I was super-duper excited to have a chance to review The Story of Swan Lake from Maestro Classics with my oldest daughter (8).  Like many homeschooling moms I struggle to get music appreciation done, and since Swan Lake is pretty cannonical fare – particularly when it comes to ballets (and how many little girls can resist a ballerina?) I was excited to get started!

The Story of Swan Lake includes the main themes from the ballet along with narration that simply retells the story by Stephen Simon, conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra (all the music is performed by them as well – really top notch stuff!)  There are also bonus tracks including a shred guitar rendition of the main Swan Lake song, a sing-along song that serves as a mnemonic to help children remember the main plot of the ballet set to the main theme, and an ‘empty’ sing-along song so your child can do their own performance (and oh boy, did mine ever!)

The CD also comes with a very well-designed booklet filled with a pictogram type overview of the plot of Swan Lake, a connect the dots, word puzzles, lyrics to the sing-along, biographies of the contributors and a lot more.  I’m not sure where ours is – my daughter made off with it and enthusiastically filled in every spot she could find to do an activity (it is consumable by the way).

The whole experience was incredible…except for one thing.  This CD uses the revised ending of Swan Lake..you know…the one where the prince and the swan maiden both die in the end?  Umm..recommended for ages 6-12, but if you have a sensitive little girl you MIGHT want to save this one for LATER.  Interestingly, Tchaikovsky’s original ending was a happy one where the lovers survived and conquered the evil magician.  Just saying.

With that being said, I am DEFINITELY interested in buying some of their downloads with less traumatic endings because they make music appreciation so easy.  Despite being disturbed by the ballet’s end she still had to memorize the sing-along to perform for her grandparents when they came to visit – so cute .

All of Maestro Classic’s music appreciation titles are available on CD for $16.98 or as MP3 downloads for $9.98 – you can find them all here and listen to free samples online too!  They even have free cross-curricular lesson plans you can use to take the earning even further!

If you’d like to read more reviews of The Story of Swan Lake from real homeschooling moms, visit the TOS Crew post here and dig in!

Disclosure: I received a copy of this CD for the purposes of this review.  All thoughts are genuine, and my own.

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.

As part of my duties as a TOS Crew member this year I was given the oppotunity to review a volume of The World’s Greatest Stories.  Our family was sent a copy of Volume 1: The Prophets, a CD featuring dramatic Bible readings directly from the biblical text by George Sarris.

The readings included on this CD are:

• The Blazing Furnace – Daniel 3
• The Handwriting on the Wall – Daniel 5
• Daniel in the Lion’s Den – Daniel 6
• Elijah and the Prophets of Baal – 1 Kings 17-18
• The Prophecy of Jonah – Jonah

This is such a unique way to expose and familiarize children with God’s word!  Word for word readings (you can get the CDs in KJV or NIV, we chose KJV) full of drama and excitement.  George Sarris reads very dramatically with different voices, lisps, breathing, and much more.  Sometimes Sarris reading was a bit overenthusiastic and we had some giggles, but it certainly did enliven the readings!  There is also a dramatic sound track with music and sound effects that really captivate listeners.

My daughters asked me to, “Play another story Mommy!” when we would come to the end of one of the tracks on the CD.  This CD is 55 minutes in length with each of the stories around 8-15 minutes in length.  We like listening to them when the girls are coloring or playing quietly, but they’d also make great CDs for car trips – even quick errands because no individual story is too long.  They’d also make great, engaging listening for family devotions, particularly if you have audio learners in your home!

At only $7.95/CD I think these recordings straight from God’s word are an excellent value!  I hope that they will be available as MP3 downloads in the future!  There are currently six volumes, and if you buy any combination of six CDs you receive free shipping!

You can find a list of all the available recordings here, and also listen to some audio clips online to see if this series would be a good fit for your family.  I plan to buy Volume 2: The Life of Christ to enjoy with our girls because it has one of my daughter’s FAVORITE stories from John 9 on it!

Disclosure: I received a copy of this CD in order to review it, all thoughts and opinions are my own.

You can read reviews of the other CDs in the series here at the TOS Crew blog!

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

Keyboard Town PALS is a program that teaches children how to type by using fun and colorful puppets to help them remember where the letters of the alphabet live on the typical QWERTY keyboard.  This typing program is recommended for children between 7 and 10 years of age, and uses a relaxed, timer-free experiences for children to learn the basics.

I’ve really wanted to try this program out for a while, because typing is a vitally important skill for our children to learn in today’s technologically savvy age.  I was selected to review a web-based version of this program but technical difficulties (I was unable to access it online for some reason), led to the sending of a physical copy of the CD-delivered software.  Unfortunately it hasn’t arrived yet, so I can’t share our experiences with you today, watch for more details in the future.

It is available for purchase a web-based subscription, or as a physical CD (your choice of Windows or Mac) for $39.95.

It looks like their website is currently being upgraded, but hopefully you’ll be able to visit there soon to read all the details!

You can also click over to the TOS Crew Review blog to read the experiences of those who were able to use the program with their children!

My children (like most) respond very well to game-based learning, so I was very excited to receive a subscription to review Ooka Island.

The 3-D computer-animated program features a compelling storyline – a villainous pig has taught his henchmen to read and used their increased mental prowess to capture the helpless (and illiterate) Ooka elves!  Your child’s mission is to free the Ooka elves by ‘reading’ books (not really reading them in the pre-levels but I’ll get to that later) – and along the way they’ll also have fun phonics lessons, alphabet lessons, phonological awareness games, and a whole lot more.  After the elves are freed, your child can play with them in the Pencil Playground – buy playground equipment, extra clothing, feed them snacks, and a lot more during their free play time (8 minutes that follows a 20 minute guided learning session).

My five-year-old has been using Ooka Island and she loves the fun games and the engaging storyline.  Your child gets to pick their own avatar who goes through all the on-screen activities, and can change her clothes during free play time, go on the play equipment etc. so it’s as if your child is really on the island having adventures.  The music is so catchy (we all get the theme song stuck in our heads), and she always ASKS to play Ooka Island – it’s really like a fun game for her, even though it includes very solid, comprehensive reading instruction.

She gets to earn stickers when she progresses through the activities (which are just plain fun in their own right), free Ooka elves, and unlock fun items for her Pencil Playground (even though the elves there are very hard to actually engage in play – some more work needed there).  It’s very motivating and fun.

From my point of view as a mom I love the phonological awareness activities that help to build blending skills, like the Clumsy Whacky moving factory game where there are a bunch of items floating in a river, a voice sounds out a word slowly, and your child needs to put the parts together and click the item that is being said.  There is also direct phonics teaching in the Cave of Sounds (although this doesn’t following a regular intensive phonics progression – they introduce two letter teams VERY early on, before even teaching all of the single letter sounds).  There is even a jet-ski game that uses microphone recognition to determine if your child is saying the displayed sound correctly.  There isn’t an easy way for me to skip ahead in the game and see how it works for older children, so I can only comment on the Pre-K levels that we’ve gone through ourselves.  In all there are 24 levels that go from Pre-K all the way to Grade 2.

For the most part, my five-year-old could complete the learning activities independently, but there was one section of the program that she struggled with, and that I, as a dedicated phonics-mommy wasn’t keen on either.

In the Popcorn Library, children ‘read’ books in the early levels, by watching a story being read to them on the screen with words that are highlighted as they go.  This is fine, my girls love digital ‘read to them’ stories, but what I DID NOT like was the emphasis on sight words that comes out of this reading activity.  There are some pictorial comprehension questions that were fine, but then comes the, “Click on the word that says _____.”  This frustrated my little five-year-old SO much, and it frustrated me too.  I don’t think the activity is developmentally appropriate, and I DO NOT want to teach her to just guess at words when she isn’t even really blending yet .

For the most part, I was happy with Ooka Island – it’s very comprehensive; all the skill building activities blend well together (except for those sight words in the Popcorn Library).  The phonological activities that lead to understanding of segmenting and blending are very promising, and I wish there was a way to do the program WITHOUT the sight word segments of the Popcorn Library.  It would be really awesome if that was the case.  As it is, I clearly have some mixed feelings about the program.

So, what does Ooka Island cost, and how does it work?  After signing up for a subscription you’ll need to download a BIG program – 2 GB, so make sure you’re ready for that!  It’s also a bit of a memory hog (and has some glitches and bugs that still need to be worked out, but there is supposed to be a patch coming for those soon), so close everything else before running it.  You’ll need an internet connection for logging in and keeping track of your child’s progress, but once you have the download, it really doesn’t take much bandwidth.

For one child the pricing is $12.95 for one month, $59.95 for six months, or $99.95 for a year.  For up to four children the price is $19.95 for one month, $99.95 for six months, or $129.95 for a year.  You can find all of the pricing details and sign-up information here.  There is even a 14-day free trial that you can sign up for to see if this program is a good fit for your family.  If you like it, you can use this code LAUNCHSPECIAL30 to save 30% on a monthly subscription!

Don’t forget!  You can also find many more TOS Crew reviews of Ooka Island Adventure here!

Disclosure: I received a 6 month subscription to Ooka Island for the purposes of this review.

I took a couple of years of Latin in high school and the instructor’s approach reminds me a lot of my high-school teacher’s.  Standing in front of a blackboard, teaching grammar, vocabulary, and sentences, Dwane makes it so much more engaging.  He’s a bit zany, his sentences are funny, and he gets students right into working with reading complete sentences and translations without bogging down in a LOT of grammar.

Each lesson is broken into three parts, the first teaches grammar, the second teaches sentences where you can see the grammar in action and develop translation skills, and the third teaches reading – this is sort of an immersive experience.  I’d have to summarize the program as more of a reading approach to Latin than an old school all grammar all the time approach; if you’re familiar with Cambridge, this is a bit similar.  So, there are 30 lessons per level, each level is a year’s worth of study (unless you are a high school student), so you can do one lesson each week, one part per day and one day of vocabulary review would make four days of Latin/week pretty easily – the lessons are short and easy to get done.

If you’re wondering about which pronunciation this program uses, there isn’t really an easy answer.  Dwane does his own Latin thing.  It’s a bit classical, a bit ecclesiastical, and a bit Dwane.  I love his approach (explained in the free lessons – see below), he’s pretty laid back about pronunciation approaches, his is a hybrid, but I love his accent.  My daughter is already mimicking his cadence and style of Latin speech.

Your child will need to be familiar with some basic grammatical concepts before diving in – verbs, nouns, and pronouns at this level.  My oldest daughter (8) is already pretty familiar with these ideas, and you need to make sure your child is comfortable with them, because the course dives right in and starts with the most important Latin verb ‘to be’ (sum, es, est, sumus, estis, sunt).  You can find the complete scope and sequence here as a pdf download.

Any beginning Latin student who can read English confidently and has basic grammatical knowledge can profit from this course regardless of age, though it is suggested that high school students supplement with further study using Lingua Latina Pars 1 and Lingua Latina Exercita 1 alongside level 1.

We purchased an iPad a couple of months ago and have been learning how to use it in our homeschool, and Latin on the iPad is amazing.  Visual Latin also has DVDs available to purchase, and the downloads can also be used on your computer, iPod or iPhone – there are two versions, high-resolution for the iPad and lower resolution for the iPhone/iPod.

My daughter has some sensory integration issues – especially when it comes to handling paper (that makes homeschooling fun).  I was so surprised when it was time to do the Latin worksheets – I had recently purchased PDF Expert which lets you write directly on pdfs, so I let her do her worksheet in that…and she had fun!

We did one part of a lesson a day, and there is one corresponding page for each part of the lesson.  When I said it was time to do her worksheet she said, “Woohoo!”  Okay, we study Latin and I have NEVER heard “Woohoo!” when it comes to doing a worksheet.  We’re in love with doing worksheets on the iPad now so I completely appreciate the all-digital option.  If you don’t have an iPad you can print the pdfs.

My daughter is literally BEGGING me to keep going with Visual Latin instead of our other program now, so we’re going to keep on with it and see how it progresses!  I can’t tell you how many times she’s told me how funny her Latin teacher is, she’s really enjoying the language now and actually starting to understand how to read it.  There is also Christian content that is very naturally presented within the course – double bonus!

Do you want to try Visual Latin out?  I recommend EVERYONE get the free introductory lessons if you are interested in learning Latin through ANY program.  The first four introductory sessions explain a bit about Latin as a language, and the many benefits to be had by learning Latin (there are MANY, trust me, Latin is worth it).  You also get two complete regular lessons to see how the course itself is structured and laid out.  And…they are free!

When you’re ready to purchase, you can buy lessons 1-10 as a download for a single family for $25, or get the DVD for $30.  If you buy the entire first level you can get lessons 1-30 (all of level one) for $80 on DVD – a bit of a discount on that.  Level 2 is also available and there are different prices if you want to show the recordings to a group or co-op.  There are also live online Latin courses for Lingua Latina available if you prefer to go that way.

You can find many more reviews of Visual Latin over at the TOS Crew blog here!

Disclosure: I received Visual Latin Lessons 1-10 Download for free to review this item.  All opinions are genuine and my own.

If you are looking for free apps for homeschooling, or want to make sure you don’t want to miss any great app sales, please drop by every few days!  I hope to update this page regularly with limied time free app offers, limited time sales, and I’ll also work on putting together a series of resource pages of FREE apps that you can use broken into subject categories.

I hope you find this new resource helpful!

The past few weeks our family has been busy preparing a new resource website for homeschooling parents.

AppsforHomeschooling.com is written by me (Jennifer Bogart) for homeschoolers, by a homeschooler. I’m a homeschooling mom of four, 8 months – 8 years. I’m an app-loving, aspiring geek dedicated to helping you hunt down the best homeschooling apps (iPhone/iPod/iPad) for your children. There are a lot of apps out there, let me help you narrow them down.

There are SO many apps out there now, how can you know which ones are worth your time and money?  Which are best for certain subjects and certain grades?  Our website is clearly organized to help you find what you’re looking for!

Our Apps for Homeschooling facebook page and twitter account list free apps every day, deep discounts, news, and more.

The MOST exciting news though, is that this week Apps for Homeschooling is having a week-long Grand Opening this week!  With over 30 giveaways and more than $260 worth of free download promo codes to giveaway, this is an event you won’t want to miss!

You can find the full list of giveaways at the main Grand Opening page - and stay tuned, more giveaways are being added EVERY day!

Getting Into Geometry

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.