F is for Family Christmas (Slugs & Bugs) ~ A #5things Post

*Giveaway Has Ended*

We're listening to Slugs & Bugs Sing the Bible Family Christmas.  It was the first Christmas album I allowed this year because I was so excited when it finally arrived.  I was on the Kickstarter this summer and I could not wait to get all my fantastic music!  One copy of Sing the Bible, one copy of Sing the Bible vol2, two Sing the Bible vol3, and two Family Christmas.  Since I already own the first volume, thanks to a blog giveaway just like this one, I will be sharing three of these albums with YOU, my readers.  Check out the trailers below.



Today's giveaway is for a copy of Sing the Bible Family Christmas.  I haven't done a #5things post in a while, so I'm going to do that and tell you five things about Family Christmas.

1. Randall Goodgame and Andrew Peterson are the brainiacs behind Slugs & Bugs, with the first CD released in 2007.  Now, it's a family affair and all the Goodgames are involved.
2. Most Sing the Bible songs are *word for word* from scripture, using various Bible versions depending on singability (or the Slugs & Bugs MSV - most singable version).
3. Family Christmas intentionally has that A Charlie Brown Christmas feel, ala Vince Guaraldi, and also a Peanuts inspired cover.
4. Moms (and maybe Dads) will love the music as much as the kids.  Seriously. 
5. I think my favorite of the 12 tracks is Mary's Song, sweetly sung by Livi Goodgame and using the ESV of Luke 1:46-49.

So there you have it, #5things.  Really there are tons more to tell, but I think you should just give them a listen.




You can read a bit more about how we use Slugs & Bugs Sing the Bible to aid in scripture memorization.

Enter the giveaway rafflecopter below.

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Also, I'm on another round of Blogging Through the Alphabet.  Check it out.

Day 1 Slugs & Bugs ~ Scripture Memorization

There are so many ways to learn Bible verses and to hide The Word in our hearts.  I'll be spending this week telling you about some of my favorites.  Today, I want to show you (and let you listen to) Slugs & Bugs Sing the Bible.

This is a review, but not a review.  I love Slugs & Bugs and want to tell you about it, too.

*My disclaimer about a lack of disclaimer*

Ahem.  Slugs & Bugs, Randall Goodgame, and the monsters have never heard of me.  

I am reviewing an item I love, and the kids enjoy, simply because we think they're pretty cool.

I was introduced to Slugs & Bugs when I won a copy of the Sing the Bible CD.  We have listened to it countless times.  The boys sing songs like Two Shirts, Alien, Trust in the Lord, and Old Testament Song all the time.  The tunes are catchy and cover many musical styles.  The best part about Sing the Bible, though, is that the song lyrics are *word for word* Biblical scripture.  Talk about hiding the Word in your heart!

Sing the Bible features Randall Goodgame and his friends.  Sally Lloyd-Jones (The Jesus Storybook) and the African Children's Choir appear throughout the tracks on this album.  A harmonica solo, songs with a Celtic flair, and African beats are among the different sounds.


TEN COMMANDMENTS SONG from Slugs & Bugs Sing the Bible Vol 2.



Slugs & Bugs friends also include The Count and Franky.  Some people may not like monsters in their Christian music, but on the Slugs & Bugs blog recently, Randall said,

For me, reared as I was on Sesame Street (Cookie Monster, The Count, and Grover’s “The Monster at the End of this Book” come to mind) – it is easy for me to use monsters for mildly scary / humorous purposes. 

That said, there are deeper message at work. First, do not fear… maybe the Bible’s most frequent admonition. Also, things are not always as they seem. What may at first seem monstrous may prove otherwise, so be slow to judge. 

Third, I’m thinking of the great passage from Orthodoxy by GK Chesterton about bogeys and dragons… his point was that fairy tales show that there is something stronger than darkness. In all of the way S&B uses monsters, it is with a similar spirit – that the context of the Gospel overwhelms fear. 

Finally, I go back to examples like Sesame Street’s Grover and Bugs Bunny’s abominable snowman. By incorporating “monsters” into fun settings, we bring them onto our level, which allows not only freedom from fear but the beginning of empathy for the “other.” (These are friendly monsters!) And after all, no one I encounter daily is completely evil. most everyone I meet is a mixed bag (like me)!

The monster are also not on every song (or even many songs), so don't let that deter you.  I think they are cute, friendly, and always desirous of doing God's will.

I have Sing the Bible 2, 3, and Christmas arriving in a few months (I got them through the Kickstarter campaign for 3 and Christmas).  It feels like it will be forever and I could certainly purchase StB2 and get it right away, but I will be patient.  You can order all the current, awesome Slugs & Bugs albums in the store.  They are not all scripture, but they are all clean, wholesome fun that moms and dads will like as much as the littles.

If you're lucky enough to see Slugs & Bugs LIVE, I recommend it.

Slugs & Bugs and Randall Goodgame combine fun and scripture.  Some songs are deeply moving and others raucous good fun.



Hey, some other moms on the Crew are sharing five days of posts.  You're sure to find other topics that apply to you and your homeschool.  Check them out!

My Least Favorite Christmas Songs

Some songs just drive you straight up a tree.  You might  love some of these songs, and that's totally OK.  Obviously, they resonate with someone because they are "hits," but I'd be completely happy to not hear any of them ever again.

1. Christmas Shoes
I heard about 5 seconds of this one today in the car and I can't stop hearing it now.  It isn't even a good song.  It's intended to manipulate people and make them cry, just like all the fictional tearjerkers on Facebook.

2. Last Christmas
I really liked George Michael in both his Wham! and solo career, back in the olden days.  I can't help but wonder if he was tired when he wrote this one.
George: "Sorry, I can't seem to think of any more rhymes.  Let's just keep singing the same verse over and over.  At the end, we'll shake it up a bit, but it will still be more of the same words."
Bandmate: "Brilliant!"

George, dude, you're wearing a wedding ring, why are you brooding about the chick who gave your heart away?

3. It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.
Apparently (according to wiki), telling "scary ghost stories" was a quaint old Victorian tradition, that's pretty much forgotten.  My grandparents were born in 1900 and 1904, basically the end of the Victorian era, but you'd think it would have been a tradition when they were small and it would have been mentioned at some time or other.  Either way, that's all I can think about when I hear this song.  Obsessive much?  Perhaps.

4. Sleigh Ride
While not a terrible song, per se, I am adding it to the list because it romanticizes something so uncomfortable.  For a sleigh ride, you need snow.  For snow, you need cold.  We're looking at a wind chill of -30*F later this week.  I don't like being cold.  I'm cold all the time in the house, wearing layers.  Brrr...  So, yeah.

5. John Lennon's So This is Christmas
As someone in the household says, "He's a hippy." I'm sure there's more to it than that, but it for sure makes the list of annoying Christmas songs.

What makes your "cringeworthy Christmas songs" list?

Best of the Best ~ 2016 Crew Awards

After taking 2015 off from The Crew, we happily rejoined this year.  It has been a whirlwind of amazing homeschool products.  Many were return vendors we know and love and there were lots of fresh, new companies joining us, too.  Some curricula were on my "short list" for "some day" and some were wonderful surprises.  We used and reviewed just over forty products for The Homeschool Review Crew, plus some single reviews for The Old Schoolhouse Magazine, which you'll also, eventually, get to read about here.

Last week, The Crew reviewers and their kiddos were all invited to vote for our favorite reviews of the 2016 run.  I have to say, this is probably one of the absolute hardest parts of being on The Crew.  You get to vote for *just one* thing in each category. It's incredibly difficult, sometimes, to narrow it down.


My personal *blog* requirements are a bit more lenient in that I allow us to choose several items in categories I want to use.  To simplify, I used subjects for the categories or I could go on and list nearly every review we did here. So, here goes.  Here are Redhanded Homeschool's High Fives for the 2016 Homeschool Review Crew.  All links will take you to my original reviews.

Malachi's High Five
Familyman Ministries' The Familyman's Christmas Treasury
We all like these stories so much.  Almost every time we get in the car, they ask me to play Cootie McKay, Captain Chaos, or The Stranger.

Xavier's High Five ("Obviously.")
Stopmotion Explosion's Stopmotion Animation Kit
We've all liked this and have made it a bit of a hobby.  I'm even teaching the kids at co-op a class based on the information I learned from SME and other kits, and videos we've been using.

Merrick's High Five
Talking Fingers, Inc.'s Read, Write, & Type
Who doesn't like teaching pesky Vexor a lesson for bad behavior?  And there's the bonus of learning to read, write, and type as you go.

My High Fives for Moms
MyFreezEasy
Love, love, love this one!  I've tried freezer cooking before, but it was always overwhelming to me.  Not anymore!

SchoolhouseTeachers.com
While on the surface, SchoolhouseTeachers.com is for classes, there are also tons of resources for moms and the whole family.

Most of the following products are favorites that we have finished, kept using through the year, or will be using in the future.

Language Arts
LOE Foundations A 
Merrick used several reading and writing programs this year and he (and BooBear, his teddy) really enjoyed this one.

IEW's Linguistic Development Through Poetry Memorization
"Ooey gooey was a worm..."  We all had a blast studying and memorizing poetry this year.  This program will be with us for years to come.

Progeny Press' The Sword in the Tree e-guide
This was a really good study based on a book that really held their attention.

Can Do Cubes from jollyliteracy.com
While Merrick liked using these with Jolly Phonics, the beauty of these cubes is that they can be used with any program.  All of my kids like manipulatives.  Why not have them in LA also?

Language Arts ~ Honorable Mention 
I have one honorable mention again this year.  This is a *great* writing program, but we just weren't able to finish it for various reasons.  I almost held a co-op class in my home using Here to Help Learning, but we had a bunch of balls in the air at that time and I couldn't figure out a good time to do it.  I'd be so happy to use it again sometime, though. 

Math
CTCMath
I love this math times 1000!  Malachi especially does well with it.  He worked tirelessly this summer to get his scores up in multiplication, working the section over and over.  I was so proud of him, but more importantly, he was proud of his own achievements.  We use CTCMath almost every day.

Math ~ Honorable Mention
It's a game.  It's math.  It's Sunya the Magic and Wonder of Math and Science Adding & Subtracting.  This is a fun card game (with a really long name) for memorizing math facts and comes in multiplication and division as well.  We should use it more often.  And get Merrick playing it with us.

Science
Apologia's Exploring Creation with Astronomy 2nd edition
We had a great time using this edition with Merrick (and Xav who can't get enough science).  I'd used the first edition with Mal and Xav years ago.  We have loved each Apologia science we've used.

Social Studies 
Heirloom Audio 
We love every. single. one. of Heirloom Audio's Henty titles we've heard.  Most we received through The Crew, but we've also listened to a few I purchased.  I love the downloads that come with the CDs including the study guide which turns the stories into a nice historical unit.

Extra-Curricular  
Zeezok Publishing's Music Appreciation 
Not only is this an AMAZING music appreciation curriculum, it also has a lot of historical information in it as well as a focus on positive character traits.

Memoria Press' Traditional Logic hurt my brain.  I obviously don't have a high schooler, so I worked on this course my own self.  It's a great program.

Foreign Languages for Kids by Kids Spanish Starter Set
This was such a fun video Spanish class.  The boys love that it takes place on a day in the life of three brothers.

Middlebury Interactive Languages Elementary Chinese 1
This is the third course we've used from Middlebury and our first foray into Chinese.  It's a great program and I liked that it also taught some characters and had special paper to download for writing practice. 

Just For Fun  
The Pencil Grip's Kwik Stix 
We bigfatpuffyheart Kwik Stix tempera paint.  They were easy to use and worked great on paper, cardboard, wood, and canvas.

Enlivenze FlipStir
Enclosed puzzles with no loose pieces.  What's not to love?  They're fun and challenging.

Special Category - Best Gift
CrossTimber Name Meaning Gifts
I had to include CrossTimber, but it isn't curriculum or a puzzle, so...  New category invented.  Check.  Hey, it's my blog and these are my favorites.  I'm not sure if the best part about CrossTimber is that they can make something meaningful for *any* name, or seeing how happy you can make someone with one of their Name Meaning Gifts.

You can see how the official voting of The Homeschool Review Crew went on the blog.

Zeezok Publishing LLC TOS Review

After struggling to find appropriate homeschool curriculum for their own children, the founders began a business of their own which eventually morphed into Zeezok Publishing, LLC.  The result is the marriage of traditional subject matter and techniques with modern delivery.  The reprinted Great Musician Series by Opal Wheeler, one of the projects undertaken, are included with Music Appreciation: Book 1 for the Elementary Grades collection, which we are reviewing.  Besides music appreciation, I noticed Zeezok also offers products for government, penmanship, movie guides, and literature.

This collection meets national standards for K-6th grade at the time of publication.  The collection includes:

• A Student Activity Book, 
• Music Discs, 
• Lapbook CD,
• Seven composer biographies from the Great Musician Series.

The composers included for study are:

1. Mozart
2. Handel
3. Haydn
4. Beethoven
5. Bach
6. Paganini
7. Schubert

I love Mozart's music. Since I didn't think the boys had a major preference, I didn't ask them for input.  Well, thanks to The Peanuts Movie, it turns out they *do* have a favorite composer.  They may have also recently seen for the first time another movie which mentioned this composer, but they called him Beeth Oven there.  So, Beethoven will be our next in depth study.  Part of the beauty of this curriculum is that there is no wrong order to learn about these amazing men.  Choose a family favorite and run with it.

The student activity book is a whopping 354 pages.  It begins with a detailed five page scope and sequence which aligns history, music in different cultures, types of music, written music and vocabulary, and more with each of the composers.  It includes ideas for hands on activities as well as discussion and comprehension questions for the reading material.  It's designed to be used by a single child, though we often used the discussion questions as a family.  Even Merrick (age 4) enjoys listening to our read alouds and trying to be involved in Q and A time.

I love that this book covered character traits for each of the composers, highlighting areas where each man (or boy, depending on the chapter!) shined.  For Mozart, these comprised of energetic enthusiasm, eager learner, industriousness, and generosity, among others.  It seems he was a lively character who loved to entertain and be entertained by everyone.

Mozart's section of the student activity book also incorporates interesting tidbits, geography (Mozart traveled often and for long periods.  When I think of traveling with the Littles for nine hours at a time, I feel pretty privileged to live now with good roads, fast cars, and a bit of technology.), learning about opera, and instruments around the world.  They even were exposed to a bit of German.  Mozart also met and befriended many other composers from that time period.  I had never really thought about who the contemporaries of each of them were before.

No matter what learning style your children are, there are activities that match them.  The answers are at the back of each section and lapbook instructions can be found in the pages.

Amazing music CDs are included.  We listen to all the Mozart tracks several times a week as well as specific tracks as prompted in the biography.  I like that the books and CDs are linked like that.  We'll be reading along and read about a piece that Mozart wrote in his childhood and be able to go to the track on the disc and hear that same piece as we follow along with the music in the book.

The many enjoyable books are written by Opal Wheeler (and some co-authored by Sybil Deucher) and illustrated in a neat black and white style by Mary Greenwalt (one is illustrated by Henry S. Gillette).  They tell of the true lives of each composer from childhood into their adult years.  These books are *not* historical fiction.  The pages are full of samples of the composer's music that you can play, if you know how.  If not, you can listen to the CDs!  Mozart the Wonder Boy is 126 pages long.  The first 92 pages are his biography with a few pages of his music throughout.  The balance of the book is more of his sheet music for playing or following along while listening.

The PDF of the lapbook is on a disc.  This is a very big file (215,000KB).  Some *pages* were 64MB!  It seems that this did make it difficult to print.  I had no trouble printing a couple of pages at a time, but when trying to print large numbers of pages at once, I just couldn't get it to work.  I took the CD to Staples to have all seven lapbooks printed at once.  Even their industrial printers would stop after every twenty pages or so.  They never were able to print the last nine pages of the final lapbook.  This is a beautifully done file and it's a shame there seemed to be an issue with printing.  I only mention it here because I think it's an important part of the curriculum for aiding with retention.  Taking the disc to have it printed and dropping it off for the day is a viable option.

I chose to have our lapbook elements printed in black and white (I'm cheap frugal) and the pages were very clear and readable.  The lapbook copyright allows for use by multiple children in a family, so both Mal and Xav worked on those each week.  They learned vocabulary, the kinds of opera, and made a Mozart timeline.  I did change up the design a bit.  I generally leave a file folder folded as is, rather than refolding to close in the center of the front.  We glued the front of the second folder to the back of the first folder which makes it more like a book.  That just meant moving a couple of elements around so nothing was sitting in the fold.

I think the lapbooking and the read aloud time were the favorite parts for Mal and Xav.

Are you intrigued by this homeschool music program, but no longer have an elementary student?  Music Appreciation: Book 2 for the Middle Grades is in the works.  Chopin, Schumann, Wagner, Foster, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, and Mac Dowell will be included in that series, which is for grades 5-8.

Some of the other Crew members worked on other composers.  If you'd like to see what everyone else did, please click the banner below.

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Hey There, Delilah

There's nothing sweeter than a boy and his dad, singing a duet.



Xav made Merrick a "guitar" to play while he accompanied his dad.  Micah had a rough time keeping a straight face.