I’ve mentioned before how much we love Kwik Stix for coloring. You get the bold, bright colors of tempera paint with ease of crayons or markers (and without the mess of regular paint). Now you can buy them at BJ’s Wholesale Clubs! (They are also available on Amazon or at Toys R Us.) All my kids enjoy using them, especially my 3-7 year olds.
I know I’m not blogging much these days (really enjoying the time with our sweet little Clara, who is almost 4 months old already), but I wanted to at least share what we’re using for school this year. (We’ve been back to school for almost seven weeks now). As my kids get older I feel like I’m “fine-tuning” our curricular choices to fit them better, so I wanted to share a little about why we’ve ended up with various items this year in hopes it might be helpful to others. (I’ve read through tons of reviews and blogs to help me come up with things to fit our needs, so I’m guessing others do that too!)
Let me start with Arianna, who is beginning Kindergarten. Being the third child, she has it a lot easier than poor Ian did back when I planned (and revised) his Kindergarten year. She does daily computer lessons on Reading Eggs and Math Seeds [Edited to remove link because I no longer recommend this program. See “Good-bye, Reading Eggs.”], goes through a page in A Reason For Handwriting – A, and then is working through Outdoors and In, the second book in the old Harper & Row Basic Reading Program. (Seriously old school–from the ’60s. I learned to read on these and my mom used them in her Kindergarten classroom for 30 years!) She also tags along for some parts of Bible, literature, and art with the older boys, but other than that, she just plays and learns as she goes about normal life.
As far as the boys, they are doing almost all their schoolwork together, mostly at the 4th grade level. Ian is “officially” 4th grade this year, and since Elijah (technically in 2nd age-wise) can keep up with him academically on pretty much everything, it’s easiest to just teach them together. Here’s what we are doing:
Bible Road Trip – Year Three and complementary videos
We are reading through the entire New Testament, following the schedule from Bible Road Trip, as well as some of its suggestions for additional study. I printed out all the notebooking pages and had them spiral-bound, but I wouldn’t do that again because we’re not using every page, and we can’t add in maps and such. Still, I really like what notebooking is doing for the boys as far as helping them process and absorb what we have read. Ian is also reading the Upper Grammar literature suggestions, all set during the time of Jesus and the early church.
The curriculum suggests using the videos from the What’s in the Bible? With Buck Denver series, which we love. Additionally, because we have all the Animated Stories from the New Testament videos from Nest Entertainment, I went through and jotted down which weeks they correspond with, and we are watching those during lunch time so our younger kids can enjoy them as well.
Veritas Press Self-Paced Online Courses
The boys are finishing up the Veritas Press Self-Paced Online Course on the Explorers through 1815, which they wanted to do as a supplement to our family study last year. Then in September they will start the final course from 1815 to Modern Times. History is one of my favorite subjects, but since I am trying to be more hands-off this year, I am doing my best to let go and just let these courses be enough. (Well, kind of. See Literature below.)
This will be Ian’s third year and Elijah’s second using Teaching Textbooks. I can’t say enough about this program. The boys enjoy their lessons, they learn well and get lots of review, and all the grading is done for me. I’d say they are about 95% independent in completing their math, just needing me occasionally to help explain something they don’t understand. This was one subject I didn’t have to think about at all when choosing what to do this year.
Student Writing Intensive from the Institute for Excellence in Writing
Two years ago, my boys were a part of a class that went through IEW’s Fable, Myths, and Fairy Tales writing lessons. Then last year at home we went through All Things Fun & Fascinating, and I saw them continue to grow as writers. I hated to see them lose ground this year, but I wasn’t really up to leading them through another book on my own while adjusting to another baby at home. Then I realized I had the materials for the Student Writing Intensive – Level A, which is essentially a writing class on DVD. We are really enjoying watching the lessons taught by Andrew Pudewa, and it is great review of the concepts the boys of already learned in their previous IEW lessons. I am having them write the papers that are outlined or discussed on the DVD, but we are not doing any of the extra writing assignments (at least not at this point) because so far the boys are doing a great job of applying the concepts and my goal is to keep this year as light as possible.
Fix-it! Grammar Book 2 (Robin Hood) from IEW
I really was trying to plan a minimal workload for school this year, but the boys learned so much from their Fix-it! book last year with just a short amount of time each day (done almost completely independently) that I decided to continue with the second book in the series. We don’t do the grammar cards or the vocabulary list, which maybe I’ll regret at some point, but I mainly want them to keep the grammar concepts they learned last year fresh in their minds, so this is an easy way to accomplish that (while adding to it, of course).
Little House series, Chronicles of Narnia, and historical fiction selections
We are about halfway through the second book in the Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder, and I hope to get through as much of the series as we can complete by Christmas. When we come back after New Years I want to start going through the Chronicles of Narnia.
I also have several of the suggested literature suggestions for their Veritas Press history course (and a few historical selections of my own), which I may have the boys read independently, or else we’ll use them to break up our read-alouds when we need some variety.
Geology Study
I wasn’t really planning to do much with science this year until we planned a trip to the Grand Canyon for this fall. There is so much to learn about the Flood and how it impacted the earth, and the canyon is a fabulous place to observe some of those effects. I have planned our year around various geology videos, particularly the Awesome Science DVD series that takes a look at several National Parks, hosted by a teenager, Noah Justice. The first six episodes have study guides which I have printed out (available as downloads from Answers in Genesis–I got them free on sale), though I’m not sure how much of them I will end up using.
We are also working through some of the Classical Conversations Cycle 1 science sentences (since we’ve never done Cycle 1 and they apply to what we’re studying) and will probably do most of Cycle 3 as well, since that’s what CC communities around the world are working through this year.
Art Class DVDs
Arianna LOVES art, and I had all three older kids take free trial lesson at a local art school to see if lessons might be a good idea. However, the lessons were really expensive, and Arianna didn’t quite have the attention span to sit through a 90-minute lesson. Still, I wanted to give her some sort of instruction to help her develop her gifts, so I looked into a few options. When I came across the Art Class lessons from See the Light, I knew I had found what I was looking for. All the instruction is on DVD. (Do you see a theme this year? I am so thankful for all the video resources out there!) The kids are REALLY enjoying the lessons. We do art once a week, and they look forward to it and beg to do the next lesson out the week in between. (Sometimes we even do two in one session because they want to keep going.)
Ian started making some progress last year using Sequential Spelling, but he was still behind in spelling and I felt he really needed a little bit more instruction than that program offered. He is extremely auditory, and I wanted to find something specifically geared toward auditory learners. After watching Andrew Pudewa’s seminar on Spelling and the Brain for the second time (I watched it last year when I first started getting concerned about Ian’s spelling struggle), I decided to take a break from Sequential Spelling and try IEW’s Phonetic Zoo. We’ve only been using it for three weeks, so I can’t say much about it yet, but I am hopeful about how it might help Ian.
Elijah is blessed with a natural gift for spelling, so I am not having him do any structured program at all. Instead, I am working with him on reading with expression (something Ian does very naturally but Elijah does not). We are going through Shel Silverstein’s poetry in Where the Sidewalk Ends, taking turns reading the poems as expressively as possible. He is also having fun getting back into Spanish on Duolingo.
So that’s what our year looks like! Hope it gives you some ideas if you’re still trying to figure out what to do for your family this year. Blessings.
Yesterday I posted a picture of our Father’s Day present, which the kids and I made using their footprints. Today I made a matching picture using their hand prints. I’m considering it a belated Mother’s Day gift to myself, even though we’ll be giving it to Daddy with the other one.
Let me just say, it is a LOT easier to do footprints with a baby and toddler! I had to wipe Clara’s tiny hand prints off at least four or five times before I got them looking like this, which was far from perfect. Still, I figured it was about as good as I could get, so I decided to keep these. If anyone knows any tricks for getting good baby hand prints, please share in the comments!
I haven’t been posting a lot lately as I’ve been trying to savor this last newborn experience with our sweet little Clara, but I wanted to post a picture of our Father’s Day present in case anyone feels inspired to make something similar for their family.
I’ve been wanting to find a way to capture all our children’s footprints in art now that we’re almost certain our family is complete, and I knew I wanted to incorporate a Bible verse. After finding some canvases at Hobby Lobby, I picked out the verse from several I’d been mulling over, sketched out a few layouts I thought might work, and then set to work using the acrylic paints I had at home. It kind of took shape on its own as I laid down the background and then tried to squeeze all six children’s footprints in as planned, but overall I’m pleased with how it turned out.
P.S. Here’s the matching picture I did with hand prints the next day (much harder than footprints with a baby and toddler!):
We recently got a chance to review a new book, Princess Prayers by Crystal Bowman (inspired by Jeanna Young and Jacqueline Johnson). This sweet, colorful board book with a padded cover is a great way to introduce little girls to the idea of praying throughout the day. Each page features a simple rhyming prayer related to different parts of one’s day, followed by a related Bible verse. The book starts with a prayer for first thing in the morning upon wakening and ends with “my nighttime prayer.” In between, the prayers cover various topics like thankfulness, appreciating the beauty of God’s creation, trusting God when we feel afraid, and acknowledging God’s love and care.
This book is designed to draw in “girly-girls”. From the hot pink spine, glittery cover, and fun illustrations featuring the characters from the Princess Parables series by Jeanna Young and Jacqueline Johnson, there is much that appeals to little girls like my 5-year old daughter. The rhyming text by Crystal Bowman doesn’t refer to the characters at all, however, so even girls unfamiliar with the series can enjoy the prayers without feeling like they’re missing something.
Overall, there is much to love about this charming book of prayers. My one criticism would be that tying it to the Princess Parables series results in a glaring lack of diversity. (The series is about five sisters, so it makes sense that they all look fairly alike, but I wish there was more of an effort to show princesses from different ethnic backgrounds, especially in a book like this that doesn’t have a story about the family.) However, aside from this issue, I recommend the book for anyone considering it for a little girl who enjoys colorful pictures, rhyming text, and of course, anything related to princesses.
A while back I wrote a review of Kwik Stix Tempera Paint Stix from The Pencil Grip, Inc. They were a big hit with my kids, but unlike many products, Kwik Stix were not just a passing fad in our house. They want to get them out on a regular basis, and we’ve actually used up our first set and need to purchase more. And we have a new option, as Kwik Stix are now available to purchase at toysrus.com!
Chances are, if you’re the type of person drawn to my blog, you’ve already heard of The Jesus Storybook Bible. This popular children’s book by Sally Lloyd-Jones is celebrating its 10th Anniversary with a new keepsake gift edition, which our family was blessed to receive in exchange for this review.
Although I’ve heard effusive praise from many people for this Bible storybook over those ten years, I’ve hesitated to get a copy for our family until now because of specific issues I’d read about in other reviews, though I love the overall idea of the book. Now being able to read the entire thing for myself, I love its ultimate purpose even more. In retelling these popular stories from the Bible, Sally Lloyd-Jones carefully and intentionally shows how each one points to God’s plan for salvation through Jesus. “Every story whispers his name,” the title page proclaims, and Lloyd-Jones is diligent in revealing the connection to Jesus in each and every one, whether retelling Old Testament history, summarizing the message of one of the prophets, or presenting events from the life of Jesus Himself. Each story can be read individually and ends with a paragraph or two that points to God’s “Secret Rescue Plan” or the “Promised One.”
I think it is crucial for all believers to understand the Bible as more than a series of disconnected stories, and so I applaud Lloyd-Jones for the charming way in which she presents the overarching story of salvation in a way even children can grasp. However, the reservations that have held me back from using The Jesus Storybook Bible with my children remain, and there are certain stories I will most likely skip or edit when I choose to incorporate it into our family discipleship.
There are two main issues that trouble me. First (and most disturbing to me), is the presentation of the Fall of mankind. Rather than the problem being that Adam and Eve chose to disobey God’s direct command, Lloyd-Jones presents the trouble as them believing “the terrible lie” that “God doesn’t love me.” While I appreciate her description of the consequences of the Fall (“God’s creation would start to unravel, and come undone, and go wrong. From now on everything would die–even though it was all supposed to last forever“), I want my children to know that the reason evil, sadness, and death exist in the world is because Adam and Eve made a choice to disobey God and trust their own wisdom rather than His instruction. Reducing the Fall to them believing a terrible lie about God’s love (reiterated later when Jesus appears to the disciples after the Resurrection and commands them, “Tell them I love them so much that I died for them. It’s the Truth that overcomes the terrible lie.“) misses a major theological point.
The other issue I have is that a great deal of license is taken with some of the stories that end up presenting an interpretation that is not necessarily in line with the biblical text. For example, when the Bible describes man being made in God’s image, I have always been taught that implies much more than a physical resemblance, but Lloyd-Jones has God stating, “You look like me,” like a proud father admiring family traits in his offspring. The Bible says that Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah. Lloyd-Jones tells her readers this is because Rachel was beautiful and Leah was ugly (whereas the Bible just says Leah had “weak eyes”). In the story of Daniel, Jago’s illustration shows a lion lounging across Daniel’s lap, going beyond the Bible’s description of an angel closing the lion’s mouth. When the magi come to visit the young Jesus, the Bible doesn’t specify how many there were, but Lloyd-Jones chooses to say there were three wise men, following tradition rather than Scripture. The interpretation of the Lord’s Prayer strays a little farther than I am comfortable with, though that’s more a matter of personal taste. I am grateful for the Bible references given for each story, and I would encourage parents to read (or reread) the Scriptures before sharing these stories so they can guide their children as far as knowing what’s actually a part of the Bible and what the author added or adapted in her retelling.
Overall, however, my impression of the book is mostly positive. Lloyd-Jones’ poetic writing style makes The Jesus Storybook Bible far more pleasant to read than many children’s Bibles. I loved this paragraph in the story about Noah and the Flood:
“The story was going to wash away all the hate and sadness and everything that had gone wrong, and make the world clean again. God had thought up a way to keep Noah safe, but Noah would have to trust God and do exactly what God told him.”
This isn’t a storybook for toddlers or even most preschoolers, but I think most children from age 5 or 6 on up would enjoy listening to the stories and looking at the pictures. The illustrations by Jago are quite distinctive. I wasn’t sure I cared for them at first, but they grew on me, though I had issues with a few of them. For example, none of the pictures of Jesus after his Resurrection show marks from the nails in His hands or wrists, even though the Bible is very clear that such wounds existed.
So did I change my mind? Yes and no. There is so much to love about The Jesus Storybook Bible, and I would hate to miss out on those aspects because of the issues I have discussed. The introduction in particular is outstanding and a solid resource for introducing the idea of an overarching story of God’s “Rescue Plan” to children. I plan to read the majority of it with our family, but I will definitely supplement it with readings from other Bible storybooks or Scripture itself. In addition to the stories that contained too many liberties in their interpretation for my taste, Lloyd-Jones leaves such well-known and beloved stories as those Moses as a baby and Daniel’s three friends in the fiery furnace. However, she also includes things often left out of children’s Bibles, like the story of Naaman and a summary of Isaiah’s prophecies. Overall, children reading (or listening to) The Jesus Storybook Bible will come away with a better understanding of how every story in the Bible tells the message of God’s love and how much He cherishes relationship with the people He has created. For that reason, I think discerning families will be blessed by reading and discussing it together.
Hmm… it’s looking like I should be calling these “bi-weekly wrap-ups.” Between a week off, Ian’s birthday and some sickness running through my little ones, it didn’t even occur to me until a couple days ago that I hadn’t written in a while. And really, there hasn’t been that much to write about. We started reading Heidi, by Johanna Spyri (using the translation by Helen Dole, which I highly recommend). This is one of my favorite children’s books, but I’ve held off on it for a year or so, unsure how the boys would respond. So far they seem to be enjoying it.
For history, we’ve continued reading several chapters in From Sea to Shining Sea for Young Readers, moving into the years when slavery became such a divisive issue. We’ve talked about the subject before, particularly during our time studying the Underground Railroad, so I didn’t pull in a lot of outside resources. I did read Who Owns the Sun? by Stacy Chbosky, a Five in a Row book we hadn’t used before. I’m glad I saved it until the boys were a little older, because it is such a rich text and a beautiful way of helping children process the injustice of slavery.
We’re still tackling biographies regularly, though the boys pretty much went through those on their own over the last couple weeks. They read about Florence Nightingale and Clara Barton, as well as watching the Torchlighters DVD (both the animated story and the documentary) about William Booth.
Of course, the boys continued plugging away in all their other subjects, but there wasn’t anything specific to take note of, so I think I’ll leave it here.
I was especially thankful for the computer work the boys were able to do on their own while I was sick or while I was taking care of the other children. They were able to get through a lot of work independently thanks to their Veritas Press Self-Paced Courses (history and Bible), Teaching Textbooks 4, XtraMath.org. Actually, they’re pretty self-sufficient with other things too. Ian did all his work in The God Puzzle by Valerie Ackermann on his own, and they needed very little from me to go through their Fix It! Grammar: The Nose Tree (Book 1) and Sequential Spelling. Sometimes I almost feel guilty for how much they do independently, but then I remember that Arianna will be officially starting Kindergarten next year and I’ll be schooling three kids, and I get over that feeling pretty quickly.
Together we finished lessons 14 and 15 in All Things Fun and Fascinating for writing. In last year’s IEW course the unit on writing a story from a series of pictures was a little frustrating for them because they still really relied on the structure of writing from a source text. This time around they seemed to enjoy the flexibility of this unit, and it was fun to see their growth in this area.
Here’s what else we worked on together over the past couple weeks:
We finished reading about the War of 1812 in From Sea to Shining Sea for Young Readers and then spent the rest of our history time digging a little deeper with the following resources.
Books
We read several picture books about different events from the War of 1812.
Dolley Madison Saves George Washington by Don Brown tells the story of the First Lady saving a cherished portrait of America’s first President when the British burned the original White House and much of Washington, D.C.
The Town That Fooled the British (from the Tales of Young Americans series) by Lisa Papp is about the town of St. Michaels, Maryland, which avoided destruction by British cannons when they hung lanterns in the trees to disguise the true location of the buildings. We also read a similar fictionalization of the same event called The Boy Who Saved The Town by Brenda Seabrooke, but I preferred Papp’s book for two reasons. First, the illustrations by Robert Papp are beautiful, and I just loved admiring them throughout the book. Secondly, the main character in Seabrooke’s story isn’t quick to obey his parents but rather tries to argue with them when they ask him to do something. It isn’t something we encourage in our family and I felt like the boy in Papp’s story showed better character.
Finally, we read By the Dawn’s Early Light by Steven Kroll. It tells the story of Francis Scott Key witnessing the British attack on Fort McHenry, which led him to write the lyrics to what later became our national anthem. I especially loved the illustrations by Dan Andreasen (and went running to verify that he had also illustrated the Felicity books from the American Girl series because his style was so recognizable). Another book about this story that’s good for kids to read on their own is Francis Scott Key’s Star-Spangled Banner by Monica Kulling.
I also bought a used copy of Mr. Madison’s War: Causes and Effects of the War of 1812 by Kassandra Radomski, but I decided to hold off on it until my kids are older. It’s not a “living book” like the previous ones I’ve mentioned, just a non-fiction book about the war. I’m going to keep it so the boys can go a little deeper the next time we cover this history cycle (Elijah will be in 5th grade, which would be a better fit), but I saw no need to spend time with it now.
While we were sick, I went searching for videos we could watch on the War of 1812. I found two on Amazon Instant Video (both free to watch with Prime). Anthem: The Story Behind the Star-Spangled Banner focused on the history of the song, from the tune’s roots as a British club song to embellishments in the melody that later became standard practice. As a former music major, I found this more interesting than my kids, but it was still worth watching.
They preferred Proof Through the Night, which elaborated on the life story of Francis Scott Key. Produced by the Christian History Institute, this video wasn’t of the same caliber as some of the documentaries we’ve watched, but I appreciated their efforts and enjoyed learning more about the faith of the man who wrote our national anthem.
For our biography this week we read about Lottie Moon, an American missionary to China. The boys each read Lottie Moon: a Generous Offering from YWAM Publishing’s “Heroes for Young Readers” series, as well as Lottie Moon: What do you need? from the “Little Lights” series.
Here’s what we’ve been doing over the last two weeks in between all the fun:
In From Sea to Shining Sea for Young Readers we read about the Supreme Court and Chief Justice John Marshall. It was a great week for talking about the different branches of the government, and the boys watched two Learn Our History videos, one about the the Supreme Court, and one about the President. Ian also watched President Trump’s Inauguration with me and we had some good discussion about the practical side of changing Presidents.
The boys read two books on one of my favorite Christian workers: George Müller: Does Money Grow on Trees? and George Müller: Faith to Feed Ten Thousand.
