BJU Press Reading Review- Book 3B

From time to time we used this book last year in NyGirl's second grade.  I can honestly say that I wish more readers were as pleasant for young children as these beautiful "classics", as I like to call them.

This BJU Press Reader is  full of stories which remind me of the wholesome readers I kept lying around my room as a once third-grader bookworm.  They are Christian-based, deliver wholesome content, and promote purity and godly character in young children.

Can you blame me for liking this little book?

There are a series of BJU Press Readers for Christian Schools, which range in grade levels (1-6).  I happened to stumble upon the 3B at a used book sale and thought I would try it out in our school last year.  We started off pretty structured on when I would introduce the stories to her each week...

...that is, until NyGirl decided to take off with the book and read all of the stories on her own.

I did, however, receive the pleasure of reading some of them out loud to her.

Book 3B is divided into 3 content sections.  Each section focuses on a particular topic, such as "A New Land" (covering stories on the beginnings of America), "Creatures Great and Small" (covers stories about animals) and "Treasures" (a collection of wonderful stories about missionaries, God's provision, and other beautiful stories).  There are about 10-14 stories underneath each category topic, so you'll be guaranteed (if you pace it out, unlike us!) a school year of wholesome little short stories to introduce to your younger children.

As I don't have older children, I have not seen the books for upper grades (5a-6b) so I cannot adequately describe these and how they work...but if they are anything like the lower grade books, you couldn't grow with content- especially if you are a Christian parent looking for pure stories which strengthen godly character in your children.

Our new dry erase markers

I found them, I found them!

Okay, so maybe I am a little too excited about some dry erase markers.  But we've been having fun with these and they are low odor.  Makes school a lot easier for us when we don't deal with itchy eyes and allergic reactions to the strong marker fumes.

For low odor and reducing allergic reactions, try these dry erase low odor expo markers. Someone else on The Homeschool Channel was telling me about a set of marker board markers that were free of harmful chemicals.  Of course, I am not going to stop here at the Expo dry erase and look into the chemical free markers at some point.

We've been finding ourselves marker board fanatics these past few weeks, only because we haven't been able to use it for what feels like centuries!  What with my active 1 year old a year ago, there was no way we could do a "sit still at the table and write your answers on the marker board" kind of school...

...uh...not that we do that now...BUT...

like I said, it's fun just getting to do something we normally wouldn't have done much a year ago.

Storynory for Kids

NyGirl LOVES Storynory.  My daughter sat at the computer for an hour, completely mesmerized by the audio stories available at this site.

This website is awesome on too many levels.

First of all, this site is a collection of stories for young children which vary in  genre, from classics to fairytales.  There are educational stories as well, bible stories, stories about the saints, and even original stories.  If you have much younger children, they might enjoy stories from the "junior" category.

Click on the story you like, then click on the play button to listen to it.  The storyteller has a wonderfully soothing reading voice, which would suit children really well.

The best part about this site (besides it being FREE) is that these are quick and easy access to audio stories like the classics (Alice in Wonderland, Dickens stories, poetry, and Rudyard Kipling stories) that I have been meaning to introduce to my daughter but just never had time to sit down and do those "read-alouds".  Even if they aren't available at my local library  in CD or mp3 download, I have them available right here at this site.

Not to mention, my two year old enjoys The Three Little Pigs and Little Red Riding Hood.

I always say, if you can't get a child to read, you can at least get him to listen to a story.

Storynory is a wonderful online audio resource for enchanting our kids with reading. And for our kids who are already reading, this is a great online resource to help introduce them to classic literature they may have never chosen to read on their own.  Plus, it builds their imagination.

NyGirl can't wait to  hear what will happen next on Alice in Wonderland.

Story of the World curriculum review

We began our 2nd semester kindergarten with Story of the World, Volume 1.  We were attempting our lifestyle at a classical education that year, and this curriculum pick for history seemed a good fit at the time.  We got midway through the curriculum and enjoyed many of the hands-on activities.  They were all read-alouds, and since my child enjoyed that kind of thing, it went well (me reading out loud to her each story).  We did the accompanying activity pages and coloring sheets, and the fun projects.  For example when we studied ancient Africa, we dressed up in African clothing that day and cooked a traditional African meal.  Fun :-)  By the middle of the book, though, the chapters began to address the Greeks and their culture of pagan god worship.  This is where we ended our studies in this book, since I was not interested in introducing Zeus, Venus and the rest to my child.  We have moved on since to enjoy Robin Sampson's history materials as well as Christian Liberty Press and Bob Jones University.

Math U See Primer Curriculum Review

We used the Math U See Primer during our kindergarten year.  I was pregnant, tired, and a wee bit loopy, so I needed a good math program that was easy for my 5 year old, yet challenging enough to keep her up/ahead of grade level.  I also needed for it to be ALMOST teacher-free. 

This curriculum answered my prayers.  I remember lying on the couch at 81/2 months pregnant while Mr. Demme taught my daughter math!  It was great to have a math curriculum which came with an instructional DVD (where someone ELSE was the instructor), at least for that season of my life.  NyGirl learned a lot in math that year - counting by 1's, 5's, 10's, telling time, basic addition and subtraction, skip counting, etc.

So You’re Thinking About Homeschooling by Lisa Welchel- a Youtube VideoBook Review

This book (SO You're Thinking About Homeschooling) has helped me to see the home educating family from different perspectives.

I think one of the beauties of homeschooling is that there are such a wide array of people and types of families that are home educating.  And we do it in SO many different ways.

I am one of those folks that LOVE to watch documentaries.  From time to time I even stumble upon a reality tv show that I sort of like...  (the more wholesome ones, though, like 19 Kids and Counting...just to clear that up!)

The reason I like documentaries?

I am into PEOPLE.  Different lifestyles.  Different ways of thinking, modes of living.  Cultural differences.

All of this stuff intrigues me.

So, it goes to say that I am joyfully intrigued by any book or movie or podcast or YouTube channel, for that matter, that introduces me to DIFFERENT homeschooling families - and not just around the U.S., but around the globe.

That is one of the very reasons I enjoyed reading this book by Lisa Welchel.

I did a short review on the book on my YouTube channel.  Check it out, and leave me  a comment, rate, subscribe...all that stuff !  Thanks for watching.

Explorers Bible Study Curriculum Review

(*****NOTE**** I apologize but this review has been lost during a web server shift.  I will do my best to do a brand new review soon.

Sorry!!  Thanks for your patience.)

Create Video Montages

So you don't know what to do with all those digital pics?
We have that problem in our home...and for school it's a huge deal for us.
Since we love to digitally snap anything in sight and archive what we are doing at the spur of any moment, having a way to archive all those digital pics (besides blogging) would be a real plus.

So, here is a free online tool anyone can use to create video montages of your photos and pics. Simply upload pictures, add music and effects, and voila. You have code to embed in your blog and share with family and friends.

Check out One True Media on creating these videos.

The Jewish Children’s Learning Network

I found this really neat site: Akhlah. There is a Hebrew letter of the day and Parsha of the week available (plus lots of games, puzzles, and more). By the way, Parsha is simply the weekly reading of the Torah divided up into the weeks of the year. For messianics, it also includes the Haftarah and Brit Chadasha (the complete old testament and new testament, respectively) readings.

It might be important to note on this particular site that in place of "God" the name "Hashem" is used (many observant Jews will not spell out the entire name of God out of respect in keeping His name holy, and therefore will use Hashem, which means literally "The Name", in place of Elohim, Adonai, Jehovah, or YHWH). Depending on how comfortable you are with introducing your children to this level of jewishness, you may want to skim through the site and see what fits your family best.

I love the aleph bet (Hebrew alphabet) presentation.  Kids can practice writing using script or block print, hear the pronunciation of each letter, and color a coloring page.  You can also print out flashcards.

For even more resources, this site offers info on Jewish history, heroes (like the patriarchs- Abraham, Isaac, etc.), Jewish traditions, info on Israel, and holiday info for kids, including songs for Shabbat (sabbath).

This is a very culturally rich site filled with info for any family wishing to do an in depth study on Hebrew roots especially for young children.  Even if you are not Jewish, depending on your family/school goals, you can incorporate some of this into your lessons if you were doing a unit study on the Jews.

 As a Christian believer looking into Hebrew roots of my faith, this fit in pretty well for our home school.

Bible For Children

If you have been looking for a different way to approach telling bible stories to your children, here is a neat little site that has bible stories children can both read (or be read to) with full colorful pictures.

THe girls have been enjoying these bible stories.

Typically I will let my 7 year old read them on her own or outloud to me as she scrolls through the pages.  The pages are in PDF and can also be printed out on a separate link to use as coloring pages.

Stories are both Old and New Testaments and are translated in about 35 different languages, including (English, of course), Swahili, French,  German, Portugues. Indonesian...and more!

Bible For Children does all of this for FREE because they believe in the value of spreading the Gospel message to children that normally wouldn't have access to it.

On their website, they list their goal for BFC:

These Bible Stories are to be distributed to the 1.8 billion children of the world freely wherever possible.

We have been enjoying this website in our home school, and I thought I would just pass this along.

BibleForChildren.org

Enjoy!

Voicethread For Educators

Voicethread is an excellent tool I just found online, as I've stated in one of my last posts...I plan to use it for NyGirl's study on the Solar System to help her present her work.

Here's a video on the VoiceThread website which shows what it does: http://voicethread.com/#home.b409.i848804

Essentially, you can upload documents or images your student has created (or that you the teacher have created) into a sort of slideshow, and create a voiceover narration for each slide. Then others comment on your slides and documents either by voice or text.

I am so excited that I want to create my first VoiceThread right now, but I am waiting until NyGirl has created most of her slides on the planets in Power Point first. The cool thing about VoiceThread is that it accepts different formats of uploads, or you can find images through the New York Public Library (integrated already in the system).
The possibilities are endless for educators. We can have our students use it for online projects, helping them to develop presentations that get "reviewed" worldwide. We can use them as teacher-to-teacher education, creating content that teaches others how to do things...or we can create materials online for older students to learn as well.
We'll see if this is something we enjoy.

Using Issuu to Create Digital Learning Portfolios

There is a really cool website I've been enjoying for a few years that takes your PDF files and converts them to flip-style online magazines or presentations.

Check out ISSUU.com.


I've used this for my other websistes before, but never thought about using it to digitize ALL that paperwork we've accumulated during our home school.

Well...DUH!  My solution for classwork paper management was in front of me the entire time!

So I've recently begun a project to scrap all paper clutter and digitize nearly all of my daughter's school work (except a few exceptional, "can't bear to part with it" paper stuff).  All of her artwork will be not only kept in a hardbound cover at home, but digitized as well.

I'll be sure to keep posted here at the blog about how our paper digitization goes (or doesn't go).

Meanwhile, here's a peak at our History, Geography, and Social Studies portfolio.  This is NyGirl's portfolio, for grades K-1.  It doesn't include everything we've done, but it shows a good bit of the paperwork we've completed last year.