It’s been awhile since I have been up here. I thought I give an update and I hope to hear some updates from anyone else.
Micah is 2 1/2 and he is doing great. He reads at a second grade level and he is learning his math facts now. He is also learning to read Spanish now. He is still obsessed with shapes and talks about them all day.
Hannah is 4 and she is a fun challenge. I have learn to keep her lessons separate from her brothers as she gets performance anxiety. I want her to be happy where she is at but she thinks she needs to be at her older brother’s level. She is in 1st grade math and reading. She still loves acting and putting on shows.
Josiah just turned six and is my more athletic one. He loves math too. He is finishing up second grade math. He reads at a third grade level. He is enjoying learning the abacus as well.
In the last year, the iPad has become our go to learning tool. I want to share apps that are working for us and I hope to hear of apps that are working for everyone else.
Math
Montessori math by les 3 Elle’s - we have both the one digit and multiple digit app. The one digit version has been a fantastic tool for Micah and Hannah. The multi digit has been great for Josiah in giving him a concrete understanding of regrouping in subtraction and addition.
Addimals is great for teaching addition math facts to the kids. The bummer is that they haven’t come out with subtraction yet.
Finger Math abacus is what I am using for Josiah and I reinforce it with Abacus Rush.
Creature Math by PBS WildKrats: this is okay practice in my book but it is a favorite of the kids especially by Hannah.
Splash Math 2nd grade. Josiah was in mammoth math but I couldn’t print out worksheets so we end up doing this. It has worked out fine. It’s very thorough and keeps reports on how they are doing in each chapter. It doesn’t really teach concepts thoroughly in my opinion, but I am okay with filling in the blanks.
Splash Math 1st grade. I prefer Mammoth math but we just finished the last printed worksheet for Hannah. We will have to get along with this and I am sure it will turn out just fine. I just think MM does such a great job that I prefer it. The kids prefer anything on the iPad over paper though so Hannah is happy to use this app.
Todo telling time-a great app but no multiple user feature. It’s very fun for the kids and there are lots of baby steps into each concept more than I thought one could need. It turns out great for Hannah as she likes this style of learning.
Reading and spelling
Spellosaur and the webster spelling book list. This is working out fine for us for spelling.
Super Why Phonics Fair. This has helped a lot with Hannah to be a more confident and happier reader. She realized she could read more than she thought. She would just get overwhelmed by too many words (more than three) on a page and would deny that she could sound the words out let alone read. Thankfully she is reading whole books happily.
Little Reader for Spanish- really happy about this. I wish Little Musician had an app because I don’t have a computer anymore so we have lost out on using that.
Geography:
Not a fan of stack the states anymore. I just doesn’t fit my kids’ learning style as they didn’t really seem to be learning. I use RoxyStar for Hannah and Micah and State Bingo and crossword for Josiah. Lots more learning going on here.
LabelED is a new favorite and I use for both geography and science. It is a neat customizable app. You can take an image of a map or science diagram and add your own labels. Then it connects those labels to Wikipedia for in depth learning at your kids fingers. You can do several different kinds of quizzes to reinforce learning and it keeps a record of the quiz grades and progress. The label pins and font are smaller than I like but other than that I have no other complaint. This has been fun for learning about the skeleton, ancient Mesopotamia, and such.
For Extra fun
Kodables and leapfrog robot game.
Teach me 1st and 2nd grade. They like this just for fun.
Kiddzu sketch pad. Fun step by step learn to draw app.
Rocket speller plus for extra spelling fun.
We will officially be keeping attendance for homeschooling this summer and I decided to try the homeschool helper app. Anyone use this at all?
Well that is what we are up to theses days. So how is everyone else doing?
