Arithmetic Village Review and Giveaway

 Charlotte Mason, Elementary, Hands On, Literature, Living books, Mathematics, Preschool, Uncategorized, Unschooling  24 Responses »
Jun 022011
 

I am always on the lookout for living math books, and when I stumbled upon Arithmetic Village, I knew I had to read this new series of books with my children. The five books arrived, and after one reading we were hooked. Ever since then my children, ages 5, 7, and 9, have chosen to read these delightful stories again and again. (Yes, even the nine-year old boy enjoys them!)

The Arithmetic Village series, written by Kimberly Moore, is set in a lovely, magical village nestled in a fairytale countryside where glittering jewels fall from the sky. The reader is gently introduced to place value, addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, as the children in the village collect, lose, and share the jewels with others.

The series includes:

Arithmetic Village – This first book of the series introduces the five main characters: Polly Plus, Linus Minus, Tina Times, and King David Divide. The concept of place value is introduced through the use of jewels, velvet sacks (ten jewels go in a sack), and treasure chests (ten sacks go in a chest). You can read the story in its entirety here.

Polly Plus – This story demonstrates the concept of addition as Polly goes about the village collecting jewels and adding them in her neat and precise manner.

Linus Minus – Described as “an adorable mess”, Linus shows us how to subtract by losing and scattering jewels everywhere he goes.

Tina Times – Speedy Tina demonstrates multiplication by quickly and efficiently counting groups of jewels as she gathers them.

King David Divide – The wise and fair king of Arithmetic Village, David Divide shares jewels with everyone. He distributes them equally, but if some are left over they go to his pet dog, Rover. (I love the idea of Rover receiving the remainder.)

My favorite things about this series:

  • Rhyming text
  • Engaging and whimsical story line
  • The characters’ demonstrations of sharing, kindness, and other noble qualities
  • The use of fun props – jewels, sacks, and treasure chests – that bring the math concepts to life
  • The Arithmetic Village website. The author offers free hands-on activity ideas and downloads to accompany the books. She has posted several videos showing how to easily make (or buy) your own set of jewels, sacks, and treasure chest and how to use them with your children to reinforce through play the concepts taught in the stories. This website is a valuable resource and is not to be missed.

To purchase any or all of the books in the series, visit Arithmetic Village’s shop page where you can receive an online discount.

I am excited to announce that Kimberly is graciously giving away a set of Arithmetic Village books to one Curriculum Choice reader.

Two Ways to enter the giveaway – you can do both:

  1. Browse the activities at the Arithmetic Village website. Leave a comment here at CC telling us your favorite activity!
  2. Follow Arithmetic Village on Twitter, and leave a comment here at CC to let us know that you did.

Please make sure to leave a separate comment for each of your entries, as well as an email address or blog url where you can be contacted should you win. Entrants must live in the continental U.S.

**Deadline for entries is Monday, June 14th, 10:00 pm (EST).

Good luck, and enjoy your time in the Village!

(Disclosure: The Arithmetic Village series was provided to me for free for review purposes. The views and opinions expressed in this review are purely my own.)

Written by Shannon, who blogs about living books and other homeschool-ish things at Song of My Heart.

Art with A Purpose

 Art, Elementary, Hands On  3 Responses »
May 262011
 

I love art and even considered making it my career.  Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on which child I’m talking to), I never seem to get around to teaching art as a hands-on, let’s-get-creative-and-make-a-mess activity.  I don’t know why; it’s just one of those things.

So what do my children do for art?  Well, we do Charlotte Mason style picture study every few weeks, and each of my children works through the entire Art with A Purpose curriculum, doing about one lesson a week for eight years.

Art With a Purpose is an easy-to-teach curriculum that covers everything from coloring and pasting in the younger grades to lettering, color combining, perspective, and pen and ink drawings in the older grades.  It does not, however, teach art history or appreciation at all.  (Hence the picture study lessons.) 

Each year’s Artpac contains 36 simple, step-by-step art lessons.  Materials are usually simple to obtain.  In fact, the only ones we’ve had trouble finding are the brass fasteners needed to allow movement in a monkey’s limbs and the hands of a clock.

Using this curriculum, moms have little teaching to do in the younger grades and even less as the children get older because the instructions are clear and easy to follow. Although classroom teachers are encouraged to work through each Artpac to provide their students with examples, this was not necessary for us at home.

Rod and Staff breaks down each year’s skills as follows:

  • Artpac 1 Simple coloring skills, color-by-number, cutting and pasting.
  • Artpac 2 Simple coloring skills, cutting, pasting, simple perspective drawing.
  • Artpac 3 Coloring, shading with crayons, simple grid drawing and painting.
  • Artpac 4 Coloring, shading with crayons, drawing stick figures, simple grid drawing, and perspective drawing.
  • Artpac 5 Shading with colored pencils, drawing faces, painting and paint mixing, lettering, and grid work.
  • Artpac 6 Shading with colored pencils, drawing faces, lettering, grid work, freehand and perspective drawing.
  • Artpac 7 Advanced shading with soft lead colored pencils, grid drawing, calligraphy, paint mixing and painting, and sketching.
  • Artpac 8 Shading with pen and ink.

View detailed outlines of each course, with samples.

Most weeks my children spend between 30 minutes and two hours on their Artpacs, depending on the effort they are willing to expend. They are usually pleased with their work, and often give the cards, pictures, or crafts as gifts.  Many of them also adorn the bedroom doors.

We’ve encountered very few problems over the years.  Some lessons in the early years are much too difficult and take too long.  We don’t skip those, but I allowed the child to work on them for a long time, pointing out that it was a lesson in perseverance as well as in art.  I also allowed children who struggled with motor skills to progress slowly, with the beneficial result that they were able to do a better job at the upper levels as well.

Published by Rod and Staff, the Artpacs feature a few pictures that are obviously Mennonite.  Wording, where there is any, is inspiring and often Christian.  Although the Artpacs have no projects about Halloween, Easter bunnies, Santa Claus, or baby Jesus, I have received several wonderful Mothers’ Day cards.

Each year’s worth of lessons is well under $10.  This is a very good deal, especially for the grade 8 Artpac’s pen and ink pages that would retail for several hundred dollars at my local art supply store.

If you’re not the kind of person who thrives on doing hands-on crafts with your children, but you still want them to learn the basics of art, it’s worth checking out Art with A Purpose.  It’s thorough, easy to use, Christian, and inexpensive.

Written by Annie Kate, a Christian homeschooling mom of five, who reviews and blogs at Tea Time with Annie Kate.

Disclosure: Having used Artpacs for a dozen years, I love telling people about them.  I receive no compensation for this review.

Beginning Readers from All About Reading

 Elementary, Language Arts, Phonics, Reading  1 Response »
Apr 212011
 

My beginning readers are children who have been raised on a wide variety of literature, from Dora the Explorer books (which do not really count as literature) to classics like Heidi and everything in between.  As they have begun learning to read one thing I have tried to find are beautiful books on their level.  I’m sorry, I’ve seen those beginning readers where the whole story is 3 or 4 words repeated in different combinations with varying punctuation.  You know, ones that say:

“A cat?
A cat.
A mat.
A cat sat.
Cat on mat.
Cat sat.”

My children very quickly made it clear that those insipid readers were not worth their time and effort.  I heartily agreed. On the other end of the spectrum you find beginning readers that include a whole list of ‘sight words’, words the child is simply expected to memorize by sight so they can read a story.  Most of these sight words are, in fact, decodable, once you learn the spelling rules, but with a beginning reader I want to find beautiful stories that do not depend on a list of sight words outside the child’s reading level.  Imagine my excitement two years ago when I discovered the readers put out by All About Learning Press, publishers of the All About Spelling curriculum. 

We own all the readers available at this point.  They are beautiful!  The illustrations tell an often funny story, one that goes beyond the beginning reader text.  Even at this very early level a story is not limited to 3-5 words repeated over and over.  Currently there are 3 readers for level 1 and two available for level 2.

Our most recent purchase is the Run, Bug, Run! reader.  In the 157 pages the only words that were not ‘short vowels’, and therefore completely decodable for my beginning readers, were “the” and “A”.  A quick talk about open syllables and closed syllables explained why the vowels had long sounds.  Here is a peek at a page from this book: My 5 and 6 year old both love these readers.  Even the 3 year old is beginning the sound out letters from this reader.

Here is a picture from one of the level 2 readers, The Queen Bee.  As you can see, the artwork is simply beautiful, and the stories are original and sweet.  In this book the facing page often has a few short paragraphs of text, combined with this text above the illustration.  (You can read the rest of this storyin the sample HERE to see more.)

Every family has different tastes in reading material.  Finding books for beginning readers can often be frustrating.  If you are looking for beautiful books for a beginning reader be sure to check out the samples for each book in this series!

Tristan is the happily homeschooling mother to 6 blessings age 9, 6, 5, 3, 1, and 2 months old.  You can drop in and visit anytime over at her blog, Our Busy Homeschool.

Apologia High School Science

 High School, Mom Helps, Science  No Responses »
Feb 252011
 

Homeschooling parents used to send their teens to school, feeling they couldn’t provide quality high school science instruction at home.  That hasn’t been necessary since Dr. Jay L. Wile wrote and revised his Apologia high school texts.  These excellent, Creation-based courses are clear enough to be essentially self-teaching, even though they cover difficult material.  In fact, as a scientist, I am impressed by the breadth and depth of these texts as well as their clarity.

The Apologia high school science textbook series includes

Each well-organized textbook is full of important and detailed information, presented in a chatty style.  Dr. Wile is an excellent teacher and explains the material carefully, especially in the second edition texts.  Each book contains worked out examples and ‘On Your Own’ questions that are answered in detail in the text.  At the end of each chapter, a series of questions summarizes important concepts and checks for comprehension.  These questions are answered in the separate Solutions Manual.

The texts also contain detailed instructions and explanations for the labs. Many of these labs can be performed using only household materials, but others require specialized equipment such as dissection kits, microscopes, and an array of chemicals which are available in a kit.

For detailed tables of contents and a sample of each course, click on the above links. The texts we own (Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Advanced Chemistry, and Advanced Physics) are all quite similar to Advanced Chemistry which I’ve reviewed in great detail here.

Each of these Apologia courses comes with a Solutions and Tests Manual as well as a textbook.  The Solutions and Tests Manuals provide solutions for each chapter’s study guide questions.  They also contain tests and answer keys, and the second edition manuals include detailed marking schemes and exams with solutions as well.

Each course also comes with full curriculum support by mail, email, fax, or phone.  Some also have other supporting components such as CD ROM’s, lab equipment, and an invaluable website.

Most of these courses have been revised to make them even more user-friendly. For details of the differences between the two editions, see my review of the second edition of Advanced Chemistry.  If at all possible, I recommend buying the second edition.  At the high school level, ease of use for both student and parent is crucial and is well worth the difference in price between a new second edition and a used first edition textbook.

Obviously, these are Christian courses, written from a creationist viewpoint. That is one of the reasons I love them.  They do, however, present and explain evolution respectfully, while pointing out problems with current theories.  Christian students need this sort of knowledge to be able to function and thrive in secular universities and colleges.  However, if students plan to write the big standardized subject tests, they would do well to learn more about evolution from a secular source.

We’re in our fourth year of high school at home, and Miss 18 has completed the second editions of Biology, Chemistry, and Physics, and is currently studying Advanced Chemistry and Advanced Physics. Unfortunately, at this time Apologia has no plans for a second edition of Advanced Physics.  Mr. 15 is working on Biology and will soon begin Chemistry.

After all these years of using Dr. Wile’s texts, we are very pleased with the breadth, depth, and user-friendliness of these courses.  The textbook explanations are so clear that my teens rarely come to me for help with their science, but I know they are learning much more than I did in high school, including a good many first year university topics.

Because of the Apologia science texts, homeschooled high school students have access to better quality science education than most students in public or private schools, even if their parents do not know science.  The extensive support system mentioned above, the clarity of the textbooks, and the many detailed examples all help to make the courses essentially self-teaching, even though they are rigorous.

Dr. Wile’s high school science texts are an incredible resource for the Christian homeschool movement and should also be used by Christian private schools that do not have qualified high school science teachers.

For information about Apologia’s  junior high science, please read this informative review.

Disclosure: I am not compensated for this review and the opinions expressed are entirely my own.  I received one of the textbooks, Advanced Chemistry, for the purpose of reviewing it.

Written by Annie Kate, a Christian homeschooling mom of five, who reviews and blogs at Tea Time with Annie Kate.

Constant Conifers – NaturExplorers Review

 Charlotte Mason, Elementary, Mom Helps, Nature Study, Preschool, Science, Unit study resources  1 Response »
Nov 012010
 

Nature study is something my family has only been doing for a few months now.  When I began looking for something to hold my hand as we jumped into the nature study waters I came across the NaturExplorers series by Shining Dawn Books.  These downloadable unit studies were just what I needed.  I received Constant Conifers ($12.00) for my family to review.

Packed into each unit I found:

  • Inspiration to get me enthusiastic about the topic, and literature suggestions I used at my library.
  • Basic information for the topic in one place so I could just read and go if I wanted to skip the library.
  • Lots of out in nature ideas – the gold mine I was looking for!  I had pages upon pages of ways we could explore our topic in the outdoors.  Each day we went out I knew I was ready to help guide my children to learn a little bit more than they had the last time we were outside.
  • Writing and research ideas to bring our learning back inside.
  • References for Bible study, artist study, composer study and poetry tie-ins, with internet links.
  • Notebooking pages to print and use with many of the activity ideas.

During our study of conifers we learned so much about these ‘cone-bearers’. We chose one special conifer by our backyard fence to explore in detail and compare with a maple tree in our yard.  It really helped to be able to touch and see the trees close up when we were learning about cones, sap, bark, needles/leaves, and more.  We spent one day watching for creatures in and around our conifer, another looking at cones in wet weather versus dry, measuring, drawing, and even smelling our tree.  You can see a sample of Constant Conifers on this page.  The units are written for elementary ages, with ideas for using it with both younger and older students.  All my children were able to learn together with Constant Conifers!

I have plans to pull Constant Conifers back out in mid-winter and see what new observations we can make about our special tree in a new season. There were so many great nature study ideas that we could not get to them all the first time around.  I also have my eye on several more of the NaturExplorer units, including Snow and Ice.  I know my kids would have a blast with that one during the winter blahs around February or March!

Written by Tristan, mom to 5 going on 6 children, homeschooling through unit studies with a side of lapbooks.  You can visit her at her blog, Our Busy Homeschool, or read her other Curriculum Choice posts here.

{Disclaimer: I received a free copy of Constant Conifers when I approached Shining Dawn Books about doing a review.  I received no other compensation and all opinions presented herein are my own.}

Games for Reading: Playful Ways to Help Your Child Read

 Elementary, Hands On, Language Arts, Phonics, Uncategorized  No Responses »
Jul 142010
 

At the risk of being redundant, I’d like to highlight one more of Peggy Kaye’s Games books. I’ve already reviewed Games for Math and Games for Writing here at The Curriculum Choice. All three books are similar in format, but I’ve found each of them to be of such great value that I just had to share Games for Reading with you.

Games are a wonderful way to spice up any reading method or curriculum. Children love to play, and fun games can take the drudgery out of drill. Plus, games are a great pastime when it’s too hot to go outside!

This book contains seventy-six games that cover nearly every skill needed for reading. Although they are aimed at beginning readers, meaning 1st through 3rd graders, these games are valuable for proficient readers too.

The games are organized into four parts:

•Part 1 – Games to improve sight vocabulary

•Part 2 – Games that develop phonics/sounding out skills

•Part 3 – Games to strengthen reading comprehension

•Part 4 – Games to get children to love books and want to read!

If you’d like to check out some of these games, you can visit Peggy Kaye’s website to download samples from each of her books.

There are two additional Games books which I have not seen, Games for Learning and Games with Books. If anyone has used these, I’d be interested in hearing about them.

I hope that you and your children can get your hands on a copy of Games for Reading and have some fun playing and learning together!

-Written by Shannon, who blogs about her family’s homeschool adventures at Song of My Heart.

Schoolhouse Rock Helps Learning Stick

 Elementary, Hands On, History, Mathematics, Music, Science, Unit study resources  4 Responses »
Apr 092010
 

Not everything has to become a formal lesson at our house, but I love being able to sneak in some learning with a helping of fun.  I have seen in my own life that songs I have learned as a child I can still remember to this day.  While this has many applications to homeschooling I only want to talk about one today, called Schoolhouse Rock.

Schoolhouse Rock is series of short musical cartoons that aired originally before I was born during the Saturday morning cartoons beginning in 1973.  Topics covered in the original series include songs for multiplication, grammar, science, American history and lawmaking, and computers.  Later offerings from the makers of Schoolhouse Rock include songs about money and taking care of our earth.

In August of 2002 Disney released a 30th Anniversary DVD set of over 40 Schoolhouse Rock songs.  A few years later we bought the set for our family.  I said it was for homeschool and my husband said it was just for fun.  We were both right! Our children enjoy watching different sections of the DVD.  Each has a favorite song or two.  My 8 year old daughter’s current favorites are:

  1. No More Kings – A song about the beginnings of our country and the Revolutionary War.
  2. I’m Just a Bill – A song that boils the legislative process down so that even a child can understand how our countries laws are made.  Here it is on You Tube to watch.  (Like everything else on YouTube, the comments below the video may not be appropriate.  We like to click the handy arrow beside the comment section to close it, or watch the video in full screen.)

I love that my children are easily learning many educational topics without a formal lesson.  The DVDs spark my childrens’ interest in topics like conjunctions, multiplcation facts, money and debt, and the branches of the US Government.  We may watch a few songs while waiting for dinner to finish cooking, or have a sing-along as a family for fun.  There are many ways to use the Schoolhouse Rock DVDs.  I am sure we will just happen to pull it out when a child has trouble learning those pesky times tables for another way to reinforce math facts.

The internet abounds with free resources.  Here are a few related to Schoolhouse Rock:

  • The lyrics to many of the songs.
  • Ideas from educators of lessons that use Schoolhouse Rock songs.
  • Many of the songs are available on YouTube with a simple search.  (Remember to close the comments section or watch the videos on full screen to avoid inappropriate material.)

I would love to hear if you have a favorite Schoolhouse Rock song, or any fun ways you can see incorporating Schoolhouse Rock into homeschooling, so please leave a comment!  If you want to learn about some other things we have used in our homeschool read my other Curriculum Choice reviews HERE or visit my blog.

Written by Tristan, mom to 5, homeschooling through unit studies with a side of lapbooks.  You can visit her at her blog, Our Busy Homeschool.

Games for Math: Playful Ways to Help Your Child Learn Math

 Charlotte Mason, Elementary, Hands On, Mathematics  9 Responses »
Apr 072010
 

This is one of the first books I purchased when we began homeschooling, and it remains an all-time favorite of mine. I’m typically not a text-book kind of homeschooling Mom – except when it comes to math. It was always my weakest subject, and I don’t have the confidence to stray from my dearly beloved math curriculum. However, I do like to spice math up a bit so that it will be an enjoyable subject for my children.

Contrary to my need for a math curriculum, Games for Math by Peggy Kaye was the only resource I used when my oldest was in Kindergarten, and it nurtured in him a real enjoyment of math. Now it makes a nice supplement to our curriculum.

It includes games for Kindergarten through Third Grade, covering a wide variety of topics including:

  • Counting
  • Logical Thinking
  • Size and Shape
  • Addition and Subtraction
  • Multiplication and Division
  • Estimation
  • Geometry
  • Measurement
  • Place Value
  • The Number System (Base-10)

I have also benefitted from the author’s teaching experience, as she offers valuable insights into a child’s development, how they think about math concepts, and how she has used games to successfully teach math to children for over twenty-five years. Her writing style is conversational and makes for an enjoyable read. She really makes me think about how I interact with my own children when teaching math.

You can download some of the games from the book at Peggy Kaye’s website. (Please note that the math games are interspersed with games from her other books on reading and writing, which I will review in the future.)

If sampling a game or two whets your appetite for more, you can find her book at certain local libraries or an online bookseller.

I hope that this resource will help you and your children to have some fun with math!

Written by Shannon, who blogs about her family’s homeschooling adventures at Song of My Heart.

History Scribe Notebooking Pages Review

 Charlotte Mason, History, Unit study resources, Writing  3 Responses »
Apr 052010
 

science notebook spineI like using notebooking as a form of narration in our Charlotte Mason styled homeschool. My preference is to use blank notebooking pages or to make our own, but I also enjoy History Scribe retail notebooking pages.

Why do I like History Scribe? My daughter is creative and loves to sketch. If I give her a notebooking page with graphics on it, she generally feels disappointed. After all, in her mind, the funnest part is already done. Blank pages are what she prefers because she has room to draw and to write. (And I’m in hearty agreement with blank pages. After all, the more she completes herself, the more learning she is demonstrating and reinforcing.)

History Scribe fits her perfectly.

This is the anatomy of a History Scribe notebooking page:

  1. Heading — including a title and a short introductory blurb
  2. Top half – space for drawing, affixing images
  3. Another section for a second heading or caption to the image.
  4. Bottom half, lined for writing 9 lines

Biography pages are a bit different. Each has the person’s name for a heading at the top. The bottom half is lined for writing. The top half has empty space for creative expression plus an oval area and a small box called Fact File with some basic data to fill in.

If you have a highschooler, be sure to consider the History Scholar pages which have smaller lines and more detailed areas to fill in. You can see samples here.

Each set comes with some blank pages without any text at all. These are great for topics that aren’t included in the set.

So what if your child doesn’t like drawing? Actually, you can still use the blank space for affixing maps or images printed from other sources.

You may be wondering why you would want to buy a basically blank notebooking set. Three good reasons:

  1. If you plan your own unit studies, you may find the history scribe notebooking sets helpful for identifying key topics.
  2. Independent work. The top blurb gives enough introductory information for a student to get started on his own research and complete the notebooking page.
  3. If you use project based learning, you could give a student the table of contents and ask for a set number of pages to be completed as part of a unit of study. The student could choose his own preferred topics from the available pages.

Tips for using
Print the table of contents page for each set you buy. Keep that page with your planning notes so that you don’t forget what you have available.
Inject some variety.  Print notebooking pages on colored paper or print 2 per page or 4 per page for making themed minibooks.

Examples of History Scribe pages in action:

Where can you buy History Scribe notebooking pages? I buy them from Currclick where I can immediately download the files and begin printing them out. (There are frequent 50% to 75% off sales.)

If you prefer a CD instead of a PDF instant download, visit the Westvon Publishing homepage or History Scribe.

It’s a Zoo Out There! Apologia Review

 Elementary, Science, Unit study resources  2 Responses »
Mar 082010
 

There are so many interesting animals to learn about.  Our favorite family field trip is to the local zoo.  We have been going since our oldest was an infant and still enjoy it 8 years later with five children.  It will come as no surprise to you, then, to find that we love studying animals in homeschool.  Being a unit study family, we have made many units on our own.  This past year we found a textbook that is perfectly adapted to unit studies.

Exploring Creation with Land Animals of the Sixth Day is the third in a series of Zoology books offered by Apologia Science.  We looked at each of the zoology book’s topics, samples, and table of contents before my oldest chose to begin with Zoology 3 because so many of her favorite animals from the zoo are covered in this book.

Things we love:

  • Written in an easy conversational style directed at the student - this makes it a perfect read aloud for our family.
  • Beautiful photography - who is not inspired by amazing photographs of animals?
  • Christian Perspective - a book that openly celebrates God’s creative powers and his amazing designs.
  • Experiments that work - directions lay out each step, a materials list is in the front of the book, and experiments really apply to the topics in each chapter.

With 14 chapters packed full of information this book can fill an entire academic year.  We use it a little differently, picking it up when we want to do a unit study about a specific animal family, then putting it away again until we’re ready for more animal adventures.  That means we have only finished a little over 1/3 of the book this year.  My eight year old loves the book so much that she has read it nearly cover to cover already on her own.  She takes it to her room and reads during quiet time.  Many times this year she has come to tell me all about the things she has learned, or to ask a question the reading has brought up.

While we do not have many textbooks in our home, I have found the Exploring Creation series to be a wonderful fit for our unit study family.  We will be investing in the rest of the series in the coming years.

Written by Tristan, mom to 5, homeschooling through unit studies with a side of lapbooks.  You can visit her at her blog, Our Busy Homeschool.

{Disclaimer because the FTC says I have to:  I bought this book with my own money, and yes, we really use it.  All opinions presented herein are my own.}

Elephant image courtesy of Tim Seed / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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