Tag Archives: curriculum

Mar18

The Art of Poetry: A Schoolhouse Crew Review

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The Art of Poetry: A Schoolhouse Crew Review

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Sacha’s<25: The perfect curriculum (student book, teacher edition and DVD set) to teach your student poetry and grow a love for understanding the art of poetry. 

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- 9 stars
Quality- 9 stars
Kid Rating- girl (11)–10 stars, boy (13)–6 stars

I totally do not get poetry…I know, it sounds so shallow.  I like poetry when I understand it, but I have some bad memories of high school and college classes where we would have to discuss a poem and I would feel like we were pulling ideas out of the air.  So now I am supposed to teach poetry?  Oh goodness, can I just run the other way?  If I can be totally honest, I was fearful of reviewing this product.  I did not want to review it.  I have really been happy to just hand the kids a poetry book each year and have them read the poems from the book over the school year.  I didn’t know how to teach poetry….I didn’t even understand it myself!  UNTIL…….

We received The Art of Poetry from  Classical Academic Press to review.  When it arrived I was kind of dreading having to figure out how to teach poetry now.  You know what….this curriculum gave me just what I needed to start teaching poetry and to continue teaching it.  Yep, you read that right….CONTINUE….we are enjoying this curriculum and are excited to be able to use it more!  This curriculum will last us a couple years. This is also “out of the box ready” for your student to pull out and use on their own if you want.

Here’s a description of The Art of Poetry from Classical Academic Press:

If you have ever felt mystified by, or unable to enjoy the significance of poetry, this book will lead you step by step to understanding and love of this branch of literature, guided by a gifted poet and teacher. The Art of Poetry is an excellent middle school or high school curriculum; it will teach the practice of reading a poem slowly and carefully, introduce students to the elements of poetry (such as imagery and metaphor) and the many forms that can make a poem, from sonnet to open verse. In the belief that practice is the best way to learn, this book is rich with explications, exercises, and activities. A biography of each poet is also included, and we are providing audio files of many of the poems.

My 13 year old son and 11 year old daughter both sat down with me to look at this curriculum.  We decided (or should I say I told them) we would work through the first chapter of the book.  The great thing about this curriculum is you can go at your own pace.  It is suggested in the teacher’s manual to decide what you want to do with your student…either a month long intensive course, a school year or you can do it over multiple years. It is totally up to you!  Since my kids are at the young age of the suggested age group (6th-12th grade) we decided that we would focus on just one chapter to start. You can check out their suggested schedules here!

We read through the beginning portion of the 1st chapter and then headed into looking at some of the poems within the text.  One of the great things about this curriculum is the teachers guide.  Love it.  I would have been totally lost without it!  With it I was able to feel like I had an idea of what to talk about when discussing each poem!

The greatest thing about this curriculum are the DVD’s. We were given the DVD just covering Chapters 1 and 2 in the curriculum.  I will be purchasing the rest of the set!  We loved watching the instructor (Christine Perrin) speaking with 4 eighth grade students about the poetry.  Joy (11) commented about how much she loved hearing the students speak about their ideas of the poetry meanings and that they weren’t afraid to say something.  I can’t recommend the DVD’s highly enough!  Yes, they are the most expensive portion of this curriculum but I know that without them we probably wouldn’t continue using this curriculum.  They make it so easy to teach with and understand poetry.  You can really just pop it in the DVD player and have your students watch it!  They will learn so much.  Even better is to watch it with them and then discuss afterwards! It’s like having a college professor teaching right in your living room…and she is easy to understand and makes it fun and painless!  What could be better than that?

The 1st chapter of the DVD has the instructor and students do an exercise where they tell each other about an image that had some significance to them.  This was a great way to warm them and us up to discussing images in poetry. This was the topic of the first chapter of the book! We also enjoyed listening to the instructor explain how to do some of the additional exercises at the end of the chapter.  This really took the mystery out of what we were supposed to be doing!

What I liked:

  • This is a go at your own pace curriculum…you can do a month long intensive study or do it over a couple years.
  • This is written to be simple for someone new to poetry and in depth enough to be an intensive poetry curriculum.
  • The DVD’s….a must have!!!!!
  • The activities at the end of each lesson.  Joy asked to do them on her own…I was not going to assign them, she wanted to do them.
  • There are references to Christianity and seems to come from a Christian worldview while discussing the meanings of the poems.
  • I didn’t realize how important it is to read poetry aloud and also more than once.  It is an oral art!

What I didn’t like:

  • I wish I had something to tell you here…other than that my son didn’t jump for joy about poetry after we finished the first chapter….LOL….not sure a lot of 13 year old boys would.

To sum it up: Want to have your students study poetry but unsure how to do it?  This curriculum is a great way to not only start the study of poetry but really go in depth and understand it!  Comes with a high Home in the Trenches recommendation!

 

The important information:

The Art of Poetry–$24.95 (as a side note….this is also available as a kindle edition or Apple iBook)

The Art of Poetry Teacher’s Edition–$29.95

The Art of Poetry DVD Set–$69.95

The Art of Poetry Bundle–$99.95

Order from: Classical Academic Press

To read other Schoolhouse Crew reviews of this product click here.

 

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Nov3

Modesty Matters:You Can Sew!: A Molly Crew Review

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Modesty Matters:You Can Sew!: A Molly Crew Review

 

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Sacha’s<25: A complete sewing curriculum for ages 13 to adult (younger with a parent’s help) teaching you all you need to know about sewing and how to actually sew!

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

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

What is Modesty Matters?

Modesty Matters, LLC is a home-based business with multiple resources focused on creating modest clothing styles for today’s young ladies and girls, as well as enabling others to do the same through simple, step-by-step “how-to” video lessons, patterns & instruction kits, available on CD-ROM and/or DVD, or by simple download (aka digital download). We make sewing SIMPLE!

You Can Sew! consists of 65 video classes where we walk you step-by-step through each portion, integrating four major projects along the way. It comes with five DVD’s, a written text, and a CD-ROM containing exclusive simplified patterns in PDF format that are used to expand and develop your skill set.

Click here to see a quick video describing the course!

Our Experience:

My daughter Joy and I are quilters.  She has been sewing on and off since she was 5 and we bought her a sewing machine when she was 6.  However, both of us really don’t know a lot about actually sewing clothing!  I was so excited when this curriculum came up for review because I have people ask me all the time if I can teach them or their daughters how to sew.  I can teach quilting and in fact taught 7 girls how to sew and make quilts this year.  However, I did not feel comfortable trying to teach anyone how to sew clothing.  I don’t know all about reading patterns etc.

Here is where You Can Sew! enters the picture.  I was thrilled to hear I would get to review this with Joy who is 11.  She is actually on the young side for this curriculum as it is recommended for ages 13 and up.

We started by pulling out the DVD’s and started watching the lessons.  We realized that the DVD’s do not work in one of our DVD players.  There is no way to see on the menu which lesson you are choosing.  This became very frustrating to us but thankfully we tried them in a different DVD player and the menu screen worked.

The lessons vary in length from 1 minute to much longer. (The longest we watched was less than 15 minutes and it completely covered making the skirt)  After we watched the video Dee, the instructor on the video,  would tell us what our homework was.  It might be something that only took a couple minutes to do or it could be taking a trip to a sewing store to look at fabrics or purchase what we needed for our next project.

Since we both knew how to use our machines and the basics about them we whizzed through the first videos.  I felt they were very informative.  If you had no idea how to use a sewing machine you would learn a lot.  All machines are different but she does a great job of giving you the basics and with your machine manual you would be able to figure it all out with ease!

If you follow this course from beginning to end you will learn how to sew and make the following projects:

  • pin cushion
  • apron
  • A line skirt
  • A line dress or nightgown

Here is a quick run down of what is covered in the first 10 lessons to give you a feel of the flow and speed in what is covered.  I also have included a few notes I had made while we watched the DVD lessons:

Class 1:Short class video goes through items needed for sewing…then tells us homework of learning names of items and being able to label them in the homework sheet. Worksheets went very well together with class instruction. Also tells us to read assigned reading before starting next video portion.  After each portion there is text to remind us of what we need to do!

Class 2: Reviews sewing items quickly…field trip or by Internet to see some items and prices. Show and tell binder. Sewing machine diagram for homework.  Videos are edited…spliced together. (This became very noticeable early on as you can see.  The editing at times is a bit distracting from the lesson)
Class 3: Parts of the sewing machine. Show them on paper diagram then on a couple machines. I liked that she showed these on a couple machines because everyone’s machines are a bit different.
Class 4: Threading the machine.  Great to be able to see on video on different machines.
Class 5: Bobbins …We learned about bobbin types, how to wind them etc. I don’t think that she explained part of this quite correctly! There are 2 different types of bobbin housings.  She left out an important part of this lesson!
Class 6: Presser feet types and installing a needle. She says for homework to practice with different stitches. Hmm…we haven’t learned how to operate the machine at all yet!  Didn’t talk about putting Presser foot up and down yet or tension. This is where I felt the lessons came out of order.  We shouldn’t have been practicing sewing yet.
Class 7: Posture/position–only 1:30 long, Same info as in text.
Class 8: Speed v accuracy–practice going too fast and at good pace. Now she reviews how to stitch 2x in same video. 4 min video
Class 9: Safety. Really after she has already had us sewing? Once again I felt this was out of place in the lessons.  Should have been earlier on. Locking the stitch. Confused on placement of this video? 3:15 in length.
Class 10: Straight and zig zag stitches…practice on wide ruled notebook paper. Mentions proper hand positioning. Says to zig zag with line in middle but she doesn’t do this on the sample. Bit confusing?
It is recommended that this course take a semester to complete.  However, we only had about 6 weeks to review this so Joy and I watched the videos and then jumped ahead to the project that her sewing skills were ready for which was the skirt.  I ran into multiple problems at this point. Nothing which couldn’t be worked out.  But, if I were a new sewer I would have been totally confused!  Anyways, they are listed below, but I wanted to show you a few pictures from this part of the process.

This is the pattern for the skirt.  You have to print out the pattern and then tape it to a window to line it all up.  A little bit time consuming, but here it is!

Here Joy is sewing the hem on her skirt.  The project probably only took her 2 hours total and that included taping the pattern together.

Look at that huge smile. I am so proud of her for completing the project.  She wore the skirt the whole rest of the day.  She said it was very comfortable.  I like the length of it. She felt that it got in the way at times and would like to make another one that falls just below her knee.

What I liked:

  • This concept of teaching with DVD and instructional manual is great!
  • The lessons are very short manageable segments.  We combined a few of them at a time when we felt we could.
  • Love that Joy was able to sew a skirt.  Gave her great confidence!
  • It is very informative for the very beginner sewer to the intermediate one!
  • Good customer service.  When I had problems  (see below) they were very helpful to get them resolved.
  • I learned some great tips.  Wash your fabric in salt water in order to seal the colors in the fabric.  Helps with fading!!!
  • If you can’t find someone to teach you how to sew or find a sewing store with beginner classes this is a great way to learn at your own pace.

What I didn’t like:

  • Unfortunately, it seems to me that they needed someone to go through and make sure things were in the correct order for the lessons and to make sure she didn’t give contradictory instructions between the text  and video lessons.  I found this numerous times in the instructions for making the skirt. The written text instructions would say to make a rolled hem with 1/4″ seam and then she would tell you 1/2″ in the video, another time it was a 1″ difference.  That can be huge when you are sewing a clothing pattern.
  • DVD menu didn’t work on one of our DVDs.
  • All 65 video lessons begin and end with the same music.  Oh my, I really don’t ever want to hear that music again.  And the editing of the videos is too much.  Within a 2 minute lesson it is faded in and out or over the speaking multiple times.
  • The original CD rom, which comes with the curriculum with all the patterns, was missing the child size skirt pattern.  They have since fixed it for all future buyers.
  • The original pattern for the child size skirt was not correct I had to call them and let them know that the pattern actually didn’t fit the width of fabric that is standard in stores today.  This would be a huge problem for a new sewer.  They had to redo the patterns and email them to me again.  OOPS.

To sum it up: This could have been the best curriculum ever for learning how to sew.  With some production work and someone making sure lessons flow in the correct order and things aren’t contradictory at times I would love to highly recommend it.  Right now though, I think it would be frustrating to use straight through as a new sewer–there are just too many quirky things in it as I mentioned above. I have enjoyed the few times I have spoken with Dee and love her heart. I hope that they will fix these problems and that I will be able to give this curriculum all 10′s in the near future!

The important information:

 

 

 

 

Home Economics: You CAN Sew Curriculum

Order from: Modesty Matters- http://www.modestymatters.net

Price: $159 for the complete package

To read other Molly Crew reviews of this product click here.

 

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Disclosure/Disclaimer:  I received the above product free of charge for review purposes.  I am only expected to give an honest review.

Aug1

CreateBetterWriters.com: A Schoolhouse Crew Review

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CreateBetterWriters.com: A Schoolhouse Crew Review

CreateBetterWriters.com: A Schoolhouse Crew Review

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Sacha’s<25: CreateBetterWriters.com offers quite a few products to help homeschoolers overcome some of the “typical” problems we experience in teaching writing!

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

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

Our Experience:

We were given 3 different items to review from CreateBetterWriters.com.  We received downloadable PDF’s of The Homeschool Writing Action Plan, How to Teach The Paragraph, and The Five Paragraph Essay. I found The Five Paragraph Essay a great resource for all 3 of my school aged kids (3rd, 6th and 7th grades).

The writing curriculum that we had used in the past really taught them well how to outline from a source and then rewrite and add dress ups to the new paragraph.  What it didn’t teach well was how to take a topic, come up with a main idea and then write a paragraph from that.  How to Teach The Paragraph was perfect to get this under my kids belts!  We worked through it over about a week with my oldest 2.  I spent more time on it with my 3rd grader.  After we finished with the Paragraph my older 2 and I worked on The Five Paragraph Essay.

My thoughts?  These products give a great foundation to writing paragraphs and essays. I thought that they did not have as much information or instruction on writing good quality sentences and paragraphs.

Below is the Table of Contents from the Homeschool Writing Action Plan:

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What I liked:

  • This program easily taught how to write a clear paragraph in simple, memorable steps!

What I didn’t like:

  • There were typos in the guides.  I find this to be a bit crazy since this is a writing program.  Makes me wonder on the validity of the program?
  • It tended to be repetitive.  What they tell you on one page may be repeated just a page or two later!
  • While this program brags that you can teach all levels from 3-12 with The Homeschool Writing Action Plan, I found it to be a little confusing.  I understood that to mean teaching all my kids at the same time with varying degrees of difficulty depending on the age level.  It might teach all those levels, but not at the same time! Maybe it was my wishful thinking!

To sum it up: These products filled in some of the gaps we had in our writing skills, overall though I am not sure that I would use it solely as my only writing curriculum for my homeschool.

 

The important information:

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Order from: Createbetterwriters.com

Price: 

How to Teach the Paragraph–$7.99 eBook Only  (Free with the purchase of How To Teach the Five Paragraph Essay)

How To Teach the Five Paragraph Essay eBook– $17.95 (download)

The Homeschool Action Writing Plan-$15.95 download, $19.95 softcover.

 

To read other Schoolhouse Crew reviews of this product click here.

 

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Disclosure/Disclaimer:  I received the above product free of charge for review purposes.  I am only expected to give an honest review.

Jul23

Math Essentials: A Schoolhouse Crew Review

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Math Essentials: A Schoolhouse Crew Review

Math Essentials: A Schoolhouse Crew Review

Sacha’s<25:  Improve essential math skills and scores dramatically in your students in only 20 minutes per day using this DVD/workbook program.

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

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

Our Experience:

When this review first came up, I wasn’t very excited about it.  I thought, “Another math program?”  However, once I poked around on the Math Essentials website I was excited to give it a try.  I ended up placing a phone call to the company to try to figure out where I would place Matthew in all of their books.  I was pleasantly surprised when the owner of the company and author of the books called me back within the hour (this was on the weekend) to help answer my questions!  After speaking with Rick Fisher I was super thrilled to try out the program.  We have been looking for something to use for Matthew this upcoming school year.  We have reviewed online programs and used workbooks, but I haven’t been blown away with anything yet.  

Enter Math Essentials Book 2 for Middle and High school students! After speaking with  Mr Fisher I learned that the problem most Pre-Algebra and Algebra teachers have is that the students coming into their classes haven’t mastered the basic math skills necessary to be able to fully do these upper level classes.  Matthew will be in 7th grade this year and with the current curriculum we have been using he would be ready for Pre-Algebra.  However, I really felt like he would do well if we spent some time reviewing all that he has learned before hitting the Pre-Algebra level.  This way he would have a better grasp of the essentials!

Can I tell you that Matthew was thrilled to hear he only had to do math for 20 minutes a day?  Yep, what kid wouldn’t be?

We are loving this program. At the beginning of the DVD we see Mr. Fisher and he speaks but once we hit the lessons it is just his voice and a whiteboard going through the problems.  The DVD is not watched every day, you just watch it on the days it corresponds to a new topic.  Mr. Fisher stresses that the students write the problems out along with him on the DVD teaching portion.  At times he goes slowly explaining how to do a particular type of problem, slowly enough that Matthew finishes the problem before he is done teaching it.  However, I appreciate that he isn’t rushing through and expecting students to know what they are doing.

Each day the student does one page in the workbook.  Matthew really enjoyed that the lessons were quick, not overly repetitive.  I enjoyed not hearing complaints about having to do math!  We will be continuing this program through the school year.  My only concern is that this might not be enough math to stand alone as our only math each day.  Mr. Fisher claims that “with consistent review built into each lesson, concepts missed in the basic curriculum will be covered in the daily review or new material section. You definitely will be ready for Algebra 1 after completing either of these workbooks!”

Don’t just take our word for it….click here to see samples of Mastering Math Essentials book 2!

From Mastering Essential’s Website:

Mastering Essential Math Skills for Middle School Grades/High School is 8 chapters and 125 pages. You’ll be provided instruction and practice for:

  • whole numbers
  • fractions
  • decimals
  • percentages
  • integers
  • geometry
  • charts and graphs
  • problem solving

MAKE MATH FUN AND BUILD SELF-ESTEEM
The key to this program’s success is that every lesson is fun and exciting. Each daily 20 minute session is short, concise and self contained. Students don’t have time to get bored or discouraged. Consistent review is built into lessons so students are able to master and reinforce their math skills. Students can see their progress and this helps increase their confidence and build self-esteem.

IT’S PARENT/TEACHER FRIENDLY
A daily lesson contains five key parts.

  1. There are two speed drills
  2. review exercises
  3. helpful hints section
  4. new material
  5. daily word problem

Lessons are easy to correct and the Parent/Teacher’s Guide provides illustrated step-by-step solutions for each exercise and problem.

UNCONDITIONAL GUARANTEE
Use Rick Fisher’s Mastering Essential Math Skills for 20 minutes a day as directed. If you don’t see what you feel are dramatically improved math test scores, send us a note saying so. You’ll receive a prompt, complete refund – no questions asked!
THERE IS NO RISK


What I liked:

  • 20 minutes a day!
  • There’s not a ridiculus amount of problems…he gets right to the point and they do enough problems to make sure they have it, but aren’t bored to death.
  • Math is reviewed along the way.  He doesn’t hit a topic once and then never cover it again!
  • I really feel like this would prepare a math student to be ready for Algebra.
  • No risk-money back guarantee.
  • Love that there is a instructional DVD included with this program.
  • The price is right!

What I didn’t like:

  • The DVD teaching can be a bit slow at times…no biggie…the teaching isn’t very long each day.
  • I’m not sure that it can be used as a stand alone math program.  However, it is awesome as review or supplement!

To sum it up: Math Essentials offers many books/programs for all ages and skill levels.  It would be a disservice to yourself and kids if you don’t check out what they have to offer. Also, don’t forget they have a money back satisfaction guarantee!  (see below for a special deal as well!)

 

The important information:

 

 

 

Math Essentials

Published by:  Math Essentials 

Order from: http://www.mathessentials.net/

Price: Mastering Math Essentials Book 2 and DVD Set- $33.95

Math Essentials will be offering a special promotion for the months of July, August, and September.

The promotion applies to any order placed through the Math Essentials website.

Any order that includes Mastering Essential Math Skills Book 1, OR, Mastering Essential Math Skills Book 2, OR, No-Nonsense Algebra, will include a free copy of Geometry (A $14.95 value) plus a free Homework Kit (A $4.99 value).


To read other Schoolhouse Crew reviews of this product click here.

 

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Disclosure/Disclaimer:  I received the above product free of charge for review purposes.  I am only expected to give an honest review.

Jul13

Keyboarding for the Christian School: A Schoolhouse Crew Review

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Keyboarding for the Christian School: A Schoolhouse Crew Review

Keyboarding for the Christian School: A Schoolhouse Crew Review

 

Sacha’s<25: An ebook typing curriculum for private schools and home schools designed for grades 6 and up for the low price of $15.95!

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

Is it worth our time?  5 stars
Did it help us learn?  5 stars
Is it worth the money? 5  stars
Is it useful to me? 5  stars
Practicality- 5 stars
Quality- 8 stars
Kid Rating- 6 stars

Our Experience:

We received Keyboarding for the Christian School by Leanne Beitel for review. This program was not at all what I was expecting.  I thought that the students would be typing Bible verses early on in the lessons.  This wasn’t the case. The first 29 lessons focus on the letter keys and number keys.  I was pleased that once they get that under their belt the lessons continue with things that they would need to know for middle school and high school.  See below the Table of Contents:

Introduction 4

Lessons 1-20 Alphabetic Keys 5-24

Lessons 21-25 Numbers and Symbol Keys 25-29

Lessons 26-29 Number Pad 30-33

Lesson 30 Centering 34-38

Lesson 31 Enumerated Lists 39-40

Lesson 32 Tab Key 41-42

Lesson 33 MLA Reports 43-46

Lesson 34 APA Reports 47-50

Lesson 35 Cover Page 51-52

Lesson 36 Works Cited 53

Lesson 37 Bibliography 54

Lesson 38 Personal-Business Letters 55-59

Lesson 39 Business Letters 60-65

Lesson 40 Envelopes 66-67

Lesson 41 Proofreader’s Marks 68-69

Lesson 42 Timed Writings 70-74

Timing Scale 75

Index 76-77

The “Christian” aspect comes into play once they are learning centering etc.  Then they are typing Psalms, m  etc.  Unfortunately, the instructions to learn how to do the word processing portions of the lessons are written for a PC.  We have a Mac so the instructions don’t line up with how we do it on our Mac programs. I was bummed about that because my soon to be 6th grader is already a really good “typer” and needs the layout instructions more so than the typing instructions.

I had to beg my kids to try these lessons out, they found them to be  really dry and boring compared to the computer games they have been working on learning typing with.  My daughter enjoyed it more once she was past the typing stuff and into the formatting/word processing where she was actually typing verses from the Bible.

Click here to see some sample lessons.

 

From their website:

Keyboarding for the Christian School  can be used along with a software-based program or online program to further enhance your student’s learning.  Most of these programs are great for graphical use but fall short of actual teaching in word processing techniques.   This book will help your middle school through high school student learn touch typing through…

*Typing drills, timings, letters, envelopes, APA and MLA reports (the ONLY book that features both), centering, proofreader’s marks, and creating tables with a Biblical perspective
*The textbook is brief–only 108 pages–to be used in conjunction with other curriculum or as a refresher
*Screen shots for each lesson after the alphanumeric keys to make sure student is on target
*Resources for grading and assessment
*Access to the author for questions or help
*Printed softcover products are available for an additional shipping and printing fee 

What I liked:

  • I loved that it covered more than just learning to actually type.  Lessons 30-43 cover all kinds of things that are needed for upper grade levels.  (see above for table of contents)  We will be referring back to these lessons over the school year.

What I didn’t like:

  • This book just doesn’t have the excitement attached to it that a computer based game does.  My kids were really bored with it.  That being said, she does say this on her website and I think it proves to be a good point:  Why choose a printable e-book versus a web-based program?  Think about the things you type.  Are they readily available to copy from the screen or are they something that you are looking at on a piece of paper?  Usually you are typing something from a rough draft.  If the lessons are only available on the computer monitor; your student will not get the needed skill of transferring information from paper to the computer.  A printable e-book allows you the preference of binding the whole book or just giving your student one page at a time.  A printable e-book is portable and economical.
  • The directions on how to format the pages for certain things were written for word processing on a PC.  We have a Mac and they just didn’t work the same way.  
  • Because it isn’t a computer program it doesn’t tell them when they are wrong, or tell them their typing speeds.  

To sum it up: My children like a little more “bling” when it comes to drill work like learning how to type.  I have found that they are more willing to work on typing with a computer program.  With that being said, I think that the last lessons will be very helpful as they hit middle and high school levels where they need to know MLA, APA reports, doing cover pages, bibliographies, business letters, etc.

 

The important information:

Order from: Christian Keyboarding

https://www.christiankeyboarding.com/

Price: $15.95

To read other Schoolhouse Crew reviews of this product click here.

 

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Disclosure/Disclaimer:  I received the above product free of charge for review purposes.  I am only expected to give an honest review.