September 2006

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Amanda's Corner
Thanksgiving Unit Study Special
Preparing for the Twists and Turns of Homeschooling
Tip for the Thanksgiving Unit Study
Favorite Book Picks for October
Learning Links

Happy Autumn! At long last, autumn has arrived, the leaves are beginning to change, and we have already made a trip to the apple orchard. The cider is sweet and the apples are perfect, and our hearts help get our minds ready for a new season. Teaching, learning and investigating receives more of our attention, along with the need to split and stack firewood and get ready for cooler weather.

We have many traditions that have developed over the years for the season changes, and a toasty morning fire after the weather turns cool is a fun one. We also collect gourds and pumpkins and squash that are the end-of-season garden picks for Dad to make a fall collage down the driveway to greet our guests. This is a big tradition in our area of the country. People work on some amazing autumn lawn displays from their produce, mixing in chrysanthemums and other autumn treasures. It is fun to cruise the country roads to see the creations.

I am home now for the season - hurray! It was wonderful to meet many of you around the country, and thanks for your encouragement and for allowing me to share a few of the lessons that I've learned along the way. While speaking recently at a conference, I shared that we need to remember that we are not raising "4th graders" or "8th graders" or 10th graders" - we are raising children. We need to help them discover and develop their unique gifts and talents, and their developmental timetable can be very different from those that we read about in child development books. After all, who do you know that has "normal" children or "normal" days? ;-)

Many of the parents in the audience came up to me later and thanked me for pointing this out to them - that we are not producing robots or identical widgets in an assembly line. We are here to protect, nurture, teach and assist them into whatever God has in mind for them. Our children have all developed very interesting and very unique interests and talents - all in areas that I knew nothing about! However, that did not slow us down from helping them investigate and learn about these distinct gifts. You can do it, too.

Take advantage of this special and get ready for a blessed holiday with your family. Also, with the purchase of the CDROM version of the unit study, the Thanksgiving Notebook Pages are included as a bonus on the CDROM! Follow this link to learn more:

Our lives can take all kinds of twists and turns, and as homeschoolers we can prepare a bit for some of the unexpected. We need to remember to be like the captain of a good ship who trains and drills his crew at all stations during calm weather, knowing that when the storms hit, everyone needs to be ready and not taken by surprise. When they were old enough, our children learned to do laundry, wash dishes, clean their rooms, and prepare meals. Part of these lessons came about because of all of the surgeries that I went through after an auto accident, but many were made priorities when we realized the importance of anticipating some unexpected "speedbumps" as life goes on.

Over the years, I learned to plan for sick days and days that we might have cabin fever. I collected coloring books, toy cars, modeling clay, craft sticks, jigsaw puzzles, models, beading kits, etc. These items were put away for those days when they would be needed - I still find some of these hidden treasures, and our youngest is 13!

I recently researched and wrote a magazine article on medical advances in the history of America, and I learned SO MUCH about flu and epidemics that have occurred in the short life of America. Having a new respect for the flu and epidemics, all of the talk of avian (bird) flu made me think that it would be wise to make a few preparations for flu outbreaks, just as I do for cabin fever.

After watching a late night documentary on what to do for any kind of illness outbreak, I learned that we should store a few things for emergencies - times that we would be unable to go to town or not feel like going to the grocery store. Here are some of the things that were mentioned:

Bottled water
Crackers
Peanut butter
Pasta
Canned meat like tuna
Tang or Gatorade kinds of drinks
Canned soup
Canned fruit
Peanuts or other nuts
Baked beans
and so on.

I am sure that you can make up your own list for your family's tastes and needs. For instance, ginger ale is a favorite here when someone is under the weather, and I've learned that you should never run out of chocolate if at all possible! ;-)

I hope that this helps you prepare for the upcoming season of homeschooling and family living!

Consider working with modeling clay to recreate Plymouth Plantation this year as you use the Thanksgiving Unit Study. Place a cookie sheet or other flat surface in the middle of the table to use for a base. You can cover it with foil or fabric before beginning to place the structures on the surface. With the clay, everyone can create the homes, worship house, town layout and the nearby waterside shore. For fun as well as ideas, visit this website that is on the Library of Congress website:

http://memory.loc.gov/service/pnp/cph/3g00000/3g04000/3g04900/3g04992v.jpg

Watch for Amanda's next article in This Old Schoolhouse -
in the Fall 2006 edition!

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and the special gifts that they offer to their subscribers:

The Old Schoolhouse

Favorite Book Picks for October

I am constantly asked for good book suggestions, so here are a few of my current favorites:

The Copper Scroll
By Joel C. Rosenberg / Tyndale House
On June 1, 1956, the New York Times broke a story that captured the imagination of the world. Another Dead Sea Scroll had been found, describing unimaginable treasures buried in the hills east of Jerusalem and under the holy city itself. But the scroll code had to be broken, and experts from all sides warned that any effort by Israel to rebuild the Temple with the treasure would undoubtedly trigger a war of biblical proportions. Fifty years later, the world is about to be shocked again. New York Times best-selling author Joel C. Rosenberg takes you on his most exciting and heart-pounding ride yet, as a new democratic Iraq rises, so, too, a new evil, and White House advisors Jon Bennett and Erin McCoy find themselves facing a terrifying threat triggered by an ancient mystery.

In My Father's House, Shiloh Legacy Series #1
By Bodie Thoene & Brock Thoene / Tyndale House
They just fought the War to End All Wars in France. Now they return home to a different kind of battle . . . one more fierce than they could imagine. In My Father's House follows the lives of four young soldiers: Max Meyer, an orphan from the poor Orchard Street neighborhood of New York; Ellis Warne, an Irish Doctor's son from Ohio; Birch Tucker, an Arkansas farm boy; and Jefferson Canfield, the son of a black sharecropper. Will these four men and those who love them be able to find any freedom, any peace, on the warring home front? Special Feature: Study questions suitable for individual use or group discussion.

Jimmy
By Robert Whitlow / Thomas Nelson
Thirteen-year-old Jimmy Mitchell from Piney Grove, Georgia, knows he's "slow," but he has an uncanny ability to see, hear, and understand quite a lot---even the occasional angel! When Jimmy's court testimony saves a man from jail, his neighbors are astonished---and wonder how one "special" child could change their lives forever. 416 pages, hardcover from WestBow.

Fix-It and Forget-It Cookbook: Feasting with Your Slow Cooker
By Dawn J. Ranck & Phyllis Pellman Good / Good Books
Slow cookers are having a comeback. With good reason. They are friends on a day of running errands. They allow easy entertaining with no last-minute preparation. They are miracles for potluck meals, whether in your home or someone else's. And vegetarians won't find a better way to work with dried beans. Slow cookers are gentle with the food budget--less expensive ingredients flourish in their slow, moist heat. This book offers more than 800 recipes--the whole range of recipes slow cookers do well. Tips and hints are dropped in throughout, urging one additional small step for lots of extra flavor, offering ways to make your cooker a complementary appliance, explaining seasoning to maximum effect. Bring an element of simplicity--and quality--to your pressured life! Let your slow cooker work for you. This book has a comb binding which lays flat for easy reading.

God's Good Gifts: A Scrapbooking Bible Study for Women's Groups
By Group Publishing
Add wow to your women's ministry! Group publishing's best-selling Scripture Scrapbook helps women form meaningful friendships while creating compelling scrapbook pages that focus on deep, personal elements of spiritual heritage. These 12 sessions provide a Bible study with discussion questions, templates, stickers, and 12 perforated devotions for your pages, idea and activity pages, and a leader's guide. Each woman's finished project will be a devotional scrapbook her family and future generations will enjoy again and again. Devotion authors include Katy Arthur, Jill Briscoe, Emilie Barnes, Jody Brolsma, Amy Nappa, and Sherri Harris.

Learning Links

Pastel Fall Leaf Art Project
http://www.teachartathome.com/PastelFallleaves.html

Art Lessons Online - Amazing Projects!
http://www.teachartathome.com/FreeProjectCurrent.html

Design Your Own Thanksgiving Placemats
http://riri.essortment.com/thanksgivingpla_rkgf.htm

Leaf Art
http://www.squiglysplayhouse.com/ArtsAndCrafts/Crafts/LeafArt.html

Fall Coloring Pages
http://www.preschoolcoloringbook.com/color/cpfall.shtml

More Fall Coloring Pages
http://www.kidsdomain.com/holiday/fall/color.html

Apple Coloring Pages
http://www.coloring.ws/fruit.htm

Apple Picking Tips
http://www.pickyourown.org/applepicking.htm

How to Make Applesauce
http://www.pickyourown.org/applesauce.htm

Until Next Time,

Amanda B.
www.unitstudy.com