Debbies Digest

The Simple Woman's Daybook - Nov. 10, 2009

2009-11-10T16:31:00.000-05:00

FOR TODAY... Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2009

Outside my window... cloudy and foggy

I am thinking...nothing much! HA

I am thankful for... my new laptop so I can make sure the boys do school and sit at the dining room table and get blogging done, read e-mails and be more productive while they are doing their independent work.

From the learning rooms... in Bible class we are doing the Exodus, for history more explorers, more chemistry stuff for science, Haydn and Mozart for composers study, now studying Raphael as our artist, and working on TOS review items

From the kitchen... lots of pumpkin stuff
see Rachel's post with lots of recipes Here.

I am wearing... green pants; red, white, blue and green top, white with green and brown flower/leaves, bare feet or crocs.

I am creating... need to begin working on Christmas ornaments... but have been working on... nothing!

I am going... nowhere this week!

I am reading...same stuff as last week. Hope to begin reading The 4:8 Principle by Tommy Newberry (recommended by a friend)

I am hoping... my dh will have my laptop working soon... he can't get the wireless internet to work.

I am hearing... cars and the White Christmas movie

Around the house... cleaned up, for a guest visiting my daughters today.

One of my favorite things... 4:00pm ... when my hubby comes home!

A few plans for the rest of the week: school, work on Christmas ornaments, play, blog, and read.

Here is picture for thought I am sharing...

Autumn Cookies, Yumm!

If you want to do your own Daybook or read a lot of others go to our hostesses blog:
http://thesimplewomansdaybook.blogspot.com/

Debbie

Blast From The Past - Rachel and Jessica Fall 1994

2009-11-10T15:28:00.000-05:00

You will find the rules for participating in my meme by clicking this link
Blast From The Past

Blast From The Past occurs on Tuesdays

This week I am posting pictures of Rachel and Jessica

playing in the leaves in the backyard of my Mom's house,

the house I grew up in.

My mom is in some of the pictures to, the kids call her Nan.

As usual if you would like to see one of the pictures larger just click on that picture.
Each one should enlarge in a new page then when you close it you will come back here.

Rachel was 8 years old.

Ooooh FUN!

Jessica was 5 years old.
Cutie!

Here is Nan.

A sisterly shove

Just Playin'!!

Ahhh...

the simple pleasures of childhood!

I hope you enjoyed this weeks Blast
Now it is your turn!!
Post a picture from your past... yesterday... days gone by...
Pictures of you, your family, your kids, your spouse...

Make sure you take my Blast From The Past button to put in your post. Tell your readers to click on the button to come to my blog or leave them a link at the bottom so they can read my post and participate if they want to.

Don't forget to come back and sign Mr. Linky
so we can all go read your post!!!

Debbie

TOS Homeschool Crew Review - American Heritage Education Foundation

2009-11-09T12:45:00.008-05:00

An Introductory paragraph from the American Heritage Education Foundation.

"AHEF is a non-profit, non-partisan educational foundation dedicated to the understanding and teaching of America's factual and philosophical heritage to promote constructive citizenship and Freedom, Unity, Progress, and Responsibility among our students and citizens. AHEF Free K-12 lesson plans to teachers, students, and families in all 50 states..." accomplishes this patriotic mission by writing, producing, and distributing

Did you catch that? FREE! This is one product that I am reviewing that every one of my readers can afford!

This product comes as a CD or you can download the lesson plans from the website. The CD includes Elementary lessons, Middle School lessons, High School lessons. The CD and the downloads are the exact same. The lessons are created by and for public schools and some of the activities need a large group. Some of these activities may be adapted to homeschool use and some may not. Some of the activities may be done orally instead of in writing and some of the activities may be skipped altogether. There are a number of choices of activities in each lesson and you may pick and choose what seems best for your family. Since this product was created by a school in Texas and was created for public schools the activities are very "schoolish" and so I skipped or adapted them. But, the topics are worth studying; and even if you don't do them all they may spark your creative juices or be a great addition to an already great education on our government and symbols.

We are not covering American history at the moment. We are studying the Renaissance and Reformation. I hope to get to American history later this year or early next year. For now we did a few lessons so we could review this product and we will review or redo the lessons once we get to American History and we will do those we did not cover yet.

The lessons on the CD/download don't really cover a time period in history but themes important to American history like the Declaration, the Constitution, the American Flag, and the Statue of Liberty. On each of the pages for the age brackets you can see a list of the topics included: Elementary, Middle School, High School. Some of the topics/lessons are exactly the same for different lessons, some of the lessons are the same topic but different projects are suggested, and some of the topics are only done in one of the levels.

We used the middle school and high school lessons. Christopher enjoyed the Declaration Scramble the best of all the activities we did. In this activity the boys were given the whole Declaration and then were given the whole Declaration cut up into paragraphs or parts of paragraphs and they had to put the cut up parts into order. This was fun and familiarized them with our Declaration. Nathan's favorite lesson was the lesson on the American Flag. His favorite part of that lesson was finding and copying a poem about the flag and then drawing a picture to go with it. We also read over the Flag Code for the care and use of the American Flag and we discussed those rules. Then they wrote a one page paper on how and why we should show respect to the flag, why we have a code, and why the code is important. Remember, there are a number of activities for each lesson so you may choose from among them what seems best for your family and you may do one or more for each lesson.

I highly recommend getting the FREE CD. This way you have it saved and won't lose it if your computer should crash, I hope it doesn't, but it was convenient to not have to save it on my computer with my many other homeschool things on there. It is especially good if you have a slow computer, you don't have to bother with waiting for the download to finish. And, since the price is so reasonable... FREE! you might as well get the CD!

Out of five stars we give American Heritage Education Foundation:

I give this product my good value icon:

since it's cost is FREE! $0.00

Get your free CD on this page.

They also have a binder you can purchase with the lessons already printed out if you are interested in getting it that way but that costs $19.50 per level (includes shipping).

I hope you check out American Heritage Education Foundation

Please check the other reviews by my crew mates to get some other opinions on this

product HERE.

***American Heritage Education Foundation provided me with the free CD so that I could do my review. Though I received these products for free I have given an honest review of them here in this post.

Debbie

A Verse of Encouragement - Sunday 11-08-09

2009-11-08T08:51:00.000-05:00

Psalm 56:8 "Thou tellest my wanderings: put thou my tears into thy bottle: are they not in thy book?"

Thank you Lord that you know the path that I take and that you see and collect my tears and write them all in a book. There are many of them and I suppose you have a Super Sized bottle for my tears.

Debbie

TOS Homeschool Crew Review - Bright Ideas Press

2009-11-07T15:05:00.002-05:00

Today I have the privilege of doing a review on one of my favorite homeschool companies and some of the great products they have available.

I just love

Let me first list the things from Bright Ideas Press that I have purchased, then I will tell you about the new items I got for free for this review. Each of these items can be found at BIP. Some of these items were reviewed by other members of the TOS Homeschool Crew so you can check the website for reviews on them if you want. But finish reading my post first. There will be another link to the other crew reviews at the bottom of this post.

We own (bought and paid for ourselves prior to TOS Crew membership):

Mystery of History volume 1
Mystery of History volume 2
Mystery of History volume 3 (using vol. 3 this year)
Christian Kids Explore Chemistry
Ultimate Geography and Timeline Guide
Hands-On Geography
Movies as Literature

The following are the items I received from Bright Ideas Press for free so that I could review them. I love Bright Ideas Press products and these are no different.

A Young Scholor's Guide to Composers - We usually study composers and artists each year in our homeschool. I usually follow the guidelines, and sometimes the suggested composers and artists, on Ambleside Online. We then follow the recommendations from the website and study one artist and one composer each quarter of the year, studying them the Charlotte Mason way. This year since we got the Composers study from BIP we have been using it instead for our study of composers. The boys have enjoyed the study so far and I like the components they have in the book. This is one of the items we have received for review that we plan to keep on using for the whole year.

You can get the book as an e-book download or as a paperback book. We were sent the e-book which makes it convenient for printing. As with all e-books a decision must be made, do you want to have ease of printing but have to print the teacher pages also (or read them from the e-book online) or do you want the print book and then you have to scan and print or copy the student pages.

The book contains 32 lessons on 6 time periods of music: Ancient to Middle Ages, Baroque, Renaissance, Classical period, Romantic period, and Contemporary period. Each of the 32 lessons take 3 school days to do. First the authors describe the period of History and then they do a number of composers for that time period (there are no composers for the Ancient to Middle ages period). There are 26 biographies of composers. There are note taking pages to print out for your students for each period and each composer. There are also Composer Info-Cards for the students to fill out for each composer that can be used later for Games that are suggested in the appendix: Composer Bingo and Composer Jeopardy. I can't wait to try some of them, but you have to wait until you cover a number of composers to try them. The biography cards have a place to color the country the composer was born in, a place to put the composer's picture and other interesting information to fill in from the lessons. We also really like the composer Timeline. You highlight the time of birth to the time of death and then add people who were influenced by them and composers who were friends. It is really cool to see the relationships. The last great feature of the Composers product that I want to write about is the Listening Suggestions in the appendix. It not only gives you suggestions of music to listen to but it gives you links so you can hear the suggested music online.

There are sample pages online at the website that you can check out too.

Out of five stars we give A Young Scholor's Guide to Composers:

I give this product my good value icon:
CD-Rom Book Price: $29.95
NEW! Paperback Book (298 pages) Price: $34.95

Christian Kids Explore Physics - This is a great science program for kids grades 4-8. It is creation based and a wonderful addition to any study of physics. The chapters cover the basics of physics. You can see a list of the topics in the sample table of contents below. In the Christian Kids Explore books they have a lab with every lesson, they have a quiz with every lesson, and they have chapter tests. The labs use everyday household items (mostly) or things easily purchased, not fancy chemicals. It can easily be added to and expanded for older children or leave out a few things and it could be used for younger grades. My boys have enjoyed the lessons and the labs.

On this page, Christian Kids Explore Physics, you can find a sample of the table of contents and two sample lessons. There are 30 lessons in the book.

I give this product my good value icon:
Price: $34.95
A good price for a science curriculum.

The quizzes and the labs can be printed from the book above or you can get a student activity book with the quizzes, tests and labs in it to save you time and printing costs. Christian Kids Explore Physics Student Activity Book - Download $12.95

Out of five stars we give Christian Kids Explore Physics:

They also have Christian Kids Explore Chemistry, CKE Earth and Space Science and CKE Biology.

Writer's Workshop - This product is an e-book download. There are many good tips for young writers and the lessons are short to allow time for the students to read their own writing to the others in the class. At each class there is a mini lesson that takes about 5 minutes to go over and then there is a writing assignment to be completed during class.

It is made to be used in a co-op, but can be adapted very easily to be used with just the children in your own home. Due to some things going on in our lives and due to the fact that we did not have a co-op already formed I did the lessons only with my own children. Since Jessica likes writing so much she agreed to join us for the lessons and reading of her work to make the class more full than just the two boys. It has worked very well. Classes are designed to be done once a week and between classes the children are only required to write 15-20 minutes a day on whatever topic/story they want to work on.

I give this product my good value icon:
Price: $14.95
A great price for a writing program that gives you a lesson a week for a whole school year.

Out of five stars we give Writer's Workshop:

I hope you enjoyed my review of the Bright Ideas Press products. Our whole family loves Bright Ideas Press products and we will continue buying from them and supporting them. We are working our way through Mystery of History III and look forward to when Maggie Hogan has volume 4, the largest of them all, done.

Check out all of Bright Ideas Press products; also check out the other reviews my crew mates wrote, some of them received other BIP products.

*** Bright Ideas Press provided me with the three items above so that I could do my review. Though I received these products for free I have given an honest review of them here in this post.

Debbie

TOS Homeschool Crew Review - ACT - Discover

2009-11-04T17:53:00.002-05:00

Do your children know what they want to be when they grow up? When children are young that can change from week to week, but as they grow they need to get more serious about their choices. If your child is not sure what they want to do as a career this program can help them.

The ACT Advantage Discover online program is made by the people who prepare the ACT college entrance standardized test. We found some things to be interesting in reviewing this product. A lot of times, because we spend so much time with our students, we know their strengths and weaknesses. This program did not provide any new information in the areas of Nathan's strengths. But it did show him some things he could do as jobs using those strengths.

The first thing you do after getting your membership is take three tests: Interest Inventory, Abilities Inventory, Values Inventory. Each of these tests does just what it says. The Interest Inventory asks about the things you are interested in. Nathan's results came up just like we thought with a few extra's thrown in. He came up interested in computers, technology and mechanical with crafts and forestry/agriculture thrown in with a few others. Crafts?? But, we were only done test one. Test two is for Abilities. You may have an interest in doing something but what things are you good at? In this inventory Nathan came up with some of the same categories: Crafts, Technologies, and Mechanical and added in there was Medical Technologies which he is not interested in. The last is the Values Inventory. Do you want to work in an office or outside? Do you like working alone or with others? Do you want to be a boss? Do you want a 40 hour work week or flexible hours? These are the types of questions in the values inventory. These kinds of things also help define the job you would be right for. The two areas that came up being in all three of Nathan's inventories were: 1) Construction and Maintenance & 2) Engineering and Technologies.

In each of the areas that come up in the three tests you can check out what jobs are in that field and what that job entails: what do you do in the job, what abilities do you need, what kind of education do you need, and what is the salary like for that job?

On the website there is a Demo you can view. It is near the top of the page in the right hand column: ACT Advantage - Discover

Click this link to see more Features the program has.

ACT provided a free curriculum guide and other resources to help enhance the career planning process also. These came as a pdf download and they helped guide us through some lessons. These lessons were created for classrooms of children but we found that we could use or adapt most of them for our one student/one teacher class. The lessons really added to the program. Doing the inventories and looking around the website was good, but the lessons really got you to dig in and use the information on the website.

The lesson we enjoyed the most though was a lesson where we had to do a family tree of careers. Nathan listed his grandparents on both sides, my siblings and me (his mom), my husband's siblings and his dad and then himself and his brother and sisters. Then for each of them he listed their career. It was difficult doing my husband as he has had so many jobs over our married life and no two of them in the same field, he has so many things he is good at. Nathan wanted to put jack-of-all-trades, but he decided to put mechanic. It was interesting to see the careers of our family laid out this way.

Out of five stars we give ACT Advantage - Discover:

Price: $19.95 for a three-month license, $24.95 for a six-month license.

Would I recommend this program to my friends? Yes, Maybe. If you have a child who does not know what they want to do as a career, then it would be very beneficial. I would use it in 10th or early 11th grade, I think. That is when the child should know enough about his likes and dislikes that the program would be of use but still early enough that you could adjust their high school program a little if needed to help them in their areas of interest/abilities.

I hope you will go check out the features and demo on the ACT Advantage Discover website. If you have an questions please leave a comment.

ACT Advantage also has other programs that we will be reviewing over the next couple of weeks. The Explore and Plan tests which give students a good idea of the kinds of things they will find on the ACT and what areas of weakness they need to work on in the coming years as well as what areas of strength they already have. Keep an eye on the blog for that review, coming soon.

*** ACT Advantage - Discover provided me with the membership to the website so that I could do my review. Though I received this product for free I have given an honest review of it here in this post.

Make sure you read the other posts from my crew mates here and get some other opinions on the features and usage of the Discover program site.

Debbie

Blast From the Past - Volunteering at NGA of Concordville, PA

2009-11-03T07:00:00.003-05:00

You will find the rules for participating in my meme by clicking this link
Blast From The Past

Blast From The Past occurs on Tuesdays

This week I am featuring our trip to volunteer at NGA.
Our trip took place on October 14th and 15th.
Here is the NGA National Website: http://www.nga-inc.org/

NGA is the Needlework Guild of America
My mom belongs to the Concordville, PA branch and they do great work.

Each year when they gather all the things they have saved for their charities they have an ingathering.
An ingathering is where all the ladies bring the things they have shopped for and the things they have made and gather together to get the things ready to give out to the charities. Some things they have especially for their charity goes straight to their charity table other things that could be for anyone get sorted on tables in the middle of the room.Once the things have been sorted: boys stuff, girl stuff, babies, women, men, towels, sheets; then we "shop." It is so much fun. Looking for things that the charity you are helping needs and no money exchanges hands. Grab this cute baby outfit, get that cute baby blanket, oooh look at this toddler boys outfit, my charity needs extra large pants and shirt for ladies and men in wheelchairs... there are all kinds. Ladies and my kids were everywhere with lists of needs and looking to fill them for each charity.

On the way to NGA Ingathering
Jessica and Christopher in the back seat of our van

Rachel and Nathan in the middle two seats. They get so wacky some times!

Each item has to be counted and the total sent to NGA National Headquarters.
A pair of socks counts as one item, but a baby outfit with top, pants, hat and bib counts as 4.

Rachel helped shop for Salvation Army.
below is the table with the Salvation army's bags of stuff.

Nathan "shopped" for Cades

Below are some of the tables of things for different charities.

We lay things out nice on the top of the table but underneath are bags and boxes filled with more stuff for the charities to use.

See the bags peaking out from under the far table.

Christopher helped with this table... for Pathways.
They have boxes and bags all over!

Cute dress

Pretty homemade blanket with an NGA sticker on it.

Everybody say, "Awww!"

This was NGA of Concordville's 115th anniversary year.

Ooooooohh. Gotta love the old sewing machine.

The next day we have a luncheon. Representatives from each of the charities that will be receiving things come to the luncheon. It is catered and it is a great day.

Lovely decorations for fall and for needlework, made by one of the ladies of the group!

Cute and yummy.
This was made to be a cupcake topper but she glued them onto Reese's Cups!

Arriving!

Jessica and the President of NGA Concordville, PA

My mom, "the Busy Bea"

Nathan and Jessica waiting for the program and luncheon to start.

An NGA member lady on the left and the representative from Salvation Army on the right.

The Pathways people, some NGA ladies and my son Christopher.

It was cold in the room, the heater wasn't working, so some of the ladies grabbed blankets from the charity tables... just temporarily.

This is me on the left, the lady I was helping in the center and a friend of hers on the right.

Well, we had fun helping out. My children and the ladies look forward to us coming each year.
The boys are a great help carrying the bags to the charities cars after the luncheon as well as the girls. We all enjoy the shopping and we all help with the counting.

I greatly enjoy the luncheon as each charity speaks for 2-3 minutes about what is going on with the charity and the people they serve and how appreciative those whom they are to get these new things. It really makes you count your blessings. They seemed especially thankful this year, because of the economy there are more people that need help and less people giving. So it was a privilege to go and serve others.

The Simple Woman's Daybook - Nov. 2, 2009

2009-11-02T08:02:00.000-05:00

FOR TODAY... Monday November 2, 2009

Outside my window...cloudy and dh and sons got more of the wreckage from the crash cleaned up. The poles are all out of the ground and fencing is all rolled up.

I am thinking... We have a lot to do this week for school and the boys are not up yet, I am going to call them... again! Be right back...

I am thankful for... church friends who can give us rides. We needed a ride on Friday to take Rachel to get another blood test. We needed a ride on Sunday because not all of us fit in the Jeep we borrowed from my brother-in-law, we need a ride Wed. to a Dr. appointment for Rachel, I need a ride Friday to ladies Bible study, we need a ride for two of us on Sat. if we all want to go to the church bonfire. Thank you Lord for faithful, kind, giving friends.

From the learning rooms...

back to our regular History- Mystery of History III - we are on Columbus;
back to our regular science we are doing Chemistry we will be covering mixtures and compounds and then maybe starteing Atoms and Molecules a the end of the week
more composers for our Young Scholar's Guide to Composers finishing Bach and then moving on to Classic time period of composers and studying Joseph Haydn
hopefully Nathan and Court and I will be starting an Accounting course we need to do to review for TOS Homeschool Crew and we also are looking forward to as another preparation to get us ready to have our own business some day.
two or three days we will do lessons from the Writer's Workshop I am reviewing this week
and then the other regular stuff: Daily Grams or Easy Grammar, Math, Bible, Art Appreciation (finishing up Fra Angelico), Wordsmith, and the extra's like Building Life Relationship and Typing for Nathan and fun boxes for Christopher

I am wearing... tan pants, green shirt short sleeve shirt, green long sleeve shirt over that, my new watch, white socks, my crocs

I am creating... hope to start working on some Christmas ornaments this week. Each year I make an ornament for each of my children, my dh and myself so the kids will have ornaments to take with them when they leave our homes. Then their first Christmas tree with their spouse will be full of family memories and not decorated with only store bought new things.

I am going... to take Rachel to the Dr. on Wed., to Bible Study on Friday, and to the bonfire on Sat.

I am reading... I have not been doing much reading lately. I have a few books I have started and need to finish. I have kept up with my Bible Study book - A Praying Life. To see what I am reading or details about a book I am reading see my shelfari in the left hand column.

I am hoping... to have a good week of school and dh to have a great week at work.

I am hearing... road noise, that's about it. I know the kids are downstairs listeining to Christmas music while they get breakfast but I cannot hear it.

Around the house... we bought new rubbermaid tubs to do some organzing in the basement, we have to get the front window's fixed, I would like to get my dining room curtains sewed but I can't decide what to do with the fabric we bought, anyone have an idea? They are two windows side by side and have mini blind over them.

One of my favorite things... entertaining/hospitality, I was thankful to be able to have friends over at our home on the 24th of October and hope to have a few other families over soon.

A few plans for the rest of the week: School, Bible Study, Dr. Appointment, blogging, TOS Homeschool Crew Review's Due Wed and Friday

Here is picture for thought I am sharing...

In case you are not a regular reader of my blog, since this is still upmost in my mind, and I could not think what else to share; here is a picture of our wrecked car and if you want to hear the story of how it got like this while sitting in our driveway the story can be found here: A Rude Awakening

To do your own daybook and read many, many others go here.

Debbie

TOS Homeschool Crew Review - ABC Teach membership

2009-11-01T21:07:00.007-05:00

This review is for the ABC Teach membership. There are 5,000+ free worksheets for any one to use but there are over 35,000 pages of worksheets and activities, abctools, and more, available to members. Note: the pages I have linked to are the pages with the free stuff on them, below the free pages is a list of more worksheets available if you have a membership. That will give you an idea of the kinds of things available with a membership. Also, as members make new pages you get access to them too. So each week there are more new pages. Each worksheet page, no matter what type, comes up as a pdf download. This make them readable and usable for all members.

My son Christopher was the one to do the pages from ABC Teach in our family. They have a lot of worksheets Christopher enjoyed. There are Middle School and Junior High things but none of the pages were really suitable for my son Nathan for High School. Nathan did do a crossword puzzle or two, just for fun, but nothing else. I would recommend this membership for those with elementary and middle school age students, Preschool - 8th. There is not as much for the older grades but with the tools you could make more things and add to the stuff on the site for the older kids.

There are a lot of cool things on the Teaching Extra's page: candy bar wrappers, bookmarks, postcards, music extra's and more. The membership, again, has a lot more. I loved the note cards. I am using them for our workboxes. I laminated the note cards so I can write on them with dry erase markers instead of using sticky notes to give the boys directions on what to do in certain subjects.Then they are reusable and it saves money in the long run.

There are pages of worksheets for: ABC Activities, Reading, Art, Math, Science, Grammar Social Studies and more. Christopher did pages for Grammar on Capitalization, something he knows but "forgets" to do. He also did a few crossword puzzles which he loves, he did a physics one and two crosswords on Little House in the Big Woods. He really enjoyed them but found them more challenging than he thought they would be. Each of the Little House ones covered two chapters. They never finished the chapters of the book, that is a shame, maybe I will do some if I get to have a membership. If your child likes the Mary Pope Osborne books there are materials to go with most of the books. Here is one: Crossword: Revolutionary War (primary) featuring vocabulary from Mary Pope Osborne's Magic Tree House book "Revolutionary War on Wednesday." i have shown you only a sampling of the many things on this site, there is a lot more great stuff.

Their search engine for the site is very good. If you are studying a certain topic you can do a search and see what is available. Here is a search I did for the Magic Tree House books. There were 67 items that came up with that search and it said there were 22 more in the member section. Use the search for something you are studying and see what you can come up with.

custom worksheet generators - make your own documents: Bingo, Crossword Puzzles, Word Search, Handwriting sheets in a variety of handwriting styles and more. click the link where it says abctools to see the list. My son loves crossword puzzles and making some for him for reinforcing the subjects we are learning about is great. He wants me to make some for his Bible memory verses. Leaving out words in the verses and have the left out words be in the crossword. I hope to be able to do that soon.

Some of the other tools are great for younger students. Making pages for handwriting with words you want them to write instead of words decided on by a company that does not know what you are studying and does not know your child, would be of great benefit.

With each of the tools you can see samples of pages you can make. You cannot make your own unless you are a member, but you can see what could be made if you bought a membership. They make it easy for parents and teachers to make the worksheets. The tools are one of the best things about the membership because you can easily make new things to fit just what you need.

I am hoping to get a year's membership. One month was not nearly long enough for all the things I wanted to do, or to even look at all the stuff already on the website. If I do get a year's membership though, I may have to get a bigger external hard drive so I can save it all!

There is a great video you can watch here to see some of the benefits of membership at ABC Teach.

Here are the prices for membership:

$40 per user per year / $70 two years — individuals/groups 2-9
$35 per user per year — groups of 10-29
$25 per user per year — groups of 30 or more. **SUPER SITE LICENSE pricing available for groups of 100 or more.

Out of five stars we give ABC Teach membership:

*** ABC Teach provided me with the membership to the website so that I could do my review. Though I received this product for free I have given an honest review of it here in this post.

Make sure you read the other posts from my crew mates here and get some other opinions on membership to this site.

Debbie

New Note: Homeschool Buyers Club is offering 50% off a subscription to ABC Teach. The offer expires November 30th at midnight. I did not post this before because the offer was supposed to expire Oct. 31st but they just extended it. Check it out by clicking here. Hope this helps someone out.

Weekly Wrap Up for the week of October 26

2009-10-31T23:22:00.018-04:00

This was a productive week. After the week we had busy with my Mother and volunteering at NGA the week of the 12th (see my Blast from the Past this coming Tuesday to see what that is) I was anxious to get back to a regular schedule on the 19th. That did not happen due to the events of early Monday morning to see about that, if you have not read it, go to my post: A Rude Awakening. Thank goodness this week had no new surprises.

We made progress in Bible using our Grapevine O.T. Overview Level 4 books - finishing lesson 13 on Moses and doing lesson 14 on The Deliverance.

In History we have been working on lessons from American Heritage Education Foundation (a TOS Homeschool Review Crew product). We did The Declaration of Independence, and the United States Flag.

We finished our Historical Fiction Sarah's Wish: see the review here if you missed it TOS Homeschool Crew Review - Sarah's Wish ... it was a great book!

In Science we did not accomplish as much as in some other subjects, but we read a library book called Elements, Compounds & Mixtures by Jim Patten and we did lesson 5 and the unit one wrap-up in Christian Kids Explore Chemistry

Four of 5 days we did Young Scholar's Guide to Composers. We are doing the Baroque Composers and we covered Handel and Bach this week. We like this product (another review product for TOS). This is one we will be doing all year, the boys are enjoying it so much they requested we do the whole curriculum. Watch for the review of the Bright Ideas Press items (due by next Friday).

On Monday we always do Art Appreciation and this week we did a page from the HOAC Art Appreciation - Activity 7 - Elements of Art shutterbook. For this lapbook mini you choose one work of art, Fra Angelico this time since we are finishing our study on him, and describe the work of art using the 7 elements of art used in the lapbook.

We also did Writers Workshop (also from Bright Ideas Press and also a TOS review product) two days last week. We did lesson 2 on Caldecott and Newberry award winning books and lesson 3 on Webbing.

Then the boys had their individual tasks - which I put in their workboxes each day:
Christopher has started his Saxon Algebra 1/2. He worked on his Daily Grams, and did his Wordsmith Apprentice on the days we did not do Writer's Workshop. He also did some pages from ABC Teach including: some pages on capitalization and Nursery News (yes, another TOS review product). Christopher also worked on a story he is writing.

Nathan was working on finishing his Geometry from last year but has now moved on to this year's math: Teaching Textbooks Alegbra II, which we are thankful to be able to borrow from a friend. He is using Easy Grammar and did that this week, he is doing Wordsmith and completed some lessons in that when we were not doing Writer's Workshop. He worked some on his website and he read some of a courtship book Old-fashioned courtship & how it works today by Jeff and Marge Barth, for the course we require in High School which we call Building Life Relationships. He also did a couple of day of Typing Tutor 10. Also Nathan worked on some pages for a TOS review product we are doing called DISCOVER: ACT's Career Planning Program there are worksheets and a web based inventory program (again, watch for the upcoming review).

I hope you enjoyed our Weekly Wrap-up - to join us and do your own or read about others homeschool weeks go here.

Debbie

Free Holiday Idea Book from The Old Schoolhouse Magazine

2009-10-31T09:40:00.000-04:00

Just click on the picture to get your copy.

It is 181 pages.

It is FREE (in case you missed that)

Get your copy today!

Stuff for Thanksgiving, Christmas, Freezer meals (great for the busy holiday season), puzzles, games and much more.

Enjoy,

Debbie

Homeschool Freebie of the Day

2009-10-29T12:05:00.001-04:00

When was the last time you checked out Homeschool Freebie of the Day. I have them in my morning coffee add-on on Firefox so I download the new freebie each day. I also have signed up for their newsletter which gives you an extra freebie each week, and is another reminder to download the freebies.

Their freebie today is Homeschool for the Holidays. Here is the quote from the Erskine's:

"Best of all, this is a free ebook... get a copy for yourself, and then feel free to forward it on to a friend or two or three... or you can just send them right here to HomeschoolForTheHolidays.com to get their own copy! (Tip: Share this link with your local homeschool support group, they'll appreciate it!)

Take your time to glean, learn and enjoy... and have a wonderful, blessed Holiday Season!

- The Erskine Family"

I hope you enjoy this freebie and get signed up for the Homeschool Freebie of the day ... oh they sometimes leave the freebies up for a day or two so you can download yesterday's freebie still and sometimes even further back... but don't count on that.. download the freebies daily. Actually right now they have the freebies from Oct. 21st through today's still available for download... so go and get your freebies!

Debbie

TOS Homeschool Review Crew - Amazing Bible Timeline with World History

2009-10-28T17:30:00.004-04:00

Amazing Bible Timeline with World History

When our 38 X 46 inch Timeline arrived from Bible Charts and Maps, LLC I was thrilled and immediately wanted to laminate it. It arrived in a 48 inch triangular shaped cardboard shipping package. I was impressed with the detail the map contained and was surprised to see the history timeline was displayed as a circular style map radiating from the center in a "spoke" type "wagon-wheel" layout. The detail of the Amazing Bible Timeline with World History is wonderful and clear. Bill Agard who designed the map, is a retired lithographer, and the map certainly shows his expertise.

I love history but admit I am no history expert, but compared to other history timelines we own, everything appears to be accurate. I like the map but am a little unaccustomed to a circular map and this takes some getting used to. I prefer a linear timeline but this one highlights the most important events and lets you see who was alive, for instance, when David was King of Israel. My husband actually thought of mounting it to a board and using a nail in the middle so we could rotate it.

I would recommend the timeline for anyone, but, here's the downside for some, and I hope this will help you decide if this is a downside for you. Bill and Margaret, the makers of the map are Mormons. Also, some of the materials used to document the history of the timeline were materials others would deem not useful for religious reasons in spite of their proposed accuracy. A list of these materials are found at this link, http://www.bibletimeline.net/bibletimeline_background.html. When viewing the timeline map these facts were brought to our attention and may be disagreeable to others. To the merit of Bill and Margaret, they have made separate copies available with and without timeline references to Mormon history and materials. This was an honest effort by them to make a timeline that was non-offensive to others who did not agree with their views. There is nothing on the Mormon version in reference to any doctrine that we could see, only a few points of their history, and then only a very small portion. We found nothing offensive in it and this is the conclusion my husband and I came to:

All timelines have history of other religions we do not agree with. We can either choose to teach our children about those religions and our beliefs regarding them or not. We chose to use the timeline and teach how we disagree. One could make the same statements about Catholicism, Hinduism, Greek or Egyptian history. I honestly know several people who use timelines. I don't know anyone who threw theirs out because they disagreed with any other religious history shown on them from other cultures.
As a historical source I believe it is accurate and well done, whatever the source.
They make no pretense to be anything than who they are. They seem to be upstanding people and fine citizens who have made a product that they believe in. We do not agree with the Mormon historical and religious views but do not see their views directly reflected in the timeline and do not feel it is offensive for that reason. They have made an honest effort to provide both a universal product out of respect and toleration for those who do not believe as they do as well as one for those who do.
They provide a 30 day money back guarantee, so you can decide for yourself. As their site says,

"Iron Clad Money Back Guarantee. Use the Amazing Bible Timeline with World History for thirty days. If you are not satisfied for any reason, return it. And we'll refund the cost of the Timeline right away."

Out of five stars we give The Amazing Bible Timeline with World History:

Cost of the Timeline: $29.97

Free Bonus - Order now and get Interactive Maps of the Holy Land (a $14.97 value)
Second Free Bonus Digital Amazing Bible Timeline (also a $14.97 value)

Limited time offer - Buy Two Timelines for just ~~$59.94~~ $49.97
Learn more about the owners of Bible Maps and Charts

Debbie

TOS Homeschool Crew Review - Sue Patrick's Workbox System

2009-10-27T12:49:00.037-04:00

Note:

You can click on most of the pictures to see them better. You may especially want to take advantage of it for the scans of my school logs further down the page.

Have you noticed, read about, tried the newest rage in homeschool organizing? Before I received this to review this year I had seen a number of homeschool blogs using this system and was interested. I decided that since it was fairly early on in the year that we would be reviewing this, that I would wait until I got the original e-book and could read it before trying the system out.

I like to support the small homeschoolers doing a good job and Sue has set up a system that has breathed new life into our homeschool. Since my daughters have graduated things in our home have deteriorated homeschool wise. I became more and more irresponsible, especially in the area of keeping up with the school log, writing down what we did each day for school. I am one of the many that have tried The Workbox System and found that it not only helped us get a lot more done each day but it helps me be more responsible to be prepared for each day of school and grade, correct, check their work to make sure it is all completed and then to write it in my log.

The system basically works like this. You put the curriculum/books you are using for homeschool into plastic tubs. As you can see from the picture of our workboxes and shelves I could not afford at this time to get the system set up like I would want. I would really prefer see-through drawers that will hold our books without bending them. but, I had to use what I had and so we have a mishmash of boxes from popcorn and Ziploc bags. I then put paper over the fronts so the boys could see their number/picture tags and the work with mom tags better. To make sure the paper did not rip from taking the tags off and on I put a strip of packing tape over the paper. I also used the packing tape to "laminate" the workbox numbers, pictures and other things to put in and on the boxes.

These are the drawers I want: Sterilite 3 Drawer Wide Organizer You can get them at Walmart and maybe other places.

I also use note cards that I covered with packing tape so I can use a write on wipe off marker to leave the boys notes instead of using sticky notes. They are then reusable. I used note cards from ABCTeach (another TOS review item was a one month subscription), there are a few free ones to try such as:

Notecard: A Note From Mom Two notecards per page, one with red hearts, one with blue stars. Both with the title, "A Note From Mom".
Notecard: Reminder Notes "Don't Forget", "Remember to..." with colorful illustrations

Sorry to say the best ones are in the members only section. I like the ones I got with lines for writing on them and 4 on a page instead of only 2. Maybe you could find something like this on the internet for free. If I find any I will post about them in a new post later. I might ask my dh for a year's membership. The month was over way to fast to see all the things on there. I did download a bunch, but I missed a whole bunch more.

One thing to note: this system works with kids of all ages. My boys are 12 and 15 and it works great with them. If you go to the link at the bottom of the page and read some of the other TOS Crew reviews on this product you will see how they use it for their elementary and even pre-school children, but finish reading my review first. Also, this can work with any curriculum. We use quite a variety of things, textbooks for math, worksheets, workbooks, reading materials, games, and it works great with it all. It will really keep you organized and it will help you run around less each day looking for things if you have the workboxes all planned out ahead of time.

You can see, on the top shelf, a box for Nathan. This box is for papers that are completed, checked and need to be filed in his notebooks. Christopher has one too but he keeps his over by his school spot. They file their papers once a week on Friday's after school.

The use of the boxes makes it so that you cannot add things to their day and drag school time on and on and it makes it so the children can "see" what has to be done for the day. One of the other features I have found so useful and wonderful is the addition of "fun boxes". I can now use all those resources that I keep forgetting to use! I have a place for them in their workboxes and we are using the resources we already have on the shelves that have been sitting there for years.

When the boys are ready to start school they check in by moving their picture card with their name to the Homeschool 'Begin' envelope and when they are finished everything, they check out by moving it to the 'Finished' envelope. The boys like this and it helps them get mentally prepared for "school time." Time to settle down and learn and stop fooling around.

I used the "Clocking In Template", free when you purchase the e-book, from Sue's website... see the Extra Resources below. I printed the template on card stock and then glued the pictures of the houses to a pocket meant for lapbooks from Homeschool Share. You will need two pockets so I used this link: Library Pockets (2 on one page)

We do not have a white board yet. I had one years ago but it got lost in the move??? Thrown out?? I am not quite sure. I have some Staples reward $$ coming and I am going to spend that on a new white board for us. Until then we have a print out on the wall inside a plastic sleeve... it works!! This is for listing those things we do together before they start on their workboxes.

So they have their numbers on their boxes as they start their day and as they complete each box they remove the number and replace it with a picture. They put the number on the spaces in order on their wall chart which is "laminated." The boys each chose their own pictures. Nathan's is a ship he built with Lego Digital Designer online and Christopher's is a picture of Lego Indiana Jones.

The boys take one box at a time off the shelf and take it to their spot at the table. They work on the stuff in that box and complete it before moving on to the next box.

When they are done with each box they put it on the floor next to my chair. I then grade, correct or at least check and make sure the work is completed correctly. I do this while the boys are doing their other boxes. If something is incomplete I hand it back to them. I take this time to also write the work done onto our school log. Then I load the box for the next day...putting new fun things in the boxes...writing notes on the "laminated" cards if needed and then I slide them over toward the bookcase. When the boys are done all I/we/they have to do is put the numbers back on their boxes and the pictures back on the chart on the wall. We are ready for the next day of school.

This is a typical day of work recorded in my school log before we started The Workbox System. Pretty Sad, yes! I should hide my head under a bag!! I had become complacent after 18 years of homeschooling. Note: Christopher was doing both ALEKS Math online and Quarter Mile math. Both were TOS Review items. If you want to read my reviews on them you will find them here:

This was all the stuff we accomplished yesterday. Oh and this does not include History and Science. I log those on a separate page since we do it together each day... I only write it once for both boys. I never had much trouble keeping track of History and Science, it was the other areas that were lacking.

When they are all done for the day, all their numbers are on their chart on the wall...

and all their boxes have the pictures on them. Then they can check out.

Further information from Sue's website and elsewhere.

You can get more information regarding this system if you .

The e-book alone costs $19.

Click here to download a pdf of some sample pages from Sue's e-book on the workbox system. You get a 14 page document including the Table of Contents and part of chapter 1 and 2.

I highly recommend getting the e-book. You need to read about the system from it's original source as well as support small homeschooling companies that are developing new things to make our jobs as homeschool mom's more effective.

Extra Resources
When you buy the e-book, and register your copy online, you also get a bunch of extra resources you can download from Sue, including but not limited to:

Schedule Strip Template
Workbox Numbers Template
Work with Mom Cards-white skin and brown skin
Clocking In Template
Curriculum Grid Template
Sample Log Grid (filled out) it was very helpful to see it all filled out
Log Grid Template
Typing Program Downloads

Pages for Typing Program
Typing Hands for Keyboard Visual

Running Goals Sample for Young/New Runners

Some of these resources can also be purchased as a kit already printed and laminated for you... see the packages she sells here these include the e-book. The prices vary depending on what you want included with the book. They run from $55 - $110.

If you already have the e-book you can buy the starter kits here and there are a few other things on this page as well. The extra suff and starter kits run from
$3.50 - $26

She has answered some FAQ's on this page.

You can get some information from Sue herself in this recent Sue Patrick Interview. In the interview you can get some information about why Sue set up the workboxes in the first place and what her thoughts are on a few things concerning how to use workboxes

Out of five stars we give The Workbox System:

*** Sue Patrick provided me with the Workbox System pdf and other resources on her website so that I could do my review. Though I received this product for free I have given an honest review of it here in this post.

If you have any questions about the e-book or the extra resources just leave a comment. Since we will be continuing to use this system I will be posting weekly workbox updates with the things I put in my boys boxes.

Also, read the other post my my crew mates here and get some other opinions on this great system.

Debbie

TOS Homeschool Crew Review - Sarah's Wish

2009-10-26T23:45:00.006-04:00

Do you like historical fiction. We just love reading historical fiction. There is nothing like a really good book in this genre. You get some of the history of the time period and a great story to go along with it.

We were so excited to be getting Sarah's Wish. My fellow crew members had their copies and were reading and saying how good it was but our book was no where to be found. Well, we finally figured out that somehow my name and address appeared in two places in the TOS Crew database and that in one of the places my zip code was wrong. I somehow put down the zip code of the area where I was born and grew up... I lived in that house until I graduated from college. I wonder why I did that??? I have not done that in a long time. Well, it finally arrived after the post office corrected the zip code and got it sent to the right place. Jim was a great help and was ready to send me another copy if mine had not made it to me. Great customer service. Now, back to the book....

I do not want to spoil the story for you but I do want to tell you that this book, written by Jim Baumgardner, a grandfather who's grandchildren are homeschooled (isn't that cool ) is a quality book. Jim autograph's each book and puts a butterfly sticker in each one. That makes them so special. He autographed all the ones he sent to the crew... over 100 books! You will find out about the butterfly in chapter one of Sarah's Wish.

Sarah's Wish is about a young girl, her struggles, the underground railroad and slavery. I did not find anything objectionable in it. It is appropriate for 3rd and up as a read aloud and maybe a little bit older than that if they are reading it by themselves. Of course each family can make those determinations. The book is very well written and the characters and the plot pull you into the book in the very first chapter. Jim has a great writing style and the dialogue is great too. You will hear your kids say, "Read another chapter mom." I know I did on several occasions.

Now with a title like Sarah's Wish you might think this is only a book for girls. My boys do not typically like books with girls as main characters but for this book they made an exception. As I said we were all caught from chapter one right through the end and are looking forward to getting the next two and any others he writes down the road. I was surprised to find out from a blurb on his sidebar that Sarah was a real girl. Here is what Jim said on his sidebar in case you miss it.

"Q: "Was Sarah a real girl?"
A: "Yes. She lived with my great, great grandparents, John and Elizabeth Baumgardner in Wapakoneta, Ohio."

On the website... Sarah's Books... you can find out more about the author and order the books but make sure you check out the special offer below... don't order online! You can read an excerpt from each of the books at this link.

Sarah's Wish is 126 page long. The book comes with a free eLive audio download. So you don't even have to read the book if you don't want to, you can listen to someone else read while you knit or cook or draw or drive or ... whatever. Or you can read it the first time and then the kids can listen to it over and over. My boys like to listen to things before bed. This will be a great addition to their audios for bedtime and it comes free with your order of Sarah's Wish. I read the book aloud to the boys a chapter or two a day. I like to spread it out, build up the suspense, and we have a lot to do for school each day so spreading it out is better for us.

The books do go up in price for the second and third book but also the number of pages greatly increases with each book. Also, on the bottom of some of the pages on his website you can sign up for his newsletter. Get updates and information about Sarah and the Underground Railroad and the new books coming out. His newsletter is an education in itself.

Jim Baumgardner is offering a deal to all the readers of the Crew blogs. You can see the deal here at my page at Google docs: http://tinyurl.com/yzj78wf You must print out the order form and send it by mail, you will not find this offer on his website. I have already put my blog down in the "heard this offer here" space, so that part will be easy for you. Jim already has book two and three in print: Sarah's Promise and Sarah's Escape. You can order one book, two books or all three. But, if two of my blog readers order all three books then I get an extra free book from Jim. Support the Phillips family book fund... buy, buy, buy!!! I hope you know I am just kidding They would make great Christmas presents though... maybe Grandma will buy them for the family?

If we don't get another free one because of my blog readers buying, that is ok. I plan to put book #2 and #3 on our Christmas list and buy them for the family in that case.

Out of five stars we give Sarah's Wish a hearty

***Sarah's Books provided me with the book Sarah's Wish so that I could do my review. Though I received this product for free I have given an honest review of it here in this post. I do need to make a disclaimer and note that if you take advantage of the special deal, above, it is possible that I may receive another book for free and/or at a discount myself, but again that had no impact on my review. Thank you!

If you have any questions about the book or the special offer just leave a comment.

Also, read the other post my my crew mates here and get some other opinions on this great book... but buy from my linked page!!!

Debbie

A Rude Awakening

2009-10-19T16:47:00.017-04:00

I wanted to start off the week by rising early this morning and getting back to a regular schedule for school. Last week was crazy!! But this week started off more CRAZY! At 3:50 AM (that was not the time I planned to get up) this morning we were awoken by a mighty crash. I thought I would look out the window and find a 5 or 6 car pile up... but nooo! I first saw one car, across the street from our house upside down in our neighbor's yard. Then we saw someone crawling out from under the car. Then about 10 police men with guns drawn, pointed at what I thought was a woman. Later we found out she was a passenger. The driver got out of the car also and was trying to escape and was found not to far from the scene, by a canine unit.

Then my husband said, "I think they came across our yard and hit our car. Oh boy, did they! Driver side totally crushed, windows broken. Then after the first shock wore off we realized there was a lot more damage. Both sides of the car dented. Pieces of the insides laying across the front seat. Not only that but they hit our car so hard it pushed the passenger side into the corner of the house and crumpled it there also. Back hatch window broken too. Our car is, most likely, totaled. We have to wait for the insurance company to let us know for sure but it is definitely not drivable. I loved that van.

On their way to their resting place, upside down in the neighbor's yard they ripped and dragged our fence, twirled it, and threw it over the car so that part of the fence wrapped around to the front of the house and smashed our front windows. It then landed between the car and the house and on our front sidewalk. The four long poles that go across the top of the chain link fence were twisted and thrown all over the yard and one partway down the street!!! They pushed the passenger side of the car completely off the ground and into the brick corner of the house. They dug deep gouges in our yard and even took a chunk out of our driveway. Destruction and mayhem everywhere.

We later found out the car was a stolen vehicle that was being chased by the police and they must have been going 100 miles an hour to have caused all the damage they did and it is a wonder they got out alive. At one point this morning Jessica counted 11 police vehicles in front of our house. They completely shut down the both south bound lanes of the main road near our house for a couple of hours, and sent the traffic on a detour.

As the sun started rising the destruction seemed more immense and more people stopped to ask questions and stare at the carnage. I am still having trouble sorting it all out. Believing the truth that our car is demolished and not drivable and we will get the price of the current worth of the car and than we will have to find other transportation for our family. Our wonderful van loaded with all kinds of great features that we bought with the insurance money from when my husband injured his back. Now what will we drive??? I am struggling to not live in fear but to trust the Lord to provide all our needs, even a suitable van to fit our whole family so we can travel to church each week and so that we can get around to other events as a family.

Philippians 4:19 "But my God shall supply all your (our) need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus." (part in parenthesis mine)

My husband said I could post a few pictures so... here you go... check this out!!! Oh, by the way, you can click on each picture to see them larger.

Our Car

driver side

closeup... just missed the gas tank!!!

Our Car, rear passenger side; my planter, our fence

Our car passenger front door and our fence

another view
if you click on this picture you can see the broken windows

another view of the car and house and everything...
notice the glass from the house windows on the ledge at the right

the stolen vehicle
just centimeters from that house

The tire tracks across our lawn and some of the leaning posts from the fence that did not get knocked completely down.

Well, that was our Monday... Still dealing with things and probably will be for weeks!!

Please Pray for us as we have many things to work out including a way for my hubby to get to work while we settle the stuff with the insurance company.

Debbie

TOS Homeschool Crew - Guardian Angel Press

2009-10-13T23:13:00.014-04:00

Guardian Angel Publishing has fun and educational books for your preschoolers and primary age children. Their books are rated for children ages 0-12. Their picture books, early readers, easy readers, storybooks and chapter books are available as: e-books, print paperback books, CDs and coming soon they will have sound as DVDs. They also have a line of personalized ePicture books where children read books written with their own names and pictures in the stories.

The books we received for review from Guardian Angel Publishing include the books below. I have given you a link to the Guardian Angel home page in many places in this post. Below each book I am also including a direct link to that particular book so you can see more details if you want.

The first three books in this post are the ones Christopher enjoyed the most. The other two were cute, but way below his reading and interest level.

This book is of course about our skeletal system. There are lots of facts in the book and the illustrations are cute, with "smileys" on the bones. One of the best things is that there is an unnamed bone, or set of bones, on each page that the children are supposed to try and identify. The answers are in the back of the book. The first two books in this post have great, accurate information and interesting little "factoids".

http://www.guardianangelpublishing.com/no-bones-about-it.htm

This book is all about earthquakes with facts about the geology involved when studying earthquakes, how they are measured, what the terms mean, and how to best prepare for an earthquake. The book would be a great introduction to earthquakes for middle elementary children, about grades 2 or 3 and up.

http://www.guardianangelpublishing.com/earthquake.htm

Andy is a handicapped boy that is nervous about riding his horse at the local fair for his 4-H club. It is a great little story. There are websites and other places to find information about wild horses and 4-H at the end of the book.

http://www.guardianangelpublishing.com/andy&albinohorse-series.htm

This is a cute little book. Great for Pre-school and early elementary age kids. The illustrations were made with a process called felting. 4 of the last 5 pages give details on what felting is, the materials you will need and the instructions on how to do it. It looks like a lot of fun.

http://www.guardianangelpublishing.com/rainbow-sheep.htm

This story is very cute and also appropriate for early elementary. It is a similar story to "The Ugly Duckling" by Hans Christian Anderson. The baby flamingos think they don't belong because they are not pink yet. Really cute story with great illustrations.

Watch their MAYBE WE ARE FLAMINGOS Trailer for a sneak preview of the book on the page for his book: http://www.guardianangelpublishing.com/maybe-flamingos.htm

One thing about these last two stories. If I had little children, I would prefer to have these as print books and not e-books. The first three books are fine as e-books, but I would prefer to be able to cuddle when reading books to young kids and not be sitting around a computer screen. Of course I understand the company sending us all e-books because that is cheaper than sending print copies. But, if I was buying them myself, I would get print books for the preschool and early elementary fiction books especially. Of course with so many options for the purchasing of each book you can make your own choice about what format fits your family the best.

As you can see they have books on a variety of subjects, for ages 0-12. Each of the books I received were 24-30 pages long.

Out of 5 stars we give Guardian Angel Publishing...

If you want to try out Guardian Angel Publishing they have some freebies here including 6 free e-books, and some coloring and activity pages to go along with a couple of the books.

Their website is very well organized. They have links at the top of the page for things like their bookstore, and the categories of the books they sell like chapbooks for tweens, health & hygiene. They keep you up to date on what is coming soon, too. They have links in a column on the side too so you can see things like their mission statement, an alphabetical listing of the books they offer and the awards they have won. They also have Spanish editions, too.

Here are the costs for the each of the books on their website:

Purchase PDF eBook DOWNLOAD $5.00

Purchase eBook on CD $9.95 +S&H (shipping and handling)

Purchase PRINT paperback book $10.95 +S&H

Some of the books are available as DVD Book Video $9.95 +S&H

And a few of the books are also available on iKids Play™ APP for your touch screen iPod and iPhones! $2.99 at iTunes APP store.

***Guardian Angel Publishing provided me with e-books of the 5 books you see above so that I could do my review. Though I received these products for free I have given an honest review of them here in this post. I hope you enjoyed this review.

Debbie

TOS Homeschool Crew - Nature Friend Magazine

2009-10-07T21:02:00.021-04:00

We were given 2 issues of Nature Friend Magazine to review for the TOS Homeschool Crew. Christopher really enjoyed this magazine. Nature Friend Magazine is a Christian, Creation based magazine. The magazine is in its 27th year (began January 1983). They acknowledge God as Creator and give great information about lots of different topics in nature.

I love this quote from their website.

"Since the doctrine of Divine Creation is the first and foundational one of Scripture, our children must be able to stand on it securely to withstand the undermining influences from our culture. Nature FriendNature Friend recognizes that God has planned for man to be wise stewards over His creation, and that He alone is to be worshiped, not His creation." has chosen not to be controversial or militantly confrontational about creation vs. evolution. Our policy has been to simply stand on the truth of God's Word and to present it as enjoyable fact while learning about the creatures God has created.

That says it all. We have always taught, advocated and emphasized creation and I agree it is a foundation all Christian students need.

Christopher is the one that used this magazine the most. I put it in one of his workboxes and gave him portions to read each day and an activity or two. He often read and did more than I assigned him. Quote from Christopher,

"I like the crossword puzzles and the information about animals, especially the turtles."

One of the feature articles in the Study Guide each month, The Photo Critique, gives you tips for photographing nature. Christopher was so cute. He read an article in the study guide about how they took the pictures of the owls, he asked if it was cheating for them to set up the camera to automatically take a picture of the owl grabbing the mouse when the owl broke though the electric eye beam. I asked him how else they were going to get a picture like that? I told him that photographer's do all kinds of things to take pictures for magazines, tv and the Internet. Setting up a camera like this is not cheating. We discussed other special photography things we have seen. It was a good conversation.

The information in the magazine is accurate, wonderful and the articles are well written. The photographs are top notch and they really catch your eye and make you want to read the articles.

One of my favorite parts of the magazine is the You Can Draw... challenge. I love that they include these kinds of art lessons.They have the kids submit their drawings and they publish small 1 1/2 inch copies of some of the drawings. I could not get Christopher to try the art, maybe his sister Jessica can get him to do it later, but he loved looking at the kids drawings from the month before. Besides the art done by the students, they also accept nature related poems, photographs, and stories for submission by their readers.

Things to know about the Study Guide:

A reader gave them the suggestion to offer a Study Guide for the Nature Friend magazine. The April 2009 issue was the first issue that had a Study Guide.
The Study Guide has exercises that may include crossword puzzle, acrostic, fill-in-the-blank, true and false, etc. They also include several “For You to Research,” challenges to encourage students to go even deeper into the topics being discussed.
Exercises may be photocopied for classroom use, or for the various children in the homeschool. This is a nice feature if you have multiple children who want to do the puzzles.
They publish two bonus features in the Study Guides.

“A Study in Nature; a Lesson in Writing” teaches creative writing using a nature study as a springboard. They invite readers to send in the stories they have been inspired to write because of these lessons.
“The Photo Critique” teaches nature photography tips. They also invite readers to send photos, tips, and questions for inclusion in this feature. (this is the section I told you about above with the owls).

Out of 5 stars we give the Nature Friend Magazine ...

Check out their website. They have a lot more information on there. On this page of their website you can get three pdf samples of their magazine and two samples of their study guide.

A years subscription to the magazine is $36, you can also get a two year subscription. There are 12 issues a year making it only $3 an issue. The Study Guide is purchased separately at $2 per month, or $24 a year, and is only available with a current magazine subscription.

On the Homeschooler’s guide to Nature Friend page you will find a discount for $3 off an order of Nature Friend Magazine, as well as some other interesting things you may enjoy looking at.

Other things they have on the website:

Each year they bind a year’s-worth of magazines together in hardbound volumes. This is a valuable way to keep a year’s-worth of Nature Friend magazine information for many, many years. See what they look like here.
They sell back issues.
They also have a store with a number of books in different categories. You may want to check them out here.

Christopher really enjoyed the Nature Friend Magazine and we hope to be able to afford a subscription soon. This magazine is a children's magazine the whole family, including the grandparents, can enjoy. I hope you enjoyed this review. Nature Friend Magazine provided me with two free copies of the magazine to test and use in order to write this review. I have tried to give an honest review of this product. I hope you will check it out and consider adding it to your homeschooling purchases in the future.

Debbie

Please Pray for my Mom and Daughter Rachel

2009-10-06T21:32:00.001-04:00

This evening my sister called me. She wanted to inform me that my mother, her name is Beatrice (Bea), who is 86 yrs. old, has an enlarged heart and an abnormal EKG. She had been in Indiana at my brother's home for 5 weeks and got home on Saturday. While she was there she had problems with her blood pressure being way high. The Dr.'s there put her on blood pressure medicine and wanted her to see her family physician as soon as possible. She had an appointment yesterday. For now she is at home they did not send her to the hospital. Yesterday before the Dr.'s appointment my sister checked my mom's blood pressure and it was 217/122, way to high, and she is already on medication.

Today, she had a CT scan of her kidneys and bladder and some blood work done, partly for another problem partly to see if her kidney function could have something to do with the high blood pressure. She is seeing a Cardiologist on Thursday. Please keep her in your prayers. She is my only living parent and the only living grandparent my children have.

Also, tomorrow I take Rachel to the specialist for her Thyroid problem, an under active thyroid. She is very nervous. She ahd a blood test which was positive and then an ultrasound which showed no growths but a very enlarged thyroid. Our family Dr. recomended we see a specialist. Please pray for peace for her and for us to be safe on the roads. I have to drive with my husband, leaving the house at 6:15, drop him off at work, return home, get the boys started on school, take Rachel to the Dr. and then depending on the time pick up dh from work or go home first and then pick up dh from work. This is more driving than I have done the past month all put together. It is also supposed to be nasty weather here with a cold front and rain in the morning and then high winds, high enough for a wind advisory and a severe weather alert to pop up on my computer.
Please keep these matters in your prayers, I would greatly appreciate it,
Debbie

Blast From The Past - Rachel age 6, Spring 1992

2009-10-06T08:17:00.001-04:00

You will find the rules for participating in my meme by clicking this link
Blast From The Past

Blast From The Past occurs on Tuesdays

This week I am featuring Rachel

This photo was taken in the Spring of 1992

Rachel was 6 years old.

What else to say...

I could say this is one of my favorite pictures of Rachel...

O.K. I will say it

This is One of my many favorite photos of Rachel.

But there are so many favorites, how many favorites can you have?

I have a lot of favorites!

Just like I have 4 favorite children!

I guess for today I say...

"Ain't She Sweet!"

A picture is worth a thousand words.

The Simple Woman's Daybook - Oct. 5, 2009

2009-10-05T09:28:00.000-04:00

FOR TODAY... Monday, October 5, 2009

Outside my window... sunny and cool, another lovely fall morning. Morning glories by the front walk are sparse, but still lovely.

I am thinking... about the wonderful time dh and I had this weekend. Marriage Seminar on Friday night, stayed late afterward talking to a couple from our homeschool group who happened to be there, and really hitting it off. I only knew her as an acquaintance before Friday. We now hope to have them over for dinner soon. We watched a few movies over the weekend, sang at church on Sunday as a family. Then last night we did our homework from the marriage seminar and then had some devotions together and prayed... it was a special weekend, though I did not get as much work done as I had wanted.

I am thankful for... my loving dh and our 25 years together so far.

From the learning rooms... workboxes, Explorers, Sarah's Wish, more Young Scholars Guide to Composers, and more...

From the kitchen... dd Rachel supposed to be making some pumpkin stuff for her Homemaker Happenings for next week at their blog Young Homemakers.

I am wearing... blue jumper, red white and blue flower short sleeve top, blue socks and my blue crocks.

I am creating... workbox stuff... need to go to the teacher resource center at the University of Delaware and get some stuff laminated, for FREE!! So I am getting things ready to take, hopefully I don't overlook anything I wanted laminated.

I am going... to the Uof D to laminate, one night this week; and to take Rachel to the specialist on Wed. for her thyroid, which means taking dh to work... early, early am... coming home, doing school with the boys, taking Rachel to the Dr., then depending on the time either coming home and later to pick up dh or going straight to pick him up from the Dr.'s office. One night, maybe Thursday, also supposed to have a date night with dh.

I am reading... Teenage Liberation Handbook by Grace Llewellyn; Home Educationg with Confidence by Rick and Marilyn Boyer; and for Ladies Bible study A Praying Life: Connecting With God in a Distracting World.

I am hoping... to get date nights more regularly with my dh, as he promised, even if it is only a sweet tea or dessert or something.

I am hearing... road noise, kids talking in low tones downstairs

Around the house... workboxes, chores, laundry...

One of my favorite things... time with my dh

A few plans for the rest of the week: workboxes, school, TOS review stuff, wife/mom/daughter/sister stuff

Here is picture for thought I am sharing...

Morning Glories in the pot at the end of our sidewalk.

Join me and others at The Simple Woman's Daybook to do a Daybook of your own.

Have a great week,
God Bless,
Debbie

Weekly Wrap-Up for the week of Sept. 28

2009-10-05T08:35:00.000-04:00

This is really late now, but I wanted to get it up before we started a new week. The weekend was busy and I just made other choices and did not get this posted like I wanted to. I hope you enjoy looking back at our week anyway.

Last week was another successful week using our Time Together and then our Workboxes. In our Time Together we do Bible, History, Historical Fiction, Science, Composer Study, Artist Study, and any other TOS Homeschool Crew review materials that we have to do together. Then the boys do their workboxes.

This week in Time Together:

Bible - we covered Jacob and Joseph with Grapevine O.T. Overview... a TOS Homeschool Crew product
History - we covered MOH III Lesson 4 Ivan the Great, read World of Columbus and Sons pg 77-145, read Around the World in a Hundred Years ch. 8 on Vespucci and 4 lapbook elements from a free lapbook - Age of Discovery, they did the pages on Vespucci. World of Columbus and Sons covers more than just Columbus, it covers a lot of what is happening all around the world at the time of Columbus's life and his Sons life too.
Historical Fiction - Finished Pedro’s Journal, read pg. 42-81; and started Sarah's Wish (a TOS Homeschool Crew review product... watch for a review in the coming weeks).
Science - We worked more on Christian Kids Explore Physics. We did lessons 11- 15. I was trying to finish Unit 3 so I can do the review on this product and move back to doing the Chemistry we had planned for this year.
Composer Study - Young Scholars Guide to Composers - we did chapter 2 Renaissance Music. Also, on Friday, the boys did a Renaissance Music Reading Comprehension Worksheet from ABCTeach. ABCTeach membership is one of the TOS Homeschool Crew things we are currently reviewing. Thousands of FREE printable worksheets and activities. Over 35,000 pages of worksheets and activities, abctools, and more, available to members. Read more about the benfits of membership.
Artist Study - We are still doing Fra Angelico

This week for Nathan:

Math - Nathan is still finishing up last years Geometry. He has about 20 lessons left, I think
Language - he continues to work on Easy Grammar Plus and he is using Wordsmith for Writing.
has been working on his website
did two days with me working on a new review product from ACT Advantage called DISCOVER it is a career planning system (watch for the review in the coming weeks or check out there website now).
did typing with Typing Tutor 10

This week for Christopher:

Math - still working on Hands-On Equations, we have 7 lessons left, in preperation for starting Saxon Algebra 1/2.
Language - Daily Grams Grade 7 and Wordsmith Apprentice
has been reading, doing the activities in, and enjoying Nature Friend Magazine +the study guide, one of our TOS items. Review for this will be up on my blog by Wednesday.
has beeen doing crossword puzzles from ABCTeach in one of his fun boxes, he loves crosswords
has been doing Rush Hour in one of his fun workboxes all week. There are all different levels and versions of this... see Amazon or your favorite toy store for options. This is the version we have:

I hope you had a great week , we did! Join the Weekly Wrap-up... read what others did this week and post you own wrap-up.

Debbie

TOS Homeschool Crew Review - College Prep Genius

2009-10-01T22:40:00.000-04:00

First I will review some of the basics of the course. Most of this is the same as my first review of this product. If you read that you can skip down to the new personal stuff.

COLLEGE PREP GENIUS has helped thousands of students from public, private and home schools improve their Psat, SAT and other test scores. This product is made for High School Students.

This program includes a textbook, a workbook and 4 DVD's. Disc Titles:
   1. is the Intro.
   2. is the Critical Reading section.
   3. is the Math section.
   4. is the Writing or Essay section.

The only things you will need besides this program is a number of practice tests for the PSAT. These must be ones from the College Board and not from elsewhere as they can vary to much, according to the DVD.

What makes this program different is that it does not help your child learn the content of the SAT tests, trying to memorize tons of vocabulary, but teaches the techniques and logical patterns the standardized exams use.

Many students simply don’t understand the strategies and logic behind these standardized tests. These exams test more than just a student’s ability to answer questions; they test time-management skills, logical aptitude and much more. COLLEGE PREP GENIUS helps students pinpoint weak areas of the test by emphasizing the strategic and logical approach to taking the SAT.

The test is designed to stretch a student’s ability to manage their allotted time. Large passage reading sections and intricately long math problems are included to test how a student will handle them. Many kids will work problems the normal way– the LONG way.

Our Personal thoughts
Positive factors:
The Acronyms throughout the program are very helpful in knowing the tips for each section. What things are important to remember that will help you get the best score possible. Knowing how to use, and then memorizing, the acronyms is the heart of this program.

Though each section has its good points the math section seemed to be especially good. Like the reading sections the Math section teaches you to look for the tricks, the tests are designed to trick you up. You must remember these tests are logic tests, not a normal math tests. They teach you to keep saying to yourself "What are they asking??" Go over the question and circle the part of the math question that tells what they want to know.

The math section also teaches lots of tips for solving the questions without having to use your calculator. Using the calculator actually slows you down and you could also copy or type in an incorrect number and mess up your answer.

In the Mathematical Student Response section it is important to know how to fill in the bubbles. Since it is not a multiple choice answer you must fill in the actual answer to the question. This can be confusing and they teach you step by step. You must still pay attention to what they are asking and watch for tricks, which they teach you in the course.
Negatives for us:
Instead of memorizing a whole bunch of vocabulary for the test you have to memorize a whole bunch of acronyms. They are not saying that vocabulary is not important, oh no, learn that too, because that will help with your reading and with your essay section.

On their website, College Prep Genius advertises that you can "Raise your SAT score as much as 600 points!" This will take a lot of work. They suggest you:

Take a practice SAT test to get a base score.
Read the Text (176 pages, including charts at the back) all the way through two or three times. [about 10 hours]
Learn the acronyms for each section. [5 hours]
Take the Master the SAT Class or watch it on DVD. They suggest watching each disc multiple times. [10 hours]
Take practice tests from the actual College Board. They suggest taking 25 practice tests. These will take about 3 hours each for a total of 75 hours or so.
Spend a couple hours correcting each of the 25 practice tests to identify your mistakes so you know how to attack those problems the next time. [50 hours]
Know the rules for each section so you don't have to read the rules for each section. This is to save time on the day of the test. If you take as many practice tests as they suggest this should be no problem.

Then it says, "IF you get a $75,000 scholarship, it is like earning $500 for each of the 150 hours you spent preparing for the test." Following this program will take a lot of determination from your student. This is not something that will work well if the student is forced. They must really want to do well, to get into a top college or to get a great scholarship.

One of the things your student must do is go over the math terminology chart. This chart is at the end of the Math section, in the text. The chart is 20 pages long. It first lists the math terminology, then it gives a definition then there are two boxes to mark. The first is Know it, the student puts a check mark for all the terms he already knows and the second is the Make an Example where the student illustrates that he understands the definition by writing a math problem or drawing a diagram to illustrate the definition. They stress this section is important for your student to know, this will be a lot more work.

Now comes the money part. For a limited time the entire DVD set costs $79, which includes the textbook, workbook and teaching DVDs. There is a 100% Money-back Guarantee! If you’re not satisfied with the COLLEGE PREP GENIUS program, you can send it back within the first 30 days and you will receive your money back! That’s ZERO RISK for you, and a 30 % discount on your first order.

Out of 5 stars we give this ...

This program was just not for us. My son did not like this program. I am sure there are a lot of students out there that would benefit from this program. At the present time my son hopes to start his own business. He does not plan on going to a top college or spending hours and hours preparing for the SAT. It is just not his thing. Because of these factors we only did disc 1 and 2 together. I reviewed disc 3 and 4 by myself. It was just too much of a daily struggle to get him to co-operate and it was affecting his attitude toward all his schoolwork, and especially his willingness to review further products. So, for now we are putting the program aside. If he changes his mind the program will be there for him to do later.

I doubt I would have purchased a program for SAT prep at this time if we had not gotten it to review. But the price seems fair, especially if you child uses it as it says to, and gets a great college scholarship!

If you have more questions check out the website by clicking any of the COLLEGE PREP GENIUS links or see their FAQ page.

You can also get other opions by checking out the other reviews by my TOS Crew Mates HERE.

Debbie

Blast From The Past - Christopher March 1998

2009-09-29T06:00:00.001-04:00

You will find the rules for participating in my meme by clicking this link
Blast From The Past

Blast From The Past occurs on Tuesdays

This week I am featureing one of some of my favorite photos of Christopher

These were taken outside of our trailer in Bear, DE.

Christopher is 16 mos. old

His smile makes you want to smile

This is one of my favorite pictures of Christopher

when he was little.

He was always making noises or talking or singing.

Such a Cutie!!!

The Simple Woman's Daybook - Sept. 28, 2009

2009-09-28T08:01:00.001-04:00

FOR TODAY... Monday, Sept. 28, 2009

Outside my window... the sun is rising, the cars, with their humans in them, are zooming to work, the kids are already standing at the bus stop, the world is starting their day.

I am thinking... about all the work to be done this week

I am thankful for... being home with my kids, homeschooling them, and not all zooming off to so many different places to be separate for the day.

From the learning rooms... 2nd week of workboxes, Bible - Esau and Jacob; History - Columbus; Science - last week of reviewing Christian Kids Explore Physics; Historical Fiction - read Sarah's Wish a TOS Homeschool Crew review item; and lots of other extra's... read my week in review on Friday to see all we get done using the workboxes!!! I love them!!

I am wearing... blue jumper, white tope with red and blue flowers, blue knee socks and my blue Crocs.

I am creating... a full school log book with our many and varied activities in the workboxes. I need to get to work on the ornaments I want for this year. Each year I make a new ornament for each of my kids, my dh and I so that when the kids get married and leave us they have a bunch of ornaments to take and hang on their tree and we still have many to put on our tree. They also become rememberances of Christmases past.

I am going... to the library after dh gets home, and to Bible Study on Friday.

I am reading... Teenage Liberation Handbook by Grace Llewellyn

I am hoping... to get a lot done in school this week with our workboxes and to make time for daily personal Bible study.

I am hearing... cars outside... the windows are open... it is a lovely fall morning, 57 degrees

Around the house... always lots to do... chores, cleaning, school, put away laundry, wash more laundry...

One of my favorite things... vacations!!! to bad they don't last... now back to work/school!

A few plans for the rest of the week: School, Bible Study, hopefully start on Christmas ornaments.

Here is picture for thought I am sharing...

Sight and Sound's Mellenium Theatre

we got to see "In the Beginning" for more details see my

Weekly Wrap-up for the week of Sept. 20th

Join us at the Simple Woman's Daybook: read others and do your own

Have a Wonderfilled week,
Debbie