Two resources you don’t want to miss out on!

It’s that time of year again when we are all looking over tons of different school materials and trying to narrow our choices down. If you are like me, this is a very difficult thing to do. Occasionally on our blog we like to give reviews of great materials we come across. I wanted to share with you two great products that would be helpful throughout your entire school year.

The Old Schoolhouse Digital Magazine

The first is The Old School House Digital Magazine. This great magazine has gone digital and I am thrilled! This is a magazine I have subscribed to in the past because it has such wonderful articles. It covers a wide range of subjects, age groups, and different styles of learning. To me, the digital version of this magazine makes it even better for a number of reasons. First of all, when I said I have subscribed to it in the past, that is because I haven’t always been able to afford it after buying all of my curriculum. Now that it is in digital format, the price is affordable for everyone, even after coming home from a convention with one too many items. Another aspect which is appealing to me is that I am not cluttering my house up with magazines. While I love them, they do tend to take over the house after a while. And let’s face it, homeschoolers tend to have lots of things that can take over the house! This is one way I can keep magazines under control. I was a little leery as to whether I would enjoy reading it on the computer or not. I was pleasantly surprised to see how easy I could navigate through the magazine. There were many features on the digital magazine that actually made it easier to use than the print version. For instance, you can click on a button and have all the links from that page at a mouse click. You can bookmark a favorite article. If you don’t like how you are looking at the pages, a few quick clicks and you can change from double to single pages, make the pages smaller or larger, and even turn the pages faster or slower. In addition, you can zoom in or out for those of us who are getting older and need to have the print up close. There is even a button that shows all the pages in a picture index, which I thought was a great way to quickly find something you had seen in the magazine but couldn’t remember where it was. I would recommend the digital version of this magazine to all homeschoolers. They have taken an already great magazine and made it even better! It’s a wonderful resource to add to you list of essentials for this year.

The Schoolhouse Planner

The second product that would be a great asset is The Schoolhouse Planner. This is an amazing tool! I could not have sat down and thought of all the ideas these ladies have included. Not only does it help you organize your life, school, and home with tons of forms to use, but it also includes many other extras as well. There are two wonderful recipes each month. I can easily see how these could become family favorites in my household. There are helpful articles from some of the best homeschool curriculum authors in the industry giving you great advice or ideas that you can take and incorporate immediately into your school day. There is a great resource list each month that takes you right to The Old Schoolhouse Store to purchase any supplemental materials that go along with that month’s theme. This saves you from having to search for materials. One of the neatest features is that you can change text right on the screen before printing to customize this planner to meet your individual family’s needs. While this book is 247 pages long, you will not need to print all of the pages you see. Many of these are just great resources you can refer to. You can print each month as you go and select only the forms that are necessary. They have tried to include a little of something for everybody. I can definitely see how this would be useful to me and my family in the upcoming school year. Perhaps this year, I will finally get my home and school records organized and know what I am cooking for dinner each night!

About Walls of Time and The War of the Worlds

Q: Do you have to read the book to make the wall mural?

A: The purpose of this product line is for reading comprehension for hands-on learners. The image is made by answering questions and completing sentences about each chapter. While it could be done for art alone, the intended purpose was to use as an evaluation tool.

Q: Does the mural have to be painted or done in a certain way?

A: I like to use paints, markers, and scrapbook embellishments. I would love to see a myriad of art supplies used to make these walls. I am hoping the teens who complete these walls will send in pictures for us to see the different ways these WALLS of TIME can be completed. Please send in the pics!!!

Q: Do the WALLS of TIME use a lot of ink?

A: No. The file is printed off in black and white. You can set the scale of ink quality low as they will be painted over anyway. The color comes from the student’s own design.

Q: How did you come up with the idea?

A: We knew we needed a high school line. We had been asked over and over again at conventions what we had planned. The list of books was easy to decide, how to meet the criteria needed was proving to be more difficult.

#1- we needed something for hands-on learners. This is the market we want to reach. There is plenty available for the textbook learner who likes the fill in the blank approach and the give your thought style. Truthfully, our kids aren’t like that here at FFYB. Five out of seven of our children are hands-on learners. We know what is needed!

#2- it had to be creative enough to not only attract a teen’s attention, but keep it. Teens are a tough market. We needed to think like them, learn from them, see what they buy, read what they read, channel our coolness and hipness. And then we reached the conclusion that we are indeed old  (sorry, Kelly and Heidi!)and we never were the cool ones and we, the parents, need to come up with something to help other parents of teens! 

#3 -it couldn’t look like our Pockets of Time line. This line is fantastic for lower elementary age. The Lines of Time line is for the upper elementary and middle age line. It had to be totally different.

#4- it had to be for the reluctant reader. Unfortunately, not all our children are avid readers. We do meet many, many parents at convention whose children are going through books so fast, the parents need to remortgage the home for book money. I personally am not one of them. My children do read, but not at an advanced rate or level. I say this with respect and honor due to my children, they are average in their grades. My children’s IQ’s are not off the chart. They are not in advanced math class, or carrying 4.0 grade levels. I learned a long, long time ago that these numbers and successes are not what identify a child. Thankfully, it is not required for all our children as the Lord has seen fit to create each child with gifts and talents intended to suit their planned purpose and destiny. It is much easier to see with my two oldest sons who are doing what they were designed for and what was apparent at such young ages. Not all children are advanced or eager readers and this line was developed just for them. To give them enjoyment from a book they would not have picked up otherwise, to give them something to see and touch at the end that is more than fill in the blank papers, to make them WANT to read the next chapter, even if only to complete another part of the mural: for that teen, this line was developed.

Q: What inspired the design of this line?

A: I kept hearing my kids talk about their WALL on facebook. They were always writing on someone’s wall. Putting that idea and the suspense needed to keep a teen in a book woke me up in the middle of the night. I sketched it out and we have been working and tweaking the idea all summer. Now that the format is done, we are making more WALLS of TIME. Lord of the Flies and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are in the works now. Those WALLS are going to be cool!

Q: Is this line only for boys?

A: I hope it doesn’t seem that way by the name of the books chosen. I was looking for elements in a story that would be helpful to teens who need to read literature that will support a Christian worldview. Any work of literature that a teen reads needs to affect them for good and teach them something. These works were chosen to give the parents a springboard to help teach their worldview. Girls enjoy reading these books also and they certainly make for interesting conversation when in groups! I was thinking of making the WAR of the WORLDS wall in pink camo to see what it would look like. This line was intended for every teen and all are welcome to suggest a book that we can make a WALL of TIME with. As a matter of fact, ELLA ENCHANTED will be out any day now!

Q: How can I order this line?

A: Go to our store at www.fortunatelyforyoubooks.comand go to the WALLS of TIME page. Be sure to check out the PHOTO GALLERY that has a slideshow of a completed WALL of TIME for THE WAR OF THE WORLDS.

Blessing,

Shannon

Fortunately For You Books

 

To see how this WALL was made, please see our slideshow at our Photo Gallery:

http://ffybphotos.blogspot.com/

Great Article

I read this article on a homeschool forum. I enjoyed it very much. As a warning, it has fantastical elements to it, such as children walking calmly and orderly through the grocery store, wearing nice and even matching outfits. I would be interested in knowing what your children do through the grocery store in hopes that mine aren’t the only ones who run as fast as they can down the aisle, then drop to their knees and see how far they can slide. I would like to say now that they are older it is better, but it is just different. Now is it wrestling or spy games or seeing how fast we can walk. The benefit to them being older is that I don’t have to walk in the same aisle. ha. In their defense, I have very well behaved sons. If I tell them to stop, they will. But we would not look like this family in this article. When I read this, I couldn’t help but think of all the things my sons have tried and done in a store. Now I can laugh! What does your family look like when you grocery shop?

Here is the article- food for thought!

 

Home-schoolers threaten our cultural comfort 
Mon Jun 16, 2008 4:50 pm (PDT) 
*SONNY SCOTT*
 
6/8/2008 9:39:01 AM
 Daily Journal
 
You see them at the grocery, or in a discount store.
 
It’s a big family by today’s standards - “just like stair steps,”
as the old folks say. Freshly scrubbed boys with neatly trimmed hair
and girls with braids, in clean but unfashionable clothes follow mom
through the store as she fills her no-frills shopping list.
 
There’s no begging for gimcracks, no fretting, and no threats
from mom. The older watch the younger, freeing mom to go peacefully
about her task.
 
You are looking at some of the estimated 2 million children being
home schooled in the U.S., and the number is growing. Their
reputation for academic achievement has caused colleges to begin
aggressively recruiting them. Savings to the taxpayers in
instructional costs are conservatively estimated at $4 billion, and
some place the figure as high as $9 billion. When you consider that
these families pay taxes to support public schools, but demand
nothing from them, it seems quite a deal for the public.
 
Home schooling parents are usually better educated than the norm,
and are more likely to attend worship services. Their motives are
many and varied. Some fear contagion from the anti-clericalism,
coarse speech, suggestive behavior and hedonistic values that
characterize secular schools. Others are concerned for their
children’s safety. Some want their children to be challenged beyond
the minimal competencies of the public schools. Concern for a
theistic world view largely permeates the movement.
 
Indications are that home schooling is working well for the kids,
and the parents are pleased with their choice, but the practice is
coming under increasing suspicion, and even official attack, as in
California.
 
Why do we hate (or at least distrust) these people so much?
 
Methinks American middle-class people are uncomfortable around
the home schooled for the same reason the alcoholic is uneasy around
the teetotaler.
 
Their very existence represents a rejection of our values, and an
indictment of our lifestyles. Those families are willing to render
unto Caesar the things that Caesar’s be, but they draw the line at
their 
children. Those of us who have put our trust in the secular state
(and effectively surrendered our children to it) recognize this act
of defiance as a rejection of our values, and we reject them in
return.
 
Just as the jealous Chaldeans schemed to bring the wrath of the
king upon the Hebrew eunuchs, we are happy to sic the state’s
bureaucrats on these “trouble makers.” Their implicit rejection of
America’s most venerated idol, Materialism, (a.k.a. “Individualism”)
spurs us to heat the furnace and feed the lions.
 
Young families must make the decision: Will junior go to day care
and day school, or will mom stay home and raise him? The
rationalizations begin. “A family just can’t make it on one income.”
(Our parents did.) “It just costs so much to raise a child nowadays.”
(Yeah, if you buy brand-name clothing, pre-prepared food, join every
club and activity, and spend half the cost of a house on the
daughter’s wedding, it does.) And so, the decision is made. We give
up the bulk of our waking hours with our children, as well as the
formation of their minds, philosophies, and attitudes, to strangers.
We compensate by getting a boat to take them to the river, a van to
carry them to Little League, a 2,800-square-foot house, an ATV, a
zero-turn Cub Cadet, and a fund to finance a brand-name college
education. And most significantly, we claim “our right” to pursue a
career for our own”self-fulfillment.”
 
Deep down, however, we know that our generation has eaten its
seed corn. We lack the discipline and the vision to deny ourselves in
the hope of something enduring and worthy for our posterity. We are
tired from working extra jobs, and the looming depression threatens
our 401k’s. Credit cards are nearly maxed, and it costs a $100 to
fuel the Suburban. Now the kid is raising hell again, demanding the
latest Play Station as his price for doing his school work … and
there goes that modest young woman in the home-made dress with her
four bright-eyed, well-behaved home-schooled children in tow.
Wouldn’t you just love to wipe that serene look right off her smug
face?
 
Is it any wonder we hate her so?
 
Sonny Scott a community columnist, lives on Sparta Road in
Chickasaw County and his e-mail address is sonnyscott@…
 
Obviously, we wouldn’t agree on this post, least of all the stereotype of a homeschool family. That is what made me chuckle. I don’t know many homeschoolers who look like this woman and her children. I do however agree with the references of homeschooling being a choice, and one that has consequences and financial repercussions. It is not without a cost. Sometimes I think people forget that.

Enjoy the day,

Shannon

Pockets of Time for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

                                                          

 

I am SOOOOOO very excited about this Pocket of Time we just released. We changed up the standard format because this book was just screaming CHOCOLATE! Every chapter has a large candy bar to be cut out and colored. There are four labels for every candy bar. On these labels, you will find events that happened within that chapter. Color the border the given color, place the labels on the candybar in the CORRECT order. Every candybar has a golden seal to be placed around the labels to hold in their spot. All mom/teacher has to do is look at the color code of events to know if the reader comprehended and followed the sequence of events. There are pockets to hold sets of candybars. These are so adorable!!! Be sure to use this Pocket of Time product for summer reading or save it for school in September.

Here is what one chapter’s candybar looks like:

What Is A Classic? Part 3

As a reminder, this is not my article. I found this in the back of an old Walmart publication of H.G. Wells’ The War of the World. The author of the article is not named. I have researched and tried to find the author’s name to no avail. I respectfully post this article on FORTUNATELY FOR YOU BOOKS business blog. It is one of the best articles I have read on the subject of what makes a book a classic.

Part 3:

There’s one other reason that the classics have endured as long as they have. In fact, it’s the most important reason of all.

Books become classics, and stay classics, because they tell us something about ourselves. The authors whose worlds are represented in this series (Walmart line of classics) understand the human heart better than most of the writers working today. They might not have experienced the events they’re writing about firsthand, but they have the ability to put themselves in someone else’s place, and somehow convey what that sort of a person is feeling.

Stephen Crane was never a soldier himself. But in The Red Badge of Courage, he used his knowledge of human emotions to convey what it was like to be a green recruit facing enemy guns in a bloody war, praying he’d be strong enough not to turn and run when the battle began, not to disgrace himself in the eyes of his peers.

Although Mary Mapes Dodge was never a wold famous ice skater, she was able to express in Hans Brinker, or the Silver Skates how it felt to be a gifted athlete for whom sport mattered more than anything in the world. She understood what it was like to be facing cutthroat competition, to force yourself to go on when your body was crying out for rest.

In Huckelberry Finn, Mark Twain used his writer’s gifts to make the reader feel what it was like to have a cruel and hurtful father, as Huck did, and to want to escape from a harsh existence. And he was able to convey what it was like for Huck’s friend, Jim, a runaway slave, to be hated and punished just because he was different from other people.

In Little Women, Louisa May Alcott was able to express what it was like to be a young woman in the last century, fighting for a place in the world dominated by men. She understood what it was like to have a dream so strong you would risk anything to make it come true, as Jo Marsh did when she decided to become a journalist.

When the world grows too difficult to bear, it’s sometimes helpful to get a bit of perspective, to see how people dealt with life’s problems, and its opportunities, in other times and places. The classics offer fresh view points on the human condition, showing how other people dealt with heartbreak and shame, greed and ambition, anger and terror. While you’re wrapped up in the dreams and fears of a pauper on the streets of sixteenth century London, or an awkward schoolteacher in eighteenth century New Your State, you may find a solution to your own worries and problems. Or, if not, you may at least find an escape from them that gives you time to take a breath and gather the strength to go on.

So the next time you see a book labeled a “classic”, whether it comes from this publisher or another one, you might benefit from taking a second look at it before passing on to the latest packaged series or television spin off. The world you’ll find inside the pages of that book is likely ro be richer, deeper, and more moving than anything else in the bookstore.

The important thing to remember is that it’s your choice, not anyone else’s. By choosing this book, you’ve become part of a process that makes books classics. If this story works for you, as it had for previous generations of readers, if you enjoy it enough to recommend it to your friends- maybe even to your own kids some day- you’ll be part of the chain that caused it to be here for you.

And if it turns out that it’s not to your liking,  you may recommend some newer book that does work for you, a work that stays in print and goes on to become one of the classics of the next century. It’s up to you to decide.

 

What is a Classic? Part 2

Starting where I left off:

One proof that classics contain really exciting stories is that contemporary writers “borrow” ideas from classic works all the time when they’re creating new ones. When you see a killer-dinosaur book like Jurassic Park, you can bet that author, Michael Crichton, read, and loved, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost Worldwhen he was a boy. The “Back to the Future” movies might never have been made if filmmaker Bob Zemekis hadn’t enjoyed H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine. Danielle Steele probably wouldn’t be writing the kind of romances that can tug at your heart strings if she hadn’t read, and cried over, books like Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights when she was younger. And you can be sure that Stephen King learned much of what he knows about terrifying people from the stories of Edgar Allan Poe which scared him when he was a boy.

Another mark of a classic, then, is that it can inspire an entire branch of literature, like Westerns or romances. The mystery novel as we know it wouldn’t exist if Sir Arthur Conan Doyle hadn’t created his master detective Sherlock Holmes. All of those books in the science fiction section might not be there today if it weren’t for the works of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells.

If the classics only offered engrossing entertainment, they’d be well worth your time. But they have a lot more to offer.

To begin with, classics are better written than most other books. This may seem obvious, but it’s worth mentioning. One of the qualities that cause a book to endure decade after decade is that the author put extra care into choosing each word, into creating real, believable characters, into giving them genuine emotions and challenging problems to solve.

You can sense this special attention to the language the minute you begin reading a classic like Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer or Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The House of the Seven Gables. The world you’re reading about is suddenly vivid and compelling and real, as real as the world you live in every day- and sometimes more so.

It’s like the difference between a musician who goes through the motions and one who really knows his stuff, the difference between fat food and fine cuisine. If you’re a serious reader, you can very quickly grow tired of sloppy writing, predictable plots, and cheap literary tricks. The classics guarantee great prose as well as great story telling.

If you’ve ever thought about becoming a writer yourself, as a hobby or even as a career, you can’t find a better place to study writing techniques than in the classics. No writer has described the bone chilling cold of an Arctic night more effectively than Jack London. No one brings the perilous life of the sea or the exotic locales of the Far East to life more vividly than Rudyard Kipling.

You can think of the classics as  time machines that instantly transport you to faraway times and places at the turn of a page. You can travel with Robert Louis Stevenson aboard the pirate ships of the Caribbean in Kidnapped. Race around the world with a daring gambler in Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days. Witness London devastated by a ruthless Martian invasion in H. G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds.

…….to be continued…….

 

What is a Classic? Part 1

I read this article in the back of an older 2 for $1 book from Walmart- The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells. I cannot find who is the author of this article but want to give credit where it is due. This was the best article I have read on what makes a book a classic. It is a rather long article, so I will be dividing it up into parts.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could know whether a book or movie, tape or CD was worthwhile just by looking at it? Imagine what it would be like if every form of entertainment, every work of art, had a special label on it that said ” This is the Good Stuff” a label you could actually trust to tell you: “This is really worth it. This is the best there is.”

Imagine the hours of time you’d save. You’d be browsing in a bookstore or record shop, looking att hte weekend movie ads, considering a concert or play, and you’d see that label and relax, knowing your time wouldn’t be wasted.

There actually is such a label- at least for books. The label is “classic”.

It means “of the highest quality,” or “of enduring interest and value.” You’ve heard the word before, used for everything from soft drinks and sporting events to hairstyles and antique cars. But it’s also used to describe something that’s one of the best examples of its kind, whether its the dialogues of Plato, the music of Mozart, the architecture of the Renaissance, or a cherry-red 1957 Thunderbird convertible.

When book publishers use the word “classic” to describe a book, they really mean it. There’s a kind of honor system operating. They’ve set aside that word solely for books that have passed the test of time, that really are amonf the best works of their kind ever written. The book you’re holding in your hands is one of those books (The War of the Worlds).

Unfortunately, a lot of people think “classice means something else. They think it means “old” or “boring”. As a result, they miss out on some of the most interesting, engaging stories ever told.

It’s not too difficult to figure how this idea got around. First, it’s a fact that a lot of “classics” are “old” in a purely chronological sense. They were written fifty or a hundred and fifty years ago, and some people think a story has to be brand new to be interesting.

Second, some of the people recommending that you read “classics” are the same people who recommend that you brush your teeth, or wear a motorcycle helmet, or save money for the future- things that are good for you, but not all that much fun. So it’s not surprising that people, especially young people, are suspicious when someone tells them that a book that’s required reading in school is actually enjoyable.

But it happens to be true.

To explain why it’s true, it might be helpful to explain how a book becomes a “classic” in the first place. There’s a very simple answer. People keep reading it. People just like you. It’s like a popularity contest, or a public opinion poll, except that it goes on year after year, generation after generation. A book that people are still reading fifty or a hundred and fifty years after it was first published has to have something going for it to keep people interested.

Another reason books become classics is that they are genuinely entertaining. People who take the time to read classics are usually pleasantly surprised to discover just how interesting they really are.

That’s especially ture of the books selscted for this classics program. They deliver as much excitement and entertainment as anything that’s sitting on the “new releases” shelf of the local bookstore.

Imagine what it would be like to be a child, abandoned in the jungles of India, facing certain death from the deadly predators that prowl its paths. Suddenly, when you’re certain you can’t survive another day, you are rescued by a she-wolf who brings you home to her pack, raises you as one of her own, adn teaches you the languages of the forest animals. That’s just one of the stories Rudyard Kipling tells in his Jungle Book.

What if you wer a brilliant scientist who had discovered a secret serum that unlocked the wildest passions of the human soul? Would you take the risk of testing it on yourself, knowing that it might transform you into a hideous, violent monster? That’s one of the questions Robert Louis Stevenson answers in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

What would you do if a lucky punch from a local bully knocked you all the way back to the time of Merlin the Magician? Would you dare to challenge the awesome power of his dark sorcery with stage magic and modern day science? That’s what happens to the hero in Mark Twain’s A Conneticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.

How would you survive if you found yourself trapped in a deadly, prehistoric world in a hidden cavern at the Earth’s core, menaced by deadly creatures and warlike giants? That’s the problem a band of explorers face in Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth.

These stories don’t sound all that boring, do they?

End of Part 1.

The next article will contain the authors notes on the “marks” of a classic. Just a reminder, this is not my article, but found in the back of an old paperback put out by Walmart years ago. The author of this article is not named, although it was Aerie Books LTD. that did the publishing.

Best Sellers at Conventions

GRAMMAR by the BOOK

FORTUNATELY FOR YOU Unit Study

SECRET GARDEN - unit study, copywork, tags of time..basically all things related to The Secret Garden

COPYWORK- our bundle (13 months)

POCKETS OF TIME for The Little House series

Everything sold well, but these are a few I know I was grabbing for often.

 

Way Cool

We are almost finished with our convention season. We have one more convention to attend and as it is right here in our hometown of Morgantown, Wv, it makes the trip easy and with little prep work. This will be the state convention and I hope making the move from Charleston to Morgantown means it will be bigger and better. We have enjoyed and learned from every convention we attended this year. We were asked over and over if we had a high school line. We have had many, many talks at our business meetings about this. It seems now is the time to put all our ideas onto paper and develop this line. It is not anything we are throwing together or taking lightly. To develop a line that high schoolers would want and use takes A LOT of consideration and thought. But let me just say, that the idea that did come and is in development (all over my kitchen floor and table) is WAY COOL…..It will take quite some time and trial after trial, print after print, tweak after tweak…….but the skeleton frame I am working with……..WAAAAAAAY COOOOOL….I wish I was in high school again. The first stage of development will deal with timelines for literature. We use Pockets of Time for the elementary level. These just wouldn’t be cool enough for the grades we had in mind. If all works out on paper as I see it in my head, your readers will WANT to get to the next chapter in the book. I love this stage of development. I can’t wait until we have enough to tease you with. We will be planning issue dates soon. Keep checking back every so often. We work fulltime through the summer and have LOADS of new stuff coming out before school starts again.

Blessings,

Shannon

Pocket Pics

We have had several people wonder about what a pocket looks like upon completion.  Well here they are!

    

MORE PICS TO COME SOON!