Category: History

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Children’s Atlas of the U.S.A. ~ A Master Books Review

We love to have books that are fun to read and we learn from them. We got the chance to review the Children’s Atlas of the U.S.A. from Master Books and we were thrilled!

What Is It

There are 112 pages to this book. While we got the digital copy, we love to hold things, so I printed this book out (Thank you HP Instant Ink!).  I just wish I had used a thicker paper when I printed, live and learn. After a short introduction and a table of contents, we have a two-page spread on every state in the U.S.A. At the end of the book, we have the District of Columbia also listed, along with a glossary and index.

Each two-page spread will name the state, show it on the map, and give us a map of just the state with the major cities. There is a sidebar that lists the state’s preamble, statehood history, population ranking, capital, state flower and bird, nickname, and highest point. We also have the state flag, seal, and an interesting fact.

The first page will share with us some interesting state history facts. The second page shares with us Wonders in God’s World for the state. Both of these pages are full of beautiful color pictures. If this is anything like the Children’s Atlas of the World, which we own in the physical form, I know that those pictures are so much more beautiful on the printed pages versus my printing. We honestly still loved the pictures.

How We Used It

With the current course of study that we are in, we are not focusing on the U.S.A. but that did not stop us from adding this into our studies. We added this book into our daily moring time, only we only used it once a week. We grab the book on Wednesday of every week, read a two-page spread of one state, and discuss. It is that simple. Yes, we could add more. What? We could do some copy work, we could add a more detailed study of the state. We could even do more than one state a week. However, right now, we are using this as an introduction to the U.S.A.

In the future, we do plan to use this more. We will go through all the states one time as an introduction. We will start over again in about a year. The next time we go through this book, we will add a little more extra work. And that cycle will continue until the kids know the U.S.A. and some facts about each state…and mom and dad also!

What Did We Think

We loved this book! The information in the book is wonderful! We have learned so much, even though we are only a few states in. We love the options that come with this book. You can really use this however you want. I have found my husband flipping through the pages when he thinks no one is looking. The kids don’t think they are really adding another subject to their day, but they are learning each time we open the book.

This book will be used for many years in our homeschool. From learning state by state, or by adding this in as we learn about the history of the U.S.A. There are endless possibilities, just let your mind, or your children’s mind take the lead for how to use this!

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Wonders of Creation – A MasterBooks Review

My kids love books. This is no surprise! We have been reading books since they were babies. While they love reading books, sometimes reading to learn is not always as fun. We have had a chance to take a look at the digital copy of Wonders of Creation: Design in a Fallen World from MasterBooks. This book has helped us enjoy learning while reading!

What It Is

We had the digital copy of Wonders of Creation, but there is also a physical copy if you want to actually get your hands on this book!

Our digital copy has 218 pages from start to finish. There are 14 chapters in the book:

Table of Contents

  • 1. Since the Creation of the World
  • 2. Land Mammals
  • 3. Sea Creatures
  • 4. Birds and Flight
  • 5. Insects
  • 6. Stars and Planets
  • 7. Starlight and Time
  • 8. Beauty
  • 9. Mathematics and Beauty
  • 10. Materials
  • 11. Mankind
  • 12. A Changed World
  • 13. The Six Days of Genesis
  • 14. What Happened?

This book will not only talk about the perfect world that God created, but it ends with what went wrong. This is not a dark and terrible ending, rather we are walked through the fall that Adam and Eve created, and we are learning about the why’s that have come from this. The explanations have not only helped my kids understand the pain and suffering of the world, but it has also helped me understand it better!

How We Used It

Since this was not a textbook, there are no questions to be answered, besides our own, we used this as a book to read as we wanted. We started reading from the beginning but found ourselves jumping to the different categories that we were more interested in.

While we didn’t always use this for a textbook, I did decide that we would pull this out and read at least one section a week. This allowed us to talk about how everything was made perfectly the way that God had created it. It was the perfect break in our typical school and allowed us to still learn.

What We Thought Of It

We give this book thumbs up! We really enjoyed scrolling through and looking at the pictures. This leads to us reading about the different creations of the world and how they work. While reading about the Fall is not something we look forward to, this book was able to describe it in a great way for all of us to understand.

This is a book that my kids will be loving for years to come. I love knowing that my kids will be able to learn about creation with a strong biblical viewpoint. This will help them defend their faith and know that all was created just the way God wanted it to be.

If you are looking for a beautiful book full of great pictures and useful information, you will want to grab a copy of Wonders of Creation for yourself!

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Biblical Worldview History with Pathway to Liberty – A Homeschool Crew Review

My boys love history, they are like their father when it comes to that. I have never really liked it. This made it hard for me to teach this subject. We have tried many things, but nothing met my expectations or theirs at the same time. That is until we found Pathway to Liberty Homeschool Curriculum!

Ray Ray and I have had the chance to check out Pathway to Liberty’s World History (Year 4 Level 2) a part of A Pathway to Liberty’s History Curriculum. We are excited to tell you all about it!

What It Is

For this review, we received a spiral bound teacher guide as well as a spiral bound student guide. The student guide is about 100 pages longer than the teacher guide because it has the extra pages for the students to write their answers on for each lesson.

Each guide starts the week the same way. We see the overview of the week. This has the scripture, principle, and leading idea for the week. There are four lessons for each week. We not only see our current level but all four levels and what is to be done for each lesson. There are also writing options for each level as well as ways to expand the history and vocabulary words.

 

Each week, the lessons are clearly labeled which makes it easy to see what needs to be done. The pages are black and white, which is simple to print if you get the digital edition.

How We Used It

Ray Ray and I would sit down together at the beginning of the week, sometimes Monday, other weeks it was Tuesday due to appointments. We would look over the weekly overview and talk about what we would be doing each day. This gave him an overview and allowed him to mentally plan what was going to happen.

Many of the reading was in the guides, but we did also use The Chain of Liberty (find it here) and A History of US (we found all of the ones we needed at our library). Some of the readings got a little long for Ray Ray, so we would take turns reading them.

 

Since there are only four lessons each week, we would take the extra day to work on our vocabulary and writing. The weeks when we started on Tuesday instead of Monday, we would only do the vocabulary on Friday. I really appreciated that all the levels writing options are listed in each guide. This meant some weeks I could have Ray Ray do his level or level one if it was a tough week. Meeting him in the middle is always something I love to do.

What We Thought

This is the history curriculum that I have been searching for! It is based on Biblical Worldview and shows Christ in history. I love the scripture verses and principles at the start of each week and how the rest of the week grows off that.

The lessons take about 20-30 minutes, but they are not boring. They are fun and engaging. There are YouTube videos that are made to go along with some of the lessons. These really made Ray Ray even more interested. He loves watching YouTube, so watching these was a fun addition to the lessons.

I really enjoyed being able to open the teacher’s guide and not feel lost. I could easily work through this with Ray Ray. The hardest part I had was to go on my libraries website to get the A History of US books on hold for when I needed them.

If you are looking for a history curriculum that is biblically based, Pathway to Liberty is what you are looking for!

Read the rest of the reviews from the Crew right here:

Universal History, The Middle Ages, US History & World History Curriculum {Pathway to Liberty Homeschool Curriculum Reviews}
 

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À La Carte Projects from Home School in the Woods – A Homeschool Crew Review

History is not always a fun topic. Sometimes it can get boring. But it is a subject that needs to be taught so that we can learn from it. I love our current History curriculum, but I feel that it needs some more hands-on fun. I am able to add to our curriculum with the Home School in the Woods  À La Carte products.

We were able to try out the Pirate Panolpy, A Trip to Town game, and America’s Beginnings Newspaper Collection. Each of these went with the time we are currently studying in our history curriculum. This was an excellent way for us to supplement our curriculum with fun, hands-on activities that brought our learning to life for the kids.

What Is It

The À La Carte products from Home School in the Woods is a great way to grab fun hands-on activities for your children to learn history. The items available cover many different time periods and there are many more being added regularly. This makes me happy after trying these three items out.

Each of these items came to me as a PDF download. They were in black and white and allowed me, or the children a chance to color them in as we saw fit. This was fun at times as I let the kids to color some of the parts, but other times I wished it was already in color, so I didn’t have to worry about it myself in the prep time.

Pirate Panolpy is a game of Pirate Garb. In this game, we learn about the different pieces of clothing that a pirate wears. For this game, we each needed the picture of a pirate in his skivvies. As we rolled a six-sided die, we would put different pieces of clothing on the pirate. We would talk about the clothing as we put it on and why the pirate needed that piece of clothing. The first person who fully clothed their pirate was the winner.

A Trip to Town is another game we had the chance to get our hands on. This game is a file folder game of colonial life. This game uses the different artisans, vocabulary, diseases, and terminology of the time period to help your child learn about the daily life of the colonial life. This is a game that we played a few times before Ray Ray began to understand what he needed to do. This is also a product that required more prep time from me before we could play it. After watching the fun that Ray Ray had learning, I would do it all over again without an issue.

Finally, we had the chance to use America’s Beginnings Newspaper Collection. This was a fun way to take what we were learning and put it down in our own words. This collection included The Explorer Weekly, a new world explorers newspaper and The Town Crier, a colonial-era newspaper. Each of these gives your child main topics to write about while creating their own newspapers.

How We Used Them

We started with Pirate Panoply game since this was the first thing we were learning about. In our history lessons, I am able to read them aloud to both Ray Ray and Little Miss. Because of this, I had both Ray Ray and Little Miss play this game with me. First things, I had everyone color their own clothing items for this game. This gave them something to do and took the load off of me for prepping.

The kids loved this game. Their favorite part was seeing the pirate in his skivvies! My boys would never wear that as their skivvies. This game was a fun game to get the basic knowledge of clothing. The kids thought this was fun and they wanted to play it many times, even after we moved past pirates in our lessons.

A Trip to Town was a game that required a lot of prep for me. This is one that I wish would have come pre-colored. I could have printed it and used it in black and white, but what fun would that have been? This is also the one item that I had that had the most pages to print. For me, this was not a big deal, the only issue I had was that I didn’t have cardstock on hand to print on, but that was easily resolved. After that, I was ready to cut all the pieces out and get prepared to play the game. This is a game for 2-6 players, so I was able to spend some time with Ray Ray on this game. Little Miss would love to join us from time to time, but Ray Ray and I were the primary users of the game.

Playing this game, we had to make our “shopping list” and proceed to gather all these supplies by answering questions or telling the definitions to vocabulary terms. Our first time playing, we spent a lot of time in our history book, or on Google, but as we kept playing, both Ray Ray and I spent less time looking up answers and just knowing them! This showed me that he was learning something. I can’t wait until Little Miss is ready to join us in this game!

Now the newspaper collection. This is one that we love. One that we will keep using! As we worked through the different time periods, we would fill in the topics in the newspaper. Some of these topics were New Land Named America But Was it a Mistake, Russia Sends Explorer! Vitus Bering Tells All, Jamestown Settlement A Success!, and America Establishes “Thirteen Colonies”. These were just a few of the things Ray Ray was able to fill in and write about. As we learned these topics in our history curriculum, we would spend time writing for our newspaper.

What We Thought

This was just what we were looking for in our history curriculum! While we love our living stories, sometimes we need to add more. The À La Carte options give us just that, and we can pick and choose what we want to use. We don’t have to use everything for the time period, but we can use what we really like and take a break from our lessons to have some fun.

Ray Ray really enjoys writing his own newspapers. He started off slow but has been slowly adding to them as we go on. He loves being able to show these off as he finishes them. In fact, because of how much he enjoys these newspapers, I plan to get A Young Country Newspaper Collection to keep these newspapers going through our history lessons.

Finally, while the file folder game took some prep time for me, I have to admit that we learned a lot from it. Because of this, I plan to grab the Westward Ho! File Folder Game when we reach that time period.

We have had so much fun adding some hands-on activities to our history lessons. I am glad that Home School in the Woods has made this À La Carte option available! This means that I can add in what we like when we want it. This is one of the best things to happen to our history lessons in as long as I can remember!

À La Carte Projects - Individual projects designed to enhance your studies! {Home School in the Woods Reviews}
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Drive Thru History Adventures – A Homeschool Crew Review

This is a review post. I received this item in exchange for my honest review. Below you will find just that, my honest review.

History is a subject that the kids in my house love to learn about. But I am not too big of a fan. That means it is hard for me to find what they need to learn in a fun way. No longer am I having that issue now that we have the history videos from Drive Thru History Adventures.

What Is It

Drive Thru History Adventures is an online program that gives you access to World History, American History, and Bible History Adventures videos and curriculum resources. This is a great way to make history come alive for your children, and bring the right to the site of where these things happened!

What do I mean by that? Drive Thru History videos bring you on site with host Dave Stotts to see where history happened. This brings the past alive for you and your students. I add you into this because you will find yourself sucked into the videos as much as your children are.

We focused on Bible History Adventures and American History for this review. Moe Man was bored with his current Bible study, so we tried this and got two thumbs up. Ray Ray and Little Miss are learning American History this year, and we decided that Drive Thru History was an excellent resource for that.

How We Used It

We used this program in two different ways to meet the needs of our children. First, Moe Man used Bible History Adventures as a daily Bible Study. This means that every day during our school week, Moe Man would use Bible History Adventures to help him dig deeper into his Bible Study.

The beginning of the week, Moe Man would take the time and watch the episode while completing the discussion questions. But that was not the end of it for him. With the curriculum available on the website, we were able to build on each lesson. For each video, there is a Bible passage or two that go along with the topic of the video. It is available to read online, but I would have Moe Man read it in his Bible. Finally, we would finish the week with the Dig Deeper articles. These were a great way to find more about the topic, and I would have Moe Man write me a short paper on each of the ones he read.

The American History Adventures was set up in much the same way, only instead of Bible passages, there were articles that go along with the topic, like the Mayflower Compact or The Declaration of Independence.

Since I was using this with Ray Ray as a supplement, we used this a little differently. We didn’t do a lot of the Dig Deeper articles unless Ray Ray was interested in something. We would watch the videos, usually having extra family members join in and we would discuss the questions at the end. Where I had Moe Man write the answers out, Ray Ray would verbally give me the answers.

What We Thought

The kids were in love with this site! They were in love with the videos! Even Daddy wanted to watch with the kids. I would have to say that the videos were the favorite part of the whole thing for the kids. They were well made with Dave Stotts talking to us as the viewers. We never felt like we were watching some boring history video, to us we were watching a fun show that we wanted to binge watch all day.

I personally love that each of these three sections are set up in a way that when used as a full curriculum, we can open and go. All the information for each episode is on that page of the site. There are beautiful pictures and fun little “side road” notes about each lesson. Moe Man was able to spend time on here without needing assistance from me, which he loves and the younger kids were able to play around on the pages to watch what they wanted and read more as they wanted.

My favorite part about all of this? The Adventures TV! This is where I would let the kids go crazy and watch what they wanted. This is set up like many of our streaming apps, and all the videos from all the programs are available, this also includes Behind the Scenes and Dave’s Adventures. These are the favorite sections for the kids and me!

If you are looking for a fun and interactive history curriculum, this is going to be your best bet! What is even better, if you grab your own annual subscription, you can get The Gospels DVD collection for free, right here.

Head on over and see what everyone else is doing with their Adventures by clicking on this picture:

Drive Thru History Adventures - Subscription {Drive Thru History Adventures Reviews}
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Wulf the Saxon: Heirloom Audio Productions – A Homeschool Crew Review

This is a review post. I received this item in exchange for my honest review. Below you will find just that, my honest review.

Action, adventure, and drama. The things that pull the listener in, no matter their age is what makes Heirloom Audio Productions a company to keep your eyes on! We have had the chance to follow along with many of their previous audio dramas, and I am happy to say that we have had the opportunity to live the adventure of Wulf the Saxon over the last few weeks.

What Is It

We had the chance review the physical CD set of two CDs. The adventure of Wulf the Saxon takes about 2.5 hours. You will not be bored during this time. You will be drawn into the adventure as each character is played by a different person. This means, rather than listen to a story, you are listening to the actual adventure. You are listening to a T.V. show with your eyes closed and watching the action happen in your head!

In this audio drama, we follow Wulf, a young Saxon landholder. We are taken into the story by Mr. George, who tells this story to two young brothers. Wulf stands up for himself and for what he believes this. Because of this, he is punished. Through this and many other trials, Wulf stays true to himself, being loyal and trustworthy.

Wulf is with Earl Harold when they experience a shipwreck due to a storm. This leaves them on the shores of Normandy, and they find themselves captured by the Normans. Wulf stayed true during this time, and after they got out of the capture of the Normans, under a false oath of loyalty by Duke William.

But this was not the end of the battle for Wulf. He has much more he had to get through before he was able to take a breath and marry the woman he loved, the daughter of the man that he stayed with after escaping Norman custody, Agnes.

How We Used It

My kids love to listen to audio stories. They especially like them when we are in the car. I have also found that having them listen to them at bedtime instead of watching T.V. is a great way to ensure a great nights sleep. But I also like to be able to play it while we are eating lunch or playing some simple games at the table.

Between the use of our physical CD set, we had access to LiveTheAdventureClub.com from our previous reviews. This online club allowed us access to the option to listen to the story online as well. Not only that, but there are many other fun activities on the club for the kids to do.

What We Thought of It

My kids loved this audio drama as much as all the other ones that we have had the opportunity to listen to! We love Mr. George introducing us to the story. Ray Ray says, “He is so interesting and makes me want to hear what he has to share.” Hearing Mr. George be our narrator throughout this whole story was fun. He is our constant in all of these audio dramas from Heirloom Audio Productions.

The kids and I enjoyed listening. We loved all the sound effects that have been added in. If you have the chance to listen to this with earbuds in or a good set of headphones, please do. This takes the story and adds so much more to it!

We are once again happy with the chance to enjoy another fantastic audio drama. If you are in this time period for your history lessons, or if you just want a great audio drama to listen to before bed, this is one that you need to have on hand!

There were a total of 100 reviews of this product. Check out some of the other reviews right here:

Wulf the Saxon {Heirloom Audio Productions Reviews}
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The Thrifty Guide to Time Traveling – A Book Review

Time Travel

Every child loves to travel, and time travel is a great adventure! These last few weeks, the kids and I have been preparing for some traveling through time as we read The Thrifty Guide to the American Revolution: A Handbook for Time Travelers and The Thrifty Guide to Ancient Rome: A Handbook for Time Travelers written by Jonathan W. Stokes.

Time Travel
These books are written in 2163 and 2164 offering complete vacation packages for tourists who wish to travel back in history. You will find ratings on places to eat, as well as places to stay not to mention many helpful hints to get you through different difficulties that may arise.
Each book is written, literally as a travel guide. However, there are some rules for time traveling, such as not permanently changing the past. There are even insights on how to Prank the Past. My kids got a kick out of these sections!

time travel
We spent much time in the American Revolution, as this is the period we are currently learning about. The kids were laughing through this whole book! They found it funny to be reading a book that was telling them about British Battle Strategies as if they were actually lining up to fight and how to survive a cannon shot!
I do have to mention, not that it was a big deal for us, but there are sometimes when I notice the author could have used a different phrase. One such time was on the map of Bunker Hill. While I know they are trying to be funny and hit a target age group, some families would rather not see something like this.

time travel
These books are filled with so many unusual situations, yet they are also filled with so much history! The way the past is brought up and presented is what is making this stick for my kids. I love to give them books that are full of information, but sometimes they just need something funny. Finding a book that does both at the same time is a significant win in my book!

time travel
The Thrifty Time Travelers are middle school-aged books. I used it with my third and first graders. They loved them, primarily as we used them together. We would read a section and laugh as we would figure out what we would do, as well as talking about the events that were happening.
We have a new addition to our bookshelf, and I am happy to hand this to the kids when they want something fun to read. I know they will have fun, and I know they will walk away learning something new!

Both of these books will be available on January 30, 2018. You can pre-order your copy of Ancient Rome or American Revolution from Amazon.

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Captain Bayley’s Heir from Heirloom Audio Productions – A Homeschool Crew Review

Are you ready to go on an adventure? One that will take you face to face with a deadly storm, or riding with storytelling cowboys? One that will help your children with their understanding of history as history is brought to life for them in an audio drama? If this sounds fun, you will; want to check out Captain Bayley’s Heir from Heirloom Audio Productions.

Heirloom Audio Productions is a company we love in our homeschool. They have given us so many great audio dramas that are not only entertaining, but they bring history to life! They are not only telling us stories, they are taking those stories off the pages and into our minds as if we were watching a movie.

When we received Captain Bayley’s Heir, we found out this was no different. We received the physical CD set as well as access to LiveTheAdventureClub.com. We had access to this audio drama available to listen to online along with bonus content! I always love bonus content!

My kids were excited beyond belief to see that we had gotten another adventure to listen to! When they asked what it was about, even Daddy was impressed and was ready to listen. It was time to figure out how, when and where we were going to use this! We decided to listen to it in the car while we were busy with some appointments. Everyone was in love! The way they tell this story catches you from the moment you start listening and never stops!

We start out our adventure in London. Here we meet Frank, Fred, Alice and Harry. Frank takes a chance and saves Harry’s dog. This was a favorite part for Little Miss. She is the dog lover in the house, so anyone who would take the risk of their own life to save a dog is here hero. She wanted to know more about Frank, and good for her, we followed Frank.

Frank ends up in trouble, and is accused of stealing from a teacher. This does not sit well with his uncle, Captain Harold Bayley. To prove to his uncle that he didn’t steal the money and can make it on his own, Frank heads off to America.

We follow Frank to America. We go with him as he heads to California for the Gold Rush. This was not an easy journey for him as he faces many challenges that are trying to stop him. We see the trials and tribulations of what he goes through each one bringing him closer to God. But the end, that is one that you will really feel! My kids didn’t want it to end, but wanted to know at the same time!

On top of listening to one of the best history programs, we have many extras to help take this learning to a new level! By accessing the bonuses online, we found that we could listen online, read the E-Book, listen to the official soundtrack, print up the promotional cast poster as well as a study guide, and inspirational hymn poster. As well as download a background for the computer.

We love listening online! They have fun little quizzes after each track that help us pay more attention. The study guide allows us to do the same thing. The kids love doing the questions online better, as they are given multiple choice options, I love that they are listening so that they can answer the questions.

Also with the listening online, we found a read along script! This highlights the words that are being said, but the kids loved looking at a script! Seeing all the descriptions written while listening to them happen was a great introduction to plays for Ray Ray and Little Miss!

While I don’t have anyone who needs to use this for their history lessons right now, I do know that Moe Man will be using it shortly. I will have him listening to this and writing out the answers to his questions. The added defining words are a great way to work on his vocabulary and the Thinking further questions are a great starting point for us to add projects or extra writing.

We love the fact that Heirloom Audio Productions brings stories alive for us! We love the detail that goes into them to make it sound just like a movie, only we have to use our imagination for this movie! This audio drama has been a great addition to our history lessons and will be for years to come!

Captain Bayley's Heir {Heirloom Audio Productions Reviews}
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Our Top Five Favorite Courses from SchoolhouseTeachers.com

One thing that I have fallen in love with when it comes to homeschooling is finding sites that have lessons for all my kids at one low price! I found that SchoolhouseTeachers.com does just that for me!! And they don’t skimp on their courses!! I am excited to share my Top Five Courses from SchoolhouseTeachers.com.

 

Drive Thru History

 

Ok, do I really need to talk more about this? Have you not heard of Drive Thru History? This is the one course Moe Man begs for! This is the course that he would do 100 times and never get bored with it! Not only that, but we have access to both Drive Thru History: American History and Drive Thru History: Ancient History. I am able to easily allow Moe Man to find the videos that match what he is currently studying in his history class and watching the video to help supplement it! Plus, I may have caught him a time or two watching these for pure enjoyment and not for a lesson!

 

World Book

 

 

This has been a well-loved addition to SchoolhouseTeachers.com! I love being able to have this resource on hand when the kids need it. Not only that, but they are able to use it as their lesson, not just as a resource. Being able to access this has helped everyone in the house, even mom!

 

Writing on This Day in History

 

 

This is a great way to add some writing into your history lessons. There are 4-5 different writing prompts for each day, that are broken down by 7-day periods. Each of those prompts covers a different time period and gives your child just enough to get them interested. This is a great way to learn history and work on writing at the same time!

 

Preschool Playground

 

There are so many subtopics in this area…Arts and Crafts, Language, Motor Skills, Social Skills, and Math Skills. There are so many things that are there for preschool, that you don’t need to look anywhere else! Knowing that I can give Baby Girl some school as well as Moe Man from the same site, makes it something that I love!

 

Family Fitness

 

I love finding things that we can do as a family. This is one of them! I want to make sure that we keep ourselves active, and I have found I need more motivation in this area lately. This course is led by Bethany Learn from Fit2Be Studio. This is a site I have fallen in love with. There are 3 Modules with 4 Lessons each, which gives you a great foundation to build you fitness off of!

I love using SchoolhouseTeachers.com with our whole family! Not only do you have access to hundreds of lessons, but you also get access to the planners! This is a whole other post, but they are something that you want!

Right now, SchoolhouseTeachers.com has a special happening, The Harvest Special. What do you need to know? You have until October 31 to take advantage of this special. There are two special sales happening. The first one is if you are looking for PreK-8. You can get a Limited Membership for $9.95/month (reg. $14.95) just by using the code: CORNCOB. Are you looking for more? The PreK-12 Unlimited Membership is available for $10.95/month (reg. $19/95) by using the code SCARECROW. Hurry and get these deals before they end October 31, 2017.

These are just 5 of my favorite courses. There are 340 courses available with about 70 more in the works as you read this! If you have children in multiple grades, you will want to check this out! One low price for all the grades, sounds like a lot of savings if you ask me!

What is your favorite course on SchoolhouseTeachers.com?

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Children’s History Books from Carole P. Roman – A Homeschool Crew Review

My family loves books. They love all books. But books that help with our learning and help grow our imagination, are especially good books to have! Carole P. Roman has written many good books, and we have had the chance to read four of them in our house these last few weeks.

Captain No Beard: An Imaginary Tale of a Pirates Life was one of our favorite books. This was a great book on imagination as we followed Captain No Beard, his first mate Hallie and the crew on the Flying Dragon. We learn about how hard it is to be a captain, watch as No Beard saves Hallie from falling over board and see when a mermaid arrives bearing the treasure the crew was looking for!

This was such a fun book to read. The words were printed in large print and the pictures were colorful and showed the imagination that was happening. Daddy really enjoyed reading this book, and the girls loved the sound effects and added fun that Daddy brought to reading this. Between Daddy and the book, their imaginations grew every they read it!

If You Were Me and Lived in… Viking Europe was the second book we fell in love with. This book was given to Ray Ray to read as a part of his history lessons. This book covers everything from the simple facts, like what your name would be to the more details of class structure and what the daily life was like. This book is filled with information! Lots of information. But it is not written like many other history books. This is written for the kids. We are put into the place of one of the children.

Ray Ray didn’t believe me that he was working on his history while reading this. He was excited to sit down and read it. This was a thicker book and it took a little longer to read, but he loved it. He would read a few pages and come and tell either myself or Dad about what he had read. I loved to hear the oral narration of what he was learning, and know that he was learning something.

We had another If You Were Me and Lived In… book to check out. This was If You Were Me and Lived In… India: A Child’s Introduction to Cultures Around the World.

This book, while along the same lines as the Viking Europe, was written for a different age group. The writing is bigger, the book is thinner. Where Viking Europe went into more detail about names, and daily live, India just touched on the topics. This was all that was needed for us. This gave us an idea of how life is around the world. This was a book that I could read to both Little Miss and Ray Ray. They were both able to understand it, and walk away with new knowledge from it.

We got to finish up these books with a fun little book called, I Want to do Yoga Too.

This book was short, sweet and simple. We follow Hallie as she goes to the Yoga Studio with her mom. She only wants to do Yoga with her mom, but instead has to stay in the child center. When Robin has Hallie work on being a tree and a butterfly among other things, she does not know she is doing Yoga. The girls loved listening to me read this book and copy the moves. Little Miss picked up quickly on how Hallie was doing Yoga without knowing it.

We loved all of the books we got from Carole P. Roman, but we also loved her books before, and knew that we wouldn’t be steered wrong! Remember when we reviewed her books last year?

Carole has many great books, and they can be used in many ways! Check out the reviews from the other members of the Homeschool Review Crew:

Oh Susannah, Bedtime Stories, Captain No Beard, If you were Me ... {Carole P. Roman Reviews}
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