Ultimate Phonics Reading Program (Spencer Learning Review)

Disclosure: I received a complimentary Ultimate Phonics Reading Program from Spencer Learning through Homeschool Review Crew, in exchange for a honest review.

I love that we have been able to use the Ultimate Phonics Reading Program from Spencer Learning on any computer we have in our house!  The license allows us to use this with everyone in our household! It is a downloadable software that runs on Windows 10, 8, 7, Vista, XP; or for Macs, OSX 10.5.8 or higher. It can be used for middle and high school students, for adult literacy, ESL and ELL, Dyslexia, struggling readers, and beginning readers alike. There are over 7,000 pages divided into 262 lessons. The lessons are fairly short at about ten minutes each, so you can do as many lessons or as few as you want. I very much enjoyed the versatility of this product.

There are also six types of pages you and your child can choose from in the lessons from Pattern pages, Idea pages, Word List pages, Word pages, Sight Word pages, and Sentence pages. It is very easy to naviagte through the lessons, as there are arrows where you can go back to the previous page for review, and I also enjoyed how some of the words were hyperlinked to give a definition or further explanation of the word. For example, when the boys were going through a lesson on what Phonics is, they were able to click on the word, "letters" and then "vowels." (shown below) It is also available with audio, so the text can be read to the child. As with many of my reviews, audio is a huge assest in our homeschool. Both my boys are auditory learners, and they very much enjoyed this aspect.

The e-curriculum also comes with helpful downloadable booklets such as the Words and Sentences ebook, and also an ebook that is a User's Guide. The Words and Sentences ebook was full of valuable information that pertained to each of the 262 lessons. There were Word Lists, as well as 8 to 10 practice sentences with the words in them. From these lessons, your child will learn the most common 4,400 words in the English langauage! These were wonderful at reviewing after the lessons were complete on the computer, and also perfect for handwritng lessons. I had my oldest son, who is seven write out the sentences and my youngest who is five, wrote out the words. It was fantastic to be able to have the both of them work together on the same lesson, but on their own level. It would also be a great way to do a comprehension test or spelling review.

The Ultimate Phonics Reading Program is a wonderful teaching tool. It is a pretty simple, yet colorful program that makes it enjoyable for adults and children alike. I liked that it didn't specifically cater just to children. There are many people that English is not their first language, and I thought this was an innovative way to teach the importance of the phonics of the English language. I really thought this was a terrific program, with the amount of lessons, support, and ebooks that are included. My family and I enjoyed it, and we would definintely recommend!



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Blessings,

Kelly

#hsreviews #phonics #phonicsapp #dyslexia #strugglingreader

Annual Subscription (KidsEmail.org Review)

Disclosure: I received a complimentary Annual Subscription from KidsEmail.org through Homeschool Review Crew, in exchange for a honest review.

My sons now have their own kids email!  They have been sending and receiving emails with the Annual Subscription from KidsEmail.org. It is a great way for them to stay connected with their friends back home, family, and our church family. This email for kids allows children to have the freedom of technology, but also has the ability for parents to monitor and protect them from things such as viruses, predators, spam and vulgarity. It can be used on any device such as an iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, desktop computer, laptop, or any device they choose.

There are many features that are ingenious for monitoring the use of technology with children. Before you even setup your child's account, there are excellent parental questions such as whether or not you as the parent have the ability to receive their ingoing and outgoing emails, if images can be viewed, or if attachments are allowed. When your child sends out an email or receives one, the parent also gets a copy of these emails. The parent has the ability to accept, decline or block who is in their child's contact list, and there is also a time restriction for your child. You can limit the amount of time or times of day your child can spend on their email accounts. This is an amazing feature for a homeschool family, as the technology does not interfere with their studies. There is even a message from you displayed in case your child is grounded and tries to log into their email. There is also a GPS tracker to show where your child has been, if they are using a mobile device or the app. 

There are also multiple designs for your child to pick out, to custom make their email inbox. I thought this was such a great idea because it becomes something that is their own, and has fun and vibrant designs that any child would enjoy. My sons liked the design with the wolf, shown above. The child gets their own inbox and log in. In the inbox are tabs for writing an email, folders, contacts list and settings to change their design layout. KidsEmail.org is not only for kids, but also for teens. Teenagers and children alike are so tech savvy today, that it can be hard for us parents to monitor everything they do online.

My sons have really enjoyed having the freedom to be able to email back home to their friends and family. They had a group at our church back home that met on Wednesday nights, and for Sunday School classes that they are getting ready to email back and forth. It's amazing that they can keep in contact with their church friends while we are away, and have a Pen Pal kind of setup. It is also cost effective as I think shipping things to and from here can be expensive, especially to the U.S. We are also incorporating this into our homeschool studies, so the boys have a way of doing technology, writing (typing) and spelling. 

This is a fantastic way to keep your children safe online and I would definitely recommend KidsEmail.org. I have heard ideas of writing an email a week or month to your child when they are born, and have them open it on their 18th birthday or another special birthday. I think setting up a Pen Pal system, or just giving your child a way to feel free to communicate with a friend or family member who may be far away is an excellent idea. To learn how you can start KidsEmail.org for free, please click on the image below. 

To find out more about this amazing company, please visit them on their social medias below:

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Blessings, Kelly

#hsreviews #kidsemail #emailforkids

Are You Ready to Get Out of Debt?

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links and I will  be compensated if you complete the free analysis. To see more on this, please see my disclosure page. Thanks for supporting my site! 

Hi, friends! As many of you know, I am very passionate about education. Today, I would like to talk to you about a company that is wanting to educate Americans about their financial goals. My Debt Reduction Blueprint has found a way to help eliminate debt and give you the ability to reach beyond what your financial goals may be. Sound too good to be true? Keep reading :)

Photo credit: Lightstock.com

My family and I, like many Americans struggle with debt. I am a thirties something year old wife and mother, with two kids, a mortgage, and incredible debt. We are a one income family like many homeschool families, so money with us can be tight some months. I also look towards the future, where I know I will have two children going to college and will need money to attend there. I also have parents, who despite how hard they have worked throughout their lives, have not made any preparations for retirement.

I wanted to share this information with you, not to have you worry or stress about debt but to give you a ray of hope. I share my personal debt struggle, because I think many of us are drowning in debt and we have no where to turn. What if you had the ability to be completely out of debt in ten years or less? Including your mortgage being completely paid off.

Photo credit: Lightstock.com

Watch the videos and complete your FREE analysis to help you achieve your goals!

If you end up completing your free blueprint analysis, please mention Raising Samuels as your reference. This is something my family and I have started as well, so I am happy to share the information with you.

Click below to find out more about this amazing company:

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Blessings,

Kelly

#debtreduction #financialgoals #retirement

Getting Started with French (Armfield Academic Press Review)

Disclosure: I received a complimentary Getting Started with French from Armfield Academic Press, through Homeschool Review Crew in exchange for a honest review.

We are exploring a new foreign language curriculum, Getting Started with French from Armfield Academic Press. Our last name is French, so I thought what an awesome opportunity to learn more about our heritage by exploring the language. This book is excellent and appropriately labeled, Getting Started With French: Beginning French for Homeschoolers and Self-Taught Students of Any Age. It is a learn at your own pace type of learning text, so you can do as many lessons or as few as you want. The book comes with 172 lessons, Answer Key, Pronunciation Guide, Glossary, and also a link to a website where you can find additional help and downloadable MP3's of audio. The audio is of a native French speaker for each lesson, so you know how the words are supposed to sound. Everything is included with the purchase of this book, so no extra material is required. It is also printed in large format, and can be used with multiple children. I believe the author of this book really had homeschool families in mind while writing this book, and it is phenomenal.



It can be very hard and overwhelming to learn a new language.  This book makes it very easy and has a step-by-step system where you can learn, or teach your children at a pace that is comfortable. The author suggests studying a foreign language for thirty minutes a day, and to practice speaking it. It is important to have all the material known in one lesson before moving onto the next lesson, as they build on each other. There is also very good advice in the book on how to teach and test for comprehension.

 I really enjoyed that there was audio MP3 downloads included with this book. Both of my sons are exceptional auditory learners, and this helps them understand what they are learning when they hear things. They had much fun in listening to how to say the words. We learned in one of the first few lessons, that many French words have consonants at the ends of them but they are silent. We made many funny faces trying to move our mouths and tongues to sound like the audio. I also enjoyed that there were charts included in the lessons to help us understand better. The book also covered many types of English Language Arts lessons such as defining a noun or an article, and how they compare in both the English language and French. This was awesome as it helped us understand more facts about our own language.

We were able to do many of the initial lessons very easily, sometimes doing three to four lessons in one sitting. As the lessons got more complex, we did about one lesson every other day to really be able to focus on what we were learning. If you are looking for a wonderful way to teach your children how to speak French, I would highly suggest this book. I think this would be a great study for children and adults of any age. The book gives you guidelines on how to teach, so this would be perfect for elementary children. I think that by middle school and high school, a student could be able to read the book themselves and listen to the audio downloads to teach themselves. The author of this book also has books available for teaching Spanish and Latin.

To see more on this company, please visit them on their social media below:

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Blessings,

Kelly

#hsreviews #homeschoolforeignlanguage #foreignlanguage #frenchcurriculum

Homeschool: Month 1 in Panama

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links and I will be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on the links. Thanks for supporting my site!

Hi, friends! We have been in Panama for a month already! The Internet and Wi-Fi is in and out here, so I am trying new ways this year to document our homeschool weekly activities and lessons. These pictures are from a festival we went to the first week we were here. The food is delicious here, and very inexpensive. The weather is hot and because everything is relatively close, we walk. My husband and I are each down a pants size already!

This is a picture of our living room. We are renting a house now until we are placed into a school.

This is the kitchen. They say you can drink from the tap here, but we still get filtered water delivered like most of the residents that live here.

This is the back door going out into the garden that is connected between this house and the one behind us. It is absolutely gorgeous. It was really hard leaving our house back home, but I felt like God was going to provide us something wonderful here. Our neighbors behind us who share the garden, call it Genesis and are believers, so it's been a blessed experience here so far.

It was #HappyNationalDogDay a few weeks ago, so here are some fun pictures of our international puppy :)

Recent Reviews:

Jolly Phonics and Jolly Grammar (jollyliteracy.com Review)

Can Do Cubes (jollyliteracy.com Review)

WAY Comes Home Kit (HomeSchool Scholastics, an i4 Learning Company Review)

Exploring Creation with Astronomy, 2nd Edition (Apologia Educational Ministries Review)

CHSH Download Club (CHSH-Teach.com Review)

Activities:

The coach at my Mom's school met the boys, and immediately asked if they would both be on the school's soccer team, even though they are homeschooled! My husband and I got to ride the bus (this is what school buses look like here!) to the field with the boys, and watch them in the bleachers! It was a two hour practice, but they did awesome and had a chance to meet some of the students.

Working on math lessons at my Mom's house.

A picture of my boys in the garden :)

The boys here are working on a different set of chores. There are washing machines, but really no need for dryers as the sun can dry the clothes within a hour. G helps me with the wash, and B helps Daddy with dishes (no dishwasher here!). They also think it's fun to twirl the broom and mop outside :)

We found a swimming pool at a local hotel here, and some ice cream! My Mom, my husband and the boys decided to pose for a silly picture!

My oldest son got really sick for about a week and half here, so we have been playing catch up in homeschool studies and on my blog. I am so thankful he is feeling better. It's amazing how helpless you feel when your child is sick, especially in a foreign country. We are also still getting adjusted here, and things take more time here than back home. We know everything is going according to God's plan, so we are learning to sit back and learn how to be patient, and be thankful for the provisions.

Hope you all are doing well, and I hope to have more updated posts on us more than once a month. Thanks for continuing to follow us :)

Blessings,

Kelly

Homeschool Lesson Plan Sheets for Weeks 2 to 4:

 

This is the week B got sick.

#homeschool