Day 2 N is for Notes ~ Scripture Memorization

Welcome back to Day 2 of Hiding the Word in Their Hearts!

One thing I know really helps *me* memorize a verse is saying it frequently throughout the day.  The most likely way I will do that is if I see it regularly.  For years now, I've added notes to the bathroom mirror.  I've used the markers and crayons that crayola makes to write on glass, but usually all that takes is one shower to cause it to run and make a mess.  I started making post it notes.  Sometimes, they are a new verse I want to memorize and sometimes, they are of an uplifting or encouraging verse that I already know, but may need to be reminded of.

I also have this verse with a picture of my boys right where I see it every morning when I get dressed.

 Confession:  That is not the whole picture.  Some days are rough.

And this one hangs on our fridge.

At Walmart, I found this sweet box of cards to be colored.  I like coloring, but I don't do it often.  It seems sort of like the kind of thing someone with scads of free time can do.  I get out my special Faber-Castell pencils and no one else can use them.  :)

We know repetition aids with memory, so there's no wrong way to make notes for yourself or your family.  Any place in your house or car or work that you will look at regularly is a *perfect* place for scriptural encouragement.

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!

M is for Mud Season

Some weeks blogging through the alphabet is planned out months in advance.  Some weeks, it takes some serious thinking.  In Vermont, the logical M word would be maple and I seriously thought about it.  After all, Maple Openhouses were held at Sugar Shacks all over the state just a couple of weeks ago.  But then, *this* just happened.  (PS.  I'll tell you all about maple another day.)

Vermont has six official seasons.

1. Spring
2. Summer
3. Fall/Autumn
4. Stick Season (That time between the end of September/mid October when all the leaves have fallen and when winter finally arrives.) 
5. Winter
6. and Mud Season

Mud season is a lovely time of year, often warming up into the 30s-50s, rainy, gray, and brown.  The only splash of color in mud season is a daffodil or crocus.  Which reminds me, we need to plant more spring bulbs this year.  We get a nice long rainy season each spring here in Vermont, but we also have the winter thaw.  There is a ton of liquid running off hills and seeping up out of the ground as the thaw line moves through layers of dirt and clay.

I'm sure you can imagine what that means to a dirt road.  Or maybe you can't, so I'm here to show you.

These are actual pictures from my road.  We were the third car *that day* to get pulled out of that exact spot!

This week, I heard the grader shortly after I got up.  I like the sound of the grader in the spring.  The driver spent about half an hour working on a particularly rough spot in front of the neighbor's house.  When he left, it was only superficially improved.  Sadly.  I think the town purchased a gravel pit *just* for this road.  I'm sure that's not true, but it sure seems like it.

Later, that same morning, I came home to a road closed sign.  I decided that the work being done was *probably* at the same area on the other side of my house, so I took the chance.  Thankfully, I was right.  And this is what we found.

Merrick spent some time "helping" by tossing one small rock at a time into the pile of stone being spread on the road.  Don't worry.  No equipment was running at the time.  We were waiting for one of several loads of very large stone to be delivered.  I was amazed at how much clay was under the road.  And equally surprised to see a fountain of water when the stones were being tamped down.

This is what the road looks like here now.   Smooth....

Too bad the rest of our road wasn't as nice.  :)

Join us every week at A Net in Time and Hopkins Homeschool for Blogging Through the Alphabet!

Five Days of Hiding the Word in Their Hearts

The Homeschool Review Crew is hosting another 5 Days of Homeschooling link up.  I'm happy to be joining them this time.  Here on Insane in the Mombrain, I'll be writing about Hiding The Word in Their Hearts.

Each day next week, starting on Monday, I want to share something we have found helpful for remembering God's Word and bringing it to mind regularly.  I hope you'll join us here and also pop over to the Crew Blog to see what everyone else is sharing!

This is my anchor post and as each post goes live, I'll be listing it here.  If you can't find something, this is the place to look for it.  Thanks for joining me!

Monday ~ Music (with Slugs & Bugs)
Tuesday ~ Notes Around the House
Wednesday ~ The Child Training Bible
Thursday ~ Memorizing Whole Books (Philippians in 28 Weeks)
Friday ~ The Scripture Box

Color My Conversation ~ A Homeschool Crew Review

When I saw Northern Speech Services on the list of vendors for the Crew this year, I was immediately intrigued.  Xav has been in speech therapy and Merrick needs it.  I was sort of hoping the product we were offered would be for speech articulation or stuttering, but I was just as excited when I learned about Color My Conversation, 2nd edition.  This is definitely one of those products you didn't even know existed, but completely fills a need in your home.  Northern Speech Services also offers seminars, online courses, and many products for speech and language pathology.  They've been in business for 45 years, providing speech pathology services that whole time and SLP training and products later.

Most people need to engage in some form of conversation every day.  For those who struggle with this skill, their relationships can be seriously impacted.  Rosslyn Delmonico authored the Color My Conversation program to help both special needs and mainstream children develop the art of conversation to the best of their abilities.  Rosslyn has been an SLP for over 35 years and began developing CMC in 2006.  CMC uses a multi-sensory approach to teaching social language skills.



What's included.

• Dry Erasable Stepping Stones
• Dry Erase Markers
• Ball
• Gameboard
• Game Tokens
• Poster
• Ribbon
• Picture Cards
• Dry Erasable Wall Cards
• Instruction Manual on CDRom
• Music CD

Also, training videos are available online.  These short videos explain the entire program and guide the facilitator through the process involved in each lesson.

Personally, I did  not care for having the Instruction Manual on CDRom.  I understand the company wanted to be "environmentally responsible," but each lesson has as many as ten PDFs.  While some  of those files were reproducibles, which makes sense to have on a CD for easily printing and keeping them looking professional, I thought the actual instructions should have been printed and bound.  Give me the complete program in my hands (or at the very least, one single PDF) so I can flip through it easily.  I did print *some* of the pages.  Several times, I actually dragged along my laptop with me so I could read over the manual while I waited in the car for one of the punks to finish up at lessons.  It wasn't ideal, but I didn't have to try to figure out which pages I might/might not get to while I was gone and find myself limited to only the pages I had printed.

Even five year old Merrick did the worksheets.  Sort of.

The reproducible pages consisted of parent letters with editable fields, activities for the children to use "at home" :) to reinforce the lesson, and a worksheet for them to complete.  Song lyrics and chants are also in each section.

The stepping stones are holding up very well to regular use by my punks.  I'm impressed by the quality of all the program components, and I think you will be, too.  The surface is suitable for dry erase markers and the bottoms are similar to, but thicker than, a computer mouse pad.  (One of the boys made that observation, so I went with it!)  We write the appropriate words on each stone, but you can even draw pictures for pre-readers.  There are two yellow (hello and goodbye), one green (conversation starters), one red (conversation stoppers - and no, not the embarrassing kind of conversation stoppers!), and four blue (topics) stones.

The cute, yellow Color My Conversation ball arrives deflated, but can be inflated with any ball pump.  Or you can select another ball to use.  Some balls are easier to catch than others, so just take that into consideration before deciding what to use.  We have used bean bags, beach balls, a textured ball (easy to catch), and a round, stuffed toy.

The game board is huge and very sturdy.  It's a nice, thick bi-fold game board with the stepping stone conversation path on one side and four games on the alternate side.  The game tokens are plastic and come in a handy drawstring bag.

The song CD is simultaneously goofy and cool.  The music is fun, maybe even a smidge hip (Is it still hip to say "hip?"  I'm probably too old and uncool to know!).  The lyrics are typical, goofy kid song type lyrics.  A couple of my boys really liked them.  If we listen often enough, I'm relatively sure they will become some of the random songs that make up the soundtrack of their lives.

The lessons covered are divided into Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced, and Expert levels.  Everyone should start in the Beginner level, even though the time spent on one level will be reduced.  Some older kids may find it silly, but I think it's a good idea to have this solid footing all along the conversation path.

Beginner lessons focus on greetings and farewells, conversation starters and stoppers, and adding topics, appropriate questions, and topic changers.  Eye contact and body language are important parts of communicating and some gestures and signs are incorporated.  Examples of ways we can be perceived as rude/disrespectful to others and how to avoid that are also covered.

Intermediate and Advanced level topics focus on adding to the skills already learned.  Conversation Coaches will focus on teaching WH questions (who, what, where...) and being able to ask a variety of questions related to a topic, as well as comment appropriately.  Speaking loudly and clearly, and carrying these techniques over into other conversations are covered as well.

I want to be totally transparent here when I tell you this.  Two of the boys have been struggling with school.  I won't name names, but it is becoming quite stressful for us.  There has been some whining and short tempers.  While the punks sometimes feel self-conscious about role playing, we have had so much fun with this program.  We have smiled and laughed and never felt the tension that has become such a part of our regular school day.  The looks on their faces when I walked out the door the first day, closed it behind me and *knocked* was priceless!

A fun game that we played was called Wynnie’s Wakootabonga Lightning Challenge.  In this game, one of my guys selects picture cards and quickly must decide, based on the picture, what the conversation topic will be.  Then he asks one of us three questions about the topic.  Once he finishes that, he chooses another card.  He earns game tokens for asking all three questions and can count up the tokens at the end to see how many cards were played and (sneaking in a bit of math) multiply the tokens by three to determine how many questions he asked.

All the activities are being done as a group, but I decided to take advantage of having Mal all to myself one day while his brothers were playing.  I didn't time us, and we went through 16 cards together.  Completely uninterrupted!  We had several detailed conversations besides the Q&A-type format.  He was attentive and I think he enjoyed the focused time on him as much as I enjoyed spending it chatting with him.

Merrick likes looking at the sturdy facial expression cards.  They're so cute.  The game I play with him involves deciding what emotion the face shows us and seeing if we can make the same face.  He just made that up with me one day and we talked about feelings and worked through the whole deck.

I noticed the words we wrote on the conversation stones often wore off between uses (obviously, because they're dry erase).  Construction paper in the appropriate colors made a nice place to list our hellos, goodbyes, and other stone contents.  All we needed to do was pull out our expanding lists and rewrite them on the stones.

The guided path is fun to pull together and easy to follow.  Merrick loved making short conversations with Daddy when he got home.  He walked his dad to move through the conversation stones.  "Now you move to the next one."  Mal also taught his community coordinator how to play on one of her visits.  And, gravy! we had a blast coming up with Hellos and Goodbyes.  I did need to point out to them that some of them would be goodbyes you would only say to friends or maybe family members.  Teachers, co-op parents, and acquaintances would require goodbyes that were more respectful.

Have fun stormin' the castle!

In fact, CMC opened up worlds of training for us.  I often thought about the troubles the boys have with making conversation, we talked to them about it.  I just didn't think about *showing* them and *training* them in the art.  Conversation *is* an art.  While some people are naturally capable conversationalists, social language does not come easily to everyone.  I've noticed that there are plenty of people (not just those with special needs or young children) who struggle with

• Monopolizing a conversation.
• Not recognizing when a topic isn't of interest to the listener.
• Giving monosyllabic responses.  (Some people are so adept at this, you don't even have to ask them a yes/no question!)
• Searching for an acceptable topic.
• Ignoring someone who says "Hello!"
• Making eye contact.

I actually struggle to make small talk myself (see? transparent, here.).  I often feel awkward around people I don't know especially well.  Working through Color My Conversation with the punks has been a confidence booster for me as well.  I feel like I have a small repertoire of topics and techniques stored up.

Color My Conversation is suggested for ages 5-12.  I think it is a great tool for people of any age who struggle with the mechanics of social language.

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L is for Lies

Some weeks the Letter of the Week just falls into my brain and I shout: A-HA!  Other weeks, I can never think of a word.  This week, it was the former.

I was in the car, listening to K-Love.  I didn't catch the entire segment, but this caller basically said, "Stop buying the lies, because the Truth is free."

Pretty excellent advice.

Satan cannot create.  He can only twist and warp what is true.  He isn't called the father of lies for nothing.

In John 8, Jesus said:

⁴⁰ But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God: this did not Abraham.
⁴¹ Ye do the deeds of your father. Then said they to him, We be not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God.
⁴² Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me.
⁴³ Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word.
⁴⁴ Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.
⁴⁵ And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not.

As homeschoolers, I think we look at everyone's blogs or Facebook posts and believe a lot of lies.

• Her kids are so much (smarter, well-behaved, godly) than mine.
• That may be somewhat true, but so what?  You're kids are uniquely them.  There are no other kids like them.  And that's good.  If you think they could use a bit more discipline or a tutor, or a dose of Biblical teaching, then *do* it.  But don't compare them to others.  It just isn't fair to them.
• Her house is immaculate.
• Maybe so.  Or maybe she enlists the kids' help before a get together.  Maybe she just spent five weeks purging her home of the excess so she can feel comfortable and in control of her home.  Don't compare your home to hers.  Find contentment in what you have and do what you need to do to get your home to a point that makes you happy.
• She always looks amazing.
• If you feel frumpy, get a lovely haircut.  But really, mama, you are pretty amazing yourself.  Just the way you are,  My friends, Bob and Larry, always used to tell me, "God made you special and He loves you very much."
• Her marriage is perfect.
• Maybe.  Maybe yours is, too.  Perfect for you.  

We have to stop believing the lies.  The things that hurt us and worry us the most are, quite likely the areas we need to focus on for a season.  Let go of what you can and banish those lies, mama.

What are some of the lies you believe?  Take your receipt and return them to their maker.

Memoria Press American History Set ~ A Homeschool Crew Review

I've been very interested in classical education, but I'm really not familiar enough with it to know if it's for us, and if it is, how to switch to it.  A couple of Memoria Press courses are the only real exposure I've had to classical Christian homeschool curriculum.  I'm finding their lessons to be pretty enjoyable.  Today, I'm writing about The Story of the Thirteen Colonies & the Great Republic Set (second edition) and 200 Questions About American History Set.  These two courses make for a very complete American History course for middle school grades.

One thing we've enjoyed has been learning about some things in early American history that have happened right near us.  It's exciting to read about the explorers and the fighting over territories we are used to seeing nearby or in our travels.  Lake Champlain, Hudson, and Plymouth are all familiar to us.

The Story of the Thirteen Colonies & the Great Republic Set is a second edition and includes a Teacher Guide, Student Guide, and the book of the same title by H. A. Guerber which has been edited by Memoria Press.  The text is a 211 page paperback book consisting of 85 chapters.  Each chapter is very short, only 1-2 pages, and illustrated.  Most of the illustrations are portraits of the relevant people covered by the chapter.  Some of the pictures also show the various ships of the different eras, some of the architecture, battle depictions, and maps.

In the Student Guide boasts a two page spread for each of the 32 lessons.  Most of the lessons cover three chapters of the included text.  Here, "Facts to Know" highlights several of the most important points of the covered chapters.  This is followed by "Vocabulary" and "Comprehension Questions."  Mal is not much of a writer, so he really doesn't love this part, but the "Enrichment" section consists of mapping, timeline, and research activities to round out the lesson.  These are a bit more fun (except for the writing assignments!) and we enjoy mapping various US units as a family.  (Most recently, we mapped the Lewis and Clark expedition just because I had a hankering to do it.  LOL  They don't show up in this curriculum until chapter 50/Lesson 19, so it will be a while before we cover it again.)  The Appendix boasts various maps and the text of important papers, such as the Mayflower Compact, Declaration of Independence, and the US Constitution.

For the mapping activities, I had Mal label the location with the lesson number and then highlight it.  This helped him to focus on the individual places and see the progression of the mapping activity over time.

The 127 page Teacher Guide shows each page of the Student Guide duplicated with the correct answers filled in.  It also has an appendix consisting of the maps, a 13 Colonies chart, and the same resources as the Student Guide.  There are also four tests followed by the test keys.

This course covers American history from the Vikings to the Spanish-American War.

In the 200 Questions About American History Set, we found the paperback Teacher Guide and Student Book as well as the flashcards which closely align with the Guerber spine and Story of the World, Volume 4 by Susan Wise Bower (which is not included in either set) *or* Everything You Need to Know About American History Homework by Anne Zeman and Kate Kelly (also not included and is now out of print, though I was easily able to find a used copy through Amazon).

The flash cards are a nice sturdy card stock, but once you open the pack you are left with a *lot* of loose cards!  I found a couple of card boxes and divided the cards between them.  One box holds 150 numbered Drill Questions and the second box now holds 44 President cards, 30 Timeline cards, and the 20 Notable Quotes cards.  The cards are about 2.5x3.5 inches.  We went through review of all cards we had already covered every day that we did history.  At first, I thought they'd never remember them, but after a few weeks, their recall had greatly improved.

Inside the Student Book of 25 pages is basically a book for writing the answers to all of the cards, which is a nice way to reinforce the study of the cards.  It also holds the lyrics of The Star-Spangled Banner, Old Ironsides, and O Captain! My Captain!

The companion Teacher Guide, has a Recommended Texts & Weekly Schedule chart in the front.  This has you completing both The Story of the Thirteen Colonies & the Great Republic Set *and* the 200 Questions Set in 34 weeks. This Teacher Guide also includes the duplicated pages from the Student Book and six tests and a five page final.  These are followed by the answer keys.

*At this time and for this child* we were not able to follow this schedule.  Completing *one* lesson from The Story of the Thirteen Colonies & the Great Republic Set each week was plenty.  He's a bit on the immature side and lower on the intended grade range of 5th-8th, so I'm sure many, more prepared children could do the work that is recommended here.  Following the same chart, we completed about 1/3 fewer chapters(ish) weekly.  We are still working on Week 4 and have not made it to the first test, which he will take later this week.

Our homeschool history has been all over the place.  We seem to have covered Pilgrims, American Revolution, some Civil War, and some westward expansion.  We haven't studied much of the early explorers and this covered all of that for the review period.  (Funnily enough, we were discussing some of those same explorers in the car one night, right before this review became available.)  That was a fun addition to my generally random US history approach.  "Oh, you want to learn about the Wright Brothers and then Columbus followed by some other random historical moment?  OK."  It's fun and they like learning in this manner, but I know the punks would be hard pressed to plot everything on a timeline.  This homeschool curriculum has helped immensely with that.

This course requires a good deal of reading, though it wasn't overwhelming since the chapters are short.  I chose this class for Mal and the other two punks listened along.  There is also a lot of writing.  I would say to take that into consideration when choosing this curriculum for your family.  When *I* was a kid, I would have thoroughly enjoyed using The Story of the Thirteen Colonies & the Great Republic Set.  It's a fun way to learn American history and the components can reach a variety of learning types.

Memoria Press has a forum that has fairly heavy traffic compared to many other curriculum providers' forums.  I was pleasantly surprised to see that it is really a whole community.


In addition to this American history set, the rest of the Crew reviewed First Form Greek and the Illiad and Odyssey set.  Click the banner below to see what they all thought.

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