Turkish Delight from the Chronicles of Narnia

Mija has been reading The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe for the first time. She's watched the movies before, but this is the first time she's reading it on her own. 

We have been using The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe Study Guide by Total Language Plus. I like TLP because it includes reading, grammar, spelling, and vocabulary. I think subject integration is awesome (and easier!) It also includes projects to include to add to the study.  

Well, one of the project, of course, deals with Turkish Delight! We determined to find out what it is and possibly how to make it. We found found Nerdy Nummies really helped with this. Nerdy Nummies is hosted by Rosanna Pansino. She develops recipes based on books, movies, tv shows and more, so we were pleasantly surprised when we found the one for turkish delight!  
Here's her video:


Mija has been on an episode viewing spree since we discovered it!

Yes, I've included some affiliate links for the products I've mentioned. 

Review--How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare

To read or not to read, that is the question.

The answer is yes. Read How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare by Ken Ludwig.

Ken Ludwig is an award winning playwright who happens to love Shakespeare. This fun, informative book provides an easy way to teach passages from many of Shakespeare's plays which he used with his own children.

Ken Ludwig

In the book, Ludwig not only teaches how to memorize the passages but also what they mean! That is right.  It is note just rote memory but meaningful memory! As if that were not enough, he also explains the whole play.

He starts with shorter passages, breaks them down into large font and short phrases, and offers paraphrases and explanation about them which all adds in the memorization. He offers the quotation pages and audio clips on his website Howtoteachyourchildrenshakespeare.com

Ludwig discusses Shakespeare's life and what theater was like during that time. He also offers a list of additional passages to memorize, epigrams, and a detailed bibliography of books, movies and recordings for all ages.

It is easy to read and has great photos of Shakespeare productions on stage and screen. I recommend this book as a resource for teaching your children Shakespeare passages, but also has a good and informative book. 

I received this book for free from Blogging for Books for this review.
This post also contains an affiliate link to Amazon in case you want to purchase the book.

Friday Funny--Word Crimes

We love Weird Al Yankovic! This week he's been releasing a new video everyday. I wanted to share this one. Hubby has determined that it will be the theme for our grammar lessons this year!

Using Your Write Brain---Guest Post

Have you heard of Grammarly? There is more to them than just great memes on Facebook! It is actually an automated proofreading program.

Well, today I have a guest post from Nikolas Baron of Grammarly. Enjoy!

Using your Write Brain

Let’s face it: the bane of your existence when you were in school really was the entire school bit. It was so difficult to comprehend why we couldn’t play outdoors for extended periods of time, especially since countless studies reached the same conclusion emphasizing the importance of play. Clearly, playing trumped the studying card. Yet perhaps the reason why children scorn learning with a hatred is simply because it isn’t fun, or rather, it is perceived as being dull and somewhat ‘important’ for the distant future if we didn’t want to be a road sweeper.

However, with today’s advancements, coupled with decades of experience and feedback from millions of bored-to-death students, not improving the method we use to educate will simply be laziness on our part.

Since I’ve started working at Grammarly, an instant online grammar checking proofreader, I’ve been researching on organic learning methods to facilitate the introduction of English for children. What I’ve discovered is far from what takes place within four white walls. Though there are tons of approaches to take, I found that interest and interaction are key in tapping into a child’s natural learning processes; it’s all about using their write brain.

Let’s start off with the greatest favour you can do for any child: don’t box them in, constantly encourage, and give them the benefit of the doubt when they insist that elephants can fly. Imagination and creativity are essential in injecting enjoyment in learning.

Involve all their senses when it comes to writing. This simple application will magically do loads to enhance learning. Writing about the weather, bring them outdoors; writing about culture, let them come to class in their traditional costumes and conduct a show and tell. Try this exercise. First, get them to imagine eating a mint candy with a molten chocolate centre. Tell them to write about what they taste, how it feels in their mouth, how it smells, their emotions while eating the candy, and anything that comes to their mind. Then re-do the exercise with them, giving each child a mint candy with a molten chocolate centre and get them to write down what they see, feel, and smell. Believe me, the vast improvement in their writing will take you aback; it’ll almost seem as though a different kid walked into your classroom.

Ever heard of ‘Secret Santa’? Give each child an envelope with their name on it, and assign a ‘Secret Santa’ to each of them. Instead of giving their friends more cavities, get them to write letters to each other daily. Not only will this break the ice in a classroom full of new faces, it’ll also give each child a reason to write daily. The best part is that there isn’t any topic to write about; the sky’s the limit. I’ve heard of teachers taking this a step further and getting global ‘penpals’ for their students, matching their age to other students of their age. I’m pretty sure many kids would be thrilled to have an exotic friend.

‌Now for the tricky bit – making grammar interactive. Rules that are black and white usually don’t sit well with kids or anyone for that matter. But you know what they say, “If you can’t beat them, join them”. Let the kids be in the position of authority to grade their friends’ work. Scouring the page to identify spelling and grammatical mistakes is a brilliant start for them to identify what other people are getting wrong. After manual grading, they can run the written text through a comprehensible software such as Grammarly to see which errors they missed out. The best part about this program is the detailed explanations given to clarify why certain sentences may be wrong. The software picks up on literally everything, from grammar to spelling, and even sentence structures.

The purpose of education shouldn’t be to teach children what to think, but rather how to think; not to dull, but to excite their senses; and ultimately, not to believe there’s a right way to think, but simply by using their write brain.


By Nikolas Baron

Nikolas discovered his love for the written word in Elementary School, where he started spending his afternoons sprawled across the living room floor devouring one Marc Brown children’s novel after the other and writing short stories about daring pirate adventures. After acquiring some experience in various marketing, business development, and hiring roles at internet startups in a few different countries, he decided to re-unite his professional life with his childhood passions by joining Grammarly’s marketing team in San Francisco. He has the pleasure of being tasked with talking to writers, bloggers, teachers, and others about how they use Grammarly’s online proofreading application to improve their writing. His free time is spent biking, travelling, and reading.

From Classical to Eclectic Classical--What we are doing this school year

 When started our home education journey, we were classical all the way. We had planned what curriculum and resources we were going to use. 

Woody Allen got one thing right when he said, "If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans."

After dealing with my husband's two years of unemployment and our continued financial challenges, we still see classical as our philosophy, but have learned to use whatever God provides to accomplish it.

Hence, we have become "eclectic classical".

Here is what we are using this year to accomplish this.


Math: Because of my blog, I was able to get a free year of this math program to review. Here's the link to the review. 

Language, Literature & Spelling: We are going to be using K12 curriculum we received for free. You can't beat free and on the whole I like what I see. Language will continue with grammar and writing book reports. Spelling breaks the lists up into those words which follow a spelling rule, words from a base word, and words with a specific prefix or suffix. Literature will be covering introducing classics like Robinson Crusoe and Gulliver's Travels. All it all, the basics I want covered will be covered, and I can still adjust as I deem necessary. 

History: The Story of the World: Volume 4 will be our 
world history. I had purchased the whole kit and caboodle of the four volumes and activity books, so we will finish using them. We have so enjoyed how history has been shown as an ongoing story through the series. I'll be looking for a more specific Christian worldview in the next history we use.

Science, Art, Music: I found a great free curriculum which I was going to use for almost everything but now only these subjects (and probably Bible). Easy Peasy---All in one Homeschool is just that. It's easy. It covers everything (although a little weak in spelling). It's online and IT'S TOTALLY FREE. There is even a Facebook support group. We are going to be following Year 4. 

Told you. We're eclectic! What are you going to be using this year?

 

Friday Funny----Punctuation specifically the Comma

I love it when I have something funny that makes a point when I'm educating my daughter.
While learning about comma usage, I was able to show her this piece to emphasize the importance of using a comma for a list.

Louisa May Alcott Collection--only $1.99 on Kindle

I saw this great deal over on Free Homeschool Deals. 
You can get Louisa May Alcott Collection 39 Works: Little Women Series (Little Women, Good Wives, Little Men, Jo's Boys), An Old Fasioned Girl, Eight Cousins, Rose in Bloom, Mysterious Key, Under the Lilacs, MORE for Kindle for only $1.99! What a great deal! Not as good a free, but definitely not bad. :-)

Wednesday Websites--Poetry

April is National Poetry Month!

Of course, there is studying the rhythm and rhyme pattern if there is one. You can see if there is a pattern in theme, topic or phrase. You can relate it to the historical time it was written or the science it mentions. When you read Langston Hughes' "Dream Variations", for instance, learn about the Civil Rights Movement and trees. Don't forget that writing poetry is an option, too! 

Poetry 4 Kids offer lessons for writing poetry. I recommend an acrostic poem if you are just starting out! It also offers a lot of other poetry resources.

Scholastic offers a lot of teacher resources for National Poetry Month.

At Poets.org, you search by poems or poets. There are even videos of various poems. Classics and more.

DLTK offers this collection of spring poems. This is a little more of a  "kid" friendly selection.

Poetry for Kids offers all kinds of poetry based links including places to post poetry you've written, a link to a rhyming dictionary, and more.

Readwritethink has some cool online tools that actually help write various types of poetry.

Apples 4 the Teacher has a thematic list of poems which includes various holidays. How about memorizing a poem for Armed Forces Day or Bird Day. (You know how I feel about every day being a holiday!)

Friday Funny--Classical Hokey Pokey

National Candy Corn Day Crafts from Pinterest

Tomorrow is National Candy Corn Day.  I enjoy candy corn in the fall and think it's so cute that I actually have a whole board on Pinterest dedicated to it!

Here are a few of my favorites.

Source: lessonplans.craftgossip.com via Betsy Price on Pinterest

Source: parents.com via Betsy Price on Pinterest

Source: weeklyhive.blogspot.com via Betsy Price on Pinterest

Source: mathwire.com via Betsy Price on Pinterest

Source: poppytalk.blogspot.com via Betsy Price on Pinterest

Source: innerchildfun.com via Betsy Price on Pinterest

Source: lessonplans.craftgossip.com via Betsy Price on Pinterest

 

Source: blessedbeyondadoubt.com via Betsy Price on Pinterest

Source: jugglingwithkids.com via Betsy Price on Pinterest

New websites added to my page

Do you check my Helpful Homeschool Websites page? I add things I find all the time. Here are some of my recent additions.

Latinata.com--Latin review games

Magnetic Poetry

World Myths and Legends in Art

American Girl Literature Guides

Easy Fun School--homeschool resources & units

Inquiry in Action--physical science & chemistry

Practice Spot--music review games

Latin Teach

Time4Writing

The Futures Channel--science videos

Dean Vaughn Learning Systems--Multiplication

Outdoor Biology

Brain Tour

8 Planets

Book Report Now!

The Virtual Body

Field Trip--C. W. Parker Carousel Museum Video

I had posted about Museum Day. For Museum Day, we went to C. W. Parker Museum in Leavenworth, KS. Mija and I made a video. It's been a great school/family activity. Of course, we had the field trip which could be considered history. Then I had her write about about it which was language arts. Lastly, we made this video. The text in the video is from what she wrote.


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Come on and take a free ride...

Come on and take a free ride [free ride!]

Come on and sit here by my side

Come on and take a free ride

That's right. I'm taking a free ride. I'm looking for things to do this summer that are free. BUT I also want the activities to be educational. They don't need to be  "in your face" educational but more subtle. 
I still have about 100 hours I need to get done for this school year. What could be better than doing fun things to get the hours? I'll tell you what's better. Doing fun things that are FREE to get the hours.


Here are a few things we've done in the past couple of weeks that were educational on the sly.


Last weekend we went to see Team Shakespeare perform Romeo and Juliet. 
Team Shakespeare is the teen troupe for the Heart of America Shakespeare Festival. I had introduced Shakespeare to mija during history as we study the Elizabethan Age. We read stories from Beautiful Stories From Shakespeare and of course, she thoroughly studied the movie Gnomeo & Juliet! She really enjoyed it. She knew the story line and even critiqued some of the actors!

Of course, we'll be going to the regular Shakespeare Festival in just a few weeks. This year there are two rotating plays: A Midsummer Night's Dream and Antony and Cleopatra. 



We have a great museum that offers free family activities once a month and free children's activities throughout the summer. Yesterday, The Kansas City Museum did one of the Family Fun Days. The theme was different ways of telling your history or a story. She drew a family crest, did cave painting, drew a quilt telling the story of Romeo and Juliet and decorated a journal.  She enjoys the summer programs as well, so that will be some more free things to do this summer!
This is a picture of her at one of the events last year. The museum actually used this photo on their website!

The lady on the right is our friend from church!

Last night, we attended a free concert by the Northland Symphony Orchestra. It was only about an hour long, so perfect for young listeners. The pieces were all dance pieces from ballets, operas, etc. Mija was a little disappointed when no dancers appeared, but she got over it. While waiting for it to start, I explained to her the role of the concert master/1st violin. She looked forward to seeing the person come out. She was also asking about different instruments, so there will be some casual introduction to the orchestra going on today! Summertime is also a great time to see community bands for free.


So, that's what we've done so far. We only have one vehicle, so unfortunately, library activities and other things during the day are not going to happen for us this year!

Graphic Organizers 101--posted at Home Educating Family Blog

Today my article is posted over at Home Educating Family Blog! I even included links to various kinds of graphic organizers along with ways to use them. Check it out.

Memorization using Chants, Cheers and Poems

Last week, I shared about using songs and singing as a way of helping memorization.
This week, I'm going to mention using chants and poems. Of course, there a a lot of already written. 
I typed in "poem colors of the rainbow for kids" and found this within seconds.

Rainbow Colors by Sharon MacDonald

A rainbow of colors,
In the light, after rain.
There are seven of them,
And, each one has a name.

Red is the first
Rainbow color in the sky.
Orange is next
Like jack-o-lantern pie.

Yellow is the third,
Lemons come to mind.
Color four is green,
Think of grassy hills to climb

Blue is color five,
Like the water in a lake
The sixth is indigo
Blue-gray blends that you can make.

Violet is the color
Of the last rainbow band.
Violet is flowery;
Like the pedals in your hand.

So, wave your arms above you
Cast your colors high
And, try to make a rainbow
Across a cloudy sky

Cute poem. Puts the colors in the right order, so it would be appropriate to tie into science which is what I would do.

I, however, have to make things difficult more challenging and come up with things on my own.

When we were learning when to read a soft "c" and a hard "c". I came up with a cheer, and yes, we did it like a cheer with pompoms and everything.

"C" says |s| before i and e.

"C" says |k| before the other three:

A! O! U!

We recently finished the Explorers chapter in Story of the World Vol. 2. (Yes, I know I'm running behind, thank you). I wanted to come up with something to help her remember the four explorers mentioned in the chapter. So, I adapted the well-known stanza about Columbus and added one of my own.

Columbus sailed the ocean blue

in 14 hundred and 92.

Amerigo Vespucci knew

He discovered a continent that's new.

Once mija got the concept, she helped me finish our composition! Here's the whole poem.

Columbus sailed the ocean blue

in 14 hundred and 92.

Amerigo Vespucci knew

He discovered a continent that's new.

Da Gama sailed to India.

He sailed around "dark" Africa.

Magellan found a stormy strait

and found a calm sea.

He named it the Pacific,

and around the world went he.

(FYI: He actually didn't make it all around since he died, but his ship did.)

She loves it and has gone around the house repeating it all the time. I think the fact that she partly composed it makes a difference. She has an investment in it. It also made a special memory with us working on it together besides being school work!

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Summer Reading Programs & Book Report printable

I really enjoy summer reading programs and so does mija. 
She especially like the extra activities and prizes. In fact, the only time we go to see the Kansas City Royals play is when we get free tickets through a local library's summer reading program! 
I like it because it's a great to get rewarded for something you'd do anyway. Also, in a state that counts hours for homeschooling, it's a fun way to catch up on hours for this school year or get ahead on hours for next school year!
And yes, usually you can count the books you read for more than one program which makes it convenient. Read each program to find out any specific details.


First of all, check you local libraries for their programs. Here are links for the summer reading programs of some of the libraries in the Kansas City Metro area. (The rest of you can skip ahead!)
Mid-Continent Public Library
Kansas City Public
Johnson County Library
(If you know the links to any of the others, feel free to leave them in the comments or on my FB page.


Don't limit summer reading to only libraries, however.  Here are some other ones to consider. (Thanks, Kansas City Mamas)

Book Adventure – Sylvan offers this FREE online reading incentive program. After your child reads a book, they take a simple comprehension quiz to make sure they understood what they read. (Similar to AR tests.)

There are hundreds of books to choose from in all reading levels. These are common books that can be found at your local library. Once they have earned enough points they can trade them in for some really neat prizes.

Half Price Books – They are offering kids ages 14 and under a chance to earn a $5 Gift Card for reading just 15 each day throughout the summer.

PBS Kids Summer Reading Challenge – This challenge kicks off on June 6th and includes a FREE six week reading program and the chance for your kids to win daily prizes for their participation.

Barnes & Noble Imagination Destination – This summer reading program through Barnes & Noble gives your child the ability to earn a FREE book after reading 8 books and keeping track of them in a reading log. (Find your local Kick Off Parties.)

Chuck E. Cheese – Earn 10 FREE tokens every time your child reads for 2 weeks in a row. Just fill out the form and bring it in to claim your free token.

Scholastic Summer Challenge - Log in your reading minutes to the Scholastic site and your child will be able to participate in a World Record challenge as well as earn digital prizes.

To make it easier for me to keep track of what books mija will be reading, I developed a small book report form that you are more than welcome to use as well. Here's what it looks like:

Even before the summer starts, it's time to sign up for the Pizza Hut Book It Program for next school year. Locally, we have a group of homeschoolers who meet at Pizza Hut once a month to use their certificates and fulfill the much touted socialization quotient!




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Silent E rules and Cute pony pics

Marie Ripple of All About Learning has a cute blog post which explains the uses of Silent E.  Did you realize Silent E has five jobs?


And she included VERY cute pictures of her horses!  Just Click Here to find out more!

Friday Funny--Grammar Style

Board Games--Scrabble

Board games are great. Besides providing fun, family time, they also are great learning activities. Of course, what's really cool, is that it's undercover learning!
Mija really enjoys Scrabble. She has gets better each time we play and asks less frequently for help.

Besides the obvious spelling practice, Scrabble can increase vocabulary and math.  Currently, since mija is still learning to develop the words, we haven't been keeping score, but there will be a lot of great math we'll do when we start! There's the obvious addition, but then there is doubling and tripling.  And if it's double or triple letter, you actually have to do a little algebra by doing some multiplying before adding.

I'll add a personal note. Playing Scrabble with mija on this board is very special to me. You see, this is the same Scrabble set I played on when I first started playing Scrabble. I would play with my grandma. Wouldn't it be cool if someday mija uses the same board to play with her children!

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Sarcasm. Yeah, right!

My latest article for the Home Educating Family blog is up today!  Enjoy!