I was reading an Amazon book review written by a child and it gave me an idea.  Sometimes I have my son tell me about the book he just read, sometimes I have him write about it.  When it's one of those times that I want him to write about it, why not have it also be a review on Amazon? 

I think it would make it more fun for him because his review would be posted on the WWW, and other children thinking of reading the book could find out what it was about and what another child thought of it.  Of course we would have to watch out or warn of spoilers, but I think it could be fun.  His written narrations are typically of picture books we have read, while I usually let him verbally narrate chapter books as we go along.

The wonderful freedom homeschooling affords!  Today Isaac asked if we could go to the woods.  I brought a sketchbook as I was intent on turning our trip into the starting of our own field guide to plants, but before I knew it Isaac was busy at play, and I in the wonderment of watching him.  And so I used the handy dandy sketchbook in my hand to write this poem.

Cool breeze.

Birds chirping.

Sunlight sneaks in among the shadows.

Through a clearing in the trees tiny young corn plants can be seen rising up in tidy rows.

Young man high in a tree above......a lookout?

Imagination soars in this place.

Mower nearby tries to interrupt the peacefulness.

But it isn't even noticed by the creative mind at work (at play).

Constantly in motion, he puts windows in forts, and builds up their walls.

He has work to do.  Schoolwork.  :)

I've been reading about eating living (aka raw) food, and how much better it is for your body.  We tend to eat cooked or otherwise processed foods which don't have living enzymes and are lacking in the vitamins and nutrients they had when they started.  The other day, I was reading a blog by Betty at Betty's Bits and she was talking about a book about Charlotte Mason by Leslie Laurio that she is reading and she said,

"It’s so ironic that when it comes to nutrition, we have come to respect the idea that the less processed a food the better it is for our bodies.  But when it comes to the minds of our children, we don’t hesitate to serve up processed information served in tasteless, dry bits of facts.  The children eat and are filled, but are their minds really nourished and inspired?  There is another way. " 

I was already a fan of living books, but this really nailed it on the head for me.  Instead of textbooks which provide your child with some processed knowledge, they should be reading living books that still have all the nutrients and minerals intact, so their own minds can process it.  You really should read her post, because I'm not doing it justice, but I agree wholeheartedly with what she, and Leslie Laurio were saying.

Isaac and I just finished reading a great living book, called The Bronze Bow, by Elizabeth Speare.  I'll try to review it for you in a few days.

Happy Reading.

Well, we dissected a frog in our homeschool group on Friday, which went along perfect with studying all the systems of the body in our homeschool curriculum.  I just love it when it works out like that! 

What I also loved was that, unlike the frog I dissected in junior high which had been in stinky formaldahyde, this frog had been kept in something called perfect solution, which is much less offensive. 

Also nice was the fact that we just had to observe.  One of the dads in our group did the actual dissection and instruction.  Thanks, Eric!

I have been trying, unsuccessfully until today, to incorporate hymns into our school day.  This has sadly never been a part of our morning devotionals, and our church, although it has awesome worship music, sings hymns only occasionally.  I hated to think of all that great spiritual meat we were missing out on. 

I was inspired by Ann at Holy Experience in her Morning Gathering post to buy Then Sings my Soul.  I just love it and it has all these great and inspiring stories to go with each hymn.  Also, the curriculum we use often calls for singing a hymn.  I would attempt to do so, and my efforts would fall flat.  I would often substitute a children's Bible song in it's place, but in my heart I longed for more.

My son and I happened upon an amazing discovery today.  I guess I have known all along that there are many ways to offer up our worship, our sacrifice of praise to our King.  I got out my new book this morning determined once again to add a hymn to our morning devotion time, even when it wasn't part of the curriculum for the day. 

I told him that I would sing the hymn once through and then we would sing it together.  It just so happened that Isaac's new bongos that his Nana had given him for Christmas were sitting nearby.  As I sang, Isaac began to pat out the rhythm of the hymn on his bongos.  He wanted to do the song again and again! 

And guess what?!?  He has asked to do more hymns, with bongo accompaniment of course, during every break we have had today!  Glory!

Using a curriculum like A World of Adventure from Learning Adventures, I check out lots of library books.  Typically, I have about thirty books checked out at any one time. 

I live in a small town with a wonderful, but small, library and I get many of my books from Interlibrary Loan.  I go to the online link for our library's network, and I can search for and request books by subject or title and have them sent to my library.

Well, with thirty books checked out you can imagine the nightmares you could have in knowing when they are due.  This is where a truly wonderful thing called Library Elf comes along.  If you sign up with this service (providing you use a participating library--and even my little library is one) they will send you email notices when your books are due. 

You set it up how you want it, with the notices coming as soon as you want them and as often as you want them. It tells you what books are due and when. It will also notify you when books that you have requested through interlibrary loan have arrived.  You can receive notices for more than one library card.  I receive notices for all my boy's cards.

I'm telling you that I have not had a single overdue fee all school year!  Yay!

Oh, I almost forgot to tell you the best part.......it's FREE!!!!!

Well, it felt good to be back in the groove today.  I don't think Isaac felt quite the same about it as I did.  :)  He would have voted for a much longer vacation....perhaps even a permanent one.

We are studying Ancient Greece and we are reading myths in Language Arts.  I am really enjoying Classic Myths to Read Aloud by William F. Russell.  I never liked reading myths when I studied them in sixth grade.  I didn't understand them or know how to pronounce many of the names.  This book makes it easy, and goes on to explain how the stories carry over into words we use today.  Very interesting.

Tomorrow is Friday, and we will have homeschool group and then I always plan some sort of local field trip.  I haven't quite decided where to go tomorrow yet, so I had better get working on that.  :)  Isaac always calls Friday "Fun Friday" and he really looks forward to it each week.

You know, my son was absolutely miserable when he was in school.  He didn't get in trouble, and he made good grades, but he HATED it!  He could hardly enjoy his free time, because he was always dreading the next time he would be at school.

Then we started homeschooling.  Immediately it was apparent why he must've been miserable at school.  He would stand at his desk at home and practically be marching in place as he worked.  This didn't bother me, but I'm sure it wasn't allowed there.

A friend of mine suggested that I let him do something to keep his hands busy while I read to him.  At first I thought that if I let him do that, he wouldn't pay attention at all.  But I tried it, and lo and behold, it worked!

Now, every day, as I read library books to him about Ancient Greece, and the human body, and as I read the Bible to him, he plays with clay.  He is able to answer all the comprehension questions, he has made some fantastic clay creations, he is happy and content to let me read for long periods of time.

Who'd a thunk it?

After math, cursive & typing, we finished watching the Hovind Theory video.  It was very interesting.

We then read all the Bible stories from the Tower of Babel up to Joseph.  But we didn't read about Joseph.  That is where we will start tomorrow.

Isaac ran on the treadmill and also rode his bicycle for PE.  I took him to town to ride, and he liked the change of scenery.

Art was his choice today and he made a sculpture using aluminum foil of a knight fighting a dragon.  That boy has talent.

We read another chapter of The Mouse and the Motorcycle.  What a great book.  Isaac read a non-fiction book about birds on his own.

Isaac finished his Lego ark and then made a Lego Tower of Babel while I finished reading Life in the Ice Age to him.

We took a trip to the library to pick up our new books for our Egypt/Desert unit which starts tomorrow.

When we got home he rounded up all his snakes, and lizards for our science table.  We also put a cactus on the table.  It's really cool looking.

Can't wait to start our new unit!

Over the weekend, I put the pictures from our Life Science field trip on the bulletin board.  It is starting to look better all the time.

Today, we started out with math, (a few worksheets and some online drills), cursive & typing.  He's up to 98% accuracy at 8 wpm, and still learning new letters each day.  I wanted to get those subjects out of the way so we could get on to the good stuff.

We read a book about the Ice Age, from the Creation perspective.  It was nice to even find such a book.  It is called Life in the Ice Age, and actually we are only about half done.  We will finish it tomorrow.

We watched the first half of a video about the Hovind Theory on the Flood, and the Ice Age.  I sure wish I had learned these things when I was a kid.

We went to the park to have recess with Isaac's homeschooling buddies.  That was fun for mom too, to be able to share ideas with another homeschooling mom.

Then it was home for lunch and to read another chapter of The Mouse and the Motorcyle.  Also, Isaac read another book, Gilberto and the Wind, on his own, and then summarized it to me.

For snack, I had taken clear colored strawberry Kool-Aid, and I had put some of Isaac's tiny toy animals in Tupperware popsicle molds and then poured the Kool-Aid over it and froze them.  Isaac enjoyed his Ice Age popsicles.

Isaac also made an ark out of Legos--and even some Lego animals.  We did several creation spelling words orally and kept drilling them until he got them.

Can't wait to start our Ancient Egypt unit.  I got the books ordered from the library last night...along with desert books and camel books.  I'm getting the supplies gathered up for that unit.

We are both really enjoying this homeschooling thing.

Isaac raced through several days of math this morning.  We had been having some tougher math, but these lessons were very easy for him, so I just had him do one page from each new concept.

Then it was time for what he calls inventions project.  I had added a few things to his inventions box---washers, nuts, paper clips, aluminum foil, and clothespins.  He had lots of fun with the foil and went up and got more.  He made me an apple for my desk, a ring and a bracelet.

He worked on that until it was time for our home school group.  There he had music, PE, and art.  He said he had a great time.  I helped with the preschoolers today.  I had fun too.

After lunch we were off to a nearby university to explore their Life Science building.  We saw live snakes, a monitor, lots of fresh and salt water fish, a tree frog, a tarantula, and lots of taxidermy of local wildlife and birds.  It was really cool.  Isaac had me take his picture with several different things, but he didn't want the labels, sides of the tank, etc, to show, he wanted it to look like he was really right with that animal.  Cute.

Then we set off to the library in that town.  It is much bigger than our and has a huge, compared to ours, children's department.  Isaac had fun exploring there.

Well, that was our Friday adventure.  I asked Isaac if he enjoyed school, and he smiled a great big smile.

I haven't posted for a few days, but we have continued in our Creation unit.  We have read The Great Dinosaur Mystery, Dinosaurs of Eden, D is for Dinosaur, to name a few. 

Isaac has progressed through math, advanced to typing 8 wpm, and reviewed cursive writing.

He has done several lessons from the Calvary Chapel website, and we have watched several Kent Hovind videos.

We had a home school open house and some of Isaac's grandparents got to see our home school room and our bulletin board and Isaac's current projects.  He was quite excited about that.  He had me serve chocolate chip cookies, and he told me to have plenty because his oldest brother, Dustin, would probably eat a lot of them.  :)

One day we made velociraptor claws out of breadstick dough for our lunch.

Isaac made a book of Creation Facts.  He really enjoyed doing that.  Today we talked about the first families of the Bible.  Then Isaac made a family tree of our family.

Tomorrow we meet with our homeschool group for PE, art and music.  We will have Bible and math before we go, but that will be it for school at home that day.

After the group, we will go to a nearby college to the Biology building and see all the live animals on display, and we will probably check out the library there because they have a great kids section.

Some great books we have read during personal reading are:  Three Samurai Cats, Get Well Good Knight, The Snowy Day, and Henry Hikes to Fitchburg.  We are currently working on the chapter book The Mouse and the Motorcycle.

We went for a walk in the woods today.  We wrote down everything we saw, heard, smelled, and touched, and how we felt.  Actually Isaac dictated and I wrote.  He wants to make it into a book.  We brought home a catepillar to live in his bug habitat.

See you later!

We started our Creation Unit today.  Isaac wanted to get right to it, but alas, he had to work on math first.  Then we read an article titled How It All Began, by Beth Shanks.  He did a few activity sheets from Calvary Chapel (some orally), and we watched the first hour of Kevin Hovind's Creation Series. 

Isaac played with legos to keep his hands busy while he listened, and I could tell he was really listening from the comments he kept making to me about the video.  He enjoyed dinosaur crackers as we watched.  We read a really cool true book about dinosaurs as well as a fiction creation book with awesome illustrations called At the Break of Day.

We went to the pond for recess and he made nature observations and recorded them in his nature journal while I cleaned out the camper for our weekend guests.

When we came home, he worked on cursive and made dinosaurs out of clay.  I worked on our bulletin board for our "open house" this weekend.