Wednesday, April 27

Using the Good & the Beautiful SCIENCE for HIGH SCHOOL

We've talked about this before, but one of the biggest complaints folks have about The Good & the Beautiful curriculum is its lack of resources for high school students, particularly in the sciences and maths. Like many families, we love the relaxed yet comprehensive fit of this program, and hoped to keep using it through the high school years. To that end, along with the assistance of a few other moms, we've created a suggested plan for using the available sciences for high school students...

The plan covers three years, and includes:

Each full year of science is comprised of several units, which are listed in a suggested order.
Most of the science units have accompanying video playlists.
A free site is recommended to download printable sheets, as needed, to reinforce concepts.
A reading list, field trips, and virtual field trips are provided for select units.
Independent research is recommended.
It should be noted that the Safety unit is not included.

Which sciences are covered?

Physical Science - utilizes 6 units, plus field trips & hands-on kits
Biology - utilizes 6 units, plus field trips & hands-on kits
Zoology - utilizes 6 units, plus field trips & hands-on kits

While we have been asked to consider including these TGTB science classes as part of the Sparks Academy course offerings, right now this is not in the pipeline. The Good & the Beautiful has a note on their website that they are planning to offer high school science (at least one class) starting in the '23-'24 school year, and we prefer to wait and see what they offer first.

It is our hope that these printable plans with supplements will help you to continue family-style learning, with curriculum you already own, as your children enter their upper grades years.

Access the Good & Beautiful Extensions Page (scroll down to download plans)

Chemistry

Currently, there is not adequate Chemistry coverage at the high school level. We recommend the Sparks Academy teacher-led class à https://okbookshack.org/product/chemistry-blended-live-class/

If you just want to use TGTB Chemistry for upper grades, know that it will not prepare your student for college-level sciences and is probably not a good fit for STEM-bound students. Families have been beefing it up to a degree with the following resources:

More Science

For more structured science needs (and history / language arts), Sparks Academy provides blended classes. These are classes hosted online that include textbook and video elements, discussion feeds with peers, and live, virtual meetings. Each week, the students are interacting through facilitated discussion in a private forum. Classes “meet” weekly via shared assignments and moderated discussion during the school year (August 15,2022 – May 5, 2023 for the ’22-’23 school year).

Newest Sciences: Paleontology & Motion / Machines

Two new science courses are hitting the store this summer, just in time for the start of a new school year! The first is Paleontology, and it's also the first course to be introduced in the new science format. (The company plans to go back and revamp all old sciences to the new format.) The new format has a teacher guide and accompanying books, similar to the old style, but then has a student journal that is separate from the course. Ideally, you are to purchase one student journal for each student in your family, and there are two levels. We purchased the 7th/8th, as the youngest is a teen.

There are three accompanying books with the Paleontology course - two that tackle dinosaurs and ancient animals, while the other focuses on archaeology. Several dig sites, including famous ones and lesser-known ones, are featured in the archaeology book, and these are good additions to the course...they really help bring the material to a real-world place.

Here you can peek inside lesson 2. The teacher's guide is the one on top, with the text and lots of photographs. The student journal (7th/8th grade level) is on the bottom. The extensions are in the journal, as well as writing activities and some cutting / pasting activities. There's considerably less written / read aloud information in the teacher book now, and it's extremely visual. I can see this maybe being better for younger kids, but older kids need a little more 'meat' to the sciences.

The Motions & Machines unit comes with two books - one on Inventions and the other on Motion in Sports. It's true, my kids aren't terribly athletic-minded (farm kids get different exercise), but they enjoyed looking through both of the books. We found a few medieval themed selections from each book to rope in the oldest, too! If you have an athletic kid, maybe one that isn't that into STEM, this bottom book (above) will pique their interest for sure.

In this unit, students learn about motion and force, gravity, pulleys, levers, and basic physics. Through hands-on projects, they see Newton’s laws put into action and document the ways machines make our lives easier. One of the best parts of this unit is that the kids get to build their own machine on “Project Day” - the final lesson!

As this is one of the new units, it was also printed in the format with the teacher guide and student journals. It's set up similarly to the Paleontology unit shown above. TGTB has plans to revamp all of their old science units into this new format.

Overall, I have to say that while many families will probably love the new format, I'm not really a fan. My husband will say that it's because I don't like change, and perhaps there's a grain of truth in that, but for families who have been accustomed to the old format of sciences, with everything together in one place, it's going to take some time to adjust to a new format and figure out a new groove.

You may also be interested in....

Join the tribe & download the plan!!

Tuesday, April 26

Misty of Chincoteague & Horses

Horses have carried armored knights and saddle-less native Americans, pulled chariots and elegant coaches, carried Pony Express riders and munitions, and been used as cabs in the cities and plow horses in the country...

There are more than 150 breeds of horses and ponies—each one carefully produced by people through selective breeding to have particular, desirable traits. These are typically divided into the categories of heavy horses, light horses, and ponies.

Heavy horses are the strongest types of horses. Draft horses are heavy horses that were once commonly used to pull plows across farms and wagons filled with heavy freight. Draft horse breeds include the Clydesdale, Belgian, and Suffolk. Coach horses are somewhat smaller than draft horses, and were once commonly used for farm work and pulling heavy wagons. Coach horse breeds include the German coach, French coach, and Cleveland bay.

Light horses, also known as saddle horses, include breeds that are often used for riding, racing, performances in horse shows, and hunting. The quarter horse is used for herding cattle and other ranch work, and is also the fastest racehorse, able to run a quarter mile in about 20 seconds. The thoroughbred is a high-spirited breed used for racing, jumping, and hunting. Oftentimes light horses are classified by their color patterns. For example, palominos are light horses with a golden/blond coat and a golden or silvery mane or tail. Appaloosas usually have a whitish area on the loin and hips with small dark “raindrop” spots.

Most ponies are gentle, easily trained animals that can be used for riding and for pulling or carrying light loads. Pony breeds include the Welsh, Shetland, Hackney, and Connemara. In addition to the many breeds of domestic horses, there are also some horses that live in the wild, such as the horses that lived on Assateague Island. Horses that live in the wild in the western United States—animals that are sometimes called mustangs—are descendants of tame horses that escaped from Spanish colonists, Native Americans, and other people hundreds of years ago. The only remaining truly wild horse today is the Przewalski horse of Central Asia. This horse is an endangered species.

There were no horses in the Western Hemisphere when Europeans first arrived in the late 1400’s. When Christopher Columbus and the other early explorers from Spain brought horses with them to the Americas, it was the first time that Native Americans had ever seen a horse.

Legend states that Chincoteague ponies descend from Spanish horses shipwrecked off the Virginia coast on their way to Peru in the 16th century. Another story holds that they descended from horses left on the island by pirates. Both of these theories are unlikely, as no documentation has been found to show horses inhabiting the island this early, and no mention of horses already existing on the island was made by colonists on either the mainland or the island in the mid-to-late 1600s.

While the National Park Service holds to the theory that the horses were brought to the island in the 17th century, the Chincoteague Volunteer Fire Company, which owns the ponies on the Virginia side of Assateague, argues that the Spanish shipwreck theory is correct. They argue that horses were too valuable in the 17th century to have been left to run wild on the island, and claim that there are two sunken Spanish galleons off the Virginia coast in support of their theory.

Read

Misty of Chincoteague

On the island of Chincoteague, off the coasts of Virginia and Maryland, lives a centuries-old band of wild ponies. Among them is the most mysterious of all, Phantom, a rarely-seen mare that eludes all efforts to capture her—that is, until a young boy and girl lay eyes on her and determine that they can’t live without her. The frenzied roundup that follows on the next Pony Penning Day does indeed bring Phantom into their lives, in a way they never would have suspected. Phantom would forever be a creature of the wild. But her gentle, loyal colt Misty is another story altogether...

Marguerite Henry Horse Box Set

Watch

Misty

Make / Do

Vocabulary

galleon
bay
stallion
mare
foal
colt
filly
withers
apparatus
cavalcade
scow
sorrel
mettlesome

Think

Personification is the literary term for giving human characteristics to something thatvis not human. In Chapter 1, the author gives the storm human characteristics. How many instances can you find?
In Chapter 18, What do you think? Did Paul do the right thing? Why or why not?

Explore more with the Literature-Based Science Bundle!

Includes nine unit studies covering a variety of science topics presented in literature selections.

Each unit has introductory text, which will give the student basic background information about the topic at hand.
There are photographs and illustrations, and we have also included primary documents when available.
After this text, there are featured videos, which augment the background information and help make the topic more accessible for more visual students.
You will also find a short list of reading books, including a featured novel that the unit builds upon.
There are vocabulary words, places, and people to identify.
Reading comprehension, critical thinking questions, and writing assignments are included.
We add fun with hands-on activities and extra videos to watch that will bring the era to life.

Our family has used unit studies as curriculum for many years, and we hope that your family will enjoy these, too!

Product sample: Misty of Chincoteague & Horses

Units include:

Misty of Chincoteague & Horses
Hugo Cabret & Clocks / Time
Caroline’s Comet & Astronomy
Fuzzy Mud & Microbiology
Hatchet & Outdoor Skills
Airplanes & Flight
Marine Biology
Human Anatomy
Plant Dissection

Wednesday, April 20

Examining the Iron Curtain & the Genius Under the Table

The term "iron curtain" was first used in 1819 to describe "an impenetrable barrier." By 1920, it had become associated with the boundary of the Soviet Union's sphere of influence, and this took on even more meaning after World War 2...

The term "Iron Curtain" was made famous by Winston Churchill, as he referred to the boundary that symbolically, ideologically, and physically divided Europe into two separate areas from about 1945 to 1990. During the Cold War, the divisions between WW2 allies reappeared in the struggle between capitalism and communism. In the Soviet Union, Churchill's speech was seen by Joseph Stalin as reinforcing his view that a future conflict with the West was inevitable. Over the following months, through a mixture of persuasion and purges of those holding contrary views, the Soviet Union did indeed come to see the West as a threat, rather than the ally they had been during World War II. The Cold War had begun in earnest.

One by one, communist governments were installed in the Eastern European states under the Soviet sphere of influence. This "iron curtain" became the symbol of the division between two competing ideologies during the last half of the twentieth century. The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 signaled the end of the iron curtain, as freedom came to the Eastern bloc. The West finally prevailed, demonstrating that ideals cannot be artificially kept behind walls and boundaries.

The Iron Curtain took physical form in some of the most heavily militarized areas in the world, particularly the so-called "inner German border" between East and West Germany. The inner German border was marked in rural areas by double fences made of steel mesh with sharp edges, while near urban areas a high concrete barrier similar to the Berlin Wall was built. The actual borderline was marked by posts and signs and was overlooked by numerous watchtowers set behind the barrier. In some places, a "death strip" was constructed on the East German side of the barrier, in which unauthorized access would be met with bullets. The strip of land on the West German side of the barrier—between the actual borderline and the barrier—was readily accessible but only at considerable personal risk, as it was patrolled by both East and West German border guards. Shooting incidents were not uncommon.

Elsewhere, the border defenses between west and east were much lighter. The border between Hungary and neutral Austria, for instance, was marked by a simple chain link fence which was easily removed when it became the first part of the Iron Curtain to be dismantled in 1989. In parts of Czechoslovakia, the border strip became hundreds of meters wide, and an area of increasing restrictions was defined as one approached the border. The creation of these highly militarized no-man's lands helped create nature reserves across Europe that helped the spread of several species to new territories. The border between North Korea and South Korea today is comparable to the former inner German border, particularly in its degree of militarization, but it has never conventionally been considered part of the Iron Curtain.

Read

The Genius Under the Table

Drama, family secrets, and a KGB spy in his own kitchen! How will Yevgeny ever fulfill his parents’ dream that he become a national hero when he doesn’t even have his own room? He’s not a star athlete or a legendary ballet dancer. In the tiny apartment he shares with his Baryshnikov-obsessed mother, poetry-loving father, continually outraged grandmother, and safely talented brother, all Yevgeny has is his little pencil, the underside of a massive table, and the doodles that could change everything. With equal amounts charm and solemnity, award-winning author and artist Eugene Yelchin recounts in hilarious detail his childhood in Cold War Russia as a young boy desperate to understand his place in his family.

Other Books on the Iron Curtain

Watch

Make / Do

Iron Curtain unit from The Homeschool Garden

Copywork selections from Les Miserables by Victor Hugo in primary, elementary, cursive, and a notebook sheet for older students and moms
2 poetry selections
The hymn ‘Tis so Sweet to Trust in Jesus and the folksong The Golden Vanity
2 Teatimes – Apple Cinnamon Mini-buns and Honey Cake
Art history and 6 art selections from Imperial Russia
Composer biography of Igor Stravinsky and four music selections – Music tracks are included for listening
Handicraft – woven friendship bracelet
Art lesson – chalk pastel Faberge egg
Nature Study – Siberia and Russia
Geography – Communism country study
Shakespeare – King Lear
Literature study guides for Breaking Stalin’s Nose (upper elementary and middle) and God’s Smuggler (high school)
Memory work – Prayer, scripture memory, and poetry memory work

Imagine if your entire family—parents, grandparents, siblings—had to live in one small room. Describe in words or draw a picture of your family sharing that room.
Write one line of dialogue for each member of your family: what they would say about living together in one room?
Draw a map of Europe, and color in countries affected by the Iron Curtain red
Looking for more? Snag the unit study for Breaking Stalin's Nose!
Cold War guided unit (free)
Using what you've learned about the Cold War and how it turned out, were Churchill's warning inaccurate, or was he right? Write an essay stating your opinion, with cited sources to back it up.

Vocabulary

Iron Curtain
Warsaw Pact
United Nations
Truman Doctrine
Marshall Plan
Berlin Blockade
containment
Domino Theory
Mutually Assured Destruction

Think

It is hard for most of us to imagine living like Yevgeny did when he was a child. Not only did he have to share a single room with his mother, father, grandmother, and brother, but worse, there was a spy who lived in the next room who reported to the KGB (Soviet secret police) anything he heard or saw that might be against the government. What do you think you would do to remain safe in these circumstances?
Yevgeny’s father says, “You can never be a great poet, Yevgeny, if you’re afraid to tell the truth. But truth is a dangerous thing. Most people don’t like it.” What do you think he means by this?

World History Novel Studies Bundle

Includes seven unit studies (plus a bonus!) covering World History. Each unit addresses a new topic, spanning from Pompeii to World War 2. Each unit has introductory text, which will give the student basic background information about the topic at hand.

There are photographs and illustrations, and we have also included primary documents when available.
After this text, there are featured videos, which augment the background information and help make the topic more accessible for more visual students.
You will also find a short list of reading books, including a featured novel that the unit builds upon.
There are vocabulary words, places, and people to identify.
Reading comprehension, critical thinking questions, and writing assignments are included.
We add fun with hands-on activities and extra videos to watch that will bring the era to life.

Product samples: The Night Witches & Women in Aviation & The Lookout Tree & the Great Acadian Upheaval

These studies are directed toward upper grades students, but some have resources for younger students so that the whole family can work together. Our family has used unit studies as curriculum for many years, and we hope that your family will enjoy these, too!

Monday, April 18

End-of-the-Homeschool-Year Awards!

Is your feed flooded with pictures of kids receiving various awards at their schools? No need to feel left out. Homeschool kids deserve awards too! 😎 And we're homeschooling, so you know what that means.....personalized awards!!!

Homeschool Academic Awards

These are to celebrate your student's academic achievements.

IT Salute

For your resident geek squad extraordinaire

WOW! Award

Presented to recognize the student that learned on his/her own

Fact Checker

For the student who finds the mistakes in the curriculum

YouTube Master

For mastering a concept or hobby through a series of YT videos

Through the Noggin' Award

For students who were learning when no one thought they were listening

Green Thumb Award

For the agricultural master with the ability to grow anything

Make-It Master

For students who love to design and build

Homeschool Character Awards

These are to celebrate personal qualities exhibited by your student.

Best Use of Free Time

For using free time to learn a new skill, help out the parents, or accomplish something other than leveling up on that video game

Best in Kitchen Science Clean Up

For cleaning up that huge explosion or fermentation project - no muss, no fuss

Git-R-Done Award

For consistent, timely completion of the 'have to dos' in order to get to the 'want to dos'

Homeschool Snark Awards

Got Out of Jammies Award

This is a hard one to win during the winter months

Best Bored Look

Typically presented to teens

Always Has Something to Say

You have a lesson? They have one, too!

Master Coffee Maker

Who doesn't need this child?

Endurance Award

For procrastination & stretching simplest assignments

Squirrel Salute

For the ability to multitask, even when they shouldn't be

Tigger Award

For most time spent out of chair / learning in motion

Use these printables to create your own Homeschool Awards Day! Use the ideas from above or create your own. What awards is your child getting this year?

Subscribers can snag FREE printable award certificates here!

Thursday, April 14

Spring Clean YOURSELF with a Four-Week Detox!

It's time for some Spring Cleaning!!! Just as we regularly clean our cars and our homes, it is equally important to take time to clean our bodies...

If you've ever suffered from, or seen a loved one suffering from, health problems, then you know that our health is our most valuable asset. When we are in good health, we can feel the benefits in all other areas of our lives!

A spring cleaning detox for your body is an effective way to experience improvement in your overall health without disrupting your regular routine. One of my favorite things about this program is that you can choose your comfort level: beginner, intermediate or advanced. The programs are easy to follow, with simple day to day steps, and the formulas are potent no matter what level you choose, yet still safe and easy to incorporate into your everyday routine.

There are four steps to the process. For those who feel fatigued, the 5-day Liver Detox will increase your energy, while the 5-Day Kidney Detox will encourage your body to cleanse itself naturally. The 5-day Bowel Detox will improve waste elimination, digestion, and can even aid in weight loss. This last one is done both at the very beginning (to jump-start your system) and at the end, for a final cleansing.

For the 30-day Detox, you'll want:

Superfoods...

The Superfood Plus isn't only for this detox. It contains 12 of the world's most powerful superfoods. One serving delivers an unrivaled dose of rapidly assimilating vitamins and minerals while offering the body an extraordinary powerful supply of enzymes and nutrients packed into one source. All of the ingredients are organic or wild-harvested, including twelve of the world’s most powerful superfoods: wild harvested spirulina algae, organic blue green algae, chlorella broken cell algae, organic barley grass, organic alfalfa grass, organic wheat grass, and organic purple dulse seaweed. Once ending the detox, this is something you'll want to investigate using as a supplement daily!

Why the Dr. Schulze brand?

Dr. Schulze has been a leader in the natural healthcare industry and a credible source of advice for over four decades. As the creator of the American Botanical Pharmacy in Marina Del Rey, California, a Doctor of Natural Medicine and a master herbalist, Dr. Schulze stands as a veritable healing expert. His range of herbal formulas are natural, yet powerful— each designed for achieving optimal levels of health.

Tuesday, April 12

100 Days of Adventure {Review}

Turn off the screen and turn on the creativity as second-generation homeschooling mom Greta Eskridge shares 100 hands-on learning activities for kids that will connect and enrich your family through adventures, small and big...

Just in time for summer break, 100 Days of Adventure is a fantastic resource for parents looking to get outside with the kids! There are science, geography, and history projects included that will be fun for all ages. Whether you live in a rural or urban area, there are adventures you can do right in your neighborhood. The book is actually broken up into seasonal activities, as you can see in the table of contents. There are a wide variety for cold weather and warm weather, rainy or sunny, and inside or outside adventures. But none of them require technology - STEAM, yes; technology, no. For the parent who wants some unplugged time, this is a great solution.

About the Book

Have a meteor slumber party, attend a symphony concert, take a hike in the rain, preserve colorful fall leaves, and make nettle pesto as children explore a love of nature and venture into the great, wide, real world. From backyard bugs to farmer's market veggies, children will unplug from electronics; explore the world; and learn about nature, art, music, and themselves through STEAM projects and new experiences.

100 Days of Adventure will spark curiosity in 6- to 10-year-olds with

Indoor and outdoor seasonal activities, projects, experiments, crafts, recipes, and field trips
Free and low-cost activities, with options for different kinds of groups and locations
Step-by-step directions, nature journal prompts, tips, and checklists
Beautiful photos and helpful illustrations

Children can bond with parents and siblings, learn new skills with individual investigations, or explore with friends in an educational or homeschool group with this full-color activity book. Also included is a note to parents with encouraging start-here guidance on growing a family culture of curiosity and adventure.

Whether your family is looking for fun activities for school breaks at home, road trip vacations, or everyday ways to learn together, this collection of interactive educational activities will help your kids get creative, get into nature, and get closer to each other.

Choose Your Adventure!

Sunday, April 10

Oliver Twist + the Industrial Revolution

While reading Oliver Twist, we see a range of lifestyles during the period of the Industrial Revolution. Dickens uses the story to present his commentary on the revolution, which caused social upheaval to English society...

From 1760 to 1840, the Industrial Revolution was the transition from handcrafting items to new manufacturing processes. This transition included not only mechanized factories, but chemical manufacturing and iron production and the increasing use of steam and water power. The revolution began in Great Britain and spread through Europe and to the United States.

The Industrial Revolution marks a major turning point in history; almost every aspect of daily life was influenced in some way. Average income and population began to grow at an unsustainable rate. Historians are in agreement that the onset of the Industrial Revolution is the most important event in the history of humanity since plants and animals were domesticated.

An economic recession occurred from the late 1830s to the early 1840s when the adoption of the Industrial Revolution's early innovations, such as mechanized spinning and weaving, slowed and their markets matured. Innovations developed late in the period, such as the increasing adoption of locomotives, steamboats and steamships, hot blast iron smelting and new technologies, such as the electrical telegraph were not powerful enough to drive high rates of growth. However, after 1870, there was another period of rapid economic growth springing from a new group of innovations in what has been called the Second Industrial Revolution. These innovations included new steel making processes, mass-production, assembly lines, electrical grid systems, the large-scale manufacture of machine tools, and the use of increasingly advanced machinery in steam-powered factories.

There were some additional world changes occurring as a result of the Industrial Revolution, including:

Workers shifted from being craftsmen to becoming machine operators, working as a team under management rather than in small / individual settings
People flocked from agricultural areas to industrial centers, leading to population explosions in the cities and requiring changes in social structures
New economics and governmental policies were put into effect to support industrialization
Land was no longer seen as a source of wealth, and there was a wider distribution of wealth among citizens
In the agricultural sector, new improvements were also made during this time to help provide more food to feed a growing population

There were some societal drawbacks as part of the revolution. Lack of worker protections and regulations meant long work hours for miserable wages, living in unsanitary tenements, and exploitation and abuse in the workplace. But even as problems arose, so too did new regulations that provided people with more material conveniences, also enabling them to produce more, travel faster, and communicate more rapidly.

In the 1960s-2000s, the Third Industrial Revolution used electronics and information technology to automate production. Now a Fourth Industrial Revolution is building on the Third; this is the digital revolution that has been occurring since the middle of the last century. It is characterized by a fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital, and biological spheres. Unlike previous industrial revolutions, however, the Fourth is evolving at an exponential rather than a linear pace and is disrupting almost every industry in every country.

Already, artificial intelligence is all around us, from self-driving cars and drones to virtual assistants and software that translate or invest. And the possibilities of billions of people connected by mobile devices, with unprecedented processing power, storage capacity, and access to knowledge, are unlimited...

Our spine read for this unit is Oliver Twist

Access the complete unit in the Advanced High School Literature bundle!

Includes six unit studies covering a variety of topics presented in more mature literature selections.

Each unit has introductory text, which will give the student basic background information about the topic at hand.
There are photographs and illustrations, and we have also included primary documents when available.
After this text, there are featured videos, which augment the background information and help make the topic more accessible for more visual students.
You will also find a short list of reading books, including a featured novel that the unit builds upon.
There are vocabulary words, places, and people to identify.
Reading comprehension, critical thinking questions, and writing assignments are included.
We add fun with hands-on activities and extra videos to watch that will bring the era to life.