Month: August 2022

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew

My kids, especially the younger set, really love to draw and color. They don’t even care if what they’re coloring is “regular” or “educational.” That’s why Super Teacher Worksheets is such a good fit for our family! With tens of thousands of worksheets, all in an easy-to-print PDF format, you’re sure to find something for your kids, too.

Super Teacher Worksheets is a fantastic site for finding worksheets for quite literally every subject imaginable for elementary students. If you have a preschooler that you want to introduce to letters, they have worksheets for that. If you have a second grader who needs help with reading practice and comprehension, they have worksheets for that. And if you have a fifth grade student who almost understands their math lesson but needs a bit of extra practice, they have worksheets for that too!

It’s quite easy to find what you’re looking for by simply browsing the subjects listed along the left sidebar of the website. Click on what you’re looking for, and you’ll be taken to the page with the worksheets for that subject. From there, you can browse for the exact worksheet that will fit your needs. The PDFs are downloadable and printable right from your computer or tablet.

As I mentioned, my kids love to color. This is something that Dragonfly (6) and Bumblebee (almost 4) especially enjoy. They could literally sit at the table and color for hours and hours. So for the past few weeks, I swapped out their coloring books for Super Teacher Worksheets printouts.

Dragonfly is right on the cusp of taking off in his reading, so for him I focused on the worksheets in the category of “early literacy” and “reading and writing.” We did a few of the first grade reading comprehension pages, and he did several of the word family booklets on his own.

Bumblebee is very precocious and knows a lot of the basic kindergarten things already (shapes, colors, he can count to 20 and identify several of the letters and numbers), so I found some worksheets for him to help develop his fine motor skills a bit, like tracing the shapes (the circles to make a snowman, for example).

Even Grasshopper got some worksheets. When we were working on a different bit of summer school, it became very apparent to me that he did not remember how to subtract properly, so he got some less fun worksheets to get him back up to speed on that. He wasn’t thrilled, but he quickly remembered how to subtract, so it was a win in my book!

Worksheets are a wonderful tool, and one that I have no problem implementing into our days – even during summer break. If your kids also like paper activities, I highly suggest giving Super Teacher Worksheets a try. And don’t forget to head over to the Homeschool Review Crew site to read more reviews. I didn’t utilize the worksheet generator feature, but I’m sure some of my crewmates did, so I really recommend you read another review or two to learn about that.

Blessings,

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew

Progeny Press has been a staple in our homeschool for many years. Way back in 2014, I did our very first one, Little House in the Big Woods, with Ballet Boy and Scorpion (when they were so small!). This summer, Grasshopper has been working on the Farmer Boy Study Guide (for grades 4-6).

Progeny Press study guides are good for so many reasons. They not only offer lots of comprehension questions for the books they’re for, but there’s also loads of opportunity for students to practice their deep thinking skills. The Gillelands, who own the company, also strive to show students how they can find scriptural application to a variety of different literature selections. This is what really sets Progeny Press apart. That biblical application, even to secular books, makes them very different from almost every other literature company out there.

I chose to have Grasshopper do the Farmer Boy study guide this summer for a few reasons. First, it was the only one being offered in his age range (ha!) this year. But I would have chosen it anyway because he loves the Little House books. He’s been listening to them on Overdrive (our digital library app) for years. The other main reason I selected this one is because we already owned a beautiful, full-color version of the book that he’s not yet read on his own. Being able to dive right in without needing to wait for Amazon delivery (or purchase an ebook) was right up my alley this year.

Progeny Press always recommends that students read the entire book and then work through the study guide. There’s the caveat, though, that if another method works better for your student/family, then do that instead. I find that my children do better if we work the book and study guide in tandem rather than whole/whole. For this reason, I only printed out the pages we needed, when we needed them. I assigned Grasshopper the first four chapters to read (because it’s summer and he’d rather play outside than read – which is one of his favorite activities – he just did about 3 chapters a week), which are all under the umbrella of the first section of the study guide. When he had finished that reading, we worked on the study guide together. He did a lot of it on his own, but some of the vocabulary words were a bit tricky for him, so I did help with that.

Because my son doesn’t have his own computer (and frankly, I prefer it that way), we did the paper and pencil method. Progeny Press study guides are sold as editable PDF documents, which means with an older student or one who is computer-savvy could do the whole thing on the computer, negating the need for a printer.

The other thing that really sets Progeny Press apart from other literature study guides is their focus on projects and activities. And the Laura Ingalls Wilder books are perfect for families who are either already really into homesteading or interested in giving it a try on a small scale. You can see from this page in the study guide that the activities involve a lot of things that are traditionally done during a sort of “pioneer days” field trip that public school kids might take (I remember doing one such trip in 4th grade). We already have an automatic ice cream maker, so this was an easy one to do, and something we do semi-regularly throughout the year anyway. We live in a apartment right now, so we couldn’t try to grow watermelon (but we sure do like to eat it!). We haven’t tried the candle making yet, but I’ve seen loads of tutorials on YouTube lately, so it will absolutely be something for us to try this fall.

Progeny Press also provides an answer key in a separate file. It’s recommended that you save that on a different computer if your student is using their own (for obvious reason). I didn’t have to do that because, as I mentioned, Grasshopper rarely uses a computer and when he does, it’s very specific assignments on my laptop. This answer key makes it really easy to check your student’s work, or help guide them to the right answer on a comprehension or vocabulary question if you as the parent are unsure.

All in all, I love Progeny Press study guides. As long as they continue to offer them to members of the Homeschool Review Crew, I will continue to request to review them. Make sure to click through to read reviews of other study guides from my fellow crewmates (the other options this year were The Story of Ping for K-2, The Last Battle for grades 5-8, and The Fellowship of the Ring for grades 9-12).

Blessings,

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew

I am so grateful to be able to tell you all about the 12 month family membership from CTCMath again this year!

For the past three years, Grasshopper has been using this program as his primary math curriculum, and it’s an absolute blessing to our family. CTCMath is a program designed and taught by Australian homeschool dad Pat Murray. It is a complete math curriculum for every single one of your students, regardless of how old they are. The program covers the simplest kindergarten math all the way up Calculus for your high school senior. Designed with homeschoolers in mind, CTCMath lessons are very concise – at the elementary school level, each one lasts only about 5 minutes (plus however long it takes your student to complete the online, digital worksheet). The family plan allows you an unlimited number of students, which is fantastic since a lot of homeschoolers have big families (Mr. Murray has 10 children of his own).

Let’s dive into the program itself.

When you first go to the website, you choose the log in you need – student, teacher, or parent. I don’t actually spend any time in the parent portal these days (I know my kids are doing their math because I see them on the computer and I get the weekly email telling me how many times they logged in and how many lessons each child completed). I looked at the parent account in more detail in a previous review, though.

The student account is super straightforward. Each student needs their own account, but it just requires a username (my kids use their first name as a user name so it’s easy for them to remember), not a separate email for each one. Once they sign in, they need to choose their grade level (elementary, middle, or high school), and the course they’re taking. For K through 6th, this is just labeled with the grade number. Once you get to 7th grade and up, math classes are based more on topic and less on general knowledge, and CTCMath is no different. Middle school cover Pre-Algebra, Elementary Measurement, and Elementary Geometry. High school covers Algebra I and II, Geometry, Pre-Calculus, and Calculus. Each class is broken down further into topics, and if you are using CTCMath as a supplement to another curriculum, you can choose just the topics your student needs to practice more of. As a full curriculum, we tend to start at the beginning and work our way through every lesson in every topic.

As I mentioned before, Grasshopper is the main child in our family who has been using CTCMath regularly, and he’s been at it for three years now. He’s completed 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grade, and will be diving into 5th grade next month. He absolutely loves this math program. Every single year when the review option comes up, I ask him if he wants to apply to review it again and continue to use it and the answer is always an emphatic “Yes!” He likes that the lessons are short – he can easily do two or three a day without feeling overwhelmed. I like that the videos are so well explained that students can understand the concepts in just a few minutes. Additionally, there are the questions that they answer afterward to make absolutely sure they know what they need to know for the lesson.

When I asked Scorpion (15, going into 10th grade) which math program he wanted to use for Algebra I this year (we have several at our disposal thanks to the Review Crew), he requested CTCMath. He’s not much of a math kid (I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – his strength is more in the reading and literature realms than the math and science one), so the short lessons appeal to him. Just like in the elementary levels, I like the idea that he will have to answer questions every day in order to “pass” the lesson and move on. The other thing that will benefit him greatly is that with CTCMath, the lessons and tests are all-inclusive. One problem he had with his homeschool curriculum last school year was that he was supposed to do the lessons to learn the material and then take the tests to earn the credit. Well, he forgot to take the tests. All year long. So he’s been spending his summer break taking all those tests so he can get his freshman credits before he starts his sophomore year. With CTCMath, that won’t be an issue, at least with math (which is taking him the longest to make up).

Little Dragonfly is 6, which means he will be working through the 1st grade curriculum on CTCMath this year. It’s been a couple of years since I used it with him, and the Kindergarten lessons back then were too much. He’s worked through lots of math on another program these past two years, though, and I’m confident he’ll breeze through 1st grade with no issues at all.

One thing that’s changed since the last time I reviewed CTCMath is the Mastery feature. As your student is answering the questions, there’s a mastery bar that fills up with each correct response. When they’ve gotten enough questions correct to prove mastery over the topic at hand, the screen fills with digital confetti and they’re told that they’ve successfully mastered the lesson, but that they should still complete the remaining questions in order to receive their grade. What this mastery bar is doing is actually tracking how well your student is doing and adjusting the questions as they answer to make the easier or more difficult, depending on their skill. How cool is that?!

My oldest son, Ballet Boy, recently graduated out of our homeschool, but he also used CTCMath a few times over the years. He wanted me to give you his direct quote on the program: “CTCMath is the bomb. I hate math and I still think it’s the bomb.”

So, yeah… we love CTCMath around here! I highly recommend it, especially if you have a large family. That “one price for unlimited students” is something you just can’t beat. (If you don’t have a large family, you can also pay for just a single student. There are plans available to pay monthly or yearly.)

If you’re still on the fence, however, make sure to head over to the Homeschool Review Crew site and get more information and links to more reviews as well. And one last thing to keep in mind: CTCMath gives homeschoolers a 50% discount every day of the year!

Blessings,

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew.

STEAM, and its cousin STEM, are hot words in education right now. In case you’re unfamiliar, it’s a heavily science-based approach to learning. The acronyms stand for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. STEAM also includes Art. Despite its trendiness, we haven’t explored STEAM or STEM much in our family. Because we expect our children to join the family business rather than leave the nest, it’s not a priority. But I was still curious about STEAM4KIDZ when the opportunity was given to review it, and I was happy to have received the Ocean Ventures Kit to try out with some of my younger kids.

I requested the Ocean Ventures Kit (we were also given options of the Starry Night Kit, the Mini Theater Kit, and the Galactic Adventures Kit) because we live so close to the Pacific Ocean – only about 40 miles away. I wanted the kids to have a chance to learn about the place we spend so much time during the summer months, and this kit definitely delivered!

STEAM4KIDZ offers complete kits for families to easily teach STEAM concepts in a fun and engaging way while children make real projects with hands-on learning. Each kit comes with literally everything you need to create between 5 and 7 projects. This includes things that many families probably have on hand already, like scissors and tape. But STEAM4KIDZ doesn’t want you to have to worry about tracking down your supplies, so it’s all included right in the box. In addition to the projects in the box, there is access to the video lessons. These lessons walk your student through exactly how to create the project as well as teaching them about the thing they’re making. For example, when Grasshopper (10 years old) made the clay coral, he also learned so much about coral while he was sculpting.

In addition to the clay coral, the Ocean Ventures Kit includes everything needed to make a model of the ocean floor, a shark-tooth necklace, an “ooey gooey jellyfish,” and a seashell windchime. The items needed for each project are separated into plastic bags and labeled for easy access. The more generic things, like scissors and colored pencils, are not included in any of the project bags but are instead tucked away inside a pencil pouch. (And as a side note, these are some of the sharpest scissors I’ve ever used. They’re fantastic, though you want to be careful with younger learners so they don’t cut themselves.)

The video lessons are really fantastic. As I mentioned, in addition to walking your child through everything they should do to create a beautiful end project, they also give loads of information about the thing being made. One thing I wish was that the link for the videos (they’re hosted on Vimeo) was in more than one place within the kit. It seemed that I could never find the exact right paper with that link on it! Eventually I wised up and bookmarked the website on my laptop.

I didn’t tell my kids that this was coming in the mail, and when we got home from errands one day and they saw the colorful box on the stoop, they were absolutely giddy. We immediately moved the box to the coffee table in our living room and did an unboxing (that’s over on Instagram if you missed it). They were so excited that they wanted to do one of the projects right then! If that’s not proof of how exciting these kits are for kids, I don’t know what is. I absolutely recommend the STEAM4KIDZ kits. They would make a really good base for a summer camp, too. Kind of like VBS crafts, but better!

As I mentioned above, Crew members were given the option of the Starry Night Kit, the Galactic Adventures Kit, the Ocean Ventures Kit, or the Mini Theater Kit. Head over to the Homeschool Review Crew website to learn more about the individual kits and read reviews of each one, too.

 

Blessings,