Blog Archives

Thankfulness.... and how it turns our hearts

11/14/2013

Have you ever thought of what the affect of thankfulness has on your heart and mind?
Have you ever REALLY thought about it?

God tells us to "give thanks in all circumstances".    Have you ever considered what this means?   ALL circumstances, not just the easy ones, but also the difficult ones.

For the past year I have been BATTLING intestinal issues. It's not fun.   It's sometimes very embarrassing when you have a bellyful of gas and you have to be somewhere and you know you're going to end up farting (and probably not quietly either) or when you end up burping loudly. It's NOT FUN.

But God says.. in this... give thanks.    And I can give thanks.. I am not housebound like a lady I know with worse intestinal problems than what I have. I have to deal with discomfort and embarrassment...she needs to deal with far worse.    It gives me empathy for people who struggle with difficult illnesses and it reminds me of what I mentioned to a man who suffers dreadfully with migraines... If he didn't have migraines, would he care so deeply when others suffer illness? He said "no, I wouldn't even think about it."

My son recently experienced something that made him VERY upset...so upset it makes him cry and be angry and force himself to be really busy so he doesn't have to think about it.    And he was "MOM... how do I stop thinking about it"?    The first thing out of my mouth was let's pray first, and then we will thank God for all the good things he has given you. All of them.. from your hair all the way down to your toes. That's what we do buddy. It helps us to think differently.

This Rabbit is Biscuit.   Biscuit is very much my rabbit and doesn't much care for others (rabbit or people). She is such an independent alone rabbit that she's been given special accommodations away from other rabbits in the middle of our yard. :) She's temperamental and pushy... but I love her to bits and am thankful to God for her.   Why?
1. she gives large litters and her kits do not have her personality. :)
2. she's an excellent rabbit to use to teach others what a rabbit is saying when they act a certain way.
3. She's an excellent and very direct teacher.   I've learned so much from this rabbit in terms of rewarding good behaviour, being watchful of body language, and how to communicate that to others.
4. she's improving but she remains an excellent watchbunny...but for family and friends...she will happily accept treats! :)

Reality in life is that most breeders would have culled her for temperament issues. But I held on to her because her father was special to me and she's the last of his line.   And she's becoming more like her dad the longer she lives.   God is gracious to me with my bunnies and often surprises me. :)

Thankfulness opens our hearts to more.
Thankfulness gives us options to consider more than just ourselves.
Thankfulness changes our perspective.
Thankfulness means that we lose ourselves and our own selfish desires as we turn our hearts to the one that called us to be more.

Who do we thank?

God, the one who created and designed us,
God the one who knows our whole life, even before we know it,
God, who watches over us daily.. every moment of our lives..
God, the one who wills us to be thankful (like commanding us to do so)

He is concerned with us and he is the one we are thankful for.

Thank God today.. it will change your whole perspective. :)

This post is written to be part of the Being Thankful blog cruise from the Schoolhouse Review Crew. :)   It will be posted on the 19th of November.

Snow Day Math

11/13/2013

We have been working on multiplication in our household.   The lad has "I have to get it perfect if it's on paper thing" so that's sometimes a stumbling block for us in getting work done.. particularly math.   SO.. we had snow last night.   It was PACKING snow.

So I said.. lad.. we're going to review our multiplication. See? here's the page. Remember? YES! was his VERY confident reply.   So I said prove it to me.

We're going to go outside I'll give you three seconds to answer and then I'll hit you with a snowball if you are late or wrong. Deal?   DEAL! COME ON MOM!!!!!

We had a blast.. Lad.. what's 2 x 2? umm.... ah.... 4.   We got all the way up to 10 x 2... and we had some good hits, we had some slow almost got you times, and we had LOTS of fast answers.   I even got hit a couple times for being slow... Wow.. what fun.

Now I have to admit, one can't take pictures and have a snowball in hand at the same time so I didn't get any pics from that fun. BUT I did get pictures during our "breaks".

I ended up using most of the snow from the canoe as we practiced our math.

break one...the building of a snow penguin.

Why a penguin bud?

Because mom.. everyone does snowmen... I like penguins. :)

Break two.. Biscuit got a carrot. Here she is looking for another....

momma penguin has a wee tiny baby penguin sitting on her shoulder.. this was I think break number four.

By the end of our breaks and our math we had a whole penguin family.

by the end of the day the weather had warmed up enough that our wee baby penguin sitting on momma's shoulder had melted away.

The lad was very sad....

Our time outside also turned into a bit of a nature study as the lad noted that the snow on part of lawn was easier to pack, some was cleaner, some was softer to land in and so forth. He had a lovely time figuring out why. Placement of trees, location of the sun and all that.

Isn't snow fun?

What fun schooling have YOU done in the snow???

Delight Led Learning - propulsion?

11/13/2013

Cleaning up the book room a bit, and part of that necessitated my lad helping to go through our "throw-away" boxes (we got the title from a book we recently read).

They are our boxes with recycling, cardboard, syrofoam trays and what not. Things that children can use to build toys and other such useful items.

My goal was to empty them enough that we could close the lids on all the boxes keeping it all nice and tidy. We succeeded.

The lad got it in his head that he could make something that would shoot a projectile of some sort.

His first 3-5 times ended with unhappiness...they worked but not well enough to be effective OR they simply didn't do what he wanted them too.

He kept trying and sometimes would ask for "why didn't it work mom?" Eventually he came across this idea AND it works and works well.

Supplies: Pringles container, paper clip, bottle, wooden skewers, duct tape and elastics.

He takes careful aim....

IT WORKS. Look mom, it works! And it works well! He even later on managed to get one through his target. :) He was so proud of himself. He did well. :) Great to have throwaway boxes don't you think?

His first target was Styrofoam, but I wouldn't let him destroy it as we often use it as a holder for wire art and what not.

He did at one point ask.. Mom.. what do you think would happen if I aimed it at a person? Do you think it would go through?

NO.. NO.. NO... No weapons ever aimed at people bud... Come on.. think about it.
Well .. do you think it would hurt them?
YES.
Oh.. okay. I won't shoot anyone. I just wanted to know.

Give a mother heart palpitations eh?

So tell me this... Do YOU have throw-away boxes in your house? If so, what do you call it/them?

An added discovery.....the weapon of the lad's is powerful enough it will drive a skewer into a 2 x 4. Impressive eh? I will post a picture when I have a chance to download it.

Review: A Nest For Celeste

11/13/2013

Do you want to read a delightful children's book? Well, here's one. Check it out. :)

My son and I had the absolute delight of just finishing this morning read book yesterday. I had picked this book up in Mastermind Toys one day. They had it on sale for a good price and I thought...this book is fascinating and will capture my boy.   I was correct. :)

We were totally enamoured from start to finish with Celeste. She is such a sweet little mouse, just looking for a place to call her own. She encounters a reef of difficulties in her search, but finally... she finds her own place to call home.

Henry Cole is the author and the book is illustrated with soft pencil drawings.   In this book we learned a bit of true history with Audobon and his apprentice Joseph. Just a well written children's book. It never seemed to lag or have weak spots. The characters were interesting and lively. At 336 pages it is a good length to easy a quick read as an adult, or with the short chapters to make a good read-a-loud with children.

We used it just to enjoy it, but also to teach character development, cliff hangers, plot development and so much more. It used good descriptive words that occasionally we'd stop and explore...what do you think that means?   How would that look to you?   How do you think you would draw that?   Why do you think Mr. Cole drew it that way? How would you draw Celeste?

Just an excellent well written book.

If you'd like to purchase it, my affiliate link is below. Adds no cost to you at all, and merely lends me a hand. :)

Taking Time to Think: Trusting God... what does it really mean?

11/12/2013

So on Sunday Pastor talked about More Faith? based on Luke 17:1-10. In it I learned that it is never a question of having more faith, it is always a question of having faith.

This has gotten my brain just a working overtime. :)

If it is always a matter of just having faith, then when we deviate from God's will for our lives we need to ask ourselves WHY? What is causing me not to just trust God at this moment in the space/time continuum? And if I need to ask myself that, and if my goal is to raise a child who THINKS about what he is doing, and how he is living his life, then should I change how I ask him to think and ponder on his actions?

This is my boy. He's a bright lad who keeps me on my toes. He is constantly into everything. :) And I like it. But he is also very self-centered, often failing to see the needs of others in the joy of the moment of doing. (but I do the same thing so I totally recognize the need and the forgetfulness). :) So please don't think I'm judging him harshly...it's just the reality of living as sinful people in a fallen world.

But if sin is not just being self-centered but more of a lack of trusting God AT THAT MOMENT... how then do I train/teach my lad to see that?

How do I help open his eyes to trusting God in all things? Knowing that the task itself is nigh impossible, but it is what we are CALLED to do... to trust God in all things, in all circumstances and at all times.

Your thoughts are indeed coveted. Please share them. :)

Blogging through the Alphabet: F is For Frogs and Fishing

11/12/2013

My lad is eight, I often tell him what I am blogging about. He begged me when it came time to do F (when blogging through the alphabet) to do a post on frogs. So here I am revisiting one of my son's favourite topics....Frogs. He's recently added Fish to that list so I'll talk about that a bit as well. :) This will mostly be an images post.

This spring we went with one of our homeschool groups to the local provincial park. Here we saw a rather large green frog. My son and a variety of the other children were simply fascinated. :)

He sat motionless for quite a long time.

This summer we took a vacation about 6 hours north of us.

While there, since they had tons of small ponds/bodies of water everywhere, my son had a great deal of fun catching frogs.

He wanted to keep them all so he had to build a frog habitat for them to stay in.

As you can see he made a nice habitat for them to stay in for about a week. Adding lots of cover and places for them to hide under and climb over. They seemed fairly content.

Of course when you have 14 frogs in a barrel you need to feed them. Thus came the hunt for grasshoppers and other such insects to feed them.

They had a TON of small grasshoppers that were not only fun to catch and good for grasshoppers to eat, but came in a variety of colours that fascinated the lad to no end. :)

He is getting gloriouisly wet and dirty and just having the time of his life. He's catching creek chub. :)

And have having a great 'ole time finding out about crayfish and river fish. What a better way to learn then to get right in there learning eh?

Sometimes dad's are needed to help you figure out a likely place to catch a fish as well.

Here they caught what I think is a pumpkinseed or a sunfish. (really not sure which) but it was certainly exciting! :)

Anyways, learning about frogs and fish is a fun way to do science. Do your children like them too?

Do come join us as we blog through the alphabet. Hosted by Marcy at Ben and Me.

Review: Gunpowder Tea

11/11/2013

Gunpowder Tea is a real tea. If you click in the image you'll be taken to a page where you can learn more about it. :)

Gunpowder Tea... This is a book written by Margaret Brownley. 316 pages long, with Pinkerton agents and Wells Fargo agents. Set in the west. I reviewed this book for Booksneeze.com.

Reading a variety of books is fun for me, reading historical fiction with a hint of mystery is just icing on the cake. :) I enjoyed reading this book and if you enjoy reading these kind of books, you will too. :) It is not a hard read, I was able to get it done in two days (It would have been one day if I'd been able to devote the whole day to it, but I have a family to care for as well).

That said, let me tell you a bit about the book. It's part of a series of books called "the Last Brides of Last Chance Ranch". It is the third in the series.   Last Chance Ranch is set in the Arizona Territory, in an area that is not well suited to farming, but a stubborn ranch lady is successfully managing her beef cattle on a ranch.   She has a fine assortment of ranch hands, each with interesting nicknames such as Branch, Able and Stretch.

The main character is Miranda Hunt, a female agent with the Pinkertons.   She has a mystery to solve and so poses as a single woman looking to become the heiress of the Last Chance Ranch.   Can she find the phantom?   And can she do so before the Wells Fargo agent does so? The race is on between two agencies with no love for each other.

I enjoyed learning what gunpowder tea was (you'll have seen the image above). :) Makes me think it's something my hubby (an avowed tea snob) would enjoy. From the book I learned this "It's fun to listen to the little popping sounds as the leaves unfurl during the brewing."

In this book there is a mystery, a change of heart, stubbornness, anger, frustration, love, tea time, misunderstandings, history... and for me a surprise ending! I did not manage to guess who the guilty party was!   I wonder if, should you choose to read it, if you'll guess before the end of the book. :)

The book is available from Thomas Nelson for $15.99.

Review: French Essentials

11/10/2013

I live in a bilingual country. Canada. Here we officially speak English and French. Canadian French is different than France French, but it's still French so when this review came up I jumped on it. I've bee wanting my lad to learn another language and was waffling between this and Latin, so this easily made the decision for me and we're learning French.

Product Information:

Vendor: French Essentials

Product received:Full Access Online Program (one full year, all modules, of their French lessons)

Price:Their pricing page can be found here. For what I received the cost is $149.95. Currently, Modules 1-4 are available, with Module 5 coming very soon. You do have options to getting the full program. For instance you can get one module at a time for $69.95 with 90 days to download it. You can learn more about pricing here.

Age Range: This is ideal for grades 3-8, but other ages can use it.
Pre-highschool - Grades 4/5 - 7/8 Modules 1 – 5
Middle school (junior high) - Grades - 8-9 Modules 5 & 6
High school Grades 10-12 Modules 7-10

When you sign up for French Essentials, you have access to multimedia PDF downloads, and various online materials (lessons, tests, culture). The PDF files are multimedia, which means that if you click on highlighted words, you get an audio file, videos are also embedded within the pages.

We did not take the online placement test as my son has never been exposed to French before, so I didn't see the point in it. :)

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What you find once you login is an easy to use Student area. You will be taken to the download area where you can go to the module that you are using, from there to the lesson you have. Each lesson itself is not terribly long, quite perfect in fact for my eight year old. Long enough to keep him interested, short enough to not make him bored AND you can repeat them as often as you like.

It was rather bonus,... this past week we spent sometime with friends of ours. We mentioned that the lad was learning French so our hostess immediately started talking French with the lad. He was able to manage Salut and Au Revoir... but was lost with everything else. Mind...he doesn't know a whole lot of French so I was pleased he remembered that much. :) AND he recognized the alphabet when she quickly rambled it off for him. :) It will be good to have someone else he can practice his French with. :) But it shows that he is learning. :)

here my son is completing the test for lesson four

You can do the lessons as quickly or as slowly as you want. They have a parent workbook that I will STRONGLY advise you to download as it provides exercises to help you retain the information. An answer key is also provided. Much to my delight I discovered they not only used the American form of English but included the British/Canadian spellings as well. :)

It's not all on-line work. Worksheets are provided to help solidify the teaching. My son found the instructions easy to follow as well. French Essentials is a downloadable French curriculum with online aspects including culture, fun exercises, lessons, tests and more. It was designed by Greg and Irene Shone. They use video to say words using a variety of speakers that help solidify how to say a particular word in French. And that feature itself shows some differences and was an encouragement to my son as he struggled to say some of the words properly.
"I say it more like that boy right mom"?
"Yes you do lad". was my response :)

So far in our studies we have come across flash cards, videos, written work, audio work. He's had to read words and speak words. He's listened to various speakers say the same word and he's needed to repeat those words. He is learning. :)

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As you can see below they have a culture area which we loved. It not only covered France, but also Quebec. That of course makes our Canadian hearts smile. :) BUT it made us also do some more research as we said HEY I didn't know that. Let's learn more. It is so often good to take those rabbit trails. :)

I thoroughly enjoy using this program with my son. I am so looking forward to using this program throughout the year. I have a year to download the entire program and then to continue to use it as my son learns more and more french...the PDF's will continue to work! Isn't that bonus!

It was so good to start our french language lessons using French Essentials and the staff are VERY helpful.    I recently needed to "kill" my computer (I think the official term would be to reinstall it?).. anyways, I couldn't get the program to work so I fumbled my way through explaining the problem and the very helpful staff got me quickly back on track.

I am trying to think of negatives.. and I honestly that this point.... haven't discovered any.   It just seems to be a very complete program that covers all the bases for learning a new language. Oh.. just thought of one... would be nice to be able to download one whole module at a time... or even just 4-5 lessons at once.   Not sure how possible that is though.   Just would be nice to group them.

Anyways, those are my thoughts   If you'd like to know the thoughts of others of the review crew just click to read more reviews.

Review: At Home in Dogwood Mudhole

11/10/2013

I like reviewing books. What can I say I am a bookworm, reading books comes as naturally to me as drawing comes to my son. It's what I do. :) So when I chance came to review a book for my very own self I jumped at the chance. :)

Product Information

Vendor: Four Rivers, Inc.
Product Received: Paperback, physical book : At home in Dogwood Mudhole, Volume 1
Website: At Home in Dogwood Mudhole
Price: Paperback version $22.95, Kindle version $16.95. Volume 2 will be coming out with the same pricing.
Pages: 379, this is volume one
Ages: Highschool-adult
Written by: Franklin Sanders

This book is a compilation of monthly letters written for "The Moneychanger" newsletter.   It is sort of like a memoir.    The complete title is "At Home in Dogwood Mudhole, Volume one: Nothing that Eats.   Two more volumes will follow this one.

I expected, based on the write up, a book primarily about their move to sustainable living. Learning how to be farmers so to speak. And this book certainly did contain letters about that.   I was talking with a friend about this book this past week and my struggles with not wanting to read it... because I found it frustrating and very sad to read about all these chickens they kept getting and their dogs kept killing them.   And how I grew up on a farm and a dog that killed chickens got caged, tied up or shot and how immensely frustrating I found it to keep reading about the sheer numbers of chickens they lost to their dogs. Her comment was... but if they didn't lose the chickens, would it make for interesting reading?   And it was like well huh... guess there's a point to be made there. :) So as much I hated reading about that... it does have a point to make. Learning to be farmers isn't always an easy road and some folks take longer learning things than others do and that's not all bad either.

BUT Sanders does not just talk about farming. He also talks about the war between the States, his troubles with the IRS, his dogs (which will make you laugh for the most part), his faith (he is unashamedly Christian), and pretty much anything else that grabs his fancy. He heartily recommends various businesses to you and tells you his thoughts about the people and places he travels to. It is a very eclectic book, with the stories not always well connected with each other.    Much like you'd expect in letters from one person to another.   I've read books like this before and have learned you need to take a very global approach in reading them, not expecting them to be a story, but on overall look at a person's life.

I imagine they had chickens kinda like this one. (just banty-sized)

Would I recommend reading it? Not sure.
Depends I think on the person I was talking with, and for you my broad ranged audience all I can say is this: If it you are able to recognize this is NOT a story book but more of a broad ranged, this is snippets of Sander's life book and want to touch on lots of different areas of his life, YES. This would be an interesting book for you to read. But if you want a story book, that is very easy to follow.. then perhaps not. :)

I will be holding on to this book as I was introduced to a different way of viewing the civil war, that when it comes time to introduce my son to that aspect of USA history, he'll be able to read it and gain yet another perspective.

Please do read through on what other Schoolhouse reviewers had to say. Click on the banner below in order to do so.

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Blogging through the Alphabet: E is for Events

11/4/2013

Events that bring out the silly in your boy

Events that bring out the sense of accomplishment in a lad as he partakes in a play.

Events that let you have fun with oversized Elephants (which originally I was going to call this post). :)

Events allow you to experience hands on learning, so you know how hard
it would be to knock down a wall and the importance of teamwork.

Events can bring out so many different things in a child, and events add variety and joy to homeschooling. What kind of events have you done with your children recently?

This post is part of the blogging through the alphabet series with Ben and Me. Come join us won't you?