Lesson Planet

Lesson Planet is a subscription website what has over 150,000 lesson plans and 75,000 worksheets for you to choose from, broken down in to the following sub headings.

• Art and Music
• Health and Nutrition
• Geography
• Research Resources
• Social Studies
• Education
• Language Arts
• Math
• Science and Technology

I poked around some, on this site, looking for various lesson plans on various subjects. To be honest, I was a bit disappointed because what I found was very classroom oriented and not quite what I was looking for, for my homeschool.

I could see the benefit of this site if you were teaching a co op or ran your homeschool a little more like a traditional school.

There is much to choose from on this site. If you are interested in learning more about Lesson Planet and think this would be a help to you in teaching your children, you can take advantage of their 2 week free trial.

You can go here to learn more about Lesson Planet and you can click on the icon below to see what others had to say about Lesson Planet.

Happy Homeschooling!

Super Star Speech.

I have three games from Super Star Speech to review for you today. I have Covering the Continents, Planets and Silly Snail Game.

Covering the Continents is a game about; you guessed it, World Geography!
This game helps the students learn basic geography and facts by ‘settling’ the countries

Planets is a multiple choice card game about the planets. This is a fun way to help cement what a child has been learning.

Silly Snail Game is a board type game where the player advances through the game by identifying the part of speech in a sentence correctly.

Honestly, I was not sure how I was going to like these E-games. How does that work? Seems strange to have a game that comes out of my printer; but I have decided I like it and here’s why.

Let’s be honest. Kids are not going to flock to the game cabinet and choose these types of learning games. They are going to play them because Mom said they can play a game instead of writing something for school one day!

I can buy this game, (FOR $3.50!!) for a very reasonable price and print it off in whatever quality you want. If you think you’re going to use it a lot, print it off in card stock and laminate it. If you just want to play it a few times and then move on, just print it off on regular paper and then throw it out when you’re done. The upside of this is that it’s on your computer and you can print it off again if you want!

Super Star Speech also has a speech program to offer, in fact this is it’s bread and butter. It is designed specifically for homeschool families to use to work with their own children, which is brilliant!

You can go here to find out more about Super Star Speech, and you can click on the icon below to find out what others have to say about Super Star Speech (including reviews for the speech program!)

Happy Homeschooling!

Who Am I?

I received the book Who Am I? from All About Spelling to review for you. I reviewed another reader from All About Spelling earlier in the year for you as well. This book was just as good as the first.

I personally love what All About Spelling is doing. These books go along with their spelling program which is really an in depth phonics program in the earlier levels, and they are planning on adding a reading program entitled All About Reading later this year.

I think spelling, phonics, learning to read, all these things are interconnected and I love the way All About Spelling is creating a comprehensive program to get earlier learners off on the right reading/spelling foot. I think this program would have been a HUGE benefit to my two dyslexic children.

But, alas, all of my children are quite past this stage now.

I love the illustrations in the books All About Spelling is publishing. They are so sweet. The stories are very cute too and very appealing to the little ones (and Mom too!).






You can go to All About Spelling to find out more about their program and their plans for future curriculum. And you can click on the icon below to see what others on the Crew had to say about All About Spelling’s reader Who Am I?

Happy Homeschooling!

Tales From Terrestria

I received two books from author and evangelist, Ed Dunlop to review for you. They are books 1 & 4 in the Tales from Terrestria Series.

These books are set in the same mythical world as his first series, The Terrestria Chronicles. The Terrestria Chronicles are…
Book One: The Sword, The Ring, The Parchment
Book Two: The Quest for Seven Castles
Book Three: The Search for Everyman
Book Four: The Crown of Kuros
Book Five: The Dragon's Egg
Book Six: The Golden Lamps

These books should be read in order. At the end of the series, the story stops. It is finished; however, as Mr. Dunlop says on his website, there are more Terrestrian stories to be told. Enter Tales From Terrestria.

There are 3 books so far in this series though Mr. Dunlop plans seven stories total. They are stand alone books that can be read in any order.

The Quest for Thunder Mountain, The Golden Dagger, & The Isle of Dragons are the titles available now in this series.

I was sent The Quest for Thunder Mountain and The Isle of the Dragon. As I do with most books, I skimmed them, and then handed them off to my reader, Eve. She is the right age for these books and she has read many, many, many books written with this age group as the aim, so she is usually able to give me a good gauge as to the books appeal.

Eve liked them okay; they were not her favorite however. I think, though she was not able to articulate this, she is turned off by books with an overt ‘message’. A story should have a purpose or a point, to be sure, but if the point is so strong that the story gets lost, then something is wrong.

However, I as a parent understand how scary it can be to just let your child lose in a library. There is a great deal of garbage out there. I do appreciate that there are authors that are creating works of fiction that tell a story, are interesting and fun, but don’t offend me with their overt agendas or put things in a story that have no business being in a book marketed to pre teens.

I think this series would especially appeal to boys. It is the type of book you would expect to find much magic and sorcery in because of its fantastic nature, but it contains none. This will be a HUGE selling point to many.

Overall, I think these books are worth adding to a home library. My book snob was not 100 percent impressed, but she did read them both and then ask if we had the original series. I think she may have been more intrigued that she let on.

You can go here to find out more about Mr. Dunlop's books and you can click on the icon below to see what other Crew Members had to say about these books.

Happy Homeschooling!

Critical Thinking Co.

I have, over the years, used many of the products put out by Critical Thinking Co. I have never met a CTC product I didn’t like, so when I heard I was going to get to review something from them I was thrilled.

When I received Balance Benders in the mail, I immediately opened it up and tried to do the first page. Um, huh? I didn’t get it. I sat down and tried again. Nope. Don’t get it.

I flipped to the front of the book. 2nd – 6th grade. Well. That’s comforting.
My girls (5th and 7th grades) came into the room. We all stared together. Huh?



Then in came my 9th grade boy. He is dyslexic and also struggles mightily in math, but is Mr. Fix it. He builds decks and carports etc, has his own lawn and tree trimming business. He’s a hands-on guy. He picked it up and in less than 30 seconds, without even reading the directions, did them all. Then flipped to the next page and did all of them, and then he laughed that we could not figure it out.



Once he explained it to us, we got it, but I must admit here. My brain does not work this way. I’m a language girl. These balance shape things put my brain in a tangle. But after working through it myself I can see its benefit. IT’s like exercising. I could see that each page got easier because my brain was stretched out for it!

I honestly think this is a great addition to a math program. It’s not ‘mathy’ so your child will probably like doing this math supplement! And for us non-mathy people, it’s probably a really good exercise!

And just in case you were wondering. As soon as my son explained the concept to my daughters they zipped through it too. I guess the saying about old dogs and new tricks is truer than I’d like to believe!

You can go here to find out more about Balance Benders (GREAT price). You can go here to find out more about Critical Thinking Co and you can click on the icon below to see what others had to say about the CTC products.

Happy Homeschooling!