Thank you so much Gina! Your words of encouragement always put a smile on my face! ❤️❤️

I'll have to add 1793 to our read aloud this year! It looked really good and Guest Hollow is famous for their fabulous book selections. I'll need to take a closer look at their Geography. I've been on the fence with it. Is the layout pretty straightforward? I sometimes feel a little lost with Guest Hollow to be honest.

Almost everything is able to be accessed through the schedule b/c the links are live, which makes it very user friendly. The weeks are numbered, which makes it easy to pick out what all you want to teach. We did Gather Round's Africa a few years back so I feel like although I am sure it would be amazing, the Africa weeks are not top priority for us this year so we are skipping them. Anyway, we did the first 2 weeks which is like an overview and "what is geography?" then weeks 3 & 4 are on Antarctica. Then we moved to the end of the schedule to weeks 34 & 35 - Australia, New Zealand & the Pacific Islands, and now we are doing week 21 which is the middle east - which has been a good opportunity to talk about the current issues over there. We don't do it every day and we try to keep the lessons relatively short so a "week" takes about 3ish. There's a unit on Japan they have that will be our last 6 wks b/c my oldest is taking Japanese and my youngest just loves anything Japan. Seriously, she made me a kimono and she eats with chopsticks! All that to say it is SUPER EASY to customize everything about it. The order you learn things, the videos you watch, books to read, movies to catch, recipes to try, games to play, and activities to complete. Everything. When they say buffet, they really aren't kidding. The only thing I would do differently if I had to go back would be that I wouldn't buy EVERY book (ok, almost all the books). Even though I got most of them used, it gets stupid expensive and I have a book problem. There just aren't enough shelves...or money to fill the shelves. I figured out pretty quickly that it's easier for us to just pick one novel, activity, recipe and movie for each area. Oh, they link "Geography Now" for quick videos on the different countries you can watch. You should check him out when you get a chance. He's quick, thorough and fun to watch. I felt overwhelmed too when I first bought it and probably through the first week but once I started using it, we kind of fell into a comfortable groove. As long as you don't have a book problem like me, I would say it's probably the best bang for your buck you might find. @@SummerMeyers

No kidding. Those moth eyes were no joke. 🤣🤣

Thank you! 🥰🥰

I wish it was a little easier to blend for us Old Earth Families, but I really do like how Guest Hollow breaks up all that text. Definitely a great curriculum all the same. ❤️ ❤️

how do you square young earth with evolution?? Like evolution is a process that happens over millions of years.

@@NithinJune I explain it but I teach mainly thru young earth teaching and only do this with my older kids who are old enough to understand ppl believe different things and science isn’t fully fact but some guess work on what we don’t kno!!!

@@RockSimmer-gal4God i don’t understand? so basically you tell them “some people believe in evolution, but we don’t-we believe in young earth creationism” because you _certainly_ cannot believe in both. they are by nature contradictory and mutually exclusive

@@NithinJune then they have the facts and can decide For themselves.

@@RockSimmer-gal4God the fact is that religion is presented to children who are too young to critically understand and decide for themselves. you’re essentially indoctrinating them

Thank you! And thank you so much for hosting. It was fun working with such a great group!❤️❤️

It can be hard to balance that so its nice Guest Hollow has that option. ❤️❤️

Thank you!

I'm glad it was helpful! ❤😊

Thank you so much for hosting! ❤️

They really had a phenomenal book list. I particularly loved that they mixed fiction and non fiction in there.

Thanks!

I'm so glad it was helpful! ❤️❤️ They are great people!

I was too. I was almost set on BB but then stumbled across GH accidentally and searched for reviews on Google and YT. I'm so glad I did! We'll be going w GH!

Love your thoughts, as always! I think you nailed it that a big part of teaching critical thinking is by checking our biases at the door and offering a range. I found this great KZfaq video while researching this that you might like. The guy is super sharp and had an interesting perspective. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/pptxhL2Evra7lnk.htmlsi=Wd1YUIAl3t1TktUq

​@@SummerMeyersThat was a fascinating movie! I love both FAIR and that speaker (he did the Dino movie on Saints Unscripted I mentioned). Thanks for sharing that gem 😊

Oh, and I also think that it’s more beneficial to read primary sources, rather than textbooks. No offense to textbooks makers who I’m sure do their best, but they just can’t compete with primary sources. It might be interesting to read some of Georges Cuvier’s writings and compare and contrast them to Darwin’s writings, for example. That might be pretty funny actually since Cuvier opposed evolution before Darwin rose to prominence, but since he’s probably the most famous evolutionist today, I guess he’d still fit the best.

I love what you say about environmentalism! That's how I feel too. Take care of the earth. But don't panic, and DON'T prioritize people below animals and plants.

They ain't wrong though. Freaky looking moths! Haha! 😂😂

I haven't actually used it in our homeschool. Not having a hard copy is such a pain, but they do have a link to facebook group that made it into a PDF. It's a bit of rabbit trail, but GuestHollow will send you the link if you request it. Are you in the market for a bio curriculum?

@@SummerMeyers not sure yet. It may be for next school year or the next. Thanks so much for getting back to me.

OH! Good question! I'm sorry I didn't address this. So they are using a specific type of copyright law called Creative Commons. It basically means that they are allowed per CK12 to use their textbook as long as they attribute it back to their website.

I am on the hunt for one that is more affordable. Biologos is an interesting group that offers science with Christian background. It is expensive, and looks like it's more of a supplement, but does include old earth creationism with evolution and what that means for Christian faith. biologos.org/integrate I ran across it researching this video and I am intrigued, but not completely sold.

@@SummerMeyers thanks for this link. I'll check them out!

🥰🥰Thank you!

There are a lot of feelings when homeschooling your kid and the biggest one is you don't want to screw up! Parents are invested in the success of their children. Those who choose to take a leap and not be conformist with what the rest of society is doing, leaves a lot them looking around worried that maybe they won't do it as well as the general population. You make a fair point that if someone wants to go into a STEM field of study, then learning it from a secular world view would be more useful. That was what made Guest Hollow so intriguing! Gives the opportunity for both.

@NithinJune How so?

@@de5889 there are 8.7 million different species of animal. are you suggesting that noah collected, housed, and fed 17 million animals? not to mention all the plants as well

@@NithinJune I didn’t suggest anything. I asked why you said it’s impossible to “square biodiversity with Noah’s Ark”. Of course housing the number of animals you put forth is impossible. However, the number of animals that would have actually been housed, representing the all the “kinds”, would certainly have held the genetic material to produce the abundance of species we see today.

@@de5889 not in the timespan that christians believe how long ago was the flood

@@NithinJune Among those who profess Christianity there exists a range of time estimates for that event. Regardless, microevolution and natural selection can work pretty quickly.

I wouldn't say that. I think the amount of effort they have put into it to make it more accessible to kids makes it more appealing. At least for me. Dry biology books are a dime a dozen (that's what I learned from!) and I would have loved to have my textbook take a moment to relax and enjoy the subject material. School doesn't always have to be so serious. :)

I was genuinely surprised. I figured it was pretty accepted, but I guess not.

@@SummerMeyers they want to market these textbooks to the kinds of people who call climate change “woke science”

@@SummerMeyers climate change is very accepted in serious science circles; perhaps not so much in conservative christian ideologues

@@NithinJune This Christian believes in climate change! 😁 And I'm totally willing to pontificate about it on Sunday--very willing to mix Jesus and saving the earth!

​@@SummerMeyersamen! My family believes in climate change too. I mean, we're witnessing it first hand. I live in the north east and for the past several years our winters have drastically changed..they've become way more mild and shorter. They just changed our climate zone, have begun growing peaches here ( unheard of!) And even the flora has changed in my own back yard! I'm not sure why some cant reconcile their belief in God and acknowledge a changing climate. 🤷‍♀️