Library and Educational Services LLC Homeschool Review

I post often about topics pertaining to history which ties into this review as we are a family of readers. My father told me often how he used to read when he was a child and continued to read as an adult. I admit that I didn't read as many books as I should but I did and continue to read. I love knowledge and have instilled that into my children. I was anxious and very eager to review Library and Educational Services LLC. If you have not heard of them, they are a family company that provide services to schools, churches, libraries, and resellers. They are perfect for the homeschooling family, church groups and teachers given the breadth of books and subjects they offer. 

For our review, we selected Who Were the Brothers Grimm?, Lifehouse Theater Pride and Prejudice CD, and the Primary Sources of Famous People in American History - Set of 11 from the Reinforced Hardcover Library Binding Nonfiction books.

The Details:

Who Were the Brothers Grimm?

My youngest loves the Who Was ... series to the extent that they've appeared on past Christmas wish lists. She picked Who Were the Brothers Grimm? If you aren't familiar with the book series, they aren't long in length and are filled with black and white illustrations. They provide an entertaining amount of information that covers the main facts about each person(s) they cover. Every time she reads one, I hear with such delight all the facts she learned about the person in question. She absolutely loves each one that she's read to date.

Her short review:

"I liked how it informed the reader on what it was like during their time and provided so much information on the brothers."

The words are of a good font and the books aren't too long to read. She's read many of the books in one sitting due to how captivated she becomes reading them.

Every Who Was ... Who Were .. has a timeline of the person's life compared to a world timeline of major events.

 

Lifehouse Theater Pride and Prejudice CD

This was one of my favorites mostly because I've read the book and watched many renditions of the movies. At 73 minutes in length, it's great for trips in the car or some time to sit around to listen and let the imagination conjure up images of how each character looks. Is Elizabeth the beautiful one or is it Jane? Is Mr. Darcy as dashing as you expect or just a prude? It's fun going through the audio and asking my girls what they think. The actors portraying each character is superbly done and makes me think I'm watching one of the actual movies.

There is a curriculum guide available too that includes a timeline of Jane's life, content and review questions as well as interesting facts, quotes by Jane Austen and a further discussion set of questions. I didn't have them write them out rather I utilized it as an open discussion session to make it more fun. One of the questions challenged them to provide some of their goals and accomplishments that they would like to achieve which was fun to hear their answers.

Primary Sources of Famous People in American History - Set of 11 from the Reinforced Hardcover Library Binding Nonfiction Books

The Primary Sources of Famous People in American History - Set of 11 from the Reinforced Hardcover Library Binding Nonfiction books included the following 11 books:

1. John Sutter California Pioneer
2. Wild Bill Hickok Legend of the Wild West
3. Wyatt Earp Lawmen of the American West
4. Cynthia Ann Parker Comanche Captive
5. Cochise Apache Chief
6. Sitting Bull Sioux War Chief
7. Francisca Alvarez The Angel of Goliad
8. John Paul Jones American Naval Hero
9. Abigail Adams Famous First Lady
10. Benjamin Franklin Early American Genius
11. George Washington Father of the Nation

Each book contained a Contents section broken into chapters for faster reference. They contained both color and black and white images as well as black and white illustrations to include maps and diagrams. Each one is very informative and written in a basic style to be read easily by children. 

Benjamin Franklin, for example, started with when and where he was born, and continued with his life and journey to make him one of America's early geniuses. It's followed by a timeline of his life, a glossary, websites to refer to, source for photos, and an index.

Another example is from John Sutter California Pioneer. Like the other books, they are 32 pages in length and full of engaging facts about the person. Each book provides just a brief but excellent overview of the highlights of their lives. It's a great series to have for any library with children. They did enjoy reading them and were able to finish a book a day when we had days designated for reading. I often would read and either before or after them and led open discussions to reinforce the important facts of each individual.

Library and Educational Services LLC also has a nice selection of DVDs, CDs, Bibles and more too. There are gifts and crafts and much much more! As former military, they ship worldwide to include military bases which is very pleasing. Every item we reviewed I loved and they did too. Although they did not find every one of the biographies from the Primary Sources of Famous People in American History as exciting as some, they still learned a lot and I definitely want to expand our library.

For a limited time, they have the Who Was? What Was? and Where is? books on sale!

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Time Travelers: The American Revolution by Home School In The Woods Review

We had an opportunity to review Time Travelers: The American Revolution by Home School In The Woods. It contains 25 historic lessons that can cover anywhere from 5-10 weeks of educational learning and fun and is part of the Time Travelers U.S. History Studies collection. This interested me because I am constantly researching my family history and had many ancestors who were present and fighting during the American Revolution. Sadly, there isn't more taught about this time period that really cemented our country into such a formidable nation.

The program includes tools to help teach to include the Teacher Helps which are most helpful to be printed before teaching the lessons. They provide everything as well as a one-page summary of supplies needed for the respective lesson. The Project Pages provides an opportunity to review ahead of time to ensure you have everything needed in advance. One of the things I liked about the projects is there are more than one to choose from allowing flexibility to meet my child's interests or what I have on hand to complete. Project Days are included in the schedule to give the child more time to complete as needed.

The lesson plan provides everything needed to plan the course and the lessons are broken into such topics as Colonial beginnings, the French and Indian War, issues that caused the war with England, the Continental Congress, George Washington and much more. It is recommended for  grades 3-8 and is compatible with Mac and PC. Downloading and accessing the course was very easy.

From there, we only had to click on start and the window for the course opens and provides the following menu:

• Acknowledgements/Copyrights and Usage/Bibliography
• Introduction
• Tips to Consider Before Starting
• Teacher Helps
• Text Lessons, Project Pages, and Project Masters: (grouped by lessons)
• Lessons 1-5
• Lessons 6-10
• Lessons 11-15
• Lessons 16-20
• Lessons 21-25
• Other Resources:
• All Master Pages
• Gallery of Project Photos
• Lap Book™ Instructions

The lessons are set up in a variety of ways:

• "Twaddle Free" projects are focused on penmanship, creative writing, composition, critical thinking, vocabulary and the use of a little imagination which is essential in my opinion.
• Fifty Lap Book™ consists of notebooking and cooking projects ... yes, cooking!  How much fun this was! There are also games and other activities that were a hit with my children. 
• Optional opportunities to expand the learning adventure with suggested videos, books and more.

Flexibility is the name of the game with the course and as noted above, projects can be chosen as not all have to be done. Also, the lessons can be completed over more than one day or however is best for your child's needs. The Time Travelers U.S. History Studies collection and Project Passport World History Studies can be adapted up or down grade levels per the website. After reviewing our Time Travelers, I agree it can be utilized for younger or older students. I didn't review Project Passport World History Studies or Timeline Collection: A Collection of Historical Timeline Figures, but both look extremely interesting. Further down in this review, you will have the opportunity to click and review what others within the Crew thought of each of the various options available.

As you get started, it's a good idea to have supplies on hand as there is a lot of printing and paper projects. Some of the suggested items include white paper, colored printing paper, white card stock, colored card stock, glue, tape, double sided tape, acetate, colored pencils and three binders. The Tips to Consider section details much more with the course.

It's also a little confusing if you don't read the information provided so I'd highly recommend doing so. The keys to the program for the pages are broken down and are very thorough. 

As we started with Lesson 1, Colonial Beginnings, one of the things that I really liked were the penmanship quotes. Not only is copy-work important in that it helps to reinforce what is learned by rewriting, but it also helps to teach correct grammar usage. Every quote for the penmanship lessons also provide the option to print three types of paper for the copy-work exercise that is most suitable to your child. The first option is the text present and the child traces over the pre-written quote. The second option are dashed lines to record the copy-work. The final option is standard lined paper. 

As the course details, you can choose which projects to complete as well as which lessons you want to teach. Lesson 1 provided us the opportunity to build a Jamestown Replica. Although she did not finish it, we did have fun starting it.

There were many other learning activities that accompanied the lesson but for the purposes of this review, I'm going to jump to lesson 6.

When we reached lesson 6, it was all about the troubles in Boston. The project below referenced an anti-tea poem that was published before the American Revolution in American newspapers.

Home School In The Woods has a variety of hands-on products ranging from timelines, maps, lapbooks to history lessons. The unique approach is learning through activites which I find is a fun way to learn and we definitely liked Time Travelers: The American Revolution. They include so much in the activities and if you check out the blog, there is even interesting posts such as Adding Interest to History with Recipes. Another fun post is Imagination + History = Dress Up! Dressing up has been always been fun for my children and particularly my youngest. Thanks to my love of Jane Austen awhile back, I introduced her to more about her and gave her a period piece dress which she adored.

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Apologia Exploring Creation General Science, 3rd Edition Review

We had the opportunity to review Exploring Creation with General Science, 3rd Edition by Apologia. The set included the Textbook, Student Notebook, Solutions and Tests and a Test booklet. One of the nice features of the curriculum is the Student Notebook's schedule that allows the course to be taught over a full school year. We completed the coursework for approximately an hour a day, four days a week. Apologia notes that the Student Notebook is the key to the curriculum in that it helps students transition out of elementary to middle school thus preparing the student(s) for high school. Geared towards those in the 7th grade, it was perfect for my daughter. 


The Textbook

The Textbook contains a well-rounded general science course with a large focus on Earth Science which is one of my favorites from college. From Astronomy to meteorology to geology and paleontology and more, it's just enough information to spark an interest in to what could be a child's future career. Of course, there is more ... much more. They have thought of so much when writing this curriculum to prepare the student for higher levels. The book contains 14 chapter-modules with a suggested completion of 2-2 1/2 for each chapter-module. Another component that I like about the Apologia curriculum is how it's constructed to reinforce what is being learned through activities such as the "On Your Own" questions and the Study Guide questions.

The "On Your Own" questions are completed as the student reads the text and the Study Guide questions are completed at the end of the chapter-module. Utilizing both will ensure a greater chance of mastery. In addition to those two activities, there are experiments and Explore More boxes to complete. A note, Apologia recommends a student completes all the experiments but the Explore More are more discretionary.  


The Student Notebook

The Student Notebook is essential for the course and contains a daily schedule and the ability to take notes. From my experiences with college as well as in my career, the ability to take notes creates a successful environment. The same goes with this course as a student will be more successful by getting in the practice of taking notes, will become proficient in recording what is important and it reinforces what they are learning. It's a win-win altogether.

Daily Schedule

The Student Notebook provides a thorough explanation in how to grade the course which I found extremely helpful as they break down each of the components. We began the course and reviewed the first module together. As noted in Module 1, Week 1, Day 1, it starts out getting the student acclimated to the course with writing out definitions, writing, answering questions, starting the timeline and getting the student in the practice of marking off their work which is a good exercise in responsibility. 

As we continued with the course, she continued to be able to work on her own for the most part. I would review the pages with her to see if she had any questions and post grading, I would review how I graded some of her work which helped her to learn from any mistakes. The experiments were fun and matched the reading material allowing both another way to reinforce what was being taught as well as a break from reading and answering questions.

Here is another example of a later module at week 4:

After she completed the lesson, she took the test:

Solutions and Tests and Tests for Exploring Creation with General Science, 3rd Edition


The Solutions and Tests and Tests for Exploring Creation with General Science, 3rd Edition provides all the solutions and answers for the test questions. There is also an informative 'before you begin' section to assist the teacher/parent in moving forward with the test portion. I liked the format of the test as it offered variety and wasn't just multiple choice. It required the student to think and process what they learned in answering some of the questions.

We started out using the curriculum Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. We only conducted experiments on one day of the week to allow enough time to really utilize them to learn. The experiments were a favorite of my daughter's and the entire section of "Introduction to Labs" was helpful. The experiments continued from very easy to harder and I peeked ahead just to get an idea of a later module.

Take a Look Ahead

Module 6 is Earth Science - Geology and Paleontology. This is the really cool experiement that we are both looking forward to. Experiment 6.1 is growing crystals! The experiments are set up with the following outline:

Purpose
Materials (needed)
Question
Hypothesis
Procedure
Conclusion

The corresponding lab pages follows/repeats the same outline except it has sections to have the student record their notes and answer questions.  Here is an example:

Apologia mission:

"Our mission is to help homeschooling students and families learn, live, and defend the Christian faith through our print and digital curriculum and online classes."

Overall, we are enjoying the course and maybe it's more so me but she's not grumbling completing the questions. She even told me she's learning a lot and likes how it's Christian based. The best part for her our the experiments. We look forward to moving through the rest of the modules and definitely recommend Exploring Creation with General Science, 3rd Edition by Apologia.

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Jump In, 2nd Edition by Writing with Sharon Watson: A Review

I told my middle child that I wanted her try out Jump In, 2nd Edition by Writing with Sharon Watson and I was met with resistance as she's not the type that likes to write unless it's what she wants to write about. After getting her convinced that she might like it and should give it a try, she found she actually did like it. What makes Jump In, 2nd Edition so nice is it is as student directed as possible meaning she's able to complete her lessons on her own and I only have to check daily answers and utilize their new specific grading grid for her essay assignments if I prefer.

There is a choice to have either the physical copy or it can be downloaded.

Jump In, 2nd Edition is for grades 5-8 and has been utilized with homeschools, co-ops and Christian schools. The key to the course is to teach students to write in the four common modes of persuasion, exposition, description, and narration. 

TEACHER'S GUIDE

The Teacher's Guide has a robust Table of Contents as this is a course designed to cover a four-year time period. The proposed schedules allow for parents/teachers to adjust to how they would like to utilize the course with their student(s). I like the flexibility as well as knowing that one course can be so versatile. We are going to use the two-year plan which guides us as follows:

• First Year: Complete "Get Your Feet Wet" through "A Report."
• Second Year: Finish "A Biography" through "Poetry."
• Complete each end of chapter essay by first putting away the next chapter assignment. The suggestion is to allow the student to focus and not be rushed which I like AND she likes too!

Another key feature from the Teacher's Guide is the Teacher's Backpack full of tools to help teach the course and produce no tears or maybe less tears! From helping to teach them how to proofread to different modes of writing, it's all available to help the teacher teach. 

For the inexperienced teacher or even the reluctant teacher, as well as the seasoned teacher, it's a one source for teaching and grading the course. I even learned a lot from the Teacher's Guide and suggest reading ahead of every lesson to produce a confident approach with teaching. My girls look up to me so I have to make sure I seem confident with what I'm teaching and the Teacher's Guide provides everything I need.

The next section is called Sample Essay Evaluations which provides examples and guidance on how to grade your student's essays while still being encouraging. There are sample essays with a commentary as to why each one received a grade of A, B, C, D or F, respectively.

The next session, 10-Minute Writing Plunges Programs, contains enough Plunges (or prompts) that will last over the school year. They are to be used either to give the student a break from lessons or to be their own task. Some examples include: "I think the leader of my country should be..." and "Something good about me..."  These really were fun to do and did provide a needed break on days that she was not really feeling inspirational. I found that when I wrote my own responses and we read them to each other, she had more fun and enjoyed it.

STUDENT'S GUIDE

The Student's Guide is easy to follow and literally jumps in with the lessons. The Table of Contents provides an easy reference for each chapter and name. What I find most relevant about this course is how it appeals to children and their thoughts. The very first paragraph reaffirmed to my child that Sharon Watson gets it. She understands how children think and can relate to them in a most sincere and productive way. As I mentioned above, my daughter was very reluctant to try another program but as I read the first paragraph to her, this hit a cord:

"Writing may send warm shivers of pleasure up your spine. Or you feel as though you are drowning in an angry, choppy, icy sea with nothing in sight but hungry, toothy sharks."

As soon as I finished that part, she lit up and I could see that she realized she was not alone and this book acknowledged her feelings. Her mood immediately changed and she was willing to give it a go. It also provided me better insight to how she felt about writing as I didn't know how to ask the questions that were presented to her. For example, in Get Your Feet Wet, she was asked in question one, "what types of writing assignments are difficult for you?" Due to her responses, I now know why she always grumbled over my request for book reports.

She moved through the skills or daily lessons three days a week and seemed to enjoy most of them. I did not have to remind her to complete her work as she was diligent in completing them Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

MY DAUGHTER'S REVIEW:

"The lessons are very short and easy to do. It usually takes about 20 minutes maxium to finish a lesson per day. Natually, I would complete more than what I was instructed to do because I enjoyed it. The directions can be difficult to understand sometimes for me but otherwise I really enjoy doing these. It helped me brainstorm ideas! I would write about anything for about 10 minutes and then fix what I might not like or did incorrectly afterwards. They teach to write first and go back and work on any issues afterwards."

OVERALL THOUGHTS

I really liked how Jump In, 2nd Edition by Writing with Sharon Watson utilizes smaller lessons to teach over 98 different writing skills. The concept of teaching students to write paragraphs first and eventually essays is brilliant in starting smaller versus the whole paper. It's less intimidating and allows the students to just start writing without worrying about accuracy and it really appealed to my daughter. It allowed her to freely write without interruption as she knew she could return and correct. 

As I looked forward to future lessons, I can definitely see how they will aid in her being able to expand on her thinking processes and add more to what she's writing. For instance, Chapter 7 or titled Reports, expands on organizing by using the outline method. I'm also looking forward to the chapter called Narration as it goes through the methods from setting the scene, descriptions, dialog and more to encourage greater depth in writing by still using simple approaches that aren't intimidating. It becomes a fun way to teach and I expect she will continue to enjoy the lessons. I would recommend this course.                                                                                                                     
   

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