Animal Trackers - Month #8 - 10

I have seriously gotten behind in my Animal Trackers post, but we are still receiving them and still enjoying them and my son is asking me EVERY day when he is getting another one! 

The last 3 months were as follows:

• Crocodile
• Leopard (This one some stuff said Cheetah, some said Leopard)
• Cape Buffalo

I of course pinned several activities for each animal on my Animal Trackers Club Pinterest Board.

Something fun we did for the Crocodile was some small world play to go with the book The Selfish Crocodile.  There are some great printables that go along with it as well at 1+1+1=1.

I used a large, narrow piece of blue felt, some rocks and dug through our massive animal collection to find many of the animals that were mentioned in the book.  My 4yo (almost 5yo) loves animals, and he loves it even more when there are animals in his workboxes! 

Disclaimer:  I receive a discount on this product in exchange for featuring it in my post. Affiliate links are used in this post.  All opinions I have expressed are my own or those of my family.  I am disclosing this in accordance with FTC Regulations.

Review: Progeny Press, Stone Fox Study Guide (TOS Review)

For this review we used Stone Fox Study Guide by Progeny Press.

This product is a digital download, it comes as two files; the interactive guide and the answer key.  Both are PDF files.  The guide can be typed into on the computer (this is what makes it interactive).  My son is not proficient at typing, therefore we printed the pages and he wrote on them with pencil.

I used this product with my 9 year old (4th grade) son.  He loved the book and read through it rather quickly.  He does not like to read a chapter or two at a time in a book he is interested in, and for this reason we sometimes struggle with unit guides like this one.  This was the case with this read as well.  He read it all in two sittings, would have read it in one, but I tried to discourage that (which I hate doing). 

Even though he finished the book quickly, we still worked through the guide.  There were discussion questions that were chapter specific, we mostly did these orally.  He doesn’t like to write, and well, I pick my battles.  (I did sometimes choose one or two that I wanted him to write the answers too though.)

There were also some geography, vocabulary exercises, fact v/s opinion,  and other language arts type activities that were short answer that I had him do by hand.  I really liked the activities and the questions that went along with the chapters.  My son reads at a high level, but sometimes I wonder if he is reading properly, or even understanding all he reads.  This is a book that was on his grade level (though he can read higher).  It was a good way to check his understanding of the book, and get him talking about it.  He didn’t love the exercises really, but he did have fun with the thesaurus and some of the other vocabulary related exercises.  As long as he didn’t have to write a lot, he didn’t mind doing them.

There are religious references in the guides; typically scripture versus are given to look up, they are related to lessons taught in the story.  If you are a secular homeschooler, they could be skipped over. 

Progeny Press has several study guides to choose from, for a wide variety of reading levels (K-High School).  The guides are versatile, as you see, you can type, write or do them orally; all depending on your child’s needs. This is what I loved about them! 

The price varies by grade level, studies for Upper Elementary, like this one are $17.99.  As previously mentioned, they are downloadable and the book is not included.

Although these types of studies are not my son’s favorite, I do feel they bring a lot to the table.  I will be looking at a few more that coincide with some books we plan to read this year and giving them a try as well.  Such as, The Door in the Wall and The Sword in the Tree.

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Week in Review x2 (weeks of 9/28 & 10/5)

Week of 10/28 – The rainy week!

Our field trip to the pumpkin patch was called off on account of rain on Tuesday.  That night I had a MNO with some co-op ladies, and the weather coming home was treacherous!  I had to drive so slow, the rain was coming down so hard and at an angle, I couldn’t see a thing!  Super scary!

We had another set of Homeschool Days at the Maryland Science Center on Wednesday. The weather cleared up just enough to squeeze in soccer practice for my 2 bigs.

Thursday was a busy day!  After lunch we headed to the library, my 4yo had an ABC preschool class, the others played while they waited.  Though my 2yo was a holy terror and caused a huge scene arguing over the legos with her brothers!  So as soon as class was over we headed home so she could get a quick nap before our puppy vet visit. 

Saturday all games were cancelled b/c of all the rain. But we enjoyed a WONDERFUL conference weekend! 

Here is a great list of Wonderful Quotes in Meme form from Conference!

Sunday we headed down to VA to my parents house to spend some time on our way to Great Wolf Lodge!

Week of 10/5 – Vacation!

We spent M-W at Great Wolf Lodge!  We met up with my parents at Costco (near their house) for lunch on the way home and grabbed some Pumpkins ($6 a pumpkin! and they were BIG!  It was a steal!) We got home and were so beat that we didn’t get to soccer practice.

Thursday C had a game (to avoid a double header one weekend).  We had co-op during the day, always a great time!  We are truly blessed to have such a great co-op!  The Electrician came and finally finished up the job at the house, and the electric company and solar panel companies will be coming next week.  Hopefully we will be done with it all after that!  Hubby had an unexpected day off work, which was a nice surprise! 

I forgot the highlight of my week!  STITCHFIX!!!

It would have been a 5/5 except for the jeans.  I think I could have liked them more if they weren’t too long!  :/  But they really aren’t my style and with them too long it just look frumpy!  I don’t do heels really, and I don’t want to have to do heels to wear them.  Returning them (if I can’t sell them).  Loved the rest, loved the color and the fit!  (The jean jacket is mine).  I had a $25 credit, and keeping the 4 items came to $179.  If I can sell the jeans (they are size 8, I’m selling for $96 PPD), I can keep all 4 items $128.  You get a 25% discount if you buy it all, (The price of the pants reflects the discount).  I’m 5’5” so you get an idea of how they fit.

We skipped swimming today because I have the start of a head cold and Z has a bit of one too with a cough.  They were suppose to have a Cub Scout campout, but it got rained out last minute.  The only school we really did this week was some History and Science today.  The 2 bigs did some computer week throughout the week to (Love that computer work, it’s so easy to fit in). 

Tomorrow will be a BUSY DAY!  Soccer Games, Service Projects and MORE!  Hopefully the weather is better than this evening!

Back into the swing of things next week!

Does miss FIELD TRIP FRIDAY!  (It’s back!!)

Linking up at:
My Week in Review at Our 4 Kiddos, and Weekly Wrap up with Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers
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