On Finding Lists of Good Books {A Review}

"The need for imagination, a sense of truth, and a feeling of responsibility-these three forces are the very nerve of education."

~Rudolf Steiner

As a literacy coordinator, I have always had an eye for books.

Books with heart-warming or inspiring stories and books with pictures that are beautiful and draw you in.

 

I was just remarking to Poppa that I'd like to find some new books for Jo-Jo. Many of the books that Ceesa and I read together when she was younger were books that Jo-Jo remembers hearing as well. A few days later, I received Make Way for Reading: Great Books for Kindergarten through Grade 8 from Michaelmas Press. 

The book is set up with lists and lists of books that are appropriate for different grade bands with an overview to each section. It includes additional sections with biographies, mythology, legends and folklore, celebrations, games, music, crafts and other activities, and an appendix with additional information.

The editor, Karen Latimer, says in the introduction, "The choice of reading material for children is too important to be left to random luck or chance" and books "inspire faith in the future, reveal the human spirit, widen the sense of self, nurture values, illumine history, and natural science-and lead to a lifelong love of reading."

 

I can't wait to get to the library to check out many of the stories that are new to us. Happy hunting to you as you choose those stories that lead to a "lifelong love of reading."

Wishing you homeschool blessings,
Bethany

Disclaimer:  I received a free copy of this book from Michaelmas Press in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way. All opinions I have expressed are my own or those of my family. I am disclosing this in accordance with the FTC Regulations.

Joyful Moments: Working at the sink

Join us for Joyful Moments

at Little Homeschool Blessings.

This week we've found joy here...

 

 What brings joy to you and yours? We’d be honored to share in it.

Joyful Moments are at the heart of our homeschool.

We'd love to see the Joyful Moments in your home. Whether you homeschool or not, feel free to join in every Thursday! Then visit the other links and see Joyful Moments from other places! Just add our button and link up in the comments.

 

Wishing you homeschool blessings,

Bethany

Quintus Fabius Maximus

Quintus Fabius Maximus lived about 280–203 BC. Rome was ruled by elected men called consuls. Usually two men ruled at once. Quintus Fabius Maximus was elected by the Roman people out of terror from Hannibal, an excellent general from Carthage and rival of Rome.

Fabius courtesy of Wikipedia

Fabius was nicknamed Warty and Lamb as a boy and even as an adult he took things slow and steady.

We are using AO's notes for our study of Fabius and the set the backdrop: the chapters Picking a Fight and The Boot Kicks and Stamps from A Child's History of the World by V.M. Hillyer.

Wishing you homeschool blessings,
Bethany

Johann Sebastian Bach

Our composer for this term is Johann Sebastian Bach.

We will be studying:
Brandenburg Concerto no. 2
St. Matthew Passion
Toccata and Fugue in d minor
Well-Tempered Clavier
Goldberg Variations

These are the resources we're using:
Bach Composer Study
Johann Sebastian Bach : The story of the boy who sang in the streets by Tapper
Classics for kids
Bach Composer Study Resources

Wishing you homeschool blessings,
Bethany

Jacob van Ruisdael Study

For the next 6 weeks,

we will be studying three works from

Jacob van Ruisdael (around 1628-1682), a Dutch painter

from the Golden Age.

He created landscape paintings.

Two Watermills and an Open Sluice near Singraven, 1650-52

View of Haarlem with Bleaching Grounds, c.1665

Windmill at Wijk bij Duurstede, c. 1670

Wishing you homeschool blessings,

Bethany

The Delicous Smells that Fill our Kitchen {A Review}

Growing up, I did not enjoy soups.

We rarely ate them and generally then only vegetable soup.

In fact, my dear momma made up a game to get us to eat it.

A few years ago I wrote about it...

Vegetable Soup

Cans of carrots

Cans of beans

Cans of corn

Potatoes and peas

No one likes to eat it

Unless we play the game

So your turn is first 

And then it's mine

How much of what?

Yuck, four whole peas

Now for me, that's easy

Two potatoes please

And now

We go back around

Because no one will eat it

Unless it's a game. 

As I've become an adult and had my own dear children,

I've grown very fond of soups.

My own little ones get very excited to eat soups,

especially with homemade bread.

Well, the lovely folks at Steiner Books

sent us a copy of The Waldorf School Book of Soups.

I will admit, I was positively giddy.

Ceesa told Poppa later that Momma was so excited

that she just smiled and smiled.

I will tell you this book provides a delicious collection of soups. My very favorite section may just be the stocks. What a wonderful set of recipes for making stock to "re-mineralize" and "re-energize."

I have made stock before, but I didn't know that you should

crack the bones or add vinegar. We try to eat healthy, using as much organic, locally grown foods as possible (we grow a lot). We rarely eat fast food and only eat out once or twice a month. I make soup or stew at least once a week, but I found some of the studies on nutrition amazing...like the "minerals from bone, cartilage, marrow, and vegetables" are terrific for both the blood and thyroid and are released when cooking stock.

There are some very unique soups listed; for example, ox-tail soup, egg and lemon chicken soup, cold soups, and dessert soups. We started with the Chickpea, Tomato, and Pasta Soup.

Just delicious!

Because in our home it is true

that our..."kitchen's at the heart of all family activities."

Wishing you homeschool blessings,
Bethany

Disclaimer:  I received a free copy of this book through Steiner Books in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way. All opinions I have expressed are my own or those of my family. I am disclosing this in accordance with the FTC Regulations.

Joyful Moments: On the sticks that led to hours of play

Join us for Joyful Moments

at Little Homeschool Blessings.

This week we've found joy here...

 What brings joy to you and yours? We’d be honored to share in it.

Joyful Moments are at the heart of our homeschool.

We'd love to see the Joyful Moments in your home. Whether you homeschool or not, feel free to join in every Thursday! Then visit the other links and see Joyful Moments from other places! Just add our button and link up in the comments.

 

Wishing you homeschool blessings,

Bethany

The Beauty of Felted Food: Strawberries, Ravioli, Eggs, and Carrot

In recent weeks, I have been reading

up on incorporating more beauty into our school and our home.

I have to confess our children are spoiled. We have a large family and although Poppa and I don't buy a lot of toys (no birthday presents* and only three Christmas presents each**), the kids get more than you can possibly imagine from our loving families. So the play room is full, I mean sometimes it's hard to walk through it, full of toys.

In an effort to downsize, I've used Sarah Baldwin's list of questions for toys. This makes it easier to decide what to bag up and what to keep.

1. Is it beautiful?
2. Does it feel good (made with natural materials)?
3. Does it leave room for the imagination?
4. Will it inspire creative play?
5. Is it open-ended (can it be used in more than one way)?

As I was on my third garbage bag of toys,

Jo-Jo said, "Momma where did all of the food go?"

Umm...well...it was all plastic, it could only be used one way,

so what was I to do?

I came up with a 6th question.

This one isn't for purchasing new toys,

but instead for weeding through the toys you already have.

6) Can it be replaced with something that meets the criteria?

And so our felt food was born. I looked around for some ideas to get started, but we didn't use a pattern. We just went about the suggestions. And what did we end up with? Beautiful, soft, play food from natural materials to be used in as many imaginary ways as my little blessings can find to use them. 

*Birthdays-We do a party for our large family and friends, then we do something special for the child that our family can do together. This year for birthdays we went ice skating, to the beach, and to a science museum. It's a different place every year and different for every child. But it is special and we're together.

**Christmas-Each child has 3 gifts: a school type gift, a gift that is just for fun, and a gift that helps them grow closer to God. The stockings get stuffed with homemade gifts from each member of the family. 

~For almost everything, we have a 3 day rule. It belongs to the person that received it 3 days and then it belongs to the entire family. There are some exceptions: special dollies, bedtime snugglies, etc.

Wishing you homeschool blessings,

Bethany

Watercolor...Lighthouse, Water, and Mountains

We used the last few weeks to work with watercolors.

Our first project was to paint the lighthouse

that we visited a few weeks before.

Jo-Jo

Momma

Ceesa

Jo-Jo chose to make her lighthouse off-center.

I'm not sure why, but what an interesting affect it makes.

Then we painted scenes with water.

Jo-Jo

Ceesa

Momma

I love Ceesa's cat sitting in the window. We don't have pets because Poppa has terrible allergies that make him absolutely miserable and I think it is so observant of Ceesa to add it.

And finally it was on to a mountain scene.

Momma

Ceesa

Jo-Jo

Ceesa's ocean and mountain scenes were looking through windows. It's like two pictures in one. I'm not sure what the inspiration was for looking through the windows. She has been memorizing Tennyson's poem Early Spring. And tried to capture the last two stanzas in the inside of her mountain picture.

I looked at Jo-Jo's mountain picture for a long time, as you should with good art. My focus was on identifying the blue in the right hand corner. Then it occurred to me. The mountain has ice melt running from spring to ocean. Just like our landscape box we made.

Wishing you homeschool blessings,

Bethany

On A Symphony of Whales

Ceesa: "Mom. There are things in this book that they did not tell about."

Momma: "Did you read the stuff in the back?"

Ceesa: "Who would NOT want to read an author's note?"

Momma: Grinning from ear to ear...

Wishing you homeschool blessings,

Bethany

The Old Schoolhouse Magazine {A Review}

I still remember one of the first articles I read from The Old Schoolhouse Magazine. It talked about the illusion of "me" time and how that time would be better spent not alone, but with God.

I related to the mother that said "me" time was not refreshing, but instead made her feel resentful-there was never enough of it and her focus was on that time even when she was just back to her family. That was when I knew, this magazine had something special, something that would inspire me and others.

Shortly afterwards, I had my own opportunity to write an article for the magazine. It was a true blessing to work with them.

This week, when I was asked to review The Old Schoolhouse Magazine’s November Issue (it is published monthly), I was thrilled at the great privilege to review a magazine that I fully respect.

The November issue is filled to the brim with lots of practical advice and wisdom for homeschoolers focused on the Lord:

*parents-inspiration for those days when the daily grind gets you down, being positive where you are in your journey and with what you have, being a hero to your children, simplifying, organizing a cleaning habit, and filling up your own knowledge base
*homeschooling family life-home life, schedules, and struggling learners
*character building-manners, faithfulness, expectations, and gratitude 
*community-the impact of utilizing community resources, Amish values, sharing God's love by reaching out to others, inspirational lives, and creating your own Heroes of the Faith day
*the arts- a study of portraits, music in classical education, support for teaching music, framing to understand the Psalms
learning and teaching-focusing on how to learn, toys to learn with, Amish springboards, and free music resources
*writing-poetry's influence on writing, writing excellent reports, write poetry based on songs, incorporating the poetry into your school, and poetry recitation
*suggestions-curriculum and gift ideas
*Christmas-displays and de-cluttering

In our home, school is fueled by literacy. It is not uncommon to find a child curled up with a book and a blanket and sometimes a flashlight into the wee hours of the night, or you might see two heads bent over the pages of a beautifully illustrated picture book, or the whole lot of us piled on the sofa cuddling together with a stack of books to read through.

So it's no wonder I was drawn to the articles on poetry, immersion, memorization, and writing.
Jessica Halcy's realization..."I could NOT teach my children all the information they would need in life and furthermore, I did NOT HAVE TO teach them everything they needed." from The Gift of How to Learn speaks volumes to me about the desire I have long felt for my children to be interested in learning for learning's sake, no matter the topic. Just information is useless, true learning is in the application of what you've learned.

Amy Barr, Dari Mullins, and Maggie Hogan provide excellent tips for memorizing poetry and suggestions for how to incorporate poetry into our lives in Muses, Music, and Memorization, Pursuing Poetry, and Bringing Back Lost Arts. Around here we read poetry daily and do weekly recitations, so the articles really rang true for our family and the ideas have given me inspiration for how to keep encouraging poetic eyes, ears, hands, and hearts!

When I read Lessons from Moses: How to Teach our Children to Give Excellent Reports by Zan Tyler, I found myself reading whole sections aloud to my husband. Who had thought everything we needed to teach our children to write reports is to be found in Numbers? And The Music of Language: How Poetry can Benefit the Aspiring Writer by Amelia Harper explains how writing poetry can improve all other aspects of writing by helping "cut the 'dead wood' out of your work" and how "poetry helps you develop a feel for the rhythm of language."

Grab a cup of tea and dig in. Happy Reading!

Wishing you homeschool blessings,
Bethany

Every issue of TOS is free and is also available through a free app at www.TOSApps.com. This review was written for http://schoolhousereviewcrew.com .

Disclaimer:  I received a free copy of this product through the Schoolhouse Review Crew in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way. All opinions I have expressed are my own or those of my family. I am disclosing this in accordance with the FTC Regulations.

Our First Work with Felt

For several years,

I have admired the art of felting.

However, I have been hesitant to get started.

The work I've seen has been so beautiful

and I hoped to be able to capture

some of that beauty.

To find some way to share it with my

dear, sweet children.

Like so many others things

that I have never done before,

I jumped in with both feet.

We looked at a couple of tutorials,

purchased wool roving

and felting needles (my are they sharp!).

And we were off.

I hope you enjoy the pictures

as much as we enjoyed making

the pieces...



Wishing you homeschool blessings,

Bethany