Monday, July 19, 2010

TOS Planner, June Module, Discover the World

As part of the learning process for the Homeschool Crew I was asked to review one of their products. The kids and I are really looking forward to reviewing new material this year so it was very exciting to get our first item to review: The June Module of TOS's planner, entitled, Discover the World.

The module retails for $7.95, a great value!
It comes as a 52 page downloadable e-book, which is always great, because you get the book immediately. This is an add-on to the TOS Homeschool Planner, but it is not necessary to have the planner to use the module.

The module is a hyperlinked unit-study designed for students who love to use the computer to learn, or for those whose parent or older sibling can help them use the computer to learn. It is full of coloring, activity and copywork pages that can be used for elementary aged children, and then there are many additional resources and a high-school expansion pack making this a great study for homeschooling families with children in a wide age range. It also comes with recipes, resource lists and lapbook beginnings!

The June Module is a study in Geography and the seven continents. As you can see below my kids loved learning the song that was in the unit and we sing it all the time now! Even my just turned 3 year old knows the 7 continents!





Overall my 3 kiddos really enjoyed this unit study. Geography tends to be one of those subjects that gets left until the end in our homeschool. I know it shouldn't be that way, but it is. I am going to try and do better this year! This module gave us the perfect jump-start into Geography and the wonderful study of our world! I love how it took Biblical principles and Bible verses and related them to the study of the continents. My oldest enjoyed making the lapbook and researching where he would like to go. He chose China, although we have already been there once. The younger two just enjoyed being able to do something with their big brother and it was very nice for me to be able teach them all at once. The coloring pages were a great part that all 3 of the kids could enjoy. Paul was able to color and learn a little about the landmarks on each continent while the other two just enjoyed coloring and listening to me reading the information about each continent.

In our homeschool we like to take learning outdoors, and sometimes that just means me talking about various subjects while they play. It is HOT here in the south so we took learning to our tiny blow-up pool in our front yard and the kids had to answer questions before they could jump into the pool! As I mentioned above I was amazed that even the 2 little ones knew the 7 continents and the 5 oceans. Here are a couple pics of them enjoying our "pool" and learning at the same time!



If you are looking for a study that breaks things down into days for you this is not the product for you. There is enough information for a one-two week unit study but you have to decide when to start and stop each day. It works great for us because I just read and do as many activities as the kids want to do in a day and then we stop and pick up there the next time we do school--which is every couple of day since it is summer-time. It took us about 7 school days to complete the study.

You can purchase this product and so many more here. If you would like to see more reviews of the product you can go here.

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

3 comments:

Dawn said...

Hi! Here from the Crew...checking out other crewmates reviews. Yours was great - love the pics! Have a wonderfully blessed day!

Chris said...

Great review!! LOVE the pics of your kids diving into the pool- what a creative "teacher" you are :)
Chris

Catherine said...

Hello from a fellow TOS crew member. I'm spending a little time checking out some of the the other reviews. Nice job! I loved the video and pictures!