Progeny Press Little Women Study Guide & My Side of the Mountain Study Guide 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 the Little Women Study Guide & My Side of the Mountain Study Guide from Progeny Press 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.

Progeny Press is a Christian based company that produces products that help with comprehension, critical analysis, and vocabulary study in literature and reading. They have a number of very nice literature based study guides and interactive e-guides that go with a number of classical, historical, and award winning books. They are always adding new titles to their list. All of their guides - whether book-bound, on CD, or downloaded - have exactly the same content. Four of their literature guides are considered a full literature credit for the year for students in high school.

The Little Woman Study Guide by Carol Clark is great for using in conjunction with the book by Louisa May Alcott. This is geared towards high school grades eight through twelve. This guide is 94 pages total when printed. The My Side of the Mountain Study Guide by Carol Clark is great for using in conjunction with the book by Jean Craighead George. This is geared towards middle school grades five to eight. This guide is 63 pages total when printed. The ones we received is the interactive e-guide which means that it is able to have the answers entered and typed directly into the PDF and saved. You can additionally print the pages and have your student work on them off of the computer. The e-guides save you money because you do not have to pay shipping and handling. You can also grade the student's work directly on the PDF and make comments in the same file. Mobile Devices/Tablets may require alternative app that supports and saves fillable form fields. All the guides, once purchased, can be reproduced for the teacher's/homeschooling parent's use in their own classroom or home. Once downloaded to your computer they are permanently available on your computer, and are yours and yours only.

These Study Guides cover a lot of ground. They have vocabulary that goes with the book with activities that help retention and growth. The Little Woman Study Guide talks about literary techniques like: Slang, similes, metaphors, foreshadowing, proverbs, allusions, motif, parallelism, allegory, maxims, idioms, juxtaposition, asides, anthropomorphism, antithesis, irony, mood, comic relief, alliteration, in context, foil, aphorism, jargon, sarcasm, tongue-in-cheek humor, extended metaphor, euphemisms, cause and effect, epiphany, poetic justice, flat and round characters, dynamic and static characters, dramatic structure, theme, point of view, and coming-of-age. The My Side of the Mountain Study Guide talks about literary techniques like: Point of view, verbs, anthropomorphism, irony, flashback, in context, adjectives, similes, recap, paraphrase, fact vs. opinion, onomatopoeia, comic relief, mood, metaphors, allusion, alphabetical order, idioms, oxymoron, alliteration, assonance, consonance, extended metaphors, willing suspension of disbelief, conflict, quest, dramatic structure, full-circle ending, coming of age, bildungsroman, and compare & contrast. There are moral lessons and character values taken from the books in each study guide. Activities and writing assignments are also included. Each set of chapters or section has: activities to use the vocabulary, questions in shorty answer, "think about the story" comprehension questions, "dig deeper" questions with bible verses to look up and biblical perspective or philosophical questions to go with the book, and optional activities, like: art, cooking, creative writing, dramatization, etc. There is a lot of other things too that these go into. Take a look at the layout and contents below of each study guide...

Here is Little Woman's Study Guide Layout:

• Study Guide Author
• Note to Instructor (How to use the study guide)
• Synopsis (What book is about)
• About the Novel's Author
• Background Information
• Ideas for Prereading Activities (Things to do or study before and during reading the book): Read Pilgrim's Progress, class discussion, research the U.S. Civil War, journaling activities.
• Chapters 1-4
• Chapters 5-9
• Chapters 10-12
• Chapters 13-16
• Chapters 17-20
• Chapters 21-23
• Part 1 Crossword Puzzle
• Chapters 24-27
• Chapters 28-31
• Chapters 32-35
• Chapters 36-39
• Chapters 40-43
• Chapters 44-47
• Overview
• Optional Essays and Projects
• Additional Resources (Other books by the author, similar titles, plays, and movies)
• Answer Key (located in a separate PDF)

Here is My Side of the Mountain's Study Guide Layout:

• Study Guide Author
• Note to Instructor (How to use the study guide)
• Synopsis (What book is about)
• About the Novel's Author
• Prereading Activities (Things to do or study before reading the book): Field trip, research local plants, read the author's preface to the book.
• Section 1: I Hole Up...; I Get Started...; I Find Gribley's Farm
• Section 2: I Find Many...; The Old, Old Tree; I Meet One of my Own Kind...
• Section 3: The Kings Provider; What I Did About...; I Learn to Season My Food
• Section 4: How a Door...; Frightful Learns...; I Find a Real Live Man
• Section 5: The Autumn Provides...; We All Learn About Halloween; I Find Out What to Do
• Story Review Fun!
•  Section 6: Trouble Begins; I Pile up Wood...; I Learn About Birds...
•  Section 7: I Have a Good Look at Winter...; The Spring in the Winter...
• Section 8: I Cooperate with the Ending; The City Comes to Me
• Overview
• Optional After-You-Read Projects and Activities
• Additional Resources (Other books by the author, other titles of interest, related books, related movies)
• Answer Key (located in a separate PDF)

How We Used This and Our Thoughts:

My daughter, Teela, who is 12 years old is an advanced reader. She loves reading and devours books. Her favorites are chapter books that have some substance to them. I told her about Little Woman and My Side of the Mountain and she was excited to start reading. We had the book Little Woman on our Kindle so we started with that one. She loved this book and read it chapter by chapter working through the study guide.

She got to use the guide as she read the book and since the review period for this was slightly longer than most (roughly 7 weeks) we got through a good portion of My Side of the Mountain as well. She did the worksheets online to work on her computer and typing skills as well.

Our Rose Garden

Teela loved doing some of the optional activities in the study guides. One of the optional activities she picked in chapters 17-20 in the Little Woman Study Guide was plant a rose bush and tend it. We planted a whole rose garden, not just one plant, this year and she helped me with it. I showed her how to dead head spent blossoms and water them. Another of the optional activities she picked to do for chapters 36-39 in the Little Woman Study Guide had her make and serve Tea Sandwiches. For these we had cream cheese, cucumber and triangle cut bread. On a hot day these were particularly good with iced herbal tea. In the My Side of the Mountain Study Guide she did a lot of the optional activities too. She picked to learn more about skunks in Section 5 because it so happens that we have a family of them with a mama and 5 babies living in our barn. You can go here on my husband's YouTube to see them.

Teela with the Tea Sandwiches she made.

This was the forth time we had experienced Progeny Press and their literature study guides. This time though we got to pick two different study guides instead of just one. The study guides we received were jam packed full of reading comprehension and information to study. I love that they are also faith-based and has biblical applications that relate to the books fairly well. Since Teela just finished 6th grade this year, I had her type her answers as best she could and I believe she did great for her age. These guides are very well thought out and put together and I feel that my daughter learned and comprehended a great deal more because of it.

I highly recommend the Progeny Press study guides. They are easy to download and simple to print from PDF and easy to do online. These guides got my daughter thinking a lot more about the story and characters than she would have just reading the book on its own. Progeny Press has a great selection of other guides that go with some other great books as well. Check them out below.
 
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BUY IT
You can get the Little Women Study Guide in e-guide format for $21.99 and the My Side of the Mountain Study Guide for 18.99 from Progeny Press and also download a sample of the guide to see what it looks like.

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Albert Whitman & Company The Boxcar Children Early Reader Set #1 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 the The Boxcar Children Early Reader Set #1 from Albert Whitman & Company 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.

Albert Whitman & Company is a book company that publishes and sells children's books. These books are selected to help readers grow intellectually and emotionally. Albert Whitman & Company has been publishing award-winning children’s books since 1919. They publish picture books, novels, and nonfiction books for children in grades PreK-12, including the classic series The Boxcar Children Mysteries.

We received the hardcover editions of The Boxcar Children Early Reader Set #1.

The Boxcar Children Early Reader Set #1 is a classic book set by Gertrude Chandler Warner adapted for beginning readers. They are illustrated by Shane Clester after the artwork from the animated film The Boxcar Children released in 2014. This first set has four books: The Boxcar Children, Surprise Island, The Yellow House Mystery, and Mystery Ranch. These are perfect for readers in K-2, ages 5-7. These are part pf the Time to Read® program and are Level 2 readers which are books for kids that are "reading with help". These books come in both paperback and hardcover versions. There are 6 books currently in The Boxcar Children Early Reader series with a total of 8 books planned through 2020.

Zari reading me The Boxcar Children.

How We Used This and Our Thoughts:

We received the hardcover editions of The Boxcar Children Early Reader Set #1. My daughter Zari, who is in 3rd grade read these books. She read them allowed to me so that I could monitor her progress and ask her questions about each book after she read them. These books were at her reading level. She struggled a little on the big unfamiliar words, but generally she did very well at reading them to me.

If you read further there are spoilers...

The first book, The Boxcar Children, was an introduction to the 4 Alden children: Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny. As orphans, the siblings are trying to make it on their own. In this book they are in search for a place to call home. Do they find somewhere safe to be together as a family?

Zari said she really loved that they found a home. Her favorite part was when they found the dog that they named Watch. She also liked that they got to keep the Boxcar.

The second book is called Surprise Island. Apparently this book is based on not only the book by Gertrude Chandler Warner, but a movie called Surprise Island, as well. This book has the children being invited to go to an island for the summer. They make friends with Joe, the island's friendly handyman. As they explore the island they find all sorts of surprises and mysterious things too. What will they uncover about the island and their new friend Joe?

Zari said she loved all the surprises they found on the island. She would love to go clam digging sometime. She loves beach combing!

In the third book, The Yellow House Mystery, the Alden children find an old letter in an abandoned yellow house on Surprise Island that leads to a mystery. Long ago the house was abandoned by a man named Bill and he never came back to the island. What ever happened to him? Will the Alden children solve the clues with what is written on the old letter?

Zari said she thought it was cool that the Alden children were being detectives. Zari loves to hike on trails and explore as well. She said her favorite part in the book was where they saw the moose swimming in the water while the children were paddling in boats. That must have been slightly scary to see an animal that huge and wild up so close.

Mystery Ranch is the forth book in The Boxcar Children series. The Alden children go to their Aunt's Ranch for the summer. Their aunt is sad that everyone is moving away from her and that she might have to sell her ranch. She is lonely so the children try to cheer her up. What are the strange rocks on her property? Will they be able to help their aunt save her ranch?

Zari said she is glad that the Aldens are meeting more of their family. She likes to go on trips to visit her relatives too. She thought it was very nice of the Alden children to help out with the chores on the ranch. She loved the very ending of this book the most.

This Boxcar classics series of books are great for early readers. I believe they are great for ages 6-8. They hold kids interest and have great color illustrations. These are wonderful books full of adventure. These leveled picture books will help transition young readers to chapter books. Your children will love to become sleuths right along side The Boxcar Children while reading their adventures.

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BUY IT

Purchase this book set on Albert Whitman & Company or where other books are sold.

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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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Tied 2 Teaching STEM Activities, Full Year of Challenges with Close Reading Review

My family had the privilege of trying the STEM Activities, Full Year of Challenges with Close Reading from Tied 2 Teaching 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.

Tied 2 Teaching is owned by a father of 4 children that his wife homeschools. He has been teaching in the classroom since he received his K-8 certification in 2002 from Texas Tech. He has taught Middle school Math and now currently is teaching upper elementary. Him and his wife create teaching quality materials for teachers of both home and classroom to make their lives easier and save the teacher time preparing/planning.

STEM Activities, Full Year of Challenges with Close Reading is a bundle of PDF downloads. This includes over 70 STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) design challenges from the STEM with Close Reading series. This is a full year of activities with the idea to do one activity per week. These are categorized by month of the year and are seasonal with bonus extras that you can do as well. In addition to the STEM activities directions these also have a high interest close reading passage and writing assignments included so your student has a more rounded curriculum because it integrates ELA (English Language Arts) into the learning as well. Close reading requires students to analyze, evaluate, and think critically about a given text. The STEM activities you can do with readily available materials you have around the house or the classroom. These are great for grades 3rd-6th. This comes as a compressed zip file of multiple PDFs and is about 859 MB.

STEM Design Challenges Included:

January STEM Challenge Bundle with Close Reading

• 100th Day of School STEM Challenge – Spaghetti Tower Design Challenge
• Marshmallow Snowman Challenge
• Civil Rights Monument Design Challenge
• Sled Design Challenge

February STEM Challenge Bundle with Close Reading

• Valentines Day STEM Challenge – Cupid’s Bow Design
• Groundhog Day STEM Challenge – Groundhog Burrow Design Challenge
• Valentines STEM Challenge – Love Bug Design Challenge
• Presidents Day STEM Challenge – Lincoln’s Cabin Challenge

March STEM Challenge Bundle with Close Reading

• St. Patrick’s Day STEM Challenge – Build a Leprechaun Trap
• Basketball Tower STEM Challenge
• St. Patrick’s Day STEM Challenge – Build a Rainbow Bridge
• New Hat for Cat Challenge Read Across America STEM

April STEM Challenge Bundle with Close Reading

• Jelly Bean Tower Challenge
• Easter STEM Challenge Design a Carrot Carriage
• Earth Day STEM Challenge – Design Something Useful
• Earth Day STEM Challenge – Upcycled Birdhouse

May STEM Challenge Bundle with Close Reading

• Design a New Droid
• Paper Airplane Design Challenge
• Pipe Cleaner Challenge
• Lighthouse Design Challenge

June STEM Challenge Bundle with Close Reading

• Foil Boat Design Challenge
• Giant Pyramid Challenge
• Steamboat Design Challenge
• Zip Line Design Activity

July STEM Challenge Bundle with Close Reading

• House of Cards Challenge
• Doghouse Design Challenge
• Alien Spacecraft Challenge
• Airplane Design Challenge

August STEM Challenge Bundle with Close Reading

• Building Block Tower Challenge
• Index Card Skyscraper Challenge
• Paper Table Challenge
• BONUS Building Block Challenge MEGA PACK

September STEM Challenge Bundle with Close Reading

• Apple Boat Challenge
• Pencil Tower Challenge
• Totem Pole Challenge
• Balloon Tower Challenge

October STEM Challenge Bundle with Close Reading

• Spider Web Design Challenge
• Witch’s Parachute Halloween STEM Challenge
• Bony Bridge Challenge
• Sugar Cube Arch Challenge

November STEM Challenge Bundle with Close Reading

• Parade Balloon Challenge
• Thanksgiving Table Challenge
• Cranberry Tower Challenge
• Pilgrim Shelter Challenge

December STEM Challenge Bundle with Close Reading

• Cardboard Reindeer Challenge
• Funky Christmas Ornament Challenge
• Straw Christmas Tree Challenge
• Christmas Tree Tower

BUILDING BLOCK CHALLENGES

• Build a Dinosaur
• Build a Nation’s Flag
• Design a New Bug
• Build the Eiffel Tower
• Design a Superhero
• Design a Toilet Paper Dispenser
• Design a Cactus Paperweight
• Build a UFO
• Build a Treasure Chest
• Design a Totem Pole

ADDITIONAL STEM CHALLENGES

• 100th Day of School Glasses
• 100th Day of School Crayon Tower
• Kingdom Hearts Valentines Castle
• Candy Heart Tower
• Design a Candy Box

How We Used This and Our Thoughts:

My daughters who are 10 and 8 and I had fun together doing four of these projects. We picked out four that looked like the most fun and that we had the materials at home for. We did the Earth Day STEM Challenge – Upcycled Birdhouse, Foil Boat Design Challenge, Building Block Tower Challenge, and Design a New Bug Building Block Challenge. In my family we love doing STEM activities!

I really like that these STEM projects have reading and writing assignments as well. This enriches the learning experience even more and gets the students minds thinking about all the aspects of the challenge. Each STEM activity has a PDF with a QR code to scan with your code reading electronic device or link to click on to get to the reading passage. The reading assignment has comprehension questions to answer after the passage is read. The pages also had my daughters ask, imagine, plan, create, and improve upon the design they made. They were asked to research, test out their design, and make improvements on it if needed. They were also asked to show their steps and write what went well and what they could improve upon.

Zari's Birdhouse STEM Challenge.

  
Earth Day STEM Challenge – Upcycled Birdhouse
We were told to gather recyclable items up and build a bird house with them. There was a page in the PDF that had the design challenge, design criteria, material suggestions, and a little about the final project. The assignment had Zari read a passage about birds flying south during the winter then answer the comprehension questions. Then she designed and built her birdhouse using the materials we had gathered up around our home. This PDF had pictures of other people's projects for examples as well which was very helpful. Zari built her birdhouse much like the picture of the one in the PDF made out of a coffee container.

Foil Boat STEM Challenge.

Foil Boat Design Challenge
We were told to design and build a boat using only a 12" X 18" sheet of aluminum foil and see how many pennies it could hold before it sank in the water and try to build one to hold the most pennies before sinking. This one had a QR code and link as well, but we noticed that the link in the PDF didn't link to the right url for the questions so instead we had to search in the search bar for the correct webpage. Thankfully we found it using the heading on the question sheet for the design challenge reading. I am not sure if the QR code works because I do not own a device that can read those. After reading the passage about life saving boats they answered the comprehension questions. Then they designed and built their boats using the foil and proceeded to place pennies one by one on their crafts, counting them until they sunk. This PDF had pictures of other people's projects for examples as well which was very helpful. Zari's boat was rectangular and flat on the bottom it held the 210 pennies that we had without issue. Teela's boat held the 210 pennies for a moment then started taking on water. Her boat didn't have as solid of sides as Zari's.

Building Block Tower Stem Challenge

Building Block Tower Challenge
We were told to build the tallest tower out of Legos to be able to support a tennis ball. We unfortunately didn't own a tennis ball so we used an orange instead. The reading assignment was How tall is the Eiffel Tower?. The link worked great in this one and went to the correct page. After reading the passage about the Eiffel Tower they answered the comprehension questions. Then they designed and built their towers using the Legos we had and proceeded to place the orange at the top to see how well they built it. This PDF had pictures of other people's projects for examples as well which was very helpful. Teela's tower was a little taller than Zari's in this activity, but they both held the orange without toppling over.

Design a New Bug
We were told to build a new bug out of Legos. The reading assignment was Are You Scared of Bugs?. The link worked great in this one and went to the correct page. After reading the passage about bugs they answered the comprehension questions. Then they designed and built their bugs using the Legos we had. This PDF did not have pictures of other people's projects for examples.

These activities were lots of fun and some were more challenging than others. Both Teela and Zari had fun with the STEM projects. The written assignments were a little more advanced for Zari, so I told her she could write less. I highly recommend these though because they cover so many subjects in one project and my kids enjoyed them.

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Right now the Tied 2 Teaching STEM Activities, Full Year of Challenges with Close Reading bundle is $30 not $60, so you save $30.

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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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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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Progeny Press The Green Book - eGuide Review

My family had the privilege of trying the The Green Book - eGuide from Progeny Press 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.

Progeny Press is a Christian based company that produces products that help with comprehension, critical analysis, and vocabulary study in literature and reading. They have a number of very nice literature based study guides and interactive e-guides that go with a number of classical, historical, and award winning books. They are always adding new titles to their list. All of their guides - whether book-bound, on CD, or downloaded - have exactly the same content.

The Green Book eGuide is a great study guide for using in conjunction with the book by Jill Paton Walsh. The book is geared towards grades four to six and the guide grades three to five. The one we received is the interactive e-guide which means that it is able to have the answers entered and typed directly into the PDF and saved. You can additionally print the pages and have your student work on them off of the computer. The e-guides save you money because you do not have to pay shipping and handling. You can also grade the student's work directly on the PDF and make comments in the same file. All the guides, once purchased, can be reproduced for the teacher's/homeschooling parent's use in their own classroom or home. Once downloaded to your computer they are permanently available on your computer, and are yours and yours only. This guide is 57 pages total when printed.

The eGuide covers a lot of ground. It has vocabulary that goes with the book with activities that help retention and growth. It talks about literary techniques like: In-context, similes, idioms, metaphors, mood, synonyms, imagery, foreshadowing, repetition, alliteration, juxtaposition, conflict, theme, circular narrative, etc. There are moral lessons and character values taken from the book. Activities and writing assignments are also included. There is a lot of other things too that it goes into. Take a look at the layout and contents below...

Here is The Green Book's Study Guide Layout:

• Study Guide Author
• Note to Instructor (How to use the study guide)
• Synopsis (What book is about)
• About the Novel's Author
• Prereading Activities (Things to do or study before reading the book): Read other pioneering books, travel plans, memory photos, make a journal.
• Chapters (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6 & 7):
• Vocabulary (Definition and write the word in a sentence)
• Questions (Short Answer)
• Think About the Story (Comprehension Questions)
• Dig Deeper (Questions with Bible Verses to look up and Biblical perspective to go with the book)
• Optional Projects and Activities (Discussions and/or Reports and/or Presentations): planning forum, computer research, gravity, science and wind, rain cycle, jellyfish, oil lamps, marine aquariums, science video recommendations, fairy-tales, boredom ideas, tree candy, hopscotch, cooking grain, pancakes, crystal gardens, maple syrup, gardening, spin thread, fire opals, creative writing journal, creative writing sequel, poetry performance, persuasive paper, flatbread and muffins.
• Overview
• Theme Questions
• Mystery Message
• Venn Diagram
• Crossword
• After-You-Read Projects
• Additional Resources (Other books by the author)
• Answer Key (located in a separate PDF)

How We Used This and Our Thoughts:
My daughter, Teela, who is 10 years old is an advanced reader. She loves reading and devours books. Her favorites are chapter books that have some substance to them. I told her about The Green Book and she was excited to start reading. We easily found the book online to check out, so this was perfect for her book study in our homeschool. She loved this book and read it chapter by chapter working through the study guide.

She got to use the guide as she read the book and since the review period for this was slightly longer than most (roughly 7 weeks) we got through a good portion of the study. She did the worksheets online to work on her computer and typing skills as well.

Sample pages from the Progeny Press The Green Book - eGuide.

This was the third time we had experienced Progeny Press and their literature study guides. The e-guide we received was jam packed full of reading comprehension and information to study. I love that it is also faith-based and has biblical applications that relate to the book fairly well. Since Teela just finished 4th grade this year, I had her type her answers as best she could and I believe she did great for her age. These guides are very well thought out and put together and I feel that my daughter learned and comprehended a great deal more because of it.

I highly recommend the Progeny Press E-guides. They are easy to download and simple to print from PDF and easy to do online. The Green Book one got my daughter thinking a lot more about the story and characters than she would have just reading the book on its own. Progeny Press has a great selection of other guides that go with some other great books as well. Check them out below.

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You can get The Green Book - eGuide in e-guide format for $17.99 from Progeny Press and also download a sample of the guide to see what it looks like.

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