Educeri Lesson Subscription Service - Homeschool Review Crew

I often find myself trawling the Internet for ideas and lesson plans, so when the chance came to review the Educeri Lesson Subscription Service from Educeri ....... Educeri a division of DataWORKS I was keen to give it a go. I was given a 12 month subscription to review.

Educeri is an online site full of ready to teach lesson plans. They currently have over a thousand lessons available across grades K-12 covering topics in;

• Math
• Science
• English Language Arts
• History
• Art
• P.E.
• Music
• Spanish
• English Language Development

The site is fairly easy to navigate. Once logged in you can choose to view all lessons, browse by topic, browse by grade or search for a specific lesson. You simply click 'Teach Lesson' to view.

The lesson is presented like a slide show and you have to click to move to the next slide. Each page usually has a few sentences of information, some helpful tips (in boxes) and some problems shown underneath. After you have read the information and worked out the answers, you click and the next few slides walk you step by step systematically through the problem. There are marker and eraser functions you can use through the mouse control but we found it easier to just say the answer and click to see it solved.

At the end of each lesson there is a detailed overview giving you the learning objectives, vocabulary, common core correlations and most of the lessons have printable handouts available so your students can practise what was covered in the lesson.

We used Educeri as a supplement to our existing lessons, for example Rose has been looking at quadrilaterals in geometry and I found a lesson that tied in perfectly.

The lessons aren't really interactive but I sat with her and helped her read the info and she took great pleasure in 'seeing' if her answer was correct as she clicked to the next slide.

Whereas Sunflower was quiet capable of using this on her own, she just browsed the list and picked out lessons that she wanted (I did set her a few to supplement areas we were currently studying) - she particularly loved the lesson on Australian Indigenous Rock Art.

I really liked the level of detail in the lessons and it was nice to have  prepped lessons to hand on days when I wasn't on top form. I was impressed by the breadth of topics covered in math, science and english arts, we used a number of them and I have plans to use many more : )

I would like to see some audio included in the lessons, especially for the younger ages. I am excited to see what new lessons will be added to other areas (especially Art).

You can purchase an annual subscription for $75 or opt for monthly subscriptions at $7. Educeri offer a 30 day free trial so you can see how it works for your family.

You can see what my crew mates thought over at the Homeschool Review Crew.

Everyday Education, LLC - Homeschool Reveiw Crew

My strengths lie in the sciences and math, not language arts.I am aware that we haven't studied how to write essays and we have only dabbled in grammar so when the chance came to review Everyday Education, LLC I was keen to jump on board. We chose Excellence in Literature Handbook for Writers (high school into college) in the hope it would pull my skills up to speed and give Lilly (14) a head start. 

Excellence In Literature Handbook For Writers is compiled by Janice Campbell. Janice worked with Ian Johnston to combined and adapted two books he wrote into a guidebook for the writing process and a one stop reference guide that I can see us using for years. 

The Handbook For Writers is a 420 page e-book covering High School to College. It is designed to help improve your writing skills and provide a much needed reference guide. The topics cover everything from basic grammar to creating topic sentence outlines, writing formal papers, paragraph structure, writing for college etc. 

The first section focuses on teaching you how to write, looks at differentiating between facts and fiction, how to construct a thesis, essay models and instructions (paragraph structure etc) 

The second section is the reference guide and focuses on correct grammar, punctuation usage and writing mechanics. There are nine chapters in this section covering

• Phrases, Clauses, Sentences - covering citations, compound subjects,scientific/technical writing, literary analysis, sentence classification, complex sentences, punctuation etc. 
• Words - covering spelling, nouns, pronouns, jargon, abbreviations etc. 
• Basic Punctuation - covers dashes, brackets, semi colon, ellipses etc. 
• Pronouns and possessive forms 
• Parallel Structure 
• Modifiers, Gerunds, Infinitives 
• Clarity, Logic, and Structure 
• References And Bibliographies 
• Formats - this looks at various formatting principles for essays and research papers. 

The Handbook for writers is the most complete writing resource l have ever seen and has already delivered results. Lilly read through a couple of sections on literary analysis which have helped her immensely with her coursework. The Handbook is amazingly adaptable, it can be a basis for lessons, can be used independently or you can just dip in and out for helpful tips and corrections.

The Handbook for Writers is available as an e-book for $29, as a printed - spiral bound book for $39 or as a set of both for $49.

You can see what my crew mates thought of this, Perfect Reading and Working it Out: Poetry Analysis over at the Homeschool Review Crew

You've gotta love homeschooling....

.... when it looks like this.

where else can you sit in a sunny garden, playing with geese and catching up on your English Literature assignment?

CHSH-Teach.com TOS Review

Over the summer we have had the privilege to review CHSH-Teach.com otherwise known as the 

Christian HomeSchool Hub Download Club. I was given a years subscription to the CHSH Download Club

CHSH-Teach.com is the creation of  homeschooler, Lynda Ackert. She decided to put her love of creating to good use and designed a website that acts as a hub for all her educational resources - it has over 50,000 down loadable pages including; worksheets, lapbooks, flashcards, notebook pages, reading comprehension, languages, writing prompts, workbooks, posters and many more. It even remembers us and has pages of organisational materials including; planning forms, graphic organisers, awards and calendars as well as daily devotionals and discussion forums. Lynda is continuously adding new contents to the site as she creates them so the list is ever evolving.

CHSH-Teach.com is incredibly easy to use. Once you have registered online created your account you can browse the resource bank and search by subject, search by topic or keyword, search by grade level or search by monthly events. The subjects are broken down into the main topics areas of Bible Related Resources, Languages, Arts Music and Crafts, Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies, Electives, Health.

You can opt to search by grade level - Kindergarden, 1st-3rd grades, 4th-8th grades, 9th-12th grades.

There are two ways to search by month as well.

 

I selected a summer math activity for the girls (fractions) and then gave them free reign to select their own 'lessons' for the summer. 

Rose being the wannabe inventor decided she wanted to know more about inventors and how they did it so we opted for a pack on Thomas Edison. Sunflower and Tulip wanted to look at the industrial revolution (more as an excuse to visit the local museums again) so I downloaded their pack. Basically this had something for every child (even Lilly downloaded some English Lit activities to go alongside her coursework), I downloaded some nice grammar rules and math posters to use as prompts for the new school year.

If you are after simple worksheets for practise or for a more complete lesson plan - its all here. For example the Industrial Revolution pack we used is a 24 page pack including reading, questions, vocab, timelines, discussions, reading comprehension and more. There are a number of additional worksheets and activities to go alongside the main pack.

I've got to be honest and say I'm very impressed with CHSH-Teach.com - whatever we are studying there seems to be something here for every age group. I love that its all in one place and saves me hours of trawling the Internet for suitable materials and I love how versatile it is, whether we want to do lapbooking, notebooking, worksheets, discuss, fill in the blanks, narrate etc. there is something in the hub to use. It makes it so much simpler to homeschool and teach your children.

CHSH-Teach.com offers an annual subscription fee of  $25 or for lifetime only for $99.99. They have freebies so you can trial the site and they have options to buy individual worksheets or workbooks.

You can see what my crew mates thought over at the TOS Blog.

You gotta smile when....

....your daughter decides writing her new joke out counts as her creative writing for the day and when you agree she tries to push for it counting as maths too :)

The joke in question;
Why is a dog so long?
He has 4 feet.

Orphs of the Woodlands at Tangletree - TOS Reveiw

We loved reviewing Orphs of the Woodlands by Star Toaster so when we were offered the chance to review their new product, an interactive app called Orphs of the Woodlands at Tangletree I had some very excited girls.

This new game is designed for elementary children so I signed up Tulip and Rose (9 & 7). Both have really loved this but I am getting ahead of myself.

The Orphs of the Woodlands at Tangletree is an app designed to look like a book that teaches as you read, during the story you are introduced to various concepts (usually highlighted words or phrases) that link to explanations, new pages of examples or video lessons.

The story focuses on Abba and Hatta's rescue and subsequent care of the baby Orphs, all the while trying to help those effected by a flood and solve a few mysteries. The plot is engaging and really sparked the girls imagination.

As you read and learn from the interactive story, you are offered jobs / tasks in town, these jobs earn you stars which provide you with supplies you use to feed and clothe the Orph babies you have rescued from the flood. 

The set up is really easy as is the navigation - there are four icons at the bottom of the screen; the compass takes you to a map, the book takes your current place in the story, the tree shows you what you need to buy to provide a safe haven for the Orphs and the star takes you to town where you earn your stars. Pages in the book are turned using the green arrows on the page and you can move forward or backwards.

When you visit Stumptown, all the shops have a little number above that indicate the numbers of jobs available. 

Clicking on the building takes you to the jobs they have available and also offers some job training (it's just a repeat of the things they learnt in the story and the videos but the repetition really helped cement the facts). There were loads of topics covered which included vocabulary, zoology, morals, character, grammar, science and more.

I have loved this app, I enjoyed it so much that I sat alongside them as they were reading it however this is a product they could easily have used unsupervised, they even have a section where you can view their progress and work so you can keep track of what they are doing.

I'm also impressed by how much it has taught them, they have even started identifying and using similes in their normal conversations (and taking great pride in telling people what a simile is) and that they were willing to give up other game privileges to play this.

The girls have really taken to the story and Rose was so impressed by Abba that she spent 3 days dressed as a flying squirrel (although she wasn't happy that she didn't have a green cape).

Orphs of the Woodlands at Tangletree is available for $1.99.

You can see what my crewmates thought over at the TOS Blog.

Notebooking Pages - TOS Review

We do lots of notebooking here, this means I've spent hours scouring the internet for pages that would work for us or having to design them. Thankfully that part of my life is over now we've been given a Notebooking Pages Lifetime Membership for NotebookingPages.com to review.

Notebooking is an amazing way to cut out the busy work and really improve your learning, it's flexible, creative and is an excellent way for journaling your students work. Notebooking can be used to assist hand writing, copywork, vocab or spelling lessons, map work, history, grammar, project work, unit studies and more. It can be used for all topics and fits in with many learning styles and most curriculum.

 

NotebookingPages.com was created by Debra Reed, a homeschool Mum of ten, she has designed vast array of notebooking pages for your use. There are thousands of topics to choose from and they are divided into subjects for ease of navigation, these include;

• Any Study (generic pages, mini-books and 3D pages)
• A-Z (alphabet copy work, A-Z animals, A-Z sports, A-Z transportation)
• Bible/character
• Famous People
• Fine Arts
• Geography
• History
• Holidays
• Language Arts
• Science/Nature

Debra's pages are well thought out, she seems to have thought of everything - some are plain, others include spaces to draw in or stick pictures in, some have beautiful images for the child to colour in, still more have fill in the blank spaces and more.

We downloaded some work from her artist study of Georgia O'Keeffe to go along with our current art studies

 

and also from her Plant and Tree study for our nature and botany work,

both were enjoyed by all the girls, they fitted easily into our existing studies and were simple to use.

I was very impressed by both the range available and the quality. I loved that she had created an easy start guide and tutorials to help those who haven't notebooked before. I received a number of emailed tips and video links when I first signed up which were very useful.

My favourite aspect by far was that all the work was done for me, I no longer have to trawl various sites to try and find something suitable - its all in one place, there is a massive variety to choose from and it only takes seconds to download. You just need to pick and choose what page layout and style will work best for your students.

Debra has even added lapbook templates including mini layered books, matchbook books, popup book, top tab books and bordered templates, which you can use to make your own lapbooks.

The lifetime membership is available for $97 which full you full access to all the notebooking pages and any new ones that are added. She even has some free resources for you to try so you can see how it works for your family.

You can see what my crew mates thought over at the TOS Blog.

Progeny Press Study E-Guide - Indian in the Cupboard - TOS Review

We love reading, most of our lessons are based around books so reviewing the Indian in the Cupboard E-Guide study guide from Progeny Press has been great fun.

Progeny Press is a Christian company who have created a wide variety of literature study guides across various reading ages, they are student workbook style guides designed to help you enjoy reading, improve comprehension, understand vocabulary and to analyse the literature they have read.
We received their E-Guide which is an interactive version of their guides so you have the option to either print or type directly into the guide on the computer (you can also mark and comment on their work directly onto the computer as well)

The Indian in the Cupboard E-Guide is so well-organized and so easy to use in
conjunction with the book by Lynne Reid Banks. 

The E-guide is set out as follows

Instructions
As you would expect this outlines how to use the guide and gives tips on how to get the most out of this study and to really help your student really enjoy the book.

Book Synopsis
This provides a short overview of the plot

Information about the Author
Gives some history on the author and includes information on other books they have written

Prereading Activities
This section sets out some great questions looking at history, lifestyle and culture based around the story and characters. It also sets questions to study the French Indian war.

Chapter groupings
Based on a couple of chapters they assign tasks which include

• Vocabulary - here you match words with meaning and work on definitions.

• Characterization - looking at a characters feelings and motivation.
• Story Questions - short answer questions based on the text.

• Point of View - looking at how the characters view the world and why.
• Thinking About the Story - comprehension questions.

• Dig Deeper Questions - matched with Bible verses, these questions look at character and how you would react in a situation.

• Writing Project - sets short writing exercises

• Summary - this looks at the story structure, includes a character study and compares the story relationships and contrasts them with your relationship to God. 

Additional Resources
list other books by the author and books of related interest


Answer Key
Suggested answers on a separate Pdf

The beauty of this study guide is it's flexibility - you can type or print and write, you can work at your own pace and set your own schedule. We typically read 3 chapters a week as a group read aloud (each taking turns to read) and I assigned the corresponding chapter/s in the E-Guide after we had done the reading, however there were weeks when we read more and weeks when we read less. The older girls worked on both the PC and printed pages whilst the younger two worked with me (both written and orally). There were a couple of 'dig deeper' and 'point of view' questions that we used as group discussion questions which prompted some great character/values conversations.

I also really like that it covered multiple ages - this E-Guide is designed for 5th-8th grade but even Rose (age 7) was able to join in although she didn't do so well on the vocab questions.

I loved that this got the girls thinking more about the story than they would usually and that it prompted such great value conversations. The girls really enjoyed it and I can see myself using Progeny Press lots in the future.

Progeny Press guides are available in various formats (bound book, CD or PDF). I received The Indian in the Cupboard E-guide which is available for $18.99, you will also need access to a copy of the book by Lynne Reid Banks.

You can see what my crewmates thought of this and some of their other guides over at the TOS Blog