Pearl Harbor 12.7.41

December 2, 2019 by Laura Leave a Comment

Pearl Harbor 12.7.41

In “Life Lessons from History: Pearl Harbor 12.7.41” episode #102, Meredith Curtis takes you back in time to the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, that plunged America into World War II. What led up to that historical moment? Were we the only ones attacked? Why was Pearl Harbor such a strategic target? How did the attack arouse a sleeping giant? Meredith answers all these questions and more, letting you in on the decades of preparation by the Japanese. She also shares lessons we can apply to our own personal lives.

Powerline Productions, Inc.

Being World Changers, Raising World Changers!

Show Notes

“Tora! Tora! Tora!” Lieutenant Commander Mitsuo Fuchida commanded the other pilots. It was time to lay waste to their enemy!

The Surprise Attack!

President Roosevelt’s response.

We’re at War!

There’s always a story. Let’s go back in Time to figure out what happened?

Turn of the Century Japan & relationship with Prussia, Korea, and China.

1910 Japan annexes Korea.

1925, US General Billy Mitchell’s Report

The Japanese Naval Academy final exam question

Japan’s Aggression in the 1930s: Manchuria, Korea, China, Vietnam (French Indochina)

The Pact of Steel

The Strategy behind the attack

After all the destruction, what was left?

What We can Learn

Not what folks say, but what they do!

When we are almost destroyed, we fight even harder

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Thank you to our Sponsor -The Star Movie

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Back by popular demand, you and your family can celebrate the true meaning behind the season. Be sure to check out all of the great resources for your family to use this holiday season! There are discussion guides, along with tons of FREE downloadable activities! Don’t wait, get your tickets today!

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Filed Under: Finish Well Tagged With: Bible, children, Education, family, Finish Well, history, homeschool, Parent, teen

100 Homeschool Hacks II

November 18, 2019 by Laura Leave a Comment

100 Homeschool Hacks II

In “100 Homeschool Hacks Volume II” episode #101, Meredith Curtis, Laura Nolette, and their friends share 100 ways to homeschool more effectively, efficiently, enthusiastically, and effortlessly. There were too many tips and advice for one show so we started earlier this month and are finishing up today. Sit back, relax and let seasoned homeschool moms and grads share their secrets of joy and success with you!

Powerline Productions, Inc.

Being World Changers, Raising World Changers!

Show Notes

We wanted to celebrate our 100^th show in a special way!

So Laura and I got together with some of our friends to come up with 100 homeschool hacks—tips, ideas, and methods that work to making homeschooling easier and more fun so that you can start strong and finish well.

Below are summaries of each section of the homeschool hacks. Enjoy!

Katie Beth Nolette: 10 Tips for Teaching Preschoolers & Toddlers that will give a strong educational foundation to your children, reaping benefits for years to come! Don’t worry these things are fun and relationship-building!

Meredith Curtis: 5 Ideas for Teaching History the Fun Way before God’s Story (HIS Story) should be exciting, joyful, and awe-inspiring. Shake off the dull routine of memorizing boring facts and dates. Instead, set sail on a grand adventure exploring the past as never before!

Laura Nolette: 5 Methods for Mastering Math that are simple to work into your yearly planning and weekly routines. They will make all the difference no matter when you start!

Meredith Curtis: 10 Tips for Teaching from a Christian Worldview so that our children can have confidence in Jesus and His Word, building their lives on a solid foundation of truth in all things.

Meredith Curtis: 5 Ways to Minister in Your Local Church Together as a Family so that everyone isn’t going off in a different direction.

Laura Nolette: 10 Field Trips that Don’t Cost Money, are closer than you think, and will make fun memories that last.

Meredith Curtis: 7 Tools to Give Lifelong Learners so that they can face every new learning opportunity with confidence and enthusiasm.

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Thank you to our Sponsor – A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood Movie!

Tom Hanks portrays Mister Rogers in A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD, a timely story of kindness triumphing over cynicism, based on the true story of a real-life friendship between Fred Rogers and journalist Tom Junod. After a jaded magazine writer (Emmy winner Matthew Rhys) is assigned a profile of Fred Rogers, he overcomes his skepticism, learning about kindness, love and forgiveness from America’s most beloved neighbor.

Click here to watch the trailer and find a theatre near you!

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Filed Under: Finish Well Tagged With: Bible, children, Education, family, Finish Well, homeschool, music, Parent, teen

100 Homeschool Hacks I

November 4, 2019 by Laura Leave a Comment

100 Homeschool Hacks I

In “100 Homeschool Hacks Volume I” episode #100, Meredith Curtis, Laura Nolette, and their friends share 100 ways to homeschool more effectively, efficiently, enthusiastically, and effortlessly. There were too many tips and advice for one show so we will start this week and finish up next week. Sit back, relax and let seasoned homeschool moms and grads share their secrets of joy and success with you!

Powerline Productions, Inc.

Being World Changers, Raising World Changers!

Show Notes

We wanted to celebrate our 100^th show in a special way!

Below are summaries of each section of the homeschool hacks. Enjoy!

Meredith Curtis: 5 Lifestyle of Learning Hacks to Keep your family on an enthusiastic quest for knowledge and wisdom.

Laura Nolette: 5 Tips on Organization and Scheduling that will make your day flow more smoothly and help you use and store everything you need for homeschooling success.

Katie-Beth Nolette: 5 Tips to Teach Little Ones to Read in a way that sets them up for success and ignites a love of reading.

Marla Stevens: 3 Methods to Raise a Musician that cultivate a gifting so that it can be used with excellence for the glory of God.

Sarah Jeffords: 5 Ways to Build a Home Library including what books to look for, where to keep them, how to find them, and ways to save money in purchasing them.

Meredith Curtis: 10 Helpful Patterns & Habits that will set you and your children up for success. After all, as Charlotte Mason says, “education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life.” She also says, “The child who starts in life with say, twenty good habits, begins with a certain capital which he will lay out to endless profit as the years go on.”

Julianna Curtis: 5 Ways to Motivate your High Schoolers to Get Their Schoolwork Done that don’t involve nagging, yelling, or stressing the whole family out!

Mary Smith & Meredith Curtis: 10 Ways to Build a Solid Relationship with Your Kids that will last as children grow up into adults with their own lives, careers, and families. Lay a solid foundation now.

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Filed Under: Finish Well Tagged With: Bible, children, Education, family, Finish Well, homeschool, music, Parent, teen

100 Homeschool Hacks I

November 4, 2019 by Laura Leave a Comment

Tagged With: Education, Finish Well, homeschool, homeschooling

How to teach your kids to identify fake news

October 30, 2019 by Meryl van der Merwe Leave a Comment

Episode 58: How to teach your kids to identify fake news

In this episode, I suggest a number of ways for you to teach your kids to identify fake news.

To start, it would be useful to listen to this Planet Money episode, Finding the Fake News King, in which they trace a piece of fake news back to the person who created it.

The ideas below are all taught in our sponsor, FundaFunda Academy’s Computer Applications class which covers digital literacy as well as computer skills.

These two articles are both good to read:

Quick Ways to Spot Fake News
How to Spot Fake News and Teach Kids to be Media Savvy

The main points in the articles above are:

1. Look for unusual URLs

2. Does it sound too good to be true?

3. Go to the source of questionable articles and see what else they are publishing. Look at their About Me page

4. Do a reverse image search for images used in the article to see their origin

5. Do they cite sources?

6. Grammar and spelling issues

7. How does it make you feel? If you are feeling extreme emotions, good chance it is fake news

If you think it is fake new – how can you check?

1. Visit these websites and check if the article is mentioned there: Snopes, Politifact, FactCheck

2. See if the website is on this list of fake news sites

Resources to teach your children how to identify fake news

Sutori has a quiz your children can take to see if they can identify fake news, and then lots of other resources on the topic too.
Factitious is a game where you swipe left or right depending on if you think the article is fake or not. There are different levels which makes it great for the whole family.
Newsfeed Defenders is a game from iCivics. Students play the role of editor and must decide which article to select for their newspaper each day. It will really get your children thinking. This is appropriate for middle and high school.

Subscribe to the podcast so you don’t miss future episodes.

And be sure to join our Facebook group where we can talk about this together.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to the show and give a rating and maybe even a review!

Contact Meryl via email on meryl@mediaangels.com or connect with her on Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook

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Filed Under: Homeschooling with Technology Tagged With: digital literacy, homeschool, Meryl van der Merwe, podcast, Technology

Special Replay: Facing the Fall

September 27, 2019 by Joy Rhodes Leave a Comment

Since Ashley and I were talking summer, we thought we would also talk about the thing that comes right after summer… THE FALL. It seems that as soon as July 4th passes, my brain immediately turns to the fall and making plans.

Over the years I have learned a few things that help me as I face the next school year. We talked about that today on the show.

1. Pray – Get alone and reflect on last year… what worked, what didn’t. What was challenging for the children? For you?
2. Prioritize – Set priorities for your family this year. What will you focus on? What will your kids focus on? Anything unusual happening in your year such as; building a house, having a baby, moving to New Zealand?
3. Plan and prepare – Know how you work and plan according to that. Gather materials, create spaces and work on a routine your family can follow.
4. Pass on the rest!!! Say it with me…. NO, NO, NO. So many people grab at homeschool moms because it is assumed that homeschool moms have tons of free time on their hands. You must so know to the extra noise… making meals, babysitting, leading bible studies, etc… There is a time for all of that, but it isn’t now.

Fall will be here before we know it. I hope you are looking to this new school year with your blessings, I sure am!

Find a way to #sayyes today.

Don’t forget to subscribe to my podcast and leave a review on iTunes!!!

Thank you to The Homegrown Preschooler for sponsoring this Podcast! Check out the blog post Kathy mentioned, Farmhouse Schoolhouse, to read more about A Year of Playing Skillfully.

Also, to thank you for listening, you can receive a 10% discount on any purchase at

The Homegrown Preschooler by using the code, THEREALKATHYLEE.

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Filed Under: The Real Kathy Lee Tagged With: homeschool, lesson planning, planning, the real kathy lee

Using Technology to Eat Healthy

September 18, 2019 by Meryl van der Merwe Leave a Comment

Episode 52: Using Technology to Eat Healthy with Debbie Hanyon

In this episode, Debbie Hanyon from Homeschooling Dietitian Mom, joins us to share how she uses technology to eat healthy. Debbie is a homeschool mom and she has a number of resources on her website other homeschool moms will find helpful. Take a special look at her Meal Planning for Kids Curriculum.

Debbie’s favorite apps and websites for healthy eating are:

My Fitness Pal
Spark People calorie tracker
Is My Food Safe app only available for Apple products. This app helps you determine how long to keep food before you toss it, what internal temperature different meats need to reach when cooked and other useful things.
Eat Right website by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (AND)
Choose My Plate
Food & Nutrition Magazine App which is available on Android and iPhone and is put out by AND.

Listen to the episode to hear the specific aspects of each of these apps and websites that Debbie likes so you can determine which ones will help your family eat more healthy.

Show sponsor FundaFunda Academy has an online health class that includes a number of modules on healthy eating and uses at least one of these resources Debbie recommends..

Be sure to join our Facebook group where we carry on the discussion about Homeschooling with Technology.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to the show and give a rating and maybe even a review!

Contact Meryl via email on meryl@mediaangels.com or connect with her on Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook

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Filed Under: Homeschooling with Technology Tagged With: health, health apps, homeschool, Meryl van der Merwe, podcast

Free Website Creation Tools

September 11, 2019 by Meryl van der Merwe Leave a Comment

Episode 51: Free Website Creation Tools

Why is it a good idea to teach students to create websites?

Useful skill
Can be used for community service- 4-H group, Lego League Team, homeschool support group
If they start a business they will need one
Digital portfolios
As a way to share what they are learning instead of producing a written report

Here are 5 free website creation tools I have used:

1. Weebly

Weebly has unlimited bandwidth even on the free plan, you can add a PayPal button and it is easy to use. The free version does, however, only allow a limited number of pages, and as with most of these free tools, has ads on the page.

2. Strikingly

I love Strikingly because it is really fast to create a website using it and the websites are very modern looking.

3. Google sites

Google sites is completely free and has no ads. It has very limited style options and you can’t sell anything on your website. It does integrate completely with all Google drive apps.

4.Wix

Wix has the most limited bandwidth of the free sites. Personally, I don’t like using it, but many do so I wanted to include it here.

5.WordPress.com

WordPress.com is easy to use but ads will show in random places. You also can’t have any affiliate links on it. It is nice to use for a blog.

Show sponsor FundaFunda Academy teaches website creation using some of these tools in their Computer Applications class but using the help on each website or looking for Youtube tutorials is another way to get started.

Be sure to join our Facebook group where we carry on the discussion about Homeschooling with Technology.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to the show and give a rating and maybe even a review!

Contact Meryl via email on meryl@mediaangels.com or connect with her on Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook

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Filed Under: Homeschooling with Technology Tagged With: computer, homeschool, Meryl van der Merwe, podcast, Technology, website creation

Fanschool games – bringing the fun of fantasy sports to education

August 14, 2019 by Meryl van der Merwe Leave a Comment

Episode 47: Fanschool – bringing the fun of fantasy sports to education with Eric Nelson

Eric Nelson first created Fanschool games when he was a teacher and he played it with his classes. A few years ago he put it online – and now your family can enjoy playing too.

Fanschool Games

You can find the 2 Fanschool games – Fanpolitics and Fangeopolitics – on their website. It is free to use for up to 35 people so perfect for a family to play against each other or to use in a co-op class.

These games require students to do research so they know which states or countries to select in the draft. These become their teams and they earn points based on how often their “players” are mentioned in major news sources.

In addition, Fanschool has special games students can play in Election and Olympics years.

These games are used by our sponsor, FundaFunda Academy, in their online World Geography class (for high school) and their online Government class. In these classes, students play against others from all over the USA to earn bragging rights and Extra Credit.

Be sure to join our Facebook group where we carry on the discussion about Homeschooling with Technology.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to the show and give a rating and maybe even a review!

Contact Meryl via email on meryl@mediaangels.com or connect with her on Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook

Special Thanks to Our Network Sponsor -Overcomer Movie

Life changes overnight for coach John Harrison when his high school basketball team’s state championship dreams are crushed under the weight of unexpected news. When the largest manufacturing plant in town suddenly shuts down and hundreds of families begin moving away, John must come to grips with the challenges facing his family and his team. Urged by the school’s principal to fill-in and coach a sport he doesn’t know or like, John is frustrated and questioning his worth… until he crosses paths with a student struggling with her own journey.
Filled with a powerful mix of faith, a twist of humor, and a ton of heart, the Kendrick Brothers return to theaters with OVERCOMER, their newest feature following FACING THE GIANTS, FIREPROOF, COURAGEOUS, and the #1 box-office hit, WAR ROOM. The inspiring family film stars Alex Kendrick, Priscilla Shirer, Shari Rigby, Cameron Arnett, and introduces Aryn Wright-Thompson.

Opening nationwide on August 23, OVERCOMER dares to leave you filled with hope, inspired to dream, and asks the question: what do you allow to define you?

Click here to learn more!

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Filed Under: Homeschooling with Technology Tagged With: fanschool, geography game, homeschool, Meryl van der Merwe, podcast

Pearl Harbor 12.7.41

Show Notes

What We can Learn

Sign up for our Newsletter

Resources

Thank you to our Sponsor -The Star Movie

100 Homeschool Hacks II

Show Notes

Sign up for our Newsletter

Resources

Thank you to our Sponsor – A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood Movie!

100 Homeschool Hacks I

Show Notes

Sign up for our Newsletter

Resources

Episode 58: How to teach your kids to identify fake news

If you think it is fake new – how can you check?

Resources to teach your children how to identify fake news

Also, to thank you for listening, you can receive a 10% discount on any purchase at

The Homegrown Preschooler by using the code, THEREALKATHYLEE.

Episode 52: Using Technology to Eat Healthy with Debbie Hanyon

Episode 51: Free Website Creation Tools

Why is it a good idea to teach students to create websites?

1. Weebly

2. Strikingly

3. Google sites

4.Wix

5.WordPress.com

Episode 47: Fanschool – bringing the fun of fantasy sports to education with Eric Nelson

Fanschool Games

Special Thanks to Our Network Sponsor -Overcomer Movie

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