Math Tutor Video Series

After homeschooling for almost 12 years, I had to stop recently to return to work due to a family illness and its lingering effects. While waiting for my children's public school enrollments to take affect, I continued to receive a few items from vendors to review for TOS magazine, free of charge, in exchange for my honest opinion of these items. Two videos from the Math Tutor company were among the supplies received.

Unfortunately, I was unable to use either dvd. One was a pre-algebra level and the other, a Texas Instruments Calculator usage video. None of my children are at the pre-algebra level and the oldest has not yet been introduced to any sort of specialty calculator. We did put them into the dvd player and watch each briefly, skimming through the chapters and seeing how these videos compared to others from this company.

While I was unable to dive into this set, my oldest son, who has used other videos from the Math Tutor series with great success, said both dvd's were very similar to previous lessons he had. Jason Gipson is the instructor on the dvd's, and he is thorough and works through problems slowly. By the time a child is done with a Math Tutor video, he or she should have a good grasp of the basics of the course. Mr. Gipson has a friendly, laid-back approach to math which helped my son get over some the anxiety he associates with it. We used the Algebra 1 and 2 dvd's with great success.

While not a lone program (the name "tutor" says it all), this is a great supplementary curriculum to add to your regular math program. Depending on how slow one moves, there are only a few months of lessons (maybe even days or weeks if the student is really fast) on each dvd. You can add the companion worksheet cd-roms to your video series to flesh it out a bit. But overall, it is not meant to be a complete, core curriculum. Use the Math Tutor series with a child struggling as an alternative to a pricey tutor and you'll likely be impressed.

The price for most dvd's is around $26 for 5-7 hours of video-much less than you'd pay a private tutor- and we found the dvd's we have used to be extremely user-friendly and helpful. Mr. Gipson has courses ranging from Basic Math all the way to Calculus 3 and Physics.

Visit www.MathTutorDVD.com to see detailed lists of what each video includes as well as samples of actual video clips. The site says "Raise grades or your money back." Give it a try!

-Lynn

TOS Planner June 2010: Travel the World module

If you have never used one of TOS Magazine's Planner modules, you are in for a treat in your school day. This is the fourth one my family has tried and they are always a hit, especially with my elementary-aged children.

Each module, available online at www.theoldschoolhousestore.com, is a mini-unit study that is easy to use, requires virtually no teacher prep time, and works well with multiple ages. For the busy mom (and what homeschool mom isn't busy?), these short units are a fun break from textbooks that kids will learn from and enjoy.

This 56-page unit comes to you in the form of an enhanced E-book with hyper links to various child-friendly websites with games, puzzles, and other activities to reinforce the theme of Traveling the World via the seven continents. Pages can be printed as many times as needed, and teacher answer keys are included.

There are informational pages, recipes, resource lists, extensive hyperlinks, rebus puzzles, and even coloring pages children. There is also a variety of crosswords, both manuscript and cursive copy work, word searches, and even lap book ideas and templates.



My upcoming 5th grader could read and do most of the work independently, and my preschooler enjoyed the coloring pages and online games (her favorite was a map matching game). A separate section called "High School Expansion" presents more in-depth information for the older students in your home. I found the sections on lapbooking and Letterboxing (a pastime we've wanted to start for years) particularly helpful and interesting. We broke our study down over a period of about three days but these modules could be easily stretched out or shortened.

My middle son is a highly visual learner so the colorful format and bite-sized pieces of information made it easy to understand and grasp. He also benefits from online educational sites and retains information better when it is presented to him in a visual way, so for him each hyperlink was a highly effective educational tool. He just thinks the games are fun and forgets he's learning! And I didn't have to take the time to search out these safe sites for him to explore.

As a mom, I appreciated the ease of use and the way all the information had been gathered for me. The resource link list in this module is outstanding! I really like paying the low price of $7.95 per module and being able to save it to my computer and print only what I need, when I need it, using it with my children again later. The only item called for was a globe and even that was optional, as we were referred to a photo of one in the unit itself as we covered the topics of latitude and longitude.

There are many other modules available, too many to list. There are units on Remarkable Art, Let's Be Scientists, and Liberty: the Founding of a Country, just to name a few.

Many moms I've met shy away from unit studies because they can be so much prep work. Not these modules. Trying a TOS Planner module is the perfect way to ease into the world of unit studies and theme-based learning.

Give it a try! I am sure you'll like it as much as we did.

-Lynn

Disclaimer: I received the TOS Magazine June 2010 module free of charge to use and review.

review of Critical Thinking/Bright Minds Beginning Mathematical Reasoning

My 4-year old daughter is really enjoying this thick, colorful beginning math book from the Bright Minds/Critical Thinking company. It's a softcover workbook, with 235 pages of lessons in all areas of math reasoning, from counting to comparing and estimating.

So far we have enjoyed each preschool book we received from Critical Thinking. They are always colorful and with only a few problems per page, they don't make my children feel overwhelmed.

This book is meant to be used and written in, but I like to place a page protector over the pages needing written work so my daughter can use them again if she wants. Add a wipe-off marker and you're set to go.

Working 2-3 pages each day only takes a few minutes of the child's time and there is no parental prep work. Just open the book and go. Easy to understand and explain, easy to use.

Critical Thinking has a wide range of curriculum for all ages and subjects. Whether you're ready to teach a 1st grader to read, prepare a 5th grader to take an achievement test, or to help a high schooler learn about wars in our past, this company has a lot to offer on a lot of levels. By using books or software, from the youngest to the oldest, teach your child how to really THINK using products from Critical Thinking.
There are free items to try so give them a visit at:
http://www.criticalthinking.com/index.jsp

-Lynn

Auralog Tell Me More Spanish

Review of Auralog's Tell Me More Spanish Homeschool Beginner-level 5. http://www.tellmemore.com/

This product came packaged very well and included two CD-Roms and a computer headphone/microphone combo. I was able to quickly and easily set up the beginner cd on both my laptop and desktop, each computer using different operating systems.

Right from the start I had trouble, though. I popped in the CD-ROM that a beginner was to use (the other CD was not labeled with anything that stood out or indicated that it would be a big help to install it first instead. *sigh*). If only I had known then...you MUST pop in the correct CD to figure this program out without A LOT of trial and error and guess-clicking on icons just to see where they lead you. The CD I put in last was actually the start-up manual/help CD and it really should've gone first as it gave Internet access to weekly online continuing lessons, a progress test, language learning guarantee, activity guides, and so much more.

Since beginning with the CD I was instructed to, I made it easily enough to the home page (I chose guided learning when prompted). This led me to a screen with a progress chart called a learning path (you can choose path 1 or 2 in guided mode, each teaching different skills). I like this screen as it shows the lessons you've done, the percentage of work done and the percentage of work correct. I know I can check my progress as well as my son's. Off I went to lesson 1. It began well with photos of people and audio recordings of their speech. I can handle this, just looking at pictures while hearing corresponding words and phrases, I thought. But because I had not taken the training CD yet, just moving around the screen's interface immediately caused trouble. Some of the icons are ghost-like, meaning they don't appear to you clearly until you accidentally scroll across them. With some of the icons I had NO idea of their purpose. You also have to know where to click to go on in the lesson or else you find yourself lost. There are various places to click to advance and one must be careful to decide if she is trying to move to the next lesson entirely or only to the next activity in that particular lesson. If you mess up, as I often did, you can always go back to the previous screen, but it was still frustrating having to search for the correct destination. Not to mention time-consuming.

(Of course, had that training CD been installed first, I would have found the program much more user-friendly).

Once I learned my way around the icons and screens, there are many different activities to choose from, such as fill-in-the-blanks, crosswords, comprehension questions, scrambled words, speaking aloud to test your pronounciation, and vocabulary files. When you give your answers they will either turn green or you'll hear a chime when correct. Red means keep trying!

At times the directions themselves were clear but carrying them out wasn't. For example, the game scrambled words...it's hard to get the words to go where you need them to. I am so used to clicking and dragging things in my everyday computer use. You don't drag the words in this activity, but no where does it tell you that. So I sat and tried multiple times to get those crazy words where I wanted them (and finally did). But even when I completed an activity successfully, I often felt so flustered from the general use of the program that I didn't care to go on.

My son, an eighth grader, tried the program multiple times before I did, and he also had trouble with it all because he, too, didn't realize he needed the training on that random extra CD to manipulate the screens. If you are buying this please don't go into the program for use until you have located and looked over the extras on that other CD! You'll save yourself time and frustration and probably end up liking the program a lot, if you do so, as it does have much to offer. There is much variety in the activities presented in this program so it should appeal to a range of learning styles.

I would suggest to Auralog that they clearly label the software training CD to be installed first.

Whether it be due to my lack of experience with Spanish, my lack of training in the program, my own personal learning style, or just that this old dog has trouble learning new tricks, I have to say that from what I've seen and used of both Tell Me More and Rosetta Stone, I personally prefer Rosetta Stone. I felt a bit rushed with Tell Me More, as if I was moving quickly without having grasped all the concepts completely. As I said before though, you can move back to repeat a lesson, and score higher.

My 8th grader also prefers Rosetta, although he is currently using this program simply due to the high price tag behind the Rosetta program. Good news is the more he uses it and understands the interface, the better satisfied with it he becomes. On the other hand, my 3rd grader caught right on during my first lesson and was soon telling me the answers! Go figure. Could be due to his age or his learning style. The bottom line is you just never really know how a program will work until you test it with each child. This might end up being the perfect program for him, and for all of us, now that I am getting familiar with it. If I had it to do over again, I'd take the assessment test first, sign up for the weekly online lessons, learn to use the software correctly, and THEN really dive into it whole-heartedly.

This program should be complete for high school credit, and the cost is not quite as high as other programs considering how many levels you get. Ten levels of learning are about $374.99. Even our version with only five levels should cover at least 2 years of high school language, but if you are pursuing credits and have questions, don't hesistate to email the people at Auralog. I had a question and got a thorough reply within a few hours.

Visit their site and try a demo. I found their customer service top notch and lots of reviewers love this product. It has been used with many large corporations with great success.

-Lynn

Homeschool in the Woods New Testament Hands-On Activity Pack

What a nice lapbook kit/activity pack download I received from the Homeschool in the Woods company! Our somewhat eclectic but mostly unit study oriented family happened upon our first lapbook about three years ago. Although we don't make a lapbook for every single unit we cover, I do find that we enjoy making them and we retain more information when we do.

A lapbook is simply a file folder that has been opened and refolded, plus extra parts of file folders added, to fold shut in a new way, like a little book. inside the flaps are great places to glue in small bit of information, trivia, coloring sheets, facts, mini books, etc. These become nice for reviewing information learned, for wowing the relatives, for paperwork "proof" of learning, and for fond keepsakes. They are a bit scrapbooking, a bit coloring, part cutting and gluing, and lots of fun to make.

Used to be when a homeschool mom wanted her kids to make a lapbook she'd have to sort and dig through websites, reproducibles, magazines, etc. to find cute cut-outs, clip art, and facts sheets to reprint for the books. I'm sure there are families who prefer to do it this way but hey, I'm a cheat...on top of a busy day, last thing I need or want is to spend hours net surfing for lapbooking resources. Nowadays they are right at your fingertips. For a minimal price, mom can just download an entire lapbook onto the family computer and voila! Lapbook central.

This particular pack from Homeschool in the Woods is geared toward teaching children about the New Testament of the Bible. This is a good one. it is packed full of resources and the graphics look nice too.

Your kids will cover topics such as the lineage of Jesus, miracles of Jesus, the Beatitudes, Fruits of the Spirit, Armor of God, parables of Jesus, last Supper, Crucifixion and Ascension, the prophecies Jesus fulfilled, and even delves into Paul's missionary journeys. This project pack is amazing! I would highly recommend it to anyone...homeschool parents, anyone who works with children through missions or church activities, those involved with backyard Bible clubs, etc.
I especially like showing the kids all the prophecies that were fulfilled proving Jesus is the Son of God. Another part of the pack I enjoyed is a little Bible Times Newspaper" that has some cute illustrations and captivating headlines filled in; students must use their creative writing skills to be journalists and write in the rest. This is almost a test of sorts as they fill in what they have learned.


Lapbooks are great for so many learning styles. They are very affordable. They can become treasured keepsakes as your children grow. I cannot recommend them enough to go along with a unit, or just to veer off for a vacation from your regular texts and do more hands-on learning.

This grade 3-8 level hands-on activity pack download only costs $18.95; a CD version is available for $19.95.
Visit http://www.homeschoolinthewoods.com/HTTA/AP/NewTestament.htm to see more details or to order.

SpellQuizzer review

This is a neat computer program. So far, neither of my boys have had much trouble spelling (thankfully). But I will still enjoy using this product to help them review their weekly spelling lists.

It is so simple to use and only took a few minutes to download. You can try it free for 30 days by going to
http://www.spellquizzer.com/ and click on Download Free Trial. To buy SpellQuizzer the cost is only $29.95. You can use it over and over, year after year, with new children and new word lists.

How SpellQuizzer works: the parent begins by entering in the child's weekly spelling word list and then makes audio recordings of the list words (using your own microphone---not a necessity..more on that in a sec). The SpellQuizzer software then quizzes the child, playing each word back to him, checking his spelling as he types in the words. SpellQuizzer corrects him when he types in a word incorrectly, and re-quizzes him on any words he missed once the first pass is completed. Just set up the child's list on Monday, and have him spend no more than five to ten minutes a day letting SpellQuizzer quiz him. By the end of the week he will be ready for his Friday spelling test at school. SpellQuizzer is also ideal for spelling bee preparation and even summer-time review.

SpellQuizzer works well for children who don't like to write and is a fun way to review lists of words.

*Note from Lynn--SpellQuizzer works much better in my opinion if you have a microphone for your computer. Reason being is parents can actually type in each word and then say it in a sentence to use as a clue. When the child plays the game, they will be able to hear the word and clue being spoken aloud. Due to a recent computer virus and the recovery of our system, we didn't have a chance to re-install our microphone. So in our case, SpellQuizzer asked me to type in a clue that the child could read to remind them of the word. As opposed to using the pre-made word lists with built-in playback feature, it just wasn't as effective without hearing the words and clues being spoken. While not a necessity to use SpellQuizzer, I'd certainly make the $10 investment and run to the local Wal-mart and grab one.

I liked reading the tips that pop up when you use the software. One tip was to make silly clues to playback. For example, for the spelling word "pickle", your spoken aloud clue could be "Get that pickle out of you ear!" This would be right up my 9-year old's alley.

Overall, a fun and cost-effective method to getting children prepped for spelling tests and bees. I give it two thumbs up. :)