His Treasure Seekers

 We made it to spring break!  We’ve all got a bout of spring fever around here, so we’re looking forward to a lighter week coming up (just a few reviews we’re working on that we’ll be keeping up with or getting started).  Here are a few highlights from this past week.

Day With the Grandparents

The kids started off enjoying the flexibility of homeschooling by spending Sunday night at my parents’ house.  They had so much fun working with Grandma in the kitchen to make special treats.  Elijah and Arianna explored outside, and Ian got to shoot a BB gun for the first time.  He and Grandpa had a wonderful time making targets and shooting out on the property.  I love that they have opportunities like this, and it was better than any lessons we could have gotten in that morning.

Approaching Holy Week

We’ve really enjoyed our daily reading in A Family Journey with Jesus Through Lent: Prayers and Activities for Each Day by Angela M. Burrin all through this Lenten season.  This week we read the story of the Triumphal Entry (a little early, but it got the kids excited for Sunday).  Elijah and Arianna had colored paper palm leaves, coats, a donkey, and Jesus at church, and everyone had fun acting out the story as I read.  It’s such a simple thing to do, and yet it really made the story come alive for the kids.  Every week they’ve been getting something that helps them tell the story like this, and I absolutely love it.  The Bible is working its way deep into their hearts as they relive the stories over and over.

We followed up by reading The Donkey Who Carried a King by R.C. Sproul.  (Did you check out my list of Christ-Centered Books for Easter?  We actually read several of them through this week.)

Thinking Ahead… Veritas Press Self-Paced Courses on Sale!

Ian has absolutely loved going through the Veritas Press Self-Paced History Course on the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Reformation this year.  All the self-paced courses on sale until tomorrow, ($100 off!), so now’s a great time to buy!  You don’t have to start right away (we bought at this time last year and deferred the start date for our new school year in July), so if you think this would be a good option for your family for next year I’d encourage you to look into it.  This course was one of the best decisions I made for this school year.

Elijah has been asking all year,”When do I get to do history?”  I’m really excited about studying the Explorers and beginning American history next year though, so I decided to teach history myself rather than using a Veritas Press course.  Instead, I decided to sign Elijah up for one of their Bible courses (on sale for $79 right now).  He was pretty young when we started going through the Old Testament with Ian, so I think he’ll really benefit from an in depth study of Genesis through Joshua.  I know he’s going to love it, and I’m excited that he’s going to build such a solid foundation for a lifetime of Bible learning.  I’ll have Ian follow along as well, but this will be Elijah’s course officially.

Veritas Press has multiple course options for both history and Bible, so check them out before the sale ends tomorrow night!

Upcoming Reviews

We’re enjoying several products right now, so watch for these reviews in the next few weeks:

• Owlegories: The Ant, The Fruit, The Butterfly
• Essentials 2nd Edition (Multi-level reading, spelling, grammar, and vocabulary
  from Logic of English)
• TimesTales (videos teaching the multiplication table)
• Stopmotion Explosion Animation Kit
• homeschoolcopywork.com
• A+Interactive Math Mini-Courses
• Captain John Smith: A Foothold in the New World book and unit study from YWAM publishing
• Music Appreciation Book 1 Collection from Zeezok Publishing, LLC
• Hey Mama! Schoolhouse Planner from The Old Schoolhouse