Wordless Wednesday - Kite Day Fun

This week's Wordless Wednesday is inspired by some fun at the park we had.  Join us for some kite flying fun!

Elementary Comprehensive Language Arts Curriculum - Review

Our family was given a one-year subscription to Home School Navigator Reading and Language Arts Curriculum and interactive notebooks from Home School Navigator in exchange a review.  I am not to fund of teaching Language Arts.  Well, it's not that I don't like it, it's just that I am always doubting myself in that area or I feel like I may be missing or leaving something out.  Home School Navigator was designed for the homeschool parent like me in mind.  They provide your children with a life long learning experience.

T is for Tree: A Bible ABC book for toddlers - A Book Review

First of all is it really almost June already?!?  This year is almost halfway over.  Where did the time go?  I hope you are getting your summer book list ready.  Still gathering suggestions for your list?  Well, that's great because today I want to introduce you to a sweet Christian children's book titled, T is for Tree: A Bible ABC from Reformed Free Publishing Association.  I was sent this book in exchange for my honest review.   My niece has enjoyed listening to me read it to her as she looks at the pictures but even more so she has enjoyed talking over and trying to read it her self.  LOL

Preschool and Kindergarten Learning Curriculum Review - PandaParents

My two-year-old niece spends the day with our family during the week.  She started showing interest in wanting to learn more and read by the time she started walking.  She would grab books from the bookshelf and say, "Read Kie, puwease."  So I would read to her and work on ABCs, numbers, and colors whenever she was interested.  I had not introduced her to a formal curriculum until now.  We have been working MESSYLEARNING FOR PRESCHOOLERS AND KINDERGARTNERS by PandaParents for the past month.  We received this in exchange for our honest review.

What is PandaParents and what does MESSY stand for?

PandaParents is a monthly preschool learning curriculum subscription.  It is recommended for kids 3-6 years old.  Each month comes with a preschool learning storybook, video story, a pdf workbook, and other projects which are included in the workbook.  They cover several different subjects such as Reading, Math, Art, Science, and even foreign language.

MESSY stands for 

Mixed subjects and activities for integrative learning

Engaging activities that challenge minds

Simple 1 2 3 steps: Read, Learn, Create

Smart designs for creative learning

Yeah, a new way to promote preschool STEM and early brain growth.

What we received

We are reviewing an electronic version of this program.  We received three months worth of the program.  

A Jolly Jingle Journey parts 1 and 2

Mommy's Baby

Scotty Skunk Hears a Scary Sound

How we used it

My niece is only 2 years old so  I am not forcing her to sit through complete lessons.  Ideally, the kid would read the book, watch the video story, and work on the workbook pages and crafts.  However, I had my niece listen and watch the video story and then I printed off the worksheets as needed.  

We worked through A Jolly Jingling Journey it came with 2 stories, the video story, and a pdf workbook.  We did not make it all the through the workbook but I did look over all the pages to get an idea of what they covered.

Part 1 introduced the letter J.  Mrs. Kelly taught the kids about the uppercase and lowercase "Jj" they incorporated the English, Spanish, and Chinese languages.

Part 2 was about a little boy named Davy who is on a hunt to find Santa.  This story teaches the letter "J", colors, patterns, the Arctic region, and more.  Working through this workbook your child will learn reading skills, memory skills, numerical order, problem-solving, and so much more.  My niece enjoyed the worksheets more than she did the story.  I think it's because it made her feel like a "big girl"

We did not make it through all three of the stories but I did look through all of them.

Mommy's Baby is a story about a baby, that didn't want to go to sleep so mommy reads a cute little story about a panda names Amanda.  This story introduces shapes, animals, sizes, and different foods.  Working through the workbook your child will learn about emotions, letter recognition, patterns, living and non-living things, reading comprehension, and so much more.

Scotty Skunk Hears a Scary Sound is a story about a skunk trying to find a new home, but everywhere he goes there's a scary sound so he leaves to go find a new home.  The scary sounds are not scary at all they're things like a tractor, lawn mower, a train etc. but for a little skunk, they can be very intimidating.  The storybook taught the letter S, sounds of locomotives, the 4 seasons, the weather and so much more.  Working through this workbook the kids will work on handwriting, matching games, patterns, sorting, reading comprehension, chronological order, and a ton of other things.

My thoughts

This program is a great curriculum for preschool children.  The preschool learning stories are easy to follow and keep the attention of the kid.  It covers a variety of subjects in a fun, interactive way.  It is very parent-led intensive, but  I don't mind that.  I will definitely continue to work through this program with my niece as long as she is interested.  I would recommend this for children 2-6 with a little patience on the parent side for the younger kids.  You can get this awesome preschool learning subscription for as low as $9.95 a month.

I'm sure you would love to read more about what other moms are saying about MESSYLEARNING FOR PRESCHOOLERS AND KINDERGARTNERS by PandaParents click the banner below to do so.

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Wordless Wednesday - Nature Walk

This week's topic is Nature Walk.

Kid Friendly Email Account - A Review

Although we don't allow our children to freely roam the internet there are a few things we would still like them to learn.  Things like how to send/receive emails and proper email etiquette.  In learning that we don't them to be exposed to inappropriate spam mail or have to worry about who they are sending and receiving emails from.  Kids Email helps alleviate a ton of the worrying.  Which is why we were happy to review a one-year subscription to their Kids Email Safe Email for Kids.  This has been a great way for them to continue practicing their keyboarding skills, writing skills, and spelling.  They really enjoyed being able to keep in contact with their grandparents and the grandparents enjoyed it just as much.

Kayla Jarmon an author writing from a Christian worldview - Book Review

Most of you know that our family loves to read, well most of us do, and the ones that don't like to read they love to listen to me read.  However, finding kid-friendly books is getting as hard as finding kid-friendly movies.   Kayla Jarmon writes stories from a Christian worldview so we were happy to read and give our honest review of three of her books, A Boy and His Dog, Dying is Part of This World, and Don't Forget Me.

A is for Apricot - Blogging Through The Alphabet

I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that we are already in the month of May.  Where has the year gone?  Life as Mrs. Cooks has grown so much this year and we are so grateful for all of our readers!  With that growth, we are going to be co-hosting, Blogging through the Alphabet, with some other amazing mom bloggers!  Each Thursday we will be bringing you a new topic based on the letter of the alphabet we are on.  I have no theme in mind so I will have very random topics.  This week's letter is "A"

A is for Apricot DIY Soap

Improving our Reading with Reading Kingdom - Homeschool Curriculum Review

My youngest daughter struggled with reading and spelling when she attended public school.  The first thing we started working on when we started homeschooling was how to improve her reading and spelling.  Although she has improved tremendously she is not where I would like for her to be.  I am always on the lookout for ways to help her improve more.  I was introduced to Reading Kingdom through the Homeschool Review Crew.  I did some research and figured we should give it a try.  We were offered a year subscription in exchange for our honest review.  When my daughter was in public school she was taught spelling and reading by sight words.  She had no idea how to phonetically sound out a word so, when we started homeschooling I started teaching her how to spell and read by doing phonics.  However, that has only gone so far because many of the English words can't be "sounded out", you know we have so many exceptions to the rules.  To my surprise reading requires six skills and Reading Kingdom teaches all six.

CodeWizardsHQ - A Coding Class Review

Our children don't have the privilege of using electronics too often.  However, after being introduced to coding at homeschool convention one year, my son showed interest in learning how to code.  We purchased a few workbooks, but it wasn't enough for him to actually learn programming.  We just finished a coding class from CodeWizardsHQ and I am excited to tell you all about it.  Their computer programming class is great for all kids rather they are a homeschool students, in public or private school.

C.S. Lewis Master Storyteller - Book Review

Our family was first introduced to YWAM Publishing about 5 years ago when we first started our homeschool journey.  We read several books about Christian missionaries from their Christian Heroes: Then & Now series and we enjoyed all of them.  I was thrilled when the Homeschool Review Crew was given the opportunity to review one of their books.  My two older children recently read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe from the Chronicles of Narnia series and our whole family has watched the movie, so we definitely wanted to learn more about the author, C.S. Lewis.  We love adding Christian biographies to our studies so we were excited to review C.S. Lewis Master Storyteller, one of the books in the Christian Heroes: Then & Now we also received a Study Guide to use with our book.