All About Learning Press Readers

 Elementary, Language Arts, Living books, Preschool, Reading  No Responses »
Oct 072011
 

My beginning readers are children who have been raised on a wide variety of literature, from Dora the Explorer books (which do not really count as literature) to classics like Heidi and everything in between.  As they have begun learning to read one thing I have tried to find are beautiful books on their level.  I’m sorry, I’ve seen those beginning readers where the whole story is 3 or 4 words repeated in different combinations with varying punctuation.  You know, ones that say:

“A cat?
A cat.
A mat.
A cat sat.
Cat on mat.
Cat sat.”

My children very quickly made it clear that those insipid readers were not worth their time and effort.  I heartily agreed.  On the other end of the spectrum you find beginning readers that include a whole list of ‘sight words’, words the child is simply expected to memorize by sight so they can read a story.  Most of these sight words are, in fact, able to be decoded once you learn the spelling rules, but with a beginning reader I want to find beautiful stories that do not depend on a list of sight words outside the child’s reading level.  Imagine my excitement two years ago when I discovered the readers put out by All About Learning Press, publishers of the All About Spelling curriculum.

We own all the readers available at this point.  They are beautiful!  The illustrations tell an often funny story, one that goes beyond the beginning reader text.  Even at this very early level a story is not limited to 3-5 words repeated over and over.  Currently there are 3 readers for level 1 and two available for level 2.

Our most recent purchase is the Run, Bug, Run! reader.  In the 157 pages the only words that were not ‘short vowels’, and therefore completely decodable for my beginning readers, were “the” and “A”.  A quick talk about open syllables and closed syllables explained why the vowels had long sounds.  My 5 and 6 year old both love these readers.  Even the 3 year old is beginning the sound out letters from this reader.  The artwork is simply beautiful, and the stories are original and sweet.  (You can read a sample story HERE.)

Every family has different tastes in reading material.  Finding books for beginning readers can often be frustrating.  If you are looking for beautiful books for a beginning reader be sure to check out the samples for each book in this series!

Tristan is the happily homeschooling mother to 6 blessings age 9, 6, 5, 3, 1, and 2 months old.  You can drop in and visit anytime over at her blog, Our Busy Homeschool.

Art Murals for Kids

 Art, Elementary, Middle School, Unit study resources  4 Responses »
May 232011
 

Last February my family spent several days creating murals to hang in their bedrooms.  Coordinating several children to produce something beautiful to hang on the wall can be challenging.  We used inexpensive downloads from Art Murals for Kids as our guide for several reasons:

  • They’re easy – even my 2 year old can color.
  • They’re printable – which meant if a piece got messed up and bothered the children they could just print again and redo it.
  • They make beautiful final products.

My sons chose to use Oil Pastels to color their version of Van Gogh’s Starry Night.  They decided to try following the original for their colors.  This came from the Mini Impressionist Mural Set, which is only $5.00.  In this set the murals are small – our Starry Night printout was 6 pages, measuring 23″x 19″.  It was just right for a family to do together instead of a classroom.  There is a larger version of Starry Night available for download that is 24 pages and measures 48″x 36″.  I really like how the colors of the oil pastels are bold.  The only drawback to oil pastels is they are a bit smudgy – mostly on children’s hands!

My daughters used crayons with this mural for their bedroom.  They chose this one for the animals.  Their file was also $5.00and included two sizes to use: a 36-page version measuring 45″x 45″ and a 9-page mini version measuring 22.5″ x 22.5″.  I think the crayons looks all right, it just does not stand out as much as the oil pastels.  We may try painting a mural sometime for a change.

There are quite a few other mural possibilities to choose from at Art Murals for Kids.  She even offers coloring books of famous paintings that would be a fun addition to an artist study.  Be sure to check out her companion site, Art Projects for Kids for tons of art project ideas to use with your children.  I’ve found some real gems as I’ve explored the archives!

Tristan is a happily homeschooling LDS mother to 6 blessings age 9, 6, 5, 3, 2, and 5 months old.  You can drop in and visit anytime over at her blog, Our Busy Homeschool.  Read her other Curriculum Choice posts here.

{Disclaimer: I purchased these products on my own.  This is not a sponsored post in any way.  And yes, we hope to purchase more murals in the future!}

Beginning Readers from All About Reading

 Elementary, Language Arts, Phonics, Reading  1 Response »
Apr 212011
 

My beginning readers are children who have been raised on a wide variety of literature, from Dora the Explorer books (which do not really count as literature) to classics like Heidi and everything in between.  As they have begun learning to read one thing I have tried to find are beautiful books on their level.  I’m sorry, I’ve seen those beginning readers where the whole story is 3 or 4 words repeated in different combinations with varying punctuation.  You know, ones that say:

“A cat?
A cat.
A mat.
A cat sat.
Cat on mat.
Cat sat.”

My children very quickly made it clear that those insipid readers were not worth their time and effort.  I heartily agreed. On the other end of the spectrum you find beginning readers that include a whole list of ‘sight words’, words the child is simply expected to memorize by sight so they can read a story.  Most of these sight words are, in fact, decodable, once you learn the spelling rules, but with a beginning reader I want to find beautiful stories that do not depend on a list of sight words outside the child’s reading level.  Imagine my excitement two years ago when I discovered the readers put out by All About Learning Press, publishers of the All About Spelling curriculum. 

We own all the readers available at this point.  They are beautiful!  The illustrations tell an often funny story, one that goes beyond the beginning reader text.  Even at this very early level a story is not limited to 3-5 words repeated over and over.  Currently there are 3 readers for level 1 and two available for level 2.

Our most recent purchase is the Run, Bug, Run! reader.  In the 157 pages the only words that were not ‘short vowels’, and therefore completely decodable for my beginning readers, were “the” and “A”.  A quick talk about open syllables and closed syllables explained why the vowels had long sounds.  Here is a peek at a page from this book: My 5 and 6 year old both love these readers.  Even the 3 year old is beginning the sound out letters from this reader.

Here is a picture from one of the level 2 readers, The Queen Bee.  As you can see, the artwork is simply beautiful, and the stories are original and sweet.  In this book the facing page often has a few short paragraphs of text, combined with this text above the illustration.  (You can read the rest of this storyin the sample HERE to see more.)

Every family has different tastes in reading material.  Finding books for beginning readers can often be frustrating.  If you are looking for beautiful books for a beginning reader be sure to check out the samples for each book in this series!

Tristan is the happily homeschooling mother to 6 blessings age 9, 6, 5, 3, 1, and 2 months old.  You can drop in and visit anytime over at her blog, Our Busy Homeschool.

A Trip Around the World in Three Books

 Elementary, Geography, History, Mom Helps, Unit study resources  2 Responses »
Dec 012010
 

I have three reproducible books from Carson Dellosa Publishing that have been helping us in our studies of different countries.  They are a series geared for elementary ages.  The first book, A Trip Around the World, helps you and your children explore life in Mexico, Brazil, Egypt, Kenya, Germany, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, China, Japan, Australia, Canada, and the United States.  Another Trip Around the World takes you to Panama, Venezuela, Argentina, Antarctica, South Africa, Nigeria, Israel, Greece, Italy, France, Russia, and India.  A New Trip Around the World covers 12 more countries: Puerto Rico, Guatemala, Cuba, Peru, Chile, Spain, the United Kingdom, Norway, Iraq, Afghanistan, Ghana, and Morocco.  All three books are similarly laid out, each country’s section has the following:

  • Basic Information – area, population, flag descriptions, etc.
  • Fascinating Facts – This could be sports, animals, education, or historical, among other things.
  • Language activities
  • Recipes
  • Printable maps, flags, and a worksheet
  • Classroom activity ideas and a resource list to find more books

I really like these books and they are the first ones I read when we get ready to start learning about a new country. Why?  Because I get a great, succinct orientation to the country myself, one that gives me ideas of some of the possible topics we can study that relate to the country.  I admit, I am not as familiar with life in other countries as I could be, so I really like having this one-stop spot for familiarizing myself with the basics and some interesting facts.  I have found these to be fun and add neat things to our Expedition Earth study for my 4th grader.  Read my review of Expedition Earth here.

I can see using these books as a simple, stand alone set of unit studies for a weekly ‘country study’ that happens one day each week. I know my children are enjoying our country studies, and even when we move to a science focus come January we can keep exploring the world in a quick way when we just need to shake things up a bit.

What are some of your favorite reproducible books? I would love to know if you have used these or others in your homeschool, so please leave a comment!

Written by Tristan, mom to 6 children ages 9 to newborn, homeschooling through unit studies with a side of lapbooks.  You can visit her at her blog, Our Busy Homeschool, or read her other Curriculum Choice posts here.

Constant Conifers – NaturExplorers Review

 Charlotte Mason, Elementary, Mom Helps, Nature Study, Preschool, Science, Unit study resources  1 Response »
Nov 012010
 

Nature study is something my family has only been doing for a few months now.  When I began looking for something to hold my hand as we jumped into the nature study waters I came across the NaturExplorers series by Shining Dawn Books.  These downloadable unit studies were just what I needed.  I received Constant Conifers ($12.00) for my family to review.

Packed into each unit I found:

  • Inspiration to get me enthusiastic about the topic, and literature suggestions I used at my library.
  • Basic information for the topic in one place so I could just read and go if I wanted to skip the library.
  • Lots of out in nature ideas – the gold mine I was looking for!  I had pages upon pages of ways we could explore our topic in the outdoors.  Each day we went out I knew I was ready to help guide my children to learn a little bit more than they had the last time we were outside.
  • Writing and research ideas to bring our learning back inside.
  • References for Bible study, artist study, composer study and poetry tie-ins, with internet links.
  • Notebooking pages to print and use with many of the activity ideas.

During our study of conifers we learned so much about these ‘cone-bearers’. We chose one special conifer by our backyard fence to explore in detail and compare with a maple tree in our yard.  It really helped to be able to touch and see the trees close up when we were learning about cones, sap, bark, needles/leaves, and more.  We spent one day watching for creatures in and around our conifer, another looking at cones in wet weather versus dry, measuring, drawing, and even smelling our tree.  You can see a sample of Constant Conifers on this page.  The units are written for elementary ages, with ideas for using it with both younger and older students.  All my children were able to learn together with Constant Conifers!

I have plans to pull Constant Conifers back out in mid-winter and see what new observations we can make about our special tree in a new season. There were so many great nature study ideas that we could not get to them all the first time around.  I also have my eye on several more of the NaturExplorer units, including Snow and Ice.  I know my kids would have a blast with that one during the winter blahs around February or March!

Written by Tristan, mom to 5 going on 6 children, homeschooling through unit studies with a side of lapbooks.  You can visit her at her blog, Our Busy Homeschool, or read her other Curriculum Choice posts here.

{Disclaimer: I received a free copy of Constant Conifers when I approached Shining Dawn Books about doing a review.  I received no other compensation and all opinions presented herein are my own.}

Expedition Earth: A Journey Through God’s World

 Elementary, Geography, Preschool, Unit study resources  No Responses »
Oct 042010
 

We love unit studies and were thrilled to be able to begin a trip around the world with Expedition Earth: A Journey Through God’s World ($15.00 instant download) from Confessions of a Homeschooler.  In the last few months my children and I have visited China, South Korea, and India.  We’re headed to several countries in Africa next, and I have to say we’ve been having a wonderful trip from the comfort of our couch!

Just what is Expedition Earth? It is a unit study curriculum plan that takes your K-3rd grade children through 31 countries on all seven continents.  Expedition Earth lays out plans for a week in each country, telling you which books and resources you’ll need and what to do each day with your family.  There is a small core resource list that these weekly plans center around, which means you can just gather these resources and be set for the entire curriculum.   We have most of the core resources, so each week I can simply print the schedule for the country, gather any craft materials, and we’re ready to go.  An extra book list is included to take your learning further if you wish to spend more time in some countries.  I usually grab a few extra books for each country from my library to make Expedition Earth meaty enough for my 4th grader to join in the family adventure.  If you want to see a sample week check out the plans for a visit to Brazil here.

Expedition Earth also includes:

  • craft ideas
  • recipes
  • a Christmas around the World unit
  • a study of geography and ecosystems
  • printable flag and map for each country
  • a mini language study where you learn to say hello in each country’s main language
  • a free Animal Classification unit and mini-book for animals from each country

There are five report pages you can use for students on the older end of the age range, giving you a variety of focus over the course of your travels.  We tend to choose one or two reports per country for my 4th grader to do.  The reports are:

  • Country Report
  • Continent Report
  • Animal Report
  • Ecosystem Report
  • Children Like Me Report

My children look forward to Mondays now, ready to add a new flag to their passports and start their adventure in a new country. Each day they browse the book basket and come back to me asking questions, wanting to know more about the people, the places, and the animals God has placed on this Earth.  I love that so much of the planning is done for me, and I love that all my children can learn together.  We’re making memories and discoveries as we use Expedition Earth to travel the world.

-Written by Tristan, mom to 5 going on 6 children, homeschooling through unit studies with a side of lapbooks.  You can visit her at her blog, Our Busy Homeschool, or read her other Curriculum Choice posts here.

{Disclaimer: I received Expedition Earth free to enable this review.  I received no other compensation and all opinions presented herein are my own.}

AlphaTales are Fun for Phonics

 Elementary, Language Arts, Phonics, Preschool, Reading  No Responses »
Sep 152010
 

One of my favorite book series to read to my younger children is the AlphaTales set by Scholastic.  I found mine at a yard sale one summer and we have had lots of laughs and phonics fun since then.

Each book focuses a letter of the alphabet with an animal main character who begins with that letter.  The silly stories and cheerful illustrations draw your child through many words that begin with the highlighted letter sound.  A few titles include:

  • Vera Viper’s Valentine
  • The Yak who Yelled Yuck
  • Fifi Ferret’s Flute
  • Detective Dog and the Disappearing Doughnuts

After each story is a two page illustration asking “How many things can you find that begin with the letter __?”  This illustration uses the characters and items from the story, so they are already familiar to the child.  It is like a built in game, which is great.  The last page of the book is a letter cheer.  For example, here is the cheer from Seal’s Silly Sandwich:

“ S is for spider, snake, snail and seal.  S is for a super-sized sandwich meal.  S is for sailboat, smile, and swing.  S is for spaghetti, seesaw, and swing.  Hooray for S, big and small – the most sensational letter of all!”

These books have one more neat feature. The inside back cover has reading tips, quick, fun ways to use the story with your child and build their letter recognition ability.  You could literally read one letter book each week with young preschoolers, reading the same story each day, and focusing on a different reading tip every time.  I know that having the ideas right there has been a wonderful thing for me, I don’t have to be creative every moment of the day.

My children each have their favorite books from the series, ones they will take with them to quiet time over and over.  Once a story is familiar they are also able to tell me the story using the illustrations as a reminder.  As their reading ability develops the books become a fun way to practice those new skills.  Even my 9 year old will grab a stack of these books to read to a sibling.

You can find AlphaTales and a few related series for numbers, word families, and more on Amazon.

Written by Tristan, mom to 5 going on 6 children, homeschooling through unit studies with a side of lapbooks.  You can visit her at her blog, Our Busy Homeschool.

Letter of the Week Curriculum Review

 Elementary, Hands On, Phonics, Preschool  4 Responses »
Aug 302010
 

I have to admit that I am not able to be creative every minute of every day.  I just do not have the energy.  When I was preparing for our summer learning adventures I knew I wanted something fun for my younger 4 children, ages 1-5,  to do each day.  The other big requirement was that it was laid out for me.  Enter the Letter of the Week curriculum from Confessions of a Homeschooler.  I am really not sure quite how I found her blog, but boy are my children glad I did!

Let me start out by saying this wonderful homeschool mom offers her entire curriculum for free on her website.  However, with over 1400 printable pages, that is a lot of individual files to download.  I decided it was completely worth $10.00 to receive an instant download that gathered those files into sets for me, and even had a few neat bonuses like weekly lesson plans.  The Letter of the Week curriculum is also available on CD for $15.00 if you prefer that route.

So just what is this curriculum like? Colorful and fun!  Basically, each letter has a theme, such as Dd is for Dinosaur, Kk is for Kite, or Vv is for Valentines.  The activities available for each letter vary, but typically include:

  • Weekly Bible Verse
  • Read aloud books list
  • Phonics practice
  • Capital/lowercase letter recognition
  • 1-10 Numbers recognition
  • Counting practice
  • Colors
  • Shapes
  • Fine Motor skills: Lacing cards, cutting, coloring & pre-writing
  • Logic skills: Puzzles, size sorting, matching games
  • Large Muscle Movement: Large Floor Numbers/Letters Hopscotch
  • Singing: Leapfrog A-Z letter sound songs, Bible Verse Songs
  • Arts & Crafts for each letter
  • Daily Calendar and Weather Activities

Click Here to see a typical week’s materials.  There are also review materials to use at the end of your 26 letter adventure.

How do I use it? I go each month to my local office supply store to print 4 weeks of materials.  There are some pages I simply print at home in black and white, but many are printed in color at the office supply store.  I never print all the activities for a letter, there is simply too much to do in one week for me.  That is a great thing, though, because it gives us variety.  When I get home I begin a laminating and cutting party.  I laminate most of the activities to make them durable.  In three years I can use them again with the newest preschoolers, while right now they are also safe to hand to the 1 year old who likes to taste his letters.  Once all the activities for a letter are laminated and cut out I store them in a file folder labeled with the letter.  Each week I grab out a file and hand out a few activities each day.  It’s that simple.

Here is the way I have found works best for us with 4 children using the materials, we call it stations:

Instead of passing the materials around the table and mixing up pieces in the process (yep, tried it – trust me, not a good idea) the children move from chair to chair.  Of course, with energetic little ones any movement is a great thing to help get those wiggles out.  In the photo above the stations are making a kite out of pattern blocks, sorting kites by size, putting numbered kites in order from 1-10, a kite color matching file folder game, uppercase/lowercase letter k sort, and a dry erase board to practice writing the letter k.  Everything but the dry erase board came from files in the Letter of the Week curriculum, and on subsequent days that week I was able to replace all those stations with the other letter K activities.  You can see the letter Kk printables here to see just how many options we had that week.

So if you are looking for something fun to do with your preschoolers, or maybe you need some independent review materials for a kindergartener’s workboxes, I highly recommend checking out the Letter of the Week curriculum!

Written by Tristan, mom to 5 going on 6 children, homeschooling through unit studies with a side of lapbooks.  You can visit her at her blog, Our Busy Homeschool.

Hands-On Foreign Language for Kids

 Elementary, Foreign Language, Hands On, Middle School, Preschool  1 Response »
Aug 132010
 

While there are many ‘foreign’ languages a homeschool family can study, the one I recommend for those with young children is American Sign Language.  Our journey to ASL began out of necessity with a child who was non-verbal.  However, as our family has grown and our need disappeared we discovered that sign language was a wonderful tool in our parenting arsenal.  ASL is uniquely hands-on, giving children an active way to use their body while communicating from very early ages.

There are quite a few options available in the sign language arena and the one our family uses consistently is Signing Time.  Today I will give you an overview of the DVD products we love from Signing Time, as well as some neat features on their website.  Video previews from each title are on their website.

Baby Signing Time Series – This is for the youngest learners and signing is led by Rachel Coleman, with animated and real babies all age 2 and younger.  The songs that fill these DVDs make it easy to practice the signs you are learning.  There are 4 DVDs in this series, and we own the first two.  My babies and toddlers enjoy this, and one neat thing is the option to watch one song at a time, keeping viewing time short for the littlest learners.  By the end of this set your family will learn over 100 signs.

Signing Time Series One – The original series of 13 DVDs is recommended for ages 1-8, though I can say even adults will learn and enjoy this series.  Each DVD has a theme for the signs and is a mix of live people, songs, and animation.  We own all of these and love them!  This set alone directly teaches more than 250 signs.  There is some overlap in the signs between each series, but the presentations are aimed at different ages.  Our favorite in this series is hard to choose.  My animal lovers would say #7 Leah’s Farm or #9 The Zoo Train, but another child would choose #3 Everyday Signs and #12 Time to Eat for the fun food songs and signs.

Signing Time Series Two – This series includes several new learning modules that put children’s ASL vocabulary to work teaching some new signs and practicing many signs from Series One at a more challenging level.  We own 10 of the 13 DVDs in this series, and they are some of my favorites.  This series offers titles such as:

Believe it or not, there are some more Signing Time DVDs outside those three series, including Practice Time for numbers or ABC’s, Sing and Sign, and Story Time.  We own several of these as well and enjoy them.  Signing Time even offers music cds, flash cards, books, and a classroom edition of DVDs with lesson plans, so explore their store.  Also be sure to sign up for their newsletter for a discount coupon, and keep an eye on those newsletters for more sales and special discounts.  I’ll share a secret – we’ve acquired 95% of our Signing Time collection through those sales.  Last year they even had a sale around Black Friday.

The Signing Time website offers free resources your family may enjoy:

One last thing I wanted to mention is just a few of the benefits we’ve seen in our family as we have used ASL.  First, we have been able to communicate with our children, and have them communicate back, from a very early age.  This has cut down dramatically on frustrated tantrums when a 1 year old is trying to tell you something but does not have the words.  We have found sign language to be a wonderful silent option in the middle of church services for correcting, warning, or simply reminding our children of what they need to be doing.  The last reason we love signing as a family is that it helps build our family identity.  It is just ‘something we do’ that makes us family.  The kids can use it as a secret language, strengthening their bonds as brothers and sisters.  Sometimes it is just the little things that bring the most memories.

-Written by Tristan, mom to 5 going on 6 children, homeschooling through unit studies with a side of lapbooks.  You can visit her at her blog, Our Busy Homeschool.

Read for the Heart – A Book about Books

 Elementary, High School, History, Junior High Language Arts, Language Arts, Literature, Living books, Preschool, Unit study resources  No Responses »
Jul 122010
 

I have yet to meet a homeschool family that did not love books.  On my quest to find wonderful books to be read to or by my children I have read quite a few ‘books about books’.  One volume has earned a place on my personal shelf to be used often.  That book is Read for the Heart: Whole Books for Wholehearted Families by Sarah Clarkson.

Read for the Heart is 384 pages full of information and ideas.  The first four chapters give the reader an in-depth look at the author’s personal view of books, a guide for becoming a reading family, as well as a chapter on the state of literacy in America today.

The next eight chapters are booklists divided into the following topics:

  • Picture Books
  • The Golden Age Classics
  • Children’s Fiction
  • Fairy Tales and Fantasy
  • History and Biography
  • Spiritual Reading for Children
  • Poetry
  • Music, Art, and Nature

Each chapter begins with a story and treatise by Miss Clarkson on the book genre at hand, giving you an even better idea of what qualities she has used to select books for that chapter. I love this part.  It makes me feel like I’ve just sat down to chat with a good friend, and she is sharing adventures she has had with books.  The lists in each chapter are generally arranged alphabetically by author, with the main exception being the history and biography section arranged by time period.  That has been a big help when I am looking for books to go along with our current history studies.  Most of the books have a review telling more about the story, awards won, general age guidelines, and any cautions if necessary.

The end of Read for the Heart has six appendices of book lists such as Newbery and Caldecott Award winners and special favorites of the author.  There are two indexes, one sorted by author and illustrator, one by title, giving a quick way to check on a specific book or to find more by an author or illustrator my children enjoy.

You can view a 32 page excerpt from Read for the Heart on the Apologia website.  The book can be purchased there or on Amazon for $17.00.  I bought mine through Amazon with some gift cards I had.

My only complaint about Read for the Heart is that she stopped at 384 pages!  Sarah Clarkson’s guide has been a huge help as I have navigated the library catalog searching for books to share with my children.  I would love if she made a second book with reviews of even more titles.

Written by Tristan, mom to 5 going on 6 children, homeschooling through unit studies with a side of lapbooks.  You can visit her at her blog, Our Busy Homeschool.

 Older Entries