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Showing posts from July, 2012

Crew Review: Zane Education

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Have you heard of Zane Education ?  I had not. Zane Education provides video based instruction for classrooms and home school.  In today’s technologically driven world, videos have become almost essential for teaching and learning. As you can see from the tag line, Zane Education provides “ the Missing Piece .”  You can download several catalogs for free and get a feel for what is available.  I especially recommend the Video Title Catalog. Zane offers several levels of membership including a free basic level.  At the basic level you have access to all the resources including the online quizzes but you’ll only be able to view sample videos as the full online educational videos are only available with a premium membership . GOLD MEMBERSHIP provides access to the videos for all topics at just $17.99 per month or $197.89 per year. SILVER MEMBERSHIP provides access to the videos for all topics in a particular Age/Grade at just $12.99 per month or $142.89 per year. BRONZE MEMBE

The Best Laid Plans and All That Jazz

A few weeks ago I posted about my plans for preparing for our staycation.  And several days after that I posted a list of 10 Family Fun Ideas for Summer.  Many of those ideas were planned for our staycation.  But you know the phrase, the best laid plans, well they didn’t go so well. As Life does so often, it threw us a curveball or to use another cliché it threw a monkey wrench into the cog wheel of my well oiled machine plans.  I got sick. Sick enough to need to go to Urgent Care.  Sick enough that I couldn’t do the work that I planned.  And then I got sicker.  The bacteria was resistant to the antibiotics I was originally prescribed and I needed new ones. I also learned that I have allergies.  Most likely seasonal and pollen related.  Bad allergies.  No sneezing.  No itchy watery eyes.  Nope not for me.  I have to be different.  I get a cough.  A cough from the pits of hell that does not respond to any kind of cough medicine known to man or at least to me.  I thought I had another

Crew Review: Math Essentials: No-Nonsense Algebra

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I love Algebra.  My children? Not so much.  Oh I mean I love my children, they just don’t love Algebra so much and I don’t so much love teaching it. I love that with No-Nonsense Algebra from Math Essentials that I don’t have to teach and Tailorbear is finding that she doesn’t hate algebra as much as she thought.  In fact, I think she secretly likes it! Rick Fisher, author of the  Math Essentials materials, is known as “America’s Math Teacher”.  Since 1971 he has devoted himself to teaching 5th and 6th grade math students.  Mr. Fisher has developed a “system of teaching algebra.” (p. 3) That system has become No-Nonsense Algebra.  His systematic method teaches in a step-by-step, logical manner. These lessons are short and self-contained.  Each lesson contains five key parts: Introduction and explanation of each new topic. Helpful hints that offers important tips and shortcuts. Examples with step-by-step solutions Written Exercises with answers in the back of the book

10 Family Fun Things for Summer

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Recently I blogged about preparing for a staycation .  I hinted that I’d be doing another post talking about the fun stuff we’d do on our staycation. I also want to mention some of the the other things we like to do for fun as a family during the summer. What do we like to do? Picnics!   We have a beautiful park with a lake nearby.  Lots of ducks spend the summer at this lake.  Sometimes we just go to the park to walk trails near the lake and visit the ducks.  Sometimes we’ll grab some sandwiches and find a picnic table.  One summer we even brought along a game to play.  The girls are excited to take the grandparents to the park for a picnic. Tailorbear has even made some special loaves of French bread to make sandwiches. Sleeping in a Tent: No, this not my idea of fun.  I like my bed thankyouverymuch.  My girls, especially Tailorbear and Turtlegirl, however, think it is very fun to set up a tent in the backyard and pretend they are camping.  I guess you could call it Backyard C

Backyard Wildlife: Snakes??!!

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Because our backyard is separated from a forest like area, we seem to have an abundance of wildlife visit.  Recently I wrote about raccoons coming to play.  In that post I had mentioned a snake.  Well here’s that “but that’s another post” blog post about the snake. Unlike squirrels and birds, snakes are not frequent visitors.  Thank goodness!  I’m not sure I’d want to have to deal with snakes on a regular basis.  My father’s family is from Kentucky.  There are a lot of snakes in the mountains out there.  Whenever we visited my  grandparents, Papa (pronounced poppy!) made sure we knew how to watch out  for snakes.   My father’s cousin (an adult male with children older than I am!) would tease us horribly.  We’d be walking down the dark dirt road and he’d come up behind us and pinch our heels so that we’d think a snake had gotten us.  (He really isn’t mean and he makes the BEST chicken and dumplings.  Of course he learned from his mother, my grandmother’s sister, who learned it  from h

Crew Review: Webber HearBuilder Following Directions

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Auditory processing, how the brain perceives and interprets sound information,  is  foundational  to our ability to follow verbal directions.  “Following verbal directions requires strong knowledge of basic concepts and the ability to process and retain auditory information.” (p. 23 Instruction Booklet) Webber HearBuilder Following Directions teaches 40 basic concepts.  What are basic concepts?  These are the the words that we need to understand in order to perform tasks like following directions or engaging in conversation. Basic concepts taught include: Basic Colors ~ red, blue, green, yellow Quantities ~ one, two, all, both, either, except, none, or, and , don’t, not Sequence ~ first, second, third, next, then, last Shapes ~ circle, square, triangle, star Size ~ large, small Time ~   before, after Spatial Relationships and Positions ~ first, second,third, last, between, next to, above, below Condition ~ hot, cold Students become “master toy makers” and build “t

Crew Review: Knowledge Quest: Map Trek 6-E-book Set

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One thing I’ve learned about teaching history is knowing where something happened is just as important as knowing when something happened.  Adding map work to any study of history will add depth to a student’s understanding.  Many history programs even suggest having students locate cities, countries and battles on a map.  Terri Johnson of Knowledge Quest understands this connection between history and mapping.   From the Introduction of Map Trek Vol. 4 Modern World: “It only makes sense to study geography alongside history. In history, we learn about times, places and people. Geography covers the “places” part. Each aspect of historical study is important in its own right, but they cannot be studied exclusively of one another. For example, when you study Alexander the Great, it only makes sense to see the large land area that he conquered by looking at a map. Modern maps will not give you the same information or perspective as historical maps do.” (p. 5) The Schoohouse Review C

Preparing for a Summer Vacation er uh Staycation

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Summer is finally here. The calendar says that officially summer begins the third week of June, but here in the Pacific Northwest (west of the Mountains anyway) summer doesn’t really begin until after the 4th of July.  Summer means vacation time!   I would love to take a real vacation.  Drive or fly somewhere fun, stay in a hotel and eat in restaurants. I wouldn’t have to cook or clean.  And we’d be taking a break from school so there would be no lesson planning or prep work, no teaching of lessons, no grading.  Wouldn’t that be lovely?  Well, we can’t afford to take a vacation.  (If we could, be going back to Minnesota to visit family and help  my uncle and aunt celebrate 50 years of marriage!) We can’t go anywhere but I still need a vacation.  My husband needs a vacation and he has “use it or lose it leave” accrued.  My children do need a fun break from school.  What to do?  Have a staycation of course! Honeybear and I sat down with a calendar and instead of him taking off a full w

Crew Review: Keyboarding for the Christian School Elementary Version

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When I was growing up, keyboarding meant the typewriter.  And in college we advanced to “word processors” and then computers with “word processing software.”  Thankfully QWERTY** has stayed the same through the years.  In this age of technology it is even more important that our students have solid keyboarding or typing skills.  We might live in an era of “copy and paste” but not everything can just be copied and pasted.  Sometimes we still have to “type it in” or “type it out.” As a member of the Schoolhouse Review Crew, Christian Keyboarding gave me a choice of E-Book Versions: Keyboarding for the Christian Home (grade 6 and up) or Keyboarding for the Christian Home Elementary Version Large Font Edition (grades K-5) .  I chose the Elementary version.  I planned to use this primarily with Supergirl who is developmentally at a 1st grade level.  I noticed though that Turtlegirl really doesn’t touch type and though this is geared for younger students, I asked her to give it a try. 

I won the Sunshine Award!

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I’ve been wanting to share with you about this really wonderful new blog that my friend started in May.  I really love her blog and I wish that I was more like her.  I love how she incorporates her faith into her homeschooling and I love how she blogs about it! Well she awarded ME the Sunshine Award.  If I could award it back to her I would!  Her blog really does inspire and encourage me.  She’s inspired me to want to blog more.  Oh.  You want to know who it is and what the blog is where to find it? That would be helpful wouldn’t it. My friend, Anastasia, blogs at In the Shadows of Life .   Thank you, Anastasia, for the award! The Sunshine Award is given from bloggers to "bloggers who positively and creatively inspire others in the blogosphere." Okay, so here's how the award works:  First, you should thank the person who gave you the award and link back to them.  Next, answer the following questions about yourself.  Then, choose 10 of your favorite bloggers and link

Think Back Thursday: Bridges

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I thought about being cute and clever and posting a wedding picture or two with the idea that a wedding bridges two families.  My husband suggested a picture of one or more of the girls with books because “books are bridges to another world.” I kept digging through or scrolling through the digital photos to find a picture of a bridge.  I found one from 2004 of the family (minus me the photographer!) and in the background you see a tiny little bridge.  The girls vetoed that one: “the bridge is microscopic, Mom.  You can hardly see it!” I found two pictures that I could pretend were bridges but my conscience would not let me choose them.  Both photos were from a trip to the seashore with the grandparents a few years ago.  Wait, I thought.  Didn’t we get any pictures with the digital camera at the waterfall?  There’s got to be a bridge at the waterfall.  After checking multiple different folders on TWO different thumb drives, I finally found a bridge picture. But I can’t resist the i

Crew Review: Who Is My Neighbor? (Apologia)

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In the Bible, Jesus tells us to “love our neighbor.”  Being human, the first question must be “but who is my neighbor?” And the next logical question, for me anyway, is “how do I love my neighbor.”  In Who Is My Neighbor? (and Why Does He Need Me? ), the  3rd book in the “What I We Believe”  series from Apologia, students focus on “becoming more like Christ by serving others.” Before expressing interest in reviewing this product, I read through the FAQ for the  What We Believe series.  After reading  that Volume 3 “will focus on how we are meant to become more like Christ by serving others,”  I knew I needed to know more.  I want to become more like Christ by serving others.  I want my children to become more like Christ and I want them to serve others.  Thankfully, Apologia offers sample lessons and a table of contents .  I liked what saw and I eagerly expressed interest. W ritten directly to the student, Who Is My Neighbor? requires a 5th to 6th grade reading level. This Worldv

Backyard Wildlife: Raccoons!

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Because raccoons are normally nocturnal, it was quite a surprise and a shock to see this big ‘ole raccoon wandering through the yard during the afternoon.  She waddled across the lawn around the same time nearly daily. We thought this very odd.  And then she stopped coming around.  That was fine by us.  Boobear didn’t like having her trampoline time interrupted by a potentially dangerous wild animal.  After several days I noticed that the raccoon was no longer making her daily visits.  I pondered whether or not this was because someone had called animal control or perhaps the raccoon had found new territory.  I even wondered whether or not this had been the same raccoon that had made nightly visits last summer. Then one day the raccoon returned.  She returned with her  family.  Not one, not two.  Not three like we thought but FOUR.  Yes, four baby raccoons.  Running, playing, climbing, and looking adorable.  I think we enjoyed watching them as much as they enjoyed the outing with th

Crew Review: Professor B Math E-learning

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Though I had heard of Professor B math before, I had never really looked into the program.  When the Schoolhouse Review Crew announced that Professor B would be an upcoming vendor, I explored the website.  I read through the FAQ page and the philosophy page and decided that indeed I was interested in reviewing Professor B E-Learning . I read "Well, mathematics is the academic area that studies structures for their own sake, and to build a structure, whether it be physical (like a building) or mental (like a story you know) you must connect the pieces (fragments) in a specific way.” I was intrigued by the idea of using connections to teach math. Through the Schoolhouse Review Crew, I received a 1 year subscription to all three levels of the E-Learning program.  Each level of Professor B is equal to “ 3 years of Math” .   In other words, Level 1 covers Prek- 2nd Graders, Level 2 covers 3rd –5th and Level 3 covers 6th-8th.  All levels can be used for remediation of older student