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.

Poetry Tea Time: Easter and Daffodils

I want to be more intentional about including fine arts in our homeschool.  It's easy to let those things slide when the schedule gets busy.  But I've been working on integrating more famous composers, paintings and sculptures, and of course, poetry into our school week.

Poetry is so beautiful.  It speaks to the soul and can touch us in a way that regular prose and literature just can not do. 

We have started having Poetry Tea Time and so far the kids are loving it.  The idea is to have a special time each week to enjoy "the finer things".  We play some soft classical music in the background and have a nice snack with some hot herbal tea (or maybe lemonade).  We take turns reading poetry aloud or reciting poetry that we've memorized.  If there is a painting or art piece that corresponds with our poetry selection then we will talk about that as well.

Today we had an Easter and Daffodils themed tea setting. 

Rachel loves tea parties and snacks so she was giddy to get started!

Part of the reason for having a formal tea party setting is that it is also a good way to sneak in some lessons on manners and etiquette to my children.  I was proud to see Nicholas pouring Rachel's tea for her.  He's growing up to be a fine young gentleman. 

This tea was delicious!  It's called Honeybush tea from Mountain Rose Herbs.  It's organic and it contains berries, roses, and honey.  Yum!

We had our tea party close to lunch time so I made it a little heartier than usual.  Deviled eggs...because you must have eggs if you want an Easter-themed snack.  I also had some tortillas rolled up with ham or roast beef. The deli section at the grocery made this quick and easy for me but sometimes the kids like to take the time to bake cookies or get creative with their own snacks. 

Of course, hot cross buns are perfect for an Easter-themed tea party.

We enjoyed a few chocolate eggs for our dessert.

I usually don't add anything to my hot tea but I showed the kids how to add cream and sugar to theirs. 

To make it a little more fancy than usual I put cute little sugar cubes in the sugar bowl.  I took this random picture of the kids and then realized that Nicholas was sneaking a plain sugar cube!  Oh my!

I watched Nicholas drink his tea.  He picked it up just a little bit and then leaned his body over to drink it.  THIS is part of the etiquette training that my kids need!

I showed him how to drink tea while sitting up straight and bringing the cup to his mouth!  You can tell from his eyes that he appreciated this training....

Easter is just a few days away and one of the poems I wanted to read to the children was about daffodils so I found some beautiful daffodils for the table.  They bright color and soft petals just make me happy!

I read my poem aloud and I had them take turns narrating back to me what it was about.  We talked about some vocabulary words as well as rhyme, rhythm, and personification.

Then I talked about the author, William Wordsworth, and read a few more of his poems.

Then the kids picked out some poems to read aloud.  One of the poems Nicholas read was Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll.

We ended our Poetry Tea Time with some recitation.  Nicholas learned Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost many years ago after his grandmother read it to him.  I asked him if I could make this video so she could see that he still knows the poem even after all these years.

We don't usually have such a formal tea time and we don't usually have a particular theme but this one was a little more formal because of Easter.  I think we all enjoyed the fancier setting so we just might continue to do it this way.  It's just a small way to make appreciating poetry a little more fun.

If you have talked to me much about homeschool and language arts, you know that I enjoy learning from Andrew Pudewa so I thought I'd share his most recent podcast which just happens to be all about poetry -

IEW Podcast 89: How to Enjoy Poetry: Listen, Speak, Read, Write!

Maybe grab a cup of tea to enjoy while you listen and learn.

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:

Grapevine Wolves End of the Season Party

Hockey season is over. I'm bittersweet about it. It is time consuming with 1-2 practice sessions per week and 1 game per week. But we've made some great friends and had a lot of fun. I'm going to miss seeing everyone over the summer....although we might let Nicholas sign up for the summer league.

The team had an end of the season party on the ice today. They had some drill competitions with the team.

And family members could just skate around for free. I tried to skate but the rental skates were just too painful on my feet so I had to take them off and watch from the sidelines.

The Zamboni piled the scraped ice into a big pile so the kids could climb around and play in the "snow". Rachel had fun for about 5 minutes then decided it was too cold to roll around in that stuff. So Stuart just skated around with her for a while.

She does well with Stuart but doesn't skate far before she's ready to take a break and get off the ice.

We found the treats table. It had already been ravaged by the hungry boys but Rachel still found plenty of yummy things to chose from.

Then she played with her off-ice friends. I hope their big brothers will be back on the team next fall. Rachel is looking forward to their weekly playgroups at their big brothers' hockey games!

On Children by Kahlil Gibran

Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet "On Children"

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies, but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannont visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you,
for life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark on the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with his might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hands be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so he also loves the bow that is stable.