"Second star to the right and straight on till morning"

Friday, April 8, 2011

Weekly Wrap Up! HOD

Week 35:

That's right we are 35 weeks into our school year, and I can hardly believe it! Buster will be finishing Beyond Little Hearts For His Glory next week. We have really enjoyed it and can not wait to start Bigger Hearts. Sweetpea is on Unit 27 of Little Hearts, so she will be continuing with that, and I'm going to be doing some other things with Buster. He is still finishing his Latin, and Spelling for the year. We will also continue with DITHOR, and math. For some extra fun Buster and I will be doing a bit of the Prairie Primer until June. We take the month of June off except for reading, and math games. Our new school year will begin at the beginning of July. The girls and I had a fun fairy tea party on Monday while Buster was at soccer practice. Sweetpea requested it after learning about the Boston Tea Party. Unfortunately she could not comprehend why they would waste all that tea. Tomorrow Soccer games start and we will have one at 10, and 3.

Sweetpea's soccer practice!

Waiting for sissy!

You guessed it the girls love Tangled!

Fairy Tea Party! They had to dance to their flower fairy CD first!

Yummy tea and cake!

Play time!

The kids love playing board games, and we played quite a few this week.

Buttercup discovered she could draw people!

For more Weekly Wrap Ups visit Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers

Monday, April 4, 2011

GoGo Kabango! TOS Review!

GoGo Kabango is a fun interactive online game, and according to their website is "An online world of brain-boosting games for reading!" Buster and Sweetpea were both given the chance to try out GoGo Kabango. Once you register your child they are able to create their own character, and begin playing in any of the three different habitats; Galaxy Gardens, Twister Top, and Laughter Lake! Each habitat has several games to choose from that increase in difficulty as your child masters the skills taught. The games can be played independently as long as your child knows basic mousing skills. Here is a screen shot of the habitat choice screen:

After each game children earn special prizes that can be used in the tree house. Your child can return to the tree house at anytime to change their character, see and use their prizes, and play in the Kabango skate park.

GoGo Kabango automatically sends progress updates to the email provided by the parent when they register their children. You can also check your childs progress at the Kabango website. Each habitat generally costs $4.95, but right now you can sign up for Galaxy Gardens, and Laughter Lake for free! GoGo Kabango is still in Beta, so it seemed to be a bit glitchy. I'm sure soon they will have all the kinks worked out though. Buster found the games to be pretty easy, and did not particularly enjoy the program. Sweetpea really enjoyed it, but I did not find it to be overly educational. The program seems to be geared more towards very early readers, and starts out working on letter recognition, sequencing, patterning, and basic phonics. It also works on a variety of other pre-reading skills which you can learn about here. On the site they recommend it for ages 4-7. If GoGo Kabango sounds interesting to you, head over to their site and sign up to try the free habitats!

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

Pros:
Fun
Interactive
Inexpensive

Cons:
Glitchy
Not very educational

Don't forget to go to the Homeschool Crew blog to read more about GoGo Kabango and other great products!

Friday, April 1, 2011

Weekly Wrap Up! HOD

Week 33, and 34:

I seriously can not believe today is the first day of April! Around here March came in like a lion and went out like a lamb. Yesterday was the nicest weather day of 2011, and today is pretty grand too. Soccer season just kicked off this week for Buster and Sweetpea. They are super excited! The last two weeks we have been able to take the kids to the park a bunch, and it has been nice to get out and enjoy nature again. On the school front everything is going along as usual except that Buster started Drawn Into the Heart of Reading last week, so far it is a hit. Buster is reading a book about Amelia Earhart, the chapters are a bit longer than he is used to so that has proved a good challenge for him. He was a bit hesitant at first to read a whole chapter in one sitting, but we eased into it by having him read in two parts for a couple days. Today he read a whole chapter very smoothly, of course after a few complaints. Sweetpea has been so into school the last few weeks, and she is just taking off in all areas especially handwriting. She is a lefty, so handwriting has been tough for her. Buttercup is finally officially out of diapers! My first two were potty trained by 2, so this is the first time I ever had two in diapers. I am so happy to be done with that. One other exciting thing that happened in the last two weeks is my awesome husband bought me a NOOK Color! It is super cool, and I also got the chance to review an E-book bundle from Yesterday's Classics! Here are some pictures of the last two weeks:

A family soccer practice to get ready for soccer season!