Archives for May 2013
Papa’s Pearls {Crew Review}
Magazine.com {Propeller Review}
Not only do they have magazines at Magazines.com, they also have books, newspapers, journals, calendars, movies, fragrances and much much more!!! It’s a site filled with gift’s galore for every occasion.
Some of my favorites I found on the site are: Good Housekeeping Magazine, Southern Living Magazine, Better Homes and Gardens Magazine, and National Geographic Magazine. For the kids, I found American Girl Magazine, Nat Geo Kids, Highlights, High Five, Disney Princess, Rick Jr., Young Rider, Jack and Jill, Dig and so many more!
In books you can find anything from classics to weird facts. Some of the ones I liked are Charlotte Mason’s Original Homeschooling series, The Year of Learning Dangerously, The Lego Ideas Book, You Are My Cupcake and so many more.
LiteracySoft: Phonics and Reading with McGuffey {Crew Review}
For this review, we were given a free download of the LiteracySoft app to try. Phonics and Reading with McGuffey contains 52 complete lessons for reading. These 52 lessons work to bring the student up to a first grade reading level. It is also a great reading review tool for those struggling with reading at any age.
Phonics and Reading with McGuffey allows the student to work at his/her own pace without having an instructor telling them what they need to do. Taking away the instructor often takes the pressure out of learning to read and puts it into the hands of the child, allowing them to grasp important reading concepts as they work through the program on their own. And what better way is there to do that then with an all time, tried and true great like the McGuffey Reader!
In this app, the student will find all 52 McGuffey Primer lessons, 44 letter sounds of English and their graphemes, over 60 letter sound animations, more than 400 practice vocabulary words, and an over 9000 nonsense word audio dictionary.
After downloading the app, the user will find the unique ABC icon on their iPad page and can immediately begin after downloading is finished. Spoken directions tell the user what to do when beginning. Choose a color button and type your name to get started with this app.
On the next page, the user can then read the Table of Contents, change their settings or begin the lesson. Choosing the Table of Contents allows the user to choose from any of the 53 included lessons on the app. This allows the user to jump around and repeat lessons as needed.
In the User Settings section, the user can choose to skip phonics rules explanations, not to sound out words in a phonics blender, use an Open Dyslexic font, monochrome letters in words and sentences for easier viewing and hide the previous and next lesson arrows throughout the program.
Upon clicking Begin Lesson, there is a brief instructional showing the student how to use the app. At the top, the user can find a repeat button. Below that is a menu button. There is also a previous and next part button to click back or ahead in a lesson. The lessons, as mentioned before, follow those in the McGuffey Primer, so they are simple and easy to follow along with.
Cute actions graphics are included along with the lesson, which also goes along with the original primer lessons in style, only more up-to-date for this time period. As the student works through, the program sounds out the word, completing this with the complete word’s spoken name: cat = c a t (kuh aa tuh) = cat.
As lessons increase, so do the activities included. A jump menu appears to allow the student to work on different activities throughout that lesson. Some of these activities include workings specifically on Letter Sounds, new words, Phonics with flashcards, blending phonics, viewing the lesson’s illustrations closer, practice of reading, quizes, spelling practice and sight word drilling. Students working through can pick and choose the activities they’d like to complete as they work through each lesson.
This app quickly became a family favorite for us. My children’s reading skills and development has increased greatly just in the review period of a few short weeks. This program is something that will be added into our homeschooling for all our readers. The kids all agree it’s a lot of fun to complete lessons. It’s also great for my interactive, video-game learner who hates learning to read anything in a book.
We used this app for several weeks. I was able to create a profile for every one of my children and myself to play with this app. It was very easy to set up lessons for each of them to complete. This app was a little advanced still for my 5 year old but she is gradually growing into it. It was perfect for my struggling reader to work with and he has made a lot of improvement in a short time. My advanced reader also found the app enjoyable and used it to hone in on her personal reading skills and goals.
Phonics and Reading with McGuffey app is available in through the LiteracySoft website. There is a free trail of the first 10 lessons available and also available for trial on PC.
Blown Away {Epilepsy Awareness}
I’m sitting here tonight, blown away. Earlier tonight another sweet angel was called to Heaven. This sweet boy had Epilepsy. He was only a year older than my sweet baby Laycie.
6 years old seems like such a short life. Laycie is 5. I cannot understand how a child can suffer such a thing and have brought God Glory in such a short time. Things are not for me to understand.
I pray daily for children, like my babies, who suffer from Epilepsy, among other things. I have so many people that I love who’s beautiful babies have this dreadful disorder. And I wonder why must our children suffer from this?
Another friend told about her day as an Epilepsy Mom. She was confronted by a woman who told her that her precious son has Epilepsy because of her choice to have tattoos. It was God’s way of punishing her. I say if that’s God’s way for doing something so simple then I guess everyone would be punished. And if Satan has a hand in it then that should be a simple fix!
Unless you have a child with Epilepsy or some similar debilitating disorder, you cannot understand what it’s like as a Mother to deal with insolence and stupidity when it comes to others who don’t understand. Stereotypes and stigmas surround Epilepsy. People truly believe that demons possess those of us who have Epilepsy. People think holding an exorcism will simply take them away. But that’s not how it works.
This disorder is VERY REAL. It’s real for all of us who daily watch our babies struggle to hold on for life. And it’s real for those of us who have to watch our children slip away, who have to say goodbye way too early to those precious beings that we love so much.
I cannot imagine what it is to lose a child. I pray to never have to know. But the reality is that my own baby could leave me just the way this sweet boy left the world today: in a coma induced from her seizures, never again waking to tell me “I love you, Mommy” or “sleep with me Mommy” or “I need some Mommy time”.
Tomorrow, I will make it a point to go to her therapy with her, to hold my baby boy, to kiss my eldest head and to hug my sweet artist a little tighter. Tomorrow I will make it a point to be there in the moment and be thankful for the blessings I do have because they aren’t promised but they are a gift to be appreciated. Never take them for granted and keep the family of the sweet boy who passed today in your thoughts and prayers.
God bless <3 p="">3>
Home School In The Woods: Great Empires {Crew Review}
Great Empires is one of many of Home School In The Woods extensive unit studies. Available as a download or on disk, this study has everything you will need to begin a thorough study of the Greatest Empires known to mankind. This study if fully hands-on and easily implemented. Printing and some work putting the study together is required for completion. Adobe Reader is also required for usage of this program.
For this review, we received a download of the study to use for our daily lessons in our home. After downloading the program, the curriculum itself opens in a web browser on the start page. This page provides links to every section of the study, much like a notebook. A picture of the details of this download, the completed projects and materials is provided for viewing on this page also.
A world map is included in this study, for mapping the locations of the Empires provided in the study. Pre-made timelines are also a part of the study, allowing room for pictures and notes as needed. These are blackline masters, as are the historical figures provided to be used with the timeline. They can easily be colored in by children to provide further interaction with the featured era and figure of the time.
Text is provided in a printable form and so is a project activity list for each lesson. Each unit has activities for mapping, creative projects and even cooking. This helps brings the lesson itself to life. Adding books from the library, as well as links from the internet make this study even more easily adaptable for using educationally.
My children and I all enjoyed using this study. I was able to use it with all three of my children and have them walk away with new knowledge of each of the Empires of the study. Some of our lessons led to more in depth studies and new found interests in other cultures and also foods. It was a great program that we thoroughly enjoyed using for the time period of this review. It is also a program that I will use again in more depth along the way as we revisit this Empires again in our daily curriculum plans.
Empires included in this study are:
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Greece
Ancient Rome
Ancient China
Arab-Muslim Empire
Mongolian Empire
Viking Empire
Spanish Empire
French Empire
English Empire
German Empire
Japanese Empire
The United States of America