Home With Purpose

Welcome to the Story: Reading, Loving, & Living God's Word (Family Bookshelf)

noreply@blogger.com (Kara) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 21:24:00 +0000

Yes, I'm going to say again how essential I think understanding the "big picture" of the Bible is. It's not a collection of disconnected stories and writings that each give us an important principle for living or examples to follow. It's the story of what God has done and is doing in the world, with the story of redemption woven through every line, from Genesis to Revelation.

Welcome to the Story: Reading, Loving, & Living God's Word by Stephen J. Nichols is another great resource for grasping this. It's a fantastic introduction to the "big picture" of the Bible for new believers or those who haven't considered it before, and even those familiar with the concept will benefit from his insightful treatment of it. I'll let him explain in his own words what the purpose of the book is:

We have been given a book that is unlike any other book in human history, a book that transcends all human wisdom, all human insight, and all human expertise. We have been given the Word of God, the words of eternal life. And we, all of us, are invited to take up and read these words.

There is no substitute for reading the Bible. But some of us may need a little help to read it better. There are lots of books on reading and understanding the Bible, books that offer methods and skills and techniques. This book does some of that.

There are also lots of theological books that take a step back from individual biblical passages and step back from individual biblical passages and biblical texts to try to grasp the big picture of what's happening. This book does a lot of that. And there are books that try to stir our hearts and souls to long for and desire to read the Word of God. This book does that, too.

This book invites you to enter in, to participate in, the story of the Bible. To do so, we must first see and grasp the story. We can put a puzzle together much more easily if we are looking at the picture on the box. This book aims to show you the big picture so you can make sense of all the pieces. (p. 17)

Dr. Nichols explains that the Bible is THE story, and it's also OUR story. Many books tend to emphasize one over the other: either the big story of the Bible or the personal application, but he does a fantastic job of showing how essential both are:

The story of the Bible is not only the greatest story and not only the truest story. It is also the only story that makes sense of our lives. It alone makes sense of what happens to ous. The Bible alone makes sense of all the confounding and confusing things we experience. (p. 23)

After an introductory chapter, he examines the plotline of creation, fall, redemption, and restoration/consummation, with a chapter devoted to each one. As he explains:

These four pieces to the plotline pop up all over the pages of Scripture. Getting the big picture of this biblical narrative helps make sense of all the various details in Scripture, as well as all the details of theology. And, as we'll see, it even helps make sense of your life. In fact, apart from this story nothing makes much sense at all. (p. 28)

The next four chapters discuss:

the "characters" of the Bible: how their story is our story
what the point of this grand narrative is (hint: it's not us!)
what the Bible does to us
what the Bible does through us.

Dr. Nichols wraps up with concrete, practical application to pull all the ground covered together. He puts it better than I ever could, so I'll quote him at length:

Many tend to read the Bible as if it were reduced to individual pieces of a puzzle, not knowing where those pieces fit in the grand scheme of things. Individual verses from Scripture are intriguing-lots of "color" and unusual shapes. We like to look at these pieces, even for long periods of time. We set them apart, look at them often, and bring them out to show others every once in a while.

Meanwhile, the rest of the puzzle pieces (the rest of the biblical text) sits there in a grand pile without sense or order, and many of them go overlooked. The solution is to get the box and have the picture in front of us as we look at the individual pieces and put the puzzle together.

When we grasp the story line of creation, fall, redemption, and restoration, we have the big picture. We see how all of these verses that we find so intriguing, that we even come to hold quite dear, fit together. The big pile of pieces finally begins to make sense. (p. 148)

He explains that sometimes it takes a little work to figure out how the pieces fit. It's not always readily apparent, so we must keep the grand scheme of creation, fall, redemption, restoration in mind. In the same way, our lives can also be likened to a puzzle. Sometimes individual events or parts of our lives don't make sense. But, keeping this big picture in mind helps us see how they fit.

The beauty of this story line is not just that it makes sense of Scripture. It also makes sense of your life...What we need to see in these cases is that God is moving us in the same direction he is moving his world...The way we understand God's working in our lives comes by interpreting our lives through the grid of God's Word. Reading the Bible, in other words, is how we come to know what God is doing in, with, to, and through us. Reading his Word is the key. (p. 149)

Welcome to the Story does a great job of bringing together a basic understanding of the grand scheme of the Bible's storyline, practical tools for Bible reading and interpreting, and personal application. It's great for individual reading or even to use with teens, and I think it would be the perfect resource to give out in a new member or discipleship class. It's definitely another great tool to have in the family discipleship toolbox!

Thank you to Crossway for providing me a copy of the book for review. All opinions are my own.

Is Your Flour Wet? A FREE Recipe Ebook on Soaking Grains

noreply@blogger.com (Kara) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 13:01:00 +0000

Several months ago I had the opportunity to contribute to a new recipe ebook put together by Katie at Kitchen Stewardship, featuring over 40 recipes plus information about the benefits of soaking grains. I've finally been able to get it set up so that my readers can download a copy. I'm happy to be able to offer this FREE for you! There are some great recipes here and very helpful information about the health benefits of soaking your grains. Soaking grains increases it's nutritional value and digestability for everyone and is especially beneficial for anyone with suspected gluten or wheat sensitivity or autoimmune issues. Click on the picture to be taken to a page where you can view and download this wonderful resource.

I'll be discussing more about the benefits of soaking grains in the very near future; in the meantime, enjoy the free book and browse through a few of my favorite soaked grain recipes:

Simply Scrumptious Blender Oat Pancakes

Delicious Baked Oatmeal

Simple Blender Waffles

Super Simple & Flavorful Brown Rice

Popcorn Cornbread

Living Room and Flooring Makeover Update!

noreply@blogger.com (Kara) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 05:10:00 +0000

Our living room and flooring project is mostly done! We still have transition pieces to install where the floor meets tile and I don't have all my books and bookshelves set back up (mostly because the store ran out of the new bookshelves we're using so we're waiting for more to come in...). But...the living room is painted, about 1000 square feet of flooring has been done, and we've cleaned out and reorganized two closets! Not bad for about four days' work!

The living room came along pretty quickly.

Half of the living room was put back together right away...
the other half was full of furniture and stuff from the other rooms
all week!

The hallway was tricky! It's not a long, straight hallway,
so there were lots of interesting corners and cuts to make,
but it turned out great!

The boys' room in progress.

The boys' room also went quickly! The flooring was in and
the room was put back together in one day!

The boys' closet, on the other hand, took me
a couple of days to get reorganized! They're
loving the new cube system I bought...hopefully
it will help them keep everything in it's place.

The girls' room in progress.
Once the hallway was done, my husband and dad got the boys'
and girls' rooms done in one day! They did work until 11 p.m.,
but still...they made great time!

I was a little concerned that the girls' closet would be
tricky with it's octagon shape, but it went smoothly!

The coat/school/office supply closet I redid
in the living room.

I'm thrilled at how smoothly everything went! My husband started the living room floors Sunday afternoon and had them half done by evening. On Monday he and my dad finished the living room and most of the hallway. Tuesday they did the boys' and girls' rooms and closets and finished the hallway. I put most of the boys' room back together while they started on the girls'. Wednesday I finished the boys' closet and the girls put their room back together pretty much on their own with the Dancer directing. Wednesday afternoon and Thursday I began organizing my bookshelves and living room closet.

The carpet pad and all the packaging for the flooring has been hauled off to the dump and recycling center and Habitat for Humanity was thrilled to get the carpet. Now to get the rest of my books sorted and on new shelves so we can get rid of the old bookcases and clear out the garage completely! Then I might actually get to park in it again!

I'm at a bit of a standstill now because, as I mentioned, we're waiting on more bookcases, and I managed to hurt my back at some point while working on the boys' room. As soon as I get that end of the room wrapped up, I'll share more pictures. I also realized that I never took any after pictures of the girls' room or closet...maybe I can get some to share soon. Next we need to tackle the kitchen and soon, the yard!

You can see the beginning of this project here and see when we did the master bedroom a few months ago here.

Stay tuned for more!

Weekly Focus: Laundry Room & Closets Update/Bedrooms & Bathrooms

noreply@blogger.com (Kara) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 13:03:00 +0000

Last week's focus was on my laundry room, closets, and front porch. I kept my list minimal with all that we had going on with the living room and new flooring, but I still managed to get a little bit accomplished!

Laundry Room

Cleared off counter and clothes rod, including finishing filling an "in progress" bag of outgrown clothes to donate and getting it out of the house.
Straightened the refrigerator.
Cleaned off the coat/purse hooks of junk and extras that have collected.

Closets

Since the kids' closets were completely emptied when we did the flooring they got thoroughly cleaned out! I culled more outgrown clothes and totally reorganized the boys' shelving with a "cube" system from Target.

My living room closet also got an overhaul when we emptied it to redo the floors. I put a set of the cubes in it also and organized board games, scrapbook supplies, and various school supplies in it. Even though it's still doubling as a coat closet, I think it's going to work well!

Front Porch

Next time!!

***Now...on to this week!***

Week One: Kitchen/Dining

Week Two: Living Room/Hallway

Week Three: Laundry room, closets, front porch

Week Four: Master bdrm/bthrm & kids' bthrm & bdrms

Week Five: Desk Day/School area

This week's focus is the bedrooms and bathrooms. I'm reluctant to set any ambitious goals because I still have plenty of work to do to get our living room/school area put back together from last week's flooring job. Not to mention, the kids' rooms are in good shape since they were emptied completely for the new flooring and we purged and organized as we put everything back. So, to keep it simple, I'm going to set two small goals for my own room this week:

Vacuum the blinds.
Clean off the piles of paper clutter that have accumulated on the desk.

We'll see how the week goes! What are your goals this week?

My Memories Digital Scrapbooking Software Giveaway Winner!

noreply@blogger.com (Kara) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 06:08:00 +0000

Congratulations to Betty at Peace Creek on the Prairie for winning the My Memories giveaway! She will be receiving a download code for My Memories Suite 3. For the rest of you...don't forget that you can purchase the software for only $29.97 with my discount code. Add the software to your cart and enter STMMMS91404 in the appropriate place while checking out.

Thanks to all who participated!

Real Marriage by Mark & Grace Driscoll (Mom's Bookshelf)

noreply@blogger.com (Kara) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 13:09:00 +0000

As expected, there's been a lot of controversy around Mark Driscoll's latest book Real Marriage: The Truth About Sex, Friendship, & Life Together, written with his wife, Grace. Despite him being such a controversial figure, I generally like Mark Driscoll and have really benefited from some of his teachings. I had a chance to read the book earlier this month. So, what are my thoughts?

I really wanted to like the book. But honestly, I have mixed emotions. There's a lot to like. I admire Mark and Grace's courage in being so open and honest with their own story. They're incredibly transparent about the areas where they've fallen short or messed up and the problems they've had in their marriage. It has to be hard to open yourself up and bare the intimate details of your marriage relationship to public scrutiny and criticism. And yet, they obviously feel strongly that they need to be real about their own struggles so that they have credibility when addressing these subjects. Their heart to help others is apparent and I don't doubt that it's genuine.

I appreciated the discussion of marriage as a covenent versus a contract, and thought the chapters on forgiving and serving were excellent as well. The discussion of sex as an idol was Mark at his best, and in my opinion, the most gospel-centered part of the entire book (more on that in a minute). He explains how we tend to one of two extremes: sex as "god" or "gross" when the correct view is sex as "gift".

Most of the controversy, of course, is over the chapter titled, "Can We ____?", in which the Driscolls answer specific questions about what is and is not appropriate sexually within marriage. Honestly, I wasn't bothered by this chapter. They were frank but not inappropriate. I felt they handled some questions quite well, others were just okay. Overall, I really didn't feel this chapter added to or took away from the book much at all.

The disappointment to me was the lack of a unifying theme to tie all the chapters together. I saw little in most of the book tying what we should be doing...where our motivation and ability comes from...or why marriage should be a certain way...to the gospel and our identity in Christ. This left me dissatisfied, thinking "Yes! This is good!" at certain points but frustrated that it wasn't all being tied together on the foundation of the gospel. As I mentioned earlier, Mark does an excellent job of relating the issue of sex as an idol back to this foundation, but I don't see it so explicitly in the other chapters. They strike me as more "behavior modification", where we're told what we should be doing but not how we can possibly accomplish it. My fear is that some readers might come away with the impression that they should suck it up and make things happen themselves.

So, would I recommend Real Marriage? Probably, but only in conjunction with a more gospel-centered book like What Did You Expect? Redeeming the Realities of Marriage by Paul David Tripp or The Meaning of Marriage by Tim and Kathy Keller.

So there's my .02!

Thank you to Thomas Nelson for the opportunity to preview Real Marriage. All opinions are solely my own.

Weekly Focus: Laundry Room

noreply@blogger.com (Kara) — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 13:07:00 +0000

New week, new zone!

Week One: Kitchen/Dining

Week Two: Living Room/Hallway

Week Three: Laundry room, closets, front porch

Week Four: Master bdrm/bthrm & kids' bthrm & bdrms

Week Five: Desk Day/School area

My weekly focus this week is my laundry room, closets, and front porch. I'm not planning anything too ambitious since we'll still be putting our living room back together and will be emptying the kids' bedroom and laying flooring in them this week also. Here's a list of things I'd like to get done in these areas, although I doubt I'll get to them all:

Laundry Room

Clear off any clothes that have collected on the counter and clothes rod.
Check mismatched sock drawer for matches.
Run clean cycle on washer and wipe down washer and dryer.
Clean & sanitize dogs' water bowl.
Straighten refrigerator.
Clean off coat/purse hooks of junk and extras that have collected.

Closets

Cull kids' closets for outgrown clothes.
The kids' closets will actually be completely emptied when we do the flooring so it should be a good opportunity to declutter them!
My living room closet is also empty and I will be very selective when refilling it later this week.
My closet will have to wait this go-around.

Front Porch

Sweep
I want to re-do my front door pots with new flowers but that will have to wait for another week.

I'll check back in next week. Maybe I'll even have pictures of the kids' closets to share, depending on how far we get putting them back together!

Weekly Focus: Living Room Update

noreply@blogger.com (Kara) — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 13:04:00 +0000

Last week's focus was my living room. I mentioned last week that we have a major project going on in there: painting and laying new floors! So, my focus was on emptying the room out as much as possible to make way for that. And despite being sick most of the week, I accomplished quite a bit!

As I type, the room is empty, painted, and about 1/3 of the floors are laid. I can't take credit for all of that, but I'm happy that I managed to get the room emptied out and ready for my husband to work in! Rather than list all that's going on, I'm going to share some pictures of our progress.

Finishing up the paint.

Out goes the rest of the furniture.

Farewell, Berber! You've served us well for almost ten years,
but it's time for you to go!

Monkey Boy decided the carpet roll was his "spaceship".

The new floor in progress!

The paint looks great and the floors are coming along very nicely! I'll share more pictures as we get the room put back together. I plan to bring back in one less bookcase than I took out, so I'll be culling books, and I'll also be decluttering the closet and two stacks of "paperwork" that were sitting in my office/school corner, waiting to be filed or dealt with. Next up: the hallway and kids' bedrooms/closets!

GIVEAWAY My Memories Digital Scrapbooking Software-Finally I Have Hope For Catching Up With My Photos!

noreply@blogger.com (Kara) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 13:01:00 +0000

I've always enjoyed scrapbooking, but struggle to find the time for it. Not to mention, I don't have a dedicated area to do it, so taking everything out and putting everything away takes just about as long as actually working on my projects, making it even more difficult to devote enough time to make any progress! My family loves looking through the albums I've completed, but I'm years behind! I have empty books ready and waiting for my two youngest children...

So, I've often considered trying digital scrapbooking software, especially since all our photos are now digital, unlike when my older two were younger. But most software I've looked at was expensive as well as confusing to use. And since I use a Mac, my options are limited when it comes to some of the more popular choices.

Well, recently I was contacted by a company called My Memories. They wanted to know if I'd be interested in reviewing their My Memories Suite software. Even though it sounded great, I was skeptical at first. I figured it wouldn't be Mac compatible. To my surprise, it was!! So, I happily agreed to take a look at it.

After playing around with this software for just a little while, I'm so impressed! It's very intuitive to use, and there are a bunch of fun templates and layouts to choose from! It's also super versatile. Cards, calendars, and other creative projects are just as easy to make as scrapbook pages or photobooks.

Even a novice like me was able to whip up a simple layout like this in literally minutes:

I was really impressed with the selection of backgrounds, embellishments, etc. included...plenty to design really nice pages, although of course you can buy and download backgrounds and kits as well. And I really want to stress how user-friendly I'm finding My Memories Suite! Other software that I tried lost me at square one and I gave up because I just didn't have time to devote to learning it. I need something I can begin to use and produce pages with right away.

The possibilities for creation with My Memories are endless. I can think of multiple projects to make, from calendars and cards to school projects for the kids. And, if you choose to make your albums virtual instead of printed, you can easily add music, videos, and other multimedia to them at the click of a button. That's so cool!

I'm really looking forward to spending some more time exploring this digital scrapbooking software to see what I can accomplish with it! Maybe I can finally catch up on the years of photos I've never gotten to, and finally create baby albums for my younger kids. I'm also really looking forward to making other fun projects for gifts and in our homeschool.

Read on to find out how to get a copy of My Memories Suite for yourself!

***DISCOUNT FOR MY READERS***

I'm thrilled to be able to share a fantastic deal with you! My Memories has given me a DISCOUNT CODE WORTH $10 OFF the already great price of $39.97 for My Memories Suite! Just copy and paste this code: STMMMS91404 in the appropriate box on the checkout page. You just can't beat $29.97, especially compared to the price of comparable software I've looked at!

***GIVEAWAY***

And even better...I have a copy to GIVE AWAY to one of you FREE! To enter, leave a separate comment for each of the following:

Mandatory:

Visit the My Memories website. Check out the software, paper packs, and layouts and leave me a comment telling me what you liked.

Optional:

"Like" the My Memories Facebook page.
Follow My Memories on Twitter.
Subscribe to Home With Purpose using Google Connect (in my sidebar), Feedburner, Networked Blogs, or by email.
Like the Home With Purpose Facebook page.
Post about the giveaway on your Facebook page.
Tweet about the giveaway.
Display my button on your blog's sidebar.

Here's the fine print:

The contest will be open until midnight CST Thursday January 19, 2012 and the winner will be announced by Monday January 23.
Winner will be chosen at random, and a separate comment must be left for each entry.
Disclaimer: I received a copy of the My Memories Suite software free of charge in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Over the Top: Women of Faith San Antonio

noreply@blogger.com (Kara) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 12:59:00 +0000

A couple of months ago, my sister-in-law and I had the opportunity to spend the weekend in San Antonio attending the Women of Faith: Over the Top conference. Since then, I've been meaning to write briefly about our time there, but literally from the day we got back through the holidays life was on overdrive. Now that we've made it to January and things have settled down, I'm finally going to tell you a little bit about it.

Here's the lineup of speakers and musicians we saw:

Patsy Clairmont
Marilyn Meberg
Lisa Whelchel
Brenda Warner
Sandy Patty
Mandisa
Amy Grant
Nicole Johnson
Andy Andrews

What an incredible list!

I wish I had photos to share but none of the pictures or videos I took turned out well. Here's a short promotional clip of the event that I think accurately portrays the atmosphere and experience:

And a few of my impressions:

Andy Andrews wore me out! He's so full of energy and enthusiasm that it's infectious! I really appreciated his sense of humor and inspiring stories.

Patsy Clairmont is truly dynamite in a small package! I've read a couple of her books in the past, but I'd never heard her speak. She's absolutely hilarious, and yet able to communicate deep truths almost effortlessly. Her segments throughout the weekend were definitely one of the high points of the entire conference!

Mandisa is one of the Dancer's very favorite Christian artists. I've always thought she had a beautiful voice and liked her songs, but I must say that I was incredibly impressed by her in person! Some of the most profound insights of the entire weekend came from her as she introduced songs or gave the stories behind them. Her sweet spirit and love for her Lord just shine through everything she says and does!

Amy Grant is always a pleasure to hear. Her mellow show was the perfect way to end a long day!

Brenda Warner's story was heart-wrenching and inspiring. From being a struggling single parent to parenting a profoundly disabled child to losing her parents in a freak accident to being married to NFL superstar Kurt Warner, it's nothing short of incredible! Her book One Call Away: Answering Life's Challenges with Unshakable Faith is on my "to-read" list now.

Marilyn Meberg was so fun! She's such a stately, dignified person that it was just hilarious when she began to talk about her love for fast cars!

I could go on about Sandi Patty, Lisa Whelchel, the wonderful praise team, and the hilarious skits, but I'll keep it short. I'll just wrap up by saying that if you have the opportunity to attend a Women of Faith event in the future, I recommend it. What a refreshing and motivating weekend we had! I'm so very grateful we were able to go.

Weekly Focus: Living Room

noreply@blogger.com (Kara) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 13:05:00 +0000

My weekly focus this week is the living room. I explained last week how I use the "zone" method not just for daily household tasks and kids' rooms, but to focus on a different area of the house each week for more intensive cleaning/decluttering/etc. Here's a quick refresher on my zone schedule:

Week One: Kitchen/Dining

Week Two: Living Room/Hallway

Week Three: Laundry room, closets, front porch

Week Four: Master bdrm/bthrm & kids' bthrm & bdrms

Week Five: Desk Day/School area

This week we have a big project planned for the living room! We're painting it and laying new floors next week while my husband has the entire week off. He actually started the painting over the last couple of days, so we've already spent some time in there taking down the Christmas tree and decorations, moving things, and getting started.

So my focus this week will be to continue getting the room ready. I have multiple large bookcases in my living room, so these must all be emptied, with the books boxed and labeled so they can later be reshelved, and we have to take everything off the walls. My goal is to eliminate one six foot bookshelf entirely to open the room up even more, and we're also rearranging a little bit. Eliminating that many books is going to be tough for me, but I can box some of our unused schoolbooks in Rubbermaid tubs to be stored for the next child, and I know there are others I can cull. I'm also going to have to empty the closet-yikes! But it's a good opportunity to clean it out.

This project may eclipse my weekly focus for the next couple of weeks also as I work on putting the room back together after the painting and flooring are finished. We'll see how it goes...

He's already painted about half of the room and I'm loving the new color! It's a pretty olive green called "Blanched Thyme". I tried to find a sample online but the ones I found don't look anything like what it looks like in person, so you'll have to wait for my pics. The floors will be the same hickory color that we used in our bedroom a few months ago. I can't wait to see the finished result! Next Monday we'll just be getting underway with the flooring but I'll update on what I accomplished getting the room cleared out and try to get some good in-progress pictures and eventually pictures of the final result to share with you too.

Wish me luck!

Weekly Focus: Kitchen & Dining Update

noreply@blogger.com (Kara) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 13:03:00 +0000

Last week's focus was my kitchen and dining room. I didn't get as much done as I'd hoped because I ended up sick for the last half of the week, but here's what I managed to do:

Moved all appliances and wiped counters and backsplashes with bleach water
Cleaned oven drip pans (It's amazing what a soak in vinegar and baking soda can do!)
Scrubbed sink and cleaned around faucet drains, and edge with steam cleaner (I usually do a quick weekly scrub, but this time I used my steamer to really get around all the edges and crevices, etc.)
Cleaned out tool caddy
Cleaned out jar of odd items on counter (extra sippy cup stoppers, straws, a pan scraper, etc.)
Cleaned out both refrigerators of odd and end leftovers
Put away Christmas decorations in dining room and thoroughly dusted entire room

I wanted to work on my pantry but getting sick didn't allow that. I'll get to it soon! This week it's time to focus on the living room.

A Fun Way to Add Music Appreciation: Maestro Classics "The Story of Swan Lake"

noreply@blogger.com (Kara) — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 23:31:00 +0000

With two dancers in the house, we've had our fair share of exposure to the music for famous ballets like Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker and Swan Lake. The Dancer has played the parts of the duck and Peter in Peter and the Wolf, and we've owned several versions of it on video and audio, along with Carnival of the Animals and others. We've also used various resources over the years for music appreciation, including several story-type CDs that mix a story about the composer in with selections of his or her music. But I'd never heard of Maestro Classics until I was offered the opportunity to review their CD "The Story of Swan Lake".

The CD features music by the London Philharmonic Orchestra and includes the following tracks:

The Story of Swan Lake (music with narration)
Tchaikovsky's Life (a short biography of Tchaikovsky)
Speed Metal Swan (a modernized version of Swan Lake with electric guitar)
About The Music (background information on the music)
"Tchaikovsky Wrote a Great Ballet" (music from Swan Lake set to words)
Want to Have Some Fun? Prepare to Perform (teaching the children how to sing along for the next track)
"Tchaikovsky Wrote a Great Ballet" Sing-Along (an instrumental version of track 5 for singing along)

There's also a 24 page booklet included with fun facts about the composer, background information on the conductor, producer, narrator, and musicians, educational information on instruments, and fun activities like mazes and crossword puzzles. All four of my kids have really enjoyed listening to this! Of course, they each liked different aspects of it. Here are their thoughts:

The Dancer (13): She thought the story (the music with narration) was well-done and interesting and really enjoyed the second track, which is a short biography of Tchaikovsky, and the fourth track, "About the Music". Even though the music and storyline are familiar to her, she found it fascinating to learn the background information. She was indifferent about "Speed Metal Swan", and in her opinion, the last three tracks were a "little silly" and better suited to younger children. Overall, she really likes the CD and would like to hear more from Maestro Classics. She's very curious to hear their version of Peter and the Wolf.

Karate Kid (10): Although he's had plenty of exposure to classical music through what we've done at home and from doing musical routines in tae kwan do, he wasn't really familiar with the story of Swan Lake. He found the first track (music with narration) very interesting, and also enjoyed the biographical information. Not surprisingly, he got a big kick out of "Speed Metal Swan" and had a blast jumping around the living room to it with his younger siblings! He was mostly indifferent to the last three tracks, but overall, he enjoyed the CD.

Peanut (5): Peanut is also a budding dancer and was somewhat familiar with the music. She also has an idea of the storyline from her Barbie Swan Lake DVD. Along with her older siblings, she very much enjoyed track one, and had fun being silly to "Speed Metal Swan". She was indifferent to the biographical and background information, but unlike the older two, she found the last three tracks appealing. She especially liked "Tchaikovsky Wrote a Great Ballet".

Monkey Boy (2.5): The first time we played the CD, he had a great time dancing to just about the entire CD! He loves music. When I asked him what he thought, he replied, "I like it!". He especially seemed to enjoy "Speed Metal Swan" and "Tchaikovsky Wrote a Great Ballet".

Overall, we thought The Story of Swan Lake was very well done! The music and narration were both engaging and educational, and my older two found the booklet fun and beneficial. The suggested age range is 6-12, which I found to be very accurate. There's something to appeal to just about every age here, which is a big plus for families with several children who would like to be able to use one product with a fairly wide age range. They're also very affordable, at $16.98 for a CD or $9.98 for an MP3 download of each title.

The Maestro Classics website is fantastic, with all kinds of resources, including a kids club and free homeschool music curriculum for ALL their CDs! If you "like" their Facebook page, you'll have opportunities for coupons and giveaways, and you can also follow them on Twitter.

We'll definitely be looking into purchasing more Maestro Classics stories in the future!

Disclosure: I received a free CD for review purposes. I wasn't required to give a positive review and all opinions are my own.

My 2012 Reading Goals

noreply@blogger.com (Kara) — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 04:27:00 +0000

A new year means new reading goals! I'm really looking forward to having more time to spend reading now that we've made it through our super busy fall and holiday season.

One of the very first books I plan to read this year is Lit! by Tony Reinke. I've had it sitting on my Kindle for several weeks. I'm sure this book is going to influence what and how I read this year, but I still want to go ahead and outline some general goals.

I have a new Bible reading plan already underway, and I plan to continue to read through the church father's writings alongside that. I'll also be rotating through other genres, trying to keep from getting stuck in one and losing that variety.

So here's a quick rundown:

Bible: I wanted to find a new reading plan to follow for the new year that either went in order or chronologically. Most plans seem to do a lot of jumping around, having you read in multiple places each day. I've tried several and just can't get into them. I like the continuity of reading straight through. I love doing the Bible in 90 Days plan, but I'm ready for something a little less demanding. So, last week I started the Reading God's Story plan at YouVersion, which divides the reading into three main "acts": God's Plan For All People, God's Covenant People, and God's new Covenant People, focusing on the "grand narrative" of Scripture. It's a year long plan with six readings a week, but I've been reading more than one day at a time and plan to finish in six months or so. After being used to the readings in B90 Days, two days worth at a time seems like a nice amount!

Church Fathers: I started this last fall and went along great until the busyness before the holidays hit, so I'm just picking right back up and keeping on. I've read the Apostolic Fathers and now I'm working on the Anti-Nicene Fathers...I'm on Justin Martyr.

Classics: I was doing great on my Jane Austen challenge until summer, then I let it slide. I plan to finish the Austen titles I haven't completed (Mansfield Park, which I'm halfway through, Pride and Prejudice, and Sense and Sensibility) and continue reading the "inspired by Austen" titles on my list (Jane Austen Ruined My Life, etc.). I'm undecided what to move on to after that. We'll see...

Fiction: A quality novel is a good way to unwind every so often. I enjoy historical fiction like T.L. Higley and Francine Rivers, and I'm also hoping to read the Harry Potter series this year. I read Sorcerer's Stone back when it was fairly new and my oldest was a toddler so I could see for myself what all the controversy was about. We recently watched the movies with the kids and now the Dancer (13) and I plan to read the books together. I have several fiction review titles to read too, including Desired: The Untold Story of Samson and Delilah by Ginger Garrett.

I also have multiple titles lined up in other categories:

Theology
History/Biography
Christian Living
Healthy Living

Everything from The Meaning of Marriage by Tim Keller to Deep Nutrition by Catherine Shanahan.

I'll post reviews of many of these, and I'll also rate them all at Goodreads, so feel free to follow me there too.

What do you have lined up to read this year? Do you have a plan as far as what types of books you plan to read? Check in at 5 Minutes for Books to see what others are planning.

The Promised One: Seeing Jesus in Genesis by Nancy Guthrie (Mom's Bookshelf)

noreply@blogger.com (Kara) — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 14:02:00 +0000

If you've read my blog for long, you'll know that I like to beat the drum for the importance of the continuity of Scripture: how it's absolutely essential to see it as one story of redemption from Genesis to Revelation rather than a series of disconnected events, stories and writings.

I usually mention this in relation to how we teach our children about the Bible, but it's equally important for us as adults to grasp. That's why I'm so excited about a new Bible study series by Nancy Guthrie called Seeing Jesus in the Old Testament. I've been working my way through the first book, The Promised One: Seeing Jesus in Genesis, and I'm very impressed!

The book is designed to be used as a ten-week study. The weeks in this study are:

The Road to Emmaus (Luke 24)
Creation (Genesis 1:1-2:3)
The Fall (Genesis 2:4-3:24)
Noah and the Flood (Genesis 6-9)
The Tower of Babel (Genesis 10:1-12:3)
Abraham (Genesis 12-15)
Abraham and Isaac (Genesis 16-24)
Jacob (Genesis 25:19-35:21)
Joseph (Genesis 37-50)
The Sons of Jacob (Genesis 29-30, 34-35, 38-39, 48-49)

Each week (except the first week) begins with a "Personal Bible Study" section that guides the reader through the passage for the week with questions, charts, and related Scripture passages. For those short on time, the most crucial questions are marked with a clock symbol. This is followed by the meat of the study, called the"Teaching Chapter". Ms. Guthrie has a gift for expressing herself that makes this section a real feast for the soul. She's able to tie every passage in to the larger storyline of redemption in an understandable, insightful, and incredibly edifying way. Each teaching chapter closes with a short section on"How Genesis Points to What is Yet to Come", which further points to the continuity of the story, and shows how foundational the book of Genesis is to all the major themes of Scripture.

The study begins, appropriately, with a discussion of the story of Jesus and the disciples on the Emmaus Road:

And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself. (Luke 24:27)

The goal isn't just to pick out specific prophecies and promises of Jesus, though:

More profoundly, the whole of the Old Testament was designed by God to provide a context within which we can understand the necessity of the suffering and the certainty of the glorification of Christ. In fact, without the Old Testament foundation of fall, curse, law, sacrifice, temple, priesthood, and salvation, then the cross, resurrection, and glorification of Christ would make little sense. (p. 19)

What I believe about the importance of understanding the "big picture" is so eloquently expressed here that I'll quote it at length:

As Jesus worked his way through the writings of Moses and the prophets, he didn't merely point out specific prophecies that he fulfilled, which is what my understanding of how the Old Testament points to Christ has been limited to for most of my life (i.e., that he would be born in Bethlehem and that he would enter Jerusalem riding on a donkey). And he didn't use Old Testament characters or situations as examples to instruct the two disciples on how to live the life of faith, which is how many of us have always heard the Old Testament taught.

It is doubtful that he turned to the story of Noah and began teaching them that they needed to obey God even when it meant going against the crowd. More likely he turned to the story of Noah, the one whose name means rest, and said, "Hide yourself in me like Noah and his family hid themselves inside the ark and were saved from the judgment." He didn't turn to the story of Abraham offering Isaac and tell these disciples that they needed to be willing to give up what is most precious to them for their God. Instead, perhaps he said something like, "See how this father was willing to offer up his only son as a sacrifice? Can you see that this is what my Father did when I was lifted up on the cross?" He didn't turn to the story of Joseph to teach them that they should flee temptation. More likely he said something like, "Remember how Joseph became the one person that everyone in the world came to for food in the famine? That's me. I am the bread of life, the one to whom all men and women must come to find life.

Jesus didn't work his way through Genesis to point out what we must do for God, but to help us see clearly what God has done for us through Christ.

As we read the Old Testament, we don't want to merely make observations about the behavior of the godly and godless and then try harder to be like the godly and less like the godless. Instead, we must realize that there are no true heroes in the Old Testament. No one is perfectly and persistently pleasing to God-the judges aren't strong enough, the kings aren't good enough, the prophets aren't clear enough, and the priests aren't pure enough.

The Old Testament serves to point out our cavernous need for a better law keeper, a better judge, a better prophet, a better priest, a better king. Jesus must have looked Cleopas and his companion in the eyes that day, and said, "That's me. I'm the one the whole of the Old Testament points to. I'm the one God intended to send all along."

The Old Testament is an uncompleted story, a promise waiting for it's fulfillment. And Jesus is that fulfillment. (p. 19-21)

The subsequent weeks build on this foundation as they go through the text of Genesis from beginning to end, looking at every event through gospel eyes, recognizing Jesus in the people, the promises, the stories, the symbols, and the shadows.

Even though the study is designed to be done in a group, I've been reading through it myself and very much enjoying it! I'm finding it truly rich and edifying, and in a group with discussion I'm sure it would be even more so.

Individually, with just a couple of friends, or in a small group or Sunday school class, this study won't fail to have an impact. I highly recommend it and can't wait to dive into the next volume, The Wisdom of God: Seeing Jesus in the Psalms and Wisdom Books , which releases in February. I'll share my thoughts on it once I've had an opportunity to look at it.

Thanks so much to Crossway for providing a review copy of this book to me. All opinions are my own.

Super Easy Crockpot Roast

noreply@blogger.com (Kara) — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 01:03:00 +0000

As I get back into the routine of meal planning, my crockpot is at the top of my list of must-haves. A crockpot roast has to be one of the easiest meals I could start out with! This is a favorite meal in our family, served with Extra Good Mashed Potatoes and salad. My method is super easy! Here it is:

Ingredients:

rump roast (or whatever cut you prefer)
large onion
baby carrots to taste
Homemade Condensed Cream of Chicken Soup (or 1-2 cans)
Handy Homemade Italian Dressing Mix (or 1-2 package storebought)
dried minced garlic to taste
dried minced onion to taste
Real Salt to taste
pepper to taste

I put the roast in my crockpot frozen, sprinkle it liberally with dried minced garlic and onion, Real Salt and pepper, plus 2 tbsp of Homemade Italian Dressing Mix, and just a splash of water. Next I add a container (sometimes 2, depending on the size of the roast) of Homemade Condensed Cream of Chicken Soup to it. I cut up one large onion and spread it on top, and add baby carrots to taste (our family loves the carrots, so I use quite a few!). I leave it on high all day and by supper time it's so tender it just falls apart! If I'm short on time in the morning, I get it started with the meat, spices, and soup, then add the veggies in the early afternoon.

Tender, flavorful meat and veggies and delicious gravy. Simple.

Enjoy!

Linked with Tempt My Tummy Tuesday and Tuesdays at the Table.

Weekly Focus: Kitchen & Dining

noreply@blogger.com (Kara) — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 21:22:00 +0000

I've written before about how I focus on one "zone" in my house each day in order to keep up with normal weekly household chores. It also works well to help children clean their rooms without getting overwhelmed. The same concept can be applied for focusing on deeper cleaning and organizing in different areas by focusing on one "zone" each week. I've done this off and on over the years and when I stick to it, it really does help!

The time for marathon cleaning sessions are very rare in this busy season of life, and I've found that doing things in small chunks of time really does work better than waiting and waiting for that day that I'll have uninterrupted time to "do it all". So, I'm attempting to get back into the routine with that in the new year.

Here are my daily zones:

Monday: Kitchen/Dining

Tuesday: Living Room/Hallway

Wednesday: Laundry room, closets, front porch

Thursday: Master bdrm/bthrm & kids' bthrm

Friday: Desk Day/School area

For weekly zones, I'll follow the same order. So week one will focus on my kitchen and dining area. Each day this week I'll try to spend at least 15-30 minutes in the kitchen doing tasks that are hard to get to during the regular daily routine. This might mean things like doing a pantry declutter one shelf at a time, cleaning out one drawer or cabinet, wiping down the refrigerator shelves (more than the quick weekly swipe), etc.

Next week I'll check in to report what I accomplished and start on the next weekly focus: the living room! Do you have a routine for accomplishing regular weekly chores and less frequent deep cleaning and decluttering? I'd love to hear how you do things!

You might be interested in these posts also:

Order and Purpose at Home With Purpose!

noreply@blogger.com (Kara) — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 18:49:00 +0000

After a super-busy fall and end of year with a somewhat sporadic posting schedule, I'm hoping to stick to a regular routine during the new year here at Home With Purpose. With a variety of different topics that I'd like to write about, I want to have order and purpose to how I organize my posts in keeping with my blog title! So I've come up with broad categories and developed a loose weekly format to follow. Here's what you can expect each week:

Sunday/Monday: Home With Purpose. At the beginning of the week I'll share my thoughts on topics like home organization, schedules and routines, and anything related to keeping home.

Tuesday: In the Kitchen & Healthy Living. Tuesdays will be when you can expect to see recipes, nutritional and "real food" information, and thoughts on what I'm doing in the kitchen. This may include meal planning and kitchen organization, or even exercise or other healthy living topics.

Wednesday: Family Discipleship/Purposeful Family. I'll continue to share resources for family discipleship mid-week, and hopefully will be able to develop the content of my Christ-Centered Families class into a series to share here too. This is where I'll put my thoughts on how we celebrate different holidays, and I may discuss other parenting-related topics here also as the need arises.

Thursday: Mom's Bookshelf/Personal Growth & Hobbies. This will be the time of week for me to share what I'm reading for my own personal growth or pleasure, including things like my bible reading plan or studies, and anything else that strikes my fancy.

Friday/Saturday: In Our Classroom/Home Education. The end of the week will be for updates on our current studies, reviews of homeschool-related resources and products, field trip reports, and so on.

I've actually loosely followed this format in the past, I'm just hoping to be even more intentional about it now. It isn't meant to be rigid, and I'll rarely have something in every single category every week, but this gives me a framework to organize my writing and gives you an idea when to expect which topics.

So for example, if you're interested in healthy recipes and my journey with real food, you'll know to check on on Tuesdays to see if there's anything new in that area. If you like my book reviews, keep an eye out on Thursday. Of course these categories are somewhat fluid and there are bound to be posts that will overlap more than one category. In that case, I'll make the call depending on what else is going on at the time.

There will also be times when I'll deviate for other reasons. For example, sometimes certain products I review have a timeframe on them that will make it necessary to post something on an "off" day, or if I need to link up to participate in reading challenges or other memes. But for the most part, this will be the weekly pattern you can expect to see here at Home With Purpose in the coming months.

I'm looking forward to a great 2012!

Looking Forward to 2012!!

noreply@blogger.com (Kara) — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 21:32:00 +0000

2011 has flown by! Fall is always busy for our family but for some reason this past fall has seemed even crazier than usual. I feel like I'm finally coming up for air! As I reflect on the year and look forward to 2012, I'm really looking forward to what the new year will bring, and of course I have goals I'd like to accomplish. So, in no particular order, here are a few of the things on my "to-do" list for the new year...

Homeschool: Besides getting back on track with our schoolwork, I need to start now getting brushed up on my knowledge of how to keep transcripts and other high school-related record-keeping, since the Dancer will be starting high school in the fall. I also need to come up with a four-year plan for her high school years and start thinking about what everyone else will be doing next year. I've just about made up my mind to purchase a couple more Kindles and start getting all the schoolbooks I can in Kindle format to save space. We have literally thousands of books and we're running out of shelf space! But, this will take some advance planning on my part to coordinate my purchases and figure out what I still need to order in hard copies. If you use a Kindle or e-reader in your schooling, I'd love to hear how it works for you and any tips you might have!

General household: We've had new plank flooring to replace all of the carpeting in our house sitting in our garage since October. We did our bedroom in September as a "trial run" and love it! We'd hoped to get the rest done before the craziness hit, but realized we weren't going to have time, so we have plans to both do the flooring and repaint our living room in just a couple of weeks. It's going to be a BIG job! We also plan to repaint the kitchen and dining room in the near future. And of course, I'd like to declutter during all this too.

Menu-planning and healthy living: I need to get back into a good meal-planning routine, and I want to spend some time experimenting more with soaking my grains and making gluten-free dishes. My pantry and freezers could use a minor decluttering session too. Another thing that I started shortly before the holidays and plan to get back to is an exercise routine...nothing super rigorous, but something to help me tone up and stay in decent shape. I've been spending about 25 minutes five or six days a week rebounding. I'd like to continue that, and maybe substitute walking or more specific toning exercises a day or two a week.

Personal: I've already started a new Bible reading plan for the year! It's a chronological plan called Reading God's Story based on the Read the Bible for Life program. I wanted to do something a little less intense than the Bible in 90 Days this time around, but I just haven't been able to get into the plans that jump around between the Old and New Testaments. In my personal reading, I plan to continue reading through the early church fathers chronologically, and keep reading from a variety of genres. I probably need to do a separate post on my reading plans for the year, lol.

I'm also looking forward to getting back into a more regular routine of writing here at Home With Purpose on a variety of topics. I have several reviews to share with you, including books, homeschool products, and couple of other fun things. I'll be sharing more of what I'm doing in the kitchen, around the house, and what we're doing in our homeschool. I also still hope to find the time to put the material from the Christ-Centered Families class that my husband and I taught recently into a series of blog posts to share with my readers.

That's just a quick run-down of my plans for the upcoming months. What are you hoping to accomplish and looking forward to in 2012?

Eat Nourishing: The "AllRecipes.com" of Real Food!

noreply@blogger.com (Kara) — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 03:30:00 +0000

I've gotten pretty good over the years at adapting recipes I find online or in cookbooks to be closer to "real food" ingredients by doing things like substituting my Homemade Condensed Cream of Chicken Soup for canned soup or my Easy Homemade Pizza/Pasta Sauce for canned/jarred pasta sauce, etc. But I've always thought it would be nice to have a recipe site like AllRecipes or Cooks.com that catalogued real food recipes. Well, recently I was introduced to Eat Nourishing. It's just what I hoped for, only even better! I'll let Jami, who runs the site along with her husband Anthony, tell you about it:

I want to thank Kara for letting me do a little post on her blog about our site. One thing I have loved about this whole process is getting to meet some wonderful bloggers and building new relationships.

The reason for this blog post is to tell you all about a new site that my husband and I have teamed up together to create. It all began when I read Nourishing Traditions (NT) by Sally Fallon Morell. Our family always ate what I deemed as “healthy.” After all, I believed we should be practicing good stewardship with our health and homemaking. Was I in for a ride (and subsequently my family)! I read The Maker’s Diet by Jordan Rubin a few years before reading NT and felt convicted at that time. I needed to take action and clean up our diet, but just couldn’t fathom how our single family income could ever support eating organic whole foods, let alone grass-fed meat. Something happened and ignited inside of me when I read NT.

I realized that there were more than just health reasons for changing our diet, but moral and spiritual reasons as well. I wanted to honor God and his creation in whatever I did (1 Cor 10:31), to the best of my ability. I felt we could do better in this area. After speaking to my husband about it, we agreed, somehow, to eat real food on a budget. Now, over a year later, we’ve been eating a “Traditional Foods (aka Real Food)” diet as described in NT and our family’s health is better than ever (my husband even lost 45 pounds!).

We struggled at the beginning. The biggest challenge I had in switching to a real food diet was menu planning. This is an area I fell short in previous to making the switch. Eating real food takes extra planning, since you prepare everything from scratch and many things are done slowly. I was spending too much time converting all the recipes I wanted to try into recipes that only incorporated real food ingredients.

What I needed was a real food version of AllRecipes.com. That wish turned into an idea, and with the help of my awesome website developing husband, who is currently attending seminary, we made the idea come to life. Eat Nourishing launched in early October 2011 and has grown in leaps and bounds. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who thought this website should exist.

All of the recipes on Eat Nourishing consist of whole, unrefined ingredients and also follow traditional preparation methods. Nothing comes out of a box and only rarely out of a can. On Eat Nourishing, you can browse recipes by course, special diet, or planning needs and save recipes to your very own recipe box so you can easily find them later. All of our recipes are submitted by the community, which consists of bloggers and stay at home mom’s like us! We really want this site to be a community effort to make it easier for people to cook and eat real food. It’s for this reason that we also launched our Sharing Incentive Program (SIP) where those who submit recipes to the site for publication can earn an ongoing revenue share for their recipes.

Of course, there are many ideas and features that we want to implement into the site, but all in His time. I hope you will stop by and check us out. Even if you don’t follow a traditional foods diet, there are many great and nourishing recipes that you can incorporate into your regular meal planning.

Anthony is the website designer and tech guy for Eat Nourishing and writes for his own blog eInquisitive. He is currently pursuing his MDiv. in response to a call to the pastorate. When he is not lovingly supporting his wife’s ideas, he enjoys playing guitar and making cheese.

Jami Delgado manages Eat Nourishing while homeschooling her three little ones and trying to maintain peace and order in the home. She loves experimenting in the kitchen and is constantly trying to learn something new.

The site is beautiful and well laid out. I've signed up and can't wait to get some of my recipes uploaded! Check it out!!

Linked with WFMW at We Are THAT Family.

December Goals: 3 in 30 (#3in30) Week Three

noreply@blogger.com (Kara) — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 22:57:00 +0000

It's been super quiet here at Home With Purpose for the last week or two, and as I predicted, I didn't have time to update last week with three kids in our ballet company's performance of The Nutcracker while I worked backstage myself. Thanks for bearing with me! This week has been a catch up week. I've eliminated several things on my to-do list that I'd been putting off until we made it through Nutcracker week, so it's been fairly productive, but there's not a whole lot to report on my 3 in 30 goals. Here's what I have:

Continue to keep my grocery bill as close to $100/week as I can. I did a lot of cooking ahead so we could eat leftovers during last week's busyness, and we picked up food/ate out a few times, but they were planned and accounted for in my "Nutcracker budget", so they didn't affect my grocery budget. This week I picked up a few items at the grocery store, spending $75, and spent $88 on my meat co-op order, so $163 total. That puts me at $333 for the month...not bad! I definitely need to make a grocery trip at the beginning of the week and I'm sure it's going to put me at or just over $400.

Sell our old van. As I mentioned last time, this is done! What a blessing! Of course, now my husband's car has decided to act up...

Rebound or walk for 20 minutes 3-5 times a week. I actually managed to rebound for about 15 minutes last Monday and Tuesday, before the worst of the craziness hit. This week I only managed one day. I'm looking forward to getting back to it!

And my "extra" goal for December:

Enjoy the holiday season and not get stressed! So far so good!

We have visits with family and friends planned for a couple of days early next week and of course Christmas at the end of the week! I'll check back in then.

How is December going for you? Are you ready Christmas?

Visit the 3 in 30 link up to see what everyone else is up to this month!

A Fun Tool For Learning Fractions: Fractazmic by I See Cards

noreply@blogger.com (Kara) — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 05:28:00 +0000

Fractions can be a difficult concept to teach. We're always willing to try games and other tools to help reinforce and illustrate these kind of things. Plus, we're big fans of card games. We keep a basket on a bookshelf in the dining room with a variety of card games in it for easy access. Lately, our game of choice has been a math game called Fractazmic. This brightly colored deck of cards with eye-catching graphics is designed to teach numbers, fractions, and measurement through a fun, fast-paced card game.

The Fractazmic deck has three suits in three different colors: the sixteenths (red), the twelfths (blue), and the tenths (green). In each colored suit, the cards can be combined multiple ways to make a "hand" equaling one. For example, 1/4 + 1/6 + 1/2 + 1/12 = 1.

Each suit has a different graphic on it that represents the fraction on that particular card. For example, the twelfths suit has an egg carton, with the appropriate number of eggs to visualize the corresponding fraction (three eggs for 1/4, six eggs for 1/2, and so on...). Similarly, the tenth suit has a one liter bottle marked off in tenths and the sixteenths suit has a ruler showing an inch marked off into sixteenths with cute bugs.

The object of the game is to create the most "hands" equal to one. Depending on how many players there are, each person is dealt either five or seven cards. As players create "hands", they lay them down face-up. Play continues, drawing and discarding cards in each turn, until someone runs out of cards, at which point whoever has the most "hands" wins.

Alternately, you can play a version called "Fractazmic Trap". In this version, the first player lays down a card and each player must lay down a card in the same suit. The goal is to try to make the cards equal one, or force the player after you to go over one. If you succeed at either of these, you "capture" the round and start a new one.

We're having a lot of fun with this game! I wish I'd gotten some good pictures of the game in action, but we were too busy playing to get any!

Games are always more fun than plain old drills, and this forces the kids to think quick on their feet, converting the fractions in their heads to add them up. I love that it can be simplified for younger players by using the graphics! With some assistance, even my five year old was able to participate.

The graphics are also great even for more advanced players, especially visual learners. Actually visualizing the fraction in the egg carton, or on the ruler, really drives the concept home. These aren't just abstract numbers, they represent actual everyday objects! I appreciate that the fractions used in the game are the ones that seem to be most commonly encountered in actual practical use, so there's immediate opportunity for real life application.

Another plus: I love the convenience of card games, both for storage and travel. Our family really enjoys board games too, but nothing beats card games for portability and simple storage! Not to mention, they're incredibly economical!

Designed for use with 1st through 8th grade, Fractazmic is fun for any age. It's available for $6.95 at the I See Cards website. It's definitely a hit in our house, and I look forward to checking out the other card games offered by I See Cards!

Disclosure: I received a deck of Fractazmic cards free of charge in exchange for an honest review. I was not required to give a positive review, and all opinions are my own.

The Barber Who Wanted to Pray Giveaway Winner!

noreply@blogger.com (Kara) — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 04:04:00 +0000

Congratulations to Joy at My Home in the Smokies for winning the copy of The Barber Who Wanted to Pray by R.C. Sproul from my recent review and giveaway! I know you and your family will enjoy it!

Hands-On Learning: Medieval Machines (Review Crew)

noreply@blogger.com (Kara) — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 13:03:00 +0000

Karate Kid (10) is fascinated by anything mechanical. He can spend hours constructing things from Legos and other construction toys. So as soon as I saw the Pitsco Medieval Machine Pack I knew he would absolutely love it!

I was right! He could hardly wait for assistance before tearing into it when it arrived! He had to wait several days for his dad to have an opportunity to do it with him. They spent an afternoon assembling the models and have spent time on several different days since trying out different activities with them.

The Medieval Machine Pack comes with:

A Trebuchet kit
A Catapult kit
Mass plates (for counterweights)
Siege Machines book

Pitsco also kindly included a package of Klean Klay to make the projectiles. In addition to these, several basic household items are needed like glue, scissors, a ruler, and needle-nosed pliers.

This is much more than just a model kit with building instructions. The included book contains information on the history of medieval siege machines, the concepts required to build and use them, and multiple hands-on activities that cover three areas:

Science: Tension versus torsion, elasticity, gravity and levers, and force and motion
Math: Metric conversion, calculating averages, and prediction
Experiments: Mass versus distance, testing rubber bands, targeting, and more

The directions provided were clear and straightforward, but since Karate Kid is on the very lower end of the age range (5th grade and up) adult assistance with the assembly was definitely wise. The balsa wood used in the models is sturdy and the pieces fit together well, in contrast to some cheaply made models I've seen in the past. The only minor suggestion my husband had was the inclusion of some type of clamp to hold the models together while waiting for the glue to dry.

Over the course of several days, we've tested multiple variables like projectile size, amount of weights, different rubber bands, and holding the machine stationary, to see what allows them to launch the farthest. There are still several experiments left in the book to try out, and almost endless opportunities for creativity to come up with our own.

The pictures the kids took didn't all turn out well, but here are a few of the trebuchet in action:


Under construction


Ready to go!


Load...


Fire!

The Medieval Machines Pack has been a definite hit with us! We're looking forward to getting plenty more use out of these two models and investigating some of the other kits offered by Pitsco. Karate Kid is chomping at the bit to try the Rubber-Band Powered Airplanes Pack, and he has the Mousetrap Car and Water Rocketry Packs on his list too.

This kit retails for $21.95, and there are also teacher's guides available for both the trebuchet and catapult that include multiple hours of additional activities and lessons. Pitsco offers a variety of other hands on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) products and curriculum that are worth checking out too, including several kits and packages specifically for homeschoolers.

Disclosure: I received a Medieval Machines Pack at no charge for review purposes. I was not required to give a positive review and all opinions are solely my own.

Don't Check Your Brains at the Door: Know What Your Believe and Why (Family Bookshelf)

noreply@blogger.com (Kara) — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 06:47:00 +0000

You know me. I'm always on the lookout for good material to instruct my kids in the faith. When I saw that Josh McDowell's classic, Don't Check Your Brains at the Door: Know What You Believe and Why, had recently been updated from the 1992 version, I was intrigued. I've read and own McDowell's Evidence that Demands a Verdict and have a lot of respect for him as an apologist. I thought this might be an interesting read for the Dancer (13). A couple of years ago she read the kid's versions of Case for Christ and Case for Faith and she's definitely ready for meatier material.

The format is nice. It's clearly laid out and divided into sections about God, Jesus, the Bible, the Resurrection, religion and Christianity, and life and happiness. Each section has several chapters addressing common myths or misconceptions about that particular subject. For example, in the section on God, one chapter explores what it calls the "impersonal force myth", and in the section on the resurrection, the "stolen body myth" is tackled. Each chapter ends with a short section called "Brain Food" with questions and Scripture readings for further thought and discussion.

The chapters are short and humorous. I think the writing style is definitely appealing for young teens, but I found the content pretty basic. I think many older teens and kids who are somewhat familiar with some of the concepts will be ready for something a bit meatier. Still, this is a good, solid introduction to apologetics for youth. It's definitely a valuable tool for parents and youth workers. It would work well in a group situation to spur discussion. Don't Check Your Brains at the Door is a worthwhile effort, just don't expect the same hard-hitting material you may have seen in some of McDowell's other work.

Thank you to Thomas Nelson for providing me with a review copy of the book.

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