Sunday, January 16, 2011

Critical Thinking Co. ~ Reviews

I've linked to Timberdoodle on my blog several times in the past. I have been a very happy customer of theirs for many years and they often have the very best deal on any given item. When I saw that Timberdoodle was looking for bloggers to review their products, I jumped at the chance!! This review will all be on these fabulous Critical Thinking Co. products. I've always want to try them! How exciting to be able to use them!!

Editor and Chief B1 and B2 (for grades 6-8) have proven to be very beneficial for Pillar and Miracle both. This year we have been using Easy Grammar Plus and this fit very nicely with it. Each lesson gives the student a small article to read with grammatical errors in it which the child then needs to find and fix. The articles themselves are engaging and so much more interesting than random sentences that need corrections. I like how they incorporate all the different aspects of grammar as well as helping them to become excellent proof readers! To be honest the girls both thought it was a little tricky to begin with. Now, however, they know "how" to look for errors and are finding them without so much difficulty.


For Rosebud (age 9 1/2, can't forget that 1/2 these days! lol) I chose Word Roots A1. This book teaches Latin prefixes, roots and suffixes. Again, this was a perfect compliment to her Easy Grammar: Grades 4 and 5. Although initially she thought it looked really really hard....she has now come to enjoy it!
Each lesson introduces a Latin prefix, suffix and root word. The child then finds each part of the word and "decodes" the word with the Latin she has learned. I really like this way of decoding rather than memorization, although we've done that too in the past.

Overall, I'm thrilled with all three Critical Thinking Co. products from Timberdoodle!! I will definitely continue to use them in the years to come!!
Disclosure: These products were given to me for the sole purpose of this review. All opinions here belong to me and my family, we were not paid!

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Hang Time!!

I almost didn't take my camera along today. I'm SO glad I did!! Our snow hill had some large dips worn in to it and it made for excellent hang times!




She looks like a professional! She's graceful and even has good posture in the air! lol

What a fun morning! The sun was shining brightly, the wind WASN'T blowing, and it was 15 degrees ABOVE zero! Wahoo!!
(And just in case inquiring minds want to know.....Yes, we did get most of our school work done before we left. The rest will be done this afternoon.)
Hope you're enjoying your winter!!