Having recently graduated my eldest from homeschool high school, I was looking forward to reviewing High School Prep Genius by College Prep Genius.  I had been researching how to homeschool the high school years for the last five years and college prep for the last two.  I approached the book warily, realizing I was about to read not just the good news: what we had done right, but also the bad news: what we missed or could have done better during my son’s four years of high school.

The goal of High School Prep Genius (sells for $29.95)  is to provide answers to the many questions parents and homeschool educators have about high school: when do we do what? What paperwork should we be doing? When and how do we apply for college? And how will my sloth like child transform his untamed, myopic makeup into an adult who is responsible, educated, and ultimately successful?

Navigating the high school years the first time is daunting.  I went to presentations at our local homeschool conventions, talked with other homeschool moms who were in the thick of it, and read many books during my son’s eighth grade year.  I scoured the web for resources, and searched for practical transcript templates.  Looking back on the work I had done to enter high school confidently, I can tell you that High School Prep Genius would have been an invaluable help to me.  This 400+ paged paper back book is your academic guide to excellence.  There is nothing I want more for my children than for them to each reach their individualized bar of excellence.

The book is written in a conversational style to both the parent/teacher and the student.  I don’t advise reading it from cover to cover, rather browse the index, and choose the sections you want your student to read. Devote about an hour a week, each of you paying attention to the areas you wish to focus on.  At the start, the author encourages your high schooler to keep a College and Career notebook.  That’s one thing I could have done better.  We scrambled senior year and were forced to leaf through tons of old files and notes gathering the data we needed for college applications.

High School Prep is divided into four sections:

Introduction: Here is where you will find the foundations for the four year high school plan, the requirements for graduation, checklists and inventories, tips and timelines for each grade, especially the indispensable twelfth-grade checklist. You will find a sample transcript in the appendix

Foundation for Personal Success: This is the section we spent the most time on, and it proved very fruitful. Here your teen will be challenged, as it suggests it is time to get serious about becoming an adult. What are his interests, his beliefs, his values?  Does he know how to eat well, is he emotionally healthy, and what about support systems?  Does he have good friends and influencers?  As a family, we read and lingered over page 127: Ten Common Virtues and Their Meanings. We took turns reading a virtue aloud, defined it, and then expressed what it meant to us.  We also asked each other if they saw those virtues in our lives.  It was enlightening, and a sweet time of sharing.  And it reminded us that as we strive to excel academically, we must never forget to excel our character.  I was impressed by the author’s bold statement about the list of virtues:

Do not hastily read this list and go on to the next topic. In fact, if you get nothing else from this entire book but a strong desire to improve your character, your time will be well spent. I must confess that I mulled over this section of the book for the bulk of my review period.

My sixteen-your old son was in a rut.  He was bored by the mundane routine of school and was getting behind in his studies. We spent lots of time discussing his situation, and his growing dependency on his computer and digitally related entertainment. After he filled out the section on discovering your interests I was inspired to give him an abbreviated “sabbatical”.  For three days he put his school work aside and unplugged his computer.  He rested, sketched, took nature walks, made dinner, played with the dog, did creative writing, and finally finished George Orwell’s 1984.  It was that much needed break from “school” that helped him find his way.  He’s rediscovered his buried hobbies, and is pretty sure he has now chosen his career path. I’m ecstatic!

Foundation for Academic Success: This section discusses the habits necessary to do well academically.  Everyone wants to get good grades. But it takes work to excel in this area. However, there is no point in doing well on a test if you aren’t really learning the material. Here your student will read why rote memorization is not the road to understanding a subject. Effective studying, good note taking, how to approach test taking, and getting oneself organized are discussed. This is a very important section that is practical and useful.  Oh, and here I learned another thing I did wrong – last year I neglected to ask my son before I signed him up for a volunteer job.

Me: Good news! Your signed up to volunteer at the LPGA.

Him: What?!  I don’t want to do it, I don’t even like golf!

Me: Of course you like golf.  Besides, you get twenty free golf dollars to spend on concessions, and a free t-shirt!

Him: I don’t care about the food or the t-shirt. It’s too early to get up.  I’m not going.

He went.

He had a few moments of fun.  Ate several hamburgers.  Hasn’t worn the t-shirt since, and no, will not be going back this year.  I learned your teen should get to choose where he would like to volunteer.

The final section is:

Foundation for Future Success: Here’s where you will make your future plans.  What career path will you take?  University? Community College? How do you find scholarships?  What are the financial aid options and what is FAFSA and when do you file it? This is all good information that you will need to be thinking about. I had previously read most of this information and had my son constantly look for scholarships, we applied for FAFSA, and here’s what my graduating senior had to say about this entire experience:

I spent hours looking for scholarships, and used all the recommended websites. I found nothing I qualified for.  The online applications for the colleges I applied for were ridiculously tedious and I basically wasted hours of my time.  When I finally got to the point where I submitted my application, they denied it – I missed the application deadline.  It was much easier applying to our community college, and I plan to do the 2+2 program and transfer to a State University after earning my associates.  I’ll get my 4 year degree and not go in debt. No one should start their adult lives with a huge debt.

High School Prep is an excellent resource, and contains all the vital information (and a whole lot more) that you should know to help your child succeed in high school and formulate a continuing education plan.  For me, it was all good news.  Even with a few blunders, my first high schooler graduated a semester early, achieved perfect vocabulary and math scores on his junior year stanford achievement test, was president of the homeschool honor society, served as a missionary in the Dominican Republic, scored high on the PSAT on SAT(took just once). And, above all, he is the most virtuous, humble, dedicated, excellent, loving Christian man I had hoped he would become. Yes, it is more than good.

Read more reviews of this product at the Schoolhouse review crew blog.

Hi everyone and welcome to the Carnival of Homeschooling. For those of you who aren’t familiar with CoH I am sure you are asking what this is;). A carnival is a collection of articles in a post on 1 subject. This one is homeschooling and we have some great posts! May is a great time to discuss homeschooling. As a current homeschooler, I am using this time to reflect on the past year and plan out next year. I am also talking to a lot of non-homeschoolers who are contemplating what they are going to be doing next year for their children’s education. But enough of me jabbering, lets get to fabulous submissions we have for this week!

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Spanish For You! is a unique and affordable spanish instruction curriculum for your pre-high school students.  I reviewed the Fiestas e-book curriculum for TOS Review Crew. My son, Benny helped me with the review by using the program for the past month, and we want to share our experience with you.

Benny is in tenth grade, and for his high school language he chose Japanese.  Yeah, that’s what I said, why Japanese?! I was thinking Spanish might be more practical and less challenging. Nope. Japanese it would be, and he did great the first year. Second year, not so great. It wasn’t long before he became frustrated and stalled. Second quarter I had no progress to report to the school district so we pulled out and substituted with a hastily chosen spanish instruction substitute from the library. That also tanked.  So, even though Spanish For You! was meant for younger grades, we thought it just might be what he needed.  I anticipated the program would offer a foundation in introductory Spanish and we both were looking forward to having a physical product to write in, leaf through, and later have available for reference.  His previous Japanese program was all CD’s, as was the library Spanish.

What we received for review was the grades 3-8 package (sells for $64.95), which contains: a soft cover book (we got the e-book for this review), a MP3 audio download of the book, and bonus audio of the entire book recorded by a native speaker from Mexico, and downloads in PDF: 24-30 Week Lesson Guide, worksheets, and pictures for flash cards.

When I was younger and less jaded, I was a homeschooling mama who liked to cut and paste, draft my own unit studies, and throw fun and educational themed based parties. Now, I have twelve homeschool years of experience, a new grad, another one starting college classes in the fall, and a twelve year old unschooler.  I like pre-packaged, ready to go, no prep needed, easy to navigate, assembly not required curriculum. For someone like me, this curriculum was a headache. However, I know there will be many of you who will love this approach to introducing Spanish to your grade 3-8 students for these reasons:

-The material is presented in an easy to understand, entertaining fashion. Instead of a lesson/drill approach learning meaningless conversations, you choose a package theme, not a level.  Celebrations, travels, and seasons are in a sense a unit study where spanish will be taught using common words, phrases, objects, and conversations based on that theme.

-It is suitable for multi-grade teaching. You can use the one package to teach all your appropriate aged students at once.  There are several games and activities the author suggests at the beginning that will help make the learning engaging and entertaining to the students. Spanish for You! would work well for a small co-op or group experience.

-It offers multi-sensory learning:  The more senses you use when learning a new skill, the easier it is to learn.  This curriculum offers visual - vocabulary flash cards (you make), the lesson book, auditory: MP3 tracks of lessons physical - games, activities.  Since our kids learn in different ways, Spanish For You! covers all the major learning styles.

I asked my son to give me his feedback on his experience:

Once I figured out how to navigate the curriculum and audio tracks, I quickly learned the names of colors and how to count to twenty.  The teacher’s pronunciations were clear and slow enough for me to catch on, but I was distracted by noises in the background of the audios, such as a click at the end of the recording and several tracks had weird stuff like dogs barking.  Also, the audio tracks are at first difficult to sort.  You have to be careful because the tracks aren’t in numerical order. I did the wrong lesson accidentally several times. It took me a while to realize the page numbers were marked in the audio tracks. There was a chart in the beginning that taught basic phrases like hello, please, thank you, nice to meet you, yes, no.  I was hoping to learn more practical conversational phrases, but Instead I learned things that had to do with a party:

• Abre el regalo (open the present)
• Canta la canción (sing the song)
• los muertos (the dead)…that was from the lesson on the Day of the Dead celebration

I did find the material easy to learn, and it wasn’t boring, so I am going to try to get a little farther in the book.  The last thing I didn’t like was it being in an e-book form.  My mom never lets me print out pages because we are either out of ink or she says it costs too much.  I like working on paper and having a book to use.

Gracias por leer nuestra review. Obtener una muestra de lección gratis aquí.  Free PDF sample of Fiestas. Asegúrate de ir al blog de revisión tripulación para leer más comentarios de español para usted!

Read more reviews at the Schoolhouse Review Crew Blog.

Check out the Spanish for you blog

If I were to ask you, when you were a kid, what was one phrase you remember your father saying? Maybe like me, you heard these:

It ‘aint over till the fat lady sings.

You don’t know what you’re missing.

It doesn’t matter if I like it, do you like it?

Hey is for horses.

Bye-bye, buy bonds.

Yes, our dads and granddads were filled with witty comebacks thrown in with some wisdom. I know you will enjoy reading the life story of Carol Joseph Flynn (Papa) lovingly recounted by his daughter. Each of the 17 chapters is titled with a pearl, and starts by bringing the reader back in time to early 20th century America and follows papa through his unconventional upbringing, his stint in continuation school and the Civilian Conservation Corps, and his start in the plumbing business. Finally, readers will read of his transition to adoring husband and wise father.  It is a heartfelt read, with many wonderful stories and historical tidbits of the 20th century.

This is a perfect book to read-a-loud as a family. The author would certainly approve of our reading the book in the car, as she also wrote the popular title Carschooling. My whole family enjoyed reading Papa’s Pearls.  The chapters were short enough that we could read two on a typical twenty minute car ride.  I love quote and sayings, and several of Papa’s resonated with me:

Everyone deserves a second chance,

Be grateful every day,

Get it in writing, and

It’s all about family.

It was such a joy to do a read-a-loud again as a family.  It was a daily practice when my boys were younger, but now that they are all teens and one is now in college, it is not a regular part of our routine.  In recent days my boys would roll their eyes or scatter when I tried to rekindle family read-a-louds.  But not with Papa’s Pearls. Here’s what they all had to say about the book:

Gary (hubby): “I wasn’t looking forward to reading it as at first glance I was expecting hagiography that would be saccharine and overly sentimental. Rather it was good advice presented through vivid stories which demonstrated the heart of each of the pearls. The readings brought about family discussion about playing outside and how the world is a different place from when us parents were kids.  I especially enjoyed learning about the CCC – we never studied that part of the great depression recovery so it again triggered a spontaneous history lesson.”

Garrison (college student): “It read like a lively documentary; a daughter trying to share the wisdom her father taught her while infusing it with his personality. None of the sentence structures in the book amazed me, the book is written so that the character her father was will make up for the average-quality writing style (I’m not saying the writing style was bad, I’m saying it wasn’t great). The pearls I heard were decent advice. Often I felt them to be fairly naive, but that’s really the essence of the book – the man Papa was; a joyful, forgiving man who tries hard to see the best in people. I imagine it could be a popular family book for families with grade-school age children as it opens up lots of discussion:  is your grandpa like Papa in this chapter? is the advice good? do you want to try it? It’s different than the books I read as a child since although it is like a documentary it reads like a story; that’s why I called it lively.

Benny (16 year old) “It was a fun little book. Most of it was just common sense, but it was interesting to see someone else’s take on the world, and on life.” 

Will (12 year old): “It was an inspiring book.” 

Let me leave you with this highlight of our experience:  Papa liked to dance and used to say, “Doodle-lee Do it” and click his heels. It was his way of bringing a little lightness and joy to his family and business associates. We found the song, and once it started playing my college guy broke out in smiles and let loose with a little two step jig.

When the song ended we were laughing and then another history lesson ensued: “You mean you and dad used to listen to music on a phonograph?! Wow, you had it rough.”

No boys, it wasn’t rough to us. It was “Fantastic!”

An autographed copy of Papa’s Pearls: A Father’s Gift of Love and Wisdom to His Children and Grandchildren is available through Homefires for $21.97 which includes shipping. The book is also available on Amazon in paperback or Kindle edition.

Read more reviews of Papa’s Pearls from the TOS crew here at the review crew blog.

Rosemary Laberee of Medford has been a home­schooling mother for the last 14 years. “I do not think home educators should be regulated, ever,” said Laberee, whose four children are now 19, 16, 13 and 10. “We have proven ourselves.” There are experts, however, who disagree. They say there should be oversight for parents who choose to educate their own children.

Later in the article, she says:

“I do not think it’s the schools’ job to hold parents accountable,” Walker added. “Rather, I think it is the parents’ job to hold schools accountable.”

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As the organizer for the Carnival of Homeschooling, Janine and I are the backup of last resort.  This is almost never a problem.  We have over thirty active hosts who take turns publishing the weekly editions of the Carnival of Homeschooling.  They are all very reliable.  But sometimes life throws curve balls and we have to be flexible.

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I was thrilled to have the opportunity to review this product, The Power in Your Hands: Writing Nonfiction in High School by Sharon Watson. I used Jump In, Sharon’s writing curriculum for middle grades when my son was in eighth grade. He loved it, and I have recommended it many times to my fellow homeschoolers. Though he liked creative writing, he never liked writing instruction. Soon it became his favorite subject. Sharon has a gift for nudging uneager or perhaps unconfident writers to learn to enjoy writing. In The Power in Your Hands, she teaches high-schoolers how to write non-fiction, and if there is anything that my now sixteen year-old old son would rather not write, it is non-fiction.

The dreaded essay, the never-ending research paper, the arguments, and the persuasions, the SAT twenty minute timed prompts, and that confounded thesis. Please, he says, no more essay writing, I’ve done enough already! Yes, this year he has taken essay writing I, II, and III through an on-line writing course. Although he learned a few major points such as establishing a thesis and supporting it with five paragraphs, his joy was stripped and his self confidence deflated. His writing was ripped apart with shallow critiques, belittling comments, and near failing grades (70%) that left him discouraged and convinced he was a horrible writer.

My heart broke for my son.  I pulled him out of that course and needed to repair the damage this haughty, rigid, “teacher” had done to him. Then along came The Power in Your Hands and I knew this was my chance.  Sharon shares this in her introduction:

Dread will become a thing of the past, though, as your students incrementally learn formats, structures, tools, and practical proofreading know-how that will transform them into skilled, competent writers…

Indeed, the dread is dead and my son is loving this course!  He was more than happy to give this curriculum a chance when he learned it was the same author who wrote Jump-In.  Power in Your Hands consists of a consumable 400 page student text for $39.98, and accompanying teacher’s guide for $14.98. You’ll definitely want both. The 23 chapters/108 lessons can span a full year, or two if you go at a slower pace. The purpose of the course: prepare high schoolers for college and professional writing.  It is written to the student and you can choose to have your student work through it independently, or you could adapt it to a group or co-op setting.  No prerequisites required, and it is superb for the student just wading the non-fiction writing waters. Here’s my son’s own words on his experience thus far with The Power in Your Hands:

Right at the beginning, there was a checklist that gave a list of problems people might have while writing. Before this book, I was rather frustrated that no one understood why it was so hard for me to put what I was trying to say on paper. The author of this curriculum really seems to understand people, as every single one of my writing problems was on the list. I knew after completing the checklist that I was going to like this course. I’ve had some bad experiences with writing courses before, so finding a good one was a flood of relief.

 I’ve had plenty of experience with writing, so everything that was taught within the first fifty pages wasn’t anything new. But once we got to the first essay assignment, things started to pick up for me. Overall, I think this writing program is useful for all high schoolers, especially those without much practice in writing non-fiction. I am really looking forward to continuing. 

I plan to have him use this for the remainder of the school year, and will no doubt use it with my youngest son when he gets to high school. I have confidence that when he finishes school in June, my guy will be ready for college-level English 101. I don’t think I would have enrolled him if Sharon’s perfectly timed writing course had not come our way and gotten us through our unfortunate writing setback.

The curriculum covers in depth all aspects of non-fiction writing that a high-schooler should know: persuasion, exposition, writing letters, how-to’s, description, narration, newspaper writing, biographies, literary analysis, compare and contrast, even writing a testimony (contains some Christian based content).  That’s just my abbreviated list for this review. It’s more accurate to say she covers every type of non-fiction writing you can think of, and then some.

My son is in the midst of writing a persuasive essay. I think I may join him and write my own. I’ll even give him a chance to grade my essay using the grading toolbox provided in the teacher’s guide. Percentile grades are helpful, but be sure your student is ready for them.  He should know the material, had sufficient practice, and know what is expected of him. I’m not a big fan of grading certain subjects and agree with Sharon’s comment on page eleven of the teacher’s guide:

When I grade papers, I like to find something noteworthy to comment on even in the lamest paper, something true that will encourage the timid or inexperienced student…after all, we want students to keep writing.  We don’t want them to shut down because of too much negative feedback too early.  Don’t aim for perfection: aim for progress.

Do you fear you are unqualified to teach high-school writing and would rather hire the professionals? Warning: it could end badly.  It’s not that hard to teach the mechanics of writing.  What’s hard is to do it in a way that ignites passion, stirs creativity, bolsters self-confidence, and produces results. The last thing you want is for your student to hate any subject. As Robert Frost said,

There are two kinds of teachers: the kind that fill you with so much quail shot that you can’t move, and the kind that just gives you a little prod behind and you jump to the skies.

Fire the teachers that kill with quail shot, and hire those who get you jumping.  Sharon Watson, now she’s one that will get you soaring.

Thanks for reading my review, check out more reviews at the TOS review crew blog.

Hello & Welcome to the 382nd Carnival of Homeschooling! I am so happy to be hosting today and hope you have fun reading through all of the wonderful entries. We had a lot of GREAT posts submitted. Take some time to visit their thoughtful posts.

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We worked among the poorest of the poor – migrant workers from Haiti who came to the DR to harvest sugar cane. The job pays about $4 a day for an adult male. Many of these men have worked this job their whole life.

Since this was a religious mission, the trip also served as a devotional retreat. My boys and I felt our faith deepen as a result of daily devotional sermons at sunrise.

Perhaps the most educational aspect of this trip was simply for these middle class American boys to see for the first time just how blessed we are in this country. This is how much of the rest of the world lives and on seeing this, we all appreciate the little things in life that much more.

Much of the work we did was construction. The migrant workers have established little villages among the cane fields. Their houses are very small. Large families live in one room homes made of tin and branches. There is no indoor plumbing and clean water is no where to be found. Sewage often runs in ditches through the streets.

The mission we worked with is building 24 brand new homes across from an existing village. The plan is to move everyone from the old village to the new homes. The homes may seem small by our standards but are a huge improvement over current conditions.

After we returned, we wanted to learn more about few things we saw while there. The last day we were there, we encountered (at a safe distance) a HUGE Hispaniolan Giant Tarantula. I mean this was about as big as my HEAD! To spare the squeamish, I won’t post a picture here but it is on Wikipedia. If I had seen this on the first day, I would have not slept the entire week.

Seth Harding grabs a two-handed rubber sword, adjusts his helmet made with electrician’s tape, and starts to teach. “Try to block her sword with the base of your sword.”

“Why aren’t you wearing shoes?” I wonder.

“We’re peasants.”

“En garde!” Seth yells. The battle begins. He is bringing light to the Dark Ages.

At 7, when many kids figure they might be firemen, Seth announced he would be a military archeologist. His mom, Mona Lisa, encouraged that curiosity. “Wow! That kid was into this!” she marvels.

By 12, Seth was hanging out with students nearly twice his age, studying the Middle Ages at Faulkner University, near his home in Montgomery, Alabama. “How’s he doing?” I ask assistant professor Grover Plunkett.

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When you live in a household of geeks with numerous Apple devices, Apps are as common and sought after as milk and cookies.  Knowledge Quest, known for their history and geography curriculum, has developed this versatile TimelineBuilder iPad App for creating custom timelines of your choosing. At the time of this crew review, Knowledge Quest is running an early bird special. If you go to I-tunes through the designated link on this page of their site, you have an opportunity to get a free e-book when you purchase the App for $4.99. Later the price will change to $6.99.

I picked this App for review so my 12-year-old could try it out on his iPad. Although Knowledge Quest has a tutorial on how to use it, my son skipped the directions (he likes to figure it out on his own), and immersed himself full throttle. Viola! In mere minutes he had created an impressive timeline of Apple computers.

Here’s what he had to say about his experience with TimelineBuilder:

It was fun, easy to use, with a convenient wiki search. I liked the jazzy music, but after awhile I got tired of the same song and I turned it off. It was a fun way to do research and make a timeline. I never made one before. The only thing that I didn’t like was I always had to have an image-I would rather have the option to use text with or without the image. A pocket watch served as a place holder when I didn’t pick an image.

My son was happy to give all of us a demo of how to use the App, he is a natural at teaching. He remotely connect his pad to our TV and entertained and impressed us with how quickly he could put together a timeline and effortlessly pulled images and inserted dates. He manipulated his entries around the screen till he got the look he wanted. It was like watching an artist create a masterpiece with a few strokes of a brush. Unfortunately he didn’t save his original Apple timeline, though he could have and even shared it was other users. He sent me some screenshots of another timeline he was working on:

Besides using wiki-images, you can use your own. No scribbly messes-an error can easily be deleted. Target age is 10+, and the publisher suggests uses other than for students; genealogists, project managers, marketers, basically any hobbyist or professional who needs a timeline of events could utilize this. I like the fact that Knowledge Quest is making educational Apps and hope more curriculum publishers will follow suit. My son would never had made a timeline had I not been able to give him this digital opportunity.  As much as I’ve protested about the time my younger sons have spent on their electronic devices, I have to succumb to the inevitable-times have changed, and homeschooling has changed along with it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to Skype my son and have him email me his writing for today.

Read more TOS Crew Reviews on this product here:

I never used a spelling curriculum in our homeschool.  I taught my boys the most commonly used English words, made sure they could spell those, and then we moved on to “words” of the day.  I chose unique, interesting words, SAT words, or those I thought were useful to know.  To solidify your child’s foundation in spelling, make sure he knows how to spell the word list below, which make up more than half of all the words most likely to be encountered in reading and basic writing needs.

 A: a, about, all, an, and, are, as, at
B: back, be, been, before, big, but, by
C: call, came, can, come, could
D: did, do, down
E: even
F: first, for, from
G: get, go
H: had, have, he, him, his
I: I, if, in, into, is, it
J: just
K: know
L: like, little, look
M: made, make, me, more, much, must, my
N: new, no, not, now
O: of, off, old, on, one, only, or, other, our, out, over
P: person
R: right
S: said, say, see, she, so, some
T: that, the, their, them, then, there, they, this, time, to, two
U: up, us
W: want, was, we, well, went, were, what, when, where, which, who, will, with, would
Y: you

Try a Fun Brain Spell Check game.