Starfall Education Foundation: Starfall Home Membership ~ a TOS review

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Daily screen time is important to my kids, especially my younger ones. I like to be able to give them quality time while using their electronics, so I am always on the lookout to turn learning into play. We get just that with The Starfall Home Membership from Starfall Education Foundation.

So, have you heard of Starfall? If not, let me tell you a little more about it. Over the last six weeks my 3-year old preschooler, Micah, has been using the program. And let me tell you he loves it! Truth be told my 15, 11, and 8 year olds enjoy it too!

Starfall is an awesome interactive early education program for your youngest students aged PreK through 2nd grade. As a stand- alone program, it teaches early language arts and math skills through games, songs, and activities. The program covers a wide range of topics including numbers, phonics, nursery rhymes, letter and sound recognition, as well as patterns. The interactive features the program offers makes it one of the most engaging early learning programs available today. As your child progresses in age and skill more advanced topics such as addition, subtraction, and advanced phonics are introduced as well.

Setting up the program is as easy as establishing an account and logging on. In fact, my son knows exactly how to do that by himself. One of the features I enjoy most is that a single yearly membership can be used by all immediate family, including grandparents, and accessed on all of our devices, computers or tablets, alike. Just use the email and password you entered at registration and you are set.

My son loves changing his personal avatar. In fact he changes it everytime he logs on to play. Some days he has a Mohawk and other days he is bald with glasses. It's quite funny, but he loves being able to customize himself as well as change the different clothes he wears on the program. Hands down though, my son's favorite part of the program are the math songs! He loves all of the songs but the Today is Monday song is by far his favorite one. Click HERE to see him singing. Maybe it's because it is a song about food and pizza is his favorite. I don't know, but I know it is played all the time and he sings along to it. In the Talking Library section you can choose to have Nonfiction and Fiction & Poetry books read aloud to you. These stories are interactive and fun with engaging graphics to keep my little guys attention.

I am not quite sure how I had never looked into a membership with Starfall, but let me tell you it has changed the way I look at daily screen time. About two weeks after using the program daily I noticed my son was more interested in learning his letters and counting. He sings songs like The More we get Together, The Alphabet Song, and many of the nursery rhymes from memory. When we are out and about he frequently tells me the letters he sees on signs, cars, or buildings.

Micah loves his Starfall time! So much so, he gets a little grumpy when the computer automatically turns off because it is time for bed. His knowledge has expanded exponentially just from using the program daily for the last six weeks. I have told many of my friends with preschoolers to get a membership to Starfall! This is one program that has my highest recommendations for online learning for preschoolers through 2nd grade.

Be sure to see what my CrewMates think of the Starfall Home Membership by clicking the banner below!

Company ~ Starfall Education Foundation 

Product ~ Starfall Home Membership

Format ~ online, or through the Starfall app 

Price ~ $35.00 yearly membership 

Ages ~ Preschoolers - 2nd grade

Social Media Links:

  Facebook ~ Twitter @starfalledu  ~ Pinterest ~ 

Instagram @starfalleducation

©2008 - 2018 A Stable Beginning. All rights reserved. All photographs, text, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written permission of the author.
 http://astablebeginning.com

The Crafty Classroom: Bible ABC Curriculum Notebook ~ a TOS review

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It’s hard to believe that my little guy Micah is ready for preschool! I mean, after all, he was just a tiny little squishy baby, right? Sigh, fast forward 3 years and I have an eager to learn little boy which is a blessing in and of itself!
Preschool is one of my favorite developmental stages. The wonder that fills their eyes when they experience something for the first time is truly awesome. The past few weeks we have started working on preschool activities and learning letter recognition with the help of the Bible ABC Curriculum Notebook from The Crafty Classroom.


The Crafty Classroom is the brainchild of Valerie McClintick who produces top quality educational resources for math, reading, science, alphabet, Bible, writing, and more! All of her products are priced affordably so you are not going to break the bank getting quality curriculum material. We have been using the Bible ABC Curriculum Notebook and it has been a fun, gentle approach to teaching Micah his letters.

This is a digital download PDF curriculum designed for children in preschool to K4 that includes everything you need to teach your young student the alphabet and grow their faith in God. With 658 pages, it is choke full of illustrated full color activities for each of the 26 letters of the alphabet. In fact, each letter includes over 20 pages of activities! For just $15.00 you get a lot of bang for your buck! Don’t fret if printing in color gives you the willies, there are black and white options too.

Using the curriculum is really simple and low teacher prep which is good for busy moms like myself. Each week you will print the pages needed for the letter and corresponding Bible verse. You also don’t need a lot of supplies for this curriculum, just the basics like a pencil, crayons or markers, and a Bible. For 26 weeks, you will find enough material for 4 days of work with about 4 to 5 worksheets. My younger children enjoy worksheets. I appreciate the fact that lesson plans and a suggested schedule is included for each letter.

Inside the curriculum you will find many activities like:

 ~ Bible activities 

~ charts 

~ math explorations 

~ alphabet letter pages 

~ games

 ~ coloring pages 

~ copy work and more

Using this program with Micah has been great! We have taken it really slow because he is not quite ready for all that it contains. My focus during this review period was on recognizing the five letters in his name and vocabulary building with associated letter pictures. Anything that required writing he just was not ready for. Personally, I think this curriculum is geared more towards PreK4 to K5 learners but we made the best of it for our family.

For the remainder of the curriculum and year I plan to dabble here and there and come back to it full force next year when Micah is 4. I think then he will be ready for the full curriculum and everything it entails.

Overall, I give this curriculum 2 thumbs up! It is really great; my guy just is not quite ready for it. We have used several other products produced by The Crafty Classroom including the U.S.A Activity Pack and The Ten Commandments BM4K.

Be sure to check out what my CrewMates thought of this Bible Alphabet curriculum and the other products being reviewed, including:

For Preschool: 

 Alphabet Curriculum Notebook (26-week Curriculum) 

For Kindergarten: 

Learn to R.E.A.D. Curriculum Notebook (36-week Curriculum) 

 *and* 

R.E.A.D. Review Pack (28 Early Readers that Correspond with R.E.A.D. Notebook)

For Older Kids:

 USA Activity Bundle

 How to Write a Paragraph

Company ~ The Crafty Classroom 

Product ~ Bible ABC Curriculum Notebook

 Format ~ PDF Download 

Price ~ $15.00

 Ages ~ Preschool – K4

Social Media Links:  Facebook   ~   Twitter Tag @CraftyClassroom   ~ Pinterest Tag @craftyclassroom   ~ Instagram Tag @thecraftyclassroom   

©2008 - 2017 A Stable Beginning. All rights reserved. All photographs, text, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written permission of the author.

 http://astablebeginning.com

Can Do Cubes ~ a TOS review

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Spelling and Phonics practice just got 10 x’s better since we have been using our Can Do Cubes from jollyliteracy.com {just2ducks LLC} to learn letter sounds, digraphs, and blending. Earlier this week I shared about the new phonics program, Jolly Phonics, that I am using to teach McKenzie and Micah the 42 sounds that make up the English language. Let me tell you a little more about the Can Do Cubes.

Just what are Can Do Cubes? Well, for starters they are super cool, 6-sided, finely polished wooden blocks that are laser engraved with the letters of the alphabet along with the alphabetic code. The Can Do Cubes are separated into two stages and focus on hands-on, multi-sensory learning of the alphabetic code that goes along with the Jolly Phonics program and help children decode the phonemes, or sounds, of the English language.

You can use these cubes with any phonics or spelling program but they are especially packaged to be used to teach a small group of sounds in specific order, like in the photo above.

 Is that confusing? I hope not! It’s really quite simple. Think for example, when you say the word “they” you are not taught to spell it “t-h-e-y” in this program. Rather, you are asked to think of the sounds that the letters make together as a whole and spell the word as “th-ey”, because “ey” says “a”. The blocks give you the ability to literally build words.

For this review we were blessed to receive: 

~ 1 Tray of 27 Cubes in Stage 1 which present the simple alphabetic code 

~ 1 Tray of 30 Cubes plus 2 cubes connected with a string to represent split digraph sounds in Stage 2 Cubes which present the more complex alphabetic code 

~ Handbooks for Stage 1 and Stage 2

 ~ DVD with Interactive Demonstration of Sounding Out of Letter/Sounds Presented by Debbie Hepplewhite, who is a synthetic phonics consultant

 ~ Phonics Chart 

~ Word Chart

 ~ Online Templates and Worksheets in PDF Format for printing

Can Do Cubes are perfect for preschool prep through elementary students. The complete set of Can Do Cubes that we received retails for $95.00 and shipping is always free for US schools.

Micah (2) and McKenzie (6) love, love, love using these hands-on cubes during school time. We have been using the cubes alongside our reading/phonics and spelling programs with McKenzie and just for teaching Micah his letter sounds. A few times blocks have been everywhere because of busy two-year old hands, but luckily they have a little number on the bottom so I know just where they belong in the set in the nice box set.

I can’t say enough good things about these cubes! For such a tiny product, they pack a big punch in helping to take the stress out of learning phonics. If your children are hands-on learners, then definitely check out these cubes if your budget allows. We wholeheartedly give these 2 thumbs up and they will get many, many years of usage in our homeschool.

 Be sure to check out what my CrewMates thought of these cubes too by clicking the banner below!

Company ~ jollyliteracy.com {just2ducks LLC} 

Product ~ Can Do Cubes 

Format ~ physical product

 Price ~ $95.00 complete set, includes shipping

 Ages ~ Preschool - elementary

Social Media Links:

 Facebook

 Twitter

Pinterest

 Hashtags: #hsreviews #literacy #reading #phonics #interactivelearning

©2008 - 2016 A Stable Beginning. All rights reserved. All photographs, text, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written permission of the author. http://astablebeginning.com