about the different animals represented. Honestly… it’s a FUN book to look through, to find the four reindeer or the 10ish wolves or can you find the anaconda slithering along the ground?

If you get stuck, or your child needs help, the answers are in back of the book.

Animal Camouflage: Search and find
Sarah Dennis & Sam Hutchinson
Princeton Architectural Press
Hardcover, ages 6-9
Animal, elementary, nature

Reviewed for: Raincoast Books.

Where can you Find it?   Amazon Link.

Reasons to Consider SchoolhouseTeachers.com

January 5, 2018 By Annette1 2 Comments

I would be remiss in my duties if I didn’t tell you about the sale that SchoolhouseTeachers.com has going on right now. SERIOUSLY remiss. This is such a fantastic offer you won’t want to miss out on it.

Only 90$ for a whole year! Huge savings!

Imagine with this….. over 350 classes across the spectrum from little ones all the way through mom and dad.

PDF’s to print off yes…not huge deal, it’s just paper and time right? So many of them you can just read off your screen rather than printing them off. Reading is reading, you know? The very positive part…. there are so many options, so many different classes, that you can choose subjects that YOUR children are interested in. Why not make the learning easier by giving them material that totally floats their boat? You can print off the list of classes and help your children foster some independence by just telling them.. pick three, any three, doesn’t matter which. What are you most interested in learning about?

Or show them a grade list.

Also, I don’t know if you are familiar with World Book online? Guess what comes as part of your subscription… I KNOW!!! It’s so great!!! All that trusted knowledge right at your finger tips.

Molly Green is now part of SchoolhouseTeachers, pretty neat eh? Helping you make frugal decisions, caring for friends and family as best you can, be mindful of your home. An excellent resource.

Don’t forget about the magazines. Totally free all the time. Yes, you can use the free app, but isn’t it easier to read on a bigger screen? Neat eh? All that reading and encouragement eh?

What else can I tell you that might sell you on SchoolhouseTeachers.com? Oh…more and more classes are adding a video component. Great eh? Consider Drive Through History. A well-done video with an accompanying worksheet.

So many reasons to check out SchoolhouseTeachers.com. The fact that it is on sale, right now, is only icing on the cake. Don’t miss out! $90 for a whole year of learning for your entire family (or if you prefer $9.95 per month).

I appreciate this site so much I’ve written about them off and on over the years.

Review 2017. Interesting courses. Poetry Links.

Oh Baby It’s COLD outside

January 5, 2018 By Annette1 6 Comments

Cold… it is SO cold outside right now. It’s been really cold for a good solid couple of weeks. So as I contemplate this word I am sitting in my lazy boy wrapped in a cuddle blanket and coat, sipping some hot chocolate. I wonder, what I can write for this post?

I was brought to mind of my bunnies, and how caring for them right now is a real chore. As in HARD work. There is the thawing the water bowls, the scraping the pans, the checking the babies, and the feeding. It’s always harder when it’s really cold out as your hands quickly become icicles even with gloves on. The toughest job is scraping the pans as everything is frozen and difficult to remove. Keeping the buns clean and healthy is of paramount importance.

There is one aspect to this really cold weather that I honestly don’t mind a whole lot.

It’s the bringing of my wee babies into the house. To see those vulnerable young ones sleeping so soundly. Squeaking and rooting around when I pick them up to check out them. It’s makes my heart melt every single time. I love the wee ones.. holding them in my hands, checking them over, getting them used to the scent of people. It’s a great thing to do eh?

Baby it’s Cold Outside

Snuggled quietly
Indoors
Blankets 
Hot chocolate
Keeping me warm

Bitter cold
Pans frozen hard
Water turned icicles
Bunnies are hungry
Work to be done

Scrape those pans
Bash them
Nudge them
Shake it loose
Poop and Pee in the bin

Bunnies are thirsty
Hot water is waiting
In go the bowls
Ice pucks floating
In new water goes

Brush off the snow
Grain in the pail
1/4 scoop each
Bunnies are munching
Happiness

Ooh... wee babies born
all snuggled in close
Oh mind this little one
Has got chilly toes
Concern sits close

Into the house
Little ones come
Covered with teatowel
Prying kitties avoid
Warmth seeps in

No Chilly Toes
Bunnies a wiggle
Squeak and they squawk
As they look for dinner
Saved from the cold

Review: Lesson Planning for High School Physical Education

January 4, 2018 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

Do you remember when I reviewed Moving with Actions and Words? This was a physical education curriculum for young children. Today I have one for High School students entitled “Lesson Planning for High School Physical Education”. Put out by Human Kinetics, this is an amazingly detailed book to help high school age youth get the exercise they need, as well as teaching them valuable new skills, setting them up for a healthy adulthood.

So what do you get?

In Lesson Planning for High School Physical Education, you get a 770 page book divided into two main sections.
1. Planning for Student Success in High School.
+ The Importance of Teaching For student Learning
+ Teaching to Standards
+ Meeting the National Standards and Grade-level outcomes in High School
+ Developing an Electives-based program for High School Students

This first section gives you all the nitty-gritty details about why phys ed is important for high school students as well as giving the instructor the needed facts about what the national standards are for each grade level. A challenge is then issue to offer students a choice in what they want to learn, what sport most interests them. This may take some creative thinking on the part of the physical education staff, but where there is a will there is often a way.

2. Lessons Plans for High School Physical Education.
+ Extending Students Skills and Knowledge to outdoor Pursuits
+ Extending Students…. to individual Performance Activities
+ Extending Students…. to Target Games
+ Extending Students…. to Dance and Rhythms
+ Extending Students…. to Fitness Activities
+ Extending Students…. to Designing and Implementing Personal Fitness Plans.

This section breaks down each physical activity into a number of lessons. For instance aquatics takes you through 16 lessons ranging from how to swim, rescue, endurance, aerobics, diving, water polo and more. Each lesson is broken down into parts like fitting a life jacket, swimming underwater etc. Each Lesson as you can see, lists the equipment needed, outcomes, goals etc.

One of the things I very much appreciate is the goal to help high school students internalize what they are learning and finding a sport (or sports) they like and want to take part in whether it be water polo, dance, or fishing.

My thoughts:

This is a highly organized and very thorough approach to high school physical education. Each section is well-laid with numerous lessons to help you to teach the sport involved. The sports aren’t all the normal ones that I was expecting like soccer and volleyball, but also included sports such as fly-fishing, rock-climbing and dance. This book is geared to the adult instructor.

Lesson Planning for High School Physical Education:
 - Meeting the national standards & Grade-level outcomes
 - 16 modules, 248 lesson plans
Shape America
Human Kinetics
Lynn Courturier MacDonald
Robert J. Doan
Stevie Chepko
Trade paperback, 771 pages
exercise, physical education, lessons, planning, high school

Reviewed for: Human Kinetics. 

Where can you find it?   Amazon Link.

How to Write a Poem: Finding Your Joy

January 4, 2018 By Annette1 2 Comments

This book has been on my wish list on Amazon ever since the writer’s conference in the fall. My dear hubby picked it up for me for Christmas and I thought this week I would dive into it. This first chapter is called “Find the Poems Inside”.

In this chapter we are introduced to the idea of doing freewrites.

I admittedly am not unfamiliar with this term. The five-minute-Friday challenges I take part in are five minute freewrites. Where you just write for five minutes. Unlike these free writes though where we don’t edit, we just write and share, this first chapter encourages us to freewrite for 5-15 minutes, a given time frame, and then use that freewrite in order to frame out a better poem.

The author also gives a bunch of freewrite starters like a tour of your home town, being at the hospital, a time you got lost and more.

But you don’t do it immediately. Do your freewrite and then walk away from it. Have a cup of coffee or go for a walk or something. Just give yourself a break. Once you have done that, go back, read your poem over. Make no changes, just read it. Then read it again with a pen in hand marking those parts that you really like. The lines that speak to your heart cause that’s what poetry is…your heart speaking to the world.

Take those heart lines and write those out, and then use those lines to help you write a better poem, a poem with some flesh on it, without answering all the questions your poem raises, because heart answers are seldom complete. Write and refine, but first find your heart in a topic.

That’s what the joy of freewrites are.. finding your joy.

Guess what is coming?

January 3, 2018 By Annette1 2 Comments

YES! I’m just a little excited because….

This New Year will again kick off with the Virtual Homeschool Fair (used to be called Virtual Curriculum Fair). Instead of just talking about homeschool curriculum we are talking about homeschooling in general (you’ll find a list of topics below). I think it will be fun, definitely spurred on my thoughts you know? Anyways, come back every Monday to see where all our thoughts take us, as you know what? There’s quite a group of us! 🙂

Learn more here:

Week 1 (Jan. 8th): The Reasons We Homeschool
Why do we homeschool?

Why did you start? What was the impetus? Has your reason changed? An encouragement to the new homeschooler, a boost and reminder to the old. 🙂

Week 2 (Jan. 15th): Our Method of Homeschooling
How do we homeschool?

Are you an unschooler? Follow Charlotte Mason? Eclectic? Classical? or ???? Talk about your approach or educational philosophy, share a “day in the life”, talk about organization, independence or

Week 3 (Jan. 22nd): Our Homeschool Curriculum
How do we cover it all?

What do you use? Curricula, what subjects you do, how to do something… skies the limit.

Week 4 (Jan. 29th): Enriching Our Learning
What do we do for enrichment?

All the great extra stuff we do as home learners, whether it’s pursuing your children’s special interests, creative arts, field trips, volunteer opportunities, mission trips, whatever.