Did you have the blessing of growing up under the tutelage of a mom who was able to stay at home and teach you the finer arts of keeping it? I had a wonderful mother, but this was not our life. While she could sew beautifully, cook the best food and keep the house in fine order, we did not allow ourselves the time to work together as mother and daughter to pass on these arts. I was, unfortunately, a most resistant daughter to these things. If this was you and you now see the great benefit and blessing of the "Quiet Arts" at home then you will be overjoyed to discover what I have found! From Pearables come three age-appropriate books designed to teach your daughters all they need to know to run a house from top to bottom. From the kitchen to the cleaning to sewing to organizing to hospitality - it is all in here - and this is only Level 1! I felt inadequate to teach my daughters what I had not mastered myself and Home Economics for Home Schoolers really provide a wonderful resource for us. Some of the lessons are things you will be well-familiar with and other lessons will be new to you.

Level 1 is for ages 6 and up and begins with a lesson on nutrition. What is it and what makes a good meal? Your child will keep a record of each meal eaten for a week and write down and list which foods belong to which group listed. From there she will move onto various cooking skills like peeling carrots, cooking with eggs, using the stove and beginning garnishing. Then baking is introduced and your child will be cooking a meal for you in this lesson! The lessons are meant to be done at the rate of one per week and each book has 30 lessons. You then have your child do the activity more than once that week so that they become familiar with and begin to master it. After learning various baking skills (coating, pastry cutter, using the rolling pin, sifting, grater use, etc.) your child will move into cleaning skills. This is a great blessing to most moms - to have a good helper around in this area! There are five weeks of cleaning instruction in the first level - all very manageable things like vacuuming, dusting, sweeping properly, washing dishes and making beds. What is really nice about how the lessons are laid out is that the instruction is thorough and complete so that your child knows that only furniture polish or wood oil is used for wood furniture and explains why wood is different for other surfaces. This holds true for not only cleaning. From here sewing is introduced and because I do not have much experience with sewing, here is one section I am grateful for! Learning to stitch, backwards and forwards, cutting a pattern and sewing on appliqués are all covered. After sewing there are three weeks of organization included. What is organization or how to organize a closet or a bookshelf are covered here. I would love to be able to say to my 6 year old - go organize your closet and see that she is capable of doing it; not just throwing things in there! Week 29 is Hospitality: It's Time for Company! Rules for hospitality are given and your child gets to plan a get-together with her friends or family. Now I understand that some of these topics are things that we as moms know and can communicate with our children, but this book is very thorough and goes into detail in a lovely friendly way. It is written directly to the child and right from the beginning we meet Faith who will be your daughter's companion of sorts throughout the book. She "learns" right along with your child. The book is filled with sweet drawings and an easy to read large font so that there is no eye-strain on your little one.

Level 2 follows the same pattern as Level 1 with 30 lessons (or weeks) for age 8 and up. Again you start with nutrition to reinforce what is good for your body, but this time you are introduced to Hope who will help along the way in the various lessons. There is more content in each lesson and more for your child to do in this level. Some of the Lesson Titles are Learning to Bake, Grains, Dry and Wet Ingredients, Yeast, Cooking with Meat, Cooking with Cheese, Making Clear Soups/Cream Soups, Beginning Candy Making, Items You Need for Sewing, Making a Simple Sewing Kit, Hand Stitching, The Sewing Machine, Cleanliness is Next to Godliness, Cleaning Your Own Room, The Closet and Under the Bed, What is Hospitality? and Three is NOT a Crowd. At Week 30 she gets to host a party. There is so much value in these delightful 8.5" x 11" books that I cannot begin to express it. For a mom like me - who feels that more than academic education is important - these books will be of great significance to our life. With Home Economics for Home Schoolers, I will not have to pass on my lack of knowledge of the important homemaking skills, but feel confident in my ability to teach them with these fabulous resources. For more information on these or any other great Pearables products for homeschooling families, you can see their website at: http://www.pearables.com.



- Product Review by: Kate Kessler, Product Reviews Manager, The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine