A Review of Tabitha's Language Arts Work for 2015-2016

As I mentioned last week, I had to pull together Tabitha's work into a portfolio to send in to our evaluator. I then decided it would be cool to share a look back at all her work here on the blog, as I haven't been doing a very good job sharing our school work on the blog this year. I sort of ran out of time to finish up last week, so will finish up Tabitha's review this week, and start with a review of Amelia's work next week.

Today I will take a look back at Tabitha's Language Arts work.

We were using Language Lessons for Today at the beginning of the school year. This is the book that is recommended by My Father's World.

Here is a sample of the pages we worked on. The lessons were done orally.

We were using Sheldon's New Primary Language Lessons later in the year. This was a review product, so we set the previous book aside. 

There are more pictures of Tabitha using this curriculum in my review. 

Later we set both of these books aside to use Here to Help Learning. We worked on writing paragraphs. She loved the writing warm-ups where she came up with stories from the pictures. We also worked on brainstorming, making lists, webbing and writing drafts. Here is a link to that review.

We also used IEW's Phonetic Zoo for spelling. She has more lessons somewhere, but this was the only notebook I could find. She keeps losing notebooks. And a link to that review.

I also started having her do book reports for some of the books she read.

She also spent a lot of time in the language arts sections when we were reviewing Essential Skills Advantage. She spent most of her time in the reading and creative writing sections. You can check out that review here.

We also worked on poetry memorization with IEW. The program is called Linguistic Development Through Poetry Memorization. She has always done well with memorization, and these poems were no exception. Here is the review.

As you can see, being on the Crew is a huge blessing. We have been able to review some wonderful products. They sure have given us some great ways to work on Language Arts.

Throwback Thursday Blog-Style #106: June 30, 2016

Welcome back to... 

I know, I know, Throwback Thursday seems to be all about sharing pictures from the past, great memories that mean something to you, that you would like to share with others. At least that is how it appears to me. Throwback Thursday wasn't something I was participating in, and then I came up with an idea.

I thought it would be great fun and a help to my blog to share old content, but not just any old content. Each week I will share an old blog post from a previous year, any year, BUT it has to be from the current week (for example, something I've posted around June 30th, from any previous year)  I will go in, edit the post if needed, add a pinnable image if I don't already have one, and share it on Facebook.

Last year I focused solely on review posts for the posts I wanted to share. It was fun remembering some of the review products I had forgotten about. This year I will be focusing on recipes I have shared in the past.

Would you like to join in? You do not need to edit your past post in any way, you don't need to create a pinnable image, though it couldn't hurt, in fact it will help your blog traffic to add quality pinnable images to your posts.

Just go into your archives, choose a favorite post from this current week from any previous year, and link it up below. (If you don't have anything from this current week, it is still okay to link up with a post from a previous year around this time. And if you haven't been blogging for a full year, feel free to share any earlier post.)

I will be pinning posts to my appropriate Pinterest boards and will be randomly selecting a Featured Throwback Thursday post to share next week. Just a note, I will be sharing a picture from your post if you are selected as the featured post, but I will link back to your post. I will ALWAYS give credit and link back. By linking up you are giving me permission to use your picture in the post. 

Here is my Throwback Thursday post:

Originally posted June 20th, 2014
Kids and a Mom in the Kitchen #87: Thunder Cake With Creamy Chocolate Frosting

Here is this week's randomly selected

Featured Throwback Thursday:

Kym from Homeschool Coffee Break shared

Crayola Factory

To participate, link up below. It would be great if you could visit several of the other posts that have linked up. Stop by, comment, and pin images so we can help each other.

If you would like to help spread the news:

<a href="http://totsandme.blogspot.com/search/label/Throwback%20Thursday"><img alt="Tots and Me" src="http://i597.photobucket.com/albums/tt58/kewkewphoto/b12c3aba-c5a6-4946-9ea1-59a49cc3dd00_zps8e60622d.jpg"/></a>

Happy Throwback Thursday!

An InLinkz Link-up

Studying the Bible with Veritas Press {A TOS Review}

Making sure the children learn about the Bible is very important to my husband and I. When I learned that we were going to have the opportunity to review VeritasBible.com from Veritas Press, I was quite excited. The children love being able to use the computer, so this would be a fun opportunity for them to learn about the Bible in an engaging way. 

Veritas Press actually has two different Bible programs we were able to choose between. I preferred the idea of VeritasBible.com because it is a one year family subscription for up to 5 people. With 4 children, this was definitely the better option. Some of my Crew Mates were chosen to review the Self-Paced Bible. You can learn more about that program by clicking on the banner at the end of this review to check out the other Crew reviews. As for me, I will be focusing on the one-year subscription. 

Not only were we able to have access to the program for all the children, but we also have access to all three courses, where the Self-Paced program requires the user to pick one of the three courses. 

So, what are these courses?  Well, we have access to:

• Genesis to Joshua
• Judges to Kings and
• The Gospels

Each of these online courses consists of 32 units which include videos, interactive teaching, music, games, and activities. These are thorough lessons of the Bible, and not just a quick breeze through of the stories in the Bible. As the student watches these videos with real life characters, they will grow in their knowledge of God's Word. While learning about a specific topic, the children will learn background information to help set the stage. They will delve into the stories and branch out into related topics that help to connect the stories in the Bible. Details such as dates, names, and places will also be learned. 

Let's take a closer look at what we've been using. 

When you first log in the VeritasBible.com, you will come to a family dashboard.

As you can see, the children each have their own avatar and will get onto their own lessons. The program will keep track of where the children are in the lesson. As they move down the road, they will earn banners with stars reflecting the scores they received on their work. However, these scores will not be saved in the VeritasBible.com subscription option. If you would rather you child have scores that are saved, you may want to go with the Self-Paced Bible option. As I don't keep scores for my children at this stage of our homeschooling journey, this was not a concern for us. 

Once the child selects their avatar, they will be directed to their course selection screen. 

I gave the children the choice of which course they wanted to start with. Tabitha chose to work on the Gospels, while Amelia wanted to start in the Old Testament with Genesis to Joshua.

When they click on their course, they will be shown their road map. As they move through the lessons, banners and flags will be added and the dots between the checkpoints will turn white.

Here is a section of Amelia's map:

And here is Tabitha's:

The banner at the bottom of the screen lets the child know which unit they are working in. Each unit has several lessons, two of which have quizzes or tests where they will earn stars.

In order to start the lesson, the student should click on the oval on the checkpoint. This will bring up the lesson in a new window. You let the video play, watching the lesson, and it will automatically move on to the next activity. You can see all the activities that will be included in the lesson you are on by clicking on the icon with 3 horizontal lines in the top left corner of the screen. This will pull up the Contents.

Amelia's lessons are presented by siblings Abigail and Asher, along with the animated animals Teb (a cat) and Tizzy (a gnat). 

Tabitha's lessons are presented by Benjamin and Jude, along with some more animated animals; this time a dove Spyro and a Uz, a termite.

Amelia started out by learning about creation, and she will continue through the early books of the Bible, all the way to Joshua's last words. Tabitha's studies began with the birth of John, which moves into the birth of Jesus and His life, ending with his death.

The children enjoy watching the characters interact and teach them their lessons. A story will be told from the Bible and then it will be discussed. There are then interactive lessons to help the student learn the material. The child may have to click on some items to learn more information, or show the knowledge they have gained by completing activities such as matching, putting things in order, and answering multiple choice questions.

Learning More

Matching

Putting Things In Order

Multiple Choice

There are different kinds of games that the children can play to show what they have learned, such as Shower Sprint, Temple Maze, and Caravan 

In Shower Sprint, Tabitha has to give the guests menus and answer questions. She will get them food the chef prepares and start all over again.

In the Temple Maze, she had to get Zacharias through the temple by lighting the candles. 

This was done by answering questions correctly. 

The temple would light up when all the candles were lit and Zacharias could leave the temple.

In the Caravan game, she needed to guide Mary's caravan around obstacles and answer questions.

As you can see, there are multiple opportunities for the student to demonstrate what they have learned.

Another way the children learn their information is by listening to their Memory song. Each course has a different song that they sing a couple of times in each topic. This song helps them to memorize the chronology of events. I caught the girls singing Amelia's together the other day:

I would love to share the video I took of them singing without them knowing, but I can't figure out how to get videos to load without taking all day. If I can get it figured out, I will edit the post.

I love that they are doing the different courses, but hearing and learning each other's songs.  This is a wonderful program for teaching children about the Bible. I really appreciate the way the lessons don't just focus on telling the children the story and asking questions about it. The characters discuss what is being learned, questions will get brought up and delved into. I think it is great that they connect the story to details that are connected in other parts of the Bible.

Tabitha likes how it is silly and you learn about the Bible at the same time. (She is referring specifically to the silliness of Jude.)

Amelia loves VeritasBible.com. She likes everything about it, but especially enjoys the cat and Tizzy the gnat.

Originally I wasn't sure if the younger children would be able to complete the lessons, so I wasn't concerned with them using it during the review period. However, I think they were getting jealous of their sisters, because suddenly last week, both Hannah and Harold wanted me to add them. They have enjoyed listening to the stories, but the questions have been a bit tricky for them to do independently. I really wish there was the option to hear the questions and the answers. The way the program is currently, a child has to have decent reading skills or have a parent work along with them.

 I do have to mention that you do need a computer with fast-speed internet access. I am actually afraid ours wasn't quite fast enough as the video was apt to pause while the children were watching it. The children were quite patient as they watched the videos, waiting for it to start back up. To me, that means they really did enjoy the lesson and were willing to sit through that minor inconvenience. However, if you feel your children would have a problem with this, you will just need to make sure you have a fast enough internet connection. To tell you the truth, I think there is something up with our computer. Though the lessons were still slow on our old computer, they would completely stall on the new computer. Ironic, isn't it? 

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