• Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Home
  • About Me
    • Privacy Policy
    • Disclaimer, Legal and Media Kit
  • Blog
  • Contact me

A Net in Time

Curriculum and book reviews, faith, homeschooling and more!

  • Art
  • Blogging Helps
  • Faith
  • Homeschooling
  • Poetry
  • Recipes
  • Reviews
  • Writing

Homeschooling

World War 1: Pre-War Alliances

October 6, 2018 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

Do you recall that we are learning about the World wars this year? Last time we learned about the assassination of ArchDuke Ferdinand. Over the past week the lad has been studying up the Pre-War alliances.

pre war alliances of world war 1

The lad read from these books.

The great war pre-war alliances
The story of the first world war for children.
The war to end all wars.
The First world war.
First World War.
Canada in World War One.
Roots of the conflict.

Maps

We discovered this map of the Pre-war alliances. We thought about creating our own small one but the lad wants to add flags to the large map that he is working on. This is his brief run down on what he wants to do.

idea for map

This is the progress he has made this week.

map progress for world war 1The lad took the time to explain what some of the countries are.

Videos:

We watched some videos, in particular these from The Great War

There are three parts, I’m not linking them all here.  🙂  but it’s a fascinating series so you really should check them out.   We found videos 2 and 3 ran together. 

Vocabulary Learned:

Nationalism: an extreme form of patriotism, especially marked by a feeling of superiority over other countries

Militarism: the belief or desire of a government or people that a country should maintain a strong military capability and be prepared to use it aggressively to defend or promote national interests.

Imperialism: a policy of extending a country’s power and influence through diplomacy or military force.

Anti-Semitism: hostility to or prejudice against Jews.

Taking it further:

We had a science class this week.  We did electrolysis (taking the hydrogen out of water).   The lads were fascinated and found it a lot of fun.  The lad has been busy expanding his knowledge of this process since then.

I was talking with the lad today about how the war was like electrolysis.  You had countries that naturally were drawn together and yet you can change one thing and they are forced apart.   You should have seen the startlement in his eyes and his understanding deepened.  Neat way to connect dots I thought.

Research?

Normally after a week of research the lad works on a research project to further his knowledge, but this week he said all the questions he had got answered by the different books he read or by the videos we watched.  He was able to narrate why the different countries had the alliances they did.  For instance Britain made one with Belgium because Belgium was a way to protect a piece of their lad. He compared this with the Canadian sale of Alaska to the USA because the USA wanted to protect a point of entry.  People liked Russia because of it’s sheer size. And some of the other countries liked each other because of proximity or what they could gain etc.   It’s always good to listen to a lad explain his understanding.  We’ve decided we’re going to have him start writing a report of everything he is learning so we can track it better. 

Filed Under: Homeschooling Tagged With: child-led learning, history, Homeschooling, World War

Share life with an international student

October 5, 2018 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

share life with international student

International student
Comes with wide eyes!
Some fear, some excitement
What is in store for him here?

A new Land, a new people
What kind of food?
A new room? A bed?
Or maybe on the floor?

A new flag?
Maple leaves!
Red and white
not yellow, green and blue.

A new school?
My teacher, says I come play baseball?
I hear people speak good Portuguese!!!!
but I learn English!

Youth group
HEY! Your ride is here?
Oh I go with him?
I have fun!

I’m going to a wizardry weekend?
You want to come?
We volunteer and then go have fun
YES.

This weekend it is
Thanksgiving to share
A new holiday to see
Turkey and taters!

Family, come meet
My new son for five months
Conversation and laughter
Welcoming grins.

Games to play
Uno a hit!!!
Play every night?
Uh.. let’s try another for a bit. 🙂

Homeschooling what is?
The question is asked
So off to a teen night
Fun to be had!

I heartily recommend
an International student to have
Share ideas, share laughter
New experiences to be had.


Come join us won’t you?   Kate is hosting a five minute freewrite this week (Friday).  The word this week is Share.   Visit others, think on a word, blog or not.  Just share your thoughts.  🙂

Filed Under: Homeschooling, Poetry Tagged With: Five Minute Friday, International Student, poetry

Ancient Wonders: Then & Now

October 4, 2018 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

Imagine that you could see a building from the past as it was meant to be… taking you back to the then.  Now that you see that… see the now.   Can you see that old building more clearly now?  Ancient Wonders: Then & Now is a lift the flap book by Lonely Planet kids that helps us to understand these ancient wonders better. Let us delve into this review hmm?

Ancient Wonders: Then & Now Book Cover

From the cover?

From the Colosseum and the Great Pyramid of Giza, to Machu Picchu and Stonehenge, take an interactive our through the world’s greatest ancient wonders.

Discover what remains of them today, then open gatefolds and lift flaps to see what they once looked like and learn about the ancient civilizations who built them. 

What do you get?

12 Ancient wonders from around the world. Easter Island, the Colesseum, the Great Pyramid of Giza and more.. walk into the lives of those building these wonders, and into the glory days of each build. 

Two large fold out pages, combined with relevant text and lift the flap elements is sure to keep the reader engaged with what they are seeing and learning about. 

I love how books like this always spur me on to learn more, so like always I took to youtube where I learned this about Easter Island. 

My Thoughts:

I really like this book, those huge fold out pages and the well-written text help me to make the connection between the place now and the place it would have been in its heyday. Did you know the huge colesseum had 76 doors and now-a-days you can find actors roaming the outskirts?

The book is printed on a heavy cardstock almost board book quality paper. This hardcover book is well made and the pages easily lie flat.  This book would be an excellent book to supplement a study on the Ancient Wonders of the world. I really like how it brings what you see now into the history of the past, bringing the past to life. 

ancient wonders: then and now

 

Ancient Wonders: Then & Now
Stuart Hill Author
Lindsey Spinks Illustrator
Lonely Planet Kids
Hardcover, 24 pages,
History, Architecture, Geography
Lift the flap, hands-on
Reviewed for Raincoast Books.

 

disclosure

Filed Under: Homeschooling, Reviews Tagged With: Book Review, Elementary, history, homeschool, Raincoast

Gottfried Leibniz, philosopher

October 2, 2018 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

Gottfried Leibniz lived in 1646 -1716, he was a rationalist from Germany.  He thought that there were two kinds of truth, the truth of reasoning and the truth of fact. A rationalist claims that knowledge is gained by rational reflecltion alone. 

gottfried leibniz

What made Leibniz unique was that he divided truth into two different paths.  His thinking was that Everything in the world has a distinct notion… this notion contains the truth about that thing, including how that thing connects with everything else.   So you look at the thing and all it’s connections by rationally reflecting on it. That reflection will lead you down two different paths.  Reasoning… this finite fact is final truth.   And Fact … this infinite reasoning can only truly be understood by experience in order to reach a truth.

He explained his thought process in his book Monadology.

He believes that everything in the world is connected by notions, and that each notion is connected to other notions.  To truly understand a thing you need to be able to follow those how those notions connect to each other.  Understanding those connections will lead you to things that are rational truths, and to truths you can’t really understand unless you experience them due to our limited ability to reason our these rational truths.  

Discovering monads

This leads to the discovery of monads which are simple substances isolated from everything else.   Each monad represents completely the hole whole of the universe, and every monad is synched which is how God created everything.  All these individual monads completely synched and individual.   The human mind is a monad and since it holds the universe completely it is possible therefore for us to be able to understand everything completely, but we can’t determine everything in a finite way.  For instance I can’t go to a star and measure it’s surface temperature, so it’s a matter of figuring how to do so!  

There is admittedly some struggle between understanding where the truth of reasoning and the truth of fact separates. As the finiteness of reasoning can bend into the infinite truths of fact (such as the example of the star’s temperature).  We can guess (infinitely so) at what the star’s temperature is, but if we accurately use equipment to do so, it becomes a finite fact of reason.

Leibniz goes on to differentiate between necessary and contingent truths as well.   Math, for instance, is a necessary truth.  1 + 1 will always equal 2.  But saying it’s “raining in Spain”, may or may not be true and even if it were true in some areas it might not be in others. These contingent truths are ones that only God can truly see.   God has eternal truth.  God is the only one who always understand.  “God understands everything through eternal truth, since he does not need experience”

leibniz quote

Did he find Truth?

Leibniz saw God differently than people.  He’s spot on with understanding that God is so much more and understands everything already.  He also saw that everything has a spark of knowing all truth. His Monads as containing all truths of the universe…. Such an intriguing notion don’t you think?  

Click To Tweet

My Thoughts

In Romans 1 we are told that everything knows the truth of God

18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

When I read of the monads in Leibniz’s ponderings, these verses came to my mind.  If the monads hold the truths of the universe… we can either find them as we seek for truth, or turn our reasoning to alternative explanations.  Our experiences in the world help us to discover more truths.  Dividing them into fact or reasoning seems understandable as there are somethings that are just true … I can’t change the fact that our cat Milo is a tuxedo brown tabby.  I can’t reason out that his colour is anything other than what it is.  I can ponder how genetics came into play, and why his markings turned out as they did.

Free Printable

You can find it here find it here.  Probe into Leibniz further.

Filed Under: Homeschooling Tagged With: philosophy, seeking after Truth

Let All Things Now Living

September 30, 2018 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

I was flipping through a hymnbook that is new to me and I was reminded of this living song and just had to share it with you.  I hope you like it as much as I do.  🙂  Let All Things Now Living, a song of thanksgiving.

Let all tlhings now living

Written by Katherine K Davis in 1939, Ms. Davis was an American woman who served as a teacher, classical music composer, and pianist.  She also wrote The Little Drummer Boy (one of my favourite Christmas Songs).  Born in Missouri she wrote her first composition at age 15.  She died in 1980 at age 82.  She willed all royalties from her music to Wellesley College where she was trained and taught.  This has been a good support to the music program there.

Lyrics

Let all things now living a song of thanksgiving
To God the creator triumphantly raise.
Who fashioned and made us, protected and stayed us,
Who still guides us on to the end of our days.
God’s banners are o’er us, His light goes before us,
A pillar of fire shining forth in the night.
Till shadows have vanished and darkness is banished
As forward we travel from light into light.

His law he enforces, the stars in their courses
And sun in its orbit obediently shine;
The hills and the mountains, the rivers and fountains,
The deeps of the ocean proclaim him divine.
We too should be voicing our love and rejoicing;
With glad adoration a Song let us raise
Till all things now living unite in thanksgiving:
“To God in the highest, Hosanna and praise!”

Filed Under: Faith, Homeschooling Tagged With: hymns, Music

Teen Trailblazers

September 29, 2018 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

You know how it’s great to see people you can look to for inspiration?   To see possibilities shown to you that maybe, just maybe, you haven’t considered before?   In Teen Trailblazers we find 30 girls for young teen women to look to for inspiration. 

teen trailblazers

From The Back Cover:

True stories of young women who made a big difference! From authors to activists, painters to politicians, inventors to icons, these inspiring teenagers are proof that girls can change the world.
Joan of Arc. Anne Frank. Cleopatra. Pocahontas. Mary Shelley. Many of these heroines are well-known. But have you heard of Sybil Ludington, a 16-year-old daughter of an American colonel who rode twice as far as the far better-remembered Paul Revere to warn the militia that the British army was invading?
This fascinating book features 30 young women who accomplished remarkable things before their twentieth birthdays. Visually compelling with original illustrations, this book will inspire the next generation of strong, fearless women.

What do you get?

teen trailblazers

30 Stories of young ladies engaging actively in the world around them: 

Imagine….being a slave and writing poetry in a time when such things weren’t welcome.
Imagine… being 16 and riding for your life to get military assistance in the middle of battle.
Imagine…being pregnant and fighting side by side with your husband in battle.
Imagine….inventing a product still used a century later

Each chapter is set up in a similar manner, the individual, what they are known for, birth/death if known, notable things they did, and a quote. 

teen trailblazers The rest of the chapter goes on to talk about the work that this young lady did and why it is notable.  Presenting information to help the reader consider all the factors involved, like the slaves involved in making indigo, how Paul Revere gets remembered for his ride and yet a female counterpart isn’t known, what difference might it make if the reader got involved in their community and more. 

teen trailblazers Each chapter has cut outs that talk about additional factors to consider, or points of action, or other people who engaged in similar works who might be better known.   In the copy that I received all images were in grey scale, I don’t know if in the final copy the images will be in full colour or not.   I would hope that they would be, but I really can’t tell you for sure. 

teen trailblazers

My thoughts:

There are many notable people found within the pages of this book.  I loved how ideas for becoming actively involved in one’s community were presented.  My hope had been for more variety in people presented like inventors, doctors, teachers, but found many were activists, authors, and actors. The desire I hold dear is that our young ladies to see their intellect and bravery is just as important as their heart for various causes. I wanted to see more balance, 10 activists, 7 authors, and several actors and war heroines, leaving only a bit of room for inventors, business women and the like. Oh wouldn’t it be good to inspire all of our girls, regardless of their interests, to be teen trailblazers, ready to act now?

I suppose if the point of the book is to ensure that young ladies know they have a voice, showing activism and the power of the word spoken and written is a good thing.  I’m trying to understand the mindset behind the choices made.  It’s good to know that speaking up and doing things matters whether you are male or female. I just want to see more balance presented in the different ways girls can make a difference in today’s world. 

This would be an excellent book to leave lying about the house, or using with a careers course, to show girls different options they as they look forward to what they want to do.

teen trailblazers

 

Teen Trailblazers
30 fearless girls who changed the world before they were 20
Jennifer Calvert, author
Vesna Asanovic, illustrator
Castle Point Books
softcover, 128 pages, ages 12-18
Middle School, High School, Careers, Women,
Activism, Inventors, Authors, Actors

Reviewed for Raincoast Books.

disclosure

 

Filed Under: Homeschooling, Reviews Tagged With: Book Review, Books for Middle School, Careers, Highschool, history

Cleopatra and Ancient Egypt

September 27, 2018 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

Have I ever told you how much I enjoy the “for kids” series from Chicago Review Press? They are written for kids and all contain 21 different activities for students to complete.   They are fantastically written with loads of pictures and interesting tidbits throughout.  Today I am reviewing Cleopatra and Ancient Egypt for Kids.

cleopatra and ancient egypt

From the Cover:

Cleopatra has been called intelligent and scheming, ambitious and ruthless, sensual and indulgent. This unique biography captures the excitement of her life story, including portions that have been largely neglected, such as her interest in literature and science and her role as a mother, and allows readers to draw their own conclusions. Cleopatra and Ancient Egypt for Kids also includes maps, time lines, online resources, a glossary, and 21 engaging hands-on activities to help readers better appreciate the ancient culture and era in which Cleopatra lived.

What You Get:

Over the course of 144 pages students are led through the life of Cleopatra, starting with her life as a young princess and closing with the end of the era.  Each of the 8 chapters contains up to three activities for students to engage the student in active learning from science experiments to art projects to making food.

Cleopatra worked hard to keep her family on the throne of Egypt and throughout her reign she kept Egypt stable.  As a child in the Ptolomy household, she was well-educated. They put a strong emphasis on learning, as Egyptian queens played an essential role in the governing of the land. Cleopatra kept learning all her life. In the pages of the book you learn these facts and more.The student will understand how this tough, smart lady kept a country going in the time of growing Roman domination. 

You’ll find 21 different activities to do.  Some of them are creating a writing a tablet, build a shadoof, make a garland,  create an Egyptian style necklace, mummify a hot dog and many more. Each assignment comes with a materials list and clear instructions to complete it. I loved the variety in the assignments. 

Cleopatra and Ancient Egypt

You’ll find a timeline at the start of the book from when Cleopatra VII is born, through to the death of Cleopatra and Anthony.   Span of some 40 years.

Scattered throughout the pages you’ll find maps, busts, coins, plants and buildings from the era.  All those images that bring history to life that normally you’d have to go to a museum to see and piece together, brought all together in one book. 

Cleopatra and Ancient Egypt

The close of the book lists the Egyptian Dynasties, Additional Resources with grade ranges – not just books but museums as well, and a glossary.  All in all a complete walk through of the life of Cleopatra. 

My Thoughts:

I thoroughly enjoy these books.  Every single one I review I keep for my book shelves with the full intent of going through them with my lad.. grade nine is coming yet!  🙂  Very thorough, written so that upper elementary students can understand, complete enough for high school students to work through, filled with ideas for taking rabbit trails, with great variety in hands-on activities.  They’d be perfect for doing a history course all year long (each taking about 8-9 weeks to complete).

Others that I’ve reviewed: Albert Einstein, Marine Science,  Michelangelo, and Marie Curie.

Cleopatra and Ancient Egypt: her life and world, with 21 activities
Simonetta Carr
Chicago Review Press
For Kids Series
21 activities.
144 pages, trade paperback
History, hands-on learning, upper elementary
Reviewed for Chicago Review Press

Where to buy: Amazon.

disclosure

Filed Under: Homeschooling, Reviews Tagged With: Books for Middle School, Books for Upper Elementary, Curriculum, Highschool, history

  • « Go to Previous Page
  • Go to page 1
  • Interim pages omitted …
  • Go to page 47
  • Go to page 48
  • Go to page 49
  • Go to page 50
  • Go to page 51
  • Interim pages omitted …
  • Go to page 83
  • Go to Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

ABOUT ME

I am centered by the love of God and family. Smiles are brought about being a Writer, Poet, Hiker and reader. Growth occurs as I educate my son, raise him up in the fear of the Lord, love up on my critters and live as a pastor’s wife.

Want to Stay Informed?

Subscribe and I’ll shoot you an email once a week.


Thank you!

You have successfully joined our subscriber list.



Recent Posts

  • Rejoice Ye Pure In Heart
  • Just Like That
  • Fix What is Not Broken
  • Bear Meets Bear
  • Learning and Reading in the Winter

Recent Comments

  • Lori on Just Like That
  • Annette1 on Fix What is Not Broken
  • Kocysha on Fix What is Not Broken
  • Annette1 on Fix What is Not Broken
  • Annette1 on Fix What is Not Broken

Archives

Categories

  • Art
  • Art Books
  • Blogging Helps
  • Faith
  • Homeschooling
  • Poetry
  • Recipes
  • Reviews
  • Uncategorized
  • Writing

Footer

Amazon Affiliate information

A Net in Time is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites

Tinker Crate Affiliate

Copyright © 2021 A Net In Time. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. A Net In Time · Lifestyle Pro - Child Theme On Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in