Week of the Empty Bookcase

Sounds a little bit like a Nancy Drew title, doesn't it?  Week of the empty bookcase has involved a lot of shuffling and dust.  

This cake missed making it into the Mother's Day post.  I'm not much of a cake person, but I appreciated the thought.  

I couldn't believe how chill Cairo was in the bath!  I guess I got the temp Just Right for her.  

Love the purrito look.  

Oslo in the laundry basket.

One morning when we were out for our ride/walk/jog, I noticed my shorts were almost the same color as my legs.  I hope the neighbors didn't think I was half naked.  

The kittens were looking all tired and cute, so I took a picture.  

The *click* of the iPad made them all wake up and blink at me.  

I've been working on the school room this week!  One of my projects was to take pictures of some curriculum to sell.  Grumman decided to "help" with that.  Oh Grumman.  

The girls are bored with nothing assigned each morning, so I pulled out a new puzzle from their respite at home box.  Hopefully, I'll be showing a finished picture next week.  

Big haul of library books this week.  

When cleaning the school room, I came across one of the golden eagles we made almost 5 years ago.  Probably time to let that craft go.  

Dubious milestone this week.  The kittens popped out of the tub.  It happens with every litter, but it's always a little sad when it does.  They now have free reign in my room during the day, and are in the playpen at night.  Notice Quito's toy?  One of Grumman's pipe cleaners.  I guess it's not as weird as I thought, because the kittens are fascinated with them, too.  

Speaking of the kittens playing with Grumman's toys, there's Oslo, figuring out the ball track.  

 Don't feel too bad for Grumman, though.  He's discovered the sea monkeys.  I'm surprised they're still alive.  I tend to forget them for a week at a time.  

Eventually, I got pictures of 6 different years/levels of My Father's World curriculum, 

and posted them on the MFW curriculum exchange Facebook group.

I've shipped out a couple boxes so far, and it's looking like I'll have another couple of pieces going out Monday.  

I've got each level bagged up separately, so stuff doesn't get mixed up.  

It's all rather exhausting, right Grumman?  I love it when he wants to hang out with me, but I have had to pull the keyboard out from under him so I can type.  

All of this rearranging has led to our first empty bookcase!  I kind of wish I'd taken some "before" pictures of the school room, because I'm looking forward to how much better things will look when we get to "after."  

Besides trying to sell off some curriculum, we've also identified some books that our family is finished with.  Starting to see gaps on the other bookcases, too.  

Lots of organizing going on.  

Over the years, we've bought a lot of books, and been given a lot of books.  It's time to set some free to be enjoyed by others.  

Step Back in Time with Carole P. Roman

I want to share with you a fun new history resource, brought to you by Carole P. Roman and Awaywegomedia.com.  A couple years ago, I got to review some of the If You Were Me and Lived in... books by Carole P Roman.  These simple, formulaic books are great for introducing elementary kids to various countries.  They include words from local languages, currencies, flags, and other interesting facts.  We now have a whole bunch of them and they have been helpful in teaching my kids about countries in our world today.

Now Carole's come out with a historical series!  There are currently 8 of these fascinating books, and we have 7 of them so far.

If You Were Me and Lived in...Ancient Greece (An Introduction to Civilizations Throughout Time) (Volume 1)

If You Were Me and Lived in...Renaissance Italy (An Introduction to Civilizations Throughout Time) (Volume 2)

If You Were Me and Lived in... Elizabethan England (An Introduction to Civilizations Throughout Time) (Volume 3)

If You Were Me and Lived in...Colonial America (An Introduction to Civilizations Throughout Time) (Volume 4) 

If You Were Me and Lived in...Ancient China: The Han Dynasty (Volume 5)

If You Were Me and Lived in...the Middle Ages (An Introduction to Civilizations Throughout Time) (Volume 6)

If You Were Me and Lived in...the American West (Volume 7)

These books are a longer, meatier look at the history behind some of the countries represented in her other books.  They still talk about what your name might have been, and what toys you might have played with, had you lived in that location and time period, but there's more information than in the other series.  These books range from about 50-100 pages in length.

These made a nice review for some of the time periods Jack has studied, and a gentle introduction to those same times and places for Hannah.

Colonial America actually tied in perfectly with what we were learning in history at the end of last school year.

The books vary in price on Amazon, but sell for around $14.99 each.

Each has a glossary, and sometimes other additional information, located at the back of the book.  There are also some resources listed at Carole's blog.  The worksheets there are not in printable format with an answer key, so we did not use them, but reading over the questions will give you a good idea what's included in the books.

These fact-based, informative books would make a good base for building your own history unit studies for elementary children.  They're also a great addition to any curriculum covering one of the times and places represented.

If you know me, you know that I was most excited about the Ancient China book for my Chinese girls.  I had Hannah do her book report on this one.  She learned about hairstyles in ancient China, and about the Silk Road.

Jack did his book report on the American West book.  He learned that cowboys had rules they had to follow, and that they waved with their hats.

You can connect with Carol on Facebook, Pinterest, Goodreads, and Twitter.  To read what other Crew families have to say about this great new series, including the brand new Viking Europe book that our family doesn't have yet, please click the box below.

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The Dragon and the Raven

Do you know about the amazing audio drama productions from Heirloom Audio Productions?  We have reviewed others in the past, and were pleased to be able to review their newest offering, The Dragon and the Raven.

The Dragon and the Raven is 2 audio CDs that come in a tri-fold case, as well as additional online resources.  Online, there's a documentary video, which the kids and I found really interesting.  It was neat to put faces to the voices.  Furthermore, there are MP3 versions of the discs online, if you prefer to download and listen on the go.  There are printable posters, an ebook version of the story, and the soundtrack.  There is also a study guide.

The 49 page study guide is a great resource for homeschoolers.  It contains vocabulary and two types of questions for each "chapter" and at the end of the study guide there is additional history and Bible study sections.  All this for only $29.97.

Since it's very very hard to show pictures of listening, I'll show you pictures of the things that listening inspired us to do.

Since the story was about King Alfred, I found a King Alfred coloring page for the kids to work on while we were listening.  We also watched a short video about King Alfred, which helped the kids visualize the story a little better.

I mentioned that we've reviewed other Heirloom Audio Productions stories.  Here are links to Under Drake's Flag, In Freedom's Cause, and With Lee In Virginia.  If you've listened to the others, you'll recognize the familiar voices of Ned and Gerald, and the narrator, of course.  These are really high quality, nicely done, radio-style dramatizations, complete with musical score and sound effects.  This is not a monotonous audio book.

For another one of our listening sessions, I found a viking ship craft online and printed it on card stock so the kids could paint their ships instead of coloring them.

Painting and listening go well together, especially, when you're only working with one color and you don't have to worry too much about detail.

Another day, we listened and cut our ships out.  We were actually on our second time through listening to the CDs at this point.  My kids wanted to hear them again, and since the vocabulary is a bit rich for them, I thought they'd benefit from another hearing.

The sails were my own addition to the project, and I think I should have broken the bamboo skewers down a bit further so that the sails were closer to the ships.

This audio drama would make a fabulous addition to a study of England, of early European history, or of Scandinavia.  For those using My Father's World, this would fit best into the Rome to the Reformation year.  Or you could create your own King Alfred the Great unit study around the CDs and the Study Guide.  These family friendly, radio drama style stories are also great for listening to on long car trips.

We enjoyed this production every bit as much as the first three, and I cannot wait to see what comes out next!  There was a little hint at the end of this story, and I'm pretty excited to see if that's really the one they're working on now.

You can connect with Heirloom Audio Productions on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and G+.  There's also a Facebook page specifically for The Dragon and the Raven.  Please click the box below to read what other Crew families have to say about The Dragon and the Raven.

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