Busy but fun--sugaring season!

 

March

 

Excellence in Literature Handbook for Writers -- my REVIEW

 Disclosure: I received this product free through the Homeschool Review Crew

My only non-college kiddo is in 11th grade, and seems to be doing a lot of writing for different classes. She just completed a college composition course and is currently taking a college literature class; other assignments and activities require writing essays or paragraphs as well. Throughout the years my children have had quite a comprehensive education in grammar and writing, though each one has his or her own style. 

We received the Excellence in Literature Handbook for Writers by a company called Everyday Education to use and share our thoughts in a review. The format we received was in an e-book/pdf downloadable book. My daughter was interested to check out some of the hints and tips as she began writing content for her National History Day project. 

The Handbook for Writers is a lengthy resource (over 400 pages!) There are two main sections of the book, The first is kind of a composition section, about writing essays and arguments. Here a writer can find inspiration for more well-written paragraphs, sentences, thesis statements/topic sentences, and much much more. This section contains rules and explanations and examples to help writers improve their writing in the conceptualization of organizing thoughts and relaying the information. 

Section two is more of the nuts-and-bolts of proper writing, containing sections about grammar and parts of speech. There are suggestions to write stronger sentences and properly stated ideas. This section is full of examples, which is nice, so that as you read the rule, you can easily imagine its proper usage in a real life writing or speaking setting. 

As she was writing her paragraphs for the 

National History Day project (she made a website),

 my daughter utilized some of the ideas and tips 

given in the Handbook for Writers

I had said that my daughter was writing paragraphs for her History Day project. She focused on the sections which addressed paragraphs. One of the things that she found very helpful was the encouragement to use certain words as transitions or to show transitions between thoughts and paragraphs. 

One of my pet peeves as a writer or a reader is to see mis-used words. I  appreciated the lengthy sections in part two which addressed word usage, especially commonly misused words. Some of these I am sometimes foggy on...things like when to use i.e. and e.g. and if there are spaces before the letters/after the periods or not...

This reference is full of little tidbits like that! It is not just applicable to high schoolers learning to write, but to adults as well--because seriously, we all need to check our writing habits and steer clear of bad habits!

 

Another section that my daughter and I agreed was very helpful is the bibliography section (and footnotes section). We usually fall into using easybib or some automated bibliography tool, but often it is difficult to figure out which category to use or if your citations are actually correct using that. This handbook lists so many different bibliography entries and how to construct them for MLA as well as APA. Now that's very useful! 

Overall, I believe that the Excellence in Literature Handbook for Writers is a very helpful tool, which can be a help to a student as well as to an adult in writing (and speaking) for their entire lives. It is very thorough and quite easy to use. I received this product for review as an e-book...I really wish that I had it in a paper version--I'm just a book type person :) I did also wish that there was an index/glossary at the back of the book for quick and easy searching (I know, with an ebook I can do ctrl-F, and I did, but if it were in book form I would wish for an index!) The table of contents at the beginning is very helpful, though.

The handbook seems very thorough and easy to read and follow. It is written to be used! I would recommend it. Please click on the link in the box below to read reviews by other homeschooling folks!

Job and faith

 We all know that Job had great faith in God...through all of the hardships and even when he felt that it was unjust, his faith in his redeemer remained strong.  I was just struck today by the thought that we have do much more...the whole Bible,  Jesus,  the Holy Spirit...he didn't have these helps and yet was strong in faith. That is quite amazing. 

Job 19:25-27 

I know that my redeemer lives,  

and that in the end he will stand on the earth.

26 And after my skin has been destroyed,
    yet in my flesh I will see God;
27 I myself will see him
    with my own eyes—I, and not another.
    How my heart yearns  within me!

Memory triggers (not bad ones!)

 It's interesting how little things can stay hidden in your memory until something reminds you :) 

My dad used to have a workbench with a drawer of this type of rubber bands and we would use them when we went bike riding--to put around our pant leg so it wouldn't get caught in the chain.

It also reminds me of the times I didn't wear one and my pants got stuck in the chain and the chain popped off. . .and I had to fix it. 

Good memories of bike riding as a kid to make me smile this morning:)

Maestro Mastery -- Explore the Composers by Byron's Games -- my REVIEW

  Disclosure: I received this product free through the Homeschool Review Crew

We are a game-playing family :) We enjoy playing a variety of games, sometimes as the whole family and other times with just two of us. Throughout the years we have played a lot of educational games, as well--if you can learn while you are playing again, that's a bonus! This past month we have had the opportunity to play the game Maestro Mastery -- Explore the Composers by Byron's Games . Over the years we have had different card games that utilized pictures of artists, but this game is a concentration-type game (at least that's what we call this style of game!) that features music composers from different eras.

The game is suggested for ages 5 and above and it can be used with two or more players. 

There are 104 cards--a pair each of fifty-two different composers. There is a poster chart of all of the composers for easy reference.

Each of the playing cards features one composer, with his or her name and years that he or she lived at the bottom. One card from each pair gives a little snippet of information about the composer; above this is a drawing/picture of the composer on a background that coordinates with his/her era of music. The era of their music is written at the top of the card, along with the country that he or she was from.

Suggested game play is similar to other matching games you may have played before --laying out the cards and taking turns flipping over two in one turn--keeping them if they are a match and turning back over if it is not a match. 

The directions suggested using only half of the deck (twenty six pairs) for regular game play, unless there is a very large group of players. For our usage, we found that it was very difficult and took a very long time to play if we used even the twenty-six pair. We preferred to use a smaller number of matches (like ten pair!) 

 I think that this game would be a great accompaniment to learning about a particular era or style of music--and a study of a few composers. It is a bit overwhelming to be faced with fifty-two or even twenty-six composers who kind of look alike in the pictures.

There is a really neat aspect to go along with this game--on the website, there is a chart of composers that parallels the poster that is included in the game. Each composer picture has a "play" button superimposed on it, and when you push that, it pops out a youtube video of one of the works of that composer for you to listen to. That's a pretty snazzy addition!  

There are additional game suggestions that go along with the listening portion--the "extra challenges." This uses the music and has players identify the era of music or the composer of that music.

We tried out another game with these cards--Go Fish! There are enough cards that it makes for a challenging go fish game as well :) 

There are many different ways that this game can be used in a learning by fun setting. I would recommend using it in smaller sets of pairs until players are familiar with the different composers and with the looks of the cards. This might help to overcome any overwhelming feelings brought on by the large numbers of composers and the similar look of the cards (I think I use my visual senses to help me too much when playing matching games!) My daughter is 16 and I am...well, older than 16 hahaha ;) and we got a bit overwhelmed by so many different people. 

I appreciated the fact that one card of each pair gives a little bit of info about the composer, so that when you are playing the game, it is just a natural place to read a little about that person. The more times that you play the game, you begin to remember more about the composer--and if you happen to be studying them in school, you will know and learn and remember even more!

The chart of music of each of the composers is quite an elegant tool to add on to the game. Just a reminder that you might want to preview the videos (I did not view every one of the videos, but at least one featured artwork with nudity...and as it is youtube, there are video suggestions after the video--just something that you might want to watch out for) There's some beautiful music on there!  I discovered some new music to listen to :) Listen to this one: 

Isn't that lovely?  Anyhow, before I go too far about this new-to-me composer, let me get back to the game... :) 

So to sum it up, the game is basically a matching game, with added enhancements of music to accompany it and a bit of information about each of the composers. It is a large game, two decks of cards, with only one match per card (so fifty two pairs). It would go along well with a study of different composers, or as a way to introduce the names of composers. You can definitely scale it down to use with as many pairs as you wish until you are comfortable enough to use one or two decks.

You can learn more about this product by clicking on the link below and reading more folks' reviews of Maestro Mastery--Explore the Composers: