We have this spoon. I don’t know where it came from…it just showed up in our silverware drawer. It doesn’t match any of our other silverware. Our silverware is plain…nothing special. This spoon, however, is just a bit fancier. In this photo, you can see the mystery spoon (the one on the left) next to one of our plain, normal spoons.
This spoon has a curvy design on the handle, and it just looks a bit more posh than the others. Anyway, since discovering this spoon in our drawer, my two older children (ages 8 and 5) have dubbed it, “the lovely spoon.” They fight over it. Seriously. “No fair! Moriah had the lovely spoon for lunch!!! It’s my turn!” “I had the lovely spoon first!” “Ha ha, I’ve got the lovely spoon!” I’ve even caught Isaac hiding the lovely spoon under all the other spoons when he’s unloading the dishwasher. We’ve had to intervene several times, promising to wash the lovely spoon so the other child can have it for the next meal. I could always hide the lovely spoon, or I could just give it to Gabriela, who doesn’t really care (actually she much prefers her Hello Kitty spoon). But it’s so comical to see them fight over a spoon, that I just leave it alone to see who will end up with it. Silly kids.
The question for this blog hop (from Our Worldwide Classroom) is, "How do you as a busy mum, find some time for you? What's your sanctuary? Your place? Your thing? Even when you can't leave the home behind what do you do at home with a houseful of children to find some time for you? Time to recharge, relax, be still, calm the mind and the spirit, so you can be 'there' for your children."
Good question. Actually, I get asked this a lot from moms mums who don't homeschool. Their facial expressions and voice tone lead me to believe they feel sorry for me as if I have no time for myself. I actually do love being with my children all the time, as I'm sure most homeschool mums do, but we all like at least a little time to ourselves, so here's what I do (and it's not much)...
Sadly, I'm not a morning person (wish I was), so my time is at night (usually quite late--I'm a night owl) after the kids are in bed. Along with spending some of that time with my hubby, I have my own time on the computer (blogging, facebook, or watching online videos of America's Got Talent, Britain's Got Talent, X-Factor, or American Idol--whichever happens to be going--we don't have tv programming). I really do find it relaxing. If I'm not on the computer, I enjoy a bowl of buttery popcorn in front of a movie (it's a REAL "me time" if it's a Jane Austen film). I'm sort of selfish with my popcorn. My kids love popcorn, too, but I have it after they go to bed. Isn't that rotten of me? And sometimes, I like to go in the living room (especially during the cooler months when we have a fire in the fireplace) and curl up with a blanket and a good book. But seriously, sad as it may be, I have no other sanctuary, place, or thing. And because my youngest is two, I don't really have alone time when the kids are awake. Really, the only thing I do "for me" during the day is my in-home walking video...well, I try anyway.
What I am striving for is more time for prayer and Bible--just "me alone with God" time. Another thing I'd like to do, particularly as the kids grow older, is pursue some of my other interests like photography, writing, and learning another language. My current hobbies include the kids, which is just fine for now!
I love using the Bold Believers series for geography. These activity books are published specifically for children by Voice of the Martyrs. Not only do they teach kids about other children who live bravely as Christians in nations that are hostile toward Christianity, but they also include lots of interesting cultural information and activity sheets and ideas to teach about the country. If you are not a Christian, you may not be interested in this series, as it focuses on stories about people being persecuted for their Christian faith in many countries around the world. In any case, I highly recommend these books to go along with your geography studies, though you should check them out first to see if they’re age-appropriate for your child. You can download them for free from Kids of Courage (children’s branch of Voice of the Martyrs). The Bold Believers activity books cover the following countries: India, China, Egypt, Eritrea, Uzbekistan, Ethiopia, Gaza and the West Bank, Nepal, Pakistan, Colombia, Chiapas in Mexico, Burma, Turkey, and Vietnam.
I'm linking this post to Kylie's at Our Worldwide Classroom. The focus is lists of books we use to teach a particular theme or subject.
This is right up my alley, because I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE children's books. I've been collecting books since I was a toddler (well, my mom started the collection for me at that age). When I went to college to study to be a teacher, my collecting continued. I frequented the children's section of my favorite used bookstore. When I began teaching, I made good use of school book orders, like Scholastic. And because I such a big fan of yard sales, I've collected from there too. As a parent and homeschool mom, my addictionobsession um, love for children's books has grown even more. I moved to England in 2005 with only about 300 of my children's books--it was all I could afford to ship over. I left about 1,000...seriously. Even though I still have hundreds of children's books in storage in the US, I've probably doubled the amount I came to England with...I'm running out of shelf space.
Oh, and I'm a list person--I'm constantly making lists. So do I have book lists???? Oh yeah! I obviously can't write all the lists in one post, so hopefully Kylie will continue this "Teaching with Books" link-up.
This past year, I've done world geography unit studies with my 3rd-grade son, and at first I only used books if I had them on hand. About half-way through, I decided to do a bit more research and buy some good books from Amazon for each unit study. Sorry to say, Kylie, but I had only 2 books on Australia (oh, and one about kangaroos...ironically, the name of the kangaroo in the story is Kylie...)! I wish I had looked up and purchased more...I'll have to look at one of those Australia lists to use when my daughters reach 3rd grade.
So, for this post, I'll give you lists of the books we used for world geography this past year...actually I'll start with a few we did at the end of Isaac's 2nd grade year. I didn't use any books for 4 of our units (Turkey, Saudi Arabia, New Zealand, Norway), so I'll skip those. If you have any book recommendations for those countries, please let me know!
I'll list the book titles, and where possible, I'll try to add some Amazon carousel widgets. Also I'll bold the titles of our favorites--the ones I most highly recommend!
General world geography (we use these for all our world geography units): Geography From A to Z
Around the World in 80 Tales
Peoples of the World (this one has several really nice website links) Children's World Cookbook Children Just Like Me
Hands-On Geography
Books we used for part of Isaac's 2nd grade geography:
Egypt: Look What Came From Egypt
Pyramids and Mummies
Hieroglyphics from A to Z
Ghana: Anansi the Spider
Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears
India: Look What Came From India
The King's Choice
One Grain of Rice
Once a Mouse...
Italy: Look What Came From Italy
I feel I really cheated Isaac by not having more good literature for those countries. The fact is that I didn't know how I was going to do geography last time we were in the US, so I didn't bring back many of my books on those countries. I didn't think (at that time) to order from amazon (and probably didn't have the money), and I didn't seem to have the time to go to the library much. Oh well, I'll order some when Moriah studies those countries, and Isaac will read them of course, because he loves to read and will be curious.
Now for this year's books (3rd grade):
United Kingdom: Look What Came From England
Queen Elizabeth I Saint George and the Dragon
The Complete Tales of Beatrix Potter
Australia: Look What Came From Australia
Outback Adventure
My Animal Kingdom: All About Kangaroos
France: Look What Came From France Madeline
Madeline's Rescue
Madeline Says Merci
Madeline's Christmas Moi and Marie Antoinette
Cinderella
The Glorious Flight: Across the Channel with Louis Bleriot
Netherlands: The Boy Who Held Back the Sea
Hana in the Time of the Tulips
Katje the Windmill Cat
Hans Brinker
Corrie ten Boom: Keeper of the Angels Den
Anne Frank Boxes for Katje
Japan: Colors of Japan
Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes Look What Came From Japan
Three Samurai Cats
Israel: Israel ABCs
Colors of Israel Zvuvi's Israel
China: The Empty Pot
Look What Came From China
The Seven Chinese Brothers
The Pet Dragon
Lon Po Po
The Story About Ping
Daisy Come Home
My Animal Kingdom: All About Pandas
Russia: Look What Came From Russia
Baboushka and the Three Kings The Fool of the World and the Flying Ship
Colors of Russia
Ivan and the Informer
Russia ABCs
Peter and the Wolf (retold by David Eastman) Rechenka's Eggs
Babushka Baba Yaga
Spain: Picasso and the Girl with the Ponytail
Dali and the Path of Dreams Isabel Saves the Prince
Katie and the Spanish Princess
The Story of Ferdinand
Just Look 'n Learn Spanish Picture Dictionary (You could use this for Spain or Mexico...I'm actually using it for Mexico, but I needed one more book to make a carousel!)
Mexico: I'm in the process of teaching this unit, but this is our book list. A Visit to Mexico
Country Topics: Mexico (Anita Ganeri and Rachel Wright) Hill of Fire
Deserts Adelita: A Mexican Cinderella Story
The Little Red Ant and the Great Big Crumb
Look What Came From Mexico
Say Hola to Spanish
Say Hola to Spanish, Otra Vez
Say Hola to Spanish at the Circus
Germany: We actually haven't studied Germany yet, but these are books I have on my list so far. If anyone knows a really good children's book for Germany, please let me know. I hope to order some in the next few days. Look What Came From Germany
Countries of the World: Germany
Favourite Classic Composers
Destination Detectives: Germany
A Visit to Germany
Why Beethoven Threw the Stew
Grimm's Fairy Tales Berlioz the Bear (I had to do some research to make sure, but this story is set in Bavaria, Germany--Jan Brett is probably my favorite children's author--I love her books! Click on the link to visit her amazing website!)
I wrote a post last year on the Look What Came From.... series if you're interested. I love these books!
If you have used an awesome children's book (not on my lists) to teach about any of these countries, I'd love to hear from you. I can always buy them to have when my daughters study the same countries.
Next year Isaac will be doing US Geography. While we won't do in-depth studies of all 50 states, we will choose some to do unit studies on. I'm particularly excited about teaching on Hawaii and Alaska. I'd love to see book lists for any state or for the US in general, if anyone has such lists!
This week's homeschool blog hop theme at Our Worldwide Classroom is family pastimes. What things do you enjoy together as a family?
We do a lot of things together, but our favorite pastime as a family has to be going on outings, and it normally involves a picnic! If the weather is bad (as it often can be in England), we eat our picnic in the car.
Every Saturday we try to go somewhere as a family. Here in England, there are hundreds of places to go within a 2-hour drive (we don't always go 2 hours away--many times it's less than an hour away). We go to castles, museums, National Trust houses, gardens, nature walks, farm parks, playgrounds, mountain drives, cathedrals, and more! The UK is loaded with great places to visit, and we don't really have to spend money to go. We pay a reasonably-priced annual fee to be National Trust members, and it's so worth it. As members, we can visit any one of the hundreds of National Trust properties for free. During the winter when most National Trust places are closed, we look for free museums or other free or cheap attractions to visit. We really have no problem finding something to do!
Here are pictures of some of our outings from the past year. Enjoy!
Little Moreton Hall, Big Ben hay bale structure at Snugbury's, National Rail Museum, and Yorkminster Cathedral:
London Science Museum, Conwy Castle, Wheelock Farm:
Speke Hall, Fountains Abbey, Great Orme in North Wales:
Ruins of Roman fort, Lake District mountain drive, bluebell forest walk, playground at Croft Castle:
Picnic in Shropshire Hills, tennis at Biddulph Grange Garden, beach at Llandudno, and Bodnant Gardens:
If you're looking for Japan resources, this is the blog post for you--we covered A LOT!!! Thanks to Jolanthe at Homeschool Creations I also have some really cool links about Japan--be sure to click on those! My goal has been to spend only 2 weeks on each country; however, we didn't manage to do that with Japan. Altogether it took us 4 weeks! There are so many different things in Japan to study that I just couldn't narrow it down. I also found a really nice lapbook on Japan, so we did that, too. Here's a look at our long journey (though we didn't exactly follow this schedule):
Week 1
Monday: Introduction to Japan
Passport (Japan flag sticker and date stamp)
Asia Song
Locate Japan on world map, globe, and atlases
Read Colors of Japan
Tuesday: Japan Facts
Discuss names: Japan/Nippon/Nihon, “Land of the Rising Sun”
Capitals, large cities, borders, number of islands
Japan Map Project--Click on link for map and instructions.
Independent Reading: Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes
Wednesday: Japan Facts
Discuss government, royalty, currency, climate, religion
Fill out a few lapbook minibooks on the above topics (see lapbook at end of post). DLTK has a nice Japanese flag printable with a description; however, Isaac decided to make his own flag from construction paper.
Independent Reading: Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes
Thursday: Geography/Science Geography from A to Z: archipelago, islands, volcanoes, forests, hot springs
Page on Mt. Fuji
Discuss volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis
Independent Reading: Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes
Friday: Japanese Art & Culture
Watch videos on dance and music
Maiko dance
By the way, I didn't use origami paper (lack of time and money). I'm guessing it's much easier to fold than regular paper, so get it if you can! Japanese woodcuts--we did these with watercolor pencils
Studied famous woodcut Hokusai's Great Wave
Independent Reading: Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes
After finishing Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes, Isaac filled out a book report form on it.
Week 2
Monday: Japanese Art & Culture Virtual culture Ukiyo-e Virtual culture bonsai Virtual culture ikebana
Make a Japanese screen Click on link for directions.
Isaac sketched his design on regular paper before making his screen, and he chose not to do the seasons. He wanted to do dragons and scenery instead.
Read some Japanese haiku, and then Isaac wrote some of his own to go with pictures (click here to get the form). I did help him a bit on these. Isaac prefers doing art and writing on his own, rather than having to follow a suggestion, which is also why he hates copywork and doesn't like to copy someone else's paintings. So, he would have done better at making his own haiku without having me give him a topic or picture to write about. Anyway, I was trying to challenge him. He has already done his very own haiku in language and also once for a history project.
Japanese survey--I have a few friends on facebook who have lived in Japan--one is actually Japanese and the other was a missionary there. I had Isaac come up with some questions to ask them about Japan, and then I sent the questions to them via facebook. Here are the questions he asked:
Why do people eat raw fish?
What is your favorite Japanese food?
What is your favorite thing to do in Japan?
What is your favorite place in Japan?
How do you say “Jesus loves you” in Japanese? (I'll include the answer for this one)
Yes sama wa anata wo Ai shite imasu--sounds like:
Yes summer woa anna tar wo I she tay mass
How can I pray for Japan?
Isaac really enjoyed getting the answers to his questions, and I also showed him some of their photos of Japan.
Wednesday: Concluding Activities
Read Around the World in 80 Tales, p. 152 "The Crocodile Bridge"
The rest of week 3 and all of week 4 were spent working on our lapbook and finishing other projects that didn't get finished before. The link for the Japan lapbook is at lapbooklessons. The same website also has loads of Japanese craft ideas!
I got a few of the minit booklets from Guesthollow (I got our passport from this site, too). I also got a few from homeschoolshare. Both of these websites have wonderful lapbook templates for geography!
