The Old Schoolhouse Digital Magazine - I am now getting
the digital issue of The Old Schoolhouse Magazine. I can't read it in the bathtub but there are alot of features that I like
about it. It has a tool bar across the top of the page that makes it very easy to navigate. You can go forward or backward
page by page, or you can use the table of contents to choose an article. The page button allows you to see all the pages
at once and choose from there. There is also a search button to search for keywords. My favorite feature is the links button.
Click on that and it will show you the links for everything on the page, articles and ads. You can access more information
immediately. The share button is also handy. I have used that to email a page to a friend. The settings button lets you
select how large you want the page. You can browse at one size and then magnify to read more closely.
Of course, the digital magazine has all the great articles that the regular version has. There are lesson ideas,
articles about the "how-to's" of homeschooling and a glipse into the homes of other homeschoolers. - Posted by J Shepherd
TOS Planner - I had a chance to review The Schoolhouse Planner from The Old Schoolhouse. There are alot of neat
and nifty forms in there, everything you need to organize your school, your house, your menus and even your pets! It has
monthly calendars with big blocks for filling in all your information. In that same section there are also recipes, articles
on homeschooling and lists of all kinds of interesting information, such as holidays, presidents and states and capitals.
The homeschool section includes forms for planning your week, month and year. It also has logs for work has been completed.
The household section has forms for menu planning and grocery shopping, several different chore charts, budgets, gift lists,
important phone numbers and even a log for your pet and its vet visits. The planner is downloaded to your computer so you
can print all the forms you need. If you need to get organized this is a good place to start. - posted by J Shepherd
Spelling - I have finally decided on Sequential Spelling for this year. I like the way it starts with small
words and builds up to bigger words in the same word family. Son is not a natural speller and he has the added burden of
not really caring how things are supposed to be spelled. Daughter is a natural speller and has passed Son in spelling.
We
had been using Spelling Power. It didn't work for us. I liked the idea of testing to see which words they already know and
then studying the ones that were missed. But my kids took every test as if this was their one and only chance to get a passing
grade in spelling. Also Spelling Power would give you a list of words with the long a sound and there would be words in with
every possible spelling of long a that you could imagine all mixed up. The rule would say something to the effect of long
a as in cake can be spelled ae, ai, ay, ey, ea, eigh or a with a silent e. Now how is a kid with going to use that rule
to figure out how to spell a word with a long a sound?
I
also checked out Andrew Pudewa's Phonetic Zoo. He uses the theory that when a child sees a word, he sees the word as a whole
not as individual letters. The letters don't always come out in the same order. But if the word is spelled out loud then
the letters go in one by one in order. Son often has the problem of knowing the right letters but not the right order. A
friend of mine is using it so she let me listen to hers. They have word list with 15 words for each of the rules. On the
CD they say the rule for each 3 rule, the child writes down the word and then self checks at the end of the lesson. They
have to spell every word right 2 days in a row to move on to the next lesson. It all sounded very good but I just couldn't
see this working with Son. I could already hear the complaints, "Why do have to do it again, I already got it right." - Posted by J Shepherd
