Homeschool Copywork ~ Review

Today I am sharing with you my thoughts on a product we've been using in our homeschool over the past weeks.

We received a Lifetime Membership to Homeschool Copywork which gives us access to a variety of e-books for copywork and notebooking pages such as the Vincent Van Gogh Copywork, Transportation Copywork and Town Mouse Country Mouse Copywork, along with many other varieties of copywork and notebooking pages.

What Is Homeschool Copywork

I think I really need to take one step back here just in case some of you aren't aware or have never even heard of copywork. So what is copywork exactly?

At face value copywork appears to simply be handwriting practice and in reality one can use copywork pages specifically for handwriting. It is so much nicer to copy out a lovely passage or a poem than fill in boring handwriting workbooks, after all!

But copywork is and can be so much more if you use it wisely. With copywork one can cover spelling, grammar, punctuation usage, comprehension and reading skills.

Plus as the guiding light in your children's lives you can also choose certain passages that you feel are appropriate for them and may offer them guidance and inspiration.

There is so much more to copywork than simply handwriting and if this concept is a new one to you I encourage you to read a little further on the topic of adding copywork into your homeschool. 

Now that you understand what copywork actually is, you're probably thinking, 'right, now I need to find certain passages to use for our copywork, that's just going to add a bunch more work to my overloaded schedule'. 

Wrong, this is where Homeschool Copywork comes into play. All of the sourcing and preparation has been done for you. Simply log into the membership area of the site and you have access to a myriad of copywork and notebooking pages, covering all manner of themes.

How We Used The Membership

Copywork has been on my list to add back in to our days, as it is something we let slide. Often I found myself reinventing the wheel when it came to providing the kids with copywork passages but with access to Homeschool Copywork I didn't need to do anything other than log in and find an appropriate piece to use with each of the children.

  As you know I have three children of very different ages and abilities so I needed to ensure I could meet those with our copywork. 

I was also quite eager to add in some Artist study that I had been working on. It seemed it was the perfect time to begin with our unit on Vincent Van Gogh. Homeschool Copywork has a total of five full volumes of van Gogh copywork pages, each containing a beautiful full colour image of one of his art works and the passage to copy. 

There are various line options and writing styles, making the book suitable for all ages.

I love that we can discuss the work of van Gogh right there on the copywork page, I don't need to go hunting for the art work images. Plus each of the passages is simply beautiful to read.

For some fun we've also been using the delightful Town Mouse Country Mouse book.

One thing that jumped out to me almost instantly was with my youngest and his need to write so small that it is nearly impossible to read. Of course I jumped straight onto the membership area of Homeschool Copywork and found the transportation pages.

These are very simple pages that work their way through the alphabet, but what I loved about them for my son is they gently forced him to slow down and to increase the size of his writing. He works on a few of these each week.

What We Didn't Like

My main issues with the membership area is there is no search function which I feel would be a very valuable asset in ease of finding what your looking for.

I would also love to see a preview option somehow built into the membership area as I needed to download the entire ebook to actually see what is inside. Granted each time I did a download we used the book anyway, but I still feel that this would be advantageous to have available.

We are secular homeschoolers and did find a large portion of the material to be religious in nature.

What I Do Like

Absolutely hands down the ease when it comes to finding passages is a winner for me and this is the exact reason why we have started and fallen off the copywork band wagon so many times over the years. Now that I have access to a range already prepared for me it will truly make it so simple to ensure we keep up with our copywork.

I mentioned earlier in regards to the membership area housing many religious themed copywork pages, however, there were more than enough secular books for me to choose from.

Some of which include, artists such as Monet, van Gogh, and da Vinci. Composers such as Bach and Mozart. There also topics such as the Wright Brothers, John James Aubudon, The Town Mouse and The Country Mouse, along with others.

Looking Ahead

Homeschool Copywork has most definitely become part of our regular routine now thanks to how easy it is having the download membership.

Pricing & Details

Visit the Homeschool Copywork website where you can find all the details and the different membership options available to you.

To see more from Homeschool Copywork visit them via your favourite social media outlet.

Facebook:  http://facebook.com/HomeschoolCopywork
Twitter: http://twitter.com/AmyBlevins 
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/hscopywork
Google+: http://plus.google.com/+AmyBlevins
Instagram: http://instagram.com/homeschoolencouragement

I hope you found this review helpful. If you would like to see further reviews of Homeschool Copywork from members of The Schoolhouse Review Crew, please visit this link.



Happy Homeschooling,
Kylie

Come on over and join me at

Facebook ~ Pinterest ~ Instagram ~ Google + 


Have you looked at my Pinterest Boards lately?


Visit Our Worldwide Classroom's profile on Pinterest.  

Logic Of English Essentials ~ A Review

My children have been working their way through Essentials 2nd Edition from Logic of English.

We were supplied with the complete 2nd edition in order to write this review. This is a lengthy review. It is a large piece of curriculum and to truly understand this product it takes a look at as many components of it as possible.

What Is Essentials From Logic Of English

The Essentials program is a multi level reading, spelling, grammar and vocabulary curriculum. This one piece of curriculum covers it all and in three distinct levels, making it easy to use with children of varying ages simultaneously and to reuse the program over several years.

The entire Essentials 2nd Edition

There are several pieces to this program and receiving it to review has been such a blessing to us. Have a look at the huge pile we received. This is the complete set. It includes:

•     Essentials Teacher's Guide

•     Essentials Student Workbook

•     Spelling Journal

•     Morpheme Cards

•     Basic Phonogram Flash Cards

•     Spelling Rule Flash Cards

•     Grammar Flash Cards

•     Advanced Phonogram Flash Cards

•     Phonogram Game Cards: Bookface

•     Phonogram Game Cards: Manuscript or Cursive

•     Phonogram Game Tiles

•     Spelling Analysis Card

•     Phonogram and Spelling Rule Quick Reference

All of these materials will be all I will ever need to teach reading and spelling to my children that are 7+ years old. For younger children they recommend to begin with their Foundations curriculum.

I own several levels of a different, well known home school spelling and reading curriculum and one of the reasons why I would choose Logic of English is because of the one off purchase. One order only and I have everything, I don't need to go back year after. Essentials does utilise many cards, however I can easily keep these all together in one place.

Essentials provides linguistically accurate phonics instruction and explains it all so clearly in the teachers manual. Teaching our children to read has got to be the number one thing most homeschooling parents agonise. Phonics, phonograms, morphemes, grammar, vocabulary, spelling it really can get all very confusing for a homeschool parent. Essentials holds your hand and walks you through every step and gives you all the background information on why!

Essentials 2nd Edition Teacher Manual

The teacher manual is quite an edition. It is a hardcover, 630+ page, colourful, well laid out manual. The first 40 odd pages outline, the Essentials program, including the scope and sequence, how to use and teach the program, spelling analysis, teacher tips and more.

There's a lot to this and it isn't a program that arrives in the post, you open the box and begin using it. You really need to spend some time familiarising yourself with everything about the program before you begin with your students.

After the introduction you have a complete section on placement tests and pre-lessons. This is where you can easily determine what level of the program your child should begin with, A, B or C. I have one child in each level of the program.

A peek inside the teacher manual and at the phonogram cards.

The teacher manual then moves into the actual lessons. Each lesson is set out in days with more than enough content to cover five days of instruction, completing one full lesson in a week.

For us though we find that too much and are taking things much much slower than is laid out in the teachers manual. I have broken down a lesson for you so you can see just exactly how much is in this program.

Lesson Structure

Lesson outline

The beginning of each lesson always outlines what will be covered and what materials are required. This really helps with preparing for the lesson.

Day 1 - Essential Concepts

Here is where we review learned phonograms, introduce new phonograms and advanced phonograms. Each part of the lesson is fully scripted, with teacher tip boxes along the edges of the page.

Day 1 cont - Exploring Sounds

Here you discuss, play with and possibly complete a worksheet from the student book in reference to any new sounds being learned.

Day 1 cont - Spelling Rule

The new spelling rule is introduced, once again with lots of instruction on how to introduce, why the spelling rule is in place, examples of the rule in action and generally a worksheet to go along with this portion of the lesson.

Day 2 - Building Words

Here the lesson plays with the new phonograms, possibly with a card game and some spelling activities. It also introduces vocabulary with morpheme cards.

Day 2 - Spelling Journal

Students create their own spelling journals and will add to them as the program progresses.

Day 2 - Spelling Analysis Review

Here you will review the learned phonograms and move into the spelling lists. Each lesson contains 3 lists each at different levels (A, B, C) the list you use is determined by the level you chose during the placement tests

Day 3 - Words In Context

Again, review is constantly built into the program. This section also includes the grammar component, which begins at an easy level of grammar basics and moves up in difficulty with each lesson.  Day 3 also includes a dictation exercise.

Day 4 - Words In Action

Here we are running through a quick review of everything learned over the past 3 days. Then it moves into Vocabulary work and offers options at all 3 levels (A, B, C). Then we have another dictation exercise, a reading exercise and a composition exercise.

Day 5 - Check Your Understanding

Final review day for everything learned this week, including worksheets, dictation exercises and grammar activities.

Playing one of the many games that are built into the program

I used Lesson 2 as my guideline for this lesson outline, it is 30 pages in total, in the teacher manual, not including the student sheets, game cards and phonogram cards. These lessons are so thorough.

How We Have Used The Program

We've used Essentials exactly as laid out in the teacher manual. We all work together and this is the very first thing we do each day, when everyone is fresh and attention spans are generally at their best. I have 3 children and each of them are all in different levels, but working together means I'm not repeating the lessons 3 times over.

The Essentials Reader

I was also sent the PDF download for the Essentials Reader, the Essentials Reader Student Activity Book and the Essentials Reader Teachers Guide.

Whilst not necessary to the program itself I personally feel that this is a great addition to it and a wonderful way to work more on the skills learned through the lessons.

The lessons in the reader and teachers guide work with the main Essentials program.

Here my daughter is completing a copywork page, rewriting some of the sentences from the reader passage she has just read on the screen.

What We Didn't Like

I actually can't find anything that I don't like about this program. Admittedly at first it can seem quite overwhelming, but once you have a good read of the Teacher Manual and actually get started with the lessons it is really easy to follow.

Essentials is not student directed, this program needs a teacher/adult with the student for each lesson so it could, for some, be a little time consuming, but we simply do 15 - 30 minutes each day together.

What We Did Like

I love that I can work on a language arts program with all of my children at once. I don't think I've come across anything as yet that I can do that with.

My eldest reads above grade level but he still needs work with spelling, which is why I chose to include him in this and he is learning a great deal already.

I like that absolutely everything to teach reading, spelling, grammar and vocabulary is all included in this program.

It is multi-sensory, includes games and various activities to appeal to most learners. Whilst the lessons are jam packed, you can easily take things at your own pace.

Looking Ahead

We will absolutely be continuing to move forward with Essentials. It is now a regular part of our week.

Pricing & Details

Visit the Logic Of English web store to view all of the Essentials materials.

To see more from Logic Of English visit them via your favourite social media outlet

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheLogicOfEnglish/ 
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/LogicofEnglish
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/logicofenglish/

I hope you found this review helpful. If you would like to see further reviews of Essentials 2nd Edition or Logic Of English Foundations program for younger learners, from members of the Schoolhouse Review Crew, please visit this link.

Happy Homeschooling,
Kylie

Come on over and join me at

Facebook ~ Pinterest ~ Instagram ~ Google + 


Have you looked at my Pinterest Boards lately?


Visit Our Worldwide Classroom's profile on Pinterest.  

Money & Magic Squares

You all know how much I enjoy making printable materials for our home school, but there are definitely many times when I need something quickly.

What a breeze it has been to scan through all of the printable items over at Kids Learning Is Fun, choose what I am after, click print and we are ready to go.

To have ongoing access to resources such as these is a definite blessing.

I thought I'd share some of the highlights each month so that you get a good feel for the items available over at Kids Learning is Fun.

I chose to print off the Australian Coin Posters (A4) and do some coin exploring with Little Surfer Dude. Fairy Princess sat in too, this was good revision for her.

Together we discussed each poster and the details about the coins. We sorted through our pile of coins and found various examples and proceeded to match the real life coin to the poster.

This was a great exercise to actually sit and focus on the coin details. Little Surfer Dude was very careful to note the numbers on each coin.

I used an old divided serving platter and taped one of each coin into a compartment. This is a simple sorting exercise for now, but one we can build on as time progresses.

I have placed this tray and the Coin posters on our shelves for him to choose whenever he wishes.

For Lego Lover I printed the Magic Squares file and laminated them. There is a huge number of magic squares contained within this, which means he always has variety! 

For these magic squares you need to use the numbers 1 - 16, only once and complete the grid.....certainly gets you thinking.

You can purchase these items straight from the Kids Learning Is Fun store or have access to these and hundred's more whenever you need them with a Premium Membership.

Kids Learning Is Fun

I'm excited to introduce our new blog sponsor, Kids Learning Is Fun!

An Australian based website, chock full of educational goodness.

Articles covering a wide base of topics, The Learning Blog which offers hints and tips on all things education, the shop that offers a huge array of printable educational materials and the Member Resource Centre, where you can gain access to the entire range for one low yearly fee.

I've been busy looking around and trying to decide what I should print off first, there's so much to choose from!

I'm really looking forward to using these resources with the children and sharing some of the details with you.

Be watching for future Kids Learning Is Fun posts and we are working on a giveaway too.



Disclosure: We have been given a 12 month family subscription to Skwirk for the purposes of sharing our journey with this online interactive learning program.

The Introduction Of 'The Village'

Today K was introduced to 'The Village'.

I realise it has taken me awhile since I first told you about Arithmetic Village. The little wooden treasure box pictured above, is the reason why. I knew I could get them as I have seen them many times before, but do you think I could find one when I needed one, no! Finally on my recent visit to my local art and craft supply store they had them in stock (now I'm kinda thinking maybe I should've bought a few).

I knew having a 'real' looking treasure chest would add to the magic of Arithmetic Village and I wasn't settling for anything else. I wasn't wrong!

The first book in the series is a simple, rythmical introduction to the Village and its' characters. I knew that it would only take a very brief moment to read the story to K and I wanted to draw out the magic for as long as I could.

I filled 9 (nine) jewel sacks with 10 jewels in each and placed them inside the unpainted chest. I placed that next to me on my left, hidden under a towel. Next to the chest (but also hidden under the towel) I placed 1 (one) empty jewel sack and 10 (ten) jewels.

Choosing the perfect time of the day, where K and I could be alone for a few minutes was a challenge, but I was able to sneek it in when the boys were off busy doing whatever it is that boys do.

We sat together on the floor, her on my right, the hidden treasures on my left and the book in front of us. Together we turned to the first page and as I began reading blue jewels started falling from the sky onto the book.

K loves blue and loves all things sparkly and I knew she would enjoy these.

We continued to read, K held and played with the jewels and was enthralled with the gorgeous illustrations on the pages in front of her. When it came time for the jewel sacks to appear I placed the empty one I had to my left on the page.

Together we counted the jewels that had fallen from the sky, just to see how many there were and to our surprise there were 10 (ten), the exact number required to fill a sack, fancy that! She loved that and was eager to continue on and was so taken with the book that she had no idea I had more surprises waiting for her right by my side.

You see the villagers can't possibly carry an infinte number of sacks filled with jewels and to help them out they use treasure boxes that perfectly hold 10 (ten) sacks each filled with 10 (ten) jewels.

I slowly turned the page and at the same time the treasure chest emerged and I placed it on the page as I read. K's face was sheer delight, absolute magic, this is hands down, the BEST EVER moment I have experienced in our nearly 4 years of homeschooling....it literally took my breath away. I was so excited to be experiencing this with her and to be the one to show it to her, that will be one special moment that stays with us for a long time to come.

Her eyes lit up, her face glowed and her smile went from ear to ear....all that waiting for that one little treasure box was oh so worth it! She placed her sack of jewels in the chest and together we counted how many sacks the treasure chest held in total.

We finished the story, she couldn't stop caressing her little treasure chest and asking me, "Did you get this just for me mum?", "What about B and C, is it just for me?" To have something like this that was purely hers...I wish I could have read her mind.

Then I told her she could decorate it in anyway she wanted. You might have noticed in the page from the book that the chest was described as 'sparkly and gold'. Here I was thinking that we would end up with a very brightly coloured chest, but no, she was adamant that it had to be gold.

I suggested that we remove the hinges to make painting easier, but I don't think she believed that I would be able to get them back on, so instead we placed some sticky tape over the top of them.

She spent quite some time painting and decided that glitter glue would make up the 'sparkly' component and set to it with her supply of glitter glue pens. I did lend a little hand with her diamonds as she was getting a little frustrated with them but otherwise the finished treasure chest is completely K's handiwork.

It's outside drying as I type.

Even though K has some understanding of Place Value and Numbers, we will spend some time enjoying getting to know the village and its' villagers (exploring place value and building numbers) before we move on to the next book in the series.

Disclosure: I was given a copy of Arithmetic Village for the purpose of reviewing. All opinions on this blog are my own and were not in anyway influenced by the product provided or by the company.