Our family just started our seventh year using Sonlight.  I have posted about Sonlight before, how we use it to effectively educate children who are at many different levels and how Sonlight fits into our daily schedule.  For our family Sonlight has been a tremendous blessing.   I often say that Sonlight changed our homeschool from a lecture into a conversation.  I love the discussion and conversation that it has brought to our family and with that the opportunity to get to know our children better.

What does Sonlight offer?

You can purchase all of your homeschool curriculum from Sonlight.com.  They offer some of our favorite programs for electives like Rosetta Stone for foreign language and Artistic Pursuits for art to basics like handwriting  and math programs. Of course they also have a large offering of quality literature that is recognized by nearly all in the homeschooling community to be top notch.

What makes Sonlight stand out to me from other homeschool curriculum providers is that if Sonlight offers or recommends a program or curriculum, it is a program that is worth looking into.  They attempt to offer products that fit with their excellent educational philosophy and so many of the lesser programs are weeded out.

Of course Sonlight is most well known for their original history curriculum (which includes Bible, poetry and literature).   They also offer their own science and language arts programs.  These programs are all literature based and are best implemented in a family where the parents are willing to invest time into reading to and interacting with their children.  I also find that Sonlight’s programs are especially well-suited to multi-level teaching and educating a large family.

Sonlight’s History Curriculum

The backbone of Sonlight’s history program is the Instructor’s Guide.   The IG (instructor’s guide)  is divided into two main sections, the schedule and the study guides.  Sonlight provides study guides for all of the books that you and your children will be reading over the course of the year.

The schedule.

Each day’s assignments are clearly laid out in the Sonlight schedule, the pages/chapters that should be read in each book along with time line and map assignments.  To me this is the heart of Sonlight.  This is what allows me to spend very little time in preparation for school, but rather spend my time teaching and interacting with my children.

Each day has a Bible reading and memorization assignment in addition to an assignment for further study or perhaps the children are introduced to a people group or nation that needs prayer.  It was this portion of  Sonlight that, years ago, burdened our then 4 year old son for the street children of India.   He still, at age 11, believes that God has called him to be a missionary to that nation.

The history portion involves reading assignments in several books about one central event or person giving the kids more than one perspective and depth about the day’s topic.  It also notates when you should add important events and people to the time line and  do the map work.

The children have an independent reading assignment each day that coincides with the topics, peoples and cultures that are being studied.

Lastly are the read aloud assignments.  Poetry is a regular part of the Sonlight curriculum from the very beginning levels.  This gives the children regular exposure to all types of poetry and provides the opportunity for discussion, memorization and appreciation of poetry.  In addition to poetry you and your children will be reading through many wonderful literature classics in addition to some lovely newer works.

The Study Guides

The study guides for the books that you will be reading include more information and ideas than needed.  Here is a smattering of things that the study guides include:

• Specific time line assignments
• Map assignments and maps
• Important facts from the day’s reading which provide good ideas for writing topics
• Vocabulary words with definitions
• Discussion questions
• Historical notes that enhance the children’s understanding of the story and characters
• Comprehension questions
• Websites for further research
• Narration topics/ideas

Our Thoughts

This review is specifically in reference to Sonlight Core 6 and how we are using it this year.

I’m once again thankful and impressed by Sonlight’s balanced and fair approach to history.   Core 6 uses  “The Story of the World” as one of it’s main history readers.  When I read the Sonlight study guide for this book and I was forewarned that “The Story of the World” does not stick with the Bible’s revelation of events.  This was an important thing for me to know because I had considered purchasing the CD version of this book, but after reading  “The Story of the World” for myself  I would not want my kids to listen to it over and over without the commentary and discussion that we are having as we read it together.  (We’ve actually skipped much of what “Story of the World” has to say about Biblical times because it’s just blatantly unbiblical!  We’re considering substituting Mystery of History and skipping SOTW completely.)

I relate this about “The Story of the World” because I think this is a good example of how Sonlight handles book selection and why parents should be involved if they choose to use Sonlight.  They do not shy away from a quality book because it may include something objectionable or some inaccurate information, but they clearly notate potential problems or areas of disagreement and leave it up to the parent on how to handle those issues.  This is why I don’t recommend Sonlight to those who want a curriculum that they can hand to their children without any discussion or time investment.  I also pre-read ALL of the Sonlight books that we won’t be reading aloud with the children.

How we are using Sonlight 6

This year our family is using Core 6 with our children ages 5-13.  For the younger children (age 3-8) I am supplementing with resources from Core 1 which covers the same time period.

I think the key to successfully using Sonlight is flexibility, being able to use and teach the information that you believe is important, but not feeling as if you have to use and teach all of the information that is offered.   On some days we don’t even look at the study guides and on others I give the children additional assignments and research from them.

We daily read aloud and discuss all the assignments from the Bible, History and Read Aloud portions of the Sonlight schedule.  We also work on the time line and map assignments together.  The younger children are our map experts since our older kids are already quite familiar with this geography.

Each day the children have a Bible study assignment that they work on individually and most days I pull a writing assignment for the children from the Sonlight readings or study guide.  Those who are not old enough to write or who are just beginning writers also narrate to Mark or me.  We also use the Sonlight readers as the source for our copy work and dictation.

We use the poetry selections to encourage the  children to keep a poetry journal.  Each week they choose their favorite poem from our readings and they copy this into their own book and illustrate as they see fit.

At the dinner table each night we discuss and review the topics that were covered during the day.  Again this is part of our family conversation and contributes to a lifestyle of learning.

Every week I also incorporate a hands-on project that relates to Sonlight’s history.  The last few weeks the children have made paint (like that used in the cave drawings), mud bricks with and without straw (like the Israelites), created coil pottery, bead necklaces, a model shaduf and written in hieroglyphics on clay tablets.  (These projects are NOT part of the Sonlight curriculum but they are easy to incorporate with a little internet research.)

What we love

• The educational philosophy- Learning is not simply cramming facts into brains, but that history in particular is about understanding the story, what people of that time believed and thought  and how that affected decisions and events that changed the course of history.
• The format and layout – Sonlight is extremely user friendly, simple to use and implement.
• The books.  It seems like each book we read is the children’s new ‘favorite’ and nearly everyday they beg for me to ‘please read one more chapter’.
• The adaptability.  On days that are full with other life events, it’s easy to go lighter on the discussion and assignments.  It’s also simple to beef up a child’s work with additional research and writing work.
• Multi-level teaching – This allows us to accomplish many of our other family goals such as building relationships and discipling our children as we learn together.
• Focus on missions and a perspective of the global need for Christ
• Our kid’s love of reading – Reading is one of our favorite family past times, it seems that they will never get enough.

What we don’t love

• Some book selections – Sonlight does not have the same standards for our children that we do.  That said, in 6 full years of Sonlight there have been less than a handful of books that we’ve had our children skip.  There have been some that we’ve read aloud to enable discussion of different issues.
• Light on the amount of  Biblical history that is incorporated – We’ve solved this problem by focusing on Biblical history during our family worship and using Mystery of History to pull in more Biblical history and perspective during the appropriate time periods.

Buy it

If you would like to purchase Sonlight you may follow this link and receive $5 off any order of $50 or more and I’ll receive Sonlight credit on a portion of your order.

Win it

Sonlight is giving away a $50 gift card to Sonlight.com to one Raising Olives reader.  You may use this to purchase some of their history curriculum or any of their book or other curriculum offerings.

To enter:

• Visit Sonlight.com and then come back and tell me what you would be interested in purchasing with your $50 gift card.

Additional entries: (Please leave an additional comment for each extra entry)

• ‘Like’ Sonlight on Facebook (please leave your Facebook name)
• Post a link to this giveaway on Facebook
• Tweet a link to this giveaway (please leave your username)
• Post about this giveaway on your blog (public blogs only) (3 entries)

This giveaway will end at 11:59 pm on Thursday, July 22.

Sonlight sent our family Core 6 in order to facilitate this review.  I was not otherwise compensated and all opinions and ideas are my own.

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1. Five in a Row and Sonlight
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5. The Mystery of History: Vol. 2 – Review

Jamie Soles writes and performs children’s  music that is chock full of Scripture, Biblical facts and solid doctrine.  The music is catchy and enjoyable and not just for children.  Mark and I both enjoy our collection of Jamie Soles Cd’s even though our children listen to them over and over and over and over and over.  We’ve even been known to start a CD without the children prompting us.  There are a few songs in our collection of  10 Cd’s that have a little more of a beat than we care for.  We’re not talking Ozzie here, but perhaps a heavy Eagles number.

But the feature that really sold us on Soles’ music is it’s content.  Jamie Soles’ music is jam packed with Biblical  facts and people, solid doctrine and has a sprinkling of humor.  (i.e.  “How to Catch a Wife” is about the tribe of Benjamin ~ Judges 21). His music touches on Bible stories both familiar and obscure bringing more familiarity with Scripture to us and to our children. He also focuses on some stories/events/commands bringing out points that we often don’t notice or that we simply take for granted.

Jamie also includes songs with a lot of information that it’s useful for our children to memorize.  Our kids have memorized the apostles, kings of Israel and Judah, the patriarchs, the line of promise (the ancestory of Jesus), the Apostle’s Creed, and more.  Two of Mr. Soles’ Cd’s (Ascending and Pure Words) are simply Psalms set to music.  We are using those Cd’s as part of our curriculum this year to help our children memorize Psalm 1-16 and 120-134.

You may view all the lyrics and also hear song samples on Jamie Soles website .

Jamie was raised in a home where a relationship with Christ was always a priority. “Bible stories, sword drills, and Bible memorization were a part of the fabric of our life.”  Raised in a large family (the 11th of 12 children), Jamie was introduced to the reformed faith while attending a Bible institute after his graduation from high school.  Jamie is now married and the father of 8 children who participate in their father’s music ministry.

I’m not sure that I’ve done credit to these amazing Cd’s and the benefit and enjoyment that they’ve brought to our family.  We have been very grateful for Mr. Soles ministry to us and the broader Christian community.

This giveaway is now closed. Congratulations to Rebekah who won 2 Cd’s of her choice!

Win your choice of 2 Jamie Soles Cd’s.

How to Enter:

• Leave a comment telling me what purpose music serves in your family.

Extra entries (please leave an additional comment for each entry):

• Tweet about this giveaway
• Share this giveaway on Facebook
• Blog about this giveaway

Open to U.S. and Canadian residents.  Comments will close at midnight EST on Thursday, June 10.

For those in the Knoxville area, Jamie Soles will be giving a concert on Wednesday, June 23

6:30pm
Redeemer Church of Knoxville
1642 Highland Ave. 37916

Parking available next to Redeemer in the lot across from the fire station.  There is no admission charge but an offering will be taken to be given to Jamie.

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We have used and enjoyed Sue Gregg’s cookbooks for years.  Healthy, whole foods cooking with real life taste and preparation sums up this set of cookbooks.  If you want to move your family toward healthier eating, but don’t know where to begin or aren’t sure that they will like healthier foods, Sue Gregg is a good place to start.  Nearly all of our breakfast and lunch meals and recipes come from her books.  (Since we prepare dinner meals with a group, we aren’t able to incorporate as many of these recipes.)

Here is the selection of cookbooks that Sue Gregg offers:

• ‘Whole Foods Cooking’
• ‘Whole Grains Baking’
• ‘Main Dishes’
• ‘Meals in Minutes’
• ‘Soups and Muffins’
• ‘Lunches and Snacks’
• ‘Breakfast’
• ‘Desserts’

While we have and use all of these books and I highly recommend them if you wish to make a move toward more natural eating,  this post is not primarily about Sue Gregg’s cookbooks.  After talking with Mrs. Gregg she offered to let us review her high school level cooking curriculum.

Amber is 13 years old, but her passion is cooking and she regularly plans and prepares meals for our crowd.  She was delighted with the opportunity to study cooking for ‘school’.

Sue Gregg’s high school level program utilizes her ‘Whole Grain Baking’ cookbook which teaches baking with blender batter* and the two-stage process as explained in Nourishing Traditions.  The course is 18 weeks long and at that point the student may work through ‘Whole Foods Cooking’ for the remaining 18 weeks in the school year.

Each of the 18 lessons is divided into daily assignments including Bible study and memorization, watching the demonstration CD, reading information about the nutrition and attributes of the ingredients and the reasons behind how we prepare each recipe.  The program also contains focus questions and writing assignments and directs the students as they keep a cooking journal.  The students then prepare the recipe or recipes discussed and evaluate how the family enjoyed the recipe.  Then based on the reactions the student considers and makes notes about improvements that could be made to make it more suitable for the tastes of their family.

Amber has loved working with this program and has learned a lot about the whys and hows of  baking and cooking.  She has learned many things that I could not have taught her because I didn’t know.  She now knows how she can alter recipes to achieve different results, something that I’ve always wished I was capable of doing.  She has also learned a lot about many of the nutritional reasons for choosing one ingredient over another.

Amber has been able to work her way through the curriculum on her own with little help from me which is wonderful for a high school level course and necessary for our schedule.  Our whole family has enjoyed the delicious biscuits, muffins, tortillas and other breads that have been part of Amber’s school assignments.

This is a high school level course and takes a good amount of time each day.  Because of this and the other responsibilities that Amber has, we’ve chosen to have Amber work through the program more slowly than scheduled.  She does Sue Gregg cooking 2-3 days each week and this has been a good pace for our family.

I highly recommend considering this for a high school home economics credit.  Normally I would not have considered purchasing a cooking curriculum because our family cooks every day.  However, taking the time out to study this more in depth has added skill and knowledge that probably wouldn’t have been gained otherwise.  The ‘Baking with Whole Grains Curriculum Guide’ and ‘Whole Grain Baking’ are available here for $60.

If you are interested in moving toward more healthy eating, I would encourage you to explore Sue Gregg’s website.  Many of her recipes are available for free so that you are able to try them at home to see if your family enjoys that type of cooking.

To give you an additional jump start on healthy eating Sue Gregg will be giving one Raising Olives reader the choice of one of their introductory cookbooks.  The winner of this giveaway may choose either ‘Introducing Whole Foods Cooking’ or ‘Whole Grain Baking’ (please visit their website for more information on these books)

To enter:

• Leave a comment sharing one thing that you’ve done to work toward more healthy eating or a reason you’d like to move in that direction.

Additional entries:

• Tweet about this giveaway.
• Blog about this giveaway.

Please leave a separate comment for each additional entry.  Giveaway will end at midnight, April 26 and is open to US residents only.

*Blender batter allows you to cook with whole grains without needing to purchase a grain mill.  This can be a marvelous way to begin whole grain cooking while lessening your initial investment.  Most of the bread recipes do require regular whole grain flours.

You may be interested in more tips and ideas about feeding your family on  a budget, menu planning or  cooking from scratch or my recipe page.

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I enjoy art.  I’ve enjoyed art since I was a child.  When I was pregnant with our sixth child, I took a smattering of art lessons, just enough to show me what I didn’t know.  I do not have much time to pursue art these days, but I have wanted to equip my children with the knowledge that they need to pursue it if it is something that they have an interest in.

We have been searching for an art program since our children were young and until last year were unable to find a program that fit our needs.  It needed to teach the children the basics of art theory without simply instructing them in how to draw pretty pictures in someone elses style and it needed to be something that the children could work through on their own (or nearly on their own).

Last fall we found Artistic Pursuits and have been thrilled.  The books are written to the students, requiring little teacher direction, they teach the basic principles of art  and incorporate appropriate practice giving the children the tools they need to improve upon the artistic talents that God has given them, while allowing them to maintain their own personal artistic style.  Artistic Pursuits also incorporates art appreciation and art history as well as observation skills, color theory and technical instruction in multiple media.  This is truly a complete art program.

Artistic Pursuits offers books for preschoolers all the way up through high school students.  Our family was given Junior High Book 2 (color and composition) and Senior High Book 2 (color and composition) to review.  Both books follow the same basic format, teaching art two days a week.

An Artistic Pursuits unit:

Each unit begins by introducing a new art concept (hue in both the Jr. and Sr. High  color books) and has activities that help the child recognize that concept in their environment and create art that reflects their new knowledge.

Next the students are introduced to how a master artist has used this concept in his/her art.  This lesson also includes some history about the example artist and the culture in which they live.  The student once again takes their new knowledge and applies it to a piece of their own work.

The students are then taught specific techniques that make it easier to render the concept that they are learning in the media with which they are working.

Finally the student takes all of the information that has been introduced throughout the unit and applies it by completing a final project.

Junior High: Book 2- Our experience

The Jr. High book instructs the student in the use of both chalk and oil pastels as they progress through their study of color.  Kaitlin (12) worked with this level.  Kaitlin is our child who has always been frustrated with art. She has just never been happy with the results that she produced.  After a few lessons in the junior high color book she came to me and said, “Mom, thank you so much for getting this book for me.  I’m really happy with my drawings.”  This was a first for her.

Kaitlin's first attempt with pastels

This book is a wonderful tool to teach your child about color using pastels.  There is a lot of technical information about using pastels and pastel paper in addition to color theory and applying that theory in practical situations.

Senior High: Book 2- Our experience

Just as the Jr. High book teaches and uses pastels, the Sr. High book teaches and uses watercolor in order for the student to expand their understanding of color.  Amber (13) and I both decided to work through this book, although Amber has progressed a lot farther than I have.  Once again Artistic Pursuits has delighted us with the step-by-step instructions and activities that encourage better observation and provide a knowledge to really create art.

Amber's first (and still unfinished) attempt with watercolors

Pros:

• Terrific instruction in the basic principles of art.
• Teaches children in a way that allows them to use it to improve ALL of their drawing endeavors.
• Includes art appreciation and art history taught in conjunction with the concepts and principles that the children are learning.
• Introduces many different media and techniques over the course of study.
• Parent doesn’t need to know anything about art in order to use this program.
• The books are non-consumable and can be used for multiple children.
• Books include student examples from regular kids, so your kids can see what a child their level can be expected to produce.

Cons:

• My kids get very involved in their art projects and tend to spend a lot of time on them.
• Some of the supplies can be expensive.

Our family has also been using the K-3 grade: Book 1  and 4-6 grade: Book 2 since last fall.  The K-3 book introduces children to many different media and experiences in art and the 4-6 book focuses on basic drawing and shading techniques.  We have been delighted with all of the Artistic Pursuits products that we have experience with.

Each book of Artistic Pursuits is available for $42.95.

Better yet win your choice of AP books!

To enter:

• Leave a comment telling me something about your (or your kids) experience with art.

Bonus entries:

• Tweet about the giveaway.
• Post about the giveaway on your blog.

Please leave an additional comment for each bonus entry.  Open to U.S. residents only.  Giveaway will end Thursday, March 25 at midnight.

Our family was given the Jr. and Sr. High Artistic Pursuits books in exchange for this review and giveaway.  All opinions are mine and I was not otherwise compensated.

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I gave our kids the option to participate in the worship guitar class if they wished.  Matthew (10) was the only one who initially wanted to try.  However after a few lessons, when our older girls Kaitlin (12) and Amber (13) saw that he was able to play a few worship songs all on his own, they decided that they were interested after all. 

Jean Welles Worship Guitar Class enables you or your children (10 and up) to learn to play worship music at home.  Worship Guitar is a series of four DVD’s that build upon each other and teach the student in a progressive manner to play worship songs.  Our family was given a copy of the first DVD in order to write this review.

The DVD begins with introducing the parts of the guitar and some basics of strumming and holding the guitar.  In each of the 7 subsequent lessons the child learns one to two new chords and/or a new strumming pattern and by the end of each lesson they are able to play a new song.

The lessons build upon each other using the chords and strumming patterns learned in previous lessons to play more and more complex songs.  Everything is clearly explained and shown on the DVD so the kids were able to learn to play simply and easily.  You may view an excerpt of the first lesson here.

Our children had great success with this program.  They were motivated and able to learn on their own and enjoyed practicing the songs that the DVD’s introduced.  They especially enjoyed being able to play while others were singing.

Jean Welles also offers a Worship Guitar Class for Kids ages 5-9.

Now the great news.  You do not need to take my word about Jean Welles Worship Guitar Class.  One reader will win one of the Jean Welles DVDs.  The winner will be able to choose either the first DVD in the Worship Guitar series ($24.95) or the Worship Guitar Class for Kids ($29.95).

To enter:

• Leave a comment on this post telling me which level of guitar class you would choose.

Extra entries:

• One extra entry each day that you tweet about this giveaway including a link back to this post.
• Three extra entries for posting and linking back to this giveaway.

Please leave an additional comment for each of your entries.

This giveaway will end at midnight on Tuesday, February 16 and is open world wide.

Our family was given a copy of the Worship Guitar Class Vol. 1 in return for using it and writing this review.  All opinions expressed are my own and I was not otherwise compensated.

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As soon as this book arrived in the mail Sadie (6) claimed it as her own.  Sadie had not, to this point, picked up a book to read on her own initiative.  However I found her all over the house reading the stories from this book.  She chooses it to read aloud to me, she chooses it for her nap time reading and she can also be found reading it on her own.

She loves the size, perfect for her to put under her arm or in her reading bag.  She loves the stories, some whimsical and some more realistic and she loves, loves, loves the pictures.  I don’t think that my other early reader (age 4) has had an opportunity to look at the book yet.

Produced by All About Spelling the Beehive reader shares the quality, method and vision of the All About Spelling program.  Each detail of the book was thoughtfully designed and children with different learning styles and struggles were considered and choices were made to make this the best book possible for them.

The Beehive Reader 1 is lovely.  It is a 156 page, hardcover book with charming and whimsical pencil illustrations.

It includes 10 stories that build upon each other and introduce new reading concepts slowly and deliberately.

The All About Spelling team considered every aspect of this reader and how they could make it easier and better for the beginning reader.  From the paper to the font and phrasing, each detail was evaluated and decisions were made with the kids in mind.  (There is even subtle underlining to help children who have difficulty tracking.)

The Beehive Reader uses a solid incremental approach so that the children are able to decode all of the words in the book, no guessing.  The words in the Beehive Reader directly correlate with the words taught in All About Spelling so children not only learn how to read the words, they also learn how to spell them.  This makes the Beehive Reader ideal to use for dictation and copy work assignments, giving the children a more unified approach to reading, spelling and writing.

You do not need to use All About Spelling for your children to enjoy and love this reader. Sadie has not yet started All About Spelling, but reads and loves the Beehive Reader and all of my older children have enjoyed reading through it.

The Beehive Reader is available for $19.95.  You may also purchase various levels of the complete All About Spelling program for $39.95.  (Here is my complete review of All About Spelling.)

All About Spelling sent our family a complimentary copy of The Beehive Reader 1 in order to for me to write this review.  The ideas and opinions expressed are my own and I have not been otherwise compensated.

You may be interested in how our large family manages the laundry or how we encourage our children to do chores or  you may just want to read about how I managed to completely mess up dinner one evening.

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Dollar Homeschool

The Eclectic Education Series is a set of textbooks that was used in American schools from the early 1800′s to the early 1900′s.  These include McGuffey’s Readers, Ray’s Arithmetics, Pinneo’s Grammars, Thalheimer’s Histories, Norton’s Sciences and more.   This was American education during those years.  If you had all of these texts and the no-how to use them, you could educate all of your children from Kindergarten through graduation.

Since the majority of these books are available for free download on the internet, I’m going to do this review a little differently and focus on the service that Dollar Homeschool provides by gathering these titles for you and packaging them in a more easily usable format.

I think it is quite valuable to have Dollar Homeschool gather all the necessary text books for a complete education and put them in a more usable format.  Dollar Homeschool has done a good job collecting texts from the days of early American education and compiling them onto a CD with an index that enables you to jump from one text to another and even search for different terms.

I was intrigued by the science texts and McGuffey readers, so we decided to use those products for the review period.

First Year Science

First Year Science is a complete science program with no additional library or resources needed.  So the children and I began making our way through the 453 page text.  Unfortunately when we reached page 5 we discovered that there was no page 6 or 7 the PDF text simply skipped to page 8.

I immediately called the Dollar Homeschool representative and asked about the missing pages hoping that they would rectify the problem.  I spoke with Aaron Jagt and explained what we found.  He said those pages probably got stuck together when they scanned the original text into the computer.  Then he promised to email me a copy of the missing pages.   I have still not received a copy of the missing pages.

I asked if there was a way that I could get a copy of the whole book file with the missing pages included and he told me, “no”, he was not willing to do that.  So in order for our family to use the book First Year Science offered and advertised as part of the Eclectic Education Series we must open the original PDF file and then when we get to page 5, we go find the file with the 2 missing pages and read from there, then back to the original file.  There is no way to search the complete text and many of the advantages of having everything in one place are eliminated.

First Year Science is not the only text missing pages.  There are also pages missing from “Successful Teaching in Rural Schools”.

McGuffey Readers

Our family did use and enjoy the McGuffey readers.  I used the first reader with Sadie (6) and Savannah (4) and the second reader with Alyssa (9).  The readings were simple enough for all of the girls to practice using expression  and inflection as they read.  The out loud practice was wonderful for my, always-reads-to-herself, 9 year old.  I pulled the girls copy work directly from the readers for additional practice.  The girls all enjoyed their experience with the readers.

If you are interested in incorporating the McGuffey readers in your homeschool, I suggest you read this excellent article.  Mrs. White has many helpful posts and articles on her blog, The Legacy of Home, about using the early American methods of education.

One thing to mention about the copy of the McGuffey readers in the Eclectic Education Series is that the pictures are so dark as to be mostly unrecognizable.  There are several places in the readers that have questions or refer to the pictures, so this is more than an aesthetic problem.   I found the same readers available for free download with much better quality pictures, so I’m not sure why this problem has not been remedied.

The bottom line:

If the problem of the missing pages and picture quality is resolved and you are interested in using these classic textbooks in your homeschool then you may wish to consider the Dollar Homeschool Eclectic Education Series. However, at this point in time I can not recommend this product.

You may be interested to read more about how we schedule our day, incorporate family worship, or you may wish to see how our children help clean the windows.

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Math Tutor

Math Tutor sent our family complimentary copies of  their Young Minds Numbers and Counting DVD ($19.99) as well as The Basic Math Word Problem Tutor ($26.99).

The Young Minds Numbers and Counting DVD teaches children to recognize numbers and count objects up to 10.  It includes beautiful, classical music and lovely photography of animals, fruits, wheeled vehicles and other easily recognizable object for the children to count.

It begins with counting 1 and progresses all the way up to counting to 10.  A picture with the appropriate number of objects is displayed and then each numeral is displayed and counted one at a time.  This is a simple, non-fussy way to expose children to their numbers and counting and our two youngest boys (3 and 1) enjoyed watching this multiple times, although it didn’t always hold their attention until the very end.

The Basic Math Word Problem Tutor is an 8 hour DVD course that steps children through many examples of  word problems ranging from adding whole numbers to multiplying and dividing fractions, ratio and proportion and more, 15 total topics.

This DVD is just like sitting in a class room and I encouraged our children to have paper and pencil so that they could follow along doing the math on their own papers.  The teacher works many sample problems narrating each step so that the children don’t get lost.  He also shares many tips to help the children recognize which function is being asked for in the problems.

The DVD is easy to follow and clearly explains the process for figuring out each type of word problem presented. After going through this course children should have a good grasp of word problems and have the confidence to work them.

Our kids did not enjoy this DVD set simply because it’s like sitting in a math lecture.  Also most of this program was review for our children because we regularly use a math program that incorporates a lot of word problems from the very beginning of their math instruction, so they have had a lot of experience with many different types of word problems.

However, I think that for children who struggle with word problems or who are intimidated by them this would be a wonderful resource.  It would certainly help your children better understand the concepts behind word problems and give them more experience and confidence as they tackle them.

I would be interested in using some of the more advanced DVD’s offered by Math Tutor.  ( I know my children would LOVE to see the geometry course.)   The math is presented clearly in an easy to understand manner and is reviewed so that mastery is achieved.  I think this would be particularly helpful for when the parent is a little rusty on the math being taught.

Math Tutor offers many different courses that may be helpful for instruction for your children or your family.  I would certainly keep these DVD’s in mind as a solid supplement to any math program.

For more reviews of homeschool and other family products please check out my review page.

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Facts First has a definite fun, game-like feel with animated characters, facts taught in the context of stories and children earn arcade time each time they finish a lesson.

The children begin Facts First by creating a character to represent themselves in all subsequent activities.Facts First then introduces new math facts in the form of a story and gives the child an opportunity to practice the new material.Then the child works with the new math fact combined with previously learned facts in a series of timed sets of problems.

After each lesson the child is presented with a progress report in the form of a graph indicating all the facts that have been mastered, introduced and those that need some more practice.When the child has completed a lesson he or she earns some time to play math games in the Facts First arcade.Pros:

All instructions and problems are not only printed on the screen they are also verbalized through the speakers.  So the child sees and hears the instructions and then sees 4 + 1 = 5, while they hear “four plus one equals five” giving their brains more exposure to the fact and also reaching children with different learning styles.  This also makes the program preschool friendly.  There is no need for a child to be able to read the instructions.

Facts First gauges how well a child is doing on the introduced facts and pushes them through the facts more quickly if they are proficient.   The program also uses speed as well as accuracy to determine mastery of each fact.

Facts First is engaging and fun for kids, motivating them to learn their math facts.  We had a difficult time getting the children to stop playing with Facts First.

Our children enjoyed watching the number of facts mastered, grow and the number of facts to learn, shrink and all of them made good strides in their mastery of the basic facts.

Cons:

It seemed to me that the program was a little slow in moving the children through the facts and a couple of our children wished that they could progress a little more quickly.

Facts First is a little more game-y than I prefer.  After each lesson the children get 5 minutes in the Facts First arcade. While most of the games are a review of the math facts, I just prefer more serious math work during math time.

Facts First is a solid option for teaching children their basic math facts in a fun, relaxed way.  It would also be a nice choice for families who wish for their children to gain more math practice during their free time.

You may purchase a one year household license (up to 4 users) for $49.99.  There is also a free demo of Facts First available online so that you can see for yourself if this is something that would work for your child.

You may read more of my homeschool product reviews.

Our family received a free membership to Facts First in return for taking the time to share our honest opinion of this product.  All opinions are our own and we were not otherwise reimbursed for this review.  For more information please read my complete disclosure.

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Mathscore

Each topic is timed and the student is encouraged to move on when a score of 100 has been achieved.  The student can earn a 100 by working the problems in the allowable time and working them 100% correctly.

Each topic includes a mini lesson where specific written instructions are given for solving the problems in that topic much like you would find in the instructive portion of a textbook.  There are also several sample problems that are available for the children to view if they would like more information.

After the child learns how to work the problems they begin to practice with the timed drill.  They move through the problem set and when they have completed all the problems they are given a score and problems that they missed are displayed.

How we used this program:

I really desired to use this program with all of our children in the age range to be able to get a good feel for how different children with different learning styles react to this program.  We began with that intention and signed everyone up and they all got some experience with the program.  However, because of the heavy volume of computer based reviews that our family has been given recently it was impossible for us to accommodate each child working with all of the computer based program.   So the others dropped out and Amber (13) and I became the primary testers.

What we thought:

The math in this program is thorough and if a child were to master all of the topics in their grade level they would be well prepared for any math work required of them.   The idea of always working with timed drills is a good way to help keep children focused on the task at hand.  They know that they will not be able to pass their level unless they do it within the given time parameters and this adds motivation to work and avoid daydreaming even when the problems become more complex.

The program is a bit clunky.  The drill pages are plain and it took us a while to become accustomed to the layout.  It just didn’t seem intuitive.  The fact that the children are allowed to enter a wrong answer and continue to the end of the problem set (potentially missing the same problem again) is a huge draw back to me in an online math curricula.

Even though Amber is a self-motivated, quick learner, the instruction sections were often unclear and she needed more explanation in order to understand a concept.  We found the same type of format issues in the mini lessons that we found on the drill pages.  The text seems small and there is just too much information loaded into a little space.  Perhaps making the mini lessons into multiple pages and covering just one step per page would make this a little easier on the eyes and brain.

Another thing that I quickly noticed is that it is not obvious to the children how to navigate through the topics or how and when they should move from one to the next.  Children are able to select any topic to work on, even topics that will be to difficult for them.  This can lead to frustration.  Also, since the program does not make it clear when a child should move on and does not move them on automatically, we had several children stay on a topic for much longer than necessary.  With a little instruction this is easily fixable, just something to keep in mind as you begin the program.  You will need to instruct your students to move IN ORDER through the topics and to move to the next topic as soon as they achieve a score of 100.

The math in this program is tough (I had a hard time remembering many of the topics introduced in the fifth grade level) and the idea of timed drill is solid.  I think that this math program would be a good option for a student who is gifted, motivated and serious about math.  I also think that for a family who wanted an online math program that was not filled with flash and games and was able to help and direct the children through the program that this may be a good fit.

A very practical benefit of Mathscore is that you are able to freeze your account at any time.  So if you are going on vacation or taking a break from school you simply freeze your account so that none of your subscription goes to waste while you are not using it.

Mathscore is available as a subscription for $14.95/month for the first child, $5/month for the second child and $3.95/month for each additional child.  There are discounts available for paying for more than one month at a time, so check the website for more details.

I’ve written a lot more reviews of homeschool products and curriculum for those who may be interested.

Our family was given a 6 month subscription to Mathscore in exchange for sharing our honest opinion in this review.  All thoughts and ideas expressed are my own and I was not otherwise compensated.

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Presidential Penmanship comes on a computer disk and contains levels for grades 1 through senior high.  Each lesson is composed of a presidential quote, scripture passage or excerpt from one of our founding documents written in the italic style and lined space underneath where the children are able to do their writing.

The sample and the lined spaces are sized appropriately for each grade level and the passages increase in length as the level progresses.  For the younger levels the children begin by tracing the sample on day 1, they trace again on day 2 and then progress to writing it themselves.

What we thought:

We have always used copy work in our homeschool and we also use the Getty-Dubay italic handwriting series, so Presidential Penmanship was a good fit for our family.  The passages are a good length for each level and the children enjoyed the quotes.

The fifth grade of Presidential Penmanship uses quotes from George Washington’s Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior and accompanying scripture passages and these were particularly enjoyable for our fifth grade son.

There was one element in Presidential Penmanship that was difficult for younger children.  The way that the text that they are supposed to trace is rendered was confusing for them.  Rather than the more traditional dashed line the text is rendered as hollow letters.  (Go to the sample pages and scroll down to page 3 to see what I’m talking about.)  The children are supposed to trace inside of the hollow letter however, both of my little ones ended up coloring the letters in.  This was easily remedied, but I think I would prefer the more typical dashed lines to the way that this penmanship program chose to render it.

Since we are able to print out the pages as often and at the pace that they are needed, this is another reusable resource that all of our children will be able to use.

Sample pages of Presidential Penmanship: Italic are available here if you’d like to see them.

Presidential Penmanship is also available in  five other handwriting styles.  Any of these may be purchased from Zeezok Publishing for $39.99.  You may also purchase individual levels of any of the available styles for $9.99 each.

If you’re interested in reading more of my reviews of homeschool products please visit my review page.

Zeezok Publishers sent our family a complimentary copy of Presidential Penmanship in order to facilitate me giving my honest opinion of this product.   For more information please visit my disclosure page.

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After teaching these basics of proper keyboard technique, Keyboarding for Christians delves into the proper formatting of lists, bibliography, reports, letters and more.

Each format is simply introduced and the technical aspects of how to format these papers and reports in Word are explained.  Ms. Beitel also includes screen shots of Word to show exactly what she is talking about.  This makes the instructions more clear.

The program then explains the proper formatting and use of each type of document.  These instructions are followed by examples that the children are to imitate along with more specific instructions and variations when appropriate.

Ms. Beitel also has an elementary version available.  It introduces the keyboard geography more slowly and clearly and only covers less formatting information.

How we used this program:

Keyboarding for Christian Schools is an eBook that comes with two different levels.  One level for elementary children and one for grade 6 and up.  I’m reviewing and our family used the upper level program.  Amber (13) was the child chosen for these assignments.

We chose to print the pages out and use our Study Pod to hold them while Amber typed.  Another option would be to open the PDF in one half of the computer screen and have a Word document open in the other half and type that way.  Ms. Beitel makes a good point about typing from paper, in the ‘real world’ we will be typing from a sheet of paper, so learning to type this way makes some good sense.

Our goal was to tackle keyboarding 3 days a week.  Amber simply spent 15-30 minutes working on the lesson and then moved on to her next subject.  As you progress through the program the lessons are significantly longer.  We used the time limit so that she wouldn’t be stuck on typing for too long.

What we thought:

This program is a very basic no frills approach to learning typing.  I think for an older student this is appropriate, but a younger child may not be as motivated.  Overall I really liked this program, but do not think it is for every child.  Amber is  serious and self-motivated and for her it is a good fit.  I especially liked that it has all the instructions for formatting.

Pros:

• Inexpensive
• Reusable for multiple students
• Gives a good foundation for typing and preparing reports, etc.
• Serious and thorough for my older student
• All typing examples are edifying, either scripture passages or reports on Biblical character, etc.

Cons:

• No bells or whistles.  Typing is not a very interesting study and is one subject that I would prefer using some games/competitions, especially with younger students.
• Pushes through learning the keyboard fairly quickly.
• Aesthetically unappealing

Keyboarding for Christian Schools (6th grade and up) is available in a PDF eBook for $15.95.  Keyboarding for Christian Schools Elementary Version (K-5) is $12.95.

‘ve written a lot more reviews of homeschool products.

I received a complimentary copy of both levels of Keyboarding for Christians Schools as compensation for my time in writing a thoughtful review and expressing with my honest opinion of this product.  This post contains affiliate links.  For more information please read my disclosure page.

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KinderBach is an online piano program for children ages 3-7.  There are 6 levels with 10 weeks in each level and 4 days of lessons each week.  The beginning lessons are short, perhaps 3-6 minutes.  They eventually increase in length, but never get very long.

KinderBach will teach your children:

• time signature and beats
• to recognize keys A-G
• Treble and Bass Cleft
• rhythm notes (quarter, half, eighth, etc.)
• to play simple songs on the piano reading from a staff
• to recognize and clap and play rhythms
• intervals
• and more

Each KinderBach lesson is a video with fun songs, cartoon characters, games and activities to keep the children involved and interested.  Children will play rhythm instruments, sing along, play the piano and complete pages from the included PDF activity books during the lessons.

KinderBach teaches in a simple, concrete, step-by-step manner ideal for young children.  It uses repetition and introduces concepts in several different ways to insure that the children understand what is being taught.

How we used KinderBach:

We used KinderBach with our 5 youngest children,  7, 6, 4, 3, and 1 years old.  I was focusing on the 6 and 4 year old and the lessons were simple and engaging enough that they were happy to do 4 lessons each day.  The program incorporates enough review throughout that they were able to master the material at this pace.  Our 3 year old did not achieve mastery at this pace, but he was able to learn many of the notes and clap with with some of the rhythms.  He certainly knows a lot more about music than he did before we began.  Our 1 year old just loved clapping and dancing to the music and watching the videos.  Our 7 year old has had piano lessons and knows how to read music, so this was simply fun review for him.

Our children were able to complete the lessons by themselves and did not need supervision to follow along and do all the activities.   I think if I had wanted our 3 year old to have mastery, I would have needed to supervise him to make sure he understood the directions.

What we thought:

KinderBach is a delightful and charming program.  Our children look forward to doing KinderBach and are disappointed when we did not get to it.  KinderBach is a solid, fun introduction to music.

If you wish for your children to begin piano at a young age, this is a terrific option.  At $19.99 per month or only $95.88 if you pay for the full year at once (that works out to $7.99/month).  It’s much more affordable than a private teacher.  Plus that one subscription serves for as many children as you wish to go through the program.

The KinderBach course of study seems comparable to what our piano teachers have taught our beginning piano students.  You also have the option of moving through the KinderBach lessons as quickly or slowly as your children desire.

To use KinderBach you will need to be able to play your piano or keyboard while looking at your computer screen.  If you have a slow internet connection you will want to consider KinderBach’s lessons on DVD ($40.45 for one 10 week level).

If you want to introduce your child to piano, the first two weeks of KinderBach are available for you to view and try for free.

You may read more of my homeschool curriculum reviews on my review page.

KinderBach sent our family a free online subscription in order to complete this review.  All opinions expressed are my own and I was not otherwise compensated for this review.  This post contains affiliate links.

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Maestro Classics offers wonderful stories combined with lovely symphony orchestra music,  for audio enjoyment for adults and children alike.  Some of the stories they offer are “Swan Lake”, “Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel”,  and  “Juanita: The Spanish Lobster”.

Maestro Classics sent our family “The Tortoise and The Hare” ($16.98).   Our family loves audio books, so this was listened to immediately.  The story is told with compelling voice and lovely word choice.  The music is original to the story, woven in naturally and is fitting and beautiful.

In addition to the 20 minute story, the CD has a few other sections.  It has a segment about the history of the story.  It explains the background, a little about the author and some items of note about the genre.  There is a section that gives explanation of the music.  Why the music type was composed for a specific character, a bit about the instruments and why some of them were used and the feeling they convey.  It also talks about how music can create mood and how that is used to enhance the story.

After the story background and music have been explained the whole story is played again and the children are encouraged to notice the things about the music and story that they learned.

There is also a karaoke section at the end where the children can sing along with one of the songs in the story.  The CD also comes with a booklet with information about tortoises and hares, musical instruments and timing, crossword puzzles and more for added fun.

What we thought:

This CD is extremely well done.  The quality of the voice, music and recording is superb.  The language, word choices and story line is enjoyable and the music adds to the experience.  The information about the story and music is interesting and I’m sure adds to the children’s awareness of music and style.

The sing along has a lot of French words and phrases and it is sung quite quickly.  So even with listening to it several times, and having the words in front of us, none of the children or adults in our home were able to sing with the music.  Now perhaps that is the point, to make it challenging, but it aside from providing a lot of laughs, our children skip the karaoke portion of the  CD and no one has been able to actually sing it.

The story “The Tortoise and The Hare” is a story that our younger children would select (4 and younger).  However, the story and music background tends to be geared to children a little older.  These sections are quite short and so don’t tend to completely lose the younger ones, but it’s a portion of the CD that they don’t enjoy as much.

Maestro Classics offers one CD for $16.98 or 3 CDs for $45 and they offer some very appealing titles.

I received this product free for the purpose of reviewing it. All opinions expressed are my own and I was not otherwise reimbursed for this review.

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There are several aspects of the Mathletics program.  First is the instructional portion where students are introduced to, taught and practice new concepts.  Next there is a drill portion where children can compete with other children around the globe to see who is the fastest and most accurate with their basic math facts.  Mathletics also offers a set of traditional workbooks for older students and they are developing these workbooks for the remainder of the levels.

The instructional portion of Mathletics is what our  children spent most of their  time on.  It allows them to choose what topic they would like to study and then what aspect of that topic.  So if your child chooses to work on number theory, they could then choose square roots, factors, scientific notation or other specifics in that topic.  The selection of problems depends on the child’s level, but there is a nice variety for all levels. Each section has 10 problems for the  children to work through and if they have difficulty, there is a help option that gives the child step-by-step directions of how to work the problem.

Built in to this instructional portion is a reward system that motivated our children to receive excellent marks.  Every time they score 100% on a learning section they receive a gold bar.  When they receive so many gold bars, they get another reward.  Each week that they receive  so many of those rewards they get another recognition and so on.  There are also drawings each week of all the Mathletes who reach certain goals.  All of our children were very motivated to make sure they spent  adequate time on Mathletics to receive all of the rewards necessary to reach the next level.

The drill portion of Mathletics allows the children to safely compete with children around the world in basic math functions; adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing.  The children compete with up  to 3 other children at a time, so this allows even children who are less competitive in their speed to have the satisfaction of beating someone.  The children can not communicate with their competitors, so this competition provides a safe environment for children.

Mathletics offers a variety of math games that the children can earn as they complete the instructional portion of Mathletics.  This provides more opportunity for review and math practice.

Mathletics has  a set of student workbooks and answer keys that you simply download and print to provide extra practice and review of the concepts that they are learning online.  Currently they don’t have the complete set of workbooks finished, but there is already a lot available and this adds extra value to the membership.

Mathletics offers a parent resource center where you are able to track the progress of all of your mathletes.  In the  parent section you are able to view how much time your mathlete has spent logged in, what topics have been covered and their scores on each topic.  You are also  able to  assign specific tasks for your children to complete before they will be given access to other areas of Mathletics.

What we thought:

All of our children enjoyed Mathletics and were very motivated to spend adequate time and excel in their work.  Mathletics has a fun, kid, cartoon feel and allows the children to  create their own avatar, which draws them in and feels like fun when they are having to be serious about working on math.  Competing with other  children on math facts is an effective and exciting way to implement needed practice.

We found that the instructional portion of Mathletics was not sufficient for our  children to grasp new concepts without help.  Mark or I simply needed to sit down with them and work  through many of the new concepts before they understood what was being explained.

Pros:

• Fun, interesting, complete math curriculum for Kindergarten through grade 8
• Easy to implement and requires little parental time
• Wide variety of math skills presented
• High motivation to stay fresh on basic math facts
• Children get immediate feedback whether they get a problem right or wrong

Cons:

• Several new concept explanations weren’t clear enough  for our children to understand on their own
• Not all of the workbooks are currently available
• The Mathletics website is not intuitive.  You really have to take some time to explore to find all the options that are available.

Our bottom line:

For the price I think Mathletics is a good value and a good option for those who prefer an easy, hands-off approach to math.  It would also be an excellent option as a supplement to another math program.

We never had to ask our children to work on Mathletics, they enjoyed their time and their skills improved.  Mathletics gets two thumbs up from our house!

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All About Spelling is hands down the best spelling program that I have seen.  The program focuses on teaching the “why” of spelling and it uses a multi-sensory approach to teach that “why”, for easier teaching and better retention.

The method:

“All About Spelling” begins by teaching the sounds for the 26 letters in the alphabet.  For letters that have more than one sound the children learn all of the sounds (i.e. for the letter ‘a’ the child learns /a/ as in cat, /a/ as in cake and /ah/ as in father).

Next the child learns how to segment words, how to divide the words into their letter sounds and how to identify what sounds make up the word.  The children do this by using tokens to signify each sound in a word.

The hands-on part of the method comes in the form of letter tiles.  “All About Spelling” comes with letter tiles for each of the 26 letters and also for common letter blends.  The children use these letter tiles to identify sounds and to segment and spell words.  There are also many optional activity ideas that include more hands-on and tactile learning.

The program then goes into the mechanics of spelling, introducing syllables, letter blends and other various rules that govern spelling.  Each new concept is introduced slowly and clearly and several different methods of instruction are given.  The rules and ideas follow logically and build upon each other.

All About Spelling also includes a method of review for the sounds, rules and concepts that are introduced.  (This is very similar to our review method for memory work.)  It also teaches the child to verbalize as they write which involves three pathways to the brain, visual (they see the image), auditory (they hear the sounds spoken aloud) and kinesthetic (they feel their hand forming the letters and feel the vocal cords vibrate as the sound is repeated).  Several other hands-on and tactical teaching methods are introduced and parents are encouraged and instructed how to adapt the program to fit their child’s specific needs.

There is no memorizing of word lists in “All About Spelling”.  The child is taught to hear and recognize the sounds in words and then taught the rules to understand what letter/letters should be used to represent those sounds.  The kids learn the “why” of spelling.

What we thought:

This is the best, most logical and comprehensive spelling program that I have seen.  I did “All About Spelling” with our 7 year old son and he loved spelling with tiles, reviewing his sounds and rules and learning more about word construction than he ever has before.

This is a great program for children who have difficulty with fine motor skills because the children initially learn to spell with the tiles.  If you’re child really has difficulty with writing, you can teach “All About Spelling” using the tile exclusively.

“All About Spelling” gives many different options for teaching the concepts and gives teaching tips for when a child makes mistakes or doesn’t understand something.  It also includes additional practice words for children who grasp things more slowly.  This makes the program very easy to implement no matter who you are teaching or what their learning style.

Pros:

• The method is marvelous.
• Multi-sensory teaching style
• Logical, incremental approach with lots of built in review
• Spelling words are mostly simple allowing the children to apply what they have learned to more complex words.  (I like this although I’ve seen others who would prefer more complex words.)
• Easy to decide which level – All students begin at level 1.  Older students will move through the early levels very quickly.

Cons:

• I think that multi-grading this would be difficult and did not attempt to do so myself.
• You may need to purchase a student pack for each child depending on how quickly they move through the program and how organized you are.
• Time intensive for the teacher – This isn’t a “go study your spelling words” program.  Each day the teacher sits down and works on spelling with the child.

Bottom line? “All About Spelling” gets two thumbs up.  All About Spelling will teach your children the reason that we spell words the way that we do.  They will learn the “why” behind spelling.

You may purchase All About Spelling Level 1 with a student material pack for $29.95 and Level 2 with a student material pack is $39.95.  There are currently 5 levels of All About Spelling.  In addition to the teacher’s manual and material pack you will need an index card box and paper and pencil.

All About Spelling has come out with a beautiful new easy reader that corresponds to their spelling program.

You may read more of my homeschool reviews on my review page.

I was given All About Spelling Level 1 and 2 with the student material packs in order to complete this review.  All opinions and thoughts expressed are my own and I was not otherwise compensated for this review.

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GyMathtics is designed for 2nd-5th graders, because of the math concepts that are presented, but I think that the music and style of the program is more suited for younger children.  The DVD is 30 minutes long and includes:

• Shape Stretches Warm up – Different shapes and geometric concepts are introduced as children stretch and warm up.
• Counting Calisthenics – Children count forward, back and skip count as they get their heart rate up.
• Pattern Power – The children focus on following patterns as they do push ups, crunches and other muscle strengthening moves.
• Well-Being Wind Down – As the children cool down the DVD reminds them to make healthy choices.

The math concepts are spoken as well as displayed on the screen during the exercises.So that the children can see and hear what is being taught.

Each exercise is explained and demonstrated by the instructor and several children helpers so that your children are able to easily follow what exercises they should be doing.  The exercises incorporate the math concepts with the exercises by using your body and arms to create lines and shapes, counting as you move and using different movements to create repetitive patterns.  This enables the children to learn even more quickly.

What we thought:

Most of our children love doing GyMathtics and it is a nice break from the traditional be-still-and-quiet of the school day.  I think that the tone and voice of the video is geared toward younger children and can seem a bit tedious to children who are at the high end of the age range.

The repetitive and active nature of exercise makes it easy for the children to focus and memorize the math concepts.  Including the visual on screen is an additional help to retention.

Pros:

• I really like the concept of introducing math concepts with exercise
• Using your body to create shapes make this concrete for even young children
• It adds nice variety to the school day
• All of the little children down to the one year old enjoyed GyMathtics, so thumbs up for multi-level
• Using visual, auditory and kinesthetic to teach, GyMathtics will help all learning styles

Cons:

• Perhaps it is our average sized TV in an over-sized room, but we found the numerals VERY hard to read (see the yellow screen above)
• The tone and voice of the video makes it less appealing to children at the top of the age range or older.
• The cool down section came across as new age-y.  The music and voice combination sound as if they are trying to be hypnotize the children.

All of our younger children really enjoy GyMathtics and ask to do it often.  This is a nice addition to our educational arsenal.

You may purchase a 30 minute GyMathtics DVD from Exploramania for $24.99.   GyMathtics 2.0 geared for 4th – 7th graders and introducing Algebra will be available soon.

You can read more of my curriculum reviews on my review page.

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An AVKO membership can be purchased for $25 for an entire year and includes many benefits.

• Free down loadable books – “Patterns of English Spelling” (all 10 volumes), “To Teach a Dyslexic”, “Starting at Square One”, “The Teaching of Reading and Spelling: a Continuum from Kindergarten through College”, “The Reading Teachers List of over 5,500 Basic Spelling Words”
• Several of Don McCabe’s most popular workshop recordings
• AVKO newsletter
• Supplemental curriculum
• 25% discount on all printed AVKO material

With an AVKO membership, time and commitment you could design your own spelling program if you desired.  There is also a lot of help and insight if you are dealing with dyslexia.   There is a lot of information available with an AVKO membership and while our family enjoyed some of the supplemental ideas, most of the information is not what we are looking for.

If you are interested or use Sequential Spelling, wish to design and use your own customized spelling program or have children with dyslexia or other difficulties with reading or spelling, then an AVKO membership may be very useful to you.

AVKO gave me a complementary year long membership in order to facilitate this review.  All thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.

For my homeschool curriculum reviews organized by subject see my homeschool review page.

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4. The Mystery of History: Vol. 2 – Review

Bright Ideas Press sent our family two products ”A Young Scholar’s Guide to Composers” and ”The Mystery Of History, Volume 2: The Early Church and the Middle Ages” If you’ve read my review of “The Mystery of History” you will already be familiar with some of the components of “Composers”.

A Young Scholar’s Guide to Composers” is a full year multi-level study of composers for children grades 4-8 (all of our children enjoyed “Composers” and learned from it, although not all of the activities are suitable for younger ages, they can still benefit). Each week you study a different composer, listening to his music and learning about his life. We covered each lesson in 3 days, but continued taking time out of our school day to listen to his music for the remainder of the week.

Each day you will listen to the recommended selections of the composers music. (These are all available on YouTube and URL’s are printed in the book.)

Each lesson includes:

• A 15 minute reading about the composer, his life and his music.
• A note taking page that has a lot of specific questions about the reading.
• Composer information cards – These are similar to MOH’s memory cards, but a little more directed. Each card has space for the composers birth and death, country of birth, compositions, evidence as to whether or not he was a Christian and facts about his life.
• Timeline work – The timeline is specific for this composer study and includes indications of the style of music the composer wrote and which composers influenced others. This is well done and has helped our children understand the history and development of music through time.
• Map work
• A coloring page – Terrific for the children to work on as they listen to the music selections.

What we thought:

“A Young Scholar’s Guide to Composers” gets two thumbs up. For years I have desired to do some time of music history study, but have not found something that went beyond a couple paragraphs of information about each composer. “A Young Scholar’s Guide to Composers” is a wonderful, well-rounded composer study that clearly shows the development of musical style, the relationships between composers and the influence of religion on music. It puts all of this into a geographical and historical context with map and timeline work.

Just like with MOH I think that this could be more user friendly in it’s layout. (You have to turn to the back of the book to find the music selections and coloring pages for each composer, as opposed to being able to open the book to Vivaldi and finding everything that you need in one place.) However, in “Composers” this is merely a minor inconvenience. Our children all are enjoying the whole study, listening, coloring, composer cards and timelines. Even little Nicholas (1) and Colby (3) enjoy rocking with mommy during our listening time and even though one of the characteristics of Gregorian chants is that they do not have a distinguishable rhythm it didn’t keep Nick from bobbing his head and snapping his fingers.

We are continuing to use “A Young Scholar’s Guide to Composers” ($34.95) this school year and hope that the writers will put out another year study because we’d love to continue in our learning. Can I say this anymore clearly? If you are interested in a music or composer study run, fly, hop, jump or just click over and purchase this one!

Bright Ideas Press offers many multi-level homeschooling resources. I also reviewed “Mystery of History Vol 2″.  You may read more of my homeschool reviews on my review page.

Bright Ideas Press sent me a complimentary copy of  ” A Young Scholar’s Guide to Composers” in order to write this review.  I was not otherwise compensated and all opinions express are my own.

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The Mystery of History

Bright Ideas Press sent our family two products  ”A Young Scholar’s Guide to Composers” (you may read my review of that here) and  ”The Mystery Of History, Volume 2: The Early Church and the Middle Ages”

Mystery of History is  a multi-level  history program for students from Kindergarten through grade 8.  It focuses on the providence and sovereignty of God as He orders the story of mankind through history.  Incorporating Biblical history along side secular and paying special attention to religious views and how those views affected and shaped each culture,  MOH does a great job of examining all of history through a Biblical world view.  ”The Mystery of History: Volume 2″  provides a years worth of History study based on the classical model of education.

MOH is organized into 3 lessons each week for those who want to cover the whole book in a one year time span.  It gives several different schedule suggestions and adaptations for those who are doing the program with only younger  or older students and of course you can use the program however you prefer.

Each MOH lesson covers a significant event or person in history and the program has built in review and drill for the material covered.  The lessons for the second week in Volume 2 are “Nero”, “Martyrs of the Early Church”, and “Josephus”.   Each MOH lesson has several components that work together to provide a comprehensive history program.

Each lesson includes:

• Pretest – This piques the children’s curiosity, exposes them to some of the information and also shows you what they already know.
• Reading selection – My children loved Mrs. Hobar’s conversational and exciting writing about the events and people we were studying.
• Activities – Divided into suggestions for younger students and middle/older students, if we did all of the suggested activities it would take us more than a year to cover this book.  These are hands-on, active activities for younger students, like play acting or creating a craft project.  The activities for the older students focus more on further research and writing but still include some hands-on ideas.  Of course you can use any activity with any age children to suit your needs.
• Memory Cards – The children write a synopsis of each lesson and use these cards for review as the year progresses.  This is a great narration type activity, allowing the children to process the information that they learned, pick out the salient points and put it into their own words.

At the end of each week (or every three lessons) MOH includes:

• Mapping – I love including geography with history, no need to teach it as a completely separate subject.
• Timeline work – MOH has instructions to create your own timeline along with timeline figures.
• Review work  in the form of an exercise or a quiz.

MOH also guides your child to create his or her own history notebook and includes a list of supplemental books and resources for further study if desired.

What we thought:

Our family really enjoyed “The Mystery of History”.  We love the Christ centered focus throughout.  The writing is entertaining and enjoyable and her selection of events and people to include mesh well with our family values and ideas.  I also appreciate the layout and how everything works together, integrating review throughout the school year.

The memory cards are a terrific way to evaluate whether the children assimilated the information that they heard during the week.  We had not regularly incorporated that type of review and some of our children improved rapidly in being able to pick out what should be included.  It was obviously a great addition to our program.

I have seen MOH before and think that they have one of the best timeline systems ever.  Our children appreciate being able to create their own timeline figures and it adds another hands-on dimension to review.  If you use their system you have an amazing visual of your history year.  The best part?  The timeline is fold-able, so no visual clutter hanging about the house.  :)

Here are my hesitations about MOH.  This is the second time that we’ve tried “The Mystery of History” and both times have had the same reaction, I find it difficult to implement.  It is necessary to look ahead to plan and gather supplies, but the book is not laid out in a way that enables me to do that easily.  The supplies needed are on different pages scattered throughout the book and even on the pages  that you find the needed supplies, they aren’t listed out nicely for you, they are buried in the activity directions.

My second negative thought is that while each lesson is a narrative of the events, I prefer to read a lot more about each event (we read aloud a LOT) so that the children understand more of the culture and times.  This possibility is included in the supplemental resources section, but again this is just not as user friendly as I’m accustomed.  There are way more resources than we could cover in a year and without seeing each book or resource, it is difficult for me to pick which ones will be the best, will give us the balance that we want and make a decision as to which ones to purchase.  The resource list gives you the title, author and publisher info, but, for the most part, doesn’t give specifics about what the book covers or the style in which it is written.

Our bottom line:

We love “The Mystery of History”.  The goal, the writing,  the inclusion of hands-on, timeline, map work and review are all superb, but the layout is difficult to navigate and I wish that they had a more usable resource list.  I am taking many of the ideas from MOH (memory cards , timeline, etc.) and incorporating them into our regular history routine.  Next year when our family begins a two year World History study, I plan on using MOH as our spine.  I will use all of the readings and many of the activities in conjunction with the history that we are already planning on studying.  (If you have questions about my plan, feel free to ask.)

The Mystery Of History is one of our  favorite history programs and we can confidently recommend.  If it was formatted differently, it may even be our primary history resource.

Bright Ideas Press offers a variety of homeschool resources.  I also reviewed their wonderful, multi-grade composers study.

You may read more of my reviews on my review page.

Bright Ideas Press sent me a complimentary copy of Mystery of History Vol. 2 to facilitate this review.  I’ve not been otherwise compensated and all opinions expressed are my own.

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America’s Heritage lesson plans are based around four themes; freedom, unity, progress and responsibility.  Each lesson focuses on a document, icon, event or person to demonstrate one or more of those themes to the students.  This is a supplemental curriculum and has lots of games, worksheets and activities, but not a lot of information.  You would need to find your own outside reading to really learn about the history and heritage of America.

Since the lesson plans are written for a classroom setting, many of the games and activities are impractical for homeschoolers.  Some of the resources that would work well in a homeschool setting are crossword puzzles, vocabulary worksheets, role playing, and even a puppet of the Statute of Liberty.  There are also some printable pages that would be nice to put up on a school room wall, some are nice and some have quality issues. 

There are about 16 pages at the back of each level devoted to explaining to teachers the guidelines for religious expression in our public schools.

What we thought:

This is not a good fit for our family.  We homeschool because we wish to teach our children our values and the Christian Heritage of our nation.  This resource does not fit with those goals.  There are several statements that have been so watered down to be acceptable that they no longer, in my opinion, convey truth.  Take the goal of the lesson introducing our national motto,

The purpose of this lesson is to introduce students to the motto, “In God We Trust.” The motto is found on money and is therefore a constant reminder to the citizens of the United States that progress is a result of freedom for every American as expressed in the Declaration of Independence.

There are other statements that I won’t take the time to share as it is not my purpose to get into a political discussion.

If you are interested in an nonreligious supplement to teach your students more about their American heritage ,  “America’s Heritage: An Adventure in Liberty” provides some interesting “activities in which students assess and analyze their own identities as Americans”* as well as worksheets and discussion questions to be used as a supplement another curriculum.  The download or CD is free.

*Quote from the AHEF website.

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As a TOS Crew member, I was given a one month membership to ABCTeach in order to try it out.  I generally don’t like busywork/ workbook type activities and thought that this membership would not be a good fit.  As I began to explore the site my opinion changed.

What is ABCTeach?

ABCTeach is an online resource for teachers and parents with more than 5,000 free worksheets and printable activities.   An abcteach membership gives you access to over 35,000 worksheets and activities with more being added each week and the amazing abctools.  Abcteach also sends out a weekly newsletter to keep you up to date on what is being added.

Abctools  is a tool that allows you to create custom handwriting and math pages, spelling units, crosswords, word search and more.  With pre-made templates or the ability to create your own, the abctools worksheets are completely customizable and give you the ability to create your own complete handwriting or spelling program.  With the math worksheets you can give your child the extra drill he needs in specific areas.   Custom Sudoku puzzles, word unscrambles and bingo games can add fun to your school day.  To get a small taste of abctools, check out the abctools that abcteach offers in their free section.  The member abctools are more plentiful and customizable.

Abcteach offers worksheets and activities for every subject, from preschool through eighth grade.  They also offer complete unit studies with reading selections, comprehension questions, activity suggestions, file folder games, clip art, signs, etc.  There are lots of printable bingo and file folder games, tangrams, work station ideas, math manipulatives, etc.  The list just goes on and on and on.  Abcteach has a variety of additional activities and study guides for many classic and popular works of literature to supplement your child’s reading program.

All of abcteach’s worksheets and activities are down loadable, so you can save them to your computer and print or reprint as needed.

What I thought.

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Abcteach is a great resource and is versatile for many homeschool styles.  Even as a sworn hater of busy work/work sheets, I found it useful and fascinating.  So what did we like?

• Train pages for our train-crazy 3 year old.  This is perfect because he typically comes to me several times a day asking me to draw a train for him to color.  Now I have a variety of train pictures, math sheets, tracing pages, etc. to give him when he feels the need to color a train.  I even printed a train alphabet that he will love.
• Bookmarks – I printed and laminated a lovely variety of bookmarks to give as prizes for children who’ve earned extra recognition.
• Paper beads – Have you seen these?  You print, laminate, cut-out and hole punch either letters or numbers and symbols and have your child spell and string words or math facts onto yarn.  My two little girls love them and we’ve been using them in conjunction with Rocket Phonics to help Colby (3) learn his sounds.
• Unit Studies – Too many to list, but I especially found the science and logic units to be interesting and useful.
• Math manipulatives -  Too many  to list,  terrific for independent math review.
• Tangrams and pattern cards.
• Charting and graphing activities
• Art and craft ideas
• More

Do you remember my goal for our workbox system was to incorporate more fun learning into the children’s school day?  Abcteach has given me hundreds to thousands of  ideas.  I simply print out an activity or game and slip it into a workbox.

For more information or to purchase a membership to abcteach for $40/year or $70/2 years visit abcteach.com.

You may read my other homeschool reviews on my review page.

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My Access! is an online writing program that gives your child step-by-step directions and takes them through the process of writing an informative, persuasive or narrative essay.  The program has exercises and activities that the student can complete in order to earn points.  Points are also earned for essay submissions and revisions.  My Access! encourages parents to set point goals and give rewards when the students meet those goals.

My Access! allows  parents to add their own assignments for their children in order to make the program compatible with any writing curriculum or program.

The student section has 30 different writing topics available for each of the three different age levels, 8-10, 11-14 and 15-18.  The student selects a topic that they wish to write about and are then able to go through activities that aim to teach them the basics about that genre or they may choose to go directly to writing the paper.

The activities introduce and explain introductory, closing and supporting paragraphs, topic sentences, the “hook” and more.  The children examine essays that are below proficient as well as some that are proficient in order to help them understand the difference in proficient and below proficient writing.

I found the screen for typing in the outline to be fairly useful.  It gives you a section to write your introduction, each of three body paragraphs and a conclusion.  The student is able to easily navigate between each of the sections by using a sidebar menu.  Each section has a brief synopsis that describes the goal of that section of the outline.

As the student begins to compose their essay, they have several tools available to them.  Above the composition area is listed goals, explaining again what each section of the essay should accomplish.  There is also a section where children can receive feedback and suggestions on what they have written so far.

When the student submits his essay, My Access! evaluates it and gives it a score on a scale of proficiency, below proficient, proficient or above proficient and gives suggestions to improve the essay through revision.

When students and teachers are satisfied with the final essay, My Access! has a feature that allows the essay to  be published in a newspaper format and sent to email addresses of friends and relatives as a fun way to share your child’s writing progress.

What we thought:

I was excited about the possibility of using our current writing program with My Access! and having some help with the evaluation and revision process.  Although I was able to add the topic that I wished to assign the My Access! program seemed unable to adjust to the fact that the assignment was supposed to be a one paragraph description.  Several of the revision suggestions seemed to be related to a much longer paper.  For example one correction was, “Use more transitional words and statements like, ‘then’, ‘first’, ‘second’ and ‘next’.” Perhaps it is just my ignorance of writing, but I saw no need to use these or any other transitional words or phrases in a descriptive paragraph.

After I was unable to coordinate My Access! with our current writing program we decided to simply use it without adjustment.  Our kids had a difficult time finding topics that were interesting to them.  Assignments such as “write a persuasive paper about celebrity role models” do not appeal and many other topics were difficult for our children to have enough information to write the required length essay.  For example, our eleven year old does not have enough information about her hobby (running cross country) to write an in depth five paragraph descriptive essay about it.

The directions in My Access! are basic and not specific to the level or skill of the writer.  When an essay is submitted the corrections are also quite general.  For example, “Write your sentences correctly. Check for run-on sentences. Separate run-on sentences into two separate sentences.” and “Use proper punctuation marks.”  These corrections, but with no indication of where in the essay there might be a run-on sentence or improper use of punctuation.  The program gives children an example from another paper of what they should be working toward, but it was difficult for our children to translate the salient points of someone else’s paper into what they should change or improve on their own.

After watching our children wade through more of the activities and exercises, putting below proficient student essays into the proper order (Am I missing something here?  Aren’t the three supporting body paragraphs fairly interchangeable?  I could not reliably guess the correct order.) and reading the theory behind how their paper would be graded.  I decided that I would not require them to work with the program any longer and did the rest of the work and exploration for the review myself.

A comment on the point/reward system.  The children are awarded points for each essay they submit and for each revision – no matter how much effort they put (or don’t put as the case may be) into that essay or revision.  I wrote  three paragraphs of two sentences each for what was supposed to be a five paragraph essay and received all 55 points for submitting an essay.  When it came time for the revision, I added one unrelated sentence and was awarded the full 55 points for submitting a revision.  If your kids are smart, and I’m sure that they are, they will be able to rack up a huge amount of points without doing any real work.  The point system in My Access! has little to no relation to writing improvement or effort.

At several points in the program, there is no option to save the work and come back to it later.  Our eleven year old had been working on her outline for over 30 minutes and was becoming frustrated,  I thought it would be good to take a break.  There was no option for that.  She could submit her outline (which she wasn’t ready to do) or lose her current work.  We ran into this over and over with the My Access! Program.

I asked a friend of mine, Heather, whose daughter has a passion for writing, if they would be wiling to submit an essay and share feedback.   Her daughter received the highest scores in all areas for a well-written and thoughtful story. (You may read the essay she submitted here.) Heather’s feed back was that she didn’t feel that the program is able to effectively teach or instruct the children to help them improve their writing.  She was also bothered by the fact that it doesn’t point out specific errors in the story or show exactly why it took off points. My Access! ranks spelling and grammar lowest on the rubric, so a child can receive excellent marks even with several obvious spelling and grammar errors.

I think that a family who has advanced writers may enjoy My Access! as a way to have work graded and critiqued in a general way without dictating the changes that must be made.  They may also enjoy some of the publishing features.

You may purchase a years subscription to My Access for up to three children for $99.95.

You may read more of my curriculum reviews on my review page.

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The Workbox System was designed by Sue Patrick, who based it loosely on the structured teaching approach from TEACCH (Treatment and Education of Autistic and related Communication-handicapped Children).  Her motivation in developing this approach was to help her young autistic son.  Her son was not high functioning, but is now academically on grade level and participates in team sports and other social activities.  She had amazing success with her system  and began sharing it with other families.  This began her 11 year process of improving and perfecting the system.  Mrs. Patrick says, “The children that it works best with is all children.”

The Workbox System:

Sue Patrick’s Workbox System is a way to organize each child’s school day with one of the main goals being independence.  Mrs. Patrick believes that “Many homeschoolers are plagued with independence issues.  Children become comfortably addicted to having mom sit next (to) them.”  She also believes that homeschool children talk too much, needing to “speak out-loud every thought that enters their mind.”  The system has tools built into it to  correct both of these issues.  Mrs. Patrick says, “Most children will be cured of the need for mom and too much talking within the first few days of using these tools.”

In addition to enabling the children to work through their school day with minimal input from mom, workboxes also strive to include diverse activities and allow children to visually see what they need to accomplish. This helps them to stay on track, be motivated to work quickly and ultimately helps them to accomplish more in less time.

There are two components to the Workbox System, a physical setup and an educational philosophy.

For the physical system you will need the following for each child:

• a wire shoe rack like this one from Target.
• about 12 clear plastic shoe boxes
• numbered cards and schedule strips included with the workbox system
• a correctly sized desk and chair

Each evening the child’s assignments are placed into the boxes along with everything he or she will need to complete the assignment.  Then their day is scheduled using the numbered cards and schedule strips to visually guide the child through their day.  The cart and boxes are placed beside the child’s desk and as the child completes each box it is removed from the shelves.  The goal is to mix fun educational activities with more typical school work.

Each morning when the children are ready to begin their school work, they mentally and physically “clock into school” (much like an adult clocking in at work) and begin with workbox #1.  They then work through their school day independently until they reach a “work with mom” box, when the mom works with their child to complete the activity.  When they have finished all of their work boxes they are able to “clock out of school” and be finished for the day.

The educational philosophy includes fostering independence, lots of repetition and review, structure and a foundation of discipline.  Mrs. Patrick recommends using learning centers, file folder games, poster centers in addition to quizzes & tests to reinforce learning.

Sue Patrick’s Workbox System gives the parents ways to evaluate material and alter it to better fit their child’s educational needs.  She recommends breaking down the curriculum so that the child is not working on too many skills at one time.  She has parents accomplish this by re-writing / re-organizing work sheets, making your own worksheets or creating your own curriculum entirely.

How we used workboxes:

In this Facebook discussion, Mrs. Patrick stated that, “Any variation/alternative on using them (carts) only makes your job of putting together their day and the child’s day of learning more complicated and often less successful.”    So we bought the exact set-up that she recommends.  Our family dedicated ourselves to making workboxes work in our home for 3 weeks.  I had read so many wonderful things about workboxes.  Everything that I had read about workboxes had been uniformly positive.  From large families to small the unanimous decision had been “These are wonderful.”  I must be doing something wrong because it was not working for us, not working in a big way.

I was spending two or more hours each evening filling nearly 108 boxes!  During the day things went well, but not much differently from how our school days usually go.  I didn’t notice our children working through their assignments any quicker, but then that is not something that we were having problems with, we’ve always had a very structured school day.  I knew I must be doing something wrong.  I researched and asked questions and improved my time by a little, but was still spending nearly two hours preparing each evening.  This was two hours (or so) of gathering supplies and setting up and was in addition to the time that I regularly spend planning, photocopying, correcting work, etc.

Then someone gave me a link to this  interview of Sue Patrick on Facebook. In the interview someone asks how long it should take to set up workboxes.  Mrs.  Patrick replies that it takes less time for older students and more for younger.  She goes on to say,

Setting up school for middle school to high school can be as little as 10 minutes per child. Preschool through Elementary will vary incredibly…(b)ut generally it shouldn’t take more than 20 minutes.

I’d found my answer.  According to Mrs. Patrick the minimum amount of time that I would spend setting up each evening, if I had all older children (which I don’t), would be one and a half hours.  I wasn’t doing anything wrong, this was just part of the program.

So after 3 weeks of trying we came up with our own system, one that is completely unlike that advocated by Sue Patrick.  Our method enables us to accomplish our goal of regularly incorporating more fun activities and usually takes around 30 minutes to set-up each night.

Who I think Sue Patrick’s Workbox System may work for :

I think that for some families aspects of the workbox system may be useful and can improve  their homeschool.  Obviously for many it already has, just Google “workboxes”.

If you have a child with any variety of learning disabilities, I think workboxes are  something  to consider.  Workboxes can help your children remain focused on their schoolwork and work more independently.  All of my children enjoyed having the visual aspect of being able to see what fun things they would be doing during the day and thrived on racing through the workboxes.

Families whose school days seems to flounder or drag or those who want or desire more structure may also benefit from workboxes.  They can provide a solid visual structure.  Even if you get distracted, you can immediately see exactly where you left off and what needs to be done next.  It may help you and your children to be more focused on the task at hand.  They will also most likely help your family accomplish more in less time.

If you have a smaller family (I mean smaller than ours, I don’t mean small. ) and desire to run your homeschool more like a classroom, then perhaps it would also be a good fit.  I like how it encouraged me to think through each of my children’s school day, placing an easier academic assignment after one that I knew would be a struggle for them.  It also makes it simple to add in all those fun things/curricula that you never used because you always forget.

I also think that a larger family that primarily uses textbooks and functions like a classroom could benefit from Sue Patrick’s system.

Bottom line, I think that Sue Patrick’s Workbox System, implemented as Sue Patrick suggests, brings the classroom into your home and allows mom to teach and manage effectively as a school teacher in that classroom setting.

Some comments on Sue Patrick’s educational philosophy:

Sue Patrick’s philosophy is not a good fit with our family.  Mrs. Patrick’ System works to encourage children to be independent from mom and dad.   Our goal is in opposition to that.  We wish to build strong relationships and we desire our children to come to us for advice because we want to instill our values into them.  We want to pour our lives into them and we wish to teach them what we have learned so that they can stand on our shoulders and achieve greater heights.  We accomplish this through sitting together and talking to one another during the course of our school.

American teens do not seem to have a problem with independence.  Teens are too independent from their parents.  Think about it. However, responsible independence is a huge issue.   Sue Patrick’s educational philosophy will foster independence, but not necessarily responsible independence.  The parent is deciding what the child should work on, when they should work on it and sometimes how long they should work on it and then giving it to the child in a form that is easily understandable.  The system laid out in the book does not involve requiring the children to make wise choices throughout their school day, it merely requires them to follow the instructions that have been prepared for them.

Don’t misunderstand.  We desire independence from our children, but we’ve found that our children have learned to be responsibly independent on their own without us forcing independence early.  For example, on days when I tell the children that we will not be getting up on schedule, the oldest 4 or 5 will read their Bibles, do their chores and begin their school work as soon as they do get up.  This without instruction or supervision from either mom or dad.  When I was very sick during the pregnancy with Nicholas, there were many times when one of the three oldest would come to me and say, “Mom it’s time to start dinner, we have xxx in the house.  May I use that to make xxx?”  Then they would carry through preparing a complete dinner for 10 people.  Responsible independence is our goal.  Independence without responsibility is the problem.

Another of Sue Patrick’s main goals is to discourage talking during school hours.  I was homeschooled as a child and one of the things that I remember and learned from  is standing in the kitchen during school time and discussing current events or something that I was reading with my mom and siblings.  I do not remember the workbooks so well as I remember those discussions.  I am constantly grateful for the open dialogue that I enjoyed with my parents to take that away from our children during school hours is not something that appeals to us in the least.

For these same reasons, we do a lot of group work and avoid busy work activities.  The majority of our school time is spent reading aloud, discussing what we are reading, using narration and working on projects together.  I believe that workboxes are more useful for independent, busy-type work or a homeschool that primarily uses text books.  Of course, you can use workboxes for any homeschool style.  The system is versatile, though you will not find suggestions for adapting the system in Mrs. Patrick’s book.

Sue Patrick’s Workbox System Users’ Guide e-Book is available for $19 and works for children preschool to highschool.

You can see all of my homeschool product reviews here.

I received a free copy of Sue Patrick’s Workbox System Users’ Guide e-Book in order to complete this review.  All ideas and opinions expressed are my own and I am not otherwise reimbursed for reviews.

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Educaching says, yes it can.  The idea behind Educaching is simple, hide various caches around your yard or a local park,  have the children search for them using a GPS and make the whole activity educational by using Educaching’s lesson plans.

Educaching is a teacher’s manual designed to train you to bring GPS technology into the classroom, or out of it as the case may be.  With lessons plans for students grade 4-8, teacher training,  and information about Educaching Clubs and activities, it includes everything that you  need to implement this program into your homeschool.

Educaching includes 21 different lesson plans covering math to PE and language arts to social studies.  They are organized into three  levels so that as your children become familiar with the equipment they will continue to be challenged. The concept is simple and once you work through some of the prepared lesson plans you should be able to adjust and use this program with any of your regular subjects.

What we thought:

Our GPS unit did not have some of the necessary features for fully utilizing the Educaching program.  We were using a basic GPS unit that we have for our car and while we could save a location as a favorite, we were unable to enter coordinates or retrieve coordinates a necessary part of the lessons.  We were able to adapt some of the lessons for use with our GPS, but our unit merely got the children into the general area of the cache and then they had to search for it as in hide and seek.

I like the idea of Educaching and was impressed at the variety in the lessons.  One lesson had the children play a game of kickball.  They were to plot the playing field with the GPS and then record the location of each kick.  Back inside the children work with the data that they gathered, figuring the range from the longest to the shortest kicks and the mean kick distance.

This would make a good addition to any homeschool program as long as you’re the type of mom that would plan and implement this on a regular basis.  It does take some set-up and preparation.  Our family would use this in the most simple form, but would probably rarely do the more advanced lessons.

Pros:

• Fun for the kids.  Who doesn’t like going on a “treasure” hunt?  Even if you simply hide math problems or history review questions around the yard, this is an exciting activity.
• Flexible – You can adapt this and make it as complex or simple as you wish and cover any type of subject or material.
• Wide variety of fun lesson plans
• Works with multi-levels

Cons:

• Outside preparation – could be a problem if you have all small children
• Some of the directions in the lesson plans seem difficult to follow.
• Requires a GPS unit (and not the one from our car).
• Weather
• Many of the lesson plans are written for group participation.

Educaching: GPS Based Curriculum for Teachers is available for $32.

For my other homeschool reviews visit the Review page.

Educaching sent me a free copy of “Educaching: GPS Based Curriculum for Teachers” to enable me to complete this review.  All opinions expressed are my own and I’ve not been otherwise reimbursed for this review.

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