Biblioplan Cool History worksheets

      We are doing Biblioplan this year for everyone. Last year my high school students did Biblioplan and the elementary did Mystery of History. I am excited because we are also doing a coop along with other Christ centered families doing Biblioplan together. I will post about that tomorrow.
      We completed our first week. I am preparing for next week sitting outside. We are doing the Cool History worksheets on Fridays at home to review all that we have learned doing the week.I like doing the worksheets together.This helps me as mom see what they did learned. This also saves me time of checking papers. They each take turns reading the question. We discuss it together and then fill out the worksheet. So what I am doing to prepare for next week is highlighting the answers in my book since with Bibliopan elementary you pick and choose what you want them to learn in the textbook. High school students have to read everything and they answer their worksheets on their own they do not sit with me since they have essays etc. to write. So this is going to help me make sure I cover that section for our Friday Cool history worksheets. This is also giving me a quick view on what we are going to learn which is fun. I find most of it interesting so we will cover as much as we can but if life throws a curve ball at me like a teething fussy baby etc. I can at least make sure we cover the material in the Cool History worksheets.

Here is a picture of us working on our art homework for coop. They are painting the cover and back  of their lap book they will work on all year at coop. We brought in some stones from outside to study and look at the colors and texture of the rocks that would of been used to build castles.

Ancient History games and figures

I purchased some games and a famous figure book for our Ancient history lessons using Mystery of History. They are great for review and to see how much they have learned.I purchased the figures too. You can use them for lap books etc. I am going to place the colored ones on the wall for review of important figures.

Nehemiah cut out Nebakinezzar 2 since we are studying him now.

Wisdom Booklet 37-Determination~Character Quality.

   We have began WB 37. I am behind in blogging about our WB. 

We have been working on our Wisdom Worksheet. We completed the Wisdom Quiz, & Meditation Worksheet. Our Character focus for this WB is determination. Determination ~ purposing to accomplish God's goals in God's time regardless of the opposition. We are getting ready to study Daniel & Nehemiah in history  who are great examples of this and I can't wait to for them to see this character trait in history etc. as we work through the WB37.

      We are spending our entire week studying this character and looking for it in every day life as well as in all our subjects. We completed the character quality worksheet studying the word, looking at antonyms, synonyms, Bible characters who demonstrated and did not show determination. We also were challenged with how can we show determination. 

     I have decided to set aside our botany study for the week and do the character sketches of animals that show determination in the Character Sketches (the book volume 1 click here). We will also be studying those in the Bible who had determination for Bible time.This is what we will be studying.

Today we learned about the cecropia moth . We looked at how present struggles are essential for future achievement.I copied the picture of the moth in the Character Sketch coloring book and we made a mini-book of the life cycle of the moth, I also purchased on ebay some eggs we can raise and release. They are from our state so we are also learning PA wildlife. I can't wait to get them fun..fun! We have raised Monarch buttlerflies so this will be differant. They eat maple leaves & apple tree leaves so getting food will be easy.

Here is a link to pictures I used to make this mini-booklet. click here for pictures.

They then had to relate the moth to the character quality in the mini-booklet. We glued everything in their WB notebook.

Mystery of History organizing with Post It Tabs

I have blogged about Post It Tabs before but I wanted to show how useful they are for Mystery of History. As you can see from the picture I can easily use them to check maps, pretests, and quizzes. I also have a quick reference to reading the Bible and choose books for read Aloud and the students to read. I use these tabs on everything. I love using the tabs and bookmarks!!!

God King ( MOH & Biblioplan ) Read Alouds

We just finished our book the God King by Joanne Williamson and I really enjoyed it. It was a recommended read aloud by Biblioplan and it went well with our history study. We will do a book report on it on Monday. I like that it goes with our history and includes Bible history. The end of the book the author explains what was fact and what was fiction in the book which I liked so they were not confused. This ends our study on the Assyrian empire and next week we will start studying the Babylonians. This book was good in learning about the Assyrians and also good for Egyptian history as it really looked at how the Egyptians thought their pharohs were gods. This is a great way to reflect on how Moses when stood before pharoh it was the battle of God and the pharoh.Of course there is only one true God who was in control . 

   So the next book we will read aloud is Daniel , Out of the Mouth of  Lions that is also recommended by Biblioplan but for a student reader .I am going to read it as a read aloud. 

Mystery of History timeline- Wall of Fame

I started off the school year by making a timeline book that each child had their own. We were not keeping up with that since it required me printing out and all of them doing a timeline. I did love the individuality and the ability to add more to the timeline but it wasn't getting done so I purchased the sewing board from Amazon and made a timeline like the author recommended .

I choose my own colors for the duck tape for the timeline. An easy way to add the figures is to just lay them out and use clear packing in tape to place them on the timeline. I then use a permant marker to add the dates. 

I am using the free timeline figures you can find on Pinterest or on my past post when we did the timeline books. We review the time period then they each color the figures. I am having the kids color Bible history titles orange and history yellow. 

This timeline folds up nice and is smaller than a science board so it's easy to keep if you are limited in space. I did use white contact paper to cover it. You can still see the lines through the contact paper but I like that to use to place my time lines on. Others have used marble patterns etc. if I ever have a large wall for a big timeline I would purchase the Konos timeline. This time line meets my needs and is working great.

  I like doing the map work and timeline review before we take our weekly review quiz. This seems to help them remember it all and put it together more than I did in school learning history. The more I use MOH the more it proves to be a good choice for our family.

Mystery of History memory cards

We are continuing using Mystery of History year 1. We just began the classical period. I love note booking pages but printing them out weekly just was not getting done since the baby was born. So to make life easier for mom I decided to start the memory cards the author recommends . I write the title, dates, and hard to spell names etc. on the board for them.

I purchased this spiral set of note cards.

Instead of making the memory cards at once we do them at the end of every lesson.

The title of the lesson and date we put on the front of the card that is blank.

They write important information on the back. I let them choose what is important but I do read over it to make sure it is accurate. I have found they often get the information wrong so this allows them to organize their thoughts and make sure they understood how things happened in the history lesson. Spelling I try to work on too but as you can see here he misspelled uncle so I will have him go and correct that.

I really like using the memory cards. They will be easy to review and I don't have to prepare for the lesson printing out note booking pages or mini books. They are in timeline order. I also like the fact that they are not intimidating with tons of space to fill out like a complete page. This also allows them to boil down the important information. I will let you know how it goes as we use them for the rest of volume 1of MOH.

Magnetic Bookmarks !

My sister purchased my daughter magnetic bookmarks and a book for a get well present since she is a bookworm. She also bought the old fashion ones I grew up with a little tassel that she likes and uses. She wasn't using the magnetic ones so she gave them to me for the school books. It's little things like this that Make me happy.They are cute, small, and make finding my lessons easier. You can purchase them on Amazon or make them yourself by glueing magnets to a small piece of card stock.

Here is a picture of the magnetic side.it folds over the page to mark your page.

As you can see they are small and not real thick. They can easily be moved.

I am using them in their reading books, history, science, and our read aloud.

It's the little things that make my day easier :) I like these little modern day book marks over the old fashion bookmarks my daughter likes. Isn't that funny different generations liking the others bookmarks. 

Mystery of History and Biblioplan

One of the things I enjoy about MOH and Biblioplan is how they complement each other. My high school students follow the Biblioplan guide and as you can see below the MOH is scheduled in the reading as optional extra reading which my students read along with their Biblioplan. This guide can also helps me with my elementary / Jr. high students who do the opposite. Mystery of History as the main curriculum and Biblioplan as added extra fun facts to learn.

Here is an example. We finished studying Hezekiah, Sennacherib, Mannasseh, and the powers of Mesopotamia in weeks 16-17.

So today I used the Biblioplan guide to study more about what we covered in MOH. Biblioplan textbook is like a Christ centered Encyclopedia with interesting facts and pictures so it's a good review and study more on what we have been learning. I love the way she includes the Bible verses that go with what we are studying. For example the verses in the Bible that refer to Hezekiah and Sennacherib that are in Bible. I am reading the 3 recommended of lessons of MOH then the 4rth day reviewing and digging in deeper with the Biblioplan then doing maps. Well I need to get better at getting the maps in!

 We are also reading through as a read aloud " The God King" by Joanne Williamson that is an awesome book on King Hezekiah, the Assyrians, and even Ancient Egypt. This was a recommended read aloud from Biblioplan as you can see in the schedule above. I love the fascinating facts of History from Biblioplan as we read through MOH with the younger students.

  The older students like doing BIblioplan indepentantly.

This year using both together is working well for us. I am excited to give TruthQuest a try next year. If it doesn't work out I will be back to MOH for my younger students. The high school kids will continue to do Biblioplan. I really do enjoy the way Mystery of History and Biblioplan work  well together. 

Next years Wisdom Booklets are here!

Our Wisdom Booklet are here for next year. We are finishing WB 36 this week and we will be starting our new WIsdom Booklets next week. This is my favorite part of the school day. We always talk about life since the Wisdom Booklets always relate and help us see how God's word applies to our lives. I can't imagine homeschooling with out them.

Angelo holding baby Caleb as we read the WB together.

Flower dissection... Botany

Since it spring and the flowers are blooming today we did our flower dissecting project from Exploring Creation with Botany. 

New DIY bookshelves ! My homeschool mom's book nook.

My book shelves were falling apart. They were the cheap ones from Biglots. Since we are remodeling he decided to build me new ones out if 2" by 10" boards. I love them they are strong . We used Minwax weathered oak for the stain. My last bookshelves we white and showed all the dust from our wood burner so I am hoping this color will camouflage the dust a little since in the winter we always have dust from the wood burner. It also matches my brick wall color.We used high gloss polyurathane to make it easy to wipe off.

This is my homeschool mom book nook. I placed all the curriculum and read outloud books next to were I will be sitting for easy reach. Since I have the couch against the bookshelf to add space in the livingroom I placed books I will not be using on the bottom shelf.

Here is a birds eye view of the two book shelves he made me. I love decorating with books!!!

Joe graduates! Class of 2015

Today we met with the evaluator and it is official Joe graduated high school ! I am so proud of him as he seeks to  walk with the Lord. The men of our church have come along side of him and have been great mentors that Christ is using in his life. Monday he starts working in a machine shop being apprenticed by a man of God from our church. We are so blessed to have men that are Godly examples in my son's lives. Today marks a new chapter in Joe's life. I pray the Lord leads and walks with him all the days of his life. A wonderful day for this homeschool mom.

 Joe enjoys serving the Lord with his church family.....

 Joe Bible quizzed for 5 years including his senior year.....

 He wants to glorify God through music....

His own road with his Savior has begun..... Enjoy every moment of it Joe !!!