Special Connection Homeschool

All these names can get sort of confusing. What you need to know is that those 3 titles mean the same thing!  “You shall celebrate the Feast of Weeks , that is, the first fruits of the wheat harvest, and the Feast of Ingathering at the turn of the year." Exodus 34:22 Feast of Weeks is, of course, our English term. Shavuot is the Hebrew word for weeks. Pentecost is the Greek term used in the New Testament, but it is the same holiday that is observed above. Pentecost literally means fiftieth for The Feast of Weeks was to occur 50 days after the Passover. You shall also count for yourselves from the day after the sabbath, from the day when you brought in the sheaf of the wave offering; there shall be seven complete sabbaths.‘You shall count fifty days to the day after the seventh sabbath; then you shall present a new grain offering to the LORD. Lev 23:15-16 Christianity celebrates Pentecost Sunday as the day the disciples received the Holy Spirit but while this year P...

This was our first Passover celebration so I had a lot to study and learn. What I found out was that I also had a lot of work ahead of me. You see, the day after the passover is the week long Feast of Unleavened Bread. This requires you to eat unleavened bread for 7 days. However, since you also eat no leaven on the day of Passover you end up going eight days without leaven. Scripture says: Exodus 12:18 In the first month, from the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread until the twenty- first day of the month at evening. The Passover celebrates when God protected the first born of the Israelites from the angel of death which was the tenth plague against Egypt. The Feast of Unleavened Bread begins its celebration on the day they were led out of Egypt, the morning after the Passover. Since Jewish days begin when the sun goes down in the evening, it can get somewhat confusing, especially when it calculates out to eight days but the bible keeps s...

I don't like to share sales very often, but the Veritas Press Self-Paced History is something that has been a tremendous blessing for us. It enables Gess to work almost totally independently and she is enthralled and fascinated by history in a way she never was before. The fact that it ties Biblical history into secular history is a plus for me. Check out my review last year on their course Old Testament and Ancient Egypt to see just how great this program is. The program costs $199.00 but from now until March 14th you can get it for only $99 ! If you aren't ready to start the course now you can wait until as late as September 1, 2015. I signed up immediately when I realized that. Gess is nearing the end of her Old Testament and Ancient Egypt course so I wasn't ready to begin a new one. You get the subscription for one year but since you go at your own pace your student can finish sooner. We pretty much stretched it out of the entire year so Gess could get the mos...

Don't you just love a good adventure? I certainly do! Thanks to my recent review of  Heirloom Audio Productions I have an exciting one to tell you about! Their  Under Drake's Flag  audio drama is a captivating way to immerse yourself in the compelling story of Sir Francis Drake. I love audio books and dramas because they help my daughter improve her auditory processing skills. Since she has special needs, that is something important to us. However, I was blown away at just how good this particular drama was. It was definitely professionally done and executed perfectly. My whole family was engaged in the entire story. I could listen to it again and again! Under Drake's Flag  is based upon the novel by G.A. Henty. His story of Sir Francis Drake is compelling for many reasons, but mostly because through it you learn real life lessons in character, courage, faith, and commitment which comes from a belief in the God of the Bible. The story begins in England with...

History is one of my favorite subjects but it is the most challenging to teach to my daughter who has special needs. She is such a literal, hands-on learner that it is often difficult for her to comprehend things outside of her personal experiences. That is why I always look for engaging ways to teach the subject. I am happy to report that we found a great tool for that with Veritas Press . For the purpose of my review I received a one year subscription to the Veritas Press Self-Paced History program . We chose  Veritas Press Self-Paced History: Old Testament and Ancient Egypt for our course. We also received a set of the  Old Testament & Ancient Egypt Flashcards . I absolutely love that Gess is learning history from a solid biblical perspective! The Bible is part history and it is reliable so that should be the way we teach it.  The program starts with creation and adds in historical events on the timeline as they happen.  Having these compon...

We recently reviewed Maestro's Classics again and in our study on Handel we learned about pipe organs.  I mentioned how that after my son's graduation we would be able to see an actual pipe organ. Now that we have returned I wanted to share a bit of the tour with you.  Here are the images I shared of the organ in the  Maestro's Classics  post.  It really is an amazing instrument.  It is at the bottom and the pipes are up above on the wall. One of the neatest parts to me is the amount of air needed to play this organ.  Unlike our organ at church that is electric this works like a recorder in that air actually has to flow through the pipes. When they turned it on you could literally hear the air the moving in the other room. It was actually pretty loud.  Next Gess got to see, touch, and play the organ. Her brother is showing it how it is done. Here she is learning that the pedals can actually play music too. Then we got to actuall...

History seems to be the hardest subject for Gess to understand.  Because she has Down syndrome she is very much a hands on learner and she just has trouble grasping things she hasn't seen or experienced.  While she is a great reader she only seems to enjoy books that talk about familiar things. In order to teach her history, I have to get really creative. Thankfully I was able to review a product that has done the creative work for me. Heroes & Heroines of the Past: American History Curriculum from Golden Prairie Press was written by homeschool graduate Amy Puetz.  She absolutely loves history and has presented history in a way that requires the use of all of your senses helping students to not only read about history but experience it as they see, hear, touch, smell, and taste it. For the purpose of my review I received the Digital Heroes & Heroines of the Past: American History Curriculum . The digital version included: Heroes & Heroines of...

Knowledge Quest is a company that focuses on teaching history in a way that really connects the student with the events of our past.  Last year I had the pleasure of reviewing their TimeMaps which was a really great tool for that purpose.  This year I reviewed one of their history resources that really helped Gess engage in and get inspired by the lesson.  It was an enchanting telling of the story of Sacagawea .  Because of her special needs, Gess has a really hard time relating to history from text books, documentaries and yes, sometimes even maps.  Thanks to Knowledge Quest we found out that stories can teach history too. For the purpose of our review we were given a PDF copy of Knowledge Quest's latest completed saga Sacagawea (Brave Explorers Every Child Should Know) . Sacagawea (Brave Explorers Every Child Should Know) is an interactive historical novel about the life of Sacagawea and her involvement with the Lewis and Clark expedition.  ...