Parental Rights Documentary

The Child Comes to Television March 7 Next Monday, March 7, Watchman Cinema's parental rights documentary The Child: America's Battle for the Next Generation will be aired on National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) network. The film will air at 8 p.m. Eastern and again four hours later at 12 a.m. Tuesday, March 8. NRB is channel 378 on DirecTV or channel 126 on Sky Angel. If you have friends and family who have not yet seen The Child , please let them know to watch or record the broadcast, then plan to check back with them and ask them what they thought! Together, we can alert America to the pressing need to preserve parental rights in the text of the U.S. Constitution.

Review: Kid Scoop

If we were to debate which of the the R's is most important in education, I would choose reading.  Teach a kid to read and you've given him the tool to learn about any and everything else.  Schnickelfritz can read and very well for his age.  What I haven't been able to teach him is to lovereading.  I'd rather spend time with a book than any other inanimate object --perhaps this comes from growing up an only child or from warm memories of reading time with my mother.   Fritz on the other hand would rather build with blocks,  play basketball, ride bikes, play with model trains, anything but reach for a book--a classic reluctant reader.  I've tried reading aloud and stopping at the cliff-hanger moments hoping he'll want to continue on his own.  Any time I hear "I'm bored" I respond with "pick up a book."  We faithfully check out boy favorites like Hank the Cowdog at the library.

Then along came the opportunity to review a product by Kid Scoop.  As you can see from their own ad, it should "spark you child's OWN interest in reading."  There's even a money back guarentee (of course I receved my copy for free as part of the Homeschool Crew).  The Reluctant Reader Solution($97) is geared towards 4 to 8 year-olds and consists of two E-products:  a year's worth of the monthly Kid Scoop News Online and a download of Kid Scoop Worksheets.

Kid Scoop Online is a full color magazine which allows your child to virtually flip through the pages.   Although it's advertised as a reading tool, there are a lot of pencil pushing ideas so you'll probably want to download it as a PDF file and print some of the pages out.  The January edition we received was 20 pages covering a range of topics:  rainbows, gravity, otters, the circus, interest on money, the January calendar and more.   Activities included word searches, mazes, studying pictures for differences and silly objects,  coloring, practicing penmanship, and unscrambling words.   Most of the articles were kept to two or three short paragraphs.  The colors were eye-catching.

We also received sixty downloaded Kid Scoop Worksheets, each 5 to 7 pages long (365 pages in total).  These are black and write pages with similar length articles and activities.  They also add writing skills like practicing alliteration and writing a persuasive advertisement.  You can follow the recommended chronological order included in the download or pull out themes to tie in with your current studies.  Holidays covered are Valentine's Day, Easter, Columbus Day, Cinco de Mayo, Constitution Day, Father's Day, Halloween, Memorial Day, Martin Luther King's birthday, Mother's Day, St. Patrick's Day, Thanksgiving, and Veteran's Day.   The resurrection aspect of Easter is ignored as are all other religious holidays ( I'm assuming this program was designed for public school use).

Other Themes: baseball, bees, bigfoot, bubble gum, butterflies, allowances, fire safety, frost, germs, gorillas, hockey, immunization, kitchen creativity, miniature golf, nutrition, optical illusions, solar snacks, tad poles, teasing, and more.  Kid Scoop's online shop also has many more worksheets on other themes available for $2.99 each.   You can also sign up for their 30 days of reading activities via emails.

I tried printing out a few pages and leaving them for Fritz to discover on his own with no luck.  He just ignored them as he passed by in search of blocks.  When I forced him to do the activities he did enjoy the word searches, breaking codes, and math problems the best.  Any writing assignment was met with "Do I have to?"  (Read that with the whiny voice with which all parents are familiar).  I can see benefit in these sheets in a classroom setting where some students need busy work while other kids finish up, but in my one room, one student schoolhouse this isn't necessary.  I did, however, appreciate that each activity included  tag words for educational standards.  The word searches cover skills like letter sequencing, skim and scan reading, recalling spelling patterns.  It helped me account for our time in the log of hours I'm required to keep by the state.

Let me remind you though, that the purpose of the product was to "ignite the child's OWN interest in reading."  I would unfortunately have to call them on their money back guarantee.   The books still sit untouched unless I make it a required activity.  So I'll continue to read aloud and hope that something sparks his interest enough for him to read on his own.

You can see what others on the Homeschool Crew think of Kid Scoop's Reluctant Reader Solution by clicking here.

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of the Reluctant Reader Solution for the purpose of completing this review.  I received no other compensation for my honest opinion.

Adapting IEW for our family

We've been using the Level A of the Student Writing Intensive for two months now.  Writing is still my son's least favorite subject so we have to break things down into small bites to keep him from getting frustrated by the whole process.  One point that stuck in my mind from listening to Mr. Pudewa's lecture "Reaching the Reluctant Writer" is that the skills of spelling, penmanship, and forming sentences all use different parts of the brain.   Schnickelfritz  actually does quite well in spelling (we're working through All About Spelling Level 2) which uses letter tiles as manipulatives.  He's also quite adept at what Charlotte Mason refers to as "narration,"  having a child retell information in his own words.  This is essentially what IEW accomplishes when students form their own paragraphs based on the key word outlines.  By deduction then it must be the penmanship portion that leave such a sour taste in Schnickelfritz's mouth. 

The first two units of IEW are creating Key Word Outlines--choosing 3 words from each sentence to act as memory aids on the content of the sentence.  Unit 2 reviews the Key Word Outlines and the child rewrites the sentence in his own words (it is OK if your child rewrites the sentence exactly like the original--we're not worried about plagiarism at this stage.  He will be learning "dress ups" that will automatically alter the sentence down the road).  For Fritz, we read the paragraph together and he underlines the words he wants to use in his Key Word Outline.  Then he can use the marked up paper to transfer his words to the outline paper, just like copy work.  We don't have to worry about spelling because he's simply copying.  In the videos Mr. Pudewa makes the point that it is more important to be fast than neat on these outlines.  He's working with a class and trying to accomplish a lot in a set time.  I'm only working with one child who is still learning to write legibly (and we've really drawn out the lessons) so neatness counts in our home.

When it comes to writing sentences, I act as Fritz's scribe.  I write just as Mr. Pudewa directs, skipping lines and crossing out rather than erasing.   Before our next writing lesson I will rewrite the paragraph on a sheet of Fritz's Handwriting Without Tears lined paper.  Then it becomes a copywork exercise with him mimicking my capitalization and punctuation.   It's still his least favorite part of writing, but at least we're getting through the learning syntax and sentence structure without it being tainted by his lack of enthusiasm for putting pen to paper.

Biology Of Behavior Week 6

Last week we added Vitamin B drops.  I chose drops to keep pill swallowing to a minimum.  The brand I chose claims to be good-tasting.  Schnickelfritz and I can only say that "go0d-tasting" is in the tongue of the taste tester.  We would each put the drops under our tongues and then Fritz would begin an audible count "Unh,  ooo,  eee..."  At "irr eee" we both got to swallow.  Then we wash away the taste with apple juice (and take our other pills.  The first day we purchased the Vitamin B in the afternoon and Fritz received his dose at dinner.  That night he had a terrible time falling asleep--to the point he was crying and frustrated.  My mother confirmed that B should be given in the morning so we've scheduled this with our breakfast pills.  We take our mineral liquid with lunch.

This week we are adding essential fatty acids.  I'm anxious to see how this improves Fritz's ability to concentrate and study.  According to Ms. Craft, boys need three times the amount of EFA as girls.

Best Persimmon Bread ever

Last week, in preparing for possibly losing our power, I wanted to make several loaves of quick bread we could eat for breakfast. I forgot to get bananas in my "bread, milk, eggs" grocery store run so I had seek an alternative. Fortunately I had a booklet called "Old Fashioned Persimmon Recipes" and a supply of frozen one cup portions of pulp. We have several neighbors on our road with persimmon trees. Funny thing, whenever I ask if I may harvest some they always respond "Take all you want." Their tone of voice implies that they see the trees more as a nuisance than a treasure trove (perhaps they ate an unripened one once).  I always give them a Thank You gift, but it's never a product made with the fruit of their trees. I'm afraid they would stop being so generous with their harvest. I find ripe persimmons have an almost citrus-y flavor, so this recipe combining them with orange juice works really well.

3 cups flour                                  1/2 cup butter, melted
3/4 cup sugar                               1/2 cup milk
1 Tbs. baking powder                  1 cup persimmon pulp
1 tsp. salt                                      1 Tbs. grated orange rind
1/4 tsp. baking soda                     2/3 cup orange juice
3 eggs                                           1/2  cup chopped nuts

Sift together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and soda. In separate bowl beat together eggs, butter, milk and pulp. Stir in orange rind and juice. Stir pulp mixture into flour until moistened. Fold in nuts. Pour into two greased loaf pans and bake at 350 for 50 minutes or until tests done.

I've substituted dried lemon peel for the orange rind and I'd say the nuts are optional. We don't usually drink orange juice, but I keep a can of frozen concentrate on hand and can scoop out small amounts for recipes like this.

Review: VocabAhead

Schnickelfritz and I have been enjoying a DVD-Rom sent to us by VocabAhead.  Why would I be re reviewing a product designed for high-schoolers preparing for the SAT?  Well, first let me tell you about the product and then I 'll tell you how we use it.

Our DVD  contains one thousand words that may appear on the SAT test.  The words are pronounced, defined, and used (usually twice) in a short paragraph.  You may download the word files onto an mp3 player for listening or watch them as videos on your computer,  Ipad, Ipod or Iphone.  The word "video" is misleading--there is only a still picture, not animation,  to accompany the definition.   I found the paragraph much more helpful than just a single sentence using the word.

 The paragraph for "mawkish" is:  Oliver thought the song he wrote for his girlfriend was brilliant, but she actually found it to be mawkish and ridiculous.  Oliver enjoyed writing romantic songs but everybody thought they were too mawkish.  His mawkish displays of affection really grossed his girlfriend out."   The definition is repeated again at the end.  The VocabAhead system certainly offers many options for getting the words to stick in the mind--as a visual person I could recall the pictures and the written definitions.  Others learners may find the auditory definitions and sentence usage more beneficial.

At first I tried using the DVD-rom as a dictionary.  I have been reading The Hidden Hand, written in the 1859, and was frequently coming across unfamiliar words.   Unfortunately, I wasn't very successful at finding the words with VocabAhead.  The disk has only 1000 words and they've been chosen because they are likely to appear on the SAT.  The words in my book were archaic and have fallen out of use. 

I had much more success in using VocabAhead to supplement Fritz's writing curriculum which stresses the importance of a strong vocabulary.  In each paragraph he is instructed to include quality adjectives, strong verbs, and alternatives to overused verbs like "went" and "said."   He must also use an adverb  to "dress up" his sentences.  I used a thesaurus to find alternative words and then checked to see if the alternatives were included on the disk.  Now instead of writing "he said," Fritz can write that the character "blurted" or "slandered."    The file names on the disk include an abbreviation for the type of word--N for noun, V for verb, ADJ for adjective.  There aren't a lot of adverbs, but we've learned from Schoolhouse Rock that it's easy to change an adjective to an adverb by adding "ly" to the end.  I'll grant you that right now these SAT words seem out of place in Fritz's simplistic paragraphs, but better way to learn them and become more comfortable in their use.  

My one frustration is the lack of a way to "interact" with the DVD-ROM.  All I could do is put the disk in the drive and then try and read through the list of 1000 files for a specific word with My Computer.   I couldn't sort the words by type or filter for words starting with a specific letter.   I couldn't assign 5 random words to be learned this week.   Some of these things can be done through the VocabAhead website.   The Word List tab let's you access the words by starting letter.  Registered users can create vocabulary lists to share with others.  There's even information about Iphone apps and adding a "word of the day" widget to your blog. 

The VocabAhead DVD retails for $24.99.  There is also a paperback book of 300 vocabulary words available for $12.95. 

You can read what others on the Homeschool Crew thought about the VocabAhead products by clicking here.

Disclaimer: I received a free Vocabahead DVD-ROM for the purposes of completing this review.  I received no other compensation for my honest opinion.

Biology of Behavior Week 5

We're still going strong on our regimen of supplements.  Schnickelfritz is often coming to me and asking for his next pills.  I think the last update I gave was when we were trying to cut back on sugar.   We did cut back on apple juice, but Fritz said it was hard to swallow pills with the raw milk we drink.  Now he does get a diluted cup of apple juice with his pills (perhaps that's why he's always reminding me of his next dose).   Last week we added a dose of liquid minerals.  I can almost detect the tang of vinegar in the liquid, but so far Fritz hasn't objected to the taste.  I'm being a little on the cautious side with the dosage so we don't run into diarrhea (that's why parent's are encouraged to take the regimen with their kids--so we know what their going through).  I'm being purposely vague here on amounts and specific brands so that you will seek out and purchase Dianne Craft's cd set if you are interested in trying this regimen yourself.   The cd set includes a detailed list of supplements to add each week and recommended brands to use.  This week we're adding a sub-lingual vitamin B.  I've chose an alternative to a capsule as Fritz will have plenty more to swallow in the upcoming weeks.

The weekly changes have been subtle, but I can know see some definite improvement in Fritz's behavior.  He used to be terribly self-critical, especially when I've been correcting his schoolwork.  If I found a mistake he would blurt out "I Failed!" or "I'm a terrible learner."  Now he simply accepts the constructive criticism and we move on.  There has been less pouting and angry outbursts.   He hasn't been reduced to tears at basketball practice since the second week.  Even when we started something new (tae kwon do classes), he hasn't become frustrated with his awkwardness in learning the skills and movements.   As for me, well I had two warts fall of this week--a beneficial side effect from the good nutrition (others have experienced the same thing according to Ms. Craft's CD).