Redhanded Homeschool High Fives ~ Our 2017 Crew Favorites

It's time once again, as the Homeschool Review Crew year comes to a close, to choose our Redhanded Homeschool's High Fives for 2017.  I can't believe another year is behind us.  There were about 75 vendor "runs" this year.  My family reviewed 47 products to share with you.  Plus two single reviews for The Old Schoolhouse Magazine.

For the 2017 Homeschool Review Crew Blue Ribbon Awards, voting is very difficult in some categories.  We must choose *just one* vendor or product in each of the Crew's categories.  I've relaxed that rule for my blog.  'Cuz it's my blog, natch!  So where the punks or I loved more than one thing, I'm giving them all High Fives.

As usual, there are old favorites, new treasures, and things I've "had my eye on" for someday.  These favorites are all products that I would, actually have, or might again really pay money for it.  I think it's important that you can trust that when I tell you we absolutely loved something, I really mean it was *that good*.

Malachi's High Five
Carole P. Roman.  We really like her If You Were Me and Lived In... series, but Mal especially enjoyed our first fiction book from Carole, Oh, Susannah: It's in the Bag.  Actually, they all did and we have since read the second book and they're hoping for more.  The reading level is a bit below the older punks, but they love the stories, just for fun.

Xavier's High Five
First, Xav tried to choose Stopmotion Explosion again.  I told him he had to stick to products we reviewed in 2017, so he voted for The Brinkman Adventures - season 4 (see Merrick's High Five below).

Merrick's High Five
The Brinkman Adventures - season 4.  The Crew reviewed season 2 in 2014.  Since then, I've purchased seasons 1 and 3.  These fictionalized versions of real life missionary stories are always a hit.  They have a curriculum out for season 1 that I want to check out at some point, too.

My High Five for Moms
Homeschool Rescue from Only Passionate Curiosity.  I only managed to get through part of the program during the review period.  Now, I'll have a bit more time and I intend to finish it through once.  Then I want to work through it once each year to update our homeschool plan.
SchoolhouseTeachers.com is way more than just classes for the kids, though it certainly is that.  We've used this off and on since, I think 2011, when it started.  Back in those "olden days" if you had a subscription to the print Old Schoolhouse Magazine, you were given SchoolhouseTeachers.com access until your subscription ran out.  I had over a year of it.  About a year after it expired, I won another year in 2013.  In 2014, 2016, and 2017 I received access as a reviewer for the Homeschool Review Crew.  Hey, we're all family.  :)  I have decided to not return to the Crew in 2018 for various reasons, so I purchased two years during the BOGO sale last week.

These curriculum favorites are products we are still using, have completed this year, or will continue to use in 2018 and beyond.

Language Arts High Fives
Crafty Classroom's Learn to R.E.A.D. program - Merrick loves having his own school stuff that no one else does and the notebooking pages are so much fun for a Kinder.
Channie's Handwriting and Math Workbooks - I only reviewed the one handwriting workbook for littles, but I liked it so much, I ordered handwriting journals for the bigger littles and several math workbooks.
Reading Eggs - We've had Reading Eggs before.  I liked it so much, I was willing to pay for it when the bigger punks were littler.  Now Mal and Merrick are happily using it.  Merrick also likes to dabble in MathSeeds, though it placed him lower than I thought he should be.  I consider MathSeeds "just for fun" school.

Math High Fives
CTCMath.  Always.  And it's now a complete math curriculum for grades K-12. Another curriculum I have happily paid for and will again.

Science High Fives
Think Like an Engineer from Innovators Tribe is so much fun with all the hands on challenges.  I love that we are encouraged to include the whole family in this subscription.

Social Studies High Fives
Drive Thru History - The Gospels.  The Drive Thru History series is fantastic.  We're also using the American History videos for part of Xav and Mal's history this year.
Heirloom Audio ~ In the Reign of Terror and Captain Bayley's Heir.  While I have reviewed other Heirloom Audio titles for the Crew, I have also purchased copies of other titles in the series.  These audio dramas are crazy good.

Extra-Curricular High Fives
Creating a Masterpiece.  I wish we had been able to fit more of Sharon's lessons in before our subscription expired, but we really enjoyed learning how to make real art while we had it.
Doctor Aviation with Daryl Smith.  This one expires pretty soon and we enjoyed it a lot, though we didn't get through as much as we would have liked.

My Bonus High Fives
Lamplighter's The Secret Bridge.  While this wasn't the best book I ever read, I enjoyed it and it opened up a whole new world of literature for us.  Since this review, we toured the Lamplighter Ministries Book Bindery and purchased five or six more books and three audio dramas.  I especially recommend Sir Malcom and the Missing Prince and Teddy's Button.
Northern Speech Services' Color My Conversation was one of those "didn't know I needed" kind of curriculum.  We did set this aside, but will be picking it back up and starting over after the holidays.


Check out the *Official* Homeschool Review Crew Blue Ribbon Award winners and look in the Linky to read about my Crew Mates' family favorites.

Innovators Tribe ~ A Homeschool Crew Review

When Innovators Tribe showed up in the upcoming vendor list for the Crew, I sent Dad the link and asked if he thought Xav would be able to use the course in any meaningful way.  Xav's my STEM guy.  Well, minus the "M" - math.  He loves experiments and hands on work.  Thinking Like an Engineer looked like something right up his alley.  Dad said he thought Xav could do it, but he knew he would definitely LOVE the course.  Wayne Kroeplin's (Mr. K) courses are for grades 6-12 with some wiggle room.  My punks are in 5th and 6th grade, but math is a struggle.  *So far* math hasn't been an issue at all.  They haven't needed it for anything.  Not even to succeed in the challenges.  The best part about this class is that you are *encouraged* to invite everyone in the family to participate *together*.  This has given us some fun memories of supporting and working alongside each other.  (And believe me, those moments are few and far between.  We seem to be in a very competitive stage.)

Thinking Like an Engineer is a pre-recorded online course.  Pacing is decided by you and your family.  We took a pretty leisurely pace and generally watched one lesson or completed one challenge each week.  Certainly, your students could work at a faster pace.  I think a video/slide show lesson plus a challenge (or more!) in the same week is completely doable.  At one lesson and one challenge, you would spend about 2-3 hours on the course for the week.

Each unit has a "journal" to fill in with the information found in the videos, sort of a guided notetaking page.  The lessons also have assignments.  We've had various amounts of success with the journals and assignments.  One assignment is learning about an engineer that is involved *somewhere* with a topic in which the students are interested.  Well, Mal is only interested one kind of "engineer" and that's a *train* engineer.  I have directed him to transportation engineers and we've looked up how engineering is used in the design of trains and railways.  It isn't quite the same, but he was willing to learn a bit about it.  Xav was interested in engineering as it applies to Lego toys.  While we found listings for job openings in engineering for Lego, they were in a foreign language.  Most of what we found was about designing Lego sets.  So, the researching engineers part didn't go great for us, it was good practice at online researching and we did learn a bit.


The units include:

• Intro to Engineering
• Intro to 3D Design
• Engineering Rollercoasters
• Engineering Bridges
• Nano Engineering
• Thinking Like an Engineer - Course Conclusion

I thought I'd tell you about some of our favorite activities and challenges to give you a feel for the course.  Lesson 3 is called Engineering Clean Water.  While I watched the lesson and the associated outside videos, I remembered the PlayPump.  Does anyone else recall the water pump that was run by children playing on a Merry-Go-Round?  I always thought that was genius.  Unfortunately, when I looked it up recently, I found out it didn't end very well, for the most part.  Throughout the Thinking Like an Engineer course, we were encouraged to be innovators and try new things.  Even though the PlayPump doesn't work well in all situations, it was definitely innovative.

In lesson 4, you receive the 3D Design software that you will use to create bridges and roller coasters.  We aren't using this yet (so close), but I know Xav especially is going to love it.  He eats that kind of thing right up!

The challenges have been a blast!  Some times we don't handle failure very well, When we have worked on the challenges, there has been an "Oh, rats!" or three, but no one has been angry about starting over and rethinking the processes.  We have had so much fun completing these tasks together.

Our first hands on challenge was to try to construct towers using regular copy paper.  Well, the punks were a bit disappointed, because Mr. K said some students had built their towers a couple feet taller than they did.

His class also stacked more books than we did in the second challenge.  We used one sheet of paper and had two feet of masking tape for this challenge.  We tried fan folding, circles, and concentric circles.

This happened a lot.

 And this.

But through all the challenges we faced, we brainstormed our way through to make the best of the assignment and to figure out what we could do differently or better to improve our results.  Eventually, we got to this.

If I had made just three or maybe four rings, even though they were super tiny, I would have had more stability and been able to stack books higher.

Our third challenge was creating a crude water filter using information from an Environmental Protection Agency video.  We didn't complete that challenge here at home, because a class in our co-op recently did this.  (Hmmm... As co-op yearbook creator, I thought I had taken a picture of that lesson, but it appears I did not.) 

The one thing I really wished for was the "solution" to the challenges.  How did Mr. K's class get 200 POUNDS of books on the single sheet of paper?  HOW?  I need to know!  Maybe gEEk Dad can tell me.  The punks and I absolutely love the hands on quality of the coursework and they really like the videos.  They've learned a lot of information seemingly unrelated to engineering.  I think they especially liked the clean water challenge and we could tell that it was an important problem to Mr. K.

I also enrolled in the free Think Like an Innovator course.  I think the punks are going to like it, too!  Mr. K offers another course, Thinking Like an Architect, also for grades 6-12.  Some of my CrewMates reviewed that as well.  So please click below to read some of the other reviews.

Reading Eggs ~ A Homeschool Crew Review

There are some programs that work so well for one or more of the punks, I am more than happy to pay for a year, or two, of access.  Reading Eggs is one of those.  Some years back, once upon a time, I signed up for a free trial of Reading Eggs for the bigger littles.  It was so incredibly loved by them and helpful for them, that I did purchase a subscription.  I don't do that often, so that should tell you how much value I found in it.

Back then, I think it was just Reading Eggs that was available.  MathSeeds was being introduced.  I was sort of disappointed about MathSeeds, just because the punks tested out of that.  I'm always hoping for a math miracle here, but the boys were beyond what was offered at that time.  Now Reading Eggs is so much more, with three levels.  We received a six months subscription to all levels of Reading Eggs, plus MathSeeds, for two punks. 

Reading Eggs Junior, for the 2-4 year old crowd, has sections for learning the alphabet, hearing stories, watching videos, and learning concepts like "opposites."  I'm afraid I am not terribly familiar with this toddler section since Merrick is reading a bit.

Junior

Reading Eggs is intended for children approximately 3-7.  Reading Eggs teaches both phonics and sight word techniques.  Each of these methods has a place in learning to read and spell.  Merrick spent the last 4 weeks in Reading Eggs and is having a blast. 

Eggspress dashboard stats

The last language arts section is Reading Eggspress.  Eggspress is for ages 7-13 (approximately grades 1-6).  I'm not sure when Reading Eggspress was added to the family, but I don't remember it being available when the bigger punks had Reading Eggs subscriptions previously.  Mal and Xav enjoyed a trial subscription for two weeks, but when the review period started, I had to choose two boys to access.  I thought Mal needed the program more, so he was selected by me to continue.  Xavier was pretty disappointed, so I am debating adding him again myself.  He's a good reader already, as is Mal, but Eggspress offers comprehension and spelling through grade six.

Eggspress Activity Sheets

Merrick has barely used the MathSeeds program, but seems to have enjoyed what he did do last week.  I have a feeling he will want to continue using it for the rest of the subscription period.  I see on Facebook that Map 36 is now complete, but I didn't see activity sheets for that one yet.  Map 36 covers third grade topics like multiplication tables, equivalent fractions, and angles.  MathSeeds has had much content added to it since we last accessed it.

Mathseeds dashboard stats

Easy to use tabs

So, just *how* do you get started with Reading Eggs anyway?  After you open an account and add your child(ren), you'll see their little avatar tabs across the top of the Family Dashboard.  Click the tab for the child you want to work with first.  Below the child's tab, you see the program tabs.  As the parent, you probably have a pretty good idea in which program to place your children, so select the appropriate reading program.  Click the big, green START button, select "lessons" in the center of the page and you will be prompted to either take the placement test or to start at the beginning instead.  I *highly* recommend using the placement test.  Try to not be overly helpful while your child works, or they could be placed in a level that is too high and that could be frustrating for them.


While the placement activities are super helpful, there's always a chance you might need to adjust the level.  You can do this right at the Parent Dashboard.  By selecting "edit details" on the same first tab covered screen (it's opposite the green START button), you can adjust each child's progress.  I attempted to do that for the sake of this review, but the computer warned me that his progress would be lost.  So, not even for you would I risk sabotaging the 722 golden eggs my boy is hoarding.

Merrick's homepage

Using pictures and words makes it very easy for Merrick to navigate from his own dashboard to the different games and his lessons.  Children move through a map of 10 lessons that ends with a quiz.  A subtle bit of blinking or movement, as well as their avatar, help direct them to click the current section of the map.  Once in a while an "annoying brother" makes too much noise and Merrick misses a bit of instruction or a word he is supposed to select.  There doesn't seem to be a way to repeat the directions.  Other than that, he is finding Reading Eggs easy to use and he really enjoys it.

Eggspress Map 5

I have to say that I'm sometimes confused by some of the stats on the parent dashboard.  For instance, Merrick has read several stories, but books read shows 0.  I think it may be that he hasn't read any of the books in the Reading Eggs library.  He has looked, but got a bit irritated with me because I directed him to books with a lower lexile reading level than he wanted, even though they were at his level.

Another level of Merrick's Reading Eggs access

I also receive emails detailing Merrick's progress in Reading Eggs.  These emails show me at a glance what he is accomplishing, learning, and earning.  There's even a link to the place in Reading Eggs where I can print his certificates.

Email information

If you have multiple users, be sure to log out each kiddo before letting the next one start.  There was one day that one of the biggers worked briefly on his brother's account.  Their names are on the student dashboard, but who reads such things before they begin working?  sigh...

Merrick loves Reading Eggs so much, it is always the first school he wants to do.  It's fun and engaging, they love most of the songs and stories.  I had to laugh when he got to a segment I remember from when the older boys had Reading Eggs.  The goat was singing and it's pretty repetitive.  Aaaaand goatlike.  Mal covered his ears (because it's a sound and that's what he does), but he smiled.  "I remember that!"  Reading Eggs bonus - sometimes there's even a train.

Some of the Reading Eggs lessons

Xavier got a huge kick out of one story that had characters named Xavier and Javier.  While I thought that was fun, I'm glad Mal hasn't seen his own name.  He gets weird about stuff like that.  There are comprehension questions built right into the online game, but parents can also print out the activity sheets with many more activities based on each lesson.

A page from Eggspress

Skills in these sheets vary, just like the games increase in scope as a child moves through the program.  The first lesson in the Reading Eggs activity sheets is all about the letter m; writing it, words that begin with the /m/ sound, identifying M written in various fonts, that kind of thing.  By the end of Reading Eggs' 12 Maps (120 lessons) students are practicing ay, igh, and oa words, and reading short passages and answering easy questions about it.  Each activity sheet begins with a page for the teacher/parent which explains the objectives of the lesson, the CCSS alignment, classroom games (often these can be played/completed by one child with no problem), extra assistance ideas, word families, etc.

The Bonus Tab and Activity Sheets

And now...

The folks at Reading Eggs have introduced new program guides just for homeschoolers.  These week by week overviews for grades K-2 use a colorful chart covering 36 weeks of education using Reading Eggs, MathSeeds, and some of the 2,500 books available in the Reading Eggs library to teach Language Arts, Math, Science, and History.  While Merrick is not exactly at the same place in math and language arts right now, by the recommendation.  I think it will be easy to use these guides to supplement, and possibly direct his science and history lessons for the year, though.  The pace of 1-2  Reading Eggs lessons in a week, looks just about right for what we've been covering without the guides.  They were just released last week, so I'm still becoming familiar with them, but they look great and I plan to incorporate them starting this week.

NEW Homeschool Guides for K-2nd grade

The reading games provide tons of fun online learning opportunities.  Nearly every one of them is completely do-able at the skill levels the punks possess.  There was one game that I had to complete for Merrick because there was no way he could operate the car quickly and accurately enough to move on.  I remember having to do that with a different game for the bigger punks a few years ago.  I seriously failed these poor kids.  It took me multiple tries myself to finish it so he could move on!  That was the day I tried to adjust his level, but you can't skip one game, only entire levels.

If you ever have trouble, support (including live chat) is just a click away.  You'll also find plenty of sample lessons for each of the four programs.

Support and Samples

I'm even more impressed with Reading Eggs than I was before.  The scope of the programs have really grown.  The songs, stories, and games combine to make learning fun and engaging.  The graphics are high quality.  Everything is inviting and colorful.  I've found the site to be quite easy to navigate.  Best of all, the punks still enjoy it.  That certainly makes it easy to motivate them to learn.

Reading Eggs has generously offered my readers a 4 week FREE trial of the Reading Eggs and MathSeeds programs to try for yourselves! Offer expires on November 30, 2017.  I hope you will take the plunge and use this risk free trial.

You can find Reading Eggs on social media.

•   Facebook 
•   Twitter
•   Pinterest 
•   YouTube

CTCMath 2017 ~ A Homeschool Crew Review

We've been using our CTCMath Family Membership for our main, and only, math during this review period.  This program is and has been our favorite math for Malachi and Xavier since 2014, I think when I first reviewed it for the Crew.  I even kept it in 2015 when I had to purchase it since I wasn't a Crew mate on that voyage.  I've even gotten other mamas hooked on CTCMath for homeschoolers.  I'm happy to have it again this year, because this is definitely one full math curriculum that fits the punks.

Pat Murray, a homeschool father of ten, originally created CTCMath as an online tutoring program for Australian students.  The punks love his soothing and unique voice (probably way better than my frustrated sighs).  No matter how many times they watch the same video, Mr. Murray never raises his voice or speaks through his teeth with an aggravated tone.  *ahem*

I have to laugh, though, because recently some new video lessons have been added and are decidedly *not* voiced by Pat Murray.  It only took a few seconds for me to notice the difference and the boys weren't long behind me.  They have deemed the new guy to be acceptable, though, even though he didn't end his video with, "Good luck with your questions."  They are so enthralled by the Australian accents, that Merrick even does his math the same.  I get such a giggle listening to him count.

awards

Each lesson is a short video.  And I do mean quite short.  It's generally just long enough to get the concept across, no over explaining.  If they think they understand, they can move right on to the questions.  Assuming they do well on them, they can move on to the next part of the topic.  If they have *not* done well, they can go back to it in a day or so, view the video and give the questions another try.  Once they've completed each component, the part they really like happens.  They earn an award.  They actually can watch the progress of the "medal" as they work through each topic.  When it's complete, they can print a certificate.

I remember last year, Malachi was determined to get a gold medal in multiplication.  His early scores were very low and he kept practicing and practicing until he went from a 30% to 100% in twelve attempts and earned a gold medal for multiplication with a 95%.  He was so proud of himself and I was proud and impressed by the effort he made in a subject he does not love.

email summary

Every now and then, I find out from the reports that one of the boys is working in the wrong grade!  Now, they aren't all exactly on the single grade across the board, but for the most part, I know where they belong!  I'm using tasks to fill in gaps and, sometimes, they stay in the lower assigned grade for all of their work.  The email report is pretty much a summary of the records kept for each student in the account. 


Here are the many parts of the parent section.

First, at the Parent Login, I can access each student account as well as maintain and edit my own parent information.  Tasks (active, recently expired, and upcoming tasks) can be see here.  Activities, awards, and recent weekly reports (up to three months) are available on this page.

detailed report

Then I can hop over to any of the student accounts on the right.  I can see everything those yahoos are doing on their math.  BWA HA HA HA!  *ahem*  You can edit or delete your student, though I'm not sure why you'd want to delete your punks.  Here are individual student's reports and more.  Simply select the grade level or course you want to see the information for.



There are detailed reports.  This area shows the sections that are complete, the grades and percentages, attempts, and dates complete.

summary report

The next tab is for the summary report.  This report is sort of like a checklist in that it shows the segments, how much of each lesson is complete and left to do, average grade, and if you choose to use diagnostic tests, you'll see that there also.





Diagnostic tests also have a tab of their own with completion dates and scores.

diagnostic tests

tasks

The tasks tab is very similar to the detailed report, but only shows the tasks you've assigned your student.  It also includes information about the completion and timeliness of the tasks.  Below the section on the screen shot, all the "courses" (grades thru 6th and higher levels of math), all the "streams" (numbers, measurement, geometry, statistics, etc,.), and then each topic in that section.  Each of these drop down menus is easy to use to assign the lessons.

The award tab shows all awards earned from platinum through gold, silver, and bronze.  These are only awarded once the entire section has been completed.  As Mal did last year, they can keep working to bring those award levels up, too!  (This page is shown above.)

quick finish

Speed skill information is there, but we haven't used that.  (There are four levels of speed skills as well as a couple of games.)  And the last tab is history.  There are two history reports.  The Quick Finish report shows sections that are incomplete.  The CTCMath program remembers where students leave off on an assignment and will keep their place for them.  When they go to finish up, it takes off right at that spot.

The history timeline is just that.  I can see who logged in and when, what lesson did they view, attempt, and what score they received.

timeline

kindergarten checklist

You can download a checklist of every single section by grade (thru sixth) or course at the middle/high school levels.  This photo is page one of the three page kindergarten checklist.  If you're a paper and pen kind of mama, you might prefer this printout to record your child's progress.

I can print out the actual lesson question pages when the boys first finish an assignment.  I have to have paperwork to submit to the state in my portfolio, or to show the teacher who evaluates them at the end of the year.  The reports are handy for my personal reference, but the assignments have to be turned in to show exactly what they're learning.  If they score well, at or above grade level, I have them print it right then.  The print out sheets are only available while you are still on the page.

assignment printout

I had to share so many pictures (which you can click on to see larger), because I just couldn't convey the amazing amount of feedback material available to you as a parent and teacher.  But really, the best part of *all* of this, is the lessons.  I have never found other math lessons that help the punks nearly as much as CTC.  It's virtually painless for us all.

One of my favorite things about CTCMath is that *you* are in control of placement.  You can access the entire website and place your child in a level that is not overwhelming or too easy for them.  There's no need to test them, work through sections they already know, or ask administrators to move your child.  You *can* have them complete a diagnostic test of each section though, choosing short, standard, or comprehensive tests of 20, 30, or 40 questions, respectively.  If they do well, move them up a grade for that section, or viceversa.

Through the years, we've tried using CTCMath on various devices with some successes and some failures.  This year, we just stuck with the laptops and the three main browsers we had available.  I rarely experience any trouble, but when I do I just hit the page refresh.  When we go back to the questions, the system has remembered right where they left off.

Occasionally, a student may need a lesson explained differently than the video shows.  If they don't understand the video lesson, there is no teacher's manual or second video option.  Mom and Dad will need to come in then and explain it in a different way that maybe is more easily understood by that particular child.  Sometimes, math manipulatives can be a helpful addition to the CTCMath program.  It's also wise during some lessons to have a scrap of paper handy.  One of the punks fought against using paper for figuring at first.  When he finally took my advice, he found several sections much easier.

I love that the boys are getting some independent learning in.  Even Merrick needs minimal help.  I get him logged in, he watches the short lesson video, and goes to his questions.  All of that can be on his own *except* some questions are sometimes not read to him.  If there is no little speaker icon, I will read the questions to him.  It seems a bit random which questions don't have a speaker, because he will have ten questions to answer and seven of them can be read to him and the rest can't.  So, there will be times when Mom or Dad are needed and that's OK.

I've been so appreciative of this math in our homeschool.  So many things have been improved over the years that we've used CTCMath.  Tasks were added, additional lessons are being added.  It really has just gotten better every year.  If you think you might enjoy CTCMath for your family, you can get a free trial or purchase the homeschool version (homeschoolers get a discount on the full program!) for 60% off + 6 bonus months.  The six bonus months offer expires on November 15, 2017




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