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My Honest Review of Calico Spanish

  Today I’m going to give a full review on the Calico Spanish Curriculum.  I always knew I would teach a foreign language in our homeschool curriculum.  My family is Asian and most of them speak at least one dialect of Chinese.  I don’t speak any.  In fact, I only understand when I’m being yelled at or talked about.  Growing up it drove me crazy because my relatives would always speak to each other in Chinese when they didn’t want us kids to know what they were saying.  So foreign language was huge to me. The school I had sent my child to offered French.  I thought this was going to be great because I wouldn’t have to teach a foreign language.  But as time went on, I couldn’t figure out why I never heard any French being spoken at home.  When the school went to a distance learning platform, I realized that the children were only getting a short french lesson two days a week.  Not enough to remember or speak efficiently.  I personally can’t make heads or tails of French.  No matter how hard I try it all sounds like gibberish to me.  So I had trouble helping practice.  I had taken several years of Spanish in high school and had always wanted to continue learning it.  I find it far easier to understand and speak than both Chinese and French.  Plus, where we live it is a very common language that is spoken.  This makes it easier to practice.  After lots of research, I decided to give Calico Spanish a try.  I really wanted something that had videos available to use. I thought that videos would be the most engaging for a child just starting a new language. Quick Overview     The Program Calico Spanish is broken into levels.  It has Level A to Level D.  Each level is meant to take about a year to complete.  The levels do not coincide with a grade level.  This means that you can start them at any age.  WIthin these levels are units.  Each of these units are broken into days.  The program is designed to be open and go.  As a parent, you literally just pick the day that you are on and it lets you know which video to watch, which flash cards to use and any worksheets that need to be done. Each level has a teacher’s guide, a student workbook, flash cards, videos, music videos, mini storybooks, and downloadable posters.  You have the ability to purchase all the hands-on products as a package when you start each level or you can choose to download and print them for free.  You can also move from level to level without paying more.  This would allow you to use the program for children of different ages or learning abilities.   My Experience The Calico Spanish Homeschool pricing is $89 per year for the online subscription.  The Level A Visuals Pack is an additional $99. Each level that you are using has its own Visuals Pack.  As you go up in levels they go up in price.  These are the materials you will use during the year.  Most of these items can be printed for free.  I chose the print for free method.   Honestly, I wish I had spent the money and purchased the hands on materials.  I had to print out the workbooks and teacher’s guide.  Once I did that, I took them to the office supply store to get them bound.  The flash cards had to be printed page by by page and then had to be cut out.  After printing, I had to laminate them so they could be used all year.  Then I had to cut them out. It was way too much work.  I would definitely splurge and get the package.  It would have been so much easier.  Also, the storybooks can’t be printed at all so you can only get them if you purchase them.  They are available in the levels to watch.  But, I don’t think it’s quite the same.  The reader uses a monotone voice which is not exciting to listen to. Calico Spanish is designed to introduce Spanish in a gentle manner.  Each level builds on the last level.  It focuses on dialogue between characters in the stories.  It doesn’t teach much in the way of grammar at all.       The Pros This program was a wonderful introduction to Spanish for my child.  The songs are catchy and easy to sing along with.  The videos are simple and easy to watch.  The characters are likable and the worksheets are very simple to do.  The provided teachers guide has the translations available so that you can explain what things mean.  The instruction is extremely straightforward and I was able to easily give day to day instruction. The posters that are available were a personal favorite of mine.  I was able to print them out and put them up around the classroom for easy reference guides.  By the end of the year, my child enjoyed speaking Spanish and was able to have a basic conversation when speaking to someone who spoke the language.  This program was vastly superior to the foreign language education he had gotten from school.   The Cons This program has several issues which need to be mentioned.  While the program could be used to introduce older kids to Spanish, it is definitely meant for elementary kids. It would be difficult to use with multi age children because of this.  You would need more than one program depending on the age ranges of your children. Another issue I found is that the program is redundant.  I know your thinking that being repetitive is a good thing.  You’re right! it is.  But the program never speeds up.  The videos are spoken very slowly and deliberately.  I thought that as you advanced through the program it would advance with the child.  But it does not.  So over

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Why I Decided to Homeschool

  We always knew that we wanted to homeschool.  We just assumed that it would be during the high school years.  Once all the basics had been taught I could easily teach school from home.  No one was more surprised that I ended up homeschooling so quickly more than me. Our Story I believe that God gives us all individual strengths and weaknesses.  There are things we are bad at and things we excel at.  None of these makes us any better than anyone else.  Just different. We specifically chose the school we went to because of it’s curriculum.  It had a strong focus on a classical education.  Since reading was so difficult for my child I knew I wanted a strong start in Language Arts.  However, my child excels at math.  In kindergarten the teacher noticed this early on and began “encoding and decoding” work to make it more challenging.  She really is an amazing teacher.  Pretty sure that woman is related to Mary Poppins. The next year however, the teacher thought it was a fluke.  Math went from exciting to boring.  I heard things like, “I don’t remember what I learned”.  Then I started to receive complaints about behavior, “Please stop your child from planking on the desks during class”. Trying to Get Assistance When I told the teacher that I suspected it was boredom and a lack of being challenged causing these issues she gave my child a basic electronic math aptitude test.  When it came back exceptionally high I was told it was probably a mistake or a computer error. At home I began to supplement things like Beast Academy which I had found while doing my own research on the internet.  It’s such an amazing program.  But this meant that I was sending my child to school and then teaching math lessons at home. At this point I went to the head of the school simply because I didn’t know what else to do.  I was told they would be willing to administer more testing but not to expect much as most kids couldn’t sit through the three hours of testing at such a young age.  The test came back higher than the first one.  I remember feeling so relieved.  I thought I was finally going to get my child the needed assistance to keep school challenging and engaging.  It never happened. To the schools credit, they did try their best to provide assistance.  They tried to do pull outs and enrichment classes.  But as soon as the pandemic came, the assistance stopped. When I asked about more assistance I was told there were no more resources to help. With distance learning we were starting school at 8 in the morning and sometimes weren’t finishing until 5 or 6 in the evening.  The chaos of logging in and daily changes made me feel like I was losing my mind.  I was literally homeschooling on someone else’s schedule.  A schedule that wasn’t working. The Last Straw One day we had a one on one zoom meeting with our teacher and she asked how things were going.  The reply, “I hate learning” was all she received.  I knew at that moment things had to change.  My husband came home and I declared I was going to homeschool.  Winter break was coming up.  He simply relplied, “if you can put together a schedule in two weeks we can try it.”  That’s how my journey began. I picked up a copy of The Well Trained Mind and began creating a schedule.  If you haven’t read this book, order it now.  It has step by step instructions on how to put together your own curriculum.  It follows a classical education and is an incredible guide for anyone wanting to homeschool.  It’s a great jumping off point. Just like that, we started homeschooling two weeks later.  I was terrified I would be a failure.  So many hours were spent researching every curriculum I could find.  Phone calls were made to anyone who had homeschooled, asking for advice.  Four months later the school year ended we realized that not only had we completed it early, it had gone really well. What I Learned Some days were hard especially in the beginning.  But it got easier each day.  I was constantly worried that I wouldn’t do things right.  I thought that my child would end up with learning gaps.  Honestly, I probably put far to much pressure on myself.  But that’s how I felt. It’s very important to understand that distance learning is not homeschooling.  It’s a form of school at home.  Homeschool can be what you want and need it to be for your child.  For me, the wonderful thing about homeschool was that for the first time I was able to build a curriculum that would meet the specific needs of my child.  I was able to immediately correct learning issues because I was the one grading the papers.  If we needed more time on a subject, we could take it.  If we had the subject down and it was getting boring, we moved on. At the end of the year we decided we had made the best decision we could have made.  We chose to continue it through another year.  So here I am, homeschooling and hoping to share my story with others. Homeschooling is not for everyone. I completely understand why people send their kids to school.  There are many factors which make homeschooling unavailable to parents.  But I am sure there are other moms out there who have wanted to try homeschooling but are nervous or afraid.  Just know it’s very possible.  Maybe this story will give you the confidence to educate your child in the way you have always wanted to.  It was definitely the best education decision we made for our family.

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One copy of zaner bloser handwriting and one of Cursive Kickoff sitting on a table.

How to Choose a Cursive Curriculum

  When selecting your homeschool curriculum its important to think about penmanship.  As your child continues their educational journey you will need to decide if you will be teaching cursive.  In my family this was not a decision, but a need.  I write 99 percent of the time in cursive.  In fact, the only time I print is if I know someone else can’t or might not be able to read my writing.  So for me the decision was not if I was going to teach cursive, but how to choose a cursive curriculum. Styles of Cursive Believe it or not there are many styles of cursive and even more curriculums.  Some of these styles are:  Handwriting Without Tears (HWOT) D’nealian Zaner-Bloser Spencerian Getty & Dubay Italic Today we are only going to focus on the first three. Handwriting Without Tears The school my child was going to had used the Handwriting Without Tears program for print.  It is a fabulous program for printing.  It was developed by an occupational therapist to teach handwriting in an easy to follow manner.  This program was specifically developed for left handed writers, for children who struggle with motor skills and for children with cognitive issues.  The letters are setup to be easy to write with very clear instruction on how to form letters correctly.  They then move to the same curriculum in cursive once they complete the printing program. This program is wonderful in it’s simplicity.  It does not require your child to have completed the print program in order to start the cursive.  However, children will find the transition very easy if they have.  The cursive letters look only slightly different than in print, which makes the transition to cursive very simple.  All of the letters are written straight up an down, just like in print.  I have heard that some parents of right handed children complain of wrist tiredness due to the straight up and down positioning of the letters.  I didn’t notice this when using the program.  But it’s worth noting. Each page is very short and only takes a few minutes to complete.  Every page flows well together.  If you are looking for a way to teach cursive in the simplest and easiest way possible, this is definitely a great place to start.  The program goes from Kindergarten to grade 5.  Cursive lessons begin at 2nd grade. Why We Discontinued We chose to discontinue this program after completing the first cursive book.  The main reason for this is that my husband and I both write in traditional cursive.  Our handwriting looks nothing like the HWOT cursive.  So after working through the program my child could not read my cursive or any other cursive that didn’t look like the HWOT program.  It really is its own style of writing.  This completely defeated the point of teaching cursive for us.  Also, several of the letters in the HWOT curriculum do not look like standard cursive letters.  Most notably was the letter “Q”.  It looks like a 2.  This again, makes it very difficult to distinguish from traditional cursive.  Lastly, and this is really only important to me, the HWOT cursive is so simplified that I find it rather unattractive.  It really doesn’t have the flow of a traditional script.  Again, that’s just my opinion and may not really be an issue for some.  But in the end we chose to move to another program. D’Nealian Cursive So in the world of traditional cursive there are two main types most people think of.  D’Nealian and Zaner-Bloser.  These were the primary cursive curriculums being taught when I was young. They are similar in how all of the letters are written.  The main thing that makes D’nealian different is that all of the letters, both printed and cursive, are written in a slant.  This means that when learning to write your child will rotate their paper and sit in a more specific posture in order to be able to make the words appear at an angle.  This posture makes slanting the letters easier.  It also makes writing in cursive easier on the child’s wrist.   It is a continuous stroke method.  This means you continuously write without lifting your pen.  This program goes from kindergarten print all the way through 6th grade.  Cursive lessons start in 2nd grade.  The books are sequential and are reasonably priced.  The final book in the series teaches calligraphy.  This method is definitely not as simple to teach as HWOT.   Our child learned print with the HWOT program which teaches that printed words are written straight up and down.  It really didn’t make sense to try to reteach printing at an angle since printing was already well established.  I think this would have led to a lot of frustration for us.  However, if you were starting to teach this from the very beginning it would definitely be a program I would consider.  I think teaching the slanted print and following through to the cursive program would make it easier to teach. Zaner-Bloser Zaner-Bloser (ZB) has been around for many years and has a well respected reputation for teaching handwriting.  The primary difference between Zaner-Bloser and D’nealian is that Zaner-Bloser teaches your child to print straight up and down.  It then teaches cursive at a slanted or curved angle.  We ended up choosing this curriculum simply because of that.  This meant that we did not have to reteach printing.  We were able to simply start with the cursive program.  It simplified the process for us.   I really like the books.  They are well priced and you get a lot of pages for your money.  ZB cursive starts in a very simple manner.  It teaches a three step pattern of model, practice and evaluation.  These have a teachers guide but you could definitely go without them to conserve cost.  The student edition teaches not only proper posture but also simple strokes from the beginning.  Each page builds on

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A white pie dish filled with Garlic Confit. Garlic confit is a mix of olive oil, fresh garlic and herbs. The herbs are rosemary.

Beyond Easy Herbed Garlic Confit (2 in 1 Recipe)

  In the world of preserving foods most people know about canning and pickling.  But there is a long standing tradition in many cultures of preserving foods in oil as well.  One of my favorite recipes is a very simple one called Garlic Confit.  I love this recipe because it’s basically two recipes in one.  You get the joy of the actual garlic.  It’s soft and buttery.  Then you get an herb infused oil that can be used in a multitude of dishes.  Garlic Confit is like hitting the culinary lottery.  Two recipes from 2 or 3 ingredients.  Amazing.  Not to mention, the smell of this recipe when it’s cooking is incredible. Basically you take cloves of garlic and slowly cook them submerged in oil.  You cook them in the oven on low heat until fully tender.  You want a low and slow cooking method for this.  This low heat prevents the oil from overheating and breaking down.  It also preserves the garlic.  The pieces will be very tender and can be used in all kinds of recipes.  Fresh Garlic Vs. Peeled You can use fresh cloves of garlic or you can use pre peeled.  Either will work fine.  I have made this with fresh and pre-peeled and I can honestly say I would use pre-peeled.  Unless you really are one of those people who are extremely particular about freshness.  While it’s true that fresher will taste better, it’s a lot of work.  I mean a lot!  It took me an hour and a half to peel the garlic for this recipe.  It takes 30 seconds to open the pre-peeled.  The decisions up to you. Using Herbs to Infuse the Oil The oil can be used for many applications as well.  My favorite being rosemary garlic potatoes.  So in this recipe we will use fresh rosemary sprigs.  I find fresh herbs are easier to remove.  If you wanted to keep this recipe really simple, you could skip the herbs altogether.  But don’t be afraid to use any of your favorite herbs.  It makes such fantastic oil when you do.  You could use dry herbs but they will end up needing to be strained from your final product.  As long as you don’t mind that, go for it. Some of my favorite herb combinations are: Basil Oregano Rosemary Herbs de Provence Thyme Fresh chili peppers How to Make Garlic Confit Start by putting your peeled garlic in a baking pan.  Put in equal parts oil, or enough to completely cover your garlic.  Add your herbs and spices and cook low and slow for an hour and a half.  Make sure to check on these half way through.  If any of the cloves are not under the oil during cooking.  Stir them in.  You want to start checking if they are done after about an hour.  I find an hour and a half works well.    They are done once they can be easily pierced with a knife.  They should be soft but not mushy.  Once they are done remove any herbs and discard. An Important Word About Storage This is super important.  Once these cool, they must be stored in the refrigerator completely covered with the oil to prevent botulism.  If the olive oil solidifies its fine.  You can leave it on the counter to soften.  You can also run it under warm water as well. Just remember to put back in the fridge. When stored properly with the oil fully covering the garlic, these will last 4 weeks or more in the fridge.  But If they start to look off or smell off after any length of time in your fridge, toss them.  I repeat toss them!   This rule applies to most foods, but especially garlic and oil. If you are concerned about not using them fast enough, you can leave a small portion in the fridge and freeze the rest in an airtight container.  It should last 6+ months in the freezer.    Be sure to check out my other oil recipe for Lactose and Casein Free Butter Oil. Herbed Garlic Confit is an easy to make and highly versatile recipe. It makes both a wonderful flavored garlic that can be used on everything from garlic bread to stews. It also makes an incredible infused oil that can be used to make salad dressings and a flavored oil for everyday dishes. It only takes a little bit of prep and some patience.

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Barnabas Robotics Mini Tinker Kit

Unboxing Barnabas Robotics Part 2: Mini Tinker Kit 2.0

  It time!  Today we have another Unboxing for Barnabas Robotics. This time we will be opening the Mini Tinker Kit 2.0  This kit has four projects in one.  It includes an Animal Bot, Wheel of Fortune, Doorbell, and Scribble Bot.  The mission of Barnabas Robotics is to empower kids as young as 5 to learn robotics and coding.  Check it out!     This is a three part unboxing.  The three kits we are going to unbox are: The Mini Tinker Kit The Barnabas Bot The Simple Robot Kit x2   The Mini Tinker Kit is for ages 6-10.  It retails for $22.95.  All Barnabas Robotics kits come with free shipping after $35.  These kits would make for excellent creativity days.  You could as use them in your unschooling curriculum.  Check out our other Unboxing for the Simple Robot Kit HERE. If you have built one of these and want to share what you think let us know in the comments below.  After these kits are unboxed and built we will do a follow up review on them in another post.  Stay tuned!

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A bowl of pickled onions sitting on a table

My Favorite Raw Pickled Red Onion Recipe

I fell in love with onions on a trip abroad many years ago. Everywhere we went they had cheese and onion sandwiches. Sounds gross, I know. But we got so many of them we fell in love with them.  Fast forward to my pregnancy years later and I could no longer eat onions. Not red or white. This went on for years. It didn’t matter if you cooked them or they were raw. I would always get sick to my stomach.  Now many years later I still can’t eat them raw. I can however eat raw pickled onions. This recipe is such a quick and simple raw version of Quick Pickled Red Onions. It requires almost no ingredients and can be made the night before. It is gut friendly because of the apple cider vinegar and raw honey. It makes the onions easier to digest. I’m going to include instructions for the raw version as well as a faster blanched version to save time. Recommendations and Adjustments When I make this I use raw honey as the sweetener. It just ups the nutritional factor. It changes the flavor in a way I really like as well.  It’s also another food that is alive. Which is so very important to our bodies. I tried to balance the vinegar with the sweetness. You could adjust this anywhere from 1 TBS to 2 TBS depending on how sweet you like your pickles.  Finally I recommend using kosher salt. Kosher salt is best in this recipe as it dissolves rapidly without applying tons of heat. Other salts will work but may be gritty. Try to find a finely ground one so that it will dissolve easier.  If you are unsure on which Type of Salt to use be sure to read my post all about salts HERE. Once you slice the onion thinly put it in your favorite canning jar.  I prefer a wide mouth jar for this application.  Add all the other ingredients to a separate pot and turn the stove on for one minute. Just long enough to warm them but not cook them. Stir everything well to dissolve. If you have a little salt at the bottom it’s fine. Add this liquid to your onions. Lid up and stash in the fridge 1-3 days for best results.   Vegan Option To make this vegan replace the honey with organic cane sugar or maple syrup.  It will alter the flavor of the final product depending on which you use.  Sugar will be more neutral than the maple syrup. Raw or Quick If the raw factor doesn’t matter to you or you just need these done fast for a gathering, follow the above recipe. Instead of leaving them on the stove for a minute, turn the heat on medium and bring all the ingredients to a simmer. Then pour over the onions while still hot. Leave 15 minutes and then you are done.  I’ve made this recipe both ways and it works just fine. This recipe will keep in the fridge for a month or more.  I can’t keep it in the house longer than that.  It gets eaten to fast.  You can also reuse the brine several times before it loses quality.  Just get more onions and repeat.  Super easy. This recipe is raw, paleo, dairy free, vegetarian and can easily be made vegan.  Put it on anything and everything.  It’s good on tacos, in burritos, hamburgers, poutine, egg dishes, Pozole, soups and stews.  Let me know what you use it on.  If you make any mods that are amazing,  I’d love to know. This is an easy to make Pickled Red Onion Recipe. It has only three ingredients and can easily be made vegan. These pickled onions are great on everything from hotdogs to tacos.

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Different Glass Fermentation Weights being displayed to show the differences.

What are Fermentation Weights and How To Use Them?

  So if you haven’t already guessed it, I am a big fan of fermentation.  We spend so much time buying supplements like probiotics to keep us healthy.  We forget many times that food is medicine.  When we make our own live ferments, the probiotics are fresh and very alive.  The problem is fermenting has rules.  That’s where fermentation weights come in. What Are Fermentation Weights? Fermentation weights are simply a heavy, non porous object that weighs your food that is fermenting down.  Food that is exposed to oxygen breeds bacteria and mold.  So pushing your food under the brine or liquid you are using keeps it free from those elements.  This allows the healthy bacteria to do there job without exposing you to the nastys. You could use anything for this job.  Something as primitive as a sanitized rock a plastic bag will work.  Many people use plastic bag filled with water as a weight.  I have tried them all and while they are mostly successful, they are not my favorite way. Types of Weights We are only going to talk about a few easy to find, easy to use weights in this post.  They are: Glass Fermentation Weights (No Handles) Glass Fermentation Weights (With Handles) Stoneware Weights   Glass Fermentation Weights (No Handles) Glass fermentation weights without handles look like glass hockey pucks.  They are a solid piece of glass with the edges smoothed.  The pros to this style are that they are extremely easy to clean.  They can be ordered in both wide mouth and standard mouth jars.  You can purchase in bulk so if you do a lot of fermenting like I do, you can save money by buying more at once.  These have come down quite a lot in price since I purchased them years ago.  So a bulk pack of six fermentation weights without handles is under $20.  The cons to this style is that they are very slippery.  I mean very slippery.  It’s like trying to grab a fish out of a pond.  Also, they are not dishwasher safe as my husband can attest to.  But other than that they work well. Glass Fermentation Weights (With Handles) Glass fermentation weights with handles come in several designs.  They are made so that they can be easily picked up out of the jar without too much difficulty.  The kind I have are made with grooves in them for easy pick up.  But they also manufacture ones with a little handle.   Here’s the problem I have with these.  First, they are no more easy to get out of the jar than the flat disks.  Once, they are wet it’s still a slippery piece of glass.  Second, they cost more and are not significantly more effective.  Third, maybe i am the only person to have this happen to them but I find the grooves get mold trapped in between them.  I have lost several ferments this way.  I find myself turning them upside down to make them flat like my weights without handles.  This prevents the mold but completely defeats having the handle.  Fourth, due to the grooves it’s more challenging to keep clean. Stoneware Fermentation Weights Stoneware fermentation weights are designed for crocks.  They usually come with two half moon shaped pieces that sit inside the crock.  They can be used in any container so if you have one already but don’t have a crock, don’t stress.  The biggest drawback to these is that they are usually quite large because the crocks are bigger than mason jars.  They may not fit a standard size canning jar.  Also these are very expensive because they are made of stone.  They cost on average the same price for one as a pack of six of the glass weights. Final Thoughts If I had to choose just one type of fermentation weight, I would choose the plain glass fermentation weights without handles.  They are inexpensive, easy to clean and reusable for as long as you take care of them.  These work perfectly inside any of the airlock jars or mason jars.  If you haven’t heard of an airlock jar make sure to read my post on them HERE.  While they are a little difficult to remove from their containers, it’s a small price to pay for how well they work. Just make sure to have the right size weight for the right size jar.  Let me know what kind of weights are your favorite.

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Spelling curriculum books on a table

My Experience With All About Spelling

  Today we are going to talk all about spelling.  One of the main reasons we chose the school my child went to for Kindergarten was their reading and spelling program.  I had attempted to teach reading myself at home and was unable to do it.  Everyone has strengths and weaknesses with their education.  This was definitely not my child’s strength.  Our kindergarten teacher was amazing and by the end of the year we were on the same level as the average child.  But first grade didn’t go as planned.  My child began to struggle with spelling and I didn’t feel like we were getting the assistance we needed from the school or the teacher.   Once the pandemic hit we moved to distance learning like everyone else.  This is where I really felt like things stalled.  I realized that my child would memorize the spelling lists.  But then, when my child would go to spell anything not on the list, every word was wrong. Once I made the decision to go to homeschool and build my own curriculum, I knew that spelling was on the top of my list. Deciding on A Spelling Curriculum After much research I settled on two curriculums.  The Logic of English and All About Spelling.  I really loved how detailed the Logic of English is and I really thought that was what we would go with.  It is a full English Curriculum that aptly teaches the Logic behind English.   If you are looking for a full English curriculum make sure to check them out.  Their customer service department is excellent.  When I called I got a real live person and they were more than helpful.  They sent me links and information pdfs right away. It’s a very comprehensive program.  It covers multiple years in one book so its great for multiple students.  It’s also great to reuse with the same students.  The main problem I had was that we already had an English Curriculum from Shirley English we were using and a separate Reading Curriculum.  The Logic of English Curriculum would have been to much.   Why We Chose All About Spelling   So in the end we went with the All About Spelling curriculum.  It is strictly a spelling program.  There is a separate reading curriculum you can get if you need both.  As the website suggested we started at book 1.  They recommend beginning at the first book and if your child is further along to work at an accelerated pace.  The reason for this is that All About Spelling teaches you the rules of spelling.  So there is an order that needs to be followed. Can I just say that I wish I had this curriculum as a child.  When I was starting to teach spelling my child would say things like “why do we do this?” And I would reply, “You just do.”  I personally have learned so much from these lessons that it’s incredible.   Not only that, my child has become a proficient speller in just a matter of eight months.  Whenever we run into a problem I simply ask what the rule is and the spelling is instantly corrected.   What the Kit Comes With The Level 1 Kit comes with everything you need.  It comes with the instructional manual, four kinds of flash cards, physical letter tiles, a certificate of completion and stickers with a progress chart.  You will need a magnet white board for the physical tiles. To use the book you start at the beginning.  As the teacher, you read the instructions to your child.  Each section will tell you how to teach each lesson so there is no guess work.  If you have multiple children near the same age you can use one level for them all.  This will save you time and money in the beginning.  You can advance the students at their own pace and move them up levels when they are ready. There are four sets of flash cards. They are the sound cards (red), phonogram cards (yellow), key cards (blue) and word cards (green). The Phonogram Cards & Phonogram Sounds App The Phonogram Cards have each of the phonograms on the front with pronunciations on the back.  The cards are designed to help your kids with the sounds letters make.  I have used these off and on but All About Spelling makes an app called Phonogram Sounds that is free on all the App Stores.  The Phonogram Sounds App not only gives you the phonograms broken out by categories, but it clearly pronounces them as well.  We have used this app almost exclusively.  I actually prefer it because the sounds are said properly with the right intonation.  I realized that someone like my mother who has an accent would pronounce the phonogram different than I would.  Improperly pronouncing the sounds of phonograms leads to difficulties for your child later on.  An example of this is the letter “l”.  Many would pronounce the sound as “luh”.  This is incorrect.  I realized I was putting this “uh” sound on almost every letter.  So I highly recommend using the app.  If you don’t want to use it, I encourage you as the parent to listen to it and then use the flash cards with your child.  This will ensure you are giving the correct pronunciation.   The Sound Cards The Sound Cards require that your child dictate sounds back to you or answer questions regarding sounds.  I use these occasionally as a refresher and to change up the work.  But, I don’t use them regularly as they are repetitive of the other cards.  I can see using them for a child that is really struggling with phonogram sounds.  It would help with retention and memory. The Key Cards The Key Cards are definitely my favorite.  They contain all the rules of spelling.  We review these the most.  It not only helps my child to remember the rules, it helps me to

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An all about Homophones book sitting on a table.

Teaching Kids About Homophones

  I never realized how difficult it was to learn English until I started teaching my child. So many different rules to learn. We take words from so many different cultures and mix them with our own. Just when you think your child has it all down they throw in Homophones. What is a Homophone If you are unfamiliar with Homophones, they are words that sound the same but are spelled completely differently. They also have different meanings. English has a lot of them. It makes spelling very difficult for many children. We had experienced Homophones when we were in school a little bit. They always caused us spelling issues. I knew that when I went to a homeschool curriculum I wanted something that addressed them. We had seen such wonderful results with the All About Spelling Curriculum that when I found out they had an All About Homophones book I purchased it right away. All About Homophones   All About Homophones is meant to be used in conjunction with another spelling program. It is not meant to be used alone.  It really works best when used with the All About Spelling program.  I have written an in-depth post about it HERE.  It has five main sections of use. The first is a graphic organizer which allows you to make copies for each child so they can learn the meanings of the homophones. Then there are the homophone worksheets. These are categorized by Grades. It goes from grade 1 to 8. This is really helpful so that you know approximately at what age your child should know each section. It also is nice if you are teaching multiple children at the same time. You can just photo copy pages and reuse the book. Each homophone is broken down page by page so the child is only learning one homophone at a time. This keeps it simple and concise. The next section contains crossword puzzles. These allow the child to review the homophone they have learned in a fun way. They use humor in them to create an additional element of fun. After the puzzles is a card game section. You cut out each of the provided cards. I would suggest laminating them for long term use as the paper is thin and would definitely not survive 8 years of abuse. But they can be used to play games such as Go Fish and Old Maid to increase memorization of the homophone. They come with full instructions on how to play the games. The final section has additional teaching tools that help you to teach homophones to your child. It has books that can be read, tongue twisters you can teach your child and additional fill in pages for them. Final Thoughts In all, this has over 200 pages of material. At under $20 it is a good value for the cost.  Especially when you consider it can be used for multiple students and over multiple years.  It is very easy to use and to add to your curriculum. It requires no prep time for me. I would consider it an open and go book except for the card games which only need to be prepped once. I use it in a very simple fashion. I add it one day a week. I choose one page to focus on and then I do a puzzle review on the lesson the next week. I plan to continue memorization with the card games at the end of each section. But overall, I am extremely pleased with not only how easy this book is to use but also how easy it is for my child to use. The pages only take around 10-15 minutes to complete. This is definitely something I could keep in my curriculum for many years to come.  

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A cutting board with date paste and fresh dates on it.

My Favorite One Ingredient Date Paste

Growing up I hated dried fruit.  I wouldn’t touch a raisin if you paid me.  I didn’t like the texture of them and honestly I still don’t.  I really wish I had know about date paste then.  It’s got all of the flavor of dates, with none of the texture. But honestly when I was a kid I thought there was only one kind of date.  The big Medjool you get at the grocery store. You know the large variety that have a caramel like flavor and a chewy inside.  I’ve since learned there are over 200 varieties of them.  We have two favorites in our house.  The Honey Date which tastes like, you guessed it…honey.  The other is the Zahidi which has a sugary flavor and is light.  If you haven’t tried more than one variety I urge you to go out and find some.  They are all wonderful and different in their own special ways. Another variety to consider if you can’t find any of those is is the Deglet.  I mention these because they can easily be found on the internet.  They tend to be a drier variety in my opinion.  But they will still work great for this recipe. What is Date Paste Dates are wonderful in that they can be used for so many different applications.  Everything from wrapping them in bacon to making raw vegan brownies.  Date paste is a wonderful recipe to have in your home.  It is so simple.  Only one ingredient is needed. Dates. Then you just add water and something magical happens. The dates turn into a wonderful paste that can be used in so many applications.  You can put it on toast as a substitute for jam.  You can use it to sweeten cakes and desserts.  You can use it to emulsify salad dressings.  You can dip apples in it for a simple caramel like substitute.  Put it on pancakes.  The possibilities are endless. Pitted Vs. Un-Pitted You can purchase the dates pitted or unpitted.  I have done both and the recipe has come out fine.  Just know that pitted dates don’t last as long and they tend to dry out easier.  However if you purchase unpitted dates you will need to remove both the seed inside and the hard stem on the top of one end if it has one.  They look like a small, hard flat disk.  They are not tasty. If the dates are super fresh and ripe you can just pull them apart by hand.  No need to get a knife out.  If they are on the harder side my tool of choice is a set of sharp kitchen shears.  Just cut along one side and remove the pit. Soaking Raw vs. Hot Water I didn’t set a specific weight on this recipe because it only requires equal parts water to dates for soaking.  Just keep in mind that if you have a very large blender or food processor you will want to use more dates so they don’t jam up your machine. If you choose to do this recipe with hot water, you will only need to soak the dates for about 10 minutes.  If you want to make this a raw recipe then you will want to soak at least an hour or even overnight depending on the dryness of your dates. Processing Once they are soaked, removed the dates to your food processor.  A high powered blender such as a Vitamix or Blendtec is best as it will make the smoothest consistency.  But any blender or processor will work.  Just know it may not come out quite as smooth. Turn your machine on to process and add the remaining water a little at a time until to acheive your desired consistency. My dates were so fresh I didn’t even add any and it came out great.  But you may need up to 1/4 or even 1/2 cup of the water if your dates are very dry.  I try to acheive a pudding or preserve like consistency. Don’t throw that leftover water out.  It’s basically a simple syrup and it’s fantastic.  You can use it in smoothies, nut milks, pancake batters, muffins and cakes.  I even thought it might be nice in a cocktail. Once made it will keep in the fridge up to a month.  If you freeze properly it can last a year. Although I’ve never had one last that long.  If you make it, let me know how you use it in your own recipes.  I love finding new ways to use these staple ingredients. One ingredient date paste can be used for many applications

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