Summer Star Gazing

So we started a star gazing summer lesson. Each week we will look for and learn about the constellations. Did you know the Big Dipper and the Little Dipper are NOT a constellation? They are often mistaken as constellations. We located Polaris (North Star) and then we learned about Cassiopeia and how to locate where Cassiopeia is located from the little dipper. This will lead us up to the August Meteor shower. Very exciting and our kids are really enjoying the outside fun. Our weather is not cooperating this week so we will see what discoveries we can find as the week progresses and the weather hopefully clears.

I have been posting a lot on the fb page and I thought a couple posts were syncing, it’s been a week. Interested in how everyones summer is going thus far? Are you getting ready to start back up or are you still in school? Drop us a line here or on the fb page and let us know how things are going.

Happy Schooling!

Everyday Education

Everyday Education

We recieved a digital version of Transcripts Made Easy: The Homeschooler's Guide to High-School Paperwork

We all at some point could use a little extra help when it comes to transcripts.  Sometimes they can be a little confusing or overwhelming. I like how this ebook breaks everything down little by little and explains each section in detail to help her readers fully understand what transcripts are and how to make your transcripts.

First of all there is a table of contents that is broken in to six sections. The sections will cover topics like - What a transcript is? Why you need it and Who will see your transcripts?Planning High School years, courses, any testing to consider and college prep. Recordkeeping, Organizing subjects, Special Needs Transcripts and Resources. Grades, Credits and GPA resources. Types of transcripts, How to creat transcripts, Diplomas and more. There really is a lot of details broken down to help you break things down and understand a little at a time so you are not overwhelmed with everything all at once. 

We personally do not go by grades in our homeschool right now with the lower elementary grade. As we begin moving in to the Highschool years we will begin tracking more of the grades. This does not mean we do not have records of any tests scores or how they are doing in their studies. Some of the courses we use have tracked their progress and scores but we do not generally track or go by grades. I like that there is a lot of information and how to tutorials as well as sample pages we can use and since my middle child is nearing her High School years this will help us to get her better organized and ready to track and properly record her information. 


(I do have some pictures for this post but currently my laptop is not letting me access them).


You can find them on social media at:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/janicepcampbell
Twitter: https://twitter.com/janicecampbell
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/janicecampbell/

Techie Homeschool Mom Review

Our review for Techie Homeschool Mom is for an online course to the Ancient Egypt Online Unit Study.

Techie Homeschool Mom is an online unit study course created by Beth Napoli. Beth's goal is to inspire families to make the most of digital learning. She teaches habits that families can follow in order to have balance in the digital age. 

Our review crew was given the choice to review one of the following online courses:

 - Ancient Egypt Online Unit Study   - Ancient Greece Online Unit Study
 - Ancient Rome Online Unit Study   - Famous Artists Online Unit Study (Vol. 1)
 - Solar System Online Unit Study     - Famous Inventors Online Unit Study
 - Famous Artists Online Unit Study (Vol. 2)

After you login and open your course there is a contents section that includes the contents to your online course. We were working on the Ancient Egypt Online Unit Study so our contents looked like this:

• Before You Start
• Egyptian Civilzation
• Heiroglyphics
• Rosetta Stone
• Egyptian Daily Life
• Inventions and Technology of Ancient Egypt 

• Ancient Egyptian Clothing
• Famous Egyptians
• Pyramid 
• Mummies
• Final Project

The first topic is more of an intro to the site. In this section there is a book club tab where the list of the recommended books to read along with the course is noted. There is also a tab section that includes the list of materials you will need to complete the lecture projects. In each lecture topic above there are 3-4 lessons. Some will begin with a video while others begin with the lesson. There are resources that will direct you off of this site to other websites.

The site is fairly easy to use and work around. I showed my kids how to login and where to begin and we looked things over together but they were able to work the lessons on their own pace. 

Unfortunately and I apologize but due to the sudden passing of our family member this review was interrupted and not fully completed during the review period. My kiddo's continue to work on the lessons and will continue working them in the weeks ahead.


Here at the side you can see my daughter drew her name in Hieroglyphics.

You can follow Techie Homeschool Mom on the following social media sites:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/techiehomeschoolmom/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TechieHSmom
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/TechieHSmom/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGI-La5pBP4oFnd9DCRCdVg
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/techiehomeschoolmom/

Techie Homeschool Mom does offer an affiliate program and you can learn more about that in the attached link below - http://www.techiehomeschoolmomaffiliates.com/idevaffiliate/index.php

Our crew is reviewing for each one of the online courses mentioned above and you can see what they are saying in the below attached image link.

Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW) Review

We did a review for Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW), a program that helps students with writing skills. The program we recieved is Fix It! Grammar which has six levels of writing skills that begins with basic writing and works through grammatical skills. The early books of Fix It! Grammar help students to recognize the parts of speech, punctuation, identifying phrases, main clauses, and dependent phrases.  The Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW) site recommends that students start with Fix It! Grammar:  The Nose Tree (Book 1) since all of their books build on each other.  There are 33 weekly lessons to work through teaching edit and proofreading skills and each lesson is fairly short to work.

There website has a lot of information including a few webinars, an intro video by Andrew Pudewa, there is also a placement test located on the site to help assist you in where to start your student before placing an order.



If one wanted to work ahead they could work a weeks lesson in one or two days. I was ok with my daughter working a page a day as long as she knew what she was doing and was not having trouble. Each lesson is fairly easy to understand for the child to work independantly if they choose. At the end of the last lesson in the student book they include a completion certificate. 

Also in the back of the students booklet is a set of flashcards to help the student(s) to study and visually learn along with with their lessons. The very back of the book includes a Glossary Terms section.

We will be purchasing the next level for this program. Others have reviewed for Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW) see what they have to say by clicking the review crew link below.

You can follow IEW on the following social media links:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/excellenceinwriting
Twitter: https://twitter.com/iew
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/iew/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/iewtv
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iew/


IEW does offer an affiliate program and you can learn more by clicking this attached link: IEW.com/affiliates

 

Crosswired Science Review

We were given an online year membership to a new science website in exchange for our review for CrossWired Science. 

CrossWired Science is a new creation-based online science curriculum that combines a number of science disciplines in with each of their Global Topics. CrossWired Science can be used as a full curriculum that covers 3 months or when the two later additions are added to the site it can be used as a year long Science curriculum. Their first units released are the Sound, and Fluid Dynamic.

This review was a little more confusing then the rest we have done in the beginning and the site was a little confusing at first because it was a new site. When we started to login and set up each child, it appeared to need a separate email for each child. Later we found out we didn't need a separate email. So in the beginning it was a little frustrating and confusing. There is so very much information on this site to retain at first. I can not sugar coat it, I was a bit overwhelmed and some of the emails back to back got a little confusing for the set up. Due to the timing of this review and a family members passing it probably added to the confusion so we ended up using one login for now.

When you login to the CrossWired Science site you choose whether you will work fluid or sound. Once you have selected the category you will work in it brings you to an other screen where you will select the topics you want to begin. Some of the topics are noted in the attached image.

Once you log in and begin your lesson there is a downloadable worksheet that you can use a long with the lesson. There is a video to watch on the lesson and then afterwards a quiz that does the grading for you. (always a plus to have a curriculum grade for you). We like that this site is creation based. It can be used with or without other science curriculum, as a family or individually used. Once you figure out and set up each child their progress can be tracked and work graded as they go. Unfortunately, we were not able to work a whole lot on this site due to the funeral and last minute arrangements dealing with our loved one. We will continue on using the program and work to set up the individual accounts so that each child can work and progress recorded. We are very thankful for the chance to do this review and we apologize we didn't get to complete it all the way through. 

Others are reviewing for CrossWired Science and you can read their reviews in the attached link below. CrossWired Science does offer an affiliate program and you can lear more about that in this attached link:  https://crosswiredscience.com/affiliate-registration/

Stopmotion Explosion Review

We did a review recently for Stopmotion Explosion. This is a great product for kids who are in to art, movie making and animations. 


For this review we were sent the Stop Motion Animation Kit. This kit is a great starter kit that will teach your students to learn the techniques used to make movies with action figures, LEGO's and other materials.The kit includes 2 booklet manuals. One of the manuals is a in-depth instruction manual with around 300 pages that covers topics like Lighting, Camera, Animation Actors, Background Stage, Sound, Editing and more. The other manual is a quick start 12-page guide that quickly shows you how to get started. There is a cd that you can download the program on to your computer, although it is not required since you can download the program from their web site. It also includes a HD camera and the program is compatible with Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, 10 & OS X 7.5.

So this review was painfully and hilariously fun. Our laptop was being a turd with the program but we finally got it to cooperate and connect to our windows movie maker program. The movie maker was giving slight issues off an on otherwise we did not have many other issues. I promise you my 14 year old daughter was more then super excited about this review. She is an awesome artist with a creative mind. She has a dream to either compose music for animations and movies or create animations with her drawings later in life. So getting to use this program was huge for her. I forgot to take a few pictures of her working on the program. I really just give her the space she needed to focus and work. She didn't want anyone to see her trailer until she was finished.

Earlier on she struggled slightly with a story line mostly due to the passing of a family member, but she was able to get her focus back and decided to do a trailer to a future war movie she wants to do. She decided to test run her trailer using her 13 year old brothers Transformer action figures. Yes, I promise you the voice of the transformers is none other then my 13 yo son. My daughter found an audio enhancing button in the movie maker that helped boost and change the voice closer to a characters voice. My son loved every minute of his voice performing.

Using the stopmotion program was fairly easy once we got the hang of it. Just download the program, plug the camera up and open the program up to begin your project. The only thing I or my husband did was walk our 14 year old daughter through the instructions and if she had a question or was puzzled she asked dad for direction. (Both of them are plotting a Star Wars short film down the road). 

She did spend hours and I mean hours perfecting the edit part. You can't tell it but she used around 400 pictures to get her characters to do what she wanted and added LED lighting from a flashlight to certain parts. She also spent a couple days working on the background to her animation. I told her it was ok not to stress doing this, it is a trial run for fun. But... In her own words, “She is an artist and an artist is a perfectionist,” to some extent. So she really put herself in to this project and we hope you enjoy her fun with the autobots. I am truly amazed with this product and how well she did doing this. It at first seems like it is going to be over the head but once you get going it really is an easy product to use.


Follow Stopmotion Explosion on social media below:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/category/App-Page/Stopmotion-Explosion-104732269687187/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/StopmoExplosion
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1ich35AhOSQcXwrSHqrJdg

See what everyone else is saying about Stopmotion Explosion by clicking the attached link below.