The Book of Ancient Romans Set {A review}

Memoria Press is a company who’s products we have used many times in our homeschooling journey.

We were very blessed to receive The Book of Ancient Romans Set for review.

About The Company:

Memoria Press is a family run publishing company that was founded in 1994 to help promote and transmit the classical heritage of the Christian West.  When Cheryl Lowe- “One of the Most Admired Women” of 2014 founded the company she wanted an emphasis on liberal arts and the great works of the Western tradition. 

About The Product:

The Book of the Ancient Romans Set is geared toward grades 6-9. As you will see, I used it with my 10th grader.  This set

The set includes:

• The Book of the Ancient Romans, this book was originally written is the 1920’s by Dorothy Mills and has been brought back into publication with added illustrations through Memoria Press.   The book itself is over 400 pages, but broken down into chapters.  According to the table of contents you only do one chapter per lesson. 
• The Student Book, this book is full of things like the facts to know section, the vocabulary section (your student actually has to fill in the definitions here), comprehension questions (your student actually fills in the answers here).  There is an activity section, the activities are things like map work, timeline work, diagraming, researching, writing and more.
• The Teacher Guide, this book mimics the student book with answers and answer guidelines written in.

Sample pages of all of these books can be found here.

A day/week in our life:

When I got these I planned on using them with my 10th grade son.  I laid out an easy lesson plan with him, breaking the entire 5 units with 26 lessons, 5 reviews and 5 unit tests over 26 weeks. We have had it for about 6 weeks before writing this review and my son is already on lesson 12.  He has been almost doubling what I had assigned. Not because it is too easy either.  It’s because he is actually enjoying learning.  He is not a huge history lover and it’s because he doesn’t enjoy getting creative and doing projects.  He has loved the style of this history.  Read the assigned pages, do the assigned work in the student book and be done.

Our thoughts and feelings:

I personally haven’t ever been disappointed with anything Memoria Press that we have used, and this was no exception.  I was actually surprised at how much my son jumped ahead on this one.  He said he likes it because it gets straight to the point and there is no fluff.The fact that he likes this history so much taught me a lot about his learning style.  As much as I cringe at workbook style learning, that is what my son likes.  I know he is learning also.  He brings up conversations about things he has been reading and learning about without me even asking him.

To see what others think of this check out this post. To see a wide variety of reviews check out our crew blog.

 

YAY ME!

YAY ME! 

I took and passed my real estate agent exam this past week.  I will begin my actual work shortly. 


I am very excited to share my life that is about to get even crazier with you all.

I have often worked part time while still homeschooling.
Some of the jobs I have done are waitressing, cleaning houses, cleaning office buildings, grocery store cashiering, front end supervisor at a grocery store and going to school.  Now I didn’t do all of these things at the same time, just over the course of our homeschool life.  I am very excited to begin this new stage of our life. 

I hope you all have personal goals you are working on daily.  It takes a lot to be a homeschool parent and you need to do something for you at least occasionally!

Jazz Edge {my review of an online piano teacher}

Jazz Edge is a company that was founded by Willie Mynette, a Berklee College of Music Graduate.  They host a myriad of websites. One of those websites is PianoWithWillie. 





I was given access to the Studio Membership.

Studio Memberships Include:

• Unlimited access to over 3,000 lesson chapters
• Instant access anytime, any device, anywhere!
• Personalized Piano Plans™
• Access to our active user community
• All styles from jazz, blues, latin, gospel, funk & rock
• Live chat with our support team
• Downloadable MP3 & MIDI tracks with sheet music
• 30-day, Piano Success Guarantee™
• 
  

Piano With Willie allows you to teach yourself piano using online piano lessons.
At first glace after logging in, Piano With Willie Studio Access can seem very overwhelming.  There really is a lot to it. 

He emails you a step by step introduction plan. 

Step 1 has you watch a video on how to use the website and sends you some piano start resources.

Step 2 has you download and begin the 30 day success playbook.  This is 30 lessons of piano success, starting with the basics, like rhythm, technique and reading.  Then moving along to songs and improvisation, and more.  Each video lesson is from 5-12 minutes long.  Then you spend time practicing.

Step 3 has you moving on to more advanced piano foundations.

Step 4 gives you an even more in depth look at the website navigation.





Emily began with the 30 day success playbook and did not enjoy it, she felt it was way to easy so the beauty of this program is that after using it for a very short time she decided to move on.



She was able to click on the lessons tab at the top and look through the over 3000 lesson chapters available to her.  The sort function here is amazing and came in very useful! Using the lessons tab to choose what songs she wanted to learn and what techniques she wanted to work on was her favorite.  She needed that freedom. 



They also have a 22 point assessment that you can take to have a lesson plan created for you to tell you exactly what to work on next.  This is my favorite part, considering I can be indecisive. 

You will need an actual piano or a keyboard with at least 61 keys on it to use this appropriately.




Here is a picture of one of the videos.  You see Willie teaching, you see his hands actually playing and you see the keys he is playing light up.



Our thoughts and feelings:
Piano With Willie is NOT for the beginner pianist. They do have a beginner program that some of the other crew members reviewed.  Emily has taken piano lessons for a few years now, and then we had our big move.  I hadn’t had the chance to find her a new piano teacher yet, so we were both excited when this came up for review.  She was able to jump in and learn songs she wanted as well as some technique work that will help her with all of her piano playing.   This studio access is great for going at your own pace and being able to pick and choose what you want to learn.  What it lacks is accountability.  I had to be the one to hold her accountable for her lessons.  (You can add this accountability through Piano With Willie’s Premier Access.)  She was used to going to a piano teacher once a week and practicing all week long then going back and showing how she had improved.  With Piano With Willie he would teach her and then she would practice for that day and then move on the next day. This got her advancing quite quickly through piano.   Something that we found really wonderful about Piano With Willie is the ability to have the freedom to study piano when you want and what you want to work on.  You truly have the freedom to choose. 


Something else that we found really great about it is that I didn’t have to drive her anywhere.  She was able to “take piano lessons” late at night.  Being the night owl teenager that she is.




Piano With Willie can be found on social media at these locations:




Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PianoWithWillie
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PianoWithWillie
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/jazzedge
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/JazzEDge
Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/jazzedge



To see what others think of this check out this post. To see a wide variety of reviews check out our crew blog.

 

Running around!

For Christmas my mom bought me a FitBit.  This has been an amazing gift.  Many of my friends have them.  We have competitions all the time.   It's based on how many steps you take daily.  My most to date is just over 30K.  This has encouraged me to begin running.  More steps faster!  Yea-ah! Since Christmas I have ran a 5K with my friends, a 10K on my own and I am now training for a 1/2 marathon.  My very first!  This Fit Bit has given me a new outlook on running.  I can seriously say that even though I am brand new, I feel that running has changed my life.  It has shown me that I can do incredibly hard things.  I think a lot while I am running.  Running has since become my sanity saver.  I never thought I would say this, but I just love running now! 

Who am I?  

The new me, that's who! 

Take charge of your own life. OWN IT!

Some very exciting things are beginning to happen around here.  Trust me, it's been stressful to say the least, but here we go.  

Are you making great things happen in your life? 

I fully believe in creating the best life we can with what God has given us.  Don't leave things up to chance.  Take charge.  Show life that you are more.  

You've got this!  OWN IT! 

S is for Smiling Sunrise {a review}

WordsBright is a small independent publisher dedicated to learning. Their focus is on children’s books that are both fun and educational.

Their very first publications is S is for Smiling Sunrise.  A very cute children’s ABC book written by Vick Wadhwa for his daughter and he has decided to share it with the world.

Let’s start with the care that has gone into this book.  First, the book was definitely created with children in mind.

The book is made with high quality, CPSIA-compliant materials. It is also carefully designed to support children’s vocabulary, language, and character development.

The book is a neat.  I really enjoyed reading this book to my children as well as they loved having it read to them, or even reading it themselves.

As you travel through the alphabet with things like E is for Evening, or K is for Kaleidoscope, S is for Smiling Sunrise and U is for Universe.  You can see that this book was uniquely written and the explanations under the quality illustrations are just as neat. 

There are both the uppercase letter and the lower case on the page. Then the word.  Below the word is the picture and the saying.  Let’s use U.

U is for Universe

Sun and moon and stars

Earth and planets, spinning comets

Galaxies so far!

There is a really simply done teachers tips guide that is offered for FREE.  There is one for Pre-K and one for K-3. You can download those from the sight.  The teachers guide gives each letter/ page of the book some suggestions for you to do with your child.  There are concepts discussed, questions to ask, vocabulary and activities to do.

For example, U is for Universe; for the concepts you read about what the universe is. For the questions you discuss what the universe is, it’s size, who lives there and where you live in the universe.  For the vocabulary there are words like universe, sun, moon, stars, and more. For the activities you could visit a science museum, or look through a telescope.

Oh and did I mention, that they offer you a FREE MP3 download of the book being read is sing song form.  SO FUN!

Our thoughts and opinions:

We enjoyed the book.  I love the quality.  You can feel it in the pages.  Not those easy to rip pages where your children tear the books “accidentally” and then BAM book shreds to pieces everywhere.  The illustrations were just right, not too simple, not too complicated. 

This book is so different, in a good way to any ABC book I have ever seen.

To see what others think of this check out this post. To see a wide variety of reviews check out our crew blog.

 

Reaching my goals

 

 

I realize that I set big lofty goals and I am good at achieving about half of them or even half of just one goal.  For instance the 30 days in a row blog post series.  I got started, I got all gung ho.  I even pre-blogged some of the topics.  Then life happened. Then I ended up moving during all of it.  The goal of blogging for 30 days straight fell by the wayside.

I have other bigger badder goals.  I am not going to let myself fail at.  I need to figure out a way not to half-ass them anymore.

I have tried things like goal journals, vision boards, and more.

One of my current goals is to run my first 1/2 marathon at the end of July.  I have been training off and on for a few months.  The longest I have run is about 6 and 1/2 miles non stop.   I haven’t been taking the training plan as serious as I should.  I get at least my one long run in a week, but I need to be doing the pace runs and easy runs also. 

Another goal I have is to deep clean my house once per week.  I’m not talking spring clean deep clean. I just mean a clean where everything is cleaned on the same day, bathrooms are done, bedrooms are cleaned and vacuumed, dishes are done, laundry is clean and put away, floors are mopped.  I have noticed if life happens and I don’t get to everything in the one day I have set aside, then for the following week, my house never feels clean. I just get further behind on laundry, and further behind on everything. I feel like I need that base day to gather, plan and prepare for the upcoming week.  I need to make this day more of a priority, while remaining flexible on what day it happens on, because, you know, life and all.

Right now, my biggest goal of all is to remain being a mother and homeschooler, all while being a real estate agent.  I will take my licensing exam the end of May and then begin working very shortly after.  I will not let myself fail at this goal, I have never set such a high goal for myself.  My husband is a huge support and believes in me, while other people in my family put me down for trying it.  They make me feel like I am not good enough.  These are also the same people that make me feel like they never believe in me and like I can’t do anything right.  The more self esteem and goal books I read the more I see that I need to get rid of toxic people in my life, but what if they are family…….