A Net in Time

Curriculum and book reviews, faith, homeschooling and more!

Homeschooling

Heaven Came Down and Glory Filled My Soul

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I remember singing this song as I was growing up, it was also a favourite song in a Baptist church I attended for a while.  Singing it pop up in my folk hymnal brought a smile to my heart, so today I bring you Heaven Came Down and Glory Filled My Soul. 

heaven came down and glory filled my soul

Lyrics to Heaven Came Down….

O what a wonderful, wonderful day, day I will never forget;
After I’d wandered in darkness away, Jesus my Savior I met.
O what a tender, compassionate friend, He met the need of my heart;
Shadows dispelling, with joy I am telling, He made all the darkness depart.

Chorus
Heaven came down and glory filled my soul, (filled my soul)
When at the cross the Savior made me whole; (made me whole)
My sins were washed away and my night was turned to day,
Heaven came down and glory filled my soul! (filled my soul)

Born of the Spirit with life from above into God’s family divine,
Justified fully thru Calvary’s love, O what a standing is mine!
And the transaction so quickly was made, when as a sinner I came,
Took of the offer, of grace He did proffer, He saved me, O praise His dear name!

Chorus

Now I’ve a hope that will surely endure after the passing of time;
I have a future in heaven for sure there in those mansions sublime.
And it’s because of that wonderful day, when at the cross I believed;
Riches eternal and blessings supernal, from His precious hand I received.

Chorus

Author

John W. Peterson is the author of this fun song.   I found this site devoted to him and his music.  He was a pilot in WW2 who flew the deadly China Hump.  A graduate of the Moody Bible Institute and the American Conservatory of Music.  He launched his song-writing career in Pennsylvania.  Later on he moved to Michigan, and then on to Arizona. 

Over his music career he wrote more than 1000 songs such as Surely Goodness and Mercy.

Thinking Deeper

Think about these words eh?

O what a wonderful, wonderful day, day I will never forget;
After I’d wandered in darkness away, Jesus my Savior I met.
O what a tender, compassionate friend, He met the need of my heart;
Shadows dispelling, with joy I am telling, He made all the darkness depart.

I know that many are like me, growing up in the Christian home, our faith deepening over time.  We are like Timothy… growing up in faith.  

Yet others are like Paul, having a sudden awareness brought to them of the reality of who Christ is. 

Regardless of how your faith deepens and you come to know more of the Lord, the question remains… do you remember Jesus’ compassion?  Do we recall how, in our time of need, Jesus responds?  This song draws us back into the remembrance.  It draws us to remember just who Christ is and what he calls us to be, what he declares us to be.  Justified people, a people won by grace and love, a people filled with hope because we know what awaits us. 

Engineering for High School

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Do you have a child who is detailed oriented and likes to figure out the why of how things work?   Who likes to figure out how to make things, or figures out the most efficient way of doing things?   Well.. I DO.    It sometimes drives me crazy, but I’ve learned (mostly to live with it).    I’ve had more than one person tell me that he’s got a bit of an engineers mind.  Therefore, this week I’m hoping to help others who are looking into opportunities for engineering for high school.

engineering for high school

Places to Go On-Line

The Engineer Guy is a website I am still exploring.  There is much to see and read.  How useful he will be to me and my lad I don’t know.  Check him out.

I find this site Instructables absolutely fascinating.  The things people make.  Sometimes I feel so inspired to try some of them out.  You need to be aware that not everyone is as complete in their instructions as others.  Some have specialized equipment, so pick and choose what you look at.  But wow… browsing is such fun!  They even have lessons just for high school. 

TeachEngineering has some 360 lessons.  Print them off and use them.  Practice out your engineering skills.  Complete a whole unit or dash around trying your hand at different things.   

I’m looking into a program called Engineer Your world. I don’t know a whole lot about it but it certainly looks interesting.   I’ve learned it’s not cheap, it’s three year commitment with materials to store and you need a minimum of 9 children to participate yearly.

If you want more online options, you could go to many of online options I listed here and search out their engineering courses. For instance Alison has all these engineering related courses. 

Real Life Opportunities

As I was doing some researching I discovered that different universities (in the States and Canada) and I’m assuming there are opportunities world-wide for summer learning.   For instance the University of Western Ontario has this high school program. 

The University of Waterloo has these enrichment programs. 

You could job shadow an engineer… there are so many fields for engineers it’s amazing.  SO if you didn’t like aspects of one engineers job you could easily switch to another. Pursue to the type of engineering you would like to do. 

Positions for Engineers

Civil engineer.  These are the most common. Something is being built like a road, a house, a building etc.   You need people to design it, and then you need people to safely construct it.  These people (the designers and the constructors) are civil engineers.   To learn more see here.

Mechanical Engineer.  An engineer who deals with mechanical things.  They work on the design of machines, calibration and more.

Chemical Engineer.  Well you know it has to do with chemicals right?  They use their knowledge of chemistry and chemical to develop and design chemical manufacturing processes. They use this knowledge to develop new drugs, in food production and much more. 

Petroleum Engineer.  These folks finds ways to better utilize petroleum products and to extract it from the ground. 

Electrical Engineer.  “Someone who designs and develops new electrical systems, solves problems and tests equipment.” They apply (after study) physics and math to various systems to transmit energy and to help process information. If it’s electrical, they are involved. Continue reading here.

Aeronautic Engineer.  Think of anything that interacts with the air and space.  Those items/jobs/positions are what these folks fill.   

My son has taken two engineering courses over his middle school years.  Last year Robotics and Thinking like an Engineer.   

SchoolhouseTeachers.com has a few engineering tasks on their site.  Not a whole lot, but perhaps enough the whet the appetite of your students.   Before you know you’ll be teaching engineering for high school!  🙂

schoolhouse

Want to Learn Some Specifics?

Selling Curriculum and Books

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This isn’t going to be a mind-blowing post.. just so you know.  I feel like I’ve been neglecting my blog lately so thought I’d do up a quick post.  Today’s topic?  Selling Curriculum and books.  Why?  Because that is what I have been doing today.

Selling curriculum and books

I’ve been taking pictures.  Such as this one.  I then go to the local buy’n’sell groups (including the homeschool ones) and post things for sale. 

books for sale

Pricing

I don’t charge a lot.  My prices are pretty basic like $1 for chapter books, $2 for workbooks, $5 for new books, $10 for never even been looked at books, still in the wrapping. 

Cause you know what…sometimes you buy stuff with good intentions and then go MEH.. why did I ever buy that???   So you want to recoup SOME of your costs right?  But normally once it’s used and done.. I just want it gone.  I don’t want to keep it in my house. 

picture books

Some books, like the one above are HARD to get rid of.  I LOVE this book.  BUT someone gave me a box of books to sell once, told me I could keep anything I wanted instead of selling it and in that box was a book of all James Herriot’s short tales.  This book is in that (sans the pictures) but the story itself is there and ultimately it’s the story I love not the pictures.   

Ergo… out it goes.  I do hope it finds a home where it will be much loved.  I remember having this same trouble with Explorers.  I just love wordless books, you can do so much with them.

books for sale

Some decisions are hard

Others I really waffle on.  Like The Appleseed Journal.  I keep thinking I could get the lad to do a book study on it.  One where he has to think through some of Appleseeds’ errant beliefs…but then I remember my lad HATES book studies and is the struggle really worth it?  So I waffle and time will tell.  I suppose if it sells that’s my answer right?  And if it is still here when I want to MAKE him do a book study it’ll be available. 

curriculum and books for sale

in this season of my life I’m also selling some books for a friend’s sister. I get a commission which helps make it worth my time.  But hubby wants them gone so I’m trying to get rid of them before I tell my friend…come take these away again.  I can’t have them in the house. 

I sold about 1/3 of them earlier this year at a book sale and was highly pleased by that.  My intention was to have a yard sale/book sale earlier this year but it seemed my fellows always needed me for something or the weather was too wet or much too hot or I had a bad week where doing anything was just stupid.  You know how it goes. 

Either way, come Monday morning most of these books will be gone .. either to a thrift store or back to my friends home and only a select few will make it in my yardsale pile for next year. Won’t that just be a lovely thing… and I will hopefully have just enough money to take my fellows out for supper.  Won’t THAT be a fun?

How about you… what methods do YOU use for selling curriculum books?  Do you use facebook or have a yearly sale you attend?  Maybe you list them on Kijiji or Craig’s list?

How to Save Money on Curriculum

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The school is about to start if you are in Ontario at least, I know that some folks have already started back to school already.  Will the curriculum you picked work out in the long run?  What if you or your children absolutely hate it?  How will you handle it?   Needing to know how to save money on curriculum is vitally important. 

How to Save Money on Curriculum

Curriculum isn’t working

So let’s say your curriculum simply isn’t working.  What do you do?   Do you keep plugging along or do you set it aside?  It depends on what the problem is.  

I’ve run into situations where the graphics caused my lad no end of distress, so we learned to cover them up.   Just do the work, ignore what is under these little pieces of paper and voila problem solved.  Quick problem-solver eh?  🙂 

Sometimes though, the problem isn’t so easy to solve.  The way it’s written doesn’t work for your student, or it’s too difficult or way too easy, or whatever.  The curriculum simply won’t work.  Then you need to find an alternative.  Perhaps the rest of the year you can make use of free math, art, or foreign language programs.  Sometimes your student needs to learn to deal with material they don’t like.  This too is a life lesson. Otherwise, you may just need to buckle down and get a program better suited.  In that situation you may not save money, but hopefully that won’t happen often. 

At other times, simply changing one aspect of a curriculum or revamping it in some ways does the trick.  One year my son and I were reviewing an geography program that was not doing over well.  We changed how we did it, adding extra elements, reducing the disliked portions and by the time we were done with it, it had become a favourite.  Saved us tons!

Finding Curriculum

So you find yourself needing to buy a curriculum to replace a disliked one, or simply because you need something that perhaps you forget or haven’t been able to get ahold of. How can you save money?

How to Save Money on Curriculum

You want to own your curriculum:

  • Used curriculum sales
  • Book Fairs
  • Library book sales
  • Thrift stores
  • Fellow homeschoolers
  • Check through what you have
  • Repurpose another curriculum by adding something to it.

You are okay not owning it

  • Library book shelves
  • Co-op library
  • Fellow homeschoolers
  • Sharing with someone already using it (form a small class).
How to Save Money on Curriculum

Don’t forget the Older Curriculum

My son has used old textbooks, elderly science notebooks, Sunday school material, ratty student notebooks, and more.  Old stuff is a treasure trove of information.  Ignore the natty covers and see what’s actually inside them.  You might need, at times, to update information.  But for the younger years, you want to build excitement in learning… and some of those old materials do an excellent job of doing just that.   🙂

Use them well and because they are old, you can either toss them, pass them along, or thrift store. 

It’s always your choice

At the end of the day we have to remember…. New curriculum is wonderful.  Like really.. the scent of a newly opened textbook.  It is great.   BUT what is even better is being able to buy more books and more curriculum because you stuck with your budget.    Find those budget friendly options and use them well. 

Zonked out Rabbits

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Sometimes rabbits snooze so deeply that you would swear they are dead.  And if you touch one of your zonked out rabbits either you will startle them badly or they will wake up slowly with a somewhat hung over attitude.   

Some folks I know over at backyard rabbits were kind enough to share images of their zonked out rabbits. 

Zonked out rabbits

From Jennifer.  Here is this cutie sleeping on his mom

Jennifer Zonked out rabbits

Bunnies that are sleeping soundly can be found in all sorts of positions.  On their sides, on their back, lying flat on their tummies, and/or wrapped over or under another bunny.  They are completely dead to the world. 

zonked out rabbits
Cher: My main man Hemi TOTALLY ‘Zonked’ out after a much needed “bath”

Zonked out Rabbits – Alive or Dead?

Some rabbits you will never catch sleeping. NEVER. It’s like they are too aware of their surroundings to be caught dead to rights. Those bunnies would make excellent feral rabbits. 🙂 But others you catch sleeping all the time.

It is horrible when you look into your rabbitry and see what you think is a sleeping bunny only to discover that actually no, this time that zonked rabbit is indeed dead.

Most of the time though, that apparently dead rabbit isn’t and often you won’t know until you touch that rabbit. A truly zonked out rabbit has slow, very quiet breathing. So you reach in to touch….do be mindful of startled rabbits though…. just saying… be careful.

More Pictures

sleeping bunny
You will often swear they are dead. says Jeff.

Katie mentioned that “No pic but I went to check rabbits one day and a doe was laying in a weird position I opened the cage and touched her and scared her so bad she bit me 😂”   Mental note: NEVER scare a zonked out rabbit, it’s just not in your own best interest (other than reassuring yourself they are alive). 

Katie later sent me this sleeping beauty. 

sleeping beauty

Savannah of Thistle Dew Ridge says” I’ve had rabbits sleep deeply before but this was the first time I walked in to one sleeping with its eyes rolled like that lol”

zonked out rabbits

Brianna told me this: ”  I had some English Lops, they used to pass out so deeply, I had to physically pick them up to get them to wake up.

They were never too impressed lol! “

babies zonked out
Crystal’s babies

Jolene of The Metropolitan Homestead sent me this harlequin coloured bunny enjoying a well earned rest.

zonked out rabbits

Danielle tells me this about her wee little one,” Zonked 1 1/2 week old. It was pretty warm and I though he was a dead until I poked him “

zonked out baby

Some people shared video which I didn’t know how to share here. If you are a member of backyard rabbits you can visit that thread here.

Others in This Series

abcblogging

Letter Z Link Up

Each week we will be linking up with the hosts of Blogging Through the Alphabet. Please visit some of these other blogs to get things like book lists, vegan recipes, and wonderful places to visit, just to name the topics I can think of off the top of my head.

Interactive unit studies

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Being who I am I love to find things that will be helpful to others.  Years ago someone turned me on to the dragonlady (who no longer exists) who did these AMAZING unit studies.  They had printable templates for doing great builds of pyramids, or lizards or just whatever have you.  Fantastic units that thoroughly engaged the student (and their teacher) in learning.  I thought they were fantastic and since then have looked for other interactive unit studies. 

Interactive Unit Studies

Through the Homeschool Review Crew I discovered  Home School in the Woods … which has some interesting builds such as this World War 2 game.  And we’ll be using them as a spine for our WW2 Study.  They do some simply amazing unit studies. My search continues for the immersive experience. I have found some more that intrigue me. 

home school in the woods

First off Why Unit Studies?

Well.. why NOT unit studies.   Look at the benefits of a unit study.

  • Focused attention.
  • Incorporates more than one field of study
  • Hands on elements
  • Involves more of the senses 
  • Caters to a variety of learning styles
  • Leads to rabbit trails which increases the learning potential
  • Fun and enjoyable.
John Lubbock quote

Totally Online interactive unit studies

Techie Homeschool Mom has wonderful online unit studies.  Beth has pulled together some great unit studies.  I (and my lad) have worked through a couple of them.   Good questions, interesting facts, with no need to print things out.   History, people, holidays, and more.  Prices for individual units run from $8-24, she also does some group deals.  I first ran into her units through the Homeschool Giveaways site, and then again through a conference I think…. Anyways, I’ve always been pleasantly surprised by their thoroughness, I suspect you will be too. 

Oh.. what grade are they good for?  I’d say grades 3-8. 

interactive unit studies

You get questions, projects (like the one below), videos, thought-provoking discussions, and more.  Give them a boo won’t you?

techie homeschool mom

Kristin Moon makes unit studies for older students.  I’ve looked at some of them for my rising 9th grader. 

From Kristin: The courses contain videos, hands-on activities, instructions for experiments, online quizzes, and links to sites for more information. The content is geared for upper middle school and high school. While I do plan to offer courses for middle school, it’s been my experience that moms can start feeling frightened about teaching science at the higher levels. In fact, that’s typically one reason why folks put their kids back in school in high school. My goal in creating these courses is to provide quality science resources for families who wish to continue to homeschool throughout high school.

Kristen Moon Science

Kristin currently has five online courses

  • Science of Autumn Leaves
  • Microbiology
  • Genetics and Heredity
  • Prokaryotes
  • DNA basics….
kristin moon science

Lisa Marie Fletcher of The Canadian Homeschooler has her mostly online Canadian History course.   The Canadian Time Capsule is rather neat series for up through middle school.   This is predominately done on-line with hands-on elements, reports to right, activities to do etc. 

canadian time capsule

Every month you get a new historical event to work through.  The capsules don’t come in chronological order.  Good books are suggested for various age ranges.   You should check them out if you have any interest in Canadian History (trust me, it’s WAY more interesting than you may think).

Canadian time capsule

Print off unit studies

Of course, you can follow the more traditional method of unit studies.   Down load them, print them off, and have a lovely book that you can show off to others.  Some of these unit studies will have hands on activities, and others will basically be workbooks. 

I was introduced recently to Love at Home Education which is looking to created multi-age unit studies for K-12.   In reviewing Natural Disasters I found them excellent for K-8.    You can learn about presidents of the United States, Penguins, Polar Bears and so much more. Have your whole family learn about the same thing together. 

Natural Disasters

Then of course there are Amanda Bennett’s unit studies.  I used to review these unit studies and we thoroughly enjoyed them.  We learned so much!   They aren’t geared for high school, bring primarily for elementary school.  You could do them as a family and supplement the material to make it suitable for your middle and high school students. 

Just so you know they’ll be having some sales this month if you are at all interested.

For August 12 – Animal Science DNG bundle 30% off the reduced bundle price
And August 19 – American History DNG bundle 30% off the reduced bundle price
August 26 – Kitchen Science DNG bundle 30% off the reduced bundle price
unit study

I know if you search on-line you can find lapbooks (which are like mini unit studies with visual elements) for free, and a whole host of small unit studies.  You can use them as a basis for a large study. 

Other Options

I was told to check out Google Classroom and that if I had trouble figuring out what to do, to watch pocketful of primary on YouTube. She apparently has posted a walk through of the basics on her channel for google classroom.  So that might be an option for doing up your own unit study, appropriate to your student. 

Interactive Unit Studies

In Conclusion

Finding interactive unit studies for high school students is harder then finding them for elementary students or middle school.  It is possible.  They tend to be more focused.  Give a look, use what you can, and help your students learn. 

Grade 9 Curriculum Choices

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Well… can you believe that I have a lad in grade 9?  It sometimes surprises me that we’ve made it through.  🙂  Today I’ll be talking about our grade 9 curriculum choices. 

Grade 9 curriculum choices

History: World War 2

Some of our choices were really easy.  We’d decided in 7th grade to be about studying both world wars.  We had thought maybe we could both wars in grade 8 but that proved to a bit beyond us.  Therefore we’ll study World War 2 for grade 9.

World War 2 curriculum

This shelf houses the book we have for World War 2, some of the fiction books we’ll be reading together.  Right now we are reading Marika. 

He’ll be reading through this series on his own.  This series is based on Camp X and is part of our Canadian history.  He is very much looking forward to reading it. 

world war 2 canada

One of the spines we will be using is this Time Travelers project from Home School in the Woods.  We started this two years ago as a review and will be working our way through it this year along with other unit studies I picked up. 

Home School in the woods ww2

English/Language Arts

I really waffled on this one and ended up going with a more inclusive language arts program.   I am hoping the lad does well with it.   We’ll be using Writing & Grammer 9 from BJU. 

grade 9 curriculum english

Foreign Languages

The lad was enthralled learning Latin last year through Picta Dicta and wants to know more.  I did a lot of searching but wasn’t happy price wise with most of what we found.  Then I discovered that SchoolhouseTeachers has a Latin program that should suit the needs of the lad. 

grade 9 curriculum latin

They also have a French program that should work nicely with the lad. 

Grade 9 curriculum french

Science

Since I mark for Tree of Life and the lad has seen the text we use he has been wanting to do the Exploring Creation with Biology with me.   I got him the student workbook and we’re set. 

grade 9 curriculum science

We’ll also be studying health, therefore the human anatomy book and we’ll be making these models (heart and Lung) as well.  I have a unit on nutrition, a book for teens on growing up, and some courses on Alison we’ll be making use of.  

grade 9 curriculum - health

Math

We haven’t completely decided but I think we’ll be doing math from SchoolhouseTeachers.  Dr. D has a geometry course that the lad has been eyeing, though we might find an algebra 2 course to take.  We haven’t completely decided. 

grade 9 curriculum geometry

Our Grade 9 Curriculum Wrap-up

I keep thinking I’ve missed something… but I can’t think of what right now.  This is the bulk of what we’ll be doing though so I think it’s good enough.  🙂

OH!!!!   He’ll be taking tech at the local highschool.  They’ll give him an introduction to woodworking, design, and two other things that I am SO not equipped to teach him!  🙂

Do you have highschool student?  What will they be working through?

blog hop

Hey!  Follow The crew through this Annual Not Going Back to School homeschool blog hop!  Links of participants below

CREW @ Homeschool Review Crew – 2019 Annual Not Back to School Homeschool Blog Hop  
Chareen @ Every Bed of Roses – ABC of Homeschooling
Dawn @ Schoolin’ Swag – Adding Fun to Your Homeschool Day
Erin @ For Him and My Family – Large Family Homeschooling 
Lori @ At Home Where Life Happens – Learning Life Skills
Monique @ Mountain of Grace Homeschooling – Homeschooling the High School Years
Monique D. @ Early Learning Mom – Homeschooling With Autism
Yvie @ Homeschool On the Range – 5 Days of Upper Grades Homeschooling
Abby @ Making Room 4 One More – Time Management for Homeschool Moms 
Amanda @ Hopkins Homeschool – 5 Days of Homeschool Questions
Amy @ the WRITE Balance – Year-Round Schooling 
Annette @ A Net in Time – Homeschooling. 
Betty @ Lets Get Real – Homeschooling High School 
Cassandra @ My Blessed Mess – Eclectic Homeschooling

Kimberley @ Vintage Blue Suitcase – Roadschooling with a Teenager

Yvonne @ The Life We Build – 5 Days of Relaxed Homeschooling
Destiny @ Some Call It Destiny – Encouragement for the Homeschooling Mom
Karen @ Tots and Me…Growing Up Together –  A Peek into Our Homeschool
Kimberley @ Vintage Blue Suitcase – Roadschooling with a Teenager
Yvonne @ The Life We Build – 5 Days of Relaxed Homeschooling
Destiny @ Some Call It Destiny – Encouragement for the Homeschooling Mom
Karen @ Tots and Me…Growing Up Together –  A Peek into Our Homeschool 
Cassie D @ Deputie Tribe – Homeschooling 6 Taking Care of YOU
Kristen Heider @ A Mom’s Quest to Teach –Theme: A Quest for a Great Homeschool Year 
Patti Pierce – Truth and Grace Homeschool Academy – My Favorite Homeschooling Things
Wendy @ Life on Chickadee Lane – 5 Days of Nature Study
Jacquelin @ A Stable Beginning – Homeschooling my final 4  
Christine @ Life’s Special Necessities – Yes! You Can Homeschool Your Special Needs Child
Sally M – Tell the Next Generation – Tips for Homeschooling Struggling Learners