Schoolhouse Review Crew Now Accepting Applications

Have you ever wanted to be a part of the Schoolhouse Review Crew?  Now is the time!  You can find out more about the qualifications and application process here.

The Schoolhouse Review Crew has been a great blessing to our family for several years now.  They have provided us with opportunities to review curriculum that we would never heard of or tried because I just do not have the time to research all the homeschool curriculum available.  

Please do read the qualifications necessary and pray over your decision before applying and if I can answer any questions, please let me know!

September Grocery Budget Update

A little late in updating the budget but better late than never!


September Monthly Budget Amount - $500

Spent:

Costco - $319.63
Food Lion - $10.76
Target - $22.02
Target - $19.46
Food Lion - $15.27
Target - $39.98
Target - $54.93
Walmart - $71.62

Total Spent - $553.67  
Over/Under - $53.67  (ouch)

I knew we were spending over and I really didn't stay on top of what I was purchasing like I normally would.  Some of this included a few items for our vacation trip.  It's already not looking so good for October either...ugh.  
             

Weekly Wrap-Up - After a few weeks off

Accomplishments

Sarah got her very 1st pointe shoes this week and has been wearing them around the house all week!  Her dance teacher was sick for her class so she just had to wear them this week!

Stephen moved up another rank in CAP this week so he is now a Cadet Senior Airmen and enjoys CAP so much.

 In our homeschool

We finished up Week 7 with My Father's World which included moving into some of the American colonies for history and still learning about animals in science for Sarah. 
This week in science, we continued with vertebrates which included fish.

Stephen is using Apologia's General Science and was learning about levers and pulleys.

I did catch Jonathan in the act of reading a little history this week too.

Read Alouds

Weigh In

I haven't walked since before vacation so going on 3 weeks now so I need to get back to it.  I'm still the exact same weight.  I'm thinking of going back to tracking points instead of just calories.

What I'm reading

Still reading these and would highly recommend them all!

The Best Yes Lysa Terkeurst

James by Beth Moore

Breathe by Priscilla Shirer

Linking up with Weekly Wrap-Up, and Collage Friday.

Review: Fortuigence Persuasive Essay Writing Course

I can't wait to share today's review product with you.  It is the Essay Rock Star Persuasive Essay Writing Course by Fortuigence.  I have struggled often on knowing how to teach my children writing.  We've used many programs and I've always wished for feedback on their work.  Well, the Essay Rock Star Persuasive Essay Writing Course by Fortuigence does just that!  

Fortuigence offers several different short courses as a part of their online homeschool writing curriculum.  Each short course costs $57.  The courses available in the Essay Rock Star curriculum are:

Essay Rock Star Personal Statement Writing Course

Essay Rock Star Persuasive Essay Writing Course

Essay Rock Star Textual Analysis Writing Course

Essay Rock Star Expository Essay Writing Course

or you can also purchase the full Essay Rock Star curriculum that contains all of the courses above for $197.  If you are giving high school credit, each short course is worth 0.125 in credits or 0.50 in English credits for the entire curriculum. Please see here for more detail on assigning high school credits.

Course Details

As I mentioned earlier, we chose the short course, Essay Rock Star Persuasive Essay Writing Course.  This course is ideal for ages 12-18 and teaches them how to write the persuasive essay which is a skill they need to show while taking many college entrance exams.  

This course consisted of 7 lessons. 

1.  Pre-assessment
2.  Brainstorming
3.  Organizing Ideas
4.  Free Writing
5.  Revision
6.  Editing
7.  Wrap-Up

For each lesson, your student will watch an introductory video explaining the lesson and giving an overview.  Then, the student can read the lesson themselves or click on an audio recording of the lesson and follow along.  

Included in each lesson are links explaining concepts even further with examples for the student to show them what is expected.  Each resource article can be downloaded as a PDF document as well.  We found the student samples to be a wonderful resource for us.

Once your student has completed the lesson, they have an assignment to send in to their teacher.  You can send in the lesson by copying and pasting it into an assignment box given or by attaching the original file.

Your student will then receive feedback from their live trained teacher telling them if they need to complete any thing further in this lesson or if they are ready to move on to the next lesson.

This is a self paced course.  However, once an assignment is sent to the teacher, you will need to wait for their feedback before continuing on to the next lesson.  Usually, you receive feedback within 24 hours during Monday-Friday.

How we used this course and what we thought

My 8th grade son worked on this course.  We did the first 2 lessons together until he felt like he was ready to do it on his own.  It's not that it was hard at all.  He was just nervous for someone else to be evaluating his work besides me and I loved the fact that someone else was!  Yay, take writing off my check list! He worked on this course usually Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.  I used my email address for him so I would get the email responses from the teacher and read them to him. You can set up an email account just for your student although you would want it to be one that you monitor.  Fortuigence highly recommends that so that the emails do not get lost in the sea of other emails you receive. Stephen would always smile at the feedback.  Below is an example of feedback from one of his lessons.

Hi Stephen,

Even though your essay draft is brief, it’s to the point. You’ve got all your reasons, supporting details or stories, and counterarguments covered! Please move on to the next assignment in your online classroom whenever you’re ready.

Thanks,

Ms. I :)

Writing is a difficult subject for him and I think he puts more pressure on himself than he needs to so having positive feedback from someone other than me really helped him to gain confidence in his writing.

Here he is completing lesson.  Does anyone else's child sit like this to study?  

Sarah, age 11, is a little younger than the recommended age but she saw how much Stephen enjoyed the course and wanted me to sign her up as well.  We do plan to do that but I might let Stephen continue through the other courses first seeing as he would benefit from the most at this time.

We would recommend this course to other homeschool families.  It is always nice to have feedback from someone else and knocking a subject off my teaching to do list isn't so bad either!.  

Other places to find Fortuigence

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Fortuigence
Twitter: https://twitter.com/lilyiatridis
Google+: https://plus.google.com/+LilyIatridis and
https://plus.google.com/+Fortuigence1/posts
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/lilyiatridis
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/fortuigence


Click the banner below to find out more about each Essay Rock Star course offered by Fortuigence.

Wrap-Up

The wrap-up with lots of pictures!  We had such a wonderful time visiting Pennsylvania for a fun family vacation!

First stop at Sight and Sound to see Moses.  Oh my - words cannot describe how wonderful this was!

Then a tour of Amish country!

We just had to have some chocolate fun!

And finally we loved the wooden coasters at Hershey Park - so much fun!

But as they say - there's just no place like home.  :)

Review of IEW's Fix It Grammar

Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW) has redesigned Fix It! Grammar and published a new set of Fix It! Grammar Books.
We reviewed the first set of books in this series called Fix It! Grammar: The Nose Tree [Book 1] (Teacher Manual) and Fix It! Grammar: The Nose Tree [Book 1] (Student Book).  Both books come in the spiral bound format that you see above. The teacher manual sells for $19 and inside you are given a link to download a free student book.  If you would rather have a physical student book that option is also available for $15.00 and can be purchased here.  So, you really only need to purchase the Teacher Manual if the e-book style student book will work for your family.  I liked having the e-book format because it made it very simple to print out the the amount of copies I needed for my family.  I also liked having the physical book because of the grammar cards included. Of course, you could print out your own as well with the e-book format.  Those included with the spiral bound book are on a yellow card stock material located at the back.  If you are familiar with any of IEW's themed writing books, the grammar cards are in the same format as the vocabulary cards.  There is also a Glossary included in the back of both the teacher manual and student book.
There are 6 books available in the series:

• Fix It! Grammar: The Nose Tree [Teacher’s Manual Book 1]
• Fix It! Grammar: Robin Hood [Teacher’s Manual Book 2]
• Fix It! Grammar: Frog Prince, or Just Deserts [Teacher’s Manual Book 3]
• Fix It! Grammar: Little Mermaid [Teacher’s Manual Book 4]
• Fix It! Grammar: Chanticleer [Teacher’s Manual Book 5]
• Fix It! Grammar: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight [Teacher’s Manual Book 6]

These books are recommended for grades 3 and up.  

Concepts taught in Fix It! Grammar (Book 1) - The Nose Tree:

• Identify these parts of speech: nouns, articles, pronouns, verbs, helping verbs, adjectives, -ly adverbs, prepositions, coordinating conjunctions, clause starters (www.asia.b words).
• Use these punctuation marks correctly: end marks (periods, question marks, and exclamation points), quotation marks, apostrophes to show ownership and in contractions.
• Choose the correct homophone or usage when given a choice: their/their/they’re, to/two/too, its/it’s, your/you’re.
• Understand basic rules for capitalization and indentation.

There is a placement test available to help you decide what book to begin with your student.  IEW recommends that you begin with the fist book in the series since the other books build upon the foundations you learn in the first books.  If you feel your student has already mastered those concepts though, the placement test will help guide you in which book to choose.  You can also watch a webinar explaining how to use Fix It! Grammar.
How We Used This In Our Homeschool
Fix It! Grammar books are designed to be used for a full year (33 weeks of lessons) in your homeschool and teach grammar skills through editing skills.  You are given a sentence a day for the student to find the mistakes in and discuss with the teacher.  It's a very simple process but it reinforces grammar concepts on a daily basis through sentences of stories.  The concept will also aid students in editing their own writing using what they are learning.  This is a comprehensive grammar curriculum meaning that it is a complete grammar program and needs no supplement.
I chose Book 1 to begin with because I wanted to use it as a daily review for my 6th and 8th grader.  They know most of the concepts taught in Book 1 already but it has been a great refresher for them.  I have found that Stephen, my 8th grader, can quickly proceed through the sentences while Sarah, my 6th grader, needs to be reminded of the concepts we are covering so it seems to be a perfect fit for our family.  
The lessons are completed in as little as 15 minutes a day and broken down into 4 days a week.  For older students, the lessons can be easily doubled up and completed in one semester.
Both of my children agree that this is their favorite grammar book of all times.  During their end of grade testing last year, I noticed that both of them made very simple mistakes concerning punctuation and grammar. I knew I wanted to add in a daily grammar sheet to keep those simple concepts fresh in their minds, and this is exactly what I was looking for. 
The Teacher Manual is very easy to understand and clear in what you are to do each day. There are many side notes included giving lots of tips to the teacher.  It also gives the teacher the correct answers.  I have the older version of Fix It! Grammar as well.  It was always hard for me to understand how to teach because I found that it was not clear.  So, the redesign has majorly overhauled the program and I think for the better!  

Below you will find how we broke down our days.  We followed exactly what was recommended.
Day 1

• You begin the week by introducing and teaching the concept for the week and helping your student apply it to the Day 1 passage.  
• You would also print (e-book) or cut out (physical book) the grammar card/s that go with the concept you are learning for the week.  
• Do the daily concepts listed below together if necessary.  I normally let Stephen and Sarah do them on their own unless it was a totally new concept for them.

Days 2-4

• Read the day's passage.
• Look up the bolded vocabulary word in a dictionary and choose which definition fits the meaning of the word in the sentence.
• Fix the passage using the abbreviations at the top of the page along with the grammar card/s. These abbreviations are only available in the first three books of the series.

• Rewrite the sentence correctly in your own notebook. This helps to reinforce the concept as well as gives handwriting practice. When they finish the course, they will have the whole story written out.

That's it!  It is amazing how easy the design and process is but more importantly how great it works!  I am looking forward to seeing how well they do in the grammar end of year testing this year.

Other Places To Find The Institute For Excellence In Writing 
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/excellenceinwriting
Twitter: https://twitter.com/iew
Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/iewriting
Google+: https://plus.google.com/+Iewriting/posts
You Tube: https://www.youtube.com/user/iewtv
Vimeo: http://vimeo.com/iewtv

I Love Sticky Notes!

If you have a Rite-Aid near you and you have a sticky note obsession like me, you may want to stop by soon.  There Dollar Days items which included pencil cases, organizers, hair clips, sticky notes and more is on clearance for 75% off right now.