I recently had the opportunity to review the digital version of REAL Homeschool Spanish as part of my TOS Crew review duties.

First, I just want to give you an overview of what is included in the program.  It contains the main REAL Homeschool Spanish book which is full of the vocabulary and teaching suggestions you need to share the program with your children.  The Activity Book contains fun reinforcement activities like crosswords and more traditional written practice.  The Answer Book includes the answers for the Activity Book, and the optional Daily Curriculum Guide holds your hand while you’re getting started with the program by giving you a suggested teaching schedule that you can run with while you’re finding your own particular family’s rhythm with the program.  The Audio Files include a native Spanish (Mexico) speaker saying the vocabulary words and phrases, and the website includes free culture links that you can use to spice-up your study of Spanish.

Dr. Karyn Williamson-Coria – an accomplished linguist, mom, and homeschooler designed REAL Homeschool Spanish!  She designed this program for REAL homeschoolers, which is part of the program name, but the other part is an acronym refering to her educational philosophy.

R – Relax

E – Enjoy

A – Aspire

L – Learn

Those tenets really shine through in her program as well.  This isn’t a strict, open the book, check of the boxes sort of a program (though there is scheduling assistance provided), rather it is a conversational Spanish program that is structured in a logical way that encourages moms to find their own groove with their children.  Because of this, the program can be used with a WIDE range of ages (you get to pick how much you do, at what pace, and what written and cultural activities you’d like to incorporate if any).

So, if you have K-2 you might want to do the program together using the audio, the free cultural links from the website and the playful activity suggestions in the main curriculum book.  You can stretch the program out over three years to keep the pace relaxed.

If you have motivated high school students they can tackle all of the written work in the activity book, and all of the content in the main book at a faster pace and finish this Spanish course in a single year.  Then there are all of the possibilities in between.

This might sound a bit daunting if you are a new homeschooler, but Dr. Williamson-Coria is very personable and responds quickly to email support requests (I know – I’ve tried!)  The Daily Curriculum Guide also gives you a sample schedule you can use when you are just getting started.

I was very excited that the program is available in an all-digital format so I could read the books on my iPad and listen to the audio there too.  (It is also available with a hard copy book, audio cds, and cds with the printable activity and answer book on them.)

Unfortunately, my daughter couldn’t use her pdf writing programs to fill out the activity sheets on the iPad with a stylus because they were scrambled.  She has some sensory issues and really prefers to do her work without paper so we like writing directly on the iPad.  We had to print the pages from Adobe PDF on our laptop instead.  They are looking into a way around this though and responded promptly to my concerns.

The Tips to the Home Educator sections are awesome – these are really engaging ways to present the vocabulary and phrases in the program to children that use many different styles of learning.  I’m not so great at thinking of these sorts of things on my own, so I really appreciated this.  This is the sort of program you really need to learn along WITH your children, it isn’t an independent learning kind of approach.  REAL Homeschool Spanish tackles education as a family and encourages families to learn and practice together in their daily lives.

The program starts with traditional lessons on names, greetings, colors, family vocabulary etc. and builds following a pretty traditional conversational language course scope and sequence.  The main teaching book is broken into 10 units, 55 vocab clusters and 15 idea sections of ways to further your learning.  The activity book includes 179 pages of fun written reinforcements (that’s a lot!)

The emphasis is on verbal communication and sharing the vocabulary together as a family – there is some grammar included, but this isn’t a grammar driven course of study.  The whole feel of the program is so nice and relaxed; you don’t have to stress out with this one!

REAL Homeschool Spanish is available digitally for $49.95 and as a hard copy for $89.95 (US only, free shipping). If you’d like the optional Daily Curriculum Guide it is an additional charge, or can be included in a slightly higher cost bundle – you can find all of the buying details here.  If you’d like to check this program out you can find some free samples online here.

Don’t forget to visit the TOS Crew blog to read more reviews of REAL Homeschool Spanish.

Disclosure: I received a digital copy of this program for review purposes.

Many of our blog readers know that we live in Canada (yay!) where French is an official second language.  I’ve always considered teaching some French to my children for this reason, French is everywhere in Canada – on packaging, ingredient lists, and those fluent in French have more job opportunities as well.

When I heard of Le Francaise Facile (The Easy French) from Great Commission Languages I was intrigued.  Not only does the
program include a variety of French accents as it progresses through the years and levels to help develop an international ear for French, but it also teaches French PHONETICALLY and from a Christian point of view.

Obviously, if there were ONE French program I was going to teach with my children, this would be my top pick!  I love phonics, and I love Jesus even more .  It is also designed by a native French speaker who is a homeschooler – I love programs made by REAL homeschooling moms!

There are a few different ways this program is presented; the Junior Level for K-3 is the one we will be trying because it is best for families with younger children.  Our oldest is 8, and I have a 5 and 3 year-old as well so I thought this would be best for us with so many littles tagging along!

There are 34 lessons in the text, with lots of stories and songs being included on the two audio CDs (they also have printables on them).  You can find the table of contents on the sample page here.

The classic-style The Easy French (Level I and Level II) is recommended for families with children of all ages.  Both the Junior and classic style levels are non-consumable (requiring printing from a CD).  There is a new format available that is consumable and designed for older students as well – IA, IB, IIA, and IIB.  If you’d like to read more about the different French programs they have for homeschoolers, you can see them all listed here.

I’m so excited that the Junior Level of Le Francaise Facile is waiting for me in the city to pick up on my next trip in!  I will update you when I’ve had a chance to try it for ourselves!

Until then – check out these samples of the program – they are what really convinced me of the value of the program – it is incredibly cute and smoothly integrates both French and English within the audio to ease children naturally into understanding French vocabulary and grammar without explicit drill-type instruction.  Very fun!  There are audio samples and pdf samples to learn more about the program.

The Easy French Junior Level or Le Francais Facile! Junior is available for $69.95 from Great Commission Languages.  It has

A Heart Most Worthy follows the lives of three young Italian women who all work in a dressmakers’ shop, each plying their own highly refined and specialized skills.  There seems to be a bit of a popular trend in Christian historical fiction following the lives of Italians in New York in the early 1900s, so if you’ve read one of those books recently, you’ll have a good idea of the settings contained within.

Now, normally I LOVE Siri Mitchell’s work.  She is on my list of authors who I must read when a new work comes out.  So, I was very disappointed that A Heart Most Worthy just isn’t up to the level of the fine writing she has presented in her other titles.  She Walks in Beauty is an absolutely amazing book, and I was hoping that Mitchell would write something comparable in her latest novel.

Unfortunately the diversity of characters, the omniscient point of view of the narrator (whom actually sound quite condescending although I’m sure those asides are meant to be humorous), and the shallow treatment of the subject matter and character development all left me wanting.

My favorite character was Annamaria, her love story is so sweet and actually fairly realistic if you believe in innocent, sweet love stories (I do!)  Julietta never did really seem to grow up.

From another author I may not have been as disappointed.  But from Siri Mitchell?  I’m afraid I was.  Please, please, don’t write from an omniscient point of view again, it really does jerk the reader right out of the story when the narrator pops in with some odd comments that don’t really move the story along or tell the reader anything that they can’t figure out by inference.

Disclosure: I received a review copy of this title.

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If you’re like most North American Christians, I’d have to say that your chances of having heard of a slender volume entitled YHWH are pretty slim.  Subtitled The Flood, the Fish and the Giant: Ancient Mysteries Retold, this work of biblical fiction is something of a Bible storybook for tweens and teens, and it’s excellent.

I think this is something of an undiscovered gem, despite the fact that it is co-authored by New York Times bestselling author G.P. Taylor.  Though it is titled YHWH this isn’t a particularly Hebraic Bible novel, the characters retain their anglicized names – Joseph instead of Yosef for example, so don’t let the title fool you.

What you will find are short stories gathered like beads on the thread of God’s (He is referred to YHWH throughout the text which is nice) ongoing story of interaction with His people.  It pulls out twenty vignettes from the Old Testament, covering the major stories and some lesser known ones as well (like Gideon and some of Isaiah) in chronological order.

The writing is full of life, and very respectful of the original text.  There are some inconsistencies, like the common Adam and Eve (but they have Hebraic names, one of the exceptions), their descendants, and animals eating meat before the flood – but for the most part it is very accurate.  It is important to remember that like all Bible storybooks, this is a work of fiction, not God’s Word itself, and as such it leans towards biblical fiction, where conversations are imagined, characters may be invented etc.

Briskly written, full of vivid description, YHWH kept my oldest daughter (8) and I glued to the pages when we read a story together at bedtime each night.  I even found her reading it again herself in her own time, pouring over her favorite story – that of Joseph in Egypt – which is quite extensive and spans two story-length chapters.

I highly recommend finding yourself a copy of YHWH, it’s well worth owning.  I hope that a New Testament volume in the same vein is written so that I can enjoy it with my children as well.

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Disclosure: I received a review copy of this book – all opinions are genuine and my own.

Everyone loves retellings of Noah’s Ark, and we (ahem) own many of them ourselves.  That being said, when The Story of Noah’s Ark: Storybook and Wall Clings hit our house, pandemonium broke out!  There were big stickers inside of this book!  Big bright stickers!  That mom wouldn’t mind if we put on the walls!  My three-year-old was all over the book, then my five-year-old, and dare I say it…my eight-year old fastidiously rearranging and tidying the scene that was growing on the front of our refridgerator.

Now, we don’t have a lot of empty wall space (bookshelves, you know?) but we were all very happy that the reposition-able wall clings (20 clings in all) work just dandy on our fridge (you can use them on the wall if you have room!)  There is a big ark, a rainbow, and cute, colorful animals both singly (if they are large), and in pairs (if they are small).  The missing single animals are shown on board the ship – don’t worry, there are two of each!

The illustrations are big, bold, and vibrant and work very well for my three-year-old both in the book itself and on the clings.  The book is a very simple, straight forward retelling of the flood and of Noah’s heroic rescue of the animals.  I was a bit sad that only Noah and his wife are included as the human occupants of the ark (no Ham, Shem, or Japeth) and the animals are only in pairs, none in sevens (still looking for a simple retelling that includes this), but Noah’s wife does get a really cute role in this book.

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Disclosure: I received a copy of this book to review.  There are affiliate links in this post – thanks for your support!

The back-cover description for The Realms Thereunder is not a very clear depiction of what this debut novel is all about.  I can see why it struggled to encapsulate the essence of this story though, it is truly here, there and everywhere, with adventures into different worlds, flashbacks to the past, illusions, deception, underground travels, and even more than that.

When Daniel and Freya were schoolchildren in England they went inexplicably missing for a month or so.  What they encountered during that time was passed off as hallucination – encounters with creatures of darkness and a hidden world under the earth.  This story of their shared past unfolds alongside the story of their lives as adults, some eight-years-later, as they are drawn inexorably back into the conflict between good and evil.

I’m a fan of Christian fantasy novels (as long as they don’t contain ‘good’ magic-doers), but at this point in the series it’s a bit unclear how God comes into the swirling morass that Ross Lawhead has penned in this novel.  There is also a wizard…of sorts.  There isn’t really enough detail given for me to draw a firm conclusion on this fellow yet.

Actually, I’m not sure where I come down on this novel, it is more of a very extended prologue that only serves to draw our characters into the action, while revealing their past involvement.  It is an interesting premise – intertwining many legends of Great Britain’s past with bits of Celtic mythology thrown in as well.  I appreciate that many mythological figures are clearly pointed out as forces of darkness and not idolized, or made good in any way, as I was wondering how the author was going to include them.

I’ll have to read more of the series before I cast my final vote either way, so you’ll have to check back with me then!  I can tell you that it certainly keeps your interest piqued with al the twists and turns.

Disclosure: I received a review copy of this book for free.

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Faced with her father’s mounting medical bills, a heavy debt load on their struggling farm, and a list of familial woes, Laura Ann McGehee makes a decision that she feels will save the family farm, despite its questionable morality.  Desperate to bear the child she and her husband never had, single mother Sophia McQuistion arranges a pregnancy that is beyond her physical capabilities.  Together these two women have mothered a child, but whose is he truly?

Modern reproductive technology has brought with it a host of ethical and moral concerns that even the church has been hard pressed to deal with.  The rapid spread of such technologies has brought to surface many challenging questions that even Christians rarely ask themselves before plunging head-first into the quest for a child – no matter the cost (both moral and financial).

In Zondervan’s new series The Pandora Files, author Austin Boyd seeks to explore some of the issues raised by new life-related technologies.  In the first novel Nobody’s Child, Boyd explores the issues of egg donation, artificial insemination, and of carrying a child to term made up of the life-giving genetic contributions of two separate people – neither one the mother carrying the child.  It may seem bizarre but it is an all too real fact of modern life in our culture.

This is a richly textured story filled to bursting with the details of life in rural Appalachia.  It gets off to a slow start, but slowly and surely draws readers into the weft and warp of its fabric.  The story can be a bit more wordy than needed at times (too many similes and metaphors) – it almost seems to be striving to be literary fiction, but doesn’t quite make it.

Around halfway through the story I did become personally engaged with the characters and was brought to tears at times.  This is very much a story of the women, the choices they make, and how it affects their lives.  There are also some interesting details about the medical procedures used and potential legal ramifications that are not commonly known.  This is a series that has been needed for some time in my opinion.

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Getting Into Geometry is a teacher’s manual designed to help teachers introduce K-1 students to geometry in fun, hands-on, age-appropriate ways.  It includes 48 activities that progress from simple introductory two-dimensional explorations with shapes (circles, squares, triangles etc.) through to three-dimensional shapes (cones, cubes, spheres etc.) and its 264 pages includes all of the reproducibles you need for the activities.  There are some additional items needed for the book, but most were common household items, and a few we already had on hand – pattern blocks and attribute blocks for instance.  There were some that called for a pocket chart – but I heavily modified some of the activities for our use (read more below).

I used Getting Into Geometry with my entire brood of children, NONE of them wanted to be left out, so we tested the activities with children who were 8, 5, and 3 – and they all had a blast.  We cut out shapes, drew shapes on our porch with chalk, walked shapes on the ground, cut up straws and fastened them together with modeling clay to make shapes, colored shapes, cut shapes, described shapes, talked about shapes, and more.  I loved the pdf file that I received (it is also available in a printed form with a CD – both formats cost $24.95) because it included all of the pages I needed to print, so I just opened the file, found the activity I wanted to do, and printed the associated pages (if any) that I needed – they were always right after the activity they were needed for, minimizing prep time – very handy.

None of the activities took a long time to get ready for, or a long time to do, and they were such a fun way to get hands-in instruction time into our homeschooling day.  I’m a BAD homeschooling mom when it comes to hands-on, I’m happier to just read to them, but it was so fun to watch them BLOSSOM with these shape-related activities.

Getting Into Geometry does require some modification and flexibility on the part of a homeschooling mother with a small group of children – perhaps several children of various ages as I have.  Written for educators in a modern classroom (many students all of the same age) there is some mental translation and finessing that needs to take place to translate the instructions for teachers so that they’ll work for a homeschooling mom.

Sometimes this is pretty easy to do, other times activities need to be completely overhauled and restructured, or even skipped in some cases.  Some activities call for a lot of splitting into groups, group sharing, etc.  I was glad that I was able to pull off many of them with my three children, but they might be tough to do with a single child.  Some activities may also require additional research if you aren’t familiar with the terminology that teachers of early level math and science apparently are.  (I wasn’t sure what a concrete graph was for instance.

If you aren’t that great at thinking up fun, hands-on activities for your early elementary learners and you’d like to cover early geometry concepts in your homeschool, you’ll find Getting Into Geometry to have a wealth of activities to do with your children.  We haven’t used all 48 of them, and I don’t think we’ll need to in order to give my children a good conceptual understanding and familiarity with 2 and 3 dimensional shapes, there are quite a few to choose from – all of them surprisingly fun and developmentally appropriate for young children.  You can find a free online preview of Getting Into Geometry here that will show you the contents of the book and some of the activities as well!

Don’t forget that you can find more reviews of various titles from Aims Educational Foundation from other homeschooling moms at the TOS Crew blog here! 

Disclosure: I received a digital copy of Getting into Geometry for the purposes of this review.  All opinions are genuine and my own.

In Escaping the Devil’s Bedroom Dawn Herzog Jewell has brought together the true-life stories of many men and women from all around the world who have been freed from the bondages of sexual slavery and sin.  From pasts of sexual enslavement, employment in strip-clubs, life on the streets as prostitutes, these are radical, grace-filled stories of redemption, of lives changed by God’s amazing forgiveness, and of the loving, non-judgmental rescue efforts of devoted followers of Christ.

Reading Escaping the Devil’s Bedroom was incredibly challenging for me.  I wept with despair and joy as I read of pasts filled with sexual bondage and abuse, of daring rescue efforts that brought girls into freedom, of a transsexual male prostitute freed from a self-made bondage by the love of Christ and faithful Christian workers.

Most importantly however, was how this work challenged me – did I love enough to reach out in grace and in love like the Christian workers portrayed in this book?  How would I react to a newly born Christian brother who still had breast implants from his life as a transsexual?  I have to admit, I was challenged, and I often think back to the pages of this book as crystal clear examples of Christ-like love in some of the hardest of situations.

In addition to the core of personal stories and profiles, Escaping the Devil’s Bedroom also contains factual information about the victims of the ‘sex-work’ industry, their longing for escape, and ideas for how Christians can help.  Each chapter also includes a scripture reading, reflection questions, and prayer points and requests relating to the chapter.

Escaping the Devil’s Bedroom has spurred many conversations between my husband and myself as I feel inexorably drawn to share the stories contained in these pages with others so that we can bear witness, pray, and act. What an amazing book, I hope you’ll read it and feel drawn to spread its message as well.

Disclosure: I received a physical copy of this title to review.  All opinions are honest and my own.  There are affiliate links included in this post – thanks for your support!

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The Gardener and the Vine is another in Andrew McDonough’s boldly illustrated Cecil & Friends series of Jesus’ parables and life as interpreted through a modern lens for children. Andrew McDonough’s vibrant, cartoon-like art keeps children engaged in the simply told story that is likewise with vivid word-imagery.

Presented as the simple adventure as a branch who was taken from his unfruitful life and grafted onto the Vine by the Gardener, this story is packed jam full of rich spiritual meaning for both children and the parents who read this story to them.

A two-page spread for parents helps give some background information and introductory lead-ins to help enjoy and teach your children from this story, making it not only a story, but a little devotional lesson complete with some simple questions and discussion points along with the Bible verses that the story is inspired by (John 15: 1,5).

Honestly, I think that I may have received more spiritual benefit from this story than my small children have.  There is a lot of theological ground covered in this one simple story:  being removed from our old life, being adopted into Christ, the painful sacrifice that made such an adoption possible, the only way of having true life and fruitfulness being through Him – it’s really amazing how much rich depth has been built into this children’s story.  I’m not sure my little ones are old enough to catch it all at this point, but I trust that they are each taking as much as they can from the story at their levels of development.

The Gardener and the Vine is a powerfully transformative story presented in a simple package.  I highly recommend it.

Disclosure: I received a copy of this title to review.  All opinions are honest and my own.  There are affiliate links included in this post – thanks for your support.

CLICK HERE TO BUY NOW AT AMAZON.COM OR CHRISTIANBOOK.COM!