Friday, June 25, 2010

200 Level Geography Reordered

The 200 Level Geography Curriculum has been reordered to more accurately reflect the difficulty inherent in the courses. Capitals have been moved to higher course numbers since learning capitals is, for most students, more difficult than learning country names.

One reason learning capitals is more difficult is that capitals don't have a nice shape on a map. The shape of a country helps the student remember the country. For example, almost all students find it easy to remember Italy. We've moved capitals to the end of the 200 level curriculum to better reflect their difficulty level.


Thursday, June 17, 2010

400 Level Spelling

400 LEVEL SPELLING
(25 New Intermediate Spelling Courses)

The 400 level spelling words have been released.

All new recordings!

100% human voices!

They can be assigned to any grade level student. The are targeted to children in higher elementary through middle school.

A few 3 letter words remained in 300 level spelling, but they are all gone at the 400 level. The words are getting harder and are randomly distributed across all 25 courses.


Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Daily Ribbons

DAILY RIBBONS

We encourage students to visit HomeSchoolAdvantage daily.

Visiting daily ensures the facts in the review queue are reviewed in a timely manner.

Daily ribbons are provided to reward students for completing all of their worksheets in a day. Each day a student completes all of their worksheets they earn another daily ribbon.

The Daily Ribbons are displayed in the TROPHY ROOM.

We would love for all students to earn at least 150 to 200 daily ribbons a year!

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

WARNING - DON'T STOP REVIEWING OVER THE SUMMER

For over one hundred years researchers have noticed a dangerous effect of our public education system. Specifically, students forget way too much of what they have learned during extended summer breaks. All children lose academic skills during the summer months, but what we now know about memory loss tells us that going sixty to ninety days without academic reinforcement puts a child in an unnecessary position of having to relearn large amounts of information that need never have been forgotten.

Tip - Don't Stop Reviewing Old Information During Summer Vacation

It is O.K. to give the children a break and to stop acquiring new information over the summer months. However, it is a seriously bad idea to go more than one or two weeks without reviewing and reinforcing prior information that has been learned. A lot of parents drop their academic review programs during the summer months. PLEASE DON'T. Drop acquisition but maintain review. Just 15 minutes a day, three to 4 days a week, can make a tremendous difference in your child's lifelong academic achievement.

Monday, June 14, 2010

Trophies


We have added a fun way for students to track their progress.

TROPHIES

A student earns a trophy if all of the facts in a course have been reviewed at least once.

The trophy is put on display in the student's personal Trophy Room.

A trophy signifies that the student has seen all of the facts in the course at least once and that they are now working to retain and recall them forever.

As we add hundreds of courses, the student may earn hundreds of trophies.

Start collecting them today!

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Spelling Level 200 Released

We have released a complete set of 200 Level Spelling Courses. These fourteen courses contain over one thousand spelling words sorted by word length.

All of these words and sentences are recorded with a 100% human voice!

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

New Spelling Voice For All 100 Level Spelling Words

All of the HomeSchool Advantage spelling words have been rerecorded with a human voice. Riana, our new voice talent, has recorded over 6500 English words and sentences for our spelling curriculum. We will be releasing all 6500 spelling words soon in a complete set of courses across all levels. We will announce each new set of spelling courses as they are released.

Spelling Level 100 (Complete) - All 5 Existing Courses Have Been Updated With New Recordings!

Thanks to everyone who encouraged us to improve the quality of our recordings. We listen closely to feedback from the community, and would love to hear what you think of the new high quality sound.