Homeschool Copywork Review

What homeschool mom doesn't love good copywork. I am excited to be using Homeschool Copywork we received a  Lifetime Membership and its awesome. This is basically a site where you can print some really great copywork. I am so happy I don't have to make to copywork my self any more. Copywork not only helps kids with handwriting but it also builds good punctuation and vocabulary and reading skills. The Site has something for most grade levels. We found Early Elementary, Upper Elementary, and Junior High-High School. We found copywork based around things like the human body, the Wright Brothers, lots of different scripture copywork sets. There are also character building pages. Not all of the copy work is scripture we did find some that were things like, poetry from Emily Dickenson and Lewis Carroll.We also discovered some different holiday themed sets that looked good.

Due to the girls ages and grade level we really only got the chance to use the Early Elementary Copywork section. I did explore the other levels just to see what was offered that we might be able use in the future. The Human Body pages will come into use soon enough.

Copywork is not the girls most favorite thing to do. I hear a lot of But MOM! when I pull out copywork pages every week. So when I first
approached the girls with this coppywork, I started them out with Dragons of the Bible Copywork, notebooking, and coloring pages. I started with this one because they both love Dinosaur's and I though it would be a fun way to kick off copywork. They both love dragons and dinosaurs so I figured it would be a hit. This set has 22 verses of the Bible that have to do with "dragons" (aka dinosaurs) These verses give proof to the existence of "dragons" aka dinosaurs and this book is based on creations science. It has both print and cursive in and full size dragon coloring pages. It contains 154 pages. I liked the cursive pages the best since that is what we are concentrating on right now. I have been satisfied with the verses they chose. We did find that on some of the longer verses the girls would run out of room on the lined portion. We have been printing some of the blank notebooking pages to give them extra room. My youngest would like smaller lines but that is just her personal preference. They are both enjoying the beautiful artwork that they are getting to color when they finish the copywork. Here is one of the Dragon pages that my oldest did. As you can see this verse was from Malachi. She was not happy with it because she didn't think her writing looked nice enough. I encouraged her to practice more and allowed her to select the next copywork page that interested her. I found that letting them choose what page to do next helps them to stay more interested.

I let the girls flip through some of whats offered and they are excited to do some of the holiday themed copywork pages. We found a Thanksgiving and a Christmas that look very nice. The Christmas one could easily be used as an Advent and comes in ESV and KJV. I was very pleased to see the Thanksgiving copywork pages. The scriptures that were chosen are beautiful and capture the real meaning of Thanksgiving. The pictures on all the pages we looked at were beautiful and offered the girls some coloring fun to enhance the activity.

Not only are the girls getting handwriting practice but they are also getting great scripture lessons and a little art all at the same time. Other crew members have tried out other copywork pages so you will want to click the banner below and see what they thought.

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Memoria Press Fourth Grade Literature Guide Set Review

It's time for lit in our homeschool. My oldest is doing Fourth Grade Literature Guide Set by Memoria Press. This is designed to challenge kits with reading so that they become superior readers. The study guides for each set help your student to become an active reader. It covers things like vocabulary spelling, and comprehension.

This is what is included in the Fourth Grade Literature Guide Set:
Dangerous Journey: Student Guide and Teacher Manual
The Blue Fairy Book: Student Guide and Teacher Manual
The Fourth Grade Literature Guide Set comes with the following:
Cricket in Times Square: Student Guide and Teacher Manual
Homer Price: Student Guide and Teacher Manual

As you can see it only has the student guide and teacher manual. You will need to get the actual
books from the library or you can buy them. They do offer an option on the website that includes the actual books they will need to read. I was able to find all the books for this set but one either at our local library or on the digital library.

For this review we mainly focused on the Blue Fairy Book. We chose this one because it was the first one available on our digital library and the others had a longer wait list. We are waiting on The Cricket In Times Square to become available. The Blue Fairy Book is composed of several short stories. For some reason the digital version we checked out had slightly different stories than what was in the student guide. We were able to use the majority of the student guide.  I like the selection of books that are offered with the fourth grade set. I read many of these books when I was a child and I feel that its a well rounded selection for this grade.

All the Student Guides are set up similar, but they cover different things for each book. I love that they all sort of work together to make one great Literature set. All the books together make a great well rounded lesson. The Student Guide for each lesson has Reading Notes. This section has words from the story and the definitions. The Vocabulary section is great. It offers a sentence with a vocabulary word in bold. Then they need to match that bold word with one of the definitions from the definition bank. The Comprehension section helps kids to consider what they have read and find the important parts of the story.  You will find a Quotations section where the child is given a quote from the story and they have to identify who said it. They are then given discussion questions to answer and an enrichment box where they are ask to do something like draw a picture that has to do with the story they just read.

The Teachers Manual has teaching guidelines for getting started. It offers answers to the student guide. But it also has test and test answer sheets in it. There is a quiz for ever two fairy tales. The final exam covered the last two fairy tales. I found both the quizzes and final exam to be well rounded.

My Third grader who reads on a upper 4th grade level really enjoyed this set. She says she liked the hole thing even the enrichment box where she had to draw something. The student guide really engaged her into the story. She wasn't just reading to read, she had to pay attention to the details of the story. She was no longer just floating through the stories. I found that a good portion of the vocabulary words actually stuck and she began to use them in day to day conversations. She got so much more out the books than she was getting before. I am excited to finish up the Fourth Grade Literature Guide Set.  We have reserved the last couple books on our digital library.

Other Crew Reviewers had the chance to try out other Memoria Press Literature Guide Sets so you should click the banner to learn about the others.

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The 2015 Schoolhouse Review Crew Blue Ribbon Awards !

This is it the official end of the 2015 Review Crew. We have all voted for our favorites and if you click the banner above you can view all the amazing winners and you can read post from fellow crew members about how they voted. Me and the girls really struggled with who to vote for this year we loved so many of the products we reviewed. I think all of our favorites were winners this year. Though I don't think we really had anything that wasn't a favorite we even drew names out of a hat for two categories because we just couldn't decided.  Hear are the Winners, click the links to read my reviews and other crew members reviews!   Congratulation's to all of this years Blue Ribbon Award winners!  

Favorite Reading Curriculum: Reading Kingdom
Favorite Writing Curriculum: Institute for Excellence in Writing
Favorite Vocabulary Program: Dynamic Literacy
Favorite Spelling Program: Institute for Excellence in Writing: Phonetic Zoo
Favorite Grammar Program: Institute for Excellence in Writing: Fix-It! Grammar
Favorite Penmanship Program: CursiveLogic
Favorite Literature Curriculum: Progeny Press

Favorite History Curriculum: Home School in the Woods
Favorite History Supplement: Heirloom Audio Productions: In Freedom's Cause
Favorite Science Curriculum: Visual Learning Systems
Favorite Science Supplement: Ann McCallum Books: Eat Your Science Homework
Favorite Math Curriculum: CTC Math
Favorite Math Supplement: SimplyFun

Favorite Christian Education Curriculum: Grapevine Studies
Favorite Christian Education Supplement: Brinkman Adventures
Favorite Foreign Language Curriculum: Middlebury Interactive Language
Favorite Fine Arts Product: Maestro Classics
Favorite Elective Curriculum: Apologia Educational Ministries: Field Trip Journal
Favorite Audio Drama: Brinkman Adventures
Favorite Video: FishFlix.com

Favorite Preschool Product: La La Logic
Favorite Elementary Product: Star Toaster
Favorite Middle School Product: The Critical Thinking Co
Favorite High School Product: Writing with Sharon Watson
Favorite College or College-Prep Product: Freedom Project Education
Favorite Parent Product: Koru Naturals
Favorite Planning Product: Apologia Educational Ministries: The Ultimate Homeschool Planner

Best Resource I Didn't Know I Needed: Homeschool Planet
Best Online Resource: Super Teacher Worksheets
Best e-Product: Home School in the Woods
Just for Fun: USAopoly Kids' Choice: La La Logic
Teens' Choice: YWAM Publishing
All Around Crew Favorite: Institute for Excellence in Writing

Be sure to Follow my blog so you don't miss out on next years Crew Reviews we are going to review some great products and you wont want to miss them!

GrapeVine Studies Old Testament 1 Level 1 Review

I am sad to say this is my final Crew Review for 2015. I am how ever proud to announce that its a great product from GrapeVine Studies  ~ https://GrapeVineStudies.com. Me and the girls have been working with the Old Testament 1: Level 1 Creation to Jacob. We received the digital download for this book. It comes with a teachers edition and a student work book. The student workbook is around 73 pages and it contains 12 lessons.  Its basically a chronological study of the characters and events of the Old Testament  from Creation to Jacob and get this you use stick figures to do it. Cool Right! Stick Figures are right up my alley. I cant draw a lick. By the end of the level your kids should be able to recite around 10 memory verses and draw the beginning of the Old Testament timeline. 

The teachers book is great it covers both level 1 and 2.  Its very easy to teach from and its well laid out.  It gives you some teachers goals and student goals to strive for. It even has little pictures so you can see what your kids should be drawing.  The teachers book does have some color what you read to the kids is in green. The stick people are also colored so that you can tell the kids which color to use when they are drawing. I don't have a colored printer so I emailed GrapeVine Studies and ask if it was OK for me to just save the file to my Ipad and use it from there. They said that was fine, and it has worked out really well for me. I printed out the girls work books and put them in a three ring binder. Its simple and works well for us and I can file it away when they are done. 
The Student work book starts out with a Timeline. We had so much fun doing the drawings. Although I think the girls figures were much better than mine. The girls were already a little familiar with this portion of the bible as they had covered it in Sunday school a few weeks ago.  How ever they said GVS (that's what the girls call it) was way way better, they actually ask if the Sunday school teacher could get it for class.  Each lesson has drawing pages for the student to do. Then it has lesson review questions, a student drawing page where they can draw their favorite part of the lesson and an area to write a verse. At the end of the lessons there is a timeline review and a memory verse review. 
The lessons have been taking us around 20 minutes or so. We do them about three days a week. The girls like to take their time drawing the pictures. You can see a sample of one of the girls timeline drawings on the left. As you can see they are fairly simple drawings to make. Which is perfect so that the younger kids can work in the same lessons as ones that are a few years older. This is a big time saver for me since I only need to teach bible study once that day and I don't have to plan a separate lesson for the other child.  Although we did not use it GrapeVine also offers a traceable version of this student book. Which would be perfect for kinder and pre-k kids.
I have really enjoyed the simplicity of teaching this Bible study. The teachers book makes teaching the lessons flow smoothly.  For the age range of this level 1 book I feel that it covers this part of the Old Testament nicely. Its not over their heads and yet it give a fair amount of information.  The girls are so excited to hear the lesson and do the drawings that it has been a real pleasure to use. If you take a look at the image below you can get an idea of the different levels and age groups they are designed for. I am looking forward to trying out the next level.

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 I want to encourage everyone to click the Schoolhouse Review Crew Banner below. Other members reviewed different levels and I would love for you to see what they have to say about it.