Dyslexia Games (for mom!)

I have always enjoyed watching the kids work in the Dyslexia Games series B and C. Every time they complete a puzzle, I want to also work on a puzzle. (This post uses affiliate links. When you use my affiliate links, I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you for supporting my site!) I recently received a DIY pocket journal just for me that had a few pages from the Dyslexia Games series. I thought, now I could just print these for myself since I enjoy them so much. So that is what I did.

Veritas Bible--A Rose Academy Review

My son has been very excited to be working through the Veritas Press one-year family subscription to VeritasBible.com The family subscription allows more all students in the family to work through the programs at their own pace. My son is the only one working on this at the time. He has access to all of the lessons currently available, but chose to start at the beginning with Genesis through Joshua.

How to Make Money--A Rose Academy Review + free download

How to Make Money is a self-paced and self-guided study on different jobs. For each job there is a picture to color. On the facing page are questions for the child to answer. The questions help them to think about this job and whether or not they would be interested in doing that job. What I like most about this study is that a wide variety of jobs are represented, some that require higher education as well as jobs that require some basic skills. (Link to purchase the physical book on Amazon as well as a link to a free PDF download of the book is at the end of this post.)

Once the jobs have been studied, thought about, or discussed if you wish, the child is then directed to really narrow down the job field and begin choosing jobs that he or she would be interested in. 

Further instructions are then given to guide the child into learning more about the jobs he or she is interested. This is a very important step in the process. It helps the child to really think about whether this is a job for them and a job they would want to do for the rest of their life.

This study would be enjoyable for older children, but especially for kids in middle school or high school. It will really help them to visualize what they want for their future and help them take steps in order to get there. 

(This blog post contains affiliate links. If you purchase items through my links, I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thanks!) How to Make Money - A Handbook for Teens, Kids & Young Adults is currently on sale at Amazon for $12.50, and you can download a free PDF copy on Sarah's blog if you would like to print it yourself.

You can read more posts about our Thinking Tree adventures:
DIY Books for the Whole Family
Journals, Coloring Books, and More
Journals for Girls Who LOVE Horses

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Grapevine Studies--A Rose Academy Review

Grapevine Studies are not just for homeschoolers. These studies can be used with small groups, Sunday school classes, mixed age groups, Christian schools, and many more. Available in multi-age studies or different levels, you can be sure that everyone will enjoy this style of learning experience. (This review includes affiliate links. When you purchase items through my affiliate links, I earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you for supporting my blog!)

Our family has had the pleasure of reviewing a product from Grapevine Studies for the past several weeks. We received the stick figure study The Resurrection. It was a meaningful study and came at the perfect time with Easter just around the corner. There are several topical studies available as well as entire surveys of the Old and New Testaments. For this review, I will be talking about the topical study, The Resurrection.

When you order a Grapevine Study, you can choose to have the physical copy shipped to you or you can choose a digital download. As I stated in a previous review, I actually prefer a downloadable product. It is so convenient because I can download the eBooks and then print them out. If it's a longer ebook, then I just print a week or two worth of pages at a time. The Resurrection study is a seven week study, so I went ahead and printed the entire student book for each child. I saved the teacher guide on my iPhone so that I could simply read from there while teaching. 

Since three of my children completed this study together, I was able to choose the multi-age study. This study is perfect for working with all different ages of students at a time. There is also a traceable version available if you prefer that or are working with very young students.

At the very beginning of the study, the students draw the entire timeline about The Resurrection. This was a new type of Bible study for us, so my kids were really excited to keep going. We completed the timeline portion in one day. Then the weekly lessons began. Each week is set up to be the same so kids know what to expect. You can complete the portions of the lesson in four days, spreading the work out into four shorter sessions. You can also choose to complete the week's lesson in one or two longer sessions. We chose to work on a small portion each day, so we met together for about 10-15 minutes each day for four days. 

This is the way we broke up the work after the first week. 

• Day 1: review a portion of the timeline and introduce the Bible memory verse.
• Day 2: complete page one of the lesson--reading the listed passages in the Bible, discussing each one, drawing a stick figure picture. Review the Bible memory verses.
• Day 3: complete page two of the lesson--reading the Bible passages, discussing them, drawing the stick figure pictures, and completing the lesson review. Review the Bible memory verses.
• Day 4: review day--students draw their favorite portion of the lesson from the week, memory verse review--the students write or say the weeks memory verse. Discuss the review questions.

Following this schedule allowed us to complete one lesson each week. It also broke the assignment down into manageable chunks that didn't cause the kids to get lost, distracted, or bored. The lessons kept their attention really well. The drawings helped to keep their hands busy and their brains engaged the entire time.

Even though we were already familiar with the story of the resurrection from the Bible, it was very refreshing to review it with my kids. They were excited to look up each passage in the Bible and read it out loud. We took turns reading passages. They highlighted each Bible memory verse and can now look back on those verses to remember what they have learned.

One more thing that I want to touch on is the drawing portion. Don't be intimidated by the fact that you are required to draw these lessons. The drawings are all stick figures. Each drawing is clearly shown in the teacher manual. For these lessons, I drew each picture on a whiteboard and had the kids copy them into their lessons. In the Resurrection study, each time I drew Jesus, I used the color purple. Judas Iscariot was always drawn in black with lines for hair. The angel was drawn in yellow. I think this is great for showing the difference between all of the people. And I didn't even have to think of that myself, it was all included in the teacher's guide.

What Grapevine Study would you like to use with your children?

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Stop by the Review Crew Blog and read what others had to say about the Grapevine Study that they completed.

Calling All Horse Lovers! A Rose Academy Review

Calling all horse lovers! This homeschooling journal is for you! Finally an open ended journal that offers enough guidance that your student will enjoy their learning journey. The Thinking Tree has a fantastic collection of fun-schooling journals that offer a unique learning experience for every child. Personally I don't think they are just for homeschoolers because there are truly books for every age and ability.

 So grab a stack of horse books from the library and get started! It's that easy to use these books. The first pages of each journal help organize the child's thoughts by having them list topics that they want to learn about. The instructions tell them to go to the library or book store and bring home a certain amount of books related to the topics. 

DIY Books for the Whole Family

The Thinking Tree curriculum books, journals, and coloring books, created by Sarah Janisse Brown, are a wonderful addition to any home library. She has created many wonderful resources that homeschooling families will definitely want to look at! Even if you don't homeschool your kids, you will probably find something for them that would make their free time fun! She has even written books for moms: planners, organizers, journals, and more.

The Thinking Tree--A Rose Academy Review

We have found a fun way to do school around here. When our box of homeschool journals and coloring books arrived for us to review, it felt like Christmas! The Thinking Tree (Dyslexia Games) offers Do-It-Yourself homeschool journals. Each day the student completes a given number of pages. The first page is where the student records the current date. The following pages instruct the students to work through each school subject: spelling, reading, math, etc. My kids are still completing their Math-U-See lessons, but when they come to a math work page in their journals they draw and write several math problems as a review. (This post contains affiliate links. When you purchase items using my affiliate links, I earn a percentage of the sale at no extra cost to you. Thank you for supporting my homeschooling and creative efforts!)

Lexi is completing one of the reading time pages in the Do It Yourself Homeschool Journal & Delight Directed Learning Handbook . The instructions say to read for 15 minutes from each of 4 books and then draw and write about what they learned. This is an excellent form of written narration and I really like this approach to reading/literature. I like the freedom it gives the students to choose their own literature at their own reading level. No more battles. I am thinking about making a few suggestions as there are specific titles that I would like for her to read this year.

These journals are so unique because the students are engaged in delight directed learning--the student chooses what they would like to learn about. The teacher could also assign a few specific topics if they would like. My kids chose to read and learn about several different topics: money, China, Ben Franklin, Minecraft, Abraham Lincoln, life in colonial times, and the list continues. We had a really fun trip to the library where they chose all of their books for their journals.

A Word for 2016

Every year I like to choose a word for the year. Last year the word I chose was inspire. I thought it was a pretty decent word to basically sum up all of my hopes and desires for the year. This year I'm going with the word imagine.

Every day I need to add a little bit of imagination into our days. Sometimes our days become so full of being busy with constantly running from activity to activity that it's easy to get stuck in a rut. Even the daily chores quickly become boring and overwhelming. By taking time to imagine new possibilities, we can make even the most mundane tasks fun!

I also chose this word because I need to imagine the possibilities. Many, many times I find that I have a great idea but never follow through with it because I'm either afraid of failure or I'm afraid that I will fail in front of all my peers, and well, quite frankly, being online is not a private forum. Everyone can see what is happening including my success and my failure.

I do have some specific things that I'd like to accomplish this year AND some pretty big goals, so I'm using the word imagine to represent all I hope to accomplish this year in all areas of my life: home and family as well as work and homeschool.

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