TOS Review: Marshall Publishing

When we were sent Lots & Lots of Fire Songs & Safety Tips to review, I was excited and I knew the kids would be, too. The boys, especially Daniel, are fascinated by firemen, fire trucks, and anything fire. Kaytie loves safety information, and Abbie loves music. :) It seemed like such a win/win.
We received a DVD and a book, both put out by Marshall Publishing & Promotions Inc. The book, Lots and Lots of Fire Trucks and Firefighters, was cool all by itself. It is a thick book with glossy pages and is filled with engaging photos of firetrucks, firemen and all their equipment. It has facts about fire fighting: the people, the equipment, the history. It has poems, recipes, songs, website links, and lots and lots of tips on fire safety. Even my not-quite readers pored over this book!
The DVD is divided into two parts: a 12 minute "classroom section" to teach a quick lesson in fire safety; and a 30 minute segment of "learning fun", which means songs and safety tips and a lot of video of real firemen and real firetrucks fighting real fires. The video was definitely for the younger set. My seven year old boy did heave some dramatic sighs and make some smart-alecky comments. However, he did not leave the room. ;) Honestly, they all seemed to enjoy it. Even our Basset Hound climbed up on the couch and watched it with us! We have been over fire safety before, so I don't think they learned anything new. This video did reinforce the information, though, as well as stirring up some questions that we discussed. For young children, I believe this would be a great way to introduce fire safety in a fun and totally non-frightening way.

Kaytie's opinion of the video was: "I liked it because I have been hearing lots of fire tips and it helped me remember them. I liked the songs. 
Nate's opinion of the video was: It was way too childish. I did like it a little bit though because I liked the opening theme song and the 911 song. I especially liked when they built a fire truck.
Daniel's opinion of the video was: I liked the music and the songs and the firetrucks! My favorite part was when the firetrucks put out the fires. I liked when they built the fire truck! Now I know how to make a fire truck.
Abbie's opinion of the video was: I loved it so much! My favorite part was the firemen climbing up the ladders and they rescued the children. I liked the singing.

For my homeschooling readers, Marshall Publishing has offered a huge discount. If you use the code TOSC1 at checkout, you can purchase this book/DVD combo for $19.95 instead of $49.90!

We were also sent a complimentary copy of a DVD about George Washington Carver. This is a 30 minute biography of his life and his work, a very informative and enjoyable video! Entering the code TOSC1 at checkout will get you a %15 discount when you purchase this DVD.

To read what other reviews had to say, check out the TOS blog.

We were given this product for free for the purpose of this review. All opinions are our own.

TOS Review: Say Anything Family

A few days ago, I shared with you about a fun game sent to us from Northstar Games. They also sent us a game called Say Anything Family. I think this game was even more fun than than the other one!

In Say Anything, everyone gets a dry erase board, marker, and two tokens that color-coordinate with their boards. Each player takes a turn being the "judge". The judge reads aloud a question (for example: what is the best breakfast cereal? Or what is the best thing about living in the country?). Everyone writes an answer to the question. Then the judge uses the "selectomatic 6000" (a spinner with each color of board on it) to secretly choose her favorite answer. This choice is hidden from the other players because they must guess what it is. They guess by placing their tokens on the boards. After all the tokens are placed, the judge reveals their choice and scoring begins. The first player to 15 points wins.

This is a quick and easy game. The box says "for ages 8 and up", but really anyone who can write can play. My kids are between the ages of 4 and 8 and they all have a great time playing this game.We did alter it somewhat, in that, instead of letting the judge choose their favorite, every one voted for their favorite then the judge spun the "selectomatic 6000" leaving the answer to be chosen by chance. My kids have a difficult time not being biased sometimes and I just felt better taking the temptation out of their hands altogether.

I like that this game stimulates creative thinking, encourages writing in a low pressure situation and provides an opportunity to just sit around with the kids and have fun. Some of their answers were hilarious. As in "the hardest thing about being a kid is... parents"; "what am I most likely to be doing in 20 years... taking out the trash."; "what technology don't we have that I wish we did... a private helicopter". I was highly entertained, they were puzzled by my laughter, and a good time was had by all.

And as usual, I asked the kids to share their opinions.

Kaytie: I really like it because it is a fun game. I liked that we had our own tokens and could vote for what we thought was best. I mostly voted for myself and not the other persons.

Nate: I thought it was really cool because of all the things you could think about. I liked the questions, they were funny. 

Daniel: I like it very well. I like playing it.I thought the questions were kinda awkward (Mom wanted a definition of awkward, so he explained) because it was hard to think of answers. 

Abbie: Yes, I liked it. I liked spinning the spinner. And I liked getting points. I had fun writing the answers. 

You can also read other reviews at the TOS Crew blog.

This game was sent to us for free for the purpose of this review. Our opinions are honestly our own. 

School Update

It appears as though my blog has become a review blog, and I hate that. I have tons of ideas for things to write about, but they never seem to get past the idea stage. So I'm just going to take a minute and give a quick report on how school is going for us. Nothing polished or thought out, (I'm not even going to link anything!) just a fast post to say, "Hey, there is more to our lives than reviews!"
We are "officially" in our ninth week of school for this term. And the good news is that we are just about caught up in every subject but Geography. We are two weeks behind in that. At the end of the term, I will make the decision to either catch it up during vacation or just not do those two countries.
Kaytie and Nate have started multi-digit multiplication and I am wondering if it is going to be the death of us. Nate loves it and makes up his own problems to solve in his spare time, but he is not terribly good at remembering the steps. Kaytie is somewhat good at it, but she hates it. The irony of life, no?
Daniel and Abbie are doing awesome at their reading. Daniel is charging through blends and reading whole sentences without sounding out any words. Abbie has stopped sighing over books and will often sound out in her head and then say the whole word. We are still using I See Sam books, but I wish I could find something similar that moved Daniel through phonics a little more quickly. I recently discovered that they both think I See Sam books are not the same as "real" books and neither believe they can read a "real" book, so I have checked out easy readers from the library and have been making them read them to me.
I've started Daniel in All About Spelling. He is pleasantly surprised that is is simple, easy, and almost fun. I think Abbie could handle it, as well, but I'm not going to have her do it because of the time factor. They both already spend more time "doing school" than Kaytie and Nate did at their ages and I think there is plenty of time to learn to spell. I see no need to impose such work on my not-quite-five year old. I only started Daniel because he is into "creative writing" on his own, and I don't want him developing bad spelling habits.
Everyone is loving science (Apologia's Human Anatomy) and learning so much about their bodies! I'm glad we skipped Zoology and Botany to do Anatomy this year. :)
Kaytie and Nate finished up their Rod and Staff Grammar (level 3) and rather than jumping straight into level 4, we are reading and working our way through Grammarland. They are having a blast. They were a little annoyed that I only read one chapter at a time and won't read the whole book in one sitting.
I am so very pleased with Handwriting Without Tears' Cursive curriculum! Kaytie is working her way through it, her handwriting is good, and she is doing it 99% on her own. Awesome! Actually, buying a handwriting curriculum for everyone was just a good decision. Everyone is benefiting and I don't have to do any work but correcting mistakes. That is worth the money spent!
Everyone's favorite subject this year is Geography. We are traveling around the world: reading, mapping, discussing culture, and, above all, cooking. They love cooking.
My favorite this year is Latin. Visual Latin was the perfect next step for us and I'm so happy to have found it!
I had Kaytie and Nate doing Dance Mat Typing and they both learned a lot, but now they are done and I don't know what to do next... maybe some "typing copywork"?
Daniel is amazing me with his mad math skills and his love for numbers. I wish I had used Math U See for Kaytie and Nate at this age and managed not to kill their love for math. Neither of them are bad at it, they just have never completely gotten over that year and half of Horizons. Daniel, on the other hand, is effortlessly memorizing addition facts and enjoying every minute!
Kevin is doing a good job learning to write his name. He is enjoying coloring and puzzles and gluing. He and Gracie and Daniel and Abbie are all thoroughly enjoying the Before Five in a Row books! So far, Caps for Sale has been their favorite. They rolled on the floor laughing every reading.
So, I think that is everything, and if not, it is good enough for now. We have four more weeks before we get a nice long vacation. Maybe I'll get a chance to blog a lot more then!

TOS Review: Wits and Wagers Family

My kids love to play games, especially when they require a grown-up. So they were quite excited when I pulled out Wits and Wagers Family which Northstar Games sent us to review for the TOS Crew.

This is an easy game to play... one player reads a question (How many colors of Fruit Loops are there? How tall, in feet, is the tallest Pyramid?) and everyone writes the answer down on their color-coded dry erase board. Then, using cute little color-coded Meeples, everyone votes for which answer they think is most likely to win. The winning answer is the one closest to the correct answer without going over. Extra points are given for voting for the correct answer. The first player to 15 points wins.

This is a fun game to play. Since it requires no real skill or knowledge, even the youngest players can feel a part. The game is for "3 or more players, ages 8 and up", but my four and five year olds easily grasped the idea and gleefully wrote down wild, exotic answers that sometimes even won! The challenge was to keep the seven and eight year olds from over-thinking and agonizing over their answers, trying to get the "right" one.
Nate wanted to know how this was an "educational" game. He assumed it should be, since this was a TOS review, but felt he was having too much fun to be learning anything! Strictly speaking, it is not "educational" so I refrained from pointing out to him that they were exercising their reasoning skills, working on their number writing, practicing co-operation, and strengthening their ability to follow directions.

There was lots of giggling and happy faces as we played Wits and Wagers Family, so I believe this game is a hit in our house. But I asked their opinions anyway.

Kaytie said: It was really fun and I had fun playing it. It was a little hard because you have to write numbers instead of just words. My favorite part about this game was the Meeples. 

Nate said: It was very interesting because some of the questions we knew and some of the questions we didn't. I liked it. My favorite part was the question about the color of Fruit Loops. 

Daniel said: I liked the game. I liked beating Kaytie. My favorite part was when I beat Kaytie. 

Abbie said: It was fun. My favorite part was drawing the numbers. I liked the Meeples, especially the pink ones. I liked it when I got an answer right! 

To read what other TOS families thoughts and experiences were, check out the TOS blog.

This game was sent to us free for the purposes of this review. All opinions are our own!

TOS Review: Educating the WholeHearted Child

One of the hardest jobs I have ever had is being a mom. The only job that is harder is being a homeschool teacher. Don't get me wrong, I love what I do, and it is very rewarding, but sometimes, no, most times it is so hard to know how to be a good parent... there are so many decisions, so many questions of how do I handle this behavior? How do we train, disciple, encourage? How do we raise loving, Godly, grace-filled men and women who are willing to follow where ever He leads?

So it was such a blessing to receive a copy of Educating the WholeHearted Child by Clay and Sally Clarkson from Apologia to review for the TOS Crew. I didn't know much about the Clarksons before receiving this book. I had heard them speak once, but that was about it. I can tell you now, though, that their heart is for homeschooling families. Their love for God and their commitment to strong families are very evident throughout this book. 

Educating the WholeHearted Child is an enormous book, and I have to admit that I have not read all the way through it. It isn't an "easy read". It is more along the lines of a book that you read slowly, mulling over the information, highlighting as you go. Then you re-read it. It is full, full, full of a wealth of encouragement, inspiration, instruction, and just practical ideas taken straight from Scripture on how to disciple your children for the Lord. 

I'm not good at book reviews. I am not the type to share with you an overview, hitting all the highlights and main topics in a book. I can only tell you that this book has the stated goal of "writing about homeschooling by the Book and the challenge to live by faith by the biblical design, principles, and vision of a wholehearted Christian home." and that going by what I have read, it does just that. It has given me practical, Biblical tools to use to not just be a "good mom", not just to raise and educate successful kids, but to disciple my kids into a true relationship with their Father. I can only tell you that I am thoroughly enjoying this book. That I would strongly recommend it not only to new homeschooling parents, but also to "middle-aged" parents like me, and "old" experienced parents as well! :)

Fortunately, you don't just have to take my word for it, you can read the table of contents, a sample chapter and other TOS reviews.

A copy of this product was sent to me free for the purpose of this review. All opinions are my own. I am not obligated to give a positive review, just an honest one.

TOS Review: Always Ice Cream

The thing about getting to be a part of the TOS crew is that we don't just get curriculum to educate us, sometimes we get curriculum/ educational items that make us salivate in anticipation and dance with glee when we finally get our sticky little fingers on them. These exciting items are not necessarily the same for each member of the family, but we have all gotten some. For Kaytie, this eagerly awaited, delightfully loved, thoroughly enjoyed product was Always Ice Cream.

This is a website for girls ages 7 to 12. Built by homeschooling families, it is educational, but fun. The games include geography, typing, science, language arts, math, music, and Bible quizzes... just to name a few. The "currency" on Always Ice Cream is, naturally, scoops. :) Kaytie earns scoops for certain games and then can spend those scoops on other games, or on decorating her "house" and buying eggs. The eggs hatch into animals for her to keep as pets. She takes care of them by buying food or toys which also costs scoops (this has the added benefit of teaching her to budget her "money") or by cuddling with them, giving them a bath, playing with them, taking them for a walk, or even hiring a friend to babysit. She can make or buy (with scoops) virtual items that she can then resell in her "store" for scoops. Winning the games also earns her "awards" which display on her profile for all her friends to see.

Always Ice Cream is a very carefully moderated online community. The girls can be friends with other members of the site, "visit" their "houses", and buy things (with scoops) from their stores, but, unless they are friends in real life, all of their communication is monitored. Reports are sent regularly to the parent by email. You can read all about their safety features here.
Kaytie loves playing the games, decorating her house, watching videos on how to make cupcakes, and taking quizzes. I love that she is learning while she plays, that I can monitor her both through the emails and by logging in on my parent account, and that I have control over her account. I can choose to turn off the community feature. I can choose the categories of games that she plays, see her public profile, and even gift her scoops for whatever I please!

Although Always Ice Cream is for girls, my other three kids, including, especially, the boys, are always hanging at her elbows whenever she plays there. In other words, it is an educational website that has been a HUGE hit in my house. Kaytie has even tried to convince friends and relatives (of all ages) that they need to be on Always Ice Cream themselves!

In her own words, Kaytie says: I like this game because it teaches me a lot of things while I am having fun, too. It can help me memorize some of my math facts and it will tell me if my answer is wrong and will make me start back over on the level. It will show me the correct answer so that I can learn it. It will also give me the question again so that I can learn from my mistakes. And sometimes it will scramble the answers so that it helps me exercise my brain.
I like it because I am a very artistic person and it has a place where I can buy things and color them. I LIKE that part!

Kaytie loves Always Ice Cream, but if you are still not convinced, you can read more reviews on the TOS Crew Blog.

We were given a free lifetime subscription to Always Ice Cream for the purposes of this review. We were not compensated in any other way. Kaytie's opinion is solely her own, as is mine.

TOS Review: Visual Latin

We love learning Latin around here, so when we were asked to review Visual Latin, we were interested and excited. We have attempted and given up on several programs, so we consider ourselves a little bit of experts on what we like and don't like about Latin curriculum.
Visual Latin was created by a couple of homeschooling dads who think everyone should be able to read Latin, and that it should be fun to learn and not a chore. It is a video curriculum, so the parent does none of the teaching. It comes with worksheets that you print so it is reusable for however many kids you have. Their website tells you how it works and, really, everything you need to know about it, including sample lessons, so I'll just tell you about our experience with it.

You can buy DVDs, or go the cheaper option and buy the download. For the purposes of this review, I was given the download option. The downloading was lengthy and awkward, but I honestly believe that was because my Internet has gotten incredibly lazy lately. In the end, it wasn't too bad, it took a couple of hours. We were sent 10 lessons, covering topics such as: being verbs; predicate nominative and adjective; gender; declensions; numbers; accusative; and so forth. I know that sounds scary, but remember, you don't do ANY of the teaching! The two kids I had use this curriculum have had basic grammar (they know what nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs are) and neither had any trouble understanding what he was saying or where he was going. Each lesson includes the video, and PDFs for worksheets, and answers to the worksheets. I really liked that the lessons were divided into three parts: A, B and C. This made it easy for me to do a lesson a week, and only do a little bit each day. It also made each day's work shorter and easier for the kids. Not to mention that they retained the information better! There is a worksheet for each section so the kids get hands-on practice for what they just learned, which just so happens to be perfect for the way my kids learn.
Now, one thing I have to mention is that everyone talks about how funny the teacher is. My kids have weird senses of humor, so they were not amused by his jokes. They really didn't get them. And honestly, they only knew he was joking whenever I laughed. But that is really more about their unique personality and less about how entertaining the guy actually was. Because he did hold their interest and keep them engaged the entire lesson. I really liked that he talked directly to them. It blew their minds a couple of times when he asked a question, they answered, and he told them they were right. They were not quite sure if he could hear them or not!

So, to sum up. I liked this curriculum a LOT. I am so happy we got the chance to review it and I will be buying the next ten lessons when we are finished with these ten.
I asked the kids to give you their opinions, and they said,

Kaytie: I like it because it is easy to understand what he is talking about. If it is like a name or something that we haven't studied, he will say the real word so that we don't have to learn it before we can do the worksheet. And we have translation boxes. (Translation: she understood him; he didn't expect them to know vocabulary they hadn't been taught; and there were vocabulary boxes on the worksheets so they could focus on the grammar without getting hung up on translation.)
Nate: I don't like it, there is too much writing. But I like watching the videos, he is funny. I would only recommend this to moms whose kids like to write. (The writing bit was my fault. It would be easy to do the worksheets orally, if your kid, like mine, hates to write. Doing it orally would also save on printing costs...)

For other TOS Crew members' opinions, click here.

I was given this download free for the purpose of this review. I received no other compensation and the opinions given are honestly and totally our own.