Cheesecake Pecan Pie

Alpha Omega Publishing:Horizons Review

Vendor: Alpha Omega Publications 

Product: Horizons 1st Grade Phonics & Reading Set

Price: $106.95

About: Alpha Omega Publications is a Christian company that is teacher led learning. Their Horizons 1st Grade Phonics & Reading Set is wonderful. It comes with a teacher guide book, two student workbooks, and two reader books. The workbooks contain a total of 160 lessons on consonant digraphs, vowel diphthongs, and etc. All is printed on bright colorful and engaging worksheets. The teachers guide has your daily lesson planner. Everything is clearly written out on what to do each day as well as any supplies you will need and activities you can do. The teachers guide also comes with additional worksheets to use for review, the duplication masters and the answer keys. While using this we spent about 45 minutes to an hour each day working on it. Though some kids may not take as long. We tried to go slowly each day and work until I knew the lesson had clicked well with her.

For years we have tried all different kinds of things to help my dyslexic daughter read. Somethings we would boast about as she would start out showing great improvement in her reading skills. Though, after a long weekend, or even a hard lesson we would seem to have lost all progress. I have become very bitter with dyslexia for this reason. Now I have had the chance to try out Horizons and I was super excited. It's not something that I have been able to get yet. When the books come in I was a bit overwhelmed with it. I thought to myself that she would never give it the chance after seeing that there are 4 books. I read over the teacher book and started to calm myself. One lesson a day it says. One lesson is doable, it's not to much and won't make her feel overwhelmed herself. The next day we sat down and went over lesson one. We went over what the lesson was about and jumped right in. After each lesson we read the story that goes along with it. I love that it reminds you the child is not expected to be able to read the book till later on in the lessons. We have not had any melt downs doing one lesson a day, Monday through Friday. Each lesson builds on its self and the pages all teach one idea. This was perfect. I love how you spend one day on ONE thing. For the dyslexic mind this is a very good thing. She was able to sustain focus and not have to change up what her focus is in the middle of a lesson. I am really excited to continue working our way through the lessons and hopefully we will reach the point that she is able to read the stories to me instead of me reading them to her.

I believe this curriculum is good for any child that is learning to read or even struggling to read. A child that may need a slower paced program that allows them to focus on one thing at a time. I also loved that it includes everything you need to get through the lessons. There is minimal to no teacher/parent prep on any of it. It is easy to work at your own pace as well, if you feel you need to move along at a different speed. 

Also be sure to check out my fellow crew as they reviewed other grade levels as well as different subjects. Some of them might interest you as well.

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Could you live in a tiny home?

My current home stands about 550 Sq ft. I'm working on an addition to it but having issues sealing where the floor meets the walls.

I will soon have 5 children in this home. My last house in GA was 1600 Sq ft. Thst was the biggest home I ever lived in. It had two living areas! What does someone do with two living areas? It was so much house and we had so much bare space it was crazy.

Sometimes I want more space, ya know when kids are upstairs playing and it still sounds like they are right next to you. Or like when you are trying to cook and someone comes to get a drink and you have to weave in and out of each others paths to make it to get to the fridge.

However, it keeps us close. The utilities are cheap. Most of all it gets us motivated to spend more time outside in nature when Mama Earth isn't having any kind of temperamental weather.

Do you think you could spend your life with your family in a home smaller than 700sq ft? Or I think the true tiny house is 400 Sq ft or less. One think about an A frame is the walls are not very supported of shelving so you have to get creative on storing things.

Time hop

So it took me awhile to get with the program and add Time Hop to my phone. I love the memories it brings back. Yesterday there was one of my son last year with his bright blue eyes glowing. Now they have an added feature where you can place a recent picture next to it. Ahhh my little man's eyes melt my heart.

Funtastic Unit Studies Review

Vendor: Funtastic Unit Studies

Product: Science Unit Studies For Homeschoolers and Teachers

Price: $16.95

Age: 4-13

About: Funtastic Unit Studies gave me the wonderful chance to review their book called Science Unit Studies For Homeschoolers and Teachers.  The book is by Sue Kilbride. The book can be purchased at Amazon, B&N or Rainbow Resource for $16.95. The book has a great age range for use, 4 to 13 years old. The book is divided into two sections. The first section being for children 4-7 years old. The next section is for 8-13 years old. One of the perks of this science book is that it uses most things you already have in your home. This saves from buying special kids and expensive things to do projects like in some other science programs. You may try out her Plant Lesson to see what you think before you buy. Or the Atoms and Molecules for the older kids. Sue also offers some wonderful FREE history lessons which could be found here.

How we used: I currently have 3 children that I am teaching science to, they are 10, 9, and 7. First we would pick out a chapter then at the first of the chapter there was a supply list that we would make sure we had everything needed for it before starting. Each chapter is estimated to take about two weeks to complete. The chapters are divided up into lessons and you should do a lesson a day. On the easier things we would be able to do more than one lesson a day and some we took our time and only did one. Each lesson has something hands on for the kids to do. This really kept them interested. The first chapter is on our senses, which was nice because we have not found an actual lesson on this we liked. Each lesson kept the kids interested and they wanted to keep going with learning more. We are still using the book and will continue until we complete it. I love having a science curriculum that is pretty much laid out for me and things we can do on a whim with things already in our home. It is also the best kind that has kept all the kids interests since they are always doing something hands on versus reading and writing out answers. 

They were very interested in the insect chapter. Being summer and on a farm we had a slew of insects to inspect and further the study out. That's what is great about this book, you can use it as a stand alone or you may use it as an introduction to get ideas on what you want to study. Just like our senses we were able to do taste tests for all kinds of goods and flavors blind folded to enjoy more fun learning about our sense of taste. We also were able to gather many different things for our sense of smell. 

This would be wonderful for some science in your homeschool to engage your children and keep them interested. This would also work for parents that just like to do some fun learning with their kids on weekends. I mean who doesn't like fun science?

Be sure to check out what my other crew members have to say about it below.