Answered Prayer

Our business had a private prayer answered today. It is awesome when you ask and receive! And even more so when the answer is a YES instead of the occasional NO! God provided a need. If we were to share what it was, you would think it very small. At this point in our business, every need is LARGE to us. I am truly thankful for godly business partners whose first reaction to a need is to ask the Father before we do anything. Girlfriends, I love ya!

To all those who make our business venture a matter of prayer, we thank you. Please don’t stop! We do not know what doors the Lord will open, but when He does we are ususally knocking each other out of the way to get through that door.

May the Lord always receive glory with what our hands and minds accomplish!

Shannon

GIVEAWAY!!!

Homeschool Estore has a giveaway product every week. My own family has benefited from this generous offer. Now it is our turn to be on the giving side of this offer! FFYB will  be offering one of our newest products:

Pockets of Time for Charlotte’s Web  to be given away on Oct. 1-7th!

Make sure you are on the mailing list for the Homeschool Estore to receive this offer! Please let us know how you liked the product by leaving a review at

www.foruntatelyforyoubooks.com

There is also a unit study available should you want to do an indepth study. Check out the web site for a list of topics this unit study covers.

Blessings,

Shannon

Unit Study News!!

We have wonderful news!

Our products were picked up by The Homeschool Estore! We were thrilled to work with this wonderful company. We have had many sales already from their site. We personally shop from this store, and we LOVE ebooks, so this was a terrific business deal.

Check out their store at www.homeschoolestore.com

We have new products out: Pockets of Time and Little Pockets of Time

This is a very neat way to keep track of chronological events in a chapter. They are color coded flashcards that are placed in order in a pocket. They can be used independently of any unit study or with one. Easy, creative and still engages the mind of a child.

Check out our web site to see these products: www.fortunatelyforyoubooks.com

Shannon

A Start to the Homeschooling Year

Hello Friends and Fellow Homeschoolers!

My family takes our yearly vacation in September in Florida. Going at that time has many advantages for us, from very few tourists to rentals being cheaper as it is the “off” season. But vacation must come to an end….and reality must set in. I was so excited to start school this year as I knew I had fantastic school products picked. I couldn’t wait to use them.

 We had our first week of school, and it was wonderful. I have been homeschooling my kids for MANY years, and I am not sure I could say the first week has went this well in a loooonnngggg time! But this one was different…no one left math time frustrated, no one left writing class dreading their assignment, no one wished they were getting on the big yellow bus that goes by!

I have shelves full of curriculum from the oldest two children that have already graduated. Sometimes I can’t use those for these sons. Their learning styles may differ, their interests may differ, they are more technological than the first batch of kids. All these factors mean I need to make new choices quite frequently. I got it right this year. Going to a convention to see and handle the books was a huge help to me. I took notes, paid attention to my child’s needs and styles rather than what I liked.

 Jesse has already read his first book I bought him. I had to order book 2 in the Spiderwick series. It is hard for me to find books he likes. I have learned with him that he loves the book if it is HIS, not just from the library. He likes the library books for things like Guiness Record, big picture books, informative stuff. He loves a reader if it belongs to him. I just figured that out. He is the only one like that. Isn’t he funny?

Jake is reading The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis. He is loving it. He even asked me if he could read it in the evening. DUH! ha. It has been hard for me to find good books for the boys. I think this year will be a good year for reading. I will post all the readers I picked out for them soon.

I am off to prepare for the 2nd week of school. I need to start it with prayer and some quiet time with the Lord. My devotionals are with the Streams in the Desert. I get it sent to me everyday in email. I read the text in the Scripture and then do the devotional and take notes. Makes quite a nice booklet to save.

Enjoy the day the Lord has given!

Shannon

Curriculum Review- Real Life Writing Activities Grades 4-9

Real Life Writing Activities for Grades 4-9

By Cherlyn Sunflower

 

This writing program appealed to me because I had read that most college age kids do not know how to fill out a loan application or how to write basic directions down. I know most of my sons will not have career based on writing. Ok, honestly……none of them will, but if they become the sheriff deputies that they dream about, they will need to know how to fill our form after form, describe what they see at a scene, give written directions, etc. That doesn’t even count the basic writing skills needed to apply for a house, send a letter to the editor, write a thank you note and write down a recipe(I can wish, right?). These are things they will use daily. I think they need to learn how to write a research paper, but I see their calling in life will not require much use for time spent on that. I needed something to help teach basic writing stuff. I think this will fulfill that need.

 

There are 40 lessons in the book. Here are the techniques they teach to writing:

Motivating

Brainstorming

Composing

Revising

Publishing

 

It seems as though this was written for group involvement. For example, the brainstorming activities seem to use a lot of group participation, but that won’t be a hindrance when teaching to one or two children.

Out of 40 lessons, I could probably use 25 of them with my 10^th grader. These are the ones I will teach him this year:

Writing a sports article

Travel directions

Apology note ( my future DIL will appreciate this)

Decision making list

Movie review

Sympathy message

Compliments

Letter of complaint

Restaurant review

Letter to our troops

Eulogy

Petition

 

There are lots more, but those are the ones I know he will benefit from. The teaching format is very nice. There is a picture of what to write on a black board (or paper). There are pages to photo copy and let the child use. There are lists of words to work with for each project.

After you write on the chalkboard of paper, you ask given questions to get them to think about what they will be writing about. What is very nice is the questions are asked so you will get more than a yes/no answer!!! Those of you with teenage boys in a writing class KNOW the benefits of that!!

I may have to do some minor tweaks to teach this to a single student, but I believe this book is worth it. Between this and the other writing program I reviewed earlier, I am very happy with my writing classes this year. I feel better having good teaching books, not just pages of grammar and research papers.

~Shannon

Curriculum Review- U.S. History-Based Writing Lessons, Vol. 1

U. S. History – Based Writing Lessons, Vol. 1

Explorers-Gold Rush

Institute For Excellence In Writing

By Lori Verstegen

Let me start by saying that I feel as though I paid a pretty penny for this curriculum. I was nervous after I ordered it, wondering if it would be worth the money. And as I am horrible about sending things back, I didn’t want to be stuck with something I didn’t like or wouldn’t use. After I got it, I sat down and opened the book and the package of student          resources. I really liked what I saw. I read and studied, learning how to teach writing as this has been what I struggle with.

I liked the fact that the writing assignments have to do with history lessons. No sense in having a writing assignment for English class to learn a technique then having to write a different paper in history class. Why not combine the two? The techniques learned in these assignments can easily be converted to any time and historical event. For instance, the first lesson is an easy poetry lesson. Yes, my sons will cringe and gasp and probably even thrash around on the floor faking convulsions, but this poetry lesson is going to be painless for them. The stress is on quality adjectives, strong verbs and alliteration. I can see that what they are taught here will be carried over to other assignments. The history lesson is about Native Americans and European Explorers. One poem describes Native Americans watching explorers come to their land. The other poem describes the explorers; their physical description, dreams, things remembered. There is an example of the same poem using a hockey player. The same type of poem can be used to describe anyone in history or fiction.

There is a simple grading system for the parent to use. It is a point system. The kids get a copy ahead of time so they see how they can earn points. If you use an action verb in every line, you get 10 points. If you use two words that end in –ly you get 4 points. There is a way to get 25 points for each poem. Very nice as grading is always a wonderment to me. What do I base it on? That line as a mom and teacher can be hard sometimes. This makes it so nice. The checklists get bigger as more assignments are given, as I see on Lesson 14 checklist, there are still points (not as many) for using –ly words and action verbs plus all the other things taught between now and then.

One thing I like is there is a progressive list of banned words. Some assignments the banned words are “I”, “MY” and “YOU”. I am not even sure I could do that! SEE!

There are vocabulary words taught throughout the lessons. Not many, mind you, but the ones given to be used in that writing assignment will take creativity to use. I favor the simple approach as it is the technique that is valuable.

The appendix contains examples of work from students of varying ages. It is nice to see examples of the work done to inspire my sons. They are not that creative on their own, but they can see something and say “I can do that”.

There are 32 lessons with each lesson meant to be taught at one setting, then the assignment given for the child to work on for a few days. For my 15 year old, I think we can do 2 lessons on a calm week and then just one on the normal busy week.

I really like this curriculum. This was the first I have purchased from this company. I wish I had had this years ago. It was worth the money to me. If you struggle with teaching, or want an easy format and lessons, this is the way to go. Next year, I will be checking out the rest of the Excellence in Writing line.