Read Aloud Thursday ~ The Story of Haydn

I am joining the Read-Aloud Thursday meme again. If you want to join us click the link above, write your post and link up.

The Story of Haydn (Signature Books, 49)
This was a very good book. I did not know much about Haydn before reading this book. I especially enjoyed the portions of the book that told about the following musical compositions. First was how he wrote the Surprise Symphony to wake up the sleepy audiences of London. They were used to large meals and then took naps during the evening musical performances, Haydn wanted to wake them up... and boy were they surprised. Another part I liked was how he wrote the Farewell Symphony to get the prince to let the musicians go home to their families. The prince had stayed too long in the country and the musicians missed their families. It was an ingenious move on Haydn's part. Lastly was how he was influenced by Handel to create an oratorio. He choose to base it on Milton's Paradise Lost and Genesis and called it The Creation. Beautiful music with wonderful lyrics Signature books are almost as good as Landmark books. This one is for sure. If you haven't read this book you should. This was a read-aloud for school. It is good individual reading for about ages 9 or so and up, unless you have an advanced reader, then maybe even younger. This book has 179 pages and it took us about a week to read it @ 30-45 min. a day.

Check out some other Signature books also. They have a lot of great titles.

If anyone knows of a website with the complete list of Signature books (by Grosset & Dunlap) let me know. There had to be at least 49 books since this copy is labelled as #49.


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Note: book links are affiliate links to Amazon.com

Reading Challenge ~ March Update

My goal for reading this year was to read 52 books or more in 2012. That is one book a week. I am proud that I am doing so well. I am 4 books ahead right now.I hope to continue to read more than I am supposed to. I don't want to just slump one month because I am already ahead in reading.

I am currently reading 13 books. Some for school, some for personal reading, some for devotions. Some will be finished in a few days. Some will be finished in a few weeks. Some will not be finished until the end of the year.

I love reading!

You can explore so much of our past and present and gain so much knowledge and encouragement!

Read A Book Today!

Each month for the Reading Challenge we are supposed to do an update and link up. This month I read....


A Time to Love (Quilts of Lancaster County, #1)
Cameron, Barbara
I really liked this book. It was really good. I am currently reading book 2. This was definitely Christian Fiction, read for fun.


Fearless: Imagine Your Life Without Fear
Lucado, Max
This book was started on January 1, and was read as part of my daily devotions. It was very good. I won this in a giveaway in 2011 and hadn't read it yet. I really needed it, just at this time. Such a  God-incidence. Fearless. Can you live a fearless life? Can I? God tells us over and over not to fear. Trust! Hope! These are the things God wants us to do. 


Bulletproof George Washington: An Account of God's Providential Care
Barton, David
This was read for school. Christopher read it himself and I wanted to read it since I didn't remember ever reading it before. It was very good. A telling of the story of one of the battles of the French and Indian War.  


Daniel Boone: The Opening of the Wilderness (Landmark Books #21)
Brown, John Mason
I loved this book.  I did a full review of this book on my blog - HERE.If you are interested, go read it.
 

Reshaping It All: Motivation for Physical and Spiritual Fitness
Bure, Candace Cameron
A very good book. Great for spiritual and physical uplifting. Not enough to get me back to exercising but gave me a lot to think about. Hopefully I will be feeling better soon and then I will get back to exercising.
 

Captain Cook Explores the South Seas (World Landmark Books #19)
Sperry, Armstrong
This was also a good book. I love Landmark books for school! I did not know much about Captain Cook before reading this book. I highly recommend it for everyone. Boys will especially love the danger and excitement of the high seas.
 

George Washington: Frontier Colonel
North, Sterling
A good book. A general overview of the early years of service George Washington preformed for his country. He had great insight, even in his young years in army.
 

The Hidden Flame (Acts of Faith Series #2) (Acts of Faith Series #2)
Bunn, Davis and Oke, Janette
Love.These.Books. I am reading this series on my Nook. I got the first book of this series for free and bought book 2 and 3 with a gift card my friend Michele gave me. These take historical events and weave a fictional story around them and especially around the main characters who are not biblical characters, but could have been. Add in some actual biblical characters as "minor" characters in the book and you have got me hooked! I love Janette Oke and have for a long time. Pair her up with T. Davis Bunn and you have a Wonderful Book. This one covers Peter and healing as well as the stoning of Stephen and the persecution of the early church. I highly recommend this series.

That is 8 books in March!! I am 4 book ahead!

Here are the previous updates if you are interested:

Reading Challenge ~ February Update

Reading Challenge ~ January Update

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Read-Aloud Thursday ~ Daniel Boone and Captain Cook

Last week we read Daniel Boone: The Opening of the Wilderness. I did not get time to link up and write the review for last Thursday but got it done on Sunday. Click the link above to read my review of that book. It was a great book! One of my favorites so far this year.

We are now reading Captain Cook Explores the South Seas I have found this book very interesting. There were a lot of things about Captain Cook that I never knew. Most Landmark books are interesting. I would give this one 4 stars so far. We finished chapter 7 out of 9 chapters and so we should finish the book tomorrow. I would definitely say boys ages 9 or so and up would like this book. I had no idea that Cook started out as a farmer's son. He went through a lot to rise to his position as captain of a ship.

I didn't know he was married either. It would be really hard to be married and pregnant and then see you husband go off for a 3 year voyage. I can't imagine.

Captain Cook and his shipmates had a lot of hard times on that 3 year voyage but some of them made it home and they had discovered a lot of things... including The Great Barrier Reef and claiming Australia for England (it had been discovered but not thoroughly mapped, landed on, or claimed before).

I was also interested to see how many famous characters from this time period had spent time fighting in the French and Indian / 7 Years War. It is amazing how many important people had a hand in that war.

below are 2 other links to Amazon for this book.
Captain Cook Explores the South Seas
Captain Cook Explores the South Seas

Well, I don't want to tell you everything that happened or you won't want to read the book.

Click on the button at the top of the page to see what other books are being read by the participants of Read-Aloud Thursday.



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By Wagon and Flatboat ~ Read-Aloud Thursday

I am submitting this for Read-Aloud Thursday as you see. I have not done this meme for a while. I am excited to start this up again with this great book.

By Wagon and Flatboat by Enid La Monte Meadowcroft

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

By Wagon and Flatboat is an interesting book. We read it for school. We greatly enjoyed the story of 2 families moving from Gray's Ferry, now part of Philadelphia, PA to Ohio. First they travel by Conestoga Wagon to Pittsburgh, PA then change over to a Flatboat to travel down the Ohio river to Losantiville. Have you ever heard of the town named Losantiville, OH? Me neither. That is because they changed the name. On the last page of the book. What did they change it to... you'll have to look it up or read the book to find out.

There are so many adventures the family has during their travels. I don't want to spoil the book but there is a tooth pulling, rain and mud, mountains and water, children, a dog and farm animals... and Indians. Suspense and trouble and taking apart a boat to make a door and the floor of their new house. I found it to be a great story and I love that a couple times in the story the family refers to God, they go to church, and they pray. This is a good, clean, interesting historical fiction covering the early pioneer days after the Revolutionary War. Lots of people started moving west.

I like the author and the way she writes. We have a few of her books and I will be on the lookout for others. I hope that you will consider reading this book, especially if you include it as part of your homeschooling as I did.

View all my reviews


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Read-Aloud Thursday ~ Mr. Pipes and the British Hymn Writers

We are loving our reading of Mr Pipes And The British Hymn Makers. One of the reasons is it's author, Douglas Bond. We have enjoyed a number of books by Douglas Bond and the Mr. Pipes books are no different. We now own all three of the Mr. Pipes books. Douglas Bond is such a talented writer. Mr Pipes And The British Hymn Makers is the first book in the series. I wish we had had Mr. Pipes and Psalms and Hymns of the Reformation last year when we covered that time period, but we didn't. The boys and I like Douglas Bond books so much that I am sure we will be able to read the Reformation book also, just for fun, as personal reading. We will cover the hymns of the British Hymn writers and the book Mr. Pipes comes to America as we get to them in our study of History.

In Mr Pipes And The British Hymn Makers we meet Annie and Drew. Their mother is working and has brought them to a little town in England for the summer. Drew is especially bummed to be in this little old town, where everything felt and looked old, and thinks it will be a long and boring summer. While out exploring on one of their first days in town they hear music in the old church and meet... who do you think... Mr. Pipes of course. Mr. Pipes real name is David McCallum, but the day we meet him is the only time his given name is used (at least so far... but we are only in chapter 3). Everyone calls him Mr. Pipes. Why is that?? It is because he plays the big pipe organ in the little church in town... and he knows a lot about music, especially church music, Godly music, Hymns. Mr. Pipes, a man of God, knows about hymns and their writers and takes the children under his wing and shares the Gospel with them through music. The children have gone to church, but only once in a while. They are not saved, not children of God. But hopefully they will be by the end of the book. They are already questioning and thinking about the things Mr. Pipes is sharing with them.

I love hymns. I like a lot of more popular praise and worship music that we sing at our church each week. I do not like them as much as the old hymns I grew up with. Most of the praise and worship music of today does not have the substance that the hymns have. Thankfully we also sing them each week at church.

We read the introductory chapter where we meet all the characters. We read the second chapter about Thomas Ken. Today we read the third chapter about Isaac Watts. Some of Isaac Watts hymns are my favorite hymns. I love how Mr. Pipes weaves the story of Isaac Watts background, his upbringing, and how he came to write hymns. We get not only the words of the hymns but a biography of the hymn writer. This book, this series, will be a great addition to our homeschool. I can't wait to read more and I highly recommend these books to anyone. I love adding music and music history to our studies.

Update: Amy, the hostess of Read-Aloud Thursday asked what age I think these books are most appropriate for. I chatted with my children and we decided ages 8 and up.. though I think you may be able to go younger than that if you are reading to all you children with younger children listening in. Good readers from grades 3 or 4 up could read the book by themselves just fine.

To combine our studies the boys have also been copying the stanza's of Isaac Watts hymns during the first weeks of school. We do hymn study one day each week. I had them do a hymn that we didn't know before this study and they will do a couple of well known ones as well.

I was excited to find books by Isaac Watts available at Amazon.com (there are a lot more, I linked to the cheapest/Free ones which I downloaded to my free Kindle for the PC from Amazon). I am looking forward to checking out each of these books and reading them, singing the songs and learning more about Isaac Watts.

• Divine and Moral Songs for the Use of Children 
• Divine Songs 
• The Psalms and Hymns of Isaac Watts 
• A Short Essay Toward the Improvement of Psalmody Or, An Enquiry How the Psalms of David Ought to Be Translated into Christian Songs, and How Lawful and ... Gospel, for the Use of the Christian Church.

I am including this post in two reading challenges. First is Read-Aloud Thursday... click the button at the top of the post. Second is the challenge at Footprints in the Butter - Reading Aloud Challenge.

We are also reading aloud A Jacobite Exile by G.A. Henty. Tomorrow we will finish reading that. It is a really good Henty... but then again I have not met a Henty I didn't like... yet anyway. A Jacobite Exile is about the Great Northern War, a battle between Russia and Sweden with a few of their neighbors thrown in. The main character is a young man from England. How he gets involved in the war and the escapades he encounters are worth your reading of this book. Time period is the last decade of the 17th century up to 1703.The Russians wanted a seaport and boy did they fight to get one. Here is the link to the free Kindle edition - A Jacobite Exile Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden and here is the search results for all the copies for A Jacobite Exile at Amazon.com.

We also finished reading Mystery of History yesterday, so I added that book to my Reading 2011 - 100+ Books Challenge. For the 100+ book challenge I am up to 31/100. I should also finish reading some personal reading books in the next day or two to add to that.


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Note: book links are affiliate links... if you click on the link and make a purchase I get a small portion of the sale. I use this credit to buy homeschool books for us.

Read Aloud ~ Colonial Times

I am late getting this posted. But, better late than never.

I am including this post in a number of reading challenges. First is Read-Aloud Thursday... click the button on the left. Second is the challenge at Footprints in the Butter - Reading Aloud Challenge

Monday we finished reading Life in Colonial America - Landmark Giants Series by Elizabeth George Speare. We love Landmark books so I was sure I would also love a Landmark Giant!!! and we did. The 2 color illustrations and copies of old photos are not stupendous but they do give you the idea and enhance the story in many cases. The wonderfully words, written in 1963, make all the difference.The book covers plantation life in Jamestown 1607 through 1700. I like this book because it covers the everyday life of different kinds of people. I love the dutch settlers sleeping in a cupboard (with picture), the chapter on "The Goodwife at Home" with her wooden egg-beater, quilting, and "toaster" - like this one http://www.mtforge.com/Catalog/page1/pages/toaster.htm, and a chapter on schooling, playing, pets, what children wore, and the first college in America..Boy college at Yale and Harvard in the "olden days" was nothing like it is now... there were strict rules about studying and only one hour a day, in the evening, for relaxation. I also enjoyed the chapter called "By Sea and by Land" showing how people got around in the America's in the 18th century: ferrymen, sedan chairs, Conestoga wagons, sleighs, the Long Island Ferry (yeah, way back in mid 1600's), and early stagecoaches. I love studying the everyday lives of the colonial people.

This is the only reading we got done this week. Tuesday my son Christopher got a sore throat and that was it... we didn't get any more school done. He is well on the mend now and hopefully, prayerfully we will be back to school on Monday. I hope no one else gets this, it was only a sore throat but it was a bad sore throat.

I will also be adding it to my year long reading challenge:

• Reading 2011 - 100+ Books Challenge. For the 100+ book challenge I am up to 29/100. I have to "book it" (lol) if I want to still read 100 books in 2011. I need to read 3 1/2 books a week. I am trying to read more and I will just see how I do. Luckily I get to count personal reading as well as read aloud to the boys for school... that helps.

I also have the following extra challenges... this particular book did not count for either of these challenges since we own it and it was not an award winner. I have read a bunch of library books, however, and added them to that list.

• Reading 2011 - Library Challenge
• Reading 2011 - Winners Challenge

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Read Aloud Thursday ~ First week of school

Well, school has started back up for us and so I am back to reading aloud to the boys. Since I am back to reading aloud to the boys I am also back to doing the Read -Aloud Thursday meme. Just click on the button on the left if you want to join us.

This year we are studying Origins, Earth Science and Astronomy for Science. You can see all our curriculum on my Resources for the 2011-2012 School Year page. I am still working on getting everything listed there. This week for science I read parts of 2 books: Evolution Exposed: Earth Science and Laying a Creation Foundation: Building Blocks in Science. This should be a good year. I am excited about the science topics and resources we will be using this year.

For History we are at the end of the 1600's. This week I read Mystery of History, The Story of the Thirteen Colonies, and Sweet Land of Liberty by Charles Coffin.

We also started reading a Historical Fiction book: A Jacobite Exile: Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden by G.A. Henty. Here is a free Kindle edition from Amazon... at least it was free when I posted this: A Jacobite Exile: Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden. Here is a link to free downloads on Archive.org. I am currently reading a pdf version to the boys each day. I would love to have a complete set of Henty books... for now we use the library if they have a copy and if not then I use Archive.org.

My boys also read The Witchcraft of Salem Village, Landmark # 69 this week but that was not read aloud.

I want to get back to reading aloud to the whole family. A book just for fun. We want to read Summer Days with the Moodys book 5 of the Moody series. We had the first 4 and got book 5 and 6 at CHAP in May.






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* Note: the links to books in this post, except for the Henty book links and the Summer Days with the Moodsy book, are Amazon affiliate links.