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.

Planet 316 Story Bible Review

Rachel received a beautifully illustrated story Bible from Planet 316 and Worthy Kids/Ideals for a review.  The book contains over 100 Bible stories from both the Old Testament and the New Testament.  The stories are about 2-6 pages each.  But this is no ordinary book.  Pictures on every page can come to life with augmented reality by scanning the page with the Planet 316 app.  

What is augmented reality?  My husband describes it as the modern day pop-up.  When you look at the book through the app on a tablet or smart phone, computer images of the page literally "pop-up" on the screen.  They move, talk, and interact with each other!  It is truly amazing technology.  Rachel and I have both been fascinated with learning all about it with the Planet 316 story Bible and the companion Planet 316 Story Bible App



You can purchase the book for about $14.99 on the Planet 316 website.  Then you need to download the Planet 316 app.  It is free and it is available on Google Play for Android as well as the Apple App Store for Apple devices.

Once you open the app, it will walk you through the three main steps for what you need to do next:

Rachel reads the story then she goes back and uses the Planet 316 app on my iPad to scan the pictures on the page in the book.  Below is a quick video to just give you an idea of how amazing the Planet 316 augmented reality app looks when you scan the book.  The images literally pop off the page and come to life!

I love that Planet 316 has created such a fun way for kids to learn about the Bible.  As a mom on the go, I also love that it can go with her just about anywhere.  Rachel usually reads her Planet 316 Story Bible at home but she also loves to have it when she is waiting for big brother's ice hockey game to start or for spending time in the waiting area at a doctor's office.  All she has to bring with her to the game is the book, my iPad, and some headphones. 

The storybook is recommended for ages 4-7.  However, I would have read this aloud to my children at a younger age and the app certainly would have kept their attention.  Rachel is 9 years old and while she is reading at a higher level than the text of this book, the app makes it so intriguing for her that she still enjoys reading it.  Also, I love that she has brought it with her to the park and shared it with her younger friends.  It makes it easy to share the stories of the Bible with others when there is such a fun and interactive way to tell the stories.

For more information about Planet 316, please visit them on social media:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Planet316/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/planet_316

If you would like to read additional reviews about Planet 316 from other members of the Homeschool Review Crew, please click on the banner below:

Carole P. Roman: Children Books for Learning and Fun {Review}

As in most homeschools, we read a lot of books and I'm always looking for new ones to introduce to my children.  We read everything - non-fiction, biography, historical fiction, books with a virtuous message, and of course, books that are just for fun.  Award winning children's author and former teacher Carole P. Roman has written a wide selection of books for young readers that fit all of these categories.  She has an historical series with books that cover time periods from Ancient China to the American West.  She has another series that teaches children about cultures in different countries.  There are also several fun books like Captain No Beard as well as several books with important messages for young readers.

As a member of the Homeschool Review Crew, I was given the opportunity to review some of these books.  Rachel was excited to receive three books from the Carole P. Roman books and collections.  

The first book she read was If You Were Me and Lived in France: A Child's Introduction to Cultures Around the World.  We have been talking about starting French lessons so she was excited to learn a little bit about the culture and history of France.

Rachel is nine years old and she is a good reader.  Although this book was written for younger readers it still introduced her to cultural and historical aspects of France that she did not know.  We took some of the information mentioned in the book and did further research on them such as Bastille Day and City of Lights as a nickname for Paris. 

The next book Rachel read was Oh Susannah: It's in the Bag.  This book is a chapter book and closer to her reading level.  It is a story about a third grader named Susannah who doesn't want to deal with the little daily challenges that come up in life.  Instead, she just shoves them all into her bag until it bursts.  She eventually realizes that it would have been better to deal with each problem as it came up instead of letting them just continue to build up.  She also learned that it is important to ask for help when you feel overwhelmed and don't know what to do.

Rachel chuckled as she read this book.  She said, "Susannah is just like me!  She piles everything in her backpack and doesn't want to take care of it because it seems too stressful to her.  It's like me with putting up my clean clothes.  There are just a few pieces of clothes one day but I don't want to put them away.  Then more clothes pile up and I just can't hang all of that up.  It's too much.  So I shove them all in the back of my closet so I don't have to deal with them."

Yes, that is a real problem we are working on.  But hopefully reading this book helped Rachel to realize that it is much easier to tackle a task when it is small and not let that pile of clothes get so high that it becomes unmanageable.

Rachel enjoyed this book so much that when she had finished she grabbed up the second book in the Oh Susannah series and started reading it right away.

This book is called Oh Susannah: Things That Go Bump.  In this story Susannah is afraid to go to her best friend's house for a sleepover because her friend lives in an old creaky house.  She is afraid of the spiders there and she thinks there is a ghost living in the house.

Susannah realizes that everyone has unique fears and that fear often about how one interprets the things around them.  One person might love unicorns and think they are beautiful while someone else who is blind might be terrified of them because of a fear of getting injured by their horn.  But as Susannah learns, sometimes are fears are unwarranted and facing them can sometimes lead to exciting surprises.

These are three great books for children.  The Oh Susannah series was a quick and fun read for Rachel and she is hoping that Ms. Roman will write more books about Susannah.

For more information about Carole P. Roman and her wonderful books, please check out these social media links below:

Facebook: Carole P. Roman, Award Winning Author
Twitter: @caroleproman
Instagram: @caroleproman
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6A9PDx7NdBgYUN1giUOp0A

Please take a moment to click on the banner below to read more Carole P. Roman book reviews from other Crew members:

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:

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.