Tuesday, March 22, 2022

YWAM Publishing ~ George Muller

 


Disclaimer:  I received this complimentary product through the 
Homeschool Review Crew.


YWAM Publishing has an incredible bundle of books included in their Christian Heroes Then and Now Series that the whole family will enjoy. We read George Muller: The Guardian of Bristol's Orphans and really enjoyed reading about his life. Early on, George was quite wild and wanted nothing more than to party and have fun no matter the consequences. George's life would soon change when he decided to attend a sermon reading with a friend. As Herr Kayser spoke George was fixated by what was spoken. Day after day George continued to go back and listen to Herr Kayser's sermons. George would end up asking God to forgive him his sins. George would go on the preach, feel called to various ministry positions. In 1830 George would meet Miss Mary Groves. The two would wed that same year. The Muller's would move to Bristol in 1832. George along with a friend would preach at Gideon Chapel. The people of Bristol were hungry for God's Word. George would meet a little girl named Emily that would again change his life. The Muller's started "The Breakfast Club" for the many orphaned children of Bristol. They wanted to reach them as most had probably never heard the name of God. They would also feed them. Eventually the number of children attending was overflowing. George would found the Scriptural Knowledge Institution for Home and Abroad that would establish day schools, Sunday schools, and adult schools for the poor. The organization would also provide free Bibles and help foreign missionaries financially. George would also go on to found many orphanages. 


The Unit Study Curriculum Guide provides homeschooling parents ways to use the book to incorporate:
  • Creative Writing
  • Drama
  • Movie Critiquing
  • Reading Comprehension 
  • Essay Writing
  • History and Geography Concepts
  • Key Bible Verses
  • Display Corner
  • Chapter Questions
  • Student Exploration
  • Community Links
  • Social Studies
  • Related Themes
  • Culminating Event
These are just a few of the many possibilities of way that you can use the Christian Heroes Then and Now series to reinforce learning. The study guide offers activities for all learning styles. For those children that are more kinesthetic learners they may enjoy making a diorama. Visual learners may find making a poster of information more up their alley. For the child that loves to read, they may want to find a book or two on a related topic within the book that interests them and then write a short report. The possibilities are limitless. The study guide also has activities for various grade levels. This is helpful for the parent that may want to read the book aloud during evening family time. YWAM Publishing's Study Guide's are truly amazing. The study guide is 64 pages in length. 


In the Overview Guide for Classroom and Homeschool Use there is a sample schedule broken down by week. This may be helpful if the book were to be used in a co-op setting. 


Please be sure to read the other reviews posted by my Fellow Crew Members. There were 15 different books that were reviewed in all. My family has read and/or reviewed most of the books in the Christian Heroes Then and Now series and have loved them all. This series as well as the other books in the Heroes Series are all amazing books that are must have books for your home library. 

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Monday, March 21, 2022

My Grandmother's Chicken Coop

 


Yesterday my mother wrote: "We moved from the country in Winfred, SD in about 1953 when I was about three years old to a farm in Madison, SD. This was Mom’s chicken coop for all the years that mom and dad lived in Madison. When dad passed away in 1991, mom stayed on the farm until she moved to assisted living. Mom had chickens in this chicken coop for many decades. After mom passed away, my brother bought the home place and my nephew lives in the house. This farm holds a lifetime of memories. My sister and I had the chore of caring for the chickens every day at 4:00 for many years. No matter how cold the temperature or hot the day, it was, for years our responsibility. My sister gathered the eggs and fed the oats. I watered the chickens and fed them corn. My mom loved her chickens and they loved her. I remember that mom had a favorite hen that would sit on her shoulder as she did her morning and mid day care of the chickens. I could bore you with many stories that relate to this chicken house, but I won’t. The chicken coop has lived a good productive life and now it is time for her to come down. My brother is on the roof. I’m sure that my brother’s grandkids will help with the tearing down process. I suppose that my nieces and nephew will help too."

I too have fond memories of my grandma Dorothy’s chicken coop. Whenever we would go to see our grandparents, or my brother and I would go to stay with them I would often go out with my grandmother to tend to the chickens. Grandma always sang and talked to her chickens. She loved her chickens. She would show me how to gather eggs from under the hens without them getting mad. I was always afraid that they would peck me, and sometimes they did. She would warn me to stay away from the cocky roosters in the chicken yard. They could be awfully mean. After collecting the eggs, we would go inside and begin washing the eggs down in the basement and place the eggs in cartons. Grandma sold her eggs to people in town. She had regular customers. I can only now appreciate how wonderful it would be to get fresh eggs the very day they came from the coop. And of course, the hens were free range and were fed good feed. I am sad to see grandma's chicken coop come down but I know that eventually all things have to come to an end. The coop stood a long time and housed many hens and fed many families. Grandma's love for the Lord, her smile, her joy, her song, her kindness, her love, her words of encouragement, and her memory will live on. I love you grandma. 


Thursday, March 3, 2022

SchoolhouseTeachers.com


Disclaimer:  I received this complimentary product through the 
Homeschool Review Crew.

Our family uses SchoolhouseTeachers.com a division of The Old Schoolhouse® for a few of our subjects. SchoolhouseTeachers.com offers Christian, self-paced, online homeschooling courses and curriculum for PreK-High School. The beauty of the curriculum is that it is not live so your child can start courses at any point during the year. The Ultimate Membership gives you access to every course, over 400+ courses, in PreK-12th grade. Several payment options available. You pay just ONE PRICE for your entire family. 

Not only does SchoolhouseTeachers.com offer individual courses, but they also offer virtual Homeschool Curriculum Boxes in PreK - Grade 12 that provide all of the content you will need for all subjects in a Full Curriculum Set. 



Here is an example of what you will find in the 9th grade Full Curriculum Set. 





Parent boxes are coming soon!

The below symbol chart is very helpful if you are looking for a course or curriculum that has specific components. For example, Pre-Algebra has a red dot which means that the course consists of a downloadable textbook. 



Pre-Algebra
My daughter is currently working her way through Pre-Algebra. I have been printing sections
of the textbook as we go. If you are on a very tight budget or do not have 
access to a printer you could have your child write the answers and copy the problems 
down for each lesson as they go. I know that for myself I work best having a physical copy
of whatever I am working on and my kiddos tend to do best when it is printed out as well. 


Overview 
  • 40 weeks, 5 days a week
  • Includes text-based lessons, worksheets, and answer keys
  • Grades 6-8
Course Outline for Pre-Algebra

Unit 1: Back to Basics
Unit 2: Fractions
Unit 3: Decimals
Unit 4: Percents
Unit 5: English and Metric Measures
Unit 6: Number Sets and Graphing
Unit 7: Algebraic Expressions
Unit 8: Solving Algebraic Equations
Unit 9: Geometry 
Unit10: Statistics and Probability

The total page count for Pre-Algebra is 290 pages. 




The Answer Key is pretty self explanatory. Student problems are shown and then the
answers are printed in blue. 



Geometry
My daughter that is working through Geometry in Real Life started out using a 
different curriculum and it did not click for her. She started this course and she is working
her way through the lessons without any issues. 


Overview
  • 36 weeks, 5 days a week
  • Includes original lessons, printable assignments, semester exams, and answer keys
  • Grades 9-12
Course Outline for Geometry

Quarter 1
Unit 1: Pi Are Square
  • Week 1: Circles
  • Week 2: Spheres
Unit 2: Base Camp
  • Week 3: Quadrilaterals 
  • Week 4: Area = base x height
  • Week 5: Mixed Review
Unit 3: A la Carte(sian)
  • Week 6: Transformations
  • Week 7: Similarity and Equality Properties
Unit 4: Making Snow Angles
  • Week 8: Types of Angles
  • Week 9: The parallel Postulate
Quarter 2
Unit 5: The High Pot In Use
  • Week 10: The Pythagorean Theorem
  • Week 11: Special Right Triangles
Unit 6: Solid Foundation
  • Week 12: Prisms & Cylinders
  • Week 13: Pyramids & Cones
  • Week 14: Solid Geometry Review
Unit 7: Triangulating a Position
  • Week 15: Triangle Properties
  • Congruence Theorems
  • Review
Semester Review & Semester Final 
  • Week 18: Review
Quarter 3
Unit 8: Going Around in Circles
  • Week 19: Circles and Related Lines
  • Week 20: Arcs and Sectors 
  • Week 21: Review
Unit 9: Ratios of Epic Proportions
  • Week 22: Percents and the Golden Ratio
  • Week 23: The Geometric Mean
  • Week 24: Trigonometric Ratios
Unit 10: Polar Bears
  • Week 25: Radians 
  • Week 26: Polar Coordinates
  • Week 27: Review 
To make your job easier, SchoolhouseTeachers.com offers suggested lesson plans that
are broken down into weeks and days. There is even a space for notes on the left hand 
side of the page.  








ASL
This year my 10th grader needed to decide on what foreign language she was going to learn
for high school credits. At the beginning of the school year she told me that she wanted to 
learn ASL. I began to search the internet for courses and programs. I decided to get on 
SchoolhouseTeachers.com to see if by change they had ASL and they did! She is working though
ASL Adventures along with several other online resources that we found. 





Here is one snapshot from Lesson 10's video lesson. 


After each lesson there are a handful of pdf downloads for the student to print. Below is 
one of the printable's for Lesson 10. 


ArtAchieve
We have had the opportunity to review ArtAchieve in the past and absolutely LOVED IT! Not 
only did my children enjoy the art lessons but I did too. My mother who is in her 70's has really enjoyed the ArtAchieve lessons as well. I absolutely love that SchoolhouseTeachers.com has this as part of their curriculum. 


Resources
SchoolhouseTeachers.com offers a huge amount of resources for parents such as: calendars, 
monthly menu planning, helpful charts, high school help, special needs, achievement certificate 
library and so much more. Below is a page from the Master Course List. You are able to see
all of the courses offered by SchoolhouseTeachers.com and what grade level they correspond to. 


Science Fair
Do you children love science? SchoolhouseTeachers.com offers students the 
opportunity to enter a virtual Science Fair! Participants can submit science research
projects or exhibits. Award certificates are presented for first, second, and third place
winners in each category. Entries are accepted until March 11th, and the fair is on
March 25th. 


Coming Soon
SchoolhouseTeachers.com is coming out with several new courses in 2022!
Korean
Calculus 
Psychology
and an updated Microsoft course

10 Year Anniversary

SchoolhouseTeachers.com is celebrating its 10th Anniversary! The site launched March 2, 2012, with 11 courses. Over the past ten years they have grown to a full curriculum option for preschool through high school. Families can choose from over 400 courses as well as hundreds of additional resources which include curriculum guides that take the work out of planning your homeschool year. SchoolhouseTeachers.com has something for everyone in the family. 

Social Media 

Be sure to read what my Fellow Crew Members had to say about SchoolhouseTeachers.com. I would highly recommend SchoolhouseTeachers.com to other homeschool families. Whether you are looking for curriculum for just one subject or a full curriculum set look no further. 

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