Book Review: Adventure Bible Handbook

Book Description

A fun and exciting journey through the Bible told in comic book style for kids ages 9-12. Companion to the bestselling Adventure Bible.

Kids (ages 9-12) and parents who love the bestselling Adventure Bible and want a fun and engaging supplement to their biblical study need look no further. The Adventure Bible Handbook leads tween boys and girls across the Holy Land and back in time on an entertaining, educational, and inspirational quest to find their missing father.

Four siblings travel with their archaeologist father to the Holy Land, where he is conducting an expedition in search of scientific truth. When he disappears, the children try to find him by joining an offbeat tour group organized by two zany guides whose mission, they eventually discover, is to lead kids on a fun, exciting, and life-changing quest for ultimate truth. Soon the group is visiting ancient cities, important geographical sites, and experiencing biblical times firsthand—traveling back in time with the help of some RSPs (Really Smart Phones) and all sorts of wacky modes of transportation.

It’s a fast, fun, eyewitness adventure around the world and through some of the greatest Bible stories to learn what life is really all about.

 

Book Review:

Oh My Goodness!  This is such a wonderful book!  When I saw that this book was available for review, I was so interested because I was hoping I could use it as a supplement for our Bible curriculum.  We do not have the Adventure Bible that this goes along with, but I am not interested in looking into that as well.  When this book came, my husband opened it (he never cares about the books I review) and he immediately was drawn into it and started reading it.  As soon as my daughter saw it she spent at least an hour reading it.  I cannot normally get her to read anything for more than 5 or 10 minutes without a huge fight.  This book is so colorful and written like a comic book.  I could not recommend a book like this any higher!  We love it!

 

 

I received this book for free in exchange for my honest opinion. 

I Before E Except....

The English language is a crazy, ridiculous thing.  Really. 

 

I am pretty great at English, spelling and all those crazy grammar rules (no, you cannot tell from my blog because here I write like I talk and I like it like that), but it took years of practice. 

 

Anddd... now I have to teach those crazy things to my daughter!!

 

For example:

• "I before E except after C unless it's in neighbor or weigh."  and actually any other word that rhymes with neighbor or weigh like sleigh, freight, etc.  Oh, but scIEnce is some weird exception. 
• There are so many words that are spelled exactly the same but for some reason when they take on a different meaning we sound them out differently.
• Wind up the toy. 
• The wind was strong today.
• The object is trash.
• The judge objected.
• The present was wrapped.
• Present the gift.
• Words with OO can be sounded out at least 4 different ways.
• book, foot, hood
• boom, doom, noon
• floor, door
• flood, blood
• Words with silent letters.
• gnat, know, knee, psychology, debt, hour, listen
• Words that contain "ough" but don't sound the same.
• bough, trough
• thought, bought
• through
• though, dough
• cough
• enough, tough
• Words that sound the same, but are spelled differently.
• seen, scene
• their, they're, there
• isle, I'll aisle
• ail, ale
• hear, here
• How we pluralize things.
• mouse=mice
• goose=geese
• moose=moose
• person=people
• dog=dogs
• cat=cats

Ok, well I'm done for now :) 

Did I mention though that I am such a huge sucker for punctuation, spelling and grammar?  I mean to the point that I will avoid going to a place if I get their ad and they have spelling or grammatical errors.  Really.  :)  (I better really spell check this baby before I hit post!)







(stop clubbing, baby seals)

And my FAVORITE:

 

Is there anything that you teach that just frustrates you and makes you want to laugh that "I'm going crazy laugh"?  HAHAHAHA!!  (did you hear the craziness)

A Few Random Reasons Why I Love Homeschooling

There are lots of reasons why I feel so blessed to be able to homeschool.  Lots of those reasons are talked about constantly, but some are not. 

1) I love that I get to correct my daughter's mistakes right away. 

     Remember when you were in school and you would get a paper back a week later and you had no clue how to do it properly or what in the world the teacher was expecting to be done differently?  When you homeschool, that problem is pretty non-existent.

2) I love that I actually know what is going on in her learning/school... duh!

     Our daughter actually went to a public kindergarten for a semester and then we moved and she did a year at a charter school.  I volunteered a lot at the charter school, but I still reall had no clue what she was learning or doing on a daily basis.  How can you truly reinforce or practice things at home when you don't have a clue?  Plus I get to choose what she learns!

3) I don't have to wonder how she is being treated at school or how she is treating others. 

     Maybe you call that socialization, but I don't.  I call that losing self-esteem and self-worth, whether you are being bullied or doing the bullying.  I know what my daughter (mostly) hears, sees and says.  It's not a wonder every day when she comes home from school if she heard something or saw something that really needs to bedealt with and discussed.

4) I don't have to miss out on 1,370 hours a year with my daughter. 

     Wow!  That number totally shocks me!  That is how long children are in school every.single.year.

 

 

If you homeschool, what are some of your random, not usually talked about reasons why you love it?  If you don't homeschool, why don't you?  Just kidding!!  I love non-homeschoolers, too!!  If you don't homeschool, what are your favorite things about public/private school that we homeschoolers don't get to experience?? 

Can we just say school is done for the year???

Yes, I have been so over school for the past couple months.  Probably since we came back from Christmas.  I don't know what it is.  This is our second year homeschooling and I still don't have anything that I love.  I tried new curriculums this year and I am not loving any of them.  Some of them I think are awesome, like the A Reason for Spelling and Handwriting and our Bible Positive Actions.  They are great.  They are just not great for Kassidy.  She hates spelling... I mean Hates with a capital H.  We fight about it every. single. day.  Really, we do.  She is not fond of handwriting, but it is not such a fight.  Our Bible is great, but for some reason I don't think it is filling exactly what I want... I think I am not using the Teacher Book as much as I should be.  There is soo much to do and we just don't delve that far in because it seems to be complicated??  I don't know.

So, I am ready to end this year.  Graduate to 3rd grade.  Technically, I sure could do this I'm sure.  In Texas, there are no real regulations for homeschoolers.  We are required to teach reading, math, writing and citizenship... I think that's it. 

We will not stop this year, although I am seriously thinking about condensing all of our work down into fewer weeks.  Maybe you don't think that is ok.  I told my dad and stepmom a while ago that we would be done with school whenever K finished her work for the year.  They thought I was crazy.  Needless to say, they are not super excited about my homeschooling in general, but I do think it is growing a little more on everyone now that they know it is not a "phase".  I think it is perfectly fine to take the work we were "scheduled" to do and finish it in 2 more weeks.  That will not happen, but if my daughter got a fire under her to finish early I would be running with that! 

I get excited about the upcoming school year and what I will do differently.  I envision what I want and how I am not getting that at the moment.  Then, all I can think about is how much I want to be done with what seems to be failing now. 

A couple weeks ago, I actually considered re-doing our whole entire curric for the rest of this year.  It took sooooo much work to get this year planned and I just couldn't trash it.  It's not that Kassidy isn't learning.  It is that we are not homeschooling the way I want to be. 

Good news:  the year is almost over.  Soon, I will get to go to one of my favorite things, which is the homeschooling fair.  It inspires me so much and gets me ready for the upcoming year.  We are switching to a more year-round schedule and I'm excited about that.  I will be talking to K about what worked and what didn't for her this year.  Then I will start doing what I love but what takes a ton of time: planning and organizing our next year! 

How is school going for your family?  Do you get tired of what you are doing halfway through the year?  If so, do you ditch it and start over or stick with it? 

Homeschool Plan for 2011-2012

This is our second year homeschooling and I am super excited to be done with the first!!  I know a little better about what works, what we all like and what's important. 

Kassidy is going into 2nd grade.  She is our only child, at the moment, but we are waiting to get a call to foster to adopt.  That will change things up, of course, but I think that our main curriculum will stay the same.  We cannot homeschool any foster children and starting at 3 they are supposed to be in a Headstart program. 

Sooooo... I have been working on curriculums and a plan for a while now.  Here is what I found when I first started... loves, likes, dislikes and very strong dislikes :)


Handwriting and Spelling: A Reason For---love these lessons!!  I had so little to do to prepare for them.  The Handwriting book works on a Bible verse for the week and at the end of the week you get to write the verse on a cute border sheet that the child can also color.  They have suggestions for what to do with those sheets, including sending them to prisoners, the elderly, family, making them into placemats, etc.   The Spelling book has some fun and creative games and ideas.  These books have wayyyy more packed in them than any other curric I've seen. 

Bible: Positive Action's Finding God's Promises.  I am also very excited about this curric!  The pictures and stories (that tie in with the Bible lessons) are super colorful and fun!

Writing and Grammar: I am just pulling from a few resources, which include a Little Critter Writing book, a Bible Activities workbook, and Everything for Math and Reading workbook.  We are also part of a small group at church that is doing Shurley English.

Health, Safety and Manners: One day a week we will be doing the work from the A Beka book.  This will only last us for the first semester of school.

Social Studies: We are switching this, Social Studies Made Simple workbook, with the Health for our 2nd semester. 

Science:  We are using BJU and it was one that I was disappointed with.  I had to work soooo hard to make a plan still that would go a little more in depth, because, in my opinion, it does not ever go below surface level on any topic.  Using this curric and adding in my own further in depth info we will only get 2-3 days/week for only 20 weeks out of this book.  I think we are going to order A Reason For (the same as Handwriting & Spelling above) for the rest of the year. 

Math:  Another subject where I am just going to pull from the resources I have.  I have lots of workbooks including the Everything for Math and Reading workbook and Bible Activities workbook.  I get these workbooks from Mardel, which is an awesommmee store that you hopefully know about!  The prices are amazing... like $3.50-$8 a book.  Monday & Wednesday will be worksheet days, Tuesday will be flash cards and Thursdays will be word problems, which I think are important enough to have their own day... that knowledge and those skills might actually be used one day!!

Artists/Hymns/Composers:  This did not work so well for us last year.  For some reason it just seemed like I really had to drag it out to last longer than 5 minutes, so we are doing much less of it "formally" this year.  We are just going to listen to one composer/quarter during our quiet/car/etc times.  Hyms (I include other important songs) will be mostly patriotic in the 1st semester since that is what we will be studying in History at that time.  Our first artist will be Renoir followed by Monet. 

History: A Beka's Our America, which was another disappointment.  3/wk will only get us through 20 weeks so we will just be reading some great books for the majority of the 2nd semester. 

Geography and Map Skills: We are really just focusing on memorizing (and hopefully learning) the states, capitals and oceans.  In the dollar section, Target has some great easy workbooks on the states and on some other topics.

Typing:  We are using http://www.freetypinggame.net/.  I really wanted a free program and I think I have found a good one.  A tip on typing: when I was in school our typing teacher would have us fold a paper in half and stick on edge in the top above the numbers with the rest sitting on our hands so that we couldn't see the keys.  We all learned to type very well and very fast. 

Then of course we have reading time, misc lessons and piano lessons.  It sounds like alot, especially when I type it out like this, but we are really only doing school for about 3-4 hours a day 4 days a week, plus 2 hours of co-op school time 2 days a week.

On Fridays I hope to do more volunteering, field trips, adventures, etc. 

I am very excited for school to start and again I feel completely blessed that I am able to homeschool our daughter!

Working on Curriculum

Last year was our first year of homeschooling and since I did not find any one curriculum that I loved or could afford I decided to "put together" my own.  Ummm... not such a great idea!

For this next year I bought a few curriculums to put together. 

Here is what I bought:

BJU Science 2
A Reason For Handwriting T
A Reason For Spelling C
Positive Action for Bible 2nd grade
A Beka for History/Geo. Our America
A Beka for Health, Safety and Manners

For the other subjects, including Math, I will just grab from workbooks that I love. 

Now, I am putting together the exact lesson plans that we will use and I have run into a few issues, a few things that I am very disappointed in and a few things that I LOVE!!

Disappointments and Issues: I was super excited about my BJU curric. but I will never order it again :(  I am spending hours looking for experiments and examples for our science curric.  The book jumps around soooo much, which is fine if you like that.  I don't.  Some of the "experiments" in the book are too simple and sometimes seem to not really relate to what the topic was.  Some of the experiments are great!  I am really, really dragging out the pages and I am only able to get 1 day a week of reading from the book and 1 day of their experiments and mine.  I am adding another day to some weeks in order for K to do an actual experiment write-up.  I thought this would last us a year but even only doing 1 day a week it will only get me 20 weeks worth of school.  The book is very well written though, besides not staying on one topic for more than 1 1/2 pages. 

I am also really having to supplement the A Beka History and Geography.  Like big time.  This one is not as hard as the science, but it is still a pain.  Also I can only drag it out for 20 weeks.  I think that it is made to last longer, but I don't see much info being learned if it was done for a whole year. 


LOVES:  I LOVE the Positive Action for Bible lessons!  Love, Love, Love!  Totally recommend it!  They share how you can do their plans in 3-5 days a week.  We are easily getting 4 days work out of it and it will actually last for 35 weeks!

I also am totally IN LOVE with the Reason For lessons in Spelling and Handwriting!!  I might actually get this whole curriculum next year!  I am barely going to make it through 1/2 of the Handwriting book this year and that is doing it 3 times/week.  The Handwriting book works on a Bible verse for the week and at the end of the week you get to write the verse on a cute border sheet that the child can also color.  They have suggestions for what to do with those sheets, including sending them to prisoners, the elderly, family, making them into placemats, etc. 

Both of the Positive Action and Reason For currics are written so well for both the parents and children.  They offer so much extra ideas and tips!  Cannot get over them!  I am thrilled that we have found at least some currics that I love... and I'm pretty sure that K will love how bright and vivid and playful the lessons are. 

Here are the links to their sites (and no I have never recieved anything free from either of them... I just love them!): 

http://www.areasonfor.com/

http://positiveaction.org/products#schoolcurriculum

Some of my other LOVES are: Little Critter workbooks.  We only have the writing book, but I might get the others.  I LOVE it!  It is soo thorough and teaches great skills!  I wish they made them until at least 4th grade... I think they stop at 2nd or 3rd.  I also LOVE this workbook that is filled with almost every subject and it all relates back to the Bible.  I pull from it all of the time.  I also use Everything for 2nd and 3rd grade workbooks all of the time.  They last forever! 

All of those books I got from Mardel, which is my favorite store ever!  Ok, besides maybe Hobby Lobby.  They ranged from $3.99-$5.  You cannot beat that! 


What curriculums are you using?  Do you have any LOVES you want to share?? 

Done with 1st Grade & Survived 1st yr Homeschooling!!

YAYYY!!!

We are done!  School is out for summer!

I have been super busy lately with lots of things that I will post about later.  I am really excited about our next school year and feel ready to accomplish great big new ideas and goals!  That means that I am over this year.  You just can't really impliment new ideas with only a few weeks left.  So I decided today (and asked Mike) that Kassidy has officially become a 2nd grader! 

I definitely learned some great lessons about many things with this being our first year homeschooling!  Maybe I will write about those lessons soon! 

I think it's pretty ridiculous to go all summer without any kind of "learning" so we will still do some math & grammar review sheets every week.  We are also going to join 3 local libraries for their Summer Reading Programs!! 

Now, I have to finish what I have to finish and start planning some things for the summer! 

Our summer plans will not be as drawn out with our families this year :(  which is sad, but that also means that we will probably be starting school a couple weeks before public school starts.  Maybe we will have a long Christmas break!  Ahhh... Christmastime!  I can't mention it without getting excited!!

What summer plans do you have?  How do you keep the learning alive? 

In Case You Didn't Already Know- Indoctrination

I watched this video on another great blog that I love and I just had to share it.  It makes my heart break.  The whole situation does.  That our America is becoming like that.  Where nothing is right or wrong.  Where you can't have a firm opinion on anything because that would mean that you are making someone else's opinion wrong... even just wrong for you.  Where Buddha, Mother Nature and other gods/idols are welcomed into conversation but {gasp} should we ever, ever mention God or Jesus.  I am blessed that in Texas, God is referenced much more often than in other states/areas of the country, but it is still not enough and only a matter of time (maybe) before Texas will become like other much more liberal states.    

I definitely think that public education is important to some extent.  I don't really know how to solve all of our public school problems.  All I know is that as long as my husband allows me to homeschool our daughter I will.  My heart breaks for the mothers and fathers who truly cannot afford to stay at home and homeschool.  It is a sacrifice in some ways though... we will pretty much be a one income family, but what good doesn't come with sacrifices?  I cannot think of many better causes to sacrifice for.  

So shouldn't we be sending our Christian children into schools to be a light in the darkness?  My opinion, for my daughter, is not right now.  My job as a mother is not to send my 7 year old who does not have a very long battery life into a pitch black school.  Hopefully that makes sense... I mean that yes, her little battery could last for a few comments or questions about Christianity but it will die soon from little use.  So what? then I get her home from school (where she has spent 1/3 of her day) and try within a few hours before bed to feed her, help her with her homework, find out how her day was, love her, prepare for the next day, cook dinner, clean up after dinner, have her take a shower, brush her teeth, oh and recharge her little Christian battery so she can fight another fight the next day?!?  I don't think so.  I also don't see how my daughter would really have an impact on another little 7 year old who has no battery life at all.  In high school?  I am still doubting that our daughter will ever go to a public or even private high school.  My heart desires to homeschool her all the way through high school.  She needs to become a battery that can light a beacon for days/weeks/months/years without ever going out.  Will she struggle to do that at home?  Sure but we are here to point her back to Jesus and the Bible where her battery can be recharged.  We are here to challenge her for the future but never let it get to the point where her battery would completely die.  

On little last fact: In 1997, there were an estimated 850,000 homeschooled children in the US.  In 2007, there was 1.5 million.    

What do you think about sending your children into schools to be the light?