Goals for 2009

I'm a bit rusty now on blogging about my personal life, so you will have to bear with me, please! Hopefully I haven't lost all of my readers to the reviews I've had to do. I didn't intend to let those take over my blog, but they happened to come at such a busy time...oh well...enough about that!

As I did last year, I wanted to post my goals for the upcoming year. I suppose I should first update you on how I fared with the goals for 2008. Let's see...

1. Daily Bible study with prayer journal
**I have had a fairly consistent quiet time this year and I've seen such a difference in myself because of it. Didn't keep up with the journal, though.
2. Get up earlier than my girlie so I can actually complete goal #1
**Uh...well...you see...um...yeah, we'll try that again this year.
3. Reach out to my *new* neighbors once we move
**Haven't done a great job of this yet, but I'm working on it.
4. Begin a more structured homeschool schedule (later in the year)
**Yes! Finally a goal I accomplished completely!
5. Craft MORE! And sell more homemade goods in my Ella Bella Bowtique
**It's not fair that because of my #4 goal, I've had much less time to work on this goal!
6. I hope to be a more consistent blogger. Now that I have a laptop (thanks to DH!), I will hopefully be able to follow through on this one!
**Well, you know how that one went!

Since I don't want to dwell too much on the past, I will now focus on the future. Here are my goals for 2009:

1. Make God the priority of each day. It's a bit broad, but it truly encompasses what I want to accomplish this year.

2. Less of me and more of the Holy Spirit. That may sound a lot like the first goal, but I have had some really cool experiences with the Spirit this year and I want to allow Him to keep showing me His power. It would be awesome if it became a daily thing!

3(a). Reach out to other adults. I have felt a bit isolated this year as I've taken on the title of homeschool teacher. I am going to make a better effort of being a better friend to the ones I have and making new friends.
3(b). Give my daughter more time with other children.

4. Less idle time = more time spent being productive. This means not sitting at the laptop for a few hours after school is over each day (even if I am researching school-related subjects!). It hopefully means more sewing, crafting, guitar practicing, photographing, etc. It also leads straight into #5.

5. Get moving! I have let exercise slide because I've been busy with school. But, I realize that my immobility hinders Ella from getting enough exercise and we both need it. Along with this, I plan to get back to a healthier diet.

6. Try to get on a regular sleep/wake schedule. If I can wake up a bit earlier (don't laugh!), Ella and I can get showers before starting school each day. This would be a BIG boost to get my day going. Right now, it's after lunch before we're motivated to get cleaned up, then it just gets to be too late in the afternoon to do anything else (see #4)!

That's all I can think of tonight. It's late now, so I'd better get to bed and start gearing up for #6! I'd love to hear what everyone else wants to accomplish in 2009. I'm praying God's favor on all of you in the new year! :)

Trigger Memory

I have a few products from Trigger Memory to tell you about. The first three products belong to a series called Clean 'N' Flips. Each book is used to help your child clean around the house - Laundry for Kids, Bedroom Cleaning for Kids, and Zone Cleaning for Kids. The books give children step-by-step instructions for cleaning, along with pictures that are easy to follow (for non-readers).

Laundry for Kids helps kids gather their laundry and sort it. It also helps them wash, dry, fold, and put away the laundry. As a parent, you can check the pages you want your child to do so that if you have a young child like me, they won't be expected to actually wash the clothes (though they can help put the detergent in!). This book is $7.95.

Bedroom Cleaning for Kids shows children how to systematically clean their room! All you need are some baskets that are labeled so that your child knows where the items go. Your child simply makes a pile in the middle of the room, then loads up the baskets, along with a trash can. The child takes each basket and puts things back where they belong. The trash can gets emptied and then the bed gets made! This book is also $7.95.

Zone Cleaning for Kids is for the rest of the house! This book assigns jobs for your child in the kitchen, bathroom, and living room. You can even give your child different jobs for each day of the week (i.e. Monday - vacuum, Tuesday - dust). The pictures show your child how to pick up around each area first, then how to clean in an efficient way around each room. I have thought about using this one myself! It may help me to actually have a visual reminder! ;) This book is laminated, so your child can use a dry erase marker to check off each chore. If you are paying your child for chores, this can really come in handy. It's also such a motivation for the child to see what they've accomplished. This book is $17.95.

All three of these books are great tools for teaching your children about helping out around the house. If you order the Zone and Bedroom books together you pay $22.95 or you can order all three books for $29.95.



The last book from Trigger Memory is called Times Tables Made Easy! This is a mnemonic-based program that helps kids learn their upper times tables. Just like The Little Man in the Map, children look at pictures and read short stories to cue their memory. It is a flip book like the others. When you order this book, you also receive an instruction manual so you can use the book more effectively. The instruction manual includes division flashcards as a bonus! I think Times Tables Made Easy! will be very helpful when Ella begins to learn her multiplication facts. It is $29.95, but seems well worth the cost. You can order a mini-flip book for an extra $5 so your child can have a book to review on their own.

You can take a look at the other TOS Crew reviews of these resources from Trigger Memory by going HERE!

The Little Man in the Map

I am running a bit behind on my reviews, as we had 3 due between yesterday and today. It's been CRAZY busy around here, so I've had to put the reviews off to the last minute! I will post the 3rd one tomorrow.

Tonight, I want to tell you about a book called The Little Man in the Map. It is a book that uses picture clues and rhymes to help children locate all 50 states on a map and learn the name of each state. It is written by E. Andrew Martonyi and illustrated by Ed Olson.

This book is well-written with beautiful illustrations! The concept of teaching children to remember facts using visual cues is tried and true. It is why we use flash cards for math and teach foreign languages using pictures. Most of us just connect better with pictures than with words. For that reason, this book is an excellent teaching tool!

Ella is a bit young for this book. It is pretty long for her, but I could see this working well with children in 2nd grade and up. As we start learning about different states, I'll pull this out and we can work on it bit by bit. She may be able to process it better in smaller chunks! We have been using the book Now I Know the 10 Commandments for the past couple of weeks and Ella can pretty much recite all 10 commandments in order! That book uses the same idea of tying pictures to facts. So, I know that once we start working on The Little Man in the Map, Ella will pick up on the 50 states pretty quickly. My husband can still tell you most of the president's names in order because he learned them using the same method.

If you are looking for a way to teach your child the names and locations of the states, look no further! Go to The Little Man in the Map website and order it now! The book is only $19.95 and shipping is free if you order during the holidays. For no extra charge, you can even have the author sign it for you. :)

As always, feel free to check out the other TOS Crew member reviews of The Little Man in the Map by clicking HERE!

Time4Learning

I have two reviews for you today. I'll post the other one later, but first I want to tell you about Time4Learning! It is a fun, comprehensive online curriculum for language arts and math. There are lessons for preschool through 8th grade. Bonus lessons are offered in science and social studies.

When you first sign up with Time4Learning, you fill out a short assessment of your child's skill level so that the lessons will be catered specifically to your child's needs! You can change the level at any time if you find the lessons too easy or too difficult. Along the way, you can track your child's progress. This progress sheet not only tells you how your child has performed in each activity, it also tells you how much time they spent working. You can also set a timer to limit your child's time with the program so that they are not spending all day doing the same lesson over and over! ;) Once the child does the set amount of lessons, they can go to the playground to play fun games.

It is very difficult to write a thorough review of this site because there is SO MUCH to explore! Since I have one child and she's in Kindergarten, we have not been able to look around at the other grade levels. I will say that I have found the activities to be age-appropriate and educational. Ella has had alot of fun using this resource. She learns as she goes along, so you can't ask for much more than that! Some of the language arts activities Ella previewed included "Rhymes and Patterns", "Spoken Rhyming Words", "Listen for Word Length", and "Phonological Awareness: Alliteration with the Sound of 'm'". She also previewed some math lessons that had to do with basic number recognition. Her math level is higher than that, but I have it set to the lower level just for practice. There is a toolkit your child can access with several math tools such as a calculator, base ten blocks the child can manipulate, and counters. Ella enjoyed this program so much that she spent almost an entire afternoon doing the activities by herself (another advantage at this age!!).

**NOTE: I have heard that because this is not a Christian-based curriculum, there might be objectionable content (i.e. teaching about evolution as fact, "bathroom" humor for older kids, etc.) that you would want to screen first. You can turn off the science sections so that your child cannot access them. The creators of Time4Learning added a Christian parents' section to their parent forums so that you can talk to other Christians about navigating through this site. I personally found nothing offensive in the lower level lessons. The graphics and sound are all quite cute (Ella LOVES the animals that are characters in the stories).

My main concern about this program is the cost. It is $19.95 per month for one child and you can add a 2nd child for an extra $14.95 per month. You can try out the program for 14 days and get a full refund if you decide not to subscribe. I would highly recommend trying it out first. You can sample some lessons for free, HERE.

Based on our experience with Time4Learning, I would recommend this to anyone looking for an online language arts and math curriculum if they have the money to spend! Take some time to look it over and see if it is right for you. If we are ever in need of reinforcement in certain areas or have the ability to spend a little more on curriculum, I will definitely be coming back to Time4Learning!

Please check out some of the other TOS Crew reviews of Time4Learning, by clicking HERE!

Spears Art Studio

Well, I have to tell you...I have been procrastinating over this review. It has been so hectic lately, and with the trip to Mexico thrown into the mix, I still feel like I'm playing catch-up on everything! At least I have most of my Christmas shopping done.
So, I have just begun looking over the Spears Art Studio CD-ROM that's been in my drawer for a while. And now I am sad. We've gone through the whole semester without using this WONDERFUL program! But, that's ok, because I have 9 more years to use the CD-ROM. Yeah! The curriculum is for K-8th grade and while the same themes are used each year, the plans for each grade level differ according to the abilities of children at each age. My budding artist is truly going to love these lessons! I consider myself to be pretty artistic, but I have found it difficult to constantly come up with some type of project for Ella to work on each day. Even when I do have something planned, I can't say that I'm "teaching" her anything about art. I usually just show her how to do a certain craft, then she does it...end of lesson! :) The thing is that she has become very interested lately in art and talks about it all the time. I really want to foster this love for art and help her develop her talent (which, of course, I think is incredible!). I believe that Spears Art Studio will be the perfect resource to help both of us.

One thing that is especially appealing about Spears Art is that all of the lessons are written with a Christian perspective. In fact, the creator of the program, Dr. Diane Spears, gives all the honor she might receive to the Lord. Dr. Spears is a distinguished artist in her own right and has been an educator off and on for the past 30 years. As a teacher, I appreciate the skill needed to put together such a comprehensive program (along with benchmarks and objectives!). If she had used a secular backdrop, Dr. Spears could have reached a much broader market, but the fact that she chose to center her curriculum around the cross means alot to me! It tells me that she stands on her convictions! Art is truly a gift from God and Dr. Spears encourages us all to find our artistic sides in order to glorify Him.

The Spears Art Studio for K-8 is a complete art curriculum in PDF form with illustrations in full color. You can get the CD-ROM for $39.95 (included shipping). This is a great value for 9 years of curriculum!! If you need a book in your hands, you can order the hard copy (printed in black and white) along with the CD-ROM for $134.95. The curriculum for high school students is $29.95, but if you order it in combination with the K-8 Art Studio, you will receive the Beginning Calligraphy Workbook (grade 5 through adult) for FREE!

**Edited to add that Ella and I did one of the lessons today. The lesson is entitled "Mother and Child". It centers around the relationship between Mary and baby Jesus. We looked for some paintings online that showed them together. We found some that didn't look at all how we imagined that night to be! :) But, we did manage to find a few that seemed to accurately portray the nativity. I showed Ella some different ways she could draw a mother and child together. She then got to her assignment of sketching her own depiction of mother and child. She drew a happy family (including a daddy) walking along a road next to their house. She seemed to really enjoy this lesson, though it took a bit of encouraging to get her to look at the paintings and listen to me talk about art! We'll work on that!**

There are lots of free samples available at the Spears Art Studio website. I encourage you to go check out a few lessons to get a feel for the curriculum and decide for yourself. And, as always, please go read some of the other reviews posted by members of the TOS Crew, HERE!

Rime to Read

I have another review for you! Ella and I have had the chance to use the Rime to Read online program and we love it! This is a cumulative 20 book program for beginning readers. The books are online, but you are able to print them out at any time. The books are based on "rimes", which are words that sound alike AND look alike (i.e. "mat", "Pat", & "sat"). Rimes are sometimes referred to as word families and are an effective way to teach reading skills. The books on Rime to Read are color coded so that your child can clearly see the part of the word that sounds the same. The really great thing about the books is that you can click on the words that are emphasized in the story and they will be read back to you! Sight words are also a part of the books, with 35 sight words introduced throughout the series.

I have been teaching Ella to read using "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons". It's a wonderful book and I highly recommend it...BUT, at times Ella has become frustrated with it. She is not very patient when it comes to learning something new and she wants to be able to just "know" it! This is where Rime to Read comes in handy. Now that she's gotten some of the basic words and most of the sounds down, she is able to read the Rime to Read books almost by herself. The books are very helpful in reinforcing the things she's learned. Every other day, we put down "100 Easy Lessons", and log in at Rime to Read. She views it as fun because it's on the computer, but it is a huge confidence booster for her and it encourages her to be ready to pick back up on her lessons the next day. She loves hearing the words read to her. The color coding is very beneficial for reading words introduced later in the story - once she's sounded out "mat", it's easy for her to find words that sound the same. Ella looks forward to each new book she gets to read!

Rime to Read is not only a great resource for homeschoolers, but I could also see parents of traditionally schooled children using this as an exciting way to foster the reading skills taught at school. I would probably not use this as a stand-alone reading curriculum, but it is an excellent supplement. At first glance, the program may appear to be a bit pricey, but once you start hearing your child read, you will see definite value in this product. The entire set of 20 books costs $44.99, or you can buy 4-book vowel sets for $9.99 each by heading over to the Rime to Read website.

If you'd like to read reviews of Rime to Read by other members of the TOS Crew, click HERE!

A Fun Meme

I've seen this around on various blogs and my friend Lori just did it, so I thought I'd give it a go. I'm sorry for not being very personable in my posts lately! Once we start Christmas break (on the 22nd), I should at least have a little time for an update on our lives! All you have to do for this meme is copy my list, paste it on your blog, then bold the ones you've done! Here's my "99 Meme":

1. Started your own blog
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland/world
8. Climbed a mountain
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sang a solo
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown your own vegetables
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitch hiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught yourself a new language
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal in a restaurant
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had your portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
62. Gone whale watching
63. Gotten flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten Caviar
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had your picture in the newspaper
85. Read the entire Bible
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone’s life
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a lawsuit
98. Owned a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee

Now it's your turn! I can't wait to see your answers.