Growing Up Wild

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When I received the Growing Up Wild DVDs in the mail, I immediately opened the package and the whole family watched both videos in one sitting.  My girls often make fun of my turning every moment into a learning moment.  One pretended that she would rather do dishes than sit and watch a “school” video but when I looked toward the kitchen sink she was all eyes on the TV.  By the end of the video, she said “I like these.” 

It is very fitting that our history focus this year is on Countries and Cultures.   There is a huge slant toward missionaries in our studies.  We are actually reading one missionary biography now.  Reviewing these videos was such a wonderful addition to our studies. 

There are 5 volumes in the Growing Up Wild series featuring the Wild missionary family who minister to the Wanu people in Indonesia.   We received Volumes 1 and 4 to review.  Each video includes 3 – 15 minute segments for a total viewing time of 45 minutes for each Volume.  Volume 1  includes segments on the Wild family home, their water and power supply, and how they receive provisions in the remote area in which they live.

Volume 4 includes segments on the animal species that live in the jungle, the Wano Culture, and the missionary work done there.  I really wish something like this existed for more areas where missionary families serve.  It really gives you a first hand look at the day to day lives of missionary families.  Each segment ends with a scripture focus and a challenge for every Christian to consider how they live their lives and to make sure what we do counts for Christ.  Love that!You can purchase all 5 videos for $80.95 or each volume for $18.95.  Activity Guides are included with the DVDs.  They include activities to “go deeper” and really learn the ways of the missionary lifestyle.  There are also simple activities to help remind us to appreciate all of God’s blessings including nature and science.  One such activity included keeping track of all the food your family eats including the price of that food.  Then plan how much you will need to buy for a 3 month supply much like the Wild family does. 

A few thoughts:

I would advise parents with young children to view the videos first before showing them to their kids.  In many third world countries wearing little to no clothing is common.  There were a few shots that caught me off guard but nothing close to vulgar.  It is definitely within the context of living in the jungle.  One should just know that it is there – brief bare bottoms in adults and bare fronts in young male children. 

Also one scene left all of our mouths hung open as I was caught off guard watching a common house cat eat a nice sized mouse.  I have all girls so it may go over differently in a home with all boys.  My husband definitely got a kick out of that footage.

I really like the packaging of these videos.  It is very professionally packaged.  That may not be very important to many but I like it.  I would suggest to the Wild family to have their videos included with a packaged curriculum provider that has a cultural study especially one that focuses on missions. 

See what my other "crew mates" thought of Growing Up Wild here.

Disclaimer: As a member of the TOS Crew, I received this product, at no cost to me, in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are mine.

 

Home School High

I am so proud of my 10th grader Princess.  She has an incredible work ethic and she is so responsible.  I am also excited about her future.  While she works diligently on her studies, I am constantly researching ways to make sure she is prepared for every future opportunity.  

We visited our first college fair this week at the local community college.  She was really impressed with one admissions representative we spoke to.  The rep spoke very enthusiastically about her school and made us like it.  But it is a small school with a population of 745.  Too small for my tastes but it made me realize how influential a rep can be for a school.  We also got a chance to speak with an academic advisor for the community college since Princess will take a few classes next year through dual enrollment.  We peaked into a few classes that were in session and it left us feeling pretty excited about next year. 

Another exciting thing this week was getting Princess' first Literature paper graded by a community college ENG 101 professor.  I'd been looking into resources for having outside grading done for papers this year when I stumbled across a college professor who frequents TWTM forums.  She was willing to grade Princess' papers at the agreed upon rate we discussed.  She sent me her resume and a copy of her college faculty ID as verification of her qualifications.  I sent her a copy of the first paper by email and by snail mail along with a check for the fee.  Her written evaluation of Princess' paper was worth her fee (which is inexpensive to begin with) 10X over.  It was chocked full of detail on ways to improve the paper and kudos for the things she did well.  She used her classroom rubric and scored the paper a 89%.   Princess was very excited with the feedback.  So was I.  I am so pleased with this arrangement and with having "outside" evaluation of her writing skills.

What else is working well?

Weekly lesson sheets - my diligence in giving the girls these sheets every Monday morning is working wonders for keeping us all on track.

VocabVideos.com - I did a review of this product a few weeks back.  Princess looks at a video segment each week.  She does the online quiz, and crossword puzzle and I encourage her to use the new words in literature papers in conversation.  I am also learning new words.  Quite often I comment on how assiduous Princess has been with her studies. :)

I pray that all of this diligence will pay off at PSAT and SAT time!

This is the first time I am linking up with theDaisyHead and Home School High.  

    

   

Science in the community

One thing I can really appreciate about living in the area I live in is the many opportunities available to homeschoolers.  A friend sent me an announcement by email for Science Saturdays which were being held at our local community college.






The program allows 6th - 7th graders to explore STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) related topics.  The class my younger girls participated in explored forensic biology.  They learned how to test for body fluids, extracted DNA from a strawberry, practiced hair analysis, did fingerprinting, and delved into the topic of chromatography.

Pumpkin went kicking and screaming.  She just couldn't understand why we had to "do school" on a Saturday.  By the end of the 3 hour class she was all smiles and enjoyed what she learned and for $20 mom was all smiles too. 

In the Spring, there will be a mini med school which is a series of 4 anatomy classes with hands-on experiments and dissections.   I never do science justice so I am glad these classes came along for us to participate.

I also got a chance to look around the community college as I had never been to this campus.  They recently opened the science building we were in so having the biology class in a real college science lab was icing on the cake.  

The Kennedy Center

I always get inspired to do a weekly wrap up after I read other bloggers' wrap up.   I'm inspired by their week and maybe just maybe someone will be inspired or encouraged by my week.  I decided to try a different format this week to switch it up a bit. 

My Favorite Thing this Week...  seeing Sphinx Virtuosi with friends at the Kennedy Center.  I was surprised at my reaction to this performance - simply exhilarating.  One solo performer was 15 years' old and I was just in awe of her performance.  There is a Q & A session after each performance.  An audience member asked how long she practiced and she answered 5 hours per day!  She then said she was homeschooled so she had time to do that.  Of course there were homeschoolers in the house who cheered loudly after that.

From their website:
 The Sphinx Virtuosi Tour offers a diverse program featuring well-known repertoire in addition to works by African-American and Latino composers, including works by Mozart, Piazzolla, Michael Abels, Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, and others. The Sphinx Virtuosi (formerly Sphinx Chamber Orchestra) is a conductorless ensemble comprised of alumni from the Sphinx Competition for young Black and Latino string players. This unique group has earned rave reviews from The New York Times. Allan Kozinn of the Times described their performances as "first-rate in every way" and the ensemble to have "produced a more beautiful, precise and carefully shaped sound than some fully professional orchestras that come through Carnegie Hall in the course of the year."

 We're Reading...well we just finished Around the World in 80 days.  It's part of the Excellence in Literature curriculum that Pumpkin is doing this year.  We often like to look at the movie of a book after we read it so we got this copy from the library.  This version was not very well done.  There is an updated version with Jackie Chann but it isn't at my library yet.

 Places We're Going...  the usual weekly routine of co-op, the YMCA for Zumba, Art & Piano.

 Things I'm Working On... staying ahead of the kids with the weekly lesson plan sheets.  If I'm organized it makes for a smoother week.

Random Things I'm Thinking about ...  preparing Princess for 11th grade that looms right around the corner - ordering drivers' education materials, talking to the local PS to make sure I get a spot for her to take PSATs,  application to VCU's Art intensive for high schoolers, and talking to the local CC for dual enrollment. 


Head over to weirdunsocializedhomeschoolers to see what other moms were up to this week.

Beyoutiful Products

Well it's not everyday you get to review skincare products on a homeschool blog but that is just what I am about to do.  At The OldSchoolhouse review crew, we got an opportunity to review products from Beeyoutifulskin.com.  I don't wear make-up everyday and most people tell me I don't need it but everyone wants a finished look every now and again so I chose to review the make-up products.  I usually wear make-up on Sundays when I go to church.  Even the clerk at the grocery store yesterday  commented on  how nice I looked.  I know one should just say thank you but I couldn't help but to say "I know, all the other times I come in here I look a mess."

I had to choose 3 sample colors from the website to try before selecting the one product I would receive in the mail to review.  To say that this was a daunting task is an understatement.  Looking at colors on the computer or even on paper is so very different from actually trying the colors on the skin.  Nonetheless, I choose three foundational colors that I received in the mail.  I followed the instructions for testing each color on my skin tone.  I choose the one I felt closely matched along with two eye colors to try and received the full product in the mail a week or so later.    Coincidentally, on the week of my birthday, I received:

1 Foundation color
1 Foundation brush
1 Eye/lip color
1 Multi-purpose brush
1 DVD
Retail value: $53

Since I reached a milestone birthday I felt like celebrating.  I wore the make-up everyday of that week!  I got that finished look I like along with complementary eye color that I adore.  Beyoutiful skin mineral make up is all pure, natural with no chemicals, preservatives or fillers.   They have over 20 foundation colors from the lighest skin tones to the darkest skin tones and over 45 eye colors, blushes and bronzers.  There is a how-to video at their website that gives instruction on how to apply their make-up.   Make-up packages start at $52.00.



In addition to the beeyoutifulskin care line of products there are a host of other health products at their beeyoutiful.com website.  These products include essential oils, vitamins, supplements, and so many other products. These products are worth a look especially for the conscious consumer who is interested in all natural products.

See what my other "crew mates" thought of Beeyoutifulskin here.

Disclaimer: As a member of the TOS Crew, I received this product, at no cost to me, in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are mine

Box of Ideas

There is something about getting a package in the mail that makes one giddy.  You want to rip open your package and enjoy whatever surprise awaits you inside.  Such was the case when we received the Box of Ideas package in the mail to review.    I sat the box unopened on the desk in the kitchen and each member of my family asked, “what’s that?”  However, the lucky kid who would actually get to use the box asked, “is that for me?”  With my “yes” she was off to discover and explore the contents of that mysterious box.

I didn’t examine the box with my 11 year old initially but I let her discover it on her own.  The next two days I heard “mom, this is soooo cool!”  I saw charts and documents on my fridge that she added to on a daily basis.  I saw her examining nutrition labels before eating and working undeterred at her desk with that big white box.  Now, I had to discover for myself what all the excitement was about.

We reviewed the Salt Box.  The rectangular shaped black and white box includes 10 self contained modules that delves into the history, geography, language, science, and other topics related to salt.  Who knew there was so much to learn about salt?  Each module is neatly packaged with everything you need for that particular module.  There is a background sheet with information to read including links to further investigate the topic.  After the reading, there is a hands-on activity to reinforce the concept the student just read about.  You don’t have to do the modules in order but my dear daughter started with Module 1 – Need For Salt. 

In this module, she was able to read about the human body’s need for salt and was sent on a trip to investigate the sodium content of the foods we most commonly eat.  This led to a trip through my pantry which she listed, on a chart provided with the module, all the foods we had that were high in sodium and low in sodium.  There were also two colorful food sheets which are now on my fridge, that lists the sodium content of common foods including foods from McDonald’s, Pizza hut, Subway, and Taco Bell. 

She worked independently on the first 3 modules of the Box.  She placed all of her findings from these modules in a 3 ring binder.  It is an impressive presentation of colorful bar charts that show where so much of the Earth’s salt is produced, an article of salt mines in the news, and pictures of salt habitats.  Great stuff!  One module included a game board and a map for the student to match salt facts presented on card stock with the country the fact referred to.  The game activity left room for the student to include facts of their own but my daughter was inspired to take the concept to create her own “matching” game.  This module sparked a lot of her own creativity and reinforced our own geography lessons as we are focusing on countries and cultures this year.  I love when this happens – cross curriculum reinforcement.  

At this point, I jumped into the box (well, not literally) to discover it for myself.  My daughter wanted to do the last module which included an experiment which examined the question of which salt has the greatest affect on the freezing point of ice.  This exercise was a gentle introduction to the world of science labs which she will do next year in 7^th grade.  She had to predict what she thought would happen and record her results and her experiment form.

We have thoroughly enjoyed this curriculum.  I believe it falls into the category of being a unit study.  I know there are more themed boxes in development.  Ideally, each box focuses on the age range of 9-16. Currently you can purchase Salt, World Word II, Eleven, Quilting, Pigs and Laundry – such a random list of topics.  The Box of Ideas curriculum box can be purchased at www.boxofideas.us for $79 or you can purchase the PDF download for $49.  In my opinion, opening the box and discovering all of the units is part of the fun.  It is great to further delve into a topic that may be briefly covered in one’s main curriculum or to completely go down a rabbit trail and discover something new.  This is how we used this curriculum – a rabbit trail adventure. 

My 6^th grader often finishes her work before everyone else.  She likes to stay on task and checks off the boxes on her weekly lesson grid.  It is motivating for her to know that she has completed everything on time or ahead of time.  Most kids would read but she isn’t an avid reader.  Having something like Box of Ideas is just what she needs when she is finished all of her school work.   It is engaging, educational, and fun.

The only one suggestion I would make to improve the curriculum is to label each module 1-10.  Sometimes it was hard to know which module we had completed and which one we wanted to discover next.  We had to open the plastic holder and look inside to see if we had in fact completed that module.  A number system would help to keep it all straight.  Otherwise each module was nicely packaged with labels listing what was inside and what was needed to complete it.  

See what my other "crew mates" thoughts of Box of Ideas here.

Disclaimer: As a member of the TOS Crew, I received this product, at no cost to me, in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are mine.
 

Week 3 of School & Landry Academy

To say its been busy around here is an understatement.  I've heard it said that the busy people get things done.  I think psychologically you know you have to stay on top of more things so you just get it done.  Not an idle moment here.  Using grid sheets for each student keeps everyone on track has been working really well.  Everything is planned out down to how many pages to read each day to when to ask mom for the quiz or test.  No one has to wait on mom to go to the next thing and they know to ask for help immediately if they get stumped. Of course this requires me to stay on track of grading work but that's a topic for another day. We are starting out our day together around reading the bible and this book:

It is part of the MFW ECC curriculum which the younger girls are doing this year.  The stories are fascinating and we can't wait to find out each day what will happen next in this adventure.  There are some great discussion questions at the end of each story which makes for great conversation among us.  The reviews at amazon.com all same the same thing - enjoyable book that captures so many truths of the Christian faith.

I've been so busy with The Old School house curriculum reviews that I've hardly had a chance to write a weekly wrap up.  What prompted me to write one this week is Princess' experience at Landry Academy's 2 day lab intensive.  It was great!  I dropped her off Monday morning at 8:30 am.  My mom who lives in the city where the intensive was held picked her up and took her back the next morning.  The intensive was held about 1 hour from our home.  What an experience.  She dissected a pregnant lamb, a frog, a sheep's heart, and a cow's eye.  I know gross and so much more than what is required in a high school biology course.  I was concerned that it was too much in a short period of time and would she remember all the details as she studies the text throughout the year.  Let me tell you my concerns weren't warranted.  She took lots of pics and Landry provided a nice book of notes with lab reports for her to fill out.  I was able to look through and see her diagrams and write-ups.  She also worked within a group to perform the labs.  I could've never replicated this experience at home or at the local coop.  I can't believe I was so broken up about not getting in the coop biology class back in June.  This was so much better and all for the cost of the microscope I would've purchased to do labs at home. This was worth the money. 

If Landry comes to your city do not hesitate to sign up.  I know this sounds like a review but it is not.  I am looking at other classes they offer to see if there is anything we should sign up for.  I'm thinking we just might tackle Chemistry at home next year and do the 2 day intensive for Chemistry with Landry.  

This was such a great experience I'm hoping other Landry classes are this good.   Dissection pics to follow, look at your own risk:

Head over to weirdunsocializedhomeschoolers to see what other moms were up to this week.