Memoria Press Math Challenge - TOS Review

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew.

Being able to quickly recall math facts is extremely important when your child begins learning higher-level math concepts. That's why I was very interested in reviewing the Memoria Math Challenge from Memoria Press with Titus, my 4th grader. The Memoria Math Challenge is suggested for kindergarten through 2nd grade, but I knew that Titus would benefit from using it even though is above the suggested age range. 

I received the Memoria Math Challenge levels A, B, and C Student Workbooks and Teacher Keys. We began with Level C, but I'll show you what each of the levels is like. 

Level A is for early learners. It begins with number dictation (where you call out a number and your child writes it down), what comes before and after a number, and counting dots. It begins teaching the basic math facts, slowly increasing the amount of problems on each page. The last few lessons in this workbook contain 40 simple addition and subtraction problems (up to seven) on each page. There are lined boxes for your child to write each answer in.

Level B picks up where Level A left off. There are no more lined boxes for the answers; these worksheets are just addition and subtraction drills. This level begins with 25 problems on each page and by the last lesson, there are 100 problems on the front and back of each drill worksheet. Level B teaches addition and subtraction facts to ten.

Level C begins with 50 problems on each worksheet and ends with 100 problems on the front and back of each drill worksheet. This level teaches the math facts up to eighteen. 

The Teacher's Key simply contains smaller images of the Student Workbook drill sheets with the answers. There is also a Teaching Guidelines page which instructs you on how to conduct the timed drills. At the top of each student worksheet, there is a place for your child to record their name, score, and time. 

Titus used the Level C Student Workbook as a supplement to his math curriculum a few times a week. We didn't time the drills because I found that it frustrated him to think he was taking too much time, which in turn made him take too much time! I also found that 200 problems was too much for him as he gets overwhelmed easily, so I would tell him to do, say, four lines and then we would check them. We began towards the back of Level C with some of the addition and subtraction facts that he can't recall instantly. 

I really like the Level A Student Workbook, and am saving it for Zeke (who is three now) to use with his kindergarten curriculum. I think it would be a wonderful addition (no pun intended) to a preschool or kindergarten math program.

The Student Workbooks are $16.50 each and the Teacher Keys are $5.50. This is a great bargain, because these workbooks are huge! The pages are nice and thick with perforated edges to make them easy to tear out. 

See what the other Crew Members thought of the Memoria Math Challenge and these other programs by Memoria Press!

Prima Latina

Latina Christiana

First Form Latin

Famous Men of Rome

Famous Men of Greece

The Book of the Ancient Greeks

The Book of the Ancient Romans

Week In Review - 4/19/22-4/22/22

This week the weather was beautiful almost every day! We spent hours outdoors each day, working in the garden and flowerbeds and doing our other chores. Mercie had two tennis matches this week. Tennis is coming to an end; her last match is next Friday. She has had a lot of fun playing this season! It was her first time playing and she has done really well. So well that the coach is making sure she is going to try out for the high school team next year!

Titus had TKD twice this week. He is really love it and it has been so good for him. We had TeamKid on Wednesday night for the first time in three weeks. Next week is our last TeamKid meeting until August. 

Silas and Titus passed their District Bible Drills and we have the State Bible Drill next Tuesday. We will be staying in a hotel and making a fun evening of the drill. I am so proud of them for learning so many Bible verses, key passages, and skills this year.

We will have four weeks left of school on Monday, and I think we are all ready for summer break! We're plugging along in everything, but just doing the bare minium for science and history these last few weeks. We have had so many extracurricular activities that I'm just worn out!

Baby Zoey (that's the name we have chosen for baby girl) is doing well. I'm 17 weeks pregnant now, and I go for the anatomy scan in three weeks. I've done a bit of shopping for her already (it's been 14 years since I've shopped for a baby girl)!

We're reviewing some pretty cool things for the Crew right now and I'm glad I chose to join again. 

Mercie hatched some chicks from her incubator - 17 in all hatched. They're growing and we're going to have to make another pen for them this weekend!

How was your week?

Whitzlefritz - TOS Review

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew.

My parents are missionaries to Nicaragua and my mom speaks pretty fluent Spanish. I've always wanted my children to learn Spanish, but since I don't know very much myself it was hard to decide where to begin. This past month we have been learning Spanish with Whitzlefritz Educator's Spanish Collection!

Whitzlefritz is a language immersion program. This means that your child will learn Spanish by hearing it spoken without any translation. In the videos and on the CDs, the important words are repeated many times. Your child will pick up on these words and begin connecting the English picture with the Spanish word. Language immersion works best if your child is an environment where two languages are spoken daily, but using this program is a great alternative. They also offer a French curriculum.

Included in the Educator's Spanish Collection that I received are:

• Spanish Lesson Plans for Kids - a paperback book with 40 lessons and 277 pages. This book includes activity-based lessons, such as making puppets, playing games, and using flashcards.
• Spanish for Kids Videos - a collection of five DVDs with Spanish and English subtitles. These videos are colorful, entertaining, and full of Spanish vocabulary.
• Spanish for Kids Music - these Spanish songs are lively and fun.
• Memory Matching Cards - 50 memory cards with Spanish words and illustrations

They have a Parent Translation Guide available on their website for parents or instructors that don't know Spanish (me!). This is just a written guide, though. I had to look up pronunciations of several of the Spanish words using Google. You can also access the Home Educator's Guide for free, which includes 56 pages of daily open and go lesson plans for homeschoolers. This Guide includes a schedule for the videos, music, everyday review, and bonus activities. We preferred using the Lesson Plans for Kids book instead.

This Collection is geared toward ages 1-7, but I used this with my nine- and eleven-year-old sons. Since they are above the recommended age range, we had to adjust some of the activities. They thought the videos were a bit "babyish", refusing to watch them without laughing and goofing off. I had to sit with them so they would pay attention! Even though they were being silly while watching, they picked up more vocabulary than they realized! Trying to "mock" the characters, they were using Spanish words and phrases. 

Just a note - the videos are well done! They're fun, quick-paced, and colorful. The English subtitles are helpful, but the lady speaks so quickly (which is normal for Spanish!) that it's hard to connect the subtitles with the dialogue. If my boys were a bit younger, these videos would have quickly become favorites around here. I do have a three-year-old, and he would watch several minutes of the DVDs when they were on. I think in a year or two, he will be interested in Fritzi and the other characters.

In the Lesson Plans for Kids, which we used for our main lessons, there are several different features. Each lesson includes a lesson description, telling you what you will be learning in this lesson, along with a goal and objective. It also tells you which vocabulary words you will be learning and any supplies or materials that are needed for the activities.

The activities have a focus - which words and phrases you need to concentrate on. There is also a dialogue for you to use with your students/children, including the English and Spanish words. I used the English words since it was easier for us to follow. Guided practice includes demonstrations of the new Spanish vocabulary by asking your child questions and using the Spanish words. Independent practice follows with your children practicing what they've learned. There are also fun extension activities to extend the learning and fun!

We didn't follow the lesson plans exactly (do I ever?), but we did loosely use them as a guide. Considering I don't speak fluent Spanish, I was learning right along with my boys. I'm pleased to say that they have successfully learning their colors and the numbers 1-10, along with Spanish greetings - how to say their name and ask for yours, and to ask how you are doing and respond in kind.

We modified a few of the games to the boy's abilities. One game had us color and cut out presents that were numbered 1-10. The boys took turns drawing a card and naming the color and number in Spanish. They really had fun with that and repeated the activity at least three times! 

We also took the "game board" templates in the book and modified that to another activity. The boys took turns counting the presents in each box in Spanish and then finding that number and placing it on the box. This really helped with learning the numbers!

For learning colors, I had the boys make flashcards by writing the Spanish color word in that color. That helped them connect the word with the color. Then I wrote the color words in gray and had them match counting bears to the cards.

We watched several of the DVDs and listened the music CDs. It was fun when the boys realized they could pick out a few words that were being said! They picked up more than I thought they would over the course of this review.

I plan to continue using this program the way I am now - by picking the activities that I know will work for my boys and modifying the ones I think will be beneficial. I have put on the DVDs as background noise while the kids were playing or doing other things. I think the exposure to the Spanish language very effective. This is a well-thought out and put-together Spanish program, especially for younger children. The suggested age range of 1-7 is probably spot on, although younger children would have difficulty with some of the activities. Click the banner below to see what the other reviewers thought of Whitzlefritz!

IEW Fix It! Grammar - TOS Review

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew.

The past month, Titus has been using Fix It! Grammar from the Institute for Excellence in Writing. I'm really impressed with this grammar program already, and I'm planning to use it for all of my children next year! Titus received the Level 1 Nose Tree Teacher/Student Combo along with the add-on Fix It! Grammar Cards.

IEW is a curriculum that claims your child can successfully learn grammar in 15 minutes a day. I am a proponent for short lessons, especially in the elementary years, so I whole-heartedly agreed with this statement. With the right program, your child can learn grammar in 15 minutes a day. Titus has already shown so much retention and it doesn't even take him 15 minutes a day!

I placed Titus in Level 1 even though he is in 4th grade. He has had grammar the past several years, but he hasn't really internalized it yet. He has had basic instruction with the parts of the speech, but I wanted to start from the ground-up to really cement this into his memory. 

Levels 1 and 2 are for elementary ages, Levels 3 and 4 are for middle school, and Levels 5 and 6 are for high school. Each level builds on the previous level. Level 1 begins assuming your child has had little to no grammar instruction, so you could always begin here with any age child if they need to start at the very beginning.

Fix It! Grammar works like this: Your child will learn a new grammar concept at the beginning of the four-day week. It's presented in a simple and straight-forward way with several examples. The "Learn It!" page is in both the Student Book and the Teacher's Manual, which I really liked. That way Titus could read along with me while we learned the new concept.

Following the "Learn It!" page, there are four worksheets, one for each of the four days. At the top of the page, it tells you if there are any new vocabulary words (and defines them in the Teacher's Manual), how many parts of speech you will mark, and how many mistakes you must fix. 

Your child will read a sentence. This sentence is not capitalized or punctuated. Your child will mark the parts of speech they are learning and fix any capitalization or punctuation mistakes. Finally, your child will copy the corrected sentences on the lines below.

Each sentence works together to form a story. The entire story is found in the Appendix, so you and your child can read the story before beginning the program. The story in Level 1 is called "The Nose Tree." There are 30 lessons in this curriculum, with four days in each lesson. The lessons are on the parts of speech, capitalization, punctuation, clauses, homophones, and more. I feel like this is a really nice variety for this age level.

Each week your child builds on and reviews what they have learned. They will continue to find the various parts of speech as each lesson moves to the next. I love this because it ensures that Titus will not forget what a pronoun is because he will be identifying them in the sentences.

Also included are the Fix It! Grammar Cards. This is a set of 30 full color grammar cards that feature key grammar concepts. You can use these cards to play games (instructions are found on their website) or for review. These cards are a thick and glossy and come in a storage box. The Teacher's Manual states which cards are used each week. These cards go along with every level, so you only need to purchase the set once.

This takes Titus less than 10 minutes a day, but he has really picked up on the grammar! He also takes his time to write his sentence neatly, and that doesn't happen all the time. He has completed five weeks of this curriculum and has learned nouns, pronouns, articles, and who/which clauses, along with remembering to capitalize and punctuate each sentence. This was a struggle for him before using this program! He needs little to no help each day, making this almost independent for him. 

I am really pleased with IEW's Fix It! Grammar! It's priced at $29 for the Teacher/Student Combo (both books!) and $15 for the Grammar Cards, making this a complete grammar program for less than $50. Read what other reviewers thought of this program (in all different levels) by clicking the banner below!

His Vessel Textbooks Algebra 1 - TOS Review

 Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew.

Homeschooling high school math seems so scary to me! I sent my older two children to public school for high school, so I avoided the high school math struggle with them. I am not planning to send my now 8th grade daughter to public school at all, so I've already been trying to hash out a math plan for her high school years. This year she was using a pre-algebra program and not enjoying it at all. When I was given the chance to review His Vessel Textbooks Algebra 1 curriculum, I jumped at it! 

Switching math curriculum mid-year (or more like end-of-year) is not ideal to me, so I gave Mercie an option. I told her she could quit using her current pre-algebra program and use this Algebra 1 program for a few weeks. Then she could choose which one to continue with. After just a few days of using His Vessel Textbooks, she informed me that she wanted to continue with it!

His Vessel Algebra 1 was created by Mary Carroll, a homeschool mom herself with several degrees and a teaching certificate for 7th-12th grade integrated math. She wrote this Algebra 1 book because she wanted students to see what God has to say about math. Biblical themes are woven throughout this curriculum in a relevant and factual way. 

There are eleven units with 64 lessons in this textbook, which allows your student to take several days on each lesson if needed. The back of the book contains an answer key for the odd problems with answers but not the full solutions. Mary is writing a solution manual for this program which should be coming out this summer. That will be very helpful for us as we continue this program next year.

There are several features in each unit that I want to talk about because I think they bring effectiveness and godly instruction to this program.

First is the "A God Moment" sections. These sections have a scripture and short devotional explaining the math concepts in a biblical view. These are interesting to read and very helpful! Here is an example of "A God Moment" from Unit 3 on Arithmetic Sequences:

"The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!"" Luke 17:5

We can plot our growth to see where God is leading us. I am always amazed that God uses even the little and insignificant things in our lives to help us grow. Our past is what makes us unique, and our faith in the faithful God is where we will find our future. He puts our lives together perfectly, like a puzzle. He fits all the pieces of our lives to make us whole.

Next there are "Objectives for This Lesson", which lets you and your student know what they will be learning in this lesson. These are written as "I Can..." statements, such as these from the very first lesson:

• Classify real numbers as rational or irrational
• Compare and contrast rational and irrational numbers
• Understand and justify the sum and product of rational and irrational numbers with examples
• Graph rational and irrational numbers on a number line
• Identify and solve absolute values

Each lesson also includes "Vocabulary Terms", defining the math terms that will be learned and used in the lesson. This is a great feature, especially for students who learn best through reading. It's a great resource to look back to as you work through the lesson if you need more clarification.

There are "Helpful Hints" scattered throughout the book to help your student understand what they are doing. These quick little reminders will stick in your student's memory. One of the "Helpful Hints" in the unit on graphing is, "Direct = a straight course; Variation = change."

Similar to the "Helpful Hints" are "Make It Clear" boxes. These boxes clarify some of the math concepts, making them, well, clearer to your students! An example, found in Unit 4, is "The word linear means to be able to be represented as a straight line on a graph. The word line is in the word linear."

"Family Activity" is another feature throughout the textbook. Working puzzles, eating a pie for Pi Day, and making shapes with play-dough are just a few of the activities listed. Sometimes fun activities like this can help make the difficult math concepts more enjoyable. There are also discussion points and object lessons in the "Family Activity" boxes that relate back to Christ.

There are also "Expressions Projects" at the end of each unit, which are a little more difficult (and optional). It may be something like calculating descendants of a Biblical character or figuring how much Nebuchadnezzar's statue weighed. This would be fun for your child to work through with you, their dad, or an older (or younger!) sibling.

Each lesson has "You Try" problems and example problems that your child can work through as they're learning the new concepts. The example problems are already worked out, so your student can walk themselves through the steps to see exactly what they need to do. The "You Try" problems are not worked out on the page, but there are solutions to each of those problems at the end of the unit. The "You Try" problems are written right under the fully-worked out examples, so your child can look back at the examples while they're working the "You Try" problems if they need a little direction.

Okay, now that I've explained each of the features in the textbook, I'll share what we thought about this program. Mercie feels like this is a very user-friendly math textbook, especially because she doesn't like math. She doesn't dread math as much as she used to since she began with His Vessel Algebra 1. She is now on Unit 2 - Equations, lesson 2.7. She will take a few days for each lesson, since the lessons can be a bit long.

There is a workbook companion that includes all of the problems in the textbook for $14.99. This would be very helpful, especially if your child is copying the problems from the textbook into a notebook. Mercie writes directly in the textbook, which is fine with me. She marks the textbook up, underlining and circling things and working out the problems. She mostly just completes the odd numbers since those are the only ones in the answer key. However I am thinking I will purchase the workbook for next year as she finishes this curriculum. 

The textbook itself is great quality. The pages have plenty of white space so they don't appear too busy. There is color in the graphics, but it's not loud or distracting. It's a hard cover book with over 550 thick pages! 

Mary is also coming out with a Geometry and Algebra 2 program soon. This is great news because I really feel like this is a great fit for Mercie and would love to continue this throughout her high school. This program meets all of the requirements for a high school Algebra 1 credit. 

Mercie and I are super pleased with this Algebra 1 program. I am so thankful we were introduced to His Vessel Textbooks and excited to continue with it for her high school years. Click the banner below to see what other reviewers thought of His Vessel Textbooks Algebra 1!

Educo Learning Center - TOS Review

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew.

 

If you ask any homeschool mom which subject she worries over the most, she will more than likely tell you, "Math!" When offered the chance to review Educo Learning Center from Educo International Inc, I eagerly took it! I chose to use this online math curriculum with my 9 year old son, Titus, who is in the 4th grade. We received a one-year online subscription and a physical workbook.

WHAT IS EDUCO LEARNING CENTER?

Educo Learning Center is a complete online math program for Kindergarten through 8th grade. This program has tutorials, practice problems, quizzes, and tests for each lesson. The lessons are online, but you have the option of printing worksheets for your child. You can also purchase the physcial workbook which contains the tutorials and practice pages.

HOW DOES EDUCO LEARNING CENTER WORK?

When you log in to your child's account, you will be taken to the main page. For Math 4, there are eight different sections listed for the course. The sections are:

• Number Sense
• Addition and Subtraction of Whole Numbers
• Multiplication, Division, Multiples, and Factors
• Fractions
• Decimal Fractions
• Sequences and Patterns
• Measurement
• Geometry 

Each section has subsections and individual lessons. There are tutorials to watch for each section. These tutorials are not videos, but animated screens that your child will watch and read. You can speed up or slow down the animation, which would be very helpful if your child needs more time to read the writing or if they want to speed it up if they're a fast reader.

After the tutorials, your child can do the practice pages. There are 10 problems in each set, and your child will receive instant feedback on the problems. You can try again or see the solution if you're stuck. 

Then your child can take a quiz. These quizzes are similar to the practice pages, but your child will not receive instant feedback. After they submit their answers, they will receive the feedback and the percentage they got right. You can view the problems to see which, if any, were incorrect.

After the practice pages and quizzes, there are Section Review and Section Tests. These usually have more than 10 problems because it covers the entire subsection and not just an individual lesson. There are also Chapter Pre-Tests and Post-Tests covering the entire section.

There is also a progress report for your child, showing how much time has been spent on each activity - tutorials, quizzes, practice pages, and tests. Your child can also earn badges based on how much time is spent on the program and for completing chapter tests with a 100%. Titus has not earned any badges yet, but he is hoping he will soon.

There are also extra activities your child can do for each section. These are puzzles and games, but Titus found them very confusing and difficult so we skipped them. If your child likes or needs a challenge, these would be perfect.

HOW DID WE USE EDUCO LEARNING CENTER?

Titus used this program two or three days a week as a supplement to his math curriculum. He would watch the tutorial if he felt like he needed it and move on to the practice pages and quizzes. I sat with him while he worked through the program for a few reasons.

First of all, I wanted to see how it worked. The best way to see how a program works is to use it! Secondly, some of the problems are worded in a difficult to understand way. I would usually read the problem to Titus, and often I would have to reword it so he knew what it was asking. 

Titus also worked in the physical workbook a few times, but we both found the pages to be too busy with too many problems and too much information. I found a few worksheets that reviewed just some multiplication problems, and he worked through those pages.

Titus probably spent around 10 minutes on the program each time he used it. The lessons are pretty quick and short, which is a good thing for elementary math. He would usually complete a practice page and/or a quiz each time he logged in to the program. We finished the first section, skipped part of the second, and have started on the third section.

WHAT DO WE THINK OF EDUCO LEARNING CENTER?

I think Educo Learning Center is a pretty solid online math curriculum for homeschoolers. I am not sure if I would use it as a complete program, though. There doesn't seem to be much review built in, and I think elementary kids especially need a spiral review throughout their math program.

Some of the questions are worded in a way that many 9-year olds would have a difficult time understanding. Here are a few examples:

Like I mentioned earlier, I had to sit with Titus and help decode some of the wording. This leads me to believe it would not work as an independent math program. I do like to sit with my kids for their math lessons, so this may not be a problem for you either. I did find some of the questions to be quite difficult for fourth-grade, and I ended up giving Titus some of the answers on problems that I found were not grade-appropriate for him. 

We did enjoy many parts of this math curriculum, and I plan to continue to use this as a supplement for Titus a few days a week. Check out Educo Learning Center for your child, and click the banner below to see what other Crew members thought!

Week in Review: 3/28/2022 - 4/1/2022

I cannot believe today is the first day of April. My birthday is in two weeks and I'll be turning 37! We had a normal week this week - busy as usual, but the weather has been beautiful. It finally feels like spring around here. It will be soon feel like summer, so I'm trying to enjoy the warm days before it turns scorching hot.

Sunday evening, Silas and Titus competed in the Church Bible Drill. They both passed with zero mistakes! I was so proud of them. All six of the participants passed and will be moving on to the District Bible Drill on April 10th. If they pass that drill, they will move on to the State Bible Drill on April 30! They have worked so hard all year and memorized 25 verses, 10 key passages, the books of the Bible, and the Plan of Salvation. 

Zeke had speech again Tuesday. Titus had TKD on Tuesday and Thursday. Mercie had a tennis match scheduled for Wednesday, but we had a bad storm with tornado warnings most of the afternoon so it was canceled along with church. The boys had haircuts Wednesday morning before the storm arrived and they look so handsome. We also had two of Mercie's horses Coggins tested on Wednesday morning (they were both negative) so she can start rodeoing with them.

Silas and Titus are learning some Spanish words with a program we are reviewing called Whitzlefritz. I made some color word flashcards and they matched counting bears to the words. This was an activity we did when they were in preschool learning their color words! I modified it for the Spanish words and they actually enjoyed it. 

We learned about several explorers to the New World this week including Columbus, Cortes, de Soto, and de Leon. They added to their timelines, written narrations, and made a notebooking page about Columbus. 

They are all cruising along in their math and grammar programs, eager to finish for the year. I don't blame them - I'm feeling the same way! 

Tomorrow we are going to the zoo with my sister and her kids for two of boy's birthdays. We will pack a picnic lunch and enjoy the spring-like weather! Sunday we have a soup and salad lunch after church to kick off our Annie Armstrong offering. I'm making ham and potato soup. That's what my weekend will consist of! Enjoy yours!