Luv'N Lambert Life

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

kindergarten

Starfall Home Membership {Crew Review}

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Starfall

Starfall Education Foundation has been a favorite in our household for 13 years now.  I was so excited when I saw The Starfall Home Membership come up for review this year.  Starfall has been such a blessing in our home over our years of homeschooling.  It is one of our most recommended programs to other homeschoolers.


As always, Starfall Education Foundation provides a wonderful program to help children everywhere learn to read.  The program is still free but they now have The Starfall Home Membership available for a low yearly fee.  This part of the program offers an informative and fun curriculum that can be used with your young students both at home and in a classroom setting.

Starfall Education Foundation offers an app download to be used by your students.  The app is available on both Android and iPad.  It’s simple and fun to use.

As I mentioned, we began using Starfall many years ago with my oldest son.  It was a program he found fun.  Bonus that it was free to use with him.  Extra bonus that he actually learned from it.

My daughter also began reading with Starfall.  She loved the games and the fun videos that the program included.  We could watch a few of the videos or play a few games and it wasn’t overwhelming.  It was just the right amount of learning and fun.


Add in my third child.  Our love of Starfall continued.  Laycie loved the program just as much as her siblings.

And when the fourth baby came, well Starfall was sure to be a hit with him too.  He was watching the videos with his siblings before he could sit up.  He was singing the catchy songs before he could really talk well.  He was learning and all thanks to this wonderful company that has kept my children interested for the past decade.

Now, though I am an avid lover of Starfall Education Foundation, I had never joined The Starfall Home Membership.  We simply enjoyed the free parts of this wonderful program.  So when this review came up, I wanted to know what it was all about.  Seriously, how much better could this program get!

I logged in and set up our account.  Through our membership we were able to add in Math and even more reading, phonics and fun.  This program is for preschool, 1st and 2nd grade.  It’s a great remedial resource for students who may be a bit older as well.  

The program is not overwhelming.  You can stop at any point and restart again when you’re ready.  You can work all day or just 10 minutes.  You can restart and replay whatever you need to.  


This program has taught my kids so much.  They’ve learned to read.  It’s helped with reading struggles.  It’s helped keep them interested.  It was a savior in our household.

And the Starfall Home Membership is awesome.  You gain access to so much more.  There’s a parent/teacher center where you will find access to full curriculum units that help you teach the basics to your sweet children.  You can download additional helps, like charts and images, readers and so much more.

These items are also available for purchase in the Starfall Store.  Costs vary by product.  These are not needed for the program but they are a great bonus if you wish to purchase while working through the program.

Starfall starts with teaching your child the ABC’s.  We’ve watched these little videos and played the games endlessly.  My kids LOVE them.  They haven’t changed a lot over the years.  They’ve only gotten better.


When your child has a good grasp of the ABC’s, you’ll move forward into Learning to Read.  This just continues to build and build until eventually, your child is reading!  I love it!

Through The Starfall Home Membership, your child learns so much more!  You start with math songs, or you can learn about holidays, calendar math, ABC’s, Colors, Phonics, Nursery Rhymes and so so so much more!

All these things are developed to keep your child’s interest in learning.  For us, it’s been one of the best educational programs we’ve ever encountered.  I am more than thankful for all that Starfall Education Foundation has taught my children.
You can get your own subscription to The Starfall Home Membership for $35 a year.  This is such a wonderful investment for young children and one you will love.  You’ll see them truly enjoying learning right away.
You can find Starfall Education Foundation online at:



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The Starfall Home Membership {Starfall Education Foundation Reviews}

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The Crafty Classroom: R.E.A.D. {Crew Review}

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Have you ever been to The Crafty Classroom website?  Have you seen the amazing products available there, like the Learning to R.E.A.D. Curriculum Notebook and the R.E.A.D. Review Pack?  There are LOADS of other great things there too.
First, let me say how much I love The Crafty Classroom and the amazing products there. You can seriously spend hours just looking through all the good things to use in your homeschooling.  Curriculum for all ages.  It’s good stuff, y’all.  Check it out!
I’m planning to grab the Alphabet Curriculum Notebook pretty soon for Jackson.  This is a 26 week curriculum that I think will be amazing for him to work on his letters with.  And for $15, it’s a steal!!
For this review though, we were given a PDF copy of the Learning to R.E.A.D. Curriculum Notebook, along with the R.E.A.D. Review Pack.  These two products really made me fall in love with The Crafty Classroom.  They are a complete reading curriculum for young students and they are packed with fun!  
The Learning to R.E.A.D. Curriculum Notebook is 798 pages long.  This curriculum doesn’t cover the alphabet.  That’s covered in the awesome Alphabet Curriculum Notebook.  This Notebook concentrates on learning to read by providing a different word family each week with awesome activities that go along with it.  Students also cover sight words that are easily recognized.
The week begins with a great brightly colored image that can be printed of the word family you’ll be working on.  In the beginning of the file, you’ll find a Daily Warm-Up sheet.  I chose to laminate this for Jack and Laycie.  It has space for their first and last name, a clock to use hands to mark the time, as well as an analog box for learning to write the time.  It has a place for temperature and weather for the day.  There’s a calendar to make the month, day and year, as well as the day of the week.  It’s a great little start up for each day.
The first sheet of learning provides the word family word underlined with an arrow that instructs you to follow the sounds to learn the word.  Am is the first word so you would start with the “A” sound and follow through with the ‘M” sound to teach your child to say the word.  This is quick and fun to do with your child to enforce learning to read.
The next part of the lesson jumps right into writing by putting a letter in front of “am” for your child to learn to relate words through rhyming.  This begins your lesson in learning about words that are similar and helps your child with spelling. It’s great fun for your little one.
There are also printable cards for learning.  These can be printed on cardstock or paper and laminated as well.  They allow the child to see rhyming words as well as some sight words.  These are a great way to learn to recognize words in print.
There are sounding out and matching activities to help reinforce what your child is learning.  There are also grammar activities included in this curriculum which teach noun, verbs and other important grammar along with learning to read.  There are so many activities that your child will love learning with like mine have.
The R.E.A.D. Review Pack is really awesome as well.  This pack contains handy little readers that you print and staple together for your child to reinforce what they are learning in their Learning to R.E.A.D. Curriculum Notebook.  These are easy to make and use with your little ones.
I used these two items with Jack and Laycie who are both at different places in learning to read but both LOVE fun activities on worksheets for reading.  There were so many activities to make this last all week for them.  They looked forward to the daily lessons and enjoyed doing it together.  Jack still needs some alphabet work but we will be working on that soon.
You can purchase the Learning to R.E.A.D. Curriculum Notebook and the R.E.A.D. Review Pack from The Crafty Classroom.  The notebook pack is $25 and the review pack is $15.  Both are priced incredibly low for the content they provide.
You can find The Crafty Classroom online:

  • Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/The-Crafty-Classroom-121821161222656/         
  • Twitter:  https://twitter.com/CraftyClassroom      Tag:   @CraftyClassroom   
  • Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/craftyclassroom/            Tag:   @craftyclassroom   
  • Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/thecraftyclassroom/          Tag:   @thecraftyclassroom   

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    Crafty Classroom {Reviews}

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    Fundanoodle {Crew Review}

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    If you are looking for a fun and unique way to introduce handwriting skills to your child, Fundanoodle is it!  Fundanoodle is a brand new series of handwriting tablets and tools, developed by Carolina Pad.  These tablets make handwriting fun for young children.
    Fundanoodle features Max the Monkey and Alphie the Explorer.  Max and Alphie take your child through a series of worksheets to complete in order to build handwriting skills.  They are great encouragement as your child learns to write using the Fundanoodle workbooks.
    For this review, we were given a Fundanoodle Magnetic Dry Erase Lettering Practice Board that is designed to be used with all ages and with most of the available Fundanoodle products.  The dry erase board is of average size and has a front and back side.  The back side of the board is an unlined area for drawing and writing practice.  The front side of the board has a series of three sets of blocks: one plain, one with green start and red stop lines with a dotted line in the middle, and one set with only dotted lines in the middle.  Under these blocks are two sets of lines with green start and red stop lines on the top and bottom.  Underneath those lines are two more sets of lines in simple black.
    Fundanoodle uses green lines to represent where a child should start their letter writing and red lines to show them where to stop their writing.  This also represents green for the top line and red for the bottom line.  The colors give the student a visual to follow and seeing this visual allows them to memorize where they should stop start when writing.
    Since this dry erase board is magnetic, this allows the child extra space for fun magnetic practice.  The child can use letter magnets to look at as they practice writing their letters.  Word magnets could be used with the lined section to create sentences as well.  It’s just a fun addition for the board to have a dual magnetic purpose and we really appreciate that little extra fun element.
    For this review, we were also sent Fundanoodle’s I Can Write Upper Case! from their Comprehensive Handwriting Development Program.  The cover of this neat writing tablet features an adorable cat and dog which immediately appealed to Laycie.  The cat states “Let’s learn to write upper case!”  This was perfect for Laycie who has been working on writing with her therapists using another top handwriting program.  Her Fundanoodle I Can Write Upper Case! writing tablet went well with her lessons for practice at home and is more affordable than the competing program that she uses during her therapy so it’s something I am looking to add into our homeschooling to build those skills at home.
    I Can Write Upper Case! was created to be used with students ages 4-5 which of course would depend upon your child’s personal skills.  The suggested grade level is Pre K to K.
    The writing tablet itself comes with a spiral binding, perfect for laying flat.  The cover is cardboard, allowing for a sturdier writing surfaces for practicing within the writing tablet pages.  The writing tablet is full color and intriguing for children with it’s eye catching colors.
    The first page of the writing tablet introduces you and your child to Max and Alphie, whom you see frequently throughout the writing tablet pages.  The second page is a section sharing Tips for Parents, which focuses on proper handwriting technique and posture for handwriting.  There are also alternative learning positions that are suggested here.
    All of the pages within the writing tablet are only printed on the front.  This keeps the students focus on the page they are working on instead of drawn to previous pages completed or upcoming pages to learn.  I didn’t really like the wasted paper but I do understand the reason it is done.  The backs of the pages did make great pages for drawing and practicing letter skills though and we put them to good use doing so.
    The third page of the writing tablet is the instruction page.  Here you will find instructions explaining the green go lines and the red stop lines for writing.  You will also find Max’s personal terms for each line type which your child will be using for learning their writing skills.
    At the back of the tablet are reward stickers.  As your child completes each page, they will need to find the correct sticker to place on the page.  Each page has a different sticker related to the page itself.  This is a great way to encourage fun learning skills and to encourage completion of their work.
    The writing tablet begins with focusing one by one on each letter of the Alphabet.  The child will fill in the letter boxes with each letter, then write the letter on lines at the bottom of the page.  This can all be completed in each lesson or you could simply break it down.  A child could work on one set of boxes for three days in a week, writing the letter being learned, then come back later on to review by writing the letter on the lines.  There are many ways this can be worked on to best benefit the child’s learning.
    We personally chose to work on writing a little at a time.  Writing is a skill that Laycie has just become ready to do, so for her, writing lots of repeating letters is not fun.  Instead, we used the above method of working on one row of letters at a time and coming back another day in the week to complete another row of letters.  This was easier for Laycie and when she was done, she was able to place her sticker onto her writing page, knowing she had completed her work.
    In the back of the writing tablet are more writing pages for practice.  We haven’t gotten around to using those yet but they will be used once Laycie completes her main letter pages.  They will be a fun way to review all the letters at once for her.  We have reviewed the full letter page chart to compare the letter forms, discuss the letters themselves as she is still learning to recognize several letters at this stage of her learning.
    We really like the Fundanoodle program and as I stated above, I plan to purchase more of these products to learn at home with.  They are very affordable.  I Can Write Upper Case! is a 12×9 tablet and can be purchased for $5.99 plus shipping from Carolina Pad.  The Magnetic Dry Erase Lettering Practice Board can be purchased for $9.99 plus shipping.
    There are many other writing products to choose from that are just as reasonably priced.  To see more reviews of Fundanoodle, please click the banner below.

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    September Update: Just a post of where we are! {Thoughts From Me}

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    I haven’t been blogging much this month.  I’ve actually been enjoying a little time off.  The weather is gorgeous and it’s inspired me to do a little Fall cleaning around my house.  By the time I wrap up my daily to-do’s around the house, I’m really too tired to be inspired to do much online past my reviews and a quick check-in.

    Last year, when I as pregnant, I wasn’t into housekeeping much so the house is a real disaster but that’s ok!  It’s only one season of our life and it passes so quickly.  Then there is the demand of keeping up with a baby, and his siblings – readjusting schedules, homeschooling through and watching him and them learn and grow.  It doesn’t allot for a lot of homekeeping time there either.

    Add in the baby having reflux, food allergies and Epilepsy on top of it and my time diminishes even more.  Now that he’s a year old, and his reflux, food allergies and Epilepsy are somewhat under control leaves me time to catch up on the things I’ve been putting off.

    Last week, I emptied an entire box that’s just been piling in my house for four years.  This box was full of my paints, my brushes and anything else related to my hand-painting crafts.  This hobby of mine was sadly neglected and not organized at all but now all those paints are stored behind my bedroom door in an over the door shoe organizer and it works for now.  I can see the bright colors which I attempted to sort them into.  I still don’t have a permanent home for the brushes but small steps will get me there.  I want a rolling drawer cart in the classroom so they will either go there or in my cubbies under my kitchen table where I now store my hobby items and review things.

    This week, I’ve been catching up on work that should have been completed months ago but couldn’t be since Jackson was sick.  I’ve also been going through clothes from the building that have piled up.  I missed two whole boxes of 6-9 months clothing for Jackson because I didn’t have time to get out there while he was sick.  Those will now be sold to buy him new clothes in his size, which adds another thing to my must get done list.

    I’ve also be reorganizing things throughout the house to make it better work for us and printing things in prep for school lessons.  I just purchased a great set of Eeboo All Around the World Alphabet Wall Cards second hand from Sam @ Sam’s Noggin.  I plan to use them with Laycie this year.  I know she’s really going to love those!

    We also have our set of Touch Math that we will continue to work through with Laycie this year.  She really loves the hands on uniqueness of this program.  It really works well for her.  She will also continue to use her Logic of English curriculum that we reviewed last week.  Another program that she really loves!

    For the next few weeks, I plan to clean, clean, clean and organize, organize, organize!  I will do my best to update when I can.  I have a few plans for the blog, too, that I can hardly wait to put to work.

    But for now it’s just going to have to wait.

    Reading The Alphabet: Now Available As A Bundle Pack!

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    Have you seen this very awesome curriculum from Becky @ This Reading Mama? It is now available as a bundle pack just for your easy convenience.  That’s right! All of the Reading The Alphabet materials are now included in this download for the low price of $10!
    To learn more about how Reading The Alphabet works, you can visit the introduction post on This Reading Mama.
    All together this bundle contains over 1500 educational pages.  Because of it’s massive size, it comes in SIX download files which are all included in this bundle.
    For this week ONLY {July 15-19}:
    Enter coupon code back2school 
    to receive $2 OFF your purchase.
    Also find out how to win a FREE Bundle Pack of 
    *Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links.

    I See Sam {Crew Review}

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    For this review, we were provided set 1 and 2 of Academic Success for All Learners’ I See Sam’s Little Books.  I personally chose these two sets for both my struggling reader and my upcoming reader to use.  The stories were wonderfully simple enough for my struggling reader to read to his little sister.
    The Little Books program is a sequence of 141 color coded books in 8 sets from Kindergarten to 3.6 grade level of reading.  Each separate set contains 27 books.  The book sets are correlated for Core Curriculum and the No Child Left Behind mandates.  Every book builds upon the previous books in the series to create a balanced reading program for children.
    These book sets are printed in black and white but filled with lots of interesting pictures, as well as many Dolch words which my struggling reader greatly needs practice in.  The books encourage improvement in phonemic awareness, comprehension and fluency in reading.  They definitely helped improve my son’s confidence in reading and we truly loved reviewing these book sets in our home.

    These books can be used individually or in a group setting by teachers, parents, older peers and more.  Each set of I See Sam’s Little Books cost $30.  You can purchase these book sets from Academic Success for All Learners online at www.iseesam.com.  For more reviews of this product please visit the TOS Homeschool Crew Blog!
    *Disclaimer: This product was provided to me free for review by Academic Success and the TOS Homeschool Crew in exchange for my honest opinion in a blog post review of this product.




      

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