Homeschooling for His Glory

Wow, it's been quite a while since I posted about our homeschooling life. Well, it has been going. As I had mentioned before, I had been trying to dedicate more of my time to my responsibilities as wife, homemaker, mother,  homeschooler and pastor's wife, and that have been taking up my time. On top of that have been more involvement in our new church, and this new venture as a reviewer for the Old Schoolhouse magazine. So there goes the reasons for my silence on the blog. I love blogging as a way to let family know and see what happens here but finding the time to do it sometimes is harder to find. So how has it been going? On the homeschooling front, things have been going relatively well: In language Art we are moving on in First Language Lessons with both boys. We have reached lesson 31 in book 4 with Zach and Lesson 50  in book 1 for Joho.  We have been continuing our practice of sentence analysis with Grammar Practice (MCT), and that has been going quite well as well.

What is Math Mammoth? " Math Mammoth offers affordable, yet quality math worktexts and workbooks for grades 1-8, available as both downloads and printed books. These books concentrate on conceptual understanding and are strong in mental math. The directions in the worktexts are written directly to the student, and are often self-teaching, thus requiring little preparation and involvement from the teacher." Math is one subject for which somehow you never stop acquiring material for. So, when I was offered to review this Math program I was quite exited. I was happy with what we are using right now but the more the better. I had come across Math Mammoth before and was very curious about it. Once I had it on my computer (I got the full 3 rd grade program on download), I was very happily surprised with the content. Math Mammoth, put out by Maria Russell, is full of different math programs for different needs. You can get: A full curriculum for grades 1-6 ( Light Blue Series ) w

What is Keyboard PAL? Keyboard Town PAL   is a typing program which is meant to teach your child to type with less than an hour of practice a day. How much does it cost? $35 for a CD-ROM $30 for a web-based version. The program is available in English, Spanish, and French and works on both Mac and Windows. They also offer additional products at reasonable costs. Who is it for? It is geared toward  7-10 years old but is is said to be workable with younger ones as well. Our opinion: Depending on your child, one might find the program very attractive or quite childish. The way it works is that there is a little puppet like character (which is the “PAL sunny”) that guides and teaches the child the proper placement of the fingers on the keyboard for good and efficient typing. It turns the keyboard into a city with each line of letters of the keyboard being a location in the city.  It teachers the proper finger positionning using story lines. The concept is well thought out and in my opinio

Ooka Island is an early literacy computer program for Pre-K to grade 2 students. It is a downloadable program that requires lots of computer space and an internet connection when playing the game. It can be downloaded on both PC and Mac. It is interactive and a visually very attractive program. Price: They offer family pricing and school pricing. For a family  the range is $12.95/month to $99.95/year for one child, and $19.95/month to $129.95/year for a family of up to 4 kids. What is Ooka Island exactly? From their website you can rea d: "Ooka Island Adventure is a downloadable hero-mission in 3D designed to teach young children how to read fluently and well. The Ooka Island Adventure combines the highly engaging components of a state-of-the-art virtual world with the scientifically proven OokaMethod that builds literacy skills. Carefully embedded within the Ooka Island Adventure are dozens of interactive instructional activities that captivate the child and motivate them as they