A Net in Time

Curriculum and book reviews, faith, homeschooling and more!

Middle School

The Superpower Field Guide: Beavers

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OH!  What a fun book to review.  Seriously, just a hoot.  Learning about Beavers and seeing all the remarkable things about them.  Just a delightful read.  The book: The Superpower Field Guide: Beavers.

From the Cover

The first book in a new series, Beavers is a humorous, informative, and highly illustrated field guide written for middle-schoolers.  Take a look at an unsuspecting animal hero The Beaver.

What you Get

Humour written around highly informative text.  Elmer the beaver has 10 superpowers which we are given in lots of detail.   Some of his powers are his unstoppable fur, his ever-toiling tail, and his winter survival skills.

Each page shows colour in the illustrations.  I was delighted to see the colours suit a book about beavers.   We don’t find pinks and yellows, but rather the blues, greens and browns that would naturally pervade a beavers habitat. 

Every so often you’ll come across a quiz, making sure the reader is paying attention for after all, the goal is to learn about an amazing animal.  So pay attention and rock those quizzes!  🙂   They aren’t hard, but they do cover the super power at hand.

My Thoughts

When I first clapped my eyes on Beavers I thought WOOHOO!   A book about a quintessential Canadian animal!   It’s even on our nickel!  You know what I discovered?  Beavers aren’t just an animal for Canada!  (yeah, I kinda knew that but now I know the nitty-gritty details).  🙂 

If you have a love of Canada, an interest in beavers, or perhaps you are studying mammals… check out Beavers. Learn their superpowers and be amazed, because beavers are really interesting critters!

Beavers
Rachel Poliquin
Nicolas John Frith (illustrator)
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Series: The Superpower Field Guide
96 Pages, hardcover, 9 years +
Biology, Science, Canada, Beavers, North America
Reviewed for Raincoast Books.
Click image for Amazon Link
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Beyond Words

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Can learning about animals actually teach us about them?  Can this research help us to protect them?  How do we ascribe feelings to animals without humanizing them?  As I reviewed Beyond Words, I found myself amazed and delighted about the wonders of elephants and sharks and their respective communities. 

From The cover

Follow researcher Carl Safina as he treks with a herd of elephants across the Kenyan landscape, then travel with him to the Pacific Northwest to track and monitor whales in their ocean home. Along the way, find out more about the interior lives of these giants of land and sea – how they play, how they fight, and how they communicate with one another, and sometimes with us, too.

What you Get

Two animals, discussed under the cover of one book.  Part one is about the lives of elephants.  Part two is about killer whales.  

In the lives of elephants we follow researcher Cynthia Moss as she lives out in Africa learning about the 900+ elephants that use Amboseli National Park as a central part of their lives. A pivotal part of understanding Ms. Moss’ approach to working with elephants is this “I think of them as elephants…I’m interested in them as elephants. Comparing elephants to people… I don’t find it helpful.  I find it much more interesting trying to understand an animal as itself.” 

Ken Balcomb helps us to delve into the world of the killer whale. Understanding their huge social networks and the distinctions between transients and residents. How pods of killer whales are distinctly different from one area to another, so much so that in time they will be seen as a sub-species of each other.

Both sections point out new things researchers are learning about the animal they are studying.  They also point out the dangers they face from lack of land, disrupting sonar, ivory hunters, and lack of food.   

Learning about these magnificent creatures does us no good if they disappear because we didn’t take the time to care about them.   We need to use the research to help us protect them. 

My Thoughts

I learned so much, less with the elephants than with the orca.  It opened my eyes to why captive whale programs were so horrible. 

In some ways I wasn’t horribly surprised, any animal that lives as part of a pack/herd/community is bound to have communal behaviours.  Behaviours that show happiness, sadness, grief and more.  Behaviours that we only know how to quantify by adding human emotions to them. 

I appreciated how the researchers showed restraint by being very careful not to equate behaviours in animals, to behaviour in people.   It is so important to not humanize animals.   

Yet… they come so close, it’s such a fine line. 🙂  Amazing stories about the things that these animals can do.  Rescuing, helping, teaching, aware of themselves and others.

An interesting book to read, definitely gave me things to ponder.   How will it do for middle schoolers?   It will open their eyes to the wonder of elephants and killer whales.  Giving them a deeper understanding of the societies that they form.  

  • Beyond Words: What elephants and Whales Think and Feel
  • Carl Safina
  • Roaring Brook Press
  • 176 pages, trade paperback
  • middle school
  • Science, Biology, Research,
  • Reviewed for: Raincoast Books

Other books that I’ve reviewed about animals

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Science Comics Rockets Defying Gravity

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Do you have a love of rockets?   Do you have any idea of the history behind rocketry?  Science Comics Rockets Defying Gravity uses a graphic novel format along with humour and a well-told story to bring the reader the history of rocketry. 

From the Cover:

In Rockets we explore the 2,000 years that rockets have been in existence. We dive into Newton’s Laws of Motion – learning all about gravity, force, acceleration, and the history of rockets made in the past and rockets to be made in the future!

What You Get:

Rockets – Defying Gravity uses excellent graphics to walk you through the history of rocketry.   You will meet visionary physicist, chemists, engineers and entertainers.  Animals played their roles as well from sheep, to monkeys, to spiders and to mice.   Many more animals than I would have thought.  Honestly I thought they really only used dogs and chimpanzees. 

The author used an excellent sense of humour to portray the facts of history.   The end result is a forward-moving book that imparts more information than you expect.  It’s an easy going read that keeps you interested the whole while.

My Thoughts

I have to admit, at first I wasn’t sure what I thought of this graphic novel.   A bunch of critters yapping about rockets.  As I read the book though, I realized that through humour and animal characters, they were giving the history of rocketry and showing how animals were part of the process.  By the time I was 1/3 of the way through I was hooked. I eagerly read the rest of the book, being surprised frequently.. I never knew that sheep were a part of rocketry history! Did you? 

The graphics were well done, the font easy to read.   Over all I found it to be a well done introduction to rocketry for middle school students.

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House Skills and More

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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!!!

house skills and more

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.

boy moving branches on wagon

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.

cat on branches on wagon

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?

Formacarium

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?

boy building a wagon

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….

truck back end on gantry

 

Kid Normal

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AH, this middle school read was TOTALLY ENJOYABLE!  I loved it and immediately recommended that my lad and hubby read it, I enjoyed it so much.  Murph Cooper is a lad who found himself in a new school that was FAR more than he bargained for, but he made do.  Kid Normal is a book I recommend you reading. 🙂

Kid Normal, review image

A well-written story by Greg James and Chris Smith, Kid Normal walks us through a lad’s life as he adjusts to a new life situation after a series of hard decisions by his mom.  Murph had moved more times then a lad should move in his short life and now he was a new town with no place to go to school.  The homeschooler in me wanted to say “SO HOMESCHOOL HIM” but that’s not always an option.  His Mom searched high and low, dragging Murph from one place to the next until an overheard conversation landed Murph at “The School”.  

It didn’t take Murph long to realize his school was for superheroes in training.  He was SO out of place, but stayed.  He made friends.  Before long a big bad guy threatened the life that Murph had made.  Could he be stopped?   How could Murph and his new friends stop him?   Can they really become heroes?

What do you get? 

Graphics

Black and white images scattered throughout the book.  They don’t tell the story, but they do a good job of providing details.  I would have loved to see the hive. 

Kid normal, sample of graphics

Interesting fonts

They did a good job of varying the size of the font, adding interesting and pizzazz to the reading.   It’s a great way of keeping the reading interesting. 

kid normal, font variation

Interludes

Did you know a book can have an intermission?  I KNOW weird eh?   Anyways, we get to learn the story of Alan Rabbit.  Such scintillating knowledge.  🙂

kid normal interlude

My Thoughts:

I thoroughly enjoyed this read and regret that it took me so long to pick it up.  I finished in less than 24 hours often laughing at the foolishness of the characters.  I have to admit, I disliked the bullying of some of the teachers, but I liked how the students took care of each other despite the disdain shown to them.   The sense of humour, the cut-outs, the intermission, it’s all part of a wonderful package. I expect that most middle schoolers will enjoy this book and take home good lessons under the wrappings of a decent story. 

Kid Normal, book cover

 

Kid Normal
Greg James and Chris Smith
Illustrator: Erica Salcedo
Bloomsbury
400 pages, softcover
Middle School, Superheroes,
Reviewed for: Raincoast Books

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Review: Northwest Treasures

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Northwest Treasures is a company that is new to me. Their focus is on geology with an emphasis on seeing the Christian faith (or the bible) in the study of geology, they have a number of courses that they do.  Over the past while we’ve been able to watch their Dinosaurs and the Bible series and my son has been captivated.  We also had a chance to watch their Mystery of Geology Video. 

Northwest Treasures Review

Taking the Mystery Out of Geology Video

Taking the Mystery out of Geology, northwest treasures

An approximately 20 minute video of slides with terms interspersed with full colour images, overlaid with audio teaching.  We have a three month access to this online video available on Vimeo. 

“I learned about that while I was learning about Ancient Greece” Pause video… lad explains the rock cycle to me.  I loved how he was able to connect the pieces.   Having my lad explain things is wonderful. 

A number of geologically important terms were defined.  Science, History, Philosophy, Uniformitarianism, Evolution, Creationism, Bible, Geology, Rock Cycle, Rock Types, Tectonics and Orogeny, Geological Time Scale and Fossilization.

Laughter from the lad at times. I found speaker stressed defining what is or is not science.  He defined terms well and used good definitions to show flaws in how secular geologists think. 

Son’s reaction: “It was okay”, which from the lad is praise indeed.  He is often quick to point out what he doesn’t like about something and he didn’t point anything out to me.

Dinosaurs and the Bible

Dinosaurs and the bible, northwest treasures

We spent the bulk of our time with Dinosaurs and the bible.   Six lessons, which we get to use for six months, giving us ample opportunity to listen to them again.   

Each video comes with a worksheet.  It took me a fair while to figure out where the worksheets were located.  When you have a list of the videos you can click on them to pull up a description of what the video is about, on the description will be a link to the video worksheet, this downloads as a PDF from Dropbox.  You only have to download the answer sheet once. 

The Lessons are as follows:

  1. How we got our Modern view of Dinosaurs – running time 18.26
  2. The Classification of Dinosaurs – running time 18.24
  3. Dinosaurs and the Bible, the Great Dinosaur Rush – running time 16.55
  4. The Extinction of Dinosaurs – running time 16.23
  5. Dinosaurs and the Ice Age – running time 17.51
  6. Fossils, Age and Soft Tissue – running time 21.38

Northwest Treasures

How did we use it?

We’ve had access for the past four weeks, and today my son, when I mentioned that the review was due today,  said “MOM!   We have to make sure we finish watching all the videos!”  He knows I’m apt to forget about finishing a review once it is off my radar, this one he wanted to make sure he finished.  A good thing that eh?

Previous to today, our normal routine was on Wednesday at supper I’d put a video in and we’d discuss it over our meal.   Gave us a time to chat while dad’s away at work.  I’d simply cast it to the TV and we’d have our bowl of chili or a sandwich and watch.  I’d have the PDF open so I could stop it and ask questions as we went through the lesson.

Dinosaurs and the bible, northwest treasures

We had the option to print off the PDF files (one for each lesson) but chose to just keep the file open and talk through the answers and take any rabbit trails as we went along.  Each lesson averaged 10 questions.

Dinosaurs and the bible, northwest treasures

I did the same thing with the final exam.  Just asked questions, the lad came over a couple of times to read the multiple choice answers when he didn’t’ know the answer off the top of his head. 

We did take a couple of rabbit trails.  The lad was curious about Lyell, so we did a bit more research on him.  We talked about who Darwin was as well.  Isn’t it nice when a program is so enjoyed by a lad that he actually WANTS to learn more?   It’s a good thing that!

Dinosaurs and the bible, northwest treasures

The course is laid out with a series of slides with Patrick Nurre teaching in the background.  The lessons are laid out on Vimeo and I’ve learned to let them buffer before starting to play. They are geared for grades 5 and up, and play time averages about 20 minutes.  Picture quality is good and audio is excellent as long as I let it buffer. 

My Thoughts:

Well done, learned a lot. I loved having the PDF’s for questions/answers. One thing I wished for was that occasionally he would put a cut out of himself talking in the corner of the video, adding a more personal touch. I would also love to see a PDF that has blanks in it so as you go through the video you can write things down. Or even a PDF listing the main points so notes could easily be taken. There is SO MUCH information contained in these videos that it’s hard to remember it all. 

I found it fascinating to learn that dinosaurs have been pictured on rocks and such.  This was new information to me.  Kinda speaks to dinosaurs being around with people eh?

My Son’s Thoughts:

“I like it, I enjoyed it. I liked everything about it. The lesson on the ice age really interesting.”

Dinosaurs and the bible, northwest treasures

In addition to the online classes, Northwest Treasures also offers physical courses such as the high school level Northwest Treasures Curriculum Project or for younger students the Geology for “Little Eyes” series.

Northwest Treasures

northwest treasures

 

Dinosaurs and the Bible – six lessons
Taking the Mystery out of Geology – 20 minute Video
Northwest Treasures
ages 5+
Geology, Online, Science, History, Geology Class
Video series on Vimeo (on demand)
Purchasing information can be found here.

 

 

If you have a membership to SchoolhouseTeachers.com Patrick Nurre has a geology course on there called Rocks and Minerals.  It is just as interesting as the Dinosaurs course.   Check out the course, see if you like it, and then sign up for courses from Northwest Treasures. 🙂 

75 members of the crew reviewed various programs from Northwest Treasures:

Dinosaurs of the Bible
Volcanoes for Little Eyes
Geology and Apologetics
Fossils, Dinosaurs and Cave Men
Rocks and Minerals for Little Eyes

These programs are just a sampling of the variety of materials offered by Patrick Nurre and the Group at Northwest Treasures. I urge you to check out their kits such as their Fossil Identification Kit (which intrigue me) as well as their other offerings.    Click here or on the image below. 

Northwest Treasures

Social Media Links:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GeologybyNorthwestTreasures/
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/northwesttreasu/boards/

McCalls Golden Do-It Book

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I can’t recall where I picked this book up or even if it’s a hangover from my childhood, all I know is that every time I go a cull of my art books and ask,”Do I REALLY need to keep this one?”, somehow this book ends up back on my shelf.  🙂   Ergo, I thought it was about time for me to share it with you.  My copy of McCalls Golden Do-It Book is getting a bit battered, the spine is loose, the pages a bit worn, but still the ideas are as real as anything.  So much make and do within the pages of this book.

McCalls Golden Do-It Book, collage

What do you get?

A number of different sections divide up this tome.  Each section containing 2-8 projects, great for children 6-14 years old.  (or later if so inclined).   Littles might like to try their hand as well but will most likely need some older person’s help to make the projects turn out well.

  1. Crayons, Paint, Paper, and Paste
  2. Printing
  3. Sculpture
  4. Toys
  5. Weaving
  6. Needlework
  7. Dolls
  8. Music
  9. Puppets
  10. Gifts
  11. How-to Section

You may be wondering, have we even completed any of the projects?   Well we’ve made cars and houses out of boxes, the lad for a while was big into paper craft, we’ve made boats and done some weaving.  Do I have pictures?  Um… no.  That would have been on my hard drive (external) that crashed last year and we’ve been unable to recover the data.  And well.. that’s that!

McCalls Golden Do-It Book, sample page spread

One thing I do want to try yet with my lad is making a seed painting and a yarn painting.  I just think they’d be rather neat to do and see what we could each come up with… or maybe I should save those ideas for co-op days.  🙂  Even to making sample kites to fly over enemy territory…hmm.. the ideas are endless.

McCalls Golden Do-It Book sample page

What do I think?

Some of the instructions could be a bit clearer and some items are used which aren’t as common today (for instance, I’ve never used rubber cement with my lad).   I’ve not heard of excelsior… which when I google it is a woody twine all mixed together.  Where to find I dunno.   It does sound neat to play around with just to see what one could do with it. Most of the instructions are just enough while leaving the rest to common sense.  Will it make the cut next spring?   I dunno, we’ve done most of what we want to in it, so we may just need to pass it along to another family with a creative keener. 🙂  It’s a good book with oodles of images and ideas to go along with each art project.

McCalls Golden Do-It Book, book cover

 McCalls Golden Do-It Book
Hardcover, 160 pages, 6-14 years
Art, crafts, creativity
Where to find Amazon.