Frugal Mommas Friday Linkup #5

Frugal Mommas - Linky 5 - Home and Homeschool

Welcome to the new Frugal Friday Home and Homeschool link up! We are off to a stellar start with this weekly post and share on our group blog. The FM team is Pinning and sharing your links and we are thrilled to get to know you and your blogs better. Don't blog? You are sure to find a recipe, home project, or homeschool resource that will be just right for your family. If you are looking for great ideas for your home and homeschool, you've come to the right place! At Frugal Mommas, we are all about "Abundant Family Living on a Frugal Budget".

This Week's Featured Posts

Campfires & Cleats-Frugal Travel Organized Home/Organized School   Busy Mama Cleaning Solution Fall Fun - My Peace in the Puzzle   Emma Owl- Footprint Tree Occupational Therapy - DIY  
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Try a New Recipe Tuesday- 9/22

It is that time of the week again!  :-)

The most viewed post from last week's hop was:

Pumpkin Spice No-Bake Cookies from Tots and Me

An InLinkz Link-up

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TOS Review- Fascinating Education

Today I am reviewing Fascinating Chemistry, an online program offered by Fascinating Education.

This 18-lesson introductory program is geared toward the right-brain.  Dr. Marguiles, the founder and creator of Fascinating Education, supplements his narration with drawings, photographs, animation and other illustrations.  This engages the right as well as the left hemispheres of the brain.  Most tasks in life involve the contributions from both hemispheres.  So, it is important that Dr. Marguiles is engaging both in his "classroom" content.

When problems are represented at higher levels of abstraction, learning can be integrated into larger schemas that enhance memory, learning and cognitive flexibility.  Starting with major concepts and repeatedly returning to them during a visually simulating lecture enhances understanding and memory, a phenomenon that will increase as the two hemisphere stimulation continues.

Dr. Marguiles is a neurologist and understands very well how the brain works and how to most effectively present information that will not only be learned, but retained.

Kiddo #2 worked on the lessons several times a week.  He most especially liked that real-life scenarios were used and that the lessons followed a story-line.  It was not, in his words, "dry and boring" like most science books.  I find it sad that a subject that can be so engaging and interesting becomes so dull in most classrooms today.  No wonder our kids do not want to pursue careers in the sciences!

I liked that there was a scripted text available of each lesson's presentation.  This was helpful for Kiddo's review and for me to be able to keep up with what he was learning without having to watch the entire lecture myself.  There are quizzes to test progress as well as labs and chemistry math problems to solve.  The labs consist of a printable pdf that explains not only its purpose, but how it links to the lesson, what is needed to conduct it and instructions on how to complete it.  Most simply used commonly-found household items.

Each lesson includes a menu that allows the student to gauge his/her progress.  They can always re-watch a segment if need be.  A feature I liked especially is the "Catching Your Breath" slides and "What You Know So Far," ones that review the material covered to that point.

The program is engaging both visually and auditorily and has features that will well-equip your student as either a full curriculum or a supplement to your current program.  There is also a Fascinating Physics and Fascinating Biology.  My colleagues on the Crew reviewed these, as well.

To see the course outline and sample lesson for Fascinating Chemistry, click here.  

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My Week in Review #45

Looking forward to seeing what you all share about your adventures this past week.  I am sharing in the first spot below about our adventurous week, and that is truly was!  :-)

An InLinkz Link-up

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My Week in Review/ Weekly Wrap-up/THMJ- 9/19

What a great and adventure filled week here at the Home to 4 Kiddos!  :-)

The kiddos have been working hard on their schoolwork/classes, but of course, there has to be some fun hands-on activities in there like mummifying apples.  You can't study the Ancients without doing some fun experiment regarding mummification!  :-)  We will let you know in the next few days how our "mummies" turned out.  :-)

On Thursday, my birthday, my hubby made me a yummy breakfast and then we headed with some dear friends to the Sight and Sounds Theater in Lancaster, PA too see Joseph. (they were offering an extremely generous homeschool discount and my friend gave me my ticket as a birthday present!!!)  What an amazing production.  Wow!  And, to top it off, one of my friends made me cupcakes and I got serenaded with "Happy Birthday" right there at a bench on the grounds of the theater.  :-)

My parents made me a delicious birthday dinner, so we headed there upon returning from the show for some yummy eats and some Thursday night football.

On Friday, we again trekked up to Lancaster County (I just LOVE it there!) to the annual Cherry Crest Adventure Farm's homeschool days.  If you have never been able to visit Cherry Crest, I strongly encourage you to take the time and do it.  There are over 50 hands-on fun activities for kids as well as a 5-acre corn maze.  The maze has all kinds of fun surprises inside including a zipline, sliding board and even a cafe, water stations and port-a-potties!  It is a family-centered and wholesome place; one that I am pleased that my children ask to visit every year.  We were glad that some good friends got to join us.  It was so much fun!

My posts this past week:

Try a New Recipe Tuesday- so many delicious recipes shared!
TOS Review- Stinky Kid Math- a great resource for Algebra and Geometry
TOS Review- Super Teacher Worksheets- over 10,000 worksheets and more!

Linking up today with My Week in Review, Homeschool Mother's Journal, Weekly Wrap Up, 

Hope you have a wonderful weekend!  God bless!  :-)


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TOS Review- Super Teacher Worksheets

Today I am reviewing Super Teacher Worksheets, for which I received an Individual Membership.



I am trying to find the words to adequately express how completely awesome I found this website!

This site offers over 10,000 worksheets, activities and games.  Yes, over 10,000.  There are also generators where the teacher can make their own flashcards, quizzes, word puzzles and customized math worksheets.

And, if that is not enough for any homeschool mom to do a happy dance, there are also math card games, reading comprehension games, phonics mini-books, memory match games and SO MUCH MORE.

The resources are available in the following categories:

• math
• reading and writing
• phonics and early literacy
• handwriting
• grammar
• spelling lists and worksheets (grades 1-5 and more grades being added!)
• science
• social studies
• holiday
• puzzles and brain teasers
• teacher helpers
• pre-k and kindergarten
• make your own worksheets

In our 4-H group, we are going to be doing some fall and winter animal studies.  I found a great animal-themed scavenger hunt game that we are going to use with the group as an introduction to those studies.  It looks like so much fun. (and very thorough, as well)  For this game, each child is given two worksheets with all kinds of questions on it about various animals.  The answers to these questions can be found from the cards that are "hidden."

Kiddos 3 and 4 are taking an online middle school math class and are learning about some Algebraic concepts.  I am looking forward to using many of the beginning Algebra worksheets available on Super Teacher Worksheets as review and reinforcement for them.

In addition to everything that is offered above, the screen scrolled down to offer even more Algebra choices including Basic Algebra Vocabulary, Algebraic Equations: True or Not True, Algebra Tables, Algebra Word Problems and Equations.  These are definitely an impressive and varied offering for older students.

We have covered the continents and oceans of the world and of course, Super Teacher Worksheets would have something perfect as a reinforcement and review.  I especially liked how this particular offering had the student writing out the names rather than just matching or notating a letter or number.  When the actual name is written, there are connections being made in the brain and there is practice for being able to spell the names correctly.

This year we have also learned about latitude, longitude and the hemispheres.  On the worksheets that were offered, there were matching and multiple choice questions as well as short answer.  This indeed is not "busy" work, but having the students actually use some higher level thinking skills and be able to formulate their responses in writing.

We are big fans of family game night activities and Super Teacher Worksheets did not disappoint in that area, either.  We enjoyed this Moon and space game.

I also made a lot of use of the generator.  In the area of math, there are 8 different generators available including basic and advanced operations.  There is a bingo and flashcard generator in addition to an abc order generator.  The puzzles that can be generated are:

• word search maker
• crossword puzzle
• word scrambler
• missing letters

You can make the following quizzes:

• multiple choice
• matching
• fill-in-the-blanks
• short answer/essay (you will be able to professionally format your essay tests and store them on STW for use anytime)

Newsletter and calendar generation is also available.

We are studying the Ancients this year and I used the Bingo generator to make a fun review of the vocabulary and concepts from the first few chapters.

All of this is available for $19.95 for an entire year.  I know you will enjoy this website as much as I have.  I was so very pleasantly surprised how much was available for older students.  They have an enormous amount of materials for the younger set, as well, but to include material for older students (since my youngest is now in 6th grade) makes it a definite winner for the Home to 4 Kiddos!

To find Super Teacher Worksheets on social media:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/superteacherworksheets
Twitter:  https://www.twitter.com/superteacherwks
Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/superteacherworksheets/
Pinterest:  https://www.pinterest.com/superteacherwks/

To see what my colleagues on the crew had to say about this wonderful resource click on the graphic below:

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TOS Review- Stinky Kid Math

Today I am reviewing  an online learning program called Stinky Kid Math from the company of the same name, Stinky Kid Math.

I received a six-month subscription to their complete program for 2 of my children.  There is a love/hate relationship with math in the Home to 4 Kiddos.  Some of the kiddos love it and some, well, not so much.  Stinky Kid Math is an online Algebra and Geometry program.  It also covers Pre-Algebra, which is right where Kiddos 3 and 4 are with their math, so I was eager to try it out.

The program prides itself on helping students become confident and excited with math in and out of the classroom.  Memorization is taken out and replaced with the how math works.  It is concept-based and this approach has been shown to work wonders.  It is important to remember that competence in math draws on more than the ability to calculate answers efficiently.  It also encompasses problem solving, communicating about mathematical concepts, reasoning and establishing proof, and representing information in different forms.  Making connections among these skills and concepts both in math and in other subjects is something students are more frequently asked to do, both in the classroom setting and later in the workplace.

Stinky Kid Math provides their members with unlimited access to videos, games, book and worksheet practice.  The videos were extremely engaging and presented in a fun way that holds the child's attention.  Most were under three minutes.

Here is a sample lesson for you to see how engaging Todd is for yourself.

Everything that was covered in the videos correlates perfectly with their book.  We would refer to it frequently and even printed some pages out.  The worksheets were a reinforcement and practice tool and went exactly along with what they were learning.  Last, but not least, were the games.  They loved them because they were games.  I loved them because they were not only educational, but reviewed important concepts and ideas.

Todd Matia, the CEO of Stinky Kid Math came up with the program when teaching other teachers how to teach the concepts of Algebra, which are quite abstract.  Many of those attending his class needed a refresher themselves so they could effectively present the material to their own students.  He created the "Stinky Kid" story to bring humor and fun to a subject that many find dry and boring.

Math is heavily used in science, engineering, economics, social studies, communications, etc.  In reality, math is the basic language of the world, for everyone uses math in most everything they do often without even realizing it.

Here is a brief introduction to the program:

But just don't take my word for it.  Stinky Kid Math is offering a free trial to their program.  You can read all about it and sign up here.  If you decide to use the program after the trial, it will cost $9.99 a month for unlimited access to video lessons, math games, books and worksheets.

To find Stinky Kid Math on social media:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/StinkyKidMath
Twitter:  https://www.twitter.com/StinkyKidMath

To see what my colleagues in the Schoolhouse Review Crew had to say about this great math program, click on the graphic below:

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