REVIEW: 200 Essential Reading Skills for Fifth Grade by Reading Eggs

When Holden was little and first learning to read, he loved the Reading Eggs website, so when we heard they had a new line of printed workbooks, we were excited to try out 200 Essential Reading Skills for Fifth Grade.

WHAT IS IT?:

Reading Eggs is a wonderful website for young children who are learning to read, but also for helping kids to reinforce and strengthen their reading skills as they get older.  It has 4 levels of activities that teach and entertain children ages 2-4, 4-5, 6-7, and 7-13.  Watch a short video to learn more about the website, or try out some sample lessons.

The latest product from Reading Eggs is a wonderful line of new full-color printed workbooks to enhance the reading skills of kids in K-5th grade.  (There are also math workbooks for grades K-2, which some of the other Crew members received.)  I received 200 Essential Reading Skills for Fifth Grade, which has over 200 pages and is available for just $19.95!

OUR EXPERIENCE:

The Reading Eggs website for ages 7-13 is called Reading Eggspress.  Holden is 10 now, so this is where I set him up.  Your child can take a placement test initially to start them off at their appropriate skill level, or through the parent dashboard, you can just skip the assessment and simply assign them to the grade level you feel is appropriate and have them start there.  Holden played on Reading Eggs when he was little and was first learning to read, and he enjoyed it very much.  But he took 4 years of formal phonics instruction as a young child, and his reading skills are above grade level, so I just went ahead and started him at the 5th grade level without doing the placement test. 

The website has a number of areas that offer a variety of types of instruction and play.  In the Library section, there are age-appropriate digital book selections to read.  After reading the book of your choice, you answer comprehension questions in order to earn points or “eggs.”  There’s also a Stadium section that has competitive games to play in grammar, usage, spelling, and vocabulary.  Points are also received based on how you score in the games, and you can choose from 2 levels of difficulty in each game.  I have to admit that I found myself playing the games just for fun!  The “difficult” level is fast-paced and is a great way to brush up on things like grammar skills!   In the English Skills section, there is a series of lessons in spelling.  Each lesson has a colorful instructional video, 20 interactive questions in a variety of formats with little mini-games built in, and a 10-question spelling test.  This section offers so much variety and high-interest learning activities that it almost doesn’t feel like learning!  The Targets section shows a variety of goals your children can attempt to achieve.  The My Lessons section takes your children through the daily lessons.  They will practice a variety of reading skills in this area such as reading comprehension, grammar, spelling, grammar, dictionary skills, alphabetizing, etc.  There are additional sections such as the Mall, the Trophy Room, the Apartment, and the Arcade.  These sections give your children a chance to play fun and rewarding games and activities by spending the points they’ve accrued in the learning sections.  At any time, your children can review their progress in the My Progress dashboard. 

I think this is one of the most fun and engaging learning websites my kids have ever used!  You can give it a try with a free trial before purchasing to see if it’s a good fit for your children.  The best part is that it also coordinates with the series of printed workbooks!  So as your children make their way through the lessons on the website, they can also be reinforcing their skills with the daily worksheets. 

In 200 Essential Reading Skills for Fifth Grade, there are 36 weeks’ worth of colorful daily worksheets as well as quarterly comprehensive review pages to keep your child’s reading skills sharp.  Each week, days 1 and 2 focus on reading comprehension.  Your child will have a short reading passage followed by a few comprehension questions.  They will also be asked to mark various parts of speech and context clues. 

  

On days 3 and 4, your child will focus on spelling activities.  Each week has a different spelling theme, and activities include writing a word list, sorting them by common spellings, proofreading spelling errors, exploring challenge words, finding hidden words, matching vocabulary terms, and completing sentences with the appropriate word from the spelling list. 

  

On day 5, your child will do a grammar worksheet that covers a different topic each week such as various parts of speech, punctuation, and complete sentence formation.  Sometimes, there’s even a little grammar crossword puzzle! 

 

The pages for each week offer lots of variations in the activities for each category of reading skills, so the way in which your children engage with the material changes all the time. They might, circle or underline the answer, highlight a word or phrase, fill in the blank, fill in missing letters, catch errors and correct them, rearrange syllables, complete a puzzle, unscramble a word, add punctuation marks, select words to match pictures or meanings, etc.  And with thorough review pages built in every 9 weeks, this workbook is sure to keep your children on their toes!

There’s also a nice Year Planner printed in the front of the workbook that schedules out the assignments for you.  It gives you a good overview so you can see the “big picture” of what you’ll be covering.  In addition, there’s also a nice table of contents that shows the daily topics, as well as a complete answer key in the back of the book.

 

For my kids, black and white workbook pages are usually a snooze-fest, but this workbook has such fun, colorful pages that they kept Holden’s attention a lot better.  In addition, we really liked the way the pages are laid out into small sections of work that are separated into little boxes.  It makes it seem less overwhelming.  We just tackled one section at a time, and it kept the pages from feeling like they were too much work or would take too much time.  Each page is intended to last about 15 minutes, and that’s not a lot of time to add to your schedule, yet the daily practice is so important to improving children’s overall reading skills.  Honestly, this is one of the nicest workbooks we’ve used, and plan to continue using it this year to keep Holden’s skills sharp!

Take a look at what other Crew members have to say about this line of workbooks by clicking the banner below.

An Unexpected Diagnosis

Both of my parents had glaucoma…the kind requiring eye drops several times a day to lower eye pressures.  So because of the hereditary nature of this condition, my optometrist screens me regularly.  In 2017 and 2018 at my annual eye exams, I actually paid extra for a laser scan of my optic nerves to keep a close check on any abnormalities. 

A couple of months ago when I had this year’s scan done, the optometrist noted changes from last year’s exam and showed me some “red” areas of abnormality that were concerning.  So to investigate further, he referred me to a Glaucoma Center to see an ophthalmologist for additional glaucoma-specific testing.  I couldn’t get an appointment right away, thus the long wait until the end of August to get this checked out.

So I went this week, and it turned out to be quite stressful!  I had no idea they would be putting so many pieces of equipment directly on my corneas!  They used numbing drops repeatedly, but it was hard to stop flinching whenever they would touch the surface of my eye with something and rest it there!  The first technician probably poked me in the eyes 20 times without successfully completing the tests.  I was about ready to leave when the specialist came in with her assistant.  They added more numbing drops and tried again, getting it right the very first time with each eye.  Go figure!  She was very kind and gentle, and I appreciated her understanding for my very sensitive eyes!  This is why I’ve never been a good candidate for contacts. 

Anyway, she informed me that I appear to have Narrow Angle Glaucoma.  Now I’d never heard of that, as it was different from what my parents had, so she had to explain it to me.  Basically, the iris (the colored part of the eye) rests too close to the opening of the canal that drains fluid from the front of the eye, causing the opening to narrow…she likened it to putting a stopper in a sink.  When it narrows or closes off, it causes increased pressure in the eye until it opens up again.  She said my canal openings were narrow, but when she placed gentle pressure on the cornea, they opened up fully.  My eye pressure was normal at about 16.

My appointment was in the morning, so she is having me return in October for an afternoon appointment to repeat the tests and compare.  If it’s as she expects, then I will need to consider laser surgery to make a hole in my irises that will allow an extra place for fluid to drain.  This is called a laser iridotomy.  In the meantime, I’m not supposed to allow my eyes to dilate…like watching tv or reading in a dark room (like a movie theater).  Allowing dilation could further restrict the canal openings, causing an acute glaucoma attack that can cause permanent blindness!  I told her I strongly dislike having my eyes dilated…my old optometrist in VA did it every year…because it hurts my eyes and makes them very uncomfortable for the rest of the day.  She said if in fact I do have narrow angle glaucoma, then that would make perfect sense.  I’ve also been having periodic fuzzy vision that comes and goes, particularly in my right eye, which I’ve been complaining about for about a year and a half.  That’s another symptom of the condition. 

So it’s a lot to think about.  I wish I could just hurry up and get it over with!  The surgery leaves a black dot in each iris, which they try to conceal by putting it near the top so that it hides underneath your upper eyelid most of the time.  I definitely don’t want to lose my vision, which is already bad enough.  But there’s no way to know how much of a risk I have for an acute attack.  She said it could just be the structure of my eye.  I guess I’ll just have to wait to hear more after the next exam in October.

You can read all about this condition and the surgery on this helpful website, if you’re interested.

Haylee’s 1st Day of Public School!!!

I mentioned last weekend that there were big changes coming to the Burgess house this week.  Haylee is now 14 and ready for high school, and we decided to let her go to public high school like Hayden did.  Now Hayden’s transition was pretty simple, because he went to a public charter school…smaller class sizes, student mentor’s, and a lot of personal interaction with staff.  In addition, every student was in the International Baccalaureate program, so the work was challenging, and the underachievers were quickly weeded out.

Haylee’s experience is much different.  She’s going to a mainstream public high school.  It’s a Title 1 school, as are most schools in Fort Worth.  I read this week that 78% of Fort Worth ISD’s student population is at or below poverty level.  Wow.  And 31% of students are ESL learners.  Already, it’s been an eye-opening experience for her. 

Her basic evaluation of week 1 was that they really didn’t do any work because students can change classes for the first 10 days, so teachers didn’t want to get started on anything big during the first 2 weeks.  And she said the lunch room is really, really loud and annoying, but eating outside is just as bad with yelling and screaming going on.  She finally found some lounge chairs outside the lunch room where she feels more comfortable to eat her lunch, so that’s where she has started going.  They haven’t been issued any textbooks, and when they do get them, they won’t be allowed to take them home unless they check them out with permission.  They don’t get assigned lockers unless they request one, because they said there’s no time between classes to use them anyway.  They get homework early in the week, and it’s always due on Friday (strange not to have weekend homework).  They are supposed to get laptops at the end of next week.  They just did away with block scheduling here, so she has every class every day (8 periods).  One day, she spent a total of 3 different class periods watching a volleyball tournament in the gym, just because the teachers in those classes were needed to help with the tournament.  I was like, “HUH?!?”  They seem to waste a lot of time so far, so we’ll have to see if things pick up as time goes on.

Things are a little different here than in VA.  She gets to take soccer as her P.E. class, so they practice during the class period.  Isn’t that interesting?  I’ve never heard of such a thing.  They do that with a lot of different sports here.  But I guess that means she’ll also get a grade for soccer participation, which seems odd.  I guess there’s less practice time after school this way, so it’s fine with me.  And I know it’s nice to break up the day with a little exercise.  Hayden only got to take gym class in his freshman year, and he missed the physical activity in the middle of the day for the rest of his time there.  She is also ecstatic that her last class of the day is Art I.  She loves art!  She said it’s a great way to end the school day, and she really looks forward to it, so that’s cool. Here is her first art project this week, which she just finished yesterday.  They had to trace their arm and hand on a piece of paper and then draw different things of significance to them inside. Afterwards, they had to ink it, and next week they’ll be standing up in front of the class to explain their drawing.  I thought she did a great job with it!

She said all of her teachers are really nice except for her male Spanish teacher.  She said he’s “less nice,” and she wouldn’t want to get on his bad side.  LOL.  That class is outside in a trailer.  The others are all in the building.  She said her English teacher is the nicest of all and plays music as they enter class every day.  That teacher even lets them have snacks in the classroom…she said she likes to eat, so she imagines they do, too!  LOL.  Sounds like a fun lady.  Even though Haylee took Algebra I at home for 8th grade, we decided she’d benefit from taking it again in school.  She has always struggled with math and takes longer to get the concepts, so she didn’t want to get into math that’s too advanced in high school, and taking Algebra I again will help firm up her understanding before moving on.  The counselor said if it turns out to be too easy, she can switch classes either in the first 10 days or after the first semester.

The school is literally across the intersection from our neighborhood.  We are officially in the walking zone.  But I’m not sending my 14-year old girl to walk alone to and from school around here.  I’ve read stories of young girls being abducted in broad daylight.  At the end of last school year, a girl that age was attacked on her way to the bus stop and nearly died fighting him off.  Luckily, the bus pulled up, and she got to the bus to ask for help.  She’s still in the hospital awaiting a heart transplant because of the damage done to her organs in the attack!  So with that in mind, I drive her up to school in the morning and drop her off out front, and then I pick her up across the intersection as soon as she gets out in the afternoon.  Better safe than sorry in my book!  Plus, it gives us a few minutes to talk about her day and catch up.

In her math class, they had a worksheet for homework.  It was really just an easy little review of pre-algebra concepts…just enough to see if they were where they needed to be to begin Algebra I.  By the end of the week, she was the ONLY student in her class who even turned it in!  Many students hadn’t even started on it.  Isn’t that crazy?  I said to Steve, “Wouldn’t it be funny if our struggling math student ended up being the star of the class, simply because she actually tries?”  Too funny.  She got her paper back with a blue star stamped on it. 

I know Haylee felt a little nervous that first day about finding her classrooms and all, but she seemed to get around okay and wasn’t late for any of her classes.  By the end of the week, she had it down pretty well.  She doesn’t seem to mind going to school at all, so that’s good.  It seems like she will transition well, just as Hayden did.  And another student asked her to write something for them, just because she has pretty cursive handwriting.  I remember Hayden being the only kid in his class who could write in cursive, simply because it’s no longer taught in schools these days.  That’s so weird to me! 

Anyway, it seems so odd having only one student in my homeschool now.  It’s a lot quieter without Haylee and Holden fighting all day, so that’s a welcome change.  But it’s also a little lonely for me, now that I don’t have any adult-like person to engage in conversation with all day long.  Not having any close friends here, Steve and Hayden being gone to work all day, and Haylee being at school all day leaves me here with just a 10-year old boy to communicate with!  It’s definitely different.  Since my parents are deceased, I don’t even have them to call and chat on the phone.  It’s definitely different.  I guess it will take some getting used to.  For now, Haylee seems to enjoy chatting with me on Google Hangouts while she is at school.  She instant messages me between classes, at lunch, and when she has free time in class, just to let me know how her day is goes.  That’s really nice and keeps us both company, I guess.

It’ll only be 4 more years of homeschooling before Holden finds himself going to public high school, as well, and then it will really be quiet around here!  It’s interesting the way the Lord brings us into different seasons of our lives, each one with its own purpose.  I can’t wait to fall into a new routine of things and see what this season has in store for us!

Hayden’s 19th Birthday!!!

Another year has passed, and Hayden got to celebrate his 19th birthday with a visit from his FL cousin, George, and a homemade NY cheesecake with strawberry topping.  Yum!   

Hayden already had all of his birthday presents early, so I surprised him with a giant gift bag stuffed with all of his favorite, snacks, drinks, and candy.  He said that was cool, because he has treats whenever he wants them!

All the cousins enjoyed being together again.  They went out to a movie together the night before.  It’s unfortunate that it rained cats and dogs the entire weekend, so no fun in the pool and spa!

We missed the deadline for fall college registration (couldn’t get his scores and documents from VA in time once we realized what we needed.  But the winter semester starts in January, so we’ll just have to try again.  He’s kind of iffy about going to college now, which I figured would happen after taking a gap year when we moved and messed up his prepaid in-state tuition, so we’ll have to see how it plays out.

I can hardly believe I’m the mom of an adult son, a high school daughter, and an upper-elementary-aged son.  I guess the big age gap between them all is really starting to show! 

There are more big changes for the Burgess crew coming up this week, but more on that later.

Public school here starts on Monday, and I know summer is quickly drawing to a close for everyone everywhere.  Enjoy your final moments of family fun before the new routine sets in!

REVIEW: Paddington Bear Literature Study by Branch Out World

Being from England myself, I though it would be cool to review a literature study with Holden on Paddington Bear from Branch Out World.

WHAT IS IT?:

This is a literature-based study on the original story of Paddington Bear.  It’s part of the Picture Book Explorers series from Branch Out World.

Students can learn more about the geography and culture of England and Peru as they follow Paddington on his journey to his new family.

This study is intended for ages 5-10, but being as this is written from a British perspective, it really can be used with older students, as well. 

The study includes lots of mapwork and activities to entertain and teach your child as you explore the story together. 

This is a digital product and can be purchased and downloaded for £9.00 (approximately $11.49).

OUR EXPERIENCE:

I was actually born in England, so I thought this review would be a neat opportunity to expose my son to some things that are familiar to me but not to him.  I really like the story of Paddington Bear, which Holden knows from having seen the movie in recent years, so I figured exploring the book would be great, too.  He’s not to old to enjoy a good picture book, so I knew it would be a great fit.

I think if anything, I would refer to this product as a cross-curricular study that’s loosely based on the Paddington Bear storybook.  It’s broken into five sections or “days” in the table of contents, but there are honestly so many activities included that you could make it last much longer if you chose more rather than fewer of those activities to do.  We chose to spread it out rather than do it for five consecutive days, and we only chose activities that were of interest to us. All of the facts and information you need for most of the activities is included in the provided text, and anything else can be easily obtained through a quick internet search.  The first thing I did was to print out the study materials and put them into a binder for organization.  I added some blank pages at the end to give me a place to glue in the many notebooking activities we’d be making.

The first section is titled “Exploring the Setting.”  All of the activities pertain to the countries of England and Peru from the story and comparing information about the two places.  The activities in this section include coloring their flags, making maps, making tourist posters, finding out facts, studying migration, and looking at the setting of the story.  Using the provided information, we also got to create a timeline of events in the two countries for the period during which the story took place.

 

 

   

 

The second section is titled “Exploring the Words.”  Here, we discussed the author and themes from the story. There were also spelling and narration activities, vocabulary discussion, some creative inspiration, and a grammar exercise.  If you have both the chapter book and the picture book version of the story, there’s also an activity to compare the two and their intended audiences.  One of the included printable activities for grammar practice was a mini-book where he got to create sentences to practice subject-verb agreement.  Another was to define some vocabulary words from the story and create a pocket to hold the definitions we recorded.

 

The third section is titled “Exploring the Pictures.”  We learned more about the illustrator, did a picture study of one of the illustrations in the book, learned about architectural features of buildings in the picture, and discussed principles of design like overlapping and emphasis.  We did some printable activities about those topics, like creating a tabbed book with definitions of some of the architectural elements and drawing samples that illustrate emphasis in illustrations.

 

The fourth section is titled “Exploring Science.”  This was probably my favorite part!  We learned about the spectacled bear found in Peru and made a fact sheet all about it.  We also did a sensory activity about the textures of shaving creams and how they are easily foam can be washed away with water the way it was in the story when Paddington overflowed the bathtub with suds.  We learned a lot about how foam is created in this section!  It was really neat.  There are some other science activities here that we hope to come back to when we have more time, like observing the reaction between peroxide, yeast, and dish soap and making a foamy food like meringue!  We also learned about condensation that comes from steam settling on a mirror.  And it suggested doing a nature study in the garden.  One of the printables also provides your child with a place to record what they learned from doing any one of the science activities.

 

The fifth section was titled “Exploring Maths, Crafts, and More.”  This section discusses parallel lines, numbers in the story, what you might pack in a suitcase to go on vacation (and the application of spatial awareness…it has to fit!), shaving foam art (which we also hope to come back and do another time), making tablas (pictures painted on wooden boards), and some cooking activities for making strawberry tarts marmalade.  Holden doesn’t have any interest in arts and crafts so we mostly skipped this section.  But it suggests additional activities such as having a tea party or visiting a train station.  We didn’t have the necessary ingredients for the tarts, and marmalade, but we know all about tea parties with some of our English favorites!

 

And I wanted to show you how some of the notebooking pages turn out once you glue in your completed elements.

 

All in all, this is a really thorough cross-curricular study that helps your child learn more about England and Peru, and it includes a lot of hands-on, diverse activities to choose from so you can make it as minimal or as in-depth as you choose.  Once you’ve enjoyed the storybook itself and the interesting study guide, I highly recommend rewarding your child by an afternoon of watching any or all of the Paddington Bear movies as a way to finish out your studies!

Check out what other Crew members have to say about this great literature study by clicking the banner below.

Happy 14th Birthday, Haylee!!!

My sweet baby girl, Haylee, turned 14 on July 31st.  How is that possible?  The time has flown.

 

And being 14 now, that means it is time to begin high school!  She has always been homeschooled, but like Hayden before her, she will be going to public high school.  This week, we went over and got her all registered for school.  They made her student ID, and she went to freshman orientation!

 

School starts much earlier here than in VA, so the first day of school is August 20th, and the school year ends by Memorial Day.  She just has one more week at home, and then it’s a whole new world for her and for us, too!  For the first time since Hayden was little, I’m left at home teaching just one child.  We’re in the home stretch!  Just 4 years to go and then my 19 years of homeschooling will come to an end when Holden goes to high school, too.  I can finally retire from this gig!

National Root Beer Float Day 2018!

Monday, August 6th, is National Root Beer Float Day at A&W Restaurants!  Stop by from 2-8 PM and get a FREE small root beer float!  No purchase is required, but a donation for veterans is encouraged. 

Enjoy!