TOS Review: The Reading Game

If you want to find a game that your kids will ask to play again and again, then The Reading Game is one to choose.  The best part is, you will also be doing school at the same time!  At least that is the case for us!  Sarah, who is 8, loved the reading game and so did her brother, who is 10!  This would be a great gift to put under the Christmas tree especially for beginning or struggling readers.

The Reading Game was created by “Wordly Wise” author, Kenneth Hodkinson.  On completing the series, the student has a reading vocabulary of 180 words.

  
It is very simple to set up and begin play.  The game consists of six books with decks of matching cards for each book.  Each deck of cards consists of six sets of 5 new sight words for your child to learn.  Each book is about an animal beginning with a skunk.  

First, you may want to test your child to see which level of book you would like to start at.  There is an assessment worksheet available here.  We began with the beginning cards and book.


Here is a video explaining how the game works.




We played the matching game first.  Each time a card was turned over, Sarah would say the sight word.  Stephen knew these words very well already so he still played with her but she always said the words.  They would play the game twice a day until I felt that she could say all the words and then I used this sheet to make sure she knew them all.  She really wanted to get to the final stage which was reading the book!  She did really well with these and knew a lot of the words already so this was awesome reinforcement for her as well as her brother!

Dolch Word List of “service words” (pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and verbs) that cannot be learned through the use of pictures. 60% of the words in “The Reading Game” are on the Dolch Word List for pre-k and k and makes up 54% of dolch words for Pre-K, K and 1st Grade.

This would be a great supplement to your reading program!  You can purchase The Reading Game here for $24.95 + shipping.

Don't forget to check out what my fellow crewmates thought of The Reading Game.

**Disclaimer: I received a free sample of this game in exchange for my review. The opinions here are my honest and true evaluation!

Our Journal - 11/26/11

In my life this week…

Happy Thanksgiving week so we took the week off to celebrate!  Our thankful turkey that we filled in with our "thankfuls".

In our homeschool this week...

Turkey drawings and cleaning! :)

Places we’re going and people we’re seeing…

Family.....

Let the good times begin...food!!

 My dad

 My mom and 2nd cousin

My favorite thing this week was…

Need I say more?

Now on to Christmas!!

And to celebrate - Christmas hair, lol.

3 in 30 - November, Week 4

It was a wonderful week indeed ending on the note of spending a wonderful time with family and friends.  Any shoppers today?  I used to and still may go now since everyone is probably back home and in bed.  :)

My 3 goals for November.......

1. Get up at 7:00 except Wednesday which is a mandatory sleep in day.  :)  Done with no oversleepings!
2. Share daily Bible verse with my Maximize Your Mornings (MYM) group.  I decided to sign up to be an accountability captain for the MYM challenge this time and I really wanted to be an encouragement to them.  There is no better encouragement to me than the Word of God!!  done!
3. add Beth Moore Daniel study to personal morning devotions.  Our church is meeting every other week to go through this study and I tend to put my homework off until this last week because it is really designed as a weekly study but I could get it done easier by breaking it up each day for the whole 2 weeks.  I'm still not doing this one consistently and I know I'm missing out.  I would appreciate your prayers!

Happy Black Friday!

Great Giveaways for Vision Forum!

Vision Forum offers many products for the Christian family including Christian books.  They are partnering with not only 1 blog but 4 different blogs for some great giveaways.  Visit them each to enter!  

Giveaway hosts are:

• The Modest Mom
• Smockity Frocks
• Raising Olives
• A Wise Woman Builds Her Home

New 31 Days To Clean Facebook Challenge

If you would like to go through the book, 31 Days To Clean, you can join the facebook challenge here.  The challenge begins January 3rd and runs through February 2nd.  


You can also get the pdf e-book for 50% (final cost only $2.50) off right now by using code:  WINTERCHALLENGE.


Enjoy!

TOS Review: Read Naturally's One Minute Reader

Once again, I must start with the fact that I love being a part of The Old Schoolhouse Review team!  We are introduced to so many products that I have never even heard of before and the review coming up falls into that category. 

This is a long one so grab a cup of coffee!

Let me begin by saying, I have two struggling readers.  They are both behind grade level and have made great progress since leaving public school but they both still struggle.  I wish I had known about this product so much earlier!!  Guess what? This program was created by a public school teacher!  Oh, how I wish our school had known about this product as well!

Here's how One Minute Reader works.....

	1. Get ready to read.Pick any story. Read the title, look at the picture, and think about what you might learn by reading the story.
	2. Time yourself reading. Set the timer for one minute, and read the story aloud until the timer goes off. If you don't know a word, underline it. Mark the last word you read when the timer went off.
	3. Mark your cold score in blue. Get your cold score by subtracting the number of words you underlined from the number of words you read in a minute. Write your score on the blue line below the story. Then go to the graph page (page 14), and fill in a blue bar on the graph up to your cold score. Put a sticker for the story you are reading under the bar.
	4. Read along with the CD. Put the CD in a CD player and advance it to the track for the story you are reading. Read aloud with the CD three times or until you learn all the words.
	5. Read alone, and raise your score. Read the story several times alone, without listening to the CD, until you can read the story well. Each time you read, time yourself for one minute and mark the last word you read when the timer goes off. (You can then read the rest of the story.) Write your scores on the green lines below the story, and watch your scores go up!
	6. Take the Quick Quiz. Circle the correct answers, and then turn to the Joke Jumble page. Copy your answers to the numbered lines. Answer the questions for all of the stories to solve the joke. This is a way for students to see if they understood what they read.
	7. Read for an adult. Read the story while an adult times you for one minute and counts the words you don't know. Finish reading the story, and then talk about what you learned.
	8. Mark your hot score in red. Get your hot score by subtracting the number of words you didn't know from the number of words you read in a minute. Write your hot score on the red line below the story. Then go to the graph page (page 14), and fill in a red bar on the graph above the blue bar, up to your hot score. This shows you how much you improved.

I received the Level 1 starter kit (as seen above) and the Level 3 book.  My 3rd grader used the Level 1 books and she absolutely loved them.  She loves to read.  She loved being able to do it independently from me as well because we normally read together.  She had such pride when she would come to me to read her story after going through steps 1-5 and could read every bit of it.  We also took the quiz together too.  Her hot scores always improved by at least 30 points and she loved trying to beat her previous scores!  She also loved trying to find the answers to the joke at the end. :)

After seeing my third grader doing these, her brother, who is in 5th grade, quickly asked if he could do some too.  So, he tried his hand at the Level 3 book we received and loved them as well!  His hot scores also improved every time by at least 30 points.  


We found this program to be awesome and really work for our family!  One Minute Reader has received several awards for their wonderful product as well!


There are six starter packs available to choose from and they   are $24.95 each.  Each starter pack includes everything you need to get started—a book of five interesting stories, an audio CD, a timer, a graphing pencil, and an instructional DVD that explains how the program works.  

You can also purchase individual books containing 5 stories each for each level at the price of $12.95 each.  

For the best value of all, bundle packages are available which include  the level starter kit plus seven more books (40 stories in all) for only $99.95—a savings of 14% compared to materials purchased separately.    

Each product comes with a 30 day money back guarantee!


You can find samples of different books from different levels here.  You can also view a complete sample of Level 3 starter kit book here.


Read Naturally offers many products to help your reader strengthen their phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension skills.  Be sure to check out their website!

Don't forget to check out what my fellow crewmates thought of One Minute Reader and other products from Read Naturally.

**Disclaimer: I received a free sample of books in exchange for my review. The opinions here are my honest and true evaluation!

HMJ - 11/18/11

In my life this week…

We had a few rounds with sickness but overall accomplished what I wanted us to.  We even finished painting Jonathan's room!  Now, to get everything moved back in - one baby step at a time!

The sort of before - really the middle! Imagine a kiddie tractor border there in red, green, and blue, lol. 

The sort of after - a happy teenager!

In our homeschool this week...

School has become much more manageable since dropping from Challenge A from Jonathan's schedule.  We've slowed up his workload.  He is still doing pretty much the same amount but we are making sure he has retained the information before moving on.  This has also allowed him to sit in with us as we do our CC memory work.


We are off next week from CC for a break.  During that time, I do plan to do a little review.  A friend shared these lapbooks with me from another fellow CC mom and we began them today.  Here's what we have so far!  We love them!!  This is an affiliate link so you would be helping our homeschool with your purchase.

Places we’re going and people we’re seeing…

We are planning to stay home for Thanksgiving.  That is our tradition. Since the passing of my granny, we have hosted my family for Thanksgiving.  I offer my home, they bring the food!  Win - win!

My favorite thing this week was…

Taking Sarah to tea time with Cinderella.  It was awesome.  I was really inspired to do this at church but with a princess of The King theme.

A princess

A cool princess :)

The brothers escorting the princess' to their chariot,lol.

Sarah and her best buddy Abbi with Cinderella who was a youth from our community.

The food and the fun.

We're reading…sometimes I think we will never finish our books!  

Jonathan

Carry on Mr. Bowditch

Stephen
George Washington - Young Leader

Sarah
Squanto


Read Aloud
Johnny Tremain


Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!!