The Architect and The Artist: January 2010

Saturday, January 30, 2010

Books Galore

A friend of mine took me to Barnes and Noble this past week because she was getting a great deal on books (long story)...so I walked out with about 13 books! I felt like I had gone on a spending spree! So now I have more than enough to read and more than enough recipes to cook (I got a few cookbooks). Here is some of what I got...

Books on Christianity and one on courtship (since we have a pre-teen this is something we need to start thinking about.).

I also got a few cookbooks...I have loved Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day so I went ahead and got their "healthy bread" book. I love Rick Bayless' show, and his recipes look so yummy! And finally, I have loved Stephanie's blog and recently purchased a new crockpot.

And finally, these just looked like cute science books...I know... "cute science" probably doesn't go together, but I loved the look of these books so I picked them up for the boys.

Posted by Debbie at 5:00 AM 2 comments

Labels: Books

Friday, January 29, 2010

Mammoth Math

As a part of the TOS Crew, I received several e-books from Mammoth Math to review. There are four different series of books from Mammoth Math. I received books from three of the four categories. Here is what we have used....

*The Golden Series-Grades 3 and 7

The Golden Series are books based on the grade of your student. There are books for grades 3-8. There are only problems here with no explanations. These are great for review and reinforcement of concepts. My oldest is currently working on integers and how to add, subtract, multiply and divide negative and positive numbers. These worksheets have been great for review for him! My youngest is mastering his multiplication facts and has been using these pages to do so. I like the way that the material is presented in a slightly different way from our regular math curriculum. This gives my sons another way of looking at the same problem and helps the "lightbulb" to come on. These books are about $7 and $2 for the answer key (as downloads).

*The Green Series-Fractions

The Green Series is organized my topic instead of grades. Most of the sheets are for grades 3-7. Once again there is no teaching material here, but rather just problems. However, I have used some of the pages from this book to introduce to my youngest some basic concepts of fractions. Once again, these pages are best for review or if you are willing to teach the concepts yourself and then have them work on the problems. As a download, this book costs $6.75.

*The Blue Series-Geometry I

The Blue Series is set up according to topics. It does have explanations and problems to work through. These books cover grades 1-5. The book gives websites that you can go to that will help you teach the concepts in the book. I really like the explanations in this book. They are step-by-step, well-written, and easy to understand. For example, for one of the lessons there are instructions on how to use a protractor and create certain sized angles (right, acute, obtuse). There is a lot of drawing (of angles and other shapes) which makes this book rather "hands-on" in nature. These books as downloads range from $2-$5.50.

The last series, which I didn't receive, is called the Light Blue Series. This series is a full curriculum based on grades. They cover grades 1-5 and are mastery-oriented. They contain both explanations and problems to do. To give you an idea of price, the 3rd grade curriculum for the full year is just under $30!

I would HIGHLY recommend these books! I thought they were well done and very affordable! In this day and age, with the economy the way it is, I felt that Mammoth Math would be the way to go if you want to give your child a good foundation in math at an affordable price!

There are a plethora of books available through Mammoth Math!!!!! Please go to their website to find what suits your family and for prices!

These products have been provided to me for the purpose of reviewing them. I am not being paid to do this review. I am sharing my honest opinion of how these products work for my family.

Posted by Debbie at 5:00 AM 0 comments

Labels: TOS Homeschool Reviews

Thursday, January 28, 2010

The Night Noah fought the Durango and Lost

Here was my evening in case you are interested!

*Noah splits open his head by running into the open door of our Durango.

*2 min. later my Spanish student walks in.

*I have to clean up Noah while she waits.

*Throw TaeKwon-do uniform in wash in hopes of getting out the blood. He was wearing his WHITE uniform...got pretty bloody

*Throw dinner in crockpot.

* Go to grocery store to get liquid bandage.

*Their credit card machines are down...I have NO money and NO checkbook.

*I tried to call Tim...pay phone wasn't working (because of course I don't have a cell)

*Finally credit card machines work

*Go home with liquid bandage..doesn't work

*Dinner in crockpot was a DISASTER! NEVER do mac and cheese in the crockpot even if the lady from "A Year of Slowcooking" says it will work! IT WON"T! LOL

*Throw out dinner.

*Call a friend who is a nurse. She rushes over.

*Nurse takes one look at it and say get to First Care.

*Go to First Care.

*Noah gets six stitches in the forehead by the P.A. and nurse that saw me two weeks ago for my torn calf muscle. Kind of like a mini-reunion! LOL

*Go home...feel like crying...haven't eaten dinner...not sure I want to.

*I am positive that I am going to need therapy! LOL

Posted by Debbie at 9:32 PM 3 comments

Labels: Family

Jay Wile Workshops

This past weekend I went to some workshops done by Jay Wile, the author of the Apologia Science books for 7th-12th grades. These workshops were awesome! Even though Jay Wile is a nuclear chemist and a self-proclaimed "nerd", he was a great speaker and easy to understand.

I went to the following workshops....
Teaching Critical Thinking
Why Homeschool through High School and How to teach High School at Home
Homeschooling: The Solution to our Education Problem
Teaching Science at Home

If you would like access to the handouts for these workshops, click here.

One thing that Dr. Wile did for me was to affirm what I have been doing all along. If you go to the handouts you will see that he has a plethora of statistics that show how homeschoolers do in comparison to public school kids. The numbers are amazing! So definitely check out the handouts on Homeschooling: The Solution to our Education Problem and Why Homeschool through High School. Another thing is that I learned that I have been doing science right all along!! Dr. Wile gave us these two quotes to emphasize his point about math and science (and to add a little humor to the workshop!).

“Diplomacy without arms is like music without instruments”

-Alexander the Great

“Science without math is like music without instruments”
-Jay Wile the Not-So-Great

Dr. Wile says that in the early elementary years, you need to do science only once or twice a week, but you must do math EVERY day! The math is crucial because science is math-driven. Well, this is exactly what we did in the elementary years! The Five in a Row curriculum only has you do science once a week, so that is what we did. We did math everyday with Math-U-See (which is one of the curriculums that Dr. Wile recommends). But as you move into Jr. High, you need to step it up a bit. I haven't really done that with Zach (he is in 7th grade this year). We are working two days a week with an in-depth study of zoology. But next year I am moving to Apologia, and he is going to do General Science. After that, he should be ready for high school Biology.

Another aspect of teaching science that I was unaware of is the approach you take. You can either go with a spiral or an immersion approach. The immersion approach works better because there is more depth because a student is taught one subject in science for awhile. In the spiral approach, the student touches on lots of different approaches over the year and then goes back to them again in another year. Most of our science has been the immersion approach without me realizing that this was beneficial to my kids. This year in science has really been "immersion". All we have focused on is zoology, and we have gained so much understanding and knowledge that we didn't have before!

So if you ever get a chance to listen to Dr. Wile, please go! You will be blessed! Some of his workshops are on CD, go here to check them out.

Posted by Debbie at 5:00 AM 0 comments

Labels: Homeschooling, Science

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Titan's Uncle and New Playmate

Ok, so I know that all of this might be confusing, but I will try to fill you in. Titan's daddy, Kazz,

Kazz and Titan

unexpectedly died last August. Kazz was owned by some dear friends of ours, and they are now looking to get another mini schnauzer. Well, Kazz's parents (these would be Titan's grandparents) just had another litter! And Kazz's owners will be getting one of these new little puppies in March! They are going to get another boy! This means that Titan will have a new playmate who is actually his uncle! We can't wait to meet the little guy!

From My Pictures

Here is the litter...five girls and two boys.

Posted by Debbie at 5:00 AM 1 comments

Labels: Family, Titan

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Dollar Homeschool- Eclectic Education Series

As a part of the TOS Crew, I received The Eclectic Education Series from Dollar Homeschool to review. The Eclectic Education Series is a set of textbooks that were used in American schools in the late 1800's and early 1900's. The textbooks have now been put on CD's and Dollar Homeschool sells them for $159. The series includes the McGuffey Readers, Ray's Arithmetic, and books on science, history and grammar. There are also some teacher books. One in particular is the Manual of Methods which helps teachers use all the text books. If you are interested in seeing a complete list of the books, click here.

The amount of material in these books is overwhelming! There is no way we could go through all of this material. This is years and years of school work...from the elementary years through high school. So let me give you an overview of the what I would consider the positive and negative points of this curriculum.

POSITIVES

*It is for the most part a complete curriculum.

*For $159 you can have textbooks for many years to come for your child's schooling.

*There are helps (like the Manual of Methods) for the teacher.

*I like the style of writing...for example, reading through some of the first year science text, I found it to be enjoyable to read, easy to understand, and something that my boys are willing to listen to.

*Because the books come from the 1800's, I feel that they would give a solid education in the basics than some of the more modern textbooks.

NEGATIVES

*I found the quality of the pictures to be horrible in some of the books, especially the McGuffey Readers.

*You may become easily overwhelmed because there is so much material here, but like I said earlier this may be a positive for you.

*Being from the 1800's, these textbooks might not fit what you are comfortable with. Some of the methods may feel outdated.

*Some of these books are available free on the web, and I found that they were of better quality in regards to the pictures in the books.

*I found it hard to decipher what books would fit which grade levels best. That is probably because the American school system has changed so drastically over the years.

If you would like to read what other TOS Crew members said about Dollar Homeschool and the Eclectic Education Series, click here.

These products have been provided to me for the purpose of reviewing them. I am not being paid to do this review. I am sharing my honest opinion of how these products work for my family.

Posted by Debbie at 5:00 AM 0 comments

Labels: TOS Homeschool Reviews

Monday, January 25, 2010

The God Full of Blessings

God pursues us and wishes to bless us...Here is how He has blessed me this past week.
306. Two new comforters for our bed for free!
307. The gifts of a friend.
308. Safety for Tim.
309. The ability to start walking and exercising again after tearing my calf muscle.
310. That God is faithful to us even when we are not.

311. Reading the book, Experiencing God.
312. God's help in helping me overcome some unforgiveness and bitterness.
313. Time to relax.
314. Dinner date with my hubby!
315. That God is providing for all our needs and then some.
316. The power of prayer.
317. God fixing a situation without me even asking!
318. Walks with Titan even though it is cold!
319. Receiving a new homeschooling magazine for free!
320. Getting my first issue of Taste of Home...love this magazine!
321. Using my brand new crockpot a lot!
322. Getting caught up with a lot of my review work for the TOS Crew before other big projects come in.
323. Watching Titan open his own kennel with his teeth! So cute!
324. A movie to watch, Julie and Julia.

325. Making bagels for the first time! They actually were good!
326. Homeschooling workshops that I went to by Jay Wile.

327. Looking forward to using some of the Apologia resources next year for science for the kids.
328. That Titan will be getting to meet another member of his family, an uncle, very soon. There will be a post on this coming soon.

Posted by Debbie at 5:00 AM 5 comments

Labels: Multitude Mondays

Saturday, January 23, 2010

The Prayer of Revenge

Ok, you are probably looking at the title of this book and thinking, "What in the world?" How can prayer and revenge be put into the same sentence?? How in the world can you justify such a concept? But I have to say if you have ever experienced a conflict with someone who has not sought forgiveness and remains unremorseful, this book will help you get you to the point where you can forgive the one that hurt you and who has never sought to make it right. I can't recommend The Prayer of Revenge: Forgiveness in the Face of Injustice enough! This is my second time reading it through, and it has helped to come to terms with two relationships in my life where the offenders have been completely unwilling to make amends. Both these offenders are professing Christians which makes it even harder to deal with. But I firmly believe that we become more like Christ when we make that decision to forgive.

Prayers of revenge are called imprecatory prayers, and they actually exist in the Bible!! These are prayers (many of them are prayers of King David) in which the offended party cries out to God to bring justice on the offender. A good portion of these types of prayers are found in the Psalms. Here is a list of some of the chapters in Psalms that contain imprecatory prayers. By reading some of these you will get an idea of what I am talking about...

5,6,7,10,11,17,23,25,28,31,35,40,41,54,55,58,68,70,71,73,74,79,83,94,104,109,120,129,137...and this is only a partial list!

This book encourages forgiveness regardless of the remorse of the offender. The Bible teaches that we must forgive. It is emotionally healthy for us to forgive. It is the only way that we can be free from the pain that the person inflicted. It is the only way we can be free of the person who hurt us. When we don't forgive we are giving the other person the power to hurt us over and over again. When we don't forgive we in some ways have an issue with God. We don't believe that He will serve as judge between us and our offender. We don't believe that God will dole out the necessary justice. By placing our faith in God and handing that person over to God, we can let go and forgive.

"It is mine to avenge; I will repay. In due time their foot will slip; their day of disaster is near and their doom rushes upon them." Deuteronomy 32:35

Posted by Debbie at 5:00 AM 3 comments

Labels: Bible, Faith, Word of the Year

Friday, January 22, 2010

Our First Week with Plants Grown Up

This is our first week working with Plants Grown Up, a book from Doorposts, that I have been wanting to use with the boys for several years now. We only have a few more years to prepare Zach for his adulthood. I have felt that we need to step it up a notch so that he will have the skills to be a godly adult, husband and father.

This week we are doing the chapter on "Justly Judging in Discipline Situations". I have decided that we will do one memory verse and two projects from one chapter each week.

Our Memory Verse: "The first to present his case seems right, till another comes forward and questions him." Proverbs 18:17 There is so much validity to this verse! We need to listen to both sides of the story before making a judgment call! I know that I have jumped to conclusions that were incorrect when learning about a conflict between two people. I have also been the victim of someone listening to someone else's story about me and then making an inaccurate judgment call about me. Not only are we memorizing this verse, but we are discussing how to put its wisdom to use.

One of our projects is that we are going to study the Brother-Offended Checklist this week. This is a list of what the offender and the offended should do in a conflict. All the suggestions are based on Bible verses.

We are also going to make a list of offenses and appropriate consequences in order to introduce the concept of the "punishment fitting the crime". We will also base this on Bible verses, using the Scriptures as our guide.

Stay tuned for more of our adventures with Plants Grown Up!

Posted by Debbie at 5:00 AM 0 comments

Labels: Bible, Family, Homeschooling

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Incorporating Geography

I have never gone through a geography course with the boys. We have always incorporated geography into our other subjects. In the early days we learned the location of the countries and area of the US that were in the Five in a Row books that we rowed. We now do history mostly chronologically with Biblioplan. As we go through history we do maps of the area that we are studying. This year we are doing zoology for science. Once again we are studying geography by looking up where the animals live. So as you can see you can incorporate geography in a lot of places in your homeschool. I have found that geography is easily included in history and science (especially the life sciences).

Another way we are doing geography this year is through a handwriting program called A-Z Mystery Flags from LightHome Publications. Each page is a different letter of the alphabet...there is a mystery flag that the boys have to figure out the country for (a country that starts with that letter) and then the boys have to write out the countries for that letter in cursive. We actually use Italics... and I have them write the countries in italics. Because they have done italics their whole lives, they have a hard time reading regular cursive. This program is giving them the opportunity to practice reading cursive. I then have the boys look up and locate each country on their page. Here are some pictures of them working on "Page M" today. There were a ton of countries that start with the letter "M" so we did a lot of locating!

Here is Noah trying to figure out what the mystery flag is.

Working on handwriting...

Looking up the countries.

I am planning on using A-Z Exotic Animals next with the boys. As we go through these animals we will look on a map to find their habitats.

Posted by Debbie at 5:00 AM 1 comments

Labels: Homeschooling

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

If You Will Ask...

I recently finished a book by Oswald Chambers entitled If You Will Ask. I have to admit that it wasn't an easy read! Chambers' writing is lofty and the concepts are deep and to be quite frank, half the time I didn't know what he was talking about! But, nevertheless, I was blessed by reading the book. There were some important concepts that I needed to be reminded of and to learn. Here are a few of them:

*God's silences are His answers. Sometimes God doesn't answer us at all...it is like He is saying, "no". Or He is waiting so that we can grow in Him. There are several situations in my life where God hasn't answered the prayer and has been somewhat silent on the issue. He is growing me through the experience. Actually, come to think of it, every time God has said, "no" I have grown!

*Prayer comes with a price! But I am not the one it cost. We have access to God because of what Jesus did on the cross...prayer is not a sacrifice for us, but rather for God!

*Prayer alters....me and others. Prayer also alters circumstances through me. The biggest revelation I got out of this small book is that the aim of prayer is to change me and make me more like Christ. It isn't about a wish list that we give to our Heavenly Father each day!

*Prayer has no snares. It is one area we can serve where we won't get nailed by others! God has been teaching me that when you are in ministry people will come up against you to criticize what you do and how you handle things. But prayer is private, and we can serve in this area without fear of ridicule.

Posted by Debbie at 5:00 AM 0 comments

Labels: Faith, Word of the Year

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Zeezok Publishing-Presidential Penmanship

As a part of the TOS Crew, I received a CD entitled Presidential Penmanship: Italic Style to review. We actually use the Italic style in our handwriting lessons so I was thrilled to receive this! The CD contains lessons for grades 1-12. There are lessons for each of the grade levels 1-6. The lessons for the higher grades are split between two levels: Jr. High and Sr. High. I spent most of my time looking over the lessons for 3rd grade and the Jr. High lessons since I have a 3rd and 7th grader.

The setup of each lesson is pretty straightforward. Basically, these lessons are copywork of presidential quotes. For 3rd grade lessons, the quote is in bold at the top, then in gray so that the student can trace over it, and then at the bottom of the page there are lines for the student to write the quote on their own. For the Jr. High level, there is just the quote at the top and lines for the student to write it. To see sample pages click here.

I really liked the setup of these lessons. They are short, sweet and to the point. No prep work on my part except to print them out! I LOVE the selection of quotes. Here are some of them (The first two are from the 3rd grade level and the last two from the Jr. High level.)...

A injured friend is the bitterest of foes.- T. Jefferson

My concern is not whether God is on our side; my great concern is to be on God's side.- A. Lincoln

When you can't make them see the light, make them feel the heat.-Reagan

If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn't sit for a month.-T. Roosevelt

The quotes are on a variety of subjects, but they mostly focus on character, God and government. There are several different presidents represented: Washington, Adams, Madison, Van Buren, Lincoln, Kennedy, Ford, Reagan, etc. So you aren't just getting quotes from our Founding Fathers. The CD sells for $39.99 for all levels or you can buy each level separately at $9.99 a piece. Zeezok sells other styles of handwriting too. Click here to see the other styles that are available.

These products have been provided to me for the purpose of reviewing them. I am not being paid to do this review. I am sharing my honest opinion of how these products work for my family.

Posted by Debbie at 5:00 AM 0 comments

Labels: TOS Homeschool Reviews

Monday, January 18, 2010

A Plethora of Praise

God is always faithful...here is how He has blessed me recently...
291. A birthday party for Noah.
292. Loving on me through the support of church members.
293. A youth pastor who is very supportive of the teaching we are doing in the Jr. High class.
294. The ability to have a sense of humor in the weirdness of life!
295. I didn't lose the diamond in my wedding ring.
296. A fixed wedding ring.
297. That God is for me and faithful to me even when His answer to my prayer is a firm "NO".
298. Hot drinks on cold days.
299. An awesome birthday cake decorated by an awesome husband.

300. Wow, making it to 300 blessings! I am about a third of the way there!
301. An opportunity to love on the Jr. High kids that I teach.
302. That God sees me through the hard times just like he saw Hagar in the desert.
303. That God is healing my torn calf muscle so quickly. I can almost walk normally now!
304. A new Bible curriculum for the kids.
305. Watching Titan play with him toys...he is so energetic and fun!

Posted by Debbie at 5:00 AM 1 comments

Labels: Multitude Mondays

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