Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How?

I just want to clarify that these post are meant to be one topic per week for a total of 6 posts! Also when I put the linky's up they are active for 7 days, so you can link up any time during those 7 days.

Who?

Buster is 7 and will turn 8 in July! He is going into 3rd grade this coming school year. If I could sum him up in a five phrases I would say he is fun, outgoing, inquisitive, active, and thoughtful of others.

Buster's favorites:

School subjects: Reading, and Science. He really enjoys being read to and reading himself especially if it is about history or adventure. He also loves nature and learning about it.

Color: Green

Book: Stone Fox

Sport: Basketball, Soccer, and Swimming

Activity: Playing outside

Game: Chess

TV Show: Swiss Family Robinson(cartoon)

Movie: Star Wars

Sweetpea is 5 and will turn 6 the end of October! Technically she will be in Kindergarten this coming year, but she will be working at a 1st grade level! If I could sum her up in a five phrases I would say she is playful, a deep thinker, energetic, smart, and tender.

Sweetpea's Favorites:

School Subjects: Math, Science, and Projects.

Color: Blue

Book: The Adventure's of Reddy Fox

Sport: Soccer and Swimming

Activity: Playing with her Barbie House

Game: Dominoes

TV Show: Swiss Family Robinson, and Little Women(both cartoons)

Movie: Tangled

Buttercup is 3 and her birthday is at the end of January! She will be doing preschool this coming year! To sum her up in five phrases I would say Buttercup is shy, whimsical, a silly heart, sweet, and sensitive.

Buttercup's Favorites:

School Subject: Drawing and painting.

Color: Purple

Book: Go Dogs Go

Sport: Soccer, Swimming

Activity: Coloring, Swinging.

Game: Candy Land

TV Show: Caillou, Swiss Family Robinson

Movie: Tangled

Buddy is 1 and will be 2 in November! He will be playing this coming school year and I will try my best to get him to do some Tot School things. To get to know Buddy in five phrases I would tell you he is cuddly, ornery, playful, shy, and full of fun.

Buddy's Favorites:

School Subject: Taking books off the shelf, and Playdoh.

Color: Not sure

Book: He seems to have a great fascination for Primary Language lessons, and Anne of Green gables. He is always pulling them off the shelf and carrying them around. Luckily he is quite gentle so far.

Sport: Kicking a ball

Activity: Playing, climbing, running, and swinging.

Game: Making a mess

TV Show: He has no interest in TV

Movie: Same as above

My two sons!

and my two daughters!

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Blog Hop!

Just a quick reminder that I will be posting the first blog in a 6 part series called: Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How tomorrow! The first one is called Who and it is a chance for all of us to introduce our students/children. Feel free to post a picture of each of your beautiful babies, their ages, what grades they will be in next year, and a little about their personalities. After you have posted that to your own blog come back here and link up to mine. Be sure to add the direct link to that post and not a general link to you blog. Also please add my badge or a link back to mine so others can find it too. I hope that many of you will join me! For more info on this blog hop/meme check out this post.

Top 10! TOS Reviews

Well the 2010-2011 Homeschool crew is coming to an end in a fews days, and I thought it would be fun to list for you my Top 10 picks from this year. I posted my last review on Friday! So here are my Top 10 favorites! They are not listed in any particular order because I couldn't decide. Click on the images to go directly to their website, or the Titles to see my full review!

Read Write and Type

This program by Talking Fingers is excellent for teaching typing, reading, and spelling! Buster really enjoyed and completed the entire program.

Song School Latin

All of my kids loved this program! In fact we liked it so much that I went ahead and bought Latin For Children Primer A for Buster to use next year!

Speekee

Speekee is one of my absolute favorites of this year! The girls adored this program and I was blown away with customer service we received from the creator of it Jim! I'm thinking of subscribing to it again soon.

GoTrybe

Daily exercise is something that is critical to good attention during lessons especially for Buster! GoTrybe helped provide that for us in a fun way. We will most likely sign up for a one year subscription when our review period ends.

Artistic Pursuits

Artistic pursuits makes art lessons so fun, while being educational at the same time!

Yesterday's Classics

What is not to love about 225 books!

Circle C beginnings

 My daughters both loved the book we received from this series, and the free go alongs that you can find at their site make this series even better! I'm excited that they will be at our convention and I look forward to purchasing the rest of the books!

Big IQ Kids

I'll have to admit that when I first saw this program I was not overly impressed, but after Buster using it for awhile and finding all the ways that I can customize the lessons, I think that it is an excellent homework review site!

Aesops Fables

Sweetpea has so much fun reading these books!

Little Reader

I was pretty skeptical of this program at first, and I still do not see it truly teaching reading. I do however find it to be very well done a lot of fun for Buttercup! I'm also very impressed with their amazing customer service!

Stay tuned for more info about the 2011-2012 Homeschool Crew that will set sail in July!

Weekly Wrap Up!

Week 39, and 40:

The last two weeks we have been doing school but fairly lightly. I decided to have Sweetpea take a break from Little Hearts For His Glory. She will finish the last 8 units when we start back up in July. Sweetpea has pretty much just been working through her math book and doing Phonics Pathways. She finished her Handwriting Without Tears K book and started A Reason For Handwriting A. She also continues to do The Reading Kingdom. Buster finished Stone Fox, and Read Dolphin Adventure. He also completed a book project for Stone Fox. Right now I'm reading Little House on the Prairie to him and he loves it. We have also been enjoying watching the first season of the Little House TV show. All the kids are really into it now. Other than that he is just doing Big IQ Kids, Wordy Qwerty, and some math practice daily. We only have one week left until our summer break!

I checked my camera card today and realized this is the only new picture I have taken.
Sweetpea working through a Peter Pan preschool pack I printed for her.

Besides doing school we planted our garden finally, and we have been able to enjoy some fun times at the park. Yesterday was the first day this year that I could say I actually felt warm/hot outside. I posted my last review for the 2010-2011 Homeschool Crew! I can not believe this year is already coming to an end but I'm excited to see what the next one will bring. This coming week I'm going to post my top ten favorite review items, and I will also be starting a blog hop/meme. You can read the details about it here! I would love for you all to join me. Be sure to check back to my blog on Thursday for the first entry.


For more weekly Wrap ups visit weird unsocialized homeschoolers!

Wordy Qwerty! TOS Review!

Last fall we were given the opportunity to review a program called Read Write and Type by Talking Fingers! That program turned out to be one of our favorites from this year with the Homeschool Crew. Buster really enjoyed it and when he completed it a few months ago he immediately asked if we could get the next level called Wordy Qwerty. I told hm I would think about it, so when the chance came for us to review Wordy Qwerty as well I jumped at it. Wordy Qwerty is similar to Read Write and Type in that it is a ton of fun, while learning to spell, and type this time. Wordy Qwerty is a bit more basic than Read Write and Type, and I think would not take as long to complete. When You sign in it is takes you to a game screen where your child can play a variety of games while the program takes him/her through multiple spelling rules. There is a total of 12 games, and 20 levels of spelling. You start out being able to play a few games at a time and as you progress through the program more and more games are unlocked.

As you can see in these screen shots there is a variety of games and ways to learn and apply the spelling rules. Such as choosing which spelling is right, popping balloons with correct spelling, filling in the missing words in a story, and more.

The biggest hit with Wordy Qwerty was the fun songs they use to teach the spelling rules. They are really catchy. Buster would be playing this at the table while Sweetpea was working on something else and they both would sing along. In fact the Jingles are so popular that they have made them available on CD, or by download on Itunes. You can here samples of them here!

You can also check out the scope and sequence of what your child will learn with Wordy Qwerty here. This program is designed for 2nd-4th graders who have finished a phonics program and are reading. Buster very much enjoyed it and I really like their approach to spelling because they teach the rules along with using repetition and practice in a fun way. Parents can also log in and to see their child's progress.

You can purchase Wordy Qwerty online or on a CD. The online price varies between $25-$71.25 depending on how many children it can be used for. The CD is $35 dollars but is not compatible with Windows 7. The Jingles CD is available for $10 dollars. You can also download a free demo of the product and if you do you will receive 20% off your purchase. To learn more visit Talking Fingers!

Wordy Qwerty was given to me free of charge in exchange for my honest review. No other compensation was given.

Pros:

Fun

Easy to use.

Teaches the rules of spelling.
Catchy Jingles.

Cons:
None that we saw.

Head over to the Homeschool Crew blog to see what everyone else is saying.

Mad Dog Math! TOS Review!

We have reviewing a math facts program called Mad Dog Math this month! Mad Dog Math is a downloadable math drill program to help kids memorize and master the basic operations +-*/. Kids are encouraged to spend 10 minutes daily drilling facts using this program. Once your child has logged in by clicking on the green paw print, they can use it fairly independently. There are 4 levels that children can progress through as they practice. Level 1(addition/subtraction), Level 2(addition/subtraction at a higher level), Level 3(Multiplication/Division), and Challenge(mixed operations). Each level starts out with low numbers or fact families and you can either up the numbers or wait for the student to move through them as they master them.

As you can see in the image above there are four bones to click on, Time Me, Fetch, Stop, and Progress. The Time me bone is what you click on to start the graded practice. Parents can choose between 2 min., 1min., 30 sec., or No time for the drill. At the end of each round if the child has gotten no more than 2 problems wrong they can move on to the next set of problems. When you want a new set you can click the Fetch bone and a whole new set appears. If you need to stop the timer you can click stop. As the child masters facts they will receive club stickers for the 2min., 1min, or 30sec. club. To check progress you just click on the progress bone and a screen will appear to show which facts have been mastered.

Mad Dog Math is a pretty basic and straight forward game. One thing I liked about it is there is no mouse clicking or pressing enter required during the drills. All your child has to do is type the answer and it moves on to the next problem instantly. Buster is pretty burnt out on fact practice so he didn't really appreciate this game. Sweetpea really liked it and did much better at it than I expected, but she hated the timer and would freeze if I turned it on. I had to either have her do it untimed, which doesn't advance you, or choose no time limit. I think they need to have some longer time choices than 2 min. You can purchase the game download for $19.99(1 year), $29.99(2 years), or $39.99(forever). They also have a CD version available as well as a few other products. Be sure to check out their website for more info, pricing, and a free practice download.

Mad Dog Math was given to me free of charge in exchange for my honest review. No other compensation was given.

Pros:

Easy to use.

Essential math practice.

Cons:

Timed feature may intimidate young children.

Short time limits.

A bit pricey for what you get.

Head over to the Homeschool Crew blog to hear what everyone else thinks.

GoTrybe! TOS Review

One thing that I have found to be very helpful to our school day running smoothly is to require daily exercise before we start. I'm always on the look out for ways to get the kids moving in the morning. It is quite hard to find kids exercise programs, so I was excited when I was chosen to review a program called GoTrybe. It is an online exercise program that allows you to customize daily workout routines for your children. When you register your child for the program they are placed into a trybe, Zoodoos, Trybe180, or NextTrybe depending on their age. Each Trybe has their own set of workout videos that can be used daily. Buster is in the Zoodoos trybe. Your child is also able to customize their own avatar that can be used for interacting with other GoTrybe members. Each day when you log in you are taken to your child's profile where you can customize your avatar connect with trybe friends, and do your daily activities.

You can choose Fitness(exercise routines), Nutrition(daily nutrition question), Motivation(daily inspirational clip), Wellness(daily wellness tip). When you choose fitness you are taken to a screen where you can choose and customize your exercise routine. Each time you choose one warm up, three cardio, one strength, and one flexibilty. You will find 25 warm ups, 63 cardios, 24 strengths, and 22 flexibilities to choose from. Also each trybe has a different set of choices. Once you have made your selections you can click start workout and the clips will play one after the other until your child has had a full workout. The clips vary in length, but you usually end up with about a 20 min workout all together.

My husband has a computer hooked to our TV, so the kids can follow the workout in the living room. The kids have gone through pretty much all of them, and there is a lot of variety in the routines. All of them are fun, upbeat, and active. I even joined the kids a few times, and let me tell you it wore me out. Each time you complete a routine or do any of the other daily activities points are earned that can be used to purchase fun clothes for your avatar.

One other feature of the program is kids can friend other kids, and have limited communication with them. We did not use this feature, because I fell my kids are a bit young for that.

You can sign up for a free trial of GoTrybe by using the promotional code GETFIT, and if you decide you like and upgrade it is $19.95 a year normally $39.95 a year. That is an excellent deal for what you get! From everything that I have seen I think this is a great program, and I'm considering paying for it when our trial expires. I'm sure the kids will be thrilled to hear that ;)! I personally have no complaints about GoTrybe. I have heard a few people say that the girl avatars are a bit immodest, but I have not really seen them. The avatars are cartoons, and really not a big part of the program unless you participate in the friend aspect. All of the workout instructors are appropriately dressed as workout videos go. I only signed Buster up, and really see no need for two accounts since the kids just workout all together anyways.

I was given a GoTrybe account free of charge in exchange for my honest review. No other compensation was given.

Pros:

Easy to use.

Customizable!

Many selections.

Fun!

Promotes healthy living.

Cons:

None that I experienced!

Head over to the Homeschool Crew blog to see what everyone else is saying!

My Blog Button!

I have wanted to make one of these blog buttons for a long time, but have put it off because of the utter frustration I knew it would create. I was right about the frustration part, but here is the finished product! You can grab the code on the side bar. Man do I need to learn more about HTML!

Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How?

I had an idea come to me in the shower, and you know how great those can be. We are taking the month of June off from school, so I will not be posting any weekly wrap ups. I also will not have any reviews to post. I want to keep up my blogging anyways, so I decided that I would do a 6 week long meme/blog hop of sorts, and your all invited to join me. The first post will be Thursday May 26th, and the last June 30th. Here is how they will go:

Who: Share about who you homeschool. Their ages, grades, and a little about their personalities.
What: What do you use in your homeschool. Curriculums, games, educational shows etc. 
When: What time of day, how many days a week, yearly schedules.
Where: What parts of your home do you use for school time. Please post pictures of where you school, and of your organization(shelves, boxes, etc.)
Why: Tell us all why you homeschool, and what led you to it.
How: Share what styles of homeschooling you incorporate, your daily schedule, and your favorite homeschooling books.

If this sounds fun to you please leave a comment here, so I know if anyone wants to join in.

Monki See! TOS Review

We received a new baby learning DVD last month called Baby's First Words from Monki See! Baby's First Words is Volume 1 in a three part series of DVD's made by Monki See. Each DVD teaches babies to recognize and understand the meaning of common words. The DVD I received focuses on body parts, and other common words. Baby's First Words uses video, pictures, puppets, songs, and text to introduce babies to 40 different words. Each DVD is 30 minutes long, and the other two available are called All About Colors and All About Shapes. I was also sent one of their two books called Know Your Monkey, which has many of the words taught in it with silly pictures of the two monkey puppets, Skip and Howie. Baby's First Words is recommended for ages 3 months -2 years, and they recommend that you watch it frequently with your baby until they begin recognizing the words.

I can tell you that my 18 month old shows very little interest in TV, and wouldn't even look at it until we watched it this morning. Right now he is watching it pointing to his cheek and saying it along with the show. It is pretty stinking cute. My 3 year old on the other hand loves the show, and will sing along with it. We have not watched it daily, but have watched it several times together. As baby DVD goes it is well done and entertaining. As far as teaching reading well I really don't see that happening, but my definition of actual reading may be different than some. It is a fun way to introduce body parts and get little ones talking. The DVD also includes a parents guide that explain the DVD and how to use it. 

Monki See offers a full line of baby learning products including DVD's, Flash Cards, and books. You can visit their website to learn more, and see their complete catalog. Baby's First Words can be purchased for $24.95 normally but is on sale for $19.95. Know Your Monkey costs $11.95 normally but is on sale for $9.95.

Baby's First Words, and Know Your Monkey were given to me free of charge from Monki See in exchange for my honest review. No other compensation was given. 

Pros:

Fun

Interactive

Decent Price

Cons:

Possible inappropriate use of TV for young children.

A bit long for the intended age, I recommend watching in segments.

As always go to the Homeschool Crew Blog to read more!

Weekly Wrap Up!

Week 37, and 38!

We have been very busy the last couple of weeks. My Sis In-law, and Brother In-Law were up from Mexico last week, and we had some fun with the kids at the local Safari. We also have been doing soccer, school, hiking, swimming, and all of the usual fun. Buster is working through Singapore math 2 Extra Practice book for some math review. He is almost finished with it, and then he will just work on the Challenging Word Problems book until our break. He is also reading Stone Fox along with Drawn Into the Heart of Reading. Sweetpea has decided she finally prefers Phonics Pathways over Reading Made Easy, so we have been using that the last few weeks.That is pretty much all I can think of to say before I bombard you with pictures!

Buddy playing with playdoh nicely, and not eating it!

At least for a little while.

Working on Latin!

Saying goodbye again ;(

Group hug!

The Safari trip! A super nice lady from our church treated us to a special trip through the Safari! She works there.

The Big Bear encounter:

The kids got to feed them.

Elephant Car Wash!

This was so much fun!

A little scrubbing.

Baby goat in the petting zoo.

Giraffe feed!

So Amazing!

Sorting Bears!

But not by color.

I'm not sure what she made.

My dad has been stopping by every Wednesday on his lunch break to play games with the kids!

Wednesday was a gorgeous day so week took a hike after my husband got off work!

Counting the lines!

Buddy, and Dad!

A tree uprooted!

Look daddy I found some bark!

Wildflower season!

Looking for frogs!

My two littles looking big!

All four crazies taking a break!

We made it!

The falls! There is so much water this time of year!

Sweetpea asked me to make her a daisy crown. I had forgotten how time consuming these were!

For more Weekly Wrap ups visit Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers!