Tag Archives: books

Book lists and a Literature Based Curriculum

Thoughtful Thursday, ,

One of the emails I got this week had this link for How to Homeschool During the Summer. I realize it is over half gone already but I went and read it anyway. I liked what she shared and was very similar to how we did summers with my kids.

One of the things she shared was links for three book lists she uses to pick books, aside from their favorites or ones left from their Sonlight curriculum. I, of course, checked them out.

Christian Books Only

The first is from Not Consumed and is a list of only Christian books from beginning readers all the way through suggestions for high school students. You have to give your email address to get the list but it is a good list with links for each book, to purchase. It’s nice to have a list of nothing but Christian books.

Wholesome Books

The second is from The Good and the Beautiful. I had never heard of it before but it looks quite interesting. It is a literature curriculum. The author is a member of the Latter-Day Saints but the curriculum is non-denominational, from what I read. The book list is a compilation of books of high moral merit, literary value, educational value, and clean.

Once again, you have to give your email address to obtain the list (you can unsubscribe at any time). I really like this list because it has summaries as well as age recommendations. This is a great list and very valuable.

Previous Sonlight Books

The last one is a link to Paths to Learning which has compiled a list of books that were included in the Sonlight curriuculum at one time but removed over the years as others were added. I used to like to use the Sonlight curriuculum catalog for book suggestions, so I imagine that is the purpose behind this. Here is the link directly to the list, no subbing required. ;)

I hope these lists are helpful to you in your search for good books for you and your children to enjoy.

Until next time, God bless,

Michele ºÜº

~ Lifeofjoy.me

Early Learning Activities and Books (Online Digital Color Books)

Thoughtful Thursday, ,

I was cleaning out my email yesterday because I have WAY, WAY, WAY, too many emails, like approaching the limit too many. :p As you might imagine, they go back for quite a few years. :D

Part of the reason I’m a pack-rat, even with emails, is because I homeschooled for so long and never wanted to be without useful information. I also signed up for quite a few email lists. :D I know, that is a shocker. :D

Well, since I cannot seem to just do a blanket “delete all”, I’m going through them and keeping some that I can’t bear to part with. In so doing, I’ve come across some interesting old links.

Early Learning Activities

This first one has pdfs with activities with early literacy activities for 3-5 year olds. There are 36 of these activity cards, so that is one per school week. These are basically just fun activities but they help get your child ready for learning to read and such. This link has links to some simple line drawings to use for the activities in the pdfs. And this page has links to the pdfs for book suggestions for the activities.

I love the activity of drawing to music. It is such an interesting idea. I also love that Harold and the Purple Crayon is one of the suggested books.

Another website I found had a lot of preschool games but unfortunately most of them don’t work anymore. However I did find some really interesting worksheets on their printables page. It is a color by letter, where letters are assigned colors and any section with that letter is colored that color. Here’s an example:

It has a print button on the page. I think it is adorable! There are other kinds of worksheets available to print as well and then there are some kinds, like crosswords, that sadly no longer work.

Old Books Online

The other interesting find I want to share with you today is this children’s books online site. It’s really interesting. I haven’t been able to go through it very thoroughly yet. I did see that it had Alice in Wonderland and A Christmas Carol.

However I also saw this cute little book, Axel the Freeway Cat, so I know they have some picture books too. And this Baby’s Own Aesop is adorable! It rhymes! Did I mention they are in full color too? Lovely!

There is Father Goose by L. Frank Baum. Yep, that Baum, the author of the Oz books. Of course I only knew that from the television show Sarah Connor Chronicles. :D There are a number of children’s books here. You just have to be careful because they are not all in English. So if you are interested in books in other languages, there are some at this website. They say most of their books are in English but there are a variety of others as well.

I’ve spent way too much time enjoying this site. :) I even found Heidi! Tiff is going to love that.  I hope you enjoy these links. Let me know what your favorite is and if you found any cool books on the International Children’s Digital Library. By the way, the Simple Search has the easiest interface and appeal. ;)

Until next time, God bless,

Michele ºÜº

Living Books for Different Subjects

Thoughtful Thursday,

I pinned this link to a cool webpage where she shares some great living books for several different subjects. I won’t write a lot today so that you can hop over there and check it out.

Here is the link to World Geography with Picture Books. Now, don’t just limit this to using with the youngest children; I still like a good picture book. I see quite a few on this list that I’m familiar with and enjoy.

On this page of the same website, there are lots of links to books by subject including math, science, and even Bible and character study. I remember now that I found this site from a link my sister used for USA Geography books, so be sure to check that out too.

I hope this is a blessing to your home and that you find many books to enjoy.

Until next time, God bless,

Michele ºÜº

Books, Deals, and Spring

Finally Friday, ,

At the library last week I was in the science fiction section and saw that there is a sequel to Saucer, one of the books that I read last week. I read the summary and decided I was not interested, at least this time around. ;)

We did get the next 4 or 5 sequels to The Invisible Library. I’m looking forward to reading them. But I waited until I finished The Codex; I checked it back in and then rechecked it out of the library because I was interested in how it was going to end.

Book: The Codex

I’ve finished The Codex now and it has some s* words and maybe a few others and there is a two-paragraph scene that needed to be skipped. I liked how it ended and ended up really liking some parts that at first were mildly offensive but in retrospect really made me laugh and I ended up laughing over them with Tiffany. I do have to admit that there were several points where I wasn’t sure I wanted to finish it. I guess that means it had slow bits. The slow bits were important to build the story though. It had some fun twists and some good character development. Overall, a decent book (if you can overlook some cursing).

Shopping: WinCo Deals

This week WinCo had big pork butt roasts for 98¢ a pound. These are big packages! I told Tiffany to get a small one and it was 20 pounds! I asked if they could cut it for me. I wasn’t sure if it was two huge pieces or just one. The employee took it back to the butcher and they cut each roast into three pieces for me. They re-wrapped them and labelled it so that the cashier would know that it was two packages for one price.

They also had some nice thick pork loin chops (I think that is what they were labelled) at $1.78 a pound. I like a nice thick pork chop from time to time. Michael will have a chicken breast when we eat these.

Cheese was also marked down. Colby Jack was less than $3 a pound. Oh! the ten pound rolls of 73% ground beef were marked down too, under $16. It was about a dollar cheaper than any week yet. Sooo, of course, I had to get some. :) Sean and I are usually the ones to eat this, so we’re set for a while. I cut up the roll into 8 pieces, so each one was a little over a pound. I then bagged each one into a freezer bag and now our freezer is full.

Their chicken breast was up to $1.78 a pound this week. I’ll be watching for it to go back down and stock back up again. ;) I still have about 10 pounds or so in the freezer but that won’t last real long because Michael will eat chicken when we eat pork. The frozen ground turkey chubs are $1.38 a pound, so that is nice for Michael when we have a ground beef meal.

There are a few meals in which I prefer ground beef: meatloaf, hamburgers, and tacos. Tiffany usually eats the ground turkey with Michael and Sean eats the ground beef with me. :)

It looks like spring has sprung here. The Bradford Pear trees have bloomed and our daffodils have blossomed. The peach tree and the plum trees have blossomed as well. :)

(Thanks to Sean for sharing his pictures with me. :) )

Well, I’ve rambled enough for today and will run for now.

Until next time, I hope you have a great weekend,
Michele ºÜº

Advent Books

Thoughtful Thursday, ,

I post something about these books every year about this time, so that you have time to obtain them and be ready the Sunday after Thanksgiving. :) This year I’m just reposting it. ;)

It is already November 14th and Thanksgiving is coming soon. I love this time of year but it moves so quickly. Before we know it, it will be a brand new year. :)

One of the things I liked to do during the Advent season when the kids were younger was to read an advent book. The ones I’m showing you today are for the older ones. Of course the younger ones in your family may also enjoy them but there are some tense scenes that may be too much for the littlest members of your family.

I’m sharing this week because you may need to order a book or request it from the library (if your system has it).

Advent Books ~ Lifeofjoy.meI have to admit that it has been quite a number of years since we’ve read this, so I don’t remember much of the story line. I do remember that we enjoyed it. We enjoyed it so much that I bought the sequels.

Advent ~ Lifeofjoy.meAdvent ~ lifeofjoy.meThe book would be started on Sunday, December 3. But if you think you may have trouble reading it every night, I guess you could start early. ;)

Give Jotham’s Journey a try this year, if you haven’t read it before. Next week I’ll share some books that can be read with the younger ones next week.

Until next time, God bless,

Michele ºÜº

Library Trip, Books, and Preparing for the Weekend

Finally Friday, , , ,

Last Saturday’s video got loaded a later than I’d have liked but at least we got it up on Saturday. ;) Last Friday was a bit of a bummer around here. Several months ago we found that Tiffany had a parasite and she took some pills that were supposed to kill it. We thought it had but alas, it has made it clear that it is definitely alive and well in her gut. Consequently, she was feeling quite horrible and they guys were home and inside because we had rain most of the day. (Hallelujah for the rain because it made it much cooler, only in the 80’s which is much more tolerable for me. ;) )

Anyway, the video editing just totally slipped my mind and I didn’t get it edited until Saturday morning. We talked a little about the importance of reading, keeping your expectations low, and books by Dee Henderson.

On reading day this week, I’ll be honest, I didn’t get much reading done but I did finish Rematch by Erynn Mangum. It’s a nice, clean, new adult, contemporary romance. It is the second book in the Lauren Holbrook series that Tiffany LOVES and so I’m reading it. I enjoy having books we’ve both read. I like it when that happens with any family member. :) So I now have the third book in that series, MatchPoint, on my TBR (to be read) shelf.

But this week was library week. That week when we have renewed the books the allowable number of times and we have either finished reading them all or finished reading all of the ones we are actually going to read at this time. We allow ourselves to simply return books that we are just not up to reading right now. I add the ones that I think I may want to read still but just not right now, to a page in my bullet journal to reference later. Although I must admit that my reading style is more of the type that just wanders the stacks and read book cover summaries to find books that I will bring home. We’ve gotten quite a few good ones that way. :)

This library trip I checked out the ten maximum books. I hadn’t planned on that but I’m interested in the ones I picked up. :) (I got two 3-book series, so that takes up six of the ten books.) When we got home and had some lunch, we decided we’d film our video that will be posted tomorrow on Joyous Jabbers.

Library books start on the left.

I didn’t feel much like doing any tangling this week. We are preparing for Brian, Lauren, and Liam to come this weekend!!! :) We’ll be celebrating both boys birthdays. I’m told Liam now loves chocolate chip cookies, so I made regular chocolate chip cookies for him. I made a full batch and froze them, eight to a freezer baggie. These are NOT THM compliant at all, however Tiffany found a recipe that she is going to whip up for us that is THM compliant. :)

For my grandson

This morning I’ll be baking the crust of that Strawberry Pretzel Salad for the base of the Strawberry No-Bake Cheesecake (which I will make sugar-free) for dessert tomorrow night (Brian’s choice dessert), as well as whipping up the rest of that dessert. ;)

I’ve got lots to do today, including cleaning up the spare room that we call the library, because we put bookshelves on nearly every wall in there after Brian moved out. We recently got rid of the dilapidated sofa-bed and Brian and Lauren left their inflatable mattress here last time, so we’ll get it all ready for them. But all that needs to be done today, as well as making some THM brownies for those of us not eating sugar and such to have at Sunday’s birthday gathering at my parents’ home. It’s nice that we get together as a big family to celebrate birthdays still. We don’t get together as often as we used to but I’m seeing my parents more now that they’ve moved. :)

Well, that’s all for today. I just feel like I’ve rambled but that’s how my week has gone. I started reading one of the library books I got this week and am eager to pick it back up. Tiffany finished it in ONE day! I have not had the time to allot to reading yet but stayed up a bit too late the other night reading because it was just soooo good. :) (Curious? It is Taken by Dee Henderson and really best read after Full Disclosure and Unspoken.)

Hope you have a great weekend. I’m looking forward to mine. I just hope I remember to take some pictures to share with you all next week. ;)

Until next time,

Michele ºÜº

Reading and YA Distinction

Thoughtful Thursday,

Do you have a pre-teen or teen? Do you struggle with books for them to read? Do they think they must get books from the YA (young adult) section of the library? Do you know that YA is NOT a reading level?

I read books from all over the library. Yep, children’s department too; see these posts I did recently about some juvenile fiction I’ve read in the last month or so. I’ve got one more checked out that I want to read yet. But I digress. ;)

I’ve read some YA books and I have to say that I would be very careful about which books my kids read in that area. They are generally filled with angst and teens experimenting with all sorts of things. There are soooo many good books in the juvenile section that are worthwhile reading.

Here is a really good article and even a podcast (but I haven’t listened to that) about the YA designation and that category. It is not a short read but does have some book suggestions as you scroll to the bottom. I’m looking forward to reading some of these myself. :)

I hope this helps you steer your child through their reading adventures.

Michele ºÜº

Review of Mr. Churchill’s Secretary, Books, and Trees Update

book reviews, Finally Friday, , , ,

I started to share about my sourdough adventure but it turned into a post all its own and I’ll share that on Tuesday next week. Suffice it to say, I will definitely be making the honey oat sourdough bread again. :)

I read Mr. Churchill’s Secretary by Susan MacNeal this week. Hmmm, what to say about it . . . okay, I liked the idea of cryptography and mathematics and a historical fiction book; I haven’t read historical fiction in ages and so this seemed like it would be good.

I loved this bit about a ballet . . .

I’ve never been one to get ballet but this one sounds interesting to me; I might even see if there is some recording of it that I can watch online. ;)

I liked that this seemed to be a stand-alone book, as I’ve got way too many books in series that I’m reading. It felt good to have a one and done. And then I got near the end of the book and realized that it is the first book in a series. Boy! I’m glad I picked up the first one in the series, since it ended up being a series. It looks like there are currently about six books in the series. ;)

The story was okay. There were some things I didn’t prefer and it seemed a bit slow to me. However, I am tempted to continue on with the series. I did not pick it up on this trip to the library though and I returned the other books I had that I didn’t read. The fifth one in the series is the one that is really pulling at me, Mrs. Roosevelt’s Confidante.

This is about a girl born in London and raised in the United States that inherits her grandmother’s house in London. She goes to London, postponing beginning graduate school, to sell the house and ends up having to stay an extended period of time to make the repairs in order to sell the house but without sufficient funds, must get a job first. She gets some boarders and gets a job as Mr. Churchill’s secretary.

The story is about her learning who her parents were and stopping a plot of destruction. ;) I enjoyed the cryptic bits but they were minor in the story, so don’t let that stop you from reading it. However, if you don’t like to read any cursing or mentions of homosexuality (non-explicit) then this is not the book for you as there were several of both. This is not a book I need to own but it was an okay read.

Oh, I know why this series thing is bugging me now. Last month at the library I picked up a Robert Ludlum book (the first in a series), a Clive Cussler book (the first in a series), the third in the Puzzle Lady series, and the next one in the Hannah Swensen series. Ugh! Too many series!

On this trip to the library I returned all the books I had and got out three juvenile fiction books and two books by Dee Henderson. :) Here are two of the books I got:

These along with Caterpillar Summer are about siblings that get along, and appear to like each other. I saw them last month and knew I needed to check them out. I’ll let you know how they go. :p

Tiffany has a lot of Ted Dekker books and I’ve been wanting to read his Circle series. I also had started Rematch by Erynn Mangum and want to finish it. We have a lot of books on our shelves that I want to read. Oh, and then there is the Mistborn series by Brandon Sanderson that Tiffany owns and I want to read as well.

I got Unspoken by Dee Henderson. I think it follows Full Disclosure with new characters but I don’t know. I just know I enjoyed Full Disclosure and wanted to read another of her books. I love her O’Malley series and saw the library had Jennifer’s story. It is small; I guess you’d call it a novella. I know it will be a tear jerker so I’m not sure when I’ll read it. ;)

Tiffany and I checked on the fruit trees in the side yard this week. Turns out that the tree I thought was plums is my nectarine tree! I thought that baby died. I guess it was my other plum tree that didn’t make it.

The nectarines look yummy. The peaches on this tree, not so much. :D I haven’t looked at the peaches on the tree in the chicken yard but suspect they are nearly ready too. :)

I’m excited about the pears and also sad that there are only three. I’m just happy to have any. :D

All the apple trees are alive in some stage but I doubt they’ll produce apples this year either. We really need to fertilize them and mulch them and hope next year is better. ;)

Well, I’m going to run for now. Hope you have a great weekend. The guys have a men’s breakfast tomorrow. Tiffany and I are helping serve the pancakes and sausage. I’m taking some low carb/keto pancakes and have been asked to sing a song too. So it will be a busy morning but a good one.

Until next time, God bless,

Michele ºÜº

Weather, Packing, Birthday, and Books

Finally Friday

The weather has continued to top the news around here with severe thunderstorms, tornadoes, and flooding. They guys have had to take alternate routes into work on a couple of occasions because of the flooding.

We managed to get to my parents’ home for a couple of hours this week before the torrential downfalls we had mid-week. Mom was pleased with the progress we made even though I didn’t feel like it was much. Yeah, sorry; no pictures. Their walls are looking quite bare because Mom and I got most of the pictures and framed items off and packed away. Tiffany finished up some odds and ends in the living room and dining room and it was looking quite packed and ready to go by the time we left.

Sean hurt his big toe early this week and felt it was best not to go to work and stand on it all day. Thus he was available to go with us. He helped Dad with a repair and then getting up some fencing that he’d been wanting to get up. They finished their projects about the same time we were finished with ours. :)

For Tiffany’s birthday this week, I made the base cake for her birthday trifle, a couple of days in advance. Then made the pudding and the cream on her birthday, earlier in the day. By afternoon, all I had to do was put it all together. I think I’ll share that on Tuesday next week.

I finished reading Full Disclosure by Dee Henderson last weekend. I really enjoyed it! If you have read and enjoyed her O’Malley series, I think you will like it. It is the story of Ann Silver and Paul Falcon. Ann is, among other things, an author that writes her friends’ stories, upon their request. These friends just so happen to be the people we meet in the O’Malley series, so it feels like a homecoming of sorts. :) I had no idea this was the case when I picked it up! It was a pleasant surprise. I enjoyed it so thoroughly that I bought it this week. :) I love her and Paul’s story.

Dee Henderson crafted this story so well that I wondered if it had any bearing from reality. Was it possible that she was telling her own story, like she claimed to tell her friends’ stories in previous books?

Sadly, it doesn’t appear to be the case, as Dee Henderson appears to still be single and this book was published in 2012. However, it was still a very good read for me. Like I said, it had that coziness of catching up with friends with a murder mystery, including 30 unsolved cases, and the falling in love story of two Christians, who have waited for the marital fit.

There was so much about this book I loved that I could not pick up another book all week. Seriously! I didn’t want to mess up the book euphoria I was experiencing. ;) Since this was a romance, I didn’t want to read a romance. Since this was also a murder mystery, I didn’t want to read one of those. It felt like an action/adventure to me, even though it probably wasn’t . . . I guess I was just totally immersed in the book. At any rate, I didn’t want to start an action/adventure right away either. I wasn’t in the mood for a historical fiction, so that left me with Peter Pan, which I was not in the mood for either. So, I didn’t read anything and played some of my computer games instead. ;) But the week is over and I’m ready to start a new book.

Of course, it is painting weekend, prepping for my parents’ move next weekend. So I’m going to be a bit busy but I may sneak in a few chapters of a new book this weekend.

Speaking of books, I got a deal on the Stormlight Archive Series by Brandon Sanderson. They are on sale right now on Amazon. Lots of books are on sale right now. So if you are wanting some books for the summer, you should go check it out. I basically got each one of the Stormlight Archive books half priced!!! Whoo hooo!!! This is awesome because I was wanting these books for my birthday earlier this month and got money to spend on them and then Tiffany found this sale the other day! Yay!!!

Well, we’ve got a full day and actually, a full weekend ahead. I hope you enjoy yours.

Until next time, God bless,

Michele ºÜº

Easter’s Almost Here and Endings

Finally Friday

Easter ~ Lifeofjoy.meAmazing how quickly the weeks seem to pass. It’ll be Easter in just a couple of days. I’m planning to make the ham I got on clearance a couple of months ago. It was only 95¢ or maybe it was $1.19 a pound but then had a $5 off sticker on it. YEAH BABY! Grabbed that right up and promptly froze it. I’ll be thawing it today and tomorrow and will cook it Sunday evening for our Easter dinner.

Growing up we never had a home-cooked Easter meal except for once, that I can remember and it was a doozy that guaranteed that we’d never do it again. :D I was already grown, married, and had kids. Mom decided to try the big turkey dinner, yes turkey, for Easter that year. We got home from church and the bird was not any where near done! It was crazy. Oh! and we get HANGRY! Yeah, it was not pretty. :D

I couldn’t find a turkey ham for Michael though, so we got the turkey pastrami. I’ve been told that one other store might have had some but I wasn’t willing to add a fifth store on to my grocery day, even if it is only a few blocks away. I didn’t want to take a chance that they wouldn’t have it or the turkey pastrami and then I’d have to go back to Walmart again. The way it was, I didn’t buy my xylitol at Sprouts because it is cheaper at Walmart when they have it. I’d seen it last week but had already gotten it at Sprouts, paying more, so this week I thought I’d chance it. NOPE!!! :p Nary a one at Walmart. Now if it were just me and Micheal, we’d just make do but since Sean and Tiff prefer it in their morning coffee/tea and it is Easter weekend, I was nice and went back to Sprouts and got it. Fortunately it is only a couple blocks from Walmart. ;)

So I am planning to have ham, Dreamfields spaghetti noodles-broken into pieces about 2″ long, and fried green beans. I may make some low carb bread to go with it but we love each of these items that with all the homemade candy we will have, we won’t need anything else with it. I’m also planning to make a low carb boston cream poke cake.

I finished Delicious! this week. In full disclosure, there was a scene that was PG rated, in the third quarter of the book and was short. It occurred on the date where the main character goes to Mitch’s home. It is also noted that a character or two is homosexual. Now other than that, this book was really good. As I mentioned last week, I loved the descriptions in this book, which is something I seldom ever say. :)

I also enjoyed the mystery with the letters, hidden place, and history. It was a fun read. However, once again it felt like the ending was rushed. I have this same problem with movies, especially Chick Flicks; I like to see the couple together at the end. You know how in You’ve Got Mail you see Kathleen and Joe together in the park? They are there long enough for me but in Kate and Leopald, they cut away from them dancing just a little too quickly. Another example of this is in the remake of Sabrina, where at the end Sabrina and Linus are in front of the Eiffel Tower–they are there interacting together long enough to make it good but when my mom recorded the movie from tv years ago, she cut it off as soon as the ending credits started rolling and it just wasn’t enough for me. When I got the dvd myself, I was very pleased to see the interaction through the credits. :)

In the Santa Clause 2, it isn’t good enough until I see Carol dancing as Mrs. Claus in the credits. Another one was in The Majestic, it ended and I wasn’t good with it until I saw the pictures on the mantle through the credits. I guess it just gives me some closure. I know I’m odd but are any of you like this?

At any rate, evidently I need my books wrapped up appropriately as well. In Delicious!, they came to the end of the “mystery” and then quickly told the reader what transpired afterwards rather than showed it. Not a fan of quick wrap ups. Don’t get me wrong, the author tied up the loose ends but just did so very quickly. The last 25 pages, once again, could have been at least double that. But, that and my disclaimer aside, I enjoyed the book.

I’m considering using Goodreads. What are your thoughts on it? Is it helpful or just time consuming?

Until next time, God bless,

Michele ºÜº