What we see in the stars-the perfect introduction to astronomy

My little homeschool clan is fairly obsessed with the moon and all of it's observable phases. We love keeping track of the latest full moon and it's subsequent waning and waxing. Last year could have been titled the "year of the moon" for our schoolroom at home. Now, I am thinking its time to broaden our observation of the night time sky and get to know some of the surrounding constellations as well. I bought my Oldest a telescope for Christmas, to give us a fun jumping off place, and knew there had to be a good "book for that" to go along with it!

And find one, I did. What we see in the stars: An illustrated tour of the night sky is a gorgeous introduction to star gazing that I can't wait to jump into with my boys! It is a visual treat that is Mama swoon worthy, but the information is approachable for kids. 

There is a great bit of introduction info on the science and study of space and the stars before diving into an extensive collection of constellations.

I appreciated that there is a page for each major constellation- containing a beautiful illustration and a paragraph of pertinent facts.There are quite a few lesser known constellations introduced as well.

A segment on all the planets.

I would highly recommend this book as an addition to homeschool libraries and to anyone captivated by the beauty of the stars.

Thanks to Blogging for Books for providing me with this gorgeous book to review. 

Good Night Tales- The stuff that the best traditions are made of

“A children's story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children's story in the slightest.”

― C.S. Lewis

As is always the case, C.S. Lewis speaks the truth with this quote- it seems truer and truer the more children's books I dive into with my kids. "The best kids books" has become my area of expertise in a pretty big way in these years of young kids and homeschooling. I honestly love my kid's favorites books as much as they do, maybe more so in some cases! I have always loved well done children's picture books-bringing home a big stack of them from the library was one of my very favorite things. I was so pleased to be able to renew that tradition with my own children when they came along. Since I have started homeschooling my children, I have found that the consistently best quality books are the classics from years gone by. I have memorized book lists of titles to be on the look out from generations past. It's always a very pleasant surprise indeed when I run across a modern new release that I feel is worthy of a place on my bookshelves. 

 C.S. Fritz's Good Night Tales: A family treasury of read aloud stories has proven to be such a rare treasure. I love everything about this rich volume. From the gorgeous illustrations to the meaty and mysterious tales. This is one of my very favorite children's books to date.  

 The hand sketched "maps" in the end pages and all the deep and moody images throughout the book are just so engaging, even entrancing. It's truly like entering another realm and painting new images in your imagination that will surely stick there. 

The stories within these pages, most are parables of the parables and I find them so heart stirring and fascinating. Honestly, they are not the most straight forward stories you will ever read to your children, but I kind of love that. Like Jesus's parables, these tales make you really stop and think. a few of the stories are even wordless to up the thought provoking quality. I am trying to train myself to let my children alone with stories and their morals and themes but I do appreciate the discussion guide in the back of the book with coordinating scripture and questions for each story. I think it will prove useful for many parents!

I honestly think I would have missed this book if i hadn't have been given the opportunity to review it, so I want to make sure I make it known to other parents looking to immerse their children in best of the fantasy worlds to discover the deepest truths of our world. This book will be on my "must gift" list, right up there with The Jesus Storybook Bible. 

Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.-

Matthew 18:3

Thanks to Tyndale Publishers for the opportunity to review this remarkable book.

An Amazingly Thorough, yet Whimsical Theology Course wrapped up in a Children's Book

Consistency is not my strongest suit but I have more than learned the value of good habits and routines. One practice that has started to "stick" fairly well in my boys and my daily rhythm is "Morning Time"-this happens after breakfast and chores and before I do any individual school subjects with the boys separately. We all gather at the dining room table and enjoy a "broad feast"-not of food, but ideas. We start with a quick prayer, go over our AWANA verses and read a section of the bible for our Bible Road Trip. We focus on learning a new song from Songs for Saplings each week, they offer some great catechisms set to catchy tunes. We also cover some fun, out of the ordinary ways to learn math, church history, and the boys love our time for nursery rhymes and a silly poem. The point of Morning Time is not academic but to connect as a family and focus on things that are good, true and beautiful. 

A book that I had on my wishlist for some time and was so excited to incorporate into our Feast was The Ology: Ancient Truths Ever New by Marty Machowski. This book is incredible, really. When I think of the good, true and beautiful, I picture this book. Machowski offers a dense and rich spread of theological truth written towards kids, but just as nourishing for adults and wraps it up in a gorgeous, heirloom quality format of a book. One of the tag lines from the publishers is "A beginner s book of systematic theology in the form of a beautifully illustrated storybook." I think this is really the perfect way to sum up what this book is. It truly is a very comprehensively laid out theology course in the form of an engaging children's story. 

It begins by introducing us to our main characters- Carla and Timothy who are exploring their church building when they discover not only a secret underground stairway but also a mysterious package that beckons them to "Open and Read". Within is a letter explaining that they have in their hands a last of it's kind historic children's book that teaches the Theology, the study of God. And so begins our journey with Carla and Timothy thru The Ology. 

The book is very systematic about it's teaching approach and I think that's perfect to make sure even the youngest child can begin but also make sure the more advanced student has a through and solid foundation. It starts with The Ology of God, which covers the attributes of who God is. Then, we move to The Ology of People where we're reminded of our creation and first parents. Next, we have to face the hard facts in The Ology of Sin which does a great job of clearly explaining to children what sin and it's consequences are, both at the first instance in the Garden and in their lives now. The Ology of the Promise and the Law explains God's "rescue plan" and how the law was first introduced and what it's purpose is.

 The hope comes with The Ology of Christ when children are told of Jesus' divine and human aspects and what all he did for us. Things go a little deeper still when we get to The Ology of the Holy Spirit and learn of the introduction of the Holy Spirit to the first believers and how it is with us now. The Ology of Adoption into God's Family gives us many reminders of our truest identity. The Ology of Change I think is where things start transitioning to being a great challenge and lesson to older children, past the basics of what God has done for us and focused in on how we can live for him. This section deals with how we can grow and have victory in Christ and I'm thinking my oldest who just turned 6 would really get a lot out of these lessons at his stage in understanding the faith. The Ology of the Church does a wonderful job of explaining what the purpose of the Church is and why we need to be a part of it. A much helpful to teaching parents section on The Ology of the End Times gives some great insight into the tricky subject of "things to come". And the whole book is tied up nicely with the last chapter The Ology of God's Word where we are reminded of the importance and power of this book we're studying so in depth. 

Each "lesson" is short and concise with coordinating scripture and a whimsical illustration to engage kids. There is so much packed into this volume that I don't foresee us getting through it any time too soon and I am totally ok with that. Like any delightful thing you want to draw it out, soak it up and savor it. That's most importantly, how we should feel about God's word and I think Marty Machowski has doing a wonderful job of invoking a similar feeling about the complementary study of Theology with this outstanding title. As only the best kid's books can do, I feel like this is a gift not only for them, but for me as the lucky parent who gets to read it to them. This book will be treasured by my family for many years of growth and spiritual formation to come and recommended to all my  dearest Mama friends. 

Thanks so much to New Growth Press for providing me with this title to enjoy with my children and wholeheartedly recommend to my readers.

Introducing my boys to Civil Rights Heroes- Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks

It's Black History Month and, to be honest, that usually doesn't mean a whole lot around our house. We are not African American and do not live in an area with many African American people, really at all. So I guess that has made me a bit lax about teaching my kids much about racial issues and tensions- from either side;but I have to admit with the tensions and divide in our country currently,it is hard to escape the fact that it is obviously still an issue to many. While I personally don't agree that it as alive and well of a "disease" now, I am very aware that it was a real civil rights issue not that long ago. It is part of the history of our country and I want to give my kids the full scope of our nation's story. So I was very excited to get the chance to review two new, outstanding board books from WorthyKids/Ideals! 

The Story of Rosa Parks is an engaging, little board book that introduces young children to "the Mother of the civil rights". This book does a wonderful job of summarizing who Rosa was as an individual- where she grew up, who she married- and what actions and ideals we remember her for- quiet conviction and courage. I just love the soft and almost dream-like illustrations and thought the text was straightforward and approachable for kids.

The next book, The Story of Martin Luther King Jr. is very similar in style as these two books are part of a series and I am glad to own them both! My boys had a little bit of an earlier introduction to MLK as my husband got the day off for MLK day and we took a family fun day to the coast. While we driving, we had a fun moment of "homeschool on the go" when we explained to the boys why it was a holiday and who we were remembering. I was surprised with how interested my 6 year old was-he and his Daddy even did some more online investigating on MLK while I ran into a coffee shop. It was a neat chance to see how "real life learning" really does happen! :)

This board book starts with asking children if they know why we celebrate MLK day and then follows up by explaining who he was and what we remember him for doing. I appreciated the book's approach to present MLK as a child who wanted to things just like any other kid would- eat at restaurants with his family, drink from any water fountain he came across, and go to a good school- but that he couldn't. I think these were valid civil rights areas for kids to understand why MLK stood and fought for what he did. 

I truly do feel that both these historic figures are heroes for my children to look up to and am thankful for a resource to introduce them to these names at a young age. Both Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. fought injustice and took a stance for their ideals and convictions, but they did it in a peaceful, civilized way. I think that's a lesson that many in our country need to take note of right now-I hope to instill that idea in my kids from an early age.

Thanks to Worthy Publishing for providing me with these books to review and share with my readers!

Making Math Fun!

Math has never been my "thing". It was my least favorite subject in school and I barely made it thru Algebra. I love letters, words and stories; numbers, letters and equations- not so much. I do realize the great importance of math and honestly, I wish I would have kept my mental math more up to par and not just delegated that skill to my smart phone. Always something to work towards, I suppose! But, my little boys love math and have so naturally caught on to it. They find math problems everywhere in every day life and take great pride in their budding skills. I am sure my oldest would do just fine if I set a run of the mill math text book in front of him with just basic math equations to solve. However, there are so many wonderful and fun out of the box math books and teaching ideas out there for his age I just can't quite bring myself to do it! 

We have been using a mixture of Miquon Math Orange Book and Kate Snow's Addition Facts that Stick as our main math curriculum. But we've also been using a fun math supplement that I mainly wanted to share with you today! 100 Numbers Wildlife Coloring Book by Sarah Janisse Brown of Thinking Tree Books is a fabulous workbook that focuses on teaching the 100 chart. The 100 chart concept is such a great tool to get kids acquainted with the first 100 numbers and what they look like in succession. You can use it as a number line, to look for patterns, and to skip count by twos, fives, tens, etc. A book I picked up this fall on teaching math in homeschool-Let's Play Math by Denise Gaskins, has a whole section on different activities and games you can use a 100 chart to do. We jumped into our 100 Numbers book and tried out a few.

First, I had Cole take some counter stones and count by 5's and mark it off with the stones.

Then we marked only the numbers with 7's in them and found a neat design.

Another neat, creative activity we did was find and color in which numbers would "make" a heart. 

The book itself offers multiple activities- a new "way" to count to 100 each time! Some examples are color all numbers with twos, write all your favorite numbers, color all the even numbers, and many more.

 Each math page has a corresponding fun animal coloring page. They vary from realistic black and white animal photos to detailed, adult coloring book style pictures to color in. Some pages even come with lines to write a short description or story about the featured animal.

I am sure this is a book we will have no problem filling up with colorful fun and numbers by the end of the year!

Thanks to Thinking Tree Books for providing this wonderful book for me to review and share with you all. 

Saying goodbye to Summer and hello to Fun Schooling

The leaves are starting to fall, the evenings have got a chill to them and there's more garden harvest than I know what to do with; I think it's safe to say that fall is upon us. It's a bittersweet fact around this house: we are summer lovin' folks. The season of the sun is fairly short lived in the Pacific Northwest and as much as we don't mind the rain, the sunshine is a gift we hold onto as long as we can. Autumn is slowly winning us over though. With it's mountains of apples, beautiful landscape and piles of fresh books and a new year of school to dive into! 

September was a semi-summer holdover month for us with lots of end of the season trips and plans and so much garden preserving to get done. I think October will be our official buckle down into a structured school pattern month. We have dipped our toes into the academic year and it's been an encouraging intro to the school year. I did put some semblance actual goal setting and lesson planning together in August and I think that's going to be a blessing in the coming weeks! For now, we've jumped into some seasonal and interest led projects- such as apple sauce making and apple sauce inspired poetry writing, constructing "measure for measure" paper skeletons of the boys and of course, a lot of fall nature study. We are warming our way back into Morning Time and Asher is excited to be an "official" preschooler this year. Cole and I picked back up in the "100 easy lessons" reading book were we left off at the end of last year and we are both really encouraged by how much more competent he is with reading now! He's started to pine over being able to just being able to pick up a book and read it. I think his actually really wanting to read and pride in what he's learned so far is really going to take him a long ways this year! 

Another new dimension I'm really excited to add to our school plans this year is not only educational, but also just plain fun! we are going to enjoy some Fun Schooling with Thinking Tree books. I have had my eye on this super creative and open ended series of interactive books for quite some time now (complete with having a pretty full Amazon wishlist of the titles I wanted to try out most on standby ;). Sarah Janisse Brown is a homeschooling Mama of a large brood who has authored and illustrated so many titles in this ever growing and unique collection of homeschool books. They fit nicely into "out of the box" unschooling and as a Charlotte Mason-esque supplement, as I intend to use them.  Sarah was very generous and sent me a hefty box of personally curated books for my boys and I to enjoy and share with all of you. I can't wait to get these bright and engaging books into my boys hands and share in depth looks into new titles with you through out the school year. I really think my boys are going to learn so much copying things into their very own fun schooling journals and I'm going to look for excuses to "learn" things to jot down in my own homeschooling handbook ;) (spoiler alert!) I foresee these books doing a wonderful job of keeping the joy in learning under the guise of just being "for fun"!

The first book I want to share with you is the perfect example of how focused Sarah is in these titles on capturing the interest and heart of a child. The All about Horses Homeschooling Journal is a thick and delightful six week unit study on, you guessed it, Horses! The first page asks students to write down several things they want to specifically learn thru their study time about horses and then instructs them to go to the local library and pick up six books to use as "text books". The book may be all in black and white but it does not lack in beautifully detailed illustrations and all the more opportunity for kids to get creative themselves in coloring it in! 

Each day's study opens with a fun circle the date intro page and place to fill in a daily to do list and daily inspiration. After that, Sarah does a fantastic job of mixing things up each day and including a wide variety of activities and "subjects". One day the student is learning to draw a horse, finding spelling words in their horse "text books" and another they are watching a documentary, writing up a days worth of meal plans and doing a nature study sketch. I just think this is a really great way to engage a maybe hesitant student who would rather be out, say, riding a horse than working in school books.There is an impressive mixture of inspiring, yet open ended project prompts to definitely document education but the learning itself is coming from such pleasurable, real life experiences. 

I would have LOVED this book as a homeschooled farm girl growing up and I have a little animal lover middle child who I think will grow into this fun resource nicely. :)

I received these products in exchange for my honest review.

Give your Child the World- through the pages of some well picked books!

 I have three rough and tumble, non stop boys who take so much after their father, but thankfully there's a few things they share in common with their mama as well- including a deep love and large appetite for books. I have some of the fondest memories (and the cutest pictures!) of my boys, starting with my oldest as a baby, totally enthralled in a good book. I am proud and happy to see them be daring and physically active boys, playing every "fighting" game imaginable and never being very far away from mischief; but I also see the benefit in balancing their active play with spending the quiet, still time to fill their minds with good, imaginatively rich stories. I can see those stories bringing context and deeper meaning to their play by infusing it with characters they can "be" and "evil" they can face off and fight. I have smiled to myself as I hear multiple references to "Lord on the Rings" come out in their adventures (ok, and Star Wars too..). So, I have made it a point to introduce them to many "epic" adventure tales to stock their moral imagination, but I will admit, I have never been very aware or intentional about bringing globally minded books their way. I suppose it's because (to my detriment) I have not been a very global reader. I love to see new places and the idea of travel but the reality of traveling to foreign countries just doesn't seem like it will factor into my life on a very large scale. I guess due to the fact that I have not been nor have any concrete plans to be in these far off lands, they seem to stay "out of sight, out of mind."  That is a disservice on my part, since I know that the world wide we are more alike than different and all God is doing amazing things around the world, not just in North America and it's a loss to not get a glimpse into those lives and cultures. How fortunate we really are to have such a effective and enjoyable method to travel around the world (and through time and space) through the pages of a book!

This summer I am hoping to broaden my children's (and mine!) perspective and knowledge when it comes to this globe and all who call it home with the help of an amazing new resource of a book, Give Your Child the World: Raising globally minded kids one book at a time by Jamie Martin! I have heard stirrings about this book during the months it was in the making and new that I wanted to have it on my shelf when it was released. I love (and have marked up with abandon!) so many other well thought out book lists volumes- Honey for the Child's Heart and Read for the Heart- and loved the idea of this very modern and uniquely targeted edition being added to the ranks on my resources shelf. The book starts out with a engaging introduction to Jamie and her (in her own words) " Mini United Nations" of a family :) I loved reading of how Jamie fell in love with the world thru travel and ended up with a houseful of loved ones from all corners of the planet! The book list it's self is laid out by continent and then organized by age group. I thought it was very easy to follow and appreciated the short synopsis of each book recommended. I quickly jumped on to my local library's website and made short work of putting holds on a whole cart load of fun, new books! :) 

  Jamie's encouragement and ideas for implementing a "globally minded" mindset in our households is contagious and to make getting started even more enticed Jamie and Sarah Mackenzie of the The Read Aloud Revival have teamed up to offer a super fun summer reading program using Give Your Child the World as a guide! This is the first week of the program and it correlates with the first chapter of Jamie's book list- Multicultural. You can find more information and some fun printables and videos at the link above. We already have a towering stack of books waiting for us for Africa week next. I am so glad that they put together this "reading challenge" to go along with the book launch of this awesome new title; it was really the push I needed to just jump in, track down some titles and start reading to my kids. I have distinctive memories of my dad reading aloud in the evenings from the Christian Heros-then and now missionary series- traveling to China with Hudson Taylor and India with Amy Carmicheal. Some day, I am sure I will pull those titles out to read with "older" kids; for now I am excited to curl up on a couch with a big pile of picture books and take my kids on a journey around the world. 

I received this book from Book Look in exchange for an honest review. 

Just maybe Fall is finally here..

It's starting to actually feel like fall around these parts. For a long time here, the weather wasn't keeping up with the calendar. We finally got a true fall feeling day, complete with fog and showers. I love a rainy day excuse for cozying in and spending some intentional, slow time with my boys. There was pumpkin pie baked oatmeal and little tomatoes to pop in the food dehydrator. My Oldest loves to arrange the multi-hued tomato halves on the dryer shelves and gush about how prepared we're going to be for winter with all our yummy dried tomatoes.

 

 

We enjoyed a fall time nature collecting field trip to our "tree farm" property. The boys took their nature baskets and collected fallen leaves galore along with whatever other treasures caught their fancy. (including some wild pears we found!) I really love using nature collecting and journaling as "science" for the boys schooling. Children are always curating their own nature collections as it is-why not add in some classification and interesting facts and call it school?

 

 

 

I have absolutely no artistic abilities to share with my boys, but I'm hoping by encouraging them to start young they will acquire at least basic skills. My Oldest has been pretty enthralled with sketching birds out of a North American bird field guide we have on the bookshelf. I'm impressed with his eye for detail and love seeing how proud of his finished masterpiece he is.

 

Timelining is nothing new to the homeschool scene but we just started incorporating it into our studies! I have a feeling it's going to be a really enjoyable way for us to track what we learn about during the year and how it fits into the history of the world. The boys loved seeing the looonngg "span of time" we have to fill in. This past week, we added timeline figures for Abraham, Isaac and the ancient Egyptians.

 

The work of doing some lesson planning and making the time in my daily schedule for the boys schooling is daunting at times. Adding "Teacher" to my list of roles is taking some time to become second nature. But seeing the wonder spark in my sons' eyes as they encounter new ideas and interests makes it worth it to me. Their love of learning makes me slow down and appreciate all their is around us to "educate". My Little/Big Boy asks "Why?", just like every other 3 year old, but he also asks "How?". I love that.

 

 

 

I'm excited to add a new podcast series to my "play list". The Mason Jar Podcast looks like a great resource for all the Charlotte Mason Mamas out there!

 

To add to the constant activity that is our household, we decided to a bring a new family member on board. My determined husband has been talking about getting a Rottweiler for years now. I was so hesitant about the idea of a large, aggressive dog living with my kids for a long time. I finally got on board with the benefits of a protective breed being right for our family. Then it was just never the right timing- too busy of a season or the kids were too young. Finally, we decided the time was right. We've been on the lookout for a puppy for months before finding the perfect pup for us. Introducing Stella.

 

We drove up the coast with all the little boys in tow to pick up our new pup. Stella was the puppy who instantly jumped into the boys' laps and wouldn't leave their side. She is a sweetheart and I'm excited to have a pal to grow up alongside my boys. My middle boy has a real heart for animals and we especially wanted to find a good puppy for him. It made me smile to watch him spend the morning out in the rain playing with his new friend. :) And my responsible Oldest has been happily feeding the puppy and even cleaning up puppy piles!

 

 

Every little boy needs a dog.