Currclick Grand Opening!

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We are happy to announce the Grand Opening of CurrClick.com. Get 10% account credit on every purchase you make from March 10th-March 17th, add future purchases to your wish list, experience a more intuitive browsing experience that makes it easier to find what you’re looking for, send your wish list to friends and family members and find out what other people think about the curriculum you are considering, by reading our staff and customer reviews.

CurrClick.com is the only eBook and audio site specializing in instantly downloadable Homeschool curriculum. At CurrClick, you can choose from thousands of homeschool titles from hundreds of your favorite publishers including titles from Lilliput Station, cheaply and completely free of shipping costs.

Have you been wanting to try doing a unit study, but don't have the time to pull together a list of resources, look up websites, or plan the whole thing out? Or maybe you don't even know where to start? Do you just wish you could pay someone to do this for you? Well, now you can!

Heather Langston of Hip To Homeschool has just released a new series of units that are laid out so well that your kids could almost do them without you! These include book and website lists (just click on the link in the pdf document), and project ideas incorporated into a daily lesson plan.  They even include daily notebooking assignments!

You can check them out here: Hip To Homeschool Unit Studies.

This isn't really a product and it's not technically homeschool, but it's very educational. In fact, it is just too excellent not to share. If you would like to learn how to knit or teach your children to knit, you have got to check out this website with knitting instruction videos you can watch. I did learn a little knitting as a child, but between being confused by right handed people attempting to "turn things around" to teach a lefty and adults who thought a child should learn the basic stitch before they learned to cast on, I never got very far. So when I saw this website, I decided my daughter & I would make some washclothes together. She has been doing a little knitting lately (with help from Grandma(, but didn't know how to cast on either, so we tried that first. She got it right away- it took me a few tries. The videos were nice here because I could rewind and watch just what I needed to - over and over and over. Then I refreshed on knitting and learned perling- all in about ten minutes! They even had lefty instructions, but I found it easier to do with my right hand. Oh, yeah . . .did I say FREE!!! Yes, all this for free. Knitting supplies not included. Enjoy! http://www.knittinghelp.com/knitting/basic_techniques/knit.php

OK, first the disclaimer: I don't actually OWN this product. However, I have seen their samples and I plan to buy it really soon.

I am just so excited about Drive Thru History America! I just had to write about it.  After all, how often do you get a chance to get to know the men (and women) who helped to start this country and learn about the Christian values that guided them? And how many history curriculums give you an opportunity to actually SEE the landmarks that you are learning about?  With it's combination of biographical "on site" videos hosted by the  funny and engaging David Stott and detailed student texts, this program appears to do all that and more. On their website, you can watch a sample lesson (on Benjamin Franklin) and see samples of the student and teacher text for this lesson. (The text lesson includes a promotional code for 20% off, or you can purchase the homeschool kit from CBD for $39.99)

The only way this could be better is if it were free! Hey, according to the website, you can see these videos on Global Christian Networks and the History Channel International! Hooray!  . . . If only we had television reception . . .

Lets face it, hands-on interactive education is not always easy. But there are several fantastic products out there that do a good job of lightening the load. This will be the first of a series of reviews featuring those products. My first "Product Worth Writing About" is the Time Travelers series on CD by Amy Pak.

This is the curriculum I have dreamed of createing. It has all the elements I would include, plus a heavy dose of Amy Pak's amazing artistic ability. Each of these studies is made up of 25 lessons which include lapbooking, notebooking, file folder games, projects, food, mapping, penmanship practice, timelines, and a party to top it all off. Lessons are short, but informational. All the printables are included and they are high quality. Teachers keys are given for all the maps and instructions are complete (down to the type of paper to print on) and easy to follow.

The CD is organized according to lesson, which is great if you print as you go. This was the one thing I found slightly annoying since I would prefer to print everything at once, from a single file. But it is a minor inconvenience. I'm really looking forward to doing these next year. They look like they will be a lot of fun.

There are two titles in the series so far: New World Explorers and Colonial Life, but hopefully there will be more soon. http://www.homeschoolinthewoods.com/HTTA/TTS/

We do a lot of notebooking around here, but our notebook pages sometimes look more like a modified lapbook.  So when In the Hands of a Child  asked me to review one of their custom designed project packs, I jumped at the opportunity.

In the Hands of A Child: The Renaissance is an excellent tool for studying this period of history. It includes a wide reaching ten page history lesson,  a vocabulary list with definitions, and 24 different research activities with templates to print and assemble. The directions are clear, the graphics are very nice and there is a good variety in the types of mini-books (or foldables) that are included. The finished project is very impressive. My children were pleased that there was not too much writing required. I liked that there was enough to make them think and that they learned so much in the process. My only complaint is the large amount of paper that is wasted due to each template being placed on a separate page, but this does make it easy to print only the ones you want. It still pained my frugal concience to see all those scraps, but the finished product is well worth it. The Renaissance project pack is a fun way to learn what happened after the Middle Ages. It can be purchased here or visit the In the Hands of A Child website here.