Category Archives: education

September 10, 2013 · 8:39 am

Time4Learning . . .A TOS Review

Well, I was really excited when I was selected to review Time4Learning with one of my children, because over the years, I’ve heard so many positive things about this online educational program.

I was given a six-month subscription to Time4Learning to use with one student, in exchange for giving an honest review, and I chose “The Batman” this time around. Because he was born with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, mental retardation, and is also on the autism spectrum, he is severely deficient in several areas of education, most particularly in arithmetic. When I asked him questions given by Time4Learning to figure out where to place him, I was primarily asking him simple arithmetic questions. Based on his answers, I chose 1st grade level.

I did later, discover that I could change his level in separate subject area, and while I have left the math level alone, I’ve been raising his level in all of the other subjects.

Surprisingly, “The Batman” is actually really enjoying Time4Learning! He likes the variety of things to do in each subject area, and especially loves that for every hour he does in the lessons, he earns 30 minutes in the “playground” area, which is just really fun educational games. We did have to get past an initial problem with that part of the program though, which was NOT fun for me, because it was so upsetting to “The Batman”. He earned his playground time, but then the program wouldn’t let him into it, not at all. Of course, by then, it was late in the afternoon and we are in mountain time, so I told him we’d have to call tech support the next day. This did not go over well. 😦 The following morning, however, I did, as promised, call Time4Learning. They have very good support at the other end of the phone, and I was told that ever since the internet explorer browser had updated, it has been causing some glitches for some people in Time4Learning. I was advised to install the Firefox browser, as it seems to be much more compatible with Time4Learning, and once we did that, and started remembering to use Firefox whenever we wanted to log into Time4Learning, it has worked just wonderfully! 🙂

One of the things I like about Time4Learning is that once you’ve gotten set up, you really don’t HAVE to do anything other than let the child get on and learn!

Really, the only things I have needed to do is help “The Batman” with printing out the available resources (such as worksheets, poems that go with the lessons, etc . . .)

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There are other things you can print out though, which I think would be helpful if you live in a state which requires you to keep records of your child’s education.

You can check out the lesson plans, if you need to have them printed out . . .

You can print out and keep detailed reports for your record keeping . . .

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Time$Learning has plenty of tools which are useful to you, the parent . . .

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Time4Learning can be used for home-schooling, summer learning, and after school learning. My son has been using it during the review period, along with a few other things, as his home-school program.

I like that it is accessible at any time, it isn’t a regularly scheduled class, so you can, as I like to do, work in school around your life, instead of having to work in your life around school.

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The lessons are automatically sequenced, with Time4Learning building on what your child is learning as he goes.

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As you can see below, “The Batman” is very intently working through the Time4Learning online program.

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In this shot, “The Batman” is using the story starter. He chose the background scene, the characters, and a selection of words for his word bank, then printed it out to get a page to write a story on. He’s still working on the story, though, so no picture of that yet! 🙂

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We really like Time4Learning! All of my home-schooling friends who have suggested it over the years were right, it really is a good program, especially for kids who need to work at different levels depending upon subject. And that’s another thing, when “The Batman” sees Time4Learning, it doesn’t say “grade 1” or “grade 2”, etc. It just shows as levels, as far as I can see. I think this is a plus, especially with my special needs child who worries over whether others will see what “grade” he is using.

If I were to consider this for all of my kids, it would be too pricy for my budget, but if we can manage it, and it continues to work for “The Batman”, we may consider continuing with it after our six-month subscription runs out.

You can sign up here, and Time4Learning promises that there are no contracts, if it doesn’t work for your child, you may cancel at any time.

Time4Learning is available as a monthly subscription. For the lower grades (pre-K through 8th grade), it will cost $19.95 per month for your first student, and $14.95 per month for each additional pre-k through 8th grade student. If you want to use Time4Learning with older students, it is available for high school at $30.00 per month.

Overall, we are happy with Time4Learning, and we think you should give it a try!

Other crew members also reviewed Time4Learning . . . please, click below to read what they thought of this online learning program!

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August 26, 2013 · 9:07 am

Because You Are Strong: A Study of Godly Strength For Young Men . . . a T.O.S. review

I received a copy of the book Because You Are Strong: A Study of Godly Strength For Young Men from the company Doorposts, to review.

I received the 104 page, soft-cover book, which is available here for $14.00, but it is currently being offered at the sale price of $12.00. Because You Are Strong is also available here as an e-book for $10.00.

Because You Are Strong is written for boys, age 12 and up, although you can also use it with your daughters. Most of the study questions would be applicable to either a boy or a girl, and where appropriate, there are asterisks which will refer you to alternate questions for girls, which are listed in the back of the book. This would certainly be helpful for the home-schooling family on a budget who would prefer to use just one of the two books offered by Doorposts which were reviewed by crew members. While it does say on the website that it is for ages 12 and up, I want to be sure you know that your older teens will enjoy it, and benefit greatly from it as well. This book really does teach good Bible study skills, many of which are, at this time, beyond my kids, but would be good for any teen (or adult, for that matter!) to learn and to apply.

My boys were looking forward to getting started with this book, once I told them we would mostly do it orally, with “The Artist” doing the writing involved, as he really is the most capable of that.

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Because You Are Strong is meant to teach your son practical Bible study skills. He will learn how to:

• Use a concordance.
• Study the original Greek & Hebrew words used in a passage.
• Perform a character study.
• Study a specific topic in the Bible.
• Understand and use marginal notes in your Bible.
• Study a verse, passage, chapter, or entire book of the Bible.
• Use free Bible study tools on computers and mobile devices.

There are ten studies which focus on men from the Bible such as David, Samson, and other “mighty men of valor”, and they will also learn about the power of God, the service of Jesus, and the wisdom found in Proverbs regarding strength.

Each of the ten studies is divided into daily segments, intended to be from 5 to 20 minutes each, and each study will teach a different method of study. The book Because You Are Strong contains 74 days of study, as well as 40 more suggested studies. The ten studies in Because You Are Strong include:

1. Strength for the Race: Meditating on Hebrews 11-12
2. Strength with no Limits A Topical Study on the Omnipotence of God
3. Strength and Wisdom: A Topical Study in Proverbs
4. Strength and Temptation: A Character Study of Samson
5. Strength to be Valiant: A Word Study on “Valor”
6.Strength in Our Weakness: A Verse Study on 2 Corinthians 12:9-10
7. Strength in the Battle: A Chapter Study of 1 Samuel 17
8. Strength Serving Others: A Study of Jesus’ Actions in the Gospel of Mark
9. Strength and Gray Heads: A Verse Study of Proverbs 20:29
10. Strength in the Faith: A Book Study of 1 John

The following pictures will show you some of the work involved in study #1, “Strength For The Race” . . .

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You can download and view a sample here, and see for yourself what the first study “Strength For The Race” is like.

The Bible verses used are from the KJV and the ESV translations of the Bible. As usual, this is the one area where I wish they had written it differently, and simply used the KJV throughout. We are still able to use this study though, as we simply have our own (KJV) Bibles out while working in this book, and get a lot of good practice looking up every scripture passage for ourselves. Even my little guys, “Mr. Loquacious” and “The Puzzler”, along with my eldest “The Batman” enjoy looking them up, often competing to see who can get to the verse the fastest! 🙂

Here they all are, looking up the verses in their own KJV Bibles . . .

“Mr. Loquacious”

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“The Puzzler”

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“The Batman”

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“The Artist” also spent time looking up the verses, but for some reason I didn’t get that picture! You can see him up higher in this review, writing everybody’s thoughts down in the Because You Are Strong book.

If you work at the pace suggested in this book, you’ll have at least a good years worth of study! In our case, it will last much longer, because we are doing it as a group, and because I do have kids with varying special needs, so we often divide lessons up to take at least two days for every one suggested day. I would much rather have it take twice as long, or sometimes even longer, and have my boys actually get something out of it, than rush through just to meet the designed schedule. That is one of the beauties of home-schooling though, you can work any curriculum to fit your child/children, and you can take whatever time you need. It also gives me the opportunity to find out how any curriculum can be “tweaked” to fit for a special needs family, since “tweaking” is often our only option, especially when dealing with multiple kids who have different special needs! 🙂

Over-all, my boys are enjoying this study. They enjoy looking up, and hearing about the people in the Bible, and *I* like it when they pick up on how something may apply to their own lives while we are reading. We will continue working through the book Because You Are Strong: A Study of Godly Strength For Young Men, but as I said above, we will take it slowly, so as to get as much as possible out of it.

Other Schoolhouse Review Crew Members received either Because You Are Strong (for their boys) or Beauty in the Heart (for their girls) from Doorposts. Please sail on over to read what they thought!

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August 22, 2013 · 11:29 am

“A Trip to the Library” (In the Hands of a Child Lapbook Review for T.O.S.

I must confess, my kids and I have had previous (a long time ago) experience with the company In The Hands Of A Child“, and had even at one time, had a Super Membership that I purchased when attending a mega-curriculum fair back in Michigan. However, back then, I found many of the Project Packs to be too much for my kids, so we haven’t done any from In The Hands of a Child for quite some time. As you’ll see from my review, I was pleasantly surprised at how much better they did with a Project Pack from this company now than they did several years ago!

In The Hands Of A Child was created and is still run, by a pair of home-schooling moms. You can read about them here. Whenever possible, if I am buying materials for my home-schooling, I do prefer to support fellow home-schoolers, and this is a good one to support, for sure!

When given the list of products to choose from, I chose the Project Pack A Trip To The Library, because when we lived in Michigan, my kids loved going to the library, and even after being here in NM for a year now, we had not yet even found our local library branch, let alone gotten library cards, so I thought this would be a good incentive to get that off of the “to do” list!

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The Project Pack A Trip To The Library is written for students in grades K – 3, and is available right now for $5.00! The regular price is $10.00.

I received a download of this Project Pack, which is the format I prefer, as I can then use it for more than one of my children, and can also save it for use in later years.

When you think about A Trip To The Library, you may be just thinking about getting there, letting your kids choose some books,, a story-time hour if your kids are little, and going on home, but as your children will learn while doing this Project Pack, there is a lot of information about the library that they are capable of understanding.

From the website:

“With this unit study you will be able to teach your early elementary classroom about the library. Libraries have a lot of books, but they also have a lot of other information and resources. Teach your students about the types of libraries, common areas inside a library, library rules, how to find a book, librarians, book classification systems, the parts of a book, and more. Make your lesson planning easy with the Trip to the Library Curriculum from In the Hands of a Child. This pack includes a 5-day Planning Guide, Related Reading List, 11 Hands-On Activities PLUS 6 Fun Extension Activities, and a 7-page Research Guide to complete a project all about the library!”

You may even download a sample here.

I knew my children would enjoy doing this, because over the past few years as their skills have improved, we have added in more and more lap-booking materials to our educational experience. I am a scrap-booker/card maker, and my kids watch me, and like to take whatever materials I end up not using to create on their own, so it was fun for them to do the cutting, putting together, and laying things out in their file folder books we made.

Here are “The Puzzler”, “The Batman” & “Mr. Loquacious” gluing the definitions to their vocabulary words, which we then put together with brads from my scrap-booking stash . . .

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and here is “The Artist” working on his . . .

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We made quite a mess, with all of the cutting! I decided to just let it all fall to the floor and clean it up at the end of each session. This is just a SMALL part of the mess . . . it grew and grew!

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As I mentioned above, one of the main reasons I chose this particular Project Pack was to use it as an incentive to get moving on finding the library here in our new city, and get library cards. So, one day while we were in the middle of working on A Trip To The Library, since I had some errands to run that morning, we decided to just include a trip to OUR library, once I had searched it on Google so I could use the gps on my phone to get us there (as my husband is fond of saying, I am completely geographically challenged!).

Once we found that there was a branch of the Albuquerque/Bernalillo County Library fairly close to our home, we decided to go on our way home from the errands. What I planned as a QUICK stop turned into a couple of hours, but that was OK, the boys had fun, and we all have our new library cards now. 🙂

Here are the boys, signing their new library cards . . .

“The Batman”

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“The Artist”

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“Mr. Loquacious”

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“The Puzzler”

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All four of the boys working intently on their layouts . . .

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Here is part of the inside of a finished Project Pack . . .

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. . . and the other part of the inside is here . . .

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You can see in the first example above, the boys added the pictures of themselves signing their new library cards. We had also saved all of the little extra illustrations in the Project Pack print out, and they used them to decorate the empty spaces in their file folder books. In this case, it helped with covering the manufacturer’s printed material that was showing on the insides of the folders.

I took all four of their brand new library cards and scattered them onto the copier part of my printer to make a picture for the covers of their file folder books, and then used a cute font I have to make a title for them. This is how we decided it should look . . .

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And here are all four boys showing off their finished Project Packs!

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We did not need to purchase anything extra at all to do this, and you probably won’t, either. I always have a box of file folders on hand. For each file folder book, we took two file folders and folded each into the middle, making it gate-fold into the center. Then, we attached the two together with double-sided tape, which I also keep on hand for various projects. I could not find the brads I had bought at an office supply store the last time we did a lap-book, so I let them use the ones I had in my scrap-booking stash. Of course, we already had on hand pencils, glue sticks, colored pencils & a stapler, so we were good to go!

My kids and I think you should give Project Packs from In The Hands Of A Child a try. They really are a fun, hands on way to learn about a topic, and this company has a TON of topics for you to use! In The Hands Of A Child regularly offers free Project Packs here, so you can even try before you buy!

There is an ever-growing list of their units here, and it ranges from pre-school all the way through the 12th grade, in differing styles from lap-book Project Packs to Note-booking Packages.

Way back at the beginning of this review, I mentioned having had a Super Membership at one time. A Super Membership is a good value, in my opinion. It includes two free Project Packs each month that you are a member, plus 15% off all e-book lap-book units and $10.00 off of the price on custom ordered units. It’s a good deal!

There is a newsletter you can sign up for here, to receive the latest updates, money-saving deals and free tips.

In The Hands Of A Child also has their own blog which you may find helpful as a home-schooling parent.

I do recommend the company In The Hands Of A Child, and not just for home-schoolers, either! They make fine supplemental packages for kids in public or private school, as well as fun, hands-on educational projects for summer vacation or any time your kids would be interested in learning more about a given topic. But when it comes to home-schooling, you really could just about build a whole year curriculum from Project Packs written by In The Hands Of A Child! Take a look at their curriculum page, and just see if they don’t have pretty much any topic you (or your kids!) would like to cover, and you’ll see that learning doesn’t have to be drudgery. It can be fun, hands-on, and relatively inexpensive!

Now that my kids are better able to handle these projects, I absolutely plan to delve back into my stock-pile of downloaded Project Packs from many years ago. I think they will be much more able to do them now, and we do enjoy it when we can learn about a variety of topics in a hands-on, fun way! 🙂

My fellow crew members reviewed a variety of products from “In The Hands of a Child” . . . please click below to discover their thoughts!

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August 21, 2013 · 3:23 pm

I’m Enjoying the Schoolhouse Expo SO Much!

Well! This is the first Schoolhouse Webinar I have ever attended, and so far, I am enjoying it a great deal! One of my favorite segments was Molly Green. I have a subscription to the Molly Green e-magazine, and I whole-heartedly recommend it. There are tons of articles and tips on frugal living, for one thing. In her presentation, Molly made a point of telling us what the definition of frugal IS, and is NOT. From one of the slides in her presentation:

“What does frugal really mean?

Frugal: practicing economy; living without waste (or avoiding waste); thrifty

NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH

Cheap: devalued, considered of small value, poor quality, inferior, worthy of no respect, stingy, miserly”

One can (and should!) be frugal in some areas in order to allow a little extravagance in the areas which matter to them, in my opinion! I really ENJOY Molly Green, and am slowly working my way through all of her publications, which are available to me as part of my subscription, which you can also get at http://www.econobusters.com, where she has a deal going to give you the first month for just $1.00!

As I said in my very first post about the Schoolhouse Expo, I was so looking forward to the Dean Butler segment, which was on yesterday afternoon. I very much enjoyed hearing him speak about how much it has meant to him to have become involved with the legacy of Laura Ingalls Wilder as a result of having been such a large part of the television show, Little House on the Prairie. I was surprised to find out that in the series, Almanzo’s name was mispronounced, throughout the show!

I’ve just finished with the segment by Hope Auer: “How to Write a Novel: A Homeschooler’s Journey to Becoming an Author” who, as a 13-year-old homeschooler, began writing her first historical fiction book, and is now a published author!

Right now, I am waiting for the presentation coming up at 3:00 p.m. my time by Jessica Hulcy, who will talk about multi-level teaching, and then right after that, the presentation by Todd Wilson, on “Taming THE techno Beast: Parenting in the Internet Age. The timing works well today, though I will probably miss the last part of Todd Wilson, as we’ll need to leave for church before 6:00 p.m., but I also know that as an attendee of the expo, I will be able to listen to the recordings later when they are archived!

I know the Expo is half over now, but it isn’t too late if you’d like to attend! You may register at:

http://www.schoolhousefamily.com/product/august-schoolhouse-expo-ticket/

And now that the Expo is part-way through, the price has been lowered for the remainder of the Expo to $17.00!

Disclaimer: this is a promotional post, in return for which I was given free admission to the 2013 Schoolhouse Expo

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August 16, 2013 · 8:24 am

A Fun Way For My Struggling Readers To Learn: Reading Kingdom . . . A T.O.S. Review

I wasn’t sure how well the online program Reading Kingdom would go over with my twins “Mr. Loquacious” and “The Puzzler” when it came to us for review, but so far, they are really liking it!

Reading Kingdom is an online subscription program that is individualized to each student, so your child will not be competing with his or her siblings, rather, they will move along at their own pace and ability level.

While it is not as flashy and exciting as other educational games they have used, they are enjoying the process of moving along at their own pace. “Mr. Loquacious”, however, does have a strong competitive streak, and frequently tries to get me to tell him where his twin is in the program, most likely because “The Puzzler”, being more interested in reading, has, on his own, taught himself a lot of reading just by pushing himself and asking for help, even before we began this review. “Mr. Loquacious” would rather just be read to, and often pretends he cannot read.

Here are some of the things your child will see at different points in the Reading Kingdom program:

I really have always liked phonics based reading programs, but have come to agree with Reading Kingdom in believing that more than just phonics are needed. The American English language is not the easiest to learn, considering that so much of it has roots from so very many other languages! Add to that the fact that the phonics “rules” simply don’t always apply, and there are a significant number of words which cannot be “sounded out” using those phonics rules, well, it proves that phonics just isn’t enough for many people.

Reading is a NECESSARY skill, for anything one wants to do in life. Therefore, why not use whatever will help our children get there without the frustration often associated with using a solely phonics based program?

Here is a snippet of information from the Reading Kingdom website about their approach to learning to read:

“It’s because of these problems with phonics and whole language that schools across the nation show only 30% of children reading at a “proficient” level, while a staggering 35%-40%, across all socio-economic backgrounds, are failing to master this crucial skill (Source: US Dept. of Education) and those who are succeeding are taking longer to learn than they need to.”

My husband and I both grew up reading for pleasure. In fact, the first purchase we made together when we were getting married were bookcases, to hold our many books, after which, we also had to go through and cull out all of our duplicates! I mention this only to explain why it is so important to me that my children learn to read, not just foe educational purposes, but also for pure enjoyment.

When we first received our login information from the Reading Kingdom company, I got the boys all set up, and they were chomping at the bit to get going.

When a child first begins the program, there is an assessment phase, which helps the program decide where to place him/her. This program is completely customized to the individual student, beginning with the Skills Survey:

“This customization process begins right at the beginning with the Skills Survey. It assesses each student’s skills in reading and writing, and based on the results, the program places each child at the point that is just right for his or her skill level. This prevents students from becoming bored and wasting time learning something they already know or being frustrated by tasks that they are not yet ready for.”

Interestingly, considering that “The Puzzler” has actually pushed himself to read, while “Mr. Loquacious” has mostly resisted learning, the skills survey actually put “Mr. Loquacious” further along in the program. Upon further investigation, I discovered that this is because “The Puzzler” needed help with keyboarding skills, so the program started him in the “Letter Land” format. “Mr. Loquacious” was also placed in Letter Land, but progressed out of it rather quickly, while “The Puzzler” is at this point, 84% completed with this level. I’m fairly sure it’s mostly because “Mr. Puzzler” is developmentally much younger than his twin, so he isn’t quite as quick when it comes to these skills. “Mr. Loquacious” is currently in “Reading/Writing Level 1, with 14 % completed in this level.

By the way, there is another great thing about this program, the online (and emailed!) reports for me, the parent! You see, the program information states right away that other than helping the student get logged on, the parent/teacher is to stay hands off, and not help in any way, other than technological assistance. I like this aspect, and so do the boys, although at first, “Mr. Loquacious” did not, wanting me to tell him if he had the right answers before he would type them in. 🙂

According to the information from Reading Kingdom, their program is “the only system that teaches the following six skills. When children are taught all six skills, they easily master both reading and writing. By focusing on these skills, Reading Kingdom teaches children 4-10 years of age how to read and write at a third grade level. So teach a child to read today and give the gift that lasts a lifetime.”

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Reading Kingdom offers information on their site to help you decide if your child is ready for this program, with topics such as early readers, accelerated readers, and struggling readers.

To learn more about how Reading Kingdom is fundamentally different from other reading systems available today, you can download this very informative pdf

My twins are enjoying Reading Kingdom very much, and frequently ask to do it. In fact, “Mr. Loquacious” often asks to continue on after his official session is done! This is a win/win for me, since he, especially, doesn’t like to stick with one thing for very long.

If you’d like to check it out, there are tons of sample lessons here, including part one and part 2 of the skills survey. There are also a good number of other resources, including printable worksheets to help re-enforce what your child is learning.

Reading Kingdom is an online, subscription based program, which can be purchased for $19.99 per month. You can get the entire year at once, for $199.00, and additional students are $9.99 per month or $99.00 for the whole year.

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Furthermore, for those who truly cannot afford it, Reading Kingdom has a scholarship program! To apply, go here.

Other Schoolhouse Review Crew Members are using Reading Kingdom with their children as well . . . to find out what they think of this program, please click below.

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August 12, 2013 · 5:19 pm

Reminder: The Annual Schoolhouse Expo is Coming Up!

I wanted to share once again, BEFORE it begins, a little bit about some of the speakers who will be participating in the annual Schoolhouse Expo, which will be held from August 19 – 23, 2013.

Hal & Melanie Young will be sharing on two topics. The first is “Shining Armor: Your Son’s Battle for Purity”. Let’s face it, most resources out there on this topic are about and for girls. Those of us raising boys will really benefit from learning more about how to bring them up with an understanding that purity is not just for girls, it’s for boys, as well! Their second topic is a writing/publishing workshop: “Getting Published and Getting It Launched”, in which they will talk about getting your book published and getting it known.

I look forward to Deborah Wuehler, Senior Editor at The Old Schoolhouse Magazine. She will be speaking on the topic of “Prayer, Power, and Perseverance!”, something we home-schooling moms often need!

Of special interest to me is the topic “Homeschooling Multiple Children with Special Needs”, by http://schoolhouseexpo.com/heather_laurie/. As the home-schooling mom of four special needs boys, I think this one will be beneficial to me!

“Homeschooling during times of Transition”, by Malia Russell is another topic I’m looking forward to, as I feel like I’m still in transition from moving across the country.

Since I have dreams of writing for The Old Schoolhouse Magazine as an actual paying job, I definitely don’t want to miss “How to Write for The Old Schoolhouse and the TOS Family”, by Bonnie Rose!

There are 36 speakers in all, and you won’t miss a single one, because with your registration, you will receive the archived recordings after the Expo, to enjoy whenever you wish! If you want to join me, please go register here, and get all of these speakers and more for only $24.00!

Remember, I am also hosting a giveaway for one free ticket to the annual Schoolhouse Expo! To enter, go to this post and make a comment, telling me which speaker you are most looking forward to (one comment per reader, please!), and I will choose the winner the morning of August 14th using random.org. So, you have one more day to enter! Good luck!

Disclaimer: This is a promotional post, for which I will be receiving one free ticket for myself to this event.

As always, I’d love to have you follow my blog by clicking the “sign me up” button at the top of the page and following the instructions. Hope you will join me for all of my “Journeys Through Life”!

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August 12, 2013 · 4:32 pm

America The Beautiful . . . a T.O.S. Review

Oh my, were the boys and I excited when we opened the box from the Notgrass Company containing the complete American History curriculum we were going to review!

Book after book came out of that box, beginning with two thick hardcover books containing 75 lessons, which are put together in a series of 30 units between the two. “America the Beautiful: Part 1” covers the year 1000 to the year 1877, while “America the Beautiful: Part 2” covers the late 1800s to the present. We also received another large, hard cover book, “We The People: Words From The Makers of American History”, a wonderful collection of excerpts from biographies, articles and pieces of American literature. Next, we found the America the Beautiful Student Workbook, a very nice wire bound book, and the America the Beautiful Lesson Review, also a very nice wire bound book, which we will use in later years when we re-do this curriculum at a time my boys can do more in-depth work. Next out of the box was the book “Maps of America the Beautiful“. This book is full of very nice outline maps to be used in the different lessons. We are liking that we don’t complete a whole map at one sitting, in fact, we go from map to map, depending upon the lesson we are in. Next, we have the “Timeline of America the Beautiful” book, which I just love! I’ve wanted to do some form of timeline work in our home-schooling, but really wanted it to be in a book, and this perfectly fits what I wanted, and what my kids can handle. Last, but not least, I found the “America the Beautiful Answer Key” book, with answers to everything. From the website:

“America the Beautiful by Charlene Notgrass is a one-year American history, geography, and literature course designed for students in grades 5-8. It combines the flexibility and richness of a unit study with the simplicity of a textbook-based approach to history. Daily lessons guide your child chronologically through American history, highlighting key events, people, and places.”

This curriculum is absolutely beautiful, and so very easy to use! I really don’t have to do any teacher prep, other than to make sure we have the materials for the family activity listed for each unit, if we choose to do it. So far, we’ve done just one of them, because the others either didn’t interest us or were a bit overwhelming for our household.

We’ve chosen to work on this as a group, since my boys are at different levels of ability due to ages and varying special needs, and we take from two to four days per lesson. I read the actual lesson out loud, while we all look at the illustrations and photos given (which takes perhaps more time than it’s supposed to, because my boys love to ask questions and discuss what is in the lesson as we go). Then, there is generally a selection to read from “We the People: Words From the Makers of American History”, which is also a read-aloud. After that, we do the various end of lesson activities, which range from “thinking biblically” (for which they each have their own 3-ring binder), to vocabulary (which we often do orally), to a map page, and a page in the Student Workbook. All of this, as I said, usually takes us anywhere from two to four days, but we stretch it like that primarily because I have found that for my boys, the knowledge will stick better that way. The author of this curriculum, Charlene Notgrass, makes a point in the introduction to tell us not to be a slave to the written schedule, but to make it work for us, so that’s precisely what we are doing, and it’s working! Therefore, although this is written as a one year curriculum, we will be stretching it out for as long as it takes to go through it, and then, perhaps go back and do it again, using the “America the Beautiful Lesson Review” Book when the boys are older.

There are ten novels assigned at different times during the course of this curriculum, beginning with Unit 4. They are:

The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare (Units 4-5)

Amos Fortune: Free Man by Elizabeth Yates (Units 6-7)

Brady by Jean Fritz (Units 9-10)

Bound for Oregon by Jean Van Leeuwen (Units 12-13)

Across Five Aprils by Irene Hunt (Units 14-15)

Little Town on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder (Units 16-17)

All-of-a-Kind Family by Sydney Taylor (Units 19-20)

Blue Willow by Doris Gates (Units 21-22)

Homer Price by Robert McCloskey (Unit 25)

Katy by Mary Evelyn Notgrass (Units 29-30)

The first five books go with “America the Beautiful: Part 1”, with the second five going along with “America the Beautiful: Part 2”. To get us started, I purchased the first three novels, and will get the rest as we get close to needing them. All are easily available at bookstores or your library, with the possible exception of the final book assigned, which was written by the daughter of the author of this curriculum.

I was a little bit nervous about whether or not my boys would (a) enjoy this curriculum, and (b) be able to do the work involved, but they really do like it, and because we are doing it together, and they are taking turns on each map lesson and student workbook lesson, they are handling the work quite well. Of course, if anyone looked at either of those books, they would immediately be able to tell that four different people had written on each and every page! 🙂 Doing the workbook and map book this way makes it much more manageable for my children. We do the timeline book orally together, and then “The Artist”, who has the easiest time with writing things down, actually writes the entry into the space provided.

If you would like to view samples of the different books in this curriculum, you will find them here. You will find the table of contents and a sample unit from “America the Beautiful: Part 1”, the table of contents, a sample unit and the index from “America the Beautiful: Part 2”, sample pages from “We the People”, sample maps from ” Maps of America the Beautiful”, sample pages from “Timeline of America the Beautiful”, and you may view the “America the Beautiful Answer Key”.

The Notgrass Company also offers a family newsletter, for which you can sign up using your email address here. It is emailed every couple of weeks, and includes “family activity ideas, articles, information about our products, and special offers.”

Here is “The Artist”, copying an entry into the timeline . . .

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“The Batman”, coloring in a section of one of the maps . . .

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“Mr. Loquacious”, also doing map-work . . .

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and “The Puzzler” working with “The Artist” on one of the Student Workbook pages . . .

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One of the end of unit family activities was to make Navajo Flat bread, which we did one evening when my husband had offered to make “breakfast for dinner”. It was very easy, and the boys and I all worked on it together.

This is all that we needed to make a batch of Navajo Flat Bread . . .

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Here are pictures of each of the boys taking a turn at hand mixing the dough . . .

First up, “The Artist”

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“The Batman” . . .

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“The Puzzler” . . .

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and “Mr. Loquacious”!

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Then, I kneaded the dough . . .

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after which we were instructed to let it rest for ten minutes. Then, we divided it into ten balls and began rolling!

“Mr. Loquacious” . . .

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“The Artist” . . .

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“The Batman” . . .

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and “The Puzzler”!

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Here are the boys with all ten circles rolled out . . .

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and finally, a piece of Navajo Flat Bread in the process of being fried!

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The bread was soft, and tasted very good with butter and honey on it. It was a tasty addition to our scrambled eggs with sweet onion and ham!

The “America the Beautiful” curriculum is available to purchase here for $99.95, and includes the following books:

“America the Beautiful: Part 1”
“America the Beautiful: Part 2”
“We The People: Words From the Makers of American History”
“Maps of America the Beautiful”
“Timeline of America the Beautiful”
“America the Beautiful Answer Key”

The “America the Beautiful Student Workbook” is available here for $11.95, and “America the Beautiful Lesson Review” is available here for $9.95.

For the most part, “America the Beautiful” is definitely a hit in our house, and we highly recommend it! The only thing I wish would be different would be to have (especially in the workbook!) Bible verses to be from the KJV. That’s the only Bible my family, and my church uses, so when a workbook page uses a different version, I either have to re-create the page, or go ahead and do it, using it as a lesson in why we believe as we do. I chose to do the latter here, because the only way the rest of the page worked was by using the verse as given.

Other members of the Schoolhouse Review Crew reviewed this and other products from the Notgrass Company. Please cruise on by and see what they thought!

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August 7, 2013 · 8:53 am

Almanzo Wilder: Life Before Laura . . .a T.O.S. Review

I was really pleased to have the chance to review the DVD Almanzo Wilder: Life Before Laura, as I’ve been a long-time fan of Little House On The Prairie. I am old enough to have watched the television show every week when it was first broadcast, and now my children enjoy watching as well! My children and I are also going through all of the books as read alouds, and we began with Farmer Boy in preparation for this review.

This documentary is produced by Dean Butler and Legacy Documentaries, who portrayed Almanzo in the TV series, and has for nearly 30 years had an ongoing association with the series and the Laura Ingalls Wilder community.

From the website:

“ALMANZO WILDER: Life Before Laura” is an all-new documentary produced in partnership with the Almanzo and Laura Ingalls Wilder Association in Burke, NY. The program offers a unique look at Almanzo’s early life through original footage and re-creations shot on location at the Wilder Homestead, supported by visual and text excerpts from Farmer Boy”

This DVD documentary runs almost an hour, and is hosted by Dean Butler. Some of my kids were excited that we were going to sit down and watch it, although “The Batman” wanted to forgo this in favor of playing his Nintendo 3-DS. Mom prevailed, and we settled in one afternoon to view Almanzo Wilder: Life Before Laura.

It really didn’t take very long before even “The Batman” was enjoying it, because we had, as I said, prepared by reading Farmer Boy. The documentary is filled with re-enactments from the book, and my boys were quick to point them out, talking all throughout the program about each one as it was shown, and what they remembered from the book.

Three of my boys are very literal children, and the two younger ones, “Mr. Loquacious” and “The Puzzler” kept asking how come “Laura” didn’t look like Laura. I had to explain several times that this was not the TV show that they watch, but that it was a program telling us about the “real” Almanzo when he was a boy, and (briefly) the “real” Laura, when she first met Almanzo.

Being boys who love to eat, they loved all of the descriptions of food in the documentary, as they had loved them in the book. One of the narrators talked about that as well, saying that most likely, a lot of those descriptions were exaggerated by Laura in her writing. She and her family had been poor, while in comparison, Almanzo’s family would have been considered rich by her, most likely.

The boys were really interested to see that the incident in Farmer Boy, when the new teacher restored order in the school with a big whip, was also in the documentary. As Dean Butler commented during that portion, it may seem harsh to some readers, but it certainly was a time when young people were held accountable for their actions!

My children enjoyed hearing about Almanzo’s growing up years, his longing for a colt of his own, how he spent his days. The descriptions of barn chores and such made them realize they are not as overworked as they sometimes make out to be, LOL!

The documentary Almanzo Wilder: Life Before Laura is available for $21.95.

My boys and I absolutely recommend this DVD to you! It would be a good addition to home-schoolers studying American History in the mid-1800’s, or doing a unit on Laura Ingalls Wilder. It’s great for learning about how people lived during that time! Beyond that, it’s a good, wholesome, family DVD! I will not hesitate to let my children watch it without me, anytime they like. In this day and age, that’s kind of a rarity, and we have to be careful of what we let them view on their own. I would say that this DVD would be good for any age, beginning with children who are old enough to sit and listen to the book Farmer Boy being read to them.

All in all, we really enjoyed this documentary, and now the boys are ready to finish reading the book and move on to reading the rest of the series. I think you will enjoy it, too!

To read what other crew members thought, please click below . . .
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July 19, 2013 · 8:23 am

Life Principles of the Happiest and Most Successful Among Us: 25 Truths . . .a TOS Review

We were given the book Life Principles of the Happiest and Most Successful Among Us: 25 Truths from Ed Douglas Publications, written by Ed Douglas, a retired businessman, to review.

At 150 pages, it is a fairly quick and easy read. Mr. Douglas is also the author of two other books, “Making a Million With Only $2000: Every Young Person Can Do It”, and “The Money Marathon: 7 Simple Steps to Financial Freedom”. He gives seminars to adults and students about financial topics, as well as seminars on topics of character, values and virtue. Mr. Douglas has also served under three different Missouri Governors in positions such as Commissioner of the Missouri Highway and Transportation Commission, and President of the Northwest Missouri State University Board of Regents. He is currently serving on the William Jewell College Board, a number of local civic boards, and is an active member of his local church. He has been the high school tennis coach for the past fifteen years and is a member of the Fifty States Marathon Club, having run sixteen marathons in fifteen states.

From the website:

“This book began as a three page list that Ed had compiled and titled “Life’s Truths” or “25 Tips for an Enjoyable Life.” He shared the list with friends, acquaintances, and students that he coached as the head high school tennis coach.

Today, in a time of declining morals and values, the book is a motivational and inspirational guide built around Christian principles about what is really important in life. The book covers character and values, caring and compassionately dealing with others, making a difference in the world, and much more. In today’s fast-paced word, there doesn’t seem to be time to discuss these important concepts with children and others, so each truth is concise and easy to read, followed by discussion questions.”

My impressions:

This book is meant to be for students in grades 6 through 12, and is written in relatively short chapters of about four pages each, which includes discussion questions at the close of each chapter. Unfortunately, in our case at least, it was written above what my kids could really read and understand, given that they have varying special needs. I did read it myself, however, and discuss various truths with them after reading and thinking on how to relate the truths to them in ways they would be able to comprehend.

Some of the 25 truths in this book that I was able to relate to my children based upon things in their own lives are:

Truth # 3 – Watch What You Say, Do And Write

Truth # 5 – Tell the Truth

Truth # 8 – Be Quick To Apologize

Truth # 11 – Take it One Step at a Time

I was able to take these truths, and kind of change how we discussed them away from the business oriented theme of the book, to more of a biblical theme. As this book is marketed as a Christian book, I think I would have preferred to see the 25 truths written in terms of living a good Christian testimony, as opposed to what seems to me to be a book about becoming successful financially. God never promised financial success, but He does want us to live a good testimony. Also, there were some areas that touched on topics I don’t believe my children need to read about at this point in their lives, such as in truth # 3, “Watch What You Say, Do and Write”, in which he talks about the infidelities of Tiger Woods and former Governor Mark Sanford, and how it all came out in the tabloid press. I did use this truth, but preferred to use other examples, such as their everyday behavior, both at home and in front of others.

I think this book would work well with secular home-schoolers, and with adults, and it really is a good book if what you are looking for is a “how to be a success financially and in business” book, but it wasn’t a great fit for our family.

“Life Principles of the Happiest and Most Successful Among Us: 25 Truths” by Ed Douglas is available here for $12.50

Other crewmembers reviewed this book as well, so please sail on over to find out their thoughts!
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June 30, 2013 · 10:14 am

Moving Beyond the Page . . . a TOS Review

During the past few weeks, my boys and I have had the pleasure of reviewing a “new to us” curriculum from Moving Beyond the Page.

Each reviewer from the Schoolhouse Review Crew was given two different unit studies, a language arts unit and either a social studies or science unit. One was a physical copy, and the other was an online unit study, with the necessary books being mailed to us.

My family received Unit 3, “American Heroes” (Language Arts), and “People Change the World” (Social Studies). These are both geared for ages 7 – 9, and are designed to work together, although any of the units sold by Moving Beyond the Page can also be stand alone products. In our case, the language arts unit was the one we received as an online unit, and the social studies unit was the physical copy mailed to us. This way, we would get a good look at how each works, and be able to tell you what we thought of each method.

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Here is a picture of what we received, for use with both units.

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As you can see, we received the printed copy of the social studies curriculum “People Change the World“, and the accompanying story books “The Starry Messenger” by Peter Sis and “Miss Rumphius” by Barbara Cooney. The Social Studies unit we received sells for $32.97 if you want the physical copy mailed to you, and $28.91 if you wish to purchase the online version. We also received a physical copy of the book “50 American Heroes” by Dennis Denenberg and Lorraine Roscoe. As I said before, we received the online version of the language arts unit, which sells for $ 27.88, while the physical copy sells for $$31.94.

The only big differences between the online version and the physical copy were that with the online version, the curriculum and worksheets are online, so I read the lessons on my tablet and then printed out whatever activity sheets were necessary for each lesson, whereas with the physical copy, all of that was in the printed curriculum book. Because of copyright issues, you cannot make copies of the activity sheets from the book, which is the one downside to the printed version. However, the one downside to the online version is that you have access for only three months. Now, each unit is designed to be finished within about three weeks, so of course, that does give you plenty of time to complete your unit, but personally, my whole goal in purchasing online, downloadable material, is so that it can be used again with younger siblings. With access being given only for a few months, it feels more as if it’s a rental than a purchase. At the same time, because the download version is licensed to a family, you may print out activity pages for each child doing the unit, while the printed version doesn’t permit that.

In our case, we do a LOT of things as a group, because I have special needs children. Between that, and the fact that I am STILL recovering from surgery, and mostly stuck on the couch with my feet on pillows, we did this as a group, and mostly orally, which is one way I tweak a lot of curriculum to fit the abilities of my children. When there was an activity page that could be printed out that they were able to handle, that’s what we did.

Each day, my boys would gather around in the family room and listen while I read to them from the lessons. I read the story books out loud to them as well. Although most of the actual activities were too much for them, we WERE able to go through them orally, as a group, which led to lots of good discussions, and questions. In fact, pretty much every day when their dad got home from work, all of the boys went on their own and told him all about what they had learned, and talked about that day while doing these units. 🙂

Here are all of my boys working on an assignment . . .

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In this assignment, they were matching contractions to the words they were made from, and then writing sentences that went with what they had learned that day, with each sentence containing one contraction from the list on their activity page. Off to the side, you can see a stack of drawings. They had each drawn three pictures of inventions or discoveries they felt had changed the world, an assignment from that day’s social studies lesson. Not surprisingly, each and every one of them chose television as one of the inventions! 🙂

From the website:

“All children can benefit from our unique approach to education. This is especially true for hands-on, creative, and gifted learners. A traditional or classical approach will often leave these children bored and uninspired.”

Now, my children are not considered “gifted” children, but even so, they did get quite a lot out of both of these units. I was actually very surprised, frankly, because I wasn’t sure at all that even with major tweaking (which I often need to do with purchased curriculum), that they would be able to handle it. But, I am very pleased to tell you that even with a curriculum that states right up front that it is at least in part geared to “gifted” students, if you take the time to do it in a different way, your special needs children can learn from this, too. My children learned more in-depth about several people (Harriet Tubman, Galileo, etc) than they might have otherwise, BECAUSE we did these units orally, and because I was stuck on the couch and couldn’t do much of anything else, we had the time to devote to their questions, and their discussions. My children were interested and eager each day to get to these units, which makes me happy, because as most of you already know, I am a firm believer that there is no reason at all that learning cannot, or should not, be enjoyable, if that is at all possible. My boys enjoyed this, so I enjoyed it, too.

To read what my fellow crew mates thought of this and other units from Moving Beyond the Page, please click the graphic below!

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