Young Minds - Numbers and Counting

 
The Young Minds series from Math Tutor DVD was created to introduce young children to the joys of learning math at an early age.

Young Minds - Numbers and Counting is over a half hour long and uses beautiful real life pictures and classical music to teach children to count from 1 to 10. It also teaches such things as animal names and sounds, fruit and vegetable names and colors, and machinery names and sounds. In the background is music by Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Vivaldi, Brahms, Pachelbel, and Chopin. This integrated learning approach is to keep children interested and promote continued learning.

Extra Features include Puzzles (using real photographs), Connect the Dots, and Guess the Animal.

It can be purchased from the Math Tutor DVD website for $19.99. They do offer a 30-day money back guarantee.

OUR EXPERIENCE

This video is very engaging, well done, and a pleasure to watch. It does teach numbers by counting each item in a group individually. So for those of us who teach our children to recognize numbers in a group by sight instead of by counting, it will be better utilized once our little ones reach the counting stage. I am very impressed with the professional presentation and would feel comfortable in recommending its quality to anyone.

I will also be doing a review on one of Math Tutor DVD's numerous other math products.

You can read here what other Crew Members thought.

 Disclosure:This product was provided to our family for free as members of the 2009-2010 Old Schoolhouse Magazine Homeschool Crew. No further compensation was received. Reviews and opinions expressed in this blog are my own.

ACT Advantage - EXPLORE / PLAN

If you are looking for tools to help you determine your student's college readiness, ACT Advantage might be of interest. This review is for two of their products: EXPLORE and PLAN. I previously wrote a review of their college and career planner DISCOVER. ACT Advantage also provides ACT Test Preparation materials.

 

EXPLORE 

The ACT EXPLORE Test is given to 8th grade students to assess their skills and knowledge and to prepare them for the ACT test. Students are tested in the core subjects of English, mathematics, reading, and science.

The EXPLORE packet from ACT Advantage ($22.95) includes a sample test booklet, an explanation of the test results, and a booklet  showing college readiness standards as well as ideas for progress for different test score ranges.

 

PLAN

The ACT PLAN Test is given to 10th grade students to provide a midpoint review of their college and career readiness while there is still time to make adjustments. Students are tested in the same core subjects as the EXPLORE test.

The PLAN packet from ACT Advantage ($22.95) includes a sample test booklet, an explanation of the test results, and a booklet  showing college readiness standards as well as ideas for progress for different test score ranges.

 
OUR EXPERIENCE

These sample tests are similar in layout to other national standardized tests we have taken. I found the tests to be quite easy. I ended up having my 7th grader take the EXPLORE test designed for 8th graders. And I had my 9th grader take the PLAN test designed for 10th graders. Even with those changes, they did extremely well.

Once you have scored the tests, you can check the included charts to see how your student compares to the national norms for his/her grade. As usual, these percentiles did not give me an accurate picture of how my students are doing. I do not like to measure them against their peers but rather against their potential. What was beneficial, however, was to use the College Readiness Standards booklet to see in what areas my students need to improve based on their actual scores. Specific activity suggestions are given for each subject.

Even though I found the tests quite easy, the ACT Advantage sample tests can be an inexpensive way to determine your students' strengths and weaknesses.

You can read here what other Crew Member's found with the ACT Advantage Products.

Disclosure:This product was provided to our family for free as members of the 2009-2010 Old Schoolhouse Magazine Homeschool Crew. No further compensation was received. Reviews and opinions expressed in this blog are my own.

Maestro Classics

 

"Stories in Music" from Maestro Classics was created to expand listening horizons, develop listening skills, accumulate musical memories, and to encourage adults and children to listen to music together. I have to agree that these CDs can definitely do all that.

 

We received the CD for The Tortoise and the Hare. But we didn't receive just a story. The CD was delightfully packed with 6 parts.

1)The Story - In the story, different voices depicted each character. Wonderful music from The Philharmonic Orchestra was woven throughout.

2)About the Story - This was a great segment that told about the story, the author, and whatever other information might make listening to the story more meaningful.

3)A song - On our CD the song played and sang was the Pretzel Vendor of Paris Song.

4)About the Music - This was a very interesting segment where the composer explained how he chose the music for the different parts of the story. This was almost my most favorite part of the CD and I was very impressed with his choices.

5)Now That You Know a Little More - Here the story was played again so we could listen with our new knowledge of the music choices.

6)Want to Have Some Fun? - This section played just the music from the Pretzel Vendor of Paris song. We were encouraged to sing along from the booklet that accompanied the CD.

So this was definitely a full CD we received. But about that enclosed booklet I mentioned earlier. Also included were pictures of all the orchestra instruments and a lesson on notes, fractions, and time signatures. And since our story was The Tortoise and the Hare, the booklet gave information about turtles and tortoises and rabbits and hares. It also told about the contrabassoon which was a special instrument used in the story. As if that weren't enough, the booklet had short activities such as dot-to-dot, word jumble, and a crossword puzzle. It also told us about the conductor/composer, executive producer, and the narrator.

TITLES AVAILABLE - (CDs are $16.98 each or 3 for $45)
The Tortoise and the Hare
The Story of Swan Lake
Juanita the Spanish Lobster (in English or Spanish)
Casey at the Bat (Gift set also available which includes the book)
Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel (Gift set also available)
The Sorcerer's Apprentice
Peter and the Wolf

DID WE LIKE IT?
ABSOLUTELY! My 6 year old daughter has listened to The Tortoise and the Hare many, many times since it arrived. And now that I have been able to listen to all the parts of this almost hour long CD, I am very impressed. These are very well done. I will definitely be watching as the selection grows so I can add to her audio book collection. Although now that I know about all the other gems included, I am going to want to listen to them too.

Please read what my other Crew Mates had to say. And definitely check out Maestro Classics. These fun CDs would make great gifts.

Disclosure:This product was provided to our family for free as members of the 2009-2010 Old Schoolhouse Magazine Homeschool Crew. No further compensation was received. Reviews and opinions expressed in this blog are my own.

Mathletics

Mathletics is an online math program that can be used as a full curriculum program or just a supplement. There are two parts to this program. In one, the student works on problems and receives instructions. There are even printable worksheets to compliment these lessons. In the other, the student chooses from 5 levels of difficulty to compete live against other students around the world doing math facts.

My 13-year old daughter was the lucky candidate to test this program. The program has a game-like atmosphere and seems like it would be very good for students with short attention spans. She got to create her own character. Then as lessons and competitions were completed, points were awarded to her account which could be used to buy accessories for her character. Each week, a "Character of the Week" was chosen. Also as she reached certain point levels, more games unlocked.

Mathletics also has a Parent Center where I could select tasks for my daughter and access the printable workbooks. I could also view the Student Center to see how my daughter was doing on the exercises. Reports were emailed to me show her progress.

COST
Mathletics costs $59 for 12 months per student. They do have a 10-day money back guarantee. If you have a group, you might contact Mathletics to see if there is a group rate available.

FINAL WORD
Overall, my 13-year old daughter thought this was a fun program but has used others she liked better. Make sure to read the Mathletics experience of other Crew Members.

Disclosure:This product was provided to our family for free as members of the 2009-2010 Old Schoolhouse Magazine Homeschool Crew. No further compensation was received. Reviews and opinions expressed in this blog are my own.

Tektoma Game Tutorials

My teenage girls have been enjoying the game tutorials from Tektoma. These tutorials utilize the Game Maker software and are a great way to make a start in game building.

In order to utilize the Tektoma tutorials, you will need to download Game Maker and the Game Maker resources (no additional cost). The Tektoma website gives directions on how to do this.

Once you have downloaded these resources, you are ready to begin the video tutorial to create the game of your choice. There is a racing game, arcade game, memory game, platform game, and a fantasy adventure game. The beginning tutorials are about an hour long. The more advanced tutorials are 1-2.5 hours long. You can also download an example of each game.

There are shorter tutorials on how to build a racetrack, improve the looks of a platform game, create and use custom icons, create a standalone version of a game, make a game play in full screen, and add an inventory system to your game.

The program is for ages 7 and up. However, younger ages may need assistance. The tutorial directions are clear and take the designer step by step through the process. The website indicates if the game may contain objectionable material.

Tektoma offers a 14-day free trial after which you would be charged the subscription fee. You may cancel your membership at any time during the free trial and not be charged. The fee for a year of full access is a one-time payment of $140 or $14.95 per month. The 14-day free trial is part of your annual membership.

My daughters picked the racing game to work on and definitely had fun. You can read here what other Crew families found.

Disclosure:This product was provided to our family for free as members of the 2009-2010 Old Schoolhouse Magazine Homeschool Crew. No further compensation was received. Reviews and opinions expressed in this blog are my own.

Food Enzymes

I love to research things, especially nutritional topics, and my latest project has been digestion. So for part of my research I did an experiment with two brands of food enzymes that I had in my cupboard.

I took 1/2 cup of cooked oatmeal in 3 bowls. The first bowl didn't get anything added. To bowl #2 I added the contents of one capsule of Rainbow Light's Advanced Enzyme System. To bowl #3 I added the contents of two capsules of Nature's Sunshine Food Enzymes.

 

As soon as I stirred the Rainbow Light capsule contents into bowl #2, the oatmeal instantly became liquefied and broken apart. (You can see the difference between the two bowls.)

 

After about 30 minutes, the oatmeal in bowl #3 with the Nature's Sunshine capsule contents had softened but was still quite a bit more solid than bowl #2.

 

Here are the three bowls after sitting on the counter all day. Bowl #2 is definitely the most "digested". Bowl #3 is still about twice as thick as bowl #2. However, bowl #2 is much softer than bowl #1 with no enzymes.

Oh, and I learned how to turn on the date/time stamp on our camera in the middle of my experiment.