Moving Beyond the Page; art, history, geography, and literature

We love unit studies and combining subjects so we were very excited to review Moving Beyond the Page with the Schoolhouse Review Crew.  Selecting just the right units to do when you are moving outside your current plan can be tricky, however Cameron took inspiration from a recent review we did featuring Impressionist Art  as part of Art Cards and decided he wanted to study more Art. I chose Charlotte of Giverney, a literature based study and Europe a complementary Social Studies unit  for him.
The literature unit we received as an online unit but received the books to complete the unit as well.
While Cameron wasn't sure about so much reading, he did find the stories entertaining and was able to make the artistic connection to the stories. The unit came with spelling lists that we soon found out were above his spelling level, that is the beauty of homeschooling, I can now work on our weak areas in spelling.
We received the title book as well as an art book kit based on the works of Monet where, Cameron is able to try his hand at some of the inspiration.
The title story is written as a journal, as I read the book to Cameron and we looked over the pictures it really started to come alive for both of us.
There are 7 lessons and a final project related to the story, however combined with the spelling/ vocabulary words and the complimentary Europe unit we combined it is actually an in depth unit study.
Charlotte of Giverny Moving Beyond the page is targeted at 8-10 year olds and retails for $29.83 in the format I received.

The Europe Social Studies unit we received in print form came with the unit plus 2 story books and also had the same target age range of 8-10 years old. I liked the variety of activities in this unit, however the print quality of the student maps was very disappointing. I actually pulled out other black line masters of similar maps to have Cameron use. I want him to be proud of his work and set the expectation for neatness, when the maps he is writing on are blurry at best, it makes it hard to expect him to write neatly.  Other than the print quality, the content of the program is reasonable. The Europe unit in print with 2 story books retails for $32.89. Since we are working toward studies on the middle ages next year, elements of this unit study including the story books will resurface next spring and then as we work toward early modern history the we can revisit the artistic literature unit with both boys , by that time we should be able to review the spelling lists without any troubles.

I am going through the list of units that Moving Beyond the Page carries and seeing if I can work anymore in to our goals for the next year or so and have found a couple that would make fun units to have for breaks in our Classical plans. I am looking forward to reading the reviews from the rest of the Schoolhouse Review Crew as we all selected different units, I would highly recommend reading more of these reviews to see which ones might fit into your homeschool.

Geography, History, and Art oh my

 We received for review a complete Geography I program from Memoria Press for review in our homeschool. Since Geography wasn't something we had focused on other than location of the continents and oceans I thought this would be a good thing to add in. We are currently studying the ancients and Geography I covers the Middle East , North Africa, and Europe which is a perfect fit of the Ancients.
We started our with just reading the Student Text and talking about the worksheet. I would ask the boys to point out certain areas on the map in the text instead of writing it to begin with, then I had Cameron start writing in the Workbook. Cameron isn't a fan of workbooks, so I decided to add some extra fun to studying about ancient Israel, Ancient Iraq, and Ancient Syria.
I incorporated our history studies, a couple of Bible stories, some sidewalk chalk, and a small group of Playmobil characters and horses (might have had a cow as well) for outside school.

This collection of elements worked together with 2 little boys for a fun school day. We traveled with Abram and Sarai from Ur to Canaan after we drew and colored the map on the back patio. 

Something as simple as the maps included in Geography I inspired a cross curricular activity that was fun and kept my boys engaged for 45 minutes. What a simple thing. 

The complete set costs $48.00 and includes the text, the workbook, the teacher's guide, and the United States Review set (student book and teacher's book) for grades 4-8. Due to copyright rules for this book, if you have more than 1 student using the program,  you will need to purchase an additional student workbook which retails for $11.95 for each student. 

The program is easy to follow and integrates well with a variety of programs and learning styles. I was able to easy incorporate the program into our current Classic approach to history but can also see how it would work into a unit study as well as hands on learning with the workbook as reinforcement. 

We will continue to work the program into our current Classical History Model over the summer and into the fall as we work through the Middle East and North Africa and arriving in Europe sometime around January. It may seem like a long journey but my boys seem to be embracing the classical history with activities to help them remember the geography and events that help form the modern world we live in. 

The schoolhouse review crew reviewed this product as well as Prima Latina a program I am looking forward to reading reviews on as I am wanting to add Latin in the fall for the boys. 

 

I love Memoria Press' motto, "Saving Western Civilization One Student at a Time", in our case it is two students but still , it really is that easy to save history by teaching the true history to our children. I gratefully support companies that are willing to go that extra mile in the education of our children. 

Playing with cards and Playing with Art with Birdcage Press

We are working to incorporate more art images into the boys world. Thankfully, we received a new review product that helped facilitate that, Art Close Up: Museum of Modern Art Cards from Birdcage Press
   Once we received our package from Birdcage Press, Cameron immediately opened them and started playing matching memory style games by himself. Once he made a match he would look over the full picture card and ask me about the artist or the piece of art.
Inspired by the games we have actually started an artists study notebook. We have continued to play with the cards putting the full picture cards into timeline order and trying to put the up close pictures in the same order without looking at the full picture cards. Another activity we found fun, grouping the cards by style.

Art Close Up: Museum of Modern Art Cards is a set of 48 matching cards, the size of playing cards, laminated and full color featuring pieces from the Museum of Modern Art  designed for ages 5 and up. The set of cards retails for $10.95 and can be purchased directly from Birdcage Press
My boys are really loving the cards and trying to come up with more games to play with them. For now though, memory match, timeline builder, and style grouping will do. The game inspired us to find a few more art style games and activities for the Montessori shelf and we are adding several of the other sets available to our homeschool wishlist and even a field trip to the Portland Art Museum later this summer.

While the retail price at first seemed a bit high for a set of cards, the more we played with them and the more inspiration gained from them the more I am seeing the true value in the set of cards. Birdcage press carries a wonderful line of art cards as well as art books, and even history , nature, air, and space activities. Members of the Schoolhouse Crew reviewed a variety of the art cards and several other activities from Birdcage press, you won't want to miss their reviews as well.

See the Light with fun art lessons

It is such a blessing to combine any subject with solid Biblical teaching; it is even a bigger blessing to receive the product as a review.

That said, See the Light has been a huge blessing to Cameron over the past weeks. He is finding a voice in art and hearing a good message from the teachers on the DVD God's Special Surprise.

The DVD is part of the Bible Stories series from See the Light and retails for $14.95. With over 4 hours of content including 3 complete art lessons, music video and story, this DVD packed with a solid message of God's Hope for his people contains more than just art lessons. The lessons are designed for ages 6 and up. My 7 year old struggles with writing skills a bit and isn't a huge art fan so I really selected the program for my 10 year old and this is a story he enjoys and it fits into our history lessons on Ancient Civilizations. 

I started out by previewing the DVD and pulling  the art supplies I had on hand. Thankfully all I needed to purchase were the Extreme Colors colored pencils. Since I love anything Crayola I picked up the twistable crayons in the extreme colors as well and a set of cake watercolors to have extra.

When we got started with the viewing and were heading into the third lesson I realized we did not have a single ruler in the house (just a yardstick which wasn't much help), so I put our art lessons on pause to go into town and pick up one missing element.   Cameron's favorite lesson from the DVD was the creative lettering lesson "SURPRISE!" . Not only did he get to practice writing in all capital letters, he was able to pause the DVD when he needed to and really worked hard to put together a page of chiseled letters and a fun stone carving of his name. We are working on creating a "carving" of house rules to go along with our history lesson and things we have learned in these wonderful art lessons.
The boys even want to put a black light in their bedroom so they can hang cool art of the walls and see it in the dark, I love black light so I guess I will be purchasing a couple extra black light bulbs for their clip light.

I also decided to experiment a bit with the boys and art outside. We also purchased a large selection of sidewalk chalk to try sidewalk chalk art using some of the lessons learned with the DVD. It was a lot of fun (wish I remembered to take pictures)   They enjoyed trying some of the techniques from the Hope for a Nation lesson.  By the end of the series of lessons even Nathan showed interest in what we created. Sometimes I just have to let him come to us when we are doing our lessons. Cameron has already asked about doing more See the Light art lessons (guess I know what will be on his wishlist for birthday and Christmas).
Be sure to check out the rest of the Crew and their thoughts on this amazing program!

 

Zane Education: Video support for every subject #hsreviews #education

During our summer school session I was really looking for something that would cover the subjects and material but in a more relaxed setting. Enter Zane Education; a perfect blend on content , casual, yet  engaging videos, and the material we needed.

We found so much information available to us on Zane that it was almost over-whelming. Hundreds of educational videos at our finger tips. We watched videos on Ancient Egypt, the history of Christianity, botany, Math, and even Art History.

So, at first I thought the annual membership price was too high, but as we started watching and using the program more and more I realized that the value was much greater than the price tag. Lesson plans attached to the videos, quizzes for the various lessons that could be done by both boys, grade level videos, subtitles built in to many of the video that encouraged the boys to read along with the commentator, and colorful interesting videos.  

We received a full year Gold Membership:

from their website: Provides access to ALL 1,500+ curriculum videos for K-12 on the website PLUS all other facilities on the Zane Education website.

A Gold Membership provides:

• Access to ALL of Zane's 1,000+ subtitled curriculum videos for K-12*
• Access to the non-subtitled curriculum Math videos for K-12
• Access to Free Lesson Plans for all 260+ curriculum Topics for K-12
• Access to online Video Study Tools
• Access to all 260 online interactive curriculum quizzes for K12
• Free downloadable copy of Zane's Learning Video Catalogue (worth $49.95)
• Free downloadable copy of Zane's Christian Home Learning Guide (worth $49.95)
• Access to all of the K12 educational resources in the Study Center section including the World Factbook, World Leaders Guide, Historical documents and much more.
• 24-Hour Tech Support

Cost:

$17.99 per month or
$197.89 per year

Either recurring payment of $17.99 per month or single payment of $197.89 per year (saves approximately 10% - you pay for 11 months and get the 12th month free).

Proceed >

Comment: A Gold Membership represents the best value for money providing an 84% discount (Saves $1,225) on buying the use of each video topic separately and a 93% discount (Saves $3552) on buying each CD-ROM separately.

 While this may seem like a lot, no matter if you are a Christian homeschooler or a Secular homeschooler or a parent wanting to supplement to your child's education at home you will find a HUGE variety of subject matter and something that will help you child grow in knowledge. 

Videos are viewed online with links to the quizzes and printable lesson plans. Many of the videos also have dictionary features where you can review various terms from the video.  

While the Gold Membership covers the a ton, there is also a free membership that gives you access to a lot of videos including math videos where Zane has partnered with Khan Academy to share math instruction with viewers. 

We found several of the math videos very helpful in explaining math concepts in a visual way that helped Cameron see someone else doing exactly what I had been trying to show him. (Sometimes they will listen to the same thing from another person but not from Mommy)

With several levels of membership available, families can gain access to so much knowledge and supplement and support their educational goals.

Zane is also an amazing community on Facebook where parents and educators share ideas and links to helpful videos

The Schoolhouse Review Crew reviewed this program together and you can find out what the rest of the crew thought of the program by clicking on the banner below.

Disclaimer: We received a full year membership to Zane Education's website as a member of the Schoolhouse review crew in exchange for our honest review of the program. Opinions in this post are that of the author.

I Spy Animals Game Board

Getting ready for school to start in just a couple of weeks we decided to make an “I Spy Animals” Game board to go along with Cameron’s science notebook lesson plans.  We started with some basic supplies. 

The Game board: an Elmer’s Tri-Fold Science Board

Elmer’s School Glue: Dual Tip Glue pen

Elmer’s School Glue X-TREME glue stick

Red Cardstock

Crayola Color Markers

Various Animal pictures printed from the internet or cut from magazines

We started by having the boys color the back ground of the tri fold board with water area, grassy lands, sun, and clouds.

Next we cut the pictures out and began gluing them to the board. 

We used the Elmer’s X-TREME School Glue Glue stick to glue the pictures to the board. The large glue stick is great for Nathan’s smaller hands and being a stick glue spread an even amount of glue onto the computer paper and doesn’t muddy up the paper.

Finally we used cardstock cut letters to spell ‘I SPY animals’ and glued those on the top of the tri-fold board to title the game.  We used the Elmer’s School Glue Dual tip Glue Pen because of the find tip to trace the letters. I really like the Dual tip pen style; it is the best of both worlds with 

white school glue. One end is a fine tip pen style perfect for tracing outlines and putting just a little bit of glue on a piece of paper  or other small bit of craft pieces. The other end of the glue pen is a wide rubber spreader great for larger areas or pieces of felt (something we like to use a lot in crafts). Being Elmer’s School Glue gives me the reassurance I need.

We set the board up and were ready to play “I Spy”. For those that don’t know how to play this is what we do.

1.       First player says “ I spy with my little eye, something _______”

2.       Everyone else tries to guess what the player has spied.

3.       The person that guesses correctly gets to spy next.

To go along with our game board  all our “I Spy” sentences are similar to “ I spy with my little eye an ______________ animal” the clues will be something related to animal classification, color, habitat, etc..

(Sorry Cameron for taking a picture when the sun was in your eyes)

This was a super fun summer project thanks to #GlueNGlitter for some fun inspiration. 

****This project was compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Elmer’s #gluenglitter #chbias, all directions and opinions are mine ****

School has offically started.

We started school (actually last week) and have been busy working on our Creation Notebooks as well as several art projects.

Last week we started with Creation Day 1 a pretty easy way to start. Cameron worked on several artistic pages for his Notebook as well as learned about Narration. He told Daddy the Creation Day 1 story several times (each one a little differently.)

This week we are working on Day 2 (sky and sea) so we have talked about Weather and about the ocean (water). Cameron did a collage of the water cycle and then explained the water cycle to me when we noticed it was raining outside.  (Perfect timing...). We added Pirates to the mix a little to entertain the boys while learning about the seas. Pirate Clothepin Math has been the game of choice for the last 2 days. Tomorrow we will be playing another Pirate Treasure Game with a minor change (I turned it into a file folder game and used velcro for the center of the treasure chest and will be putting velcro on the gold coins.).

Amma Gamma bought the boys and me apple crates to store our supplies in, so we painted the boxes.

[caption id="attachment_42" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Painting apple crates for storage."][/caption]