Thinking in Colors

I have spent most of the afternoon thinking.  I am always taken aback at how my *body* THINKS.  It's often very much like my prayer life.  I am SUCH a FEELER in personality that my thoughts and my prayers are often waves of emotion with a profound word or two here and there.  A sentence about this, an exclamation point here, thoughts and scribbles over those thoughts over there.  My thinking sessions and my ongoing daily prayers are often not very specific.  They are not strategic planning sessions or well outlined discussions with the Supreme Dude, but they are more like waves that flow though out my day.  The waves at the ocean side are always there yet they are never exactly the same.  So are my thought sessions and daily prayers: ever moving, ever changing but very present.

I wonder what my *deep* thoughts would look like if they were translated into colors, scribbles or shapes?  I imagine a very strange screen saver type of activity with background colors fading from one color into another.  The background color would have scribbles on top.  Sharp scribbles, fast scribbles, wavy scribbles, dark scribbles, light scribbles, curvy scribbles,s.  l.  o.  w.  scribbles, and occasional resting scribbles that result in a dot which grows and grows and grows much like a marker or old fashioned felt tip pen resting on paper.

I can spend most the day *thinking* and not have a dissertation, or even ONE profound well worded thought, accomplished in the end.  I used to find that disturbing.  Since then I have realized that instead of a profound thought I am often left with contentment deep in my spirit.

I think the contentment might often be the better reward.

Today, I have also spent a great deal of time reading over summaries on the Myers-Briggs' Personalities that my hubby and I each hold.  He is a very strong INTJ.  There are not many of them out there but our home is graced with an outstanding one.....even if it does cause us to scratch our heads and wonder sometimes.  I am an ISFJ.    S and F are sensing and feeling.... I oooze emotion even when I am trying to suppress it, yet don't readily cry (I am still trying to figure this one out).  Hubby has intuition, thinking and judgement.... he is the anti-emotion and he wishes I could think in the strategic ways that he does many times.  I want to also........but every time I try I get a brain filled with a color that changes into another color and I get scribbles moving on top of those changing colors in their own complementary color schemes.

I am so amazed that God can use two very different creatures as well as He does in one household.  We are both only children, we are both very independent and we are both strong in our personalities.  THANKFULLY God has chosen to USE two very different creatures together for the good of his kingdom, starting right here on the homestead.

Expedition Australia (A Review)

I have always been intrigued by Australia.  It is just so different from the flat corn fields in Central Illinois where I ran and played as a child.

(They looked like this...minus the very new, expensive barn.)

Australia has always seemed mystical to me.
A completely different climate.
Animals I had only seen on Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom.
A language that was so close to mine but so peculier it made you giggle.
A land that was so far away it seemed as if Peter Pan's Neverland was actually closer to home.  After all I had seen the stars... but oceans? Nope.

Australia.

I must admit... when I received this e-book I was not as excited as I thought I would be.  I mean how on earth can an e-book get you really excited about the magical land of Australia?

The e-book I received was:
Download N Go Expedition Australia

created by The Old Schoolhouse
and Amanda Bennett
for children K-4th Grade.

After I began to scroll through the pages, I was amazed at how captivated I had become on the journey it was taking me.

Australia.

Sure, I'd love to find out more about Australia and those funny looking animals on it's cover.

I flipped inside and began reading the introduction:  "The name, Download N Go™, comes from the concept that these studies are ready to use as soon as you have downloaded them. No preparation or waiting time or other expensive resources are required. A few inexpensive items are needed for the lapbook—a simple file folder, a glue stick, safety scissors, brass brads, and crayons or markers. That’s it—simple, effective, and what a way to learn!"

The above paragraph is completely true.  Once The Old Schoolhouse Store receives your $7.95 the book magically appears in your email and it is ready to go. Grab your glue sticks and your folder, start printing, start reading and away you go into a very well planned, mind captivating journey to the magical country of Australia.


On your journey you will have lessons in geography & geology (the oceans, the continents, latitude and longitude, the geography of Australia and it's differing habitats, unique Australian geological features, major cities and even a look at the Australian Starscape).


You will get up close and cuddly with Australian animals such as the kangaroo, the wombat, the platypus and the Tasmanian devil (the non-cartoon variety).

You will get to learn many facts about the Australian flag, the Australian National Anthem, National Australia Day and even get a look at Captain Cook and the Aborigines.

There are DAILY mapping, drawing, vocabulary, time, temperature and mileage activites which reinforce scientific and social studies concepts in fun ways.

BEST YET . . . . you get to make a beautiful lapbook.

Scared of lapbooks????  Not sure what a lapbook is??
 ME TOO! (or at least I WAS)


That's why I LOVE this ebook so much.

There is a very encouraging "Introduction to Lapbooking" page that includes four wonderful links showing great hands-on explainations of what lapbooks are and how to make them.

Still scared of Lapbooks???
Have no fear!  The activities are so well laid out in this ebook.  The printables are so beautifully done and so easy to assemble.  If you follow the lessons and use the printouts as they are directed you can not help but have a beautiful lapbook when you finish your one week lesson. It all falls into place so easily without you even realizing it.

Speaking of following the lessons: this is the easiest to follow ebook I have seen.  After the introduction is a recommended book list for the ENTIRE unit (which makes your library day flow much more smootly) and the Introduction to Lapbooking page I already mentioned.  

After these "set-up" pages, the curriculum is organized by days.  To do the lesson you simply begin reading.  When you come across a resource link (videos, maps, illustrations), you click on it.  When the resource finishes you return to where you left off and continue on.  When it is time to do an activity it tells you AND THEN it provides a handy link.  A mere click of the link zooms you directly to the activity you have been instructed to work on. When you are finished with the activity there is ANOTHER LINK which zaps you right back to where you were in the lesson.  The ease of manipulating this ebook is spectacular and well thought out!


Here's a peek at the worksheets and activity sheets:

 Because of the many internet links, the picture rich format, the ease of following the material and of course the animals my boys LOVED this curriculum.  


The recommended age range is K-4th grade but my 3 year old (Nicknamed: Captain Distractable) was very capable of maintaining his attention with much of this curriculum.  The lap books are a true bonus and so easy.


I would highly recommend 
Download N Go Expedition Australia

You may purchase it and access it immediately at
The Old Schoolhouse Store
for a mere $7.95.

Still not sure?  Visit the store and click on the "Click HERE to view a sample" link and you will be able to view the first 7 pages for free.

There are other Download N Go Options as well.
You may purchase each Unit individually for $7.95.
You may purchase a bundle and receive 4 units from a particular month.
You may purchase an entire semester of one unit a week for 19 weeks.
And you may also purchase an entire year of 38 lessons.

Here is a glimpse at some of the topics included in the 2010 schedule: George Washington, Amelia Earhart, Benjamin Franklin, Davey Crocket, Dolphins, Whales, Tornados, China, Ireland, Mexico and much more.
 I truly believe that you will not be disappointed in these unit studies.  They are beautiful and very well done.



** please note that author received a free copy of Expedition Australia for the purpose of review**

Needs Blog Help

I want to make my blog really pretty...... but am having trouble with anything other than the pre-set blogger.com backgrounds.

If anyone is wise enough to be able to help a new blogger.

If anyone actually SEES this request. 

If anyone has patience enough to help someone who has NO knowlege of the Html whatever code'ish type mumbo jumbo stuff that one needs to know about to make such changes..... please let me know.

I saw a couple of fun and pretty backgrounds here: 
http://www.mystylebackgrounds.blogspot.com/

Perhaps there are others elsewhere.

I am not sure if it is my Umbutu or my operational errors or that I am just plain HTML/blog ignorant but I can't seem to figure out how to get them on my blog.  In fact much of what I read makes no sense to me.

If you can help, please let me know.

Until then.... you all are stuck with the background that is currently up.

Look AT HOW THEY GROW!

I just can't believe that my boys were every this little!  Look at how stinkin cute they are!  The big guy is now nearly 6 and my baby girl is as bigger than my linebacker up above.  I am guessing that this was taken when #1 was about 3 and #2 was about 6 months old.  I can tell you one thing.... Blankie is not NEARLY as plush as she was in this picture!

Like Dominoes They Fall....

with the stomach flu!

No one can complain that life is boring around here!

Coffee & Spilled Chili & Mud.... OH MY!

COFFEE:

I don't remember being clumsy as a child or young adult.  I remember being able to dance anything choreographed and yet always tripped on stairs, but that was just a stairwalking deficiency.

I remember ONLY eating and drinking from plastics as a pregnant woman because I was overcome with hormone induced clumsies and now that I think of it I don't think I ever recovered.   Kind of like my ability to think and stay on task.  Oh wait, maybe I always had trouble with that too?  Yep, I think that's why my friends in highschool always teased me by asking me why I had dyed my beautiful blonde hair to brunette.  Yep, a bit of scatterbrain has always been with me.

Why am I talking about this?  I dunno.  Oh wait, yes I do. 

Because I wanted to lament that once again the keyboard to my Dell Mini is detatched from it's nice little cozy stable bed as it airs out from a minor coffee spill.  Thankfully, THIS TIME it was only about a tablespoon, but it still is causing my keyboard to spaz out. (I, by the way, am typing on my hubby's MONSTER laptop.)  My last coffee spillage (which my daughter actually did, NOT ME) was nearly half of a cup!!!!  That was REALLY bad.  REALLY, REALLY bad.  I am now banned from having coffee on the same horizontal surface as my computer.  This is a wise rule and as often as I already have to re-heat each cup of coffee....I'm not sure I will really be bothered by it too much.  :)

CHILI:

 I think when we are the busiest God shows us where we ourselves are frayed, raw and just plain ugly.  

We had a VERY busy day at church planned.  I had 3 kids, a laundry basket, a large plastic tub filled with library books and a crockpot full of chili to get to church and set up.  Hubby had worked last night and would not be around to help.  

I thought my morning was going quite well....minus the behaviors of my boys.  (We've been having some on going sibling issues.)  We were even leaving the house early (in hindsight this was God ordained).  500 yards from our driveway the sibling issues kicked in AGAIN and in effort to make a very strong point to those with the behavior issues.... I pulled the van to a stop at a very rapid rate.  While we were quickly coming to that stop I realized the crockpot was tipping.  It was on the floor of the passenger side of the van.  As I watched it tip, I tried to lean over so that I could grab it and stop the tipping.  This is when I realized that INDEED my seatbelt had locked as a properly working seatbelt should and I could NOT reach the blasted crockpot!   I put the van in park, explained what behaviors would NOT continue and what behaviors would begin.  I expressed very firmly our motto for the day "If you can't be nice then DO NOT TALK!!!"  

Then I turned the van around to go back home.  I grabbed a ladle (seriously!) and a chicken scraps bucket and began ladling my potluck food off from the floor of my van and into the chicken bucket.  OH WAS I MAD!  I dearly love THOSE chickens but they should not be eating my vegetarian chili before any adult had tasted it!

I continued to remind the boys that if they can't talk nice they should NOT TALK! I wiped down as much of the chili soaked area as I could then we were on our way.  Leaving at the time we normally leave.

We had a great meeting and potluck. We got home, I put the kids to nap (despite many protests) and then went outside to shampoo out that section of the van's carpet.  THANK GOODNESS my mother forced upon us her old carpet shampoo'er 5 years ago.  It has bailed us out at least 4 times now!  :)  I am also incredibly grateful that it was sunny, warm and still daylight while they were all in nap.  When one must learn the consequences of a bout of fury it is nice to know the good Lord has enough Grace to provide decent circumstances for us to work in as we mop up the havoc.  Well, at least today. 

MUD:

 

Mud never used to bother me.

But now I have a mother (city girl) dropping off her baby every day.  

Mud still doesn't really bother me.

It's kind of a nuisance, but mostly I am concerned for the safety and driving ability of anyone driving into our farm.  

My mini-van has 4 wheel drive.  

I have never had so MUCH FUN in spring.

AND IT IS SPRING on this here farm 

whether you or the calendar agree with it or not!

MUD!  Sloppy, gooshy, gloppy MUD!

 

(and it's only going to get worse before it get's better)

Anyone in for some muddin'?

When I Grow Up, I Want to be. . . A Firefighter (A Review)

I have been asked to review the e-book 

When I Grow Up, I Want to be . . . A Firefighter. 

This book has been created by The Old Schoolhouse, a highly esteemed homeschool resource, magazine and store.  You can purchase this e-book from The Old Schoolhouse store for only $8.95 and the moment payment is secured it magically appears in your email.  I was very impressed at how this e-book business works!

I must admit when I received this product I could not wait to dig into it.  I was tortured when I was unable to do so right away.  Life had decided it was going to try to run off without me for awhile (baby goats, a newborn to figure out as I watch over her in the daytime hours and a homeschooling-farm life that just sometimes refuses to let me do what I want).  Can you imagine?

I was SO VERY excited to download and start looking at this curriculum because my boys are FIRE FIGHTER CRAZY!  

Their backpacks are airpacks
(although that's the real thing in the picture).

 

 Their snow boots (when dry) are fire fighter boots.  

Their snowpants are their firefighter pants.

The couch is their fire engine.

My couch blankets and the dog bed are their firehouse cots.  

The kitchen floor is the water for their water rescues. 

The dogs are firedogs and rescue dogs and their baby sister is often the cat up the tree (and she often IS literally UP something needing rescued).   

My boys are FIREFIGHTER CRAZY!

When I Grow Up, I Want to be . . . A Firefighter

walks the reader through a great amount of firefighting information as if the reader is participating in a career day with a firefighter.  

The book covers some history of firefighting, equipment, building codes, what life might look like for a firefigher (in a LARGE city), requirements for some firefighting departments, salaries of firefighters in a few large cities around the country and my boys' favorite section: The Firehouse DOG!

The e-book then jumps into the world of robotics.  With a few sentences addressing how firefighting can now use and hopes to further use robotics to assist with fires that are too dangerous for humans, the book dives into what robots are, how they are configured and then provides hands on activities to build your own robotic arm and play games that are robotics related.

The Old Schoolhouse store stated: "This multi-age unit study has activities for children from 4 to 10, but the content is appropriate for the whole family---teens, mom and dad, and grandparents too."

I would recommend this book to older elementary students, teens and even adults but I was honestly disappointed in how it did not seem to live up to the younger edge of it's recommended age range.  

I found that the math problems, the creative writing assignments, fill-in-the-story, word search, crosswords and the physical games and activities would be wonderfully engaging and challenging for children who are 2nd to 3rd grade and up.    For that age grouping I believe the vocabulary used throughout the narrative would be understandable, yet stimulating.  My Kindergartener who is reading quite well for a 5.5 year old kept asking me "What does that mean?"  "What did you just say?" "What is it talking about?"  I needed to re-phrase much of the book for him to understand.

There are wonderful, creative math word problems.  However, again, my oldest son who is doing 1st grade math would not be able to do a single math problem in this book.  There were no one-step problems included in this curriculum (Ex: 2 firetrucks arrived at the fire when 3 more came, how many trucks are there now?)  I felt the beautiful problems in this e-book were far over his head asking multiple step questions.  Again, for the older reader these questions are very entertaining and challenging (ex: There are several stations: station A has x trucks, station B has Y trucks, station C has z trucks, each truck has X amount of hose, how much hose to they have total?)  There are also salary questions, time questions, chart reading and calculating questions.  They were great problems, just well above what my 5 year old can tackle at the moment.

I was asked to review this product and tell how it would work for my family.  I must admit that I was disappointed.  There were only 4 pictures with firefighters, their equipment or the firedog.  There was 1 map, 2 charts, 2 house pictures (fire code section) and 7 robotics pictures.  Only one picture had FIRE in it.  My boys were so disappointed and kept leaning into the computer looking for MORE pictures.

On page 80 of 82 there is a website list.  Many of these links had more age appropriate games & activities as well as real life firefighter photos and interactions.  My problem is that I did the book with my children in sequential order and had completely lost them by the time we got to these resources.  I hope to pull them back in this week with a few website visits.

I personally felt disappointed in the lack of firefighting range the book covered.  It covered firefighting from a very large, urban perspective.  As you know if you have seen any of my posts below.....we are small town, rural America.  Our firefighters are volunteers, they do not live at the firehouses, and the number quoted for how many firefighters might apply for one firefighting postion was about double the amount of people that live in the "large" town where I buy most of my groceries and home needs.  It did not cover large forest fires and honestly it barely even covered house fires and the techniques and equipment needed to control them.

With that said . . . . my FAVORITE PART OF THIS BOOK 

(When I Grow Up, I Want to be . . . A Firefighter) 

and the part that would (for me) make this product  

completely worth the $8.95 was the  

Themed Party Ideas!!!

 There is an ELABORATE section in the back that details decorations, food ideas and GAMES GALORE!  The game section includes fun games such as: fire bucket brigade, dress up relays, water relays, obstacle courses and more.

The food section includes items such as: Firehoses in a blanket, Fire Engine Red Fizz, Red Hot Chili, Firehouse dog cookies and amazing directions telling you how to create your very own fire engine cake.  It is actually even simpler than the one I made my 3 yr old in November.

 

...but couldn't possibly be as cute.  :D

I will likely use the coloring sheets (which are detailed yet still simple) as well as the printing copy work.  The copy work comes in both printing and cursive and includes some extra history and fun facts.  Each sheet also has an illustration bubble in the center for children to draw what the page is describing.

Overall, I think

When I Grow Up, I Want to be . . . A Firefighter

 is an okay curriculum for older elementary students, especially if they live in a large urban center.

There are 9 other books in the When I Grow Up Series.  

Perhaps you would want to check them out at  

The Old Schoolhouse Store.

*Disclaimer:  I was given a free copy of the book reviewed above for reviewing purposes.*