Even though the DVD is geared to children, I learned sooo much!  Why do we cut down trees?  Where did the name ‘Christmas’ actually come from?  What about Santa?  Those are some of the questions it addresses.  The best part about it is that it leads children back to salvation-the reason Jesus came.  How wonderful is that!

For those of you who want to teach this as a unit in homeschool and/or in a small group format, they offer great resources!  Take a look!

Sisters of the Faith is so excited to sponsor a “Why Do We Call it Christmas” sweepstakes!  One person will receive one free copy ($12.95 value) of “Why Do We Call it Christmas.”  The sweepstakes will run from December 11, 2011 to December 31, 2011.  All you have to do is enter here!  (Please see sweepstakes official rules).

Want to get more information about the whole series?  Visit:

http://www.buckdenver.com/

http://www.facebook.com/WhatsintheBible?sk=wall

Through June 24, 2011, you can download a free 100-lesson beginning math computer program from Funnix. This program usually costs $25.

Included with the download is 100 animated computer-based lessons, workbook material, a teaching guide, and a placement test for assessing the child.”

Enter A Kid’s Guide to Drawing the Presidents of the USA.  My DD learns best by doing.  She absolutely loves to draw.  In f act, she was wants to be an artist.  What better way to engage her than through art!  We received, How to Draw the Life and Times of James A. Garfield.   The book begins with a brief summary of Garfield’s presidency.  The following sections in the book each include about a page and a half of information regarding specific periods in the president’s life.  At the end of each section your child will recreate an image that is symbolic of that period from the president’s life.

The instructions given to recreate each image presented in a detailed, step-by-step format.  The images vary in their complexity throughout the book, so there is something for all skill levels between the pages.

Although a glossary is included, a general knowledge of the branches of government, the electoral process, slavery, and the Civil War is necessary for younger children understand some of the material.   Additionally,  it may be a good idea to have a detailed timeline on hand as you read through each section (there is a timeline in the back of the book too).   Overall, I think A Kid’s Guide to Drawing the Presidents of the USA would be a  superlative supplement to a more expansive U.S. History curriculum.  Best of all, the entire curriculum, which includes 42 books, is available on Timberdoodle.com for $195.00!

You can find this and other history at Timberdoodle.com.  Stay up to date on upcoming promotions and exciting new curriculum by “liking” Timberdoodle on Facebook.

As a member of Timberdoodle’s Blogger Review Team I received a free copy of this book in exchange for a frank and unbiased review.

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich., April 27, 2011 /Christian Newswire/ — Zonderkidz(tm), the children’s division of Zondervan, today announced the NIV Adventure Bible Memory Game for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, as well as a new online destination for the NIV Adventure Bible, www.AdventureBible.com. The app and website bring new interactivity to the bestselling NIV Adventure Bible, America’s most-read children’s Bible with more than six million copies sold. The game made its debut in Apple’s App store this week; the website is currently live in the beta phase.

Memorization is the key to understanding and retaining information. In a young Christian child’s life, Bible stories form the building blocks of faith, and research shows that children who engage with the Bible before age 10 are more likely to read the Bible regularly as teenagers. The NIV Adventure Bible Memory Game reaches children by understanding how they learn and then takes them on a fun and rewarding journey through God’s Word.

“Reading and memorizing Scripture is important at an early age because it helps children begin to understand God’s love and plan for their lives,” said Annette Bourland, senior vice president and publisher with Zonderkidz. “By coupling and integrating proven techniques with a technology platform many children understand, the NIV Adventure Bible Memory Game engages children in a completely new way that can impact their faith and their futures.”

Mobile apps continue to be among the fastest-growing segments in consumer software, and publishing groups, such as Zonderkidz, are moving into the space in order to provide children educational content that combines interactive features, artwork and games.

The bulk of the NIV Adventure Bible memorization games are designed around word scramble and fill-in-the-blank. Children can review verses for the various levels and then take the quiz. They also can take them at varying levels of difficulty which are differentiated by the number of blanks they need to fill in.

Games on all iOS devices including the iPad and iPod touch and iPhone are segmented into easy, medium and hard levels. Users can record themselves reciting up to five favorite verses. “Shake to Scramble” randomly selects a Scripture verse and creates a new scramble. Users earn animal sound effects and Bible illustrations for correctly completing verses.

The mobile app comes at the same time as the launch of the NIV Adventure Bible’s new beta website, www.adventurebible.com. This online destination provides a safe place for families, Christian school teachers, and children’s ministry leaders to get a passport into biblical adventure with maps, timelines, devotionals, sermon outlines and many other activities and educational resources. There are even three online games to test Bible knowledge, a Bible search function, and a teacher dashboard to make assignments and watch the progress of their students’ activity on the site. Everything on the site is free and is being praised by Christian school teachers and children’s ministry leaders as a wonderfully rich and robust site to supplement their existing curriculum.

“The new AdventureBible.com is full of interactive resources and activities to aid both in family time or teacher lesson planning and to encourage further learning beyond the text of the Bible,” added Bourland.

The NIV Adventure Bible uses the updated NIV text, which was completed in the fall of 2010 after years of rigorous translation work by the Committee on Bible Translation (CBT, www.NIV-CBT.org). The updated NIV translation utilized the oldest and best-attested biblical manuscripts along with the finest contemporary English language scholarship in order to create a Bible that was not only accurate, but highly readable and easy to comprehend.

The NIV Adventure Bible Memorization Game was designed by Momentum Design Lab and is currently available in the Apple iPhone and iPad App Stores as a Lite (Free) edition and a full edition sells for $4.99.

Learn to Partner with Parents and Influence the Next Generation
ATLANTA, Nov. 4 /Christian Newswire/ — Thousands of churches around the world have discovered the benefits of using Orange curriculum in their weekly services. Based on a comprehensive plan with the same end goal, Orange resources effectively partner the local church with individual families to influence the faith of the next generation. Now, all churches can experience it for themselves for FREE – no strings attached! Available through the end of the year, Orange wanted to extend this offer to any church that desires to expand and refine their approach to the traditional church model.

Orange builds its foundation on the question, “What if the church synchronized its efforts with the efforts of parents and decided to have the same master plan to fuel faith in the next generation?” By combining the critical influences of the light of the church (yellow) and the love of the family (red), the Orange strategy aligns efforts and shows a generation who God is more effectively than either could do alone. This revolutionary strategy has literally changed the way numerous local churches worldwide view and conduct their weekly services, shifted how they communicate with parents and guided the way they interact with the community, all in service to the faith of its children and students.

New users to Orange will be able to choose from: Three months of First Look preschool curriculum, three months of 252 Basics children’s curriculum or the XP3 Student “Godview” series. Past or current users of Orange curriculum can choose from one of the resources they’ve not used before. And past or current users of all three curriculums are eligible for a terrific series entitled “In God We Trust,” which is a four-week curriculum that teaches kids (Kindergarten to 5th grade) how to give, save and spend money wisely.

One free curriculum is available per church for free. This promotional offer ends December 31, 2010. For more information or to take advantage of this offer, please visit www.whatisorange.org, call 888.513.1788 or email freecurriculum@rethinkgroup.org.

About Orange:
Orange is a nonprofit organization providing resources and training to help churches maximize their influence on the spiritual growth of the next generation. For more information on Orange, please visit www.whatisorange.org.

Quick Response to Study of Abstinence Education

Black History Month is a refreshingly festive time of the year for most of us. Our national choice to give reverence to the contributions of African-Americans is worthy of celebration. If grades were given for effort, we would earn at least a B+ for our joint commitment to allocating a special time to observe and respect African-American history.

But effort is not always enough. Good intentions are a necessary, though not sufficient requirement for us to win the fight for racial equality in America. So, given that our nation has convinced itself that Black History Month should be celebrated, we must now begin to understand how Black History Month might be celebrated in order to be most effective.

My first thought: Why is slavery never really on the table for serious discussion during Black History Month? We are consistently told to remember the Holocaust of Nazi Germany, but for some reason, any meaningful conversation about slavery tends to be reduced to quick mentions of Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass and (of course) Abraham Lincoln. Perhaps the reason we are so quick to remember the Jewish Holocaust but want to forget the African-American holocaust is because the latter is simply too close to home. It’s easy to vilify Adolf Hitler for killing Jews, but not good business to do the same to Thomas Jefferson for his ownership of slaves. Perhaps instead of Black History Month, we should consider “Black Honesty Month” and actually talk about what really happened during slavery.

Second thought: Why does the black history conversation have to start with slavery anyway? Were there no black people in existence before the 17th century? After casually mentioning the arrival of slaves to America, we then rattle off a list of standard achievements: “A black man invented this,” or “John Q. Blackman was the first to accomplish that.” All the while, there is little or no acknowledgment of the great civilizations of Africa to match the incessant drilling of Greek and Roman history into the heads of our kids.

While I am certainly proud of African-Americans who’ve led the way with marvelous inventions and achievements, we must be careful about how our presentation of the message affects the self-esteem of black children. By starting our history as “those people who were eventually freed from slavery by a white man (Lincoln),” we are reminding our kids that the primary quest for black people is to achieve equality with whites. White achievement becomes the ceiling of our greatness, which only serves to guarantee our second-class citizenship.

Third thought: Does a celebration of Black History Month negate the need for more productive conversations about modern day structural inequality? We tend to talk about the history of race in America as if the past is completely disconnected from the present. We discuss how “they used to treat black people back then” without realizing that “they” created the foundation of the society in which we live. Without meaningful discussions of present day manifestations of structural racism, including the education, prison and economic systems, we have forfeited our ability to discuss the past in a constructive way.

Fourth thought: Given that most Americans are woefully uneducated on African-American history, it is clear that allocating one month to the topic is not satisfactory. Why not allow all American children to receive a more holistic and integrated historical education that includes African Americans? By relegating black historical education to one month out of the year, have we created a “Chronological reservation,” a space of time that is owned by blacks, but keeps blackness trapped within its borders? Are black history courses mandatory at most universities? Are children in public school being taught a sufficient amount of black history? Perhaps creating a generation of children who are better informed on the history of race relations might help our nation avoid producing the next Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity. Analyzing the present without understanding the past will almost always lead us to incorrect conclusions. The problem is that most of us don’t know enough about the past to put the present into its proper context.

I enjoy the celebration of Black History Month, and our nation has made a relatively sincere effort to show respect for African-American achievement. But there is certainly more to be desired, and we can only improve our understanding of black history if we consciously acknowledge that there is more for us to learn. Black history is not a 300-year montage of inventions, laws and liberations. It is every bit as complex as the history of any other group of people, and the complexity should be recognized.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is the founder of the Your Black World Coalition and the initiator of the National Conversation on Race. For more information, please visit BoyceWatkins.com.

It is great to know where you are going but it is more than beneficial to know from whence you came.  We can not depend on our over extended school systems to teach our children about black history. Below you will find some great resources that can be used to teach kids more about Black History Month.  These resources and websites celebrate Black history and culture with facts, games, print coloring pages and more.  As always, we checked them out first.

How to Celebrate Black History Month with Kids
Check out our craft ideas, activities, and educational stories perfect for honoring Black History Month at home or in the classroom.

Academy of Achievement: Rosa Parks
Meet the woman who proved that a single human being can change the world!

African Heritage Animated Electronic Greeting Cards
Find African cards for any occasion including fabulous February greetings for Black History month and Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Black History Month from DLTK’s Crafts
Create these cool cultural crafts to celebrate freedom and civil rights all over the world.

Education First: Black History Activities
Enter this web guide to find references for almost any Black History subject.

History Channel- Celebrate Black History Month
Get short bios on many prominent African- American figures in history. (This is one of our favorites!)

Black History Books
Check out these featured reading ideas for Black History Month.

The Internet African American History Challenge
Try this 3 level Black History quiz, and see how well you can read and learn! It’s open-book!  (See how much you know.)

Activities

An interactive Treasure Hunt

Crossword puzzle filled with words to test your knowledge.

Printable Fill-In-The-Blanks

How much do you know about Black historical figures?

George Washington Carver
Martin Luther King Jr.
Jesse Owens
Rosa Parks

Coloring Pages for Younger Children

Printable coloring pages of some famous Black historical figures.

Rosa Parks
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Jackie Robinson
George Washington Carver

History

Encyclopedia of Prominent African-Americans
Harriet Tubman, Her life in words
Learn about the first African-American US President, Barack Obama

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Aq1WeS6VCs

I’m not sure how I feel about the fact that the child’s identity has been revealed but, the teacher’s identity has not.  The news outlet made it a point to outline that teacher stress has gone up, which implies that this child stressed the teacher out.  My concern as a parent would be that my child would be labeled.  Would subsequent teachers lack patience with my child because she “stressed” this other teacher out?  Additionally, does teacher stress justify this behavior?  The little girl told Milwaukee’s News12 that the teacher called her over to the desk, said that she was going to give her candy, then cut the braid and threw it in the trash while the entire class watched and laughed. Lamya went back to her desk in tears. She says that the teacher asked her, “‘Now what you gonna go home and say to your momma?,’” to which she sensibly replied, “‘That you cut off my hair,’” according to News12.

Although the local school district would not comment on the specifics of the case, an apology was given.

The News12 report says that the District Attorney has decided not to press charges, but police did issue a $175 fine for Disorderly Conduct.

So, what would you do if this happened to your child?