A Stable Beginning

Wednesday, April 13, 2022

Wordless Wednesday ~ USAG Nationals {Freshman year}

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Tuesday, April 12, 2022

IEW Fix It! Grammar - Nose Tree, Level 1 ~ a TOS review

Disclaimer: I received a Complimentary copy of this product through the HOMESCHOOL REVIEW CREW in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way. All opinions I have expressed are my own or those of my family. I am disclosing this in accordance with FTC Regulations.

Morning friends! I hope you are enjoying your Spring Break week! We have been relaxing and regrouping as next week we prepare to enter our last six weeks of our regular school year. This year went by so fast but today I am excited to share with you one of our favorite homeschool language arts curriculum vendors, the Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW).

We are not strangers to this grammar curriculum provider, nor their award winning have used and reviewed several of their award winning writing curriculum over the last 13 years of homeschooling. Today I am excited to tell you about IEW’s newly revised and improved Fix It! Grammar program. We received the Nose Tree, Level 1 to use with Micah, my 7-year-old 2nd grader.

If you have been on the homeschool scene for any length of time I am sure you have heard of Mr. Pudewa and his company, Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW). His mission is to teach children "…to write well, think clearly, and express themselves eloquently and persuasively." IEW is no longer just a company to teach your child how to write. They have a multitude of products to help you completely teach Language Arts to your students. Let me tell you a little more about their grammar program and the improvements that have been made.

Pamela White, a certified Accomplished Instructor for IEW, is the author of the Fix It! Grammar series. She holds an M.A. in English and A.B.D. from Vanderbilt University. Fix It! Grammar was developed by Pamela after she was frustrated with traditional methods of teaching children grammar. Fix It! Grammar is the newly revised language arts series that teaches the principles of grammar through real stories. The real stories use sentences that contain errors that your student may make in their own everyday writing. The principle of parsing a sentence and finding the errors helps students to learn correct grammar and punctuation.

The complete Fix It! Grammar program consists of six books in the series written for third grade through high school. These include:

Elementary Level:

Fix It! Grammar: The Nose Tree, Level 1

Fix It! Grammar: Town Mouse and Country Mouse, Level 2

Middle School Level:

Fix It! Grammar: Robin Hood, Level 3

Fix It! Grammar: Mowgli and Shere Khan, Level 4

High School Level:

Fix It! Grammar: Frog Prince, Level 5

Fix It! Grammar: Little Mermaid, Level 6

A placement test is available to find the correct starting book for your child, however, IEW recommends that all learners start with Level 1, regardless of age. Each level is named after a story that your child will fix in just 15 minute daily lessons. Over the course of 30 weeks your child will parse sentences to correct the story.

Fix It! Grammar is a 4-day a week program and includes a Teacher’s Manual {$19} and a consumable Student Book {$19}. The option to purchase a Teacher/Student combo is also available for $29. a set. The weekly lessons are set up in the same fashion each week following these five simple steps:

Step 1: Learn It! ~ Explore the grammar concepts to be taught at the start of each new week.

Step 2: Read It! ~ In this section the student will also read the passage for the day. 120 vocabulary words are taught over the course of this book and they need to be looked up in the dictionary and defined. The student should keep either a vocabulary notebook or use flash cards to write out the definitions.

Step 3: Mark It! ~ This section has the student put their knowledge to work by parsing the passage with the parts of speech marks called for. The new edition gives the number of Mark It! errors the student is searching for at the top of the page.

Step 4: Fix It! ~ Now, the student gets down to business and makes the necessary corrections to make the sentence correct. Again at the top of the page you will find the necessary editing marks needed.

Step 5: Rewrite It! ~ Once all parsing and editing is complete your student is now ready to copy the corrected passage onto the lines at the bottom of the page or into a separate notebook.

We also received the new Fix It! Grammar Cards {$15} that contain 30 full color cards with the key grammar concepts. The cards are thick and are printed on glossy cardstock. They also come in a sturdy self-contained storage box. I love that they are versatile in that you can use them for review work or to play games. Best part is that you can use the cards for all the levels, so you only need to purchase them one time. Each level’s Teacher’s Manual tells you which card is used.

Since Micah is just starting his formal grammar lessons, we did in fact start with Book 1 for him. The short lessons are perfect for him! Using this program is quick and easy and fits our four-day school week perfectly. We followed the same format each week. On Monday, I teach the concepts for the week and we reviewed with the grammar cards each subsequent week. The rest of the week Micah worked on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday by his side to finish the weekly lessons.

I love that I have had no complaints or whining when it comes time to do our Language Arts lessons with Fix It! Grammar! Micah is interested to hear how the story progresses as he fixes the short sentence each day. The Fix It! Grammar program helps me know that Micah is getting the necessary grammar instruction he needs to learn.

The opportunity to use the Nose Tree book with Micah has been a blessing indeed. In fact, I am so impressed by this grammar curriculum that I have recently purchased the updated copy of Level 3, Robin Hood, to use with McKenzie, my rising 7th grader. I plan to have her start the program next week and to continue through our summer learning and next school year. She is no stranger to the Fix It! Grammar program and has completed Level’s 1 and 2 over the last three years.

Having a strong foundation in grammar is essential to writing and I am so glad that we have a program like Institute for Excellence in Writing. I will sing praises to this program and all of their products because it works for our family.

We have had great success with my older girls and I am confident that my younger three children will see that same success in their Language Arts because of the strong foundation that IEW curriculum provides. But don’t just take my word for it! Check out the reviews of 25 of my fellow CrewMates who also had the chance to review this Level and Levels 2-5 by clicking the banner below.

Company ~ Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW)

Product ~ Fix It! Grammar ~ The Nose Tree, Level 1

Format ~ Teacher-Student Combo

Price ~ Teacher, $19.00; Student, $19.00; Combo set $29.00

Ages ~ 3rd grade and up

Find IEW on these Social Media Links:

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https://astablebeginning.com

Friday, April 8, 2022

Homeschool math curriculum with His Vessel Textbooks - Algebra 1 ~ a TOS review

Morning friends! We are another week closer to the end of the school year. In fact, today we begin our Spring Break but first I wanted to share with you a new homeschool math curriculum with you that is Biblically based called His Vessel Textbooks – Algebra 1.

Wait…what? Yes, you read that right. A math book that has a Biblical worldview incorporated into it. The author, Mary Carroll, a homeschool mom and math lover, created this homeschool Algebra curriculum for Christians who wanted to teach their children math in the context of Scripture.

His Vessels Textbooks – Algebra 1 is a thick hardcover book with over 500 pages cover to cover and retails for $99.99. With 11 units and 64 lessons this homeschool math curriculum course covers all of the normal Algebra 1 topics necessary to learn. From Interger's to graphing to the Quadratic equation your child will learn the necessary math while also getting a faith lesson as well.

When this curriculum was offered for review I jumped at the chance to use it with Montana, my 9th grader. One because Montana was having trouble understanding how to graph a line and two because I was curious how math could be tied to Scripture.

Within each of the 64 lessons in this course you will find several features that tie in Scripture. These sections include:

A God Moment: These sections are at the beginning of the lesson and contain a short devotional with scripture explaining the math concept from a Biblical view.

Objectives for This Lesson: These are written in an outline format as “I Can” statements so you know what you will be able to do at the finish of the section.

Vocabulary: Helpful terms to know for the lesson.

Explanations and Examples: the meat of the lesson concept is explained and covered in this section

You Try: these are practice problems for you to complete. Only the answers are given to these problems, not the solutions.

Practice Problems: This is your standard page of practice problems. They must be worked out on paper or in a notebook. Only the odd problems have the answers in the back of the book.

Helpful Hints and Make it Clear: These are scattered throughout the lessons and offer clarity on concepts.

Family Activity: Fun activities to get the whole family involved in learning Algebra are included in this section. Activities include eating a pie on Pi Day, completing puzzles, or making math shapes with Playdough and point back to Christ.

Expression Project: These special projects are optional and found at the end of the unit. They vary in project and are meant to challenge the student. Completion of these is optional.

Montana only used this math textbook as a supplement to our regular math program when she needed more understanding of a certain concept. Having access to this homeschool math book is a God send!

Math doesn’t come easy for Montana; she has to work at it. For her, as I stated above, was the graphing of a line concept that was not sticking. The way the material is presented in this book has helped her understand how to graph the line and she is more confident in doing so. I love how each of the concepts are explained in an easy-to-understand way. If you need a little extra help you can also watch video lessons found on YouTube.

I know that we will continue to reference this math textbook during the rest of the year and it will be a valuable resource for us as my two younger children come through high school math. I am excited to say that Mrs. Carroll is currently working on a Geometry book that will be released in the fall! I definitely have this book on my radar because anything that can make Geometry easier to understand is worth the price in gold to me. She also plans to release Algebra 2, Pre-Algebra, and elementary math series in the future.

Hands-down, I think you should get your hands on a copy of this Algebra book and check it out for yourself. Don’t just take my word for it though, seven of my CrewMates also had the chance to review this homeschool algebra 1 book. Click on the banner below and read their thoughts as well.

Company ~ His Vessel Textbooks - Algebra 1

Product ~ His Vessel Textbooks - Algebra 1

Format ~ hardcover textbook

Price ~ $99.99

Ages ~ high school math

Find His Vessel Textbooks - Algebra 1 on these Social Media sites:

Facebook ~ YouTube

https://astablebeginning.com

Wednesday, April 6, 2022

Wordless Wednesday

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Tuesday, April 5, 2022

Homeschool Math Tutorials from Educo International Inc. ~ a TOS review

Hello friends! I have another review for you today that focuses on online homeschool math. Educo Learning Center from Educo International Inc. includes plenty of math practice! In their math curriclulum. We received the Grade 3 book to review with Micah. Let me tell you a little more about it.

Educo Learning Center is a complete online math program with curriculum for grades Kindergarten through 8th grade. The complete program includes tutorials, practice problems, quizzes, and tests for each lesson you cover. Everything is online so if you like the portability of a math program this might be a good fit for you. The curriculum has the option to print the necessary worksheets for the lesson or you can purchase the physical workbook. The choice is yours. We received a physical workbook for grade 3 to use with the online lessons.

To get started you simply need to set up an account for your child. The Grade 3 course includes 6 chapters of study on:

Chapter 1 : Base Ten Number System (Review)

Chapter 2: Operations and Algebraic Thinking

Chapter 3: Fractions

Chapter 4: Measurement and Data

Chapter 5: Reading and interpreting Data

Chapter 6: Geometry

Inside these chapters you will find course material on addition and subtraction of numbers, multiplication and division, Fractions, measurement and estimation of weight and length, graphs, and common geometry terms.

The online tutorials are found under your child’s individual login. Here you will find all the instructional teaching videos and activities needed. Instant feedback is provided for each problem set as well.

To get Micah started we took the Chapter 1 Pre-Test. Right from the start it was evident that I had selected the wrong level for Micah. He was not able to do many of the problems and he started to get frustrated because while he can add double digit numbers we haven’t quite learned adding with regrouping.

After a few days I found that he could do some of the activities that included mental addition and subtraction. We have been practicing these types of activities in our main math program so that boosted his confidence that he could do it.

Overall, I find this curriculum to be very thorough for the grade level. I definitely am saving this for our summer learning when I think Micah will be more prepared to start these lessons fully. Be sure to check out what my CrewMates think of this homeschool math curriculum by clicking the banner below.