Debbies Digest

Reading Challenge ~ January Update

2012-01-31T19:51:00.002-05:00

My goal for reading this year was to read 52 books or more in 2012. Each month for the Reading Challenge we are supposed to do an update and link up. This month I read....

Julia's Last Hope

Link to my review on my blog

By Wagon and Flatboat

Review on my blog that I did for Read-Aloud Thursday of By Wagon and Flatboat

The Centurion's Wife (Acts of Faith, #1)
I got this for free for my Nook. I got my Nook for Christmas. I liked these enough to buy the next two in the series for my Nook with a gift card my friend Michele got for me for Christmas. These books are fiction but use biblical characters and events that actually happened and then build the fictional story around those things. This one is about the centurion from Luke 7: 1-10. Pilate and his wife, the one who had dreams about Jesus, are also in the book, as are other real people from the Bible. Another important and stirring part of this is the description of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came upon the believers. I am currently reading book 2 The Hidden Flame (Acts of Faith Series #2) This series is Great! and I love Janette Oke and Davis Bunn and together they are a killer combination.

The Romance of a Christmas Card
This was a fun little free book that I got for the Kindle app but I was able to change it to a epub and put it on my Nook. I read it early in January when I was still in a sorta Christmas mood. It was short and had a spiritual dimension to it as well that was great. It is a coming home kind of story.

Something Old, Something New (Tales from Grace Chapel Inn, #10
I love, love, love the Tales from Grace Chapel Inn series. This one is based on a wedding! What else could it be with a title like that??

We Have This Moment (Tales from Grace Chapel Inn, #11
This book is mostly about old love renewed, for older couples.

That is 6 books in January!! I am 2 books ahead!
I hope I can keep this up... or even read more. It would be soooo cool to read 100 books in 2012... but that would mean I am 2 books behind... not 2 ahead! I will just leave things as they are and do my best to read 52 books... or more... in 2012.

all content on my blog is ©

A Mile in His Shoes ~ Review and Giveaway « Mama Manuscripts

2012-01-31T09:54:00.000-05:00

I have entered a lot of these giveaways and have not won yet
I really hope I win! I have only a few chances left.
But, even though it will make it harder for me to win, I guess you can check out this giveaway my friend is doing on her blog.
A Mile in His Shoes looks like a great movie.

A Mile in His Shoes ~ Review and Giveaway « Mama Manuscripts

all content on my blog is ©

Blast From The Past ~ Visiting Aunt June and Uncle Frank 01-19-96

2012-01-31T07:00:00.039-05:00

Today I am featuring family photos from a trip in 1996.
Our trip started because of a family wedding. My daughters were in the wedding.
The wedding was in Michigan.

Then we went to Wisconsin. My husband was considering moving there.

On the way home we stopped to visit my husband's Aunt and Uncle in Western PA.
These are photos from that part of the the trip.

Why did I choose these photos this week??
Because last week I went back to Court's Aunt's home,
for the funeral of her husband.
These photos were from the last time we were at Aunt June and Uncle Frank's as a family.

I am thankful that Court and my dd Jessica were able to go visit the family a week before he died. I am really thankful that he accepted the Lord as his Savior recently. I am also thankful to have been able to attend the funeral with my husband. I love my family on both sides and Aunt June is precious to me. My only wishes were that I had taken more photos during this visit and that I had a photo of Court's Uncle from this trip.

Enjoy!

Nathan

Aunt June

Court's Cousin Greg

Rachel
(Rachel was not feeling well and actually spent a bunch of the time at Aunt Junes in an upstairs bedroom. Maybe that is why I did not have more photos, I was busy taking care of her.)

Nathan

Jessica, Nathan, and Rachel

Rachel seems to be feeling better in the photo.

Now it is your turn!

Here are the Rules for participating:
The purpose of Blast From The Past is to link up a post about something from the past. You can reach back all the way to your childhood and bravely post pictures of you in your wild clothes and hair styles or post something from last year and tell us about it. I'm not picky. Hey, even yesterday was the past... LOL My posts will mostly be about events that happened prior to blogging, as a way to share those things with the world.

It can be about you, about your kids, about your parents, about whatever. For ideas check out the other posts in my label Blast From the Past.
Please use a permalink that sends readers directly to the correct post. If you are not sure what that is click the word permalink for an explanation.
Mention my blog and offer a link back to the main page of my blog. http://debbiesdigest.blogspot.com/ This is a requirement to take part and a kind gesture to me your hostess as well as your readers--they will know where to join in the fun, too. You can put the Blast From The Past button on your site and in your post. You will find it on my right sidebar. Please use it to link to my site, to spread the word about my meme. Using the button will help others know how to find me and how to join. Tell others to click on the button in your post to find us here.
Leave me a comment. First so that you can let me know what you think of my pictures and secondly so that I will know a new post has been linked up and I can come visit your blog and comment on your photos.

all content on my blog is ©

Goal Planning Monday ~ Week 53

2012-01-30T08:00:00.004-05:00

Time to write some goals and strive to accomplish them this coming week??

Join us by clicking on the button above...
after you read my goals.

This week held a lot of unexpected things. Sunday my husband decided that he was taking me with him to his Uncle's funeral service in PA, 6+ hours from our home. I had a lot of last minute things to get done. So, Monday - Wednesday held lots of reading in the car Mon. and Wed. while traveling and Monday evening and Tuesday it was full of family and talking and some tears during the actual service on Tues. Tues. night I did not feel well and kept my hubby awake as well. Wed. we left later than planned because of our lack of sleep the night before but did well on the road. I slept part of the way and read the rest of the way. So... I got a lot of reading done this week... but not much else. Thursday and Friday I was exhausted from the trip and still not feeling well. My boys did school but only the minimum on their own. I was not up to reading to them or doing school with them. Saturday was a full day of catching up on things and Sunday we had Sunday School, Church and then a dedication service for our new building. We left for church at 9:30am and got home at 7:00pm this evening. It was a great day, full of praise to the LORD!

My Goals from last week and how I did:

Spiritual Goals

Read my Bible Daily. Partly Done I read my bible and listened to music some days but not all of them.
Read a Godly book, daily, as part of my morning Devotions. I am currently reading Fearless: Imagine Your Life Without Fear or the spiritual/fitness book from my fitness goals below - Reshaping It All. Not Done
Listen to Godly Music Daily, as part of my morning Devotions. Partly Done
Write in my Spiritual Journal Daily, as part of my morning Devotions. Partly Done
Read Power of a Praying Wife and leave hubby a note for each chapter I read. He needs the extra prayers and encouragement. Not Done
Read as much as possible of the new books I got for our Sunday School study. How People Change and How People Change Study Guide: How Christ Changes Us by His Grace I am behind because I got my book late. I want to keep up with the current chapters and catch up as much as possible when I am able to do extra work. Not Done

Homeschool Goals

The boys are taking off while I go to the funeral with my hubby, we will get back to homeschooling when I get back. Done
Keep up with logging in the boys work and grading whatever we get done on Thurs. and Friday. Done

Blog Goals

Work on the Virtual Curriculum Fair post for next week. Done It was the last week of the virtual fair. It was lots of fun and gave me topics to write about on my blog. I missed last week's because of going to my husband's Uncle's funeral. I plan to make it up this week one day.
Join in some favorite memes that I like to do. Done

Fitness Goals

Exercise 3 days for at least 15 min each time. Not Done
Eat Better, more fruits and veggies and write down what I eat. Not Done
Drink 48-64 oz of water daily and keep track. Not Done
Read some of Reshaping It All: Motivation for Physical and Spiritual Fitness by Candace Cameron Bure. Not Done

Personal/Other Goals

Comment on all the other GPM ladies posts. Keep track of their names with links here so I know whose I have done. Done I commented on the participating blogs at Our Hostess @ Mama Manuscripts, Paisley Parmer @ Home School Tweet, Kym @Homeschool Coffee Break
Purge and toss some unneeded items making room for my hubby. He says he cannot be creative with clutter around... so I need to get rid of some stuff to make room for him. Not Done
Read, Read, Read! I will be linking up my reading this year to I am currently reading a number of things... for personal, fun, fiction reading I am reading Something Old, Something New (The Tales from Grace Chapel Inn Series #10). I should finish that and will probably start the next book We Have This Moment (The Tales from Grace Chapel Inn Series #11) Done Finished Something Old, Something New and started We Have This Moment. I am also working on reading Emma and The Hidden Flame (Acts of Faith, Book 2)
Keep up with making dinners and doing kitchen chores. I am doing all the cooking until the end of January. Partly Done Rachel did most of the cooking last week. I was gone 3 days and then not feeling well. I cooked on Saturday, Sunday we had sandwiches for lunch at church that we took with us and then there was a church dinner after the dedication. I will be back to cooking this week.

For this week that is 6 Done, 4 Partly Done, and only 8 Not Done. Not a great week, but good considering the circumstances.

My goals for this coming week:

Spiritual Goals

Read my Bible Daily.
Read a Godly book, daily, as part of my morning Devotions. I am currently reading Fearless: Imagine Your Life Without Fear or the spiritual/fitness book from my fitness goals below - Reshaping It All.
Listen to Godly Music Daily, as part of my morning Devotions.
Write in my Spiritual Journal Daily, as part of my morning Devotions.
Read Power of a Praying Wife and leave hubby a note for each chapter I read. He needs the extra prayers and encouragement.
Read God's Priorities for Today's Woman ch. 10 "The Art of Living Sensibly" for Ladies Bible Study this coming Friday.
Read as much as possible of the new books I got for our Sunday School study. How People Change and How People Change Study Guide: How Christ Changes Us by His Grace I am behind because I got my book late. I want to keep up with the current chapters and catch up as much as possible when I am able to do extra work.

Homeschool Goals

Get back to homeschooling all 12 workboxes.
Keep up with logging in the boys work and grading as we go through the week.

Blog Goals

Post Blast From The Past on Tuesday.
Join in some favorite memes that I like to do.
Post the Virtual Curriculum Fair post that I missed from last week.

Fitness Goals

Exercise 3 days for at least 15 min each time.
Eat Better, more fruits and veggies and write down what I eat.
Drink 48-64 oz of water daily and keep track.
Read some of Reshaping It All: Motivation for Physical and Spiritual Fitness by Candace Cameron Bure.

Personal/Other Goals

Comment on all the other GPM ladies posts. Keep track of their names with links here so I know whose I have done.
Purge and toss some unneeded items making room for my hubby. He says he cannot be creative with clutter around... so I need to get rid of some stuff to make room for him.
Read, Read, Read! I will be linking up my reading this year to I am currently reading a number of things... for personal, fun, fiction reading I am reading We Have This Moment (The Tales from Grace Chapel Inn Series #11), Emma by Jane Austen, and The Hidden Flame (Acts of Faith, Book 2)
Keep up with making dinners and doing kitchen chores. I am doing all the cooking until the end of January.

Do you have any goals for the week? Post your goals and link up. The button at the top will take you to the meme and you can join up with us. I have been doing this for a whole year now and making weekly goals is really helping me keep focus and achieve more. Have a great week.

all content on my blog is ©

Homeschooling, how do I do it all???

2012-01-28T17:36:00.004-05:00

The Topic for this week for the Virtual Curriculum Fair is - The Nuts and Bolts: Pulling it all Together!

Sooooo...
How DO I do it all??

First of all.... I don't do it all.

Homeschooling means choices. Choices of what to do with my time, choices of what subjects to teach, choices of resources to use, choices of how to approach homeschooling.

First thing every day I try and have my devotions. I am not successful every day, but I am really striving to be consistent in this. It is so important that I have devotions daily. I need the spiritual strength I get from reading the Bible, Godly books, and listening to praise music. It gets me though the days and weeks and helps me grow to be more like Christ, which I desperately need. I am so weak on my own.

We use workboxes. It keeps the boys and I organized. It makes me keep up with the boys work, planning their workboxes each day and lets me know what they have still to do before they can get their laptops and be excused to play. On the wall you see our small whiteboard and next to it are plastic pages in which I place the art prints for our artist study.

When the boys are done a workbox they put it on the floor next to me so I can grade/record the work in the school log. I left this photo large so you can click on it to see the details, also, it will open in a new tab automatically if you just click it. I make my own school log sheets so I can personalize them. I don't want to write down the name of the book daily. It is so nice to just write page/lesson information for most of the items each day. Some things I just have to write out, and that is ok, because I have the shortcuts for the other items.

I made my own workbox planning sheet also. I needed some boxes larger than others. Using the free LibreOffice spreadsheet maker I made my own page to fit our homeschooling. I used the same program to make the school log sheets. If you would like to see the details of this you can click it also, it will open in a new tab as well so you don't loose your place here. I use these sheets to plan our weeks. The first 5 subjects we normally do together. Then the boys complete their individual work.

I plan our History and Science units myself. I try to get a bunch done each summer so I am ready for the coming year. This summer I got the Science all planned out but not the History. I got some done, enough to start the year and now I am planning as I go, trying to stay ahead of where we are studying.

To keep on task in my personal life I have yearly and weekly goals. I do the Goal Planning Monday meme weekly. I take my yearly goals and break them down into manageable chunks. To keep track of things for me I use the notebook pages my hubby bought me. I write my weekly goals on the task pages so I can remember, review them, and check things off. I accomplished a lot more this year, doing these things, than ever before. I pray this year will be even better.

Choices....

When my children were younger I could not participate in ladies Bible studies at our church. Now I have the time to do that. And, it is only twice a month.
When my children were younger we participated in a co-op. Now I don't have the $$ to drive to co-op.
When my children were younger I needed our homeschool group desperately. The group has changed over the years and I find that I don't need it as much, which is good since they don't meet my needs as well now and I don't have the $$ to be more involved.
We do all our homeschool work at home with books and materials we buy. No online classes or co-ops, no satellite classes, no one else teaching my children. This is a choice we made. Partly it is a money issue and partly an influence issue.
We use workboxes because they work for us not against us. They are a tool. We use cardboard boxes and a few plastic boxes that we already owned. Again a $$ issue, but, I like the variety of boxes because I can find a box to fit the books/subject that it is used for.
We chose for me not to work outside the home, but to concentrate my time and efforts inside the house, raising our kids and "keeping the home fires burning."
We chose the subjects and materials that we felt were best for our children each year.
We choose to serve the Lord and pray for his help daily. Without Him our family and homeschool would crumble.

One of the things I most like about homeschooling is that I can do it differently than my friend and that is ok. She/He can do it differently than I do it and that is ok. There are many ways to homeschool, many philosophies you can follow, many books to read, many subjects to cover and many ways to cover them.

If you would like some more information about how we do homeschooling click on the homeschool label in the left sidebar.

If you want more information about how we use our workboxes click the workboxes label in the left sidebar.

If you have any questions, leave a comment. If you don't have any questions... leave a comment!! lol

This is the last of the Virtual Fair topics. I missed last week's topic due to going out of town for my husband's Uncle's funeral. I hope to make it up this week even though It will not be linked to the others. If you missed reading any of my posts for the Virtual Curriculum Fair here is the list of them all.

Thanks for reading...
I hope something was helpful.

********************************************************************************
Here are the links for the other participants posts for this topic

Weekly Homeschooling Schedule by Julie @ HighHill Homeschool

Virtual Curriculum Fair: Week 5: The Nuts & Bolts: Pulling it all Together by Leah @ The Courtney Six Homeschool

Our Schedule's Working! by Eunora @ All Things NoriLynn

Homeschooling: How do I do it all? by Debbie @ Debbie's Digest You Are Here

Virtual Curriculum Fair--- Wrap-up Angie @ Petra School

Virtual Curriculum Fair: 5 Ways to Use an iPad in Your Homeschool by Pam @ Everyday Snapshots

A Peek Into Our School Day by Melissa @ Grace Christian Homeschool

A Day in the Life... by Nicole @ Schooling in the Sun

Homeschool and Life: How we get it done by Jen @ Forever, For Always, No Matter What

Homeschooling at My House by Jessica @ Modest Mama

Getting a Grip on Things by Susan @ Homeschooling Hearts and Minds

Making Home School a part of LIFE by Cindy @ For One Another

Now Where's That Pencil Again? by Beth @ Ozark Ramblings

Something About Homeschooling I Really Didn't See Coming by Letha @ justpitchingmytent

Curriculum, Kids, and a Frazzled Homeschool Mama leads to Controlled Chaos! by Laura O from AK @ Day by Day in Our World

The Virtual Curriculum Fair – Nuts and Bolts by Kristen @ Sunrise to Sunset

Staying on Top of Everything by Brenda Emmett @ Garden of Learning

How Does This Homeschooling Thing Actually Work? Fitting it all Together by Joelle @ Homeschooling for His Glory

Nuts and Bolts: Pulling it all together by Christa Darr @ Fairfield Corner Academy

all content on my blog is ©

Homeschool Mother's Journal ~ Jelly Beans

2012-01-27T22:32:00.000-05:00

In my life this week… a trip to western PA to go to the funeral of my husband's Uncle Frank, a 6+ hour trip; sinus headaches; trying to get the boys back to doing school Thurs. and Fri., I actually assigned their work and checked on them; a trip to Shady Maple today, we were going to stop on the way home from western PA but I was not feeling well and Court was tired so we put it off.

In our homeschool this week… no school Mon. - Wed. I did not want to even try and get the boys to do school while I was at the funeral, especially since my going was last minute. Thurs. and Fri. I assigned them stuff to do by themselves.

I am inspired by… the Bible (reading the book of James) and the spiritual books I am reading.

Places we’re going and people we’re seeing… Church and the dedication service for our new edition at church. The new edition includes a gym, new office space for the church and Pastors, and more Sunday School classrooms. We'll be seeing lots of people at church.

My favorite thing this week was… reading a lot in the car on the way to and from the funeral and seeing family. The reason we were there was sad, but seeing the family was good. I pray we see them more often in the years to come, it was way too long between visits.

Things I’m working on… finding free apps for my NookColor, getting some of my goals for this week accomplished, and lots of reading.

I’m reading… lots of books... see my Goodreads widget in the right hand sidebar for the current list. If you click the link you can get more details for the books.

I’m cooking… I have no idea. I have meals planned but I am not sure what I am cooking. Being away for 3 days and then being so sick and worn out has thrown me off schedule.

I’m praying for… Court's Aunt and family coping with the death of their husband, father, grandfather, uncle; a friend with a 2 week old baby with Spina Bifida, a friend's daughter who is having serious medical problems and praying for her family as well; and our financial situation.

A photo, video, link, or quote to share…
I drove one hour to Shady Maple today, just for the jelly beans!! my FAVORITE jelly beans!! lol

Not really...

we went for lunch.

The Buttered Popcorn Jelly Belly's were a bonus!

They are my all time fav and we can't find them around here.

I was thrilled to find 2 packs.

I will have to limit myself and make them last.

Now you know why I named this post...

Jelly Beans

all content on my blog is ©

This Blog... now on BlogLovin

2012-01-27T09:45:00.002-05:00

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Why would I join another place to follow blogs??? Because I have friends that use blog hosting sites other than Blogger and the Google Friends Connect in my sidebar only works with Blogger now... so in order to follow friends on... say WordPress... they have started using BlogLovin. So... now you too can follow my blog in a number of ways... just check out the right hand sidebar for :
GFC
BlogLovin
RSS feed
e-mail
or choose more than one way to follow if you like.

all content on my blog is ©

Goal Planning Monday ~ Week 52

2012-01-23T05:54:00.003-05:00

Time to write some goals and strive to accomplish them this coming week??

Join us by clicking on the button above...
after you read my goals.

I tried really, really hard to accomplish all my goals this week. I almost made it.

My Goals from last week and how I did:

Spiritual Goals

Read my Bible Daily. Done
Read a Godly book, daily, as part of my morning Devotions. I am currently reading Fearless: Imagine Your Life Without Fear or the spiritual/fitness book from my fitness goals below - Reshaping It All. Done
Listen to Godly Music Daily, as part of my morning Devotions. Done
Write in my Spiritual Journal Daily, as part of my morning Devotions. Done
Read chapter 9 of God's Priorities for Today's Woman for Ladies Bible Study, "The Art of Loving Your Children." Done
Read Power of a Praying Wife and leave hubby a note for each chapter I read. He needs the extra prayers and encouragement. Done
Read as much as possible of the new books I got for our Sunday School study. How People Change and How People Change Study Guide: How Christ Changes Us by His Grace I am behind because I got my book late. I want to keep up with the current chapters and catch up as much as possible when I am able to do extra work. Done

Homeschool Goals

Make sure the boys do their essays for Philadelphia story and don't wait until Friday to do it. Done
Keep up with logging in the boys work and grading it. Done
Get the boys back to doing all 12 workboxes Done

Blog Goals

Post Blast From The Past for tomorrow. Done
Work on the Virtual Curriculum Fair post due by January 23rd---Seeking Beauty: the Arts and Everything that Brings Beauty to Our World. Partly Done I was working on the post but ran out of time when my husband decided to take me with him to his Uncle's funeral. He had been planning to go alone. I am glad I get to go but will have to wait until Wed. to post this so it won't get added to the links.
Post the Games For Science post I have been working on since it will go along with the Virtual Curriculum Fair topic for this week. Done
Join in some favorite memes that I like to do. Done

Fitness Goals

Exercise 3 days for at least 15 min each time. Partly Done I worked out 2 days.
Make a Weight Watchers Dessert. Done
Eat Better, more fruits and veggies and write down what I eat. Done
Drink 48-64 oz of water daily and keep track. Done
Read some of Reshaping It All: Motivation for Physical and Spiritual Fitness by Candace Cameron Bure. Done

Personal/Other Goals

Comment on all the other GPM ladies posts. Keep track of their names with links here so I know whose I have done. Not Done I meant to do this, but forgot.
Purge and toss some unneeded items making room for my hubby. He says he cannot be creative with clutter around... so I need to get rid of some stuff to make room for him. Partly Done I worked on this some more but have more to do.
Read, Read, Read! I will be linking up my reading this year to I am currently reading a number of things... for personal, fun, fiction reading I am reading Something Old, Something New (The Tales from Grace Chapel Inn Series #10). I should finish that and will probably start the next book We Have This Moment (The Tales from Grace Chapel Inn Series #11) Done
Keep up with making dinners and doing kitchen chores. I am doing all the cooking until the end of January. Done

For this week that is 19 Done, 3 Partly Done, and only 1 Not Done. I would say that is a GREAT week.

My goals for this coming week:

Spiritual Goals

Read my Bible Daily.
Read a Godly book, daily, as part of my morning Devotions. I am currently reading Fearless: Imagine Your Life Without Fear or the spiritual/fitness book from my fitness goals below - Reshaping It All.
Listen to Godly Music Daily, as part of my morning Devotions.
Write in my Spiritual Journal Daily, as part of my morning Devotions.
Read Power of a Praying Wife and leave hubby a note for each chapter I read. He needs the extra prayers and encouragement.
Read as much as possible of the new books I got for our Sunday School study. How People Change and How People Change Study Guide: How Christ Changes Us by His Grace I am behind because I got my book late. I want to keep up with the current chapters and catch up as much as possible when I am able to do extra work.

Homeschool Goals

The boys are taking off while I go to the funeral with my hubby, we will get back to homeschooling when I get back.
Keep up with logging in the boys work and grading whatever we get done on Thurs. and Friday.

Blog Goals

Work on the Virtual Curriculum Fair post for next week.
Join in some favorite memes that I like to do.

Fitness Goals

Exercise 3 days for at least 15 min each time.
Eat Better, more fruits and veggies and write down what I eat.
Drink 48-64 oz of water daily and keep track.
Read some of Reshaping It All: Motivation for Physical and Spiritual Fitness by Candace Cameron Bure.

Personal/Other Goals

Comment on all the other GPM ladies posts. Keep track of their names with links here so I know whose I have done.
Purge and toss some unneeded items making room for my hubby. He says he cannot be creative with clutter around... so I need to get rid of some stuff to make room for him.
Read, Read, Read! I will be linking up my reading this year to I am currently reading a number of things... for personal, fun, fiction reading I am reading Something Old, Something New (The Tales from Grace Chapel Inn Series #10). I should finish that and will probably start the next book We Have This Moment (The Tales from Grace Chapel Inn Series #11)
Keep up with making dinners and doing kitchen chores. I am doing all the cooking until the end of January.

Do you have any goals for the week? Post your goals and link up. The button at the top will take you to the meme and you can join up with us.

all content on my blog is ©

Board Games for School - Science

2012-01-22T13:36:00.000-05:00

We have a lot of fun science games. Some of them are still being sold and some are older games that you can only find used. The links, mostly, take you to Amazon. I hope you find something new to add to your game closet. Oh and as a bonus, at the end of the list I have a website with games you can print and use for science. For FREE. My boys, and I love these.

Professor Noggin Games - We love the Professor Noggin Games. They have question cards in form of trivia, true or false, and multiple choice. Both easy and hard levels of questions keep kids interested, challenged and having fun. Also if the kids get smarter than Mom and Dad the parents can use the easy questions and still challenge their kids with the harder ones. The game includes 30 game cards and a 3 numbered die. For 2 or more players ages 7 and up. So far, for science, we own:

Earth Science
Outer Space
Human Body
Famous Inventions (sorta science, sorta history)

Who's at Home in the Animal Habitat - A Family Nature Game
also a copy can be found at Dreams Old and New - Who's at Home introduces fascinating facts about how animals adapt to living in eight habitats: desert, polar, prairie, woods, rainforest, mountain and city. What special tools and traits help animals survive? Why do animals look the way they do? How do animals cope with dangers such as drought and extreme cold? As players travel around the board, through each of the habitats, they answer interesting questions about science and nature. The questions are on two levels of play so that families can enjoy the game together.

Photo Trek Exploration Game or a travel version, Travel Photo Trek Exploration Game - Photo Trek is a game where you travel around the board, which is in a figure 8 shape, and "take photos" of animals. Ages 8 & Up, 2-4 Players. Players spin the spinner and move around the board. You answer animal-related questions to earn film cards, then you answer questions to turn the film into photos of the animals. Watch out! You may take a picture of only the feet of the flamingo, a blurry picture, or some other mistake in your "photo" and those don't count toward you winning the game. The first person to make it home with 5 different photo cards is the winner.

The Way Things Work, also see this Link - Have you read The Way Things Work by David Macaulay? We love that book... and this game based on that book. This game is a great game for learning about or practicing Physics. There are 3 levels of play:
Level 1: Jump Right In!
Level 2: Kick It Up!
Level 3: Fly On Your Own! The ultimate challenge

Choose you level according to your time constraints and the ages of your players. Players will answer questions and use tools to "build" their toolbox and construct simple machines. There are also experiments to do for level 3. Learn about the Simple Machines of Physics, how they function and the things they can do for us. How do machines move heavy loads? What is a fulcrum and what is it for? Why does a car move faster when the incline is steeper? For 2-4 Players Ages 10+ As a Bonus I found a PDF of complete rules here. That should help you decide if the game is for you.

Rocky Bingo - 4 games in 1 that teach about rocks and minerals. This fun and educational game teaches you about 35 colorful rocks and minerals. The game cards include geological information and interesting facts about each rock, along with a pronunciation guide. To make the game more educational choose a game card with a rock on it, look for the rock on your game board and then read the information about the rock on the back of the card. It would also be fun to try and collect a real rock for each of the cards. Also included are: 1 master board, 4 individual game boards, 35 rock/mineral cards, 1 drawstring bag, 100 plastic markers and 4 genuine rocks or minerals. For 2-5 players, ages 8 years and up, playing time approximately 20 minutes.

Somebody Board Game (human body game) or try one of these links - Somebody, Somebody Recommended for ages 6 to 10, 2 to 4 Players. Somebody is a game our family played many times and is very popular. Young children play it as a puzzle, carefully placing body parts on the body boards and taking them off again and again. Older kids learn names, functions and locations as they play. Includes everything needed to play 5 games including 4 game boards, stick on vinyl body parts, and 100 color coded questions cards with multiple skill level.

Where in Space is Carmen Sandiego
or try this link Where in Space Is Carmen Sandiego?

I love studying astronomy. It is one of the subjects we will be covering this year. This game was made in 1995 when Pluto was still a named planet. Lots of fun for the Carmen Sandiego fan, and we are fans. We have many Carmen games, on the computer and board games. Explore space and join Carmen Sandiego in her pursuit of the greatest treasures of all: the planets. Players race through the Solar System, visiting the planets and answering questions about them. If you answer correctly, you capture a planet, but be careful -- the other players are answering and collecting too. The winner of the game is the first person to collect 3 planets and reach Carmen Sandiego. Contents: Solar System Game Board with glow in the dark planets, 9 Planet Pieces, 20 Astronaut Question Cards, 20 Planet Question Cards, 9 Planet Answer Cards, 9 Stars, 4 Playing Pieces, and Complete Instructions.

Here is the link to the site with free printables, some of these are games.

Ellen McHenry's Basement Workshop

We especially like:

The Circulation Game (this is the game from the pictures just above these links)
The Periodic Table Game
"Quick Six"

****************************************************************************************
This was posted this week because I have been working on this series

and because it goes along with the Virtual Curriculum Fair topic for this week. Here is my post for that in case you missed it... History Chronologically and with Living Books the topic for the week covered both History and Science. I talked about out History.

all content on my blog is ©

By Wagon and Flatboat ~ Read-Aloud Thursday

2012-01-20T19:00:00.001-05:00

I am submitting this for Read-Aloud Thursday as you see. I have not done this meme for a while. I am excited to start this up again with this great book.

By Wagon and Flatboat by Enid La Monte Meadowcroft

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

By Wagon and Flatboat is an interesting book. We read it for school. We greatly enjoyed the story of 2 families moving from Gray's Ferry, now part of Philadelphia, PA to Ohio. First they travel by Conestoga Wagon to Pittsburgh, PA then change over to a Flatboat to travel down the Ohio river to Losantiville. Have you ever heard of the town named Losantiville, OH? Me neither. That is because they changed the name. On the last page of the book. What did they change it to... you'll have to look it up or read the book to find out.

There are so many adventures the family has during their travels. I don't want to spoil the book but there is a tooth pulling, rain and mud, mountains and water, children, a dog and farm animals... and Indians. Suspense and trouble and taking apart a boat to make a door and the floor of their new house. I found it to be a great story and I love that a couple times in the story the family refers to God, they go to church, and they pray. This is a good, clean, interesting historical fiction covering the early pioneer days after the Revolutionary War. Lots of people started moving west.

I like the author and the way she writes. We have a few of her books and I will be on the lookout for others. I hope that you will consider reading this book, especially if you include it as part of your homeschooling as I did.

View all my reviews

all content on my blog is ©

Weight Loss Wednesdays ~ Exercise

2012-01-18T20:13:00.000-05:00

I am linking up to WLW again. It has been a while but I am back to trying to exercise, feel better, loose weight and get more fit. There were some questions to answer this week.

What are you doing for exercise? I work out on the WII Fit.

Is it working for you? Yes.

Do you need to make changes to your exercise routine? Or if you are not exercising, how can you start? The only thing I need to do right now is be consistent and build up slowly. I quit exercising in Nov. and started back up this month. I want to finish the year stronger and not quit at the end of the year. I want to not only loose weight but be more physically fit as well.

What realistic fitness goals can you set?

These are my goals for this week...

Exercise 3 days for at least 15 min each time.
Make a Weight Watchers Dessert.
Eat Better, more fruits and veggies and write down what I eat.
Drink 48-64 oz of water daily and keep track.
Read some of Reshaping It All: Motivation for Physical and Spiritual Fitness by Candace Cameron Bure.

all content on my blog is ©

Wednesday Hodgepodge Vol 62

2012-01-18T19:49:00.000-05:00

1. A new Miss America was crowned on Saturday night-did you watch? If you were a contestant what would your talent be? I did not watch. I would never be a contestant, it is not my thing... but if I was I guess I would sing. I don't think they would like me to sit on stage and scrapbook!! LOL

2. Do you have houseplants? Real or fake? No, None. They always die. The only plants I can keep alive are outside. I don't keep fake houseplants around either.

3. When you were in school did you speak up or were you more of the hide your face, avoid eye contact, and pray the teacher didn't call on you type of student? I was a sit in the front row, answer questions, raise hand, do all my homework kind of girl.

4. Next Monday marks the Chinese New Year...what do you order when someone suggests Chinese food? We never get Chinese take-out. When we go to a Chinese restaurant I get the most American of the foods as they have. I do like egg rolls, I get oriental type chicken and I love the donuts... lol. It has been a long, long time since we ate at a Chinese restaurant.

5. How would you define a miracle? Something out of the realm of the ordinary natural laws of the earth. What would it take for you to consider something a miracle? It would have to be something I believe could never ever happen unless God stepped in and made it happen.

6. What's your favorite Disney song? If you're stuck you'll find a list here. You ask the hardest questions. Just one song??? From one Disney Movie??? Ok, I am going to try and pick just one.... I pick... Up,Down, Touch the Ground - I love Winnie the Pooh

7. I should have _____________ yesterday. I am happy to say that I can't think of anything I should have done yesterday and didn't, unless you count...
I should have hugged my kids more
and kissed my hubby more.

8. Insert your own random thought here. I can't wait to go to Ladies Bible Study on Friday and then hang out with my best friend Michele Then in the evening we are having a game night, 3 teams of 2 picked and paired up from a basket playing 3 2-player games and rotating around till we each play all 3 games. It should be fun. It was my idea.

all content on my blog is ©

Blast From The Past ~ Longwood Gardens January 7, 2012

2012-01-17T13:47:00.010-05:00

I was so excited to be able to get back to Longwood before the Christmas display was taken down. We did not go at night since we had already seen all the outside displays, except for the trains and they were better in the daytime for photos. I mostly wanted to do the Gingerbread "house" and candy displays that we had missed in the Conservatory and the trains. There was not much different with the trains except they added Thomas and Percy trains... which the little ones love. We don't have any little ones in our family, but I enjoyed the trains a lot. I hope you enjoy these end of Christmas seasons photos. I wanted to get them posted before to much of Jan. went by, and thought this week's Blast From The Past was a great opportunity.

Lovely, I like how the shadows of the trees falls on the wall.

More loveliness!

Gorgeous!

I love the grayish blue color of the tree and the lime green ornaments with the gingerbread accents.

Not an original idea... my dd Jessica took one first,

but I though it was so much fun.

Smile!

Such Fun!

Love the satin finish on this.

Love the swirls.

Now for the slideshow of the rest of the photos. If the photos are too small and you are interested you can click on the window and see the slideshow full screen at Picassa.com.

A couple things to look out for in the slideshow...
gingerbread men almost as individual as people... since they were all handmade
lots of candy
and some lovely flowers

Here are some videos I took also.

Make sure you audio is on for this one, but not to loud, so you can hear the train whistles.

Have any photos from last week, last year, or last decade you want to share?

Here are the Rules for participating:

The purpose of Blast From The Past is to link up a post about something from the past. You can reach back all the way to your childhood and bravely post pictures of you in your wild clothes and hair styles or post something from last year and tell us about it. I'm not picky. Hey, even yesterday was the past... LOL My posts will mostly be about events that happened prior to blogging, as a way to share those things with the world.

It can be about you, about your kids, about your parents, about whatever. For ideas check out the other posts in my label Blast From the Past.
Please use a permalink that sends readers directly to the correct post. If you are not sure what that is click the word permalink for an explanation.
Mention my blog and offer a link back to the main page of my blog. http://debbiesdigest.blogspot.com/ This is a requirement to take part and a kind gesture to me your hostess as well as your readers--they will know where to join in the fun, too. You can put the Blast From The Past button on your site and in your post. You will find it on my right sidebar. Please use it to link to my site, to spread the word about my meme. Using the button will help others know how to find me and how to join. Tell others to click on the button in your post to find us here.
Leave me a comment. First so that you can let me know what you think of my pictures and secondly so that I will know a new post has been linked up and I can come visit your blog and comment on your photos.

Join me!

all content on my blog is ©

History Chronologically and with Living Books

2012-01-17T00:45:00.009-05:00

This week's topic for the virtual Curriculum Fair is Exploring Our World: Social Studies and more Science. This theme can include history, geography, world cultures, worldview, biology, botany, geology, etc., etc., etc.

First, I want to say that each link above the red line on this blog post will open in a new tab if you just click it. That way you never loose you place here on my blog. Below the red line I will post the links to the other blogs participating this week. Those will take you to another blog. That blog should have the same list on it so you can continue to visit all the blogs that participate in the fair. The blog links should go up some time Tuesday as soon as I am sent the link from the hostess.

Second, I want to direct you to the link for the books we are using this year for school. This will help you see what kinds of things I use and specifically what we are using right now. Resources for the 2011-2012 School Year.

I guess you can tell from my title that I like to do History in Chronological order and I like to use Living Books. I could never explain how I plan our History in this little post. It would take up pages of space. You should get an idea of what I do and use by looking at the resources page above. I used to use Mystery of History as my base for our studies. I am now past the time period that MOH has currently published and had to switch. I am making due but don't like Truth Quest quite as much as MOH. I add to both with many, many Living Books. Books written by a single writer about a subject they were interested in.. which make us interested in them too. Truth Quest has a good list of books to read, but believe it or not, there are many books that we have in our collection or that we like and borrow from the library that are not recommended in Truth Quest. What can I say? I tweak every History guide I have ever used. I just can't leave it alone.

Next, I have for you a list of links that I use to plan and buy my history stuff. For some of them I have linked to my favorite homeschool supplier, for others to Amazon. I suggest looking for used copies of books before paying full price. Try: Amazon, Half.com, Ebay, Barnes and Noble or maybe you have another used book site you like to use.

There is only one difference to make note of. If buying books, used from Amazon, make sure you add in the shipping cost before deciding whether to buy used or not. If you bought all the books at one place, new, the shipping would be one price, and if you spend certain amounts might even be free. But, if the book costs less, including shipping, at Amazon than it is probably worth it. I have gotten books in good condition for only $0.50 at Amazon with just a few dollars shipping cost.

So, Where do I find books to use for History:

The Public Library (I borrow lots and buy some when they have their book sales, they sell lots of old books they think no one wants, but sometimes they are the best books in the Library)
Thrift Shops
Homeschool Conventions
Homeschool Companies
Scholastic Warehouse Sales (click on link to see if there is one coming soon near you)
Recommendations by local and online friends
Homeschool support group used book sale
Local Book Stores
A local, but state, surplus store that sells stuff the state wants to get rid of. I have gotten a lot of books from them. They cost 5 cents a piece for paperback and a whopping 10 cents each for hardback.
Local Teacher Stores (I don't buy a lot in teacher stores, but I have bought a few things so I thought I would mention it.

Now for Some of my Favorite Websites and just a few book recommendations.

Favorite sites that sell History resources

Bethlehem Books
Greenleaf Press
Diana Waring
Lamplighter Books
Vision Forum
Jim Hodeges reads Henty Novels - complete, unabridged
Mantle Ministries - Online Store
Geography Matters
Farm Country General Store

Favorite Sites that sell everything - including History

Rainbow Resource
Christianbook.com

Favorite books that have lists of Fiction and Historical Fiction books to use in your History studies

All Through the Ages
Let the Authors Speak: A Guide to Worthy Books Based on Historical Setting
We use the Mystery of History as our spine and in the back of each book is an additional resources section with a list of coordinating Bible passages to read, videos and other books. They are nicely organized by lesson and so are in chronological order.
Diana Waring History Guides
The Complete Home Learning Sourcebook by Rebecca Rupp

A Book with a chronological list of people and events through all of History - Timetables of History

Websites with book lists for History

Paula's Archives - Literature to Supplement History (note: though the books are listed in sections which are in chronological order each section is in alphabetical order and so not in the order in which they should be read. Some of my favorites on this page are the books from Bethlehem books... see link above)
A Book In Time - History Books, Projects, Crafts, Maps and Timelines (easiest access is by the links in the left sidebar)
Ambleside Online - scan down for an explanation of thier site and for links to their booklists or put your cursor on Curriculum to see their book suggestions by year. I mostly use their Artist Study and Musician Study lists each year put your cursor on Resources to see those lists and others for Nature Study... etc. The whole curriculum is free and online.

Books to read/download from the Internet

Henty at Archive.org - download pdf's of most if not all the books ( lots of other books at Archive.org also.)
Henty at Gutenberg - download as text files (lots of other books here too)
Another Henty site - chronological or alphabetical list - download zip file or read online
LibriVox - free online audio books, in the Listen box click LibriVox Catalog and type in the title and or author to see what they have.
Do a Google search for free online audio books... lots of sites available

While I am at it some other cool History sites (not necessarily with a Christian Worldview... most are not at all Christian... but interesting non the less)

The History Place - Mostly having to do with the U.S. but some world History Events
History Net - Lots of cool stuff
The Quotations Page - find quotes by famous people
MacroHistory and World Report
Owl and Mouse - Free Educational Software - Great Maps
Learning Through History News - sign up for their newsletter to get the new issues in your e-mail
Dynamic 2 Moms - If you read this far... good for you... You get a bonus: A site with GREAT (not yelling, just excited) Resources for lapbooking and notebooking for History and other subjects.. for older kids especially, and for Free.

Don't forget...
... Make sure to check used books at Amazon and Half.com/Ebay, or your other favorite used book site before you buy.

These lists are for all time periods. If you are studying a specific time period and would like some help finding resources just leave me a comment and I will try to do a post on the resources I use for that topic.
=========================================================
Here are the links to the other participating blogs:

Science and Worldview by Beth @ Ozark Ramblings
Nature Study as Science by Christine @ Crunchy Country Catholic
Virtual Curriculum Fair Week 3- Social Studies and more Science by Leah Courtney @ The Courtney Six Homeschool Family
Curriculum Fair–Exploring Our World by Angie @ Petra School
Paths of Exploration by Jen @ Forever, For Always
Learning Geography at Our House by Jessica @ Modest Mama
The Fascinating World Around Us by Cindy Horton @ Fenced in Family
More Heart of Dakota Praises by Nicole @ Schooling in the Sun
Our History by Melissa @ Grace Christian Homeschool
Playful US Geography for First Grade by Pam @ Everyday Snapshots
Heart of Dakota-The Fine Details-Part 3 History by Lynn @ Ladybug Chronicles
Exploring Our World Through History & Science by Brenda Emmett @ Garden of Learning
Two History Must-haves by Letha @ justpitchingmytent
Learning About The World Around Us by Laura O from AK
Social Studies and Science - What do we do? by Joelle @ Homechooling for His Glory
History Chronologically and with Living Books by Debbie @ Debbie's Digest
Why History? by MissMOE @ Homeschooling While Living the Life of Easier
Exploring Our World by Christa Darr @ Fairfield Corner Academy

all content on my blog is ©

Goal Planning Monday ~ Week 51

2012-01-16T07:00:00.151-05:00

Time to write some goals and strive to accomplish them this coming week??

Join us by clicking on the button above...
after you read my goals.

This was a pretty good week...Considering the craziness. I did pretty well and am satisfied with my first week of 2012 and my goals. I hope that one week soon I can say I got all my goals accomplished in one week!! Maybe it will be this week.

My Goals from last week and how I did:

Spiritual Goals

Read my Bible Daily. Partly Done I did devotions some days, but not every day. Hopefully this week will be better.
Read a Godly book, daily, as part of my morning Devotions. I am currently reading Fearless: Imagine Your Life Without Fear. Partly Done Did this the same days that I had devotions.
Listen to Godly Music Daily, as part of my morning Devotions. Partly Done Did this the same days that I had devotions.
Write in my Spiritual Journal, as part of my morning Devotions. Partly Done Did this the same days that I had devotions.
Read Power of a Praying Wife and leave hubby a note for each chapter I read. He needs the extra prayers and encouragement. Not Done
Read as much as possible of the new books I got for our Sunday School study. How People Change and How People Change Study Guide: How Christ Changes Us by His Grace I am behind because I got my book late. I want to keep up with the current chapters and catch up as much as possible when I am able to do extra work. Done I read part of chapter 2. I need to work on the workbook assignment for chapter one still.

Homeschool Goals

Plan the rest of this week's school. Done I planned it. Then my husband decided to go visit his Aunt and Uncle near Pittsburgh... a 6 hour drive, or more. So plans changed. His Uncle is very sick and in the hospital. After Court came home the Dr.'s told the family that Court's Uncle Frank is now in stage 4 with his cancer. We don't know yet what that will mean for his treatment, they were going to do chemo again, now I don't know. Uncle Frank is around 76 years old. But, most importantly, he needs salvation. Please pray that he will get saved. He has heard the message many times. Court spoke with him about it again while he was there. Uncle Frank is Russian Orthodox. Please join us in prayer if you would. He needs the Lord.
Re-watch Philadelphia Story for Movies as Literature and get the discussion questions done so we can do the essay next week. Done We did manage to get this done even with the change of plans.
Keep up with logging in the boys work and grading it. Done I logged in all the work the boys told me that they did and all the stuff we did together.
Get the boys back to doing all 12 workboxes Not Done That will be done today. Back to a normal week, I hope, not that I know what normal is around here anymore.

Blog Goals

Post Blast From The Past for tomorrow. Done
Work on the Virtual Curriculum Fair post due by January 16th---Exploring Our World: Social Studies and more Science. This theme can include history, geography, world cultures, worldview, biology, botany, geology, etc., etc., etc. Done
Post the Games for math post I have been working on since it will go along with the Virtual Curriculum Fair topic for this week. Done
Post about the reading challenge I am joining this year and the list of books I have plans to read. Done

Fitness Goals

Exercise 3 days for at least 15 min each time. Partly Done I only worked out one day. Hope to do better this week.
Make a Weight Watchers Dessert. Not Done Hubby leaving left me at the house without a car for 3 days. I didn't have the ingredients to make the dessert I had wanted to make. It was also an emotional couple of days for reasons I won't go into. So, Rachel made chocolate cake. It was delicious, but not WW.
Eat Better, more fruits and veggies. Done I did eat more fruit last week, not really more veggies, though I did eat veggies.
Read some of Reshaping It All by Candace Cameron Bure Done I read chapter 2, I think, the book is upstairs and I am downstairs.

Personal/Other Goals

Comment on all the other GPM ladies posts. Keep track of their names with links here so I know whose I have done. Done I commented at our hostesses blog @ Mama Manuscripts, and then at Christa @ Fairfield Corner Academy, Lisa @ Homeschool Circus, Tim @ Families Again, and RevJenv.
Purge and toss some unneeded items making room for my hubby. He says he cannot be creative with clutter around... so I need to get rid of some stuff to make room for him. Done I got rid of some things in my bedroom, still have so much more to do though.
Read, Read, Read! I will be linking up my reading this year to I am currently reading a number of things... for personal, fun, fiction reading I am reading Julia's Last Hope and The Centurion's Wife on my NOOK Book by Janette Oke, Davis Bunn. I got this book free from Barnes and Noble last week for my new Nook Book and have been enjoying it immensely. Done I finished Julia's Last Hope and started Something Old, Something New because it came in from the library and I need to read it and the other 2 Tales From Grace Chapel Inn series before they have to go back. Also, I love this series and want to read it, so it is no hardship.
Clean off the table in my bedroom so I can spend time scrapbooking before the 15th... one of my yearly goals is to scrapbook at least one afternoon every other week. Done I cleaned off the table and did a bunch of pages while Court was at his Aunt and Uncles.
Meal Plan for at least this week and work on the rest of January also. Done I planned dinners for the whole rest of the month. I am taking over all the cooking and most of the kitchen chores until then due to a conflict in the house. I hope after that the kids will pitch in willingly and help out. If not it is my home and my kitchen and I will do what I must to keep it clean and everyone fed.

For this week that is 15 Done, 5 Partly Done, and only 3 Not Done. I would say that is a GREAT week.

My goals for this coming week:

Spiritual Goals

Read my Bible Daily.
Read a Godly book, daily, as part of my morning Devotions. I am currently reading Fearless: Imagine Your Life Without Fear or the spiritual/fitness book from my fitness goals below - Reshaping It All.
Listen to Godly Music Daily, as part of my morning Devotions.
Write in my Spiritual Journal Daily, as part of my morning Devotions.
Read chapter 9 of God's Priorities for Today's Woman for Ladies Bible Study, "The Art of Loving Your Children."
Read Power of a Praying Wife and leave hubby a note for each chapter I read. He needs the extra prayers and encouragement.
Read as much as possible of the new books I got for our Sunday School study. How People Change and How People Change Study Guide: How Christ Changes Us by His Grace I am behind because I got my book late. I want to keep up with the current chapters and catch up as much as possible when I am able to do extra work.

Homeschool Goals

Make sure the boys do their essays for Philadelphia story and don't wait until Friday to do it.
Keep up with logging in the boys work and grading it.
Get the boys back to doing all 12 workboxes

Blog Goals

Post Blast From The Past for tomorrow.
Work on the Virtual Curriculum Fair post due by January 23rd---Seeking Beauty: the Arts and Everything that Brings Beauty to Our World.
Post the Games For Science post I have been working on since it will go along with the Virtual Curriculum Fair topic for this week.
Join in some favorite memes that I like to do.

Fitness Goals

Exercise 3 days for at least 15 min each time.
Make a Weight Watchers Dessert.
Eat Better, more fruits and veggies and write down what I eat.
Drink 48-64 oz of water daily and keep track.
Read some of Reshaping It All: Motivation for Physical and Spiritual Fitness by Candace Cameron Bure.

Personal/Other Goals

Comment on all the other GPM ladies posts. Keep track of their names with links here so I know whose I have done.
Purge and toss some unneeded items making room for my hubby. He says he cannot be creative with clutter around... so I need to get rid of some stuff to make room for him.
Read, Read, Read! I will be linking up my reading this year to I am currently reading a number of things... for personal, fun, fiction reading I am reading Something Old, Something New (The Tales from Grace Chapel Inn Series #10). I should finish that and will probably start the next book We Have This Moment (The Tales from Grace Chapel Inn Series #11)
Keep up with making dinners and doing kitchen chores. I am doing all the cooking until the end of January.
Start back to spending time with one kid once a week doing whatever they want. It is Christopher's turn.

Do you have any goals for the week? Post your goals and link up. The button at the top will take you to the meme and you can join up with us.

all content on my blog is ©

Board Games for School - Math

2012-01-14T19:00:00.001-05:00

Math games make math more fun. Especially in the middle elementary years when kids need lots of practice with their math facts. Doing worksheets can get boring. Playing a game makes things more interesting. Here are the manufactured math games that we own and have played that are still available to buy. We have a couple others that I did not include because they are no longer available. I am sure there are also new games out there that you may own or could locate at your favorite homeschool curriculum provider or on sites that sell used stuff, like Amazon and Ebay.

Equate: The Equation Thinking Game
Equate is like scrabble but with numbers and operations. You put down tiles on a board and make points by correctly completing simple equations. Your nine tiles include both numbers and mathematical symbols; you can add on to previous plays both vertically and horizontally. Equate is a great math board game for family and classroom. Earn higher scores using division or fraction tiles and landing on premium board positions. For 2 to 4 players or teams. Ages 8 through adult. Includes a laminated playing board, 190 tiles, and 4 racks behind which players hide their tiles. Detailed Rules can be found HERE. You can also get Equate Advanved Tiles - there are 197 tiles including negative and positive integers, integer exponents, fractions, the four basic operations, and equal symbols. Packaged in two zip-lock bags. Sold separately, not with a board. Ages 12 years to adult.

Coins Make Change Bingo was designed to introduce U.S. coins in an entertaining yet challenging game for the elementary grades. Everybody loves Bingo. This game combines the fun of Bingo with adding up coin amounts. The game includes: 10 different Bingo game boards, 63 Calling Cards, and 154 Space Markers.

I had a hard time finding a copy of this game. If you prefer you can try these games that help the children learn similar skills - Cool Cash Bingo or Learning Resources Money Bags A Coin Value Game. I have not used these games so you are on your own there. They look good. There are also the money games below that you could use.

Moneywise Kids

Created by a volunteer math aide in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Moneywise Kids contains two simple, fun games that will help kids learn money management and budgeting skills. In the first game, Bill Maker, kids take turns rolling the dice and earning money according to the roll of their dice. For instance: roll a 2 and a 6 and you get $8. As they collect wealth with each turn, players exchange smaller bills for larger ones until someone winds up with a $100 bill.

In the second game, Bill Breaker, each player starts with $100 bill and earns more money with each turn. Players must also draw "moneywise markers" and pay bills for such expenses as food, medical care, and taxes. Some of the bills are little and some big... just like real life. The player who collects all six markers and still has $100 in savings is the winner.

Note: The game was not designed for Christian audiences, so it doesn't include tithing or charitable giving. You might want to make your own cards to add that to the second game. It could be done.

Included are two bill boardgame boards, two sets of bills from $1 to $100, 16 Moneywise markers, and two dice. For 2 players ages 7 years and above.

Presto Change - O
This is another game for learning about money.

From the Manufacturer: Learn how to make change, save money, and spend it wisely. Players travel around a game board filled with everyday financial decisions, earn money, sell lemonade, spend money at the museum or movies, and much more. The first player to save $10.00 wins. Includes colorful game board, dice, game pawns, markers, lots of realistic bills and coins, and instruction booklet. For 2-4 players.

Complete rules can be found HERE.

Original 24 Game Cards Single Digits

Double-sided cards.Cards offer three levels of difficulty. Easy, 1 Dot cards are easy, 2 Dot cards are medium and 3 Dot cards are tough. Ages 9and up The object of the game: Make the number 24 from the four numbers on a game card. You can add, subtract, multiply and divide. Use all four numbers on the card, but use each number only once. You do not have to use all four operations. All number nines will have a red center, so you can tell a nine from a six.

Example: One solution to the card shown above is:

4 x 3 = 12, 12 x 4 = 48, 48 ÷ 2 = 24

This is an medium card, called a "2 Dot," because it has two red dots in the corner.

Cards come in 48 card packs (individual use) and 96 card packs (class use). Also available in 24 Game Double Digits which is much harder.

Pizza Party (fraction game) For two to six players in Grades 1-6 A fun way to learn fractions! As long as it doesn't make you crave pizza. This set of 12 realistic 12'' pizzas helps you adn your children play eight different fraction games. The 12 cardboard pizzas are cut into halves, thirds, fourths, sixths, eighths, ninths, twelfths, and sixteenths. There are also two spinners and an activity sheet. Your children will learn to identify fractions, identify fractional parts of the whole, match fractional notation to concrete models, identify equivalent fractions and fractional parts, subtract fractional parts from a whole and other fractions. The game even comes in a sturdy pizza parlor box! Complete Rules and more photos can be found HERE.

or try this game.... though I have not played this one it looks good also... Learning Resources Pizza Fraction Fun Game

Blokus Classics Game (Strategy – sorta Geometry)
My family loves Blokus and the Blokus Trigon you see below. Blokus includes 84 pieces in four colors, a game board with 400 squares, and an instruction guide. . It is a great strategy game. Each of the color sets contains 21 pieces, each a different shape.

1 one-square piece
1 piece with 2 squares
2 pieces with 3 squares
5 pieces with 4 squares
12 pieces with 5 squares

You try and put your colored pieces all on the board while blocking your opponent(s) from using all their pieces. There are great directions at the Amazon site in the link above. There are also complete game rules HERE.

Blokus Trigon Game (Strategy – sorta Geometry) Similar Game, Similar Rules the main difference is the game board is a Hexagon.

I posted this this week because I have been working on this series

and because it goes along with the Virtual Curriculum Fair topic for this week. Here is my post for that... Math Using Hamburger Paper!

all content on my blog is ©

Reading Challenge 2012

2012-01-14T15:23:00.001-05:00

I am joining this book challenge this year.

My goal is to read 52 books... or more.

I am tracking my books at Goodreads and I will be logging them in on one of my pages above - Reading Challenge 2012 ~ List of Books Read

I have a list of books I want to read. I may not read all of these and I will probably add to the list.

Fearless by Max Lucado
Reshaping It All by Candice Cameron Bure
God's Priorities for Today's Woman by Lisa Hughes
How People Change by Timothy S. Lane
Tales From Grace Chapel Inn series books 10-47
The Centurion's Wife by Davis Bunn and Janette Oke (Nook)
Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell
My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers
Always True by James MacDonald
The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer (Nook)
Emma by Jane Austen (Nook)
The Romance of a Christmas Card by Kate Wiggin and Alice Hunt (Nook)
More Janette Oke - (books I own and have already read)

I will be updating my list as I read and I have 2 widgets on my sidebar to let you know what I am reading and how I am doing on the challenge. Also with this challenge we are supposed to post reviews and link up monthly... so I will be doing that also.

all content on my blog is ©

Wednesday Hodgepodge ~ Vol. 61

2012-01-12T11:59:00.000-05:00

I am a day late getting this posted... but I did most of it on Tuesday, forgot about it yesterday, and finished up today.

1. Lake Superior University has once again published a list of words/phrases they think should be banished from the Queen's English in 2012-

amazing, baby bump, shared sacrifice, occupy, blowback, man cave, the new normal, pet parent, win the future, trickeration, ginormous, and thank you in advance.

Which of these words/phrases would you most like to see banished from everyday speech and why? Go here to read more about how the words are chosen.

I went to the website and looked at the words and the reasons for banning them. I guess I would pick Baby Bump. I do not watch to much tv and neither do my kids. We watch no daytime t.v. shows so we have not run into the overuse of these words. I don't know if I have even heard anyone use "Baby Bump" in a sentence... but I don't like it, so that is the one I chose. The rest of them don't really bother me.

2. Are you easily embarrassed? I guess I am, I don't really know for sure.

3. What is your go-to snack? I don't have just one. When not dieting it is all kinds of things I should not eat. When trying to stick to a better diet my go-to snacks are WW ice cream treats, WW desserts that I make at home, and rice cakes. Oh, and I love the Fiber Plus bars from Kellogg's. I like all but the ones with coconut.

4. Have you ever been to Washington D.C.? Yes, many times. If not do you have any desire to go? What site/attraction would you most want to see in that city? If you have been, what's your favorite site/attraction? Favorite... you do ask such hard questions. I like the Air and Space Museum, The American History Museum, The Natural History Museum, and the Washington National Cathedral Sorry, I could not choose just one.

5. sit ups-planks-lunges-squats...which do you hate the least? Squats, since I think I can do at least one of those and don't think I can do any of the others... but... I am just getting back to exercising... so here's hoping and praying that the end of 2012 finds me much more fit than I am now.

6. What's a small act of kindness you were shown that you've never forgotten? I can't think of one. This question is one of the things that held me up from posting. I know there are plenty... I just can't think right now!

7. Have you ever been a blood donor? Nope. I used to faint when giving blood. I don't faint now but I still don't like it.

8. Insert your own random thought here. I miss my husband. He is away visiting relatives of his in western PA. I could not sleep last night without him. I was up until 2am.

Julia's Last Hope ~ Book 1 of 2012

2012-01-12T11:16:00.000-05:00

I just opened an account at Goodreads. I like that I can do a review of each book I read there and then they give me the code to copy that review and paste it here on my blog... that is cool. I will be changing my Shelfari personal reading widget. I will probably keep the school Shelfari list for now.

Julia's Last Hope by Janette Oke

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Love this book. Though it says it is part of a series, each of the books in this series is actually an individual story, so you can read them in any order. In this story a logging business closes and the few families that stay in the the town try and save their town. The families open their homes to guests, serving them and using their homes and the mountain town to earn money for their families. Part way through Julia and her family realize that the physical needs of feeding and clothing everyone are not the most important. This trial wakes them up to the spiritual needs of their guests and the other members of their town. Do they save the town??? You will have to read it and find out.

View all my reviews

all content on my blog is ©

Blast From The Past ~ Nathan Doing School, Jan. 2000

2012-01-10T20:40:00.001-05:00

This month I am featuring Nathan, though Christopher is in 2 of the photos also.

In these first 2 photos Nathan is practicing his reading by reading books to Christopher.

Such Sweet Memories.

Love seeing my boys interested in books. They are still interested in books. The boys have read 3 or 4 books in the past week or so... The Wormling Chronicles. They have read them before, but they are favorites and they are reading them again. We own a couple of the books and the boys are thinking of buying the rest of the set. For now they have borrowed them from our church library.

Oh, and I don't have any idea why Nathan is in long sleeves and pants and Christopher has only his diaper on... except that it was hard to keep clothes on that kid! lol

I wish I knew what they were reading... they look enthralled with the book.

Thus was a U is for Umpire craft... not sure from what book.

I am surprised I remember what it was though.

Calendar time.

This photo was obviously taken on Jan. 31st. and Nathan loved penguins.

This year this little boy will be graduating! Hard to believe. Time flies!

It can be about you, about your kids, about your parents, about whatever. For ideas check out the other posts in my label Blast From the Past.
Please use a permalink that sends readers directly to the correct post. If you are not sure what that is click the word permalink for an explanation.
Mention my blog and offer a link back to the main page of my blog. http://debbiesdigest.blogspot.com/ This is a requirement to take part and a kind gesture to me your hostess as well as your readers--they will know where to join in the fun, too. You can put the Blast From The Past button on your site and in your post. You will find it on my right sidebar. Please use it to link to my site, to spread the word about my meme. Using the button will help others know how to find me and how to join. Tell others to click on the button in your post to find us here.
Leave me a comment. First so that you can let me know what you think of my pictures and secondly so that I will know a new post has been linked up and I can come visit your blog and comment on your photos.

Goal Planning Monday ~ Week 50

2012-01-09T20:46:00.001-05:00

Time to write some goals and strive to accomplish them this coming week??

Join us by clicking on the button above...
after you read my goals.

Spiritual Goals

Read my Bible Daily. Done, except for one day, I am counting it as done and not partly done.
Read a Godly book, daily, as part of my morning Devotions. I am currently reading Fearless: Imagine Your Life Without Fear. Done Read ch. 1
Listen to Godly Music Daily, as part of my morning Devotions. Done
Write in my Spiritual Journal, as part of my morning Devotions. Done every day except the one I did not read my Bible on.
Read Power of a Praying Wife and leave hubby a note for each chapter I read. He needs the extra prayers and encouragement. Not Done
Read chapter 8 of God's Priorities for Today's Woman for Ladies Bible Study, "The Art of Loving Your Husband." Done
Read as much as possible of the new books I got for our Sunday School study. How People Change and How People Change Study Guide: How Christ Changes Us by His Grace I am behind because I got my book late. I want to keep up with the current chapters and catch up as much as possible when I am able to do extra work. Done

Homeschool Goals

Plan this week's school. Not Done We had a snafu with school last week. Some books were missing and things were still partly crazy so we never did do school. We weren't supposed to start until Wed. anyway... so we just missed a 1/2 a week more. We started back to school today and got 1/2 the subjects done because of a late start and delays. Hopefully we can get all 12 workboxes done tomorrow.
Start back to homeschooling on Wed. Not Done
Re-watch Philadelphia Story for Movies as Literature and get the discussion questions done so we can do the essay next week. Not Done

Blog Goals

Post Blast From The Past for tomorrow. Done
Work on the Virtual Curriculum Fair post due by January 9th---Discovering Patterns: Mathematics, Logic, and some Science. I want to have these done and scheduled ahead of time. Done
Post the Games for Language Arts post I have been working on since it will go along with the Virtual Curriculum Fair topic for this week.. Done

Personal/Other Goals

Comment on all the other GPM ladies posts. Keep track of their names with links here so I know whose I have done. Not Done
Clean my bedroom. My bedroom is a mess from storing and wrapping gifts in there. I also have clothes to put away. Done
Read, Read, Read! I will be linking up my reading this year to I am currently reading a number of things... for personal, fun, fiction reading I am reading Julia's Last Hope It is one of the individual books Janette Oke wrote and not part of a series. I want to order some more Tales from Grace Chapel Inn books today. I really love that series and as so glad the Holman's introduced me to it and that my library has had them all so far. Done I am reading a bunch of books right now for spiritual books, for pleasure books, and educational books. Maybe this will help me with my reading challenge for 2012!! Oh, and I ordered 3 books and 2 of them came in at the library. Now to finish what I am currently reading for pleasure (2 books) so I can read the Tales from Grace Chapel Inn books.
Clean off the table in my bedroom so I can spend time scrapbooking before the 15th... one of my yearly goals is to scrapbook at least one afternoon every other week.Partly Done Must get this completed. I have planned to do this and then scrapbook one afternoon with Jessica! Must get it done by the 15th so I don't fail on my goals for 2012!
Meal Plan for at least this week and work on the rest of January also. Partly Done

For this week that is 11 Done, 2 Partly Done, and 5 Not Done. Pretty good week considering all the family stuff I did.

My goals for this coming week:

Spiritual Goals

Read my Bible Daily.
Read a Godly book, daily, as part of my morning Devotions. I am currently reading Fearless: Imagine Your Life Without Fear.
Listen to Godly Music Daily, as part of my morning Devotions.
Write in my Spiritual Journal, as part of my morning Devotions.
Read Power of a Praying Wife and leave hubby a note for each chapter I read. He needs the extra prayers and encouragement.
Read as much as possible of the new books I got for our Sunday School study. How People Change and How People Change Study Guide: How Christ Changes Us by His Grace I am behind because I got my book late. I want to keep up with the current chapters and catch up as much as possible when I am able to do extra work.

Homeschool Goals

Plan the rest of this week's school.
Re-watch Philadelphia Story for Movies as Literature and get the discussion questions done so we can do the essay next week.
Keep up with logging in the boys work and grading it.
Get the boys back to doing all 12 workboxes

Blog Goals

Post Blast From The Past for tomorrow.
Work on the Virtual Curriculum Fair post due by January 16th---Exploring Our World: Social Studies and more Science. This theme can include history, geography, world cultures, worldview, biology, botany, geology, etc., etc., etc.
Post the Games for math post I have been working on since it will go along with the Virtual Curriculum Fair topic for this week.
Post about the reading challenge I am joining this year and the list of books I have plans to read.

Fitness Goals

Exercise 3 days for at least 15 min each time.
Make a Weight Watchers Dessert.
Eat Better, more fruits and veggies.
Read some of Reshaping It All by Candace Cameron Bure

Personal/Other Goals

Comment on all the other GPM ladies posts. Keep track of their names with links here so I know whose I have done.
Purge and toss some unneeded items making room for my hubby. He says he cannot be creative with clutter around... so I need to get rid of some stuff to make room for him.
Read, Read, Read! I will be linking up my reading this year to I am currently reading a number of things... for personal, fun, fiction reading I am reading Julia's Last Hope and The Centurion's Wife on my NOOK Book by Janette Oke, Davis Bunn. I got this book free from Barnes and Noble last week for my new Nook Book and have been enjoying it immensely.
Clean off the table in my bedroom so I can spend time scrapbooking before the 15th... one of my yearly goals is to scrapbook at least one afternoon every other week.
Meal Plan for at least this week and work on the rest of January also.

How about you? Did you set any Goals for 2012. Doing this meme will help you accomplish more because you can look at your yearly goals and set smaller steps to do weekly so you make progress toward your bigger goals. Do you have any goals for the week? Post your goals and link up. The button at the top will take you to the meme and you can join up with us.

all content on my blog is ©

Math Using Hamburger Paper!

2012-01-09T07:00:00.006-05:00

This week's topic for the Virtual Curriculum Fair is "Discovering Patterns: Mathematics, Logic, and some Science. This theme can include anything to do with mathematics, mathematical thinking, numbers, arithmetic, symbolic logic, critical thinking, and math-y sciences (physics, chemistry, etc.)."

We love science in our house and I have a few posts about out Physics studies in the following posts:

We have done chemistry a few times too. We do not use the "typical" curriculum for science classes. For this Curriculum Fair though, I have chosen to talk about the Math choices we made for my son this year.

Christopher started the year doing Teaching Textbook Geometry. Nathan did the same curriculum a few years ago. Christopher was really struggling. He was using the CD's and even that did not seem to help. I went overs his errors with him and tried to help. Things were better for a little while then he really started to struggle. I had talked with a friend and she had suggested that we do the curriculum but skip the proofs if we had to, but not to change curriculum. I took her suggestion and it did not really seem to help at all. He was still struggling. I did terrible with High School level geometry when I took it and so I could sympathize. We do not encourage our children to give up on things but some times we just have to do what WE think is best for our students. After talking it over several times with my husband and praying about it we decided to switch Christopher over to Key To Geometry and Patty Paper Geometry.

We already had the Patty Paper Geometry book, I just had to make copies of the parts of the lessons. As for the Key To Geometry we ordered the Student books, except for book 8 (I already had that one). I already had the books with the Answers and Notes because this was the curriculum we used for our non-math oriented girls when they were doing school.

Patty Paper??? What it that? Well, patty paper is the squares of waxed paper that are used by fast food restaurants to separate uncooked hamburger patties.... thus the name for my post! LOL These papers are the perfect size for tracing and folding and this curriculum uses them for both. This curriculum uses the patty papers to help the students investigate and discover most of the properties of High School Geometry. It will help them answer questions like What do we know about an isosceles triangle or What is true about the diagonals of a rhombus? Any properties that can be discovered using a compass and a straightedge can be discovered by using patty papers. Trace one angle to see if another angle is congruent. Take an angle and fold it in half to find the angle bisector. The investigations get more and more detailed and complicated. The student can do guided investigations where they are given more explanations and guidance or the open investigations which are more independent. Christopher is doing the guided investigations. After the investigations there are exercises so the student can practice the new information he discovered.

Here is a sample from one of Christopher's assignments. This was what the Exercise said to do...

"Sketch and carefully label each figure. 3. Equilateral triangle DOT with L, I, and P the midpoints of DO, OT, and DT, respectively and segments LI, IP, and LP."

There should be lines over the letters for the segments but I could not figure out how to get my computer keyboard to let me put them in. Christopher did a great job on this. You can see the lines from where he folded the paper to make the equilateral triangle and to find the midpoints. He labeled everything correctly. If you would like to see the picture larger just click on it... it should open in a new tab so you don't loose your place here. This was investigation 4 out of the 12 in the book. I am spreading the lessons out through the year between doing booklets of the Key To Geometry. I hope getting to see an example of one part of an exercise helps you understand how this curriculum works. If you have questions, just ask.

Christopher is also doing Key to Geometry® from Key Curriculum Press. Key To Geometry is listed for grades 4-12. Most people would not count it as a math course for the college bound student but so far none of our children are interested in college. When they finish, students have been introduced to 134 geometric terms. It says they are now ready to handle proofs. I just don't see the need for it now. Christopher is doing really well with these 2 curricula. If Christopher changes his mind later he can pick up extra Math if he needs to. If he has a goal and needs more math then he will apply himself and get it done. When we add in the Patty Paper Geometry I think it is fine... more than fine. I do not remember any of the Geometry that I had and never found a use for it. Nathan made it through the Teaching Textbooks Geometry but the girls did this Key to and we did what we thought was best for our kids.

The Patty Paper Geometry page of the website says,

"Use Patty Paper Geometry as a supplement to your geometry program or even as a major course of study."

I think, combining the 2 programs, that it is enough geometry for my son. I can tell you one thing for sure... we are both a lot less frustrated and he is learning.

Get more information from the publisher, Key Curriculum Press, HERE
or check out this link to Amazon Patty Paper Geometry
Get Patty paper from Key Curriculum Press, or get some from Amazon, HERE.
Or check out the same products at my favorite company Rainbow Resource.

Now here is your chance to check out some more Math/Logic/Science posts. This is a Virtual Curriculum Fair and there are a bunch of us participating. Click on the first one to get started or click on the one after mine if you already did the first few or just click a random one... whatever floats your boat!

Math Lapbooks---Virtual Curriculum Fair Week 2 Angie Wright @ Petra School

Virtual Curriculum Fair Week Two: Discover Patterns, Mathematics, Logic and Some Science by Leah @ The Courtney Six Homeschool

Our Choices For Math by Melissa @ Grace Christian Homeschool

A Magnificent Math Manipulative by Letha Paulk @ justpitchingmytent

Our Math Choices - Virtual Curriculum Fair by Tristan @ Our Busy Homeschool

Math Literature?!?! by Christine @ Crunchy Country Catholic

Learning Math at My House by Jessica @ Modest Mama

Math Using Hamburger Paper by Debbie @ Debbie's Digest THIS IS ME>>> YOU ARE HERE

Math Facts or Fun? Why Not Both! by Beth @ Ozark Ramblings

Heart of Dakota- The Fine Details- Part 2 Science by Lynn @ Ladybug Chronicles

Learning Math Block by Block by Laura O in AK @ Day by Day in Our World

Plugging Along with Math by Cindy Horton @ Fenced in Family

What's Working and What's Not: Math Edition by Leann @ Montessori Tidbits

Math Anyone? by Cindy @ For One Another

Ahh, Math. by Nicole @ Schooling in the Sun

Flying Without a Parachute: Math with no Curriculum by Pam @ Everyday Snapshots

Math in Our Homeschool by Christine T @ Our Homeschool Reviews

Math, Math, and More Math by Dawn Chandler @ tractors & tire swings

Thinking Mathematically- How I Choose Math Curriculum by Kristen @ Sunrise to Sunset

Discovering Patterns: Math, Logic, and Some Science by Christa Darr @ Fairfield Corner Academy

The Science of Math by Brenda Emmett @ Garden of Learning

"Mom, did we do math today?" by Chrissy at Learning is an Adventure

Math, Math, and More Math by Joelle @ Homeschooling for His Glory

all content on my blog is ©

Board Games for School - Language Arts

2012-01-08T18:51:00.015-05:00

I decided that I would post my Board Games for School Language Arts post this week since it goes along with the topic for the Virtual Curriculum Fair this week. My post for that was here in case you missed it... Watching Movies for Language Arts Class...

Well here are the games...

Word Yahtzee - Like the original number games except you have to use the letter tiles to build words and score points on the Yahtzee score pad. On the top sections you have to build 2 to 6 letter words. Each letter has a point value. The points you get depend on the value of the letters you use in your words. Score enough points on the top part and get a bonus. On the bottom use your 7 tiles to build one word, two words, three words, roll all consonants, all vowels and try and get a Yahtzee word using all 7 dice to form one word. You get three rolls each round and if you can't form a word that fits any of the categories you get one chance space to just add up all the scores of the dice, just like in the original. A great game for building and using your vocabulary. If you would like to read all the rules before you buy... check out this pdf. This game is great for the whole family, recommended for ages 8 and up and can be played with any number of players.

Wordigo from Amazon also available from Timberdoodle - Timberdoodle has a very good description of this game as well as some reviews. Wordigo is a fast-paced that takes only 7 minutes. Everyone plays at the same time so their is no waiting for everyone to take their turn.You can play with 1 to 4 players, ages 8 years to adult. There are 4 copies each of 4 different game boards, which allows varying degrees of difficulty making it easy for children to play with adults

Boggle or try Big Boggle - Boggle is great fun. The game only takes 3-minutes. Shaking the16 cubes, with letters on them, in the cube is very noisy so make sure you don't have a headache on the day you play this game, lol. After you finish shaking the letters you must race to see who can list the most words - with the highest point value - among the random letter assortment in the grid. Link letters up, down, sideways, and diagonally to form common and not-so-common words. You must find as many words, each three-or-more letters long, as you can, in three minutes. Points are tallied by word length so make good long words if you can. If someone else writes down the same word as you do neither of you gets points, so try and find original words. Whoever finds and writes down the must un-duplicated words in 3 minutes, wins. Longer, more unusual words earn more points. For 2 or more players.

Boggle Junior Game
- or try this version for you preschool/Kindergarten age children. Boggle Jr. helps children learn letters, spelling, and reading while having loads of fun! This easy version uses pictures and matching games to allow children to make the connection between objects and their names. With two skill levels, players can challenge themselves by covering the letters and trying to spell the word without looking. The game, for one or more players, includes a game tray with word cover, 30 picture/word cards with 60 three- and four-letter words, and eight letter cubes.

Scrabble - There are a lot of versions of scrabble. Most people know how to play scrabble. This link takes you to the search on Amazon for Scrabble games, there are a few other games on this search, but most of them are Scrabble games. Pick the version that seems best to you.

Mad Libs Mad Roll Game - The boys really love this game. Basically you use the nouns, verbs and adjectives to build sentences... the funnier the better. Before you play you choose one noun,verb and adjective to use on any blank tiles you encounter while playing. This adds more fun to the game. Like Boggle you can use words that connect vertically, horizontally, and diagonally. The game is designed for player ages eight and up and takes approximately 30 minutes to play. This website has all the rules if you are interested in reading them to see exactly how to play.

Language Detective or try this link Language Detective
Some kids love playing detective. Here is one way they can, it's time to solve the language mysteries! This excellent proofreading game takes students on a mission to find mistakes in spelling, word usage, capitalization, and punctuation. Game includes a gameboard, playing pieces, score sheets, instructions, and spinner. For 2-6 players, ages 9 and up. Players must first decide how to end the game. First choice is by one player getting a certain # of points, winner would be the player who gets that many points first. Or you can play that the winner is the person with the most points after 1) a certain # of turns per player, or 2) playing for a number of minutes.

To play - You spin the spinner and travel around the board. After moving you read sentence A, B, or C according to your spin and then correct the error in the sentence. If you find the error, correct it, and are right then you get points. Points awarded are the same as the number of spaces you moved. There are bonus spaces at the corners. If you land on a bonus space you get asked a bonus question from the Bonus Sentence List included with the game. If you find the error in this sentence correctly you get 4 bonus points. Whether they get find the error correctly or not they get an extra spin/turn.

Apples to Apples Party Box - Apples to Apples is our favorite Language game.

Apples to Apples Junior - ages 9 and up
Apples To Apples Party Box - Expansion 1

The following games are part of the Apples to Apples family but I don't own them. I would like to own the top 3. Apples to Apples Family says it is a variety of Apples to Apples, it has tokens, sounds like fun. Sour Apples sounds like a lot of fun, also. And, though I don't have any little ones at home any more, I love Disney stuff so a "Goofy" game sounds fun too!

Apples to Apples Family
Sour Apples to Apples
Disney Apples To Apples - The Game Of Goofy Comparisons
Apple To Apples Kids 7 Plus
Apples To Apples - On The Go

BACKWORDS SDROWKCAB - A Giant Step Backwards in Board Games. Backwords is a game for 3-8 players or Teams ages 10 to Adult. The games includes 500 Backwords Cards, 300 Exam Cards, 1 Backwords Game Board, 1 Backwords Die, 1 Regular Die, 1 Thirty-Second Sand Timer, 8 Pawns, and a storage tray.

First you have to decide whether you want to use the easy decks or the hard decks. There are easy and hard decks for the Backwords Cards and the Exam Cards. Once you decide each player takes an Exam card from the deck. You do NOT look at the Exam Cards until the end of the game. The basics of the game are that you move backwards and forward as you roll the 2 dice, choosing "Backwards" and "Exam" cards according to the rules. Each "Backwords" card has three words on it. When you get a "Backwords" card on your roll you read one of the three words, which are written backwards, to the other players. The first to shout out what the correct word would be frontwards gets to move their pawn the same number of moves that you did. If the word is a Palindrome, a word that is the same backwards and forwards like deed, you must shout "BACKWORDS" instead of shouting the word. The aim of the game is to get rid of all your "Exam" cards. You can do that three ways. The most important way is to get to the University of Reversity at the end of the path on the game board. Then you can take an Exam. You have 30 seconds to use up all the Exam cards you can each turn until someone wins. One of you opponents quickly reads the words on the cards one at a time forwards and you have to pronounce the word as it would be Backwards. As I said the first to get rid of all their Exam cards, at the University of Reversity or any of the other ways the rules tell you, is the winner. This is a confusing but good game.

Upwords or try one of these links

Upwords
Upwords

There is also a newer version. Be careful however. Those on Amazon who bought it said the green color is awful and the tiles are smaller and hard to handle. I suggest getting an older version if you can get one at a good price. There are several used copies of this game presently at Amazon for a good price. Here is the link to the new version, just in case you need/want it. Scrabble Upwords

Here is how to play: Upwords is like a 3-D Scrabble game, but not. Build words across, down and on top of each other. The challenge is to make new words each time. For example, "stack" becomes "snack" by putting an n on top of the t, then you could change that to "snapshot" by putting tiles "p" and "s" over the "c" and "k" then adding an "h", "o", and "t". Scoring is simpler, each tile on the bottom level earns two points, and each stacked tile earns one. You cannot use words that are capitalized, hyphenated, or abbreviated words. For 2 to 4 players. The set comes with 100 letter tiles, 4 tile racks, a game board with 10 X 10 grid, and instructions.

Rummy Roots or this link Rummy Roots
What do you get when you combine Greek roots tele (far away) and skopeo (to look at)? Telescope, a device that allows us to look at things far away! This card game is challenging and it is a great way to build vocabulary, and word comprehension by exploring the Greek and Latin roots of our English language.

Includes 90 cards: 27 Greek, 15 Latin, 42 English, 4 Stump cards, and 2 Bonus cards. Ages: 8 to adult

Pre-Roots is played like the "Go Fish" card game. Kids and adults learn the English meanings of 42 Greek or Latin roots. This is the game you play to start out. Once you have learned some/most of the cards you can move on to Level 1. In level 1 players combine two Greek or Latin root cards together to form English words. (Example: Auto + Graph = Autograph) At this level players begin to use the Dictionary Guide Words. In level 2, dictionary skills are improved as players try to stump their opponents, using the Stump cards. Level 3 is played like Rummy using three root combinations to further expand vocabulary and comprehension. The result of all this fun? Mastering 42 Greek and Latin roots, over 190 vocabulary words learned, and the ability to at least partially decipher over 2,000 words!

Electronic Catch Phrase or Hasbro Electronic Catch Phrase or Catch Phrase Electronic Carabiner or Electronic Catch Phrase First Edition (especially take a look at the used copies... there were some for as little as $5 + shipping) I also found a couple Electronic Catch Phrase games in Jr. Editions. All of them were over $50. I did not put links here because I think that is excessive. If you are interested you can do a search on Amazon.

Two teams of two or more players each alternate turns, guessing the answers to clues in 11 categories, about one of 10,000 words, from Food & Drink to Tech & Inventions. Set the timer and the countdown begins. You can make any physical gesture and give almost any verbal clue to get your team to say the word. But you CANNOT:

Say a word that RHYMES with the word;
Give the FIRST LETTER of the word;
SAY A PART OF THE WORD in the clue (i.e. “shoe” for “shoe horn”).

Once you get a correct answer you pass the game to the other team. Then the other team presses the next button to get a new word and then tries to guess the next word. After a set amount of time the game starts beeping. After about a minute of increasingly faster beeping the game will be over when the buzzer sounds. Even though I can hear the beeping getting faster I almost always jump when the buzzer sounds! Especially, if I am holding the game! LOL This game is a fast, nerve-wracking, high-pressure game of passing the buck (or potato, lol)! This game was a favorite choice for Language Arts when we used to regularly play games for school. This grab it, guess it, pass it game makes you think quick (hopefully) or you can keep on pressing the next button until a word comes up that you think you can get your teammate(s) to guess... then talk fast, and hopefully keep things moving! When the buzzer sounds the team not holding the game gets a point. The team that gets a point also has one turn to guess the word that the losing team did not get. If they guess correctly, they get 1 BONUS point. The winning team is the first to get 7 points.

LOGUS SR. - The Slide-Letter Word Game that Challenges Your Mind and Agility. Have you ever had one of those little kid slide puzzles?? Like this one... In this game the tiles move like these. There are 2 blank spaces, 4 rows of tiles horizontally, and 5 columns vertically. To form words players must quickly form words by sliding the letters around. The cards have challenges on both sides and direct the players to form a word, or words. Each card has a point value according to it's degree of difficulty. Some cards ask for words in certain categores, other indicate certain letters to be included, etc. The cards also direct on which lines, either vertical or horizontal, to form the words. You shuffle the cards flipping some around and then shuffle again to get them mixed in really well.

Below are two examples.

The first card tells us to use vertical line 3... do you see it... below the G in LOGUS. The card also tells us we must do a 3 letter word that starts with N.... easy enough.

I did the word NOT.

That was worth 5 points.

The next challenge was a little more difficult.

Three words on three different lines.

Now I don't know if you noticed in the picture above but one of the rules of LOGUS is that if your word does not fill all the spaces on the row or column you must place at least one blank with it. If the 3 letter word is on a horizontal line there must be 2 blanks next to it. If a 4 letter word is on a horizontal line then there must be one blank next to it. This gave me a problem in doing the 25 point challenge above. Here is how I worked it out. Horizontal line one has a 3 letter word - LEG, inside the 4 letter word LEGS that allows me to put one blank next to it. On line 2 is the 4 letter word MORE with one blank next to it. On line 3 is the 5 letter word DONUT and then the rest of the letters on line 4.

Of course, I did not have the pressure of having an opponent. I did not get the 25 point challenge done very quickly. When playing against another person/team it would be more stressful. I think I did ok with the challenge... I only had 2 blank spaces so the extra letter had to go somewhere. I think that fits the rules, don't you.

The first person done the challenge says,"LOGUS", then the other player has to check to make sure the word is spelled correctly and fits all the rules. If they are correct they get to keep the card that had the challenge on it. If they are incorrect they both get to continue until someone again says, "LOGUS." When the last card has been played the one with the most points wins.

I do have a few games for teaching the alphabet and for early language arts learning for younger kids. However, I could not find any of them currently being sold anywhere. They were old games when I bought them so I have not mentioned them here.

Well that is it for our Language Arts Games. Doing these posts really makes me realize there are a few games we have not played in a while. And I don't remember ever playing LOGUS. I want to get back to adding a game or 2 each week to school... It will break up the monotony, make school more fun, and use the resources we have on our shelves.

Next week's Virtual Fair Curriculum will be on Math. I will put my post up for that tomorrow. Then later this week I plan to do my Board Games for School for Math, to go along with it.

Blast From The Past ~ The Very Hungry Caterpillar

2012-01-03T12:57:00.002-05:00

This week I decided to post something fun.
One day in August in the year 2000 my kids were bored and decided to put on a play. Christopher, age 3 1/2 "read" the story, one of the kids favorites, The Very Hungry Caterpillar. While Jessica helped Nathan act out the story... Just Adorable!

Christopher

Jessica and Nathan

It can be about you, about your kids, about your parents, about whatever. For ideas check out the other posts in my label Blast From the Past.
Please use a permalink that sends readers directly to the correct post. If you are not sure what that is click the word permalink for an explanation.
Mention my blog and offer a link back to the main page of my blog. http://debbiesdigest.blogspot.com/ This is a requirement to take part and a kind gesture to me your hostess as well as your readers--they will know where to join in the fun, too. You can put the Blast From The Past button on your site and in your post. You will find it on my right sidebar. Please use it to link to my site, to spread the word about my meme. Using the button will help others know how to find me and how to join. Tell others to click on the button in your post to find us here.
Leave me a comment. First so that you can let me know what you think of my pictures and secondly so that I will know a new post has been linked up and I can come visit your blog and comment on your photos.

Trials and Temptations

2012-01-03T11:33:00.000-05:00

James 1:12-18 "Blessed is the man who endures temptation; for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him. Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death. Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures."

I saw some things in a new way this morning when I read these verses for my devotions. Thanks in part to the commentary I have been reading along with my devotions. I will put the link to the commentary page I read at the bottom so you can read the original if you want... after you finish reading my post. The quotes from here down are from that commentary.

Some things were just a reminder but other thoughts were new. It was very encouraging.

First we must know the temptation does NOT come from God. We are tempted when we are drawn away by our own desires.

"Trial => Testing => Perseverance => Maturity (from James 1:2-4)

OR

Trial => Temptation => Sin => Death"

If we fall into temptation it is our own fault, we can blame no one else... not God, our parents, our spouse, or a friend... not even Satan. Satan may tempt us but we can choose to resist or flee OR to sin, it is our choice.

The temptation wants to drag us away and entice us. When we are tempted we are tempted to sin - we are the prey not someone else. If we are tempted to return evil when someone has injured us in some way then we are the victim, not them. For when we take revenge we FALL not them!

James then uses a childbearing image.

"Desire conceives => gives birth to sin => it grows => and brings forth Death!"

"... the greatest danger to James's persecuted readers is not the wrong being done to them but the wrong they may do."

My current trial - My husband's Job loss and our financial struggles because of it

The Temptations -

To Lose Hope in a God who promises to provide ALL my needs
To covet or be jealous of others and what they have
To blame God

God is sovereign and he allows the trials to come our way but he does not tempt us.. .the temptations come from our own sinful hearts.

Then comes vs. 16. A pivotal verse. Don't Be Deceived....

Don't Be Deceived about where Temptation comes from
Don't Be Deceived about where Good Things come from

"Both images are designed to give us assurance that we may rely upon Him confidently. James wants his readers to cling to the certainty of God's unchanging love in their suffering"

"Especially in times of trial, is your image of God one of exalted authority, trustworthy constancy and unfailing generosity?"

The question is... Do I believe God gives Me good gifts, even in the midst of my trials?

Our Good Gifts come down from the Father above so I need to look up... daily... and search for his good gifts to me, instead of always looking at my circumstances.

Our Good Gifts come in 2 parts. First He Made Us HIS children. We are begotten. We are adopted. He regenerated us. We are His children. That is a Good Gift. Then it says we are the firstfruits. We are changed, we have the capacity to change. There is

"an expectation of the ultimate fruit-bearing goal of God's Work in us."

We can change and grow. We can choose to respond correctly to the trials and temptations in our lives. We can choose to trust a God who never changes, does not vary or turn a different way.

These discoveries and re-discoveries from James have helped me today. I know I am a sinner and a frail human and will probably fall and fail to trust God again some moment/time in the future. But for today. I am trusting my Lord.

Digging into his word, reading Fearless by Max Lucado (which was a great choice of first book to go with my devotions for January, God's timing is perfect), listening to Praise Music every day and praying, have really helped me. I helps me to keep having a right attitude about things. There will still be struggles ahead, but I trust God to help me through and help me deal with whatever he thinks is best to bring into my life. His Goal for me is not comfort but to help me Grow to be more like Christ in my mind, thoughts, actions and attitudes.

Here is the link to the commentary page - http://www.biblegateway.com/resources/commentaries/IVP-NT/Jas/Temptations-Good-Gifts

all content on my blog is ©