A Journey Through Learning Lapbooks

I’m pretty sure I have mentioned a time or fifty my non crafty nature. I can sew a little bit and I can crochet. That’s the end of my creativity. Give me a book or let me write and I’m happy. Paper and glue and scissors do not make me happy.

Enter A Journey through Learning and the dreaded lapbook…

I have used some material from A Journey through Learning before. We did a Government Unit Study during the elections that I reviewed here.

It was a well done study and we really enjoyed it so I decided to give the lapbook the old college try. I was sent 5 lapbooks to do...





We choose to start with the Autumn study. I gathered all the material, which consisted of file folders, glue, pencils, markers, a stapler and scissors. All things we already had here at the house.

I printed out the study and extra sheets so both girls could make one and we got started. Turns out, I was not required. How wonderful! I know that sounds terrible but if it is up to me to get these girls to do a lapbook we’re in trouble because, as I previously mentioned…not creative.



Basically, the girls looked over the directions and (my favorite part) the PICTURES in the directions! Then they assembled the file folders the proper way. They then read the first segment and began the activity that went with it. Then they did all the cutting and the drawing and the pasting. They LOVED it. It was really simple. I think my favorite thing about this study is the pictures. Not just drawings (though there are some of those two) but actual photographs of the finished product so the girls knew exactly where to put the things in the folder when they were done making them.



Honestly, if you’re new to lapbooks or of the very word makes you twitchy I HIGHLY recommend trying one of the many lapbooks A Journey through Learning has available.

My daughters are in 5th and 7th and in my opinion, the perfect age for a lapbook like this. For them it was reinforcement of things they already knew and not new learning, but they really enjoyed it. I think if you go too much below 2nd grade, the mom would have to be heavily involved. Which is fine, unless you’re like me and do not enjoy the cutting and the pasting.

I have no doubt that we will quickly make our way through the rest of the lapbooks A Journey through Learning sent me, and then I will have to purchase some more. We did our lapbooks last thing in the day when everything else was already done, and it seemed a good motivator to help keep them on track throughout the day and a nice way to cap off a day of school.

You can go here and check out all A Journey through Learning has to offer and see their prices here. (VERY reasonable pricing!)

And as always, you can click on the icon below to see what others on The TOS Crew had to say.




Happy Homeschooling!

Nutrition 101: Choose Life

To call Nutrition 101: Choose Life, published by Growing Healthy Homes, a health curriculum seems incomplete. It is more of a science curriculum. This baby is thorough!

The following 6 units are included in this 448 page book:

1) The Brain and Nervous System

2) Digestion and Elimination

3) Respiration and Olfactory

4) Muscular and Skeletal Systems

5) Cardiovascular and Immune Systems

6) Endocrine System and Emotions.

We barely scratched the surface of what this book holds. We did the Muscular and Skeletal System since it seemed appropriate right about now with what’s going on in our house...



To a homeschooler, everything’s a lesson, right?

We read over the lesson and discussed the discussion questions together. Easy. But the pictures and fun facts included make in very engaging.

We then went to the ‘Activities’ section and choose an activity to do. The girls decided to look up the skeleton online and found some really cool X-Ray photos. (be careful here, parents. As you know Google can be your friend but also your enemy!)

We also read several of the scriptures the curriculum pointed us to about bones.

Buy the time my Eve (pictured above) was ready get her cast on, she knew a lot of information about the bones and the skeletal system and was able to tell the Orthopedic Dr some of what she knew. (I think he was duly impressed so score one for homeschoolers!)

All in all, this is a very good curriculum. It could easily be used for an entire family, for a year’s worth of health/science.

Personally, I am still having a hard time with all the E-Books and would LOVE to own this in hardback. If you have it in your budget, I’d get the print version. I think for my family, we’ll probably take it to Kinko’s and get it printed out.

You can go here to find out more about Nutrition 101: Choose Life.

As always, you can click on the TOS Crew icon below and see what other crew members had to say.



Happy Homeschooling!

Study Pod

I think I should include some sort of rating system with the highest rating being ‘I could barely do the review because my children kept running off with the product’. That was the case with the study pod.

When it came in the mail they were unimpressed at first. It’s just a little unassuming black book shaped plastic thing. Ho-Humm.

But then I showed them what it was and what it did. Okay, in the interest of full disclosure my dyslexic and amazingly spatial son Bob, glanced at the pictures on the box and had it open and a book sitting in it before I could find the clasp. That kid is amazing!

Once the kids realized what it was, it has been completely unavailable for me to use.

So far it has been used in the following ways…

~ Will, the College Student, realized it will hold up his floppy, think, cumbersome Anatomy book while he is studying.

~ Eve learned it will double as an easel for her art canvas

~ Ann learned it will hold up her Daring Book For Girls, so she can look at the pictures and practice Karate moves. (I can’t tell you how much I wish I had my camera with me when I saw her doing that!)

~ I learned it will neatly hold up a single piece of paper with a recipe on it, without it flopping over, while I’m cooking.

~ Bob learned it’s very sturdy and if you try to place several textbooks on it to see how many it will hold and it falls off the table and crashes onto the floor, it will survive no worse for wear.

~ Bob also learned it will hold up the diagram to the lawn mower engine so he can look at the pictures without getting grease on everything.

You can watch this video to see the way it was intended to be used.



You can go here to check it out and see the prices.

And, as always, you can click on the picture below to see what other Crew Members had to say.




Happy Homeschooling!

College Prep Genius

I was sent College Prep Genius to review. Ahhh, the SAT. The SAT and I are not on the best of terms. Honestly I am frustrated by the SAT. We do not teach our children in the traditional, textbook/workbook way. We just don’t. Over the last 11 or 12 years (I’ve lost count) we’ve developed our own style of learning, it is more of a whole learning, whole literature, interest driven sort of philosophy. We’re not Unschoolers by any stretch, but I encourage my kids to follow their interests as much as possible as opposed to read the chapter, memorize the vocab, take the test, forget it all.

So, that being said, the SAT has always given me a looming sense of doom. That big test at the end of their schooling that says if I as the teacher passed or failed… Pressure much?

Because I’m nuts, and don’t like to do it the way everyone else does, I had Will take the SAT, last year cold. He didn’t study, he didn’t learn all the tricks, he didn’t read all the ‘how to beat the SAT’ how to books. I wanted to see what he knew. Not what test taking strategies he knew.

Turns out? Not such a good idea. He didn’t do as well as I had hoped. He didn’t bomb it, but I know he could have done better. I’m honestly not too worried about it because he’s taking college classes right now at the Community College. He plans to transfer to another CC after he graduates from highschool to go through their Paramedicine program. He’ll graduate from there with an associate’s degree in paramedicine and will have a way to earn good money to be able to go on and get a 4 year degree in the health sciences field. That is what he wants to do and I don’t think the SAT’s are going to make one bit of difference for him.

However, he is only one of my children. I have three others below him and if my experience with Will has taught me anything, it’s taught me that sometimes you have to play the game. Even if you don’t like to play the game.

Enter College Prep Genius. It is a course on playing the SAT game.

Simply put, College Prep Genius shows the tricks of the trade when it comes to the test. How to use logic and various, specific strategies to improve your score.

There are lots of SAT prep classes that run in the $100’s. But College Prep Genius is priced lower than that at $79 for the course and best of all, you can go through it at home at your own pace.

Here's the price breakdown.

Master the SAT Class DVD: $59.95
College Prep Genius textbook: $39.95
Class workbook: $15.95
Total value: $115.85

Introductory Price: (which is 30% off!)

$79

This also has a "100% Money Back Guarantee.

I’ll be working through this with my freshman and my senior in the coming months and I’ll let you know how it goes.

Final review to come…

As always, you can click on the picture below to see what other Crew Members had to say about College Prep Genius.



Happy Homeschooling!

Aleks: Updated

I was given the opportunity to review Aleks last year. You can see that review here.

There were many things I liked about Aleks, most of which included my children doing math without me. I love it when my children can do math without me.

The people at Aleks asked me to go back and review Aleks again, paying special attention to the things they’ve changed or updated.



One of the things they’ve improved is that now you can give your student a quiz whenever you want. A Pop quiz I believe they were called back in my day. Before you could only have your students take a complete assessment, which took quite a bit of time and was sometimes, really more than I was after. It is nice to pop over the quiz page and choose which specific topics you’d like your student to be quizzed on.



The other thing they’ve updated is the Master account. I really don’t remember the Master Account being a problem before, but I do like they way they’ve updated it. Everything is right there, at your fingertips to help you keep ut with your student’s progress.

The pricing structure for Aleks is as follows… You can buy a monthly subscription for $19.95, a 6-month subscription for $99.95, or a 12-month subscription for $179.95.



You can also click on the little button above and try out Aleks for 1 month for free. You can click on the TOS button below that to see what others had to say about Aleks.




Happy Homeschooling!

Hank the Cowdog

I was thrilled this year to see that Hank the Cowdog was on the list of vendors. Hank the Cowdog books were some of the first chapter books on tape that we tried when my boys were little. It really turned them onto books on tape. And being that I ended up with two dyslexic children, books on tape have really been a life saver!
I was sent three things from Maverick Books; (The Hank the Cowdog Publisher) the book The Case of the One-Eyed Killer Stud Horse, a game called Tornado, and Tales and Tunes from Hank the Cowdog

Now is where I have to admit to you that I never actually got a chance to do much more than glance at the products before they disappeared into the bowels of the house (aka, the children’s rooms). I was able to hear the CD playing from the girls’ room…and the silly songs being sung over and over and over and over, by my girls. I am not sure this is a good thing because shortly after they got all these silly songs stuck in their heads we all piled in the car for a 15 hour car trip…



The book had been previously read by my children, but it did get read again. In fact, when I asked the kids what they did with it after they read it, they said their cousins had it because they wanted to read it too!



And the game? Well, that was a huge hit. It’s a simple game, much like Trouble or Sorry, but the best thing about it??? Its size! It’s a TRAVEL GAME! I love those. We stuck it in our RV and took it with us on our two week CO trip. My daughters and their cousins had a blast playing this game. And with all the rain they had it CO during that two weeks, we adults were also ever-so happy to have it!

Personally, I love the Hank the Cowdog stories. They are cute, and just silly enough that kids love them. Hank thinks he’s big stuff but he often bumbles around and mixes up his speech in a way that children love.

His language is an issue for some as he does use ‘Ranch Talk’ like stupid, dumb, gosh and the like. My children were able to distinguish what was okay for them to say and what was not and that was never really an issue for us, but it’s something to be aware of.

I highly recommend Hank the Cowdog stuff, the books are great, but, I HIGHLY recommend the audio books. They are so well done and highly dramatized that my boys would sit for hours coloring and drawing and laughing their heads off listing to these books on tape.

You can go here to see the prices and find out more about Hank the Cowdog stuff, and you can click on the photo below to find out what others of the TOS Crew had to thing about Hank.




Happy Homeschooling!