I received for review a copy of Dr Craft’s Active Play! Fun Physical Activities for Young Children.  This book is loaded with fun and useful ideas for those seeking creative activities that develop children’s large muscles, also called gross motor skills.  The description on the cover says Active Play! Fun Physical Activities for Young Children.  It is the perfect description.

Once upon a time, before I welcomed children of my own into the world, I was first a preschool teacher at several public and private daycares.  Then I went on to work as a special education preschool teacher in the public school setting.  Later on I became the coordinator for an early childhood advocacy group.  I have well over 10 years experience in the world of early childhood education.  I hold degrees in child psychology, special education, and early childhood education.  Why do I share this information with you?  Please don’t think I’m trying to toot my own horn with my credentials because that isn’t the case.  The fact of the matter is, when I pick up a resource such as this I can’t help but look at it in two ways… as a homeschooling mom of course… and as an early childhood professional.

What Do I Get With This Book?

Dr. Craft’s Active Play Books is filled with over 52 different play activities.  For $39.00 you receive Active Play! Fun Physical Activities for Young Children, a spiral bound book and DVD with detailed and clear instructions including quite a bit of information about the skyrocketing weights of obesity and how quality active play might have an impact.  There are also pages of information about how children learn through active play.  Inside the you’ll find black and white photos of wonderful children engaging in the very activities described on the page.  I am a very visual person.  These photos added an immense amount to the written instructions.  Each activity begins with list of the equipment needed to complete the activity. The delightful DVD shows videos of children really playing.

At the beginning of the book you’ll find a chart that breaks down each of the games according to skill they will cover.  If you’re using this with a group of children there are even reproducible pages in the back of the book that they can bring home.  Finally, there is a 20 week lesson plan chart that lays out all of the lessons in an easy to follow format.  I especially appreciate that the lesson plans leave room for you to repeat activities your children particularly loved.

How Did We Use This Book?

I used several of these activities for indoor and outdoor play with my youngest child who is on the cusp of turning 3.  Her older brothers, ages 5 and 7, often joined in on the fun too.  In fact, they were often more excited about the games than their baby sister.  Most lessons lasted only 10 or 15 minutes, but then the children often carried them on or morphed them into their own creative invention even after I walked away.

Joyanna was hysterical during the Laundry Pick-Up game.  Daddy marched around the room throwing socks all around.  The look on her face was priceless.  How many times has Mommy told them NOT to toss around my clean laundry!  Then it was time to pick-up the socks and put them back in the basket.  It took quite a bit of coaxing to convince her to help.  I think she thought we had gone mad!  First you throw laundry around and THEN you expect ME to help you pick them up!?  But after a few minutes she picked up on our playful attitude and she got in on the action too.  Before we knew it we had turned the game into a bit of a target throw by aiming at the laundry basket.  After that it turned into a “snowball” fight!  Giggles abounded.

Another day we setup our schoolroom to be a daredevil obstacle course.  For this we combined the ideas for the Indoor and Outdoor Obstacle Courses.  Around and around she went, as well as her brothers.  It wasn’t long before the three of them were modifying things to create their own idea of what an obstacle course should be.  Then before I knew it they were all pretending to ride horses through the obstacle course.  The play ideas never stopped.  I think they will be creating their own fun with this concept for weeks.

The Push & Pull Basket activity was a perfect fit for meal-time preparations.  Often my children choose to use this time to join me in the kitchen and then promptly loose their minds with crazy running and jumping all around our large room.  Pulling out the laundry basket, something I haven’t done since they were smaller, was a perfect way to help them direct their energy toward something specific.

Conclusion

Over all, this book contains a lot of fantastic information and it is over flowing with activities that children will love.  The activities are developmentally appropriate and easily adapted to children of a variety of abilities and ages.  Most of the activities can be done with common household items and can be done either indoors or out.  I think it is the perfect book for homeschoolers and group childcare providers to keep on hand for antsy rainy days.

One final thought before I close out this review.  Notice that I said group childcare providers up above.  That is actually the intended audience.  The author repeatedly talks about childcare, childcare settings, and children in care.  The activities, by and large, were created for use with larger groups of children (3 or more I’d say) like you would find in a daycare or preschool classroom.  They are absolutely similar to the activities that I once did with the children I taught back in my days in the classroom.  In fact, I would have adored having this book back then as it would have saved me some time inventing my own activities.  I think the activities in this book would be much more fun with a group of preschoolers than they are with just one child.  We were able to compensate a bit in our more since our preschooler has siblings who were willing to play.  I do think preschools and perhaps homeschool co-ops could benefit tremendously from a resource like this.

When I first learned of  Supercharged Science by rocket scientist Aurora Lipper I was intrigued!  She offers her entire science curriculum called e-Science on the web!  A web based curriculum?  No books?  How in depth could this really be? I was skeptical for sure.  We love our books!  While we love technology and using internet sources to enhance our learning, we just LOVE our books.  My biased showed! How can anything that doesn’t require books really teach you anything too in-depth?  Plus, it’s actually a program designed to teach students k-12!  I’m always skeptical of those.  How can they possibly be everything to all levels?

 

As I investigated this program I spent quite a bit of time on her Getting Started Page. There are a couple of really informative videos on that page that I really recommend you spend the time watching.  Here is quote from the page that piqued my interest immediately…..

We recommend teaching science from the inside-out, meaning that you start with an experiment or two that really hooks your kids… the kind that makes them (and you) say; “WOW!” or “Cool!”

Let them roll around and play with the experiment for awhile, and when they come running back to you with questions like “Why did that happen?” or “What’s going on here?”, then they’ve signaled you that they are ready for the more academic reading and lesson videos.

That statement just resonated with me!  I have little boys who just adore having their hands busy! They enjoy creating, experimenting, and fussing with how to tweak whatever their current project is to get things just right.  I thought there was a good chance that I could hone that innate desire in them into some real science learning with the help of Aurora her e-Science program.  Still, some skepticism remained.  A whole science curriculum online?  Let’s see how this works!

 

 How does this program work?

Your subscription begins with access to the first 7 study units.  Every month you will gain access to additional units.  However, if you notice a topic that your students are interested in you are welcome to contact Supercharged Science at any time to request additional access.  To see the topics of study covered in this curriculum click here.  Working 3 days a week over the course of just about 4 weeks for about a half an hour a day we were able to  cover the following topics:

1. Mechanics
   1. Force
   2. Gravity
   3. Friction
2. Motion
   1. Velocity
   2. Acceleration
3. Matter
   1. Atoms and Density
   2. Solids

Aurora is also kind enough to provide you with additional resources including tips and tricks for teaching the scientific method, parent resources, and a printable shopping list for supplies and experiments.  Truth be told, for the experiments we did during the course of the review we had ALMOST everything laying around the house already.  We have very little to purchase to make the incredibly simple yet engaging experiments happen for us.

Experimenting with force and magnetic fields.

Each unit can take you 1-2 weeks to cover depending on how many of the experiments you choose to do and how deep you go with the topic.  If your learner really gets excited about a topic I could see some units taking as much as a month to complete.  The choice is up to you! In total there are over 600 experiments included in this curriculum.

Using magnetic force to make a paperclip dance.

 

Each unit provides you with all you need to really help your children get excited about learning.  You are provided with complete lesson plans where the highlights of the unit are made clear.  All of the reading is provided and I chose  to use them as alouds for my children. I loved the reading because it was relatively short and very much to the point.  Aurora gets her points across succinctly, with ease and even a bit of humor.

Gravity experiments! Building towers with cardstock.  They built structures like this for a week after we did it in our school work. 

Every unit also comes with a variety of videos and THIS is where a lot of the beauty of this program lies.  Have you ever found yourself trying to decipher the directions for an experiment from text and maybe a few diagrams?  Have you ever been left just scratching your head because it is all coming across as Greek and you just don’t understand what you are supposed to do with your children?  I’ve been there and done that! Aurora’s videos take ALL of the guess work out of these experiments.  You know just what you have to do.  Plus, since she’s done each experiment a multitude of times she can even provide you with tips and tricks to avoid pitfalls.  She completely explains the concepts to be learned with each experiment in a very easily understood manner.  Sometimes the videos give you suggestions for the taking the experiment even further.  She asks engaging questions that make your student think.  It would never be enough to just watch the video and not do the experiment, though we did do that for a couple for the sake of time.  If you REALLY want to get the most out of it you’ll need to do the work.  Thankfully she makes it OH so easy!

More force and gravity experiments!

 

There are also exercises at the end of each chapter.  These are worksheets with a few questions that help you sum up and evaluate what kind of learning took place.  I had my 7 year old write out the answers by hand while my 5 year old answered them orally.

How did we use it?

I found what worked best for us was the read the highlights out loud and then let the children watch a video and complete an experiment one at a time.  Some experiments were short enough that we were able to do a couple in a day. After all of the experiments we wanted to do were through I would read the text out loud to reinforce the concepts.  Then the children would complete the exercise worksheets.  All of this work occurred over several days depending on the unit or chapter we were studying.

The units are designed so that you can pick and choose your own order, however some units do flow nicely one after the other.  Also, if you begin with the earlier units and pick up the few required materials for the experiments that you might not have at home, by the time you reach the later units you’ll have less to buy for those experiments.  If you start with something later you might have fewer materials already on hand.

I think one of the handiest resources provided by e-Science are these conversation charts that allow you to match this program up with some of the most popular science programs available today.  Want to add some excitement to your regular science curriculum?  Here ya go!

How did we like it?

In short, we truly enjoyed it!  We loved the discovery aspect of it!  We loved how Aurora lays everything out in such an organized manner.  Her lessons are so easy to follow and understand.  There is no guess work involved at all.  Best of all, I can follow my children’s interest. We can dig into each topic and much or even as little as we’d like.  We have access to an amazing array of fun science activities.  We enjoyed our time together learning and discovering.  There were a lot of laughs and a lot of excitement.

It was interesting to watch my two boys, ages 5 and 7 work through this.  Some of the concepts were certainly a stretch.  Some experiments we repeated numerous times as I tried to over ride some of their preconceived ideas about how the world should work.  For example, it took some time to convince Noah that a heavy object does not fall and hit the ground any faster than a lighter object of similar size and shape.  On the other hand, it took Ezra quite a while to understand some of the friction concepts that Noah got right off the bat.  I imagine some concepts will be filed away in the brain and will contribute to A HA! moments in the future.  I’m OK with that.  However, if you REALLY want your child to totally grasp every concept… you might want to wait until they are 8 or 9 before giving this curriculum a try.

This hovercraft floated around our home for days before my boys finally decided they were done with it.

Wan to know what our favorite experiment was?  It has to be the hovercraft we made during our experiments on friction.  Actually they are always adding new experiments to the e-Science library and this happened to be one they added during the review period but after we were done with appropriate unit.  That didn’t stop us from giving it a try!   It’s a project I never would have had the time or energy or creativity to figure out.  This curriculum enabled us to do it together!  As a team!  How wonderful is that?  Check out the video.

 

 What does it cost?

• $37 per month for Kindergarten to 8th grade content.
• $57 per month for Kindergarten through 12th grade content which includes all K-8 content, plus more advanced reading and experiments for high schoolers
• 30-day money back guarantee

So there you have!  Another fantastic program that has the potential to really excite your science learner!  Good luck!

 

Your email:

 

We received for review the piano curriculum MusIQ HomeSchool from Adventus. It’s designed for ages 4-18+. The software requires a MIDI-compatible keyboard which you can purchase at nearly any big box retailer or through  Adventus themselves for a great bundle price.

I grew up surrounded by music.  My father is musical and some of my earliest childhood memories evoke images of him with his guitar or with his buddies jamming out at they say.  In school I adored music and so I began to play an instrument as soon as I was able.  The flute was my main instrument and I studied for years.  For a time I even dreamed of becoming a music teacher.  My own music teachers were some of my greatest influences in life.  I also had the pleasure of learning the piano and guitar.  I played the bells in church and I sang in any choir that would admit me.  Music was my whole world for most of my youth.

When my husband and I started to consider the homeschooling option music was the one and only thing that made me hesitate.  Most of my musical experiences came to be through my school experiences.  Yes I took private lessons and studied outside of school of course.  But it was the opportunities afforded to me at school that really kept my feet firmly planted in the musical world.  Private lessons are expensive.  EXPENSIVE!  20 years ago I think I paid over $30 for a thirty minute lesson once a week.  I’m sure the price is now only higher.  We have 3 children.  How would we afford that with a primarily one income family?  Sure I COULD teach them myself at least to a point.  But in my heart of hearts I just felt I wouldn’t have enough time to do the job justice.  It is something I have fretted about for years.  And then along came the opportunity to review Adventus MusIQ HomeSchool.

 

Adventus MusIQ HomeSchool is not the first homeschool musical curriculum that I have at least researched but it is, by far, the most comprehensive.  I struggle even as I type because I know the words I write in this blog post will not adequately explain just how much your children and even you can learn from this program.  Every member of your family can begin to learn to read music, music theory, rhythm, music history, and yes of course piano skills with this program.  Even the adults.  In fact, I decided to start playing again myself and Adventus has helped me dip my toes back into the musical water.

This program does require a Midi enabled keyboard that can be plugged into your computer during lesson time.  We were graciously given such a keyboard as a Christmas gift this year so we were all set to go before this review opportunity even became available.  We did have to purchase the cable though it was just a few dollars on Amazon.

I started both Noah(7) and Ezra(5)  Children’s Music Journey level 1.  They have had almost no musical experiences so I figured the beginning is always the best.  What is so fabulous is each child can progress at their own pace.  Noah shot right up in level 2 while Ezra is steadily progressing and nearly through level 1.  Meanwhile, as an adult I dove right into the Piano Suite section.  It was a quick reminder of how rusty I really am, but oh did it feel good to get back up on that horse as they say. Children’s Music Journey is recommended for ages 4-10. Piano Suite is recommended for ages 10+.

Generally speaking you would probably want to plan for about one lesson a week with a few days using the provided practice experiences in between.  If used 3 or 4 days a week you should only need about 20 minutes per session if that.  Ezra stuck to his one lesson a week but Noah was able to do two or three.  You can set the program to various modes and allow your children access to only to the lessons they are currently working on or everything the program has to offer at once.  The choice is yours. 

Children’s Music Journey is a wonderful experience for young children.  It begins with simple game like experiences taught by a musical great of history’s past such as Beethoven or Bach.  It leads the children to a knowledge of how the piano keyboard is laid out, and understanding of rhythm, a bit of ear training, and even how to read notes on the staff.  The program includes detailed activity sheets and even quizzes. Children learn to recognize the most famous classical musical compositions created by their “teacher.” One of our favorite features of the program would be the Composer’s Corner.  My boys were thrilled to create their own little tunes that were recorded and then played back over and over and over again.  The game room provides a fabulous system for practicing new skills.

Piano Suite is fantastic for the older learner or anyone who has experience in music.  The software is so detailed that it trains you to play with such precision that no human instructor could ever manage.  The collection of fun, recognizable songs to learn through makes the experience a true joy. Later in the program there is even an Ear Training Coach to help the student learn to sight read.

The entire program is so well thought out and comprehensive that I can’t even begin to do it justice in this space.  The games, the activities, the tips and notes, the history.  Each lesson can take as little as 15 minutes but we often found that once we got going we just didn’t want to stop and a few minutes turned into an hour before we even knew it.  We were learning and having so much glorious fun! The lesson plans are detailed and easy to follow including the activity sheets and other printables.

We just kept uncovering new fantastic features each time we sat down to enjoy the program.  There is so much to this program that I can only imagine what comparable private lessons would cost.  I think you would have to hire a piano teacher and a music theory tutor as well.  I estimate that you would have to spend several thousands of dollars for just one child to get a comparable music education with private instructors.

I received the MusIQ for Homeschool product from Adventus for review in the form of PDF downloads of the MusIQ lesson books.  I chose to download these to my Kindle Fire for easy reading.  I also received Children’s Music Journey Vol. 1, 2 & 3; Ear Training Coach 1 & 2; Ear Training Coach 3 & 4; and Piano Suite Premier.

Now I’m sure you are wondering just how much Adventus is asking for this fabulous program.  You can purchase in multiple ways.  They offer an online homeschool subscription for $10.95 a month.  Here is what their website says is included with this subscription:

Access to all the MusIQ HomeSchool software for both the Early and Multi-Level Curricula. It does not include a MIDI keyboard or the Lesson Plans (available separately).

There is also a total and complete bundle that you can purchase.  Complete MusIQ Homeschool Bundle contains all of the programs, lesson plans and a MIDI keyboard – $489.95.

This is the complete package of seven years’ worth of lessons. Where I live music lessons can easily run each child $30 to $50 per week.  This program can be used with multiple family members. It won’t take long before this Complete MusIQ Homeschool Bundle begins to save you real cash.

Or if you would prefer Children’s Music Journey (Levels 1, 2 or 3) can be purchased separately for $89.95 (including lesson plans) or can can get Piano Suite on its own (with lesson plans) for $109.95. If you want to see if MusicIQ HomeSchool is for your family, try the 7 day free trial.

Words cannot express how fabulous I think this program is.  It is a HUGE blessing for our family and fills what I viewed as a tremendous gap in our learning.  I cannot recommend this enough.

My youngest child, Joyanna, is entering a new phase in her little life.  Yes, she is turning from a toddler into a full fledged preschoolers.  I want to cry.  I admit, I still want my baby to be my baby, but what can I do?  She’s begging to do more schooly stuff like her brothers and so I’ve decided to take her lead and see where she make go.  When I was given the opportunity to review Touch Math’s Pre-K Program I took the leap.   If you read my blog regularly you know that we’ve already been exploring new learning routines for her and she has been soaking it up.   TouchMath only added to her delight in learning.

Touch Math’s Pre-K Program is a complete math program for preschoolers.  Added hands-on manipulatives bring a mutli-sensory experience that really resonated with my young daughter.  The program comes as a downloadable pdf with printable attractive worksheets that are engaging yet uncluttered.  There are what the program calls 6- teaching modules (think of them sort of like units) and 90 worksheets.

The modules cover…

1. Counting and Number Sense
2. Comparing and Classifying
3. Sorting, Classifying, Graphing, and Patterning
4. Identifying, Sorting, and Classifying 2-D Shapes
5. Identifying, Sorting, and Classifying 3-D Shapes and Coins
6. Representing Quantities and Numbers

Each sheet encourages the practice and mastery of a new concept while not diverting attention away from the objective at hand.  We began with simple encouragement of 1-1 correspondence.  We were given activities to complete such as talking about one and one more while eating snack or counting with each step while marching around the room.  We also used a lot the toys we have around the house to set up counting games and pairing up objects for more number concept experience.  These pre-activities, as they are called, complemented the worksheets very nicely.

The instructions for teachers include clear directions that you can use as scripted if needed.  There is even a progress monitoring record included so you can keep track of how your child is moving through the program.

 

I have to say, my only criticism of the pdf is that in contains many many many pages that go into the common core standards at length, in depth, dare I say ad-nauseum.  The program is clearly very well aligned with these standards so if this is something that is important to you then you have certainly hit a home run.  They describe all of the math standards, and then indicate which activity or worksheet or lesson meets each standard.  The pages and pages of information brought me straight back to my own former public school teaching days and I found my eyes just glazing over.   It is my understanding that this program is used in public schools.  In fact I have a family member who teaches elementary school and she was very excited to hear I was reviewing this product as she uses it in her classroom. I know the information is vital for the public school audience since public schools are now aligning their curriculum with the common core standards.  But for most homeschooler’s I’d say it isn’t needed.  Most of the families I know school based on the needs of our children not based on objectives set by the government.  I write all of this here just to warn you not to become over-whelmed or confused by all of that information.  I could see someone shipping the program back feeling it is too much, when it really is quite simple and beautiful once you get past the beginning sections.

The added manipulatives made the program very exciting for my little girl.  She had school stuff, just like her brothers.  Joyanna carried her texture cards around the house every day for days.

She would line them up in order, touching each and every letter, running her fingers over them as she counted out loud.  She lined these cards up for every person in the family… “Watch me Mommy!” and then every one of her dolls.  These cards are colorful, engaging, multi-sensory  and sturdy.

In our homeschool we typically used the program four times a week.  For probably just 5-10 minutes a day which was just perfect for my little learner.  I kept the pdf on my Kindle Fire  where I could easily refer to the teacher’s instructions.  I would print out a week’s worth of worksheets at a time.  Usually Joyanna used them up before the week was out as she often wanted to do more per day than I had planned.  Printing out a few more was no issue.  We practiced one to one correspondence, counting, sorting, color names, shape names and coloring.

The touch shapes added a fun element to many of the concepts.  They are perfect for all kinds of sorting activities, color identification, and shape identification… and of course number concepts as you match and count. 

We used the 3-D Numerals for matching, more number concept practice, and to help us learn the number words.  One of our favorite games involved spreading the numbers around the room and then racing to whichever number Mommy called out for her.  This brought on lots and lots of giggles.

 

The Touch Math indicates that these manipulatives can be used with their kindergarten and first grade program as well.

Pre-Kindergarden Pricing:

• TouchMath Pre-K Homeschool Unit Download - $59.95
• Touch Shapes - $30.00
• 3-D Numerals - $79.00
• Texture Cards - $99.00 Free samples can be downloaded here.

The pre-k program is intended for children ages 3-5.  Touch Math also offers homeschool programs for kindergarten, first, and second grade.

This program provides a fantastic avenue for introducing preschool math concepts to your little one.  The hands-on multisensory approach really brings the concepts alive, making them concrete and understandable for the developing learning.  It is well laid out and easy to implement.  Children will find it fun and engaging.  This program can be especially useful for families looking to align their teaching with common core or public school standards.

 

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this product through the Schoolhouse Review Crew in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way. All opinions I have expressed are my own or those of my family. I am disclosing this in accordance with the FTC Regulations.

My latest review is from Lone Star Learning. This time I was given the blessed opportunity to review Target Vocabulary Pictures, Set 1 intended for grades 3-8.  This set contains 57 high quality thick cardstock cards.  These fabulous flash cards use picture cues and mnemonics to help children remember the definitions of an array of vocabulary terms… in this case it was math vocabulary. These cards do a fantastic job helping children make a connection between the word and it’s meaning.  The cards come on sturdy cardstock and, as you can see, are brightly colored.  My children were drawn to them immediately.  They just LOOK  like fun!

 

Each day I’d pull a few cards out and we’d study the picture and try to determine what it could possibly mean based on what we saw.  Then I would give the children the definition.  I had my older son Noah write some of the definitions that he didn’t seem to get quickly in a notebook.  I believe writing helps memory.  It was quite a lot of fun to discuss what the words meant and in some cases, like for shapes, we even hunted something down that fit that definition.  Or we’d look around for something in our house that displayed the concept.  For example, we spent a good 20 minutes hunting down all of the right angles we could find.  We spread the cards on the floor and played a game that very quickly become extremely popular.  I would read them a definition and then they had to hunt down the correct word.  Giggles abounded every day.  They were learning and they didn’t even know it.

As I stated above the company does recommend these for grades 3-8 but I had fabulous success with them with even my five year old.  I didn’t require him to memorize the definitions to quite the degree that I did of my older 7 year old, but he did anyway.  That’s my boy, he just won’t be left behind.  If his big brother is doing it so is he.  It just took him a bit more time.

These vocabulary cards come in two sizes – Large (11″x8.5″) and Small (5.5″x4.25″).  I was fortunate to recieve the small set which worked perfectly in our homeschool.  They were easy to store in a plastic zip-lock bag. They are easy to handle, and manipulate yet still visually appealing and easy to read even from a distance.  These cards would be fantastic on a word wall or displayed in some other way around a classroom.

In addition to the math cards I also had access to the Science Vocabulary Pictures, Set 1.  We loved these even more than the math cards.  These come in a slightly different size of 5.5″ by 8.5″ and include 40 individual cards.  They are just as high quality and probably even more aesthetically pleasing. These illustrations are even more fun and engaging with their bright colors and vivid illustrations.  They do a superior job of helping children associate that word meaning with the word itself. We played similar games and completed activities much like the math cards. Science time was really jazzed up each day as we worked with these cards.  Shouts of joy filled the air when I brought them out.

 

 

Both sets of cards come with a glossary so that you, the teacher, can quickly reference each and ever word meaning.  Each set of these cards will cost you $29.99.  While that might seem pricey for a set of flash cards, these really take flash cards to a whole new level.  If you are looking for something to add that special something to your homeschooling day then I really can’t recommend these enough.

 

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this product through the Schoolhouse Review Crew in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way. All opinions I have expressed are my own or those of my family. I am disclosing this in accordance with the FTC Regulations.