The award winning children’s book Miss Rumphius has been a favorite in our family for at least 15 years.

It’s one of those that I’ve read so many times, I have it memorized. So, when I discovered that Progeny Press offers a downloadable digital study guide for Miss Rumphius, I thought it would be fun to take a look at it. We’ve used and enjoyed other Progeny Press study guides for The Golden Goblet, The Hunger Games, The Giver, and several other titles, but we’ve never used one for the lower levels.

Literature plays a huge role in our homeschool, from the very earliest age on. Not only because I feel like they’re more effective than textbooks, but also because I feel that many books, movies, and other media offer us a fantastic opportunity to illustrate aspects of the gospel for our kids. I love what this article says about it:

So many elements in arts and media affirm aspects of the gospel. The children’s stories Love You Forever and The Runaway Bunny resemble the unflinching love of God in books with no religious terminology. Even the music of Lady Gaga, Pink, Eminem, or Katy Perry sometimes express the deep human longing and shows the universal need for the gospel. For young people to see the truths of Christianity lived out in the world affirms belief that the Christian message is real. Having this skill of discernment will enable them to turn arts and media into a source of encouragement as they enter the world as adults.

[Read more…]

I always have great intentions of including a foreign language in our studies in the elementary years.

And we mostly do – it just isn’t always as consistent as I would like. Living in South Texas, Spanish is the obvious choice, but I have to admit that when time is tight (which it often is!), it’s one of the things that gets pushed to the bottom of the list. Still, we’ve tried several different programs over the years, some that we’ve really liked, and others that we haven’t. The latest one that we’ve tried out is Middlebury Interactive Languages. For the last month or so, Kendall (9), Kade (6), and I have been using their Elementary Spanish 1 course, meant for approximately grades K-2.

Middlebury offers immersion style online programs in Spanish, French, German and Chinese, for students from kindergarten through 12th grade. The courses are self paced and multimedia, using a variety of approaches including text, audio, video, and interactive activities. [Read more…]

Reading the Laura Ingalls Wilder “Little House” books is a rite of passage in our family.

I can’t even count how many times I’ve read the Little House on the Prairie books, both as a child and with my own kids. Kendall (9) and I had just finished reading through the whole series together when I was offered the chance to check out Laura Ingalls Wilder: A Storybook Life, and it’s accompanying unit study curriculum guide, part of the Heroes of History series from YWAM Publishing. We’ve enjoyed other books from this series, so I thought it would be the perfect follow up to our reading.

Heroes of History is a unique biography series that tells the stories of fascinating men and women who changed the course of history, both in the past and all the way up into modern times. With names ranging from statesmen like Benjamin Franklin and Abraham Lincoln, to literary giants like C.S. Lewis, to modern public figures like Billy Graham and even Ben Carson, plus many more, these books, written in an engaging narrative style, are suitable for the whole family. [Read more…]