A Net in Time

Curriculum and book reviews, faith, homeschooling and more!

Series

Igloos and Inukshuks Work

By 20 Comments

Did you know that some folks think that a good number of Canadians live in Igloos?  I know!!!   It’s just so weird to me the first time I heard that.  It wasn’t said in jest…the person was VERY serious.   Trust this… I don’t live in an igloo and in fact I’ve never even been in one… at least a proper one.  🙂  I’ve been in snow forts and tepees and half domes but never an igloo. I would love to be in one though, I think it would be VERY cool to see if they truly get so warm inside that a young child could bundle about naked. 

Made me wonder about the science behind the idea.

1. Igloos are made tight, in a spiral, out of compressed snow.  Starting at the bottom, sinking the blocks in and building up on a spiral.  The blocks decrease in size as they build up toward the dome.  

2. In fact, the compressed snow is so air tight that if you don’t make vent holes and leave an opening at the top you can suffocate.

3. The design of a traditional igloo has terraced sides, this leaves a cold dump at the bottom for the cold air to sit while the warmer air rises to keep the people warm.   The more people you add the warmer it gets.   Since warm furs are placed on the terraced areas, it gives younger children a warm and safe place to play.

4. With the door being at a right angle to the igloo walls it keeps the cold wind from blowing in, a fire in the middle and a vent hole at top, keeps the air circulating.

Igloos WORK.

Another thing that works is the Inukshuk.

Did you know they are built to act as landmarks?   They are meant to say “someone was here” or “you are on the right path.”   An inukshuk in the form of a human being is called an inunnguaq.

Each inukshuk (inuksuit would be plural) is unique, and they each have their own job. They can be a random stacking of stones, or they can be built to look like a person.  Most of the time, traditionally, they were just a random piling of stones, sometimes with a directional pointer.

Normally they appear singly, but occasionally you can find them in groups.   The purpose of a inukshuk can be  as
directional aids in navigating or to mark a memorial, or even to indicate migration routes for animals or places where fish can
be found.

When they are grouped it can be in a series to make a path, or in a group to mark a significant place.

They have been a valuable asset to the Inuk travellers throughout their history.

Others in the series: 
 A: Sidney Altman, Canadian Scientist. 
B: Beavers!
C: Chant National/O Canada.
D: Dog Sledding.
E: Edgewalk.
F. Tailed Frogs.
G: Greats of Canada.
H: Henry Hudson.
I: Igloos and Inukshuks Work 

Come join us won’t you?

A Net In Time Schooling

A Net In Time Schooling

The Excellent Wife – A Wife’s Understanding of Sin

By 2 Comments

I’ve been going through The Excellent Wife by Martha Pearce, you can find the rest of the series here.
This week we are on Chapter Three: A Wife’s Understanding of Sin.

In this chapter we learn about God’s provision of sin and Four Characteristics of it. 

1. Sin is universal.  No one is exempt.  Romans 3:23

2. Sin may be open and obvious to others. Galatians 5: 19-21

3. Sin cannot be hidden from God. 1 Samuel 16:7; Hebrews 4:13

4. Sin justly penalized.  Romans 6:23; Isaiah 53:11

 If we trust the Lord God for our salvation, our sin is covered.   We’ve repented, our sin is cleansed and removed from us  Even horrible sins of the past.   The sins of the present will continue to need to be dwelt with.

If we have a long-standing sin we must be diligent about putting off the old self and putting on the new.  Making choices to change what we do and how we respond.   Changes thoughts, actions, patterns etc by making CHOICES that fit with the new nature we are putting on.

Our goal as believers is to be godly.  To show God in the things that we say, do or even think.   God is the image that we seek after, the image that we want to emulate.  So understand that sin is NOT being godly.  Turn from it.  Seek after God and his ways. 

Confess.  Repent.   Seek.   Do.  That’s the calling up on us.  

This chapter seemed very straight-forward to me.  No hidden mysteries.  Just a call to recognize that if we want to be an excellent wife to our spouses, it really starts with having faith, and living according to the higher calling God has placed on our lives.   Seeking him, seeking to be kind, seeking to be more than what we sometimes want to be.

Art Series: Fantastic Planets

By 4 Comments

I so much enjoy my colouring book Fantastic Collections so when I saw I could review Fantastic Planet I was delighted!  This book is part of a series produced by Chronicle books.    This review is part of an Art series is part of an on-going series of Art books reviewed for your pleasure and resource.    You can find more books here and here.

 Book Synopsis:
Bestselling author Steve McDonald uses his unique photo-based
illustration style to celebrate the fantastic places, flora, and fauna
of the natural world around us. Here are inspiring, fun-to-color images
of lush jungles, teeming reefs, desert landscapes, fruitful orchards,
sun-dappled forests, spectacular waterfalls, majestic trees, tulip
fields, animal migrations, and much more.

My thoughts:

This is a GREAT colouring book.. seriously.
Fantastic images to fill in, that take the whole page, not just part of it.
High quality paper and images…wow… the images. 

I found myself hard pressed to pick which images I wanted to share with you.

 Back to back pictures that fill the page so you have no wasted space.   In the crease of the book one can find a description of what the image is about.

For instance, these alligators are from The Florida Everglades.   Can you see how an image like this might be fun to add to a study on Florida or Alligators?

These books are meant for adults, but I’ve known young teens who have done a stellar job with them.   Just a simply delightful colouring book.   The detail and imagery is simply a delight to fill in, knowing that by the end I will have a picture of a real thing.  

My son loves the tangle of snakes he discovered, my hubby the wolves and the landscape scences, I have a friend I’d love to send the elephants to, if I could figure out how to get it to her undamaged.  🙂   Some of these images, I see them and think, wouldn’t that be nice to add to a study someone is doing on Africa, Indonesia, China and more?  A nice add on for science and geography eh?

So if you like colouring books, my advice is to get this book, You’ll enjoy it.  Draw nature, explore this planet that we live on, and take some time…just for you.  🙂

 
Fantastic Planet: A Coloring Book of Places Real and Imagined
 Steve McDonald
 Chronicle Books
11.48 x 11.87
60 pages

 Reviewed for: Raincoast Books

Profile: Henry Hudson

By 16 Comments

I realized this morning that I neglected to do my blogging through the alphabet post.  This week we are on the letter H.  So Welcome one and all to blogging through the alphabet with Amanda and myself.   🙂

When I mentioned it to my hubby he said “Hudson Bay or the Hudson Bay Company.”

Since mentioning one without the other doesn’t make a lot of sense to me so I figured doing a profile on Henry Hudson might work just as well.  🙂   He made four sea-faring journeys.

Henry Hudson as was sea-faring explorer back in the 1600’s.   He discovered Hudson Bay but actually thought he had discovered the Pacific Ocean at the time, this during his last voyage of 1610-1611.

 He was a rather indecisive leader and his crew talked of mutiny when they sailed into the bay and were stuck there for the winter.   When the ice broke in the spring and all the men wanted to return home to England, Hudson wanted to push on in his search for the North West passage.  His men mutinied, he was put over board in a rowboat along with his son and the injured men, and was never heard from again.

He was known for being an excellent navigator but a poor leader of men.  The men who mutinied against him were not convicted of the crime and found jobs on other boats.

He was a determined explorer.  He found new hunting regions, explored new sections of land and ocean and just at his ultimate quest… to find the NorthWest passage.

Numerous places are named after him.  Hudson Bay led to the Hudson Bay Company.  We have the Hudson River, Hudson Straits, Hudson Stone, Henry Hudson Bridge as well as various schools, streets and the like.  

 Source of image: Wikipedia.

A Net In Time Schooling Blogging Through The Alphabet Grab Button Code:

A Net In Time Schooling

A Net In Time Schooling

Art Series: 642 Things about Me.

By 2 Comments

You know how art is about more than drawing, painting, cutting, gluing and making.  How art is also about words and how to use them beautifully?   Here is a book to encourage beauty in both of those formats for your young artists and writers.    642 things about me.

Chronicle Books has come out with another 642 things book!    This one is geared for the 8-12 year old writer and artist.    

As you can see there is plenty of space to write and to draw, sometimes to do both for the same topic.

Some of the things you might be asked to write about are:

  • something you collect
  • a cheer you could chant
  • describe what thunder sounds like
  • the music at the dentist office

Things to write and draw

  • an historical figure image, quote, question to ask
  • an artist that inspires, art work, a project you could do

Things you can draw:

  • treasure chest at the bottom of the ocean
  • colossal bike ramp
  • flag of your country
  • a valentine 
  • a merit badge for bravery

So many things to write, to draw.
So many things to see and to listen for.  Thoughts to consider, quotes that inspire.

Get this book into the hands of your young artist and watch them get busy being inspired to learn, draw, grow, and develop.  A good thing yes?

You can find my reviews on 
642 Big Things to Draw
642 Places to Draw.

If looking for the complete series of the 642 books visit Chronicle books.

642 Things About Me: Young Writer’s & Artist’s Edition
Chronicle Books
7.5 x 8.95 
304 pages
Ages 8-12

Reviewed for: Raincoast Books.

 

The Greats of Canada!

By 20 Comments

Welcome to blogging through the alphabet, this week we are on letter G!   I know…seven weeks in already…time just flies doesn’t it?   I hope you are taking part in this blog linky, or at least having fun with it.  🙂

Others in this series:
A: Sidney Altman, Canadian Scientist. 
B: Beavers!
C: Chant National/O Canada.
D: Dog Sledding.
E: Edgewalk.
F. Tailed Frogs.  
 

This week I really had to ponder what I would do for the letter G.   I thought for a while of doing the Go-Train which was on my brain because a friend recently found it more cost effective than taking VIA.  But that wasn’t setting well… then I thought about the great lakes and thought hmm…. and my smart alecky 11 year popped up with “you can do the great cat Milo!!!”….and therefore the Greats of Canada was born!   🙂

Did you know that Canada is one of Great Britain’s offspring?  Yes indeed, a long time ago England sent explorers off to North America (1600’s).  There were a variety of skirmishes over the years, but overtime England and France settled their differences, the different parts of Canada joined together and eventually became known as the Dominion of Canada.  Unlike the USA we didn’t have a rebellion, we did the Canadian thing and negotiated a peace.   So our first Great is .. .  Great Britain.

Great Lakes is the second Great.  🙂
Canada is home to four of the five great lakes.  We have a great deal of fresh water (fourth of all countries in the world) and host to the deepest lake in North America, and 8th deepest in the world.   In fact the deepest lake in Canada is another great!   Great Slave Lake!    For curiousities sake….our favourite place to walk in Pinery Provincial Park which borders Lake Huron.

Great Seal of Canada
Then of course we come to another great, called the Great Seal of Canada.
This seal “is a symbol used on all state documents for authority and
authenticity. Documents such as proclamations, commissions of cabinet
ministers, senators, judges and senior government officials.    The Great Seal of Canada provides the formal sanction of the Crown to a document……The current seal is complete with an image of Queen Elizabeth in her
robes, holding the orb and scepter, while seated on the coronation
chair.” (source)

Great White North  oooh… see…it’s another Great!!!   🙂
This can refer to Canada (woot woot) or the show by the McKenzie Brothers. 

Bob and Doug McKenzie were a pair of fictional Canadian brothers who did a sketch called “Great White North”.  It started on SCTV  then moved to CBC Television in 1980.   Bob was played by Rick Moranis and Doug was played by Dave Thomas.   It was created as a mock filler to suit network demands for Canadian Content but quickly became a phenomenon in Canada and the United States. 

Great Cat Milo… it’s my last great for tonight as hmm… bed time is approaching.  This was the lad’s contribution.. who is the biggest Milo fan in the world!   

 Milo is an 8 year old cat (will turn 9 this year) that the lad picked out as a wee three year old.  This boy has been cat focused ever since he fell out of my arms into a bin of stuffed cats at IKEA as a wee lad.  Milo likes to be read to, comes when called, and is ever so patient with the lad MOST of the time.  He does suffer from some back-pain and that occasionally makes him very grumpy, and he catches colds easily, but overall is a great cat for the lad.   We call him the doggiest cat that we know.  But seriously…isn’t he a beaut?

 

So what do you think? Want to join us?
If you live in Canada what other greats can you think of for Canada?? 

A Net In Time Schooling

A Net In Time Schooling

——

Art Series: Earth-Space Coloring Book

By Leave a Comment

 Imagine a book where you could combine a love of learning, with a love of colouring.   Right now my son is big into astronomy…he’s having fun doing experiments, reading and listening, watching youtube videos…and now he can see pictures of what he is learning about in a softcover colouring book AND if he were so inclined…try to replicate what he sees.

Allow me to introduce to you a  new colouring book.   Earth-Space.  This lovely book is put together by Chronicle Books.

This book is beautiful.   The images of space that are photographs taken from the Archives of NASA.  They are breathtakingly beautiful.

Each picture is labelled so we know just what we are looking at.   We see earth from space, corona australis, the orion nebula, stellar snowflake cluster and so much more.

Some of the images are so close you could almost reach out and touch them, while others really point out the grandeur of God to me…that he could make something so interesting to look at, like the Caterpillar of dust and gas.

Each page opens into two page, the first page of the natural phenomena, the second with it broken down into simple lines.   This breaks the natural beauty seem more attainable to colour.  I have to admit though, I felt intimidated by the idea of trying to replicate the variety of colours presented.  BUT since each image is broken down simple lines, it is easier diverge… take for instance the image of rings of Saturn seen below…the colouring page does not depict ALL the rings, so you can use the colours you have at hand, or if desired…you could completely change it up.  It’s a colouring book… do what you want eh?

As you can see, each colouring page is done with simple lines.  Allowing each area to be coloured in sections, or swirls or whatever you wish.   These lines give you connecting points to the real picture so you can build off that.

Just a fascinating colouring book, that at first (to me looked intimidating) but as I continued to look through and think about it, I just found it fascinating as it’s different then other colouring books, it’s more free form with the lines just providing a grounding to base one’s work off of.  Mix colours, don’t be constrained by lines, and just have fun recreating.

I can EASILY see this being used in an astronomy class with students as well.  Even just to look at the pictures to show the beauty that can be found in the galaxy above us.  🙂


Earth Space Coloring book: Photographs from the Archives of NASA.

Published by Chronicle Books.
Pages: 80
Size 8.63 x 11

Reviewed for: Raincoast Books