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.

Homeschool Copywork -TOS Review

One of the reasons I first adopted some Charlotte Mason homeschooling techniques was due to her emphasis on copy work to practice handwriting, grammar, spelling, vocabulary, composition and more. Homeschool Copywork offered the crew a chance to review their Lifetime Membership and I happily volunteered.
                          
Homeschool Copywork is a website created by Amy Belvins, a homeschooling mum of six who has successfully used copy work techniques for years. The site has a number of copywork booklets that, as a member, you can download as a PDF and print at your leisure, and what a lot they have for you to download (and the list is ever growing as more are developed). Each booklet is available with different font choices from tracing for the early years, manuscript, cursive and plain lines for the older ones.

                           

There is a big catalogue to choose from - once you have logged in you can select by age (early elementary, upper elementary, Junior High or High School) or browse the list of titles which includes topics such as;

• Character studies
• Poems
• Scripture studies
• Artist studies
• Inventors
• Science
• Nature studies
• Holidays
• Composer studies
• Famous people

You can also browse their bonus products which include loads of note booking pages and some colouring pages.

Each PDF is different in terms of content and size - some are over 100 pages and others 30. For example we worked on the Claude Monet Artist Study which was 34 pages. It started with an information page telling us about Claude Monet and asked us six questions to think about when looking at his paintings (everything from light, colour & mood to how you would do it differently) it also set a one page essay based on your observations of a Monet painting of your choice. Next came the copywork pages which had a series of six quotes in four different styles (this worked perfectly for me as four children each had an individual style to work on), each handwriting page has a picture at the bottom of the page. The final pages in the pack are six A4 copies of his paintings for you to use in your study.

 

 

 

We have just started working on the John James Audubon Copywork pack which is bigger at 191 pages and has 25 quotes, much longer passages and bird pictures at the bottom ofthe pages.

What impressed me the most about Homeschool Copywork was the depth of content in the PDFs, there was no twaddle just relevant quotes, hymns, poems, famous documents, scriptures, rich literature passages, pictures etc. all available in multiple font options which meant the same PDF was often suitable for multiple ages. It's also incredibly easy to assign a week or month of copywork - just print and go, no more hunting for that perfect quote or frantically typing up something suitable for them to use.

The site could be easier to navigate but in fairness the quality and choice of PDFs was so good that that became irrelevant and I am glad that she chose to focus on producing good quality, relevant and meaningful copywork. I loved that I can have copywork to match our studies so quickly and easily. 

You can purchase a lifetime membership for $45 or a 1 year full membership for $29.95. They even have a free membership where you can try out some of their products to see how they work for you.

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

 

JazzEdge Piano Basics

My girls were over the moon to review Easy Piano Basics from JazzEdge. Lilly especially has been bugging asking me for ages for Piano lessons but they've never been in our budget, so this one was a real treat.

Easy Piano Basics is a series of online piano lessons created by Willie Myette, a major from Berklee College of Music. He has a fun and friendly way of teaching and makes the concepts easy to understand. 

Easy Piano Basics is a series of 32 video lessons, they are fairly short ranging from 2-10 mins with each lesson building upon the last. The lessons include everything from learning the keys (starting with middle C), reading music, scales, low and high notes, sharps and flats, proper seating, playing with both hands, rhythm and more. In the latter lessons printable pages are provided along with sheet music for you to download - the sheet music is a real plus and we printed them out, laminated them and bound them into a little music book for practise sessions.

You will need a piano or keyboard but once you have one it's really easy to use (we used a standard electric keyboard) - you can either log on and watch a streaming of the video online or download and save to your PC. I used my ipad and propped it up on the music stand of our keyboard and away they went, this worked best for us because they could see the fingering and act on it at the same time. The girls watched on average 2 lessons a week (the moved through the early lessons very quickly and spent more time on the tougher lessons) and spent the remainder of the week practising for approx 10 mins a day. 

Lilly (12) has loved this and has already finished all the lessons and is requesting the next level of PianoWithWillie (thinking it would make a nice birthday pressie for her). 
Sunflower (10) and Tulip (8) are both working through this with no complaints : )

Rose (6) has required a lot of help from me and is less keen than her older sisters but is still trying. I have to admit that I've even been watching the lessons and practising for myself - more because the music I heard Lilly and Sunflower playing sounded really good.

I liked how the screen was split and able to show a number of keyboard views at the same time, this worked really well and made things much simpler when trying to sync fingers. I was very impressed with the content and by how much of an impact it had on the girls - they've been practising in their free time and with no hassling from me : )
It's been really nice to see how quickly they have picked this up, we were over at a friends house last week and Lilly disappeared into her dining room to play on their 'real' piano. It was a real treat to listen to and my friend even asked who she was having lessons with.

This is an interesting and hassle free way to introduce piano into your life - it's much cheaper than traditional lessons and really develops a strong foundation in playing and reading music. I think this is a fantastic way to teach yourself piano.

Easy Piano Basics is currently on sale for $59.95 (normally $69.95)  This is a one off, lifetime fee so can be used for subsequent children too. They also have some trail lessons so you can see how it works for your family.

You can see what my crew mates thought of this, PianowithWillie and DrumswithWillie over at the TOS Blog 

Orphs of the Woodlands - TOS Review

Over the years I've waxed lyrical about the 'living' books we use - stories that teach math, science or history concepts as you read. We were asked to consider reviewing Orphs of the Woodlands by Star Toaster and when I discovered it was in effect a living book but online, I jumped at the chance.

Orphs of the Woodlands is described as an online education game, its an interactive and fun way to encourage kids to read (and secretly learn loads)

Your first task when you have logged in, is to choose a name for the main character (who is a secret agent in training) and then you start reading. The story is funny and really engaging - its the adventurous journey of an orphaned, bitter squirrel who becomes a caring, educated agent whose task is find the treasure of High Tower and save Orphs. You are pitted against the Night Creatures, who are also after the treasure.

In the truest sense of a living book - as you read the story, you learn! It's packed full of word definitions, math knowledge, science, famous quotes, nutritional information, critical thinking, character skills, music and loads more. The story is interactive, so not only do you learn via the story but if they read a word they are unsure of they can click it to find the meaning, there are also pop up lesson movies from various characters as well as clickable sound effects, music and recipes.  The story is fifteen chapters long and it can take a good 45mins to read a chapter and complete the 'jobs'.

At the end of each chapter your character has the chance to work using the knowledge gained from the story and earn gold stars (the currency of the woodland) which you then use to rescue and care for orphaned woodland creatures (you can buy them plots of land, food, clothing, defence, medicine, water etc. the better you get at caring for the Orphs, the more come to you) 

These 'jobs' are based on what you have learnt whilst reading the chapter and are divided into different categories (the more you get right in each category, the more gold stars you earn). In case you don't remember everything you read there is a review snippet before each job. The jobs are usually a multiple choice question. For example you can earn gold stars by working in a print shop (vocabulary jobs - defining word that were in the story), working as a cookie consultant (advising on the nutritional value of ingredients) or as a talented tutor (teaching another character about algebra)

The Parent page is easy to navigate - you can check you child's status, view the skills completed and view lessons as well as read the book.

Lilly(12), Sunflower (10) and Tulip (8) all used this (Rose felt left out and thought it looked fun so she ended up sitting in with Tulip while we read the story together). Both Lilly and Sunflower used this without any help from me - they loved it and it was often hard to get them off the computer because they were so engaged : )
Tulip falls just outside their suggested age range of 4th - 7th grade, so I read it with her them - she did require some help with the jobs but neither of the older girls did.

When I asked the girls for their thoughts on Orphs of the Woodlands they said:
"Best game ever - I loved building new homes for the Orphs"
"My favourite part was Prof Forp always saying to learn 'New Information Daily' and when they used cute animals to encourage me to be industrious or believe I can do it"
"It's so much fun - I can't wait for book two"

Their only disappointment was that a number of the recipes contained nuts (he is a squirrel) and they have nut allergies - Sunflower thought the nut bread looked especially appealing.

I loved the amount they learnt (I even got told to have a peppermint tea when my tummy was sore) 

and how engaged they were by the story - It's so well written and really captures their imagination. I thought the game looked amazing - its really pretty and well designed. I think Orphs is a great product and is defiantly our favourite review so far.

Orphs of the Woodlands is available for $19.99 for a 60 day subscription for up to three students (and only $6.99 for a 30 day extension) and Star Toaster are offering a free trial (first 100 pages) so you can see how much fun it is.

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

Maestro Classics TOS Review

We were offered a chance to review Swan Lake from Maestro Classics

These Cd's are recorded by the London Philharmonic and are available for $16.98 (or as a download for $9.98).  The CD is 7 tracks, the first being the Swan Lake story (about 34mins) and the remaining tracks consisting of information on Tchaikovsky, what to listen for in the music, a metal version of the song, sing along song and more.

Both options come with a 24-page activity book containing a biography of Tchaikovsky, information on acoustic and electric guitars, sheet music and words for a sing-along song, explanation of major and minor keys, puzzles and mazes.

Maestro's suggested age range is 6-12 but my 5yo and 3yo happily listened in with their older sisters. (it was all I could do to stop my 3yo from dancing around the room to it).
I really liked the music and your curriculum guides on their website with enough expansion work to create a whole unit based on Swan Lake. Another favourite of mine was the explanation of happy and sad chords.

Overall a very pleasurable experience and a great way to introduce some classics into you homeschool.

Disclaimer
I was provided with a free copy of Swan Lake so I could provide an honest review of the product.

School catch up.

Its been an interesting school week here. We've managed to squeeze alot in to a small amount of time and I'm wishing tomorrow was Saturday and not Friday ; )

We started the week focusing on our simple machines unit by looking at inclined planes (ramps and screws)

Lilly and Sunflower decided to count all the coins in the change jar (almost £30)

Both Lilly and Sunflower have been working on fraction addition,

finishing their animal research, poetry and building challenges.

Tulip has worked with the insets

while Rose has focused on her numbers.

Rose and Tulip worked hard to create a Chinese Dragon for our co-op class

where the girls explored various activities including food tasting with chopsticks, calligraphy, mah jong, Chinese zodiac, making paper lanterns, leaning about the panda and building a great wall of China.

Lilly has also decided she wants to progress from recorder to the flute and has made a good start this week.