Loving Science Jim Shows

I know in the past I have raved and raved about Science Jim's classes, but I had to just throw a shoot out about his free shows on Fridays. He is doing some great science shows that have covered a myriad of topics each week and KM is truly loving them. You can sign up for them for free through Currclick and if you can't make the show time or want to see a previously posted one, he has them all recorded and available on Currclick as well.

Write Guide Review

I was contacted at the beginning of the summer by Write Guide.com's founder to do a review of their site and was given a one month trial account for my daughter to try it out. As writing is the most stressful subject in our household and the program sounded intriguing, I thought we would give it a whirl ~ I also managed to get KM to agree to try it.

Here is some company info -

WriteGuide.com, also known as Ludwig Education Services, LLC, is a small, family-owned business that serves homeschool families and adult learners, providing them with their own private writing teachers. We also work with many independent-study charter schools in California and Alaska. Founded in 1998, we remain devoted to providing homeschoolers with daily, 100% individualized writing instruction. To learn more about our teaching approach and methodologies, please review our Homepage, and our company's philosophy and mission statement. All schools, businesses, and individuals are welcome to contact our main office via the information on our Contact Us page.

What to Expect During the Course

Every time a student or parent writes to his or her writing consultant, the writing consultant will always respond within 24 hours (unless it's a weekend or holiday), providing whatever lessons or feedback are necessary to help the student move forward with the project. Enough instruction will be provided to give the student about half an hour to 45 minutes of work per day, so that the student can then write back to his or her writing consultant to receive more instruction. Ideally, students should write to their writing consultants every day, Monday through Friday, so that they'll receive five sets of individualized lessons, feedback, and instruction per week. Students can take as much time as they need before responding to their writing consultant, but please be aware that the consultant won't write back until the student has responded to his or her last message! Upon hearing back from his writing consultant, a student should complete the assigned work, and should respond with a message and a draft of his paper. Parents can also send one message per day to their child's writing consultant, in addition to the message or paper that the student sends. We like to view our course as a partnership between two teachers (the parent and the writing consultant), and so frequent parent input is both anticipated and appreciated.

I started out by describing KM and the issues that she has had with various writing programs as well as the situations that had occurred in PS. Then they assign a teacher based on this information. When we first were contacted by the teacher I was unaware that they hadn't passed the information on, but expected me to reiterate it. This made no sense to me because I had put a lot of time and thought into the description of my daughter because I thought the teacher would be seeing it and using it to set up a plan of action for her. Instead once the teacher was chosen she contacts both the child and parent through the mywriteguide portal not knowing anything about the child(ren).

There are a lot of really great options available - see four approaches, about midway down the page - and I choose for the teacher to decide what she thought would be a good place for KM to start, given her reluctance to write and it was decided that she should work on a simple report. The teacher did a great job of getting KM to pick a topic, ready to research and explained how to collect bibliography information thoroughly. She then gave her an extremely well thought out outline to use to organize her information. KM decided to research Neptune and then, after researching and with the help of the teacher, decided to focus specifically on the Voyager 2's missions and info collected on Neptune.

We lost a day of the program because KM and I were unaware that she had to respond to the teacher after her first initial "Hi there" email in order for the teacher to email her back. While I understand the want and need to ensure the anonymity and security of our children on the Internet, as well as keeping a record for the program and teachers' safety, but this portal thing is a bit of overkill in my opinion. The teachers "can't" send a message to the student unless the student replies to the previous message. I really think it would be beneficial if the system emailed you when you had new messages, there were 3 days that she had to keep checking back in throughout the day in order to see if she had gotten a message yet and didn't get responses until very late in the day.

The parents have to log into there own portal in order to see what is going on as well, which while easy enough to do, is just another thing to check on. The other drawback to this is that they can only respond back and forth once in a 24 hour period. KM is very much a seize the moment type of learner and when she has a question she wants the answer fairly quickly. This lapse in time caused a lot of momentum to be lost. I felt like I had to hold back from stepping in in order to see what was going to happen and I have to say it was agonizing for me as she was putting a lot of effort in, but then had to wait for so long to get the responses or feedback that she needed to move on to the next step.

Things get hectic in the summer and in case you haven't been to my blog lately, they were totally kooky here for a bit. So there was a Monday to Thursday stretch that KM didn't log into her account and I was surprised when I logged into mine that the teacher hadn't sent me a note asking anything about whether she was okay or if she was having trouble and afraid to ask or anything. The program runs on a month to month payment basis and if your child is missing a good junk of days, I would kinda expect some sort of acknowledgement to the lack of participation.

KM worked very hard on this report and she really seemed to be understanding what the teacher was saying. I helped her stay on task as I was hopeful that she would complete the entire paper before the month was up. Even with some of the previous hurdles, she did manage to keep progressing. On the day that the program was to expire, the teacher sent a message asking her to send her final draft and any last questions in her final email. KM was excited to have it completed, get final feedback and wanted to know how to complete the bibliography, however the program email interface did not allow us to do so. If I had know that this was how the program worked I would have had her email the full draft the day before with her question about the bibliography, instead of just the tweaks she had made to her conclusion paragraph. I emailed the office in regards to this and they gave a very timely response of "Thanks for writing! Your course was scheduled to end today, but we're going to extend it by a day so that Mrs. xxx can review the final draft. " which I was happy with. I do not however know if this is something that would have been done for everyone or just something that was done for me because they knew I was reviewing the site ~ I try to not be cynical, but the person that responded was the person that initially contacted me to do the review.

The teacher was very encouraging and really gave some great feedback, formats and suggestions in a very positive way. I think that in theory this program is a good idea and although it was a great learning experience for KM, she picked up some good tips, and the final paper that she produced was far better than she or I expected, it just isn't for us. I am super picky about where I spend my money and with my homeschooling dollars even more so. It might be a good fit for more advanced and/or independent writers, but from the stand point of the parent of a reluctant writer it just doesn't seem to be what we need. It must have some sort of staying power that I am missing as they have been around since 1998. I think that the biggest issue is that I feel if I am going to be paying $75 a month for a writing tutor I don't want to have to teach writing at all. With this method and the lack of instant information, guidance and direction I think I would have to step in far more than I would be willing to.

Thanks to Write Guide for allowing us the opportunity to review your product!

Drum Roll Please......

To the winner of the Ko's Journey Giveaway - Ami!!!

Thanks to all who participated! If you didn't win, you really should think about getting an individual subscription as it is a FANTASTIC program and one of the only ones that I have seen recently that is TRULY worth the money!

LAST DAY ----

FOR A CHANCE TO WIN......

BEFORE TIME RUNS OUT

Only 3 days left

...to get in on this giveaway!!!! Be sure to check it out ----

HERE!!!!

Ko's Journey - Math Curriculum Supplement

REVIEW & GIVEAWAY!!!

Yes, you read that write I have an incredible giveaway for one lucky winner! The product that is up for grabs is a one year license to a fantastic new online program called - Ko's Journey 5th -8th grade Math Improvement with Story Playing. - Instructions for giveaway at the end of the review...

Ko’s Journey covers the core concepts in middle-school math, comprising about 20% of a comprehensive curriculum. By going deep into a set of approximately 10 main areas of learning, students gain a rich, contextual understanding of essential concepts including number lines, fractions with non-common denominators, multiplication, division, rounding, percentage of numbers, applying scales, graphing comprehension, linear equations, Cartesian coordinate mapping, area of a circle, ratios, determining unknown variables, volume, complementary/supplementary angles, slope, addition/subtraction of decimals, multi-step problems and conversion of units of measure.

This program is fantastic! It is super simple to setup an account, which they have at many different levels including individual for $39 or Intervention Homeschool (up to 3 players) for $59. To me this is an extremely reasonable price for this very unique and engaging supplement to your middle school math curriculum.

This program features -

• 15-hour curriculum of core middle school math embedded in rich story
• Easy on-line set-up and administration
• Automatically tracks student progress and assignments
• Aligned with NCTM standards
• Excellent preparation for state testing (includes pre and post tests)
• Interactive learning environment with peer teaching
• Creative tool aimed at addressing emotional resistance to math
• Empower students comprehension of fundamental concepts

Some of the reasons that KM says she has been enjoying are:

• "using math in a virtual real life simulation helps me to understand why it works"
• "the graphics are great!"
• "it is really easy to use"
• "it saves my progress and tracks my scores"
• "each new level brings some new challenge or puzzle to solve"

Some things that I have noticed - both good and bad -

• Pre-test and post-test features are great to really be able to tell if they have learned new concepts by using the product or if previously covered concepts have been reinforce.
• Entertaining storyline to help keeps the wanting to work with the program
• Set-up was super easy
• Tracking of grades and progress is done automatically so you can ask your student to work on it and will know how they did from your own log in screen.
• It is possible to change the student information so that if you have more than one child you could purchase the individual program and they could either work through it together or once one child has completed it - as it is only a 15 hour curriculum - another child could restart it, as you have access to the program for one full year
• When using it on different computers it takes a VERY long time to load. This is not a big deal when we are at home, but when we are out and about and she wants to play it on the laptop it can be a bit annoying

Here are some screen shots -

I am very excited about the direction of this program and am hopeful that we will see more things to come of this high quality!

Now for the giveaway! Imagine Education has been generous enough to offer one lucky reader a full year individual license for this incredible math game! All you have to do is post a comment and you will be entered! Please be sure to leave an email address or blog link for me to be able to connect you through.

Also if you have a blog, mention this giveaway, come back and submit a link to the mention you will have a second chance to win! This will be limited to two entries per email address or blog link.

All comments or posts must be submitted no later than 8pm EDT on Friday 5/21 - I will announce the winner on Monday May 24th!

Straight Forward Math - WHAT A BRILLIANT CONCEPT!

KM started with the straight forward math series just a few weeks ago and though she has never complained about math - besides the repetition that often occurs - she can't say enough about how fantastic this program is!

It is literally Straight Forward and to the point! It gives short descriptions of theories or principles that it wants to cover, then it gives 1 or 2 well broken down examples and 10-15 practice problems. That's it, no long drawn out situations or concepts that confuse the kids just cut and dry here is the facts and here is how it works. Concise, uncluttered step-by-step progression of math concepts.

This is from their FAQ section and really sums it up well -

	What is unique about your math offerings?
	They tend to be no-nonsense, straightforward presentations. No frills, no cute pictures, no minimal text or minimal practice on a page. These are the serious books which teach to mastery. Perfect for on-level students, homeschoolers, older learners needing to refresh skills, or progressive self-learners.
	How is the Straight Forward Math Series orgainzed?
	The simple, computational facts of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division are highly structured drill books. Mastery of these basic facts leads to the higher level books of pre-algebra and pre-geometry, on through algebra, geometry, trigonometry, precalculus, and calculus. From pre-algebra up, concepts are presented and explained, modeled by example, and practiced in focused exercises. Periodic review and testing help to measure attained and retained skills.

You can check out samples of some of the books HERE

The only area for the Algebra series that I do think is lacking is with word problems, so we will be supplementing with Scholastic Word Problems Grade 4-8. This should keep her problem solving skills in check.

Meet the Masters - Wyeth

We completed Unit 2 of the Meet the Masters this afternoon with a unit on the Wyeth family of artists. KM enjoyed many of these pieces of art, but her favorite was one of the more peaceful ones by Andrew -

KM picked up on the loneliness in the other paintings and couldn't really feel connected, but this one was very calming to her. KM loves to draw hills, valleys, trees and flowers so this project was right up her alley...

Meet the Masters - Kahlo

KM was a bit intrigued by the work of Frida Kahlo, because beyond her interest in her self-portraits, she liked to do still life pictures, which is one of KM's favorites as well.

Here is the one that she liked the best -

Here she is working diligently on her inspired pieces of art!

Meet the Masters - Degas

KM enjoyed learning about the rather unpleasant artist Degas this week. Her favorite piece of his work was the Dancing Class -

She said that she really liked the candid nature of the painting. Since she really does not like to paint or draw people she opted out of this week's project. Though she is working on a few pieces that focused on techniques that were mentioned such as asymmetrical composition and perspective. I will be sure to post anything that seems to have been inspired by Degas's work.

Science Jim Classes - DONE

KM finished up her final Science Jim Physics Ebook this week! She has loved them and the online classes that she has been taking are a huge hit as well! She completed the Force, Mechanics and Sound Books all in the last 9 weeks! Here is her last experiment with sound - water in crystal glasses - she had to listen for the difference in the sounds based on the water level and she also discovered that it makes a difference when you make the rim sing as well!

PRETTY COOL!

She has been taking a 10 week class on Newton's Laws and Science Jim really presents information in a fun way and so that it sticks. She likes him so much that she asked if he would be doing classes in other areas and she was EXTREMELY excited to find out that he will be doing Chemistry next year and has some other short classes in the works, like one on Einstein. This was one of the best curriculum picks we made this year!

On the customer service side of it - he answers questions in NO TIME! Both times that I have had to email him with something we didn't understand he got back to us in under an hour!

KM has one more live class that had to be rescheduled because of a snow day ~ so much snow in his area that the computer connections were down and causing lags in audio and video ~, but she is very excited that she will get to do it while we are in FL and Grampa can "see how high-tech" her classes are!

I highly recommend his classes as a core or supplement! They are totally worth the very inexpensive price!

Review - Big Universe

I was contacted by a representative from Big Universe to do a review of their site and at first I was very excited at the prospect! Here is a description of their site -

BigUniverse.com is an award-winning education website for grades K-8. This engaging web community uses beautiful picture books to instill the love of reading, writing and learning, while providing an anywhere-anytime, standards-based, education resource that connects teachers, students and parents.

Our products and features include:

• Big Universe Reader™ - Read hundreds of fiction and nonfiction children's books from today's best publishers and take optional quizzes to assess comprehension.
• Big Universe Author™ - Create, print & publish animated e-books using an easy-to-use writing tool and 7000+ images.
• Big Universe Community™ - Safely share your bookshelf, recommendations and published books with your peers only or thousands of other members.

Sounds fantastic doesn't it! The concept of the site is a really appealing one and the site is easy to maneuver and get around for the most part. Some of the icons are a bit confusing, but you can get to understand them quick enough. I checked out quite a few books on different levels and there are some aspects that I liked, but some that I really didn't. I liked having the books instantly available. I also liked the create and share features area. My daughter had a good time making little skits and using the clip art to create comic strips. There were however some serious flaws in the Read section.

In my opinion here are the biggest problems -

• The site is listed as having materials for K-8 - there is one title listed for 7th & 8th graders. That's it one! I can understand that if they are hoping the future to have more content available for the 7th & 8th graders, but really the site should be promoted as K-6 with more grades to come, or something along those lines. This one book is not secular in content, has no quiz or assessment for it and is listed in the 6th grade level as well.
  
• Irrelevant questions on the quizzes - I tried out a quiz on a book that was at a 1.3 level, the topic of the book was weather and I was astounded when one of the quiz questions asked like - "How many kids are on the float on page 3?" and "The animal on the rain coat on page 5 is a ______ . " Why on earth would you ask these questions. MAYBE, I could understand if you had the book in front of you and you wanted to see how perceptive the child was being, but you can't even look back at the book while taking the quiz. It is like they are asking for the kids to get frustrated with it!
• Content of User Created Books - While they do distinguish between the user created books an publisher books, if the kids are looking to find information it could be very easy for them to get confused. After looking at some of the user created books that are listed as non-fiction, I would not feel comfortable allowing any child to use this area for research or educational purposes.
  

It is my opinion that this site should be revamped as two different sites. One for budding authors to be able to create and share their work and one for your published books to be accessed and used for educational purposes. I was hopeful that this site was new, but it has been around for a few years ~and from what I have seen ~ without much changes, so at this time I would save the $9.95 month for anything but this!

Movie Review - Percy Jackson and the Lighting Theif

I mentioned way back we found out that they were making this movie how excited we were to see it! KM and I read EVERY book and were very disappointed when we found it was being released over Feb. vaca because we were not going to cram into a theater to see it. So we had to wait.....






but I have to say....IT WAS TOTALLY WORTH IT!!!!

This is one of the best movies that I have seen in a long time. Unlike many movies that have been made from incredible books this one was as close to the mark as I think it could get using living actors. The graphics and special effects were incredible. Medusa's snakes were the pinnacle of the movie for me, it truly looked like Uma Thurman had snakes crawling out of her head!

I don't want to be a spoiler so I will just say that the few tweaks that they did for the movie were understandable in my opinion. KM was a bit annoyed that Annabeth was not blonde, but really she had NOTHING else bad to say about the movie.

It was truly spectacular and we REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, ~ oh did i say REALLY, ~ hope they make the rest of the series!


I will also mention that CJ - who did not read the book ~ also thorougly enjoyed it and hopes for sequels!

Product Review - Mission Paragraph from Hands of A Child

I took Hands of a Child up on an offer that they had made a few months back to review a project pack for them. Having used their products before I was very excited to try something that would boast KM's interest in this area. Here is my review -

I was very hopeful that my reluctant writer would really be engaged by this method of presentation. However she quickly found many issues with the product including, spelling and grammar errors, poorly written examples and while some activities were extremely simplified others were far more advanced at an earlier stage than it seemed they should be. The format has you writing full paragraphs before the process has been completely explained. My daughter became very frustrated with the pack before she was even halfway through it.

I was greatly disappointed with this product. I submitted my review to Currclick as per my agreement with the Hands of A Child representative that had contacted me. I also attempted to submit the review to the Hands of A Child site, but it is not allowing me to for some reason. I have used many other project packs from this company and have liked them all, so please don't let this one review deter you from the publisher completely!

Doodle Dice - Review

KM loves any kind of game! Card games, board games, Wii Games, etc.... whatever it is wants to play! So I saw Doodle Dice when I was randomly browsing through Rainbow Resource before the Holidays and thought - "Hey that looks kinda cool!" BOY WAS I RIGHT!

SEE WHAT YOUR DICE CAN DOODLE!™

Create a ‘doodle’ with a few rolls of the DOODLE DICE™. There's a different doodle pictured on each card in the deck. When you build a doodle that matches one of the cards , you take that card. Block an opponent's turn or take one of their cards away. Collect one card of each color and you win! It's the fun challenging way for everyone in your family to a be a ‘doodle artist’!

This game is so much fun. We spent hours playing it the day we opened it and then on New Year's Eve the adults and the kids were arguing over who was going to get to play it first!

The coolest thing about this game is the different chance factors that go along with the strategy! The rules are fairly easy to remember and it is just FUN. It is fast paced, so that no one loses interest and you never know what is going to happen next.

Here are some pics -

KM liked that as a bonus she got to practice her Spanish!

Sesame Street Free EBooks - Toddlers & Preschoolers

I was contacted and asked to review the new Sesame Street Ebooks site, I was a bit hesitant at first, but then I went on and saw that they had my all time favorite sesame street book - HERE - and I had a change of heart!

Here is a link to a press release regarding the new site that gives the ins and outs of it.

So far they only have the free content up and it looks really great. I don't know if it is great enough that I would want to pay for something like this or subscribe to it, but as a free resource that will be changing weekly, it looks fantastic.

I also LOVE LOVE LOVE the new design on the Sesame Street website! I must say that since my daughter is 12 I have not been on the Sesame Street site in quite sometime, but I took a look around it with SC this morning and it looks great!

Here are my top picks for the site:

• I love the playlist feature where you can choose one they have made or create your own based on subject, theme and content type!
• My street - where you can customize a webpage with all your favorite aspects of the site.
• podcasts - great for a little something to take on the go!
• Parents section - and more specifically Media for Milestones section that has all the great developmental stages at the click of a mouse!

Really the only thing that I think could be improved was the fact that I couldn't find ANY printables! I am big on watch a video, do a color page and SC really loves this type of thing. I may have not looked deep enough into the site, but I couldn't find ANY! ~ with the exception of one of the ebooks, which was coloring book that could be printed off and I may have done that if I didn't already have the HUGE version of it!

I really think I will be using this site often in the future to gather things for SC - WHO LOVES ANYTHING on the computer.

Meet me at the Corner - Site Review

Last week I was contacted by Donna Guthrie, founder of the site Meet Me at the Corner to see if I would do a review of the site...and I am SOOOO glad that she did!!!

MEET ME AT THE CORNER, Virtual Field Trips for Kids, is a dynamic, interactive site, which encourages individual expression and participation through video submissions from children worldwide. Through these video pod casts we hope to create a community of children, who learn the art of self-expression and storytelling through video.

In the beginning, the video pod casts highlighted the people, events and history of New York City. As this site grows through children’s submissions, we hope to highlight the people and events of other towns, cities and nations. To date we have video podcasts from California, Colorado, North Carolina, Texas, and Maryland. We are always open to the people and events in your corner of the world. - from site

KM and I poked around the site this morning and we were both very impressed with the content, variety of topics covered, as well as the quality of the videos - even in full screen mode the quality was really good!

KM's favorite episode that she watched was Juggle for Kids and she "thought it was great and really interesting."

As a homeschooling mom my favorite feature was the Learning Corner -

Each Learning Corner is designed by an educator to be easily integrated into individual curriculum, as well as State, and National Standards.

Click here for The Learning Corner Page

It is also so convenient that they have posted links to various things mentioned within the episode right on the video page, as well recommended book suggestions. Which is so awesome to be able to have the content references to continue a discussion or expand on the ideas presented!

They also have some really cool contests that seem to cross curriculum areas - ANOTHER FANTASTIC feature for homeschoolers!

This is sure to be an incredible, fun and FREE addition to our current curriculum!

With that being said though - I would like to say that the one thing I am a little uncomfortable with is the registration questions. You don't need to sign up for an account to view any of the content on the site, but in order to submit or enter contests you do - here is where I feel the uncomfortable part - and the child is asked to submit first and last name as well as their full address and phone number. They do ask the children to submit their parents email to approve the account, but I have heard many a story of kids setting up separate accounts to approve these things themselves. Here is their explanation of how it works -

We have set up the Meet Me at the Corner account in such a way that unless parents confirm the child's account, the child won't be able to log on to the website. So, when you create a new account, one mail is sent to child's email id and another is sent to parent's email id. To activate the account, both the child and the parent must click on the confirmation link in the email notice. Once both confirm, the account is activated and the child can log on and submit content there on. - from FAQ page

I, personally, will be really thinking about whether I let KM set up an account or not. However, since you can access the content without registration I do still HIGHLY recommend the site!