Having received a free 3 month access, I was asked to review Lesson Planet as part of the TOS Homeschool Crew. Lesson Planet is a subscription based website where you will find over 225,000 online lesson plans and worksheets that have been reviewed by teachers. You can get a free 10 day trial of their website and then if you choose to join you can subscribe each year for $39.95.

What you will find is that you can search their website by various categories such as grade level, subject, and topic to find what might interest you. These items are not on their website but you will be directed to them from the Lesson Planet search engine. Each item is also given a star rating of 1 to 5 by teachers. For example, you can search for either lesson plans or worksheets based on a topic like astronomy or frogs. You can pull up items by subject such as English. You can also limit what comes back by grade level.

What I liked was that, from this one location, it was easy to search based on the various categories in order for me to find different lesson plans and worksheets for me to use in our homeschooling. Each item has been reviewed by teachers and has been provided with a rating so I know whether someone else has found it useful. If you were a homeschooler looking for various materials and ideas this would be a good place to start your search.

For me though, I have to be honest to say that I found most of the lessons were geared toward a classroom rather than for a small group of children. The lessons also are written with a teacher in mind so most of it was not very useful for the homeschooling methods of our household. I did find some worksheets that were helpful but for the most part it took me too long to find things I could use and adapt to our homeschool style. Another thing to bear in mind was since there were a lot of items that not all can have their links confirmed and I found several to be broken links when I was searching for items.

However, just because it was not something that I found to be useful in my homeschooling, does not mean it may not be a good fit for you. I suggest trying out the website for a free 10 day trial and see for yourself. Also please check out what my fellow homeschool crew members said about Lesson Planet here on our homeschool blog.

I was provided, for free, several of the Super Star games to review as part of the TOS Homeschool crew. Super Star DML Publishing has both a Speech Therapy line of materials as well as educational games.

Our family tried several of their educational games.

Each game is reasonably priced at $3.50 and can be purchased and downloaded through currclick.com. One of the games we played was Planets, Moon and Stars which is targeted for grades 3 and up. Each player answers trivia questions as they collect the various planets in order to win the game. This was a great supplement to use while we learned about our solar system. Explorers of the World allows you to play both a matching and time-line game where you learn about 24 different explorers. In the Road to the Revolution game, you learn about the American Revolution as you answer questions about the various people, places and events of the Revolution. All of the games by Super Star Publishing are a great way to add an element of fun while learning about the various subjects.

You can view the various educational games that they offer here at http://www.superstarspeech.com/homeschool-games.html

As I previously said, Super Star also has a line of Speech Therapy materials. From their website:

“The Super Star Speech materials have been designed by a speech-language-pathologist to assist parents in helping their children achieve developmentally appropriate speech and to provide some of the necessary resources to do speech therapy at home. The focus of these books is the correction of articulation (speech sound) errors.”

If you are interested in learning more about their speech therapy materials please visit their website here for more information. Also feel free to check out what the TOS Crew members that reviewed some of their speech therapy materials and their educational games had to say about them here at our Homeschool Blog.

Already for the TOS Crew I have reviewed the All About Spelling program and its beehive reader book 1 (Cobweb the Cat) in the All About Reading books. Now I have the privilege to have received a free copy of the beehive reader book that goes along with Level 2 of the All About Spelling program, What Am I?. Even if you do not use All About Spelling, your child will sure to love the book itself as a stand alone or to go along with any program you currently use.

What am I? is a delightful collection of stories that my daughter absolutely adored. She has read the entire book several times already. When it came in our mail she snatched it up because of how much she loved the first book we had received. What I love about the book, What Am I?, is that my child can read a “real” story without the frustration of trying to figure out words that she cannot already handle herself. So many first readers contain words that your child needs help with from an adult because they are beyond their skill level. If it is not that , then the stories just don’t really make much sense. This is not the case with the All About Reading books that go along with the All About Spelling program. My daughter once she has gone through the level she is at in All About Spelling can take the companion book and read the stories for herself. She develops a sense of accomplishment that allows her to feel confidant in her reading abilities and makes anything feel possible to her. Not only do we enjoy the stories but the illustrations that go along with them.

You can purchase the What Am I? book for $19.95. Since it was just released it has not yet made it to their website for ordering but should be available soon. Check out their website at http://www.all-about-spelling.com/ for more information on this and their other products.

For other reviews on this book by my fellow crew members, check out our blog here.

My daughter first encountered Pilgrim’s Progress in her Sunday school class at church. I found out about it when she was talking excitedly about this book they were reading and how her teacher was going to let her borrow it once they were done. I said “Honey, I own that book you don’t have to borrow it.” She was so thrilled and used to read it every night before bedtime in her room. What does this have to do with the product reviews for TOS Homeschool Crew you might ask? Well I received complimentary copies of two books from the Terrestria Chronicles series by Ed Dunlop (Cross and Crown Publishing) in order to review as part of this year’s crew.

The books I received were the first two in the series:
The Sword, the Ring and the Parchment
and The Quest for Seven Castles.

The books in this series are Christian allegories similar in nature to Pilgrim’s Progress which is why I mentioned my daughter already having loved that book. You can see why I was excited to receive these two books to review.
Rather than give away the story line, you can go here to get a description of both of these books.

Needless to say I was thrilled about the quality of these books from the stand point that they were well-written, very descriptive, meaningful morals and values in the storyline, not to mention that it was an interesting setting and plot. This series is written for ages 10 and up though I suspect all ages can get something special from this series especially if you read it together as a family. We plan on going further with these books and at the very least creating a book report from it in form of a lapbook.

You can purchase each book in this series for $7.99 or receive the entire collection for $39.99.

Check out this series for yourself at http://www.talesofcastles.com/terrestria-chronicles.htm

To find out what my fellow Crew members also had to sy about these books you can visit our TOS Homeschool Blog here.

Another TOS Homeschool product I received for review was from The Critical Thinking Company.

I just love learning about new companies I have not heard about before. This time was no exception. I received a copy of Balance Benders (Beginning) for free to review, it is a book of logic problems that help to work on a child’s deductive reasoning and pre-algebra skills.

The beginning book is geared for grades 2-6. How it works is there is a picture of a balance scale at the top of the page that your child has to analyze and use to solve problems on the page based on what is shown for that scale. You can view a sample page here on their website.

I gave the book to my 7 year old to try and she absolutely loved working on the problems. The book starts out easy and works to more difficult problems and concepts. At first you are shown balance scales with items that weigh the same and you use those to determine what equations are correct. Later your child has to deal with inequalities in order to determine the solutions to the problems.

At first I was not sure what to make of the book itself until my child and I started working on the problems. After going through a few problems, I saw it as a wonderful way of learning critical thinking skills that will help my child develop her reasoning skills as she works through more difficult math concepts.

The Balance Benders book can be purchased here at the Critical Thinking Co. website for $9.95.

Check out what my fellow crew members have to say about this and other Critical Thinking Co. products here on our TOS Crew blog.

Ok. With the way the economy has been, I believe it is really important to teach your kids how to properly manage and handle finances at an early age. Much to my surprise, Family Mint was one of our vendors this year for our Homeschool reviews for the TOS Homeschool Crew. I honestly had no clue what they were about until I explored their website.

Family Mint provides a free subscription to their website that allows you to virtually set up your own family bank so that you can set up someone (preferably a parent) as the banker and establish accounts for each of your family members. They have a secure website for you to use so that you need not worry about that while using their service.

It allows you to process your transactions and set goals and such for your personal finances. For the most part it acts like a real bank. We set up our kids to have separate accounts, had them set up goals for their money, took their deposits so that they had to request a withdrawal and went from there. What a great way to start your kids off in learning the value of money and how to deal with their own personal finances properly. You can also use Family Mint in a virtual way by using pretend money or virtual money and teach lessons that way as well. Maybe set up a unit study and use it as a way to make things seem more real for your kids.

I suggest that you explore the Family Mint website and check it out for yourself. Their website contains a lot of information and discusses their service in more detail so that you can make a choice whether or not you feel like it would be a valuable tool for your family.

Right now Family Mint is a totally free resource and eventually they are adding a paid subscription area as well.

Check out what my fellow Crew members have to say on our Blog here.

For anyone looking for math products, here is yet another product that I received to review as part of the TOS Homeschool Crew. Galaxy of Education provided me with a choice of products to try out and review from their Math Galaxy product line.
Here is a list of their list of products broken down by the type of product:

The following items are math programs (for PC and MAC) that provide specific topics that your child can focus on learning as well as games associated within each one. When you bring up the program the topic areas show up in red and the games are shown in blue boxes. You can see an example of one of the main windows for one of these programs below.

Whole Numbers Fun- grades 1 thru 4

Fractions Fun – grade 5

Decimals, Proportions, % Fun- grade 6

Word Problems Fun- elementary thru middle school

Pre-Algebra Fun- middle school level

Algebra Fundamentals- for algebra students

Other products are worksheet generators which create a math riddle for specific subject areas for your child to use the answers of math problems in order to determine the solution to a riddle:

Whole Numbers Worksheet Generator

Fractions Worksheet Generator

Decimals, Proportions, % Worksheet Generator

Algebra Worksheet Generator

Lastly there are two e-books that are math riddles as well:

Whole Number Riddles eBook

Fraction Riddles eBook

The products we tried started at basic math up through algebra concepts. These items are all standalone supplemental math products. I have to admit my initial reaction once i downloaded the various products was that they were a bit outdated as far as the look and feel of the products and not as sophisticated as some math programs you can buy. However, if this is not important to your child and once you get into the actual content of the products you may also be surprised at how well they help as a supplement to your existing curriculum. My youngest not only learned but had fun while working with the various products she tried. The e-books such as the Whole Number Riddles eBook were fun ways to motivate learning by incorporating riddles into solving math problems. The only thing I would have preferred was if the printables would have been in black and white only in order to save color ink for printing. However I just turned my printer on to gray-scale and this worked out well for me. Overall what you get when you use Math Galaxy products is the experience of a step by step approach to learning the various math topics, you get games to reinforce those topics, fun riddles that your child can solve by doing math problems and challenges for your children using graphical representations and logical approach to learning the various topics.

You can purchase the above individual math programs and the worksheet generators for $29.95 each and $14.95 for the individual e-books.

I suggest you take time to explore the Math Galaxy website for yourself to learn more as well as to see what other things they have to offer.

TO read what my fellow TOS Crew members had to say about Math Galaxy, please visit our blog here.

Children’s Bible Hour Ministries provided me with a complimentary copy of Seasons of Faith book series in order to provide an honest review of it as a member of the TOS Homeschool Crew.

Each book encourages children to learn more about their faith in God. Based on the CBH radio scripts these books are wonderfully illustrated and unashamingly discuss the Gospel of Christ as their main message to children that read them.
The books in this series are:

Race with Midnight

You Can’t Come In

Seventy Times Seven

Braving the Storm

Each story is based on a different season of faith that teaches your child about basic Biblical truths. The books each come with an audio CD so that your child can listen as they read along in the book. My youngest has listened and followed along with each of these four books and has enjoyed each one. I am very pleased that these books are wholesome books full of good values and messages for my children. Each book ends with a clear and easily understood message of salvation which would make it a good book for a Christian home or Sunday school classroom.

You can purchase each book separately for $10 from the CBH website. From now until April 15, you can receive free standard shipping when you order the entire set of four books. Simply use the code FREESHIPAPR15 when you check out.

Check out what my fellow Crew member had to say about this book series here at our Blog.

Home School in the Woods is a name many homeschoolers are already aware of. Many have used some of the history products that Amy Pak has available through her website.

As a member of the Homeschool Crew I received a free set of the Olde World Style Map sets (US and World)

The first thing I thought of when I received this set was that this would be excellent for history notebooking and unit studies. In fact as part of the set there are notebook pages that you can print and use in addition to the maps themselves. With either the World or US map sets you receive over 130 maps and a bonus of notebooking pages. Sometimes when you are studying history you leave out the places where things happen. You can use these map sets to fill in the complete picture of history for your child.

You can view samples of these two sets from the Home School in the Woods website here at http://www.homeschoolinthewoods.com/HTTA/OldeWorldMaps.htm. Though I can say the images on their website don’t show how wonderful these illustrated maps really are in person. When I printed several of the maps to include in my kids’ history notebooks I was amazed at the detail and quality of the images.

You can choose to purchase individual sets as downloads for $18.95 each or for an extra dollar you can receive it on CD. If you choose to buy both map sets you can purchase a combo download for $28.95.

Check out what my fellow Crew members had to say about the Olde World Style map sets here on our Blog.

ARTistic Pursuits is an art curriculum that I have heard many homeschoolers talk about but I had never experienced it until I was given the choice of reviewing any of their art books as a member of the TOS Homeschool Crew. I chose to receive a free copy of Junior High Book One: The Elements of Art and Composition. My daughters and I are fairly artistic but we were excited to receive an art book to explore. I gave the book to my oldest daughter and we did a few lessons together.

I plan on allowing her to work independently with the book since it is so well written that it allows your child to work by themselves. The books from ARTistic Pursuits exist for all school ages from Preschool through Senior High.

Each book provides well-rounded instruction on various techniques and teaches art appreciation and history and has various projects in each section. To get a better idea of their curriculum you can read the teaching philosophy of ARTistic Pursuits at their website here.

I like this art curriculum because my daughter is learning some art history and art appreciation as well as various techniques along the way. This program lets your child explore their own creativity and develop their own sense of their artistic abilities. Some programs make the students do things step by step and stay within a virtual box when learning and this is not what ARTistic Pursuits is all about. I taught homeschool art lessons in my home and I took a similar approach. I had parents tell me they appreciated the fact I did not make their kids draw and paint everything in a predetermined set way. I feel that ARTistic Pursuits fits well in my vision for teaching art so I plan on continuing to use this art curriculum for my kids.

You can view details of The Junior High Book One on their website here and can purchase this book for $42.95.

Check out what my fellow Crew Members said about ARTistic Pursuits on our Blog here. You will find reviews for the different books in the ARTistic Pursuits curriculum.