Reviews

Review: Critical Thinking Detective Book 1

June 4, 2018 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

Learning to think, and being able to pick up on clues is an important part of growing up. This skill is one taught by The Critical Thinking Co.™ who does an excellent job of developing critical thinking skills. My son most recently practiced these skills using Critical Thinking Detective™ Book 1. I invite you to come read our review.

The goals of The Critical Thinking Co is to help increase the problem solving skills of students so they are better equipped to meet all of life’s challenges. An increased ability to problem solve will improve grades. Rather than using a test and answer approach they apply logic to math, science, reading, writing and history.

The book we used, The Critical Thinking Detective Book 1 contains 12 logic puzzles in the form of detective cases to solve. It is recommended for grades 4-12. My son is 12 years old and therefore fit perfectly within this age range. We received the ebook version which I promptly printed off on our black and white printer. For the most part having the book in black/white worked well, except for one lesson which needed colour (he has not completed the book yet). Having downloaded it to my computer made it really easy for him to just double check the colours there (actually he just called out me .. mom.. who has a green shirt?)

My son did not work on this every day. He recently had surgery and long before the surgery happened I told him he’d have two weeks off of any type of schooling while he recovered from it. By the middle of week two he was needing to have more to do so I had him spend a bit of time working on this review. It surprised him that he got tired after working through two lessons. I did have him write out the answers to a couple of the lessons, but most of the time he just talked it out with me.

Each case consists of a few short paragraphs describing the case, witness statements, and statements from each of the four suspects. All of the statements are true. Illustrations of the suspects are provided in full colour. These illustrations proved useful in determining the guilty party frequently. The combination between visual and verbal clues was an important part of solving the crime. Answers are given in the back of the book along with the reason why.

Son’s Thoughts:

“Some of the clues are misleading. For instance in the football thief it talks about no socks and the only character that you can gather information from in that regards is an innocent character. How can you know if you can’t see their feet?”

“More writing space is needed”, “It would be nice if it were more difficult” “Would be good to have some where you couldn’t trust all of what the suspects say” “I thought it was an okay program.” “I’m not really happy with it, I would rather it be more difficult with more evidence with some true and some not so you need to weigh out the information more and really need to think more.” “I want it be like real detectives having to solve real crimes”.

My Thoughts:

I found it interesting working through the challenges with my lad. What I grabbed my attention was his comment “they are too easy”. Observation told me that they weren’t too easy until we started talking about them. If the lad was working through it all on his own, his initial guesses were sometimes wrong, but as soon as we talked about them, he’d get the correct answer very quickly. Working through with pen and paper, or talking about it made all the difference for him. Having a sounding board was useful for him. I don’t know if this is a learning to think issue, or just how his brain processes information differently. He’s a verbal lad who does well bouncing ideas off of people.

For me personally, some of the cases were challenging for me as an adult, but others were quite easy to figure out. It was a good assortment of challenges.

Read a past review here.

The Critical Thinking Co.™
Critical Thinking Detective™ Book 1
Two options: paperback or ebook
Price $8.99
Received: ebook

32 pages, 12 cases, four suspects, answers in back, all statements true

Critical thinking, logic problems, thinking skills

100 members of the Homeschool Review Crew reviewed the following items:

Understanding Pre-Algebra
Critical Thinking Detective Book 1
Something Fishy at Lake Iwannafisha
Critical Thinking Detective: Vocabulary
Dare to Compare Level 1
Vocabulary Riddles Book 1

I invite you to read our reviews at this link.

Social Media Links

Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Pinterest.

OH! Before I forget, The Critical Thinking Co is having a sale.

AND….

Free Critical Thinking Puzzles! – This gift is valued at $75, but is completely free for you! Sign up for their newsletter and receive a free critical thinking puzzle each week. Choose what Pre-k-8th grade level to receive.

Going on Vacation?

May 11, 2018 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

Ah… I don’t know about you but I am SO enjoying the warmer weather. Don’t get me wrong… I LOVE winter, and the spring with the flowers that seem to burst out of the ground… I love it! Tulips and daffodils just make my heart smile after the mud and much of winter turning into spring.

My lad has been asking if I think we’ll be able to get out for at least a week of vacation this year, and I freely admit to him that I hope so, but I can’t guarantee it at this point… I might be, if I’m very careful, be able to swing a weekend. Wouldn’t that be fun?

One of my favourite things to do on vacation is to bring along books to read. Granted I love getting out with the fellows on the kayaks and seeing the beauty that is in the world around us, but curling up with a good book and having friendly chipmunks scope me out for food, and listening to birds chatter in the trees around me… is just a wee taste of heaven for me. I simply ADORE that time.

Another joy I have is discovering new passions and ideas to pursue and guess what I discovered? Lonely Planet has come out with a neat book called First Words Mandarin. This purse sized book is filled with 100 words to learn in Mandarin. The words are clearly presented on one page, with a full colour image on the accompanying page to make sure that students of all ages are able to know what they are learning to say. AND if you have access to the internet you can even go to first audio (on Lonely Planets) to hear exactly how the word is spoken. (if using a smart phone they have a QR code). It’s that just the coolest thing? I am looking forward to learning a smattering of Mandarin this summer.. with or without a road trip… though it would certainly make the time travelling down the road pass sooner wouldn’t it? 🙂

One of the things we like to do while travelling in the car is to listen to a good story. Currently, we are going through a Percy Jackson period. We’ve listened to those books and then decided to delve into a series that predates Percy called Magnus Chase and the gods of Asgard. It’s a fun listen that often makes us laugh. We’ve also listened to The Ranger’s Apprentice, Brotherband Chronicles, The Unwanteds, Down Gilead Lane and Percy Jackson. As we listen sometimes the lad will play on his tablet, and other times he digs into one of the creative books we have floating around the place.

Isn’t that a great segway into StickerWorld Museum? 🙂 Sticker World Museum might sound like it’s just another sticker book, and it does have stickers in it, but it’s more than just a sticker book. It has colouring, drawing, mazes, dot to dot and more. Things to delight and keep hands and minds busy as they create their own museum. Written by Becky Wilson the reader is drawn into the world of a museum, filled with painting, sculptures, displays, mosaics and so much more.

It’s a great way to introduce children to the fun of a museum, and all the parts of them that make them interesting.

Another activity we engage in along the way are various car games, games like Cow! Where you look for cows (and count them by the field) and for graveyards. A graveyard on your side kills the cows on the opposite side. Or the ever popular liscense plate game or alphabet game. We’ve done lots of pass the drawing games as well (where you each draw a head, and then pass it to the next person who draws the torso, and then you pass it along until you see what you finally come up with. It’s a ton of fun with three or more people. 🙂

When on vacation a person can find themselves in places they have never been before. One will find themselves needing a map. And oh, we all know how a new city can be a maze of unknown streets and new sights that capture the eye and the imagination, so perhaps a book on City Mazes will continue your journey into amazing places. It’s a rather creatively done book using the streets of cities from around the world as a maze, and along the way points of interest are numbers and explained. For instance in Berlin you pass by Louisa’s Place (a 1904 building), in London the Churchill War Rooms, and while in Copenhagen the Rosenborg Slot. All sorts of places to amuse and entertain. 30 cities around the world to visit, most of them from European countries.

Sample page below, see the fine detail and small images of points of interest.

City Mazes, Sticker World Museum and First Words Mandarin are all Lonely Planet books and are distributed in Canada by Raincoast Books. These titles are available at select bookstores across the country and on Indigo.ca. Aren’t they all excellent ways to help spend your summer vacation? Learning, seeing, discovering, and keeping yourself busy as you travel the roads.

Review: Lions & Liars

May 10, 2018 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

Lions & Liars is an intriguing read for your upper elementary to middle school students from Kate Beasley. Surprising character qualities in boys, hair-raising adventures, and scary weather makes for a fast paced read. The hardest part of this review for me is not giving away the story as I tell you how much I enjoyed it!

It was actually quite funny as I started reading this book as my lad headed into his hour long karate lesson. The class let out and I continued reading expecting my boy to find me. He apparently walked right past me, out to the car, waited for a while and then came back to find me…and I wouldn’t leave until I read the last five pages. He was so impatient with me until I said “I think you’ll like this book!” Then all was forgiven. 🙂

From the Back of the Book

Frederick Frederickson has a food-chain theory about life. There are lions, like the school bully. Gazelles, like the bullied kids. There are meerkats, and the fleas that live on the butts of meerkats. Frederick’s a flea.

Fifth grade is off to a terrible start when Frederick arrives at a disciplinary camp for troublesome boys. His fellow troop mates – Nosebleed, Specs, The Professor, and little-yet-lethal Ant Bite – are terrifying. But in between trust-building exercises and midnight escape attempts, a tenuous friendship grows between them. Which is lucky, because a Category 5 hurricane is coming and everyone will have to work together – lions and fleas alike – to survive!

My Thoughts:

I received an advanced readers copy so not all the illustrations were done yet, but the ones that I did see were simple line drawings that nicely conveyed the story. Not having the drawings allowed me to use my own imagination, wondering what the artist may have wanted to illustrate, so it would be interesting to see the final rendition.

Don’t those simple pencil drawings covey the story well? Lost and tired on a boat. What will Frederick do?

It was a book of growing up and realizing important truths about yourself and those in your life. I found it a good read with parts that caused me to laugh, and parts that made me (as a mom) wince with worry. I can well imagine by boy just enjoying the read and watching the well-developed characters change and become something more than what they planned. Friendships blossomed and what it means to be a guy well learned. Boys need to be boys and they need to learn to be men too.. so it was a fun read watching them grow up a bit.

I do have to say this… it is a boy focused book and some aspects of it would not appeal to most girls, though some girls might laugh. Encourage your boys to read it. It’s a fair decent book.

Lions & Liars
Kate Beasley (author)
Dan Santat (illustrator)
Farrar Straus & Giroux
Softcover, 304 pages
Ages 8-12 years
Friendship, Fear, Discipline, food chain,
Reviewed for Raincoast book.
Where to purchase: Amazon Link.

Review: The Big Bed

May 5, 2018 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

You know how mother’s day is coming up? The Big Bed is a fun book for a dad to give a mom knowing that it will make her smile. True, it’s a picture book, aimed at the young folk, but really… this is a book to make a mom smile as it pokes fun at dad a bit.

Bunmi Laditon is a Canadian author who writes about the joys of toddlers. In this book she has a little girl talking with a dad about what she considers to be a big problem. Tom Knight does a marvellous job of illustrating this little girls complaint to her daddy.

The complaint is simple “Daddy, we need to talk about the big bed” and from there her reasoning takes place. She talks about the importance of her mommy and her place in the world, and what daddy’s place should be and so forth.

I admittedly wasn’t sure what to make of this book, it was cute and made me chuckle a bit, but I honestly couldn’t say that I would want to sit down and read it with a young child. I showed it to a seasoned mother friend that I know and asked her opinion. She chuckled and said “this is a book a dad would give to mom and they would chuckle over it together, but NOT one to give to a child or even read it to them”. Once she said that I agreed. It would make a fun mother’s day gift, but not as a book to read with a youngster. Might give them the wrong ideas about their place in the family and how they should be treating their dad. Ms. Laditon does an excellent job of capturing a young child’s logic as well as filling in some of her own ideas to round out the story. It’s a fun little book.I love the art work by Tom Knight, the full colour images, the bright colours, the capturing of expressions, it was priceless. I loved how the young lady saw the great things that her daddy did.

I suppose I just wanted it to be more. I loved how her momma laughed at her daughter’s final conclusion and could easily see many a parent doing that, I just wanted momma to correct her little girl and say NO, we don’t do things like that to daddy. That part didn’t happen, ergo, it’s a great book to give to mommy so that Dad and Mom can laugh together. The Big Bed
Bunmi Laditon author
Tom Knight Illustrator
farrar, straus, Giroux
ages 4-6 years, 18 pages, softcover
Reviewed for Raincoast books.

Review: 1-2-3 Magic Teen

May 3, 2018 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

1-2-3 Magic Teen: communicate, connect and guide your teen to adulthood, is written by Thomas W. Phelan who also wrote 1-2-3 Magic. In this paperback you will find tools and advice to help you parent your maturing teen to diminish conflict and further relationship building. With an up and coming teen, this is helpful information.

About Dr. Phelan

A registered clinical psychologist, Thomas W. Phelan, Ph.D. has worked with children, adults and families for over 35 years. He is a member of the APA. He writes, produces, lectures, and guest spots on radio and TV. He has worked on the boards national (USA) organizations that help parents with autistic children.

What You Get:

This book is divided into six sections with between 2 and five subsections.

These sections are entitled

1. Straight Thinking
2. Don’t Take it Personally.
3. Manage and Let Go.
4. Stay in Touch.
5. Take Care of Yourself.
6. Relax and Enjoy the Movie.

Much of the advice given is through the presentation of a scenario, with a less than positive outcome, and then the same scenario replayed with a more positive outcome. This done through text as well as cartoons.

I liked how Dr. Phelan follows up the change he hopes to see in our parenting with how to change out what we might be thinking, with what might be truth.

Throughout the book you’ll find little cut outs that help you either think a bit more about a topic or teaches a key concept.

I appreciated that each section broke down the key concepts that would be presented.

My Thoughts:

There is much in this book that I like. I have to admit to struggling with some of the adverse reactions that were portrayed. Partly because I don’t tend to believe that most teenage angst needs to be as bad as people say it is. I grew up in a household where as teens we had our struggles but we didn’t allow (or weren’t allowed to let) our moodiness to affect the overall operation and attitude of the household. Time is too short in life to allow a bad mood to take over your life. I appreciated that each chapter concluded with a summation of the lessons learned.

I struggled with the story on page 28-29 where the author seems to be blaming the parents for the poor behaviour, the reckless endangering behaviour of their son. And it makes me wonder… why is it the parents fault if their teenagers don’t react well and/or make poor decisions? Part of maturity is learning how to handle disagreements well, and that takes both sides of the party to back off and think through their statements/comments to each other does it not? There is much good in this book and I am glad that I read it through. It’s given me additional information in the checking of my own thoughts as I enter into the teen years with my boy.

Review: CodeWizardsHQ

May 2, 2018 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

I wanted to share with you about a coding class from CodeWizardsHQ that my son recently completed. This online coding class had my son intrigued and wanting to do more. The ability to code is an extremely important skill that today’s youth will need for the jobs of tomorrow. Coding is required in so many positions today, the need for skilled computer savvy people is growing exponentially. CodeWizardsHQ also offers homeschool computer programs as well as online coding classes for all students.

CodeWizardsHQ set up an introductory Class for members of the Homeschool Review Crew. They had a number of timeslots we could pick from in order to see how their training program works. I have to admit…. my son wanted it to be much longer. He didn’t get to complete everything he wanted to due to the limitations of the one hour class and the very new to coding people who were part of his group.

I thought I would walk you through some of the technical stuff and let my son tell you about his experience later on. First a bit about the program from CodeWizardsHQ themselves.

What do you get?

As I mentioned earlier, we received a one hour online class to test out their program. This consisted of getting an email from David and Kevin walking us through the important aspects of the program. An introductory video was used to point out the benefits of using their program to teach coding (teacher support, classroom setting, learning from each other, feedback given), the exponential growth in the need for good coding skills, and how their program work. Regretfully I was unable to attend, but Kevin nicely sent me a PDF of the slides used in the presentation so I didn’t really miss it! Wasn’t that sweet of him?

My son took the class because we could only have one person on and listening well at a time. This review will be filled with overheard comments concluding with my son’s overall impression of the class.

At the start of the class, based on what I overheard, the instructor took a moment to learn a few things about each of the students. I heard my son say “I don’t know what I want to learn, but by what I have seen its an important skill to know” as well as the fact that he has done some coding in the past.

A quick complaint I heard was “I wish some of the people not talking would turn off their audio as I hear people talking in the background.” I mentioned to my son that is a hard issue to control and that CodeWizardsHQ had asked people to meet in a quiet area.

We weren’t initially aware that we would need to have two screens open so it took us a bit of time to get that part figured out. Once we did, the rest of the class moved smoothly. They use the Go Meeting program to conduct the teaching part of the program.

There is another open page with the students private dashboard. We received a special code that helped us open this page. I assume each person received their own code. The class we took was an introductory one.

At the top of the dashboard are the controls to learn the programming. The join class button takes you to the Go Meeting app. Editor is where items are edited, progress lets you see the changes you have made.

As you move to the editor page you will see a page like this. At times this page will just have a column of grey on the one side with words/names. And if you click on one of those words you will see either an image pop up or a bunch of code.

My son was taught with some pre-existing elements, examples follow.

By the end my son had officially made a checkerboard of conversation and images.

Comments overheard: “I now understand why learning in a classroom takes so much longer now”. “Some of the students are slow, so I have to wait, I can change anything I want while I wait.”

Instructor quality?

Good.

Sound?

Instructor good, everyone else horrible.

Ease of use?

“I found it very easy to use. I know a couple of students didn’t get the first thing done”

Do you like it?

Yes. Would have been nice if everyone could have figured it out.

Would you want to take a 12 week course?

Yes I would.

Anything you would change?

“”What they need to do is have two instructors. One to keep the advanced students going and one to help the ones who have fallen behind.”

“I would have liked them to spend some time explaining what html does rather than just how to change it.”
“Didn’t teach about elements, opening and closing brackets. Would have been better to start completely from scratch.”

“All we were taught was how to change part of an element and how to copy and paste an element.”

“One of the things I liked is that if you made a mistake with your HTML , such as you forgot to make a opening bracket or a closing bracket or if you added them something in that shouldn’t be there, it would pop up in red text if it needed to be changed.”

My lad thoroughly enjoyed being part of this class and would happily take a courses from CodeWizardsHQ if he had a chance to do so.

CodeWizards offers several classes, each 12 weeks long. One hour live class each week which comes with 24/7 access to the code writing platform, email support, one-to-one assistance as needed, weekly progress updates recorded classes along with the necessary web space to complete projects and an online student community. A certificate is issued for each completed courses.

CodeWizardHQ
I received a one hour introductory class into HTML coding.

Their normal classes run for 12 weeks and at the end of them you will get a certificate of completion.
Online, Coding Classes for Kids,
Three Levels to work through, Certificate upon Completion, Along with Internship.
For Class Pricing.
CodeWizardsHQ is not a homeschool curriculum company, but they are open to providing classes during the day for homeschooled students. Learn More Here.

60 members of the Homeschool Review Crew took this class, CLICK HERE to read them.

Facebook along with the Facebook group for parents who are interested in coding for their children
Twitter.
Pinterest.
YouTube.

Polly Diamond and the Magic Book, a review

April 28, 2018 By Annette1 2 Comments

Oh heavens but I loved this book! Polly Diamond and the Magic Book was a simply hilarious read through, watching the mind of young girl and the events of her life as she waits for her baby brother to make his appearance.

Polly Diamond will make you laugh, shake your head, chuckle to yourself and have the other moms waiting for their children at karate give you curious looks, and then ask if it’s okay if THEY read the book while they are waiting. 🙂

And if you are a curious child, you’ll have your mamma read it to you while you (and her) wait for your brother to be done and then I, the official reviewer will grin at your exclamations of delight. (and think to myself…. I HAVE to put this in my review). 🙂

So what do you get?

An extremely fun 169 page booked aimed at kids 6-9 years old. As soon as I read it I said “I need to find me an 8 year old”. 🙂 Alice Kuipers wrote a delightful book cleverly illustrated by Diana Toledano. You will be tempted to race through it, but I’ll caution you… Take your time. Savour the fun and the delight of a child’s mind. Short chapters and lots of white space with great illustrations makes this an excellent book for young readers, and for their folks if help is needed. This is book one.

Particulars.

Prose that is great for 6-9 years old, not just easy words, but longer ones to delight clever brains. The fun of a good book, the delight of imagination, the joy of undiscovered meaning to words, all ties together to make a great fast paced early chapter book for grades 1-3.

Learning grammar and language and the fun of accuracy. Seeing how words can twist and change depending on how you define them. The fun of it has you learning even when you don’t think you will.

The graphics added to the story, bringing to life the words on the page, yet leaving parts to the imagination. The fast pace and the upbeat tone make it a joy to read.

My Thoughts:

Well, if you didn’t guess it already… go on, go get this book. Enjoy it. Love it. Help your children grin in delight. See Polly adapt to the change in her household with her love of the written word and a new baby on the way. Will Polly manage to sort it all out in her creative, imaginative way? Read it and find out! 🙂

Polly Diamond and the Magic Book
Book One
Chronicle books
softcover, ages 6-9
reviewed for Raincoast books.

Where to find: Amazon Link.

Reviews