It's NOT Greek to Me! -- my REVIEW

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew 

When I initially read the name of the product that we were able to review, It's NOT Greek to Me!, I did not think that I was interested in it at all. I am not really a Latin & Greek type homeschooler--I admire those folks who are, but it's just not us. So I thought...Greek...uhhhhhh...but when I found out what this course is about, I was so happy that we had the opportunity to use it! It's NOT Greek to Me! by Alene H. Harris and produced by Ready To Teach is not actually a Greek curriculum like you might use if you were interested in learning to translate the New Testament, but it is actually a course about using Greek morphemes to understand and use words better (morphemes are what I have usually called root words and prefixes/suffixes). More than a third of our words in English have Greek roots--and by learning these morphemes, one's understanding of the English language increases more and more! 

I will also remind you that a lot of scientific terminology is based in the Greek language as well, so learning the Greek morphemes helps with science learning as well! (Okay, I bet you're figuring out already that I like this curriculum!)

The curriculum itself is a student workbook and a teacher's manual--and a USB drive with powerpoints on it. We also received a hole punch and a ring for flashcards. The books are softcover.

The teacher's manual begins with an explanation of the course and a suggested plan for using the lessons over a five-day week. The expectations are clearly laid out and there's even a chart to make it easier to follow day to day.

I mentioned above that there are powerpoint lessons on the usb. These lessons introduce students to the morphemes for each lesson and walk the student through different steps of learning them. One thing that I really thought was helpful is that the student is prompted to think of words that he/she already knows that include those morphemes. This can help them in understanding the meaning and in retaining the definitions of the word parts. I would also like to point out here that the powerpoints are not just static plain slides for the student to read, but they are crafted in such a way that as the student goes through them they almost feel as if they are viewing a video presentation. The slides have animations and build upon each other and definitely keep the students' interest! 

Words are introduced to students and the parts are explained. The student can use the workbook right alongside the slides and fill in the definitions as they are shown.

In further assignments, students "work" words which means taking apart their sections and figuring out the definition of the words from the morphemes and then checking to see if they got it by comparing them to a dictionary definition. Students also use the morphemes to make up their own words--and make the corresponding definitions :) 

The course seems to make use of many different ways of learning. There are slides on the computer, there is note-taking, there is association with words that are already known, there is writing (I am such a big proponent of using the physical-ness of writing to learn things!), there is constructing flashcards and reviewing them, and more. 

There is a serial story, as well, that utilizes new words in context for the student to read and understand. 

The feel of the whole course is that it is fun, not intimidating, but do-able. I know that might sound like I am stretching it, but honestly it is! To illustrate that, my youngest child who is going into her senior year (which is already very full) asked if we can continue this course throughout the schoolyear so that she can complete it (of course I said yes!)

My daughter wanted to share her thoughts about the course as well: I really liked the "it's not Greek to me!" Course. When I'm reading, if a word I don't know is used, I often won't take the time to figure it out. I'll skip over that word, maybe missing the main point of the sentence. With this course, it teaches skills on how to recognize different parts of words, what they mean, and how to understand a word with a jumble of prefixes, suffixes, etc. 

I think this is an important skill to have---- being able to quickly and correctly identify the meaning of a strange word.

I think that when we use the rest of the course throughout the schoolyear, we might not use the 5 days a week format, just because we are going to squeeze it in where we can--but she will certainly do the remaining lessons! The five-day-a-week format is a twelve week plan, but you are free to use it as you wish. 

I forgot to mention the instructor's manual. I really appreciate that it contains not only answers to the tests, but also answers to working the words and more. The instructor's manual makes it a much less parent-heavy course. 

I really like this course and I definitely recommend it. At least in our family, the focus on "root words" was more in the younger elementary years and kind of fell off as the kids got older--but this is really a time that they need this! The course is easy to use (and easy for a student to use independently) and the outcomes are very important and helpful for their future knowledge. 

If you would like to hear what other families have to say about  It's NOT Greek to Me! please click on the graphic link below!

Comprehensive Record Solution -- my REVIEW

 Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew

I have been homeschooling my children for almost ten years. As my students got older, I admit that I did freak out a little bit about things like transcripts and other requirements--there are so many things to be thinking about and so many variations on the topic! Even now, having graduated two homeschool kiddos (who are now in college), I still hear from people that they are so nervous about grades, records, and such. Lee Binz, of The HomeScholar, LLC, is ready and waiting to help homeschooling parents out with these questions and many more that you may not have even contemplated yet! 

I was given the opportunity to review a product called Comprehensive Record Solution which contains the answers to many of these questions.

 

The author, Lee Binz, basically teaches classes to parents about how to successfully document your child's education and how to present that to the audience who needs it (college admissions offices, scholarship boards, etc.)

The courses contain video/audio lessons by Lee and accompanying worksheets/booklets that the parent may print and fill out or follow along with as they listen. 

There are lots of great talks and resources in the Comprehensive Record Solution,  which cover so many of homeschooling parent's concerns and worries. In the "bonus" section there are guides for what you should aim for in each grade, beginning in middle school and going up through senior year. She includes important things like when to take standardized tests and when to fill out the FAFSA!

The actual course for parents has four main sections, after an introduction of the author and explanation of the course (nice to have the overview in a quick video!) The different sections of the course teach parents what are the important things to take into account, they provide templates, examples, and success stories, they allow parents to try things out on their own (writing course descriptions and more), and they even allow a bit of personal evaluation!

I'm kind of on the other end of this right now (makes me sound O-L-D, huh?!) and I have already made my own transcript pattern that I've followed for all 3 kiddos. I wish I HAD seen this course years ago--I think it would have saved me a lot of frustration and hardship. I'm sure you can imagine me sitting with my daughter, trying to remember which years exactly it was that she began participating in robotics, or which year she took the winter weekend course about cybersecurity. Or maybe you're envisioning my son and I working for weeks on a list of all of the volunteer things that he had participated in over the past four years--and when exactly they were and how many hours per month they were! Lots of scrap paper and looking back at old calendars, for sure! (In case you're wondering, those were for scholarshi applications, not transcripts!)

In the Comprehensive Record Solution, Lee Binz shares with parents which things they ought to keep track of and how the best ways are to keep track of them. She does not teach a one-size-fits-all plan but acknowledges the variety and variations that exist among students and homeschools and helps parents maximize what they have in their own situation. 

The course is pretty lengthy, and you will want to complete it all! Besides just the four main modules, there are many bonus features, which are another huge amount of material, referencing the big transcript question as well as other writings and presentations that she has done. 

The cost is not bad, especially when you consider that you will have lifetime access and you can use these concepts with all of your children.

I really like listening to Lee Binz speak. She is very down-to-earth and makes you feel like, yes! you can do this! She is not all theory, but there are templates and samples to follow. She makes you feel like she's a buddy sharing her amazing secrets with you. 

Take it from me, on the other end of the high school thing--I wish I had used this program with my own kids instead of stumbling through, being surprised and anxious about different things. 

You should definitely not be afraid of homeschooling your child through high school--and with these tools at your fingertips you will not even dread what sometimes seems like a huge hurdle of record-keeping. So many people seem to worry about this aspect of homeschooling, and the Comprehensive Record Solution will give you the confidence to just do it and not worry about it! I certainl recommend the Comprehensive Record Solution!

Other members of our review crew reviewed this product and others, including the Total Transcript Solution, High School Solution, and College Launch Solution. Be sure to click on the link below to read their thoughts about these programs!

Dyslexia Gold -- my REVIEW

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew

 A recent product that I was given access to in order to share my thoughts in a review is called Dyslexia Gold . No one in my family has been diagnosed with dyslexia, but I was interested to see more about the product and what it contained, and what claims it makes for helping children with dyslexia.

When you look at the website for the Dyslexia Gold product, before you even log in, there is a lot of information for those wishing to find out more about dyslexia. 

Reading through this information, I was very interested to read some things about some of the issues associated with dyslexia. When my son was little, he had a tracking problem, which was attributed to low muscle tone in his eyes. Going along with that, the eye doctor could also not pull his vision in to 20/20 until he was about sixteen. I'll talk more about this below :) I was also interested to read about the issues with binocular vision. For ever, I have not really had binocular vision--one eye is crazy dominant and the other just kind of hangs behind :) This is not usually a problem to me, other than trying to look in a binocular microscope or shooting, or things that use both eyes at once. I guess until I was pretty old I never realized that not everyone sees like I do. I think because of this, I do not like going to 3D movies, because I still look mostly out of one eye and the 3D glasses are made for using both eyes. I'll also refer to this below! So--although we do not have dyslexia (I think!) -- and don't have many of the other issues associated with it, these few segments hit home.

When the user logs in to the program, they can choose between four areas for their child to work in. There is a spelling program which claims to improve spelling greatly; there is a vision tracking program, full of fun games; there is a math (times tables) practice; and there is a fluency (reading) program. There are different activities in each section and they build upon each other as the student progresses and improves. The parent can view the student's progress and activity easily.

There are particular things that you can select, on the parent side. This is a program from England (I think!) and you will notice an accent in the spoken words; the parent can select American, British, or Scottish for the accent of the words. I had American chosen, and will note that there is still a bit of an accent, but it is not really too much of a problem, though for some of the spelling words you might have to make sure your student understands them (see my picture of what afternoon sounded like to me--if I were trying to sound out the word, it was different)

Anyhow, my kids are older now, college and upper high school, so the spelling, times tables, and reading were not really applicable to them (and they did not want to try them). The Vision Training section, on the other hand, was pretty fun :) with games like whack-a-mole and target shooting using 3D glasses. It was very interesting to me to see my child without vision issues use the target shooting game versus me, who had a difficult time using it. I think I could probably benefit from using this part of the program myself!

When my son was 6 years old (he is now 19), he was found to have tracking problems, right around the same time that he got glasses. To accomodate this and to help him strengthen his eye muscles (which were viewed as the cause of his tracking issues), we had these little monster finger puppets and we did eye exercises with them for five minutes a day. This continued on for a year and his tracking seemed to have improved, thankfully. (Another exercise he did was word searches, that was viewed as a helpful exercise for him as well.) I can see how the games and activities in this program within Dyslexia Gold . serve those same purposes and can be done independently. Looking back, I'm not sure that I would have wanted a computer doing this, instead of the time we spent each day together doing the exercises, but I'm sure it would have been a good supplement. 

So this review brought up some very interesting topics to our family :) And some reminiscences. If you have a child with dyslexia or tracking issues, you might want to look into this program. There are many options and it is a year-long subscription. At least check out the information on the home page--it is very helpful and informative!

If you'd like to hear more about Dyslexia Gold and other homeschooling families' thoughts about it, please click on the link below:

Help Your Kids Learn & Love the BIBLE -- my REVIEW

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew 

Reading the Bible is a very important part of the life of a believer in Christ. Reading the Bible also is not only for adults. In the book Help Your Kids Learn & Love the Bible  by Bethany House Publishers, the author Danika Cooley speaks to parents to help them instill a love of the Bible and an understanding of the importance of Bible reading in the lives of their children. She offers encouragement and practical ideas on this topic.

The author encourages readers to begin reading the Bible with their children at a young age, as well as allow them to sit quietly (but okay if they are fidgeting or playing out of sight on the floor) and listen to the preaching at church services. She points out some instances when her children have listened and learned when she did not realize that they were even engaged with listening. I guess that's not too surprising, really, as how many times do your kids come out with something totally unexpected that they saw or heard sometime when you were just doing errands or not actively observing with them? 

One statement that she made which I really liked was near the beginning of the book (and I can't find it now that I want to share it with you!!) -- I'll paraphrase or give my recollection of it :) She said something like choose a Bible version to use, and don't worry if some people think it is not kid-friendly--your child will learn from that version and you will explain it and talk to them about what you read in the Bible (in that version) and they will learn to understand the Bible in that version. (Hope I didn't butcher that thought! That's what I got out of it!) I like that explanation--God's Words are powerful and a version cannot keep them from your child's spirit.

There are lots of great ideas for how to make time and keep time for Bible reading with your children--ideas for preschoolers, elementary schoolers, middle schoolers, and highschoolers. There are ideas for study and faithful Bible reading.

The author gives examples from her family's life to show how they incorporate Bible reading, study, and discussion into their family's days.

The book is a softcover book, and it is written in a way that is very easy to read. The chapters are a nice length and the writing is really quite enjoyable and easy to read. You can read a bit and pick it up again later without wondering where you had left off. I know that some people don't relish reading non-fiction, but honestly, this is not written in a heavy way--it is written like someone is talking to you, sharing ideas. 

As I was reading this book, I kept thinking, oh, that's a great idea, I wish I had done that! You see, my children are upper high school and college aged, and it is a whole different ballgame, reading the Bible with them/encouraging them to read the Bible/etc. 

This book is definitely meant to be read by parents with younger children--the younger the better. It is full of great ideas and I definitely recommend this book to parents of young children.

To read thoughts of others who got to review this book also, please click on the link below: