Archive for the ‘Review’ Category
Homeschool Legacy Review
May
We love unit studies here at Our Crafts N Things! They are definitely my favorite way to teach. It can be hard to try to pull everything together, so when I find a unit study that someone has already put together for me I get pretty excited!
We were given the chance to review a unit study from Homeschool Legacy. I looked over all of the history unit studies and science unit studies available and had a really hard time deciding! I finally ending up picking Weather on the Move. Weather on the Move is a 67 page, 7 week unit study all about weather that can be used for grades 2-12. Some of the units at Homeschool Legacy have a shorter duration and some have a longer one. The units can be purchased as a digital copy or a physical paperback. I usually prefer to have an actual physical copy, but this time I wanted the digital copy. There are links that you can click on, so having it right on my laptop was definitely convenient. There were some pages that needed to be printed, but only a few, so I didn’t have to use much ink.
Weather on the Move is considered a “once-a-week unit study.” The idea is that 4 days out of the week you do your usual homeschool lessons and activities, and a small part of the unit study, such as reading from a book. You pick one day out of the week to eliminate your usual daily work and focus on your unit study. Of course, since it’s homeschooling, you do what works for you. If it works better for you to break up the unit study and do a little each day during the week, that will work too.
The Weather on the Move unit study focused on a different topic related to weather each week. The topics include: meteorology, the sun, the atmosphere, the water cycle, frozen precipitation, clouds, and extreme weather. Each week there is a book list you can pick from at the library to go along with your topic. There are plenty of books to pick from and even our small library had many of the books I wanted to use. There is also a list of supplies you will need each week. Many of the supplies were things we already had, but I did have to purchase a few inexpensive items. Finally, there are activities suggested for the topic. There are ideas to use for devotions, math, science, history, language arts, arts and crafts, field trips, and even family movie nights. There is no shortage of ideas and they are all very easy to do.
So, how did we use Weather on the Move?
First, Hailey prepared her weather journal by making a cover for it.
The first week we focused on meteorology, and Hailey did some research about Aristotle.
One of the arts and crafts projects was to build a terrarium.
Hailey was able to follow the directions and get everything set up all by herself.
It turned out very nice- and it is still doing very well several weeks later.
Hailey did some experimenting with an “old fashioned” thermometer. Everything is digital now, so she was pretty impressed with being able to watch the temperature go up and down.
We did an experiment to help her understand the water cycle and what causes rain.
Hailey made a rain gauge and has been very excited every time is rains ever since she made it 🙂 She loves measuring to see how much rain we got.
We made a cloud identification guide. We printed pictures of the different cloud types and then glued the names and descriptions of the clouds onto the back of the pictures.
Hailey took her guide outside each day and identified the kind of clouds she saw.
The activities I shared are just a small portion of the activities and ideas that come with Weather on the Move. There are so many fun learning activities in this unit. Both of us learned so much! I felt like all of the activities and projects had a purpose. There wasn’t anything in the unit that we didn’t learn from. This unit study was definitely one of my all time favorites! I very highly recommend Weather on the Move. There are some history unit studies from Homeschool Legacy that will coordinate very nicely with what we are studying next year and I am planning to purchase those units when the time comes.
Hailey’s opinion of Weather on the Move: “I liked all of the projects and activities we got to do. I liked making my own weather journal. I really liked all of it, it was a lot of fun!”
Want to learn more about Homeschool Legacy:
S is for Smiling Sunrise: A Book Review
May
I was given the book S is for Smiling Sunrise from WordsBright to review. S is for Smiling Sunrise is a hardcover book written by Vick Wadhwa. The author is a dad who was feeling bored with the typical toddler ABC books, so he decided to write an ABC book that is much different than the ABC books parents are used to seeing. Rather than seeing things like A is for apple and B is for ball, you’ll find A is for artwork and B is for butterflies.
S is for Smiling Sunrise is geared for children in pre-k through third grade. There are pre-k teaching tips available for parents as well as tips for teaching kindergarten through third grade. In addition there is a free mp3 alphabet song available as well, that goes along with the rhyming book.
How did we use S is for Smiling Sunrise?
First up we listened to the song and Hunter danced along.
Then we read the book.
Right now one of the things we are focusing on in preschool is Hunter learning the letters of his name. He can spell his name, but he does not actually recognize the letters. So, I thought it would be fun to focus on each letter in his name and do a little activity to go along with the book.
In the book the letter “H is for heart.” There is a cute little rhyme to go along with it.
I pulled out our stethoscope and we listened to our hearts. Hunter didn’t really like how the stethoscope felt in his ears, but he did think it was pretty neat to be able to hear his heartbeat.
Next up, “U is for universe.” I would probably never think to use universe when teaching the letter U to a preschooler, but it was a great new vocabulary word for him.
Then we made a universe- we used a spray bottle to spray watered down white paint onto black paper for stars. Then Hunter painted some planets and glued them on. It was a great way to introduce the idea of our universe.
“N is for nature” was next.
Hunter wasn’t feeling particularly cooperative when we did letter N, so Hailey helped me out. I gave her a piece of contact paper and she took it outside and put things on it that reminded her of nature.
N is for nature collage.
I think that “T is for tasty” was a definite favorite!
I blindfolded Hunter and Hailey and then fed them some different snack foods to see if they could guess what I was giving them. We talked about which were healthy choices and which were not. Then they had to blindfold me and have me do a little taste test 🙂
“E is for evening” was a hard concept for Hunter to understand. While I still don’t think he understands it, it was still good to introduce him to the concept.
I put pink and yellow paint on a piece of paper and let him paint a sunset.
“R is for rainbow” was last.
I put the colors of the rainbow onto a piece of paper and gave Hunter some different items to use to paint with. He had a lot of fun with his rainbow.
S is for Smiling Sunrise was a fun addition to our preschool for the last few weeks. It was fun to think about the ABCs and teaching the ABCs using different words than I would normally think of. I think it’s a good fit for working on letter recognition for the younger kids and for introducing new vocabulary and concepts for the older kids.
Learn more about author Vick Wadhwa on Facebook.
A Plus Interactive Math Review
May
Finding the right math curriculum can be quite a challenge. There are so many different learning styles and teaching styles for math. For kindergarten and first grade, Hailey went to public school. I started homeschooling her in second grade and I used the math curriculum that was recommended with the boxed curriculum we bought. It wasn’t a bad math program, it just didn’t work for us. For third grade I found a math curriculum that is working well for us. The problem is that over the lasts few years Hailey has used several different math programs. I have been worrying that with all of the switching around there must be gaps in what she has learned.
I was given the chance to review the Adaptive Placement Test and Individualized Lesson Plan from A+ Interactive Math. The Adaptive Placement Test and Individualized Lesson Plan is a program that is meant to identify and close the gaps in learning math. This is exactly what I believe Hailey needs to make sure she isn’t missing anything after all the switching around we have done.
So, how does the Adaptive Placement Test and Individualized Lesson Plan work? It is an online program, so you will need to have internet access in order to use it. You will be able to use the program on a PC or a MAC. Your child can use the Adaptive Placement Test and Individualized Lesson Plan for up to 3 months to work towards closing the learning gaps in their math knowledge.
When you first sign up you pick a grade level for your child. Then there will be several different math topics to pick from. Your child will take a quiz on which ever topic you want to start with. You do not have to go in any particular order but I noticed that the first topics were the easiest and it got harder as we went along. After the quiz your child will get immediate results- either to say that he or she needs to work on that topic or that he or she is at grade level and doesn’t need anymore work.
If your child needs more work to be at grade level there will be individualized lesson plans for your child to use. There is a lesson and after the lesson there are interactive questions to make sure your child understands what was covered. Once all of the lessons in a topic are completed your child can go back and retake the quiz. If you don’t think your child needs to go over all of the lessons you are able to skip them or just have your child do the interactive questions at the end.
If your child doesn’t have any gaps in their math learning, A+ Interactive Math also has an option for a Family Math Package that might be a better fit for you.
So, how did we use the Adaptive Placement Test and Individualized Lesson Plan? I signed Hailey up for the third grade level and had her start taking the quizzes.
After the quiz is over the student sees a screen like this to show how he or she did. This particular quiz showed that Hailey got 15 questions correct, she missed 5 questions, and she skipped 3 questions. This was one where she did not score at a third grade level, so an individualized lesson plan was created for her to cover the concept that the quiz covered.
The online lesson plans are pretty short and the concept is covered very well in the short time. After Hailey watched her lesson plan she would complete the interactive questions. There were a few times that Hailey insisted she knew the material being covered in the lesson plan, so I let her skip the lesson and go right to the interactive questions. If she missed any of the interactive questions then I had her go back and watch the lesson.
As a parent, this is the dashboard that I see when I log in. I have the choices to review the placement tests, view Hailey’s reports, look at the lesson plans, or watch a tutorial. When I click on the student reports I can look at a progress report or a summary report.
This is Hailey’s progress report. It shows where the goal is for a third grader to score and then it shows where she scored on her quizzes. Right now she has surpassed the goal in all but measurements. She did not originally pass the goals though- this is what her progress looks like after she watched the lesson plans and the gaps she had were covered.
This is Hailey’s summary report. I can see how many times each quiz was taken and whether or not she is at grade level for each concept. We have not covered some concepts yet, so those still say NA.
The Adaptive Placement Test and Individualized Lesson Plan from A+ Interactive Math is a great program, which I would recommend. Hailey enjoyed using it- her review of the program is, “I liked taking the quizzes and doing the lessons with the questions.” If Hailey says she likes something related to math, then it must be doing a good job of making it interesting. Not only did she enjoy it, but she improved her math skills- and definitely closed some of the gaps she had.
Want to learn more about Interactive A+ Math:
La La Logic Review
Apr
Preschool has been a bit of a challenge for us this year. Last year when we did Tot School, Hunter begged to do school every day like Hailey did. This year has been completely different. He’s decided that he doesn’t like school and he doesn’t want to do it. Since he’s only three, I haven’t pushed anything and I just let him play. But, I’ve been looking for some ways to sneak school in, where he thinks he’s just playing but he’s really learning. So, when I was offered a chance to review La La Logic, a Preschool Curriculum that uses puzzles and activities to teach, I was super excited to give it a try!
Each week you have an agenda to work on with your child. This is an example of what week 2 of Hunter’s agenda looked like. Every week there is a brain challenge- this is the part where the child does games, puzzles, and other activities online. The games are based on concepts you might see in IQ testing for children. These games can be done on your computer (PC or Mac) or on your iPad or tablet. There is a suggested weekly schedule, but of course you can do what works well for you. The enrichment set listed on the schedule is something you download. Some weeks there will be games to play. There might be a story to read with activities to go with it. There could be a worksheet to practice writing, cutting, sorting, etc. You get can do all of the activities, some of the activities, or just one. At the end of the week you check off that the week is complete and add some notes if you want to. Everything is very clearly laid out and very easy to navigate.
These are some of the games that your child will see during the brain challenge.
These are some examples of the worksheets you might see when you download your activities for the week.
So, how did we use La La Logic?
We tried the brain challenge on my laptop at first, but that was hard for Hunter to do. Since he’s only 3 he doesn’t quite have the coordination yet. So, I had him try it on my tablet and that was perfect! He was able to click on the screen or swipe the screen to play the games and that was much easier for him. He really enjoyed all of the games. In this picture he is playing one of his favorites- he loves this one because when he gets the answer correct there is a little monkey on the screen that dances.
This is a screen shot of the monkey that Hunter loves. Hunter laughs every time the monkey dances.
This is an example of one of the enrichment activities that Hunter did. We cut out the different insects and then he matched them up with their shadows.
This was definitely Hunter’s favorite enrichment activity. I put out 5 different toys and had him look at the toys. Then I told him to go into his room.
I hid one of the toys and called him back out of his room. He came running out, so excited to see if he could figure out which character was missing. We played this game over and over!
Some activities I thought would be too hard for him to do, like this one. But, he surprised me and did it. He had to draw a line from each child to a balloon to see if there were enough balloons for all of the kids to have one.
Another example of an enrichment activity- each shape had to be colored a certain color. I colored in the key for him, but then he did the worksheet by himself.
Another fun activity we did was to practice showing different emotions- Hunter had a great time with that too 🙂
La La Logic is an amazing early learning program! I asked Hunter what he thought of it before I wrote my review and he said, “Let’s play it now!” So, for him to say that is huge- because if he thinks he is “doing school” he doesn’t want any part of it. He didn’t realize he was practicing his problem solving or critical thinking skills- he thought he was just playing games with mommy. Even the worksheets seemed like games to him.
I absolutely love La La Logic and I very highly recommend it!!
Want to see some more of La La Logic:
