As part of The Old Schoolhouse Homeschool Crew, I received a 2 month trial of Math Rider The Intelligent Math Game.

 

 

Math Rider is a math facts game designed for children between 6 and 12 years of age, which would be grades 2-6. Math Rider can be installed up to 3 times, including on different computers in your home, and can be used for multiple children.  That makes it great for homeschool families!

 

 

From the website: MathRider is a game that takes you into a land of magical adventures where fun, excitement and great rewards await, while helping you to achieve perfect mathematics skills in your times tables and division. The main game is played riding through the Mathlands. The Mathlands contain various different magical realms where you need to jump over obstacles by answering questions (number sentences) correctly.

 

These are screen shots from the Math Rider game.

From website There are three basic quests in the game. One for easy, one for medium and one for advanced difficulty. At the end of the advanced level quest there is a further Master level quest. Each quest involves the rider in a storyline with a need to ride through the Mathlands for great and noble causes. It is highly recommended that you start with the easy level quest in the operation of your choice (addition, subtraction, multiplication or division) and move up from there. If you are already quite expert in say addition, you may go straight to advanced, however then you will also miss out on the rewards that the addition easy and addition medium quests offer (more on quest rewards below). The Master level quest only becomes available once the rider has acquired mastery over an operation. For example, once you have completed the advanced multiplication quest with 99% or better mastery, the king will have a special request for you, making the master level quest in multiplication available to you.

 

 

I used Math Rider with my 11 year old, 5th grade son. He loves it! He loves the story line and the map in between “rides”. While on rides, the student solves 30 problems. The map screen then comes up and shows the student their score, and how far along in the quest they are.

Here is a Math Rider video so you can get a feel for how the game is played. This is a Math Rider video, not mine, and it accurately portrays our experience with the game.

Math Rider is an excellent game for kids to practice and master math facts. All four math functions are played in the game, so the kids can develop a real mastery of elementary school math.

My son playing Math Rider. You can tell he’s concentrating by his lips. lol He asks to play Math Rider every day. That’s how much he loves it!

The story line in Math Rider is about Kings, Queen, Princess’s, wizards and spells. Unfortunately, they used wizards and spells in the story. We don’t normally use any curriculum with this story line. Fortunately, the story in Math Rider is drawings and narration, as you can tell from the video above. So while there is mention of wizards and spells, nothing is actually shown. I wanted to share that information, as I know there are other families that don’t allow this story line.

Overall, though, I was happy with the program. It really does help with the children learning mastery of math facts. If an 11 year old boy asks to play every day, it must be fun!

You can get a Free 7 day trial of Math Rider! Try if with your kids for a week, see if it works for your family before buying.

Right now you can buy Math Rider for $37. This special price is available until February 15th, after that, it goes back to it’s original price of $47.

 

See what other Homeschool Crew members are saying about Math Rider.

 

 

*Disclosure of Material Connection: I received one or more of the products or services mentioned above for free in the hope that I would mention it on my blog. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

As part of The Old Schoolhouse Homeschool Crew, I received a Swan Lake CD from Maestro Classics.

There are currently 9 cd’s in the Maestro Classics series. With one also available in Spanish. They are $16.98 per cd and $9.98 per mp3 download.

From the Maestro website:

The Story of Swan Lake, Tchaikovsky’s greatest ballet score, is the tale of a prince who falls in love with a beautiful princess. The princess, however, has been turned into a swan by an evil magician, and only the prince’s love can break the spell. This narrated version of the classic tale for children is sure to delight all who love ballet and enchanting storytelling.

A 24-page activity book included with the CD contains a biography of Tchaikovsky, information on acoustic and electric guitars, sheet music and words for a sing-along song, explanation of major and minor keys, puzzles and more. MP3 download from Maestro Classics website includes a PDF of the activity booklet.

The Story of Swan Lake cd I received has the music from the ballet, over 30 minutes worth, as well as added features.  The story of Tchaikovsky’s life is included so you can do a study on the composer.

There is a small 24 activity book included with the CD, which includes word games and activities, information about the composer, and sheet music for a short song. They only thing I didn’t like about the Cd was that the activity book is meant for one user. Maestro Classics has a great Homeschool Music Curriculum section with information for using the Classics in all subject areas. I think it would be much more conducive to using the activities in a homeschool setting if they were available as a download on their website. If you buy the mp3 version, the activity book is available in pdf form. So this is only a concern if you buy the cd version.

It is, however, not enough to keep me from recommending Maestro Classics. I do recommend Maestro Classics for the homeschool setting. When my oldest two were elementary and middle school aged, we lived close to a big city and got to take field trips to the symphony and the ballet. Now we, along with a good portion of other homeschoolers, live hours and hours from the city. Now with Maestro Classics, we can still expose our children to great classical music.

These CD’s are geared toward children from age 6-12.  But honestly, I think they can be enjoyed by all ages. We all listened to the cd together. That includes 5th grade, 7th grade, 11th grade and me! It was nice to just have the music playing while we sat and listened to it. This would be great for learning on the go, also. Car school!

There is also a song on the cd titled Speed Metal Swan. A world famous guitarist’s version of the Swan Lake theme song.  The heavy metal version was a little too much for my tastes, lol, but kids love it.

You can find Maestro Classics on Facebook and Maestro Classics on Twitter. At the time of this review, Maestro Classics is giving away an 8 CD set on the Maestro Classics Facebook page. Be sure to stop by and enter!

 

See what other Homeschool Crew members are saying about Maestro Classics.

 

 

*Disclosure of Material Connection: I received one or more of the products or services mentioned above for free in the hope that I would mention it on my blog. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

 

As part of The Old Schoolhouse Homeschool Review Crew, I received the digital version of the Z-Guide for Les Miserables to review.

 

 

From the Zeezok website:

Established in 2003, we believe “It is better to build children than to repair men.” To that end we strive to provide quality literature and educational books for use in training the next generation. We trust our products will assist you in developing your family’s love for God and country.

 

What is a Z-Guide? A Z-Guide let’s you incorporate movies into your curriculum. All of the movies that there are guides for fall into a specific time in history. You can search the Z-Guides by Historical Timeline, making it easy to find a Z-Guide to use with your history curriculum. Kids and teens love to watch movies, using a Z-Guide is a great way to reinforce what they are already learning. Most of the movies should be available at your library, or with an online service. You may not have to buy the movie. Zeezok does sell the movies to go with the guides. The guides are written for specific versions of the movies. If there is more than one version of the movie your buying the guide for, make sure you have the right version of the movie.

For this review, we received the digital version of the Les Miserables Z-Guide. The Z-Guides are available as downloads or CD’s shipped in the mail. The cost for these guides is $12.99 each for in home use. If you would like to use they guides in a group setting, like a homeschool co-op, they are $49.99. There are Z-Guides available for elementary grades through high school. Les Miserables is for high school students.

 

You can view a Z Guide sample, this sample is similar in format to the Les Miserables Z Guide I received. I was very impressed with the quality of the guide. It is very thorough. The kids read the synopsis of the movie before watching it. Then there are several pages of review questions for them to answer while watching the movie. I found this to work much better in the kids understanding the movie, compared to just taking their own notes while watching the movie.

The guides are written so they are completed in 5 days, with 2 activities being done every day. Of course, you can adjust this to fit your schedule.  We took longer than 5 days to complete the study. On day one, you watch the movie and answer the review questions. The remaining 4 days have activities built around the historical time period of the movie, a hands on activity, a world view activity and a Filmmakers Art activity. The students will learn research skills, writing skills and critical thinking while completing the activities. And for the parents, answers are provided for all the questions!

I found the Les Miserables Z-Guide to be a great addition to our history curriculum.

 

See what other Homeschool Crew members are saying about Z-Guides.

 

 

*Disclosure of Material Connection: I received one or more of the products or services mentioned above for free in the hope that I would mention it on my blog. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

As part of The Old Schoolhouse Homeschool Crew, I received REAL Homeschool Spanish to review.

 

I received the downloadable version of REAL Homeschool Spanish which included the book (featuring 10 units, 55 vocab clusters and 15 idea sections of ways to further your learning), a 179 page activity book featuring all kids of activities – word searches, crosswords, word scrambles and lots more, all the audio files you need, an answer guide and the daily curriculum guide/planner.

 

From the REAL Homeschool Spanish website:

“We believe that a relaxed environment encourages positive language learning. Too much grammar and too much emphasis on perfectly correct speech hinders the enjoyment and progress of learning. Slow and steady practice promotes correct speech over time. For these reasons, we have limited our grammar sections to a minimum and stress communication and enjoyment first.”

 

REAL Homeschool Spanish is designed to be enjoyable for the whole family and you do not need to know how to speak Spanish in order to have fun learning the language with your child. The program is for ages 5-13, or Kindergarten through 7th or 8th grade.

This is a great curriculum to use with with all ages and grades at the same time. I’ve been using this with my 13 yo and my 11 yo. We are loving it! They have loved the activities and making their own flashcards. I love that the audio clips are short, making it easier to replay the clips you need.

The Daily Curriculum Guide is 48 weeks of daily lesson plans for the 10 units of study. While it is sold separately, I think it is well worth the $10. to purchase. It tells you what clips to listen to when and what activity pages to do every day. The Daily Curriculum Guide also tells you what other activities you can do to reinforce what your kids are learning. It even has a place to write notes. It is in a week at a glance format, making it easy to see what’s next.

While I took Spanish in high school, I had forgotten nearly all of it. I didn’t remember more than a few words to teach my kids. Real Homeschool Spanish is really working for us. We are learning together. And that makes learning fun for the whole family.

 

You can see REAL Homeschool Spanish Samples, where you can also listen to sample audio clips.   REAL Homeschool Spanish also has a Cultural Links section. A great addition to your Spanish studies.

 

There are several options for purchasing REAL Homeschool Spanish:

• $49.95 for download version of the Book, Activity Book, Answer Book, and audio files
• $59.95 for all of the above plus Daily Curriculum Guide
• Hard copies (with audio Cd’s) of above are available for $89.95
• $99.95 with the Daily Curriculum Guide with free shipping

 

See what other TOS Homeschool Crew members are saying about REAL Homeschool Spanish.

 

*Disclosure of Material Connection: I received one or more of the products or services mentioned above for free in the hope that I would mention it on my blog. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

As part of The Old Schoolhouse Homeschool Crew I was sent Vintage Remedies for Girls to review.

 

 

 

From the Vintage Remedies website:

Vintage Remedies for Girls teaches healthy and natural living to girls ages 7-13. Our new workbook is packed with over 200 pages covering every aspect of natural living including wellness, nutrition, herbal medicine, immunity, natural cleaning and body care, and the conservative use of valuable natural resources. Girls will learn how to identify unhealthy foods, how to create a healthy real foods menu (and prepare it for some friends!), how to make natural cleaning supplies and skin care, how to make cheese, how to grow culinary and medicinal herbs, how to create basic herbal preparations, and much, much more!

This workbook is flexible and can be used for existing scouting groups, to form new girls groups, as a homeschooling curriculum, or to create fun mommy – daughter projects throughout the year. Each of the 18 chapters includes a brief lesson on the topic, a featured project, instructions for moms or group leaders, and a selection of additional projects on the topic for in depth learning. The book also contains sample schedules to adapt for homeschooling families, scouting groups, etc as well as convenient shopping lists for each project, complete with a resource guide and tips for parents and leaders. 202 pages / Thistle Publications / 2010

 

 

 

Vintage Remedies for Girls retails for $45. So does Vintage Remedies for Boys. Right now, you can pre-order the new Vintage Remedies for Tweens for $29.95. This non-consumable book contains all the information from Vintage Remedies for Girls AND Vintage Remedies for Boys.

 

I own a couple of Vintage Remedies books, and would love to have more. So I was quite excited to be sent this book to review. My girls, who have been wanting this book also, were very happy.

Vintage Remedies for Girls is a spiral bound book, so it lays flat for reading. This is also great when you are following a recipe from the book.

Vintage Remedies for Girls is divided into 3 sections:

Food, Nutrition and Culinary Skills – chapters include: Real Food, Kitchen Basics, Healthy Drinks, Snacktime, Sweet Desserts, Local Foods, and  Growing Your Food

Health and Body -chapters include: Beautiful You – Naturally, Immunity and Prevention, Coughs and Colds, Summertime Fun, Backyard Medicine, Aromatic Oils

Natural Living – chapters include: Hospitality, Cleaner Cleaning, Green Gifting, Reducing and Reusing, A Natural Home

 

Each chapter has recipes, projects and ideas for the information covered in that chapter. In the back of the book, there is an Appendix with quizzes for each chapter.

There is also an Appendix with Schedules for Groups and Homeschools. The schedules included will help you use this book as a one or two year curriculum. The one year schedule has you doing one chapter every two weeks. The first week being used for the lesson, any supplemental reading, reviewing the projects and tips and taking the quiz. The 2nd week is devoted to completing the projects and review. The two year schedule has you doing 9 chapters a year, one a month.

The lessons are written so the girls can read and understand on their own. The lessons can also be read aloud if you have more than one daughter working in the book. While Vintage Remedies for Girls is recommend for ages 7-13, in my opinion, this book can be used for older teen girls, also. In fact, one of my daughters using this book is 16. Vintage Remedies for Girls is full of good, basic information that is useful for all ages.

All the projects look easy to complete. with most items being available at the grocery or health food store. The projects are intended to be mother-daughter projects. Which makes them even more fun!

I had a hard time deciding which chapter to begin with, as they all look interesting. I finally decided to just start at the beginning and work our way through the book. We started with the Real Food chapter. The recipes included in this chapter are for Strawberry Fruit Bars, Homemade Pizza, Chewy Chocolate Almond Granola Bars, and Pasta Primavera.

The girls and I are all loving doing this book together. We look forward to completing the rest of Vintage Remedies for Girls. Even though, we haven’t completed the whole book, I have read through it. I truly didn’t find a single thing I disliked. I love Vintage Remedies for Girls!

 

Vintage Remedies has curricula for children ages 2-12. As well as courses for adults. I hope to take a course myself next year.

You can also find Vintage Remedies on Twitter and Vintage Remedies on Facebook.

 

See what other The Old Schoolhouse Homeschool Crew Members are saying about Vintage Remedies.

 

*Disclosure of Material Connection: I received one or more of the products or services mentioned above for free in the hope that I would mention it on my blog. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

As part of The Old Schoolhouse Magazine’s Homeschool Crew, I was sent a deck of Fractazmic cards from I See Cards.

 

 

From the Fractazmic website:

Fractazmic Decks Include: 60 Math Learning Cards Each card clearly numbered Each card clearly labeled with the fraction and reinforcing graphic. What makes Fractazmic Decks Special: Quickly learn to convert and add fractions. Reinforces relationship between fractions and measurements. Shows real world use of fractions.

 

 

 

A single deck of Fractazmic Cards sells for $6.95 on the I See Cards website. Excellent for the homeschool. You can also buy the cards in a 5 deck or 10 deck package. Great for homeschool groups or schools. While aimed at 1st-8th graders, Fractazmic is for for the whole family

 

 

It is very easy to learn how to play Fractazmic. The goal is to make more hands then your opponents. A hand is cards in a suit that equal one. The deck is divided into 3 suits, Red – Sixteenths, Blue – Twelfths, Green – Tenths. On my turn, I would either draw a card from the pile or pick up cards in the discard pile. Then I would put down any “hands” that I have, for example – I would put down the blue cards 1/12, 1/6, 1/4 and 1/2 down as they equal one. I would finish my turn by discarding one card.

The game is over when someone runs out of cards. Then everyone adds up their hands, the winner being the player with the most hands. Just like in other card games, sometimes the game is over after only a couple of turns and sometimes it lasts much longer.

As you can see in the picture above, the cards are clearly labeled with color, the fraction, and the measurement on a ruler.  Kids can use the visual of the ruler to add fractions up to one. This is a very helpful feature of the cards. It makes the different fractions easier to add up.

You can also play Fractazmic online. It’s fast thinking, great fun. You only have 2 minutes to complete as many hands as possible. Yes, I have played it a few times.  Go ahead. Try it. It’s fun.   🙂

I played this card game with my 11 and 13 year olds. One thought it was  an ok game, but they disliked the fraction part. lol Yes, that kid hates fractions. The other one said it was fun and likes to play. In fact, he asks me to play it. Two different kids, two different opinions.

I think it’s a great card game to help the kids learn fractions. No, you can’t learn fractions just from playing this game. It does a great job, however, of reinforcing what the kids are learning in their regular math class.

For more information about Fractazmic, visit I See Cards. You can also download a booklet with helps for the games and math helps. To see the games played, watch these videos: How to Play Fractazmic Rummy and How to Play Trap.

 

See what other The Old Schoolhouse Homeschool Crew Members are saying about Fractazmic.

 

 

*Disclosure of Material Connection: I received one or more of the products or services
mentioned above for free in the hope that I would mention it on my blog. Regardless, I
only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.
I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255:
“Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

As part of the The Old Schoolhouse Homeschool Review team I received a free trail subscription to Reading Naturally Read Live.

 

 

Read Naturally is proud to introduce Read Live, our newest assessment and intervention program.

This comprehensive, research-based program includes Benchmark Assessor Live for screening students for overall reading proficiency and our newest intervention program, Read Naturally Live, with curriculum that supports fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, and phonics.  -from the Read Naturally website

 

I found the set up a little difficult, but after re-reading the directions a couple of times, I was able to get it done without having to calling tech support. They do have a video to help with set up, also.

The first step to using Read Naturally is assessment. The assessment involves reading 3 grade level passages. these are printed out for the student to read. While the student is reading, the teacher is usng the program to time the reading and also mark any words missed. I used Read Live with my 11 year old son.

Once you start the lesson, the child picks a story from one of the 12 available on that level.  Before starting to read, the kids see a list of key words that will be in the story. They can click on the words to get the pronounciation and definition. The student thens write a prediction of the story, what the child thinks the story will be about.

At the beginning and end of the lesson, the teacher is needed. In between, the student can work alone. At the top of the page it will say “Teacher Present” if the teacher is needed. While waiting for the teacher to come, the program gives the kids questions with the Wordtastic vocabulary game . My son actually enjoyed this part. A few times he was working on these when I told him it was time to start the lesson and he said he wanted to finish those questions first.

Here is the order of the lessons:

Key Words
Predictions
Cold Timing
Read Along
Practice
Quiz
Retell
Pass

In this video, you can follow along as a lesson is done.

Read Naturally has 27 videos to help you get the most out of the program for your child.

 

There is a status bar across the top, so the child can easily see where they are and how much more they have to do. The kids do need to type their responses for the predictions and retell sections of the lesson. My son can not yet type beyond hunt and peck. He got discouraged with the typing and didn’t want to do more than one sentence. So I had him dictate to me and I typed it in. That worked much better for him. I was able to get better responses to the questions.

When you get to the Pass section of the lesson, which the teacher has to sign into with their own ID and password, the child reads the story and the teacher counts any errors and rates the childs reading expression. The childs goals are then displayed along with their cold and hot timing scores. The teacher then grades the questions, with the program giving you sample answers and the teacher decides if the students answers are correct. The teacher also reads and grades the students retelling of the story. The teacher decides if the retelling is correct or not. Therefore, it is easy to customize the requirements for your child. After the teacher has graded these, a screen comes up with the students scores and tells the student if they passed.

My son really likes using Read Naturally. I thought he wouldn’t like having to read the story more than once, but he didn’t have a problem with it. I think he sees it as a competion, and tried hard to beat his score each time. He reminds me “Mom, I have to do that reading thing!”

Here’s what he had to say about Read Naturally:

“It’s good. I liked it. I liked reading the story about Walt Disney.  I don’t want to read the story about the snake. lol”

As you can probably tell, I didn’t tell him what to say. He doesn’t like snakes and the story about Walt Disney as a boy made an impression on him. I found the stories to be interesting and informative. And most importantly, my son did, too.

Reading Live is recommend for grades 1-8, however it can be used up through adults as an intervention program. A 12 month subscription is $149 for one student. If one of your children completes the program before your subscription is up, though, you can reassign the program to another of your students. Right now, you can sign up for a free 60 day trail of Read Live. I think it’s great that Reading Naturally offers this free trail. It’s hard to tell how your student will do in the program just by reading the description. With this free trail, you can try out the actual Read Live program with your child.

For more information, visit the Reading Naturally website. Reading Naturally also has a Facebook Page.

See what other The Old Schoolhouse Homeschool Crew Members are saying about Reading Naturally Read Live.

 

 

*Disclosure of Material Connection: I received one free online trial
mentioned above for free in the hope that I would mention it on my blog. Regardless, I
only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.
I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255:
“Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”