For me, I had heard of the company Classical Conversations, I had just always thought they were only a co-op type program.
I discovered that they are so much more when I saw they were going to be offering one of their newest items, Prescripts Cursive.
Emily has learned cursive and just needs some practice at it. She also loves art. So the Prescripts Cursive Passages and Illuminations, priced at $12.99 and suggested for ages 9 through high school, seemed like a perfect fit.
Prescripts Cursive Passages and Illuminations focuses on famous passages throughout American history. Each passage also has an Illuminated Letter for the student to create their own piece of artwork with.
This book doesn’t focus of the formation of letters, they have some Prescripts Cursive levels for that.
The book we used focuses on fluency and history.
The passages can be a little lengthy, this proved no problem for my 12 year old. Each passage is written double spaced in cursive with a blank line below each line, so your child is writing below each sentence. This gives her a chance to practice reading cursive as well as writing it.
Almost daily, every morning, I had Emily work in this book. One day she would do the copywork, the next day she would work on the Illuminated letter. The passages all being about American History, were a perfect fit for us, as we have been studying all about American History this year. I loved that there were things we had already learned about it there, such as the Mayflower Compact as well as things we haven’t learned about such as lesser known speeches from people like Eleanor Roosevelt’s speech, “The Struggle For Human Rights".
Check out some sample pages for yourself to see the set up.
To see what others think of this check out this post. To see a wide variety of reviews check out our crew blog.
After spending hundreds of dollars on a purchase you want to do what you can to protect it, right?
Well, I did.
A few months ago, I upgraded my Kindle Fire to the new Kindle Fire HD. I knew right away that I needed a case for it.
I knew I wanted something stylish and practical.
Along comes The Snugg Case!
Here are some of the features:
As you can see for these close ups the stitching is great, the leather is quality and the case fits, well……. Snugg!
I feel like this case is a great balance of style, function and protection. Snugg cases also offer options such as the stylus holder and the elastic hand strap that can be hard to find in a reasonably priced case.
This Kindle Fire HD case is $39.99 On sale right now for $29.99.
You can also get bundle discounts.
Snugg offers cases for other devices, such as many versions of the iPad, iPhone, Kindle, tablet and smartphone cases, as well as other accessories.
“Disclosure of Material Connection: I received one or more of the products or services mentioned above for free in the hope that I would mention it on my blog. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”
All types of communication is important in life, written, verbal, body language, etc. Writing is the hardest for me to teach. I don’t pride myself on my writing. My education in writing was not up to par. I often have to get over my fear of writing every time I write this blog. I am so lucky to have been chosen to review a program from Institute of Excellence in Writing. Teaching Writing with Structure and Style (the teacher materials) as well as Student Writing Intensive Level B (the student materials for grades 6-8) were sent to me as part of me being on The Schoolhouse Review Crew.
Institute of Excellence in Writing (IEW) is a program that makes teaching and learning writing fun.
Teaching Writing With Structure and Style ($169)is a DVD course taught by Andrew Pudewa. There are 9 DVDs for this portion. A 3 ring binder full of teaching materials is also included. An outline with a suggested schedule for the teacher training portion proved to be very helpful which is divided into 9 sessions. Each session is expected to take 2 hours. Practicum assignments are also included, while they are optional for the teacher to complete, you can become an IEW accredited teacher by completing them.
The 9 Units on the teacher DVDs are:
There are also Tips and Tricks for every Unit and some Syllabus in Style sections.
You start off by watching the teaching course yourself, before you teach writing to your students. You should do the units in order. They build progressively on each other. The teaching course is very substantial and while at first it may seem overwhelming, The importance of me watching the teaching DVDs proved incredible to me. The 9 sessions of teacher training in convenient for teachers to take the course during the summer. Which will help you to see the program as a whole. However, this is not necessary. You can do the teaching materials as much you can and stay ahead of your children. Often times my children would see me watching the DVDs and sit down with me.
The Student Writing Intensive Group B ($109) is set up similarly to the teacher materials, as far as it is a DVD course taught by Andrew Pudewa and a 3 ring binder full of assignments. Your student will start out by watching an overview DVD with you – similar to the first teacher disc. This will give an overview of the program along with expectations.
The Student Writing Intensive Group B comes with 4 discs.
I really appreciated the quick start page that came with the student materials that made it easy to set up the student binder.
Lessons are then divided out. They look like this: watch the assigned section on the disc, use the provided checklist to complete the assignment.
One thing I asked myself is why do I have to do all the teacher course if my children are going to be learning from a DVD? I answered this question myself. Think of it this way, you get an education in writing yourself. As we got further into the program, I realized there were things I, the teacher, had to look over and discuss with my kids. There are lessons where you the teacher lead the students.
IEW makes it so you don’t have to feel l like you are alone in teaching writing. They offer a help page as well as an online support forum.
I am seriously shocked in how far I have come in my writing. Oh, right and of course how far my 2 children, ages 12 and 14 have come in their writing just in the short time we have been using this This is a very thorough writing program. I do plan to continue to use it through out the rest of our homeschool career.
You can purchase a value pack bundle for $249.
A very special thank you goes out to IEW and The Schoolhouse Review Crew for this opportunity. This writing program has given me and my children the confidence to take on such an intensive course with pleasure.
To see what others think of this check out this post. To see a wide variety of reviews check out our crew blog.
While our town does have many homeschool families, even some that live on our street, my kids still want that “schools out, it’s summer” feeling.
Here is how I give them that without taking the summer off learning.
About a month before Memorial Day, I begin looking at where we are in all our books and projects.
Then I decide how far I think we can get in that month.
If they are close to finishing a math book, and I think they can do it. Then I say when you are done with that math book you can be done with math for the year.
If they had just started a new curriculum, then I plan out about 4 weeks worth of work and say when they get that far they can be done with that subject.
After I give them there end of year schedules, with everything written out on it, I am always amazed at how quickly they get through it. Usually in about 3 weeks they are completely done with everything.
They all must read every day for those final 4 weeks. - There is no exception to the reading.
From Memorial Weekend until about June 15th I let them be. No schoolwork, not even reading has to be done. They can still do it if they would like, but I do not require it.
Other things change at our house at this time too.
Mostly the chore schedule.
During the school year we rotate who does dishes and who does laundry and then everyone helps with all general cleaning twice a day, usually right before lunch and again at about 3 pm. These each only take about 15 minutes. We also do one heavy cleaning day usually on Fridays With all of us working we can get it done in about one hour.
Our Summer Chore Schedule gets completely assigned out. I do this because our schedules in the summer don’t always match each others, whereas during the school year, I can assign times for family cleaning, I cannot do that in the summer.
Check out this post to see the details on our Summer Chore Schedule.
Sometime around the middle of June we slowly start back up schooling. We begin the first week by just adding in 20 minutes of reading (their choice) each day. The second week we add in two subjects, one is their choice, one is my choice. I usually have them do a every other day type of schedule for my choice.
For Example, Katey gets reading with me every day and her subject choice is space camp (I will share that in a later post). She does that every day. My subject choice for her is writing and math. So every other day she does writing and the opposite day she does math.
We spend an hour to two hours a day on these 3 subjects combined. Then about 30 minutes on chores each day. That still leaves many many hours to just play and explore.
This definitely does not mean this is all the learning she gets in during the day. She is still a little budding entomologist and often times through out the day has questions about bugs that we look up or talk about. I even got this DVD, The Fascinating World of Insects for review, that she can watch if it’s really hot outside, or just for some down time.
She also has shown some natural interest in reading things at the grocery store, so I take her with me and let her read the grocery list. Her grandparents have been writing her letters, so I have been encouraging her to write them back.
I have also been using the summer to have some good one on one time with each of my children.
What do you do to make your summer special?
I use the summer months to take advantage of activities my community has made available. The kids to various things from swimming lessons, to volleyball camp, piano lessons, cooking classes, book clubs at the library, movie nights at the park, camping with friends and family and just general playing with friends.
This makes it hard to keep everyone together majority of the day like I can during the school year.
This means that our Chore Schedule must change.
Our Summer Schedule looks like this:
I make a table on the computer and assign out boxes.
My boxes going across are the days of the week Sunday to Saturday.
My boxes going down are:
I fill out the boxes once a week. My goal is to have them filled out by Thursday of the previous week. That gives me leeway in case I don’t get it done. - Can we say “procrastinator!’
I take notes on the edge of the pages of jobs that I see that need to be done, such as wash the sliding door, or wipe the light switches, basically jobs that aren’t on my rotation- you know the as needed jobs.
I use those notes as I am assigning out the next weeks chores.
We rotate 3 different things amongst us.
If you are not on a rotation chore, you get a different assigned chore, such as the ones I take notes from on my previous weeks, or other things I have on a rotation schedule, such as yard work, mopping all floors, cleaning out the car, etc.
The rotation chores also get an additional job, along with general cleaning. The kitchen person may have to help with dinner, the bathroom person usually has to deep clean something, and The laundry person may have to vacuum or dust a room.
We still do the occasional quick clean, where everyone helps with everything. They just don’t happen at a prescheduled time. They happen when I can’t stand the mess anymore. LOL.
I am able to x out exemption days, if you have a pre-scheduled, pre-approved all day activity, then you can be exempt from an assigned chore. If you happen to be home when I get overwhelmed with the house, you are still expected to help do a quick clean.
I love the independence this gives the kids. They have to have them done before they leave to do anything else, unless of course it is pre-approved.
I also do not let them play or neighbors over before noon. That gives us time to wake up leisurely, eat breakfast, do our daily work, and eat lunch.
This gives everyone plenty of time to do all their daily’s and have a relaxing morning.
Do you change around your families chore schedule with the seasons?
