| Genre |
|
| Science Fiction |
|
|
| The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet |
|
| Ender's Game |
|
| The City of Ember |
|
| Journey Between Worlds |
|
| Enchantress from the Stars |
| History |
|
|
| Number the Stars |
|
| The Bronze Bow |
|
| The Witch of Blackbird Pond |
|
| Sounder |
|
| Johnny Tremain |
|
| My Brother Sam is Dead |
|
| Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry |
|
| The Matchlock Gun |
|
| The Golden Goblet |
|
| Hittite Warrior |
| Biography |
|
|
| Archimedes and the Door of Science |
|
| Augustus Caesar's World |
|
| The World of Columbus and Sons |
|
| George Washington's World |
|
| The World of Captain John Smith |
|
| Poor Richard |
|
| The World of William Penn |
|
| The Diary of Anne Frank |
| Mystery |
|
|
| The Mysterious Benedict Society |
|
| The Treasure of Alphaeus Winterborn |
|
| The Westing Game |
|
| The Ides of April |
| Fantasy |
|
|
| A Wrinkle in Time |
|
| The Hobbit |
|
| The Book of Three |
|
| Eragon |
|
| Alice in Wonderland |
|
| The Wizard of Oz |
| Adventure |
|
|
| Call It Courage |
|
| Island of the Blue Dolphins |
|
| Treasure Island |
|
| The Sign of the Beaver |
|
| The Great Brain |
|
| The Secret Garden |
|
| Anne of Green Gables |
|
| Tom Sawyer |
| Plays |
|
|
| Theatre for Young Audiences: 20 Great Plays for Children |
| Tragedy |
|
|
| The Bridge to Terabithia |
|
| Where the Red Fern Grows |
| Poetry |
|
|
| The Random House Book of Poetry for Children |
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Book List for 9-12 year olds
My 10 yr. old needed a little more structure in her choice of literature, and while Nancy Drew is fun, we wanted to make sure she has some familiarity with other genres and literature. So my husband who is really behind most of the curriculum choices we make did some research mainly on amazon.com reading the reviews both good and bad for these books and came up with the following list. Neither of us have read all of these books although we have read some of them, so if any of you think any of them may be inappropriate for this age group, let me know. We bought most of them and I'm going to try to keep up with my kids' reading. It looks like a lot of fun. We want our kids to read at least one of the books listed in each genre.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Genesis and The Pearl of Great Price
The story of the creation through Noah and then to Abraham through Isaac and Jacob and Joseph is fascinating. It has been awhile since I've read it and it is so interesting. The Pearl of Great Price really adds a lot of insight into the days of Noah, and I didn't realize that there is almost no mention of Enoch in the book of Genesis. It is also amazing how long Adam and the people lived before the flood. Very interesting read. They were actual people with thoughts and feelings. I think the love story of Abraham and Sarah is sweet as well as Isaac and Rebekah, I haven't gotten to the others yet.
Wish I had more interesting things to blog about, but I don't!! That's all!!
Wish I had more interesting things to blog about, but I don't!! That's all!!
Friday, September 11, 2009
Unanswered questions about 9/11/2001
There seem to be a lot of unanswered questions surrounding 9/11. The most blaring I think is why did Building 7 collapse when it wasn't even hit by a plane? Another is why did the twin towers collapse so suddenly demolition style after being hit by airplanes? Can jet fuel really cause that kind of damage, that quickly and cleanly? No other skyscraper has collapsed because of fire. Where is the plane that hit the Pentagon and the plane that made the hole in Pennsylvania? How did all the seats, luggage and passengers disintegrate, but paper passports were found in tact?
Why did it take so long to start an official investigation of the events? Why are there still so many unanswered questions?
Why did it take so long to start an official investigation of the events? Why are there still so many unanswered questions?
Friday, September 4, 2009
Our First Week of Homeschool for the New Year!!
We officially started school this year last Friday for our first Friday Fun Day. The plan is to cover all the core subjects (Reading, Writing, Math, Greek, Science, History, Literature, Spelling) from Monday to Thursday. Then Friday will be an enrichment day where we'll study art, artists, music, composers and play games and do activities. Friday turned out great. The kids loved it, (except for the 1st grader for the first part --he didn't want to play the recorder, but did later after being in time-out for awhile). We set up the desks like a real school and basically played school. We also learned a song in Spanish and a song in French. I decided to go ahead and do both languages this year. The Europeans learn a bunch of languages, so why can't we? We'll see how it goes.
Unfortunately, the rest of the week didn't go so smoothly, starting with Monday. We ended up getting new carpet that day and having a mold clean-up crew come on Tuesday and Wednesday because of a leak in the shower we didn't know about. We were without air conditioning on Thursday, and it was hot, but at least we could use the bathrooms. Also, my kids are so out of the habit of doing anything difficult because of my laxness this summer, that it was a real struggle to actually do any work at all. The 5th and 3rd grade girls basically just did math, a little bit of journaling and one composition this week. The preschooler and 1st grader fulfilled their requirements of handwriting, math and reading each day, because it doesn't take them long at all. But I really missed doing the fun part of homeschool which is reading stories and great literature to the kids, learning history and science, singing songs together, memorizing scriptures and learning languages and grammar. That's the fun part we missed this first week.
The girls took an average of 2 hours working on their math assignments because they are so out of the habit of concentrating. I've decided though, that that math has to be done first thing when their little brains are the most fresh, and we'll keep the fun and interesting stuff for after lunch. Had I had my house together and not under construction, I think we would have done better, but overall I think it was pretty good given the circumstances. I really hope the girls will move along better in math next week, so that we can do the fun stuff, but it may take them another week to acclimate to that math concentrating part of their brains. I just about have to sit with each of them individually to remind them to look at their book and write down the answers to the problems. They have gotten a little better each day though, and it is very rewarding to see the sense of satisfaction they feel when they are finally done!!
I can't wait to get my house and life back together. I feel like we went on another long vacation. Hopefully I can get a lot done this weekend so that we can do all the things I hope to do this week!! By the way, the twins are boys and look good so far-- that will be 5 boys in a row-- I'm a little nervous. I am really going to have to find ways to keep them out of trouble!! My 3 boys seem to get wilder everyday, they really need the fun stuff. They love listening to stories and learning songs. Once we get the house organized, I hope they will calm down a little bit. At least I can send them outside!!!
Unfortunately, the rest of the week didn't go so smoothly, starting with Monday. We ended up getting new carpet that day and having a mold clean-up crew come on Tuesday and Wednesday because of a leak in the shower we didn't know about. We were without air conditioning on Thursday, and it was hot, but at least we could use the bathrooms. Also, my kids are so out of the habit of doing anything difficult because of my laxness this summer, that it was a real struggle to actually do any work at all. The 5th and 3rd grade girls basically just did math, a little bit of journaling and one composition this week. The preschooler and 1st grader fulfilled their requirements of handwriting, math and reading each day, because it doesn't take them long at all. But I really missed doing the fun part of homeschool which is reading stories and great literature to the kids, learning history and science, singing songs together, memorizing scriptures and learning languages and grammar. That's the fun part we missed this first week.
The girls took an average of 2 hours working on their math assignments because they are so out of the habit of concentrating. I've decided though, that that math has to be done first thing when their little brains are the most fresh, and we'll keep the fun and interesting stuff for after lunch. Had I had my house together and not under construction, I think we would have done better, but overall I think it was pretty good given the circumstances. I really hope the girls will move along better in math next week, so that we can do the fun stuff, but it may take them another week to acclimate to that math concentrating part of their brains. I just about have to sit with each of them individually to remind them to look at their book and write down the answers to the problems. They have gotten a little better each day though, and it is very rewarding to see the sense of satisfaction they feel when they are finally done!!
I can't wait to get my house and life back together. I feel like we went on another long vacation. Hopefully I can get a lot done this weekend so that we can do all the things I hope to do this week!! By the way, the twins are boys and look good so far-- that will be 5 boys in a row-- I'm a little nervous. I am really going to have to find ways to keep them out of trouble!! My 3 boys seem to get wilder everyday, they really need the fun stuff. They love listening to stories and learning songs. Once we get the house organized, I hope they will calm down a little bit. At least I can send them outside!!!
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Surprised by Joy by C.S. Lewis
This book is basically about Lewis' lifelong search for what he termed "joy" and how he finally found it where he least expected.
He had a somewhat sad childhood although an amazing education despite his poor boarding school experiences which were downright awful. Anyway, his parents were readers and his mother started teaching him Latin at a very young age, but his childhood sorrow began with the death of his mother. He was very close to his brother and they read a lot and made up ongoing play stories together which seemed similar to what Lewis wrote in his chronicles of Narnia. His brother was sent off to boarding school, and soon after, Lewis followed. it really was a terrible place, they didn't get enough to eat, the school master really probably had sever mental problems by the way he ran the school and treated everybody and the school was soon after closed down. It was a waste of time academically for Lewis, and he never felt comfortable with mathmatics and my guess is that he never had a chance to learn it well. Anyway, his next boarding school was quite good and he had some good teachers who introduced some good subjects for him and he was able to learn some things, but he was only there about a year and then was off to Wyvern which was horrid. The upper class men were allowed and even encouraged to haze the lower classmen. There was a ton of emphasis placed on some type of games like rugby and others which Lewis hated because he was no good at them and he'd rather be in the library. He actually thought he was the strange one for enjoying literature. Anyway, he was finally able to talk his father into finding him another mode of educational training and started his true formal training under the one on one mentorship of "The Great Knock", and finally on to Oxford.
It was very interesting to read about all the books Lewis felt were important to his development. Honestly it made me realize again how lacking my own education has been. I also enjoyed reading how he and "The Great Knock" read Homer in the original Greek and other texts in their original languages. Over the course of Lewis' young life, he became an atheist although he continually sought after "joy" which he seemed to find mostly in Norse mythology. A lot of his reasoning and the way he thought about life and he world were foreign to me, because I think that deep down I have always known there is a God. I had to take some time to let some of his ideas make sense to me, because they weere so different from anything I had thought before.
It was really nice to get to the final 2 chapters, because the rest of the book especially the chapter called "The Bloods" was downright sad and depressing. In the final 2 chapters he talks about how although he didn't want to believe in God, he was finally forced in a sense to acknowledge the logic and light of the truth. One of the first ideas he let go of was that just because a time such as the dark ages has past and we are so much "more advanced" now doesn't necessarily mean that we can't learn from past ages and that maybe they had some wisdom we could learn from now. That seems to be a common belief of atheists and "progressives", that modernity is better and the past is archaic and unuseful to the present. This combined with Lewis' thirst for knowledge understanding and "joy" led him to continue to learn and read. He found less and less "joy" and satisfaction in his mythology, and much to his unexpected expectations, the Christian writers seemed to be the ones that made the most sense.
This caused him to reevaluate over time and at last accept Jesus as the Christ and Savior of the world. He had at last found "Joy", and that is where the book ends. This is probably my least favorite of all the Lewis books I've read. He said that knowing about a person doesn't necessarily give one more insight into the things they write about and I would have to agree. I had a hard time relating with his atheistic ideas of youth, but I suppose it does give me a greater understanding and appreciation of those who think that way. I have enjoyed his other works much more although this book does let me see why and how Lewis can express himself so well in his other works. Overall, I do recommend this book. Enjoy!!!
He had a somewhat sad childhood although an amazing education despite his poor boarding school experiences which were downright awful. Anyway, his parents were readers and his mother started teaching him Latin at a very young age, but his childhood sorrow began with the death of his mother. He was very close to his brother and they read a lot and made up ongoing play stories together which seemed similar to what Lewis wrote in his chronicles of Narnia. His brother was sent off to boarding school, and soon after, Lewis followed. it really was a terrible place, they didn't get enough to eat, the school master really probably had sever mental problems by the way he ran the school and treated everybody and the school was soon after closed down. It was a waste of time academically for Lewis, and he never felt comfortable with mathmatics and my guess is that he never had a chance to learn it well. Anyway, his next boarding school was quite good and he had some good teachers who introduced some good subjects for him and he was able to learn some things, but he was only there about a year and then was off to Wyvern which was horrid. The upper class men were allowed and even encouraged to haze the lower classmen. There was a ton of emphasis placed on some type of games like rugby and others which Lewis hated because he was no good at them and he'd rather be in the library. He actually thought he was the strange one for enjoying literature. Anyway, he was finally able to talk his father into finding him another mode of educational training and started his true formal training under the one on one mentorship of "The Great Knock", and finally on to Oxford.
It was very interesting to read about all the books Lewis felt were important to his development. Honestly it made me realize again how lacking my own education has been. I also enjoyed reading how he and "The Great Knock" read Homer in the original Greek and other texts in their original languages. Over the course of Lewis' young life, he became an atheist although he continually sought after "joy" which he seemed to find mostly in Norse mythology. A lot of his reasoning and the way he thought about life and he world were foreign to me, because I think that deep down I have always known there is a God. I had to take some time to let some of his ideas make sense to me, because they weere so different from anything I had thought before.
It was really nice to get to the final 2 chapters, because the rest of the book especially the chapter called "The Bloods" was downright sad and depressing. In the final 2 chapters he talks about how although he didn't want to believe in God, he was finally forced in a sense to acknowledge the logic and light of the truth. One of the first ideas he let go of was that just because a time such as the dark ages has past and we are so much "more advanced" now doesn't necessarily mean that we can't learn from past ages and that maybe they had some wisdom we could learn from now. That seems to be a common belief of atheists and "progressives", that modernity is better and the past is archaic and unuseful to the present. This combined with Lewis' thirst for knowledge understanding and "joy" led him to continue to learn and read. He found less and less "joy" and satisfaction in his mythology, and much to his unexpected expectations, the Christian writers seemed to be the ones that made the most sense.
This caused him to reevaluate over time and at last accept Jesus as the Christ and Savior of the world. He had at last found "Joy", and that is where the book ends. This is probably my least favorite of all the Lewis books I've read. He said that knowing about a person doesn't necessarily give one more insight into the things they write about and I would have to agree. I had a hard time relating with his atheistic ideas of youth, but I suppose it does give me a greater understanding and appreciation of those who think that way. I have enjoyed his other works much more although this book does let me see why and how Lewis can express himself so well in his other works. Overall, I do recommend this book. Enjoy!!!
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Stay AWAY from Vegas!!!!
I have relatives and I know people who take their kids and spend a few days in Vegas for fun. I remember stopping there as a kid and seeing the cool hotels although I always hated the smoky casinos, the pools were always nice. It was never my idea of a great vacation, but it seemed harmless enough, and some people seem to really like it.
Weeeeeeellllll, not me!!! We had the unfortunate experience this weekend of getting stuck there on our way to a family event in San Diego. I was recovering from a severe migraine and still had a headache in no condition to drive safely for 6 more hours and my husband had a pinched nerve in his shoulder that got so bad he could no longer move his entire arm also in no condition to drive safely. Then my mom worried us that if it was his left shoulder we'd better get it checked out to make sure it wasn't a heart attack. The pain culminated right outside Vegas while we were looking for a Subway. Anyway, we decided to call it quits, find a hotel and an after hours clinic and at least let the kids swim even though they were so looking forward to the beach. It was sad.
Anyway, we were stuck in Vegas and if I had to do it over again, I would turn around and go to the first non-casino hotel I could find on my way back to Utah. We called my uncle to get some recomendations for places to stay in Vegas and he thought Excaliber had rooms for $33/night, so we drove down the strip in pain trying to find it. There are so many billboards and ads for a "good time" that include a ton of soft porn, it is sickening to even drive down the strip. Then as if that weren't enough, we got to follow a billboard truck advertising some whores/ "babes" "who want to meet you" for at least 20 min. I'm glad my children weren't any older. Definitely keep your teenage sons away from this trash town. So we finally found Excaliber and it was $100/ night, but we took it anyway. Then we walked our sweet little children through the casino which smells of cigarettes all the way across to the elevator to get to our rooms. The only appropriate thing we could find on T.V. was baseball, and we had to make sure to turn the complimentary magazines over. What a rotten place.
Since my muscular man was out of comission, I rounded up some dinner and brought up a few things from the car which meant I had the "privilege" of walking through the casino several times. Most everybody was wearing the trashiest cut off shorts and tank tops, there was a really bad Kareoke room, some sports rooms and bars, and a pole dancer. I just kept my eyes off her as much as possible, but I don't think she was even very pretty. I did observe the people watching her though. There was a group of guys which I can understand, but there was also a group of women and there was a couple--which I don't understand as well. There were also a ton of tatoos. It is just one messed up debauched place. I wanted out of there as soon as possible. I suppose that if you planned ahead and knew your way around a little bit, you would know where to avoid. If there was a show you really wanted to see, you would go, watch and leave. But to me, it's just not worth it to see all the ads and other depravity going on there.
The pool ended up being O.K. although it didn't open 'til 9 a.m. so we let the kids swim for a little more than an hour, and then we were out of there!!! I don't think I've ever been so happy to be back in my little sheltered land of Utah. I didn't realize how much I like it here until I've been away. There were a ton of booze shops and gentlemen club billboards and ads in the Chicago area a few weeks ago when we went. I like Utah. So far, I don't see things I don't want to see driving down the road. We count the temples as we go down the freeway. There are families with children in the restaurants. I lived all over the place as a kid and I didn't think I was partial, but I am now. I'm glad to be in Utah!! I hope it stays innocent for a long long time!!
One thing is sure--STAY AWAY FROM VEGAS!!!
Weeeeeeellllll, not me!!! We had the unfortunate experience this weekend of getting stuck there on our way to a family event in San Diego. I was recovering from a severe migraine and still had a headache in no condition to drive safely for 6 more hours and my husband had a pinched nerve in his shoulder that got so bad he could no longer move his entire arm also in no condition to drive safely. Then my mom worried us that if it was his left shoulder we'd better get it checked out to make sure it wasn't a heart attack. The pain culminated right outside Vegas while we were looking for a Subway. Anyway, we decided to call it quits, find a hotel and an after hours clinic and at least let the kids swim even though they were so looking forward to the beach. It was sad.
Anyway, we were stuck in Vegas and if I had to do it over again, I would turn around and go to the first non-casino hotel I could find on my way back to Utah. We called my uncle to get some recomendations for places to stay in Vegas and he thought Excaliber had rooms for $33/night, so we drove down the strip in pain trying to find it. There are so many billboards and ads for a "good time" that include a ton of soft porn, it is sickening to even drive down the strip. Then as if that weren't enough, we got to follow a billboard truck advertising some whores/ "babes" "who want to meet you" for at least 20 min. I'm glad my children weren't any older. Definitely keep your teenage sons away from this trash town. So we finally found Excaliber and it was $100/ night, but we took it anyway. Then we walked our sweet little children through the casino which smells of cigarettes all the way across to the elevator to get to our rooms. The only appropriate thing we could find on T.V. was baseball, and we had to make sure to turn the complimentary magazines over. What a rotten place.
Since my muscular man was out of comission, I rounded up some dinner and brought up a few things from the car which meant I had the "privilege" of walking through the casino several times. Most everybody was wearing the trashiest cut off shorts and tank tops, there was a really bad Kareoke room, some sports rooms and bars, and a pole dancer. I just kept my eyes off her as much as possible, but I don't think she was even very pretty. I did observe the people watching her though. There was a group of guys which I can understand, but there was also a group of women and there was a couple--which I don't understand as well. There were also a ton of tatoos. It is just one messed up debauched place. I wanted out of there as soon as possible. I suppose that if you planned ahead and knew your way around a little bit, you would know where to avoid. If there was a show you really wanted to see, you would go, watch and leave. But to me, it's just not worth it to see all the ads and other depravity going on there.
The pool ended up being O.K. although it didn't open 'til 9 a.m. so we let the kids swim for a little more than an hour, and then we were out of there!!! I don't think I've ever been so happy to be back in my little sheltered land of Utah. I didn't realize how much I like it here until I've been away. There were a ton of booze shops and gentlemen club billboards and ads in the Chicago area a few weeks ago when we went. I like Utah. So far, I don't see things I don't want to see driving down the road. We count the temples as we go down the freeway. There are families with children in the restaurants. I lived all over the place as a kid and I didn't think I was partial, but I am now. I'm glad to be in Utah!! I hope it stays innocent for a long long time!!
One thing is sure--STAY AWAY FROM VEGAS!!!
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Signing Time Videos
My husband bought the first Signing Time video for the kids to learn some sign language this past year and the kids loved it. Then a week or so ago, my 4 yr. old wanted to watch it over and over again and everybody watched along with him and learned all kinds of signs and really enjoyed it. So we decided to get the whole set of 13 DVD's for the kids especially because we are going on 2 long trips this summer in the car, and this way we figure they can not only watch movies, but learn something useful along the way. The kids really like watching Alex and Leah on the show with the animation. All 5 of my kids sit and watch and enjoy the show. There's lots of music and practice using the signs. Even the 2 yr. old knows some signs. It has given me a little relief to be able to clean and rest when needed, because I know they are learning something useful even though I am not right there to guide them through it. I'm glad my kids are learning sign language. I hope we can meet someone we can talk to with it sometime. It has been a lot of fun!!
Their official website is www.signingtime.com
Their official website is www.signingtime.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)