In honor of Memorial Day, we are sharing some learning resources, crafts, arts and more from around the web. Enjoy!

• Patriotic Fun – our own review author, Cindy, starts us out with learning centers at Our Journey Westward
• Flag Cake via Household Ways
• Memorial Day History from Veteran’s Affairs
• Memorial Day printables from About Homeschooling
• Patriotic Crafts for Memorial Day from No Time for Flashcards

• Great Homeschooling Links for Memorial Day by Lauren at The Homeschool Classroom
• Patriotic Holidays Unit Study from Amanda Bennett
• United States Symbols Lapbook by Richele here at The Curriculum Choice
• America’s White Table Unit Study at Homeschool Share
• Sparklers chalk pastel art lesson at Hodgepodge
• Making Wooden Soldiers by review author Kendra at Aussie Pumpkin Patch
• American Flag Art at Deep Space Sparkle
• In Memory at Our Goodwin Journey – Visiting a war memorial and getting to talk to a veteran
• Thankful for Memorial Day by Rebecca at Moms Mustard Seeds – so many resources here!

Memorial Day often unofficially marks the start of summer. You can find a few patriotic ideas and lots of summer fun on our Celebrate Summer Pinterest board.

The following is a guest review from Jackie. Please welcome her!
Site: Vocabulary Fun
The Fun Way to Build Vocabulary Skills!

Good for: Phonics–including Dolch words, literature, ESL, vocabulary, spelling, foreign languages (Spanish, French, German, English, Latin), typing skills and more.

This site is especially great for visual-spatial learners of all ages. The flash animation games help the student make connections between words and ideas and between words and pictures. My daughter uses the middle school activities and loves them. Her retention is wonderful. I attribute that to the flash animation and the fact that she has fun.

Games are divided into the following groups:

• Primary (K-2)
• Intermediate (3-5)
• Middle School (6-8)
• High School (9-12)

Not only can learners play challenging games, but they can also watch video lessons of many of the skills. The literature section includes quite a few popular titles as well. Some examples are To Kill a Mockingbird, Where the Wild Things Are, Gulliver’s Travels, The Black Stallion, Romeo and Juliet, Matilida and so forth. Most of the learning concepts have several games associated with them, so you can play lots of times without repeating a game.

The site also offers super resource articles for various topics such as:

• speed reading
• spelling and vocabulary articles
• SAT
• GRE Verbal Tips
• GMAT Test Prep
• How to Increase Your Vocabulary
• vocabulary lessons plans
• how to use crosswords and puzzles to teach
• They even have their own blog with archives dating back to 2007.

Types of Learning Games Available:

Analogy Games
Antonym Games
Compound Word Games
Context Games
Contraction Games
English Language Games
Foreign Language Games
Hig Pig Games
Homophone Games
Idioms Games
Latin Learning Games
Literature Games
Oxymoron Games
Parts of Speech Games
Phonics Games
Prefix Games
Root Word Games
SAT Games
Spelling Games
Suffix Games
Syllable Games
Synonym Games
Typing Games
Word Play Games

Click over to the Vocabulary Fun site to see for yourself!

Jackie, a former public and private school teacher, enjoys the challenge of customizing a curriculum for her right-brained visual learner. Her daughter has been using the Time4Learning curriculum for three years because she enjoys learning on the computer. You can read more about homeschooing topics at both of Jackie’s blogs: Quaint Scribbles and 3-D Learners.

The Creation is a lovely hardback children’s book telling the story of Creation in the Bible. I suppose there are numerous children’s books on Creation out there but this book has something different…

Sam's Noggin

…each day of The Creation is illustrated by way of hand-appliqued quilt illustrations!

Sam's Noggin

Author Janice Green has done a fabulous job of retelling the account of Creation in her book; each page is truly a work of art. At the end of each page, or day of Creation, there are discussion questions, as well as the corresponding Bible verses noted.

Another welcome addition to this book is the Bible quilt activity you will find at the end. This is something I would love to do with my children!

This book was a pleasant surprise for me, and if you have younger children in your home, or any age that loves a beautiful book, you will want to pick this one up!

Price: You can find The Creation at Amazon for $11.69.

Samantha is a Christian homeschooling mom of six, married to Rick, her high school sweetheart. She is interested in Bible study, photography, exercise, organizing, and sweet tea. You can find Samantha blogging at Sam’s Noggin.

We have really struggled with math in our homeschool. I think that it is partly because math just isn’t our strongest subject. For a few of my children it is also from not learning certain concepts thoroughly in public school.

Because of these things we have also struggled to find the right math curriculum.

We have recently gone back to the math we started with – Horizons Math. I think leaving it the first time was because of the number of children needing one-on-one help. I wish we had stuck with it!

We have been using Horizons for a few months now and the children are doing really well with the spiral approach in math.

Horizons Math covers much in each level. It also covers some concepts like beginning algebra sooner than in other programs we have tried. The good news is that these concepts won’t be scary later on, as they are introduced very gently.

Horizons is a bit advanced, so we are not using per the grade level our students are in necessarily. They would have been further if we hadn’t tried other curricula but we live and learn I suppose.

Sam's Noggin

I rarely have to use the teacher’s manual because Horizons does a great job at self-teaching with examples and brief explanations. The lessons themselves are in-depth and cover new concepts as well as reviewing things previously learned. I know my children forget concepts without the spiral approach, so this is a great fit for us.

Sam's Noggin

Pros:

• Spiral approach works for our family.
• The workbooks aren’t overly busy, with enough color to make them friendly.
• Teacher involvement is low – I have only needed to reinforce a few concepts on the board.
• Thorough – you won’t wonder if your child is getting enough.
• Covers time and measurement.

Cons:

• I would love to see the price drop a little. {I feel the full kit with teacher manual is needed for most levels but can run up to $80 without a sale.}
• Some lessons are a little long, I mark out sections my children can skip.

Horizons Math is the strongest math curriculum we have used. See the scope and sequence, starting on page 5. Timberdoodle has a sample of each level.

I suggest using the placement test before jumping in to buy a level.

~Written by Sam of Sam’s Noggin.

We did a product review some time back and part of the suggested items for doing that review was Mind Benders. I had never heard of them but the curriculum said they were “highly recommended” and that they had actually tried removing them from the curriculum but received so many complaints that they put them back in! With that information I immediately had to get them, of course. *grin*

There are three sets of books: A (1-4) for Grades 3 – 6, B (1-4) for Grades 7 – 12+ and C (1-3) also for Grades 7 – 12+. Each book normally costs $9.99 but they are currently (as of the time of this writing) on sale for $6.99 each! (Or you can get lucky, like me, and find them for sale on a used curriculum site for a bit less as a bundle.) The set I found consisted of ALL the sets of books including the Instructions and Detailed Solutions book and the Warm Up book. In the introduction of the book the levels are considered “Easy”, “Medium” and “Hard”. Each “A” book consists of 15 mind benders while the “B” & “C” books each have 14. (There are books available for younger students as well, but that is not covered in this review.)

From their website:

Mind Benders®, our best-selling deductive thinking puzzles, develop the logic, reading comprehension, and mental organization skills vital to achieving high grades and top test scores in all subjects. They’re also great for developing real-life, problem solving skills.

Your student will carefully analyze each Mind Benders® story and its clues, identifying logical associations between people, places, and things. The key is to start with the most obvious associations, then deduce less obvious associations until everything finally fits together.

Apparently a large part of the reason one would use Mind Benders is to help increase thinking skills for standardized tests but quite honestly, we just simply enjoyed them because they were so much fun! We too, like the others mentioned in the very beginning of this post, LOOKED FORWARD to when it was time to work on more Mind Benders. I can’t explain why they are so much fun, but they are! When we first started doing them we were totally clueless (thank goodness the answers are provided!) but once we started seeing how it worked, we started figuring out the answers on our own. And then, my son and I started having competitions to see who could get the answers first!

Here are a couple pictures of our books. The first one shows A1 at the top, B1 in the middle and C1 at the bottom – this shows you a little bit of the difference of complexity from A to C.

So, you read the information on the left and use the chart on the right to help figure out the answer to each problem. Click HERE to see an up close example (then click “Click to Look Inside”).

The following picture is of the covers of our current editions (as I understand it, they are older editions):

Something the person we bought our used set from included with our set were laminated blank charts – EXCELLENT IDEA! We use an erasable marker so we can wipe it off and then we can use them over and over and over (and can change something in the middle of a problem, if necessary). You can tell from the picture below that they have been well used! *grin*

We have GREATLY enjoyed working with Mind Benders, and have been very satisfied with the change in our thinking skills! We would HIGHLY RECOMMEND these to everyone ~ as we all need to increase our logic, reading comprehension, and mental organization skills.

Here’s praying you have fun learning!

Come visit Dawn over at her blog, Guiding Light Homeschool, on Facebook and on Twitter…friends are ALWAYS welcome!

When my daughter was a second grader, she loved to write and create her own sentences and little stories. I was so pleased that she liked to write but not pleased with the number of misspelled words! I didn’t want to correct each word, as that would affect her free thinking writing attempts. So I consulted with the staff at our local teaching supplies store and the homeschoolers in my group. They all agreed that correcting each mistake was unnecessary and that the spelling skills would come over time with practice. When I found Evan Moor’s Building Spelling Skills – Grade 2, I knew I had found what we needed! Easy to use and fun spelling practice for my daughter.

Features of BUILDING SPELLING SKILLS – Grade 2:

• A well set out program, which meets state standards. Each lesson includes 10 spelling words and room to add two more.
• Spelling words are based on the 200 most commonly used words in the English language and the words frequently misspelled by second graders.
• They are printed in large font with black and white illustrations.
• Lessons are centered around common phonetic elements – easier to learn!

Each  lesson in BUILDING SPELLING SKILLS includes the following activities:

• Visual Memory Shape Activity, using the shapes of the letters to make a puzzle.
• Spell Vowel Sounds  - Practice  with the sounds/vowels.
• Word Study – Cut and glue activities.

The activities in this book are repeated in a predictable sequence. This helped my daughter to feel mastery and to work independently. All I needed to do was to remind her when it was spelling time, give spelling tests and to reinforce her work! We used stickers and a chart for rewards. My daughter would chose her own stickers at the local store. Friday was sticker day – after the spelling test! She loved Fridays. With time, my daughter became a good speller. She began to integrate her knowledge of English (from her reading), with the spelling skills (from SPELLING SKILLS – grade 2). Gradually there were more correctly spelled words in her writing! And this learning happened naturally. There are many good spelling programs out there but for my family, we liked BUILDING SPELLING SKILLS.

For more information, please go to www.evan-moor.com

Building Spelling Skills curriculum is available for grades 1 to 6.

Here’s to equipping the next generation with the skills to become excellent writers!

~Betsy lives near Puget Sound with her husband of 29 years, and her teen daughter. As a waldorf-inspired homeschooler, she loves using art with academics. In her free time, she enjoys gardening, writing, and being out in nature. She also offers consulting to families who would like some support for their homeschool journey.  To reach Betsy just send a message to Jane Sproger on Facebook.

Big Brainz is giving away a deluxe version of Timez Attack multiplication and division, valued at  $59.99, to one Curriculum Choice reader – don’t miss it at the end!

We’ve enjoyed Timez Attack by the Big Brainz company in our homeschool for several years now. These fun, multiplication games were recommended to us by my friends and fellow homeschool moms. It’s one of those resources we turn to when we know we need a little boost in multiplication practice. And, wow, how Timez Attack has improved since we first learned about it. See, we’d tucked it away because there was some space there between our older children and our middle girl. But now, she’s the one that needs that encouragement in times table memorization and division practice.

Enjoy this video for a quick start overview in a minute and a half:

“The most powerful multiplication games ever created.”

Three of my children practice with the Big Brainz game – three different ages/grades. And what better way to practice than with a fun computer game?

But guess what else? Timez Attack now offers addition and subtraction practice, so rising 1st grader got in on the mix as well. At the start, your child practices finding the numbers on the keyboard, chooses a boy or girl player and takes a pre-test to determine skill level. What impressed me most about this offering is that the game slows down when a child misses a certain problems. I watched as Timez Addition drilled my daughter in 2 + 1 = 3 then 3 – 2 = 1.

Plus, Big Brainz just recently added division! Hmm. I sure can appreciate a program that my age range of children can use! Here’s what my rising 8th grader had to say about the newly improved version, “They made it harder to play (you have to give your answer in less time) but easier to remember the multiplication facts.”

Some things I bet you didn’t know:

• available for both Windows and Mac platforms
• built in pre-test and post-test
• a retention component to regularly review the facts

How to find out even more:

• Big Brainz product page
• Home Use downloads page
• Research page showing test score improvement
• You can find Big Brainz on Facebook

Cost:

• There is a free version! You and your child can try it out and use the free version which is what we did to start with
• The paid version gives your child access to more ‘worlds’ and entertainment.
• Standard version: $39.99
• Deluxe version: $59.99
• 100% money back guarantee
• Comparison of the different versions and cost, plus what is included HERE.

Why would I want to pay for Timez Attack?

• As your child is successful in learning the times tables, he/she will advance. The free version only has one world (the dungeon world). However, your child can practice all the times tables with the free version.
• Paid version has more worlds. Some examples are rock tower, ruins with a jungle, volcano, and the machine world.
• Basically, by paying for Timez Attack, you give your child more opportunity to practice and challenge what they have learned.

In summary: Timez Attack meets the needs of several different ages – in our house from age six to 14! It is nice to have a math drill resource that is fun as well as challenging. We use Timez Attack throughout the school year to boost confidence or help a struggling child get back up to speed. But we’ve also found that summer time is a perfect time to use Timez Attack for some fun review.

Special Discount Code just for Curriculum Choice Readers! Enjoy a 25% discount when you purchase from Big Brainz. Just enter code ireadcc  at checkout

Now for the giveaway! Big Brainz is giving away a Deluxe version of Timez Attack Multiplication and Division – a $59.99 value!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Homeschooling for over a decade now, Tricia faces a daily dose of chaos with five children. She shares a mixture of free art lessons, recipes and helpful homeschool habits at Hodgepodge. Her husband, Steve, also writes reviews here at Curriculum Choice.

I think the favored 19th century educator would agree  – this resource is far from ‘twaddle’.

Jimmie over at The Notebooking Fairy has made available an e-book which clearly and concisely explains the art of notebooking.  Not at all new to using this method, I was pleasantly surprised to find my definition of notebooking greatly expanded!

It’s so much more than simple lines on a paper and a drawing, graphic or clipart at the top (or the bottom, or across the page…). Notebooking is not another subject to complete, nor does it need to be done everyday.

The author describes it as “a way to integrate subject areas and a way of teaching and learning.” Incredibly versatile, having children keep a notebook of learning experiences is an excellent way to cement the knowledge gained!

Notebooking Success will equip parents with:

• Seven solid reasons why notebooking is fitting for any learning style
• Step-by-step instructions for creating notebooks
• General guidelines for implementing at each grade level from 1st to 12th
• Three notebooking pitfalls to avoid
• Using notebooks with Charlotte Mason, Classical and Textbook styles
• Extra resources :: 50 different things that can be kept in a notebook (organized by grade level), links to notebooking pages and more!

 {photo credit}

My favorite part of the this e-book resource was the instruction and encouragement on teaching children organizational skills by using notebooking.  While this seems obvious to me now, I hadn’t considered the critical thinking skills my children were gaining by putting their notebooks together — this section is worth a read!

Reasonably priced for homeschool budgets, Notebooking Success is a valuable resource, an excellent addition to any parent’s list of homeschooling guides and helps.

Highly recommended!

~ Written by Daniele of Domestic Serenity

I have been using a fabulous Bible study tool called Journibles, The 17:18 Series. I have used it as a springboard for really digging into a Bible book and studying it deeply.

I wanted to share it here because I think that it could also work well for your high school students as part of their Bible study, and plan to have my son, who will begin his high school studies this fall choose a Journible of his own.

What is Journibles?

Sam's Noggin

It’s pretty simple-it is a book that has lightly written guides- to help you write the Scriptures as scribes once did. The mind behind this tool comes from the Bible:

And when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law, approved by the Levitical priests. Deuteronomy 17:18

Sam's Noggin

I love taking my time to write the Scriptures out- writing them is much slower than I would normally read, and I pick up so much more. I also feel the Scriptures that I write absorb in my mind, they feel more familiar when I go back and read again.

Journibles is a fabulous learning tool. All the pages to write are on the right hand side, with the left hand side reserved for notes, and a few prompts that you might like to use to help your study.

Sam's Noggin

Journibles are hardbound books, with sewn bindings and thick premium paper. They are meant to deepen your Bible knowledge as well as to leave a legacy.

You can learn more about Journibles from their website, and you can purchase available titles there as well. I purchased my copy from Amazon in January, but at the writing of this post the sale at Reformation Heritage Books is a better deal. You can find each title for under $13.00.

My only personal suggestion is to use my favorite pen, Frixion from Pilot. That way, if you make a mistake, you can easily erase it with friction. I use these pens for all of my homeschool planning as well.

Is your family looking forward to the Olympic Games this summer? My children are already talking about which events they hope to catch on TV. (My secret hope is that the stations show more sports coverage and less chit-chat, but that’s just me.) Even if Olympics fever hasn’t yet hit your house, now is a great time for Olympic Games: A Study of the Olympic Games from Ancient Times to the Present, by Charlene Notgrass and Mary Evelyn McCurdy.

Available from home education publisher the Notgrass Company, this study provides 40 lessons on Olympic history, sports education, and notable athletes. Each lesson contains some sort of written or artistic response, including creative writing, sports vocabulary, mapwork, and puzzles. The puzzles are particularly intriguing and comprise missing letter, crossword, word search, acrostic, and word scramble varieties.

Moreover, the lessons encompass a wide variety of subjects, such as Bible study, world history, geography, and language arts. I was especially impressed with the scriptural tie-ins. For example, in the section on archery, the directions read: “The Bible often speaks of bows and arrows. One passage is Psalm 127:4. Copy it on these lines. . . . Read about King David, his friend Jonathan, and what they did with arrows in 1 Samuel 20.”

The artwork is another highlight. More than mere afterthoughts, the photographs are fascinating and pertinent to the text. Vivid color photographs of events and places of interest, as well as historical black and white photos of people and places, such as Wilma Rudolph crossing the finish line in first place, are integral to the study.

Olympic Games is officially for ages 7-14, and the activities are designed for this age group. But the subject matter, related in a well-written style, is engrossing enough for older students and even adults. I myself enjoyed reading the lessons, especially those covering an Olympic timeline.

This fun and engaging study is available as both an Ebook and a spiral-bound consumable workbook; I reviewed the latter. The high quality and reasonable price makes Olympic Games an excellent value. What’s more, it would be a fantastic accompaniment to your 2012 London Games viewing!

Written by Ellen of The Blue Stocking Belle

One of the things I love to use for our living math lessons is games. I don’t know about your children, but mine can pick up skills they never knew they had simply by playing a game. When I taught my eldest how to multiply one of the things I started with was this very simple game called Ka-Ching! Instead of using the word “multiply” though I used the words “groups of”. My son had so much fun playing this game he had absolutely no idea he was learning a valuable math skill!

How We Use It:

When we’re having a living math day, I pull this game out and challenge my son to a round or two. It’s a very fast paced game all about buying and selling stocks. It’s really addictive to play as well!

Basically you set a game board up with the cards by laying them out in a 7×5 grid. Each person is given a certain amount of money {provided in the game} to buy stocks with. I give out money a little differently than the game indicates. I hand out one $10, one $5, one $2, & three $1’s to get the game rolling. Each player also gets one bonus card which can be paired, at any time, with any stock card from the grid. {We generally save it until the end!}

From there, on each turn a person can collect a card from the grid or they can sell stocks, the choice is theirs. The idea is to buy low and sell high. For instance, if you purchase a $3 card and a $6 card you’ve spent a mere $9, but when you sell them you get $3 x $6 for a grand total of $18!

You can see where this is going right? I didn’t explain this strategy to my child when we started playing the game. We simply played. I prefer to let them find their own strategies as they go along, it’s more likely to stick with them. That’s exactly what happened with this game! It took a few rounds of plays but he very quickly realized he needed the higher value cards in order to beat Mom at the end.

What I love:

• I love the simplicity of this game. It didn’t take us an hour or a week to figure out the instructions. It was pretty open and go!
• I love that this is made by Gamewright. Seriously! They sell some amazing, but quick, fun games!
• I love that the cards are reasonably durable considering I play this with my kids.
• I love the color! For anyone who’s visual it’s really eye popping to play, not to mention the pictures of the presidents on the money crack us all up.
• The price. If purchased in the US, this game is fairly reasonably priced at a meager $9.89 + shipping from Amazon.

What I don’t like:

When sold overseas I find the price of this game a bit much. I bought it at a local shop in Tasmania for $20. At the same time, the game is fun, educational, and thus makes it worth what I paid.

Other than that I really can’t complain about this game!

Bottom Line:

We love this highly fun, extremely addictive, amazingly educational game. You really have got to try it for yourself!

Wondering what your student can do with all those

wonderful writing skills they learn using IEW in the younger years?

The IEW system is a complete writing system that homeschooling families can build on from year to year. If your family has worked through the Teaching Writing: Structure and Style course and your older student is now looking for ways to use apply their skills to other subjects, the Excellence in Literature Content Guide for Self-Directed Study series by Janice Campbell is the perfect way to connect great literature and great writing. There are two books to choose from: American or British Literature. You can download a sample of the American Literature guide from the IEW website and also one for the British Literature guide.

These courses are written directly to the student and not the parent, allowing the student to build time management skills and allowing a measure of freedom. The author says that these courses will introduce “literary reading”, where the student learns to read with discernment.

Video introduction from the IEW website

We are just finishing the American Literature course which features nine different authors, offered in chronological order by literature movement. Each book is introduced by giving background to the author and the time period along with suggested follow-up topics to write about.  The background links and resources are a rich mix of primary sources, biographies, art, music, and additional context material in written, audio, and video formats.  The background research before reading the book is fundamental to this literature/writing course and will give the student a more three-dimensional view of the literary selection.

Points to Consider

• Targeted to students in grades 8-11 (My 16-year-old son used this as part of our 12^th grade curriculum.)
• Units include suggested additional honors texts and links.
• Provides models, tips for general study skills, additional writing helps, sample writing pieces, and grading rubrics.
• We found it necessary to have a copy of the course book and the literature selections for highlighting and notes.
• The guide does not give a daily reading plan for each book. I assigned one week for background work, one week for reading the book, and two weeks for writing, as suggested by the author.
• There is usually more than one suggested writing topic.
• $29.00 – My son kept notes and thoughts in his book so I would suggest that each student have their own course book.

This IEW product was a success in our family and we will be moving on to British Literature next year.

Notes and Information Can Be Written in the Book

I love that we can take the pattern from this literature guide and apply it to future books.

1. Complete background information through internet research into the author and time period.
2. Read the book with a writing topic in mind, keeping notes as you read.
3. Follow up with a formal writing piece using the topics or ideas from the assignments in the course.

You may be interested in my other Institute for Excellence in Writing product reviews:

• Teaching Writing Style and Structure (TWSS)
• Linguistic Development Through Poetry Memorization

Written by Barb-Harmony Art Mom. I blog at Harmony Art Mom and am the creator of Harmony Fine Arts. I would love for you to join us for the Outdoor Hour Challenges at the Handbook of Nature Study.

As part of our 10 Days of Lasagna Learning: Teaching Multiple Ages at Hodgepodge, I shared a post called Technology for All Ages. A few readers were particularly interested in a resource I mentioned called Lynda.com, so I thought I would share a little more here. Lynda.com is a subscription online training library. For $25.00 monthly, over one thousand courses can be viewed online.

This introductory video explains how Lynda.com works.

There are classes from beginners to experts. You can pause, rewind, view one tutorial at a time or view an entire course in one area.

Lynda.com training covers a variety of topics, including:

• Photography
• Photoshop
• Home Computing
• Web + Interactive
• 3D + Animation
• Developer                                                     
• Audio
• Video
• Business
• Microsoft
• Apple
• Avid
• Adobe
• Dreamweaver
• ActionScript
• Final Cut Pro

Learn C on the Mac supplementing Lynda.com Objective C course

Our eldest son is using the Lynda.com library to learn computer programming.  The courses are engaging, and the lecturers really know their topics. One of the best things about Lynda.com is that 10% of the training catalog is available free.  You can truly “try before you buy”. There is no long-term commitment, you may cancel the subscription at any time.

You might want to check out:

• The top ten benefits to learning with Lynda.com
• The Lynda.com story
• The cost break down of memberships
• The FREE video tutorials
• The ability to watch tutorials from your iPhone and/or iPad
• Courses available on DVD

Thanks to our friends at Crowe’s Nest Media for pointing us to this great resource. We look forward to many hours of online training and instruction from Lynda.com.

~Steve keeps busy with five children and a job in information security. He has a second job as principal of the Hodgepodge homeschool and also writes for Habits for a Happy Home and Passionate Purposeful Parenting. You can find more of his technology reviews here at Curriculum Choice.

Thank you all for participating in the Harmony Fine Arts Giveaway this week! We had an amazing response to the giveaway. Congratulations to our winners: Kathy and Jenny! Did you miss the review? You should see what all the excitement is about and read my review of Harmony Fine Arts Plans for Music and Art Appreciation. But there’s more – a weekend discount!

Special 25% Discount on Harmony Fine Arts for The Curriculum Choice Readers!

From Barb-Harmony Art Mom:

As a way of thanking you all for your participation in the Harmony Fine Arts Giveaway here on The Curriculum Choice, I would like to extend a special discounted price for ebook versions of my plans. Click over to the Specials Page on Harmony Art Mom blog to read all the details. Barb-Harmony Art Mom explains how to order so that you get the discount, plus how to get started with your Harmony Fine Arts plans.

Regular Price $17.44. Special Discounted price $12.95- A 25% Discount!
Grades 1-8 are eligible for the discount.

Special Price Ends Midnight, April 30, 2012.

Click over to the Specials Page now!

Need something to break up the hum drum of learning diagramming? If so, this may be the perfect thing for you!  The Big Bad Grammar Slammer: The Diagramming Game is a unique way to incorporate learning with fun. Students start with the tutorials, learning the sentence structure and proper diagramming process, then they get to play the game. The game can be played as an individual, a competitive group or a non-competitive group working together.

This is recommended for grades 5 through 12 and consists of 95 pages. The tutorials covered are: sentence skeleton, nouns, adjectives, verb tenses, adverbs, misc sentences, and compound/complex sentences. The forty lessons can be completed in eight weeks.

We were provided the ebook format, printed it off and laminated the clue cards.

From their website:

A light-hearted grammar curriculum that produces confident writers with correct grammar and punctuation

What It Gives Your Students (and you)

• Grasp how the parts of speech work
• Confidence constructing complex and compound sentences
• Correct punctuation
• A low-stress, student-friendly, educational experience

The Big Bad Grammar Slammer is particulary great for students who are burnt out trying to master seemingly non-relevant grammar terms in a workbook.

What It Covers

• Module A The Sentence Skeleton
• Module B Nouns
• Module C Adjectives
• Module D Verb Tenses
• Module E Adverbs
• Module F Miscellaneous Sentences
  • Questions
  • Appositives
  • Quotations
• Module G Compound/Complex Sentences

What You Get

• Instructor’s Guide – no need to purchase additional materials for the teacher
• Tutorial on Grammar and Parts of Speech
  • 6 modules
  • 37 lessons
  • 10 minutes a day for less than two months
• Diagramming Game with Instructions
• Clue Cards
• Three Ring Binder
• (You can also purchase the e-book without the binder.)

This is available in hard copy ($23.95) or ebook ($18.95) and can be ordered HERE.

Here’s praying you have fun learning!

Come visit Dawn over at her blog, Guiding Light Homeschool, on Facebook and on Twitter…friends are ALWAYS welcome!

I am sharing a game that has made learning easy, effortless and fun. Silly Sentence is produced by D.K. Games and you can find at: DK Games. Here is what the game is:

• What: Silly Sentences
• How Much: Around $8.99
• What It Covers: All the basic parts of a sentence

Silly sentence takes apart the elements of a sentence in a fun and engaging manner. There is a playing board, a hexagonal shaped dice, a spinner, place markers, a sentence board that has an easy side with no prepositions and a more advanced side with a preposition place, and hundreds of cards that are labeled noun, preposition, adjective, adverb, and verb. Each card has a word, (e.g., run, hop, scared, the, a, over, under, etc) or a picture if it is a noun card: horse, girl, dog, or fox, etc.

On the player’s turn he will roll the dice. Depending on what is rolled, he will either move his marker, spin or chose a category and even sometimes both. The object of the game is to be the first to complete your silly sentence and then read it off laughing your head off!

My kids LOVE this game. My five-year-old requests it almost daily and he doesn’t even realize that he is understanding prepositions as he repeats, ” Prepositions find the noun.” This game is very simple to play.

There are two minor things that I do not care for with this game and feel that it is important to bring to your attention. One is that the hexagonal shaped die is not sturdy at all. You have to put it together when the game arrives and it is very flimsy. I have ended up placing clear tape all the way around it so that it maintains its shape but if an unassuming toddler steps on the die, it is crushed. Also, our adjective and adverb spots on our dice are the same color, yellow, but on the board the adjectives are blue and the adverbs are yellow. This makes it a bit confusing for non-readers when they question which card to take.

Besides the issues mentioned above, I still feel that purchasing the game and its benefits far outweighs the die and color issue. I highly recommend this game and hope your family enjoys it just as much as ours!

You are in for a treat at the end. Don’t miss the giveaway!

Dear homeschool parent,

Are you like me? Do you long to enrich your homeschool with studies of composers and artists? Do you wish that someone would just do it all for you? You know, invest the time in research, find the online links, point you to the resources you need? All I really wanted to be able to do was open something up and teach. Have it all right there and not have to pull it all together myself.

It’s done. Yes, really. It’s all done for you. Barb-Harmony Art Mom has created just what you need. She, too, was like us. Here is what Barb has to say about the Harmony Fine Arts (HFA) plans she created:

The idea behind this program came from my own home schooling experience. I was always searching for a plan for picture study and composer study. It seemed simple enough to do myself but I just never did it. I also wanted to use the classical style and Charlotte Mason’s ideas for our art and music. I wanted all the great resources organized in the four-year cycle of history. I wanted it to be flexible and easy to use. I never found what I was searching for so I decided to do it myself!

This is the art and music appreciation program for busy people. We have done all the research and organizing. You are able to open our plan and offer a great program for your children.

As mentioned above, the plans are organized by the four-year cycle of history. They are presented as follows but plans for individual grades are available:

• Grammar – Grades 1-4
• Logic – Grades 5-8
• Rhetoric – Grades 9-12

(First grade plans are a general overview and gentle introduction to composers and artists. Starting with grade 2, the plans work chronologically through the four year history cycle.)

Art Plans:

Offer three options so you can choose what is best for your homeschool.

• You can simply choose picture study with links to view all the art online for easy viewing.
• You can add in an art appreciation study with short activities.
• You can even follow along in certain grades with the formal art program Artistic Pursuits or Drawing with Children or Mark Kistler’s Draw Squad – depending on the grade level.
• Depending on which option you choose within the art plans – you can allow for one or two 45-minute art periods per week.

Composer Study:

• Choose to study the composers and listen to their music or
• Enhance your music study with suggested books

Included: artist and composer notebooking pages, coloring pages of famous art.

How we use Harmony Fine Arts Plans in our home: we adopted Angie and her boys at Petra School’s Wednesday habit of artist and composer study. All this means is that we push back the dishes from lunch. I open up the Harmony Fine Art Plans on my computer. I turn on the music of the composer we are studying. Or I click over to the optional online listening of Classics for Kids. We might work on a notebook page while listening.

Next, depending on the day, I might click over to view artwork of the artist we are studying. We may follow with an artist notebook page or a Draw Squad lesson. This takes 15 to 30 minutes once a week. But building a weekly habit has tuned us all in and made us want more the rest of the week.

• “Can we play that again? I really like it.” 14-year-old
• Six-year-old whistling along to Beethoven’s 9^th Symphony when I turn on the classical music just for listening fun.

The Many Benefits of Art and Music Study:

• Made by a homeschool mom to meet a need.
• Affordable Plans for Busy Moms
• Practical Homeschooling Reader Award 2011
• How to Get Started with Harmony Fine Arts
• Download Sample pages – try it out!
• Enjoy free downloads
• Listen to a podcast to see if the Harmony Fine Arts plans are right for your family
• Browse Harmony Fine Arts Pinterest boards for direct links to sample plans

Cost: All costs are listed on the order page of the Harmony Fine Arts website. Bundles are available as well as individual year plans. I purchased the Middle School Medieval/Renaissance Plans at the start of this school year for $17.44. A whole year of study for the whole family for less than $20 – one that brings that much learning and enjoyment? What a bargain!

Print or ebook? Harmony Fine Arts Plans are available in both print or ebook format.

In Summary: What I originally intended for my middle-schoolers to study has extended to full blown appreciation for the whole family – all five children.

• The artist and composer studies compliment our Tapestry of Grace studies beautifully.
• For this mama, using HFA plans is easy. I just click to open the plans, click to print what we might like to compliment our studies, click to print a coloring page for the younger ones.
• Not to mention, this type of enrichment is pure delight. It might just be what your homeschool needs too.

“All my music I wrote for God.” ~ J. S. Bach

I shared about our studies on my Hodgepodge site and my friend Kimberly, a pianist and life-long musician, had this to say…

“It warms my heart when I hear children learning about classical music! So many of those composers had such a love for God and were certainly gifted. When you mention Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Debussy, etc. to most children, they have no idea who they are. It’s so sad because these musicians have had such an impact on our world. It’s wonderful that you’re sharing this education with your children!” ~Kimberly

I agree – there is so much history and part of HIS story we can learn from those gifted and Godly. With thanks to Harmony Fine Arts for creating a wonderful tool for just such an education.

• Full descriptions of individual plans at the Harmony Fine Arts site.
• Plus Barb-Harmony Art Mom shares many more examples and samples on her Harmony Art Mom site.
• Barb is a review author here at Curriculum Choice. You can find all of her reviews here.

Now for the giveaway!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Homeschooling for over a decade now, Tricia faces a daily dose of chaos with five children. She shares a mixture of free art lessons, recipes and the practical at Hodgepodge. Her husband, Steve, also shares reviews here at Curriculum Choice.

I am so excited to share with you a curriculum that has allowed my children to move past the traditional black and white numbers and into a world where numbers create characters and characters stories. Allow me to introduce you to Addition the Fun Way! by Judy Liautaud with City Creek Press. 

The curriculum is a fun, picture method of learning and the addition facts, per the author. I whole heartedly agree. Let me explain how the method of learning the addition facts work. First, the author goes into great detail to explain how to use and teach this book. I found this area very helpful simply because this was an entirely new way for me to think about numbers and for my children as well. Any question that you may encounter will more than likely be answered in this section and if not, Judy Liautuad is incredibly prompt at answering any email request AND phone calls that you may have have! This is based on personal experience!

The book then goes on to explain who each of the number characters are. Each number becomes a constant character throughout the entire book. For example, there is ” 3 bee” and ” sick 6″. The stories are constructed around these characters and a new addition fact is learned after each story.

The curriculum covers EVERYTHING from adding zero through ten. Learning the one’s and two’s addition facts are covered in the beginning and not used as character in stories. Rather the numbers are given the staircase picture of going up one step if you add one and two steps up the stairs if you add two to a number.

Silly and memorable number characters are a great way to describe how the author draws the children into learning in a very visual and interesting manner. For example, one of our favorite stories is 3+3=6. The story, in summary, talks about how sick 6 was picking flowers on a beautiful spring day but there were 2 bees in the flower who stung him. The author then recaps each story with,

” Remember: When its 3+3, the 3-bees sting the 6 and make him sick.”

Now, for the best part, our experience with the curriculum! I received this curriculum in February and was not sure how long it would take for me to accurately write this review, based on my children’s results. However, the method and results with the picture methodology presented in Addition the Fun Way! is incredible!

We began with two stories a day. That is all. Then after my boys became familiar with each character they would go through the book and pick out stories that appeared interesting to them. We did not go through any specific order. Rather we simply enjoyed reading the stories and learning the characters.

After a couple of weeks, I began pulling out some manipulatives that I had in our home. I did this for the purpose of observing if they were understanding the concepts behind the stories ( they were!!). I began to incorporate the flashcards that can be purchased along with the curriculum. The fun part about these flashcards is that they show the characters on them thus further helping to press the pictures as well as the addition facts into a child’s long-term memory.

I cannot, honestly, say enough great things about this incredibly fun and EASY way to learn the addition facts. After a few short weeks my boys were rattling off EVERY single addition fact while smiling about them. We all know those “flash card” moments where we sit with a black and white fact and continually repeat, ” you know this, what is this, what is this??”. Now, I hold up a flashcard and it is still black and white (the book is all in color) yet the difference is with the picture association built into the addition fact there is an immediate recognition and recall from the stories. I find this so encouraging and incredibly helpful in building the math foundation!

• The author has addition and subtraction as well as multiplication and division programs for you to choose from on her website: City Creek Press.
• The addition book that we have will cost $19.95 and the flash cards at $8.95.
• There are also great options to buy for one student on her site that include basic and deluxe kits.

I encourage anyone who is looking for an addition program that is engaging and fun to try out Addition the Fun Way! We have not been disappointed!

I’ve been a huge fan of Homeschool In The Woods for a long time! Their products are just funtastic. Thus far we’ve used three different time traveler packs and are gearing up to use another two next year!

Each Time Traveler pack is loaded with crafts, recipes, copywork, notebooking pages and lapbooking pages. It’s six weeks of school pre-planned for you, but many of them can easily be extended well beyond six weeks!

How I use it:

I have now used four of these wonderful Time Traveler packs with another two lined up for next year. Each one has been used pretty much the same way. We print out the pieces that we’ll need to make our notebook and lapbook. Then we follow the schedule provided in with each Time Traveler CD.

The exception was with the Early 19th Century CD. Wow, is this CD loaded! Because we used this alongside the Winter Promise Curriculum we chose to make our way through this particular CD at a slower pace and I’m really glad we did! It’s just loaded with so much information I really believe you could spend an entire week on each and every one of the twenty-two lessons!

We work for four consecutive days on the lessons provided and use our fifth day as “project day”, as suggested in the CD. Project day is where things really get fun. You can work on any of the craft projects you might not have attempted yet {if desired}. There’s usually a recipe or two and often vocabulary words to use.

Really, the CDs couldn’t be simpler to use. There are pictures of each project so you can visually see the step-by-step instructions. But panic not if you would prefer to read the instructions because they are written out as well!

What I love:

I love that there’s a simple schedule, premade, that I can follow if I so wish. I usually do!

Everything is on a CD-disc so I can print it out if I want, or not. I prefer to print out the notebooking and lapbooking pieces and put the lessons and instructions onto my iPad for ease. But, I’ve also printed it all out in the past and that works just as well too!

I love the homemade games in each unit, they are such a fun way for children to remember what they’ve learned!

I love that each time we use one of these kits my kids feel like they are a part of history. They walk away knowing so much and feeling as though they’ve made fast friends.

I love that each unit comes with a list of additional books and videos you can use to enhance your learning experience, if you want. You won’t miss out if you choose not to use them!

I love that there are recipes included. There’s nothing quite like food to help my boys understand a certain time in history. The recipes are usually fairly simple and don’t require any special ingredients. Despite a few food allergies in our home I find that I can adapt all the recipes with ease.

I love that I can purchase just one of these CDs and legally make copies for all my children! No need to buy more then one copy – just print off as much as you need.

I love that these are written from a Christian perspective and that perspective is woven throughout the entire six weeks worth of lessons.

What I don’t like:

There’s precious little to not like about this particular curriculum, however to be honest with my review the one thing I wish was possible with this was to purchase them as downloads!

International shipping can be pricey, and even when it’s not it can take an excruciatingly long time to get stuff from other places. {Two weeks in general for us in Tasmania, but there are times when it can take 6-8 weeks!!} If these items were available as downloads it would reduce the need for international shipping.

However, I must also note that I once emailed Amy Pak about these not being downloadable and she was very honest and stated that the sheer size of them was part of the problem. The other problem was that there are huge images {remember you get timeline pieces, notebook pieces and lapbooking pieces – not to mention all the other goodies I’ve named} that would be distorted when they bring the size down to make download faster. She’s also very willing to put several CDs in a priority mail envelope for you {or was last time I emailed her} so if you stock up and purchase a few at a time then you’re good to go!

Bottom Line:

Thanks to the Pak family’s love for history and sharing it with the rest of the world. Because of this nifty series, my children have fallen in love with history. What more can I ask for?

The Youth Virtue Journal is a slim ring-bound workbook with a huge goal:  to help teens choose virtues.  Working with a mentor, teens will learn how to be attentive, content, forgiving, gentle, helpful, honest, obedient, perseverant and respectful.  The booklet contains a form for parental input as well.

Each of the nine chapters contains a moment to dream and a chance to see how virtues could help achieve dreams.  In fact, the booklet states that “ …though you add virtue to your life because it is the right thing to do, it will also tremendously improve your ability to live your dreams.”

Each virtue is defined in a very personal way.  For example, Attentive is defined as

I am attentive: I watch and listen carefully.

I am not …forgetful, distracted or distracting and I don’t ignore or interrupt.

Teens are asked to discuss a list of questions about this virtue in themselves and are given a chance to rate themselves on a scale from 1 to 10.  Then they are asked questions that show how this virtue, in themselves or others, has affected their relationships, either because it was practiced or ignored.   Quotes from various sources highlight the virtue being discussed. Then the teens are given an opportunity to relate the virtue to their dreams, write down thoughts about this virtue in their lives, and sign a resolution to ‘take a stand for what is right’.

This whole process is meant to guided by a caring mentor and supported by parents at home.

How we used it:  I quickly realized that the Youth Virtue Journal would be suitable for all ages, so we began to discuss it after lunch time, question by question.  We covered a lot of ground besides virtues.

The children shared thoughts, criticisms, hopes, and frustrations.  We laughed a lot.  We discovered some things we needed to change.  We talked about what virtues were and discussed whether or not this journal was right in its definitions and why.  These were very valuable discussions, and I plan to continue them using the insightful questions in this book.

Obviously, this is not how the book was meant to be used, but this is how it worked for our family.  It is very versatile, and its lists of questions can be used in many ways.

Our thoughts:

1.With a bit of tweaking, the Youth Virtue Journal can be a valuable tool in a homeschooling family.

2.In this study, written by Christians, I was startled to find no references to sin, salvation, and our inability to become virtuous on our own.  When I contacted the author, Heather McMillan, about this, she wrote (and I added the bold face type):

This particular tool was written at the request of a government truancy court in Nampa, Idaho. In writing this Youth Journal I was fighting against the very philosophy that there is no such a thing as right and wrong, that we do nice things because it benefits ME instead of because it is RIGHT, that obedience to authority is dangerous (I know, seems extreme, but it is the prevailing thought of our day when it comes to raising children), and that correction is to be avoided instead of embraced.  

We Choose Virtues is a tool that is not the complete story. For Christians and non-Christians alike, it sets a standard of truth for people who have no biblical standard operating in their lives or who simply need a way to explain it to their children. It forces children and youth to face their true character.  So many of us walk around believing that we have no sin because we live in a lawless generation. Parents are afraid to set a consistent standard because their own parents rejected authority. Once a true standard is set before us and we compare our lives to it, then we have a place from which to repent.  If anything, perhaps repentance will come when the true condition of a young person’s heart is revealed through this journal. Beyond that, I hope (no, actually I pray) that when this tool is in the hands of Christian parents and youth pastors, the true power behind the transformation of a heart will be explained. As you stated, there is no way we can change ourselves. It is the power of the Holy Spirit that transforms us, and that only by the work of the cross. (quoted with permission)

In this sense, then, this booklet shows people what is in their hearts.  In the hands of a Christian parent or mentor, it could be a tool to show us and our children our sinful nature and our need for redemption.  That is something we can never understand deeply enough.

3. If you want a resource to promote open discussions, the Youth Virtue Journal has excellent lists of questions.

In summary:  Our family benefitted from our time with the Youth Virtue Journal and will continue to use it.  Although it was written for a different audience, it can be a valuable resource for Christian homeschoolers.

The Youth Virtue Journal is available from We Choose Virtues.  Similar products for younger children are also available.

Disclosure:  I received a review copy of the Youth Virtue Journal from We Choose Virtues in order to share my honest opinions.

-Written by Annie Kate, a Christian homeschooling mom of five, who reviews and blogs at Tea Time with Annie Kate.

Taken directly from their website:

The Money Book for Teens is a series of 3 modules teaching teens the necessary financial skills to live and thrive in life.  Using the Bible as its foundation, The Money Book for Teens is taught from the context of a language arts course.

Module 1 focuses on Biblical Stewardship principles while emphasizing things like budgeting, tracking spending, net worth, and understanding a balance sheet.  Students will memorize foundational scriptures, learn financial vocabulary, practice critical thinking and logic skills, as well as reading comprehension.  They will read the book The Richest Man in Babylon, a classic book by George Clason as part of their reading program.

Included: The Student edition (78 pages) & the Teacher edition (44 pages)

Needed: The Richest Man in Babylon

What we like about this:

The first module (Stewardship) is the only module we have used and we really like it because it has a very strong biblical foundation but also because it incorporated reading that “brought the point home” in a very easy-to-understand way. There are six lessons: What is Stewardship?, What am I a Steward Over?, Setting Up a Spending Plan, Tracking Spending, Balance Sheet and Net Worth – Why it’s Important.

Each lesson is about ten pages and consists of a little information presented by the authors followed by reading comprehension exercises (key terms, memory verse, concept problems), then reading from the book with “Connect to Literacy” questions. They close with reading scriptures and giving observations of those scriptures and how they relate to what is being studied.

They are asked to work on spending plans – showing them the connection between incoming and outgoing monies. {YAY!}

They also complete KWL charts:

If you are looking for an economics type study that is affordable with a biblical perspective…this study is for you!

Cost: $29.95 (e-book; both teacher and student editions)

As a side note: Originally we checked The Richest Man in Babylon out from our library but we needed it for too long so we went ahead and bought a used copy of our own.

Here’s praying you have fun learning!

Come visit Dawn over at her blog, Guiding Light Homeschool, on Facebook and on Twitter…friends are ALWAYS welcome!

Don’t miss the giveaway at the end of this review!

I am going to start with letting you know that I love this app! I appreciate the opportunity to review it.

Kids 1st Shape Puzzle offers eight different puzzles to choose from. There are animals, numbers, transportation, letters, and more! As the child manipulates each item into place, a little burst of stars shows that it is correct. When the entire puzzle is complete, the player is rewarded with applause (or other happy sound).

My first little reviewer, my two-year-old grandson, struggled to maneuver each piece into its place. That did not stop him from enjoying the puzzle. With a little help, he was able to play with it. He especially enjoyed the sound effects on the animal and transportation puzzles.

My granddaughter, also two years old, had more time to play with the puzzle, and after a little instruction was able to get each puzzle piece in its place with no trouble at all. If your child is experienced at using an iPad screen, moving the puzzle pieces should not be an issue.

Both of my reviewers gave this app a serious thumb up.  In fact, when I took my iPad to leave, my granddaughter started to cry. Sadly, not because I was leaving, but because she wanted to play some more!

I give it a thumbs up as for its colorful, interactive format! When moving a puzzle piece into place, its name is heard. The puzzles with transportation and animals also have sounds that accompany each piece. My favorite is the music puzzle- when a piece is dropped in place, the child is rewarded with the sound the instrument makes.

This app could be a lifesaver while waiting for dinner, doctor appointments, or on a long car drive!

Another bonus is that it includes the Hebrew alphabet and offers an option to play with Hebrew responses.

• Visit Kids 1st Shape Puzzles website
• Purchase this app on iTunes for $1.99
• Kids 1st Shape Puzzles on Twitter
• You can also visit Kids 1st Shape Puzzles on Facebook

Now for the giveaway!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

-Laurie Duquette is mom to 7 children and a grandma of 3. Her family is beginning their 19th year of homeschooling. You can read more about their homeschooling adventures at Keeping It Simple.

As homeschool parents, we have so much to focus on: preparing for our days being a huge responsibility.

Being an eclectic type of curriculum user, I typically make up my own planner and haven’t invested in purchasing one through the years.  I appreciated the idea of customizing and tailoring to my needs.

One day, while doing phonics with my first grader, I realized that we needed a break from our regular curriculum – for both of us. My daughter understood the concepts in her phonics book but was just becoming tired of it. I wanted reading to be enjoyable and hands on! I searched our local teacher’s bookstore. I found a book that worked for us: Scholastic’s Reading Success Mini Books – Word Families.

This book turned reading into fun by helping my daughter make her own Word Family Mini Books. Now, I could have developed this activity myself but I liked the way this book made the whole thing easier for me and fun for my daughter! All that is needed to make the Mini Books is a pair of scissors, some crayons and felt pens, if desired. There are 20 Word family Mini Books to make in all.

Benefits:

• Builds your child’s reading vocabulary through learning word families.
• Includes all the pages that you need to make 20 Interactive Mini-Books to read aloud, color and collect.
• Each book features the same sounding word ending, such as ack, ag, am, ape, ing, ink, ug ump, etc, thereby teaching the concepts of word families.
• This offers practice in writing and reading word families, with lines to write in.
• Includes illustrations of each rhyming word, ideal for students who like to color.
• Builds self-confidence through hands-on learning.

My daughter not only enjoyed making her mini books, but also loved sharing them. She prided herself on her writing, and enjoyed reading it out loud all to her family – especially to her dad at dinner!  This gave her a feeling of confidence in the sometimes difficult process of learning to read. And being the author of the book herself didn’t hurt! My favorite experience with this book was when my daughter would read her word family mini books to her dolls! (I think they must have learned a lot too!)

When we returned to our regular phonics curriculum, my daughter had not only gained new vocabulary words but also brought with her new confidence to the whole process of reading!

For more information, please go to www.scholastic.com.

If you are looking for a nice, hands on break from the usual, I recommend Word Families – Reading Success Mini-Books for any of your early readers.

Look for more reviews of other Scholastic books for young learners by this author.

~Betsy lives with her husband, daughter and two cats near Puget Sound in the northwest.  A waldorf-inspired and unit study-loving homeschooler, she offers Homeschool Consulting to new families at Jane Sproger.

Most homeschoolers are very frugal and must make their homeschool budget stretch as far as possible. My family is no exception and I think long and hard about investing in curriculum and tools for our learning experiences. My two youngest boys are very science oriented and are naturally inquisitive about the world around them so purchasing a quality microscope made sense as we entered the middle school science years.

Our family aims to get the most value for the dollar. So which microscope would we buy?

The decision was not easy but after much research and thought, we decided to purchase the Sonlight Ultra Microscope. With a price tag of $240 this was a decision not made lightly! We wanted to provide the best equipment for our sons even as homeschoolers. Taking into account the useful life (six years in our case), our cost per year would be $40. Our high school science plans would be greatly enhanced with this investment and could provide college-prep level lab work throughout the high school years.

Actual image we took through the eyepiece of river sand.

Now after using this microscope for many years, I can with confidence say that it was an investment that paid off in a growing knowledge of the world right under our noses.  Our eyes were opened to a complete new dimension of study, fascinating and wonderful.

Features Our Family Have Found Valuable:

• Sturdy, durable construction. This is not a toy microscope and from the moment you pull it out of the box you know it is built to last.
• The ease of aligning the slides. The mechanics of the slide platform are easy to adjust with the up-down and side-to-side knobs positioned for easy use. Going from coarse to fine adjustment is easy and the object stays in your field of vision. This feature cuts down on frustration. View Sonlight’s YouTube.com video showing Features and Benefits.
• The light does not get hot and we can use this microscope for a long time without the slides getting hot or drying out too fast. This is especially important when working with wet objects like those you find in a pond.
• The eyepiece swivels around so we can show each other what we see in the microscope as we gather around the table.
• The magnification has been plenty high enough that we can see amazing details of our subject (40x, 100x, and 400x lenses).
• We used this microscope in our biology, marine biology, chemistry, and human anatomy studies during high school.

Check the Sonlight website for their complete description and warranty.

Our family highly recommends this product for your homeschool science courses.

Written by Barb-Harmony Art Mom.  I blog at Harmony Art Mom and am the creator of  Harmony Fine Arts. I would love for you to join us for the Outdoor Hour Challenges at the Handbook of Nature Study.