Reading Eggs Review

Reading Eggs = Awesome

Both of my kids REALLY like this program and that makes a momma happy. I don't just like it because they do. I like it because of the content of the program. Let me tell you all about it.

What is Reading Eggs?

Reading Eggs is an online program introducing children to the world of reading through games, stories, and songs. The site states it will teach your child to read in just 5 short weeks. It is geared at children aged 4-7. There are 12 maps that each include 10 lessons and a quiz at the end of each map. That makes 120 lessons total for reading and 96 spelling lessons interwoven throughout.



In addition to the lessons there are many other areas the kid can go to for incentives and further fun learning experiences.

• Playroom- Includes  many areas of fun things for the kids to do- puzzles, music, letter reinforcement, art, etc.
• My house- Here is where their "eggsplorer" (avatar) lives and can be filled up with items purchased in the store.
• Reggie's Shop- This is the store where they can use their eggs they have earned during their lessons to purchase things for their house and  clothes/outfits for their avatar.
• Arcade- Play games they also purchase with their eggs.
• Music cafe- Songs



There are more places they can open up as they complete lessons including: My world, story factory, puzzle park, and storylands.

Reading Egg also has companion readers (book packs) available to purchase that goes along with the program. You can find them here.

There is another part of reading eggs for the older crowd 7-13 called Reading Eggspress which is used to boost reading and comprehension skills. It is broken down into 4 parts: stadium, library, comprehension gym, and apartment/mail. My 2 kids are too little for this area yet so I can't tell you any more than that.:)



What I/we like- Pros

Everything!! The kids really enjoy this and have become fond of their "teacher" the ant. The repetition of the lessons is great because it really reinforces the learning and also makes it easy for the kids to complete independently after a couple of lessons. Reading eggs has really made an almost monotonous repetition fun and enjoyable for the kids like NO OTHER program I have ever seen or used.  Luke is absolutely not one for beating a dead horse but has no problem with this style here. The funny songs and graphics keep them so ingaged they forget about all of the repetition I think.

What we don't like- Cons

NONE!! I have never ever said that before and it shock even me to say it now. The kids love it. I think the content of the program is spot on for reinforcing what they are learning. Okay their is only one little technichal glitch that bothers my 4 year old, but it mostly has to do with her lack of speed on the computer. If you don't fill in some of the areas fast enough the page won't progress and I have to redo it for her to move on. Small price to pay for now. My 5 year old has no problem and I am sure soon enough she will pick up speed as well.

How can you get it?

Head on over to Readingeggs.com for your 14 day FREE trial (no cc required). Or you can purchase it for

$75.00 for 1 year
$49.95 for 6 months
$.95 monthly

If you purchase the 1yr or 6 mo. you can add a 2nd or 3rd child for 50% of the regular subscription price. GO give it a try and see if your little ones will love it as much as mine. I will be pruchasing this once our trial period runs out

I was given this product free for a 3 month trial period in return for an honest review. These are completely my own opinions and the opinions of my mini-reviewers. I was in no other way compensated for my review.



Skip counting by 2's- math mat freebie

We are working on the solar system for science so I thought I would incorporate some other subjects into the fun. I got the inspiration for this math mat from makinglearningfun.com, but since I am an ink hoarder I revamped it :).

You can get a copy of it here. I also make number cards to go along with it which you can get here.
This pic is bad and sideways :o but you get the idea.

Luke caught on to this quickly and now counts by 2's as he goes up and down the stairs. Great skip counting reinforcement. He up until now only knew how to count by 1's or 10's. I guess next we will be on to 5's. Bring on the money! We have not done much with coin value but I think we will work on counting by 5's first just to make things a bit easier. {mainly on me} Sophie can also count by 1's and 10's and she memorized counting by 2's to 10 but I don't think she fully grasped it. No problem since
I intended it for Luke and she is just included if she wants to be.
We will visit this again in the future.

I hope someone can use this with their little ones.

Linked up here

Happy mathing! Julie

St. Patrick's Day Fun

We were all about St. Patrick's Day today. You know those Pinterest pins that you go crazy on and then never get around to doing? Well today we started in on them.

We started of playing a roll a rainbow math game. I just drew out my own rainbow and added a color dot to each arch (in Roy G. Biv order of course :)) and then wrote a number between 2 and 12 on each line. They had to roll 2 dice, add them together and then color the arch that matched the sum if they had that number on their rainbow. It was fun for both of them. I have been working on "counting on" with Luke and he is really getting it now. Maybe I should not say getting it as much as using it. I had the idea in my head when we started this game to see how he was doing with it and he did it on his own with ease. Sophie sometimes can see sums without even counting aloud which I do think is great but I am a mean mom and still make her count them just to keep "beatin' a dead horse". Can them little ones ever get to much counting practice {snicker..}?!

Here is the pin from LittleFamilyFun. Here is a link to the blog post.

After they finished that bit of learning/fun they decided to make shamrock men which I got the idea of from Allkids Network. Here is the pin

Here is what Luke's turned out like...

Someday I will remember to put the appropriate colored paper in the printer before I hit print MAYBE!! You would think after all of this time I would remember but nooooo. So my poor little ones had to wear out half of a colored pencil on these little guys. Good fine motor practice right?! I think his shamrock went a bit Frankenstein with the hair style and how about those teeth- Yikes! That is really what I love about giving them a general idea and then letting them make it their own. Luke is Mr. Detail and Sophie is just "get 'er done" girl. I did not get a pic of hers but it was just googly eyes and a smile.

They also colored a few pictures of leprechauns which Sophie taped to popsicle sticks to use as puppets. Lucas used his to put in his leprechaun trap that we made next. I can't take a pic of it unfortunately because my camera battery just died :( . We had corn dogs for lunch and that is what gave me the idea. Crazy right! Well as I was taking them out of the box to put in a freezer bag I was thinking about what I could use the box for...... I know a leprechaun trap. I know, I know.... the random thoughts of a frugal homeschool mom!

The best for last (only because I can eat them), shamrock cookies.

I let the kids roll out the balls and arrange them in clusters of 3 on the baking sheets. Luke decided after they were finished that we forgot the stems but I told him they would be just fine without them. Once again... details, details. We have a cookie cutter we could have used but this seemed much more fun for the kids.

There you have it. Our green day is complete. Thanks to Pinterest tomorrow may be full of green fun too!  I have a lot more ideas to get through.

Julie

K5 Learning Review

What is K5 Learning?

K5 Learning is an online after-school study program and/or homeschool enrichment program for kids in kindergarten to grade 5.  We build reading, math and study skills to last a lifetime.

I tested this program out with Luke (newly 5 yo.) for this review. Before the child begins lessons the parents have the option of doing a placement assessment or just starting lessons at grade level. I opted to do the assessments for both reading and math. Luke tested at grade 1 in both. The assessments were very thorough but were also very lengthy for a 5 yo in my opinion. I also felt that he could not have independently completed them without me further explaining the instructions and following along with him. After the assessment I was given a report breaking down the areas tested in both subjects which seemed consistent across the board for him. Here is what an assessment report looks like.

Lessons

The lessons are divided into 4 groups: Math, Reading, Spelling, and Math Facts. With Luke I did not use the math facts or spelling sections. In total there are over 3,000 math and reading lessons. The lessons progress in sequence and the student can't go back to easier previously completed lessons. The content of the lesson is used to the point of mastery and then they move on.

The lessons are not particularly fun but are very skill oriented and are broken down into short segments. You can check out the sample lessons here.

Pros and Cons

Pros: It is a safe- no advertisement site. Lesson plans can be set to reinforce certain topics child is currently working on. Parent can view reports to monitor the progress each child is making.

Cons: The math section is thorough but Luke did not like the voices used on some of the lessons and it drove him "crazy" he said. He also did not like that he had to wait so long to be able to chose the correct answer at times. The reading section definitely seemed set up to be a reinforcement of previously learned knowledge than and intro to new concepts. For an older child I can see this being a Pro vs a Con but for my new learner he did not feel there was enough introduction or follow through on each concept. 

Overall I think this would be a great program for older more independent learners but for my little one it was not a good fit. Being a homeschool family we have the opportunity to explain and teach a concept until understanding before moving on and then to continue to incorporate review into the lessons. With mine being so young I think this may be something we could come back to in the future with more success.

How to try it out?

I really do encourage you to give this a try for yourself. Every child is different and many children do get a lot out of the program. Click here to get a free trial. No credit card required so it is indeed a FREE trial.

If you decide to purchase this program it is $25/mo for the 1st child and $15/mo for each additional. Or you can purchase it for $199/yr with each additional child being $129/yr.

I was provided a 6 week free trial in return for my honest review of K5 Learning. I was in no other way compensated for this review. This review reflects my honest opinion.

Our body systems unit

We have finished up our never-ending unit on the body systems. We spread it out over too many weeks. No actually it was fun but it did seem to drag on. We started with bones/muscles and then moved on to respiratory, digestive, circulatory, nervous, skin/defense system- army guys as we like to call them around here.

We started out making a life sized outline of each child. We cut them out and "decorated" them as each child felt appropriate. Luke, being the perfectionist, had a few meltdowns during this process. He wanted to first put the bones/skeleton on. We got out our fold out book to use as a guide.

I wanted him to only do it on one side so we could add the other systems to the other side as we went along but that was NOT happening. It was a full skeleton or war!! Soooo here it is.

We drew it on with pencil and then he colored it in with white chalk. As you can see on the floor there, we also used Me and My Amazing Body to assist with the bones. Sophie did not want hers cut out and wanted minimal "things" added. Here is what she came up with...

Awful pic- I know- but I could not seen to make the glare go away no matter what I did. She placed a few random bones here and there but she was ALL about the GI tract. Notice the mouth wide open and her esophagus and stomach.

My plan was to add further systems to them but neither was having it. For the other systems we did lap book mini books and sheets from the Living Learning Books student pages.

Luke has his hanging on his bedroom wall still. He also traced Sophie's Barbie and "embellished" her.

My absolute FAVORITE part of this unit came after we had read this book..

I could tell that Lucas really did not want to ask me and that he already knew the answer to the question but he just HAD TO so he could just make sure. He asked, "Mom, are there really little guys inside of our body?" That was great. He intellectually knew that there was not but he just needed to clarify it. Too cute!

We are blasting off to the solar system now. Luke is now clear that there are not actually little men in his body working but he is not convinced that there are not aliens!!

Julie

Miquon Math

From the beginning I knew that Miquon was the way I wanted to teach the little ones math. I like that it is discovery oriented and self checking. Although it was developed for the classroom decades ago I feel it is still relevant today for us at home. There are lessons in the First Grade Diary that are not workable with 1 or 2 kids, but not something that we can't adapt to fit us at home. I purchased the first two workbooks (orange and red), First Grade Diary, and the Lab sheet annotations last year in preparation for starting when I felt the time was right. I think the time is right!

We have played with the rods and the counting pages of the Orange book during the last year but nothing real formal. Mainly just learning the rod values/colors and their association to one another. Luke pretty much has them down now. Sophie is just enjoying figuring it all out. She really likes doing this activity over and over.

She also asks frequently to do the pages in the orange book and does surprisingly well for only being 4. She seems to be picking up mathematical thinking without much formal instruction and mainly just play.

She sure does create some cute pages :)

Luke is using Math Mammoth as his main curriculum and using Miquon to see the how and why. This is working good for now. Let's hope it stays this way for a while. More in this to come.

Happy Mathing!!

Julie