TOS Review-Peterson Directed Handwriting

 Peterson Directed Handwriting  is not just another cursive or print handwriting program as I thought it would be.

It is a program that uses different colors in the strokes of the individual letters to help them learn the movement sequence and a chant or jingle to help them remember how the movement sequence goes. They provide E-workbooks to let you lead and print your own lesson pages from Acrobat Reader. The size of the worksheets are smaller and deliberately designed to fit the size of the child. This allows the child to hold the paper correctly and write easier and properly on the paper. They also have the Wacom Digital Tablet software if you pefer that route. Their goal is to allow the child to learn to write using their memory rather than draw from tracing or trying to match what they are seeing. And then finally, formulate that properly onto paper.

Many children usually have established habits of wanting to draw letters rather than write them but PDH teaches them to engage the motor system by not actually writing on paper at first. The chant or jingle they provide creates a beat and challenges the child to move with rhythm when practicing.

For example, the letter "d" would have the curved part in green and the stem part in brown. The child would say "poke around" as they drew the curve and say "tall down" as they drew the stem part of the letter "d". The child first practices this by writing it in the air. These steps teach a top down, left to right process vs. down up (as found in most tracing programs). PDH has a link to a video that explains why tracing may do more harm than good when learning to write. While PDH has many tips and information, there are four main steps they teach to enable the child to learn to write.

They are the following:

Step 1: Illustrate and Describe

Step 2: Write in the air and say

Step3: Finger trace and say

Step 4: Write and Say

My children loved this program. We are continuing to practice it. Peterson Directed Handwriting provides a way to review the childs progress as well. The Print version has Pre-K through Grade 4. The staff is very helpful. Rand Nelson was available by phone and internet to answer any of my questions. I would highly recommend this program to anyone searching for a handwriting program. The cost of this program is $75.00 each for PDF hand print or cursive or you may purchase the combo for $125.00.


I was offered this resource free of charge for review purposes only.

The Girlhood Home Companion Magazine

Raising Homemakers http://raisinghomemakers.com is doing a give away for “The Girlhood Home Companion Magazine.”

Here is what she had to say about it....

"It is a beautiful, high-quality magazine produced by Jill Novak and her family of Remembrance Press. In it you will find stories and encouraging essays on being godly young ladies, recipes, crafts and even some paper dolls from my own daughters.
Mrs. Novak is graciously giving away a bundle that includes a back issue of “The Girlhood Home Companion Between Friends” and CD.
Give-away ends Friday, August 27th at midnight."

Charlie and The Trike in the Grand Canyon Adventure

A Wise Woman Builds Her House is having a great book give away for Charlie and Trike in the Grand Canyon Adventure. She has had several others this week that I forgot to register for......So don't miss out. There are four possible winners for this one!

http://proverbs14verse1.blogspot.com/

Travel The World

I was recently given the opportunity to review The Schoolhouse Planner June 2010 Module "Travel The World!" by The Old Schoolhouse Magazine I was excited to see that it focused on geography because I had been wanting to implement some geography study into our schooling. I couldn't find an age range recommendation so I quickly perused the material and found that it would suit all of my children who's ages range from 4yrs-9yrs old.

The module begins with an introduction to geography by explaining what geography is and how the Earth is shaped and how it rotates. It provided scripture verses to show how the Earth tells God's story. We had a globe to explore but for those who do not, a picture of a globe was provided. It discussed in a fun and simplistic style what the equator was and how latitude was used to show north and south and longitude showed east and west from the equator. My little ones were just as intrigued as my older children. It went on to explain how maps have special features that globes can not give us and talked about how God provided us the land and waters. It used fun songs to help children learn the continents and provided extra links and online games for locating countries in North America and labeling states and capitals.

It was packed with additional geography fun as well. Including extra links to games, quizzes, family fun, and homeschooling ideas. We created a fun lapbook to put together all that we had learned. I used the worksheets provided for my 8 and 9 yr old and the coloring worksheets for my little ones to color. For $7.95 this module was packed full of information to teach your little ones about geography. It was easy to download and didn't need any additional resources to teach it. I loved that it exposed the information in a fun, easy and entertaining manner. I didn't have to tweak it all for my younger children and it still held the attention of my older ones. I would highly recommend this to those wanting to implement some geography fun into their schooling.

I received this product free of charge for review purposes.