Homeschooling – Page 6

Zonderkidz Faith Builders Bible — Perfect Lego Lovers Easter Basket Gift

I received the Faith Builders Bible from Zonderkidz in exchange for a fair review. I don’t think it’s possible for me to give a fair review on anything related to Legos and the Bible, however, because I think they’re both awesome. My son agrees. Still, all opinions are my own…and my son’s.

Do you have or know a child?

Yes. Continue. No. Go make pie.

Does said child like Legos or any other creative building toy?

Yes. Continue. No. Go make pie.

Do you want to find new and fun ways for that child to “own” Scripture?

Yes. Continue. Let’s just assume you’ve all said yes at this point, partly because I’m out of pie links.

You need to take a look at the Zonderkidz Faith Builders Bible. When I say “need,” I mean your life will continue without it, but not quite at the same level of awesomeness.

Meet Elijah.

He’s 10. You’ve watched him grow up here at The Simple Homemaker and over at The Travel Bags. He is a Lego maniac. He’s also a Bible maniac. We’ve had to limit the number of Bibles and Legos he could have, since we live in such a small space.

This was Elijah’s face when we received the Faith Builders Bible:

This will be your child’s face also if you share this lovely Bible with them, say, in an Easter basket later this month.

**What’s to love about the Faith Builders Bible?**

You know, honestly, it’s a Bible. There’s nothing new or different about the Scripture itself, which is part of the beauty of Scripture–the truths are timeless, never changing unless we dolts change it ourselves. What the Faith Builders Bible does is add a new way of involving the child with a Bible story or truth on a hands-on, intimate level.

How does it involve the child?

Throughout the Bible are two-sided glossy pages depicting a Bible scene built entirely out of Legos…or Lego knock-offs, but let’s let laziness dictate and call them Legos. They’re super fun to look at, and I find my kids spending long stretches of time investigating one picture. (It’s also rather addicting to study the images closely and find things like Princess Leia’s head and Luke Skywalker’s torso, but I somehow don’t think that was the point of the project.)

Even more fun and beneficial is recreating the Bible scenes. Because we have an extremely limited Lego collection on the road, our constructions end up almost entirely grey (Elijah mostly has Star Wars sets in the trailer), but that’s not the point. The point is this:

By reading the story and spending several minutes to an hour creating scenes from the Bible, the kids are truly integrating the story into their lives. They’re dwelling on it and making it their own.

Hmmm…that sounds familiar.

Psalm 119:15: “I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways.”

Meditate from the Hebrew hagah means to muse, which is definitely what my children are doing when they spend time carefully replicating the details of the story and telling it with their blocks. It’s a beautiful thing, even in shades of Star Wars gray.

What do the children think?

Straight from the mouth of Elijah:

“I think it’s really cool. but it needs more pictures.”

(See my “cons” below.)

He also said this:

“It would be a lot more awesome if it came with a little pack of Legos and instructions to build one of the stories.”

While I partly agree, further thought made me realize that we have become an instruction-oriented society. When my brothers were small, they created Lego worlds out of the unique and often twisted recesses of their minds, not out of a put-brick-A-on-brick-B instruction guide…and they’re brilliant (totally because of the lack of Lego instruction manuals, I’m sure)!

It has been a wonderful and much-needed stretch for Elijah to not have the proper tools and instruction to replicate these creations, but to have to adapt…because we certainly don’t have any practice adapting. Ahem. Ten people…cough cough…30-foot travel trailer…cough cough…six daughters…cough…one bathroom….

That said, this gives me a fantastic idea for filling an Easter basket: some mini-figures, some pieces that aren’t gray, the Faith Builders Bible, and lots of chocolate. Done.

How can roadschoolers or homeschoolers use this?

Here are some ways we’ve used or scheduled to use the Builder’s Bible in our homeschool/roadschool/life:

Memorize, discuss, and apply I Thessalonians 5:11–Therefore, encourage one another and build each other up.
Study Creation and have your children “create” whatever they want as if they were making the world–no criticism, no rules…except no eating Legos.
Make animals for the ark.
Discuss and build a mansion in heaven based on the verse II Corinthians 5:1.
Tackle any Bible story and recreate it with Legos.
Have the child re-tell the Bible story to an older sibling or parent or teach the Bible story to a youngling.
Read a Bible story, share the related picture, pour out a pile of Legos, and trust your children–the rest will take care of itself.
Memorize the “building block verse” that comes with each picture page; use it for recitations and copywork.
Display a story each week, either those pictured that you recreate or others. Keep it set up in a prominent place to encourage the “musing.”
Memorize the books of the Bible using the fun technique in the beginning of the book.
Memorize the verses and build the creations in the front of The Faith Builders Bible (see the image below). My kids had a blast with that…but I didn’t take pictures–sorry.

What are the added bonuses?

Besides the Lego pages, the Faith Builders Bible has these:

a glossary (or, as they call it, a dictionary),
an index of “great Bible stories,”
a presentation page, and
an explanation of the translation…which may only be exciting for geeks like me.

Are there any cons?

There are no cons, per se, but if I were to have made this Bible, I would have changed a few things.

First, I would have offered just a teeny bit more guidance, because, let’s face it, we are an instruction-oriented world. I would have had two or three “how to make this cool thing” pages to show how to make, say, a cross, a manger, and a tomb…or maybe that adorable sheep they have in the front pages.

Second, I would have provided a list of suggested uses in the front of the book, like my list above, but about four pages long. But that’s because I’m bossy. Grin.

Third, I may (or may not) have expanded on the “try this” ideas. Some of the pages encourage the kids to build something specific, but most don’t, which is completely fine. While we are a creative family, sometimes I just want someone to tell me what to tell them to do…and right now I want someone to fix that convoluted sentence and this wishy washy suggestion for me. This isn’t really a con.

Fourth, I always want more of a good thing–more pictures, more scenes, more stories illustrated, more cookies. This isn’t really a con either. Two cons just seemed so half-hearted, you know.

What about the translation?

The Faith Builders Bible is the New International Readers Version translation, which the notes explain went back to the original Greek and Hebrew for accuracy. My kids (and I…silently) were annoyed by what they (and I…silently) perceived as “dumbing down,” but the book specifically states that it is intended for new readers or people new to the English language.

With that in mind, the kids (and I…vocally) gave it two thumbs up as an ideal choice for a first Bible…although they’re still diehard 1984 NIV fans and think all kids should read big words.

Overall…

The whole family gives the Zonderkidz Faith Builders Bible two thumbs way, way up. It is one book that will not be purged from our trailer.

Go buy the Bible and fill some baskets. I’m outta here…I have chocolate on the brain and have to hunt some down before I dive into those Easter bunnies I shouldn’t have snagged early. You know I jest.

By the way, here’s what other folks have to say about the Faith Builders Bible:

Faith Builders Bible {Zonderkidz Review}

Teach Your Kids About the Election Process {Homeschool Review}

Just so you know: I was given a free download of HISTORY Through the Ages Hands-on History Lap-Pak: U.S. Elections by the amazing Home School in the Woods to review. All opinions are my own–okay, that’s a lie. Some of the opinions are actually my kids’, but rest assured that they’re not easily influenced…except by chocolate.

Anyone who knows my roadschooling/life approach knows I am totally into simple. Simple to me involves no printing, photocopying, or gathering of supplies. It means not following directions for numerous little projects. It means not having activities to store for later use and assembly. After all, the ten of us (twelve if you count the furbies) occupy 240 square feet of living space (360 if you count our van)!

That right there is why I do not do lapbooks. Still, when we were given the chance to study the election process by reviewing HISTORY Through the Ages Hands-on History Lap-Pak: U.S. Elections from Home School in the Woods, I bit. After all, two of our girls are voting in their first election this year, and our younger children are asking a lot of questions. I wanted to do the election study with my first, fourth, seventh, and ninth graders and my preschool tag-along in place of our regular U.S, history and government studies, even though it meant suffering through what I was certain would be a home-cluttering, time-sucking lapbook process.

Grimace.

Hold that thought.

Before I get into the lapbooking process and projects, I want to talk about the information that comes with the elections lapbook, because, ultimately, it’s about the learning experience. Right? Right. The “text” is fantastic! The information is succinct, interesting, and informative. It’s well-written and respectful, accessible, but not dumbed down. It is also not politically biased…although I am, so don’t expect that same courtesy here. Wink.

After overhearing a few of our classes, my 17-year-old college freshman said, “Hey, I’m picking up a few things I didn’t know!” Ditto here!

My lapbook was available through digital download, but you can also get the disc. The text can then be printed on regular paper and popped in a binder or printed according to easy-to-follow-even-if-you-were-up-all-night-with-a-baby directions and formed into little booklets. We made the booklets by copying the pages on different colors (because everyone has a favorite) and sewing the binding together with darning needles and embroidery floss…even the four-year-old. We popped holes in the book for her to sew through, and she did the rest on her own with a little tying help from a big sister.

I was pleasantly pleased with the depth of the election study, and I highly recommend it for your grade-schoolers. You get that, right? But the question for our lifestyle (roadschoolers, space-challenged, budget-conscious, clutter-phobic) is the feasibility of lapbooking.

I was right–lapbooking involves printing, copying, many papers, projects in progress, storing papers, organizing papers, gluing, taping, cutting. Grimace. I hate printing! I hate papers!

And my kids?

They…they…well…

They loved it! They loved all the projects. They loved participating in the short, but informative lessons and being set loose on the reinforcing projects. They loved all of it!

And they learned! They learned a lot, and they did their work without being told. I loved that. And, to be honest, I didn’t really mind the papers. The directions were comprehensible; the activities were fun; the papers didn’t haunt my dreams in the night. I know–humble pie. I truly enjoyed our elections lapbook project with my side of pie.

Here is how we handled the lapbooks in our limited space:

I bit the bullet and jumped in with both feet–wow, double cliche! All papers were printed at once, copied in quadruplicate, separated by lesson, and marked with post-it notes so I could grab the pages I needed for the lesson quickly and easily. I kept them all together with a binding clip in my school briefcase. (It’s not really a briefcase, but that sounds nice and official, doesn’t it?)
With each lesson the projects (sometimes multiple, since we discussed lessons without their corresponding projects on driving days and tackled the projects on stationary days) were passed out and put in that child’s paper binding clip. The kids kept those inside their binders, schoolbags, or organizer boxes, depending on their preferences.
Completed projects were kept in a gallon-size Ziploc bag…technically a Great Value bag, but who wants to get technical?
Because we don’t have all the supplies most families do, and can’t really buy them due to budget and storage constraints, we didn’t do the projects exactly as described, but, to quote every other homeschooler on the planet who has, at times, not followed directions, “Isn’t that the beauty of homeschooling?”
Projects were attached to three-hole-punched card stock and kept in the kids’ binders. Why such a “normal” approach? Because we have very little shelf space, and it is “rummaged” every day. To keep the lapbook pages nice and accessible, they need to be protected. Therefore, binders.

By the way, this is what a completed lapbook is supposed to look like…had we followed the directions:

Am I a convert to lapbooks? Yes and no. I will not be using them on a consistent basis, because the kids do need to spread out to do their projects, and there is too much paper involved and space required for our travel trailer livin’. (This would probably be more feasible for a more organized mama or someone in a house that doesn’t move.) On the other hand, I am definitely going to start including them more often, especially the well written lapbooks from Home School in the Woods.

Why?

The kids really learned!
They love doing the projects.
I love that they can do projects relatively independently and reinforce what they learned in the lesson in a fun manner.
I love the creativity exhibited.
While there was a considerable amount of initial prep, there wasn’t a huge amount of work on a daily basis.
It’s a great shift in the dynamic of the week. We rushed the study for the review purposes, but if we were to have spread this out over a few months, it would have been a perfect speed, and would have offered something different and fun to do each week, especially leading up to the November elections. It really wasn’t overwhelming the way we did it, but it would have been perfect slowed down a bit.

I highly recommend the elections lapbook from Home School in the Woods for your grade schoolers. If paper-phobic me can do it…you’re good.

(By the way, while I included my ninth grader, she mostly participated in the discussions, and only assisted in the lapbook projects when our preschool tag-along wanted her help. She also is doing a follow-up study of Uncle Eric’s book Are You Liberal, Conservative, or Confused?)

For ideas from more traditional homeschoolers, check out what these other Schoolhouse Review Crew reviewers have to say:

Do you do lapbooks? How do you handle them?

Mostly Measurable, Manageable February Goals

How did you do on your January goals?

If you did great, great! If you overdid your goals, cut back for February. Remember, make it manageable.

Remember the ridiculously obvious rules for our mostly measurable, manageable monthly goals:

They should be mostly measurable.
It’s manageable.
It’s a monthly goal.

My list is shorter this month than last, because–confession time–I overdid it last month. And because my baby is at mobile stage which makes life trickier…and so crazy fun!

Here are my mostly measurable manageable monthly goals for February:

Family Habits

Breakfast Bible: finish reading Mark aloud.
Monthly family manner: eye contact. We’re still working on this one.
Monthly family home care habit: keeping the van clean. Because we live on the road, we have a road trip every couple of days. If we don’t clean it every single time, it gets out of control.
Monthly character trait: practice finding the positives. This was something we started last year, but it’s going to continue.
Prayer: continue strengthening the family prayer habit.

Family Fun

Have one game night focused on the older group.
Have one game night focused on the younger group.
Celebrate National Pizza Day on February 9.
Bake a peach pie. It’s the Year of the Pie.
Have a Filipino feast! Lumpia, adobo, pancit–I’m drooling!
Reinstate movie night elections or rotation.

Homeschooling

Write two letters each…including mama!
Continue reading aloud The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain.
Teach omelet skills.
Hannah: Continue monthly goal sessions; edit her completed articles. (She writes faster than I edit these days, so I’m behind.) Also continue query class.
Marissa: Find a testing center in Sacramento for two college tests.
Order books for test prep for Marissa’s upcoming management classes.
Complete the Homeschool in the Woods elections study with middle five.
Launch Henty’s Dragon and the Raven study with everybody! So fun!
Start Here to Help Teaching’s writing lessons with Elijah (10) and Rebecca (7).
Continue Schoolhouse Teacher’s Charlotte Mason preschool with Eliana (4).
Continue Slow and Steady, Get Me Ready with Judah (6 months).

Music Mission

Write March 2016 newsletter.
Continue 2016 thank you notes.
Update subscriber list.

Health

Work dog and self up to 30 minute walks by the end of the month.
Continue the two-a-week treat limit in churches
Add seven foods back into my diet. I’m on a total elimination diet for my nursing baby, and I’m currently up to ten foods I can eat.
Find a supplement that works for my baby–just do it!
Make two family dessert night treats that Hannah can eat. (No dairy, grains, sugar, processed anything.)
Continue food/symptom journal.
Schedule a doctor’s appointment–a major phobia of mine.

Writing

Write four non-sponsored, non-review posts here…for you lovely people! This counts as one. Hooray!
Write three posts at The Travel Bags.
Draft my article assignment for Pregnancy & Newborn magazine.
Write a post for Homeschooling with Heart blog.
Send one pitch. Done!
Edit one chapter in my book.

Personal

Beginning Ash Wednesday, read 40 Days of Decrease.
Read Trumbull’s Hints on Child Training.
Read Nagel’s Cure Tooth Decay.
Read G. K. Chesterton’s The Innocence of Father Brown (free Kindle version here). Elisabeth read it, and I like to keep up with my kids, in case topics need discussing, and because it’s fun.
Journal weekly.
Smile more.
Master omelets from America’s Test Kitchen Cooking School Cookbook.
Continue deleting emails and unsubscribing and don’t sign up for any new subscriptions all month…or else.

What are your goals for February?

Connecting Children to Their Heritage…With Pie

It’s my grandfather’s birthday. He would have been 91 today if he weren’t already in the arms of Jesus. So today we had two lemon meringue pies for breakfast.

I can see you’re not following me. Let me jump back a few decades.

Grandpa’s birthday is January 29; mine is February 1. I grew up on Grandpa’s farm. He was the father I always wanted, and of all the people on God’s green earth, he is one of those I love best. Every year at the weekend that fell closest to January 29 and February 1, my mom would bake a two-layer poppy seed cake with custard in the middle and seven-minute frosting for me, and a lemon meringue pie for Grandpa. Grandpa’s sister and her husband (my godparents) would come either to his house or ours, and we would all eat Mom’s classic meal of delicious lasagna, amazing potato rolls, and Grandpa’s favorite fruit salad. We’d sing and open presents and have pie and cake with the frosting scraped off (of mine) and wash it all down with tall glasses of cold Wisconsin milk.

That was one of my (many) favorite times, sitting with my grandpa, smiling for Grandma’s polaroid, eating Mom’s lasagna, and watching Grandpa enjoy his pie.

Every year I share those memories with my children. They know it by heart, but they (at least act like they) love to hear it again.

And every year we try to have lemon meringue pie on January 29 and share stories about everyone’s memories of Grandpa, or Big Bubba as my children called him…although he was a slim 6’0″ and not really the Bubba type. That unusual nickname, too, is a story we share.

This annual pie baking connects my children to their heritage. Who cares? I do, and you should. Here’s why:

It’s pie.
It’s Grandpa. I love him. He is vitally important to who I am as a person. Doesn’t it make sense that I should share that with my children, if only to help them understand me a bit better?
It’s Great Grandpa–they knew him and want to remember him and share their joy and sadness and their own special, personal memories of him and their unique bonds.
Connecting to the generations that have gone before helps children see that life did not begin when they did. They are not the axis of the world and the center of the universe. There is much that went before them and much that will come after them.
Regardless of how small you are in the big picture, each person is a special, unique, valuable human being. Look how valuable Grandpa is to us, how seemingly insignificant things–like a timely scolding, a wink and a poke in the stomach, a “come on, Kid; let’s go,” or a side of peanuts and saltines with my ice cream–mattered to the generations that followed.
It gives them an anchor and a sense of belonging to something big–family, and lots of it depending how far back you can take your pie heritage.
It’s a history lesson. When was Grandpa born? When were his parents born? What was their life like?
It puts Justin Bieber and thigh gaps into perspective. Who cares about a teen idol when you talk about my great grandma delivering her firstborn in a log farmhouse at the start of the Great Depression, and about grandpa coming of age on a farm during World War II and raising teens during the 1960s. Life was different once and it will be different in the future, and Bieber’s hair will not even make the who-cares radar.
It shows how faith carries a man through all aspects of life…from birth on earth to “birth” into the next life in heaven.
It’s a time to remember and to mourn together and to rejoice together.
Did I mention the pie?

Not all my relatives are remembered with pie. Aunt Betty gets mini cheesecakes, my grandma gets her mom’s molasses cake, and my other grandpa gets chicken booyah, because he was the state booyah king. But still, the date goes on the official family calendar for what it is: Big Bubba’s Lemon Meringue Pie Day. It is anticipated and enjoyed, and the memories and lessons of an amazing life are cemented a little further.

Plus, who doesn’t want an excuse for homemade pie?

If you want to launch Family Pie Heritage celebrations, it’s simple. Put the dates on the calendar and make it happen. It doesn’t have to be anything big. Just add dessert to dinner or switch up the menu that night, or watch that person’s favorite movie that week–and share memories. Simple, but memorable.

I miss you Grandpa. We all do.

Let’s Set Some Mostly Measurable, Manageable Goals for January

This post contains affiliate links and goals. Thought you ought to know.

I don’t like New Year’s resolutions, because, for example, let’s say you resolve to fit into that size smaller jeans and find out two weeks later that you’re pregnant–celebratory fail! Let’s say it’s super important to you to quit watching television, but then your grandfather invites you to spend every Saturday, Sunday, Monday and sometimes Thursday of football season watching games with him. Are you really going to say no? And why are there so many game days anyway? You just don’t know what the day is going to bring, much less the year.

I’ve tried resolutions. I’ve tried no resolutions. At the end of the year, there’s no difference. This year, I’m trying a new tactic. I’m setting mostly measurable, manageable monthly goals. Care to join me?

Here are the ridiculously obvious rules for my mostly measurable, manageable monthly goals:

They should be mostly measurable, so “smile more” really doesn’t follow this rule…although I’m putting it on there anyway. Walk three times a week is measurable. See? Make more pie–not measurable; make a pie–totally measurable…and edible…hopefully.
It’s manageable. No stressing…which would be a goal in and of itself if it were more measurable.
It’s a monthly goal.

Don’t freak out when you see the length of this list. Most of the items are small things that I need to be more consistent about. Others are general areas of my life that need a little refocusing now that we’re heading back out on the road. Some are bigger tasks. None are radical. They are all written down or else, bam, I forget.

Here are my mostly measurable manageable monthly goals for January:

Family Habits

Breakfast Bible: finish reading Matthew aloud and begin Mark.
Monthly family manner: eye contact. There’s a post coming about this.
Monthly family home care habit: keeping our trailer entry clear–that means shoes must be put away and the hot spot on the coffee bar constantly extinguished or preferably never ignited.
Monthly character trait: practice finding the positives–something we began last year casually, but it needs to be a front-and-center practice. I’ll post on it, so ya get it, ‘kay?
Aim for two days a week that Hannah can eat every meal we eat with no changes. (Hannah has Crohn’s and is on a doctor-assisted healing diet. She loves days when she doesn’t have to cook a single meal for herself.)
Bedtime: Reinstate my beloved brush, Bible, books, blessings, and bed routine.
Continue annoying the world by starting everything in a list with the same letter–personally, this is my favorite goal. In fact, I almost made these mostly measurable manageable monthly milestones instead of goals, but I thought that was annoying the universe instead of just the world, so I backed off.
Prayer: somehow while stationary we got out of the habit of praying before meals, bed, and trips.

Family Fun

Have two game nights focused on the older group.
Have one game night focused on the younger group.
Have a party on my Grandpa’s birthday, January 29. Grandpa and I always celebrated our birthdays together. I loved having him for a birthday buddy. (Miss you, Grandpa!)
Take Judah’s five-month picture before he’s five months and 30 days old. Ahem.
Bake a lemon meringue pie. What?! Don’t judge.

Homeschooling

Learn 15 Spanish verbs. What?! Only 15? Yes, but learning means using, and by using 15 extra verbs regularly over the next month, we’ll be quite fluent…in 15 verbs.
Learn 15 new signs.
Write two letters each…including mama!
Read aloud The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain.
Teach two core cooking techniques.
Begin one embroidery project with all interested double-digit kiddos–finish in February.
Work on one sewing project with Rebecca.
Reinstate weekly goal sessions and reviews with Hannah (19)–I love these one-on-one sessions and watching her grow as a writer in her writing business!
Find a testing center for Marissa’s CLEP on the road–I think we’ll be in Kansas when she’s ready for her next test. She’s aiming to have her bachelor’s shortly after turning 19; she is currently 17 and has 15 credits. More on that later.
Start new math levels with Elisabeth (15), Emily (12), and Elijah (10). (Like, hand them the new book–no biggie here.)
Focus daily on math for five minutes with Rebecca (7).
Select a fun course from SchoolhouseTeachers.com to enjoy with my four middles–Elisabeth, Emily, Elijah, and Rebecca. (See my review.)
Focus twice weekly on Schoolhouse Teacher’s Charlotte Mason preschool with Eliana (4)…just so I remember to focus on her.
Begin Slow and Steady, Get Me Ready with Judah (5 months) twice weekly…again, so I remember to focus on him.

Music Mission

Write January 2016 newsletter.
Finish 2015 thank you notes.
Hit the open road again on January 7–we were partially stationary to have our baby.
Update subscriber list.

Health

Walk dog and self 15-20 minutes 3 days per week–not enough, you say? Better than nothing, I reply!
Start doing push-ups again as a family–I do them against the van instead of the ground to protect my sensitive joints, but hey, it’s better than nothing! I will do between one and three after walking. I know that’s not much, but I have joint issues and need my wrists to carry an 18-pound five-month old tub o’ love.
Reinstate the two-a-week treat limit in churches–church people love to spoil my kids, but they aren’t aware that the next church and the next and the next will do the same thing. Sometimes we hit four or five churches/special events a week, and it’s literally “spoiling” my kids’ and my hubby’s health and waistlines. Not mine, however, because I don’t eat them, thanks to being perpetually pregnant or nursing sensitive babies–ha ha!
Add seven foods back into my diet. I’m on a total elimination diet for my nursing baby, and I’m currently up to five foods I can eat.
Find a supplement that works for my baby.
Make two family dessert night treats that Hannah can eat. (No dairy, grains, sugar, processed anything.)
Continue food/symptom journal–ugh.

Writing

Write four non-sponsored, non-review posts here…for you lovely people! This counts as one. Hooray!
Write three posts at The Travel Bags since our temporary stint as The Stationary Bags ends this week.
Find interview sources and rough out my article assignment for Pregnancy & Newborn magazine.
Send one pitch–to really rock the writing world I need to send out about one or two a day…but I’m good with one this month. Oh, look. I already sent it. Check!
Edit one chapter in my book–this is the biggie, since I have to delete a lot, and I’m not good at deleting…thus the length of this list. Wink wink.

Personal

Read Proverbs again.
Journal weekly. It’s a good start–nothing epic…just the little things.
Smile more. Totally measurable, right?
Practice finding the positives. (More about this later.)
Master three core cooking techniques from America’s Test Kitchen Cooking School Cookbook.
Scrap social media as often as possible. (I know, that’s blogger suicide, but it’s better for my family, thumb, brain, and eyes.)
Listen to The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up and see if she’s got anything on the Flylady, who rocks, by the way!
Read Silas Marner by George Eliot. It’s one of my mom’s favorites, and, even though I was an English major back in the day, I’ve never read it.
Keep my computer and phone off from 9 to 9, unless it’s for school or people are sleeping or studying…or my sister-in-law or mom text me–hey, I’m human, and those gals are fun-to-me!
Check email daily, delete all new “unimportant” emails (after reading), and unsubscribe from all no-longer-valuable-to-me subscriptions that come in that day.
Take fewer pictures. Yup, fewer. This is, unfortunately, measurable, and I do have an accountability partner on this one. Hi, Honey! Nice dimples!

What are some of your goals for January?

SchoolhouseTeachers.com Yearly Membership Review — A Lightweight Heavy Hitter

Read this SchoolhouseTeachers.com review from a roadschooling family of 10 and get 50% off!

This post contains affiliate links and opinions. Both are harmless.

One of the biggest aspects of my life is homeschooling my eight kids. I am always on the lookout for ways to simplify that process, especially on the road. With that in mind, my children and I have been testing the Yearly Membership of SchoolhouseTeachers.com, an online curricula resource, for a few weeks now. I’m going to yammer on about it for a bit, but first, some background:

As you know, we live in a travel trailer towed by a Chevy Express van. We (we as in my hubby, Steve) tow “home” up mountains and down, around hairpin turns, over harrowing heights. Have you ever seen The Long, Long Trailer with the inimitable Lucille Ball and Dezi Arnaz? Remember the scene where they’re teetering on a mountain top on the brink of disaster because Lovable Lucy overloaded the trailer with rocks?

That’s me–Lovable Lucy. Except instead of a Cuban-American husband, it’s a Filipino-American husband. And instead of rocks, it’s books. And instead of ending up with a box office hit and a big fat check, we ended up with a dead transmission and a big fat bill.

Roadschoolers, ironically, have very little weight allowance for books, which makes schooling a little more challenging. I know–whaaaaa! That’s why we have to get a tad creative with everything from where to store the toilet paper to how to educate eight kids in 240 square feet of space with no weight allowance for los libros, which is Spanish for “the books,” which I had to teach los niños without using los libros. Now do I have your sympathy? I didn’t think so.

Enter SchoolhouseTeachers.com!

SchoolhouseTeachers.com is an online curricula resource which offers its members nearly 200 courses plus other perks, and it’s growing like my stomach at a Christmas cookie buffet. The courses are available online through classes, videos, or printable downloads. I’m not going to list every subject you’ll find there because 1) I’m too lazy, and 2) okay, so there is no number 2. Go to the SchoolhouseTeachers.com course list and see for yourself, or see what’s available grade by grade.

Wow, right?! A family could use SchoolhouseTeachers.com as a supplement to their studies or as an entire curriculum. That saves a ton of space and trailer weight, people.

How have we been using SchoolhouseTeachers.com?

I’m so glad you asked, because I’ve been itching to tell you about the Tinkers Club, partly because I love saying “tinkers.” Tinkers tinkers tinkers! (If you say it real fast it sounds like stinkers.) My son (who just turned 10 last week) is loving the Tinkers Club. It’s all about inventing, so he’s gettin’ down and dirty with tools and junque we scrounge up at thrift stores (because, as you know, The Simple Homemaker tries not to keep junk on hand, so, ironically, now we have to hunt for other people’s junk). He is so into it that he was thrilled to receive safety goggles for Christmas–safety goggles, people! And I wasted money on Legos.

We are also just beginning the Charlotte Mason preschool study written by homeschool mom Brittney Jordan. As you know we are not into an intense preschool program, nor am I interested in spending money to teach my child to count. But being child number 7 in a roadschooling family means that someday the you-specific activities and the nature study get pushed to the background in favor of group activities and an 8-mile hike. This ideal program ensures that little Ellie and I (and our many tag-alongs) are doing something in nature together, in books together, and in handicrafts together each week…key word: together. Love it!

This week’s topic is snow, which offers and interesting approach to nature study. I think I still have snow stuck down the back of my neck–family snowball fight not pictured.

I’m also setting my older children on the task of translating the Spanish Bible stories for Spanish-speaking preschoolers. Why? Because I can, and because they don’t speak Swahili or Latvian, but if yours do, then by all means check out the Latvian and other foreign languages! They don’t have enough Spanish for my liking, but there is Latvian!

Here’s my favorite aspect of SchoolhouseTeachers.com:

My first baby girl was born, like, yesterday, and last week she turned 19. That’s years! Time flies…fast…like a fast flying thingie. We did some pretty fun stuff in school (apparently not enough vocab study if this writer is saying “thingie” and “stuff”), but if I could do it over again, I would have had more lessons that she really wanted to study and fewer that I felt we had to know to appease the social service workers that never showed up at our door.

With SchoolhouseTeachers.com, I ~~feel comfortable~~ am totally excited about letting my children pick a couple of courses at a time that they want to study (after Bible and math are finished). I’m confident that they will be learning something. It may not be the same things I learned in school ~~and promptly forgot as soon as the test was over because I never used it in real life and wasn’t interested in it in the first place~~, but that’s totally okay! That said, I might “make” my 19-year-old take this for her writing business:

**I don’t love everything about SchoolhouseTeachers.com.**

For example, I absolutely do not like their cute little drawing of the ark for the preschool flood study. The flood was not cute, and the ark was not cutesie. For the love of all things truth, draw the ark its actual size in proportion to an elephant, so kids could see that a lot of elephants could fit on that behemoth. Kids would have an easier time supporting their beliefs when (not if) they are attacked if they had the truth in their heads. Thousands of people drowning–so not cutesie.

~~I also don’t like the amount of clicking required to get to the course, but they’re in the process of fixing that, so forget I said anything. In fact, I’m crossing this off right now.~~

And there will be things you don’t like, which is why it’s totally great that there are nearly 200 courses–pick what you like and leave the rest…like how you pick the M&Ms out of the trail mix and leave the raisins. ‘Fess up. You know you do it.

Technical details for my fellow roadschoolers:

For us travelers, internet connection and data limits are issues. While some of these courses are videos that will consume data, others are made of printable or downloadable lesson plans that can be downloaded at the library or RV park and stored on your computer to be pulled up whenever you want and wherever you are–even boondocking.

The studies do not require that you buy books, but access to a library does help for some additional recommended resources. Obviously, that part is not ideal for the traveler, but, well, read the paragraph about The Long, Long Trailer and you’ll agree with me that not having access to all the books a person would like to have is better than plunging off a mountain peak with your entire rig, family, and collection of ~~rocks~~ books.

Interested? You can get the Yearly Membership to SchoolhouseTeachers.com for 50% off if you use the code CREWFOLLOWER by January 31, 2016.

That’s what I think. Click this banner to find out what other homeschoolers think. Click click click. (If you say that real fast, it sounds like “lick.” I need a vacation.)

Fun Tool for Memorizing Multiplication Facts

The Trigger Memory Co. gave my family a free downloadable version of their Times Tales program in exchange for this unbiased review. As usual, no cookies or chocolate exchanged hands to sway my opinion.

In all honesty, we are not the best family to be reviewing this program. Our daughter doesn’t quite grasp multiplication well enough at this point to really benefit from the program, and my son has long ago mastered his facts. However, the program does jump into division near the end of the second set of videos, so my fourth grader can use it for the “division tales.”

First, what is it?

Times Tales is a DVD or downloadable series of files that teaches your children fun little stories about interesting characters that represent numbers. It covers the upper numbers of the multiplication tables.

Without the child really knowing that she is learning, she is memorizing her upper multiplication facts. If you’ve battled math, spelling, anything in the past, you know how much you love it when your children don’t even realize they are learning!

Is it effective?

My daughter hasn’t begun multiplication yet, but get this: during the video she took a quiz, and she got most of the answers correct. Of course, she doesn’t actually know what multiplication is, but I can see that when she starts studying it, she will have an advantage with these cutesie (and sometimes lame, admit my kids) stories in her head.

My 10-year-old son remembers all the stories as well…although he already knew all the facts that they were teaching.

What did the kids think?

My first grader (in the target range) claims it’s boring, but she jumped into it willingly and I saw a lot of giggles, so I’m a little confused by her dichotomous answer. She did, however, painlessly learn a lot of facts she can put to use when we begin our multiplication lessons. So her mama says it is a success.

My fourth grader (also in the target range) says it was pretty cool when you add in the games and worksheets. He didn’t learn anything, because the multiplication facts were already old friends, but any time you can skip your own math and hang out with your sisters in front of a screen is a good time. I can see how this would have been a huge boon to him if he was missing some facts, and the division facts are a great booster for his lessons.

This is an affordable way to help kids master those elusive facts.

Additional thoughts for my fellow roadschoolers:

Times Tales is available as a digital download or as a disc. Naturally, the digital download weighs absolutely nothing, so you don’t have to consider it in your tow weight. It does however, take eons to download. I had to wait until we found a really good connection (too few and far between in the world-on-wheels) and download in the middle of the night when the rest of the internet access munchers were asleep. It worked that way. And then, of course, my computer died (RIP Mac…back to the PC world), so I have to download it all over again on our old Behemoth. Since I’m not a techie, I’m not too thrilled about that whole thing.

I do like the digital download option, however, because you don’t have to figure out a shipping location–that’s always a pain in the kiester.

Once you’ve got the download complete (or if you buy the DVD), there is no further internet access required. Now that makes any full-timer smile!

There are no books to find space for, but you will want to do a little printing for the worksheets, games, and cubes. It’s no biggie, but it is printing. If you keep your printer stored under a mountain, that’s also a pain in the kiester. But again…no shelf space or weight limits to consider! And no masses of flash cards–gag!

Go here to read reviews from homeschoolers whose kids are a better fit for this program–they have some great things to say!