Scholastic News Classroom Magazine: from a Homeschool Perspective

I subscribed to the first and second grade editions of the Scholastic News Magazine for this school year. I added Science Spin on to the subscription for each. Now, fair warning. I thought I was going to be able to subscribe for the stated price of $4.49 per student + $0.99 cents for Science Spin. I found out that you only get that price if you are ordering for 10 or more students. When you want to order a single copy, you must call the 1-800 number and they charge significantly more. I don't recall what the price was since I ordered 4 or 5 months ago, but I'm going to guess it was something like $15 or so per subscription.

It was completely worth it. If you subscribe to Scholastic News and Science spin, you get 5 magazines per month (one Scholastic News per week and 1 Science Spin per month). The "magazines" are only 4 pages long. You have the cover, a two page spread in the middle, and an activity/review on the back. The topics are usually science or social studies oriented. They are supposed to increase in complexity and language level over the course of the school year. My kids LOVE them. That's not even the best part though.

As part of the subscription you get access to Scholastic News online. There you can find teacher's guides, printable worksheets, and online versions of each magazine. The online version of the magazine can be read at the regular reading level, or switched to a lower reading level. There is at least one video and sometimes more that is associated with each magazine and the final page of the magazine (the activity page) is interactive and can be completed online. There is also an online "game" for every magazine which is really a learning activity/review.

The online site for each grade level also has access to the digital versions of the past two year's worth of magazines and all the videos and printables. You can easily do a magazine a day online. I find that the children adore sitting down at the computer for our Scholastic News magazine time.

Eventually, you will need to log in to access the Scholastic News online content, but the site is completely open through the end of September. Check it out. Use it between now and then. If you like it, you can call and subscribe for the rest of the school year. We've even used a couple of the digital versions of the Grade 3 magazines while they're accessible for free.

I like that the magazines are a fun way to hit language arts while browsing through a wide variety of science and social studies topics. The activities on the final pages and the online games are an entertaining way to introduce young children to a wide variety of skills such as graphing, main ideas and supporting details, opposites, and more. And all that was just in the first month.

Enjoy!

Dr. John's Candies - A Review

I've been trying to reduce the presence of sugar in my life. Which is great for health, but otherwise rather sad. I intensely dislike the taste and aftertaste of artificial sweeteners which eliminates the option of replacing sodas and candies with diet products or products aimed at diabetics. One of the things I mourned most was the loss of my tea because I just can't drink it unsweetened and I dislike it with the usual suspects of artificial sweeteners.

Then I discovered the sugar alcohols xylitol and erythritol. These are natural, low or zero calorie sugar alternatives that are low-glycemic and do not contribute to cavities. Xylitol actually fights cavities. And they taste pretty great with no aftertaste. Now I find I like the flavor of xylitol and erythritol mixed together at about a 1:1 ratio. Some people experience... gastric distress if they consume too much xylitol and so some people I've converted to xylitol and erythritol choose to consume erythritol straight over xylitol. Xylitol's is slightly better for the teeth. They also have slightly different tastes. Experiment and choose for yourself. I have been unable to find them locally and so I've been buying them on Amazon for over a year now. I use them just for sweetening tea and I haven't tried using them as substitutions for baking, so I have no comments on how they work in that capacity, but I don't use sugar at all in tea any more.

I recently discovered Dr. John's Candies. These are xylitol candies. Xylitol has 75% fewer calories than sugar. It also inhibits the growth of cavity causing bacteria in the mouth. It does not raise blood glucose levels. And they taste great. The children are just as delighted to have a Dr. John's lollipop as they are to have a regular one. I adore their hard candies. They taste great. Seriously. I've tried the butterscotch, strawberry cheesecake, mango, natural cafe caramel, and natural double dutch fudge hard candies and I really like them all. Ok. I've also tried a yet to be released cream soda flavor which is my absolute favorite because they happened to include it in the sampler I ordered. When I couldn't find one that looked like it on the website I called their customer service to ask about it and discovered it isn't available yet on their website. I'll be making another order as soon as it appears. My son enjoyed a chocolate caramel from the sampler and claimed to like it even more than the lollipops. I wasn't as impressed with the caramel that I tried, but I'm not a huge fan of caramels in general.

I just wanted to let you guys know that there is a candy out there that you can feel good about giving to your kids that tastes really great, doesn't contain sugar or artificial sweeteners, and is actually good for the teeth. You can also enjoy them guilt free yourself. I find that a couple of Dr. John's hard candies will help curb a sugar craving.

The company also has some chocolates that I would love to try given how good their hard candies are, but the price is just a little too high. You can't get them in a sample size, and at nearly $20 per box, I just can't justify trying something I might not like. If anyone out there has tried their chocolates and wants to let me know what they thought, please leave a comment!

Happiness is...

We put the children to bed, turn off the lights, sing a couple of songs, and sneak out of their rooms. Ava is younger, and is almost always asleep by the time we finish the process and stays that way. Michael, on the other hand, often will pop back up after we leave and play a while. I don't have a huge problem with that. He plays completely independently and puts himself back down when he's done. His room is a disaster in the morning, with legos and playmobil everywhere, but I feel that's a small price to pay for the independence. We look to see if his light is still on when we go to sleep. If it is, we just go in and shut it off.

At about 9:30 one night recently we heard the tell tale thumping of his feet through the living room ceiling (his room is above the living room). So we knew he was up and moving about. It was a little late and he had been up and playing for a hour and a half so my husband went up to settle him. This time, instead of finding him absorbed in legos or playmobile, he found Michael in his bed surrounded by books. He was reading a Mr. Putter and Tabby book to himself. He looked up at my husband and said, "I've been reading THOUSANDS of books!"

He's been reading remarkably well for a five year old just starting kindergarten for quite some time, but he didn't have the "bug" yet. He wasn't quite fluent or confident enough to just pick up a book and read it to himself for pleasure. A couple of weeks ago, when re-organizing his bookshelf I sorted them into two sections. On the left are books for adults to read to children. On the right are books for children to read to adults. All the books on the right are "Michael's books" - books he can read independently.

Seeing that half of the books are ones he can read on his own was powerful for him. Now, each night, he chooses a couple of books for me to read to him and he chooses one from his side of the shelf to read to me. I was pretty pleased at that progress. It was apparently the last little encouragement he needed. Now he's spending his free time reading - for fun. I am so very happy.