We are wrapping up our school year around the Hangout, but I wanted to tell you about a writing curriculum I added in at the end of the year that I felt was a really great addition to our homeschool day. Although we finished our grammar curriculum earlier in the year, I felt like we were missing the ability to transfer the knowledge of parts of speech and sentence structure into good writing. There was just a disconnect there. So when the TOS Crew offered its members the opportunity to review Write Shop Junior I jumped on it.

The first step was to use Write Shop’s placement help to see which book we needed to use. Since MA is in fourth grade and has a good grammar background, we chose Write Shop Junior Book D, which is recommended for 3rd or 4th graders, or reluctant 5th graders.

We got the pdf version, and if I had that to do over again, I would go with the print edition. What can I say? I still prefer books and haven’t even made the transition to e-readers. I’m old-fashioned like that. 😉

So, the book covers the following writing assignments:

Letter of Invitation
Humor
Adventure
Science Fiction
Mystery
Poetry/Haiku
Folktales
Historical Fiction
Personal Narrative
Expository Writing: Factual Article

And it introduces the following writing skills:

Identify and use proper grammar and punctuation
Narrow a broad topic to a specific topic
Brainstorm before writing
Structure a sentence
Write a paragraph
Choose strong words instead of weak ones
Use emotion words to develop voice
Use the five senses to add descriptive detail
Self-edit and revise their work

We’ve already worked through the the first couple of writing assignments, and we really like this curriculum. The pages are fun and engaging. The information is presented in a fun way so that writing seems more like a craft project than a boring assignment. My big girl was excited about writing.

You can purchase several parts to this series, but the main two you will want to get are the teacher’s guide and the student book. They are each $39.95 on the Write Shop website. This curriculum is very dependent on the teacher’s guide, so don’t even think about trying to teach from the student book. 😉 They also have a Time Saver Pack for $13.95 that will help you cut your prep time. It saves you the time to make your cards, games, etc. that are used in creative writing. There is also an accompanying grammar book called Fold-N-Go Grammar Pack that retails on their site for $19.95. These prices are for the print versions of these resources, but if you are more adventurous than I, you can purchase the pdf version to save a little money.

Still don’t know if Write Shop will work for you? You can read other TOS reviews here.

As Christian parents we struggle and work so hard to teach our children Biblical principles and God’s ways. Unfortunately, we live in a fallen world, and so they are also hearing competing messages from the world. Children can become so confused! It can be hard for little ones to distinguish between God’s voice and the world’s voice when it comes to issues like faith, obedience, what is acceptable, beauty, and morality. Discernment isn’t something that comes easily, but it CAN be taught so that our children can successfully navigate these issues.

When TOS gave us the opportunity to try out Apologia’s What We Believe series I jumped on it. The What We Believe series teaches children the essential beliefs of the Christian faith, and it is geared to kids ages 6-14. And, of course, along with learning the fundamentals, the books teach children a Christian worldview. I love how the books teach children how to make daily choices based on what they believe about scripture and what they believe God desires for them. Good stuff.

Although the first book in the series is Who Is God? And Can I Really Know Him?, we reviewed the second book Who Am I? And What Am I Doing Here? Though the books can stand alone, it really is easier if you start at the first book, as they build on each other. I feel like we’ll need to go back to the first book before we can get the full benefit of the second book.

We were sent the textbook, which retails for $39.00 at www.Apologia.net. We also received the note booking journal ($24.00), the mp3 audio CD ($19.00), and the coloring book ($8.00).

Each day, Mary Anneliese would read/listen to a section of the book and then complete the corresponding workbook pages. If she had trouble paying attention or sitting still, I would give her the coloring book to use while she listened. The book uses stories, scripture, vocabulary, and illustrations to teach the principles of Christianity. The workbook contains puzzles, creative and critical thinking exercises, crafts, and prayer pages to reinforce the ideas taught in the textbook. There is so much good material covered in the text and workbooks, but among my favorite topics are the difference in Christianity and other world religions, God gives us each special talents and abilities, the importance of what we feed our minds, and knowing whether to trust our feelings. As you can see, it is good messages that we all need to be reminded of, even the mama in this house!

I will say that my 10 year old had a little trouble understanding and completing the workbook on her own. I attribute this to not having completed the first book before we started this one. But once I talked her through the assignments, she was able to finish the work herself.

Still not sure if it’s for you? You can read other reviews here.

Apologia is a well-known leader in producing quality creation-based science curricula for homeschool students. In fact, we have used their Exploring Creation with Astronomy series this year. I was so impressed that we look forward to starting Exploring Creation with Botany next year.

Hands-on learning is so much more fun than lecturing or reading, so since we’ve been studying the space race in science, we took a field trip to Huntsville this week to the Space and Rocket Center. We’ve been before, but this time was more educational than last time because we’ve actually studied the material beforehand. Having the back story made the exhibits so much more fun to see. Behold! We actually knew what we were looking at! We went with the intent of Mary Anneliese taking notes for a paper on the space race. And we did get that done…

but we had a lot of fun in the process!

BittyGirl climbed “Olympus Mons,” the largest volcano on Mars.

The last time we went to the Space Center was in February (I think) and it was COLD, COLD, COLD! None of the rides and simulators were working that day because of the extreme temperatures. But this time, although it was still pretty chilly, they were open. Patterson shocked us all when she declared that she wanted to ride the rocket blaster ride. I wasn’t sure how it was going to go, but I figured I better get her on it before she backed out. She watched Mary Anneliese ride it one time, and then she jumped on and rode five more times.

We had a ball and got some great notes for a research paper. All in all, it was a really fun school day!

Have y’all been to the Space Center? Do you know of other fun day-trips that we could do in or around Alabama? Do tell!

My girls think family game night is the best time EVER! I guess we stay so busy during the week doing schoolwork, soccer, ballet, gymnastics, church, and a host of other activities, that when we have time to simply chill out and relax as a family they are in heaven. As much as they love it, we don’t do it as often as they would like simply because games can get long and have no before-bedtime ending point.

Enter Wits and Wagers Family. NorthStar Games recently sent me this fun, family game, and it has become a favorite for the girls and for me.

In Wits and Wagers Family, a question is read aloud. Contestants guess the answers (answers are all numerical) and write them down on their card. Players use their “meeples” to vote on which answer they think is the closest to the correct answer without going over. Points are awarded for closest answer and votes with meeples. It’s super easy to learn how to play, and because it’s the family edition, questions are appropriate for all ages. Even though Wits and Wagers Family says it’s for ages 8+, my three year old enjoys playing. Granted, she doesn’t understand many of the questions and can’t write the numbers anyway, but we let her play along the best she can. And the best part of all – games take less than 15 minutes or so to play. That makes it a fun game to play, even on a school night! We will often pull it out for a quick game before bedtime.

Wits and Wagers Family is available online or at many major retailers like Barnes and Noble or Target. Price varies at each retailer. Still need to read more about it? Click here to see reviews by other TOS reviewers.

If y’all buy it, let me know. I really think you will enjoy it!

We have a new favorite website at the Hill Hangout. We were given the chance to review www.Always-IceCream.com, and I can whole-heartedly say that both the mama and the big girl in this house APPROVE and LOVE! I know that educational/game websites are a dime a dozen these days, but Always IceCream has done it so, so right. When I say it is educational, I mean that your kids actually learn a TON from playing on it. And when I say it is fun, I mean that my child asked to write this review herself because she wanted to be sure I endorsed it well enough. She played last Sunday for two hours. When I asked her what she was playing (thinking it was a game) she said, “It’s called Language Arts.” Alrighty then! Two hours of grammar never came so easy in this house.

Always IceCream was developed by Swenja Ziegler, homeschooling parent of five children. Although Always IceCream is fabulous for homeschoolers, it can be used and enjoyed by any girl ages 7-12. Always IceCream awards virtual points or “scoops” as a reward for playing “games”. The awesome thing here is that the games teach geography, vocabulary, math skills, human anatomy, spanish, typing, language arts, states and capitals, presidential history, and so much more. The scoops are then traded for virtual pets and/or a virtual house, plus all the accessories to care for them. The more scoops girls earn with the educational games, the more they can shop or play just-for-fun games. It’s easy. Just play a reducing fractions game and earn scoops to spend in MiniWorld. Do a Bible quiz and spend scoops to dress a Victorian girl. Identify pieces of classical music and earn scoops to spend on your pet. So, so fun!

Here’s a look at the geography review:

And fun with typing skills:

Scoops can be spent in Pet World:

Girls have the opportunity to become “friends” with other girls on the Always IceCream community in a safe, fun environment. They can send and receive messages from their friends, and all messages are monitored for security reasons. Parents can link to their daughter’s account and receive weekly emails about their daughter’s progress in each category. I love receiving the reports so that I can monitor which areas my girl needs some help in.

The pricing for this website is really affordable, in my opinion. Cost is $4.99 per month or $29.99 per year. You also have the option of purchasing a lifetime membership for $99.99, which would be ideal if your girl is 10 or under! You can also give a gift membership (what a fabulous birthday gift!!).

Want to read more about Always IceCream? You can go to their website here, or read other TOS Crew reviews here. Even though Always IceCream gave me a two month membership to the site in exchange for this review, all opinions are my own.

One of the core aspects of a classical education is learning Latin. For non-Latin-speaking parent/teachers this can sometimes be a challenge. I took my two years of Spanish in high school, but I have zero experience in teaching or speaking Latin. Fortunately, there are some excellent resources available to help. I recently received ten lessons from Visual Latin to review, and if you are struggling to teach Latin to your student, I’d be happy to recommend this wonderful program.

The program was developed by two homeschooling dads, one a Latin teacher and the other a producer. Dwane Thomas is the teacher, and he definitely brings a ton of fun to Latin. Yes, it’s possible for Latin to be FUN when your teacher believes that it’s better to make students laugh than yawn. He also believes that students learn more when taught in several shorter sessions than in one long one. Each lesson is broken into three parts, and there are downloadable worksheets for each segment. The first day’s lesson contains a grammar lesson in which he teaches one to two new concepts. In the second day’s lesson, those new concepts are used in sentences. I can’t tell you how much success students feel when they can comprehend entire sentences!! And as Dwane says, those small successes lead to big success. The third day’s lessons are the most exciting for students. In these lessons, he reads a story and believe it or not, students can understand enough of what he reads to grasp the concept of the entire passage. When they can understand what is being read, it is such a confidence boost for the kiddos. Of course, lessons start very simply and increase in complexity.

It’s been proven that the more of our senses we use in learning, the more that learning “sticks”. The approach that Visual Latin takes uses auditory (listening to the teaching), verbal (speaking it after the instructor), and visual (reading the worksheets). Visual Latin takes that learning concept a step further. They believe that language is best remembered not by memorization, but by usage. Therefore, instead of memorizing vocabulary, students are immersed in the language by reading sentences and hearing stories.

The Visual Latin Program is available at www.VisualLatin.com. It is recommended for children ages 9 and up. There are 30 lessons in Latin 1 and 30 lessons in Latin 2. They are designed for 30 lessons to be covered in one school year. Visual Latin can be purchased as a single/family or group/class (5 or more students). It is also available as DVD or download. (We did the download and it was fantastic!) Pricing on the options is as follows:
Lessons 1-30 (DVD – Single/Family) – $80.00
Lessons 1-10 (Download – Single/Family) – $25.00
Lessons 1-10 (DVD – Single/Family) – $30.00
Lessons 1-10 (DVD – Group/Class) – $150.00

If you are uncertain if Visual Latin is a good fit for your family, they offer a free download of six lessons. You can check that out by clicking here. If you’d like to watch a sample lesson, just click here. Although we received these lessons free for writing this review (all opinions, however, are my own) I will more than likely ditch our current Latin curriculum in favor of this one. Dwane is just too engaging, and therefore what he teaches is REMEMBERED by my girl. Instead of memorizing a list of vocabulary words, she is reading simple stories. Her retention is SO MUCH BETTER!!

If you’d like to read a few more reviews about Visual LAtin before purchasing, you can head over to the Homeschool Crew at The Old Schoolhouse and read up on it.

One of the things we love most here at the Hill Hangout is family game night. We own many (too many!) board games and we love to pull them out and spend the evening playing the girls’ favorites. Anytime we go to a birthday party, we always give board games as gifts. I just think that they are good, clean fun and a great thing for the family to do together. When I got the chance to review a new-to-me board game called Tri-Cross, I jumped at the chance. Y’all, this one is quickly becoming one of our favorites.

Made by Games for Competitors, it’s sorta kinda a cross between checkers and chess. It’s definitely a game of strategy, but with its own twist. Here’s a short tutorial if you’d like to know how the game works:

The website says that the game is for ages 8+, but I wouldn’t be surprised if children even younger than that can play and enjoy the game. However, since it’s a game of skill and strategy, it is great for adults as well. It can be played with 2-4 players, or it can be played in teams. It comes in a standard edition (which is the one we played most) for $24.95, an eco-edition with all earth-friendly green materials for $19.95, and a really nice wood edition for $35.95. They sent us both the standard edition and the eco-edition. We’ll keep the standard edition in our game cabinet at home, while the eco-edition is a great size for traveling. It comes in a small cotton pouch, which contains the gameboard and all the pieces.

Tri-Cross has won some great awards as a fun, family-approved game.

If your family loves games, I think you will really like Tri-Cross. It is a short game if played with those-of-little-skill (like me) or can be a long, drawn-out game for those with greater skill level. The game comes with an instructional DVD which gives some strategy tips. Y’all let me know if you try it. If you’d like to read more about it, check out some additional reviews here.

Although Games for Competitors sent me a free copy of this game for writing this review, all opinions about it are my own.