Home School Navigator {Review}

Language Arts is an important part of our homeschool.   There is nothing more important than being able to use language to take in information about the world around us and then communicate our own ideas to others effectively. Although I wasn't actively looking for a new language arts program to use I am always interested in learning about new programs and resources to see if they might help in our school.  The Home School Review Crew offered us an opportunity to try Home School Navigator for the purpose of a review so Rachel and I have been working through it together.  She received a one year subscription to Home School Navigator Reading and Language Arts curriculum which includes access to their Interactive Notebooks.

Home School Navigator is a online comprehensive language arts program for building strong readers and writers.  It is written for homeschool families and it can be used with multiple students.  There are 6 levels named for different colors.  Each level consists of 36 weeks of material to cover one year of instruction. At first I wasn't sure which level to choose for Rachel.  She is finishing third grade and she is a good reader.  I looked over the Home School Navigator Scope and Sequence for the various levels and decided that Level Blue would be a good fit for her.  However, the subscription provides access for her to use the entire 6 years of coursework so it would be no problem if we started using the Blue level and then decided that it wasn't the best fit for her.  Since we have access to the entire program, we could just move her up a level or down a level to best fit her needs.
Home School Navigator curriculum teaches Literature/Comprehension, Reading Skills Strategy, Writing Skills, Grammar, Phonics, Poetry, and Vocabulary.  The first thing I fell in love with in this program is the organization.  Every day is planned out for you.  Your child may not cover each subject every day but if you follow the lesson plans then all of the subjects will be covered over the week.  

I like to print out the lesson plans.  I just have to have printed versions so I can make notes and make check marks when a lesson is complete.  However, the online version presents the same lesson plans for each day and at the end of the week you just click the box to mark it complete.  This way it will keep track of your progress online.

The curriculum is very rich and covers a lot of material.  However, you can choose which subjects and/or activities you want your child to complete.  It is completely flexible and I love that because you can really customize it to meet your particular child's needs.

There are a lot of books to read throughout the program.  To save money, you might be able to find a lot of them at your local library but the creators of Home School Navigator have also made video read alouds so your child can just listen and watch as the story is being read to them.  We already had the book Rapunzel so Rachel wanted to read along with the video.

The weekly vocabulary lists are short so it doesn't get overwhelming.  There are games to make learning fun.  On this week, Rachel learned words with the prefix "pre" and then had to sort and match the definitions with the vocabulary words.

Rachel's favorite part of the program is the literature that she is reading. Her current Independent Reading selection is "The Invention of Hugo Cabret". 

I just love this book and it was fun watching Rachel discover how fun it is to read a story that is mostly just pictures.

The Interactive Notebooks that are included with the curriculum make for a fun way to review what has been read, study the traits of the characters, analyze the story, look up vocabulary words, and more.  It is recommended that you get a binder or even a composition notebook for your child to use for this notebook.  We already had several blank composition notebooks on hand so Rachel chose one of those.  Then she wanted to make a nice cover for it so this is what hers looks like.

The Interactive Notebook pages are printable pages that correspond with chapters in the assigned reading.  There are little flaps to be cut out and glued into the pages of the notebook.

Some are vocabulary words where Rachel had to look up the definition in the dictionary then write it on the booklet.

Somehow just adding flaps and little booklets makes the work more fun.  She never would have enjoyed this so much if I just handed her a regular worksheet to complete.

The Home School Navigator Reading and Language Arts Curriculum is available as an annual online subscription for just $97/year.  If you aren't ready to dive into the full program yet, you might want to start with just trying a few of the interactive notebooks which can be purchased separately for $8.00 each.  

If you would like to see what some other homeschool families had to say about Home School Navigator, just click on the banner below.

Printables for Your Homeschool - Super Teacher Worksheets Review

As a homeschool mom, I have found that it helps to add a variety of learning tools to our school day.  Our regular curriculum is wonderful but the kids love it when I change things up a bit and add something new and different.  Rachel especially likes hands-on activities and worksheets.  

As a member of the Home School Review Crew, we were given a one year individual membership to their online subscription to review Super Teacher Worksheets in our homeschool.  The printable worksheets cover a wide variety of subjects including math, reading, writing, phonics, literature, handwriting, grammar, spelling, science, history, geography and MORE!  They also have many worksheets available in Spanish.

Rachel is working on the Insect badge for her American Heritage Girls troop.  For the requirements, she needed to learn details about one particular insect.  She chose to learn about the monarch butterfly.  I was excited to see that Super Teacher Worksheets had several nature science items to help her out.  In their science section, I found an article that was all about monarch butterflies and it had some wonderful colored pictures as well. 

Rachel read aloud the article to me and then completed the corresponding worksheets.  Just having the article to print out for her to read was great because I didn't have to go searching all over the internet or make a trip to the library.  The worksheets helped to get her thinking about what she had read and served as a good review for her.

I also printed off the Butterfly Life Cycle booklet.  Rachel loved this!  She colored the pictures, cut out the pages, and stapled the booklet together.  She wanted me to make a video of her reading aloud her booklet so here she is...


As you can see, Super Teacher Worksheets is more than just fill in the blank kind of worksheets.  They have several cute booklets that kids can make.  They also have worksheets that have pieces that the child can cut out and use in matching games.  We also found this really fun QR code reader worksheet.  Rachel had never seen QR codes before so I explained that she would use the QR code reader on my ipad to scan the code on the worksheet.

The QR code took her to a specific list of three words to choose from to answer the problem on the worksheet.  In this case, the worksheet asked her to write the word that is a synonym for the word "fast".  When she scanned the QR code, the following list popped up.

Rachel absolutely loved this.  She now loves QR codes and she wants all of her work to use them in some way!

Over the summer, we studied US states and capitals.  There are a lot of games and printables on Super Teacher Worksheets that I used as a review for her.  Her favorite one was the "Cootie Catcher".  Do you remember playing with these as a child?

She would pick a color then move the paper puzzle back and forth for the number of letters in the name of the color.  When she stopped, she could pick a state and she had to name the capital.  She picked Idaho and then opened up the pocket to see "Boise".  How fun is that for reviewing states and capitals!

We will be going to see the play Mr. Popper's Penguins next week so we are reading the book now.  I just realized that the Chapter Book section of Super Teacher Worksheets has lots of great printables for this book.  They include bookmarks, vocabulary words, word search, and more all related specifically to Mr. Popper's Penguins.  Resources like this make my job as teacher so much easier!

Finally, there are also some fun things to find at Super Teacher Worksheets.  We played this Halloween Bingo game over and over the other day.  I think the addition of candy for game pieces may have made it even more fun.

I have really enjoyed having Super Teacher Worksheets to turn to for supplements in our school day.  An individual membership costs only $19.95 for a full year.  This gives you complete access to all of their great printables.

If you would like to read other Super Teacher Worksheets reviews from other Home School Review Crew members, please just click on the banner below:

Grade 8 Lightning Lit Set by Hewitt Homeschooling {Review}

My children and I love to read great books that delight and engage us.  And though we do a lot of reading in our homeschool, composition is not as easy to get through.  Nicholas will be starting 8th grade in the fall so regardless of whether he wants to or not, we have to find a way to get more thoughtful writing done.  The Homeschool Review Crew offered me an opportunity to try out Grade 8 Lightning Lit & Comp: Preparing for High School Composition Skills by Responding to Great Literature and we jumped right in.

Hewitt Homeshooling produces the Lightning Lit & Comp sets for grades 1 through 8.  The sets include a Student Guide, Workbook and a Teacher's Guide.  With each year's set, there are designated books that will be read and you can buy those from Hewitt Homeschooling or purchase them elsewhere.  The Grade 8 Lightning Lit Set that we reviewed includes the Student Guide, Workbook, Teacher's Guide and 7 literary works: Treasure Island, A Day of Pleasure, A Christmas Carol, The Hobbit, My Family and Other Animals, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Stories and Poems for Extremely Intelligent Children of All Ages.

Nicholas has been working on Lightning Lit about 3 times a week. So far he has gone through "A Crazy Tale" by G.K. Chesterton from Stories and Poems for Extremely Intelligent Children of All Ages and Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson.  He has enjoyed the readings and the Lightning Lit guides have helped to add enrichment to his comprehension and helped me to sneak in literary lessons into our book discussions.

The Grade 8 Student Guide is broken up into chapters based on each assigned book or reading.  Each chapter in the Student Guide begins with a background of the author and notes about what to look for during reading.  There is a list of vocabulary words from the reading that the student might not be familiar with.  Nicholas always read over this list before doing his reading assignment.  Next there are comprehension questions.  These can be used in different ways but we used these as discussion starting points during our review at the end of each week.  The Student Guide then presents a great Literary Lesson that pertains to the book and these include topics like setting, vivid imagery in poetry, character development, conflict, symbolism, and more.  Then there are Mini-Lessons which may or may not be related to the assigned readings.  Some Mini-Lesson topics include Taking Notes, Citing Sources in a Paper, Sentence Structure, Writing a Conclusion, and more.  Finally, the Student Guide chapters each end in Writing Exercises for the student.  These are intended to be completed after the reading assignment and after completing the Workbook exercises.  Nicholas completed 1-2 writing exercises for each assigned reading.

The Grade 8 Workbook is consumable so your student will be writing in this.  It contains a group of exercises for each assigned book or reading that corresponds with the Literary Lessons in the Student Guide.  For example, for Treasure Island, the Literary Lesson was on Setting.  The Workbook exercises are mostly geared towards analyzing setting.  There are even some fun activities to practice describing setting as the student uses all five senses to describe the setting in different rooms of their own house.  The Workbook also includes some fun activities based on the assigned reading like crossword puzzles and word searches.

The Grade 8 Teacher's Guide begins with an easy-to-understand overview of the program and weekly lesson plans.  Then for each reading assignment, it provides answers to the comprehension questions given in the Student Guide.  I usually try to read the same books that Nicholas is reading or we may even read them together as a read aloud.  But sometimes, I have too many other things going on and I don't get to it.  It is great to have these answers to the comprehension questions laid out for me to help with our discussions.  The Teacher's Guide also provides more information on the lessons, as well as answers for the workbook pages.

If you are interested in reading reviews on Lightning Lit & Comp for other grades, please just click on the link below to see what other Homeschool Review Members have to say:

Eclectic Foundations {Review}

I have the McGuffey Eclectic Reader book set.  I love the idea behind these books.  It is an old fashioned curriculum which I really appreciate but I've struggled with how to actually use it in our homeschool.

I was excited to see that the Home School Review Crew was going to be offered the chance to review Eclectic Foundations because it is a Language Arts program that is BASED on the McGuffey Eclectic Readers!  You can think of it as McGuffey lesson plans which is exactly what I have been looking for in order to get the most benefit from these wonderful readers.  I quickly signed up to try it out with my daughter.  She is in second grade so I chose for her to try the Eclectic Foundations Language Arts Level B.


The program includes 144 lessons that are intended to be used 4 days per week over 36 weeks.  Language Arts isn't just one subject so with the Eclectic Foundations Language Arts lessons, we have covered reading, phonics, handwriting, poetry, spelling, and grammar.  I love that it is all inclusive but also that it is Christian based.  Click HERE to view a sample of the first four weeks of Level B.

The lessons begin with reading in the McGuffey readers.  You can purchase these books on your own or you can find them online for free.  As my daughter reads the McGuffey passages, we talk about the words in the story and the accompanying picture.  We also review new word cards for the corresponding Eclectic Foundations lesson.  Each part of speech is assigned a different.  For example, nouns are red, verbs are green, etc.  As we review the words and spelling, my daughter colors the Word Cards accordingly.  I was surprised how much she likes color coding her cards.  She even insists on using the same specific markers each time so she is sure that all of the green cards are the SAME shade of green!

Next we talk about Phonics.  My daughter loves to use the laminated Phonics Practice Sheets and a dry erase marker to practice her spelling of the words in the lesson.  Just adding a little uniqueness to the lesson by letting her write then wipe off makes it a little more fun for her.  Anything that makes school more fun 

I love that Eclectic Foundations also includes handwriting and copy work in their curriculum.  Rachel had only learned manuscript when we started using this curriculum so she was excited that Eclectic Foundations has handwriting lessons that have taught her how to write in cursive.

The lessons also cover Poetry which includes reading a short poem, identifying rhyming words, patterns, and comprehension.  Rachel seems to really enjoy poetry so she always likes this part.

The Eclectic Foundations Language Arts program is a comprehensive language arts curriculum but you don't need to buy a bunch of separate books for each subject covered.  You just need the Teacher's Guide ($12), the Student Workbook ($24), and a set of Phonics Practice Sheets and Word Cards (($20).  However, you can also purchase all of this in a pdf format for just $30 if you want to print it all yourself.

We have enjoyed the Eclectic Foundations Language Arts program.  They currently have three levels.  Level A is a Primer for 1st grade, Level B is for 1st-2nd grades.  Level C is 3rd-4th grades.  Level D will be coming out soon and it will be for 5th-6th grades.

To read other reviews from the Home School Review Crew, please click the banner below:

SchoolhouseTeachers.com Review

I've looked at SchoolhouseTeachers.com several times over the last few years and have considered signing up for a membership but just never took the plunge.  As a member of The Old Schoolhouse Homeschool Review Crew I was recently given the opportunity to review a Yearly Membership with SchoolhouseTeachers.com.  Wow! Now that we've had a few weeks to get a feel for the site and all that it has to offer, I'm kicking myself for not joining sooner!

The new SchoolhouseTeachers.com website is amazing!  It is easy to use and navigate.  They offer Online Classes and Online Electives to use in your homeschool, either as your full curriculum or as a supplement to what you are already using.  There are Scope and Sequence charts, lesson plans, and printable certificates of completion. 
Homeschooling children of multiple ages?  No problem!  They have course work for students preschool - high school. We have used several of their history lessons while studying the Renaissance.  There are weekly lesson plans, lapbooks, notebooking pages, as well as links to videos and related maps as well as hands-on activities like games, recipes, and crafts to really bring the Renaissance to life for my kids.  
In addition to the courses, we have also enjoyed some of the special online access to products included in our membership like The World of Animals through the World Book eBook Library and learning about how Christopher Columbus discovered American through watching the amazing video series called Drive-Thru History.  These have been so much fun for my kids to explore!
Just take a look at the subjects below that are covered in the SchoolhouseTeachers.com courses:

In addition to the wealth of curriculum on the site, there is also an abundance of homeschool parent support resources on the site.  As a member you can download several different planners.  Here are just two of them which are for homeschool parents to help organize their homeschool as well as manage their home. However, they also offer primary, intermediate, and high school student planners, as well as a planner for special needs students.

There is also a Custom Schedule Builder to help you organize your homeschool day as well as online access to Applecore Recordkeeping for tracking your students' portfolio, coursework, grades, and attendance.
SchoolhouseTeachers.com really has everything you might need for your homeschool!
Be sure to join SchoolhouseTeachers.com during their Super Christmas Sale and save 50% by using code: CHRISTMAS for $9.95/month or CHRISTMASYEAR for $90/year.  This is really a great deal!  The sale ends on January 15th so HURRY and lock in your promo rate.

To read more reviews for SchoolhouseTeachers.com from other members of The Old Schoolhouse Homeschool Review Crew, please click on the graphic below:


My kids and I have thoroughly enjoyed using SchoolhouseTeachers.com in our homeschool and I have written my honest opinion about this product.  Although I was given a free Yearly Membership in order to research the product and write this review, I have benefited so much from it that I will definitely renew our membership when this one expires.

Ginger Grammar Checker - Help for Homeschool Moms!

Grammar rules can get tricky.  There seems to be as many exceptions as there are rules.  It is especially difficult to follow correct grammar when we are so used to hearing it used improperly.

But as a homeschool teacher I need to be sure I'm sharp on my grammar skills so I can teach them correctly to my children.  I found a website that I use to look up quick answers to my grammar questions.  It is easy to use and its free!

It's called Ginger Grammar Checker and I love it!  I'm just amazed that technology like this exists.

Just type your sentences into the first line and Ginger will make any corrections in the second line.  It's just that easy!

Give it a try yourself.  It corrects problems with subject-verb agreement, singular/plural nouns, consecutive nouns, misused words, and contextual spelling mistakes.