The Ace Up Their Sleeve Homeschool Parents Forget About

Every mom worries about their kids and whether or not they are doing a good job.  Homeschool moms have a special extended version of worry about doing 'enough' for their children's education and preparation for adulthood.  When the job comes down to you most days, it's a lot to carry around.  If you're feeling the weight of that responsibility right now, I want to remind you to remember this.  As a homeschooling family, you have twice as many days to accomplish what public schools set out to do.  That means you can relax a bit!  

Here in Oklahoma, students are required to participate in school 180 days  a year, which leaves 185 more to catch up (or forge ahead) on whatever you may have missed or not gotten to.  We take a year-round schooling approach which allows us to take breaks and vacations when we want to, rather than stay attached to someone else's schedule.  I know some families are attached to other homeschooling organizations (like Epic here in OK)  that require certain deadlines, but specifically in the realm of "What if I missed something?" we have so much freedom and opportunity.  It's easy to get caught up in what others are doing that we miss the flexibility we actually hold in our own hand.  

In case you forget (because I need this reminder daily sometimes), the purpose of a child's education is to ignite abilities and desires to learn.   That learning will treat them well throughout their life.  The rest is just details and gravy. With COVID hitting our house around Thanksgiving, some things were certainly put off for a while and now with the end of the year facing us, I can see what's behind and what's not..  This week is a holiday week, but we'll still be trying to fit in some school to do our best to keep a steady pace, but wherever they are in any particular subject isn't nearly as important as if they are continuing to learn and grow in their skills.  

At the lunch table, Mr. Butler was quizzing us on math problems he was devising from a large tub of mayo. (He's an engineer - what do you expect?)  My eldest was hanging with him just fine, but after getting a little weary of it, my daughter piped up with a correct answer that was impressive, which made my son a little sulky.  The girl is good at math and her older brother doesn't exactly love that fact.  She's got a reasoning brain like her dad, but getting her to use utensils at the table or cleaning up after herself is a nightmare.  As we all are, she is brilliant and a giant work in progress. Same as her brothers.  The point is to keep working, not to fret about where we aren't.

So much has gone wrong this year that we're all expecting to complain about things before they've even happened yet.  Let's not let that seep into our homeschooling expectations.  Celebrate the victories and encourage the work that is left to be done.  Love and be loved.  We have much to be thankful for.

Learning How To Learn: A Victus Study Skills System Review

One of the ways we fail to do our job as educators on any level is to overlook basic learning skills.  We get so involved in the subjects that we forget to teach a man to fish so to speak.  Today's review, the Victus Study Skills System , is very unique in that it is designed to help each student evaluate themselves and then equip them to move ahead towards a goal.  Sometimes in our efforts towards our students learning we don't take the time to consider how they learn.  It is so common to hear adults say they struggled in college because they didn't know how to study.  Too many students don't know what they don't know on top of that.  These products have been a sweet blessing in the time we have used them, but promise to be bear fruit for years to come. 

For this review, we received all levels that can be used with students from K - college.  My children are doing 1st and 3rd grade work right now so for the review period we used Level 1, Level 2 and the Student Planner. As you can see below though, having access to all of these levels will allow them to revisit the information in more detail as they grow.

What We Received:

Level 1: Primary (K-2/3) 
Teacher Supplement 
Student Workbook

Level 2: Elementary (2/3-4/5) 
Teacher Supplement
Student Workbook

Level 3 (5/6-10/11) 
Teacher Edition
Student Workbook

Level 4 (10/11-College)
College Student Workbook

Student Planner

Every level workbook is divided into three sections, each of which answers a different question.

Where Am I Now?

Where Do I Want To Be?

How Do I Get There?

Primary Grades Student Workbook - My 5 1/2 year old decided she wanted to be a farmer when she grows up

Within those sections are various units that cover a variety of information including current learning/study habits, learning style questionnaires, goal setting, time management, reading skills, listening skills, note taking, test taking, etc.  All levels are age appropriate.  The primary workbook doesn't go into subjects not relevant yet (like test taking, etc.), but certainly sets the concepts up in the students minds about setting goals and finding the things you can do to reach those goals.  The elementary workbook goes further into things like time management and test taking.  One of the things my son (8) was the most excited about was using a planner.  He immediately started carrying it around and writing things in it.  In the time management section of his (Elementary Grades) workbook one of their activities was to have them fill out a planner with a fictional person's deadlines and activities.  It was exactly what he needed to use the big planner more effectively.    

Elementary Grades Student Workbook

The Student Planner

The Primary and Elementary Teacher Supplement are designed to be used in conjunction with the Teacher Edition book.  Each one shows student views of their corresponding student books along with instructions.  The supplements often instruct you to read out of the teacher edition.  All instructions are clear and concise so even as you are switching between two books, it wasn't confusing.

What We Thought

It may seem too young to be discussing career goals with your 5 and 8 year old, but it sparked some really valuable conversations as we worked through the lessons.  When the workbook asked him what he wanted to be doing at 30, his initial choices were working at Braum's (a local ice cream and burger shop), driving a UPS/Fed Ex truck or being a mailman.  Mr. Butler and I have always agreed that we want our children, especially our boys, to find careers that will sufficiently provide for their future families - not just something they would enjoy.  Both would be ideal.  Since Braum's wouldn't be a great choice for a long term career we began talking about annual income.  Once it was over I could definitely see the wheels turning.  

Some of the things we learned about won't impact their daily school life just yet, but others already have.  We struggle with structure and this program helps you prioritize, something I'm not the greatest at.  Ideally, I wish we would have had this program when J was in Kindergarten!  For a type B personality like me, we need to be taught how to order things like time and take notes.  Everyone needs to see the connection between where we want to be and where we are now.  Itemizing how we will get there is where so many of us fail.  

Check out Victus on Social Media:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/VictusStudySkillsSystem/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/victusstudy
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/victusstudy/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZQ_3UrSbjae4ooEJhJI4bA

We loved this program and expect great use out of it in the future.  Since we only used the lower levels, be sure to read some of the other reviews of the higher levels to see how it might work for you!

Talking Shapes: A Phonics Program Review

  

Today we're going to look at a product from Talking Fingers, Inc.   Talking Fingers, Inc. was created when Dr. Jeannine Herron and her staff began to research the effective use of computers as tools of learning.  Their work resulted in the development of several online programs including Read, Write, & Type, Wordy Qwerty, and Talking Shapes.    For this review, we are considering a one-year subscription to the online program Talking Shapes: A Supplemental Curriculum for Early Literacy. It is intended for Preschool to Kindergarten age (4-5) children preparing to read and designed to take the words children say and teach them that those same words can be seen.

Talking Shapes is a web-based (used in a browser, not an app) series of 7 interactive stories about two sisters who invented the alphabet.  Throughout the stories, letters are embedded to help them remember their sound and shape.  There are activities like tracing the letters, reading games, and read alouds. With it's multi-sensory approach, the activities encourage new or struggling readers to actively engage for better understanding.  

The concept of interacting with the letters and sounds as kids are entering the realm of reading is not only founded on research, but looks like a lot of fun.  I would caution those who are considering purchasing this program to double check your computer system capabilities with the programs requirements.  I failed to do that right off the bat and ended up not being able to use the program at all on my devices.  I am certainly not the technical one in my marriage because I didn't even know what 32-bit versus 64-bit meant!  The Talking Shapes program requires a 64-bit Mac/PC system in order to run and in my research learned that it often works best with the browser Firefox from Mozilla.
I am told that there are app versions of this in the works that I expect to completely circumvent my issue so I'm looking forward to trying that out!  Despite any technical difficulties, the important things to remember about this fun program is the benefits:

• children learn that spoken words are made of individual sounds (phoneme awareness).
• children learn that letters stand for those sounds (phonics).
• children learn how to draw those letters.
• children learn how to sound-out and write 3-letter words.

Keep up with Talking Fingers on Social Media:

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/TalkingFingers/
YouTube:   https://www.youtube.com/user/talkingfingersvideo
Twitter:  https://twitter.com/ReadWriteType/with_replies

For more information from other reviewers who may have had a different experience with this program, check out other Crew members' reviews below: