Disclaimer: I received a FREE copy of this product through the HOMESCHOOL REVIEW CREW in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review, nor was I compensated in any other way.

Every year that I’ve been a part of the Homeschool Review Crew, we’ve been able to review a Progeny Press study guide. Because I’ve done reviews for this company before, I knew what I was getting into and that made it easier to choose titles for a review this year. There were several options available, for kids from early elementary all the way up through high school. I’m not super concerned about my younger set getting good literature in at this time; they listen to loads of audiobooks all the time. When they’re a little older, we’ll dive into studying the books more, but for now, they’re being exposed to lots of different stories, and that’s good enough for me. One thing that was different this year is that reviewers were allowed to choose TWO study guides instead of just one. So for this review, I chose the Animal Farm Study Guide for Ballet Boy and the Little Women Study Guide for Scorpion.

Progeny Press, which is owned by Michael and Rachel Gilleland, creates study guides for popular novels, both classic and modern, from a Christian perspective. Their goal is to help parents teach their children to read with a critical eye… to dig deeper into their reading assignments and find things they might not otherwise notice, especially seeing Biblical aspects in mainstream books.

They sell their study guides as printed workbooks, CDs that are mailed to you, or digital downloads, which are available instantly for up to one year after purchase. The digital versions are editable PDFs, which means you can have your student type their answers right into the file (but they’re also printable if you prefer that).

Animal Farm Study Guide (Ballet Boy, age 16)

In case you’re unfamiliar, Animal Farm is listed as one of Time Magazine’s Top 100 Novels of All Time. Written by George Orwell and first published in August 1945, the allegory tells the story of a group of farm animals who rebel against their human farmer. Their goal is to create a society where all animals can be equal, free, and happy. The idea is contrived by Old Major, a boar, but he dies just three days after bringing the idea to the rest of the animals. This allows the other pigs to take the lead from him, and before long, the pigs have decided that Animal Farm (formerly Manor Farm) is no longer a democracy. Napoleon, the main pig, immediately begins acting like a human, including working out trade deals with other farmers. This was expressly forbidden at the founding of Animal Farm, but he always has some excuse for why he’s justified in doing so. As time goes on, all the pigs become more and more human-like, wearing clothes and walking upright, and generally oppressing the other animals. The original seven principles that Animal Farm was founded on get boiled down to just one: Every animal is equal, but some are more equal than others. Napoleon eventually changes the name of the farm back to Manor Farm, and the “common” animals, as they look in at the party of elites through the farmhouse window, can no longer tell the difference between the pigs and the humans.

Ballet Boy has never been a huge reader, so for this review, I had him listen to the audiobook, which we got from Overdrive (the online library app that works in conjunction with your regular library card). He was able to listen to the book while working on other things, which works really well for his learning type – he’s always been an audio learner. When he’d made reasonable progress in the book, I asked him if he’d rather work on the study guide digitally or if he wanted me to print him a copy. He asked for a printed copy, so I printed the pages for a few chapters at a time, front and back. He worked entirely independently, with just a few questions here and there for me.

When I asked him about his experience with this study guide, he expressed to me that he enjoyed the book and didn’t mind the study guide. I think it was a bit better than that simple assessment, though. One of the times we had a bit of a conversation, he told me that he’d done some independent research (without being “asked to” by the study guide) about the history of Russia and the major players at the time the novella was written. Having him take that kind of initiative is really good, and a very big step in creating lifelong learners, not just students. And that, after all, is the point of school – and a major goal of most homeschoolers.

Little Women Study Guide (Scorpion, age 13)

Scorpion was always a big reader when he was a little kid, but he’s found other interests lately. So for this review, I had him do a combination of audio book and Kindle book reading. Because Little Women is such a long novel, I had him do a few chapters of reading, then a section of the study guide. Progeny Press officially recommends that students read the entire book and then do the study guide, but with something as long as Little Women, that had the potential to be counterproductive. It wouldn’t be very helpful to be trying to work through parts of the study guide from the beginning of the book if you’d read a mammoth novel and couldn’t remember the details from the beginning by the time it was time to study.

I gave Scorpion the same option for working through the study guide – on the computer or a printout – and he chose to work on the computer. Like his older brother, he also worked on his own with only a few questions for me here and there. The study guide includes lots of vocabulary lessons, comprehension questions, and deeper thinking exercises – everything I expect and love about Progeny Press. Scorpion has traditionally really enjoyed these study guides, too, but he didn’t love this one as much as those that he’s used in the past. I think that because he’s a boy, he wasn’t that into the story of Little Women. I will probably have him do the Animal Farm study guide later this summer, and I expect to have a better attitude with that one.

Make sure to visit the Homeschool Review Crew blog for more Progeny Press reviews. This year, options were A New Coat for Anna (grades K-3); In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson (grades 4-6); My Side of the Mountain (grades 5-8); and of course, Animal Farm (grades 9-12) and Little Women (grades 8-12).

Blessings,

Disclaimer: I received a FREE copy of this product through the HOMESCHOOL REVIEW CREW. I was not required to write a positive review, nor was I compensated in any other way.

For the past few weeks, Grasshopper has been using MaxScholar Orton-Gillingham Software from MaxScholar. I’ve written before about his reluctance to learn to read, and while he’s doing a lot better than he was before, I feel like he could still use loads of instruction and practice, so we signed up for this review.

When you first sign up for MaxScholar, there is a placement test you can have students take. If you’re confident in where your student needs to start learning, you can override that, though, and adjust their account (parent/teacher account and student accounts are separate, each with their own login information). Then when the student logs in, they can start the program straightaway. I had Grasshopper work through the placement test, even though it took a few sessions – it was really long!

Once the placement test is complete, it’s time to learn! Based on Grasshopper’s test results, he was given three options to pick from each time he logs in: Max Phonics, Max Reading, and Max Words.

We have spent the most time in Max Phonics, just to cement the things he’s already learned. Each letter group in Max Phonics is taught and reinforced several ways, so that it’s a good fit no matter what kind of learner your child is (auditory, visual, or kinesthetic). There are different activities depending on what portion of the lesson your child is in. In auditory, they listen to the sounds and then have to choose the right “speaker” for the sounds they’re learning. In visual, they look at a grid full of different letters and choose the right ones for the lesson. Also in visual, there’s a game in which the student is shown a variety of pictures and they have to choose the ones that start with the letter/sound/blend they’re working on in that lesson. In the kinesthetic portion, children trace the letters using either the mouse (if on a computer) or their finger (if on a touch screen device). Once your student knows what they’re doing, these lessons can be done independently. After each sound or blend, there’s a little quiz that the student does to demonstrate mastery before being allowed to move on.

After they’ve gone through many different lessons (I had Grasshopper do 2-4 per day, 3-5 days a week), they hit a new type of lesson, and in this lesson they’re given a story to read. The program reads it aloud to the student, and then the student is instructed to read it themselves. I sat with Grasshopper during these lessons so he could read aloud to me.

These “special” lessons also include some sight words, blending, and fluency sections. Because they were a bit more intense, when these lessons popped up, it was the only one we did in a day.

We didn’t spend a whole lot of time in the Max Reading section; after trying that first, it was quickly apparent that even the first story was a little beyond what Grasshopper was ready for. It was for that reason that I bumped him back to Max Phonics. You can see the different things covered (as well as a snippet of the story) in this screenshot:

Max Words is another section we used a little, but not much. In the lesson we did, Grasshopper learned about different types of syllables. This was done near the beginning of our time with MaxScholar, so I don’t remember enough to speak intelligently about it, unfortunately.

 

In addition to the student account, I also received a teacher account so that I could monitor progress. I didn’t use it a whole lot, because I was always nearby when my son worked on his lessons. I looked a bit at the progress report, but it didn’t mean much to me as far as deciphering the information there. I found it easier to just keep an ear out during the actual lessons to monitor his progression myself, and to be on hand in case he needed help. I can see how the teacher dashboard would be really useful in a public or private school setting where the teacher is not the same as the parent, though.

I also received an account for Dragonfly (4 1/2), but after seeing Grasshopper go through it in the beginning, I opted not to use it with him. I decided it would be better to just continue with our other reading program instead, since he’s so young. What I was seeing with Grasshopper wouldn’t have been a good fit for Dragonfly.

Overall, we’ve been pretty happy with our experience using MaxScholar. Grasshopper likes using the computer/iPad, so he was always willing to work on lessons. I’m happy that he’s getting a firm foundation in regards to reading. It’s a win/win, and we will definitely continue using the program until our subscription expires in six months (yes, even through the summer this year).

Other members of the Homeschool Review Crew are talking about their experiences with MaxScholar this week. Make sure to click through to learn more!

Blessings,

Disclaimer: I received a FREE copy of this product through the HOMESCHOOL REVIEW CREW in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review, nor was I compensated in any other way.

Today’s review is a guest post from Ballet Boy (my 16-year-old son), so I’m going to let him take it away.

The last few weeks, my friends and I have been talking over the idea of getting a boat and going on a grand adventure to the ends of the Earth. About a week after we started joking about this, the opportunity came up to review Exploring the U.S. Life-Saving Service 1878-1915: 17 Student Workshops with 120 Activities by Rebecca Locklear. Me being the boat lover that I am, I thought it sounded intriguing to say the least.

Exploring the U.S. Life-Saving Service is a 117-page ebook and has a variety of different sections/topics (called workshops in the book) which cover different aspects of what the Life Saving Service did. The workshops are categorized by the amount of critical thinking required to succeed in the section. The ones that require more problem-solving are geared for higher age groups, but there are tasks for everybody (grades 4-12). Topics include things like

• Hunting, fishing, and eating
• Beach patrol
• Rescues with boats
• And even solving scenarios for yourself

My favorite of the topics given is Rescue Scenarios: Live or Die. The concept behind this assignment is you are given a card (which is a printable within the book) and on it is a limited amount of information about a given situation (the amount you would likely have if you were a real USLSS agent in that situation). You might be given the position of the boat to the shore, the weather conditions, whether your boat is on fire or not, or how many crewman you have. Your objective as the student is to use the information you’re given to solve the situation as best you can and try to save the lives of as many crewmen as possible using random items (around the house) to set up a sort of game board and reenact it and see if your boat would roll, how the waves would effect, how difficult it is to get to the boat in the first place, etc. And then, once you have developed a strategy that you’re comfortable with (through trial and error) you present to your teacher/parent and he/she will decide if your solution is acceptable, and then give you the historical situation and if you got the “answer” right.

Sounds like a piece of cake, right? I can tell you from personal experience that it is not as easy as it seems. My first inclination was “Well, if I was in a situation with a flaming ship, I’d want to use divers and cables and hoses.” But in the 1880s, where a lot of these situations came from, those technologies were not yet at their disposal. So solving with today’s technology may not be so hard (but it still is). But with their technology, it becomes near impossible, and for anyone with an analytical mind, this sort of problem solving simulation is fascinating – especially if you love boats too.

For the lesson I chose in this section, I found one where the scenario was what to do when your boat is on fire. To simulate this, I made a few origami boats and then filled our kitchen sink with water. Once the boats were in the water, I lit them on fire. I figured, and Mom agreed, that I was old enough to use real fire instead of orange crayon. Doing this experiment really gave me a respect for the captains of the boats back then. It was more stressful than I thought it would be dealing with the fire.

Besides all the activities, there is also a lot of reading about the true history behind the shipwrecks (and other catastrophes) that are on the cards. Many of them take place in the Atlantic Ocean near Cape Cod, which I believe is where the USLSS was based. The reading can be done easily by an older student on their own, or in a group setting as a read-aloud. It is broken into sections by the different jobs of people on the ship. In a group setting, it would be easy to assign students to read aloud, and no one student would have to read a lot aloud. Each section is just one or two paragraphs. The reading is really interesting, especially considering my love of boats. But as much as I love boats, I would not want one of their boats! They are so primitive looking based on the photos in the book to look unsafe – definitely not the kind of thing I would want to sail right into a flaming shipwreck with.

My opinion of Exploring the U.S. Life-Saving Service 1878-1915: 17 Student Workshops with 120 Activities is that it is absolutely amazing. I would definitely recommend this to any study group that has even an inkling of interest in boats or the ocean. It’s generally enjoyable to read and every piece of information is refreshing and it’s topic that you see many books on. Who would have thought there was something before the coast guard?! I would also encourage you to check out Ms. Locklear’s email newsletter (click the link and the signup box is in the right hand sidebar). She sends out seasonal messages with blog posts and book news.

I am so excited to own this book and continue reading and learning from it. I will definitely be doing more of the activities in the future.

Make sure to check out more reviews from our fellow Homeschool Review Crew members over the next couple of days too!

Blessings,

Ballet Boy

Disclaimer: I received a FREE copy of this product through the HOMESCHOOL REVIEW CREW in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review, nor was I compensated in any other way.

The Critical Thinking Co.™ is one of my favorite companies for supplemental homeschool curriculum. They offer such fun books that teach kids to think in ways that they might not normally. Over the years, we’ve had the pleasure of reviewing a few of their books with the older kids, and this year, Grasshopper had the opportunity to give their stuff a try with Dare to Compare Math: Beginning.

Dare to Compare Math: Beginning is a consumable workbook, available in physical or digital formats ($12.99 each). The physical book, which I received, is for a single student’s use; the digital copy can be used for multiple students in the same household. It is designed for kids in second or third grade. Since Grasshopper is finishing up his second grade year, it was perfect for him. The softcover book has 92 pages and is the first in the Dare to Compare Math series (there is also “Level 1” and “Level 2”). It has 150 problems all together; after the problems are sections for hints, answers, and samples of other math books from The Critical Thinking Co.™.

Each page (for the first 50 pages) has three problems on it, and Grasshopper and I dived right in at the beginning. And I immediately had reservations. He struggled with understanding what was going on with these problems. But we continued on, and before long he was off and running. By the time he got to problems 125-26, he was saying how “fun and easy” they were.

There are a wide variety of types of problems in the book, but they are all based around the idea of comparisons. For many of the problems, the information given seems unusual, but when you stop and think it through, they’re not difficult to solve. (Of course, that’s coming from me, and I’m a little above the suggested grade level!) For example, you can see the word problem in the middle of the photographed page. It gives you the number of teachers and students for a given field trip, and your job (well, your student’s job) is to separate the information out and determine which school sent more teachers on the field trip. When I had Grasshopper write down how many students (S) and teachers (T) were on the trip from each school, it was easy to see and compare to find the right answer.

Some of the problems are more traditional math problems (Fill in the blank: ___+23=54). Some have multiple parts all using the same basic set of information. Some use charts or graphs for students to read and decipher. Some are supplemented with illustrations, which may or may not be necessary to study in order to solve the problem. And so on.

Overall, once we got over that initial “Oh no, what I have I gotten us into with this review” moment, Grasshopper and I have had a good time working through this book together.

The Critical Thinking Co.™ has a lot of options for students from PreK all the way through high school and beyond. As their name implies, they put a focus on teaching kids how to think rather than how to simply solve problems. I really appreciate this, which is why they’ve been one of my favorite companies over the years. This week, members of the Homeschool Review Crew are talking about a wide variety of their books (though not nearly all of them!), in a wide age range of student levels. I invite you to click through to learn more about this great company!

And if you’re interested in reading my past reviews, you can find those links below.

Blessings,

 

 

My past reviews of The Critical Thinking Co.:

Sentence Diagramming: Beginning

Pattern Explorer

Understanding Pre-Algebra

Disclaimer: I received a FREE copy of this product through the HOMESCHOOL REVIEW CREW in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review, nor was I compensated in any other way.

There are lots of curriculum supplements out there, especially for things like math facts and spelling words, and they have varying degrees of “fun.” For the past few weeks, Grasshopper has been working with Math Shed and Spelling Shed, and having a good time with both. Today, I’m going to talk briefly about both programs and what we thought of them.

The first thing to know about these programs is that they work in sync. What I mean by this is that it’s the same website for both; when you log in to one, you’re logged in to the other as well. When I got the information to sign us up, I logged into the teacher portal and signed my son up for the program. (Initially, I signed up Dragonfly, too, but it turned out to be way too advanced for him.) I was given the option to sign him up using his real name or a nickname, and then they emailed me a username and password for his account. From then on, we just signed into his account.

Math Shed

Math Shed has five options on the main screen to choose from, and it’s presented in a fun, space theme. In each The choices are: Number Bonds (these were called “fact families” when I was a kid); Times Tables; Powers of 10; Add & Subtract; and More…

Each selection is represented by a planet, and to work in the program, you simply choose the one you want your child to practice. In each category, a random smattering of problems are displayed, and the child has to answer them. In all the games, it’s “answer as many as you can in one minute.” For each correct answer, children are awarded a “honeypot,” which is the currency of the game. They can use those honeypots to “buy” upgrades for their avatar. Grasshopper loved earning the honeypots and changing his character out often!

We spent most of our time in the Addition and Subtraction section. (When he has learned his times tables and just needs more practice, we will switch to that section.) After you choose which area you want your child to practice, there’s a pop up that has you choose which area of addition or subtraction you want them to practice. As you can see from the screenshot to the right, the options are “10s,” “20s,” “100s,” “2 digits,” “3 digits,” or “4 digits.” Next to each category, you can see a +, a -, and a +/- button. This allows you to choose what types of problems show up – all adding, all subtracting, or a mix. Once you make that selection, the pop up changes, and you see options for “easy,” “medium,” or “hard.” When you choose “easy,” the child is given three choices for each problem. On “medium,” there are six choices, and on “hard,” there’s a calculator-type image in which the child must type the answer.

Spelling Shed

Spelling Shed is a beehive theme, and when you first log in there are options for “Stage 1 & 2,” “Stage 3,” “Stage 4 & 5,” and “More Lists.” Because Grasshopper is a bit slow in reading and words, we kept to Stage 1 & 2, which was plenty difficult for him.

When you select a stage, there’s a pop up very similar to the one you get in Math Shed. In Spelling Shed, the options are “Play,” “Create Hive,” and “Bonus Games.” When you choose the option you want, there are then four choices of difficulty: easy, medium, hard, and extreme. We stuck with easy for my son. The “Create Hive” option isn’t one that we found very useful. I think it would pretty cool if you had friends who were also using the program, because it’s a way to make a kind of study group in which kids can play the game together and challenge one another.

In the game (the “play” option), students are given a word, which can be seen on the screen and is also read aloud by a narrator (a woman with a very pleasant voice) in the program. They can study the word, and then click “go,” at which point they must spell the word using the letters given. It’s a lot like a word scramble, to be honest. Points are awarded based on the speed with which the word is spelled correctly, and later words are worth more points than earlier ones (though they’re not necessarily harder). At the end of the round, which is ten words, students are awarded one honeypot for each correctly spelled word. When you choose an alternate difficulty, there are more letters to choose from; at the “Extreme” level, words are simply spoken (not shown on the screen) and students type them out on a qwerty keyboard.

There are two Bonus Games in Spelling Shed. Bee Keeper is essentially Hangman, and Missing Word is “choose the correct spelling.” We didn’t spend too much time in those because on the few occasions that we did, Grasshopper got frustrated at his lack of success.

Final Thoughts

Math Shed and Spelling Shed are pretty good programs for supplementing what your child is learning. They wouldn’t be good for teaching, but they’re not designed for that. If you have a child who is super into technology (rather than books or worksheets), this would be a really good program. It gives you the “flashcard” method in a really fun way.

Other members of the Homeschool Review Crew are discussing their experiences with Math Shed and Spelling Shed this week, so make sure to click through and read about their experiences too.

Blessings,