Minivan Moments

I was given the opportunity to use and review the U.S. History Detective, Book One , by The Critical Thinking Co. My children all studied U.S. History this year, so I was thrilled to be given the chance to try one of their books. My oldest child was given this one since it is written for students in grades 8-12+. The curriculum we chose for U.S. History this year was very thorough, I'm sure, but my daughter found it very dry and boring. The reading was lengthy and she found she was not retaining much. Then she started using the U.S. History Detective book. She was much more excited about the shorter length of the lessons, the way the pages are laid out (I have a real personal struggle with curricula that is written well but laid out badly - read, overwhelming to the student ), and the frequent review sections. To expect a student to read an entire chapter of 8-10 pages of history facts and figures and then answer only a few questions always seems silly to me, and The Critical T...

I was given the opportunity to review two great books for The Critical Thinking Company . The first one is called Understanding Algebra I . Since my oldest child is just wrapping up Algebra 1, I thought this would be a great overview after-the-fact as math is not easy for her. One thing we noticed right off the bat were well-laid-out pages. There was color, charts, diagrams, and plenty of white space! One thing I personally think math textbooks get wrong too often is jamming too much information onto a page, and the student can start the lesson overwhelmed. That often happens with my oldest, so this was a bonus right away. Another thing that we liked was the opportunities to practice each concept at the end of the section. I actually felt like she had more practice problems related to the concept than her current math program. Part of that, in my opinion, is the nature of having a very spiral approach since there are so many review problems in each lesson. I am not opposed to it (I...

Over the past several months, more than a year if i'm honest, i have faced more mountains than i could move. During that time, i thought i was doing well holding up my end of the bargain: i kept my head up, i kept my feet moving, and i never shook my fist at God. The rest, i figured, was up to Him. Sure, i trusted Him. Most of the time. And i leaned on Him. Sometimes desperately. And i praised Him. Even when it hurt. But i forgot to hold on to those lessons He was teaching me. I allowed my focus to stray from the moment-to-moment, peace-in-the-storm joy of the Lord...and my focus became my own suffering. I became battle weary. Understandable, some might say. As did i. But then i did something that i never should have done: i gave myself permission to whine. I was justified, after all; I was going through a lot! But when i gave myself permission to whine, i constructed an idol. My idol wasn't a statue or a religion or a person; my idol was my pain. I dragged it around...