STEAM Learning with STEAM4KIDZ

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew.

STEAM, and its cousin STEM, are hot words in education right now. In case you’re unfamiliar, it’s a heavily science-based approach to learning. The acronyms stand for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. STEAM also includes Art. Despite its trendiness, we haven’t explored STEAM or STEM much in our family. Because we expect our children to join the family business rather than leave the nest, it’s not a priority. But I was still curious about STEAM4KIDZ when the opportunity was given to review it, and I was happy to have received the Ocean Ventures Kit to try out with some of my younger kids.

I requested the Ocean Ventures Kit (we were also given options of the Starry Night Kit, the Mini Theater Kit, and the Galactic Adventures Kit) because we live so close to the Pacific Ocean – only about 40 miles away. I wanted the kids to have a chance to learn about the place we spend so much time during the summer months, and this kit definitely delivered!

STEAM4KIDZ offers complete kits for families to easily teach STEAM concepts in a fun and engaging way while children make real projects with hands-on learning. Each kit comes with literally everything you need to create between 5 and 7 projects. This includes things that many families probably have on hand already, like scissors and tape. But STEAM4KIDZ doesn’t want you to have to worry about tracking down your supplies, so it’s all included right in the box. In addition to the projects in the box, there is access to the video lessons. These lessons walk your student through exactly how to create the project as well as teaching them about the thing they’re making. For example, when Grasshopper (10 years old) made the clay coral, he also learned so much about coral while he was sculpting.

In addition to the clay coral, the Ocean Ventures Kit includes everything needed to make a model of the ocean floor, a shark-tooth necklace, an “ooey gooey jellyfish,” and a seashell windchime. The items needed for each project are separated into plastic bags and labeled for easy access. The more generic things, like scissors and colored pencils, are not included in any of the project bags but are instead tucked away inside a pencil pouch. (And as a side note, these are some of the sharpest scissors I’ve ever used. They’re fantastic, though you want to be careful with younger learners so they don’t cut themselves.)

The video lessons are really fantastic. As I mentioned, in addition to walking your child through everything they should do to create a beautiful end project, they also give loads of information about the thing being made. One thing I wish was that the link for the videos (they’re hosted on Vimeo) was in more than one place within the kit. It seemed that I could never find the exact right paper with that link on it! Eventually I wised up and bookmarked the website on my laptop.

I didn’t tell my kids that this was coming in the mail, and when we got home from errands one day and they saw the colorful box on the stoop, they were absolutely giddy. We immediately moved the box to the coffee table in our living room and did an unboxing (that’s over on Instagram if you missed it). They were so excited that they wanted to do one of the projects right then! If that’s not proof of how exciting these kits are for kids, I don’t know what is. I absolutely recommend the STEAM4KIDZ kits. They would make a really good base for a summer camp, too. Kind of like VBS crafts, but better!

As I mentioned above, Crew members were given the option of the Starry Night Kit, the Galactic Adventures Kit, the Ocean Ventures Kit, or the Mini Theater Kit. Head over to the Homeschool Review Crew website to learn more about the individual kits and read reviews of each one, too.

 

Blessings,

 

Learning about Maps (Home School in the Woods review)

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew.

My kids love maps. The older set (now teenagers) really liked to study and make maps when they were younger. My younger crop have also developed that love, so when I given the list of options to review from Home School in the Woods this year, I was excited to see their Maps Combo-Pak (US & World Maps) available.

The digital download kit includes two main folders: US Maps and World Maps. From there, you enter the PDFs folder, and there are the maps along with many other super useful tools for adding these maps to any curriculum as a supplementary product. This includes a cover and spine printout for making a maps notebook with your child. In addition to individual maps of each state (3 for each state), there is a whole section of historical maps you can pull from and print out. This includes things like Colonial America, the US during the Civil War, Growth maps of the US at several points in history (1800-1959), a full country map, and more. The other thing that’s really cool here is the Notebooking pages folder. If you run a notebooking-style homeschool, this is an invaluable resource. The Notebooking pages are designed for elementary students, and include some drawings and a small map for each state along with spots for your student to write in information such as state flower, when they became a state, and more. There is also a teacher’s key for each of these pages.

The World Maps folder is very similar to the US Maps, but as you might expect – they have maps of various continents, oceans, and countries instead of the states. It would be such a huge undertaking to include every country in the world in a kit like this, so for obvious reasons they had to narrow down the offerings. It’s primarily the continents; parts of Asia get their own maps (Japan-Korea and Russia) and Europe get their own maps. Australia and New Zealand share a map. There are also loads of maps of Biblical times, such as Paul’s Missionary Journeys and the Twelve Tribes in Canaan.

Most of the maps, both in the World Maps and US Maps folders, have a “typical” map with the major cities, mountain ranges, and rivers labeled; a map showing those spots but leaving them unlabeled; and a map with even more information missing (in the World Maps, primarily the name of the country; in the US Maps, this means a map of just the outline of the state).

Because it’s summer, my kids haven’t done too much with these maps yet, but we have printed out a few of them – primarily our own state. Once we hit September, I expect we will utilize these maps a lot more, especially the Notebooking pages. Those are going to make a fantastic geography study for my elementary school students next year.

For more information on Home School in the Woods, including seeing more reviews (including of different products like the Printable Essential Timeline Library), click through to the Homeschool Review Crew.

Blessings,

 

Bible Blueprints (review)

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew.

The Teach Sunday School logo

Last year, I reviewed Bible Breakdowns from Teach Sunday School. Those were a product that gave you a short summary of each book of the Bible. Today, I have a very similar product to show you called Bible Blueprints (also by Teach Sunday School).

The cover image of the Old Testament and New Testament Bible blueprints

the bible blueprint for 1 JohnThere is one set for the Old Testament and another for the New Testament. The big difference between Bible Breakdowns and Bible Blueprints is that every single one of the Bible Blueprints fits onto a single page. If you print your PDFs in color, you’ll see an easy-reference color code that helps you to differentiate each part of the breakdown. At the top of each page is the name of the book, the order it appears in its respective testament, how many chapters it has, and its literature type. That part of the blueprint takes up just a small amount at the top. Just below this, there is also a short summary of the book. The main guts of the information is below that, broken down into color-coded segments. There are between one and seven of these segments per book, and they help you to understand what will be in the book, in the order it will be there. You know, like a blueprint!

I think these blueprints would be a good addition to anyone’s Bible study time. They would be an especially valuable resource for someone teaching a Bible class. You could give one to each person and use them as a reference sheet for the course. They won’t take the place of a different curriculum (if Bible curriculum is something you use), but for someone who wants to study the Bible on its own, they are a valuable resource to help guide you through the process of understanding what is in each book. They will show you what is there before you read it, allowing you to focus more on the Bible itself. Knowing the gist of what you’re reading in the Bible can be very helpful, so you’re less likely to be confused by the text.

Make sure to head over to the Homeschool Review Crew and see how other Crew members used these in their homeschools (since I wrote just an informational review today).

Blessings,

Tracking Healthy Habits with American Coaching Academy

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew.

I have a really cool product to talk about today. From American Coaching Academy, we received the Healthy Habits Trackers digital download. This 17-page PDF is a fantastic resource that helps kids (and parents!) stay motivated for 30 days at a time in goals of all sorts. There are pages for household chores and being kind, and also for different styles of exercise – strength training, cardiovascular health, and flexibility (among others).

 

American Coaching Academy

It’s easy to print out the pages you want or need; each focus has many activities on it and one sheet of paper gets you through the whole 30-day challenge. You can print as many as you need for your family. I started with the locomotor challenge for my younger kids and the Boot Camp challenge for my teens. The locomotor activity page includes six exercises, and my kids had so much fun with these! There were a couple of them that the took days off from, but for the most part, they did all the exercises every day. For example, after 6 days of tiptoes, their calves were a little tired and they needed a break. But crab walk, army crawl, and bear crawl were so fun and didn’t even feel like work for them!

The teens were a little more skeptical, but not too bad. They enjoy working out (and have missed it since we pulled them out of dance due to Covid masking requirements in our area), so having something specific to do quickly motivated them and they also got almost every exercise done each day.

Healthy Habits trackers aren’t just about exercise though! There are other pages for all sorts of things, including helping around the house (with activities like feeding the pet and setting the table); healthy body (brushing teeth twice and drinking five glasses of water); kindness (complimenting someone and giving a hug); nutrition (food tracker); yoga (six different poses to track); cardio (jumping jacks and running in place); flexibility (a variety of stretches); strength training (squats and pushups); and general health (one item from each of the other categories).

If you have trouble keeping your kids on track with the things they need to do to stay healthy, you should definitely check out American Coaching Academy and the Healthy Habits Trackers. It may provide just the motivation you need!

Don’t forget to head over to the Homeschool Review Crew for more information and additional reviews, too.

Blessings,

Building Thinking Skills Level 2 (review)

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew.

The Critical Thinking Co.™ has been a staple in our homeschool for as many years as we’ve been on the Review Crew. They’re a family owned company that’s been around since 1958 and are now run by second-generation owner Michael Baker (his father, John Baker, founded the company, but has since passed away). They offer a large variety of books for homeschool students, in all the major subjects. The difference in The Critical Thinking Co.™ is that they put the focus on learning to think through the problems rather than simply mastering formulas. All of their books, regardless of subject (and they cover everything!) have that spin to them. This year (specifically, for the past few weeks), Grasshopper (4th grade) and I have been using Building Thinking Skills® Level 2 -Grades 4-6 (Ages 9-12).

The book is huge! It’s nearly 350 pages of activities, plus an answer key, and printed in full color. It covers thinking skills in reading, writing, math, science, and test prep and is broken down into ten chapters. The first four chapters would make a great supplement to any math curriculum. The next two are science-focused, and the final four cover reading and writing. Test prep thinking skills are sprinkled throughout.

Grasshopper and I have been focused primarily on the math chapters for now. These worksheets are well balanced in their content, and even though I would consider this a supplementary book rather than a full curriculum, he has learned quite a few things that were completely new to him (the three types of triangles, for example). Most of the activities that we’ve done (and a lot of those we haven’t, as I look through the book to write this review) are based on shapes. Shapes are great for teaching critical thinking skills in math because they can move, twist, and fold so many different ways! The book does a great job of making students really evaluate and think through the answers, especially in activities such as “if you were to fold up this shape on the dotted lines, what 3D shape would you make?” That was a tricky one for my son!

Once we move on to other chapters, Grasshopper will be doing activities such as “explain the exception,” where the student is given four words. Three of them have something in common and one is related but different (for example, cloud, rain, snow, umbrella). Students have to explain the three that are the same and then also tell why the odd one out is different AND how it relates to the other three.

The science chapters deal a lot with describing things. Students take the observations they make through their descriptions and write sentences to describe the item (which varies from animal to food to occupation and more). There are also activities where they are given a description and they identify what is being described. As they progress through the chapter, they start identifying and describing smaller and smaller pieces of things (there’s an entire page devoted to parts of an ant, for example).

The reading and writing chapters feature a lot of analogies, which are amazing test prep questions. On some pages, students complete the analogy; on others, they explain it.

Overall, Grasshopper has really been enjoying the math portions of this workbook. He works hard to understand the concepts, and he has been learning a lot. One caveat: even though these appear to be standard workbook activities on the surface, you might find that they take a bit longer than average due to the heavy thinking skills students are developing as they work through the activities.

You can read more reviews, featuring a variety of books from The Critical Thinking Co.™ on the Homeschool Review Crew website.

Blessings,

LeapFrog Tablet for Little Kids (review)

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew.

LeapFrog is a well known company for parents of toddlers, even if you don’t homeschool. As I mentioned in a review last year, we used to check out the DVDs from the library when my teens were little kids. Over the past year, we used the iPad app for the “new crop” of little kids. This year, we’ve been blessed with the LeapStart® Learning Success Bundle™, which is like a chunky tablet for younger kids.

If you’re familiar with LeapFrog at all, this product is probably what you think of when you hear their name. I call it a “tablet for little kids” because that’s precisely what it reminds me of. Younger kids get the thrill of opening it up and playing with a digital device, but there’s no screen. This makes it a tablet you can feel good about letting your toddlers play with! There’s a stylus attached, and it’s nice and chunky for little fingers and hands to grip easily. The stylus is the portal for all the cool things this tablet does. It really does feel like magic.

The tablet itself has some activities right on it. Your child can learn things like shapes, numbers, musical instruments, and more just by touching the stylus tip to the various places on the device. There are two levels of activity, and it’s super easy to decide which to use. You simply touch the stylus to the “one star” or “two star” icon before playing, and the computer knows which activities to run based on which level is chosen.

Inside the box with the LeapStart® Learning Success Bundle™ are also two LeapFrog books. These books are completely interactive and by simply laying them on top of the tablet, they become part of the computer and work just like the tablet itself. There are two levels for the activities in each book, and the stylus is how you control them. The first book is a sampler of sorts. On each of its pages is a sample from other LeapFrog LeapStart books. The other book is a full book from the Netflix show “Go Go Cory Carson.” We weren’t actually familiar with that show, but the kids have started watching it after becoming familiar with the book.

The LeapStart® Learning Success Bundle™ is run on AA batteries, and they do run out fairly quickly. My kids really love playing with the LeapStart, so a set of batteries lasts about a week. I really need to invest in some rechargeables! You can also buy other LeapStart books to use with the tablet – they’ll all work. I’m looking forward to increasing our library of LeapStart books for the boys.

They have had loads of fun playing – and learning! – with this system over the past few weeks, and I’m so grateful to have been chosen for this review.

Make sure to head over to the Homeschool Review Crew and read more about the LeapStart® Learning Success Bundle™!

Blessings,

Immersion Language Learning with Whistlefritz

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew.

I love the French language. I’m rusty in my usage of it, but I love it nonetheless – so much so that I chose it for my children for their second language, even though by local standards, Spanish would make more sense. When I learned about Whistlefritz, I was super excited to try it out for my children.

For today’s review, I received a digital version of the Educator’s French Collection. This includes 4 videos, 3 audio “CDs,” and 2 PDFs (French lesson plans for kids and French matching cards).

I started by downloading all of the files to my computer. I was really hoping to be able to somehow “cast” those videos to the TV, but I haven’t figured that out yet so we just watched them on the laptop. It’s worked out okay using Windows Media Player. I moved the audio files to my phone for car listening. Ever since receiving the set, we’ve listened to this music in the car regularly. We’ve had it for just over a month and it’s not uncommon to hear Grasshopper (age 9) sing, “Quand je serai grand . . .” (when I grow up . . .) or my husband belt out, “Les petits poissons, dans l’eau . . .” (the little fish in the water . . .). Even my 3-year-old loves these songs. Whenever I start to sing “La tête, les épaules, genoux, et pieds” (Head, shoulders, knees, and toes) to him, he immediately gets a huge grin on his face. It’s been really rewarding seeing and hearing my family actually begin speaking (er, singing) French since we received this product.

When it comes to the videos, Whistlefritz is an immersion program (which I love!), which means there is no English whatsoever during the program (not even subtitles). The program is designed with a lot of repetition, which of course, is the best way to learn a language.  That’s how we all learned English, after all.

The host, Marie, has a really fun personality. She seems to truly be enjoying her time onscreen. She’s not the only one you see, though. There are les enfants (children) in the videos as well. The show also features “Fritzi,” an animated mouse, and “Rito,” an animated fox. The main talking points are all handled by Marie, though.

The first video, On va jouer, focuses on teaching parts of the body, clothes, numbers, and animals. The combination of speaking and singing, real people and animation, makes this a real joy to watch. Dedans et Dehors, the second DVD, focuses on rooms in the house and foods. The standout song in this film is the one about all the different fruits. Les Saisons (the seasons) covers the calendar, and the final video, L’Anniversaire de Fritzi (Fritzi’s birthday) talks about party words.

Whistlefritz suggests their products for ages 2-7, and I heartily agree with that recommendation. Due to its immersive nature, Whistlefritz might not be a good choice for older children. While they might learn the words, they’re likely to fight you a bit more because they can’t understand what’s going on. The younger kids are more malleable that way.

Because Whistlefritz is designed for younger learners, it’s not a curriculum per se. Really all you have to do is start the video and let the kids watch it. It’s colorful and vibrant enough that kids will be captivated by it, even during the first several viewings before they can understand any of it. It can, however, be a bit overwhelming before you start to understand some of the vocabulary (for us “older folks”). I found that for me personally, I could only handle about half of an episode the first few viewings. Not understanding much (or any) of the film can make one weary. Keep at it, though, and pretty soon you and your children will be well on their way to learning a new language.

I would heartily recommend this product to anyone looking for an immersion approach to foreign language teaching, especially for younger children with no previous training. And if you don’t want French, Whistlefritz also has a large selection of Spanish programs as well. The videos are also available to rent or buy from Amazon video, so that might be a viable option for some families (it would be ideal for ours, if we hadn’t received this review copy).

Head over to the Homeschool Review Crew site to learn more. Some of my colleagues are reviewing the French collection, like me, and some are reviewing the Spanish collection.

Blessings,

Homeschool Grammar in Just 15 Minutes a Day with Fix It!

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew.

Whenever any other homeschool moms ask my opinion on grammar curriculum, I always give the same answer: Fix It! Grammar from Institute for Excellence in Writing. We’ve been using this program in our homeschool for years, and it’s far and away my very favorite. The timing on receiving this review was pretty good for us, too, because Grasshopper (4th grade) was just finishing up level 1 of Fix It!, so we were primed and ready for the (new and improved) level 2.

About Fix It! Grammar

Fix It! Grammar gives your students one story to work on through the entire school year. They read one sentence (sometimes two, if they’re short) per day, and that sentence is full of errors! Your student systematically corrects the errors found in the text, identifies and defines the vocabulary word, and then re-copies the sentence correctly. As they move through the book, they also learn to identify different parts of speech (nouns, verbs, etc). These are marked in the “incorrect” sentence, before the student does the copywork.

Why I Love Fix It! Grammar

There are several reasons I love to use this program with my kids. First of all, it’s quick. The lessons get slightly more time consuming as you move through the books, but we have never spent more than 10-15 minutes on a single lesson.

Second, it’s easy to teach. There’s a teacher’s manual as well as a student book available, but if you’re decent at grammar you could probably get by with just the student book. The basics for teaching are found in both volumes, so as long as you have enough knowledge to be able to explain the concepts to your child, the student book will suffice. If you’re unsure of yourself, definitely get the teacher book too.

Third, because of the nature of the program, where students work through a single story and make similar corrections throughout the entire school year, the knowledge sticks. My teenagers used Fix It! Grammar when they were young, and both are competent writers now. We are now using the program with my 9-year-old, and he is fully understanding everything he learns too.

Finally, IEW has a very generous copyright policy. If you are using the program with more than one child, you can photocopy the pages under their copyright policy. However, if you are using it in a co-op setting, each family will need at least one copy of the student book to use. This means that you can also have photocopies made and save the student book for future children as well, which is what I will be doing this time around.

How Fix It! Grammar has changed over the years

When we first started using the program many years ago, the student book was divided up into “weeks.” Each page had four sentences, labeled “Day 1,” “Day 2,” and so on. Your student would make the corrections for the day, and then copy the sentences into a separate notebook (see picture at left, which is an old copy of The Nose Tree that Grasshopper has been working through this school year). The image above is the new version of Fix It!, which has each “day” on its own page. The corrections to be made are identical, but they’ve added some lines at the bottom of the page for the copy work. Additionally, instead of just showing the different types of words that need to be identified at the top, they’ve shown you exactly how many of each word there are. That is so helpful! I think it’s my favorite new feature.

Final Thoughts

I think it’s pretty clear that I love IEW’s Fix It! Grammar program. It will always be my go-to curriculum for teaching my children the ins and outs of writing in English. But don’t just take my word for it. Head over to the Homeschool Review Crew and read more reviews from other homeschool parents.

Blessings,

 

Biblically Based Algebra with His Vessel Textbooks (review)

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew.

There are a lot of subjects where it’s easy to fit a Biblical worldview into. Math isn’t one of them. Math is so concrete and unchanging, that it just doesn’t make sense to try to make it spiritual. Well, Mary Carroll thought differently, and His Vessel Textbooks – Algebra I shows her commitment to making math faith-based brought to fruition.

At first glance, the book looks just like a normal Algebra textbook. It’s large, thick, and heavy. All the things you remember about high school math, right?! But what makes His Vessel different is the focus on God all throughout the entire text. For example, in the first chapter when talking about integers and absolute value (the distance a number is from zero, regardless of whether it’s on the positive or negative side of the number line), Mrs. Carroll says, “Isn’t it wonderful that God loves you so much that He sees your Absolute Value through Jesus Christ? You have Absolute Value!!!” I just love that!

His Vessel tackles all the normal Algebra I topics over the course of its 500+ pages. Everything from integers to graphing to the quadratic equation are covered. It’s definitely a full math course, and when Scorpion finishes it (likely by next year, June 2023), I will not hesitate to give him the Algebra I credit he’ll have earned through studying with this book. And he’ll be blessed with biblical truths and blessings all the while! What a lovely thing from a math book.

Besides being so inspiring with the Biblical approach to mathematics, the His Vessel text is very good on its merits alone. It’s definitely one of the better Algebra books I’ve come across. The explanations are clear and concise (but if you have any issues, there’s a YouTube channel with video lessons), and the practice problems are lesson-appropriate.

Scorpion has thus far been working on his own, and not too, too much with this book yet because he’s still finishing up his pre-algebra online course. At the beginning of this review period, he told me he was nearly done with pre-al, though, which is why we requested to review this book. I am so glad we did, too! Not only will he learn the math skills needed for this course, but he’ll get those little encouragements and have a bit of screen-free time too.

As of the writing of this post, Algebra I is the only textbook available from His Vessel, but Mrs. Carroll is currently working on the Geometry book which will be released this fall (2022). She also has plans to get pre-algebra, Algebra II, and elementary math in the future. What a blessing these books will be to families when she finishes them!

Make sure to head over to the Homeschool Review Crew to get more insight into His Vessel Textbooks!

Blessings,

 

Educo Learning Center (review)

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew

I’ve been noticing over the past few months that Grasshopper’s current math course hasn’t been challenging him very much. For this reason, I applied to review Educo Learning Center with him. We received a one-year subscription and matching workbook from Educo International Inc. for him to work with. I chose the 4th grade level because that’s where he is developmentally and in his math skills.

As I just mentioned, Educo is a combination online learning center and physical workbook. In order to access the online content, each student requires their own email to log in (separate from the parent email used for the educator dashboard). I used my main email for the parent side and one of my supplemental emails (the one I normally use for newsletters and giveaways) for Grasshopper’s student login. Once your student logs in and chooses the level they’re working on (we only have the single, 4th grade level in our dashboard), you’re taken to the lessons page. There are lots of options on this page. You can have your student take a pre-test or post-test for the entire unit, watch the unit tutorials, download practice sheets (which are basically the workbook pages), and take a post-lesson quiz on each section. I started by having my son take the small quizzes, one per day, until we got to a section he didn’t do so well on. That gave us a good place to start the program.

The tutorials are semi-interactive. You have to click each section before it will start, and rather than being a video lesson, it’s more like a Powerpoint presentation. You have to read the information and click each slide in order to continue. When the lesson is finished, you can have your student work through the workbook pages, or do the digital practice sheets.

In order to open the individual presentations and PDF practice pages, you have to turn your popup blocker off. I found this a bit frustrating, not because it’s a difficult thing to do (just click the “options” at the top of the internet page and allow them for the one specific website), but because the lessons then opened in another window instead of another tab. I prefer to run tabs; it’s easier for my mind to wrap around. I can understand why they might do it in new windows, though – it keeps everything cleaner for a child, and they’re less likely to accidentally click into the wrong tab.

The workbook pages are very good. They match the lessons very well, and they also give plenty of space for the student to write their answers. This is a common problem with math workbooks – they’ll often skimp on writing space because it’s “just numbers,” but little kids have big handwriting! It’s really nice to have a workbook that understands this and accommodates it.

When I asked Grasshopper this morning if he wanted to go back to his old math program or continue with Educo, he said he wanted to switch over to Educo. I wholeheartedly agree with his request – it’s a very complete program!

Make sure to head over to read more reviews from the Homeschool Review Crew.

Blessings,