Our Month Ahead ~ February and A Brand New Learning Year

February:  This is our first month back to academic learning and a very busy month for family celebrations -  three family birthdays and one wedding anniversary, all within the same week.

One of Daisy's favourite, shady, reading spots in summer

In previous years we preferred to ramp the subjects back up slowly but have found that is not really possible with Te Kura, so we try to make as many adjustments as we can: no extracurricular courses or activities in the first term and only sign up to start three subjects with Tekura, then once we have those up and running we reevaluate in March to see if the children have the space and energy to add on more which is usually something like a Barista course, Red Shirts with the Warehouse, First Aid  Course, etc...

This week Daisy is spending time setting up her initial course selections and getting started.  She'll be working through Maths, English, and, Digital Studies courses with Te Kura this year; we've bulked up the English course to include components we are wanting to Daisy to have had exposure to, which will include lots of reading, discussion, and complementary lectures.

Here's a rough outline of what our first week back looks like...

Morning Book Basket  (yes, we still start our learning day this way and share the reading load between us)

Bible:

• The Book of Esther ~ The Life Application Bible  KJV   (this a lovely bible to read and discuss together with young adults)

Poetry: 

• A Child's Anthology of Poetry ~ Edited by Elizabeth Hauge Sword      Reading from:    I Saw a Man Pursuing the Horizon ~ Stephen Crane p.58,     to:   Souvenir of the Ancient World by Carlos Drummond De Andrade p.65  (this book is purely for read-aloud enjoyment, and a gentle re-entry into this year's, potential, poetry study)

Other:

• The Fallacy Detective ~ Nathaniel, and, Hans Bluedorn   Intro p.3  to  Lesson 4  p.37  (Daisy is reading this to us)
• The Student Leadership Challenge ~ Kouzes & Posner  (Daisy is reading this to  herself, and then we're discussing it together)

English 

• Poetry and Film, intro unit  NCEA 

Math

• awaiting contact from Te Kura teacher   (tap, tap ... anyone out there)

Digital Students

• Started .... but I can't remember what Daisy said she was working on 

Delight Led Courses/Hobbies This Year

• Photoshop (select areas)
• Art
• Card crafting
• Life Skills   (which also still includes raising and selling livestock.  She has three miniature Angus this year, a first ... photos will follow in another post sometime.)
• Learning to Drive    (I've been out of action for a while with less-than-health and surgery, so this didn't even 'get started' last year.  Daisy's quite happy as she's in no hurry to learn to drive.)
• Piano and guitar

Free Reading

• Various  :)
• The Traitor's Game ~ Jennifer Nielsen, narrated by Jesse Vilinski   (epukapuka audio) younger listen by a favourite author for Daisy

Our Week Ahead ~ Monday 8 June 2015

Winter is well and truly here and while I could take a significant side trip into bemoaning the lack of sunshine I won't ☺, instead I'll focus on this season of the year being a perfect opportunity for us to be at home with the fire going, our sheep skin lined slippers on, sipping steaming cups of hot chocolate, or tea,  .... and, the chance for us to make some pretty serious inroads into our academic schedule.
We purposely have our winter months schedule typed up so that it requires more in depth writing, reading and audio book listening from Jay and Daisy, than the amount of work I set for them during the summer months.

The children seem to want to listen to a larger volume of audio books too, which makes me thankful for audible sales that happen just before our winter starts ☺
I find it handy to have audio options of some of our read alouds on hand too, as coughs and colds can get in the way of effectively reading aloud; it's annoying when a reader would continually stop reading, every few sentences, to blow their nose ;)

Our week ahead:

·       Family

Bible

All: Titus

Hymn: Come, We That Love the LORD  (All Glory, Laud & Honor C/D #11)  1674-1748

History & Geography

1:  Read Aloud: George Frederic Handel ~ Ludwig 1692+

2:  Book Basket:

·  The New Oxford Book of Children’s Verse ~Philip (continue)

English

1:  Car (& craft time) time audio: 

The Great Courses: Classics of British Literature

(content issues)

Lecture 14: Swift—Anger and Satire

Lecture 15: Johnson—Bringing Order to the Language

·       Daisy

History & Geography

MOH vol 3, wk 28, Peter I: Czar of Russia

Mapping: Biblioplan wk 17;  Peter the Great's Reign in Russia

History, Literature, & Book Basket:

1: Book Basket:  Susanna Wesley ~ Charles Lugwig  1669+

2:  History Reading:

Isaac Watts 

ITTC~ Cowan  (read over the next 2 weeks)

A:  Swift: Gulliver’s Travels   1726

B:   Edwards: Treatise   1746

C:   Johnson  1759

D:   Boswell   1791

6:  Audio: Lorna Doone ~ R.D. Blackmore   

Free Reading: The Mandie Collection  Vol.10 ~ Leppard

English

1:  Essentials in Writing, Level 8:  L. 15+ Mon to Fri

2:  Timed writing with mum  Mon, Fri

7:  Typing.  A narration from history reading, or from your current reader          (due Weds)

·       Jay

History & Geography

1: Biblioplan Early Modern Times: Ch: 17 Russia; More French Explorers pgs 395-413A

Mapping: Biblioplan wk 17;  Peter the Great's Reign in Russia 

History, Literature, & Book Basket:

1: Book Basket:  Tartuffe ~ Moliere (Play)  book  &  audio production  wk 1 of 2
I think this is a great play to discuss false religious piety and hypocrisy,  and the outcomes of blindly following anyone that practises those traits .  I'm also going to place Letters to a Devastated Christian ~ Edwards,   

&  ,The Tale of Three Kings ~ Edwards  into Jay's book basket to expand that line of thought. 

2:  History Reading:  

Isaac Watts

ITTC ~ Cowan  (read over the next 2 weeks)

A:  Swift: Gulliver’s Travels   1726

B:   Edwards: Treatise   1746

C:   Johnson  1759

D:   Boswell   1791

3:  Audio:  A:  David Copperfield ~ Dickens (dramatised) I enjoyed this audio production so much, I now want to read the book also. Highly recommending this audio!

B:  George Whitefield: God’s Anointed Servant in the Great Revival of the Eighteenth Century ~ Dallimore
C:  The Hound of the Baskervilles ~ Doyle   (we purchased a budget priced kindle edition first, and that allowed us to procure the audio for $2.99)
Someone suggested we also watch a visual production of this book; we won't be ☺ as most of the movies amplify the 'scary, nightmarish'  tone of the story.  I  prefer to go for creating our own visual pictures as we listen along, and to discuss the fears & superstitions that were put to rest once the 'mystery' surrounding the hound of the Baskervilles is dealt with.  (Trying not to add any spoilers for those that wish to read the book somewhere and are not familiar with how the story ends.)

English

1:  Greenleaf Guide Yr 3 Lit (1550-1900)  ~ Shearer

Lesson 11:  Moliere’s Tartuffe (1622 -?)  Mon to Fri

Read http://www.shmoop.com/tartuffe/  first

2:  Review Essentials in Writing, Level 8: L.15+  Mon to Fri

The 10 Commandments ~ Memorisation, Copywork, and Dictation

We found it beneficial to make sure we had the order of The 10 Commandments nailed down before we had Daisy work on learning the KJV version of the commandments, as found in Exodus 20.

Visual clip to assist in learning the order of the 10 Commandments

We're using some copywork and dictation pages with Bobs and Daisy to compliment this portion of our bible memorisation sessions.

(The pages are stored over at dropbox which can sometimes scramble the appearance of the pages on line - the pdfs save and print out perfectly.)

   The 10 Commandments KJV ~ Memorisation, Copywork, and Dictation.

Copywork, Memorisation, Dictation ~ Philippians 4:8

During our logic years of learning we like to continue including scripture memorisation, and copywork - the extra slant is that, with the smaller pieces, once the scripture has been memorised and the copywork completed we try our hand at writing the piece as a dictation piece.

Not as easy as it may sounds... when one is using the KJV  ☺

I've tidied up our bible notebooking pages for Philippians 4 verse 8, and have placed them over at hslaunch for other to use if they'd like to at this link:

Bible Copywork: Philippians 4:8

The 10 Plagues in Egypt ~ Notebooking Page

Sharing here the notebooking pages we've tossed together to use alongside our study of Moses and the Plagues in Egypt - to help solidify the portion on the 10 plagues in Egpyt and the Egpytian gods they challenged.

The coloured clip art of the 10 plagues is from H.o.W

(For anyone interested in H.o.W Exodus Lesson, including the coloured clip art, above, which is used in a lapfold,  see here.  )

The Egyptian Gods, black and white, clip art page is out of Remembering God's Awesome Acts

though we may use some of the  - free for personal and/or school use only -   Egyptian gods clip art   instead.

Betsy Stout has created some free notebooking pages others may like to use:

Egyptian gods and Symbols page 

Ancients History, various topics, notebooking pages

or Megan's Ancient Egypt Notebooking Pages

There are a plethora of Ancient Egypt freebies, and go alongs out there .. pinterest is a pretty good spot to browse through for possible options.

We're going to use the pages we have on hand below, out of Remembering God's Awesome Acts, and, Bibloplan's Companion Text.

Our Week Ahead ~ 1 April 2013

It's a short week, again, and as we have no intention to start scheduled history learning again until Weds, so for our family it's a very short week.

For the (very short) Week Ahead

Bible:

KJV Exodus 1 and  2:1-10   (a  few questions on Thursday) GG to OTH

Victory Journey through the Bible;  pgs 51-53,  Hebrews Become Slaves, &, Moses
BiblioPlan Companion Ancients Map - Egypt's Middle Kingdom   for Bobs

What the Bible is All About for Young Explorers pg 35 (Exodus)  for Daisy

Math:
One on one review with Daisy for 2 days, then math games on Friday.
Bobs to continue with Khan Academy.
 
Language Arts:
Bobs:

Continue with scheduled L/As guides  
(I had a false joyous moment last last week  - I thought Bobs had completed AAS .... then discovered the level 7 book /card set had not even been cracked open. So, we continue.)
Reader: Pharoahs of Ancient Egypt ~ Elizabeth Payne
Do Hard Things ~ Alex & Brett Harris
Read Aloud to family: Poetry Piece

Daisy:
Continue with scheduled L/As guides.
Reader and Picture Books: Miriam ~ Gormley ( Yve ☺recommend you pre-reading this one)
Adventures in Ancient Egypt ~ Bailey
Tales of the Dead: Ancient Egypt ~ DK
Read Aloud to family, poetry from Favourite Poems Illustrated  ~ Helen Ferris

Family Read Aloud:

Pillar of Fire ~ J.H. Ingraham
(The Pillar of Fire is part of Lamplighters Epic Collection)
Eloquently-written, an illustrative account of the Prince of Tyre during his visit to Egypt more than 3500 years ago. The author brings full color and inspiration to every page in this Biblical historical fiction set in the time of Moses): a suspense-filled drama.

The entire book can be viewed online here.   Dn & I have enjoyed one of Ingraham's other books -  Prince of the House of David - and had this title recommended to us from an associate of Dn's.
We need to start this book a little early in our study of Egypt as it is rather long.

History & Geography 

Week 8: Egypt's Middle Kingdoms, and , The Birth of Moses

Book of the Ancient World ~ Dorothy Mills

Ch.3, Ch.4, Ch.5, Ch.6
(not sure if we'll manage all of that - but we'll have a good shot at it.)

Both: DK Eyewitness - Ancient Egypt (pictorial)

Audios:

Random choices:

Bobs:  Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates (continue)
Daisy: A Garland for Girls ~ Lousia May Alcott  (free audio download from books should be free. Daisy has listened to this a few times already.)

Logic: (not this week)

Perplexors D for Bobs

Perplexors B for Daisy

Science & Nature:

Totally delight led this week.
Bobs to continue reading Exploring Planet Earth ~ John Tiner, &,
Daisy to continue reading The Story Book of Science ~ John Henri Fabre.

For the Term
Memorisation : (loaded on to their ipods as a play list and to be listened to in their own time)
Scripture: Psalm 121
Hymn: All the Way My Saviour Leads Me
Review Grammar Songs - Both
Multiplication Songs  6,7,8,9,12  times tables - Daisy

Composer:
Johann Strauss II via  Classical Composers Monthy    
Week 1.5 of 4 weeks   

Artist & Theme:
Ancient Egyptian Art

Art:
A lesson with Mark Kistler (Ancients)
Photography, in nature study time (weather permitting)

Electives:
Computer Science for Bobs (continue with lessons)
With Dn for Bobs this term - wielding
Baking with Daisy  (Weds only)
Handstitching - Daisy

Hymns and Scripture Memorisation for 2013

This is a referencing post for myself, detailing the order of hymns and scripture songs we will be learning this year.
One child enjoys learning new songs with a visual music clip, so I've included options for that too.

The book we'll be reading and learning (some of) the songs out of is this one: When Morning Guilds the Skies.  It also comes with a music cd.

Please note - if you use google as your browser, and haven't selected adsense to stop googles ads enjoying your link hop, you may find some pretty trashy/tacky ads showing on the right hand side of the screen.

Hymns during 2013

1: (wk 1) Hymn Review: This is My Father's World
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWnAy_dZYXw  (quiet instrumental)

1A: (wks 2-4) Hymn: When Morning Guilds the Skies - Bk & C/D pg113
He Leadeth Me: O Blessed Thought
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpC78nfVdfY

2: (wks 5-10) Hymn: When Morning Guilds the Skies - Bk & C/D pg85
All the Way My Savior Leads Me
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEOtFEs0Jos

3: (wks 11-19) Hymn: When Morning Guilds the Skies - Bk & C/D pg57
Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3NmfmVGblw

4: (wks 17-20) Hymn: Be Thou My Vision (research history of this hymn)

5: (wks 21-26) Hymn: When Morning Guilds the Skies - Bk & C/D pg85
All the Way My Saviour Leads Me
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEOtFEs0Jos (alternate)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXrzFN1TG00 (instrumental)

6: (wks 27-32) Hymn: When Morning Guilds the Skies- Bk & C/D pg67
Love Divine, All Loves Excelling
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hmfqe_8SEI

7: (wks 33-36) Hymn: What Wondrous Love is This - Bk & C/D pg49
Jesus Paid it All
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TW7XPPyj5ko (history of the hymn)

The scriptures we'll be singing to memorise are mostly sung by Esther Mui, of Scripture Songs for Worship, and three songs from the Harrow Family's C/D Credo, which Sonlight sells, and I think (?) is included in their Core G package.

Scriptures During 2013

1: (wks 1-4)
http://www.scripturesongsforworship.com/2012/06/isaiah-4025-31-those-who-wait-on-lord.html
Esther Mui - Isaiah 40:25-31 (Those Who Wait on The LORD)

2: (wks + 5-8)
http://www.scripturesongsforworship.com/2012/06/psalm121-i-will-lift-up-my-eyes-to.html
Esther Mui - Psalm 121 (I will Lift up My Eyes to the Hills)

3: (wks 9-12) audio download
Harrow Family - The Ten Commandments ~ Exodus 20:1-17

4: (wks 13 -16+)
http://www.scripturesongsforworship.com/2012/06/psalm-91-my-god-in-him-i-will-trust.html
Esther Mui – Psalm 91 (My God in Him Will I Trust)

5: (wks 17-20) audio download
Harrow Family - My Son Do Not Forget ~ Prov 3:1-12

6: (wks 21-26)
http://www.scripturesongsforworship.com/2012/06/psalm-127-unless-lord-builds-house.html
Esther Mui – Psalm 127 (Unless the Lord Builds the House)

7: (wks 27-32) audio download
Harrow Family - Love Never Fails ~ 1 Corinthians 13

8: (wks +33-32)
http://www.scripturesongsforworship.com/2012/06/2-timothy-211-13-he-remains-faithful.html
Esther Mui – 2 Timothy 2:11-13 (He Remains Faithful)

9: (wks 33-36) REVIEW all songs

Wanting to learn Scripture as Songs? free downloads

We are wanting to memorise longer passages of scripture during 2013 with our (later) logic level children.
I've looked at, & downloaded, Credo which is scheduled into Sonlight's Core 6/G instructors guide but since we are not using Sonlight's schedule and we needed enough scripture in song to memorise, during a solid 39 weeks of scheduled ancients learning,  it was time to start scouting around.

We needed more scripture songs, than the four  three we will be learning with Credo:
The Ten Commandments ~  Exodus 20:1-17,
My Son Do Not Forget ~  Prov 3:1-12,
The Resurrection and the Life ~ John 11:25-26
Love Never Fails  ~ 1 Corinthians 13.
We were also hoping to find some songs for scriptures we really wanted to learn - and just to make it a little harder, we prefer to memorise either KJV or NKJV scripture with lovely music ☺


I found a site, via my youtube searching, that meets our requirements perfectly!
http://www.scripturesongsforworship.com/2012/06/psalm-91-my-god-in-him-i-will-trust.html

The downloads are free  (with any free will donations being gratefully accepted, I'm sure ☺) .

Greenleaf Guide to Old Testament History ~ free download

I am not sure if this free download is time sensitive, but at the time of posting The Shearers had very generously made their   Greenleaf Guide to Old Testament History   available as a free down load;  it is a wonderful guide and I think Balancing the Sword may end up sitting on the shelf waiting for some of our other years studying of the bible.

Hymn Play List ~ for SOTW4 Schedule

Just to make life easier for myself .... the hymns noted in our Story of the World 4 schedule can now be found as a play list on youtube:

Hymns for SOTW4 schedule

The you tube list does not contain the documentary clip for Charlotte Elliot's Life & Music, which can be found seperately here.

Bible Time & Hymns

Along with exposing the children to a select number of classical composers and their music we also like to introduce Bobs and Daisy to various lyricists of hymns and their hymns.

We've used various things over the years in an on again/off again approach and so this year I decided I'd really like us to take a more disciplined approach to learning new hymns and revisiting our favourites. Adding a little extra side comment here before I go on; We're also enjoying listening to the hymns that relate to the portion of history we are study from Diana Waring's cd All Glory, Laud & Honor ~ Acapella Worship (I've notated those songs/lyricists into our history schedule).

The best way to make sure we keep incorporating something like this into our home educating day is to find a space where we can realistically fit it into the learning schedule. If it's on my schedule there is a better chance of us getting electives done.

I found the obvious space for us to slot our hymn studies was during our 45 minute bible lesson time slot which we enjoy first thing, before any of our other learning time starts, and the hymn gets played randomly at other times during the day (helps support the regular & repetitive approach that works so well for Bobs and Dasiy).
Taking a very Charlotte Mason styled approach to our studies was the obvious and very natural method for us and customised it looks like this:

1: Select a few hymns for our 6 week term and learn them, really learn them by regular and repetitive exposure.

2: Introduce other pieces by the same composer.

3: Reading some living literature about the composer.

4: Employ narration exercises from our read aloud time (orally, only for us here).

5: Add the composers timeline figure and/or details to our book of time (we do this during our 5th week of learning).

Another natural extension to the above, is for us to read through the bible passages that helped birth, or support, the theme of the hymn.

Since our learning terms are 6 weeks long selecting 1 or 2 hymns to learn by heart is very doable.
(Our 6 week learning cycle: 4 weeks of focused work then the 5th week is to tidy up projects, then 1 weeks break.)

Selecting our current hymn and it's lyricist, I'll detail a little of what a series of lessons around one hymn/composer can currently look like in our home.

If we are already familiar with the hymn and the lyricist, or musical composer, being detailed in the book we have chosen to learn from (think John Newton & Amazing Grace) we'll read the excerpt from that book of choice, listen to the hymn, either on c/d or via you-tube, and move along to another lyricist or hymn we are not so familiar with.
Sometimes the hymn/lyricist/composer we are wanting to study is often not found in the book we have been using this year: Stories of the Great Hymns, so we pick and chose from a few other books we have. Stories of the Great Hymns is informationally lite for Bobs so we've been reading other information about the lyricists on wikipedia and through various hymn websites (comparing what different sources/authors believe is fact about a person creates some interesting discussions) and if we can easily access them, for Bobs, we try to find including reading through a primary source.

This term we are learning Soldiers of the Cross Arise and introducing Jesus, Lover of My Soul or O for a Thousand Tongues. Those will then complete our study on lyricist Charles Wesley whom we started learning about the previous term. The excerpts we are reading to go with the above hymns come from this book: With Soldiers of the Cross the companion scripture reading is Ephesians 6:10-20 (putting on the full armor of God) and here's a good spot for me to share one of our family's personal preferences :) ......... We like to use The King James Version for bible study and devotion time. The children have been exposed to the beautiful language in The King James bible since they were very little so it's not 'difficult' language for them. And for those interested, one of the WTM moms shared a link to this interesting article which extolls some of the literary benefits of reading the KJV.

Right, back to the topic of Soldiers & Armour - there are a good number of copywork sheets available to use with Ephesians 6 dotted around the internet .... if you don't feel like creating your own.

Along with with copywork sheets there are also some rather nice colour in pages and sunday school crafts, like this one ,that one can find using g.oo.gle and if you're looking for a Full Armor of God page for a girl don't forget to visit Nadene of Practical Pages page here.

Bible Colour in Pages.

Really nice (extra) colour in pages can sometimes be a stretch to find.

Pages that have more realistic pictures but are not so heavily detailed that Daisy gets dispondent with ALL the tiny lines - and pages that are different than the ones she's coloured in before.

I've been eyeing these for a little while: The student pages for Telling God's Story , they sure do have some wonderful art work for colouring in.

We are not using the course that goes with these page, we have our own preferred approach to teaching bible .

We just want to use the colour in sheets in the pdf (and perhaps a few of the craft/game ideas), those will suit us just fine.

Samples of the art work can be viewed here.

And, a great bonus for internationals wanting to purchase their downloads: Peace Hill Press now have payment available via paypal. So convenient.

End of Year Learning ~ Part 1

End of Year Learning ~ Part 1

We had such good intentions to make a jump start on Core 3/SOTW3 ... however life-would-just-get-in-the-way and the reality looks a little different to our intentions.

Together: we've been learning our bible verses and creating 'beautiful' pieces of copywork (smile) as well as reading through Jotham's Journey which is a very interesting, thought provoking advent story (we are not doing the whole 'light XYZ candle' thing though).
I didn't think I was going to appreciate it very much, the book starts out with Jotham's total lack of character on full display ... read on marmee dear, the child is going to develop character with some hard earned lessons.
**For those with sensitive children "pre-reading is adviseable".

Both children have been practising for their end of the year music concerts and playing 'beat the bag scrabble' and listening to audio books while they play: the audio books of current choice have been the dramatised audio bible, The Treasure Seekers, The Wouldbe Goods and, Ivanhoe. They do like variety.
I'll detail more about their individual pockets of learning, complete with pictures, next time.
To be continued ....

Bible Verses for Language Arts & Italics Handwriting Copywork

For the next wee while we are going to enjoy using Copycat Books KJV Proverbs as our language arts, handwriting sheets and memory verse provider.

Rhonda Roso details an easy approach in each e-book of how to go about achieving a 3 day study with each piece, should you need it.

There are more titles available than just KJV Proverbs, pop over to her site to take a look and download some free samples .

Albright News also offers some free, primary level, Proverbs copywork pages , too and each page contain some nice clip art.

London Colour in Pages

The London colour in pages, listed here , are a good extra while we read Mr. Pipes and the British Hymn Makers.

And, while we are on colouring pages .. I've now added a label, in the side bar, onto our blog (at someone's request smile) which links up posts with some of the colour in pages we've mentioned through out our blog.

Bible Copywork & Memorisation

We like to learn bible verses set to music, where we can, and to that end use some of the songs on The Harrow C/D's which Sonlight sells and schedules out in their IG's .


The words of each verse are so much easier for our family to memorise once we've completed a copywork sheet to go with it, I like to craft one too while the children are completing theirs.


We normally use Startwrite to create a lot of our copywork sheets since it models the exact handwriting style the children are learning to write in, but occasionally I like to throw together other pages in microsoft publisher - just because.


This weeks scripture is Proverbs 1:7 and you can find the pages (below) over at HSlaunch.
We place the typed verse in our blackboard 'scripture frame' on the wall (see 1/2 way down this post for those that like visuals) to be viewed all week, and Daisy enjoys the coloured in look.


For memorisation with our next Core 3/4, and SOTW3 & SOTW4, we are choosing to use some of the songs out of The Harrows CD's that are used alongside bible in Sonlight's Cores 3 and 4.


I'm not too fussed on the guides in the bible selection SL provides for those two Cores, so we'll be using something else.


With SOTW3 we'll be using a selection out of the books and C.D's shown in the picture below. We thought it would be a nice change to have a more focused introduction to hymnists and their pieces this next year, or 2, so that is where we have scheduled our plans to head - taking a leisurely amble through Stories of the Great Hymns while listening to the music C.D's when it suits (and the clincher for us was we already had these things tucked away on the shelves to use ...... sometime).
With The Building on the Rock series, which I've pencilled into the first part of our SOTW3 schedule, we will be using the shorter stories only and then reading the relevant bible scriptures they list to go with each story - some of the references are a perfect opportunity for smaller fingers to navigate flipping backwards and forwards through the bible to more than one set of scriptures.


The Mr. Pipes series does not give corresponding bible readings so we'll use some of Sonlight's bible reading schedule during that time - it'll work well for us.


With SOTW4, still fine tuning and thinking about bible time choices for that (smile)

Character Studies Lapnote Folds

Instead of going back and pasting the link for these components in with The Gift of Values post, I'll place these here

Character Studies and Bible Devotions

The Gift of Values (Book review by Chelle)
By Rosie Boom

The book is divided up in six values: Honesty, A Positive Attitude, Courage, Diligence, Perseverance, and, Obedience.
Each value then has a 3 or 3 stories to go with that character theme along with those 3-4 stories having their own accompanying sections on:
~ Think about it (questions to get your children thinking about the value being studied)
~ Something to do (practical creative ways to illustrate the value)
~ So said…. (quotes or sayings relating to the value = perfect for copywork & L/A’s)
~ Words to live by (scriptures relating to the value. A back section in the book gives simple effective outlines for an older child, or mum :-), to springboard their own bible study on the value)
~ Boom clip (Personal stories & experiences of the authors family)
~ Dig deeper (Extra’s that you can enjoy as a family that relate to each value)
*** not all the dig deeper suggestions will suit every family.
True. We personally did not listen to one of Honesty’s Dig Deeper suggestions (Billy Joel’s song “Honesty”) but definitely enjoyed the other 6 ideas Rosie suggests. The added bonus for us is that Rosie adds in an NZ flavour, being a kiwi and all :-)

We're appreciating this book and have Volume 2 sitting on the shelf to use as our next 'homeschool devotions with mum'.
We're using the above notebooking pages from here to go with The Gift of Values topics
I’ve archived this link ( thanks Patty for all your hard work) to pull some pages/ideas out to go with The Book of Virtues which is being used as a reader for One Dc to go with the character topic in TGoV .