Since summer day camp was canceled due to COVID 19 the girls won’t get official swim time and horse back riding lessons.  I set out to find some fun classes and activities we could do together. I discovered a local conservation center is offering kayaking lessons several times this summer. Me and the girls have signed up for the beginner class. We will learn basic paddling and water safety. They will provide the kayaks and paddles and the instructions but we must bring our own life jackets because of covid 19. The girls got new life jackets last summer but mom still needed one. I landed this baby at an online sporting goods store. I do have to say the girls are a bit jealous that I have such a cool looking life jacket.

Field trip to this great little place up the road. It used to be a summer camp for city kids. Now it’s a campground and place to hike fish and swim. 

It’s chicken time. We bought these little guys the other day. They are enjoying a little outside time since it’s comfortably warm.

Look what finally arrived! So excited for canning season.

Math Shed and Spelling Shed Review

Disclaimer: I received a FREE copy of this product through the HOMESCHOOL REVIEW CREW in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way



The Old Schoolhouse Review Crew assigned us this fun little learning product from EdShed. This company offers two different programs the first one is called Math Shed and the second is called Spelling Shed This web link will take you right to the main website where you can check out there super fun programs https://www.edshed.com/en-us.




The first program I am going to tell you about is Math Shed. For parents like me cost is $24.95 a year and includes up to 5 children. This gives you fill access to the Math Shed web game and a 15% discount if you wish to sign up for Spelling Shed. Fore parents it offers schedule and assignment tracking as well as data reporting. For the kids it offers some fun games that they can play online with friends or offline if you are on the go and with out internet. You can download the app for an additional cost or use the browser version on a PC. There are several different levels to each of the games within Math Shed. Math Shed uses a Mastery teaching approach and a no worksheet approach. It offers a wide range of math skill categories and levels such as number-bonds, times-tables, powers of 10 and addition and subtraction. As the parent/teacher you can go in and assign specific math games for each student. Math Shed is designed to be dyslexia friendly and uses a open Dyslexic font.

The girls like the games as you can see there are several different game options. They are good for practice and give the girls a little something different than the standard fact drilling with flash cards.

For Spelling Shed you go into the Teacher Hub and download the Curriculum. There are several different stages to Spelling Shed. Stage 1-5 corresponds to grades 1-5 etc. It is designed to give 100% common core and state standard coverage. It will give you weekly objectives and a lesson plan for each week. Along with printable practice sheets with answers. You can also assign specific assignments to each student.   There are 3 kinds of games for your students: Play which is the main game they will used to do assignments, Bee Keeper lets you guess the words by choosing letters, Buzzy Words lets you make up words using random tile letters. Each game has 4 different difficulty levels Easy- Medium- Hard- Extreme. On easy an audio clip is played and only the included letters are shown. On medium the audio clip is played and only the included letters are shown. On hard an audio clip is played and the included letters plus some random letters are shown. Extreme level the audio clip is played and a full qwerty keyboard is shown and letters must be correctly accented and capitalized.

Both programs offer Hive Games which allow students to play online with other players. As the parent/teacher you can create the hive and choose which students they can play against. This is a fun little feature if you have a group of homeschool kids you can get together to play with.

Out of the two programs the girls enjoy Spelling Shed the most and I feel it is giving them some great spelling practice even if the words are a little easy at times.

















Social Media Links:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EdShed-US-113476190342149/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/EdShedUS
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/spellingshed/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJKXC4Rd29eQQWPbSdITLhw

Beyond the Stick Figure Art School Review

Disclaimer: I received a FREE copy of this product through the HOMESCHOOL REVIEW CREW in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way.

Since we are stuck with out karate class due to Covid19 we added in an Art class by Beyond the Stick Figure Art School, https://beyondthestickfigure.com/. Beyond the Stick Figure Complete Drawing Course PLUS 3 Bonus Courses is what we received. The price of the course we received is $370.00.

This is a great little art program that I think most anyone can use. The Complete Drawing Course contains over 60 lessons that are designed and taught by a professional. This program is designed so anyone between the ages of 5-95 can use it. The program teaches skills and techniques that professional artist use to create amazing works of art. The program we received has over 60 lessons . You can use the program to teach multiple students at the same time or at different levels.  The bundle we received contains several different courses.

The first Course is Beyond the Stick Figure Complete Drawing Course. My daughter gauged this as a very beginner course. She said if you don't draw this is where you should start. She loves drawing and quickly got board with these lessons and moved on to some of the more challenging lessons. These lessons started off with the very basics and moves up from there. Part 1 has15 lessons and it is laid out with a daily lesson so its very easy for someone to follow. Part 2 has 19 lessons, Part 3 has 5 lessons, and a how am I dong grading rubric.

The second and third courses are Watercolor and Pen & Ink Course and the Introduction to Acrylic Painting Course.  There are 14 lessons in in Pen and Ink and water color has 47 lessons and the Acrylic course has 22 each section has a grading rubric to help you gauge how you are doing. This is the section where she really got into it. The video lessons are so easy to follow. She says it shows her steps to creating a picture and shows her different techniques that she can use to get the effect she wants when she paints. She says they use a great angle on the videos and she can see very well how to do different things. She is learning how to blend and layer colors and shadows better than ever now.

The fourth course is Introduction to 3D Design Course. This course has 28 lessons and covers 30 different topics. We haven't touched on this course just yet but we are defiantly working toward it and the girls are are excited to see what they can learn from it. I have pre- viewed a couple of the lessons and I think the girls will learn some great sculpting techniques for there clay figures.

Each course gives you a material list at the very beginning so you can pre-buy what you will need for the lessons. Thanks to covid19 our craft store was closed.  We substituted some of the items for things we already had in our art supplies that were similar. We had to make due with some some of the brushes and paints that we already had.  We had a big variety of pencils, charcoals and water color pencils already. They used acrylic paint crayon as well as some regular acrylic paint and watercolors. Over all the substitutions worked well and I think you can use a variety of brands and price ranges and still get good results. I am proud of my daughter and all that she is learning in this program. I cant wait to see how her artistic abilities improve as she progresses through the rest of the lessons.