This book is a clever way to introduce children to the works and life of Claude Monet and help them to start appreciating the works of the Impressionists. "Linnea" is a little girl with a love for art and flowers who travels with her friend and neighbor Mr. Bloom (a retired gardener) to France to visit the restored estate of Claude Monet and the museums displaying his art. Besides the illustrations of this story, there are reproductions of some of Monet's paintings, old photographs of him and his family, and photographs of what his estate looks like today. Linnea helps to explain the idea of imporessionism and share her enthusiasm - especially of standing on the Japanese bridge. The book also includes a brief biography, a timeline and Monet Family Tree as well as information about other books on Monet and the Museums and other attractions visited by Linnea in the story. I'm waiting for them to write "Linnea in the Louvre" and "Linnea visits the Sistine Chapel"! : )

Although this is a hefty tome, the relaxed, informal tone begs you to snuggle up with it on the sofa with a cozy afghan, a crackling fire, and a hot cup of tea. Of course, it's winter here in Wisconsin: overcast, chilly and white outside. Whatever the weather or circumstances, this book is guaranteed to soothe the soul and inspire the book lover within. You feel like you are having a conversation with a best friend and will often find yourself saying, "Yes" and nodding in agreement, or pausing to reflect and say, "Hmm, interesting, I will have to think about that."

Appropriately subtitled How to Turn a Living Book into a Cherished Book within the Home, Literature Alive covers just about every imaginable topic related to books, book collecting, and creating book lovers in your children. There are a whopping 111 topics. Topic titles include: Compiling a Book List; Finding Old Book Friends; Narration and Writing for Beginners; Guiding Teens to Writing; Notebooking! Easy as A, B, C; A Journey into the World of Dyslexia; and The Art of Journals. There are also several articles on Maria Montessori and Charlotte Mason. Although the majority of the book is written by Cay Gibson, there are a number of contributing authors as well. If you enjoy books and have been homeschooling for a while, you will probably recognize a few of the contributing authors, such as: Ann Ball, Joan Stromberg, Penny Gardner and MacBeth Derham.

This is not the kind of book you will want to plow through quickly. You will want to pause often and reflect on passages and quotes about books while taking notes about favorite authors or helpful resources. For the bibliophile, you will be tempted to check out the lists of books about books and resources for literature study from the library or elsewhere. The book also includes blank spaces to add your own notes. The informal type face adds to the comfortable tone.

You might want to jump to your favorite topic or enjoy the journey from beginning to end with pit stops along the way. The spiral binding allows you to fold back the pages, making it easier to handle when reading. If you are a lover of great literature and good books, or just learning about the importance of literature in the lives of your children, you will enjoy this book. Even for those of us who don't need to be convinced of the value of good books, there is much to ponder within the pages of this wonderful resource.

Available through this link.

The Little Angels Series are four soft cover readers that teach all phonics sounds using word drill pages and phonetic stories. It teaches letter-sound relationships systematically, beginning with the easiest letter sounds. The word drill pages provide practice in decoding words containing the letter sounds. The stories with phonetically-controlled vocabulary follow each word drill page. They provide practice in decoding words in context and build comprehension skills. The stories are about Catholic family life, Bible stories, and Saint stories as well as fables and folk tales. The illustrations are well done and many are in color. Review pages are provided at regular intervals.

The workbooks are consumable and accompany the readers. They reinforce the lessons from the readers with exercises in phonics, vocabulary, reading comprehension and handwriting.

The Teacher's manual provides detailed lesson plans and suggestions for related activities. The manual provides daily lesson plans for teaching the entire series. The lessons cover reading readiness, phonics, listening skills, vocabulary, handwriting, comprehension and spelling. There are also multi-sensory activities included to accommodate children who have different learning styles. The pace is very flexible so you progress at *your* child's speed. The manual also contains progress test after each review to assess how well your child is doing.

Sequence of Phonics Reader A - Consonants, short vowels Reader B - final blends, -ed, -ing, long vowels, two-syllable words Reader C - Beginning consonant blends, Y as a vowel, Consonant digraphs, R- controlled vowels Reader D - vowel digraphs and diphthongs, soft c and g, Irregular sounds and spellings

The author holds a MEd in Reading from the University of Missouri-St Louis and is certified in Learning Disabliites. She has six years classroom experience and nine years experience in home education.

I am using the Little Angels in place of the MCP phonics that Seton sends with their First Grade Curriculum. If you need something for Kindergarten, with beginning sounds and letter recognition, I highly recommend Seton's Kindergarten Phonics for Young Catholics. I have had great success with the Little Angels series with my daughter who is now finishing Reader D. She is 8 years old. My son who is 7, could not wait to start the readers and is also on Reader D. The Little Angels Phonics Series is really a wonderful tool for teaching your children to read.

This simple workbook provides practice for preschool and kindergarten aged children in writing numbers, counting objects and considering religious ideas associated with each number (one God, two natures: human and divine, three Divine Persons, four marks of the Church: One - Holy - Catholic - Apostolic, five Sacred Wounds, etc.). There are three pages each for the numbers one through ten which contain writing lines for handwriting practice of the numbers, related black and white illustrations to color, pictures to circle and count, etc. The remaining pages provide practice in counting sets of things ("circle the correct number" for several pages and "write the correct number" for others). The final eight pages offer simple exercises involving numerical order, more and less, some very basic addition and simple shapes. The pages would have to be read aloud to young children.