Homeschool Review Crew

Product Review—Starfall Education Foundation

February 28, 2018 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Most of the time, I don’t allow my little people to spend much time looking at screens. When I was asked if I wanted to review the program offered by Starfall Education Foundation, I decided we would give it a try. We were given a one-year subscription to The Starfall Home Membership. Unfortunately, because of our move soon after the review program began, we were not able to utilize it as fully as we could have. It did save the day, the day before we moved, however! It rained all day, so the little ones had to be in the house. Because I was trying to finish packing and cleaning everything and get the cow to her new home and wrap up all sorts of other odds and ends, I let the youngest three play with Starfall for a couple of hours. The rest of us kept an eye on what they were doing on the floor in the living room, and they were enthralled, listening to a voice read picture books as they clicked to turn the pages.

There is a lot for children to listen to and learn from on this site. For some reason, Mr. Imagination and Little Miss loved the introduction to colors—they played with that one over and over! They also loved the storybooks. There are simple books to introduce letters of the alphabet, and another set of folk tales. They listened to all six of them one day, and the next day went through all the nonfiction stories. I like the way these books are presented. If a child is able to, they can read them for themselves, but if they aren’t sure of the words or can’t read yet, there is a button on each page to click to hear the story read to them.

The audiovisual resources are available free to anyone. I wondered, when I gained access to the one-year Membership, what advantage it was, but when I started looking closer, I found a wealth of resources in the Parent-Teacher Center. There is a complete curriculum for Kindergarten and Pre-K, as well as a wealth of supplementary resources for 1^st grade. The curriculum pages I looked at were scripted, so you don’t even have to think about what to say! This isn’t my style, so I didn’t do anything with it, but it’s there if you want or need it.

I did use some of the printables. When Mr. Imagination learned the short /u/ sound, I printed out a story featuring many words with that sound, and several worksheets he could use to practice writing it and sounding out words using it. He loved them! The story was easy for him to read, since he had gone through it on the computer a few weeks previously. He was excited to be able to read it for himself!

I also printed a few worksheets for Little Miss. Even though she just turned three, she has been talking for a long time about things that are the same or different, so I thought she might enjoy doing a page of that. She did! She was absolutely thrilled to get to circle things, and she got them all right. I also printed her a page of circling the longest of a group of pictures, and she got all of them right, as well.

For our family, The Starfall Home Membership is probably not worth paying for, as little as I use it. However, the resources that are available free are good when you need something educational to keep little children occupied for awhile. As I said, it was great the day before we moved, when it was pouring rain and they couldn’t play outside, and all their toys were packed and things were in an upheaval! And, if you need a complete curriculum for Preschool or Kindergarten, it would be good.

Product Review—Bytes of Learning

February 21, 2018 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

It was exciting to start another year with the Homeschool Review Crew and get to begin choosing more products to review! One of the first ones this year was the UltraKey Online Family Subscription from Bytes of Learning. I have been trying different typing programs for several years, trying to teach my boys to touch type. The one we used for the last couple of years was expensive, although it seemed to work, but it was time again to either pay for another year or find something else to use for the 2018 school year—and then the opportunity to try UltraKey came up. Just what we needed, and at the right time, except that we had to move during the review period, so that we didn’t get to try it for very long before writing this review.

I have seen enough of this product to be fairly impressed. There are a lot of instructional videos, and the option to have all directions read aloud. That makes it easy for younger children to use on their own, and the older ones were glad that we could turn that feature off by clicking the Auto button. After watching a video once, you are allowed to skip it; if you select Off for the Step-by-step Learning setting you can skip all of them if you want to. I allowed Mr. Intellectual and Mr. Diligence to turn off that setting, since they already have a fairly good foundation for touch typing. Mr. Sweetie is still required to go step by step through the program, since he is still learning the basics.

After a video about posture and an introduction to the course, there is a lesson on finger positions, and then the proper lessons start. After learning several keys, the student has the opportunity to practice words and then sentences. After that, it’s time for a skill check; the student chooses to type either a certain amount of text or a certain number of minutes. Once he has passed the skill check, he can move on to the next lesson. Passing is determined by reaching the preset goal. I was able to set goals for the boys myself. The goal I have set for Mr. Sweetie for this year is to become accurate; the other two boys are supposed to increase their speed. One thing I’m liking is the ability to see a report of what the boys have accomplished; here is the report from Mr. Sweetie.

After completing the lessons and skill check, if you need more practice, you can redo lessons or skill checks, or use the Typing Forum or Game Zone. The Typing Forum offers more passages to type to increase your speed and accuracy, or you can select Free Typing and just type anything you want to. The Game Zone offers practice with grammar and spelling as well as speed and accuracy. As typing games, they aren’t very exciting, but they are good practice.

We haven’t used this program long enough to really know if it works, but it looks to me like it is a good one. For the price, I believe it is worthwhile. I appreciate that they are offering subscriptions for various-sized families. After our free subscription for review expires, I will probably pay for a subscription for next year. If you are looking for a systematic way to teach your children touch-typing, look into UltraKey!

Edit: As of September 2024, it appears that this product is no longer available.

Product Review—Innovators Tribe

November 8, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

I had never heard of Innovators Tribe before, but when the opportunity arose to use and review the course Thinking Like an Engineer, I knew Mr. Intellectual would be interested. Sure enough, when I showed it to him and we watched the introductory video together, he was immediately excited about the possibility of getting to do it. He was absolutely thrilled when we got the word that we had been assigned this review, and he has been working very fast with his regular school work so he will get to work on this course. It’s what he looks forward to most, each school day.

This course alternates between video lessons and hands-on projects. After watching the introduction, What is Engineering, the assignment is given to build a tower out of only paper and tape—and strictly limited amounts of both. It took awhile, but Mr. Intellectual figured out how to do it, and had great fun in the process.

Lesson 2 talked about different types of engineers, and then the students were given another challenge assignment, to stack books one inch off the floor, using only one sheet of paper and some tape. I thought this was impossible; I couldn’t figure out how to do it at all. No hints or tips of any kind were given, just the assignment. My boy was stumped for awhile, but he eventually figured out what to do and made this impressive tower of books! (And no, I’m not going to tell you how he did it, because if your child does the course he or she needs to figure it out, too! However, if Grandma wants to know, we’ll tell her.)

The second unit focuses on 3D design, using special software you can download to your computer. That’s what Mr. Intellectual has been using for a few weeks now. He loves the excuse to play around with designs on the computer. I asked what he was working on a couple of days ago, and the assignment was to take a piece of household furniture and improve the design. He was working on a kitchen table. I’ll be quite interested to see what he ends up with!

This course isn’t quite what I was envisioning; it’s actually much better. I thought the students would be walked through designing specific items, but actually they are taught how to figure out problems themselves. An engineer takes a need and figures out how to meet that need using the materials available. This course teaches students how to do that, which is why the tower and the stack of books were assigned with no hints.

Each unit has a printable journal to fill in as you go, which helps to cement the concepts you’ve learned, and keep a record of your accomplishments—how tall was your tower, how many pounds of books did you stack on top of your piece of paper, etc. If you run into difficulty, you can contact the author of the course and he’ll give you personal help. We haven’t needed any help, but some of the other people who did this course reported that they asked for some input and got quick, thorough answers. For children who can read at least some, Thinking Like an Engineer can be done totally by the student, without any help from Mom. In fact, I’ve had a little trouble writing this review because I was involved so little! I had to keep reminding myself to look over Mr. Intellectual’s shoulder and ask questions about what he was doing, so I’d have at least something to say! That makes it even more valuable to me, because I don’t have time for extras most days, so doing something that requires teacher input would have been difficult. I believe this would even work for people with dyslexia who have a lot of trouble reading, because most of it is in video format.

Mr. Intellectual says he would highly recommend this course for other people who are interested in building things and figuring out how they can be made to work better. We’re thankful to have had the chance to use Thinking Like an Engineer, and looking forward to the rest of the course! (It will be very interesting to see what he gets to do in the units about designing rollercoasters and bridges! Maybe that’s when we’ll use the packs of card stock we were told to buy?)

Product Review—Let’s Go Geography

September 20, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

I’ve always felt like geography was the weakest subject in our homeschooling. I’ve tried various ways of incorporating map work into our school days, but everything I tried was hated. Finally, I just hung a world map from the bulletin board beside the chair I sit in to read aloud, and when I think of it I’ll point out the location of the story we’re reading. When Let’s Go Geography came available for review, I decided it looked like something we could really use. Because it was described as being good for approximately grades K-4, I decided to have Mr. Sweetie and Mr. Imagination use it. No one older wanted to, anyway.

Each week, we get to study a different country. The first two weeks were actually regions of the United States, first the Northeastern States, and then Hawaii. After that, we spent a few days with Canada, and then Haiti and Nicaragua. We’re going to Belize on our next adventure. My little boys are loving this course! Especially, Mr. Imagination cheers when I say it’s time for geography. A few days ago, we were reading a biography in the evening and it mentioned that the person had gone to Hawaii. I didn’t even know Mr. Imagination was listening, but he got quite excited and pointed to Hawaii on the world map, telling everyone that we had studied it! That was fun to see. And just look at the list of places we get to “go” in the future! (Do you see what the last one for Year 1 is?)

Each lesson has a lot of variety. It’s set up so you can spend five days per lesson, so one section of the lesson each day of the week. We ended up doing each lesson in only 2-3 days, and skipping a few days each week. It’s just hard to fit something like that in every single day. We did the map work and colored, cut out and glued the flags one day. Another day, we listened to the national anthem from the country and watched the YouTube videos linked to in the lesson, and then each boy dictated to me what he remembered about the country and I wrote it on a notebooking page for him. Sometime later, either that day or another day, they each colored a picture of something from the country. Little Miss always had to have a coloring page, too, and she usually wanted a map to scribble on as well! There are crafts given for each lesson, but we never did any of them. They would have been fun, but we didn’t have the needed supplies on hand. It’s not that they are hard to find, but just things that we don’t keep, such as white and red plastic disposable cups to make into a lighthouse, or paper lunch bags to make into a puppet. I keep hoping we’ll come across a craft that we have the supplies for.

Built into the year’s study of geography are three review lessons, one after each two continents have been studied. This review lesson looks like fun! I know my boys are going to love matching flags with the correct countries, and we’ll spend some time learning about latitude and longitude as part of the first review lesson. There are also some pages to match pictures with the country in which they were taken.

Here is Mr. Sweetie with some of his pages.

And this is Mr. Imagination, with some of his pages!

We’re saving all our pages, and at the end of the year I’m planning to have someone drill holes in them so I can sew the books together. Then, each of the boys will have his own book of world geography. When years 2 and 3 are available, I will probably buy them; this is a program we have really enjoyed. All you need to use it is an internet connection and a printer! I am trying to get a few books from the library with more pictures of the countries we’re studying, but our local libraries are pretty small. This is when we’re glad for YouTube and someone who has taken the time to find links for us!

Product Review—Trust Fund

July 18, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Our most recent review was the new movie Trust Fund, by Mapelle Films. The story sounded very good, and the trailer we watched was intriguing, so I signed up. We were also given a book that goes with the movie, Love Was Near. I asked Esther to write the review of the movie, since she is good at that, so I read the book. We watched the movie while we were at Mom’s house. At first, we weren’t sure about letting the boys watch it, since we had seen the trailer and there was a swimming scene in it, but it turned out not to be a problem. Everyone who was home that day (two boys were helping their aunt at work) ended up watching it.

Here is Esther’s review of the movie:
In some ways, I really enjoyed Trust Fund. The acting and videography were superb; I always felt like I was right there, listening in on the conversations or viewing the scenery. Overall, this is a gorgeous movie from that perspective. However, there were some things that I didn’t appreciate so much about the film—but I’ll get to those later.

Reese Donahue, aspiring author, does not agree with her father that she needs a job. What she’d like is to finish her book, become the next New York Times bestseller, then head back to Italy to be with her boyfriend. However, life seems to be conspiring against her, and when her agent refuses to give her another advance on her not-yet-completed book and her father refuses to give her money unless she gets a job, she feels stuck. Then she discovers that her dad has been hiding something from her and her sister since their mother’s death. She is suddenly faced with a decision—one that she, and only she, can make. Either go against the morals of right and wrong that she has been taught from little up in order to achieve her dreams—and in the process, destroy her relationship with her father and sister—or trust her father’s judgment and end up living and working in a situation that is what she would consider less than desirable. Are the costs worth the possible outcome? And when things turn out completely different than she had imagined, is there any way out for her? This movie can be intense at times as you wonder what she’s going to decide to do next. There were also a few funny bits that we all enjoyed. Like I said before, however, although I enjoyed some elements of the movie, there were other parts that I didn’t like as much.

While this movie doesn’t claim to be Christian, it bothered me that they used a Christian theme but didn’t really come across as Christian. The characters never said the name of God, or mentioned the Bible, so in the end there’s just a Christian theme used for this—the story of the prodigal son, but in this case, it’s the daughter. That was done very well, in my opinion, although fairly early on our family did figure out what storyline this movie was following, so it ended up slightly more predictable than some movies I’ve seen. My only problem with this was that the moral of the prodigal story was used, without attributing a real reason to it. Talking about this with my family, I mentioned that it reminded me of another movie we’ve seen—Time Changer. That story starts out with the main character, a professor, telling a boy that it’s wrong to steal—but he neglected to say who said it was wrong to steal. In a different context, that happening came up, and one of the other characters calls the professor out on it. Over the course of the movie, he ends up showing him that if the person who gave the law is not attributed (in this case, God), then after some time even the moral truth will be lost—because without the fear of the Lord as the moral lawgiver, there is no meaning to the moral law. All that to say—I felt like this movie was a little like that. Having the moral law, without a mention of the giver. In the end, it felt like it fell flat—as if even though everything turned out okay, there wasn’t any real meaning behind why the people did what they did. It could easily be that I just missed the main part of the movie—I hope so! As I said before, I did enjoy parts of it, although I could have done without some of the romance in there (I don’t agree with couples touching before marriage, and there were about five different kisses, if I counted correctly). In all, you might enjoy this movie; it could be that it’s just not my style.

Love Was Near Book

Love was Near is the book Reese, the main character, wrote in the movie. In each of the 28 chapters of the book, she tells a little more of her story, then shares a diary entry. Then, there are a couple of questions for the reader, and lines on which to write journal your thoughts and feelings about the subject discussed in the chapter. Basically, then, this is a study guide for the movie. It really does add to the movie; in Trust Fund, there is no mention of God or the Bible. We were quite disappointed about that, but Love Was Near helps a little to redeem it in my opinion. There were some scripture references, and at the end the author makes it clear that the movie was based on the parable of the Prodigal Son. A couple of other Bible stories are referenced, as well. The bottom line, in my opinion? This book isn’t really needed in our family, but would be a good resource for young adults who are struggling with who they are and whether or not they are worth anything. The movie is pretty clean entertainment, if that’s what you’re looking for, just don’t be expecting a deep message.

One more thing I should mention: The filmmaker is a home school graduate; his parents were among the pioneers of the homeschooling movement.

Product Review–Adventures of Rush Revere

June 21, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

I’ve been seeing references in various places to the Adventures of Rush Revere Book Series, and was thinking I’d like to read some of them so I could review them for Esther’s website. When I had the opportunity to sign up for a review of the Adventures of Rush Revere #1 New York Times Bestselling Book Series by Rush and Kathryn Adams Limbaugh, I grabbed the chance. I found these books interesting, but not a great fit for our family. For the most part, the history seems to be quite accurate; I noted below where I was in question about it. This is a creative way to teach history and make it fascinating! What I don’t like so much is the magical aspect. The main character, Rush Revere, a history teacher who dresses like Paul Revere, has a magic horse who can take people through a time portal to any time in American History. The horse starts running, saying the words, “Rush, rush, rushing into history,” and a swirling yellow and purple circle opens up in front of them. Whoever jumps through quickly, before it closes up, is instantly transported to the time and place they chose. The horse can also stop time briefly.

Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims Rush and his horse take two children from the history class for which he is substitute teaching to visit the Pilgrims. First, he takes Tommy to the Mayflower as it is traveling across the Atlantic Ocean, and then he takes both Tommy and Freedom, a girl who looks somewhat Native American, to Plymouth Plantation to watch the Pilgrims starting their new life in the New World.

Rush Revere and the First Patriots Rush is now visiting the American colonies in the 1770s, as the colonists are becoming upset with the English king. He takes Tommy and another boy from his history class, Cam, along. Then, Elizabeth, the principal’s daughter, sees them jump through the time portal and figures out what is going on. She demands to be taken along somewhere, so they take her to see George III. However, she decides she wants to become a queen, so she decides she is going to tell the king about the Boston Tea Party and change history—how can they stop her? Rush and his friends participate in that event, as well as meet Samuel Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Paul Revere, George Washington, and Patrick Henry—among other famous Founding Fathers. What I really didn’t like in this book? Freedom is able to communicate telepathically with the horse.

Rush Revere and the American Revolution Now, Rush Revere is taking his students to visit scenes from the opening of the Revolutionary War. They witness Paul Revere’s ride and the battles of Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill. Throughout the book is woven the story of a young boy who is struggling with being upset about his father’s deployment in Afghanistan and problems with a bully. He uses the lessons he learns from watching the early battles in the Revolution to win a battle with the bully. What I really didn’t like in this book? In chapter 1 Cam gets in a fight. In chapter 3 the horse, Liberty, pretends to be a vampire, and later Rush tells Cam that fighting is sometimes necessary.

Rush Revere and the Star Spangled Banner Rush’s young friend Tommy is not feeling very happy, since his grandfather is in the Veteran’s Hospital and not doing well. To distract him and cheer him up, Rush takes Tommy, Cam and Freedom on a summer field trip to Washington, D. C., where they visit the important buildings, see the original documents that set up the United States, and learn about the government. They also time-travel to various events in the past, such as the writing of the Constitution and the writing of the Star-Spangled Banner. The word gosh appears on page 51, chapter 3.

Rush Revere and the Presidency Cam wants to be elected as the president of his middle school. Rush Revere and Liberty help Cam and his friends to put a campaign together, as they learn a lot about the United States Presidency and how people become President. They travel back in time to witness President Washington’s inauguration and his farewell speech, meet John and Abigail Adams as he begins his presidency, and visit Thomas Jefferson at the time of the Louisiana Purchase. I did have to wonder about the accuracy of this book; it sounds as though even the first two presidents campaigned for votes, but the way I remember reading it, that didn’t start until much later. I did appreciate the way it was explained that the President’s motive needs to be to help people, not to be popular and famous. The word gee appears on page 110 in chapter 5.

I also do not agree with the author’s view of the United States. He believes the United States is the greatest nation that has ever existed. I do agree that it is the only country specifically built on the principles of freedom and equality, but to say that it is the greatest nation? I certainly don’t believe that it is any more. Also, I believe in two kingdoms—the kingdom of God and the kingdom of this world. I don’t believe the two can be mixed; secular government is needed, but we as Christians should not be involved (Romans 13). So, as I said, this series of books is not a good fit for our family for various reasons, although a lot of families who believe differently than us will love them.

These books would be good for roughly 8-15-year-olds who enjoy fantasy, history, and adventure all mixed up. The books are beautiful; they have good, solid hard covers and the pages are lovely heavy paper. One thing that made this fun was receiving the books tied up with a blue ribbon! It was so pretty I took a picture.

Read my full review here.

Adventures of Rush Revere Book Series {Reviews}

Product Review—MarshMedia

June 8, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Some reviews are more popular around here than others. When I first read the description of MarshMedia, I was not interested. Then, I got an email virtually begging for more reviewers, so, reluctantly, I signed up. We have been watching a movie a day while we eat lunch, as we have time. It tends to be difficult to find time for movies in our house.

MarshMedia offers short (15-20 minute) videos on various topics for schools to use in their health education programs. They have 54 vidoes about hygiene, health, puberty education, safety, immune system disorders, head lice, nutrition, etc. Though MarshMedia has offered their videos to schools up to this point, they are now wanting to reach out to the homeschool community. If you wish to take advantage of the opportunity to introduce the MarshMedia curriculum to your home schooler click on this link for more information: https://marshmedia.com/pages/homeschools

There are the most about puberty, a few of which I have watched. We also watched a couple from the hygeine topics. The one about protecting your hearing was unanimously voted boring, unfortunately. So was the one about head lice, although there was some interest, since a family we know had problems with them recently. Once I discovered the Character Education movies, though, under the Guidance tab, there was more interest in watching these. The Character Education ones each feature an animal who acts in pretty natural ways as he narrates the story. Stanley’s This is the Life was about a bear who found a snack inside a camper whose door was left open, and found himself transported to a place far from his mountain home. He discovered a drive-in theater and found lots of food there, but after awhile he realized that he wasn’t feeling good anymore. The moral of the story is obvious! Feathers at Las Flores was a fun story about a talking parrot at a cafe in Florida who repeats what he hears—with disastrous results. We found it quite funny, and I was able to refer to the story when one of my sons was tempted to gossip a day or two after watching it. We also watched Inger’s Promise, about a reindeer in Lapland who learned to be reliable. The best part of that one was the glimpse at life in a fascinating culture. These movies are not quite animated, but almost; the camera zooms in and out on a painting, and moves around the painting or from one illustration to another, as the story is narrated. The pictures are lovely and fairly realistic.

As I said, I watched a few of the Puberty videos myself. I wasn’t comfortable with showing them to my boys. They aren’t very explicit, but there are line drawings of undressed people, showing the changes that occur in the human body as they mature. One thing I did appreciate about the one, A Baby is Born, was a quote near the end. It was something about that you are born either a boy or a girl and cannot change that. Not politically correct now, it seems, but certainly the truth!

My personal opinion? If you want or need to come up with a health education course, MarshMedia’s videos would be a great resource. For our family, they aren’t very helpful. Take a look and see what you think!

Product Review—K5 Learning

June 7, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

My 5-year-old has been asking for school, and begging me to teach him to read. I’ve given him the attention I could, but I wasn’t sure he was really ready to learn to read, so I haven’t been pushing him at all. When the opportunity arose to review K5 Learning, I showed it to him and asked him if he wanted to try it. He was excited to do this online program, and couldn’t wait till I got the information about logging in to do it. He faithfully does his “school on the computer” every day, and wants to do the worksheets, too.

There are three parts to the K5 Learning. Mr. Imagination has only been using the Reading and Math; he’s too young for the Spelling. He is doing very well with the Math part. I usually just let him do it by himself, because I’m busy helping the older boys with their schoolwork when he does it in the morning, but a couple of afternoons when I’ve been working in the kitchen he has wanted to do his school, so I’ve gotten to observe. I couldn’t believe what he was able to do! He was supposed to put numbers in order the one time, and they gave him 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, and 95. He did it correctly without hesitation. He was also supposed to use the greater than and less than symbols (> and <) that day. He had a little more trouble with that, but caught on pretty quickly. Yesterday he was working on addition on it, and when he finished he came running into the kitchen saying, “Two plus two is four!” I quizzed him on a few other simple facts and he figured them out pretty fast, too.

On the other hand, he’s having more trouble with the Reading section. I can’t tell that he’s really learned much there although he picked up rhyming words very fast from working with them on there. I’m guessing he is dyslexic and that reading will be a little harder for him. It does seem like K5 Learning does not start at the very beginning; my impression is that even Kindergarten starts with some prior experience presupposed. They do say they are a supplementary course, rather than a complete curriculum. My impression is that they spend more time working on sight words than phonics.

There are worksheets to go with each lesson. You can actually use the worksheets without having an account. Mr. Imagination loves doing them, and has done very well. On the sign-in page, worksheets are suggested based on the lessons the child has been doing recently. (It looks, though like he didn’t understand what he was supposed to be doing on the one page here!)

In my opinion, if you have a child who wants to play games on the computer, and you want them to be doing something educational, K5 Learning would be a good choice. As a replacement for other schoolwork, I don’t think it’s a very good choice. One thing that would make it a lot better would be the ability to choose the lessons you want your child to do, and to be able to start them where you want them. As it is, if you want them to be working at a different level from where the program puts them, you have to contact the website. I did do that when Mr. Imagination started out, because the math he was being given was too advanced for him. I asked them to reset him at the beginning of Kindergarten (he had tested between Low Kindergarten and Low 1^st grade for reading, and Intermediate Kindergarten to Low 1^st on their assessment), but when he got on again the next time he was still at the same place he had been before.

Mr. Sweetie has also used K5 Learning a few times. He mainly does in the evening after his chores are done, when he feels like playing on the computer. He has mostly done the reading part. He’s been given exercises like finding the main idea of a paragraph, or figuring out the meaning of words. They spent a lot of time having him do reading comprehension exercises. I did enjoy the opportunity to have him do the assessment and get a bit of an idea where he is academically. He tested from just below to well above grade level in the various areas they tested. Nice to know he’s average!

Since I don’t have anyone doing the spelling part, I took a look at it myself. There were two areas to choose from, Vocabulary Tutor and Spelling Tutor. In Vocabulary Tutor, you are given a definition and a sample sentence, and must determine what the word is. They do give you dashes to show how many letters are in the word. The Spelling Tutor is similar, except that they pronounce the word for you. In both cases, you have to spell the word correctly before moving on. They seem to be coordinated; for example, I misspelled a word on the Vocabulary part, and that was the first word when I switched to the spelling part.

My final opinion: There are pros and cons to K5 Learning. I like that it is self-directed; I don’t have to help my boys with it much at all. When they want to play something on the computer, they have an educational activity to do. I don’t like that it is sight-word based rather than phonetic. Also, you must keep in mind that it is not a complete curriculum, but supplementary. The part I don’t like about using as a supplement is that you can’t choose the lessons you want them to do. If you’re interested in seeing if this program is a good fit for your family, they offer a 14-day free trial. Up to four students are allowed per account.

Product Review—The Typing Coach

May 25, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

I have been trying to teach my boys touch typing for a long time now. Esther learned when we still lived in America, using an old typing book I had picked up somewhere. It was very similar to the way I had learned, and really worked. The boys have been using a variety of computer programs, and none of them was working as well as I thought they should. I had been thinking about finding something else, so when The Typing Coach Online Typing Course, from The Typing Coach, was offered for review, I jumped at the chance. Mr. Intellectual has been using it for five or six weeks now, and he is really happy that he got to.

This program is quite different from the other online typing programs I’ve seen. It took awhile for Mr. Intellectual to get started with it, because there is a lot of introductory material to get through. To start out, you read a brief introduction, then watch a video introducing the method used in The Typing Coach. After that, you are asked to print several documents, which contain the passages you’ll be typing for practice, and then watch another, much longer video explaining how the course works. It took my boy several days to get through all that! The last step before actually learning to type is to do the Before and After Snapshot—type the Gettysburg Address for three minutes and take a screenshot of your results.

Finally, you’re ready to start the first lesson. That covers good posture while typing (mine isn’t very good all the time, to be honest). The second lesson covers the home row. It begins with an audio in which the instructor tells you where to have each finger and what letters to type. Then, you practice, using the student packet you printed out earlier, until you can get through several lines without a mistake. When you feel ready, take a test. You will not pass the test until you have 100% accuracy! The big difference I’m seeing between The Typing Coach and the other programs we’ve tried is that you are not to look at the screen. You are to keep your eyes on the paper you’re copying from. While you listen to the audio, of course, you won’t see anything on the screen, either. You are to type in a word processing program, such as Microsoft Word or Google Docs. That makes it work much like real life.

Does it work? Yes, at least for Mr. Intellectual! He already knew how to touch type, but was very slow and not accurate. He had been averaging 6-10 words per minute, with several errors. Today, when he did the Top Row Learning Check in The Typing Coach, he typed 11 words in 40 seconds, with no errors. He’s pretty happy to be able to type faster. In fact, when he writes stories, he is now typing them rather than using a speech-to-text program! I will probably be using this program for some of my other children in the future (you don’t want to use it with children much younger than about sixth grade, unless you have time to help them through it). One thing I really appreciated is that Mr. Intellectual was able to do this program pretty much on his own.

We did have some frustrations with this course. At first, the website seemed pretty clunky and hard to navigate. After playing around with it and looking closer at everything, we found what we needed, though. We did notice that things were changed as we used it, and it’s actually much better than it was before. Another frustration was that you have to wait two days, to the minute, before retaking a test that you have failed. That is especially aggravating when you’ve left Caps Lock on accidentally! We did find a way around that, though; if you enter a different name you can retake it immediately, so my boy used his middle name a couple of times. However—remember that the purpose of this course is to teach mastery and accuracy! That is why the rule about not doing the test again immediately. You are to practice and practice until you are absolutely accurate.

The suggested pace is a lesson a week for ten weeks. Mr. Intellectual hasn’t quite held to that pace, because life is pretty crazy around here; he’s finishing lesson 3 right now. We’ve had a lot of days we had to take off school to go to Christchurch for appointments, or other life happenings, including our upcoming trip to America. He has learned a lot, though, and plans to finish the course after we get home. I highly recommend this course for anyone who wants to improve their typing speed or accuracy, but you will have to have the patience to figure out the course.

To read what 100 reviewers think about The Typing Coach, click here:

Book Review: Shepherd, Potter, Spy—and the Star Namer

April 6, 2017 by NZ Filbruns 1 Comment

A couple of months ago, I received the offer to review the book Shepherd, Potter, Spy—and the Star Namer for Peggy Consolver. She had been intrigued by the story of the Gibeonites, found in Joshua 9 and 10, and wanted to write a novel about them. Well, I was immediately intrigued by the idea; I had never come across a story written from that point of view before! So, of course, I signed up for it.

Keshub is the main character; he is a 12-year-old as the story begins. He lives in Gibeon, and is a shepherd for his family. One day, he runs across an Amorite boy on the border between their lands, and is startled to learn that the boy, bin Zedek, a son of Adoni-Zedek king of Jerusalem, hates his own father. Why? He learns the terrible reason a few months later. As Keshub grows, he graduates to a new job, helping in the family’s pottery business. He especially loves helping his uncle sell their wares in nearby Jerusalem and Jericho, and badly wants to travel outside of Aijalon Valley. But soon, disturbing news reaching the village occupies his mind. A huge group of people, the Hebrews, are camped on the border of Canaan. Some 40 years ago, they came out of Egypt, leaving chaos in their wake—what will happen now? As they come closer to Gibeon, Keshub’s people prepare to defend themselves. Soon, Keshub and his brother are involved with spying on the Hebrews. Their people still haven’t figured out how to save themselves, although Keshub’s father is beginning to think that the Star Namer he has heard of, the God who made the stars and everything else, may be the same God who is allowing the Hebrews to cross the flooded Jordan River on dry ground, and making the walls of Jericho fall outward before his son’s eyes. What will he do with this knowledge?

We enjoyed this story. The terror in the minds of the Canaanites, and the various ways they reacted to the threat of the Hebrews as they approached, was really brought to life. I also appreciated the way the author switched back and forth, mostly telling the story from Keshub’s Canaanite point of view, but at times showing us the life of a boy in the Hebrew camp. I hadn’t thought about it much before how the people would have known that all the men of a certain age and older would be dying before long, before they would enter the Promised Land. That dread is brought out in this story. The family relationships were beautiful, too. We especially liked one line, where Mother said, “Boys, beware when your brother wears that look. He can talk you out of your woolen blanket on the coldest day.” I also felt like we really got a feel for the geography of the area. It was obvious that the author had spent some time there, learning to know what the place was like.

Although we enjoyed the historical aspect of the book, there were a few complaints we had. It seemed like the narration was rather long-winded; we felt like it could be cut down by half or even two-thirds and tell the same story without dragging so much. I had a little trouble with the quality of proofreading, as well; words were not always divided properly at the end of lines, which made it hard to read aloud, and one character’s name was spelled three different ways. We also wondered about the total lack of religion in the lives of the Gibeonites.

All in all, I would recommend this book as a very clean, fairly accurate story of Bible times. We read it aloud, and all the children were listening in. It is not a story with a lot of tension; I didn’t get many requests for “another chapter.” On the other hand, my 7-year-old wouldn’t mind hearing it again sometime!

The author has created a study guide for the book. I did not purchase it, but did look over the sample. If you wanted to do a unit study on Ancient Israel, this would be a wonderful resource. She has some maps, and many links to help you learn more about various topics mentioned in the book.