homeschooling

Homeschool Moms Review: Successful Homeschooling Made Easy

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Are you a mom thinking about homeschooling your kids? Are they in public school, and you want to bring them home? Or are they just getting to the age where they’re old enough that it’s time for you to make a decision? Have you been homeschooling your kids for years and are starting to feel “burnout”? Then today’s review is going to be something you simply must look into. From Successful Homeschooling Made Easy comes the Successful Homeschooling Made Easy Course, written by veteran homeschooling mom of five Stephanie Walmsley.

I wasn’t sure whether I would be a good candidate for this product of not for a couple of reasons – first, I’ve been homeschooling for several years, and second, because of my relationship with the Schoolhouse Review Crew, I don’t buy (or choose) curriculum in the traditional way. Pretty much all of what we use are items I receive for review purposes. But you know what? I still learned things through taking this course (and I’m not quite even halfway through it yet!).

When you first sign up, you’ll get an email with your first lesson within just a couple of hours. And this first lesson is a doozy! Of all the lessons I’ve received so far, this one has made the biggest impact in our schooling. In it, Ms. Walmsley talks about the importance of having a schedule. Your schedule doesn’t have to look the same as the local public school’s, nor does it have to look like that of the other homeschooling families you know. It just has to work for your family. She offers two basic outlines for schedule, and the one  you choose is based on whether your family are “morning people” or “night owls.” No, she doesn’t suggest keeping your kids up to all hours of the night doing their schoolwork, but she does suggest that if they sleep in, school them in the afternoon instead. It’s okay. (We definitely fall into that category, and while it’s been hard to readjust my thinking to do the heavy hitting on the schoolwork after lunch instead of before, it’s been much easier on the kids.)

Beyond scheduling, Ms. Walmsley walks you through such topics as choosing curriculum (which, like I already mentioned, isn’t really a problem/option for us at this point), creating a lesson plan, teaching your children, how to keep up with the housework while living the homeschool life, and much more.

But she doesn’t tell you how to run your homeschool. That’s what makes this course so helpful for people in every step of the homeschooling journey. She gives tips and suggestions, but it’s easy to modify her ideas to fit your own idea of what you want your homeschool to look like. Or even more importantly, what your kids need it to look like. Her ideas and concepts are sound, and yet easy to adapt. That’s what I love most about this course.

That, and the bonus lessons that you occasionally get in between lessons. So far, I’ve received one bonus lesson, and it was on math games to play with the children. Despite all of our drilling, both boys (especially Seahawk) have gotten a bit rusty in their math facts. So yesterday, we utilized one of the games in that bonus math lesson. We went outside and wrote numbers, 1-20 on the driveway with sidewalk chalk. Then I would say things like, “Seahawk, skip to the number that is 6 times 3.” “Munchkin, hop on one foot to the number that is 5 times 2.” They really enjoyed that game, and we’ll definitely be playing it again.

So, long story short: This course consists of 26 lessons, emailed to you one per week (about 14 pages each, including a title page and copyright information). You have the freedom to print them off and keep them in a binder if you’d like, or you can just read them on your computer. Each one – and you get a completely different topic each week – is extremely helpful in this thing called homeschooling. I would definitely recommend this course for any parent who is currently, or currently considering, homeschooling their child or children. It’s that good.

Still not sure if the Successful Homeschooling Made Easy Course is for you? You can get the first lesson absolutely free to see what you think. If you decide, after seeing how awesome that first lesson is, that you want to continue the course, you can do so for $10 per month (for 6 months), or you can save 20% on the course by purchasing it all at one time for $48. (See the website for information on international pricing; it’s all spelled out there very clearly and easily.) And what’s more, if you purchase this and decide you don’t like it, Ms. Walmsley will refund your money, no questions asked. So it’s definitely a no-lose situation for you.

Blessings,

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As always, I’m not the only person reviewing this course this week. Click the banner below to read lots of other opinions on Successful Homeschooling Made Easy.

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Homeschool Curriculum Review: Real Life Press

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Last school year, the boys and I read the entire New Testament together. This year, I’m sorry to say, has been a lot less Bible-rich. That’s why I was thrilled to have been chosen to review a Bible study curriculum: Firmly Planted, Gospels, Part 2 from Real Life Press. I received PDF versions of both the family study guide (which I used as a leader’s manual) and the student workbook.

The Firmly Planted curriculum was written by Heidi St. John and her husband, Jay. As homeschooling parents of seven children, they really wanted to teach something of true value – not what the media tells our children they need to know. Additionally, they felt that the media was constantly changing, never consistent (which I absolutely agree with). They wanted to teach their children the one thing that never changes: Christ. This was the beginning of Real Life Press.

The Gospels, Part 2 covers stories from the life of Jesus, including two parables, Jesus’s meeting with Zacchaeus, the adulterous woman (“whoever is without sin should be the first to cast a stone”), and several others, going through to the crucifixion and resurrection. Having just celebrated Easter, I chose The Gospels Part 2 (rather than part 1) because I wanted to go over the crucifixion and resurrection in detail with the children.

The parent guide ($9.95 for a PDF) is 102 pages, and it covers everything you need to teach the bible histories presented. They include the full Scriptural text of the stories being presented, as well as a variety of activities using a seed-planted analogy (the seed is the main concept of the story, planting the seed is Scripture memorization, and watering the seedling is a short lesson based on the Scripture). There are also four daily lessons for each bigger lesson, in which you read part of the Scripture with your children and explain some things to them, all laid out for you in the parent guide. For example, in the first lesson, The Parable of the Sower, the day one lesson explains what a parable lesson is as well as why Jesus taught using parables rather than straightforward lessons.

The student workbook ($24.95 for a PDF) includes activities for both older students and younger students (different difficulties of the same activity), which really makes Firmly Planted a full-family bible study. These include activities such as copywork, a self-reflection journal, mazes, word finds, crossword puzzles, and much more. Because the student workbook has all of the activities for a variety of age levels together, it’s 265 pages. Depending on the ages of your children, you definitely don’t have to print multiple copies of that, though.

Real Life Press the Gospels Part 2 student pages sample

A sampling of some of the student pages

The first thing I did was to find an online PDF splitter so that I could print just the pages I wanted/needed to get started without having to sift through the entire document every time to choose the pages to print. I printed only one lesson at a time to help minimize the costs since we print at a copy shop. For the first lesson, I chose to print the upper-level activities for both boys. I wouldn’t go straight into saying that this was a mistake, but I will say that those activities were considerably harder for Munchkin (age 8) than they were for Seahawk (age 11), which surprised me. It probably shouldn’t have, since he is three years younger (he can normally keep up with his older brother academically, no problem), but it did. So the next week, I was more selective in which pages to give him as upper-level and which to give him as lower-level. (He can do the writing and copywork at the upper level, but the mazes and other “game” activities he needed at the lower level.)

As a whole, I really loved this study. It incorporated Scripture fully, and it was very easy to follow the plan. The kids really enjoyed the activities that went along with it (except for Munchkin and the hard maze the first week – there were tears over that!). My only complaint, and it is very minor, is that the pages in the parent guide seemed to be kind of wasteful on the printing front – they were half-pages rather than full pages, and centered on the sheet, so there was a lot of empty space. I would love to see those pages made to fill the 8.5×11 sheet (by combining pages, not just stretching the existing format) or have two instructor pages on one sheet of paper to help cut down on printing costs. (I just didn’t print the parent guide after the first week, and instead read it off of my computer.)

Bottom line: we would definitely recommend this to others looking for a great Bible study. 

Blessings,

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Members of the Schoolhouse Review Crew have reviewed tons of different products from Real Life Press, not just family Bible studies. Click the banner below to find out more about two books – The Busy Homeschool Mom’s Guide to Daylight and The Busy Homeschool Mom’s Guide to Romance – as well as a lapbooking resource for moms of younger children. Additionally, there will be more reviews of The Gospels part 2 (which I wrote about today), plus The Gospels part 1 and Books of Moses part 2. Just click the banner below to access reviews to all of these products.

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Homeschool Curriculum Review: A+ Interactive Math

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Does your state require standardized testing? Mine does. Not every year, but it’s worked out that both boys will have to be tested this year. (We’re required to have testing done four times during their school careers – after grades 3, 5, 8, and 10.) The idea of doing this always makes me nervous that I’m somehow failing them in what I teach. This is probably ridiculous, but I worry about it nonetheless. What if the products we’re using aren’t enough to teach them what they need to know for these tests? Well, at least in mathematics, A+ Interactive Math is the answer.

For the past few weeks, we’ve been reviewing their Adaptive Placement Test and Individualized Lesson Plan program. This three-month subscription is an intense math course is a series of tests in a variety of subjects that the student should know based on his or her grade level. After a test is taken, the student is deemed to be either “at grade level” or “not at grade level” in that particular subject. If they’re at grade level, then great! You don’t have to worry about your child in that subject. If they’re not at grade level, the program has a huge variety of video lessons and practice worksheets to help the children get to where they can pass the test.

a plus 2

You can see from this image the video lesson player. On the left are the different aspects of the subject at hand – in this case, 3rd grade subtraction. The student (or parent) chooses the one that needs the most work, and a video explanation will play. Then there are practice questions to be done after the video. If your student has already watched the video and just needs more practice before they attempt the test again, that’s not a problem. There’s a separate section with just practice worksheets. It’s all very easy to follow and find what you need.

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One of the most encouraging aspects of the program (for the children) is the Progress Report. This gives them a visual of how much more work they have to do to be able to pass the test. On the “racetrack” (really just a colored bar), there’s a line for the goal and another one showing where the student is on their path to success. The drawing of a child starts at the beginning and walks over to the line that represents their current progress.

So, now that we’re all familiar with what the program is and how it works, how did we use it our homeschool? Well, it took the place of our other math curriculum during the review period. Most days, anyway. There were some days when the boys really wanted to do the other one, so on those days they did both. This means that the boys were logged in to their accounts 3-4 days a week, either taking a test or mastering concepts so they could pass the tests they didn’t pass the first time out. I had the boys take one test, then do the corresponding lessons/worksheets (if needed) until they could pass the test. Another option is to have your child take all of the tests and then work on problem areas.

Opinions? Well, that depends on who  you ask. The kids didn’t like it at all. But we’ve had programs like that in the past, and does it mean that they didn’t benefit from it, or didn’t need it? Absolutely not! As a mom, I think this program is absolutely amazing. It’s really eye-opening to see exactly where your kids are sitting on certain topics. It does a great job of showing you exactly which concepts need more work. And it became clear to me during this process that even if the kids didn’t pass a test, that didn’t mean they had to review every single aspect of a particular subject. Maybe they did great on adding without carrying, but messed up every time there was carrying involved. Well, in that case, they only had to practice problems that involved carrying. Long story short, I think if you live in a state that requires standardized testing, you need to give this program a try, even if you think your kids are doing well in math.

You can get a 3-month subscription (this is the maximum they offer – it’s an intense program, remember?) for $24.99 for one student and an additional $10 for each extra student you wish to add. This price is half of their normal, so if you think you might be interested in this, you should jump on it. I don’t know how long the sale will last.

Blessings,

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Homeschool Curriculum Review: Spelling You See

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spelling you see final

I spell well naturally. I always have. So does Will. And Munchkin (age 8). But Seahawk (age 11) struggles. So I’m always on the lookout for a spelling program for him that will help him learn HOW to spell (not just provide him with a list of words to memorize, test on, and forget). That’s what the goal of Spelling You See is.

For this review, we reviewed one of the two newest levels of Spelling You See, which is called Spelling You See Level F: Ancient Achievements.

The program was designed after years of research by Dr. Karen Holinga, and the goal is to get students to begin noticing letter patterns within the context of “real” text (as opposed to a spelling list of randomly selected words). The way this is accomplished is by having students read a passage aloud and then search for specific letter patterns within the words. This process is called “chunking” because each letter pattern (chunk) is colored with a specific color. Each passage is worked for a full school week, and the student searches for the same letter patterns each day.

The second half of the program is a combination of copywork and dictation. For the first three days each week, the student copies a portion of the passage (roughly half of it, in an A-B-A pattern). On day 4, the parent/teacher reads the passage aloud, and the student writes it down, doing their best to spell everything correctly. During day 4, the student is “allowed” to ask for help with spelling the words if they need it. On day 5, the student works from dictation again, but the goal this time is to avoid asking for help. Hopefully by working the passage four times before this, the student will remember the letter patterns. The teacher’s manual instructs you to work through dictation for no more than ten minutes per session. Whether your student finishes the passage during this time or not is irrelevant. The goal is to work through as much as possible without overwhelming your struggling speller.

The physical student books you receive in the Spelling You See curriculum are “open and go”; there’s no prep work required. When you purchase the program, there are two elements you need. The first is the student books. For a price of $30, you get two student books (enough for a full year of spelling curriculum) and a packet of Crayola erasable colored pencils to use for chunking. The student books each contain 18 five-day lessons. Each individual lesson takes up a two-page spread in the workbook (one page for finding the chunks, the other for copywork/dictation, depending on the day). The second thing you need is the teacher’s manual, which costs $14. While you might be tempted to skip this purchase, I don’t recommend it. Sometimes those chunks are tricky to find because our brains skip right over them (the “th” in “the” is considered a consonant chunk, for example, because it’s two consonants that make one sound; it’s so ingrained in our heads as just “the,” though, that it’s easy to miss), and you’ll want that teacher manual to help you help your student.

The program is designed to be used 5 days a week for the entire school year. A few weeks ago, we adjusted our school week to run four days a week because we found we were spending all day on Monday running errands and we ran out of time for school. Instead of feeling bad about that, we rescheduled our subjects to make them work on a four-days-a-week schedule. Spelling You See was no exception. Since day 3 is essentially a repeat of day 1, that’s the lesson we skipped. This means we did Monday’s lesson on Tuesday, Tuesday’s lesson on Wednesday, and then Thursday and Friday lessons on the “right” days. The lesson page for Wednesdays contains an extra piece of information (tidbits about word roots, for example) that isn’t on the other days, so we made sure to read that on another day so as not to miss out.

As for what we think about Spelling You See? I like it. I like the open and go format, I like how it teaches students to notice letter patterns that are common in the English language, and I like how easy it is to implement. I especially like how the focus is on how many words the student spells right, not on the words they missed. (At the end of each dictation day, you count up the correctly spelled words and record that number at the bottom of the page.) Seahawk, on the other hand, does not like it. But that’s just because it’s hard for him. He’s not a good speller, remember? He has to work at it. His dislike of the program doesn’t mean that the program isn’t good; it just means that it’s not easy for him. Like most kids, he’d rather play than work, and Spelling You See is work for him.

As we work through our second year of using Spelling You See (I reviewed Level D: Americana last year), I hope to continue to see improvement in his spelling. At the moment, it’s slow in coming. But I am seeing some advances. I just hope it continues.

Blessings,

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To read about other homeschool families’ experiences with Spelling You See, click the banner below. There are 40 of us on this review, and some reviewed Level F like I did, while others worked with Level G.

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Homeschool Curriculum Review: Star Toaster

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If you’re looking for a neat new program to supplement the things your children are learning in your homeschool, or for a super fun alternative for summer reading this year, look no further than Orphs of the Woodland from Star Toaster! We were recently blessed with the opportunity to review this online program with both of the boys, and they really enjoyed it.

So, what is this Star Toaster of which I speak? Simply put, it’s a game. But it’s much more than that. Using the online program, students practice skills in reading, math, vocabulary, language, thinking skills, science, character, art skills, and life skills. The way it works is fairly simple, but it can take a while to master. The first thing you do when you set up your account is to name your character and fill out his “spy application.” You see, the main focus of Orphs of the Woodland is a book that your child will read online, one chapter at a time. (Currently, there’s just one book, The Treasure of HighTower. However, I have it on good authority that there will be a sequel soon.) The fun part is that, while the story is the same, the child’s character is the focal point of the story. The character is a squirrel, and each child gets to name him whatever he/she would like. In our family, Seahawk named his squirrel Templeton (after the rat in Charlotte’s Web) and Munchkin chose Tulane (after the porcelain bunny in The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane). Once the character is named, the fun begins.

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This image shows the stats for your child, as he sees them whenever he logs into the program. These are the different aspects of the game portion of the program. In the parent dashboard, there’s also a stat for “pages read.”

 

The first thing to do, after the initial setup, is to read a chapter of the book. There are a total of 15 chapters, each roughly 30-40 pages. But the pages are really short – only about 3-4 paragraphs per page. When the child finishes reading the chapter, a section called “Jobs” opens up. This is where they use some of the things they learned in the chapter and do lessons to earn gold stars – “The Currency of the Woodlands.” Each job consists of a lesson and a question. If the question is answered correctly, gold stars are awarded. The number of stars is based on the child’s level in that particular subject. After a certain number of correct answers in a subject, they get a raise, and future questions will earn them more gold stars.

star toaster 2 watermarked

Here you can see a snippet of the story. The bar at the top shows how far into the story your child is. The red words are vocabulary words that are likely to show up in jobs later. By mousing over them, your child can learn the definition.

 

What do they do these gold stars they’re earning? That’s where the game portion of the program comes into effect. The gold stars they earn doing jobs can be used to “buy land,” or “build projects,” or “adopt more orphs.” The adoption of orphs happens automatically, but the other uses for gold stars are things your child will choose to do on his own. That’s the strategy of the game – the student has to decide what projects to build – and where to build them – to take the best care of his orphs for the least amount of “money.” You see, different projects (building a wheat field for food, for example) will reduce the cost of caring for the orphs. This means more money in your child’s pocket at the end of each chapter (gold stars for caring for the orphs are automatically deducted whenever a chapter is completed).

This is what the game portion of the program looks like. This image is from the Star Toaster website.

Now that I’ve (hopefully) explained how the program and game work, allow me to talk about how we used this. As I touched on at the beginning of my review, we used this as a supplement. It’s a fun little program, but definitely not enough in any one subject to take the place of another curriculum. I told the boys they needed to work on Star Toaster for at least 30 minutes a day, three days a week. Other than that, the timing was up to them (within reason, of course – we have lots of other computer curricula that need to happen as well). This schedule seemed to work well. It was long enough that they got a fair amount done during the time, but not so long that they were frustrated and overwhelmed with it.

I thought this program was really neat. The boys seemed to like it pretty well, too. It’s designed for kids in 4th-7th grade, so I initially requested it thinking Seahawk would just adore it because it wouldn’t “feel like school.” Well, the reading was such that this wasn’t the case. He didn’t hate it, but he definitely didn’t love it as much as I’d hoped. Munchkin, on the other hand, really had a good time with this program. He’s technically a little bit outside of the age range, but not so far. And his reading ability being high above his grade/age only helped him in this program.

There were a couple of things I would change with the program, but not much. First, I’d love to see the adoption of additional orphs (after the first, say, 4 or 5) optional. My boys had a difficult time getting enough gold stars to play the game effectively because their stars were always getting depleted nearly as fast as they could earn them with all the orphs they were required to adopt. Neither of the boys were ever able to earn enough stars to purchase additional land, and only enough to do a few inexpensive jobs (even while earning raises in all subjects and rarely getting a question wrong). This means that caring for their orphs is still quite costly, so I don’t see that magically adjusting in the next several days. The kids would say that they’d eliminate the Professor Forp character. This is one of the “teachers” during the lessons portion of the jobs, but I rather liked Prof. Forp. I thought he was funny and offered good information. Overall, though, this is a very worthwhile program to support the information your children are already learning in their other subjects. It’s a fun way to build skills, and it really is “learning that doesn’t feel like school” (despite what Seahawk says!).

Ready to try Orphs of the Woodlands for  yourself (or rather, for your children)? You can get a free trial of the program, which includes the first 100 pages of the book and over 50 lessons/jobs, for up to 30 days. If you decide to continue it after your free trial is over, it’s very reasonably priced. For just $19.99, you can get a 60-day subscription for up to 3 students, and if your children don’t finish in that amount of time, additional months are just $6.99 each (also for 3 students). We definitely recommend checking out this fun book/game!

Blessings,

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Homeschool Curriculum Review: Great Parents Academy

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I knew that our current web-based math subscription was due to expire soon, so when I learned that there was a new one available for review, I looked over it with my kids, and we decided to give it a try. Boy are we glad we did!

GPA LEARN has developed a wonderful math curriculum for elementary age student (grades K-5) called GPALOVEMATH. We’ve had the pleasure of using this program (I received a one-year subscription) for the past seven weeks or so.

Because Seahawk was working through a workbook during this time, this review will focus primarily on Munchkin and his use of the program. I will note, however, that just recently Seahawk has joined the GPA party. [Read more…]

Homeschool Curriculum Review: The Critical Thinking Co.

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Critical thinking

Seahawk is really strong in math. He always has been. So sometimes it’s hard to find things that keep him interested and challenged; the basic grade level math program doesn’t normally do it. So when I heard about The Critical Thinking Co. through the Schoolhouse Review Crew, I started looking at some of their books. When I found out that Pattern Explorer was one of the offerings, I knew that would be just right for Seahawk. He’s always loved searching for patterns, but I’ve never had an easy time finding challenging pattern activities for him (red, green, yellow, red, green, yellow just isn’t difficult for a 5th grader). Pattern Explorer turned out to be just the thing. [Read more…]

Homeschool Curriculum Review: Visual Learning Systems

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I have a super great science program to share with you guys today. It’s called Visual Learning Systems and I received a full year of access to their Digital Science Online: Elementary Edition (Grades K-5) and Digital Science Online: Secondary Edition (Grades 6-12). Obviously, I’m only reviewing the Elementary Edition since my kids are elementary age.

Science is a tough subject for me. I just don’t care that much about it. I took a little more than was required for me to graduate high school, and despite being in the advanced classes and getting good grades there, I just didn’t resonate with science. I was more a math and language arts student. So when it comes to teaching science in the homeschool, I’m afraid my kids aren’t getting that much. For that reason, I’m always excited to review science programs. I know my kids love science, but I just don’t like teaching it, so if I can access a program to teach it for me (at least do the heavy hitting in the subject), I’m all for that. [Read more…]

What We’re Reading in March

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I almost forgot to post about what we’re reading this month. It’s not too late in the month, so we’re still good, though :). Here’s our list.

Read-aloud: Everyone

We’re still working through Leonardo da Vinci Gets a Do-Over. It got put where it doesn’t belong at one point, and I forgot about it for a few days. We’re about halfway through, so hopefully we’ll finish before the month is out. I haven’t decided yet what we’ll read when we finish it. [Read more…]

Our Reading List: February

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What We're Reading in February | Ladybug Daydreams

So. Reading lists. We didn’t do so well last month, I’m afraid. Actually, I suppose that’s not entirely fair. I didn’t do so well. The children did wonderfully. Allow me to elaborate. And explain.

First, our read-aloud didn’t happen. Don’t get me wrong; I tried to read it to the kids. But Elijah of Buxton wasn’t a very good book. (My apologies to Christopher Paul Curtis.) It was one of those books that is written from the point of view of someone with bad English, and so the book itself was riddled with bad grammar and pronunciation (afore instead of before, for example). I just have a hard time respecting books like that. I don’t have a problem with the authors – unless the book is badly written due to incompetence. Just the books. The point behind reading is to help the kids learn to read, write, and express themselves properly, and when authors write bad books on purpose, they don’t accomplish any of those things. So, even for book club, I wasn’t going to endorse that book. And for the record, the kids didn’t go to book club in January, either. I have a rule that if they don’t read the book, they don’t go to book club. Even if it wasn’t their fault this time, we still didn’t send them. (Not all of the parents have this rule. Munchkin says that any given month, only about half or less of the students have read the book.) [Read more…]