A Net in Time

Curriculum and book reviews, faith, homeschooling and more!

Homeschooling

Pirate Nell’s Tale to Tell

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raincoast FTC

Who doesn’t love a good pirate story?  Four to eight year-olds will delight in the story of Nell aboard a pirate ship.  She’s a sweet, determined character whose light is not dimmed by the nay-sayers in her life.  It is my distinct pleasure to review this delightful picture book Pirate Nell’s Tale to Tell for Raincoast Books. 

Pirate Nell's Tale to tell

What I am Reviewing

Pirate Nell’s Tale to Tell is written by Helen Docherty and beautifully illustrated by Thomas Docherty.  The words and images work well in tandem.  40 pages of storybook adventure await the 4 to 8-year-old reader.   Published by sourcebooks jabberwocky, you’ll find this hardcover book a delight to read. 

From the cover:

Nell is finally a pirate!
And she has her trusty Pirate’s Almanac to help her sail the seas, even if Captain Gnash doesn’t like books on his ship. But when the journey gets rough and the captain is in trouble, it’s Nell and all her pirate knowledge that saves the day and leads them to the greatest buried treasure of all. . .

The Details for Pirate Nell

Helen Docherty who also wrote The Snatchabook has written a delightful book of rhymes.  It is so easy to read, the words will just roll off your tongue.  As I reading quietly to myself, I couldn’t help myself and started reading aloud startling my hubby.  🙂  It’s good to do those things you know? 

Nell’s love of books is evident throughout, even if her captain disagreed.   He couldn’t see the importance of books, how could they help you be a good pirate afterall?

You’ll find loads of colour filling the pages, finding Nell hard at work whether it be scrubbing the decks or saving the Captain.  The Captain seems the not so nice sort, but by the end of the book, Nell has won him over. 

It’s a good read for both adult and child, the font big enough to read with a group of children, and illustrations varied enough to provide lots of talking points with them as well.   I received the ARC version, but the hardcover style it will come with will provide great durability.  Snatch it up, and enjoy with your pirate study today!  🙂 

Should You Get It?

Aw, this is such a cute book that fosters a love of reading.  Books helps us in so many ways

YES, go get Pirate Nell’s Tale to Tell!  Read it with your children.  Delight in the antics of the pirates, frown at the short-sightedness of the captain, and sit back in wonder at lessons learned. It’s a great romp through the world of books and learning. 

You don’t have to just use for 4-8 year olds though… it would be a great addition to a “fun with books unit”, or a Pirate study, or even a history of oceanic travel book… to talk about the work you need to do abroad ship.  Even a unit on how being kind and willing to share knowledge is a great thing to do.   It’s simply a lovely book.. read it with your children!  I think I’ll have my son read it as part of his speech studies!  

Other pirate based posts

Are they really needed? Pens & pencils in your homeschool

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Pens and pencils, I don’t know about you but I use one everyday.  I thought about sharing my favourite pens and pencils but realized that really, I don’t have any.  I will happily use whatever I have on hand. It got me thinking, are they really needed?  Pens and pencils in your homeschool.  Can you get away without using them?

Are they really needed? Pens and pencils in your homeschool

There are two sides to every question aren’t there?  With the plethora of on-line resources, and laptops one could argue they aren’t needed.  BUT then there’s art and science and…. where it’s hard to argue against the need.  So let’s discuss it shall we?

No, you can’t

You can’t run a homeschool without using a pen and a pencil.  They are as necessary to life as bread and butter. 

Art (drawing, 3-d, illustrating, etc), science notations, something to fiddle with, note-taking and imprints.  Add in emergency drum practice, crafts, filling in worksheets, figuring out math problems, and much more.  You might be surprised by 100 uses for a bic pen! 

My son loves Ticonderoga pencils.  Some new pencils were a birthday request, and he SO much enjoys them!  🙂  I have to admit, my teenager is a bit more particular about his writing implements than I am.  🙂  

Yes, you can

Take a moment if you will to imagine a world without needing pen and pencil.  A world filled with narration, physical activity, spelling bees, hands-on activities, on-line forms, simply telling what you know, computer games for math, language arts and more. The other day I ran into on-line chem labs!   You can even find complete curricula on-line, it’s amazing how learning can happen with video, editable PDF’s, and other projects. One could say we’re reaching for a world without primitive technology.  🙂 

Do you really need pencils and pens for your homeschool adventures?  Can you imagine your homeschool moving into such a world?

August

Florence and Her Fantastic Family Tree

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raincoast FTC

When I opened the cover to Florence and her Fantastic Family Tree, I was immediately brought back to a conversation with a cousin.  One of her children was being asked to do a family tree yet her child had a rather divergent family tree and was very frustrated by this.  The child didn’t want to look strange to peers, but wanted to complete the assignment.  The words “antiquated lessons” came up. 

Florence has a VERY divergent family tree and she handles this assignment with all these worries, and yet, she looks beyond her worries to her ability to show off her family.   A timely book I think hmm?  

Florence and her fantastic family tree

What I am Reviewing

On behalf of Raincoast books and Familius books I am reviewing Florence and her Fantastic Family Tree.  It will come as a jacketed hardcover of 32 pages.  Written by Judy Gilliam with the soft illustrations by Laura Addari.

From the cover

Florence and Her Fantastic Family Tree explores the idea of what it means to have a big, messy, complicated, and remarkable family as a young girl tries to complete her family tree assignment for school. With adorable drawings and the succinct words of a child, you can’t help but love your own family tree, no matter how large or small, simple or chaotic.

Florence and her fantastic family tree information

The problem is real so… does a child run away from it or grab up the opportunity?   Florence, using her own words, tells us how she handled this challenged.  How can she make a family tree when “my family tree doesn’t just have a trunk, roots, leaves and extra limbs.  My family tree is prickly, scaly, and partially overgrown.“

Using soft tones, the illustrator helps us watch Florence’s worry turn into a sense of accomplishment.  And I have to tell you as adult… it was wonderful to see.  I love watching children take what could be a painful assignment and turn it into something that is great.  THIS happens.

The story is told in Florence’s own words.  Sharing her words, her working out what her family is like.  It’s like sitting next to her as she does her homework listening in. 

You’ll find the font easy enough to read. It’s not in bold and appears handwritten. It would be easy enough to hold up with a group of children to share it. I could see a teacher using this with her class before she gives them a family tree assignment. What a great way to let children know it doesn’t matter what their family looks like, just follow how the branches go even if they intertwine or go off ways.

Should you Get it?

I thought Florence and her Fantastic Family Tree was a good read.  Enjoyable, easy to read, the character develops, and good results.  Regardless of what YOUR family looks like, it would be good to share with your children. Help them develop empathy for what other people’s families might look like.  Instead of calling it an antiquated idea, let us celebrate with children what their families look like. 

Summer meals in August

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I have been so busy cooking and making food this month.  It’s been fun!  A lot of our meals have featured zucchini simply because we have a bunch of it and I like exploring new creations.   Our summer meals in August have also included such staples as burgers, hotdogs, BBQ chicken etc.  It is summer after all!  🙂   I didn’t include EVERYTHING I made that’s new, but much of it is here and perhaps it might inspire you!  

Summer Meals in August

Zucchini Recipes

Stuffed Zucchini was a hit! This was such a good meal, and it made enough to serve everyone two meals (including our tenant).   I did make a modification to this recipe.  Instead of sausage meat I used ground beef and added a touch of salt and pepper.   Also my bread crumbs were seasoned. 

stuffed zucchini

The Best Classic Zucchini Bread.  Made with the light green squash.  I stuck these immediately into the freezer so can’t tell you what we thought of them.  I did add a few chocolate chips to the recipe. 

Zucchini Chili was made this with the big round green squash.   This was quite good though hubby said it needed more spice.  I liked it as is.  Changes I made: Only one bell pepper, no tomato sauce, two cans black beans, no pinto beans, and no jalapeno pepper.

Zucchini Muffins made from a zucchini bread recipe.    (made as muffins)  Made with regular zucchini.  250 calories each with raisins.  Hubby liked these which is a good thing as I made a double-batch with half in the freezer. 🙂 

More Zucchini dishes….

Zucchini Garlic Bites.   Makes 52 bites if doing a triple recipe.  A great way to make sure everyone gets some.   This time when I made it I almost forgot the garlic so I added 3/4 tsp garlic powder instead of minced garlic.  I like how they turned out. 

Made a double recipe of Chocolate Chip Zucchini bread . If I make again I would do maybe 3/4 cup chocolate chips as this was just a bit too much adding a full cup.  I didn’t expect that.

Zucchini cheddar cheese savoury muffins.  These surprised me.  They would be excellent served with chili, as a side breakfast item, or by adding a touch of bacon or ham to them.   A nice quiet part of a meal. A good surprise. My tenant said, “get me this recipe!”.  🙂 

Zucchini Recipes

I was reminded by my sweetheart that I hadn’t made “apple pie” with zucchini in quite a while.  As I was searching for the recipe again I came across this savoury pie as well.  Both were great!    

The sweet pie recipe I changed by making it as a crisp.   The savoury pie I mostly used as it but added 3/4 a can of chopped spam to it.   I also just used onion rather than shallots and chives, and changed the type of flour and milk. 

Zucchini Pie, one sweet, one savoury

Birthday Cooking

Pasta Salads

It was my birthday this month so I made food that I liked when it was time to celebrate.  I failed to get a picture of some really good pork chops.  Garlic Rosemary Pork Chops are quite excellent.   Made for a lovely meal that son and I enjoyed but hubby declined as “I don’t like pork chops”. 

Two types pasta salads which were quite different from each other.  The one I made thinking my hubby would be delighted with it… he was, as was my son.   Bacon Ranch Pasta Salad.   I did a herb garlic base and added 1/3 of a red pepper along with half a white onion.  Total hit for my fellows. 

The other recipe I LOVED.  I kinda… scarfed it down over two days.  Yes, yes, I know.. totally horrible from a weight loss point of view!  🙂  Smoky heirloom Tomato and grilled peach pasta salad with basil vinaigrette.   I did make some changes.  Instead of grilling corn on the BBQ, I used canned corn which I put on a frypan for a bit to darken.  The peaches I did not grill and I chose to use regular pasta.   Basil leaves… I didn’t have enough fresh so I used dried basil which worked quite nicely. 

My mom-in-law brought along some cauliflower and cheese, and chiffon lemon pie (my fav).  My mom brought her own lovely self.  We had hamburgers with all the toppings (at least the fellows had all the toppings I stuck with cheese and peach slices). 

Canning

I put up two kinds of zucchini relish.  It’s a great way to use up a lot of zucchini quickly and both of my fellows really like it.  This year I tried a new one that’s supposed to be Sweet and Spicy.   I also did up a more normal relish.   They cooked up quite differently so I’m looking forward to testing them out. With the more normal one I didn’t let the zucchini sit overnight as the recipe said.  I’ve never done that with my relish and it always turns out.  I just let it set out and drain once I had all the veggies mixed.  The bit I had tasted good (Just had too much for the jar). 

I love how pretty it is in the jars. 

Rabbit Dishes

I had a rabbit that was throwing a random weepy eye.  Never lasted beyond four hours at a time, but it was concerning since it was repetitive.   I decided that I would euthanize her and see if I could determine a cause.   She had a lung that wasn’t quite right so I believe it was a good call.  I let her sit in a salt water bath for a few days and this morning cooked her long and slow in the oven.

She turned out great!   I made a kinda soupy stew out of her and served it over mashed taters.   My son had some later and …gasp…had seconds!  🙂

It’s easy to make once you have your slide off the bone rabbit. 

The liquid from cooking the rabbit, a can mushroom soup, a can onion soup, about 1/2 a pack mixed veggies, a liberal amount of rabbit and because it’s still liquidy, a package of gravy mix.  It’ll still be thin, but thick enough to pass sorta as a stew.  🙂   I enjoyed it with mashed taters, the lad did bread and cheese on the side. 

rabbit stoup

I unfortunately didn’t get a picture of it, but I made this REALLY REALLY good pulled rabbit BBQ meat dish.  It was so very good, the lad kinda scarfed it up so fast.  It was enough for what I thought would be three meals… We got maybe 1.5 meals out of it.  Crockpot, pulled rabbit, manwich sauce with 1/2 bottle chicken bbq sauce.   REALLY REALLY GOOD.  I will make it again sometime.  See if I can persuade hubby to try it… just once. 

How about you?

Did you make any interesting dishes this month?  What new things did you learn would work?  Were you inundated with squash and figure out new ways to cook with it? Or perhaps your tomato season is just coming in and you’re thinking… what do I do with it all?  Let me know!  It’s good to share new ideas don’t you think?  Tell me what your summer meals in August were!  🙂 

Other meals I’ve shared:

July.  January. February. March and April.

The Scream in the Night

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Even though I know this poem below doesn’t include the word loud, as soon as I saw the word prompt from Miss Kate it simply spilled off my fingertips. 🙂    The scream in the night, in reality, was less of a scream than call. Just a fully recognized alert sounding for someone who knows the danger hidden in this particular fur coat. 

The scream in the night

The Scream in the Night

It came suddenly
the scream in the night.
Making my heart
Leap with fright.

With wondering eyes,
to the door I fled.
Hoping in my heart,
against all my dread.

Indeed it was true,
I saw it full well.
That beast of my terrors
Outside my home it did dwell.

What should I do?
This scavenger of might!
With one who would cause
Such alarm in the night?

A trap, yes indeed
This owner would lay.
To keep safe some bunnies
This predator would slay.

Raw in egg, a trap in the other
Place, bait down
Set in place
with a frown.

Would the predator come
Allured by the egg?
Prevent it from grabbing
a young bunnies leg?

Success! Oh the bliss!
There’s no scream in the night!
No more worry
No more fright!

A long-distance journey
A new home to find.
One predator a forest
to place his behind!

Much safer and better
than urban life to live.
Less traffic, natural food
I’m happy to give.

raccoon in trap

Shark Posts!

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One of my colleagues was asking about shark posts the other day and I thought I’d send her a list of all of them.  I got to think it would probably be easiest if I sent them all as one post!  What do you think?

AND… I don’t know if you know this BUT The Old Schoolhouse has a shark of a deal going on right now.  TWO YEARS for the price of one.. an absolutely mind-boggling deal indeed.    More on that later though.   Just so you know, affiliate links will be made in this post. Won’t affect your end price, just helps me keep this blog going.  🙂 

shark-posts

Sharks are such amazing creatures.  I’ve been watching an oceans series on Curiousity Stream lately, and we’ve gone through all of the world’s biggest sharks.  Then we started to learn about some of the world’s smallest sharks.   I never would have imagined there were such small sharks out there. 

And now we are doing glow in the dark sharks.  I’m so amazed at the sheer variety that is the shark.  From sharks like the basking or whale sharks eating plankton, to the well-known great white who are meat-eaters. Learning about sharks that live deep down in the oceans and use bio-luminescence.  God’s complexity in the shark world surprises me. 

Shark Books Reviewed

It has been my pleasure to review some shark books over the years.  The three most recent are as follows.  It would be rather silly of me to not let you know about these interesting books in this shark posts tribute eh?

Shark Week.  A fascinating book all about sharks.  Tons of interesting facts. 

Sharks Never Sleep. Real-life stories from both sides of the shark debate. 

Shark Lady.  A researcher who is intensely curious about sharks. 

What does Sharks have to do with TOS?

First up… check out this amazing shark!

TOS bogo july

This is just one of the many amazing facts you will learn on SchoolhouseTeachers.com.  450 courses.  Covers your family from preschool up through adulthood.  Courses for little kids, bigger kids, senior kids and adult kids alike!  $179 for one year is a good price, imagine it now for TWO years!  Where else can you find a curriculum all put together for you, for your whole family for $179?   Trust me…you won’t find it anywhere else!

You can learn about sharks using World Book Resources, have shark-themed math or language arts lessons, Find them in your high school biology courses, and even learn about them in “A world of animals” lessons.  Sharks abound on SchoolhouseTeachers.com….. learn more about them today!

Goals for the New School Year

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The other day I reached a bit more than halfway to a goal.  I was BEYOND thrilled.  Even though my progress is erratic, over time it remains consistent.   I am looking forward to getting into a consistent routine with cooler weather again. 

But today I was plunging a sink in the basement I realized something.   Since Jim has started this job where he works evenings and he’s tired ALL THE TIME I’ve needed to learn new skills (like plunging a sink).  

That got me thinking again about how, what your perspective is, changes what your attitude is.  I could resent that my hubby is tired all the time and how I can’t depend on him to do all the stuff he used to do.  OR and this is the perspective/attitude adjustment part… I could rejoice that he has a sorta decently paying job AND that I can learn new skills.  Including the skills of being persistent in the face of unexpected challenges. 

So when this challenge popped up of goals for the new school year I got to thinking… what other goals might I have?

Goals for the New School Year

Support the lad’s education

I have to admit, I’m not exactly sure how to go about doing this, but I very much what to help my lad continue to develop his discernment skills. Learning how to tell non-truth from truth, to be able to discern hidden agendas, will help him when he faces challenges from the world. 

Future schooling will bring challenges, as does the ready access to knowledge which doesn’t always speak truth into the lives of people reading/viewing it.  How to help him navigate that using good solid judgement is a minefield that I’m not sure how to navigate well.  But try we surely shall.  🙂 

To learn how to plan out his learning agenda.  I’m teaching him to take the number of lessons and divide that by the weeks to completion. Give him a better idea this year on how to stay on track. 

He’s already figured out that doing 2 then a different 2 per semester, like the local high school is doing makes more sense to him. 

Produce Something

A year or two ago I had this goal of producing a book of poetry.  I think this year it is doable.  Just pull up posts from my blog, and write some new stuff and mix it all together.  Should be fun yes?  I’ll need to sort out just how to do that using Amazon…but it should be doable I think.  🙂 

I also want to put together an ebook for middle-to-high school on dealing with “errors in scripture” and how to help students figure out truth from error. Give students more than one perspective from which to learn startling details so they can discern better the steadfastness of God. 

I have other ideas in my brain, but right now those two are the biggest. 

Continue the other goal

Expect reaching the goal that I alluded to in my initial paragraph will take a good year yet most likely. Never-the-less I will continue on my journey.  Persistence is a good thing you know?   But strict adherence to a regime will probably never happen!   But long-term goals are good things to have!

Other goals for the new school year

I’m in the process of painting all my rabbitry trays, and I think I want to paint some of my rabbit cages as well.  Slow down the rust damage.  Reduce the number of trays/cages I have to buy next year!   (at least that’s the plan).

I want to replace the sides on the storage part of my rabbitry. This will give me a bit more space I think, and reduce damage possible by various varmints that wander through. 

Hubby is going to build an enclosed room in the basement, so want to be able to help him, possibly learn some new skills.  Might not work though as hubby works best without anyone helping him.  🙂 

Find a part-time job I think.  Just two days a week if I can. 

Figure out the whole…. doing a newsletter thing for my blog.  I am hoping to increase my affiliate sales this year, you know… actually MAKE some money at this blogging thing. Apparently having an active newsletter helps tons with this. 

August

How about you?

Having goals for the new school year gives me items to aim for.  Not just for me, but also to support my family. A huge joy it is to do such.   What sort of goals do you have for the coming year?