As part of The Schoolhouse Review Crew, I received High School Physical Science In Your Home from Science for High School to review.

Science for High School was developed and written by a homeschooling mother of 5 with a degree in microbiology. All the Science for High School curriculum is written with the busy homeschool parent and the maturing high school student in mind.

Science for High School Physical Science Review

High School Physical Science in Your Home contains all the subjects one would expect from a physical science course. They first learn about scientific method, then go on to study the atmosphere & weather, astronomy, motion, force, & simple machines, energy & electricity, chemistry, earth science, geology, along with rocks and mineralogy.

The teachers manual is divided into first semester & second semester sections, along with sections for quizzes & final exams, labs, and is spiral bound. The student manual is separate from the quizzes & final exams, and both are three hold punched to insert in your own notebooks.

The front of the Teachers Manual contains a Frequently Asked Questions section where it is explained how to use this course. Also included is a supply list for each semester. The supply list is listed by week. So you can tell at a glance the supplies you will need each week. I found this to be very convenient.

The information in this course is presented in a different way than most students are used to. Instead of the student reading the text, then answering the questions, the lessons in the student book are all questions. Each lesson has anywhere from five to over twenty questions. The student must then research the answers for themselves, and write down their findings either in the student manual or, for longer answers, in their notebook.

A page from the student manual and my daughters notebook

 

There is no text book required for this course. The student can certainly use a text book you have to gather information. They can also use other books, dictionaries, encyclopedias, and the internet to gather information.

This is a very different way of learning. It took my daughter, 14 and going into 9th grade, about two weeks to stop asking what she had to write down, and feel comfortable with answering the questions herself. She does like working independently and setting her own pace. So once she got used to this new way of learning, she did very well.

Abby demonstrating Bernoulli's Principle, one of the labs, with a straw and colored water. See the green water in the straw? That means it worked. 🙂

 

If you follow the suggested schedule, students can take a week to do a lesson, including the lab. For example, the student can research and answer the questions Monday through Thursday, then on Friday the student and parent can meet to go over what was learned. The lab can also be done on Friday. There are also quizzes and tests that can be used weekly or biweekly. The answers to these are in the teachers manual.

I really liked High School Physical Science in Your Home. Having my students be able to look up information and put that information to use has been a priority for me. This course puts this goal into action. The research skills learned during this course will benefit the student in all subject areas. And in life once they graduate. I highly recommend High School Physical Science in Your Home. My daughter will be finishing this course for her 9th grade science.

Physical Science for High School is available on the website for $79.99. Extra student books are available for $24.99. Each extra student book comes with a set of quizzes & tests. Copyright does not allow the student manual or the quizzes & tests to be copied. A kit is also available with the materials required for the experiments. The materials required for the labs can be easily found, many in your own home, but they offer a kit to make it easier.

 

 

As part of The Schoolhouse Review Crew, I received online access to Mayan Mysteries Online Game from Dig-It Games. Dig-It Games was founded by a professional archaeologist and a former middle-school teacher. Dig-It! Games develops educational games that encourage kids to explore the world around them through historically accurate content. Mayan Mysteries is for students in fifth through ninth grades. My 12 year old, 7th grade son played this game. The Single User License is for one student. You can use it with more than one student, though. After the first child finishes the game, clicking the “Start New” option on the main menu will create a completely fresh game for another player.

In Mayan Mysteries, kids help Professor Alex Quinn and his niece and nephew Fiona and Charlie solve the mystery of a looter that has been digging up Maya sites. While trying to solve the mystery, students will visit Maya sites, uncover & analyze artifacts, decode glyphs, explore the Maya calendar, learn the Maya math system, solve puzzles & gather clues to track the mysterious thief. While having fun solving the mystery, kids will learn geographic, scientific, and mathematical concepts.

Dig-It! Games – Mayan Mysteries Review

My son, Zachary, had great fun with Mayan Mysteries. It’s very easy to sign in and get started with the game. No teacher or parent prep is required. I’d say he spent 10-12 hours playing this game. I wish I had thought to keep track of his time.  The only thing he needed help with was some of the Mayan math. I will say I’m glad we don’t use Mayan math. lol Once my son got used to using the Mayan math, he was able to keep up a steady pace in the game.

One of the things I really liked about the game was the adjustable volume settings. The music, that played through the game, and the characters audio both had separate volume settings. If your student works better without the distraction of the music, you can turn it all the way down. A plus for moms, too, that don’t want music playing all the time.

Zach said, “The game was good.  I liked when you had to find objects in different rooms. I liked answering the trivia questions, too. My goal was to make it through the temple gates, but I only made it there once. I didn’t like the Mayan Math. I already have enough math. I have math up to my ears.”

There is an ending to the game. After the kids have completed all the activities, a congratulations screen comes up. There is no way to see your progress in the game, so it’s really a surprise when they come to the final screen. Zach has asked me several times since finishing the game when Mayan Mysteries 2 is coming out.

You can watch the trailer below or play the Mayan Mysteries Demo

The Mayan Mysteries Single User License, like I received, is available for $21.99. The license is good for one year. There is also a class room license available.

As part of The Schoolhouse Review Crew I received Teaching the Classics from Institute for Excellence in Writing to review.

The Institute for Excellence in Write (IEW) offers literature, writing, spelling and grammar products for students of all ages.

Teaching the Classics A Socratic Method for Literary Education is a literature seminar for parents and teachers. You can view video excerpts, and sample pages on the website. Teaching the Classics educates the teacher in how to teach literary analysis to their students. Students can work through the seminar at the same time as the teachers, if the teacher chooses to do it that way. I watched the videos, and worked in the workbook myself.

Teaching the Classics is amazing! No literature courses that I ever took taught how to analyze characters, plots, and themes like Teaching the Classics did. The DVDs show the instructor, Adam Andrews, in an actual seminar. So he is standing at a podium and whiteboard the whole time. He ask questions of those attending the seminar, and they ask him questions, also. Many times, someone in the seminar would ask a question that I had, also.  So even though your watching the seminar on dvd, it’s like you are there, too.

As he is talking, and showing examples on the white board, you can follow along in the workbook. Poems are included in the lessons in the workbook. You will have to purchase the books to use them with the course. I already have most of the books used in the course. Or better yet, just use the library! All of the books used are common books that should be available in all libraries.

The seminar starts with the Five Elements of Fiction: Setting, Characters, Theme, Plot, and Conflict. Literary Style is then covered, including terms such as imagery, allusion, metaphor, simile, and foreshadowing. The instructor actually takes you through analyzing several poems and books during the seminar. Once you learn the Teaching the Classics method for studying literature, you can apply the techniques to any books you and your students read, from children’s books to novels, and anything in between.

Some of the books, poems, and authors covered are Longfellow, Paul Revere’s Ride, Peter Rabbit, Tom Sawyer, and Casey at Bat. There is a daily lesson plan guideline to help you get started using Teaching the Classics with your students. As well as, book lists, printable story charts, and more. There is a Scope & Sequence included, which lists 10 weekly lessons   Also included in the back of the workbook is The Socratic List. The Socratic List is a list of 21 questions that can be used with any book you are reading. Each one of these 21 questions has additional questions under it, some with as many as 17 questions. For example, the first question is Where does the story take place? There are then 10 questions below that question to be answered covering everything from the country, city, atmosphere, economic class, and any historical events that have taken place there. This is a very thorough list of questions that will take some time to get through for each book. These are not simple comprehension questions, but questions designed to help the reader get inside the characters and story.

I was very impressed with Teaching the Classics. Now that I have learned the techniques, I plan on using them with my students.

Teaching the Classics 4 DVD Seminar & Workbook sells for $89. on the IEW website. Extra workbooks are available for $29. There are also many free resources on the website.