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Luv'N Lambert Life

Luv'N Lambert Life

A blog about living with Epilepsy, IBHS, Homeschooling and so much more

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Moving Beyond The Page {Crew Review}

July 10, 2014 by Dana

Moving Beyond the Page Review

Have you ever found a curriculum that simply blows you away and makes you reconsider everything you’ve ever used for homeschooling?  For me that curriculum company is Moving Beyond the Page.  Their unit studies are so thorough, so simple to use and yet so much fun!

For this review, we were given access to our choice of products.  Trust me, this was NOT an easy decision to make.  Since we have been studying the Revolutionary War in relation to our Hometown of Georgetown, SC, I choose two units that I thought we best fit to our current lessons.  For our Language Arts Package, I chose Abigail Adams and for our History Package, I chose Revolution.

{Language Arts – Abigail Adams,   History – Revolution}

 

As soon as I saw Moving Beyond the Page listed as one of our vendors, I knew I didn’t want to miss out.  I reviewed another set of packaged programs for this company with the Schoolhouse Team last year and we absolutely LOVED it.  I wanted to see if we’d feel the same way this year and I’m happy to say we still LOVE them.

Our Language Arts Package provided us with an online guidebook to use and a physical book to read to learn all about the life of Abigail Adams.  The book we received is Abigail Adams Witness to a Revolution by Natalie S. Bober.  It is filled with information on Mrs. Adams life and the things she saw during this important time in the early beginning of America. 


The online guide for Abigail Adams provides a wonderful lesson plan which is simple to follow.  You simply log into the website and follow the links.  There are activity pages that can be printed out to use with the lessons being learned.  There are also bonus suggestions from others to help you extend your lessons  even farther.  I really enjoy the formatting of the online guide and the extra content that helps to bring the lessons to life.

I must admit though, my children found the book on Mrs. Adams lengthy and slightly boring and so did I since I was reading it to them.  I think this book and lesson package would be better suited for a more structured homeschool setting than ours.  I was able to find readings from various websites and books from the library to help us make our lessons more interesting.  There were some areas where reading the information provided in the book Abigail Adams Witness to a Revolution could not be avoided and we read through and did learn a lot from the reading.

For our History Package, we were sent a physical copy of the Revolution Guidebook, along with the hands-on book Great Colonial America Projects You Can Build Yourself by Kris Bordessa and We Were There, Too!  Young People in US History by Phillip Hoose.  I will admit this package was immediately a favorite of both myself and the kiddos.  Both these books are amazing and they add so much to the lesson itself.

Great Colonial America Projects contains so many interesting facts and super-fun projects to complete!  It includes words to know which can be used for Vocabulary exercises and also for copywork.  It features different persons from the time period throughout the book, providing a better look at those important historical figures and their influence on American History.  This book also gives timeline tidbits would could easily be used to create a physical timeline in your lessons.  There are so many things we learned from this one little book!

We Were There, Too! is a beautiful book itself.  It’s a glossy covered, hardback book that is sturdily made.  It reads like a textbook but the stories are so interesting.  They really draw the reader in and the students as well.  Beginning with the discovery of America, this book takes you on a long walk through History.  One that you won’t soon forget.

We Were There, Too! also contains new words that can be used for Vocabulary, Spelling, Copywork and more.  Lessons on the specific people who made History happen can be easily expanded upon though the book is pretty thorough in examining these people and is historically accurate in it’s information.  This book is a wonderful addition to our lessons and our homeschooling.

The Revolution Guidebook is approximately 168 pages long.  It begins with covering history from the settling of America which did surprise me, as I was expecting it to only cover the actual Revolutionary period and the War itself.  I was thrilled to discover it began with America’s settlement and covered some information that we had already been discussing in our homeschooling over the weeks before we began this study.

The guidebooks for both of these packages are written so that the teacher can jump right in and begin right away.  The packages come with the books and some packages come with extra activities that may otherwise be hard to locate so that you can easily begin the study.  These packages are set up as unit studies and as most unit studies do, they cover the information being learned thoroughly both by providing excellent reading selections with the chosen books and by providing a thorough and completely planned guidebook to direct the teacher through the lesson. 


  We used these unit studies together in conjuction as much as possible.  They fit well together, since Abigail Adams was a witness to the Revolution which we were discussing in the Revolution study.  We used these lessons almost daily over the review period and we learned a lot from them.  We also learned a lot about the history of our hometown, and nearby Charleston in the process.  We enjoyed how the lessons brought so much of our home’s past to life for us.

The guidebooks provide lessons activities, extensions, suggestions for extra books to read and so much more.  Best yet, they are so so so easy to follow.  We have learned so much with these lesson packages in such a short time because of the simple and easy layout which makes it easy to jump right in and learn.  I’m really considering switching other parts of our learning program to Moving Beyond the Page because of the ease of using the program and it’s completeness.

The packaging prices aren’t bad either.  The Language Arts Package for Abigail Adams with the Online Guidebook is priced as $26.88 at time of this review.  This includes access to the guidebook online and the physical book Abigail Adams: Witness to a Revolution.  This package is designed for use with students ages 12-14 or who have a reading level of 8-9th grade.

The History Package for Revolution with a printed copy of the guidebook is $65.93.  It comes with the guidebook in print copy, a copy of Great Colonial American Projects You Can Build Yourself and We Were There, Too!: Young People in US History.  This package is designed for use with students age 12-14 or who have a reading level of 8-9th grade.

You can also find Moving Beyond the Page on Facebook:

www.facebook.com/movingbeyondthepage

To read more reviews of Moving Beyond the Page and see other curriculum packages available, please click on the banner below!

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Filed Under: 2014, Abigail Adams, complete homeschool curriculum, crew review, History, homeschool curriculum, language arts, lessons, Revolution, science, study, unit studies

Doorposts: Beauty in the Heart {Crew Review}

August 28, 2013 by Dana

We are HUGE fans of Doorposts in our home.  We have so many of their wonderful products and have used them for years.  We enjoy using Doorposts in homeschooling and child training.
Our library contains Polished Cornerstones for girls and Plants Grown Up for boys, Raising Real Men and Mighty Acts of God among other titles.  We use the If-Then chart in our home discipline and find it helpful in maintaining character and order in our home.  All of these things work together to help our children learn to be better young men and young women.
So when the Doorposts Vendor came up for the Schoolhouse Review crew this year, you can imagine my excitement.  This is Doorposts very first time using the Schoolhouse crew as a review team and they offered us our choice of two of their wonderful products: Beauty in the Heart and Because You Are Strong.
For my review, I chose Beauty in the Heart.  I chose this study for several reasons.  One it’s designed to be used with girls who are ages 10 and up.  My daughter is 10 and a half and has a hard to reach heart so I am always looking for things to soften it while teaching her about the Bible.  Reason Two is that this study can also be used with boys, making it appeal to me to use along with my 12 year old son.
Now you are probably asking how in the world a boy can benefit from a study called Beauty in the Heart that is designed for young girls and I am going to explain that now.  Throughout this book are marked questions that are designed for young men who are following along in the study to answer.  Following along in the study allows young men to better understand young women and encourage them to grow in the Beauty of God’s design for them.  It also helps them learn the differences between true and false beauty in their own personal relationships and when looking forward to marriage.
Now to get to the good stuff: Beauty in the Heart is a Study of Godly Beauty for Young Women written by the wonderful Pam Forster.  Pam, John and the rest of the Forster family create the wonderful custom curriculum provided at Doorposts.  Through this study, women will learn what it is to be beautiful God’s way.
Not only will you learn about beauty through this study though, you or your student will also learn how to better study the Bible.  They will learn to compare passages, observe words repeated throughout the Bible, outline the passage contents, and gather all of the words of the Scripture on a topic.  These are only a few things that Beauty in the Heart helps teach a student who is following along with this curriculum.
The book itself contains nine studies to be completed.  Each study contains a short review at the end.  The studies are broken down into daily assignments.  These assignments can take anywhere from five to twenty or more minutes to complete.  There are 86 days worth of Bible study equaling to approximately 17 weeks of lessons at 5 studies a week.  More than one assignment a day can be completed in order to finish faster or you can break lessons down so that the program takes longer to complete as needed.  Additional study ideas are included at the end of each study so that the study can be extended for up to a year if so chosen.
It is recommended that you have a Nave’s Topical Bible and a Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance to use along with this program.  It is also recommended that you have a Bible that you can  mark words and verses in.  You will need colored pencils or highlighters for this part of studying too.  This study uses the King James translation of the Bible because it is easily accessible for most families.
The studies follow different books of the Bible.  The first and second studies begin in 1 Peter.  The third study moves into the story of Sarah.  From there we move on to Esther.  1 Timothy, Proverbs, 1 Samuel and the story of Ruth also follow these in the study.
Each study begins with a small intro followed by reading and copying the verse into the study guide or a notebook if you so choose.  Then the study furthers with specific study suggestions to help expand on how to study the Bible.  As the student works through they learn to reference and cross reference from different sources, expanding and learning how to study their Bible better in the process.

We used this study as a group study.  I allowed my son to follow along with both of my daughters as we read through the study, and the Bible.  I enjoyed learning about God’s plan and design for Beauty in us through the study and I believe, like our other Doorposts materials, this study touched my daughter’s heart.  I will continue to use this study with all three of my older children in the future.

Beauty in the Heart is 128 pages long.  It’s available in softcover paperback for $14.00.  This study is for Girls ages 10 and up, women included.  There is also a study for boys’ called Because You Are Strong which sells for $12.00 at time of this post.  It is also softcover paperback.
For more reviews of Doorposts, please click the banner below!

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Filed Under: 2013, beauty, Beauty in the Heart, bible, child training, crew review, Doorposts, god's idea of beauty, learning to study the bible, Schoolhouse review, study

Preschoolers and Peace: Circle Time {Crew Review}

July 31, 2013 by Dana

Growing up in Public School, one of my favorite daily activities was Circle Time.  When I decided to Homeschool, Circle Time was one of the first things I implemented into our homeschooling.  My kids have loved it as much as I did, even though we do this in a completely different type of environment than the one I grew up in.
Circle Time for us has always been a bonding experience and has worked great to provide together time for me and my children.  We do most things together and we enjoy doing them.  There isn’t a lot of arguing during this time but there is a whole lot of fun.  Sometimes, it gets hard for me to come up with new ideas for our Circle Time activities though, especially as my children age.  That’s where Kendra Fletcher’s book, Circle Time from Preschoolers and Peace comes in!
Circle Time teaches the homeschool parent how to plan for Circle Time in their daily routine and how to make Circle Time flow smoothly.  Throughout this book, Kendra explains how she uses her Circle Time period to teach all of her children important Bible Scriptures, stories, memorization skills, copywork and so much more.  Kendra discusses how to keep younger children occupied while older children learn, all while maintaining life.
As Kendra explains throughout Circle Time, this wonderful addition to your homeschooling day can be arranged in any way that best fits you.  You can do Circle Time in the mornings, midday or night.  You can teach all kids at once or groups of children as needed, though the goal is to have as many children as possible join in at the same time.  You can teach as many subjects as possible together through Circle Time and the book provides plenty of suggestions for making this happen.
Since we already use Circle Time in our homeschooling days, I wasn’t looking for a how-to in this book but instead inspirational ideas to spruce up our daily routine of Circle Time.  In Circle Time the book, I found so much more!
Kendra provides great printables to organize your Circle Time planning like a Wish List of activities to include in your own Circle Time.  She also includes a work sheet for listing Independent and Group work for your student’s daily activities.  There are more great things to help with Circle Time on her website Preschoolers and Peace too!
Circle Time can be arranged to fit your family and is a great tool to bring you and your children closer together.  The time they spend with one another brings positive attributes out within them, as well as stronger bonds between them.  It also allows them to spend extra time with you that may be missed in other learning settings.
Circle Time is an important part of our homeschooling days.  Kendra Fletcher’s book, Circle Time will teach you how to make it an important part of your homeschooling day too!  You can purchase Circle Time today as a PDF file for $4.99 through Kendra’s website Preschoolers and Peace.  I promise you it’s worth every cent!
To read more reviews of Kendra Fletcher’s Circle Time, please click the banner below!

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Filed Under: 2013, bible, christian, Circle Time, creating, crew review, family, inspiring, Kendra Fletcher, Preschoolers and Peace, Schoolhouse review, study, together, TOS Crew, TOS Review, using

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