I received the following product for free as part of the TOS Crew and for the sole purpose of review.

Grace and I have had a great time over the last three months using the music education program called KinderBach.  In our home we believe that there is a correlation between academic apptitude and music lessons.  It is one of goals to have our daughters play the piano.  I am grateful for the opportunity to review KinderBach, and experienced good success with Grace(age 6) with these lessons.  Elizabeth has had one year of piano lessons and did not participate in this.

What is KinderBach?

KinderBach is a tried and proven method of teaching very young children to actually PLAY PIANO, read NOTES, learn INTERVALS, RHTHYM & music PATTERNS - the best piano teaching system available anywhere!

How Does KinderBach work?

KinderBach uses playful characters to teach note reading, rhythm, singing, and composition.

A simple approach is the basis of the KinderBach teaching method. Simple but effective. The fun characters and unique instructions tap into young minds, allowing the children to learn quickly and retain the information. 

Grace really enjoyed the characters, they are playful and fun!  This helped engage her in learning the material and listen to what was being taught on the video. 

Frisco was one of her favorite characters!

He taught her a lot about rhythm, the value of musical notes and the keyboard.

and

Dodi

Fun:

KinderBach is much more than traditional piano lessons. With KinderBach, children will sing, play songs with entertaining characters, enjoy games and puzzles, as well as play the piano. Start your children off right by giving them an edge and a love for music. Learning the piano can be and now is fun.

Each lesson is set-up in an easy to do style.  Watch a simple video and then practice the lesson with your child.  There are coloring pages or worksheets that go with the majority of the lesson.  These are done at the same time or immediately after the lesson, which references the lessons.  

Convenient:

I loved the convenience of these program, it allowed Grace and I to fit in multiple lessons some days or for her to work with her older sister on other days.  All in the warmth of our home!  No running to lessons and having to get out in our snowy Iowa winter.

Most lessons take less than 15 minutes to watch and then the child can practice on their own.  It is truly that simple.  In our home, Grace and I would watch the lesson, she would color the sheet and than I would reinforce the things taught for several days.  There are some lessons that Grace would watch by herself, especially at the beginning.  

You do need a keyboard that can be close by the computer for this program to be the most effective. You do not need a full size regular piano to do it.

Meet the founder.

Karrie's extensive background in music education, singing, visual arts, keyboarding theory, and dramatic experience is the basis of the new innovative series Frisco and Friends. I appreciated Karrie's fun and engaging style of teaching.  She spoke at a child's level without talking down to them.  She gave Grace time to process the information without dragging the lesson on.

Check out the free online lessons by clicking HERE.

 How do I purchase KinderBach?

Online Lessons:

The entertaining web video lessons are given by week. Each week has an introduction and four sessions. The sessions are conveniently paired with the accompanying activity pages in a PDF format which may be downloaded and printed before viewing the video session.

The Year Membership gives access to 6 Levels of entertaining music education for 3 to 7 year old children through about 22 hours of video and interactive coloring pages. Miss Karri introduces preschoolers to the keyboard characters, as well as the Grand Staff clefs. Kids will enjoy playing simple songs, identifying music direction, learning new rhythm notes and their beat value. Level 1 to 6 covers proper hand and finger position for the music scale, as well as staff note reading by pattern for voice, and keyboard.

Cost:

$7.99 a month - Billed in a 1-time annual payment of $95.88
(Great Value! Save 60%)
or
$19.99 monthly subscription - Billed monthly for a year
(12 separate payments)

To purchase KinderBach using this method click HERE.

Video Lessons:

KinderBach has 6 Levels - Each Level Package includes:

Activity DVD
The Activity DVD provides entertaining keyboard and music instruction children love, the same video as KinderBach's Piano Lessons Online. Each DVD has one Level of the web video. Lessons are packed with activities, games, crafts, funny characters and voices. Children can go as fast or slow through the material as they like, repeating the sections particularly engaging. Your child sets their own pace.

There are many value packages to purchase these DVD's. 

They range in cost from $55.95 for a Super Starter package to $222.88 Bonus Levels 1 to 6 which includes all six of the DVD's and audio CD's.

Please click HERE to view and purchase.

Again I want to emphasize what a fantastic product this is.  Grace has learned a lot about the piano keyboard and music theory.

To view other TOS Crew member reviews please click the logo below.

I received the following product for use for free from the vendor for the sole purpose of review. 

What is it?

factsfirst™ is a personalized and fully adaptive online math product that builds a child’s confidence and helps develop instant recall of basic facts in addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Children are engaged in performance-based learning through interactive, real-world scenarios that make math facts meaningful and fun.

How does it work?

Each child in your family is set up with their own sub-account under the parent main account.  Each time the child logs in they can access their own account and continue in the fact section that they are going to use. 

First the child sets up a character.

I realize that this may look silly.  But the girls had so much fun making their character. If you children play on the Wii, it is similar to Mii's.

The Lesson

The lessons consist of five basic segments; new facts, commutative property, practice, quiz, and scoring. New facts are gradually introduced to children as they work toward mastery. Facts are grouped in units with each lesson in a unit introducing two new facts. A child masters these facts before starting another unit.

More than 360 activities engage and encourage children to quickly and accurately respond to questions and advance to the next set of facts.

This is a fun and engaging way for my daughters to practice their math facts.  Honestly, they couldn't wait to do Facts First each day.  I was amazed at how quickly they progressed through their facts and appreciated the opportunity to see the progress they were making. 

The Arcade

An arcade featuring five games rewards children for completing a lesson. It reinforces math facts and provides an opportunity to relax before the next activity.

I asked Grace and Elizabeth what I should write in my review of Facts First.  Their response "The Arcade is awesome!!!!"  This included jumping up and down!  My girls loved being rewarded with the Arcade! 

The Math Fact Matrix

The Math Fact Matrix provides an overview of your child’s performance on individual math facts. The Math Fact Matrix uses complex algorithms to present the child’s performance on individual math facts. It is weighted based on speed, frequency and other indicators of proficiency.

Great resource to measure speed and mastery.


~My Thoughts~

I appreciated the amount of time and energy that went into designing this website.  It is a great resource for math fact mastery, which was enjoyed by my "gammer" girls!  If you have a struggling math learner, I recommend investigating the use of this website.

~Cost~

$49.99
Each household license contains four unique student profiles and will remain active for one full year.

To order click HERE.

To view other TOS Crew member reviews, please click the logo below.

These two are my strong-willed daughters, they keep each other on track!  

TOS Crew members have joined up for a Blog Cruise.  Each week they will be answering questions about homeschooling on their blog.  Click the logo above to view their entries and enter contests for giveaways of great homeschooling products.

See you on the cruise!

I received the following product for free from the vendor for the sole purpose of review.  I receive no monetary compensation for reviewing this product.

"I hate doing math!"   "Why do I have to do all of these problems?"  Math battles can be a huge frustruation in educating our children.  Mathscore.com is a great website to help your children solidfy their math knowledge using a medium that they love, the computer! 

What is Mathscore?

Mathscore is a math practice and math assessment tool that is done online.  Developed by MIT graduates, Mathscore is proven to raise math test scores though adaptive math practice.  MathScore supports 1st grade through Algebra 1.

MathScore makes learning fun. Students use our math practice program to learn simple and complex math skills from elementary school levels through Algebra I. For children who struggle in math at school, our home version will give them the extra math help they need to keep up with their classmates and succeed.

MathScore as a Full Homeschool Curriculum

Homeschooling gives children a safe environment where they can learn at their own pace, often above the levels taught in public and private school settings. The homeschool math teacher does not have to be an expert, but can oversee the learning method and supervise students with an effective curriculum for 2nd grade through Algebra I.

Children without computer and typing skills are given an opportunity to first learn the keyboard through our Copy Cat topic. Once these basic skills are achieved, simple math is mastered before tackling more complex concepts.

MathScore as a Supplemental Curriculum

Homeschoolers using a different full curriculum may feel that their students require extra math help. MathScore provides an unlimited number of math problems for practice. The most effective way to coordinate the two programs is to complete the lesson plan for the day from the primary curriculum study guide, then find the corresponding section on MathScore to reinforce learning of the concept. As the student correctly answers the questions, they become more difficult and enhance the learning process.

Are you already using a full curriculum (such as Saxon Math), and want to faciliate math practice to reinforce concepts? If so, you've come to the right place.

MathScore does not require the completion of one section before working on another. If the other curriculum presents its lessons in a different order, the student will not be prevented from practicing the desired topic.

MathScore will save you a lot of time because it is paperless, instantly grades student work and provides appropriate solution explanations.

After each math lesson, have your child log into MathScore and find a topic that matches the material you just taught. MathScore will generate an unlimited supply of math problems and adapt the difficulty based on performance. Once your child achieves a rating of 100, mastery has been achieved, and it is time to move onto the next concept.

MathScore fully supports 2nd grade through Algebra I, and is often used by 1st graders. Unlike some math programs that provide a pretest and force the student to work on certain concepts, MathScore allows your children to work on any topic at your discretion, making it ideal as a supplement.

 MathScore also offers FREE worksheets. This section of their website is dedicated to providing free, high-quality math worksheets that target basic math facts. They feel that old-fashioned timed math tests are a critical component to mathematics mastery, and decided that there was a need for highly customizable math worksheets. Hopefully you'll agree that their math facts worksheets generated on these pages are flexible enough to meet every conceivable need for paper-based math facts preparation.  Click HERE to make easy to use worksheets for the computer or print.

Topics Included in MathScore:

Here is a brief list of the many topics included at MathScore;

Order Numbers to 1000
Fraction Pictures
Fraction Simplification
Multiplication Facts Strategies
Fast Multiplication
Fast Division
Rounding Numbers
Long Subtraction
Unit Cost
Line Graphs
Fractions to Decimals
Compare Mixed Values
Weight Conversion
Polygon Names
Quadrilateral Types
Triangle Types
Perimeter
Estimated Addition
Long Multiplication
Order Decimals
Factoring
Prime Numbers
Circle Measurements
Mean, Median, Mode

Ready to give it a try start HERE

COST: 

Home Service Prices Per Month Coupon: new user
1st Student	$14.95 $9.95
2nd Student	$5.00
Each Additional Student	$3.95
Coupon Benefits: ½ month free and $5 off for 1st child. Discounts valid for 2 months.

Click HERE to preview and order.

We really enjoyed using this program in our home.  It allowed Elizabeth to solidfy her arthimatic skills while being able to work on the computer.  I appreciate the feedback I received from the site.

To view what other TOS Crew members thought of this product click the logo below.

I love my Awana girls, they both work very hard each week on their verses.