Life With My Giggly Girls

TOS Review: ALEKS

2012-02-11T20:57:00.002-05:00

What is ALEKS?

From the company website:

Assessment and LEarning in Knowledge Spaces is a Web-based, artificially intelligent assessment and learning system. ALEKS uses adaptive questioning to quickly and accurately determine exactly what a student knows and doesn't know in a course. ALEKS then instructs the student on the topics she is most ready to learn. As a student works through a course, ALEKS periodically reassesses the student to ensure that topics learned are also retained. ALEKS courses are very complete in their topic coverage and ALEKS avoids multiple-choice questions. A student who shows a high level of mastery of an ALEKS course will be successful in the actual course she is taking.

ALEKS (Assessment and LEarning in Knowledge Spaces) can provide you with the instruction and support you need to homeschool your children in mathematics for grades 3-12. ALEKS is accessible from virtually any computer with Internet access, making it a flexible and mobile educational solution for your children.
ALEKS is a Research-Based Online Math Program:

Complete Curriculum Solution for Math with Access to Full Course Library
No Textbook Required
Artificial Intelligence Targets Gaps in Student Knowledge
Assessment and Individualized Learning for Grades 3-12
Master Account - Monitor and Direct Learning Progress
Unlimited Online Access - PC & Mac Compatible

All users start off with an assessment that lasts about 30 minutes. Once the assessment is completed the student is given a pie chart that clearly shows what is mastered and what still needs to be worked on.

From there the students can click on a pie wedge and choose a topic to work on. This is where the student is taught the concept. It must be read by the student so it's necessary for your student to be a fluent reader.

Students can also choose on the Quick Tables. This is where the student would practice math facts. If the student masters enough of the table they are given an opportunity to play various math games.

It's very easy for parents to see how the student is progressing by just checking in the master account or you can even receive weekly email updates.

Our Experience

The interface is very basic. You read the lesson and then do the practice problems. Quite a few times my daughter, who is not a visual learner when it comes to math, needed me be to right there with her to offer some more hands-on tips. It kind of defeated the purpose of computer instruction.

There wasn't a lot of color, cuteness, or visual appeal for my daughter. From the start, the lack of extras rubbed Mackenzie the wrong way. She was looking for some kind of feed back or encouragement such as a smiling character or a cheerful sound for a job well done. Because of the lack of bells & whistles I would probably recommend this program for older students.

That being said, there is a lot about it that I liked from a parental stand point. The intelligent design makes the instruction very focused on what your child needs to work on and the record keeping for the parents is spot on. My daughter did like the pie chart a lot. Every time she mastered something on the chart she would eagerly tell me about it.

While this isn't the program for us right now, it is something that I'm going to keep in mind for when she's more independent in math. I can see this program being a wonderful resource for helping us through more upper level math courses.

I also have to mention how wonderful their customer service was. I was having some difficulty loading the program onto my Mac and their tech support got me up and running in minutes. They get two thumbs up from me.

F.Y.I.

Website: http://www.aleks.com/
Age Range: K-12
Pricing: $19.95/student/month, or $99.95/6 months, or $179.95 for 12 months

Try it FREE for two weeks HERE.

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I received a free trial of this program for review purposes. All opinions are my own.

Weekly Wrap-Up The One With Double Science

2012-02-11T17:22:00.001-05:00

This week’s wrap-up is a two-for-one since I didn’t get around to writing one last week.

In My Life These Last Two Weeks…

My little fifth grader went and turned 11 last week so I just ran out of time for blogging. This week has really been no better on time, as the wee one turned four today, but what can you do? Next week is their party so I’m sure that will be crazy too. lol

Mackenzie got to start her special day with birthday cake batter pancakes for breakfast, open her presents, take a trip to the mall where she surprised us by wanting to get her eyebrows done (for REALZ! Can you believe it? lol I was so thankful that I had brought my camera.) And she ended the day with a delicious dinner at Carrabba’s.

What’s Not Working For Us…

It’s not that there is anything not working for us this week, it’s just that we had planned a Disney Cruise for the family that would have left today. Except that we’re not on it. We found a house that we really, really, really LOVE (as opposed to the townhouse with no yard we currently occupy) so we decided to hold off on the cruise and put the money toward being able to buy the new place. And it’s really cold and rainy today. Boo! Okay, whine over. lol I reserve the right to whine again if I’m not living in a new house within the next ten months. In that case I’ll be taking a two week cruise. lol

In Our Homeschool the Last Couple of Weeks…

We’ve been doing lots and lots of fun science stuff. We’re winding up our unit on blood and it’s been in-ter-est-ing. Apologia science rocks!

We were talking about the importance of iron in your blood and how a lot of foods were iron fortified for this reason. Then we did this really cool, and crazy simple, experiment showing the iron in our food.

Step 1: Get some iron fortified cereal and crush it real fine.

Step 2: Drop a magnet into the bag of crushed cereal and shake.

Step 3: Pull out the magnet and observe all of the iron stuck to it. Amazing.

She also drew a model of blood. Not as exciting as the model made out of the candy but she still did a good job. And the candy model stuck with her so she was able to draw it lickety-split.

The coolest thing was typing her blood. That’s right, we typed her blood. And I got to poke her with a lancet so she was a tad unnerved at the thought. (And I’m going to admit to being a tad excited because she had been mouthy that day. lol) Of course, it doesn’t really hurt much but she didn’t know that. After you put samples on the designated card spots you have to tilt the card in four directions for 10 seconds each direction. Then you have to compare the results to the samples in the instructions.

It appeared to us that she is O positive. Unless we screwed something up. It was pretty cool.

In other schooling, we are down to just one math program as our review time on the other two is up. She is still enjoying playing Math Rider and I only have one left to finish. Woot! We are loving what we’re reviewing for Bible and our China study is going well. Not only are we enjoying our reading (Eric Liddell, Young Fu and the Upper Yangtze, and God’s Adventurer) but our maps are still accurate. Totally awesome! Way to go Sonlight!!

Places We’re Going…

We went to the symphony this week. It was FAB-U-LOUS!! Especially the last piece.

They ended with a bang!

TOS Review: Math Rider

2012-02-03T20:25:00.001-05:00

We were recently given the opportunity to review a fun math game for kids. Drilling math facts is never my daughter's first choice for entertainment but playing on Math Rider made certainly took the sting out of this previously dreaded task.

About Math Rider

Math Rider is an intelligent math game created to help students quickly master their basic math facts.

From the creators:

Ride your horse on noble quests through the magical MathLands. MathRider combinesfun math game play with a highly sophisticated question engine that adapts to your child. The game propels your child to mastery of all four math operations using numbers 0 to 12 in record time.

Your student, and their trusty horse Shadow, are invited to go on a magical quest through the MathLands in order to rescue Princess Fairblossom. Practicing their math facts will quickly become a much anticipated activity.

Your child can choose a quest involving one of the four math operations. Each operation contains four quests ranging from easy to master. Each quest consists of 30 hurdles. To jump the hurdles your child must correctly answer a math problem. The horse will jump as slowly or quickly as your child answers the questions. If they miss a question the horse will stop and the question will be read out loud.

At the end of the quest, your child earns a reward. The rewards vary depending on the quest and the quest level. Your child's success with the game depends solely on their ability to answer the questions correctly. There are no fancy controls or timing involved. All they need to do is type in the answer and hit enter. This is a plus for younger children and those who have under-developed fine motor control.

Our Experience

My daughter is one of those children who run the other way when she hears the word math. It doesn't matter that she's pretty good at it, it is at the bottom of her list of things she'd want to be doing. That being said, she LOVES this game. She willingly played it every day and even played it during her free time on the computer. That is high praise.

She was a little put off when she started her second quest because the storyline was the same. But when she finished the quest and saw a different reward pop up in her little kingdom, she was thrilled. She didn't care about the storyline any more, she has been completing quest after quest to add to her kingdom.

She did have one suggestion for the game. She would've liked the ability to customize her character and her horse. Other than she was a happy camper. She is still playing this daily, even though we are finished with the review.

There is also plenty of feedback for the parents to check and see how their students are doing. There is an easy to read number table that shows at a glance what the student needs to work on.

We would definitely recommend this program to elementary students and even for middle school students who need to work on math facts. It is super fun and very user friendly. My ten year old daughter was able to set up her quests without any input from me.

It's also great for families with a slower Internet connection, as it is not played online. Just download it once and you are off. And it works on Windows and MAC operating systems.

F.Y.I.

Website: http://mathrider.com/
Ages: 6-12
Pricing: $37 through February 15. After the $15 it goes up to $47.
Try it FREE for 7 days.

To learn more watch this video

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I was given a copy of this product for review purposes. All opinions are my own.

TOS Review: KinderBach

2012-02-01T19:53:00.003-05:00

My youngest daughter, Kayleigh, has pretty much spent most of her life waiting for her sister while she took lessons of one kind or another. She's sat through endless sports events and quite a few piano recitals. She's been counting down the days until she's old enough to take music lessons like her big sister.

When we received word that we were going to be reviewing KinderBach at Home, that day came a little bit sooner. Boy was Kayleigh excited!

About Kinderbach

Kinderbach is an online piano program for children ages 3-7 years of age. It's also available on DVD and is compatible with the iPad. KinderBach uses fun characters to teach rhythm, note reading, and singing.

There are 60 weeks worth of lessons available and they are broken down into four sessions a week. They use a variety of materials to engage all types of learners. Lessons include fun videos, learning games, and hands on pages to cement the learning. The curriculum is even aligned with the MENC standards for pre-k learning.

Our Experience

This program is so easy to use that even a non-musical person like me can handle it. There is very little teacher prep. All I really have to do is print the learning pages and start the videos. It is really that simple.

As for Kayleigh, she loved it! I printed a few weeks worth of learning pages and put them in a notebook for her and she was thrilled to pieces. Now she had a music book just like her big sister. She loves to remove her sisters piano books from the keyboard stand and place
hers there. LOL

She enjoyed watching the videos and playing games with Karri. She really thought it was cool when we'd play the lessons on our iPad while she was sitting at the keyboard.

The learning pages have been fun and engaging for her. Most of the time there are meant to be completed as you watch the video. And not only was she learning piano and music from them, she was also working on things like colors and counting. It's always a plus to a homeschool mom when you can piggy back the learning. She also got to do activities involving other instruments, usually ones that you could make. We had a lot of stuff lying around the house that she was able to use.

Kayleigh definitely gives it two thumbs up! So does mom!

F.Y.I.

Website: http://www.kinderbach.com/index.html

Ages: 3-7

Price: Online lessons as low as $7.99 per month and DVD sets starting at $40.45

KinderBach has generously offered a coupon code that gives 30% off any order - homeschool, classroom, online or DVDs. AND it is good for one year! Expires 2-2-2013.

Coupon Code: TOScrew2012

Click on the Crew banner to see what others have to say about this great program.

I received a 3 month trial of KinderBach for review purposes. All opinions are my own. And my daughters.

Tot School: D is for Dance

2012-01-29T14:31:00.002-05:00

Kayleigh is 3.95 years old

This week we were focusing on the letter D. Our verse was another fitting one, Philippians 2:14, especially for my oldest daughter. LOL Our spines for Kayleigh’s activities continue to be Sonlight core p 3/4, Raising Rock Stars Preschool, and All About Reading level pre-1.

Raising Rock Stars

Do all things without complaining or disputing. Philippians 2:14 was our verse this week. I chose the I Am Helpful virtue from our We Choose Virtues cards to compliment our verse. We talked a lot about how we should respond when asked to do something. Kayleigh surprised me by actually doing a few helpful things for me without being asked. Yay! Here’s our Raising Rock Stars work in action. She’s still not big on the coloring pages but she is very interested in learning to write so she works hard on her tracing pages. She really enjoyed writing letter D because I told her she need to draw” a nice straight back and a big, fat belly.” “Like Santa?” Sure…And she was in love with D. LOL She wasn’t all that thrilled with the length of her verse this week once she was done cutting it out. LOL As you can see on her RRSP craft, she didn’t want to color the page and she gave the smiley face a “make over instead.”

All About Reading

We had a lot of fun with our AAR lessons this week. We played a rhyming came with Zecora Zebra using picture cards that came with the kit. Kayleigh had blast with the letter craft this week. She grudgingly colored the D and the dog but then she got to “make a dress” for the dog out of fabric and then paint “dog food” that the dog spilled onto the ground. (In this week’s AAR story the dogs were messy. lol) Big hit! For our tactile letter activity this week, we built our D using the cling pieces that game with our Grasshopper Preschool Prep kit. That was also a big hit and Kayleigh decided to make A, B, and C too.

Sonlight

We are continuing to read a lot of fairy tales in our Sonlight reading. There were a lot of princess stories this week and Kayleigh was thrilled. We also read a couple of new ones that I had never heard of before. Have you read Diamonds and Toads or The Fisherman and his Wife before? Even at the age of 40, I’m still learning stuff in pre-k. lol

Other Fun Stuff

Kayleigh continues to work hard on writing her names. She loves to write on the Crayola Dry Erase Board. I’m so glad that Carisa over at 1+1+1=1 mentioned this awesome tool. I love being able to slip all kinds of printables into it.

We worked on her counting skills using these fun activity from PreKinders. She had to draw the correct number of spots on the dog. She loved this. Then we put the cards into numerical order.

Also from PreKinders was a dog pattern block page and a dog and cat grid game.

We did several activities from ABC Animals. We dot painted our D is for dolphin craft. Kayleigh is IN LOVE with dolphins ever since she first saw Dolphin Tale. She gave some dolphins make overs according to the color written on their bellies. We also put some flash cards into ABC order in our pocket chart. I wasn’t sure how she would like doing that last one but I guess every thing is fun when it involves a pocket chart. lol

She insisted on “sewing” again this week so we got out some lacing cards from our Lauri Pre-K Kit. We also practiced our shapes using our Matching Middles game.

I found this cute “What number is missing?” printable in our Letter of the Week files from COAH. We used number stamps and filled in the missing number. We also did some rhyming puzzles that I got out of a Scholastic book flyer.

And lastly Kayleigh had a little dance show at her Little Gym class. Watch her as she doesn’t pay attention to what she’s supposed to be doing and I scratch my head wondering why I shell out the bucks. LOL Must be because she’s cute.

Kayleigh’s Tap Dance

Kayleigh ballet

Weekly Wrap-Up: The One With the Blood

2012-01-28T16:07:00.005-05:00

In My Life This Week:

We’re back to cheerleading and basketball now which means an extra night out of the house for practice. During this season I find myself dreaming and thinking in “cheer.” Always a good time. lol This year I’m attempting to teach the cheerleaders a dance routine. It’s proving to be quite interesting. I should probably take some video before they get good at it.

In Our Homeschool This Week:

We’ve started reviewing something new for Bible, Who Am I? from Apologia’s What We Believe series. Like all things Apologia, it is really well done and Mackenzie LOVES it.

This week was our first week Growing With Grammar. It’s going well. It’s very different than First/Advanced Language Lessons. For starters, it’s very independent, there’s very little involvement required from me. That’s kind of nice. She reads the text then completes the practice pages. And there are even tests every seven lessons or so. Mackenzie seems to like it. Probably because it’s not much of a challenge for her. It’s definitely not as in depth as ALL. I probably could’ve put her into level 6.

In social studies we finished up Korea. We’re almost finished with Tales of a Korean Grandmother. Mackenzie is still getting a hold of it and reading on her own. Always a sign of a good book. For her “Choose Your Adventure” project she made a brochure on Korea. You’ve got to love word process programs that make it so easy.

We are now moving on to China. We’ve been waiting impatiently to get to our China study because we have been dying to use the China activity box that came with the core. Finally, our time has arrived. Her current read aloud is about Hudson Taylor and his missionary work in China. She’s already written a little mini-report, on the Forbidden City, for one of her Eastern Hemisphere Explorer assignments. I probably should’ve read it over before I posted it but grading is next on my list after I get my post written. =o)

In science, we have moved onto a lesson on blood. And boy was it fun! we got to make a model of blood. Out of candy. Woot!! Check it out…

Our corn syrup "plasma”

Red hot “red blood cells”

White Jelly Bean “white blood cells” Sprinkle “platelets”

How cool is that?

My Favorite Thing This Week:
Watching Mackenzie score her teams first basket at her game this week. Not only didn’t she duck when the ball came at her, she took the shot. Progress. Go Mackenzie!!!

Tot School: Cc

2012-01-22T09:09:00.002-05:00

Kayleigh is 3.75 years old

This week we our focus has been the letter C. I have to say that her memory verse this week was fabulous, Colossians 3:20. Woot!

Raising Rock Stars

As I already mentioned, our verse this week was Colossians 3:20 “Children obey your parents in all things for this is well pleasing to the Lord.” Very timely because behaviors and attitudes in both of the girls have not been well pleasing in either of the girls as of late. I love it when God works things out so nicely. And I enjoy hearing my older daughter groan when she hears the new verse and mumble, “He always does know what’s going on doesn’t He?” Yes my dear he always does. lol

Kayleigh worked hard on coloring her verse, two fisted no less, “reading” her vocabulary cards, learning to write C, and cutting out her verse. Once again, the verse was of satisfactory length. We’re still working on memorizing this one. She seems to be stumbling over” well pleasing.” Part of me thinks that she just doesn’t like what it implies. LOL

All About Reading

All About Reading continues to go well. Kayleigh really likes it and is doing a great job. So far there hasn’t been anything terribly challenging so I’m considering spending up the lessons a bit. I haven’t really make up my mind though. I hate to ruin the good groove that we’re in. Decisions, decisions.

This week we played a fun rhyming game called “Out of the Wagon.” I’d put in three picture cards, two of which rhymed, onto our wagon picture. Kayleigh would decide which two rhymed and then tell the other one to “get out of the wagon!” Zecora the Zebra would help her push the oddball out. She wanted to use our Handwriting Without Tears pieces again for her tactile activity but no pictures. Her craft was finger painting the C to look like a cookie and then glue on little “chocolate chips.” Yum! Then we ate some real ones. By we I mean her because they’re not on my diet.

Sonlight

We’ve been reading a lot of fairy tales this week. Kayleigh was cracking up over The Emperor’s New Clothes. I never realized how much I dislike Jack and the Beanstalk until I was reading it to Kayleigh this week. He disobeyed his mom, snuck out of the house, and stole. I don’t like him.

Other Learning Fun

We also did some other learning activities using ideas from 1+1+1=1, Confessions of a Homeschooler, PreKinders, and stuff from our stash.

We have a new app on the iPad that she really likes called Dots-for-Tots. I like it because I’m working on counting objects with her, she likes to count at her own pace regardless of the number of objects, and this has been helping with that. It’s kind of like a dot-to-dot and it counts out loud with you.

We did a couple of activities from the ABC Animals. I was cracking up when she saw the word caterpillar at the bottom of the page. “That word has too much letters.” Bwaa haa haa! And apparently she thinks caterpillars are creepy. She decided to call the ones on her craft pickles because “I wike pickles.” As long as you know that pickle doesn’t start with C.

I pulled out some of our Letter of the Week activities from COAH. I love that I have these already cut, laminated, and ready to go. We did some color matching, sorting by size, and lacing. She’s still very into lacing.

We practiced counting by “feeding the cat”, made a caterpillar out of pattern blocks, and worked on our colors and color words using three-part cards. All of these activities came from PreKinders.

We worked on shapes and ordering by size with some of the activities from the Hungry Caterpillar pack that we did last year. I believe it’s been updated recently but I haven’t checked that out yet.

From our stash we did a C alphabet maze, patterned with our Learning Links, and worked in our Kumon Number book.

And that was our very busy week. This is the third week in a row that we’ve managed to check off everything on our list. I think we might be on a roll. Click on the buttons at the top of the page to see what other tots have been up too.

Weekly Wrap-Up: The One with a Snag

2012-01-20T20:52:00.004-05:00

This week was pretty great, except for one snag. I’ll get to that later.

We wrapped up our study on Japan and started on Korea. For her Choose Your Own Adventure she decided to make an origami crane. It came out pretty good. She also made a really nice collage about Japanese art forms but I didn’t get a picture of it.

She’s continuing to be on math overload. Two review items on top of her regular math. One of the review items she LOVES because it’s a game, the other is more like math class so it’s not as popular with her, but it is computer based so she doesn’t mind it.

In science this week we finished up our unit on the respiratory system. We ended the unit by making a model of the diaphragm and it was co-ol!

The yellow balloon represents the lungs and the blue the diaphragm. When the diaphragm contracts, it creates a vacuum in the chest cavity, filling the lungs with air. When it relaxes, it pushes air out of the lungs.

Our snag this week, came in the form of language arts. As you may recall, we have been using Advanced Language Lessons for grammar and Writing With Skill.   In both cases, we were working off of rough drafts of the books, as neither had been published, as Susan Wise Bauer was gracious enough to share the first 15 weeks of both while folks while they were waiting for them to be published. Recently, WWS was released and I have still been waiting on ALL.

I received an email from UPS early this week stating I had a package being delivered. A package? What did I order? I couldn’t remember. Then I remembered the ALL that I had preordered. Maybe?? I checked with Amazon and it wasn’t ALL. Boo… So I decided to check on the status of publication over at the Well Trained Mind forum.

And that’s where I found the horribly, terrible, no good, bad news. Due to some snags with ALL, one of the biggest being the mammoth size of it if SWB included everything she felt need to be covered, it was being put on a permanent hold.   Wahhhhhh!!! Wahhhhh!!! Wahhhh!!!!

Sure a 1400 page LA book might seem like a lot for a fifth grade curriculum but wahhh!! We loved First Language Lesson and Advanced Language Lessons was proving to be just as good. And we have been through A LOT of LA curriculums before we found what worked for us. The thought of having to find something else…Ugh!

I did find something else to use for grammar, Growing With Grammar. A friend of mine uses it and likes and, from what I could gather from the samples, it was the closest I could find that covers what I like about ALL. Sort of.

And I have to give the GWG publishers mad props on their shipping and customer service. I ordered on Tuesday and it arrived today. It didn’t take 5 months like some companies. ::cough, cough, Winter~~Crap~~Promise cough, cough:: There was even a packing slip involved. Way to rock it GWG dudes!

And in case you were wondering what was in the “mystery package”…It was a review item and it is AWESOME.   It’s from a company that starts with an “A” and ends with an “pologia.” Woot!
In other news, cheer and basketball started back up. I’m back to chanting our lessons in the form of a cheer. lol

And that was our fun-filled week. Check out other Wrap-Ups over at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

Review: We Choose Virtues, Clue Cards

2012-01-19T20:57:00.000-05:00

About We Choose Virtues

From the Website:

Why Choose Virtues

Let's be honest, instilling virtues in kids is hard work. But can it be fun too? We think so. In fact, there's no better way to learn. So We Choose Virtues brings memorable catchphrases, endearing characters, and just plain fun to simply inspire character that lasts. It's the best choice you can make for the kids in your life.

We Choose Virtues (created by Heather McMillan) is not unit study that you use once and then move on from. It is actually a character development tool that you use every day, every year. You introduce the Virtues, then demonstrate them, memorize the catchphrases, then learn the antonyms, then capture teachable moments when they are being used…or aren’t.

Our Experience

I've seen a lot about the We Choose Virtues products lately and I've been intrigued. Virtues don't seem to be that be a very big priority in today's society but they are a priority in our home. And, even as home schoolers, it's hard to teach your kids one thing when the world dictates that these things don't matter. So when I heard that we were being given an opportunity to review some of their products I was very excited and thankful. It's something the entire family could use work on.

We received one of their newest products, Virtue Clue Cards, to review. The company's description:

They are full color and feature The Virtue Kids, their names, the Virtue catchphrase and antonyms, and on the back a "You can do it" challenge! One of the best things my mom taught us when we were little was "What to say". What to say when someone asked us to do something wrong or what to say when someone said something mean about another person, etc. I felt so prepared for those scary moments when ordinarily I wouldn't know what to say! The We Choose Virtues catchphrases are exactly "What to say". Give YOUR kids a Virtue Clue!

The 12 Virtues covered are: Forgiveness, patience, helpfulness, obedience, kindness, attentiveness, honesty, contentedness, diligence, self-controll, perseverance, and gentleness.
Each trait has a "Virtue Kid" that goes along with it. Each "kid" has their own catch phrase.

We are currently working on the obedience trait. Oboe Joe is our "partner" for this trait and his phrase is "I am Obedient. Ok, whatever you say, I will obey, right away. I am NOT...argumentative, slow or unwilling, and I don't refuse to do what I'm told."

The front of the card has a colorful picture of "Joe" and the catch phrase. On the back is a little challenge. "Choose to try to go the whole day doing everything as you are asked to do it...with a smile. Oboe Joe knows you an do it!"

These card are just a small part of the program, so I was really surprised that they gave me a really good idea of what the entire program was like. I had decided to use them as part of our morning routine (calendar and memory verses) and chose the virtue that best went along with our memory verse for the week.

The kids LOVED them! The cards gave us a fun and meaningful way to discuss these important character traits. And the phrases really are catchy. Even my three year old was able to remember them. When one of us would catch another NOT being virtuous we would just use the catch phrase as a reminder.

Now I'm not saying our character has been changed over night, far from it, but now we are more conscious of our behavior and that allows us to make changes. And now I'm even more intrigued by the entire program. If these small little cards can start making a difference I'm excited to see what the rest of the program is like.

F.Y.I.

Website: http://www.wechoosevirtues.com/
Ages: 3-18 (Yep, there's something for everyone.)
Prices: Varies depending on what you order. Individual pieces start as low as $2.99 all the up to $244.99 for classroom kits. The average homeschool kit starts around $99.

Great News!! We Choose Virtues is offering up some sweet discounts. Check out these discount codes.

VIRTUE15     for 15 % off everything in your shopping cart
FAMILY     for $3.00 off the Kids Virtue Poster
SHIPFREE     for free worldwide shipping

And that's not all...

There is also a great special running right now: Through the end of February The 100 Days of Virtue Poster and Stickers will be included FREE with any Homeschool Kit purchase!

Click on the Crew Banner to read more reviews on this wonderful product.

I received this products free for review purposes. All opinions are my own.

Tot School: Bb

2012-01-15T15:44:00.002-05:00

This week we have moved on to the letter B. We did a lot of B activities using Raising Rock Stars, All About Reading pre-1, and various activities from Tot School Printables, Animal ABCs, COAH’s Letter of the Week.

Raising Rock Stars

Our verse this week was Matthew 5:9, Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be sons of God. She did finally memorize it but it took some doing. For whatever reason, she did NOT like the world peacemakers. I have no clue what that was about. LOL Here’s a peek at some of our other activities.

Rapuzel was helping out with school one day. She was so busy helping that she didn’t bother to brush her hair.
Kayleigh was so pleased with the length of the verse this week that she made me hang it up on the wall so she could admire it without having to hold it up.
Our song this week was The B-I-B-L-E and Kayleigh insisted on dancing with one of her bibles everyday. lol

All About Reading

This week we played some rhyming games with Zecora, formerly known as Ziggy. I was pleased with how well she did with this. We hadn’t really worked on rhyming before so I guess all the Dr. Suess reading has paid off.

For our letter craft we dot painted blueberries onto the B and added some nice grass along the bottom. Kayleigh liked the painting and the gluing but wasn’t really interested in posing with the finished product.

For our tactile B activity, I deviated from the AAR list and got out our wooden letter pieces from Handwriting Without Tears. She LOVED this and spent another 30 minutes just building with them.

Sonlight

AAR recommends 20 minutes of reading aloud each day and that is a perfect fit with our love of Sonlight. Our readings for this week came from Hans Christian Anderson’s Fairy Tales, 20th Century Children’s Book Treasury, Richard Scary’s What do People do All Day, and the Family Time Bible. Naturally, Kayleigh is never satisfied with what is scheduled for reading. We scoff at 20 minutes. lol

Other Fun Stuff

Kayleigh happened to be sitting near me one day while I was doing some blog reading. I happened to be over at 1+1+1=1 and she noticed that Ladybug was doing “Zecora School” like her. Then she noticed that Ladybug was doing a cool alligator A. And where was her alligator A? So now we’ve added in some of Carisa’s Animal ABCs. Very cute! And Kayleigh also enjoyed a lot of the extra printables too.
Backtracking a bit and doing the alligator craft.

Which lead to her painting her nails. Literally. With paint. Please note that she DOES NOT like her nails painted with nail polish. It freaks her out for whatever reason. Like the word “peacemakers.”

We worked on our Brainy Baby puzzles and a jigsaw that she got for Christmas. The jigsaw pieces were a bit tight so she hammered them in.

Dot painting Bb

She’s working on writing her name and she had a BLAST with the color page from ABC Animals. Instead of coloring all of the bears she decided to give them makeovers using the correct colors. She spent days on that.

Traced some shapes.

Played My Little Pony.

We played a fun butterfly counting game from COAH.

Kumon dot-to-dots and sewing. She requested the lacing so I had to print one out real quick.

She hunted for Bs in a little butterfly poem and worked on her ABC Animal B. She spent a great deal of time lining up dot paint bottles instead of actually painting.

And we got back into our Artistic Pursuit lessons. This week she had to draw one of her favorite things. She chose her new Belle baby doll. Her drawings crack me up. And she got as much marker on her nose as on her paper. Smelly markers are so tempting. lol

And that was our week. We actually accomplished everything that I set out to do. A miracle.
Click the buttons at the top of the page to see what other tots have been up to.

Weekly Wrap-Up: The One Without Any Pictures

2012-01-13T22:18:00.000-05:00

It was a rather uneventful week of homeschooling this week. Well as long as you don't count sour attitudes. I am NOT enjoying the pre-teen hormones and drama. At. All.

There's been a lot of math going on at our house. Our regular, and much loved, Math-U-See along with a couple of review items. She should be dreaming about math at this point. lol

We're finishing up our unit on the respiratory system. Did you know that the force behind a sneeze is equivalent to hurricane force winds? When we were talking about the trachea the book suggested feeling your next to feel the cartilage rings. She refused because apparently all body parts freak her out. She reacted the same way when learning about her ribs. Strange child. Next week we'll finish up the unit with a couple of experiments.

In social studies we're continuing on with our study of Japan. We're still reading about Commodore Perry's interactions with Japan. It is such a fascinating look into the Japanese culture. It's amazing that Japan was able to remain so reclusive for so long. Mackenzie was also reading The Cat Who Went to Heaven and has now moved on to Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes. Our read aloud is Tales of a Korean Grandmother but Mackenzie has taken to reading it herself because she just couldn't wait for her sister's nap time to see what happens next.

Sonlight's Eastern Hemisphere Explorer continues to go really well. I was really worried about this resource because I've heard that it can take hours to work through the assignments. Mackenzie, however, has done really well with them. It's never taken her more than 20 minutes for her to complete her assignments. Maybe she has a knack for research. She is a bit slow about getting the "Choose Your Own Adventures" done though. They're either research/report activities or a bit on the crafty side. I don't think she likes crafts as much as she claims. LOL She gets that from me. Of course, I'm totally open with my craft aversion.

Language arts is going. She's been working on adverbs this week and she started working in The Creative Writer. She was learning about plot lines and such. In her Writing With Skill she's been working on figurative language, metaphors and similes in particular. Mackenzie thought those were quite fun.

At the moment, that is all I can recall. I'm almost 40 and a half so my mind isn't what it once was. If only I hadn't left last weeks lesson plan sheet in the school room. But, on the bright side, I did get my wrap-up done on a Friday. It's been forever since I've managed to accomplish that.

Check out other Wrap-Ups over at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

Review: Maestro Classics, The Story of Swan Lake

2012-01-10T20:09:00.000-05:00

It might surprise some people to learn that my daughters and I have a great love for classical music. We enjoying listening to it, watching people dance to it, my daughter likes to play it on her piano. So it was with great delight that we learned that we'd be reviewing Maestro Classics' The Story of Swan Lake. We love ballet and Tchaikovsky so we waited with great anticipation for this CD to arrive.

About Maestro Classics Stories in Music

There products are so much more than a classical music CDs. From the company's website:

Our Mission: To cultivate a love of music through education and joyful performances.

Stories in Music™ is the award-winning audio CD series for family listening. These recordings for narrator and symphony orchestra introduce great music and classics stories and provide the opportunity to develop important listening skills.

Three Major Benefits:

Expand listening horizons.

Our goals are to expand musical horizons, develop listening skills, and encourage parents and children to listen to music together. Listening to the complex patterns of classical music has been shown to stimulate brain development. This series makes it fun!

Develop listening skills and accumulate musical memories.

These CDs highlight Stephen Simon’s unique ability to explain how to listen to music. His joyful music-making, his interest in a broad range of musical styles, and his compositional skills provide entertaining and educational middle tracks. Bonnie Ward Simon weaves background information on the composer, the work and its place in history, both on the CDs and in the program book.

Encourage adults and children to listen to music together.

Listening is becoming a lost art. We encourage you to take the time to develop this crucial skill and delight in a world of wonderful music.

After listening to our CD many times, I am certain that they are doing a great job with their mission.

Our Experience

As I mentioned before, we enjoy classical music. We have been doing composer studies for years and Tchaikovsky is one of our favorites. It was no surprise that we enjoyed the music. That was a given for us. A fabulous recording of a fabulous score performed by a fabulous orchestra? Can you say London Philharmonic Orchestra? Oh yeah, they can play. You can't not like the music.

But it is so much more. You start off with a child-friendly narration a story about a prince who falls in love with a princess who is under spell. Unfortunately she turns into a swan every evening. The narration set to the music from Swan Lake. It's simply wonderful. Even my three year old asks to listen to it.

Next you get to enjoy a couple of tracks about the life of Tchaikovsky and some of the musical concepts behind the music. There is also a funny little sing along theme song for you to enjoy. And did I mention Speed Metal Swan yet? This gem is a heavy metal version of the main theme. It is awesome. With Joe Stump playing guitar on the track, how could it not be?

Included with the CD is a wonderful program guide. It includes info on the talent, interesting facts about Tchaikovsky, words and music to the theme song, and fun puzzles. Not only was my ten year old excited to see that there was music so she could play the theme on the piano but there was a maze too. Score! The website also offers a whole host of other educational materials; music teacher lesson plans, homeschool curriculum guides, project ideas. Simply fabulous!

I have nothing but love for this product. It was delightful and The Sorcerer's Apprentice, My Name is Handel, and Peter and the Wolf are on my "too be purchased list." If you enjoy classical music, or want to give classical music a try, I can't recommend this series enough. Wonderful!

F.Y.I.

Website: http://www.maestroclassics.com/

Age Range: 4+

Price: $9.98 for mp3 download, $16.98 for the CD They are also available on iTunes or Amazon

Click on the Crew banner for more reviews of this great product.

I received a free copy of this CD for review purposes. All opinions are my own.

Tot School: The One Where We Change it Up a Bit

2012-01-08T07:58:00.001-05:00

Kayleigh is 3.75 years old

It’s hard to believe that another year has gone by. It’s even harder to believe that my baby is going to be four next month. Ack! And my big baby 11. Double ack! Bitter sweet.

At any rate, growing girls mean changes, not only in age, but in ability. While my little miss tries to be difficult and hide what she knows, I can see that she has been soaking up what she’s been learning like a sponge. And it appears that my little darling is showing signs of reading readiness despite her attempts to hide them. Ha!! I’m on to you Kayleigh.

In light of this we’re changing it up a bit. Along with our Sonlight p 3/4 and Raising Rock Stars preschool work we are adding in All About Reading pre-1. It has been a perfect addition so far because it’s so easy to implement. And it’s fun. Kayleigh is LOVING it. She won’t necessarily be able to read after completing it because it’s more of a get ready to read program. I’ll let ARR explain it in their own words.

Our new All About Reading program is unique because it begins with Level Pre-1 for preschoolers and kindergarteners, and it focuses on what we call the Big Five Skills. These five fundamental pre-reading skills include letter knowledge, phonological awareness, print awareness, listening comprehension, and motivation to read. It is this specific set of skills that helps pre-readers understand the basics of language and how it works, preparing them to learn to read.

With All About Reading Level Pre-1, your child will play special games, enjoy little crafts, and engage in charming story time activities, all the while absorbing these all-important Big Five Skills.

At the moment, I’m only planning on working on one letter a week so it adds maybe 15 minutes to our “school” 3 times a week. It goes through all the capital letters first, focusing on recognition and a lot of rhyming and word play, then it goes on to lower case and more phonemic awareness. And it involves a puppet which thrills Kayleigh to know end. Zacoura (she renamed it after some zebra on My Little Pony lol) now does all of her school with her.

The only change in the rest of our time is that I rearranged the RRSPK order to follow along with AAR. Our Sonlight books fill in the AAR read aloud requirement quite nicely. So it’s all blending very well for us.

So here’s a peek at what we did.

Our Sonlight read alouds came from the 20th Century Children’s Book Treasury. We, of course, had to read extra. This was always one of Mackenzie’s favorite books as a little one too. Chock full of wonderful stories.

This week in AAR we talked about capital A and played a lot of rhyming games with Zacoura. Zacoura was also very helpful during our calendar time. Our only issue was Kayleigh getting offended when I wanted to take a picture of her with her goggly-eyed alligator. lol

Our verse this week was Proverbs 15:1 A soft answer turns away wrath. A very fitting verse for everybody in the house. I saw those Crayola Dry Erase Centers on sale this week and I picked one up. She loves writing on that thing more. It will save me a little laminating too.

We did some other activities using stuff from my LOTW stash, tot school printables, and games and manipulatives I have lying around. I was pleased to see that she is finally getting the hang of, and enjoying, lacing cards. The Lauri puzzles with a hammer are always a big hit. She wasn’t as interested in working with tongs this week but she did a great job on a color by number sheet. We also did some shape sorting and matching, folding from our Kumon book, stamped her name, some pre-writing in the dry erase center and some letter matching using magnets. She’s also been a jigsaw puzzle maniac. She got several Melissa and Doug jigsaws for Christmas and has been doing them non-stop. I took pictures but I forgot to add them to the collage.

And Kayleigh is also working on a super-fun review item that she just LOVES. KinderBach. She is thrilled to have “piano class” like her big sister. I’m thrilled that we can view the lessons on our iPad. (And those are all the sneak peeks you’re getting!)

Weekly Wrap-Up: The One in 2012

2012-01-07T11:41:00.001-05:00

It’s back to the grind, back to reality. I was a bit excited and bit sad to give up my “life of leisure.” lol

Our plan for Christmas school using the Christmas bits from Winter Promise fell through the cracks a couple of weeks in. It was okay. She found some of the reading to “babyish” and then the rest was typical WP. They give you a couple paragraphs of info and then left you hanging. We found ourselves having to dig a lot deeper, which wasn’t in our plan for a relaxed Christmas school. So like all things Winter Promise, we ditched it. We focused on something useful, our Jotham’s Journey readings and she did a lot of Kayleigh’s advent crafts.

With the start of the New Year, we’re making a few changes. Mackenzie is very into creative writing lately so I bought a creative writing course, The Creative Writer, from Peace Hill Press, home of the rest of our LA curriculum. I like it because it’s mainly meant for her to work on independently. Other changes are coming, mainly TOS Crew related. Some I’m very excited about.

Some of our highlights…

We are back to our beloved Visual Latin. Oh how we missed you. Between our Christmas break and our Spanish review it’s been too long.

In science we are starting a study on the respiratory system. So fascinating how God created everything so perfectly. One of our experiments involved studying how our mucus membranes help keep nasties our of our body. We used honey as our mucus and set it outside to see how it could keep airborne nasties from entering our bodies.

Unfortunately we never got to see the results because Daddy saw it outside and threw it away. How awful!

We also talked about the vocal cords this week and did some fun experiments about how the thickness and length of the cords effect pitch.

In our Sonlight studies, we are still studying Japan. Since we’ve both been to Japan, we are loving this. Plus it’s making us a little hungry for some real Japanese food.

At the moment we are reading about how Commodore Matthew Perry’s visit to the country led to huge changes. I was worried that this book might be a little boring but it’s really good so far. We are finishing up The Master Puppeteer as our read aloud. It is fabulous!!!! We’re a bit ahead because we can’t stop reading. Mackenzie is also reading The Big Wave as her reader and she’s ahead in that too.

Math is back on track, she’s still plugging away on fractions with Mr. Demme. This week she’s been working on multiplying fractions. Naturally, she freaked when she heard what the lesson was on. Typical Mackenzie drama. Then she actually watched it and all was well.

She’s also having fun reviewing basic math facts with Math Rider, a current review item.

We are slowly getting back into the groove. Next week all of our extras, piano, art, cheer, and basketball, start back up so life will be very full.

Check out other Wrap-ups over at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

Review: R.E.A.L. Homeschool Spanish

2011-12-30T14:50:00.000-05:00

We recently had an opportunity to review a new Spanish program specific to homeschooling families. Homeschool Spanish was created with the intent to get the whole family involved, which is always a plus to a homeschooling family.

About the Program

From the Author...

REAL Homeschool Spanish trains you and your child to be able to learn Spanish together and interact together in fun and interesting ways.

You can interact with your children in an immersion environment using REAL Homeschool Spanish's east to follow "Home Educator Tips" and our unique "idea" sections which give you literally pages of suggestions on how you and your child can use Spanish during your day and throughout the week in a home learning environment/lifestyle.

Learn how to continue your language-learning journey outside of the initial learning stage. Play games with your child...bingo, hangman, create albums, have your child design his/her own board game...These are just a few ways for you to be able to create a personalized language-learning environment in your home.

The curriculum is divided into ten learning units which cover: greetings, colors/numbers, food, family, anatomy, clothing/weather/seasons/months, places/transportation/days of the week/verbs/grammar, animals/nature, sports/grammar, and house/grammar. Each unit introduces new vocabulary using a conversational format, meant to be used throughout your daily life. Then you work through various activities in the activity book and more hands-on projects in the tips and ideas sections.

Our Experience

Wow! I'm not even sure what to say. My download included two "texts, in color and B&W, an activity book, audio files, an answer key, and a daily curriculum guide. This curriculum contains so much material. Pages, and pages, and pages of ideas. At first I was a bit overwhelmed with it. Then I noticed the curriculum guide, which had it all broken down for me. Shew! I don't speak a foreign language, I don't know how to plan for it, I need someone to tell me what to do.

We started off each unit working through the vocabulary using the handy-dandy audio files. They are totally awesome for a non-Spanish speaking mom like me. I have butchered many a foreign language in my time. We use the audio files everyday to help us review the correct pronunciation.

We would spend the rest of the on various activities in the activity guide, projects from the idea section, or visiting cultural websites. One of my daughter's favorite projects was making a comic strip in Spanish. I'm sure that one will be repeated. These are the activities that take the learning one step further and help cement it in their brains. Plus they're fun.

My favorite things: The curriculum guide, audio files, and the fact that I could load the texts on my iPad so I didn't have to read off of the computer. Woot!!

My cons: I need more structure. Sounds crazy since I've already mentioned how wonderful the curriculum guide is. However, a lot of the projects are more craft related. I am not a crafty or creative person and when someone tells me to make a board game or a puppet my eyes start to glaze over and I automatically envision hours of sweeping up glitter. Some of suggestions for extending the learning kind of intimidated me due to my aforementioned craft aversion. I think I'd probably fare better with a "kit" of everything I needed all ready to go for me. I need step by step directions on how to make the board game. Sad, I know. I realize that this is all MY issue and probably won't be a problem for most people.

F.Y.I.

Website: http://www.realhomeschoolspanish.com/about.html
Samples: http://www.realhomeschoolspanish.com/samples.html
Ages: For the entire family
Pricing:
Downloadable Book Bundle $49.95
Downloadable Book Bundle w/ Curriculum Guide $59.95
Book Bundle Hard Copy $89.95 + free shipping
Book Bundle Hard Copy w/ Curriculum Guide $99.95 + free shipping

Click the Crew Banner below to read more reviews of Homeschool Spanish.

I received a free copy of Homeschool Spanish for review purposes. All opinions are my own.

Hey, We're Still Here

2011-12-27T19:11:00.001-05:00

I haven't been feeling like blogging again, too much Christmas fun to be bothered. And maybe some Christmas lay-around-and-do-nothing was involved to. And, quite possibly, my December Daily book has kept me so busy that I don't want to be on the computer for anything else.

Mackenzie has just been enjoying her free time. Kayleigh has done some tot school but I haven't gotten around to editing those photos so you'll just have to take my word for it. lol

Next week, we'll be back to the grind. We have a few changes in store for us and a lot of great things to review. I'll share more about that later. For now I'll share some more of my December Daily layouts.

Review: Letters Make Words App

2011-12-15T15:53:00.002-05:00

I was recently given the opportunity to review the Letter Make Words app using the Barchowsky Fluent Handwriting method.

From the Letters Make Words Company:

The user can select any letter. Each one comprises a complete unit of instruction for that letter, a warmup pattern, the letter and a word to trace and to sound out. When a letter has a different sound depending on its usage in words, choose from either of two words. The next screen has three words to sound out with a silly sentence for the child to write on paper.

A friendly voice coaches the child to finger trace with the index finger, thereby encouraging good pencil/pen hold when actually writing. It’s the index finger that should push a pen to make marks with the greatest ease of movement.

Lowercase letters are featured. An app for capitals and numerals will follow soon. Lowercase are the ones we most need when we write, and are the easiest to form.

Letter-related warmup patterns start each unit to help the child with formations.
Starting points and directions for strokes are clearly defined, graphically and by the audio that guides a child through all finger tracing and pronunciation.

Letters are designed for ease of writing and legibility. Reversals (b for d, etc.) are never an issue with the formations used in this app.

Our Experience

We are huge fans of our iPad and were so excited to be able to review an app for it. Especially since it was an app for our preschooler, who generally commandeers the iPad for her own personal use. I wasn't sure how well a handwriting app would go over with her though, she doesn't like to be told what to write. LOL Much to my surprise, she really likes this app. I, however, found it a little frustrating.

It starts off with a warm up for the letter. As the child traces the form is supposed to change color. Which it does, sort of. It gradually darkens the moment your finger is put on the starting spot. However it doesn't follow where the child actually writes. From a teaching perspective, I found that a little frustrating because she'd be writing anywhere and the form would still change color. Other times I would trace it, on the lines, and it wouldn't change at all. So there is no direction as to whether the child is doing it correctly or not.

After the warm up pattern is traced it asks if the letter can fit on the pattern? It always answers "not exactly but it moves in the same way." I found that confusing and I already know how to write. You are then given an opportunity to trace the actual letter and a word using the letter. When the child traces the word, they point out the sound that the letter makes. However, they may or may not have learned to write the other letters in the word. That can be stressful for the child.

Lastly they are given words to use in a sentence that they are to write with pencil and paper. I found this to be a very odd request. I would never ask a child who is just learning to form letters to write an entire sentence.

Final Thoughts

After using this app with my child, I see more as a supplement for a student needing extra help in handwriting rather than for a child learning to form letters. I don't think it offers enough correction for a student new to handwriting. Clearly, I had some frustrations with the method but I think those would be alleviated if the app were directed towards children who already able to write letters.

That being said, my daughter does like it. She enjoys attempting to trace the patterns, the teaching voice was pleasant, and she loves repeating the directions along with the voice. I also liked how the pattern tracing helped teach her to leave her pencil on the paper when forming letters. I can definitely see it coming in very handy in the future.

F.Y.I.

Letters Make Words is available on iTunes.

Pricing: Special $2.99 introductory offer.

Suggested Ages: 4+

Click the Crew banner for more reviews of this neat app.

As part of the TOS Review Crew I was given this app in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

December Daily 2011

2011-12-14T18:03:00.001-05:00

Somebody was asking me about about my December Daily book that I mentioned in my last post. It is the brain child of digital designer Ali Edwards. Basically it’s just a small photo/scrap book documenting the holidays. You can read about it on her site. Her books are a cross between traditional scrapping and digital. Plus they are absolutely fabulous. I try not to let her awesomeness sway me from attempting this. I’m not even in the same scrapbooking galaxy as she is.

I do mine entirely digitally. This year I am mainly using quick album pages with some tweaking to suit my needs. I just don’t have the time to do them from “scratch” this year.

Last year, I printed out the pages myself and made the cover. It was really cute considering I made it. lol I was also able to add in programs, letters from Santa, tickets, and such. This year I’m planning on printing it as a shutterfly photo book, so the doodads will have to go into my project life binder. I’m okay with that.

Here’s what I’ve done so far.

Almost halfway there. Woot!

Tot School: The One with Christmas and an Unfortunate Incident

2011-12-10T11:09:00.000-05:00

Kayleigh is 3.75 years old

I know, I know...I have been a slacker blogger lately. Life has been crazy busy and I just haven't been doing it. I've been spending my evenings working on my December Daily book instead of blogging. Not to mention adding more and more lights to our house because we're trying to keep up with the Jones' across the street. For real. Little Jones keeps coming over and talking smack about Christmas lights. lol

Kayleigh has been working on Christmas School. When she feels like it. We've been picking and choosing activities from various Christmas Tot/Pre-k packs and a wonderful advent ebook called Truth in the Tinsel.

Here's some of her happenings. In no particular order.

She has had a "break through" in her writing skills. By breatk through I mean that she finally decided to do what I wanted, and knew, she could do. Instead of scribbling all over the lines she finally just sat down and traced them.

The trick was to put them in page protectors and give her dry erase markers. She has been writing and erasing for hours on end. Over and over and over. But now I don't have a paper to put in her preschool binder as a keepsake. At least not yet. I'm determined to get her to do one page on the actual paper so I can save it. Anyone want to wager on how long that will take me? LOL

Her she is working on her first Truth in the Tinsel craft.

I think it came out so cute. She spent another hour just glueing tissue strips onto paper. I'm not sure what her fascination was with them but it kept her quiet while I worked with her older sister. That's always a blessing.

Here she is working on a puzzle from one of our many tot packs.

I got this puzzle from Oriental Trading for $5. She loves it and has done it dozens of times. This is the first time she's done this type of jigsaw puzzle and I was pleasantly surprised at how well she did with it.

These navity finger puppets are also from Oriental Trading. They were a big hit too.

Here she is finding the one that is different. She is getting really good with these and rarely needs any kind of help completing them. She calls pages like this her "homework." Because, as homeschoolers, we talk about homework all the time. I blame Disney and Nick Jr. lol

She received a letter for Santa in the mail. If you knew her well you'd understand why she looks a little nervous. Thankfully for her, I think Santa spikes his egg nog because she somehow, by the skin of her teeth, wound up on the good list. That is what happens when you hit the nog too hard.

Another Truth in the Tinsel craft. She was supposed to be paint a crown. As you can see below, the crown wasn't the only thing she painted. Yet she freaks out if we try and paint her nails with nail polish.

Eventually they finished them though.

She was worried about Rudolph's soul so she grabbed a few Bibles and they had a study session. She drilled that poor reindeer for days. He is now an expert on the serpent in the Garden of Eden and the birth of Jesus. Those are her favorite stories from the Bible. I think it's moments like this that keep her on the nice list.

We made these angel ornaments from The Truth in the Tinsel. By we made, I mean I made. Jamming the pipe cleaners and the folded paper into the bell was not an easy task. Therefore I received the honors. They wound stringing bells on to pipe cleaners so that Clarisse and Rudolph would have collars.

They also made Mary ornaments. It was a little stressful for me because it involved glitter glue. Shudder!!!

We hit the Scholastic Warehouse sale. Kayleigh was more interested in eating her snack but I managed to get her to spend a few minutes choosing some books.

She helped sissy make some French cookies called "columbe." I believe it means dove. Kayleigh was in charge of putting on the eyes.

Then later that evening, we had this unfortunate incident. ROFL

A bit of a fit led to her making herself throw up, on her daddy, which led to daddy gagging too, which led to me laughing hysterically as I grabbed my camera. I promise that I helped after I got the shot.

The girls made a little candy.

And watched a Christmas movie with Daddy.

And we had our church's Christmas play. Kayleigh played, oh so fittingly, a donkey. So perfect and so right. LOL Here she is with her class singing a little something special for you.

Weekly Wrap-Up: Lots of Christmas Entertainment

2011-12-09T20:30:00.000-05:00

Busy, busy time. We've been continuing on with our Christmas Around the World study. WP added in another book this week and that upped the content somewhat. Now we actually feel like we're learning something. Woot!

One of the first things that we did was actually make the fabric ball ornament from our Russia study last week. I thought it came out cute. We also studying Spain, France, Germany, and Sweden this week. Some of the craft ideas seemed silly to her so she opted not to make them. It's very interesting to learn about the various traditions in other countries. A lot of them have been very similar to what we enjoy here but with different little twists. And it was neat to learn about what countries many of our traditions originated.

For a hands-on activity, Mackenzie decided to make a traditional French Christmas cookie called "colombe." It means dove. They are cute little dove shaped cookies. She made them entirely on her own, from scratch. Well not entirely. Her little sister placed the chocolate chip eyes on the birds.

While she didn't choose to do a lot of the crafts from the around the world study, she did several from her little sister's advent activities. (Truth in the Tinsel) I think that she liked the simplicity of them. She claims to like crafts but I sense she doesn't really like things that have a lot of steps or "pieces." Kind of like how her mother feels about cooking. lol

There were outside activities aplenty this week. We hit the Scholastic Book Fair with our buddies. She is a bonafide bookworm so that is always a huge hit with her. She would've liked to have bought everything she saw but I had to cap her at 5. She suckered me into 6. Then we went and had lunch afterwards. Shopping for books makes everyone hungry.

Our church also had their Christmas play last weekend. Mackenzie, drama queen that she is, had a part. They performed the Christmas County Spelling Bee and Mackenzie played "Katie Collins-head cheerleader." Her is a sampling of her skills. All the kids did a fabulous job. It was one of the best shows that they've ever done. So good that our pastor asked them to perform a few numbers for the Christmas eve service.

We also got to go watch her best buddy perform in her school's holiday show. Mackenzie was a little nervous to go because her friend, formerly homeschooled, now attends public school due to behavior issues. Mackenzie's attitude hasn't been all that stellar lately and I think she was worried that I might be tempted to leave her there. LOL It did cross my mind briefly.

Not enjoying a glimpse of a possible future. LOL

Awesome performances

Best friends! And Kayleigh. lol

And if all of that weren't enough Christmas entertainment, Mackenzie had her informal Christmas piano recital this week too. Shew!!!

And really, there's still more. Tomorrow we're going to see a local theater group perform The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. We are ready. We read the book and watched the movie. Ha! Hotlips Houlihan was in it. Woot!! Can't wait.

Weekly Wrap-Up: A Day Late

2011-12-03T20:06:00.000-05:00

So not only have I not "Wrapped-Up" for two weeks, here I am finally getting around to it and I'm a day late. Better late then never I guess. Thanksgiving house guests, illness, the Christmas play at church have cut into my blogging time.

We had Thanksgiving week off because my in-laws came to town. I'd like to say that we showed them a wonderful time but the little one got sick so we didn't get to do much in the way of fun. But it was nice to be able to visit with them.

We are currently in our "Christmas School" mode. We have a more laid back schedule for the holiday season with more of a focus on Advent.

For Bible we are reading the Jotham's Journey devotional. I just LOVE this series! We look forward to it every day. It's been a bit of a challenge this week because I've had a terrible cough and can barely talk but we plug away. LOL

We've dropped our normal social studies, Sonlight Core F, for the moment. Since we couldn't get a refund from Winter Promise, I decided to use all of those Christmas books that I had sitting on the shelf. I debated about whether or not to use their schedule or create my own. Due, in large part, to my laziness I decided to use theirs. I also thought it would be a hoot to see how what "gems" they had in store for us.

There's not too much to report about it actually. It turns out they didn't go too deep into their Christmas around the world unit. (Shocking, I know. LOL) This week we "studied" China, Japan, Russia and the Ukraine. Studying consisted of about a paragraph or two about each country and our choice of crafts from the book. I guess that fits perfectly with our laid back Christmas mindset though. LOL But we find ourselves wanting to know more so we spent some time scouring the internet because WP didn't really recommend any additional material for digging deeper.

I do have one WP funny. We're reading a book filled with Christmas Classics and our first assignment was interesting. Not! We had to read the introduction. The introduction was 3 incredibly boring pages about how the stories were chosen. Why we had to read that instead of a story, I'll never know. But hey they once suggested I read a list of country names instead of the interesting facts about the countries. I don't claim to understand a thing about this company.

So this week we made a Chinese pagoda nativity (pictured), a Japanese fan, and we are going to make a Russian fabric ornament but hit a snag with supplies. So we'll get to it on Monday, I guess.

As far as other subjects, I've been picking and choosing. We did math, Writing With Skill, science, and spelling. Math will remain constant but I'll switching out the other subjects according to my whims. =o)

We had some awesome progress on Writing With Skill. It's meant for the student to work fairly independently but Mackenzie has been quite needy in the "hand-holding" to complete the assignments. But this week she had a breakthrough and she did all 4 assignments without any help! And she even said that one of them was a lot of fun. Woot!!!

We are going to see a local theater group perform The Best Christmas Pageant Ever next week, so that has been her reader. We are looking forward to that. And we'll probably watch the movie too so we can compare performances.

And that is pretty much our week. Check out other Wrap-Ups over at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

Review: ARTistic Pursuits

2011-12-01T20:30:00.003-05:00

We were recently given the opportunity to review Artistic Pursuits. I was excited for many reasons. The program was created with homeschooler in mind. I've actually heard of it as it's recommended by some pretty big names in the homeschooling community. Art is something that I tend to push aside because I'm not good at it. I was crossing my fingers that I'd get to try it out. Yay me! I got to choose the level I wanted to try and I decided to go with the preschool book since my three year old doesn't get many opportunities to help with reviews.

About Artistic Pursuits

From the creators: The Artistic Pursuits program presents both the expressive and the technical aspects of art in an age-appropriate manner. Children are curious and expressive from the start. We work with those interests to teach them to observe more closely. Skills develop as each child observes nature and enjoys the process of creating. Using ARTistic Pursuits, a child carries art tools to locations which both inspire and are chosen by the child. Creating truly personal work gives a child a sense of accomplishment that cannot be attained by copying from a book or watching an adult do it for him. They learn because direct observation is the best teacher when accompanied by an understanding of the foundational elements of art and compositional ideas. Children examine and explore these key ideas by seeing them in their own world, in art works by the masters, through pages demonstrating techniques, and through art of their own and of others. Childhood development studies were foundational to the layout of the program. ARTistic Pursuits lessons offer children the right kinds of information at the right time. We expect a child to be a child and we value what they produce from their own hands. Projects do not try to force young children to draw like adults. Our projects do not require patience and discipline on the part of the child, which leads to frustration. Children don't need patience when their own interests and motivations are guiding them.

That being said the preschool book, The Way They See It, is a little different from the rest of the series. It's more of a parent training book than an art text for the student. And boy did I need it. It covers:

*Understanding your child's art
*Helping your child gain skills without drawing for him/her
*Informative parent pages show how to encourage creativity
*Art assignments designed for preschool exploration
*Markers, watercolor, finger paint, crayons, and more!
*Learning how to help children gain skills without drawing for them.
*Offer age-appropriate suggestions in ways that will encourage your child to continue to be creative.
*Encouraging use of fine motor and sharper thinking skills in project ideas that can be used again and
again.
*32 projects for the child.

In a nutshell, it is teaching me to let go of my need to control my child's art and let them create what they see. I have to admit that I've, on more than one occasion, cringed when my daughter didn't clue a craft together exactly as I'd imagined it. I might have even re-glued a few pieces now and again. The shame!!!

Our Experience

The book contains three sections filled with lessons: The Nature of Children's Artistic Development, Use Real World Examples to Point out Artistic Ideas, and First Skills. Each lesson consists of three parts: Grown Up Talk, Picture Talk, and a project.

Grown Up Talk is meant for the parent. This is where we are taught about how children see art, common mistakes adults make when teaching art, how we should stop nagging children to create what we want. It's filled with good stuff!

The Picture Talk exposes the student to real artwork from "professionals." It includes things to discuss to help the child look at the details. This was one of our favorite parts of the curriculum as my little daughter LOVES looking at art. She has tons of art books and we look at them daily. It's amazing how much children get from this kind of exposure to art. They soak it up and remember. She impressed a few employees at the MET in NYC with her ability to spot Matisse, Cassatt, and Monet. And that was a year ago.

The project is, well, a project. These were based on what I learned from the Grown Up Talk and involved me modeling and then stepping back. Which is great because, like I said, I'm not great at art. She used markers, finger paint, crayons, play doh, drew a "still life", observed texture and that's all we had time to get to before I had to write this review. But every project was fun. She was in control. And I didn't freak about any mess. Check her out in action.

Observing a still life and drawing what SHE saw. Apparently she saw the little pumpkins in the air. Awesome!

Working with play doh to make a "form" that stands up. Kayleigh made a dog.

Finger paint fun!!!

Final Thoughts

This is a great program. I am using the most "parent intensive" book and it was so easy to use. I don't like a lot of prep and this barely had any. The pre-k level uses the basic supplies that anyone with a child would have lying around the house. And there are even kits available for purchase if you'd like.

This book is teaching me how to help my child see the world and how to turn what she sees into a work of art. It's teaching me the importance about letting her make her own decisions about her art. I absolutely love that it's not another book filled with cookie cutter project that require the adult to do most of the "creating."

I was very impressed with the program and will continue to use it. Even my older daughter enjoys doing the projects with us because she gets to create her vision, not mine. This program totally takes away the pressure of teaching, and creating, art. Finally! If you want to include art in your homeschool but don't feel qualified, check out this program. If I can do it, anyone can.

F.Y.I.

Website: http://www.artisticpursuits.com/
Ages: 3-Highschool (Our book was 3-5)
Cost: Books are $42.95 and kits run from $45-$92 depending on the level
And bonus, they ship internationally!!!

Check out more crew reviews by clicking the banner below.

I was given a free copy of Artistic Pursuits for review purposes. All opinions are my own.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

2011-11-24T10:15:00.000-05:00

I've been on a bit of a blogging break, as I've been enjoying some out-of-town family this week, but I just wanted to wish you all a Blessed Thanksgiving.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

We have a winner!!!

2011-11-15T21:16:00.001-05:00

The winner of the My Memories Software giveaway is...

Commenter #12...Jody

Congratulations Jody!! I will be sending you the download information soon. Have fun scrapping those beautiful babies!

Tot School: The One With Two Videos

2011-11-13T15:34:00.001-05:00

Kayleigh is 45 months old

This week there was no method to our madness. I did not have a plan and I would wake up each day and just wing it. Here’s a look at our hodge podge of a week.

We finished up our Raising Rock Stars unit. Here she is working on her craft, watching the power point show, and practicing her letter I.

She knocked her memory verse out of the park and I managed to get it on video. Soooo cute!

Philippians 4:13

We did some other random activities including a few things from COAH, our Kumon books, and some manipulatives.

We have a new sensory bucket. This was also thrown together at the last minute. Popcorn, silk leaves, acorn/pumpkin “gems”, green & orange pom poms, pumpkin ice tray, and various tongs, spoons, and containers.

We did a lot of art for our upcoming review. She really took to finger painting. Her old sister hated that as a tot but Kayleigh dove right in.

I also got some video of her at her dance class.

Dance at the Little Gym

Click the buttons at the top of the page for other pre-k fun.