My Reviews

Sorry this has taken me so long. I really shouldn't say that I will post something by a certain time because it never happens. And holiday weekends are the absolute worst to try and accomplish anything, especially this particular one since the temps in Texas dropped about 20 degrees--woo-hoo!

Okay, on with it. Keep in mind we are only on week 2, so these reviews may change. But these are my initial impressions.

Math U See (I will commonly refer to this as MUS): WONDERFUL. I LOVE this program. It is so much fun and so hands on. Ian is so completely enthralled with the blocks, they get him excited for math (his favorite subject, for now at least). He enjoys watching the short video before each lesson, and is always eager to dive in. It is so much fun to watch him "get" it. He can now recognize numbers through 99 just because of the way the DVD explains everything. I was pretty "eh" about the DVD, but apparently there is something about the guy and the words he uses that helps things "click" for young kids. This program is split into 6-page lessons. Three pages cover the new material for the lesson, and three pages are a review of the current lesson and all previous lessons. There are some days that Ian can get through an entire lesson in one day, and days where he only wants to do the practice and doesn't end up doing any of the pages in the lesson. This seems to happen when he doesn't fully get what we're doing, but once the concept sticks with him, he flies through the lesson. To show how well he is doing with this program, we are on lesson 10, and we have only been doing school for 6 days (we do Monday-Thursday). He loves it.

Handwriting Without Tears (HWT): This one has its plusses and minuses. I didn't order the wood pieces that you can "build" the letters with, but I did use the template in the teachers guide to cut some out of cardboard. He likes playing with those and making the letters. The problem with this program isn't the program's fault. One of the concepts is to use a small chalkboard for "wet, dry, try". I write the letter with chalk, then Ian uses the "rules" to trace the letter with a wet sponge, then a dry cloth. The point is repitition. This part works great, the problem comes during "try", where he takes the chalk and writes the letter himself. The issue is that he doesn't like getting the chalk dust on his hands (little kids, I tell ya...) so he runs to the bathroom after every "try" to wash them (on the days he's willing to try. Most days he refuses). So I'm going to get him a little whiteboard to "try" on. We'll do the "wet, dry" on the chalkboard and then he can "try" on the whiteboard. Hopefully that will solve some of the problem, and still allow us to get the repitition he needs. The program doesn't teach the letters in order, they are grouped by the way that they are written. For example, F, E, D, B, P, M, and N are all together because they are "frog-jump" letters. What this means is that you start at the top, draw the first line, then "frog-jump" back to the top to continue the letter. Using that kind of language seems to really help Ian remember how to form the letters.

Hooked on Phonics (HoP): It's hard to review this one so far. I went too quickly at first, and now he is all confused. I also made the mistake of trying to teach him different letters than he was learning to write (HoP does go in alphabetical order), but I've adapted it so that we are learning the same letter in Hop as HWT. It makes some of the activities for HoP a little difficult to time (after each group of letters there is a review), but it keeps me from bombarding him with too much information, which just causes him to shut down. Hopefully this new strategy will allow me to undo the confusion I first caused. I do really like the kit that we got. I went ahead and ordered the PreK rather than the Kindergarten since he doesn't know all his letters and sounds (this stuff doesn't interest him the way numbers do), so I wanted to start at the basics, with the hope that we will be able to get through it fairly quickly and then start on the Kindergarten kit also this year. Our kit, the PreK Learning to Read, comes with TONS of stuff. Two CD Roms with games that Ian really enjoys, several flashcards, three workbooks, a picture dictionary, three story books and three progress posters with stickers. The progress pictures really get him excited, and there is a set of flascards that allows us to play "Memory", one of his current favorites, with the letters he knows. There are some really big cards that I like. I pull out the letter that we are working on and I show it to him periodically through the day, making sure he remembers it. The size makes them great because they are hard to lose and he can see them from a distance.

So those are the actual "curriculums" that we are using. I'm pretty much winging it for social studies, science, and Bible Study. I've found some free sites that give ideas and free printables for him to color. For science, we get a child's book each week and then do the activity in the book. For example, last week we read "Under One Rock: Bugs, Slugs, and Other Ughs" all about a little boy who lifted a rock and found all sorts of bugs. After reading, we went outside and lifted rocks, and then drew pictures of what we found. Very simple, but a lot of fun for him and he got to learn about bugs he didn't know about before.