Category:

Essentials in Schooling at Home: Reviews

8/13/2014

I was going to say that this aspect of homeschooling might not be essential to everyone, but I guess it is. Whether you review or not, reviews are helpful in planning out your curriculum isn't it? :)

I am part of the TOS homeschool crew. Been doing it now for 2 years. I find it at times terribly hectic, sometimes immensely disappointing when I don't get a review I want due to location, not needed, not enough time or whatever, I overall find it hugely helpful in our homeschool journey.

BUT.. It's also helpful to you my readers. (and to just homeschoolers in general as they research products for use in their own homes).

So as I think about reviews, I thought I'd take some time to talk about the pros and cons of doing reviews, and show you some of our favourites.

Doing reviews, the pros and cons

The positives of doing reviews:

access to products I might not have otherwise considered
teamwork
sharing my opinion with others when I like a product
being able to show another angle to using a product that others might not have considered
being pushed to be a better reviewer/writer/designer
delight from student involved
not having to pay for good quality materials

The negatives of doing reviews:

being tied down to a specific product whether it works for you or not for a four to six weeks.
sharing opinions that are less than positive
working hard to write things well
resistance from the student involved
missing out on reviews you'd like to do based on location
getting picked for reviews you'd rather not do

I have been so blessed by the crew. I've met some crazy nice people. Had some lovely on-line chats, and been introduced to possibilities I hadn't considered before. It's a great part of my life.    Though at times it is hectic like when I have four reviews due in a week and half and I'm like ACK!!!   How I am going to do this...but God is good and he always makes a way. :)

Reviews that have been a blessing to us.

My son's favourite reviews

Chess. Hands down. Chess is it. He loves it and frequently takes his board with him.   In fact he's even downloaded a chess game on to his tablet so he can play with friends in the car. :) Makes my heart smile.
His second favourite?   Veritas Press.   I frequently hear.. "MOM! Can I do my history now?"

Mom's favourites

I have to agree with my son, I enjoy Veritas Press. I think I'm learning as much as he is, though I can't sit with him or he wants my help, so I just make sure I'm in the area. :)

Then comes let's see.. the helpful learning ones... Reading Kingdom. My son SO enjoyed this program and he learned to read better so it's a double win.

Birdcage Press was just fun for us. Playing games and learning about history. Being inspired to look things up when we wanted to know more.

Maestro Classics. Good music and a story.. need I say more?

Bible study Guide for all ages. We still use this. Good product. My son learns more and this is a good thing.

Science4Us.com was a good fit in teaching my lad some more independence in choices. He was disappointed when he finally made it through the program. "MOM! Why can't they have more for me???"

Gryphon House inspired a co-op class that eight children enjoyed. We made a variety of products and it worked well for us.

It's good to explore new mediums and ways of going art as you learn about peoples around the world.

Being part of the crew has definitely been of benefit to this household. If you have a blog and would like to increase the opportunities within your household, perhaps it's something you would like to do as well. Think on it anyways. :) Opportunities open up i the fall.

LOTS of us are taking part in a five day blog hop on "back to school" check us out won't you? Perhaps this list will get you started.

Amy @ Counting Change... Again (your decision)
Shawna @ Tenacity Divine
Adena @ AdenaF (give some credit)
Jenn @ Simblissity Cottage
Emilee @ Pea of Sweetness (keeping children on task)
Kathy @ Kathys Cluttered Mind
Sara @ Embracing Destiny

Other posts in this series

BOOKS.
The three P's.

Reading, Constellations and more

2/26/2014

Today we got off to a late start with our schooling. I've been dealing with a headache for the past 10 days... doc tells me it's a particular type of migraine that is hard to get rid of. :) It causes dizziness which means headaches, your head ache with makes you dizzy. In time it will leave. Makes it slower getting going though.

Anyways, we read from the warriors over breakfast. The lad was able to recall facts well from previous reading we had done. Then upstairs to work on the names of Christ study that we are doing. Today we learned about Yahweh Shamma (i may have spelled that wrong). The Lord is There. The authors connected it with Immanuel... God with us which I thought was rather cool.

From there we moved on to doing Story of the World where we learned about the Grand Canal in China. Saved China (as a whole nation), cost to Sui Dynasty their leadership (high taxes, increased poverty, death, poor working conditions). I think it's amazing what they did... despite the cost to the people involved. Five million people, six years, 1200 miles I think. All of China now connected. Amazing!

Then we read from our science book and were inspired to make our own Constellation viewer. This was rather fun to do. :) We fit Reading Kingdom into the mix as well.

The lad then worked on his math ... doing it through IXL since by this time I'm running on empty and just need to lay my head down for a spell. We had lunch.... I did the easy chips and cheese thing, the lad had some pizza. We finished the day with the lad doing his 20 minutes of reading. Today his book was "Wood Frog".

All in all a nap did me a world of good afterwards and the lad had fun just relaxing with Skyrim for a while (he's learning to read some of the options on his own as well). :)

T is for Trying to Read. Blogging through the alphabet

2/21/2014

My son is an emerging reader. It's been a bit of a road for us. He struggles with hearing sounds... learning phonics was a bit of a bust for us, so we use reading kingdom as a daily activity...it's helping the best of everything we've done so far. Love the program and he thinks it's fun as well. :) The most important thing is... it's doing the trick for him. Nothing else I tried really worked and tried a variety of things but many them relied on a phonics approach and for my lad that just wasn't doing the job.. and that's my fall back position (how I learned) so it's hard to try to rethink it.

We're recently added reading for 20 minutes every day. We have these readers from Science Life Cycle books that are subject oriented that take approximately 20 minutes to read with some talking time in the midst of it. I was very impressed tonight with the lad's ability to read a book about "Chickens" tonight.

It's just so nice to see him improving.

We play a variety of word games when we can... anything from.. give me a noun, an adjective and a verb... okay.. can you read this story? Many times they are funny which suits this humour filled 8 year old just fine. :)

The other day I pulled out some letter tiles that I picked up from somewhere and I challenged him first... Can you make these magnetic words plural?

Then we started having fun with the tiles. The intrigue of doing this wore off quickly.

I spelled a word... and said.. so .. think you can change it to another word?
He did!
Then I changed it.
He changed it.

here he is, thinking a new word through...

That morphed into the lad trying to spell a word he thought he knew. It was a fairly long word THUNDER.. he spelled it as tondir.. pretty close I said... but it's
TH... UN...D...ER... (I really really emphasized the sounds...and yeah.. that's me falling back on phonics). :) And together we spelled it correctly - but those TH's are hard you know.. when you can't really hear that h (so he tells me.. the "T" and "TH" sound the same.. Just like "F" sounds like T and TH. He got Clan down quite easily after asking if it was a k or a c. (good question eh?)

The cat warriors books are current favourites of the lad, so he spent the next 10-20 minutes making words from the book.. Like Kit, kits, hunt, claw, clan, mice, bugs, hunts

Then the lad asked... Mom.. do you think we have enough words to make a sentence? Go ahead, try ... you won't know unless you do try. :) As you can see.. he succeeded! WOOT WOOT! :)

Berrykit is a funny little, very courageous kitten in the clan and the lad is just captivated by him and laughs at his antics often. He needed help spelling Berry but otherwise managed to do this on his own.

I am ever so pleased with how my lad is coming along. I really really try hard not to be bothered by folks who critic and comment on how their child learned to read at age 31/2 or how they never even had to teach their child how to read. Sometimes reading can be a challenge, and I'm so glad my boy is meeting this particular challenge in his life.

Come join with us as we blog through the alphabet over at Ben And Me. This week we are working on the letter T.

Our Day In Review

1/21/2014

Our days around here don't start early by any means. :)

Let me run through our day today to give you a bit of an idea.

730 I'm up sitting at my computer wrote blog post for the homeschooling essentials.
815 the lad is up Lad: "mom, have you done the bunnies?" Me: "No" Lad "good I don't want to go out yet".
900 me: "Lad I'm doing the bunny water now". Lad: Okay, I'm coming mom!"   First I get the computer ready so the lad can doing reading kingdom and science4Us as he'll be done before I am. Boy oh boy is it cold out there.
930 in from chores, wait for the lad to be done his science. talk about breakfast, get distracted by the stuff dad's laughing on facebook.   have a chuckle together.
1000 breakfast - we read from the Warriors Series by Erin Hunter during breakfast, talk about the news abit.
1030 upstairs to do some work. Today we worked on Names of Christ (this will take us about 40 days to do if we do it daily).    We started off our time working on the Illuminations pages.   I worked hard to get through mine quickly so I could do some reading while the lad worked.

here's the lad working on his. He chose to do the crowpaw poem.

I worked on a page for the Brambleclaw poem. The lad tells me I'm a better artist than I think I am. "GOOD JOB mom."

140: We had lunch and read another chapter of the Warriors book, and then the lad worked a bit more on his lego rendition of the clan camps. Then we moved back upstairs as I wanted to start our names of Christ study. Today we learned about the name ELOHIM which means God as a unit of three. Elohim is plural for mighty one. When we are done we hope to put it up on the wall so we have a quick recall of the one we love to serve. :) oh we're using a book I'm reviewing called "Knowing God by Name".

215 I promised the lad free time to do whatever so he set to playing Skyrim. :) After a while dad needed the computer and the lad kept bugging him so I set him to reading over the times tables. I did some bunny related business and chores....Oh.. someone came over with a sick guinea pig they couldn't care for and they ended up buying two healthy youngsters. I also got the lad to help me fold some laundry and put away his clothes. Got the lad's mice cleaned out, it's very cold out there so cleaning them out takes alot of care so I did it for him today.

Elsa and Ana in their new home.

6 pm. we had supper and free time before bed. the lad used to go to bed for 9 p.m. But we moved that bed time up though since he was starting not to get up until 930/1000 a.m and that was just way too late and making him get up resulted up grumpy lad. Since he goes to bed now for 830 at the latest he's now getting up between 8/830 now which works much better.

Hubby has a meeting tonight so I'll be on my own for a bit.. woot woot quiet house!

I'll most likely do up my blog post for tomorrow, have a time for my devotions, and then just chill (oh after the dishes get done that is!). :) Bed will be probably.. 1130 ish as spending time with hubby sans the lad is a good thing to do as well. :)

Today's learning: reading and evergreens

12/13/2013

This morning I had the dubious joy of listening to my son clearly and repeatedly state to the computer it was saying the word JUMP wrong.   The computer was saying JUMp, and the lad was saying NO.. It's JUMP. Say the P say the P.

It's funny, but good. My lad often struggles with hearing words correctly and proper enunciation is important for him.

Reading Kingdom apparently eventually got it correctly.

Then Simple Schooling is doing their 12 days of Christmas giveaway right now.
I gave the lad a choice between doing bears or finishing off our evergreen study, he chose evergreens. We learned a lot about evergreens, did you know that redwood trees can live for 2000 years?   Impressive eh?

click picture to go to image source: national geographic

Review: Reading Kingdom

8/12/2013

mom: So son, do you want to learn how to read better?
The lad: I don't know mom, I like you reading to me better.
Mom: It's an on-line program, think you want to try it?
The lad: Sure mom. I don't have to write anything right?
Mom: No, it's all on-line.
The lad: Yes!

And so we took up the opportunity from TOS Review Crew to review the Reading Kingdom. Reading Kingdom was created by Dr. Marion Blank, who is an expert in literacy, and was awarded the Upton Sinclair Award for education. We are pleased we took up this challenge.

Vendor: Reading Kingdom
Product: This is a program designed to help children read better. The goal of this program is the help children read and write to a grade three level.
Price: You can try it free for 30 days, and after that it will cost $19.99/month ($199.99/year) for your first child. Each additional child will be $9.99 ($99.99/year).
Age Range: 4-10 years old.
Format: On-line learning. though they also sell books that go along with the program. They range in price from $9.99 to $14.99. You can learn more about those additional features here.

Reading Kingdom screenshot photo readingkingdom4screenshot_zps4c5404a8.jpg

The program starts out fairly easily. Once they complete their placement test and work through learning where letters are on the keyboard, children are shown a word and asked to find the letters that make the word. They must do so within a certain time AND in the correct order. My lad finds this aspect HIGHLY frustrating. He's as distractable as I am and finding the letters in time makes him YELL at the computer. "I had it! You stupid computer. I had it you just didn't give me enough time!!!!" And then turning to me crying "Mom, I had it, I did, it didn't give me enough time."

I just encourage him saying that "Yes, I know he had it, but the computer doesn't know that. It is just a program with a built in speed. Keep trying and you'll beat the speed...it is a competition you know." Being the child who is he, the competition factor helped. :)

I found even when I got him to really focus on it, finding the letters within the time alloted was challenging for him. But we did manage to work through this aspect of the program. It did force him to learn where the letters are on the keyboard better, but the frustration level was VERY high for him. This might turn off some children, but many children, with encouragement can work through this frustration and thereby gain the necessary skills. :)

Reading Kingdom screenshot photo readingkingdom3screenshot_zpsc60cb6fc.jpg

The program gradually makes things more difficult, and I like the gradualness of it. Though this week they were teaching my son the word "a" and he's like "Mom, I know how to spell A.... this is taking too long to teach me a word I already know." I did not figure out if it is possible to skip past a lesson.

Reading Kingdom screenshot photo readingkingdom1screenshot_zps12d9dd06.jpg

The first time my son met a disappearing word he was all worried. "MOM! How am I going to know the right order?????" but with time and encouragement he realized his short term memory isn't horrible and he did the job just fine. :) It was good to see his confidence grow. Other than the speed factor which often was an issue for him, this program is easy/gentle in its approach and my son DID learn new words and even the plurals of them. "Mom, did you know that if you want to make more of something you just add an S on the end??"

Reading Kingdom screenshot photo readingkingdom2screenshot_zps523e6256.jpg

I have to admit... I haven't seen a screen that looks like this on Reading Kingdom. But lately my international student has been sitting with my son as he works on this program. It is good for both of them. My international student can read the words for him if he needs that boost, and he's quite more able to NOT help. This is something the program repeats frequently...that the parent/teacher NOT help their children with the program. So I sit back as far as I can since it's SO easy for me to help. My student can provide the encouragement factor without helping better than I can so I just leave them to it. :) Also a good way to build more English confidence in my student.

My opinion

My Son: "I think it's a good program. It's easy enough. but sometimes it is annoying sometimes."
Me: He's learning new words, he's gaining more confidence. I really appreciate how the approach is incremental and the child is frequently told "good job". This program DOES what it says it will do. My son is progressing well, the lessons are short which helps maintain focus, we will continue to use this program for the year that we have to use it. I expect by the end of the year he will have a greater understanding and confidence in his reading ability. :)

Click on the image above OR click here to see what the rest of the crew has to say about Reading Kingdom. :)

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Randomness in August

8/10/2013

Right now we have an international student staying with us. He is a nice lad and we are really enjoying having him stay with us. I'll be doing a guest post for Dusty about this. Below the two lads are checking out a tractor.

Today we'll be heading out to aquafest held in Grand Bend. To learn more about that GO HERE.

My son's been working on Reading Kingdom and Time4Learning. Reading Kingdom is going well, Time4Learning has been a struggle. Mostly because everything we have looked at he already knows OR finds very boring. So I'm punched up his grade level a bit and we'll see if that makes a difference.

I wrote up a couple of guest posts for a couple of bloggers this morning. It's my first foray into doing guest posts so we'll see how that goes. :)

What else?

Been busy taking stuff down from our vacation.
Trying to sell some bunnies and

Busy Day Today

7/19/2013

Today I'll be doing some packing for our camping trip, so we aren't doing much in the way of schooling today (book work type that is, as isn't everything schooling of one sort or the other?)

Did our Bible Study through the ages material today.   The lad continues to enjoy it.   He likes that we have pictures he can use as idea reminders.

We then worked on Reading Kingdom. This program went okay this morning, not great, but okay.   No major points of frustration. :)

We also watched a video from Dole about growing Bananas. The lad is thoroughly enjoying playing with his various minions, and as you should know minions LOVE bananas.   The dole site has lots of banana videos.

This post wouldn't be complete without showing the infamous Banana Song.
And the words for those wanting to follow along. :)
ba-ba-baa, ba-baa nana (2x) na-na-naaa, potato naaa

na-na-naaaaa to kary lo potato lee ka nee malo mani ka noty. ba-ba-baa. ba-baa nanaa.

lu pla nufuu lapa nunu too maavaa nanaa laka moopie talamoo pananaa-ba-ba-baa, ba-baa nana (POTATOOooo)

to kary lo potato lee ka nee malo mani ka noty

ba-ba-baa, ba-baa naNAAAAAAAAA (punch)

And I'll leave you with that song running through your head for the rest of the day. I've got to go pack! :)

Global Art and more

7/17/2013

This week we've gotten back into doing some homeschooling. :)
Last week the lad was at a church day camp where he did some woodworking, swimming, learning bible stories and such like.
On Tuesday afternoon we celebrated Dad's birthday by lunch out and watching Despicable Me 2.

Today we did Sunday School for all ages, Reading Kingdom and Global Art.
The lad likes doing the Sunday School for all ages and I can see us purchasing this curriculum when we are done with this review.
Reading Kingdom he's getting quite frustrated with. We have managed to get past the skills assessment area. He finds it doesn't give him enough time to get the tasks completed and he finds that quite stressful.
Global art was just fine as you shall see below.

supplies needed: hammer, board, items to hammer with, and metal lids.

Choose your hammering item, apply hammer. Normally when the lad hammers we have a short hammer for him. But it's gone missing and is most likely stored somewhere in the quagmire that is his room.....He had some difficulty controlling the larger hammer but persevered and was pleased with the results.

Try very hard (well okay not too hard) to not get distracted by very interesting fun little bugs that come to join you. This bug was perhaps 3 mm long, did a really neat curl up thing with its tail, washed itself, did some really short hop/flights until it soared off across the kitchen with an eight year old hot on it's tail. The lad ended up catching him and releasing him to the wilds of Ontario. :)

our efforts met with Milo's approval, and he helped by reminding us where scattered nails went (he scratched his one up from under the board).

The minions showing off our finished creations. I tried a planned one (in the middle) of a bike. But also made a go with the flow on (end nearest foot) and the lad made a purple minion replica. He was quite pleased with the end result.

The three purple minions.

Homeschooling this week

7/11/2013

Since the lad is at day camp, homeschooling this week has been differently focused.

I'm answering questions that he has come up with
1. Ants
2. snow fleas.
3. why not to feed the geese
4. what ant queens look like
5. how to build an ant habitat (admittedly hubby is helping with this one).

We are doing our night time reading. We don't have time in the morning to do our regular reading/circle time.

We've started doing "reading kingdom". This is a review that we are working on. Today we finished off his skills assessment and started on the keyboarding lessons. I hiope t

We've continued to talk about how we are going finish our first global art project. The lad is getting his thoughts better into his head about how to colour it and draw the lines darker. He's been too tired to actually work at it though, so thinking and talking is good.

He's also been experimenting with his toy flies. This morning he learned they can float on top of some ice without getting wet, but overtime they freeze into the ice a bit and they don't like that, not one bit.