The Family Journal (A Homeschool Crew Review)

Disclosure: I received this product free through the Homeschool Review Crew   

 

Occasionally, we get reviews for items that I've never heard of that seem to fall into place just at the right time.  These are typically items I never would have realized I needed or wanted, but once I had them in hand, I can't imagine how I would have done without them.   This review is one of those such items.  For the last few weeks, our family has been reviewing The Family Journal by Byron's Games and it has quickly become a resource that has become invaluable to us during an extremely stressful season in our lives. 

What is The Family Journal?

The Family Journal is an undated planner combined with a grateful journal to be used as a family.  Containing planning pages as well as guided questions to help parents and kids prepare for both short and long term goals for year, month and week, this journal also offers discussion questions to focus on appreciating and reflecting on things such as quality time spent together, discussing family history and traditions, dreams and aspirations, budgeting and more.

The Family Journal, Creating a Climate for Closeness with:
● Weekly, Monthly, and Yearly Family and Individual Goals
● Deep Discussion Prompts
● Influential Quotes for Reflection
● Fun Family Activities
● Guided Family Meetings
● And More!

 The Journal itself is a 289 page hardcovered book.  It is broken down into two main section.  The first containing planning pages for 12 months with four pages per month.  These contain a blank calendar page which can be started any time of the year (no need to wait til January), a page for family goals and task planning, and two pages for a monthly review at the end of the month to reflect on how well the family did in achieving the goals set for each month. The second section has pages for 52 weeks. Each week also spans 4 pages, with sections to review the previous week, establish new goals for the upcoming week and how the family might work together to help each other accomplish the goals, and then a short discussion section focusing on a theme that can open communication and help the family learn more about each other or learn something fun about the world around us.  Also included are weekly "Connection Activities" that make suggestions such as visiting a museum, planting a garden together, or write a silly story together.  Also included each week are quotes that are inspirational or just fun. 

The journal also includes ribbon book marks, which are handy for marking your place in both the month and weekly portion of the journal you are at, making it very easy to go straight to where you are at.  I really thought this was a nice touch and it was super helpful for the kids when they wanted to review their goals for the week.

How Did We Use It?

As mentioned in the opening of this review, this journal came to us during what is a very stressful time in all of our lives.  After ten years of being stationed at our base in California, we are in the process of packing up and moving halfway across the country for what is called in the military as a PCS or a Permanent Change of Station.  This move has been extremely stressful.  First, we were given orders in a very short period of time - typically you are given 9 months to a year heads up.  We were given less than 4 months warning.  Second, after ten years, we have accumulated a lot of stuff..  Third, this is the only home the kids have really ever know since they were so little when we moved here.  Fourth, moving means LOTS of things we have to get accomplished in a very short period of time. 

For this review, we decided to use this family planner to help us reduce some of the stress and anxiety of this move, and I must stay, it has REALLY helped to get organized. 

Each week, we hold a family meeting, usually after we return home after chapel each Sunday.  Our first meeting, we discussed plans for the year, as well as the month of February and the upcoming week.  And since it was our very first family meeting using the journal, we were prompted to work together to create a family mission statement after answering questions in regards to how describe our family, how we aspire to talk and treat each other as well as those outside our family, what our families values and beliefs were and stuff like that.  I really enjoyed hearing how each member of our family described our family and our values and made me very happy that the kids view our family in such positive ways.

Following our mission statement, we started making our monthly and weekly goals. 

 

Working on Monthly Goals for February

 

Since we were already in the moving mindset, this allowed us to make realistic goals for the week: what each person would try to tackle before the end of the week, what we needed to accomplish as a family, and how we could reward ourselves at the end of the week for accomplishing our goals. After making our weekly goals, we then had a nice discussion where we each went around the room and named one thing we were grateful for that week.  We ended with agreeing that we would hold our next meeting the following Sunday following church. 

 

We left the journal on our coffee table in the family room, where it was easily accessible to everyone to review their goals for the week. 

And at the end of the week, when we regrouped to see what we accomplished, we realized that with the exception of giving the dog a bath, we pretty much accomplished everything we set out to do.  Everyone had donated enough items to fill a trash bag, the household chores that were asked of them were done each day, and alot of unnecessary clutter had been tossed out. 

Lately, the kids seem to really look forward to the Sunday meetings.  I think they enjoy not only the time with the family, but I think they enjoy the fact that they know that at the meeting, their accomplishments at achieving the weekly goal will be recognized by the group. 

This Sunday will be the next meeting where we will actually plan for the month.  Sadly, we were unable to meet our Monthly Challenge, which was a trip to Death Valley since our car had broke down and was in the repair shop for most of the month - however, we are going this weekend, so just a few days late.  

This journal really has been a God send to us during this move and we will continue to use it right until we lock the door and turn in the key to our house and I have no doubt that it will then sit on the coffee table at our new home as we continue to use it to make plans, set goals and accomplish tasks at our next destination. It's a great way to allow each family member the opportunity to have their voices heard and contribute to the family discussion each week and I think it would make a great addition to any family. 

 

 

Social Media Links

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Members of the Crew were invited to review either The Family Journal or the Maestro Mastery - Explore the Composers both from Byron's Games.  Be sure to click the banner below to read their reviews today.

Failure Free Reading Home Edition (A Homeschool Crew Review)

Disclosure: I received this product free through the Homeschool Review Crew  

 

I love reading and I have really tried to instill a love of reading to my kids. Both of my daughters love to read, but when it comes to my son, reading has been his biggest nemesis.  We have tried other programs that have helped with his reading but they stop short beyond just teaching phonics, which means that while it helped with simple words, once he moved on to bigger, more complicated words, he continued to struggle. 

Recently we were given the opportunity to review Failure Free Reading Home Edition, a browser based reading program from Failure Free Reading Home Edition. I was curious to try this program to see how it would work compared to other programs and see how it might fill the holes in Garrett's reading skill level.

About Failure Free Reading

Failure Free Reading builds off the belief that when it comes to struggling readers, we often underestimate the level of their ability as well as using the same instructional approach to reading.  Instead of using the same approach, Failure Free Reading believes by changing the approach and the child's reading abilities will improve, regardless of age, or reading ability.

Failure Free Reading is a nationally recognized reading comprehension program for struggling readings, especially those in which a phonics based program has failed to produce adequate results as well as for students who can read aloud but display little to no comprehension to the information they have read. 

The program is designed to be both parent and child friendly. Parents are given two instructional online options: (1.) child initiated, self-paced, multi-sensory talking software lessons, complete with video instruction, or (2.) adding a scripted parent-led guided-reading instructional component that precedes the child's online software instruction.
 

 

Failure Free Reading is 100% digital and also includes downloadable reinforcement activities. Failure Free Reading's daily lessons and thousands of reinforcement activities teach mastery of the critical academic vocabulary deemed necessary for reading success, from beginning 1st grade up to SAT/ACT. A diagnostic assessment helps to identify the child's current academic reading grade level and places the child in the instruction that corresponds to this level.

 

Our Experience with Failure Free Reading Home Edition

 We were given a 6 month membership to the Failure Free Reading Home Edition, which I have been using with Garrett for the last few weeks. 

Straight out of the gate, I wasn't sure if this was going to be a fit for us.  To get started, we had to take a pretty lengthy  assessment test, which Garrett got pretty frustrated with quickly.  This assessment took him about 40 minutes to complete, and unfortunately, it wasn't set up so that he could stop, take a break and come back and pick up where he left off. Stopping meant he would have to start over again, so we stuck it out. 

I'm glad that we did.

I did not help Garrett with the assessment.  I was actually VERY surprised at how much he was able to do on his own, considering this is the kid who usually stalls out while reading simple words such as "our". However, he did a really good job at reading the sentences and completing the assessment, reading words much more difficult then I was expecting. I quickly realized that yes, indeed, I underestimated his skill level and had somewhat crippled his reading in that I was often helping him with more difficult words that I just figured he wouldn't be able to read.

Once the assessment was completed, we began using the lessons. Each day, he would complete one of the lessons online, and then I would turn to the teacher's guide provided by the program.  The guide provided scripted lessons for me to use to instruct further on what Garrett worked on with the lesson. Following the scripted lesson, he would then complete worksheets that reiterated what he learned for the lesson. With both the online lessons as well as the scripted lesson and the worksheets, we usually spent about 20 minutes on each lesson. 

The online lessons are extremely short and followed a similar format.  First he was introduced to the words the was going to work with for that unit. Each unit would introduce five new words.  Students learn how to spell the word, the definition of the word, and how to use the words correctly in sentences. 

They also would answer questions about the words that work on understanding as well as reading sentences and then having to answer a question (using complete sentences) about what they read.   Each of these lessons take maybe 5 minutes to complete.  Each unit has 5 lessons that word with the 5 words that are the focus of that unit.  

 

After completing the lesson, we would then  continue the lesson away from the computer.  This is when I would open the teachers manual and begin the scripted lesson.  We were doing this reverse to what the program wanted (using the teachers lessons first and then using the online) but we found this worked better for us because Garrett would zone out on me if I read the scripted lesson first, but would pay better attention to both portions of the lesson if we did the computer work first.

At the end of each unit the students complete worksheets from the student workbook to show their understanding.  These worksheets are pretty easy, especially if the student has been paying attention to the lessons. There are reading application pages that present a sentence and then the student answers questions about the sentence, as well as matching words with their definitions, pages where the student uses the words to fill in the blanks of sentences, and reinforcement activities.

The final aspect of the program is when the student has finished all the units and lessons for a cluster of words. I mentioned that each unit covers 5 words, and the cluster covers 6 units.  At the end of the cluster, the student should be able to recognize 30 new words.  After completing the exercises and lessons for the cluster, there is a reader available online that uses all the words.  The student should be able to read and understand the reader upon completion of the cluster. 

My overall opinion of the program is positive.  I am curious to see once he completes the first cluster what type of words the next cluster will contain because most of the words for this particular cluster relate to war and destruction, but it appears that's what the reader is about.  It's covered material about weapons of destruction, dictators of other countries starting wars, and stuff like that.  I'm just curious if the next cluster and reading will be of a more lighthearted material, not that I am opposed to the material currently presented. 

I have found he had learned and is able to recognize the words that has been presented and has been able to properly use them correctly both on the worksheets as well as answering the scripted questions from the teacher's manual.

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Personal Finance Lab (A Homeschool Crew Review)

Disclosure: I received this product free through the Homeschool Review Crew 

When I was in school, we had to take an economics course.  The course was for 1 semester and my teacher was Mr. Brown.  For that semester, twice a week, we would head to Mr Brown's classroom and we would learn about things such as inflation, the federal reserve, economic surplus and shortages and other not so interesting terms. However, in that course, we were also taught some pretty useful things such as filing taxes, balancing a checkbook and using a credit cards responsibly, as well as how to play the stock market. Years later, when my oldest graduated high school, I was pretty disappointed to find that economics had become a thing of the past, leaving students essentially unprepared for these real world challenges that would have a huge impact on their soon to be adult lives.

When we were given the opportunity to review the PersonalFinanceLab Budgeting Game, Stock Market Game and integrated curriculum from PersonalFinanceLab.com, I saw an opportunity to introduce these very important skills to my own children as part of their own school curriculum. 

PersonalFinanceLab offers a large amount of lessons and curriculum designed to teach the ins and outs of both personal and business finances as well as how the stock market opporates using hands on instruction.  By doing so, students work in "real time" as they find themselves having to make financial decisions that have effects on future outcomes, Students manage their long-term budget and/or stock game portfolio over the entire duration of the program.  The games are enhanced with a 300+ lesson curriculum library. 

For this review period, I opted to use the program with Ashleigh, focusing on the budgeting aspect of the program. 

 

We found that working twice a week for about 20 minutes a day worked really well for us.  Each period, Ashleigh would complete one "month" of the budget game.   For the duration of the "month", she would receive weekly paychecks, have to pay monthly expenses such as rent, car insurance, car note, cable bill and credit card bills as well as how to navigate unexpected expenses that randomly pop up during the time period.  

The basic scenario is that the player is a full time college student, living on their own, who also works part time. At the start of the game, the student makes a decision as to how their living environment would be - would you live alone or with roommates, for example.  These initial decisions have an impact on the amount of monthly expenses the student would pay each month.  Ashleigh opted to have multiple roommates in a larger home which meant that the monthly expenses such as rent and utilities were split through the household, lowering her share of the expenses. This can be changed thru the game, if the student decides they wish to change the living situation, which changes the game dynamics.  

Monthly overlook - Green for Money In, Red for Money Out

 

At the beginning of each month, Ash would have to figure out what her projected income would be for that month,  how much she would try to put into her savings account, and also how much she expected she would pay out of pocket for any unexpected expenses that she might incur.  Then she would proceed thru the month, making sure bills are paid on time (they will incur a late fee if not paid on time), making decisions on whether to pay expenses with either her debit or credit card, and trying to make sure the amount of money going out doesn't surpass the amount of money coming in.  

Time to pay the car insurance

She would also have to make decisions as to what to do on the weekends. Each Saturday she would have to decide whether she would spend that day studying, doing household chores, socializing with friends, or working extra hours at her job. These decisions would have an impact over the game and had to remain balanced - neglecting her studies meant she would have to hire a tutor to get caught up for her class, while neglecting the household chores might result in a pest problem and the added expense of an exterminator. However, there might be hidden expenses (or bonuses) involved with each option - studying might have a slight cost because you provided snacks for the study group, while household chores might earn you a financial bonus because you spent time clipping coupons during that time. 

Thru the course of the game, students also have to read brief lessons and answer a question about the lesson in order to continue.  Usually there was one question per month (although I don't remember one in April, so it may be random). The question would pop up, asking the student to view the lesson and then answer the question.

When the student would view the lesson, the lesson would pop up in another screen, allowing the student to view the material without leaving the game.  Within the lesson material the student will find the correct answer for the question so they can continue.

Answering the question correctly gives the student a small financial bonus ( an additional $25 dollars) while answering the question incorrect resulted in a deduction of 10 dollars each time the question was answered wrong. 

Our Experience and Opinion

Ashleigh has really enjoyed playing the budget game and it's really been a great learning tool for her. It's also been something that she can relate to "real life" as she sees these same scenarios play out in our household.  For example, one of the things that happens in the Budget Game with PersonalFinanceLab is that every so often, a large unexpected expense pops up (one costing several hundred dollars) which doesn't really fit into the budget and with the hopes that the student has put enough away in her savings to cover such expenses.  Ashleigh saw this happen first hand when early this month we needed an unexpected car repair on our main vehicle, which also resulted in an unexpected expense to keep our second car reliable while our other was gone for repairs. She was able to see firsthand how the scenario on the game played out in her own household and how by having the money in our savings account for these types of unexpected happenings, we were able to take care of it without putting a financial strain on the household. 

Thru the course of the game, Ashleigh and I have had many discussions about things such as when to use a credit card to pay for things and when she should use a debit card, whether or not she would keep an outstanding balance on it, and what happens when she only pays the minimum amount due each month.  These are all things I think are very important to know and I found that PersonalFinanceLab does a great job explaining these points. 

The budget game takes 18 "months" to work thru.  For now, our focus has been strictly on the budget game, but eventually I would like to have her work thru the Stock Market Game.  Combined with the budget game, I think the two together would give Ashleigh a very well rounded understanding of finance and strategy, preparing her well ahead of time for the real world. 

 

 Add to that the extensive lesson library with articles about important things like student loans, mortgages, health and life insurance, unemployment and tax situations, I honestly feel that PersonalFinanceLab is a well rounded, well designed website that keeps students engaged and gives them powerful tools that they will use later in life. 

Social Media Links: PersonalFinanceLab.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/personalfinancelab/
Instagram: @pfinlab / https://www.instagram.com/pfinlab/
YouTube: Stock-Trak - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1bctfGzsS_YVQT1MGMRIGQ

Members of the Crew have been using PersonalFinanceLab with their families, including both the Budget game and the Stock Market game.  Be sure to click the banner below to read their reviews today.

Wordless Wednesday

 

We had a great Valentine's day this past Sunday, going out with friends for brunch and dancing. 

A NOT so Wordless Wednesday

 

 Sometimes, when it rains, it indeed pours, or so it seems.. 

Last week kicked off pretty badly.  My husband got about a mile down the road heading to work when the Durango started making noises, the check engine light came on, and smoke started pouring out the back.  Thankfully, he was able to turn around and make it home safely. After a quick look under the hood, we both figured the water pump must have gone out.  Not how you want to start a Monday.

Luckily, it's still under warranty so we called the dealership.  They said they were completely backed up til March and didn't have any appointments before then.."But" they said, "if you can get it here to the dealership, we will see if we can fit it in when we can". However, the dealership could not assist in getting the vehicle to them, so on that part, we were on our own. 

Getting a tow truck on base was going to be expensive. Around here, just the hook up is 300 bucks and then they charge by the mile.  The dealership was 40 miles away. We were looking at a good chunk of change.

I called our roadside assistance for our insurance, expecting to be told that no, because the car was at our house and we weren't stranded, that they would not cover the cost of a tow, but figuring it would be better to know for sure than not to call.  Imagine my surprise when they said "Yes, that's not a problem, the tow truck is on it's way". Awesome, we just have to sign the tow truck onto base and we will be good to go.

Yeah, it's never that easy, is it?

My husband goes out to start our second vehicle and the battery is D-E-A-D, dead!!!  To be honest, we knew the battery needed to be replaced and with the cold weather we've had lately, it was too much for it.. Tried to jump it, which it did eventually start, but even after running it for 20 minutes, it again wouldn't start.  Now I've got TWO dead vehicles, and no way to get to the gate to sign on the tow truck.

 

Being a military family, we are all a close knit community.  I messaged a few friends who immediately came to our rescue.  One of our neighbors even offered us the use of their car. One of the guys my husband serves with dropped everything and came over, brought my husband to meet the tow driver, then after the car was loaded, brought him to to the local tire store on base to get a new battery for the second car.

A little over a week later, I'm still without my car. However, the dealership got to it pretty quickly, figured out the problem and ordered the parts.. Sure enough, the water pump was the culprit, as well as a new thermostat and a lower radiator hose.  All covered under warranty, I just have to pay a $100 deductible.   With the battery in the other car, we at least have a working vehicle that gets us around in the meantime. 

What could have been a nearly 1500 dollar issue cost 100 bucks, not counting the price of the battery, as well as a free tow.  But most of all, we got to see how amazing our friends are.  Sometimes it takes a bad Monday to help you see exactly how blessed you truly are!!!

Wordless Wednesday (But on Thursday)

 

 Happy Birthday to Me.. I turned 45 this week.  I got a cake and free Chick-fil-a for dinner (courtesy of our wonderful chapel family).

 

School Mascot

 

 

Anyone else have a pet that somehow thinks that they are part of the lessons?   Newton has decided that he's a subject that should be studied during class time and proceeds to sit on our books and papers while demanding attention.