A Net in Time

Curriculum and book reviews, faith, homeschooling and more!

Review

Terrific Tigers – DownLoad N Go Review/Contest

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I bought Terrific Tigers from Download N Go. I bought it because my lad loves cats! Oh boy…if I can make whatever we study involve cats or bunnies I”m set, so this study was just meant for my lad. You can buy it from download N go right here. 🙂

I then learned that I could earn this unit study free by doing a review on it for DNG. I was thrilled! So I haven’t gotten my free unit study yet (because I haven’t told them what I want), but regardless I just find doing reviews fun. 🙂

Anyways, the lad enjoys this study very much. I’ve reported that we’ve done day one and two and three and Day four and finally we got to Day Five. I have had a couple of really crazy weeks so we haven’t done a whole lot with the rest of the unit study beyond looking at what we’ll be studying and watching some of the videos.




What can I tell you about this study. It can be done as a lap book, used as a unit study, or you can do your own thing with it.

The boy loves it. 🙂

We did not do it as a lapbook. We simply took one day at a time and printed out the pages, watched the videos, answered questions and did crafts.

THIS UNIT IS PACKED!

Crafts, videos, information about tigers who are related to cats. 🙂 Books to read – some tiger informative, and others just using tigers as the main character), places to explore (the countries that cats come from), and cats to visit. We took some side detours to visit other cats,

So what do you learn?

Day One: What is a tiger.
Day two: Getting to know Tigers
Day three: where are the tigers?
Day four: The science of tigers
Day five: Cool things about Tigers

Did you know that a tiger is bigger than my son’s bed? — this fact was very funny to a lad.

Did you know that a tiger can run faster than cars are supposed to go down our street?
“whoa mommy, they are fast!”

Did you know that tigers have webbed feet? From what I recall…not every tiger does, but the sumatran definitely does. This elicited a HUH? from my lad.

Made me smile one day … We talked about tigers having cubs. So what does the lad do for the rest of the morning? C – U – B, Cubs, tigers have cubs. C – U – B, cub, tigers have cubs! Over and over and over again.

I have to admit, that a five year old can not do everything in this study, but that’s the joy of homeschooling right? We have the luxury of being able to change things, add things, write things down that are verbally spoken and so forth.

One of the fun things that we did in this study was to act out a mommy tiger teaching her young cub what to eat. We played young tigers going to school with their mommies and they had to do everything the “teacher tiger” told them to. So mommy tiger taught the baby tiger how to pounce and on what type of animals they pounced on. We had a hoot playing out on our neighbours lawn (who has a huge lawn and could care-less if we play on her lawn). 🙂 The lad laughed and learned which is what was wanted.

Looking ahead to day four I can see us having fun roaring like a tiger and seeing how far away we can hear each other. Can we roar as loud as a tiger can?

This has been a really fun study thus far and we are looking forward to doing the rest of it.

Before I forget… here are more reviews on this unit study for you to look at. 🙂

Oh! Almost forgot that I’m allowed to give away one copy of this study to a reader. Isn’t that cool? 🙂
Okay, so what hoop will I have you jump through?

Well.. tell me that you stopped by. Make sure I have a way to contact you without having to jump through hoops trying to find your email address. If you tell someone else about the contest, let me know with a separate post (for instance, facebook it, blog it, tweet it etc). You have until next Wednesday (October 27) to do this. It will be a random draw (as in your name goes in a hat and the lad will pick it out).

IF you are a TOS/DNG affiliates including the DNG Review Team and TOS Crew you are not eligible (sorry those are the rules).

Molly’s October Digest

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I got Molly’s Money-Saving Digest for free in exchange for reviewing it. I’ve never seen one of Molly’s Digests before so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect.

She starts off the digest with a variety of recipes, they look pretty decent. She also included this REALLY neat bird wall thing that I just thought was very cool and made me think that even I could do something nifty like that for my walls. 🙂 Following this was a menu plan to help you maximize your food… so using leftovers to make a brand new meal and such like. Some of those recipes looked downright yummy.

Knowing that it was on Socks, Suds and Savings made me somewhat skeptical. Why on earth would I want to read something about laundry? After all laundry is something one does once a week, and you just get her done.. one doesn’t dwell on it. 🙂

It’s packed full of information.. from how to sort, how to read labels, to tips to help you not have to do as much ironing (which incidentally I despise doing and tend to totally not do). It is just chock full of links to various sites as well.

I can’t say I learned a whole lot new as my mother took her job seriously about teaching me homemaking skills BUT I did indeed learn something new and even my hubby learned it as I excitedly turned around and told him that we could make our own wooler balls! (as opposed to buying those expensive blue plastic things). 🙂

I did wish that the children’s sorting area had been increased a bit, to make the explanation fuller. But overall I thought it was a product well put together, and for those in need of laundry assistance, to definitely pick it up for themselves.

You can purchase your very own copy by going here.

Library books – October 5

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It’s Moving day by Pamela Hickman

The lad likes this book. He asks questions. He learns some facts, though not all are accurate. It starts as it finishes and he really thinks that is interesting.

It is a blue Spruce award book.

Benjamin’s Balloon by Alan Baker

A favourite of the lad. He likes the borrow the phrase “not bad for a beginner”. Just catches his fancy.

Tiger Can’t Sleep by S.J. Fore

This is a fun book. It has a tiger in it, so life is good. As Justin says “he’s a silly cat!” The closing always brings a smile.

When Stella was very, very small by Marie-Louise Gay

Another Blue Spruce award book, the lad found this book intriguing the first couple of times we read it, but he hasn’t requested, picked it out, or wanted me to pick it out since then. I thought it a decent read for the under 8 crowd.

You can’t rush a cat by Karleen Bradford

The boy loves this book, and it’s one that an adult could enjoy reading to their child as well. Fairly deserving of being a blue spruce award book. That little cat is just TOO intriguing.

Little Lions by Jim Arnosky

This book is a huge favourite. We’ve had this book out for ages and ages. Just loved this book. It’s a simple read, good contrasts, and caused questions to be asked. Good book.

Tiger by Nick Butterworth

Yes, we got tiger out again. A favourite of our boy. A young tabby cat who wants to act like a tiger. Good book. Just loves this book and has it well memorized.

Hardworking Puppies by Lynn Reiser

A battle I think will ensue between a boy and his father. We plan to get a dog in the spring…the boy wants a beagle. HE LOVES the beagle, he’s met three and this book has a beagle in it and therefore is a oft requested read. The boy’s father says NO BEAGLES! 🙂 It shall be interesting to see how this one turns out. 🙂

The Subway Mouse by Barbara Reid

What an enjoyable book to read. It’s another blue spruce award book. The lad enjoys this book. I read it and wonder hmmm… could I turn this into a lapbook or unit study??? 🙂

Tigers – Kate Petty

an informative book, the lad enjoyed reading it as a supplement to our Tigers unit study by DownloadNGo.

Stanley’s Wild ride by Linda Bailey

An enjoyable read, it’s another blue spruce award book. An oft requested read by the lad.

How hot was it? by Jane Barclay.

Fun fun fun. This is just a fun read. A blue spruce award book.

Stanley at Sea by Linda Bailey

Like the other Stanley book, this one has been well enjoyed by a boy child. Caused questions to be asked which I always like. 🙂

Fly Guy books by tedd arnold

if you haven’t met the fly guy books yet… go get ’em. They are fun read and the young crowd thoroughly enjoys them. The librarians at the London library recommended them to us. 🙂

The F Team by Anne Laurel Carter

The lad was unimpressed by this book. He just didn’t like it…couldn’t even finish reading the book. Also a blue spruce award book, but this one was a no go.

The Farm Team by Linda Bailey

Read this book twice with the lad, but the lad didn’t really like it. The big bear…the boy didn’t like him. “he’s bad mommy”.

Little Bunny’s Pacifer Plan by Boelts

The lad likes this book. I’m hoping to use it as an encouragement to give up the thumb sucking. 🙂 We’ll probably get it out again since the lad likes it so much.

Review: The Middle School Student Schoolhouse Planner

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Middle School Student Schoolhouse Planner.

I was sent this e-book to review and I have to admit, they managed to impress me. They did. And quite frankly…most planners don’t really thrill me. It’s like I have this mental thing of “what can they give me that I can’t figure out on my own”? But this planner, indeed, it amazed me. Wow…they packed a WHOLE whack of things into this planner. Loads of calendar pages, planning pages, goal pages, conversion charts, and more. Basically…you name it…it will have it. It is packed with tidbits of information that every middle schooler needs to know. Very well done. I was quite pleased with this planner by the time I finished looking through it.

I have to admit that as a Canadian I was displeased with the amount of focus there was in the United States (as much as I expected it), but also as a Canadian I was very pleased that an American company had some focus on Canadians (three pages of info indeed!). 🙂

I would happily recommend this planner to anyone who wants to help their middle school scholar get their year organized.

Review: Math in the Right Direction

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Math in the Right Direction: Forms of Sequential Memory That Affect Learning By Anne-Marie Laliberté-Denis is a WeeBook published by The Old Schoolhouse.

I have to admit, the second part of this e-book titled I found a bit intimidating… what exactly is Sequential Memory
and just how will it affect learning and will I be able to remember it? That of course didn’t stop me from reading the book. 🙂

The author points out that as home-schoolers we “have the opportunity to tap into the different forms of sequential
memorization (really learning math), thereby avoiding re-teaching or frustration when faced with skills that just don’t seem to “stick.” ” We are not limited to working with 25-30 students and having to primarily work with short-term memory (knowing enough to pass a test). We can use different methods to help our student(s) retain the information that they need to.

I appreciated the fact that the author listed some different things we can do to help students get their facts into their long term memory.

This book is worth reading. 🙂

Review: Getting to the Root of Writers’ Block

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Getting to the Root of Writer’s Block By Kim Kautzer is a WeeBook published by The Old Schoolhouse.

Writing is a process, not an event. Children trained in the process of writing learn to view the final draft as merely one of several steps in an evolving work. And when the steps seem doable, even the most intimidated writer stands a chance at accomplishment.

That paragraph sums up this whole book for me. Writing is a process, it has steps in it, and one needs to learn those steps in order to write decently.

The author goes on to speak about different things we can do to encourage or help the struggling writer. From brainstorming, to provide concrete ideas to start with, and so forth. But the biggest thing we can teach our children when they are learning to write is… one step at a time leads to a finished product.

Review: Career Explorations for HS Students

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Career Explorations for High School Students: Pursuing their Dreams ByCarol Topp is a WeeBook published by The Old Schoolhouse.

I was sent this to review by The Old Schoolhouse. And I have to admit, right up front… we’re not there yet. My lad is only five so I’m reading this only to see what it has to say and if it’s something that I think I’ll like to read again in the future.

The author emphasized that choosing a career is a process. Things in life change, and therefore, so does one career. She went on to explain that there are four steps to career exploration and gave us a list of resources one might wish to look at when going through this process.

Overall, well written piece and one worth looking at again in 10 years or so. 🙂 For those of you further along in the process, it worth looking at now.