Blog Archives

Art Book and More Series

8/31/2016

Hey folks,

Just wanted to let you know for the next few weeks, I am going to be doing a series on art books and arty type things on my blog. I HOPE to post something every Wednesday, but sometimes life might interfere (bear with me then eh?).

I do need to come up with a cool image, but I think this one will do as a holding place, at least for now. If you have any suggestions, fire them my way eh?

Anyways, I'll be starting it next week, so for now let me remind you of some of my art posts over the past year.

A review of four art books.

Gryphon House, Global Art.

Art Attack Videos.

How to draw with your funny bone.

Art into Science.

Review for ArtAchieve.

Review: Led by the Spirit

8/30/2016

Do you have a decision to make? Do you struggle with knowing if the Holy Spirit is actually helping you make that decision? Here's a book to help you out. Seriously, it's worth a read. :)

This book is written to people who
1. Needs to make a decision via God's guidance and not sure how that guidance will come
2. The experienced believer curious about the authors thoughts
3. Those with no real strong interest but are mildly curious

Three groups of readers, with their questions answered in the pages contained within.

My thoughts:

I thought the author laid out his thoughts carefully.

Short chapters, with one thought clearly leading to the next.

I appreciated that he makes it clear...whether a believer knows it or not, they are led by the Spirit.   Based on Romans 8. So we never have to question that truth.

The author walks a careful line between supernatural knowledge, and the careful reasoned approach, after-all.. God can impart knowledge and help any way that he wants to. A proviso is provided though that one needs to be careful that counting on a series of impressions to make a firm decision needs to be weighed out.    USE those impressions, appreciate all that God can do and how he can do it. Seriously.   It's good, but sometimes those impressions do need to be weighted with reasoning.

There is so much truth in this book, it's just a little one at 48 pages and I wish I could tell you more about the truth contained within it's pages.   So just go out and get it for yourself, really. :)

Led by the Spirit: how the Holy Spirit guides the believer
By: Jim Elliff
What does it mean to follow God?
In a personal and pastoral way, Jim Elliff seeks to help the believer gain confidence in understanding and following the will of God.

48 pages

Reviewed for Sola-Scriptura Ministries.

Currently on sale for $6.

Hymn Study: Saviour Teach Me Day by Day

8/28/2016

"We love Him, because He first loved us. 1 John 4:19

Lyrics

Savior, teach me day by day
Love’s sweet lesson to obey,
Sweeter lesson cannot be,
Loving Him who first loved me.

With a child’s glad heart of love
At Thy bidding may I move,
Prompt to serve and follow Thee,
Loving Him who first loved me.

Teach me thus Thy steps to trace,
Strong to follow in Thy grace,
Learning how to love from Thee,
Loving Him who first loved me.

Love in loving finds employ,
In obedience all her joy;
Ever new that joy will be,
Loving Him who first loved me.

Thus may I rejoice to show
That I feel the love I owe;
Singing, till Thy face I see,
Of His love who first loved me.

This Sunday was the first time I had ever sung this hymn.   I thought it a great hymn and hope we sing it again soon. It fit really well with today's Sermon on God's Love.

This Hymn was written by Jane E Leeson as a children's hymn/sung prayer.   She primarily wrote poems, some of which were turned into hymns.

"She was a member of a strange and spurious sect known as the Holy Catholic Apostolic Church" this church met in Bishopgate. (source)   Later in life she joined the Roman Catholic Church.

Miss Leeson wrote 13 hymns that are remembered, this is one of her most commonly sung hymns. For information on the hymns she wrote you can visit this site. Beyond that, we don't know a whole lot more about this poet.

Where We School - Homeschooling Spaces

8/28/2016

The new school is almost upon us! I know, I know.. only a week to prepare, man, I feel like I am running out of time to get things ready and moving forward.

As I think about getting ready for school, some of what I think on requires doing some cleaning and rearranging, and then I need to think about how we do school in our house. Perhaps you do the same thing as you prepare?

So just what spaces do we use in our house. We live in a lovely two story house with a basement. We do not use our basement for schooling unless we are doing PE with a video or something.

We use our kitchen (naturally) to do cooking. I hope to punch that up a wee bit this year and get my lad making more meals on his own. I want to teach him how to make a white sauce, cheese sauce and bread. (and how to play around with those recipes a bit). After all, it's good for him to learn these things.

My lad does his veritas press and math sitting in my chair first thing in the morning.

A good portion of our schooling is done upstairs at the desk. History, math, reviews and what not generally happen up here in the book room. Behind where my son sits in a table that we use a lot as well.

In the morning when we have breakfast we read a book, we also do art at the dining room table. Currently we are reading through the Narnia books.

31stOther spaces that we school, are various museums in the area, the trails in the bush, the provincial parks in the area and more. :) School can happen most anywhere.

The Canadian Homeschooler is hosting a round up this month on the theme homeschooling spaces, do visit on August 31st. GO HERE.

Favourite Product: Mom and Son Choice

8/26/2016

The TOS crew round up topic for this week is what our favourite homeschool product. When I saw the topic I knew immediately what our favourite product is. One that I don't even have to ask my son to do. :) Veritas Press. We reviewed history and bible.

My son loves doing Veritas Press... he particularly loves their history, but he likes the bible programs as well. Currently he's working through Explorers to 1815.

I rarely see him working on it as he does it first thing in the morning, but I know he is working on it because it often comes up in our conversation, particularly when we are reading another book. He'll pipe in with additional comments or say "correct me if I'm wrong mom, but _______________". I'll ask where he learned that and he'll say "Veritas Press told me".

I take him at his word unless it seems totally off and then that's what google is for right? 9 times out of 10 he remembers it correctly which I think is just marvellous. I do find it interesting how he will tell me, I don't remember much from the middle ages, but when the topic comes up in our reading, he remembers far more than he thinks it does...that tune they do is a marvellous aid in recall.

So what do we like about Veritas Press?
It's self-paced, full of history and humour, games and questions, quirky songs to help you remember information, and has optional projects to do.

I have to admit though... that lately the lad is asking if we can do Apologia. We're studying astronomy (it's an upcoming review) so stay tuned... I wonder which will win out in the end... won't be long till the end of the Crew Run when we have to pick our favourites for the year.. what will it be.. Veritas Press or Apologia???

Others from the crew will be writing on their favourite product as well so why don't you visit us RIGHT HERE. :)

Cleared for Takeoff, a review

8/25/2016

I cannot tell you how much the lad and I have been enjoying this book called "Cleared for Takeoff, the Ultimate book of Flight".

We've giggled, gasped, been awed, been shocked and a whole host of other emotions. Oh but it's a delightful, thorough treatise on flight. Call signs, hand signals, obscure airlines, interesting birds, the history, the joys, the sorrows and so much more are contained within the 320 pages of this book.

This video below bespeaks some of the things we learned in this book, but definitely not all that we learned.

Neither one of us has read this "Cleared for TakeOff" all the way through, we've picked our way through some of the pages that have peaked out interest.

Being amazed at the size of the Hindebergh Zeppelin.

His Joy in finding the Canadian aircraft symbol.

The text is well written with scores of full colour pictures, most look like painting, a few from real life. It was just a pleasure to go through.

Occasionally experiments are provided to assist in the understanding of a concept, from making pop rockets to hovercrafts, enough experiments to intrigue most children. As a parent/teacher one of the things I appreciated about the experiments was the teaching component came first with the experiment coming second. All the experiments I found were distinguishable in being all in black and white. All use easy to find materials.

As I mentioned earlier, this book was filled with full colour pictures to delight and inform. I was delighted that it held global appeal, interesting tidbits from around the world are found within it's pages.

Did you know that a Canadian Pilot once landed a 767 airplane successfully that had run out of fuel and therefore all it's systems were shutting down. None of travellers lost their lives, a only a few injured when they disembarked the aircraft? Simply amazing. We also learned why different countries use modified Phonetic Alphabets (for instance Saudi Arabia uses Washington rather than whiskey because of the alcohol connection).

I have been ever so pleased to have had a chance to review this book. It's a marvellous resource for anyone interested in the world of flight. The only thing I found lacking was an index at the close of the book, to quickly find facts.

If it is something you are planning to do a unit study on, or a create a lapbook from, snatch it up. You really won't regret it. :)

For the Canadian link to amazon Cleared for Takeoff: The Ultimate Book of Flight and for the american link Cleared for Takeoff: The Ultimate Book of Flight for your ease in finding it. :) Thanks!

Hobo Stew - my style

8/25/2016

I make hobo stew pretty much the way I make many things.

Have a good idea of what you want, and toss together what you think will get you to that end.

I like making hobo stew in a fire, but we were in a restricted fire ban time at the campground so having a good fire was a no go.   We used the next best thing...our dutch oven and some coals.

I had some ground beef (about 1.5 lbs)
Some potatoes, carrots and canned corn.
We had a touch of onion left from hubby's hamburgers.

I cubed the potatoes and sliced up the carrots.   Tried to make the pieces about equal.    Didn't totally succeed.

Browned the beef, added the onion and some seasonings.   Added some water.
Let that cook a bit.
Then added the potatoes. About six cut up
Let that cook a bit.
Then added the carrots and the corn. About four big carrots and one can of corn.
Let that cook a bit.
Added some more seasoning.   For seasoning with used garlic salt and a mixed seasoning mix.

All told it cooked about 2 hours, and when we had it most of the potatoes were soft though not all, we saved those for the second serving.

It tasted great. :)

Review: Amazing World Atlas

8/24/2016

I think I have found our next geography book! One of the things the lad and I like to do at night is read books before he goes to bed. We have an animal book, a couple of fiction books, and an encyclopedia/information type book that we read. It's a nice together time for us. Anyways, the book? Amazing World Atlas by Lonely Planet Kids. It's a great atlas for children (and their moms!) :)

Now...you and I know atlases right?
Maps of the world, cities highlighted and maybe some cutouts showing an area up close.

This children's atlas is different.

YES, it has maps. :)
Not what I would call full of close details.
But that's not the purpose of this atlas, this atlas is meant to show the world to the reader. To give the basics of the land mass, but to say, this is what is neat about this country. Europe has snow and mountains and olive gardens and sunny beaches. It has it all. So this map includes interesting pictures to give the highlights of the given area. Two pages per land mass. Below is an example of an introductory page:

And here is an example of a secondary page. Cities are pointed out as well as interesting sites. If the area is for say Europe, additional pages follow breaking it into section like northern, central and southern Europe.

As you can see there are lots of pictures, and tons of interesting information. More examples follow.

Going through this atlas your child will learn major holidays, people groups, interesting artifacts, population and so much more. This atlas is jam-packed with full colour images, information, maps and more. A cornucopia of geographical fun!

The Kids Amazing World Atlas
Bringing the World to Life
Lonely Planet

9.36 x 12.1 ·
160 pages
Ages 8-12 years

You can find this book in the USA here: The Lonely Planet Kids Amazing World Atlas: Bringing the World to Life and in Canada here: Lonely Planet The Kids Amazing World Atlas 1st Ed.: Bringing the World to Life .

Art While On Vacation

8/24/2016

I either shared this one on facebook or instagram as I was working n it. This one was just fun to do. Figuring out the colour flowers intrigued me just enough. :) This one came out of the Be Still book.

This rabbit was an interesting challenge, I did it all in varying shades of brown, or "tanned" versions of another colour. I am mostly happy with how it turned out but wishing I did the rabbit cheeks a bit differently.

I started this chicken ages ago and then got stuck on how to do the tail. I finished him while watching my boy swim in the lake. It turned out fairly well I think. This one and the rabbit came out of Animal Kingdom.

I have to admit, my lad "tisked" at me while I was working on this owl. He tisked enough that I handed it over to him to finish. I'll have to show you the final result when he finally gets it completed. He's not as focused as I am when trying to finish up a page though so it may take a while. This came out of the Art Therapy Book.

Here are affiliate links for the books I used, in case you want to look for them.

Review: See Inside Dinosaur

8/22/2016

Who doesn't like dinosaurs? Those big (and small) creatures that roamed the earth in days gone past. They have inspired movies, books, toys and countless other activities. I have a friend with a son who when he was younger was ALL about dinosaurs, he knew so much it was quite phenomenal.

I recently received a kit from Raincoast Books that is called See inside the Dinosaur.

This is a great kit, it comes with a dinosaur that you can take part and put back together. It is made of a sturdy plastic. A book about dinosaurs, and a paper dinosaur cut. This cut out shows all the different aspects of a dinosaur, working from the outside to the internal organs.

The dinosaur book is full colour , with lots of pictures and good text. It gives a good amount of information about dinsosaurs.

Here is a sample page so you can see the quality of this short book.

The put it together dinosaur is kept inside a plastic case when not in use. This keeps the wee pieces like the dinosaur brain safe. :) The elastic holds the plastic together as well. The 3-D interactive kit is a great find.

I have to admit, I was rather impressed with this 3-D exploration kit. It would be an excellent kit to use with your dinosaur loving students. A hands-on tool to help them explore and perhaps they too will be amazed at the tiny size of the brain (Just make sure you keep track of it so it doesn't get lost).

There is no booklet to show you how to put the dinosaur back together again, though it is fairly intuitive. Just a matter of snapping body parts into the skeleton.

I happily recommend this hands-on, interactive kit to you. It will provide you with plenty of material about dinosaurs as well has having two models to work with. Good stuff.