Homeschooling

Dear Frantic One

August 20, 2018 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

Welcome to the Homeschool Review Crew’s Summer Blog hop. In this blog hop you will find five days of encouragement as we head back to school. You’ll see our overall topics posted in the image. I’m going to be working this day by day so it will be a surprise eh! 🙂 Some of the topics I have no clear leading on and others I have an idea in the works but sometimes, those ideas go in directions different than what I plan. Let’s walk through this week together, do some good reading, and be encouraged. Day One is about encouragement for the school year.

I write today’s post quite honestly with me in mind. My thinking is that if I am feeling a certain way, others will be as well as God’s word tells us that there is nothing new under the sun.

Right now I am feeling a bit frantic. My son has a goal in mind for what he wants to learn about with this schooling this year. He wants to learn about the great wars and he wants to make it as all inclusive as he can. So he will learn geography, science, art, music etc all around the idea of the the wars and their time periods. Not only that, he’d very much like to study how Canada was involved in the wars. So that’s where I am at, and here’s what I want someone who’s been there done that to say to me.

Dear Frantic One

Calm yourself. This is your child you are schooling. Do you think he’s going to freak out if you don’t have everything organized or if you have to delay for a day or two as you catch your breath before you dig in? Did you raise your child to fret or to think schooling is more important than people?

Calm yourself, talk to your child. Do they envision a certain way for their schooling to happen? For instance, do they want research projects or papers to write? Does he envision art projects or science experiments? Would videos and making a report on them fill their desire to know more? Can you work around the desire to not have to write things down by focusing on narration or hands-on efforts?

Calm yourself, think about what you have. Do you have create a whole program? Are there things you have at hand that will do the job? Can you tweak what others have done to make something that will suit your child better?

Calm yourself, do you have to have all the answers for September 4th (or whatever day you start)? Are you going to go all in right from the start or will you ease your way slowly in? Is a delay going to ruin your entire year or can you work a bit more five days throughout the year if you aren’t quite ready yet?

Calm yourself, if you are a person of faith, have you taken the time to talk to God? Have you committed your day and year to him? Have you discussed your plans with him?

Calm yourself, have you talked with your partner Have you talked about your worries? Have you listened to advice? Sought his/her help?

Calm yourself and remind yourself, this is something YOU can do. Just take your time, grab your moments, and figure it out. You can do it! One small step at a time and before you know the whole year will be over. A child to teach, experiences to share, and life to live well. 🙂

Some of the participants:

Amanda @ Hopkins Homeschool
Angie @ Run Ran Family Adventures & Learning
Annette @ A Net in Time
Ashley @ Gift of Chaos
Brenda @ Counting Pinecones
Carol @ Home Sweet Life
Chareen @ Every Bed of Roses
Christine @ Christine Howard

Nicole @ Bless Their Hearts Mom
Patti @ Truth and Grace Homeschool Academy
Rebekah @ There Will Be a $5 Charge For Whining
Rodna @ Training Children up for Christ
Stacy @ A Homemakers Heart
Wendy @ Life at Rossmont
Yvie @ Gypsy Road

House Skills and More

August 17, 2018 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

So it’s been a bit of an odd week to be honest. I had lots of plans at the beginning of the week but well, you know, life happens. But we did get some things done. YAY!!!

First off I was talking with the lad about the hedge beside the house. We worked out a deal. I would cut branches, and he’d haul them off to the side of the house.

I think next week I’ll have the lad cut and I’ll move them! Teach him more skills! 🙂 Or rather two of the trees in the hedge, I might set his brain to working and see if he can figure out how to take them out the easiest way. Seeing as they both move if I apply a little bit of pressure I’m thinking it shouldn’t be TOO hard.

The lad had some fun with the cat! Trying to give her a ride on the wagon. 🙂 I do have to say that experiment lasted all of 2 seconds.

We had planned to clean out the garage this week but…. it rained. OH BOY it rained. The construction on our street combined with the lovely downpour, has left this HUGE mud puddle in front of our driveway. Mud happens, therefore the garage didn’t. 🙂

Instead I worked on laundry, and doing some filing upstairs. I really filled the recycling box this week.

The lad built:

The lad got focused on making formacariums for his ants. He made two.. this big one for a carpenter ant colony, and a smaller one for some pavement ants I think?

He also got inspired to test out an idea. Would foaming shave gel explode if hit with a sledgehammer? See the results for yourself.

Let’s see what else happened?

OH! The lad helped me put together my birthday present. You saw it earlier (sorta with the tree limbs). I’ve been wanting one of these wagons for about five years now but have not been able to justify the cost. Low and behold it was on sale on my birthday so hubby said … worth it now? I grinned and said yes! Anyways, the lad wanted to do it all on his own and I was a horrible mom… I made him SHARE with me! 🙂 I did part, he did part. In honesty I let him do more than I did.. Had to let him grin a bit eh?

Oh… we also bought a new back end to the truck. It has way less rust on it then our current truck has so once hubby has it all spruced up our truck will look almost new again! Currently up on sawhorses and the gantry, in time….

For the Love of a Stink Bug

August 14, 2018 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

My son has this thing for bugs. He thinks they are such interesting little critters. Today he was researching flies since he found one that was green! He learned that the iridescent ones I am catching on the fly paper in the rabbitry are bot flies. We haven’t figured out what type of fly it is yet.

We were fascinated by a tiny spider we discovered Monday, that looked a bit like sparrow poop! It was a fascinating little spider and I tried mightily to get a video of it but just couldn’t get it to come in clearly.

Anyways, this lad has shown me his heart in the care he bestows upon these wee ones of creation. He researches and studies, he’s learned where to ask questions, and he spends so much time looking and watching and learning. He’s lately starting to gravitate toward ants and recently captured a wild carpenter ant colony. He’s checking it regularly to see if he can find the queen. If he has the queen he’ll have a long working colony.

This post isn’t about ants though! 🙂 It’s about my lad’s heart and his love of the creepy crawlies in our world.

I saw this clearly when he had discovered a stink bug in the house last fall. They don’t stay over the winter and tend to die off fairly quickly when frost hits. Occasionally they make their way into the house and we find them when we step on them (don’t do that by the way, they will live up to their name). Knowing this my son argued about the need to keep him in the house where it was warm. He didn’t bite, just a harmless fellow, so I said “sure, do what you can for him.” He found an old crate that we got some Easter bears in added popsicles sticks, bottle caps, felt and string to make a nice living area for a climbing bug.

Anyways, this green fellow intrigued my lad, so he figured out how to care for him, and built it a habitat. He fed it a variety of food – predominately apples, oranges, some pomegranate, tomatoes and lettuce. That wee stink bug kept going over most of the winter.

When finally Stink Bug bit the dust there was much sadness in our house as he was the perfect house guest. He made no fuss, and NO STINK, and ate a good variety of feed. My son loved watching him climb around in his habitat. Toward the end of his days he found ways to escape his habitat but never ventured far much to my lad’s delight. Isn’t that what we want for ALL our pets? 🙂

Interested in doing your own insect research? Discover the fascinating world of insects!

SchoolhouseTeachers.com also has a bug class. Did you know that right now if you become a member you can get two years for the price of one? I KNOW! It’s an amazing deal. School for your whole family for one low price!

Watch the “ings”

August 13, 2018 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

Have you ever thought about your “ings”? How do you use them? Do they strengthen or weaken the verbs that you are using? Do you use the right amount or do you need to modify them?

English is a language of inflection. Adding an -s or -es to a noun makes a plural, whereas adding an -s or -ed to a verb distinguishes present action from past. Adding -ing changes the verb to progressive as in they began shooting the film, the wave washing across the pavement, etc.

Consider this passage:

Wilting under the strain of weeks of blistering heat, the children set about complaining to family members that their was nothing to do and would school ever start again, and rallying their moms and dads to send them off to summer camp or letting their friends come and visit.

How many ING words do you count? Are they making the sentence better or weaker?

Are they weakening the verb or strengthening it?

Consider these problems:

Adding “ing” adds an extra syllable to the word, this can change the sound of the word, almost making it different than what it really is.
After a while all those ING words start to look and sound the same. They lose their punch.

What happens in you change that sentence?

The children wilted under the strain of blistering heat. With no energy to run around and discover their own activities, they have complained to their family members that they needed more to do. They rally to their parents for summer camps, visits with friends or other activities to do.

Which sound better or makes more impact? Don’t you find the second cleaner and more precise?

This isn’t to say you can’t use -ing words, just play around with them a bit, see what fits better. Use them judiciously, use them when needed to make your words more precise, clean and definitive. To call attention to action when it’s needed, not just for the sake of using them. 🙂

Want to practice? Check out my free printable won’t you?

Review: Branch Out World

August 13, 2018 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

Paddington Bear…. doesn’t that bear just make you smile? Today, for my review, I have a unit study, from Branch Out World, that will help you dig deeper into the world of Paddington Bear and the places he has been. Fly with me from the deep, dark forests of Peru to the city lights of London. Along the way we’ll discover art, architecture, story-telling, language arts and more.

Who is Branch Out World?

Branch Out World is brain child of a homeschooling family located in the United Kingdom. Having a deep love of books, they wanted to share that love with others and to that end have created literature-based unit studies as well as lapbooks. They are geared to be used by the whole family. Their unit studies have a UK link, the lapbooks are more globally oriented.

What do you Get?

I received a 69 page PDF of Paddington Bear, a literature based unit study. It’s connected to the picture book of Paddington Bear.

You could, if you wanted get through all five days, it’s quite doable, or you could spread it over a longer period. 🙂 A weekly schedule is included, explaining the how and what of each day’s planned activities.

In this literature study you will find lapbook elements such as the one below, along with lists showing what supplies you’ll need every day.

A sample day (I’m choosing day three) has the following options to do with your students.

Learn about the artist
Picture study based on page 31 in the picture book
Learn about architectural features. We went to youtube and looked up specific examples online. Later we went for a walk and talked about the different features we learned about in the houses we saw. This was fun to do!
Principles of Design – overlapping… my son declined to do this project, but we did talk about how shadows would be different depending on where the fruit was placed and that helps show depth and placement.
Principles of Design – Emphasis. My son did this project using a huge spider in the foreground. I’ve a picture of it below.

As you can see, lots to do on any given day. Depending on your student this could take 1/2 an hour or a couple of hours. You could easily expand the projects or shorten them down to just the basics.

All the information and lapbook elements are found at the end of the study.

How We Used Paddington Bear:

I offered to get the book for my 13 year old to read and he turned me down flat. We had the option of watching the book being read, but mostly we just sat down and looked through the options for extended learning. He dove right into learning about the Spectacled bear… telling me all about what he learned about them, showing me one of the videos he watched, and showing me on our globe where they live.

He also grabbed onto the idea of learning some architectural terms, and even drew a picture showing emphasis. It was so interesting watching what elements he gravitated toward and knowing that this study would please so many students. You certainly don’t have to do everything in the lesson plan, you can pick what your students are most interested in (or what you deem most important) and learn about the world at large through a great picture book about Paddington. I have to admit to being a bit annoyed with myself, I had a couple of different elements put together and I can’t find them AND I failed to get a picture of them. I only have the picture of this one element….the drawing for emphasis.

My Thoughts:

I have to admit, my son is a bit beyond the Paddington years, so we picked up this review so that I could look at it for those that DO like Paddington. I was impressed. A good variety of activities and interesting topics to look at. Even my non-Paddington son found things of interest. If you are a lover of all things Paddington OR doing a larger unit study on bears and want to have a literary tie in, this book will provide a good way to do that. 🙂

I was browsing through the Picture Book Explorers series and saw the Mousehole Cat. That sounds like a fun book to read and then explore. What one would intrigue you?

Paddington Bear
Branch Out World
Picture Book Explorers series
69 pages, PDF, 5-10 years old.
lit-based unit studies, topic pack, home education resources, homeschool resources

65 members of the Homeschool Review Crew had a chance to utilize this study. Please read our reviews.

Social Media Links:

Facebook: @BranchOutWorld
Pinterest: @belzibow
Instagram: @belzibow
Twitter: @belzibow

Ten Middle School Reads

August 10, 2018 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

Over this past year I have read some fantastic middle school books. Some of them I kept back because I knew my boy would like them. The links are to the reviews I did of them. Check them out, they are all interesting good books.

The Great Shelby Holmes. My son just finished this book, it was fun listening to him comments. He kept expecting different things to happen, and then it would happen differently and he’d laugh or moan. It’s good to see lad interact so well with a book.

Lions and Liars. My son enjoyed this book “those boys need to know how to run fast!” was one of his many comments. ” And why did those animals have to escape! Mom it was a mess!” Go read it. 🙂

The Extraordinary colours of Auden Dare is next on his hit list. He’s not entirely convinced that I am right in thinking he’ll like it, but he’s willing to give it a gamble. A world without water, a boy who can’t see colour, and a robot…complete with a mystery… can they solve it?

Snared is one he hasn’t gotten to, or even looked at. But I’m fairly certain he’ll like it. It’s a new genre for him so it will be interesting to see his reaction to it. A boy pulled out of his environment, using a special skill he’s developed, and learning much about the world.

Two different Survivor books which aren’t technically middle school, but I can see middle schoolers liking them. They are really upper elementary. Lost and Overboard. Learn how to survive in a hostile environment. Keep calm, use your smarts, and survive.

Something Rotten I read my lad excerpts of this book and I saw the light of intrigue. I KNOW he will enjoy this non-fiction read. He has an inquiring mind and a love of understanding how things work. So… A fresh look at roadkill is right up his alley.

My son is slowly making his way through Google It. Homeschool friends of ours are waiting to receive it. Told them it might be a while. Learning the history of Google and seeing how a business came together. It’s good stuff.

Bizarre Space, this is another non-fiction read that my somewhat slow reader finished in record time. He SO enjoyed this book and kept telling me the things he was learning. He was so captivated by this book. He told me it was fun to read as well.

Tiny Infinities. I really enjoyed this book and put it in the stash for my lad to read. He gets to it and passes it over so I am not convinced he’s ever gonig to read it. The cover probably just doesn’t work for him. Or maybe it’s more of a girls book than a boys one. I dunno. He just hasn’t gotten there but rest assured, it is a good read. Tiny Infinities is about Alice and her struggles with a divorcing family, a troubled mother, a drive to be on Team A of the swim team, a new friend and… the neighbours next door.

So there you have it, 10 books that your middle school/upper elementary child might enjoy picking up.

We Inspire Me

August 8, 2018 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

You know how creative people like to have others around them? Well actually how most people like to have some type of support system? We Inspire Me: Cultivate your Creative Crew to Work, Play and Make by Andrea Pippins is all about reaching out to the people in your life now, or those that you cultivate, in order to help you work, play and make.

Although this book focuses on building your CREATIVE community, the lessons contained within the pages are for anyone who just wants to expand the number of people in their lives.
About the Author:

Andrea Pippins is a designer, illustrator, educator, and author currently residing in Stockholm, Sweden.

What Do You Get?

Andrea Poppins brings together stories, essays, illustrations, advice and tips related to the importance of building and nurturing one’s creative community. It is important to surround yourself with people that want to see you excel and thrive. This is not a how to book, this is a tips and suggestions books with stories to inspire you to make connections with those around you.

As you turn the pages you will notice the bright and colourful designs. You’ll find a mingling of pinks, browns, yellows, and blues. The title pages are clearly delineated with a write up telling you what’s important in this section.

Each individual who tells a story is enabled to do so with interesting fonts and important lessons.

Lessons span topics such as sharing stories about dealing with mental illness, to how to find people with common interests, different formats to bring people together, how to celebrate each other’s creativity and more.

I was talking with Lisa the other day and she was telling me about different groups that she is part of. Her accountability groups and mentoring groups and such like. Some she paid to be part of, and others she chose to start. And I have to admit, as an introvert, trying to figure out how to start a group and be able to chat with different people about ideas is difficult, even if it is on-line. It’s so easy to get lost in the conversation whether it’s in person or on-line. I don’t quite get how one does it. Books like these help.

I don’t think a tribe of one or two is what this book is calling for though eh? A tribe implies more than just one or two. I can see the advantage of having a variety of people with differing skills as part of your group, and how it is vital to inspiring one’s own creativity. We can inspire each other.

This book talks about that though, how an introvert who prefers stick to the quiet things, can push past that to attend events that lead to friendships. It’s good to do that eh? To take that risk and try it something new out.

Some of the ideas I ran into:

Wine Tasting, Team sports, paint night, go out for brunch with at least four people, throw an event that YOU would be interested in, bring a business card to a meeting (maybe 5-7) and make a goal of passing them out before the night is through and you can start a neighbourhood project… perhaps you need a new park or art centre? Who knows the people you will meet along the way. Might be your new best friend or just the person you need to inspire you to greater heights in your life. You just never know if you don’t take the chance.

We Inspire Me: Cultivate your Creative Crew to Work, Play and Make
Andrea Pippins
Chronicle Books
152 pages, hardcover
Creative, Teamwork
Reviewed for Raincoast Books.

Homeschooling

Dear Frantic One

Dear Frantic One

Some of the participants:

House Skills and More

The lad built:

Let’s see what else happened?

For the Love of a Stink Bug

Watch the “ings”

Review: Branch Out World

Who is Branch Out World?

What do you Get?

How We Used Paddington Bear:

My Thoughts:

Social Media Links:

Ten Middle School Reads

We Inspire Me

What Do You Get?

Some of the ideas I ran into:

Amazon Affiliate information

Tinker Crate Affiliate

Homeschooling

Dear Frantic One

Some of the participants:

The lad built:

Let’s see what else happened?

Who is Branch Out World?

What do you Get?

How We Used Paddington Bear:

My Thoughts:

Social Media Links:

What Do You Get?

Some of the ideas I ran into:

Want to Stay Informed?

Thank you!

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Amazon Affiliate information

Tinker Crate Affiliate