Here To Help Learning Review

Over the past few weeks we have had the pleasure of utilising Flight 2 Paragraph Writing from Here To Help Learning, with our small group of micro school children.

We were given a 12 month membership to Here To help Learning, a homeschool writing curriculum, in order to write the following product review.

First Impressions

The Here To Help Learning website is bright, fresh and simple to navigate. The approach they take to writing is laid out right there on the main page of the website. To dig a little deeper and find out more details about the program I simply needed to click on the knowledge base link found across the top of the site.

Having a website that is easy to navigate is such a bonus when trying to get your head around a brand new curriculum product.

Exploring The Curriculum

As soon as my membership was all ready to go I logged on immediately to take a closer look around. The main lesson area is found under the Writing Tab and there I needed to decide which Flight Path I would take.

The flight paths are not grade levels, they are simply differing options that either cover Paragraph Writing or Essay Writing, depending on the level of your choice.

After watching a couple of the video lessons and laughing out loud, I might add. I decided on Flight Path 2 Paragraph Writing. I will explain in a little more detail later on why I chose that level.

Basically from there it is as simple as clicking on Lesson 1. Each lesson is completely self contained, there is no need to click all over the website to find the various components of each lesson. Oh how I love that!

So the video component and the printable worksheets and teacher lesson plans are all found right there on the one screen.

I would've liked to have been able to bring the lesson videos up on the screen individually so that when we watch them with the children there is no other visual clutter around the video screen, but that's a very minor inconvenience.

How We Have Used Here To Help Learning

I was quite excited when I realised that I could try this out in our micro school setting. Anyone that runs classes in this type of environment at all understands how tricky it is to find programs that are easily utilised in a group of varying aged (and abilities) children.

We have 8 children in this group, all of primary school age, with the youngest being 5 years old. We all work on the lessons together exactly as Mora does them with her group on the video. The variations in ages and abilities was my reason for choosing Paragraph Writing. I wanted to ensure that everyone had all of the great groundwork covered in the writing process before moving on to the Eassy level of the program.

In general we don't often take on subjects from the 3R's in our micro school setting because it's just too tricky but the Paragraph Writing program from Here To Help Learning has been an absolute pleasure to use with the kids.

What I liked most is the fact that Miss Mora, on more than one occasion, points out how to use the lesson with children of varying levels. She even offers them challenges to take on with their writing, whether they are barely writing at all and need an adult to scribe for them or even if they are filling pages with their stories. Any primary school aged child truly can use this course. If I had to point out something negative it would only be that if you have a child that is an avid writer that it may be a little on the slow side, but for that child I would simply complete more lessons in a week to speed the process up some.

My daughter working on her 1st Rough Draft

Each lesson is gentle, whilst introducing new concepts and all the while re-enforcing the writing process. We have just completed our first full rotation of the writing process, beginning from an idea to a complete published piece. Each step is a single lesson, with a video component and a small amount of written work, which we generally do as homework for the week.

All but one of the lessons we have been able to complete together within an hour. This takes a little longer for us as we have 8 children, so when we are playing games like "Sentence, No Sentence' everyone wants a piece of the action so it takes just a little longer than if we were working through this on our own.

In saying that though I love that we have the group, the kids really enjoy doing this together, playing the games, watching and laughing at Miss Mora, who by the way is incredibly funny and a just a little bit cheesy. The videos are highly engaging and she really ensures everything is easy to understand. The kids all bounce ideas off each other and are really working together to help each other out with their new found writing skills.

In terms of teacher preparation, there is very little. I always try to watch the video a few days before class so I know exactly what to expect. The only other thing I need to do is print the required worksheets for that particular lesson. It really is that simple. Miss Mora does all the work for me.

Lesson Structure

I wanted to spend more time on the actual lessons and detail how they are structured. Each week the lessons operate with a predictable pattern.

The video opens with an introduction, a quick checklist of the materials required and a gentle attitude reminder for the students.

Then it moves into learning new content, if you are on the first lesson of the writing process, if not you are practicing the content learned in that first lesson.

From there the video lesson moves you into the writing warm up. The students are given a funny picture prompt, the group brainstorms together some words that they may like to use in their writing. A timer is set and they have complete freedom to write as much or as little as they wish during the writing warm up time.

Then it's time for the writing process. Together the group works out where they are in the step by step writing process. For example, brainstorming, list making, rough drafts or maybe publishing to name a few. That stage of the writing process then becomes the focus for the remainder of the lesson.

I really like how this is structured. It is predictable, gentle and easy for both the adults and children to follow along with. It has been an absolute breeze to use within the group.

The group all with their first complete writing pieces....smiles all round!

Looking Ahead

This is one review product that we will most definitely be adding into our regular school routine. We have already discussed with our micro school group the possibility of taking the kids through the Essay Writing component of the program next year.

Parent Resources

A forum is provided on their website if any questions arise whilst using the program. There are also a large variety of resources linked on the Resource tab at the top of the website. From Language Helps Booklets, to Master Supply lists and Teachers Guides.

Details & Pricing

Visit the Here To Help Learning website to find out more details.


To see more from Here To Help Learning you can visit them on your favourite social media outlet

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/heretohelplearning/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/HTHLTweets
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/HTHLearning/
YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/HereToHelpLearning

There are several options when it comes to purchasing this homeschool writing program. Full teacher kits are available as a physical product or you can access everything via the subscription option, which is what we have been using here at home.

I hope you have found this review helpful. If you would like to see further reviews of Here To Help Teaching from members of the crew, please visit this link.



Happy Homeschooling,
Kylie

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Halloween ~ Poetry Fun & Writing Activities

This is actually the first year we've done anything with Halloween. I must admit I have been very anti Halloween over the years. However after having spent the last couple of weeks immersed in the topic with the families from our micro school I really had a great deal of fun!

I've wanted a way to go back over some of the poetry the older group worked on earlier in the year. These fun poem templates were perfect!

They were created by a teacher to use in her younger primary aged class and the download comes with lots of helpers to assist younger students in writing a fun poem.

For our group I had them choose one of the poetry types we had already covered, Cinquain, Haiku or the Limerick. From there they were free to write how they wanted about their chosen halloween character.

The download included a Werewolf, Frankenstein, Vampire and a Witch, although no one in this particular group chose the witch to write about.

Some of the group loved this and jumped straight in feet first and a few of them struggled with their poetry. It's not always easy to come up with a poem on the spot, but in the end they all completed their piece.

Thanks to Today In Second Grade for putting this together. To check it out visit her blog on this link.

Prior to having some fun with poetry I covered the history of Halloween with this group of kids. We used a simple read and write activity so I don't have photo's to share in a separate post.

However this mini unit did contain a brief overview of the origins and influences of Halloween, from the Celts, the Samhain festival, Druids, the festival of Pamona and the Christian influence of All Saints Day!

After completing readings everyone wrote their own newspaper article about The History of Halloween.

You can see this mini unit closer over at Mr Educators store on Teachers Pay Teachers by visiting this link.

Are you covering Halloween in any way this year? I'd love to hear about it if you are.

This post is linked at Expedition Homeschool Halloween Party Link Up

Happy Homeschooling
Kylie

Way Back When: The First Writing

During our study of the First Writing we read Write Around The World by Vivian French. This particular book was a super thrift store find, before I knew that it was included in the suggested book list of History Odyessy from Pandia Press.

 This is the story of how and why we learnt to write. Whilst you could categorise it as a picture book, it is quite long and detailed and therefore definitely for the older or very interested child.

Each double page spread covers an era in time, as it relates to writing. Sumeria, Egypt, China, The Alphabet, Languages, Handwriting, all the way through to Machine Writing and Secret Codes.

You could potentially build quite an indepth unit around this book

We played around for awhile with Hieroglyphs. How could we not, such an important part of mankind's history.

I spent some time reading reviews on this book with stamps package as many of them were very mixed.

I really wanted the kids to have the opportunity to use the stamps though so I took the plunge and went ahead and ordered it. Granted the stamps are not of the highest quality but the book itself has some interesting bits and pieces. Lego Lover was particularly intrigued with counting with Hieroglyphs so we spent some time playing around in that section of the book.

We all played with the stamps for a bit, wrote our names in hieroglyphs using this site.

We read Seeker Of Knowledge by James Runford. This is the story of Jean-Francois Champollion, the man who deciphered Egyptian Hieroglyphs.

Another longer, more involved, older child's, picture book, but definitely worth a read in regards to a unit of work on the history of writing.

Without Jean's sheer love of all things Egyptian, which began when he was a boy, determination and sheer hard work we may still be wondering about the Hieroglyphs.

I can't seem to find a photo but we also used Air Drying Clay to carve some cuneiform into and once allowed to dry the kids painted it.

Check out the linky parties I have shared this with.

• Ancient Mesopotamia

• Pre-History, The Big Bang and Evolution

• Charles Darwin, The Beagle, Galapagos Islands and Evolution

• All History Related Posts

Creative Writing for Reluctant Writers

I have a very reluctant 7 year old writer. It is painstakingly difficult, or at least he seems to make it that way whenver we do some type of creative writing task.

I know many will say just leave it and it will come with time. Continue with other activities, lots of reading and copywork and I hear that I really do. However I would still like us to be doing just a little bit of creative writing, even just the tiniest amount would make this mummy happy.

We have just started using Write Shop but haven't prgoressed far enough with the program for me to give any kind of honest review on it as yet. The first couple of lessons have been quite easy though and so far it appears to be helping.

When I saw what Ami @ Walkig By The Way did with her son I thought I would give it a go. A brief run down on the task: 1. Choose a story title. 2. Take turns rolling the dice whatever number you roll you have to add to the story by writing that number of words. However I forgot that she mixed it up between them. I just had B7 do it all himself, so with each throw of the dice he had to write that many words.

I gave him a few story titles to choose from and he chose, 'The Day I Swam With Sharks.' This was still a pretty difficult exercise in that it was hard work to get anything out of him...maybe he just wasn't in a creative mood! However this is also the most he has ever written so we will be doing this exercise again. I think next time I will mix it up though with me taking turns as well, just to take a little bit of the pressure off him.

I'd love to see other creative writing ideas so if you have any be sure to link me up in the comments. :)

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Sites Of Interest

Write Shop Program

Ami, Walking By The Way

Kinder Corner Story Starters

Story It Story Starters

First School Years Story Starters

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