OneLuckeyWife

I recently found out about this program called Book It!  You  can be a teacher, parent or homeschooler to sign up. Just add your student and say how many book to read during each month. It can also go by minutes read or pages read. Once your child/student hits their goal for the month they get a free personal pan pizza from Pizza Hut. There is a paper version however you must order it before August 17 and it is only available for traditional school classrooms. Each child will only be allowed one certificate per month. If you print out the certificate then you will need to call or visit and let them know you have a Book It! coupon. If you have a digital coupon then there will be a link in the email sent to you. It will take you straight to the Pizza Hut website. Or you can go the website added a one topping personal pan pizza to your cart and add the coupon code at checkout. This program runs from October 1st to March 31st of each year. I am excited for this. One it will get ou...

For spelling we have gone with All About Spelling since All About Reading was so amazing. With this spelling curriculum you get a step-by-step teacher manual, a phonogram chart, a progress chart, tokens for the lessons and a variety of cards to use. The cards are phonogram, sound, key and word. What I did for organizing was the same as for our reading curriculum. I tore apart the cards which are already perforated and then laminated them. For the teacher manual I went to Office Depot and had them cut the binding then spiral bind it. It just makes it easier for when I flip through the book. I absolutely love that the manual is done in a step-by-step form so I know exactly what to do and when to do it. Each day All About Learning suggest that you do 20 minutes a day so you may not finish a lesson a day and that is completely fine. You go at your child's pace. Just like with All About Reading you will need the Letter Tiles but if you have them from the reading curriculum already the...

Looking for a fun matching game that is not just laying down a bunch of cards and playing memory? Look no further because Postman Observation Game  is the game for you. You will need a good amount of space to play this game since the jigsaw puzzle pieces are quite large. Because you get to place the pieces together however you want the board can always be different. This is such a unique aspect to this matching game. I have not come across a game that is set up this way so it is very cool to me. This game is also not set up in a win or lose style. Every player is on the same team as you try and deliver all the envelops. You will also get a deck of cards with Postman Observation Game and a baggie of letters. Each card in the deck show a different house on the board that you will need to find and place a letter on. As you go through the cards they progress in difficulty. If your child is older or has a good grasp on figuring out the clues given on the cards then I would suggest that ...

When I noticed that our history class did not have a lot for social studies I decided to look for something to add into our homeschool. I came across 180 Days of Social Studies  and decided to try it. So, we started with the kindergarten version and I thought it was quite well done so we have kept it for 1st grade as well. Just like with the kinder one the booklet is done in black and white and I wish it was done in color. It goes over so much but in an easy to understand way for the age group that would be using it. 180 Days goes over American things so if you are homeschooling in another country and not learning about American history then I would look for another curriculum to use. The 1st grade version goes over the systems of government, civics, economics, geography and history. The thing I like best about 180 Days is that you only do a page a day. If your school year is a 36 weeks then you are perfectly set up to do 1 page a day. Since we do a 47 week school year we only do a...

I got Language Smarts to see how it differs from All About Reading and Spelling . So here are my thoughts on Language Smarts and which LA (language arts) program I liked better. I will say that a big thing for me with Language Smarts is that I could not find a level A. I can only imagine that if there was one it would go over the letters and their sounds. Maybe even some spelling considering that level B has some word scrambles and if your child has not started spelling then this can be frustrating for them. This curriculum immediately starts off with short vowel sounds. A thing I really do not like is that when going over the short vowel the page has a bunch of words with Y in them but some of them have the long vowel for Y. Either you have to tell your child the words or try and get them to understand that the Y in sky says I and the Y in gym is like a short vowel of I. This concept can be very confusing especially when you are just learning to read. It then goes into the long vowe...

We got this super cute new poem book called Tiger, Tiger, Burning Bright! What is really cool about this book is that it is a poem a day book so you get to read one new poem a day for the whole year. The poem are by many different authors and each is about different animals. I did not think this book would be quite so big. We have a story a day book and it is significantly smaller in size than this book. It makes the illustrations easier to see but at the same time the book is really heavy as a result. The illustrations are by Britta Teckentrup and they remind me of the art style of Eric Carle. The poems themselves are not very long so it is a quick read. This is a great thing to add to your circle time or morning basket. Doing it in between classes would provide a quick break or be an excellent read during snack time. At the start of each month it list all the poems for the month.  Since the poems are so short I do read a few each day. It is not really important to me to read jus...

After trying out some other reading/LA (language arts) curriculums I have decided that what works best for us is All About Reading . So after completing Level 1 we have moved onto Level 2. I loved the way I organized the first time so I have kept that same system for Level 2. I start by taking the teacher manual to Office Depot, any office supply place with a print department can help, and I have the cut the binding off and then spiral bind the pages for me. It is just easier this way when I need to flip through the book. Then I tear out all the pages in the student booklet. They are perforated so it is easy to do so. I go through each page and see if anything needs to be cut out. I cut every piece out and I write on each one which All About Reading it goes with and what lesson. I then laminate all the pieces and recut them. It is important to cut them, laminate then cut again. The reason for this is that if you laminate them in a big chunk then cut them you will risk opening the lamin...

A great book for thinking skills class was What's New? What's Missing? What's Different?  This booklet has a bunch of different activities in it to help your child with the concepts of new, missing and different. At the time of making this review I do not have the book anymore since we have completed it nor do I have any pictures from it. How sad since I normally take pictures of everything I do but to be honest I thought I had already done this review. Sorry about that. Anyways, the colors and drawings in this book are nice and vibrant. Some pages will have your child fill in the missing aspects, find the differences or even draw something new. Other pages will have other things for them to complete all centered around new, missing and different. What I liked about this book is that there are so many things for your child to do in the book. The way the art style is done makes it very fun and engaging for the student. Anything that is educational and can keep the child'...

Previously, we checked out Science Lessons and Investigations - Grade 1 . We also got Grade 2  at the same time. This curriculum is by Evan-Moor and just like with grade 1 I would not consider this a complete curriculum. It can supplement what you are doing or be a fun way to get experiments in but definitely not to use as your sole science curriculum. This booklet goes over plants, animals, earth science and physical science. What I do like about this book is that there is a materials needed page that you can copy and give out for your students to take home. So, if you teach a co-op or at a public school your students will know what to bring for each experiments. There is also a journal page so your students can write their thoughts about the experiments they are doing. Each lesson has a teacher overview, vocabulary page, reading and work over the reading. Some lessons will have a page to answer wonder why questions, others have experiment/investigation pages. The end of every les...

An important thing whenever helping your child learning, wither it be with homeschool or public education, is knowing how your child learns best. There are 4 main types of learning which are kinesthetic, visual, auditory and read/write. Each one of these learning styles is perfectly normal since everyone if different. It is also possible for someone to learn best with a verity of these styles. Kinesthetic learners are going to learn best by doing. By using all there senses, using tools, building, anything that gets them hands-on with an assignment will help them retain the knowledge. A lot of children start off with this style. Next, is the visual learners. They will learn better if you can provide some way to visually show them the work. If they have notes then use different color highlighters to help emphasis the main point. Have posters so they can see things often. Show them examples of what they will be doing before giving them the work to do. Auditory learners will prefer to list...