Wordless Wednesday Bald Eagle

Can you spot the Bald Eagle in the tree on the far side of our field?

There it is perched on a branch.

Creation Illustrated Unit Studies Review

Some pictures of the Pine Trees and pine cones on our property.

Affiliate links may be in this posting. Thanks for supporting my blog. My family had the privilege of trying the unit studies from Creation Illustrated for this review to use in conjunction with our own homeschool curriculum. This is a Homeschool Review Crew Review. All opinions expressed are my own or those of my family.

Creation Illustrated is owned by a non-profit, non-denominational ministry dedicated to share Biblical truth and character-building lessons about God's creations. Creation Illustrated is a quarterly magazine by the same name that was first published in the Fall of 1993. Each magazine now includes a creation character-building lesson and a coloring contest for all ages to enter. Also new is a nature photography contest and poetry contest to inspire people of all ages to get outdoors and creatively use their cameras and pens. The print version has no ads. Published and edited by Christian homeschooling couple, Tom and Jennifer Ish, this nature magazine provides positive reading material for families all over the world. They also produce DVDs, books, unit studies, cookbooks, and more. These are going to be available in new digital editions soon to the general public to purchase.

The Unit Studies are about individual topics that cover God's creations. There are 8 different ones so far that you can pick from Creation Illustrated. These range from animals to plants and other subjects in between. We received two unit studies in PDF versions: Snow Unit Study and Pine Trees Unit Study. These correspond with the Winter '18 Digital Edition and Fall '17 Digital Edition of the magazines.

How We Used This and Our Thoughts:
We were given the snow and pine trees unit studies in PDF format to use for our homeschool. We picked the Pine Trees Unit Study to focus on for this review. These unit studies both include lots of fun facts and activities like; links to educational videos, a puzzle, etc. Subjects that are explored in these are: reading, Bible study, science, math, geography, vocabulary, spelling, and art. Both are targeted for grades 5-8, but parts of the lessons can be used for grades 3-4 as well.

My daughter, Teela, who is in 4th grade used this with our botany lessons at home. Teela is ahead in reading and so we thought even though this is recommended for grades 5-8 she would still do well with this study. I love trees and since we have some pines on our property I wanted her to learn more about them. I must say though, I too got a lot out of this study.

Pine Trees Unit Study Cover

Pine Trees Unit Study

Creation Illustrated Fall 2017 Magazine

The Pine Trees Unit Study is primarily for grades 5-8. This 16 page study also has an answer key in the back and goes hand-in-hand with the Fall 2017 edition of the Creation Illustrated Magazine. The nature unit studies we received were in a downloadable and printable PDF format and is taught in a Biblical creation based, Christian worldview.

Table of Contents:

• Reading Resources – 3
• Educational Videos – 3
• Vocabulary & Spelling – 4, 5
• Bible Study – 6
• Geography – 7
• Science – 8, 9
• Math – 10
• Writing & Penmanship – 11
• Art – 12
• Puzzle – 13
• Teacher’s Answer Keys – 14, 15

The Reading Resources were outside links and we found that not all of them worked, but we found them when searching for the title and the main part of the website it was supposed to be on. We thought the Fibonacci spirals in pine cones were really neat. The List of pines by region also was helpful, but we went searching and narrowed it down further to pines in Oregon where we live. The Educational Videos were great. We loved learning about the 2nd oldest tree in the world called Methuselah. We also enjoyed the video on Japan and Pine trees as well. I did not know that the gourmet Matsutake mushroom and calligraphy ink depend upon the pine trees there. The Vocabulary and Spelling were words found in The Enduring Pine Tree article from in the Fall magazine. These helped with spelling and learning definitions of these words. The Bible Study has you look up bible scripture, list what the word is being used for, and mark if it is pine or fir. The Geography unit was all about what country/region went with specific species of Pine. The Science unit has you identify pine trees by characteristics, etc. The Math is a bunch of tree math problems. The Writing & Penmanship is a short essay on Pine Trees. The Art study is drawing a picture. Last there is a word search Puzzle and the Teacher's Answer Keys.

Zari and Teela with a gigantic Pine Cone on display at the Children's Discovery Museum in Kelso, WA.

The 76 page digital version of the creation magazine for fall of 2017 is jam packed with information, stories, full color photography, and a few ads. The digital edition of the magazine lets you digitally turn pages, zoom in and out, make it full screen, and press play to flip through pages automatically. I wish the digital magazine was available to download as well, but currently it is not. This is nicely laid out and went well with the homeschool unit study about Pine Trees. I loved reading about the facts of pines in the article, "The Enduring Pine Tree: Creation Up Close" by Tatiana Claudy. I did not know there were 126 species that botanists have identified and that a few of these trees date back to the era of Noah's Flood which are still standing today. I loved the way this magazine made use of Bible verses throughout its articles so you could look up scripture and have Bible study as well. The photographs are stunning and I agree with others that this magazine is "The Christian answer to National Geographic." The article "The Day the Sun Went Out" by Bobby Harrison reminded me of my experience recently with the Total Solar Eclipse here in Oregon and my trip in 1998 to Curaçao in the Caribbean to watch one in totality. The magazine had other articles as well and some recipes to try. The Vegan Mincemeat Bread Pudding looked really yummy. There is also a short study guide in the back and family activities that you can do.

Snow Unit Study Cover

Snow Unit Study

Creation Illustrated Winter 2018 Magazine

The Snow Unit Study goes along with the Creation Illustrated Magazine, Winter '18 Digital Edition. It follows a similar structure for contents with an emphasis on snow instead of Pine trees. We can't wait to dive into this study closer to when winter is again.

We love these unit studies about our Creator and His creations. These are a great way to have outdoor education with homeschool activities. The Bible-based magazine is a wonderful addition to these as well.

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• Subscriptions to the Ad-free quarterly PRINT editions of Creation Illustrated Magazine are for 1 year and available for 25% Off at: Creation Illustrated under the Subscriptions tab.
• Subscriptions to the quarterly DIGITAL editions of Creation Illustrated Magazine are coming soon.
• Creation Unit Studies are available to download at 30% Off at: https://dv157.infusionsoft.com/app/storeFront/showCategoryPage?categoryId=6

Creation Illustrated Spring 2018 Magazine Cover Sneak Peek

The Unit Study from the Spring edition will be available soon and it is all about butterflies and transformation along with character-building lessons!

Read other homeschool curriculum reviews for Creation Illustrated...

Wordless Wednesday Hawthorn Berries in Snow

Nature makes the prettiest decorations!

Wordless Wednesday O Christmas Tree

Our little Christmas Tree all decorated with ornaments for 2017.

Wordless Wednesday Resident Bird of Prey

Our resident bird of prey.

Grow Your Own Avocado Tree at Home: AvoSeedo Offer #avoseedo

US Family Guide provided me with this promotional information and offer to share with my readers. I am getting something for free in return for posting this information.


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DISCLOSURE/DISCLAIMER: Because I am posting about AvoSeedo I am getting a a voucher for a free AvoSeedo (including free delivery) to anywhere on the continental United States. Thanks to USFamilyGuide.com for providing me this promotion information and free product. My thoughts are mine and my family's own opinion and have not been altered by anyone else. I did not receive any other compensation for posting this promo.

Wordless Wednesday Great American Total Solar Eclipse 2017

My daughters, me, and my son Jaedan watching the Total Eclipse with our eclipse glasses.

We also used our Orion SkyQuest Telescope with the Solar Filter to view it.

We also used a colander to view the eclipse shadows through.

You can even see the crescent shapes of the eclipse through the leaves of the trees.

Wordless Wednesday Big Leaf Maple

Teela playing hide and seek behind some Big Leaf Maple leaves,

Memoria Press The Book of Trees Review

My family had the privilege of trying The Book of Trees from Memoria Press for this review to use in conjunction with our own homeschool curriculum. This is a Homeschool Review Crew Review. All opinions expressed are my own or those of my family.

Memoria Press is a family-run publishing company that produces simple and easy-to-use classical Christian education materials for home and private schools. It was founded by a woman named Cheryl Lowe in 1994. They currently have preschool through ninth grade in most of their curriculum and some through twelfth grade. They also cover subjects in: Classical Core Curriculum, Latin, Classical Studies, Christian Studies, Logic & Rhetoric, Phonics & Early Reading, Penmanship, Literature & Poetry, American & Modern Studies, Writing & English Grammar, Science & Math, Greek, Modern Languages, Educational Resources, eBooks, Special-Needs, and Art & Music. I have also heard very good things about their Latin Curriculum.

For this review Memoria Press sent us a set of their three books for The Book of Trees: The Book of Trees Reader: An Introduction to Botany Through the Study of Trees, The Book of Trees Student Book, and The Book of Trees Teacher Guide. These are geared towards 6-8th graders. We purchased the other two books, that are recommended by the vendor as reference materials for the main 3, separately that usually comes in the complete set of The Book of Trees: The Tree Book For Kids and Their Grown-ups and the Peterson First Guide to Trees of North America. You can purchase all of these books separately as well, but the first three are necessary as a set for doing this unit study. The last two are up to you to purchase as they are referred to in the main 3 books, but you can find all of the information that you need online on the internet for researching the topics.

The Book of Trees Reader is a softcover book that teaches about botany through trees. It contains 83 pages and 9 chapters total, with the last two being for advanced work. These are all short and thorough. The chapters cover: The Beauty of Trees, The Root System, The Stem, The Leaves, Flowers, Fruits, Observing Trees, Photosynthesis, and Respiration. This has black and white drawings and photos throughout to show things in more detail.

The Book of Trees Student Book is a softcover consumable workbook that teaches about botany through trees that is to be used by one student. The prologue of the workbook goes through and tells goals that should be learned by completing this workbook and a Model Lesson Plan that shows what should be done by the teacher and student. It goes by unit rather than by chapter and contains five units, the last being the advanced work unit. Each unit has two to five lessons each with a total of 21 lessons including the advanced work.  Each lesson under each unit has these sections: Reading and Questions, Diagrams and Labeling, & Activities. In between lesson 15 and lesson 16 there is a Tree Observation section that has you pick a tree and observe it, collecting specimens and studying it by answering questions, identifying it, doing some research about it, and sketching its parts. You can do this up to 15 times in the workbook. At the end of each unit is a review of that unit. Unit four has the final exam at the end.

The Book of Trees Teacher Guide is a softcover guide that helps the teacher. It is basically an answer key for the Student Book and follows the same outline as it as well. It has all the completed pages of the Student Book filled out, as well as answers for quizzes, tests, and exams.

How We Used This and Our Thoughts:

We love Memoria Press and their classical christian curriculum for our homeschooling! We have a bunch of their other studies and have found them all wonderful. We've been very blessed to have been able to also receive a number of their curriculum to review here.

The Book of Trees from Memoria Press is a great set for exploring botany with trees. My family loves trees and nature studies! This classical christian homeschool curriculum is fantastic! I love the content myself and enjoyed doing this with my third grader, Teela.

Teela is advanced in her studies and works on a 6th grade level on reading and writing so I picked her for this study. We had a lot of fun together doing this and did a lesson a week. Although the lessons are short and each lesson could probably be done in one day, we have other studies as well we are trying to get through and I didn't want to overwhelm her.

Even though we were sent just the mandatory products in the set I thought purchasing the two reference books would be a good idea. Not only would we have them when we hit a place where it told us to look up something on a certain page of each book, we would have them in our extensive homeschool library. Also, we found the Peterson First Guide to Trees of North America a great sized pocket field guide to take with us when we did nature studies on trees, went on road trips other places, or were out hiking. The Tree Book For Kids and Their Grown-ups is a wonderful tree book with lots of beautiful hand drawn illustrations in color. In fact it has been awarded the Garden Writers Association Award for Best Illustration. I am very glad I purchased these to accompany the main books. If you purchase the complete set of The Book of Trees from Memoria Press it will come with these books as well.

Teela reading The Book of Trees Reader.

We started out with the reading and would read the corresponding chapter for the lesson. Then she would answer the questions individually and ask for help if needed. I would check her answers that she had written down. Then she would do the diagrams and labeling later in the week after we had done some review. After that we would do the activities together and do additional external research. Then for last part of the week we would review again and have the quizzes/tests.

Memoria Press The Book of Trees Student Book

During our studies so far of trees and botany we learned about Plant Systems & Organs, The Root System, External and Internal Structure of the Stem, & the first section on Leaves. There is a lot of workbook work for this study with an abundance of writing and charts/diagrams to label. We like this because the reading seems to stick better if discussed and then written down.

One of the hands-on activities about roots

We, however; loved the hands on activities the best and wish there were more of these with the book work. We love going out into the field to study nature. Teela and I have been enjoying this study so far. There are so many trees we do not know about yet. We cannot wait to delve deeper and do the Tree Observations so that we can identify and learn more of the tree species right in and around our own neighborhood as well as many trees at Lake Sacagawea Park in Longview Washington.

We highly recommend The Book of Trees by Memoria Press! It is a great science curriculum that is fabulous to use for learning about botany and trees. I look forward to using other curriculum books from Memoria Press with my children in the future!

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Wordless Wednesday Crab Apple in Bloom

My Crab Apple Tree in bloom during the end of April.

Wordless Wednesday Sunkist Mountain and the Lewis and Clark Bridge

I captured this sunset and St. Helen's looks aflame.

Wordless Wednesday Gigantic Apple

This apple tree we uncovered from the grape vines produces huge apples.

Wordless Wednesday Heart Shaped Leaf

Zari found a heart shaped leaf on one of the Lemon Trees.

We love our garden and orchard!

Wordless Wednesday Climbing Trees

Monday Jaedan fell out of a tree he was climbing, dislocated his arm and fractured his left elbow.

Playing Dungeons & Dragons to take his mind off the pain.

Wordless Wednesday Robin's Nest and Baby Birds in the Double Petaled Mock Orange Tree

This is my Double Petaled Mock Orange tree. It is so fragrant and pretty in the springtime.

Baby Robins in a nest in my Mock Orange tree.

Baby Robins opening wide for what Mama brings.

Mama Robin feeding her babies.

Homeschool Legacy Forest for the Trees Once-a-Week Unit Study Review

My children and I had the privilege of testing out Homeschool Legacy Forest for the Trees free for this review to use in conjunction with my own homeschool curriculum. This is a Schoolhouse Review Crew Review. All opinions expressed are my own or those of my family.

Forest for the Trees is a once a week unit study by Homeschool Legacy. This is a 4 week study that is geared towards second through twelfth graders. It has an option to use this to help your child earn a badge in Boy Scouts or American Heritage Girls or a project record in 4H, if your child is involved with any of those. I was given the option to get this in digital or physical format. I chose the physical format.

Fig Tree that we recently replanted.

Unit studies provide us with an in depth view of a certain focused theme and has us do many different subjects surrounding it. For example; with this Forest for the Trees unit study we were doing science projects, math, history, reading, etc. As a homeschooling family we love unit studies!  It gets us away from some of the more mundane work we sometimes have to do in our schooling at home and gives us a chance to dive into some hands on studies. A lot of time unit studies also let us get out in the field to learn.

Measuring trees and tree stumps & counting rings.

Now that the weather is getting nicer my family can partake of all of God's glorious creations even more. We love nature unit studies because it means going outside, exploring, discovering, learning, and breathing in the fresh outdoor air. We try to do nature studies a lot because they are a great break from being cooped up indoors, bookwork and online work. Trees are certainly a very important part of God's creations and with Forest for the Trees Once-a-Week Unit Study we got to learn a lot more about them. Forest for the Trees definitely gave us the motivation to get outside and learn about the surrounding local trees that we have here in Oregon, Washington, and right in our own backyard!

Forest for the Trees art project: tree bark rubbings.

Forest for the Trees is a fun, creative, hands-on study about trees. It has a total of 4 weeks of study: Week 1 is Tree Identification, Week 2 is Tree Anatomy, Week 3 is What Trees Give Us, and Week 4 is Forests and Forestry. In every section this unit study has a list of reading and video choices along with some required reading that helped with the unit. These are listed by their Dewey Decimal number as well so the can be easily found in the library. Daily activities include independent reading and family read-aloud from required books. Forest for the Trees also has once-a-week activities that include: family devotionals, science experiments, outdoor nature studies, reading assignments, art, field trips, history, life skills, language, vocabulary, research assignments, math, physical, etc. I liked that the unit studies from Homeschool Legacy are Christian based and have scripture devotionals in them too. At the end of each weekly lesson there is a section called Stump Your Dad Trivia with a interesting question and answer fact.

My boys and firewood from local trees they stacked into a fort.

This particular study of the trees had us save and document what we found in a notebook, a tree nature journal of sorts. We were told to gather specimens and/or sketch or photograph different parts of multiple trees around us. With the tree identification guide books they listed for us to use we could identify the particular tree we were looking at by the characteristics of the specimens and information we gathered. All the art, history, math, research, language, vocabulary and science experiment findings were also put in the notebook. We had fun adding to it little by little and piecing it all together.

Teela helping with the Transpiration science experiment to show that tree leaves breathe.

We did a lot of fun stuff while we learned about trees. My kids loved the science experiments the best! The science experiments were all very easy to set up and do. We learned about deciduous, coniferous, botany, dendrology, osmosis, transpiration, condensation, photosynthesis, chlorophyll, symbiosis, germination, etc. For art we drew a tree and parts of trees, did tree bark rubbings, and took photographs to document trees and yummy apple recipes we made. We also measured the girth of trees and learned about counting tree rings to see how old they are. We climbed trees too. In the first week we learned all about tree identification and used the field guide quite a lot to try and identify trees in our area taking a lot of samples and specimens home to add to our notebook. The second week we learned all about parts of the tree and did a lot of art and science experiments. In the third week we learned about the many things trees give us like food, paper, rubber, and wood. In the last week we learned about deforestation in the forests and the Giant Sequoia Redwoods.

We are in love with the Homeschool Legacy's Once-a-Week Unit Studies now that we have tried Forest for the Trees out for ourselves. We learned so much and had a lot of fun doing it. We hope to be able to try more of them out in the future for our homeschooling with unit studies.

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Forest for the Trees is available for $14 using the Grab-and-Go (PDF) option or $18.95 for the paperback copy.

Unit Studies by Homeschool Legacy

 

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