Dallas Holocaust Museum

Last week my kiddos and I had the privilege of visiting the Dallas Holocaust Museum

for their Homeschool Day. We were treated to a very informative

 guided tour of the main exhibits. 

After lunch we participated in a group activity which was a wonderful

complement to the mornings tour. 

This Anne Frank exhibit was so very informative. They had Anne's whole life displayed. 

One of the most humbling aspects of our visit to the museum
was our time with Max. The Dallas Holocaust Museum is implementing
a new addition to their museum called Dimensions 

in Testimony. What is this? Well, it is interviews that the museum
has had with actual Holocaust survivors. They spent about a week
with each survivor asking them thousands of questions. They
 then went into a database. We were able to ask Max,
who was then in holograph, questions. The museum said that over
time the more questions that are asked the greater accuracy the
 answers will become. It really was awesome. It was like actually
sitting with Max. One question that I asked Max was,
"Max, how were you treated in the concentration camp?"
He told of a story of a fellow concentration camp gentleman who was
being punished. He was made to take his belt off. The officers put the belt
around his neck, made him get on all fours like a dog and made him
 go down rows of fellow inmates. As he crawled by fellow inmates
had to kick and slap him. Max said that he was bloody and beat up and
was practically unable to crawl by the time it was over.
As he was telling the story I grew increasingly nauseous. Collectively, we
were able to ask Max about a dozen questions. It was truly
humbling and eye-opening. I think that they said that there were
about 5 or 6 survivors that they had as a part of the Dimensions in Testimony. 

Hewitt Homeschooling Resources ~ A Review

Over the past weeks my daughter has been reading some great literature with the Grade 4 Lightning Lit Set from Hewitt Homeschooling Resources. The author's goal is to, "instill a love of great literature in children, expand their ability to read intelligently and deeply, improve their communication abilities, and prepare them for more advanced language arts concepts." Students will focus on literature, grammar/mechanics, and composition.

The books read (in the order they are introduced) are:

• The Earth Dragon Awakes by Laurence Yep
• Morning Girl by Michael Dorris
• The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate
• Gone Fishing by Tamera Will Wissinger
• Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin
• The Family Under the Bridge by Natalie Savage Carlson
• Nims Island by Wendy Orr
• The Dreamer by Pam Muñoz Ryan
• Love That Dog by Sharon Creech
• The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer
• Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt
• The Borrowers by Mary Norton

Here are a few of the books.

I like that the book choices are so very diverse. Two of the books, Love That Dog and Gone Fishing are poetry books. What drew me to wanting to be a part of this review is the book choices. Some of the books are familiar, like Nim's Island and The Borrowers while others such as The Earth Dragon Awakes and The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind were unfamiliar.

My daughter is in the 5th grade but does not like to read so I found this Grade 4 to be a great fit for my daughter. The books were a perfect fit for where she is at. While she can read books at a higher level, to truly study and dissect a book for the purpose of a literature study these books are a great fit. I wanted my daughter to be able to feel successful and not overwhelmed.

The Student Workbook is laid out so that the student can easily keep up with what they need to do throughout the week. The beginning of the week has a Student Checklist so that the student can know exactly what needs to be completed during the week with boxes to check when each task is completed.

During the week the student will complete assignments such as:

• Reading Comprehension
• Literary Analysis/Critical Thinking
• Grammar
• Optional Exercises 
• Composition

My daughter liked that there was not a lot of workbook work to complete each day. She was able to read a good amount of the books and enjoyed most of them. I did opt to let her read them out of order. Since she does not like to read I thought that this would help to give her some freedom to be able to choose the order of the books. I know that this was not what Hewitt recommends but for us it worked.

For the book Nim's Island one of the Composition assignments was to write a friendly letter to someone. In the student guide it said that even though this is a dying art it was still worth knowing how to do and I definitely agree. Most children and teenagers today have no idea how to write a proper letter and address an envelope. My daughter decided to send a letter to her great-aunt and they have now been conversing back and forth via "snail mail" for about two months now. My daughter loves getting letters in the mail. I would share one of her letters but my daughter said that they are personal.

The next Composition project is to write a research report on islands or a particular is land. Students are guided through each step from organizing their outlines, writing rough drafts, making Venn diagrams, all the way to final drafts. With so much going on with our other curriculum and other circumstances at home I did not make my daughter do the research reports. I do plan on adding these in this summer and into the next school year.

One of the fun activities suggested in the Teacher Guide for Nim's Island is to have a whole tropical island meal choosing only from the foods that Nim eats such as fish, clams, fresh coconut, flat bread, banana, pineapples, etc. I thought this was a really fun idea. My daughter unfortunately has a medical condition in which this was not possible to do. Under normal circumstances I would have definitely done this.

The Teacher Guide is a great resource beyond just the answers to the questions in the Student Guide. The Teacher Guide is a great book discussion break-down for each book including elements for discussions such as:

• Theme
• Story 
• Character
• Setting
• External Details
• Internal Details
• Conflict 
• Symbolism

For the students composition projects the teacher guide gives a list of elements that need to be researched. There are discussion questions listed that you can ask your student about each book. There are hints and helps for each section that correlate with the student guide.

To read more reviews click here. 

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Memoria Press ~ A Review

Over the past weeks my daughter has been working through The Story of the Thirteen Colonies & the Great Republic Set, and the 200 Question About American History Set from Memoria Press. Both of these sets are aligned for grades 5-8.

The Story of the Thirteen Colonies & the Great Republic contains:

• a teacher's guide (end of chapter questions, map work, assignment suggestions)
• a student edition which has 32 lessons with space given for students to write definitions for vocabulary and to answer comprehension questions
• Guerber's The Story of the Thirteen Colonies and the Great Republic edited by Memoria Press

Each student lesson contains four parts:

1. Facts To Know 
2. Vocabulary
3. Comprehension Questions 
4. Enrichment

The Facts To Know section covers people, events, places, etc. that may be unfamiliar to students. The Enrichment section covers timelines, research, primary source, map, composition, thirteen colonies chart, recitation, and poetry work. 

At the end of the Student Guide in the Appendix you will find:

• Maps
• 13 Colonies Chart
• Mayflower Compact
• Paul Revere's Ride Poem
• Letter From George to Martha Washington
• Declaration of Independence
• Exerts From Thomas Paine's Common Sense
• United States Constitution
• Emancipation Proclamation
• Gettysburg Address
• Daniel Webster's Senate Speech, 1830

The comprehension questions hit on the most important key points from the reading and definitely require the students to fully engage with the text. For example in Lesson 27 the students are asked:

When war broke out, what advantages did the North have over the South?

Describe the battle between the Merrimac and the Monitor?

In the Enrichment section of this lesson for Research the students are asked to, "Research the structure of the Confederacy. What kind of government did they establish? Did they have similar laws to the Union? Who was in the government?"

Teacher Guide

The Teacher Guide is similar to the Student Guide but with the answers included. In addition, at the end of the guide the following are included:

• Completed Timeline 
• Tests (Tests are given after every 8 lessons.)
• Test Keys

Guerber's The Story Of The Thirteen Colonies & The Great Republic is 211 pages in length. There are 85 chapters with black and white pictures included. I really don't even want to call them chapters because they are each only a couple of pages in length. 

While reading Chapter 29 entitled, How England Treated Her Colonies, it stated; "As if all this were not bad enough, the English forbad the Americans from manufacturing anything that England produced as well, and required Americans to purchase their products. If the New Englanders wanted to exchange codfish for Virginia tobacco, they either had to send it by way of England, thus paying for its being carried twice across the Atlantic, or else they were obliged to pay heavy duties." To this my daughter said, that was crazy! 

The 200 Questions About American History Set contains:

• 200 Questions About American History Teacher Key
• 200 Questions About American History Student Book
• 200 Questions About American History Flashcard Set

This set is supposed to be a supplement to Guerber's The Story of the Thirteen Colonies and the Great Republic.

Flashcards

Student Book

Recommended Schedule 

The 200 Questions About American History is a great way to reinforce and review what is being learned. I really liked this complement to The Story of the Thirteen Colonies & The Great Republic Set. I found it a great way to see what my daughter was retaining in her reading and learning. 

After having my daughter work through these history sets for a couple of weeks I decided that I wanted two of my other daughters to work through these sets as well. I called Memoria Press and got two more sets. It has been fun watching all three of my daughter's working together to work their way through learning about our great nations history. My 5th grader has been a bit overwhelmed by the curriculum. I think that she is a bit on the younger side and so it was not the best fit for her at this time. My 7th grader was the perfect fit for this and was completely able to work through this curriculum on her own. She likes the set-up and likes that it doesn't take more than 20 minutes a day to complete. I am also having my 10th grade daughter work through this curriculum. She has severe medical complications that make keeping up with academics difficult. She is very smart but just has a hard time keeping up. This has been a good fit for her, especially the 200 Questions About American History. She has been able to catch up on important American History facts. 

I would definitely recommend both of these sets to others looking for a good American History overview. 

To read more reviews click here.

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75th Anniversary of D-Day

https://www.history.com/d-day-operation-overlord-timeline-map/index.html

Life With Dog ~ A Review

My children and I recently watched Life With Dog by Mill Creek Entertainment. The running times for this family friendly movie is 106 minutes. This film stars Corbin Bernsen, Marilu Henner, and Chelsey Crisp.

Life With Dog Movie Synopsis

The movie starts out with a hit-and-run accident between a car and a female, Alice, on a bicycle. Alice sustains injuries that take her life. Joe, her husband, of 49 years is full of grief and cannot come to grips with her death. No one is aware that Alice's death was a result of a hit-and-run until later in the movie. For a good part of the movie Joe is convinced that his wife's "accident" was actually a murder. There is a new building development going up across the street in Joe's neighborhood. Many of the neighbor's have already been bought out. Joe has no intentions of selling his home. He thinks there is a conspiracy in order to get him to sell his house and that they are actually behind Alice's death. People begin to think that Joe is going crazy. Detective's do begin to investigate.

Joe is an unbeliever and doubts God at every turn. His wife Alice and his adult daughter Zoe are both believer's. Joe went with them to church but lost his faith when he and Alice's son, Mike died at he age of 13. Joe talks about how he cried out to the Lord to spare his son's life and God did not listen. He did not understand how Alice and Zoe continued to trust in the Lord after God betrayed them by taking Mike. Again, when Alice was in the accident, Joe begged for God to save her and again Joe talks about how God yet again let him down and refused to answer his prayers. How could a loving God do such a thing?

Soon after his wife's death a mangy dog started showing up at Joe's house. Joe continually tried to shoo the dog away and the dog continued coming back again and again. Eventually, Joe takes the dog in and begins to feed him. He names the dog, Dog. Dog becomes a companion for Joe. Even though Dog does not bark he soon begins to warn Joe when a hooded stranger begins showing up at night in the front of his house. Eventually Dog leads Joe to what will give him answers, closer about Alice's death which will totally surprise you, and back to God.

Who watched this movie?

I watched with movie with my 16, 13, and 11-year-old daughter's. Overall, the movie was good. It obviously it not your Hollywood quality acting and set budget. So keep that in mind. My daughter's said that it was really slow moving and the last 10 minutes of the movie were the best. Before sitting your whole family down keep in mind that this movie is for ages 12 and above due to a gun being pulled, anger and a fist being punched through a wall several times, and then obviously death.

Overall, I thought this movie was worth watching. It taught some really valuable lessons. Life is full of trials and sometimes very difficult situations. God doesn't put us through the flames without providing us with the means to bring us through to the other side. Everything that we go through in life has a purpose and a reason. Sometimes it is just impossible for us to truly see and understand as we are going through a trial to see what God has waiting for us on the other side. Sometimes it may be helping others going through a similar trial. Maybe God has something even better for us. In this movie, we see how extremely hard the death of a loved one is. Forgiveness sometimes seems unfathomable especially when we are so personally affected. This movie does an amazing job at showing just how God can and does allow a person to get past grief, the ability to forgive, and draw near to Him.

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