My Home School Grades {Mosaic Review}

 

  I was asked by Mosiac Reviews to review an awesome program My Homeschool Grades.  Obviously by the title you can tell that this is a grading program for homeschoolers.  Created by homeschool dad, John Echols and homeschool grad, Jordan Shute.  Given their  homeschooling backgrounds they knew exactly what we needed!  Thank you gentlemen! 

 

                                                                                                             About them:

Founded in 2012, My Home School Grades was born out of the need to gather in one place all the information about your family’s home school experience and to help manage and then export that content in a relevant, user friendly way.

 

 

As we are venturing into the high school years next year, transcripts have been on my mind for the last few.  I have looked at different programs but hadn’t really found what I thought would work for us.  I am not that great with the computer either (just ask the Pro) 

          

What I like about the program:

 

Very user friendly

 

one program from kindergarten thru high school for all of your children

 

can upload pictures or activities to enhance your college transcript or just to cherish what your year looked like

 

Available on all platforms so that you can take it really anywhere with you

 

John and Jordan are ready to take your comments, questions or concerns.

info@myhomeschoolgrades.com

I actually had a question for them and they got right back with me!  Great customer service!

 

Printing your transcript or just logging your grades is really as easy as 1,2,3.  Here are the tutorials to help you with it if you need it-I really won’t think you will it is really simple.

 

  Once you sign in all you have to do is add a student, add a class, add and activity then its Viola!  You have your transcripts! 

 

Here is what the add a class page looks like.  It really is self explanatory.  You add the class title choose the credits (if taking for credit) and complete the rest of the info.  Choosing the publisher allows you to pick what curriculum you are using so that it inputs the lesson plans for that particular class.  With the program being new and there being so many curricula out there you may find that your exact one is not on the list.  No fretting allowed!  They have add your own class.  You can also email them and they will add it for you!  Isn’t that great! You can also add extra things for field trips or practice pages in our case.  With our math program, (MUS) we sometimes do practice pages or have flashcard Fridays for review.  Of course you want your child to get credit for all the work they do.  Just add that on to the page. 

You may be thinking that a program of this type with all that it has to offer won’t fit into your already stretched homeschool budget.  The program only costs $49.99.  This one time purchase covers all of your children from  kindergarten thru high school.  You can start anytime you want as well.  You don’t have to go dig up all your middle schooler’s kindergarten pages to input the info.    Finally when updates are made to the program they are included in your one time purchase price-no buying the new updated version in 2 years!

Wondering if this program will work as well for your clan?  Try it FREE for 14 days!  You can get your free trial by clicking  here. 

  I really couldn’t find anything that I didn’t like about this program, as I hope you can tell.

Where can you find them?

www.myhomeschoolgrades.com

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Blessings from the Clubb Farm!

 

 





   

Ooka Island {Mosaic Review}

  Ooka Island was born out of a program that was created by Dr Kay MacPhee,  Spellread.   Developed in the 90's, Spellread was a one-year, small-group reading intervention program that focuses on phonological automaticity and reading fluency while providing explicit comprehension and vocabulary instruction, as well as opportunities for writing.  This program was rated at the top of over 150 programs of its kind.  The only problem was that there was a gap in the availability to all the children that needed the program. The program was on the pricey side only available to the wealthy or those with government help.  Dr MacPhee wanted every child who needed the help to have access to it. 
  With the help of Jim Barber and the technological advances since the 90's Ooka Island was born.  This virtual island is a fun and exciting, interactive world for children Pre-k to 2nd grade.  The goal of the island is to teach children to read fluently and well through fun and compelling reading instruction. You can take a virtual tour of the island at http://vimeo.com/57851852
  I was very ecstatic when I hear that I was chosen to review this program.  I want my children to be excellent readers, as any parent would.  I don't think that you can ever read too much or have too much practice with reading in the early days of your schooling.  At the Clubbhouse we limit how much screen time the caddies have with all the electronics of today.  I wasn't crazy about it being a computer program, however I would rather the caddies playing educational games than surfing the web. 
  Ooka Island is a self contained program so the children play on the computer and the program accesses the internet, however they are not going on the web to load the game.  There is no surfing time with the program.
     The Ooka Island Adventure is an adaptive learn-to-read technology for Pre-K to 2nd Grade. The combination of the innovative features below make it a powerful tool to accelerate the reading development of emergent readers as they move along the path to fluent reading.
       The island uses the Eye/Ear reading method revolving around the five following fundamentals of reading: phonemic awareness, phonetics, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension. Readirect is the adaptive learning algorithm used that ensures skill mastery in reading for each student.


               

Every island has a light house don't they?  Well I have not traveled to many islands in my day to see if that is a valid fact.  However, I do know that the purpose of a light house is to guide mariners safely while traveling in dark and foggy waters.  Ookalighthouse is the part that helps you to guide your children.  It is the reporting area that tells you how your child is doing, monitoring and guiding them on their reading voyage.  Some of the reports offered from the lighthouse are:
                        
                                 The Report

                                 Reading comprehension

                                  Accuracy Analysis

                                 Book progress report


Ooka Island is not all virtual.  They also have things like over 90 printed books (not ebooks) on 3 different reading levels, as well as printable worksheets and a map tracker to keep track of the books that you read.


  The program is set up as three different sets.  There is a school, tutor or homeschool option.  Below I have listed the homeschool option, however you can check out the others at http://ookaisland.com/pricing-overview/

 Homeschool pricing

One student monthly $19.95

yearly  $149.95 (37% savings)

You can also take advantage of 30% off of either option when you click the link below

http://offers.ookaisland.com/inblog?purl=iaClub   

This is good until June 1st, 2013

Where can I find Ooka Island?

www.ookaisland.com

Check them out on facebook

https://www.facebook.com/ookaisland?fref=ts

Guess what we made..

I just love when you find that terrific curriculum AND it works for multiple kiddos.  As any homeschooler knows the curriculum you start off with is not always the same that you end with for the year.  Most likely you have to switch books for each kid as well.  We have stumbled across a few that we are not sure that we can part with.  Math U See is and has been our math curriculum since the beginning.  We have now been using Shurley English, All About Spelling and Apologia Sciences. When I was preparing for the homeschool conference in Cincinnati a few weeks ago, my children approached me and asked if they could make a request.  Of course I thought they were going to ask for games or fun things from the conference.  I was pleasantly surprised when my children asked that I not change their math or science.  My children get up in the morning and have their math and sciences finished first. They are eager to get them done and if I gave them the chance they would do just those subjects.  
  Why do they love the science?  We get to play!  The oldest caddy is learning all about the weather and predicting it right now.  He is enjoying Apologia’s Exploring Creation with Physical Science because it is easy to read and comprehend and he can complete his lessons on his own.  I just step in the evaluate his work each evening.
     For the younger caddies we are studying Anatomy and Physiology, Apologia of course.  We have covered things like the respiratory system and the skeletal system.  We have drawn bones, made a lung (out of a Gatorade bottle and balloons) and a plethora of other things.  One of the most recent things that we accomplished was making edible blood!

This was one of our lab projects.  We used corn syrup for the plasma, cinnamon red hot candies for the red blood cells, a white jelly bean for the white blood cells and candy sprinkles for the platelets.  The kids had a blast making it.  It was hilarious to me as well, when we were explaining to the Pro what blood is made of, for example, one of the caddies said “look Dad, we made blood with red hots”.  The response from the Pro then was “What? I have red hots in my blood?”  Of course he was kidding and it took a few explanations for the kiddos to remember what each thing was supposed to be.  I just love the interactive types of curriculum.  We also made a heart.  We made edible hearts as well as you can see out of jumbo and mini marshmallows, graham crackers, icing and food coloring. 

 

                                       I love to work on these projects with my children, and watching them grow and learn on a daily basis.  I feel blessed for this opportunity to have them at home with us.  I hope that you have enjoyed taking a peek into our science world.

Blessings from the Clubb Farm!