Math Facts Now Review

Anyone who has taught Math knows that instant recall of basic Math facts is so important in later math skills. For kids who haven't learned the basics of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division facts it is hard to move on and learn more advanced math. The problem comes in when a homeschooling Mom simply doesn't have the extra time it takes to practice the facts daily. In comes "Math Facts Now" to the rescue! I was recently blessed with the opportunity to review this downloadable program. The program is very reasonably priced at $15.95 for the download. You can get the CD version for the same price with an additional $3.95 shipping and handling charge. Considering that this product is something that you can keep forever the fee is super reasonable, especially if you have multiple children that will be using it through the years. I know we will use this program for all 3 kids for years to come! The program does not have a set age group. It is geared to work for any age that needs to master any of the 4 basic math skills!

Math Facts Now is simple but so effective. It is not a program to teach the basic facts, but instead it reviews the facts, after the student has some knowledge of the facts, so the student has quick recall.

You can set up the program to do as little or as much as your child is capable of. For Zach, my 5 year old, we worked on addition. We started with just adding ones and moved on to more difficult. With him I give him the maximum time allowed to answer the questions and fewer questions to answer. For Paul, my 9 year old, he is working on mastery of his multiplication facts so we work on all his multiplication facts. Some days he works on a particular set (say his 8's) while other days he reviews his 4's or 5's and still other days he works on all of them together. And some days he reviews addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. I can also adjust the amount of time he had to answer the question depending on what facts he was working on. The program also has the child type in the problem when they get it wrong. You can adjust how many times you want the child to type it in. This really helped both boys with the facts they struggled with the most. It is not a "fancy" program with lots of graphics and video gaming style. It is simply flashcards on the computer--which was perfect for us!

You can also review how your child did and print progress reports for your child.

The best part of all is that both boys ask to play this "game". They love it!!! What kid loves flashcards...not many, but both mine love Math Facts Now which is just flashcards on the computer! So, take a look at the product here and hear what other crew members have to say here!

Disclaimer: I received this product for free in exchange for my honest opinion of the product. There was no other compensation given for the review

Apologia's "Good Morning God"

Thanks to my participation in TOS's Homeschool Crew I was recently given the opportunity to review a new book being published by Apologia Press.

Good Morning, God is written by Davis Carman and illustrated by Alice Ratterree and is geared for 1 - 8 year olds. It is about a 4 year old boy as he goes through the week with his family. Each day it talks about how he worships God in the morning, what he does during the day and what he prays each night. It also offers a one week Bible "curriculum/study" to go with each day. The book has beautiful illustrations and is reasonably priced at $14.00.

I was very excited to receive this book and thought my two youngest would love it. The pictures are beautiful and it is very well written. Unfortunately my kids weren't as impressed as I was at first. Zachary (age 5 and very energetic) did not want to sit and listen to the whole thing since it is very repetitive. Molly (age 3) listened intently and enjoyed the story and very much enjoyed the pictures but did not ask for me to read it again. Paul (age 9) was much more impressed than the other 2 were. He is an avid reader and typically reads much more difficult books (novels) but he still really liked this book! The younger ones did enjoy their big brother reading it to them.

We were able to use the "curriculum" in the back of the book and we really liked it. Each day offers a scripture reference to read as well as questions to get your child(ren) thinking about God and dwelling on the things He does for us. Anything that gets my children thinking more about the things of God I am definitely a fan of. There is also a simple activity to go with each day. It is perfect for a simple devotion to start or end your day. Or it can be expanded for older kids to be a more intense Bible Study.

You can read more about the book here. And don't forget to see what other TOS Crew Members thought about it here

Disclaimer: I received this product for free in exchange for my honest opinion of the product. There was no other compensation given for the review

KB Teacher Review

As part of the TOS Homeschool Crew I was asked to review KB Teachers. There goal is to be the one-stop shop for all your teaching needs. It is a website full of worksheets for all subjects as well as webquests and various other teaching tools and clipart. They have some of their material available for free but most of the material is watermarked until you sign up for the premium membership. The membership is priced at a rate reasonable for most families $29/12 months or $49/24 months.

There were two features with the premium membership that I used the most, the math worksheet generator and the custom handwriting worksheets.

The math worksheet generator is just that - you pick the operation and the details and it produces a worksheet. With a click of the mouse you can create a new one. This was perfect since Paul is working on multi-digit multiplication and he needed daily practice. They currently do not have a division worksheet generator that has remainders but there is a note on the site that they are currently working on that, so we (or I guess "I") can't wait for that one...Paul won't be too happy about more division worksheets!

The custom handwriting generators were great because I could make similar worksheets for all three kids with just a little tweaking. For Molly I used the large letter to color and then a line of writing that letter and one word. For Zach I used the six print words and then for Paul I just switched those same six words to cursive and it worked great!

Another benefit is they are constantly adding new material so you can go back often and find new things to print. Also, if you don't find what you are looking for they encourage you to ask and they will try to find it for you, and if they can't they will make it for you...you can't get much better than that!

They do offer a ten day free trial as well as a 30-day money back guarantee so if you are looking for a website to print some resources from you can give them a try without the risk of losing your money.

I do want to make sure and mention the lack of Christian-based material. They do not claim to be a Christian based company so I don't expect alot but something would be nice to see. Also, I was excited to see their "dino" workbook and thought my dinosaur loving 5 year old would really enjoy it. Before I printed it out I was careful to look at all the information and it does mention "millions of years ago", and supports the "old earth" theory. We are careful not to have anything like that in our home so I was not able to use that "dino" workbook. I did not look at all the other science worksheets but I imagine they are also "old earth"/secular worksheets as well. It is easy enough to ignore those worksheets and use the math and other worksheets we did enjoy, but I wanted to make sure my readers know this is a secular company.

I should also note that they are currently working on redesigning their site and I will be sure and check out the redesign and see what changes they make, and I will make sure and post about it on my blog.

Be sure to take a look at what other crew members had to say here.

Disclaimer: I received this product for free in exchange for my honest opinion of the product. There was no other compensation given for the review

Corps Of Re-Discovery - Tomahawk Kit - Review

As a part of the TOS Homeschool Crew we were recently given the opportunity to review a Tomahawk Kit from the Corps of Rediscovery.

You can find the tomahawk kit here for a very reasonable $5.50.

We are right in the middle of our study on frontiersmen in American History so the tomahawk fit in perfectly with our History lessons. Paul is also a HUGE Braves Baseball fan so a tomahawk was fitting for that as well. He loved this project. It was very easy for him to complete with a little supervision from me. All the pieces that were needed were included in the kit...except for the paint if you choose to paint it, which we chose not to do. The instructions were very simple and easy to follow for a bright 9 year old. I think 8 or 9 would be the youngest that would be able to complete this project mostly independently. The tomahawk was well made and lots of fun for the kids to play with. You can also purchase the Tomahawk as part of an American Indian Package, as a part of the Frontier Craft Pack, or as a part of the Lewis and Clark Expedition Study Pack. I think all of these kits would be a wonderful addition to a History Curriculum or as a quick unit study on their own.

You can also find many other project kits for your History studies at Corps of Rediscovery site.

Check out what other TOS Crew Members had to say here.

Disclaimer: I received this product for free in exchange for my honest opinion of the product. There was no other compensation given for the review

Collectorz.Com Review

As a "typical" homeschooling family, we have books EVERYWHERE...

Zach's are in a basket by his bed...

Molly has a basket by her bed...

Paul has a drawer by his bed...

There's an overflowing bookshelf in the "office"

More bookshelves in the old "schoolroom"/school storage room

Books on my nightstand...

And of course there are books on the toilet...

Books in the playroom floor from today's playing...

Books on the shelves in the schoolroom...

More books on different shelves in the schoolroom...

And that's just SOME of our many books! So, when I was asked to review Collectorz.com book edition I knew it would be a great product for us. The "Book Collector Pro" is a great deal at $49.95.

Basically you enter your books in with either a scanner or using the ISBN code. I did not purchase the scanner that is sold separately. Entering the ISBN code was plenty quick enough for me, although it did take quite some time to enter all 758 books I have entered thus far! The program catalogs the books by genre and anything else you want to add in the "category" section. It automatically fills in the pertinent information such as author, title, publisher, and much, much more, as well as a picture of the cover. For us, this means that when we are doing a unit on fish, or dinosaurs, or American History, or if Paul wants a Star Wars book or whatever the kids decide they want to read about I can simply pull up Collectorz and search for all the books on that topic. Although, it doesn't help me then LOCATE the book on our many bookshelves it does let me know what books we have so that I don't go buy another book. So, I then go search the shelves knowing that is there somewhere, instead of thinking "Did I get rid of that book"

You can also purchase an application for the iPhone that allows you to upload your list so you can have it when you go book shopping. I haven't done this yet but plan to before I start searching for books at curriculum fairs in the Spring. I don't know how many times I have been at a Homeschool Fair/Expo and thought "Do I have that book" or have I just looked at it many times. Now I will know! In a nutshell I loved this product and think many homeschooling/book loving families will find it very useful!

Don't forget to check out Collectorz.com to see this as well as other products for movies and music inventories!

You can check out what other TOS members have to say about the product here

Disclaimer: I received this product for free in exchange for my honest opinion of the product. There was no other compensation given for the review.