Family Style School

CursiveLogic {A Review}

2015-07-13T13:02:00.001-06:00

CursiveLogic was founded out of necessity. A young man, older than the average age of learning cursive wanted to learn cursive. His reading tutor Linda Shrewsbury discovered an easier way. CursiveLogic teaches the entire cursive lowercase alphabet in just 4 lessons.

We were lucky enough to receive the CursiveLogic Workbook to be able to use it with my high school son. Now he had already learned cursive, but it wasn’t his favorite, print was still his penmanship of choice. We knew in order to write essays for his upcoming college exams he would need to feel totally comfortable writing in cursive.

CursiveLogic uses a simple formula to teach cursive. In just 4 lessons you will learn (or relearn) to write the entire lowercase alphabet in cursive. Each lesson goes over one of the 4 shapes.

Now after that first young man was taught cursive so quickly using this method, Ms. Shrewsbury has taught cursive using this method to many people of all different ages and backgrounds.

This method was born through a well educated individual. Linda Shrewsbury is the primary author of the CursiveLogic curriculum. Linda graduated from Harvard University in 1974 with a concentration in economics. In 2007, she received a Masters in International Studies from Oklahoma State University. In addition to homeschooling her own three children for 13 years, Linda has been privileged to work as a teacher and a college professor in both private and public institutions. But CursiveLogic was not born from the ivory towers of higher learning. Linda created CursiveLogic to meet the needs of one special student who simply wanted to learn to sign his name.

Let me tell you a little bit about the method. There are 4 basics to it.

Letters grouped by shape ― Four foundational shapes underlie the entire lowercase alphabet. Rather than teaching the letters alphabetically, CursiveLogic groups the lowercase alphabet into four groups based on the shape of the initial stroke of the letters and teaches all of the similarly-shaped letters in a single lesson. Letters are also taught in a specific order that reinforces the pattern. By teaching all of the similar letters together, CursiveLogic captures the natural synergy of the alphabet itself, allowing each letter in the series to reinforce the proper formation of all the others.

Letter strings ― CursiveLogic captures the flow of cursive by teaching all of the similarly shaped letters in a connected string rather than as individual letters. CursiveLogic’s letter strings teach students to connect letters from the first lesson, allowing students to internalize the flow of cursive handwriting even before they have learned all 26 letters.

CursiveLogic also uses visual and auditory cues to reinforce the shape patterns:

Theme colors — Each shape string has a color—orange ovals, lime loops, silver swings, and mauve mounds—that reinforces the formation of the basic common shape.

Verbal task analysis — Students learn a simple, rhythmical chant that describes the path of the writing instrument as the letter shapes are formed. The process of verbally describing a motor task while performing it aids the acquisition of new motor skills.

A day/week in our life:

Now, with my son already having learnt cursive. We planned on using this as more of a review and to up his comfort level in writing in cursive. I originally wanted him to use this workbook daily. Once I saw it and we began he only ended up using it about twice per week. His cursive has improved so much in just the first two weeks of using it.

Our thoughts and feelings:

I asked my son what he thought. He said that it takes the pressure of remembering each letter and trying for perfection. You practice the 4 shapes and get those down and you can write any letter with ease. He said that it focuses his mind on what shape he should be writing instead of what letter he is writing and that makes him feel like he can think more clearly.

Check out CursiveLogic on social media here:

Twitter: http://twitter.com/cursivelogic
Facebook: http://facebook.com/ilovecursive
Instagram: http://instagram.com/cursivelogic

As you can imagine with all the controversy over continuing to teach cursive they stand on the side of keep cursive alive! Join them in their crusade to keep cursive.

To see what others think of this check out this post. To see a wide variety of reviews check out our crew blog.

Vocabulary Using WordBuild.

2015-06-16T13:42:00.000-06:00

My daughter loves vocabulary. She feels the more words she learns the smarter she is. It’s been a strange thing to me how many words she wants to know.

When Dynamic Literacy offered WordBuild: Elements, Level 1 Set (Includes WordBuild the Game) for review I was very grateful to be able to receive it for her.

About The Company:

Dynamic Literacy is a company that is based on frequently used Latin and Greek roots. The program is a collection of educational materials designed to communicate the structure of the English language to students of all ages.

About The Product:

WordBuild: Elements, Level 1 Set (Includes WordBuild the Game)

This set includes 3 main things:

**Elements 1 Teachers Edition - a 336 page guide which includes:

• Fun facts and alerts about each root
• Guidance for how to use each exercise
• Exercise answer keys
• A weekly “check-up” for each root
• Units that review every prefix and suffix used
• A mini-dictionary for each of the 25 roots
• A comprehensive and a mid-term assessment
• A free on-line account to the Dynamic Literacy website for bonus content

**Student Activity Book - a 156 page workbook that covers 25 Latin & Greek Root Families. This book contains four activities for each root, plus appendices with practice activities for prefixes and suffixes, and even root bingo game boards.

**WordBuild the Game Looking for some fun? WordBuild the Game illustrates the formula WORD = Prefix +Root + Suffix with movement, music, and entertaining feedback.

The way of teaching Dynamic Literacy uses a simple process of learning.

Learn 3 roots.

Learn 3 prefixes.

Learn 3 suffixes.

Put them together and you learn 48 words.

This is better explained here.

A day/week in our life:

Each Day for about 15 minutes Emily would work in Elements.

For a sample of the daily worksheets from both the teacher and student book see here. We followed the plan pretty much as written. Each day was written out simply in the teachers manual. Each work page she was supposed to do that day was made clearly. She would just do the days work. When it said for the teacher to write down the word on the board, I didn’t. We would just discuss it like the book said.

Our thoughts and feelings:

At first Emily was not enjoying this. She felt overwhelmed. I had her keep at it and she soon realized that she was learning new words faster than her word of the day calendar or any other way. She was learning words at a rate of about 50 per week. She was retaining the words better due to the fact that they are taught as based around a root word.

This program is generally recommended for children in grades 6-12. She is in 8th/9th grade and this fit her previous knowledge. She is not only learning words and their definitions, she is able to use them in a sentence correctly.

To see what others think of this check out this post. To see a wide variety of reviews check out our crew blog.

IEW Student Writing Intensive & Teaching Writing with Structure and Style

2015-06-12T01:33:00.001-06:00

I just want to let you know up front that this review is going to be quite long and it’s just that Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW) has so much to offer.

They sent me one of their Deluxe Combinations. Since I have a 10 year old in 4th grade I received Deluxe Combo Teacher/Student Writing Package Level A [FIX-1 & 2] PLUS A Word Write Now and Portable Walls

About The Company:

IEW is a company that realizes in order for children to succeed they need to be able to communicate confidently and effectively. Their goal is to be able to assist you throughout the entire process of learning to write well.

IEW has a long interesting history which originally dates clear back to the 1930’s. Andrew Pudewa brought it to the United States in the 1990’s.

Ever since then Andrew Pudewa and IEW have taken the homeschool world by storm with not only their award winning programs but their 100% guarantee.

About The Product:

Like I said earlier I received a Deluxe Combo Teacher/Student Writing Package Level A [FIX-1 & 2] PLUS A Word Write Now and Portable Walls.

This seems like a mouth full. It also at first sight seems very overwhelming. I am going to try to make this review simplify it as much as possible so that you can see it doesn’t have to be overwhelming. I know when I first began using IEW I felt very overwhelmed. It’s just that they offer so much.

Let’s dig in!

The Deluxe Combo includes

Teaching Writing: Structure & Style DVD set

This DVD seminar will teach you how to teach writing the IEW way. The things you learn in this DVD can be used with any age child and therefor with any level in the IEW system. A total of 12 DVD’s are in this seminar. 9 of them are the seminar. Don’t worry, you don’t have to watch them all at once. Just watch them as you go. The other 3 DVD’s have student work samples from all ages and levels of students so you can understand and get a feel for how things look.

Seminar Workbook

This binder has a syllabus for the class as well as charts, word lists, sample lesson plans, and more. This is not a stand alone product. It is designed to be used with the Structure and Style DVD set.

Student Writing Intensive DVDs Level A, including the Structure & Style Overview

These 4 DVD writing videos are geared toward children at the level of grades 3-5. It is also worth mentioning that each level is based on your child having no previous writing experience.

Student Notebook with handouts and lesson plans

This is a 3 ring binder which includes student handouts, complete teacher's notes, source texts, assignments, and checklists.

Fix-It! Grammar, Books 1 and 2 with downloadable student e-books

These books make learning grammar simple. Each day you spend about 5-15 minutes grammatically correcting a sentence. The sentences will collectively tell a story.

A Word Write Now

This book is a thesaurus of sorts. I say of sorts because it is so much more in depth than many other thesauruses. There are only appropriate choices. The parts of speech are listed next to the words for younger students.

Portable Walls

No, not the kind of wall I can remodel my house with, but the kind of wall that can surround your student while they are doing their writing. This wall has great poster like features with out having to hang writing posters all over your house.

A day/week in our life:

It took me about a week to be able to begin using this with my daughter after I had received it. I immediately began listening to the Structure & Style DVD Set. I was able to do this late at night after I put my kids in bed while I was cleaning my kitchen. Once I had watched about 3 hours of it, I felt ready to dive into beginning to teach my 4th grader. I took the next few days to look over the materials and plan out our schedule. I have previously used IEW materials so I was somewhat familiar with them.

We decided to do the FIX IT Grammar program daily. Five days per week.

I would watch about 3 hours of the Structure & Style DVD a week.

Katey would do 1/2 of a unit of the Student Writing Intensive each week. Which isn’t intensive at all. Andrew Pudewa has a sense of humor and makes the writing fun and funny. He breaks it down into simple steps. That when followed create writers.

Our thoughts and feelings:

I was shocked at how well IEW worked for my 4th grader. I know I shouldn’t have been. I used IEW Level B with my older two children. My 10 year old learns different than my older two do and learns at a different pace. So I went into this review with the expectation of “ahh, well, I guess I’ll give it a try.” I am ecstatic to say that my non-writing 10 year old is writing things on her own now outside of our writing time. She is journaling and writing down lists and things. This program has worked for such a wide variety of learners just in my household.

IEW can be found all over social media:

https://www.facebook.com/excellenceinwriting
https://www.pinterest.com/iewriting
http://vimeo.com/iewtv
https://twitter.com/iew
https://www.youtube.com/user/iewtv
http://iew.com/help-support/blog
https://plus.google.com/+Iewriting/

To see what others think of this check out this post. To see a wide variety of reviews check out our crew blog.

Field Trip Journals

2015-06-10T12:22:00.000-06:00

Apologia Educational Ministries is a company that I have been a fan of since I began homeschooling over 5 years ago.
They have come out with a new type of product, once which I have never seen anything like it before. I am lucky to have been chosen to review it.
It is their new Exploring Creation Field Trip Journal.

About The Company:
Apologia Educational Ministries, in my opinion, is most well known for their science selection of products. They have won multiple awards in many categories. While they do offer a wide variety of products from basic curriculum to online classes and more, one of the really neat things that they do is fully support the homeschooling community by holding retreats. Some of them are online and some of them are live!

About The Product:

The Exploring Creation Field Trip Journal is simple really. It is over 60 pages ready for your creativity to be added.
It begins with some preparing for a field trip tips. While most of us are mommas and know how to take our kids out places, this section offers some helpful tips to make the most out of the field trip.
The next section talks about Field Trip ideas. This is divided into 10 categories. Each category has a list of field trip ideas, some are simple, some are extravagant. There is also a password to log into the book online for even more ideas!
The next section is about “Places I’ve Explored.” There is a 2 page spread for places in your state, another one for places in the United States, and the final 2 page spread is for places all over the world.
Our favorite part comes next.
It is the section called “Field Trip Pages.” This section is used for specific field trips. This section has you take personal notes, either on the field trip or when you get back, (once my kids even did it in the car on the way home). There is a place to draw something that has to do with the trip. A place to list any books you read in preparation for this field trip. There is a section where you would write down the “Story of my day” and a section to write down “something I never want to forget.”
The next part is “My Special Spot.” This is for a spot in the wild that you will visit 4 times a year, once each season, and you will document what you see, hear, feel. Paying attention to all the details you would nature journal this spot, noticing the progressive changes over the seasons.
The “As I See It” pages come next. In this section you would use your imagination to document your experiences. This section could be used for journaling with words, with photographs, with drawings, with doodles, or any way you wanted.
The openness and opportunity within this book is only limited by your imagination.
Check out the sample pages by clicking the link on this page!

A day/week in our life:

We received our Field Trip Journal just in time. We are a field trip taking family. We like to be out and about. One of the big field trips we took shortly after we received this book was to our local Renaissance Faire. This was our first time going to something like this. It was pretty exciting.

Our thoughts and feelings:
Usually I would just take pictures of us at our field trips with my phone, blogging about some of them. Other than that they never got written down. Everything was from my point of view. It was eye opening to see the things the kids noticed and wanted in the journal. I am really enjoying having somewhere specific that is meant for this type of journaling, otherwise it wouldn’t get done.

Apologia can be found all over social media:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/apologiaworld/timeline
Twitter: https://twitter.com/apologiaworld
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/apologia/
Google+: https://plus.google.com/105053356034237782125

To see what others think of this check out this post. To see a wide variety of reviews check out our crew blog.

The Book of Ancient Romans Set {A review}

2015-06-05T00:57:00.001-06:00

Memoria Press is a company who’s products we have used many times in our homeschooling journey.

We were very blessed to receive The Book of Ancient Romans Set for review.

About The Company:

Memoria Press is a family run publishing company that was founded in 1994 to help promote and transmit the classical heritage of the Christian West. When Cheryl Lowe- “One of the Most Admired Women” of 2014 founded the company she wanted an emphasis on liberal arts and the great works of the Western tradition.

About The Product:

The Book of the Ancient Romans Set is geared toward grades 6-9. As you will see, I used it with my 10th grader. This set

The set includes:

The Book of the Ancient Romans, this book was originally written is the 1920’s by Dorothy Mills and has been brought back into publication with added illustrations through Memoria Press. The book itself is over 400 pages, but broken down into chapters. According to the table of contents you only do one chapter per lesson.
The Student Book, this book is full of things like the facts to know section, the vocabulary section (your student actually has to fill in the definitions here), comprehension questions (your student actually fills in the answers here). There is an activity section, the activities are things like map work, timeline work, diagraming, researching, writing and more.
The Teacher Guide, this book mimics the student book with answers and answer guidelines written in.

Sample pages of all of these books can be found here.

A day/week in our life:

When I got these I planned on using them with my 10th grade son. I laid out an easy lesson plan with him, breaking the entire 5 units with 26 lessons, 5 reviews and 5 unit tests over 26 weeks. We have had it for about 6 weeks before writing this review and my son is already on lesson 12. He has been almost doubling what I had assigned. Not because it is too easy either. It’s because he is actually enjoying learning. He is not a huge history lover and it’s because he doesn’t enjoy getting creative and doing projects. He has loved the style of this history. Read the assigned pages, do the assigned work in the student book and be done.

Our thoughts and feelings:

I personally haven’t ever been disappointed with anything Memoria Press that we have used, and this was no exception. I was actually surprised at how much my son jumped ahead on this one. He said he likes it because it gets straight to the point and there is no fluff.The fact that he likes this history so much taught me a lot about his learning style. As much as I cringe at workbook style learning, that is what my son likes. I know he is learning also. He brings up conversations about things he has been reading and learning about without me even asking him.

To see what others think of this check out this post. To see a wide variety of reviews check out our crew blog.

YAY ME!

2015-06-01T09:00:00.000-06:00

YAY ME!

I took and passed my real estate agent exam this past week. I will begin my actual work shortly.

I am very excited to share my life that is about to get even crazier with you all.

I have often worked part time while still homeschooling.
Some of the jobs I have done are waitressing, cleaning houses, cleaning office buildings, grocery store cashiering, front end supervisor at a grocery store and going to school. Now I didn’t do all of these things at the same time, just over the course of our homeschool life. I am very excited to begin this new stage of our life.

I hope you all have personal goals you are working on daily. It takes a lot to be a homeschool parent and you need to do something for you at least occasionally!

Jazz Edge {my review of an online piano teacher}

2015-05-31T23:51:00.003-06:00

Jazz Edge is a company that was founded by Willie Mynette, a Berklee College of Music Graduate. They host a myriad of websites. One of those websites is PianoWithWillie.

I was given access to the Studio Membership.

Studio Memberships Include:

Unlimited access to over 3,000 lesson chapters
Instant access anytime, any device, anywhere!
Personalized Piano Plans™
Access to our active user community
All styles from jazz, blues, latin, gospel, funk & rock
Live chat with our support team
Downloadable MP3 & MIDI tracks with sheet music
30-day, Piano Success Guarantee™

Piano With Willie allows you to teach yourself piano using online piano lessons.
At first glace after logging in, Piano With Willie Studio Access can seem very overwhelming. There really is a lot to it.

He emails you a step by step introduction plan.

Step 1 has you watch a video on how to use the website and sends you some piano start resources.

Step 2 has you download and begin the 30 day success playbook. This is 30 lessons of piano success, starting with the basics, like rhythm, technique and reading. Then moving along to songs and improvisation, and more. Each video lesson is from 5-12 minutes long. Then you spend time practicing.

Step 3 has you moving on to more advanced piano foundations.

Step 4 gives you an even more in depth look at the website navigation.

Emily began with the 30 day success playbook and did not enjoy it, she felt it was way to easy so the beauty of this program is that after using it for a very short time she decided to move on.

She was able to click on the lessons tab at the top and look through the over 3000 lesson chapters available to her. The sort function here is amazing and came in very useful! Using the lessons tab to choose what songs she wanted to learn and what techniques she wanted to work on was her favorite. She needed that freedom.

They also have a 22 point assessment that you can take to have a lesson plan created for you to tell you exactly what to work on next. This is my favorite part, considering I can be indecisive.

You will need an actual piano or a keyboard with at least 61 keys on it to use this appropriately.

Here is a picture of one of the videos. You see Willie teaching, you see his hands actually playing and you see the keys he is playing light up.

Our thoughts and feelings:
Piano With Willie is NOT for the beginner pianist. They do have a beginner program that some of the other crew members reviewed. Emily has taken piano lessons for a few years now, and then we had our big move. I hadn’t had the chance to find her a new piano teacher yet, so we were both excited when this came up for review. She was able to jump in and learn songs she wanted as well as some technique work that will help her with all of her piano playing. This studio access is great for going at your own pace and being able to pick and choose what you want to learn. What it lacks is accountability. I had to be the one to hold her accountable for her lessons. (You can add this accountability through Piano With Willie’s Premier Access.) She was used to going to a piano teacher once a week and practicing all week long then going back and showing how she had improved. With Piano With Willie he would teach her and then she would practice for that day and then move on the next day. This got her advancing quite quickly through piano. Something that we found really wonderful about Piano With Willie is the ability to have the freedom to study piano when you want and what you want to work on. You truly have the freedom to choose.

Something else that we found really great about it is that I didn’t have to drive her anywhere. She was able to “take piano lessons” late at night. Being the night owl teenager that she is.

Piano With Willie can be found on social media at these locations:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PianoWithWillie
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PianoWithWillie
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/jazzedge
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/JazzEDge
Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/jazzedge

To see what others think of this check out this post. To see a wide variety of reviews check out our crew blog.

Running around!

2015-05-29T10:30:00.000-06:00

For Christmas my mom bought me a FitBit. This has been an amazing gift. Many of my friends have them. We have competitions all the time. It's based on how many steps you take daily. My most to date is just over 30K. This has encouraged me to begin running. More steps faster! Yea-ah! Since Christmas I have ran a 5K with my friends, a 10K on my own and I am now training for a 1/2 marathon. My very first! This Fit Bit has given me a new outlook on running. I can seriously say that even though I am brand new, I feel that running has changed my life. It has shown me that I can do incredibly hard things. I think a lot while I am running. Running has since become my sanity saver. I never thought I would say this, but I just love running now!

Who am I?

The new me, that's who!

Take charge of your own life. OWN IT!

2015-05-22T00:01:00.000-06:00

Some very exciting things are beginning to happen around here. Trust me, it's been stressful to say the least, but here we go.

Are you making great things happen in your life?

I fully believe in creating the best life we can with what God has given us. Don't leave things up to chance. Take charge. Show life that you are more.

You've got this! OWN IT!

S is for Smiling Sunrise {a review}

2015-05-15T09:51:00.001-06:00

WordsBright is a small independent publisher dedicated to learning. Their focus is on children’s books that are both fun and educational.

Their very first publications is S is for Smiling Sunrise. A very cute children’s ABC book written by Vick Wadhwa for his daughter and he has decided to share it with the world.

Let’s start with the care that has gone into this book. First, the book was definitely created with children in mind.

The book is made with high quality, CPSIA-compliant materials. It is also carefully designed to support children’s vocabulary, language, and character development.

The book is a neat. I really enjoyed reading this book to my children as well as they loved having it read to them, or even reading it themselves.

As you travel through the alphabet with things like E is for Evening, or K is for Kaleidoscope, S is for Smiling Sunrise and U is for Universe. You can see that this book was uniquely written and the explanations under the quality illustrations are just as neat.

There are both the uppercase letter and the lower case on the page. Then the word. Below the word is the picture and the saying. Let’s use U.

U is for Universe

Sun and moon and stars

Earth and planets, spinning comets

Galaxies so far!

There is a really simply done teachers tips guide that is offered for FREE. There is one for Pre-K and one for K-3. You can download those from the sight. The teachers guide gives each letter/ page of the book some suggestions for you to do with your child. There are concepts discussed, questions to ask, vocabulary and activities to do.

For example, U is for Universe; for the concepts you read about what the universe is. For the questions you discuss what the universe is, it’s size, who lives there and where you live in the universe. For the vocabulary there are words like universe, sun, moon, stars, and more. For the activities you could visit a science museum, or look through a telescope.

Oh and did I mention, that they offer you a FREE MP3 download of the book being read is sing song form. SO FUN!

Our thoughts and opinions:

We enjoyed the book. I love the quality. You can feel it in the pages. Not those easy to rip pages where your children tear the books “accidentally” and then BAM book shreds to pieces everywhere. The illustrations were just right, not too simple, not too complicated.

This book is so different, in a good way to any ABC book I have ever seen.

To see what others think of this check out this post. To see a wide variety of reviews check out our crew blog.

Reaching my goals

2015-05-13T12:38:00.000-06:00

I realize that I set big lofty goals and I am good at achieving about half of them or even half of just one goal. For instance the 30 days in a row blog post series. I got started, I got all gung ho. I even pre-blogged some of the topics. Then life happened. Then I ended up moving during all of it. The goal of blogging for 30 days straight fell by the wayside.

I have other bigger badder goals. I am not going to let myself fail at. I need to figure out a way not to half-ass them anymore.

I have tried things like goal journals, vision boards, and more.

One of my current goals is to run my first 1/2 marathon at the end of July. I have been training off and on for a few months. The longest I have run is about 6 and 1/2 miles non stop. I haven’t been taking the training plan as serious as I should. I get at least my one long run in a week, but I need to be doing the pace runs and easy runs also.

Another goal I have is to deep clean my house once per week. I’m not talking spring clean deep clean. I just mean a clean where everything is cleaned on the same day, bathrooms are done, bedrooms are cleaned and vacuumed, dishes are done, laundry is clean and put away, floors are mopped. I have noticed if life happens and I don’t get to everything in the one day I have set aside, then for the following week, my house never feels clean. I just get further behind on laundry, and further behind on everything. I feel like I need that base day to gather, plan and prepare for the upcoming week. I need to make this day more of a priority, while remaining flexible on what day it happens on, because, you know, life and all.

Right now, my biggest goal of all is to remain being a mother and homeschooler, all while being a real estate agent. I will take my licensing exam the end of May and then begin working very shortly after. I will not let myself fail at this goal, I have never set such a high goal for myself. My husband is a huge support and believes in me, while other people in my family put me down for trying it. They make me feel like I am not good enough. These are also the same people that make me feel like they never believe in me and like I can’t do anything right. The more self esteem and goal books I read the more I see that I need to get rid of toxic people in my life, but what if they are family…….

SUCCESSFUL Homeschooling Made EASY! {A Review}

2015-05-11T12:30:00.001-06:00

Successful Homeschooling Made Easy was created by Stephanie Walmsley. She is a homeschooling mother of 5, who loves spending time with family and friends. She dislikes windy weather and bad drivers. She is also so much more. She has the experience and know how of how to not only homeschool, but to homeschool successfully!

She has chosen to share her insight with all of us through Successful Homeschooling Made Easy Course.

This 26 lesson course is done with one lesson a week. Upon signing up for the course you will immediately be emailed your first lesson. This lesson doesn’t beat around the bush. It gets right down to it on how you can easily start homeschooling today! Even if you’re not brand new to homeschooling it can help you to start an improved homeschool life.

Some of the things that the lessons cover are:

Practicalities,
Schedules,
Lesson plans,
Organization,
Planning,
Teaching,
Housekeeping,
Extracurricular activities,
How to choose curriculum,
And much more.

Take the time to sit back and relax as you create a successful homeschool. You will need to devote some time to this, not much, about 30 or so minutes a week for the lesson and then another 30 or so minutes a week for the homework. I know that this hour a week can be hard to find. I’ve been there. When I began this, I thought how can I create more time by spending time on something else. It happened. I feel like I am still doing the same amount of stuff, but I have more time.

Let’s see what the typical lessons look like:

Each lesson will begin with a preface. This will gear you up for what you are about to learn.

Then the meat of the lesson. Sometimes you will answer questions that are specific to your family and your situation. These questions get you thinking. You may read some examples of other homeschooling families and their routines. You will evaluate how things are going so far. You will incorporate what you are learning into your life.

The lesson ends with a summary, an assignment. Usually, the assignment consists of spending time answering any questions you didn’t get to, do any recommended reading, taking care of yourself and incorporating something new into your schedule, (like doing art one day this week). The end of the lesson will also give you a small preview into the next weeks lesson.

A day/week in our life:

Each week I would receive my lesson and immediately print it off. I would add it to my binder and then let it set. I wouldn’t get to it right away. After getting through the first few weeks of lessons, I decided to create a special time to do this. I began by choosing a day of the week to sit outside on my front porch alone and spend time with myself on the lesson at hand.

When I first started, I felt rushed. I felt like I needed to just get through the lessons quickly. By the time I moved it to outside me time, I noticed I spent a lot more time on the lessons. I realized I was getting more out of each lesson.

Our thoughts and feelings:

While I have homeschooled for about 6 years, I gleaned a lot of great advice from this course so far. It has helped me to find myself and be okay with who we are. I discovered even more so that I don’t have to fit in with the stereotypical norm of a homeschooling family. Actually, I discovered that there really isn’t a norm.

The biggest thing I have gotten from the course so far is a higher self confidence of who we are and why we homeschool.

Successful Homeschooling Made Easy can be found on social media here:

Facebook

To see what others think of this check out this post. To see a wide variety of reviews check out our crew blog.

Visiting a real fort!

2015-05-06T06:46:00.000-06:00

We had a neat opportunity to take a spur of the moment field trip with a bunch of local homeschoolers to a real fort.

We visited Fort Buena Ventura on a homeschool field trip.

The day was perfect! The kids learned about a vertical cabin.

We were able to go in and see two cabins, one furnished and one unfurnished. We learned about what it took to build cabins/ houses back in 1852.

Katey even got to try out a recliner made out of reeds.

We met a real mountain man. He showed us many mountain man tools and supplies and explained to us why a mountain man would have such tools and how many of them had a dual purpose. He taught us many ways to make a fire.

They had an awesome candy canon. All of the kids lined up and the host filled a small real canon up with taffy. He lit the fuse and had the kids count down. Once it went off the kids went crazy. It was definitely Tyler’s favorite part. He told every body who would listen about it.

We rented a canoe and floated a dammed up area in the river. This was fun and I’m glad I had Tommy with me. He sure knew what he was doing.

The two younger kids fell asleep for the ride home. It was a fun day!

La La Logic ~ A Preschool Curriculum {A Review}

2015-05-01T01:32:00.001-06:00

La La Logic is a company that strongly believes in the combination of online Brain Challenges, printable worksheets, and enrichment activities. Together these create a strong critical thinking foundation in your child that will result in an enhanced capacity for learning.

They have created a 100 week Preschool Curriculum to teach children ages 3-6 critical thinking and logic skills. The Preschool Curriculum is based on multiple popular IQ tests. (See this page and scroll about half way down to see the list)

When you purchase this curriculum you get a lifetime membership to use with multiple children (up to five). There is no time limit on how long you take to complete it with your child.

The curriculum is broken down into 3 main parts.

1. The Brain Challenge

2. The Worksheet

3. The Extension Activities

During The Brain Challenge your child spends time on either the computer, iPad, Android Tablet, or Mac doing some interactive activities. Each activity gets more complex as they pass the previous ones off.

The Worksheet portion gets kids using their problem solving and critical thinking skills as well as fine motor skills as they will need to color, cut and paste the worksheets. The first time I printed out the teacher plan, which I will explain below, I made the mistake of printing it double sided and then my son had to cut the worksheet, which in turn, cut up the enrichment activity. Don’t make that same silly mistake.

The Extension activities vary from things like word games, scavenger hunts, stories, narration, solving puzzles, dramatic play, picture study, copywork, nature study and more.

These activities usually got done over 2 days the suggested days were Tuesday and Thursday. You would spend the first day reading a provided story to your child, then on Thursday see if they could remember what happened and narrate it back to you. You would also discuss the story some more with some given questions.

There is also an area where your child can just play the extension activities and go on and on. This is a fun way for them to play on a device while still learning some preschool logic games.

Now back to the beginning. When you first log into the site there are two choices for you. One says Home- Students. The other one says Continuous Brain Challenge Mode. For the first week of using this I could not figure out how to get to the lessons, I kept having my son use the Continuous Brain Challenge Mode. When I finally discovered the weekly lesson plans I felt so silly. They were right there above where I was clicking for him to play and learn on the Continuous Brain Challenge Mode.

Under each student you will have the choice of La La Logic Curriculum or Extra Practice.

If you click on La La Logic Curriculum it will take you to a section that has 20 of these cute little chalkboards. Each chalkboard is labeled as a set, like Set 1, Set 2, etc. Each set has 5 weeks worth of lessons in it. Once you click on the week you are in a suggested weekly schedule appears along with the weeks Brain Challenges and the downloads you will use that week. There is also a section for you (the parent/teacher) to make some notes, and mark the lesson as complete.

A day/week in our life:

How did you use the product?

Once we got going correctly we used the curriculum exactly as it suggested. The weekly schedule looked like this.

Monday- Brain Challenge

Tuesday- Enrichment Activity

Wednesday- Brain Challenge and Worksheet

Thursday- Enrichment Set

Friday- Off.

Each day took about 10 minutes total with the exception of Wednesday which took between 10 and 20 minutes. This was the perfect amount of time for my little guys attention span. He is at the high end of the age for this with him being 5, but he really enjoyed it.

Our thoughts and feelings:

Each lesson is completely laid out for you and I mean completely. This was the easiest- on me – curriculum ever as far as teacher prep went. We would log in and he would usually work on his iPad while I printed out the weeks stuff and then we would just come to it each day and do what it said. This was so simple one week I even had my 14 year old teach him and she understood it all perfectly without having to have me explain to her what to do. I also really appreciated the fact that you could play the logic games and not mess up where we were at in the lessons by using the Continuous Brain Challenge. This allowed my 10 year old to play some of the games too. After she saw her little brother playing some games during school, you know she wanted to try them out too.

To see what others think of this check out this post. To see a wide variety of reviews check out our crew blog.

April Happenings in pictures

2015-04-30T12:12:00.000-06:00

We had a very busy April this year. I took a few pictures to be able to share that with you.

I really want to get better at updating my blog and I hope to be able to do this more often.

First things first.

Remember, we just made a major move the end of March.

I registered for and began Real Estate School. I am working on being done by the middle of May. Then our crazy life will really begin, as I go to work as a real estate agent all while homeschooling and being a mom and a wife.

I ran my first 10K race. I ran it in 1:11. I am pretty proud of that. The fact that I was able to keep training during the packing and moving sounds crazy, but I did it!

Our kids got season passes to an amusement park for Easter. We took them to an Easter Egg Hunt there and to spend a day there. We got to see a peacock all spread out.

Tyler has spent tons of time on La La Logic on the iPad. We love these simple logic games.

Our tarantula molted. This was very exciting!

Katey and Tyler build a fun fort while I was mopping the floor and read and played with some Usborne cards.

For Christmas Katey got a science kit and one day we got it out and made some eyeballs! The kids really loved doing this.

We took a little road trip to spring clean our family cabin. We had to get up really early to leave. Most people in the car slept while Emily and I stayed awake.

We did lots of cleaning and had lots of fun!

Even a food fight!

Emily had a friend from our old town come and stay with us. We did tons of stuff with her.

Some of the highlights were us going to a chalk festival.

Emily and Tyler made brownies. It was pretty cute to see them work together.

The weather has been so great that we spend a lot of evenings at the parks near us.

Tyler and I have been reading his book My Silly Body and Book and doing the activities in it. This really is a great book.

Softball season started for Emily. She plays short stop and catcher. I am really proud of her and it is neat to see how far she has came in softball.

We did all of these things along with more along with our normal day to day schoolwork and household stuff.

WOW!

Artistic Pursuits {A schoolhouse review}

2015-04-20T16:55:00.001-06:00

We were lucky enough to be chosen to review Elementary 4-5, Book 1: The Elements of Art and Composition from ARTistic Pursuits.

About The Company:

Artistic Pursuits is a homeschool art curriculum company who has been around since 1999. They produce art curriculum for Preschool to High school. Their art curriculum is written for homeschool or independent study. They are made for novice and experienced artists alike. You learn by capturing your interests as you work from direct observation and personal preferences. A range of activity books is offered, from focusing on drawing, art and composition, art history, art appreciation, color theory and composition. They also have sculpture specific books; construct, model and coming soon, carve.

About The Product:

We have been working out of the Elementary 4-5 Book One The Elements of Art and Composition. Written by Brenda Ellis, this book of 68 lessons divided up over 16 units is in it’s 3rd edition. $47.95.

This book is for ages 9 and up. The child is never told what to draw. They pick their own item to draw while focusing on the concepts taught.

Students learn art by:

Learning to observe the world around them- to really see it.
Learning what to look for.
Learning to focus on one element of art at a time, while drawing, and block out the others.

Each unit is divided up into 5 pages or lessons.

The first page of each unit focuses on building a visual vocabulary by showing students which topic to focus on, explained in words and pictures. One of our favorite things have been reading the stories in the first lessons. Students create a work of art from their observations and ideas.

The second & third page of each unit focuses on American Art and appreciation and history by showing students how the topic is used in master works. They learn about artists and the times they lived in. Students create a work of art from their observations and ideas.

The fourth page of each unit focuses on Technique. Students learn how to use the materials and tools of art. They again create an original work of art using what they have learned.

The fifth page of each unit is Application. Here is where you create a final project of each unit, using what you have learned so far.

Students are encouraged to spend upwards of an hour on each class or lesson. The reading/ learning part only took us about 10 minutes. The drawing we spent anywhere from 10 minutes to 45 minutes on. To make this curriculum last a full school year it is recommended to do two one hour uninterrupted classes per week.

A day/week in our life:

We used this curriculum as more of a family style curriculum. Even though it is geared for 4th and 5th graders to do on their own. My 4th grader, 8th grader, 10th grader and I all worked on it together. We would all gather in the afternoons with our art supplies (see the list above). One of us would read the days lesson and then we would just work on it quietly. One time we all drew the same things, after that we all always chose our own things to draw. This made art time very relaxing for all of us. We would all show each other our pictures, with no judgment, which we discussed at the beginning of starting this curriculum.

Our thoughts and feelings:

We all really enjoyed this curriculum and while I have used the higher levels before with my older children I still found it very easy to do as a family. I like how we did NOT all do the same project/ drawing each time. We loved how it was open to our own interpretation. This left no comparing each others drawings and no competition as to who’s is the best. I was thankful that the curriculum, while written for individuals was able to be used in a family setting.

ARTistic Pursuits can be found on social media here:

Facebook

To see what others think of this check out this post. To see a wide variety of reviews check out our crew blog.

Finding a routine.

2015-04-20T14:18:00.000-06:00

I had found what I thought was the perfect routine for our family. We would get up and moving about 8:30 or 9am. I was so proud. I always wanted to be an early morning homeschool family, but this was as early as we could do it. By 10 am everyone would be working on their schoolwork. They would work until about noon. That’s when we would break for lunch. The kids would help me make lunch, we would eat and then take a small 30-45 minute break. By 1 or 1:30 we would do a “family quick clean” that’s where everyone would clean for about 10 or 15 minutes. The house would look clean enough after that and then we would sit down and watch CNN Student News and then discuss things. Then we would read aloud a chapter in a book. Then we would each go back to individual works. In the morning I would spend my time helping the younger kids with what they needed me to teach or needed my help on. The afternoon was left for the older kids and what I needed to teach or help them with. We would be done with school every day by 2:30 or 3. Some days we had co-op and our routine just got smooshed together a little more, but stayed basically the same.

Then we moved far away. Our lives changed dramatically.

We moved toward the end of the “school year” so no co-ops to join or classes to get involved in.

Our schedule changed. We started waking up later, like 10 or 11am. Ahhh! I know.

We are much slower to get going in the mornings.

We have cut out things like CNN Student News and our read aloud due to not having enough time.

We generally don’t even start schoolwork until after lunch, which is about 1:30 or 2. So we are now working on schoolwork from 2-6 or later each day. And having to do some on the weekends. We eat dinner about 7 (instead of 6:30 like we used to).

This leaves my children doing schoolwork in the afternoons and while it’s working, I DON’T LIKE IT!

I was us to go back to when we are getting done with school about 2:30 not just getting started then.

I need a fresh start in the routine department for us.

Memoria Press: New American Cursive. {A Review}

2015-04-16T01:03:00.001-06:00

I have a confession to make. I haven’t taught my 4th grader cursive yet. (until now)

When I saw New American Cursive: Penmanship Program Workbook 1 by Memoria Press come up for review, I knew I needed to put in for it.

About The Company:

Memoria Press is a family run Classical Christian Education materials publisher. Don’t let the family run fool you though. This is no small company. They produce a wide range of curriculum for all grades Junior Kindergarten up to grade 12. They have full curriculum sets or you can pick and choose individual subjects or books.

About The Product:

I was able to use their New American Cursive: Penmanship program workbook 1 ($22.95) with my 10 year old daughter, who remember, had absolutely no cursive experience. NONE!

Now my excuses for not teaching her cursive yet are:

She hates writing, even a sentence.
She is left handed, and I am right handed.
I know how to read and write cursive, but I had no idea what I was doing.
She didn’t start reading real well until this year.
I am pretty sure she has dyslexia.

This workbook, took all that away from me. Once I first got the 114 page book, I was not scared anymore. I knew she could do it.

This book was written to be able to use it to teach cursive to first graders. It goes through the whys and teaching cursive throughout history. Usually in the US cursive is taught in 3rd grade and many schools are trying to do away with it for good.

I totally procrastinated teaching cursive to my 10 year old, because of my list above. This book actually told me that typically dyslexic kids learn cursive easier than they learn print. That is because there is less letter reversals.

The 3 page teaching guide will tell you everything you need to know, from proper posture to pencil grip, to paper placement, to how to use this book.

This book has Mr. Meerkat who helps you write cursive and is there in the book to tell your child what to do. He begins by showing the proper pencil holding position for both right and LEFT HANDERS! (Whoop whoop!) Then he shows them the correct paper placement for both right and LEFT HANDERS! (Whoop whoop!) Next begins the real writing, he goes over some simple lines used in cursive and then your child practices writing those lines. After that, right into the letter writing you will go. Each letter has an instruction page. My daughters favorite thing is that it has you,

Say the letter
Feel the letter
Write the letter.

Mr. Meerkat has your child circle the best letter and then you move on. The next page has fun exercises and artwork. These fun exercises include writing and joining letters and a review of previously learned letters.

At the bottom of every few pages it has reminders about pencil position or paper placement for both right and LEFT HANDERS! (Whoop whoop!)

A day/week in our life:

Honestly after going through a few things with my daughter the first day, she has just taken off. She needs no help from me. She does a letter a day at the most. Usually she just does a page a day. This has needed very little involvement from me. I have her show me every day after she has done it and choose her best writing. She is very proud of it.

Our thoughts and feelings:

I am grateful that this program includes both right and left handers throughout their curriculum, in case you couldn’t tell. I think that was my biggest fear of it all. I am surprised at how quickly she has been able to learn cursive too. She is enjoying learning cursive too. It makes her feel more grown up.

Memoria Press can be found on social media here:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/memoriapress
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MemoriaPress
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/memoriapress/
Google+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/+Memoriapress1/posts
Instagram: https://instagram.com/memoriapress/

To see what others think of this check out this post. To see a wide variety of reviews check out our crew blog.

Seriously, why can’t I….

2015-04-14T01:28:00.000-06:00

The struggle is real people.

I am not a morning person. I want to be. I am trying my darndest to be. I just can’t get up when my alarm goes off. It doesn’t matter when I set it. It can be at 6 am or at 9 am. I just feel the need to fall back asleep after shutting it off. It doesn’t matter whether I get 6 hours or 11 hours of sleep.

I recently read a book, The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod. I realize that I can change my life and create more for myself and my family if I follow his morning routine suggestion. There are 6 things, he calls them SAVERS.

S = Silence

A = Affirmation

V = Visualization

E = Exercise

R = Reading

S = Scribe (writing)

I have woken up and done these things a few mornings and my days were great, much more productive. I also felt really great about myself. I was so proud.

It lasted for 3 days.

I have tried and tried for 2 months to get back on and complete my 30 day goal of doing The Miracle Morning routine. I have struggled.

As I sit here at 1:30am writing this blog post, I realize that it probably has to do with my bedtime routine. So for the next little while I am going to focus my time more on having a proper bed time routine for myself and my kids. We need a set bedtime and routine at night. I hate being a slave to a schedule though. That has never been who I am. I will need flexibility and realistic according to our lifestyle.

I am hoping this is a great change for me. I am hoping we can all embrace it. I know we are going to start slow with baby steps. I know we will get a rhythm and routine going.

I can’t wait!!

Disclaimer: There are affiliate links in my posts. There are also freebies. There are also just links to products without affiliate links. I'm trying to show what we did and where you can find it, not to sell you a product...although if you decide to buy one of them, please feel free to use the links and support a fellow homeschooler.

Updates, Updates and more updates.

2015-04-07T12:26:00.001-06:00

Our lives have changed so incredibly much over the past year and even more so over the past month.

We have been living in a whirlwind that I’m not sure I see slowing down real soon.

We made a very quick, but educated decision for my husband to take a new job. He was on the drilling side of the oilfield. He moved rigs from location to location. As gas prices dropped people stopped drilling. He began to just stack out (move rigs into storage) rigs. Then we began to look at other jobs in other towns. The small town we lived in is an oilfield town, boom and bust. We knew that moving there, which is why we always rented instead of buying a house. We were in the perfect position when my husband got offered a job to haul crude, to just pack up our family and move. So that is what we did. We really feel like we did this at the right time. The move was hard on all of us. We loved where we lived, we loved the people around us, we loved our friends. We have lived in our new house about 2 1/2 weeks. We are meeting friends here, and getting settled in.

The first week we were here, Tommy got his learners permit. We seriously went from small town living to big city living and I am struggling with the traffic myself, let alone letting my kid drive in it. We are both making progress and it isn’t as bad as I had imagined.

Once a month out here the homeschoolers get together and go to a funplex center. We decided to go we could all use a fun day out anyways. We did not meet any other homeschoolers that day. It was Spring Break for the PS kids and we didn’t know who was a homeschooler and who was a PS. It was fine and we all had a ton of fun.

The second week here I ran my first 10K. I came in at 1:11. I am pretty proud of that. The furthest I had ran before that was 5 miles and a 10K is 6.2 miles. There was also a giant mountain to climb. It was huge and I did have to walk up it and down it.

I finally got a date night with my husband. Since moving he has been in training and then working every day. He took some days of to spend with the family and one of those we went out on a date. I had registered for Real Estate School shortly after we moved here. HUGE STEP FOR ME! I just hadn’t gone and picked up my textbook yet. We decided to go out and pick it up and then we went to the mall! Trust me, I am just as shocked as you. We have never gone to the mall on a date in our over 11 years of marriage or dating. We went shopping and then went to eat at what is now our favorite restaurant. It was a great night. And to think, I tried to get out of going because I was tired.

I am enjoying this new life more that I had thought I would. We are finally getting into somewhat of a school routine. We are up to 5 subjects a day, most days only getting 3 done. But we are working on it.

Thick as Thieves -A Circle C, Andrea Carter book. {Review}

2015-04-01T01:17:00.001-06:00

Circle C Milestones is a book series written by Susan K. Marlow.

Thick as Thieves is the first book is in the Circle C Milestones series which is the 3rd Andrea Carter series.

All of the series are based in the late 1800’s in California and are as far as I can tell, historically accurate.

Circle C Beginnings is for ages 6-9, in these books Andi is about 8 or so and dreams of owning a horse. This set of books is based in 1874. A few years ago my girls read this entire series of 6 books and loved it.

Circle C Adventures is for ages 9-14, in this set Andi is about 12 and is based in the 1880’s. We haven’t read any of these, yet.

Circle C Milestones is for ages 12 and up, in this set Andi is 14 and deals with some drama as far as friends, and raising horses.

Thick as Thieves is about Andrea’s (Andi’s) life on the Circle C Ranch. She is still raising her horse, Taffy, whom is foaling. Taffy is the horse she received in the very first set of Andi Carter books. Andrea is in school even though she would rather be spending time with her horse and the foal. To make matters worse she is assigned to be seatmates with a girl who Andrea doesn’t get along with. Then when the cattle rustlers come to town and target the Circle C Ranch, Andrea doesn’t have anyone else to turn to but her new seatmate. Will she help her and even more important, can she trust her?

The theme of Thick as Thieves is FRIENDSHIP!

One really neat thing besides the great storyline and writing behind all three of these progressive series’ is that Susan K. Marlow includes free study guides with all of these books.

These study guides are age/ developmentally appropriate and match the levels that the corresponding books are written for.

The study guide for Thick as Thieves has 6 lessons that are chapter based. Each lesson covers approximately 3 chapters. However you can use the study guide as you go, or read the entire book and then go through the study guide after.

The study guide includes things like vocabulary, fill in the blank, multiple choice, crossword puzzles, science (about foaling and lice!), math (Are you smarter than an 1880’s 8th grader?), writing, venn diagraming, history (about cattle rustling, dime novels) and so much more.

A day/week in our life:

We decided to read the entire book and then do the FREE activity guide. By the time we got to the activity guide my girls were not really interested. They already knew how the story ended and were not interested in the activities. It would have worked better for me if we did the chapters and study guide intertwined. They would have had more interest to do the worksheets in order to move on to the next read. I just wasn’t able to motivate them enough.

Our thoughts and feelings:

I am a huge Susan K. Marlow Fan. My kids have loved many of her books. We even have some from her Goldtown Adventures series (for boys). Her books have always delivered. The work she puts into the study guides is nothing less than amazing. The Thick as Thieves book and study guide held up to the very high standards that we already had Susan K. Marlow set at.

Circle C Adventures can be found on social media here:

https://www.facebook.com/CircleCAdventures
http://twitter.com/SuzyScribbles

To see what others think of this check out this post. To see a wide variety of reviews check out our crew blog.

HomeSchool Office by Lord Heritage {A Schoolhouse Crew Review}

2015-03-27T09:29:00.001-06:00

About The Company:

Lord Heritage is a company that was founded by a mother daughter duo. Jennifer is a homeschooling mom who ran a small business out of her home and Joyce is a retired business professional. They came together with a common goal; to help prepare the next generation in spiritual truth and in the heritage of the Lord Jesus through education.
Identifying the Christian homeschool movement as God's Spirit speaking to the hearts of other parents, Lord Heritage focuses on supporting homeschooling families for the same calling.

About The Product:

They are supporting homeschooling families by creating a web based program, HomeSchool Office. HomeSchool Office is designed to give you the framework to be able to organize home and school all in one. This is designed for the homeschool family by a homeschooling family.

They come with a strategy they call POWER.

Plan

Order

Work

Evaluate

Report

The Plan:

Plan subject goals and objectives
Build a master schedule
Setup lessons
Create projects for home or groups
Lay out your school budget

The Order:

Schedule lessons
Integrate home & school activities
Setup important reminders
Create customized lists

The Work:

Provide student access
View/print individual schedules
Follow daily lessons
Manage to do lists

To Evaluate:

Manage requirement for state compliance
Oversee daily attendance
Track hours per subject
Maintain grading per subject

The Report:

Comply with state regulations
Customize reports
Generate transcripts

HomeSchool Office allows you to track multiple students, grades, subjects, extra curricular activities, co-ops, tutors, private lessons such as music or tennis, etc.

They do this all while remaining flexible. If you have a sick day you can “bump” a day and all your lessons will shift. If you are working ahead or on the weekend or something, you can also everything forward by one day.

You can copy subjects by child, so after you have entered one child’s math and you want to use that for the next child the next year, then you just copy it over and you don’t have to re-enter it.

With HomeSchool Office being web based it is accessible from any device with a browser, including your iPhone, iPad or android device

Our thoughts and feelings:

There is definitely a learning curve entailed in learning this program. It goes deep and is very detail oriented, which is perfect for someone like me. This was difficult to set up for me as I was very limited on time. I had a short notice surprise move thrown on me of over 200 miles. I am very grateful for what I did have set up though, because it made it easy to bump complete days or even just subjects that we were not able to complete on a particular day. I truly wished that I had more time to work with the program. I feel like I didn’t have the time to truly learn it and play with it before implementing it.

I found after all the time it took to learn it, I didn’t want the detail for my younger children. However for my high schooler and soon to be high schooler the transcript option and details were wonderful. I loved the feature of sending messages to my “team” (my older students) and having them reply. This was a neat feature that I have never seen before on any planning software.

HomeSchool Office offers a free 30 day trial which is worth checking out. After that it is $79 per year.

To see what others think of this check out this post. To see a wide variety of reviews check out our crew blog.

GPA Love Math

2015-03-20T08:06:00.001-06:00

GPA LEARN has a cool all online math program for kids Kindergarten to grade 5. This program is known as GPALOVEMATH.

GPALOVEMATH is streaming, so it is available on our computers or iPads and that has proven to be quite convenient.

I have used this with my Kindergarten age son who is very computer literate.

Each level has 150 lessons. Completing 4-5 lessons a week will have your child finishing a grade every 10 months.

The format of GPALOVEMATH is:

Learn – Engage – Motivate.

They learn by using the instruction portion. (see below)

They are engaged with the parents. Each lesson that is completed the parent will receive an email showing what topics were covered and discussion points you can use to engage with your child.

They are motivated by GPA Learn’s unique reward system. The students earn points for completing lessons. These points can be used for all kinds of things. Some our company sponsored, like a Toys R Us e gift card and others are parent sponsored like staying up late.

There are also automatic rewards that the child gets after completing so many lessons. The parent customizes and picks these rewards. There is a giant list to choose from or you can just create your own. My son loved this part! He loved simple rewards like “Mom does one of your chores” or “You get to choose what is for dinner”

by using

Instuction - Practice – Quiz

The instruction portion is where you work alongside an animated coach to learn and solve problems.

The practice portion is where you follow along with your animated coach to solve practice problems.

The Quiz portion is where you answer the questions on your own and evaluate how well you know the skills.

A day/week in our life:

Tyler began by logging into this math program and just starting at the beginning. He used the Kindergarten level. He would just work at the beginning of the program and work his way through the lessons in order. Since we are halfway through our school year he had already learned many of the things. He did not enjoy sitting through them. I decided to let him just quiz out of all the things he had already learned. He was quizzing out of 3-5 lessons per day. Once he got to where he needed to learn things we stopped doing that and he had to sit through the videos. Each lesson has a pre-requisite that needs to be done before it will unlock. There is a way around this by choosing to do the lessons under the Kindergarten topics section. We chose to keep doing them in the suggested order.

The videos were funny and engaging. He had to push the arrow every few seconds to turn the page. This kept him paying attention.

He really enjoys this math and I have decided to keep it as his primary math for the rest of the year.

Find GPA Learn on social media here:

www.facebook.com/gpalearn
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To see what others think of this check out this post. To see a wide variety of reviews check out our crew blog.

World History Detective Book 1 {A review}

2015-03-18T09:04:00.001-06:00

The Critical Thinking Company is known for their over 150 award winning books and software. They have been around since 1958 and our family owned.

Their mission statement:

The Critical Thinking Co.™ is committed to developing students' critical thinking skills for better grades, higher test scores, and success in life. We do not teach through drill and memorization or teach to the tests—we empower the mind!

The Schoolhouse review crew was offered many choices on what to review. We chose to review World History Detective Book 1.

World History Detective Book 1 is for grades 6-12. It is 361 pages long and can be used multiple ways. This could be a stand alone history curriculum. It can be used to supplement a social studies curriculum, or it can even just be used as a review/ refresher for older students. This book is on Ancient and Medieval Civilizations.

The way this book works is very “work booky” (That’s totally a word!).

Let’s use lesson 31 for our example. This lesson is on Daily Life in the Roman Empire.

They would read 9 paragraphs and then answer 9 multiple choice questions. To answer the multiple choice questions, you would choose the best answer and then after to write which sentence (the sentences are numbered) best supported your answer. Followed by writing a short essay answering the question “What were the positive and negative aspects of life during the Roman Empire? using complete sentences. Then they would complete a concept map. This looks like a flow chart to me.

You can take a peek inside this book here. World History Detective Book 1 has won 3 awards already.

A day/week in our life:

I used this with my 15 year old daughter who hates history. She doesn’t like the way history “takes so long to learn” (her words). I figured that a simple workbook with no extra fluff, like projects and research would be good for her. I was right! She still dislikes history, but she loves solving problems and this book has been a great balance between the two. She would complete about 3 lessons a week in this book. Lessons took her about 30-45 minutes. The reading isn’t to long and it’s to the point, while still requiring you to think. This was troublesome for her in the beginning, she just wanted to be able to copy the answer from the reading. After about 2 weeks of using this she caught on that it was more than learning history, that she was required to actually think.

My thoughts and opinions:

It’s too often in our home that the work is too easy. Using this book showed me that my daughter can think for herself and decipher clues to come up with an answer. After about 2 weeks she began to enjoy this. She looked at it less about learning history and more about finding clues. She said that history is still not her favorite subject but it’s “not so bad” this way. She likes that she can just get it done. I like that she uses her reading comprehension and writing skills at the same time. I also love that this book is self-directed. She only needs me to look over her answers.

The Critical Thinking Company can be found all over social media. Check them out.

https://www.facebook.com/TheCriticalThinkingCo
https://plus.google.com/114500823774999703181
https://twitter.com/criticalthinks
https://www.pinterest.com/source/criticalthinking.com/

To see what others think of this check out this post. To see a wide variety of reviews check out our crew blog.

Here we go again.

2015-03-16T09:11:00.000-06:00

We are moving. For the second time, while homeschooling! Yikes.

This move has been very emotionally challenging for me. My husband has been out of town quite a bit leaving everything to me. Then we bumped our moving date up by 11 days! I love where I live. Think positive right! My friends all keep telling me what a new adventure this will be….

This weekend. Here we go!