Escape Across the Wide Sea ~ Notebooking Pages

French-Americans, and Slavery in the late 1600’s
I decided to update the links in this post created in 2011,  and blogger decided it needing republishing as a brand new post... 


Post from 2011
I started out using the bones of this post as our weekly Core 3(D) check in, but it’s not very core 3-ish, it smacks of Core 7, so I decided to pop it up here instead.

We’ve just started our next Sonlight Read Aloud, Escape Across the Wide Sea by Katherine Kirkpatric, which is a Core 7 (H) book, and we’re all enjoying it – even though Dn is *butchering* all those the French words :)
I decided to throw together a few French history colour in sheet for Daisy, along with a mapping page (scanned out of the SL read aloud) and some notebooking pages for Bobs to use during language arts time. You can find them over at Dropbox :Escape Across the Wide Sea ~ Notebooking Pages
We’ve also listened through Prince Caspian, and The Silver Chair again, since both have a tie-in theme of slave trading or slavery, and any excuse is a good enough one to pull out the Narnia audio books for a re-listen .

Early Modern History - Planning Post

Daisy here ☺
I'm helping to type up some of the things we are looking through, and might use during 2015.
This a planning post and so it won't look all pretty and tidy.
Mum said to just toss it up as we'll be adding to it over the next few month.
Oh, and I'm supposed to mention that both of us, Bobs and me, will be highschool level next year.

History Spines
Biblioplan Early Modern Companion  
The Story of the World v.3 (Daisy) audio
MOH v.3 & v.4 (selections)
Kingfisher Encyc (Daisy)

Other History Books  N/F
Famous Men of the 16th & 17th Century ~ Shearer
The Best of Our Island Story (audio)
The Story of New Zealand ~ Bassett

Online Courses
Coursera: The French Revolution

Literature Options
Biblioplan Booklist 8-12
Sonlight Core H - first 1/2 (Daisy)
SL Core 200 & 530 (selections) (Daisy & J)
TWTM Great books - Eleventh grade, 1600-1850
Hewitt Homeschool - Lightning Lit   (scroll down)
Greenleaf Guide Year 3 Lit  if mum can manage to find a way to purchase this.
** Chelle here: We found a way! Amazingly, Greenleaf gifted us a draft copy to use! Really liking what this guide covers.  J will be using this during 2015 while Daisy tags along in places.
Ambleside Year 10 lit
1000 Great Books year 7-9
1000 Great Books year 10-12
Milestones Academy (Early modern list, check other lists too)
Charles Dickens Timeline

IXL
Khan
 
look through:
CTC
Education Unboxed
Codeacademy

to be continued.

SOTW 3, New Zealand, World History ~ Gold Rush Notebooking Pages

Here are a few notebooking pages to go with the gold rush chapter in Story of the World vol 3.

I've customised the title on each set of pages, linked beneath, as we are going to use these pages as part of our New Zealand history set and not just as a SOTW set - we've included some generic World History pages. The 2 page sets include one page with guide lines for youngers and another page with standard size lines for middles and olders.NZ History Gold Rush ~ Notebooking Pages

World History Gold Rush ~ Notebooking Pages

SOTW3 Ch.42 The Gold Rush ~ Notebooking Pages

Free audio books

I haven't allowed myself time to list any titles and link up our more recent selection of free audio books so figured I'd just drop a quick post in here to remind others that Thought Audio have a few rather good free audio books you might like to listen through and select out titles that suit your family - their collection is here.
Not all of this audio selection is our taste ☺

Part 2: Unfounded Expectations and Completing this Year's Work

continued...

The children have finished their math and language arts requirements for this year - at their request, I condensed the last part of the lessons in their math books and agreed that if they could get the set amount of math problems all right to go with each topic (no mistakes) we could continue to move at a much quicker pace.
Bobs wanted to complete the remainder of his MMM book as there are rewards that go with completing homeschool books in our home. (Computer time credits, pizza and a rental movie)
Daisy who is just as focused to collect her rewards spent the last 6 home educating days completing her MMM book ..... in her spare time ☺

I've decided we will come back in the new year to revisit the topics on New Zealand history covered in SOTW3 with more detail and a New Zealand flavoured telling of these portions of history.

Laughing a little here .... New Zealanders do NOT listen to Jim Weiss reading this chapter of SOTW3; he very inventively reconstructs the maori pronunciation!! The children thought it was really funny: me-or-e for maori and why- tan- gee for Waitangi. He very obviously made this recording before his visit to New Zealand. ☺
I had the children read set chapters out of our NZ history book : Builders of NZ, instead.

Along with the last lesson to cover in SOTW3 we have one more Sonlight book, By the Great Horn Spoon, to read - time to employ a handy dandy audio book.
For those interested there are two choices (we're listening to the first) :
By the Gread Horn Spoon, read by Kayray (free audio book)
or a paid version By The Great Horn Spoon! by Sid Fleischman, Narrated by Willard E. Lape, Jr, the Full Cast Family

Despite - what felt like - our shuffley hodge-podge working style this year we are closing out our Core 3/SOTW3 run embracing a sense of achievement rather than a sense of failure due to tasks not done as originally hoped or planned - in a nut shell, it's me just letting go of my unfounded expectations.

(It's taken me 3 weeks to get here and get this post ready for sharing - every time I come back the details have changed again ☺
It may take me a while to get back here to post again -I have a ton of links and things I'm wanting to post about, including our substitute text now that ALL has be shoved to the back burner - right now though we're decluttering, onselling and packaging-n-posting (!!!) a pile of homeschool items and attending end of the year practises and concerts, and .... getting ready for Christmas.

In the meantime though...
Praying that we may all make the time to pause and peacefully count the many blessings we are gifted with.
Blessings to each of my dear friends and fellow homeschoolings.
~Chelle~ )

Part 1: Unfounded Expectations and Completing this Year's Work

It has taken me close to a complete home educating year to find my teaching footing with the following mix; Bobs needing and chomping at the bit to work at a higher level (let's just change up the gears and add in part of another core shall we), and Daisy requiring a little less time with mum 'elbow teaching' but more time with me teaching home craft topics (cooking, paper crafts, and sewing instruction do require some time and patience ☺) ... and Dn starting to work from home (who knew a grown man could create such an on going distraction to the children and I - just by being there? ☺).
As is pretty normal in most homes, life happens too as part of that continual adjustment mix.

It took me a good 10 months of learning to let go of unfounded expectations for the home schooled part of lives and realising we were being gifted with other lessons to learn from, or walk through.

The replacement lesson modules have been:
someone in our home recovering from a longer term illness;
loved ones divorcing;
death;
an on/off run of unexpected visitors and house guests;
out of our norm (!!!!) ministry responsibilities;
and, high-wants (translate that as unreasonable and demanding) clients.
Those are some of the more prominent aspects of what this year has gifted us with and are not events one can actually plan into a schedule. Yet those are the times that have gifted us with some of our deepest and best learning moments;
Moments of patience,
moments of compassion,
moments of praying through intense grief,
moments of love and hospitality,
and,
moments of being faithful and diligent.

If there were "tests" that went with each of those life moments, I'm not sure how well we would have done with "passing" on some of them - we just endeavoured to place our trust in God as we worked through each lesson. It's best to forget about passing any sort of test, as the value of those life moments just leave lasting impressions in the ongoing formation of the children's character (and ours!!) that can not be learnt solely at the dining/homeschooling table.

With the academic lessons the children have been so patient and accomodating as I/we've stretched and relaxed trying to find a good working pace around the constant life changes.

I think we've finally found our stride ... and, laughing, the end of the year is looking us right down the barrel. I thought we would be finished in 2 and 1/2 weeks ... not with the children I've been blessed with, they see the end in sight and start pushing me to get us done marmee. We have ONE week left of our history schedule to complete which feels so good.

to be continued ....

(this post was apparently too long for certain folks to get through in one reading ... so I've cut it in half *just for them* ☺)

October 17: The Week Ahead

Typing the whole week out in list form was so helpful last week that I've done the same for this week. We are still working on some of the "things' on lasts weeks list so I'll colour key them to make life visually quicker for me ☺

Continue or complete - black
New content - blue

Bible & Memory Work
Handwriting & Memory work: Ephesians 2:8-10 (continue)

Hymn
Amazing Grace: Illustrated Stories of Favourite Hymns
by K Osbeck: Abide With Me our Hymn (learn for 2 more weeks)

Classical Music
Story of Great Composers: Schubert (Unit 4 - pg 15) (continued)

Art/Artist
Artistic Pursuits Bk 2: Lesson 22 (last lesson reinvented) (Complete)
Mark Kistler - pencil sketching
Artist: Millet (for 4 more weeks)

World History
Story of the World 3 Chapter 36: The Slave Trade Ends (Tuesday)
Encyclopedia tie-ins for SOTW3
Read Alouds
The Journeyman - SL RA/3 (complete)
The Freedom Fighter by Bingham
Daisy: Who Owns the Sun? (Tuesday)
Follow the Drinking Gourd (FIAR) slavery tie-ins (Friday)
(revisit - http://www.nationalgeographic.com/features/99/railroad/ )

New Zealand History
Builders of NZ Chapt 4: How the First White People Settled in New Zealand (complete)
pg72 - Samuel Marsden, the Maoris' Friend
pg74 - The Coming of the Missionaries

Readers
Readers for Both:
The Story of the Erie Canal (SL H/3)
Louis Braille (SL R5)

Audio book for free time: (still to decide)

Language Arts
Instruction from WWE Text for both
Grammar: FLL for Bobs , conversationally for Daisy
Spelling: AAS

Math
Daisy: Making Math Meaningful (next lesson) plus 6x's table drill
Bobs: LOF - Pre Algebra 2 with Economics with MMM companion lessons (if necessary) plus math speed drill

Latin
Song School Latin: next 3 lessons & review
English From the Roots Up: (none this week)

Logic
Chess: Bobs
Logic Puzzles or books: Both

Science
Delight led (NZ Astronomy, FTDG FIAR tie-in http://www.astronomynz.org.nz/star-charts/star-charts.html )
Spring – plant out pumpkin seedlings, visit ducklings, enjoy our guinea pigs pups..

External Electives
(music lessons and swimming cancelled - public school term break)

Marie Antoinette & Redoubt

I've finally got around to photographing Daisy's completed SOTW3 cut-n-craft. We used the notebooking page and Redoubt book detailed in this post.

October 10: The Week Ahead

I'm praying the best laid plans of mice and (this woman) will not go awry and that we can manage to nail down a good weeks work ☺

Bible & Memory Work
Handwriting & Memory work: Ephesians 2:8-10
Hymn
Amazing Grace: Illustrated Stories of Favourite Hymns
by K Osbeck: Abide With Me our Hymn to learn for 3 weeks

Classical Music
Story of Great Composers: Schubert (Unit 4 - pg 15)

Art/Artist
Artistic Pursuits Bk 2: Lesson 22 (last lesson reinvented)
Mark Kistler - pencil sketching
Artist: Millet (for 5 weeks)

World History
Story of the World 3 Chapter 34: Freedom for South America
Reader for Both: Simon Bolivar (SL R4/E)
Encyclopedia tie-ins for SOTW3

New Zealand History
Builders of NZ Chapt 4: How the First White People Settled in New Zealand
pg65 - The Coming of the Sealers
pg67 - The Coming of the Whalers
pg68 - The Burning of the Boyd (L/A's narration and dictation)
pg69 - The Coming of the Traders
pg72 - Samuel Marsden, the Maoris' Friend
pg74 - The Coming of the Missionaries

NZ Read Aloud: (continuing with) Shadow of the Boyd
(Refer to our review about this book which includes this comment:
**I found the book an interesting and thought filled read.
Yet since I tend to err on the side of caution, I would be recommending to use Shadow of the Boyd as a read aloud to more mature pre-teens. For our family, I wouldn't give our children this book as a reader.)
DH has been editing out the swearing that the author has penned in amongst some of the retelling of this story - our choice.

Readers
Bobs Reader: (continue with) Diary of an Early American Boy (SL Sci4/E)
Bobs to Read out loud (RoL): free choice, & poetry
Daisy's Reader: Justin Morgan Had a Horse (SL RA3/D)
Daisy to RoL: 30 Hideous & Hilarious NZ ...pg 35 Whale Watching, & poetry

Language Arts
Instruction from WWE Text for both
Grammar: (next lesson in) Grammar Land
Spelling: AAS

Math
Daisy: Making Math Meaningful (next lesson) plus 6x's table drill
Bobs: LOF - Pre Algebra 2 with Economics with MMM companion lessons (if necessary) plus math speed drill

Latin
Song School Latin: 3 lessons & review
English From the Roots Up: Latin Root ~ pater, patris

Logic
Chess: Bobs
Logic Puzzles or books: Both

Science
Delight led with our science boxes
Spring gardening.

External Electives
(music lessons and swimming cancelled - public school term break)

And that's our weeks work. I just felt in the mood to type things out before Monday hits.
What are you up to this week? ☺

3 Months of our Current Homeschool Year to Go and Our list of Books Still to Enjoy, or not....

I guess this post is more for myself than anything else - to help me see what I can put aside to be enjoyed as a random reader later - I do work better with a list.
Sometimes life gets a bit crunchy and it's helpful to see the books we have left to read in our learning year. Then it's time to ditch, switch, and re-sort.

The *really want to read* titles will get read, and enjoyed, along with Bobs readers and Daisy's picture books (she loves them!) plus her readers.

Currently Reading:
~ George Washington’s World H7 - Still reading
~ In Search of Honor – R7 – Great book, but we've put it aside for a bit
~ The Broken Blade – R7 (J)
~ The Story of Eli Whitney (opt: not 3/4) - both
~ Owls in the Family (a delight lead read)
What’s Left to Read:
OPTIONAL (1810) ~ The Journey Man - RA3 (opt: not 3/4)
READER ~ Usborne – Napoleon (S)READ ALOUD ~ Naya Nuki - R3+ (swapped to 3/4) * really want to read*
READER ~ Meet Thomas Jefferson R3 (S)
AUDIO 1804 ~ Streams to the River, River to the Sea -100
FIAR (S) ~ The Hat Makers Sign ~ Fleming
READ ALOUD SCIENCE ~ Diary of An Early American Boy - Sci 4
OPTIONAL READER (J) ~ The Death of Tecumseh (Canada)-Berton
OPTIONAL READER (J) ~ Napoleon and the Battle of Waterloo - Winwar

READER ~ Trailblazer 1812 ~ Abandoned on the Wild Frontier (J)
AUDIO ~ Justin Morgan Had a Horse RA3
OPTIONAL READER (opt: not 3/4) ~ Simon Bolivar -4R
READ ALOUD ~ The Story of the Erie Canal – H3
READER (both) ~ Louis Braille- Davidson - R5
READ ALOUD ~ Imprisoned in the Golden City - H3 (swpd to 3/4) *really want to read*
FIAR (S) ~ Follow the Drinking Gourd
READ ALOUD ~ The Freedom Fighter – Bingham *really want to read*
Optional AUDIO (dramatised) beneath or BOOK (England 1800's)
~ Rosalie’s Good Shepherd ~ Walton/Queen (mum's reader ... I like a book or 2 like this (-;
~ A Peep Behind the Scenes (original title - dramatised audio for Bobs & Daisy)
FIAR (S) ~ The Giraffe That Walked to Paris
READER (J) ~ Swift Rivers - R3 (opt: not 3/4)
OPTIONAL READER (S) 1883 ~ Friends ~Whelan
FIAR (S) ~ The Gullywasher
PICT BK (S) ~ Susanna of the Alamo - Jakes
OPTIONAL READ ALOUD ~ Moccasin Trail - RA4 (opt: not 3/4)
AUDIO ~ Nory Ryan’s Song – R7
NZ PICT BK (revisit with S) ~ Aoteatoa ~ Baldwin H NZ
NZ READ ALOUD ~ The Bat's Nest - de Roo *really want to read*
NZ PICT BK (S) 1830’s+ ~ The Treaty House – Orams
NZ PICT BK (S) ~ Tarore & Her Bible
NZ OPT. READ ALOUD ~ The Children of Clearwater Bay ~ Ellin (Fam. R/A )
NZ READER (J) ~ Tuppenny Brown ~ Sutton
READ ALOUD ~ Levi Straus-The Blue Jeans. Ex SL* really want to read*
READ ALOUD ~ By the Great Horn Spoon - RA4 (3/4)
NZ READER (J) 1850 (boys) ~ Traveller ~ de Roo
NZ READER (S) 1850 (girls) ~ Sergeant Sal ~ de Roo
Christmas lead in’s:
READ ALOUD ~ Bartholomew’s Passage * really want to read*
READ ALOUD ~ The Birds’ Christmas Carol (on line option) * really want to read*
NZ NATURE READ ALOUD ~ A Pocketful of Penguins * really want to read* ♥ Many of the NZ titles we read can be sourced through NZ's library interloan ♥

Sonlight Core 3 - Eli Whitney

I am hoping to get the children diverted away from owls long enough to read The Story of Eli Whitney soon, maybe later this week... or next (?).
It's a book I'd really like the children to have read since a little while back Bobs and Dn enjoyed listening to JimWeiss read Carry on Mr Bowditch which is also written by Jean Lee Latham.
I had tentative plans to create a notebooking page for Eli Whitney and, fortunately for me, Nadene of Practical Pages has already created some lapnote & notebooking pages for this inventor.

Her pages also include clip art for Robert Fulton which, for us, was an earlier Sonlight Core 3/D.

If you haven't visited Nadene's blog before ... allow some time - Practical Pages is a veritable treasure trove!

Story of the World 3 ~ Chapt 25

Daisy has finished her cut-n-craft that goes with our post The French French Revolution & Marie Antoinette.

We had a 'review' reading and discussion through Chapt. 27, A Changing World. I didn't pause too long here since we had a good introduction to much of this information during our use of Beautiful Feet ~ History of Science .

Since both the children were busy reading other books of there choice right then the only set piece of history reading they will be doing is having a quick read through a Sonlight Core D/3 history book - The Story of Eli Whitney by Jean Lee Latham.

***This post has collected a little blog dust so I'll pull it forward and hit post anyway.

The French Revolution

While we work our way through our 6wk study of European Rediscovery of New Zealand we're also continuing on with Story of the World, Vol. 3 (at a lighter pace - audio C/s, maps and discussion) and our Sonlight Read Alouds.
Last week our SOTW topic was The French Revolution, an era of history that seems to generate a lot of interest in our home so we've gone back through favourite audio books:

~Les Miserable (audio - FOTF Radio Theatre)
~The Reign of Terror (audio - read by Jim Weiss)  This is Daisy's all time G.A Henty favourite.

I've added in another new, to Bobs and Daisy, audio book;
~A Tale of Two Cities (audio - abridged) for Daisy.  I don't like this version, it doesn't do the story justice.
~ A Tale of Two Cities (free audio - unabridged) for Bobs
Or here is a whispersync (free) kindle book & audio

Read a few books. For Daisy;
~A Tale of Two Cities (Usborne Reader)
~Redoubt the Man Who Painted Flowers This book influenced the background for Daisy's cut-n-craft to go with SOTW 3 Chapt 25, The French Revolution, & Marie Antoinette. Daisy has yet to colour the page in and glue Marie Antoinette on.
We've used pages 6 & 16 from this notebooking set ...... and here is the end result ☺ And for Bobs we're continuing to read aloud a new, to us, SL title;
~In Search of Honor 
While a very "good" book I enjoyed The Reign of Terror and Les Miserable more. (We have yet to enjoy listening to the unabridged version of Les Miserable - all 50 something hours of it - which we'll get to during our next cycle through world history).

ETA: For those looking for a free French Revolution Lapbook be sure to check out Have Fun -Live Life's blog spot and her daughter's fine creation: The French Revolution ~ Lapbook

ETAx2: We also enjoyed Karen Savage, at a slightly later date,  reading aloud The Scarlet Pimpernel, The Elusive Pimpernel , and, El dorado. To those unfamiliar with the story, it appears that the discord between Sir Percy & his wife will detract from the story - stick with it, as character and a committing love prevail.
Bobs didn't find it mushy or too romantic, which I thought he might.

European Explorers to New Zealand 1600 - 1800

The children (and I) have been working our way through a hands on project while we look more closely at European Exlorers to New Zealand between the 1600 & 1800's.

I was wanting the exercise to be a geography based one. New Zealand geography, and so creating a map each - along with a concertina lapfold - while we read and discussed our way through this topic in history seemed like a good idea.... to me :)

Using enlarged maps of each island we blacked out the reverse side of the maps outline with a 6b sketch pencil (cellotaping the printed side of the A4 sheets to the ranchslide works as an excellent lightbox).

We then lined up each map, one after the other, with the blacked side onto the sketch paper and Bobs and Daisy proceed to 'reprint' their own maps, Bobs is working on retracing the South Island, below.Once the maps were made Bobs and Daisy have been working on detailing in key points of geography that relate to our European Explorers and New Zealand study. We are using Builders of New Zealand (OOP) as our spine - but have found some good literary sources on the internet that have made certain explorers and events surrounding them spring to life. Bobs (11 & 1/2) is able to work through this study pretty much on his own and I'm giving Daisy (9 & 1/2) the occasional hand, where needed.For anyone interested in having a look at that study you can find our pages over at hslaunch:
Hands-on-Craft & Study: European Explorers to New Zealand 1600 - 1800

And for those looking for extra NZ history books to enjoy we've listed some, in pdf format, we use and like in a link at the top of our blog.

Maori and the Settler: A Story of the New Zealand War

This book title, written by G.A. Henty, is pencilled in as a read aloud on our history schedule.

For those not able to procure a copy and yet would still like to have a browse through this book try this link... Maori and the Settler.



I'm detailing this next link, on this post, for myself ... it makes it easier to find later :)

Primary source - diaried account of events in the late 1840

Captain Cook, New Zealand, and Australia

We've just started our SOTW3 Chapt:24 related study on Captain Cook and his travels south to downunder :☺

I've purposely only allowed us 2 weeks to pause here, that should be enough time to stop us (me) from getting so lost in rabbit trails that trying to get back to our SOTW schedule becomes a herculean effort.

We're nearing the end of the first week and the children have already sorted out what they personally would like to read from the books below and we've starting employing a few of our notebooking pages made a while ago and can be found over at hslaunch. (If you type Captain Cook notebooking into the search feature on our blog you'll find the posts that detail those links).
We put the DvD, shown above, away since some of the content on it would be too graphic, or disturbing, for Bobs and Daisy. Bar those few scenes, Dn & I found it to be an informative, if rather an emotionally sad, portrayal of Captain Cook.

I'm still entertaining the idea of using Kotuku ~ The Flight of the White Heron as our nature/science study book for a few weeks. Daisy enjoyed it as a reader and I like that sort of science ..... smile.

I'm also taking the opportunity to refresh our geography skills with New Zealand, The Pacific Islands, and Australia. The audio memory geography songs that relate to the southern 'islands/continent' are totally inadequate for those of us that actually live down here ☺

At a very basic level, those songs needed the names of all the pacific islands, the territories and states of Australia, and the capitals of Aust and N.Z ... which would have made the songs about 7 mins long each (laughing) - not an option right!

It's also time to refresh the national anthems: The national anthem for Australia is Advance Australia Fair. Up until 1974 God Save the Queen was Australia's recognised national anthem - that song is now it's royal anthem.
Our two national anthems for New Zealand are God Defend New Zealand - sung in Maori & English, and God Save the Queen. For those outside NZ - yes, we do have two "national" anthems though the first one is the anthem more commonly sung and embraced as our national anthem.

Classical Composer Study for Haydn, Mozart, & Beethoven

Dawn of Our Nest of 3 blog has crafted, and then generously shared, a really nice study on Haydn, Mozart, & Beethoven. She has spent hours of work inserting lots of helpful links - I'm seriously impressed!

You can find her post with the links to her pdf, here.

Dawn's study is a perfect composer tie-in to go with where we are in our SOTW3 readings.

Haydn is slight review and Mozart is up for study next.

Betsy Ross Notebooking Pages

I tossed together some rather basic notebooking pages for Betsy Ross that we ended up not using since Daisy decided she'd rather just read the book, Betsy Ross: Designer of Our Flag , give an oral narration and move right along.
Someone else may find a use for these pages though, so we've placed them over at hslaunch: Betsy Ross Notebooking, Craft, and Colour in Pages

New Zealand History Spines ~ Builders of New Zealand: An Illustrated History for Young People

I guess you may have to be an NZ -er to be interested in this post :) .... I've posted a pdf over at dropbox  (2015) that shows samples of the 2 history spines we have used, and like, for our New Zealand based history texts for elementary and pre-highschool.

We're getting ready, again, to go though Captain Cook's voyages to New Zealand using Story of the World Vol.3 and Builders of New Zealand: An Illustrated History for Young People as our spines.

 I few years back I picked up an NZ history audio series to use and just couldn't stand listening to the narrator's voice so after searching, collecting, reviewing and comparing possible other options I elected to use Builders of New Zealand (BoNZ) over other books currently in print. BoNZ has a narrative tone to it that isn't penned in sarcastic humour and is more than just being a deliverer of dates and facts as some other texts are.

ETA: We often get asked about Awesome Aotearoa. For those wanting an informative review on A.A, pop over to Michelle's blog, the owner of Downunder lit . I share her sentiments on that NZ history book.
My view point comes from the perspective of a mum whose family reads and enjoys the humour in various books out of the Horrible History and Murderous Math series,
Ms. Mahy is a gifted wordsmith yet A.A, in my opinion, is not a "fun" book; but one that appears to be totally lacking in respect to any group of people, especially the Maori.

For the middle years (ages 7-11) we choose to enjoy a more old fashioned toned, wholesome text, Builders of New Zealand: An Illustrated History for Young People. Others may dislike BoNZ, but it suits our family rather well.

For those that may be looking for other New Zealand based literature here is a link to an older post listing the New Zealand influenced books we use in our home educating studies, since they just happen to already be on our shelves :-) Or just can just jump straight to the link at the top of our blog.

Accelerating Writing With Ease?

We're doing a more intensive writing program for 6th grade Bobs and we often get asked *how* we are going about accelerating Writing With Ease level 3 and level 4, so that we are covering the content in a year.

Maybe sharing here what we're doing may be of some help to others too.

Using the hardcover WWE text saves the day - I only pull out the teacher/student workbook if we need to 'pause for reflection' with an element that may require more coverage. Since we are practicing identifying the central elements continually, within our history spine and read alouds, I haven't concerned myself about using the WWE workbooks regularly, this year, for that with Bobs.
Story of the World allows that particular language arts muscle to be exercised regularly.
With the teacher's text I like to take note of the elements Susan lists to be covered in subsequent lessons, these are the elements listed after the ones she has laid out as prescribed lessons.
ie: pg 134, year three - weeks 12-19
proper nouns
helping verbs
direct objects following action verbs
state of being verbs and linking verbs, and etc....
We then select our own reading passages that cover, or reviews, as many of those elements as possible. Some of the Writing With Ease style pages we create are stored over at hslaunch and show working examples of this.
I like Bobs to have a go at the passages and elements Susan has selected in the text so we cover those complete lesson, days 1-4, unless it is too easy for him, then I'll beef the selected dictation pieces up to match the level of work I know he should be able to do.