Essentials in Writing

Our family struggles in writing and I'm not sure why.  When I was in high school I enjoyed English and Writing, they were my all time favorite classes but finding a curriculum that works well for both of my children's learning styles has been sort of an adventure.  We've tried all different kinds of programs and liked some of them but not LOVED any of them.  Finally, our quest is over!  Kylan enjoys Essentials in Writing so much that he will ask if he can move on and do more lessons in the 5th grade curriculum each day.  Say what???  I know, it's crazy talk.  Let me tell you a little bit more about the curriculum and then we'll get into the reasons that it works for our family.

The fifth grade level of Essentials in Writing consists of 64 lessons.  The first 33 lessons were devoted to grammar, and the rest of the lessons focusing on composition. We received 2 DVD's and a CD rom with printable worksheet files, you can also choose to have all the files printed out and bound for an additional $20 which, in my opinion is a pretty great deal.

Here's a list of things that he worked on in the fifth grade level.

~Sentence structure

~Parts of speech

~Writing dialogue

~Prepositions and Prepositional Phrases

~The writing process

~Writing a narrative

~Writing a friendly letter

~Persuasive writing

~Descriptive writing

~Figurative language

~Poetry

Click on the link if you would like to see a copy of the syllabus and to look at a complete list of what is covered.  There isn't a schedule to follow but rather a suggested approach of watching the lesson and then only doing 1 worksheet per day.  This didn't work for Kylan so I allowed him to do several worksheets per day if he felt like it.  This is a non consumable product that includes grammar and compostition so it is very economical, especially if you have several children.  Priced at $40 you can use it over and over because it comes with a CD that has printable worksheet files.  Yes, you have to print them yourself or you can purchase them pre-printed for $20.





Kylan loves Essentials in Writing because of the following:

~He can pop the video in and watch his lesson at any time (he doesn't have to wait for me to help him).

~He can re-watch the lesson if he needs to.

~Mr. Stephens presents everything slowly and at a pace that Kylan can keep up with.

~Mr. Stephens shows the students how to apply what they are learning.

~Kylan knows that he's only required to do 1 worksheet per day but many days he will finish 5 or 6 worksheets because he's enjoying the video and understands the concepts.

~Kylan just told me that his favorite reason is that he's getting grammar and writing done all at the same time so he feels like he's accomplishing a lot!




What didn't work for us:

~The teacher would speak too quickly and Kylan coudln't understand him but that was easily fixed by re-playing it over and over until he understood what was said. It did get a bit frustrating though when I coudln't figure it out either.

~I thought the lessons were too short.

~I wish there was more worksheets available for students that struggle in specific areas.

~There were not any tests or quizzes.  I like to test my children and make sure they totally understood a concept.





Overall we found that Essentials in Writing works well for both Kylan and Makenzie.  Yes, it worked so well for fifth grade that I had to check out the 7th grade curriculum as well.



Makenzie is enjoying it immensly and LOVES the fact that she can move as slowly or quickly as she needs to.  She had already finished her 7th grade grammar and writing curriculum for this year. A friend let us borrow their 7th grade Essientials in Writing to see if it would work for us.  We noticed that in 7th grade it focuses more on compostition and grammar is supplemental. 

I am such a believer in this curriculum that I'm ready to purchase the 6th and 8th grade curriclum for next year!

Last but not least you know it's working for our family if I'm willing to recommend it to other homeschoolers in our co-op.  I'm very honest with them about works and doesn't work and will say that I don't like a curriculum.  Today, I posted in our homeschool group recommending Essentials in Writing and giving it a rave review.

Thanks for reading,

Nutella cookie mishap

I was so excited to find this recipe for Nutella cookies, and it only takes 3 ingredients to make them. 

1 Cup Nutella

1 egg

1 cup sugar (or so I thought)

Then mix for about a minute or until well bleded.

Scoop out a spoonful and roll into approx. 1" balls.  Make sure you space them pretty far apart because they spread like crazy.

Bake for 7 minutes in 350 degree oven.

We were not all that thrilled with how these cookies came out and I couldn't figure out what had gone wrong until my friend texted me and said, "Sorry the ingredients in the Nutella cookies is 1 cup flour not sugar!"  Oh my goodness no wonder they were so sweet and flat, not at all what I expected after the rave reviews from my friends.  So Kenzie and I are headed back into the kitchen to try again!

Thanks for reading,

 

1,000th blog post

I can't believe that this is my 1,000th blog post!  That's a lot of typing, editing and photo sharing.  I remember when I posted my 500th post back in June of 2009.  I did a fun giveaway for that post.  At this point I've got nothing for you...no giveaways or anything.  I've been a slacker in the blogging area of my life, we've partially moved 2 times in the past 6 months and the rest of our stuff is in storage.  Still trying to find a house and waiting on insurance...don't even ask it's not a pretty story.  Oh, I turned 40 years old on the 5th,  I hear that the 40's are fabulous so I'm super excited because the 30's were just ok. I'm sure I'll share more about the house hunt, living with in-laws and house sitting for some wonderful friends with you in the not so distant future.  Until then please keep reading Just Wedeminute!

Thanks for reading,

 

A picture is worth a thousand words.

Lone Star Learning offers some really neat flashcards to help remember words that are very common in  Math, Science and Language Arts.  They come in sets of 40,  full color, and are coated.

 The size of the Science Vocabulary cards seemed a little large and were double the size of the Target Vocabulary Cards.  The size of the Get the Picture cards seemed perfect for my 5th and 7th graders. They are nice and sturdy almost like card stock, so they will hold up well with repeated use. They will still tear, though, so be sure to keep an eye on any little ones who handle them!

 Each card shows a vocabulary word, and has pictures within the word to show its meaning. The card sets are NOT arranged by grade level, so you do need to look over the word lists to see what will work for your children. There are 5 word lists to choose from!

Price is $29.99 per set

We love science and were thrilled when Lone Star Learning sent us the Science Vocabulary Pictures set 1. We were accidentally sent a set of the Target Vocabulary Pictures, Set 1 and we were allowed to keep them too.  After going through the cards only one time and discussing them my 5th grader remembered them all and actually told me that he used some of them on a math test.  This means he remembered what he had learned and we all know that's the big battle!  Even though these cards are for the target grades 3rd-9th my 7th grader thought they were too easy but a great idea.  She even started trying to come up with her own version when studying for a history test.

Each set of cards comes with an information sheet that helps with ideas on how to use the cards.  Some of the examples were the following:

Use the words to make acrostic poetry

Make each card a "Word of the Day"

Write and illustrate the word

and many more creative ideas were given.

You know that old saying, "A picture is worth a thousand words".  Well, in my son's case this is very true because he's such a visual learner so these cards are perfect for his style of learning!

Thanks for reading,

 

If you give a homeschooler a book...

Inspiring the American Dream graciously sent us a copy of the children's book Abraham's Journey to review.   The cover is glossy with an interesting illustration that made my children curious.  After opening the package our conversation went something like this, "Mom what's that book?  Why does it have Abraham Lincoln on a smart phone?  I know he's dead and certainly can't be speaking on a smart phone.  Is that an iPhone?  I bet he would have loved the iPhone because all kinds of info would have been at his fingertips!  I think I just want to take a peek at that book. Is that ok?"  Well, that was a one sided conversation for sure and that was the start of our day that turned into something resembling the book If You Give a Mouse A Cookie.

 Makenzie planned on only taking a peek but of course she finished the 32 page book quickly which caused us to do some research about several of the characters.  The first one she wanted to know about was Norman Rockwell.  Which spurred us on into painting some Norman Rockwell style pictures, searching the web for any information we could find about Mr. Rockwell and of course ordering a couple of library books. 
 Next she wanted to know more about Amelia Earhart so we found a lapbook and started putting it together, while in the middle of the lapbook I found a show about Ms. Earhart on Netflix so we started watching it, it was pretty good. 
 Kenzie wasn't sure who the Gates were so that was a great opportunity to talk about philanthropy and we tied that in to her Punky Monkey Missions projects.  By this time we were getting pretty tired but touched on Martin Luther King, Jr (we had just finished a unit study on him in January) and Mark Zuckerberg.  After finishing all of that, Kylan woke up from a nap (he was a sick boy) and said, "Hey mom can I read that book?"

As you can tell my children enjoyed this book and we really did learn a lot from it!  I don't want to give any spoilers so I'll just say that this book is all about the American Dream and takes you on a journey with some famous Americans that all had one thing in common...big DREAMS!  This book, written by Kathleen Basmadjian, PhD and Robert K. Basmadjian Jr., retails for $14.99, and is also available via Kindle for $9.99 .Click on the link to purchase Abraham's Journey.  This book is recommended for ages 7-12 year olds.


Pros:

~Colorful, wonderful illustrations

~Easy read

~Definition of terms in the back of the book

~Character Biographies

Cons: 

~ I didn't really like the fact that Mark Zuckerberg was considered a role model and the child actually ends up giving him his email address at the end of the book.  I don't think that's a smart idea and certainly would not allow my children to share that info with someone they had just met.

~I wish more info was given about Abraham Lincoln because he overcame a lot of hardships to live his American Dream.

~Both of my children wondered why the boy had a smart phone if the family was having financial issues and why he didn't just sell it to make some money.

Thanks for reading,

 

Hiking with the Horton's

Hiking with the Horton's sounds like it could be a Dr. Seuss book doesn't it!  Monday was a beautiful day and my friend Dana and I wanted to get the kids out of the house and out into the fresh air.  We decided on Turkey Mountain for a hike.  We chose the blue trail because it was only supposed to take about 40 minutes.

  Well we had 5 children with us, we found a pond, we found rocks, sticks, and dirt.  It didn't take us 40 min it took us almost 2 hours which was fine.  We had a great time except toward the end when we came back to the pond...hmmm, wonder what happened?  We were following the boys and they went straight we said you missed a blue marker we have to turn here. All I'll admit to is that we should have gone with what the 8 year old and 11 year old boys wanted to do, these city slicker mama's had no clue and no sense of direction but we made it back to the parking lot safely. 

As we were getting ready to leave an older gentleman came riding up on a horse of course!  He let the kids all pet Sugar (his horse) and even let Malia and Kenzie climb up on the horses back.  My phone's battery was dead by now but Malia got a pic of Kenzie for me.  

Next time we're thinking about heading out to Redbud Valley Nature Preserve.  What's your favorite hiking spot in your neck of the woods?

Thanks for reading,

 

House Hunters

 
 I'm sure most of you are aware that we sold our house back in September, it only took 3 weeks to get it sold.  We were so happy but then uh oh, what are we going to do for a house?  We've looked and looked and talked about building and looked some more.  We've looked at almost 150 houses and to be honest I would be happy in almost all of them, but we have a person in our family that's just a tad bit picky.  He wants what he wants and won't settle for anything less. We also had a family decide not to sell after we chose their house and another house sold before we could make an offer on it.  We are taking the approach that they must not have been meant for us, plus there is that fact of the picky person.  I know he's just looking out for our family but I'm ready to move on to the next house and this new phase in our life.

 We lived here for 13 years and it was the only house the kids ever knew.

 I know we are all going to miss the pool this summer, unless our new house has one too!

Kevin's parents have graciously allowed us to live with them while we are searching.  It's a bit cozy but has turned out much better than we all expected.  In a little over a week we will be house sitting (this was such a blessing for our family) for some friends of ours that are going to Uganda to bring home the newest member of their family.  If you would like to read about their amazing adoption journey click here Arms Wide Open.  They could be gone from 6-8 weeks and I'm just praying that we will find a house in that time frame and close on it before they return home.

 We are making a big change for our family, moving from the Owasso area to the Broken Arrow area.  It's not that far but it's so much closer to UPS and Kevin won't have to commute on Highway 169 anymore, that will be a huge relief.  He's been involved in several accidents on 169, none of them were his fault either.  It's just a crazy, busy highway.  If you think about it, please say a prayer that we will find the perfect house for our family.
We have another family that's going through the same thing as us.  They sold their house and are living with family, we have a lot in common and meet often to get out of the house.  We've always loved the Horton's but we are bonding through this process much like we did when we both adopted from South Korea.  I'm sure you will be hearing a lot more about them in future posts, as a matter of fact I'm working on Hiking with the Horton's and will post in a couple of days.

We did have something interesting happen.  I applied for HGTV's House Hunter's TV show and never heard back from them until last week...

Thanks for reading,

 

Apologia-Zoology 3 (Land Animals)

My kids were thrilled when they found out that we were picked to review Apologia's Zoology 3.

Textbook $39.00

  We've used Apologia for the past several years and my kids soak it up like a sponge.  When asked what their favorite subject in school is they always say, "Science".  I can't blame them, if I would have had such a fun, engaging science curriculum when I was in 5th or 7th grade then science would have been my favorite subject too.  I have to say that I'm enjoying it with them, yes I do know almost everything we've learned so far but I've learned a few things as well.  For instance have you ever heard of a Raccoon Dog?  Neither had I!  No, they are not a regular raccoon, they look like one in the face but their legs are those of a dog and they are only naturally found in Japan.  How cool is that?  Here's a picture of a raccoon dog, just in case you were curious to see what they look like.  I know I certainly was, we even found a couple of videos on YouTube and watched them.

In the past 2 years we've used Zoology 1 and 2 but we never used the Notebooking Journal.  We missed out big time!  I should have purchased the companion journals for only $24.00 each they are well worth the price and add a whole new layer to our science experience. The suggested age range is K-6 but we've found plenty of "extra" work for my 7th grader and it seems right on target for my special needs 5th grader.
This year Apologia sent us the Textbook and the Junior Notebooking Journal for my 5th grader that has some special needs and I purchased the Regular Notebooking Journal for my 7th grader.  The Junior Journal is better for children that have limited writing skills, there are 2 coloring pages to start each lesson, the pages that do require writing have the primary writing lines (with the dashes).  Both notebooks have copywork, templates to complete notebooking assignments, miniature books, Scientific Speculation sheets for science projects, and something my kids have really enjoyed is the Map It stickers found in the back of the journal.

Junior Notebooking Journal $24.00

What a typical day looks like for us is I'll read several pages out of the textbook while the kids either color in their notebook journals or draw what we are discussing.  When I'm finished we discuss anything that they didn't understand. Then, we work on vocabulary words and  look a lot of things up on the internet (like pictures of animals) then comes the fun stuff like the mini books, crossword puzzles. When we finish a chapter we always do a science experiment.  All 3 of us LOVE science experiments!


M&M Predators
One week we were discussing natural selection and so our experiment corresponded with what we had been studying.  We tore up sheets of colored paper and crumpled them and then threw them into a laundry basket. This mimicked a habitat.

We separated the prey into colors.

Next, we "hunted" for our prey. 

 We were able to discover which M&M's were best suited to survive in this habitat and which were found easily.  We recorded all of our info into on the Scientific Speculation Sheet in our notebooks.  My son remembered this experiment and used it as an example when we were discussing camouflage at the Bass Pro Shop, the salesman was very impressed!

Our experiment showed that the blue and yellow M&M's would easily die out but the orange ones would flourish and multiply.

Thanks for reading,

 
Disclosure: I received a free copy of this product through the Schoolhouse Review Crew in exchange for an honest review. I was not required to write a positive review. No other compensation was received. All opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the FTC Regulations.

Weight Watchers Dump Cake

Over the last year I've found the ease of the "dump cake" and my family and I've enjoyed several different versions of it from peach cobbler to pineapple blueberry and a multitude of versions in between.  I just started weight watchers and didn't know what I was going to do for our dessert night.  We always have dessert one night a week as a special treat.  Dump cake has a TON of butter in it so I knew that wouldn't jive with my new Weight Watchers Points Plus plan.  I went on a search and found a Weight Watchers friendly version of the oh so famous and well loved dump cake.

 All you need is Sprite Zero, some type of fruit (we chose peaches) and a cake mix

 I lightly sprayed the pan with Pam, then poured some peaches in the bottom and spread them evenly.  Next I dumped a box of cake mix over top of the fruit.

 Last step was pour 1 and half cups of Sprite Zero over the cake mix, it gets all foamy and something wonderful happens!  Then stick it in a 350 degree oven for 35-45 minutes until golden brown.  

VERDICT: Everyone loved this version and said it was wonderful.  I forgot to take a picture of the final product and we didn't have any leftovers because my nieces were here.

The website that I found this recipe on said that the WW point plus were 4 for a 1/16 size piece of cake.  I also found out that you can use diet Root Beer with a Spice Cake, diet cherry coke with white cake or ever devils food cake sounds good and another one mentioned was diet orange soda with white cake!  Sounds like we will be mixing it up and trying all different types of the WW Dump Cake. 

If you have a version that you prefer leave me a comment and tell me about it, I'd love to taste test it!

Thanks for reading,