Dyslexia

Fun-Schooling Family Stories: Britt Stilwell

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / Leave a comment

Today we welcome Fun-Schooling mam Brittany Stilwell for a guest post!!

Hi, I’m Britt! I am a homeschooling mother to 7 children ages 12, 11, 9, 7, 5, 2, and 3 months. Together we live in sunny South Florida, right on the coast. We are very familiar with neurodiversities as 3 of my children are autistic, as well as myself. We also have one child gifted with dyslexia.

Finding curricula for my children was quite the challenge considering their different needs and abilities. I never wanted them to feel frustrated or like they were “less than” for not being able to properly fill out worksheets with information they may never remember. Instead, I desired something more for them. I wanted to provide them with an education that would help them learn more about themselves while focusing on their gifts and talents. When we found The Thinking Tree, I was intrigued. Could my children really excel using these beautiful books? We tried several of the Minecraft journals as a family–a favorite theme of ours. Our homeschool was forever changed. We haven’t looked back yet!

I wanted to share a little of what I’ve learned over the years that we have been using Fun-Schooling journals and what things look like for us now that we have found our groove. 💕

  1. Keep it simple! Don’t overcomplicate things. Don’t overthink things. Go in with a clear head and an open mind. Be ready to say yes more often than no. ✔️
  2. It’s okay to buy all the journals. 💸 (Yes! I just said that! lol) It’s okay if your child wants to use all of the journals at once. It’s okay if your child wants to use just one at a time. As long as they are learning and getting work done, roll with it. 🤓
  3. Let your kids pick out their journal(s)! 📚 This is so important to my kids. They really feel in charge of their education when they have the freedom to study exactly what they want and how they want. 🌎 🦋 🔬
  4. It’s okay if all of your child’s books are relevant to their journals, or none are relevant at all. Maybe they liked the pretty horse cover but they want to study George Washington. 🤷🏽‍♀️ It’s their journal after all. Let them really own it and create something that reflects themselves. 🪞
  5. Let them loose! Maybe they only do a few really good pages a day or maybe they get excited for the next page and hurry through. ✏️ Don’t discourage their learning by telling them how you’d rather it be done. I have done this plenty and it has always hurt their spirit. 😞
  6. Believe they are capable, because they really are! 🥰
  7. There is no wrong way to use Fun-Schooling journals, but there is a right way. The right way is to always be sure there is FUN in each day! 🎲

And lastly…

8. Lead. By. Example. 👯‍♀️

I can’t stress this one enough. Emulate the behaviors and habits you wish to see in your children. Yes, personalities are different. I have 7 children and no two are alike, but they are all watching ME. The best things we can teach our kids will not come from library books or curricula, but from within our own hearts and what we do with our hands. 💗

With all that said, below are 5 of the journal and book choices of my kiddos. I love the variety!

Want your story to be featured on the blog? Reply in the comments with your ideas!

Five Precious Children, No Longer Orphans

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / Leave a comment

Just came across these precious pictures from the year we met Lilly, Alex, Abby, Chrissy and Elizabeth while teaching art and music at their orphanage. The children were ages 6 to 16 when they became part of our family. They are now 11 to 21 the oldest is out on her own now.

I remember how I just knew they were mine from the beginning, and felt so sure everything would work out for us to adopt them. We didn’t know if we could even get approval to adopt five kids, but we had faith and were willing to work through so many challenges to bring them home.

Adopting older kids is never easy. I had no idea how hard it really would be. They had been through so much before coming to us, and healing from trauma and loss is a life long journey. Some hurts never really heal, some memories never fade, some pain never stops throbbing. No child should ever have to suffer the loss of their mother, and no one can ever replace her. It’s been an especially hard road for our oldest adopted daughter who moved back to Ukraine on her 18th birthday. She just turned 21and needs a lot of prayer right now.

She was only with us a little more than a year and we couldn’t even speak the same language during much of that time, I couldn’t be what she needed. She needed her mom, and her mom was sick, poor and dying in another country.

It breaks my heart that my daughter carries this pain and I wish I could be part of her healing, but trying to reach her just causes her more pain.

The mom hole in the heart of a person who has lost their biological mom is so deep. Now my precious daughter is a mommy herself, expecting another child.

And the mom hole is as deep as the distance between our hearts right now.

I haven’t had a clue how to be the support she needs, and we both know it.

Have patience Sarah! Give her space! Don’t worry!

I may have more patience than the average woman, my kids have trained me well, but there’s a fight in me to have no rest until all my kids are safe. I have faith but the reality is bleak! Trauma makes safety feel scary. And there’s a fight in the hearts of people with trauma to flee the feeling of safety.

It’s really hard for kids who have lost their moms to ever trust again, when they start to open their hearts and feel comfort, peace, love, safety and affection… it’s fight or flight. And it’s not pretty.

I’ve read a lot of books, taken a parenting course for those who adopt kids with trauma, we have been in family therapy… but it just feels like a year together in one home, not speaking the same language is no foundation for mothering.

Just sharing my heart. We need prayer.

But the other four, it’s tough with a couple of them but we have so many victories! They may have a lot of symptoms of RAD and trauma but they love me dearly, they come to me for comfort and affection and we talk. Their hearts have opened up and they are feeling safe and happy most of the time. They are becoming more and more joyful and are overcoming their barriers daily.

We are working through a book on Therapeutic Parenting and wish we had found it when we first adopted.

Celebrating 5 years since adopting!

Fun-Schooling Super Sale Extended through Sunday! New Books Added to the List!

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / 1 Comment

Here are all the books currently on sale that are available (the books that never got discounted by Amazon have been swapped out for new sales), with Sarah’s affiliate links hyperlinked so she’ll get the most profit from each sale. Please be patient if you do not yet see the price change. We can request, but have to wait for Amazon to update. The entire sale will be live until midnight on Sunday, February 19th!

UPDATE 2/13/23: All the Sales and Discounts (with SEVEN MORE books added)!

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / 4 Comments

NOTE: SOME OF THE BOOKS BELOW WERE NEVER MADE AVAILABLE OR NEVER DISCOUNTED BY AMAZON. THERE IS AN UPDATED LIST THAT CAN BE FOUND IN THIS POST: https://funschoolingwithsarah.com/2023/02/17/fun-schooling-super-sale-extended-through-sunday-new-books-added-to-the-list/

There is an awful lot going on with sales and discounts on all things Fun-Schooling this week! You’ll want to be sure and join the Fun-Schooling with Thinking Tree Books Mom’s Homeschooling Support Group on Facebook so you don’t miss any of these posts, as well as TONS of announcements, giveaways, drawings, and contests. It’s a very busy time!

Here are all the books currently on sale that are available (some may not have been marked down by Amazon yet), with Sarah’s affiliate links hyperlinked so she’ll get the most profit from each sale. The entire sale will be live until midnight on February 14th.

US Link not yet available

Art & Logic Therapy Sale!

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / Leave a comment

I’ve put my Brain Games books at the lowest possible price, Amazon will earn their penny, and will also give everyone with Prime free shipping. I won’t earn much, maybe a few cents, but you all will have the opportunity to get our therapy books as a “loss leader” to help us get back on our feet and get these books back up into their “bestseller” rating. I just think we all should get a blessing out of this opportunity.

Last time I offered these books for less they $5 we hit #185 of all books on Amazon! We’ve already hit the Best Seller list again with several of these journals!

Since we got canceled and reinstated things turned upside-down, this boost will help.

Less than $4 or $5 per book!

Candlelight: https://bit.ly/3HwTV8Z

Morning Light: https://bit.ly/40roBkK

Wind & Rain: https://bit.ly/3HXbIYo

Full list of Flash Sale Books here on Facebook!

Stock up for your co-op!!!

Update: Where Have All the Journals Gone (and how you can help!)

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / Leave a comment

UPDATE 2/3/23:

So, yes. The books are back. They have unpublished all our books, but they are selling everything they currently have in stock.

They contacted us and said “upon further review we are reinstating your account.”

But now we have to figure out the process of republishing the books. We are also going to work towards printing and shipping through a smaller publishing house because we could loose access to Amazon at any moment upon the whims of their bots and inept employees.

I found out that I can publish books with a color interior for a very affordable price with Barnes & Noble so in the future we will have a color version of many of our books for almost the same price as Amazon’s B&W!!!

You may have noticed that our journals are no longer available on Amazon. There is a lot involved.

Basically, Amazon seriously deleted 400 of my books, and it’s as if the books were never there. Thousands of reviews, mostly 5 stars, gone. They are even keeping all the royalties that we earned over the past 60 to 90 days. Lots of you bought my books on Amazon in November, December and January and Amazon is stealing all those royalties (about $60,000 in royalties that is owed to the Thinking Tree and 20+ authors around the world who contributed to the books)!

What did we do wrong?

First they said it was copyright violation, so we provided documentation to prove our integrity, we had permission to print Minecraft books.

So they came back and said they reviewed our case and will close it for “Misleading Content” so we provided more documentation to prove our integrity.

So they came back and said they will close it because our account is associated with a previously banned account!

We had no other active or banned account.

The only account that was banned, that I can imagine, was someone who was using KDP to sell our books, with different covers. Lots of you contacted Amazon to get that person shut down.

I hope to sort things out and get our royalties. Much of what we earn is paid out to our authors who really count on the income! Some are missionaries in Ukraine, India & Guatemala.

I don’t think I want to associate with Amazon anymore. I am putting some books up on Barnes & Noble soon. I’ll probably be able to add five books a week until I publish the top 50% of my books.

How can you help right now?

–Come and visit our website, and grab your PDF journals there (a small handful are currently $7.50 right now, and many others have been discounted very nicely)! If you buy a PDF we earn every cent.

–Bring awareness to the homeschooling community concerning their unethical termination of our Homeschooling Books.

–Buy my new releases in paperback at Barnes & Noble and ask them to carry my new releases in their stores. Use your 20% off Homeschooling/Teachers discount at Barnes and Noble to buy my books, and be sure to leave reviews.

–Shop for Thinking Tree Paperbacks at Rainbow Resource.

–Get Sarah’s Biography for just $4 here: https://www.funschooling.com/bookstore-all-pdfs

–We have a new review feature on the website, so you can leave reviews for all of the journals you’ve bought. This is an amazing way to show some much-needed support! It costs nothing but a little time.

–Write these individuals, and explain that one of your favorite authors published through KDP and share your testimonial and a picture of your favorite books you have bought and share how unethical it is for Amazon to suddenly terminate The Thinking Tree. Maybe explain how you were so excited to purchase the new release and now it’s gone! Mission to Mars or Mythological Creatures, with all original artwork including artwork by teenagers. Kids could even write real letters to the addresses with pictures of their books.

Here are the Exec.’s emails:

Vincent Duong
Customer Success Manager
vduong@amazon.com
410 Terry Avenue North Seattle, WA 98109

Doug Herring
CEO
dherring@amazon.com
410 Terry Avenue North Seattle, WA 98109

Andrew Jassy
President and Chief Executive Officer
ajassy@amazon.com
410 Terry Avenue North Seattle, WA 98109

Camille Fabre
Head of Content and Marketing, Kindle Direct Publishing at Amazon
cfabre@amazon.com

Thank you ALL so much for your support!!!

Write a Review!

/ Diane / 1 Comment

Do you LOVE Fun-Schooling journals? Then we want to hear from you, and we have a brand new feature at our website to help you do it!

This is a big need right now, as we have lost access to the reviews we had available on Amazon. Homeschool moms coming to our website want to hear what you love about our books! Here are some helpful pointers.

Go to the site, and click the option to Write a Review in the lower right corner:

What kinds of things should you mention? Here are some suggestions:

–It’s helpful to tell what age(s) of your students who are using the item.

–Tell something from the child’s perspective about why it is interesting, engaging, exciting to them.

–Suggest how to use the journal, as far as what kinds of resources you’ve partnered with it.

–You can mention structural or artistic aspects that are appealing.

–Talk about particular elements in the journal that you enjoy, like the spelling and vocabulary-building, puzzles, projects, etc.

Here is a sample of a review I left for the Rocks and Minerals journal:

Please be patient after you click “Submit” for the review to upload to the platform.

THANK YOU for helping us help other Fun-Schooling moms!

Dyslexia and ASD and ADHD–Oh Yes!

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / Leave a comment

Who else is homeschooling a child with symptoms of ASD, ADHD or Dyslexia? Did you know that the whole idea of Fun-Schooling was started to make homeschooling work for these kids? Kids who learn differently are the driving force behind all our books. I started designing “Do-It-Yourself Homeschooling Journals” because my kids could not do traditional schoolwork.

ASD kids love the built in schedule provided by the Core Journal. They LOVE how they get to study their special interests. They love the look and feel of the Journals. They love how the journals are logic based, and include puzzle type activities. They often want to work independently and focus on their “research”. Thinking Tree Books encourage this depth of learning.

ADHD kids love how they get to move from one activity to the next with lots of variety. Our journals are designed to rotate activities: Academic – Creative – Academic – Passive – Academic – Active – Academic – Playful! ADHD kids are not bored when Fun-schooling! They get to learn about things they love, and when ADHD kids focus on what they LOVE they are so much easier to homeschool.

Kids with Dyslexia thrive because the books are created with the Dyslexie Font and include games that help with dyslexia. Thinking Tree Books include a lot of room for creativity and imagination, and they have just enough structure to keep kids learning without squelching their drive to learn through play, curiosity and adventure. We also don’t teach through memorization, but through meaningful experience and research. It’s so hard for dyslexic kids to memorize information. There is a better way!

FunSchooling.com

DyslexiaGames.com

Fun-Schooling “Show & Tell”

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / 1 Comment

Fun-Schooling is a very joyful way to homeschool. We engage in fun research and logic based learning quests that focuses on the individual child’s strengths, talents, career dreams, faith, family values and nature exploration. Kids learn through projects and journaling, with library books and educational videos! Much of the learning is focused on doing unit studies revolving around the child’s passion. There are Fun-Schooling Journals that focus of lots of different topics and subjects that kids love, like horses, travel, baking, gardening, survival, nature, art, writing and so much more.

Maybe I should show you instead of just telling. Some of us are more visual in our learning style. Want to see what Fun-Schooling looks like in our house? Here are some videos that can do just that!

We have over 50 videos on our YouTube channel, on all kinds of topics! Click here to go and browse them all! Here are some screen shots just to give you an idea of the information available:

All of this, and so much more! Come join us!

Dyslexia Games: The “Brass Tacks”

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / Leave a comment

Three Series of Dyslexia Games

Anna was young when I created Dyslexia Games. Older kids with Dyslexia felt the games I’d created were too easy. I set to work at creating more advanced games. These were helpful both for Anna as she grew and for older children.

Series A is best for children ages 5-8. It can also be used by older children who are profoundly Dyslexic. This series is primarily art-based and introduces a bit of writing and spelling. 

Series B for children aged 8-12. The art-based games become more advanced and more reading skills are required. We also include spelling and copywork in this series.

Series C is for ages 10+. We continue with intricate art-based games, add in some math, and work on cursive writing skills. 

Not Only for Dyslexic Kids

Families began introducing their early readers to series A- regardless of if they showed signs of Dyslexia. Parents realized they made learning to read fun and engaging and that children thrived. Older kids saw Dyslexic siblings working on series B and C and wanted to try them out. It became apparent these games were not only helpful for Dyslexic kids. 

We’ve heard from thousands of families who share remarkable stories about the benefits of Dyslexia Games in their homes. Parents have used Dyslexia Games with:

  • ADHD/ADD kids to help them focus and relax
  • Asperger’s 
  • Autism 
  • Dysgraphia 
  • Dyspraxia 
  • Non-Verbal learning disabilities
  • Visual Processing Disorders
  • As “brain breaks” before working on a more focused/difficult task
  • To de-stress and relax a kid when they were frustrated
  • For relief from Brian Fog
  • To help develop executive functioning skills 
  • Memory support 
  • And more!! 


This was certainly not something I ever expected. At this point, we think we’ve had about as many non-Dyslexic kids use Dyslexia Games as those with Dyslexia. Especially series A for new readers. I began to incorporate pages from these games into some of our Fun-Schooling journals and students have loved having them there.

Click here to continue reading.

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