Sunday Inspiration~ February 24, 2019

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Till Next Time,

Monique

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Review~ IXL Learning

Please Note~ This post may contain affiliate links. If you choose to click on a link, add it to your cart and complete your purchase, I will receive a small percentage. We are very grateful for this additional source of income. Thank you.

IXL from IXL Learning  is a comprehensive online curriculum for students in grades Pre-Kindergarten through High School. We were given an annual membership for Michael and Therese to work on various skills.

What is IXL?

As I stated before, it's a comprehensive online curriculum for students of all ages. Students can work through math, language arts, science, social studies, and Spanish. The program is standard-aligned. It's a fantastic program to help increase a students knowledge in a particular area. The program is perfect for reinforcement of skills students have already learned.

What does IXL offer?

IXL offers a variety of programs for the students to work through. They can work through all the subjects or just pick the ones they need to work on. It's really up to them.

Math~ Pre-K through 12th

Language Arts~ Pre-K through 12th

Science~ Grades 2nd through 8th

Social Studies~ Grades 2nd through 8th

Spanish~ Introduction to Spanish

The program is a personalized learning system that adapts to your students progress and understanding. As your student works through the lessons, they will receive personalized skill recommendations. While answering the questions, they will be given questions that adjust to their needs. If they excel in an area, they will move on. If they struggle in an area, the program will adjust the questions to help students master what they are learning. 

What We Thought About IXL?

We focused on two main areas of this online curriculum. Michael worked on the Introduction to Spanish and Therese worked on her math skills. Neither of them worked in the language arts, science, or social studies sections. If you want to learn more about those areas, I head on over to read the other crew members reviews.

My Thoughts~

I'll be honest. I miss read what the program was. I saw comprehensive curriculum and mistook that as a complete online curriculum source. IXL offers all the subjects, but does not provided lessons. Students work through the questions. When they get to a topic they don't know, a parent will need to provide some knowledge. The child can answer the question. If they answer it right they will move on. If they answer the question wrong, a brief lesson will then be provided. Students may have a hard time comprehending a new topic since it isn't fully explained. After searching around for lessons, I finally understand that this curriculum is more of add-on. It can supplement existing curriculum, but it can not be used as a stand alone curriculum. It's like an online workbook to help students master skills. Parents can easily prepare lessons, but a student wouldn't be able to log in and get everything they needed. At least that is my opinion. Some students may do well for a while, but I think eventually they'll hit a point where they would need some lessons. If the lessons were presented before the questions, it would be a wonderful source for all students. I loved how parents were able to log in and see where the students were excelling and where they were struggling. I could even recommend lessons for them. The parents log in page shows the students usage, diagnostics, trouble spots, scores on lessons, questions that they answered, and their progress through the program. It's definitely easy for parents to keep track of their students progress. 

Therese's Thoughts~

Overall, she has enjoyed the program. She has been working through the 7th grade math section. She does wish their was an option to watch a lesson before answering the questions. When she came across a topic she didn't know, she would ask me or answer the question wrong to get to the lesson. She felt that having an option to watch the lesson before hand would be much more helpful for the students. At times, she would get frustrated as she worked through a lesson. If she answered a question wrong it would drop her score and she had to keep going. She said you would get different colored ribbons according to the percentage you answered correctly. Being a perfectionist, she wanted a 100. So if she wasn't doing well, she stopped after awhile to regroup. She's eventually go back to the lesson. 

Michael's Thoughts~

Michael has been working on the Introduction to Spanish. We both were fairly excited to give this one a try. He had been working on a free online program for Spanish was good, but it had to no way for me to grade or see what he had been doing. This program solved that for me. Michael's Spanish is very limited. He's done exceptionally well on the lessons, but as he has gotten further along in the program, has limited Spanish has started to frustrated him. He complained of the lack of lessons. He said this program would be better for a student has already taken Spanish 1 and needs a little more practice to feel comfortable with the language. 

Discover more about IXL Learning on social media.

Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest 
YouTube

Be sure to stop by and read what the other crew members had to say about IXL!

Till Next Time,
Monique

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Sunday Inspiration~ February 17, 2019

Please Note~ This post may contain affiliate links. If you choose to click on a link, add it to your cart and complete your purchase, I will receive a small percentage. We are very grateful for this additional source of income. Thank you.

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.” 

~C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

Till Next Time,

Monique

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Review~ For the Temple from Heirloom Audio

Please Note~ This post may contain affiliate links. If you choose to click on a link, add it to your cart and complete your purchase, I will receive a small percentage. We are very grateful for this additional source of income. Thank you.

So our first review of the year is here! The kids were thrilled to receive For the Temple from Heirloom Audio. This was one of the many books they had to read for history. Listening to the book, For the Temple by G. A. Henty on CD was much more appealing to them. Now that they are older, they no longer are huge fans of listening to anything on CD. When they were younger, they loved books on CD, but now they both tend to prefer to read them. However when you have to read 4 or 5 books for a history unit, listening to one of those books on CD is a wonderful idea. It breaks up the monotony and boredom. It also allowed them to get some work done while we were running errands. Car schooling~ it really is a thing!

What is Heirloom Audio?

Heirloom Audio is a company that produces high-quality books on CD. The books are filled with adventure, morals, and values that our children need to be exposed to. Listeners will get to experience history brought to life. They will hear stories about virtue and valor, while being exposed to characters that display tremendous courage and determination. Perfect role models for our children.

For this review, we received a physical CD copy of For the Temple. The 2 disc CD set is $29.97, plus shipping and handling. When ordering buyers will receive the CDs and instant access MP3 download. To go along with our historical adventure story, we received a wonderful study guide to further our learning.

"The time is coming when every Jew 

who can bear arms will be needed 

in the service of his country." 

Your hope can not stop it."

For the Temple is a wonderful tale about the Roman occupation of Israel. John, the son of a wine maker, lives with his family along the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee. We first meet John in the year 67 A.D. Nero is the Roman emperor. He is worried about the Palestine area. He chooses a trusted man named Josephus to deal with the conflict in Israel. Josephus runs into our main character John during a storm on the sea. John and his betrothed Mary are out at sea during a terrible storm. Josephus rescues them and is impressed with the calmness John portrayed during the ordeal. He encourages John to join him on the battle field. John, with the permission of his parents, heads off to battle.

“The first duty of any Jew is to protect the Temple. 

I will fight that battle.” 

 His father has always taught him that it's their duty to protect the temple. He spends months learning under Josephus. As the battles rage, Roman occupation tightens its grip. John must decide for himself who and what he is fighting for. He must make a tough decision on one of the darkest days in Israel's history. Will John save the temple or destroy it? To find out how the story ends purchase a copy of For the Temple from Heirloom Audio Productions.

What Did We Think of For the Temple?

We enjoyed the story. It fit perfectly with our history lesson. As I mentioned before this story was on the kid's reading list. Listening to the story was a nice change for them. They've been complaining about ALL THE READING THEY'VE HAD TO DO THIS YEAR! Can you hear them groaning?

Michael loved listening to the characters. He loves trying to place the voices from other movies he's watched. He likes how the characters are interesting to listen to. He even suggested the company should create cartoon movies of the stories. He says kids would love them!

Therese thought the story was O.K. She's not a big fan of books on CD. She tends to zone out when listening to books on CD. She says she'll probably read the book to gain more from the story. I think the story CD has piqued her interest in the book a little. She does love to read.

So What About the Study Guide?

The study guide is impressive! It's filled with information and activities for all ages. The study guide was designed for parents who want to help their younger children understand the story-line and lessons. The guide also includes writing assignments for older students. The study guide is broken up into section. Each section covers about 4 to 8 minutes of the audio. Each set of questions has three section... Listening Well, Thinking Further, and Defining Words. 

Listening Well~ These are questions to ask the students about the story. This is great for listening comprehension. They offer easy questions for younger students and a few harder questions for those older students. All the questions can be answered by listening intently to the story. Be sure to remind the little ones to have their listening ears on.

Thinking Further~ These are the questions to ask your students so they have to think a little. Yes, they have to use their brains. They may have to look something up, draw conclusions about a certain character. What were they thinking? Why did they do what they did? What were the consequences of their actions? These questions will help students think and hopefully increase their understanding of the story. 

Defining Words~ Vocabulary words are given to increase the student's knowledge. They will need a dictionary or google for this one. 

My favorite parts of the study guide are the Thinking Further and Defining Words. I assigned Michael and Therese the vocabulary words as a worksheet. I had them look up the words and write down their definitions. I figured this would be a great way to increase their vocabulary, especially since they both will be taking the SAT test in a few years. The Thinking Further questions provided me with a few written assignments for the to complete. These were perfect for reports and papers. For example and essay about how the Judeans and Galileans differ and how did they regard each other was a perfect writing assignment for them. It went along with history and religion! They weren't too thrilled with the writing assignments, but it was a wonderful bonus for me. 

Want to learn more about For the Temple or Heirloom Audio? Check them out on social media.

Facebook

Twitter

Instagram

Be sure to stop by and see what the other crew members had to say about For the Temple!

Till Next Time,

Monique

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Sunday Inspiration! February 10, 2019

Please Note~ This post may contain affiliate links. If you choose to click on a link, add it to your cart and complete your purchase, I will receive a small percentage. We are very grateful for this additional source of income. Thank you.

Till Next Time,

Monique

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Classically Catholic Memory~ Delta Year Week 15

Please Note~ This post may contain affiliate links. If you choose to click on a link, add it to your cart and complete your purchase, I will receive a small percentage. We are very grateful for this additional source of income. Thank you.

Religion~
John 11:25-26

To learn the bible verse this week, I had the kids look the verse up in the bible and read it out loud. They then worked on their cursive handwriting worksheet I had created for the verse.

Here's a craft I found online to go along with this bible. I saved it to use with my first grade students at church, but it would be great for younger students this week.


Latin~ Tantum Ergo

We are still working through this hymn. We still using the same techniques we used over the last few years. You can read more about it here. 


History~

This week we moved into World War II. For this study, we'll be using the Time Travelers: World War II from Home School in the Woods.  This fantastic unit study provides students with lots of information, a fun lap book to create, projects to complete, notes to read, crafts, and food recipes from the era. It's perfect for hands-on learning.

Science~
Nervous System

This week the kids learned all about the nervous system....the brain, the spinal cord, and all the nerves that run through our bodies!
Here are some of the free resources I found online to help us learn about the nervous system.

Lesson about the Nervous System

Worksheet # 1

BrainWorksheet 

Worksheet # 2 

Brain Hat

Math~
Liquids
1 cup= 8 ounces
2 cups= 1 pint
2 pints= 1 quart
4 quarts= 1 gallon

This week we played around in the kitchen! What better way to learn measurements of liquids. The kids made a gallon of homemade lemonade, we baked some cookies, and they helped prepare dinner. This is one of the easiest weeks to study, but also one of the funnest weeks too.


Geography~ Africa

Uganda
Outline Map
Flag coloring page

Kenya
Outline Map
Flag Coloring Page

Label Nairobi on the Kenya outline map.

Tanzania
Outline Map
Flag Coloring Page

Take a blank outline map and have the kids label Mount Kilimanjaro, Lake Victoria, and Lake Tanganyika. Heading to the library to check out a few books about Africa can help them learn more about the beauty this stunning country has. Maybe try a few traditional recipes too.

Great Words~
O Captain! O Captain! by Walt Whitman

This is our last week with this poem. The kids have worked on memorizing this poem written in honor our Abraham Lincoln.

Till Next Time,

Monique

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Happy Homemaker Monday~ February 4, 2019

Please Note~ This post may contain affiliate links. If you choose to click on a link, add it to your cart and complete your purchase, I will receive a small percentage. We are very grateful for this additional source of income. Thank you.

Hello there! I hop you all had a fantastic weekend. The kids met up with friends and froze themselves while they played laser tag Friday night. Dear hubby and I enjoyed a dinner date at Olive Garden. While there we ran into another couple from church whose daughter was also playing laser tag. 

Saturday, we started on the bathroom remodel. It was demolition day. Cabinets, sink and toilet were all taken out. We are now all sharing one bathroom. The kids are complaining, but it reminds me of when I was little and we lived with my grandparents. Saturday night the kids went to church. Michael had to serve. I stayed home because I wasn't feeling well after accidentally eating expired Ranch dressing. Thankfully I only had about a tablespoon. Not a fun night.

Sunday, I head to church and then taught my little first graders all about the Twelve Apostles. They loved playing the Apostle's Fishing game I created for my kids many years ago. Where does the time go?

Welcome to another Happy Homemaker Monday. 

I love joining in with Sandra over at Diary of a Stay at Home Mom.

So let's get started and see what the week has in store for us...

The Weather~

We are getting a warm up! Our temps for the next couple of days will be in the 60's. 

Monday~ 60

Tuesday~ 66 (beautiful and sunny)

Wednesday~ 53

Thursday~ 71 (with rain)

Friday~ 59

We'll be heading out to enjoy those warm temps and sunshine after last week's frigid temperatures!

and then we head back into the normal range of temps...

Saturday~ 40

Sunday~ 30

I'm really ready for spring, colorful flowers, and flip flops.

Right now I am~

Typing up this blog post. It's early afternoon. The kids are finishing up their schoolwork. I ran to the post office this morning to mail out some packages and pick up some packages. One of the disadvantages of living out in the sticks. No mail pick up at the house and no packages get delivered to the house. We get a slip in the mail and have to head into town!

What was for breakfast~

Coffee and a protein shake. 

I determined to actually lose 20 pounds and get back into shape. 

What's on the to do list for the week~

Laundry...it would be nice to have a week without laundry.

Mopping the floor after the snow, rain, and ice. The floors have muddy dog prints on them.

Painting the bathroom

What I'm reading~

I just finished up the The Heiress of Winterwood by Sarah Ladd. Tonight. I'll start on The Headmistress of Rosemere by the same other. It's book 2 in the Whispers on the Moors series. I'll have to see if the library has the 3rd book in the series. I'm hoping they do.

                                                       

What I've been thinking about~

The future and how quickly time passes us by. It weird how it feels like we were just starting out. Getting married, building a new life together, making a home, and having babies. The toddler years flew by. I remember clearly the giggles and the smiles. It's hard to believe we are now heading into driver's ed, first jobs, and the quest for colleges. It's a new path. Slightly scary, a little lonely, but exciting also. 

We've headed into a new season. One I'm not quite ready for. I don't think any mama finds it easy to let go of their little ones. But isn't that what we must do...allow them to spread their own wings. I think back and remember how excited (and scared I was) when I began that journey. I remember feeling so ready, and knowing my parents weren't. It's strange to be the parent now and have the roles reversed. I know our days will be filled with tears, happiness, and prayers. Lots and lots of prayers.

On the TV~

I actually watched The Time Traveler's Wife the other night. I have to say I was a little disappointed. I enjoyed the book so much more than the movie. I guess that's just me though. I'd rather be reading than watching TV.

On the Menu~

We finally got to the store yesterday. A word of advice..NEVER GO TO THE STORE ON SUPERBOWL SUNDAY!!!! It was packed and crazy. Never again. Just so you know I did not watch the Superbowl. I don't really care about it and have no desire to watch it. BLEH~

So on with the food...

~Sunday~ 

Tuna sandwiches, warmed and with melted cheese, with chips

~Monday~

Creamy Chicken Spaghetti Casserole

~Tuesday~

Grilled Burgers, Homemade fries, and salad

66 degree weather means it's time to cookout

~Wednesday~

Bacon Wrapped pork chops with stewed apples, green beans

~Thursday~

Crock pot shredded chicken tacos and rice

~Friday~

Homemade Gluten Free Chicken nuggets, Gluten Free mac n' cheese

~Saturday~

????

~Sunday~

????

What I'm sewing~

I'm working on a purse for my friends daughter. It's a hobo style bag. It's fairly simple and easy to make. I just have to sit down and find the time to work on completing it. 

What I'm Praying for~

Friend and family. We all have something we are dealing with. I;m sure we all could use a little extra pray in our lives. 

Like Saint Padre Pio said "Pray, hope, and don't worry."

Words to live by.

From the camera~

Nothing. I need to get back to taking more pictures. I took tons of photos when the kids were little, but I've found as they gotten older and lapsed in that task. So I've given my self a goal for the week. Take 10 photos.

Till Next Time,

Monique

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Love is in the Air!

Please Note~ This post may contain affiliate links. If you choose to click on a link, add it to your cart and complete your purchase, I will receive a small percentage. We are very grateful for this additional source of income. Thank you.

Every year, I love decorating for the holidays. It doesn't matter what holiday it is. I just love how the house looks and feels when it's decorated for the upcoming holiday. Now that the kids are older, Therese loves to help me. I love how it brings us closer and we get to spend quality time together. 

Now that the kitchen remodel is done, we've been looking for some new fresh decorations for Valentine's Day. I think we found a few to add to our collection.

A new banner for the bay window.

These would look so cute on top of the entertainment center.

I'd add this rustic heart to the shelves in the kitchen.

 

These pillow covers are cute and the perfect way to add some love to the living room.

I thought this wreath was beautiful. 

Bonus~ It can be used for Valentine's Day, spring, and summer. 

This rustic little heart would be great for a little charm.

 

Add this to some red flowers and it's a wonderful way to show Love for Valentine's Day.

I love the look of table clothes, table runners, and place mats but with 3 cats they don't work well in our house. Cats go running across tables, sliding, and taking the cloth with them. We've even caught them sleeping on place mats before. 

Happy Saint Valentine's Day!

Till Next Time,

Monique

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Sunday Inspiration~ February 3, 2019

Please Note~ This post may contain affiliate links. If you choose to click on a link, add it to your cart and complete your purchase, I will receive a small percentage. We are very grateful for this additional source of income. Thank you.

Till Next Time,

Monique

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