We have been reviewing for the Victus Study Skills System. This program helps students to learn instruction with time management and organization. They learn motivational skills and goal setting while learning how to note take, prepare and plan ahead for test taking.
I can honestly tell you I have been excited about this review. We have been a bit busy over the last couple of years up to recently with a family matter. Now that things finally are calming down and we are able to revamp our agenda and homeschool journey. What I am finding is that we all need a little more motivation, structure and a slight push in the right direction. When we received our materials from the Victus Study Skills System I was so excited to have a help aid to get us started.
This is a view of the materials we received in our review and you can find each of them in this attached link, Victus Study Skills Products. We received the Level 1 Teacher Supplement for Primary Grades, Level 2 Elementary & Level 3 Student Workbook and Teacher Edition, Level 4 College Student Workbook and a Student Planner. While we kept most of our focus between the Level 2 & 3 workbooks I know the other workbooks are full of great information and help aids just from what we briefly looked over. You will be able to read more reviews later on each of the products since we all are reviewing different grade levels.
In brief there are four levels that reach out to every child's need. The levels are as noted:
The intro in the teachers book covers step by step what the course is about and what it is expected to do as well as how we should apply certain study skills with life skills. Being more organized and structured are great habits to practice in every area of life. The course helps you to reflect on strategies and goal making as well as accomplishing the goals you have set. The teachers edition and in both student books you reflect on and focus lessons around important questions like Where are you now? Where do you want to be? How do you get there? You are basically encouraging self examining often through out each lesson while recapping previous strategies and learning new ones that help the reader to make better habits to use and incorporate with each day.
In the first part of the lesson you are examining the first question. Where are you now? You basically examine your study habits and your learning strengths. The below pictures is a help-aid suggested for review after you have answered the first two sections. This suggestive aid helps you to distinguish where you are stronger with your learning style so you can focus on learning strategies in that area of learning.
As we moved on to the next phases of questions, 'Where do you want to be? and How do you get there?' We began to learn about goal setting and prioritizing. Just a note: a lot of people think setting goals is easy peasy. Just write them down and your are done. But what people do not realize is that one of the main reasons many goals are not reached is because the goal is what I will call an out of the ball park goal. The important thing to note when making goals is that your goal should be within reach not out of the ball park. It should be like baby steps. This is something not only are we learning as a family but it is something I am currently working with my elderly family member on as she is now in long term care learning everything all over again from sitting up to walking and even talking. So I can apply this skills material in with my family but I am also taking it to the nursing home and teaching it to my elderly family member. Loving this material.. On a side note my oldest graduated daughter is looking over the college material and enjoying some of the ah ha moments. :)
Not to keep on the goals topic in brief the long term goals are great to list but we need to make sure we properly place them on the list. If we are unable to reach the goal soon then we are just setting our self up for failure. Goals should be within reach so we can mark them off and work down the list to other goals. A nice visual aid to keep in mind: when a baby is born the first goal on the list is not to start walking. They go through certain steps that build up to learning to walk. This goes same for goal making. This material shows step by step how to distinguish and place the short term goals in front of the long term goals so that we can focus on the right goals for now and later we can cross off the goals as we reach accomplish them. A great tool they use in goal making is breaking the goals down in to time frames or seasons. For example Spring Goals, Summer Goals, Fall Goals and etc.
The strategies within the study skills material helps to keeps readers encouraged and motivated while also teaching them how to apply better learning skills in with their daily life skills by using one of the three learning styles. (Kinesthetic, Auditory or Visually)
Through out both level 2 & 3 workbooks there are other lessons that work around study habits, note taking, test preparing and test taking. In the back appendix section of the book there is a resource note taking page, strategies for memory learning, help aid flashcards, a grade log and a subject checklist. A lot of great resources that help to improve important skills and include them in daily life routines. Not only can the skills in this material be applied to your study habits. Some of these skills can help you in other areas of your life.
While we did not use the planner yet, I did want to make mention about it. The front of the planner covers an intro on how to use the planner. It has a section on values and defining the value. example respect and love are values and what their definition is. They are asked to list 3-4 values and define them. Then it moves on asks the students to list 4-6 of their goals/priorities and to define or explain them. Next it reminds the student of the objectives, the plan of action and covers important steps to take in each plan. The student will revisit prioritizing daily to do lists as they have previously learned in the student book. All of this is revisited before they move in to their weekly planner. Their weekly planner will have a small section that covers each weeks goals and objectives and an other section for prioritized to do lists. In the back of the planner there is a section on notes, life plan and grade log. This helps encourage the student to keep track of their goals and objectives as well as stay organized and monitor their progress.
As I mentioned above that our review crew is using different material and reviewing for other grades. Maybe you want to hear more about the College workbook or the lower level workbooks. Please click the attached link below to read what others have to say.
All in all I am very pleased with this curriculum we received. I intend to continue using and implementing the changes we learned. Now this is technically to help build better study habits but it also can help you build better habits over all in life skills. I plan to use some of these strategies to help my elderly loved one work through the phases she is going through to relearn how to do things she used to be able to do every day. It is amazing how you get a hold of your kids curriculum and implement it in with your own life and you find yourself saying, Ah Ha! Things that really are or should be simple but we struggle to pull back together because lets face it life happens! We for some reason just can't figure it out be it because of brain fog or we are simply over loaded and simple little strategies shown in a book step by step trigger what you needed to finally bring the results! ((face in palm)). Yup that last part just describes where I have been the last three years. (Thanks for the insight and help folks).
I can honestly tell you I have been excited about this review. We have been a bit busy over the last couple of years up to recently with a family matter. Now that things finally are calming down and we are able to revamp our agenda and homeschool journey. What I am finding is that we all need a little more motivation, structure and a slight push in the right direction. When we received our materials from the Victus Study Skills System I was so excited to have a help aid to get us started.
This is a view of the materials we received in our review and you can find each of them in this attached link, Victus Study Skills Products. We received the Level 1 Teacher Supplement for Primary Grades, Level 2 Elementary & Level 3 Student Workbook and Teacher Edition, Level 4 College Student Workbook and a Student Planner. While we kept most of our focus between the Level 2 & 3 workbooks I know the other workbooks are full of great information and help aids just from what we briefly looked over. You will be able to read more reviews later on each of the products since we all are reviewing different grade levels.
In brief there are four levels that reach out to every child's need. The levels are as noted:
- Level 1 Primary is set for K-3rd grade
- Level 2 Elementary is set for 2-5th grade
- Level 3 Grades 5-11
- Level 4 Grades 10 - College
Interesting point: The Latin word Victus means 'way of life'.We have been using the Level 2: Elementary (2/3-4/5) and the Level 3 (5/6-10/11) from Victus Study Skills System. When I first looked over the teacher edition I can tell you the intro definitely hit home. This is what I truly needed personally as well as my kiddos. But I think me most as far as the organization goes, Lol! As I began reading the Intro I took to a lot of highlighting and underlining some of the key points. Here is a sample page of part of the intro.
The intro in the teachers book covers step by step what the course is about and what it is expected to do as well as how we should apply certain study skills with life skills. Being more organized and structured are great habits to practice in every area of life. The course helps you to reflect on strategies and goal making as well as accomplishing the goals you have set. The teachers edition and in both student books you reflect on and focus lessons around important questions like Where are you now? Where do you want to be? How do you get there? You are basically encouraging self examining often through out each lesson while recapping previous strategies and learning new ones that help the reader to make better habits to use and incorporate with each day.
In the first part of the lesson you are examining the first question. Where are you now? You basically examine your study habits and your learning strengths. The below pictures is a help-aid suggested for review after you have answered the first two sections. This suggestive aid helps you to distinguish where you are stronger with your learning style so you can focus on learning strategies in that area of learning.
As we moved on to the next phases of questions, 'Where do you want to be? and How do you get there?' We began to learn about goal setting and prioritizing. Just a note: a lot of people think setting goals is easy peasy. Just write them down and your are done. But what people do not realize is that one of the main reasons many goals are not reached is because the goal is what I will call an out of the ball park goal. The important thing to note when making goals is that your goal should be within reach not out of the ball park. It should be like baby steps. This is something not only are we learning as a family but it is something I am currently working with my elderly family member on as she is now in long term care learning everything all over again from sitting up to walking and even talking. So I can apply this skills material in with my family but I am also taking it to the nursing home and teaching it to my elderly family member. Loving this material.. On a side note my oldest graduated daughter is looking over the college material and enjoying some of the ah ha moments. :)
Not to keep on the goals topic in brief the long term goals are great to list but we need to make sure we properly place them on the list. If we are unable to reach the goal soon then we are just setting our self up for failure. Goals should be within reach so we can mark them off and work down the list to other goals. A nice visual aid to keep in mind: when a baby is born the first goal on the list is not to start walking. They go through certain steps that build up to learning to walk. This goes same for goal making. This material shows step by step how to distinguish and place the short term goals in front of the long term goals so that we can focus on the right goals for now and later we can cross off the goals as we reach accomplish them. A great tool they use in goal making is breaking the goals down in to time frames or seasons. For example Spring Goals, Summer Goals, Fall Goals and etc.
The strategies within the study skills material helps to keeps readers encouraged and motivated while also teaching them how to apply better learning skills in with their daily life skills by using one of the three learning styles. (Kinesthetic, Auditory or Visually)
Through out both level 2 & 3 workbooks there are other lessons that work around study habits, note taking, test preparing and test taking. In the back appendix section of the book there is a resource note taking page, strategies for memory learning, help aid flashcards, a grade log and a subject checklist. A lot of great resources that help to improve important skills and include them in daily life routines. Not only can the skills in this material be applied to your study habits. Some of these skills can help you in other areas of your life.
While we did not use the planner yet, I did want to make mention about it. The front of the planner covers an intro on how to use the planner. It has a section on values and defining the value. example respect and love are values and what their definition is. They are asked to list 3-4 values and define them. Then it moves on asks the students to list 4-6 of their goals/priorities and to define or explain them. Next it reminds the student of the objectives, the plan of action and covers important steps to take in each plan. The student will revisit prioritizing daily to do lists as they have previously learned in the student book. All of this is revisited before they move in to their weekly planner. Their weekly planner will have a small section that covers each weeks goals and objectives and an other section for prioritized to do lists. In the back of the planner there is a section on notes, life plan and grade log. This helps encourage the student to keep track of their goals and objectives as well as stay organized and monitor their progress.
As I mentioned above that our review crew is using different material and reviewing for other grades. Maybe you want to hear more about the College workbook or the lower level workbooks. Please click the attached link below to read what others have to say.
All in all I am very pleased with this curriculum we received. I intend to continue using and implementing the changes we learned. Now this is technically to help build better study habits but it also can help you build better habits over all in life skills. I plan to use some of these strategies to help my elderly loved one work through the phases she is going through to relearn how to do things she used to be able to do every day. It is amazing how you get a hold of your kids curriculum and implement it in with your own life and you find yourself saying, Ah Ha! Things that really are or should be simple but we struggle to pull back together because lets face it
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