Each calendar year, I try to pick a focus word or phrase to help me guide my year. For 2023 my term was Make Space, and it came about primarily because I felt God encouraging me to make space in my daughter’s school schedule for her to pursue the gifts he has given her.

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My oldest is a senior this year (more on his schedule coming next week), and when my daughter started high school, I was mainly putting her on the same track as he was on. I was thinking if it was working, no need to change it.

Considering Each Student

However, I wasn’t considering the differences in their goals and passions. While they had a few different electives, I realized I needed to make even more changes in my daughter’s schedule to make time and space for her to pursue her music passion.

This meant dropping things like foreign languages to make space for more music electives. It also meant adding a business elective to help her prepare for running her own business (she wants to teach music lessons). Much to her disappointment, it did not mean dropping math.

I am sure we will still have some adjustments as we go along, but we looked at the course requirements for the associate’s degree in music that she wants to pursue, in addition to some certifications that she will be working towards. Then, we lined up a curriculum path that would help her gain the skills needed, take some of those courses early, and still have an excellent, well-rounded education that will allow her to change her mind later if things change.

As this is her sophomore year, she will be doing all homeschool courses and begin some dual enrollment classes next year.

Math

I learned my lesson the hard way with my oldest and Algebra 1, and now we use online math programs beginning with Algebra for their sake and mine. My daughter will be taking Algebra II with Thinkwell Math. It is my favorite upper-level math program because it is thorough and well done and offers online help classes for students struggling with a concept.

Reading

I am very excited about her reading program this year. We wanted to do some British Literature, but we will do a deep dive into Jane Austen instead of doing a survey class. I am using a variety of her novels and these great resources from You Are an Artist to combine literature with art.

I look forward to book discussions over tea and snacks (something my daughter and I enjoy). I am also excited about a few movie nights to compare and contrast the movie and the novel. It will be a great learning experience and provide fun memories and bonding with my daughter.

Science

We did science a little out of the typical order so my son and daughter could do chemistry together last year. This year, she will be doing biology, which is often ninth-grade science. She is excited about it because there should be less math included in science than last year! We use Journey Homeschool Academy for our high school science needs. I love the Christian worldview, the engaging videos, and the thorough classes. 

(If you want to know more about Journey, check out our full review here.)

Geography

We have a big cross-country trip planned for the spring, so it is the perfect time to do a course in geography. She has had some geography spread throughout her history courses, but I created this geography course to work on US geography specifically.

She started working through the course already and is enjoying it. It allows her to research and learn while also helping plan our trip.

Music

Of course, we must remember the music classes. She will officially get one music credit for Music 2 on her transcript this year. However, we have made some extra time for additional practices and performances.

She will be taking viola and piano lessons with Practice Monkeys (we have been using them since the fall of 2018, and I highly recommend them for music lessons).

She will perform on her viola at a local historical site’s Christmas tour, which will mean some extra practice.

In addition, she is currently playing the keyboard for our church’s youth group band. She is also working with our Worship Minister to incorporate her viola into some Sunday morning worship songs.

She was able to go to three different music camps this summer, and I think the extra practice and encouragement were great for her motivation. I am excited to see the progress that she will make this year.

Electives

Finally, she is taking three electives. First, she is taking her PE course, which means that for our homeschool, she will log hours doing various physical activities. She enjoys running, so that will make up many of her hours, but she also kayaks, hikes, bowls, and enjoys doing some of the workouts using our Fit2B membership for cardio and weight training.

Next, she is going to be doing a business elective. She had been taking some workshops through our local small business center and asked about turning them into a credit. So we have decided that we are going to track those workshops, as well as the time that she spends putting the ideas and information into practice for her soap-making business or helping with her brother’s farm, and count them towards a business elective.

Her third elective will be a poultry science elective. She participates in Poultry Judging and Avian Bowl through 4-H and, in addition to participating, helps to teach younger children. Her team is even going to the national competition this year. They learn so much about poultry and science in general through this program, and we are counting the hours participating in practices, contests, and teaching towards this elective.

Morning Time

In addition to her transcript courses, she will participate in our daily family morning time. During that time, we do our Bible study, current events with World Watch, Shakespeare, and some fine arts. I will share more specifically how we use that time in another post. Still, I think it is important to remember that not everything your high school student does has to be for their transcript, but it is also great when you can turn things you are already doing into high school courses.

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I am genuinely excited about this year with my nine-year-old. We are moving into fourth grade and looking forward to a great year. He struggled early on with learning to read but turned a corner last year with his reading, which will make this school year much easier.

Reading:

We are starting where we left off in May with All About Reading Level 3, we should finish that before Christmas, and then we will roll straight into All About Reading Level 4. Since things have finally come together for him, he is moving faster and can get through more lessons each week.

He will also be reading some novels with me and doing some book clubs throughout the year for literature.

Spelling

We have been working on All About Spelling, and he will continue to work his way through that. There will be even more focus on that this year now that his reading is more comfortable. We found All About Spelling years ago when my oldest was a struggling speller, and it has been our family favorite ever since.

Writing

For writing, we will be using scripture copywork and nature journaling for practice. He will also be doing First Language Lessons to work on some grammar. Finally, I will sporadically begin working on different prompts, starting with themed paragraphs and working our way up. Due to his reading struggles, writing has not been a considerable focus in years past, so we are looking to expand on those skills this year.

Math

He will be continuing with Math for a Living Education this year. We both love the format; it worked very well for him. There is generally enough practice for him without it being too much busy work. If there are concepts where he struggles, we can add in some extra practice.

I also have a couple of math games, Robbin’ Eggs and Math Sprint, to use with him just to keep working on those skills in a fun way.

Science:

We have been working our way through the Apologia Elementary series, and he chose to do Apologia Land Animals this year. We are excited about doing it with his younger brother (kindergarten) and all of the fun field trips we can add in. We are planning a trip to the zoo and hoping to make it to a couple of other science museums/ animal sanctuaries that are close enough to visit.

We have a big trip coming up in the spring that will bring us to a variety of national parks, and I know many of them will also have displays and activities to help with our studies.

I shared last year how we did Apologia Swimming Creatures, and I will share a post in a couple of weeks with similar resources for Land Animals.

History:

We are generally a Story of the World family for history, but we wanted to cover American History before our trip this year. So we are planning to use the new Tuttle Twins American History Volume One book. I have the book and the audio version to make it easier for both boys, especially once the new baby arrives.

We may also use Volume Two, depending on how fast we get through Volume One. Our whole family is very interested in history, so we sometimes get through more than would otherwise be expected.

Art/Music

This son is the one I refer to as my little artist. He loves to draw, paint, and create. We will continue to use our membership with You Are An Artist chalk pastels for his online art lessons and provide him with lots of time and materials to be creative.

We also like to include books and information about famous artists to help him expand his understanding of art.

For music, he is taking violin lessons with Practice Monkeys. He was taking them last year and then decided to take a break over the summer. However, he asked last week to start again and seems to have a renewed zeal for them.

Morning Time:

Morning time is my favorite part of our school day. We do our daily family devotions, watch World Watch for current events, do fine arts studies, and read alouds of poetry and Tuttle Twins books. I will share an entire post with more details next week, but it is an excellent time of learning and growing together as a family.

Overall, I am very excited about this year with my fourth grader and looking forward to the maturity and progress I see in him.

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Over the summer, I have been reviewing the Stepping into Science Kit by Kids First from Timberdoodle. It was an excellent opportunity for me to do some fun, hands-on science activities with my five-year-old son when the weather was too hot for outdoor play.

What Is Stepping Into Science?

This kit is designed for students ages five to seven (though I think some of the experiments would be great for any elementary age). The kit includes directions and supplies for 29 different experiments. However, there were a few household supplies you are required to provide—for example, water, paper towels, a bowl, a mirror, etc. Most of the items were readily available, though we did have trouble one day with needing a piece of wool fabric.

My five-year-old is just entering kindergarten and cannot read, so we did them together, but a student who could read proficiently could have done many of the experiments independently. Some days my nine-year-old joined the fun, and a family or an individual child could use the kit.

Experiment Categories:

• Experiments in Nature
• Experiments in Physics
• Experiments in Air
• Experiments in Water
• Experiments in Chemistry

At the beginning of each experiment, a list of needed materials is divided by what the kit includes and what needs to come from home. The instructions have step-by-step pictures to help younger students and some written instructions to ensure the directions are clear.

Also, there are tips and ideas for continued experimentation at the end of each experiment.

How Did We Use Stepping Into Science?

You can complete the experiments in any order, so for our situation, I let my son look through them and pick out the ones he wanted to try each day.

Most of the experiments only took a few minutes, though some plant experiments needed to be done over a more extended period due to wait times. For example, a seed sprouting experiment took only a few minutes of active time but several days to see the results.

We have done many (though not all of the experiments), and overall they were easy to complete and worked well. We struggled with getting the hovercraft activity to work well, but I am unsure if that was a flaw in the experiment or an operator error.

What Did We Think?

My son enjoyed all of them but was particularly fond of the water experiments. He learned how to use surface tension to float a paperclip and about buoyancy by making balls and boats out of clay to see which one floated.

While I recommend looking ahead to ensure you have any additional materials for the particular experiment, most of them are very open-and-go and easy to implement. 

There is a list of additional needed materials at the front of the manual in addition to the individual list for each experiment.

Conclusions

Overall, this is a great kit if you have a young elementary student and want an easy way to add some hands-on science experiments without a lot of prep work or extra time. It could be used as a standalone program if you want to wait on a more formal science curriculum or use the experiments to supplement your traditional science curriculum.

Be sure to go to the Timberdoodle website to learn more about this Stepping into Science kit and the other great products that they offer.

It’s hard to believe that my fourth child will be in kindergarten this year, and I will be homeschooling kindergarten for the third time. (My oldest went to public school for kindergarten.) I will be using some of the same programs I have used in the past and changing them up for others.

It is important to evaluate curriculum options each year based on what worked and did not work in the past and on the individual student.

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Reading

We found All About Learning Press years ago when we struggled with spelling, and it has been an excellent fit for all my children. My kindergartener will use All About Reading Pre-Reading level to learn all his letters and letter sounds this year. I love the phonetic approach and the fun touches included in this program.

We will be supplementing this with some great programs from Schoolhouse Teachers. They have a fantastic series with a short video for each letter to reinforce what we are learning in AAR. We are also getting some incredible coloring and letter tracing sheets from Schoolhouse Teachers.

Finally, lots and lots of read-alouds and audiobooks to keep the love of books and reading. I can not over-emphasize the importance of continuing to read to children even as they learn to read on their own.

Math

Math for a Living Education is a math series from Masterbooks. I have used this for several years, but this will be my first time using their kindergarten level. We love how they weave a story through the book to show real-life examples of math skills. I also find that there is enough practice without being overwhelming or feeling like busy work. (If you have a child that needs extra practice, they offer a separate book with additional reinforcement.)

In addition, we will be using some calendar math from Schoolhouse Teachers to reinforce essential math concepts as well as days of the week, months of the year, etc.

Science

My fourth grader is doing Apologia’s Land Animals this year, so my kindergartner will join the fun! I love Apologia for science because it is so easy to integrate with multiple ages. For my kindergartner, he will listen to the text and draw a picture of what he is learning. We will discuss it and then do the experiments together.  

I will also include some coloring pages for him to color while he listens to help him focus.

In addition, we will be doing nature study at least weekly (we often do it more when the weather is comfortable.) Sometimes our nature study is as simple as going outside and observing, but we also love to use our subscription to Homeschool Nature Study to take things a little further and help me find some great activities and ideas.

Finally, we have been working through a really fun Stepping into Science experiment kit from Timberdoodle! I will be posting a full review of the kit in a couple weeks, but have been enjoying it and plan to finish using the kit over the first few months of the school year.

History

Our family typically uses Story of the World for history, and then we take a break between cycles to do US History. However, because of a big trip our family has coming up in the spring that will take us to several national historic sites, we will go ahead and do US History this year.

We will use volume one of the new Tuttle Twins history series. I have both the hardback text and the audiobook so that when things are busy, I can have the boys listen to the audio while I work on other things (like making lunch or tending to the baby).

This will be a new program for us, but we have loved the other materials we have used from the Tuttle Twins and are excited to go through this book.

Geography

I do not always do geography in kindergarten, but because of our big family trip, my son has been asking many questions about maps and places and trying to understand those concepts better. So, we will go through the Kindergarten Evan-Moor Geography book together.

Then when we go on our trip, I will have him help me track our progress on a map.

Art/Music

Nana would probably cringe if she heard me say it, but I am not an artist, so I love having an art program that will help my children in my area of weakness. We have been using You Are An Artist Chalk Pastel lessons for several years with my older children, and we love them. My kindergartener has even done some lessons alongside his siblings. However, this year I will be more intentional about ensuring he gets a chance weekly to do one of their simpler lessons.

Music is another area where I like to call in help teaching, and we use Practice Monkeys for music lessons. We have been with them since 2018, and I cannot say enough good things. My kindergartner started his violin lessons with them last year and will continue those this year. They offer Zoom Suzuki violin, cello, guitar, and piano lessons at a super affordable rate for families.

Handwriting

I am still debating on handwriting, and my plans might change. However, I think our plan is to work through some good fine motor skills activities that work on letters for at least the first half of the year. I may then switch to handwriting without tears, or I may wait and do that in first grade, depending on how he handles everything.

Morning Time

In addition, we will do family Bible, Tuttle Twins, hymn study, fine arts, and World Watch during our morning time each day. In a few weeks, I will share a post about the resources we use for morning time and how we make it work for our family, but it is my favorite part of our homeschool day!

A Typical Day

This list might sound like a lot for a kindergarten student, but we do not do all the subjects daily. We will do morning time, math, and reading almost every day. In addition, we will do history or science and one other elective most days. Aside from his afternoon violin lessons, my son should be able to finish his school day before lunchtime most days.

I would love to know what your favorite resources are for kindergarten! Also, if you have any questions, please ask them in the comments.

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This post may contain affiliate or referral links, including Amazon affiliate links. As always, I will never recommend a product that I don’t believe in, and you will never be charged more for purchasing through our links. It does help pay for the costs associated with the blog.

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The first half of 2023 has flown by; it is hard to believe it is already July. There have been ups and downs in our lives so far this year, and I wanted to take a few minutes to reflect on how things were going with our goals and what I might need to adjust to keep myself on track for the second half of the year.

My focus phrase for this year is “Making Space .” I wanted to make space in three main areas of our lives: homeschooling, family time, and my spiritual life. I have had some successes and areas I still need to work on.

Homeschool

In our homeschool, I think I did a good job of changing schedules to give my teens more time to pursue their passions, especially my daughter’s music. We were able to take some classes off of her plan that she would not need for graduation and make room for more music classes.

God also opened some doors for her to see the violin used in contemporary praise and worship, and then just a week or two later, she was given a chance to practice and worship with another group. She is doing several camps this summer to work on her music and is currently working with our worship pastor on incorporating her viola into our worship band. ( One day, I will write a whole post on how God worked this out because it was totally a God thing.)
My oldest son is enjoying the summer off coursework to focus on his business and hopefully get things set up for a better business/schoolwork balance in the fall. His is more complicated because he wants to take a full course load to help complete some college classes so that he can graduate in less time.

Family Time

Family time is an area where I am struggling. We added some activities that were super beneficial to the teens in their music and business endeavors, but I did not do a great job taking out other things to keep the balance.
We prioritized our morning time and family meals, but I feel like we are rushing from place to place and activity to activity, so I will sit down with my husband over the next couple of weeks to see what we can do to bring back that balance.

Spiritual Life

In addition to our family Bible time, I wanted to be more intentional about my personal Bible time. I have since started a Bible plan with several ladies from my church. We have been reading through the Bible in a year and keeping each other accountable through a texting thread.

Conclusions

Overall, I think we have done a great job making space in our homeschool, and I have made great strides in my personal spiritual life. However, as I look at the last six months, I know I need to do more to make space in our family life.

Your Turn

Reflecting on our progress is essential to continue making progress and course correcting as needed. I would love to know your goals for this year and how you are progressing. Do you regularly reflect on your progress?

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When you sign up for the Schoolin’ Swag free resource library, you will get a link and password to the library, we are adding to the library each month with new items. You will also get a bi-weekly newsletter email to keep you up to date on what we have going on.

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This post may contain affiliate or referral links, including Amazon affiliate links. As always, I will never recommend a product that I don’t believe in, and you will never be charged more for purchasing through our links. It does help pay for the costs associated with the blog.

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I have four children ranging in age from seventeen to five. I love them dearly and believe they are blessings from the Lord, but also, some days, I wonder if they will ever learn to get along. Often it feels like everyone is constantly arguing with each other.

“He took my toy.”

“He didn’t do his chores.”

“She was mean to me.”

“He won’t help me. “

“He is being annoying.”

Some days just listening to and trying to manage the arguing is exhausting. We talk about it, pray about it, do Bible studies about how to treat siblings, and discipline as needed. However, some days it feels like nothing we do is working.

It can be tempting to throw my hands up in defeat, and there are moments when I feel like a failure due to all of the arguing. I say all of this not to throw my children “under the bus,” so to speak, but to let you know that if it is happening in your home, you are not alone.

Hope and Encouragement

However, God has been gently and lovingly showing me that there really is hope in the arguing.
Over the last several months, God has been opening my eyes to the ways that my children love on their siblings. He has been showing me that they are still learning and growing, but that I should “not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.” (Galatians 6:9)

I have seen my seventeen-year-old help his little brothers build a turtle enclosure (without being asked by a parent), I have seen him take his little brother fishing, I have seen my daughter spend her own money to buy her older brother his favorite drink from the gas station just because she thought he might want something.

I have watched my nine-year-old spend his money to buy his siblings gifts on their birthdays. My five-year-old will draw pictures for his siblings and loves to spend time with them.
The arguing isn’t done (and while I trust and believe it will get better, it will probably never be over this side of heaven), but there is hope in the midst of it all. They are learning how to treat one another, control their emotions, and express their love.

Don’t Give Up

If you feel like the sibling arguments in your home are never-ending, if you feel like what you are doing is not having an impact, I want to give you hope and encouragement. Keep up the hard work of helping them learn to interact with others, and remember that they are growing and learning. It can be a slow process but look for the wins. Look for the times when they show love and grace to one another (even if they are arguing again five minutes later).

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When you sign up for the Schoolin’ Swag free resource library, you will get a link and password to the library, we are adding to the library each month with new items. You will also get a bi-weekly newsletter email to keep you up to date on what we have going on.

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This post may contain affiliate or referral links, including Amazon affiliate links. As always, I will never recommend a product that I don’t believe in, and you will never be charged more for purchasing through our links. It does help pay for the costs associated with the blog.

The Ten Commandments for children book was written by Ronald L. Cammenga and illustrated by Ana Sebastian. The Reformed Free Publishing Association published the book. This hardcover children’s book teaches children ages six to nine about the ten commandments. I am grateful to have been given the opportunity to review this book and share my honest opinions.

About the Book

At first glance, I loved the beautiful and colorful illustrations. The headings for each part of a section were in a different color, making the book engaging for young readers. The pages are also thick and sturdy, which is essential when little hands are helping turn pages and look at pictures.

Often children’s Bible books take a significantly simplified and surface-level approach to scriptures in an effort to make sure children can understand the text. However, while this book does break things down into understandable terms, it goes very deep into the commandments and explains them in a way that brings children to a deeper understanding.

There are several overview chapters, and then each commandment is broken down into two or three two-page sections. Each section includes Bible reading, scripture memory, songs to sing, a good explanation of the commandment, and discussion questions. There are a total of twenty-eight sections.

The Songs

The songs are from the 1912 United Presbyterian Psalter. They are simply recommendations for songs with no lyrics listed, but there is a QR code to download an app for the lyrics. Unfortunately for me, the app did not work on my device. However, the songs and music are readily available online.

This book has a lot of instructional value and could be used as a family devotional or as independent reading for an elementary student.

Theology

I know that I have a wide variety of denominations represented in my readership, and this book would be beneficial across denominations for the most part. The one point of contention I saw that might be an issue for some of my readers is the view that Sunday is the Sabbath, which I know is a belief that some of my readers hold, while others celebrate the Sabbath on Saturday. This would not prohibit anyone from using the book, but you would want to have that discussion with your children.

How We Used the Book

As a family, we read and discuss a chapter of scripture each day. We are currently working our way through Exodus, so it worked out beautifully to have this book to help my younger boys better understand the ten commandments after we read about them during our family Bible time.

My five-year-old recognized the golden calf illustration with the section on idolatry and was excited to be learning more about something he remembered from our Bible time.

Final Thoughts

Overall, I thought this was a well-written book that is an excellent tool for helping younger children come to a deeper understanding of the Ten Commandments. It is colorful and engaging while still being Biblically sound and instructional. I encourage you to check out the Ten Commandments for children to see if it would fit your family well.

Resource Library and Affiliate Disclosure

When you sign up for the Schoolin’ Swag free resource library, you will get a link and password to the library, we are adding to the library each month with new items. You will also get a bi-weekly newsletter email to keep you up to date on what we have going on.

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This post may contain affiliate or referral links, including Amazon affiliate links. As always, I will never recommend a product that I don’t believe in, and you will never be charged more for purchasing through our links. It does help pay for the costs associated with the blog.

Disclaimer: I received this kit for free in exchange for my honest review.

What is Robotics for Kids?

My sons have been interested in robotics for a while. We have had a few robots and tried a few simple kits. They always enjoyed the kits, but most were more like toys than robots, and they did not learn much about programming a robot from them. However, we recently tried out a Robby the Drummer Kit and lessons from Robotics for Kids. I was pleasantly surprised by how much they learned about robotics.

Explanation of the Program:

Robotics for Kids has several program options, including some free online courses. We reviewed the Robby the Drummer Kit and courses. This involved getting the kit to build a robot that used a tambourine to drum.

The kit includes:

Micro-controller unit

Micro-controller Expansion Board

Servo Motors

Wooden Parts (for robots body)

Batter Holder

USB Cable

Drum Sticks

Drum

Mounting Brackets

Bolts. nuts, and Spacers

Wires and Screws

You Provide:

Batteries

Computer

Phillips Head Screwdriver

Once you receive the kit in the mail, you complete three one-hour Zoom classes that teach the students how to build the robot and then how to program the robot.

This also includes downloadable code for the robot. The students can initially use this code to program the robot and then change the code to adapt what the robot does. 

For example, they can make the robot drum faster or slower. They could make the robot’s head move or have it wave its arms. They could also make it so only one arm did something, and the other arm was still.

Our Experiences with Robotics for Kids:

My nine-year-old was especially excited when the kit came in the mail! He loves all things robots and has been learning a lot about robots through our homeschool, but had not had much robotics instruction.

Since my sixteen-year-old was also interested in robotics, and I knew my nine-year-old would need some help, we decided it would be fun for them to work through the program together.

On the first night, they mainly put together the mechanical and electrical components of the robot to get it ready for programming. My nine-year-old loved it, and my sixteen-year-old didn’t mind it but felt like he was not learning anything new.

However, nights two and three of the class involved programming the robot. This is where both of my sons learned more about the process and began to understand just how much it takes to make a robot do the different things they do.

The course came with code for the robot that we could download, and the instructor walked them through the programming process in a very step-by-step manner. Then once it was programmed, we spent most of the third Zoom class learning how to change the code to adjust the robot’s motions.

My son was so excited to show off his robot to friends and family, and he continues to play with it and wants to spend more time learning to program it.

Conclusions:

My sixteen-year-old and nine-year-old learned a lot through these courses, and I loved that they could work together to learn something new and build a cool robot. My nine-year-old’s interest in robotics was encouraged through this course, and he is hoping to take some of the add-on courses soon to keep learning.

If you have students interested in robotics but, like me, don’t know where to start or how to help them, this is a great place to start. They get to build a simple but fun robot and learn the basics of programming in a Zoom format that allows the instructor to help them with anything confusing.

For younger children (like my nine-year-old), you will want to be available to help them or have an older sibling help. However, I think most teenagers could manage the course without adult assistance.

Make sure you go to the Robotics for Kids website and check out Robby the Drummer. If you aren’t sure if your child would enjoy the robotics program, you can also try one of the free courses they offer to see if it is something your child would enjoy.

Resource Library and Affiliate Disclosure

When you sign up for the Schoolin’ Swag free resource library, you will get a link and password to the library, we are adding to the library each month with new items. You will also get a bi-weekly newsletter email to keep you up to date on what we have going on.

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This post may contain affiliate or referral links, including Amazon affiliate links. As always, I will never recommend a product that I don’t believe in, and you will never be charged more for purchasing through our links. It does help pay for the costs associated with the blog.

Read-alouds are a big part of our family culture. I’ve written several posts about different read-alouds that we love over the years, but we have recently discovered several new (or new to us) books and series that I wanted to share with you.

We listen to audiobooks in the car while we drive (yes, this totally counts as read-aloud time) as well as me reading books aloud in the evening several nights a week (with two younger children and two active teens, it doesn’t happen every night but that doesn’t mean we don’t fit it in whenever we can make it work).

Towers of Light Series

We were blessed with a chance to review the first book in the Towers of Light series and really enjoyed it. It is a fictional adventure story that shares gospel truths and spiritual warfare in a way that makes it understandable to children. I love it when we can enjoy a story for its own merits but also use it to help our children learn and grow in the truth of God.

For independent reading, I’d probably recommend it for upper elementary and middle grades students. However, we listened to the audio as a family, and everyone enjoyed it. If you have sensitive young children, there are a few intense scenes, but my five-year-old was fine with it.

They also have workbooks that you can use to accompany the novels if you want to make it into a unit study. (You can see my full review here.)

• *You can get 10% off of these books from the website by using code schoolinswag*

Jack Zulu

Our family loves the Green Ember series by S.D. Smith, so we were excited to get the first book in his new series, Jack Zulu, this year for Christmas. He is writing this one with his teenage son, which was a big hit for us, and it had my children asking for one more chapter every time we read it.
It is a fantasy book that shares the same excellent writing style as The Green Ember but is very different in that it features humans as the main characters. It occurs in a small town in West Virginia and other worlds.

It is fun, exciting, and a little suspenseful, but it also teaches some valuable life lessons without feeling preachy. We read through it quickly because the whole family was enthralled, and the only negative is that we now have to wait for them to finish the next book!

Growly Books

I had heard of the series several years ago, but we had not yet had a chance to start reading them. A couple of months ago, I found the first book on audio and decided it was time to try them. We adored this fun and endearing adventure story about Growly the Bear and his friends Chippy and Tully.
While it is ideal for elementary and middle grades students, my high schoolers also enjoyed it. ( I would not pick it if I only had middle and high school students, but it is excellent for a mixed-age group.)

The story was exciting; the characters were lovable and fun. When we finished the first one, we were traveling, and they wanted me to immediately buy the next one so we could keep listening. Unfortunately, only the first one is on audio, so we had to wait until we were not on the road to keep reading.

My one complaint is that the first book leaves you at a very unfinished point, and that is a personal pet peeve of mine; however, it also made you really want to grab the next one and keep reading. A big bonus for this series is that it is also available on Kindle Unlimited!

Mistmantle Chronicles

Mistmantle Chronicles was a series that I had never seen until my daughter’s friend recommended the first book for our book club. It is a fantasy series that features animals as the main characters, battles of good versus evil, sweet stories, and tales of adventure.

The first three books in the series are available on Kindle Unlimited, a great way to read a wide variety of books. We have yet to finish the series, but finding the last couple of books in the series can be challenging as they are currently out of print. However, I have seen that there is a company that is bringing the books back one by one, so hopefully, by the time we get to the last books, they will be reprinting them as well.

Campground Kids

These mystery and adventure books take place in different national parks and follow the same fictional family as they vacation in various national parks. Each book has a different mystery/adventure as well as life and moral lessons woven through the story.

We have particularly enjoyed reading these while we travel in our camper, but they are also a fun way to travel vicariously.

To Be Read and Reading Journal

We have a Two Be Read list that is pretty long, including finishing these series, waiting not so patiently for the sequel to Jack Zulu, listening to Mary Poppins for our book club, and wanting to start The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place on the recommendation of a friend.

If you are like me and need a way to track all of the books you are reading and/or the ones, you want to read, check out our new reading journal and log. You can use code SWAGREADS to get 25% off.
However, we are always looking for great books to read, so I would love to hear your thoughts and recommendations. In the comments, share your favorite read-alouds, particularly those that are good for multiple ages.

More Reading Posts

Remarkable Read Alouds

Tip Tuesday: Our Homeschool Secret Weapon-Audiobooks

Reading With Your Ears

Resource Library and Affiliate Disclosure

When you sign up for the Schoolin’ Swag free resource library, you will get a link and password to the library; we are adding to the library each month with new items. You will also get a bi-weekly newsletter email to keep you up to date on what we have going on.

Resource Library 

This post may contain affiliate or referral links, including Amazon affiliate links. As always, I will never recommend a product that I don’t believe in, and you will never be charged more for purchasing through our links. It does help pay for the costs associated with the blog.