Cycle 3 History Cards

They're ready!
History cards for Weeks 1-12 are available to download at CC Connected!

2 - Minute History Date Review!

I've LOVED all the important dates in history that we learned this past year in CC! And I've just loved them so much that I do not want Mary (or myself!) to forget them. So, I've come up with an extremely simple way for us to review the dates:

Easy cheesy match-up!
In the center of our dining room table, I have a little basket of stuff (art cards, opera cards, etc.). This game also stays in the basket, and we pull it out and do it about three times a week at snack. All I did was take a piece of yellow construction paper, write the name of the wars and other major events and their corresponding dates, cut them into strips, laminate (always optional, btw), and viola!

This quick review literally takes about two minutes, and I love it! And obviously Mary's very pleased with herself when she matches everything up correctly. ;) Love that girl!
Want the game?
Click here to download!
In other news, my Usborne Books & More kick-off par-tay is TOMORROW! Eeeek! I'm SO excited about beginning this new chapter in my life! Click here to learn why I became a consultant for Usborne.

If you'd like to shop the eShow (which will be closing this week) and get exclusive customer specials, please click here. There are just an insane number of books to choose from (over 1,400 titles!), so I made a list of my favorites for the upcoming Cycle 3:

We've had some friends already shop the eShow, and I thank you so much for your support! I'll be starting a VIP guest program soon, too. I'll share more details in just a bit, but basically when you shop with me five times and each order is $35 or over, you'll get a $25 gift certificate after the fifth order. Isn't that awesome?! So, if you shop my eShow and your order qualifies, you'll automatically be entered into the VIP program! I'll keep up with it all - no hassles for you! (yay!)
And if you're curious about how all this book party stuff works, I'll be posting pictures and an update when mine is over so you can see what it's like. Can't wait!

Cycle 3 Memory Work Flip Book is Finished!

The Classical Conversations Cycle 3 memory work flip book is now available on C3 under username: melodystroud.
The pages are 4x6 and fit nicely into a dollar store photo flip book:

This is my Cycle 2 book, as you can tell, but it gives you an idea of what it looks like in case you've never seen the flip book before. Cycle 1 and 2 books are also up on C3, so this one completes the trilogy! ;)
I keep mine in my purse instead of lugging around the Foundations Guide (although, I love my FG, don't get me wrong! Have you ever looked in the back? Excellent information!). This is, of course, not in any way an official CC product; it's just something I came up with to make my life a little easier (thank You, Lord, for the idea!).
I hope this little resource will be a blessing to you as you begin to look ahead to Cycle 3!

Using Puppets

(trumpet fanfare)
Meet King Arithmetickle of Countalot!

Geo Cards - Second Semester

Cycle 2 Geography Cards for Weeks 13-24 are ready!
You can download them from C3 under username: melodystroud.
I didn't include any extra information with this set, since most of the feedback implied that it was unnecessary. Hopefully they will be a blessing to your family if you choose to use them!

The History Sentence Cards for Weeks 13 - 24 are also available now on C3.
Enjoy!

History Sentence Cards - Second Semester

History Sentence Cards for Weeks 13-15 are up on C3!
Search for username: melodystroud
We scramble these up and Mary puts them back in order as she sings the song. I also use them when I tutor, and the kiddos seem to like the pictures. Click here to learn more about the history cards.
I plan to have the rest of the weeks' cards finished before the new year, but we'll have to see. Lots going on around here, as I'm sure it's the same with you, too. :)
Have a restful Sunday, friends!

The $1 Tutor Trick!

If you're a tutor (or a mom reviewing the CC memory work at home) and you get blank stares with little to no participation when you introduce the cubes, or future perfect tense, or other bodies in our solar system, you may want to fork over $1 at your local Target or Wal-Mart and give this trick a try:

Time Periods of Classical Music Song and Game

We'll use this song in Week 19, but I thought I'd go ahead and post it while I have a free minute (so rare nowadays!). Click here to download the free match-up game you see in the video!

Art History Card Game

Meet the Chapmans, a family that has captured my heart. Amanda and I met in a homeschool preschool group a few years ago; she was the first person to tell me about Classical Conversations! We have grown very close this past year, and I am honored to have her in my life. 

Like every family, the Chapmans have had struggles, and I'll let Amanda share more on that in a minute. But despite all of the medical problems in their precious family (her son was just declared legally blind in one eye, and her sweet daughter has had numerous eye surgeries herself), the Light of God has been shining brightly through their lives. If I could pick one word to describe Amanda and Brett, it would be

brave.

Geography Binder

I've really fallen in love with using binders our first year of homeschooling, and after showing you our Science Review binder, here's a quick look at our Geography binder:

I made the cover using the free chevron editable covers found here. 

Science Review Binder

I started out the year with one big Classical Notebook. Turns out, that just wasn't working out too well for us. Mary needed to feel like she was getting through things, and flipping around in her huge binder wasn't doing the trick. So, I've broken it down into individual binders that we can put away when we're finished with that subject (and feel a little sense of accomplishment). Does that make sense? So, instead of one big binder, we have a Geography binder, Science binder, etc.

We've had the Geography binder for a while, and we do activities in it every Thursday - our Geo. day. The Science binder is relatively new, and I thought I'd give you a quick tour through it:

Daily Review - What Works For Us

My girls are auditory learns all the way. It doesn't matter if the History Sentence Cards look fun, or if the Geography Cards are pretty - nope - doesn't interest them much. How dare they! No, instead, just listening to the music (how boring, right?! ;)  ) while having busy hands is the best way for them to internalize the new material. (Yes, that's right, my kids don't like my printables! Oh, the irony!)

So, I make playlists, lots of playlists. I have a playlist for each week of CC, a History playlist for each semester, and a Science playlist by semester. Here's a little peek (click to enlarge):

Art History Game Sample

I've got a sample ready of the art history cards, and I'd love your feedback!

Cycle 2 Geography Cards

Last year, Crecia at Taking It One Day at a Time made awesome geography cards that we used for review. Since God is leading Crecia down a different path this school year, she's given me her blessing to go ahead and create them for Cycle 2.

You can download them from C3 under username: melodystroud.

Memory Work Lap Book Giveaway!

If you're not new to the world of Classical Conversations, then I'm sure you've already seen the amazing Memory Work Lapbooks from Karen at Wisdom And Righteousness. If this is your first time hearing about these, please check them out on her website and come back (she explains them in more detail). These are created to compliment the CC memory work each week, and they are just really, really fun to use during review time! Check them out:

Karen generously gave me one copy of her Cycle 2 lapbook to review and one to giveaway! Thanks so much, Karen! Before we get to my little two cents, I had some questions for Karen about how she goes about making these and how long it takes. Here's my interview with Karen:

Me: When did you start creating the lapbook for Cycle 2, and how long has it taken to get ready? (Okay, so right off the bat, you can tell that I'm not the best at interviews. I mean, this is pretty much the same question worded two different ways. Sheesh! Karen, however, was a lovely sport about it all. Okay, back to the interview!)

Karen:  For some reason, I enjoy coming up with new ides for folding paper, and so whenever a new idea comes together in my mind for a new template, I run home to design it before I forget it!  That said, the creation of the templates has been happening for a couple of years.  I started to bring the Cycle 2 books together once I finished the Cycle 1 Orchestra Book late last fall (2012).  From that time until about early April (2013), I spent every spare moment creating and refining the templates.  Sometimes I have a great idea, but once I design it and print it out, it doesn't work as well as I had planned, so I have to go back and try something new.  Needless to say, we go through a LOT of ink and paper!  This year was fun because my daughter (8) really had fun joining in to cut out a new template and see it come together.  I even found her folding paper into new shapes in her spare time!  (Scary!)  :)  I would say from start to finish, these books take about 8 months to develop.  I am usually working on the Orchestra Lapbooks the remainder of the year. 

I started creating these lapbooks back in 2010 with Cycle 3.  They have come a long way since then.   My readers have made some great suggestions since 2010 and I love trying to integrate them!  New things included in Cycle 2 this year include printing guides, a hyper-linked table of contents to quickly get to the template you need, and a "Binder-Book" option!

Me: What was your favorite part about creating these books?

Karen: My favorite part about creating the books has to be coming up with unique templates that are interactive for the kids.  I want them to be fun, AND for the kiddos to learn in the process! My husband has to feign interest and excitement when I wake him up at 2 a.m. with a new completed template!  The great part is he usually forgets about it by morning so I get to surprise him with it all over again when he wakes up.  He loves this!  (insert sarcasm here)  :).

Me: How has all of this blessed your family?

Karen: The greatest blessing has been meeting and connecting with moms all across the globe!  Can you believe it?  I am amazed at how far the reaches of CC can go!  There have been long conversations that start with help downloading files or general questions, and end up taking an hour or more as we share our families' lives and connect!  I have even been blessed to meet one mom in Nebraska who is now part of an online Bible Study with me, and have found a heart-connection with a fellow CC blogger-friend in Tennessee.  I treasure the ability to be able to have what I feel is a ministry for the Lord, right from my home in a very rural part of the country!  Although I don't get to write as much as I would like, I hope my website is an encouragement to my sisters in Christ, and a place where I can be transparent about what the Lord is teaching me and my family as we journey to eternity.

Doesn't Karen just sound like an awesome person?! There are so many great homeschooling moms that I'll probably only know online, but maybe the Lord will all bring us together in person one day (wouldn't that be an awesome practicum!!)

Okay, now, what do I think about the new Cycle 2 lapbook?

The lapbook was soooo much fun to put together! I'm an organizer/die-hard planner, so this was right up my ally. Mary, who is 5, is not quite cutting accurately yet (said in the nicest way possible), so I did assemble the lapbook binder for her ahead of time. However, while it did take a long time to print, cut, tape everything, it really was enjoyable for me! As Mary gets older, I know she'll love taking part in the actual assembly of the lapbook, so I'm looking forward to good mother-daughter bonding time over this one day. I mentioned that it took a while to put together, and it does, but Karen's addition of the Printing Guide is faaaaabulous! One page told me everything to print on cardstock, regular paper, colored paper, etc. I just printed that page first and went right down the list; it was way too easy! So, while Mary hasn't been able to take part in the cut-and-paste aspect of the lapbook, I know she'll enjoy interacting with it during our memory work review times throughout the year.

I chose to do the binder book version, simply because I l.o.v.e binders. Here are some pictures:

Told you I love binders! Here are all the ones Mary and Anna will use this year. We'll review with our Memory Work Lapbook binder on Funday Mondays (second from the left).

Aren't the paper templates neat?! If Mary were at least seven or eight years old, she would have a blast cutting and folding these with me. Her time's a comin' though. :) For now, she'll have fun filling in the blanks and opening the flaps and other fun things included in the lapbook. It's just a great way to make reviewing the memory work an exciting thing to do! In my opinion, the more ways they see it and say it, the better!

Would you like to win a copy of the complete Cycle 2 lapbook? Go for it!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Bang! Review Game Freebie

Don't you just love review games?!

I'll be tutoring Mary's class at our new CC campus this year (so excited!), so I've been keeping my eyes open for cute games to use in class.

I found Bang! at a wonderful piano teacher blog called Color In My Piano. Wow, is her site amazing! We've used some of Joy Morin's other games with our music practice at home, so I was very excited to come across something I could adapt for use with CC review!

I took an empty tissue box, wrapped it in pretty pink duct tape, printed off some cards, and viola! To play, students pull out a card and answer a review question in that category. If she says the correct answer, the student keeps the card. If she misses it, the class helps, and I'll probably still let her keep the card, depending on the ages in the class (at home, Mary will only get to keep the card if she answers correctly). If a student pulls out a Bang! card, all the cards she's collected must be returned to the pink box. Pretty easy!

Click here to download the Bang! cards and see more of Joy Morin's awesome games!

If you'd like to download the review category cards that I made, please click here. I printed on colored card stock and laminated (because, hey, if it can be laminated, I will laminate). ;)

Have you found any fun review games to use in class or at home? I'm always on the lookout, so holla back!

Check out more review games at Tutor Talk:

Classical Notebook and Music Game Freebie

I'm a copycat. A big one.

So, when I was checking out last week's Trivium Tuesday over at Living and Learning at Home (which really is awesome, by the way. I get so much inspiration from this link-up! Thanks, Amy!), I ran across Brandy's post at Half-a-Hundred Acre Wood about the notebook.

I loved Brandy's idea of turning her breakfast notebook into a 'classical' notebook, which now has memory work review things added to the obligatory calendar stuff. I liked it so much that I made one for each of my girls:

(What you can't see in this picture is the bright pink sparkly binder cover. Sheesh!)

I have a divider for 

• Calendar - this has days of the week, days in school, a traceable calendar
• Handwriting - beginning handwriting sheets (from Staples), and plain lined paper
• Geography - maps of the world and Europe, labeled and non-labeled, and a continent blob tracing map from Half-a-Hundred Acre Wood
• History - Cycle 2, Week 1's history sentence to trace (from C3)
• Fine Arts - my classical music game (see below), and plain staff paper to practice drawing notes (both girls take piano)
• Presidents - one page with all the presidents' pictures (from C3)
• Latin - review stuff from Cycles 1 and 2
• Math - skip counting mazes

If you want to know exactly where I got everything, check out Brandy's post at Half-a-Hundred Acre Wood, because I totally just copied her, which is pretty standard for me. ;)

I love how so much great stuff is in one binder. I anticipate Mary and I doing school on-the-go sometimes this coming year as we take Anna different places. Now I can just say, "Mary, bring your binder," and we can practice handwriting, review math, and lots of other fun stuff wherever we happen to be. Pretty neat!

Now, onto the freebie!

We're big music fans here. I really want my girls to know the five time periods of Classical music. It may sound nerdy, but hey, I'm cool with that. So, I created a little matching game to keep in Mary's binder:

We learned this last year in Week 19 of Classical Conversations to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. I've included the lyrics we use in the game download. This could easily be made into a file folder game, if you're so inclined. For the composers, I included all the ones we study in each cycle of CC.

Click here to download the 5 Time Periods of Classical Music match-up game!

What about you? Have you made a Calendar Notebook or a Classical Notebook (or anything similar)? How did it work out? Any tips for a first-timer?

Teaching the Trivium Review

Beth at Classical Conversations at Home organized the CC at Home Book Club last month, and I'm proud to be a happy participant! Joining this book club was the catalyst to my obsession learning more about classical education. Click here and here for more on that. So thank you, Beth, for giving me the push I needed to start educating myself!

Our first selection was Teaching the Trivium by Harvey and Laurie Bluedorn.

This book is a BIG book, clocking in at 637 pages total. It's also comprehensive, covering everything from child training in the early years to college options and beyond. And while The Well-Trained Mind, which I reviewed here, was, in my opinion, neutral, Teaching the Trivium is written from a very conservative Christian worldview, which is great. No less than three articles in the appendix (which is enormous, by the way), as well as many pages in the book are devoted to Christian topics.

One of my favorite parts of the book is their list of things to do before age 10, which can be read for FREE on their blog, Trivium Pursuit, right here!

I'm not going to spend time dissecting the book and discussing what's in each chapter. 'Life' has happened this week (Anna's kidneys aren't draining properly, so we're adding a urologist to our arsenal of doctors), so my free time to write is very short; you'll have to read the book for yourself if you want details. ;) However, I will share my favorite quotes, point out some controversial topics, and leave you with my final thoughts.

Let's get started!

Favorite Quotes

The academic goal of homeschooling is not to teach a multitude of things to an adequate level, but to tutor in the most important things to an excellent level. (p. 42)

Oh, I love this! What a lovely reminder to focus on what's important.

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On pages 90 and 91 is a wonderful analogy to help explain the Trivium. Knowledge (grammar stage) is the input. Understanding (logic/dialectic stage) is the processing. Wisdom (rhetoric) is the output.

I know this is probably blatantly obvious to everyone else, but seeing the Trivium like this really helped it all click for me.

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The Trivium in one sentence:

To summarize it all in one sentence: we first instruct the child in Knowledge or Grammar; then we guide the child in Understanding or Logic; and finally we challenge the child in Wisdom or Rhetoric. (p. 102, emphasis mine)

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The child's mind absorbs good written and oral language skills by being regularly exposed to them. What a child reads and what is read aloud to him, and what he sees and hears, will determine what he writes and how he speaks. What goes into his mind, by and large, is what comes out of his pencil. (p. 180)

The more we read to children, the larger their minds will be - larger vocabulary (which the Bluedorns say is the primary index of intelligence - p. 293), larger store of categories of thought, and a greater love of learning. (p. 289)

Every, and I mean EVERY classical education book I've read has emphasized the importance of reading aloud to our children. The Bluedorns suggest two hours a day (not necessarily consecutively), and Leigh Bortins recommends at least one hour a day in her book, The Core. Andrew Pudewa, founder of Institute for Excellence in Writing (which is used by Classical Conversations), says in his conference talk, "Nurturing Competent Communicators," that he would consider throwing out other subjects entirely in the younger grades to have the time to simply read aloud for a couple of hours to his children. It's that important! We've recently begun a read aloud time in the evenings, which I'll post about soon (I love it!).

To help steer me in the right direction with read alouds, I purchased Hand That Rocks the Cradle, by the Bluedorns' son, Nathaniel:

This is a wonderful reference book of 400 Bluedorn-recommended read alouds with their summaries and reading levels. So awesome! And since I know the Bluedorns' worldview, I know they're not recommending crazy stuff (very important).

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The mother should not be picking up things from off the floor. . . Do not do for your child what he can do for himself. . . Do not do for yourself what your child can do for you. Your child needs to esteem himself lower than others, beginning with his parents. (p. 326)

. . . obedience is a foundation for all of education. (p. 313)

Do not allow your child to ignore you. You are the immediate reason for why he is alive. (p. 328)

Bam!

Ask yourself this question: Am I satisfied with his behavior? If the answer is no, then you must take action. (p. 330) If we detect something wrong with an attitude or an action, then we need to discuss it with our child. Do not wait until the action or attitude gets unbearable. (p. 333)

Wholeheartedly agree!

Homeschooling is more than Latin and Logic. It is a way of life. And that way of life includes having disciplined children, and encouraging loving relationships within the family. We want peace in our homes. Peace comes with one price - God's order. (p. 332)

The authors spend a good deal of time addressing parenting issues, which is one area that makes this book unique from the other classical education books I've read recently. At least three different times throughout the book they say that the early years are more training than teaching. I realized after reading these passages that Mary, my five-year-old, could be doing so much more around the house. We also changed our nightly clean-up routine after reading this book and this amazing post from Living Well Spending Less (it's titled Why I Took My Kids' Toys Away - And Why They Won't Get Them Back! Aren't you curious?! Oh, y'all, it's awesome! Go check it out!). In our house now, the girls have a set amount of time to pick up their toys. Anything left on the floor when they go to bed goes into the 'donate' bag and disappears. We haven't actually donated anything yet, but they don't know that. We have lots of toys in our donate bag now, and they haven't once asked for anything back. I'm pretty sure we have too many toys if they're not even missing the big bag of toys hidden in the laundry room.

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If you own the book and have younger children, I would suggest reading chapters 4 and 11. These chapters are just packed with good stuff, too much to get into in this little review.


Controversial Topics and Ideas

It's obvious to me that the authors have poured their heart and soul into this book. If you were to tell me, "Okay, here's your one big shot to write a book on education. Go for it, and don't leave anything out!" it may look like this book. It really does talk about everything! And one can't talk about 'everything' without having some controversial ideas, and this book has its share.

Move to the Farm

As you might can infer from the above quotes, the Bluedorns endorse a Little House on the Prairie type of living. They encourage girls to learn knitting, crocheting, and sewing (p. 330) and encourage a life on the farm (still searching for this reference, but I'm 100% positive I read that in this book). There is absolutely nothing amiss with these suggestions, but I don't find that leaving the 'city life' for a slower pace on the farm is reasonable for every homeschool family; I know it wouldn't work for ours. I do appreciate what they're trying to say by adopting this lifestyle (helping the family through chores, no screen time, plenty of outside play and exploration, etc.), and I personally know of some families who have done this and are thriving, but it's not for everyone.

No Formal Math Until Age 10

Before age 10, the child is largely acquiring the verbal skills of language, and your time is better spent developing his vocabulary - which is the primary index of intelligence. Remember the maxim: There is only so much time in the day. Your time may be much better spent reading aloud to your children than struggling with math concepts with your child simply is not developmentally prepared to handle. (p. 369)

The authors suggest that there should be no formal math instruction until age 10, when they believe the child's brain is ready to handle more abstract concepts. In the appendix, they have included an article on the history and research of the teaching of math, which explains their position in much more detail.

Now, the authors do acknowledge that math cannot be avoided until age 10. They give a list of suggestions on how to cover the basics (addition, subtraction, etc.) on page 373 that includes setting the table, games where children keep score, playing store and restaurant, and playing with Cuisenaire rods.

Obviously, many parents would have to disagree here with their premise. I, also, believe that most children are able to handle formal math instruction before age 10.

No Formal Academics Until Age 10

While CC says on its site, "We believe math should be taught classically in grammar school, but wholeheartedly endorse the rest of this great book," I'm pretty sure there might be one or two other bones of contention between the two.

Force feeding academic studies before age 10 is not an efficient use of your time, it is not going to accomplish all of the good which you desire, and it may actually work some harm. (p. 304)

However, a few pages over the authors tout the benefits of memorizing large chunks of material:

Time should be spent everyday reciting memory work. Encourage your child to memorize such things as the Greek and Hebrew Alphabets, passages from the Bible, poetry, catechisms, excerpts from literature. Your child could memorize passages of the Bible in Greek or Latin, and the same passages in English. . . (p. 313)

Maybe it's just me, but if your child can memorize Bible passages in Greek, Latin, and English, she might be able to handle a first grade math curriculum. Keep in mind, this is all in the chapter about things to do before age 10. I agree with the memorizing, and I've seen my five-year-old commit to memory things I never thought possible (and retain them!), but I think that formal academic instruction is certainly doable in the early years (and I don't consider it 'force feeding').

Mythology

It's probably a nuance to most people, but since my girls love Greek mythology, I was interested to see the authors' opinion on the subject. Teaching the Trivium is against mythology altogether, believing that  time is better spent not studying tales of pagan gods. I've been on both sides of the fence with mythology, but in the end we decided to use it as a teaching tool. Our girls know the Greek and Roman gods are not real, and we've read in the Bible how God deals with false gods. Now, if you were to disagree with me here, I certainly wouldn't fault you. Whether or not to read mythology is each family's personal choice. Classical Conversations's opinion differs from the Bluedorns' in this respect. For example, in Cycle 1, Week 3, we memorize the names of the Greek and Roman gods, and I believe in the Challenge program (7th-12th grades) students read The Iliad and/or The Odyssey (at least, they were sold in the CC Practicum bookstore in the Challenge section).

My Final Thoughts

After reading The Well-Trained Mind recently and noticing its political correctness, it was refreshing to see how passionate Harvey and Laurie Bluedorn are in their convictions in Teaching the Trivium. I don't agree with everything in the book, but it's still a wonderful reference to own. I have it all tabbed up now, and I anticipate returning to it often throughout our homeschool journey.

Did you have a chance to read it yet? If so, what do you think? What was your biggest take-away?

Funday Mondays

In attempt to make reviewing fun (because I tend to suck the fun out of things at times), we've started Funday Mondays. Every Monday, we just play review games to prepare for Tuesday's CC day. Here's what we do (although we never do everything each Monday):

Clockwise from top:

CC Quest by Karin Dewey

Mary just rolls a die and tries to get across the board by answering review questions. The real game is more involved, but going across the board is just right for her now.

Cat Tails Review Sticks by Brandy at Half-a-Hundred Acre Wood

I think Brandy calls them Wiggly Worms. We had this cat can left over from another activity, so we just put the sticks in it and have Mary 'pull a tail' and answer a question. It's really funny when I make a cat noise when she pulls out a stick. Ha!

File folder games for Math and Latin (links further down)

Mini Timeline Cards - homemade

I mix up the current week's cards and she puts them in the correct order.

Counting Up the Mountain by Susan Paradis

We have renamed this game Race to the Top. Mary rolls a die and answers a review question to move toward the top. I play too, and the winner is the first one up the mountain.

Geography Cards by Crecia at CCing it one day at a time

I mix these up and let Mary pick one. Then she has to find that location on a map.

Review Spinner & Funny Voices Cards

She spins and answers a question in one of the funny voices. Cute.

The spinner can be found on C3:

username: meljohnson

file name: GameSpinner.pdf

Education Cubes by Mama Jenn

Simply roll and answer. Easy cheesy.

Here's a little more info. on the Math file folder game:

This game is called Math Match Game: Weeks 12-20, and it's on C3:

username: kkillingsworth

file name: Match game for Wks 12-20_4th Edition.pdf

Her Latin game below is also really cool! 

 

username: kkillingsworth

file name: C1 Latin Match Game - Noun Endings.pdf

This picture above is a close-up of the Cat Tail game. She pulls a tail with a category, and then I ask a question. You really do have to sound like a cranky cat to maximize the fun. ;)

The big finale of Funday Mondays is The Challenge!

The Challenge is a review game I came up with using Karin Dewey's Memory Master Sticker Chart (I asked Karin to laminate it so I could use it over and over again. She'll do it for a little extra if you ask her when ordering). Now, Mary is not going for Memory Master, but I do want to review everything we've learned so far, hence this little game.

Okay, here's how it works:

This chart has every CC category and a box for each week (click here and scroll down for a better picture). I start at the top and ask Mary to tell me the review work for that subject and the first week. If she gets it right, I put an M&M (her favorite candy) on the box, and then we continue to go down the column until she misses one. If she misses one, we go over what she missed and move on to the next subject. However, if she fills up a column (one semester) with M&Ms, like below . . .

She gets this:

A trip to the Treasure Chest!

Every's girl's dream come true! ;)

Bribing, you say? Hmm . . . I prefer to call it . . . motivation!

I found the treasure chest at Target for around $10, and then I filled it up with junk cute stuff from Party City, Target's dollar aisle, and Dollar General.

She's known her prepositions for a long time, so she knocked out the English Grammar first semester column with no problems. She picked out a Tinkerbell bracelet for her hard work.

Check out that look! Ha! She's working on History in the picture above, and she knows she's almost earned the Treasure Chest. Only one more week's sentence to go! Can she do it? (Those X's you see on the board are where the M&Ms were - the weeks she knew. Now I can quickly see the areas we need to work on more.)

Yep! Look at that chocolatey-goodness face! (Of course, she gets to eat the M&Ms when she's done!)

I really like The Challenge because it's a great visual for me as her teacher to see where we need to spend more time (Math, Latin, and Geography). I'm also treating this game as a really big deal; we only do it on Funday Mondays. So far, it's working! She's pumped about reviewing, and I'm happy that we're having fun together.

Do you have any fun ways to review? Don't be shy; leave a comment and share!