Review Crew

Product Review—Creative Word Studio

June 8, 2021 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew.

One thing I want my children to learn is how to write. My oldest is a prolific writer, and my third-born son can write; I keep working on the others! It’s very helpful to have resources on hand that can help spark creativity in writing. That made me immediately interested in Sparkling Bits of Writing, from Creative Word Studio. I chose to use and review Book 1, which is intended for grades 5-6. I would love to someday use Book 2, as well, but at the moment I don’t have anyone in grades 7-8, which is the left it is written for. Mr. Diligence is working part time now, so even though he would be just over that level he doesn’t have time anymore for things like this!

I have been having Mr. Sweetie (grade 6) and Mr. Imagination (grade 4) do the assignments from Sparkling Bits of Writing. Little Miss (grade 1) wants to do everything they do, but the projects are almost too hard for her. She keeps trying, though! We received the book quite late in the review period, and then had some health issues crop up that have made it hard to spend the time I wanted to with this course, but made it through the first seven lessons. I am really liking this course!

There are three basic types of lessons in this course. The first lesson is classified as a Mini Writing Exercise. These teach various things about writing. The first was an acrostic, with a line beginning with each letter of the children’s names. Esther was inspired to write one about Miss Joy—it was pretty funny! Little Miss couldn’t understand the concept, but the boys did a little better. Other lessons teach how to use the thesaurus. Our physical one is very hard to use and is stored in an outside building, so we didn’t bother going out in the rain after dark to get it—I found a thesaurus online. That lesson was fun! I see that others talk about complete sentences or autumn words, or showing instead of telling.

The next type of lesson is Free Writing. You are supposed to take a topic and run with it—write everything you think of about a particular topic. The first was about how you are feeling right now. With boys—well, I’ll just say that was challenging. What matters to you was easier.

Reading Responses are fun. We’ve done one of those so far. It included a selection from A Secret Garden, which our children haven’t heard. They loved listening to it, and then enjoyed writing what they thought happened next. I loved what one of our boys came up with; it was totally unexpected to me. I see selections from Oliver Twist and Tom Sawyer coming up soon. Those will be fun!

There are also Friends lessons, in which two children need to work together to write something. The one the boys did (pictured here) had to do with cell phones. I thought they came up with some very good pros and cons. They enjoyed working together.

Gold piece lessons are intended to be polished until they are perfect, and then given a grade. That way, there is something to put in the report card! These are marked in the book with a star.

So, what do we think about Sparkling Bits of Writing? I really like this course! It’s creative, and laid out in a way that is very easy to use. The lessons are short and simple, but make the children think. I’m not getting the groans from this course that I normally do from writing courses. The boys won’t admit that they are enjoying it, but they act like they do. I highly recommend this course for any family who wants their children to learn to write creatively. Click on the image below to see what other families have to say about this course!

Book Review—Pursued to Eternity

June 3, 2021 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew.

Pursued to Eternity by John Riley sounded like quite an interesting book when I read the description. It sounded like quite a few topics pulled together into an adventure, so I signed up to receive a copy of the book. I thought I might read it aloud to my family, but when the book arrived (yes, he sent a physical copy to us here in New Zealand!), I saw that it would not work well as a read-aloud for us.

Several stories are put together into one story here. The first chapter is the author’s musings about God and time. He narrates the book through the eyes of a fictitious man, whose brother was an atheist. After that first chapter of introductory material about God’s work with mankind at various times throughout history, he tells a story about hunting dinosaurs in what is now Kenya, and then relates the story of the Exodus from the point of view of an Egyptian girl who kept a diary. After that, he switches to the present.

Alan and Conner Bridges joined their entire family for Thanksgiving Dinner. After dinner, the brothers had a discussion about God and why Conner believed in God and the Bible. Conner presented many good reasons for the truth of the Bible to his atheist brother. Later in the day, Alan announced that he was going to Kenya to explore for oil.

Conner was a high school biology teacher. He was required to teach evolution, and forbidden to mention Creation—but he found ways, even so, to plant doubts in his students’ minds. Soon, his students were building a website with questions that pointed out weak spots in the evolutionary theory. Eighteen pages of the book are devoted to those questions! Of course, the school board could not handle this questioning, and Conner was forced to resign. Meanwhile, Alan was finding some very interesting things in Kenya—what did those findings mean for his soul, and for Conner’s students’ questions?

I found this book a bit disjointed. Almost too many topics are presented to be a cohesive story. The author does pull things together somewhat at the end, but the continuity of the story is broken up by many lists of facts. Also, I found even the adventure parts of the story to be somewhat dry, told in a passive tone of voice. I do like the drawings that are at the beginning of each chapter! The book itself is an ordinary softcover, a very nice size to hold while reading.

John Riley has put together a Creation Apologetics course that is on SchoolhouseTeachers.com. It looks quite interesting. It consists of video lessons with worksheets. I just watched parts of one of the lessons, and he has a variety of speakers, in many different settings. This course looks like it would be very encouraging, and would strengthen teenager’s faith in the truth of the Bible.

Upper teens who are interesting in the Creation/evolution debate would likely find Pursued to Eternity interesting. To see what other families thought about this book, click on the image below. I plan to check out some of the other reviews, because I’m quite curious what other people thought of this book.

Product Review—One More Story

May 27, 2021 by NZ Filbruns 1 Comment

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew.

I had never heard of the website One More Story before the opportunity came up to review it. I knew, when I looked at the site, that my younger children would really enjoy this. They love having stories read to them, and after hearing research about the importance of reading picture books to children, I was very happy to have more for them. It’s hard to find time to read lots of picture books!

I really like the selection of picture books that are on One More Story. A lot of them are older books. There are several by Ezra Jack Keats! We have always loved his The Snowy Day; that one is included, as well as several others. I had wanted to read Stellaluna to them, too, but had never been able to lay hands on a copy, so now they have heard that story. This site is especially valuable to us because of the poor selection of books in the libraries in this country.

Little Miss (age 6) is the one who has used this site the most. She learned very fast how to use it (very simple—you basically just click the green arrow when it shows up!), and can spend a hour at a time listening to stories. Mr. Imagination (age 9) usually joins her; the two of them spend most of their time together these days. Miss Joy often sits and listens in, too, although she gets bored pretty soon and wanders off, only to come back and check out the next book they open.

There are three ways to read each book. Children can have the book read to them with the pages turning automatically, or they can have the book read to them and turn the pages themselves, or they can turn the sound off and read the story themselves. When the story is read to them, the text is highlighted word by word. This helps children to see how we read text from left to right, and helps to make the connection between written and spoken word. I can’t say how well it works, because Mr. Imagination and Little Miss both read already, but I can see that it would work if children spent a lot of time using this site. You can switch between modes of reading for each book. There is also a vocabulary button, which brings up a list of words from the book. A definition and sample sentence is given for each word. And, after you leave a book, you are asked if you want to listen to one more story!

The text has been taken off the pages of these picture books; instead, it appears in the bar below the pages of the book. Sometimes, the text from one double-page spread is stretched over several page turns; in those cases, different parts of the pictures are zoomed in to go with the text that is being read.

There is a parent’s dashboard, which is useful if you want to keep track of the books your children have been reading or hearing. It shows which books they have read in the past week. This is a great site for young children who can’t get enough stories read to them! I especially like it on wet days when my younger ones can’t be outside but I don’t have things for them to do inside. They can entertain themselves quite well for a long time with these stories—if I let them, they will spend an hour at it!

To see what other families have to say about One More Story, click on the banner below!

Book Review—Everybody, Always for Kids

May 18, 2021 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew.

I like to read from a Bible story book or a children’s devotional every morning as we begin our school day. When the opportunity came up to review Everybody, Always for Kids from Tommy Nelson Publishing, and we were offered a print copy, it was a no-brainer. I wanted this book! I’m enjoying it, and the children seem to be, as well. We haven’t quite finished it, since we’re just reading one chapter a day, but I have liked everything I have seen so far.

Each chapter has a story from Bob Goff’s life, and he works a life lesson in naturally. These lessons are designed to help children learn to love other people. The story we read this morning hit me especially. It was about his son learning to fly, and then to fly seaplanes, and how he landed on a small lake. The takeaway was that when we love someone we let them do what they are doing, without giving constant directions and cautions. That’s something I need to learn with my older children!

A lot of the stories just give practical ways to show love to people around us, like making it possible for everyone, no matter what age, to participate in a race, or ordering cake pops for people you disagree with. There is encouragement to be patient and to be forgiving (even when an expensive vehicle ends up at the bottom of a cliff in the ocean because of someone’s mistake). This is really a book for all ages—not just children.

I really like the feel of this book. It has a very nice hard cover, with thick glossy pages. The pictures are full-color and quite nice, and I like the ribbon marker—it means I don’t have to keep putting the bookmark back after the toddler looks through the book! She often picks it up and studies the pretty pictures when I’m finished reading in the morning. The size is just right, too. It’s just right to hold comfortably. I am a bit disappointed in the ribbon, though. It started fraying almost immediately, and I need to melt the edges with a flame again, for the third time.

There is a five-day lesson plan that goes with Everybody, Always for Kids. I downloaded it to have a look, but we didn’t use it. Each plan gives directions for a craft project to go with one of the stories, in which children are challenged to think of ways to show love to other people. There are also questions to discuss to spark a conversation about the topic, and supplemental activities that you can use to add even more to the experience. In looking it over just now, I noticed that one of the lessons has to do with the chapter about a time capsule. After we read that one, one of my sons made a time capsule and hid it under the house somewhere! So, I guess we did one of the activities, though inadvertantly.

If you want a devotional to read with your children, this is a good one. I highly recommend it. Also, have a look at what a number of other families thought of it.

Product Review—Teaching Textbooks

April 28, 2021 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew.

I have heard about Teaching Textbooks for many years. A friend of mine showed it to me back when we lived in Michigan—it must have been at least 15 years ago now! I was mildly interested, but at that time I had never so much as used a computer, so didn’t think about it much. Then, about six months ago, I was offered the chance to use this course for a review. Mr. Diligence needed something for math for this year, so I thought it would be an excellent course to try. The level he needed, Geometry, was one of the courses offered, so it worked perfectly. He started using level 3.0 in October, and after a break over the summer, he went back to it, using Teaching Textbooks 4.0—they upgraded in the meantime.

I’m quite impressed with Teaching Textbooks. It’s working very well for Mr. Diligence. He does his lessons with very little help from me. Once or twice, he has gotten stuck on a problem and asked for help, but otherwise, I don’t do anything with his lessons. Each lesson starts with a lecture, illustrated with animated slides, and then there are, I believe, five practice problems. After that, there are 20-25 problems, some having to do with the new concept taught in the day’s lecture, and some being review of concepts taught earlier. He is doing very well with this course, and really likes it.

Each problem is read aloud, and then needs to be answered in one of several ways. Sometimes there are multiple choices to click, other times it is a true/false question, and other times the answer needs to be calculated and typed in to the answer box. Immediately, the program lets you know if you got the answer right, and then you can choose to try again, or see how the solution is arrived at. A lot of the problems need to be worked out algebraically, of course. There is a “scratch pad” button, which allows you to write on the screen with the mouse. It’s a lot slower than using paper and pencil, but apparently works well with a tablet.

Do you remember doing proofs when you did Geometry in high school? I do, although I can’t remember details very well! This program has a way to do proofs. Some of the statements and some of the reasons are given; for the others, five choices are presented and you have to choose the correct one.

Version 3.0 was entirely online. He didn’t do a lot of lessons with it, because we were going into the summer holiday soon after we received it, but as far as I can tell, version 4.0 is easier to use and clearer. It is also not all online. You install an app on your device and several lessons at a time are downloaded into the computer. That makes it much more useful to us; my computer is getting very old and regularly loses connection with the internet for a minute or two. One of the features I really like about 4.0 is that I can pause our subscription, for a week or more at a time, when I know he won’t have time to use the course. This is very helpful, because we only have it for a year! 3.0 could be paused, as well, but I had to call and talk to someone to do that, and being international, that is difficult. Now, I can do it through the parent dashboard.

I am quite impressed with this program. I like the way the lessons are presented clearly, and that there is plenty of review. I like that I don’t have to do anything with them; I can just turn my boy loose and he can do the program all by himself. (This is something I’m learning about my children with dyslexia—computer programs that include lectures are very useful! I’ve been reading the lessons aloud to some of them all their lives to make sure they get it, but with a program like TT, I don’t have to!) I noticed on the website that you can get a free trial of the first 15 lessons of any level. That sounds really good to me! That would be enough to get a good feel for how the course works and if it will work for a particular child.

I like the Parent page, too. That is where I can manage the subscription (like pause it when needed!), and I can see exactly what scores he is getting on all lessons. The overall score so far for the course is shown, too. Now that we have tried Teaching Textbooks, I will likely have other children use it when we need math courses for high school.

Click on the image below to find reviews by a number of other families who also used Teaching Textbooks 4.0 recently!

Product Review—ARTistic Pursuits

April 15, 2021 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew.

I have a son who loves to draw and dreams of becoming an artist. I want to encourage his dreams, so when the opportunity came up to try out a course from ARTistic Pursuits, I requested Beginner Level, Art Core 1, Drawing with Graphite Pencils. We worked our way through the first unit, Outline Drawing.

The first lesson described what an outline is. We watched a video lesson in which the instructor showed us how to find the outline of an object, trace it with our eyes, and then draw what we saw. Then, we were supposed to choose a selection of small objects, such as teacups or small toy animals, and draw them. I did this activity along with the children (Mr. Sweetie, age 11, Mr. Imagination, age 9, and Little Miss, age 6). I think we all agreed that Mr. Imagination did the best! Here are his drawings from the first two lessons, and mine and Little Miss’s from the first lesson.

For the remaining three lessons in this unit, we read a page or two from a book. Because we live outside of the United States, we had to use a digital version of the book. It works, but I think the physical book would be much easier to use. Lesson 2 talked about line as an element of art. Mr. Imagination went outside and drew several objects he found. Lesson 3 showed a painting by George Catlin, who painted many American Indians, and focused on the way the blanket draped over a chief’s lap. The assignment was to drape a cloth over something and draw the folds of the cloth. The last lesson in this unit gave the assignment to draw a person sitting on something. Mr. Imagination chose a picture of a child swinging and drew that. Unfortunately, the picture he drew got lost before I photographed it!

Each unit in this course focuses on one particular aspect of drawing, and each lesson builds on the ones before. As I mentioned already, Unit 1 teaches how to draw an outline. Unit 2 talks about space—showing what objects are closer than others—and then the units go on to teach about shape, texture, value (light or dark), and form. The last three units help students draw human, animal, and man-made forms.

Each unit begins with a video lesson, and an assignment to practice the concept that was introduced, using objects found around the student. The second lesson expands slightly on the first one. The third lesson studies a painting by a famous painter, and gives an assignment based on that study. The fourth lesson gives another assignment to expand on the topic a little more.

This course, the way we received it, did not work very well for us. I believe that if we had the physical book, Mr. Imagination would have used this course a lot more. He tends to pick up art books that are laying around and work through them, but if it’s online it is a lot harder for us to use. I am quite impressed with this course myself, though. I like the idea of learning to draw objects around you, rather than being shown a picture and walked through the steps of drawing it. This seems quite useful to me. So, bottom line? If you have an aspiring artist, and can get the book to go with the video lessons, or have an easy way to access the digital book, ARTistic Pursuits would be a great choice. Check out what several other families experienced with it by clicking on the image below!

Product Review—Superstar Spelling

March 17, 2021 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Disclosure: I received this product free through the Homeschool Review Crew

When I was offered a choice of several products from The Crafty Classroom, it didn’t take much thought to decide that Superstar Spelling would the be most useful. Mr. Imagination uses his imagination fairly freely when he’s writing, and I was hoping that this would help him learn to spell better.

I love that I can choose the words that he practices. I have chosen the words for him by looking over things he has written, especially in his workbooks, and making a list to practice from the words he misspelled. The pages are editable; I simply open the PDF, type in the 20 words I want him to practice this week on the first page, and the words are filled in throughout the document. Each day, he works on a few pages of various activities, and every couple of days does either a practice or a final spelling test. (One thing I really like about the spelling tests is that he gets to grade them himself! He is supposed to either color or fill in an emoji for the ones he gets right, and copy the wrong ones correctly.)

There is quite a range of different activities. About half of them, I would say, are done alone; the rest are to be done with a friend. We have mostly used the ones that are done alone, since it’s hard to come up with someone to do the others with—no one is very excited about playing spelling games! Mr. Sweetie played Battleship Spelling with him one day. The two boys enjoyed it, but it took much longer than a regular game of Battleship. The words for the one board were all short ones, and the other board had long words; it was quite hard to fit all of them in, and then the boy who was guessing them had a hard time figuring out what the words were and which direction they were supposed to be going. It would have worked better to have a mix of longer and shorter words, but I guess that might be hard for a computer program to figure out. Little Miss played Bingo with Mr. Imagination one day, as I called out the words. They loved that, and especially playing with the new game markers we had gotten a few days before.

Robot Roll was one of Mr. Imagination’s favorite pages. He was to roll a die and write the word for whatever number was rolled. He loved seeing which robot won the game! Other pages had him figure out the words by identifying the letters with signs from American Sign Language, or a picture that began with that letter. On some pages, he chooses words he struggles with to practice.

Overall, I would say that Superstar Spelling is worth using. It’s a great way to add some fun to spelling practice. If you had two children using the same list, it would be even better, as they could play games together. I like that it’s editable, and can be used any number of times, with exactly the words that need to be learned. And now, I need to give Mr. Imagination a spelling test with his latest list!

Twenty-five families have been using various products from The Crafty Classroon, so click on the image below to see what they have to say about their experiences!

Fine Motor Alphabet Bundle, Superstar Spelling & Tracing Bundle {The Crafty Classroom Reviews}

Product Review: SchoolhouseTeachers.com

January 6, 2021 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Disclosure: I received this product free through the Homeschool Review Crew

One of the perks of being on the Homeschool Review Crew is having access to SchoolhouseTeachers.com every year. Once again, we have been given the Ultimate PreK-12 Annual Membership. I have written a couple of other reviews of this amazing resource, which you can find here and here. Last January, when I planned our school year, I realized that Mr. Diligence did not have a lot of school to do, so I told him to explore the SchoolhouseTeachers site and choose a couple of courses to do. He chose one that he thought would be useful to him, and another that he thought sounded interesting.

Mr. Diligence’s first choice was Personal Finance in Bite-Size Chunks. At first, he thought this would be an accounting course, and figured he would learn how to keep books when he someday has a business of his own. Instead, this course is more about attitudes towards money and being wise with how you spend it. Each lesson gives suggestions for things to talk about, either as a class or with the mother/teacher and student. We talked about topics such as needs and wants, paychecks, check books, savings, interest, and hidden costs of owning a car. This particular son is very conscious of how he spends money, already, and knew most of the things we talked about. I felt like it was valuable, though, to spend the time discussing these things with him and making sure he has a good, solid foundation for how he thinks about money.

The other course he chose to do was Geography of the Bible. This course includes 15 video lessons. Each of these includes a video to watch, a worksheet, and essay questions. I was hardly involved with this course; he watched the videos on his own with earphones so as not to distract his younger brothers who were working on school in the same room, and then printed what he needed and worked his way through it himself. There are answer keys for each worksheet; the worksheets ask questions about what was covered in the video. The essay questions are a lot harder. Each lesson offers five different choices for a compare/contrast assignment. In the lesson about Hebron: City of Promise, he could have chosen to compare and contrast Jerusalem and Hebron, or Abraham and Jesus, Mount Moriah and the tomb at Hebron, the tomb and the city gate, or the shrines at the tomb and the Dome of the Rock. Suggestions are given about the possible spiritual significance of some of these people or places, but the student is expected to think hard about them. Next, comes a research project. Again, five different suggestions are given for each lesson, and you are expected to find information online or in books to answer the questions. Finally, there are three suggestions for research papers. Mr. Diligence never did these. He struggled so much with the compare/contrast assignments and research projects that I didn’t have him do more. Reading and writing just aren’t easy for him!

Mr. Diligence really liked this course. He appreciated the videos, and one thing that really stands out to him is the way the narrator pointed to Jesus throughout the course. Mr. Diligence feels like he learned a lot about the Bible through doing this course, and he says that everyone should watch the videos. Maybe some time we’ll be able to watch them as a family—I would like to see them, and I know Gayle would, too. We’ll likely never go to Israel in person, but this would be a good way to experience some of the places in the Bible.

One thing I discovered when I was looking at the website in preparation for writing this review was that there are printable certificates for each course! I printed the one for the Personal Finance course for Mr. Diligence, and he was pleased to receive it. He hasn’t finished the other course yet, and we’re on our summer holiday right now, so he’s paused for a couple of months. It’s fun to have a way to mark finishing a course.

These are only two of the many, many courses available on SchoolhouseTeachers.com. You can find courses on almost any subject you need, and for any level, from Kindergarten through High School. There is something for everyone on this site! You can get access to all the hundreds of resources on this site for one price for the whole family, and put together a complete curriculum for one child or the entire family. There is even a section for parents, planners, calendars, and record-keeping helps. You name it, it’s probably there—even several libraries from World Book. And, as always, don’t just read my review. A lot of other families have been using SchoolhouseTeachers.com this past month, and they will each probably write about different parts of the site, so read a few of their reviews by clicking the banner below.

SchoolhouseTeachers.com - Every Subject - Every Grade - Every Student {SchoolhouseTeachers.com Reviews 2021}

Product Review—CrossTimber

November 19, 2020 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Disclaimer: I received a FREE copy of this product through the HOMESCHOOL REVIEW CREW in
exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I
compensated in any other way.

Sometimes a review is just plain fun! When I saw the request for reviewers for CrossTimber, I knew we would enjoy doing this one. We were offered the choice of either five personalized Name Cards or Name Bookmarks, or an 8×10 Plaque print, along with a set of Amazing Name Print Activity Sheets. It didn’t take me long to decide that the bookmarks would be perfect for us. Since we have five boys and three girls, it was easy to make the decision that each of the boys would get a bookmark.

I allowed each of the boys to choose the picture for their own bookmark. We spent a few hours, on a couple of different evenings, perusing all the different options and trying to decide which picture fit each boy best. There were so many different categories, and so many beautiful options within each category, that it was hard to make the decision—but it was great fun. The four major categories are Symbolic/Meaningful, People, Outdoors, and Creatures. We spent most of our time in the Outdoors section, although the Creatures section also appealed to my boys (Mr. Diligence debated about choosing the rooster!). Once the photo for the background was chosen, we had to decide about letting CrossTimber choose the Scripture verse to go with the meaning of the name, or choose our own. Only Simon decided to spend the extra dollar to choose his own verse; he wanted something that would be a reminder of what was happening in his life right now. The other option would have been either a quote from a president or famous author, or a character quality. We could also have added a ribbon or corner design, or gotten a matching name card, greeting card, coffee mug, or any of a few other gift items.

We were also given a set of AmazingName Print Activity Sheets. I had those done with Little Miss’s name on them. She loves the mazes and was delighted to get to color a name label to set up on her dresser. There are also coloring pictures, both for children and adults, word searches of various difficulty levels, and penmanship pages. These sets will appeal to many different ages! As with the other products from this company, they talk about the importance of names to God and the importance of the meaning of names. We were sent a printed copy of the set, on nice, thick, semiglossy paper. You can also choose to receive this set as a PDF, and then print pages as you wish, as your child grows up and can do more things.

It was very easy to order the bookmarks and activity set. The only difficulty was in narrowing down the choices and finding the perfect one! My sons are very happy with their bookmarks. They are pretty and seem fairly durable. Esther (who tends to be quite picky with graphics!), however, felt that they could have been better quality. She pointed out that the designs are not centered on the cards, and in her opinion, too many different fonts were used. For most people, these wouldn’t be an issue, but just something she noticed.

If you are wanting special, personalized gifts that encourage people and glorify God, have a look at CrossTimber’s offerings. I was impressed with the variety of products they offer! Having the meaning of your name in front of your eyes can be very encouraging. We were amused at the meanings attached to the names of a couple of our boys; we had never heard those meanings with their names before, but they sure fit their personalities! (Grandma, maybe you can figure out which ones I’m talking about!)

As always, check out what other families had to say about their experiences with CrossTimber by clicking the image below.

Name Cards, Bookcards, Activity Sheets & Plaque Personalised Gifts {CrossTimber Reviews}

Product Review—Building Life Castles

November 10, 2020 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

I was somewhat interested in 4th Grade—Building Life Castles from Positive Action Bible Curriculum when it was offered for review a few months ago. I’m happy with the Bible course we’ve been using, but I also enjoy trying out new things. So, I decided that I would work through this book with Mr. Sweetie and Mr. Imagination, who are just finishing 5^th and 3^rd grades right now.

The first thing my boys did when we received these books was to study the cover picture. Would you believe, the thing they commented on first was that a cardboard box says, “This end up,” and the arrow points down! The student book is fairly attractive. It has full-color illustrations, and plenty of space to write answers to the questions. Each lesson has four parts—A, B, C and a section on “Building Your Life Castle.” In the first three parts, the student mainly looks up Scripture references and finds answers to the questions from the verse.

The teacher’s guide is a sturdy 3-ring binder with three dividers, for Teaching Material, Testing Material, and Answer Key. There are a couple of pages of teaching helps and lesson plans for each part of a lesson, and then pictures of each of the student pages with the answers written in. The Testing section contains a quiz for each lesson. Each of these quizzes has ten questions, which makes it very easy to figure a grade!

The first several lessons talk about Who Jesus is, and His coming to earth, including an overview of the land in which He lived. Then, several lessons talk about various aspects of His ministry. After that, there are several lessons about the Holy Spirit, and then quite a few about applying Biblical truths to our lives. These topics include trusting God, having compassion for others, the value of humility, forgiveness, and making wise choices. The last seven chapters talk about the Apostle Paul and his ministry.

There is a lot of good in this course. The topics taught are well-worth thinking about, and the questions are well done. However, we struggled to use it in our family, mainly because it is designed for a classroom and that made it a bit difficult to use in our homeschool setting. This is intended as a 4th-grade course. Mr. Sweetie had no problems finding the correct answers; Mr. Imagination did.As I said, they are finishing 5th and 3rd grades, so I would say the grade level is about right. I would guess that it would work well for a lot of families, but for ours it just wasn’t a very good fit. Don’t just take my word for it, though; click the image below to see what other families had to say about it. Oh, one last thing: I was given a code (REVIEW20) which will give free shipping for any customer in the US who is purchasing new curriculum.

Building Life Castles {Positive Action Bible Curriculum Reviews}

Review Crew

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