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.


Social Media Links:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/4weekstoread/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdum6PdUjxTu78qWPza6O_Q
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/4weekstoread/?hl=en

Hey, Mama! Homeschool Planner for 2019/20 Year

Vendor: The Old Schoolhouse®

Product: Hey, Mama! Homeschool Planner for 2019/20 Year

About: I just love  The Old Schoolhouse® so I was super excited to get the chance to review their new planner, Hey, Mama! Print Homeschool Planner. I mean who doesn't need need a good planner to keep them organized these days? Our very own Gena Suarez is the author of this planner. Hey, Mama! They got you covered if you order quick. We have already sold out of 98% of our print run. Hey Mama Planner is 188 pages long. It is 9"x11" and spiral bound as well. Gena also adds in some wonderful devotional into the planner. They are very encouraging. 

Hey Mama Planner has weekly planning pages, monthly goals, semester goals, yearly goals, attendance chart, curriculum planning, reading log, transcript planning and more. The attendance chart is the greatest for here in GA to help track our days completed. I am also in love with the face that there is room for 5 kids. Most large families end up having to buy several planners just to fit all their kids in. 

There is plenty of room in all of the sections to be able to write out things in. This is always a problem for me in other planners. I have room for all of my kids lessons as well as being able to have all the record keeping we need to do in one place. The calendar offers plenty of room to write appointments as well as room to write other activities in as well.
Since our new homeschool year has not started yet we have focused on some of the other parts of the planner. Hey Mama! Don't let that make you think I don't have a list of things I am planning on putting down in it. I really like the calendar the best I think. I've never had a planner than had a calendar big enough for me to write in. I usually always print one for each month to write our appointments, homeschool park days and activities in. Now I can have it in the same place as my planner so I don't have to go back and forth with my planner and my binder when planning to see what days are busy. I also am in love with the Hey Mama Planner's devotions and inspiring scripture. I am a Christian and though I strive everyday I know I still fail too. I need and love to see those to uplift me and to remind me there is a brighter day and I am forgiven. The weekly agenda I will use to put what I will be working on weekly with the kids. Since I don't personally have a lot of planning for myself I will use it for their school work lesson planning. Then the space to put the book lists will help us keep track of what we have read for the year.

My kids are not old enough to need to start a transcript but this will come in handy for those that have high schoolers. Also this will make me want to continue to use this planner so when the time comes I can be familiar with it and use it to make my transcripts for the kids. I really think this planner "has it all". It has more writing space than most planners, which I write big so is helpful for me.

I am also a full time college student. I can see this being helpful to me as a mom and student to keep me organized if I had wanted to use it for more me than just my kids studies. It seems like it would be pretty versatile. Hey Mama go check it out!

Be sure to check The Old Schoolhouse out on social media:
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Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/tosmagazine/
Twitter:  https://twitter.com/TOSMag
Google+:https://plus.google.com/+Theoldschoolhouse1

Also click the banner below and see what my fellow crew mates have to say about how they used the planner. You know everyone has different needs so it may give you different ideas on how this may benifit you in a different way.

Pathway to Liberty Homeschool Curriculum Review

Vendor: Pathway to Liberty Homeschool Curriculum
Product: Pathway to Liberty's US History Level 1
Age: Level one is for K5- 3rd grade

We recently started using Pathway to Liberty's US History, part of Pathway to Liberty's History Curriculum, from Pathway to Liberty Homeschool Curriculum. We started out with the physical copy of Level 1. This is a Christian based curriculum. There are several different levels to this set but they all are at the same stage of learning. Like you can have multiple age kids working on this together learning the same thing. The early levels will just be easier work load. The student guide is 371 pages long. This also comes with a teachers guide, which is 299 pages long.  This curriculum uses immersion based learning. This helps really dig into the topics you are learning about. It also offers book suggestions to help further get into the subject you are learning. 

Each lesson is scheduled out to be taught 4 a week. So we did Monday through Thursday. Each of the daily lessons took 30 minutes or so. Sometimes more but my kids tend to have more special needs in learning than others. Each week starts with a weekly overview. This helps you see what’s going to be gone over for the week, also shows for the older children as well. There is also a scripture for each week to go along with it. The projects in the book has the directions for them in the teachers guide. This is also only a 26 week study. With the last two weeks being Review. So it won’t get you through all of the year but close. 

We did find this to be a bit advanced for our kindergarten child. We aren’t to the point of being able to read or write so there was a lot of oral dictation which I than wrote in the answers for him. There was coloring pages that he did enjoy though. This is more fit for a third grader for sure. But it is workable, just have to make adjustments to suite your child. Which we are used to with most curriculum. I also figure that since it’s a little more rigorous we can extend the work load out to fill up the full year if need be. I over all believe this is a really good in depth history class. I think the older grade would be just as good. Adding in the additional books helps really get a feel for the stories taught at hand and gives a little break from the pen and paper work. I think of you are wanting to have some good really informative history in your school, than this is where you want to look for it. 

Be sure to check out what my other crew members said about it and some of the other levels. They also offer a digital version which allows you access to all of the levels for all of your children. Also check out their social media pages. This helps you stay updated on new things as well as sometimes discounts. 

Social Media Links:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PathwaytoLiberty/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Pathway2Liberty
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/pathwaytoliberty/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClVQD1kM1KnthMBWFTQ_AbQ/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pathwaytoliberty/

Memoria Press Review

Vendor: Memoria Press
Product: Classical Phonics with the First Start Reading Program. 
Age: Kindergarten

I was very excited to get to try out Memoria Press with their First Start Reading Program. This program has five workbooks, teachers guide, and a reader. This is made for the kindergarten age range to work on reading as well as writing. This program is a complete phonics course that focuses on sounds, blending, and long-vowel patterns. The teacher book has lots of helpful tips. There is ways to help train your ears to hear the sounds. It also has everything planned out for you. This is a open and go kind of curriculum. That is always nice for those that don't have the time to piece together things. I really like that it shows a mini picture of the page the child is on. I always hated having to move their book around trying to find the spot and all.  So this way I have my own to look at. There is also more posters and teaching aids in the back as well. The workbooks are consumable one student workbooks. Book A starts with pictures then the matching letter to work on writing.  Since this curriculum works on correct formation and grip you don't need a writing curriculum to go with it. As you go through the books they start getting harder. You go from letters to writing words then eventually short sentences. With 26 lessons in each book, then a word review at the end, this curriculum can be used for a full years worth of lessons.

We worked on the lessons daily. we would go over the sounds and then work on coloring the pictures that start with the sound we are learning. Next we would try to guess a new word that started with that sound and draw it. we only made it a little more than a 4th of a way through book A. My son is ADHD and autistic so we had to go a bit slower.  But he has enjoyed it and wanted to work on it everyday. This is something we will continue on doing through the rest of the curriculum. I think all of homeschool moms will enjoy this ready to go curriculum. I hope that if you try it you will love it as much as we did, and still do.






Be sure to check out Memoria Press on their social media links below.  Also below that click to read review from my fellow crew members that also reviewed this curriculum.  Also some of them reviewed other topics and curriculum from Memoria Press as well.  Be sure to show them some love and learn something from them as well.


Social Media Links:

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/memoriapress/
Twitter:  https://twitter.com/MemoriaPress    Tag: @MemoriaPress   
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/memoriapress/       
Instagram:   https://www.instagram.com/memoriapress/    Tag: @memoriapress   
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/memoriapress/ 

Homeschool Complete Review

I always love trying out new curriculum.  Homeschool Complete gave me the chance to review their Kindergarten Complete curriculum. It was a pdf download of the set. It is everything included for a full year of teaching the Kindergarten level. It includes Language Arts, Math, Social Studies, Fine Arts, Physical Development, Fitness, Character Development, and Bible. There is. Teacher Guide and all lessons are planned out step by step. The Student PDF has all the pro tables together and then an appendix that hold lots of extras.

We used this daily with my new kindergarten kiddo. Each lesson gives you a list of the skills you will learn as well as the materials needed in order to complete the lesson. These are usually simple things around the house. Even things like  yummy M&M’s. Then each subject is broke down and the task for that subject. This is great for the busy mom that needs everything laid out for her. There is minimal prep work. Just making sure your pages are printed out and gathering the materials needed for the lesson. The appendix helps give extras. Like the pledges that you can teach to say each day before you start your school day. There is also calendar time each day. This helps kids start learning their months, days of the week and so on.  Math tries to used manipulatives that you can have around the house, like building blocks and food.  In Language Arts you read a story to your child and then they start learning a letter, like a starting letter to a word in the book. There is always some kind of fun to go along with it. One lesson had us to draw a family portrait. My kindergarten child is Autistic so his family only included himself. :)  The lessons have a suggestion of maybe a couple hours to complete. We only did a little at once then had a good break and then came back to do a little more. That helps keep us more focused and not getting burnt out to quickly. This curriculum did a great job of giving fun hands on activities though to make it play learning too.

In Autism land we are hit and miss on being able to take pictures of things.  Since he is also in therapy and has to take homework to his OT he doesn't like me snapping pictures of him.  I will try to add some done work later when he allows me to without a fight. But these are some examples of the work that comes a long with it.  You get to make activities as well as doing fun ways of counting with stickers.

The Math and Language Arts lessons have activities and such that combine in the Science and Social Studies with it. Each week there is a Bible lesson that ties in with the theme you are learning in the lesson. Art, PE, and music rotate through the week, so you aren’t doing each one each day. This is good because to much structured learning for a child can make them get burnt out fast. Some kids don’t like to have their attention held that long either.

You can purchase additional manipulatives to go along with the curriculum. They have some flash cards as well as some hands on manipulatives. We did not get these though. We just used basic things we had around the house. Other than that and needing some books from the library this is a complete curriculum just like if states. It is so easy to adjust to your child’s learning preferences too. Making learning fun and not just sit down and book work things. I think this would work great for little ones preparing to go into kindergarten and parents what to give them a jump start. This is also great for a complete curriculum for homeschoolers like myself. Having it all laid out and ready for you is a blessing for this mom of many. The less prep work I have to do for a kiddo the easier time we have through the day.

FIND HOMESCHOOL COMPLETE ON SOCIAL MEDIA:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/homeschoolcomplete/
Twitter:https://twitter.com/HomeschoolCmpltTag: @homeschoolcmplt
Instagram:https://instagram.com/homeschoolcomplete
Pinterest:https://www.pinterest.com/kcomplete/
YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5aqEg8dpPHxHSr_p-x5u7w

Also be sure to check out what my fellow crew members had to say about it as well. They were able to review other grade levels as well as reviewing some unit studies by Homeschool Complete.

Singapore Math Inc. Review

Singapore Math Inc. was an exciting review to be able to get. I received level 3A of Dimensions Math PK-5. The curriculum is for PK-5th grade. Included in this curriculum their are three books; a teachers guide, textbook, and a workbook.  Also included is access to some online resources; videos of songs, lesson material lists, and blackline masters. Each level is divided into A and B. So I only received half of the books that it would take to complete a full year of this curriculum. Since you may know most curricula have different standards for each levels. So Singapore Math Inc. makes it easy for you to pick the level that would suit your child best by offering placement tests. Some kids may need to start with a level B which would be the second semester of the grade.  This is better than having to do a whole grade level when you are starting a new curriculum and may already know some of the stuff at the start of the curriculum.  It also helps to make sure your child gets into a level they need by doing the placement test first. 

The teachers guide starts out with notes that introduce the topic being taught in the lesson. There is also key points to help with teaching as well as some activities.  The guide also offers the answers to all the problems in both the textbook and workbook. The textbook uses short lessons that focus on using pictures instead of text to teach the lesson.  Then the workbook offers practice for the new topic learned.

Each day I would go over the teacher guide and introduce the lesson for the day.  We would start in the text book going over the problems with the colorful pictures.  The visual learning like this is so much easier for my dyslexic child. It is much easier to see it from pictures versus black and white text.  We would move on to the workbook once we felt like he had it.  The workbook was good to practice the learning but it wasn't as fun since it wasn't colorful like the textbook.  However it was a good addition to get more practice in on what we have learned. I really liked the teacher guide.  I like to have them give something more than just answers. I like how this explained the problems so it gave another way for me to explain it to my kiddo so maybe he would understand it better. Sometimes I don't always know the best way to state things so that helps.  Overall I think this is a great curriculum. Lessons can be short and sweet when your kid gets the lesson well.  You can also take more practice out using the workbook for things that aren't clicking so quickly.  

Be sure to check them out on social media as well as checking out what my other crew members had to say about the curriculum as well.  Many of them reviewed different levels from the one I reviewed.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SingaporeMath/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/singaporemath
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/SingaporeK8/