Goldtown Beginnings Series by Kregel Publications (Review)

When I showed my five-year-old the pictures of Jem Strikes Gold and Jem’s Frog Fiasco   by Kregel Publications, he was unsure if he wanted to read and review them.  I was surprised that he was not more excited but he explained that he was not sure about them because of the dog on the front. We discussed it and he agreed to give them a try. He does not know how to read yet, but we agreed to review them by having me read them aloud to him.

Goldtown

Even though he was a little worried about the dog on the cover (he is scared of dogs), he waited eagerly for the books to arrive in the mail. When the box arrived, he opened it to find two adorable paperback books with beautifully colored covers. The print on the pages was a little larger than normal, making it great for young readers.

When the books came in he wanted me to start reading Jem Strikes Gold right away. We curled up in the recliner to read a chapter or two that evening, and ended up reading half of the book. He kept wanting me to read more and my eleven-year-old daughter was working in the same room and ended up listening with us as well (it might have helped that she shares a nickname with one of the main characters).

Jem Strikes Gold tells the story of Jem and his little sister Ellie and their lives in a California gold town. They live in canvas tent with their parents. Their mom does laundry and bakes pies for miners and dad pans for gold. They help out with these tasks but also have time to play and get into lots of adventures. They learn how to deal with a bully, how to obey their parents, and how to be kind to one another and they even add a pet dog to their family. By the way, my son decided that since it was in the book and not in real life, this dog was okay.

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Reading at the campsite.

Since we had such a positive experience with book one, I decided to pack Jem’s Frog Fiasco  and bring it along with us on a short family camping trip that we were doing. We already had several longer novels that we were listening to on the road but I wanted a good book to read at the camping site. I thought that my older children might find it a little childish but knew that my five-year-old would enjoy it. However, all of the children enjoyed sitting around and listening to the story in the evenings. My daughter even helped me read a few chapters one night. While I wouldn’t necessarily recommend buying the books for older children, the story is fun for the whole family. (I did notice that Kregel Publications has a series featuring this same family designed for children in the 9-13 range.)

Jem’s Frog Fiasco is the second book in the series and continues the story of Jem and his sister Ellie. This book shares even more of their adventures with their dog, catching bullfrogs, a missing sister and lessons they learn about being kind to one another. It felt so very real to me because the children reminded me of my own. They love each other but still get into arguments and fuss with each other. The story has some serious moments and important lessons, but it is also filled with lots of laughter and fun.

While we used the books as fun read alouds, they also have some great printable educational activities to go along with the books. It includes comprehension questions, recipes, vocabulary, graphing, drawing, and more. These would make a great unit study. I am saving them to use in a couple of years when my son can read the books independently.

I highly recommend the Goldtown Beginnings Series for children ages 3-7. They make great read alouds and would also be good first chapter books for independent readers. The stories are fun and engaging while also teaching important morale lessons. My son has already requested books 3 and 4 in the series as soon as they are released next spring!  Make sure to check out these books and all of their other offerings at Kregel Publications and then click on the graphic below to check out all of the other reviews.

Jem Strikes Gold & Jem's Frog Fiasco  {Kregel Publications Reviews}

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This post may contain affiliate or referral links, including Amazon affiliate links. As always I will never recommend a product that I don’t believe in and you will never be charged more for purchasing through our links. It does help pay for the costs associated with the blog.

 

Channie’s Visual Handwriting and Math (Review)

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When we were preparing for him to start Kindergarten a couple of months ago my five-year-old informed me that he knew how to write the letter B for Benjamin and did not need any more letters.  I did not push the issue and decided that he would learn when he was ready. While he was not interested in sitting down and learning his letters with any traditional means, he enjoys more creative outlets like clay, sand, and dry erase markers. Knowing how much he likes dry erase markers I was excited to let him try Channie’s Dry Erase Flashcard For Alphabet & Number by Channie’s Visual Handwriting & Math workbooks. In addition, he loves math and numbers and we were able to check out their math workbook: Neat Numbers.

Channies Pinterest

When we received these products my son was very eager to try out the dry erase flash cards.  For him, any excuse to use markers is a good one. For me, any program that will help him enjoy learning his letters is a win. This product was great because it included shaded blocks to help him maintain size uniformity, and dotted examples for him to trace and blank blocks for him to write independently. I really appreciated the fact that they were small and easy to finish even with a short attention span and developing fine motor skills.  Depending on his desire to work on them, we could take just a couple of minutes and do one letter or he could work on four or five different letters or numbers in a sitting if he was enjoying it and staying focused.

The Neat Numbers workbook has three different types of pages working on neat numbers as well as basic math facts. The first type of page allows them to trace the number multiple times. The second type of pages gives them an example and allows them to write the number independently into each block. As the learner progresses through the book, they reach pages which have basic addition and subtraction facts that they solve and write the number into the block. Those pages progress from facts with pictures to numbers only and eventually blank squares where they could write their own facts.

My son was doing very well with the tracing pages but is still working on using the blocks to help him with uniformity and sizing for his numbers. I found that sometimes there were so many blocks on a page that we needed to split it up into more than one session for him to focus and do his best on each practice.

If you have a student that is struggling with handwriting and needs more assistance, these and the other great products offered by Channies may be just the solution you have been looking for. The extra guides and colored shading can offer the support needed to make them successful. Other Review Crew families reviewed these and other Channies products so be sure to click on the graphic below to check out their reviews.

Alphabet, Number & Sight Word Dry Erase, Neat Numbers & Page a Day 2 Didgit Multiplication. {Channie's Visual Handwriting & Math workbooks Reviews}

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This post may contain affiliate or referral links, including Amazon affiliate links. As always I will never recommend a product that I don’t believe in and you will never be charged more for purchasing through our links. It does help pay for the costs associated with the blog.

Excelerate SPANISH (Review)

My eighth grader and I had been discussing a four-year high school plan for him, and he decided that he wanted to learn Spanish for his foreign language requirement. We had been planning to wait until next year to begin, but when we were offered the opportunity to review Excelerate SPANISH Streaming from Excelerate SPANISH he decided that it would be a good idea give it a try and become more familiar with Spanish before high school.

Excelerate Spanish pinterest

While I took several years of Spanish in both high school and college, many years of not using it meant that I had forgotten much of what I once knew.  Therefore, I was excited about a program that utilized steaming videos and would not be very parent intensive. In addition to utilizing spoken and written words, this program uses a system called Total Physical Response (TPR). Per their website, “Studies in brain functionality and linguistics show that TPR facilitates foreign language acquisition for all age groups. TPR activates various motor cortices of the brain, making it easier to learn Spanish than you’d ever thought possible!” This system is most simply described as adding motions to each word to help you remember the words.

We received both level 1 and level 2 and my son is utilizing level 1. In level one each lesson consists of a 30-45 minute video class. In looking over the videos in level 2, it is set up similarly but the videos are a bit longer, ranging from about 40-60 minutes. They also include more conjugation practice. The lessons introduce Spanish vocabulary in a story format. So, at the beginning of each lesson the teacher introduces all of the vocabulary needed for a story by telling you the words, writing the words on the whiteboard, and teaching movements to go with the words. Then she begins to put them together to tell a story. For example, in the first lesson the story was about a man who was waiting for a bus, he waiting a long time before getting frustrated and using a taxi.

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My son really enjoyed how she used the stories and motions to practice the new vocabulary. However, he felt that it went too fast and he needed to watch a lesson multiple times before achieving mastery. We were watching a lesson each week but after the second lesson we realized that he really needed to watch the same lesson multiple times so we went back to lesson one and watched it a couple of times. He liked the concept and enjoyed the program but I do not know that we will be able to finish an entire course in a year’s time based on the need to watch each lesson multiple times. I am hoping that as he gets more familiar with the format and his Spanish vocabulary increases, it will be easier to pick up on the new vocabulary.

There are optional workbooks that are available to go with this program. The program can be used as a stand-alone program without the workbooks, but personally I think that if you were using the program for high school credit, you would need the workbooks to round out the program.

If you have a student who learns best through movement or needs material presented in multiple formats (auditory, written, and kinesthetic) this might be a great fit. Keep in mind that it moves very fast in each lesson but with the streaming format you have the ability to re-watch lessons as often as you need to for mastery. Be sure to click the graphic below to check out the other Crew Reviews to learn more about their experience with Excelerate SPANISH Streaming.

Excelerate SPANISH help your students to learn FAST, naturally! (Streaming)  {Excelerate SPANISH Reviews}

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This post may contain affiliate or referral links, including Amazon affiliate links. As always I will never recommend a product that I don’t believe in and you will never be charged more for purchasing through our links. It does help pay for the costs associated with the blog.

Smartick Math Program (Review)

 

When the request came out for reviewers for the Smartick math program, we were just getting back into the swing of school and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to add another program to the list. However, signed up for the free trial and let my daughter give a try. She stayed up way too late that night trying the program and was very quick to let me know she wanted in on this review. She was thrilled when she found out that she was going to get the chance to use Smartick on a regular basis, even though math is not her favorite subject.

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Smartick recommends using the program about 15 minutes a day four to five times per week. Each day they give the student an assignment that takes about 15 minutes, in addition there are competitions that the child can choose to participate in to practice those skills and earn points, called “ticks”.  Each user also has a virtual house that they can decorate. As they earn ticks, they can spend them to buy things for their character or house. In addition, as they reach a certain number of ticks their house changes and new amenities are added. For example, my daughter is really excited that she has almost earned enough ticks to get the house with a swimming pool.

When I asked my daughter how she felt about the program after having used if for about a month she said, ” I love the program and how you can earn ticks and get things to decorate your house. The wishing well is really cool. I wished for a swimming pool and after I wished they showed me a button. It told me that after you got a certain amount of ticks you could get a house with a pool. I like how there are lessons that teach you things and also competitions that you can do to try and earn ticks, if you win. There is also a thing where you can get friends and you can see their house, get them presents, and see how many ticks they have. There is also a button in the middle where you can play games when you first log-in for the day you have to do a session and then you can decide what to do after your session is done. ”

When I asked her what she had learned from the program or how it had helped her, she said that the competitions had really helped her build speed with her multiplication facts.

I love that this program has made my daughter enjoy doing math. She is really motivated to earn the ticks and almost every day she has spent more time than required, sometimes as much as an hour, working on the program in order to earn more ticks. As a parent another component of this program that I appreciate is that each day they send me an e-mail that tells me how she did during her 15-minute session. It gives information on the types of problems, percentage correct, and speed of completion. This makes it very easy for me to know that she is staying on track or catch any problems early.

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An example of one of the daily e-mails.

In addition to the e-mails, I can log into my parent dashboard and view lots of additional information. I can see a calendar of which days she completed a session, how she did on each session, a break down of the exact problems that she completed, any questions she has asked the wishing well, how many ticks she has earned, and how she has spent ticks. This makes it very easy to monitor her progress.

My only real concern with this program is the friends program. As a family our children are not allowed to have online friends that we do not have a personal connection with. On this program, anyone can request to be friends with any other user. We made the decision to have our daughter not accept friend request except for a few from children of other Review Crew families. She honored this request and we did not have any problems but I had to depend on her honesty in that policy. The friends feature also did not share very personal information but did allow them to see into the virtual house and see their ticks.

If you are looking for a way to get your student to willing spend time practicing math facts and concepts, a subscription to Smartick might just be the answer to your problems. In just 15 minutes a day your child can increase speed and accuracy while having fun with math. Be sure to check out the other Crew Reviews by clicking on the link below!

Math Enrichment Program {Smartick Reviews}

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When you sign up for the Schoolin’ Swag free resource library you will get a link and password to the library, we are adding to the library each month with new items. You will also get a bi-weekly newsletter email to keep you up to date on what we have going on.

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This post may contain affiliate or referral links, including Amazon affiliate links. As always I will never recommend a product that I don’t believe in and you will never be charged more for purchasing through our links. It does help pay for the costs associated with the blog.

Jehovah’s Mighty Acts: A Book Review

A while back I had the privilege of reviewing T is for Tree and later His Mercy Endureth Forever: Psalm 136 which is a beautiful picture book based on the Psalm and illustrated by Kathleen DeJong. So, when I heard that the Reformed Free Press Publishing Association had a new book starting a brand-new series I was excited to get my hands on it and start reading it with my children.  When Jehovah’s Mighty Acts arrived they were thrilled to open it and the cover had my five-year-old begging me to start reading it aloud to him.  With Bible stories by Nathan J Langerak and illustrations by Micheal Welply this is a beautiful hard cover book written for the elementary age group.

Jehovah's Might Acts Pinterest

Over the course of the last month or so, I have been reading various stories from the book mostly to my five-year-old but if they are around even my eleven and thirteen-year-old children would stop to listen to the exciting stories of God’s mighty acts. My five-year-old would often bring me the book to read or ask me to read a story from his new ‘Bible book’ as he called it. Since it was so beautifully illustrated, he could also take it and ‘read’ it himself by looking through the pictures even though he cannot yet actually read. He enjoyed looking at the pictures and telling the story based on what he saw and what he remembered from my reading.

The Reformed Free Press Publishing Association recommends these books as read alouds for ages seven to ten but I think they would be interesting to a broader age range of at least five to twelve. They could be used as bedtime stories or a part of a homeschool morning basket. With older children they could even look up the scripture and compare it to the stories.

Each story or chapter is two to three pages long and includes full color illustrations. One feature that I really loved is that at the beginning of each story they list the scripture from which the story was taken. These stories come from all parts of the Old Testament including stories from Genesis all the way to Esther. Some of the stories are very well known such as creation, the fall, and the tower of Babel. However, other stories might not be as well-known such as “Assyria Smitten” and “The Day the Sun Stood Still”.

Rather than just going chronologically through the Bible this series of books is thematic with each book telling stories from throughout the Old Testament related to that theme. The theme of this particular book was Old Testament stories that display God’s mighty acts of salvation. The next book that is scheduled to be released in the fall of 2020 will be based on the theme of Old Testament friends and servants of God.

If you are looking for a book of Bible stories that gives more detail and information that most children’s story books, but is still written in an engaging story format that is easy for children to understand, you need to consider adding Jehovah’s Mighty Acts to your home library. We are looking forward to finishing reading the stories in this book and getting the next book when it is published in 2020.

 

Disclaimer
I received a FREE copy of this product in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way. All opinions I have expressed are my own or those of my family. I am disclosing this in accordance with the FTC Regulations.

Resource Library and Affiliate Disclosure

When you sign up for the Schoolin’ Swag free resource library you will get a link and password to the library, we are adding to the library each month with new items. You will also get a bi-weekly newsletter email to keep you up to date on what we have going on.

Resource Library 

This post may contain affiliate or referral links, including Amazon affiliate links. As always I will never recommend a product that I don’t believe in and you will never be charged more for purchasing through our links. It does help pay for the costs associated with the blog.

 

 

 

Brain Blox Wooden Planks (Review)

With four children ranging in age from 19 months to 13 years, it is not often that I find a toy or activity that they can all enjoy. However, Brain Blox has created a toy that worked for them all! We received a set of Brain Blox Wooden Building Planks a few weeks ago to review and they have become a family favorite. When I agreed to review them, I was mostly thinking about my five-year-old son but in the end, everyone enjoyed them.

The Wooden Building Planks are sets of 100, 200, or 300 wooden planks that can be put together in thousands of different ways to create. The planks are all made from 100% all-natural, precision-cut, chemical-free, New Zealand natural pine wood.  We received the 200-plank set which also includes a booklet of ideas and a nice red drawstring bag to keep all of the wooden planks together when they are not being used.

Brain Blox Wooden Planks Pinterest

I started out by just letting the children play with the planks and decide what they wanted to build. Sometimes they built alone, other times they siblings worked together or had an adult help out. Through this they created a variety of really neat projects. My five-year-old make a pier with a boat launch and a ship. Then together we created a barn where he put his farm animals and tractor.   My older son created complex towers and games. The toddler would stack the planks on top of each other and knock them down again.

After they had some time to play around with them, I took some of the ideas from the Brain Blox website and used the planks for a bit of ‘school’ with my five-year-old. There were some ideas for creating letters from the planks and so I had him work on creating his name out of planks. This was far more entertaining to him that simply writing his name and provided good practice at making and recognizing the letters.

In addition to the basic building ideas the website includes puzzles which you use the planks and logic to solve, building suggestions that range from simple to complex, and even a spatial awareness curriculum based around the planks. We look forward to continuing to use these planks in a variety of ways for many years to come. We are even considering purchasing the larger set for Christmas.

As a mom of four children, I have gotten pretty picky about toys with lots of pieces. I hate hunting for missing pieces, stepping on pieces left out, etc. However, the fun, creativity, and engagement created by this set made the pieces totally worth it. The nice drawstring bag also makes it fairly easy to keep the pieces together.  I highly encourage you to visit Brain Blox for more information and then click on the graphic below and check out the experiences of the other Crew members. You can also purchase the set from Amazon. Also check out my review of another Brain Blox product, Family Fun Chess, from earlier this week.

Brain Blox Wooden Building Planks {Brain Blox Reviews}

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Resource Library and Affiliate Disclosure

When you sign up for the Schoolin’ Swag free resource library you will get a link and password to the library, we are adding to the library each month with new items. You will also get a bi-weekly newsletter email to keep you up to date on what we have going on.

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This post may contain affiliate or referral links, including Amazon affiliate links. As always I will never recommend a product that I don’t believe in and you will never be charged more for purchasing through our links. It does help pay for the costs associated with the blog.

Brain Blox Fun Family Chess (Review)

Chess is one of those games that people seem to really love or really hate. My older children have been playing off and on for several years, but it was always too challenging for my five-year-old son, even though he wanted to play with them. You can imagine this created a bit of drama in our house at times, which is why I was delighted to give Fun Family Chess  by Brain Blox a try.

When the game arrived, they were excited to unbox it, check it out, and get started. They loved how it all fit together inside the box, and I loved how it was sturdy and durable (with four kids, I don’t need games that are easily destroyed). The contrast of the black and white pattern made it eye-catching and appealing.

Brain Blox Fun Family Chess Pinterest

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There were two sets of instructions included with the Fun Family Chess set. The first set was for a simplified game that is a great introduction to chess. In this game, you use a special die that tells you which piece to move instead of using more strategy to determine your next move. There are also two reference cards which show how each piece can move to help players get used to the various pieces. The board itself is a wooden board that folds in the middle to create a box to hold the pieces, die, and reference cards. It is painted black and white and the pieces are also black and white. Also, if you prefer, there are video instructions located on their website to help with any questions.

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We had the opportunity to play the game multiple times over the last few weeks. The older children played against each other, taught their grandmother, and finally taught my five-year-old how to play chess. We would pull out the game in the evenings and two people would play while we all sat around the living room talking and laughing together.  The die and easier rules leveled the playing field for younger (or newer) players and gave everyone a chance to win while getting familiar with the rules of the game.

The older children felt like the easier set of rules was a step backwards for them and preferred sticking with the regular chess rules, but we found that the easier set of rules was perfect for my younger son. The great thing about the game is that you can use the same game with either set of rules making it something that the whole family can play. It packs neatly into the case and therefore would make a great game to bring with you on a vacation or road trip to keep everyone occupied in a hotel room or at a campsite.

Overall, we enjoyed the game and think it is a great fit for families with younger children or those who are new to chess. It probably is not necessary for those that are already actively playing, unless they are wanting to teach younger siblings or friends who are not familiar with the game. However, since it is a standard chess set it can be easily used by those that wish to play by the regular chess rules.

I highly encourage you to visit Brain Blox for more information and then click on the graphic below and check out the experiences of the other Crew members. You can also purchase the set from Amazon. Also stay tuned for a review of another Brain Blox product, Wooden Building Planks, later this week.

Fun Family Chess {Brain Blox Reviews}

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When you sign up for the Schoolin’ Swag free resource library you will get a link and password to the library, we are adding to the library each month with new items. You will also get a bi-weekly newsletter email to keep you up to date on what we have going on.

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This post may contain affiliate or referral links, including Amazon affiliate links. As always I will never recommend a product that I don’t believe in and you will never be charged more for purchasing through our links. It does help pay for the costs associated with the blog.

Evan-Moor’s Skill Sharpeners Critical Thinking (Review)

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far, away (or at least many years and several counties) I began teaching a fifth-grade classroom. Much has changed in the classroom since then, but Evan-Moor products were there with me then and are still part of my resource library today. Now that I am a homeschooling mom, I still enjoy using their resources. Most recently I was given a copy of The Evan-Moor Skill Sharpeners: Critical Thinking, Grade 6 to review with my daughter.

*Some of the links in my posts may be affiliate links see below for more information. *

EvanMoor Review

I chose this book out of the wide variety of skill sharpener books, because critical thinking is an area we are working on with my daughter. She is very smart but doesn’t always like to have to think critically and figure out the answer to questions or riddles. My goal is to help her think through problems using logic and critical thinking skills.

When the book arrived one of the first things I noticed was that it was bright and colorful. This made the book much more inviting for students.  In addition to bright colorful pictures and pages, the colors on the pages represented the subject matter that was being covered helping to visually break the book into various subject areas.

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When I started looking over this book to determine what I needed to do to get my daughter started and what she would need from me, I was delighted to see that it was a very ‘open and go’ type of program. The parent (or teacher) can simply open the book and begin without time consuming preparations. As a busy homeschooling mom of four, this made using it a lot easier. All I needed to do was decide which pages I wanted my daughter to do and give her the assignment. There was even an answer key provided in the back that made it super simple for me to check her work and provide feedback.

After looking over the book a bit I decided that I would let my daughter choose which activities she would complete each week. I gave her an assignment of two activities per week but she could choose which two to complete.  This was a supplemental activity for us and I loved that it was so easy for me to adapt to our needs. If she had been struggling in a certain area, I could have picked those activities, or I could have had her work straight through the book. However, I felt like the ability to choose gave her more ownership in the process.

The book was split into four main sections: Animal Kingdom, Time, Technology, and Places. Then each section had activities that worked on various skills such as “Read All About It”, “Tell What You Know”, “Solve”, “Compute”, “Apply”, “Create” and more.  These activities included reading passages, questions about the topic, riddles, puzzles, math problems, word finds, unscramble activities, and more.

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An example of one of the questions was “Jason made a batch of brownies, but he did not eat any of them. Give 5 possible reasons.” This makes the student think about various scenarios in which you would bake brownies without eating them.  Another activity gave a word bank of words related to ancient Rome. The student then had to group the words into groups of three and explain how the grouping was related. My daughter’s favorite activity so far was an activity called “What Letter” in which she had to solve clues to find each letter and when put together the letters created the answer to a joke about sharks.

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Overall, I was very pleased with the layout and color of the book, the ease of use and minimal teacher prep that was needed, and how easy it was to adapt to our needs. I feel like this program will help my daughter build critical thinking skills which are so important in life.  In addition to The Evan Moor Skill Sharpeners: Critical Thinking, Grade 6 book, there are books available for kindergarten through sixth grade. They also have the skill sharpeners books for other subjects including math, reading, science, and spelling. If you are looking for a quick and easy way to supplement your curriculum, review week areas, or strengthen critical thinking skills I highly recommend this series. You can find out more and purchase them directly from Evan Moor (they are having a BOGO sale on them right now) or from Amazon.

 

Disclaimer:
I received a FREE copy of this product through from Evan Moor in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way. All opinions I have expressed are my own or those of my family. I am disclosing this in accordance with the FTC Regulations.

Resource Library and Affiliate Disclosure

When you sign up for the Schoolin’ Swag free resource library you will get a link and password to the library, we are adding to the library each month with new items. You will also get a bi-weekly newsletter email to keep you up to date on what we have going on.

Resource Library 

This post may contain affiliate or referral links, including Amazon affiliate links. As always I will never recommend a product that I don’t believe in and you will never be charged more for purchasing through our links. It does help pay for the costs associated with the blog.

 

Progeny Press Hound of Baskervilles and Little House on the Prairie Study Guide (Review)

Literature is one of my favorite subjects to teach because our entire family loves good books.  When I looked over the titles that were offered for this Progeny Press review, I was very excited to get one for each of my older children to work through on books that I knew they would love. For my daughter, an eleven-year-old sixth grader, I chose the Little House on the Prairie Study Guide because I knew she would love that book and we had not gotten around to reading it with her. My son is a thirteen-year-old eighth grader but a very strong reader, therefore, I decided that he could handle the Hound of the Baskervilles Study Guide even though it was recommended for grades 9-12.

progeny press pinterest

When I started looking over the Hound of the Baskervilles Study Guide it recommended having my son read the entire book,then go back and work through the book and the study guide section by section. This approach works well with for my son because he hates to stop reading in the middle of a good book in order to answer questions. Since he is working on being more independent with his work, I gave him the book and the study guide, showed him what to do and gave him four weeks to complete the process. This is a shorter time frame than typically allowed for this study guide but I did not have him complete all of the activities and I knew that he was a fast reader and could complete it with-in that time frame. This set up worked really well for him.

He read the book the first week and then set to work on the study guide. The study guide is designed as a fillable PDF so he was able to download it onto his laptop and fill in the answers, then save it for me to check.  The Hound of the Baskervilles Study Guide broke the book down into 6 sections (with an additional overview section at the end) and had a variety of assignments for each section. These included comprehension questions, vocabulary, analysis, sections about literary elements, and optional hands-on activities and writing assignments. My son answered the questions for each section and completed a few of the hands on activities. Since he is working through a different writing program, I chose to let him skip the optional writing assignments but they would work well to make it a complete language arts program.

My daughter reads a bit slower and prefers to be thinking about the questions as she reads. I felt like having her read the whole book and then go back and re-read the sections would feel very challenging for her, and so I had her just read a section of the novel each week and complete the accompanying section in the Little House on the Prairie Study Guide. These sections were set up very similarly to the Hound of Baskervilles Study Guide but the questions were geared towards upper elementary and early middle grades.  She completed all of the questions and an option activity from each section. Some of the activities that she chose were weaving a place mat from paper, watching an episode of Little House on the Prairie from our DVD collection, and her favorite was pretending to be Laura while eating a peppermint stick. She had to lick the stick into a sharp point like Laura did in one of the chapters of the book.


We enjoyed these study guides. While I personally would not want to do that much analysis and questioning with each book that we complete, I think that these are a great way to really dig deep into the novel. I highly encourage you to visit Progeny Press for more information and then click on the graphic below and check out the experiences of the other Crew members who reviewed a variety of different titles.. You can also check out our review of Progeny Press The Scavengers eGuide from last year.

Study Guides for Literature {Progeny Press Reviews}

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Resource Library and Affiliate Disclosure

When you sign up for the Schoolin’ Swag free resource library you will get a link and password to the library, we are adding to the library each month with new items. You will also get a bi-weekly newsletter email to keep you up to date on what we have going on.

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This post may contain affiliate or referral links, including Amazon affiliate links. As always I will never recommend a product that I don’t believe in and you will never be charged more for purchasing through our links. It does help pay for the costs associated with the blog.

Sound For Life, LTD. Soundsory Program (Review)

While not formally diagnosed, my oldest son has struggled with ADHD since he was in kindergarten. When the opportunity to review Soundsory presented itself, I let him decide if it was a program he wanted to try.  He is very bright but sometimes struggles with focus and completing routine tasks. He has been working on various strategies to help him be successful with his focus and decided that this would be a good program to try.

Soundsory Pinterest

Soundsory was created by Sound for Life Ltd and is a program designed to help people with ADHD, sensory disorders, motor delays, Autism, and more. The program involves music which has been processed with neuro-acoustic modifications. For approximately twenty-five minutes each day the child listens to this music which is included on the headphones that come with the program. (The program also comes with a nice case for the headphones to help keep them safe.) Sound for Life Ltd states that, ” The music is delivered through air and bone-conduction (the bone-conduction transducer is on top of the skull), for a complete auditory stimulation.” While they are listening, they are encouraged to do other things such as walking, drawing, Legos, or crafts.  My son enjoyed the time working on Legos in his room most days, though he would occasionally listen while we were riding or while he took a walk.

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Then he listened to an additional three to five minutes of music while completing a series of movement based exercises. These exercises are not strenuous and require no additional props.  There are online videos of each exercise so that the child knows what to do. Some examples of the exercises include body taps, downward dog, front/back jumping, x-stretch, and hopping in place.

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In total, this program took about thirty minutes a day and is designed to last for forty daily sessions. Since the child can be doing other things while they listen it doesn’t really take thirty minutes of time out of your day and is easily fit into most schedules.

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My son said that the headphones were very comfortable and the music was fine, though not as exciting as the music that he normally chooses. He enjoyed the chance to relax with the music and his Legos each day. Honestly, we are struggling a bit with whether or not it helped his focus. Since the focus is very subjective and already varied a bit from day to day it is harder to give an objective measure. He is planning to finish out the program (we have not quite completed all 40 days) and is open to trying the program again in a few weeks. Sound for Life Ltd recommends that you take a two-week break in between each 40 day session of Soundsory .

There were a variety of families that tried out Soundsory for many different needs and situations. If you have a child that is struggling with sensory disorders, processing disorders, focus issues or autism, I highly encourage you to visit Sound for Life Ltd for more information and then click on the graphic below and check out the experiences of the other Crew members.

Soundsory {Sound for Life Ltd Reviews}

Crew Disclaimer

Resource Library and Affiliate Disclosure

When you sign up for the Schoolin’ Swag free resource library you will get a link and password to the library, we are adding to the library each month with new items. You will also get a bi-weekly newsletter email to keep you up to date on what we have going on.

Resource Library 

This post may contain affiliate or referral links, including Amazon affiliate links. As always I will never recommend a product that I don’t believe in and you will never be charged more for purchasing through our links. It does help pay for the costs associated with the blog.