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Review: Usborne Little Children’s Drawing Book
My littlest gal is so happy. She got to review something for the blog. Timberdoodle sent us Usborne Little Children’s Drawing Book ($6) for us to review. It’s a good thing too. With her big sister taking on Artistic Pursuits this year, she’s going to want some art lessons of her own. Long story, short, she didn’t want to stop doing her art. What Is Little Children’s Drawing Book? The Little Children’s Drawing Book has fun activities that build your child’s fine-motor skills. Make spots on a giraffe, draw lines to show falling rain, jellyfish tentacles, and more. The book says ages 2+, and Timberdoodle includes it with their Complete…
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Review: Plus-Plus Learn to Build Jewelry
I recently had the opportunity to review the Plus-Plus Learn to Build Jewelry kit with my first grader thanks to the Brilliant Minds program. While I did receive reimbursement for my purchase of the kit, all opinions are my own. The short story: the kit was a hit. What Learn to Build Jewelry Is Plus-Plus Learn to Build Jewelry ($25) is a STEAM kit with little pieces that are shaped like puzzle pieces. They allow users to create 3-D objects by connecting them together. The set is meant for ages 5+. The pieces are somewhat small, so if you have a child who still likes to put things in their…
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Mrs. P., Your Hair’s On Fire! Blitz
Middle-Grade Book Published Date: August 3, 2020 Publisher: INtense Publications LLC Jang consistently bullies his eighth grade science teacher, Mrs. P with mean and annoying pranks; but some of his classmates have had enough. They give Jang a dose of his own medicine with a prank of their own. Unexpectedly, Jang becomes a hero after he saves Mrs. P’s life, extinguishing a fire in her hair from a chemistry experiment gone wrong. While recovering from her accident, Mrs. P experiences a stroke of good fortune in her life because of an ancient Korean traditional belief that says a person will have good luck if he or she dreams or sees…
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Review: Gobblet Gobblers
Disclaimer: I received the game Gobblet Gobblers from Timberdoodle in exchange for an honest review of the product. All opinions are my own and my children’s. A lot of people are gameschooling, and it’s easy to see why. In fact, when I was homeschooling my big kid, we would do a morning board game between our langauge arts and math curricula. One of our favorites was Lost Cities, another was the classic, Blockus. Since then, we’ve added a numnber of games to our home, and our family loves gaming – so it seems natural to add games into our homeschool. When Timberdoodle offered the opportunity to review Gobblet Gobblers, I…
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Welcome to Justitia STEAM & Classical Academy
As you know from my talking about the curriculum we’ll be using for first grade, we’re planning to homeschool for the 2020-2021 school year. We’re now all set up on paper for that. I’ve filed with Kansas, and in doing that, I needed to (well, we needed to) come up with a name for our homeschool. We came to the name Justitia STEAM & Classical Academy. Naming Our Homeschool We chose “Justitia” because our family believes strongly in social justice and equity for all. We chose “STEAM” because we love science, technology, engineering, arts, and math. We chose “classical” because while we’re eclectic we also adhere to the structure of…
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What We’re Using for First Grade 2020-2021
First grade is approaching. We decided, after a strange end to kindergarten, that we would indeed homeschool next year – so we’ll have a 1st grader, a pre-kindergartner, and a preschooler at home. I’ve already gathered most of what we’ll use for next year. We won’t do every subject every day – and for some subjects, I’m patching in additional resources/topics that should be covered but aren’t by the main resource or spine we’re using. For this post, I’ll just be focusing on the main resource. (Note: some of these links are affiliate links, and if you click on them and make a purchase, I will receive a small percentage…
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Story Time Chess Review
Timberdoodle is offering Story Time Chess as part of its new 2020-2021 curriculum rollout. The game promises that children as young as 3 will learn how to play the classic game – no experience required from either adults or children. I received the game in exchange for an honest review. About Story Time Chess Story Time Chess includes instructions for playing the Story Time Chess version, Standard Chess instructions, a storybook to play through, a double-sided chessboard, 32 character cutouts, 1 set of custom chess pieces, 30 crown tokens, 1 crown card game mat, and 30 crown cards. The game retails for $60, but is available currently for $54.95 on…
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April 5th Accountability Post
Last week was a bit of a dumpster fire. We’d all had enough of being indoors. Miss 6 completed her school’s packet, 43 lessons in Dreambox and a bunch of lessons in Lexia. In addition she did: Penmanship – ZB Kindergarten p. 131Spelling – Lesson 15 “Short Vowel I”Read & discussed “The Grasshopper and the Ant” drew a pictureWrote cookie thank you cardsCompleted Singapore Math p. 104-112Completed Kumon Differentiation p. 6-42Morning starters 5-7Watched 2 Cincinnati Zoo videosEarned her Girl Scouts Board Game Design Challenge BadgeWorked on learning to fold clothes using the “Marie Kondo” methodRead about kitchen safety in Williams Sonoma Kids CookingRead 20-30 minutes every dayWatched videos on magnetic…
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March 29th Weekly Accountability Post
This is what Miss 6 did this past week: We wound up not doing school on Friday. Each day, we spent about 2 hours on these things, and some more time reading, watching educational videos, and playing with purpose. All About Reading Level 1 Lessons 10 & 11 (review)Zanner Blosser Handwriting K p. 127-130Spelling Workout A Lesson 14 “short A”What Your Kindergartner Needs to Know – FablesCookie thank you cardsSingapore Math Essentials of Math K B p. 90-103What Your Kindergartner Needs to Know “Plants Are All Around Us” and “Plant Parts and 180 Days of Science pages 49-58 – on animal habitatsWhat Your Kindergartner Needs to Know “What a Ball:…
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Working From Home While Homeschooling
When I started homeschooling my oldest, I was a single mom going to grad school. A year in, I left grad school and started my own business. I’ve been running that business (and others) now for 12 years. I know a lot of us have been thrown into homeschooling & facilitating distance learning at the moment. It’s hard to balance it all. I have a confession: the interior of my house looks like it’s a disaster site, and to be honest, I probably won’t be fixing that until this weekend. Balance is hard – even when you’ve been doing it for a while. Know Your Priorities If everything is a…