Homeschool Crew Review: CTCMath

CTCMath is an online math curriculum that starts with kindergarten and goes all the way through the upper levels of high school math.  They offer a Single Membership or a Family Membership.  Over the last few weeks we have had an opportunity to use and review the Family Membership from CTCMath.  They offer a free trial and homeschoolers can get 60% off plus a bonus 6 months.

CTCMath is a complete curriculum for grades K-8.  Starting at grade 9 it is recommended to be used as a supplement.  A subscription to CTCMath gives you access to all of the grades and you can move between grades as you need to. You also have the ability to move through the program in the recommended order or pick and choose which topics to study.  You can use this program on a computer but it works on tablets as well.  CTCMath has over 1400 different math lessons and over 57000 interactive questions.

Each lesson starts with a video lesson taught by Australian teacher Pat Murray.  The length of the video varies but all of the elementary lessons we have viewed have been under 5 minutes long.  The video gives a couple of problems and shows them being worked out. At the end of the video students are wished good luck with their questions.

Then they move on to answering the questions based on the lesson.

Students are given immediate feedback after attempting the questions.  A green check mark shows up if it is correct or a red X if the answer is incorrect.  The correct answer is also shown.

After finishing all of the questions, they are shown all of the questions with the correct answers and their percentage.

A bar graph shows the percentages for each lesson completed.  Students earn Platinum, Silver, and Bronze awards as they complete lessons.

Parents have a separate log in that allows them to see exactly what their child has worked on.  They can even see how long it took them to complete the lesson.  Weekly reports are also emailed to the parent.

I have been using the Family Membership over the last several weeks.  Emmie is in first grade and has been using CTCMath as her main math curriculum.  I have also been using it as a supplement for my 10 and 12 year olds, choosing topics that they struggle in and having them work on those 1-2 days per week.

One of the things I like about CTCMath is that you are given access to all grades rather then being  locked into a specific grade level.  So if you start your child in a particular grade level and they start off doing well but find it becomes too difficult you can switch them to a lower grade, or if it becomes too easy you can move to a higher grade.  I really like that you can move through the program how you choose.  For Emmie we are following along with the recommended order, but for Anthony and Christian we skipped forward to the multiplication lessons because that is where they have the most math difficulty.

The lessons are short and to the point.  The voice on the lessons is easy to listen to and understand.  I love the visual aspect of the lessons.  In the multiplication lessons I thought it was a great idea that they covered up the number not being used and wondered why  had never thought of that.  The immediate feedback is great for children so they know right away if they have the answer correct or not. I also like how easy it is for them to see their progress and also for parents to see exactly how the child is doing.  I sit with Emmie every day when she completes her lessons so I know exactly how she is doing, but with older children they can log in themselves and do the work on their own so it is so helpful to be able to easily access the reports.

To see what my Crew Mates had to say, stop by the Crew Blog!

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Homeschool Wrap Up Week 7

Monday morning I woke up grumpy.  I was tired.  I didn't get enough sleep.  I didn't get as much accomplished over the weekend as I wanted to and here it was another Monday morning.  I had to roll out of bed early, get all of the children dressed and out the door by 7:25.  Instead of being able to get all of the things done I needed to do I had to stay in town as has been our routine since Nick started taking Robotics at the high school this year.  I was just feeling kind of fed up with everything.  And then as I was walking in the park I started thinking.  It was a beautiful morning.  the sun was shining and the temperatures were beautiful.  We have a beautiful park in our town that is kept up nicely.  There are many things to do there.  We live in a safe place that you don't have to worry about walking in the park . I could think of a whole lot worse ways to spend a Monday morning then with my children at the park.  I decided I would choose to enjoy it rather then being grumpy about it.  What a difference in attitude you can have when you choose to count your blessings rather then look at the negative in everything ( I need to remind myself of this often!)

The kitten that we found in the shop last week is still hanging around.  It is not our neighbors cat so I assume it was dumped somewhere close by.  We have a house cat named Sally who is around 5 years old.  She is not allowed outside, although she tries to get out from time to time.  She is fat and lazy and well loved when she chooses to let others love on her.   We have two outside cats, Lucky and Jack.  They are brothers.  We got them when I was looking for a cat to rid the shop of mice (when you have animal feed you have mice!) I detest mice.  We ended up with both of them because the owner didn't want to separate them (they are very attached to each other), and they had had their shots and were fixed, so we brought them home.  They have done a great job with the mice and are friendly and sweet to the children.  Now this new cat we have named Marshmallow.  She is very sweet and playful.  The children have spent a lot of time playing with her. They are trying to get me to bring her in the house but I am not sure we need another creature inside to upset the natural order of things.....

Our Activities this Week:

Monday Lily and Alex had music lessons in the afternoon.  Lily is really enjoying hers, I think Alex is but 13 is a HARD age and it's not easy to tell. 

The boys had soccer practice that evening.

Tuesday was a soccer game.  Christian did not play because he had a stomach ache.  He stayed in the van and watched Netflix on my phone (which is why I didn't get any pictures.)  He was feeling just fine the next day.

Nick had youth.

Wednesday was Kid's Club. 

Thursday Nick and Alex had a teen leader meeting.

Friday we had our usual errands and grocery shopping.

Week 7 in our Homeschool:

Bible:  We started using a Bible study this week from Kid Niche Christian books called Weave Your Word in Me.  We also continued reading through the book of Luke and read from Luke chapters 10 and 11.

P.E.: Walking at the park.

Poetry: We started memorizing God and the Soldier.

Geography: This week we studied Greenland

History: We completed lesson 7 in America's Story on Life in the Colonies.  We colored a map of the 13 colonies, designed a floor plan of a house, and read the lesson.  I have ordered Drive Thru History's American History DVDs to add a bit more to our lessons and can't wait until they get here.

Science:  We started a new course called Think Like an Engineer from Innovator's Tribe (upcoming review.) We watched the first two lessons.  We also read lesson 6 in Science in the Age of Reason about when the correct shape of the earth was discovered. 

Math:  Emmie completed two lessons in CTC Math.  I continue to work on multiplication flashcards with Anthony and Christian.  They all completed 4 lessons in MLFLE.

Reading/Spelling:  Emmie started Reading Eggs last week and LOVES it!  She also worked on Phonics Museum.  Her working on these two things was good for me this week when unexpected things happened and I did not get back to AAR with her.  We will pick back up with that next week.  Lily completed lessons 45 and 46 in AAR Level 3.  Anthony and Christian completed step 16 in AAS Level 4.

Language Arts:  Christian and Anthony are still working on the On Your Own Historical Fiction section in Readers in Residence.  They are enjoying Johnny Tremain, especially when they read about characters that we have learned about in history and other books we have read. 

Alex 8th Grade:  Alex's science lessons this week were on charts and graphs.  His language arts assignments included a quiz and lessons on listening with a purpose.  Math lessons were on multiplying, adding, and subtracting integers.  History lessons were on colonial lifestyles, life in a Puritan colony, Mid-Atlantic lifestyles, and the middle bread colonies.

Nick 10th Grade:  Nick completed lesson 7 in MUS Algebra II.  In history he completed lessons 17 and 18.  In Marine Biology he started module 3 and read chapter 7 in health.

We are a little over a week from the state fair.  We have never been there before and this year will be showing our goats. In preparation for the fair the goats needed their hair cut, and hooves trimmed.  There was a miscommunication about trimming horns.  The boys thought they needed to be cut again . Unfortunately it was cut it too deep and cut a blood vessel.  Thankfully we were able to stop the bleeding and the goat is ok.  Then Jessie got a hair cut but the trimmers are not working properly (trimmers I just bought a few months ago and have only been used a few times!) and her haircut looks rough.  We were not able to cut Bessie's hair at all.  Tomorrow I need to see if I can get another pair so we can cut her hair and trim her other horn to look more like the short one without cutting too far.

I hope you had a great week!

Happy Homeschooling!

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Homeschool Crew Review: Channie's Visual Handwriting & Math Workbooks

Channie's Visual Handwriting & Math Workbooks were developed when a mom saw how much her son struggled with handwriting issues and she wanted a way to help him.  She created some worksheets that had visual guides to help children see and practice exactly how they needed to make the letters. Channie's grew from there and now they offer a variety of math and handwriting workbooks for ages 3-10.  The workbooks can be used by beginning writers, struggling writers, special needs students, homeschooler, or students that just need practice. Over the last several weeks, we have had the opportunity to use and review Easy Peasy Alphabet. 

Easy Peasy Alphabet is a consumable workbook for children in grades Pre-K-1st grade.  The workbook teaches all uppercase and lowercase letters from A-Z.  Each letter has two pages for children to trace the letters and a page for them to write them on their own.  Each letter is in a block that is colored coded to help children write the letters the correct size, guide with writing straight lines and learn to leave a space in between.  You can purchase Easy Peasy Alphabet for $12.95 

When I ordered my homeschool curriculum for this year, I completely forgot to order a handwriting book for Emmie who is 6.  I did not realize I forgot until the 1st day of school when the other children were doing their handwriting lesson.  Shortly after that I had an opportunity to review the Easy Peasy Alphabet book, and I was very thankful!

Emmie likes to draw and write, but she still has trouble with writing some of her letters, especially capital letters, and definitely needs to work on neatness.  I really liked the entire concept of these handwriting books.  I think it is very helpful to have plenty of tracing practice before writing the letters on their own.  I really like the colored blocks.  It does help children with knowing how big or small to make their letter and writing the letters in the blocks helps them to keep them neat.  I'm glad that the workbook works on both upper and lowercase letters.  I wish it also included numbers.

There are a lot of boxes to fill on each page.  Some children that age might find it frustrating to complete an entire page in one sitting.  I had Emmie just complete one row of the capital and lowercase in one sitting.  She loves working in her handwriting book.

Members of The Crew reviewed a variety of products including:

Quick & Neat Alphabet Pad

My First Letters

Easy Peasy Alphabet

Easy Peasy Cursive

One Page a Day: Double Digit Math Problem Workbook

To see what my Crew Mates had to say, stop by the Crew Blog!

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Homeschool Crew Review: Super Teacher Worksheets

Over the last several weeks I have had an opportunity to see all of the wonderful worksheets that are available with an Individual Membership to Super Teacher Worksheets.

Worksheets can come in very handy in a homeschool.  There are lots of times that I have a child that may need some extra reinforcement on a math or language arts topic.  Time is precious and I don't want to spend a lot of it searching the internet for what I need, or having to buy an entire workbook for one topic.  I also have a child that just loves to do worksheets.  With such a wide range of ages in my homeschool, there are times I need to give my children something to do while working with another child.  Worksheets can be perfect during that time.  When there are holidays, or special days in history, we like to use worksheets to learn about those topics.

Super Teacher Worksheets has a HUGE variety of worksheets on their site including:

• Math
• Handwriting
• Spelling
• Reading
• Science
• Social Studies
• Grammar
• Phonics
• Holidays
• Puzzles and Brain Teasers
• and more!

They also have teacher helps such as awards and certificates, and a worksheet generator.  With the worksheet generator if you can't find exactly what you need, you can make it!  The cost of an Individual Membership is $19.95 per year.

The majority of worksheets on the site are for elementary ages, but there are also Pre-k worksheets and some things such as math that can be used for older students.

How have we been using Super Teacher Worksheets?

The very first thing I did was find some multiplication flashcards.  My boys are still working on their multiplication facts and I wanted something I could work on them with.  We have been using those 3-4 days a week.  They also have been struggling with the proper usage of some homophones, so I printed out some worksheets for them to complete to help them remember the difference. We also printed a map of the thirteen colonies to go along with our history lessons.

I have not been using a grammar curriculum with my 8 year old yet this year so I decided to check out the grammar worksheets.  We started out with nouns and have done some worksheets on cutting and glue nouns in proper categories, the difference between a common and proper noun, capitalizing nouns, and making nouns plural.  She also has loved the reading comprehension worksheets where you read the story and answer the questions about the story.  She enjoys the math worksheets, especially ones where you add and color. 

For my 5 year old I had her complete some of the phonics and early literacy worksheets.  She also colored a scarecrow.

I have been very impressed with how easy it has been to use Super Teacher Worksheets and the variety of available worksheets.  I am planning on continuing to use the grammar, math, maps, and reading comprehension sheets.  I will also be using some science worksheets in the future and I am going to try out the worksheet generator. Members of The Crew used Super Teacher Worksheets in a variety of ways. To see what my Crew Mates had to say, stop by the Crew Blog!

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Homeschool Wrap Up Week 6

The week started out hot but then cooled off to more fall like temperatures.  It has been very pretty in the mornings when we have been at the park and no rain in several weeks.  The children swam a few days this week trying to finish soaking up the rest of summer. 

Week 6 in our Homeschool

Bible: We read from Luke 8:25-Luke 10.

P.E.:  We walked in the park 3 days this week.  My children are fascinated with this tree. 

Poetry:  We continued working on The Duke of Plaza Toro this week.  We will be moving on next week.

Geography: In Let's Go Geography we studied Belize.  I really like this geography curriculum.  We only use it one day a week.  There are mapping activities, crafts (if you choose to do them), information on the country, photos, and links to youtube videos that you can watch about the country.

History:  This week we completed lesson 6 in America's Story on Squanto and the first Thanksgiving.

Science:  We completed lesson 5 in Science in the Age of Reason which taught about Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and the first smallpox inoculations.  We did an experiment called protection from cabbage.  The same day we did this, we were reading in Rush Revere and the American Revolution and strangely enough there was a section in that book that discussed smallpox when the time traveling bunch time jumps to see Dr. Warren and he wants to inoculate Cam for smallpox.

Math: Emmie completed 4 lessons in CTC Math.  Christian, Lily, and Anthony completed 4 lessons in MLFLE.

Spelling/Reading: Anthony and Christian completed step 15 in AAS Level 4.  Lily completed lessons 43 and 44 in AAR Level 3 and Emmie completed lessons 17 and 18 in AAR Level 1.  Emmie also started on Reading Eggs on Thursday and I had Anthony start on Reading Eggspress (upcoming review.)

Language Arts:  In Readers in Residence the boys continued reading Johnny Tremain.  They are working on comparing their characters in this book to Sarah Plain, and Tall and documenting how they know that the book they are reading is classified as a historical fiction.  Lily did a worksheet on nouns and completed a reading comprehension worksheet.

Alex 8th Grade: Alex's language arts lessons were on speaking expressively.  His history lessons were on the British colonies, New England Colonies, Middle and Southern Colonies, and Colonial Government.  Science lessons were on mass, density, measurement and graphs.  Math lessons were on functions and analyzing graphs.

Nick 10th Grade: When you have older children, homeschool lessons change, at least in my house.  After choosing the curriculum and a start date, you become more of a support system then a teacher.  I am here for help if he needs it, but mostly he is responsible for his work.  I reminded him the other day that I don't control what he completes week to week.  If we choose not to complete as much as we should then it will take longer to complete his school year or he will end up working on the week-ends to catch up.  I will say that Nick is pretty good about doing his work regularly and at a good pace.  I do go back and look at what he has completed once a week just to see where he is at and if he is struggling with anything in particular.  This week he completed lesson 6 in MUS Algebra II, chapter 6 in Total Health, lessons 14, 15, and 16 in history, and completed Module 2 in Marine Biology.

Other Activities:

Monday our music lessons were postponed until Thursday.  Christian and Alex had soccer practice.

Tuesday was gymnastics and senior high youth.

Wednesday was Kid's Club. 

Thursday we had music lessons, followed by a 4 H meeting, followed by a soccer game.

Friday Art took a vacation day to do some maintenance on the van.  I sold 12 chickens.  Yay!  I made Lily sad because I apparently sold her favorite chicken by mistake.... Nick and Alex went to the football game Friday night.

Saturday morning I found this in our shop.  We fed her and she seems happy to hang around.

I hope you had a great week!

Happy Homeschooling!

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September Nature Seekers 4 H Meeting

For our September meeting, we kept it simple.  The weather has been beautiful so I decided to have the meeting at the park.  We painted rocks.  When the painted rocks first started appearing, we were finding them all of the time.  I don't know if it is dying down or others are finding them before we do, but we haven't been seeing as many lately.  We added quite a few painted rocks to our city park.

The children and I found a bunch of rocks on one of our morning rocks so there was plenty to choose from.  I had some paints leftover from our July meeting and was able to use some others from the 4 H office so there was no cost to the meeting.

Each child painted three rocks.  We had 11 present at the meeting.  Nick did not paint rocks.  He had already done some at the Teen Leaders meeting over the summer and was not interested in painting any more.

As we were leaving there were some families that arrived to walk the trails and found some of the rocks we painted.

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