Zirrly Super Beads {Crew Review}

Super Beads from Zirrly are fusable beads: you just spray them with water to fuse them together. We were given their Mega Pack for this review, and the kids were super excited when it came in the mail; I'm not sure that I've ever had so many "when will it get here" questions the whole time we've been with the crew!

A Civil War Foldout for our Book of Centuries {Crew Review}

I was excited when I looked through the Á La Carte products from Home School in the Woods for review this time and realized that The War Between the States Timline was included in the wide range of products that they offered crew members: Hero(11) is just starting to study the Civil War era, and I wanted to include it in our Book of Centuries as a foldout. They have a whole collection of timelines available, but this one is just perfect for where we're at.

There's so much going on in the war, and in the events both before and after, that I think that it'll be good to have a special fold-out, which will leave room for other world events from that time on the main pages of our timelines. We don't have a lot of wall space, so our timelines have always been in binders. This has a number of advantages, including that they last really well, and so we can accumulate a lot of the different things we read about into the timeline over years of reading, so I was excited to have a space-efficient way to include a lot of information about this important period of American history.

CursiveLogic and Art of Cursive {Crew Review}

For this review, CursiveLogic was kind enough to send us their CursiveLogic Quick-Start Pack, which has two parts: a student workbook and a webinar, as well as The Art of Cursive, which is an adult coloring book. The student workbook is designed for teaching someone who is new to cursive. The adult coloring book is an abbreviated course for adult learners or students with some cursive experience, with a very clever system of working the necessary practice into  lovely coloring sheets.

Magic Stix Washable Markers {Crew Review}

For this review we received a 24 pack of Magic Stix Washable Markers from The Pencil Grip, Inc. These markers are unusual because you can leave them uncapped for days, and they won't dry out. They come in a lovely selection of bright, beautiful colors, with a tough plastic "briefcase" carrier.

We've previously reviewed a set of 12 Magic Stix markers, and when we did that, I deliberately left one of the markers uncapped for hours while we were out, and it wrote just fine. It still does; at this point the kids have mixed the two sets of markers and I'm not confident that I could say which brown marker came with what set: both of them work very well. Considering that one of these markers was left out for hours with no cap, and that you can't tell the marker that's six weeks old from the one that's three months old, I'm pretty happy with the way that they color and the way that they've held up over time.

Drive Thru History: Bible History {Crew Review}

When we had the opportunity to review Drive Thru History Adventures, my first questions were about theological compatibility, as these are, I believe, Protestant-made materials. I was pleased to find that the Bible History Adventures materials draw on the shared Christian tradition, and that the theological variances between Protestants and Mormons are not an issue in any of the lessons we have done thus far. We have really enjoyed learning about the life of Christ, and the history and geography that relates to His ministry in the Holy Land.  Drive Thru History Adventures also has an Ancient History and an American History course (other Crew members are checking those out). But we've been quite enjoying the Bible History course.

Starfall Education Foundation {Crew Review}

We received a one-year subscription to the The Starfall Home Membership  from the Starfall Education Foundation for this review. The kids have loved the free portions of Starfall for years -- in fact, both the boys learned their letter sounds primarily from Starfall, and everyone has been curious about what's in the members-only sections of the site, so the kids were quite excited to find out that we'd be on this review, even the big kids. To make things even better, we got our log-in information just in time for Miss Kitty's 5th birthday!

UltraKey Online: Typing Instruction {Crew Review}

We had the opportunity to review UltraKey Online Family Subscription, which is published by Bytes of Learning. Using their Family Edition, we can have up to 7 family members to take typing lessons on a single subscription.

Setup of the account was a piece of cake. They sent a link with an activation code, and then you just follow the steps through several screens until you're finished. Once you've registered the main account, then you can set up dependent accounts for each of your students. The process is simple. You can create simple user names and easy passwords that maximize the independence of younger students, which I really appreciate.

Heirloom Audio: Wulf the Saxon {Crew Review}

We were excited when we got the opportunity to review Wulf the Saxon, and audio drama from Heirloom Audio Productions. We've had the chance to review In the Reign of Terror and Captain Bayley's Heir from them before, and found both of them to be excellent, so it was exciting to have a go at another of their titles.

I was particularly interested in hearing the Heirloom Audio version of Wulf the Saxon, because this is a story that we discovered about six months ago when Dragon(7) was learning about the Battle of Hastings, and we have listened to the Librivox version several times since then: it's become a favorite. I suspected that Heirloom Audio would bring something special to the story, and I was not disappointed. Although this version is much shorter - right about 2.5 hours, compared to just over 12 on Librivox - but the abridgement is done masterfully, and I found that all my favorite parts are included.

Our Family's Favorites: 2017 Homeschool Review Crew

It's the end of the year -- time flies when you're having fun, I guess! I find it pretty amazing that we've had a whole year with the Homeschool Review Crew. Like many Crew members, I thought I'd share our favorites. We were in on 28 reviews this year, and there were a bunch of great products!

For Dragon(7) and Miss Kitty(4) the favorite was a no-brainer: they loved the Thin Stix. They've had so much fun with these. There have been coloring sheets, cut-out shapes, big projects and little projects -- and even a few projects that snuck into the living room. When they say "Mess Free Creativity" they aren't kidding. So I don't mind that this paint looks and feels like markers: we haven't had any serious mishaps, not even when one of the kitchen chairs was used as a table and the paint that went over the edge of the paper wasn't discovered for around an hour. Even then, it just wiped off. I have to say: I'm impressed with these. They last well, and stay good to the very end of the marker.

Hero had a harder time choosing: he was torn between the Innovators Tribe Engineering course, and Doctor Aviation. And it really is a tough call. Doctor Aviation was one of the few courses that actually got finished. (We haven't had Innovators Tribe long enough, but I'm guessing it's going to get done, too.) Lots of times, once the review period was over, we'd keep going for a while, then peter out. But Doctor Aviation was different. That one fed his passion for planes, and he not only watched most or all of the videos (many on his own time, and not as part of required school activities), but he also read several of the books recommended. Heck, I read and very much enjoyed several of the books -- and I don't care much one way or the other about airplanes!

   
For me, I think that Latina Christiana was my favorite. Partly, this is because it was an answer to prayer: I've wanted this Latin course for a while now, but hadn't made the purchase. And it's a great addition to our regular line-up. And months after the original review, it's still working for us. Hero and Dragon are both using this program still, and we're moving slowly (Dragon is just a little younger than the recommended age, and it shows), but we're making steady progress. And although we're slow, I feel like we're laying a good solid foundation to work from. Getting the beginning of a new language thoroughly learned is so important, and well worth taking some time over. So we're working to mastery, of all the new grammar concepts and the new Latin vocabulary and everything else -- these beginning chapters have so much in them that is new, especially to Dragon, who has no previous grammar instruction to draw on. But he's getting there! And the kids continue to enjoy the work, which is a great bonus in a required subject!

So those are our top three: Thin Stix, Doctor Aviation, and Latina Christiana, with Innovators Tribe getting an honorable mention. I am really looking forward to seeing what the next year of reviews brings!

Odd Bits: Free Homeschooling Resources

::1::

I've been enjoying listening to a number of podcasts lately. They're great for while I'm working on laundry, dishes, or other similar tasks where my hands are busy but my mind is not. And they're free. Gotta love when some of the great minds in Classical Education will share their wisdom and learning for free!

• Schole Sisters: Poetic Bible Lessons
•  Your Morning Basket: Furnishing the Mind -- A Conversation on Recitation with Andrew Pudewa
• A Delectable Education: Recitation
• A Delectable Education: Drawing 

::2::

There's actually a lot of Charlotte Mason/Classical Homeschooling how-tos available for free. Ambleside Online (which I love) has a whole free curricula for K-12 education, and there is so much of the Good, the Beautiful, and the True in what they're suggesting. So many good books. The more that I use from their recommendations, the more I am grateful for their generosity. Plus, they have Miss Mason's volumes online for searching, reading, and studying, and a host of other articles and resources. You could get lost in there. If you want to give your children something different, then you have to spend time educating yourself, too. AO does a great job of supporting that process. I use a lot of their stuff.

::3::

But if you want something that's taking a specifically LDS approach to a Classical Education, then you might have a look at By Study and Faith: A Modern Charlotte Mason. They have a hymn rotation that focuses on both LDS hymns and also includes some less familiar ones from the larger Christian tradition; that are so many beautiful hymns out there to choose from. Each month, about mid-month, they post an article giving some of the background and history of the current hymn. Oh Say What is Truth was the hymn for October. The next thing they're working on is a scripture reading rotation that takes in, not only the Bible, but the full LDS canon, which will be pretty excited when it's ready to share! In the mean time, there's a number of other resources for how to implement Miss Mason's suggestions for gospel study within the LDS understanding of Christian theology. They've also got a growing collection of materials for studying various languages -- including some of the more obscure languages that our returned missionaries sometimes know, to assist in teaching those languages to our children, which is pretty cool. And that's all free, too.

::4::

Our main math spine is MEP (Mathematics Enhancement Programe), which is a full math curricula developed in the UK, also available for free. We started using it because it's free, but I'm really liking it (except that it's complected to switch into from Mequon, since the scope and sequence are very different). But it's really very good at teaching real mathematical thinking: in addition to helping kids get competent at working problems, it also trains them to think like mathematicians. Our first activity in MEP is a great example of some of the fun stuff, and the way that they emphasize patterns throughout. It remains my favorite thing we've done with MEP so far.

::5:: 

Librivox is a treasure trove of classic literature: free audio books, read by volunteers. And nearly all of the recordings we've listened to have been very nice. I love the variety of exotic accents that you hear, listening to different titles! We've listened to Pollyanna, Just David, a couple of Shakespeare plays, The Burgess Bird Book for Children, Children of Odin, By Pike and Dyke, quite a few retellings of Greek and Roman myths, the Declaration of Independence, Bastiat's essays, Pride and Prejudice... I don't even remember them all. The kids routinely ask me if they can use my old phone (Librivox has a mobile app) so they can re-listen to some of the great literature while they play. Uh... YES! Use my phone!

::6::

These are my favorite free resources, but they're hardly the only free things out there. You can click the button for more of the Homeschool Review Crew's favorite free links:

Innovators Tribe: Thinking Like an Engineer {Crew Review}

We were excited to receive the 2-year subscription to Thinking Like an Engineer from Innovators Tribe for this review. The course is designed for kids in 6th to 12th grade, so Hero(11) is on the young end of the spectrum, but he was very interested in learning more about engineering.




When you log in, there's a lot of information right at your fingertips. There's a 4-page pdf syllabus that outlines what you can expect your student to learn during the course.

The supplies needed for the course are all common household items, except for a small carpenters' level, which is not expensive at all, and a great addition to the toolbox that we're helping Hero stock for when he leaves home. Other than that, it's paper, card stock, scissors, and tape: no hidden costs in supplies, which is great.

The user interface is intuitive and easy to navigate: your menu is in a sidebar on the left, and the class content is one the right. Each time you log in, it asks if you want to start with the slide you left off with.

The very first project turned out to be quite challenging for Hero -- and for me, once I started to help him. Part of this is that he misunderstood the directions -- and I didn't double check on him until after we had struggled with a much more difficult project. What we were doing was building a five foot tall tower, built from only 4 sheets of paper and a foot of masking tape. But he thought it was only an inch. Ouch. That's a big difference. We worked on this considerably longer than the 1 hour that it was scheduled to take. Note to self: I still need to keep a closer eye on the directions for "independent" work!

I'd budgeted 1-2 hours per week for this course, so the misunderstanding in the instructions kept us scratching our heads for a couple of weeks. He first tried a round tower, built from rolled papers. But with so little tape, they wouldn't stay together, much less stand up.

He tried a few other things, and then I started helping: I thought that triangles might work better than tubes, so he cut pages and folded them into various types and sizes of triangles. He's really been a trooper, and I feel a bit bad for not thinking to check the instructions a little bit sooner... oops. I guess that part's also going to be a learning experience! The triangles worked better than the tubes: we got a couple different towers over three feet. But in the end, they were too unstable to do with only 1 inch of tape helping us hold things together: it meant almost all our joints had no tape at all.

By this point, we'd spent a number of hours on the project, and the post it note that I put on the doorframe marking where the tower was supposed to reach seemed a little bit mocking, so I started searching online to see what kinds of resources there are for this kind of project -- because it still hadn't occurred to me to check the instructions. But I'm only slightly sorry, because there's been some good lessons in persistence, in resilience, and a whole lot of hard work that's gone into the project so far, and those are character lessons that far outweigh any "being behind" that I might be worrying about. Plus, with a generous 2-year subscription, I'm not sweating over if we'll be done before I have to pay for a renewal: it's ok if the project takes longer than anticipated. It's ok if my student needs to grow into the requirements of the course as he goes along, or takes a little longer than anticipated. There is room for exploration, should something be extra interesting, and still be able to finish. And, if you have multiple students using the course, it's ok if they don't work at exactly the same pace. They estimate that there is about 30 hours of course work, so we still have plenty of time to complete this before our subscription runs out, even if we have several projects that run long.

Once we make it into Unit 2, there's some design software that's included in the course, and instruction on how to use it to "get ideas out of your head". I'm looking forward to when we get to that point in the course; I think that Hero is going to love that aspect of things.

There's a great balance between hands-on projects, instruction on what engineering is, introduction to the tools of the trade, and examples from real life of feats of engineering and a whole section of units on "Grand Engineering Challenges of the World". Even the paper tower project that has taken us so long has a little bit of information about real-world engineering feats: the blue tower on the graphic is the Burj Khalifa, the tallest tower in the world. He tells just a little bit about it as an introduction to the paper tower project.

---

A first condition of this vitalising teaching is that all the thought we offer to our children shall be living thought; no mere dry summaries of facts will do; given the vitalising idea, children will readily hang the mere facts upon the idea as upon a peg capable of sustaining all that it is needful to retain.
-Charlotte Mason 2:277

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This course is full of the vitality and enthusiasm of the instructor, Mr. Kroeplin. And he does a great job of illuminating the relationship between the instructional work, the hands-on projects, and real life. Because of our misunderstanding of the instructions, Hero's not very far into the course yet, but I think it's going to remain something that he looks forward to seeing on his schedule each week all year as we work through it. 

To read more reviews of Thinking Like an Engineer, or to read about Thinking Like an Architect, and see what other members of the Homeschool Review Crew thought of these materials, click the banner below:

Thin Stix Creativity Pack {Crew Review}

Earlier this year, back in May, we got to review the Thin Stix Classic 6 Pack, which we loved. So we were really excited to be able to review the Thin Stix Creativity Pack from The Pencil Grip, Inc. I wish that I had a picture of Miss Kitty's face when I told her that we were getting All The Colors, because she was so excited. She may have been the most excited, but Hero(11) and Dragon(7) also used them, though I didn't remember to get pictures of all the projects that turned up in the past couple of weeks. We got several pictures, though.

We all had fun with these. I made a thing:

And Miss Kitty(4) copied my rainbow and made a thing of her own; I particularly like the clouds that she added, layering over the blue:

We found, this time, that sharpies and pens will write over the top of the paint, which opens up a number of mixed media options that bring things out of being "just" toddler art tools, and make them more appealing for bigger kids and grown-ups: you can do larger sections of your piece in marker, and then use other things on top of the paint, like my daughter did with this cute little heart that she made for me:

The Miss Kitty and Dragon both made a couple of little shapes for me. These were fun because they were sometimes experimenting with using multiple colors, and with the paints on colored papers, and we got some cool effects as the paints would mix and blend slightly, and as they interacted with the background colors on the paper.

Thin Stix are paint, but the kids still think of them as markers. Which is ok; I think that you'd have to work pretty hard to make a mess with these. We actually managed to use up one of the old ones, and they stayed mess-free, even when the kids pulled the screw-up end out of the marker itself to get the last little bit of paint out... and even then, they didn't make a mess. Which is why, when I found Miss Kitty using them in the living room on one of my couches, I wasn't too worried. I told her to take it to the table, but my furniture was just fine. Not too bad, for paint! We know from last time that they clean nicely off of hard surfaces like wooden chairs, even if they'd dried for a while.

 We had a great time with these, and discovered a couple of new things that you can do with them -- plus, having more colors is always more fun. They've remained very popular through the whole month or so that we had them for this review -- and the old pack, like I said, has stayed popular enough that one of the colors got used up completely. These are a great addition to our art box.


To read more reviews of the Thin Stix Creativity Pack, and see what kind of projects other members of the Homeschool Review Crew did, click the banner below:

Pencil Grips and Safety Scissors {Crew Review}

For this review, we were given The Ultra Safe Safety Scissors and The 3 Step Pencil Grip Training Kit both from The Pencil Grip, Inc. They have a number of preschool-oriented products; I reviewed their Thin Stix earlier this year.

When the scissors and pencil grips came, I got out the scissors first. Our reading curriculum has some activities that require cutting, but Peanut(4) hadn't realized they were cutting pages, so when I asked her to choose a page, she's never picked one of those before. She was delighted as soon as she realized she'd be cutting things out and building a hat; she loves that kind of thing. She loves the new scissors, too, because she thinks they are "girl scissors".

However, the guide makes them really awkward to use. I'd estimate that it at least doubled the time that it took her to do the cutting, compared to regular scissors. Getting the paper to line up with the scissors correctly is already a huge task for small hands, and that huge guide makes it much more difficult. My daughter really struggled with using them, and when she was cutting out her squares - a relatively simple task that she's been able to handle for a long time now - turning that last corner was extremely difficult. Also, her cuts were not as nice with the safety scissors: because it's so hard to control, it left a jagged edge, which is not her usual at all. I can't remember any of my kids ever cutting themselves with regular kid scissors, and certainly they've never done serious damage to themselves, so I feel like the big awkward guide, the yellow gizmo in between the handles that keeps them from coming open properly when you use it, it's all overkill on the "safety".



You can see the contrast between how she handles her regular scissors vs. the safety scissors in this movie, where I had her use them both on a single project. She's working hard, and it's taking considerably longer than the regular ones, but with far less accuracy. After a few days, she didn't reach for these cool "girl scissors" anymore, and I don't blame her.

The second product that we were given to try out was the 3 Step Pencil Grip Training Kit. These are kind of cool. I was expecting them to be the small compact pencil grips that we used to buy at the school store for a quarter, but these are way cooler than that.

They're soft.
They're squooshy.
If you take them off the pencil and squeeze them, they almost double as a fidget toy -- but they don't even make annoying noises. And they seem to stand up to that kind of abuse pretty well. And also to the inevitable on-again-off-again can't leave it on the pencil goofiness of young children. Ours changed pencils a lot, but they didn't get misshapen. And they still fit tightly (but not too tight), even after all the abuse they've had.

You can use them in a particular order, to help train the very young, because they make it downright difficult to hold the pencil in the wrong way. I didn't worry about that because all my kids have passable pencil grips. And also these were all but snatched from my hands. Cool shapes. Bright colors. New toys... what's not to love?

They come on (cheap) pens, but we do all our work in pencil so I got rid of them. One of them died in the process (it just pulled right apart, pieces flew; one got lost, and I threw it away), but the grips are much better quality than the pens. My 7yo had a hard time keeping track of what side was "up", so I used a sharpie to give him a dot. It worked pretty well, it stayed on, and it didn't smear.

There might have been shenanigans. Possibly. Shocking, I know.
Who doesn't need three pencil grips on the same pencil?

I like the grips. I don't like the scissors at all. But the grips are fun, and I think they'd probably be useful if you have a child that needs help learning a good way to hold their pencils. If you want to see what other families in the Homeschool Review Crew thought of these products, click the banner:

Super Teacher Worksheets {Crew Review}

We were given an Individual Membership from Super Teacher Worksheets for this review. It's a rather large database of worksheets for teachers and homeschoolers, so the first thing that I did was to browse around. The layout is nice, and it's easy to navigate. Because they are so large, they've created a "filing cabinet" feature, where you can save the worksheets that look interesting.

I browsed the math sheets first, since that is where I anticipate spending the most time. One thing that I noticed is that they have resources for multiple English speaking nation's currencies, not just the US Dollar. You can see a partial list of the topics they cover there on the left of this screenshot, as well as the list of currencies they can accommodate there in the center. I used several. Some of them are pretty ordinary "work the problems" pages. The one to the left is a cool one, where my son was supposed to find numbers that add to 10. This is an area that I have been wanting to have him do a little extra practice, beyond what is in our regular math program, so I was glad to see this sheet. He didn't really follow the directions very well, but it ended up working well anyway.

They have a nice variety of sheets, so I was able to find things that are good for all of the kids. Peanut(4) can work on number formation, and Dragon(7) on his math facts.

Dragon's math facts sheet is one that I especially like, because it's one that I generated, specifically targeted to where he needs to work. They have a nice interface, once again very user-friendly, and you can save the sheets you make. For him, I'm using the basic addition generator, but there is one for all 4 operations: addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, in both basic  math facts and more advanced problems, as well as bingo cards, flash cards, abc order exercises, and some quiz generators. I did have some issues with generated worksheets printing incorrectly, without the final column, but since we are not using these as timed tests, it's not at all a big deal for my purposes. 

I especially like the variety of worksheets that Super Teacher has in the more advanced arithmetic. I recently switched the kids into MEP for their main math program. This transition has been very smooth for my younger kids, but Hero(11) is old enough that the differences in when things are taught is substantial, and we keep finding things that MEP assumes have been taught already that our old program had not yet addressed. Super Teacher Worksheets makes filling in these gaps easy. The most recent example was order of operations work. MEP had a short section that looks like a quick review of something covered earlier, but it was the first time that Hero and I had really discussed the standard order of operations, and he needed more than just a quick review to feel good about it. So I grabbed a couple of extra sheets from Super Teacher, and got him up to speed. Easy peasy.

One thing that I'm looking to include more of this year is logic puzzles for my oldest. Super Teacher Worksheets has quite a few topics that relate to this. Not all of them are exactly what I'm looking for, but there are some options that relate to that general idea. Each section has a listing, like this one, that shows the different types of worksheet they have for that category, which makes navigating the extensive collection quite easy.

Their "filing cabinet" where you can save worksheets that you want to be able to find again quickly is a really cool feature. It allowed me to spend some time early on picking out likely looking worksheets, and then come and print them at the time that I needed them without having to dig for them again. It's easy to tell what I'm looking at, without needing to click on every single worksheet, too, because they are labeled with their various categories and descriptions. This kind of efficiency is very important to me, as I find that time that I spend on the computer during the school day generally tends to slow us down and derail our schedule. The filing cabinet lets me just go in and print them out quickly and easily. It's a great feature.

I used mostly math worksheets, but in many ways I barely scratched the surface of what's actually available: they have phonics, handwriting (print and cursive), spelling lists, various literacy units, science units, social studies worksheets dealing with the 50 States, explorers, maps, Native Americans, timelines, history for the US, UK, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa, and a host of other things.

I suspect that there's something for just about everyone in this sizable database of worksheets. They've been quite useful for us.



If you want to read more reviews of Super Teacher Worksheets, and see what other Homeschool Review Crew families did with it, click the banner below.