If you are familiar with McGuffey Readers, you know that they have been a trusted name in education, teaching more than 10 million children.

The Phonics and Reading with McGuffey App from LiteracySoft brings these lessons to life in an app, teaching your child to read with 52 step-by-step lessons. Phonics and Reading With McGuffey works on your PC, Mac, and Apple devices.

The Phonics and Reading with McGuffey App is carefully crafted to:
• Ensure no expert phonics supervisor is needed for students to gain maximum value from the lessons
• Work for any literacy level
• Act as your own personalized tutor, except in a computer
• Let students set their own pace, repeating or slowing down lessons as much as they like
• Guide your student step-by-step through reading and spelling practice
• Provide multi-sense learning including sound, vision, and motion to appeal to a wide variety of learning styles
• Utilize the power of synthetic phonics – the dyslexia-busting learning technique
• Be simple and easy to use for students at any level

The first 10 lessons of the PC version and the lite version of the app are available as well, to try out before you buy!

Whether teaching writing skills to a high school student or reviewing existing skills, the process of teaching writing skills can be daunting.  Sharon Watson, a veteran homeschooling mom, co-op teacher, and literary workshop facilitator, has taken the dread out of polishing up those writing skills.  Schoolhouse Review Crew members have had the opportunity to use and review two of Sharon’s premium curriculum items:  The Power in Your Hands:  Writing Non-Fiction in High School and Writing Fiction in High School.  Through the Writing with Sharon Watson curriculum, students find a conversational-style instruction that turns writing from a subject of dread to a subject of delight.

The Power in Your Hands:  Writing Non-Fiction in High School  is “the natural next step for those who value college-preparatory material presented in incremental steps with a conversational tone. With over 100 daily lessons and complete instructions for 22 essays and reports, this is an engaging course students will enjoy–or not dread.”  Students are given the tools they need to succeed not only in high school writing but also in college writing. They are guided through writing five different persuasive type essays, a comparison and contrast essay, a biography, a literary analysis, a research paper with documentation, descriptive essays, and narrative essays. There are over 400 pages of instruction and activities in the student workbook.  The teacher’s guide gives parents the answers to all of the questions in the student workbook and samples of numerous papers to help them evaluate their student’s writings.  The student workbook retails for $39.98 and the teacher’s guide retails for $14.98. 

     Writing Fiction in High School is written in the same conversational-style as Watson’s non-fiction curriculum.  It is designed to help teens who love to write stories and want to influence the world as Christians learn to be more powerful and effective writers.  Student’s learn about and have the opportunity to practice with the various literary elements involved in story telling and experience critiquing their own stories and stories of others.  There is even a manuscript tract for students who have already written a short story or novel manuscript to be able to edit and improve on that existing work.  The student workbook, containing over 300 pages of instructional text and activities, is available for $25.05; and the, teacher’s guide is available for $19.95.

To read what our illustrious crew members have to say about their experience with Writing with Sharon Watson, click on the linky below.

Homeschooling with toddlers and preschoolers in the house can be challenging, to say the least! Coming up with creative ways to keep them occupied, engaged, and out of trouble can test the patience right out of the best of us. Dr. Craft’s Active Play understands this challenge and has designed Active Play! Fun Physical Activities for Young Children with your youngsters in mind.

This spiral bound book and award-winning DVD set contains 52 age appropriate physical activities that are:

• created for toddlers and preschoolers to play together
• easy to lead, fun to do
• inexpensive, using easy-to-get equipment
• designed for children to develop fundamental movement skills and
  physical fitness
• inclusive of children with special needs

According to the National Association of Sport and Physical Education, preschool children need, at a minimum, 60 minutes of structured physical activity every single day. They also need 60 minutes of unstructured physical activity every day. In addition to this, they say children should not be sedentary for more than 60 minutes at a time, except when sleeping. If you have a preschooler in the house, this explains a lot – they are ALWAYS on the move!

To help you plan how to meet these recommended physical needs of your child, check out Active Play! Fun Physical Activities for Young Children from Dr. Craft’s Active Play. The program costs $39 for both the book and DVD together plus shipping and handling. And be sure to check out what our Schoolhouse Review Crew had to say about it here:

A big thank you to Megan of Half-Pint House for writing this introductory post.

Progeny Press was begun in 1992 when homeschoolers Michael & Rebecca Gilleland were unable to find any classic literature studies from a Christian worldview.  Fast forward over twenty years and this family-owned, family-operated business  now has over 100 such study guides–each still reviewed and edited by the Gillelands to make sure it adheres to their high standards of literary analysis and biblical application.

Each guide begins with a synopsis of the book, a brief biography of the author; and suggested pre-reading  activities.  The book being studied is divided into reading sections and for each section the guide has vocabulary exercises; comprehension, analysis, and application questions; and discussion questions of related Biblical themes.  Finally, there is a complete answer key.

In order to properly work through a Progeny Press Study Guide, a student will need access to a dictionary, a thesaurus, a Bible (NIV is used in the guide) and may benefit from Internet access or a set of encyclopedias.  The guides are available as printed booklets or PDF files on CD-ROM or instant downloads.  The new “Interactive” PDF format allows the student to type their answers into assigned fields on the computer screen.

Progeny Press organizes its catalog into four age groups: Lower Elementary (1-3), Upper Elementary (3-5), Middle School (5-8), and High School (9-12).  For convenience, you may purchase both the study guides and the  books on which they’re based on the website.

Members of the Schoolhouse Review Crew received one or more of the following:

Elementary:

Hall of Doors: The Dragon’s Hoard Study Guide and paperback copy of Hall of Doors: The Dragon’s Hoard book by  Rebecca Gilleland.

Middle School:

Eagle of the Ninth Study Guide ($16.99)   The novel is by Rosemary Sutcliff and takes place in Roman occupied Britain in 125 A.D.

The Golden Goblet Study Guide ($16.99) The novel is by Eloise Jarvis McGraw and takes place in Ancient Egypt.

Treasure Island Study Guide (16.99)  The novel is by Robert Louis Stevenson.  The setting is 18th century England and an Island of undisclosed location.

High School:

Beowulf Study Guide ($18.99)    The Guide is based on the Seamus Heaney translation of the Epic poem set in 6th century Scandinavia.

The Hobbit Study Guide ($18.99)  The novel is by J.R.R. Tolkien and takes places in mythical Middle Earth.

Things Fall Apart Study Guide ( $18.99) The novel is by Chinua Achebe and the setting is Colonial Africa in the 1800’s.

Progeny Press recommends  working through one guide page per day, making each study last 8-12 weeks (Lower Elementary titles may be shorter).  For transcript purposes, a High School level guide can be recorded as 1/4 credit hour.