Review

Review: Branch Out World

August 13, 2018 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

Paddington Bear…. doesn’t that bear just make you smile? Today, for my review, I have a unit study, from Branch Out World, that will help you dig deeper into the world of Paddington Bear and the places he has been. Fly with me from the deep, dark forests of Peru to the city lights of London. Along the way we’ll discover art, architecture, story-telling, language arts and more.

Who is Branch Out World?

Branch Out World is brain child of a homeschooling family located in the United Kingdom. Having a deep love of books, they wanted to share that love with others and to that end have created literature-based unit studies as well as lapbooks. They are geared to be used by the whole family. Their unit studies have a UK link, the lapbooks are more globally oriented.

What do you Get?

I received a 69 page PDF of Paddington Bear, a literature based unit study. It’s connected to the picture book of Paddington Bear.

You could, if you wanted get through all five days, it’s quite doable, or you could spread it over a longer period. 🙂 A weekly schedule is included, explaining the how and what of each day’s planned activities.

In this literature study you will find lapbook elements such as the one below, along with lists showing what supplies you’ll need every day.

A sample day (I’m choosing day three) has the following options to do with your students.

Learn about the artist
Picture study based on page 31 in the picture book
Learn about architectural features. We went to youtube and looked up specific examples online. Later we went for a walk and talked about the different features we learned about in the houses we saw. This was fun to do!
Principles of Design – overlapping… my son declined to do this project, but we did talk about how shadows would be different depending on where the fruit was placed and that helps show depth and placement.
Principles of Design – Emphasis. My son did this project using a huge spider in the foreground. I’ve a picture of it below.

As you can see, lots to do on any given day. Depending on your student this could take 1/2 an hour or a couple of hours. You could easily expand the projects or shorten them down to just the basics.

All the information and lapbook elements are found at the end of the study.

How We Used Paddington Bear:

I offered to get the book for my 13 year old to read and he turned me down flat. We had the option of watching the book being read, but mostly we just sat down and looked through the options for extended learning. He dove right into learning about the Spectacled bear… telling me all about what he learned about them, showing me one of the videos he watched, and showing me on our globe where they live.

He also grabbed onto the idea of learning some architectural terms, and even drew a picture showing emphasis. It was so interesting watching what elements he gravitated toward and knowing that this study would please so many students. You certainly don’t have to do everything in the lesson plan, you can pick what your students are most interested in (or what you deem most important) and learn about the world at large through a great picture book about Paddington. I have to admit to being a bit annoyed with myself, I had a couple of different elements put together and I can’t find them AND I failed to get a picture of them. I only have the picture of this one element….the drawing for emphasis.

My Thoughts:

I have to admit, my son is a bit beyond the Paddington years, so we picked up this review so that I could look at it for those that DO like Paddington. I was impressed. A good variety of activities and interesting topics to look at. Even my non-Paddington son found things of interest. If you are a lover of all things Paddington OR doing a larger unit study on bears and want to have a literary tie in, this book will provide a good way to do that. 🙂

I was browsing through the Picture Book Explorers series and saw the Mousehole Cat. That sounds like a fun book to read and then explore. What one would intrigue you?

Paddington Bear
Branch Out World
Picture Book Explorers series
69 pages, PDF, 5-10 years old.
lit-based unit studies, topic pack, home education resources, homeschool resources

65 members of the Homeschool Review Crew had a chance to utilize this study. Please read our reviews.

Social Media Links:

Facebook: @BranchOutWorld
Pinterest: @belzibow
Instagram: @belzibow
Twitter: @belzibow

Home School in the Woods – WW2

July 31, 2018 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

My son wants to learn about the great wars in the coming year, therefore we were very excited to get a chance to review World War II from the selection of Time Travelers in U.S. History series offered by Home School in the Woods. For the past bit, between bouts of readying our guest room and learning other important keeping up a house skills, my son has been watching copious Youtube videos and diving deep into World War II. Come join us in our studies won’t you?

Who is Home School in the Woods?

The Pak family in essence. Taking a dislike of history and finding a way to teach it in a meaningful, delight-filled way. Their goal is to make history fun and interactive. I urge you to check out the entirety of their Time Travelers series, as well as newest release Ancient Rome which completes their Project Passport series.

What do you get?

A WHOLE lot of PDF’s! OH MY! I actually just ordered them printed off for me at my local Staples. For $35 printed, and delivered, I couldn’t beat the time saver, and personal printing costs to me in the middle of a busy season. Just look at the binder full of paper!

I found the materials come in two formats. If you unzip the folder you can open the entire file in HTML format which walks you through all the information start to finish. Or you can follow the same format I did and simply open all the files. Print off exactly what you need, put it all in a binder so it’s all set up and ready to go and then just work your way through it. You do not have to print off everything, some of the files are simply how to use, how to print off etc. I should mention that different colours of paper were called for in the printing instructions. I chose to ignore those colour changes as I didn’t need “Why this colour mom? Can’t we print it in this colour instead?” All white is simply easier in my household. 🙂

It is SO worth looking through the intro files, teacher keys etc. You’ll find a treasure trove of information. In fact one of the pages I really appreciated having was the additional resources page listed in the intro file. Books, movies, audios, music, and websites. Just a phenomenal well done list which will save me OODLES of time (as long as I can find the materials!) 🙂

When I put things in the binder I put the Lesson reading, followed by the project list, then the copy work (for most weeks), and the weekly project. I really appreciated that they build time into the unit study for catch up weeks. Some of the weekly projects are fairly large, so instead of putting them in a page protector I gave them their own files… like the timelime and a later couple of lessons.

This study follows the events from the Close of WW1 and beginnings of the Nazi party through to the end of the war and what happened afterwards. There are almost 100 figures to add to the ten-page timeline.

A Brief Look:

My son and I put together this brief overview for you.

How we used it:

We didn’t work through our WW2 study at a fast pace. Interspersed into our summer are several birthdays, I’ve had a few “under the weather days”, caring for a house that is our own now, and a major heat wave.. speed wasn’t in our purview. Taking our time working through lessons allowed us to more fully discuss ideas and watch videos that went along with the lessons. We’ve been inspired to take a few rabbit trails as well. I love rabbit trails don’t you? They are so much fun!

Taking time to set it all up properly in the beginning was the best thing I could have done. Having the binder ready to go actually made my boy grin. “Look Mom! Look how much I can learn about the war!” My son could work through it independently beyond checking in with me to see what his work load should be.

There are 25 lessons in all. We are looking forward to these upcoming lessons: Pearl Harbour, Hitler’s Fortress, VE day and Iwo Jima and the Atomic bomb. It is SO interesting listening to my boy. “I didn’t know that!” “Mom, did you know ________________”. The questions of “I don’t understand this part, can you help me?” “Can we look this up on youtube? I want to know more.” Those questions a homeschooling parent lives for eh?

I now know FAR MORE about Hitler, his youth, and how he rose to power from a variety of viewpoints then I ever thought I would. 🙂 And think…. come January I’ll get to learn it all over again. This Time Traveler unit study will become the spine of our World War II studies. We’ll diverge now again to pick up speeches and study them, to focus on Canadian men and women of the war, and to throw in a bit more geography, art projects and to follow rabbit trails.

My son’s opinion:

I like it. I am learning so much and I want to know even more. It makes me think of different things I can watch on youtube, and how everything connects. It’s good and I can do most of it on my own, sometimes mom helps though.

My thoughts:

My lad likes it, it’s well laid out. It provides ample opportunity for rabbit trails and discussion. It’s written at a language easily accessed by middle school and above students. It provides an easy spine for when we start our official studies of World War II in January. It will be very easy to adapt it, or perhaps adapt is not the right word, the way it is laid out it will be very easy to add additional materials or extend a lesson further. Together with The War to End all Wars Game, this history study will suit our needs nicely.

World War II
Time Travelers U.S. History Series
Home School in the Woods
PDF and HTML files received.

Also has a CD option. Pricing options here.
History, interactive, hands on
Hands-on history, history studies, best history studies, world history studies, american history studies, history timelines, history curriculum, notebooking pages

Some 90 of us on the crew took a look at a variety of products from Home School in the Woods. I invite you to go read the reviews. Perhaps the next one you come across will be just what you are looking for! I know this review is what we needed in our household.

Social Media Links:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/homeschoolinthewoods
Twitter: https://twitter.com/HSintheWoods
G+: https://plus.google.com/+Homeschoolinthewoods
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/hsinthewoods/

Review: Silverdale Press

June 19, 2018 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

Rhetoric anyone? Do you know how to write a skillful, artistic and persuasive speech? Introducing Persuasive Writing & Classical Rhetoric: Practicing the Habits of Great Writers by Silverdale Press LLC. Learning to think persuasively with great speeches from the past. Come read our review.

You see that boy in my opening image? That would be my son. He’s just about to explain to me what he thinks of John F. Kennedy’s speech about the space program. This time of discussion has been a blessing in our household over the past few weeks. Silverdale Press’s, Persuasive Writing & Classical Rhetoric program has been a boon to our household.

Who is Silverdale Press?

Silverdale Press was founded by Joshua and Jill Hummer. Their aim is to help middle and high school students cultivate knowledge and improve their skill sets. In that quest they aim to teach the ways of great leaders, writers, thinkers, and citizens.

How is the course set up?

I received four PDF’s from Silverdale Press

Rhetoric Answer Book
Rhetoric Lesson Book
Rhetoric Reader
Rhetoric Workbook

The Lesson Book sets out a schedule to follow weekly. There are 36 lessons divided into five sections. Each lesson is designed to be completed in one week. The five sections are introduction, invention, arrangement, style, and conclusion.

Each lesson in the workbook spelled out each of these steps specifically. The lessons include topics such as Stasis theory, emotional appeals, taking notes and developing a reading list. People studied vary from John Locke to John F. Kennedy to E.B. White.

Setting reading goals had my son doing something he normally doesn’t do (though I’ve been trying to encourage for the past two years) but having it as part of a lesson seems to have spurred him on. “Mom, I have a list of books that I want to read though they aren’t the type that Kennedy would read. I want to read “The Hobbit” “Harry Potter” and “Lord of the Rings”. ” Did you catch that? NOT ones that Kennedy would read (see… he remembers!!!!!) AND he came up with a list of books that he wants to read for himself. I totally call that a win!

What books would you put on this list?

There are massive amounts of pages in these ebooks, The lesson book 235, workbook 202, answer book 65, and reader 111. You can choose to print it all off or print off only what you need to. At this point, I’ve been printing the speeches and the review questions only.

Each week finishes off with an essay challenge based on a major point of the speech reviewed. “Give me ______ or give me death”. “We Choose to ________” By the end of the 36 week study you’ll have received lessons in what real writers do, how to pitch your work and handling rejection. The aim is to produce better writers, and writers want to be published. 🙂

How did we use it?

This is a high-school level course and my son is a rising eight grade student. This meant I adapted the program to suit our needs.

The first lesson we broke over two weeks. Taking time to thoroughly discuss the speech we were given. We learned new words, figured out what rhetoric was, and just talked. We talked while feeding our rabbits, and going for a walk, this wasn’t a sit down and think about it lesson…this was an on-going discussion for us. Part of the requirements was to write an 500 word essay. I simply told my lad, write an essay based on the prompt. I’ll write one too and then we’ll talk about each others essays. Admittedly this was HARD for my lad. Coming up with something to write about (even with a prompt) and then figuring out how to write the essay… tough job. I walked him through how I was writing my essay and from that he was able to put something together but wasn’t happy with it and actually wanted to totally rewrite it.

Surgery happened. The essay got put to the wayside. I started to work my way through lesson two, discovering something wonderful. My lad didn’t want me to work through it on my own. He wanted to continue to chat with me. Since he wasn’t allowed (Doctor’s orders) to do school for two weeks I put it on hold. For the past two weeks we’ve been talking about Kennedy’s space speech. All this discussion and coming up with ideas. It’s been a hoot. Could you imagine a world with all self-driven cars?

I’m not requiring an essay from him at this point. We’ve decided that for now, we will just discuss the speeches, we’ll learn new terminology and do the lessons, but mom will write an essay, and the lad will critique and together we’ll make it the best we can. The lad will talk about an idea he has, and the arguments he would use to persuade his audience of its merits. For instance the lesson on Patrick Henry had him discussing with parents the merits of a good video game and how it doesn’t rot your brain.

Our plans are to work our way through each lesson (taking a couple of weeks to do so) over the next year or so.. and then when the lad is in grade 10 we’ll do the course again, this time with an essay requirement being part of it. When we do so, I will make full use of the answer key which provides correct answers and a rubric for the essays.

Our Recommendation:

This highschool level class has been a lot of fun to work through with my seventh grade student. We are far from done, but we are looking forward to our next lessons. My son wanted me to assure parents with grade seven and eight students to not be afraid to get this course. It’s alot of fun to talk about ideas, and to try to figure out ways to make an essay or speech more persuasive. Silverdale Press has produced a stellar program with their Persuasive Writing & Classical Rhetoric class. It’s been very good to be about practicing the habits of great writers. As a parent I liked how they organized all their workbooks and setting out a good way to approach it. It helped me to break down a bit more for my lad. The side benefit is that I am learning as well. This is an excellent course for parents wanting to increase their skills as well.

Persuasive Writing & Classical Rhetoric: Practicing the Habits of Great Writers
Silverdale Press LLC

Ages 14-18
Homeschool High school, homeschool writing curriculum,
Digital, Ebook, PDF
Rhetoric, Persuasive writing, Speech

Homeschool Review Crew Reviews:

The crew reviewed two products from Silverdale Press

Persuasive Writing & Classical Rhetoric: Practicing the Habits of Great Writers – ages 14-18
White House Holidays Unit Studies – ages 5-18

Social Media Links:
Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/SilverdalePress/ Tag: @SilverdalePress
Twitter:  https://twitter.com/silverdalepress Tag: @SilverdalePress
Pinterest:  https://www.pinterest.com/silverdalepress/

Scratch & Draw Enchanted Animals

June 6, 2018 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

I have reviewed Scratch and Draw books before, and when Scratch & Draw Enchanted Animals arrived I thought I knew what I was getting. I have to say, I was delighted to be proven wrong.

This Scratch and Draw book is different from any others that I have ever used before. It is. It’s actually a pretty cool book and I just have to tell you about it.

In Scratch & Draw Enchanted Animals you get a book filled with 20 easy to follow designs to make your own beautiful, scratched out art work. Each design comes with a scratch paper of it’s own in colours such as silver, gold, burgundy, and black. The cover of the book promises they are easy to follow and they are!

ME… non-artistic me! I was able to mostly replicate a drawing. Even my artistic lad said “good job mom, you only needed to bring that part out a bit more, and why didn’t you do the ears right?” But otherwise, I apparently did a good job. Easy enough to replicate and if I wanted to, I could have changed it (at least the ear part). I did use a side of the page to play around with different strokes I could make with the tool.

Oh yes, each book comes with it’s own tool. It’s a solid plastic tool with a pointy end and flat broad end. I found that it fit into my hand nicely and did the job smoothly, like holding a pen or pencil in my hand.

I love the variety in the designs and the page colours. They are what is promised “easy-to-follow drawings”. Easy to replicate, easy to change to suit your own creativity, easy to work with (the stylus worked smoothly), and easy to remove for display purposes.

This is just a lovely book for anyone to sit down with to unwind after a busy day, to take along on a trip or to just spend some time being creative with.

Scratch and Draw Enchanted Animals

Marisa Redondo
Rockport
Reviewed for: Quarto
Series: Scratch & Draw

20 designs plus stylus
Adult Coloring, Creative, Art Book

Other Scratch books I’ve reviewed:

Wild Garden.
Hand Lettered Life.

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.

Review: Ascent

February 24, 2018 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

If there is a mountain to climb, Peak and Alessia want to climb. They are not out for fame or glory, they just want to climb mountains. In Ascent, a Peak Marcello Adventure, written by Roland Smith, we find Peak heading toward Hkakabo Razi in Myanmar. What adventures will await them?

Peak and Alessia, along with bodyguard Ethan enter into the world of Asia. Walking through the jungle and encountering dangers along the way. I am loathe to tell you too much of the story because that would ruin the surprise of it eh?

Myanmar, a country filled with tropical rainforest, isolated mountains, venomous reptiles, corrupt police, isolated villages, rope bridges, and rogue elephants. Baggage handlers and guides are a must.

How will this trio navigate the dangers that face them? Will they survive the bug infested rainforest? Will they figure out who is sabotaging their expedition? Will they even manage to reach the summit? To know the answers you need to read the book!

My thoughts.

Middle school students with a love for adventure should enjoy reading this book. There are some interesting twists in the plotline that keep the story interesting. Peak ended up learning some important lessons about himself. Leadership and asking for help and dependence on others. All good things for a young adult to learn. Many things were alluded to from other books in the series, without full explanations given. This of course, creates the desire to read those books so you get the full story. This book does stand on it’s own, it just leaves me wanting to know more.

I found this video interesting to help me picture some of the battles Peak would have had to struggle with.

Ascent
Roland Smith
A Peak Marcello Adventure
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
12+
Softcover, middle school
Adventure, mystery
Reviewed for: Raincoast Books.

Where to find: Amazon Link.

Review: LogoJoy

February 8, 2018 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

Hey, you know that it can be helpful to have your own branding right? How having a logo or a font that is common across the board for you? Did you know there are sites on-line that are there to help you develop do that? LogoJoy sent me a free logo to check out so I could tell you all about them.

Who is LogoJoy?

Logojoy is one of the world’s leading online logo makers with over 30,000 unique users every day, and more than 2,000,000 logos created this year. They use artifical intelligence to help you create a beautiful logo. Their goal is simple..help you create a good logo. They have a whole process that they take you through on your journey.

This interface walks you through six different steps. The first four:

The next step shows you a number of different logos based upon your choices. I have to tell you, they showed me way more options then this. All variations of the different themes and symbols that I chose.

Step six is to pick the logo you like the most and then to customize it. In this step you can customize everything, you can add elements, change your symbol, decide your slogan needs to be edited…all sorts of things… even change the colour of your background.

I even learned that you can make the background transparent to use as a watermark. It’s actually a rather neat site to help you figure out what you like, and gives you the freedom to rework it in a manner that shows YOUR style as well.

Here are a couple of options I came up with. I couldn’t really find a way to show you the transparent background one, there is probably something very obvious…but right now it’s not coming to me but you’ve all seen watermarks on images I’m sure. 🙂

And look, here’s a video that will walk you through the process. Pretty helpful folks I have found.

I tested out the premium package. This is what comes with it.

LogoJoy

Make a logo using colours, fonts, symbols that you like
An interactive website that uses choices you make.
Different packages available: 
    Basic $20, Premium $65, Enterprise $195

Review

Review: Branch Out World

Who is Branch Out World?

What do you Get?

How We Used Paddington Bear:

My Thoughts:

Social Media Links:

Home School in the Woods – WW2

Who is Home School in the Woods?

What do you get?

A Brief Look:

How we used it:

My son’s opinion:

My thoughts:

Review: Silverdale Press

Who is Silverdale Press?

How is the course set up?

How did we use it?

Our Recommendation:

Homeschool Review Crew Reviews:

Scratch & Draw Enchanted Animals

Scratch and Draw Enchanted Animals

Other Scratch books I’ve reviewed:

Review: Critical Thinking Detective Book 1

Son’s Thoughts:

My Thoughts:

Social Media Links

Review: Ascent

My thoughts.

Review: LogoJoy

Who is LogoJoy?

Amazon Affiliate information

Tinker Crate Affiliate

Review

Who is Branch Out World?

What do you Get?

How We Used Paddington Bear:

My Thoughts:

Social Media Links:

Who is Home School in the Woods?

What do you get?

A Brief Look:

How we used it:

My son’s opinion:

My thoughts:

Who is Silverdale Press?

How is the course set up?

How did we use it?

Our Recommendation:

Homeschool Review Crew Reviews:

Other Scratch books I’ve reviewed:

Son’s Thoughts:

My Thoughts:

Social Media Links

My thoughts.

Who is LogoJoy?

Want to Stay Informed?

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