Why I Love Visual Guide Workbooks

I'm not big on workbooks generally, but I love the Visual Guide Workbooks.   They feature colorful, fun, infographics packed with great information, and questions and activities to go with them.    I have a child who often struggled to pay attention to long written passages but  almost always remembered the stuff he saw in the pictures and diagrams.  That made these workbooks perfect for him.   

While the lessons aren't in any particular order they do tend to focus on some major themes.    And so I've put together a free printable guide to the topics in these books so that, if you wanted to you could use them to supplement things you are already learning about in your homeschool. I've found that it's ok to skip around in the books a little.   A friend of mine who's a reading teacher says it's good for kids to have access to both reading passages exactly at their levels, and ones a little lower and a little above their level, and I find this good advice.   So I organized my "guide to the guides" in a way that you could find all the pages in all levels of the book on a certain subject.   That could be useful if you were using this with more than one child as well. 

Solar System page from the Visual Guide to 3rd Grade

Look at that gorgeous page on space!  Space is a major theme in several of the Visual Guide books (see the bottom of this page for links to all the books and a listing of their major themes).   My child really responds well to colorful, quality graphics in workbooks and worksheets like these.  But while you can find a loot of great free worksheets online, pages with colorful backgrounds like this are expensive to print, so if you want something like this, it's actually cheaper in the long run to buy workbooks like these.  

Animals of Africa Map page from the Visual Guide to 1st Grade

All infographics are followed by activities and questions.  You can see what these are like on the lesson on Animals of Africa above.   There are more hands on cut and paste activities as well.

Ben Franklin page from the Visual Guide to 3rd Grade

 

Ancient Egypt page from the Visual Guide to 1st Grade

These books include a lot of pages from History too.    Most are are related to US history but in the 1st grade book there's a little world history sprinkled in as well, like the page on ancient Egypt shown above.   Each of these pages is followed up by questions, and often activities, on the following pages.

Human Anatomy page from the Visual Guide to 3rd Grade

Monarch butterfly page from the Visual Guide to 2nd Grade

 

There's so many great science topics included, too.   Animals, human health and anatomy, earth science, conservation, and more.  

Below you can find links to these books, and major themes in them.   I considered it a major theme if there were 3 or more sections related in some way to it.   These are of course just a few of the topics included in these books.

Visual Guide to Kindergarten

US Symbols, Plants and Farming,
Animals Life, Inventions


Visual Guide to 1st Grade
National Parks and Monuments,
American History, Native Americans*, 
US Government/Our Capitol, Africa, World Cultures,
Animal Life, Environment and Conservation,
Space, Weather

Visual Guide to 2nd Grade
American History, Presidents/Patriotic Symbols,
National Parks and Monuments,
Animal Life, Earth Science, Sports, Weather*



Visual Guide to 3rd Grade
National Parks and Monuments, American History,

 Environment and Conservation, Animal Life, Sea life,
Earth Science, Space, Technology, Health

Free Printable Topics Guide
Use this guide to find topics in the
Visual Guidebooks to supplement
your homeschool lessons

Opinions are all my own.   I was not paid to promote these products but this post does contain affiliate links through which I could earn commission. 

Book Review: Treasures of the Snow

Treasures of the Snow by Patricia St. John is a beautifully written story of forgiveness and redemption that had a profound impact on me as a child.   The story it holds, and powerful Christian message carried with it, has stuck with me through the years, and it was a joy to share this book with my own children.

The story circles through several Christmases in the lives of two children, a boy and a girl.   At first, you see the story through the eyes of the little girl and the boy is portrayed as the "villain"...but then the story shifts and we see things through his eyes.    It continues to switch back and forth between their perspectives throughout the rest of the story. 

And in the background of the unfolding drama is the beautiful Swiss alps, exquisitely captured so that you can feel the crisp air, hear the crunch of the snow, see the wildflowers dotting the hillside, and feel the height of the steep ravines and the chill of a swirling blizzard. 

Something that I didn't remember until I was reading it with my own homeschooling child, was that the little girl is homeschooled for a while towards the beginning of the story, so that she can take care of her little brother.   Even though this only brief part of the story, lasting the span of a single chapter, it was nice to have that little moment of connection when reading it to my son.

And, with its beginning and end set at Christmas time, and it's advent length of 25 chapters, it's the perfect book to read over the holidays.

Revised and Original Versions

Unfortunately, if you want to read St. John's beautiful original prose, you will have to get an older version of the book.  The newest version is an adaption, and while the re-write stays faithful to the original story and I don't think it's badly done, I do prefer the original writing by Patricia St. Johns better, myself.   But the story is wonderful no matter which version you get.

 

Here is a comparison of some lines from the original and latest revised version (there have been several revised versions versions).    That way you can see for yourself, and help you make your own decision which you prefer.  

ORIGINAL:  They had come to a parting of ways.  The crumbly white snow-path lined with sled tracks divided.  A few hundred yards along the right fork stood a group of houses with light shining in their windows and dark barns behind them.  Annette was nearly home.

REVISED VERSION: They had come to where the crumbly white path divided.  A few hundred yards along the right fork stood a group of chalets with lights shining in their windows and dark barns standing behind them.  Annette was nearly home.
 

ORIGINAL: Now, as she stood along among the snow and stars, it seemed a pity to go in just yet and break the spell.  She waited as she reached the steps leading up to the balcony and looked around.

REVISED VERSION: The magic stayed with her, and now, as she stood alone among the snow and stars, it seemed a pity to go in just yet and break the spell.  She hesitated as she reached the steps leading up to the balcony and looked around.

...

I do admit that I like the new version a little better in one part, due actually to a small piece of content that was omitted:

ORIGINAL:  "That's the best way up the Matterhorn," he said eagerly, tracing out the path with his finger;  "that's the way I shall climb it first" --and Annette, swinging her legs beside him, wished she were a boy, too, so that she could climb mountains.

The adaption here is the same, but they leave about the part where Annette wishes she was a boy so she could climb mountains.   It's the one part of this story that made me wince a little for how it was dates, but it's something that I would talk with my kids about, about how times have changed and that was just how things were at that time (not that girls couldn't climb mountains, but that it was thought they couldn't).

I've noticed that almost all versions have some minor changes in wording, but the one's written while Patrica St. John was still alive are at least her revisions.   When I refer to "original" version below, I mean ones with only Patricia St. John's own revisions,  and by "revised" versions, I mean ones that have revisions by another author.

Whichever version you prefer, below is a guide to help you find the version you want.

ORIGINAL VERSION COVERS
(Ones I know about at least)

Here are the covers I've been able to confirm are the original version or a version that was edited by the original author (as she edited a little bit over the years)... and thanks to some helpful book-lovers at Reshelving Alexandria and the eBay seller book-mole I was able to get some good pictures of these books too.   There are others that I either don't have a picture of or don't know whether it's the original version.   However, one of the books I have said the first revised edition was published in 1999, and the author, sadly, passed away in 1993, so any published before that should be the original versions or versions that she edited herself.   A second revised version was published in 2007.

I've been able to find some of these older versions at Thriftbooks, Ebay, and on Amazon used.

 

 

 

REVISED VERSION COVERS

NOT PICTURED:  Cover showing a girl in a red dress and white sweater in a field in front of mountains

 

Illustrations and Details

Some versions come with illustrations or photos inside.   Here is a comparison of several versions with some photos of some of the illustrations they contain (other versions may also have illustrations, but not all do).  



The Original 1954 Publication
Thanks to book-mole for these pictures

This came with title page illustrations and it seems, illustrations at the start of each chapter.

The "Signature" Movie Version

ISBN = 0-8024-0008-6
Original Text

This version has no drawn illustrations but does have a series of plates in the middle with pictures from the movie. 

Book Review (+Free Printable): 100 Scientists Who Made History

This post contains some affiliate links through which I can earn commission.

One of the great things about homeschooling is getting to make connections between different subjects.   As we study history, I wanted my son to learn about the great scientists of the past...but I wanted to do it in a light, fun way.  100 Scientists Who Made History with it's fun, useful visuals and brief, interesting descriptions of the life and contributions of scientists throughout history, was exactly what I was looking for (or nearly that...I'll explain why later).

The book contains a wide array of scientists from various cultures from ancient through modern times.   Fifty-five of these (yes, I counted) are given full page features, brimming with fun facts about their life and work.   

 The rest of the 100 scientists are given brief paragraphs on pages like these...

So, why was it only NEARLY what I was looking for?   Well, because ideally, the scientists would be arranged in chronological order, making it easier for me to supplement my history lessons.   This book, though, was arranged by topic (a perfectly reasonable and useful way to arrange a book of this sort, but it didn't work well for my purposes).    To fix that, I made a chronological list of the scientists featured in the book,  which you can grab at the link below....

100 SCIENTISTS WHO MADE HISTORY

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST

Quick Organizing Tip

When I have a book like this that I want to be used for my history lessons, I will mark the pages I want to use for the next era/section with post-it-notes marked with either the date or chapter.   I also keep a notepad on my computer, organized by chapter, where I list resources I want to use in the future.   I'll stick post-it's in my spine in chapters I have extra resources for, reminding me to check that list. 

For more ways to combine science and history, 

check out my list of resources here. 

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Grammar Stories: Semicolons, Cupcakes, and Cucumbers

When I saw Semicolons, Cupcakes, and Cucumbers...I knew I had to get it.   You see, my son loves personifying stuff (he doesn't know what "personifying" is yet, but when I do get to explaining that word, I'll just tell him it's what he does with EVERYTHING!).  So when I saw a book that turned punctuation into characters...well, that's the book for my kid! 

My son LOVED this book!  He was asking to read it every day for bedtime, and then again during homeschool.  And from the first reading he was asking questions about things like "what does a comma do?"   Oh yeah, and he was also asking to read parts, himself....ASKING TO!   (For background, my kiddo struggles with reading, so him wanting to read anything doesn't happen often.)

It's 100% dialogue in speech bubbles (which is great for sharing parts if you have a struggling reader.   You can read some character's parts and have your kids read others).  And the humor is quite clever....

And, if you want to turn this into a full grammar lesson with activities too, there are lots of free resources to use with this book.  Here are a few I found below...

Follow Up Activities

The following free resources all are designed to go with the book!

Worksheet Set (Includes Writing Activity)

Worksheet Set (Includes Semicolon Activity)

Worksheets and Color Posters

Punctuation Concentration Game

Punctuation Sentence Writing Game 

Color Posters and Game

Color Posters and Worksheets 

Color Posters

Small Color Posters

Yet More Color Posters

Task Cards

 

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Books from My Childhood: Ocean Tales

Post contains some affiliate links, through which I can earn commission.
  I suggest looking for the books mentioned at your local library.

I love being able to read the books of my childhood to my children.   Since I grew up on a boat many of my favorite stories involved the sea.  Here are three of my childhood favorites.  All are set in and around the ocean, and in all of them the main characters take a long journey filled with adventure and wonder.



Serendipity 
by Stephen Cosgrove

Serendipity was on of my favorite stories as a child...and it became one of my child's favorite stories. It's a book about a pink sea monster who has various adventures while trying to find out who she is. Reading it as an adult was different though.  While I still loved the beautiful illustrations and poetic writing style, it seemed "preachier" than I remember in its message about taking care of our oceans.    But my son didn't seem to be bothered by that and asked me to read it again, and again, and again.

There's two versions of this story...one with older illustrations (which I prefer), and one with newer illustrations made to look more like a cartoon that was based on this (which I never, until recently, even knew about).  This is a first in a series this author wrote, all having fantasy elements, a moral at the end, and the same style of illustration.   At least one of the other stories also features Serendipity:  Cap'n Smudge.   It also was a favorite of mine as a child.




Swimmy
by Leo Lionni

Swimmy is a story about a little fish, and his adventures in the ocean.  I love the beautiful charming "stamped" illustrations.   The story starts out with a tragedy...Swimmy is the only one of a large school of fish that escapes being eaten by a bigger fish.     The book quickly moves on to Swimmy's exploring the ocean and discovering wonderous things until he finds another school of fish, and figures out a way to help them explore the ocean too without being eaten.

I wondered if that would upset my son but it didn't.   Like me as a child, he loved the story and asked to read it many times.




Scuffy the Tugboat
by Gertrude Crampton

This is a story of a little toy tugboat which wants to do bigger things than just float in a bath-tub, and gets a chance when he's lost in a little stream that turns into a giant river taking him all the way to the ocean, where he is found once again.

I'm sure my mom bought it for me as a child because it featured a tug-boat, and we lived on a boat very nearly like it (if colored differently).  I even had a little, similar, tug-boat for my bath.

My children, unfortunately, didn't like this one as much as I did as a child.

 Our "Scuffy"

Our family lived here until I was 10.



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Story of the World - Review

This post contains some links through which I can earn affiliate commission. All opinions are my own.
It used to also contain Amazon pictures, but alas, they stopped letting us do that, so now you get a picture of my years old, used when I bought it, dog-eared volume.

Our second year of homeschool, we finally started studying History in earnest.  As I wrote about earlier, choosing a history curriculum was a struggle for us.  I finally decided on Story of the World, and am really happy with that choice.

I love how the book is written, interweaving traditional stories and moving from one place to another (Egypt, Mesopotamia, Lower Africa, India, China and back to Egypt), showing the relationships and interactions between different civilizations.  And I also love how the writing style draws my son in.

There are question built into many of the passages, and when I'm reading the text these are great for engaging my son as we read (giving us pause places to stop and discuss things we're learning about).   Some of these questions are "Do you remember..." questions referring to previous chapters, which helps us review.  

But while overall I love this curriculum, there are a few things that could be better.  When we first began the passages were rather long for my son.  I had to break up the sections into smaller bits, since he has a short attention span for listening to long texts without many pictures.  Oh, yes, the lack of pictures was a problem for us...but one which we have been able to remedy with illustrations from library books or pictures found online.

And, unfortunately I learned after we started that the book had a few historical errors.  Most of them are small things, simplifications which are understandable in a Children's history text, or matters of interpretation which aren't really errors, just choices some disagree with...but there's some which I felt the need to "edit" in our lessons (that's harder to do if you're listening to the CDS, not reading to your child out of the book like I was).  Still, in spite of these problems I'm happy with our choice.  My son has enjoyed these lessons and it's made a great spine for teaching history.

I will be posting about our Story of the World lessons soon, and will link those on my other Story of the World post here to make them easy to find.  We only got through the first six chapters last years (for various reasons...a late start, intentionally slow progress, illness, etc.).  But this year our local Co-op is covering this same volume of Story of the World, and we are excited to be doing this with a group,  so I will be sharing what we do there as well.   In co-op we will be doing two chapters a week...a very different pace than I originally took with my son!  But his attention span has grown a lot this year so I think he'll do ok with it.  I look forward to sharing our journey with you all!


Where to Find It/What You Need
The Story of the World textbook can be used alone, but I find that the activities, comprehension questions, consumables, and resource suggestions in the activity book are worthwhile.  There is an audio version of the text which I've heard good things about, but don't use personally, and  also a test booklet available which some may find helpful.   I've seen the best prices for these new at ChristianBook.com and Amazon,  unless you want to buy it in digital form (go to Well Trained Mind for that).   But, because Story of the World has been around for a while its easy to find used materials for even less on homeschool forums or places like Thriftbooks and Ebay.


Old vs Revised Addition

If you go with used materials,  you should note that there is an older and a newer revised version of the materials (the newer version is shown up at the top of this post, and the older version is shown to the left here).  The changes to the textbook in the newer version are mostly minor spelling and formatting changes, though there are a few substantive changes (additional paragraphs added, changes to reflect new information gleaned from archeology, etc....though sadly there were not corrections on some of the historical errors I mentioned earlier).  There is also improved pictures, an improved index, and the addition of a very helpful "Chronology of Ancient Times" in the appendix .    In the Activity Book the consumables in the revised version are much, much better.  If you pick up an older activity book used I suggest also buying the pdf of the newer consumables  for $7.95 at Well Trained Mind.

Free samples of Story of the World can be found here.

See My Story of the World Lessons & Resources