Confession.. I am not a fan of Junie B. books but..

Here is my confession. I am not a big fan of Junie B.Jones.

With my first daughter I was lucky to escape this series almost completely. Back then she was in public school and I was totally confused when she brought one of these books home for the first time. Junie B.Jones did not turn into my favorite character at all . I was almost shocked the way the books are written…. no, I could not love these books. Luckily, she went on very quickly and when we started homeschooling her options of books got larger than ever and she started reading much bigger and advanced books.

Now my almost 7 year old has been an avid reader for a few years as well. She has burnt through almost all the Geronimo books, Magic tree houses and more. The other day at the library, which is currently still under construction and does not have many books out, she found Junie B. Jones… !

” Please mommy, can I check these out ? They look fun ” . My 9 year old daughter and I exchanged a horrid look.

I hate to censor my kids reading in almost any way. Of course I check for appropriate age etc, but as long as they are somewhat close, we are normally okay. The general rules, you know….   But Junie b ? Really ? Why ??

I had  told her honestly before that I do not like the books mainly because Junie B is a little terror in most books and that I did not approve of the writing style. Funny enough, on the first few pages my daughter actually spotted mistakes in words and grammar. She even read over some mistakes and corrected them incidentally. I pointed that out to her and she giggles : “Maybe this is a test for Kindergartners and 1st graders ?”

Oh how I wish 😉

She has burnt through a book a day, and she laughs and giggles so much when she reads them and comes and tells me the exciting adventures.

Junie B. will never be my favorite character, lol, but I guess there are worse things 😉

 

 

 

SPRING FLING SALE !! MBTP

It’s time again for the MOVING BEYOND THE PAGE SPRING FLING SALE !!!! Check out what they just posted on their website !!  ( The link underneath is an affiliated link, by using and purchasing  I will get a small percentage of the sale, it will not cost you any less or more as what the offer already offers. Thank you ! )

“Each year we like to say thank you to families using Moving Beyond the Page by offering a special sale. This is the best deal that we offer all year long. The sale will end at 11:59 PM CT on April 8th, so don’t delay.”

Use the coupon code DAISY to receive an additional 10% discount on all orders with a full-year package plus get free shipping on every order. I know I will put in my order tonight, 10-12 and 7-9 here we come !!!

spring fling sale !!!

Giveaway time at Secular home school * WIN MBTP*

Good morning everyone, just dropping by to tell you about this awesome give away SECULAR HOME SCHOOL  is offering ! Win one whole years worth of MOVING BEYOND THE PAGE CURRICULUM !!!!

That’s right they are giving a full year curriculum level ! How awesome is that ?! I sure entered multiple times, but I would love it just as much , if one of my blog followers would win it 😀

Go enter now !! Good luck !! 

 

 

The Cay and Living Seas 9-11 MBTP

These two units (9-11) have been challenging and fun at the same time ( mainly challegning for me because of all the extra time with experiments rofl ). Since I had read a few reviews about the Cay ahead of time, I had decided  to read the novel before my daughter would start it. I had never read it before until now, but thought this story was really great and I’m excited to read it together and share it now with my daughter. I think even though it qualifies as a classic already, it is a book that even in today’s time  would be so valuable to read.

Here is a great little slideshow with some great general info about the book and story line

The story takes place during the beginning of World War II. This lesson only gives a brief introduction into world war II since it will be covered in great detail in level 10-11. There will be a few activities about this and we struggled finding some good material to get a brief introduction, and I wished MBTP would have added a short book to this Unit. Even though my daughter is somewhat familiar with the outlines of the war, a nice overview would have been made things a little easier. This is a subject that has such depth it is hard to just google something without spending days reading. Of course there is always idea share and many of our awesome ” Movingbeyondthepage groups” where many moms have some great links ready to send to you.

For example, this one . ( if it is stuck on the whole playlist, skip ahead to #15 thats about WWII)

Exploring Curacao and the carribean islands was a much more pleasant subject. This was incredible fun, we visited many websites and also got help from our friends ” Travelkids” as they visited the island. I swear they have been to some of the coolest places.

We also enjoyed studying the island art.

http://www.bernardhoyes.com/

 

In Lesson 2 we explored Curacao even deeper and I found a great website to learn more about import- export, detailed about Curacao ( and many other countries).

http://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/profile/country/cuw/

More pins related to 9-11 here https://www.pinterest.com/bookwormfamily/moving-beyond-the-page-9-11/

In the literature unit you will work and review some grammar, subject/ verb agreements, comma usage, prepositions and learn to work with different transitions for sentences. I’m glad these came up in this unit, since we have been struggling a little with some of these (transitions for sentence beginning especially).  I always like the mix MBTP offers, a little Grammar here, some science there, it never feels so overwhelming or boring.

We also spent a lot of time studying sharks ! And coral reefs… We still have a great list of movies to watch that are currently on Amazon Prime !

 

The book provided through MBTP about coral reefs is also a pretty good pick and gives a deep understanding about the ocean world. She had no trouble explaining me everything afterwards, lol.

We finished today with a super fun experiment from the Ocean’s life Science book ( which I have just seen has been replaced to a different one recently 😦 . I hope the experiment is in there as well, it was so simple and worked so well !!

( the experiment is #18 on the playlist , sorry sometimes the links give me trouble and it just adds the whole playlist 😉 )

 

 

Here are a few more examples from this Unit. Please don’t mind the few spelling mistakes on her paper 😉 We try not to nitpick around her too much 😉

Hope you enjoyed out glimpse into the Cay and ocean life 🙂

 

 

Mother Tongue Book Review

Mother Tongue: My Family’s Globe-Trotting Quest to Dream in Mandarin, Laugh in Arabic, and Sing in Spanish

One woman’s quest to learn Mandarin in Beijing, Arabic in Beirut, and Spanish in Mexico, with her young family along for the ride.
 
Imagine negotiating for a replacement carburetor in rural Mexico with words you’re secretly pulling from a pocket dictionary. Imagine your two-year-old asking for more niunai at dinner—a Mandarin word for milk that even you don’t know yet. Imagine finding out that you’re unexpectedly pregnant while living in war-torn Beirut. With vivid and evocative language, Christine Gilbert takes us along with her into foreign lands, showing us what it’s like to make a life in an unfamiliar world—and in an unfamiliar tongue.

Gilbert was a young mother when she boldly uprooted her family to move around the world, studying Mandarin in China, Arabic in Lebanon, and Spanish in Mexico, with her toddler son and all-American husband along for the ride. Their story takes us from Beijing to Beirut, from Cyprus to Chiang Mai—and also explores recent breakthroughs in bilingual brain mapping and the controversial debates happening in linguistics right now.

Gilbert’s adventures abroad prove just how much language influences culture (and vice versa), and lead her to results she never expected. Mother Tongueis a fascinating and uplifting story about taking big risks for bigger rewards and trying to find meaning and happiness through tireless pursuit—no matter what hurdles may arise. It’s a treat for language enthusiasts and armchair travelers alike.

 

Mother Tongue was a wonderful fit for me. As a bilingual parent that tries hard to teach her children (and her husband) a second language, this book was very interesting for me. I always wonder about the possibilities that life can really offer us, especially when we dare to do something a little different. Gilbert did exactly that. She had a crazy idea, a supporting husband and tried something different. She wanted to try to learn 3 major world languages in a a crazy small amount of time, by trying to live in different places of the world. Some of her ideas were really great, others seemed to possibly lack a bit more research and could have been so much easier for her and her family . But she did not go the easy way and I admired that in many parts of her story.

The book is written in a fun and engaging style that toggles between memoirs and a little research here and there. I was  hooked pretty much right from the start. It hit a good subject, and it was hard for me to put the book down. Even though I have read so many books about this subject before it was a pleasure reading about her adventures with her family and her ideas on how you could immerse yourself into new cultures really quick. I thought it was great to see her progress on her journey through countries and also to see the differences in learning different languages, each one has it’s own challenge for sure.

The book was a fun, quick read for me. It left me once again with more desire to travel, with more desire to bring our world and cultures together and especially to teach my kids more about our world we live in. A subject I can not “preach” enough these days.. it seems more important than ever…

 

* I recieved this book through a goodreads giveaway.

Bab’l Books Review : BILINGUAL BOOKS

I am always on the hunt for new, awesome kids books and I am very involved in all kinds of educational groups, forums and more because of homeschooling and my love for books itself. Recently in one of our bilingual groups, I came across an amazing new company called,  Bab’l books. Being bilingual and raising our children this way is something that has interested me since before their births, but I didn’t honestly know much about it back then. There was so much else to worry about at the beginning. Now almost 10 years later, I regret a few things, but luckily we are still succeeding in raising them bilingual. One of my problems back then was simply to find good material to use. I had a few options for german- english books from Europe ( Germany has tons more than the US) but it was still difficult and expensive to get them.

I want to thank  Bab’l books for introducing us to this amazing new series and give us a chance to review them. We have so many friends from all over the world that are growing up as bilinguals or even trilinguals. What better is there than growing up, learning multiple languages ? The advantages we can give our kids with this are almost too big to measure and since they will be reading colorful fun books, it will be just a normal part of their life instead of having to learn difficult vocabulary later on life. Nothing more boring than that.

 

But Bab’ls books is not just books. They have a wonderful website where you can actually participate and help bring books closer to kids worldwide, and you can be part of this by helping to translate some of them, in the form of crowdsourcing ( It’s multiple people doing the translation of one book. That is the key to having higher quality translations. On the Translate site, you can see all of our books page by page, sentence by sentence, and see the translations that people have submitted.) . We tried this out. and it has actually been so much fun clicking through the images of the books and translating a little here and there. You can choose if you just want to transalte a few pages, or a whole book. And you can earn points and then guess what… you will earn books !!

They already have 9 languages listed for most of the books and they are working hard to add even more languages.

The books are guided towards 3-7 year old, but even my 9 year old enjoyed the books we got to test out and read together. She has been asking for french books for a long time ,since this is the 3rd language she wants to learn and is already very fluent with German. Bab’l books looks for stories that have a lesson or message the author wants to share in a subtle manner. The story’s message needs to translate across cultures, like the importance of sharing, never giving up, or not bullying. Stories with universal appeal.

Think about it, more than 20 million school-aged children in the U.S. live in multilingual households, but few children’s books are available for smaller language groups. Multiple studies have proven the importance of bedtime stories and reading to your child over and over again. By having bilingual books we give children across the world a chance to connect ! By connecting languages, we connect cultures and with that we are on the best way to a better future for all of us !

 

Some are available even on amazon, so if you just can’t wait you can go ahead and find some awesome titles right there, some as e-readers or others as paperback edition. I am old school on this I guess, because I still adore the actual book. But if you are on the go and an active traveling family, these would be an amazing addition for the e-library !

Story of the world Vol. 2 Chapter 16 + 17

We are finally back in the swing of things and working with more of our curricula again. Some times it is good to take a little break just to discover how much you have even missed something. History was one of those things. We really love history and the girls have started begging me to start with Story of the world again. We had a very successful year with Volume 1 and Volume 2 we had started with, but with the move and everything it was just too much at times. We really love the activity book activity book that works along with SOTW and now that we are all back into it, it has been fun continuing our journey through history.
In Vol.2 you will discover the middle ages with your kids. Knights, Samurai’s, the crusades and so much more. There are endless extra sources and activities for most of these chapters and it has been hard just to pick a few here and there.

Here are just some fun things we have done recently.

One very fun activity, my younger one loved it especailly, was to build a stone castle out of rice krispies. This was one of those that might look better on pinterest lol. But we really had tons of fun building it, and it turnt out to be a delicious treat afterwards.

 

 

For this subject you won’t have trouble finding good books. There are so many to choose from. One that was suggested from SOTW was the three Samurai cats. Unfortunately it seems to be out of print, but you might be able to find it at the library also ( like me) or you might find it used. It really was a good fit for the samurai topic in chapter 17.

 

 

Another favorite book, and a favorite series I would really like to introduce (it really deserves it’s on post, that i will hopefully get together soon) is You wouldn’t want to be a crusader. This series is really amazing and so much fun to read. There are so many good ones to choose from ,some are even part of many curricula, including MBTP

We also enjoyed the story’s of saint george and some of these other books above. Really there are tons of materials and you could probably spent 2 years studying it with the kids easily, afterall most kids love knights and pricesses 😀 It also reminded us again of our wonderful time we had in Germany with our family. I am hoping things will somehow work out and we can visit again soon and explore more of Germany and more of history. Nothing beats learning by traveling ❤

Burg Cochem

Knight festival

 

 

A #1 New York Times Bestseller and Winner of the 2016 Caldecott Medal

SO many new book releases have been announced, I can not keep up lately lol. I am so excited about all these new releases and wish I could clone myself to write and tell you more and more about all these new books.

Just overall I have so many news, that I am beyond excited to share. But my homeschool mom duties are calling first this morning, so just a quick update here with an awesome new book to check out !

An #1 Bestseller and one of 2016 Coldecott winners

Before Winnie-the-Pooh, there was a real bear named Winnie. And she was a girl!

In 1914, Harry Colebourn, a veterinarian on his way to tend horses in World War I, followed his heart and rescued a baby bear. He named her Winnie, after his hometown of Winnipeg, and he took the bear to war.
Harry Colebourn’s real-life great-granddaughter tells the true story of a remarkable friendship and an even more remarkable journey–from the fields of Canada to a convoy across the ocean to an army base in England…

And finally to the London Zoo, where Winnie made another new friend: a real boy named Christopher Robin.

Here is the remarkable true story of the bear who inspired Winnie-the-Pooh.

I can not wait to share this book with my girls, both love Winnie-the-Pooh so much and I do too !

What book releases are you most excited about this spring or even year !? Check  here if you’d like to check out some other Caldecott winners !

ZooTopia ZooTopia ZooTopia

Guess what ? ZooTopia was just released into the theaters yesterday. It is getting great reviews already, and we are beyond excited to go see it as well ( hopefully this weekend). It sure has been a while that we have seen a good movie in the theater.

New movies are always fun, and some movies just have that special something, that will turn them into a favorite for your kids, for years to come or even forever !  For us that has been MINIONS / Despicable ME. It has been # 1 for years. Don’t get me wrong, I love those movies too, but I’d be ready for a new favorite 😉

Anyways, we aren’t big one buying plastic toys and other themed items from movies, but we love to dig deeper and re-read the stories. Maybe even dream up sequels, draw pictures, or color some beautiful related art to add them as posters to the kids bedrooms. Here are some beautiful related books to ZooTopia to check out !

The Essential Guide has super cute info about all the new characters of the movie. Big, bright and beautiful images will engage your kids and get them excited to watch the movie

The art of ZooTopia is a special one for sure. It tells all secrets of the making of, how the story and images came to life. Beautifully done, if you have a kid with a love for cartoons, this one would be the one to look at !

Read-Alongs are always fun ! Unfortunately here in the US we don’t have the audio cd’s that are really identical to the movie ( in Europe these are a big thing and we often order them in German). But these Read- Alongs are great too !

My 6 year old loves the junior novels to the books !! Most often they are still a fairly easy and quick read and stay close to the exact story of the movie !

Another classic.. GOLDEN BOOKS. We have loved golden books, especially when the kids were younger.

One thing we do not seem to get away from even as they get older. Stickerbooks… my 6 year old still loves sticker books like crazy !

Step Into reading is a great series as well, of course. We have so many of these, but even though my youngest has passed this level of reading already, she still loves to pull these back out for a short, quick read whenever she has a few minutes !

 

We are beyond excited to go see the movie. If you go see it too, please leave a comment about what you thought of the movie. I am always curious to hear what everyone thinks. Did you love it or hate it ? I am excited to see what my kids think, but I am hoping this one will be a winner. I adore the characters so much already !

Chinese New year Festival

We are still super new to our area here in southern Oregon, and are still discovering new places, new events all the time. Last week I found out about the Jacksonville Chinese New years festival. How exciting, since we literally just discussed this with MBTP 6-8.

After being home for nearly a week sick, I could not wait to go. Unfortunately I overlooked the time for the actual parade and we got there only to see the end of the parade, we literally walked up the street with the last people walking down. What a disappointment. After a few minutes discussing our options we decided to still hang out a bit anyways and discover the town and maybe a few other events that were supposed to be going on throughout the day. Luckily we still found some fun and the girls still got to experience a little bit of Chinese new year fun ! They played some Chinese children’s games, made some crafts, explored Chinese zodiac signs and lots more ! It was a fun day !