New App!!!!

Guess what is new with Time4Learning.com?

My kids can now do their school work on my phone!!!!

I am so thrilled. I have a Samsung Galaxy Note 2. Yes, I know there are newer Galaxy Note phones I just have not updated mine yet. But if you know this phone you know that it has a large screen. It is perfect for reading books.  Along with perfect for my kids to do their school work on.

The app is called PUFFIN ACADEMY, not to be confused with any other version of Puffin.

It is free!  It can be downloaded on Android and iTunes. Once you download, all you need to do is select Time4learning.com and sign in like you normally would if you where on the computer. My kids have really enjoyed being able to do school while I am working on our only other computer. One of these days we will get a tablet.

Now to find a way to do vocabulary games on my phone and we will be all set. 

Lil Momma Strouse

Fun we have been having.

We got the program All About Reading Pre-Level. The kids "LOVE" it.  I do believe we will be adding most of the All About Learning curriculum to our elementary homeschool.

(painting with pencil erasers to make blueberry patch)

Of course that is along with Time4learning.com will be used in our homeschool. We have really enjoyed using the Reading Pre-level.  Moose and Honey are always asking for me "Can we do school work?" As if that was the only school we ever did was the reading program.  I would like to add some kind of elementary science to next year. Still looking around to see what will work best for my two youngest.



Lil Momma Strouse

Back to School in a few more days...

Only a few more days until we go back to school. I don't know who dreads it more me or the kids. I have enjoyed the 2 week break from school. Well the littles LOVE school. They love the time4preschool.com and the kindergarden time4learning.com program along with the other LightHouse workbooks we also use. But they are young and they love doing school. They ask daily for school work. We have done some simple things but not "school."

As for Biggun he is not happy about going back to school work. But he will be more happy then he was last semester cause now he has his own laptop to work on for school. We will be adding Time4Learning.com's Algebra. I have been using time4learning.com forever it seems and did not know they had Algebra as an option. But we will try it and see how it goes. He will also be able to do his spelling list on Spellingcity.com.  There are spelling list by grade but we make our own. Since he is in 8th grade.

Lil Momma Strouse

Strouse Academy in Full Swing!!!!

Oh boy how do ya'll w/ more then 3 kids do it? I honestly don't know how you do it. I am struggling w/ just 3. But 5 or even 8 kids. WOW don't know how you do it. Bless you and God be with you during your school year and daily life. With that being said, Strouse Academy is in full swing.

Now if you don't know that is 8th grader doing writing, a Kindergarten doing cutting and pasting the correct number of items to the right place and a Preschooler who is circling what is different in each line.

You can see my seat is on the other side infront of the computer. I can work and help look stuff up at the same time they are working. The biggest issue we have right now is getting the littles to stop talking while I am giving directions to Biggun. We will get there. It just seems right this very moment that it will take forever. (big smile)

Today they all started to hum different songs at the table so I asked them if they wanted music. (Evil eye goes here) They all said YES, yes yes!!!! So went to youtube and looked up Mozart. That totally shocked them but they all stopped humming their own song to hear what was being played. Which made this momma smile!!!

Here are some pic of our day today....

Biggun needs to work on co-op Us Geography cause the teacher keeps sending home papers where we have to fill in the blanks. We will be adding some US Geography games to help him with that.  

Well this blog needs to end cause Honey is bugging me to do her daily Time4Learning.com activities for Kindergarten.

Hope your school year is getting off to a great start.

Lil Momma Strouse

School w/o a Computer - Oh My!

Most of you know that we use Time4Learning.com as our homeschool core curriculum.  Well I new last Friday (12/23) that I was going to have to drop off the laptop on Monday (12/6) so I had to think ahead and do some non computer planning for Biggun's school.

Well since it is the holiday's I did choose to take a break from Science and Social Studies this week.  But for Math, I was able to go back assign him some printable worksheets from the week before assignments. It was a wonderful way to have extra practice on some harder assignments (fractions).  I am so glad we did this week of review.   

We have been going through Abeka's  Pilgrims Progress and it has been great.  Biggun has really enjoyed it and the conversations have been great too.

Lil' Momma

do not = don't

can not = can't

could not = couldn't

did not = didn't

Those are word combination's that some kids have trouble with. Often you hear the negative words when learning this concept.

Learning where to put that apostrophe or teaching contractions can sometimes be a hard. Specially when there are some words that are words that can be confused with contractions like...

its - it's

their, there - they're 

your - you're

to just name a few.

Contraction games are a fun way of learning where to put that apostrophe.

Lil' Momma

Games

Games, Games Games our children are always playing games.  From board games, games on the hand held toys like DS and Game Boy, game stations like Wii and PS2, to online games. 

Some of my favorite games are the ones that are teaching our children at the same time as they are playing!!!  Like ....

This game has money, math, reading and so much more....
 Oh and what about this one....

What a fun game for the new speller or reader and it is very portable.
Speaking of portable there are games on the DS or Gameboy...

 

This game covers all kinds of math, logic and more...

Then there are the games on the internet from sites like  Learning Games for Kids, here you will find interactive math programs and online math flash cards among other things. Then there are sites like SpellingCity.com that has all kinds of ways to work on your spelling.

In today's world where we have all kinds of learning styles.  There is a "GAME" out there for everyone! 






Lil' Momma

Text to Speech

Did you know that there are all kinds of programs out there that turn text into speech?  I knew they were out there but did not realize how many different ones there are. 

Well many of you may or may not know that Biggun has trouble w/ reading.  He might be 10 and he might be in 5th grade w/ his comprehension of educational material but his reading level is much lower. He shows signs of dyslexia but we can not afford to have him tested and have not figured out how to have him tested in the school system w/o enrolling him in public school.  He does things like turns letters around, reads words like "a" and says "the" He will totally put letters in the wrong place in a word.  But he does not do it all the time, which tells me he has memorized a very large amount of words.

That was not what this blog was supposed to be about.  Now you have some background on my wonderfully gifted in other areas 10 year old. I will tell you we were looking for a text to speech program to use w/ Time4Learning.com.  We really enjoy this program but some of the upper grade level assignments have a lot of reading and very little reading it to you.  So I went on a hunt for a text to speech program.  Time4Learning.com did share a wonderful program that they recommend but it is for PC's and we have a MAC.

Boy was I surprised to find out that MAC's have a text to speech program built in!!! Yep, all I had to do is go to my
System Prefernce
Speech
Text to Speech
Set the KEY (short cut keys) we chose control z

Now my son can highlight anything and have it read back to him.  Oh but he learned to only highlight small amounts at a time, cause once it starts to read back it does not stop till it is all read. :^)

I sure do love this boy!!!!

Lil' Momma

Featued on.....

I was featured on the Time4Learning Parent Community Forum check out my interview....


 Meet-the-Member-Strouse-House

Lil' Momma

Time4Learning

   

In 2007 we started using Time4Learning.  Biggun really enjoyed it.  We had to stop because his reading level was not moving as fast as Time4Learning was.  (My son shows signs of dyslexia causing him to slow down.) Well his reading level has improved, so we have gone back to Time4Learning.  Biggun is doing great!  He got up this am and was almost done w/ his schooling before I ever out of bed.  He is doing Language Arts and Math on Time4Learning.  We had originally only planned on him doing Language Arts on T4Ling but after we had a small issue w/ the math program he was using we decided to add in Math. The first day of math he was working on it after I left for work, his Dad was home w/ him, he called me at work and was SOOO excited.  "Mom, I got a 100% on my first Math quiz!"

We have a rule if he does not get 80% or higher on a quiz then he has to retake it.  So far he has only had to take two quiz's in LA so far.  He is really doing good and loves the characters on the program.  I will be in the other room w/ the littles and I can hear him giggling at the program.  

As most mom's know homeschool, private school or public school kids just don't like to do school work because it is well, WORK.  It has been a great to hear him enjoying his school work.

On a side note I would like to share a treasure I found today.  Thanks to a blog I follow, Heart of the Matter they posted this great resourse for FREE audio books.  And we use TONS of audio books in our home.  Audio School
Lil' Momma