A Net in Time

Curriculum and book reviews, faith, homeschooling and more!

Homeschooling

Books We’ve Enjoyed Recently

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 I wanted to update you on some of the books we’ve read lately.  

They’ve been a varied bunch, but I thought you might like them. 

 The Cat of Bubastes: A Tale of Ancient Egypt.   This is a GA Henty book that took us quite a while to finish.   We did it as a read-aloud, starting with it being a lunch time book and then a bed time book so we could get it done.   I found it very wordy and often summarized sections with my lad.   BUT the tale itself is well done with it becoming not only a story about Egypt but of people coming to the know the Lord and how, in time, it changed an entire people group.    Excellent story.


Here, There Be Dragons   I read this one for myself a while ago and it’s been sitting in my “put this on my blog” pile.  🙂  Good read, want to read more in the series.  It’s a typical protect the world from the bad guys type of fantasy fiction.   Good read though.   Character development, interesting scenes..

Sky Dragons: Dragonriders of Pern.  I freely admit that I love Anne McCaffrey books, and the books she writes with her son Todd… love them too.  The Dragonriders of Pern are one of my favourite fantasy books.  Dragons, danger, people, mystery, drama and they have everything.  I really hope that when my lad gets a touch older that he will love this series as much as I do.  Time will tell eh?

Anyways, SkyDragons takes us back in time to Xhinnia needing to help save Pern.  They land in an area with no caves and no safety.  Where will they nest to stay safe?   read the book and find out!

Recommended reading level… teenagers and up.   Not a lot of adult theme, but there is some.

Mystery of the Egyptian Scroll: Secret Agent Zet Series Book 1.   My son and I absolutely loved this book.   It was a quite read, held our attention, taught us alot about Egypt and her people, and was just a great mystery.  We were on pins and needles as we waited to find out how the bad people would be stopped.  Rest assured they were.   Definitely recommend reading this one.

I think this was a veritas press history book selection but I can’t remember for sure.  But go.. get it, read it.  🙂

Another one of my favourite authors is Mercedes Lackey.   The Companions of Valdemar is high on my lists of must reads.  🙂   Recently I have read Closer to the Heart (The Herald Spy Trilogy Book 2)  as well as Closer to the Chest (Valdemar: The Herald Spy).    I am currently awaiting in the release of book three of this series.. patience is sometimes hard come by…  🙂   Anyways, Mags and Amily have work to do in both of these books.   Can they help Valdemar?   We are introduced to some interesting characters in both books.  I particularly liked the addition of a special needs fellow (his name currently escapes) who is able to help out the rangers.  Can’t talk well but can do amazingly specialized weapons and works of beauty.   Bands of informants created by both Mags and Amily that work two different sections of society.   A lot of a kindness in these books despite the danger and evil that sometimes surround.   Probably why I like them so much.  🙂  

I will warn you.. if you do get hooked on the Heralds of Valdemar series… it’s huge!!!   So many lovely books to read.  🙂

Well there you have it.. I think I’ve gotten through all the book in my stake.   Need to do this more often you know?   🙂

A Lad’s Delight in Tidyness

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Did you know that sometime in the 4 months we’ll be moving?

To that end, we’re  trying to find the furniture and belongings that we say “I’m not going to move that”.  

My lad has taken that thought to heart and over the past couple of weeks has been working hard to clean his room, and MY oh MY the articles and papers and toys and junk this lad is tossing.  🙂

He even went out and bought two new-to-him shelves for his room.

He’s rather pleased with how it all turned out and said I could post it up on the blog for comments.

No before pictures as well… he wasn’t happy with his room so no pictures allowed of that.

 
Allow me to walk you through some of his changes.

Where the shelves are placed used to be a large drawer cupboard.   It was good for the storage of blocks of wood, stuffies, toy animals and such like, but he’s 11 now, his play takes a somewhat different turn these days.   

We moved it out to the book room where I’ll use it for other things.  It left him with one shelf which was unacceptable, but YAY!!  Mom found some shelves for sale and the previous owner was willing to accept counter offers from a lad!!   An even better woot woot!

Shelf One:

Top Shelf – Christmas Snowmen, trophy and catapult.

Next Shelf- snake skins (literally) and art projects

Next two – papercraft items and support items

Bottom shelf – can you see how he made an area for his cat to lie down?

He is SO pleased with his just for Milo area.  🙂  and Milo seems to like it too.   All we need to do now is add a cat door to his bedroom and Milo will always have access to HIS BOY.

Some of the treasures he wants you to see.   All these treasures he made.  Some from a kit, the rest all him.  🙂

Second shelf unit

This unit predominately holds his books along with his 3-d models and a few other treasures.

The tractor is a reminder of his grandfather.

The bottom shelf holds toys he can’t quite get rid of yet, as well as some cat magazines etc.

Model car, items from Kiwi Crates and a bit of this and that.

Treasures again for you to see: 

One last area that he wants to show off.

OH!!!  I almost forgot!!!   He figured out how to hang up his real sword!!!!

My son is hoping you like what he did with his shelf units.  Nothing on the floor, everything nicely organized.  What more could a tidy boy want eh? Other than… MORE SHELVES!!!!   🙂

Poem – I Think Mice are Rather Nice

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MICE

I think mice are rather nice;
Their tails are long, their faces small;
They haven’t any chins at all.
Their ears are pink, their teeth are white,
They run about the house at night;
They nibble things they shouldn’t touch,
and, no one seems to like them much,
but, I think mice are rather nice.

Rose Fyleman

I learned this poem as a child and it has stuck with me ever since.
Want to have it here in case I ever forgot it. 🙂

Have had a reader comment that the proper wording of this poem should be as follows. Note the absence of the word rather in the last line:

MICE
I think mice are rather nice;
Their tails are long, their faces small;
They haven’t any chins at all.
Their ears are pink, their teeth are white,
They run about the house at night;
They nibble things they shouldn’t touch,
and no one seems to like them much,
but I think mice are nice!
-Rose Fyleman

I learned the poem as I wrote it above, but I’m fine either way. 🙂