Feeding the Hobbits or Homeschool Snacks

The Review Crew is talking about homeschool snacks this week and I wanted to share a few of our favorite healthy snack ideas. I don’t know if we read too much Tolkien or if it is just being at home all day, but my children eat like hobbits.

They want three meals and lots of snacks. So it is important to me to have easy, healthy, and inexpensive options available.

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Healthy Homeschool Snacks

I have learned that if I keep the healthy homeschool snacks easily available and the treats not as easily accessible it is easier to make sure that we are eating a healthy diet. We all enjoy the occasional cookie or brownie but I try to mostly make those homemade so that they aren’t always around.

Fruits and Vegetables

Fruit and Vegetables tend to make great healthy snacks but can sometimes be expensive. I have found that I can keep it inexpensive by choosing fruit that is currently in season, growing some of our own, or using vegetables like carrot sticks that are almost always inexpensive at our local grocery store.

Right now we are enjoying all of the fresh strawberries! Our local u-pick has them for only $1.35 a pound. They are so sweet and tasty, but also full of vitamins.

If you want to make vegetables more exciting you can add a dip or make them into shapes. We sometimes give them a variety and they can make their own creations before eating them.

Protein

When children are growing, they can often need extra protein and it is a great way to keep them full a little longer. My children love beef jerky and it is great for being easy and nutritious but it can get expensive.

For cheaper high protein options, we like boiled eggs, peanut butter balls, cheese sticks, or mixed nuts. I have also found that by using Ibotta, I can often get really good deals on protein bars.

For those days when they are extra hungry between meals, these tuna kits are a great snack. They are more that what we would often eat for a snack, but packed with protein.

Salty Snacks

Buying chips and snacks in bulk packaging is often the cheapest way to go. We especially love buying big bags of popcorn kernels that the children can pop in the air popper.

However, I have found that if I buy the individual serving sizes it makes portion control a lot easier. It also makes it easier to bring snacks on the go. To get a better deal on snacks like Veggie Chips, Apple Straws, and popcorn bags, I like to use Amazon Subscribe and Save.

The newest favorite in our house are these Simply Cheetos! We love that they don’t have dyes and are healthier than the regular version but very tasty!

Tell Us More!

Do your children seem to always want a snack? What are your favorite snacks?

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YWAM Heroes of History: Thomas Edison (Review)

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew

When the opportunity to review a book from the Heroes of History series by YWAM Publishing arose, the only question was which title we would choose. We love the YWAM Publishing biographies and were excited about the chance to review a new title!

We have used titles from these series as read-alouds, pleasure reading, and as part of literature study for my older students. There are so many great options.

For this review, I decided to let my daughter choose the book and use it as part of her literature studies. After looking over the various titles, she chose to read the book about Thomas Edison.

Thomas Edison: Inspiration and Hard Work was written by Janet and Geoff Benge. It is a paperback chapter book that is recommended for ages 10+. They are written from a Christian worldview.

We think they are ideal for upper elementary and middle grades. However, they are interesting enough to still make good pleasure reading for my high school student. They also work great for younger students as read alouds.

In addition to the paperback book, YWAM Publishing also graciously provided us with the coordinating unit study. The unit study is over 80 pages of ideas, projects, worksheets, and maps to use with the book.

The first section of the unit study is key quotes that go along with the study. Some are quotes by the Thomas Edison and others are quotes that relate to his work and character.

Next, there are ideas for building a display corner. This is an area in your home that your student can put things that are relevant to Thomas Edison. This might be maps of where he lived, pictures, models, diagrams, examples of his inventions. This can make a great visual to help students remember more from what they read.

Third, there are about six comprehension questions for each chapter of the book. You could have your student do all of the questions, but I chose to have my daughter answer just the ones that I selected.

Next is the part my children enjoy most, the activities! There are a variety of suggested activities to choose from in various categories ranging from hands-on projects to essays to audio/visual projects. There are also art and craft project options.

My daughter chose to complete the hands-on project of writing and sending a message in Morse code. She enjoyed writing it and hearing how it sounded. She also shared it with her brother.

The next section of the unit study is community links. These are suggested field trips or people that could be interviewed to increase your knowledge of either the person you read about or his field of expertise.

For example, some of the suggestions given in the Thomas Edison study were interviewing a draftsman to talk about blueprints or going to a power plant/power plant museum.

In the social studies section, there are mapping projects, vocabulary terms, geographical characteristics, and questions to ponder. My daughter did the mapping projects and I felt that it really helped her to understand where the events took place.

Finally, the unit study includes a culminating event and a books and resources section. The culminating event is a fun party style event to close out the end of the study and the books and resources section provides ideas for additional study.

My daughter said, “I enjoyed the way they talked about his life and his inventions and how they were made.” When asked about the unit study portion she said, “I really liked the link they gave for a program where you could type a message in and it would give you the Morse code translation.”

She recommends it for middle schoolers and anyone who was interested in history and inventions. The only thing she would have changed was making the map larger for the geography activity because there were a lot of places to include on the small map.

Whether you want a fun read-aloud, a new pleasure book, or an in-depth unit study, I absolutely love these books. The unit studies are great because there are so many options, the books are very educational and they are written from a Christian worldview.

I love that it is so easy to pick and choose what components we want to complete to make it as short or in-depth of a unit study as we would like to do.

You can check out my reviews of Benjamin Franklin, Orville Wright, or Alan Shepard. Don’t forget to click on the graphic below to see which books other Crew Members reviewed and how they choose to use them in their homes.

Figures in Motion: Famous Figures of Ancient Times (Review)

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew.

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We love history in our home and always enjoy finding new ways to make history come to life and be more hands-on. When the opportunity to review Famous Figures of Ancient Times from Figures In Motion, I was happy to give it a try.

As I looked over the Figures In Motion website, I was excited to see that the Famous Figures of Ancient Times coordinated with Story of the World. We are currently using Story of the World, and so I was glad to be able to add the famous figures to our current history routine.

How it Works

My daughter, seventh-grade, and my son, first-grade, are currently going through ancient history together. I had them work together to complete the Famous Figures of Ancient Times. The book focused on 21 historical figures from ancient history.

For each figure, there were two different paper dolls that could be cut out and put together, the first was full color, and the other was an outline that the students could color themselves.

Once the components were cut out, the student put the dolls together using a hole-punch and metal brads. The hole punch and brads could be purchased from Figures In Motion if you do not have any.

Since the dolls were put together, they were articulated (the legs and arms could move). This made them great fun for my first grader to play with and turn into puppets.

Creative Ideas

My son always wants to create puppets and make up stories to go along with them. With these, he could make the puppets and then use them to retell what he learned in his history lesson for the week.

You could also put them onto popsicle sticks if you wanted a puppet that you could maneuver in that way.

In addition to the paper figures, there were a couple of paragraphs of historical information about each person included in the book. There was also a suggested reading list of read-aloud books to cover those figures.

This would be a great way to expand on what you were learning or to make the book stand a bit more on its own and not as supplementary material.

Thoughts and Conclusions

Overall, we enjoyed these figures, and my son will continue to use them as we finish up our year in history. My daughter thought they were cute but a little too ‘young’ for her.

I think they would be great for elementary-age students, especially those who love puppets. Some middle school students may also enjoy them or enjoy creating with them.

We would not use this as a stand-alone history, but it paired very well with Story of the World as a low prep hands-on activity. The author also mentions that it aligns well with Sonlight Curriculum, Classical Conversations, and Mystery of History.

If you want to add a little hands-on learning to your history or have a child that loves puppets, check out Famous Figures of Ancient Times or one of the other books by Figures In Motion that covers a different time period. You can also find them on Amazon.

Also, be sure to click on the graphic below and see what the other Crew families thought about this product and which era in history they were covering.

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Homestead Homeschool: Sheep and Surprise Chicks

If you have chickens, then you are probably familiar with the term ‘chicken math’. If you do not, you might be envisioning math worksheets where students count chickens. However, the phrase ‘chicken math’ comes from the fact that people tend to start with just a few chickens and say that is all they need.

For most people, it does not take long before that number grows. They see cute chicks at the feed store; they decide they want different colored eggs, or a cute new breed of chicken.

We have fallen ‘victim’ to all of those means of chicken math, but a couple weeks ago we added to our numbers in a way we never had. One of our chickens had hidden under our deck, laid a nice clutch of eggs, and hatched out 13 baby chicks.

A sneak peak at Patches our new barn cat, mama hen and her chicks, and the new hay shelter my son built.

Baby Chicks

I walked outside one afternoon to help my seven-year-old in the garden before heading out of town for the weekend, and there was this hen with her little chicks just pecking the grass.

Once I got over my shock, I had to figure out what to do with them all. My oldest son, who normally cares for our chickens, was at his grandparents and unable to help.

In the past, we have gotten chicks from hatcheries and kept them inside until they feathered. Since these chicks had their mama to keep them warm, we moved them all to a chicken tractor to protect them from predators.

Once in the tractor we provided food and water and let the mama hen do her job.

Not all hens are good mamas but this hen is doing a great job caring for her chicks. If you go out early enough in the morning you can see them all sleeping under her wings. They will peek their heads out as they hear noises. It is adorable!

One chick was born with some problems and did not make it, but the other twelve are doing great.

In addition to the surprise chicks, we have also added two sheep to the homestead. We would love to raise our own beef, but just do not have the land to do so. Instead, my son decided he wanted to try sheep which can provide similar meat on much less land.

Sheep

The sheep are grazing with the goats and being supplemented with hay bales. My son and his friend also added a new electric fence to part of our back yard to increase the pasture area for them.

We are looking forward to learning more about sheep as we care for these sheep and my son is excited to be able to provide more for the family table. He is also planning to get his meat handlers certification so that he can possibly start selling some of the meat if we have extra.

I love that he is learning more about where his food comes from, animal husbandry, and business skills. He is also really improving on his carpentry skills and he builds shelters, barns, and such for his animals.

It even led to having a slightly awkward conversation about where the chicks ‘came’ from with my younger son. Whether he goes into a farming career or not, I believe these skills will serve him well in the years to come.

Garden Updates

Finally, a little update on the gardens. My older son’s garden is planted and seems to be doing well. He is trying a few new things including using a plastic row cover on part of it. This should help with weed control.

My seven-year-old and I planted in the raised beds. We had a bit of a problem with chickens that had gotten loose, but with those now contained it seems to be doing better and we are excited about fresh produce in a few weeks.

Do you have any questions about the animals or gardens that we could answer? Are you doing any homesteading projects in your homeschool? I would love to have you share in the comments.

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Teaching Textbooks 4.0 (Review)

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew.

When my children were young, I loved teaching math. We would pull out all of the manipulatives and have a great time learning. Somewhere around fifth grade, math started not being nearly as much fun and became a more stressful part of our homeschool day. I am always looking for math programs that will work well for my children and make math less of a struggle. My daughter was ready for pre-algebra this year and wanted to try pre-algebra Teaching Textbooks Math 4.0 from Teaching Textbooks.

Program Overview

Teaching Textbooks is a computerized math program. Once a student account is set up, the student can log in and complete lessons at their own pace. The lessons include instructional videos, practice problems, and tests.

The problems and tests are automatically graded by the computer. After watching the videos the student had five practice problems that did not count towards their grade.

Next, they did a practice exercise with 20-24 problems for their daily work. When a student gets a practice problem incorrect, they could get a hint and a second chance to fix the problem. If they missed it a third time, it was counted incorrect and they were given an explanation of the correct answer. The tests gave two chances but no hints.

Differences Between 3.0 and 4.0

When we started using the program in the spring we were using version 3.0. That version was web-based and required my daughter to be connected to the Wi-Fi. The new 4.0 version is app-based and while it connects to Wi-Fi, it also downloads lessons so that they can be completed without Wi-Fi.

This was a great perk when we were traveling. We went on a long road trip while she was doing this program and she was able to complete lessons while we were riding.

They also made some changes to the answer entry that made it quicker and updated it so that you could see a current average in the grade section. My daughter really likes to keep track of how she is doing and appreciated this feature.

Opinions and Conclusions

As a busy mom, I loved that this was one subject that I didn’t have to teach or really manage. I could easily log in and see how much she had done, her scores, and any other information. I was also able to reset lessons if needed.

It was simple to set up and manage. I also appreciated that the tests encompassed work from previous lessons so that she is getting some review as the year progresses.

Elizabeth’s Opinion

“I really enjoyed this program it has made pre-algebra easy. Some pros with the new version are that I can use my number pad or keyboard to type in answers. When I was first in the program, I had to use the one on the app and that made it so it took longer, They give you an overall average in the 4.0 version which is really nice, and one other really nice thing is that I can do math offline with the 4.0 version so that allows me to do math in the car. Some cons are that there was a lot of review in the beginning, which I did not like. The other thing is while you are online you have to remember to download the lessons in order to do them offline, it would have been nice if they were all downloaded when you got the app. ” Elizabeth, Age 13

While I have not decided on our plans for next year, my daughter has asked to continue with Teaching Textbooks for Algebra 1. In my opinion that is a big endorsement.

Find Out More

If you are looking for a computer-based math program, I recommend checking out Teaching Textbooks Math 4.0. Make sure to click on the graphic below to check out how other Crew Members used it in their homes.

Hands-On Insect Unit Study Early Elementary

A couple of years ago, I purchased a butterfly growing kit for my son. It was a huge success and he has been talking about it ever since. He wanted to do another one this year, but we decided to try a Ladybug Habitat instead. He loved that kit just as much and is even considering using part of his birthday money to buy more ladybug larvae.

The Ladybug Habitat sparked an deeper interest in insects and so we decided to dig a little deeper and do an entire unit on insects during our science time together. There are hundreds of great resources on insects for young children, but I pulled together some of our favorite. I tried to make sure to include a variety of materials that would be of interest to different learning styles and ages.

Hands-On Insect Projects

We have been collecting bugs in jars to study for a little bit before releasing them. Years ago, I purchased the book, Pets in a Jar. This book has been a wonderful resource for knowing how to care for the various insects that we collect.

Next, we combined our insect study with our art lessons! We use You Are An Artist Chalk Pastels for our art lessons and Nana has several great insect lessons. Benjamin especially enjoyed the Ladybug lesson in the Garden Nature course!

Reading and Lessons

Our local library had a good variety of both fiction and non-fiction books about insects that we are using in our read-aloud time. We also enjoyed reading and coloring the Insects Mini-book from My Teaching Library.

We will be continuing our study by using some of the lessons from the Charlotte Mason Style Insect Lessons (Unit 4) and Lessons 1-2 of All About Animals (Grades 1-2) from SchoolhouseTeachers.com. There are some great hands-on activities and even some that my three year old can join.

They even have insect themed poetry with some of the lessons. I love that there is a combination of reading/worksheet type learning and hands-on activities. They also have some courses for older students if you are doing this as a family study.

My son had a birthday as we were working through this unit and decided to use a bug theme, so we included multiple bug themed snacks at the party. Those snacks could also be a great way to start or finish your study of insects.

Since my son is still showing so much interest, we plan to study ants as the next component of our insect study. He is considering using a bit of his birthday money to purchase this ant farm, so that he can watch how the ants dig and tunnel underground.

Resources

I have included a variety of wonderful insect resources below that can help you put together a unit study for your family. While I focused on resources for early elementary school, many of the resources can be used with older students or in a family environment.

Schoolhouse Teachers Lessons:

Wonderful World of Bugs (4 week class for grades 2-7)

Charlotte Mason Style Insect Lessons (Unit 4)

Lessons 1-2 of All About Animals (Grades 1-2)

Insect and Bug Word Maker Worksheet

My Teaching Library Resources

Insect Coloring Pages

Insects Mini-book

Ants Hands-On Science

Chalk Pastel Lessons

Backyard Nature (Lightning Bug, Ant)
Garden Nature (Ladybug, Garden Caterpillar, Garden Honeybees)
Pond Nature (Dragonfly, Water Strider)

Fun Snacks

Hands-On Resources

Ladybug Habitat

Butterfly Garden

Books and Movies

Magic School Bus Rot Squad and Ants in Its Pants

Peterson’s First Guide to Insects of North America

Peterson’s First Guide to Butterflies and Moths

Pets in a Jar

What are your favorite resources for learning about insects? We would love to know what your children enjoy. Tell us in the comments!

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Easy Earth Day Activity Ideas

April 22nd is set aside as Earth day. This can mean many things to different people and has gotten a bit politicized over the years. However, in our home, we use it as a day to remember that God gave us stewardship over the earth and a responsibility to care for it. Ultimately God is in control, but we want to show ourselves to be good stewards by doing what we can to care for the earth and its creatures.

There are many ways that we can help our children understand the importance of taking care of this earth on earth day and in our daily lives.

Service Projects

Service is always a great way to help the earth and to help children understand their responsibility for caring for the earth. This could be as simple as taking a walk down your road and picking up the trash that you find, or maybe getting together with a group and picking up trash at a local park.

You could also contact local non-profit agencies such as wildlife rehabilitation centers, community gardens, or state parks to see what volunteer opportunities they have available.

For older students, you could turn it into a bigger school project and have them research an environmental issue and come up with a plan that they can implement to have a positive impact. They could organize a campaign or project to work towards fixing the problem.

Perhaps they coordinate a beach clean-up day, fund raise to help out a local organization, or create a publicity campaign to bring awareness to an endangered animal.

Nature Study

Nature study can be a great way to help children begin to develop an awareness and appreciation for God’s creation. As children spend time studying plants and animals, walking through the woods, and exploring beaches, they begin to appreciate the beauty and wonder of nature. This appreciation can help develop a desire to be a good steward of the earth.

If you are new to nature study, remember that you can start small and it does not have to be elaborate. Simply go for a walk and see what you observe, or take out binoculars and look for birds in your yard.

If you want a few more simple ideas to get started, check out the posts below.

How to Get More Out of Your Nature Walks

Nature Study: Birds

Field Trips

Field trips are always one of our favorite ways to learn about any topic and there are lots of options for earth day. First, check with local places and see if anyone is doing a special earth day celebration.

Even if no one is doing a special celebration, going to your local zoo, aquarium, wildlife rehabilitation center, state or national park, or environmental center can be a great way to celebrate earth day.

They can bring awareness to the many wonderful plants and animals in your environment and possibly to some of the challenges faced by those animals.

Activities

Finding simple hands-on activities that you can do at home can be a great way to celebrate and learn. One of the easiest activities is to build a pine cone bird feeder. If you don’t have pine cones there are also fun options with orange peels.

If you have a little more time, planting a garden, creating a space that is friendly to pollinators, or building a birdhouse are great ways to be good stewards.

Conclusions

This is by no means an exhaustive list of things that you can do to celebrate Earth day, but just a few ideas to get you started and help you think about ways you can encourage your children to be good stewards of the Earth.

I would love to hear about how you celebrate and any ideas that you have. Be sure to share your ideas and thoughts in the comments.

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ARTistic Pursuits: Painting with Water Color Pencils(Review)

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew

Art has never been my strong suit or my passion, but I love being able to introduce my children to various art forms and provide them with instruction in art. For me, that means finding great art programs that they can do without a lot of assistance from me and Beginner Level, Art Core 2, Painting with Watercolor Pencils from ARTistic Pursuits fits that well. My daughter thirteen-year-old was excited about the opportunity to try out this art program and learn more about this medium.

Course Overview

Beginner Level, Art Core 2, Painting with Watercolor Pencils is a 9 unit course that includes videos and a textbook. The textbook is available both digitally and in a hard cover version. Each unit has four lessons; each unit includes a video for the first lesson where they learn to use the art materials and techniques. The second lesson is a lesson in creativity where students learn to create art from their own observations and experiences.

The third lesson in each unit is an art appreciation lesson. In this component they see how the technique that they are learning was used in a famous work of art and learn about different artists.

Finally, they have a lesson which combines what they have been learning in that unit to create a work of art. There are directions and instructions but they also have some flexibility in the subject matter that they choose for the project.

Course Topics

The program started with students learning about the primary colors and the color wheel, then went on to teach about secondary and tertiary colors. In unit four they discuss complementary colors before moving on to neutral colors and color tints in units five and six. The last three units cover color values, monochrome colors, and white space.

Course Materials

In addition to the textbook and videos students did need to purchase a few materials for this course. However, I found that they were reasonably priced and readily available on Amazon or in most hobby stores. We purchased a 12 pack of water color pencils, a pack of water color paper, and then were able to use the brushes, pencil sharpener and t-square that we already had at home.

A sample of our watercolor projects with ARTistic Pursuits.

Our Opinions and Conclusions

My daughter enjoyed the class but felt that it moved a little quickly. She also felt like the videos were a bit long and spent more time on watching the instructor paint than actual instruction. However, she said she would still continue to work through the course. She appreciated the fact that the assignments gave her a lot of latitude to choose her on subject matter. She felt the course would be best for sixth grade and older.

I appreciated that the materials needed for the course were not overly expensive and that my daughter was able to work through it with very little help from me. Once we had her account set up on the computer, the textbook arrived in the mail, and I showed her how to navigate the program she worked through it on her own.

If you are interested in an art program that your middle or high school student can complete independently or even an adult that is interested in art, check out Beginner Level, Art Core 2, Painting with Watercolor Pencils. In addition to this course, the Review Crew reviewed several other courses from ARTistic Pursuits. Make sure to click on the graphic below to check out the other reviews and see which course might be a good fit for your family.

A Peek Into Our Spring Break

I originally was not even planning on taking a spring break this year. We had just gotten back on track after two weeks off for a missions trip/family vacation. However, I realized that we had a lot of events happening the week that the public school in our area were on spring break and we could not fit school in without being extremely overwhelmed.

We had an amazing week full of livestock shows, two birthdays, and a fishing trip with our Trail Life troop! It may mean we school a week longer in June, but it was a great time full of family adventures that was worth having to school for just a bit longer this summer.

Did you take a spring break this year? Are you finishing up for the year or do you like to school year-round? I have shared a few pictures of our adventures below and would love to hear from you in the comments. Also make sure to hope on over to the Review Crew page and see what our other members did on their spring break!

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Our Solution to ‘Insurance’ on a One Income Budget

Healthcare and insurance options may not seem like an obvious topic for a homeschool blogger, but I want to share our experience with Christian Healthcare Ministries. I know that many homeschooling families are single-income homes, and insurance prices have skyrocketed over the last few years.

When I first left my job to be a stay-at-home mom, we were able to provide insurance for my children and myself for about $200 a month. However, prices have been rising, and when we last priced “traditional” insurance for our family, it would cost us $1600 a month with a $13,000 deductible. This was more than we could afford to spend, and we were very stressed about how we would afford insurance or what would happen if there was a major event and we were uninsured, and at the time, we did not want to be penalized for not having health insurance.

As I researched options, I found several healthcare-sharing ministries. After careful research, we chose to join Christian Healthcare Ministries (CHM). They have several plans to choose from at very affordable rates. The most expensive plan they have is only about $500 a month for the whole family, but we chose their least expensive plan and only pay just over $200 per month. Their plans are set up on a per-unit basis, with each adult being an individual unit and all the children in your household being one unit together. This makes it great savings for families of multiple children.

What is Covered?

With a health care sharing plan, most regular doctor’s visits are not covered. (However, we save way more each month than we usually spend on doctor visits in the course of the year.) These plans cover larger events such as hospital stays, pregnancies, surgery, etc. You are considered a self-pay patient, meaning you are responsible for paying or setting up a payment plan and then filing with the ministry for reimbursement. However, it also means that you get a self-pay discount at most doctors and hospitals and that you do not have to worry about finding an in-network provider. You can use any doctor or hospital that you choose.

Bonus Benefit

I wanted to update this post because CHM has added a wonderful benefit to the program. We now have FREE access to a telehealth program. This means that we can see a telehealth doctor and get diagnosis and treatment information via telehealth for free. While this is not the solution to all problems, it has been a wonderful benefit for our family. We have used this program for issues such as swimmers’ ear, impetigo, and more. (Updated 10/21/22)

Who Does CHM Work For?

This plan may not be right for everyone. There are limits to coverage for pre-existing conditions, prescriptions, etc. However, if you are worried about being able to afford insurance, are a fairly healthy family, or just want to be a part of a group of Christians that are supporting other Christians, it might be a good fit for you. I highly encourage you to check out Christian Healthcare Ministries. I highly recommend them because they have been and continue to be a blessing to our family. If you choose to join through my link, I do get a free month of our membership. Once you are a member, you will have the opportunity to share with friends and get the same benefit. I would not recommend them if I did not really believe in the program.

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