Magic School Bus Series

As a homeschool mom, I have always worked at finding curriculum which makes learning fun. When my son, who is now in high school, was in elementary school, he loved to watch the Magic School Bus videos. Every time we would go to the library our bag would undoubtedly end up with mostly the Magic School Bus videos and books.

When he was in first grade we were searching for a science program which would lend itself to his learning style. He enjoyed being able to be hands on and doing activities. What we found is that there was actually a science program through scholastic.com which allowed us to use Magic School Bus stories along with activity books, and extras which came in the package. One of his favorites was the book called Baked in a Cake where the kids were put into a cake at the bakery to see how Chemistry works in baking. The kit actually came not only with the book, but also activity book and muffin tins and recipes for baking at home. This actually spun into a love of cooking which lasted many years. At age 15 he still loves to bake pies(and is really good at it!).

Magic School Bus series is a collection of so many different scientific areas. It offers books on everything from chemistry to space, environment, human body and much more.

In our current homeschool co-op, I am teaching the elementary science class and I get to teach the Magic School Bus stories every week. You never really outgrow these and i've had so much fun re-reading the stories and re-watching the videos. The series has so much detail and great information. Kids learn in a way that gets them interested without it coming across as "school learning". I love it when they get excited about what we are going to study and beg for experiments and more for each subject! One week we read the book on volcanos, and then went outside and I helped the kids make their own volcano erupt. They had so much fun and wanted to do it over and over...which we did:).
This week is friction and force..and relating it to baseball....how could this not be fun?!

As Miss Frizzle says "Take Chances, Make Mistakes, Get Messy!"  What a great quote for kids. What kid wouldn't love to hear mom say that?! By doing this exact thing, you put all the ideas of  perfection out of your mind, and focus on the real learning, and enjoying it

check out the theme song preview of the videos!





Disclosure: I did not receive any compensation for this review. My opinions are honest and personal. They may differ from others.
you can find the books and videos at scholastic.com or www.amazon.com

For the Future Generations

For the Future Generations(book 1)

by Anastasia Faith

• science/Fantasy
• Christian Fiction
• young adult
• my rating is 4 out of 5 stars

         This is a delightfully fresh outlook on dealing with one of the most talked about issues today...abortion.

This book is written unapologetically from a Christian perspective and is 100% pro-life. Instead of being a "preachy" book, it creates a dramatic story that shows the ins and outs of life and how the choices we make affect the future generations.

         In this story, we are time traveling through different time periods in order to create the relationship between the characters and the way the people live. We are brought in when the US has fallen and is now Middle Country. We are shown how abortion was a cause of the fall. We follow Matthia through an assignment and see how life is and how hard it is to be a Christian and be against abortion in a society where it is encouraged and seen as normal. Along the way, Matthia meets up with Declan, who works with her through the times. They are to distribute vieos which speak out against abortion. This is a very dangerous thing to do when everyone is pro-choice and Matthia is seen as the enemy.

         As we begin to become involved with the characters, we learn more about their lives and how they were directly influenced by the abortion issue.

        The message overall is how we need to turn back to God. We have allowed other things to become more important. We see that each life has a purpose and changes need to be made. What we do now will ultimately effect future generations. 

         This is a really interesting book and is the author's first novel. I highly recommend reading it. I look forward to future books in the series

Disclosure: I received a PDF of the book in order to do my review. I received no other compensation. My opinions are honest and all my own.