The new Inference Jones series from  The Critical Thinking Company is unique in that it uses reading comprehension activities to guide your child towards an understanding of how often we make inferences, and to carefully examine all facts to examine if the conclusions we make are in fact true and stated, or are instead inferred and assumed.

Designed primarily for children in 3rd and 4th grade, Inference Jones: Beginning is a reproducible student worktext (everything is included – stories, room to write, answer key) includes 18 stories with comprehension and critical thinking activities.  A helpful chart at the beginning of the book helps you to see at a glance which stories address specific types of thinking skills.  Though not all skills are included in each story, the list of language arts skills addressed is quite extensive.

Here it is: compare/contrast, define vocabulary in context, distinguish cause/effect, distinguish fact/inference, draw conclusions, find supportinv evidence, identify main idea, make inferences, make generalizations, read for details, use tables, illustrations, etc., analyze character traits, identify thee, identify setting, sequence events.

While many children will naturally pick up these skills, Inference Jones helps you point out these skills and tasks in a meaningful, purposeful way as your child works through the questions.  The book can largely be completed independently, but it also provides a great many opportunities for talking with your child about the assumptions we make, how we come to conclusions, and how we make inferences all the time.

Each activity is around two pages in length including the story (with numbered sentences for future reference and ease of answering), and the questions.  A variety of questions are provided including multiple choice, true, false, or unknown, short answer, and probably true and probably false answers that ask your child to support their conclusion based on their own evidence and personal knowledge (this is truly a unique answer form in my experience).

We received a digital copy of this title for review (it is normally only available in print form to purchase), and I was so thankful because my oldest (newly 9) loves working directly on the iPad.  I introduced the book to her, worked through some sample activities, and then let her have at it!  She had some questions now and then about the new types of questions and thinking the stories and responses generated, but she adored them!  She ASKED me if she could do more Inference Jones for FUN.  After school hours.  On her own.

With 18 activities included, this book won’t make up a full year’s worth of work, but it can be used as a thinking supplement sporadically to keep those thinking skills fresh!  I’m thrilled that my daughter has enjoyed it so much, glad she can work on it independently and very pleased with the precise thinking skills that it helps to form.

Inference Jones: Beginning can be purchased as a reproducible, 48 page paperback for $11.95.

Disclosure: I received a digital copies of this title to write this review.  All opinions are honest and my own.

For more opinions of this and other Critical Thinking Company titles, please visit the TOS Crew Blog here!

We have a copy of Christian Kids Explore Biology – another title in this series, but I’m SO impressed by the changes that the 2^nd edition and its incredibly valuable resource CD have brought to the series!  If you’re familiar with other titles in the series, there are quite a few similarities between this and others in the series.

Designed to provide a year of science lessons for students in grades 3-8, the 30 lessons are divided into five major units: The Basics of Chemistry, Atoms and Molecules, The Nature of Chemistry, States of Matter, and Organic Chemistry.  The program is designed with teaching science twice a week for 60-90 minutes daily in mind.

The lessons contain opportunities to memorize scripture and vocabulary, read to your children from the text, review previously learned materials, complete coloring pages, read from the Kingfisher Science Encyclopedia, complete hands on activities, think critically about the activities, and engage in optional supplemental reading (from the resource list – not planned, you choose), and test knowledge learned in the ‘wrap-ups’ at the end of each unit.

The book’s coloring pages though they aren’t nearly as elaborate as the ones found in the biology text, and many children in grades 4-8 may feel that they are beyond the coloring stage.

What totally MAKES the program though is the resource CD.  Often the success of a homeschooling curriculum is due to how well organized it is, how easy it is to get up off the ground and to run with it.  While the author is a homeschooling mom herself and her books tend to be ‘do-able’, the resource pages make it so easy to get started.  My FAVORITE parts of the resource CD are the pre-written lesson plans (more on these later) and the detailed supply lists – broken down not only unit by unit but also lesson by lesson, so you have lots of time to plan ahead for supplies.  A section of the CD also includes ALL of the reproducible pages you need for the course – these can be printed all at once and bound to create a student activity book, or printed as needed for a more notebooking-based approach.

So, more about those lesson plans!  This is really where the 2^nd edition with the resource CD shines – the lesson plans basically show you exactly how to use the text and which parts of it on a day-by-day basis to get all your bases covered.  Each lesson is scheduled over 2 days (to be taught in one week), and a wrap-up for each unit is also scheduled over 2 days, for a total of six teaching weeks per unit (that’s 30 weeks total).  This is great because it reminds you to work in vocabulary, review, supplemental reading etc. I tend to lean towards open and go programs, and some elements can be a bit tricky for newer homeschooling parents in particular to figure out when to do (review etc.) so it’s nice to have the pre-planned lessons available to use (totally optional of course).

The resource CD even includes a full literature guide from the Bright Ideas Press Illuminations program for a biography of the Christian scientist Blaise Pascale – A Piece of the Mountain, though it seems to be missing a couple of the graphic organizers called for in the guide that are included in Illuminations.  A huge resource list is also included in the appendix as well as further source of biographical study.

Overall, this is another very well done offering in the Christian Kids series of science books from Bright Ideas Press for moms looking for a realistic, do-able guide to science – and with the resource CD it’s now even easier to plan and use, making it simple to get going!

The main text for Christian Kids Explore Chemistry costs $39.95 (with the resource CD) and the accompanying resource CD can be downloaded for $12.95 and is compatible with 1^st and 2^nd editions (currently on sale for $9.95).  Also available at major retailers.

Disclosure: I received digital copies of the main text and the resource CD in order to write this review.  All opinions are honest and my own.

For more opinions of this and other Christian Kids Explore titles, please visit the TOS Crew Blog here!

I think it’s so common for children to have a tough time getting to the mastery stage of telling time from what I’ve seen in our home and my conversations with other homeschooling moms.  It takes a lot of practice, practice, practice for this skill to become second nature – some public schools are even abandoning the teaching of reading time on analog clocks and only going with digital (which honestly shocks me).

The book includes 22 fully planned activities complete with printables and teaching plans that move from understanding the passing of time conceptually, through to learning about and reading different clocks, and learning about elapsed time (how much time has passed).  The activities are listed on a traditional table of contents which is also followed by a list of the activities broken into the major concepts taught and the specific concepts taught in each activity to really help you focus in on the skills your child needs more help with.

The book is filled with playful illustrations appropriate for young children and the manipulatives you make and use together with your children are a lot of fun for everyone and really help to cement the concepts – the AIMS books are so great at doing this.  There is even a booklist (ah booklists) of books for young children that help to develop a sense of time and a conceptual understanding of it.

Because a wide and comprehensive range of time concepts are covered, this book is easy to use as a supplement and hands-on reinforcement for any existing time concepts that are included in your math curriculum.  Most math programs inclue teaching time, but sometimes they move too quickly, don’t have enough review often enough, or don’t include multi-sensory learning – you can use It’s About Time to remedy those problems.

Something to keep in mind is that although the teaching instructions and printables are all pre-planned, the directions are written with classroom teachers in mind.  You’ll find some activities that ask for you to place four children at each table etc. and you’ll need to be flexible and a bit creative at times to make these activities work for your own family – single children will be the trickiest if they don’t have siblings to do group activities with (you’ll have to get involved in one of the student roles yourself!)

The book includes reproduction rights for up to 200 copies of any part of the book – that means it will serve pretty much any homeschooling family for their entire homeschooling career, even if you have multiple children!  The book is available either as a PDF (easy to print from) or as a printed book with a CD that includes all of the reproducibles on it.  If you look at the PDF version you can see a free preview of the book online.  The reproducibles are also printed directly in the book if you prefer to make traditional photocopies (I personally hate doing that, I love the CD we received with our printed copy).

To read more reviews of this and other AIMS titles, please visit the TOS Crew Review blog here!

Disclosure: I received a physical copy of this title in order to write this review.  All opinions are honest and are my own.

Homeschooling mom of four, Debra Haagen, has written the fact-filled Amazing Animals by Design.  The story follow a family of four (mom, dad, girl, boy) through a zoo and explores the unique characteristics of a variety of animals, both common (the elephant) and slightly more unusual (carcacal anyone?)  Once the trip to the zoo is over the family marvels together over God’s unique plans for each animal and the care He has taken in designing them.  Another aspect of this title that I LOVED is that the family also reflects together upon how God has made humans different from animals, and what the main differences are.  Humans are too often lumped together with animals, and I love seeing this differentiation presented respectfully.

Written with early elementary children in mind (K-3rd) my two girls in this age range cuddled together on the couch with me as we read this title together.  My 6 and 9-year-olds both really enjoyed this title and the resulting conversations that stemmed from reading it.  They give it 5/5, most definitely .

This title is published by Tate, and in my time as a book reviewer I’ve come to associate them as a self-publishing house, but don’t let that deter you AT ALL.  The quality of the PDF version of Amazing Animals by Design that we received is simply excellent.  The English is well written, clear, and accurate – the illustrations are lovely, this is a high quality production.

Available as a PDF e-book for $7.99 (which we read together on our iPad – it looks great in landscape view in a pdf reader) or a paperback for $8.99, you can find this title at Tate Publishing here.  You can also find this book available at major retailers online (like Amazon) so if you’re ordering from there, grab a copy!

Would you like to read MORE reviews of Amazing Animals by Design?  Head on over to the TOS Crew blog to find more thoughts!

Disclosure: I received an electronic PDF copy of this title in order to write this review.

The 13^th Tribe is the first in a new series – revealingly titled the Immortal Files that can perhaps be described best as biblically-inspired, speculative, suspense.  To summarize the basic premise – a group of Israelites who sinned against God in the desert (remember that golden calf?) were cursed with immortality. 3,500 years later we find them in the current age, bedecked with cutting-edge technology, equipped with deep financial resources acquired over the years – they have set themselves the task of punishing sinners – killing them in fact.  And they’ve been doing it since almost the beginning of their term.  Yes, this is where the speculation comes in.

The suspense comes into the picture when other individuals try to stop their plans once they reach epic proportions of death and destruction and begin to more directly involve innocents. Jagger – a depressed family man and security specialist recovering from the loss of his arm and best friend, taken from him by a drunk driver – finds himself unexpectedly drawn into the fray as the paths of this group – The Tribe.  There is violence (this is adult Liparulo after all), blood, and darkness – these immortals are somewhat obsessed with the deaths that they themselves cannot obtain.

The writing is awesome – much better than any of Liparulo’s other adult titles, the theme is actually quite a bit more up my alley than his other suspense novels to boot.  Even though the pacing can be a bit slow at times (flashbacks, back story and all), the novel itself still manages to achieve a certain kind of beauty with its embedded message of grace.

If I have to be honest, I cried, and I don’t often do that with action-driven novels.  The themes of redemption, forgiveness, reconciliation, are all apparent while being blended deftly into the storyline itself without huge chunks of preaching.  As a bonus, although the is a first title it doesn’t end with a cliffhanger, it can be satisfyingly read as a single novel.  This is just a very well done offering from Liparulo, and I’ll be looking forward to future installments in the series.

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Designed with a blend of Montessori, Charlotte Mason, and Classical educational principles in mind, the course is somewhat flexible in that you get to choose the resources you use to complete the suggested tasks.  The cards themselves make a framework through time that you and your child work through to cover the content.  You can see images of a variety of different cards here.  It’s a bit tricky to explain, but once you get your hands on the oh, so helpful teacher’s manual and pull your resources together (a blend of reference materials – encyclopedias, dictionaries, atlases, and living books etc.) it starts to all make sense.   You can also check out the FAQ at Creek Edge Press to help you out with some of the nitty gritties.

While suggested as a course of study for K-8, younger children will need direct one on one help every step of the way to make this course work for them.  I think where it truly shines the most is for older children from grades 3-8.  As their parent you can help them to acquire valuable research skills while using the task cards and rich research topics to drive the acquisition of the research and writing skills they need to complete their projects.

If you are a new homeschooling parent, you should know upfront that this course isn’t open and go.  It requires you to use the extensive resource list to decide which source material and resources you’ll work with and you’ll also need to help your child pick a project to work on each week.   There is some prep and planning time and a learning curve as well as you and your child work together to learn the needed skills.

I absolutely love the teacher’s guide, it tells you how to set up the area, gives you lots of mom-to-mom helpful advice on how to actually dig into the course, get it going, and thoughts on how to ease in and adapt that I’ve found SO helpful.  The booklists are absolutely amazing, giving you a lot of choices to pull from (you might even have quite a few titles on your shelves already – if not they are all sound investments).  You can find the booklists here to give you an idea of their richness.

This is really a flexible course where you can go deep or shallow depending on the interest levels of you and your child.  I have to say that the approach itself is quite unique, but flexible, practical, and very valuable for homeschooling families.  It just makes great sense to help your child develop research skills while exploring history at the same time – it works great with notebooking too!

Many other card sets are available across the subjects of Science, History, Geography & Culture, Art, Music, and Grammar Reinforcement.  You can find them all here.

Disclosure: We received a copy of the American History Task Card Set in order to write this review – all opinions are genuine and my own.

Christian Kids Explore Biology

 
The 35 lessons are designed to be completed at a rate of around 1/week and the book includes coloring pages, printables, hands-on activity ideas, memory verses, supplemental reading lists, recipes, and a lot more. Each unit includes a test as well and the coloring pages for each unit are really spectacular. The main topics covered include: Biology Basics, Plants in God’s World, Birds of the Earth, Mammals in the Wild, The Human Factor, Reptiles All Around, Insects High and Low, and Water Creatures.

 
Bright Ideas Press has also put together a downloadable bundle  of all the printable sheets (a separate purchase) which is awesome! That is such a boon to me – much simpler than scanning each page I need in order to get a copy out of the book.

Like other titles published by Bright Ideas Press, Christian Kids Explore Biology is written by a real homeschooling mom, and as a result – it’s realistic! I hope I don’t come across as slacker-mom here, but this curriculum is pretty balanced – it has straight forward teaching sessions twice a week leaving room for additional readings, delight-driven studies, and hands-on activities. It doesn’t micro-manage your entire science schedule for you (though it is slightly scripted and you can just open it and read the main content to your children.

If you want everything and the kitchen sink in a science program, this one isn’t for you – it covers the basics succinctly, in a timely fashion without bogging down or drowning you in detail – that leaves room for flexibility and your own expansions if you want to add them. Otherwise, it’s a good core program that gets the job done from a creation-based perspective.

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

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.

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

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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