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.

Online Christian Filmmakers Academy - Homeschool Review Crew

I was so excited to get a chance to review the Online Christian Filmmakers Academy from Family Gravity Media, a division of Families For Christ Ministries, Inc. Sunflower is doing an arts award in film and has been begging for a programme like this, in fact she squealed when I told her what we were going to review.

The Online Christian Filmmakers Academy has been created by Ken and Zac Lawrence, a father and son team who have been producing, acting and directing since 2004 and have run numerous film camps. They took their combined experience and created an amazing online film school.

The course starts with an introductory video and is then broken down into 5 modules

• Camera - broken down into six lessons, it starts by introducing you to the camera, educated you on lenses, frame rates, shutter speed, tripods and more.
• Cinematography and Lighting - consists of 15 lessons and covers topics including; hard & soft light, types of light, painting with light, framing, depth of field, green screen, setting up an interview and more.
• Sound - has 6 lessons covering sound equipment, microphones, field recorders, location recording etc.
• Pre-production - this has 5 lessons covering various aspects of writing the Screenplay, paperwork, creating the team etc.
• Production - this is a 5 lesson module covering; the crew, set management, how to direct, filming step by step and more.

They are currently creating additional content that will be added throughout the year. 

The Modules are easy to navigate (and are even marked off when you have completed them) and each lesson ranges in length from 2 - 25 mins and show some great hands on examples and tips. Once a lesson video has been watched there are various download bonus templates, documents and interviews with a quiz at the end of each module.

The lessons are packed full of information but so easy to follow that even a novice like me has improved. I loved that you can move through at your own pace and that the entire family can all use the same subscription (lovely cost saving). They really impressed me with the level of examples shown and that they have even thought about the type of basic equipment you would have available at home (camera and lights) and included suggestions for how to improve basic equipment (plans for a PVC shoulder rig anyone?). 

Sunflower loved that the lessons were so engaging and especially loved the tips they gave, in her words 'this is the best school work I've ever done'. She has been working on several story boards and its been lovely to see her enthusiasm and excitement for the work. She has even tried to incorporate a 'green screen' into her background.

The Online Christian Filmmakers Academy is available for $299 for a 12 month subscription. but until November 30th, 2016 They are offering a $100 discount with the code FALLCREW16  

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

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.

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.

ArtAchieve - TOS Review

Art is not my strength but the girls love it. I've always struggled to come up with any lesson plans so I was very happy (and so were the girls) when the chance came up to review Entire Level ll  from ArtAchieve.

ArtAchieve is a complete homeschool art curriculum providing drawing lessons for kids (and adults), it was created by John Hofland (a veteran homeschooler) who firmly believes that anyone can learn to draw, that drawing is essential skill and that like math, that skill can be taught. Puling on his combined experiences of teaching in school, homeschooling and studying with the masters he has created a hassle free on line curriculum that does the teaching for you.

We received a years access to the Entire Level ll for review. Its so simple to use - you literally create an account and the lessons are all on line and available once you have logged in.

There are 14 lessons in level 2. You can opt to print a pdf of the lesson or watch a video (approx 25 mins) outlining it step by step. Each lesson starts with some tips on how to relax and prepare yourself mentally and physically for art - my favourite tip was when he said to paint/draw without talking to improve concentration and to see the girls take this on board while I sat enjoying the silence while they worked (Sunflower even told her sisters "please be quiet, I need to concentrate"). Next comes a  'warm up' which is a grid with some of the squares containing elements from the picture for you to copy, then it moves on to discussing different aspects of art like types of lines, motifs etc before showing you how to draw. Lessons also include elements of geography, history or literature which are a great addition (I love sneaking in extra lessons) and he even has a play list of inspirational music to help you.

The lessons are professional, engaging and memorable (I've spotted Rose using one of his relaxation techniques when her sisters were annoying her) - they are so easy to use and I was really impressed with how someone with no historical art skills (me) could even produce an amazing piece of art and enjoy doing it.

This really has been so simple to incorporate into our schedule, the girls have loved this and it has fast become a firm favourite in our house. Lilly has spent hours working on minute detail within her pictures and has adopted a couple of his techniques in her various doodles. Sunflower said that this was the best lesson of the week while Rose has requested to do more. Tulip summed it all up nicely when she said 'I never knew that art was so much fun - can you get me some more paints'

I loved the confidence it gave me to include art in our weekly schedule and I loved the impact it had on the girls. I was also impressed by how varied their work was even though they were working from the same instructions.

ArtAchieve Entire Level ll is available for $53 and there are various different options to buy (including single lessons).

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