I love SOW

I know I have raved about our Bible Curriculum, Student of the Word or SOW before*. But I really like it! Although it is a complete K6-12 curriculum (excluding Maths) we have modified how we use it to just using the Bible portion.

Is it worth the money to just use the Bible portion? Yes! Every cent of it, in my opinion.

If you were hardworking and not easily distracted with the little ones and housework I suppose you could put together a similar bible curriculum but not me! I am neither hardworking nor do I have any inclination to do so So SOW has been great for us!

For more information and details about it, do go to their website http://sowcurriculum.com. They have sample pages for you to browse. And if you would like to view it directly, then you can email me and see it for yourself.

I have written before on how we use it*. So I shall not repeat myself here. I just want to share how it has helped us.

There are so many things that I am so blessed and honoured to be able to share with the children just because of doing our Bible studies/devotionals with  SOW. Things we would seldom have a chance to talk about in the normal course of the day is brought up and discussed. Yes, even awkward stuff like adultery and fornication!

Of course during the sessions some children do take away more than others – isn’t that always so? But it was really rewarding when the 5 yr old asked to be included! And I love how she draws out the lessons she has learnt in her own SOW book that I printed and bound for her. She is also very keen to recite to me her memory verse on Fridays.

If you are bored or not happy with your Bible curriculum, you may want to consider SOW. There is a steep learning curve learning how to implement it but once you get the hang of it, you will move very fast.

It is non-denominational so you can teach your church’s doctrinal stand or not at all You can go as deep as you like or not. We are currently in the Book of James  and I am already wondering how to handle Revelations when the time comes!

* You can read what I wrote about SOW at How We Use SOW and Doing Devotionals with the Children.

Preschool Curriculum

Have you visited Confessions of a Homeschooler blog? Oh my! It is chockful of stuff for preschoolers.

Erica is very generous with the work she has done. Everything in her Letter of the Week curriculum is free! But if you want to download the whole lot faster and easier, then you pay just US$10 for the whole lot! Isn’t that value-for-money?

Since I don’t have much computer time, I just bought it and then slowly printed and laminated what I need when the young ones are asleep. It does take time to print and laminate and cut and it does take up a lot of space! But it is very worth it IMO. 

I wanted to use it for a while before recommending it to you. So I have been using it for the past month with my 3.5 yr old and her 1.5 yr old sister looking on. She loves it and keeps asking me to do school with her even more eagerly now It takes at most half an hour – the way I do it. And that to me is the best amount of time to spend doing any concentrated work with a preschooler There’s enough hands on stuff to keep her occupied and interested and enough repetition to help her remember.

We do use it differently from what she planned for it to be used since our 3 yr old already knows her letters (upper and lower case) and numbers. We sort of fast-forward the curriculum

Instead of doing a letter a week, we do a letter a day. Of course I do not do everything she provides (certain games I know my child is not interested) nor all of the activities at one go. I ”hid” some of the activities listed for when I re-do the whole set again. I am now doing it a second round, this time teaching her the letter sounds with “new” stuff for her to do as well as a review of the “old” stuff.

Discovering this curriculum has been a god-send to me as she isn’t really ready to do formal school since I do not usually start preschool till 4, I was in a fix wondering what we can do to keep her interested and not give me too much stress  So this is like a transition programme for her before I use our Rod and Staff books.

The only downside to using this programme is the enormous amount of ink that is used up for printing and the boxes of laminator sheets I’ve had to buy. Thankfully I already own a laminator (which I keep on destroying by jamming it up ) so it is easy for me to laminate the pages to keep for the 1.5 yr to use when she is 3 If you don’t own one, it may be worth your while to just go and buy one at this year’s Popular’s Book Fest 2010 in December.

Btw I do not earn anything from recommending this site. I am just blessed by her generosity and want to share it with those who are looking for fun and educational things to do with their preschoolers.

For more on what we do with our pre-schoolers, you can check out our Teaching Our Pre-schoolers post.

Pollyanna

I started reading Penguin Classics: Pollyanna with my 11 and 9 yr old last month and we are loving it! It is a well-loved children’s classic which sad to say, I have never read till now! I am so glad we homeschool or I would never had even thought of picking up the book to read!

In almost every chapter, Pollyanna reminds us to be thankful in whatever circumstances we find ourselves to be in. In case you are not familiar with the book, the protaganist, Pollyanna, has been taught by her father to always be thankful in all circumstances. For example : she received a pair of crutches instead of a long awaited doll as a present. Instead of sulking or throwing a temper tantrum, she decided she would be thankful – that she doesn’t need crutches!

I suppose the sceptic in us would say that is too naive. Afterall, when I searched the term Pollyanna, I found that it had a negative connotation But I beg to differ.

Having an attitude of thankfulness teaches one to focus on what one has, not what one doesn’t have which could easily lead to discontentment. It is even biblical as we are told to: Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18)

Go and read it – or better still, read it to your children and let’s cultivate an attitute of thankfulness.

Book Review : Raising Real Men

Whether you have one son or 12, this book will help you understand boys a little more. Raising Real Men : Surviving, Teaching and Appreciating Boys is written by Hal and Melanie Young, parents of 6 boys and 2 girls. They take an unabashedly Christian take on raising boys into men for God.

Their own real life experiences flesh out what they are sharing. This makes it more credible than books put forth by experts who have merely studied statitistics with a few case studies thrown in. The book’s friendly and humourous tone will engage your attention immediately.

I personally feel that children today are molly coddled way to much, be it boys or girls. Probaly due to the fact that most families have only one or 2 children only and a live-in helper to boot. I once blogged about children and chores after reading an article featured in the Sunday Times where getting yourself a cup of drink is considered a chore

I feel that all this pampering has a more detrimental effect on boys than girls. Where will the real men of society be found? They can’t even do basic chores and we are expecting them to lead their families and our country?

Anyhow, Raising Real Men first explains that boys are well, boys. They are different from girls on so many levels. And admittedly, I think we moms tend not to appreciate this:)

I onlyhave 2 boys out of the 7 children the good Lord has blessed us with but all that activity (jumping/climbing/wrestling) and noise just gets to me at times, especially now when I am very sleep deprived. But as the authors remind me, boys are made that way by God. I just need to learn how to channel all that energy and noise to something productive. As they say, “The focus must be on leading our sons into godly manhood, not just trying to manage them to make our lives convenient and pleasant.”

 They also remind me that because boys are always on a lookout for heros to emulate, I need to be careful who they are watching and learning from! This includes friends they make, tv they watch, computer games they play and books they read.

What I like best is the section “Who’s In Charge Here?” and “His Own Man Now” where they speak at length about encouraging leadership in our boys. Encourage them to be leaders, not followers - they need to be groomed to lead their families one day even if they never get to be a CEO of a large MNC or GLC. “God made boys – all of them – to be leaders.” Hence the occasional (regular?!) challenge to mom’s authority. But they need to also understand submission to authority and how the chain of authorityworks. They also need to learn that mom is acting on dad’s behalf (as head of the house) and dad is acting on behalf of God.

And one skill they need to learn in order to be good leaders of their families is to be a good provider. Therefore, teaching important life skills such how to handle money and developing diligence and dependability is another topic Hal and Melanie touch on. They share how they encouraged their sons to be entrepreneurial and hardworking to contribute to the family’s needs.

Raising Real Men is a good read. I highly recommend it to those with boys. I have learnt much from it!

The book itself is available only in January 2010 but you can preorder it now. Or if you don’t want to wait, you can download it as an eBook – like I did and on top of that, save on shipping! More details can be found on their Raising Real Men website. And if you click on their Preorders tab, you’ll see that there are some free bonuses there if you preorder now. I don’t know how long this link lasts though.

Happy Reading!

 

Chore Planner Review

 

I finally ordered my Motivated Moms 2009 Chore Planner last December and have been using it since 1st January 2009. (Click here to view more details) And I have discovered that I absolutely LOVE IT!!!

To be honest, it is such an easy planner that you or I could simply DIY it. And that’s why I hesitated for a year before I finally succumbed  Why bother re-inventing the wheel when someone has already done the legwork for you? Well, unless you have the time and like doing lists and charts. I like that too. But at the moment I have no time! So purchasing the eBook at US$8 is a steal! Especially since the Sing Dollar is still quite strong at the moment! So it worked out to be less than S$12.

You can see a sample of it when you Click here to view more details.

Some of the things I like about it :

• it reminds me of all the chores I need to do but often forget till dust balls or crud is gathering on the aircon filters and corners of stove tops
• it also reminds me to declutter parts of the house in regular intervals before they build up to an organising nightmare!
• daily chores are laid out together with chores that are rotated weekly/monthly/yearly.
• you can choose to have it with or without a scheduled Bible reading planner. The price is the same!
• there is a full sized planner and a half-sized one to choose from to suit your needs.
• I use it as a Master List to draft up a Chore List for the children.

Yes, some of the chores are unnecessary for our family – eg. feed the pet or sweep the porch   – so I just strike those off.

Basically I like it because I have a reminder to do all sorts of chores around the house regularly instead of killing myself trying to do a deep clean once a year. I love lists and this planner appeals greatly to me The sense of accomplishment when I strike off items on the list gives me an adrenaline high!

I am off to check my Chore Planner – Click here to view more details and my DIY Planner and tick them off one-by-one!

 

 

~~~   Articles for the Christian SAHM can be found at  Building Up Moms  ~~~

Book Review : Parenting with Love and Logic

Parenting With Love and Logic: Teaching Children Responsibility

By Foster Cline & Jim Fay

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This book came highly recommended by a few people on MOMYS. So I decided to check it out from the library first to see if it was worth investing in it.

Unfortunately I do not like it. I do think however that it will appeal to those into attachment parenting.

I like the premise it sets out – to teach children to think and not just obey mindlessly. It also puts the onus on the child when negative consequences occur due to foolish decisions taken. All these I wholeheartedly agree with.

I also like their principle of not molly-coddling the child. Eg. if the child can’t wake up on time for school and misses the school bus despite being told to wake up by a certain time. Then let the child miss the bus. Let the child face the music with the teacher. Don’t bail him out.

BUT

I do not like their method. The parent is always negotiating with the child. The child never learns to submit and does what the parent wants him to do because it is appeals to him rather than out of obedience.

This would be most appropriate for an older child but they are recommending it to toddlers and pre-schoolers. Hmm…

Is that what I want to encourage? Not at all! There are many times in life (as you would also have dscovered) that we just have to do what we are told – like it or not.

When will the child learn to submit to a higher authority if he is always allowed to negotiate his way out?

But like I said, those who like attachment parenting will probably find this book a gem!

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Articles for the Christian SAHM can be found at :

Building Up Moms