Heroines of the Past Bible Study by Amy Puetz {Review}

 

 

 

One of my very favorite things that we have reviewed this year with the TOS Crew has been the Heroines of the Past Bible Study from Golden Prairie Press. 

Golden Prairie Press is owned and operated by Amy Puetz, a homeschool graduate with a passion for God and for history.

 

Amy offers several different studies that look amazing, but we finally settled on Heroines of the Past.  This study included my two favorite subjects, Bible and history!

 

 

Heroines of the Past is a 13 week long study about real women from the past that showed real virtue in their lives.   The stories we read were powerful and the Bible study portions were pretty meaty.  I was very impressed!

Each study starts off with a story of a girl or women.  For instance in the story "Living and Dying for Jesus," we read about a young slave girl named Blandina and her Mistress.  We read about the Mistress, how she shared her faith in Jesus and how Blandina came to know the Lord. 

After the story we started a new memory verse for the week (Hebrews 11:1) and then answered a few discussion questions.  We read and discussed several scriptures, including the Parable of the Sower. 

Through out this study we got to read stories from the lives of women like Mary Slesslor (missionary), Katherine von Bora (Martin Luther's wife), A Brave Little Girl and many others.  The stories that we read displayed acts of courage, faith, compassion, gentleness, mercy, and love.  I felt that the stories included were great examples for my children, especially my girls. 

You can view sample pages and the table of contents for Heroines of the Past here.

We really are enjoying this study and I plan to continue using it.  I think it would be a great study for Bible or history or both! 

My first thought was that this study was going to be too girlie for my boys.  For the record, my boys really enjoyed the stories, especailly the one with a knight in it!  When we worked on memorizing Proverbs 31:10 (Who can find a virtuous women, for her price is far above rubies) my initial thought was to give the boys something else to memorize but the Lord led me to have them memorize it too.  My boys may not need to learn how to be a virtuous woman, but they are going to need to know what one looks like!  So, in other words, boys can definitely join in this study too.

As I mentioned, Amy offers several different studies to choose from:

• Heroines of the Past (this is the one we did)
• Ten Girls From History
• Costumes With Character
• Uncover Exciting History

These studies are available in Print or Ebook format and they range in price from $14.95 - $27.00.  Currently on sale for 20% off! The sale price of Heroines of the Past is currently $21.60.

I highly recommend this study, especially for young ladies in training to be Virtuous Women. 

Please check out what other bloggers from the TOS Crew have to say about studies from Golden Prairie Press.

 

 

Disclaimer: We received this product at no charge to us in exchange for an honest review.

Time 4 Writing {TOS CREW}

For the last 4 weeks or so the Lil' Chef has been using a new program for writing.  She has been doing an online writing course with Time 4 Writing. 

Time 4 Writing offers several different writing courses for students in grades 2-12.  The Lil' Chef took the Middle School Writing Mechanics.  Here is how Time 4 Writing describes this course:

This eight-week course is the first of two courses focusing on "boosting the basics" at the middle school level.

Basic Mechanics A allows students to strengthen their foundation writing skills. The course teaches the fundamentals of writing such as: sentences vs. fragments, subjects and predicates, subject-verb agreement, and capitalization. 

The class is completely online and she was given 8 weeks of access to complete the course.  I never did tell her how long she had to complete the course {smile}, she is pretty motivated to get her work done, so I didn't think it would be an issue.  Time 4 Writing does list a 4 and 8 week suggested schedule that the student can follow but the she just worked at her own pace. 

The Middle School Mechanics Course covered the following topics:

1. The Sentence, The Fragment and The Run-on
2. Nouns, Nouns and More Nouns!
3. Subjects of a Sentence
4. Predicates of a Sentence
5. Subject - Verb Agreement in a Sentence
6. "Tricky" Subject - Verb Agreement
7. Capitalization
8. Sum it ALL UP!

The Lil' Chef enjoyed the assignments, although they were challenging.  She is the Perfect Paula type, and thrives on good grades.  She liked that when she had mistakes on an assignment she would be able to get feedback from her teacher and make the necessary corrections.  I also liked this feature of the program, the focus seems to be more about mastery than a grade.

As I mentioned, she has been doing this program for about 4 weeks and only has one more assignment left.  I think that the Time 4 Writing course has helped her to improve her writing skills. 

Here are the specific things that the Lil' Chef said she liked about Time 4 Writing:

I like getting graded. {told ya}
I like that everything is on the computer, including my writing assignments.
I am excited to get a certificate for completing the program. 
Time 4 Writing really helped me to better understand the difference between simple and complete predicates.
I liked having a teacher to explain this things I got wrong.
I liked that I could work at my own pace.

Mom's Thoughts:
I thought that over all Time 4 Writing was a good solid program.  For some reason I thought that Time 4 Writing was a teacher/ video class kind of thing, which it is not.  Not saying this is a bad thing, just not what I expected.  Basically, the student reads over the lesson and then completes the assignment online.  The teacher then grades and gives feedback on a job well done or corrections that need to be made. 

Even though the teacher is not teaching via video, they are just a message away if there are any questions from the student or parent.  The was a big plus for in my book!  The Lil' Chef really didn't have any questions regarding the work but on one of her assignments she received like a 90 - 95% on the paper but there were not remarks on what she missed.  I thought that was a little odd, usually the teacher, Mrs. Gilg, was very good at explaining Lil' Chef's mistakes.  I told my daughter to message her and ask what she missed to get the grade she got, because it appeared to be a perfect paper.  She was a little reluctant but I encouraged her to write the message.  The teacher wrote back and apologized that she had indeed clicked the wrong button, she immediately corrected the grade to 100%.  The Lil' Chef, of course, was THRILLED! 

I also liked the fact that she was getting feedback from a teacher that had more grammar and writing knowledge then me.  Did I mention that I received an email after each assignment that the Lil' Chef completed and got graded?  I really liked this feature, it helped to keep me in the loop. 

We were very happy with this program and would love to enroll in the another course soon!

The Time 4 Writing Courses are 8 weeks long and cost $99.00.  The courses range from Elementary to Adult Level.  Time 4 Writing even offers a guide to help you to select which course would be best for your student.

Please check out what other members of the TOS Crew have to say about Time 4 Writing. 

Disclaimer:  This product was given to us at no cost in exchange for an honest review. 

Vocabulary Spelling City {TOS Crew}

My kids seem to enjoy the challenge of getting new spelling and vocabulary words every week or so, but workbooks and flashcards can definitely be boorrinngg.  So, we were very thankful to get to review Vocabulary Spelling City for a second time. 

We reviewed it for the TOS Crew last year, which you can read about here. 

Even after our review period was over, from the first review, my kids still enjoyed playing learning their spelling words with Vocabulary Spelling City.  To me, that says a lot!  While they did enjoy it, with out the premium membership I had to enter their spelling list every time they wanted to play.  Since it was pretty time consuming, we didn't play much. 

You can get a free membership with Vocabulary Spelling City, which is a great way to try before you buy, but it surely does not come with all the great perks of a premium membership, like:

Individual Student Logins - this saves the student's assignments as well as the spelling lists (one of my favorite features).  Having these assignments saved is great for end of the year reviews. 

Premium Learning Games and Features - With the free membership you do get several cool features but with the Premium Membership you get more games and features like....

As you can see, there are lots of extra goodies with the Premium Membership, which is available for $29.99 for up to 5 children.  The Premium Membership is good for 12 months. 

My kids really do love the interactive games on Vocabulary Spelling City.  I think their favorite so far is Hang Mouse, which is a twist on the old favorite Hang Man.   I am pretty sure that Vocabulary Spelling City will be something that we continue to use for years to come. 

You can read what other members of the TOS Crew are saying about Vocabulary Spelling City here.

Thomas Jefferson Education {TOS Crew Review}

We received a subscription to This Week in History, from A Thomas Jefferson Education, to review for the TOS Crew.  This Week in History was created by Rachel DeMille to inspire children to learn and explore thru history!

Our subscription gives us a weekly email that shares tons of information about what has happened on that particular day in history {This information can also be found via their website, with a paid subscription}. 

This Week in History is filled with daily facts, math, science, language skills, current events, geography and arts, all of this being tied to history. 

For instance, with This Week in History we learned about The Leaning Tower of Pisa.  Here are some of the suggested activities and things we learned:

Facts about the Tower of Pisa:
I never knew that the Tower of Pisa was a bell tower!
Did you know it took over 200 years to construct the Tower of Pisa?

Hands on Activities:
Make a tower out of Legos, Lincoln Logs, blocks, pancakes, or what ever you have.  Then answer these questions -

• How tall can you make it before it falls?
• Why does it fall?
• Does it lean? Why or why not?
• Do you have materials that are less inclined to fall or lean? Why are they different?
• Can you make a 3-D model of the Campanile of Pisa?

Ideas for writing or discussion:

• Do you know of other campaniles? Are there any examples in your community or somewhere not too far away?
• What is the purpose of a campanile?
• Does your home have some system for calling the family together?  (in our house, Mom whistles!)
• Does your community have a system for calling people together for important events or circumstances?
• Ask an elderly friend or family member if they have memories of bells, sirens, horns or other sounds in their community, and what those meant for them.
• Is there a landmark in your area – some building, mountain or other feature – that is especially memorable or iconic?
• What is the history of your local icon?
• What is a cathedral?
• Is there a cathedral near your home?

We also learned about the State of Missouri, Annie Oakley, Silly Putty, Tim Tebow, T- Rex Sue and Meteor Showers {and this isn't even the complete list!}

This Week in History is jam packed with facts, learning activities, links, and pictures.  I thought that this was a great starting point to get kids interested in something that they could further study if they wanted to. 

You can view a sample week here!

The goals of This Week in History are to:

• relieve fear, stress and burnout
• energizes your kidschool
• fill in the gaps
• cultivate cultural literacy
• facilitate state or provincial compliance
• correlate resources for co-ops, classrooms and family learning
• harness the power of technology in a classical leadership education
• harmonize with Unschooling, Charlotte Mason, Montessori, Trivium/Quadrivium, IEW, eclectic, etc.
• deliver new ideas and areas of learning to you and your child
• instigate discussions and projects that expand wisdom and understanding
• connect the subject areas–from music to math, from geography to world religions, from hobbies to science projects, etc.
• motivate you and your students to greater excellence
• deliver Face to Face with Greatness
• empower you to mentor your students in the classics
• enliven the 7 Keys of Great Teaching
• activate Phases of Learning

This Week in History is available for $9.99 per month.

Check out what others on the TOS Crew have to say about Thomas Jefferson Education!

Disclaimer: As a member of the TOS Crew, I received this product, at no cost to me, in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are mine.

Our School Room

This week is the second week of the Not Back to School Blog Hop.   This is the week we get to check out everyone's school rooms or learning areas.  This is probably my favorite week because I love getting new ideas from other moms.

Here is a picture of our school room....

This side is on the left side of the room and houses all of our schoolish things.

This is the right side of the room.  It is our playroom area. 

For a more detailed look at our learning areas you can red this recent post of mine from a week weeks ago.  Here I have posted several more pictures.