So many things to say about this book. Which is why I am giving it it's own review. It deserves it. To see other chapter books I have read aloud while homeschooling my children this year click HERE. When Stars are Scattered is the true story of young brothers Omar and Hassan and their life in a refugee camp in Kenya. There are many really hard topics that are touched on, such as an arranged marriage of a young girl that results in pregnancy, a father beating his child, death, war, hunger, etc. This book is brilliant because it takes difficult subject matter and makes it easily digestible for older children to early tweens because it is told in a graphic novel. Yes this book is heavy and sad. But my word do you root for these boys and just want the best for them. This book brought out so many meaningful conversations with my kids we would have never had anytime soon. Plus the illustrations are fantastic and really add to the dialogue and flow of the story. While this … [Read more...]
Circuit Workout + Our Week Off From Homeschool
Happy first day of fall! We are still over 100 degrees here in Arizona but each new day is one more day closer to cooler temps. Last week we took off from homeschool and tried to spend a few mornings outside before the heat of the day took over. We made it to the lake one day for a swim and also to one of my favorite places in Arizona, Boyce Thompson Arboretum. Other highlights of the past week included Maisie losing two teeth and Caden finished reading Prince Caspian with my mom and we watched the movie to celebrate. Overall it was just a nice change up in our schedule and yesterday we jumped right back into our homeschool curriculum. The kids loved the break and I am happy to report they had great attitudes yesterday when we picked up where we left off. My friend Doug shared a workout on Facebook yesterday and I immediately decided that it would be my workout for the day. I met Doug when I worked at Life Time Fitness and he is an overall great person and a … [Read more...]
Read Aloud Reviews: In Grandma’s Attic, Homer Price, & The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane
Our homeschool days are filled with Math, English, Science, History and Read Alouds. I am going to be reviewing all the books we read this year. I am linking the books to Amazon in case you decide to purchase them but we have bought the majority of our books from Abebooks.com. If you aren't familiar with this website it is like an Amazon for used books. It can take a little bit of time to get your books in the mail depending on what shop you purchase from but it is the first place I check, especially if the book is older and not recently published. For reference I am reading these books to my eight and six year old. It has become one of the highlights of my day. Also please forgive me if there are typos. I am watching musicals on BroadwayHD.com as I type this post up ;). Let's get into the reviews... In Grandma's Attic by Arleta Richardson I remember reading this book when I was little and loved it. My kids equally enjoyed it and In Grandma's Attic was a great book to kick … [Read more...]
You’re My Best Friend
I was sitting on the floor holding the phone so my kids could use FaceTime to chat with my mom. Each child squeezed their face closer and closer to the screen trying to show and tell to Grandma the latest happenings from our house. The oldest two walked off to go and find more things to show while our youngest began to press his face up to phone. Grandma soon began to give kisses over the phone to the delight of our son. And quickly a game started. He squealed down the hall trying to get away from Grandma's kisses. Once at the other end he would stop and look back at the phone to see if Grandma was still there. Mind you I was still sitting down this entire time and had not moved. After a quick pause he rapidly ran back to the phone pushing his face as close as possible to the screen and waited. Grandma kissed him again and off he went. This sequence was repeated many times over. It has been so interesting to experience these moments during the pandemic. Life in some ways has … [Read more...]
We Are HOMESCHOOLING!
Well today is the day! This week our kids would have been going back to school and today we are starting our first day of homeschool. What is really crazy is that Josh and I started talking about this being a possible option for our family in March. It is mind blowing that we are here at this point in Arizona. But here we are, homeschool affidavit submitted, and we are ready to make the best of this situation. Let me first start by saying we love our schools. We are sadden that this is happening. But if our schools were open at this point we wouldn't be sending them for in person learning because of how rampant COVID is in our community. Also we wouldn't send them because Josh's job brings him in contact with COVID positive patients and there is also COVID positive firefighters on the department. We could not in good faith send our kids to school in person with the potential that they could be asymptomatic carriers. We are so thankful that there are school options available to … [Read more...]
Summer Learning For Preschoolers & Early Elementary Students
For reference my older kids are 6 and 4 and my two littles are under 3. This post contains affiliate links. Two years ago I shared a very detailed post on how we do preschool at home in the summer. When our family started fostering last year I began looking for inexpensive summer learning activity books. I knew I wasn't going to have time to put together binders for each child like I had the year before. What I purchased worked out so great and I am planning to use the same products again this summer. Here is a roundup of what we are going to be using this year plus purchases from last year that we loved! Workbooks & Reading Programs These Summer Brain Quest Between Grades books are fantastic! Fun enough that your kids will ask to keep working through the book but still educational. We had to limit the number of pages done each day so we didn't finish the book in the middle of summer. We love Curious George in our house. So this Curious George Sight Words … [Read more...]
