LitWits Kits: A LitWits Review

Reading is the foundation for learning all sorts of things in life.  Connecting with good literature is a powerful force throughout your life.  To this day, I still get excited talking about some of my favorites like To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee or Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain.  The characters and the messages from these books shaped parts of me.  Books are powerful! Today, I am reviewing a company that knows the importance of these meaningful books and are providing exciting ways to enhance a students connection with these books.  LitWits Kits from LitWits are designed to teach great books in fun and creative ways that leave an impression on students.  

What We Received:

We were given our choice of four LitWit Kits.  I chose The Secret Garden, A Little Princess, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Black Beauty.  Upon purchase, each kit is accessible through your account on LitWits' website, but entirely printable as well.  
Within every kit there are 9 sections:

Hands-On Fun

• Welcome
• Overview
• Prop Ideas
• Hands-On Fun
• BookBites
• Takeaways
• Handouts
• Learning Links
• Great Quotes

Handouts

How It Works:

LitWits began as a literature workshop where activities would happen all on one day.  For homeschooling, it makes sense to stretch them out over time as best suits your family's needs.  The idea behind all the activities is to do what the characters in the book did and understand what they felt and experienced.  This can be encouraged in a lot of different ways, which is what each kit provides - a spectrum of opportunities to connect with these books and characters.  Each kit suggests prop ideas to have something tangible to see and interact with that triggers thoughts about the text.  Hands-on Fun includes projects to make and Bookbites is food ideas to 'taste the story' with.  The handouts section is just what it sounds like, but I appreciated the well-thought out worksheets discussing things like Narrative Arc, Vocabulary and Creative Writing. At the end there is a section of links for further learning and exploration and a collection of the most famous quotes from each book.  Since there are many activities and further learning opportunities, the best way to approach using these kits is for you as the teacher to sit down and browse the entire kit and determine what is doable and useful based on age level and time constraints. A little or a lot still invites students to step into someone else's world and we can all agree there needs to be more of that in education.

Learning Links

How We Used It:

For this review we focused on A Little Princess, something that we as a family had never read.   My daughter (6) has been very into pretend and doll/stuffed animal play so she really enjoyed Sara's creative play and imagination.  We had fun talking about how much Sara's description of what her doll did when Sara wasn't looking sounded like Toy Story.  Because of that, dolls were our chosen prop for this book.  One of the themes that the kit focuses on is how much Sara chooses kindness and looks on the positive, possible side of life.  It is very much a skill that our culture doesn't practice or celebrate too much these days.  As a parent who wants my children to be thankful and content in ALL things, this story and the various activities gave much opportunity to reinforce gratefulness.

 We read the book over time and inserted activities when appropriate, but we could have read the book first and then spent time on the activities with equal benefit.  

 Sara's Splendid Sunset combined some fun arts and crafts element with a meaningful sentiment that surrounded Sara's positive outlook amidst her destitute circumstances. The three of us (my son 9 and daughter 6) worked on this project together and it was really fun to see where their enthusiasm was sparked.  My daughter loves using paper to create so she was excited to make a little Sara.  My son was all about the painting, but even stretched himself a bit by making curtains out of paper.

As I browsed through the other three kits we were given, it was so fun to see familiar stories highlighted in ways I wouldn't have thought about otherwise.  For example, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory brings to mind having a chocolate bar as a snack, but I wouldn't have considered making a cabbage and potato soup in order to understand just how extremely appealing chocolate and candy would have been to Charlie.  Sugar and sweet things are an every meal occurrence now so the contrast might be lost on some today. In the case of Black Beauty, I was not familiar with the author or her circumstances surrounding writing the book (having only a few months to live) and Litwits uses that fact to spur conversations about why that might be.  Straight to the heart of the matter is an approach I'm very fond of.  The Secret Garden, a story I have read and loved the movie(s), surprised me from the start with its simple creativity.  The first hands-on project is simply making a jump rope.  Making things out of what is available is also something that children can easily miss out on today because of convenience and excess of stuff.

With all of the open-ended aspects to this product, I was very impressed with the layout and thoughtfulness of the website.  They take every opportunity to encourage parents/teachers to utilize their product for the students' maximum benefit.  It is so nice to feel like you have a partner who wants your family's success too!

As a product and curriculum resource, I highly recommend LitWits and their kits that are packed FULL of some great teaching ideas.  With our culture in a bad habit of cutting off some of the truly important things in life like nature, gratefulness, appreciating animals and so many others, we need more educational activities like the ones found in LitWits Kits.

Follow LitWits on Social Media

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LitWits/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/litwits4kids/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/LitWits4Kids
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/LitWits/

LitWits offers kits for a ton of other favorite books.  Check out other Crew reviews below to see what other kits are like and what they thought of them!

The Magic Stories: A Reading Program Review

One time someone asked me if being a member of the Review Crew and my kids starting various educational programs, but not necessarily finishing them was detrimental to their learning.  Honestly, I had never thought about it that way, but I've after having thought about it I'm sure the answer is no.  For one thing, sometimes we do either finish a program in the review period or continue using it afterwards.  Still, even in the cases where we might not, the educational exposure is more opportunities to learn and exercise mentally.  Our latest review is a good example of this.  The Magic Stories from Allsaid & Dunn, LLC, publishers of The Reading Game and authors of the Wordly Wise series was completely unfamiliar to me and something we started on in the middle of other curriculum already in progress.  And yet, for the first time ever, I walked by J as he was reading The Magic Hole and he was laughing.  He loves reading, don't get me wrong, but I don't think I've ever caught him laughing at something he's read unless it was Calvin & Hobbes! Needless to say, new venues for learning are always welcome here.

The latest venue, The Magic Stories is a digital product intended for 2nd and 3rd graders that includes 6 stories approximately 20 pages long, corresponding vocabulary cards and exercises for each story, and pre and post sight word assessment worksheets for each story.  The student is expected to take a pre-assessment, read the story, work through the exercises and then take the post-assessment.  Hopefully, the student will have improved.  The vocabulary in each story increases in difficulty so reading them in order is recommended, but the assessment worksheets are great for determining your child's level of readiness for the individual stories.  The exercises and worksheets are designed to be used with the stories, of course, but the vocabulary cards can be used long after you've finished with The Magic Stories program for review and refreshing.

While my avid reader loves to consume just about anything, he is definitely ready to work on comprehension.  The Exercises included with each story are great for digging into content.  Each story includes The Maze, Finish the Sentence, Imagine, and Finish the Story. My favorite is the Maze.  It presents true or false statements that, if answered correctly, will lead you successfully to the finish.  I thought it was a really fun take on the maze concept!  J loves reading, but slowing down to comprehend isn't always his favorite thing to do.  Having different kinds of exercises available covering the same content really does make it more palatable for him. 

There are also some helpful free resources on the website like instructions, the assessment worksheets I already mentioned, Running Record Sheets that assess reading fluency and a running record sheet for a classroom or group of students.  If this sounds like something your reader could use, my readers will receive 25% off by using the coupon code raisingreaders at checkout.   For the amount of content and exercises you receive, $16.95 is a great price! Getting 25% off makes it even better.

Follow Allsaid & Dunn on Social Media:

• Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/TheReadingGame/ 
• Twitter:  https://twitter.com/TheReadingGame2   
• Pinterest: https://au.pinterest.com/TheReadingGame/   
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVfPcsCZ7zyM7kjiD5Qjn5g   

Reading Eggs: An Online Reading Program Review

With learning to read being one of the big milestones for our kids to hit, we are always looking for new and creative ways to encourage them during that process.  We were given the chance to review Reading Eggs with my almost 7 and 4 year old this past month and half and were absolutely blown away.  Reading Eggs is an enormous program full of a zillion activities that teach everything from phonics to comprehension with very clever games and reward systems.  In this one program there is so much content that this review will not begin to give you a full picture.  Regardless of what I share with you today, you should take advantage of their  Free Trial by November 30th because it  gives you free access for 4 weeks!  

What do eggs have to do with reading, anyway?  Before I explored the site, the name always made me think of chickens - certainly not reading!  The eggs are actually a currency all over the website to access different activities, rewards and levels.  This is what makes it such a hit with the kids, I think. It's a great combination of a typical video game format and a reading program.  

The Reading Eggs website contains 3 reading levels: Junior Reading Eggs (for ages 2-4), Reading Eggs (for ages 3-7) and Reading Eggspress (for ages 7-13).  There is a Bonus Material Section that includes Activity Sheets, a Parents User Guide, Homeschool Curriculum Guides for Kindergarten, 1st and 2nd Grade, and access to The Eggsperts, an animated  series about solving problems with letters and sounds. There is also a Mathseeds area in a just as clever video game format that is all about math.  For this review, we're focusing on the reading portion but the math is a fantastic bonus with your subscription!

Before beginning any program, each child has the option of taking a placement test where they can begin where most appropriate rather than at the beginning of the program.  If your child has some reading skills, this is a wise option.  My 4 year old was just learning about word formation so beginning at the start of Reading Eggs worked perfectly, but also spent some useful time in the Junior section where things were a little easier.  My almost 7 year old is a great reader and the test started him near the end of the Reading Eggs for some comprehension work.  He also tried out the Reading Eggspress, where he really liked the games, but sometimes grew tired of the higher level work.

If you are familiar with my family and homeschooling style, you know that I prefer hands-on, screen-free curriculum whenever possible.  Send us outside and it's a perfect day!  However, if I didn't know before, the past two years have taught me that life is full of less than ideal circumstances.  This program does a solid job of teaching children to read while getting them excited about their schoolwork!  Whenever I need something they can work on independently this is one of everyone's top pick.  For our household, this program was used as a supplement to their other reading activities.  If you are in the market for a complete reading program, Reading Eggs offers a Parent User Guide that lays out the different ways you could use the various elements.  A new option they offer is a complete homeschool curriculum guide (as seen in the picture below) that uses Reading Eggs, Mathseeds, activity sheets and all of its online books for the entire program of work for the school year.

The incremental levels just seem to be unending and the games continue to entertain long after the newness wears off.  This program exceeded our expectations and has provided loads of educational fun for both of my school age children.  Don't forget to try it out yourself for free before November 30th!  

Keep up with Reading Eggs on Social Media:

•   Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/readingeggsUSCA/ 
•   Instagram (handle): readingeggs 
•   Twitter: https://twitter.com/readingeggs @readingeggs
•   Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/readingeggs/ 
•   YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/ABCReadingEggs

Read what other households thought of Reading Eggs below:

The Bears on Hemlock Mountain E-Guide: A Progeny Press Review

One of the benefits I appreciate about homeschooling is the opportunity to integrate my children's education with character building and development.  Even if I agreed with my child's public school teacher on everything, they are still usually limited in the topics and curriculum they are allowed to use in the classroom.  My review today is about The Bears on Hemlock Mountain E-Guide from Progeny Press, something that most public schools couldn't allow because, as the title indicates, is from a plainly Christian perspective.  

Progeny Press is a Christian company that strives to help students aptly understand literature through their study guides that cover literature of all ages.  The Bears on Hemlock Mountain was the appropriate grade for my son (1st - 3rd), but there were three other study guides that were reviewed by the Crew: 

• Charlotte’s Web E-Guide (Grades 4-6)
• The Silver Chair E-Guide (Grades 5-7)
• Macbeth E-Guide (Grades 9-12)

 For this review we received a downloadable eBook that corresponds with the reading of the book.  We didn't have the text in our personal library so we obtained a copy of The Bears on Hemlock Mountain  by Alice Dalgliesh from our local library, but you can also purchase a copy from Progeny Press for $4.99.  The book is a short 10 chapters, a Newberry Honor Book and written in 1952.  The Hemlock Mountain E-Guide is 35 pages long complete with instructor notes, a synopsis of the book, author information, background information on the book, and over 25 pages of activities related to the book.  There is 2 pages of before-you-read activities all having to do with animal tracks, the outdoors, or hospitality.  For every two or three chapters, there is vocabulary work, comprehension questions and Bible verse application. 
What We Thought 
The instructor notes recommend reading the entire book first before beginning the chapter activities, but due to my son's age (6) I chose to have him read a couple of chapters and then do the activities.  While that worked fine, in retrospect I believe that reading the entire thing first would have benefited his comprehension a little better.  Sometimes it pays to trust the experts!  
Many of the questions are open or discussion-type in nature.  That initially was a great frustration for us, but only because my son would rather have a one word answer he knew was exactly right than come up with a couple of different sentences that would work.  Some doodling was certainly found in the margins.  

As we powered through though it proved to be a good learning experience in patience and qualitative work.  One of the best aspects of this study guide was the Bible verse application in each section.  Sometimes we would look up the verses in our own Bible to see how different translations read it and it always led to a spiritual application of principles found in the book.  As Christian parents, the training of our children always requires pointing out the spiritual aspects of life.  It's extra nice when their schoolwork lays it out for me!
Overall, we had a good experience with this product and I look forward to use more from this company as my children get older!

Keep Up With Progeny Press:

Facebook:  www.facebook.com/progenypress
Twitter:  www.twitter.com/progenypress
Instagram:  instagram.com/progenypress
Youtube:  https://www.youtube.com/user/ProgenyPress
Pinterest:  pinterest.com/progenypress

Read what other people thought about Progeny Press and the other E-Guides: