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Lone Star Learning - a Review

3/3/2013

 
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As a member of the TOS review crew I've had the privilege of reviewing one of the products produced by Lone Star Learning.

The product I used was Target the Question.
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How the program works

I used Target the Question for second grade with my son. 
This product is aimed at grades 1-7. They also have a Spanish version for grades 1-5.  The Target the Question digital product is as a purchase from one to five year programs starting at $59.99 up to $199.99. If you purchase a multi-year license, you are allowed to change the grade level once annually. There are free samples of each grade level available here.    

It's all computer based with nothing really to download.  A nice digital product.  

The goal is to use the program about 10 to 15 minutes a day.  The skills meant to be learned are as follows:
  • choosing and applying problem-solving strategies
  • techniques to find needed information
  • identifying extraneous information
  • focusing on the question 
I needed to log the lad on and off.   Which was easy enough to do, older students should be able to do this easily enough and I expect by the end of the year that lad will be able to do so as well.
  
The set up is a situation is given that lasts for one five day period.   They are conveniently listed as Monday-Friday.   Then a word problem based on that situation is given.   A different question each of the five days.  It does not take long to do.  The 10-15 minute period called for generally lasted about 5 minutes for us.

There is an on-line area for problem solving that we didn't use.  The lad preferred to either work it out in his head or to use a piece of scrap paper.   I did print out the pictorial picture for him on some weeks as it involved actual counting of items which was easier to do on paper than on a computer screen sitting 30 inches away. :)   I could see the note pad option being more helpful for older grades when children are better able to manipulate a mouse to draw numbers/pictures.

Once you have figured out the solution you can click on "view the answer" and see if you are right.  The lad really liked that he was always right.  :)

My thoughts

I overall liked the program.I thought it was a great interactive idea for helping children learn to think critically and to help them look past information they really didn't need.   We like computer based programs in this household. :)

We did weeks 1-4, 7 and 9.   I skipped a couple of weeks because I wanted to see if the problems got exponentially harder but they didn't with the weeks that we used.

They were quite easy to solve thought the lad and I.   So in that aspect I didn't really find it helpful with critical thinking/problem solving. 

I liked that I could get him to read the question himself.  I helped with words he didn't know, but by the end of the week, with repetition he needed no help in reading.   (it's always good to kill two birds with one stone).   So the language used is quite age/grade appropriate.   :)

I will continue to use it the product.   I think it has merit.  I am hopeful by the end of the year my son's learning will continue to grow and that this program will grow with his abilities.   Time will tell.  :)

The lad's thoughts

Mom.. do we HAVE to do this again?
Mom.... this is different than I thought it would be.   It doesn't talk to me or have fun things to do.  It's just answering questions.
Mom... I don't care how many more elephants there were....
Why can't they have angry birds in here Mom?
I GOT IT RIGHT MOM!  :)

If you want to see our progress with this program follow here.

For other reviews

Lone Star Learning has a number of other products available for use.  Not all are digital, some are quite hands on.  I invite you to go check them out by going here OR clicking on the image below. :)
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Disclaimer

I received a free copy of this product to use in my own household in exchange for my review of it for the Schoolhouse review crew.  I was not required to give a positive review of it.  I was not compensated in any other way.   All opinions expressed are my own or my families.    I am revealing this information according to FTC regulations.

Today's Efforts In Learning

2/26/2013

 
We started off our day with Adventus.   Today's lesson was a bit of a challenge for him to figure it out.   We needed to work together to bring understanding.   We did our question from Target the Question.    We did another lesson from A+Tutorsoft math, we did the starter lesson for multiplication.  I told him all he needed to do today was listen to it. 

We plan to do the Essentials in Writing lesson when we return from the library.

At the library we drew some more First Nation Lodges, find more First Nations recipes we can make at home, and work through immigration - when people came to Canada. Ended up working on the timeline for immigration to Canada.  It needs some fine tuning yet.

Had gym time with the Homeschool group.

Then home to make supper.

This is what we are having

Easy Crockpot Pulled Pork

Yield: 6-8 servings

INGREDIENTS:1 large Vidalia onion, sliced thin
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon paprika
2 teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 (4-6 lb) boneless pork butt or shoulder
¾ cup cider vinegar
4 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
1 ½ teaspoons crushed red pepper flakes
1 ½ teaspoons sugar
½ teaspoons dry mustard
½ teaspoon garlic salt
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper

DIRECTIONS:1. Rinse pork roast under cold water and pat dry with paper towels.

2. Place onions in crock-pot. In a small bowl, combine brown sugar, paprika, kosher salt and pepper; mix thoroughly. Rub mixture all over roast and place the roast on top of the onions.

3. In a medium bowl, combine vinegar, Worcestershire, red pepper flakes, sugar, mustard, garlic salt and cayenne pepper; whisk to combine. Drizzle about 1/3 of vinegar mixture over roast. Cover and refrigerate remaining vinegar mixture.

4. Cover crockpot; cook on low for 10-12 hours. Drizzle about 1/3 of reserved vinegar mixture over roast during last ½ hour of cooking.

5. Remove meat and onions; drain. Chop or shred meat and onions. Serve with remaining vinegar mixture or your favorite barbeque sauce.

Changed Plans

2/20/2013

 
Originally our homeschooling day today was to have consisted of visiting a dairy farm and taking part in Dairy Day activities in Stratford.  Well... overnight we received about 8-10 inches of snow.   That caused buses to be cancelled and well.. roads are still being cleared so we're not doing that. :)

Ergo we stay home and do other things.

We will therefore engage in regular homeschooling activities.

Human Body

Today we looked over what a cell is made up of.  Kid Discover has an infographic in the human cell.   Will the lad understand it all?  No.. but exposure over time will help him retain the information long term.   He was quite intrigued by this and asked good questions.

Canada Study

We'll continue our efforts in drawing lodging of the First Nations people.  We ran out of time to do this today, but there's always tomorrow. :)

OH!  Almost forgot to add that right now (since our heritage is Dutch) that we are reading through an book called Kit and Kat about some twins who are Dutch.  It talks about the things that children and families would have needed to do in the past.   The lad is quite enjoying the book.  It's only available as an e-book to the best of my knowledge.

Our Regular Stuff

We started off our day with Adventus.   The lad did well with it, and even asked to do the lesson over again.  This morning he earned a new game to do.   He did struggle with understanding how to do the rhythm part and is part of I think why he wanted to do the lesson over again.  He wanted to get it right from the get go.   We did our question from Target the Question.    We did another lesson from A+Tutorsoft math, he finally understands regrouping with subtraction over 10's   So nice to see that confidence now.    Then on the Essentials in Writing lesson.  Again there were two pages to do, and he accomplished both quite handily.

We've gone back to reading from a reader.   Right now we are using a reader called: The New Days and Deeds.   i find it useful to specifically read things the lad might not necessarily choose because I find it a good way to broaden his horizons and to have something different that I can ask him questions about.

We went through our book on Telling Time.  With this book he learned all the 1/2 and quarter ways to tell time.  He learned how to write it digitally and manually.   It's a wipe book which makes it easy to correct mistakes.
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We've started using a product called "Slide'n Solve Language Flash Cards".     This is a simple product that helps with critical thinking with language arts.  Asks a question, you need to draw or say the answer, and then look on the opposite side to see if you answered it correctly.   The lad is having fun with this, and it only takes a minute to do.
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We did a number of pages in Comprehensive Curriculum of Basic Skills.  Skills such as finding the blended letters, reading comprehension, regrouping when adding groups of numbers and such like.     It's a good book, American focused, but it approaches things a bit differently and the Canadian Curriculum book which is not a bad thing.  Keeps the lad thinking which is a good thing.  We will probably alternate books daily.

Science

Yesterday the lad came up with his own science experiment which today he followed up with.   "I wanted to know if water would taste good if I melted Valentine Candies in it."

The result: yes!  the water is GOOD!
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Free Kindle Books

2/14/2013

 
NOTE: free at time of posting.
Click to set custom HTML

The Snow Bear

1/23/2013

 
We were supposed to go to the Kitchener Children's Museum today for an event but the snow and my lack of sleep made me say I don't think so.    So we stayed home.

The lad worked on A+Tutorsoft.  The more I use this program the more I like it.  The lad likes that if he thinks he has the concept he can skip forward to the Q&A part and see if he does indeed know it.  Most of the time he does and since I"m right there when he does it, I can print off the worksheets for any areas that he struggles with.  :)   He earns a sticker for each lesson he gets done.  :)

He continues to work through the Handwriting without Tears App.   He has a goal in mind of earning some Angry Bird erasers or Tim Horton's Donut when he completely fills a screen with letter cards.

We finished off a Geronimo Stilton book.  The lad has a thorough enjoyment of these books and keeps asking...can we finish it today... just one more chapter mom?    I use these books to do reading comprehension, learning new words, and to stimulate an interest in reading.   I've recently discovered a website that is devoted to using Geronimo Stilton to teach from.  Pretty cool eh?  :)

Our big project today was to re-read the Snow Bear.


this was our book of the day to read.  I helped with the big words, but the lad needed to work hard with sounding out words.

We also talked about adjectives, adverbs,  rhyming, using the pictures to help us figure out the story and such like.  It's an excellent book to use for such things.   We discussed why an author might use certain words and how words can mean different things depending on the context.

Then the helpful ladies of the TOS review crew helped me to find this page on The Snow Bear activities which has things one can do to enhance learning.  We decided to pick a page from the book and see how well we could copy it.  We had quite the discussion on should we do it all the same or should we use mixed media to do it?   We talked about what mixed media meant and that kinda captured my sons interest so off we went to work on that.  :)

Final Result

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Materials used: construction paper, cottonball, white "foxy" material, Christmas cards, pictures from magazine, and felt.
We made the musk ox shaggy, gave the hare a fuzzy tail, and had fun discussing how to do it all.  WE couldn't figure out the best way to do the musk ox horns so in the end he just got a face without horns. :)  

Ideas were rejected, accepted, exclaimed over and groaned at.   Over all, it was a good cooperative effort.  It did take a long time to do though, longer than anticipated so at the end of it, we said.. "We're done schooling today".   A boy child needs to play. :)

A long walk 

1/16/2013

 
We started off our homeschool day today with a walk.  I had intended it to only be about 20 minutes well... an hour later we got home.  It was such a nice day.  The lad learned about ice and how it hides water (yes, I rescued him from cold water in the nick of time).

He explored the differences between thin and thick layers of ice and how they are formed.  We appreciated the beauty of Jack Frost at work.

When we returned home he did some work with A+tutorsoft math.  This is a new math program that we are testing out.   So far the lad is saying "but I know this mom".   So we are skipping lessons and going to test areas to see what he knows and what needs to be fine tuned a bit.   Generally though the lad has an appreciation for the format so I think it will work for him.

What else....OH.. our homeschool group has a lego competition in about a month and so the lad's busy making an entry for it.  He's quite enthused.  He's really hoping that the judges will like it.  Personally I think he's done an excellent job coming up with the idea and building it without any assistance. 
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    2013 TOS Reviews

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    Bible Study Guide for all ages
    Bird Cage Press
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    Circle Time
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    Ed Douglas
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    2014 TOS Reviews
    Science4Us.com

    Egglo Entertainment.
    ScienceandMath.com
    Supercharged Science.
    Philippians in 28 weeks.
    CTC math
    The Brinkman Adventures.

    Maestro Classics.
    Logic of English.
    Learning Breakthrough
    Go Science DVD's
    Veritas Press
    Happy Kids Songs
    Wizzy Gizmo: In his image
    UberSmart Software.
    Essential Skills Advantage:

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    Don't Miss the Boat
    Tokens of Promise
    Biff and Becka's ....
    A Child's Geography
    Homeless at Harvard
    30 Days of Bible Study...
    Topaz and the Evil Wizard
    Alone yet not alone
    Lead me Home
    I am Second
    Can't wait Willow
    Hey God....
    This is Our Time
    What I wish I knew at 18
    Classical Composers
    Seeking Christmas.
    Raising boys by design.
    The Ruby Ring.
    Knowing God By name.
    The Jesus Bible, NIV. 
    One Realm Beyond.
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