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 in the Hidden Scrolls: The Shepherd's Stone (Book 5) and Secret in 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 in 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 in 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. 

Making your own map is a great learning experience! 

Set up your budding cartographers, or map makers, with a large  blank sheet of white paper, a set of sharpened colored pencils, and an atlas or globe. 

Our children make maps when we are doing a unit study on a country. When we study geography, they create world, continent, and country maps. We have created religion maps, time zone maps. resources maps, and religion maps. 

What is involved in creating your own map? 

Well, you can be as creative as you want to be, but all maps have the following 5 ingredients. 

1.  Title

The Title of a Map tells everyone all about the map, its information, and the purpose of map. If you map title is "Business Headquarters in Europe," readers will expect to see Nestle, Aldi, and Bayer headquarters, along with all kinds of other businesses dotting the map. 

If your title is "Mountains of the World," then the readers will expect to see a world map and all kinds of mountain ranges likes the alps in Europe and the Andes in South America. 

"Lakes in North America" would present the Great Lakes and other large lakes on the continent. 

Choose a TItle for your map that lets everyone know what your map will be about. 

2. Grid

Every map needs a grid, most often with lines of latitude and longitude. The crisscrossing lines of latitude and longitude create a grid to make it easy to find a location. 40 degrees north and 40 degrees west is a location that can be found on a world map using lines of latitude and longitude. this location is somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. 

If you were making a map of your bedroom, you might use crisscross lines to create little boxes to give locations for your bed, dresser, toy box, and closet. 

Graph paper can make a great grid for maps, as long as you label the lines based on longitude and latitude. 

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! 

"Let's do something different tonight!" I suggested. 

Every family night we played a game or watched a movie both of which everyone enjoyed, but I wanted a change. 

All eyes were upon me. 

"Let's create commercials!" I smiled at my brood. "It will be so much fun!" 

Before anyone could complain, my husband divided the family into 2 groups.

Each group would come up with a commercial and record it. Then we would watch each other's commercials together while we ate cookies and popcorn. 

With eyes on the popcorn, one group went upstairs to brainstorm and the other group stayed in the family room. 

The upstairs group decided to do a hair removal commercial. Use my mascara, they created a uni-brow on Jenny Rose, then 11.They also added massive amounts of "hair" to one leg. Jenny Rose would be the victim of peer cruelty because of excessive hair growth, but NADS hair removal would come to her rescue. The dialogue was priceless. 

The other group decided to do a cooking commercial in the kitchen with lots of slapstick comedy thrown in, including falling down and spilling things. The final scene would show everyone bandaged, but happily eating the delicious food cooked in the space age pots. 

Needless to say, the night was a huge success. We had a blast! And over the years we have watched these videos over and over. 

My husband and I raised and homeschooled three sons and a daughter in a four-bedroom 1400 square foot old ranch style house. Every member of my family are musicians and artists. We had a drum set, piano, guitars, flutes, easels, sketch pads, paints, and many more art supplies, in addition to everything else a homeschool family needs.
​
Four small bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a tiny kitchen, and a great room, as well as closets were all we had to work with. There was no garage or basement for storing lawn equipment, sports gear, tools, holiday decorations, out of season clothing, or whatever else people store in these places. There was no office, playroom, or homeschool room to separate students. We needed creative solutions.

Though we were blessed with plenty of storage spaces, there were no walk-in closets. The house was built in the early sixties with tiny closets and bathrooms. We did have boxes and totes. Each closet had two selves over the clothes rack, which we filled with totes. We lined the hallways with bookshelves and installed at least one in each bedroom. Bed frames were not just to keep the box springs off the floor. They made room for more storage. These were all good things.

I learned a new cooking term recently, “mise en place.”

It’s pronounced meese on plos. It’s French and it translates as everything in its place.

Apparently in the restaurant world it refers to having all your ingredients and tools prepared and at the ready when you begin a dish.

​It’s imperative in a busy restaurant kitchen to do this so things keep moving and guests get their orders promptly. It’s also very helpful in a home kitchen as well. It keeps us from starting a dish and finding out halfway through that we’re missing a critical ingredient.

Or that we loaned out that special tool we love to use in this dish.

Or that it takes much longer to prep a certain ingredient than you have time in the cooking process.

Any of these can ruin your dish.

​Isn’t the same true about homeschooling? 

Cozy mysteries are popular with many homeschoolers and their parents. When they walk by my booth at a convention, they stop a minute when they see the cover of my Who Dun It Literature & Writing Class. After all, it's a detective detecting. 

I get lots of questions about this course so I thought I would answer the most popular questions I am asked. 

First of all, Who Dun It Literature & Writing Class and Economics, Finances, and Business are my best-selling books. Both are one-credit high school courses that are a little out-of-the-box. 

Before I answer questions, let me tell you a little bit about how Who Dun It came to be. Before my oldest child started high school, I decided to take a year and write a novel in English class. To be honest, I just thought it would be an exciting way to learn creative writing. However, the benefits amazed me. Writing your own literature gives you such a depth of understanding literature. In addition, creative writing is a completely different kind of writing than high school students usually do. I was blown away by the creative dialogue, plot ideas, and characterization my older two children created. 

Along came my third daughter and we shared a love of mysteries. Why not write a mystery and read classic mysteries that year? Great idea, we both thought and so I created Who Dun It. Again, I was amazed by the plot twists, red herrings, and surprise at the end. It required quite a bit of thinking, creativity, and logic to write a mystery. We had so much fun. I ended up teaching this course several times in a co-op setting and each time we had a blast reading one another's stories aloud as we progressed through the course. I love teaching this course!

​Okay, on to the questions. 

Yes, this is a real high school English course with classic literature to read and writing skills to learn. An English course doesn't have to be boring to be a one-credit English course. 

Yes, of course. They read classic cozy mysteries by Edgar Alan Poe, Sir Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, G.K. Chesterton, Dorothy Sayers, Ellery Queen, E.G. Bentley, and Mary Higgins Clark. Like all classic literature, these works are well-written, timeless stories. Reading these works will increase vocabulary and strengthen grammar skills. 

Algebra II can be an overwhelming challenge for high school students. What's a homeschool mom to do? 

My friend Laura, a math major in college, and I lead a co-op together. We have noticed over the years that so many moms come to us during Algebra II. Their teenager has breezed through math all his life and suddenly he hits a wall: Algebra II. He is discouraged and doesn’t want to do math anymore. Mom is throwing her hands up in despair. 

What do we say?

When I speak on high school at homeschool conventions and workshops, at least one parent confides in me afterward that their “A” Math student is suddenly struggling to understand Algebra II.

Why oh why is Algebra II so hard for so many high school students?

My Experience With Algebra II

Several of my children breezed merrily through Algebra II, but then we hit a snag. My daughter completed a whole year of Algebra II and felt lost. We changed curriculum, got a tutor, and she was able to finish up high school with pre-calculus.

Why Does Algebra II Seem So Hard?

In Algebra II, teens encounter the following:

• Complete the Square
• Solve the Quadratic
• Conic Sections
• Irrational Numbers in the Denominator
• Logarithmic Functions and Exponents

Wait! I just lost some of you! Hold on. Let me sum this up, Algebra II introduces new things that are based on knowing, understanding, and being able to work with a variety of math from the past. It’s not only learning new things, but combining old things together in ways that students may have never experienced.

Of there is something from past math courses for the struggling math student that they never quite got, especially working with decimals and fractions. In tutoring Algebra II, my friend Laura often has to go back and review mathematical concepts from 5th or 6th grade.

Why Don’t They Remember?

One of the reasons I homeschool is to teach  my children from a Christian worldview. 

What does it mean to homeschooling from a Christian Worldview?

It means imparting life to my children, teaching them truth, and introducing them to the life-changing person of Jesus Christ. It means fulfilling the Great Commission by raising children who love Jesus with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength.

A Christian worldview acknowledges that there is a God who is involved in the affairs of mankind, that the Bible is true and speaks to all of life. We know that people live in a fallen state, they are not basically good, they need to be rescued from their sin. We know that the Lord intervenes in people's lives in answer to prayer or to fulfill His divine purpose for a person or a nation. 

Here are the ways I educate my children from a Christian worldview. I give them a biblical foundation, inspiring them to fulfill the Creation Mandate and Great Commission, using curricula that is written from a Christian worldview, and surrendering to Jesus. 

Biblical Foundation

A Christian worldview is based on the Word of God as it applies to all of life, including theology, philosophy, sociology, ethics, law, government, history, pyschology, economics, politics, family, child rearing, education. careers, medicine, health care, and relationships. 

We make the Bible the foundation for education in our home.

We read, study, and memorize Scripture so that the Word is living in our children’s hearts and lives. We obey the Word of God.

When it comes to conflict resolution, we follow Jesus’ plan in Matthew 18 to work in out between two and bring in a third person (parent) if it can’t be worked out.

Our children honor us as parents and respect our authority so that it will go well with them according to Ephesians 6:1-4.

The bottom line is that we use God’s Word as the measuring stick. If something doesn’t line up with Scripture, it is tossed out. The Bible is the standard of truth.

Creation Mandate

I have a confession to make.

I love file folders. 

They make a perfect place for all of my piles of paper mess. Oh, I know you have these piles, too. All of us homeschool moms look around our house and they are everywhere. There are piles of papers on the dining room table, piles of papers on your desk, piles of papers on that side table. It's not your fault. It's just something that happens to us poor homeschool moms. 

That's where file folders come in. 

File folders are neat and tidy. Plus they come in handy-dandy colors.
You can use one color for each child and mark "To Grade" on the front. In goes writing papers, books reviews, and math problems. 

You can save papers in file folders Use the same color for the child you used before. Only  this time, write on the cover "Writing Papers Grade 4" or whatever grade your son or daughter is in. 

I also use these folders for little games I download online. Or worksheets. I'm able to browse through my file cabinet to find "rhyming worksheets, animals-babies worksheets, telling time worksheets, and multiplication worksheets. 

Other homeschooling files in my file cabinet: 

• Math 
• Learning Styles
• Science
• Health 
• Unit Study Ideas
• Field Trip Ideas 
• Living Books & Classic Literature
• Art/Artists
• Evaluations
• Transcripts

But, file folders also work well for managing my household and my life.