Nov. 8, 2009 - American Heritage Review

America’s Heritage: An Adventure in Liberty is in CD format and the best part, it’s FREE. This is not just free for me to review - it’s free for other educators too. The American Heritage Education Foundation, Inc. is a non-profit organization “dedicated to the understanding and teaching of our nation’s factual and philosophical heritage to promote constructive citizenship and freedom, unity, progress, and responsibility among our students and citizens.”

The levels to choose from include: Elementary (184 pages), Elementary in Spanish (294 pages includes English & Spanish), Middle School (182 pages), and High School (187 pages). WOW! All of these levels, K-12, are in one place on one CD! I like it!

The curriculum begins with 1622 -The Mayflower Compact for high school and for both middle and elementary levels, the curriculum begins with 1776 - Colonial America: American Revolution and they all conclude with the year 2000 - What is an American? The units, which are broken down into certain months of the year, have themes such as Freedom & Progress, Responsibility, and Unity.

Worksheets and various activities are included in the lesson plans. Although this is geared for larger groups, it is something even a single child could learn from.

To learn more, click here to go to America’s Heritage website or click here to see what my crewmates think of this curriculum.

*I received this for free in exchange for my honest review.

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Nov. 8, 2009 - ACT Discover Review

I received ACT’s online career planning program called DISCOVER. This program helps you learn more about yourself and what interests and abilities you have. With this knowledge, you can choose a line of work that best suits you.

The website is pretty self explanatory. It’s also nicely color coded. J Anyway, the idea is for you to answer various questions to get a good idea of what career choice would be best for you.  I sat down and went through the questions and ended up looking at a “map” that was broken down into color coded pie sections with a bunch of letters in each of them.  This map is a visual way “to help you organize information about occupations and to find out about educational requirements for occupations you are considering.” Would it be best for you to work in the Arts, Science & Technology, or Social Services? How about Administration & Sales, Business Operations or Technical? These “career clusters” are all compared to points of a compass as some are geared towards people, data, things or ideas.

I really liked looking at the colleges and found out how much our local college charges annually and per credit hour and what majors they have.  This is awesome and something my older daughters would benefit from if they choose to go to college.

This is a very good resource if you’re not sure what field you would like to have a career in. I believe it is always best to pray about what God would have you to do as a career and then go for it. My husband was in engineering school when God called him into the ministry. This is not an occupation he would have chosen on his own.

The cost is $19.95 for 3 months & $24.95 for 6.

For more info, click here to go to ACT’s website or here to read what my crewmates think of this program.

*I received a free 3 month membership in exchange for my honest review.

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Nov. 3, 2009 - ABC Teach Review

ABC Teach is an online site that has some free worksheets along with a membership program where you have access to over 35,000 pages of "printable worksheets and activities, to abctools, our exclusive custom document generators, and more!"

Some of my kids like to have busywork and enjoy worksheets. Because of this, after my free trial was over, I chose to purchase an annual membership. New worksheets are added weekly. There is no advertising on the member site, which is great. The worksheets are for grades Pre-K through 8th and, besides the basics of Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies, & History, some of the subjects are: Writing, Reading Comprehension, Graphic Organizers, Puzzles / Games, Arts & Crafts, and more. This is a good fit for our family.

This is a really nice site and has tons of worksheets. With the membership, you can create your own worksheets as well. I have had fun playing around the site and hope you'll look into it as well.

Membership costs $40 per year with discounts for groups. (You can get a 50% discount through Homeschool Buyers Co-op and it expires 11/30/09.) To learn more, visit ABC Teach by clicking here or to see what my crewmates think, click here.

*I received a free trial membership in exchange for my review.

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Oct. 29, 2009 - Vantage Learning Review

Vantage Learning produces MY Access! Home Edition, College Edition, Professional Edition and Add-On Packs. I was given a subscription to their Home Edition in order to review and will focus only on this edition.

The Home Edition is an online, subscription based tool to help your child "enhance their writing skills and become more confident thinkers." The student's writing skills are graded based on: focus, organization, content & development, language use, and mechanics & conventions. There are many topics to choose from per age group or you can create your own topics depending on what you are studying. The age groups are 8-10, 11-14, or 15-18.

I chose to have weekly reports delivered to my email but you could choose to have them delivered monthly. You can also enter up to seven email addresses. You can manage the writing assignments for each child so that only the age group you want your child to work through has assignments. For positive reinforcement, you can set goals and awards for each student and give them an incentive for so many points earned. For instance, I awarded free ice cream for 250 points if done by a certain date. Once the student reaches their goal, they know what their award is.

The Student Portfolio shows progress reports for each of your students. At any time, you can access your order history and see how many days you have left before your account expires so there's no trying to remember when you paid for your subscription and how many days you have left.

I had four out of six of my children participate in this review as they were in the correct age range and wanted to participate. Natalie is 16, Nathanael is 13, Wesley is 11 and Marcee is 9. All of them submitted reports and they all scored "below proficient". I am not surprised by this with my younger ones because I don't focus on writing, but I am concerned with Natalie's score. However, I am sure this program will help her as well as her siblings write better paragraphs and they will eventually become proficient in their writing.

All of my children are different. Marcee likes earning points. She does not like it when it tells her she's below proficient. However, Marcee chose to just write random letters and submit it for grading so she would get points. This is something you will need to be aware of since it could  happen to you. Wesley likes to type rather than write by hand so he enjoyed using the program. He likes some of the topics but not all of them. Unlike Marcee, he likes that the program tells him that he is below proficient so he can challenge himself to work harder to do better. Natalie hasn't had time to work on her reports so she doesn't have anything to add to this review. As for Nathanael, well, he has already gone to bed so I can't get his opinion.

I do recommend this product as long as you are willing to either supervise your children's writings or review their submitted essays in a timely manner or else you could end up with essays like some of my kids have submitted that contain phrases like this: "I liked my lunch though it was Incredibly stale bread with jelly suprise, I'm trying to get points for my account so Peace be with you my Sister in Christ." or "BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB       THE END!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! TAAADAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Yes, those are actual excerpts from my kids' writings. Lovely, huh?!

The yearly subscription costs $99.95 for up to 3 students or $129.95 for 6. Click here to go to the Demo Center. Click here to order. Click here to see what my crewmates think.

* I received a subscription in exchange for my honest review.

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Oct. 28, 2009 - Virginia Soaps & Scents Review

I received a "Soap Sampler" that contained a Ginger Lime shampoo bar, a bag of unscented laundry soap kit, and some scented soaps (Fresh Orange, Coconut Lemongrass, and Oatmeal, Milk & Honey) from Virginia Soaps & Scents. The soaps & shampoo bar contain all natural oils, fragrance & color. The laundry soap kit came with pre-measured, shaved, cleaning soap, borax, and washing soda. I love all of their products and I want to feature how easy it is to make your own laundry soap using their laundry soap kit. My 6 year old daughter (she's 7 now) made it from start to finish with supervision by myself, of course.

First you hold your bag up and smile.  Next, pour the shaved soap into a pot. Add water and heat. Stir. Now it's all dissolved.Next, we add the borax and washing soda. Stir some more. It's all mixed and dissolved. We have water in our pitcher. We pour our melted mixture into the water and stir. This is what it looks like before adding more water. Now after adding more water and letting it sit, stirring occasionally, it turns into a gel and you use it in your washing machine. Very easy and economical. We have a front loader and it did great.

The 5.5 oz. shampoo bar sells for $5.50, the laundry kit sells for $4.95, and the 4.5 oz. soaps sell for $4.50 with discounts available for multiple bars purchased. I am very pleased with the soaps and laundry kit. The shampoo bar is pretty neat and lathers well, but it does take a little getting used to.

If you'd like to learn more, please click here. To see what my crewmates think, click here.

*I received these items free in exchange for my honest review.

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Oct. 27, 2009 - The Amazing Bible World History Timeline Review

When it comes to timelines, I am the first to admit that I am not a fan. I have had many opportunities to make timelines with my children and I just don't do it. So when I received The Amazing Bible World History Timeline, I thought I was good to go.

This timeline is very big. 37" x 45" big. It states you can "Quickly view 6000 years of Bible and World History together." It's fairly colorful but the print is a bit small. I hung it on our hallway wall so we could get a good look at it. I'm afraid to say that only one of my children took an interest to it. She is in a Christian World Views class and wished she had access to it in her first year as the dates would have come in handy. However, after further review, we noticed a few issues with the timeline. For one, it doesn't seem to include important American pioneers such as Lewis & Clark, but it does include references to Brigham Young as a pioneer. The authors of the timeline say that they do not believe that the timeline has a Mormon slant; however, references to the Book of Mormon and the "Articles of Faith" show that statement is not intellectually honest. (Click here to read their statement.)

When asking myself would I be willing to purchase a Bible reference tool from a Mormon bookstore, my conclusion is that I would not. I cannot recommend this product. However, if you are Mormon or if the references don't bother you, you can get your copy for $29.97.

To see what my crewmates think, click here.

*I received this product for free in exchange for my honest review.

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Oct. 23, 2009 - Educaching Review

I have never heard of Educaching. I have, however, heard of a GPS receiver.  Well, Educaching is a 128 page GPS based curriculum. All you need is this curriculum, a GPS receiver, and a container to hide your "treasure" in. 

I borrowed my son-in-law's GPS receiver, hid a note in a plastic container, hid that container, wrote down the coordinates, gave my kids the info they needed, and set them off to find the hidden treasure. They loved it. They wanted to play over and over again.

This would be a great class for a co-op or a large group of kids. The lesson plans include beginner, intermediate, and advanced lessons. Math and science are also involved, as is language arts, fine arts and social studies. I'm sure you could use this for many subjects. Anyway, in one lesson, you find the perimeter of an imaginary figure by using stakes and string to plot the shape. You just give the students the coordinates you have already calculated and let them have at it.  It's easy to follow the lesson plans. The only downside to this curriculum is that you really do need a hand-held GPS receiver. We also tried to use my husband's cell phone but it didn't work too well. It could be our area though.

Both the printed version and the download version costs $32.00. You will have to pay taxes on both and shipping on the printed version.

To see what my crewmates think, click here.

This curriculum was received free in exchange for my honest opinon.

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Oct. 20, 2009 - Kiss Me Again Review

Congratulations, Terri Burkhert! You won the book!!

Kiss Me Again by Barbara Wilson, published by Waterbrook Multnomah is a book and workbook combined. This book is about restoring any lost intimacy in your marriage. The first half of the book helps you to see why sex is only for marriage and if you've had sex outside of marriage, what it has done to you and to your marriage. The second half helps you reconnect to your husband and heal. There is a 10 week study guide included.

I personally needed this book. It has helped me to get on the right path of healing of the pains in my past. I was sexually abused when I was a child and one of the activities I did (as suggested in the book) was to write a letter to all of the people that hurt me. (Not send the letter, just write it.) I had no troubles writing to the ones who did so, but I was surprised to realize that I had been harboring painful thoughts about my dad. I honestly did not realize this. I was hurt because he didn't protect me from the people who had abused me.

Lots of emotions flow while working through this book. I am so thankful for Barbara Wilson following the Lord's leading and writing this book. It has been very helpful to me. If you would like to win a copy of this book (U.S. only), please leave me a comment below with a way to contact you. I will have a drawing on November 2nd. Please feel free to tell others about this giveaway. It is very helpful for anyone who has had sex before marriage, whether by choice or against their will.

*I received this book for free in exchange for my honest opinion.

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Oct. 18, 2009 - Wedding Video

I arranged these photos and added two songs to make a video. lol Not the best, but you can get a good idea of how beautiful the wedding was. Sorry for the poor quality. The pictures are much nicer in person. :) Enjoy!

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Oct. 13, 2009 - The Sound of Sleigh Bells Review

The Sound of Sleigh Bells by Cindy Woodsmall. This book sells for $14.99 from WaterBrook Press.

Beth Hertzler is a 26 year old Amish widow. Her husband, Henry, had lead two lives - one everyone saw and one only Beth saw. When he died, she felt guilty for not feeling sorry he was gone. She kept her secret guilt hidden.

Lizzy Hertzler is Beth's aunt who, although never married, wanted Beth to remarry. She didn't want her to be an old maid and be lonely.

Lizzy met a carver, Jonah Kinsinger. Jonah lived in a different town than she and Beth did. He had been injured while trying to save some people on a sleigh. He was able to carve objects out of wood to make a living. When Lizzy met him on a trip to get orders for her Dry Good's store, she purposefully asked him to write to her, to keep in touch, but instead of writing to "Elizabeth" (her given name), he should write to "Beth" because, in her words, "Beth, Lizzy, Elizabeth - they're all forms of my name."

This is a great love story showing that family really does care for you and wants to help you overcome obstacles in your life. It's about finding real, lasting love in another person and overcoming past pains. Great book.

I received this book for free in exchange for my honest review.

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