Archive for School

Looney Tunes ClickN READ Phonics Program Review

I know you all must remember Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Sylvester the Cat and Tweetie Bird, The Tasmanian Devil and others. Very funny characters that make you laugh and remember your childhood days of watching these cartoon characters. I use to watch them with my Dad. He loved them and would sit and chuckle over their antics.

My children have had limited exposure to them, only because I am concerned about them learning to talk correctly and well, Tweetie and a couple others leave much to be desired in the pronouncing words the right way.

Nevertheless when we reviewed Looney Tunes ClickN READ Phonics, they loved it!

My Review of Looney Tunes ClickN READ Phonics Program

I really liked how the phonics lessons were organized, repetitive and fun! It is so important to have an element of fun when children are learning or else it just seems like drudgery work. After all we want them to love to learn!

When I set up an account for our daughter, I chose to start at level 10 because she already knew her ABCs and basic sounds, so my review is based on lessons 10-15, as those are the only ones we made it through. Nice features were: you can change settings for slow, medium and fast sounding out, parents may also set the length of the lesson which is a bonus for children with short attention spans!

Sample Lesson from Looney Tunes ClickN READ

The Looney Tunes Phonics Program has a fun little robot character that acts as the teacher. He instructs the children and takes the children through sound lessons first.

After doing some phonics work, there is a little break with the Loony Tunes characters. Then Mr. Robot takes the children through some words.

Again after a short lesson on sounding out words, there is another little break with a show about some of the Loony Tunes Characters. The next phase of the Loony Tunes Phonics Program is sentence reading.

Looney Tunes ClickN READ offers a free sample lessons to review before you make any purchase. There is lots of repetition. The robot talks clearly and concisely. This program is very easy for children to follow along and do their lessons with supervision and after each lesson part they get to practice what they learned by doing an activity where they clicked on a letter sound, word or read a sentence. Upon completion they are told how many they get wrong.

The only negative I see to the program is what I mentioned in my introduction and that is the way Tweetie talks, especially with children who are already struggling to say sounds correctly, but that is all. Overall it is fun, entertaining and educational.

Looney Tunes ClickN READ Phonics Discount!

Get Your Kids Reading With Bugs Bunny and Friends! Get Started with Looney Tunes Phonics for Only $9.95!, plus they have other purchasing options. If you are interested in trying it out, we were given a promotional to share with you of 15% off any purchase through 12/31/12 with the code: 15PERCNS15

Faith and Family Reviews received the following product in exchange for writing a review. While we consider it a privilege to receive free products to review, our reviews are our honest opinion and thoughts of the product.


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Faith and Family Reviews Announces…Schoolhouseteachers.com Giveaway!

Remember when I told you about the SchoolhouseTeachers.com from The Old Schoolhouse Magazine?  Well, they are having a giveaway for 1 year PREMIUM level membership!

Here’s the link!  http://networkedblogs.com/vsCFp

If you’d like to sign up for any of the SchoolhouseTeachers.com levels, here is the link to do that also!

http://schoolhouseteachers.com/dap/a/?a=3429

Happy Educating from Faith and Family Reviews!


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SchoolhouseTeachers.com

Check out The Old Schoolhouse Magazine’s (TOS) reinvented Teacher’s Toolbox.  I introduce SchoolhouseTeachers.com.

Click the banner above or here’s the link – http://schoolhouseteachers.com/dap/a/?a=3429

The topics of March include “Get Out and Garden!” , “This Day in History” , “Schoolhouse Kitchen”, crafts, lots of encouragement and devotions.

TOS is continually adding enhancements to SchoolhouseTeachers.com - Watch for Schoolhouse Clubs for Kids, freebies (for long-term members), and TOS digital back issues!  With even more coming in April and beyond!

There are 3 different tiers of membership.

The Standard Membership includes –

  • Members-only access to lesson material from all of our expert teachers—Geography, History, Home Ec, Literature, Music/Singing, Technology, Writing and many more subjects in months to come
  • The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine delivered by TOS straight to your inbox monthly
  • All The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine digital back issues (easily searchable)
  • 3 E-Books from the TOS E-Book Homeschool Library during the first 12 months of membership

After 12 months of uninterrupted membership, you’ll receive a $5 gift certificate to the Totally TOS section of The Schoolhouse Store.

Premium Membership

  • Members-only access to lesson material from all of our expert teachers—Geography, History, Home Ec, Literature, Music/Singing, Technology, Writing and many more subjects in months to come
  • All TOS webinar Expo-to-Go recorded sessions ($60 value), including recordings of all future and ongoing Expos during length of membership
  • The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine delivered by TOS straight to your inbox monthly
  • All The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine digital back issues (easily searchable)
  • 7 E-Books from the TOS E-Book Homeschool Library during the first 12 months of membership

After 12 months of uninterrupted membership, you’ll receive a $10 gift certificate to the Totally TOS section of The Schoolhouse Store.

Ultimate Member

  • Members-only access to lesson material from all of our expert teachers—Geography, History, Home Ec, Literature, Music/Singing, Technology, Writing and many more subjects in months to come
  • All five 2012-13 Schoolhouse Daily e-Planners (more than $125 value)
  • All TOS webinar Expo-to-Go recorded sessions ($60 value), including recordings of all future and ongoing Expos during length of membership
  • The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine delivered by TOS straight to your inbox monthly
  • All The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine digital back issues (easily searchable)
  • 12 E-Books from the TOS E-Book Homeschool Library (one per month) during the first 12 months of membership

After 12 months of uninterrupted membership, you’ll receive a $25 gift certificate to the Totally TOS section of The Schoolhouse Store.

BONUS for the Ultimate Membership for a limited time only!

Go and sign up, this is a great tool for any parent just not homeschoolers!

**The membership information was quoted directly from the SchoolhouseTeachers.com website.**

 


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Maple Syrup & Hospitality – Monday Motivation

For once my Monday Motivation is not about cleaning or working, but about showing hospitality and sharing our experience making maple syrup. This week on one of the homeschool yahoo groups someone posted about a maple syrup event that was a great children’s activity especially for homeschoolers, however, it was with a cost. I know how much homeschoolers watch their budgets, after all I am one! So without too much thought I posted inviting interested families to our house for a FREE homeschool activity to see what we have done to make our own maple syrup this year. After I hit send, I was like, “Oh-oh, what have I done?” I wasn’t expecting much response and about four families responded. Therefore, we’ll be getting ready for our guests this week, as I thought hot chocolate and homemade cookies were in order to go along with the children learning about where maple syrup comes from and how it is made.

The catch is we got snow and it is colder so the sap may not be running this week, but we’ll wait and see. Someone said it was going to hit the 50’s by mid-week, which will be perfect and muddy. It should be fun to meet new people and share what the Lord has blessed us with here with our maple trees and space.

This week’s motivation is to share our home and maple syrup adventure with other homeschooling families. Hopefully blessing them by helping them save money on an outing and to show them if we can do it so can they!

The Rest of Our Maple Syrup Story

Obviously we are not done tapping our trees or collecting sap, nevertheless, I thought it was time to show the rest of our maple syrup adventure or what we have recorded so far. We’ve had a few mishaps and bumps in the road and may not get as much sap as we had hoped. :( You see, we have had wind blow our bags off, we have had them fall off due to being too heavy and we have had certain family members dump our maple syrup down the drain thinking it was water in the pot! Yeah, that’s what I said. This happened two different times by two different people and I am like, “Can’t you ask first? We are making syrup!?” Talk about aggravating, to say the least. Both individuals were apologetic and felt bad, but accidents happen…..still, just ask!

Our Tapping Adventure Continues

Drilling.

The younger ones wanted to try too.

The tap is in. We were not very happy about the sap dripping out below the tap, but that was rectified once we got the drill boring the right way!

The bags were put on the little metal hangers and set on the taps.

The day we put them up the sap was running fast. This is what we got within the first couple of hours.

Then by late afternoon, look what we had!

We improvised when we ran out of metal hangers and use a milk jug and wire.

This pot was full of sap and you have to boil it down to almost nothing.

Then we filtered the sap to get dirt and any other unwanted particles out of the syrup.

Baby wanted in on the action too.

Not a lot of syrup and by the time we had bottle it (sorry no picture of that!) we only got a quart out of 3-4 bags of sap. It wasn’t as thick as we would have liked, so it should have been boiled more. We know that for the next batch we do, as we are living and learning as we go along.


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Pizza Hut BOOK IT!

“YOU ARE YOUR CHILD’S FIRST TEACHER”  Great slogan and so true.  Here’s a great reading incentive program for your K-6 kids.  The program is available for Home School Children or contact your child’s teacher and tell them about the program.  It runs October to March – the home educator/teacher sets a monthly reading goal of books to read.  If that goal is achieved, the child will get a “Reading Certificate Reward”, with that certificate the child goes to Pizza Hut (with their family, of course) and they will receive a free one topping personal pan pizza, “BOOK IT!” card, and a Backpack clip.  Enrollment for 2012-2013 begins in March, CLICK HERE for the enrollment form!

What about the Pre-K kiddos!  Try the R.E.D. ZONE.

No pizza for the little one, sorry.  If you register for the “Give Me 20 Reading Challenge”, you’ll be entered to win one of 50 “Skippyjon Jones Prize Packs”!

There are also printables for your little ones!

 

Happy Reading!


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Tax Time! Time to Organize, Again!

I have a tendency to procrastinate over taxes, but this year I have been working hard to do better. I have been sorting my receipts, gathering my mileage logs, adding up my different streams of income and comparing them to my 1099s, plus getting my checkbook and PayPal ledgers either updated or printed off. There is a lot to do to get ready for tax time. I kind of miss the days when I didn’t have to do anything, my husband just took care of it all. But alas those days are over.

Over a month ago, maybe even less, I organized my office. Now, in preparation for tax season my office has got disorganized because I have been going through files and receipts for each business. I am a paper person so there are usually piles of paper here and there. However, I like my desk to be mostly cleared when doing important paper work so I can keep track of everything.

Another thing I like to keep track of is my pens and pencils. I found a nifty little lamp last summer at the thrift store with compartments to keep things on my desk more organized. That’s where I keep pens, pencils, erasers and sticky notes, etc.

We use a lot of pencils between business and homeschooling. During tax season it’s nice to have sharpened pencils on hand, but I discovered that ours had bit the dust and had to buy a new one. Nothing like having tons of pencils in the house and nothing to sharpen them with! Talk about maddening. There were a few different ones to choose from, but I bought the X-ACTO Spira pencil sharpener because I had a coupon. You can even see photos of my shopping trip here.

By the way, the new sharpener works great! Probably won’t be able to keep the children away from it. If you would like to learn more about X-ACTO products, please consider the following pages:

Elmer’s Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/elmers
X-ACTO Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/XACTO

Then have fun filing your taxes! Ha!

This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias. All opinions expressed are my own.#CBias #XACTO


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Encyclopedia Britannica Kids – US Presidents FREE App – Only Until Monday!!

Hurry! Head to your itunes store and download – Encyclopedia Britannica Kids – US Presidents app for FREE, it’s usually 2.99!  This offer expires Monday the 20th at Midnight EST!

Great app, I’m learning a lot myself!  It has all the Presidents, when you select a President it gives you their dates in office, who was/is the Vice President, First Lady, when their birthday was/is,  and fun facts! 

In addition, there is a section of “Did you know?”.  At the bottom of the screen, select menu and you are able to hear and see the words to “Hail to the Chief”. There is also a quiz section to test your knowledge.

It’s available for your iPhone and iPad.  I checked Andriod and didn’t see this specific app, but did see other apps for US Presidents.

Enjoy!


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The Old Schoolhouse Magazine Goes Digital!

 

Homeschool parents, this one is for you!  This app is available for Apple & Android devices!  Now you can read “The Old Schoolhouse Magazine” at home or on the go for FREE!

These are very interactive apps.  You can watch videos, zoom in on advertisers,  web links to order, and more!

Here’s the links!  Apple App – FREE Android App – FREE


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Book Review ~ Resumes for Children: 17 Years Old and Under

Faith and Family Reviews received the following product in exchange for writing a review. While we consider it a privilege to receive free products to review, our reviews are our honest opinion and thoughts of the product.

Resumes For Children: 17 Years Old and Under

Ever thought of your child having a resume? If your answer is “no” think again. Your child can participate in these “out of the box” activities to begin to build a great resume.

Choosing activities that provide your child with life skills as well as build character is a key element to their success. Documenting those activities is also a key element to their success. Why? Keeping before them a present visual reminder of their activities, accomplishments, etc., gives encouragement, pride in what they do and have done. It also allows them to see how well they have progressed over the years. In other words, you will assist your child in “behaving” their way to success.

With your child’s résumé you can:

  • Use it to accompany an application into an academic program.
  • Use it to seek sponsorship from friends and family ~ obtain OPM (other people’s money) to pay for activities.
  • Use it to seek grants and scholarships.

OUR REVIEW:

I thought this was such an interesting book. Before being presented this book I honestly never thought of having a resume for children. But now I see how far this can take a child. You can use this book from toddlers to teenage years. Yes I said toddlers! I think this is a great way to get children thinking. I mean maybe your toddler is not going to write a resume like an older child but you can definitely use some prompts and ask your toddler questions to get them thinking of what they would like to do and become! For example in the toddler years you can ask children to list activities that they are good at and would like to do…this can range from playing blocks to taking dancing lessons. Eventually applying these things to a resume that the child will build.

But enough about a toddlers view… this book will work really well for an older child! This is great to get the child thinking outside of the ordinary…the child is taught how to use the things they have done in their lives (school, camps, odd jobs) and add them to a working resume. The children can then present their resume to anyone who would like to know more about them…perhaps the child would like a summer job …well a resume is a great way to introduce themselves. Perhaps your child is trying to earn money to go to summer camp…then a resume is a great way to introduce who the child is and what the child can and will do… There are endless possibilities to the unique situations that this book can be used!

As a mother I love this book! As a high school teacher and college professor I think this is also great for the high school student! Introduce them to this book at a young age and get them started on writing and honing their resume and they will not be at a loss when it comes to applying to scholarships for college!

You can find out more about the book here:

http://www.resumesforchildren.com/

 


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Little Ace and The Ten Commandments App Review & T-Shirt Giveaway

How cute is this little guy! 

It’s never to early to have your children learning about the Ten Commandments, in a fun way! This little cartoon chick goes on a journey to find “the God”.  While in this travels he learns about the Ten Commandments through other cartoon animals. 

The narrator of this story has a soothing voice, talks smoothly and slowly. With this iPad app you can turn the narrator on or off, so you or your child can read this e-book.  You can also control to turn the pages or have the “story” turn the pages when it’s time.  In addition, there are interactive opportunities for your child to help the animals with tasks, for example to find the goat’s glasses and put then on the goat. This app is available on iTunes for only $2.99.

Here are a few screen shots.

My Review –

This is a MUST HAVE e-book in my house.  My daughter and I loved it.  I let the narrator read to her (he does the animals voices much better than I).  The app says it good for children 4 and over, however my daughter is 3 and LOVED it.  What I like is it’s a book that will grow with your children.  Once they are at reading age, they can read to you.  The learning experience is also wonderful in a fun way.  My daughter loved the cartoon chick.  The graphics are not fancy or overwhelming.  Just very simple with a lot of impact on the story.  My recommendation is to download it now.  You won’t regret this one!

Here’s the download site – http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/little-ace-ten-commandments/id481298715?mt=8

Here’s Liitle Ace’s Website – http://www.acethechick.com/

And he’s on Facebook!  Go ahead and “like” him!  It’s hard not to!

Like this t-shirt?  You can win it!!!


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Faith and Family Reviews received the following product in exchange for writing a review. While we consider it a privilege to receive free products to review, our reviews are our honest opinion and thoughts of the product.


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