I Wanna Be an Orange Rhino!

The other day I was reading the one parenting forum that I still make time for, Gentle Christian Mothers helped me figure out how to move forward from the baby stage into the toddler/preschool stage with my twins, and I still find myself turning to it for advice and encouragement. So anyway, I was reading the forum and there was a discussion on something that so many of us struggle with, yelling at our kids. . . and someone mentioned the Orange Rhino Challenge. I was intrigued, so I googled it, and found the site, and wasted spent a good part of the afternoon reading her site.

Yelling is definitely something I struggle with, and the older my kids get, the more it sinks in why yelling is such a bad idea, because it means they yell at each other, and their little sister, and me . . . and that's NOT good . . .

So, as I was reading the site and contemplating when, I wanted to take the challenge, and how to broach the subject with the girls, and how long I wanted to start out with. . . and MiniMe walked by and saw the bright orange on my screen and asked me what I was looking at. So, I told them about it, and we talked some, and decided to start right away.

And so, I'm working on being an orange rhino. I've committed to my kids to try to go one month without yelling. We haven't decided yet what the "reward" will be when I achieve 31 days without yelling . . . I suggested that, since one month from now we'll be in the middle of campmeeting, which my kids love but I . . . don't, that if I made it to the month, my reward could be that we went home and didn't say for the rest of campmeeting, but they didn't like that idea LOL. So we shall see . . .

I handed the girls a stack of orange sticky notes to have them stick around the house where they think I might need reminders. I REALLY want to get some orange nail polish (who are we kidding, I love the excuse to get a fun nail color), for the moment, I used an orange sharpie to color one thumb nail, and it DOES catch my eye (I generally have wild colored toe nails, but almost NEVER paint my nails because they chip so fast and that annoys me). . .

I know myself well enough to know better than to 100% commit to a schedule for how often I will post about this, but I do plan to post every week or so, and just let you know how I'm doing with the no yelling thing. . . and if anyone else out there struggles with yelling too much, I encourage you to join me :)

Book Review: Hunt for the Devil's Dragon

Last fall we reviewed a couple of Imagination Station books, and the girls really enjoyed them, so when another one came available for review, I requested it as well.

In Hunt for the Devil's Dragon, Beth is conflicted about how to handle a situation at school. She knows the other girls are being too mean to one girl, but she's afraid to stand up for the girl, and have the other girls pick on her too. When she tells Whit about it, he sends Beth and her cousin Patrick on an Imagination Station adventure to 13th century Libya. They make friends with some children there, and go home with them. Upon arriving in their village, they learn that a large beast has been stealing the villagers livestock, and the villagers believe it to be a dragon that lives in a cave nearby. The villagers have decided they must offer a human sacrifice to the dragon to appease it, and one of Beth and Patrick's new friends is chosen.

Beth stands up for her friend, and as a result, both girls are tied up outside the dragon's cave and left there.

The adventure continues as Patrick and the girl's brother work to get help in freeing the girls. In the end, it is discovered that the dragon is not at fault (and of course, the girls are rescued in time).

Beth and Patrick return home confident in the importance of showing courage and standing up for what is right, no matter what.

I was disappointed that this book didn't have the "meet a famous person in history" aspect that the other books had, but it was still a fun story that teaches children the importance of standing up for what's right.

Sassy's said she liked that the story was based on ancient legends (and at the end it gives some information about the various versions of the legend) but she wished it was an audio. I'm guessing, since she loves to read, that she thinks the excitement of them fighting the dragon would have translated well into an audio adventure :)

MiniMe feels like the story wasn't finished, because it doesn't say what happens to the dragon in the end. Being the person she is, that disturbs her greatly, LOL. It doesn't seem to bother Sassy though, so I think it's just a MiniMe quirk :)

This would be an especially good book for a child who's struggling with how to handle bullying at school or similar situations.

Disclaimer: I received a complementary copy of this book from Tyndale House Publishers in exchange for my honest review. No other compensation was received and I was not required to write a positive review. All opinions expressed are mine, and my children's. I'm disclosing this in accordance with FTC requirements.

Weekly Wrap-Up - May 19

Ahhh, finally a calmer week :) Don't get me wrong, we've been having a blast with all our busy-ness, but we all need some down time too!

So let's see . . . Sunday was Mother's Day, but Rodney had pulled a muscle or something in his arm and couldn't really even move, so no pampering for me (and honestly, while I appreciate when he and the kids voluntarily do nice things for me, in general, I consider Mother's Day to be abit of a "Hallmark holiday" so no big deal . . . ).  That afternoon our awesome neighbor, not only loaned us his super-duper weed-eater/mower thingy, but mowed a good bit of the back yard with it for us too, since Rodney couldn't! And they stayed to help me rake most of it too!

The rest of the week was school and such as normal. Nice weather, so lots of outside time. One day (Thursday, I think?) even got warm enough for the girls to spend the afternoon in the creek.

The big girls are enjoying listening to the homeschool seminar cds I got this year.

Little Bit, who flat out refused to wear leggings or tights all winter long, has now decided that the one pair of pink tights that I still had in her drawer are "ballerina tights" so now, instead of being nakey whenever we're home, without company, she wears a shirt, those tights, and the "tutu" that was in a batch of freecycle dress-up stuff I got for the twins when they were her size. It's just like a thick tulle belt, but it's been a pretty versatile dress-up item, so it's stayed. I have to admit, it's pretty cute to see her dancing to whatever music happens to be on the tv or our computers in that get-up :)

At music lessons this week the girls found out there's going to be a recital at the end of the month. Sassy is over-the-moon excited about her first recital. And the two of them MIGHT play a duet, though at the moment they're not quite there yet, so we shall see . . .

Friday morning about 15 minutes before we normally start school, Penny stopped by and said they had just chased "the helicopter" and we HAD to go see it too. Background . . . a few times since we moved in, we've seen a helicopter with something hanging down off it, flying around, but staying in the area, going up and down. So that morning, she'd loaded the boys into the car and they'd gone to see if they could get close enough to see what the helicopter was doing. When they got closer, they discovered that the helicopter was actually trimming trees! The thing we'd seen hanging down was a huge chain-saw-like blade, and the helicopter was trimming the trees along the power lines. It WAS very cool!

When we all got back from watching the helicopter, the weather was soo gorgeous, and I knew it was supposed to be rainy this week, so we scrapped school and the kids spent the morning riding bikes and otherwise playing outside.

So that was our week.

Crew Review: Luke's Life List and Luke's School List

I love planning and lists. Much as I believe in our eclectic way of homeschooling, I believe in it, because I believe it's best for my kids. If it were "all about me", I'd have every single subject planned out through 12th grade for all three girls. So, when I was given the opportunity to review Luke's Life List, and Luke's School List from Joyce Herzog, I was intrigued.


Luke's Life List is a book full of checklists of the things that the author believes are the most important for our children to learn as they are growing up.  The "Luke" in the title is referring to Luke in the Bible, and the text, Luke 2:52 And Jesus increased, in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man. KJV, this is the only verse that tells us of Jesus' growing up years. The author organized this life list to go along with the verse, "wisdom", "stature", etc.

We also reviewed the companion book, Luke's School List, that is the same concept, but for school subjects.

Both books include "goals" throughout childhood, from baby things, like first steps to teenage things like getting a driver's license.

The books are designed such that you can either have a separate book (or set of books) for each child, or suggestions are made to use one book/set for up to three children.

Since I was sent one set to review, and I have three children, it was pretty easy to decide which option to use, and it's working well for me.

I read through both books, then began filling them in. Even as much as I love marking off checklists, I opted to skip the pages that all three kids were WAY past (baby/early toddler stuff). Ideally, a person would start this when their child was VERY young, so that there isn't any "catch-up"

There are also several sections in the Life List book, that I prefer not to use. I feel pretty strongly that it would be counterproductive to use a "checklist" of what my children "know" in their walk with God. I believe that would be a slippery slope toward legalism. WHAT my children know isn't important to me, WHO they know is important, and while family Bible study is a very important part of our days, I trust that God will lead them to learn what He wants them to know, so I don't need a detailed, extensive checklist to make sure they know all there is to know about Christianity. But obviously everyone needs to decide for themselves how they will train their children in the ways of the Lord, and I know many people would value this tool in that process.

I did notice some repetition (same concept listed in more than one place), and there were some things that I'm not sure what was meant by the item. I think she mentioned, in one place, that she explains the terminology in one of her other books.

All in all, I like the idea of this. I am planning to continue using it, glancing through it once or twice a year to jog my memory of skills that we should be working on. I would say this would work with any style of homeschooling, and even those who don't homeschool might find Luke's Life List helpful. I would caution those using this, to recognize that it is tool . . . you will need to tweak it and adjust things to make it work for you (our children don't take gymnastics, or participate in organized sports teams, and there are some rather large sections that relate to these areas that we'll be skipping, for example).  You can purchase these books for $30 each.

Joyce Herzog provided the Schoolhouse Review Crew with a wide variety of items to review, be sure to check out the crew blog (link in the banner below) to see what everyone else reviewed, and what they thought of the items.

Recipe: Banana Bread Muffins

Interestingly, while Sassy doesn't like bananas, she DOES like banana bread. So every so often we make banana bread. And, sometimes we make muffins for breakfast. So the obvious solution, when there's not time for lots of baking, is to make banana bread muffins!

1 3/4 c whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
2-3 bananas, mashed (1 cup)
1/3 c honey
1/4 c butter, melted
2 eggs

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Stir dry ingredients together. Mix in mashed bananas, honey, butter and eggs.

Spoon into 12 greased muffin cups. Bake about 20 min.

If you'd rather make this as bread, you can put into a greased loaf pan and bake at 350 for 50-60 min.

Yummy either way!!!

Crew Review: Spanish for You!

A couple years ago, the girls wanted to learn Spanish. We spent a year or so working on it, but then, when we needed to pare down what all we were doing, Spanish is one of the subjects that we dropped.

I was torn when Spanish for You came up to review. On the one hand, we'd decided to take a break from Spanish this year, on the other hand, this curriculum looked REALLY cool! And I do want them to learn Spanish at some point . . . So, we agreed to review, Spanish for You, Estaciones!

Spanish for You is a flexible curriculum that can be used for all your children, grades 3-8. The themed units can be used in any order. Each unit provides lessons for 24-30 weeks, depending on which grade level you are using. The unit, for grades 3-8 is available for $64.95 or if you only need one of the lesson guides (for 2 grades, instead of all 6), that's available for $39.95. You can see a sample here.

As mentioned above, we reviewed the Estaciones (Seasons) unit. I found that some days, we moved through the suggested lessons very quickly, and ended up adding abit from the next day, and other days, we found there was more suggested than we had time for, so some days we split between 2 days. The first day, we listened to the mp3 of how the words are pronounced, then the girls made flash cards for the first batch of words, then the next few days were spent learning those words using games, songs, flash cards, and worksheets, so there was something for all learning styles, and not enough of any one thing to get bored :) And that's the basic approach, learn new words, make flash cards, review said words in  various ways, and move one. The various activities make sure the children can translate the word in either direction, and also that the child hears the words, speaks the word, reads the word, and writes the word.

Overall, I liked this curriculum. It taught the words thoroughly and in fun ways. It can be used with multiple ages/grades. Most days I could spend a few minutes giving instruction and the girls could do the rest on their own. As I mentioned above, Spanish isn't really a subject we're wanting to focus on right now, but MiniMe is enjoying it enough that she asked if we continue using it, at least a couple times a week. Sassy said she'd like to use it if/when we decide to learn Spanish again in the future.

One thing I found frustrating is that there are several different files/ebooks to keep track of. There's the main ebook that lists the vocabulary and such, then the specific "lesson plans" for the various grades, that tells you what to DO with the book information for that day. AND there are other files for the audio files and workbook pages. So to plan a day's lesson it's necessary to flip between multiple .pdf files. It's not horrible, and you could get around it by printing things out, but, IMO the benefit of .pdfs is not having so many books/papers around, so I try to minimize the printing.

To see what others thought of this, and the Fiesta unit, click the banner below.

Weekly Wrap-Up - May 12

This was a BUSY week! I'm still trying to catch my breath . . . 

At the beginning of the week we were still at my parents' house, so we'll start there.

Sunday was the Maryland Sheep and Wool festival! We've gone several times, and it's always alot of fun! My parents came with us. We watched the sheep dog demonstration, and sheep shearing, then Papa, took Little Bit to see all the sheep, and the big girls, and Mama and I went shopping :) It's kinda fun that they are old enough to want to wander through all the vendors with me now :) MiniMe wanted to learn how to do every handcraft she saw :) I finally started making a list for her in Evernote LOL. Sassy was more selective, but joined in as well.

Monday we visited our friends Monica & Eric. They have 4 kids, and some mutual friends were there as well. Between the 4 families represented there were 15 kids :) The kids had a BLAST fishing, catching salamanders and tadpoles, cooking hotdogs over a campfire, exploring in the woods, and hunting for fossils. Here are some pictures from our day:

Cooking hot dogs for lunch

Little Bit tried fishing.

MiniMe and Sassy had no problem touching the fish!

Little Bit didn't have the patience to catch her own fish, so she snuck into the picture of one of Sassy's :)\ 

Tuesday we headed home from Mama and Papa's with a stop at another friend's house on our way home. We hadn't been over to Kim's house for awhile, so Little Bit didn't really remember the kids, but before we left, she and Z were best of friends :)

When we got home Tuesday night, we had to check out the caterpillar/worms on our bushes. Penny had noticed them while we were gone, and told us to be sure to check them out. They are COVERING the branches of one kind of bushes (and stripping it, but it was a bush that I wasn't sure I wanted to keep anyway, so I can live with it).  Since Daddy was home, I left the kids at home with him and headed to the grocery store to get a few essentials. By the time I got home, they'd googled and figured out that the worms were sawflies worms, and what kind of bushes they are on, and that they turn into things that look kind of like wasps but are harmless . . .so guess we had science class that day LOL.

Wednesday, E & J came over to join us for school. It was rainy, so we did some more of the art video we're reviewing.

Wednesday afternoon when MiniMe went to get the mail, she called me over, there were MILLIONS of ants in the mailbox moving eggs or larvae around and "storing" it in the folds of a food drive paper bag that was part of the day's mail.  I'm still at a loss as to why the ants decided to live IN the mailbox all of a sudden, and how they SO QUICKLY decided the folds of the mail was a good house . . .Sassy had gotten the mail the evening before and there weren't any noticeable ants then, so it was all very fast. Was cool to be able to see though.

Thursday was music lessons, I couldn't resist catching Little Bit being quiet and calm for once :) She'd been drawing, and then was waiting for me to take a picture of her drawing, and I snuck this pick in too. I LOVE it! :)

Thursday evening I left for CHAP (homeschool convention). Little Bit was NOT at all happy about me leaving for so long. She doesn't even like me to go to the grocery store without her. But she handled it pretty well. She sent me off with several of her toys "to remember me by" :) I got her a new puzzle and wrapped each piece individually with a little note and put times on them, so that by the time the puzzle was done I'd be home (or stuck in traffic, LOL). I think that helped alot, and the big girls did a good job of "playing mommy" and helping her out.

Friday, Rodney took the girls to Grandmom's. I had a busy day of curriculum shopping and seminars at CHAP. It was fun, and I was able to get the Life of Fred math books that we needed, and alot of other ideas and such :)

I am so proud of how the big girls stepped up while I was gone. MiniMe asked me, before I left, how to make coffee, so she could make it for Daddy while I was gone. Sassy, knowing that Daddy usually leaves for church later than us (long story, but our SS class starts earlier than his), "bribed" him, by telling him she'd make him eggs for breakfast if he got up on time :) Both girls helped with Little Bit. Sassy can't find her iPod at the moment (sigh), but MiniMe had hers, so all 3 girls could e-mail me from that.

They were finishing up the chocolate chip pancakes they'd made for supper when I got home Sat. evening. Little Bit had been so busy that she hadn't opened her last couple of puzzle pieces :) Sassy was very excited to have her Life of Fred math books! She ran right upstairs and started doing math :) and MiniMe started reading one of the Sonrise Stable books I'd gotten.

After I read one of Little Bit's new books to her, we went up and played with her puzzle some more :)

So that was our week.