Allsaid & Dunn, LLC The Magic Stories Review

My family had the privilege of trying The Magic Stories from Allsaid & Dunn, LLC, publishers of The Reading Game and authors of the Wordly Wise series for this review to use in conjunction with our own homeschool curriculum. This is a Homeschool Review Crew Review. All opinions expressed are my own or those of my family.

The Magic Stories are 6 downloadable PDFs that each have a thought-provoking story with good morals and character built into the plots. These are about 20 pages long, are typed in a larger font that is easily read, and should be read in sequential order. These stories have black and white drawings and sketches that can be colored by the child as well.

Each story comes with a set of "Naughty 40" word flash cards and four worksheets. The "Naughty 40" are words that kids have difficulty reading. They can be printed and cut out for use. The exercises in the worksheets include: maze, finish the sentence, imagine, and finish the story.

There are optional worksheets on the website for free to download available under the “Free Resources” section of their website. The Instructions for The Magic Stories will tell you what to do with this set to optimally teach your child with it. The Pre & Post Sight Word Assessment Worksheets help determine whether your child is familiar with the "Naughty 40" words from each story. This tests vocabulary acquisition growth. You check mark if your child recognizes the word, can read in a sentence & understands the meaning of the word. This is done before reading the story and after. If your child needs more help you can use the flash cards to work on these more. There are also Running Record Evaluation Worksheets for each book that is a 100 word section of each story to test your child's reading fluency.

This set develops comprehension, writing skills, creative writing, perception, reasoning, and memory recall. This supplemental reading program is recommended for 2nd/3rd grade reading level. These can be used as a follow up to The Reading Game, but the game is not a prerequisite. These are optimized for iPad or computer screen and can easily be printed on standard 8.5" x 11" paper or cards.

Titles of The Magic Stories:

1. The Magic Hole
2. The Magic Ax
3. The Magic Joke
4. The Magic Hotdog
5. The Magic Boots
6. The Magic Box

Teela doing the worksheets for The Magic Stories.

How We Used This and Our Thoughts:
My daughter Teela is in 4th grade and my daughter Zari is in 1st grade this year. I knew that my daughter Teela would be too advanced in her reading to really benefit from this completely, but I also thought she might enjoy reading the stories and possibly doing the activities. Zari is not reading too much yet as she is just beginning reading, so I had Teela read the stories out loud to her so that she could enjoy them as well. These stories are well written and have a great moral ending to each one. For example: The Magic Ax is about a boy that learns the value of hard work and The Magic Joke shares with us that it is better to end a war than win a war. These could be printed, but we decided to just have Teela read them from the computer. We very much enjoyed reading these stories. My favorite was The Magic Ax, Teela's favorite was The Magic Hotdog, and Zari's was The Magic Boots.

The "Naughty 40" word flash cards have the word and a sentence with the word in it on them. These are words a typical 2nd - 3rd grader might have trouble reading because of how they are spelled or because they don't follow the rules. Each story has a set of 40 of these words and these are listed at the end of each story. The flash cards are in their own PDFs for printing out easily. We used these decks very little at this point because Teela was already well versed with reading these words and Zari still had trouble reading most the words in the stories by herself. We will probably utilize these at a later point when Zari is in 2nd or 3rd grade and feels more independent at reading more words.

The worksheets were also in their own PDFs. These we printed out and had Teela do each one after she read each story. She liked doing these and thought the activities were fun. I liked that they made her recall the story and tested her comprehension of it.

I would recommend these to those who like fun stories and are 2nd - 3rd grade reading level...although I enjoyed them as well. I believe that those grades would benefit most from the complete package. These are a great supplemental reading program for homeschool setting.

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• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVfPcsCZ7zyM7kjiD5Qjn5g
• Hashtags: #hsreviews #goodmorals #character #childrenstories

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Purchase The Magic Stories set for $16.95 or the stories individually for $3.95. My readers a 25% discount should they choose to order The Magic Stories.  To receive the discount, enter “raisingreaders” in the coupon box upon checkout.

Read other homeschool curriculum reviews for Allsaid & Dunn, LLC The Magic Stories...

Babushka: A Christmas Tale Book Review

I received this book free to facilitate this review. Affiliate links may be in this posting. Thanks for supporting my blog.

Babushka A Christmas Tale is a dusk-jacketed hardcover children's book written by Dawn Casey and illustrated by Amanda Hall. This classic Russian folk tale is about an old grandmother that loves to have a tidy home. One night while working on her chores she hears a knock on the door and invites three travelers inside to rest and have a bite to eat. She hears their story of where they are headed and is intrigued. After the three travelers are warm and well fed they get up to leave and ask if Babushka would like to travel with them. Politely she declines since after all, she is not done with her chores. The next morning she wakes and decides to find the baby the three spoke of and starts off on her own with handmade gifts in a basket. On her journey she cannot find the tracks of the three men, but finds others that are in need and helps them each with a gift from her basket.

This story is a wonderful tale that will warm your heart during the chilly winter. It reminds you and your family of the true meaning of this joyous holiday season. The lovely illustrations capture Russian folk art and bring this tale to life with patterns and color. I love that this story has a wonderful moral and theme of sharing love with others. The generosity of the old lady should remind us of how Christmas should be, a holiday of giving. I recommend it as the perfect gift for anyone for the Christmas season!

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DISCLOSURE/DISCLAIMER: I received this product for free to facilitate this review. My thoughts are mine and my family's own opinion and have not been altered by anyone else. I did not receive any other compensation for doing this review. Affiliate links can be found in this post. Thank you for your support of this blog!