Samson’s Classroom Review -TOS

My kids have been begging us to let them work with the computer recently and so when I was offered an opportunity to review Samson’s Classroom with The Old Schoolhouse Crew I jumped at it!!  Up until now my kids had not used video games or computer games or really even used a computer at all.  I’m sure this will be evident in the picture of my 7 year old pecking away to spell her words!

Bridgett pecking out her spelling words.

A bit about Samson’s Classroom.  Samson’s Classroom is an online program designed to help children excel in language arts.  It has three sections for children to use- spelling, sight words, and reading.  This program is unique in that it is designed to be used either at home(by homeschoolers or as extra study for public schoolers) or in the classroom.  I really like the fact that I can import my spelling lists into the kids spelling section or use the prechosen spelling lists.  We decided to use theirs and ours(yeap my kids wanted EXTRA schoolwork to do)!  The program is varied enough that it can be used from Kindergarten through 5th grade. 

Patrick listening to the sight words.  Colin is the pouting one because he’s not getting to do it yet.

Patrick does really well with the sight words.

All the kids beg for more time to do this and I know they’ll be dissapointed when they finish!

The sight word portion contains the 224 most commonly used words in the English language.  These are words that our children shouldn’t have to sound out, but should just be able to recognize.  I have used this with ALL of my children.  They will all come stand beside me while I sit at the computer and we all look at the word, say the word, and spell the word while I run the computer portion.  Now even my two 4 year olds can pick out these simple words in their books!

The first part of the sight words is seeing and hearing them.

They even have a cute checklist which shows what they’ve mastered.  Just a note, my camera puts the time and day of download so sorry for them all being off.  Bridgett now has the whole page in checkmarks!

The spelling portion has premade spelling lists containing an assortment of 5000 words appropriate for each grade level or as I mentioned before you can add your own lists.  With the spelling lists you also have a variety of levels and skills that it teaches you besides the basics of just spelling the words.

We loved the spelling with keeping him out of the ice water!

All done!

The reading portion is the part that my kids struggled with the most.  It helps with reading comprehension.  The kids are given a section of a story to read and then answer questions.  We found that we were taking a very long time to read the story.  My kids once again have not used a computer much and really struggled with reading without being able to put their finger under the word or use their rulers.  They did excellent through with answering the questions and I was very encouraged by how much of the story they could repeat back. 

The reading took us the longest, but was still fun!

If you are the teacher you also have access to worksheets, lesson plans, and other assorted pages to print and use with your children in conjunction with the program. 

You can purchase an online account with Samson’s Classroom for $30 per year for an individual, $50 per year for a family(4 users), and a classroom account(up to 30 users) for $80 per year.  If you visit their website you have access to a free video demo as well that really gives you a feel for the program. 

Please go over to The Crew Post and check out all the other blogs who have had the chance to review Samson’s Classroom and read what their thoughts on the program were.