Category:

Essentials in Schooling at Home: Reviews

8/13/2014

I was going to say that this aspect of homeschooling might not be essential to everyone, but I guess it is. Whether you review or not, reviews are helpful in planning out your curriculum isn't it? :)

I am part of the TOS homeschool crew. Been doing it now for 2 years. I find it at times terribly hectic, sometimes immensely disappointing when I don't get a review I want due to location, not needed, not enough time or whatever, I overall find it hugely helpful in our homeschool journey.

BUT.. It's also helpful to you my readers. (and to just homeschoolers in general as they research products for use in their own homes).

So as I think about reviews, I thought I'd take some time to talk about the pros and cons of doing reviews, and show you some of our favourites.

Doing reviews, the pros and cons

The positives of doing reviews:

access to products I might not have otherwise considered
teamwork
sharing my opinion with others when I like a product
being able to show another angle to using a product that others might not have considered
being pushed to be a better reviewer/writer/designer
delight from student involved
not having to pay for good quality materials

The negatives of doing reviews:

being tied down to a specific product whether it works for you or not for a four to six weeks.
sharing opinions that are less than positive
working hard to write things well
resistance from the student involved
missing out on reviews you'd like to do based on location
getting picked for reviews you'd rather not do

I have been so blessed by the crew. I've met some crazy nice people. Had some lovely on-line chats, and been introduced to possibilities I hadn't considered before. It's a great part of my life.    Though at times it is hectic like when I have four reviews due in a week and half and I'm like ACK!!!   How I am going to do this...but God is good and he always makes a way. :)

Reviews that have been a blessing to us.

My son's favourite reviews

Chess. Hands down. Chess is it. He loves it and frequently takes his board with him.   In fact he's even downloaded a chess game on to his tablet so he can play with friends in the car. :) Makes my heart smile.
His second favourite?   Veritas Press.   I frequently hear.. "MOM! Can I do my history now?"

Mom's favourites

I have to agree with my son, I enjoy Veritas Press. I think I'm learning as much as he is, though I can't sit with him or he wants my help, so I just make sure I'm in the area. :)

Then comes let's see.. the helpful learning ones... Reading Kingdom. My son SO enjoyed this program and he learned to read better so it's a double win.

Birdcage Press was just fun for us. Playing games and learning about history. Being inspired to look things up when we wanted to know more.

Maestro Classics. Good music and a story.. need I say more?

Bible study Guide for all ages. We still use this. Good product. My son learns more and this is a good thing.

Science4Us.com was a good fit in teaching my lad some more independence in choices. He was disappointed when he finally made it through the program. "MOM! Why can't they have more for me???"

Gryphon House inspired a co-op class that eight children enjoyed. We made a variety of products and it worked well for us.

It's good to explore new mediums and ways of going art as you learn about peoples around the world.

Being part of the crew has definitely been of benefit to this household. If you have a blog and would like to increase the opportunities within your household, perhaps it's something you would like to do as well. Think on it anyways. :) Opportunities open up i the fall.

LOTS of us are taking part in a five day blog hop on "back to school" check us out won't you? Perhaps this list will get you started.

Amy @ Counting Change... Again (your decision)
Shawna @ Tenacity Divine
Adena @ AdenaF (give some credit)
Jenn @ Simblissity Cottage
Emilee @ Pea of Sweetness (keeping children on task)
Kathy @ Kathys Cluttered Mind
Sara @ Embracing Destiny

Other posts in this series

BOOKS.
The three P's.

Review - Gryphon House, Global Art

7/26/2013

Art, now who doesn't like art? Seriously, most everyone must like art in some form or other. AND I have a artsy lad. He loves to create and tell stories and make things fit. He likes to decorate and draw. It is just part of who he is. So when this review came along I thought WOOT WOOT, this is right up the alley for my boy child.

Vendor: Gryphon House
Product: Global Art: Activities, Projects, and Inventions from Around the World
Age range: K-5
Price: $16.95

From the book: Global art is an activity book filled with over 130 art ideas from around the world. Some are based on customs, some on celebrations, others on discoveries or inventions and still others on native materials used in open artistic expression. ..... The activities leave room for the artist to use imagination and exploration, keys to creativity.

How Did We Use this Book?

Well.... quite frankly we used it to make art. We didn't have much rhyme or reason. I started the book with the brilliant idea of combining it with a 60 day study of the world through focus on the family, but that fell to the wayside when the craft we were interested in doing proved to be rather difficult. (thereby showing us the importance of understanding the levels 1-3) We still haven't completed the first attempt since it takes a lot of thinking through, but we will complete it at some point. (It's just sitting there in the back of our heads).

Here my son is working on the Level 3 art project called Dreamtime.

My lad enjoyed making these tiny minions. You can't see the detail, but he made faces on them to show the differences in them. He actually had to show me what I was doing wrong as my first try as ... well...let's just say reading instructions is something I occasionally fail to do well. :) Level one work.

The minions are showing off our handiwork here. :) (level 2)

We learned there is a definite skill difference between the levels. Level one, as long as you follow instructions well, these projects are fairly easy to do.   Level two, follow instructions, but be prepared to learn a new skill that's not too difficult to pick up.   Level three.... if doing specific art is a new skill, many of these projects will offer you a bit of a challenge.

Each project comes with a short write up on why it was included.    This section is called "did you know?"      For the level one project the write up said "North America represents the "melting pot of the world," a place where people from all over the world can live together, joining in work and play and sometimes building new families whose cultures come together as one."    The craft we did fit in really well with that description.    The Dreamtime one told us about an artist named Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri who did Dreamtime Painting.

The book is divided into regional sections to make it easy to use for geography studies. The activities are clearly labelled as to the level they are, what type of art they are, and how much preparation is involved.

I liked using this book.

I plan to use it to actually do an art class with my homeschool group in the fall.   Should be fun. :) My recommendation is, if you have a desire to add art to your geographic studies, or just like doing random art that has a learning element to it, get this book.   It really is a handy book to have around and has stretched my non-artiness nicely. :)

Please do go and read what some other fine reviewers have to say about Gryphon House products. Click to read more reviews from the Schoolhouse Review Crew :)

and have fun learning some new skills and learning that art comes in lots of different forms. :)

Global Art and more

7/17/2013

This week we've gotten back into doing some homeschooling. :)
Last week the lad was at a church day camp where he did some woodworking, swimming, learning bible stories and such like.
On Tuesday afternoon we celebrated Dad's birthday by lunch out and watching Despicable Me 2.

Today we did Sunday School for all ages, Reading Kingdom and Global Art.
The lad likes doing the Sunday School for all ages and I can see us purchasing this curriculum when we are done with this review.
Reading Kingdom he's getting quite frustrated with. We have managed to get past the skills assessment area. He finds it doesn't give him enough time to get the tasks completed and he finds that quite stressful.
Global art was just fine as you shall see below.

supplies needed: hammer, board, items to hammer with, and metal lids.

Choose your hammering item, apply hammer. Normally when the lad hammers we have a short hammer for him. But it's gone missing and is most likely stored somewhere in the quagmire that is his room.....He had some difficulty controlling the larger hammer but persevered and was pleased with the results.

Try very hard (well okay not too hard) to not get distracted by very interesting fun little bugs that come to join you. This bug was perhaps 3 mm long, did a really neat curl up thing with its tail, washed itself, did some really short hop/flights until it soared off across the kitchen with an eight year old hot on it's tail. The lad ended up catching him and releasing him to the wilds of Ontario. :)

our efforts met with Milo's approval, and he helped by reminding us where scattered nails went (he scratched his one up from under the board).

The minions showing off our finished creations. I tried a planned one (in the middle) of a bike. But also made a go with the flow on (end nearest foot) and the lad made a purple minion replica. He was quite pleased with the end result.

The three purple minions.

Stretching is so hard....

7/3/2013

Today our latest review item came in the mail.   Global Art.   It's art projects from around the world. I'm going to use this book with a travelling around the world thing that I got from Focus on the Family.

Today we're looking at dreamtime painting from Australia.   It's a 'difficult' assignment, but one that my boy should be able to do, at least in a simplified form.

Here's some samples of dreamtime painting.    This will be a three or four day project for us.

The lad was getting really bent out of shape by this. Very worried and very upset about it, which was quite unreasonable of him, so I asked him what was the problem, why was he so upset about this.

MOM... it's asking me to do something I don't know how to do. I don't even know how to think about that.   So I gave him some examples about how TV shows can show someone dreaming, and how it has that fuzzy edge.   So he relaxed abit but was still quite edgey.. which led us into talking about how it was so new to him, this idea of drawing an idea like a dream.

So we talked about how sometimes we need to broaden our horizons a little, to do things that normally we don't think we can do, but if we try we might do better than we think we can.   It's just a matter of trying and this is the first time we are both trying to do a new type of art, and we DON"T have to do it perfectly.   That in essence, he was being asked to stretch his thoughts on what art was....

MOM.... it's HARD to stretch mom. It's really hard sometimes. I don't know if I want to mom.

But then he settled, and was able to at least start. :)

Stretching is sometimes just so VERY hard to do.