Review - R.E.A.L. Homeschool Spanish

Website:  http://realhomeschoolspanish.com/

Age:  Geared for the whole family - elementary and up

Cost: $49.95 Download, $89.95 Hard Copy

R.E.A.L. Homeschool Spanish has been an excellent addition to my son’s study of Spanish this term.  He’s been using a conversation based curriculum.  Homeschool Spanish is a vocabulary based curriculum.  I think they complement each other quite well.

Homeschool Spanish comes with an instructional book, an activity book, audio files for both texts, an answer book and a curriculum guide.  The program is setup so that the entire family can learn together.  Numerous suggestions are provided for helping the student learn the words and phrases for the Unit.  This is not a curriculum a younger student would tackle independantly, but it is geared to have guidance and/or participation with the parent.  The format would be excellent in a co-op situation as well.

As a homeschooling parent, we don’t always approach a curriculum from a traditional perspective.  The curriculum guide and added instruction provided allows a parent to establish a pace that is appropriate for her student(s).  The guide provides for forty weeks of content, but alternative suggestions are incorporated.

The text book gives the student the basic vocabulary and basic conversation for each genre covered.  The organization for the course units is the following:

Unit 1 - Greetings
Unit 2 - Colors/Numbers
Unit 3 - Food
Unit 4 - Family
Unit 5 - Anatomy
Unit 6 - Clothing/Weather/Seasons/Months
Unit 7 - Places/Transportation/Days of the Week/Verbs & Minor Grammar
Unit 8 - Animals/Nature
Unit 9 - Sports/Minor Grammar
Unit 10 - Verbs/House
 
Each unit begins with the words that should be learned/memorized along with phrases.  You can see an example here.  I appreciate that the content includes audio files that the student can listen to to understand correct pronunciation.

Next, the student uses the activity book.  Puzzles and games and used to reinforce the vocabulary.  Additonaly, audio exercises are incorporated to help the student understand pronunication, practice proper idenfication of terms or phrases, and learn how to incorporate those into conversation.  You can see an example of the activities here.

It is challenging to learn a new language, but oh so important.  America is one of the few countries where most of its inhabitants are not bilingual.  Speaking another language not only broadens a student's sense of language, but of culture, critical thinking, memorization, and interpretation. 

I feel this program has been a strong addition to our homeschool year.

To see additional reviews by the TOS Homeschool Crew - click here.

*** I received this product free of charge in exchange for my honest review.

VocabAhead Review

VocabAhead
http://www.vocabahead.com/

Age:  Upper Middle or High School
Cost:  $12.95

Vocabulary is a very important part of any middle and high school curriculum. While some would say you can leave vocabulary out because they get it through literature, I would disagree. They do learn through literature, but understanding the fundamental definitions of a word are not always gleaned through context clues. Plus, some words have different meanings depending on the context they are in.

That being said, if your child is going to go to college now or in the future, he/she will need a strong vocabulary: first, for the SAT, and second, for college level writing. If he/she is not going to college, to be articulate in any work situation or mission situation, a strong vocabulary is necessary.

VocabAhead is one program that can be used to help your child learn a broad vocabulary. Sure, there are a lot of books and programs out there, but one thing that stood out for me with VocabAhead was their added functionality on their web site.

First, however, let’s look at the book. Ten words are taught at a time with a cartoon representation for visual recollection, a part of speech and definition, sentences, synonyms and antonyms. Each grouping of ten words is followed by a review test.

When you receive the book, (mine was SAT Vocabulary), you also receive a link to get free videos for each word and downloadable MP3S. We did not use the MP3S as we don’t have a player, but did use the videos.

I was amazed at the site! All the words are accessible for free along with videos that coincide with the cartoons used for each word to help the student learn. Parents can create their own lists, or use the ones provided. Additionally, there are online flashcards and quizzes for the student to use to help him/her learn the words.

My son begins his high school journey next year. Our plan is to incorporate study for the SAT through his first three years of high school so that he will be fully prepared to take the test with confidence and get high scores. I will be holding onto this book and have bookmarked the web site to ensure this will be part of his regimen.

***  I received this book free of charge as a member of the TOS Homeschool Crew for my honest opinion.

To see more reviews by the Crew - click here.

Timberdoodle Review - The Critical Thinking Company

Building Thinking Skills Level 3 & Editor in Chief
The Critical Thinking Company

Age: 12+ & 14+

Price: $29.99 & 18.99
    

I was thrilled when Timberdoodle asked me to review critical thinking books for them. Critical thinking is one of the areas I have always felt is lacking in today’s college aged students. My experience in the college classroom is that students are not used to being asked to think for themselves. Perhaps this is due to the prevalence of multiple-choice tests?

In any case, I want my kids to think critically. I hope you do too.

The first product I am reviewing is Building Thinking Skills Level 3 Figural by the Critical Thinking Company.

As noted on the Timberdoodle web site, the “activities are sequenced developmentally. Each skill (for example, classifying) is presented first in the semi-concrete figural-spatial form and then in the abstract verbal form. Children learn to analyze relationships between objects, between words, and between objects and words as they:

Observe, recognize, and describe characteristics.
Distinguish similarities and differences.
Identify and complete sequences, classifications, and analogies.

My boys really enjoy this book. They actually look forward to the time of day where we pull out our critical thinking to do exercises. Typically, we do between five and ten pages per day depending on how extensive the exercises are. You can view sample exercise pages here.

What I like is that they are being asked to be aware of what they are viewing and then look deeper to complete the exercise. At first, my younger son will tell me, “Mom, this is hard.” Then, shortly thereafter, a light bulb will come on and he’ll get busy working through the problem. The more he sees that he can take on the challenge and use his brain to discern the answer, the more excited he gets.

I would encourage all homeschool families to incorporate critical thinking skills into their schedule.
 

The second book I was asked to evaluate is Editor in Chief also by the Critical Thinking Company. I loved the concept of this book when I saw it. I teach English online and grade numerous papers every semester. There are common errors that students typically make. One way instructors try to help students develop editing skills it through peer feedback: students providing feedback on one another’s papers. This concept helps students see errors they make by finding them in other’s work. Sometimes it’s easier to find the errors when the content isn’t yours.

Editor in Chief is the same concept. Students are asked to edit papers with numerous errors in grammar, spelling, punctuation, capitalization and formatting details. The student is told how many errors there are and then must go through the piece to find them. I find this to be excellent. The boys enjoy the hunt and end up helping one another if there are errors they just can’t seem to spot. In addition, the book provides great detail on where the errors are, what they are and how they should be corrected.

I believe this will help them not only improve their own editing skills, but to help them become better writers. They will be asked to peer edit when they get to college. Providing strong feedback is an asset to their peer, for their own benefit, and demonstrates to their instructors their ability to recognize strong writing.

I plan to continue to incorporate these exercises into our home school and to have the boys use those skills to peer edit each other’s work.

As you can see, I was very impressed with both texts. I’m grateful for being able to review the books and look forward to using other products by the Critical Thinking Company.

*** As a member of Timberdoodle's Blogger Review Team I received a free copy of these books in exchange for a frank and unbiased review.

Amazing Deal from TOS Magazine

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Teen Testing

Do you realize how much time we spend getting our teens ready for tests? I was thinking about this today as my thirteen-year-old mentioned I’m always talking about tests.


I don’t mean tests for their subjects. In fact, we don’t take a lot of tests in our subjects. Mastery is demonstrated rather than tested. (At least for now…)

However, I am always telling him that he’s going to need to know this, that and the other for the PSAT or the SAT or the ACT or a CLEP. Test, test, test…

One of the reasons I became very disillusioned with the public school system was testing. Teachers are pressured to prepare their students to take End of Grade, multiple guess tests. Teachers almost have to teach to the tests nowadays as their jobs and their salaries can be contingent on how their students score. I find this sad. It really takes the steam out of the love of teaching. I was tired of my children being taught to take a test rather than to master a subject and think critically.

Nonetheless… I find myself worrying about tests.

My oldest son is graduating in January from the local public high school. He recently took the SAT for the third time and today took a College Placement Test (CPT) so that he can take college classes in the spring prior to heading to the university in the fall. I’m glad he’s got his testing behind him. Now we get to focus on where and when and what classes he will take for the next several years of his life.

As a homeschool parent staring high school in the face, I’m worried. Will my son be evaluated on his transcript? Probably not since he was homeschooled. He’ll be evaluated based on his SAT or ACT or college level course performance exclusively? I know he can do it. In fact, I know he can do it very well. But, it begs the question, is a test a fair evaluation of a person’s academic ability?

Those of you who are homeschooling high school or have homeschooled kids into college – how did/will you handle college admission? Have you simply relied on their test scores to carry them? Did the university even look at their transcript? What’s the secret? What about scholarships? The clock, for me is ticking, and I want to know where to find the keys to the kingdom. Help!