Home School Navigator: A Language Arts Curriculum Review

All the way through school, one of my most favorite classroom activities was discussing literature.  I had always been good at reading aloud and then found myself full to the brim of analysis and ideas!  I'm sure my classmates got tired of listening to me, but I adored it.  In my homeschool daydreams (long before I had kids), I would imagine a family of kids sitting around discussing a book we had just read.  It was glorious until I actually had kids and lost part of my brain along the way.  At the early stages of learning it is so easy to get pulled down in the mud of learning to read and not falling behind in math.  Even though I'm an avid writer, the demands and pressures of life had misplaced my love for literature and writing when it came to educating my kids.  I'm so thankful to be reviewing Home School Navigator Reading and Language Arts Curriculum from Home School Navigator because it has reminded me of an early love and orchestrated a fantastic language arts curriculum based on those loves.

Home School Navigator is a comprehensive language arts curriculum for beginning readers all the way up to established readers working on their paragraph writing skills (about K-5).  What sets this program apart is that it is divided into colored levels rather than typical grade levels and provide you access to all of them.  They understand the uniqueness of students and how they very well may find their expected grade level too challenging or too simple.  With your student's subscription, if at any point the curriculum becomes a stumbling block (too easy or too hard), you are welcome to move to the next appropriate level!  This speaks volumes about their innate design intended for homeschooling.

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Each color/level provides 36 weeks of instruction (with catch up days built in) complete with book lists, extensive planning guides, handouts with answer keys, instructional videos, games, handwriting, vocabulary, word study, poetry, creative writing and so much more.  For higher levels (beginning with Green), they also offer some really neat interactive notebooks that are great for the hands-on student.  All of the various assignments and activities usually connect to the read-aloud book of choice for that day/week.  Most of the books are ones you might already own or certainly can get from a local library.  While it is ideal for students to have the books in hand, the curriculum provides a video of each book being read aloud both for reinforcement and in a pinch, your main focal point isn't lost because you don't have a book.  In addition to the assortment of videos, handouts and lesson plans,  the other online component of this program is the portfolio option.  At the end of each lesson or section their is an option to check items as completed and/or upload files to add to the student's portfolio.  In many states there is a portfolio requirement so this is a super handy element that they have built right in.  Otherwise, it still will keep track of how far you are from completing a level as you check off assignments.

You can manage a total of 4 students so we tried the program out with my 7 year old and 4 year old which translated into Level Yellow and Level Red.  The read-aloud videos were everyone's favorite and resulted in a double blessing because they both wanted to listen to each others'!  Some of the favorite activities all centered around writing.    In Level Red they are still learning to read so the writing began in the audible stage where the student and parent create together before it makes it to the page.  The 4 year old is enamored with stories already so this was right up her alley.  A similar activity expects more independence in Level Yellow.  The instructional videos were extremely helpful in part because it was someone else doing the teaching and I was merely reinforcing.  In the beginning when the Writer's Notebook is introduced, my 7 year old took to it really well and before I had even directly assigned it, during his afternoon quiet time he had written the first chapter of his book, Vacation to Colorado!  It was as if something sparked a fire in him and he just went with it.  As a writer, educator and a mom, I LOVED it.                                                                                      

                             

Overall, I highly recommend looking into this program.  The interface was a little daunting at first, but made a lot more sense with more use.  The best part of the program is its versatility.  Wherever your student is in their learning and comprehension, this program encourages them there.  If one element is already mastered, it is flexible enough for you to leave it out with no issue at all.  It is designed with the typical home school family in mind!  If you would like more information or other perspectives on the Home School Navigator Reading and Language Arts Curriculum, check out other reviews at the link below.

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Traditional Spelling II: A Memoria Press Review

Like most things in my life, the needs and interests of homeschooling ebb and flow.  There are periods of freedom and then some of serious structure.  When I was pregnant with the race car and very sick, school looked different for a while.  J and miss Z thrived just the same, but there was more real world education some days.  Now that the race car is 1, life has slowed and gaps have shown themselves.  Since J loves reading and has always done well in that area, we definitely went light on language arts outside of reading.  When this review of Memoria Press came along, I knew I wanted to try their new spelling series!  

Memoria Press is a regular standard in the curriculum world for Classical Christian Education materials and in my experience all of their resources are very thorough and equipped to get the job done! Their spelling series continues in that reputation and we are enjoying Traditional Spelling II.  Traditional Spelling I is intended for grade level first graders coming directly out of Kindergarten.  Traditional Spelling II is geared for 2nd and 3rd graders already on the road to mastering phonetic skills.  We went with Traditional Spelling II since my son reads so heavily and does fairly well in spelling already. 

What We Received:

The set we received included a teacher's manual, a student book, practice sheets, Phonics Flashcards and Classical Phonics, a book of phonetically arranged word lists.

How We Used It:  We started at the beginning with Lesson 1 where he is introduced to a list of words by categorizing them by a particular phonetic component, such as words that end in -ly or begins with a consonant blend. The next section requires the student to color code each part of the words to reinforce the phonetic components. Each lesson continues in the same way, with the following page being some kind of at-level reading that includes several of the lesson's words in it.  These readings include all kinds of topics from recipes and how to make butter to famous people of history.  Following that is a section of fill in the blank using list words.  The final activity is dictation that includes all words and a final sentence.  We followed this pattern and generally kept to one lesson a week.  The flash cards and the Classical Phonics book were mainly used in reference, especially when labeling or explaining new components like a consonant team, something we had never talked about like that before.  The dictation section often served as the spelling test when he would get all of the words right.

What We Liked About It: When completing all the activities, it is difficult for the student to just race through it, which is what my son would rather do.  He is very smart, but would either rather conquer it or simply move on to something else.  Even though he didn't always enjoy slowing down to complete all the sections over the same set of words, it required him to really let the details soak in, which has really payed off in other areas of school.  I also appreciated the reading section and fill in the blank section that truly gave the words a context, something that is easily left out in spelling.

What Didn't Work For Us: The flash cards and Classical Phonics book were only mildly useful so far, but that may be because of the level my son is at.  If he were younger and/or struggling more, I could see them being very useful.

The Homeschool Review Crew reviewed several other products from Memoria Press and one of the subjects they are known for is their Latin programs.  Until this review, I had never really considered using a Latin program in my children's curriculum, but I've been sold on at least trying their introductory program, Prima Latina, that teaches English grammar along side Latin.  I'll have to let you know how it goes, but be sure and read the rest of the Crew's reviews over their entire Latin program, Traditional Spelling I and Music Appreciation I.  Talk about a lot of interesting options!

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Eclectic Foundations: A Language Arts Program Review

When I officially started homeschooling my oldest the biggest hurdle in my mind was teaching him to read.  Especially for boys, reading can be a major source of contention and I was nervous about how it would go.  Little did I know that not only would he do just fine, but once he learned to read the hurdles only diversified from there!  Much like the different approaches to education, there are various approaches to each subject as well and it can be hard to determine where you prefer to end up on the sliding scale.  We were given the opportunity to review Eclectic Foundations Language Arts Level B from Eclectic Foundations that is a language arts program based on the McGuffey Readers popular in the 1800's through the 1960's.   As you'll see, this program, specifically Level B, combines some very basic and straightforward approaches to engage in phonics, poetry, picture study, grammar and cursive handwriting.  It certainly does live up to it's name in being foundational yet eclectic!
Eclectic Foundations currently offers Level A, B and C with D soon to be released.  We received  Level B, which includes:

• McGuffey's First Eclectic Reader (Publisher graciously copied and bound a public domain edition for our use)
• Teacher's Guide
• Phonics Practice Sheets
• Student Workbook
• McGuffey's Word Cards

The program has 36 4-day/lesson weeks with each lesson being quite short.  Every lesson includes a  task with the McGuffey reader, grammar questions or activities with the cards, cursive handwriting practice, phonics, and a poetry reading/discussion.  Most lessons took us about 15-20 minutes at most, usually less.  Level B is intended for first or second grade, with the material being intentionally advanced in some areas.  For example, much of the grammatical concepts were not fully understood when first introduced.  By design, students are simply introduced to them and understanding is expected to increase with familiarity.  

Our experience:

While his print handwriting isn't exactly winning awards, my 6 year old has been begging to learn cursive.  When the possibility of Eclectic Foundations came on the scene that included cursive and grammar in greater detail than we had done so far, it seemed like a good fit!  

• The short lessons made it very easy to incorporate it into our school time and weren't a burden on his attention span.  
• I found the teacher's guide to be very easy to use with all the information spelled out and available in one place for every lesson (no flipping back and forth like some manuals).
• Scripture and scriptural principles are engaged throughout that helps reinforce the shaping of the heart that we as parents are striving for.  Being reminded (both child and parent) of different aspects of character building, even in the middle of a grammar lesson, is such a blessing!
• The simplicity of this program continues into it's price.  To receive a physical bound version of these items (minus the McGuffy Reader), you would pay approximately $56.  If that is a stretch for your budget, you can purchase the entire PDF version to print out how and when you'd like for $30.

My son is nearing the end of his first grade curriculum and beginning second grade sometime this summer after baby #3 arrives and settles in.  Whatever other curriculum we may begin for second grade, it is my intention to continue with Eclectic Foundations for the remainder of this program because of it's simplicity and straightforward education.  Whatever else he may do, I know we're covering some important, foundational ground that is easy to administer and something he is enjoying.  A victory for everyone!

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Like I mentioned above, there are other levels available with more to come soon.  Feel free to browse other Crew Members reviews through the link below to get a taste of what the other levels involve.