The girls, (Emily 11, Katey 6) and I have been taking Zentangle Art classes. They have been really great so far. We go once a month. We have gone twice. It has been really neat.
Today I drew this in about an hour.
I just wrote my name and then Zentangled around it.
I love it for my first try and doing it so quickly.
Zentangle is also very relaxing. Very!
This post is property of Family Style School.
It is no secret in our house, we love bacon!!
We bake it in the oven. We eat it often. Bacon is expensive.
Does your family like green beans?
Mine does, but non the less bacon still makes them better. Now I don’t want to have to go cooking up some bacon every time we have green beans, nor could I afford that.
So I always buy bacon bits. Not those super crunchy kind. I put a handfull in with the green beans while they are cooking. They are so good. Everyone likes them so much that I have had to start cooking an extra can with dinner. Mmmm. More veggies.
I know, I know I am adding something a little unhealthy to encourage us to eat more of something healthy. They cross each other out in my book. LOL.
Math Rider is a very fun math facts game.
Once your child has learned some basic math facts, addition, subtraction, multiplication or division. Then they can get started on cementing these facts in. These basic facts are the foundation for all math.
Math Rider works with quests. You are on a quest through the mathlands and in search of something. Each quest consists of you needing to get a certain number of points. For me that was about 10 rides at the advanced level. Each ride consists of 30 questions at the level you select. The facts group as well as easy, medium or advanced. Advanced goes up to the number 12 facts. (ie, 12+12, 12x12, 12/144).
Math Rider has came up with a game that challenges your children to remember these facts. I was surprised at the artificial intelligence of this game. It recognizes the problems that your child misses, or is even just slower at, and it gives those problems more often. If you or your child is wondering which facts they struggle with you can find out on the statistics page.
This page offers so much more than meets the eye. I highly recommend you check out the video tutorial. It will just take a minute. Then come on back and finish reading what I have to say.
Oh good you’re back. See what I mean?
Packed full of so much information. Really!!
This downloadable game costs $37 dollars right now. This deal ends on Feb 15th, 2012. Then it will be $47. They just released an upgrade also! You can even try out the full version of the software for free.
Be sure and check out the computer specs.
There are a only 3 different quests as to not pull away from the real purpose of the game. Each quest still involves your character riding a horse and on a mission. You have to have 99% mastery before the princess can be rescued in the advanced level.
Some of the things that had Katey chopping at the bit to play this are:
Katey is the primary child that I used this with this year. (Check out my previous review.) She loves it, because she loves computer games. She struggled with it because she does not work super well under pressure. There is some amount of pressure due to the faster you jump the hurdle (answer the question) the faster the next question comes. If you miss a question or don’t answer in time then it tells you the fact. Also that fact is noted in your statistics and therefor shows up more often.
Once you start a quest of facts, add, subtract, multiply or divide you then have to finish that quest of facts before you can change the facts. Last year, I wasn’t real happy about this and I found a way around it. This year, with Katey, I realized the importance of MASTERY. She needed to MASTER the facts before I let her add in more.
Katey is just working on addition mastery right now. I did let her try the subtraction also. I even had fun trying out the game on the advanced level.
To see what others though of this check out this post. To see a wide variety of reviews check out our crew blog.
As a member of The Old Schoolhouse Homeschool Crew I review products like this, which I receive for free in order to be able to share my honest opinion.
This is a real day in Katey’s life She is in 1st grade. She is almost 7.
She wakes up and eats breakfast (usually cereal or oatmeal) then she sits around on the couch reading some Kindle books. This one was Reading Power! Sight Words Kindergarten, that I got free from Amazon.
After that we did some sentence diagraming on the white board.
( I just wrote some sentences with no capital letters and no punctuation. She had to correct those parts and circle the nouns.)
She went and got dressed and ready for the day.
She came back downstairs and did a math worksheet using math blocks.
She did a few lessons on Reading Eggs.
She played Dance Party 3 with Tyler and Emily, while I cooked lunch.
We ate lunch, it was fish, tatortots and oranges that day.
After lunch we did science. She is doing a weather unit currently, we used an orange as the sun to have our inflatable globe rotate around. She learned what that has to do with the seasons.
She played with her sister building a tower out of the math blocks.
She had free time to read and explore the rest of the day….
UNTIL 3:00. That is when we do a family clean up of the day. Katey’s chores are usually emptying the silver wear and any lower cupboard dishes. Then she had to sweep up the piles that an older kid swept.
The rest of the afternoon she has free time. She plays with friends or brothers and sister. Sometimes she even spends time with me. She loves to help me cook dinner and explore.
Not all her days are exactly the same. We alternate history and science. Also we usually do read alouds which we didn’t do that day.
I am joining a bloggy friend in her challenge. This challenge is to help use up your fabric stock, but to be honest, I don’t really have a stock. So I am going to use it as a challenge to get some sewing projects done that I have wanted to do, even if it means I have to buy some material.
My first project is going to be to set up a sewing area! hahaha! That may be why I haven’t gotten any projects done.
My first sewing project is going to be to hem my pants. I have about 10 pairs of pants that I would really like hemmed.
To join us click on the banner above.
