I hope all of you lovely mothers have a special and blessed Mother’s Day today!
Archives for May 2013
Papa’s Pearls~ A TOS Crew Review
I had the pleasure of reading and reviewing Papa’s Pearls: A Father’s Gift of Love and Wisdom to His Children and Grandchildren. The book is about Carol Joseph Flynn, aka Papa, written by his daughter, Diane Flynn Keith. It tells the story of Papa, how he rose from rough living in the Great Depression, and owning his own successful plumbing business.
I love the positivity of this book, and the way Papa turned his life around for good. It’s fairly short at 112 pages, but it’s not short on wisdom. When Papa had to go through raw sewage as part of his job, he told his son ” Just tell yourself you like it (the smell), then it’s not so bad.” How many of us today would do or say something like that? Not many, I bet. When Papa found out that his daughter Diane was writing this book, be said to her, “I think this is a good idea. You gotta tell ’em,. This world…They don’t know. They don’t know they’re loved. You gotta tell ’em they’re loved. And tell ’em to say it out loud every day to their families.” How precious and humble Papa was. There are SO many pearls of wisdom, but the two things that stuck out the most for me were “Where’s my hug?” and “I love you. You know that, right?”
I really love all of the practical advice in this book. I admit, I teared up some reading this book. It’s hard for me to find a lot of time to read books, so I took this along with me when I got my allergy injections. I guess that’s a good place to get teary-eyed since people who go there have allergies. I could sniffle and cry a little and still look normal! 🙂
As I said before, I read this book myself. Rachelle may enjoy it, but it’s not a children’s book. You can get your own copy of Papa’s Pearls either directly from the author for $21.97, which includes shipping, or from Amazon for $13.47 for the paperback, and $6.97 for the Kindle version. When you buy from the author, the book is autographed with one of Papa’s Pearls of wisdom! 🙂
I feel very blessed to be able to review this book, and I highly recommend it. It would make a wonderful Father’s Day gift!
Mother’s Day Plans?
What are everyone’s plans for Mother’s Day? I need to pick up gifts later, and then we’ll be spending part of the day tomorrow with my Mom, and then tomorrow evening with my Mother-in-Law. We normally eat at the ILs on Sundays, but they’ll be out of town then, so we’ll just hang out at home after church instead. 🙂
Our school year is winding down. I am ready for a break, and I know the kids are as well. I renewed our co-op membership today, and I need to register them with our umbrella school soon as well. The 3 oldest will be going to church camp this Summer. Rach will be going to Youth camp for the first time. We’re both pretty excited! Ethan has improved so much in reading this year. He’s still not where I’d like him to be, but I’m very happy with the improvement. Lucas has even picked up word sounds. He’s a smart little boy! He turns 5 in September, so I’m waiting until next year to officially start him in Kindergarten.
Back to Mother’s Day. Mom asked me what I wanted, and I told her that I wanted wide mouth canning jars. Yup. I’m hoping for a great garden this year, and I want jars! I also found a pressure canner that I really want on Amazon. It’s $70, so I’m gonna start saving GCs that I get from Swagbucks. It works on smooth-top stoves, which is what I have. I’m so excited! Jeremy thought I was crazy when I told him I wanted canning jars. Yeah, I’m turning into THAT person. I don’t know what to tell him what I want from the kids, though. Non-gaudy shirts are always nice I guess. Or maybe an herb garden? Hmm
Literacy Soft~ A TOS Crew Review
I was very anxious to try out the Phonics and Reading with McGuffey app from LiteracySoft with Ethan. He is 8 years old and was struggling quite a bit to read. I mean, a lot. I’ve worked with him quite a bit, and he had improved some, but was still getting very frustrated with reading. I had heard of McGuffey Readers, but never actually utilized them in our homeschool life. Some info about the app from the website:
This app includes:
• All 52 McGuffey Primer lessons
• All 44 letter sounds of English and their graphemes
• 60+ letter sound animations
• 400+ practice word vocabulary
• 9000+ nonsense word audio dictionary
You can use Phonics and Reading with McGuffey on your PC, Mac, and Apple Devices! Ethan used this on my iPhone. I must love him a lot to let him use my precious phone; it’s one of my most favorite thing! :p
It’s SO easy to get started. You can have up to 10 users on your app. You’ll select which space you want to set up for each user, or which user you’d like to work with.
As you can see, Lucas “needed” to use it as well. Once you choose which user you’re working with, you can get started! The app speaks very clearly and tells you exactly what you need to do. You can either start with Lesson 1, which is what we did, or you can go to the Table of Contents and choose your lesson. You can even repeat lessons! This is a very user-friendly app. It allows you to go at your child’s pace with no rushing along.
I love how easy it is to read and see everything. All the letters are very clear. It goes through each letter sound, and shows pictured of things beginning with that letter. It doesn’t matter where you are in your reading level; you can use this app. It’s very straightforward and easy to navigate. Lucas is 4 and can use it very easily.
This is an example of the spelling practice.
Each lesson contains Letter Sounds, New Words, Phonics Flashcards, Phonics Blender (you can make words and hear them read!), Lesson Illustration, Reading Practice, a Quiz, Spelling Practice, and Sight Word Drilling, where the narrator says a word, and you select the correct word on the screen. Go as fast as you can to beat your time score, and see the train speed down the track!
I mainly used this with Ethan, but as I stated before, Lucas was able to use it as well. I pretty much let them use it how they wanted. Ethan can do a whole lesson a day, but Lucas can’t be still for that long and usually did a few parts of each lesson per day.
You can purchase Phonics and Reading with McGuffey for $19.99 from the App Store or for your PC. The first 10 lessons for PC, and also the lite version for iOS are free, and there’s also a free ebook you can download.
I am very happy with the app. Ethan has definitely improved in his reading abilities. Many thanks to LiteracySoft for providing this app!