Crafty Classroom Review

Vendor: Crafty Classroom
Product: R.E.A.D. Curriculum Notebook K

I love trying out new ways to teach my kiddos to read. Crafty Classroom gave me the opportunity to try out their program, R.E.A.D. Curriculum Notebook K. Crafty Classroom makes many other fun learning subjects as well. Some of them include; alphabet, Bible, math, reading, geography, science, and writing. The R.E.A.D stands for Ready, Eager, Able, and Determined to READ! How awesome is that!! This curriculum is a 36 week course for use 4 days a week. There are daily warm ups/calendar work. Each week there is a word family, 2-3 sight words, writing prompts, grammar, early readers, and science sequencing. Every 5th week the beginning blends cycle, this is a review week.  There is also quarterly assessments and review games. Everything is set and ready for you to start teaching with very minimal prep work.  There is a daily and weekly schedule to follow to show what needs to be done and when. The pages are nice and colorful to grab your kiddos attention. This is a very large PDF file.  We printed out all of the reference pages and then I just printed enough for each week that we were in. 

We worked on this following the provided schedule.  The daily warm ups were nice to help practice writing his name.  We also went over the time and weather. Each sight word is in a pretty colorful page with example words. Next we move on to learning the sounds of its letters and reading it.  There is pages to practice writing the word as well as other words that contain that sight word as well as other activities. Like week one we learned AM. The sight words to go with it were I, am, and a.  In language arts we learned what nouns were. We had writing practice as well as the reader, Yam Jam. Every fifth week there were blends to work on.  This week is only learning and reviewing the blends and reading several early readers to get your practice in. 

I used this with my new Kindergarten child.  We liked that it followed our 4 day work week, we usually do field trips on Fridays.  The lessons were short and sweet.  There was the added review that I enjoyed.  I also like that there were assessments, this is really great for those of you in states that require them to be kept for record keeping.  It is also great to be able to see where your child is at, if they grasp the lessons they have learned or if there needs to be more practice on them. I really think this is a great program to start your child in to learn to read.  It also gives you some more subjects to touch on as well through it.  

Also be sure to check out what my other crew members had to say about Crafty Classroom and some of their other curriculum that they were able to review. 

Learning Dynamics Review

Vendor: Learning Dynamics
Product: Learning Dynamics Reading Program

Learning Dynamics gave me the great opportunity to try out their Learning Dynamics Reading Program to review. We used this about 3-4 days a week approximately 20 minutes per day. The company is geared at a 4 week program that you spend 15 minutes a day, 3 times a week, that your child will learn to read the books.  They also offer a 30 day money back guarantee. Included in the curriculum is a teaching manual, online training videos, over 50 books, flash cards, workbooks, activities, and a music CD. This is suitable for readers that have no letter knowledge to those that are just struggling readers. The reader books included start very basic blending words and work up to being more advanced. This program starts out teaching letters and them moves on to full reading of the books included.  Lesson one is starting out with learning the letter M. The teachers manual gives the lesson and what needs to be taught and how. There is a work book that gives practice based on the lesson.  Each lesson also has some suggested activities to go with each lesson as well. The music CD gives songs to go with each letter and then there is a matching animal. These are on cardboard cutouts. This helps your child remember the sound of the letter learned.  The reader books are introduced around lesson twelve. If you already know letters you can start further into the program to start working on blends and reading. The books only use the sounds and blends that are introduced in the lessons.

I really love this program. It is short simple lessons that keep attentions of little ones.  Different things to keep them interested. In the lesson book they can color the pictures after working on their writing. I really love that the words in the books only use those sounds and blends learned.  We find a lot of times we get readers and the other words added in that we didn't go over seem to frustrate my kiddo. I have been working with my son that is 5 and is autistic.  He was good to go with going over things because 15-20 minutes every other day or so is not to much for him to stay focused.  We did have to go over each lesson a couple days in a row for him to catch on. I think this is more from his special needs versus any issue with the program.  I am really happy the lessons are all laid out for you. So there is minimal prep to get started each day.  Also having all the books there and ready is great.  They can also be used for free reading practice to continue getting better at reading. 

As always, do not forget to check them out on other social media places.  Also click below to see what my other crew mates have to say about the program with their kiddos.  Some had struggling readers and were able to start further into the lessons rather than starting from the beginning.


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