The Kingdom Code Journal #2

Welcome to installment two of our Journey Through the Code with the The Kingdom Code . This is the week my son had been waiting for, he could pick his business and get started. I loved that it was only lesson two and he was already getting started. Some programs want to teach them everything before they get started but they can easily get bored or frustrated. By only waiting until lesson 2, he was excited and motivated.

Lego Businesses

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Key to the Lesson: “In a free enterprise system, I can build a better business if I seek wisdom.”

In this lesson he learned about capitalism and free enterprise. We discussed various ways that businesses can be competitive and what freedoms are enjoyed by the owners of private businesses. We discussed various business opportunities and what each one of them would involve, the difficulties that would need to be overcome, and which one would work best for our family. He created a city featuring various service businesses out of Legos and then he chose his own business. Once he had chosen, he filled out the Treasure Builder Permit which was an agreement between the child and parents about the business that would be started. I loved how formal and official this made the business feel for my son.

He was learning to seek wisdom from the Bible and from trusted mentors, the value and benefit of entrepreneurship and free enterprise, and how to analyze the potential benefits and challenges of various opportunities. My son choose to open his own grass cutting and lawn care business as a way to best utilize his time and talents.

Stay tuned next week for lesson two of The Kingdom Code and don’t forget that you can get 10% of this program using Coupon Code: 10TKC08! If you have any questions about our journey let me know in the comments and I will be sure to try and address them in our next installment.

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Library and Educational Services LLC (Review)

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Most of the reviews you will find on this blog are for specific products, but this review is a bit different. I had the opportunity to review a selection from the online bookstore, Library and Educational Services LLC. They were very generous in allowing me to pick out on book from the “Who Was…” series, an audiobook on CD from Lifehouse Theater, and $60 worth of books from their Reinforced Hardcover Library Binding Nonfiction books. You can imagine the excitement at my house as we browsed, discussed, and made our final selections. There were so many to choose from but I tried to get something each of my children would enjoy.

We were already big fans of the “Who Was…” series and excited to be able to pick out a new one for our collection. When I realized how great their prices were, I went ahead and picked up an extra one at my expense. The children were thrilled to receive Who Was Beatrix Potter? and Who Was J.R.R. Tolkien?. These are two of the authors that we were already planning to study this year so the books work nicely with our curriculum. IF you are not familiar with this series, they are short easy to read biographies that include lots of great information for young readers. I would recommend them for the 7-12 year old range, although my thirteen-year-old still enjoys reading them as a quick read.

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Lifehouse Theater Audio books were new to me but we love audio books and I was excited to give it a try. We had a family trip to our state capital and used the time coming home to listen to their version of Pride and Prejudice. This was an abridged version of the story, much to the relief of my husband, but really well done. The voices were engaging and story was well represented. I thought it was a great introduction to the story and look forward to reading the full text with them in a few years.

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As I sat down to browse through the Reinforced Hardcover Library Binding Nonfiction books, I could have easily spent hundreds of dollars on books. There were so many amazing titles to choose from but I tried to stick closely to my $60 budget. In the end, I chose three sets that I thought would be beneficial to our family. First, a set of two animal detectives books. These books are for early readers and were great for me to read aloud to my five-year-old son. They featured military dolphins and police dogs and he has loved hearing me read them and going through on his own and viewing the pictures. Then for my oldest two children, I picked up a set of Stories in American History. These four hardback chapter books each teach about a different part of American History. They are colorful and engaging but not ‘babyish’. Finally, I picked up a set of books for us to use together for nature study. The title, A Kid’s Guide to Animal Poop, made the children laugh and the boys were immediately drawn to them. However, while the title is a bit silly, the books are full of great information about each of the four animals that were represented in the series. They will be a great addition to our science and nature study this year.

Overall, I was very pleased with the prompt service and reasonable prices offered by Library and Educational Services LLC. They had a great selection of books and they were very high-quality books which I expect to last for many years. They also have a great selection of books on CD that I am looking forward to utilizing for some Christmas shopping this year. I was also impressed by the speed of service. The books were shipped out the very next day and arrived in about 3-4 days. As you prepare for the upcoming school year, you should take a look at the selection offered by Library and Educational Services LLC and see what they have that might work well with your curriculum choices.

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Our Sixth Grade Curriculum Choices

I am excited to share with you today the very best and only correct sixth grade curriculum! Just kidding! I firmly believe that there are many great programs. There are many factors that go into choosing the best curriculum for your child. However, I always like to share what we are using in case it helps someone find a program that works well for their family.

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My daughter is eleven and getting ready to start her sixth-grade year. When we sat down and discussed her goals for the year, she wanted to work on improving her running, her music skills, start her own weaving business, and read through the entire Old Testament. As I sat down to plan her curriculum, I wanted to find ways to incorporate both the academic goals that I had for her as well as her own goals and interests.

Glossary Sample

For language arts, we are using a combination of four programs. This might sound a bit overwhelming but they each cover a different area and generally only require a few minutes each day per program. First, we are continuing to use All About Spelling. It is one of my favorite programs ever because it was such a game changer for our family. This program helped both of my older children to finally understand spelling and translate what they were learning in spelling to their everyday writing. Last spring, my daughter had the opportunity to try out Fix It! Grammar from IEW and we felt like it was a really good fit. The short lessons were effective without being overwhelming and so we are going to continue to use that program for Grammar. For literature we are going to use Analyzing, Understanding, and Exploring Literature from SchoolhouseTeachers.com. Finally, we are going to start working our way through Sharon Watson’s writing program Jump In. My son started this program last spring and we really liked it. She has various plans to cover this material in anywhere from one to three years. I plan on using the two-year track with my daughter.

For the last two years my daughter has used Math For A Living Education. She has really enjoyed the program and it worked well for her. I thought about switching her to something that she could use all through middle school (level six is the highest in this program), but since she liked it and wanted to continue, we decided to go ahead and finish out the program before switching to something new next year. I love that it is a very open and go program that includes lots of real-life application to help them understand why they need the math and when they will use it in real life.

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For science, we are finishing up a science program that we started but did not finish last year: Apologia Exploring Creation with Chemistry and Physics. We love the Apologia series but got behind due to the hurricane and switched our science focus to match what was happening in our lives. We are excited to dive back into this program and finish it out. We enjoy all of the hands-on projects and the creation-based approach to science.

We will be studying North Carolina History as a family. We love history and have spent a good deal of time volunteering at our local historic site, so the children are very excited about this year’s history line-up. I will be using a variety of books, our North Carolina Junior Historians program, the North Carolina Historic Sites, and a variety of other resources to take them through North Carolina’s history. We will also use State History from a Christian Perspective to get us started and get a good overview of North Carolina.

For art, she will work on lessons from You Are An Artist Chalk Pastels. She does not see herself as much of an artist, but has found that she can follow along with Nana’s simple and clear instructions to create adorable pictures. I think that the program helps her gain confidence in her art abilities and takes her outside of her ‘box’ and lets her try new things. For music, she takes violin lessons from Practice Monkeys. We love this gentle and convenient approach to music lessons. She is progressing through the levels of the program quickly and enjoys practicing each day. She is also hoping to add piano lessons through the same program in January. I love that she can manage this new passion and is being responsible in practicing and ‘going to’ her online lessons without a lot of reminding. We are also going to incorporate some music appreciation materials during our morning time and evening education.

In addition to these programs, she will be doing Bible study each day and our morning time which will include read alouds, music appreciation, missionary studies, and more. Of course, there will also be lots of free play, field trips, and hands on adventures to keep the real-life learning going. Over the next couple of weeks, I will be sharing more about what we are using for our morning time as well as the programs I am using for my eighth grader. If you have younger children you may want to check out Our Kindergarten Curriculum.

What are your favorite middle grades resources?

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Deals and Freebies

SchoolhouseTeachers.com is doing an amazing sale this month! Buy One year get One Year FREE! We use this for several of our courses and one price covers all the students in your home for as many of their over 400 courses and you would like to use.

Not Consumed is having a great FREE Homeschool Curriculum week this week including live chats, free printables and daily giveaways! make sure to check it out.

Free ABC Mouse Trial: Looking for a little summer education for your children when it is too hot to play outside? ABC Mouse is offering a FREE 30 day trial. This is a great way to give it a try and see if it works for your child.

Free Makeover Your Morning 5 Day Challenge! This is a great way to help re-focus and get your day off on the right foot.

Harry The Happy Mouse (Free on Kindle)

Illustrated Would You Rather Book (Free on Kindle)

Enrichment Studies has a great free fine arts memory match game this month!

Free Help Your Child’s Memory Book from All About Learning Press!

Home School in the Woods Time Travelers (Review)

After an unusually crazy year (thanks to Hurricane Florence) we were finally finishing up our school year at the end of June. About that same time, I was given the opportunity to review one of the Time Travelers U.S. History Studies by Home School in the Woods. I was tired, the children were tired, and we all needed a break. I almost turned down the review without even discussing it with them. However, I casually mentioned it to them because I knew they had really enjoyed it when we used the Project Passport World History Studies last year to study Ancient Egypt. To my surprise they both enthusiastically told me they wanted to review the product, even though it meant working through it on their summer break.

Since the children were excited about it, I agreed to the review and we turned it into a summer family learning project. We would gather as a family in the evenings a few nights a week and work through a lesson or two. We chose to review Time Travelers: The Early 19th Century because that was a time period my children were interested in learning more about. This program includes 25 days of lessons (five of which are project days to complete projects associated with the other lessons). The lessons include a text (generally 2-3 pages) which I read aloud to the family at the beginning of each lesson. This was the new information that we were learning for the lessons.

Then for each lesson there was a variety of activities. You could have each student complete all of the activities, especially if you were using this as a primary history curriculum or unit study. However, since we were enjoying this as a summer family project, I chose to just have each of my older children do one or two activities per lesson. This was enough to reinforce what was being taught but still kept it light and fun.

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The activities that were offered included a timeline, lap book components, copywork, maps, a song book, hands-on projects, and recipes. Students could also create a newspaper and write articles related to the lessons. We chose to primarily focus on the song book, maps, and timeline. In addition, we are collecting the recipes and looking forward to having a celebratory dinner when we finish this program in a few weeks. She even has a post on her blog with ideas on incorporating recipes.

I think that the timeline is so helpful, especially for old students, in helping to understand what things were happening concurrently and how different events impacted other events. My son enjoyed cutting out the timeline figures that went with each lesson and adding them to our timeline pages.

The map component for this program was really well thought out and added a lot to our discussions. It started with a base map in the first lesson and then added maps on clear overlays to help students understand how the country was changing during this time period. We printed off the maps, cut out the parts that had changed and glued them onto the clear sheets. Then the clear sheets were placed on top of the other maps making it very easy to conceptualize the changes.

My daughter has recently taken a strong interest in music and enjoyed creating the song book. For the lessons that had songs, we would print out the words that were included with the lesson, read over them, and then find the song performed and listen to the song. They really enjoyed this component of the study.

While we did not have time to do all of the hands-on projects there were some really neat ideas included and we plan to go back and complete more of them. My five year old who was listening along with us, would really like to make the coon skin cap project once I get the needed materials. There were other projects like making corn husk dolls and making jumping jack toys (that one is coming up in our lessons this week and I know my son will enjoy it).

Overall, we found this to be a really fun summer learning project for our family. I think it offers a lot of flexibility to be used as a family or to be used as a more formal curriculum. If you were using it as a curriculum, I would recommend it for upper elementary school and possibly middle grades students. For our history loving family, I would probably have my middle school student take some of the lessons a bit deeper with further research but it would be a good base of study. If you were using this program for the year you would probably want to go through at least three or four of the various time periods over the course of a school year. You could also use these programs to supplement and add a more creative component to your other history studies. If you were using a program that briefly covered the time period, this could be a great way to go deeper into an area of interest.

I encourage you to check out all of the Time Travelers U.S. History Studies and to click on the graphic below to check out the other Crew Reviews which cover a variety of time periods as well as some of the other Home School in the Woods products. You can also see our review of Project Passport: Ancient Egypt from last year. Have you tried any of these products? I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

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North Carolina History Resources

** This page is a work in progress. I will be updated and organizing these resources as we finalize our plans.**

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General North Carolina History Books

North Carolina Travel Books

This one is one of the ones I am most excited to use as a spine for our studies this year.

Colonial North Carolina

Native Americans

The Wright Brothers

North Carolina Hurricanes

North Carolina History Websites

North Carolina Museum of History

North Carolina Junior Historians

North Carolina Historic Sites

Tryon Palace

North Carolina History Videos on Demand

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The Kingdom Code Journal #1

You may have seen my review of The Kingdom Code a few weeks ago. We are really loving the program and I am very excited to announce that I will be partnering with them to share more about our Journey Through The Code. I will be posting a Journal entry approximately once a week (skipping vacations/holidays) sharing what we have learned and covered in each lesson.

When we sat down to do lesson one, we first got everything set up and ready to use. The kit came with instructions and we used three ring binders that we already had on hand to get Matthew’s notebooks set up with the proper forms and documents behind each tab. Then we sat down and read through the lesson together.

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Lesson one discussed the full armor of God, financial responsibility, and different types of service jobs. Younger students also had an opportunity to practice counting money. While I skipped this part with my son because he is already very proficient, it is great practice in an important life skill for those that are still learning about money.

Key to the Lesson ” In God’s armor, I will be financially responsible and build treasure.”

We also made a chart of different businesses and categorized them as businesses that sell goods or those which provide a service. This program is primarily designed to help students start and run a service-based business so it is important that they have a good understanding of the difference before they start their business in the next lessons. It is easiest to use this program with a service-based business, but I do think you can adapt it for a goods-based business if your child has a strong preference for a particular business.

In addition to the activities that we chose to complete, they also offered lesson reinforcement through the use of a song, building activity, or money games. I really appreciated that they included a variety of bonus activities to help meet varying interests and learning styles.

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W is for Winnie the Pooh and Wind in the Willows

I tried to choose just one but, there were several W books that just had to be mentioned. The Winnie the Pooh cartoons bring back fond memories of my own childhood; when I would go to my aunt’s house (we did not have satellite television at my home growing up) it was one of my very favorite television shows. Even though I did not read the books until I was an adult reading with my children. I just loved Pooh Bear and reading the books aloud to my children has been such a great experience. The characters are so much fun but also quietly teach such wonderful life lessons of love, friendship, loyalty, and selflessness. If you want to know more about how the stories got started you might also want to check out Finding Winnie, or if you want a family movie night A bear named Winnie.

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Wind in the Willows is another classic book that I had never read until I read it aloud to my children. It is a fun story that had them asking for more each time I read a few chapters. The stories of Rat and Mole will warm your heart and make you laugh and no one can forget the irascible Mr. Toad. I will note that as this book is a British book so there is a use of a word that we consider inappropriate in this house unless it is actually referring to the animal (a**). Depending on your children you can explain that it was considered acceptable there or you can skip it or mark it out as you see fit. Author Kenneth Grahame does a great job with descriptive language that paints a picture of the story in your mind.

Finally, I need to mention the Who Was Series (Among our Favorite Series). These short biographies are a great way for young readers to get more information on a variety of important people including historical figures, scientists, authors, and even a few famous athletes.

Have you read any of these W books? Tell me what books come to mind when you think of the letter W.

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Deals and Freebies

Free Makeover Your Morning 5 Day Challenge! This is a great way to help re-focus and get your day off on the right foot.

Harry The Happy Mouse (Free on Kindle)

Illustrated Would You Rather Book (Free on Kindle)

Enrichment Studies has a great free fine arts memory match game this month!

Free Help Your Child’s Memory Book from All About Learning Press!

Our Kindergarten Curriculum

One of the most popular homeschooling questions I receive is, “What is the best curriculum for….?” I will be the first to tell you that there is no one right answer to that question. There are many factors that go into choosing the best curriculum for your child. However, I always like to share what we are using in case it helps someone find a program that works well for their family.

My son turned five in April and is beginning his kindergarten year this fall. Earlier this summer, when I was working on goals with my older two children, he wanted to set his own goals. I suggested learning to read or to write his name. He, however, had other ideas. He let me know that he wanted to learn to cook pancakes and fish, climb trees, and more about Jesus. While I don’t think this is all we will learn in kindergarten, I did think they were worthy goals and a great insight into the mind of a five-year-old boy. I’ll leave the tree climbing lessons to his siblings but I do plan to teach him to cook pancakes and fish (though not together) and I am always happy to teach my children more about Jesus.

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All About Reading's new color edition review

In addition to his goals, I have planned out some fun curriculum for us to use to cover additional academic subjects. We do believe in a relaxed approach to kindergarten and what I have planned should take us about an hour a day not counting field trips, nature walks, and his fifteen-minute violin lesson. Since he is not yet showing any interest and has been resistant to learning letters and reading, we will be waiting to start formal phonics until at least January. I will re-evaluate his readiness in January and possibly start All About Reading or work some more in The Learning Dynamics Reading Program. I am also going to have him continue to use his Starfall subscription a couple times a week to continue his exposure to letters and phonics.

I will be using Five in A Row as our primary curriculum with him this year. This program is a great way to encourage an enjoyment of good children’s books and incorporate other areas of learning. Using this program, we will read the book of the week five times (once each school day) and complete various activities coordinating with the book. Five in a Row includes activities for social studies, math, language arts, art, and science. Each week I will choose from the variety of activities to engage and challenge him.

While Five in a Row includes some math, it is not a sequential math program. I believe that math in the early years should mostly be hands on and as real life as possible, but I like to have slightly more structured program. Therefore, I am using a Calendar Math set and the Building a Foundation with Kindergarten Math course from Schoolhouse Teachers to create a math program for him. He loves doing math and is looking forward to getting started. He has really enjoyed using the Pattern Block Pack from The Crafty Classroom so I will also use those a couple times a week for independent work.

For science, we will be doing a mostly nature focused science study in addition to some of the science activities in Five in a Row. I am going to use a primary journal so that he can draw pictures of what we find in nature and then dictate a sentence about it for me to write at the bottom. We will use our Peterson’s field guides and other resources to learn more about the things he finds. I am also planning to get him caterpillars in the spring so that he can learn about the life cycle of the butterfly.

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We will be studying North Carolina History as a family. At the kindergarten level this will mostly be listening to me read aloud, having family discussions, lots of field trips, and some fun coloring pages. We also already to historical interpreting as a family, so he has lots of exposure to history and has developed a love for the revolutionary era. I believe that this will be a great introduction to the study of history for him.

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For art, he will continue to work on lessons from You Are An Artist Chalk Pastels. He has been doing the preschool lessons, but as he gets more comfortable I will have him do some of the regular lessons that are a little more challenging. He enjoys these lessons with ‘Nana’ so much and just last week as we were coloring a picture he told me that my picture was “almost as good as Nana’s.” For music, he takes violin lessons from Practice Monkeys. We love this gentle and convenient approach to music lessons and looks forward to them each day.

In addition to these programs, he will be joining us for Bible study each day and our morning time which will include read alouds, music appreciation, missionary studies, and more. Of course, there will also be lots of free play, field trips, and hands on adventures to keep the real life learning going. Over the next couple of weeks, I will be sharing more about what we are using for our morning time as well as the programs I am using for my older children.

What are your favorite kindergarten resources?

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Deals and Freebies

Free Makeover Your Morning 5 Day Challenge! This is a great way to help re-focus and get your day off on the right foot.

Harry The Happy Mouse (Free on Kindle)

Illustrated Would You Rather Book (Free on Kindle)

Enrichment Studies has a great free fine arts memory match game this month!

Free Help Your Child’s Memory Book from All About Learning Press!

Apologia General Science (Review)

For years I have trusted Apologia with our family science curriculum and have been blessed with children that love science. However, I knew that as my son entered eighth grade this year I wanted him to start being more independent with his science in preparation for high school. This review of the new Exploring Creation with General Science, 3rd Edition by Apologia came at the perfect time and I couldn’t wait to give it a try.

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I received the Textbook, Student Notebook, and Solutions and Test book for this curriculum. The curriculum was designed for junior high students and recommended for seventh grade. However, we are choosing to use it as an eighth-grade course and I think it works well for either grade. The course begins with an overview of the history of science and various scientist. It moves on to learning about the scientific method and documenting results as well as scientific analysis and history. After that overview it begins to teach about specific areas of science including astronomy, geology and paleontology, meteorology and oceanography, chemistry, life science, and more. I felt like it was a great overview course to help prepare for the more specific high school level courses.

I was a little concerned about how the transition to independence would go with my son because he was so accustomed to doing science together and his ADHD can make organization a bit of a struggle. However, I was very pleased to see how well they laid out this program and the features that were put into place to help students transition to independent learning. While we had a bit of a learning curve the first couple of days from him not wanting to take the time to read the directions, with-in the first week he had gotten the hang of the lay-out and was completing his lessons independently.

The front pages of the student notebook are written to the parent and give grading suggestions and experiment rubrics. Next comes a schedule that lays out what a student should be doing each day in order to complete the course in 33 four-day weeks. While we will probably adjust that schedule somewhat to fit our needs, I really appreciated having it all laid out and easy for my son to follow. At the beginning of each day’s work in the notebook there is a checklist of the activities to complete for that day. For a student that can get sidetracked or forget about multiple steps this can be really helpful in keeping them on track.

The notebook is very well set up and designed to help a student learn how to take good notes, use graphic organizers, learn related vocabulary and prepare for the end of module tests. There is a study guide at the end of each module for the student to complete and use as they study for the end of module test. In the back of the notebook, there are lab report forms for each lab that is included in the text book. These forms help walk the student through the entire process and then help them learn to write more formal lab reports to prepare for high school.

The test book includes a test for each module (except the last module on modern day scientists which does not include a test). The first two tests are designed to be open book tests and get the students accustomed to the testing process. The later tests are designed to be done without the assistance of the book after studying the chapter and review materials. The tests are reasonably short, ranging from 6-13 questions, and mostly multiple choice or matching questions.

Our experience with this program has been wonderful. I loved how easy it was to get my son started and help transition him to independence. He loved the variety of experiments that are included in every module (and I appreciated that they were simple enough that he could use mostly items from around our home to complete them). We finished up the first two modules of this program and are looking forward to finishing the curriculum during this upcoming school year. I think this program will prepare him well for his high school level sciences.

I encourage you to check out Exploring Creation with General Science, 3rd Edition., if you are looking for a creation based general science for your middle grades student. If you are not yet to the middle grades years you can check out my review of one of their elementary programs from last year. Don’t forget to click on the banner below and read the reviews from other Crew Members.

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V is for a Variety of Children’s Books

When I first started trying to think of books with “V” I was really struggling, but then I found four different ones in our collection that I felt were worth sharing. I decided to share all four of them so that you have a variety of “V” books to choose from this week.

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The first two books, staples in our children’s collection, are by Eric Carle. The Very Hungry Caterpillar and The Very Quiet Cricket are wonderful children’s books that we have enjoyed reading many times over the years. The pictures are adorable and descriptions are fantastic. You can almost hear the insects with the descriptions in The Very Quiet Cricket as the sounds are described using terms such as, ” hummed a bumblebee” and “screeched a cicada.” It would be a great book to add to a study of insects. I love The Very Hungry Caterpillar so much that I plan to do a week long unit study on the book with my kindergartner this year. We can eat some of the yummy food that it talks about, get caterpillars to watch as they go through metamorphosis and turn into butterflies, and learn the days of the week.

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Velveteen Rabbit is one of those classic children’s stories that I think every child should hear at least once. While it has some really sad parts, it is a wonderful fairy tale about the power of love. If you are not familiar with this title, it is the story of a well loved stuffed rabbit that had to be thrown out after the child who loved him had been very sick. The magic of that love allowed him to become a real rabbit.

Victoria House is one that I had not read until recently. I found it in the clearance section on a recent bookstore visit and picked it up for $1. Written by Janice Shefelman, it is the story of a beautiful old house that had been abandoned and was going to be torn down. Fortunately, an architect saw it and fell in love with the home. They had the house moved into the city, moved into it, and turned it into a happy home once more. It was a cute story with lovely illustrations. I also felt that it was a great reminder of the value of older things in today’s ‘throw away’ culture.

Have you read any of these V books? Tell me what books come to mind when you think of the letter V.

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Deals and Freebies

Free Makeover Your Morning 5 Day Challenge! This is a great way to help re-focus and get your day off on the right foot.

Harry The Happy Mouse (Free on Kindle)

Illustrated Would You Rather Book (Free on Kindle)

Enrichment Studies has a great free fine arts memory match game this month!

Free Help Your Child’s Memory Book from All About Learning Press!