Asian immigration to Canada can be traced back to the mid-19th century when Chinese workers arrived on the west coast to work on the Canadian Pacific Railway. May is Asian Heritage Month in Canada and we’ve gathered a stack of books to help you and your family learn about the heritage of our Asian community. Use the links to find complete descriptions of each book. Anno’s China The Five Chinese Brothers Ruby’s Wish Water Buffalo Days Chu Ju’s House The Story About Ping Tikki Tikki Tembo The Tale of the Mandarin Ducks The Story of Little Babaji Where the Mountain Meets the Moon Inside Out and Back Again Rikki Tikki Tavi El Chino Ming Lo Moves the Mountain The Lotus Seed Something Beautiful for God Crow Boy Once A Mouse Grandfather’s Journey Taste of Asia by Adrianne Curwen Adrianne is a wife to a public-school educator/administrator and a homeschooling Mama to seven children, ranging in age from 7 to 23. She believes that we have a unique opportunity as homeschoolers to design individualized education that suits giftings, interests, and passions. She and her husband have used a blend of registered homeschooling, enrolment with independent DL schools, and participation in public trade school programs to design individualized programs for their children. She is passionate about using as many read-alouds, picture books, novels, and conversations to educate her children but also gets excited by the amazing homeschool-designed curriculum that’s out there. Adrianne is thrilled by her new role as Communication Specialist for Classical Education Books and is grateful to have an opportunity to learn something new. She is grateful, every day, for her saviour, Jesus Christ, and has no greater joy than when she sees her most important missions field walk with Him.
Picture books are a wonderful way to introduce your children to all kinds of topics. The selection of quality picture books is amazing and reading aloud to your children is such a natural and gentle way for your children to learn. I can’t encourage you enough to be purposeful in carving out a designated read-aloud time every day. If Morning Time or a Morning Basket is already a part of your regular routine, these should be in there! (If you are not familiar with the concept of a Morning Basket, click here to link to a short video that will help you get started.) Cycling through these stories throughout the year will give your young children a solid grasp of basic grammar. My 7-year-old, who has not been introduced to any grammar concepts yet, had a clear understanding of nouns after the first read-through, and even my 9-year-old who has completed 2 years of formal grammar curriculum enjoyed these books. There is a suggested game at the end of each book that is simple and fun. Don’t dismiss big kids before you read one of these to a younger one; they work well as a simple review, and I found that my young ones enjoyed having the big ones participate in the game. Order a few to get started with but you’ll probably be back for more. If You Were a Noun If You Were an Adjective If You Were a Verb If You Were an Adverb If You Were a Preposition If You Were an Interjection If You Were a Conjunction If You Were a Homonym or a Homophone If You Were an Antonym by Adrianne Curwen Adrianne is a wife to a public-school educator/administrator and a homeschooling Mama to seven children, ranging in age from 7 to 23. She believes that we have a unique opportunity as homeschoolers to design individualized education that suits giftings, interests, and passions. She and her husband have used a blend of registered homeschooling, enrolment with independent DL schools, and participation in public trade school programs to design individualized programs for their children. She is passionate about using as many read-alouds, picture books, novels, and conversations to educate her children but also gets excited by the amazing homeschool-designed curriculum that’s out there. Adrianne is thrilled by her new role as Communication Specialist for Classical Education Books and is grateful to have an opportunity to learn something new. She is grateful, every day, for her saviour, Jesus Christ, and has no greater joy than when she sees her most important missions field walk with Him.
The Zeezok Music Appreciation program comes in many pieces and the program is so versatile. My favorite thing about this program are the books about the composers. These books, by Opal Wheeler, are living books at their best. Each story is captivating and some of them include short pieces of music that a young aspiring musician can try to play on a keyboard or piano. With details about their character and life, these are read-alouds that are the perfect addition to your morning basket. They are about a grade 3 reading level so they can also be used for independent reading. But you don’t need to just read the books and plink out the tunes on your own. You can also purchase a thumb drive that contains all the music referred to in each book. And if that wasn’t enough, you can purchase a Student Activity Book, a Coloring book, and another thumb drive with files to create a lapbook. The question is, how much is too much? Well, how much time do you want to spend studying music? I have been teaching through the Student Activity Book One. It contains about 4 lessons for each reader. The lessons repeat their content for each reader, so you know what to expect. Each set of lessons starts with comprehension questions, a lesson that points out good character traits shown by the composer, and some activities like mapping the composer’s travels, or recipes to make food from their time and culture. It spends time talking about music theory and music styles because there is a difference between classical and baroque music. It introduces the instruments of the orchestra as well as how different kinds of orchestras are arranged. The Student Activity book is quite an in-depth study of music, not just composers. It’s not exactly a living text, but it is hands-on, and it often refers to the files on the thumb drive for the Lapbook activities. There are two Activity books, Book 1 covers Bach, Beethoven, Haydn, Schubert, Mozart, Paganini, and Handel. You can purchase the complete study here. Book 2 covers Chopin, Schumann, Wagner, Foster, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, and MacDowell. Quick Facts: Living books about composers for any age. Add the music thumb drive to play the music referred to in the books. Make it a full-year study of composers, music styles, and orchestra by adding in the Student Activity and Lapbook. Book 1 is for Grades 2-4. Book 2 is for Grades 5-7. The Activity books are flexible in that you can choose to skip a certain aspect of study and not miss out on the rest of the course. (i.e. the character study is a bit long and boring and irrelevant). by Hester VanBraeden Hester is a second-generation home-educating parent who is keenly aware that her own education is not complete, and comfortable that it probably never will be. She has many years of experience with children, books, and curriculum. She loves to travel to worlds and times beyond the present with her children through many books. Hester and her husband have four children and live in the lower mainland of BC.
The Vanderbeekers Series The Mitchells Series The Penderwicks Series The Fairchild Family Series
Rikki Tikki Tavi Velveteen Rabbit Frog & Toad Together Guess How Much I Love You Saint Valentine The Monkey & The Crocodile The Owl & The Pussycat
Five Little Peppers and How They Grew Heidi Old Mother West Wind The Hundred Dresses Chu Ju’s House Archer and Zowie The Penderwicks The Boxcar Children Charlotte’s Web Beezus and Ramona Cupid and Psyche
How does your family celebrate the waiting? Advent has a long and interesting history with various traditions popping up throughout. Advent means “coming” in Latin. Today Christians use the season of advent to celebrate the coming of Jesus into the world and it is also symbolic as the church waits for Christs’ return. It is common to light a candle and read from the scriptures on the four Sundays leading up to Christmas Day. There are numerous ways that a family can use this season to teach their children about Christ’s birth and his return. I encourage you to develop traditions that mark this time. The traditions can be used to draw you away from the overwhelming pace that is so typical of this season. They will remind you and your family about the joyous anticipation that awaits believers. This package will take you through 24 days of Advent with a wonderful 25th book to open on Christmas Day. Each book has been carefully selected to help kids think about waiting and preparing. It includes classic tales of the season, from the real story of Saint Nicholas, The Nutcracker, and of course the tale of a Grinch who stole Christmas. It ends with a beautiful book that tells the story of Christmas using art masterpieces and texts directly from Scripture. This package will have a little something for everyone to revisit every year. Package includes: The Littlest Watchman Mr. Willowby’s Christmas Tree Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening The Little Fir Tree Saint Nicholas: The Real Story of the Christmas Legend White Snow, Bright Snow The Little Drummer Boy The Christmas Story Christmas around the World The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey The Mitten Christmas Day in the Morning The Little Match Girl The Nutcracker (W/CD) Christmas in the Big Woods Papa Panov’s Special Christmas Katie’s London Christmas The Polar Express An Orange for Frankie The Miracle of St. Nicholas How the Grinch Stole Christmas Snow Good King Wenceslas ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas A Promise Kept
Whether books are the foundation to your child’s learning, something you use to supplement curriculum, or you simply value what books bring into your home, CEB’s Book Stacks are something we’ll be pulling together on a regular basis to help you educate your children. Making Memories Themes are fun and a key ingredient to making memories. I use them regularly in life and book themes are no exception. I pull out all the fall-themed picture books off our bookshelves every September, we have a bin of Christmas books that gets hauled out in December, and I love finding books that coordinate with the other things we have going on. Our trip to an ocean cabin included a bin full of ocean-themed activities: picture books, puzzles, games, and coloring sheets. What stuffies do you bring on an ocean vacation? Well, the mermaid and sea star of course. During our family read-aloud time of The Green Ember, it just made sense to find picture books about Rabbits. This year my plan is to purchase books about bacteria, viruses, and pandemics. Boundaries Help Creativity Themes introduce boundaries. We don’t often think of boundaries as enhancing creativity or opening up our world, but they do. A few years ago, we had a fun and creative time planning our meals for Valentines’ Day when we decided that everything had to be red. And there was that year we had silent reading themes: Mondays were for science, Tuesdays were for history, Wednesdays were for fiction, and Thursdays were for bible stories. This was a good strategy to encourage reading outside of the “go-to” genre. Books are a Curriculum Complement Homeschool Mamas have a special relationship with books. We know that there is a heap of learning that can be pulled out of living books. I find myself leaning more and more on books particularly in the primary years. It’s such a sweet and gentle way to learn. I encourage you to weave living books into your curriculum where you can, especially when you notice a child being drawn into a particular topic. Benefits of Living Books -spark curiosity -are a delight -present facts as part of a storyline -lead to greater retention -are exciting -are whole books -draw a reader in -make the subject matter come alive Immersion Immersing a child in a topic is a great way for them to learn. This Winter Book Stack has so much to offer. Snow is Falling, Snowflake Bentley and Snowman-Cold=Puddle are all science books. Robert Frost’s Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening is a poetry book, Winter on the Farm is a social studies book, and Snow is a Language Arts book where you can introduce your children to what it means to write lyrically. I love how the pictures in Owl Moon capture the feeling of a winter’s night and White Snow Bright Snow captivates the delight children feel when it starts to snow. Katy and the Big Snow is a sweet fictional account in which your child can share in Katy’s shining moment experience, The Mitten is a traditional Ukrainian story, and in Brave Irene, you’ll be sending your child out on an adventure as the main character faces a snowstorm. How fun would it be to have these books on hand for the next snow week? Add a snowflake craft and you’ll have a week to remember. I hope you enjoy this Book Stack. We can’t always add the book suggestions that you all have. We sure love to hear about them though and add them to our Wishlist. by Adrianne Curwen Adrianne is a wife to a public-school educator/administrator and a homeschooling Mama to seven children, ranging in age from 7 to 23. She believes that we have a unique opportunity as homeschoolers to design individualized education that suits giftings, interests, and passions. She and her husband have used a blend of registered homeschooling, enrolment with independent DL schools, and participation in public trade school programs to design individualized programs for their children. She is passionate about using as many read-alouds, picture books, novels, and conversations to educate her children but also gets excited by the amazing homeschool-designed curriculum that’s out there. Adrianne is thrilled by her new role as Communication Specialist for Classical Education Books and is grateful to have an opportunity to learn something new. She is grateful, every day, for her saviour, Jesus Christ, and has no greater joy than when she sees her most important missions field walk with Him.
Send the boys in your life on an adventure with these books. Visit a graveyard with Tom Sawyer, battle wolves in The Green Ember, or run away to Catskill Mountains in My Side of the Mountain. If you have a reluctant reader then head off on the adventure with him and try a read-aloud. Get caught up in the emotions of Lassie Come-Home, travel back in time to Egypt in The Cat of Bubastes, or maybe you want to spend some time in the fantasy land of Middle Earth in The Hobbit. What’s left? King Arthur, Little Britches, The Bronze Bow, Homer Price. You could order a few copies of the same book and try a book club. by Adrianne Curwen Adrianne is a wife to a public-school educator/administrator and a homeschooling Mama to seven children, ranging in age from 7 to 23. She believes that we have a unique opportunity as homeschoolers to design individualized education that suits giftings, interests, and passions. She and her husband have used a blend of registered homeschooling, enrolment with independent DL schools, and participation in public trade school programs to design individualized programs for their children. She is passionate about using as many read-alouds, picture books, novels, and conversations to educate her children but also gets excited by the amazing homeschool-designed curriculum that’s out there. Adrianne is thrilled by her new role as Communication Specialist for Classical Education Books and is grateful to have an opportunity to learn something new. She is grateful, every day, for her saviour, Jesus Christ, and has no greater joy than when she sees her most important missions field walk with Him.
Books have much to offer our girls. These titles are packed with adventure, life lessons to explore, emotions to face, and new things to learn. Embark on a conversation about how we should treat others and the regret that follows when we don’t do the right thing, as you read The Hundred Dresses. Introduce your daughter to another culture in Where The Mountain Meets the Moon. And have fun with Caddie Woodlawn as you travel back to the 1860s. Is your girl all about horses? Then you need to get your hands on Misty of Chincoteague. I have a girl that was so intrigued by the fact that she kept forgetting Heather was a rabbit in The Green Ember. Meet the Melendy children in The Saturdays as they come up with a clever way of getting the most out of their Saturdays. Or how about planning a girl’s movie night? Don’t forget to read the book first. You have a few to choose from: The Secret Garden, Heidi, Anne of Green Gables, and Charlotte’s Web. by Adrianne Curwen Adrianne is a wife to a public-school educator/administrator and a homeschooling Mama to seven children, ranging in age from 7 to 23. She believes that we have a unique opportunity as homeschoolers to design individualized education that suits giftings, interests, and passions. She and her husband have used a blend of registered homeschooling, enrolment with independent DL schools, and participation in public trade school programs to design individualized programs for their children. She is passionate about using as many read-alouds, picture books, novels, and conversations to educate her children but also gets excited by the amazing homeschool-designed curriculum that’s out there. Adrianne is thrilled by her new role as Communication Specialist for Classical Education Books and is grateful to have an opportunity to learn something new. She is grateful, every day, for her saviour, Jesus Christ, and has no greater joy than when she sees her most important missions field walk with Him.
