Mickey Mouse C2C Blanket

Posted by on Leave a Comment

I recently finished my biggest (yarn) project ever! I made this Mickey Mouse blanket for my mom for Christmas using the crochet corner-to-corner (C2C) stitch. There are a variety of ways to do this stitch, and I went with the double-crochet, chain 3 method. This made for an enormous blanket! It ended up being nearly 6×7 FEET! (The pattern is 80×100 pixels.) I used Big Twist yarn from JoAnn. I don’t remember the exact skein counts, but I think I ended up using 7 of the black and 3 of the white. Could’ve been more, though (I know it wasn’t less). I used my Clover Amour size I-9 crochet hook. The pattern is from Pixel Hooker, and it took me about 8 weeks to complete (though it wasn’t my only project the whole time).

mm blanket 1

mm blanket 2

I even used my pompom makers to make some Mickey pompoms for the corners! To do this, I made one big pom and 2 small ones for each corner, then hot glued them together in the shape I wanted.

mm blanket 3

What’s the biggest knit or crochet project you’ve ever made?

Blessings,

ladybug-signature-3 copy

Knit Sweater for Scorpion

Posted by on Leave a Comment

I offered to make a sweater for Scorpion a while ago, and finally finished it! 

0384CDD9-1487-4C99-BB8B-4D8B4D5B3E5C

The yarn is Lion Brand Fisherman’s Wool in the color Oatmeal. He wanted a blue sweater, though, so I used Wilton Royal Blue icing color to dye the yarn. 

The pattern is Flax by Tin Can Knits, with a small modification. Instead of knitting the sleeve with a garter panel, I added a cable instead. I let Scorpion choose the cable he wanted from a small sampling. To keep things looking cohesive, I added the same cable to the front and back of his sweater. 

Overall, it turned out quite well!

Do you like to knit cables?

Blessings,

ladybug-signature-3 copy

Crochet Sweater for Bumblebee

Posted by on 1 Comment

I’ve never crocheted a sweater, but I wanted a quick project to give me a break from the big blanket I’m making. (It’s almost done, so I will try to remember to post it next week.) After I made the Ruby dress, Bumblebee (2 years old) really liked it because of the super softness of the yarn. So I went to Michael’s and got another ball of it, but in a more masculine colorway and found a cute pattern. 

96D23931-ED08-4A57-97BD-A2522AEE8C64

It’s a standard raglan-style cardigan, but what makes it different is that this one has a hood! I thought that was so cute and knew I wanted to make it. The pattern is from Crystal at Bag O Day Crochet on YouTube and was really easy. I was able to make the whole thing in 3 days (starting late at night on Friday and finishing Monday evening), and that included having to completely redo the body because it was a bit too small. The pattern was great though – change the hook size, and the garment is resized; no recalculation needed!

Have you ever crocheted a wearable?

Blessings,

ladybug-signature-3 copy

Tools of the Trade: My Favorite Knitting Needles

Posted by on 1 Comment

I learned to knit almost 5 years ago. (I can’t believe it’s been that long!) My husband gave me the gift of sending me to a class at a LYS (local yarn store) for Valentine’s Day in 2016. I shopped at that same store fairly regularly until they closed last year when the owner moved out of state. Whenever I went in there, the employee who had taught my class always raved over how I’d taken to knitting “like a duck to water.” The cost of the class was small: one pair of knitting needles and one skein of yarn from their shelves. With those purchases, the class was free (there was a $20 fee if you brought your own needles and yarn). So with the help of the employees, I chose a nice pair of size 8 (5.0 mm) knitting needles and a robin’s-egg-blue skein of yarn.

dpns

interchangeableI still have those very same needles today. And all of my needle purchases since then have been the same brand and line. What are they? Knitter’s Pride Dreamz, a polished wood needle with unmatched smoothness and pointy tips. Each size of the Dreamz needles is a different, beautiful color for easy identification. (Ironically, the two sizes I use most often – size 8 and size 10 – are almost the same color and I have to differentiate them by feel.) I was so enamored by my very first pair of needles that I’ve never bothered trying any others. I’ve expanded my collection over the past 5 years – I now have a set of interchangeable circular needles, many sets of single pointed, and many sets of double pointed needles, as well as two pairs of fixed circulars – but I’ve always purchased Dreamz.

circs

Blessings,

ladybug-signature-3 copy

 

Amazing Names! (CrossTimber review)

Posted by on Leave a Comment

Disclaimer: I received a FREE copy of this product through the HOMESCHOOL REVIEW CREW in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review, nor was I compensated in any other way.

 CrossTimber review

Have you ever explored the meaning of your own name? What about your children’s names? CrossTimber has a variety of products to help you on your way to learning the special messages behind each and every name. I was fortunate to have gotten to select 5 Name Bookmarks, which was perfect because I have 5 children! They were also so generous and allowed each reviewer to choose a name to incorporate into their AmazingName Print Activity Sheets. For these, I chose my almost-11-year-old niece because her birthday was coming up (it’s next week, actually).

The ordering process for the bookmarks was super simple. I did it on my phone (quicker and easier than setting up the computer), and was easily able to find the style choices. They have many, many options from animals (butterflies, safari animals, birds, horses, and more) to outdoors (flowers, sunrises/sunsets, the beach, and more) to people (babies, couples, occupations, music, and more) to spiritual (inspirational, symbols, lighthouses, and more). Once you’ve chosen your image, you get to also choose what kind of quote you want on your bookmark: a Scripture reference, an author quote, a presidential quote, or a character quality quote. If you’d prefer, you have your own custom wording put on the bookmark in place of the quote for an extra charge of just $1 (base price for the bookmarks is $3.99 each, which is very reasonable – that’s about what you’d pay for a bookmark in any bookstore, and those aren’t personalized).

CrossTimber bookmarks

When you order, your names won’t be smudged! But these have my kids’ real names, not their online names.

The best part was going through all the selections with my boys and letting them each choose the design they wanted!

Ballet Boy (17), whose real name is Irish/Celtic, chose a Celtic design with a presidential quote.

Scorpion (14), whose name is Polish, chose a ram with an author quote.

Grasshopper (8), who has a strong Biblical name, chose a tiger with a presidential quote.

Dragonfly (5), with his German name, chose a lighthouse with scripture.

And Bumblebee (2), who has a beautiful Scandinavian name (to match mine and Will’s Scandinavian heritages), got elephants with an author quote. He’s small enough to not need a bookmark, so I chose my favorite animal for his, and I’ve been using it myself! I’ll give it to him one day when he’s older.

The older kids have been using their bookmarks in school books. Grasshopper and Dragonfly have been mostly just looking at theirs a lot (we hung them on the wall for safekeeping until they’re at the point where they need a bookmark). And as I mentioned, I’ve been using Bumblebee’s in the book that I’m reading right now. The bookmarks are a very nice quality. My only issue thus far has been that the plastic coating they put over the top didn’t last very well; with normal use it bubbled and peeled away from the printed paper. It wasn’t that big a deal to just pull it off when this happened, though, and even without it, the bookmarks have held up well. They just don’t have that shiny look anymore.

activity pages 1The activity pages are pretty neat too. When you order, you have a choice to submit any name you like, and you can choose to have the pages printed and mailed to you for $6 or emailed as a downloadable and printable PDF for $3. I thought my niece would think they were pretty cool, maybe a bit silly but still fun because they had her name built in, but I was wholly unprepared for her reaction. When I gave her the envelope and she pulled the pages out, she paused to process what she was looking at. Then she got the biggest grin on her face and said, “This is so cool!” She was visiting us (along with her mom, brother, and sister) at the time, and I gave them to her a little while before they had to leave. She proceeded to spend the rest of the time (30-45 minutes) doing the different activities and raving about how much she loved them. I got the biggest hug when she left!

Overall, CrossTimber is a pretty cool company. I highly recommend their products for a supremely personalized gift! (And by the way, they have many items besides prints – you can get mugs and music boxes too, and they also do stuff besides name meanings. For orders with 3 or more items, they offer discounts, too.)

Check out the Homeschool Review Crew for more reviews. Some of us got bookmarks, some got name cards (like bookmarks, but business card sized), and some got an 8×10 name plaque. All are beautiful! (I reviewed the name plaque a couple of years ago. Feel free to check out that review if you’re interested.)

Blessings,

ladybug-signature-3 copy

 

Boundary Stone High School Economics (review)

Posted by on 1 Comment
Disclaimer: I received a FREE copy of this product through the HOMESCHOOL REVIEW CREW in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review, nor was I compensated in any other way.

Please enjoy this guest post from Ballet Boy!

I am a homeschool student. I am also 17 years old. This means that I’m nearing the point to think about graduating. For me, that doesn’t mean a diploma. After talking with my dad, I decided to pursue a GED instead, and that means I will need to take a GED test. A key part of this test is economics, so I was very pleased to find out that we had the opportunity to review the Online Economics Course Bundle from Boundary Stone at just the right time.

DA725930-D944-4E6D-90F0-82831650BB03

The course is a combination of online videos and a physical textbook. When I was getting ready to start the course, I decided to go through a couple of the video sessions first. The videos have a different tone than the textbook. However, both are excellent. My favorite of the videos I watched was the first section of the tax series. It had a very interesting way of framing how to think about taxes and how to explain them. I liked that it felt very “real world” as opposed to simply stating facts. There was a lot more realism than I expected, and it let off a very fun vibe. It broke down taxes by demonstrating all of the different places taxes come from and what those taxes are for, as well as how to calculate how much of a certain pay grade will be taxable. It also got into different types of tax (sales tax, flat tax, income tax, etc). I also liked how these sections were broken into bite-sized pieces. They fit all of that into a video that was only about 15 minutes long. Each section of the introduction video was then expanded into a video of its own for further clarification. Even though each topic was expanded upon separately, none were neglected in the first video. I consider it to be one of the most satisfying introduction videos I’ve ever seen, regardless of topic. It really did a good job getting you excited about the subject at hand.

The textbook has a very different tone than the videos, as I mentioned above. But it was just as interesting. The videos are more of a pragmatic approach, whereas the textbook really gets into the “why” of economics. It was interesting reading through it and seeing the places where it tied economics into the Bible. One of the ways it does this that I found particularly noteworthy was when the book was answering the question “Why Basic Economics?” (which is the title of the first chapter). It basically said, and I think this is true, that in the Garden of Eden mankind was given the mission of dominating the Earth and organizing it. Since Adam and Eve were also instructed to populate and fill the Earth, that would mean leaving the Garden, even though the Garden provided everything they needed. Thus was created the idea of work to fulfill a purpose – as well as the realization that one cannot accomplish all of the work that needs to be done alone. With this concept came the need of camaraderie of working toward a common goal an in turn, the need for a currency – whether through actual money or simply bartering using items. It was a very elegant way to explain the why as opposed to the general “well, we have it so you might as well learn how it works” or “the reason we have money is to buy things and pay bills.”

This program is full of little nuggets of information and delightful ways to answer questions that you haven’t asked since you were a little kid. All in all, I would say this is a stunning program. Having gone through just a little bit of it so far, I feel very comfortable recommending this. I am sure that by the time I finish the entire course, I will be more than ready for the economics portion of my GED test.

Thank you, Boundary Stone, for providing such a great product!

Blessings,

Ballet Boy

Make sure to visit the Homeschool Review Crew for more reviews this week!

Drive Thru History: Bible Unearthed (review)

Posted by on 1 Comment

Disclaimer: I received a FREE copy of this product through the HOMESCHOOL REVIEW CREW in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review, nor was I compensated in any other way.

Have you heard of Drive Thru History® Adventures before? We’ve used a few of their videos in our homeschool in the past, and my kids quite enjoyed them. Well, they have a brand-new course now called Bible Unearthed, and for the past few weeks, Scorpion has been digging into Biblical history with this video series.

F38F932E-6C1B-46AA-B6C5-4FB7C6E24AD4

The course includes 12 videos as well as some supplementary material to go along with them. Because Scorpion was the kid who watched these videos, I’m going to give him a moment to tell you about them:

The videos are about archaeology and how it’s useful today. They go in depth in how it’s been used in the past to solidify Bible stories. They spend a lot of time talking about the history of archaeology as well as real artifacts that have been used in the past. There are parts of each video where the hosts explore real-life archaeological sites. Some of the sites are places like David’s temple. This was the first ever evidence that King David was a real person, not just a biblical (fictional) character. When they finish showing the on-site footage, there is a secondary portion with the hosts having a sort of round-table discussion about what they saw. They often look at artifacts that have been previously found, like the Rosetta Stone, rather than finding new things themselves. They don’t find a lot of new things themselves; it’s mostly just exploring, but it’s interesting nonetheless.

The course content is:

drive thru history

  1. What is Archaeology?
  2. The Impact of Archaeology
  3. Locating Archaeological Sites
  4. The Life of an Archaeologist
  5. What is being discovered today?
  6. Archaeological Mysteries
  7. Top Discoveries in Bible Archaeology
  8. Getting Involved in Archaeology
  9. Trends in Archaeology
  10. Weird Archaeology
  11. Accidental Discoveries in Archaeology
  12. What is left to be discovered?

The series is hosted by Dave Stotts and Randall Niles of Drive Thru History® Adventures along with archaeologist Dr. Titus Kennedy. Each episode includes its own PDF of the “digging deeper” section, which includes things like Bible memory verses and optional hands-on activities (like map making).

Each of the videos runs about 15 minutes, and my son tells me that they were about half and half between exploration and table talk. We didn’t really use the curriculum, but I could tell that he was learning just from the videos from the way he was talking about the course with me after he’d finished each video. I think he rather enjoyed having an “easy” class that he found interesting, and it gave him a few minutes of time each day when he could simply relax while still “working.” Because I received lifetime access to this course, I might have both of my high schoolers go over the entire course in its entirety for a history credit in the next year or so. I think it would be a fantastic resource for that! With some modification, this course would also be a great unit study for middle school students, and using the videos alone would be a great jumping off point for some fantastic family discussions.

There are a total of 84 reviews for Drive Thru History® Adventures this week; please click over to the Homeschool Review Crew site for more of them.

Blessings,

ladybug-signature-3 copy

Math and Algebra (review)

Posted by on Leave a Comment

Disclaimer: I received a FREE copy of this product through the HOMESCHOOL REVIEW CREW in exchange for my hones review. I was not required to write a positive review, nor was I compensated in any other way.

Scorpion is a tough kid to teach math to. He struggles a lot, and I often feel like a bit of a failure when I realize some of the things he doesn’t know well that I think he should be able to do quickly and easily. We’d been using another online math program, and he was doing reasonably okay with it, but he wasn’t advancing as quickly through the lessons as his brothers were. So when the opportunity to review MathandAlgebra.com came up, I thought, Maybe he needs a different approach. So I applied for the review on his behalf.

math and algebra 1MathandAlgebra.com is another online math instruction system, and is put out by Math Essentials. It uses the same teacher, Richard Fisher, and a very similar format. The main differences are that A) there isn’t a physical textbook and B) it’s got a wide variety of levels in one program (there are 4 courses, to be exact: basic math, advanced math, pre-algebra, and algebra). Let’s talk about the system for a few minutes.

When you first log in, you’re taken to what’s called the Group Leader console. This is basically like a teacher dashboard. Options to look at here include My Students (a list of the students registered on your account), My Account (where you can monitor payment info and orders), My Dashboard (where you can see how far into each course you or your student are), My Courses (where you can select a course to work on), and My Profile (where you can adjust your username, password, and contact info). Everything except for My Courses is basic enough that what I put in parentheses is all you really need to know about them.

Our Course

math and algebra 3As I mentioned, Scorpion (age 14) is the student I had work on MathandAlgebra.com. Because I could tell based on our previous math experience with him this year that he had a lot of holes to fill, we started with Basic Math. This turned out to be the right course of action for him; it’s challenging him enough that it’s not a waste of time, but it’s not so challenging that he’s getting overly frustrated.

Each lesson starts with an instructional video taught by “America’s Math Teacher,” Richard Fisher. These are all fairly short, running in the 4-10 minute range. When the video is over, students then scroll down and download (really just open, though, not truly download) the corresponding worksheet. This is a series of problems that correspond with the lesson being taught. Work is done on a separate sheet of paper. When the student has solved the problems, they (or you) can then refer to the answer key to correct their work. The answer key can be found on the same page as the video and the worksheet download. It’s a download link identical to the worksheet one, except it’s labeled “key.”

Basic Math has 85 different lessons, all following the same format as what I described in the previous paragraph. The lessons are broken down into units:

  • Whole Numbers
  • Fractions
  • Decimals
  • Ratios, Proportions, and Percents
  • Geometry
  • Number Theory and Algebra
  • Integers
  • Charts and Graphs
  • Probability and Statistics
  • Word Problems

Each unit has a different number of lessons, usually in the 8-12 range. And then at the end of each series of lessons, there is a quiz. At the end of the entire course, there is a final quiz.

IMG-6797Scorpion worked on this as his main math curriculum over the past month, and I’m happy to say that I can see drastic improvement in his work. There have been a few lessons in which he got 100%. I don’t think that’s ever happened with him, so this is fantastic news! Literally the only thing we had an issue with was the whole “doing the worksheet on separate paper.” His handwriting isn’t the best, so it was sometimes tricky to correct his work – I had to really pay attention to where he’d written each problem in order to make sure I saw his actual answer. It didn’t occur to me to just print out the worksheets until I started writing this section – if it had, that would have been a lot better for us! Now that it has become something I’ve thought of, I will definitely be doing this for him from now on, because I really do want him to continue with this program. Did I mention that he’s gotten 100% on some of the lessons?!

Make sure to head over to the Review Crew blog to find out more about MathandAlgebra.com!

Blessings,

ladybug-signature-3 copy