Compass Classroom is having a great sale right now—up to 50% off some products. I just ordered the Economics for Everybody DVD course that I’ve been wanting for next year. The sale ends on April 30.
Monday, April 28, 2014
A is for Algebra
I’m currently teaching Algebra to my fourth child. I really like math, and I am a self-proclaimed curriculum addict. However, I surprised even myself when I realized how many algebra programs we own. It’s bordering on ridiculous.
Child #1 used Scott Foresman UCSMP Algebra. At the time, when I investigated curriculum, this was highly recommended. She did well with this program in 7th grade, then went on to geometry in public school for 8th grade.
Then, I discovered Singapore Primary Math and switched Child #2 and Child #3 to it in the 4th and 6th grades, and we continued with Singapore New Elementary Math for pre-algebra/algebra/geometry through middle schools. I love this curriculum, but thought it might be too intense for Emily, so I started looking at programs again for her. We did a review of No Nonsense Algebra and loved it, so that’s what we started to use, supplemented by Life of Fred. Then we did a review for Videotext Algebra and Emily liked it better, so we switched. After a few months, though, the math just wasn’t getting done (although she still claims it’s her favorite program), and we have now changed back to No Nonsense and Life of Fred. Unfortunately, we’ve lost a bit of ground with the switching (and lack of cooperation), but Emily may catch up by working through the summer.
What will I use for Geometry next year? Who knows?
Monday, April 21, 2014
Learning About Simple Machines
Emily is continuing to have fun learning with Supercharged Science. She’s currently in the Energy 1 Unit, learning about pulleys and levers and actually spent most of last Saturday morning working on experiments without being told to!
Philosophy Adventure (Schoolhouse Review)
Product: Philosophy Adventure
Age Range: Grades 6-12
Price: Ranges from $39.95 for digital download to $89.95 for print book set with resource cd.
Philosophy Adventure , published by Home School Adventure Co., is a homeschool philosophy curriculum that teaches logic, critical thinking, creative writing, and public speaking while studying the lives and teachings of 8 Pre-Socratic Greek philosophers. The set includes a student reader, a workbook, and a teacher guide.
The program covers 8 philosophers:
- Thales
- Pythagoras
- Xenophanes
- Heraclitus
- Parmenides
- Empedocles
- Protagoras
- Democritus
Each of the eight chapters includes about six pages that teach about each philosopher’s life, what was happening in the world around him, what ideas he had about the world, and how he was influenced by others and how his ideas influenced others. Also included in each chapter is one page each devoted to a writing and a speaking concept and assignment. A “Think” page introduces the reader to philosophical ideas and helps him or her relate those ideas to life and to a Biblical worldview.
Accompanying the main text is a student journal that provides space to do the creative writing assignments, critical thinking questions, and other writing instruction. Memory cards are also included to help the student learn important facts about each philosopher. We loved these!
Our Experience:
Emily spent one week on each chapter. The first day, she read the chapter, answered the comprehension questions, and did the mapping activity. Over the next 4 days, she completed the “Think,” “Write,” and “Speak” assignments, studied the review cards, and took the unit test. This was a comfortable pace for her, although the course could be extended to a full semester course by working on the assignments only 2 or 3 days a week.
Honestly, I wasn’t sure that Emily would be excited about ancient Greek philosophers, but she has LOVED using Philosophy Adventure. As the review period is coming to an end, I asked her if she would like to cut back to using it 2 or 3 times a week, but she insisted that she wanted to continue with it every day!
This is a very full course. It includes history, of course, as it teaches about each of the philosophers and the times in which they lived. Students will also learn many of the basic laws and concepts of philosophy, such as:
- The Law of the Excluded Middle
- The Law of Non-Contradiction
- Law of Identity
- Logical Fallacies
- Red Herrings
The worldviews and teachings of each philosopher are compared to those of a Biblical worldview and the philosophy concepts are taught in the context of all natural laws coming from our Creator and the Truth that he created, making this a very Christian philosophy course. This is very important to me, since philosophy can be taught from an atheistic perspective.
The critical thinking questions are excellent for reviewing the text and for helping students to apply the concepts to life. The writing exercises are good, and Emily is especially loving the creative writing exercises, that have the student place himself as an observer of an incident in the life of each philosopher.
During each lesson, the student is working on writing a speech that will be presented at the end of the course. Not only is the student given help with editing skills, and making the speech more interesting, but is practicing using gestures, moving around, and inflection in order to become a better public speaker.
I am impressed with how many subject areas the course includes, all in an integrated manner that engages the student.
The Schoolhouse Crew is reviewing four different products: Philosophy Adventure, Mere Christianity Critical Analysis Journal, Philippians in 28 Weeks, and The Wise Woman. Click on the Crew banner to read about the other products, and use the code: CREW-10 to receive a 10% discount on the downloads of these great books. (Expires May 15, 2014)
Wednesday, April 16, 2014
Science Club
Off and on over the years, I’ve hosted a science club for our homeschool group. It has provided a good social outlet for the kids and gave them opportunities to work in a group. It has also kept me accountable for coming up with activities since I had others coming to my house at a specified time!
Just a few of the many activities we’ve done…
Learning about electrical circuits
Learned about imaging through the Science by Mail program
Built and tested rafts
Learned about chemical reactions
Dissection
I think a lot of the other parents have appreciated the opportunity as well, since some families don’t do a lot of hands-on-science at home.
Friday, April 11, 2014
Curiosity Quest (Schoolhouse Review)
We viewed the following Combo Packs, which each include 3 30-minute episodes.
- DVD Combo Pack – Produce ($24.95)
(Mushrooms, Cranberries, Orange Packing) - DVD Combo Pack - Swimmers of the Sea ($24.95)
(Sea Turtle Rescue, Penguins, Salmon)
Emily and I both enjoyed this fun show. We love field trips and these shows felt like field trips to places we might never have an opportunity to visit in person.
Each episode begins with a viewer question that introduces the topic. The show is interspersed with “fun facts”—quick tidbits explained by children, and related questions asked of kids or adults “on the street.” For example, in the Cranberry episode, the questions were, “What does buoyant mean?”, “What is a harvest?” “How do you know when cranberries are ripe?”, and “Why do they flood the cranberry fields?” It’s fun to hear the (often confused) answers from the kids who are questioned.
The host, Joel Green, visits a site (such as a cranberry bog in Wisconsin), and observes and often joins in the process. At the cranberry bog, he put on waders and walked out in the marsh, exclaiming about how cold the water was. He tasted cranberries straight from the vine, drove the 4-wheeler pulling the cranberry trailers (They wouldn’t let him drive the harvester!), and visited the processing plant to see the cranberries blown dry, cleaned, and sorted. Meanwhile, he asked the kinds of questions that a curious child would ask. “Why do you have to dry the cranberries?” “Are these fields always under water?”
I found the topics very interesting. I had NO idea how mushrooms were grown. It is quite an elaborate and labor-intensive process, beginning with the fermentation of hay in which the spores are sown. Mushrooms are actually grown indoors, where the conditions can be kept ideal, and picked by hand by amazingly fast workers!
I did know that salmon swam upstream to lay their eggs in fresh water, but had certainly not ever seen the process. Nor did I know about the elaborate facilities that salmon hatcheries build in order to keep the wild salmon population up. Did you know that salmon travel as far as Japan, then, 3 or 4 years later, return to the very same streams in Alaska to lay their eggs?
It was enlightening to learn how involved the process of sorting and cleaning oranges is, in order to prevent spoilage. Oranges are always picked by hand, but much of the sorting and packaging process can be done by machine.
I love how the shows look at topics from a child’s point of view. The guide for each location gives a very interesting tour. Joel Green asks questions about every aspect of the topic, which enables the viewer to learn more. The key points are repeated frequently, which aids in the learning process, and the occasional “fun fact” and “question time” breaks keep the viewers’ interest up as well. He gets to do things that we would all like to try, like feeding and touching penguins and sea turtles, wading in a cranberry bog,
I think that many children even younger than the suggested age of 7 would enjoy Curiosity Quest. At the other end of the age range, even I, as an adult, learned a lot and enjoyed the show as well. On at least one occasion, Emily was in a bad mood, and grumbled about sitting down to watch it, but was quickly drawn into the show. We expanded the educational aspect by having her write quizzes for ME or taking notes as she watched some of the episodes.
If you have curious kids at your house, you will surely love this show!
Wednesday, April 9, 2014
Supercharged Science (Schoolhouse Review)
Product: e-Science Premium Membership
Age range: K-12
Price: $37 a month for K-8 materials; $57 for K-8 plus the expanded 9-12 content.
We were introduced to Supercharged Science last year and had a lot of fun with all the hands-on activities (2013 Supercharged Science Review) so I was excited to have the opportunity to review it again this year and share some more of the fun science activities on the site. We were given the e-Science Premium Membership to use for the purposes of this review.
These excerpts from the e-Science User Guide explain how it all works. Basically, you pick a topic (from the topic list, or within a grade level), watch an introductory video, watch videos for individual experiments and do the experiments, then, once interest is piqued, read about the topic, and answer the review questions.
There are two ways to approach the vast amount of material on the Supercharged Science site—by topic and by grade level. Each grade level includes experiments, activities, and reading material from a few specific topics that are typically studied at that grade level. The “topic” option allows the student to pick and choose a topic of interest or to coordinate activities with a science text.
I think the grade level option is new since last year, and that might be a comfortable way to begin for a family that wants to focus on topics that might be traditionally taught in each grade. Since we covered several complete units last year (Chemistry, Mechanics, and Motion), there was some overlap with the eighth grade curriculum and we decided to just pick another unit of interest and jump in. Emily has been studying physical science this year, so we started with Unit 3: Matter (Atoms, Density, and Solids), completed it, and are just beginning Unit 4: Energy 1 (Pulleys and Levers).
Usually, new users to Supercharged Science will only have access to the first few units. Access to additional units is unlocked each month. This makes the site less overwhelming, because it includes a vast amount of material once everything is accessible! However, if the user has particular interest in a particular topic, he or she can just request access to it, and it will be unlocked. (The company is very helpful, and wants you to be able to have the best possible experience.)
The e-Science program offers 27 different units and is heavier on physical science concepts, but also includes units on biology, chemistry, the scientific method, and science fair projects. Each of these units takes 2 weeks or more to complete, and includes videos, experiments, reading material, and review questions. Some activities are labeled “for advanced learners.” These activities tend to require solving mathematical equations or involve more dangerous materials, and are more appropriate for high school, or possibly middle school ages.
The “heart” of the e-Science program is videos and experiments. Each experiment is accompanied by, not only clear instructions, but a video of Aurora Lipper performing the experiment and explaining it. Aurora’s enthusiasm is contagious and is sure to spark your child’s interest in the topic. Ideally, the student will pick and choose from the projects that spark his interest, watch the video, and jump into doing the activity himself. Each unit also includes reading material and review questions that can be used as a test. Many of the experiments also include printable worksheets that lead the student in thinking through the process and documenting findings and conclusions. I really like these, because I know that Emily can rush through an experiment or activity without taking away from it what she is expected to learn. The worksheets help the student relate what he or she sees to the concept.
Last year, I helped Emily with most of the activities. This year, she wanted to be more independent, so I let her do everything on her own. The only requirement was that she come to me to explain each experiment after she was finished and that she read the informational material in addition to doing the experiments. So, I’ve just spent several weeks teaching NO science. Emily made an “A” on the final test of Unit 3, so the process obviously works. And she had fun doing it! While younger children will certainly require assistance, middle schoolers and high schoolers should be able to work independently with this program.
Here are some of the experiments Emily performed while learning about atoms, density, and solids:
“Blowing up” soap in the microwave oven
Homemade lava lamp
Making moon sand
Growing salt and vinegar crystals
Making a penny “crystal structure”
If you would like to add more hands-on activities to your current science program or to try teaching science in a whole new way, you may want to take a look at the Supercharged Science e-Science program. You can try out the Supercharged Science e-Science curriculum for just $1 for the first month. This is a great opportunity to see if the program is right for you. (Use the above link.) Or grab a Free Copy of the Science Activity Video Series and Guidebook to try selected activities.
Connect with Supercharged Science:
https://www.facebook.com/superchargedsci
http://www.twitter.com/aurora_lipper
https://www.youtube.com/user/auroram42
http://pinterest.com/superchargedsci/
https://plus.google.com/u/0/112193545312804826871/posts
http://www.superchargedscience.com/blog/
Tuesday, April 8, 2014
Making Paper
We have just started using the Artistic Pursuits book, Sculpture Technique: Construct for an upcoming review. The first project we did was making paper. It created a bit of chaos in our kitchen for almost a week as we made multiple batches of different colors of paper, but was fun.
First, we soaked torn paper in water.
Then we put the paper and water in the blender until it turned into mush (paper pulp).
Then we used a Grummer’s Dip Handmold to scoop pulp from the water, drain it, and press it dry. 
We made an assortment of colors, which will soon be used in future sculpture products.
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