My First Fun-Schooling Journal - Ages 5 to 7: Library Based Homeschooling Curriculum -For Tree Climbers and Fort Builders (Fun-Schooling Books)

I love journal. I was hesitant to try this program because it seemed relaxed compared to our previous program we were using. I tried it because my kinder homeschooler was struggling with our letter recognition drills. We tried flash cards, charts, lists, everything that we could think of. Nothing worked and he was frustrated. I ordered this book and let him copy the words he wanted out of his library books as the program suggests. Within two days he was recognizing letters and reading the words that he copied. His handwriting is still terrible and unrecognizable to me, but I did not focus on the handwriting or correct it. The simple act of letting him take the lead had him reading out of his library books and recognizing words very quickly. This program was absolutely wonderful for my hesitant reader. I'm a VERY structured home school mom so it was tough for me to let my son take the lead. I'm beyond THANKFUL that I did. This has been a game changer for home school. I HIGHLY recommend the thinking tree fun schooling books.

By using the Fun-schooling resources, children learn how to think logically, research topics in every subject area, and practice the skills involved in reading, writing, art, home economics, geography, current events, music, science, history, handwriting, vocabulary, economics, poetry appreciation, bible study, health, creative thinking, math, and spelling. You can use these resources as your main curriculum or as supplementary to other resources. Some people add in a separate language arts and math curriculum.Delight-directed learning is much more effective and enjoyable than using the boxed curriculums that replicate the standardized methods of institutional schooling. The journals and various resources foster creativity and a depth to learning that your children will not experience in a school classroom setting or from most other home education methods!

I just don't love this journal and neither does my 7 year old boy. We have at least 4 of the Thinking Tree Journals and most of them are great, but this one just lacks something. The journal entry's that are more involved will definitely take quite a bit of parent involvement. There are actually only about 10 different lessons or journaling ideas that are just repeated over and over in the book. Some examples are drawing book covers, watching a documentary then drawing about it, describing picturea and so on.

My son loves this book. I have not heard one complaint. We’ve used other thinking tree books but January we decided to solely focus on funschooling. He loves having to search through the books he picked to find spelling words. I don’t think he realizes he’s doing actual school work. We love fun schooling!!

Great for your not so ready to write 1st grader. It's made simple enough to get them to write but not feel overwhelmed.

This is my favorite young journal I have ever purchased or received from Thinking Tree! It is incredible and I highly recommend it! I will add my video of the book to this review shortly! I purchased this one!!

I bought this for my 6 year old to use during the summer. He loves it so far! We homeschool and I'd been eyeing these fun schooling books for a while. When this one came out I knew it would be perfect for my just finished K fellow. He especially loves the documentary pages which give him room to draw what he is learning while he watches!

For homeschooling first grade. A lot of repetition and not sufficient for curriculum but is something extra or fun to add in.

I really like this book but I guess I didn’t realize that many of the pages are repetitive but again I guess that’s what journaling is! Also the space they give to write their words of the day is rather small if you’re working with kids still learning to write but other than that it’s a really fun book to have and work with. I would still recommend!

My 5 year old is crazy for this! Keeping in mind that a 5 year old boy has the attention span of 3.7 seconds, I was happy to see my little boy work happily in this book for 15 minutes. He enjoyed the pictures and the process of finding subjects he wanted to explore. We have just started into it, but I am excited to see how many different subject will be touched on as we work through the book. There is space for nature study, spelling, math, art, film study, art study, mazes, emotional literacy, design and more. It is a great way to bond with my son as we work on it together, and to help him take steps toward independent study.

The spaces were much too small for my 6 year old to write in sadly. Going to set it aside until he’s a bit older so he doesn’t get frustrated.

Our family is very happy with the quality and content, and are looking forward to using them!