Progeny Press Treasure Island Study Guide Review

Exposing my children to quality literature is something that is very important to me as a homeschool Mom. Unfortunately the demands of my family and home do not always allow me to pre-read the books and create study guides before my children need to read their books. That is why I was so excited for the opportunity to review the Treasure Island study guide from Progeny Press as a part of The Homeschool Review Crew.

My 11 year old son, who loves to read, was very excited to see that we had received the Treasure Island study guide for review. Even though he has read the book previously, he was looking forward to studying it more in depth than just reading.

After a trip to the library because we couldn't locate our own copy of Treasure Island my son dove right in to the study guide. As recommended in the study guide my son read the novel in it's entirety first then we began the study guide. Also as recommended I had him complete one page of the chapter sections each day. During this four week review period he was able to complete about half of the study guide. Still ahead is the overview section which I plan to use as a test and he will also complete the essay section to further reinforce not only his understanding of the book but also to help with his writing. Something about tying two subjects together in one (reading comprehension and writing in this case) makes my homeschool Momma's heart happy.

This particular study guide was broken up into 6 parts with three to six chapters per part. Each part of the study guide includes vocabulary questions, fill in the blank answer sections, critical thinking about the chapter, and dig deeper questions. The tech nerd in me loves that the pdf version of this study guide allows for fill in the blank, no more printing of paper and he can read the pdf of my iPad. Love it! The questions in each part of the study guide were challenging and thought provoking, definitely more in depth and complete than anything I could have ever created myself. They asked questions I would have never thought of and I learned quite a lot considering their questions in relation to the story. Progeny Press recommends that for best use of their study guides you also provide your student with a dictionary, thesaurus, a Bible, and a Bible concordance.

Well written and thorough study guides are very hard to come by, trust me I've searched high and low for a variety of study guides. Progeny Press is definitely a company you should consider when in the market for study guides.

I am so thankful we had the opportunity to review this product, we will definitely be purchasing additional study guides to use in our homeschool.

Product Details:

Treasure Island Study Guide

Printed Booklet: $18.99

CD $16.99

PDF $16.99

Knowledge Quest Timeline Builder iPad app: TOS Review

I am going to come clean with a homeschool secret that I've never shared before, I do not do timelines for our history studies. There I said it, I hope you don't think any less of me. (insert smile) With everything else going on in our family and homeschool studies timelines were something I had wanted to do but had to put on the back burner for more pressing lesson plans. Then along came a review opportunity from Knowledge Quest for their Timeline Builder iPad App and everything changed.

This app has made creating timelines and enriching our history lessons incredibly easy, I no longer have an excuse for not using timelines in our history lessons.

What does Timeline Builder do?

1. Allows you to create a digital timeline as far back or as far forward as you like.
2. Enter as many timeline events or people on your timeline as you want.
3. Upoload images from your computer or the web and link them to your timeline entries.
4. Flexibility to move timeline events on the timeline.
5. Save and share timelines as an image to your photos. You can also choose to email your timelines as well as export and share with other Timeline Builder users.

How we used the Timeline Builder iPad App:

Can I just start out by saying I am absolutely loving all of the wonderful educational applications and ability to read teachers manuals from my iPad? Well, there I just did. The Timeline Builder app is no different, it has made teaching, interacting with, and learning form history amazing. My children have not mastered the art of filing papers in their school binders so that they can find them later so anything I can put into electronics makes all of our lives easier. I have tried creating timelines before, I had great intentions I really did, but lost papers, torn papers, or even chewed on papers made my previous attempts very frustrating.

My children and I have been studying early American history this semester so for the course of this review I jumped into our studies and started a timeline where we were currently studying, the slave trade. After quickly and easily acquainting myself with the app interface I introduced the timeline builder to my children, namely my older boys ages 11 and 8. My younger daughter, age 6, soon caught on that we were having fun with history and joined our lesson. After reading our history lesson for the day my boys each created their own timeline based on what they remembered from the story. Then after discussing events that they did not include on their timeline they each went back and added events, people, and places including pictures to bring the timeline to life. As a homeschool teacher I could see their wheels of learning firing on all cylinders. They were engaged in the lesson and absorbing the events rather than just skimming the surface as they read and forgetting it all as soon as the book closed. Surprisingly, even long after the history lesson was complete my boys were still talking about the facts they learned and having a healthy discussion on what they had learned. What's not to love about that? The Timeline Builder App brought history to life for my family in a way that paper timelines and other hands on activities could not do.

Product Specifics:

Watch this video to learn more

Timeline Builder iPad app available in the AppStore for $6.99

Artistic Pursuits Review: TOS Crew

I know I've mentioned this numerous times through life of this blog, but it bears repeating. I am NOT an artistic person in the least. I believe when God formed me He threw away the artistic bone because it is NO where in my body. Additionally, He is sitting in heaven getting a good laugh out of the fact that He has blessed me with children who enjoy drawing and are genuinely interested in learning to be better artists. So what is a homeschool mother like me to do? Hope, pray, and research art curriculum in the hopes that one of them is a solid fit for our family. Like other subjects in our curriculum collection I knew I did not want an art curriculum that merely taught children how to draw. I want something that is steadfast in art theory, artist appreciation and history, and yet easily explains artistic concepts in short yet concise lessons. I firmly believe that art is one subject where children should have the freedom to create as they please without boundaries or limits. I don't want long in depth art lessons that force children to conform to certain artistic boxes.

As a motion of grace, God blessed me with the opportunity to review Artistic Pursuits as a part of the Schoolhouse Review Crew. There are numerous levels to choose from but I specifically reviewed Elementary 4-5 book one.

When my boys ages 11 and 8 saw that we had been blessed with an art curriculum to review they were very excited and happily pestered me for days to get to the art store so we could pick up the supplies needed to start this program. Which I should mention for the first 7 units all that are needed are 4 ebony pencils, 1 vinyl eraser, 1 metal sharpener, 1 sketch pad, 1 paper sack, and a drawing board is optional. I was able to pick these supplies up at our local craft store for a minimal amount of money even considering I had to double the amounts due to two students.

As expected my boys dove into this program full heartedly. Not only are they learning drawing techniques, but this program also incorporates american art appreciation and history, builds their visual vocabulary, and at the end of each unit students get to apply everything they have learned in that unit into a final art project. 

As a busy homeschool mother of 6, three of which are ages 2 and under I appreciate the brevity of each lesson while still maintaining a high level of education rigor. These lessons are packed with instruction but can be taught in under 15 minutes, the remainder of the lesson time is as it should be, time for the students to be creative and spend quality time practicing the technique introduced in that lesson. I enjoy not only teaching my boys a subject that they love but also watching them explore the artistic side of their personalities. I am not an artist in the least, I struggle with stick figures, so it is simply amazing to me to watch them create amazing sketches from a simple lesson that even a non-artist like myself can teach.

My boys hard at work

I can say with heartfelt honesty that I will be purchasing additional books from Artistic Pursuits when we finish the current book. There is a variety of art curriculum levels to choose from, everything from preschool through high school. 

Specifics:

Artistic Pursuits, Elementary 4-5, book 1: The Elements of Art and Composition
Comb-binding, 92 pages, 68 lessons, 230 illustrations
Written for ages 9 and up, samples of this curriculum can be viewed at the link above
$47.95

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this product through the Schoolhouse Review Crew in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other was. All opinions are my own or those of my family. I am disclosing this in accordance with the FTC Regulations.

Abraham's Journey: A Celebration of the American Dream Review

 

As parents part of our job is to instill in our children faith in the American dream. Our country was founded on this dream and sadly over the years that foundation has been eroded and threatens to give way completely. Unless we teach our children what our forefathers intended, this dream will be lost forever.

Inspiring the American Dream has published a book entitled Abraham's Journey: A Celebration of the American Dream. This book aims to help restore the faith and entrepreneurial spirit that our country was built upon. In this book a young boy sets out on a journey through time to meet important historical figures in his pursuit of finding a gift for a family member. Through the course of his journey he learns from these historical figures the importance and gains an understanding of the American dream.

I appreciate that the core foundation of this book is to teach the younger generations about a value system that is quickly being lost. If more people valued the American dream perhaps our country would not be in the mess that we are currently facing. Whenever the opportunity presents itself I take the time to teach my children these values and to have pride in their country. I enjoy that there are authors that aim to provide parents and grandparents with books based on this concept.

While I find value and importance in the core foundation of this book my children ages 5-11 and I struggled with the flow and verbiage. The story line felt a bit forced, it did not flow well from one historical figure to the next. Traveling between the different points in time was abrupt. I wish the authors had included more information about each historical personality and why they were a key figure in our country's history.

My family's experience and impression of the book may not be the same as your experience or impression. I would like to encourage you to read other reviews of this book from my fellow TOS Review Crew members, please click the banner below.

Abraham's Journey: A Celebration of the American Dream is available here for $14.99

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this product through the Schoolhouse 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 the FTC Regulations.

Flowering Baby Review: TOS Crew

Have you ever wished you could get your hands on a collection of developmentally appropriate songs, craft ideas, and other fun early education tid bits just to make sure you weren't forgetting anything while your children were little? Finally you can!

Flowering Baby, LLC is a fun and interactive for your child from birth through age five. Each curriculum is a separate year and each year is broken down by months. Furthermore, each month has over 20 activities that are fun and engaging for both you and your child.

Being that I have three little ones in my family, I had the wonderful opportunity of using and reviewing two different yearly curriculums. For my youngest who just turned 1 year, I used the birth to one year program and my my twins who just turned 2, I used the one to two year program.

How we used these programs:
As a large family Mom in a busy homeschool household I often worry about missing out on or forgetting those fun early childhood activities that are critical for development and learning. Of course I do the basics but I sometimes feel like I am not teaching my little ones those fun songs that I grew up with one because I simply can't remember them and also because I don't make it a point to incorporate those things into our day. For example, pat-a-cake and itsy bitsy spider are about thee extent of my early childhood hand motion sings. Enter Flowering Baby, LLC.

Now I don't have to wonder if I am remembering those fun songs or age appropriate crafts, everything is planned out for me year by year and month by month. This curriculum is also so flexible that you don't have to follow each day to the letter, rather use it as a guide for the month and fit in the suggested activities whenever and where ever you can.

One activity that my youngest and I really enjoyed from the birth to one year program was the discovery bottles. Using various water bottles we had laying around the house I filled them as suggested with water and small floating objects. After securing the lids my little guy and I set about discovering what was in each of the bottles. With lots of oohs and aahs and his trademark fish lips when he is excited we talked about each of the items floating and sloshing around in the bottles. Also recommended for this particular day was to have classical music playing in the background and reintroduce small blocks. Another activity on other days in this program is to read a particular book to your child. Now we read a lot of books in our house, but I appreciated the reminder to introduce other titles that I may have forgotten about or never heard of. I typically stick to my old favorites but this program helped remind me about others that my son might enjoy and I just needed to pick up at the library or find in our bookshelves.

My twins were nearly 2 when I started reviewing this product so I focused on the last few months in the one to two year program. One suggested activity that we particularly enjoyed was "where is it at". This game involved hiding something under a cup and then rearranging it with other similar looking cups. My girls and I giggled so much with this one, they thought it was such a fun game and little did they know the problem solving skills they were learning in the process. I enjoyed just watching their little brains work as they followed the hidden cup around. This activity is an example of one of those things I just wouldn't have thought to do on my own, I love having these programs at my finger tips to remind me of all of these fun, developmentally appropriate, and educational activities that I can do with my young children.

While I am not a big advocate for early education curriculum I thoroughly enjoyed Flowering Baby, LLC. I appreciated the hands on approach and suggestions as well as the wide variety of activities. This program did a wonderful job of incorporating hands on activities for speech, fine motor and gross motor skills, developmentally appropriate books, and songs into each day's activities.

Interested in seeing examples of the Flowering Baby, LLC programs?

Birth to one year sample
One to two year sample
Two to three year sample
Four to five year sample
Four to five year sample

Product Details:
Birth to 1 year program $30
One to two year program $30
Two to three year program $30
Three to four year program $38
Four to five year program $38
Buy all 5 programs for $132

As a special offer to my blog readers, Flowering Baby, LLC is offering 10% off all of their products. Use the code "Blog10" when ordering.

Disclaimer: I received this product for free in exchange for my honest opinion. No other form of payment or reimbursement was received.

SchoolhouseTeachers.com Review

Burnt out on homeschooling? Tired of planning lessons week after week? Or perhaps you have lost the luster of lesson creativity and now just throw things together to "check one more lesson off of your list". 

I have been there and will likely be there again as I continue down our homeschooling career.

Thankfully this year I have found my answer. When I don't have the time or energy to plan a spelling lesson or teach a math lesson I can now turn to SchoolhouseTeachers.com for my solution. 

If you have been homeschooling for a while perhaps you have heard of or are familiar with The Old Schoolhouse Magazine's Teachers Toolbox. SchoolhouseTeachers.com replaced the old Teachers Toolbox and now provides an updated, streamlined, and more accessible source of teaching tools and lessons. The new site provides daily, weekly, and monthly lessons on a wide variety of subjects. Everything from the basic subjects like math and language arts to more specialized subjects like guitar and foreign language. With your monthly membership you not only get access to all of the lessons but also menu planning and each of the 5 Schoolhouse Planners when they become available (after 9 months of paid membership).

SchoolhouseTeachers.com is jam packed with such a variety of lessons and wonderful "daily" content that it is hard to pick my favorite to highlight. So instead I will discuss the resources that I have been turning to most often since beginning my membership. 

For my kindergarten daughter I am using the spelling lessons and reading lists most often. I am enjoying that the spelling lessons present four words over the course of one week. During that week the student uses those 4 words in a variety of ways such as answering questions, fill in the blank, and picture drawing. My 5 year old is a hands on learner and is enjoying the varied approach to learning her words each week compared to our previous "workbook" style of spelling lessons.

My 3rd grade 8 year old is most enjoying the history and United States geography lessons. He is crazy about both subjects and is excited each day to find out what the new lesson is and what he gets to research and explore. These lessons have been wonderful spring boards for further research and learning opportunities. I appreciate that fact that he is excited about and learning things that I hadn't thought about introducing and also frankly don't have the time to prepare because of other family obligations (namely 3 littles ones under the age of 2).

A few months back I began praying for a guitar lesson opportunity for my 11 year old 6th grader. Weekly lessons at the music store aren't not feasible for a variety of reasons right now but I know how badly he wants to learn how to play. So imagine my surprise and joy when I noticed that SchoolhouseTeachers.com includes guitar lessons. My 11 year old is thrilled (as am I). These lessons alone more than pay for the monthly fee that SchoolhouseTeachers.com charges. Now my oldest son can advance his guitar abilities at his pace from the comfort of our home. 

So as you can see SchoolhouseTeachers.com is not geared towards a certain age group of students. There is a wide variety of lessons and learning opportunities for every age, including adults (music, voice, and foreign languages to name just a few).

Specific Details:

Price: $1 for the 1st month and $5.95 each month thereafter

Included with each membership (taken straight from the website FAQs):

A membership provides you with all the daily, weekly, and monthly lessons from our expert Schoolhouse Teachers and Contributors, but there is much more. It also gives you all five Schoolhouse Daily Planners each year; the five, together, represent a $125 value. The 2012-2013 Planners will be available in June.

The 2011-2012 Planners can be downloaded at any time. Though the school year is winding down, you’ll still benefit from literally hundreds of pages of articles, supports, helps, encouragements, games, informational lists, and other benefits (as well as a few months of tracking space). The 2011-2012 Schoolhouse Planner alone is 819 pages! There are also separate planners for elementary, middle school, and high school ages, and a planner for special needs children.

A membership also provides with you access to our past (archived) and future Expo webinars—we have had up to one thousand attendees at each webinar. We cover the latest in home education trends and sponsor many free giveaways. For instance, the March webinar featured Jay Ryan teaching about astronomy and Andy Harris teaching on Google Earth. (What a blast that was!) Note: The Expo-to-Go postings will go up on our site in May.

There’s more: The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine delivered by TOS straight to your inbox monthly; all The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine digital back issues (easily searchable); a free E-Book every month; and, after 12 months of uninterrupted membership, you’ll receive a $25 gift certificate to the Totally TOS section of The Schoolhouse Store!

You can begin your membership here

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this product through the Schoolhouse 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 the FTC Regulations.

TOS Review: Big IQ Kids

Big IQ Kids is an online spelling, math, vocabulary, and U.S. geography program all rolled into one. Through daily lessons students in elementary and middle school learn good study habits and increase their self confidence in the subjects covered. Big IQ Kids offers a free program as well as a paid premium program. You can view the differences in their programs here. As a part of The Old Schoolhouse Homeschool review crew, my children and I were able to review the premium program.

The spelling program includes over 40,000 words in the dictionary and is pre-set with 40 lessons and word lists. With this program you also have the option of adding your own word lists. Big IQ spelling will generate a weeks worth of lessons when you add your own spelling list. For this review I primarily used the "input your own" method but I also looked through the pre-loaded lesson plans. The 40 pre-loaded spelling list lessons are excellent and are appropriately challenging. For my 4th grade son we use a workbook method for spelling. While reviewing Big IQ Kids I simply input each of the 20 words from my son's workbook into a spelling list using this program. I liked that he could get more practice and reinforcement using this program. My son enjoyed doing some of his spelling lessons on the computer, it was a nice change of pace for him. I liked that he could not go on without mastering the quizzes which he often struggles with when he wants to "rush" through his assignments.

The Big IQ vocabulary program includes a large number of words from the elementary age through the SAT level. Like the spelling program there are pre-set word lists with lesson plans or you can input your own vocabulary words. The word lists are challenging and the lesson plans were appropriately structured. However, my son and I had a challenging time understanding the voice that "said" the words. It is a bit like a robot and the sounds were not always easy to understand. Also, the synonym and antonym portion of the lessons were at time illogical. However, once I explained the words to my son he grasped them a bit more. If I thought the antonym and synonym answers were not correct I just had my son skip that question and did not count the wrong answer on the overall quiz score. For example, one of the questions indicated that nail and board were anotonyms. The word board does not have an antonym so I had some trouble seeing how this was a plausible answer. Otherwise I thought the vocabulary exercises were challenging and the definitions were accurate.

Big IQ Kids math is a fun online program. As a parent you can customize the lessons and math facts included in each lesson. My son really enjoyed this math program and I think it provided him with math drills in a sufficiently challenging way. As with the other programs from Big IQ Kids, I wish as a parent I could review my son's progress without logging in as the student. Parent profiles linked to the child's information is helpful in creating lessons and reviewing progress. I could forsee older students or technilogically afvanced children modifying their own lessons without parental notice.

The U.S. States geography program from Big IQ Kids is comprehensive and educational. My son learned a ton from this program and I am happy to say can now identify all of the states by shape and nearly has all of the capitals memorized. This program quizzes students on state capitals and state locations, state spelling, abbreviations, and basic state facts. Additionally, parents can add extra facts that they would like their student to learn. I found this program particularly helpful for a state postcard swap that my children and I are participating in this year. As each postcard arrives in our mail I enter additional facts that the sender included on the card. It is a fun way to include the poastcards in our learning.

Pricing information:
$19.99 for one month of all 4 programs or $99.99 for a year.
Individual subjects for one month from $7.99
You can read more about their pricing programs here
Also, you can begin with the free program and upgrade to the premium program at any time.

Want to read more reviews for this program?

Big IQ Kids Review from TOS Homeschool Crew

TOS Crew Review: Reading Kingdom

As a member of The Old Schoolhouse review crew I was given the opportunity to review the Reading Kingdom. Reading Kingdom is an online reading program that teaches sequencing, motor skills, sounds, meaning, grammar and comprehension. This program is recommended for ages 4-10 and teaches reading to a 3rd grade level. Dr. Marion Blank, the inventor of the Reading Kingdom, has been honored with the Upton Sinclair Award which is given to individuals who have made a significant contribution to education. She began with the Phonics Plus Five program and Reading Kingdom is an online “version” of that program.

Reading Kingdom teaches introduction to Reading & Writing, Keyboard & Mouse Training, Skills Survey 1, Seeing Sequences, and Letter Land. Once those are completed the child moves to reading & writing level 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.

For this review I worked with both my 3yo and 6yo. My 3yo is a pre-reader and my 6yo is reading at about a 2nd grade level. I chose to do this review with both of my younger children because I knew my 3yo would benefit from letter recognition lessons and my 6yo would learn from the keyboarding practice available with this program. As we began this program I quickly realized that I would have to help both of my children with this program because of the short time limit for activity responses. In other words, my children were not able to find the letters on the keyboard quick enough for this program's pre-set parameters. This led to frustration despite my kids knowing their letters. So together my children and I worked on this reading program together. They were still learning but I provided a little extra guidance in the beginning to help them find the letters on the keyboard.

For example, in Letter Land the child learns to match and recognize letters by sight.

Then it progressively gets more difficult. . .

As the child progresses through Letter Land then they start reading and writing. In various portions of the reading and writing section the student is asked to match a singular word to its plural and choose the correct letter order for a given word. My 6yo particularly enjoyed this part of Reading Kingdom but I was always close by to help mitigate his frustration level by not being able to find a letter on the keyboard. Eventually, the more and more we played with this program both of my children became more adept at finding the letters on the keyboard quicker and needed less of my assistance.

Overall, both of my children enjoyed this program and learned a great deal from it. Working with both of them from the very beginning to prevent frustration with key hunting helped tremendously with their success in this program.

Program details:

Cost is $19.99 per month or $199.99 for a year. Each additional child is $9.99 per month.

Would you like to read more reviews from fellow crew members?

Reading Kingdom Reviews

TOS Review Crew: I See Sam

The Reading for all Learners Little Books, otherwise known as I See Sam is a collection of 8 sets of books, each containing up to 27 books per set. Published by Academic Success for all Learners, the Little Books collection begin at a kindergarten reading level and progress up to a 3.6 reading level. As a TOS Homeschool Review Crew member I had the opportunity to review the Little Books sets 1-4 with my 6 year old.

You can read the scope and sequence of the Little Books series here.

Little Books Set 1: for reading level K-1.0 and includes 27 books. This set teaches 27 new sounds, new sound combinations, 73 new words, 9 new sight words, and comprehension skills. Reading assessments are covered in books 6, 11,16, 21, 26. $30

Little Books Set 2: for reading level: 1.0 - 1.3 and includes 27 different books. This set teaches 5 new sounds, 2 new sound combinations, 98 new regular words, 8 new sight words, and comprehension skills. Reading assessments are covered in books 6,11,16,21,26. $30

Little Books Set 3 for reading level: 1.3 - 1.6 and includes 22 different books. This set teaches 15 new sounds, 2 new sound combinations, 109 new regular words, 15 new sight words, and comprehension skills. Reading assessments are covered in books 6,11,16,21. $30

Little Books Set 4 for reading level: 1.6 - 2.0 and includes 15 different books. This set teaches 8 new sounds, 4 new sound combinations, 374 new regular words, 44 new sight words, comprehension skills, and contractions. Reading assessments are covered in books 2,4,6,8,10,12,14. $30




When my 6 year old son and I first began this review I started with a couple of the reading assessments provided in sets 1 and 2. I wanted to make sure I was starting him in the appropriate set of books which would be at his learning level and not his frustration level. Once I found his learning reading level we dove right in to that set of books. Initially my son wanted to read multiple books at one setting, it was new curriculum so he was excited. Reading is something that comes easy to my son so I allowed him to set the pace at which he wanted to move through these books. With each book completed however I made sure he knew the words he was reading, could identify them on the flash cards included with each book set, and was mastering reading comprehension. There are scripted questions throughout each of the books which help assess reading comprehension, you could choose to use these questions or make up your own if you prefer. Also helpful in these book sets are the review and new "upcoming" words included in the front and back of every book. Before reading the story in each book, the student is encouraged to review the previously introduced words at the beginning of the book and then upon reading the story there is a list of new and upcoming words that will be included in the following book in that set. This feature was nice for my son because it helped review and reinforce words that he may have forgotten and it served as a quick reminder of the words he would be seeing in the upcoming story.


Also included as part of our review packet, I received the flash cards that correspond to each set of books. You have the option of purchasing these flash cards or downloading them for free. I found the flash cards to be very helpful with my son. When beginning a new set of books I sat with my son and we read through all of the flash cards for that set. As he tried to read the words I separated each card into a "know" and "need to work on" pile. Then before beginning any new book in that set we would read through the "need to work on" pile again and take out the ones he had learned, adding them to the "know" pile. My son really enjoyed this exercise. Not only did he gain confidence from seeing how big his "know" pile was but he also gained encouragement when he got to transfer a card form his "need to work on" pile to the "know" pile. This process not only helped him learn but it also helped me to gauge his overall learning and sound blends that we need to work on and reinforce more often.


I am happy to report that my son is still enjoying his I See Sam books. He will choose to read these books on his own fruition and enjoys the cute little story lines and fun characters.


Click here for an interactive view of a book in set 1.


Academic Success for all Learners has also made a bunch of downloads freely available for your use.


I will definitely be using this series of books to help start my preschool age daughter reading later this year!

You can read more reviews from fellow TOS Homeschool Crew Members!

I See Sam Reviews

Disclaimer: I received this product for free in exchange for my honest review and opinion. No other form of compensation was received.