Tag Archives: ESL

Starfall Home Membership Review

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Have you ever checked out the the Starfall Education Foundation website? It has a lot of learning fun to offer!

We were recently given a one year subscription to their upgraded paid version called The Starfall Home Membership in exchange for writing an honest review of our experience.

The Starfall Home Membership

Online Learning

Phonics, Reading, Spelling Games,

Music, Learning Games, Math

PreK – 2nd Grades

One Year Subscription

Retail $35

The Starfall Home Membership subscription includes free mobile App to access the membership account from a mobile device.

The Starfall Home Membership

The Starfall Home Membership is an educational program for younger kids.  It is designed for kids in PreK through 2nd grade.  It is also great for kids (or adults) of any age who are learning English As A Second Language, any age with Special Needs, or even older kids who need Remedial work, or to just for fun to brush up on some of the basic phonics, reading, and math skills.

Starfall Education Foundation offers both a free version and a paid version (The Starfall Home Membership) of their online program that is filled with supplemental educational learning games.  They also offer a FREE mobile app, a printed version of full curriculum for sale and other resources for sale, and FREE parent teacher resources including FREE worksheet generators, posters, books, and other free printables.  Requirements to use the program are access to Internet service, and a computer or a laptop or mobile internet compatible device to access the program.

Check out this video for a short demonstration of a phonics spelling game from the Starfall Education Foundation.

Here is an example of a fun math game.  To see it in action, click the “play button” on this video for a short demonstration.

The Parent – Teacher Center

Looking through the Parent – Teacher Center can help give parents ideas on how to use the program and incorporate the program into their student’s curriculum.

It includes supplemental worksheets, custom worksheets, posters, curriculum downloads, informative guides, and the latest information from Starfall to keep you up to date.

Starfall also offers an organized lesson plan already put together.  You can use this resource online, or purchase the printed curriculum.  They offer a full printed curriculum that comes boxed with several additional extras (books, games, toys, manipulatives) that go along with the curriculum too.  Be sure to check out their curriculum if you are looking for a helpful resource.

Our Experience

I used The Starfall Home Membership with both my six year old and nine year old sons.

Though they had to share the same dashboard (as families are only given one account), each boy enjoyed different aspects of the program.

We worked on this review of Starfall during January and February.  It is accessible 24/7 and we used it on weekdays as a supplement to our curriculum and weekends if the kids requested to play on it.

The first thing the kids did each day they worked on the program was view the interactive calendar.

This was a fun exercise to see and learn more about the days and months.

The calendar lists the main holidays each month, and then you can add items, such as students can dress it up with the provided border options and stamps or print and color it.  My boys changed the border for the holiday and marked the weekends stamped with stars.

Holidays for January included:

  1. New Years Day
  2. Martin Luther King Jr Day

Holidays for February included:

  1. Groundhog Day
  2. Valentines Day
  3. Chinese New Year
  4. Presidents Day

The calendar feature also asks the kids a few questions about what day of the week and other questions that helps them get familiar with reading and using the calendar.

Another fun personalizing feature of Starfall is the avatar.  Because there is only one account per household, there is only one avatar to share.

The six year old got to choose the avatar features and dress it up and then both boys worked together on answering the questions about items in the room or various rooms of the house.

A nice feature of Starfall is the dashboard filled to the brim with learning opportunities.   The Learn To Read tab is really nice.  It brings you to a list of letters, words, or combinations, and then after those skills are mastered, the student proceeds to the books that feature those letters or word combinations for more practice.

The six year old is learning letter sounds and using them in short words.

He is also counting to 20 and using simple math such as adding numbers.

Math songs help him remember different concepts.

Starfall offers lots of math games that make learning math concepts fun and motivate him to want to do more fun practice of skills.

There are plenty of activities to choose from.  I am just barely skimming the surface in sharing these things so far.  There are also puzzles, activities with subject themes, and some basic learning games in Sign Language such as the ALS alphebet and some signing words in the music activities too.

My nine year old son is a strong reader already and really enjoys reading books.

Here are a few pictures from some of his activities, books, songs, and learning games he has been working on.

A nice feature for strong readers and those just learning to read is the option for the book to be read aloud to you.  My older son did not need this feature, but my younger son did.

Sometimes after my older son read the page, I would go back through it with him and push on the little ear button to have the sentence or paragraph read to him.  He was like “Mom, I already read that!”   However, even though he did a good job reading, I wanted him to hear the deflection in the reader’s voice as it read through the different characters and with different emotions.  Learning how to express emotions and vary the sounds enhanced the learning for him.

Every option, whether it was phonics, books, math, music etc had even more opportunities for him to read.

He is enjoying the various math games.

There are a lot of musical options too.  There are folk songs, nursery rhymes, math songs, abc songs, classical composers, and more.

There are lots of extra learning activities too such as holiday cards, and more.  In one of the activities, my son helped a mouse practice writing a letter to his grandma.

Final thoughts about the program:

This program has a lot of activities to offer and can help kids learn and improve their reading and math skills.   It is affordable at just $35 a year for the entire family, so if you have multiple younger children, you only have to pay one low price and they can all use it.  You can try out the free version and see how it works for your family.  The paid version offers a whole lot more.  Also it does not keep scores after the activity, and kids can repeat the activity as many times as they want.  You can take it on the go with you by using the mobile app so it can give kids something fun to do while traveling in the car or when “waiting” on appointments or waiting for other activities to begin.  It is flexible and my younger kids have enjoyed using different parts of the program.

I would have loved to have had this program when I was teaching English as a Second Language to International college students.  A program like this would have helped immerse the International students in the English language and engage them with fun activities, songs, and audio visual interaction.  The read aloud option of the books, with emphasis on tones and expression would have really helped practice speaking and understanding language and how it is applied in conversation and different situations.

One consideration to keep in mind for religious homeschools, and especially Christian families, is that there are themes in the books and games options (such as aliens, fantasy, dragons, magic, Halloween, etc) that would be part of public school education, but may conflict with bible teaching and a homeschool with a Christian worldview.  However, each activity is optional and you can choose which games or books you want to use in the program and avoid selecting certain topics that do not agree with your religious beliefs and cultural practices. The program is flexible and has many different options and you can use what you want from it.

Starfall learning games and books are interactive and engaging and the program has a lot of different things to choose from to build skills and practice reading and math.  It is a publicly supported non-profit educational foundation, and it’s standards are aligned with the public school Core Curriculum of both European Union and USA and other countries.

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Homeschool Review Crew

Be sure to check out what others on the Homeschool Review Crew had to say about using The Starfall Home Membership in their home.

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English On A Roll Review

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Kids love playing games with numbered dice.  Why not give them dice with words for learning the English language?

For the past few weeks, I have been reviewing grammar skills with my kids using the English Grammar Teaching Method from English on a Roll.

English on a Roll

English Grammar Teaching Method

150-page Instructor Manual

37 Lessons

40 Cubes

Ages 5 – Adult

Retail $79.00

 

What is included?

English On A Roll uses a researched based, highly successful, Multi-sensory Structured Language method (MSL) of instruction.  English On A Roll includes a 150 page instructor manual that contains 37 lessons, reproducible worksheets, and learning materials.

However, the lessons and worksheets are not the boring English Language instruction you would normally find in a curriculum.  Instead, this instruction manual is filled with game-like activities that involve various senses.  Kids will have fun using their visual, auditory, verbal skills, and their hands to create grammatically correct sentences.  The instruction manual contains reproducible worksheets, conversation ideas, and teaching tips that both kids and adults enjoy. No prior teaching experience is required.  It comes with everything you need and is easy to implement.

English On A Roll also includes 40 word cubes (dice) in a plastic case.  Each heavy duty plastic cube is six sided and has 6 corresponding words kids will use to make sentences.  There are 38 color coded word cubes engraved with groups of related words, and there are also 2 blank cubes for customizing.

The word cubes are color-coded to facilitate learning the different parts of speech by color association.

  • Pronoun Words = Blue
  • Question Words = Green
  • Noun Words = Dark Blue
  • Preposition Words =  Dark Blue
  • Article Words  = Dark Blue
  • Adjective Words = Purple
  • Verb Words = Red
  • Adverb Words = Orange
  • Punctuation Symbols = Black
  • Conjunction Words = Black

The 40 piece set of word cubes come in a durable plastic case so you won’t loose them and they are easy to transport and store.  They are just the right size to be portable, and the case is small enough to fit into a backpack or purse.  The set includes two blank cubes that are easy to customize with additional vocabulary words of your choice.  From their website, you can buy as many additional smaller sets of blank cubes as you need.

My kids are really enjoying the lessons.


Lesson 5 Questions (verses Statements) With “Be”.  Singular: “It is a car.” or “Is it a car?” Or Plural: “They are cars.” or “Are they cars?”

The lessons are fun and have a “game” like quality to them.  In addition to “playing” as you learn the grammar lessons, students can get creative and develop their own lessons too. English on a Roll is fun, which keeps students practicing.

Repeated practice is recognized as the most significant factor in mastery of language.

Students can learn to master grammar of the English language with English On A Roll’s multi-sensory hands on program.  It teaches both grammar and syntax and students will have a strong understanding of the structure of the English language when they complete the program.  One set of cubes can be used for up to six students at a time; and larger groups (or classrooms) will need to purchase the larger kit that contains the instruction manual and 5 complete sets of the cubes.

English on a Roll uses fun 6 sided word cubes to get the message across.  By rolling the cubes (spinning the cube around with their fingers), and coordinating the color code, students can build unlimited phrases and sentences and learn the basics of the English language.  Kids feel like they are playing a game and they want to practice because it feels seems to them they are playing a game.  It is easy to see how students have fun while learning with this program.

English On A Roll is a great addition to Homeschools.  It is easy to use, portable, and would make a handy resource for parents in many different scenarios.  A few ideas where a homeschool family might use this program in addition to home is:  in the car, at Homeschool coops, and volunteers in various settings, and at nursing home visits.  Parents could take this program along for kids to work on quietly in the lobby while the parent are in a meeting or appointment.  Here are a few more ideas of various situations where these cubes would be a great resource:

  • Homeschools
  • Literacy
  • Beginning Reading (K-4)
  • Daycares
  • Preschools
  • English as a Second Language (ESL)
  • Special Education
  • Adult Education
  • Nursing Home Visits (help with social interaction, memory, eye hand coordination or language recovery).
  • Test Preparation Programs
  • After School Programs
  • Summer School Programs
  • Libraries
  • Community Centers
  • Churches
  • Classrooms
  • Tutoring Programs

 

Check out this video link to see the creator of  English On A Roll using the program with students on their website.

FREE Sample

If you would like to try before you buy, check out the FREE Sample Chapters offer on the English On A Roll website.

Additional Resources

There are a couple of additional products available for even more hands on learning fun.  They offer additional sets of blank cubes for $8.50  Even though they include two blank cubes in the main set, you might need more blank cubes.

You can put whatever vocabulary words you want on these, however, I would like to get a couple sets of the blank blocks and make a set of alphabet blocks for my youngest child who is just beginning to learn letters and sounds.  The main set with vocabulary words was perfect for my 8 year old and the older children, but they were too hard for my 5 year old.

He preferred to sort them by color and count how many there were, and he loved to stack them and play with the blocks on the floor when the older kids were not using them for their lessons.

I plan to use the one and two letter word cubes for learning some short letter words as he begins to read, and I would like a more blank cubes that we can add more smaller sight words into his vocabulary.  I would also like to have more blank cubes to customize for the older kids and make a fun way to learn bible verses, rhyming words, and make a fun game on creating poetry, songs, story telling, etc.  I can think of many challenging ways we could use these.

English On A Roll also offers a board game for $20.  This board game looks like a lot of fun. It is designed to help kids build their vocabulary and social skills as they incorporate the use of the word cubes, as well as a game board, cards, and players. I hope to order the board game soon.

Our family enjoys learning various subjects with a hands-on approach.  It has been fun to use this multi-sensory method to practice language learning skills.  I recommend English On A Roll for families, because this program gives kids (and adults) the tools they need to learn English in a fun hands-on way.

Social Media

Be sure to check out social media links for all the latest news and product updates.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/englishonaroll/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPweHHfQ9OmKiu7Lo4Fv42Q

Homeschool Review Crew

Check out what other families on the Homeschool Review Crew had to say about using English on a Roll.

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