Memes are fun, and I think we all can agree that they make social media bearable during election seasons. I've always wondered where the name "meme" came from though? So, I asked and google answered: The word “meme” is derived from the Greek word mimēma, meaning that which was imitated. Makes sense, right? We're imitating silly movies with our own interpretations. So, without further ado, let’s meme away with some homeschool humor for your midweek boost! A special thanks to How Do I Homeschool, Intentional Homeschooling, and Homeschool in Memphis for sharing some great ones! What is your favorite one? Did I miss any good ones? Leave them in the comments for next month!
...and keep smiling, mama!
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The homeschooling world is filled with methods, curricula, online programs, and every imaginable learning tool in between. In my own experiences, I recall feeling so overwhelmed by trying to find the right program that compliments my child’s learning style, especially when it came time to teach them to read. With another emerging reader in our home and so much on the market, I was so relieved to find Memoria Press through the Homeschool Review Crew.
Memoria Press offers curricula that accompanies the tried and true classical learning style and makes products that are high quality, simple and accessible for all. The last few months, we have been trying out Classical Phonics with the First Start Reading Program, and I have fallen in love with the ease, beauty, and simplicity that this program offers. We received student workbooks A-E, a copy of Classical Phonics, the Teacher’s Guide, and a separate Teacher’s Guide for workbook E. The student workbooks are intended to be used by one student, and of course the guides can be used over and over again. Classical Phonics, is a simple book that consists of letters and word families to help young learners practice the phonics skills and is a great confidence-builder after their lessons!
*Fruit not included
When I first pulled the Teachers Guide out of the box, I was a bit intimidated. It was a big book, and I’m a mama with very little time. Once I cracked open the book, I realized my fears were widely misplaced because the Teachers Guide makes the instructors job so clear cut, easy, and fun. It also accompanies books A, B, C, and D so it covers a tremendous amount of content. First Start Reading Program covers consonants, short and long vowels, 45 common words, hand writing practice, and space to color and draw. As the lessons advance, students begin to work on their listening skills through comprehension activities and dictation assignments. We started with book A, which was perfect for my 4 ½ year old beginning reader. Lesson one covered the letter “M,” in two we learned “A” and by lesson three we were blending the sounds together and forming the start of a sentence, “I am…” My daughter especially loved the drawing activities that accompany the lessons, below is her self-portrait for lesson three:
Books A-D provide a tremendous first start for kindergarten-aged children while Book E and the separate Teacher's Guide provide more advanced materiel suitable for 1st grade. It features 8 different lessons and a variety of activities varying from copy work, vowel teams like “ai” and “ie”, dictation assignments, and reading comprehension activities.
One thing I feel that this program does incredibly well is placing commonly confused phonetic sounds right next to each other so that students can learn the differences early on and avoid the pitfall of simply guessing the words. My older student needs to work on that, so we plan to use Book E with him to make sure he has a firm grasp on the different sounds vowel pair make. I have loved our journey through Classical Phonics with the First Start Reading Program. I wish that we started with this program from day one with my oldest child. It's simple lessons build upon each other to create a firm reading foundation that children will benefit from for the rest of their lives. I've also fallen in love with Memoria Press and can't wait to see what else they have to offer as we continue homeschooling. The Homeschool Review Crew checked out many more programs with Memoria Press - be sure to check out what they reviewed and thought below!
A lifetime ago, I studied Biblical and Theological studies at Regent University. I love all things Koine Greek and have way more commentaries and lexicons than current bookshelves. When I first heard about Drive Thru History® two years ago, I really wanted to check it out with my kids… except they were all under 5. As amazing and intelligent as I think they are, I knew the material would be over their heads. But this year, with the launch of Drive Thru History® "Acts to Revelation", I felt like we were ready to dive in (or should I say drive in) and learn!
Drive Thru History® "Acts to Revelation" is an 18 part series that covers what occurred from the book of Acts to Revelation. We watched this as a family with my 7, 4, 2-year-old and of course baby. Given my kid's ages, we began by watching the series in 15-minute intervals and then used the study guide questions to talk about what we learned. The study guide provides a summary of each episode along with discussion questions. We found it better to share the questions with our kids before the episode and let it be like a discovery hunt as they watched and listened for the answers.
The videos are visually stunning and filmed on the actual location of Biblical events. The creators incorporate historical paintings to further illustrate the scenes and paired them with Scripture and incredibly upbeat narration from Dave Stotts, who clearly has the best job on the planet. The enthusiasm is contagious, cinematography amazing, and the content is powerful. Episode 4 was particularly moving to me as the host walks viewers through the Road to Damascus to learn about Paul’s conversion. The actual segment of the road where Paul encountered Jesus lies in Syria and Stotts explained that he wasn’t able to enter into the country and shared that over 900,000 Christians have been martyred in the last ten years in the Middle East. Though this is never an easy topic to address with children, it’s so important that they have an understanding and thankfulness for our own freedom and know the need to pray for our persecuted brother and sisters. Each episode is incredibly rich in content. It truly had me thinking I must have dozed off in a few classes or am just getting old, but I prefer the former. I loved being able to see the places where the Biblical events occurred. In episode 6, Stotts shows viewers around the remnants of Lystra where Paul was nearly stoned to death. After a brutal beating, Paul and Barnabas fled an incredible 60 miles to Derbe to escape. Reading the Biblical account is inspiring, but seeing the places and realizing just how far that journey was added an entirely new dimension to learning. The program would make an amazing family Bible study (as we used it) or a stand-alone history class. I can’t wait to get to the final episode on Revelation. My husband wanted to watch out of order and the collegiate systematic theologian inside of me just couldn’t go out of order! Be sure to check out what the rest of the Homeschool Review Crew thought!
Does anyone else homeschool with the foreboding sense that they might be forgetting something which may or may not be pertinent to their child's future? That pretty much sums up my homeschooling style...
When my first child started kindergarten, we pieced together simple and free material and maintained a relaxed approach, but by the second year I realized there were some learning gaps. With my next child starting her homeschool journey, and my brain stretched many directions, I wanted to use a complete curriculum that would make my life simpler and keep us on task. We found Homeschool Complete through the Homeschool Review Crew and started my daughter’s schooling journey with Kindergarten Complete Semester One . We received the first semester of Kindergarten Complete as a download, along with the downloadable student worksheet. The teacher’s manual alone is 490 pages, so if you plan to print it and assemble it in a binder, you might save yourself a bit of time by purchasing the pre-assembled bundles!
Kindergarten Complete Semester One teaches essential skills through thematic units. The units include my family, fall, farm animals, zoo animals, shapes and patterns, fire safety, bears, colors, health and nutrition, thanksgiving, behavior, Christmas, transportation, winter, Martin Luther King Jr., and sea life.
Based on the seasonal activities, it’s best to start this program in the late summer/ fall when kids traditionally begin school, or simply plan accordingly! It’s structured based on 180 day school year, working 4 days per week on the curriculum and one day for unstructured activities. I found that this was more than manageable, and my little ones asked to “do school work” even on the weekends! One thing that I really enjoyed about this program is that it starts by establishing a daily routine. My kids have LOVED starting off our day with the recitations and songs. The daily routine includes reciting pledges, calendar work, days of the week/ months of the year songs to sing, a review of material previously covered, as well as the option to include daily Bible verses and story books. Of course, families can customize and tailor this to their specific needs and children. We decided to add in some declarations from Bethel Church, which I’ll include in downloadable form at the bottom of the page.
This curriculum is truly a "complete" program. It incorporates all of the core subjects, and even includes gym, music, and art activities. Each unit has recommended story books, some might be sitting on your book shelf while others are certainly at the library- and many are on Youtube in case you forget like me ;)
I intended to use this solely with my four year old, but my six and two year old wanted to join in the fun! The downloadable student’s workbook made it easy to simply print out the pages we needed per child, per day, and then my kids assembled their work in binders. The amount of daily work was very age appropriate, and the activities really focused on making learning fun!
One of our favorite class activities has been practicing ball rolling for "indoor gym class." Kindergarten Complete provides so many cute rhymes to repeat as the students roll the ball so kids can get their wiggles out, and learn colors at the same time! This program has really added more fun and structure into our homeschool routine, and I'd highly recommend it!
Homeschool Complete has really thought of everything so you don't have to! You can check out more reviews from the crew below!
Numbers are a great joy in my house. I’m not exactly sure how it happened, but my kids love math! About a year ago, my son picked up a calculator and it became his favorite toy. He’d sit for hours typing in numbers and yelling from his room, “Mom, guess what 100 + 77 is??” As his love for numbers grew, we even had to implement a rule in our house, “no math before bed” because he’d get SO excited that he couldn’t fall asleep! I’ve heard wonderful things about Singapore Math Inc. over the last few years, and was so excited to try it out for myself with the Homeschool Review Crew! We chose to check out level 2B of Dimensions Math PK-5 and have thoroughly enjoyed exploring this curriculum.
Math 2B consists of 8 chapters and covers mental calculations, multiplication and division of 3 and 4, money, fractions, time, capacity, graphs and shapes.
The first chapter on mental calculations caught me off guard. This wasn’t a method of problem solving that we had previously used; but the Teachers Handbook provided a review of what had been addressed in the previous curriculum. Mental math is a cornerstone of the Singapore Math Inc. method which teaches strategies to help students develop a flexibility in thinking about numbers (read more about that here). As we worked through the chapter, I really appreciated that they presented different ways to perform mental math instead of a right and wrong way to come up with the correct answer. The following chapter on multiplication and division of 3 and 4 seemed to pick up seamlessly from where my son had previously studied, and he enjoyed the workbook pages (especially the challenge questions).
“Through the CPA approach (Concrete, Pictorial, Abstract), students first interact with objects they can relate to that model problem. In the pictorial phase, they make a mental connection between the objects they just handled and visual representations of those objects. For example, real oranges (or counters standing in for oranges) are now represented as drawings of oranges. In the abstract phase, students use symbolic modeling of problems using numbers and math symbols (+, -, x, ÷).”
In our time using it, my numbers-whiz-kid has deepened his understanding of numbers and equations and has gained the ability to mathematically think outside the box. I found the Dimensions Math Teachers Guide is immensely helpful along our journey. Each lesson has fun activities and games, which required very little prep-work [that’s a huge plus for this tired mama!]. One of our favorite games used a bag of random coins. Each player would reach in and pull out a handful of change, calculate how much they grabbed, and the winner was the player who received the highest sum. In addition to the Teachers Guide, Singapore Math Inc. offers worksheets online through Blackline Masters programs and they even have cute videos for the smallest learners who are just starting their math journey! I'm looking forward to continuing with this program, and am especially excited to learn about geometry the Singapore way! Be sure to check out other Crew members reviews to hear their thoughts and learn about other levels of Dimensions Math PK-5! |
Alexandrais a writer & tired homeschooling mom of five. Categories
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