Nate has been reading my blog quite a bit lately. He asked the other day why he was never pictured on it. “Because. You Said NOT to put you ON!” Well, he has changed his mind. So – in honor of his 13th Birthday – and in honor of Seven Years of Academic Home Learnin’ I give you a Timberdoodle Review – We’ll see how he likes this . . . .
We are enjoying Daily Mind Builders Social Studies which is listed for Grades 5-12. We have not done any workbook style social studies so far. Nate has been excited about how easy and fun – yet challenging the work is. Again – another book with questions – yet no answers. We start by reading a true story, and then answer a question that needs to be concluded using evidence from a few sentences. The second half of the page holds word puzzles, based on Geography so far – really challenging! (Answers are in the back of the book)
On the photo below, brother leans back to give the correct answer.
Nate asks – did you video Jon solving that one? No, I answer.
The Daily Mind Builders Social Studies is from The Critical Thinking Company. Their moto is Empower the Mind! Skills are built in
- Analysis,
- Synthesis,
- Evaluation,
- Evidence,
- Critical Reading,
- Inferential Reasoning,
- Deductive Reasoning, and
- Drawing Conclusions.
Mom built her skills in tapping the camera while clicking photos while the boy didn’t know.
Happy 13th Birthday Nate! We started officially homeschooling on his 5th birthday – so his year goes February to February. After seven years of academics and 13 years of training – I am still glad to spend all day with this amazing young man! Looking forward to Year 8 of Home Schooling!
I wanted to share these photos with my Timberdoodle Review today – because – without products from their company throughout the years, & reviews from their family – I may not have had such an easy laid out path for Nate and Jon. I am thankful to the family at Timberdoodle!
Disclaimer – I received a free copy of the Daily Mind Builders in exchange for my honest opinion. I was not sure that we would use this book full force – but Nate really really really likes it! We do a page a day, mostly out loud, pencil in his hand, whole family discussion.
+Angie Wright
Pebblekeeper 
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I had to laugh at the beginning of this because my 13-year old is the same way! He tells me not to take his picture, and then he is upset because he is not on the blog! Gotta love ’em!
I like to share our lives, but I have tried to make the blog more “learning” specific, than a scrapbook of just how cute my boys are. . . That said, anytime I take a photo, Nate makes sure he’s not really in it. Or just One photo. Jon is my ham. Nate was nervous yesterday when all the “thinking thoughts” shots went up, but he was smiling, and didn’t say no. Maybe there will be more than back of the head and hand shots of him now. 😉