Review: Mosdos Press Literature - Pearl - 6th Grade

Literature is one area that I've struggled a bit to find the program that fits for our youngest child.  When I saw Mosdos Press Literature - Pearl - 6th Grade I thought this program might be a good fit for him. He struggled with reading for years, but now seems to be doing pretty well. The problem is that the writing aspect is now behind. He's also gotten into that phase that he doesn't like to read because it's "boring" which is so hard for me to understand because I love to read. I thought because this program has such a wide variety that we might find some things he'd enjoy that he might not otherwise think he would.  The Pearl set is part of the Timberdoodle 6th Grade Kit These kits are easily customizable to work with all families.  This program arrived with a two book set for the teacher's edition, a student reader and an activity workbook.  

The Pearl set includes: 

** 36 short stories

** 3 plays

** 15 nonfiction selections

** 46 poems

** 4 dramatic poems

** 2 songs

** Brief author biographies

How we used this program.  

* My son has gotten better about his reading, but just like his older brother more than about a page seems to stress him out. I decided that I'd go through the program and pick out the stories and poems that I felt would best fit us size wise.  I think his favorite story by far was The Race by Victoria Furman.  

* I did most of the reading to my child and then asked him the comprehension questions. He did really great answering the questions and always seems to better answer them when I have read to him. If he focuses too much on the length of the story he doesn't seem to remember what happened.  

* I'll be honest that we did very little of the student workbook. Most of the work was just above where my son currently is working.  His writing skills just aren't where they need to be to do all the writing included in the workbook.  

* My goal was to work in this program 4 days a week and that happened most of the time except for a month after my son has surgery when we didn't do any school.  

What did I like about this program??

* At first glance you immediately see how beautifully illustrated these books were made.

*  The student really learns about the characters, themes, settings, conflicts, etc. There were also stories, poems, different genres, etc.  

* The workbook is packed with activities that help further the students learning. There are writing activities, comprehension questions, vocabulary as well as other activities.  There's a great mix, so that you can pick what you want your child to do and skip others if you feel the need.  

* The teacher's guides have a plan of how to use the program and which activities to do on which days.  

* It's got all the answers you need as well as any additional information you might want to help your child complete the lessons. 

What didn't work for my child.  

* I feel this program is very advanced in the reading and work and therefore the grade level my child was in was really too hard for him. In this type of program he'd be better off probably 2 grades behind due to his writing abilities and ability to read long stories.  

* While I like having a suggested plan in the teacher's edition to give me a starting point I felt that the overall teacher's edition just had too much in it for most homeschoolers. It felt like it would work better in a public school setting. That being said I pretty much just didn't use the teacher's book other than looking at the answers.  

* If I could turn back the clock I'd probably try the Opal set, which is 3rd grade, or the Ruby set, which is 4th grade. I think the writing activities in those would have been more where my son currently is working.  

All in all I have been super impressed with the Mosdos Press Literature-Pearl set.  It's beautifully written and illustrated as well as just jam packed with wonderful stories and poetry that I didn't feel I had to worry if my child read without me. In this day and age it's hard to find good literature and often we as parents feel we have to read stories or books before our child can. As homeschooling parents we already care a heavy load and we don't need any extra work. Mosdos has made it easy for us by giving us great material, wonderful activities and all the answers that we might need.  For additional information on the program there is a great video that explains how to schedule the 3rd grade opal set.  There is also another nice video that just shows the basic 3rd grade opal set and gives more information on how to use it. The information in these two videos can easily be transferred to help you with any of the sets.  

** I was given a free copy of this program from Timberdoodle for my honest review** 

Issac's 6th grade American History

Issac has really become interested in history in the last year and so I decided to try and make that more of a focus this year. I had heard about Guest Hollow from another mom and thought I'd check it out. Issac was really interested in the American History, so that was what I focused on finding.  Since we studied a little bit of American History last year I decided to go with the American History Year 2 that is a free option. I knew going into this program that links could not work and I'd need to request lots of books from the library, but I thought it was worth a shot! :)

One thing I decided to do was use file folders for each week. I printed out the lesson plan for the week and then anything else I needed to print I could have ready in the folder. The first few weeks are focused on the Civil War and suggest you either use Time Travelers: The Civil War by Home School in the Woods. We had been blessed with receiving this item free for reviewing it earlier this year. It was also recommended to use History Pockets-The Civil War. The author recommends one or the other, both are typically too many activities. I know that some of the activities in the Time Travelers unit were hard for my son, so I purchased the history pockets to supplement. I just picked a few things from both to use during those first few weeks. I'm noticed that as much as I'm wanting to do more hand-on activities Issac is just happy to have me read to him. He'd be happy to just sit and listen to me read everything in the history lesson and him not do any activities. That wasn't my plan at all, but some days that's what we do. I was hoping that I could get him more engaged in his learning with some fun activities.

While I was filing my papers in the folders I was also searching and requesting library books and marking which ones were available locally. I would say 90% of the books were easily available to us via library lending.  As I received the books from the library I'd use a little post it note and mark which week they were to be used. I then purchased a plastic tub that could hold a few weeks of all my books. I put my file folder with schedule and printed items in there, the books for the week and any additional books that might be used for multiple weeks. This way everything I need for history is in that box. I also decided a few weeks in that the book that is read for several weeks would become our reading book and we'd work on comprehension. We are about to finish Farmer Boy and we used the vocabulary and comprehension questions from homeschool share.  Our next book will be Sounder and we are using vocabulary and comprehension questions from Glencoe.

I've made a few little tweaks which is basically picking and choosing which items we are going to do. I also find that I still sometimes print more than we do, but I like having it already printed and ready to go. It helps Issac stay on test for me to not have to stop and print. We are provided with lots of different activities and even when the links don't work I can usually search and find what I need. They have lots of different free and paid options for multiple subjects. I'm thankful that I looked into Guest Hollow because they really have tons of great options.