And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
I love the The Old School Magazine (TOS)! It is always full of wonderful articles to encourage me. There is great wisdom in this magazine each and every month from many popular homeschool veterans.
Topics include homeschool burn out, co-ops, wrangling toddlers, multi-level teaching, and many more. These topics are covered my moms and dads that have dealt with, and experienced these things themselves. They speak from experience!
TOS has just posted their February 2013 edition. Did I mention that it is FREE! You can freely view it online or through an iPad/iPhone App.
We were given the opportunity to try out an online reading program called Reading Eggs for the TOS Crew. Reading Eggs was created by a team of educational teachers, writers and developers. It is a phonetic based program, that also teaches sight words. The lessons are taught through games, animation, song and golden eggs.
So far, Reading Eggs has about 100 Phonetic Lessons that are geared toward pre-readers aged 4-7. Reading Eggs is also creating new lessons for their older users in the 6-8 year range, these lessons will include reading, writing, comprehension as well as spelling.
Reading Eggs is available online through subscription. There are 3 Subscription Choices available:
Month to Month - $9.95
6 Month Subscription - $49.95
12 Months Subscription - $75.00
The subscription prices are per child. If you purchase either the 6 or 12 month subscriptions your 2nd or 3rd child can get a 50% Family Discount.
Ok, now you are probably wondering what we thought of Reading Eggs. Well, to be honest, I really hoped that my boys (3 &5) would dig this program. It is cute, it is colorful, it looked like oodles of fun AND on top of all of this it taught phonics. What's not to love right? For some reason my 5 year old kindergartner did not like this program and he normally loves computer games. He currently plays another phonics game online like every day. I just couldn't get him to really play Reading Eggs. did have him give it another try today just to see if maybe something had changed. I gave the game a break and them got him to try it again. At first he was really into the game and then he seemed to get a little frustrated, the game had him repeat several things over and over. These were not things that he previously answered wrong, I don't really know what had happened.
I feel like Reading Eggs is very repetitious, especially in the beginning, which I totally understand. My son on the other hand, not so much. I think that his first impression was that the game was a little boring. In all fairness, I think he would have enjoyed it more if he would have stuck with it and got to another level. He was so unhappy with it though that I didn't push it.
My 3 year old on the other hand loved it. I sat with him a few times and we played. He would probably sit and play Reading Eggs all day long if I let him. He didn't mind the repetition one little bit. He also loved the Ant character that taught the letters.
I did think that this was a cute program, and could be helpful as a supplemental thing. I am not sure at this point that I would use it as my sole phonics curriculum, but it may be perfect for another family.
If you would like to give Reading Eggs a try, they offer a trial version.
We received a free trial of Reading Eggs for review purposes only. The opinions expressed are my own.
We were given the opportunity to review the Scruble Cube for the TOS Crew, which is 3D word game that is a cross between a Rubik Cube and a Scrabble board game. See, check it out...
This is a educational and fast paced game that is recommended for kids 8 years old and up. According to the makers of Scruble Cube, "If you can spell C-A-T then you can play! " The Hubs was in charge of reviewing this game with the kids (I am not a cross wordy, Rubik cube kinda girl).
I think they struggled at first with the Scruble Cube thinking that after one player built a word, the next player had to build on it, which is not the case. You can build on another players word but it is not necessary to play. It is quite easy to form words as you can make a totally new word or add one or more letters to an existing word to make a new word. We soon learned that you simply make words while racking up points at the same time, each letter is given a point value. The bigger the words the more points you earn. The people with most points wins the game!
We liked that this game is pretty versatile and 1 to 4 players can play at one time. You can make the rules easy or more challenging. You can play with or with out the included timer. You can have a three letter word minimum or four to make it more difficult. They have even included "wild cards" to make any letter you want.
As a mom, I love that it is educational. I also like that this is a simple game, in other words there aren't 37 pieces that I have to track of. You have the cube, a sand timer, a rubber band and a pad of score cards. One other bonus, is that when your 3 year old is so excited about this new game you have bought that he rips the box open in excitement, all the contents will fit perfectly in a Ziploc bag : )
We aren't the only ones that think the Scruble Cube is great, it received the Dr. Toys Best Pick for New Products as well as the Creative Toy Award for 2010 from Creative Child Magazine.
Scruble Cube would make a great gift for kids, adults and even teachers. It can be purchased directly from Scruble Cube for $24.95.
We were given the Scruble Cube free of charge for review purposes only. We were not paid in any way and the opinions expressed here are my own.
We were given several products to review from Master Innovations, they were the Standard Master Ruler, the Metric Master Ruler and a Master Ruler workbook.
The Master Rulers are actually several rulers in one. Each fraction of measurement has a separate layer and color to distinguish them from the others. For instance, the inches layer is red, the 1/2 marks are on another layer and are blue, the 1/4 marks are green and the 1/8 marks are orange. This is the easiest ruler that I have ever used! The color coded layers make this ruler so simple to use.
Both of the girls have used the Master Ruler and found it to be very helpful but Computer Girl has been using it the most. She has used the Standard Master Ruler to work in the Master Ruler workbook, which has been practice and for her regular math book. The separate layers make measuring a breeze for her. It also gives her a better understanding of fractions.
Computer Girl measuring with the inches layer.
Here she is using the 1/2 inch layers.
The Standard Master Ruler sells for $9.95, which seems well worth the price. I imagine that this ruler would last a very long time if taken care of. Master Innovations also offers other educational products, such as well, like the Master Clock, Master Angles and Master Fractions ranging in price from $5.95 to $17.95.
