Kid Scoop

 

As a member of the TOS Homeschool Crew, I have the opportunity to discover interesting products that could help in homeschooling.    Such a product is the Kid Scoop Reluctant Reader Solution.   I had the privilege to obtain a digital copy of the document as well as the online Newspaper for Kids that Kid Scoop provides to their purchasers.

Kid Scoop believes learning is fun! And honestly I think it should be like that.   So they have put together weekly activity pages on a variety of subjects to encourage the child who doesn’t enjoy reading in a traditional matter to explore, learn and discover that reading can also be fun.   While the child goes through the numerous topics included in the Reluctant Reader Solution, he/she will also explore while going through various activities from reading, writing, arithmetic and science.   These fun pages can be used as last-minute lesson plans or after-school activities in an homeschool environment.  

I asked my almost 7 years old to test some of the activities with me.   My son is a bright boy who struggles a bit with his reading.   He has made lots of progress since the beginning of the year and I can see that sometimes it overwhelms him.    His father being dyslectic we sort of expected that one or more of our kids might have problems with learning to read.   But we work on it on a daily basis and we practice the reading while doing these pages.  

With the Reluctant Reader Solution, you will get journal type worksheets on the following subjects:    Backpacks, Baseball, Bees, Bigfoot, Blooming Creative, Bubble gum, Budgeting with Thrifty and Fritter, Butterflies, Cinco de Mayo, Clay Play, Columbus Day, Constitution Day, Easter- Bubby buddie, Elf Entertainment, Father’s Day – Allowances, Fire Safety, Fitness Fun, Frost, Germs, Gorillas, Green Kids, Halloween –  Scary Rooms, Heifer International, Hockey, Holiday High-rise, Immunization, Independence around the world, International Space Station, It’s Showtime, Junkyard Sports, Kitchen creativity, Louisa May Alcott, Memorial Day, Mini-golf math, MLK Day of Service, Mother’s Day Scrambled Story, Nutrition Labels, Old Stormalong, Optical Illusions, Orcas, Otters, Owen and Mzee, Point of view, Skin Protection, S’Mores, Solar Snacks, St. Patrick’s Day – Blarney Stone, State of You, Strike Up the Band, Tadpoles, Talk About Teasing, Thanksgiving – Priscilla’s Got Problems, The Maya, Tom Sawyer, Toon Time, Toys for Tots, Valentine’s Fitness, Veteran Day and Wangari Maathai.  

The first one we tackled was the frost one.   I was quite impress with the information provided within these worksheets.   It explained how frost becomes frost and how to “reproduce” the frost effect in our home.   We had a little experiment which all the kids enjoyed.   The other ones that I have printed and used over the past few weeks are also interesting.   You could even print these and bring to an appointment and do them while you are waiting patiently to see a doctor, dentist or whoever else you need to see.   

My only disappointment was the fact that there was many subjects specific to American holidays only.   I would have been more willing to buy something like this if I would know that it would be more international on the subjects like for example – geography, North Pole, Kangaroos and so on.  The other option would be for the creators of this interesting product to put together a another version of the Reluctant Reader Solution with themes/topics more general and avoid the special holidays.

Their site KidScoop.com allow kids to play interactive games and contribute content right to the site in our Write On section.  Parents and teachers can also join their community at the Kid Scoop blog and purchase and download Kid Scoop news editions in our shop.   Worksheets are available for the price of 2.99$ US and special e-books editions are available for 14.99$US.   Please note that more worksheets are available on the website compared to the Reluctant Reader Solution.

You can also sign up for their free 30 days daily “Make Reading Fun” emails.   Personally, after about a week or so of daily emails, I was fed-up and decided to stop them from coming in my mailbox.

The Reluctant Reader Solution is available for the price of 97$ US directly from their website.  The Reluctant Reader Solution digital product has two parts that are included in this price.   Part one consist in the downloaded pdf file which will give you access to many worksheets on a variety of subjects.   Part two of the deal gives your a monthly online newspaper for kids called Kid Scoop News (see image below). This online edition is very colourful and contains tons of fun things to read and do.   You have also the possibility of saving it and printing it.

In conclusion, I must admit that the product is well done and very thought of.    The kids (and mom) can learn a lot using these as complimentary assignment.   I wouldn’t base my whole homeschool on these but they are very good for special days and for adding more fun while learning something specific (like the otters for example).    Remember that when you purchase the Reluctant Reader Solution, you'll receive 12 months access to the Kid Scoop monthly newspaper, and 365 Kid Scoop Worksheets.   I see many potentials for this product, however it would be nice to be able to receive the extra worksheets with having to pay extra for them.

Disclaimer: Thanks to Kids Scoop for sending me the above mentioned product for review purposes as a participant of the TOS Homeschool Crew. I was not monetarily compensated for this review. Please note that the review was not influenced by the Sponsor in any way.  All opinions expressed here are only my own.