Field Trip #179 Friday Blog Hop, Great Wolf Lodge, Williamsburg, VA

Field Trip Friday!

Blog Hop designed to share 'FIELD TRIP' related Blog Posts

(does not have to be a 'home school field trip', can be any trip to any place with your children!)

**NOTE:  Before linking up please review guidelines HERE

 

Did you know Great Wolf Lodge offers homeschool discounts on select weekdays during the school year?  Just use code “HOME”.  Discount % varies by day and location.

 

We decided to take advantage and took our first ever trip to Great Wolf Lodge this last week.  We stayed 2 nights (M-W).  The kids had a blast! 

 

We ONLY did the water park, but hope to pay for some of the extras at a future visit.

 

Places we ate while there:

The pizza place (Hungry as a Wolf) in the hotel is reasonably priced and GOOD!  The slices were large.  We ordered two pizzas and had almost one leftover!  So we ate cold pizza for breakfast our last morning!


There is a restaurant (The Huntsman Grill) just next door to the hotel that had good food, they had lunch specials, but we ate dinner there.  It was average priced.


We went to to a BBQ place nearby (Pierce’s) another night for dinner, decent food.  Was pretty crowded, so obviously a favorite of the locals.
We also visited IHOP and Sonic.  There are several other fast food choices, like Chic-FIL-A and Burger King in the vicinity.

There is also a Walmart close by, so if you forget anything, that’d be the place to go!

Also the entire month of October they had trick or treating in the evening, and costume parades!  (We were not aware of this, so didn’t have our costumes, but we did trick or treat to the 4-5 store inside the hotel). They also have story book hour each night, balloon animals, character appearances and other free stuff. 

Water Park tickets are included in the hotel rate, so aside from food, there isn’t any necessary additional costs (though you can find other stuff to spend money on here).  There was also a fridge and microwave in the room, so costs could be cut there too (cereal and sandwiches???!!).

 

Review: Reading Kingdom (TOS Review)

For this review we have been using Reading Kingdom Online by Reading Kingdom.  I was given this program for my 4 and 6 year olds.

My 4 year old, however, did not find much interest in the program.  I don’t like to force things, so I didn’t push the issue.  I did suggest it on a normal basis, but it never went anywhere.  My 6 year old however, has been using the program AND enjoying it!  I actually tried this program with him before when he was younger (for a previous review), at that time he was not interested either; so, it goes to show that readiness plays a HUGE role.  I’m glad we tried it again!  This time around he liked it even more than my older son did last review!

The placement test in the beginning can be killer if you have a more advanced reader, but since both of my boys are beginner readers, it was pretty easy and didn’t take too long! 

My 6 yo used the program 3-4 lessons a week, (they recommend 4 times a week for best results). 

The program really focuses on sequence of words, it also has keyboarding lessons.  (My son enjoyed those lessons the most.)  The method is based off of Phonics plus Five Method as outlined in the book The Reading Remedy by Dr. Marion Blank.  This is a great program for those who may be struggling with reading, for any reason, because it focuses on so much more than JUST phonics. 

One great thing about this program is that it CAN be used on a tablet, my son used it on our iPad, using Google Chrome (as recommended). 

The lessons are pretty short, they didn’t take very long to complete (though I never actually timed them).  They do keep track of progress, which can be viewed on the site when you click on your child’s name.

The lessons start out simple and progress based on how well your child performs.  They stress several times throughout the process that adults are not to assist the child in answering the problems.  This is because it will mess up the natural algorithms of the program. 

Below are a few screenshots from the beginning lessons.

What I also love about the program is it also works on keyboard skills and spelling while introducing reading!  It has nice graphics, entertaining, but nothing that detracts from the learning.  The fact it can be used on tablet or computer is great!  I also love that the lessons are short, so they are great for little ones with shorter attention spans.  They can choose to continue more than one lesson if they want, or be done with just one!

Reading Kingdom offers onetime pricing or monthly subscriptions and a 30 day FREE trial.  They also offer multi-child discounts! 

- 1st student is $19.99/month, or $199.99 per year (20% off) with a 30 day trial. If you pay at the time of signup (skip the trial) it is only $14.99/month.

- Each additional student is $9.99/month, or $99.99 per year (20% off) with a 30 day trial. If you pay at the time of signup for an additional student (skip the trial), it is only $7.49/month.

The program is recommended for children ages 4-10, but I would recommend the free trial or starting with a monthly subscription for children ages 4/5 to see if they are ready for it.  They also have a checklist to help determine if your child is ready to learn to read.  But, my 4 year old (almost 5) met these guidelines, but was still not interested.  Every child is different though, so you can determine if you think it’s right for your child! 

 

Social Media:
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Field Trip #178 Friday Blog Hop–Maryland Science Center

Field Trip Friday!

Blog Hop designed to share 'FIELD TRIP' related Blog Posts

(does not have to be a 'home school field trip', can be any trip to any place with your children!)

**NOTE:  Before linking up please review guidelines HERE

 

Well, bad weather cancelled out one of our field trips this week, but we still had another trip to homeschool days at the Maryland Science Center.  This time each kid only had one class and we spent a little more time exploring the museum.