REVIEW: If You Were Me and Lived In… Books Brought to You by Carole P. Roman and Awaywegomedia.com

Holden is currently studying about American Indians and colonial settlements, so I was excited to be able to review If You Were Me and Lived In…Colonial America (An Introduction to Civilizations Throughout Time) (Volume 4) and If You Were Me and Lived In…the American West (Volume 7), brought to you by Carole P. Roman and Awaywegomedia.com. 

WHAT IS IT?:

The “If You Were Me and Lived In…” book series teaches children about what it was actually like to live in various time periods in history from a child’s perspective.  There are a variety of stories to choose from, covering so many historic periods that they truly make a wonderful supplement to your child’s history studies.

The two books that I requested to review were If You Were Me and Lived In…Colonial America (An Introduction to Civilizations Throughout Time) (Volume 4) and If You Were Me and Lived in the American West (Volume 7), which I selected because these match up with the time period that my 8-year old son, Holden, is currently studying in our homeschool. 

I also had the pleasure of receiving two additional books:  If You Were Me and Lived In…Renaissance Italy (An Introduction to Civilizations Through Time) (Volume 2) and If You Were Me and Lived In…Ancient China: The Han Dynasty.

  

All of these books and many more in the series are available for purchase through Amazon in the price range of approximately $13-$20 each.

 

OUR EXPERIENCE:

Holden definitely has some attention difficulties, and he tends to do other things while I read to him.  So to make sure he got to enjoy the truly rich and enticing illustrations in these beautiful books, I chose to use them as bedtime stories.  When he is tired, he’ll cuddle up with me at night to read a book together, and he’s able to be more still than at other times, so that was the perfect way to ensure he got the full appreciation of these lovely books.

We began with Colonial America story, since that one lines up perfectly with what we’ve studied in our homeschool most recently.  We had already covered all of the material in this book, so it was a wonderful summary of things we’ve studied so far this school year and was far more interesting and engaging that how we’d studied it before!

Holden absolutely loved the large, full-page, full-color illustrations that were paired with every reading page, and it kept his attention as I read aloud the accompanying text.  It started off showing what London looks like in modern times vs. the 1600’s.  Then it talks about what kinds of names boys and girls might have been given and asks the reader to think about how those names reflect the society of that time.  Then it moves into the various religious movements of that time and how that spurred the development of colonies in the New World.  It discusses the journey to America and how the settlers had to find ways to satisfy their immediate needs for shelter, food, and a way to govern themselves.  The book gives a good overview of the challenges the settlers faced and what a transition it was from the life they’d known before.  It also gives a good impression of the daily life of the colony and how much work was involved in day-to-day survival.  It also discusses how the settlers came to develop contact and relationships with the Native Americans, and how what they learned improved their chances of survival.  It relays how the children were educated, what kinds of chores they did, and how they entertained themselves.  Then at the end of the story, it gave a brief summary of some notable people who lived at that time and what made them significant.

The next book we read was the American West story.  Holden hasn’t gotten that far into American history just yet, but it will be coming, so that was a great story to choose to read next.  The story started out by showing Oregon in modern times, followed by Oregon in the 1800’s at the time that settlers began to travel on the Oregon Trail.  It explained why the settlers began to make the move and why they chose to travel en masse.  It also told of the draws that existed in the west and then began to describe the physical aspects of the journey itself and the many challenges the settlers faced on that treacherous trek.  It detailed their food, their clothing, their chores, and their encounters with Native Americans.  I felt like the illustrations really did a great job of conveying the conditions and difficulties along the way and the perseverance involved in making a new home for themselves once they reached their destination.  A whole new set of chores were required as they created new homesteads, and it was easy to grasp how the settlers began to create a new society for themselves and get back to regular daily life with schools and stores and growing up in a community.  And at the end of the story, it again detailed quick summaries of famous people of the American West, complete with portraits.

The other two books cover completely different time periods and geographic locations than these first two, so I chose not to read those to Holden just yet.  I want to save them for when we eventually cover those areas in our studies.  I have every confidence that they will be a wonderful complement to our history lessons when the time comes. 

I looked through both books, though, and they are just as interesting as the first two we read!  The Renaissance Italy story talks about the emergence from the dark times of the Middle Ages and how people became more interested in art, architecture, and literature.  The copies the ways of Ancient Greece, and they enjoyed the finer things in life.  The end of the book offers a summary of famous artists who transformed art for a lifetime to come.

The Ancient China story has significantly longer text than the other stories because it has so much more information to convey.  It talks about the culture of the people, the significance of their class system, and the lack of respect for women in their society (they were not allowed to get an education, and men felt that women’s opinions didn’t matter).  It discusses the use of slaves, the different types of homes, and how the foods of rich and poor members of society differed mainly in whether or not spices and sauces were used to improve flavor.  It also discussed the importance placed on learning the arts like dancing, music, and writing.  Like the other books, it ended with a summary of significant people of the time, as well as a glossary of relevant terms, which was present in all of the other books, as well.

Overall, I’m very impressed with these books!  They do a wonderful job of communicating a good bit of historical culture and information while relaying it all on a child’s level.  The enticing nature of the large and colorful illustrations really helps keep a child’s interest while learning all the while.  They do a good job of helping the reader to visualize the experience about which they are reading.  We enjoyed them very much!

I would hope to collect all of the books in this series to supplement our studies going forward.  They certainly cover a lot of useful historic information in a concise and easy-to-understand manner that’s just right for kids.  I hope you’ll give them a try, too!

Find out what other Crew members have to say about these and other books in the series by clicking the banner below.

Freebie This Week!

Just in time for the start of fall, you can snag lots of FREE coffee this week!  All you need is the 7-Eleven Rewards app on your smartphone.  Use the app to get one FREE cup of any coffee, any size, every day this week from October 3-9. 

Now that’s a great freebie!  And it’s just in time to enjoy some Pumpkin Spice Latte for fall.  The details are listed below.

Enjoy!

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Free Coffee Week

It’s the week you’ve “bean” waiting for! FREE COFFEE WEEK is October 3-9 at 7-Eleven. Get any size, any flavor coffee FREE when you scan your 7-Eleven app.

Limit one free coffee per member per day. At participating stores, while supplies last. Not valid on iced coffee. Plus tax where applicable.

Bold Flavors!

National Coffee Day Deals

This year, National Coffee Day falls on Thursday, September 29th.  On that day, you can get various special deals on coffee at a variety of locations.  Here are a couple that pertain to chains in my area.

Dunkin’ Donuts:  Get a medium signature hot coffee for just 66 cents!

Krispy Kreme:  Get a FREE small coffee and a FREE original glazed doughnut!  No purchase required.

I’m a tea drinker myself, but realizing I’m in the minority, I thought I’d pass along these coffee deals for the rest of you. 

Now how about a National Hot Tea Day?!? 

Enjoy!

Freebie Update and Reminder!

UPDATE:  After taking advantage of the B1G1F Slurpees at 7-Eleven stores a couple of times this week, my kids and I noticed that the sign on the door of the store had changed.  Instead of this promotion running only last week, they’ve extended it to THIS week, as well!  Yay!  The weather is still hot here, so that was good news for us.  Check your local 7-Eleven store to see if this deal applies everywhere.  I’m assuming it does, because the sign was a printed advertisement, not a handwritten notice from the store manager.

I did find out the hard way, though, that the B1G1F offer does NOT apply to refills in the refillable Slurpee cups, nor does it apply when you purchase a new refillable cup.  I ended up having to dump our Slurpees into paper cups to satisfy their rules, even though it held the same amount as a medium cup.  Whatever works!

REMINDER:  Tomorrow, Monday, September 19th, is officially Talk Like a Pirate Day!  That means free food at Long John Silver’s and Krispy Kreme doughnuts if you either talk like a pirate or dress like a pirate (you get MORE for dressing up).  See my previous post at the beginning of the month for the links and details.

      

BOGO Slurpees at 7-Eleven Stores This Week!!!

All the fun starts tomorrow!  From September 12th-18th, you can get Buy One Get One FREE Slurpees of any size at participating 7-Eleven stores!  So before the weather turns cooler for fall, stop by your local store and enjoy a cool, frosty summer treat one more time!

Enjoy your week, and don’t forget about all the other September freebies I posted about last week.

REVIEW: Exploring Creation with Astronomy, 2nd Edition by Apologia Educational Ministries

We’ve had so much fun with Apologia elementary sciences in the past that we were eagerly anticipating the chance to review the newly revised Exploring Creation with Astronomy, 2nd Edition by Apologia Educational Ministries.

 

WHAT IS IT?:

Exploring Creation with Astronomy, 2nd Edition is an elementary science program for grades K-6.  It includes 14 lessons that explain astronomy and discuss the sun, moon, and each of the planets, plus space rocks, the Kuiper Belt, dwarf planets, stars, galaxies, and space travel.

This new edition includes tons of beautiful, full-color photographs and illustrations to capture your students’ interest.

The set I received includes:

• Student Text – $29.25 (sample)
• Notebooking Journal – $20.25 (sample)
• Junior Notebooking Journal –$20.25 (sample)
• Audio CD – $21.25 (sample)

In addition, Apologia just released a supplemental Science Kit that includes 21 additional experiments, instructions, and most of the supplies needed to complete all 63 of the activities in the program.  I didn’t receive that (wish I had!) since it just became available in the last few days, but I can certainly see how it would make the activities even easier to complete.

 

OUR EXPERIENCE:

My 8-year old son, Holden, was really looking forward to trying out the Astronomy program.  He loves anything science-related, so even if it means extra word in addition to our regular school work, he doesn’t mind at all. 

In the past when I’ve tried other books in the Exploring Creation series, I found the reading to be pretty heavy, so I was thrilled to also receive the audio CD, which includes the full-text read aloud.  But to my surprise, this revised edition seems to have just the right amount of text to keep Holden’s interest, so that’s an obvious improvement to me.  I was still happy to use the CD to give myself a break from reading aloud, and it also adds a bit of dramatization to the reading that he enjoys.

We also received both the regular and junior versions of the notebooking journals.  The major differences between the two are that the junior journal has handwriting lines for the copywork and starting letters for the crossword answers, and where the regular journal has open-ended questions to answer, the junior journal instead has coloring pages.  So the junior version has some extra helps and less writing, but both journals include both print and cursive versions for all of the copywork.  Holden is just starting 3rd grade and doesn’t have great fine motor control yet, so we used the junior journal.  I took dictation for most of the writing (except for copywork), and I did the cutting and pasting for the mini-books and other notebooking elements.  We just discussed the content orally, and we went over the finished elements together.  If his older sister had been interested in astronomy, I would have had her use the regular journal so she could have done the review questions for each lesson as a written assignment.  Holden and I just did those orally, since they are also included in the textbook.  But having both journals makes it a cinch to combine two children in different grade levels into one program.

In the front of the journals, there is a convenient suggested schedule that breaks down the 14 lessons into 71 daily assignments, which you can complete at the pace that suits your schedule.  If you did just two daily assignments per week, the content would last you a full school year.  We didn’t follow any particular pace…we just picked it up when it fit into our schedule and very much enjoyed taking a leisurely pace. Our goal was to complete the first two lessons (11 daily assignments) during the review period, so that’s what we did.

The daily assignments in the journals include the reading/listening assignments, the activities included in the textbook and journal, as well as the activities that are part of the separate Science Kit which you can purchase as an additional option.  If you don’t choose to purchase the optional kit, these assignments are clearly marked on the schedule and can easily be skipped.

Lesson 1 was about what astronomy is, so we spent about two weeks working through those daily assignments.  In this lesson, we learned about the night sky, the stars and planets, and all about clocks, calendars, and seasons.  For the activities, Holden got to make a “Creation Confirmation Bookmark” which was actually a narrow booklet where we could record things we learned throughout our studies.  We used it to mark our place in the textbook, as well. 

He also created his own mnemonic to help him remember the order of the planets in our solar system.  He loves to be silly, so that was fun!  He had to create a serious sentence first, but he couldn’t be serious long enough to come up with one, so I came up with “My virtuous elder makes jelly sandwiches upstairs now.”  Then he got to come up with a silly one, which was “My very easy machine jumps some ugly newspapers.”  Being silly is right up his alley, and he giggled plenty coming up with that one! 

Then he worked on his copywork.  Holden has trouble writing small enough to fit his words on handwriting lines, but he managed to pull it off!  I could see that he was trying really hard to do a good job.  All of the pages in the journal have full-color borders, backgrounds, and images on them, so I feel like that helped to keep him engaged a bit more.

Next, we got to make a matchbook about astronomy where we recorded definitions for the vocabulary words in this lesson:  constellations, Galileo, Stonehenge, NASA, Hubble, Nicholas Conpernicus, natural satellite, and artificial satellite.

Last, we did an astronomy crossword puzzle using words in a word bank, and the first letter of each answer was already filled in on the puzzle to help him get started, but he did really well with that, even without the hints.  I could tell that he had learned a lot from listening to the text on the audio CD.  The big activity for this lesson was to build a model solar system out of varying sizes of balloons.  I didn’t have the materials on hand for this activity, but we talked about how you’d use the instructions to make each balloon proportionate in size to simulate the differences in size between the planets in our solar system.  This is where having the Science Kit would come in handy, because it would have the right balloons already in the kit!

The journal also had pages to scrapbook any other activities he might have done, which is great for families that like to add additional experiences to their learning like field trips and such.  He also got to color two coloring pages of related scripture verses from Matthew 2:9 and Psalms 33:6.  I thought that was a nice touch, and Holden surprisingly enjoyed the opportunity to color those pages.

Lesson 2 was all about the sun.  Holden did a number of simple activities in this lesson, including understanding distance and size by holding up his finger in front of him and comparing the appearance of its size to a house outside the window that was off in the distance.  He was surprised at how that appeared, so it helped him understand perspective and why the sun looks so small in the sky when it’s infinitely larger than our whole planet.  He also got to concentrate the heat from the sun’s rays with a magnifying glass and see how doing so melts butter even faster than it just being out in the sun.  Then he got to give a speech about why people shouldn’t look directly at the sun.  I figured this was a golden opportunity for a cute video, so I recorded it for your entertainment…I mean enjoyment!

Then we made a sun wheel mini-book that revealed our definitions for terms related to the sun.  I really like the many interactive and creative ways the journal gets kids to define the vocabulary words from each lesson.  It sure beats the way I did them in school!

Then we enlisted his sister’s help so the three of us could represent the sun, moon, and Earth.  We demonstrated the concepts of revolving and rotating and moved around the room in the way that the Earth rotates and revolves around the sun at the same time that the moon revolves around the Earth.  You can imagine how chaotic that became, and it all ended with lots of laughing and dizziness!

Holden did more copywork from Psalm 113:3, we made a pop-up rainbow mini-book to show how we see colors, and we made a mini-book about a solar eclipse, as well.  I have to say that the interactive elements in the journal were all really cool!  Each one is so unique and takes away the boring aspect of simply recording what you’ve learned.

Next, we learned all about solar flares, auroras, and sunspots and did some more scripture copywork from Psalm19:1.  Then we got to learn all about the colors in light that comes from the sun.  There were a couple of optional activities listed for the separate Science Kit, so we just skipped over those.  Then we made a rainbow mini-book.  Inside the flip-up mini-book, we recorded what we’d learned about seeing colors.

Then we listened to the audio CD to learn about solar eclipses and how they occur.  We made a mini-book and recorded what we learned about the 3 kinds of solar eclipses, and then to demonstrate how it works, we did an activity to make a solar eclipse ourselves.  We used a flashlight shining on a globe and then put a ball in between them so show the umbra and penumbra on the “earth” and discuss what regions could see the eclipse or partial eclipse.  That was pretty cool!

Next, we did a cool vocabulary activity in the journal where I spread out the terms, and he read the definition and selected the right word.  Then I glued it down as a flap that would reveal the definition underneath.  We made a whole page of these to reinforce the new terms from the chapter.  Again, the full-color illustrations in the journal made this visually interesting!

The next activity was to make a pinhole eclipse viewing box.  I didn’t have a shoebox on hand for this, so we’ll save this activity for the next time we have one.  But we went ahead and read through it to see how it works.  Then we learned about the SOHO Spacecraft that is used to study the sun, how the sun got its name, and then we discussed the review questions for the chapter.  I was surprised at all that Holden remembered!  Then he did his coloring pages for the end of the chapter.

In just these 2 of the 14 lessons in this set, Holden and I learned so many interesting facts about the solar system!  We enjoyed listening to the CD and then working on the journal and activities together.  I really like the way the suggested schedule breaks down all of the work into bite-sized chunks…it makes lesson planning so much easier, because we can literally open it and go!  And Holden is a boy who really likes to understand how things work, so the explanations and demonstrations in this program really helped to satisfy his desire to understand the “whys” behind the facts.

If you’re looking for a truly complete science program and a student who is curious about astronomy, then this is for you!  The materials are so visually attractive, and there are plenty of hands-on activities to keep all kinds of learners engaged and applying what they’ve learned.  We really had fun exploring this program together!

Check out what other Crew members had to say about this product by clicking the banner below.

September Freebies

If you don’t yet have the new Chick-Fil-A on your iOS or Android device, download it now!  When you open it and sign in, you’ll have a reward waiting for one FREE breakfast item during the month of September!  You’ll have a choice between the new Egg White Grill, the 3-pc. Chicken Minis, or a CFA chicken biscuit.  Yum!

On Tuesday, September 6th, be sure to stop by your local Dairy Queen between 2-5 PM to enjoy your FREE Ultimate Oreo Frappe to celebrate the end of summer!

 

And don’t forget the annual Talk Like a Pirate Day on Monday, September 19th!  Here are two great freebies:

• Stop by Long John Silver’s.  Talk like a pirate and get a FREE piece of Alaskan Whitefish or a piece of chicken.  Dress like a pirate and get a FREE 2-pc. fish or chicken basket!
  

  

• Stop by Krispy Kreme.  Talk like a pirate and get a FREE glazed doughnut.  Dress like a pirate and get a FREE dozen glazed doughnuts!

 

Enjoy your FREEBIES in September!