Fundanoodle: Review

When beginning homeschooling for kindergarten one of the first things everyone looks for is a handwriting curriculum. There are so many to choose from! With so many choices it can be hard to know what is best. There are many, really good ones, but I'm really excited to share something brand new to me and what I think I'll continue to use with Grace through Kindergarten. 

Fundanoodle is a really neat company I was not familiar with before this review. Their learning activities are very hands-on and all about experiencing while learning. When you have time, take a minute to read about their company and philosophy. You'll see why I'm really behind this company. We reviewed the I Can Build Upper Case Letter! activity kit ($29.99) for ages 4-5 (Pre-K-Kindergarten). What a blessing it has been for Grace!

This is such an amazing value! The kit includes a magnetic dry-erase board, a set of magnetic curves and lines for buildling letters, a dry-erase marker, activity cards for gross motor skills, and a wooden dice. There are other handwriting systems which incorporate building the letters with a set of basic curves and lines, but not for this price with everything included. The magnets are very high quality and sturdy. Directions for building the letters are also included. 

Upon opening the box I hadn't even taken everything out before Grace was trying it out! She knew it was for making letters and without any guidance she built D and was so very proud of herself. I know it wasn't exactly how it was intended to be built, but she was discovering on her own and loving it. I knew she was hooked and this was going to be fun!

Although many schools are doing away with recess researchers agree physical activity throughout the day is vital to stimulating the brain and provide more focus. Fundanoodle provides a very easy way to incorporate gross motor skills with this program with the gross motor cards. These were soooo fun. I honestly didn't know how they would go over. They seemed so simple, but this was one of her favorite things! She simply rolled the dice to choose which card we would do, flip it over, then follow the directions, which was always moving the same way as a specific animal. 

Don't these shots just say it all? Grace loved roaring like  lion and hopping like a kangaroo. Just as expected, her focus and attention was increased when we got down to the core of the program. 

First Grace built the letter we were working on. I chose to have her do the same letter every day for a week because of her age. I'll explain why below. I would hand her the pieces needed for the letter and let her do the best she could...which was pretty good as you can see! For some letters I had to help her align them a bit, but she got the idea from the start and this was something I really liked. Having her tangibly form letters with these basic shapes seemed to cement them in her mind. 

I really like that the straight-lined letters are taught first. Some handwriting programs teach the curved letters first. Some teach them in ABC order. Others teach consonants and then vowels. To me, this makes the most sense. 

You can see there are several rows for the students to practice on. Because of her age (not quite 4) I felt it would be best for Grace to work on one line each day. The first three rows are in boxes which really helped her form her letters better. Again, I've seen other curriculum use this method, but not with as much clarity as is used in this book. I also like that the last two lines are traditional practice paper for her to use. This was much harder for her, but she gave it her best and really did quite well. This is the first time she's really used handwriting paper even though she's been writing letters for a while. 

Another really fun aspect is each letter has its own special sticker for her to place on each page when she is done. She loved these I like the reward. It was something to work towards which was very simple. 

This program is good...so, so good. I hadn't disliked any of the other handwriting curricula I've used with my girls, but I hadn't yet found one I loved. Now I have! 

Read about this and the many other wonderful products from Fundanoodle from my Crewmates!

Week in Review: April 1-5

Rose and I had a week off from our homeschool classes for spring break. I teach junior high literature and writing and Rose takes a science/humanities class. We both enjoy them, but also thoroughly enjoyed the week off! We had a more relaxed schedule even though we kept on with our regular at-home school schedule. Don't worry, I'm not refusing my girls a break! My in-laws are coming up for a visit in another week and we chose to take our at-home break then. Many of my piano students are also out of town this week so it sill feels like break!

Thankfully the south decided to finally thaw a bit from the cold and dry out from the rain! The girls have enjoyed a lot of time outside. Unfortunately a fever/cold also made it's round and we haven't enjoyed as much time with our neighborhood friends as we would have liked! Now that they're all better, it's sleeting outside. What a crazy spring!

Grace-Filled Homeschooling is also now on Twitter and Tumbler! I was so intimidated by these two, but now enjoying the benefits of both! I don't have many followers yet, so look forward to these new options for giveaway entries. 

Before I got on with our week-in-review...

There is still a chance to enter two giveaways from two fabulous companies! 

          

Click the images above to see my reviews and enter the giveaway!

Little Hands to Heaven: Unit 17

Grace was very insistent this Monday that she do her lessons first. After her week off I can understand! She loves lessons. Her sisters do as well, but Grace nearly cries when they are over each day! Our letter for the week was N and her finger-play rhyme for this was N-N-Naughty. She thought this was incredibly funny. We also studied about the kings of Israel who were often n-n-naughty! 

One of her favorite things to do now is handwriting. I have used the pages from The Learning Page with all three of my girls and I adore them. They have sets of traditional handwriting pages with just a few examples, but they also have full sheets of dotted letters for tracing for both print and cursive. It is free to sign up and there are lots of other freebies as well.  Although they do link to sites where you have to pay for resources, all of the handwriting sheets can be downloaded free.

Our printer decided to be finicky right when I was ready to print Grace's N to glue on, so we went old-school with a sharpie and piece of blank paper! I could have just used the glue, but her favorite color is blue, so I thought this would be more fun. My girl could do this for hours. I'm not sure what it is she loves about it, but gluing things onto paper makes her day! 

We're just about finished with the B Book in the About Three series by Rod and Staff. She has progressed so much as a result of these simple black-line workbooks. She loves coloring the pages after she is finished so I'm glad they are black and white! I highly recommend this series and you can read my full review of them by clicking on the picture. 

Grace enjoyed playing a new game this week. Back when Rose was about two, I made a bunch of file-folder type games for her for matching colors, shapes, etc. I didn't know of all the resources to be found online at the time and I had several made and laminated. I also made a few games like this which I never ended up printing. I came across them a few weeks ago and I printed and laminated them. The point is to match the numbers on the fish with the correct number of bubbles in the fish bowl. It isn't fancy, but she had a lot of fun with it!

Little Hearts for His Glory: Unit 25

Our cat can't get enough of sitting with Beth during lessons. You'll often see her little ears peaking out of Beth's lap in our pictures! One reason is because she loves the girls, but it also helps that our schoolroom is the warmest spot in the house on cold mornings! This is partly because of the large window facing west, but in no small part due to the space-heater I keep at my cold-natured feet!

Beth's word-wall letter was P. Her words included panda (her favorite animal), pig, pogo-stick, pumpkin, pen, pin, and Penny (the name). She has fun coming up with words and it has been a great starter for journal writing now. I really like the e-book journal I purchased at the dollar days sale for her which lets her draw pictures and fill in just a small portion of the entries. It has been an excellent tool for her and we'll continue this on into 1st grade.

I'm hoping to do a write-up of our reading/language arts program soon because I've been asked a lot about it. I will go into more detail at a later date, but for now here is what we do in the order they are added:

Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons

 Abeka's phonics K and 1st

All About Spelling

Heart of Dakota's Emerging Reader's Set

Heart of Dakota's Dictation

I start teaching my girls to read when they ask which has been 4 and 3 and a half so far! This is also the route Rose took via private school (k) and homeschool (1st). It left her with a very solid reading foundation which we're building on continually with All About Spelling. It seems a bit eclectic for my style, but our choices came from what we owned and what I saw working. I plan to stick to this path with Grace.

Our study of George Washington was a lot of fun this week! We learned about the cherry tree story including that it may or may not be true as well as another story of his disobedience to his mother concerning a colt! I had never heard this one before and Beth really enjoyed it. One of the activities was pretending to be a colt and George Washington riding it. Grace filled in for GW since the purpose was to follow directions (right, left, etc.) Beth did a fabulous job and I even through in some north, south, east, west directions. The only trouble she had was being able to follow the directions through the giggling!

We are almost through with the the Inside Outside book from the ABC Rod and Staff series. We'll be starting this series again with Grace next year and I will be a little sad to see them pass. My girls have all loved them and they have taught so very much. This last book focuses on wildlife in North America.

Bigger Hearts for His Glory: Unit 27
I have been informed this is my portrait! I'm glad she drew me happy and waving. She also asked me to take her picture with it, so I suppose she is very proud of how nice it looks. Nothing like a portrait of you to make the say just a little sweeter!

Arithmetic has become just a little sweeter for both girls thanks to this wonderful program we are reviewing for the TOS Review Crew! I'll be posting on this in another couple of weeks, but I an tell you now that we use it daily and the girls beg to practice math facts now! Rose particularly likes that she is beginning to learn multiplication now. Her regular math curriculum starts that in 3rd grade and she's been regularly asking to go ahead and learn multiplication. Now she can!

We're on unit 8 of All About Spelling book 3. This is one of the best phonics follow-ups I've ever heard of or seen. Rose continues to easily recall all the spelling and phonics rules she has learned with ease. This rule we focused on this week was doubling letters to protect the short vowel and using y as a vowel at the end of words. Oh yeah...and my portrait is now saying, "I am a robot!" Hmmm....

For history we studied about the naturalist, John Muir, and touched lightly on the Spanish-American War. I appreciate that Rose is being introduced to the wars now lightly. She is young, but hears about them all the time. She also learned about some of the animals in North America that have gone extinct just in the last century. She drew a Florida Black Wolf as part of her notebooking page.

For literature Rose is reading a biography about Sacajawea from Knowledge Quest. It's also a review we're doing from the TOS Review Crew. I like that it is written from her perspective and Rose is thoroughly enjoying it. Since my background is teaching literature I make up my own literature units using a variety of pages and ideas. She just finished up her mystery unit and after the biography we'll move on to historical fiction.

I'm excited to announce I'll be hosting a giveaway from Safari, Ltd! If you've never seen their amazing animal and historical figures you'll really need to check them out. It starts Monday, so don't forget to stop by next week to enter!

Week in Review: March 25-29

I remember being told when we first started homeschooling that one of the downsides would be that my kids wouldn't be exposed to enough germs. I can't remember who said that, but boy were they wrong! Another cold decided to visit our home although it only took down 3 of the gang. Thankfully it seems to be passing and it wasn't very severe so we continued with school as usual for Rose and Beth.

Little Hands to Heaven: Week Off
Grace got a much lighter week which didn't bother her for the days she told me, "I don't feel good, Mommy." By Thursday she was ready to be back at it, but was still a bit crabby, so we just did a few lighter things. The girls all love playing on my Kindle Fire and I don't blame them!

She also enjoyed using her pattern blocks with some printables from Confessions of a Homeschooler. I've had these printed for a while, but I finally got around to laminating them so Grace could use them easily.

Grace also enjoyed using our newly acquired Nature Blocks (a set of building blocks from Lake Shore Learning). She was enthralled with these! You can click on the picture to see my full review of these really nice building toys.

Grace is feeling much better and will be back to our normal schedule next week!

Little Hearts for His Glory: Unit 24
Beth had a great start to the week, but ended up catching her baby sister's cold! We continued with school as usual because she didn't have as much discomfort as Grace, but she didn't mind one bit.

In math Beth moved forward to subtraction! I once again didn't really have to teach it to her. She just understood after having sat in on lessons with her older sister last year. I did do a few manipulative explanations, but I don't know that there was really a need.
She also started word problems for the first time this week! She has made so much progress and I just love that we can set her own pace because of homeschooling.

For handwriting we continued with Draw Write Now. I can't say enough good things about this curriculum! Click the picture to take a look at my review. It has gently moved Beth to thinking more about shaping her letters with appropriate size and spacing. I love it!

Our history lessons focused on the early settlement of America. Her poem introduced the concepts of North, South, East, and West. She kept asking which way was north wherever we went and then would tell me the other directions based on that. She also learned the location of the first 13 colonies. She is learning so much this year!

We took our All About Spelling curriculum and tried something new this week! Beth spelled the words, then stamped them. I found a printable online for this, but I'm not thrilled with it so I'll probably create my own. She had a lot of fun with this and it was a nice, time-filling activity which kept her focused while I taught history to her older sister.

Bigger Hearts for His Glory: Unit 26

Our field trip last Saturday to the Bennett Place to see a reenactment of camp life for Civil War soldiers was a great kickoff for our history this week. An added bonus was that my dad was part of the reenactment! This was the first one he has participated in and it's great that the girls were able to see him and even wear their old fashioned dresses made by their great-great-grandmother for me when I was a little girl. Click the picture to see more of our trip!

I wasn't certain how this introduction to war would go over. Rose is very factually oriented, but can also be very sensitive to the evils of the world like slavery. She didn't ask many questions, but did ask if a lot of peopled died. I'm glad she feels free to ask about these things. I love being able to be completely in tune with Rose's education so I am able to address any questions or worries she may feel when studying various aspects of history. It would be easy for me to avoid some of the more difficult aspects of our history. I'm very grateful for Heart of Dakota once again which gently introduces even the harsh aspects of history in a way which is age appropriate, engaging, and leaving her wanting to learn more.

We learned more about fractions and Rose is very anxious to move on to multiplication! She asks nearly every day how soon she can move onto third grade math. I've told her she can move forward once she finishes and she can't wait!

This is a diorama Rose made in her homeschool class of a cave. We don't follow the science plan in our curriculum since she takes this outside class. I do intend to cover the science we're skipping this summer because she loves science so much!


Even though we don't do a lot of science during the school-year outside of her class, we did take time to review a neat unit study for the Review Crew! Click the picture to learn about this fun Astronomy Unit from A Journey Through Learning that my girl couldn't get enough of!

To end on a really fun note, I have a question: How many of you have pets who enjoy joining in on the learning? Meet Zoe, our sweet kitty who loves Beth and can typically be found sitting right by her during lesson time!

Week in Review: March 18-22

Spring has bloomed which usually means bad allergies for me, but I have a new medication this season and so far I've had a good start! We've even had the windows open some which has't happened in a while. The girls have had fun playing outside. We are blessed to have neighbors on either side of us and across the street our kids' age. They also all go to different schools and with our homeschooling the kids love opportunities to get together. Since our yard is the center they seem to often congregate within our fence. I love this. I love seeing what sometimes feels like half the neighborhood hanging out in our backyard!

We had a great week and lots of things to look forward to! Tomorrow we are going to see my dad in a Civil War reenactment which coincides perfectly well with our history lessons next week on the Civil War! No, my dad isn't doing this just for our benefit and I didn't plan it that way, but it is a certainly a lovely addition to our lessons. There will also be a really exciting giveaway coming Monday, so don't forget to check back about that! Do you like this bird's eye view of our schoolroom?

Little Hands to Heaven: Unit 16

Grace learned about Elijah and Elisha this week with our Bible readings. She wasn't as excited about these stories and kept wanting to skip ahead to the New Testament! I understand how she feels sometimes, but I also know there is much to learn from the Old Testament. One of her activities was sorting out small pieces of food. She asked to eat the cheerios while she was sorting. This girl loves cheerios. 

Our letter of the week, M, received a lot of attention! I started letting her trace letters as part of her letter-of-the-week work. She has become quite proficient at letter writing for those she already knows. She does extremely well with tracing and enjoyed these pages. 

Something I've learned from having kids who are advanced in various abilities is that often their abilities will surpass their maturity. It means I have to have greater patience when she scribbles all over the M page rather than tracing nicely like she did the day before. Grace has amazing pencil control and dexterity for her age, but she still has to develop the maturity to exhibit it consistently. 

We also had a failed soap making activity to go along with our story about Naaman washing in the Jordan River for healing, so we did something a little different. To learn about our awesome replacement activity click on the picture! 

In her spare time, Grace has been  learning piano! We have been reviewing an excellent computer-based piano teaching program for the Review Crew. Click the picture to take a look. Even though she is only 3 1/2, Grace has been learning and is thrilled to be having piano lessons alongside her sisters!

Little Hearts for His Glory: Unit 23

Beth learned about the Pilgrims, their relationship with the Native Americans, and the religious persecution which pushed them here. She is really enjoying the readings from History Stories for Children. She did tell me that it was really sad that so many of the pilgrims died. We learned that there were only 4 women still alive for the first Thanksgiving feast! 

This week our word wall words started with N. My favorite word she chose was Neverland. I was surprised she thought of it! It was a little long for the space we had available, but she made it work. 

Here Beth is chatting with her Daddy on the phone while she works on her handwriting. The girls enjoy taking a break and and chatting with him when they have a chance. All of a sudden Beth's handwriting has gone from being random sizes to looking more uniform! She has always been one to want to do things her own way and it has taken some convincing that she should form her letters without smiley faces inside of them except on special occasions! 

This week also brought three-digit addition. She jumped right into working on this while I was cleaning up from breakfast without any how-to instruction needed! I wish I had her mind for math. She definitely takes after her daddy. On the sixth problem she looked up at me and said giggling, "Oh! I almost missed that one!" 

This week Beth learned that c says /s/ if it comes before an e, i, or y. Before any other letter c says /k/. I am amazed over and over again that there are so many wonderful rules for spelling! I am incredibly thankful to be learning them myself since spelling was always difficult for me. All About Spelling is hands-down the easiest and most thorough curriculum I have seen for spelling.

Bigger Hearts for His Glory: Unit 25

Rose learned a great deal about the gold-rush, Kit Carson, and much more! She enjoys the history readings as well and in preparation for more independent studies next year I have begun having her read her assignments on her own. Her narrations have improved so much from where they were at the beginning of the year. Ever since Christmas she has caught on to how to narrate. This was new to both of us this year so it has been a joy to watch her skill improve so much.

Her vocabulary page has also improved! After I took the picture went back and edited her mistakes, but then I forgot to snap another one! I don't believe in ignoring kids' mistakes in writing. After teaching junior high students who came through programs which felt it would stifle their creativity I can say it only seems to cripple them. By the time I got these kids I had to teach such basics as capitalizing I consistently that there wasn't room to help them learn to craft their writing. With this experience in my background I make certain my girls correct their mistakes in writing. They don't seem to mind and frequently Rose even thanks me for helping her!

Cursive continues to go well, but I'm trying to stress to her the need to be careful when she copies her words. She tends to forget letters in what I think it a rush to get finished. I am very pleased with how pretty her handwriting has become!

She particularly enjoyed one of her grammar lessons this week. It focused on making sure all the sentences in a paragraph pertain to the topic of the paragraph. The examples in the grammar book had random thoughts placed in the paragraphs and she got quite a giggle out of them!

We also started studying homophones for practice this week. We have talked about them before in the context of her writing, but haven't formally practiced them. She enjoyed this activity a lot!

She typed up her writing assignment for the week about being healthy. She has moved on to two-paragraph expository writing. She sometimes still has trouble thinking through what to write, but the outline sheets (part of the curriculum) help her so much!

Finally she worked on memorizing more state locations and their abbreviations. She learned the 13 colonies plus a couple more the last time. This week she learned the rest of the states which were around when the Civil War began. If she couldn't find the state I'd give her N-S-E-W directions. She did a great job!

We had another wonderful week! How was yours?