"N" is for Nine Tips for Getting Vegetables into Your Children

My children love vegetables and eat pretty much anything though I know this isn't the case for all kids. So I thought I would share some ideas of how to get your child to eat their veggies & suggestions of ways to sneak them into foods if they aren't willing to eat them!

Spinach and Strawberry Salad w/Poppyseed Dressing

It's coming up on one of our favorite times in the world of gardening, the ripening of our strawberry patch!  In addition to making jam and freezing whole berries for smoothies, we also like this refreshing salad. Combining our strawberries with the spinach from our garden, this salad can easily be thrown together with pecans I keep in the freezer.

I know, the thought of spinach and strawberries together sounds a little odd but even my children love this salad!

Horizons Preschool Curriculum

It's hard to believe my precious Olivia is of preschool age already and really itching to "do school" like her older siblings. I never did a formal preschool program with my other children but I recently had the chance to review Horizons Preschool Curriculum Set from Alpha Omega Publications (AOP).

I have used early elementary math curriculum in the past from AOP and we enjoyed it so we were excited to see just what their Preschool Curriculum entailed. When first opening the package, I was overwhelmed at the amount of curriculum that we received! What all was included was:

-2 student books (over 300 pages each!)
-2 teacher manuals (again, over 300 pages each!)
-large loose leaf packet of resource materials and lesson resources (286 pages)
-an audio CD of 17 songs

click on photos to enlarge

The 2 student notebooks contain 180 lessons worth of workbooks pages that are on perforated pages that can be torn out. Many of the pages are printed in bright, full color and involve activities such as tracing, coloring and cutting just to name a few.

The 2 teachers manuals spell out a ton of activities that can be completed each day. I will state that it was obviously from the beginning as I looked over the curriculum, that this set seems to be geared towards a Christian preschool moreso than a single child homeschool. That doesn't mean it can't be used in a homeschool setting, it's just that there are a few things you would need to adapt and do a little differently.

An excerpt from the teachers manual (click on to enlarge)

The teachers manual lists a schedule for each day based on whether you do a full day of preschool or a half day. Either way, there are SO many activities to complete there was just no way we could do them all  but this gave us variety and plenty to choose from and the ability to switch it up. Each day varied the generic types of topics covered. Some of these involved:

• Bible Lesson
• Social Studies
• Language Arts
• Phonics
• Reading
• Writing
• Math
• Colors
• Story Time
• Arts & Crafts
• Gym
• Homework
• Music
• Memory Verse
• Health & Safety

The neat thing is within each lesson, the different topics all connected and flowed between each other. The curriculum is broken down into 5 days of lessons each week. On days 1, 3 & 5, new concepts are presented with days 2 & 4 being review days. This worked out well for us to just do 3 lessons a week as I didn't want to overwhelm my daughter. Each day detailed what workbooks pages to have the student complete as well as what lesson resource pages to have ready to accompany the lesson. 

During the review period, my daughter worked on learning her letters and tracing them (though this was a review for her as she is already writing most of her alphabet) as well as counting, learning shapes & numbers, matching objects, etc.

The resource packet came in loose pages. Many of these cards would be great to laminate to use as flash cards for the student. I wanted to keep them all organized so I 3 hole punched the pages and put them in a binder. I would've liked a tab to separate the resource material and lesson resources so I stuck a sticky tab between the 2 to make it easier to find. Sometimes when lessons called for a certain page, it was hard to find and would've been made easier if the teacher manual had included a page number to locate the page faster.

A few pages from the lesson resource pages

How we used it:

Because there is just SO much material to cover, I picked things out each day that I knew my daughter would enjoy. We read the Bible lesson and then worked on a few activities, making sure we did each lesson student workbook pages as that was important to her. Sometimes we referenced the extra resource pages but it all depended on what it was covering as some of the lessons were more review for her.

Olivia working on a lesson (notice she already knows how to write her name!)

I really did appreciate how the teachers manual had SO much laid out for you in the beginning. It stated which songs you would use with each lesson, several pages worth of reading book suggestions as well as a list of supplies needed for each week. Also listed at a glance was the memory verse for each week and the lyrics to all the songs on the CD.

This preschool program is well thought out and has exceptionally detailed lesson plans as well as prep plans. It more than enough for a homeschool preschooler and would be full of plans for a traditional brick and mortar preschool program!

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UnLock Pre-Alebra

Teaching elementary math over the years was no big deal. Fast forward to middle school & high school and well, I needed to brush up on my math to be able to help the kids out. But with several children close in age, there isn't always enough of my math skills to go around so I looked for math curriculum that could do the teaching FOR me. We recently had the chance to review UnLock Pre-Algebra from UnLock Math.

What is it?

UnLock Pre-Algebra is a complete online homeschool math course taught by Alesia Blackwood, a former math teacher and fellow homeschool mom. We have used other math curriculum's in the past that use a video to teach but we have to say that the way Alesia teaches has been by far the most engaging, easy to understand teacher we've worked with for math! You don't just hear her voice for the lessons but you actually see her as she demonstrates problems on a white board! She does all the work for you in not only teaching pre-algebra in a way that makes sense, but lesson plans are already laid out and the grading & record keeping is taken care of for you right online. I LOVE curriculum that makes my busy life simpler.

There are 16 units with each unit containing a variety of lessons & quizzes as well as a midterm quiz and final exam.

How does it work?

Once the student logs in, they are brought to their dashboard that shows the list of lessons (and which ones they've completed), their average grade, a link to check out their gradebook as well as progress report. If you aren't sure how long your child should take on each lesson/unit, there is a pacing guide that you can download that tells you approximately how many days they should spend on each. I felt this was a great idea and lets me know if my son was on target or needed some extra help.

Click on photo to enlarge.

Once the student clicks on which unit they are on, it takes them into a page that lists all the lessons for that unit and shows which ones they have complete. Upon selecting the next lesson, they are set to begin that days lessons which starts out with a warm up session of 5 math problems. Once those are complete, they move on to watch the math video. Alesia teaches each concept in small, easy to understand pieces so it isn't overwhelming. The videos vary in length, from what I've seen 3-10 minutes each.

After the video, the student then completes about 10 practice problems that goes over what they just learned in this lesson. These problems are automatically graded. If the student needs more practice, the program automatically generates new problems for them to complete (how cool is that!!) The other awesome feature that I adore about this program is the fact that after the student completes the practice problems, they can they get an explanation on each problem which especially comes in handy if they got one wrong. Many other programs just show the student WHAT they got wrong and not WHY it was wrong and how to do it correctly. I think this is huge in helping a student understand the concepts.

Next the student moves onto the stay sharp section which reviews concepts they learned about in previous lessons. This helps them retain what they have already learned.

Finally they end with the challenge yourself section which is a way to earn extra credit. To wrap it all up, you then have the ability to print out the reference notes for the lesson. The notes go over what they learned in the lesson as well as new vocabulary they might have learned. If you print this off, it would be best to put them in a notebook so your child could reference them in future lessons if they need help with something they previously learned.

As if this curriculum in itself isn't already great, their customer support deserves a huge mention as well. You can have a wonderful program but if you find yourself needing help, where can you turn to? Let's just say Matthew (Alesia's husband) is wonderful to communicate with by email and even though we (so far) haven't needed Alesia's help, he has assured us if at any point we need help, Alesia is there for us through either email or phone support! That to me speaks volumes knowing I have a math teacher ready to step in if we need the extra support.

Our thoughts?

UnLock Pre-Algebra is a well thought out online math program that covers everything I would want in a math curriculum. My son typically would've waited another year before starting pre-algebra but because of how well this program dissected the concepts, he plans to complete the program this year for his math curriculum. He averaged completing 1 lesson a day during the review period. I would love to see Alesia eventually role out other levels in math down the road!

If this program sounds like something that would work with your family, feel free to use this link to save $50 on purchasing UnLock Pre-Algebra or Algebra 1.

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CursiveLogic

Let's face it, cursive handwriting is a dying art anymore. Despite that, I still teach my children cursive, even if they don't continue to use it, I want them to be able to read it. We've used many approaches to teaching cursive over the years so we were excited to try out a totally new concept using the CursiveLogic Workbook from CursiveLogic.

The workbook is a 96 page, consumable spiral bound workbook that contains both the teaching instructions for the parent to instruct as well as the student pages. There are even 3 laminated pages in the back where the student can keep practicing their work while reusing it again and again.

Their approach to teaching cursive is unlike anything I have ever come across. In fact though, their innovative approach makes complete sense. They teach the letters by shape and not in alphabetical order. There is also a verbal task analysis that helps the student learn verbally how to write each letter shape. In addition, the different letter shapes are grouped by color & shape, all while helping the student to group the same shaped letters together.

From CursiveLogic's Website:

"Letters grouped by shape ― Four foundational shapes underlie the entire lowercase alphabet. Rather than teaching the letters alphabetically, CursiveLogic groups the lowercase alphabet into four groups based on the shape of the initial stroke of the letters and teaches all of the similarly-shaped letters in a single lesson.  Letters are also taught in a specific order that reinforces the pattern.  By teaching all of the similar letters together, CursiveLogic captures the natural synergy of the alphabet itself, allowing each letter in the series to reinforce the proper formation of all the others.

Letter strings ― CursiveLogic captures the flow of cursive by teaching all of the similarly shaped letters in a connected string rather than as individual letters. CursiveLogic’s letter strings teach students to connect letters from the first lesson, allowing students to internalize the flow of cursive handwriting even before they have learned all 26 letters.

CursiveLogic also uses visual and auditory cues to reinforce the shape patterns:

Theme colors — Each shape string has a color—orange ovals, lime loops, silver swings, and mauve mounds—that reinforces the formation of the basic common shape.

Verbal task analysis — Students learn a simple, rhythmical chant that describes the path of the writing instrument as the letter shapes are formed.  The process of verbally describing a motor task while performing it aids the acquisition of new motor skills."

The main focus of the book is to teach lower case letters but they do touch on forming each capital letter. There is no set schedule as to how to go through this book. I had my son who was new to cursive writing work on one page a day. I was amazed at how quickly he was picking up the skills since he never had previous instruction in cursive. He found the instructions easy to follow and actually enjoyed practicing his writing every day. I felt he picked up on cursive using this method quicker than my older children did in a different way that I had taught them.

CursiveLogic is afforable at only $29!

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Institute For Excellence in Writing-SWI

Over the years, I have found that teaching writing to my girls to not to be too terribly difficult. I myself enjoy writing so I was left scratching my head when it came time for my son to write reports and stories and he found it challenging. I have tried many different programs that left both of us frustrated. I had heard of Institute For Excellence in Writing (IEW) but never really looked into much. That is until I recently had the chance to review Teaching Writing: Structure and Style (TWSS) as well as Student Writing Intensive: Level B (SWI).

Let me preface this saying that this is a HUGE program and I am only scratching the surface with this review. Even in doing my research prior to receiving this curriculum, I still was amazed all that this program covers once I had it in my hands.

Teaching Writing: Structure and Style is actually a program for the teacher/parent so they know HOW to teach this program. This is the foundation to this curriculum. What you receive is 12 DVD's with over 14 hours of instruction from the IEW director, Andrew Pudewa. The first 9 DVD's cover the entire 9 unit course and the last 3 DVD's are video clips of Andrew in action teaching all the levels (K-12th grade). The DVD's come in a nice leather case with the seminars recently revised and updated. These discs cover:

• Introducing Structural Models
• Introducing Stylistic Techniques
• Retelling Narrative Stories
• Summarizing a Reference
• Writing from Pictures
• Summarizing Mulitple References
• Inventive Writing
• Formal Essay Models
• Formal Critiques and Writing About Literature

as well as 3 other discs giving demonstration lessons for grades K-12 and taking notes from a live lecture. You also get a premium one year subscription which allows you to stream the seminar videos, some PDF downloads, audio recordings, as well as monthly webinar training.

The other part that accompanies the DVD's is a Seminar and Practicum Workbook which is a 234 page binder that covers the 9 units that are taught to the student. Also in these units you'll find teaching tips, answers to frequently asked questions, student samples for each level as well as other info in the back of the binder. The binder comes with tabs to divide all the units up making it easy to locate what you need.

The other piece of curriculum we received was The Student Writing Intensive: Level B. This includes 5 DVD's in a hard case, 4 of them with the student lessons and one disc being the parent overview.The discs include:

• Disc 1-Outlines, Summary, Dress-Uo
• Disc 2-Story Summary, Dress-Up
• Disc 3- Reference Summary, Paragraph Structures, Sentence Openers
• Disc -Creative Writing, Sentence Openers

 There is also a student binder that includes 5 tab dividers for their work and handouts to be stored:

• Models/Sources Checklist
• Outlines/Compositions
• Structural Models
• Style Charts
• "Banned Words"

The other piece we received was a manila envelope that had the teachers notes and student handouts included. The syllabus and course schedule at the beginning tell you exactly what your student does each day. I LOVED this part otherwise I think I truly would've felt overwhelmed trying to teach this. It also tells you how much of the video lessons to watch and where to stop it at to begin the writing exercise. Also, if you have a special needs learner, there are a lot of notes on how to help adapt this program for them. I put this entire section into my own binder to keep it organized.

How Does It Work?

The program is meant to be covered in either 15 or 30 weeks. We chose to do the 30 week schedule which is what I read that many do. You cover 1 unit roughly ever 4 weeks and you watch the DVD lesson every 2 weeks (each lesson takes 2 weeks to complete) . While the course schedule tells you to do what work to do each day, they do encourage to adjust the schedule to best fit your student.

Before starting the student lesson, the teacher needs to watch the seminar on the TWSS DVD. You can either watch the entire seminar in one sitting or break it up into parts, watching the section that pertains to the lesson your student will soon be covering. This is what I did and by doing it this way, I was staying 2 or so weeks ahead of the lesson my son was working on.

When you first start a lesson, there is a video to watch. They encourage the parent to sit down and watch it with their child so they know exactly how and what was taught to be able to better help them.

From there, we just followed the syllabus and the schedule listed in the teachers manual. In the teachers manual, at the beginning of each lesson, it tells you what they will be working on such as making a keyword outline (which they also provide a list of what these words could be so if you as a teacher aren't sure, there is something to reference.) There are a lot of helpful notes in this section with even references of web links to give further help. After the teachers note, the student handout papers are there and you give them to the student when the schedule says to.

How We Used It

Let me tell ya, when I opened up the box of curriculum I was overwhelmed by all I saw. I was thankful for the paper laying on top that was a quick start guide. It told you what package to open and what pieces to put in what binder and the order it needed to go in. I did notice that they have an online forum so if we needed support, we could easily go here to ask questions.

Once I had everything in place, I watched part of the TWSS DVD to prepare myself on how to teach my son. Just as a note, you could use this program with just the TWSS portion but I love having curriculum already put together so I don't have to do that so I couldn't imagine not having the Student Writing Intensive on hand as well.

One of my tips is that I used sticky tabs to post on the syllabus page and one on the current lesson page, making it easy to quick go to!

At the beginning of each lesson, my son and I sat down together to watch the lesson and I gave him the handouts as directed. From the very first lesson, my son was encouraged. See, IEW starts out by giving the student a written paragraph and teaches them how to pick out key words called a keyword outline (KWO). They pick out 3 words from each sentence and write them down either using the word or a symbol to represent a word. 3  of the words or symbols are written per line then they eventually rewrite the paragraph in their own words. Other curriculum's we had used would give a subject and expect the student to write about it and that is where my son struggled. He said it made sense on how to write a keyword outline by using something already written out. He spends 2 weeks practicing each lesson by writing several different pieces which helps him with mastery.

There is also a composition checklist that goes along with each written piece he is to complete. This reminds him to make sure his writing includes the things he just learned about in each lesson, to make sure it's double spaced, etc.

The lessons continue to teach more writing skills such as using adverb dress-ups, words they shouldn't use such as "said, thought and went" and using more creative words in place of those, reinforce who-which clauses, writing titles and so much more.

I do think we FINALLY found the writing program that clicks for my son and is something he WANTS to do! This curriculum will also help teach him the skills that he can take over into his other subjects and how to write reports and papers.

I keep the entire curriculum in a tote making it easy to grab when it's time to do writing!

I anticipated this program working well for him so in addition to the products I received to review, I also purchased A Word Write Now which is a thematic thesaurus. I know part of my sons challenge is coming up with creative words so I figured having this at his finger tips would help expand his vocabulary as he writes. I also purchased Portable Walls which is a sturdy fold-out that has key points for each unit that he can look at at a glance for a refresher as he is writing. It also has some word lists as well. My goal in purchasing these 2 items was to make writing easier from him with tools available at his finger tips.

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Exploring Creation Field Trip Journal

Field trips are one of my children's favorite things to do and since we homeschool, we have the flexibility to take them wherever and whenever. Recently, Apologia Educational Ministries came out with an all new book called Exploring Creation Field Trip Journal that we had the chance to review. We have loved Apologia's science curriculum's over the years so we were looking forward to seeing what this journal offered.

What Is It?

This journal is a 64 page book that has 6 different sections. It isn't like most typical journals as the pages are done up colorfully to present like a scrapbook. The book is spiral bound and the pages are made of a heavy card stock. The front and back cover are laminated making this journal durable to take with you even on fieldtrips.

The 6 sections of this journal are:

• Preparing for a Field Trip
• Field Trip Ideas
• Places I've Explored Maps
• Field Trip Pages
• Special Spot Pages
• As I See It Pages

Several of the sections also have a page or 2 before it listing specifically how to use that certain section as well as giving you ideas of things you could record or do.

The "Preparing for a Field Trip" section is 2 pages that give ideas of how to get ready for a field trip even a week beforehand. There are tips for teachers and students which would come in handy for a co-op group that is going together.

The "Field Trip Ideas" section is just that, 2 pages of field trip suggestions. They are divided by different topics that then give ideas of places to go and things to do, such as visit a recycling plant or start a garden, Also included in this section is a special link and password that takes you to a webpage that Apologia put together giving even MORE ideas of field trips as well as links to maps,  museums, virtual field trips, etc.

The "Places I've Explored Maps" has 2 pages dedicated to record where you've visited in your own state, 2 pages to list where you've traveled in the United States and 2 pages to list where you've traveled around the world.

The "Field Trip Pages" is a section where you can record about a specific field trip you took. This area is cleverly done up like a scrapbook with a place to draw a map (or maybe even print one out and tape it to this section.) There's a spot to record any books you may have read to prepare for this trip, a place to tape or draw a photo and then a whole section to record about your day in your own words. There are quite a few of these pages so you could use this for many different field trips.

The "Special Spot Pages" is a unique way to document a certain place during the 4 seasons of a year. The idea behind this is to pick a special spot at least 20'x20', whether this is in your backyard, a park or a field. It's supposed to be a place no one maintains. Then one time each season, you are to take a photo of this spot and write down on the specific page your observations noting what changes you see from season to season.

The "As I See It Pages" is a more general section for the student to record field trips or other observations. Some of these pages have prompts for an idea of what to observe and record such as "predators and prey" but many are left blank.

The first thing my children did when getting this journal was to list down the 14 countries they've visited so far. They hadn't realized just how long that list was until seeing it in writing. One of my daughters also started recording the growth in our large vegetable garden by taking weekly photos to attach in the book and writing down the changes she observes. Even though we had done most of our field trips right before getting this journal, we still went back and wrote about our cruise and some of the things we did and memories we made.

A neat thing to note about this journal is it can be used by just one student or you could use it as a family journal where everyone contributes to it. Not only is it a way to journal after you've already completed your field trip but it's a place to also write things down before going somewhere such as a wishlist of sights you might want to see while you are visiting a certain location.

We are looking forward to continuing to explore the list of field trip ideas this journal gave us as well as having a place to write down about what we did! This journal would be a great addition to the end of year portfolios as well.

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Check out my previous Apologia Reviews we've done:
Exploring Creation with Chemistry and Physics
Zoology 2

PianoWithWillie From JazzEdge

Last year we had the chance to review HomeSchoolPiano so when we were offered a new program to review from JazzEdge, I was excited! This time it was ME who had the chance to try out the program, PianoWithWillie. I was given Studio Access to review.

The reason why I chose to review this program myself is I started taking piano lessons many moons ago when I was just 10 years old but hadn't had formal lessons since. I only took lessons for a year or so but went on to continue to self teach in not only piano but saxophone and flute as well. In fact, I went on to play all 3 instruments at competition level in high school.

Once I left home, I no longer had a piano to play for hours at a time like I used to. Fast forward to 5 years ago, and I finally bought a small upright to grace our living room with for not only me to play but to teach my children on as well. My older kids learned a lot through HomeSchoolPiano last year. So I was excited to brush up my skills with PianoWithWillie.

This program is very easy to access. You can log in on your laptop, iPad or mobile device. I first set up my account on my laptop but when I went to watch the videos, I used the iPad so I could sit at the piano to practice with Willie as he taught the lessons.

I was at first overwhelmed at all I could do with this program. I could easily dive into the over 3,000 lessons on the site. Or I could've started with the "getting started guide" or "30 day success playbook". While I checked both of those out, I realized I was beyond those skills already.

BUT if you are an older student, say 10 years and only starting out playing piano, those lessons would be the perfect place for you to start. While I wouldn't recommend this program to a young, new to piano lessons child, an older child could start with this program no problem.

Let me back up and explain just how unique this program is. Each lesson is a video lesson from Willie himself (and he is a fun teacher, easy to listen to and follow along with!) What I love about each lesson is that it is a split screen. There is the video in the lower corner of Willie talking while he is explaining what he is doing. Then there is the video of his keyboard that shows his hands as he plays and right above that is the screen of the keyboard simply highlighting the notes he is playing. That really brings to life just what he is playing. I loved being able to see his fingering. It's one thing to read a book or read what your fingering should be for a certain chord, but seeing it being playing really helped a lot.

Since I was beyond the beginner program, I decided to take his 22 point assessment that asked me a lot of questions about what I already knew and what I was wanting to learn. I realized I could've answered a lot of different ways as there are many things I'd like to learn more about such as improvisation and gospel playing for church. I took the assessment and it custom tailored me a lesson plan based on my answers. So that is what I started with in working on this review. It gave me "Church and Worship Performance Advanced". (just a note, I could've retaken this assessment and gave different answers and gotten a different result. You can have more than one tailored lesson plan on going as well.)

The 4 lessons highlighted were:

• Preacher Chords (Vol 1)
• "Precious Lord, Take My Hand"
• "Blessed Assurance (Easy and Contemporary)
• Contemporary Chords and Progressions

I started out watching the first video with the iPad while sitting at the piano. I loved the ability to be able to pause the video while I practiced the lesson. If I decided I was done working on the lesson, it automatically saved the video where I left off at and started me there again when I came back to work on it.

There are so many things you can learn under Willie's skillful guidance. He covers many genre's, theory & skills,  how to play certain songs, etc. In fact, most of his lessons also include the ability to print out sheet music to songs or skills you are trying to work on.

Honestly, I know I only scratched the surface of all he has to offer. I tried to practice 3-5 times a week during this review but since I don't always have the hours a day to play like I did as a teen, I know I haven't even begun to cover all his lessons afford. Definitely worth taking a look at as he offers many different memberships that you can tailor your schedule to. I appreciated the fact that I can work on my lessons at my own pace. And if I have to repeat a video, well, so be it! I could tell that my improvise skill as well as fingering skills improved after watching his lessons and practicing. I look forward to further honing in my piano playing in the months to come!

Christmas Comes to America-Homeschool Legacy

We always enjoy changing up our schooling routine and Homeschool Legacy provides us this opportunity. They offer a variety of once-a-week unit studies covering a multitude of interesting subjects. We recently had the chance to review Christmas Comes to America.

Homeschool Legacy unit studies are offered in both digital and print format. When purchasing the digital format, you are also given clickable links that further enhance the learning experience. The beauty behind these unit studies is that all the work is done for you. You are provided a book list that even includes the call number for the books. The lesson plans are already laid out with ideas and activities, list of supplies needed, field trip suggestions, etc

While this specific unit study covered Christmas, it incorporated subjects such as:

•  history (of Christmas traditions)
• geography (such as locating on a map the birth place of Saint Nicholas)
• life skills (making of several recipes and gifts to give out)
• music (listening to different types of music and naming composers)
• arts and crafts (making a gingerbread house)
• science (making an "after Christmas tree" for the birds)

And those are just a few of the activities included in this unit study. The beginning of the unit study explains just how to use it. The suggested schedule is to do unit study reading and family read-alouds Monday and Tuesday, On Wednesday, they suggest putting aside your regular schoolwork and focus solely on the unit study and completing the different activities as well as doing the family devotional. Thursday you again just do the unit study reading and family read-aloud and Friday they suggest doing a field trip as well as a family movie or game night which again, there are suggested movies to watch that go along with the unit study. Obviously this is just a suggested schedule with plenty of flexibility to make it suit each families schedule.

I appreciated the fact that most of their unit studies cover a wide range of grades. This one was for grades 2 through 12. For a family like ours with varying ages, everyone is able to get involved and we simply tailor the level of work  and reading to each of their abilities. We all enjoy when we can do projects and studies together! Also, there really wasn't any required printing from the PDF download. Most everything included was instructions and directions.

Another bonus to these unit studies is that if your child is part of Boy Scouts or American Heritage Girl, this unit study lists what they need to do to earn their Music Badge. While my children aren't a part of either, I can see how this would be beneficial in not only adding the unit study to their schooling but to complete a badge at the same time!

We found it intriguing how each week covered a different piece of Christmas from different cultures. Dutch, Germans, English and American histories and traditions were all discussed. From their original pagan starts and how they eventually became the Christian traditions we now know. We look forward to revisiting this unit study come December!

Homeschool Legacy offers many different unit studies. In fact, you can check out the previous unit study we did, Weather On the Move.

S is For Smiling Sunrise

We are big book lovers in this household and always enjoy reading over new ones. We were recently given to review S is for Smiling Sunrise by author Vick Wadhwa, published by WordsBright.

Most books are written due to an idea an author had but what makes this book special is that the author penned it for his daughter when she was just 2 years old. He wanted to make a catchy way for her to not only learn her ABC's, but also as a way for her to learn character development, vocabulary, teaching words and so many other concepts. In addition to the book, he also has a downloadable free MP3 of the book put to the ABC tune as well as a free Teachers Guide. Both these additions take this book beyond your every day ABC book. You could easily use this as a launching point for preschool lessons.

This book is a hard cover book with 32 pages. Each letter has it's own page and on that page it shows both the upper and lower case version of that letter. Each page also has it's own dominating color which means you could use this book to also help teach colors. The letters each have their own four line poem that teaches different concepts such as their senses, character traits, objects and the list goes on. There is a picture to correspond with each letter that is well done and not overly busy.

Because of all the different poems and pictures, you can teach your child not only their letters and colors but different things about the world around them such as nature, virtues, places, etc. The teachers guide really helps expound on this if you need ideas. Each letter has a concept to teach the child, a question to ask them, vocabulary words to introduce and activities you can do with them having to do with each letter.

The accompanying MP3 can really help a child memorize the book if they aren't of reading age though it's a great book even for those in early elementary as it teaches so much more than the basic ABC's. I do admit I think it would've been really cute to hear a child or a children's choir sing this as I know my little ones really like hearing other children sing.

My 22 month old and 3 year old enjoyed looking at this book and listening to the song. We would talk about each picture and I used some of the prompts from the teachers guide to engage them further. My 3 year knows most of her letters so as we turned each page, I would have her tell me what letter it was and I'd ask both girls to tell me the main color on the page.

If you are looking for a new take on ABC's this would be a cute book. It would also make a great gift as on the first page of the book, it has a place to write the child's name and who it was gifted by.

S is for Sunshine is currently on Amazon for $14.98.

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A+ Interactive Math

Once my children hit upper elementary and middle school years, I prefer to have them do their math lessons either via a DVD or online course as I want to make sure they are learning all the concepts correctly. We recently had the chance to review the Family Math Package from A+ Interactive Math.

The Family Math Package (FMP) offers courses from grades 1-6th plus pre-Algebra and Algebra 1. They realize the importance of incorporating multisensory into learning and thus their lessons include, 3 senses of learning through audio, visual and text. Their comprehensive courses offer a variety of ways to learn. The full online courses offer fully graded worksheets, colorful and animated videos that are simple and easy to understand. Not only do they offer online resources, but they also offer the ability to print off a lesson plan and even additional worksheets and exams. If you don't want to print off worksheets, you can do them online as well as the exams online. It's a wonderful mix of online and printable resources!

For this review, we had 2 children doing Algebra 1, 1 child doing pre-algebra and 1 child doing grade 6. For the purpose of this review, I'm keeping to the younger grades as they were making changes to Algebra 1. Once I logged in, it was easy to set up my childrens accounts and assign them a level. If for some reason a level was too hard or too easy, it was simple for me to go in and adjust the level on the parental controls. I love that they each had their own account as it kept track of their progress and grades individually.

When the student first logs in, there are 3 places to make note of:

• The Menu Bar
• Table of Contents
• Contents Window where lessons are displayed

The menu bar is listed across the top of the page and includes things likes the lesson plan, printable worksheets and admin panel.

The table of contents is on the left hand side and is grouped together by topic. By clicking on the plus sign, it opens up further lessons. You start by clicking the top lesson and working your way through them all. Some topics have just a few lessons while others have more. How many lessons your student works through each day is determined by you. If it's a concept your child knows well, they will work faster through it. If it's something they need more time with, they can simply take their time. Even printing out added worksheets to further help learn the concept.

The 3rd part of this curriculum is the main window where the lesson is displayed. The student will be listening to the lesson while the screen shows the lessons in vivid color. They can even stop, pause or rewind the lesson if they want to review a topic. The videos are short, between 2-6 minutes in length we noticed. Once the lesson is done, they click on the button for the Interactive Q & A where they put into practice what they just learned.

I pretty much gave my children free reign to use this program. Some days they worked through several lessons because they felt they understood what was being taught (or already knew it). Other days they only completed one lesson or even reviewed it if it was a new concept. My older ones felt this program helped fill in the gaps in areas they needed help with. Sometimes we printed the worksheets for added practice but again, I let that up to them if they felt they needed it.(again, this program was SO easy to use, hence me giving them full control). If I was using this for a full time math curriculum outside of a review (which you certainly can do and my children plan to do this going forward as they really loved it), I would've printed out the lesson plan schedule that is included as I love curriculum's that provide that! If you aren't a fan of online lessons, there is the ability to print out the ebook form and do the lessons offline.

I appreciated the fact that this curriculum does instant online grading as well as provides me with a progress report showing their strengths and weaknesses. My children's favorite part was the fact that the videos showed step by step solutions on how to solve problems. There was no "guessing" involved.

If you are wondering if this is a fit for your family, check out the many free resources A+ Interactive Math provides:
-Free placement test
-Free family math package
-Free software download
-Free single grade level
-Free ebook

Sounds like a fit for your family? Click the photo below to check it out as they are currently running a 2 week special of 40-50% off their family math packages as well as the other product some of the crew reviewed, adaptive placement test and individualized lesson plans to help fill in gaps.

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