vaquitita Posted March 13, 2017 Share Posted March 13, 2017 http://www.funschoolingbooks.com Anyone use these? Maybe it's because it's spring, but I'm totally feeling liking switching to these! :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tdbates78 Posted March 13, 2017 Share Posted March 13, 2017 I too am super interested. I love the fun cute drawings and journal ideas.I haven't been able to find many reviews and I have about 5 of them in my amazon wish list. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
featherhead Posted March 13, 2017 Share Posted March 13, 2017 Yes! We love them so far! We've only been using a couple of them for a few months, but I'm planning to use them a lot more this coming year. YouTube has a ton of reviews. There are also some Facebook groups you can join to hear a lot more about them. Fun-schooling with Thinking Tree Books is a good one. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2_girls_mommy Posted March 13, 2017 Share Posted March 13, 2017 We have been using them all year. I discovered them at convention last year and got one of the middle grade journals for my artsy right brained dd12. Then I looked more into them and bought myself a mom one for mother's day. Then as the year started I bought her a couple of their spelling books. She started some vision therapy this year which included integrated learning therapy. The teacher, with a master's in special ed, loved these books for her and how we are using them. She took down the info to order them for her hsing grandkids. We don't use it as full curric. She picked her topics and has about 45 min to an hour a day to work in hers every morning. For the reading pages I had her pick a Science book to study from, a Bible, a book of poetry, and whatever novel she wants to work from. We do this in addition to our regular WTM curriculum, and she LOVES it. I already ordered 3 matching ones for my two dds and one for me for next year. We are going to start our day with this time to work in them as our morning basket time altogether on the same page. We will listen to our classical music or audio books on the coloring pages. We will do our read alouds for the reading time pages and take notes on them. They do a bit of creative writing and journaling on some pages. We will watch a video on one of our topics when we are on those pages. I made a list of resources that can go with each page. We will have a dedicated time to work in them each morning, doing as much as we get to, and it will add to our regular studies. It will be all of our religious studies, geography, and creative writing and poetry time and probably our time to look at original sources and such too. I am able to include a lot with these books that I want to cover anyway. But using them inspires us. We love using good colored pencils and gel pens to do the work. It is just stuff I never thought mattered. An empty comp. book can be a beautiful notebook if you make it, right? But for some reason, these really do the trick for us. My dd12 has been so inspired to do so much with this book. She has finally started writing in cursive, something she thought she couldn't do and would only do on copywork where I made her. She does copywork, writes summaries, looks up her own poetry to learn, tries really hard to get her spelling correct. She wants her book to look nice. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
featherhead Posted March 13, 2017 Share Posted March 13, 2017 They also do a lot of giveaways on their Facebook pages. Dyslexia Games (The Thinking Tree) page has one right now. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2_girls_mommy Posted March 13, 2017 Share Posted March 13, 2017 Yes! We love them so far! We've only been using a couple of them for a few months, but I'm planning to use them a lot more this coming year. YouTube has a ton of reviews. There are also some Facebook groups you can join to hear a lot more about them. Fun-schooling with Thinking Tree Books is a good one. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk I love the video a mom made about how she uses the Charlotte Mason one. I saw it attached to the journal reviews on Amazon. She really inspired me on how I could make it work for our homeschool. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2_girls_mommy Posted March 13, 2017 Share Posted March 13, 2017 I too am super interested. I love the fun cute drawings and journal ideas.I haven't been able to find many reviews and I have about 5 of them in my amazon wish list. They are so expesive that I put them in my Amazon wishlist and watch them because the prices will randomly go up and down, some as much as half price. I had watched a lot of videos and picked the ones I wanted for next year and put them in my wish list. On Black Friday they went to almost half price, plus Amazon had a $10 off code that day, so I was able to get three less than the usual cost of two. Right now there is a mom journal, the Coffee Time one, that is lower priced that I want to get on payday. :) And I got the spelling one I wanted for dd when it went down. The Dyslexia Games workbooks themselves don't seem to go down in price. But there are some free samples to print on the blog page. And the journals have the games interspersed in them too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2_girls_mommy Posted March 13, 2017 Share Posted March 13, 2017 this is a 12 year old. I love my thinking tree journal! My favorite part of my book is the screen time and the reading time. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
featherhead Posted March 13, 2017 Share Posted March 13, 2017 They are so expesive that I put them in my Amazon wishlist and watch them because the prices will randomly go up and down, some as much as half price. I had watched a lot of videos and picked the ones I wanted for next year and put them in my wish list. On Black Friday they went to almost half price, plus Amazon had a $10 off code that day, so I was able to get three less than the usual cost of two. Right now there is a mom journal, the Coffee Time one, that is lower priced that I want to get on payday. :) And I got the spelling one I wanted for dd when it went down. The Dyslexia Games workbooks themselves don't seem to go down in price. But there are some free samples to print on the blog page. And the journals have the games interspersed in them too. The dyslexia games books are cheaper on the dyslexia games website. You can get them PDF and print them yourself. Or if you buy two levels, or all three, it is also discounted. Sometimes there is a coupon code as well. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2_girls_mommy Posted March 13, 2017 Share Posted March 13, 2017 I've considered that, but I am not convinced that they are that useful to pay even that much for us. I think I get enough of them in the journals and from the freebies for us to use with what I am doing otherwise. I do like the results I am seeing paired with the other tactics I have learned for this dd so far. I do think they are interesting. And even though the journals are expensive, it is worth it for me if it inspires my dd to do her best work and if she loves reading because of them and improves other skills, so if I felt they (the games) were making much of a difference I would go for it. OP I will say from the time of the convention to the beginning of school year they were posting different freebies to download at different times, and that was nice. I am using the How To Make Money Journal that I got free and I have some others downloaded that I am not using currently but that I could in the future with my younger child. So watch their sites and blog for those. We also like the dyslexia games videos. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted March 13, 2017 Share Posted March 13, 2017 My kids absolutely refused to do them. They far prefer drawing their own pictures. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
domestic_engineer Posted March 13, 2017 Share Posted March 13, 2017 My kids enjoyed it ... the first day .... but as time progressed they found it too repetitive. My kids absolutely refused to do them. They far prefer drawing their own pictures. This. And they did not like the style of art in the books. I love the company; I love the idea of the books; It just didn't fit with my kids. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2_girls_mommy Posted March 13, 2017 Share Posted March 13, 2017 In the older kids books they are drawing their own pictures? Maybe that is just in the younger books? I don't really like the looks of the younger journals, no matter how much I like the idea of them for middle grades/upper elementary. I think they are too much $ for younger kids when I can get dollar store workbooks with stickers and bright colors that do the same things for my preschooler. I will stick with Rod and Staff ABC workbooks for actual preK and K workbooks. But I love these for some creativity/notebooking for the bigger girls. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wheres Toto Posted March 13, 2017 Share Posted March 13, 2017 I keep looking at these but I haven't been able to pull the trigger. They're pretty expensive and the reviews say they are very repetitive. My kids go through tons of blank notebooks writing, drawing pictures, making comic books. I'm not sure the kids would like it. I've thought about getting one of the mom ones to get a better impression but again....so expensive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Runningmom80 Posted March 14, 2017 Share Posted March 14, 2017 I love the video a mom made about how she uses the Charlotte Mason one. I saw it attached to the journal reviews on Amazon. She really inspired me on how I could make it work for our homeschool.I need to see this! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vaquitita Posted March 14, 2017 Author Share Posted March 14, 2017 Well, I bought each of my kids one. I figure we can use them for the last 2-3 months of our school year to liven things up. I have reluctant writers, so I'm hoping these get them involved and writing more. My boys draw a lot, but somehow that doesn't transfer to school notebooking. They resist if I tell them exactly what to notebook tho. I'm hoping this is sort of a happy medium. Rather than totally 'delight directed' I'm going to get out the books I have lined up for the medieval history unit we are working on and have them pick from among those. They'll get to pick the ones that interest them more, and we probably won't get through everything I collected anyway. My oldest son loves the looks of the mine craft fun school journal. He looked through the samples and just thought it was awesome. Lol. It's too long to use for just the next two months, but I think I will have him use it next year. Rather than browbeat him into writing something about his history books. Educents has the mine craft PDF on sale 40% off today, plus I used SHOP15 to get another 15% off. My kids all love mine craft so I figure this one will get used even if I decide these aren't really for us. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BatmansWife Posted March 14, 2017 Share Posted March 14, 2017 (edited) I guess I'll be the odd one out here....I didn't like the book we got. I see that there are a lot more choices now, so maybe they've added new things to the books. When I ordered a book it was the Do-It-Yourself Homeschool Journal...and, I'm pretty sure, that's the only one they had (different coves but same pages inside). I like the cover. A few of the pages inside are cute. I'm not sure where the book is right now, so I don't exactly remember, but there are....let's say 10 pages with maybe 8 of those pages to fill in. Those same 8 pages are repeated again, and again, and again throughout the entire book. So, you might think you're getting a book with a lot of pages of activities, but it's the same ones over and over. I know you are supposed to use different books for each set of repeated pages....but I couldn't understand why the pages couldn't have at least been made to look different....especially with the outrageous price I paid for it. I was totally disappointed and my daughter didn't even like it. I still have it....somewhere. If I find it I'll probably sell it, but I may actually feel bad to have someone buy it from me. Maybe the other books have been improved upon, I don't know. Of course, this is just my opinion...but there you have it. Edited March 14, 2017 by BatmansWife Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vaquitita Posted March 14, 2017 Author Share Posted March 14, 2017 (edited) Weird double post Edited March 14, 2017 by vaquitita Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vaquitita Posted March 14, 2017 Author Share Posted March 14, 2017 They do have a lot more books now, and a whole bunch more are coming out soon. As the mother of three boys, I find most of the books to be very girly. Even the boy themed ones seem more like they're neutral. Some books with less coloring and more drawing would be good, my oldest is not into coloring but loves to draw (anything gross, drooling, or dripping blood 😲). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vaquitita Posted March 14, 2017 Author Share Posted March 14, 2017 (edited) Oops double post Edited March 14, 2017 by vaquitita Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2_girls_mommy Posted March 15, 2017 Share Posted March 15, 2017 I don't know about boys, lol. My girls like to color when they get to use nice gel pens and good colored pencils and such. My dd12 will sit and color in hers while I read aloud. She LOVES the pictures where it says write a short story about this picture. Hers is the Do It Yourself journal with the horse cover this year, the one with little variation, and she still loves it. The pictures are very girly and about sisters and family, so she always writes a paragraph or two about something our family did that goes with the picture. It is so sweet. Since it isn't our only curric, the repetition doesn't bother her because she only does 1-2 pages a morning. It might be close to a month before she comes back to that page again since we only use the journal 3-4 times a week at most. The ones I got for next year are a bit more grown up and have a lot more variety than her current one. I looked at lots of videos til I found the ones I wanted and then watched until they went on sale. It was the only one I would consider for my high schooler. But I marked off how many of each page there are and what resources we will or can use with each, and I am very excited about it. On the drawing their own pics- I was surprised people said there wasn't a place to draw. I counted 6 places to draw something in a "day's" pages in each day of the journal after reading that. So I guess the younger ones may be different. Plus it has 1 full coloring page a day, the "logic games" page for doodling, and all of the decorations to color if they want for each day. So lots of room for my artistic kid to decorate. She loves that she is encouraged to doodle and draw on these pages as opposed to regular schoolwork. We are using one of the spelling books and she loves it because it incorporates geography and musical instruments and animals that she has to draw too. She is in heaven because she is doing so much drawing with these books in a day. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vaquitita Posted March 16, 2017 Author Share Posted March 16, 2017 Well my books came in the mail today and my 9yo daughter fell immediately in love with it. Lol. She actually didn't like the princess ballerina theme as being too babyish. But that's only the cover and a handful of pages. She loves everything else. She started in on some of the fill in the missing parts pages right away. Her conclusion was that school is going to be SO fun now. Lol. After she said that I pointed out the title. :D I had gotten a small size spelling journal and she latched on to that one too. We shall see if the boys reaction is at all similar. ;) 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2_girls_mommy Posted March 16, 2017 Share Posted March 16, 2017 Next you'll be getting a mom one, lol. I love mine. I am so glad that others are starting to get these, so I can talk about them. I have loved them all year. I used my mom one yesterday to sit and plan my week and to plan my menu and to draw out the fun things I want to do with the kids for Spring Break. I love organizing my thoughts that way and having it all in the same place where I also keep a Thankfulness journal and Bible verses and notes about books I have been reading. It is such a fun idea to have it all in one place for those of us that like this kind of thing. It is less work than scrapbooking which I liked 15 years ago before I got too busy to do with kids and then homeschooling, but I get to a little of that kind of thing. I only need gel pens and colored pencils to do a little decorating. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hilltopmom Posted March 16, 2017 Share Posted March 16, 2017 I don't know about boys, lol. My girls like to color when they get to use nice gel pens and good colored pencils and such. My dd12 will sit and color in hers while I read aloud. She LOVES the pictures where it says write a short story about this picture. Hers is the Do It Yourself journal with the horse cover this year, the one with little variation, and she still loves it. The pictures are very girly and about sisters and family, so she always writes a paragraph or two about something our family did that goes with the picture. It is so sweet. Since it isn't our only curric, the repetition doesn't bother her because she only does 1-2 pages a morning. It might be close to a month before she comes back to that page again since we only use the journal 3-4 times a week at most. The ones I got for next year are a bit more grown up and have a lot more variety than her current one. I looked at lots of videos til I found the ones I wanted and then watched until they went on sale. It was the only one I would consider for my high schooler. But I marked off how many of each page there are and what resources we will or can use with each, and I am very excited about it. On the drawing their own pics- I was surprised people said there wasn't a place to draw. I counted 6 places to draw something in a "day's" pages in each day of the journal after reading that. So I guess the younger ones may be different. Plus it has 1 full coloring page a day, the "logic games" page for doodling, and all of the decorations to color if they want for each day. So lots of room for my artistic kid to decorate. She loves that she is encouraged to doodle and draw on these pages as opposed to regular schoolwork. We are using one of the spelling books and she loves it because it incorporates geography and musical instruments and animals that she has to draw too. She is in heaven because she is doing so much drawing with these books in a day. Can you tell me which ones you thought were best for older kids? I have a 14 yr old artsy kid with LDs so she needs lower level work but nothing that looks babyish. She does a lot of drawing & coloring plus likes to choose hervown interest areas for research, so these seem great. I've seen some younger kids ones &'eh. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2_girls_mommy Posted March 16, 2017 Share Posted March 16, 2017 Can you tell me which ones you thought were best for older kids? I have a 14 yr old artsy kid with LDs so she needs lower level work but nothing that looks babyish. She does a lot of drawing & coloring plus likes to choose hervown interest areas for research, so these seem great. I've seen some younger kids ones &'eh. I ended up picking the Devotional Homeschool Journal for Christian Girls which is exactly the same as one of the Do It Yourself Homeschool Journals with animals all over it on the inside. It is obviously Christian. There are a couple of the unschooling do it yourself ones that are very similar without the Bible study pages that I would use too. I also like the Master the Top 150 Misspelled Words from the Dyslexia Games which is also sold under another cover in the Thinking Tree Spelling books for older kids. I am using it along with a younger spelling one for my dd12 and will probably work through the Master one over the next few years with her. The Devotional HS Journal I bought is currently on sale on Amazon. My dd with some difficulties is thriving with these even just added onto her regular stuff and working some of her regular stuff into them. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vaquitita Posted March 17, 2017 Author Share Posted March 17, 2017 Next you'll be getting a mom one, lol. I love mine. I am so glad that others are starting to get these, so I can talk about them. I have loved them all year. I used my mom one yesterday to sit and plan my week and to plan my menu and to draw out the fun things I want to do with the kids for Spring Break. I love organizing my thoughts that way and having it all in the same place where I also keep a Thankfulness journal and Bible verses and notes about books I have been reading. It is such a fun idea to have it all in one place for those of us that like this kind of thing. It is less work than scrapbooking which I liked 15 years ago before I got too busy to do with kids and then homeschooling, but I get to a little of that kind of thing. I only need gel pens and colored pencils to do a little decorating. Haha. I used to scrapbook too before I had kids. I looked at one mom book, but it wasn't quite what I wanted. Too directed I guess. I want more freedom to write about whatever. Right now I just use a spiral notebook to organize my thoughts. It would be fun/prettier to have edges to color. I need to look thru more mom books I guess, see if I can find one I like. Lol. I do like having separate books tho. One for school thoughts, one for house/kids, one for Bible verses. Yes, I want to talk about these! I'm really kind of liking this idea of letting them read about history and science that interests them. I feel freed up to do one on one teaching and, what's been missing, Fun Stuff! Actually play those math games. 😠I'm stealing an idea off the fun schooling Facebook page... Themed days. We do an hour ish long reading time each day. Right now we've been reading from the animal book list I put together for my 6yo and various literature books for my older two. I also try to do memory work, poetry, and books for the toddler. The whole short lessons bit means a lot of transitions and feeling rushed. What I'm going to try is: Mondays, play math games (maybe logic games too). Tuesday, read SOTW 2. Wednesday, play word games and read literature. Thursday, read a science book and do nature study. Friday, read poetry, books on composers and artists, maybe art lessons. It sounds like great fun, and we will be doing all the stuff we never get to, but it's still hard to give up reading literature every day. Lol. I'm also not sure how next year I will fit BF early American history and geography into one day! My boys liked the fun school journals today. I think they'll really like picking their own books. They're picking from books I've collected, so they're still reading good books but they get to pick ones that interest them. I did require my 11yo to pick books from certain categories, but that still left half the books totally up to him. Their choices today gave me some insights. Lol. My 6yo middle son wrote down science for every item on his list of things he's interested in. When he picked his books he picked all science books, including let's read and find out science books (rather than me reading them to him like we've been doing). I had been giving him books from the Bookshark 2nd grade readers list. I'm a little unsure how these fun school journals are going to fit into what we are already doing. I think I want to continue using other things for LA and just use these for history/science/etc so I need to not have then do too much in the fun school journals so as to not wear out my reluctant writers. The problem is I want a reading time page every day. Maybe I will photocopy one of the reading pages and just give it to them on days when they won't be doing one in their fun school Journal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2_girls_mommy Posted March 17, 2017 Share Posted March 17, 2017 We read aloud about an hour a day, but only for about 2-3 days out of the week. If that's all we can get in then we just embrace it. :) I feel like I can use this for things I wasn't getting in either. My dd12 still has her separate reading time in a day where she is reading from my assigned book from our chosen lit list and has to write more WTM like narrations from those (CHOLL for us.) And I gave her categories too for her journal, but she loves it. Mine is still actually doing another science text and class with her co-op. So the science she is doing in TT is her choice just for fun. It's all extra. And she is doing it voluntarily. And probably retaining more than she is doing the assigned one since she is choosing it. Right now my dd14 just has a random coloring book journal and the printed out How To Make $ Journal, but when we spend the time and I assign things to do in them like what we are doing, she really opens up and enjoys it. The day goes better when we spend this time together. So I hope to get her involved even more with us next year in the journals and get some things in that may be getting left out too. I printed out a couple of the free Charlotte Mason Tutor magazines that show up free every now and then. I think I can use those for so much with the journal. They have character trait studies with stories about the Romans, Bible verses (in latin and spanish and other languages too!) that we can use for copywork. Our journals have creative writing assignments on character traits. So we can read the stories from the Tutor, then they can write their own in the journal. The Tutors have poetry and composer studies. So we can use those on the reading pages. The Tutor has nature study stories and topics. They are kind of babyish, but we can read some of them and from other books we have on the Nature Study pages. The journal I chose has geography maps to color in it. We will pull out our geography coloring books and read from them and label the maps from them. Plus ours has the travel dreams pages. So we will use the internet after reading from the geography coloring book and they can look up a city from each place we are reading about and write and draw about what it is like now. So lots of geography/ss work in it, but it feels fun and they get to say what they are researching for the Travel Dreams page. I'll play from our Composer CDs on the coloring pages or use an audio book occasionally. I have been trying to figure out how to get an hour a morning in on the journals, plus the rest of WTM for my 10th grader next year, lol. I think there is so much good in this for us. There is no pressure to finish anything. We will just work for our designate time each day and then move on. The Tutor is just a collection of stuff pulled from free resources, but since the work has been done to put it together around the character and nature and artistic themes, and I can just print one off and put it in a binder, I think it will be helpful on top of books I have on shelf already. There is a reading journal of just the reading pages too. And since you started this thread, several books have gone on different sales on Amazon too. Worth a look. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vaquitita Posted March 17, 2017 Author Share Posted March 17, 2017 (edited) Thanks for sharing how you use them. That was helpful. It occurs to me we can use the fun school journals, but not every day. Get a bit of the best of both delight directed and CM (getting them to read stuff they otherwise wouldn't). On the history and science days we could do what I had planned (BF history and physics) instead and have them use their funschooling journals the other three days. I've been trying to figure out how to fit narrations and written narrations in with the funschooling journals. Yesterday I let the reading time page substitute for oral narrations, but I think narrating is such an important skill. So maybe I'll just have them narrate to me like usual as well. (They pick one book each day from what they read and tell me about it). I actually think those fun school reading pages might help move my younger kids towards written narration. My oldest writes one written narration each week, plus one IEW writing assignment. My first thought for next year is have him write them for history (so I have my needed social studies samples ;) ), but I might get more enthusiasm out of him if he wrote on one of his book picks. Edited March 17, 2017 by vaquitita 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vaquitita Posted March 17, 2017 Author Share Posted March 17, 2017 There is a reading journal of just the reading pages too. And since you started this thread, several books have gone on different sales on Amazon too. Worth a look. What is the name of that one? I know, I keep looking at those sale books and am tempted to buy some. Lol. But I already bought the three journals they're using now, three Minecraft journals, two spelling journals, and a math journal. :O Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2_girls_mommy Posted March 17, 2017 Share Posted March 17, 2017 Do It Yourself Homeschooling Reading Time 180 day journal. It is on the funschooling page under ages 13 plus. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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