Eclectic Foundations - Eclectic Foundations Language Arts Level B Review

We have been hitting a brick wall recently in our home with regards to phonics, spelling and everyone that is involved has hit their frustration levels.  I was excited to get the opportunity to review the Eclectic Foundations Language Arts Level B from Eclectic Foundations.  I was really not sure where to turn next.

Our youngest has been struggling. She was a struggling reader, and reads at her "grade" level now.  I thought we had climbed a mountain and we were ready to hit that easy path for a while.  Then I introduced spelling.  It was as if she had never been taught her alphabet.  I have been struggling with what direction to head.  Researching this issue and trying to find help has been a challenge also.  We live in a small enough area to not have many resources available to us.

When I received the Eclectic Foundations Language Arts Level B set, it intrigued me.  Our set included the McGuffey's First Eclectic Reader (PDF) , the Eclectic Foundations Language Arts Student Workbook ($24.00) , Eclectic Foundations Language Arts Teacher's Guide ($12.00), and the Phonics Practice Sheets - Level B and McGuffey Word Cards ($20.00) .

The Level B would work for kids in grades 1 - 2, and even grade 3 as in our case.  I wasn't sure how this would help and if it would help Caty in her struggling reading.  But since we used McGuffey readers with Caty to help with her reading, I was willing to give it a go.

When we started using Eclectic Foundations Language Arts Level B, it was so easy.  I literally made sure she had a pencil, a dry erase marker and eraser and some crayons/markers.  That's it...no weird supplies.  I opened the teacher's guide and boom....I was ready to go.

The Eclectic Foundations Language Arts Teacher's Guide has every lesson completely laid out.  So I was able to glance quickly at the lesson.  We followed along inside of her student workbook and also read out of her McGuffey First Eclectic Reader.

Most days we practiced writing in our Phonics Practice Pages.  These pages are laminated for repeated use with a dry-erase marker.

Every day's lesson is a little different. We do reading, work on phonics (new and review), handwriting/copywork, poetry and also work on grammar.  The questions to encourage your children to delve deeper into poetry are printed and ready to go.  

Eclectic Foundations Language Arts Level B encourages children to learn cursive, which is a dying art form.  Caty unfortunately struggled with this style, but I was able to easily adapt her copywork to remain in manuscript.  

Each day's work varied in length.  The longest we may have worked on a lesson was about 30 minutes.  It was a slow-moving day that way.  But you could also easily break up the daily lesson with reading or exercise breaks between each task.  It is very adaptable to your child's attention span.  

All of the workbooks and educational guides arrive spiral bound.  This was an absolute favorite of mine.  I hate ordering a book that we use a lot, and then needing to take it and pay to have it spiral-bound.  The books stay open easily to avoid the frustration of writing.  The word cards were printed on a sturdy cardstock and great to remind children about all the various parts of speech.

Eclectic Foundations Language Arts Level B has been very easy to use.  It has been a simple way to continue to review phonics sounds with Caty, which is one of the areas she has been struggling with.  She was also able to work on sentence structure and other areas of grammar in an easy way.  I didn't have to worry about printing a bunch of worksheets.  

We are making our way through the 36 lessons.  I think we will be working our way into Level C this summer.  Caty is making progress slowly.  I like the ease of us.  This is very beneficial, since I just do not have time to read extensive directions on how to use a program.  I would highly recommend Eclectic Foundations Language Arts Level B to other homeschool families.  It has been a great addition.

Several members of the The Homeschool Review Crew were given the opportunity to try out the Eclectic Foundations Language Arts programs.  Take some time to visit the blog and see how they used it in their homes and get an idea if it might work for you.

President's Day, 50s and 60s, 4H, and Biography projects

We have been enjoying the beautiful weather here in Northwest Ohio.  Temps in the 60s in February are a reason to rejoice!!  Last year we were freezing to death.  The girls were bike riding and playing with their cousin outside.

Joe and I got out and did a lot of walking last week.  According to my Fit Bit, I walked almost 30 miles last week.  We went on a walk every day together.  It was really nice, and I am thankful the kids cooperated the whole week so we could do that.

We finally got to the Holocaust Museum in Farmington Hills, MI.  We went to finish up our study of World War II and the Holocaust.  The staff we interacted with were very nice.  The exhibits were nice.

This is an actual car used for transportation.

They had a nice little exhibit/timeline about Anne Frank.

These were squares made by some of the Kindertrain survivors and/or their children.  This was something new we learned about.  I didn't realize that the Jews were actively trying to send their children out of Germany to save them before things started to get bad.

All in all it was interesting.  But I really felt that it was mainly presenting the Jewish side of the Holocaust.  It didn't give much information on the other groups that suffered.  I know that the Jews were the ones being targeted for annihilation, but there were other groups.  I felt that they were not represented very well.

We finished up the 50s and 60s this week in History.  We had discussions on the Civil Rights movement that took place.  We watched a couple movie about this time period.  We watched Selma
and the Disney movie Ruby Bridges.

Science

This week we finished up simple machines with projects on Gears.

On Monday we watched some videos on all the Presidents.  I found a series of PBS 60 second videos on Youtube.  We also had trivia questions about the Presidents.

Tuesday brought us time to see the new Lego Batman movie.  The kids were very excited.  They love this type of stuff.

Math brought about long division with no remainders.  This was very tough.  They were struggling big time.  Lydia almost has it down.  Brayden prefers to cheat and Joey is trying.  So we're going to spend another few days on this.

Caty started playing a new-to-us game for math.  She has fallen in love with it.  Prodigy math.  She played at least an hour everyday this week.

Getting ready for Fantasticon in a couple weeks.  Joey and I tackled making the Buster Sword for his costume.  He was very proud of the final result.

Our Living history event is in a couple weeks.  Joey finished his report this week on Roald Dahl.

During a video for history class, she got a little distracted.

Caty worked hard on her Empowering Women event that is coming up on Monday.  She is doing her report on Julia Child.

Our house is going to have a ton of project boards for the next couple of weeks.

On Tuesday when we went to the Movie, we also went to the 4H office to let them look at project books.  We have a few already started.  But this is my lesson plan pile I have to get organized.

On Friday after watching our history movie, we worked on another art project from Creating a Masterpiece.  They painted with ink.

Their finished projects.

We had our first 4H meeting of the season.  We all worked on making plarn for the local senior center.  They use it to make mats for the homeless.  Caty loved this project and we'll continue to make more for them.

We had a busy week.  4H season is now upon us.  Cookie booth season is starting also.  As we finish up February, in comes a busy March.

Hope everyone has a great week!

Linking up with other moms at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers:

By The Way Book Series - Ohio ~ Here We Come! Book Review

Sometimes geography can be very boring.  I try really hard to make this subject as fun as possible.  We had a chance to review a book from the By The Way Book Series called Ohio – Here We Come! ($14.99) by Joy Budensiek and Illustrated by Stephanie Robledo.  What fun this has added to our learning!

When we “visit” areas for our geography studies, I usually plan for each child to pack a suitcase full of items that we will learn about while we are there.  I serve themed meals.  I search for videos, even personal travel videos that people post on Youtube.  Just so that it feels like we are in the places we are learning about.  This can become very time consuming.  We have just finished our US Geography study, so I was planning our Ohio History study, since our daughter is close to the age where they take an Ohio History course if she was enrolled in public school.  This was lesson planning I wasn’t looking forward too.

I was so happy with Ohio – Here We Come!.  It presented our state more beautiful than any other books I had checked out on Ohio.  This 50-page, hard-covered is full of beautiful colored photographs and fun illustrations.  We were introduced to Alex and Lori as they traveled across our state and learned about science, geography and history. 

Scientific facts are included throughout the story.  We learned about animals and plants native to Ohio, what fish hatcheries were and even the importance of dandelions. Each page features reminders of all the beauty that God has provided mankind in his creation of the Earth.

We were familiarized with the Wright Brothers and famous astronauts Neil Armstrong and John Glen.  We saw sites from Cleveland and Cincinnati and read about the importance of the Ohio and Erie Canal.  There were new topics introduced on every page.

Ohio – Here We Come! also encourages families to try geocaching, something that is a favorite thing we enjoying doing.  Information is given on websites to visit to learn more and be safe.  What a great way to get a family up, moving and exploring together.

I am from Ohio and I learned many new facts, even though I did take an Ohio History course in school, and I read through Joey’s Ohio History textbook that he used a few years ago.  Of course the basics are covered, including the state symbol, bird, tree, and flag.  Information about other famous Ohioans are included like Annie Oakley, Daniel Boone, Lucy Hayes (wife of President Rutherford B. Hayes), and the route of Johnny Appleseed.

All of this information is presented in a storybook format.  It is written for use with elementary aged students, but you can easily use this on multiple levels since you can expand upon the material with research projects and field trips of your own. 

We have not covered the entire Ohio – Here WeCome! book yet since we keep expanding our knowledge of the topics as we move along.  This is one of my favorite parts as we read through.  I can expand out so easily on what is presented and turn this into a really fun study of Ohio.

I also appreciate how there are reminders all the way through the book that you can see God throughout your daily life and wherever you are…..even if you are on a family vacation.

I definitely recommend this non-conventional way of studying your way through Ohio and its history.  Ohio– Here We Come! by Joy Budensiek and published By The Way Book Series has become a favorite in our home.  I am going to start collecting the other states so that I’m ready for our next round of US Geography.

Several members of the Schoolhouse Review Crew were given the opportunity to review books from By The Way Book Series, including Smoky Mountains ~ Here We Come!.  Take a few minutes to visit the blog and see how they used these books in their homes and what they thought of them.