The Curriculum Choice

Laurie

Laurie Duquette is mom to 7 children, MIL to 3, and a grandma of 4. Her family is in their 20TH year of homeschooling. You can read more about their homeschooling adventures at Keeping it Simple.

Don’t miss the giveaway at the end of this review!

I am going to start with letting you know that I love this app! I appreciate the opportunity to review it.

Kids 1st Shape Puzzle offers eight different puzzles to choose from. There are animals, numbers, transportation, letters, and more! As the child manipulates each item into place, a little burst of stars shows that it is correct. When the entire puzzle is complete, the player is rewarded with applause (or other happy sound).

My first little reviewer, my two-year-old grandson, struggled to maneuver each piece into its place. That did not stop him from enjoying the puzzle. With a little help, he was able to play with it. He especially enjoyed the sound effects on the animal and transportation puzzles.

My granddaughter, also two years old, had more time to play with the puzzle, and after a little instruction was able to get each puzzle piece in its place with no trouble at all. If your child is experienced at using an iPad screen, moving the puzzle pieces should not be an issue.

Both of my reviewers gave this app a serious thumb up. In fact, when I took my iPad to leave, my granddaughter started to cry. Sadly, not because I was leaving, but because she wanted to play some more!

I give it a thumbs up as for its colorful, interactive format! When moving a puzzle piece into place, its name is heard. The puzzles with transportation and animals also have sounds that accompany each piece. My favorite is the music puzzle- when a piece is dropped in place, the child is rewarded with the sound the instrument makes.

This app could be a lifesaver while waiting for dinner, doctor appointments, or on a long car drive!

Another bonus is that it includes the Hebrew alphabet and offers an option to play with Hebrew responses.

Visit Kids 1st Shape Puzzles website
Purchase this app on iTunes for $1.99
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You can also visit Kids 1st Shape Puzzles on Facebook

Now for the giveaway!

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-Laurie Duquette is mom to 7 children and a grandma of 3. Her family is beginning their 19th year of homeschooling. You can read more about their homeschooling adventures at Keeping It Simple.

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We are visiting an old favorite in new form. Having used CalcuLadder with my older girls (now 28, 27, 25), I knew that I liked this program, but I was not sure of the download format. As it turns out, I love it!

In this mathematics drill program, the student will work on the same page each day until he meets the preset time and errors allowed goals. When he meets his goals, he moves on to the next drill.

In case you think your kids will hate this (drill work), my boys are surprisingly okay with it. I’d almost say they enjoy it. There are not too many problems on each page and each drill builds on the last without a huge leap in difficulty. I even had one son ask if he could have another shot at his drill for the day- not in a frustrated way- in a determined to beat the challenge kind of way.

While too much ”drill” can take the joy out any topic, to enjoy mathematics it helps to have quick recall of the facts. That is exactly what this program helps accomplish. These learning vitamins, as they are referred to, are designed to “turn conceptual knowledge into practical know-how”. Not a bad return on two to five minutes of time invested each day.

CalcuPak 1 is suggested for grades 1 and up, and CalcuPak 2 is for grades 4 and up. To choose the best level for your student(s), visit School Made Simple to see what concepts are included in each level.

We have found this very simple to use. When my boys complete and correct their timed “learning vitamin” (which sounds so much more appealing than drill!) for the day, I print the next page needed and they file it in their notebooks ready to go.

As our family has been trying set aside the traditional textbooks to take a more hands-on approach to math, this might seem like an odd fit for us. No matter the approach, mathematics may not be as enjoyable if a child struggles to recall basic math facts.

-Laurie Duquette is mom to 7 children and a grandma of 3. Her family is beginning their 19th year of homeschooling. You can read more about their homeschooling adventures at Keeping It Simple.

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Ready to See the World?

We are looking forward to a full and fun year of galloping through the continents of the world. This unit study approach to geography incorporates literature, language arts, science, bible, and various activities, as well as holidays and celebrations. Travel and tourism contacts are also included.

Galloping the Globe provides a suggested schedule for one country per week or two, and ample suggestions for each of the above subjects. Also included is an activity CD-ROM (my older copy did not come with this). I ordered it and am so glad that I did! While my manual has pages that can be photocopied to create notebook pages with, the ease of printing them from the computer is a huge plus. As a bonus, the CD includes additional notebook pages not included in the original manual.

Getting Started!

We are off to Asia this week. Today we learned a little about China, colored China on the map, and, for old times’ sake (from our years of Five in a Row), read The Story of Ping. For more world traveling fun we are preparing to learn about Pandas, make Egg Drop Soup, and also play ping-pong, China’s national sport!

Additional Resources:

A globe, beginner atlas, children’s dictionary, and a bible are suggested for your student to have on hand. In addition to Galloping the Globe, there is core book list. While I own some of those books and can see that they will be useful, I propose that if you could not afford all of the additional resources, it would not be difficult to utilize the library and the Internet to fill in the information. Many of the resources are available from the publisher’s site, Geography Matters.

I love it!

Created for homeschool families by homeschool moms, I think this manual is a perfect fit for our family. While I don’t turn my nose up at more traditional curriculum, I do have a special place in my heart for things that were written just for me!

-Laurie Duquette is mom to 7 children and a grandma of 3. Her family is beginning their 19th year of homeschooling. You can read more about their homeschooling adventures at Keeping It Simple.

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Scrambled States

Every online homeschool forum that I belong to eventually gets around to the question of teaching grammar. Parents are concerned about what to teach, how to teach it, and, the biggie, at what age to begin formal grammar studies.

For our family, the answer to these concerns differs with each child, but one resource that has become a staple for this subject in our homeschool is English for a Thoughtful Child by Mary F. Hyde (revised and edited by Cynthia A. Shearer). No matter the age my student is when we begin using this text, I enjoy the relaxed, yet thorough approach.

What You Will Find In This Book:

In this slim volume, you will find basic grammar lessons along with dictation, oral composition, composition, memorization, and picture lessons. At a glance that might seem like an overwhelming amount of ground to cover. However, with just 62 very gentle lessons, this book can be easily completed in an average school year. For younger children (6-8 years old), I would even suggest completing only one lesson a week and using the textbook over a longer period of time. I refer to this a textbook, but there are also reproducible pages for many of the exercises.

How We Use It:

The age and abilities of my child dictate how we approach this book. My now 25-year-old daughter was in upper elementary grades when she worked her way through English for the Thoughtful Child. Because she was already familiar with most of the material being presented, we took an informal approach by working through the book together- most of it while sitting together on the couch. She did not need to complete every exercise; I just wanted to be sure that she had covered basic grammar concepts. My next daughter, who does not agree with my philosophy of “better late than early”, was ready to get down to work when she was just seven years old. She loved “writing assignments”, so she completed most of the exercises and had a grammar section in her notebook where she wrote down all rules that are introduced in this text. I am on round three, this time with my boys (ages thirteen, ten, and eight), and I am modifying our approach yet again.

Erin's notebook page- age 7

Why I Love This Book:

So many grammar books are drill, drill, and more drill. Where is the love of language? This book revels in it. I also enjoy that other disciplines are included. It is easy to put off picture lessons and memorization when I have to go to a separate source. Having it all in front of me makes it easy to follow through on these valuable disciplines that are often considered “extras”.

-Lori Duquette is mom to 7 children and a grandma of 2. Her family is beginning their 19th year of homeschooling. You can read more about their homeschooling adventures at Keeping It Simple.

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