a good one on comparison

Comparison get you nowhere, but the gospel takes us far

How to Develop Patience Toward Others

Doorposts of your Home blogpost...good ideas...even for mommies to practice:)
How to Develop Patience Toward Others

Oh... I just love this woman!

Sally Clarkson

http://www.itakejoy.com/discipleship-relationships-take-a-lot-of-time/

Ten Days of Biblical Parenting Giveaways

Ten Days of Biblical Parenting Giveaways

Here is a new blog from Doorposts...it will have character building projects, as well as parenting and bible study tips/ideas/information. It is having ten days of giveaways as they introduce their new blog.

Reading Kingdom

I was given the opportunity to review an online reading program called Reading Kingdom. It is an online program that teaches children ages 4-10 how to read and write to a third grade level. It customizes itself to each child who uses the program. Reading Kingdom says it’s the only system that teaches all 6 skills needed for reading and writing…sequencing, motor skills, sounds, meaning, grammar, and comprehension. Reading Kingdom was created by Dr. Marion Blank, who is a leading expert in literacy.

I got the following information about the program straight from the Reading Kingdom website…

{ How the Program is Organized

The Skills Survey The program begins with your child taking a Skills Survey. Through simple, game-like activities, it reveals the skills a child has and does not have so that the program can start at exactly the right place to encourage the greatest success.
The Teaching Once the Skills Survey is completed, the teaching begins. The program is organized into six levels.
Pre-reading Level Teaches the Visual Sequencing and Keyboarding Skills that underlie reading and writing. A child goes through one or both of these programs if the Skills Survey shows that these components are needed.
Level 1
Gets your child reading, understanding and writing meaningful ideas by teaching key nouns (kids, girl, bird), verbs (actions such as eat, walk, fly) and "helping" words (the, some, is, can, are). Once a set of words has been taught, the child gets to read a book containing those words, along with words previously taught. As in all subsequent levels, there are six books in Level 2.
Level 2 Greatly expands the range of ideas your child reads and writes by adding new nouns (puppies, man, water), verbs relevant to those nouns (run, fix, move, including words that convey motivation such as need, want, like), pronouns (she, I, we), additional "helping" words (that, also, both, of) and question words (who, what, which).
Level 3 Enhances your child's ability to tell and understand stories by teaching the words to convey past tense (was, did, were), along with increasing the range of nouns (ground, rocks), verbs (push, think, hurt), "helping" words (most, on, any), and adjectives (sad, happy, nice, -y as in dirty, rocky).
Level 4
Gets your child reading subject matter that is different from typical stories and essential to school success. It introduces a wide variety of objects and beings from the natural world (animals, rainbow, moon, tongue, group, people, earth) and higher level question words (why, when, how). These are then incorporated into books that convey science type information.
Level 5 Has your child reading rich stories which provide a sense of fun while teaching complex cause and effect relationships by expanding the range of nouns (computer, letter, fish) and verbs (change, know, float), and introducing a set of complex ideas (luck, true, never, change, sure).
Keeping Track Within a few weeks, many children are using the program totally on their own. Even though you may not be there during the lessons, you'll have no trouble keeping track of how your child is doing. After a session is completed, you can open a link that offers you a summary of how the session went, where your child is at, what's happening next and so on.
Progress Check The Reading Kingdom has been designed so that a child moves ahead only if the learning is solid and secure. At regular points, a child is given a brief Progress Check to see if there is mastery of the material that has been taught.
If the Progress Check shows that your child is doing well, in the next session he or she moves on to new material.
On the other hand, if the Skills Survey shows some weaknesses in the learning, then in the next session, your child starts a set of review lessons that enable him or her to get past any difficulties. The review process may take one to two weeks to complete. Once it is completed, the child returns to learning new material. }









Being a visual person, I like the colorful graphics. I also like the fact that it is teaching multiple skills that every child needs to be successful at reading. I like the hands-on that the computer gives to the program. My kids like to use the computer, though I heavily restrict their use.

I had two of my kids work with this program…my newly turned 8 year old daughter and my 10 year old son (yesterday turned 11) work on this. My daughter is already at a third grade reading level, but I had wanted her to do it anyway to make sure all needed skills are there. My 10 year old, who has some learning difficulties, is at least at a third grade reading level, but lacks confidence in his reading ability. First off, I want to say that this seems like a really great program and this is in no way a negative review. The following is from our experience only thus far. They each started out doing the skills survey to begin customizing the program to their ability…and unfortunately haven’t moved much more than the pre-reading level. It seems as if it is either our computer or the program that doesn’t always register when they would actually do as instructed. They would hit the keys or click the mouse and it didn’t seem to register that they did anything…the lady would then speak and say how to do what was instructed as if they hadn’t just done it. Needless to say they got frustrated. I also think that their lack of experience with using the computer could have something to do with it. I think that once they get past the beginning stages they will actually really enjoy the program…we have graciously been given a wonderfully long subscription, so we will keep plugging along at it. My son is a visual-kinesthetic learner so this is perfect for him. As is also good for audio-visual learners, like my daughter. I believe I would still recommend this program regardless of our beginning experience because I know my kids would enjoy doing the program once they got farther along.

Pricing---You will receive a free 30 day trial. After that, subscriptions to Reading Kingdom are $19.99/month (with no monthly minimum), or $199.99 per year. You can cancel your subscription at any time.
If you would like to read other TOS Crew reviews on this product…click here.

Disclaimer---I received this subscription for free in exchange for my honest review.

Math Rider

I was given the opportunity to review Math Rider, from a company based in Australia.

It is currently on sale for $37 with a normal price of $49.95, it is an instant download software.
Click here for system requirements.

Here is the company’s own words about it’s product…

{ Latest Generation Math Game, using Artificial Intelligence

Ride your horse on noble quests through the magical MathLands. MathRider combines fun game play with a highly sophisticated question engine that adapts to your child. The game propels your child to mastery of all four math operations using numbers 0 to 12.

MathRider was developed from personal need, because we wanted to help our own children who were struggling with fundamental math. }

I had my 3rd grade son start off using the Math Rider program. He has had a lot of fun using it.
This is what he had to say about it…
“I like that the stories are illustrated by kids.”
“I like the noble quests in the magical Mathlands, it’s rewarding to see how far my rider has traveled on the map.”
“I like the graphics.”
“I like the challenge it gives me.”

He had one thing that he didn’t like and that was only due to the fact that he missed some “jumps” because he didn’t know the answer fast enough…he felt like it didn’t give him enough time. The rider adjusts its speed as you answer the problems. I think he froze and was not thinking about the problem but instead was looking at the horse reaching the jump.

I think this is a terrific program for any child who needs to work on math facts. It hits all the learning styles, especially the visual and hands-on learner. It keeps any child challenged enough and with the noble quests it keeps it fun.

It is broken up into each math operation and then further divided into easy (#’s 0-5), medium (6-10) and then advanced (11-12). There is a statistics section so that the parent and child can see their progress. It gives top challenge problems and you can click on any of the numbers and it will show and say the problem. I would definitely recommend this to any family who needs help mastering the math facts. I don’t know yet, as my son hasn’t completed it, whether it has any review options. I think it would be grand if when you complete a full quest that it gives you an option of another quest, a review of sorts, intermixing all the problems of the different levels within a math operation.

A statement…I have one son who struggles dearly with remembering his math facts, so I have been reluctant to have him try it. I feel as if tears would ensue if the horse was not slow enough…I know it adjusts, but how much?…I need to try it out with him. I have had him working on another TOS review program as I don’t like to overload him, but I will see how he likes it and how well he does with it. He is a slow learner, needs tons of repetition and is such a hard worker. I will update this review as needed.

A sample of Math Rider

If you want to read more TOS crew reviews on this product, click here.

Disclaimer---I received this product for free in exchange for my honest review.

The Curiosity Files

I was given the opportunity to choose one of the Curiosity Files from The Old Schoolhouse Magazine. We chose Zombie Fire Ants. They are priced at a reasonable $6.95. However, some of the Curiosity Files are on sale right now for $1.00…WOW…I bought 4 of them. The Curiosity Files are studies on interesting animals or phenomenon. These studies are intended for kids 8-13 years of age…but of course they can be geared for younger and older by making adjustments.



Here are all the Curiosity Files available…

Blue Diamond

Dung Beetle

MRSA

Puffer Fish

Red Tide

Zombie Fire Ants

Blue-footed Booby

Cicada Killing Wasp

Quicksand  

{Zombie Fire Ants will keep your kids occupied and answering questions like these:

• What is God’s plan for controlling the number of fire ants?
• When out of control, how can scientists restore balance to the natural world?
• What’s so special about phorid flies, and how do they fit into the ant equation?
• Okay, so how does a fire ant morph from a hard-working colony participant into a zombie-like creature?
• If regular fire ants cause havoc, why create a zombie version?
• Does history tell us anything important?
• What can we grasp from the Bible?
• And a whole lot more!}

The Study includes…

• Bible study, discussion ideas, and memory verses
• Math, history, and geography investigations
• Literature and suggested book list
• Writing, spelling, and vocabulary activities
• Beautiful copywork pages (manuscript and cursive)
• Science observations, projects, and experiments
• Discussion questions
• Art, crafts, and drawing and coloring pages
• Lapbook/notebook pages and helpful lapbooking links
• Special needs, hands-on discoveries
• Internet resource and video links
• Complete answer key 

Click HERE to view a sample.

I read through all the information about the Zombie Fire Ants to the kids and we did most of the worksheets that come with the study together. I really liked that they included a Hands-On section specifically for special needs children. We don’t have any ants right now to make an ant farm, but as the weather warms up, I think we will make the one that is shown in the study. After reading about the fire ants and phorid flies, my youngest, who is 3 1/2, got out our plastic ant and fly toys and played with them…how cute is that!

We found Zombie Fire Ants to be FASCINATING and you will too! We are certainly looking forward to doing the other Curiosity Files I purchased. I would highly recommend them!

If you want to read more TOS crew reviews on this product or the other Curiosity Files the other crew members chose click here.

Disclaimer---I was given this product for free in exchange for my honest review.