Moody Mansion

The Moody Mansion, also known as the Willis-Moody Mansion, is a historical residential building in Galveston, Texas. The thirty-one room Romanesque mansion was completed in 1895. Today, guest visit twenty rooms on a tour that depicts the home life of a powerful Texas family. The Moody's established one of the great American financial empires. Based on cotton, it grew to include banking, ranching, insurance and hotels.

W.L. Moody Jr. bought the home soon after the great hurricane of 1900. The house remained home for Moody family members until 1986. Today, its rooms are filled with the furnishings and personal effects of the family. The philanthropic legacy of the Moody family is carried on today by the Moody Foundation and the Mary Moody Northen Endowment. Both charitable foundations are major forces in healthcare, education, historic preservation, and the arts.

Two audio tours allow you to set your own pace through the house and grounds. The Moody Family tour features six members of the Moody family telling stories about their ancestors. Mary's tour, appropriate for children and adults, is narrated by an actress portraying the late Mary Moody Northen as if she is guiding you through her home.

Visit www.moodymansion.org for more details.

 

Busy Bags for Christmas

My youngest daughter has had too many hospital stays and our local hospitals our very limited on activities to keep our children busy during their hospital stays. Most of the time, they only have a TV to watch programs or movies. So I would love to give each child in our local hospitals a Busy Bag this Christmas! Each bag will be filled with activities to keep a child busy during their hospital stay. Would you sponsor a child or two by purchasing a Timeless Treasure Pouch?

Visit the Busy Bag website and select the "Holiday Gift Guide" tab and then select the "Timeless Treasure Pouch". Do NOT select Direct Ship, then all orders will come directly to me and my daughter will fill each bag with activities.

Thank you for helping me bring a smile to a child during their hospital stay! 

Count Your Blessings

For the Christian, gratitude should be a life attitude. “Count Your Blessings” was written by one of the prolific gospel song writers of the past century, a Methodist lay preacher named Johnson Oatman. It would be good for us to rediscover the profound truths expressed by Mr. Oatman in the four stanzas of this hymn. In the first two verses he develops the thought that counting our blessings serves as an antidote for life’s discouragements and in turn makes for victorious Christian living. The third stanza of this hymn teaches us that counting our blessings can be a means of placing material possessions in proper prospective when compared to the eternal inheritance awaiting believers. Then as we review our individual blessings, we certainly would agree with Mr. Oatman’s fourth verse: The provision of God’s help and comfort to the end of our earthly pilgrimage is one of our choicest blessings.

Each of us could spare ourselves much despair and inner tension if we would only learn to apply the practical teachings of this hymn in our daily living.

 

Make a list of God’s blessings and share this list with your family and friends this Thanksgiving.

FORBRAIN - TOS Review

Sound for Life, LTD can help people with auditory processing and sensory integration with their product FORBRAIN. The purpose of FORBRAIN is to amplify sound transmission through bone conduction. A user improves perception of his own voice due to bone conduction headphones equipped with a high sensitivity microphone. As FORBRAIN sits on the temples leaving the ears unblocked, it allows the user to continue to perceive surrounding sounds normally. An individual can not only concentrate on their own voice without cutting out external sounds but also learn to efficiently focus on relevant sounds. The user can listen to and communicate normally with other people.

While bone conduction facilitates good self-listening, the message emitted by the voice provides a sound of good quality! FORBRAIN is equipped with a dynamic filter that reacts to the intensity of the voice. The user hears her own voice filtered with alternating contrast. This shifting of sound or alteration will occur mainly during the beginning of speaking words and long vowels, the clear sounds that are strongly involved in the construction of language. By hearing and choosing this new perception of sounds, the user instantly and unconsciously significantly improves the quality and rhythm of her voice.

In addition, this alternating filter is designed to amplify high frequencies and simultaneously diminish low frequencies. As a result, this dynamic filter accentuates the transmission of high frequency harmonics which play a fundamental role in cortical stimulation and increased energy. The dynamic filter improves not only the user’s hearing, but also the user’s entire vestibular system, managing motion, core stability, motor planning, balance, and spatial orientation. The result? Clearer vocal quality, improved listening, and increased confidence.

 

When a child is struggling in an area we always want to run to the experts, but that doesn’t always have to be the answer. This headset is a new way to improve attention and speech at home. Just use it 20 minutes a day for at least 6 weeks and you will not believe your ears. My youngest daughter has a hearing loss and was excited to hear her voice. I noticed even when she was speaking without the headset on she was always aware of how she pronounced her words. I, too, live with a hearing loss, and I was amazed to hear how loud my voice was through the headset. After using the headset, I have been more self-conscious of my speech and try not to talk loud; but still have a tendency to speak loud when in a crowd because I cannot hear well in crowds. I highly recommend this headset for anyone in speech or anyone living with a hearing loss.

FORBRAIN can be used for not only the user’s speech, but also for improvement in short-term memory, focus, learning disabilities, ADHD, ADD, sensory processing disorder, and even to polish up your singing. Use your voice to boost your brain! 

Visit the Crew Blog to read what the Homeschool Review Crew has to say about FORBRAIN.

 

Epilepsy Awareness Month

November is Epilepsy Awareness Month. Epilepsy is a chronic disorder, the hallmark of which is recurrent, unprovoked seizures. A person is diagnosed with epilepsy if they have two unprovoked seizures.

What happens in the brain during a seizure? The electrical activity is caused by complex chemical changes that occur in nerve cells. Brain cells either excite or inhibit other brain cells from sending messages. Usually there is a balance of cells that excite and those that can stop these messages. However, when a seizure occurs, there may be too much or too little activity, causing an imbalance between exciting and stopping activity. The chemical changes can lead to surges of electrical activity that cause seizures.

Many people living with epilepsy have more than one type of seizure. My youngest daughter, Isabelle, is living with epilepsy and has three types of seizures: atypical absence seizures, atonic seizures, and myoclonic seizures.

What is an atypical absence seizure? These seizures are a type of absence seizure that is atypical. This means it’s different, unusual, or not typical compared to typical absence seizures, which were previously called petit mal seizures. They are a type of generalized onset seizure, which means they start in both sides of the brain. The person will stare (just like in absence seizure) but they may be able to respond a bit. Eye blinking, chewing movements, lip smacking or slight jerking may occur.

What is an atonic seizure? Muscles tome is the muscle’s normal tension. “Atonic” means without tone. So in an atonic seizure, muscles suddenly become limp. Part of the body may become limp. The eyelids may droop, the head may nod or drop forward, and the person may drop things. If standing, the person often falls to the ground. These seizures are also called drop attacks or drop seizures.

What is a myoclonic seizure? Myoclonic seizures are brief, shock-like jerks of a muscle or a group of muscles. “Myo” means muscle and “clonus” means rapidly alternating contraction and relaxation – jerking or twitching – of a muscle. There can be just one, but sometimes many will occur within a short time.

I share this information and the pictures below because my daughter is living with epilepsy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Learning Through Literature about Thanksgiving Day

Thanksgiving Day is a national holiday celebrated in the United States on the fourth Thursday of November. It began as a day of giving thanks for the blessing of the harvest and of the preceding year.

In the United States, the modern Thanksgiving holiday tradition is traced to a sparsely documented 1621 celebration at Plymouth in present-day Massachusetts, and also to a well recorded 1619 event in Virginia. The 1621 Plymouth feast and thanksgiving was promoted by a good harvest. Pilgrims and Puritans who began emigrating from England in the 1620s and 1630s carried the tradition of Days of Fasting and Days of Thanksgiving with them to New England. The 1619 arrival of 38 settlers at Berkeley Hundred in Charles City County, Virginia, concluded with a religious celebration as dictated by the group’s charter from the London Company, which specifically required “that the day of our ships arrival at the place assigned in the land of Virginia shall be yearly and perpetually kept holy as a day of thanksgiving to Almighty God.

As President of the United States, George Washington proclaimed the first nationwide thanksgiving celebration in America marking November 26, 1789 as a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God.

My Happy Homeschool is learning through literature about Thanksgiving Day with the following books:

 

What Was the First Thanksgiving? By Joan Holub

 

Thanksgiving on Thursday (Magic Tree House Series #27) by Mary Pope Osborne

 

Ideals Thanksgiving by Ideals Publications

Happy Homeschooling!