Math Shed/Spelling Shed Review #ComplimentaryProductReceived

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy of this product through the HOMESCHOOL REVIEW CREW in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way.

My family had the privilege of trying a one-year subscription to both Math Shed and Spelling Shed by EdShed for this review to use in conjunction with our own curriculum at home. This is a Homeschool Review Crew Review. All opinions expressed are my own or those of my family.

Math Shed and Spelling Shed is an online subscription from EdShed a.k.a. Education Shed Inc.. Besides Math Shed and Spelling Shed they also have Literacy Shed and Literacy Shed Plus. These are programs for first through fifth graders. They teach in a interactive online game format so your little one stays engaged. The subscription gives you a whole year access to the Teacher Hub and Web Game for up to 5 students. The Teachers Hub allows simple management of student records, student groups called leagues, assignments and student achievement data, teachers and classes. The Web Game works on all current desktop, laptop, tablet and mobile devices. Each user/student gets to create their own individual login.

You can switch easily between Spelling Shed & Math Shed by clicking the three lines at the top.

Spelling Shed includes a whole-school spelling curriculum. This covers 100% of the Common Core and state ELA spelling standards. You can create your own unlimited spelling lists and also search for others' lists within the program. With subscription you have the ability to set and monitor homework assignments for example; weekly spelling lists. Besides the online game there is an iOS app for students to use to practise spelling at an additional cost. Whole-class Hive Games that allow all students to play alongside each other instead of doing a weekly spelling test. This can be used as a whole-school curriculum or as a supplement with other spelling programs.

Math Shed works in conjunction with Spelling Shed to help develop learners retention and recall of number facts. This includes mastery teaching slides that follow a whole-school approach and White Rose math without worksheets. Math Shed covers a broad set of math skills including number-bonds and times-tables. With subscription you have the ability to set and monitor homework assignments for example; weekly multiplication tables practice. Besides the online game there is an iOS app for students to use to practise math at an additional cost. Includes a Year 4 multiplication tables check simulator to help students practise for the assessment. Math Shed can be used with a small group to improve a specific skill or across an entire school with different number skills that are targeted across many year groups.


Who This Would Be a Good Fit For and Our Thoughts:

Spelling Shed and Math Shed are great online programs for 1st to fifth grader or kids that need to brush up on their spelling and/or math. My daughter Zari who is in 3rd grade and I tried these platforms out. She was right in the age bracket for these.

After I created an account for my daughter in the Teachers Hub and created my avatar, I logged out and she logged in. She had her own account with user name and password that I set up for her. The first thing my daughter Zari did was create her personalized avatar. We noticed that some of the things that they had to pick from were locked because she didn't have any points yet, so we went with the basic free stuff. We learned that to upgrade the avatar with some of the more costly accessories you would need to earn Honeypots by answering questions correctly within the game.

 My and Zari's Personalized Avatars.

If I log back in it will automatically go to the Account Home. From there you can find additional resources. The Quick Start Guide is very helpful and is a great starting point. You can also watch a Training video, but this is very long and is geared towards classrooms with larger numbers of students. The Teacher Hub and Web Game can be accessed from here. The Resources at the bottom are very helpful as well. For Spelling Shed there is Spelling Curriculum and Spelling Lists. We downloaded the Stage 3 spelling curriculum because Zari is in grade 3 and this pertained to her. These can be downloaded in PDF or PowerPoint format. Each curriculum has 36 weekly spelling lists based on state standards and is downloadable. For each spelling list, they include a 20-30 minute lesson plan, resources to aid in giving the lesson, one spelling practice sheet, and one homework sheet. Under Spelling Lists you can view the lists that pertain to your student's stage. I wish you could download and print these out within the program. For Math Shed there is teaching resources from reception (pre-k) to year 6 (grade 5). Each year has an Autumn term, a Spring term, and a Summer term. These terms further break up into different blocks (usually 4-5 of them) of narrowed math topics, like place value or addition & subtraction. When you pick a block it will give you a list of around 4-13 teaching slides for the subject to be narrowed down further. These slides are in PowerPoint for each concept in math that is taught for that term. Since Zari is in 3rd grade this would be the equivalent of year 4. There are also additional resources for Literacy Shed, but since that platform is something we didn't get I am not going to go into those.

Account Home page with Guides at the top and Resources at the bottom.

Spelling Shed Spelling Curriculum and Spelling Lists for Stage 3.

Math Shed Teaching Resources, Year 4 Autumn Term Block 3 (clockwise).

In the Teachers Hub you can make assignments for your student. You can pick what day the assignment is available from and when the assignment (game) expires. You can choose from Spelling or Math. Both spelling and math had where you can pick lists from the curriculum or make your own. For Spelling if you picked curriculum you could pick Spelling Shed, Dolch, Fry, UIL Grades 3-4, UIL Grades 5-6, and UIL Grades 7-8. From there you can select drop down menus to pick a stage or list to have them play in the game. For math you can pick from Number Bonds, Times Tables, Powers of 10, Add & Subtract, and More. From there you can select drop down menus to pick the game to have the student play.

Assignment creator for Spelling Shed (top) and Math Shed (bottom).

The Spelling Shed game has several different stages and difficulty levels that you can pick from within the game. Make sure your sound is on and working before your student plays. First you choose from Stages 1 and 2, Stage 3, and Stages 4 and 5. After you pick play it will ask you what difficulty you would like to play in. You can also choose from easy, medium, hard, or extreme levels within those stages. The easy level says a word out loud with an audio file and shows it to you with the part of speech and definition. When you click go you have to unscramble the letters to spell the word correctly. In the medium level you have to unscramble letters without word shown, but it does have the audio file. The hard level has a audio file of the word with extra letters that you don't use when you are unscrambling the word. The extreme version has all the letters and some punctuation in order of a keyboard to choose from with an audio file of the word. There are also Bonus Games: Bee Keeper (hangman with bees) and Missing Word (spell the missing word in the sentence).

In the Spelling Shed game pick your Stage, hit play, and pick your level.

Spelling Shed game Easy level (clockwise).

Spelling Shed game Medium level.

Spelling Shed game Hard level.

Spelling Shed game Extreme level.

The Math Shed game has several different sections and math practice that you can pick from within the game.  Make sure your sound is on and working before your student plays. First you choose from Number Bonds, Times Tables, Powers of 10, Add & Subtract, and More. After choosing one of these there will be different math topics to choose from within each of these. Most of the Math Shed games have the problem to solve at the top and multiple choice answers to pick from.You have 60 seconds to complete as many problems correctly as you can. The Math Shed games have a fun outer space theme.

Math Shed Game.

For using Spelling Shed with homeschooling I would suggest parents give their students weekly spelling lists and do the lesson in the curriculum that is provided for that week. After that students can play the games that relate to the lessons for that week.

For using Math Shed with homeschooling I would suggest parents have the student watch the PowerPoint lesson of the week and do the activities to practice the new skills. At the end of each lesson there is an assessment to see if the skills were learned. After this students can play the games that relate to the lessons for that week.

We liked both Spelling Shed and Math Shed. I like that there is a curriculum for roughly a whole school year for both spelling and math. This program is not only great for teachers in a public classroom setting, but also great for homeschooling or after schooling as well. I really liked the flexibility and how I can monitor the student's progress. Since we are going into our summer vacation I can see it helping Zari make sure she does not forget the spelling words, vocabulary, literacy, and math facts / problems that we have worked on all year.

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BUY IT
You can try Spelling Shed or Math Shed free for 30 days - no credit card required! If you do want a subscription, it's only $24.95 for an entire year for each program. If you buy them both you get a 15% discount!

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Memoria Press Third Grade Literature Guide Set Review

My family had the privilege of trying the Third Grade Literature Guide Set from Memoria Press which includes the Charlotte’s Web Literature Guide Set for this review to use in conjunction with our own curriculum. This is a Homeschool Review Crew Review. All opinions expressed are my own or those of my family.

Memoria Press is a family-run publishing company that produces simple and easy-to-use classical Christian education materials for home and private schools. It was founded by a woman named Cheryl Lowe in 1994. They currently have preschool through ninth grade in most of their curriculum and some through twelfth grade. They also cover subjects in: Classical Core Curriculum, Latin, Classical Studies, Christian Studies, Logic & Rhetoric, Phonics & Early Reading, Penmanship, Literature & Poetry, American & Modern Studies, Writing & English Grammar, Science & Math, Greek, Modern Languages, Educational Resources, eBooks, Special-Needs, and Art & Music.

Memoria Press Third Grade Literature Guide Set with Novels

The Third Grade Literature Guide Set consists of four student study guides and four teacher guides for use with classical books that would be slightly above the average third grade readers comfort level. This is supposed to help challenge them and give them a deeper understanding and satisfaction of reading classical literature in turn developing the student into superior readers. The reading guides require one to read while having an active, perceptive mind that is challenged to think, compare, and contrast. The guides focus on vocabulary, spelling, comprehension, and composition skills. These student study guides are all consumable workbooks and have Teaching Guidelines at the beginning to help you through each lesson. Each lesson correlates with a chapter in the book. Some of the guides even have Enrichment activities throughout them to go into even more depth into learning. You can get a feel for content by downloading one of their samples on the site. The set we received did not include the classical books, but you can purchase them separately, check them out of the library, or get the whole set with the novels from Memoria Press. All the guides go well together in this set because of their wonderful classical nature. Each book is intended to take 6-7 weeks.


Third Grade Literature Guide Set Contents:

• Farmer Boy Student Study Guide (91 pages, 29 chapters, 3 quizzes and a final, vocabulary crosswords, and an appendix)
• Farmer Boy Teacher Guide (135 pages, 29 chapter lesson key, quiz review key, vocabulary crosswords key, appendix, discussion questions key, quizzes and final test, quizzes and final test key)
• Charlotte's Web Student Study Guide (74 pages, 22 chapters, 3 quizzes and a final, vocabulary crosswords, and an appendix)
• Charlotte's Web Teacher Guide (117 pages, 22 chapter lesson key, quiz review key, vocabulary crosswords key, appendix, discussion questions key, quizzes and final test, quizzes and final test key)
• A Bear Called Paddington Student Study Guide (25 pages, 8 chapters, and an appendix)
• A Bear Called Paddington Teacher Guide (50 pages, 8 chapter lesson key, an appendix, and a teachers key: discussion questions key, quizzes and final test, quizzes and final test key)
• Mr. Popper's Penguins Student Study Guide (50 pages, 20 chapters)
• Mr. Popper's Penguins Teacher Guide (77 pages, 20 chapter lesson key, and a teachers key: discussion questions key, quizzes and final test, quizzes and final test key)

Charlotte's Web Student Study Guide, Teacher Guide, and Book.

How We Used This and Our Thoughts:

Memoria Press was very generous in sending us the entire 3rd grade level set, even though they knew I would not use more than one book title during the review period. For this review I picked out the book Charlotte's Web by E.B. White to use with the Charlotte's Web Student Guide and Teacher Guide. I was fortunate enough to already have had the book on my shelf and Zari had not read it yet. The Teacher Guide, which had all of the answers in it for the Student Study Guide was a tremendous help and even though I too decided to read the book along with my daughter I could see that you could use it even without reading the book yourself. I remember reading this book a long time ago, but it had been a while for me.

Zari doing the Charlotte's Web Student Study Guide.

My daughter, Zari, is going into third grade so naturally we used this with her. I wanted to also know what was going on in the book so I read each chapter before she did. We went chapter by chapter through the book this way. After each chapter we would work in the Charlotte's Web Student Study Guide on the pages that correlated with the chapter we just got done reading. The student study guide is a consumable workbook and this particular one was one of the longest in the set with 74 pages. Zari did fairly well with the reading, vocabulary, and comprehension. She needed a little help on the composition part of it because of sentence structure. I did not do any of the Enrichment Activities with Zari yet because I wanted to make sure we would have time to do the rest of the Student Study Guide. However, the enrichment activities, like: drawing a spider diagram sounded like a lot of fun. The enrichment activities include composition, copywork, dictation, research, mapping, drawing, poetry work, literary terms, etc. We will come back to these and do them too at a later time.

Charlotte's Web Student Study Guide Layout and Book.

I was amazed at how complex these Student Study Guides were. The questions were very well thought out and challenged my daughter to think a lot more for each answer than she is used to. The Teaching Guidelines at the front of the Student Guide was very helpful at showing us what the sequence of things should be. It says to first review previous vocabulary orally, chapter plots, characters, settings, before reading each consecutive chapters. Then after the review of the previous chapters you are to look at the study guide and preview what is in it for the next chapter you will be reading. While the student reads they are to make note of the vocabulary words in the guide and where the comprehension questions that come up are. After reading you do the student guide with your student. It says that third graders should have help occasionally to come up with synonyms and forming good sentences orally before writing them down. Each lesson has sections on Reading Notes, Vocabulary, Comprehension Questions, Quotations, Discussion Questions, and Enrichment. The accompanying teacher guides definitely help me as they have all the answers in them. We also loved looking through the appendix as it has fun extras like: a biographical sketch about the author, about spiders, poems that go with the story, and parts of a spider.

I highly recommend the Memoria Press Second Grade Literature Guide Set to anyone who is homeschooling or doing supplemental work at home. These Literature Sets would also be great during Summer Vacation if you don't homeschool. The classical education is some of my favorite literature curriculum in my eclectic afterschooling ways. Everything that I have tried so far from Memoria Press I have loved. They have wonderful curriculum for k-12 homeschooling. Thanks again Memoria Press for being so generous in giving us the opportunity to look over the whole set. We can't wait to start Farmer Boy next in this set!!

BUY IT
Third Grade Literature Guide Set with Novels is $125 and without Novels is $95.

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Hewitt Homeschooling Resources Gr 7 Lightning Lit Set Review

My family had the privilege of trying the student guide, student workbook, and teacher's guide from the Gr 7 Lightning Lit Set produced by Hewitt Homeschooling Resources for this review to use in conjunction with our own curriculum. This is a Homeschool Review Crew Review. All opinions expressed are my own or those of my family.

Hewitt Homeschooling was founded in 1963/64 by Carl Hewitt and Dr. Raymond Moore. Their primary function has shifted from working with public education to now focusing on home education. Because of Dr. Raymond Moore's publications and books about home education this foundation became at the forefront of the homeschooling movement. They produce high quality curriculum that follows a balanced, flexible approach to homeschooling. Some of their products include: Lightening Literature, Unit Programs/Studies, My First Reports, Hewitt Readers, "Best" Literature, Math-It, Winston Grammar, State Chronicles, etc. They serve parents with students from kindergarten through high school.

The Gr 7 Lightning Lit Set is what we received and it is composed of the Lightning Lit: Grade 7 Teacher's Guide, Lightning Lit: Grade 7 Student's Guide and the Lightning Lit: Grade 7 Student Workbook. You can instead purchase the Grade 7 Lightning Literature & Composition Pack that has all the books that you will need for your student to read as well as what is also in just the set. These books, short stories, and poems are all reasonably and affordably priced if you purchase them on your own. Some are classics and others are new to us.


Students read in the following order:

• “Rikki-Tikki-Tavi” by Rudyard Kipling from Stories & Poems for Extremely Intelligent Children
• The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
• Various poems from Stories & Poems for Extremely Intelligent Children
• Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carrol
• "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky” a short story by Stephen Crane from Stories & Poems for Extremely Intelligent Children
• The Story of My Life by Helen Keller
• Various poems from Stories & Poems for Extremely Intelligent Children
• All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot

The Lightning Lit: Grade 7 Teacher's Guide is easy to follow, clear, and thorough. It includes an introduction of how to use the guide and a weekly lesson planner at the beginning. It contains answer keys to the comprehension questions and the workbook pages as well.

A page out of the Student Guide.

The Lightning Lit: Grade 7 Student Guide is guide that contains for each chapter: an introduction for the student to read before starting, vocabulary, comprehension questions, a literary lesson, a mini-lesson, and writing exercises. If you follow this you will easily have a complete literature, grammar, and composition curriculum for the whole standard two semester, 36-week school year.

The Lightning Lit: Grade 7 Student Workbook is a consumable workbook that has all of the workbook pages that should be done for each chapter before the writing exercises in the student guide. There are seven types of workbook pages: [L] exercises relating to the major literary lessons, [M] exercises relating to the mini-lessons, [C] activities that allow the student to practice composition skills, [T] thinking skills pages, [G] exercises the review grammar and mechanics, [P] puzzles, and [E] extra-challenge pages. The first five are mandatory for the student to complete. The last two are optional.

How We Used This and Our Thoughts:
 
I used the Hewitt Homeschooling Resources Gr 7 Lightning Lit Set with my daughter Teela who has just finished up fifth grade and is 11 years old. She is a strong reader and so these books are fairly easy reading and comprehension for her. She; however, is not as good with the grammar or composition so I got this for her to strengthen those. We also love to do summer reading programs and this has just fit into our summer reading quite well so far.

Hewitt Homeschooling Resources Gr 7 Lightning Lit Set with my dad's passed down The Adventures of Tom Sawyer book.

I found that the book selection was very appropriate. I remember reading some of these as a child myself and enjoying them. We started with "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi" and after that started The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. I was happy to have had some of the books in our library at home. The others I found online or will be checking out from our city library. Teela had not read either of these before, but I had. We found the whole of "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi" online. My copy of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (and a copy of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn) was actually given to my father at age 11 by his parents (It still has the inscription on the inside cover where it says this.) and passed down to me when I was young. I love that I get to share this part of my history with my daughter.

Part of the schedule of semester 1.

We worked on this 3 days a week instead of the 5 days a week that is recommended because it is summer. I had her read the short stories/books to herself. Then we followed the schedule that was given for doing the work. I really loved that the whole schedule was mapped out for us. This made it easier for us to know what we should be doing each week.

Teacher's Guide, Student Guide, Workbook Ch. 1 contents.

There was a lot of writing and other work though and frankly I think it was just too much for Teela especially since she was being distracted by summer things. Even though this is above her grade level I believe if she buckled down to do it, she could. Her favorite parts were the reading, discussion, crossword puzzles, and word searches.

Teela working on the Gr 7 Lightning Lit workbook pages.

Overall, I am pleased with the Hewitt Homeschooling Resources Gr 7 Lightning Lit Set. It is a great English homeschool curriculum that can be personalized and tailored to the student. We liked how it was laid out and the flow of the lessons. We will be reading the other books needed for this set at a later time when Teela isn't so distracted.

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BUY IT
The Lightning Literature & Composition Grade 3 Pack w Book of Poetry (comes with all the books, but one that is out of print) is $137.50. The Lightning Literature & Composition Grade 3 Set: Teachers Guide and Student Workbook is $71.01. Prices are accurate as of date of this post.

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Reading Eggs 200 Essential Reading Skills for Second Grade Workbook Review

My family had the privilege of trying the 200 Essential Reading Skills for Second Grade from the brand new workbooks from Reading Eggs 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.

Reading Eggs is an online program that helps kids learn better literacy through reading lessons, activities, and eBooks. Reading Eggs is made up of  5 different kids learning programs: Reading Eggs JR for ages 2-4, Reading Eggs for ages 4-5, Reading Eggs for ages 6-7, Reading Eggspress for ages 7-13, and Mathseeds for ages 3-9. These self-paced educational games are recommended for kids ages 2 to 13. They are created by a team of qualified teachers, educational writers, animators and web developers. These online reading programs will engage your child or student to keep learning.

Reading Eggs JR is an online reading game that teaches toddlers ages 2 to 4 words, sounds, and letters. These pre-reading skills are the first step to literacy. This has games, videos, and e-books to help motivate the younger child.

Reading Eggs is an online reading game that teaches kids ages 3 to 7. There are two parts: the lessons for ages 3 to 5 and the lessons for ages 6 to 7. The first teaches phonics, sight words, and essential reading skills needed to get ready for school. The second part gives the child practice with bonus activities and lessons that teach spelling, vocabulary, and comprehension skills.

Reading Eggspress is an online reading game that teaches kids ages 7 to 13, grades 1 to 6. This game continues the online learning from previous Reading Eggs lessons. This teaches structured comprehension, vocabulary, spelling and grammar with live games, an online library, and more!

Mathseeds is an online math learning game that teaches math for kids ages 3 to 9. This program teaches early math skills. Great for beginners and young children in their first years of school.

Reading Eggs Workbooks

Reading Eggs has brand new workbooks that coincide with the teaching in the online games. These have fun full color pictures on the pages as well as lessons to learn. There are both reading and math workbooks. The reading workbooks start with kindergarten and go all the way to 5th grade. The math workbooks start with kindergarten and go to the second grade level so far. The reading workbook lessons coincide with the online Reading Eggs and Reading Eggspress programs. The math workbook lessons coincide with the online Mathseeds program.

How We Used This and Our Thoughts:
We received an extension to our subscription to the online Reading Eggs suite for one student for three months. My daughter Zari is eight years old on October 19th and is just starting second grade this year. I thought she would like to do the Reading Eggs suite again since we hadn't had the subscription in a while. I picked the 2nd grade workbook that corresponded with her grade level she was going into. We also received a pdf copy and then later the physical copy of the 200 Essential Reading Skills for Second Grade workbook.

With each online reading program there are colorful graphics, characters, and designs to engage the student to keep going. There are fun games, videos, and e-books to also teach the concepts. The students are awarded golden eggs to be later used in the store to buy things for the house and avatar, etc. The navigation around the program is fairly simple. Zari liked that she could change the look of her avatar, buy things in the shop with golden eggs she acquired through doing well in the lessons, and see her certificates in the My Awards section. I loved that I could see her progress at a glance.

Family Dashboard: Bonus material pull down menu.

Also, in the Family Dashboard (the home page after signing in) there is bonus material under the menu of the same name. You can find Program Guides under this pull down menu. These are free and downloadable once logged in. These colorful, detailed week-by-week overviews help parents to see learning outcomes for children in Kindergarten through 2nd Grade. Each guide contains a 36-week teaching and learning sequence for Language Arts, Mathematics, Science and Social Studies. These map out online lessons, books, quizzes, and assessments. They also have free activity sheets that correspond to each lesson in both English and Spanish, a Parent User Guide for the suit, and The Eggsperts (a fun new series that your child can watch to hatch clues and solve problems by playing with letters and sounds).

Zari working in the 200 Essential Reading Skills for Second Grade workbook.

The 200 Essential Reading Skills for Second Grade workbook looked fun, colorful, and very educational. It has a glossy cover with full-color pages. It has 200 pages plus answers in the back to check the work. It covers comprehension, spelling, grammar, and review of these topics. The first couple pages are for the parent/teacher to read. In the beginning there is a welcome describing the 36-week program. It lays out the 5 days and what will be taught roughly for 15 minutes per day, plus the reviews...

• Day 1: Comprehension lesson - Students read a text, annotate it, and answer questions about it.
• Day 2: Comprehension lesson - This is similar to day one, but more in depth with annotation and short answer questions this time.
• Day 3: Spelling lesson - Each lesson introduces spelling rules or patterns. Using a 20 word core list learners complete activities.
• Day 4: Spelling lesson - Builds on proof-reading skills with words from Day 3 and provides 10 challenge words to extend the learners skills.
• Day 5: Grammar lesson - Each lesson defines and explains a grammatical term in simple language with examples. This helps learners understand how the English language system works.
• Reviews - Comprehensive reviews happen every 9 weeks to reinforce learning.

It also has the Contents and a Year Planner detailing what the year lessons should look like. After the beginning portion of the book is the actual workbook portion and then the answers at the end.

After receiving and looking through the first few pages of the workbook; however, I didn't think that Zari was ready for the information they were teaching right away. The 200 Essential Reading Skills for Second Grade workbook coincides with the Reading Eggspress lessons and Zari hadn't gotten there yet in the online program. So first we had to play catch up a little to get her where she needed to be to work out of the book. In retrospect I should have had her take the reading placement test/assessment again that they had so that I knew where she was at this time, but we had a pretty good gap in our subscription from the last time, so I just didn't know. It only will let your student take the placement test if you subscribe to the online lessons first. I would recommend that if you want to do the workbooks you have your child do the assessment first to see which part of the online series and book they actually are in before purchasing the workbooks. I wouldn't try to move ahead until the student is ready so they won't be frustrated.

Reading Eggspress Main Menu

We finally got caught up and now Zari is in Reading Eggspress. The workbook corresponds with the online activity, program, and lessons very nicely. It was wonderful having the physical workbook to review because I could see the quality of the book and pages myself and didn't have to print them out on my low quality printer. The first book pages that she did corresponded with a story called Go, Go Gecko within the Reading Eggspress iself. You can also find it in the "Library" in the Reading Eggspress main menu...just do a search for the book and you will be able to have your child read the full text of the eBook without going through the games if you want. The Covers of each eBook stories are found on day 2 of every week.

Reading Eggspress Library: Go, Go, Gecko eBook and quiz.

We loved this reading for kids duo. The Reading Eggs online suit is an excellent interactive game that teaches kids learning to read better and math skills. I definitely saw improvement in my daughter Zari's literacy skills. My daughter loves Reading Eggs interactive game for kids online. The workbooks are also an excellent resource in reinforcing the skills already learned in the online programs. I recommend both to anyone who homeschools or wants a reading supplement for their children or students aged 2-13 and a math supplement for their children aged 3-9. However, the online game and workbooks also work very well independently from one another.

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BUY IT

My readers get:

• 4 weeks FREE trial access to the program to try for themselves! This offer expires on October 11, 2018.
• A coupon for 10% off the purchase of the workbooks Coupon Code: WK10JGSU8JZ.

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Home School in the Woods Á La Carte Literary Genres Lap Book Mini-Study Review

My family had the privilege of trying the Literary Genres Lap Book Mini-Study from among the Á La Carte products of Home School in the Woods 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.

Home School in the Woods is a family run business that creates Christian based history curriculum for homeschooling. This curriculum immerses your student in the topic. It is very hands-on with lapbooks, timelines, recipes, art, creative writing, notebook projects, dramatized audio theater, maps, crafts, projects, re-enactments, file-folder games, vocabulary to learn, etc.

The Á La Carte Projects are a new category of products that Home School in the Woods is now offering. These hands-on mini-studies include lap booking, creative writing, 3-dimensional art, games, timelines, etc. about different topics to just do on their own. Some Á La Carte Projects are a smaller, more focused pieces from the larger history studies and others are completely original projects that they have created. These you can purchase separately from the larger Home School in the Woods curriculum so you can add them individually to your own homeschool course of study. This menu is being added to regularly with brand new material.

The Literary Genres Lap Book Mini-Study is a completely separate and original short study that helps the student learn the categories of literature. This has a brief amount of text along with lap book projects. It comes in PDF format with an introduction and tips, description of what a genre is and the categories with suggested reading, vocabulary to know, additional activities to do, and the lapbook complete with supplies and instructions for how to put it all together. There are fun lift the flaps, pockets, a writing section, etc. This is recommended for grades 3rd-8th.

Projects Included Are:

1. Genres Card Catalog
2. Book Stack Vocabulary
3. Steps to Story Building
4. Library of Good Reads
5. Reading Tablet

10 Literary Genres Covered:

• Poetry
• Biography
• Autobiography
• Fantasy
• Fairy Tale
• Tall Tale
• Mystery
• Science Fiction
• Historical Fiction
• Realistic Fiction

Teela constructing the lapbook.

How We Used This and Our Thoughts:
Teela my 9 year old put this lapbook together with a little help from me. There was a lot of cutting things out, coloring, gluing, stapling, and taping. The instructions were fairly simple and straightforward. We didn't have any trouble finding where all the pieces went and how to construct it all. We liked the suggestion of placing pieces in a ziplock bag until you start building each section because otherwise pieces could get lost. There were quite a few of them and it was a good idea to keep them organized at the start even though you could reprint if you did loose any.

The completed Literary Genres Lap Book Mini-Study.

The projects are fun to put together. My kids had seen a card catalog in our library and knew how to use one even if they are kind of going the way of the dinosaur. This lapbook had a Genres Card Catalog. I thought that was neat way of showing the descriptions and recommended reading of each genre in a pocket that looked like a drawer to a card catalog. The Book Stack Vocabulary looked like a stack of books that had titles of categories on their spines and lift the flap to see the description of each underneath. The Steps to Story Building has the steps to organize your thoughts in order to write a good story in lift up flaps with the descriptions of each and a place to write under each. The Library of Good Reads has pockets that look like shelves that has small paper books with information you can write inside that can sit in them. The Reading Tablet is a frame that holds the paper to write a short story/book report with.

I think that Teela understands better what the different genres are of literature. We are happy we got the opportunity to do this lapbook together so that she could learn this. This will help her brainstorming, story building and writing, and knowing what genres each book she reads lands in. She loves to read and write stories so I was happy that she now has one more tool to add for this.

I recommend the Home School in the Woods Á La Carte Literary Genres Lap Book Mini-Study to all that homeschool or supplement learning. My daughter learned a lot from it. This is a great mini study and it is a fun lapbook to put together.

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BUY IT
You can purchase the Literary Genres Lap Book Mini-Study for $9.95.

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Reading Eggs Online Learning Games Review

My family had the privilege of trying the online learning games from Reading Eggs 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.

Reading Eggs is an online program that helps kids learn better literacy through reading lessons, activities, and ebooks. Reading Eggs is made up of  5 different kids learning programs: Reading Eggs JR for ages 2-4, Reading Eggs for ages 4-5, Reading Eggs for ages 6-7, Reading Eggspress for ages 7-13, and Mathseeds for ages 3-9. These self-paced educational games are recommended for kids ages 2 to 13. They are created by a team of qualified teachers, educational writers, animators and web developers. These online reading programs will engage your child or student to keep learning.

Student Menu

Reading Eggs JR is a brand new online reading game that teaches toddlers ages 2 to 4 words, sounds, and letters. These pre-reading skills are the first step to literacy. This has games, videos, and e-books to help motivate the younger child.

Reading Eggs is an online reading game that teaches kids ages 3 to 7. There are two parts: the lessons for ages 3 to 5 and the lessons for ages 6 to 7. The first teaches phonics, sight words, and essential reading skills needed to get ready for school. The second part gives the child practice with bonus activities and lessons that teach spelling, vocabulary, and comprehension skills.

Reading Eggspress is an online reading game that teaches kids ages 7 to 13, grades 1 to 6. This game continues the online learning from previous Reading Eggs lessons. This teaches structured comprehension, vocabulary, spelling and grammar with live games, an online library, and more!

Mathseeds is an online math learning game that teaches kids ages 3 to 9. This program teaches early math skills. Great for beginners and young children in their first years of school.

Teela and Zari on Reading Eggs.

How We Used This and Our Thoughts:
I have two young daughters. Teela is 9 years old and Zari will be 7 on October 19th. They are in 4th and 1st grades. My daughter Teela has done Reading Eggs before in 2013 because we got a free trial to try it out back then. Teela has grown to love reading and is doing so roughly at a 6th grade reading level now. My daughter Zari hadn't tried Reading Eggs at all and is just starting to read. We hadn't tried the other programs that came with our subscription.

Reading Eggs Navigation

We received a six month subscription to Reading Eggs this time around. This included access to Reading Eggs Junior, Reading Eggs, and Reading Eggspress. We also got a six month subscription to MathSeeds. Both Teela and Zari worked on this educational game an average of three days per week since we got signed up.

Both started with a reading assessment to see where they needed to be. Since Teela had already done one in 2013 she needed to redo hers to see where she was now. They both started with Reading Eggs. I believe Teela made some mistakes on her assessment because she was trying to plow through it...so she was put at a lower level than she should have been. When she went on to the games in Reading Eggs at lesson 111, map 12 they gave her she said the games were boring and that she already knew this stuff. I agreed with her that she already knew it and asked her if she wanted to redo the assessment for a second time and she didn't. So, she just did the rest of the Reading Eggs games and then moved onto Reading Eggspress. Zari was placed in the right place. She started on lesson 41, map 5. There are 120 lessons total in Reading Eggs with about 6-14 games per lesson.

Reading Eggs Lesson Maps

Reading Eggs Lesson Map

• Step 1 Starting Out in the Zoo (Lessons 1-40, Map 1-4): For children ages 4-6 that have little to no reading skills. Children will learn first reading skills, including: learning sounds and names of the alphabet letters, reading their first sight words, and phonetics to read three letter words. Includes simple stories to read featuring Sam the Ant.
• Step 2 Beginning to Read in The Playground (Lessons 41-80, Map 5-8): Builds on skills learned in step 1 focusing on short vowel words and constructing reading skills. Children will learn more high frequency sight words, make word families, and read 40 more books that build vocabulary.
• Step 3 Building Confidence at the Theme Park (Lessons 81-120, Map 5-12): These lessons cover long vowels words and focus on reading for meaning, comprehension, and understanding of longer words and sentences.

Reading Eggs Lesson Parts Examples

Reading Eggs Lesson Parts Example

• Parts 1 & 2 The Main Lesson: interactive animations that are led by a character modeling the concepts. Students need to get 7 correct responses to move on.
• Part 3 Dot to Dot: Students learn correct letter formation with dot to dot.
• Part 4 Letter Recognition: builds letter recognition of upper and lower case letters.
• Part 5 Vocabulary: activities that build vocabulary to be able to read the books.
• Part 6 The e-book: electronic book with audio support so kids can read along.
• Part 7 The Egg Hatches: students are rewarded with creatures that hatch to add to their online collection.

With each reading program there are colorful graphics, characters, and designs to engage the student to keep going. There are fun games, videos, and e-books to also teach the concepts. The students are awarded golden eggs to be later used in the store to buy things for the house and avatar, etc. The navigation around the program is fairly simple. My daughters liked that they could change the look of their avatar, buy things in the shop with golden eggs they acquired through doing well in the lessons, and see their certificates in the My Awards section. I loved that I could see their progress at a glance.

Program Guides for Homeschoolers

Also, in the Parent Dashboard (the home page after signing in) under the menu that has "Bonus Material" you can find Program Guides for Homeschoolers. These are free and downloadable once logged in. These colorful, detailed week-by-week overviews help homeschooling parents to see learning outcomes for children in Kindergarten through 2nd Grade. Each guide contains a 36-week teaching and learning sequence for Language Arts, Mathematics, Science and Social Studies. These map out online lessons, books, quizzes, and assessments.

This is an excellent interactive game that teaches kids better reading skills. I definitely saw improvement in my daughter Zari's literacy skills. My girls loved Reading Eggs and I recommend it to anyone who homeschools or wants a reading supplement for their children or students.

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• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/readingeggsUSCA
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BUY IT
My readers get 4 weeks FREE trial access to the program to try for themselves! This offer expires on November 30, 2017.

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