Luv'N Lambert Life

A blog about living with Epilepsy, IBHS, Homeschooling and so much more

curriculum

What Homeschooling Is Like For Us {Homeschooling} {Epilepsy Awareness}

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5 Days of Homeschooling with Epilepsy and Other Issues:
What Homeschooling Is Like For Us


One of the BEST things about Homeschooling is that you can make it work for you!  You don’t need to follow anyone else’s schedule.  You don’t need to do Public School at Home.  You simply do what’s best for you and your family.

Homeschooling for us varies throughout the year.  Because our schedule is usually crazy with appointments at different times of the day, we have had to learn to adapt things to fit around this.  We homeschool year round, which means when the public school kids are at home, we’re usually still having school.

We’re also pretty eclectic educationally which fits right in with the Homeschool Review Crew since we never know ahead which vendors we will be selected to review and which we won’t.  We’ve been blessed to be selected for many wonderful items over the years while being a part of the crew and these items have easily been adapted to fit our homeschooling because of our personal style.

We also tend to use materials that allow us to work together as a family instead of individually which can take a ton of time.  Things like Apologia for science, unit studies by Amanda Bennett, Apologia for Biblical Studies and Story of the World for history have helped us to have a well-rounded educational experience while allowing us to adapt to the challenges our health issues present.

Unit studies have been a huge blessing because it allows us to often work through subjects of interest instead of following a more formal plan.  Many field trips end out our studies to give that hands-on experience my children crave.  This is just a fun bonus for all of us.

As you’ve probably guessed, we don’t follow a strict schedule.  I feel that learning is most important, not meeting a timeline that my children may not necessarily be ready for.  I enjoy watching their little faces when they truly learn something that speaks loudly to their hearts.  This is the method we’ve used for years and greatly enjoy following.

This is just a small glimpse into our homeschooling life.  We hope you’ve enjoyed it and look forward to sharing more with you!  Next up is Homeschooling On The Down Days.

Blessings,
Dana Lambert-Hodge

This post is a part of the 5 Days of Homeschool… Blog Hop from
the Homeschool Review Crew!

5 Days of Homeschool Annual Blog Hop - 2017

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Memoria Press: First Form Greek {Crew Review}

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What We Reviewed:


For this review, we were sent First Form Greek Complete Set from Memoria Press.  This set came at the perfect time.  A few weeks before this vendor came up, Emmalee and I were discussing what she’d like to learn about next.  She paused to think for a few minutes and then stated, “Greek.  I want to learn Ancient Greek though, not any new stuff.”  Then a few weeks later this popped up in the Vendor list and I knew it was just what she wished for!  Better yet, it was set to ship out on her birthday!  No doubt that this was meant for her.



What We Received:


We have reviewed other Memoria Press curriculum in the past and it always arrives in it’s own cardboard box with the company name on printed on the outside.  I keep it in that box until we complete our reviews because the box is often filled to the brim with curriculum goodies for us.  This box was no exception.


This box contained the following:


First Form Greek: Introduction to Ancient Greek Instructional DVDs by Elizabeth Pierce

First Form Greek Teacher Key (Workbook, Quizzes, & Tests) by Cheryl Lowe and Michael Simpson

First Form Greek Quizzes & Tests Workbook by Cheryl Lowe and Michael Simpson

First Form Greek Teacher Manual by Cheryl Lowe and Michael Simpson
First Form Greek Student Text by Cheryl Lowe and Michael Simpson
First Form Greek: Introduction to Ancient Greek Workbook by Cheryl Lowe and Michael Simpson
First Form Greek Pronunciation CD
First Form Greek Flashcards
Access to online videos to use with the curriculum.

This set works together to create a complete Ancient Greek curriculum for teaching your student Greek thoroughly.  


I will explain some of the key pieces of curriculum in this set.

First Form Greek: Introduction to Ancient Greek Instructional DVDs by Elizabeth Pierce

There are 5 DVDs in this set. Each covers 4-5 lessons from the curriculum and are labeled in order.  They are approximately 10-20 minutes of instruction per lesson equaling around 8 hours of instructional videos.  The videos include lesson lectures, oral drill as well as examples and charts to instruct your student.


First Form Greek: Introduction to Ancient Greek Teacher Manual

This is a typical teacher’s guide designed to help you achieve your best through using the curriculum.  It begins with an introduction on how to use the curriculum and instruct your student in the lessons to learn Ancient Greek.  


Next it gives a lesson overview of what to expect in each lesson and how it flows.  This is followed with Games and Review Activities and how to use those to best teach and learn Ancient Greek.  This section is followed with a Syllabus and Preparation that shares how to create a syllabus for your homeschool and this curriculum and also how to prepare your classes and use this curriculum.  

The next section is the Recitation list followed by the Student text and lesson plans.  At the end of the guide are Appendices sharing Greek Sayings and Vocabulary from Greek to English and English to Greek.

The lessons plans are easy to follow with check off boxes for each part as you complete the lesson.  The lessons become a little more intensive as the curriculum goes along and you build a better understanding of Ancient Greek.  

First Form Greek: Introduction to Ancient Greek Student Text

This is a rather small and easy to use text book for your student.  It’s 116 pages in length and covers all the lessons your student will be learning in the curriculum.  There is a brief introduction then it immediately moves into the lessons.  There are 24 lessons.  At the back of the book are several appendices, oral drill and a vocabulary section. 


First Form Greek: Introduction to Ancient Greek Workbook

Now this thing is huge!  280 pages of worksheets that help you learn Ancient Greek.  There’s a statement to the student and a translation checklist, then you jump right in to the good stuff.  Worksheet after worksheet of learning, complete with drill forms in the back.  



How We Used It:


I handed this straight over to Emma who dove straight in.  At first, she chose to simply listen to the Pronunciation CD to get a head start on speaking the language and then she looked up the videos and began to watch those to learn more about the curriculum before she began lessons.  Emma is unique and  has her own style of working on things. 

The curriculum was not hard for her to use though.  Normally, we do not use such structured lesson materials but she was easily able to adapt and work through several of the lessons.  I chose to let her set the pace, as she’s naturally an independent learner.  She chose to pick them up nightly, reading her lessons when no one was up to bother her and completing the necessary work that went along with it as she did so.  

She was easily able to follow through the curriculum without a whole lot of guidance from me but she stopped to ask questions when necessary.  As I stated though, Emmalee is extremely independent with lessons and prefers to figure it out herself, which she was easily able to do.

Where You Can Buy First Form Greek:


First Form Greek Complete Set is for students in 7th – 12th grade.  It could be considered an Elective Course or a Course for Foreign Language for your High School student.  It is available through Memoria Press for $125.00 for the entire set.  It does recommend a prerequisite of two years of Latin Grammar, which Memoria Press also offers as available courses, and the Greek Alphabet Book.



Other Places You Can Find This Vendor:



Read More Reviews For This Vendor:

First Form Greek, Iliad/Odyssey and American History {Memoria Press Reviews}

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Crew Disclaimer

Standard Deviants Accelerate {Crew Review}

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Standard Deviants Accelerate is a wonderful online program designed to be a supplement to learning.  This program covers several subjects in interesting ways.  It’s a wonderful addition to any educational program.
For this review, we were given access to the Standard Deviants Accelerate Homeschool Courses.  These courses were created to be used in the homeschool environment in order to supplement regular homeschooling lessons at home.  The course features many subjects to choose from such as Earth Science, Nutrition, Biology, AP English, AP Chemistry and so much more.
Standard Deviant Accelerate gives the user access to online video lessons that are unique and creative to intrigue students and encourage learning of the lessons being taught.  This completely online curriculum also gives you access to review activities, quizzes, writing assignments and so much more.  All of these things come together to create a complex and thorough lesson for students to learn important information through the course they are taking via Standard Deviants Accelerate.
As I mentioned above, there are lots of subjects to choose from in the Standard Deviants Accelerate Homeschool Course program.  Each offers something completely different.  I took a look at several of these classes for our review period but the one we used the most was Nutrition.
I was extremely interested in the Nutrition course because I know that this is something we can use for our family.  It never hurts to learn to eat better or learn how important nutrition is for us.  I’ve tried to teach my children from early on the importance of their eating habits but that hasn’t always been successful.  We have some pretty bad habits when it comes to nutrition.  We forget to take vitamins, we choose sodas over juice and cake over fruits.  We are the typical American family and it shows.
My Emma in particular struggles with her weight because of our eating habits so it was my hope that through us using this course together, she would learn a lot about her health and nutrition that would stick with her for life.  So far so good.  The program begins with an introduction to Nutrition which covers an explanation on what nutrition is along with introductions to fats, carbohydrates and more.  This is the first step to learning healthy choices in eating.
The course was easy enough to follow through and learn from.  The videos kept the lessons interesting and we were able to work together to learn through this course.  There were 8 chapters within the course, each containing 4-5 sections to explain the chapter.  At the end, there is also a review to check what has been learned through the course.
Standard Deviants Accelerate Homeschool Course is available online for $99 a year or $24.95 per month for one student.  AP courses are available for $14.95 per month for one student as well.  These courses are well worth the cost.
These courses are designed for students ages 8- Adult.

You can find Standard Deviants Accelerate online in the following places:
Google+: google.com/+Sdaccelerate 
You can read more reviews for Standard Deviants Accelerate by clicking on the banner below!

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Crew Disclaimer

Veritas Press Self-Paced History: Old Testament and Ancient Egypt {Crew Review}

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Veritas Press is an amazing company with amazing curriculum that we truly love.  For this review, we used their Self-Paced History program.  I chose the Old Testament and Ancient Egypt for Emmalee to work through.
Emmalee is 11 and is an exceptional student.  She bores easily when she learns because she absorbs knowledge in lessons so quickly and most programs do not teach enough factual information for her, so I knew this program would be perfect for her to use.  She’s great using a computer and had no issues learning to maneuver through the program.  The fact that it is self-paced was perfect for her since it allowed her to work without having to wait on me to teach her or wait for my other children to reach her next lesson.
Veritas Press courses begin with thorough lessons in how to use their programming.  This section of the lesson really teaches the student how to use every single aspect of the program so they get the best results in learning.  They cover everything from how to move forward and back with the browser buttons, to how to complete online tests and everything in between.  I liked the thoroughness because it alleviated the need for me to be right beside Emmalee as she learned with the Self-Paced History course.
I chose the Old Testament and Ancient Egypt course for Emmalee because she has a recent interest in learning about the old world and way of life.  Her current interest is actually Dinosaurs and Pre-Historic creatures but I knew that this section of history would be of interest to her as well.  She loves learning about the long-ago past and what better way than through a study of the Old Testament and of Ancient Egypt’s life and culture.
Since the course is self-paced, Emmalee was able to work on as many lessons as she wished in a day and take as long as needed to complete them.  In our home, we do not focus on “grades” but we do focus on learning.  The information provided in this program was wonderful for her and she learned so much.
The program does give a grade, as it does test the student in the lessons being covered as the student works through the program.  These tests are done directly on the computer and the student often has multiple choice answers to choose from.  Emma did well with her test but not quite as well as I would have liked because she didn’t have all the needed components for the review until the review period was almost past.  She was missing the very important History Cards that are covered within each part of the lesson.  Once these cards arrived in the mail, her learning increased.  Like me, Emma is a person who needs everything together and ready to go in order to work and missing even one thing will throw her lessons completely off kilter.
The Veritas Press History Cards are beautiful designed flashcards created to go along with the lessons in the program.  They are an important part of the program as they contain lots of information about the lesson being learned.  They are also great for lesson reviewing and reminders between the lessons being learned.  Each section of the program focuses on a different card but some cards are reviewed as the lessons are worked through.  
Veritas Press Self-Paced History: Old Testament and Ancient Egypt covers 32 important historical events from this time period.  The course has 160 class periods to learn in, giving a student a full year of History to learn.  It is expected that lessons range from 30 – 50 minutes each and will depend on the pace of your child.  It is recommended that 5 lessons per week be completed to be able to finish the program in a year’s time.
The program is interactive and includes videos, games, and more.  Some memorization is expected and your child should be independant enough to follow along with the programs instructions before using this program.  Also material testing is a part of the lessons for this program.
Veritas Press Self-Paced History: Old Testament and Ancient Egypt is for students in 2nd – 6th grades.  The website recommends the program for children older than age 7.  Additional literature packages can be purchased to go along with this program as well.  
The cost for Veritas Press Self-Paced History: Old Testament and Ancient Egypt is $199 for a year.  There is a sibling discount available if you have more than one child working through the program.  The Veritas Press History Cards for the Old Testament and Ancient Egypt are available for $19.95.
You can find Veritas Press online in the following places:

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Crew Disclaimer

Moving Beyond The Page {Crew Review}

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When I signed up to review Moving Beyond the Page, I thought it was just going to be the usual, boring old kind of curriculum where the student reads the book and completes the worksheets involved.  I had no idea that Moving Beyond the Page was going to be so awesome, so amazing, so wonderful!  From the moment, you open the box the package arrives in, the excitement begins and does not stop.
Our curriculum package arrived in the average cardboard box, once again leading me to believe it was nothing more than a box of books.  But upon opening the box, my opinion quickly changed.  Inside the box was everything needed to learn about the subjects we had chosen to learn, except for common items like pencils and paper.
The package I chose to review from Moving Beyond the Page was something we could easily relate to our hometown in Georgetown, SC and our family interests.  I chose to do a Literature and Science/History combination, choosing American Tall Tales and Legends for our Literature portion and Colonization and Revolution for our Science/History portion.  
American Tall Tales and Legends interested me because these were my personal favorites to learn about when I was a child, as well as Josh’s.  It is often something we find ourselves discussing and I had been looking for a way to introduce more of these wonderful stories and legends to our children in our homeschooling lessons.  As usual, God provided a way to make this happen through our Moving Beyond the Page review.
I’ve also been looking for ways to get my children involved more in our local history.  There’s no better way then to take them straight back to the foundation of our town, by teaching them more about how our area was colonized and the Revolutionary War that led to our nations founding.  Being able to take these ideas even further by showing them things that relate to our readings makes it even better.
Back to our curriculum package.  Upon opening our box, I discovered our Colonization and Revolution lesson book.  This spiral bound book contains everything needed to complete the Science/History portion of our program.  The box also contained the books we needed to read to learn more about our lessons.  The New Americans: Colonial Times 1620-1689, The American Revolution for Kids: A History with 21 Activities and You Wouldn’t Want To Be An American Colonist!: A Settlement You’d Rather Not Start were all included to use with our Colonization and Revolution study.
Our lesson book for American Tall Tales and Legends was available for use online through the Moving Beyond the Page website.  This program allowed me to read through the guidebook straight from the website and print copies of the activity pages needed to complete our lessons.  This was wonderful since it allowed me to print copies of lesson activities for each child, as needed.  In the box for this part of our lessons, I received an American Tall Tales reader and Cut From The Same Cloth: American Women of Myth, Legend, and Tall Tale.  Both these books came together to provide the wonderful stories needed to teach my children about the legends and tales of the United States.
One additional item came in the box for use with our curriculum.  A kit to create our own dream catcher was provided as an activity to be used with our Moving Beyond the Page American Tall Tales and Legends package.  This was a fun addition to the program and something that the kids really enjoyed creating.
The online version of our American Tall Tales and Legends lesson book was a bit different than our printed version of our Colonization and Revolution lesson book.  The printed version laid out how to use our Moving Beyond the Page lessons in the front of our book, then provided a list of required books and materials for the unit study by lesson.  This made getting everything together very easy.
Following the materials list is a list of vocabulary taught throughout the unit, listing words and definitions for each new vocabulary word.  A Unit Review sheet follows the vocabulary list, allowing for a look ahead at each lesson taught through the unit.
Lessons themselves are broken down, beginning with a Getting Started section that shares stuff you will need for the lesson, ideas to keep in mind during the lessons and things to know about the lessons.  A list of questions for the lesson is provided next, followed by lesson activities to complete.  Activities are simple but thorough and get the child thinking about things they have learned, allowing them to absorb the lessons, not just hear them.  
Each lesson in a unit builds in preparing the student for a final project to be completed at the end of the unit study.  The students are asked to complete five of the eight final project suggestions for the study but could do more or less depending upon your schedule.  Some of the projects will require assistance and supervision from the parent to complete.
Much like the print lesson book for Colonization and Revolution, the online lesson book for American Tall Tales and Legends provides an intro to the lesson, complete with lists of materials needed for each lesson.  This is followed with the activities for each lesson, which are to be completed by the student.  Rounding out the end of the lesson is a conclusion that provides additional activities for student completion, like reviewing stories and vocabulary discussed in the section and the sections of the region being discussed at the time.  Just like the print addition, the end of the unit wraps up with a final project for the student to complete.
A nice addition of the online lesson book is that there is an Idea Share section that allows users to go in and add their personal ideas for the unit.  This allows others to share things that have worked for them in aiding to provide projects to make students break free from paper learning and expand to projects in relation to the lessons being learned.  Each lesson has one of these sections to provide additional ideas for activities.
These units are amazingly thorough and so well prepared.  It did not take a lot of work on my part to put them together and the company does provide everything possibly needed for studying the units, included the necessary books for completion.  The only I did not receive for my units was the Timeline of American History but this was not something that I had to have for my unit though it would be a great addition if I were to purchase a full curriculum package from Moving Beyond the Page.
Moving Beyond the Page provides unit studies in full year curriculum packages or in various individual units to study, like was provided for our Schoolhouse Reviews.  They provide studies to be used with children beginning with ages 4-5 up through ages 12-14.  Individual units can be mixed and matched to meet interests and needs of the child.  Individual units do include suggestions for unit matches in the description.  The two units I chose for review were not a suggested match but they worked well together for our needs.
Moving Beyond the Page’s American Tall Tales and Legends Literature Unit is available in print form or as an online version.  It is written to be used with students ages 9-11 and is Relationships: Unit 3 of the full curriculum package for this age group.  Books needed to complete this unit are included in the unit package.  The print version of this package costs $33.47 while the online version costs $29.41.  Once again, this includes all books needed to complete the study.
Moving Beyond the Page’s Colonization and Revolution Science/History study is also available in print or an online version.  It, too, is written to be used with students 9-11 and is Discovery and Survival: Unit 1 of the full curriculum package for this age group.  The print version of this unit costs $51.88 and the online version costs $47.82.  The price of this unit also includes all necessary books to complete the study.
This was a review that my children and I truly loved.  We will be purchasing more Moving Beyond the Page curriculum very soon and look forward to learning more from this company.  

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Homeschool Library Builder {Crew Review}

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Wow! What a website!
 
 Homeschool Library Builder is possibly one of the BEST websites a homeschooler can be blessed to find.  Homeschooling items for sale at a fraction of the cost!  And the GREATEST part is that becoming a member is COMPLETELY FREE!!  
Homeschool Library Builder  provides curriculum that is both new and used in various subjects, thoroughly marked showing condition in their descriptions and priced accordingly with low, low prices.  Membership includes a monthly newsletter with exceptional sales and promotions changing each month. 
A book rewards program is also a part of the membership, allowing members to earn book points for making purchases and referring friends to the website.  The more you purchase the more you earn!  And the great thing is your book points never expire. 
Looking for a book you can’t find?  Homeschool Library Builder will search for you!  Just send them a message and they will get back with you as soon as they can locate the book you are searching for.  How many companies do you know who will go that far to please and help their customers in this day and age?!
Join Homeschool Library Builder today to start saving.  For the entire month of May, they are offering 25% off of available merchandise so there is no better time than now to join!  For more reviews of Homeschool Library Builder, please visit the TOS Homeschool Review Crew blog!

*Disclaimer – As a member of the TOS Review Crew, I was asked to review this website in a blog post sharing my honest opinion, in exchange for an additional discount available only to TOS Review Crew members.  No money has been exchanged during the process of this review.