Graphic art. It’s a well-paying and in-demand business – one that most people figure is beyond their reach. It takes a special talent, patience, and loads of time spent studying manuals, right? Well, not necessarily – not if you use Graphics-Toolbox by Great Software Tools, Inc.
As part of The Old Schoolhouse Crew, I was given the opportunity to use Graphics-Toolbox so I could share this program with you. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to use the software because it isn’t compatible with the Windows Vista 64-bit operating system. Even though I couldn’t use it, I want to share some information about the program.
Created by Lynda Holler and William Tsao, Graphics-Toolbox is intended to pack numerous graphic design features into a software program that is much easier to learn than higher-priced professional-level programs. Instead of hundreds of pages in a textbook-style manual, Graphics-Toolbox offers video and slideshow tutorials to explain the program’s capabilities and to guide users through creating specific projects. The main interface is set up to be as user friendly as possible and much less complicated than other graphics art programs.
Capabilities of Graphics-Toolbox include:
Changing a specific color in an image while retaining the tonal effects (i.e. shadows)
Combining objects from different photographs into a single image
Removing unwanted objects from an image
Adding texture, colorful ribbons, or fancy lines to projects
Cloning specific portions of an image
Graphics-Toolbox isn’t limited to images alone, however. Users from five years old on up can create flyers, newsletters, invitations, power point-style presentations, and much more. Images and text can be easily combined to create any project fueled by your imagination.
Because it can be impossible to know whether you’ll like a software program without actually trying it, Great Software Tools offers a free 30-day trial of Graphics-Toolbox. You may download the fully-functional trial version here. A permanent license for a single user can be purchased for $149.
The minimum system requirements to run Graphics-Toolbox are:
This week, God has brought to my mind several times a song that we sometimes sing at church – Jehovah Jireh, My Provider. The lyrics are simple but speak volumes about God’s care for me, for us.
Jehovah Jireh, my provider,
His grace is sufficient for me
for me, for me…!
Jehovah Jireh, my provider,
His grace is sufficient for me.
My God shall supply all of my needs
according to His riches in Glory.
He shall give His angels charge over me.
Jehovah Jireh cares for me
for me, for me…!
Jehovah Jireh cares for me.
God supplies all of my needs according to His riches in Glory. His supply may not always fit the riches my fleshly man wants – plenty of money, a nice house, love, lots of good food. No matter what my circumstances, though, even when they are unpleasant and painful for me, I know – I know, I know! – that God has set up my life’s situations specifically for my eternal good.
Each and every thing that I go through is necessary for me to be made into the vessel God wants me to be. The good and the bad, the pain and the pleasure, are all part of His riches in Glory. I love it! Praise God for His control and for the beautiful plan He is weaving in my life and in this world.
The tune of Jehovah Jireh, My Provider has a bit of a Jewish beat. I found a video on YouTube so you can hear the sound of this song. We don’t have violins or trumpets at my church (no one knows how to play them!), but this rendition still matches pretty closely what I’ve been hearing in my mind this week.
I have had the special privilege since September 2008 to participate in The Old Schoolhouse Magazine’s Homeschool Crew. This project allows homeschool families to receive free educational or family-related products in exchange for writing an informative review. If you’ve visited Fenced in Family before, you’ve surely noticed the various reviews that I post.
The TOS Crew has been such a blessing to my family because it has provided curricula and supplemental materials that we can continue using for many years in our homeschool. I have discovered dozens of publishers and companies that I had never heard of before or had dismissed without knowing what wonderful materials they offer.
I’m happy to be able to participate in the Crew for this upcoming year and am even happier that I can invite you to participate as well! If you have a blog, e-group, newsletter, or other way to share reviews with other families, then you are eligible to apply for the next Crew Voyage. All of the information is available on this special TOS Crew information page.
Go, read all about it, and decide if you’d like to set sail with the Crew in 2010. You won’t regret it! The deadline for applying is March 12, 2010.
I hate cleaning. Mopping and vacuuming and wiping counters, I can handle – but the constant picking up is for the birds.
When I tell my kids to do something, instead of obeying me, they ignore me, argue, or try to bargain their way into doing something less (or more, as the case may be).
Some days, our home is anything but peaceful.
I eat about half my meals on the couch instead of at the kitchen table.
I want so many aspects of my home life and my children to be different, but it seems too hard to change things.
This morning, I finished reading an ebook called Smooth and Easy Days by Sonya Schaffer of Simply Charlotte Mason. The ebook is available for free, and you can download it here. In it, Mrs. Schaffer talks about the habit training that Charlotte Mason advocated. That truth of my ‘confessions’ is that my entire family has developed a wide array of bad habits.
Smooth and Easy Days suggests working on only one habit at a time, and I think that is where I run into difficulties. I see all the places we need to improve, and I think, “It’s too hard. I can’t possibly get the kids to put their dirty clothes in the hamper every time, put their shoes away neatly, put their books and toys away as soon as their finished with them, put their dirty dishes in the dishwasher, put the cap back on the toothpaste, be polite to one another, answer people who speak to them, obey what they’re told right away, AND wipe their faces after eating.” See, that list is long – and it’s only a tiny part of everything I’d like to see them do.
Mrs. Schaffer also writes that training a single habit can take four to six weeks, and honestly, I think if I tell them something once, they should remember it for all time. So I’m trying to change the way I think of their behavior – and my behavior and Jon’s too. Instead of looking at everything as a “You don’t listen to me!” situation, I’m trying to see the dirty clothes in the floor (and the other issues) as bad habits that have been formed … habits that can be changed.
I’ve picked two areas I would like to work on with the boys. An ‘after breakfast’ routine and keeping the living room neat. As they were getting ready to eat breakfast, I said, “We’re going to work on good habits. We’ve all developed a lot of bad habits….” (James started saying, “YES, even YOU,” while Nick looked a little confused and said, “What bad habits?” He tends to be a little ‘oblivious’ to his surroundings. )
I explained that we would work on making good habits and that I wanted them to start with doing certain things after breakfast each day. I listed off five things for them to do “immediately after eating breakfast.” (Nick likes to read while he eats and tends to continue reading for 20-30 minutes after he’s finished. I’d like to end that habit since it slows us down with starting school.) These are the steps I gave them:
Put your dirty dishes in the dishwasher.
Wash your hands and wipe your face.
Brush your teeth.
Comb your hair.
Get dressed.
Not too bad, right? Of course, this morning, I had to remind them of almost every step, but it’s only the first day. Hopefully by the end of six weeks, they’ll have it down pat.
The other part – about keeping the living room neat – well, we need to get it cleaned up first. That’s on the agenda for today. I feel like I clean up the living room pretty thoroughly a couple times each week, but I can’t turn around twice without it looking like a tornado again. I would like to cultivate a habit, in all five of us, that nothing gets left in the living room at bedtime. The floor should be clear, couches and chairs should be clear, etc. We’ll see how it goes!
I know Charlotte Mason advised working on only one habit at a time, but I think it will be okay to work on a morning habit and an evening habit at the same time. If it doesn’t seem to be working out after a week or two, I’ll adjust.
For myself, I’m going to try to form the habit of eating at the kitchen table. For most people, needing to work on that habit is probably a foreign concept, but I’ve been eating on couches almost my whole life. It’s more comfortable and warmer in the winter! For my family, though, I realize that eating at the table is important. I did eat my breakfast at the table this morning and, just like with the boys, hopefully it will become an ingrained habit within a month or so.
I had the privilege of using All About Spelling’s Levels One through Four as part of the TOS Crew last year. I continue to use that program with both Nick and James today and think it’s an excellent spelling curriculum. Marie Rippel, the author of All About Spelling, kindly sent me a complimentary copy of her Beehive Reader 1 to review this year.
As you may expect from the name “reader,” Beehive Reader 1 is intended for use with early readers – approximately first graders or children on a similar reading level. At first, I thought it would be good for very early readers like James. He can sound out single syllable words with short vowel sounds and no consonant blends, but Beehive Reader 1 is written for children more advanced than this.
From the first page, the book uses consonant blends with short vowel sounds, words like held, frog, sand, and went. I was able to help James with the first couple blends to teach him how to sound them out. He seemed to understand and could make out the other blend-words, but it never seemed to be something he was comfortable with. He got frustrated easily and would tell me it was too hard.
Because of the words being above his ‘comfort level,’ I asked him to read only one page each day. Most pages have just one sentence, while some pages have two or three short sentences. Of course, reading one page a day doesn’t help him to enjoy the story so the book was more of a frustration to him. After about eight pages, I put it away and went back to using other phonics/reading practice. When he gets more comfortable with reading, we’ll bring Beehive Reader back out.
Ten stories are included in Beehive Reader 1 with each story spanning ten to 20 pages. As I mentioned, each page has just one or two sentences, sometimes three very short ones. Each story correlates with a Step (or lesson) in All About Spelling Level One. The exact correlation is explained on the AAS website here, but I think it would have been nice to have the correlation printed in the reader itself.
The first Beehive Reader story – At the Pond – correlates with Step 15. Since James is just on Step 3, I suppose it’s understandable that he’s had some difficulty reading the story.
Even though James isn’t quite ready to read Beehive Reader 1, I think it is a wonderful book. The stories are printed on sturdy pages and bound in hardcover, making it a book that can be saved and read by multiple children over many years. The illustrations, by Donna Goeddaeus and David LaTulippe, are charming pencil drawings. Many of the drawings are realistic and detailed, while some have more of a semi-cartoon look.
In my opinion, the illustrations are a major appeal for the book. They have that classic, timeless style that continues to be enjoyable for a long time. I can imagine many children wanting to just sit and look at the pictures. One day, I gave Beehive Reader 1 to James and told him to read as many words as he could for the next ten minutes. When I came back to him and asked how much he’d read, he said, “Well, I read a word and then I looked at these pictures.”
I’ll definitely be saving Beehive Reader 1 for James when he is ready to read it and am looking forward to seeing the future readers as well.
I’ve been thinking lately how homeschooling doesn’t happen during set hours, and I’m learning that I shouldn’t ever expect it to. Many times, soooo many times, I have worked up a new schedule for us to follow – sometimes my schedule is loose, just telling how many days per week I want to accomplish each subject. (Math four times, spelling two times, and a science experiment once, for example.) Other times, I’ve written up a schedule that structures our time in 30 minute blocks (and, no, I have never managed to stay exactly on such a strict schedule for even a day).
For so long, I’ve thought that we need some kind of schedule to make our schooling “real” or “legitimate.” I have thought that days when we were completely “off the schedule” were basically failures. We “did some stuff,” as I would say later, but we didn’t meet my vision of what is acceptable.
Even though I’ve never tried to create public schooling at home, I still measured myself beside a checklist.
In the last week, a couple things have happened that have made me realize I must stop doing this, for my own good and for the good of my sons.
First, James asked me if divers can go to the bottom of the ocean. I found a map in our atlas that shows the ocean’s depths all around the world. I explained that islands are like mountains in the water with tops that stick out above the water.
This discussion led us into watching videos about deep sea creatures, and both Nick and James have latched onto their new knowledge about the strange creatures at the bottom of the sea. Everyday, they talk about giant isopods, anglerfish, frilled sharks, and colossal squid. They’ve had questions about which ones eat others, what it’s like at the bottom of the ocean, how scientists have discovered those creatures and how they can video record them if divers can’t go that deep.
One simple question has turned into over a week of learning about the oceans’ ecology, with the discussions and questions occurring any time of day, at home, in the car, in a store. *gasp!* Not when my schedule says we should have science lessons. We’ve packed more science into the last two weeks than we’ve had in the last two months.
It has become so apparent to me that missing a topic my schedule says we should do today, even missing it all week, is okay because the opportunity will arise again. That very subject may become the primary focus next week. It’s freeing to rest in that “whole lifestyle of learning” mentality and not think that education takes place only between 9am and 3pm. I’ve always espoused that in theory, but I’m developing a new outlook and trying to make it my reality.
In January 2009, I wrote a review of Math Mammoth’s Golden Series math worksheets. Today, I have the opportunity to share a little bit about the Blue and Green Series with you. Maria Miller, who created the Math Mammoth workbooks and worksheets, gave me the chance to choose any of the workbooks from any of the four series: Blue, Light Blue, Golden, or Green. I chose three texts I wanted to use as a supplement to our regular curriculum.
Clock (Blue Series)
Money (Blue Series)
Measuring (Green Series)
The main difference between the Blue and Green Series is that the Blue workbooks contain easy-to-understand instructions for each new idea presented. Though I used the Blue workbooks for extra practice in topics Nick has covered before (telling time and counting money), the instructional material would allow a parent to use these books alone. The Green Series workbooks, on the other hand, are “problems” only. A teacher will need to teach the information from her own knowledge or using another curriculum.
Because the Clock Workbook is designed for grades 1 to 3, some of it was too simple for Nick. He already knows how to read a clock, after all. He just needs more practice (lots more practice) so he can learn to read the time more quickly, without hesitating and counting “5, 10, 15, 20…”
For each topic within the Clock Workbook, about half a page of instruction and examples are given to simply, yet clearly, explain the concept to the student. A few problems are given at the bottom of the example page, followed by one to three practice pages focusing on that concept. Review pages cover all of the concepts that have been introduced up until that point.
For Nick’s needs, I probably would be better served by having many more worksheets asking for “time to the minute.” In my opinion, this workbook would work best for students who are studying telling time for the first time, not an older child who needs lots of extra practice.
Math Mammoth’s Money Workbook is also designed for grades 1 to 3 and begins with identifying pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters. I used this workbook with Nick for extra practice just like Clock, but I also used it with James who is learning to identify the coins and their values.
Instead of just covering the basics of identifying, counting, and adding money, though, Math Mammoth teaches “finding change.” Would you believe this is something that I have never tried to teach nine-year-old Nick? The Money Workbook includes straight-to-the-point explanations that make this new concept easy to understand and learn. I especially appreciate that the materials teach students to find the change mentally – without relying on calculators or fingers!
Measuring, from the Green Series, is geared toward third through sixth grade students and does not contain instruction. As I said, I wanted these workbooks as a supplement, but the Measuring Workbook goes quite a bit further than Nick has progressed in learning about various measurements – so we haven’t delved into it much yet.
One thing that has impressed me with the book, however, is that is teaches both standard (called “customary”) and metric units of measure. Most sections contain worksheets on customary measurements, followed by metric measurements, and then practice using both types of measuring. There is even a portion on how to convert between customary and metric, whether you need a weight, length, mass, or other measurement.
I have never understood metric measurements as well as I do standard, so I like the idea of teaching my sons both measurements together. Though we’re not ready yet to use these Measuring worksheets without any instruction to go with them, they’ve made me rethink where we need to go with our measurement-related math lessons in the future.
Math Mammoth workbooks can be purchased in PDF, and some are also available as print copies. The PDFs allow you to print only what you need, as many times as you need. Prices vary depending on the workbook and format chosen, but all Math Mammoth products are meant to be affordable.
From the Green Series, the Measuring PDF costs $4.25 and contains 38 worksheets. From the Blue Series, Clock is $3.50 for a PDF or $10 printed and contains 44 lesson pages; Money is $3.25 in PDF or $9.50 printed with 42 lesson pages. (Math Mammoth offers Canadian Money and European Money editions as well.)
I’m joining the TOS Homeschool Crew’s Blog Cruise again this week after posting about A Social Life back in January. This week’s topic is homeschool co-ops, a phrase that can actually mean several different things. Personally, when I think of co-ops, I think of opportunities for fun, learning, and social interaction but I also think of hassle.
What Are Co-Ops?
A co-op is a time when a group of homeschooling families get together so that their children can participate in something educational together. Some communities have very elaborate co-ops with classes covering history, science, art, music, and more. A parent may teach one of the classes, or a group of parents may share the teaching load. I think I’ve also heard of instances where an outside teacher is hired to take on a class.
This type of co-op seems to be pretty popular, but I’ve never taken the opportunity to participate in one. Currently, there aren’t any multi-subject co-ops in my area that I know of. When we did live places that offered co-ops, it seemed to me that the hassle outweighed the benefit. One drawback is that the co-ops I have heard of before start at 8 or 10am, which is a very difficult time for me to have the kids ready, fed, and in the car.
We have, however, participated in single-subject co-ops – well, one. Last fall, Nick and James took part in a weekly gym class at a college about 30 minutes away. Apparently, this is something that the college offers to area homeschoolers every fall, but I hadn’t heard about it before. (It’s funny how you learn about events if you actually attend the local homeschool meetings…)
The class lasted from 11am to noon every Thursday for six weeks and was led by physical education majors at the college. The kids were divided into three groups (K through 2nd, 3rd and 4th, and 5th and 6th), which meant that James and Nick both had to learn to operate on their own without Brother to lean on (or hide behind).
Nick jumped right into things and had a great time each week. James took a little longer to warm up but still enjoyed the different activities and even made a couple new friends. He now says that his favorite part was dribbling a basketball around traffic cones. Nick’s favorite thing was shooting basketballs. (I guess that’s good since both of them are playing Upward Basketball right now.)
I wish the gym class could have lasted longer or that they would do it in the spring as well. We’ll just have to wait for next Fall!
This song makes my heart sing and makes me want to dance. I am so glad that Jesus has set me free from what I once was and what I could have become – in Him, I am a new creature!
Some of my favorite lines from the song…
Through You, the battle’s won…
Through You, the price is paid…
Through You, there’s victory…
And I am free to live for You…
Who the Son sets free is free indeed…
I am free to run … I am free to dance….
Fantastic music and excellent lyrics – I love it.
I am thinking of turning “Song for Sunday” into a weekly meme where we could each share a Christian song that means something in our lives. If you’re even a little bit interested, would you leave a comment here? Thanks!
UPDATE: I’ve had several people express interest in participating in Song for Sunday – I’m so glad! I’m adding a Mr Linky here that you can sign if you post a song to your blog before next week’s meme goes up on Saturday afternoon.
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