Review Crew

Product Review—Thinkwell

November 19, 2019 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

I have never requested a math curriculum to review before. We have been using the same curriculum for math ever since Esther started school, 15 years ago, and I have been very happy with it. Lately, however, I was thinking about what to have Mr. Intellectual and Mr. Diligence do for math next year, and coming up with nothing I felt like they would be able to do. Then, I had the chance to review a math course from Thinkwell, and decided to have them do the diagnostic tests. We were offered one year of either their 6th to 8th Grade Math, or their High School Math; there are 20 math courses altogether. After I scored these tests, we watched the solutions for some of the problems that Mr. Intellectual got wrong, and he liked the way they were taught. Both boys were happy enough with what they saw of this course that we decided to request it, and they will use it for their main math course next year. They have each spent a week and a half working with it this month, so we could see how it works in order to write the review. (We normally spend a much longer time on a review item, but we were not given access to this one until two weeks into the review period, and then those two boys went to stay with friends several hours away and help on their farm for a week and a half.)

Mr. Intellectual chose to do Geometry. His results in the diagnostic test indicated that he could do either Honors Algebra I or Geometry. He is just finishing the Algebra I course with our normal curriculum, but he hasn’t done Geometry before, so he thought that sounded interesting. He’s really enjoying it, and says he is learning things already, even from just the first chapter, Fundamentals of Geometry. Here is a screenshot of the titles of the other chapters in this course:

Mr. Diligence has just finished his 8^th grade math, and his diagnostic test results indicated that he was ready for Algebra I, so that is what I chose for him. He is doing well with this course, too. Here is the table of contents for his course:

Each chapter is broken down into a number of subchapters, and a subchapter tends to be one day’s assignment. Here are the subchapters for the first chapter of Algebra 1:

Clicking on a subchapter title takes you to the actual lessons—here is the first one.

The student is to work his way down the page. First, they watch the video lectures, in order (and Mr. Diligence quickly discovered that, for the lecture to show that it had been watched, he had to go back to the original screen to load the next one, instead of just going from one to the next).

There are worksheets to go along with each lesson; what works best for my boys is to print the worksheet before starting the lesson, then do the exercises that go along with each lecture before going on to the next lecture.

After watching all the lectures, doing the worksheet and checking it with the answer key, they do the “Thinkwell Exercise.” This is an assessment with multiple-choice answers. There is an option to print the exercise so it is easy to work the problems on paper, and then choose the correct one on the screen. One of my boys likes to do that; the other does them mentally, most of the time! Each question is graded immediately. The correct answer is given, and whether you got it correct or wrong, an explanation is given as to how the correct answer can be found.

At the end of each subchapter there are two review worksheets, and then a quiz, which can be taken as many times as the student wants to, and each chapter has a test at the end. The test can only be taken once, but there is a practice test which can be taken as many times as you want to.

The lectures average 2-5 minutes long. The teacher discusses his topic thoroughly, and to the right of the screen are several text boxes illustrating what he is talking about. He also writes on a whiteboard to illustrate his points. His voice is quite nice to listen to—something I appreciate! The boys have found it a bit hard to hear, though, either because it is on the quiet side or because my old computer’s speakers aren’t the best anymore, so they use headphones. That seems to solve the problem (and cause less distraction for others in the room!).

I found it fairly easy to figure out how to use these courses. This sidebar is very useful in going from one page to another. The daily schedule can be found in the Resources tab; quizzes and tests are on the Assessments tab.

To see how my sons are doing, I found that I can log in to their account and click on “My Grades” at the top of the screen. It shows me at a glance how well they have done with the Thinkwell Exercises. I have encouraged them to do the exercises a few times if they are struggling with something.

I am quite favorably impressed with what I have seen so far of these courses! It looks like just what we have been needing. Mr. Diligence commented that he finally understands one of the concepts taught, which is something he had been doing in his 8^th grade math but didn’t understand. I am thankful to have been given the opportunity to let them try a different teaching style. If you have children who are struggling with their math, it may be worthwhile to try out Thinkwell. They have quite a range of courses available—look at this list! They offer a 14-day free trial, and diagnostic tests. Either of these would be a good way to determine if this math course will work for your family.
Thirty people are reviewing this company; read more reviews by clicking on the picture below.

$6th to 8th Grade Math (Pre-Algebra) and High School Math (Algebra to Calculus) {Thinkwell Reviews}$

Book Review—Goldtown Beginnings Series

November 5, 2019 by NZ Filbruns 2 Comments

When we were offered the chance to review the first two books in Susan K. Marlow’s new Goldtown Beginnings Series from Kregel Publications, I jumped at the offer. We have read a number of her other books; I reviewed her Circle C Stepping Stones series a couple of years ago, so I knew my younger children would be excited to get these. Sure enough, they were! Little Miss (age 4) was thrilled when she saw them the day they came in the mail, and she spent a lot of time studying the pictures. She also made sure she was on hand to hear the stories each day when I read the books aloud!

Book 1, Jem Strikes Gold, 8-year-old Jeremiah has a problem. Every week, he and his 6-year-old sister have to deliver pies for their mother, who bakes them for the restaurants and gold miners in Goldtown. That wouldn’t be a problem, but the rich boy in town likes to cause trouble for them—and one day most of Mama’s pies are ruined! Then, Strike-it-rich Sam comes home from a prospecting trip with a golden dog. Jem hasn’t found any gold in his claim, but will Pa and Mama let him keep the dog? And what will Jem do about the pie problem?

Jem’s Frog Fiasco, book 2, presents Jem with an altogether different problem. A café owner wants Jem to catch frogs for him. This sounds like an easy way to make some money! The problem with this scheme, though, is that Mama wants Jem to take care of his younger sister Ellie, and when he is mean to her because she makes it hard for him to catch the frogs, she runs off and hides. Can he find her?

I liked almost everything about these books. As with Susan K. Marlow’s other books, these do well at attracting young readers. They are very simply written, but very interesting. They appeal to the 6-8-year-old range especially, but as I said before, my 4-year-old loved to hear them read aloud. The 10-year-old enjoyed them, too. The one thing I noticed that I didn’t like so well was Jem’s exclamation, “Roasted rattlesnakes!,” used 2-3 times per book. I liked the way Jem tried to please his parents. He loved his little sister, even though he was annoyed with her, and admitted his wrong in not watching over her as he should have. I also liked that the stories, though fictitious, are set in a real place and time—the California goldfields during the Gold Rush. Just by reading the story, we learned how gold is panned and that it was rare to actually find “color.” This is a series I will be watching for, so I can buy the rest of the books. We were all happy to have received these books!

On the author’s website, there are downloadable activities to go along with each of the books. These activities include language arts, history, and geography projects, as well as just fun things like mazes. There are also coloring pages to download. When Little Miss learned about them, she wanted one immediately! I made her a coloring book with the pages, which are simply the illustrations from the book. If you have beginning readers in your home and need more books that they can read, that will catch their interest, check out the Goldtown Beginnings Series! The learning activities that are available would make an easy way to get some other learning in, as well.

Jem Strikes Gold & Jem's Frog Fiasco {Kregel Publications Reviews}

Product Review—Early 19th Century American History

August 2, 2019 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Our normal school days have very little variety. We do math and language arts and Bible lessons, and read stories set in historical times, trying to get a grasp on what happened back then. When the chance came along to review a product from Home School In the Woods, I decided it would be good for all of us to do something different, so I requested The Early 19th Century from their Time Travelers U. S. History Studies line. I knew the school holidays were coming up, and while we don’t normally take any time off, a friend was coming to stay a week with the boys, so I thought we’d take time off our regular school and do this course during that time. Since it took longer than that to do the course, we just cut out other things from our normal days for a few weeks and spent a lot of time doing this.

When I received The Early 19th Century, it took a little while to figure out how to use it. There were so many different folders and PDF files I was confused! Finally, I figured out that the first step was to print the text and project PDF for a lesson, and then I would be able to figure out which masters we needed for the particular lesson. That made it much easier! I just printed, each evening, what we needed for the next day. The instructions for the projects are simple and easy to follow. Each morning when we did a lesson, I read the text aloud while the children started coloring and cutting out the day’s projects. We aimed to spend an hour a day on this course, although it often ended up being an hour and a half. This shows us, the night before we started, sorting pages out and getting ready to start.

The course is laid out in 25 daily lessons. Every 5^th lessson is a catch-up day, where you simply finish the projects for the week. Day 23 is another of those, and Day 24 is when you assemble a lot of the things you did into a lap-book. We did that yesterday. On Day 25, you are supposed to have a Chuck Wagon Dinner, and invite grandparents or friends to show off what you learned—we probably won’t do anything for that. We did most of the projects, although there were a few for which I couldn’t easily find the needed materials, so we just skipped them. Each of the catch-up days includes a few recipes for foods that would have been eaten in the first half of the 19^th Century. I’m keeping those in mind for possible future use.

Here we are, during the first lesson, figuring out what we’re doing.

A wide range of subjects were covered in this course. Some were fairly common topics, such as the war between Texas and Mexico, which included the Alamo, or the Erie Canal, and some were things I knew very little about—like the Tripolitan War with the Barbary Pirates. One lesson was devoted to learning about the presidents who held office during the early 1800s, and another briefly covered a number of other famous people from that era. One lesson talked about the mountain men, there were two lessons about the pioneers, and one talked about the gold prospectors. The last lesson talks about slavery in America up to 1850.

Every lesson has copywork, which is sentences from McGuffey’s reader. We didn’t do this, since the boys all have penmanship practice in their language arts books. Almost every day, we also put some pictures on our timeline. Throughout the course we added to a songbook of early American songs. Some were ones we read about in the Little House books, so it was fun to hear them (I looked the songs up on YouTube and we listened to them; if the words weren’t clear, I read the songs aloud.)

A lot of the projects are simply cutting out mini-books and pasting them together; of course, we read the text blocks together. I liked the ones where they had to write something about the topic, but the boys didn’t! We each put together a timeline of American history from 1790-1850, and made a map with different layers to show the growth of the United States from 1800-1850. That was fun; I’ve always liked the maps like that in the encyclopedia, and now we know how we can make them ourselves. We didn’t quite get this project finished; we may come back and do it yet. There were also a few projects like pretending to pan for gold or make a Mexican serape, which we didn’t do. Here is Little Miss’s version of the quilt pattern we colored in.

This project was fun. They each wrote several sentences about the mountain man/explorer inside the minibook, and then added something to the picture to make it 3-dimensional. The suggestion for Jedidiah Smith was to glue fur on, but we didn’t have any—so I grabbed the clippers and cut Mr. Sweetie’s hair!

By far the favorite project was the jumping jack. This was based on toys that early Americans would have made, and everyone had great fun putting theirs together and playing with it! The model log cabins were fun, too. The hardest project we did was a “Daguerrotype Photo Album.” It took us a week just to do that one project! The instructions said to print the pictures for it on ivory paper, but we didn’t have any, so we printed them on white paper. Then, we brewed some strong black tea, dipped the paper in it, and dried it on top of the wood stove. To make the pictures look old, we tore around them. Then, we were to glue them onto foil-covered card stock and into the album, and write about each of the people. Since there are 17 pictures, it took awhile!

There are pros and cons to using this course. Some of the pros, for us, would be that it gave us something different to do in the middle of the school year. The boys all liked that they had only math or language arts to do in a day, not both. They also enjoyed making things from paper. It gave us some art/craft time, which we don’t tend to get otherwise. We learned new techniques for making things from paper (I learned that none of them had heard of scoring cardstock for folding it!), and they practiced coloring and making things look as nice as possible. They also learned what two-sided tape is and how to use it.

We used a lot of 2-sided tape to put together these lapbooks, but it was worth it. The children are all happy with their final product.

See how thrilled she is to show off hers? I’m not sure who took this picture; I found it on the camera this morning!

As far as cons, the biggest one would be all the printing. I spent a lot of time at it, trying to get the cardstock printed correctly (I now know a lot more about the innards of the printer than I did before!). It also cost a lot to do that printing. We went through about a ream of paper, since I was making five copies of everything, and had to buy extra cardstock, which, where we live, is hard to find and expensive. I was glad when Esther found a place we could order it online!

One of the last projects was to make a game with which to review what we learned. We played it this morning for our history time.

Overall, I’m happy that we used this course. It’s not the way we normally do history, and we would have gotten more out of it if we had done it more slowly and read books to go along with the supplied text. However, we’ll be going through that era slowly within the next year, so we’ll be referring to our projects at times. If we hadn’t gone through it as fast as we did, we never would have finished it, knowing us! If you and your children enjoy hands-on activities to go along with historical studies, try out the Time Travelers line of products. They are well-done and we really enjoyed what we did. Or, if you’re not sure whether this type of study is for you, this would be a good way to find out! And, here’s an interesting blog post I found about this series, which explains why the publisher pulled it together and some of their thoughts about how to use it.

World History (Project Passport), U.S. History Studies (Time Travelers) and Timeline Collection: A Collection of Historical Timeline Figures {Home School in the Woods Reviews}

Book Review—The Heart Changer

July 11, 2019 by NZ Filbruns 1 Comment

As anyone who regularly reads my blog knows, we do a lot of reading aloud. I read for half an hour or more in the morning while the dishes are being washed, and again after lunch while those dishes are being done. We really enjoy historical fiction, so when The Heart Changer by Jarm Del Boccio, Author, was offered for review, I requested it as fast as I could! We received a MOBI copy of this book from the publisher, because the shipping to New Zealand is so high (one of the few things I don’t like about living here—guess you can’t have everything!). I was pleased with the formatting of this book; it was well-done, with all the features I’m used to getting with Kindle books from Amazon. It’s a short book; although there are 25 chapters, each one took me only 2-5 minutes to read aloud.

The Heart Changer tells the story of the Isrealite girl who was captured by Syrian raiders and taken to Damascus to be a servant of Naaman’s wife. If you have ever read the books of Kings in the Bible, you’ll remember this story, how Naaman contracted leprosy and the girl told him about the prophet Elisha in Samaria who could heal him. This story is told from her point of view.

Miriam was terrified, naturally, when she was captured by the Syrian raiders. She was also angry and bitter that God would allow such a thing to happen to her. All the way to Syria, Miriam complained to her friend who had also been captured, and her friend tried to point her to God. By the time she reached her destination, Miriam had become willing to be a good servant—but could she ever forgive Captain Naaman for his part in destroying her home and possibly her family? When disaster struck him, how would she respond?

As far as the basic story, we really enjoyed it. This short book brought the time of the kings to life, and helped us to feel what it would have been like to live in Israel at that time. The theme of the story, which was how God can transform a hard, bitter heart, is also quite good. There were just a few things that struck us as not quite true-to-life. One of them was the way Miriam talked to God a few times. She called Him Abba, or Abba Father. My understanding is that the ancient Jews would not have talked so familiarly to God; they held Him in such awe that they would not so much as pronounce His name Jehovah, let alone call Him Father. Today, of course, He is our Father—but I don’t believe they would have looked at Him that way at that time. Another aspect that didn’t quite sound realistic was the way Naaman’s wife treated Miriam; she acted as a loving mother, rather than a mistresss talking to a slave. It worked well for the story, though; I’m not sure how the story would have worked the way it did, otherwise. The last thing that didn’t strike us as realistic was when both Miriam and her mistress traveled to Israel with Naaman when he went to request healing from the prophet.

This is a lovely story for, especially, middle-grade girls who like short books with a sweet ending. If you want absolute realism, this is not the book for you. There are some very good points to consider, such as when Miriam’s friend tells her, “We can’t know why this happened. Only Jehovah in His wisdom knows. But—we must be faithful.” Another quote that stood out was when Miriam’s mistress compared Miriam’s life to the weaving she was doing. It was beautiful on top—but if you only saw the underside, it would not appear pretty or even meaningful at all.

There is a study guide available for this book. It includes an interview with the author that offers insight into why she wrote this book and what she hopes to accomplish with it (and the correct pronunciation of her name!). To find the study guide, go to this page and scroll down to the graphic that mentions the teacher’s guide; click on that graphic. There are a number of suggestions for things to research to add to the learning experience. Two Syrian recipes are also in the study guide—they look delicious!

For more people’s opinions of this book, read what the rest of the 45 reviewers had to say by clicking the picture below!

The Heart Changer {Jarm Del Boccio, Author Reviews}

Product Review—Pathway to Liberty

May 8, 2019 by NZ Filbruns 2 Comments

I’ve always been quite interested in studying history, and for the past several years have been enjoying looking over various history curricula to compare them. I’m always looking for the perfect history course, and have pretty well come to the conclusion that I’ll never find exactly what I’m looking for. I keep looking, though, because it’s interesting to see what people put together. When the opportunity came up to review a course offered by Pathway to Liberty Homeschool Curriculum, I decided I would like to check out one of their levels. I chose Year One, Universal History of Pathway to Liberty’s History Curriculum, the first of four years that take students of all ages through the entire scope of world history. I chose this level because one of the first books studied in this level is one that I have been wanting to study with my children, and also because, when I’m comparing history courses, I like to look at the beginning of time.

Pathway to Liberty level 1

Universal History starts with Genesis 1. After studying the first 11 chapters of Genesis in some depth, we will move on to studying the ancient civilizations. After studying Abraham, a couple of weeks are devoted to Egypt, and then the main focus is the history of the Old Testament, spending a little time with Babylonia and Persia as they enter Biblical history. A couple of weeks of the history of Greece wrap up the year.

So far, we have gotten through the first four weeks of this course. I requested two of the four levels, so I have Mr. Diligence doing Level Two and Mr. Sweetie and Mr. Imagination doing Level One. Level One is intended for K5-3^rd grade. Mr. Sweetie is in 4^th grade, but struggles enough with writing that I decided the lower level would be best for him. Level Two is for 4th-6^th grade; Mr. Diligence is in 8^th grade, but he, too, struggles enough with academics that I thought the lower level would be a better fit for him. (Levels Three and Four are for grades 7-9 and 10-12, respectively; they do the same reading and watch the same YouTube videos as Level Two, but do more in-depth research and writing.) Levels One and Two are quite different, but at the same time they correlate well with each other. For the first three weeks, Level One was a study of the days of creation and the character of God. Meanwhile, in Level Two, Mr. Diligence watched a video on YouTube each week and we began working our way through Ruth Beechick’s Genesis: Finding Our Roots, which I had been wanting to study ever since I borrowed it from a friend a few years ago. In Week Four, we all started studying Noah, and the younger ones are studying In the Days of Noah with me (I make Mr. Diligence sit in on reading that one, too!). One thing Level One includes that the older ones don’t is coloring pictures for nearly every lesson. My boys didn’t want to do them, but Little Miss loved coloring several. She also loved helping to make this poster of the days of Creation. I’ve wanted to do something like this for a long time, but it’s something that I don’t get done without something pushing for it to happen, like this review.

I have really enjoyed this study, so much so that I plan to go through the rest of the course that we were given. The boys grumble about taking time to do it, but they are learning and enjoying what they learn all the same. One thing we picked up on when we were reading the Book of Adam, from the 2nd-4^th chapters of Genesis, was that the tone of the writing is that of an eyewitness. I was reading chapter 2 aloud, and Mr. Intellectual challenged me on what he heard; he was sure I had misread something. When he looked it up in the Bible, however, we were all rather excited as we talked about the rivers of the Garden of Eden. The wording could hardly have been anything other than an eyewitness account—read it for yourself if you’re dubious. Then, of course, as we worked our way through Beechick’s book, we came to that same conclusion.

The videos we have watched so far on Pathway to Liberty’s YouTube channel have been good. The first few didn’t really stand out, but the one we watched for Week Four about Noah and the world that perished, which we watched all together one evening as a family, was absolutely fascinating. The younger children probably didn’t get much out of it, but we stopped it to discuss points with the older ones a couple of times. I’m looking forward to seeing what comes up in the future!

This curriculum is available either as hard copies or digital. I received the digital copies, which means I can print as many as I want for my children. I three-hole punched the paper, then tied the books together with yarn, which is working well.

One part of this course we have done some, but not as much as recommended, is word studies. The recommendation is to choose five words every day to find definitions for from the Webster’s Dictionary 1828. We have done a few, but not that many. We also haven’t done the writing assignments recommended. We could go to a lot more depth with this study. It could easily replace a lot of Language Arts, tying it together with history, which would be great. I just don’t have the energy for that right now!

My conclusion about this history course? So far, it is very good. It looks like the entire year that we were given is going to be great. Looking ahead farther, I would guess that I, personally, would not do well with the slant of the year in which American History is studied; having moved away from the United States I don’t share the same view of US history that it looks like this author has. However, I do greatly appreciate the way she ties history into the Biblical framework. The study we did in Level One about the character of God was absolutely great. I will admit that it was hard to figure out what answers she was wanting for some of the questions; if I hadn’t had the answer key handy for the first three weeks of that level, I would have had no idea how to answer some of the questions.

Be sure to read some of the reviews that other people have written! All four years of this curriculum have been use and reviewed by various families, so there will be a lot of different points-of-view. If you’re looking for a Bible-based history course, this may be one you want to check into.

Universal History, The Middle Ages, US History & World History Curriculum {Pathway to Liberty Homeschool Curriculum Reviews}