Purposeful Design - A TOS Schoolhouse Crew Review

I late September I learned that we had been chosen as one of the families on the Crew to review for Purposeful Design a beautiful new book called Purposeful Design: Understanding the Creation, by Jay Schabacker.

Jay Schabacker, the author, has done everything from Aerospace to finance to church ministry.The breadth and width of his experience and education makes him uniquely equipped to author this amazing book. Purposeful Design , which is suitable for all ages, is a book about the first seven days of creation, as laid out in Genesis.

The Introduction is followed by seven chapters, one for each day of creation. There is an epilogue at the end.

Right from the Epilogue, I was learning new things. (Me! The mom!) Much of the content was new material for both me and my son. Some of the material we were skeptical about. When in doubt, Internet search. Much to my chagrin, wherever I was in doubt, I was always wrong. The author, Mr. Schabacker, was correct every time.

Chapter 1 is about Day 1 of Creation, when God created the light and separated the light from the darkness. In this chapter Mr. Schabacker also discussed gravity, planets, orbits, and information about orbits and rotations. I wouldn't want to give it all away.

Chapter 2 is about Day 2 of Creation, when God separated the waters below from the waters above, as in created the atmosphere, the sky, and the waters on the planet. In this chapter there is also information about the water cycle (this author calls it the "Rain Cycle"). There is information about the ratio of water to land on the earth's surface, flooding, deserts, and how important it is that God created the ratios that he did.

Chapter 3 is about the creation of dry land, separating the land from the water, and the creation of vegetation. This chapter helps the student consider the importance of vegetation to all living things.

Chapter 4 talks about God's creation of the sun, the moon and the stars. 

This chapter also discusses tides, the effect of the moon's pull, as well as the regularity with which everything in God's creation ticks through its functions year after year, ever the same. This chapter talks about Stonehenge, and sunrises, and so many things. This is a long chapter; I won't mention everything in it.

Chapter 5, the 5th day God created the birds and the fish. We imitate birds with our air planes, and fish with our submarines! And why does ice float? I'm not going to tell you. You need to get the book.

Day 6 is the day land animals and humans were created. In this chapter I learned more about cows and camels. There is teaching about blood clotting and DNA and the basic cell in the human body.

And, finally, Day 7 discusses the importance of rest.

Please don't make me embarrass myself; you can't make me tell you all the things I thought that weren't correct -- things about tides, and cow stomachs, camels, and I don't even remember. Suffice it to say that for an 87-page book full of beautiful illustrations, the book is also full of an amazing amount of unusual trivia information about all sorts of things!

But wait! There's more!

In addition to this beautiful book that teaches purposeful design, the author also created a workbook for you to use while you follow along through the book. This workbook is free for everyone who purchases the book. It is a PDF download, and there is also a corresponding answer key to download at the same time!

I chose to read this book out loud to my son. He is my only student, and often reading aloud is the most efficient use of our time. I wanted both of us to experience the book, so I had to read it anyway. It worked for us.

In our home we seem to have constant demands on our printer, so I chose not to print out the workbook. As we finished each chapter's reading, we discussed the workbook content for that chapter. This helps to cement the information into my student's brain, and let's me confirm that he was paying attention.

Purposeful Design is currently priced at $18.95, which is 25% off of its normal price. This is the perfect time of year to consider a book like this as a gift to a home school family of your choice. I think you will enjoy this book and will enjoy sharing it with your children and your friends.

Purposeful Design was also reviewed by other members of the Schoolhouse review Crew. To read more reviews of this book, please click on the below link.

Fortuigence - A TOS Crew Review

As my son began his 9th grade year, I was painfully aware that we have not focused adequately on the skills of essay and composition writing. I was very happy when I learned that Fortuigence was offering the Schoolhouse Review Crew four writing courses, and that my son and I would be given the opportunity to review their Essay Rock Star Expository Essay Writing Course!

Fortuigence is an online company that was founded by a former classroom teacher named
Lily Iatridis. Ms Iatridis taught school for ten years before taking some time off to stay home and start a family. Fortuigence was born of a brainstorm to think how she might begin to offer online writing courses on her own. She has great respect for homeschoolers, and the largest portion of her clients are homeschoolers. Her goal is to help equip students to write effectively while equipping the parents to walk through the writing process with their students.

I approached the Essay Rock Star Expository Essay Writing Course with my son with a bit of trepidation. This is the third student I have homeschooled high school with, so you might expect me to have a bit of confidence. What you may not know is that my older two students were in a co-op in high school, and the co-op included writing as one of its subjects. My daughters were not only not accountable to me for getting their writing assignments done, but their papers were also not graded by me. I found that to be a huge help. I either corrected everything (not giving them freedom to express their own thoughts, but trying to get them to express my thoughts) or else I thought everything they wrote was wonderful (with blinders that prevented me from helping them to improve their writing). Having an impartial 3rd party do the paper-grading was what I needed.

So along came this son that God gave me. He is so different from me. If I ask him to write an essay about "Topic X", he says he wants to write about "Topic Q" that I know nothing about. This leaves me feeling 1) like I cannot score his papers because I don't know if the material is correct or not and 2) like he's never going to learn to write on a topic that is assigned to him. Along came the Essay Rock Star Expository Essay Writing Course.

The Expository Essay Course is broken down into bite-sized pieces. Each step along the way teaches the student (and the parent) how to approach that segment of the essay-writing process. It also gives links, PDF files, and ideas to help the student every step of the way. Each of the following steps was one lesson. After each lesson the student completes a related assignment, submits the assignment to the teacher, and receives feedback on the written work before continuing. Here are the steps/lessons:

1) Course Introduction, Rubrics, and Pre-Assessment (child sends in a sample writing assignment from previous work);

2) Purpose and Description; Brainstorming;

3) Organizing Ideas;

4) Free Writing;

5) Revision;

6) Editing;

7) Wrap-Up.

So we started off with the Pre-Assessment. That doesn't sound too difficult, right? You just send in a previous writing assignment. Well, scroll back up to that first paragraph where I said I have neglected writing and composition. Did you think I was kidding? I didn't have a previous writing assignment. This young man has never before written an essay or a composition. He has written answers to questions in workbooks, and he has kept a journal. Fairly Charlotte Mason in our previous schooling, I have often had him narrate to me orally. I tried to get him to do written narrations one year, but that flopped (he was unwilling and I did not fight with him). He now understands that learning to write essays and compositions is necessary to move forward into college and is willing to learn, but there was no "previous writing assignment". He had to start Lesson 1 by writing an essay to submit for the assessment.

It became necessary for me to instruct him just to get started. I discussed with him the basic five paragraph composition that starts with an introductory paragraph, is followed by three supporting paragraphs, and concludes with a paragraph that restates the introductory paragraph and wraps up all the loose ends. Initially we had some difficulty figuring out how to submit the essay. I tried to attach a document, but my computer was generating different document formats than the Fortuigence site wanted to accept. I finally figured out how to submit a ".doc" document.

We submitted my son's essay, and I waited with anxiety. I had forced myself not to read the essay, not to make corrections or comments. Later the same day, his instructor (who was Lily Iatridis herself, by the way) sent my son a note telling him he is a "competent writer" and had us move on to Lesson 2. Who knew? My son and I were both pleased and relieved.

So we watched the video for Lesson 2 and then read through the documentation that followed the video. There was a link given to a website that offers (limited) free support for brain-storming. I had to prompt my son to give him ideas on what to write on. I suggested he write on something he knows a lot about, and we both thought about that. He picked his topic and went to the brainstorming page and created lots of sub-topics. He had selected a "process" style topic, so I let him know he did not need to be constrained by the five-paragraph format of the previous essay.

Somehow I got lost in what I was reading and I directed my son, incorrectly, to submit a rough draft as his assignment for the brainstorming. He did the work and we submitted his writing.

Ms. Iatridis received this rough draft with surprise. We had by-passed four lessons or something. She read what he had written and responded to him with an email of glowing praise, suggesting that he didn't really need the course, and that if we weren't reviewing the course she would probably give us a refund. What? I mean, this is the second writing assignment in his life. My son responded to me, "Does this mean I never have to do another writing assignment?" I had to let him down gently. There is still so much for him to learn!

So we walked our way through the additional lessons, resubmitting the same essay after each lesson, until the lessons caught up to where my son was, having written his rough draft. Finally, after Lesson 6, his writing was reviewed with a fine-toothed comb. This is where the capitalization was scrutinized, punctuation, unfamiliar words, awkward wording, etc.

My son went over the teacher-markups and is making final adjustments to his composition, to create a great finished product. And I, meanwhile, have saved copies of all the tools and materials provided during the course, so we will have them in our arsenal for future writing assignments. 

While I don't know if my son will ever enjoy writing (especially writing assigned to him by someone else), I think I can honestly say that he and I have both been totally pleased with our experience with the Essay Rock Star Expository Essay Writing Course. The constructive praise and comments made by the teacher were helpful, encouraging, and anything but shallow. And I totally feel this course was as beneficial for me as the teacher as it was for my son as the student.

The Essay Rock Star Expository Essay Writing Course is a perfect fit for 12-18 year old students. It is a "short course" (to be completed over the course of one month) in the Fortuigence offerings, and is priced at $57, counting as only a small fraction of the writing my son should complete this year. The company offered me the opportunity to get the rest of the essay program at a 40% discount, and I am mulling that idea over and will discuss it with my husband and my son. Right now I am thinking I have the skill and ability to teach Essay and Composition to my son, but not the confidence. So purchasing the entire course is a definite possibility.

So go to the Fortuigence website and look around. Be sure to check out the free resources page while you are there. To see reviews by other members of the Schoolhouse Review Crew, click the button below. Crew members reviewed four different products, so you can learn about all of them.

A Word to Apply to 2014

If I had to sum up my goals, hopes and plans for the new year in one word, it would have to be...

Intentional!

In other words, I have things I'd like to accomplish this year, and the only way to accomplish what I hope to accomplish is to be intentional to get these things done. Here are some of the things I plan to be intentional about this year:

Health and Weight Goals:
This year I would like to get my weight, my blood pressure, and my cholesterol into the range (for each) that my doctor says they should be.

I have 20 pounds to go, but 30 would be nicer. By the way, my jeans are not dirty, the mirror is! So achieving my goal will be accomplished through intentional care in what I am eating, and intentional increasing of my physical activity. I am currently still recovering from shoulder surgery mid-November, but I can start doing some walking in addition to the physical therapy activities I am working on each week.

Decluttering:
An adult child married and moved out, and I thought that would relieve some of the house's clutter. But it didn't. They moved into a very small apartment, and I was hit with, "I don't have room for it right now, but I want it. Please can we still keep it in your house for awhile until we can get a bigger place?"  We're still working our way through the issue, but not quickly enough to make me happy. So, in the meantime I am trying to focus on my own clutter and declutter for 15 minutes a day most days. Intentionally.

Home School:

This year I need to finish homeschooling 8th grade, and start homeschooling... HIGH SCHOOL! Since I changed the basic History/Literature core I am using this year, a group of other regulars dropped out of our regular practices that I want to get back to.

Bible (Reading, Hymn Study, etc.):

For awhile my son was reading on his own fairly well, and I stopped doing reading and hymns together. I think we would both benefit from getting this back into our "together" time.

Nature Study:

Nature Study has slid off my radar these past five months. Even when I try, and take photographs, I haven't blogged about it. So this year I hope to come up with some achievable goals in Nature Study and follow through with them. Below, rabbit tracks in our first snow.

Composer Study:

Same as the others. Dropped out of our practices. I'd like to get back to it, even if only once a week.

Artist Study:

Same. Plan it, do it. Intentional.

Outdoor time/walks: 

This is really lacking, and my son and I both need it, so I'm going to try to integrate it into our plans.

High School:

I need to get my ducks in a row and implement high school well, keep good records, and prepare my son for what he wants to do as an adult. Right now his aspirations lean towards computers and engineering. We'll see. But I need to plot out his courses, settle on direction in certain areas, and keep good records. I've done this twice before. At least I have an idea of what I need to do. I don't want my record-keeping to be a game of "catch up" this time.

Geneology:

I plan to continue my geneology studies and posts of family history and stories, to benefit my own kids, my nieces and nephews, and other distant relatives who are interested.

Product Reviews:

I am, once again, on The Old Schoolhouse Homeschool Review Crew. Our review year runs January to November, and I intend to be intentional and careful about what products I ask for, what I volunteer to review. I still owe some other vendors reviews, and I need to be intentional about getting them done and out of the way.

Relationships:

I am working this year to be intentional in my close relationships. Sometimes, when we get busy, we meet all our outside commitments but let down those closest to us. I want to be intentional to make sure this doesn't happen. 

Maintaining:

I am already intentional in certain areas, and in these areas I intend to maintain -- menu planning, shopping, meal preparation, blogging, etc. My housekeeping has slipped, but I plan to bring it back in line. 

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So, how about you? Do you have a word that would sum up your plans for 2013? Let me know.