Home Schooling Adventures - Homeschool Blogger

Download N Go Autumn Treasures

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 13:06:00 -0500

Download N Go is a Unit Study that you simple pick the topic, download it and BINGO your plan is laid out step by step for the week! It's everything you need along with lap book components to make your job easier. Just add some books from the library and a few things that most home schoolers have on hand like glue sticks, paper brands and file folders. It's one click and your ready for a great weeks study!

We just completed our first look at the Download N Go Autumn Treasures. This is a unit study that is all about Autumn. It has daily activities and daily lap book components. It's very thorough and easily adaptive for any age. This simple to follow unit study provides many things throughout the week. It lays out the groundwork with flexibility including topics to discuss, questions to get your child thinking, interesting links with videos, vocabulary words, scripture you can use, easy to follow daily lesson plans and much more. It takes you through learning the seasons and focussing on fall. Centered around this one topic you cover all the subjects for the week. With Autumn Treasures your child will learn about leaves changing, what makes popcorn pop, things that happen during the fall season, what foods are ready in the fall, what animals and insects do during the fall, what happens on farms in the fall and many other things. Our kids love lap booking and that is a very attractive part of this unit study because it comes with all the lap book components at your finger tips that you can work on each day as you cover the assignments for the day. This leaves your children with a beautiful put together keep sake at the end of the study that they can display and share with others what they have learned and achieved throughout the week.

I look forward to seeing the upcoming Download N Go topics in the future. They are a great easy to use unit study that makes it so simple to cover a topic with out having to put in all the foot work yourself to plan it.

Lampstand Press - Tapestry of Grace

Sun, 26 Apr 2009 11:12:00 -0500

Tapestry of Grace offers a rich educational curriculum that is full of meat and fits very nicely with the hands on Charlotte Mason Method of teaching. With Tapestry of Grace you will only need to add for the younger ages a math curriculum and a phonics program, it covers everything else that you need. It covers History, Literature, Arts & Activities, Writing, Geography, Church History, Government & Field Trips. We were able to choose what we wanted to review. I was so excited about this because I have looked into Tapestry of Grace previously but was not sure if I wanted to commit to the price yet.

We chose Year 1 Unit 1 The Books of Moses (Creation/Egypt/Exodus). In the digital edition. Wow what a journey. This is such a in depth program that offers lots of visual and hands on activities. I find when my kids can use all of their senses, (hear it, touch it, see it) that they truly learn it. It embeds in their hearts and minds. Tapestry of Grace takes a biblical teaching of living books. We chose not to purchase the books that you use along with Tapestry of Grace but to use our local library as a resource. Tapestry of Grace (TOG) just recently added the digital form of their curriculum. It was a seriously smooth download.

I have to take a pause in talking about the actual curriculum right now and talk about customer service. I originally downloaded our unit from TOG and then I purchased a new computer. Wanting to keep all of my homeschool curriculum in one place I found that I could not re-down load it onto my computer. That my license only worked once. I called TOG and within minutes they had emailed me another key to unlock my lap book and unit. I then became a beta tester for Windows 7 and when I upgraded my OS I was unable to open my unit and had to call TOG once again and they quickly emailed me a new key to get into my unit. If you can imagine my brand new computers hard drive went out a few weeks later. And you guessed it! I was going to pick up the phone and call them again however as TOG perfects their digital format there is now an online live chat service. I spoke with them once again via live chat and they informed me of new way you can request a new key to unlock your curriculum. You just hop on the website and fill out for how many computers you want to put your curriculum on (up to 4) and they email you with in 24 to 48 hours with your keys. It's that simple! I had my keys within a few minutes. My entire point here is how great their customer service is. Having the option to do an online chat was great for me and saved time! They are very understanding and quick to help you with whatever problem you have. Customer service to me plays a large roll in the homeschooling products that I purchase and TOG has awesome support!

We also chose the lapbook with our unit study. TOG gives you everything you need to use this rich curriculum that gives your children such a wonderful education. What I liked about this is that using a Charlotte Mason Method and using classical books - living books. I have found that coming up with the lesson plans themselves can sometimes be difficult and take up a lot of my time. With TOG it has freed up a lot of my lesson planning time. It's all right there all I needed to do was gather materials for projects and locate the books to use it with. We learned so much on this journey. How you can only find truth in God's word and God himself. My children learned the culture of that time period in Egypt, the agriculture and so much more. It was truly one of the richest learning experiences we have had. TOG will be something that we will definitely continue to use in our schooling.

So let's talk price. I'm a very hands on person. I like to touch my lesson plans.
Even when I purchase digital I have to print it out. I did just print out one section at a time. I wanted the entire thing in a binder so that I could flip pages, look through, point, touch etc. I also love having it on my computer so I can print out the sections I need. If they get messed up... I can pring them again! You can't lose it. It save a lot in storage space. You can purchase one 9 week unit at at time for just $45 a piece or you can purchase the entire year for just $170. You can also purchase the year bundle that is $250 and comes with extras like the very detailed lap book that my children are cherishing that they made. It's non- consumable. You can update it any time you want to! There are tons of benefits to the digital editions of TOG. Even for those people like me who have to print every single cherished sheet and put it in a binder! TOG is worth the investment!

This is a program I would recommend for any one from the beginning home schooling family to the seasoned home schooling family. For families with just one child or for families with a quiverfull! It can fit into any home. I give it TWO Check out the Tapestry of Grace website where they offer free samples of their curriculum to any unit you choose.

WriteShop Primary Book A

Sun, 26 Apr 2009 09:24:00 -0500

WriteShop Primary Book A is a writing curriculum for your K-2 child(ren). This is a really well put together book. It provides you with a simple schedule that you can pick according to what level you are beginning at. If you are beginning with a K child then you use the schedule that completes the curriculum in 3 years. If you are beginning at a 1st grade level then you finish the curriculum in 2 years and at a 2nd grade level you would finish it in 1 year.

This book has every thing planned out and laid out for you. It also leaves you a lot of room for flexibility. It is full of organization tips to prepare for the lessons. I was a little hesitant to do a writing curriculum with my younger children however this was so simple and really gives them a foundation for writing in the years to come. I found and so did they that it was just what we needed. The lessons are fun and hands on for this age group. Even if your child is just in the pre-writing stage it will work for them. As the Mom you can write down what the child dictates and use it as copy work for them. WriteShop uses rhythms, animals. colors, favorite things, friends and other things as themes for the lessons. My kids really looked forward to this. The lessons were short and efficient and left them with a love for writing. I found with my 4 children that I used this with that it was very easy to do the lessons with different ages and levels at once.

We reviewed the digital Ebook of WriteShop Primary Book A. Book B and C are coming out soon. Also offered is a hard copy of the book. What I love about the digital copy is you get it instantly, it's non-consumable and you only have to print what you need when you need it. You can build your book in small chunks. It also is a space saver! There is an activity set workbook pack that is a life saver. Everything is already right there for you and it helps them practice what they have learned. The hard copy of the WriteShop Primary Book A is $26.95 and the digital copy is $24.25 plus you save $7 shipping. The accompanying Activity Set Workbook pack is $4.95 hard copy or $4.50 digital copy. If you are looking for a quality writing program that plans it all for you then WriteShop is the curriculum for you! WriteShop also offers many other products on their website!

Apologia

Sun, 26 Apr 2009 08:34:00 -0500

Are you looking for a top notch biblical based science curriculum for your children? You will need to look no further than Apologia. Apologia provides fun and challenging K-12 creation-based science curriculum specifically designed for the home school. Apologia Science is full of hands on experiments that are easy to do at home and challenges your children to stretch and learn. Apologia was written by a former university professor and homeschool parent. I have found it to be one of the most thorough Science programs out there. I have used them in the past but was blessed to review Zoology 1 Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day and Exploring Creation with General Science Edition 2.

Zoology 1 Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day introduces your children to classification of flying creatures. It gives you an in depth study of birds, their anatomy, their habitat, identifying birds, even how to attract them to your yard, making the connection to how God created them and how glorious and wonderful they were created. There is also a study of bats and their habits as well. The book does cover many animals that can fly. What I love about this book is that it's all you need. You do not need anything else to teach it. The children get to make a notebook with lots of things to put in it. There are several hands on activities all surrounding God's creation of the 5th day.

Exploring Creation with General Science Edition 2 is a two book set that includes both the student textbook and the Solutions and Test Manual. This is a book that gives your child an introduction to science. It such a rich book that covers a lot of ground. It has a very wide range of topics that it covers. The history of science, scientific method, designing experiments, simple machines, archaeology, geology, paleontology, biology, and human anatomy and physiology. With such a large range of topics in this book there is something for every child that would interest them. I loved watching my children coming to life with curiosity while using this book. It's full of experiments that can be done at home with household items.

Apologia offers a free help line for all customers. They also offer a money back guarantee. On their website they offer notebook pages to go along with Zoology 1 Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day and many of their other books that they offer. Apologia offers a wide range of curriculum for all ages and all your science needs. They are great in supporting the homeschool parent and helping them if they have any question. Apologia wants you to succeed in teaching your child science based on creation. You can see samples of thier books on the Apolgia website. The books are non-consumable and can be used with all your children througout the years.

Schleich Toys

Sun, 26 Apr 2009 08:06:00 -0500

Schleich toys are some of the most durable and realistic toys that I have seen in along time. We were sent 5 farm animals from Schleich toys. A cow, calf, horse, pig and a rooster.

My children immediately started deciding what animal belonged to whom. It was a huge decision as they couldn't believe how realistic they looked. The animals have such details it's just really amazing. My children have drug these animals everywhere. They seemed to have been incorporated into so much play which is wonderful. Schleich toys are very affordable. They are made of a hard rubbery plastic and hand painted. Schleich offers more than just the farm animals. They offer the farmers and farm equipment to truly create a mini realisitc farm. In addition to Farm Life Schleich offers items in other catagories like Wild Life, Forest Animals, Trees & Plants, Dogs, Replica Saurus, Juman Figurines, The Smurfs, The World of Knights and The World of Elves. They have sets you can purchase as well. This is something that my children will definitely be collecting from here on out.

Barchowsky Fluent Handwriting

Mon, 20 Apr 2009 23:51:00 -0500

Barchowsky Fluent Handwriting has been such a blessing to our family. I have a three children who excitingly helped me open this box and pull out the wonderful things that were inside. My 5,4 and 3 year old knew that this was just for them! We have really enjoyed this simple, fun, easy and very effective curriculum for writing.

Nan Jay Barchowsky based the BFH method principally on the early 20th century revival of italic handwriting in the United Kingdom, and on her own classroom experience. I have tried other hand writing programs and I have always felt either it was overwhelming or lacked enough instruction to be effective. This would either become frustrating for me or for my children. Often ending in my children crying and not wanting to do it.

My 5 year old has not had an interest in writing very much. She loves to draw but has not quite been ready to tackle writing those letters outside of her own name. Which really needed some improvement. With BFH my daughter happily ask me if she can write now. I wish you could see the big smile on my face now because she LOVES writing.

I have found with Nan Barchowsky's wonderful program that she uses a lot of fun things that children love. Like writing in the air. Writing in sand or whip cream on the table. Children love that. Our favorite game was writing letters on each others backs and guessing what they were! Moving easily from this fun learning to practice writing on re-useable sheets on an easel. We used the Beginners Handwriting that was accompanied by large sheets that were reusable. You attached them to the easel. All 3 of my younger children loved using these sheets. I loved the fact that I could reuse the sheet for each child! This makes the program so very affordable and easy to use!

BFH letters are taught in a font that really save time in the long run. The letters used move easily flowing into teaching cursive as they connect smoothly without extra effort. It's not the typical block style that most writing programs teach.

Beginners' Handwriting come with Twenty-eight, reusable, large sheets (11 x 17 inches, or 28 x 43 centimeters) come with a Teacher's Guide. It cost $29.95

We were also sent the BFH Fluent Handwriting Manual with CD-ROM. This great manual is full of information that is easy to understand and comes with two CD-ROMS. One for windows and one for MAC. So it covers your needs up front. You can print out sheets for practice like the ones below for any level that your children are at. This is such a wonderful way to practice what they are learning. The technique of this fluent flow of handwriting is amazing to me. It makes perfect sense. This manual and CDROMS cover 4 levels of handwriting. The CD-ROM also contains videos, instructions on how to teach the handwriting, activities as well as the printables for practice. I very affordable investment into your home schooling curriculum. What I love about this is that Ms. Barchowsky does not expect every child to write as beautifully as her, but to cultivate thier very own style that is just as beautiful!

BFH gives you a complete instructional package for all ages. The manual is for reference. It has all the essential information to learn and teach the BFH method. The CD-ROM has additional help, and exemplars for lessons. For just $65.95

Samples of the print outs on the CD-ROM

Breaking the boundaries of my 5 year old to reach her and give her not only a love for writing but pride in her work has been phenomenal in our home! My 4 and 3 year old have made leaps and bounds in their pre-writing as well. I would highly recommend this product to anyone. Its very affordable, easy to use for both child and parent and it's non-consumable which means you can use it with many children. Barchowsky has other products as well on their site HERE. You can purchase the fonts to download on your computer and you can also purchase Fix it...Write which I plan to try out with my soon to be 4th grader next year. It corrects writing skills and habits! I'll let you know how it goes! I had planned to include photos of my daughters progress in this blog but we are still up to our ears in boxes with our move so keep checking back for the pictures I plan to attach!

Critical Thinking

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 02:21:00 -0500

Critical Thinking Co's Building Thinking Skills Primary K-1 has been a great blessing to our family. My six year old daughter has some speech issues that has made it difficult for her to put information together with words. This inspiring book has truly helped us in helping her figure things out. We reviewed Building Thinking Skills Primary K-1 for three of our children ages 3, 4 and 6 years old. Building Thinking Skills Primary K-1 offers in one book descriptive questions and answer strategies by using similarities & differences, writing skills, vocabulary, classifying, describing, analogies, occupations/vehicles/buildings, plants & animals, family members, number sense, geometry and much more! This book teaches children how to analyze relationships between objects, between words and between objects & words. Our speech pathologist and I had been working on finding something that would assist my 6 year old in this. We were both blown away at how much Building Thinking Skill Pirmary K-1 has helped her. She is putting more words correctly with objects than ever before! Her progress has truly had a break through and been amazing using the Building Thinking Skills Primary K-1 book.

I have to say all three of my children looked forward to this lesson every day. It did not take but about 15 minutes per lesson. Children are able to read, trace and write about things while using math, science and social studies! It gives children the opportunity to hone their thinking skills that are so critical to the learning process. The Critical Thinking Co is winner of over 90 national awards! This learning helps your child even at a very young age develop skills that will assure higher grades and better test scores. The Critical Thinking Co stands by not using drills or memorization but to empower minds! That in itself is such a powerful statement and one I have found to be true in using their products.

Critical Thinking teaches identifying and evaluating evidence to identify and communicate the correct answer. Our workbook, Building Thinking Skills Primary K-1, was a lot of fun for us. My children loved that we had hands on manipulatives to work with and a colorful workbook to go along with it. It kept their attention and was the perfect length lesson! After each lesson they would proudly display their work to their siblings and Father. It gave them such a feeling of accomplishment! It has taught them to reason things out and think first before blurting out answers! Very important life long skills and habits can be learned through using The Critical Thinking Co.'s products. The Critical Thinking Co offers many products on their website at very affordable prices. The Building Thinking Skills K-1 book was just $29.99. It's so well worth the money!

Contest Give Away!

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 02:12:00 -0500

A fellow TOS crew mate, Candace, is giving away several of the products that we have reviewed this previous year. All you have to do to enter is select the product you would like to be in the drawing for and leave her a comment! How simple is that! This would be a great chance to start getting some new curriculum for next year. She has some exciting products on her site HERE to choose from that she is giving away! Check it out but hurry the contest will end soon! Look at the products featured in the give away!

1. Rocket Phonics

2. Heads Up Frames

3. Critical Thinking - Building Thinking Skills, book 1

4. Bible Story Songs - Moses, vol. 2

5. Math Tutor - Algebra 1

6. New baby set of magnets - from Alphabet Alley

7. Zone Cleaning charts - from Trigger Memory Systems (this is not the Times Tales mentioned in this review, but the Zone Cleaning charts)

8. Spears Art curriculum - on cd

As Easter Approaches

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 01:55:00 -0500

Just a quick reminder to all as we consider Easter around the corner! Alphabet Alley offers a great deal of unique children's items that would be perfect for the Easter Basket. Alphabet Alley was started in 2004 by a mother who wanted a positive message to come along with fundamental toys for her toddler. Alphabet Alley offers a variety of durable toys all with positive messages. I think that the more we can bring the positive faith message into our children's every day play the better. It reminds them on a casual level what is important even in play! If you want a high quality product that can be passed down from child to child with a positive message to go with it then Alphabet Alley is the place look at. Check out my review on some of their products here!

Auralog Tell Me More!

Sun, 22 Mar 2009 23:34:00 -0500

Ever wanted to learn a foreign language? Or have you thought about teaching your children one but was not sure where to begin or what program to go with? Auralog Tell Me More has a program that is customized for homeschoolers. It uses the immersion technique. It's like being dropped off in Paris and finding your way while learning the native tongue. Listening and interacting with the native culture. We recently reviewed Tell Me More Homeschool French 5 Levels. We were excitingly waiting to get this program. We were so eager that every single time our faithful dog would bark we were scouting for the delivery of it. When it arrived we were very impressed that it even came with a headset with a microphone so that you did not have to wait to get started. You had everything you need.

The excitement wore off as we struggled to get it installed and figure out what in the world we were suppose to be doing exactly? The start here now CD when inserted and installed on the computer. It didn't really tell me anything except that it was indeed on my computer. It was not allowing me to log in with my created account! So I moved on to the second DVD disc. We got that installed and were still a bit challenged as to where to begin because we felt like we were missing something with the first disc not allowing us access to it. After a bit of struggling we put it away for a while. All the disappointed faces that were sure they could do a better job than Mom and Dad were not happy that they had to wait a little longer!

We are very computer literate and could not figure out what we were doing wrong with that first CD install. Finally I gave in and contacted their 24/7 customer service. Wow, how great was it that within minutes I was up and running! It was a simple mistake on our part. Not only great customer service but it's available to you 24/7 which is comforting! My only complaint about this program is that it does not come with clear installation instructions or set up instructions. They are a bit vague on how to create a new account to log in. It also was a bit of a miff to try and figure out what you did once you got inside the program for the first time. The instructions merely say log into your account or create a new one which seemed to prove very difficult for our household! It also was very vague on actually setting things up for the first time. However, once we got set up the smiles were back and so was the excitement! We joyfully loved working this program every single day!

There are three lesson modes with this program. You choose which one fits each child or adult best! One lesson mode is Free-To-Rome where you can the entire pedagogical and linguistic context is available in six workshops and you can navigate freely through the lessons and activities. The next lesson mode is Guided Mode which is a learning path with a group of lessons and activities presented in order of increasing difficulty. The last mode you can choose is the Dynamic Mode which takes you through activities that are automatically selected according to your original objectives and the results you obtain in each activity.

We worked through the Guided Mode. It seemed the best choice for us. The introductory CD was a great beginning to the actual 5 levels. My older daughter worked quickly and accurately through the introductory CD. She then moved onto level 1. It was a total immersion into the language. She really loved this approach. I also started in level 1 and found it very challenging! Challenging in a good way though! I was taught my first year of Spanish through immersion by my high school Spanish teacher who taught me more in that class than I learned the next three years in other Spanish classes that did not use immersion techniques.

Tell Me More's one little box gives you 4 years of language learning! You can create multiple accounts. One for each child or adult in your house that is interested in learning a language. They have lesson study guides for every lesson, showing the solution for every exercise and activity. There are literally thousands of exercises. They include a speech recognition system that you say the words into the headset microphone and it will correct your pronunciation of the words. They have native French speaking persons who provide the speech on the program to help you develop correct pronunciation. Tell Me More provides a waveform and pitch curve graph that helps you see where you need to improve. We loved having the interactive conversations during the lessons. It is a fun way to truly learn the language. As time has passed we are getting better at our pronunciation of the language and our interactive lesson conversations are going much better.

In addition to what you get in the box and the original installation of the your disc, Tell Me More provides you with some online services as well. The EuroNews Lesson in partnership with the television station is available every week. This is about a 30 minute lesson based off a current news event in the country of your language that you are studying. Tell Me More not only offers testing and progress charts through the software you install but their are also online tests that allow you to assess your level at anytime during your training. The Language Achievement Test helps you assess your level and compare it to the levels defined by the Council of Europe. You can take this test as many times as you like. My Online Advisor offers you language-related and pedagoglical assistance in English. Tell Me More even provides an End of Training Certificate.

One feature that I feel I just have to mention is the Mobile Learning feature. Outside of Tell Me More you can load audio lessons onto your MP3 player, Pocket PC or burn it to a CD and take it on the road. This is a great feature for continual learning. To immerse yourself in the language as much as possible! All of my children have MP3 players so this worked wonderfully for our family!

This really is a total package and if the immersion technique fits for you then this is the program that you should try. Where else in one program can you learn reading and writing, listening and speaking, grammar, culture, and vocabulary. You can even create your own workbooks for your child! The Tell Me More Homeschool French 5 Levels is on sale right now for $309. I am sure you are going WOW $309 that's a lot. If you break it down thinking about how many children you have and the fact that it's FOUR years of lessons then the cost becomes very reasonable. This is a top quality program for learning language. This would be my first choice in a complete language program to recommend to any homeschooling family or family whose children were learning a foreign language in school. If you have never tried the immersion technique of learning a language then check out their free trial and rolling demos here. Who can resist a try before you buy!

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