Since this is our first year homeschooling, I wanted to plan ahead of time and make it manageable and fun for us.  What exactly that would entail, I wasn’t quite sure, but I had a plan and so far, it’s working great for us.  Since my oldest is in kindergarten this year, I knew we didn’t have to get too crazy yet.  I decided we would follow our curriculum three days a week.  We would have one day “off” and one day would be screen time and field trips.  That’s why I jumped at the chance to do a Tiggly Words review, it fit perfect into our school plan.

I love following our curriculum, having themes really works for us and the final projects are so much fun.  What I love more is that none of this is stressing me out {yet}.  I know, we are only a few weeks in, technically, but it’s going so well for us.  She’s partway through first grade math, she’s reading, I feel like the main things are being covered, so I love being able to focus on the stuff the kids think is so much fun.  We had searched every inch of the Timberdoodle catalog and website and I have to tell you, there are a few things that stood out to the kids.  One of those things was Tiggly Words.  Shocking, right?!  An iPad game, of course they were interested.  More importantly, it would reinforce the very concepts we would be working on anyways; learning to read.

First of all, I suppose we should cover what exactly this Tiggly Words is all about, right?

What you get:

Your Tiggly Words package will contain five Tiggly Letters – A E I O U in bright colors and the perfect size for little hands.  You store then in the drawstring bag when not in use.  Using your iPad or Tablet, you download the games.  You get 3 or 4 games – because one game only works on iOS.  Tiggly Submarine, Tiggly Doctor, Tiggly Story Maker and Sesame Street Alphabet Kitchen.  It only takes minutes to down load the games and start playing.  The pads on the back of each letter protect your iPad or tablet from scratching and allow the iPad to recognize the letters.

Tiggly Submarine takes kids on a journey to explore words and spelling patterns and they are in complete control.

Tiggly Doctor helps your child learn about long and short vowel sounds while they are the doctor.  This one makes me giggle when they do the really long words.

Tiggly Story Maker lets your child create stories by completing words.  They love this because it pops up with a picture of whatever word you create with bright, animated pictures.  It is fun to watch them learning about how changing one letter can change the sound of the word.

Sesame Street Alphabet Kitchen is probably their favorite though, I mean , who doesn’t love some alphabet cookies, right?!

With Maggie starting to read some stories independently now, Charlie is on her heels and wants to learn to read right now.  He doesn’t quite know how to identify all of his letters and their sounds yet, but you can bet he is trying.  I think that’s why he loves Tiggly Words so much.  He can work on identifying his letters making alphabet cookies, or creating words by changing up which vowel he puts on the screen.

Maggie is getting great reinforcement of the things we are already learning and she gets to do it on her terms, not mine, so she loves it.  I have loved watching her grow with the games in the month we have had it.  Before she would just put on the letter.  Now, she puts the letter on and says the sound or word along with the game.  It’s such great practice for her.

What I love most is that they are learning what I want them to learn anyways but since it’s the iPad, they just think it’s cool.  Having activities the kids can do independently for our screen days is a huge lifesaver for me.  Having a quiet activity they can bring with somewhere is a blessing for us all.  After all, school on the go happens often with homeschool in our house.  Charlie now spends most of Maggie’s 45 minute dance class playing Tiggly Words games instead of running around the cafeteria as I try to convince the boys to sit quietly.  Knowing I have a day off of “schooling” makes our days much brighter because nobody gets burned out and overloaded.

How do you homeschool?  Would an activity like Tiggly Words fit into your school days?

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