Author Archives: Sacha

May15

Science Naturally: A Schoolhouse Crew Review

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Science Naturally: A Schoolhouse Crew Review

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Sacha’s<25: A unique one minute mystery book recommended for ages 8-12 which has the reader use their science knowledge and critical thinking skills to solve the 65 mysteries.

Home in the Trenches Product Rating (out of 10 stars)

Is it worth our time? 9 stars
Did it help us learn? 9 stars
Is it worth the money? 9 stars
Is it useful to me? 9 stars
Practicality-10  stars
Quality- 9 stars
Kid Rating- 10 stars

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We received One Minute Mysteries: 65 More Short Mysteries You Solve With Science! from Science Naturally to review.  I was super excited to get to review this since I loved listening to short mystery stories as a kid and trying to figure them out!  I was expecting that these would be the “who dunnit” type stories that I had heard as a kid.  I don’t know if you are familiar with those kind but these were not that.  However, they are really great too!

Here is an explanation from their website:

These mysteries have a clever twist—you have to be a super sleuth, tapping into your science wisdom and critical thinking skills to solve them. Each story takes just one minute to read and challenges your knowledge in a variety of science disciplines.

I handed this book over to my kids to take a look at.  I had to laugh because when I went searching for the book about a week later my 13 year old son had taken it to read.  He was choosing to read these minute mysteries at night before going to bed instead of some of the other stuff he had been reading.  When I asked my kids if they liked it the response I got was, “Matthew wouldn’t let us have a turn with the book!”  

Click here to read 3 sample stories and see why my kids didn’t want to share the book.

When Joy (11) finally got a chance to read the book she really enjoyed it.  She felt she wasn’t very good at solving the mysteries but she loved reading them.

These one page mysteries with the answer solution following on the backside of each page are written by the father daughter team of Eric and Natalie Yoder.  This book is the second Science Mystery book they have written and they have also written some One Minute Math Mysteries.

What I liked:

  • Educational aspect…they are learning scientific principles while having fun reading and solving mysteries.
  • The stories are short and don’t take a lot of time to read.
  • These would be great to read out loud and discuss with your kids…one story each day…good luck at keeping it to just one story : )
  • These are real life type mysteries which are solved by applying science…how would bugs end up inside a closed bag of apples, how to tell raw from boiled eggs, why some mornings are so much cooler than others, etc.

What I didn’t like:

  • Nothing to say here…we were really happy with this product!

To sum it up: This book and the others that this father daughter team have written would be just perfect for incorporating learning into your summer, without your kids even realizing it!  This is a really fun book to read with your kids or to have them read by themselves.  Highly recommended and check out below for a special offer on purchasing some of their other books as well!

 

The important information:

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One Minute Mysteries: 65 More Short Mysteries You Solve With Science!

Eric Yoder and Natalie Yoder, January 2013
Ages 8-12, 8.5” x 5.5”, 180 pages,
Paperback ISBN 10: 1-9384920-0-5
E-Book ISBN 10: 1-9384920-1-3

Order from: Science Naturally

Price: $9.95

Please note this special coupon code—enter 3SPEC to purchase any 3 books on the website for $19.95 plus $2.95 shipping. (a $12.90 savings)

Click to read more reviews from the Schoolhouse Review Crew.

 

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May12

When Mother’s Day just isn’t all it is “supposed” to be…

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When Mother’s Day just isn’t all it is “supposed” to be…

Society has set up Mother’s Day to have certain expectations attached to it. Unfortunately for many, including myself, it isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.  The well meaning “Happy Mother’s Day” wishes from people at church or brunch don’t necessarily know the sadness or disappointment in our hearts today.

I lost my mom to cancer when I was just 18 years old. As much as I have to be thankful for on this day…6 beautiful children and a wonderful husband, a great step-mother and super mother-in-law…The day is still tainted with sadness.

I know I am not the only one who has a hard time pretending that Mother’s Day is a perfect, happy day.

You may be one of the many women who have experienced loss. Your loss might be from a miscarriage, or the death of your mother. It could be from an abortion you later regretted and the what if’s attached to it. Maybe the depths of infertility have left you empty handed or you have a mother who really wasn’t the type of mother you’d like to celebrate. Or it could be that you don’t feel like you are living up to your own expectations of being a great mom.

I just want you all to know there are others of us who feel the same way you do today. Those of us who are thankful for what we do have, but still have a roller coaster of emotions that go with Mother’s Day. Please know I don’t have any easy answers…there aren’t any. However, I will be praying for you today and ask that you would do the same for me.

P.S. I’m not writing this post to be a downer today but to be an encouragement to those who struggle with this day, you are not alone.

May7

Phonics and Reading with McGuffey by Literacy Soft: A Schoolhouse Crew Review

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Phonics and Reading with McGuffey by Literacy Soft: A Schoolhouse Crew Review

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Sacha’s<25: This app teaches children as young as 4 phonics and reading.  However, it is also perfect for people with reading difficulties as well.

Home in the Trenches Product Rating (out of 10 stars)

Is it worth our time? 7 stars
Did it help us learn? 7 stars
Is it worth the money? 5 stars
Is it useful to me? 6 stars
Practicality- 7 stars
Quality- 9 stars
Kid Rating- 6 stars

We received (to review) from the makers of the McGuffey readers, LiteracySoft, a reading app for ages 4 and up.  Phonics and Reading with McGuffey  is a complete phonics and reading curriculum for beginners.  It was designed for use on the iPad, but can also be used on the iPhone and iPod.  It has over 52 hours of lessons…beginning with letter sounds and moving all the way to reading complete stories.  Grace (4) and Faith (6) both worked with this app.  This app has enough spaces for up to 10 different students on one iPad or iPhone.  It is designed to work for non-readers all the way to a first grade reading level.
This app is flexible enough to meet the needs of a wide range of reading levels, including:
• Adult learners
• Homeschoolers
• Dyslexic readers
• ESOL students

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Both of my girls really enjoyed “playing on it” (as they called it).  They could each work at their own pace on this program since they each have their own “sign in”.  Letter recognition begins right from the beginning.  My 4 year old learned a few more letters quickly using this program (she already knew some of them).  My 6 year old started at the beginning of the program but we quickly realized that she knew a lot of what was being taught.
It is very easy to skip ahead to what she needed to work on. It is also very easy to move back if your child needs to work on a lesson again. There is a screen within the program that allows you to click to any of the 52 lessons available and then even within the level to pick which activity you would like to work on.  Also, you are able to see what level your child is currently working on.  The only problem I found with being able to choose the level is that my 4 year old would just randomly skip to different levels.  By doing this it would tell me that she was currently working on a level much harder than the one she really should have been doing.
One of my favorite parts of the program was the Reading Practice.  Your student can touch on the word and it will  sound out the word as well as read it for them.  Faith liked reading the sentence out loud and then running her finger over the words to have it read the sentence back to her.
Literacy Soft
When I asked Faith (6) about this app this is what she had to say:

“I like the pictures.  I also like most of the games. I think that it is the same thing over and over again. There’s no variety between the lessons.”

I found it a bit interesting that this program introduces the TH sound in lesson 2. It seems a little early for non-readers.  I thought the word choice they used to be a bit random….the word is “thud” and they show a picture of a rock. A little bit confusing for even my 6 year old.

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What I liked:

  • For a student who thrives on repetition or gets easily flustered trying to learn a new concept and a new activity at the same time this app is perfect.  The activities are very similar, if not identical in each level.
  • Starts right at the beginning with letter recognition and moves all the way to a first grade reading level.  This app/program really packs a lot of content into it!
  • Loved the reading practice portion of the program.  It was something very different than I have seen in other reading programs we have reviewed.
  • The graphics are really good.

What I didn’t like:

  • The app was crashing on my first-generation iPad. I’m having no problems with it on my iPad mini though.
  • It is very easy for your student to skip ahead to different lessons, or parts of lessons, without really understanding what is going on.  I especially found this with my 4 year old. She spent a lot of time clicking around all of the lessons rather than just working through them in order.  I would have liked the program to unlock different levels as a student completes the previous one.
  • Faith thought the activities we too repetitious.
  • The price seems high for an app.  I needed to get it out of my head that it is an app and remember that it has the content of a complete reading program.
  • Some of the words for the letter sounds were different.  TH-thud with a rock.  I-Italy…why not inchworm or something a little more common for a 4 or 5 year old phonics based program?

To sum it up: Take a moment and try out the first 10 lessons free with the lite version of Phonics and Reading with McGuffey. This might  be a good fit for your student.  While it wasn’t a favorite of my 2 girls they did enjoy using it and didn’t complain when I asked them to spend time working on it.

 

The important information:

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Phonics and Reading with McGuffey app

Order from:

Get Phonics and Reading With McGuffey from the Apple App Store

Price: $19.99

Click to read more reviews from the Schoolhouse Review Crew.

 

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May4

Home School in the Woods: A Schoolhouse Crew Review

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Home School in the Woods: A Schoolhouse Crew Review

 

Sacha’s<25: This study is geared to give elementary students a hands-on element while learning about the 12 Great Empires in the world from both the past and present.

Home in the Trenches Product Rating (out of 10 stars)

Is it worth our time? 8 stars
Did it help us learn? 7 stars
Is it worth the money? 8 stars
Is it useful to me? 8 stars
Practicality- 8 stars
Quality- 10 stars
Kid Rating- 9 stars

We were recently given the opportunity to review the new Great Empires Activity Study from Home School in the Woods.  We were very excited to try this out.  We have been covering the Eastern Hemisphere this year for History/Geography and a few of the great empires were from this area of the world.  I thought this might be a great opportunity to revisit some of what we had learned this year and to add in some great hands on projects to our studies.  I was not disappointed!
The Great Empires Activity Study covers 14 of the great empires in history.
Empires included are:
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Greece
Ancient Rome
Ancient China
Arab-Muslim Empire
Mongolian Empire
Viking Empire
Spanish Empire
French Empire
English Empire
German Empire
Japanese Empire
Russian Empire
The United States of America
We chose to do the Chinese, Japanese, English and French Empires during our review period.  Each empire study has 3 main sections.  The first is a text portion.  I would print out and read this (usually 2 pages) to the kids while they worked on coloring or cutting out part of a project that went with each empire.  The second portion is the activity directions.  This tells you how to put together any of the activities for each empire.  The activities are varied so don’t worry about it becoming monotonous.  The last portion includes all of the printable masters.  These are beautifully illustrated which is to be expected from Home School in the Woods!  Can I mention how much I love their timeline figures?  We have been using them for many years now in our timelines…so much more interesting than just writing in names!

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We were given the downloadable version to review.  Downloading to my Mac was a piece of cake.  I did find that it was a little bit more time consuming printing out the pages I needed for each empire.  They were saved to my computer as individual PDF’s.  So I had to click on each PDF to see what it was and decide how many copies I needed of each page.  Sometimes I had 5 kids working on a specific page, other times it was just 3.  Actvities varied from mapping projects, recipes, games and printable projects.  We found it was great to put all of the activites into a binder for each child.  I recently purchased a Pro-Click binding machine and we were easily able to punch holes into our pages and add to our binders easily.

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While this product is recommended for elementary students I had my 6th and 7th graders enjoying it just as much as my Kindergardener and 3rd grader.

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It is suggested that each empire study would take between 1-3 days to complete.  I used this as a review of what we had covered this year.  However, I think that you could really use this product as a more in-depth study of the different great empires.  This product comes with a web link to additional online resources as well as a book list for each empire.  A few of the books recommended were ones that we had already read this year in our studies. (And that we really enjoyed)
My kids thanked me each time we worked on this review!  They really enjoyed the hands-on activities, which is something that we don’t normally have a lot of time for.  We found it to be a perfect addition to our studies.  I only wish I had known about it at the beginning of the school year.  We would have been able to do each empire’s activities as we finished up studying them.

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What I liked:

  • I could pick and choose what activities we wanted to complete from each Empire we studied.  There were plenty of different ones to do!
  • Very flexible in how much time we spent …we could go in depth and spend hours in one sitting on it or just 20 minute sessions over multiple days.
  • Love PDFs.  Super great for my 5 kids…I could print out as many copies as I needed for my family.  Also, when we spilt water on a page it was no big deal to print out another one.
  • The graphics are gorgeous.

What I didn’t like:

  • It was a little hard to sometimes figure out what pages I wanted to print from each section. I had to open them all up individually to see them.  They were not organized completely by topic.

To sum it up: This was a great change of pace for my kids.  They really enjoyed all of the hands on activities, which is something we don’t tend to spend much time doing.  It was very easy to use and jump right in learning and completing the activities.

 

The important information:

Great Empires Activity Study

Order from: Home School in the Woods

Price: Download Version-$18.95, CD Version-$19.95

Click to read more reviews from the Schoolhouse Review Crew.

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Apr22

What is the most important thing you can do with your kids this summer? I have an idea…

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What is the most important thing you can do with your kids this summer? I have an idea…

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Now, more than ever, I sense the urgency to get as much Scripture into our kids and ourselves as possible.  The world is becoming more and more hostile to Christians and it is important as believers to know God’s word.  And more importantly to know it CORRECTLY and to be able to DEFEND it.  Too often I am finding Scripture misquoted or taken out of context.

We have the kids memorizing Scripture and doing devotions during the school year with a program they are in called Truth Trackers.  But they have the summer off from that program.  We also take school pretty lightly during the summer and just focus on Math, lots of reading, and a little writing.  This leaves us a lot more free time.  What better activity could we spend our free time on than Bible Study and Bible Memorization as a family?  I think you would be hard pressed to find anything better! This summer my family has signed up to participate in the Bible Bee.  We are super excited about it!

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The program officially starts June 1st, however registration has already begun!  I would like to challenge you and your family to get onto the Bible Bee website and see if there are any hosts in your area!  Then I challenge you to sign your family up.  Here’s a really quick overview of what it entails….

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At the end of the summer there is a competition to help motivate your kids to study well this summer….

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I strongly urge you to consider what you have your kids do this summer…how are they going to spend their time off from school?  Is it going to be spent watching TV and playing with friends?  What will you be able to tell your friends your family did at the end of the summer?  Will it have an eternal impact?

I know that for my family we will be able to tell you that we participated in the 2013 Bible Bee where we made new friends, strengthened the bonds within our family and most importantly made an eternal impact in our lives by studying God’s Word and memorizing it together.

Joshua 24:15