Running With Spears

Book Reviews – In 27 Days

Hello friends. 🙂
I love reading young adult books, so I was thrilled when Zondervan sent me a free copy of In 27 Days to review.

This neat book by Alison Gervais is about a girl who receives an offer from “Death” to travel twenty-seven days back in time in order to prevent a classmate from committing suicide. I love the idea of a book that can help open up dialogue about suicide. To be honest I never read or watched 13 Reasons Why, even though I’ve heard it did a great job of raising suicide awareness and discussion…it just seemed so depressing. In 27 Days seems like a great, more upbeat alternative.

That said, I had a lot of trouble getting into the book. The writing style feels fairly standard for a contemporary YA, and I tend to gravitate toward more lyrical writing, or more intense books, most often within the fantasy/sci-fi realm. This book would probably be enjoyed a lot more by someone who loves the genre a bit more.

It’s definitely a quick read, which is nice. Unfortunately for me, after skimming a bunch of chapters looking for anything that grabbed me, I gave up and put this in my DNF (did not finish) pile. But that certainly doesn’t mean the book isn’t great. The writing is just not my cup of tea. The thing about books, though, is that everyone has different taste in books. I was talking to a friend recently who LOVES Pride and Prejudice, and that book bores me to death. Another friend hated Fahrenheit 451 which is one of my favorite books of all time. So if the premise of this book sounds intriguing, especially if you love a good fast-paced contemporary read, you should definitely pick it up!

Another big plus for this book is that unlike a lot of YA it’s completely clean. It was published by Blink Young Adult which means you can count on it not to have swearing, drinking, or romance that progresses beyond kissing. So if you’re wary of books that wouldn’t receive a PG or PG-13 rating, you can pick up In 27 Days with confidence that you won’t come across anything scandalous.

What book have you read and loved lately? Have you read In 27 Days? I’d love to hear what you think. 😀

School Time!!!

Hey friends! We’re getting ready to “officially” start school, despite the fact that we’ve done some amount of school all summer. 😉

We always try to start off the year with at least a few fun new school supplies to make it more special, and we take first day of school pics that I’ll share in a later post. I figured I’d take a sec and share what curriculum and such we’ve decided to use this year.

For Evergreen, who is going into fifth grade, we’re using Alpha and Omega’s online program, Monarch for all the core subjects except for math.

For math, Evergreen and Boo will both be using CTCMath, because we absolutely love it. And they’ll be using Hoffman Academy for piano, and Art Achieve for art.

Boo, who is going into second grade, will be finishing up the Learn to R.E.A.D. Curriculum Notebook and the R.E.A.D. Review Pack from The Crafty Classroom for her language arts, and will play learning games at Always Ice Cream plus various read-alouds and projects and so forth for her other subjects this year.

For pre-school work, Smiles will just be using print-outs from HelpTeaching.com right now, but I may add an alphabet curriculum from The Crafty Classroom later.

For Apple right now I will be making use of Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood streaming on Amazon Prime as much as possible to keep her occupied while I do ALL THE THINGS with her sisters. #kidding #notkidding 😉

Teaching Kids to do Chores

Over the summer my family got really lax on staying on top of chores and I realized I desperately needed a new system, so I was thrilled to review The Everyday Family Chore System from Everyday Homemaking.

This 88 page digital download helped walk me through not only designing a system that works for us, but also making sure I’m teaching my girls important life skills as soon as they’re ready, too. It also includes printable instruction cards for your kids to review before they complete a chore so they can remember exactly what is expected.

One thing I that I love about this book is that it’s never just about chores, it’s about helping your kids learn to do everything necessary to be able to live on their own someday without floundering when they move out because they never really learned how to do laundry or cook themselves a meal. But it also mentions that at the same time, by teaching our kids to do ALL THE THINGS, we’re working ourselves out of a job, which is an idea I can definitely get behind. #morecoffeetimeforme 😉

The book also talks a lot about tying “love-strings” to your kids hearts, which is just awesome. In the middle of a book about training your kids to clean their rooms and load the dishwasher, you’re reminded to do things with your kids. Laugh with them. Smile. Speak to them gently. Love them. It’s a timely reminder, because when working on all the other things, like reminding my kid for the umpteenth time to put her clothes in the laundry hamper, not two inches away from it on the floor, I just want to pull my hair out, not speak gently, lol.

What honestly stood out the most to me, though, was the emphasis on not just assigning chores, but taking the time to thoroughly instruct your kids on how to do them properly. This might mean first having a kid watch you load the dishwasher explaining what you’re doing for a few days, and then transitioning to having your kid load it while you watch and help for awhile before she’s ready to do it independently. I think one of my downfalls before with trying to have my kids begin to take over certain chores is that in the short term, it’s actually more work for me, and takes longer and I’ve lost sight of the end-game and gone back to just doing it myself.

This book reminded me that pushing through the painstakingly slow days of helping my seven-year-old load the dishwasher will one day actually mean less work for me, and it will be helpful for her, too, because she’ll move away from home one day and need to have that skill. One of the most helpful little sections of the book was a list of life skills divided by what age (on average) you can begin teaching your kid to do something, as well as the age at which you can expect her to master the skill. The second number feels overwhelming sometimes. Am I really supposed to begin teaching my five year old to clean the toilet and have to keep working with them on getting it right until they’re twelve? Maybe. And that feels like forever and makes me wonder why I should even bother. BUT, if I remind myself that it means once she’s twelve I won’t have to clean the toilet anymore, I think I can grin and bear it for now. And obviously every kid is different. I’m hoping that in just a couple years my seven-year-old will be skilled enough to take over that particular job for me. And in the meantime, my ten-year-old recently had a growth spurt so she can reach all the cabinets now and fully unload the dishwasher without help. #happydance

I think the age on successfully putting dirty clothes in the hamper may be somewhere around forty, but for everything else there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.

We definitely tweaked things to work for us. And unfortunately none of the printable chore instruction cards for the chores that I’m teaching my kids so far quite work for me…I do them all slightly differently than the way suggested on the cards. Gah. Apparently I’m weird. But I already knew that. We’re starting slow with the chores right now, though, and I think some of the cards for chores I’ll add later will be really helpful. And there are blank cards included so I can easily make my own. I also got a bit of a laugh out of a few of the suggested life skills to teach, like “make a long-distance call” a.k.a. in this day and age, just “make a call.” And “use a payphone.” LOL. First I’ll have to find one somewhere. Hmm. 😉

In any case, the family schedule and chore assignments that I created with this book’s help have been working really well for us so far, so I’d definitely call this resource a win! Vicki of Everyday Homemaking has a special offer for you all. When you check out on her site you can get 10% off as many books as you want using the code TOS10books until September fifth. 😀

Be sure to check out what others think of The Everyday Family Chore System as well as the Everyday Cooking cookbook which is also by Everyday Homemaking by hopping over to the Homeschool Review Crew link-up.

Books I Love – The Sandcastle Empire

Hi friends! I finished this beauty last month and it was SO good! I literally couldn’t put it down at the end. (I stayed up a full three hours later than I meant to, despite the fact that I had to get up at 4am with a puking Boo. Blech).

This story is a new fave! It had all the gripping, gritty intensity I expect from a dystopian thriller, but also so much beauty. There were short chapters dispersed throughout that were little morsels of pure lyrical gorgeousness. Also, the main character is from Texas and I felt like I could relate to her on an even deeper level as a fellow Texan (hello nightmares of water moccasins, and SIX infernal months of summer).

If you enjoy YA dystopian novels, you should definitely pick this one up. Plus it’s already being turned into a movie. So cool.

Top Ten Toys That Are Actually Worth The Money

Hi friends! So, ten years ago we began amassing bookoos of toys for kiddo number one. – Three additional kids later, there are literally only TEN toys (or sets of toys) that have been beloved by all. Here are the winners:

1. A wooden kitchen with WOODEN toy food and dishes. Every one of our kids has spent hours and hours pretending to cook. And cheap plastic food sets often include choking hazards, and even when they don’t they’re quickly crushed, bite-marked, etc. But the wooden ones have been standing for over eight years now and are still great. They’re pricey but SO worth it.

2. Blocks. – Wooden building blocks, Duplos, soft foam blocks, etc. just something to build with. I love the soft ones the most, but we have all three kinds, and they’re played with all the time.

3. A Toy Wagon – The one we have was a little red wagon of Mega Bloks. Our girls all love putting stuff in it and pulling it around the house.

4. A few dolls and stuffed animals. – At this point we have way too many stuffed animals, but at least some of them are constantly played with. The baby dolls that have been by far favored above all the others are actually the Bitty Baby dolls from American Girl. I think it’s something about the weight of them.

5. Board books – Whether you have a plethora of money for toys or literally only three dollars to spare, head to Half Price Books and grab as many board books as you can. My girls love flipping through these on their own, and cuddling while I read to them, too.

6. MagnaTiles – Another pricey item, but we got a big set of these for our girls for Christmas a few years ago and they are still played with by at least one girl every single day!

7. A Ride-on Bouncy Animal – We have a blue deer that my now three year old named “Blue” when she was just over a year old. She climbs on him and bounces around the house every day, with great joy.

8. A Dollhouse with furniture and dolls. – Fortunately we’ve had friends give us these items when their kids have outgrown them because they can be super pricey, but all our girls have spent hours playing with them.

9. Soft balls in a few sizes. – I think this is a fairly obvious one, kids love to thrown and roll and kick balls.

10. Art supplies – I know this technically isn’t a toy per se but as soon as our toddlers have reached the age where they stop putting everything in their mouth, they’ve probably spent more time using art supplies than anything else. And the least fancy supplies are probably used most. Printer paper, ULTRA washable markers, watercolor paints, stickers (see my hack about removing the backing, and (once they’re old enough), kid scissors and glue sticks.

There are a few other toys that have been loved by one or two of our kids. Evergreen loved puzzles and toy instruments. Boo could spend hours and hours playing with My Little Ponies. Smiles loves playing dress-up, and filling little toy purses and backpacks with toys. Apple is frequently seen clutching her Daniel Tiger figures. They’ve also all loved playing on a swingset in the backyard. Other than that, literally every other toy we’ve amassed we’ve either given away or we put away in a tub in the garage for a time and then cycle it back in for a while for the “new” factor, and then put back away once the novelty has worn off.