Hewitt Homeschooling Review

Hewitt Homeschooling, have you heard of them?

For almost 30 years Hewitt has provided personalized evaluation services, standardized achievement testing for Grades 3-8, and high-quality curriculum. As a non-profit corporation they are dedicated to helping home-schooling families provide their students with the best education they can.

Many companies carry everything including the kitchen sink. At Hewitt, they hand-pick each book, because they think it is the best for that age and subject. Some material is Christian-oriented; others are from secular publishers.  

Hewitt is well known for their Lightening Literature program for junior and senior high students, which is now becoming available for lower level students, starting with first grade.  Lightning Lit guides use full-length novels, autobiographies, plays, essays, short stories, and poems to teach deep reading and composition skills.

We were given the opportunity to review another one of their products called My First Report.

My First Report was developed no only as a tool for inspiring young children to be creative in their writing, but also to develop initial skills such as penmanship, vocabulary, reading, and critical thinking. 



The following My First Reports are available:

My First Report: Music
My First Report: Transportation
My First Report: Weather
My First Report: Me
My First Report: Famous People
My First Report: Large Mammals
My First Report: Small Mammals
My First Report: Pets/Farm Animals
My First Report: Bugs and Worms
My First Report: Birds
My First Report: Reptiles/Amphibians
My First Report: Plants
My First Report: Solar System
My First Report: Marine Life

We received My First Report: Pets and Farm Animals

Included in the packet was an Introduction, 14 different animal topic sheets {the cover of the packet indicates it would include 12 or more topics per packet}, and a Unit Study on Pets and Farm Animals.

The Unit Study includes the following areas:  Bible, History/ Geography/Social Skills, Reading, Language, Math, Science/ Health, Physical Education, Music, Art, and Field Trips.

Also included are a additional resources, a crossword puzzle, two Bible verses to use as copywork, and three copywork pages with different ruled line heights.

This particular set of reports was designed to be used one per week so that it could be completed in one quarter.  Of course, the nice thing about it is, that you can use as much or as little of it as you would like. 

My Thoughts:  I really like the idea of these reports and they are perfect for families who enjoy unit studies.  However for us they did not work out the way I would have liked.  Unit studies have never really been our thing and since Funny Bunny is already advanced with her writing, it seemed a little too easy for her.

I did let her pick her topic and she chose Dogs.  I gave her the topic sheet that is shown above and let her work on it independently.  She used her dictionary and an animal research book that we have, and she wrote a nice one-page paper on dogs, answering most of the questions that were asked.  She just did not want to continue with the unit study.

I do want to stress that even though this didn't work for us, I think it would be great for others.  I wish I would have found something like this when she was a little younger!

Thoughts of a 9-Year Old: My First Report was about Dogs and I liked because it got me thinking about dogs and I want to know more about my own now.

Find Out More:  You can find out more online at Hewitt Homeschooling.  Each My First Report packet is only $8.95.  You can purchase a set of five for $24.95 and all 14 for $69.95.  They are written with grades 3-4 in mind, but grades 1-2 can do them with parental direction, and grades 5-8 for remedial work.  Individual reports are packaged in an envelope and three hole punched so they can easily be placed in a 3-ring binder. 

My Crewmates are also talking about Hewitt Homeschooling, so you can check out what they think about it HERE.
 

Disclaimer:  This product was given to Our Homeschool Reviews for free for review purposes, and I do not have to return the product to the vendor.  I have received no compensation from it and all opinions and experiences within this review are my own.