Reviews » Homestead Acres

Review ~ Motherboard Books Let’s Make A Web Page

Jun 092013

I believe in today’s day and age computer skills are very important. Our family was very excited to have the opportunity to review Let’s Make a Web Page by Motherboard Books. Since my oldest daughter has started a privet blog, these editing skills will be put to good use!

Motherboard Books was created by Phyllis Wheeler an experienced homeschooling mother who created a great line of computer skill curriculum for her own children. Thankfully she has also published these to help other families.

Let’s Make a Web Page is a 60 page PDF ebook, that retails for $19.95. This program is designed for children age 8 to 12 years old.

Table of Contents:

Introduction for Parents
Lesson 1: An Interview
Lesson 2: Download and Set Up the Program
Lesson 3: Add Text
Lesson 4: Make a Table
Lesson 5: Add Photo
Lesson 6: From the Internet, Add Animations
Lesson 7: Browser Check, Backgrounds, Photos
Lesson 8: Sound
Lesson 9: Links
Lesson 10: Post Your Work
Appendix: How to Upload to the Internet

This program is written in conversation style and walks the children through designing a web page using the Coffee Cup Visual Site Designer and NotePad. Coffee Cup is a paid program but they give you a 30 day trial when you download it. This is long enough to work through the program, but if you wanted to continue after this you would need to buy Coffee Cup or switch to a free html editor. Coffee Cup runs only on Window’s XP, Vista, 7 and 8.

Since this course is in PDF form I decided instead of printing it off, that I would copy it to our android tablet. This worked out really well! We were able to zoom in on the screen shots when needed easily. It also saved some ink and paper! I much prefer to load ebooks onto a tablet then print them when possible. Using the tablet also saved us from flicking back and forth between windows on the computer.

The suggested project for this course is for the student to choose a person to interview. Then build their web page around the interview. Our children decided to pick their own topics and started to build their first page about our new puppy.

Our family has enjoyed using this program, I think it is a great introduction to HTML for children. I picked up a few tips myself! While we started out using Coffee Cup we switched to a different WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) HTML editor. Coffee Cup is a great web editor but it doesn’t run on Linux our main operating system. This way our children could work on their websites on any of our computers. The concepts taught in Let’s Make a Web Page transferred easily to our other program. Even though the menu options were in different places and the screens looked a little different it was still very easy to figure out.

One advantage to starting out with the Coffee Cup editor is that the step by step photos will match exactly what your child is seeing on the screen. Coffee Cup is a very easy editor to use for a beginner website designer. If there was a version for Linux I would consider buying it for the kids to use.

We found this was a wonderful program and I would recommend it to any family who would like an introduction to web page design for their children.

To read more reviews from my crew mates on this program and other courses from Motherboard Books please click the banner below!

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Kim Mills on Google+

Review ~ Math Mammoth Grade 5

Homeschooling, Reviews No Responses »

Jun 052013

Math Mammoth is one of my favourite math programs. I was so happy to have the opportunity to review the 5th grade program, since our family has been using the Blue topical series for the past few years.

Math Mammoth was created by Maria Miller a math teacher and homeschooler to help homeschool parents teach math in an easy to understand way to their children.

Math Mammoth uses worktexts instead of a teacher’s guide and student workbook. Everything is contained together and all instructions and sample lessons are written directly to the student.

The Blue Series are topical books that cover a grade range on ONE topic of study. I bought all of the grade 1 to 3/4 Blue Series books years ago and love them very much. More importantly my children LOVE them! These can be used as a math supplement, remedial math, or a normal math program. Maria includes a suggested scope and sequence if you use the Blue Series as your main math program.

The Light Blue Series are full year programs for grades 1 to 6. We received the grade 5 level in PDF format. The grade 5 level books are divided into two parts worktext A and B and an answer key for each book.

Worktext A contains:

Chapter 1: The Four Operations
Chapter 2: large Numbers and the Calculator
Chapter 3: Problem Solving
Chapter 4: Decimals

Worktext B contains:

Chapter 5: Graphing and Statistics
Chapter 6: Fractions: Add and Subtract
Chapter 7: Fractions: Multiply and Divide
Chapter 8: Geometry

Math Mammoth is a mastery based approach so each chapter focuses on one topic. However many of these topics are worked on in the next grade but on a new difficulty level. I love that the pages have clear instructions, if your children can read independently then they should be able to work on their math on their own. I’m always nearby in case someone does need some help though. If your child pick’s up on new concepts quickly then the Light Blue Series should work very well for them. If like some of mine, they need extra practice the Blue Series is inexpensive and a wonderful way to get some extra practice in.

One feature I LOVE is that the PDF files can be typed in. My oldest daughter really doesn’t like to write by hand and prefers to type. With this math program she can easily just use the Adobe keyboarding function and type her answers in.

Math Mammoth has placement tests and a HUGE bundle of FREE samples over 350 pages you can download! Maria also has samples for each Light Blue Grade Series. To see the ones for grade 5 look in the right sidebar.

I highly recommend Math Mammoth as a great math program and one we’ve used for many years now. The grade 5 program is $32.00 and one of the most affordable math programs I’ve found yet.

To read more reviews of Math Mammoth curriculum please click the banner below!

Kim Mills on Google+

Review ~ Paperless Home Organization by Simplified Pantry

Homeschooling, Reviews 2 Responses »

May 292013

Keeping up with schedules and piles of papers is a struggle just about every family has. I’ve been a list maker since I was a child, but following through on the lists is a whole challenge in it’s self. With the Molly Review Crew, sister company to the Schoolhouse Review Crew, I recently had the opportunity to review Paperless Home Organization by Simplified Pantry. I was so looking forward to this one! I also received Simplified Dinners and Simplified Dinners Gluten/Dairy Free. The focus of the review will be of Paperless Home Organization. Simplified Pantry was created by Mystie Winckler a homeschooling mother of 5 children.

Paperless Home Organization is a 75 page ebook that is available in both PDF and Kindle format.

Paperless Home Organization takes you step by step through setting up an online home management binder. The main setup uses 3 programs that will run on anyone’s computer since they are web based. Remember the Milk, Evernote and a Google account for gmail and calendar. You could use this process with other applications, but Mystie includes step by step screen shots using her suggested apps.

I’m already a heavy Evernote user, I started using Evernote when it first came out a few years ago for my genealogy organization. At that time I began converting my file folders and notebooks into Evernote files. I love how much space this saves and it’s so easy to find anything with the search.

I had already started converting my home management binder into Evernote and I was glad to be able to pick up some tips from Mystie! Things like automating groups of emails to be forwarded into Evernote and setting up daily routine to-do lists.

A large section of her book deals with how to organize your emails. Now I have to confess I have 6 different email addresses that I use daily including 2 different gmails. I do have a good folder/label system set up but finding time to organize them isn’t always easy. I already had email filters set up to sort my egroup messages into sorted folders, but Mystie had so many good ideas for taking this process further. Getting a handle on my emails so each inbox is zeroed out every week will take a while. Seriously I get an crazy amount of email every day between my YouTube channel, egroups, newsletters and research projects. I am making progress!

Mystie recommends checking your emails online, I don’t do this I use Thunderbird email and have all of my accounts download into it. I also don’t normally check my Google calendar online since I use a plug-in with Thunderbird to synchronize it’s Lightning calendar with my Google one. However even with these differences I could still use many of her ideas.

Mystie suggests Remember the Milk as a to-do list organizer for the “extra” things outside of your normal routines in Evernote. Remember the Milk has been around for a while, but this was the first time that I tried it. It is a free web app but if you want to use a more complete syncing features you need to pay for a premium account. For my own use I find the free version worked just fine and I was happy to see it could be synced with my linux desktop to-do list program that I already used. This is actually great so if I’m away from home I can still check my list.

For myself I don’t own a smart phone although my hubby does. I do have an android tablet but it’s not connected to a data plan only wifi. In our area most restaurants have free wifi as do the libraries but other stores don’t. So for myself I have no way to check my lists using Remember the Milk or Evernote if I’m not in a wifi zone. If hubby is with me then it’s not a problem as I’ll just snatch his phone! So for myself if I’m heading out some where I’m still likely to print off my shopping list. Also living in a rural area our internet can hiccup a lot. So it is very important to me to have access to my information if the internet goes out. Thankfully Evernote has desktop clients for Windows and Mac and their is NeverNote for Linux.

For me it’s about finding the right balance between having things on your pc, online and in paper format.

I can highly recommend Paperless Home Organization to anyone wishing to move their home management system online or even if your looking for new ideas for using Evernote, RTM and Gmail.

Paperless Home Organization ~ $3.99
Simplified Dinners ~ $12.99
Simplified Dinners Gluten Free/Dairy Free ~ $ 12.99

Simplified Pantry is offering a wonderful discount for our readers. Enter TOS2013 at check out to save 30%! Discount good until June 3rd.

To read more reviews of this book and Simplified Dinners and the Gluten/Dairy Free versions please click the banner below!

Kim Mills on Google+

Review ~ Learning In Spite Of Labels by Joyce Herzog

Homeschooling, Reviews No Responses »

May 242013

Learning styles has been a topic of interest to me for the past year. So I was very excited to receive a copy of Learning In Spite Of Labels by Joyce Herzog to review.

Joyce Herzog has a passion for teaching and helping people to learn how to learn. She has been an educator for 25 years in public and private schools. Joyce Herzog has also been serving homeschoolers with her speaking and writing for over 25 years.

I loved reading Learning In Spite Of Labels and I’m already reading it for the second time and reading it aloud to my hubby.
I love that this book is written from a Christian perspective, and filled with tips and suggestions on how to help your children learn. I love finding solutions to try!

It’s Table of Contents:

Section One: What Do I Need To Know?
What Does It Feel Like to Be Learning Disabled?
A Look At Learning
Behavior and Strengths
Issues to Consider

Section Two: What Do I Need To Do?
Introduction to Doing
ABC’s of Learning
Twenty-Five Teaching Techniques that WORK!
Teeny Tiny Teaching Tips

Section Three: Where Do I Start?
Begin At the Very Beginning!
Setting the Stage
A Person, Not a Problem

Section Four: And Furthermore
Learning Styles
The Law
Learning Problems in History
History Repeated
Attention Deficit Disorder
Vision Skills and Therapy
Speech and Language Development
Individualized Education Plan
Depression: Causes and Cures
Appendix A: Resource Guide
Appendix B: Author Information
Afterward

The book starts out trying to show you how it feels to be learning disabled. Your first task is to write an important date and place on a piece of paper. Yes it sounds simple enough doesn’t it? But the trick is you have to hold the paper on your forehead while you write. Then see how well you were able to write it. It gives you a different perspective on how others may struggle to do what you think of as a simple task. Would you like to be judged based on what you just wrote?
Then it moves into how people learn information and how sudden a change it is for a child to go from a free style learning environment to an 8 hour school day. So many options of expression are removed from their abilities before they maybe ready for reading and writing.

Joyce talks about how in someways we are all learning disabled, in that she isn’t good at understanding how things work and her husband can’t style girls hair. It really depends on what standard you are measuring against. I agree with this in many ways. My hubby can play many instruments wonderfully, me? Well you don’t want me to sing trust me!

The section on 25 Teaching Tips that Work is a gold mine of ideas, from thanking God for the situation and praying for his guidance and blessing to providing frequent review in different learning styles.

The Teeny Tiny Teaching Tips section is filled with little nuggets for all parents. One of my favourites was if your child has trouble telling right from left, put little smiley faces inside the arch of each shoe. The shoes are on the right feet if the smiles are facing and “kissing”.
To help mark the left and right hand side of the page, put a green dot in the left margin and red dot in the right margin. Green means start and red means stop. There are just so many ideas for hands on learning that this will be a book I refer to often!

I highly recommend Learning In Spite Of Labels to any parent not just toughs who have struggling learners. There are so many wonderful ideas in this book on education, ways to learn and work around struggles.

You can download a PDF sample of this book on their website.

Learning In Spite Of Labels cost $15.00

The School House Review Crew received 12 books and curriculum from Joyce Herzog to review. For more information please click the banner below!

Kim Mills on Google+

Review ~ Home School In The Woods: Great Empires Activity Study

Homeschooling, Reviews No Responses »

May 022013

We’ve taken a break this past month from our normal history studies to use the Great Empires Activity Study from Home School in the Woods. I’ve been looking at a number of their packages to use in our next school year, so I was so happy to have the opportunity to review this unit study.

Home School in the Woods is a family run business by homeschool mother Amy Pak. I love products that are developed by other homeschool families since they have a true insight into what our days are like!

The Great Empires Activity Study is available in both CD and download format, we received the download version. it’s suggested for elementary school aged children.
This unit covers the following 14 empires.

Ancient Egypt
Ancient Greece
Ancient Rome
Ancient china
Arab-Muslim Empire
Mongolian Empire
Viking Empire
Spanish Empire
French empire
English Empire
German Empire
Japanese Empire
Russian Empire
The United States of America

Each empire unit contains a few pages of text with key information about it’s formation and activity. Also provided are games, maps, projects, links and recipes for each area of study. Each unit can be covered in about a weeks time, or if you use all the book and link suggestions you can stretch each empire into a month of study.

How did we use this curriculum?

I had originally planned to move through this quickly as we had in past years studied some of the early empires already. My children on the other hand had a different idea! They just love the early history time periods and we have spent the past month learning about Ancient Egypt.

The download version launches with a html page in your browser. This page acts like a home page and lets you easily move through the resources for each unit. I loved how this was set up!

I printed off the reading text, maps, activities and time line. We started off our study by reading the 2 page information guide on Ancient Egypt. This is the only part of the unit study that I wasn’t overly fond of. The text is written in a very textbook like format. My younger children were not interested in it at all, as it was to “dry” for their liking. My older children understood it, but trying to keep them paying attention was hard. I would have preferred the text to be written in a narrative style.
I would read each section then ask the children to narrate back to me.

Next we worked on the mapping pages. I have to say I love the maps in this unit! They are pretty and the detail is great. I’m also glad that they include a teachers copy with the correct areas filled out. It is not always easy to find a map of Ancient Egypt, that has everything labeled.
Other activities included in the Egypt unit were making a cartouche. We did the paper version first using their worksheet each child wrote their name in hieroglyphs. Later we worked on the more messy clay version.
Two recipes were included Egyptian Fig Cookies and Lemon & Garlic Potato Salad. The kids picked the fig cookies, no surprise there!

There is also a great list of additional reading books suggested for each unit. Unfortunately our library didn’t have most of them, and it takes them forever to order books in. So I substituted where I could, and tried to wait for the others. Luckily I already have may Egyptian books in our personal library.

This unit also includes a collection of websites, and we loved these! For Egypt links included how to make your own Senet game, a virtual tour of Egypt, websites on the pyramids, Egyptian life, art and many interesting people from Egypt’s history . Some of these include Narmer, Ramses II and Tutankhamun.

What did we not like?

We have really enjoyed using this program, the only thing that I wasn’t overly fond of was the format the text was written in. This is because our family prefers a living book/narrative style.

What did we like?

I loved how the interactive program was laid out. It makes it very easy to find the pages your looking for. I don’t have to dig through many PDF’s to find the right pages.

The overview sheets for each empire although not in the style we prefer are still very well done. the information included in them is excellent. For the remaining units, I will simply break the readings up into smaller amounts.

The additional reading suggestion are great and books are suitable for different ages. This is another way you could use the program with younger or older students. The next unit we do, I wont expect to use the overview sheets with my younger children. Instead we’ll jump right into the literature suggestions.

I loved the webpage links that were included. It takes a lot of time to search the internet looking for child friendly websites for each topic. I loved having them already organized.

The maps are wonderful! They are large and easy to read. I like the shading as it makes the maps look nicer the most we have used.

We loved the simple time lines that are included. Instead of being a time line covering every person and event in a time period, they covered the start of each empire. These time lines are perfect for younger children or for your first time line.

Our family is going to continue using this program, but in a slightly different way. I’m going to use the earlier empire units as a review of what we have studied in the past. Then as we come to a new time period of history I will use this unit study as an introduction to that, then move into our normal narrative style history.

To look at samples visit Home School in the Woods. The download version is available for $18.98 and the CD version is $19.95.

To read more reviews of this product and others by the Schoolhouse Review Crew click the banner below!

Kim Mills on Google+

Math Rider Review

Homeschooling, Reviews No Responses »

Apr 232013

Memorizing basic math facts is so important for higher level math. However I believe in young children learning should learn math at their own pace and every child is different. We were recently given the Math Rider program to review and I love how it handles learning math facts!

Math Rider is a math game for Windows and Mac, it costs $47. The target age range for this game is 6 to 12 years old. However I think any child needing math practice would enjoy this. It was very easy to install and you can add up to 8 children. Each child gets their own login and password, so keeping siblings from accidentally using the wrong account is easy.

When you first login you can set the difficulty level of the game and decide if you want to practice addition, subtraction, multiplication or division.

As the children move through the game they go on quests. Each quest starts with a mission, in one the child’s mother was ill and they had to travel through the Mathlands to find the special ingredient that would make her well again. They mount their horse Shadow and travel on their journey.

As they travel math questions appear on the screen and they have to type the correct number in. If they get it right Shadow jumps over the jump obstacle correctly. If they get it wrong Shadow stops in front of it, while the math question is shown on screen with the correct answer. The problem and answer are also read out loud.
The game adapts to the child as they play. The more questions they get right and the faster they answer them, the faster the game moves. Equally it will slow down if the child is getting questions wrong or moving slowly. I love how the game adapts to each child on their own level!

Our kids have loved using Math Rider! We practice math drill often with different games and this has become a favorite. They love horses and going on a “quest” is so much fun. They aren’t just practicing math facts, they are engaging in a fun task. I would highly recommend this game to anyone looking for a fun math drill program for their children.

If you would like to try out Math Rider they offer a FREE 7 day trial.

To read more reviews of Math Rider, please click the banner below!

Kim Mills on Google+

Sacagawea Ebook Knowledge Quest Review

Homeschooling, Reviews No Responses »

Apr 182013

Knowledge Quest is one of my favourite sources for history resources. One of our family’s current history reading books is Sacagawea (Brave Explorers Every Child Should Know) by Karla Akins and published by Knowledge Quest.

This is an interactive historical novel of the Shoshone tribe girl Sacagawea, that we received the PDF version to review. The story is set in 1809 as Sacagawea is caring for her 6 year old son Pompey. As he asks again for her to tell him the story of her time with the “Man-With-Red-Hair”, the story jumps back in time with her starting from when her and her sister were kidnapped as young teens.
They are taken far from their home near the Rocky Mountains to the plains, over 900 mile walk. After living in this tribe for a few years as slaves, they are both married to a French man who lives with the natives. Not long after the birth of her son, Lewis & Clark are about to start their journey through an unknown land and knew that she could guide them and she knew the land was her the way back to her homeland. This wonderful book takes you on the journey of Sacagawea’s life and draws you in as if you were right there.

This book is suggested for children 10 years and older, however we have been using it as a family read out-loud. I’ve found that my younger children have loved the story. One special feature about this book is that it is interactive. As you read people, places and items are hyper linked to internet web pages or images.
When the book mentions Lewis made scratches on papers it links to a page from his real journal. When it mentions a Native American tribe the book links to an interesting web page about that tribe. I really like this feature!

As I mentioned we have been using this as a read out and exploring interesting links as we come to them. But this book has so much meat to it that you could easily use it as a spine for a deeper study. I plan to reuse this book again and turn it into a unit study on Sacagawena and Lewis and Clark. Thanks to the many links in the book this will be an easy task!

This story was originally released in 4 episodes, Stolen!, Passage, Survival and Equal, however it is now available as one combined ebook.
Sacagawea is available on Amazon.com for $4.97.

Click the banner below to read more review of Sacagawea or Knowledge Quests Timeline Builder iPad App!

Kim Mills on Google+

Review ~ Supercharged Science

Homeschooling, Reviews No Responses »

Apr 132013

Science is one of my favorite subjects and my children to. I’m always on the look out for fun experiments and learning ideas for my hands on children to use. Last year I discovered Supercharged Science and signed up for some of their free classes. We were blown a way! My children just LOVED them, especially my oldest daughter. One class I remember was on Alternative Energy where we learned how solar panels and wind power work. Then she showed the kids how to build a solar oven.
I had planned to buy a membership to this site, so I was very excited when I was given the opportunity to have a subscription to review.

Supercharged Science was created by Aurora Lipper, a former NASA rocket scientist who has a passion for teaching. She became troubled by how board students were in their science classes and decided to come up with a better way to teach. Science in elementary and high school are normally taught with text books and have an experiment added in now and then. Really it is pretty dry reading. Aurora decided to start with fun experiments FIRST to get the children engaged in doing a hands on project. Naturally after a child has been building things they develop and interest in how and why it works that way. How can I make it better they wonder. This fits in very well with how we like to learn things at our home.

The e-Science curriculum comes in two sets K-8 and K-12 grades. We were given a years subscription to the K-8.
When you log in I highly recommend watching the videos in the Getting Started section. They explain very well how the program works and how to find things on the site. Also in this section is a guide on how to use e-Science as a supplement to your existing science curriculum. There are PDF’s available that cover 22 science programs currently. In these guides it matches up what e-Science units correspond with the chapters in other science programs. You can also use e-Science as a stand a lone program, it is a very full one!
The program starts with 7 units and each month 1-2 units are added, there are currently over 20 units. We started off watching the Unit 0 Overview of Science and the Scientific Method Tips & Tricks. There is so much good material here! Including setting up a science journal.

The units currently available cover mechanics, motion, matter, energy, sound, astrophysics, chemistry, light, electricity, magnetism, alternative energy, thermodynamics, electronics, life science, and biology. There is also a cool section for science fair projects!

We decided to start our experiments with Unit 1 Mechanics. This unit covers force, gravity and friction.
Each unit has a PDF lesson plan you can download. This includes a material list for the experiments, a vocabulary list, unit description and overview. It also covers step by step all the experiments. This is great if your are a parent/teacher who wants to teach the lesson yourself or just have an idea what your children are learning in the video lessons.

We then watch the video introduction, that has Aurora explaining the subject and showing some experiments on why this topic works. After that we go to the video experiments and watch them. Then the kids pick a few that they would like to try.

I would often print out the reading material for my oldest daughter age 11. She would add this to her science notebook and highlight what she felt are the most important parts.

I just love that you can leave comments and ask questions about the units and experiments and hear back from Aurora for help!

Some of our first experiments were on force. One that the kids especially liked was on building different types of bridges. They learned how some shapes are stronger then others and had fun practicing building different bridge types. Then they thought this looks a lot like the Angry Birds game. lol The next thing I knew they were building their own fortresses and shooting clay “birds” at them. Also a good lesson on forces and strength.

Building a bridge with a corrugated support. They had fun seeing how many “people” AKA clay balls each bridge could hold.

They tried building tall bridges or towers to see if they worked better.

Then they build bridges out of just clay. Of course you had to add a river under it.

Then it turned into an Angry Birds tower.

What I love about this program is it makes teaching science so easy and fun! Aurora has a passion for teaching and it comes across so well in her videos. She makes complicated ideas sound very simple and helps you to understand them with a range of experiments. I love that each unit has a wide variety of experiments so depending on your children’s interests and learning styles you should find something that interests them. This also works very well for family unit studies. I love that all of my children can learn the same topic if they want to and their are experiments suited to many ages. Even with a large selection of projects to work on, I found we have most of the materials needed already. Any small things that were missing we easily found at the dollar store. There are some more detailed experiments that you may need to go to electronics store for parts.

The e-Science website also works very well on our Android tablet. I love this because it frees up the computer for other uses and we can watch the videos anywhere in the house. I’ve read the videos do not play on iPads because of the flash format, but they are trying to work on a fix for this.

If your interested in trying out e-Science they have a FREE Homeschool Science Guide with over 30 fun activities you can download. I also would recommend joining their mailing list, so you will hear about the awesome free classes Aurora gives.

The K-8 e-Science membership is $37 per month and the K-12 membership is $57 per month. As I mentioned earlier your subscription starts with the first 7 units and extra sections to help you get started. However if you would like access to later unit emailing e-Science they say they will gladly open it up early for you!

To read more reviews of Supercharged Science please click the banner below.

Kim Mills on Google+

Adventus MusIQ HomeSchool ~ Review

Homeschooling, Music, Reviews No Responses »

Mar 262013

We’ve recently had the opportunity to review a wonderful set of piano software lessons from Adventus.
Our children love music and I’m always on the look out for great resources to help them. MusIQ HomeSchool program is a 7 year curriculum for grades K-12. It is made up of Early Curriculum Software & Lesson Plans and Multi-level Curriculum Software & Lesson Plans.

The first 3 levels are Children’s Music Journey Volumes 1 to 3 for children age 4 to 10. The later levels are their Piano Suit Premier, Ear Training Coach 1 & 2, Ear Training Coach 3 & 4 software. We were given the full MusIQ HomeSchool program, but we have mainly been working in the earlier years.

System Requirements

Children’s Music Journey: Windows 7/Vista/XP/2000 or Mac OSX and an Internet connection.
Multi-level Curriculum: Windows 7/Vista/XP/2000 and an Internet connection.
For both programs you need a USB or MIDI keyboard (with a MIDI to USB adapter)

In Children’s Music Journey Vol. 1 each lesson starts with a 30 second music clip composed by a famous composer who is also their teacher for that lesson. At the start of each lesson the composer shares information and thoughts on this piece of music. I love this as it works great with our composer studies!
The teacher then introduces the content for that lesson. Lesson 1 starts with learning what high notes and low notes are. They call the high notes bird notes and the low notes whale notes. He then asks the children to press a high bird note or low whale note, to see if they understand. Images of birds and whales are placed on the screen for the children to fallow. So really the first music notes they are reading are animal pictures, but it works! They slowly are asked to follow more complex note patterns.

After each lesson they can go into the practice room to meet with Miss Melody. Miss Melody teaches ear training, theory, hand position and practice of the lessons. Here you can also record your own music.

After working in the practice room the game room is unlocked. In this area there are 10 games that help reinforce what has been learned in that lesson. My children LOVE this section, my 7 year old especially loves the rhythm and ear training games.

There is also a library where the child can explore music selections by famous composers.

Features

Multiple Users
Choose your own avatar
Taught by a famous composer
Miss Melody practice sessions
Game Room
Over 200 pieces of classical music
So much more!!

What did we think?

We have just loved using this software! In fact because all the children love it so much, it’s hard to fit all the lessons in each day. I just might have to delegate each child specific days they can practice on.
The software was easy to download and installed with out any issues. You do need a USB keyboard to use this software OR a MIDI keyboard with a MIDI to USB adapter. We ran into a problem with the keyboard we already owned. The local store had told us they could get the adapter, but after waiting found out they couldn’t. By that time we didn’t want to take the time to order one online from the USA so hubby bought us a keyboard that had a USB out port on it. It worked great from the first time it was plugged in.
After installing the software you can set up an account for each child to log in with. It’s very easy for them to use, just start the program click on their name and login. The lessons are fun and paced just right. The program comes with lesson plans and worksheets, but we have been mainly using just the software and letting the children work through the lessons at their own speed. The software is designed to use 1 lesson a week, but depending on the age of our children some have moved through much faster.

Piano Suit Premier

Piano Suite Premier, is a wonderful program for children age 10 and up and adults as well. It has 5 areas to work in. Since my oldest daughter didn’t move through the lower levels fast enough to start with Piano Suite Premier, I decided to try it out. I took a year of keyboard lessons in high school and really haven’t touch one since!

When you start the program you can choose from 500 different songs in genres including classical, country, rock, and jazz. It includes artists from classical composers to more modern selections including Elvis Presley, Bryan Adams, The Beatles and many more.
After choosing a song, you can go to an area to practice it. You can practice on hand at a time or both. It will also show you the album artwork if it’s available and song lyrics. Hey your not going to get me singing!!

The Theory Thinker area has 5 levels and each contains subtopics. As you complete each subtopic a check mark is shown so you can remember what ones you have already done. After you have completed the lesson you go to a piano player to practice what you’ve learned. After this there are practice exercises you can complete.

The Composer’s Corner is an area to write and record your own music, fun!!

The Game area has 3 games to practice what you have learned.

The History Happens section has a huge amount on information on music and composers. I LOVE this section and it makes a great addition to our composer studies.

What do we think?

I’ve really enjoyed using Piano Suite Premier, that is when I can get the keyboard and computer away from the kids. I’ve found the program easy to use and I love how you can customize just about everything in the program. I know my kid’s will love this after they have worked their way through the lower levels.

Costs

Adventus has many pricing options.

The MusIQ HomeSchool Early Curriculum Years 1-3 Bundle (Includes Children’s Music Journeys Vol. 1-3, Level 1 lesson plans and a M-Audio KeyRig 49 MIDI keyboard) is $309.95.

Children’s Musical Journey Year 1 with lesson plans $89.95
Children’s Musical Journey Year 2 with lesson plans $89.95
Children’s Musical Journey Year 3 with lessons plans $89.95

Each Children’s Musical Journey Vol. can also be purchased for $69.95 each for a CD or download with out the lesson plans.

The Complete MusIQ Homeschool Bundle containing Children’s Music Journey Vol 1-3, Beginner Level 1 Lesson Plans, Piano suite Premier, Ear Training Coach 1&2, Ear Training Coach 3&4, Level 1 Lesson Plans, and M-Audio KeyRig 49 MIDI keyboard. This kit is $489.95.

They have many more pricing options and kits available in their store to check out. They also offer a free 7 day trial!

To read more reviews of this great program please click the banner below!

Kim Mills on Google+

Review ~ TouchMath

Homeschooling, Reviews No Responses »

Mar 172013

With a family with many different learning styles I’m always looking at math programs looking for that perfect fit for each child. So I was super excited when we had the opportunity to review TouchMath.

TouchMath is designed to work with all learning styles visual, auditory and kinesthetic. Their program uses visual touch points on each number for students to learn to count up and down. Since many of our children are right brain learners, this picture number system has been a big hit here.

We received the download version of the Second Grade Program. This consists of 4 units and each unit is broken down in to 6 modules.

Unit A ~ Adding and Subtracting Within 50

Adding and Subtracting Within 13
Adding and Subtracting Within 20
Adding and Subtracting Within 50
Adding With Regrouping
Subtracting With Regrouping
Adding and Subtracting With Regrouping

Unit B ~ Adding and Subtracting Within 100

Understanding Place Value: 100s, 10s and 1s
Counting and Reading to 1000
Reading and writing to 1000
Understanding Multiplication
Adding Within 100
Subtraction Within 100

Unit C ~ Adding and Subtracting Within 1000

Adding and Subtracting Multiples of 10 and 100
Adding and Subtracting Within 100
Adding Three-Digit Numbers
Subtracting Three-Digit Numbers
Adding and Subtracting Three- Digit Numbers
Reviewing Multiplication

Unit D ~ Time, Money, Measurement, data, and Geometry.

Telling Time
Learning About Money
Representing and Interpreting Data
Measuring, Comparing, and Estimating Length
Relating Addition and Subtracting to Length
Analyzing Shapes.

This video shows a sample lesson on teaching counting with TouchMath. More video demos can be watched on their How it Works page.

Each unit is packed with a LOT of information and resources including, an implementation guide, progress monitoring sheets, lesson plans, worksheets, answer keys and vocabulary.

With this program the work is really all done for you. Each weekend I would print out the lessons for the coming week and read over the module.
The Module Overview contains a short paragraph that describes the content of this section. I love that it clearly showed what the objectives were, also what your child needed to know before starting.
The Instructional Strategies walk you through each lesson and explain how to use the activity pages. I love that the answers are included as a completed sample worksheet with each lesson. This makes it quick and easy to find.

Both my daughter and I loved the style of the activity sheets. They are cleanly laid out with out any extra clutter. The questions are in a large font and not to many to each page. I found this made it very friendly to the student and didn’t overwhelm her. I love how they place an empty box above a colum when a number is to be carried. This is a great visual to a young child and stopped the forgetting to carry problems.

We also received a great selection of manipulatives that work with the main program. While these are an optional part of the program, they are a wonderful help and we used them with each lesson.

The Student Number Cards come in a pack of 10 and are perforated so you can separate them or leave them as a full sheet. Laminating these is a good idea! One side of the card shows the counting order of the touch points and the other side shows just the touch points. These are a great visual help.

I also really like the Flip Cards. There are a huge number of these in each box and we used these to practice lessons, or in replace of the worksheets some days.

The Touch Numerals with Base 10, are foam numerals and manipulatives that my kids just loved! This was the first thing they got into when I opened the box. It wasn’t long before these were spread around the table and they were making games up with them.

We were also given a copy of their TouchMath Tutor CD. This is a wonderful math program and our computer loving children think it’s great! This is very well done and I highly recommend this CD. It’s also great for the crazy days when Mom needs math lessons done, but there is no way a paper lesson is going to work out.

These are some video samples of the software.

We used this as our main math program for the past month and have really enjoyed this one. I wish I had found it sooner! We started off with Unit A even though dd7 is quite good at adding and subtracting already. Since the program follows a different order to what we have been using, I found there was still many new things for her to learn.
TouchMath recommends working with math for 2 to 2 1/2 times the age of your child working on math every day. For us this would be 14 to 18 minutes perday, so we found 20 worked out very well for us. Added to this was self practice with the CD Tutor and other math games.

This program is on the higher side of the price for a math program, for what I would normally look at. But if it works well for our children I would think it’s worth it, and we can reuse it with multiple children lowering the total cost. This could easily be used as a full program or purchased in units for extra work on areas of challenge.

If you would like to see if this is a good fit for your family, samples from the Units are available to download in the right hand sidebar the 2nd Grade page.

Each 2nd grade Unit is $59.95 or all 4 can be bought together for $199.95.
Flip Cards are $19.00 per box.
Touch Numerals with Base 10 are $99.00
TouchMath Tutor 2nd Grade Software is $99.00

To read more reviews of TouchMath please click the banner below!

Disclaimer: As a member of the Schoolhouse Review Crew, I received a complementary copy of TouchMath 2nd Grade and Manipulatives to review. However all opinions are my own honest views or that of my children. Prices are quoted as of the time of this post and are subject to change.

Kim Mills on Google+

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