FishFlix - Little Boy - A Review

I have to admit I LOVE GOOD MOVIES.  Like, I really, really enjoy movies, especially the quality films that make you wonder, if you don't already know, was this a book before it was a movie?  I have very fond memories of enjoying movies together as a family with pizza and popcorn for birthday celebrations when my older crew was growing up.  As the oldest ones grew into young adults and ventured out on their own, we transitioned into a different tradition of private outings with just me and one of my teens which always seemed to include a trip to the "cheap theater."  I have to admit I didn't always enjoy the film we saw together, but I cherish the moments spent one on one.  Now, raising three more young ones we've become a bit more discerning in our viewing selections.  We have the occasional family movie night, and have ventured to the drive-in once as a family to enjoy a double feature under the stars.

With this round two parenting journey we are traveling I am so thankful for companies like FishFlix.com where you can find quality films at an affordable price in the convenience of your own home.  A good movie is a real treasure; similar to a good book.  As a homeschooling family that caters to the individual learning styles of each family member, movies are included in our learning experience from time to time.  I am thankful that I had the honor of reviewing the movie, recently released on DVD, Little Boy.  The hubby and I enjoyed it on our own after the children were tucked away for pleasant dreams.  Although this story is told through the eyes of a seven year old little boy, it's rating is PG-13 for "some thematic material including violence."  All of mine are 10 years and younger, so we wanted to preview it on our own first to determine if it was appropriate viewing material for any of our crew.

The story takes place in a small town in the United States during World War II.  This appealed to me, because we recently studied World War II in our homeschool.  Harmony has found it fascinating, and I really like building on what we've learned through various types of resources.  I do plan to watch this with her in the future.  Despite her age, I do feel that she will find the movie enjoyable, and I am not concerned about the rating having viewed the film and discerned the elements for myself.  I should note that it is an appropriately emotional movie at times, but it is difficult to have a story about war not contain at least some violence and emotion.

Little Boy is a wonderful film filled with faith and inspiration.  I love that it's told from the perspective of a child.  Many elements of family life are present and well represented providing an abundance of opportunities for quality conversations between parents and children.  There is great potential for inclusion within the homeschool as part of a unit study or a curriculum supplement in a family with middle school aged children and above.  We will be enjoying it for years to come as a family, and also within our homeschool.  I can't wait to watch it again!

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New American Cursive by Memoria Press - A Review

In today's world it's becoming increasingly important to support family run businesses.  Personally, I try to go out of my way to support local companies, family businesses, and American made products.  Aside from New American Cursive: Penmanship Program Workbook I being a top notch program for teaching children to write cursive in a fun and easy fashion, Memoria press is a family run business.  For me, that's the icing on the cake!  Memoria Press was founded by Cheryl Lowe and her son Brian in 1998, and in 2000 they opened the Highland Latin School where all of the Memoria Press products are taught and field tested.  Cheryl is an experienced homeschool parent as well as a teacher of many other subjects from phonics to Latin.  Today's Woman magazine even voted Cheryl one of the "Most Admired Women" of 2014.

I've read a lot over the past year about the benefit of cursive handwriting to the development of the young brain.  Learning to write cursive has benefits that reach far beyond the ability to read cursive that naturally accompanies the learning to write process.  It has also been brought to my attention that there could even be benefit to young children to start with cursive right from the beginning as opposed to the standard printing that we seem to teach most often.  Within the New American Cursive workbook it is pointed out that cursive does improve the speed of writing thereby improving the attention span as well as the ability to excel academically.  The mere act of writing in cursive provides an impressive amount of benefits to the young student.

With the above information in mind, I decided to try New American Cursive with all three of our children in mind.  Harmony, the nine-year-old, is our primary focus. She has a strong desire to write in cursive, and we plan to ease into having her submit more and more of her assignments in cursive writing over the next year. Just watching Harmony write in cursive excites the younger two. I let them practice letters separately, but I use the same approach provided withing the New American Cursive workbook. Avery, age 5, enjoys it very much. Bella, age 4, is not quite ready. She can write a few letters, but her attention span for this sort of thing is much more limited. When working with the workbook, Harmony usually spends about 15 minutes per day working on letter and practice pages. Watching Harmony practice her cursive is providing the younger two with a glimpse into cursive writing and all it entails as well as substantiating the information I have been learning in relation to this subject over the past year. I feel encouraged and inspired to teach the younger two cursive right from the start, and they seem eager to learn. Bonus! As far as I am concerned there is everything to gain and nothing to lose.

We will certainly stick with this program for the duration.  New American Cursive is fun and simple which are two very important factors for learning tools making it into our homeschool.  Despite being geared to grade 1 and above, I plan to use this method of teaching cursive with all of my children over the next year. Anything that can span the vast age gap of my children is a top contender for sure.  Talk about a shining star!  With the nine-year-old, I will be following the advice of the program and slowly requiring more and more work submitted in cursive after she's mastered the letter spacing, accuracy, and speed.  This process will surely take longer for the younger two when we incorporate it into their day, but it will occur at a much younger age for them which is totally exciting.  Just think, all that's needed to learn cursive is a workbook for each child and 15 minutes or less per day.  Couldn't be more simple!

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What Oxygen Mask?

I don't know about you, but when life gets crazy and hectic the care and keeping of me is the first thing that slips to the wayside.  It's not like a conscious decision.  Things just seem to slip slowly off my radar.  The first to go, I think, is my supplement regimen.  With my current health challenges this is a really important thing for me to maintain.  I don't know why I stop taking the things that contribute so greatly to my well being, but I do it every.single.time and I pay for it accordingly.  This mama is T-I-R-E-D.

So, what was the trigger this time?

All three of the young ones at home contracted Pertussis.  Don't worry!  It's not as alarming as it sounds.  It is just a TREMENDOUS inconvenience.  Today marks week seven for the first to contract the dreaded cough, and he's still exhibiting symptoms.  Mind you they are markedly improved, and Lord willing my sleep deprivation will soon be a thing of the past.  For right now, I remain thoroughly exhausted.

What are the symptoms of Pertussis anyway?

Initial symptoms can include low-grade fever, runny nose, mild cough, and infants can experience a pause in breathing.  As the disease progresses symptoms can include many rapid coughs followed by a "whoop", vomiting, and being very tired after coughing fits.  Some of these symptoms were present for our three, but some of them weren't.  It was also a very different experience for all three of the children.  For us it began with a random cough here and there with NO other symptoms.

How did we get Pertussis in our home?

We were actually exposed to two families that struggled with the 100 Day Cough, as they call it in China (for very good reason, I might add), and I thought we'd made it through unscathed.  (I'm currently singing, This is the cough that never ends.  It goes on and on my friends. Some people started coughing not knowing what it was, and they'll continue coughing forever just because...This is the cough that never ends...)  Personally, I think we may have made it through without contracting it had I not made what I consider a terrible lapse in judgement as a parent.  My children rarely have sugar, but we had a little celebration of sorts.  I allowed them each to have VERY high doses of sugar in a very small amount of time.  The very.next.day the first one was exhibiting symptoms, and we've been battling Pertussis ever since.

Don't worry.  I don't beat myself up about it, but it sure did get my attention and remind me of just how dramatically the intake of sugar can impact our health. It reminded me that our diets are our first line of defense when it comes to maintaining good health.  This whole experience has forced my hand so to speak and given me the extra nudge I needed to make some more dramatic changes to our diets and make better choices for my family.  I've never been more mindful of the sugar and grains present in our daily meals, ever.

What did you do about it?

Fortunately, I have a wonderful friend that is very knowledgeable and willing to share her wisdom, experience, and resources to all who are willing and eager to learn.  She gave me a push in the right direction by sharing her personal experience with the disease as well as giving me enough information and resources to educate and arm myself.  I took the time to look at several opinions on the handling of the disease (It's amazing the amount of reading that can occur by a stressed out parent in the middle of the night.) including the CDC website, and The International Medicine Council on Vaccination as well as books like The Complete Book of Essential Oils and Aromatherapy, Prescription for Nutritional Healing, and Natural Remedies Encyclopedia.

From these resources we decided to treat our children with Elderberry Syrup, Sodium Ascorbate, Liquid C, a probiotic, and a good multivitamin/mineral as well as Colloidal Silver.  Coupled with the strict supplement regimen we have also held to a very strict diet consisting of no sugar or grains along with diffusing and vaporizing specific essential oils in our home on a regular basis.  This has proven very effective, and our children are well on their way to getting better.  One is completely well now, and the other two are not too awful far behind.  All of them are past the contagious stage, but we still keep our distance from others.  Even if we aren't contagious, the cough can sound bad and might make others uncomfortable.  Hopefully, we'll feel comfortable mingling with the general public, and not just those that we know have already battled Pertussis and won, in the next couple of weeks.

What's Next?

After I was almost completely out of breath I remembered that I needed to put my oxygen mask on and take care of myself.  I may may not have remembered to do it first, but at least I got it back on before I passed out fully.  I'm back on my supplement regimen, and I was already keeping a strict diet along with the kids, but I have also implemented a much earlier bedtime for all of us just for a while.  We all seem to need it and benefit from it greatly.

We'd already planned to take the month of December off from our regular scheduled programming to focus more on Christmas, organizing our home, and some good old fashioned playtime.  Everyone is having a ball.

Speaking of ball!  It's almost time to get back on the ball with The Old Schoolhouse and The Review Crew, and I am super excited.  Being part of The Crew has been such a blessing to our family, and in particular to me.  I love to write, and I love the way that being a member of The Crew challenges me to write more, write better, and learn more and more about using social media.  (sigh - LOL)  It has been challenging at times, but I LOVE a good challenge and nothing motivates me more than a strict deadline.

In the coming days and weeks you will see me on here more.  The kids and I have been having fun doing special crafts and activities in preparation for Christmas that I am very excited to share with you.  We have been enjoying bird watching and will start our photography study soon.  (Shhh,,,they're all getting cameras for Christmas.)  Day after day our home is looking more and more like Christmas.

Things are changing around here, and it's not just the holidays.  We've had the first half of the school year to see what is working and what is not.  The second half will look a little different for us, and I hope it brings more fun.  Not to mention, I'm already thinking about spring and our plans for animals and vegetable gardening here on our little homestead.

We may be part of The Crew, but we're also part of a bigger crew.  Our family can feel our Captain steering our little boat into different waters, and we wait with anticipation to see what lies on the horizon.  All of us are growing around here, not just the kids, and for some of us it's a bit of a bigger stretch.  I hope you stick around and enjoy the cruise with us.  2015 is bound to have many surprises in store for everyone.

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, 

we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,

through whom we have gained access by faith

into this grace in which we now stand.

And we boast in the hope of the glory of God.

And not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, 

because we know that our suffering produces perseverance;

perseverance, character; and character, hope.

And hope does not put us to shame,

because God's love has been poured out 

into our hearts through the Holy Spirit,

who has been given to us.

~ Romans 5:1-5