Not Back-to-School Blog Hop 2011 - Curriculum Week

It's time for the Not Back-to-School Blog Hop at Heart of the Matter!  And this week is Curriculum Week. I've talked about our curriculum choices some already, but for the fun of joining the blog hop, we'll revisit the topic.

We have 8 yr old twin girls, Sassy & MiniMe, and a 2 yr old whirlwind (of the female variety), Little Bit.

Here's what we're doing:

Bible:  The older girls each have personal Bible time first thing in the morning. One of the big girls or I also reads a Bible story to Little Bit during our morning "Quiet Times". We begin our "school time" by reading through the Bible together, chronologically. I've discovered that the You Version app for my Android phone, not only has a chronological reading plan, but will "read it" to us, so I can just set it up and it reads it to us. Saves my voice :) After we listen to the day's reading, Sassy & MiniMe each choose something from the day's reading to make a notebooking page for. They can choose to write the verse, draw a picture illustrating the verse, or both.

History: We're using this as a guide. We used it 3 years ago, just as a guide to read alouds and fun craft projects. This year we're using some of the more in depth read alouds (but still skipping the "workbooks" and "textbooks" that are recommended, as well as having the girls read some of the books themselves. Still loving the crafts and other hands-on things.  Since we live in such a history-rich area (Pennsylvania) we're hoping to include quite a few field trips as well. 

Science:  This will be abit of a hodgepodge.  This summer Sassy asked if we could learn about "bugs" this year, so we're starting with that. I'm using bits and pieces of some ebooks I already had. We'll be making a lapbook of all the types of insect we look at, but rather than using a pre-made one, I'm just looking at ebooks I already have, and free lapbooks online to pull one or two mini-books for each type of bug we learn about. Right now we're learning about ants. After reading some general information about ants, and the book Are You an Ant?, now they are working on their minibook for ants. I found one that has a page for each of several kinds of ants. I'm having them look up each kind of ant in our "bug book" and fill in the information. I'll figure out the specifics of other bugs as we get to them. Once we finish "bugs", MiniMe has asked to learn about trees and edible plants. And if we get through ALL of those and have time left, this year, we'll go back to my original plan for science/nature, which was to use the Character Sketches series.

Spanish: We have a calendar with a word or phrase each day and we review that word and the words we've already learned.

Health: We began using Vintage Remedies for Girls last year and then put it on hold to review a different health program. As we have time this year, I'd like to continue with Vintage Remedies, perhaps once a week.

Art:  We get art in our history curriculum (it includes Draw Write Now plus lots of craft projects), and also the drawing for Bible. But if we have time (another one we'll probably do once a week), I'd like to use this to give them some "art appreciation" type art.

PE:  For the most part, we get this by playing outside and such, but we have started using Brain Gym each morning (at least when I remember) to do a few simple exercises to help us all focus better on our academics.

In addition to all that, I'm on the TOS Crew again this year, to review products, so our "curriculum" will vary throughout the year depending on what we're reviewing. Right now, we're waiting (anxiously LOL), to receive Nature Nuts Game, so that will be some additional science/nature stuff.

I also just received Before Five in a Row to review with Little Bit. She's on the young side of it, but I think we'll have fun reading stories together and doing fun activities, including some "PE" that I think the big girls will enjoy too.

So I think that's it. I'm a firm believer that math and language arts are best learned through other things, rather than drilling, so unless we review language arts or math drill type programs, we won't be doing formal "curriculum" for those items (oh, except we do still have our subscription to Wordy Qwerty from last year's review, so as they have time the girls will continue to play with that).

Pittsburgh Trip 2011 - Part 4

 Our last day in Pittsburgh we went to Carnegie Science Center. Little Bit loved the little kid area. There were sorting toys and puzzles to play with.

 Building toys to build with.

 And her favorite, a huge water table area that had a bunch of ping pong balls in it. She had great fun scooping and pouring the water AND ping pong balls, and would have happily stayed there all day!

 Meanwhile the big girls were doing all kinds of things, most of which I didn't get pictures of. I DID get a picture of them working together to build an "earthquake-safe structure". You build it and then pushed a button and the platform it's sitting on shakes like an earthquake.

They also had fun with the huge "operation" game. Though they got frustrated when other kids came and "helped", especially ones who thought the point was to make the nose beep, and messed up their concentration.

Things I didn't get pictures of included riding a simulated roller coaster, jumping on, and doing flips on a trampoline, enjoying the big model train display. "Doing surgery". Learning about electrical currents. Learning about animation. Making a fish craft. Touching a hissing cockroach and a lizard of some sort (they could probably tell me what kind if I asked. . . and probably other things I'm forgetting.  They also got to see an Imax-type film on tornadoes, which they thought was pretty cool. Even MiniMe who is TERRIFIED of storms, liked the movie about them.

That evening we enjoyed having dinner with the Pittsburgh pastor and his family. Somehow Pastor Austin mentioned that he'd been a student missionary in Thailand, which led to the girls "drilling" him on Thai words, and asking about life in Thailand. So we had an extra little language/culture lesson with dinner.

And that wraps up our Pittsburgh Trip!

Book Review: Rumors of God by Darren Whitehead and Jon Tyson

Rumors of God by Darren Whitehead and Jon Tyson examines modern "religion" and what faith in God should really look like. The authors compare the mediocrity and worldliness of the modern day Christian church to what can happen when people truly step out in faith and take God at His word.

I wanted to like this book, I like the premise of this book, I like the message of this book. I agree with the authors. But somehow, I found the book difficult to get into. I really can't pinpoint what it was about the writing style that I didn't like, but I found myself forcing myself to keep reading it because I had to finish it to write this review.

That said, this could very well just be me. I have a limited amount of reading time and so I am jealous of my reading time, because this book didn't have me begging for more, I wanted to move on and use that valuable time for a book that DID have me begging for more.

I wanted to hear what *I* can do right now, not what corporate churches should be doing different or what we all, as churches and as individuals, are doing wrong. I think that's what it boiled down to for me, I wanted a more "practical" book. I already know that the American Christian church as a whole is lukewarm, I didn't need to hear that restated numerous ways, I need to know what I can do write now, besides pray Habakkuk's prayer, to change that.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com <http://BookSneeze®.com> book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 <http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/16cfr255_03.html> : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Pittsburgh Trip 2011 - Part 3

 On Wednesday, Rodney was meeting with a treasurer in Erie, PA, so the girls and I took the opportunity to go to the Erie Zoo. We couldn't have "ordered" better weather, it was sunny and in the 70s most of the day (I think the high was 81 degrees), just a great day, especially with as hot as it's been most of the time lately. Little Bit loved the "just my size" chair, and the big girls, not to be out done, had to pose in the 2 person chair.

 This donkey was SOOO friendly, he stayed right next to the fence "talking" to people.

 Little Bit has always liked penguins, and she absolutely loved the penguin statues at the zoo. Not sure why MiniMe was making such a funny face, but figured it was worth adding to show Little Bit hugging the penguin.

 The Erie Zoo had a nice "playground" area as well. The big girls had great fun with a spinning tunnel and other fun things up in a big climbing structure. Little Bit enjoyed a toddler sized slide and climbing structure, as well as riding the chipmunk.

 And then it was naptime . . . I wasn't sure how it would work, Little Bit generally does well napping in the car, or in her swing at home, but we don't use the stroller often, so I wasn't sure how that would work. But after lunch, I put her in the stroller and told her "it's time for nap, you need to close your eyes, and then we just walked for awhile, without stopping to look at animals, and she went right to sleep and took a nice long nap in the stroller.

 While Little Bit was napping, the girls noticed a BUNCH of ants on one section of the path, so they enjoyed watching, observing, and generally torturing the ants for quite awhile.

 The kangaroos were in a walk-through enclosure. They were pretty content to just lay in the shade.

The big girls liked the penguin statues too.

All in all it was a very fun day. The Erie zoo has a bunch of baby animals right now. By far our favorite was the baby gibbon monkey, it was SOOOO cute swinging around trying to keep up with it's mommy & daddy.

Little Bit was very excited to see a Jaguar, since "Baby Jaguar" is one of her favorites on the Nick Jr show, Diego.

Pittsburgh Trip 2011 - Part 2

I already told you about the Laurel Lake part of our trip, here.

We got to Pittsburgh Sunday evening. Monday we went to the Pittsburgh Children's Museum (warning their site plays obnoxious music. At least it's obnoxious if you're like me & often use the computer while nursing). It was one of our favorite field trips when we were in Pittsburgh last summer, so the girls were excited to go back.

The big girls happily spent most of the day doing crafts and such, which isn't very exciting to take pictures of, so most of my pictures are of Little Bit. She LOVED the water area, pouring water out of things and splashing and such.

There was an area with books to read that Little Bit enjoyed when she needed some down time. The "theme" of the books right now was Dora the Explorer so she was happy as a clam to sit and read Dora books.

The clay was a BIG hit. She spent forever cutting it into tiny bits and then smooshing it all back together. Note to self, find a time to get out the playdough or clay for her at home. Second note to self, do this outside or with a protective covering under her chair, since cutting into tiny bits was her favorite activity, and we don't need tiny bits of playdough and clay ground into our carpet.

 This was one of MY favorites!!! What a great use for "obsolete" black boards!! In the toddler area, they had a big black board on the wall with paint brushes and spill proof "paint cups" of plain water next to it. Great fun to "paint" and NO mess whatsoever!!! Now to go hunting in my parents' garage for our easel so she can "paint" at home. . .

 The big girls' favorite spot. The "recycled sculpture" area. Lots of random recycled stuff (cereal boxes, lids off soda bottles, etc) that people donate, plus various colors of masking tape, popsicle sticks, markers, etc. They made countless "craft projects".

 Little Bit liked the "crafts" area too. This was the "messy" version of painting, but she thought it was pretty fun.

So that was our first day in Pittsburgh. A fun day, finished off with swimming in the hotel pool!

Pittsburgh Trip 2011 - Part 1

In case you wondered why the blog has been quiet lately, we've been getting ready for, and leaving on, and enjoying, a trip to Pittsburgh. Now we're ready to leave, so I thought I'd share some highlights:

We left Sabbath after church and drove to Laurel Lake Camp, our church's summer camp in Pennsylvania. We had the "adventure" of staying in an un-air conditioned cabin, an adventure I would have gladly avoided, even the girls agreed it was miserably hot, though they did enjoy sleeping in bunk beds.

As luck would have it, a friend from our church was there for the night as well, to take her son, who had worked at camp all summer, home the next day. And she had the cabin/room right next to us. Sunday morning while Daddy was busy working, she took us to the nature center, where her son had worked during camp, and he showed the girls all the animals.  They had great fun holding a snake, petting a turtle, feeding bunnies, and petting a small (3 yr old) alligator.

When Luke first asked the girls if they wanted to hold the snake, Sassy immediately said YES!!! MiniMe was more hesitant, she said she wanted Sassy to hold it first. That kind of backfired though, the snake held perfectly still the whole time Sassy held it, and then decided it was time to "explore" when Luke took it from Sassy and gave it to MiniMe. She wasn't too excited that it was checking her out LOL.

While Little Bit and I didn't get to hold a snake (which was perfectly ok!!!) we did get to "pet" one of the snakes. Little Bit thought that was pretty cool. And I'm ok with snakes as long as someone is around to assure me that the particular snake in question won't bite me and isn't poisonous.

Little Bit's favorite part, by far, was the bunnies. Before we went in the bunny pen, Luke had the girls pick plantain leaves to feed the bunnies. Little Bit kept chasing the poor bunnies around the cage making this cute little whistling noise and saying "come HERE bunnies, you need to eat bekfast. come HERE bunnies!" SOOO cute!! And equally cute to hear her tell her Daddy all about it later LOL.  The big girls liked the bunnies too. And learned what albino means when they asked why the white bunnies had red eyes.

I have to say, Luke is a born teacher. It was so obviously that he was loving explaining things to the girls, and showing off "his" animals.

And that was the highlight of our stop at Laurel Lake Camp. Sunday afternoon we headed on to Pittsburgh and new, fun, adventures there. But I'll save that for another post or 3 .

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