I'm excited to tell you about a beautiful Bible story book illustrated by Michael Welply. Jehovah's Mighty Acts Bible Stories by Nathan J. Langerak is published by Reformed Free Publishing Association. 

Always eager to find an engaging Bible story book for children, I sat down to read the book first. Immediately, i was so impressed with the lovely illustrations. I had to stop reading and flip through the pages to look at the pictures. There are 31 Bible stories starting with Creation and ending with Esther. The focus is on stories that display God's mighty acts like creating the world, appearing to Moses in a burning bush, the escape from Egypt, the day the sun stood still, and rescuing the Jewish people through Esther.  

You see, this book is more than Bible stories, there is deep theological truth in each lesson. It is like mixing Scripture with theology class and making it easy to understand for children. I loved it! 

In the chapter 2 "God's Friends" we meet Adam and Eve in the Garden. We learn lessons on marriage, friendship, ruling and took care of the animals. We learn that Adam and Eve ruled like a king and queen in the garden. They enjoyed a sweet friendship, a reflection of their friendship with the Lord. 

Now to complete the review, it had to be child-tested. So, my daughter read the book to my grandson who liked it, but his mom felt that it was a little too old for him. That made sense because Rusty is four. The book is written for ages seven to ten. My daughter enjoyed the book, though and wants a copy for her homeschool library. 

Now to find someone in the age group it's written for. 

I had my friend Gracie read the book and she enjoyed it! She felt like the stories made more sense to her than ever before and she understood them better. She loved the book!

I started reading Agatha Christie cozy mystery novels in middle school. I loved to match wits with the detective and try to solve the case before Miss Jane Marple or Hercule Poirot did.

My Mom loved cozy mysteries and she passed her enjoyment to me. 

One thing I didn't realize as a young teen was how great the writing was in some of these vintage novels. They quoted in French and Latin occasionally. They referred to Greek classics and history. Yes, Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, G.K. Chesterton, and Ngaio Marsh are great authors who produced classic literature. Being a whodunit doesn't change that! But, it does make the reading more fun! 

​I introduce my teens to Agatha Christie in middle school because she is such an amazing writer. For most of my children, this leads to reading more and more cozy mysteries. That helps me reach my goal of raising children who LOVE to read!

I even created a high school English course for my kids that uses mostly cozy mysteries from the "Golden Age of Mysteries" (1920s to 1940s) and we spend the year writing our own whodunit novel. It's a blast to create a detective, plant clues or red herrings, and lead your reader on a chase to uncover the true murderer. Who knew school could be so fun? (You can check out Who Dun It here)

Wait, I've digressed. Agatha Christie has written over 60 cozy mysteries that are fun to read and best of all, well-written from an educational and literature standpoint. So, if you like Agatha Christie, I bet your teen will, too. And if you've never read her, well, you will have to read one of her novels, too. 

Here are some of my favorite Agatha Christie novels. Two of these whodunits are solved by Miss Marple, one by Tommy & Tuppence, and the rest by Hercule Poirot. Enjoy!

My mother passed on her worn copy of Little Women, Little Men, Jo's Boys, Rose in Bloom, Eight Cousins, Jack and Jill, and Old-Fashioned Girl to me. I read them to shreds! I cried and laughed while I learned lessons about virtue and kindness. Of course, I didn't realize I was learning those lessons, but I did. 

This books are part of my heritage and they filled many hours of my girlhood with warmth and happy thoughts. I loved nurturing Meg, kind Polly, gentle Rose, strong willed Jo, and loving Beth. They stood for me as definitions of what it meant to be a "good girl." 

Yes, these books are old-fashioned. They will take you and your daughters back to a time of good manners, virtue, and kindness when parents were respected and people went to church. 

You will laugh and cry as you get involved in their adventures. 

I recommend these lovely books to young women ages 8 to 88 because the stories are timeless, classic in the true sense of the word. Louisa introduces us to well-rounded characters who grow, learn, and change. Family and home are places where life happens. You will related to the heroines and their friends and family. Because after all, times may change, but the longings in our hearts stay the same. 

These books are all in our home library. Little Women is the most popular of her books, but I recommend starting younger girls with Jack and Jill. I have listed all 7 books my mother passed to me below with links to buy them on Amazon. You can also find these books at used book stores. 

Little Women, Little Men, and Jo's Boys are a trilogy about the March family. Eight Cousins and Rose in Bloom introduce you to Rose Campbell. Jack and Jill and Old Fashioned Girl stand alone. 

My son loves to play chess and so do several of my young friends so I was very intrigued by the opportunity to review Fun Family Chess from Brain Blox!

As soon as the family chess set arrived, I bought it to our homeschool co-op. There are many chess fans in our co-op so I wanted them to try it out. 

Peter enjoyed playing the game and said that it was fun to play with the dice because it made the game more random and he was able to get his friend Daniel, who hates chess, to play. He also liked that you can play regular chess, too!

Samuel thought it was really fun and like the options. He thought it was a great way to introduce non-chess players to the game. 

Gracie loved all the pretty colors in the booklet and on the dice. She liked the easier version and said it made her want to keep playing. 

Daniel was surprised that he enjoyed it so much. 

Fun Family Chess contains a wooden chess board and 32 wooden chess pieces. In addition, there was a full color chess directions booklets, a pouch to hold chess pieces, two full color reference cards, and a chess cube. 

I love that everything is color-coded so that learning chess is made more simple. 

It is always a delight to review any book in The Secret of the Hidden Scrolls series from Worthy Kids. I reviewed Secret of the Hidden Scrolls: The Shepherd's Stone (Book 5) and Secret of the Hidden Scrolls: The Lion's Roar (Book 6). 

As I was with the first four books in the series, I loved these two books. I read them myself first and was delighted to find that they are accurate biblically and teach a practical Christian life truth in addition to the Bible story. I shared these books with my four-year grandson whose mom read it aloud to him and an eight-year old girl from our homeschool co-op who read it on her own. They both loved the books!

Secret of the Hidden Scrolls: The Shepherd's Stone (Book 5) is from I Samuel in the Old Testament. It's the historical tale of David visiting his brothers and ending up a war hero after fighting the taunting Goliath. David fights for the glory of God with confidence in His power to defeat His enemies. Along the way, Peter and Mary hear some of the songs (psalms) David has composed and see his bravery in facing down a bear. I love the way humor is used in the story, too. 

I had forgotten until I read this little book that David is from Bethlehem. Of course, Bethlehem is the City of David. A good refresher for me!

My favorite part of the book is when David loses 1 of his 99 sheep named Pearl. What does that remind you of? Yes, you got it!  Two of Jesus' parables in one: The Pearl of Great Price and the Shepherd Who Goes Looking for His 1 Sheep. 

Secret of the Hidden Scrolls: The Lion's Roar (Book 6) takes us back in time to Babylon. With the author MJ Thomas' skill, we see the Ishtar Gate, Processional Way, Hanging Gardens, Statue of Marduk, the Euphrates River, a ziggerut, cuneiform writing, and the sparkling blue and yellow tiles decorating buildings all over the city. Lions, dragons, and bulls are everywhere. I was delighted as a homeschool mom at how much history was included.

The story is woven delightfully to let us meet Hannah and her grandfather Shadrach (yes, that one!), Daniel, and the king. We see the power of God to protect Daniel when he is thrown into the lion's den. I loved the story! And I felt like I was a visitor to Babylon meeting Daniel and experiencing his adventure! This book could easily turn into a great unit study. I'm adding it to my Ancient History historical reading list. 

In each adventure story, Mary and Peter must solve the puzzle in a certain amount of days or they will be stuck back in time forever. There are also rules they must follow including not changing the past or revealing that they are from a different time period. The angel Michael appears in every story, too. 

Sometime during the middle school years, each of my children took a world geography course where they did lots of mapping using blank outline maps. They filled in landforms like mountains, rivers, oceans, lakes, forests, grasslands, and deserts. They also filled in political maps with names of countries, capitals, and important rivers. 

At the end of the course, the children had to draw their own continents with national political boundaries using a grid. The end-of-the-year map included political boundaries, landforms, and important places. Some of them were works of art, being so precise, neat, and colorful. 

When my youngest son came along, I decided to let them do something a little more creative. They would make their final world map, but this time, it would be on the master bathroom wall. 

The first decision was to choose the map projection for the wall. They had to choose between the Robinson projection, Mercator projection, and the Universal Transverse Mercator System. They chose the Universal Transverse Mercator System which did make some of the countries look a little bit odd. 

Once we choose the projection, Jimmy and his friend carefully measured to make the lines of latitude and longitude drawing lightly with pencils. Later these would be erased. 

Using the lines, the outline of continents was drawn first with light pencil so that they could be erased if need be. 

I was so excited to review Progeny Press's Hound of the Baskervilles Study Guide! You see we are reading Hound of the Baskervilles for our Who Dun It? Cozy Mystery High School English Course. It was perfect timing! 

Progeny Press is a great place for homeschoolers to go to get study guides for classic literature written from a Christian perspective. 

Hounds of the Baskervilles Study Guide starts with a synopsis of the book, a brief summary. Next, we learn about the author Conan Doyle. 

We also learn a little background information. Hounds of the Baskervilles is actually a Gothic novel, so we explore that genre. 

​We followed the advice in the Prereading Activities section and looked up the words more, mire, tor, and gorse. I was glad we did because that helped so much with reading and understanding the book. Next, explored Dartmoor in Devon, England on the internet. It is a beautiful place, but easy to see how it can be spooky. 

After reading the first chapter of the book, we started with vocabulary and then learned about Sherlock Holmes' deductive reasoning. This was followed by questions about the chapter. 

I was impressed with the questions about the story that went far beyond rote answers. I loved the analytical questions that really led the students to dig into the story. The analysis questions and Dig Deeper questions were excellent. I felt that we analyzed literature in a deep way in this study guide. 

Equally impressive were all the optional activities at the end of the all the English work. There were science projects, Bible study, history fun, research, art, architecture, type setting, writing, journaling, and discussion questions. This could definitely be a complete unit study!

As a homeschooling mom and homeschool co-op teacher, I feel that this study guide is a treasure! 

Progeny Press is the place homeschoolers can go to get study guides for classic literature written from a Christian perspective. I was so excited to review Progeny Press's Little House on the Prairie Study Guide!

The Little House books are favorites in our house. My older children read these books followed by hours of playacting. 

We started by reading the short synopsis of the book and biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder. We also read the historical background information together and discussed that time in history of Westward Expansion. 

We did not go camping because I prefer to see nature through a window, but we did find and label all the suggested places the guide mentioned like the Mississippi River, the Verdigris River, Fort Gibson, Missouri, Wisconsin, etc. That was great for knowing where the little family was starting out and where they ended up. 

The first English lesson was impressive to me. We found synonyms and explored similes and personification. Then, we answered plot questions. At the end were some questions to help the children go deeper and really think about the book. I really liked everything about how Progeny Press teaches English! Well, of course we had to make the cornbread and Molasses Milk--we love to cook! We tried two more of the eight suggested activities: we wrote a letter from Laura to Grandpa and we listened to some of the suggested music. What fun!

We continued on through the book and study guide which stayed fresh with a variety of creative assignments. I was totally delighted with Little House on the Prairie Study Guide. There is nothing lightweight about what they teach, yet they keep it fun and creative. Very impressive!