A+ Interactive Math - TOS Review

Math has been a struggle for Miss K. If you have read my blog for long,  you will know of various things we have used and tried and there are still struggles. I was excited to have an opportunity to try the Math Mini-Courses from A+ Interactive Math.


A+ Interactive Math is a multi-sensory interactive math curriculum. The goal is to help students improve their grades. The lessons include visual, voice, and text-based instructions. They offer complete program for math grades but one of the new things that they offer is Mini-Courses.


We reviewed the Mini-Courses, which focus on a specific aspect of math. These courses are not as long but give a great opportunity to see how your child responds to this type of learning or allows the student to focus on some specific areas that need help and improvement. Some of the Mini-Courses include the following topics:

• Elementary Fractions
• Counting and Identifying Numbers
• Place Value and Number Combinations
• Naming, Comparing, and Arranging Numbers
• Early Elementary Addition
• Early Elementary Subtraction
• Elementary and Middle School Multiplication
• Elementary and Middle School Division
• Tables, Charts, and Graphs
• and more

The Mini-Courses have between 10 to 35 lessons.

For this review I selected two Mini-Courses that I thought would be areas that would help Miss K. I selected Place Value and Number Combinations and Early Elementary Addition. I was not sure that Miss K completely understood place value and I know that addition needs more work. That is evident when I asked her what 10 + 10 equals and she told me 11.

I found it easy to set up the account. There is a parent account and a student account. The work is all done on the student account.

We did math four times a week. There is a short video and then some interactive questions. At the end of the questions there is a certificate. Miss K has a collection of the certificates. She loved printing them and putting them in her math box.


For me one of the benefits of doing a computer based program is giving Miss K the ability to do it on her own. I enjoy having a few minutes to just wash the dishes while still being aware of what she is working on. With A+ Interactive she was able to login herself but needed help in finding the lesson that she was on. I then needed to change the status to complete.

Each lesson began with a teaching time, which was audio and visual. After the teaching, there were some practice questions about 7 to 10 questions. The video could be played again if needed. There were also additional worksheets that could be done online or be printed.

So after using this for a few weeks, what were the results? The program kept her attention. Each day she was excited to do her math and even more when she could get the certificate she had printed. We didn't have a sudden memory of all addition facts but we did discover one thing that helped and continues to help -- the addition table. Why have I never heard of that before? That is in our math box to help with math facts. I was pleased with A+ Interactive Math. I think the idea of Mini-Courses is a great way to experience the program and how it works for your child. Genius idea!

Read what other Mini-Courses others have used and their experiences with those courses.



Beth

Friday's Five

Five signs of spring

I love spring. I love the change of seasons, the hope that warmer weather is coming (okay, I live in England so maybe there isn't much hope for hot weather but I will take warmer), the newness of spring.

Lambs in the fields are a sign of spring. I love walking along the fields and seeing the lambs scampering, hearing the baa's of the lambs looking for their mother, and watching the mothers care for their young.

Daffodils all around - I am amazed at all the daffodils that I have seen. Some are neatly planted and some are growing wild. I think daffodils are one of the first flowers to appear here signalling the beginning of spring.

The buds on trees - Sometimes you have to look close to see the buds but they are there just getting ready to burst open.

Spring clothing - It is always fun to get out the spring clothing. Miss K is modelling her Easter outfit. 

The sound of the birds - I wake up in the morning and hear the birds. I know that spring has arrived. The other day Miss K and I were at the park and it was noisy as the birds were up in the tree. You can see the nests from previous years.

Just a few of the signs of spring around here. What signs of spring do you see?

Beth

Homeschool Copywork - TOS Review

Copywork is something that at times I have added into our learning schedule. I was excited to have an opportunity to review Homeschool Copywork. I received a Lifetime Membership for this review.

Copywork is not busy work. Copywork is not just practicing handwriting. Copywork is valuable in so many areas such as grammar, spelling, punctuation, sentence structure, as well as learning information. It requires focus, short-term memory and builds those skills. Copywork can be just copying a sentence or it can be longer passages as well.

Amy Blevins created Homeschool Copywork after seeing the results that her daughter achieved through doing copywork on a regular basis. I love the fact that this is a homeschool mom who has designed something based on her own use and offers this for others. She understands homeschool moms and the needs.

The website has the resources separated by level -- Early Elementary Copywork, Upper Elementary Copywork, and Junior High-High School levels. The copywork is in ebooks with a variety of topics from artist to character building, from history topics or Bible passages and many other topics.

It is easy to download. You just click on the copywork book that you want and it will download directly to your computer. I wish that I could preview before downloading but that is just me with a hard drive that is quickly filling up.

There are so many topics to pick from. I downloaded a few for Miss K to use. On Friday mornings we will often study some poetry and so one week I gave her Poems of Emily Dickinson to do as copywork. That was an easier piece for her to work on as it was a shorter passage and had the lines directly below.

The other week Miss K found the book about the Town Mouse and the Country Mouse at the library. She added that to her stack and I discovered that there was copywork on that in Homeschool Copywork so I gave her those pages to work on. This was a bit harder as it was longer passages and meant that she was copying from a previous page. I learned a bit of what kind of copywork to give her and how to adjust it for her level.

The books range from 40-50 pages to over 150 pages for the Human Body Notebooking Pages. While that sounds long each book contains the variety of copywork levels from manuscript to cursive. I found it best to not print the complete book even though that would be easy but rather go through and picked the pages that I knew Miss K could do.

J is learning about vanGogh in his art class so the copywork is a good way to have the learning cover more areas.

Homeschool Copywork offers three different membership types. A free membership gives you limited resources. There are the options of a One Year Membership and a Lifetime Membership.

You can read reviews from other Crew Members and see how they used this in their learning.


Beth

March Update

I know it is now April 10 and I am sitting and writing an update for March. I had plans to do it on last weekend but was busy setting my quilting record.

So what did I do in March? I better quick write this before I forget what I did. Maybe I will just make it easier for myself and look at my notes in my planner.

I finished another project on my Unfinished Projects list. I finished Good Night Moon. I started in two years ago, added the border last autumn and quilted it and added the binding this year.

I just used some of the leftover pieces to make the binding. I love that look on the binding.

It was a split nine patch which is so easy to do.

Outing - I took the kids to the market and to the beach when we were in Spain. I am going to call that my outing for March. I also took Miss K to the mums and daughters weekend. That should count for something.

Books - I am working on my Book reading challenge. I finished four books in March. I read Number the Stars and am considering that my book for children. I also read Intentional. I couldn't decide if I was going to put that under the book your pastor recommends or written by an Anglican. It was recommended by the vicar as it is the book that the vicar wrote but I decided to put it under written by an Anglican as there is another book I am currently reading that was recommended.

March's focus was habits, routines, and schedules. I have a good evening routine with all the things I need to do so I am ready for the next day. My morning routine needs some work. We have a good laundry schedule which is posted for everyone to see and follow. I have a cleaning and schedule and I think the house is staying clean though a child told me that their room needed to be dusted and vacuumed. I guess we need to follow the schedule a bit more.

April's challenge is creative. I have begun working on a few creative projects.


Beth

Friday's Five

Five cookbooks that I use often. I love cookbooks. I enjoy looking at the photos and reading the recipes and tips. I have sorted through and gotten rid of a number of cookbooks but I have also added some new ones to my collection. Given the number of meals that I cook it is nice to have a variety of cookbooks.

Here are some of my cookbooks on my shelf. I love my coffee canister.

And the top shelf has some more. I love these shelves in the kitchen.

The five cookbooks that I often use.

1. America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook - There are a number of recipes that I use from here -- chicken potpie, beef potpie, chicken and mushrooms in a cream sauce, easy biscuits. I love the notes that are in the book either about ingredients or cooking gadgets.

2. More-with-Less Cookbook - My copy is worn and a bit dirty. I use this for pizza, lentils, chicken and pineapple.

I love the fact that it is spiral bound.

3. Betty Crocker New Cookbook - I am not sure how new this is. I have had it for a long time. It is a good basic one. I use it for meatloaf, chili, and a number of other recipes.

4. Delia's Complete Cookery Course - This is a new book that I have added recently. A friend here recommend Delia as a standard. I have made a number of things out of this book -- potato and leek soup, roasted potatoes, and a few other things. This is a go to book when I get some new things in my fruit and veg boxes.

5. Mary Berry - I have two Mary Berry cook books. I have not used the Baking Bible much but I have found a number of recipes in the Marry Berry Cook's. I found a delicious pork with veggies recipe that we all enjoyed. Some of the things that I have recently found easy to cook are putting the meat and veggies all in the same pan and baking -- sometimes called a tray bake.

What is your go to cookbook?


Beth

Quilting Record

I am sure that others have done this before. I am sure that others have done this faster but for me this was a quilting record.

Normally the process of a quilt for me is buy the fabric and allow it to sit in a box for a few years while I ponder the pattern, find the time, and get the courage to make the first cuts. When I finally cut the pieces then that needs to rest, a bit like dough needs to rest before you bake it. Well, then slowly over the weeks or months I assemble the pieces to begin to look like a quilt. After a year has past and the quilt is still not finished, I might add a border, find some fabric for the backing, and finally a year or two after beginning and five years after buying the fabric, I quilt it. Then a few weeks later I finish the binding. So five or so years after purchasing the fabric, I have a finished quilt.

Now for the quilting record. Pay attention to days and timing. It might go a bit fast. I should have take photos along the way but I was too busy setting the quilting record that I didn't have time to pause and document that even.

Friday afternoon my husband said that some former teammates were going to be in town the next week and coming for dinner on Thursday. Friday afternoon I was in the attic looking for some fabric to make a zipped pouch, just to be creative. There I spied some fabric, this was a puppy dog print in double wide jelly roll. The fabric had been around for a few years. Last year I had looked at it thought of making a quilt for our teammates baby but didn't do it before his birth. So I decided I had almost a week, I could make a quilt.

Friday afternoon I began cutting and sewing. Then my husband says, "I need to go out of town on Thursday so they will come on Tuesday." I had two less days for my already quilt record but I was up for a challenge.

Saturday I sewed and finished the quilt top. Next was to quilt it. I might just finish this on time. I managed to have it quilted by Sunday and sewed the binding on. All that needed to be done was hand sewing the binding. I know I could make it faster by machine sewing the binding but I just have not done that much so I opted for the hand bit.

I worked on the binding on Monday. Tuesday morning I still have half of the binding to finish. I took it with me to a friend's house and while we sat and chatted, I sewed. I still had a bit to finish but managed to finish around 4:00 so I had time to make dinner before they arrived at 5:00.

I did it began cutting on Friday afternoon and by Tuesday afternoon I had a finished quilt.

Do you want to see the other record that I set?

My scraps from this project. There was some of the yellow backing but that was left from another project so it doesn't totally count as scraps from this project. You know what that will go in my sewing machine cover pocket and be used when I need to check the tension.

I did it. In just four days I made a quilt. It might take some time until I set another quilting record.

How long does it take you to finish a project?

Beth

Friday's Five

Five things I did this week.

1. I made Jamie Oliver's Shepherd's Pie with the leftover Easter lamb. I love the recipe but need to remember it takes a long time to make it. I guess if you are Jamie Oliver and get paid to cook then the fact that the recipe takes 6 plus hours is just a short day at work. It was a bit less time for me as I used my leftover meat but still it takes about 2.5 hours.

2. I finished my Good Night Moon quilt. It only took two years and most of that time was sitting in a box waiting to be finished.

3. I sent some more post cards for the Post Card Project. That title makes it sound like a big project when the actual truth is it is just me with a stack of post cards that have been collected over the years slowly mailing a few each week.

4.We have had a bit of a relaxing week as it is Easter Break. Today we played a game of Cluedo. J won.

5. I finished my photo book from our Barcelona trip. There was a rush to get it finished as I had a £5 credit that I wanted to use. It should arrive next week.

What have you done this week?

Beth