Bible Stories in Board Books

I am loving this stage of Motherhood, as it means I have children in so many fun stages of childhood: An early school age, a preschooler, a toddler and one not even made her first appearance yet! ;) I have enjoyed the challenge of teaching exciting, new skills like reading to my oldest. My preschooler has a natural wonder for life and all that he gets to learn and explore that is just so contagious. My toddler is just adorable (I'm not biased or anything like that! ;) and brings a lot of joy to our days. I cannot wait to have a brand new baby in the house soon and re-experience all the magic of the First Year.

 As a book loving Mama, I have also really been enjoying sharing multiple forms and types of books with my boys recently. I have started some classic, first chapter book read alouds with my two biggest boys. Everyone in our house enjoys a good picture book. I am so glad to still have a toddler to read board books to and look forward to bond with the newest Little One over them too! Board books are the perfect introduction to having "your own library" for the youngest members of the family. Durable, easy to hold for little hands, and quick to read- they are a beginning to a lifetime love of books. What better way to introduce some of the most foundational bible stories at an early age than in the form of Baby's own board book! I love the newest offerings from Worthy Kids/Ideals Publishing that do just that- In the Beginning and Noah's Ark by Susana Gay and her son, Owen. 

In the Beginning is a the perfect paraphrase of the Creation Story for very young readers. My toddler loved the suspense of the blank/dark first page as the beginning of the account of God creating the world from nothing. The text is accurate and direct- perfectly for short attention spans. I love the clean and basic illustrations to portray each day of creation. The happy animals and people at the end really made the whole story come together for my little boy. 

Noah's Ark shares the well loved, children's favorite story of Noah's giant boat full of animals! I loved the sweet introduction to Noah on the first page and how the middle of the book turns into a counting primer. My toddler is 2 so he loved seeing "his number" over and over! I appreciated how the story took them all the way through to landing on the mountain top and gave all the credit of the rescue to God. How fun is the rainbow with the colors primer aspect added?! 

These two little books are an exciting addition to my board book library and I can't wait until my toddler becomes a big brother and can "read" them to Little Sister! :) I will definitely be considering these as baby shower gifts as well. The text is perfect for this age range and the artwork is modern, yet classic. 

Thank you to Worthy Kids Publishers for providing me with these fun books to share a review with my readers of. 

Picturing the Past- A wonderful Charlotte Mason inspired Artist Study Resource

As I tread on in my (very fledgling) homeschool journey, I am continuously in awe at both the great weight and the immense joy it is to be the Curator and Instructor for my boy's' education. There is truly so much that I want them to know and even more than that, so many beautiful things I want them to be able to experience and take pleasure in. I secretly have always purposed to raise little Renaissance Men- I really hope for my boys to be able to have a wide appreciation for the vast amounts of Goodness, Truth and Beauty  that are found, literally, everywhere. There are so many pursuits and pastimes that been dismissed by our generation as antiquated and particularly not "manly". This is depressing considering that most of the geniuses in the creative fields for years have been men and being "cultured" has traditionally been a sign of an accomplished man. Honestly, my boys live on a farm and are surrounded by very amazing, hard working, masculine men and I really couldn't be more grateful for that! They learn so much from these grounded and wise men, but the "cultured" part is up to their Mama! ;) And since I am on a vulnerable streak here, I'll also add that I am not always very reliable at providing them the opportunities to be exposed to the Arts and other sources of enrichment. They are a rough and tumble bunch who are always chomping at the bit to get to some "war game" or head out the door. Many days between (what feels like constantly) feeding them, cleaning up after all the "fun" they've had and trying to fit in a few quiet moments for myself, it seems that we are lucky to get the very basics of school in each day. All the amazing and beautiful "extras" I so wish to have woven thru our days usually get left in "a dream" status. 

Though I have found a very effective way to add enrichment subjects to our days is Morning Time- an hour or so each morning that we tackle little bites of various topics such as catechism, poetry, etc.-I am really striving to add Artist and Composer study to this Feast on a more regular basis. This is an area that I don't have a lot of natural resources and storehouses to access in my own accord. I have book lists galore archived in my head but paintings and pieces of classical music- not so much. I grew up doing a lot of reading, especially since I have a natural affinity for it, but I didn't have a lot of attraction or exposure to artists and composers. So this is really a whole new game for both my boys and I. I'm really okay with that though, because one of my favorite benefits of homeschooling is that I get to learn right beside my kids. There is always something new to discover in this life!

 I decided to just jump in and do something for an artist study, even if I didn't have a ton of personal knowledge to impart or the perfect approach to use. In all honesty, we have studied one artist this year. Not exactly impressive, but we have fit in a lot of fun coordinating projects and books because we weren't on a tight time frame. My boys are really young and we have many years left to fill with new artists and their paintings. We choose Van Gogh this fall, partly because we had an abundance of sunflowers blooming and Vanf Gogh's sunflower paintings seemed like a perfect fit to introduce art study. We of course looked at a couple of his renditions of his favorite flower and the style in which he painted. We made some of our own sunflower masterpieces, which the boys really enjoyed. I found a couple of picture books about Van Gogh and his life and those fit in really nicely with our study. 

I was really excited to find out that the met museum has an extensive collection of classic art pieces archived online for free personal download and use. I printed out 4x6s of a few of our favorite Van Gogh pieces and have them displayed on our "school wall." But nothing beats having art in larger format, high quality prints to study. A wonderful resource I have found for providing a wide collection of famous artists pictures in one book and also a neat format for documenting your students artist study is Sarah Brown's Picturing the Past: Charlotte Mason Homeschooling Study of Art and History. In true Funschooling fashion, this is a large format, high quality (and thick!) workbook. It is designed to be a year long study that covers 15 well known artists-as well as a fun collection of pictures by unknown artists at the end- that are dated from 1700-1930. The Artists included are Pierre Auguste Renoir, Mary Cassett, Vincent Van Gogh, Claude Monet, Charles Burton Barber, Harry Brooker, Albert Anker, George Dunlop Leslie, Gustave Caillebotte, Edgar Degas, Paul Cezanne, Camille Pissarro, John William Waterhouse, Grant Wood, and Lois Wain. Each artist has an average of five pictures featured and a dedicated work page accompanying each picture for recording impressions and notes from the student. The worksheet asks students to look at the piece of art for a few minutes and then answer two of the four questions on a given day. The questions are "What can you learn from this picture?", "What do you think the artist is trying to communicate?", "Make up a short story about this picture:", and "How does this picture make you feel?" I think these questions tie into the Charlotte Mason method of artist study pretty neatly. Mason advocated a pretty simple, straight forward approach of repeatedly showing an art print to a student over a period of time and asking them to observe the painting and remember what details they could to tell back. These repetitive, open ended questions will give the child a idea of what to be "looking" for in the painting and what will be expected of him later on in the study time.

My boys are all technically under the recommended age range for this workbook, but they caught on to the concept pretty quickly. I plan to stretch this study book well over the year long period it is designed for and use it as an awesome art study supplement to record the artists we've studied over our school career. 

We finished out our study of Van Gogh by "celebrating" his birthday on March 30th! The boys had fun filling out a interactive, little booklet about Van Gogh's approach to painting and some of his most famous pieces. My oldest received a high quality, paint by number of "The Starry Night" and enjoyed working on that. My Preschooler is super creative and did a great job on making his own rendition of "The Starry Night" with paints and construction paper!

Artist study has been a grand, new adventure for our little schoolroom and I am so thankful to have the Picturing the Past: picture study journal to provide me with some direction and actual prints to use. I think we'll dive into Monet next!

I am very grateful to The Thinking Tree LLC. for providing me with this great resource for my family and to be able to share a thorough review with you all.

The Family Life of a Christian Leader- good advice for any christian home

I feel it's a little presumptuous of me to have decided a book written to christian leaders would be "for me" as I am not a man/leader in the church nor is my husband in a prominent leadership position. But, I have a curious appetite for self improvement/christian interest books and figured advice on home life given to church leaders has to be pretty potent stuff. Some of the best philosophies/concepts about marriage and family life I have adopted have come from well written, christian books. So knowing this to be a tried and true strategy I jumped into The Family Life of a Christian Leader by Ajith Fernando. Ajith is a director of the Youth for Christ program in Sri Lanka and has been in leadership for 35 years. He is a well respected voice in the christian counseling and ministry world and seems to have the real life witness to qualify him as an excellent author for this genre of book.

I found the perspectives and stories from Ajith's differing culture very interesting and yet still extremely pertinent to any family situation. He does a great job of striking a very challenging, yet applicable balance between scripture and real life strategies to apply. He also does a wonderful job of painting a very true to life yet inspiring picture of both the struggles of family life, especially with a ministry career, and also inspiring readers to see what a witness and blessing a harmonious home could be. Each chapter that addresses a "hard" issue has a corresponding encouraging one. I really appreciate Ajith's diligence to help build up Christian leaders to the biblical qualifications of church leadership while also strongly exhorting them to cherish and care for their wife and children. My family has been involved in part time ministries through the years and also have been close to families in full time ministry and know the great burden and challenge that lifestyle can be for a family. I feel this book does a great job of exhorting the importance of this grand calling while also offering very compassionate advice on lightening the load for a ministry family. 

I received this book in exchange for my honest review thanks to Crossway Publishing. 

The Magic of Motherhood: A Beautifully Curated Gift of a Book

Motherhood is SO much. So much of who I am, so much harder than I imagined, so much better than I had dreamed, so much more draining than I had prepared for, so much more fulfilling than I could have banked on. It has clearly shown me my limits in devastatingly obvious ways and brought to the surface my selfishness, insecurities and sinful proclivities  more than any other role or realm of my life ever has. Pretty much all I ever wanted to be was a mom and because I embraced that so willingly, so excitedly I truly thought I would naturally thrive; of course, this was not the case. Acceptance, preparation and gusto only take you so far in this race- there is so much you can in no way, shape or form expect or foretell your reaction to. There are so many little, tiny details of the days with my kids that bring me so much more joy than I could have ever imagined and there are huge, right in my face blessings about my children that I so easily take for granted and brush off. It really is amazing the new level of awareness and fierce emotions that Motherhood brings and at yet the same time the amount of multitasking and self sacrifice that it requires that on some days, makes me feel like some sort of a robot. I didn't see so much of this coming and one sure thing that has kept me grounded and encouraged in this role is my fellow Mamas who I have been able to vulnerably share with and who honestly tell me back, "Oh, me too." C.S. Lewis was surely right with quoting "Me too" as the basis for a true friendship. 

I am thankful to have a real life community of other moms who I can walk this road alongside and share the burdens and the joys along the way with. But I have also over the years appreciated the safe haven of "Mommy Bloggers" I have found on the internet for the days when home is where I have to be but encouragement is needed badly. I really respect those women with a gift for words and a vulnerable enough spirit to not only share the beautiful things (which is easy enough online) but the hard and not so pretty things as well. A newer to me site that offers just such a comfort is Coffee + Crumbs. Ashlee Gadd began this beautiful, little corner of the internet to encourage and inspire fellow moms and she has done such a good job with that it has morphed into an even more gorgeous book!

The Magic of Motherhood: The good stuff, the hard stuff and everything in between is really a work of art- both in the text and the visual department. This is a gift worthy, luxe hardback book with a velvety matte cover and exceptionally sturdy pages. I loved the corresponding photography with each essay and full page photo/quote spreads sprinkled through out the book as well. It really feels like you took a beautifully curated and well written blog and wrapped it up into an even better book to hold in your hands. 

All the writers that Ashlee teamed up with on this project offer a unified front in celebrating and uplifting the calling of motherhood but offer varying perspectives with humor, grace and truth. I was instantly sucked in with one of the first essays about the "mom jeans"- a true to life reminiscing of our overly confident pre-mom selves and in the ways we have to stretch and adapt and yet still, we are ourselves. No "mom jeans" needed, we just bring whatever "cut" we are/have and it becomes what a mom needs to embodied as. 

The stories come from moms of varying forms and lifestyles- some unexpectedly becoming mothers, others thru many trials, and still others receiving children from the heart and not the womb. The essays touch on the heart aching joys and the heart breaking griefs that Motherhood can bring. This book would make an amazing Mother's day gift and I will be slowly relishing it in the lead up to that annual shout out of a day to this intense profession. I will let myself be reminded of all the gifts I already have received for being a mom.

Thanks to Book Look Bloggers for providing me with a copy of this title to review.