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.

Color My Conversation ~ A Homeschool Crew Review

When I saw Northern Speech Services on the list of vendors for the Crew this year, I was immediately intrigued.  Xav has been in speech therapy and Merrick needs it.  I was sort of hoping the product we were offered would be for speech articulation or stuttering, but I was just as excited when I learned about Color My Conversation, 2nd edition.  This is definitely one of those products you didn't even know existed, but completely fills a need in your home.  Northern Speech Services also offers seminars, online courses, and many products for speech and language pathology.  They've been in business for 45 years, providing speech pathology services that whole time and SLP training and products later.

Most people need to engage in some form of conversation every day.  For those who struggle with this skill, their relationships can be seriously impacted.  Rosslyn Delmonico authored the Color My Conversation program to help both special needs and mainstream children develop the art of conversation to the best of their abilities.  Rosslyn has been an SLP for over 35 years and began developing CMC in 2006.  CMC uses a multi-sensory approach to teaching social language skills.



What's included.

• Dry Erasable Stepping Stones
• Dry Erase Markers
• Ball
• Gameboard
• Game Tokens
• Poster
• Ribbon
• Picture Cards
• Dry Erasable Wall Cards
• Instruction Manual on CDRom
• Music CD

Also, training videos are available online.  These short videos explain the entire program and guide the facilitator through the process involved in each lesson.

Personally, I did  not care for having the Instruction Manual on CDRom.  I understand the company wanted to be "environmentally responsible," but each lesson has as many as ten PDFs.  While some  of those files were reproducibles, which makes sense to have on a CD for easily printing and keeping them looking professional, I thought the actual instructions should have been printed and bound.  Give me the complete program in my hands (or at the very least, one single PDF) so I can flip through it easily.  I did print *some* of the pages.  Several times, I actually dragged along my laptop with me so I could read over the manual while I waited in the car for one of the punks to finish up at lessons.  It wasn't ideal, but I didn't have to try to figure out which pages I might/might not get to while I was gone and find myself limited to only the pages I had printed.

Even five year old Merrick did the worksheets.  Sort of.

The reproducible pages consisted of parent letters with editable fields, activities for the children to use "at home" :) to reinforce the lesson, and a worksheet for them to complete.  Song lyrics and chants are also in each section.

The stepping stones are holding up very well to regular use by my punks.  I'm impressed by the quality of all the program components, and I think you will be, too.  The surface is suitable for dry erase markers and the bottoms are similar to, but thicker than, a computer mouse pad.  (One of the boys made that observation, so I went with it!)  We write the appropriate words on each stone, but you can even draw pictures for pre-readers.  There are two yellow (hello and goodbye), one green (conversation starters), one red (conversation stoppers - and no, not the embarrassing kind of conversation stoppers!), and four blue (topics) stones.

The cute, yellow Color My Conversation ball arrives deflated, but can be inflated with any ball pump.  Or you can select another ball to use.  Some balls are easier to catch than others, so just take that into consideration before deciding what to use.  We have used bean bags, beach balls, a textured ball (easy to catch), and a round, stuffed toy.

The game board is huge and very sturdy.  It's a nice, thick bi-fold game board with the stepping stone conversation path on one side and four games on the alternate side.  The game tokens are plastic and come in a handy drawstring bag.

The song CD is simultaneously goofy and cool.  The music is fun, maybe even a smidge hip (Is it still hip to say "hip?"  I'm probably too old and uncool to know!).  The lyrics are typical, goofy kid song type lyrics.  A couple of my boys really liked them.  If we listen often enough, I'm relatively sure they will become some of the random songs that make up the soundtrack of their lives.

The lessons covered are divided into Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced, and Expert levels.  Everyone should start in the Beginner level, even though the time spent on one level will be reduced.  Some older kids may find it silly, but I think it's a good idea to have this solid footing all along the conversation path.

Beginner lessons focus on greetings and farewells, conversation starters and stoppers, and adding topics, appropriate questions, and topic changers.  Eye contact and body language are important parts of communicating and some gestures and signs are incorporated.  Examples of ways we can be perceived as rude/disrespectful to others and how to avoid that are also covered.

Intermediate and Advanced level topics focus on adding to the skills already learned.  Conversation Coaches will focus on teaching WH questions (who, what, where...) and being able to ask a variety of questions related to a topic, as well as comment appropriately.  Speaking loudly and clearly, and carrying these techniques over into other conversations are covered as well.

I want to be totally transparent here when I tell you this.  Two of the boys have been struggling with school.  I won't name names, but it is becoming quite stressful for us.  There has been some whining and short tempers.  While the punks sometimes feel self-conscious about role playing, we have had so much fun with this program.  We have smiled and laughed and never felt the tension that has become such a part of our regular school day.  The looks on their faces when I walked out the door the first day, closed it behind me and *knocked* was priceless!

A fun game that we played was called Wynnie’s Wakootabonga Lightning Challenge.  In this game, one of my guys selects picture cards and quickly must decide, based on the picture, what the conversation topic will be.  Then he asks one of us three questions about the topic.  Once he finishes that, he chooses another card.  He earns game tokens for asking all three questions and can count up the tokens at the end to see how many cards were played and (sneaking in a bit of math) multiply the tokens by three to determine how many questions he asked.

All the activities are being done as a group, but I decided to take advantage of having Mal all to myself one day while his brothers were playing.  I didn't time us, and we went through 16 cards together.  Completely uninterrupted!  We had several detailed conversations besides the Q&A-type format.  He was attentive and I think he enjoyed the focused time on him as much as I enjoyed spending it chatting with him.

Merrick likes looking at the sturdy facial expression cards.  They're so cute.  The game I play with him involves deciding what emotion the face shows us and seeing if we can make the same face.  He just made that up with me one day and we talked about feelings and worked through the whole deck.

I noticed the words we wrote on the conversation stones often wore off between uses (obviously, because they're dry erase).  Construction paper in the appropriate colors made a nice place to list our hellos, goodbyes, and other stone contents.  All we needed to do was pull out our expanding lists and rewrite them on the stones.

The guided path is fun to pull together and easy to follow.  Merrick loved making short conversations with Daddy when he got home.  He walked his dad to move through the conversation stones.  "Now you move to the next one."  Mal also taught his community coordinator how to play on one of her visits.  And, gravy! we had a blast coming up with Hellos and Goodbyes.  I did need to point out to them that some of them would be goodbyes you would only say to friends or maybe family members.  Teachers, co-op parents, and acquaintances would require goodbyes that were more respectful.

Have fun stormin' the castle!

In fact, CMC opened up worlds of training for us.  I often thought about the troubles the boys have with making conversation, we talked to them about it.  I just didn't think about *showing* them and *training* them in the art.  Conversation *is* an art.  While some people are naturally capable conversationalists, social language does not come easily to everyone.  I've noticed that there are plenty of people (not just those with special needs or young children) who struggle with

• Monopolizing a conversation.
• Not recognizing when a topic isn't of interest to the listener.
• Giving monosyllabic responses.  (Some people are so adept at this, you don't even have to ask them a yes/no question!)
• Searching for an acceptable topic.
• Ignoring someone who says "Hello!"
• Making eye contact.

I actually struggle to make small talk myself (see? transparent, here.).  I often feel awkward around people I don't know especially well.  Working through Color My Conversation with the punks has been a confidence booster for me as well.  I feel like I have a small repertoire of topics and techniques stored up.

Color My Conversation is suggested for ages 5-12.  I think it is a great tool for people of any age who struggle with the mechanics of social language.

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Forbrain TOS Review

Forbrain – Sound For Life Ltd's bone conduction headset came along at just the right time for our family.  Two of the Littles have been dealing with assessments for speech issues.  It's amazing to me how slowly these balls get rolling sometimes.  Merrick and Xav are both struggling with pronunciation skills and Xav has a stutter.  It's frustrating for them to not be understood and, as they get older, I think the trouble is amplified.

Forbrain can help improve:

• attention
• concentration
• reading and writing
• short-term memory
• pronunciation and fluency
• self-confidence 
  

What is Forbrain?

Forbrain is a bone conduction headset that is worn while speaking aloud.  The headset is worn on the back of your head and over your ears.  The circular pads sit on your head in front of your ears, on the jawbone.  You speak into a microphone which transmits to the patented dynamic filter.  The filter blocks out ambient noise and isolates your voice.  It boosts some sounds and uses vibration of bone to enhance what you are hearing.  The hearer's awareness of their own voice increases.

I admit to being a hopeful skeptic, but I have a friend who actually is a bio-psych professor/researcher.  She reassured me the science is there and Forbrain could potentially help all of my kiddos with various issues. I also had questions regarding Forbrain's use with tinnitus and stuttering, because I experience one and Xav the other.  I didn't expect it to relieve my tinnitus, but I had hopes about the stuttering as well as the other speech aspects.  I received a prompt, kindly reply that Forbrain cannot treat those issues, but they will not interfere with use for the other issues.  I definitely suggest, if you are unsure how Forbrain can help you or your child, that you pop off an email.  They are great about responding with answers.

What's included?

Forbrain comes in a sturdy zippered case.  It has a firm foam-type liner that fits the appliance perfectly.  A charging cord is included with a USB end.  Three extra microphone covers and a manual are included, as well as the actual headset.  Just plug it in and it will be ready to use in no time.  The battery lasts many hours.  We only had to charge it a couple of times during the six weeks we've had it.

The three buttons on the filter are power and volume controls.  It is recommended that you do not adjust the volume unless it is uncomfortable for the wearer.

Side effects?

The boys have not complained of any trouble.  I did notice a slight "buzzy" kind of feeling in my jaw for a very short time after use.  There's nothing painful or distracting about it and it quickly ended.

How we use Forbrain

Xavier has been my main man reviewer.  He wears the headset regularly while reading aloud.  I can't say for sure that it is helping him with his speech issues, but I will say he shouts when he speaks much less frequently.  At least while he is wearing the headset and shortly after, my own eardrums get a rest.  Xavier speaks quietly with it on, but he can't tell how loud he is when he isn't wearing it. What I found humorous is that he can't actually hear any difference in his volume.  The headset enhances what he is hearing, so he thinks he's speaking at the same volume when he wears it as when he does not.  He is pretty self-conscious about wearing it in front of anyone.

Merrick cannot read yet, so his trial has been more limited.  He can wear it while he recites the poems we are memorizing.  The headset seems a wee bit big on him for now, which is surprising considering the size of the skulls in this house.  He has been denied speech services for the time being, so I'll be working on those skills with him myself.  I also have a phonics app that works very nicely with use of the headset.




Malachi wore the headset once for a minute or two.  He was very bothered by the changes in his hearing.

I wear Forbrain while reading aloud to the boys and have worn it while singing.  Well, talk about self-conscious!  Xav does not have that market cornered.  The singing about did me in!  HA!

It's recommended that you use Forbrain for six to ten weeks, daily or nearly so.  The amount of time varies by age, with younger users wearing the headset for a shorter period of time.  There are also extended time frames (multiple times in a day or for longer periods in a day) for short term use. We are right about at six weeks of use now.  I can't say that I've seen marked improvement in any area, but I see no reason not to finish out the ten weeks and reevaluate what's happening with us after that time.


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A Bouquet of Blessings for YOU

If you're a homeschooler like me (and let's face it, if you read this blog you're either a homeschooler or our family member), you're probably familiar with The Old Schoolhouse.  I have copies of The Old Schoolhouse Magazine from as far back as Fall 2009 until the quarterly copies were no longer being printed and I had to settle for FREE online access and an annual print copy.  Oh the humanity.  LOL

Well, as part of The Old Schoolhouse Review Crew, I've been invited to offer you three items from the Schoolhouse Store for free!   I had a time of it, choosing items that were "just right" for you.  The selection and variety of items on The Old Schoolhouse store is a bit overwhelming!  I decided to go with things that have been on my mind a lot lately; encouragement, unit studies, special needs, and communication.  I hope you thoroughly enjoy each and every one of these resources.  I hand picked this bouquet for you.

• A Voyage Into Adventure bundle - $39 value - A 20 pack WeE-Book bundle.

1. A Light Unto My Path
2. The “Me Time” Myth
3. The Value of Homeschool Conventions
4. For the Love of Bugs
5. Let There Be Light
6. Homeschooling With Young Children
7. Light, Color, Optics
8. From the Tree to the Table: A Maple Syrup Story
9. Oceanography: Voyage Into a Marvelous World of Creation
10. The Submarine: A Legend Before its Time
11. Organize Your Homeschool
12. Charlotte Mason and Susan Schaefer Macaulay
13. Growing Authors and Illustrators
14. The Shocking Truth About Electricity
15. Simplifying Classical Education
16. Creation vs. Evolution: Interpreting the Evidence
17. Play What You Mean
18. Lincoln vs. Darwin: What’s the Difference?
19. Time Flies While History is Written
20. Nifty Thrifty Summer Fun

• Someplace Called Special - $12.45 value - A Look at Homeschooling Special Needs Children.  Ten real families share ten unique stories of struggle and triumph.

• Meet parents of many different special needs children who have risen to daily challenges with faith and grace.
• How do those with demanding circumstances get it all done? How do they cope?
• Discover practical help to assist you with your own child’s unique learning abilities/disabilities.
• You are not alone! This E-Book will uplift you like no other!
• Plus there’s more!

• Communication Skills bundle - $5.85 value - A collection of three ebooks about communication skills for all ages.

1. Just How Important are Communications Skills?
2. Play What You Mean
3.  Communication Skills and Your Gifted Child

All you have to do is click the link on the product name (these appear in orange in this post), place one or all of these items in your cart, and use the code JGCREW16 at checkout.  Easy peasy.  These gifts are available for the month of April only.  This doesn't stop with just my readers.  You're welcome to pass the codes on to your friends.

As I said, I hand picked these resources and so did many other Crewbies.  You probably already follow some of my fellow Crew members and will be seeing other selections from them.  You are free to use their codes as well.  Be sure to stop by The home of the Review Crew on Facebook.  Give us a "Like" and a thank you over there.  It isn't required to claim your spring gifts, but we love to hear from our readers!  Thanks for being one of mine!