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CTC Math (Crew Review)

Posted on April 22, 2014 by Deanna

The name CTC Math has been familiar to me for quite some time, but I didn’t know much about it until I was given a 12-month family plan subscription to review the program. I wish we had found this sooner! I’ve shared a lot about how an online reading program saved Ian’s and my relationship while doing a great job teaching him how read. Now we have something that can handle math as well! CTC Math provides online math lessons for Kindergarten through Calculus, and homeschoolers can get a great deal on a 12-month family plan so you can access every level your family needs with the same subscription.

How CTC Math Works

The program is broken down systematically, starting with the grade level/course. As you can see in this screenshot, the course is then broken down into four streams. (These four streams are the same for each grade, K-6.) In Kindergarten the first stream (Number, Patterns and Algebra) is then broken down into eight topics.

When you click on “Number I,” a new menu opens up to show all the lessons for that topic. Each lesson consists of a short video (about 2-5 minutes) which teaches the concept, followed by 8-10 questions. After completing the questions, the student is shown the complete set of questions including their answers and the percentage they got correct.

When the student has completed all the lessons in a particular subject, they can earn a certificate based on their average scores: Platinum, Gold, Silver, or Bronze. At first glance, I almost dismissed the message about working toward a particular color certificate, but Ian noticed it right away, and it was highly motivating.

I was stunned. One of the main frustrations I have had with Ian, particularly in math, is that he just doesn’t seem to care how well he does. For a recovering perfectionist who never would have been able to settle for a 90% if I knew I could retake the test to get 100% (and wipe out all evidence of that 90% by repeating a perfect test 3 times), I just don’t get Ian’s acceptance, especially when he gets things wrong just because of sloppy counting or other silly mistakes. However, the certificate system with CTC Math actually motivated him to want to do better. He didn’t insist on getting 100% (probably a much healthier attitude than my own), but he did want to improve himself and achieve at least a silver, sometimes even choosing to do lessons over in order to move up to gold. It drove him to really do his best, and for the first time he started caring when his carelessness cost him an answer he really could have gotten right. This sort of incentive was one of my favorite things about the program (and Ian’s too).

There are diagnostic and comprehensive tests for each topic (the only difference being the number of questions on each test), but after doing a few of those I decided to skip them with Ian. If I were considering letting him pass out of a topic I might use them, but for now I just want him to work through each topic systematically. I appreciate that the program doesn’t require the tests in order to move on, but I also like the fact that they are there if we choose to use them.

Our Experience With CTC Math

For the most part Ian was able to work very independently, which was great. The video lessons were very thorough and easy to understand. Most days I had him work on the laptop we have attached to our television so I could be working in the kitchen or folding laundry while still keeping an eye on what he was doing. Occasionally he would come across something requiring my help, but usually it was because he was stumbling over a word.

For example, in the section on mass, the student is supposed to compare two items and choose from the words “heavier” and “lighter” to complete the sentence. Ian reads really well for a Kindergartener, but even he had a hard time with reading some of the words. Sometimes there were pictures of the items, but not always. For example, one of the sentences was ,”An envelope is [blank] than a tennis ball.” It would have been easy to have a picture of each item, but instead he had to call me over to read “envelope” for him. Another sentence was comparing a loaf of bread with a cricket bat, which I doubt most American 5-year olds are familiar with. CTC Math is based in Australia, but we were able to specify which country we are in so the currency lessons would be familiar.

Unfortunately, the money lesson was the one real problem we had. The bills were hard to make out, and even I had a hard time discerning the denominations in some of the questions. I thought viewing the lessons on the television screen might help, but it actually made it harder, as the poor quality of the scans became even more obvious. We were glad to be done with that lesson, and I hope it’s something they will be able to improve in the future.

All in all I was very pleased with the program. Although it can be used as extra tutoring for students in traditional school, there are also many features that make it ideal for homeschoolers. I like that I can set the level for what is considered a “passing” grade. I also really appreciate the weekly reports I receive in my email as well as the reports I could pull up to see how he had done on various units (and print out to keep in his work portfolio). There was a lot of flexibility that allowed us to use the program in a way that best fit our family’s needs.

The program is very thorough as far was what it covers, but I don’t think it is enough to consider as a stand-alone curriculum. I might use it as a framework, but it would definitely require some filling out in order to use it over the course of an entire year. Ian completed all the Kindergarten-level work in about 4 weeks and then moved on to the First Grade lessons. Also, I personally prefer a spiral approach where the topics get revisited more often than once a year, and it seemed like I would have to do some serious planning in order to make that happen with CTC Math.

I was impressed with the simplicity and thoroughness of the program, but since it would be an additional expense after paying for another curriculum, I don’t think it would fit in our family’s budget right now. However, as my kids get older and are all doing schoolwork, I may reconsider that, since the $118.80 12-month family plan for homeschoolers could include everyone. (Homeschoolers can take advantage of a 60% off sale, whether purchasing a monthly, 6-month or 12-month plan!) They offers you five student log-ins at first, but if you need more you can simply request them for no additional charge, so it’s great for large families!

If you’re looking for a way to help your student become more independent in math, I highly recommend CTC Math. Visit their website or Facebook page to find out more. You can even try out the program for free!

Posted in Homeschool Resources, Product reviews

Spelling You See (Crew Review)

Posted on March 28, 2014 by Deanna

Spelling is a subject we’ve avoided addressing formally up until now because I wanted Ian to pick up spelling patterns instinctively through the context of reading and copywork rather than through memorizing lists and rules. That’s why I was so excited when I heard about the new Spelling You See program produced by Demme Learning, the makers of Math-U-See. I was even more excited get a chance to review Spelling You See: Jack and Jill (Level B). This program approaches spelling exactly as I hoped to, only in a more strategic, purposeful way than I ever could have come up with on my own without a lot of time and effort.

Spelling You See is geared toward elementary age students (or older ones who could benefit from going back and building a stronger foundation). It consists of five levels, labeled A-E rather than by grade level so you can place your child exactly where they need to be based on what spelling skills they have already learned. The website has lots of helpful information to guide you toward the proper placement, as well as sample lessons so you’ll know exactly what is expected of a child at each level.

I looked carefully through this material before selecting which level to use with Ian. He could easily read the passages from Wild Tales (Level C), but since we haven’t worked on spelling at all up to this point, and because Spelling You See emphasizes that each skill must be learned progressively and that it important not to skip stages, we decided to go with Jack and Jill (Level B) to make sure he developed a solid foundation.

It was definitely the right decision, and I was so thankful for the guidance Spelling You See provided so we could find the right fit. The first few weeks of the program were a bit too easy, so I just had Ian do a page from each week until I found a place that challenged him just enough to make it interesting while still being easy enough that he could take pride in his success and become confident about his ability to spell words correctly. Once we settled in, he just took off. He loves knowing what is expected of him, being challenged, and experiencing the joy of work done well.

What are the different components of Spelling You See?

There are two things to purchase:

Instructor’s Handbook ($16)
Student Pack, which for this level contains two consumable workbooks, a handwriting guide, and a pack of erasable colored pencils ($30)

These prices are for Spelling You See: Jack and Jill (Level B) and are current at the time of posting. Other levels may have different prices.

Please note: some of the pictures I’ve included here show us using a printout from a pdf file that was provided for the purpose of this review. The program is only available for purchase in book forms and the workbooks are consumable.

So what’s the program like?

Jack and Jill (Level B) contains 36 five-part lessons, designed to be used every day through the entire school year. Each day the child completes 2 pages in the Student Workbook. The first page focuses on a reading passage. (Jack and Jill uses a different nursery rhyme each week.) The daily work follows a consistent routine:

First you read through the passage with your student, clapping along with the words. (Because these are nursery rhymes and can be said with a distinct rhythm I wasn’t sure at first whether we were supposed to clap the beat or each individual syllable. The practice book pages say “clap in rhythm,” and the Instructor’s Handbook also referred to “clapping in rhythm,” which to my musical mind meant clapping beats, but then a little further in it said, “When you clap the words together, each syllable should be represented by one clap,” which made more sense to me so I was glad to get that cleared up.)
Then the student reads the passage with you, pointing to each word.
The next step always has the student examine the words in the passage looking for something specific. One day it may be capital letters. The next day they’re looking for a particular suffix, vowel patterns, words that rhyme, words that are opposites, etc. Sometimes they can just circle what they’re looking for; other days they’ll want to use colored pencils (included in the Student Pack) or highlighters.
Finally, the student copies a portion of the passage, helping them pay even closer attention to the text.

The second page for each day focuses on dictation, with the student writing down words or passages as you read them aloud. This is the part of the program where I really saw the progression of skill development. (The list of words can be found in the “Resources” section at the back of the Instructor’s Handbook, though I wish it were also included in the instructions for each lesson.)

For the first 6 weeks the top half of the page is just letter copying practice, followed by 6 words for dictation.

In the first 2 weeks, they give the student 3 words to trace, and then they write the same 3 words on their own.
In Weeks 3-5 there are 6 words, all following a Consonant-Vowel-Consonant pattern with the same vowel used all week.
In Week 6 all the vowels are used each day, requiring the student to listen carefully to the words as you say them. The student says each sound as they write the letters and reads back the words after they have completed each one (an important step for learning how to both encode and decode words).

Starting in Week 7, the entire second page is used for dictation (12 words).

At first they are still C-V-C words
In Week 8 beginning blends are introduced (e.g. frog, slip, this). In the first few lessons, the position of the vowel is given, helping the student to visualize where to put letters for the other sounds.
Weeks 14-16 focus on ending blends (e.g. dust, hand, rush).
Finally, Weeks 17 and 18 move to 5-letter words with blends at both the beginning and the end (e.g. twist, cloth, clang).

In the Student Workbook Part 2 the dictation section consists of phrases from the week’s passage rather than word lists.

My Thoughts on Spelling You See

I REALLY like this program. There are a only a few minor things that I’m not wild about. The first is the style of handwriting. Most letters were formed the same I have taught Ian, but others were slightly different. I just had him write those the way he already knew how if he got confused. He had no trouble with this style of “y”, but the curls at the bottom of letters like “t” and “l” seemed to throw him off so he went back to using straight lines.

I also didn’t care for the way the lines were given for the students to write on for their copywork. I prefer using a 3-line guide that helps the student know where both capital and lowercase letters should be started, and Spelling You See only uses 2 lines, so Ian was never quite sure how tall to make his letters. I was consistently having to ask him to make his “d’s” taller because they looked like “a’s”. (This was especially noticeable on the dictation pages, where there were no lines at all, only boxes. The longer we used the program, the shorter his lines started getting, to the point that even he had a hard time reading back the words because he couldn’t tell if it was a “d” or an “a.”)

My only other issue was not knowing what to say when Ian ran into pesky spelling problems, particularly words with the /k/ sound. By week 7 the only words he had missed were “doc” and “yak” (chose the wrong ending both times). Later when we came across “skid” and “skip,” I saw him starting to write a “c” on the first word so I just told him to make it a “k” and then think about how that looked when he wrote the second. Then when we got to “scum,” he missed it 2 days in a row and finally took to asking me whenever we encountered the /k/ sound because he never knew what it should be. I would have liked a little more guidance about how to help him through situations like these.

Overall, however, the program as is excellent. As I said before, it’s the way I always wanted to teach spelling, but with the hard part done for me. There is no preparation required, and everything is completed quickly. Ian enjoys the work, almost like it’s a game to figure out how to spell the words I give him, and I love that he finds the lessons so satisfying. I’ve already got Wild Tales (Level C) ready for when Ian finishes this level, and I’m looking forward to starting Elijah as soon as I feel like he’s ready for more formal schoolwork.

To find out what others are saying about Spelling You See, click the banner below for more reviews or check out Spelling You See on social media:

https://www.facebook.com/SpellingYouSee
https://twitter.com/spellingyousee

Posted in Homeschool Resources, Product reviews

Egglo Entertainment (Crew Review)

Posted on March 11, 2014 by Deanna

Trying to find a way to include Jesus in your Easter celebration? We recently had the chance to review a line of products from Egglo Entertainment that are designed to bring the message that Jesus is the Light of the World into Easter Egg hunts. I received The Egg-cellent Easter Adventure, a book about three children who go on an adventure and discover the true meaning of Easter, and Glow in the Dark Egglo Eggs, and even though we were using them before the Easter season, they were a big hit in our house. After all, hunting for glow-in-the-dark eggs is fun no matter when you do it! (And since our family usually try to keep egg-related activities separate from Resurrection Sunday, it worked especially well for us to use these now.)

There are several products available for purchase on the website to help you make your egg hunt a meaningful activity, so let me tell you about the ones we used. (All prices are current at time of publishing.) Obviously the most important thing is the Glow in the Dark Egglo Eggs ($9.99). The Egglo Treasures Scripture Scrolls ($4.29) are great for putting inside them to make it clear that this isn’t just another hunt for candy-filled eggs, glow-in-the-dark or not. If you want to use the story, The Egg-cellent Easter Adventure, the print form of the book is available for $9.99, and there’s also an audiobook in mp4 format you can download for $2.99.

The Egg-cellent Easter Adventure Program Guide Curriculum ($14.99)is full of suggestions for a church-hosted event. (Many of the ideas can also be adapted for family use). It has printable invitations, decorations, coloring pages, themed snack suggestions (like torches made from pretzels and marshmallows), devotions, Easter party games and activities, and lots of tips for helping you plan a successful event for children and their families. The website has a lot of ideas to check out as well. I especially liked the page titled Egglo All-Year Round, which was full of suggestions to use the eggs in ways other than an Easter egg hunt.

Our Experience with Egglo Entertainment

The first thing we did read The Egg-cellent Easter Adventure. The illustrations are colorful and fun, and while the story is a bit fantastic, the boys enjoyed the many different parts of the adventure as the characters visited Ancient Egypt, a sunken pirate ship, and an erupting volcano before ending up at a shining cross in a beautiful garden full of gentle animals living in harmony with one another.

Later on we did an egg hunt in the dark. I filled the eggs with the Egglo Treasures Scripture Scrolls and a couple small candies and then hid them in places where their glow would be sure to show once I turned out the lights and set the boys loose. They loved seeing the light of the eggs around our living room and collecting them! (I wish I knew more about photography so I could have done a better job capturing some of the fun moments.) My kids especially loved the tiny scrolls, both because they’re such cute miniatures and because they’re like the scrolls in the book. Different Bible verses pertaining to the gospel message, especially verses about Jesus as the Light of the World, are paraphrased on the scrolls.

Kids wanted to do the egg hunt over and over, but as the eggs lost their glow we had to wait until dark the next night. (The eggs charge best in sunlight, taking about 20 minutes in direct exposure, but we found they really needed total darkness to glow well, which meant waiting until after the sun had gone down, which of course meant they lost some of their intensity. We found it best to just charge them in our kitchen’s fluorescent lights instead for about 40 minutes and then turn out all the lights in the house, even covering up LED lights that interfered with the searching). We did this every night for a week! The three older kids delighted in taking turns hiding the eggs and then seeking them out, especially when my husband and I were the appointed “seekers.” (This program is ideal for roughly ages 4-13, but certainly it can be adapted to include other ages. Arianna (2) was too little to get much out of the book and the scrolls, but she loved joining in with her brothers when it came to playing with the eggs and admiring the glow.)

We ended first egg hunt with a more solemn time of teaching as we read through the Bible verse on their scrolls and talked about what they mean. Since my kids love listening to audiobooks as they go to sleep, the mp3 of the book was a great way to keep emphasizing the teaching about Jesus. I also let the boys each take an egg into bed with them to enjoy its glow as they fell asleep (an idea I got from the Egglo All-Year Round page).

My favorite thing about the Egglo products is the message. In world darkened by sin, we want to look for the light. Just as our children hunt for the glowing eggs in the dark, we hope they will seek out Jesus, the Light of the world. Our family really enjoyed reading the story and playing with the eggs, but my prayer is that the message will stick in my children’s hearts so that whenever they remember the fun times we had, they will also remember the Truth that was represented by those glowing eggs.

See how other people are using Egglo!

Pinterest:  http://www.pinterest.com/eggloeggs/egglo-easter-egg-hunts-about-jesus/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EggloEggs
Twitter:  https://twitter.com/EggloEggs
Instagram: http://instagram.com/eggloeggs
YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/user/EggloEggs
Google +: plus.google.com/113761975581466698158

Posted in Homeschool Resources, Product reviews

Science4Us.com (Crew Review)

Posted on February 25, 2014 by Deanna

I want to love science. It teaches us about God’s world and leaves me in awe of His infinite creativity and remarkably complex design. Yet when it comes to homeschooling, the word “science” starts to fill me with dread. I want to find a way to teach my children about the wonderful world God has created in a way that doesn’t seem dreary and dull (as I remember my science lessons being when I was a child). Science4Us.com is something I probably would never have sought out on my own, but when I was given a Science4Us.com Online Subscription to review I was pleasantly surprised by this wonderful program designed specifically for Kindergarten through second grade.

Ian caught glimpses of the website before I found out I was going to get to review it and was intrigued. So by the time I was able to access the site he was very excited. When the student signs on, they see a screen like this :

Once I showed Ian how to choose a “book” of science (physical science, inquiry, life science, or earth/space science) he had no problem taking off on his own and exploring the site, which contains over 350 lessons! He was immediately drawn to the section on “force and motion” and then chose the module on simple machines and the proceeded to go through the entire lesson in one sitting. I kept telling him he didn’t have to do it all, that he could save some for the next day, but he insisted that he wanted to finish the lesson. I think it took him about an hour. (The next morning he immediately went to the computer and finished two complete modules on motion and space.)

My first impression was very positive, and it only get better over the course of the time we were reviewing it. The activities were full of information but short enough to not be boring. There were several activities where it was helpful to know how to read, but not necessary because they provided an option to have it read aloud with a simple click. He really liked the “Syllables with Silly Bulls” activity, which provides spelling and reading practice for the student as he puts together the words. Ian also got his first experience putting words in alphabetical order, something he probably would have dragged his feet at if I just sat him down to do it, but which was “fun” because it was on the computer.

Science4Us.com is built upon the “5E Inquiry-Based Instruction Module”:

Engage
Explore
Explain
Elaborate
Evaluate

Each lesson has a series of activities that take the student through these five stages of learning. The program is web-based, but there is more to it than just the online activities. If you sign in as a teacher you can find a teacher guide and offline materials to go along with each lesson.

If Ian were older I would have spent more time utilizing those resources, but as a Kindergarten science curriculum I found the online activities alone to be plenty. He really enjoyed working through lessons on all sorts of subjects, and since he was excited about science, I decided to really follow his lead and stick with just the online portion of the program.

Things we loved

There is lots of teacher support. You can assign certain lessons, view the student’s notebook, and watch training videos to help you get the most out of the program.
There is SO much integration of literacy and math skills.
I especially liked how it helped Ian put together on online “notebook” where he created pages about what he was learning.
I love the connection to everyday life. As Ian was going through a lesson on heat, he came across a picture of a scientist using a thermometer just like one we happen to have at home. He came racing out to find it and was so excited that what he was learning about was “real.”

Things we would have liked a little different:

Science4Us.com is an excellent program, and there’s not really anything I didn’t like about the way it is presented to the students. However, as a homeschool parent there were a couple things I would have changed.

The cost of the program is $7.95 per child per month. As a homeschooler, a family price would have been more beneficial. My 4-year old saw what Ian was doing and wanted to copy him. I was generously given a subscription for both boys, so he was able to sign on himself to do some lessons. However, some of the work was beyond him, and I wouldn’t have chosen to pay for a subscription for him as he used it a lot less than Ian. While it makes sense for a school to pay a cost per student for all the students in a certain grade, families have a different dynamic since there are students at different levels who might not be able to utilize the full program but would still benefit from being able to use it.
The way of viewing the records of what has been accomplished seems geared more toward a school setting. As a classroom teacher I can see wanting to view what every student has done on a particular subject. However, as a homeschool teacher, I would have liked a way to see all the things a single student has done in the entire program on one page, but I could only find a way to look at one subject at a time. (I am told they are working on adding this.)

Overall I would say Science4Us.com is a great Kindergarten science curriculum for students who enjoy spending time on the computer. Whether you have your student go through it systematically, assigning specific lessons and working through each book of science one at a time, or just let them explore and follow their own interests, they will learn a lot, have fun, and develop a love for science that will carry them on to more in depth study as they get older.

Posted in Homeschool Resources, Product reviews

KinderBach (Crew Review)

Posted on February 24, 2014 by Deanna

Our family has chosen to make music an important part of our children’s education from an early age, so I was happy to be given the chance to review The KinderBach Online Piano Lesson Membership with Teacher Corner over the last six weeks. This one-year online membership currently costs $95.88 (regularly $130), which breaks down to $7.99 per month. In other words, KinderBach has made it easy to start teaching piano to young children at home for far less money than it would cost to take private lessons. The lessons are laid out so that even parents with no prior musical knowledge or experience can teach their children (and learn alongside them!) with ease.

Since Ian (age 6) already has over two years of lessons behind him (and even the Level 6 sessions were teaching things he already knew), I decided that Elijah (age 4) would be my main student as we went through the program. Arianna (2) also participated in many of the activities, and Ian often chose to join us because he didn’t want to be left out of the fun the other two were having. It was helpful for him to review certain concepts. (Elijah has also started music lessons, but because it’s so new to him and because this material was presented in such a different way, it was a good complement to what he is already learning.) I saw musical growth in all three kids as a result of going through the program, especially in Elijah.

Components of the KinderBach program

Kinderbach Review

The KinderBach website says it is geared toward children ages 3-7, and I think it would work well for any student in that window, though I would probably move through at a rather rapid pace with children on the older end. There are 6 levels altogether, containing a total of 60 weeks of lessons. (You can access the first two weeks of level one lessons for free to try it out.) Each week consists of 4 short video sessions. It’s possible to do all 4 sessions in one sitting, and we often did that many (sometimes even more). I really just tried to gauge how interested the kids were. On the rare occasion that they weren’t really into it, we’d just do one and come back the next day.

The videos are designed to go along with a physical activity, rhythm instruments, time at the piano/keyboard, or a page in the activity books. Through the course of the lesson, students are introduced to fun characters that “live” on the keyboard, helping them to learn the letter names of the notes. For example, “Dodi” lives in the middle of each set of two black notes, which is the note “D”, though the children don’t learn that until later. (His neighbors, Carla Caterpillar and Edward Eagle, along with other friends, are introduced a bit later on.)

The videos are streamed online (or available on DVD for additional purchase), but you can download mp3s of the songs from the Teacher’s Corner (where you can also find lesson plans for using the program in a classroom setting). The activity books are also available to download, either as a whole book, or as individual pages linked under each video. I found this feature especially helpful because it meant there was no preparation needed. Once we opened the page for the video we were on, we just clicked on the link to get the page that went along with that part of the lesson. It made it easy to go at whatever pace we wanted to. I didn’t print out every page (some didn’t work well for our family, as I’ll explain below), but the kids really enjoyed doing these practice book pages.

My Assessment of KinderBach

I think KinderBach would work best for students/families with little to no musical training. I found the pace to be very slow and deliberate, with concepts broken down into tiny pieces that are introduced in a manner that was unnecessarily drawn out for my children who are already familiar with many aspects of music. It wasn’t until Week 19 that they actually played a basic 3-note pattern (C-D-E) on the piano. However, this gradual approach would probably be very helpful for young children or families with parents who are learning alongside their children and want to be sure they don’t miss anything.

The program creates a whole new way of naming and notating music, simplifying the technical terms to more “child-friendly” designations. Instead of letter names, the different keys on the piano are represented by the “piano pals” I mentioned above. For rhythms they use terms like “walk” for a quarter note and “standing” for a half note. I understand that they’re trying to make it easier for children to remember, but I’m not sure it’s necessary (or helpful) to teach them one way when they’re going to have to end up learning it another way later. I see no reason not to just teach them the proper terms from the start. (In fact, in one of the sessions they started by showing a half note and asked, “What is this called?” Elijah promptly answered, “A half note!” (earlier that had been given as the “grown-up” word for it and he remembered), but then he was disappointed when they said, “That’s right! ‘Standing.'” I assured him that he was correct too. It just seemed a little odd that he would be wrong when he was really right. These nicknames made it rather hard to read the “music” when it was time to play at the piano, at least for Elijah, who is already used to reading quarter notes on a traditional staff (which is what he was taught from his first piano lesson). Here’s an example of a KinderBach “pre-staff” music page:

Maybe if a child didn’t already have a frame of reference for what music is supposed to look like they would be able to follow this with no problem, but our family found it confusing so I chose not to use these pages. Instead, I used the terms he was already familiar with and showed him the notes on a staff so he could follow along with real sheet music. I was a little surprised by how long it took the program to introduce the children to actual written music. From what I could find, it wasn’t until the end of Level 6 that they start to read regular notes on a staff.

The slow pace and the alternative terminology were fairly easy for our family to adjust so that the program could still work well for us. These criticisms probably have more to do with my background than with the KinderBach program itself. I started music lessons at age 4 in a program that taught us how to read music from the first day and put a heavy emphasis on ear training. After going on to earn a Bachelor of Music degree, I chose to put my children through that same program because I saw how much the program helped me develop as a musician. So I’ve seen many children reading traditional sheet music before they turned 4 and prefer going that route. For a parent without my background, however, this simplified “prestaff” system might be very useful in helping their children get started in learning to read and play music.

A bigger issue for us had to do with pitch. In the lessons that talked about “music patterns” (referring to three notes that either stayed at the same pitch or moved up or down), there were a couple recurring pitch problems. First there was the background music, playing in one key while the piano played a music pattern unrelated to the music we were hearing. Then the piano would play the pattern and the teacher would sing it back like he was copying it, except he never sang the same notes that the piano had played. Maybe this was intentional to show that the pattern could happen starting on any pitch, but since we are teaching our children that hitting a specific pitch is important, these lessons just came across as being indifferent to which pitch had been played. As I said before, ear training is a major component of the music education program our family follows, so this was a serious issue for me, though I’m sure many music educators would have no problem with it. I simply tried to distract Elijah and anyone else listening when these pitch problems occurred in the videos. Then I repeated the same information using the correct pitches.

We had a similar issue in the few lessons that used solfege. My children have been taught solfege using a “fixed do” (where C is always “do”), but KinderBach used a “movable do” (the first time they used solfege they were singing F and D, calling them sol mi). Obviously for most people this wouldn’t be an issue (and few people would even understand what I’m talking about if they’re not familiar with an ear-training program that uses fixed do), but if you do understand and care about fixed do vs. movable do, it’s something to consider.

On a more positive note, there were several things I really liked about KinderBach. The Piano Pals make it easy to learn the letter names of the notes, and even my 2-year old now knows how to find them on the piano, thanks to the fun little cards the boys colored to place above the keys. I also appreciated the emphasis on playing with the correct finger position, on the tip, to “make them strong.” This is something Ian struggles with and it’s always nice to have him hearing it from someone else.

My favorite thing about the program was the way they used the concept of music patterns. I had never seen this idea taught before, and it was a wonderful way to introduce composition. Both Elijah and Ian were eager to do the activities that had them arranging pitch patterns to create their own songs. They spent a good deal of time figuring out how they wanted to put the patterns together and then proudly sang finished products. I look forward to doing more lessons on composition and helping the boys explore the wonderful possibilities of creating their own music.

Overall, I’d say KinderBach is a excellent, economical introductory program for teaching music to young children if you’re looking for a traditional approach to piano lessons without any special emphasis on ear training. If you’re at all intrigued by what I’ve shared, I would encourage you to find out more. Explore the KinderBach website. Click the banner below to read what other members of the Schoolhouse Review Crew have to say. (I’ve read several of the reviews, and everyone has something new to say about it, so this really is a great way to learn more.) And don’t forget to check out KinderBach on Facebook, or Twitter (@KinderBach) for special deals!

Posted in Homeschool Resources, Product reviews

SchoolhouseTeachers.com (Crew Review)

Posted on December 13, 2013 by Deanna

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I love online resources. They’re convenient, easy to search through, and best of all, they don’t take up any extra space on my bookshelves. So I was excited at the chance to review a Yearly Membership Option with SchoolhouseTeachers.com, a subscription website run by The Old Schoolhouse that provides online resources for multiple aspects of home education. (If you’re not already familiar with The Old Schoolhouse Magazine, I would encourage you to check it out. You can read the current digital issue for free online!)

There is a wide variety of content on the SchoolhouseTeachers.com for everyone from toddlers to parents and every age in between. It’s easy to find what you’re looking for by browsing through using the grade levels headings.

My little ones were fascinated by the animated e-books in the Children’s Story Corner (our computer is hooked up to the television so they could watch as Ian clicked on the interactive features). I started going through the class in Charlotte Mason Homeschooling from the Teacher Lesson Archives in the Library. (I love that there are classes for me!)

Lessons are available in core subjects like reading, math, and history as well as unique electives such as classical archeology and violin. When my boys get a little older, I know they’ll love the “Tinker’s Club” that teaches about things like engines and mechanical gizmos. You could use the site as the source for your entire curriculum if you wanted. I tend to be a bit more eclectic, however, so I like that I can pull bits and pieces to supplement what we’re already doing. I do a lot of planning from scratch, but as I look over all that is on SchoolhouseTeachers.com, I know I’ll be taking advantage of the lessons already put together by others. For example, I went to the “Schoolhouse Preschool” and quickly found some fun holiday activities in include in our Advent celebration. After the holidays, I’m looking forward to using the literature units that go along with some of our favorite books.

I was impressed by how many types of resources the site offers. I expected helpful ideas and lesson plans to use with my kids (and there are those in abundance, especially in the archives), however there is a lot more to the site than just curriculum. photo schoolhouseextras_zps3a20c85f.jpg

Downloadable/printable planners that are full of great information specifically geared toward homeschool parents and students at different levels
Video and audio recordings of past The Schoolhouse EXPO online conference sessions (It’s like having a homeschool conference on demand at home!)
E-books containing curriculum, encouragement, and informational reading for students (12 new books available after each month of membership over the first year)
Certificate and awards gallery with templates you can personalize and print out to help celebrate your child’s achievements
Access to past issues of The Old Schoolhouse Magazine
Members are also eligible for discounts many other homeschool resources through the TOS Family Discounts Program (including a free membership to Apple Core, an online course tracking program to help you keep records of your child’s education from preschool all the way through high school)

Although I was a little overwhelmed at first by how much I found, it only took a few days to begin to feel more at home on the site. The Yearly Membership Option ($139) gives you access to all that I’ve talked about and so much more. To read what other Crew members had to say about SchoolhouseTeachers.com, visit the Crew website or click on the banner below!

Posted in Homeschool Resources, Product reviews

The Young and the Restless…Literally

Posted on December 9, 2013 by Deanna

I don’t write much about my toddler, but I just have to share a little about what Arianna’s been up to. This girl does NOT like to sleep. She goes through phases where we can just say goodnight and she’ll put herself to sleep, but much of the time putting her down is a struggle. And staying asleep is another issue. Naptime for her lasts maybe 40 minutes if I’m lucky. Since both the older boys sleep (or at least stay quietly in their beds) for two hours or more, Arianna’s restlessness has been a thorn in the side of this tired mama who often would love a chance to lie down and nap herself.

This short napping has been our biggest battle. She’s barely two but she often tries to get by on only a twenty or thirty minute nap. I tried putting on a Winnie the Pooh audiobook for her and telling her she could get up when the stories were done (about 50 minutes) but we just ended up with tears and drama. How do you communicate to a two-year old that they haven’t slept long enough and need to stay in bed? Her behavior made it very clear she needed more sleep than she was getting.

When Ian was about this age I had been looking for ways to let him know when it was okay to get up in the morning. I saw an advertisement for a clock that changed colors at a set time in the morning so a child who couldn’t tell time would know when they could get up. After some research I discovered several products based on this idea. My first choice at the time was “My Tot Clock,” but they seemed to be out of stock everywhere and I was desperate to help my early bird.

I ended up buying a “Teach Me Time Clock,” which was a bit less expensive and had the basic feature I needed: it turned green at wake-up time. It worked like a charm for him, and then when Elijah got older he too learned to stay in bed until the clock turned green. Beautiful!

With Arianna, however, we had issues both in the morning (she kept trying to get up at 5 am!) and nap time. Even if I was willing to take the boys’ clock out of their room, I didn’t want to have to reset the wake time twice a day. Then I remembered “My Tot Clock,” which has a few more features than Ian’s Teach Me Time. I ordered one for Arianna’s birthday and prayed it would help.

Oh. My. Goodness. What a difference! First of all, she was thrilled to have a clock of her own. I was a little intimidated by all the buttons at first, but once I sat down and tried to figure it out it was really quite simple. I showed her the different color lights (blue for sleeping, yellow for awake time) and gave it a go. From the very first day I saw a change. It was so nice to hear a pleasant, happy voice calling from her room, excitedly chattering about “light” and “yellow,” rather than crying and stubborn drama.

It’s been over a week now, and while she may not be the perfect sleeper (yet), I am amazed at what “My Tot Clock” has done for her. If she fusses at bedtime, it usually just takes one time of saying, “Look, your clock is blue! That means it’s time to be in bed.” That even worked when she work up at 3 am a couple nights ago. Prior to the Tot Clock she was waking up almost every night and it took one of us going in a sitting with her for an hour or more to help her fall back asleep or else she would just be in tears (and by “tears” I mean noisy hysterical sobbing). She’s napped for more than an hour the past 3 days (a miracle!), and the early morning wake-ups have stopped. (This morning she actually slept past 7!)

The Tot Clock also has timers you can use for time-outs (red light) or “encouragement” (like setting how long they need to brush their teeth or take turns with a toy), as well as music and stories, though I don’t know if we’ll ever use those features.. What I do is that we are all getting a lot more sleep these days! Guess we won’t be needing that money-back guarantee on the My Tot Clock website. So if you still need to find the perfect gift for the restless toddler in your house, check out “My Tot Clock”! (I know, I sound like a commercial, but I’m seriously in love with this clock. Best money I’ve spent in a long time!)