Little Homeschool Blessings: HomeSchool Scholastics, an i4 Learning Company: WAY Comes Home Kit {Review}

HomeSchool Scholastics, an i4 Learning Company sent us their WAY Comes Home Kit to review.

The WAY Comes Home Kit is a health program designed for homeschool families. It is broken down into three age bands: Health Safari is for K-1, Me Mysteries is for 2-3, and Innerspace Adventure is for 4-5. There are five modules: Module 1 Getting Started, Module 2 Where do you Begin? Module 3 Let's Get Active, Module 4 The Nutrition WAY, and Module 5 Health-It's Personal.

For our review we received:

Parent Guide: The Parent Guide gives parents an introduction to the program, lists of library books, vocabulary, and lesson plans for all of the levels for each of the 5 modules. Lesson plans include the sections: parent prep, lesson at a glance, what to do, art attack, ideas for including other grade levels, suggestions for the weekends, resources and fun, other ideas, scripture and quotes, solutions to journals, and extra activities.
DVD: The DVD has videos for the first 5 modules and physical activity sessions (1 for each grade band). The Health Safari videos are Introduction for Module 1, What is My Role? for Module 2, The WAY to Eat for Module 4, and Healthy Hands for Module 5. Me Mysteries are Introduction for Module 1, Am I Well: The Recruit for Module 2, and Dr. Pulse for Module 3. Innerspace Adventure included Introduction for Module 1, What is Wellness? for Module 2, Get Active for Module 3, and Balancing Act for Module 4. *Be aware that the Innerspace Adventure Module 3 video has a young girl telling the future with a crystal ball.
Journals:The consumable journals are intended to be used by a single student and are broken down according to the age bands. There are a variety of activities in the journals. Here are a few: information, answer questions (reflection and essay), cryptogram, charts, recording data forms, blank pages to write on, blank spaces for drawing specific things, coloring pages, data tables, cut outs, and song lyrics.
Packet of WAY vocabulary cards and masks: This pack includes vocabulary cards for each level. And it also has the masks for the K-1 age group.
Activity Materials: Plastic eggs, stethoscope, a plastic scale, an eye chart, three plastic baskets, pack of 250 transparent counters, fingerprint pad, film canister with glitter, measuring tape, and two foam balls.
WAY Comes Home to MyPlate: This nutrition guide explains how the old pyramid has been replaced by a plate. It talks about healthy options and recommendations for each food group. A chart is included to provide families with a place to write down what the recommended amounts of food are for each day.

When the program is purchased, there is access to online content as well with new lessons each month.

With the large amount of materials provided, there is little really needed from home. Generally basic supplies (pencils, crayons, etc) and a device for playing the movie segments and exercise videos. One specific thing that is recommended is a wellness journal that can be used to document personal goals and new learning. I made ours from construction paper, washi tape, copy paper, and a stapler.

Generally your child would complete one module a week. There are activities that can be spread out for everyday and even some suggested weekend assignments, but the whole 5 module set could be spread out over a longer period of time.

Our original plan was to use Health Safari with Li and Innerspace Adventure with Jo-Jo; however, we had a couple of guests that I hadn't planned on during our review time, so we ended up using Me Mysteries. It turned out that Me Mysteries ended up being the favorite video set, too.

I set out to be very organized. Ideally, I wanted to do one module a week with both Li and Jo-Jo and every week we would do the exercises at least 3 times a week. However, what it looked like in the end was a hodge podge of module videos, exercises, and activities with very little structure. Although the kids seemed to have had a blast regardless of how I presented the material. When I reflect on what we've done with the program, I find that it might be easiest to share it with you through pictures.

Li and Wheel watching Module 1 Introduction video.

I read a lot of the fun facts and random topic information to the kids. These things really stuck out to me, like..."Yams and Sweet Potatoes are not the same thing." I also read the case studies to all of them from the Mystery Germ Files in Me Mysteries.

Wheel coloring masks from module 1 Art Attack.

Jo-Jo working on her cryptogram from her Innerspace Adventure journal.

Wheel and Li exercising with the physical activity session for Health Safari.

We used the stethoscope to listen to one another's heartbeats which is suggested in an Include Me Too! activity for Innterspace Adventure from module 3 in Me Mysteries. One thing that really stood out to us was how fast the kids' heartbeats were compare to mine.

Another Innerspace Adventure Include Me Too! activity from module 1 is a Virtue Egg Hunt, found in Me Mysteries.

Li made a picture of VBS to demonstrate a happy family moment from the Innerspace Adventure Art Attack from module 2.

Li is playing the Hot Lava Game, from Module 3 Include Me Too! for Health Safari in Me Mysteries, by jumping from one piece of paper to another.

Ceesa Worked on the Ew! Gross Finding Germs in your Kitchen experiment from an Include Me Too! activity from module 5 Health Safari for Innerspace Adventure. She used a potato slice to collect germs from various locations. They are currently in labeled baggies in our dark linen closet awaiting our observation of the dirtiest places in our home.

Jo-Jo worked on making a scene of food from the Art Attack suggestion for module 4 for Me Mysteries.

Ceesa created a portrait from natural materials from module 1 of Innerspace Adventure Art Attack.

We used the Include Me Too! suggestion for Me Mysteries of tracing foot prints and using them to start a walking adventure (in module 1 of Health Safari).

Using the WAY Comes Home to MyPlate guide, Jo-Jo created a meal that corresponded to the suggestions in one of the journals.

I filled out the nutritional chart from the WAY Comes Home to MyPlate guide and hung it on the refrigerator so everyone could see how much from each food group they should eat every day.

Jo-Jo used the fingerprint ink to take thumbprints of some of us. We then compares how each was different from the others (from Include Me Too! Thumbody activity for Health Safari from Me Mysteries).

In module 3's WAY More Fun section for Innerspace Adventure, there is a list of parlor games folks played before television was invented. We decided to look some of those up and we played the game deerstalker. The kids absolutely loved this one!

Innerspace Adventure Weekends with WAY section for module 2 has an idea to play a passing game where you also give one another complements. This one created lots of smiles.

All of the kids, even our guests, had lots of fun working with WAY Comes Home. I appreciated the activities where everyone could get involved and all of the smiles. They all enjoyed watching the videos, too.

The program is on sale for $29.95 with no shipping cost.

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