homeschooling

Homeschool Curriculum Review: Learning Wrap ups

Posted by on 1 Comment

learning palette 1

I have a positively superb product to share with you guys today. In the few weeks we’ve had it, it has become hands down one of our favorite school manipulatives. What is it? Well, it’s more than an “it.” I received for review from Learning Wrap ups all of this great stuff:

These products, which are ideal for children in all elementary grades – Kindergarten through 5th – became high use products in our homeschool, especially the math wrap ups. You see, the boys have been struggling with their facts for a long time. They still counted fingers for adding and subtracting and barely knew the multiplication tables at all (past the 3s, that is). Their inability to master these was weighing heavy on me; I knew that they should have known them by now (at least Seahawk should have, since he’s nearing the end of 4th grade), but worksheets and flashcards just weren’t working, no matter how often we did them. Will had Learning Wrap ups when he was a kid and thought they would be the right answer (pardon the pun) for the boys, but he couldn’t remember what they were called. When our package arrived, he was happy to have these in the house! (And that’s really saying something since we strive for minimalism.)

So, what is a Learning Wrap up, anyway? Put simply, it is a set of 10 “keys,” connected together with an attached string (not attached with the string, but the string is also attached). The child separates the one they’re working on – they don’t come apart, but you rotate one to work with and hold the others together out of the way – and wraps the string around the key. There’s a list of numbers down each side and the math family (+1, x5, etc) in the middle. The goal is to take the numbers on the left (in top-to-bottom order), add, subtract, multiply, or divide by the family they’re working on, and match them to the correct answer on the right. Each key is self-correcting; there is a raised pattern on the back, and if all the answers are correct, the string will cover those lines. The ultimate goal of the Learning Wrap ups is that the student will learn the facts and be able to complete each “key” in 30 seconds or less.

multiplicationmastery cropped

They come in an incredibly wide variety of topics and problems. The math set that we received includes addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and fractions. The Vocabulary set we got includes synonyms, antonyms, homonyms, and compound words. In addition to all of these, there are Wrap ups for ESL (English as a Second Language), Geography, Spanish, Music Theory, Science, Advanced Math, and Preschool subjects.

To supplement the Learning Wrap ups, we received the addition and multiplication mastery workbooks. These included such exercises as “rapid writing” and “math family fun pages.” They worked very nicely with Wrap ups. Seahawk used the Multiplication Mastery, and Munchkin used Addition Mastery during the review period. I fully intend to purchase one more copy of each (individually, the workbooks are only $4.99 each and are consumable, so you need to buy one per student) and have them switch for further mastery this summer.

wrapups

We haven’t done a whole lot with the Vocabulary Wrap ups yet (at least not formally – they’ve still gotten lots of use!), but as we continue to study various types of words, they will be great tools. They work exactly the same way as their math counterparts, but you’re matching words instead of numbers.

The Learning Palettes are really cool, too. The basic design is that of a painter’s palette, but instead of paints all around the edge, there are spaces for colored discs. You place a question card in the center of the palette, which has 12 problems to solve. Each problem is assigned a colored disc – there are six colors, and each one has a solid disc and one with a hole. There are a variety of answers along the outside of the card, and the task is simple: place the disc from the question into the spot with the correct answer. Like the Wrap ups, the Learning Palette is self-correcting; after the discs are placed, the card is turned over and the answers are revealed. The method is the same regardless of the grade level you’re using.

The highest grade level for the Reading Learning Palette is 3rd, so it was primarily used by Munchkin during our review period; we did get 4th grade math, though, which Seahawk used. The Learning Palette Kits each come with lots of curriculum cards (which are also available separately in both math and reading). The 4th Grade Math kit comes with 6 packs of curriculum cards, and the 3rd Grade Reading comes with 5 packs. Each pack has 12 cards, and each card has 12 questions. For those of you who aren’t so into math, that adds up to (well, multiplies to) 720 questions in the reading category and 864 in math. Talk about a lot of information!

Let’s talk pros and cons.

The pros are clear and strong. First of all, the programs are fun for kids. Way more fun than flash cards. And when kids are having fun, they learn more. My boys absolutely loved the Wrap ups, and guess what? They’ve very nearly got their multiplication tables memorized, and they only rarely have to use their fingers for adding anymore. That makes me one happy mama! It’s taken us a bit longer than the 10 Days advertised, but you know what? I don’t mind. At least we’re finally making progress, which is way more than I could say two months ago. They really enjoy the Learning Palettes, too. They don’t like them quite as well as the Wrap ups, but I think that’s just because they’re bigger and more cumbersome than the hand-held Wrap up.

The main con with this program is that things are never mixed up; the Wrap up is the same every time. I don’t think that hurts the kids’ ability to master the facts in the short term, though. I’m confident that my boys were learning the facts, not the string pattern. Seeing the facts in a different order than they were on the Wrap up did slow them down a little bit, but not too much. And this is where the combination of the Wrap up and the Mastery workbook are necessary. The workbook (almost) completely counteracts the con of the sameness of the Wrap up.

While the two products (Wrap ups and Palettes) are quite different, the pros and cons are the same for both. The Palettes are super fun – even Small Fry loved playing with them! (They kept him occupied quite nicely while we were working on other lessons.) The questions don’t change, but there are enough of them that it probably doesn’t matter. By the time your child has worked all the way through the cards, the “old” ones will feel fresh again.

Would I recommend this product? In a heartbeat. In fact, I’ve already done so several times. I also plan to buy some of the lower level Wrap ups for my nieces and nephews as they start hitting their “school age” birthdays this year and next – that’s how much I believe in this product. It worked wonders in my boys, and I’m telling anyone who will listen about them!

Blessings,

Wendy

While not a part of my review, there is an online version of the Learning Palette, too. Make sure to click the banner below for other crew reviews about that aspect of the product.

Connect with Learning Wrap ups on Facebook and Twitter.

more reviews click through copy
review crew disclaimer copy

 

Homeschool Curriculum Review: Progeny Press

Posted by on 1 Comment

progeny 3

We love books in my house. (Well, most of us do; Seahawk might be the exception.) We especially love reading books together, and if we can make it a school lesson, all the better. When the option for a review of a Progeny Press study guide was offered, I was super excited. When I found out one of the options for my kids’ age range was Little House in the Big Woods, I was even more excited. Will had read this book to the boys a couple of years ago, but I had never read it. Ever. As a child or as an adult. Can you believe that? Me neither. So I expressed high interest in getting my hands on this guide.

What is Progeny Press? I’m glad you asked! The short answer is that they are a company that provides “study guides for literature, from a Christian perspective” (quoted from their website). They have study guides for over 100 books available on their website, ranging from classics like Little House in the Big Woods and Charlotte’s Web to current popular novels like The Hunger Games.The guides cover a wide age range, starting in lower elementary (grades K-3) and going all the way up through high school guides (grades 9-12). Because of the age of my kids, I obviously chose one in the “Upper Elementary” range – grades 3-5.

Their prices are quite reasonable – most of the guides are between $11.99 and $21.99. Little House in the Big Woods, the one I am reviewing today, costs $16.99. What you get for that price is a digital download, available immediately. You have two choices of what to do with your download. You can print it off and bind it, which is what I did, or you can have your student(s) type right into the PDF. That’s right – it’s fully interactive! (This option is available for many of the guides, but not all of them.) For older students or families who aren’t worried about their kids’ computer time, this would be a wonderful option to save the cost of printing. I went ahead and printed ours for two reasons: first, because we want our kids to limit their screen time, and second because I was having both boys work on it. Printing multiple copies is allowed within a single family, so this was the perfect solution for us. After printing, I used comb-binding to hold them together (this was done for free at my church) into “official” workbooks. For an extra dollar, you can have a pre-printed workbook instead of the digital download that you print yourself. For the same price as the interactive PDF, you can get a CD with the study guide on it mailed to you for printing on your own. The benefit to the PDF or CD is, of course, that you can use it with multiple students within the same home. A pre-printed workbook would require one per student.

Progeny Press study guides take between 4-10 weeks to complete, depending on the complexity of the book. It took us about six weeks to work through our study. They recommend that you have your student read the book in its entirety during the first week of the literature unit and then work through the study guide for the remainder of the weeks until it’s done. We didn’t do this. We chose to do the book as a read-aloud (remember when I said I hadn’t read it before?), and I knew that it would work better with my kids if we did the questions and activities as we read instead of bulking up on one and then the other. The study guide is split up into two-chapter chunks, except the very last section which covers the final three chapters of the memoir. So we would read one chapter a day (occasionally two, if the boys were “feeling” it and my voice wasn’t too tired) and then spend three or four days working through the questions, vocabulary words, and activities in the guide.

progeny 5

A sampling of one of the questions pages.

I really liked the questions they asked because they pushed the kids to not only be able to regurgitate what they’d heard, but also to think through why certain things happened in the book the way they did. Additionally, there were Bible tie-in questions included in each section, hence the “from a Christian perspective” tagline that Progeny boasts. After the questions that deal strictly with the text, there’s a Bible verse or two (printed right in the study guide) and questions about how the kids think that section of Scripture applies to the chapters read. For example, in the chapter that shows us Laura being jealous of Mary’s golden curls, the study guide reminds us of 1 Peter 3:3-4 (Your beauty should not come from outward adornment…) and 1 Samuel 16:7 (The Lord does not look at things man looks at…). Then students are asked to ponder what beauty is.

So, you read a book and answer a bunch of questions. That’s it, right?

Nope!

Progeny Press study guides also offer several activity options to go along with each section. Our favorite thing to do with our study guide went along with the chapter that describes Pa whittling a shelf out of wood for Ma. The boys got to try their hand at whittling! Instead of wood and a sharp knife, they used soap and a butter knife. They absolutely loved this activity!

progeny whittling

Soap whittling

Their grandfather (Will’s dad) is big into whittling, and they’ve seen him do it loads of times, so they were pumped to try it themselves, especially Seahawk. In the end, Seahawk made a boat and Munchkin made a car.

progeny 2

Seahawk and his soap-whittled boat

Other activities that corresponded with the book included going sledding (we never get enough snow for that, and besides, it’s spring!), making butter (ours never got firm enough to “wash”), watching a video about cheese making and honey collecting (thank goodness for YouTube!), and making Johnny cake (still on our to-do list).

The long and the short of it is this: this study guide was absolutely amazing. If the others are as good as this one – and I have no reason to doubt that they are – they are definitely worth getting, especially if you try to run a literature-rich homeschool like I do. My recommendation would be to get either the PDF download or the CD over the printed workbook, though, especially if you have kids in varying age ranges. This way, one purchase covers you for all your kids; you can keep the files and print new ones as younger kids “grow into” the books. Oh, and one other thing you need to be aware of: these guides do not come with the literature. You have to provide that yourself. But most of the titles are easily found in a well-stocked public library.

Now, what are you still doing here? Head on over to Progeny Press and find yourself a study guide to do with your kids!

Blessings,

Wendy

more reviews click through copyreview crew disclaimer copy

 

Prices quoted in this post are current as of Monday, June 2, 2014

Homeschool Curriculum Review: What on Earth Can I Do?

Posted by on 2 Comments

apologia kids

A few weeks ago, the boys and I finished reading the New Testament and were slated to dive into the Old Testament when I was offered for review What on Earth Can I Do? from Apologia Educational Ministries. Because of this offer, we’ve been working on this instead of strictly reading the Bible; the program allows us to use and think of the Bible in “real life” ways, which has been really helpful.

As part of this curriculum, I received four books: the What on Earth Can I Do? hardcover textbook ($39); the What on Earth Can I Do? Notebooking Journal ($24); the What on Earth Can I Do? Junior Notebooking Journal ($24); and the What on Earth Can I Do? Coloring Book ($8). (Everything but the textbook is softcover.) What on Earth Can I Do? is the fourth part of Apologia’s biblical worldview training program “What We Believe.” We haven’t done the first three parts, but that wasn’t a problem; they don’t build on each other. What on Earth Can I Do? focuses on having a biblical worldview of stewardship and is geared toward kids in elementary school – roughly grades 1-6.

apologia books

The Bible is a very important book to our family, but it’s one that I struggle to teach. Reading and teaching are two very different things, and the latter is difficult. Because of that, and the fact that we’d just finished the New Testament (as I mentioned earlier), the timing of this program was perfect for us. I love it when that happens! And having this be “open and go” curriculum was frosting on the cake.

Use of this product is really easy. There are 8 lessons, and each is designed to take about two weeks with three lessons per week (we went a little slower and used it 4-5 days per week, but still finished each lesson in a two-week span). There’s a suggested schedule in the front of the two Notebooking Journals, which we followed loosely. Each session starts with some sort of read-aloud. Some days it’s pretty short – a couple of pages of introduction to the lesson. Other days it’s quite long – 10-12 pages of story (some fictional, some retellings of Jesus’ parables) that demonstrates the heart of the lesson. The long days didn’t feel long, though, thanks to the great writing of John Hay and David Webb. I found this to be a good time for some read-aloud time with the boys, but you could easily have older children do the reading on their own, so long as you’ve also read the material so you can discuss it with them. Discussion is very important to this curriculum.

Once the reading and subsequent discussion is done, there are activities in the Journals for the kids. These range from coloring pages to note-taking pages to crosswords and more. Because we were blessed with both the regular Journal and the Junior version, Seahawk and Munchkin each got their own. Seahawk got the regular one since he’s older. This one has a lot of required writing. There are questions for both comprehension and critical thinking for both of the longer stories of the lesson (the fiction and the parable). There are complex crossword puzzles and word searches. And there are lots and lots of blank pages for taking notes. You may recall from an earlier review I wrote that Seahawk isn’t a strong speller (and dislikes writing because of that – we’re still working on him), so I did a lot of the writing for him. But rest assured, all of the answers were his!

The Junior Notebooking Journal is very similar to the regular one, but everything is easier. There are coloring pages instead of questions (but the questions are also in the text book, so if you have only younger kids, you won’t miss out on the discussion possibilities by using only the Junior Notebooking Journal). The crosswords and word searches are only a fraction the difficulty. The mini-book activity is the same in both. Because Munchkin’s Journal had coloring pages already, Seahawk was the main beneficiary of the Coloring Book, although both Small Fry and Munchkin helped him on occasion, as you can see from my photo at the beginning of the post.

The  lessons we’ve finished so far have followed the fictional Edwards family, who live in England during World War II. I like this because we get some “recent” history in with our Bible lesson. This series of stories has opened up quite a bit of discussion about that time in history. Each lesson also includes several one-page articles about relevant people and places. We’ve had mini-lessons on Maria von Trapp, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Lou Gehrig, and St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, to name just a few.

But our favorite part of every lesson is the retelling of Jesus’ parables. These are much longer than their biblical counterparts, offering a few made-up details that don’t appear in Scripture (primarily giving names the characters). They are so well done, though. I look forward to reading those each time. Part of the discussion/written questions (depending on how you choose to do them) includes having you go back to the Bible and read the real parable that the story was based on and doing a compare/contrast. I loved that. It’s fabulous that they don’t just give you “their version” of a piece of the Bible without making sure you go back to the source. It’s clear that the folks at Apologia are “Bible first” kind of people.

I can say without a doubt that I recommend this series. The books are very well put together, both in content and workmanship. The activities go well with the lessons, and the lessons are a good length (we spent between 30 and 60 minutes per session). If you’re looking for a great way to implement the Bible in your homeschool, this is definitely something worth taking a look at. Still not sure? You can access the first lesson in its entirety (two weeks worth of curriculum!) for free on the Apologia website. You do this by clicking “What on Earth Sample” from the page I just linked to. It’s available as a PDF download. Additionally, you connect with the Apologia people on Facebook, Twitter, Google +, and Pinterest.

Blessings,

Wendymore reviews click through copy

review crew disclaimer copy

 

Simplicity: In the Homeschool

Posted by on 1 Comment

simplicity

 

Homeschooling our children is very important to us. It’s something we knew we wanted to do from the time I found out I was pregnant with Seahawk. We never considered any other option, and now that we’re ten years (almost eleven!) into parenthood and five years into homeschooling, I’m so glad we made this choice. I wrote on the “School at Home” page of our 2013 family yearbook that teaching our children at home is one of my greatest joys as a mother, and I truly mean that. Of course there are days when I wonder what it would be like if the older two were off at school for 8 hours a day. Then I come to my senses and remember why I wanted to be a mom! (Hint: It wasn’t so I could ship them off somewhere the minute they turned five so I wouldn’t have to “deal” with them until they were 18.)

So, how do we balance living simply with homeschooling? There are so many different styles of homeschooling out there – almost as many styles as there are homeschooling parents – and it’s all just a matter of finding a balance. I’m going to go over the way I teach today. This is not a tell-all, do-it-this-way-or-you’re-awful kind of post. This is just what works for us, and if you can take some or all of what I say to make your homeschool day easier or better for you, then that’s awesome. If not, that’s awesome too. But enjoy a little glimpse into our day.

We wake up between 8 and 8:30 each morning. I prefer to be the first one up so I can have a little bit of quiet time before the day starts. That doesn’t always happen though. I’m working on getting the kids into a routine that involves them getting dressed, making their beds, and reading a chapter from their Bible before they come out for breakfast, but that’s still a work in progress. We eat breakfast around 9 (typically just cereal or toast, but sometimes biscuits or pancakes). On the days he’s working from home, Will takes Small Fry out in the mornings so the older kids and I can do school more easily and efficiently. (He works in the afternoons on those days.) Ideally, by 9:30 we’ve started our school day.

I’m a visual person, so I need my kids to “do” something for school, not just read a bunch of books and call it a day. I do know that they can learn so much from reading different books – and we run a very literature heavy school – but it still gives me an odd peace of mind when they do paperwork or projects. We’re somewhere between “school at home” and “natural learning.” The first thing we do is bring out the schoolbooks. After reading a blog post last year on homeschool organization by Jamie at The Unlikely Homeschool, I totally took her idea and bought magazine racks – one for each kid. These have been worth their weight in gold for the simplicity it’s brought not only to our school day, but also to the bookshelf in my sewing room where I keep all the school stuff.

schoolbooks

 

Everything we need for a given day (except for the read-aloud books and pencils) is in those racks. Right now, our main focuses are:

  • Spelling – Spelling You See
  • Bible – Apologia’s What on Earth Can I Do?
  • Literature – Little House in the Big Woods study by Progeny Press
  • Cursive Handwriting – This is different for each kid. Munchkin just finished up Logic of English’s Rhythm of Handwriting, so he’s been writing a letter to someone each day; so far this week he’s written to his pen pal in Utah and his great-grandmother in Southern California. Seahawk is working through Patriotic Penmanship, a practice workbook that we received for another review. He likes it because the lessons are very short.
  • Math – Learning Wrap-Ups

We’ve been working our way through An Island Story: A History of England for Girls and Boys and The Burgess Animal Book for Children this year, too, but we’ve got so much other stuff going at the moment that we’re taking a break from those for a while.

On a normal day, we manage to finish all but one of our subjects before lunch – which one varies from day to day. I don’t let the kids choose what they learn per se, because they’re still young enough that there are tons of things that are non-negotiable (times tables and proper spelling, for instance). To help them feel like they still have some control over their own education, then, I let them help decide what order we do the subjects in.

At the end of the school day, all the books get put back in their magazine racks and the racks put away on the shelf until the next day. And that’s how we keep things simple – and organized! – in our homeschool.

What’s your favorite homeschool organizational trick?

Blessings,

Wendy

Homeschool Curriculum Review: Logic of English Rhythm of Handwriting

Posted by on 2 Comments

Rhythm of Handwriting 2

 

Cursive handwriting is something I learned in the third grade. As a parent who didn’t really know anything about homeschooling or what it should look like, I assumed that that was when kids were mentally and physically able to handle the task of writing in cursive. So color me surprised when I was assigned the Rhythm of Handwriting Cursive – Complete Set by Logic of English to review. The folks over there recommend teaching kids cursive before teaching them manuscript. There are several reasons for this, most of which are based around the idea that “it’s just easier.” (For example, all the lowercase letters begin at the same place and spacing within and between words is more easily controlled.) The one that stuck with me the most, though – and the one that made me wish we’d had this program for Seahawk two years ago – was that when writing in cursive, it’s hard to mix up the B and the D. Think about it: what does a cursive lowercase B look like? Nothing like a lowercase D, unlike their manuscript counterparts.

But Seahawk did learn cursive as a third-grader, and he (rarely) mixes up his Bs and Ds anymore. So we used this program with Munchkin, who has been desperately begging me to teach him cursive for about a year. He was positively thrilled when the package arrived, and even now that it’s been several weeks, still loves his cursive handwriting lessons.

The complete set includes everything you need to get started teaching your child (recommended age for Rhythm of Handwriting is 4 to adult) cursive handwriting. You get a softcover workbook ($15), a white board for practicing ($12), cursive tactile cards which are like flash cards, but the letters on the front are a sandpaper-like texture for the child to feel how the letter goes ($28), and a cursive handwriting chart which details each letter along with the steps for forming that letter ($10). You can purchase the items separately at the prices listed above or as a complete set for $65. The only things you need to provide are a dry erase marker, a pencil, and a student.

rhythm of handwriting items

Inside the workbook are several suggested schedules for teaching the letters. It all depends on the age and enthusiasm of your student. Because Munchkin is a solid reader and writer, we moved pretty quickly through the workbook; he learned 4 new letters a day on the “learning” days and moved even faster through on the “review/word” days.

We started the program using it exactly as prescribed. This involved going over the letter names and sounds on the flash cards, having him trace the texture of the letter on the card with his finger, having me describe exactly how to form the letters to him, and then finally having him write the letters in the workbook.

He quickly grew tired of this.

He’s the strongest reader of the two boys, so he already knew the letter sounds; that made that portion of the lesson unnecessary. The workbook includes large versions of the letters that he traced with his finger when he felt it was necessary to “figure it out,” so we didn’t end up using the cards all that often – the book alone was enough. The same was true for the white board. He was competent enough to just dive right into the workbook, using a pencil. I’m not saying this to diminish the necessity/quality of those products – they’re fabulous. They just weren’t necessary in our situation. For a younger child, or one who isn’t a super strong reader/writer, they would be invaluable assets.

I think this program was great. It was easy to teach, and I felt like it was easy for Munchkin to learn the letters. And he’s so excited to be able to read and write in cursive now.

His thoughts?

I really like it. My favorite part was learning the capital letters because they’re more complicated. I liked the challenge. Learning to combine letters into words was exciting too. It’s awesome because you can clearly read cursive when you learn to write it.

Logic of English has loads of other products, too – not just the handwriting program we used. Make sure to click the banner at the end of this post to read reviews of all the different products Crew members were blessed with! Additionally, you can find them on Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube, and Twitter.

Blessings,

Wendy

more reviews click through copyreview crew disclaimer copy

 

Homeschool Curriculum Review: CTC Math

Posted by on 1 Comment

CTC Math collage

Math is one of those subjects that so many parents dread teaching their children. It can be difficult, that’s for sure. I would never want to do it without help – and I was good at math! Australian company CTC Math is here to be that help for us. For the purposes of this review, I was given a free 12 Month Family Plan subscription.

How it Works

CTC Math is an online math curriculum for all ages, Kindergarten through 12th grade. The program consists of over 1300 video lessons, each one narrated by Pat Murray, a father of ten (who, I might add, has a lovely Australian accent!). The videos are very well done, each one clearly explaining the concept being taught along with animated examples. Once the child has watched the video, they move on to the questions portion of the lesson, which is really just an interactive worksheet.

For the lower grades (K-5), CTC Math qualifies as a full curriculum; for grades 6-12, it should be used as a supplement to something else.

CTC Math is offering a special promotion right now for homeschoolers: you can get their family plan (unlimited access to all grade levels for as many students as you have) for $118.80. The normal price for this program is $297, so this is pretty significant savings. One thing to be aware of is that when you sign up for the program, you’re given 5 student spots. If you have more than five students, just shoot them an email and they’ll open up your account to allow as many as you need. They’re always happy to do that. (Remember when I said that narrator and founder Pat Murray had 10 kids? Yeah. These guys understand big families!)

How Seahawk and Munchkin Used the Program

The best part (at least for our family) was that they have the videos set up to work on a computer with Flash or on a mobile device without it. Because we only have one computer, which Will needs for work most days, it was a nice surprise when I tried CTC on the Kindle Fire and it worked. On days the computer was available, the boys used it, but over 90% of the time, they used the Kindle, so it was really awesome that we had that as an option.

As a rule, we do the “together” schoolwork first, and then I get the boys going on their individual assignments. CTC Math is included in the latter category. I would get one of them going on math and the other on a different subject, and they would switch.

Like I mentioned before, there’s a short video on each topic that the child watches first. These videos range from about 2-7 minutes long. The student can watch the video as many times as (s)he needs to in order to fully comprehend the material. There were times when my boys needed to watch the videos more than once, so it was really nice that there were no limits on the video-watching. Once they’re confident they understand the information, they move on to the questions portion of the lesson.

I had the kids use the program every day – it took the place of our previous math curriculum, which was actually pretty similar to this, just without the video. Being able to add the video in was excellent. Our other workbook didn’t do a very good job of explaining what to do or why things were done that way. CTC Math covered essentially the same topics as that workbook, but Pat explained things much better than I could. The kids really started excelling whereas before, they were just getting by.

Our Opinion

I think this product is pretty awesome. It’s most useful if you want a “traditional” math curriculum for your kids. As a public school graduate, “traditional” is all I know. This fit that bill beautifully. My kids . . . well, I hate to say it, but they’re lazy when it comes to schoolwork. They don’t love anything we do. At least not the stuff that feels like “real” school. But they like CTC Math a whole lot better than our old workbooks, so that’s good praise for the program.

My only real critique of the program is that everything is done in the metric system, even though we were on the United States curriculum. That’s a pretty minor thing in my opinion, though. After all, the entire rest of the world uses the metric system, and honestly, the mechanics for measuring are the same whether you’re using centimeters or inches.

They boys’ absolute favorite thing about the program was the certificates they earned by performing well on their questions. If students get 100% on all of their questions in a particular unit, they earn a Platinum certificate, 95% earns a gold,  90% earns a silver, and 85% gets bronze. These certificates are emailed to the parent for optional printing. We don’t have any printer ink right now, so we didn’t print the certificates, but I’ve saved all the emails so we can print them at a later time. Even just seeing the certificates on the screen put huge smiles on my kids’ faces.

Blessings,

Wendy

CTC Math is on Facebook, both for their American program and the Australian counterpart.

more reviews click through copy review crew disclaimer copy

 

Homeschool Curriculum Review: Spelling You See

Posted by on 4 Comments

I have one child who is a naturally good speller (like my husband and me), and one who definitely is not. When I heard that Demme Learning, the company that gave Math-U-See to the homeschool world, was introducing a spelling curriculum, Spelling You See, I knew I needed to try to get on this review for Seahawk’s sake. Writing and creating are very important to our family, and his poor spelling skills were really hindering him in some major ways. It was to the point of being difficult to read some of his original writings because he spelled 100% phonetically. That’s okay for some words, but as a general rule in English, you can’t rely on phonetics to get you by.

There are 5 levels of Spelling You See curriculum (each assigned a letter), and we got the fourth level up, Spelling You See: Americana (Level D). The levels are assigned mostly based on your child’s age, but reading level is taken into account a little bit, too. You can start Level A with really little kids; as soon as they start to learn that “letters make sounds and sounds make words,” they’re ready for Spelling You See. The higher levels of the program are designed specifically for elementary-age kids, but can also be used as reinforcement for students who need remedial work. That said, the program is not based primarily on your child’s grade level; rather, you work with them, and as they master the concepts from one level, you can then move them up as you, the parent and educator, see fit. There are guidelines given by the company to help you establish on which level to start your student, and then you can move them on from there.

In Americana, your child is given a paragraph to work with. They work through the same paragraph – which are little snippets of American history – every day for five days. There are different “chunks” your child is assigned to find within the paragraph, and each kind of chunk is given its own color. Vowel chunks (any two vowels in a row, as well as a vowel followed by a Y or a W) are colored in yellow. Consonant chunks (any two consonants that work together to make one sound – th or ch for example) are blue. “Bossy R” chunks (a vowel followed by an R, because that R changes the sound the vowel makes) are purple. You get the idea. The idea is to teach the child that certain letter combinations make certain sounds, and that when they hear those sounds – in their heads as they’re writing or verbally during a spelling activity – they can assign the correct letter combination to the sound.

Spelling You See chunks

A properly “chunked” passage

After the child has found all the chunks for the day (which chunks they’re supposed to find vary based on the lesson; during the first two weeks of a specific kind of chunk, it’s just it on its own, and then after that, they start combining them into the same lesson), they move onto copywork. The first three lessons, the child is expected to copy down the passage, limiting the time spent to 10 minutes. No more. The idea is to help your child be a better speller without making them hate the experience of learning how. The last two days of the week, you read the paragraph to the child, a little bit at a time, and have them write down the words. This is dictation in lieu of the copywork; they’ve had three days to get familiar with the words, so then they’re going to see how many they can spell correctly. On day 4, they’re allowed to ask for help, but day 5 is kind of the equivalent of the “end of the week spelling test” (but don’t ever really call it that!) and they’re supposed to just try to write the words on their own as you read them. I think the best part of the dictation on Day 5 (Lesson “E” each week) is that the workbook has a place to record how many words your student spelled right. Not wrong, not a percentage, not “this many out of this many.” How many they got right. We found that to be a huge encouragement for Seahawk. He was thrilled when after the very first week he was spelling so many words correctly.

Spelling You See dictation

Dictation work for Lesson 5E. The arrow at the bottom emphasizes the idea of correct words.

Spelling You See: Level D: Americana is in the form of a Teacher’s Manual for you ($14) and a pair of workbooks for your child ($30 for both). (Pricing varies from level to level.) Each student workbook has 18 five-day lessons, so one set of the books will get you all the way through the 36-week school year. All the books are softcover, and the student workbooks have perforated pages in case you want to tear them out for whatever reason (I didn’t). The student books are perfect bound, while the teacher manual is saddle-stitched (stapled).

Spelling You See products

Spelling You See: Americana (Level D) Products: 2 student workbooks, one teacher manual, and a pack of erasable colored pencils for chunking.

The program is designed to be used five days a week, and that’s exactly what we did with Seahawk. He needed this program so badly, that even on the days we didn’t do a full day of school, I still was really strict with him on getting his Spelling You See done.

And you know what?

It works.

This program really, truly works. I could tell after the very first week that it was working, and now that we’ve been using it for seven weeks, the difference in his spelling is drastic. Spelling was one of the hardest things to get him to care about; he’d pretty much just accepted the fact that he was a “bad speller.” But not anymore. He’s got the confidence to write more. He doesn’t ask for help with spelling as much anymore – and not because he’s given up. Because he’s spelling the words correctly! His spelling in the other subjects is slowly starting to improve as well. It’s not quite as strong as his spelling with the Americana paragraphs, but to a certain extent, that’s to be expected. He is, after all, writing the same paragraph five times a week.

He’s still got a long way to go, but with this program, he’s well on his way. And I definitely hope to buy Level E: American Spirit for him when he finishes up Americana. What better praise is that?

Blessings,

Wendy

You can connect with Spelling You See on Facebook and Twitter if you’re so inclined 🙂

more reviews click through copy review crew disclaimer copy

Homeschool Curriculum Review: Mango Languages

Posted by on 3 Comments

Mango Languages Review

I love languages. I love reading and writing in my native English, and I love learning new languages. So imagine my excitement when the opportunity to review Mango Homeschool Edition from Mango Languages came up on The Schoolhouse Review Crew. Ecstatic!

I’ve talked before about our foreign language pursuits with the boys. Remember last summer when I posted about our upcoming homeschooling plans? I mentioned that we were going to try to learn Spanish. Well, that didn’t work out too well because I don’t speak enough (read: any) Spanish to have been able to teach the boys. So we switched to French. I speak enough French to have begun working with the kiddos, but we were quickly getting to a place where I needed more help. It has been 15 years since I graduated high school, after all, and since I don’t have the opportunity to travel often, there was no real way for me to continue cultivating my French skills.

We used books from the library, and when I was given access to SchoolhouseTeachers.com, we used the French lessons on there. But I was still itching for something even more. Mango Homeschool Edition turned out to be just the thing!

About Mango

Mango Homeschool Edition is appropriate for almost everyone in your family. The suggested age range is 7 and up – like a board game … You’re never too old! It has over 50 languages to choose from, most of them “serious,” but also a “silly” one or two, including Pirate. That was the first one my husband wanted to check out, of course! He’s just a funny guy to his core. But for the kids and me, we were pretty serious about just doing our French. Mango Homeschool Edition works using a translation method, meaning they say to you (in English) “Here’s how you say ‘Hello.’ ” Then a native speaker comes on and says the word and/or phrase so you can hear proper pronunciation. Then you get a turn to try it out. You can connect a microphone to the computer if you have one for pronunciation comparison, or you can just speak aloud to yourself.

Mango 1 sc

The program uses a “slides” system, meaning it gives you the information in short bursts. You click through from one slide to another. Some of the slides, like the one above, are words or phrases that you’ve already learned. They give you a little clock, and your goal is to come up with the correct translation of something you’ve already learned. If you’re stuck, you can add more time while you think or you can just get the answer. If you don’t remember the phrase, be assured that it’ll come up in a future slide. They’re really good about repetition in Mango Homeschool Edition.

Other slides, like the one pictured below, are culture slides. They tell you things about the culture of the language you’re studying. Those are just as important as the language slides, in my opinion, because you want to know what you’re getting yourself into if you ever travel to a country in which you’ll use your learned language (and that is, after all, the ultimate goal when learning a foreign language).

Mango 4 sc

Similar to the culture slides are grammar slides. It’s important to remember when learning a new language that even though they may use the same alphabet as English, they rarely follow the same grammatical rules. French, for instance, is a Romance language and uses masculine and feminine markers for nouns. We don’t do that in English, but it’s a vital part of their language, so it was one of the grammar slides.

What to Expect

Beyond the explanation I just gave with how the program works, you need to know that Mango Homeschool Edition is completely web based. You have to have a good internet connection and the current Flash player. It does not work on mobile devices.

Additionally, each member of you family will have his or her own account. If it’s just you learning, the price is $18/month or $125 a year. For each additional member who wants an account, it’s an extra $10 a month or $50 a year, up to 5 members. For 6 or more, there are special group rates, depending on the size of the group.

The program works in “Chapters,” each one based on a conversation. You hear the conversation in the first lesson of the chapter (if you’re completely new to your language, it sounds like gibberish!), and then throughout the next 4-6 lessons, you learn each piece of the conversation. By the end of the chapter, that conversation that sounded impossible to decipher is something you can actually understand!

How We Used Mango Languages

We don’t have a mic, so I sat with the kids during their lessons each day to help them with their pronunciation. It took a little more time than it would have if I’d been able to send them to do it themselves, but it was good for me, too. The kids did their lessons separately – otherwise they argued over whose turn it was to say the phrase first, and honestly, it was better for them to each have to come up with the correct answer on their own rather than repeating what their brother said.

My husband and I did lessons, too. One of our family goals is to spend some time living in France (not forever, but 6-12 months), so we’re all learning French. I took a placement test that was offered at the beginning of the course, and remembered enough from high school to be placed at lesson 17; everyone else in the family started at lesson 1. In addition to brushing up on my French, I also started started a Spanish-Latin America course. Our church is bilingual (English-Spanish), so I want to learn some Spanish to be more integrated there. (Most of the Hispanics speak English and Spanish, but not all of them.)

Pros and Cons

Mango Homeschool Edition is a really good program. It really took our foreign language lessons to the next level – something I wouldn’t have been able to do on my own. The system is attractive and easy to use. The only thing I was unsure about was the fact that it uses the translation method. In my mind, it seems like it would be harder to become fluent using the translation method because you’re always having to go back and forth between two languages in your head to say anything. On the other hand, the more you practice, the better you’ll get – regardless of method. So in the end, I think it’s a fine way of teaching languages.

In Conclusion

Mango Homeschool Edition was a great fit for our family. We still have a long way to go before we can move to France, but we’re way better off than we were two months ago in our pursuits of the French language and culture.

Blessings,

Wendy

You can connect with Mango Languages on Twitter, Pinterest, and Facebook.

more reviews click through copy review crew disclaimer copy

 

Homeschool Curriculum Review: Science4Us.com

Posted by on 3 Comments

Science4Us ReviewDo you struggle to teach your kids science? Looking for a great science system for early elementary kids? So was I, so when the opportunity for a Science4Us.com Online Subscription was offered to me in exchange for an honest review, I happily accepted.

What is Science4Us.com? I’m glad you asked. It’s a great program for early elementary kids, from Kindergarten through 2nd grade. It doesn’t cover experiments, but it gives kids a great foundation in a variety of subjects. Kids learn about the basics of science (starting with the tools that scientists use), and then move on to more “fun” stuff like animals and space. Each topic runs for 8 lessons, and each lesson takes roughly half an hour to teach. There are also fun activities that children can do on their own on the website. One of the cool things about Science4Us.com is that while it’s teaching science, it’s also reinforcing things kids this age learn in other subjects. One of Munchkin’s favorite activities was the “Silly Bulls” lesson, which is where key words from the teaching part of the lesson are broken into syllables, mixed up, and the child puts them back in the right order (get it? Syllables … Silly Bulls … ).

s4us silly bulls

Science4Us.com has a login page for each student as well as one for the parent/teacher. You can sit right next to your kids while they do the activities, or you can set them free on the site to work through the modules and check their progress, including information/activities from their digital science notebook, in your teacher dashboard. The website allows you to assign modules to your students, and also for your students to select what they want to learn about each day, so there’s a bit of freedom in how you work the program.

While the website is geared primarily toward younger kids (Kindergarten through 2nd grade, like I mentioned above), it’s also a great place for upper elementary kids to get a refresher course in what they learned when they were younger. Even though Seahawk is in 4th grade, he’s been using Science4Us.com and loving it. Because it’s geared to the younger children, though, I’ve been focusing on having Munchkin use it and letting Seahawk on there when time permits.

Once they finished the science tools module, it was interesting to see what each kid chose to study. Munchkin was all over Life Science, which covers Living vs. Nonliving, Plants, and Animals. Seahawk wanted to study Space, which covers Exploring the Universe and Earth in Space. The Exploring the Universe module was really cool. My favorite part, and I think Seahawk’s too, was the exploration of our galaxy. It opened up a map of sorts of the Milky Way, and you could click on the different planets and it would zoom in and give you all sorts of facts about each one. You could also rotate and spin around the solar system. They provided a “ring” showing each planet’s course around the sun, which I think was helpful in keeping them straight while you clicked through them, making sure you chose the one you wanted to explore further.

s4us space 1

This is the “main” view of the solar system page – what you see when you first open it.

s4us space 3

s4us space 2

And these two show you how you could flip all around to get different views.

s4us venus

And here’s Venus’ page. There was one of these for each of the planets, the sun, and Earth’s moon.

For a basic science curriculum for young kids, I think Science4Us.com is a great choice. There are so many choices in study topics that there’s something for everyone. With the “assign” feature, you don’t even have to strictly monitor your kids if you don’t want to. The website is ad-free, so you don’t have to worry about that while your kids are learning. As a subscription-based service, there’s a ton of flexibility, too. You can keep it during the school year and let it go during the summer, or you can keep it year-round if that’s your thing. They also provide printable pages for the kids if you’re a “worksheet” kind of teacher. You still need to have the online time, since the information is taught using online videos and interactive activities, but the worksheets are great for reinforcing what your kids have learned during their online sessions. And at $7.95 a month, it’s a really affordable option if you don’t know what to do for your young learner’s science needs.

To close, I just want to show you guys how big an impact this program had on Munchkin. We have a notebook that he and I write in, letters back and forth, and in one of his recent letters, he included this picture:

11397

Little things like that are what I’d call a glowing review!

Blessings,

Wendy

You can find Science4Us.com on Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook, and Google +.

more reviews click through copy review crew disclaimer copy

Homeschooling Essentials: A Library Card

Posted by on 6 Comments

5 Days of Homeschooling Essentials

Welcome to my final day of Homeschooling Essentials. Thank you so much for joining me this week as I’ve explored what I find necessary to teach my kiddos.

I forgot to mention it earlier in the week, but please note that there are almost 90 other mamas blogging on this topic this week, not just me and the other nine I’ve been listing at the ends of my posts. Click that banner up at the top for the full listing!

As I was trying to decide what the last item on my list should be, there were a plethora of options. Time, money, a good Bible, curriculum, a Kindle or other e-book reader… the list goes on and on. (And let me be clear: all of those, especially the Bible, are vital, I think. But I had to narrow it down to what I could fit into a week, so that’s what I’ve done.) I’ve found that with the other items I talked about this week (pencils, flexibility, and a plan), none of them would really matter without material to teach. And that’s where the library card comes in. If you have a good library system where you live, definitely invest the time to go get a card. Even if you have to pay an annual fee to access it (if you live outside of city limits and therefore your taxes don’t go to the library system, for example), it’s totally worth it. There’s no other place to get access to hundreds, thousands, millions of books for free.

I mentioned last summer when I was planning our homeschool year that I was going to use Ambleside Online for our core curriculum this year. We’ve stuck with that (for the most part), and the kids adore it. This is by far the best year of homeschooling we’ve ever done. But none of it would be possible without our library card. Almost all of the books prescribed in the Ambleside curriculum are available through our library system. And better yet, they’re not in high demand, so we’ve been able to get them pretty easily. If we’d had to buy all of those books (mostly through Amazon, as Ambleside utilizes primarily older books that a current bookstore isn’t likely to have), it would have cost us hundreds of dollars. But because of our library card, we’ve been able to spend roughly $20 on books is all. A good library system has been a real blessing to our family.

In addition to the schoolbooks, Munchkin participates in the monthly book club that the library offers. (They have one for Seahawk’s age, too, but he’s a much pickier reader and hasn’t been interested in the books they’ve been offering lately.) Without our frequent trips to the library, we wouldn’t know about the book club, and that would be a bummer.

So that’s it from me. Thanks again for joining me this week! Next week, I’ll be back to more of what I normally write about. I don’t what all I’ve got on the agenda, but there’ll be at least one recipe :). I’ll also try to have a Picture of the Week up later today or tomorrow as well.

Blessings,

Wendy

Don’t forget to click the banner up above for a HUGE list of Homeschooling Mamas talking about their essentials! And for just a taste of the topic, check out these lovely ladies:

Lisa @ A Rup Life

Jordyn @ Almost Supermom

Jenn @ Teaching Two Stinkers

Crystal @ Crystal Starr Blog

Jennifer @ Chestnut Grove Academy

Brandi @ Brandi Raae

Jodi @ Insane in the Mombrain

Kym @ Homeschool Coffee Break

Lynn @ Ladybug Chronicles