Have you ever heard of SmartKidz Media?
I have to say that until this review came up, I had not ever heard of this company, but I sure do wish that I had! We have been using the SmartKidz Media Library for Homeschoolers here at our home for several weeks now, and let me tell you, this is a VERY extensive resource!
SmartKidz Media Library For Homeschoolers has so much content that it is really difficult for me to narrow down what I want to share with you without this becoming an extremely rambling style post, but I will try! 🙂
My kids really do enjoy visual learning, and there are so many choices when it comes to video topics. For example, under the “World Of Discovery” tab at the top left of the page, you will find such things as:
Animals & Wildlife
Magic of Nature
Documentaries & Culture
Miracles of Nature
Health & Fitness
History: World War II History
The Cold War History
Lifestyles & Cuisine
Travel & Adventure World Wide Discovery
And oh, so much more!
Now two of my boys (The Artist and The Puzzler” really love to watch nature type videos, so of course they think the amount of content in that area is wonderful! We all enjoy the fun materials you’ll find under the “My Animal Family” tab. Here, we found delightfully narrated, real life video story books of a day-in-the-life of a baby animal as she interacts with her family. They are about the following animals at this time: Leo the lion, Korow the chimpanzee, Ella the elephant, Tahi the dolphin,and Nanuq, the polar bear.
Just below the video story books, you’ll find the “My Animal Family” Fun Facts, a group of short videos about each of the animals mentioned in the story books, filled with lovely still photographs and video from the BBC. These are scored with music and sound effects, which I find really enhances the experience of checking them out! this segment offers lots of interesting facts about each of the animals and their lives in the wild, and they are approximately 5 to 10 minutes in length.
For the younger set, there are also the “My Animal Family” Story songs, one for each of the aforementioned animal families. Each one is a live action Sing-Along Story Song with streaming BBC video as a backdrop. Your littles can learn about each animal by singing along, following the highlighted words.
It seems as though almost every time I log on, I see something new on the SmartKids Media Library For Homeschoolers! For example, I’m seeing a category which I KNOW will appeal to my eldest, “The Batman”. Under Family Media, World of Discovery, it now says Action Sports: Coming Soon! Now, “The Batman” is just going to love this one! Actually, I think “Mr. Loquacious” will enjoy this one as well, since he also loves playing video games about sports.
There is a whole section called “Miracles of Nature” with five videos which are approximately 25 minutes in length, each one taking us on a journey to see several very beautiful places, such as, for example, the largest coral reef in the southern hemisphere and a mystical cave system.
WE are still in “World of Discovery”, and there is just so much to see and do! There is a nice group of health and fitness videos, including one for kids, and one that I’d really like my husband to check out, for people with back pain.
World of Discovery has so much! There are three different sections with history videos so far, along with Lifestyles and Cuisine, which, once he finds his way to them, I’m thinking that “The Artist” will be checking out. He enjoys cooking, often helping with, or even cooking supper completely, as he is doing right now so as to help me get this review typed up! 🙂 I’m fairly certain he will enjoy the Bizarre Science videos when he finds them, as well!
“The Batman” loves classical music, and was so happy to discover the various collections under th Music and Fine Arts tab. I love many different styles of music, and was glad to find also that there are collections of cultural music, jazz and blues, and relaxation music.
If you never even left the “World of Discovery” and the “Music and Fine Arts” tabs, you would still have such a huge amount of content, but wait, there’s so much more! 🙂
There is a nice collection of flash-animated eBooks under the “Mighty eBook Collection tab. From classics such as Aesop’s Fables or Mother Goose, to reading readiness for your littles, there is an abundance of material here.
Under “Quick Find Study Guides” we discovered language arts basics, math basics, science basics and more to come.
One of the things I especially love is that SmartKids Media clearly has a heart for our special needs kids. There is a whole section of books presented in two ways, “hear the book”, and then again as “interactive media”, with additional materials which may be printed out. I wish we had had this when my older kids were young!
In the Fun Zone, there are a good number of educational games, puzzles and even some “just for fun” silly books.
The SmartKidz Media Library For Homeschoolers is extremely easy to navigate, and can be used on a variety of systems. We have used it on the PC and on my android tablet, although was not able to use the flash content on the tablet. It is my understanding that we can also chrome cast the content to our television, however, my husband has not had the time to teach (non-techy) me how to do that yet.
I’ve given you a broad overview, here, which I didn’t plan to do, but I want you to know what is available, and haven’t even covered it all! 🙂 I’ve tried to let you in on the things that we, in particular, enjoy, but please be aware that there is so much, it very well could take a good long time to see everything! As always, there may be some topics or videos that do not fit with your family’s beliefs, so if that is a concern I advise using discernment and perhaps checking the content out with your child, or previewing anything you may have concerns about. You can also check out the Free 14 day trial to see if this is for you. But I warn you, you just may get hooked immediately! 🙂
AS I said above, there is an extremely large amount of content available on SmartKidz Media Library For Homeschoolers. You will be able to see many varying ideas for use, and many varying reviews, by clicking the banner below and reading what the other 99 crew members who have been using this with their families have to say, so I do hope you will check them out! 🙂
As always, I would love it if you joined me on all of “My Journeys Through Life”. Just go to the “sign me up” button at the top of the blog, enter your email, and never miss an update! 🙂
My Journeys Through Life . . . Herding Cats In New Mexico! 