20 Best Tips

Apparently They’re Learning…

I pulled up a new game for the girls to play on the computer the other day based on European geography and they did amazingly well…much better than their Mom, mind you.

When I asked Laurianna how she remembered all the countries, she reminded me about the GeoPuzzle that they have been using, which has apparently more than paid for itself – hurray!! There are two more that are being moved over to the “buy now” section of my Amazon cart now. If it works…

The website the girls visited has geography games for all the continents and each game has different levels that you can choose to play. Level 1 allows you to click on the correct country; in level 2 you drag countries to the correct location (by region); in level 3 you are on your own to place countries where they belong. There are so many different ways to play too!

The games are provided free of charge through a company called Sheppard Software and there are tons of games on their site, including ones for vocabulary, science, math and more. I’ll be putting the link in my sidebar too, but be sure to check it out!

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Math Tutor

I loved math growing up. Loved it. But the thought of teaching my kids anything beyond simple addition and subtraction scares me to death. I know that I am able to figure it out and work through problems, but there are some things that are just difficult to explain without additional help.

Math Tutor sent me two instructional DVDs to review: The Basic Math Word Problem Tutor (8 hours) and The Algebra 2 Tutor (6 hours). Math Tutor offers 19 instructional DVDs on their site including basic math, algebra, geometry, calculus, and physics and most of the Math Tutor DVDs are priced under $30.

The DVDs are very simple in their design – no fancy props or over-the-top acting/examples. Just a simple whiteboard and the instructor, Jason Gibbs, who walks you through the problems step-by-step. While I wasn’t too thrilled initially that he uses his fingers for counting at times, I have to admit that I realized this week that I am guilty of the same when teaching our kids. *grins*

I first thought the DVD was a little dry (for my 35-year-old taste), but the problems are explained very well and it definitely grew on me the more we watched it. The DVD is broken up into various teaching segments, making it is easy to skip to the exact area you need to cover. As an added bonus – it isn’t me trying to show something to my kids, so they listen and pay attention!


These are the areas that the Basic Math Word Problem Tutor covers:

Disc 1
Section 1: Adding Whole Numbers
Section 2: Subtracting Whole Numbers
Section 3: Multiplying Whole Numbers
Section 4: Dividing Whole Numbers
Section 5: Adding Decimals
Section 6: Subtracting Decimals
Section 7: Multiplying Decimals
Section 8: Dividing Decimals

Disc 2
Section 9: Adding Fractions
Section 10: Subtracting Fractions
Section 11: Multiplying Fractions
Section 12: Dividing Fractions
Section 13: Percents, Part 1
Section 14: Percents, Part 2
Section 15: Ratio and Proportion

The Math Tutor website has sample videos that you can check out and they have a great guarantee: All DVD courses Guaranteed to raise grades or your money back! Math Tutor also offers DVD bundles to help you save a little money and their shipping is great – you only pay S&H on the 1st DVD. All additional DVDs in the same order ship for FREE. You pay the same S&H price whether you purchase 1 DVD or 10 DVDs!

Click on the Homeschool Crew banner below to read other reviews on the Math Tutor DVDs.


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Five in a Row

Five in a Row is a company that I have heard of many times through friends, but never spent the time to look more in depth into their products. They sent me one of their books to review (Five in a Row Volume 2) and last week the girls and I sat down to use it as part of our study of England.

A Little More about Five in a Row

Five in a Row
(FIAR) was created by Jane Claire Lambert, a home-school teacher with more than 17 years experience. It provides step-by-step lesson plans for in-depth literature study on wonderful children’s books (complete list here). FIAR includes plans and suggestions for studies relating to stories in the areas of math, science, social studies, language arts, and art. The plans are extremely flexible. You can pick and choose which areas relating to the story that you would like to study since there are numerous plans given for each area. Many of the books can be borrowed from your local library, which helps cut costs for homeschoolers (always a plus!).

How We Used It

The girls and I have been studying England over the last few weeks and we decided The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter would be our “go-along” book with our geography study. I was able to plan out our week of FIAR studies in under half an hour, mainly in an effort to ‘grasp’ the concepts/ideas in the book. During the week we read the story each day and also completed one activity in social studies, language arts, art, science and math.

We also chose to create a lapbook along with our book study, so we completed the different lapbook components to go along with the areas we studied during the week. Some of the things we learned this week: onomatopoeia, animal fantasy, naturalism, noticing the details in text/illustration, figuring and grouping, and planning a garden. The girls really enjoyed working through the study and we had a lot of fun digging “deeper” into the story each day and breaking the story up into different pieces. And I can’t tell you how much fun our kids had saying the word “onomatopoeia” this week…even Zachary was trying to come up with some of his own!

Through using FIAR I discovered that I have done unit/book studies in the past, however I was the one doing all the legwork and study! This format is definitely more convenient and already completed, so it saves an incredible amount of time on my part. The lessons are extremely thorough and offer more than enough information to use in learning with your children.

I’m already planning on using Beyond Five in a Row this summer with the girls as we read Sarah Plain and Tall together. Because we’re sitting down and reading together it almost seems as if you are ‘sneaking’ in learning and it makes it all so much fun!

Where to Purchase

Five in a Row books are available directly from the FIAR website. They offer different versions of the book, including digital format. FIAR also offers book packages that include all the books that relate to the different volumes and also FIAR volume packages.

If you would like more information on their products, their website has some great resources as well as message forums to talk to other moms about the products. You can also visit the Homeschool Crew blog site for more on some of the other products and levels.

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Mathtacular is making math FUN

Sonlight Curriculum sent me the first MathTacular DVD (PreK – 2) to review…well, technically I suppose I should say my kids were the real reviewers. Our oldest three (ages 4, 6, and 7) took great joy in being able to “watch” math lessons. I was able to enjoy the rewards of the time they spent reviewing and learning! Despite my best efforts, there are times when seeing someone else talk about a concept or have it approached in a new way makes all the difference.

MathTacular was created by Sonlight to help explain math concepts from a variety of math curriculums: Singapore, Horizons and Saxon. Justin (who produces and *stars*) shows real-life applications to math concepts: running a track to show the different laps, having a money count-off, or using many other manipulatives to get the ideas across to the kids. Our 4 year old started pointing out 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc… places to me one day and when I asked him where he had learned it he said, “The Math movie, Mom!”

MathTacular has helped put a new twist on our math creativity at home too. The kids are noticing math in things around the house which shows that they are applying the skills they are learning!! We’ve been using it as an add-on to our school time, picking one of the clips (usually under 5 minutes each) to build on a concept that we are talking about or need a little added help on.

The DVDs feature over 4 hours of fun ‘teaching’ time for kids and almost 100 different real-life applications so that kids gain a more hand-on approach to math concepts. Areas covered include skip counting, color sorting, patterns, calendar, measurement, fractions and more. There are also printables in pdf format on the DVD to use as tools along with the DVD. This is the first in a series that Sonlight has available for purchase on their website and also on Amazon.

And since I’m a visual person and love to see exactly what is being talked about, here’s a little clip to give you an idea of what the video includes.


Be sure to visit the Homeschool Crew blog to read reviews of some other Sonlight products!

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Around the World in 80 Tales

Somewhere I heard reference to the book Around the World in 80 Tales by Saviour Pirotta and filed the book name away in the back of my brain, put it on my wishlist at Amazon and figured I would never get around to buying it.

Because we have a plethera of geography and other random books around this house, and adding one more book might just throw us into the major fire hazard category.

But a few weeks ago I had a gift certificate burning a hole in my pocket and decided to take the plunge and buy a copy of the book, and all I can say is…

I.am.in.LOVE.

And please tell me I’m not the only one who finds this book beautiful. It was so pretty I had to take pictures of it. Dragged my mom into the room so that she could drool over it with me.

Opening it up, the inside cover and facing page is a beautifully illustrated map of the world.

The book has eighty folktales from six continents and the stories are broken up by the continent they take place on.

Each continent has it’s own special top border featuring landmarks from the countries on that continent…

…and the illustrations we loved.

The stories had our three oldest laughing and begging for more. And how am I supposed to say “no” to that?

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Heads Up!

Heads Up! is a company designed to provide expert information and products for special needs children. Their items have been selected to accommodate various learning styles and strengths, regardless of curriculum used. These special needs products have been found to be especially helpful for children who are distractible or hyperactive.

As part of the Homeschool Crew I received a variety of frames and readers from Heads Up! to use and review. Although none of our children have special needs these products have been helping us out too. For distractible or easily frustrated students, the frames and readers can be a helpful tool to focus a child’s attention on the material that he is working on. McKenna has difficulty tracking the lines she is reading now that she is reading chapter books, and we keep one of the Heads Up! reader in her book so she can easily focus on one line at a time.

The Heads Up! frames work great in helping a child stay focus on a specific section of his work, breaking it down into manageable areas so it does not seem overwhelming. There are two different sizes of frames and they come in a variety of colors. The smaller ones are great for drawing attention to just one problem at a time. The color contrast of the frame versus the text helps provide a contrast between the two areas. It’s also much easier for a child to find his place if he looks away from the text.

The Top of the Line reader and Heads Up! reader are my favorite items. The Top of the Line has a highlighted strip along the top while the rest of the reader is opaque so that the child can not see through and be distracted by the rest of the text. The Heads Up! reader has a thin highlighted strip between two solid strips of grey. Both work great to use as a bookmark and also double as a straight edge if text needs to be underlined.

Best of all, the readers and frames have a great price tag making them very affordable. They are $1 each and available in your color choice. Heads Up! offers many other great products including books, games, and other educational helps – be sure to visit and see!

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