Home School In The Woods Review

Vendor: Home School in the Woods

Product: Project Passport World History Study: Ancient Egypt

Price: $33.95 for download

$34.95 for CD

Age: Grades 3-8

About: Home School in the Woods gave me Project Passport World History Study: Ancient Egypt, in the downloadable form, to review. This is geared for 3rd to 8th grade children, I used this with my 4th grade daughter. This lesson plan is to take about an 8-12 weeks to complete. The lessons are separated by "stops". With these "stops" you read the text (which we did from the PDF so we didn't have to print so many pages) then you go onto the travel itinerary that corresponds with that go with that stop. There are 25 stops for the study unit. The travel itinerary includes things such as; lapbook projects, creative writing, recipes, file folder games, notebook projects, timelines, and much more.  Also included in the download was a teacher key and the mater copies of the things that need to be printed off to use with the projects and mp3 files. Through the journey of Ancient Egypt you will meet people and learn about who they are. You will learn about the every day life, education, religion, and many other things about the way that they lived as well.
Thoughts: Over all this was a fun topic to explore with my daughter. There were things that were over her head but that is to be expected since this is for children up to 8th grade. That means that this can actually grow with the child and you can review in later years with those tougher things. It also helps if you are teaching mulitple grade levels so no one gets bored. 
When I downloaded the files it was a bit confusing on putting it all together. There is A LOT of information and parts to this lesson. It is not in a book format which is what I am used to. Instead you get a zip file that you open and there are folders, like your text and itinerary and etc. Then they are sectioned off by each stop. Once I got the hang of how it was set up I could just go to the stop we were on in each section and work from there. 
We would read our text and then go over to the itinerary that went with it. Depending on how detailed it was would depend on how long it would take my daughter to complete it. We did work on it daily, but some stops took us longer to complete than others. My daughter likes to make everything perfect so the lapbooks to much longer. I think she enjoyed learning about their clothing and the recipes the most. We were able to try to cook some of them, I can't say that we did a very good job or at least our taste buds were not used to the flavors.  
I think any child that has an interest in history of other areas would really enjoy this. There are so many fun facts and projects to keep children of those age ranges engaged and interested in what is being taught. We personally love that it is clearly focused on hands on learning. The text for the day is short and not boring to read over. Then you are still learning facts and things that went along with the text on your daily project work.
We cannot wait to finish the lapbook out. It will be a great way to review all that we learned. They are also great to have around the classroom for research when we move forward.

Be sure to check Home School in the Woods out on social media:

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Someone is 7!

Happy birthday to my little Micah man!

Cursive Logic Review

Vendor: CursiveLogic

Product: CursiveLogic Workbook

Price: $29.00

Age: 7 and up

About: CursiveLogic presents CursiveLogic Workbook. This book is both the teacher book as well as the workbook. The workbook teaches cursive using lessons, practice sheets, and dry-erase surfaces. All pages are in color and there are 96 pages total. CursiveLogic uses two key features to teach cursive; letters grouped by shape and letter strings.

Letters grouped by shape: CursiveLogic uses the fact that there are 4 basic shapes that make up the alphabet. They teach all of these in one lesson.

Letter strings: They teach letters that are of the same basic shape together in string. This gets the student to writing in cursive from the start versus single letters at a time.

CursiveLogic also uses color coding, catch phrases and real words as visual and auditory cues to reinforce the shape patterns. 

Color coding: Each of the letter strings have a color.

Catch phrases: Saying an action verbally as it is done manually to help develop muscle memory.

Shape patterns: By the end of the first lesson students will be able to write real words. 

How we used: I used this with my 10 year old daughter. We have done cursive with her before but it has never stuck and she had a hard time learning to combine the letters. As many of you know most cursive is taught by letters then they just kinda learn to blend them. The method that CursiveLogic uses is completely different and they are point on by stating your child will be able to write real words. We worked through each lesson. Having the dry erase pages in the back was a bonus. If she was not feeling confident in working directly to the paper she would practice with the expo markers first. This also gave us space to practice writing our own words.

We really loved this method of learning cursive. It makes things simple and not overwhelming. Being able to make a whole word at the end of lesson one gives instant gratification for kids. I know my kids love that as they get frustrated if things take to long.

Be sure to check CursiveLogic on social media:

Twitter: http://twitter.com/cursivelogic

Facebook: http://facebook.com/ilovecursive

Instagram: http://instagram.com/cursivelogic

Also be sure to check out what my other crew members had to say about the program.

Thirsty 4th of July

So made this fun drink for the kids. They actually liked the flavors and sucked them down.

Red- Cranberry Black Cherry

White- Coconut Water and we also tried Pina Colada

Blue- G2 Gatorade

Fill a glass full of ice and slowly fill each drink in a 1/3 of the glass.

Circle C Adventures Review

Vendor: Circle C Adventures

Product: Tales from the Circle C Ranch

Andrea Carter's Tales from the Circle C Ranch Learning Lapbook

Price: $7.99 Book

$7.00 e-book lapbook

Age: 9-14

About: Circle C Adventures allowed me to review their book Tales from the Circle C Ranch. This is written by Susan K Marlow. You can download and read the first story to get a view of the book. The book is written in two parts, part one being the early years, and part two, being the in-between years. This book is the one that fills in all those questions from the other books. Fan inspired questions were answered to fill you in a bit more. Set in the 1800's there is things from ranch life, US history, California history, to state fairs. At 150 pages your child will have an exciting adventure reading it.

How we used: My 10 year old read this book to herself during her reading time. She tried to get through a story/chapter each day. She was very interested in it because she is always curious about different time periods and how kids lived then. This book gives so much information for her that she couldn't wait to read more to see what else was hidden inside. I must say though, even if the books main character is a girl this book would be fit for any gender to read. We did receive the lapbook as well and we looked over it. My 10 year old doesn't really like to do lapbooks but it is something that I will be using with my 9 year old after she reads it. She enjoys the hands on learning, my 10 year old just prefers to go to the next book and keep reading. The lapbook covers things from and 1800's general store, photography, state fairs, limericks, king snakes, and much more.

This book is a companion book to the others but it was good and a fun read as a stand alone book as well. I think this would be good for any middle school child to read, especially if your child likes learning how others lived in the old days. This would be a great read also for any child that needs a good book to read for whatever reason. The lapbook would make a great addition to a unit study of the 1800's as well. 

Be sure to check them out via social media.https://www.facebook.com/CircleCAdventures
http://twitter.com/SuzyScribbles

Also read what my other crew members and their kids thought of the book!

Yummy snack

1pk cream cheese

1c sugar

2 cans crescent rolls

1 ts vanilla

melted butter

cinnamon and sugar mix

Use one can on rolls to layer the bottom of your pan. Cream together cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla and then spread over rolls. Put second can of rolls over the top and brush with melted butter. Sprinkle cinnamon and sugar mix on top. Bake at 350 for about 20 minutes.

Dynamic Literacy Review

Vendor: Dynamic Literacy

Product: WordBuild: Foundations, Level 1

Price: $82.99

About: WordBuild: Foundations, Level 1, by Dynamic Literacy, is a three book set.  The set includes the teacher edition which has the answer key, tips, test, and more. There is a basic student activity book that is 20 pages long. It is a color workbook that introduces compound words, prefixes, and suffixes. Then there is the student activity book, a 184 page workbook. The book uses 5 different activites to slowly introduce the topic. You start with affix square, then affix adder, then magic square, then word search and finally a comprehension booster. The program is planned out in 5 days of lessons. The lessons break down words into three parts: root, prefix, and suffix. By doing this you are able to teach a few which will give them the understanding of many words. 
How we used: We normally only school about 4 days a week but since my child I used this with is dyslexic and has a harder time learning reading and words we took the 5 days with it. We worked about 30-45 minutes a day on each lesson. This may not take the average learner this long but we have to go over things several times to get it to click with her. It is more like a game, you put words in a square and you see what other words you can make out of it. This is kind of funny when you mix things that do not go well together. Once you get the hang of your new word then the rest of the week is restating what you learned and helping retain that information. The basic book we started out with because she is a bit behind. I did show it to my other child and she was able to get the idea of this book quickly.   Overall I think if you have a child struggling or even one that is just working on prefix and suffix then this would be great for you. Many places and teaching make it hard for a child to learn it and this one makes it simple. 
They also offer an online program to go with the book if you choose. I did not review this but some of my crew members did so you might want to check what they had to say.
Also some of my crew members have a discount code on their reviews in case you decide you would like to try it at home with your own kids. I really think it would be good for homeschoolers or even parents that want to give their children a little extra boost.