Reviews » Tenacity Divine

Exploring Physics

Apr 182012

It’s apparently science week here at casa crazy. The birds are singing, the deer are hanging out across the street, and the spring flowers are out in full bloom. I’m ready to jump into gardening… but first, a different kind of science. Generally when we think of physics, we think high school science. But it doesn’t have to be, and in fact, usually isn’t – it’s just usually hidden under more generic terms like general science. So don’t let the scary “physics” term scare you – it *can* be something that you – and your kids – enjoy, and Christian [Read More...]

From Head to Toe with AIMS

Homeschool, Reviews No Responses »

Apr 152012

I’ve been thinking it’s about time we did some kind of a homeschool human body science refresher, and just in the nick of time, we received this neat text/CD combo from AIMS Education Foundation. From Head to Toe is for grades 5-9 – and yes, it’ll stretch a bit to grades 4-10 – that’s what we’re doing. It’s chock-full of all sorts of interesting activities, plus quirky little booklets to print and put together called “rubber band books”. It’s clear that this book was designed for the public school market, with these take-home friendly little tools… but they’re a hit [Read More...]

Action Alert

Homeschool, Reviews No Responses »

Mar 262012

We all know it’s important to be ever-vigilant about what our kids are doing on the internet. And while we KNOW that, and KNOW that the best way to do that is to supervise every moment, in reality, that’s easier said than done. As eclectic homeschoolers, we use the internet – a LOT. We’re busy, active people; we’re not always home at the same time. It just isn’t practical or realistic to think that every moment a kid needs to use the computer, an adult is going to be in the house, let alone in the same room, occasionally peering [Read More...]

TOS K5 Learning

Homeschool, Reviews No Responses »

Mar 042012

It’s a good thing that Cheyenne loves doing school on the compute; we’ve been blessed with several interesting sites for her to try out this year. Her latest foray has been into the land of K5 Learning. K5 Learning is a web subscription service comprised of four subject areas: Reading – to create strong readers and foster a love of reading. It covers phonemic awareness, phonics, sight words, vocabulary and reading comprehension. Spelling – an advanced vocabulary program designed to improve language skills one word at a time, it features adaptive instruction, automatic word generation, an optimized visual interface, and [Read More...]

Unscramble Reading

Homeschool, Reviews No Responses »

Feb 252012

As the piles of library books can attest, there’s no question that we have avid readers in the household, but it’s taken a lot of hard work to get there. Cheyenne has recently been testing out an online subscription service, Reading Eggs, that would have made the learning-to-read process a lot less stressful for all of us. The Reading Eggs service is actually composed of two separate parts: – Reading Eggs, aimed at 3 to 7-year-olds, for beginning and early readers, with 120 learn-to-read lessons and 96 spelling lessons, with 120 free worksheets that correspond to the lessons, and – [Read More...]

Great math game redux

Homeschool, Reviews No Responses »

Feb 102012

Math Rider has a new version out, and our family recently got to take it for a test run! As a family, we had some mixed feelings going into this review – we’d tried (and loved) the Math Rider math facts game last year (that review is here) – and a couple kids were afraid they might have messed it up. (The kids’ words, not mine.) I’m happy to report that we have come to the consensus that Math Rider, already a educational, yet attention-keeping game, has been made just a little bit better. I’m not able to directly compare [Read More...]

College Prep Genius

Homeschool, Reviews 2 Responses »

Nov 152011

My oldest is a sophomore this year, and we’d already decided that he would take the PSAT for the first time this fall. He was nervous, and understandably so. We do the standard achievement tests each year, and this year he’d said it was easy, and then proved it by scoring at the top of the chart. The PSAT is a completely different animal, and my son knew it. We received the test booklet in mid-September, and he spent a few days studying it and then taking the practice test. He wanted me to score the test, and I was [Read More...]

Keyboard Town Pals

Homeschool, Reviews 1 Response »

Nov 132011

With our computer-driven society, we all know that it’s essential for today’s children to learn to type – and the younger they learn, the easier so many other tasks become. My daughter, Cheyenne (9), has been using computer since she was 2 or 3, but only in the last year or so has her typing moved from a slow hunt and peck to something a bit more efficient. Cheyenne recently had the opportunity to try out Keyboard Town Pals, software with a straightforward, yet far-reaching concept: teach kids to type, make it memorable, and do it quickly and stress-free. Designed [Read More...]

Bower Books – The Person I Marry

Books and Writing, Homeschool, Reviews No Responses »

Nov 082011

It’s not often anymore that Chey and I take the time to curl up with picture books. At nine, she’s mostly outgrown it and moved on to chapter books, and though once in a while we’ll read one aloud, most of the time, it’s each to their own favorite novels. We recently read a story together, though, that has me missing those evenings, tucked under a cuddly blanket with a book or five, talking about the books, what we liked, what we didn’t, and what our favorite pictures were. (Side note: we actually viewed an ebook version, not the hardcover [Read More...]

Memoria Press – First Form Latin

Homeschool, Reviews 1 Response »

Nov 032011

The Latin language has always interested me, but my schooling didn’t include it as an option. Though I’m familiar with both Spanish and French, through school and community, my primary experience with Latin is on that basis – very lightly, through its connection with other languages, and not for itself. One of the most difficult aspects of learning a language isn’t the obvious, like memorization or grammar – it’s whether or not you have a way to practice, and by doing so, keeping it fresh in your mind. Though I’ve spent much more time in the classroom studying French, my [Read More...]

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