Enjoying the Chaos

My latest review was sent to me from  The Trigger Memory Co.  I was provided with a digital version of  Times Tales  to use in our home school. Captain has been the one using this program, although my big kids have watched it as well. Our goal of course is to learn our  multiplication facts . Captain is a very visual learner and so I knew this would be perfect for him. The videos are mnemonic based and really appealed to him. He watched it numerous times and I have definitely noticed a lot of improvement in his math fact speed. The multiplication facts covered are; 3x6 3x7 3x8 3x9 4x6 4x7 4x8 4x9 6x6 6x7 6x8 6x9 7x7 7x8 7x9 8x8  8x9 9x9 Times Tales works by using cartoon style characters that are put together in story form to help teach multiplication facts in a fun engaging way. I actually hadn't started teaching Captain his times tables yet but I had heard a lot about this program and I was intrigued. It seemed a really good way to teach s...

With this being a presidential election year, and this being my first time to VOTE (can you tell I am excited), I jumped at the chance to review HISTORY Through the Ages Hands-on History Lap-Pak: U.S Elections from Home School in the Woods. I received this as a downloadable product via email. I worked on this with Boo and we thoroughly enjoyed it. When you receive the download it comes in separate folders. Some as audio, some as a printable book, and some as PDFs that need to be printed to form the lap pak. The first thing I did to prepare for this lap pak is print out all the relevant PDFs. There is a handy information sheet that tells you exactly what you need to print, how many to print and what kind/color of paper to print it on. This takes quite a while and so I like to get it all printed at once and then stored in a file folder until we are ready to work on each section. Boo really liked having it organized like this as she hates having to wait for things to be prin...

We have been using  Life of Fred  for the last 4 years. Jam started with the  Introductions to Alegbra  books and Boo started at the beginning with Apples. Captain is working through the elementary books now too. I have recently purchased Life of Fred Chemistry  and I have the first three  Life of Fred Language Arts Books  so I feel really confident sharing this complete Life of Fred Buyer's guide with you! If you have any questions feel free to ask! "Life of Fred" is quickly becoming a buzzword in the homeschooling world. If any child has ever struggled with understanding math concepts, Fred is ready to jump in and help your child remember those tricky math concepts! So, why are the Life of Fred books gaining popularity? The books follow Fred Gauss, a child prodigy math genius, during his exciting adventures which encounter every day math situations. Children actually want to read these books. Your child can start using these books when...

Well it's time for my first review of this brand new year. It has been so exciting to get a new year started. This first review is for all parents out there. A very interesting documentary called  IndoctriNation  'Public Schools and the decline of Christianity in America' produced by  Great Commission Films . The Latin word for 'teach' is ' doctrina '. It's the root of the word 'indoctrinate' and originally that's what indoctrinate meant to teach - however times and meanings change and now 'indoctrinate' has a very negative meaning, around 1830 it started to mean forcing ideas and beliefs on someone who isn't allowed to question them. My husband truly believes (as do I) that if we don't teach our children to believe in something, someone else will and it won't always be good. This documentary features a Scottish man Colin Gunn who obviously lives in the US and home-schools his children (along with his wife). This ...

WOW December is going fast! 1. Ordering Christmas presents online is awesome. Except when someone else gets the mail from the box and then can't remember where they put it. I did find it - luckily as it contained the only present that Captain America asked Santa for. 2. Times have changed and Captain was the only one to be taken to Santa this year. It was a fun just to have some one on one time with him. He was a pretty good Santa wasn't he! 3. We had an Etiquette dinner at church with the youth I work with this week. It was really good but I didn't get any pictures. I managed to take one just before it started. I can't believe how grown up she is getting. 4. I introduced my kids to Marti McFly this week! 5. The kids had great fun with our little homeschool group today. We all got together and made 'graham cracker' houses, pizza, games and a story. It was such fun! ©2011-2014 Chickensbunniesandhomeschool. All rights reserved. All text, pho...

We have been homeschooling for about three years. When my older two children learned to read they were in public school and so I helped but never had to teach them all by myself. Captain America however has been all me, having never gone to public school at all (in fact this year would have seen him in Kindergarten) the buck stops here, so to speak. I have been collecting level one and two readers. So when I was offered a copy of  I Can Read - God's Great Creation . Although this book is a level two, Captain America did an excellent job reading it. I only had to assist him with the hard words. This books tells the story of the creation. It goes through all the days of creation and ends up with Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit and being cast out from the Garden of Eden. Captain America really enjoyed the story, it's told in quite simplistic vocabulary, which is suitable for level 2. There are a couple of parts in the story that don't quite fit in with my King...

Since I work from home there are times when I need Captain America (remember this is now what we call Little J who's 5) to do something constructive if I am busy. He has his own laptop on his new school desk that we set up this year and so doesn't have to boot someone else off theirs to play.  Essential Skills Advantage is an online reading and language program for grades K-6. I was given a premium membership in exchange for this review. A premium membership costs $9.99 a month however if you use the code 'TOS50' by Oct 1 2014 you could get this program for $4.99 a month (for as long as you keep the subscription active). There is also a free version of the program available however this does contain ads and doesn't have all the features of the premium membership. Essential Skills Advantage has been around along time. Up until recently it worked mainly with traditional schools (over 20,000). Since the program was so successful in helping children in the class...

Little J's favorite book...for the day.