All students’  need good study skills but knowing how to teach those skills can be a challenge. For some reason teaching study skills has always been a difficult abstract topic for me and with my oldest being a 7th grader I knew that it was something we needed to focus on. I enjoyed this opportunity to review the Victus Study Skills System particularly using Level 2: Elementary and Level 3 (Grades 5/6-10/11). This included a workbook for each level, a teachers manual, and a supplemental manual for the elementary level. I used level 2 with my fifth grade daughter and level 3 with my seventh grade son.

The Victus Study Skills System is built on three major parts or cornerstones. First, “Where am I now?” This section focuses on  learning strengths and an assessment of current study habits. Second, “Where do I want to be?” This covers creating a mission statement and setting goals. Finally, “How do I get there?” This is where you really get into learning new study habits and skills to help you achieve the goals that you created in the second section. This cornerstone focuses on things like time management, listening, note taking and test taking.

There are examples for each section or lesson and then opportunities to practice. When comparing the elementary level with level 3 (5/6-10/11) you see a very similar layout of concepts, but the elementary level has shorter assignments and does not always go as in depth. Sometimes, the assignments are are entirely different. For example, in one of the lessons my daughter was doing a word search and my son was working on a calendar. There are other lessons where they both needed to answer questions or fill in the blanks but the elementary lesson has fewer questions.

Lessons in which my daughter had the same but fewer questions were very easy to combine. I would teach the lesson and we would go through the work together. However, for some of them I felt like they really needed my individual attention because of the differences in the layout. In hindsight, when I use this program again, I will give an introduction the program together, but plan to spend time individually with each child.

Level 2 Example

Level 3 Example

Level 3 Example

Level 2 Example

I liked how, instead of just telling them that note taking was a good study strategy, it went through and taught them how to take good notes. The book explained using short hand, keeping things brief, not needing to use complete sentences, and even how to determine which things are important to note. They then have the opportunity to practice taking notes using several sets of information. Once they have practiced, they can compare their notes to a set of well-taken sample notes on the same information.

Elementary Supplement

Teacher’s Guide

I also really appreciated how it showed them how to get from where they are to where they want to be. By starting with an assessment of their own learning styles, they can progress into self advocates and choose to study and use the strategies that work best for them. Another step that I think was really important was setting goals. If you do not know where you want to go, you will not be able to figure out how to get there. I think that helped them to understand why the study skills that they learned in the the third part of the program were important.

Overall, we enjoyed this product but I do feel that it is worth noting that while they say you can teach multiple levels at a time, I found it very difficult to teach both Level 2 and Level 3 together. The overall topics were similar but the activities and such were different enough that it became confusing for my students. I recommend considering individual times for different levels.  If you had multiple students on the same level, I think it would work fine with group instruction.  The other thing that I would note is that while they say it is a five hour course, it took us significantly more than 5 hours to work through the course. That might change somewhat if I was not trying to do two different levels at once. The extra time is not a big deal in a home setting like ours, but an important consideration for planning if you are using it for a larger time bound setting like a co-op.

I think that the Victus Study Skills System   is a good system to teach study skills and help students understand the importance of those skills. I love that it helps each child look at themselves as individuals and teaches them a variety of tools and strategies that they can work with to best meet their individual learning styles and goals. There is also a primary level (K-2) and a college level that we did not use at this time. If you would like to find out more about the other levels or see how other families utilized the program, I encourage you to check out the other Review Crew reviews using the link below.

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Resource Library 

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I have a pretty laid-back philosophy on preschool and believe that most learning is done through just living life together and play. I also have a four year old that has been telling me that he was ready to ‘do school’ like his older brother and sister.  When I was given the opportunity to review Dimensions Math PK-5 by Singapore Math Inc. I was hesitant. I knew that my son wanted more ‘schoolwork’ but I was not sure that a formal math program was going to be the best fit. I decided that it would not hurt anything to give a try and see how it went.

I requested and received PKA, which is the first semester of Pre-Kindergarten. When it arrived it reminded me very much of curricula for a tradition classroom in the sense that it had a large teachers manual, a student textbook, and a student workbook. For the Pre-Kindergarten level both the workbook and the textbook are consumable resources designed to be written in by the student. They also have some printable blackline masters and cute videos on their website to accompany the curriculum.

When I started looking through the teacher’s manual, I was pleasantly surprised to find many hands on and play based activities. This curriculum is often used in classrooms and so they have group activities, centers, and individual activities included.  There were art activities, snacks, and even book recommendations to extend the lessons.

Most days when we did math I would go through the short lesson with him, pick one or two activities and then do the textbook and workbook pages. This generally only took about 15 minutes per lesson unless he wanted to spend longer on an art activity or something like that. My four year old thought it was great fun and would ask when he could do math.

Since it was also designed for classroom use I wanted to give it a try with a small group of children. I only have one preschooler but I had friends that were generously willing to loan me a few more for the morning. I tried a lesson with four children to see how the group activities would flow and how the curriculum might work in a co-op or classroom setting.

The children really seemed to enjoy the activities. The lesson that I chose to use was part of a unit where they were learning to compare and contrast various objects. This particular lesson taught the concepts of smooth, rough, and bumpy. Since I only had one workbook we could not do that portion (if you were going to use this regularly with a group you would have each one purchase a textbook and a workbook) but we read through the lesson, looked at the examples in the textbook and then completed some of the group and center activities.

They had chance to feel objects in a bag that they couldn’t see. Then they guessed what they were along with describing them using one of the three descriptive words. They had a chance to feel various objects like smooth satin, rough burlap, bumpy bubble wrap and more. Then they sorted objects into the three categories, sanded rough wood until it was smooth (or they were bored), and used various rough and bumpy objects to do rubbings as an art project. We finished up with a smooth and bumpy snack of apples and pretzels.

I felt that the PKA level was a little easy for my son, but I could have avoided that by having him take the kindergarten placement test before we chose a level. I really like starting at the beginning of a curriculum and since he had never done a formal math curriculum I thought that would be a good place to start. He enjoyed it but it was mostly review of concepts that he already knew. I think this would be better for a child that was a little younger or not as advanced, though again he enjoyed it and it worked well for getting him in the habit of doing a math lesson about three times a week.

While I still do not believe that most children need a formal math curriculum for Pre-Kindergarten, if you wanted the structure of a program at that level or if you had the opportunity to work with a co-op or other small group of children Dimensions Math PK-5 has a lot to offer. I love the hands on nature of many of the activities and the reasonably short lessons to match the attention spans of young children.  I am looking forward to reading the reviews of other Review Crew members to see if the other levels were as hands on and interactive as PKA.

At an event in December, a friend of mine who works in a traditional classroom ask me if I had ever used a subscription to IXL with my children, I told him that I had not heard of the program. It was a busy month and I honestly forgot to even go check it out until January rolled around and I saw IXL Learning show up as a vendor on our list of Crew reviews. If he had not mentioned it in December I’m not sure I would have given it a chance but I am so glad that I did.

I started out trying the full annual subscription to IXL with both my four year old son and my eleven year old daughter. The four year old tried several different objectives and did well with the ones that he worked on but honestly did not enjoy the program. I think that it was too repetitive and not interactive enough for his age group. He fought me on doing activities after the first few attempts and eventually we decided it was just not working for him and let him stop.

My daughter, however, had a completely different experience. When we first started I made the mistake of trying to have her do the diagnostic component all in one sitting. That test took hours and she still was not done. It narrows down the levels of each component and that takes quite a few questions. It is good information but looking back I would have had her break that up and do a few diagnostic questions each day until we had the data we needed. Once we moved from the diagnostic component to the practice component she absolutely loved the program. She was able to earn virtual prizes (nesting dolls for the fifth grade lessons) that really seemed to motivate her to keep going. She was actually doing more lessons that I required in order to earn more prizes.

My daughter asked if she could use it for her complete curriculum as she was really enjoying it. However, the program is set up as a practice component and not a complete curriculum. It has review in many different areas and is very comprehensive that way, but it does not include lessons to teach new material. There is some information and explanation for questions that are incorrect but not enough to be a primary curriculum.  For fifth grade alone there are questions for over 700 skills spread across the areas of math, language arts, social studies, and science. I do intend to allow her to continue to use this annual subscription to IXL to practice and review her skills throughout the year. She is very motivated to do well and I am pleased with the growth. We primarily focused on grammar because those were areas that I knew she needed more practice and I could see growth in her performance as she went through the practice questions.

Overall, I think that the format of IXL does not lend itself well for Pre-K but that it is a great resource for older students. My fifth grader loved it and I could see it also being beneficial to my seventh grader. While we have not yet reached those levels the math even goes up to Calculus. I know that could come in handy with high schoolers who need more practice or review. I think it would be a great way to review skills before placement test, SATs, etc.  To find out how the other Crew members utilized the program and what they thought don’t forget to click below and read more reviews.

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.