Month: January 2018

Categories
Books Sonlight Core C

LLH’s Book of the Week – The Cricket in Times Square by George Selden

I can’t wait to start sharing with you a great book every week that we have enjoyed that I think you should read also!

Here is the first week’s book!

Life Learning Homeschool’s Book Recommendation of the Week for 1/14/18
The Cricket in Times Square – by George Selden

Tucker is a streetwise city mouse. He thought he’d seen it all. But he’s never met a cricket before, which really isn’t surprising, because, along with his friend Harry Cat, Tucker lives in the very heart of New York City―the Times Square subway station. Chester Cricket never intended to leave his Connecticut meadow. He’d be there still if he hadn’t followed the entrancing aroma of liverwurst right into someone’s picnic basket. Now, like any tourist in the city, he wants to look around. And he could not have found two better guides―and friends―than Tucker and Harry. The trio have many adventures―from taking in the sights and sounds of Broadway to escaping a smoky fire.

Chester makes a third friend, too. It is a boy, Mario, who rescues Chester from a dusty corner of the subway station and brings him to live in the safety of his parents’ newsstand. He hopes at first to keep Chester as a pet, but Mario soon understands that the cricket is more than that. Because Chester has a hidden talent and no one―not even Chester himself―realizes that the little country cricket may just be able to teach even the toughest New Yorkers a thing or two.
(source)

This has been a delightful book that we are enjoying immensely.  But I feel like a good part of the reason we’ve enjoyed it so much is because we are listening to it on audio.

We listen to a lot of audio books – when we’re traveling or to give mom’s voice a break or just because a certain book was available on audio.  But this is one book I would specifically recommend listening to on audio.  The different character voices, background sound effects and most importantly, the cricket chirping, really enhance the story.  I mean, after all, Chester Cricket is no ordinary cricket – if you don’t have the book on audio, you miss out on hearing Chester chirp The Blue Danube or Onward Christian Soldiers.

The Cricket in Times Square is a 1961 Newbery Honor Book.  Great book, great story, but listen to it on audio for a real treat!

Categories
Science Unit Studies

LLH’s Subject Spotlight: Science

What do you use for Homeschool Science?  There are endless options out there.  Here’s what we’re using for 4th Grade Homeschool Science.

Life, Learning, Homeschool’s Subject Spotlight: Science

We are on our third year of using Apologia Science.  We did an abbreviated run through of Zoology 1: Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day – we started before G was finished with 1st grade.  We had zipped through BJU Science 1 because he loved science so much (and it was really easy) so I had Flying Creatures on standby for 2nd grade so we pulled it out and started.

I say “abbreviated run through” because Flying Creatures is WAY in depth (and frankly a little boring at times) and his attention span wasn’t there for it.  Learning Animal Classification was good because that helps in the future Zoology books, learning about birds was great – especially since we were doing it in the spring and we put up bird feeders in the backyard and got to observe lots of birds.  The flying reptiles section (pterosaurs) was great for a dino-loving boy.   Bats were interesting.  But the final chapters on all the flying bugs were what we just hit the highlights of.  We started it in spring of 1st grade and finished shortly before Christmas of 2nd grade.

But that was ok, because it gave us a chance to really slow down for Zoology 2: Swimming Creatures of the Fifth Day, which was a topic he was REALLY interested in.  So we took the latter half-ish of 2nd grade and all of the 3rd grade to do Swimming Creatures.  We did the ocean box, we added some extra studies/projects (especially on sharks!) and took several field trips (we love aquariums!)

My plan was to do Zoology 3: Land Creatures of the Sixth Day for 4th grade but G wanted a break in animal sciences.  He really wanted to do Astronomy.  So I said everything above to say, this year, we are using Apologia Astronomy.  I ordered the newest edition because there has been so much new information since the previous edition was printed.

So far, I, personally, have been enjoying astronomy more than zoology – just as a topic, not because one course is better than the other.

We love the format of Apologia.  We love the way the textbooks are written – easy to read and understand.  We love the notebooks that go with them.  And we love the in-depth study of one topic at a time.  (Except flying bugs, ha!)   Elementary science when I was in school was like a mad dash to throw a bunch of things at you in a year.  Parts of a plant, photosynthesis, magnetism, weather, basic chemistry, identify types of trees, birds and bugs, the end – and then start over the next year with basically the same topics without ever going very deep.

G is a deep child.  He doesn’t care for basic surface information.  That’s why Apologia works for us.

I did make one mistake when ordering our Astronomy.   I did not get the Junior Notebooking Journal.  Oops.

133432: Exploring Creation with Astronomy Junior Notebooking Journal (2nd Edition) Exploring Creation with Astronomy Junior Notebooking Journal (2nd Edition)

We are making it work, but make sure you know the difference and know which one you need.

133435: Exploring Creation with Astronomy Notebooking Journal (2nd Edition) Exploring Creation with Astronomy Notebooking Journal (2nd Edition)
Categories
Random

4th Grade is Halfway Over

4th Grade is halfway over (like literally, January 8th was our 90 day mark – woohoo!)  and while we’re making good progress with our school work, I’ve done a terrible job with the blog this year!

I’m hoping to change that.  I don’t really make New Year’s Resolutions, but I want to blog more about homeschooling in 2018.

Stay tuned for regular features like “Book of the Week” and “Subject Spotlight”!

Categories
History Resources Sonlight Core A Sonlight Core B Sonlight Core C

Why We Love Sonlight’s Book of Time

We’re on our third year using Sonlight Curriculum.  We love it.  One part I particularly like is the Timeline Book.  If you’re not familiar with it, here’s how it works, how we use it, and why we love it!


So what is the Book of Time?  Well, when you purchase it, it’s just an empty book basically.  It has a timeline pre-marked with the years, but the pages are otherwise empty for you to fill.

One book is intended to be used through all grades – each year building on what you did the previous year.  So when you’re finished, you have an incredible visual of the chronology of events in history.

Sonlight has timeline stickers that coincide with the history and literature and Bible readings in each Core for you place on the timeline.

But we are guilty of adding SO MUCH MORE than just the stickers with our Core and the notes it guides you to add.

For example, when we were learning about Egypt in Core B/World History Pt 1, I found some great printables (I wish I could remember where) of Egyptian monuments and the dates of their building.  We included those.


I wouldn’t recommend using such large pictures for more modern historical events.  But I had a feeling that the 2500-1500 BC pages wouldn’t get as full as say, the 500 to 1500 AD pages.  And G really loved these images.

We have also been using Story of the World (in place of Child’s History of the World in Sonlight’s Core B and C – that book just wasn’t working for us).

In the Story of the World Activity Guides there are “review cards”.  Those make great additions to the timeline book.  In the picture above, in the top left corner is our SOTW review card on the Minoans and at the bottom, I cut out a blurb about the Aryans.

Another SOTW review card in the picture above.  Also, I use the top edge of the page to note Kingdoms or Civilizations or Reigns that begin or end on other pages of the timeline so that if we’re only looking at one page, we can see at a glance the world dynamic.

The top of the page above says “Ancient Egypt’.  Other pages may have several listings like “Medieval Europe”, “Ming Dynasty” or “Henry VIII’s reign”.

You might ask yourself, WHY would I create MORE work for myself?

Well, because this book enhances our study of history.  We are almost finished with our third year of adding to it and it’s really starting to come together and create this picture of history you can’t get just from reading a book.

For example, 1200-1100BC you can see we have Gideon, Ruth and Naomi, Hannah and Samuel and…. the Olmec people in Mexico.

Whoa.  Had that ever occurred to you?  That when Hannah was praying for Samuel, there was an entire civilization living halfway across the world at the same time?

I think these are the things we miss when we take history and study it in small chunks.  Which, really, is about the only way you CAN study history.  BUT when you assemble a timeline, you start to see how all the pieces fit together.

When we flip open the book to add a note about Alfred the Great, we are also reminded about what was happening in China at that same time.  It’s probably an event we remember reading about but now it’s like, “Oh, so that was happening while this was happening.”

For us it makes history a more living subject.  We will be adding to this timeline for 8 more years.  I can’t wait to see the final result!

I hope this has inspired you to make a timeline of your own!  You can purchase the Sonlight Book of Time even if you don’t use the full curriculum.