I found this video very helpful in explaining what and how IEW Pals work.I’ll advise you that it’s about an hour long but it’s worth watching it all the way through.
IEW PALS
Institute of Excellence Writing(IEW) is a multi sensory and award winning program that is used in both public schools and homeschools.The public school books from what I understand is common core aligned while the homeschool books are not.Majority of homeschoolers will not use Common core alignment materials. Some do but again it’s individual preferences on the parent’s part.It does look intense and like a lot of work but if you watch some videos on it, it really isn’t and if you need to you can always break the lessons into several days or weeks. This is a mastery program that goes wherever your child is at. There is no behind in the program and I love the director of the program has actually acknowledged it himself. I will be purchasing it for my daughter to see how it works for her. With undiagnosed ADHD it should work and it covers all areas of language arts including writing so it seems to cover more than everything I want in a program. We’ll see how it goes once I get my hands on it. Has anyone used the program? Let me know!
Welcome Back
It’s been a long time since I last posted to this blog but we are still homeschooling and so much has happened.My daughter is now 7 almost 8 and diagnosed with autism, language disorder, odd(oppositional defiant disorder),sensory processing disorder,gross/fine motor delays and so much more but she is not vaccinated which some of the more woke moms who homeschool will know about the dangers of shots but that’s not for this blog.
Much of our curriculum still follow a mastery approach. I am not sure I posted about it on here but if I didn’t we do mastery. When I “grade” my daughter there are certain things I use so:Some are M which is for mastery,I is Introduced a new skill/concept,P is progress. Now if I circle something it means one of two things that she did it on her own or she got it wrong intentionally or just not focusing. One thing I have found helpful aside a bunch of hands on manipulatives/games etc is keep the lessons short. Charlotte Mason approach is wonderful for this especially if you have a potential ADD/ADHD child. The lessons are just 5 minutes. Some curriculum that we’ve used that meet Charlotte Mason approach in length of a lesson is Queen’s Homeschool, Learning Language Arts Through Literature,Masterbooks,Apologia(we haven’t used yet) are all excellent. However other curriculum such as the typical textbook approach can be modified as well just doing 1-2 pages per session as child tolerates. I also make my own worksheets.We do as much as she will tolerate for as short as 5- 10+ minutes if I am able to then it’s break/reward time such as electronics/Mom time then we resume after say 10,15 minutes. I will do another post tomorrow to discuss our current Curriculum and what we will be using next.
Homeschooling
Every so often my mom,a former public school teacher, gets on me because my daughter is not doing “preschool ” meaning using curriculum which I have more than enough for her at this point but I’m not going to force her or fight her to do school. Why some might ask? Let me ask you this… when you were in school and by school I’m talking traditional public/private schools did you like being forced to follow a schedule,have your day basically dictated to you away from your parents and come home all tired from teachers telling you what to do,how to behave and discipline you then expected to do a ridiculous amount of homework?
Well I didn’t and at times I felt forced to do the homework which I’m not going to do for my daughter. I believe she’s learning more than she needs at this point in her life. As creative as she is without electronics (which gets taken away when she refuses to do school) everything she has around the house is all very educational so even if all she does is play with a train set she’d still learning,playing a game still learning… reading a book or looking at pictures in a book still learning. I’m not one to compare her to another child but when she’s willing to learn more or do school we have more than she needs. For now we’re unschooling and believe it or not it’s still homeschooling… child led,untraditional,gentler approach to school.
Think I’ll get her some games though since she’s taken interest in games recently. We can gameschoool… yes it’s actually a way of homeschooling.
Horizons Preschool Book 1 review
Ok guys v is just days away from finishing up the first book! Overall I’m going to say it has went well once we started incorporating unschooling into the mix. Otherwise it’d be a fight every single day so not worth it when we homeschool year around.
So when we first started v was finishing up her 3rd year of preschool and just starting to rote count really. At that point v knew her colors down cold and abc(identifying,recognizing and sounds down cold), knew her numbers 1-9 recognizing it very well.
When we started horizons preschool we were finishing up Heart of Dakota little hands to heaven and she was rote counting up to 4 at this point. Today as we near the end of book 1 here’s what she’s learned and mastered:
Got her numbers 0-10 down cold( note she didn’t know 0 prior to horizons)
Starting to recognize patterns (note she could do some patterns prior but not that much).
Got her shapes down cold
Able to recognize numbers up to 12( working on 11-20)
Rote counts from 8-11 as of this post
Also recognizes 11-12 currently
Knows her abc which we are using different curriculum for writing and abc
Tracing is better
Cutting is better
Drawing lines is improving
Able to connect the dots
We don’t do everything even in order but we do enough to know when she has grasped a concept and enough for review. We do this in all areas for school. I challenge her but not to frustrate her.As with anything we use other supplements/ manipulatives whether it be games reading whatever.
Dash into Reading’ author on the news
Dash into Reading is on the news! Check out Amelia’s first news segment! We will be ordering set 2 in a few days which is being shipped later this summer!
Dash Into Reading set 2
Ok guys! Have you heard of Dash into Reading ??? If you haven’t check it out! It is so beautifully illustrated by the author herself who just so happens to be an artist and homeschool mom! The books are based on her farm horse Dash. Books are super simple and reasonably priced. Yes common core free. I ALWAYS inquire if I’m unsure of the company’s stance! Vicki has been using the books from time to time and it’s helped her sound out words in All About Reading. We also use Learning literature through language arts blue book. Anyway they’re taking preorders for set 2 on Monday!
Science Shepherd News and review
Science Shepherd is releasing new one year curriculum for elementary kiddos in 2020 and I’m so excited to let my readers know!
We just started using Science Shepherd a few days ago and I wasn’t planning on doing any actual science curriculum until she finished her last year of preschool. But really as far as material she knows concepts and skill wise she’s doing anything from preschool level to 1st grade material at 4.5 years old. Science Shepherd is creation based science researched by the author himself. It is DVD friendly and lessons are just 2-5 minutes long with up to 2-5 questions to answer.
It’s written for grades 1-6 and 2 different workbooks for parents to choose from depending on difficulty and understanding.
It’s engaging and keeps v interested in science. You can see how well she grasps it either on my Facebook page hihomeschool or Instagram.
MyFirstWorkout
I recently came across a workout company that is designed for kids and since I have never heard of anything like this until a month or two ago I decided to check out their website href=”https://myfirstworkout.com”>https://myfirstworkout.com to see what it’s all about.
It looks really easy to use and adaptable. With this in mind I decided to try contact the company to see whether the company is for common core or not. It took awhile to get a response but she did respond saying that she was trying to get into public schools in the East Coast but I assured her if you’re trying to market to homeschoolers as well because we homeschool and I’m planning on doing this at home with my daughter….they would be most grateful if she doesn’t align to Common Core Standards. So guys get the word out.
Schoolhouseteachers.com amazing new year discount!
I have been debating for a few years to sign up for Schoolhouseteachers.com and I have been so busy with my daughter’s epilepsy that I almost overlooked that they had a discount until today and it is only $90 for a year! I got the reminder on Instagram while looking at the stories. From today I had V watch the preschool bible…Deal ends probably at midnight EST!
Loreene's Homeschooling 
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