Review

Miss Austen

March 11, 2020 By Annette1 4 Comments

I expected when I saw the title of my current review book, Miss Austen, to be learning about Jane Austen as she’s the one I’m most familiar with. Interestingly enough though, it’s about her older sister Cassandra Austen. It’s a tender book filled with memories, mostly good, some sad. Let’s walk through it shall we?

What I am Reviewing

Miss Austen: A Novel is a tender look into the life of the Austen family. Cassandra, an elderly lady now, seeking to restore and to relive her memories of her dear sister Jane. Visiting the family of her long-dead fiance she discovers letters that reveal much about herself, her sister and her family. The question remains… what will be left when she is done? Will the letters remain, or just the memories?

288 pages, 28 chapters, years covered. I received at ARC copy, it sells as a hardcover. Written by Gill Hornby and published by Flatiron Books. A biography that covers the lives of Cassandra Austen and her family. There is a ton of historical data that brings the early 1800’s into vibrant detail. I am reviewing this book on behalf of Raincoast Books.

The Details for Miss Austen

The past, as depicted in vignettes based on letters, and the present reality intermingled. A sweet, but sometimes hard looking back into her history. It wasn’t all roses and sweetness, but difficulties arose like in all families.

I loved the realness of it all. An old lady, going to visit extended family, doesn’t let them know until it’s just a bit late for it, spends her time with them while on a secret quest. She knows what she is up to, the question is, how long will she remain undiscovered?

Miss Austen opens with a map of the Village of Kintbury as well as a family lineup for the Austen, Fowles and Lloyds. We are privileged to see how these families were connected.

My Thoughts

I haven’t quite finished though I’ve skipped ahead a bit just to see if my suspicions were correct. (They were but I’m not telling you since this is a review, not a book report). This is a lovely story. I loved seeing Cassandra as she is now, trying to be kind despite some of the hostility she faces. The walks into her history as she read letters… I love this. I really do. It was so fascinating watching her relationship with her sister. That love they shared clearly shown. Get to know the Austens. Get to know Cassandra Austen in particular. You won’t regret it.

Review: The Unbreakable Faith Course

February 26, 2020 By Annette1 5 Comments

Conversation, it’s one of the things I love best as my lad grows older. Conversations about God, life, purpose, people and whatever else he (or I) am learning about. It is absolutely fantastic. Recently we’ve been reviewing an apologetics program called The Unbreakable Faith Course. It’s been put out by Pilgrim’s Rock, LLC… and it is causing lots of conversation in our household and I love that. I can’t wait to tell you all about in this review for the Homeschool Review Crew.

What I am Reviewing

Pilgrim’s Rock, LLC is the designer of the The Unbreakable Faith Course. With this course you’ll receive online information as well as two books. These books are called God the Reason and The Box. I received these books as PDF’s but there is an option to get the physical books as well. This is a credited Christian apologetics course. Their goal is to help teens, young adults and families take on a biblical worldview so we can show and talk about God’s infinite excellence to those around us.

How we used it

Our goal was to do The Unbreakable Faith Course with the whole family. My son wanted dad to be involved. My husband works long hours into the early morning hours, which made working out the logistics a bit of a challenge. 🙂 What we ended up planning was two-three days a week we would read “The Box” together, and watch one video. We ended up missing watching videos since life sometimes get complicated with later than normal shifts and a need for sleep! 🙂

The first thing I did was connect with Staples and get them to print off the PDF’s. These are fairly large books and I didn’t want to print them all off at home. My son and I read hard-copies of books easier than using e-readers.

How far did we get? We’ve watched three videos, and I’ve read the first two chapters of “God the Reason”, and have finished “The Box”. My son has been steadily reading one chapter a week. The Box is mostly finished, and he’s about to start on God the Reason.

The Box

The Box, written by Craig Biehl, is covered in the first lesson. 17 chapters, much of which is a conversation between Mr. A and Mr. C. It is broken up into three sections.

Answering the Faith of the Atheist (9 chapters)
Answering the Faith of the Agnostic (5 chapters)
Concluding Remarks (3 chapters)

The book closes with acknowledgements, about the author and resources for parents. The Box demonstrates how to have a conversation with non-believers. The conversation is at times stilted but that’s to be expected when you are “setting the scene”. I did find it to be a bit repetitive at times. My son sometimes struggled with the authors not taking everything thought into account. Many of his questions were about “what if this” and “what about that”. He’s a bit of a perfectionist so wording matters to him.

Presuppositional apologetics are a big part of The Box. If we get to the root of a person’s thought process, the better we are able to ask questions to help them see truth and deception.

God the Reason

God the Reason is the larger of the two books. It has 15 chapters with distinct sections.

God is Eternal (6 sections)
God Needs Nothing (5 sections)
God Cannot be Known unless he reveals himself (five sections)
God is Boundless perfection (7 sections)
God Does not Change (2 sections)
God is Undivided (3 sections)
God is Spirit (3 sections)
God knows everything (4 sections)
God is Wise (3 sections)
God is True and Truthful (3 sections)
God is Good and Love (4 sections)
God is Holy (4 sections)
God is righteous (4 sections)
God is infinitely powerful (6 sections)
God Rules over all (8 sections)

There is a conclusion, two appendices, acknowledgements, works cited, and two indexes.

This book was very much appreciated. Easy to read and understand. I love the short sections contained within each chapter with the clear headings of what they were about. This book was also written by Craig Biehl and really helps people understand the nature and majesty of God.

The more we understand the nature of God, the more we are enabled to import worldview truths to those around us.

Course Set Up

This is a self-paced course. Take it at your own speed, but if doing it for a credit needs to be finished within 36 weeks of start.

One of the many helpful aspects of Pilgrim’s Rock is they give you a tour of your dashboard. Helping you to understand the many different parts in this presuppositional apologetics course.

Your lesson work is set up in such a way that you need to complete each section before heading into the next one. This ensures that you can’t jump ahead, though… if you really want to.. it is possible. 🙂

We haven’t gotten to the point of taking a test yet. It is important to note that these tests are timed. You have 36 weeks to complete the course from the time that you start it.

The structure of the course is to read chapters of God the Reason and The Box. These readings and chapters are followed up by a quiz. These quizzes can only be taken once. I loved the questions that my son came up with, they showed he was understanding the chapters he read. I do regret that the course itself asks no questions to help you understand what you are reading or how it all fits together into a cohesive unit.

Watching videos is a great way for my lad to learn. He’s generally audio-oriented so having video just adds. He did mention that he would like to have a transcript of the videos as well. His intention is to watch the videos again, and if he had the transcript he could circle the parts of the transcript he wanted to remember for the quiz.

pilgrim's rock - unbreakable faith course

They have different pricing options depending if you need credit or not. The course is designed for individuals 15 years or older. As I read through it and listened to my 14 year old, I think the age range is pretty good. My son didn’t seem to struggle with it at all, but it’s definitely not geared for elementary students.

So What Did we Think?

My thoughts: “I really like how God the Reason is done. Short chapters with smaller sections that reinforce the main topic. The videos do a good job of supporting this book. I would really like if the test could be printed out and wasn’t timed. I absolutely adore the fact that my son asks great questions with this course. That in and of itself makes this an excellent course.”

My son’s thoughts: “It’s okay. I don’t like the conversations in The Box, I like just straight-forward writing. I like the videos. I like when mom can read God the Reason to me and I can listen and ask questions.“

Dad’s thoughts: “They approach apologetics from a different perspective then I would, but they don’t do a bad job. It would be good if it came with questions, or at least conversation starters.”

35 members of the Homeschool Review Crew have taken a look at Pilgrim’s Rock, The Unbreakable Faith Course. You can check out their reviews at this link or by clicking on the image below.

The Unbreakable Faith Course {Pilgrim's Rock, LLC Reviews}

Pilgrim Rock is on Social Media:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PilgrimsRockLLC/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PilgrimsRockLLC
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/pilgrimsrock/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWwPS9K7Roo-TdegNHP_Pzg?view_as=subscriber

Ninja Cat: Whiskers of Doom

February 5, 2020 By Annette1 Leave a Comment

As I reviewed Ninja Cat I saw Lando learn to let his friends make their own decisions. Lando also learned some secrets of his past, allowing him to be the Ninja Cat that he needed to be.

What I am Reviewing

The story tells of a mischievous cat named Lando who lives alone in the big city and hangs out with friendly humans as well as the City Crew―his diverse team of animal friends. The Crew gets into a heap of trouble after borrowing money from the notorious Loan Shark to buy a big TV, gaming console, video games and, of course, a mountain of snacks they immediately devoured―but now it’s time to pay him back. With no money, and the interest mounting, they have no clue how they’re going to do it…

Ninja Cat: Whiskers of Choice is written by Justin and Corrigan and is independently published. Reviewed for Ascot Media. A soft cover book of 144 pages. Topics in clue money, loan sharks, interest rates, and crime.

Details for Ninja Cat

Conversation and black/white images fill the pages of this 144 page book. The writing is rough, and appears (at least to me) like it’s a first draft. Varying sizes in print, with the appearance of being done in pencil. The drawings are unsophisticated and fairly basic. I suppose that is to be expected as they are all done by an 11 year old lad.

We are introduced to all the characters and the various bands they are part of. We have pond patrol, city crew, street gang, and loan shark. In their introductions we discover their strengths and weaknesses.

As the story progresses we see not only Lando, the ninja cat, develop new skills but also the members of the city crew as well. We see them overcome obstacles before the story is finished. This is good, it’s great to see progression in characters.

My Thoughts

Can I recommend Ninja Cat to you? That’s a tough question for me with Ninja Cat: Whiskers of Choice.

I understood the following

the gangs
the loan shark and the precarious position he put people in
fulfilling a debt and the pressure it placed

I didn’t understand the position of Lando and his ninja cat skills.

The mixed up jumble of graphics, poorly written storyline and characters made the story difficult to comprehend. I kept expecting the story to go in one direction, and then it would twist and go into another direction. In the end it didn’t seem like the majority of characters made wise decisions. In the end Lando (Ninja cat) helped his friends accomplish their mission.

ERGO, I am hesitant to recommend it.

Calvert Homeschool Review

October 30, 2019 By Annette1 4 Comments

Calvert Homeschool is a place where your students in grades 3-12 can meet all their schooling needs. Can you imagine the ease of life that creates? I do need to tell you though, their high school courses are just as intriguing for their parents (at least this parent!) I have got to tell you all about it. I’ve have, for the past few weeks been able to make good use of their mobile on-line program

What I am Reviewing.

Calvert Homeschool.
Calvert Homeschool Online.
Grades 3-12
Online homeschool, homeschool online
Individual and Family Subscriptions.

Providing quality education using multi-media lessons, hands-on experiences, customizable lesson plans, and easy to access dashboards for parent/teacher and student.

Giving you full online access to 45 courses, this online homeschooling option also provides numerous features such as interactive lessons, automatic grading, and monthly payments.

Details of Calvert Homeschool

It does take some getting used to, the system that Calvert uses as their base. You don’t go to the main site to do your learning, but to the online Calvert Homeschool site. This caused me no end of frustration until I figured that part out. 🙂 Learn from me… connect with their help department!

How we Used It

My original goal, was to have my son use the world history course. He’s currently working through material for world war 2 and I noted it had a few days on this topic. I struggled initially figuring out how to get him to this section and the amazingly helpful staff at Calvert helped me learn how to assign them and close off the rest of the course. WOOT WOOT!

He started, and he admittedly tried. But Calvert wasn’t a good fit for him. He is predominately an audio learner, and Calvert suits other learning styles better. Since Calvert DOES work for me, I stepped into the gap. I’ve been brushing up on my physics and engaging in a biology course.

Details of Calvert Homeschool On Line

Two sections to Calvert

There are two distinct sections to Calvert, the first is the parental section where you can choose lessons, customize how they will work, and grade assignments. The second section is where the student will find their assignments and complete their course work. Each requires their own login information.

Parental Dashboard

In the teacher or parental dashboard you can set up your courses, school, and students quite easily. As a parent you control how your child is able to complete their course. What constitutes an A, how they answer questions, and other important details. With the 3-12 package you can assign ANY course to your student. You will find them under each grade level. These are the options I had for grade nine.

I ended up choosing two courses from grade 10 and just one from grade nine. Grade 10 was Biology and World History, and grade nine was physics/chemistry. Adding another class later isn’t an issue, just go into the curriculum set up area and you are on the way.

If you ever get lost or don’t know what you are doing they have put together helpful manuals to assist you.

My desire is to walk you through EVERYTHING but that would make this review FAR too long, so let me just walk you through the sections I used the most.

Everything is easily right at hand. Everything that is clickable is in blue. I used the assigned work and grading tasks the most.

I absolutely loved how easy they made it for me to grade the assignments. Just click on the link and grade.

One thing that I couldn’t figure was how to know what mark to assign a given assignment. Should I give it a five out six, or a 2 out of 3? It wasn’t, at least for me, always an intuitive decision. How to fix that, I haven’t a clue. But we muddled through and grades were assigned.

Student Dashboard

Like the parent/teacher board, the student dashboard is easy to navigate.

You can see at a glance what you have to work on (a report, experiment or project) and what lesson is up next. A list of items needed for assignments can be found so it’s easy enough to have supplies at hand. One of the assignment (about needing to closely observe for experiments) called for a bowl of peanuts, my son and I (cause I told him about this one and he thought it sounded fun) used a bowl of dried fruit instead. We choose to not get lost on the details and peanuts we would have had to purchase. 🙂

Lesson Set up

One of the beauties of Calvert is that you aren’t tied down to working at home on a specified device. As long as you have the internet, you can work off your laptop, tablet or phone.

Each lesson follows a predictable format. Overview, lesson pages, questions based on the lesson. Each lesson can easily be completed in a day. Stopping and starting again is not a problem either, because we all know that things happen and sometimes lessons started have to wait.

Vocabulary Arcade

On the overview page the student is introduced to the vocabulary words used throughout. With these words comes the vocab arcade.

While I think it’s great to have a way to help students practice their vocabulary, I had to wonder why they chose to have animated characters that would clap for a correct answer. It makes sense for elementary school students, but not for high school. Neither I or my 14 year old were impressed with the arcade.

I found the flash cards to be helpful. It’s a simple platform that simply helps you learn new words.

What a lesson looks like

The overview pages introduces the lesson, showing the highlights, and giving needed vocabulary words to understand the lesson.

One of the things I really enjoyed was that videos come with transcripts! So for someone like me who would rather watch a video than listen to it. I can avoid the video and read my way through. Using this option of course is not mandatory, but it’s a lovely aid for those who have English as a second language, or other comprehension issues.

I do have a bone to pick though. Growing up in Canada, I am well used to the metric system. Using a centimeter/millimeter rule in a lesson for accuracy and then not actually being accurate. It’s just wrong. Accuracy is not guessing. If you are measuring something you DO need to be accurate but you can’t on a centimeter ruler be accurate to a 100th place value if they don’t have a 100th place value on the ruler. Anything else is just guessing.

Other than that particular math question, overall I found this secular, online homeschool option to be a good program.

Should You Use Calvert Homeschool?

There are mixed feelings in this household toward Calvert Homeschool. Read all the way through to understand why. 🙂

Normally I would have my son speak his mind, but his mind is not disposed kindly toward Calvert. He doesn’t like it. Would he adapt if I told him to, yes, but relationship is always before schooling. There are a myriad of things that he doesn’t like, but most of it comes down to personal preference and he has other avenues he’d rather pursue.

Therefore I ended up signing up the lad for two additional courses. These courses are Science300 and Integrated Physics and Chemistry. I did this so that I could review the program well. Calvert was kind enough to let us have six months, so they deserve someone reviewing their program well. The end result being: that although, like the lad, I dislike certain aspects, I do overall like the rest of the program.

What I think:

I love that if I know the material already I can skip ahead to the questions.

I love the the first page of each new section is an overview of what I will be learning about. It sets my brain in the right direction.

I dislike that for essay questions that it comes up in a F for the final grade (when you click on complete lesson). Like my lad I find that rather demotivating. I would rather it would say something like “awaiting marking by teacher”, or something, anything else than F.

I like that each page is focused. You can jump back and forth from one page to the next. You can rush through, or take your time. This aspect gives it a feel of a self-paced course. I love that the main page spells out what the next assignments are and that they are clickable.

Would it be useful for high school students?

In a nutshell yes, even though it is not a good fit for my lad, but I think I would have liked it at his age. The difference being in our learning styles. I like being able to jump back and forth, reading and re-reading and he likes to simply move straight-forward. He is an auditory learner and I’m a reader.

Calvert, I think, works best for students who like to read and who pick up on details quickly while reading. My son, reads, but when he doesn’t get something, falls back to searching for videos that will explain it better. He does not feel confident doing that with the world history course from Calvert as the questions are based directly on the lesson rather than on an overall concept.

The fact that there are a good variety of projects, it is highly customizable, and the excellent customer service makes Calvert an option you should explore further. Use the free trial period. See if it’s a good fit for your student, and give it a go. 🙂

45 members of the crew took part in reviewing Calvert. You should check out what they have to say! 🙂

Social Media Links

Facebook: www.facebook.com/CalvertHomeschool
Twitter: https://twitter.com/CalvertEdu
Instagram: www.instagram.com/calverthomeschool
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/CalvertHomeschool/

Review: College-Ready Writing Essentials™

September 9, 2019 By Annette1 2 Comments

Are you looking for a program to help your students get ready for college level writing? Look no further! BetterRhetor has come out with a college writing course for your high school students. Help your students succeed with College-Ready Writing Essentials™ (CRWE)! 25 lessons to teach your children, your students what is expected of them in a college level assignment. This review is of the full package of CRWE.

College ready writing essentials BetterRhetor

What I am Reviewing

BetterRhetor.
College-Ready Writing Essentials™.
William Bryant, PhD.
I reviewed the full package.
Reviewed for: Homeschool Review Crew
Age: highschool (junior/seniors), graduated highschool, early college.

Writing, college, writing essentials, college readiness, student success, academic writing

You can learn more about Mr. Bryant at his website.

The Details of College-Ready Writing Essentials™

25 lessons are presented to the student in this online writing program. It specifically targets the skill of writing a college level paper. These 25 lessons are divided into five sections.

Overview (one lesson)
Planning (lessons 2-11)
Drafting (lessons 12-19)
Revising (lessons 20-23)
Finalizing (lessons 23-25)

Two additional resources are provided. A PDF of Key Terms, and bonus guide to the culture of college. Using the students knowledge, skills, behaviors, and awareness to form a piece of writing to inform and persuade their readers.

Since my lad has a love of writing research papers I thought this course would be a good fit for him advancing into highschool. He’s just in grade nine so I wasn’t sure if it would be too advanced for him. He likes it so that’s a good thing eh? 🙂

I love that this online course is so nicely laid out. The lesson order provided on the left side of the screen, the made text on the right. Part of me wished there was a video component, but my son wisely pointed out that having it all written down meant he could reread easily instead of having to hunt down the specific portion he didn’t understand.

When it came to doing the lessons, my ninth-grade son said “It wasn’t hard to read, but it also wasn’t extremely easy.” He took his time doing the lessons, I expected one lesson completed each week. In three weeks he easily got four lessons done before heading off to camp.

Easy to read

Sometimes when working on a on-line program it is difficult to maintain your progress. This academic writing program allows you to save your progress, helping you to easily move forward from lesson to lesson.

CRWE is meant to be completed over the course of five weeks. At 25 lessons that would be one lesson daily. Go at the speed of your student. Some may need longer to complete each lesson. My son commented “Younger students will want to read the lesson one day, and then do the assignment the next day. Older students would have no problem doing it all in one day.“

The assignments for each lesson are found at the close of the lesson. These files open as PDF’s that you can either print off or store on your computer.

PDF’s mean options

The advantage of a PDF file is the option to print or not. Your student can easily do all their work in a notebook, or you can print off each worksheet for your student to write directly on it. They are done in black/white making it easy on the printer. Since it’s a PDF there is no time limit on completing the work other than what you arbitrarily set.

CRWE is a self-paced course. It is meant to be done over five weeks but you can easily stretch that out as needed. It is an online program and you are granted life-time access so you can use it with all family members. Their goal is to help your students be better prepared for college level writing, utilizing all their skills in persuasion and information gathering.

Don’t let your students be part of the 75% of young people not prepared for college. Learn more about this gap and how to address it at The Writing Gap. Help them learn the skills necessary to succeed pursuing their dreams. Let them write, and write well in the subjects of their choosing.

Thoughts/Recommendations

I asked my son what he thought of College-Ready Writing Essentials™. “It has a lot of reading and I couldn’t do it as fast as I wanted to. I liked it though and want to finish doing it“.

I loved the responsiveness of customer service. My son does his work on his own laptop and for whatever reason I couldn’t transfer over to him. I wrote and asked customer service what to do and they happily set my son up with his own account. My lad loved this! His own account, mom can’t mess things up by checking future lessons and messing up bookmarks or whatever. It was excellent in his mind, and for me as a parent, it was just the answer I needed.

One of the benefits of the BetterRhetor program is they offer two levels, the full and the premium. I can totally see the advantage of doing this program twice. Once in grades 9/10 doing the full program then doing the premium package in grade 12. Read the reviews, come to your own conclusions. 🙂

Read Other Reviews

Did you know that 31 other members of the crew reviewed BetterRhetor? Some of us reviewed the full package, others the premium. I know you don’t want to miss reading those reviews. You can check them out over at the Homeschool Review Crew Blog.

You can find BetterRhetor on the following social media accounts.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/collegereadywriting
Twitter: https://twitter.com/collreadywrite
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/collegereadywriting
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/collegereadywriting

Review: Natural Disasters

July 18, 2019 By Annette1 2 Comments

Today I am reviewing a unit study called Natural Disasters by Love at Home Education. Today your whole family can learn about the natural challenges of our world with one complete unit study. Stay tuned to learn more.

What I am Reviewing

Natural Disasters.

Curriculum.
Images.
Recommended books and supplies.

Love At Home Education.

Earth, Geography, Science, Earth Science, Natural disasters, Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, Storms, Drought, Avalanches

125 pages, k-12.

What makes this K-12?

There are recommendations for videos, books, and writing for older audiences. Most of the experiments are geared towards Elementary and are then recommended to further expand knowledge for Junior High and High School.

Under the “Extra Resources” tab on the loveathomeeducation.com website, you can find Free photos, K-12 writing resources, Free vocabulary lists, Curriculum guides and the Recommended Books and supplies list!

The Details of Natural Disasters

Created by Love at Home Education. They bill themselves as a dinner-table friendly, all-inclusive family curriculum; that your high schooler, and kindergartner can learn together on their own levels.”

You will find their unit studies are written for elementary kids. They truly are.

To make this a middle school or high school curriculum you would need to supplement with video and text, adding additional assignment. I found very few suggested activities. I had hoped to find a list of videos and books for middle-to-highschool in the recommended books but did not.

The Layout

Five units make up this broad unit on Natural Disasters. Each unit is then divided into five suggested days. You’ll cover vocabulary words, do experiments, make at least one art project, writing assignments and more.

I happily did not find busy work such as word search, fill in the blank, crosswords and the like. My lad despises such activities! Go figure ’cause I always loved them.

You won’t find clutter filling the pages. There is information and activities but nothing cutesy or irrelevant. A wonderful thing for parents with youngsters (such as I raised) that were distracted to the point of hating curriculum that had such embellishments.

Now there is this neat file of pictures to help round out this unit study on Natural Disasters.

My Thoughts and Recommendations

The nitty gritty eh… can I recommend it? YES, for elementary kids, and perhaps middle school. I don’t really see it as high school level material. The lack of supportive materials and a simple increase in essay length doesn’t really do the job.

I think it could use some better overall layout. It would be helpful to have a table of contents and a written out suggestion of how to use it. I think it would be easier to follow the suggested layout if it was all written out in one area.

Review: Simply Music

July 15, 2019 By Annette1 4 Comments

Today I am reviewing for you a free to use program for you from Simply Music called the Music & Creativity course. It is their foundation course. Taught by Neil Moore who has a strong desire to help his students learn to play music right the first time.

What I Am Reviewing

Simply Music.
Music & Creativity – Foundation Course.
Neil Moore.
On-line, all ages, internet access required.
Video Based
piano lessons, online piano lessons, learn piano online
Reviewed for Homeschool Review Crew.

This course introduces you to Simply Music’s unique, playing-based approach, and has you playing great-sounding music from your very first lessons.

The Basics of Simply Music

The Music & Creativity Foundation Course (MAC) is a video based program. Through video Mr. Moore introduces all music, terms, styles, drawings etc to help you learn to play piano. He provides PDF’s to supplement the videos.

Three PDF”s round out the videos.

Reference Book – music, chords, pictograms, fingering
Music and the Art of Long term Relationships – outline of his theory behind playing music. 14 chapters. Challenging assumptions about music, encouraging everyone to have a relationship with music.
Practice Pad – keyboard you can print out to practice on

My original intent was to have my lad work through this music program. He is a complete beginner and has a vague interest in learning to play some sort of musical instrument.

I did manage to get him started but then life intervened in the way of a part-time job. Suddenly he found his free time quite truncated. Since he is only 13 years old (oops now 14) I didn’t want him to not be able to enjoy his summer as well, something had to give and that something was music.

Ergo I filled in the gap.

My free-time isn’t what I would like it to be either so I listened to the online piano lessons usually while doing something else. Pausing to check out his visuals, referencing his PDF’s as needed. I know how to play piano (rather organ/keyboard) so wasn’t too concerned about the mechanics.

It was easy for me, since I’m used to how music flows, to move out the music with my fingers. I could use his practice keyboard, my real keyboard, or just tap it out on my table. I have no pictures because taking pictures of yourself playing doesn’t work well when no one else is around. 🙂

The Details of Simply Music

One thing that Mr. Moore frequently referenced was stopping to think about what you wanted to play. Listening to the rhythm of the music and getting a feel for it in your head before you started to play. This would help you minimize any errors, which would save you time in the long run. You wouldn’t have to UNLEARN those errors first. I liked that.

Each lesson consisted of Mr. Moore teaching us how to learn his program. Seeing the music, learning hand movements, learning to listen, and learning how to diagram music.

Then learning how to translation that rhythm (so seeing the pattern that emerges from a sentence/line of music) into hand movements.

This video will help you understand this concept better. 🙂

The set up of the Music & Creativity Course helps you to know exactly where you are in the lesson.

You do need to tell the computer when you have completed each lesson so that you can move on to the next one. Marking it complete does not stop you from being able to redo the lessons, it just acts as a bookmark for when you next access your course.

I found some lag in moving from one lesson to the other. It wasn’t overly long but it was notice-able enough that I paid attention. Mr. Moore takes his time to explain how he wants us to think about music and gives us a variety of genres to provide interest. Blues, classical and contemporary pieces are some of what he plays. “Dreams Come True”, “Eliza”, “Christowel”, and “Black is Blue” are among the titles used.

My Thoughts and Recommendations

My Recommendation is easy. It’s free! Mr. Moore has a love for helping students learn to play music. It’s is easily accessible as long as you have an internet connection. Use it! It is an excellent way to evaluate his course to see if you want to upgrade. The upgrade itself is not expensive making it very doable.

If I could change anything: I would like a written transcript of the videos right with the videos. I would rather read what I need than listen to a video. My son likes the video but would like to have at least the main points witten along with the video. He says that would be helpful to him when listening to know what to pay attention to.

Check out the Reviews for Simply Music

45 members of the crew have reviewed the free program Simply Music. I urge you to click on the image below so you can read them.

Social Media Links:

Facebook: www.facebook.com/simplymusic
Twitter: https://twitter.com/simplymusic
Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/simplymusicinst/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/simplymusic/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/simplymusic

Review

What I am Reviewing

The Details for Miss Austen

My Thoughts

What I am Reviewing

How we used it

The Box

God the Reason

Course Set Up

So What Did we Think?

What I am Reviewing

Details for Ninja Cat

My Thoughts

What I am Reviewing.

Details of Calvert Homeschool

How we Used It

Details of Calvert Homeschool On Line

Two sections to Calvert

Parental Dashboard

Student Dashboard

Lesson Set up

Vocabulary Arcade

What a lesson looks like

Should You Use Calvert Homeschool?

What I think:

Would it be useful for high school students?

Social Media Links

What I am Reviewing

The Details of College-Ready Writing Essentials™

Easy to read

PDF’s mean options

Thoughts/Recommendations

Read Other Reviews

What I am Reviewing

The Details of Natural Disasters

The Layout

My Thoughts and Recommendations

What I Am Reviewing

The Basics of Simply Music

The Details of Simply Music

My Thoughts and Recommendations

Check out the Reviews for Simply Music

Want to Stay Informed?

Thank you!

Footer

Amazon Affiliate information

Tinker Crate Affiliate