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Review: Creation Illustrated

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Three weeks ago I received the Pine Trees Unit Study ebook from Creation Illustrated. Since we have pine trees around our house I thought it would make for a nice little “time out from the normal” study with my lad. My thinking proved correct as my lad worked happily on the pine tree study rather than doing his normal course work, it’s good to have a break before Easter you know?  🙂  The Pine Trees study is part of the Creation Unit Studies that fit well with their magazine articles. 

Pine Trees by Creation Illustrated, a review

Who is Creation Illustrated?

Creation Illustrated is a company that focuses on showing God’s truth through nature.  They do this via a magazine format. They have chosen to help students expand their knowledge of a topic in their magazine using a unit study.   The unit study contains a link to the magazine.  So not only do you get to read the article that corresponds to the unit study, you also get a chance to see what a great job they do with the rest of the magazine. This magazine is for all ages. Below is the cover to the spring edition.

What do you get?

I received two unit studies, Pine Trees and Snow, though my son only worked through Pine Trees.  I thought though you would like to know if the unit studies are similar at all and they are!  They at not identical in their set up, as in subjects are in a different order, some sections are longer or shorter and such like.

Some of the units you will encounter are: 

  • List of resources
    Brief introduction to topic
    Vocabulary/Definitions/Spelling
    Bible study
    Geography/Science
    Hands on lesson
    Math
    Art Aspect
    Wordsearch

As you can see they do their best to make their unit studies well rounded.  Teacher answer key provided.

How did we use it?

Before starting the unit study the lad and I went for a walk looking for pine trees.  We found a variety in town, and a few on a favourite walk around the dam. I figured it would be a good thing to actually see the trees before we started so he’d already be able to spot differences in the trees before we started. 🙂   It was interesting to see the colour variations… some were light green, others dark, still others with a bluish tinge.  The needles didn’t all feel the same either and noting the differences in the bark texture surprised my lad. Pine Trees by Creation Illustrated

Each study encompasses several worksheets that the student fills out after reading and watching various resources provided.  My son commented that some of the line spacing is too small.  He’s still improving his cursive and struggles yet to make his writing fit narrow spacing.Pine Trees by Creation Illustrated, sample pagesOne issue we ran across in the Pine Trees study was the some of the bible verses provided didn’t seem to make any mention of Pine or fir Trees.  We didn’t find that to be a big deal as it was more fun to go out and measure a pine tree using a pencil!  🙂 But to alleviate this concern for other parents, it would be VERY easy to just include the bible verses in print form.  This unit study fit in well with the Fall 2017 Copy of the Creation Illustrated Magazine.  The unit study about snow goes along with the Winter 2018 magazine.   In that study you will, in part, learn how snowflakes are categorized and make some crystals. 

Anyways, back to our study, after we did our nature walk we worked on the worksheets of the ebook.  First I had my lad go through and see what he already knew.  Then we looked through the various resources in order to answer the questions.  My son choose to do all the easy worksheets one day and then write his essay the next. 

Pine Trees by Creation Illustrated, essayAll in all it took three days to complete the unit study.  We could have stretched it out over a week doing a little every day, or used the questions as a stepping stone to dig deeper.  Instead we enjoyed ourselves with a walk, took a partial day to learn about pine trees, and then worked on the finer details of writing an essay.  It fit into our week well and the lad found it helpful. 

Pine Trees by Creation Illustrated, cover page

Pine Trees
Creation Illustrated
Pricing: currently 30% off for the unit studies.
Series: Creation Unit Studies.
Unit studies are geared to grades 5-8.
New subscriptions to yearly membership to magazine are 25% off. 
Creation Illustrated. 
Creation, Nature, Magazine, Unit Study, all ages, faith based

60 families from the Homeschool Review Crew have reviewed The Snow and Pine Tree unit studies distributed by Creation Illustrated. Please check out their reviews here.

creation illustrated - sample pages of Pine tree unit
You can find Creation Illustrated on the following social media Platforms.

Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/CreationIllustrated/
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/creation_illustrated/ 
Pinterest – https://www.pinterest.com/creationnature/pins/ 
Twitter – https://twitter.com/CreationMag 

The other unit reviewed was the Intricacies of Snow.

Creation Illustrated unit studies snow

Review: Animal Camouflage

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Every once in a while you get a book in your hands for reviewing and you just fall in love.  As soon as I saw this beautiful book “Animal Camouflage” I was like “Son, look at this book”, and talking to other people about it.  I just really, really like this book and thought it a very clever design. 

Now I have to admit that my 12 year wasn’t quite an enamoured as his mother was, but he thought it was pretty interesting, and had fun flipping through the pages and finding the more difficult animals to spot.  I am also concerned that I won’t be able to show you well the beauty and wonder that is contained within this book.

I’m trying to figure out just what I like so much about it.

First: It’s an unusual rendition of a camouflage book. It’s not animals hiding in their areas, with their colours and stripes and stops within a multi-coloured background.  It’s white with dark lines, so the animals are right there and can be seen, some easier than others.  But no colours to look for, just shapes and outlines, hidden with all the white and lines.  

Second: the information is presented in a clear format.  Do you see how each area has a colour?  That colour is used for the four pages it takes for each area.  This makes it easy to differentiate between areas.

Third: It’s a lovely book to hold.  Feels good in the hand.  It’s pretty to look at and to exclaim over.  I showed it to a friend and she agreed it was a nice book to hold in your hand, and loved the ways the animals/scenery was represented.  “It’s very clean”.

Fourth: It’s educational.  The text is brief, but more animals are covered than just a couple for each area.  I do wish that they talked about the TYPE of camouflage that each animal possessed, like the gazelle with a stripe down it’s belly.  The spots of a giraffe helping it blend into the browns of the savannah, and the brown pelt of the cottontail helping it hide in the underbrush. 

Fifth: I think that it’s perhaps less about the camouflage of animals, but more how they create a fun camouflage search and find to help children want to learn more about the different animals represented.    Honestly… it’s a FUN book to look through, to find the four reindeer or the 10ish wolves or can you find the anaconda slithering along the ground?

If you get stuck, or your child needs help, the answers are in back of the book.

Animal Camouflage: Search and find
Sarah Dennis & Sam Hutchinson
Princeton Architectural Press
Hardcover, ages 6-9
Animal, elementary, nature

Reviewed for: Raincoast Books.

Where can you Find it?   Amazon Link.

Review: The Animal Book

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When I was young I loved looking at pictures of animals, and I devoured books that told me about them. Today I have a book that my son devoured that I wanted to share with you called “The Animal Book”. 

animal nature conservation

 This is a a really neat book, just packed full with information about animals, telling us where they live, what they eat, endangered status (or not), more.  We learn about a variety of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, insects and invertebrates.   Some of the animals we are very familiar with (like the horse), others are common (like the lion) and yet others are new like the indian pangolin, cat flea and the desert locust.

 Most pages are single pages, but the some animals are given a two page spread.   There is always an artistic drawing of the animals, combined with images of actual animals, and various facts about them. 

Each animal has a key facts section.  As you can see we learn pertinent facts, diet, name, and their status from a conservation aspect.

The facts in the Animal book at so interesting, did you know the brown bears can eat 40,000 moths for dinner, or that rattle snakes are born live, that pigeons can be trained to find cancer cells, or that scorpions glow under ultraviolet light?   Astounding isn’t it?

What else can I tell you about The Animal Book.  It covers 118 animals and contains a clearly laid out table of contents where the animals are divided into areas of the world. 

Each section opens with a map, giving a brief geography lesson.  A small map shows where in the world each area is found, and we learn such things as natural landmarks, general land qualities and such like.   It’s a brief look.

The book closes with the question “what happens next?”  Asking questions about the animals learned about and helping the reader ponder, what do we do now?   Included are some steps we can take to help take care of these animals that share the world with us.

The Animal Book
Author: Ruth Martin
Illustrator: Dawn Cooper
Lonely Planet Kids
164 pages
hardcover
Ages 8-12 years
Type: Geography, science, nature
 
Reviewed for: Raincoast Books. 

My thoughts:
 I like this book. 🙂  It is a fascinating look at a good selection of animals from all over the world, covering all the different animal groups (other than the microscopic).  Toss in some geography lessons, and some social studies.  This book could easily be start of a unit study on animals from around the world, added to a continent study or part of a presentation on taking care of the animals on this planet.
 
Where can you find it?
Amazon.ca: The Animal Book.
Amazon.com:  The Animal Book.

Raincoast is on facebook, twitter, and instagram.

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Reviewing our week: Dec 9

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 This week

We managed to keep ourselves busy.  I had big plans for the week since I’m feeling much better than I have been.. .but learned that I still peter out of energy quickly and therefore lose focus and will to push onwards.

Independent learning

The Eastern Chipmunk:

Why we can’t ship Nuclear Waste to the Sun.

Monday:

  • Daily smarts, Veritas History and Bible, and Teaching Textbooks.
  • Weekly visit with Gramma
  • 1/2 hour reading 
  • continued our reading of Cat of Bubastes.

 Tuesday: 

  • Daily smarts, Veritas History and Bible, and Teaching Textbooks.
  • 1/2 hour reading 
  • Out to buy two shelves, and then to find room for them in his room.
  • Organized lego
  • Made decision to sell his meccano and lego action figures as well as a few other toys
  • Look what we made today! (recipe coming next week)
  •  

 Wednesday

  • Foodbank
  •  Daily smarts.
  • 1/2 hour reading 
  • Cleaning and organizing the lad’s room (did all on his own)

Thursday

  •  Daily smarts, Veritas History and Bible, and Teaching Textbooks.
  • 1/2 hour reading 
  • Working on his story.   
  • Deciding there was more things in his room that needed cleaning and removing.

Friday

  • Plans were to have an art class…but snow hit.
  • So we started putting up my Christmas village.  We didn’t get finished, but we got it started at least.  🙂
  • And we had fun watching the birds.
  •   

Word Prompt Posts.

Peace.
List.
White. 
Joy.  

Reviews:

Santa Based Christmas Books.
The Art of Beatrix Potter.
The Storybook Knight.
Art Series: Designing with Pixar.

Life and Faith:

Sunday Sermon: John: A Call to Repent
Hymn Study: Thou Didst Leave thy Throne
Do Not forget the Lord God. Continued study in Ezekiel 23
Recipe: My Pineapple Ham.   A family favourite
Ezekiel is a sign.  Continue study in Ezekiel 24
The Lad’s delight in tidyness.  My lad requested I put up this post. 🙂
Field Trip: Kitchener Symphony. 

Linking up the following places:

 

Homeschool Coffee Break
Weird unsocialized homeschoolers
homeschool show and tell

Review: Let’s Explore Series

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You know how sometimes you get a book to review and you think to yourself…man, I wish I had these when my (insert child’s name) was into these types of books?

Well that was my response when I received the Let’s Explore books from Lonely Planet Kids.   The books are Let’s Explore Safari, Let’s Explore Ocean and Let’s Explore Jungle.

I love these books.
Seriously.
I wish I could do them but.. I’m too old AND I’d rather save them for younger hands than mine to work through.

They are NOT cookie cutter books.  You know, when you get a series and you can pretty much say what’s going to happen from page to page?   Not so with this series… different puzzles, different facts, different ways of presenting the information, it makes them interesting.

Each book open with Marco and Amelia about to head out on a new adventure.

Then through a series of sticker pages, puzzles and activities the reader is led to learn a variety of information about the safari, jungle or ocean.

The pages are bright and colourful, drawing the eye in.

There are over 250 stickers in each book with plenty of pages to put them.   Where the stickers are put is not dictated, leaving the user free to place them wherever desired.  In the back of the book there is an answer sheet which is great if one gets stuck on one of the puzzles or activities.

The stickers are, for the most part, great for smaller hands, but also interesting enough for older hands.

Let’s Explore… Jungle (Lonely Planet Kids) by Lonely Planet Kids (2016-02-16)
takes us into the jungles of South America learning about the flora and fauna.

 Let’s Explore… Ocean (Lonely Planet Kids) by Lonely Planet Kids (2016-02-16)
learning about sharks and other oceanic life, drawing a seahorse and more.

 Let’s Explore… Safari (Lonely Planet Kids) by Lonely Planet Kids (2016-02-16)  takes us to the plains of Africa where we can explore the big five, visit Victoria Falls and more.

 Geared for ages 5-8, Lonely Planet Kids has done a lovely job of helping children learn more about the ocean, jungle and safari.  They have done up a number of other books as well, be sure to check them out.   Rainforest Books graciously sent me these three books so that I could give you my honest review.

Just in case you missed it, I think these books would be a lovely addition to any house with younger children.. sticker, puzzle, learn as you work the activities.   So much colour and fun to be had.

He picked it up on his own, The Deadliest Creature in the World

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My lad can read, and read fairly well, but pick up a book just because?   He generally doesn’t just pick up books to read unless something about them intrigues him mightily.

This morning a breakfast my lad saw this book “The Deadliest Creature in the World” sitting on top of my review pile and picked it up and was reading it over breakfast.    Now I don’t know about you.. .but that’s a win in my book.

Book Synopsis:
A heart-stopping touch, a powerful punch, a killer kick….WHICH creature is the deadliest?  
YOU Decide.

My thoughts:

Other than the obvious.. MY BOY IS PICKING UP A BOOK AND CHOOSING TO READ IT INSTEAD OF messing around on his tablet!!!!!!!!!!!!!   WOOT WOOT!!!!!!!

It’s draws a child in and I LOVE IT for that.

It also provoked discussion.
“Mom, they shouldn’t have included this one.  This frog doesn’t attack people.  If they get poisoned it’s because they are trying to it.  So he’s not so deadly, he’s just being protective”.

“An ostrich!!?!?!?!   MOM!!!   They have an ostrich in here!!!!!”

“Oh, I didn’t know that.  Mom, did you know there’s a fish that has really poisonous spines?”

Filled with colourful pictures that depict the animals well and an easy to read large font this book is sure to be a hit with your children as well.   They will be equally as fascinated as we were by the Cone Snail that can change it’s venom according to the prey it has caught.   I tell you, this book is interesting.  🙂

I like that at the closing of the book the author says this
“But what about creatures that are fragile or teensy or slow?   What about the ones with no arms or legs?   They have been surviving for …. years with the help of toxins and poisons.”   It leaves the door open for children to research for other deadly animals of the world, and consider some they might not even have thought of.

To get you started in your search for dangerous or deadly animals, check out these top 25.

Raincoast Books generously provided me with a readers copy of this great picture book.   It’s a soft cover book of about 30 pages, written by Brenda Z. Guiberson, and delightfully illustrated by Gennady Spirin.  See also my review of another Guiberson book, The Most Amazing Creature of the Sea.

You can follow Raincoast books at these links.

https://twitter.com/raincoastbooks
https://www.facebook.com/raincoastbooks
https://instagram.com/raincoastbooks/
https://www.pinterest.com/raincoastbooks/
http://raincoastbooks.tumblr.com/
https://plus.google.com/+raincoastbooks/

 To download a worksheet based on this book CLICK HERE.

Imperial Crown A Gorgeous Flower

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This gorgeous plant has had me mystified for a couple years.   Last year it grew a stalk but that was it.  Not enough of anything for me to post a pic saying what is this?

Now that it has flowered I posted a pic to a gardening group I am part of and learned that it is an Imperial Crown.

The Latin name is Fritillaria imperialis.

It is part of the Lily family. I think it is so pretty.   It came in a bag of mystery bulbs a couple years back from a nursery outside of Kitchener.   Cheap bag with a whack of bulbs in it.. most of which looked like tulips, some were grape hyacinths and a few others that I can’t recall the names of.. but they were small bulbs with interesting flowers.. ah…ranuculus (or something like that).

They grow up to three feet tall.
They come in three colour variations: yellow, orange and red.  (and variations between that).
They come from Asia.   Native to a wide stretch from Anatolia, across the plateau of Iran to Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Himalayan foothills. 

I remember the instructions said to plant it on it’s side…I’ve learned this is due to their propensity to rot quickly.  A friend on facebook said they were an expensive bulb to buy so I feel doubly blessed right now. 🙂   A beautiful flower to grace my spring garden and purchased inexpensively.  🙂

As I researched this bulb a bit I learned the smell of the flower is supposed to deter squirrels.  Hubby quickly said “oh.. we need more of them then!”.  🙂   They do unfortunately, only bloom in the spring so it wouldn’t work year round anyways.  I also mentioned to him I didn’t find it really had a smell to it anyways, at least not noticeable enough for my poor nose.

Anyways, she’s a beauty and I hope we can propagate more of them.  Wouldn’t they be fun to share with others?

Should tell you this, if you want to visit other gardening links, check out the Garden Party.