Homeschool Wrap Up Week 9

I thought I would have time to get this finished Saturday before we left for State Fair, but that didn't happen.

Week 9 in Our Homeschool

Bible: We finished up the Answers For Kids series.  We had reviewed Bible Study Guide For All Ages over the summer and picked up where we left off in the series.  We are on the first packet, lessons 1-26 and worked on lessons 7 and 8 on Joseph and His Brothers.

Read Aloud: We read 3 chapters of YWAM's Milton Hershey.  In the evening before bed we are on Book 5 of The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place.

History: We completed lesson 13 in America's Story about Life on the Home Front.

Science: We started Lesson 7 in Apologia Human Anatomy on Life in the Blood.

Music Appreciation: We completed chapter 14 on Brahms Lullaby.

Spelling/Reading: The boys finished Step 24 in AAS Level 5.  Emmie completed lessons 8, 9, and 10. 

Language Arts: Christian and Anthony finished disc 1 of SWI A learning about banned words and creating a title.  Lily completed 3 lessons in Hake/Saxon Grammar and Emmie completed 3 lessons in LLFLE.

Math: They completed 3 lessons in MLFLE.

Other Activities this Week:

Tuesday:

 Nick and Alex had a 4 H meeting and picked up our exhibits from District.  We had two blue ribbons we didn't know about when we were there.  Christian's waterfall photo won 1st and Emmie's candle won 1st.  They were excited about that!

The girls had gymnastics.  Christian was supposed to have a soccer game, but it started down pouring during gymnastics so it was cancelled.  We saw this pretty rainbow.

Wednesday was Kid's Club and Emmie and Lily stayed for Children's Choir.  Lily just watched.

Thursday Emmie had dance and Lily had Physical Therapy.  She wont need to go back unless she starts hurting again, but needs to do her exercises at home for the next month.

Christian had a soccer game.  It may have been his last one, not 100 percent sure this year.  For some reason they did not schedule any tournaments this year.  I think it's sad and the children get cheated.  We used to play 10-12 games a season and this year only played 5.  Our coaches are working on trying to get one more game.

Friday we went to Grandview for a STEM co-op.  The program was on Conservation and they made Wood Duck houses, one per family but two for mine.  Anthony and Christian worked together and Alex and the girls worked together. 

Saturday Art and Alex made a grooming stand for the the goats and we got everything ready to go to State Fair.  The girls went to a birthday party.  We left the house around 7:30 and got to Little Rock around 9:30.  Art dropped the 4 younger children and I off at the hotel and took Nick and Alex to get the goats settled in at the fair.  I checked us in and went to the rooms I reserved two weeks ago to find out that they had made a mistake on our room type and gave us 2 rooms that had one kind size bed.  There were no other rooms available.  So we called the hotel up the hill and they had rooms so we walked (thankfully it had finally stopped raining) and got settled in.  We did not get to sleep until 12 and had to set the alarm for 5:30 am.  The rest of our fair adventure will be in a separate post and in next week's wrap up.

Trailer all finished.

I hope you had a great week!

Happy Homeschooling!

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Homeschool Crew Review: CashCrunch Careers

CashCrunch Games was founded by Paul Vasey a former teacher of business studies.  He has a variety of resources on his website to help people recognize there are choices when it comes to handling money.  They also offer CashCrunch Careers a tool to help students and adults choose a career that will best fit them.  We recently had an opportunity to use and review CashCrunch Careers.


CashCrunch Careers starts with  a 75 question survey that will take around 15-20 minutes to complete.   As you go through the survey you need to answer each question it asks.  It gives two different traits and asks which one is more like you.  If you don't understand exactly what it means, you can hover over the word with your mouse and it will give a definition of the word.  After competing the survey, you are given a Career Report which shows your: Career Work Styles, Motivators and De-Motivators, Career Attributes, and Matching Jobs. They use research from the US Department of Labor and different recruitment tools.

Next you can explore the different job opportunities.  Under each career it tells you the tasks required in that job, activities, and attributes.

You can find out which colleges offer the courses needed.

And watch short videos related to the careers.

You can also investigate careers that do not show up on your Career Report.

I had two of boys, Alex age 14, and Nick age 16 take the CashCrunch Careers survey.  Alex and Nick are complete opposites.  They do not have any of the same interests or skills.  But the survey gave them exactly the same results with management jobs being most of what showed up on their lists of 20 main occupations.  I think if the survey included questions about their interests instead of just traits it may have been able to give better results.  Nicholas I could see being some kind of manager but Alex wants to work with his hands.  He loves building and making things.

We found some of the career information interesting.  We were glad to be able to look up all the careers that were listed not just the ones on the report.  It wont be long before the boys will be out of high school and I want them to find a path to do something that they will enjoy.  I do not when them to waste money at college without knowing what type pf career field they want to go in or to go to a college that doesn't even support their degree.  So all of the written information on the careers was very helpful. We checked out a few of the video links, but they were pretty outdated.  I wish there was some kind of search option on the page that would take you quickly to the kind of career you are searching for.  Though Construction Manager came up as a job in Alex's list, Construction Worker would be one he would be interested in looking at, and it would be nice to just be able to quickly search that.  Also a search option showing what colleges in your state or the state of your child's interest would be a nice option instead of having to scroll through the list.  You do have access to the information always, it is not a subscription that runs out.

I am glad we had an opportunity to try out CashCrunch Careers.  There is a free CashCrunch 101 game you can check out on their website. 

To see what my Crew Mates had to say about CashCrunch Careers, stop by the Crew Blog!

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Homeschool Wrap Up Week 8

Christian running his goat up the hill

Week 8 in our Homeschool

Bible: We  read about half way through Answers For Kids Vol 6 about questions on the Tower of Babel.

Read Aloud: We finished Forensic Faith For Kids and read 3 chapters of YWAM's Milton Hershey More Than Chocolate.

History: We completed lesson 12 in America's Story on World War Two Part 2.

Science: We finished up the Respiratory System in Apologia Exploring Human Anatomy by going over the What Do You Remember questions, making a model showing how the lung and diaphragm work and doing an activity measuring lung capacity.

Music Appreciation: We completed chapter 13 in Music Appreciation I on Franz Schubert and The Trout.


Spelling/Reading: The boys finished Step 23 in AAS Level 5.  Emmie completed lessons 6 and 7 in AAR Level 2.

Language Arts: Christian and Anthony wrote rough drafts and final copies of The Boys and the Nuts in SWI A.  Emmie completed 4 lessons in Language Lessons for a Living Education and Lily completed 4 lessons in Hake/Saxon Grammar.

Math: They completed 4 lessons in MLFLE.  Anthony is almost finished with Level 6.  I have been looking at Rod and Staff.  We might try that when he finishes.

Other Activities this Week:

Tuesday: I decided to go ahead and take Lily to the Physical Therapist to see what she would say.  She has an issue with her hips and feet that is putting stress on her knees when she lands in gymnastics.  She was given 6 different exercises to do at home to strengthen her muscles. Right after the therapy appointment the girls had gymnastics.  Lily wore a brace and her teacher spotted her on the back tucks and she did fine.  As soon as gymnastics was over we had soccer.  There were 2 games scheduled one at 6 and one at 8 for Christian's team.  They were supposed to play the same team both times.  But, after our team won the game at 6 the opposing team decided to leave and not show up for the game that was scheduled at 8.  There always has to be drama....

Wednesday we had to babysit Liam for a few hours.  Chelsea brought him to the church because I had to be up there getting ready for Kids Club.  He loved the music! 

Thursday Lily had piano and Emmie had dance.  Lily and I have been walking at the park while Emmie is in class.  Right after dance Christian had a soccer game.

Friday was Frontier Days For Homeschoolers at Historic Washington State Park.  We have been many times, but the children (especially the girls) still enjoy going.  Nick did not come with us because we left while he was in class, but Chelsea and Liam did.  We got to do some of our favorite things (the surrey ride and candle dipping) and did a few things we hadn't done before.  We only stayed about 3 hours.  It was very hot and the baby was tired.

Saturday Art and I went to Lowes to buy a new stove.  My oven door was broken last week, shattered into a million pieces.  The stove we had was 32 years old and we have had to replace may parts regularly, so it was time for a new one.

I hope you had a great week!

Happy Homeschooling!

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Homeschool Crew Review: Books of the Bible At-a-Glance

Have you ever wanted to learn more about the books of the Bible?  We recently received a PDF download of Books of the Bible At-a-Glance from Teach Sunday School to use and review that will help you do just that.

 Books of the Bible At-a-Glance is a 74 page PDF download that you can load onto a computer or other electronic device such a a tablet.  You can study it from the screen or choose to print it out.  It is in color, but you could print it on a black and white printer to make it less expensive to print.  It is arranged in order of the Bible starting with the Old Testament.  Every book has information listed on a single sheet of paper.  Each book contains information such as:

Book Title

Order in the Bible (which book number it is)


Claim to Fame (what is unique or special about the book)

Author (if known)

Date (approximate)


Time Period (for the Old Testament and first few books of the New Testament)

Famous Stories ( such as the Tower of Babel) or Problems or Issues this Book is Addressing  (New Testament)


Most Famous Verses (chosen from a website of the most searched for books of the Bible in that book)


Important Points About This Book (overall message or outline of events)


 
Books of the Bible At-a-Glance is a great resource for home study or small groups.  You could use this resource to read over when beginning a study of a particular book of the Bible.  You could use it to read over before beginning your Bible lesson.  If your Sunday School lessons are coming from the Book of Matthew it would be helpful to read over the page on Matthew before beginning.  It also is a great resource just for learning all of the books in the Bible and helping to put those books into perspective chronologically.  You could also memorize the verses listed for each book. It is very easy to skip over some of the lesser known books of the Bible especially in a Sunday School setting where the same familiar stories are taught multiple times.  Books of the Bible At-a-Glance would be a great reference to help memorize the order of the books and some information about each book.  That is how we are using it in our home, as a Books of the Bible study. 

I think the information is presented in an easy to read and remember format.  I love that each book fits onto one page making it easy to print and bind if you wish.  I also love the inclusion of the most famous verses from that book.

Many Bibles have a lot of this information included as an introduction to the book, but Books of the Bible At-a-Glance is a great reference tool that keeps all of the information in one place.

You can purchase Books of the Bible At-a-Glance for $9 until 250 copies are sold then the price goes to $19.  Copyright allows for making copies for your home or church and Teach Sunday School offers a 60 day money back guarantee.

To see what my Crew Mates had to say, stop by the Crew Blog!

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Homeschool Crew Review: Forensic Faith For Kids

If you read my blog regularly,you know how much I love to read aloud to my children.  Over the last couple of weeks, we have had an opportunity to read a book that is a little different from our normal read aloud picks.  We all enjoyed our latest review Forensic Faith for Kids from David C Cook and Case Makers Academy.




Forensic Faith For Kids is a 144 page paperback book geared for children in the 8-12 year old age range but can be used with children a little older or younger.  This book is the 3rd in the Case Makers Academy series but although the other books (Cold Case Christianity For Kids and God's Crime Scene For Kids) are referenced you do not have to read the other two to read Forensic Faith.  You may want to though!  The Case Makers Academy books are written by a real cold case detective who used his skills as a detective to investigate the Bible and determined through his investigation that Jesus is the son of God and the Bible is true.  Each book has a mystery to  investigate and solve that will help children (and adults) learn how to share the truth.

In Forensic Faith there are two sets of investigations.  Daniel and Jason are investigating how a corgi puppy mysteriously appeared and trying to find its owner while Hannah has been challenged by a friend who does not believe that Jesus is the son of God.  Detective Jeffries guides the children through their investigations.Throughout the book there are CSI assignments, Detective Definitions, and Tools for your Detective Bag.

To go along with the book, the Case Makers Academy has free online streamable videos for each chapter.  Each video is less then 6 minutes long and gives an introduction to the next chapter.   Also you will find free downloadable worksheets for your Academy Notebook and Training Worksheet and a free downloadable Adult Leader Guide. 

I read Forensic Faith For Kids aloud to my 7,9,11, and 13 year olds reading a chapter per day.  Due to our very slow internet connection we were not able to make use of the videos or downloads. When we first started reading, we wondered about these two mysteries being interwoven throughout the book.  Besides learning the investigative skills, what possible connection could there be between a lost puppy and a boy who does not believe Jesus is the son of God?  We were compelled to read on to find out and as the book progressed we discovered the answer to that question.

One of the things I really liked about the book was that it doesn't teach children what to believe.  Instead it teaches them how to do their own logical, step by step research to figure out what the truth is.  Also the book gives children a realistic expectation of what may happen when they share their faith with others.  Not everyone they speak the truth to will just automatically accept it.  I think the book did a great job explaining that.  I also loved the definitions that were included and the CSI assignments. 

On another note, I had never heard of corgi puppies before and we did some googling to learn more about them.  They are so cute and now everyone wants one!

We would definitely be interested in reading the other books in this series.  To see what my Crew Mates had to say, stop by the Crew Blog!

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