Freebie Friday

Well, with this being back to school time, I felt that I would share websites that provide FREE academic programs to enhance your homeschooling experience. I only ask that you share these links with other parents!

The first website is for Spelling City. They offer a free online spelling program. Lots of fun and games for the kids and a huge help to mom. You can read my review of Spelling City on this blog.

http://www.spellingcity.com/

Next, we have a totally free vocabulary program that is sponsored by Wordly Wise. You may use this program with or without the Wordly Wise books. I really like the games on this site for reinforcing vocabulary. Also, it's great for SAT prep! http://www.wordlywise.com/

Finally, a great website to reward reading and to check reading comprehension skills is http://www.bookadventure.com/. This site offers quizzes for thousands of books and rewards prizes for points earned.

If you know of any free websites or free school related materials that you would like to share please e-mail me at ALKKBELL@verizon.net.

I pray that this blog may be a blessing to you. Have a wonderful school year and check back next week for more Freebie Friday!

Homeschooling is a Labor of Love

Over the years the Old Schoolhouse Magazine has served as a support group, a resource, and a curriculum guide to my homeschool. I look forward to receiving the magazine quarterly, and my only regret is that it does not come out monthly. When the latest issue arrives, I can not wait for the end of the day when I can savory each article. By the end of the evening, the issue has been thoroughly reviewed and and selected pages are folded over for more careful review. I love to visit the various vendor's web pages and see the new materials available. So, if you have not experienced the Old Schoolhouse Magazine, I encourage you to take advantage of this incredible offer.

The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine is extending an extraordinary
subscription offer to homeschool families. Receive a one-year print
subscription for just $7.95 or a one-year plus current issue
subscription for $12.95. One-year subscriptions start with the winter
issue. The one-year plus current issue starts with the fall issue.
Only 5,000 of these special subscriptions are available from August 31
through midnight on September 15. Once the 5,000 are gone, they’re gone!
Hurry and grab this crazy price today!

Spelling City-Premium Membership

SPELLING CITY

Time 4 Learning

http://www.spellingcity.com/

954-357-1150

Spelling City has added a fun dimension to weekly spelling words! It offers a complete online spelling program with a wide array of games and activities to reinforce proper spelling. Prior to reviewing this product, my children have used the free version of Spelling City. We all enjoyed using the program and I could not imagine what a Premium Membership might add. Well, I was pleasantly surprised! Included in the Premium Membership is a program that automatically tracks the students test scores, so you do not have to grade tests or record scores. In addition, it provides both a class and individual grade record. The Premium Membership also contains two games that are not available with the free membership; Letter Fall and Speedy Speller. Of course, these were my daughter's favorite games and mine too. Another excellent feature of Spelling City is the sentence writing and paragraph writing components. This feature allows the student to either write their spelling words in sentences or write a story using all their words. With the Premium Membership, the teacher is able to read the student's writing, respond to them, and keep a record.

Overall, Spelling City is a comprehensive spelling program. It reminds me of a lavish buffet with lots of great items, but too many for one sitting. This is an excellent feature in itself because most children like a variety of activities. So let's check out what is on the Spelling City buffet.

The homepage provides a list form, where either you or your student may type in the weekly spelling words. If you do not have a spelling list, they provide a rather extensive collection of spelling list to choose from. Once your spelling words are entered, the student has three choices to start the program. The first option is TEST ME, this selection is quite similar to a pre-test.The words are spoken clearly, then followed with a sentence. Words or sentences may be repeated by clicking on a button. The student types their responses in the space provided. Upon completion of the pre-test, the student may click on the Check Me button and the pre-test is scored. Now the student is ready to move on to the second option; TEACH ME. Here the words are spelled aloud and used in a sentence. The student not only sees the letters, but also hears them as they are spoken. The third choice, and probably the favorite, is the PLAY A GAME option.


Here, the student can choose from fourteen different games. Some of the games are Alphabetize, Match It, Hang Mouse, Word Search and Crossword. Also available in this section are sentence and paragraph writing activities. There is definitely enough variety to keep every student happy. In addition, you can print many of the games and make handwriting worksheets with the spelling words.
All in all, I found the program very user friendly, however, the first couple of times I forgot to save the spelling words. Once I realized this, it was an easy fix. I used this program with my 9 year old daughter, Karina. She enjoyed the games most of all and found practicing spelling words much more fun then the traditional method we used in the past. Karina typed her words into the program on Monday and used the Test Me mode to take her pre-test. During the week, she played the various games and followed up on Friday with a Post-Test. I can not say that her spelling skills improved significantly over the four weeks we used the program, but I can say
that she enjoyed spelling considerably more. We will continue to use this program and I would recommend it to others. I feel it works well with elementary school age students and is reasonably priced at $24.99 for an annual membership. The membership is good for up to 5 students in the same family. Spelling City also offers a classroom membership for $49.99 for up to 30 students. The program is online, so an internet connection is required.


I received a free 30 day premium membership in exchange for my honest review of Spelling City.

See what my fellow crew members had to say about Spelling City by clicking the button below.

Freebie Friday

Freebie Friday





Beginning this fall, log on every Friday to cash in on all kinds of free deals to help make your homeschooling easier and more fun!


IT’S LIKE HAVING A MONEY TREE GROWING IN YOUR BACKYARD!
http://laurensschoolroom.blogspot.com/
Starting Friday, September 3rd

October Schoolhouse Expo

It's back to homeschool time and registration is open for the online Schoolhouse Expo, October 4-8. It's five days of top homeschool speakers, fellowship, and fun door prizes.

The theme this fall is "Celebrate Homeschooling!" We're going to celebrate the unique blessings of homeschooling, the beginning of another school year, our families, and the freedom to tailor our children's education to best meet their needs.


You'll be inspired by speakers including: Zan Tyler, Dr. Jay Wile, Jeannie Fulbright,Carol Barnier, Diana Waring, Todd Wilson, Davis Carman, Kim Kautzer, Lee Binz, and many more!

Save $5 per ticket! Register between August 16 and midnight August 22, and you'll pay only $19.99. Plus you'll receive over $200 in free E-Books.

Register Now at: http://bit.ly/fall_expo_2010

Register starting 12:01 a.m. on Monday, August 16.

A special teen track is planned--the entire family will definitely want to listen to these special sessions. We've also planned a special focus on a topic that touches every homeschool--writing. Plus, an array of other topics that will inform and inspire you throughout your homeschooling years.

Don't forget, MP3 copies of each session comes with your LIVE event ticket.

Two special preconference shows on August 24 and September 21 with Dr.
Jay Wile, Jeannie Fulbright, and Kim Kautzer

If you cannot make the Live event, then the October Expo To Go is just your ticket! You'll reserve MP3s from all of the workshops. This week only, pay just $14.95!

I am receiving a free Expo-To-Go tickets in exchange for this post

Travel The World! The 2009 Schoolhouse Planner (June 2010 Module)
The Old Schoolhouse Magazine
www.theoldschoolhousestore.com
1-888 718-HOUSE
$7.95

The Old Schoolhouse Magazine has made world travel as easy as a click of your computer mouse! The June 2010 Module of the 2009 Old Schoolhouse Planner is a 56 page unit study for the whole family. This E-book includes everything you need to teach world geography to students from Kindergarten to 12th grade. The unit study is composed of a study guide with numerous internet links embedded into the text. This feature allows the student to quickly find the definition of vocabulary words and explore related websites.

The course begins with an exploration of globes, flat maps and the compass rose. It continues with a study of the world's oceans and the seven continents. There are internet links to quizzes and games within each section. In addition, there are numerous printable activity sheets; including word searches, word scrambles, crossword puzzles, copy work (manuscript and cursive), coloring sheets and lap book materials.

My children, ages 14, 12, and 9, each used the Travel the World study. My 14 year old enjoyed the interactive games that were linked to the study. She also liked the recipes and high school level word search. I thought the geography challenge on the high school level was a nice touch, especially since my daughter had just completed a year of high school geography. I found the word search, at this level, was a little too easy and would have preferred a challenging crossword puzzle.

My 12 year old son found the interactive links "neat" and found it fun to do geography on the computer. He also believed that the games added to the course and he continued to "play" in the unit, long past the allotted time for history. My son is not a fan of activity sheets. However, I felt that here was enough reinforcement within the unit to do a complete study without the use of the activity sheets.

The youngest of my children was very excited as she previewed the unit. She was drawn to the colorful graphics, the activity sheets and the lap book component. My 9 year old was especially fond of the interactive games. We spent quite a bit of time playing the Longitude and Latitude Matching Game. The object was to locate a little girl lost on a map using latitude and longitude coordinates. An additional favorite was the Continent Copycat Game, which is very similar to the popular game Simon. However, this one tests your memory while reinforcing the locations of the seven continents.

Overall, I really found the Travel the World Module easy to use and it required little to no prep time. A family with younger children might need to copy activity sheets ahead of time. However, my children printed out sheets as they worked. Another great feature is the internet links, which allows children to play on the internet without surfing to unfiltered websites. I found this product to work well with each of my children's learning styles. In addition, the e-book is reusable and affordable at $7.95. I would definitely recommend this program to other homeschooling families and look forward to using some of the other monthly modules that The Old Schoolhouse Magazine produces.

The Travel the World E-book was provided free of charge for my review as a member of the TOS Homeschool Crew. I received no other compensation, and this review is my honest opinion.

Reviewed by Lauren Bell

Thank God it’s the last day of school!!!! Well another great year of school has come to a close and what did I do last night? If you guessed started planning for next year, then you’re right! I think one of my favorite things about June is looking back over the school year and seeing the progress we have made during the year. This year in many ways has been one of our better homeschool years. Why? I think after sixteen years of homeschooling I am finally ok with not completing every page in every book. Although, we completed most of our curriculum, there were days when a lesson just seemed like busy work or there were pages that were repetitious-so we skipped them! (imagine that) At first my children questioned if we were allowed to skip pages and I was actually able to reply YES!! So I guess I have also made some progress this year. I hope the homeschool police will not see this, but we actually change some of our books midyear (don’t tell anyone). I finally realized that the price that I make my children pay for finishing curriculum that isn’t a good fit for them is much higher than the price it would have cost to resell and purchase new books. So this year we lap booked our way through science and did some fun unit studies instead of our text books and guess what? It turned out great. So at the end of our school year I can say I am truly thankful to God for freeing me from the textbook police and for Moore Expression’s (our local homeschool bookstore) for buying back my textbook misfits! Well, I guess I’ll go back to praying for wisdom and planning for another great school year.