I am thrilled to announce that I was selected to be on the Homeschool Review Crew for 2019! That means I get to try out a variety of homeschool products, use them with my kids in our homeschool, and give you a review of what we thought of them. This is great news for a curriculum junkie like myself, in that I will actually use these things with my family, and be held accountable for reporting our findings. It’s great news for you too! You will get our real opinion of a product after trying it ourselves for a few weeks.
My first assignment was a review of the Ultimate Annual Yearly Membership from SchoolhouseTeachers.com. It is an online, subscription based, complete curriculum from preschool all the way through high school. I must confess….. I haven’t always been a huge fan of online products. Sure, my kids take math courses online, but that’s it. I am usually a boxed curriculum kind of gal. Huge, spiral bound teacher manuals, answer keys, workbooks – everything a “doing school at home mom” loves. It has only been a few years ago that I started becoming more eclectic. But still, I had to have my large, spiral manuals…….or so I thought.
Let me tell you, I was overwhelmed at the amount of available resources and courses, as I spent hours looking it over. I was highly impressed with the organization and ease of use of it all! SchoolhouseTeachers.com has so much to offer! There is everything from planners to record-keepers, hundreds of courses and electives, hundreds of videos, a World Book Online Resource Library, and even things for homeschooling moms like parenting, marriage, and recipes for meal planning!
What I decided to try.
There were so many things I wanted to try, but narrowed it down to just a few for now. I chose a fun, biblical scavenger hunt course, a children’s literature unit study for our monthly read-aloud, a photography challenge, a puzzler activity for our morning time, and a science course for my daughter. During my review time, my daughter took a week-long driver’s ed course, I got sick, then I passed it to my son, so I haven’t been able to use it as much as I wanted, but I am excited to tell you about what we were able to get started on.
The one course I spent the most time looking over and choosing to use was Physical Science for my 9th grade daughter. This review could not have come at a better time, as we were very much needing a change in our current science curriculum. What I really liked was the lesson plan for each week. Clear instructions of exactly what is to be done for every lesson in a concise, check-the-box format. The Lesson Designer did not skimp on anything that should be covered for a Physical Science course. In fact, I thought this was a more complete course that a much higher priced, popular course that we were using. In my previous life, before kids, I was a Physical Science Tech, so naturally, I am drawn to a high quality, hands on, and enjoyable science curriculum. I believe this one will meet my standards. I am looking forward to giving you a more exhaustive review after we have spent several weeks using it. We jumped into the first couple of lessons this week, and so far, we are both enjoying it. The lessons are varied with sections of textbook reading, videos, audios, and experiments. We are both looking forward to enjoying one of our favorite subjects again!
Our morning time includes current events, reading aloud, and sometimes a game, or a quick brain teasing activity. I was happy to see a unit study on SchoolhouseTeachers.com of a book we already had, but had not read – Carry On, Mr. Bowditch. While we will only be using it for a few comprehension questions and vocabulary, there are so many resources and ideas for mapping, science, history, and much more if you chose to use it as a full unit study. Another fun activity we plan to incorporate is The Daily Word Puzzle, a quick game of letters that combine phonics, spelling, vocabulary, word study, and critical thinking. I plan to use it as a race or a little friendly competition between them. We tried it today, and it was a hit!
Another thing I found was Digging For Treasure in Family Courses. This was right up our alley, because I love scavenger hunts, and getting us to dig in the Word to find the answers was a huge bonus! The one we tried was Search for Your Supper. This hunt provided recipes using only foods found in the Bible. We had to read the clue verses to find the correct ingredients for each dinner course. My daughter got cooking practice, and we had a yummy meal to enjoy in the end! There are 3 other fun hunts we hope to do soon!
So Much More!
I have only scratched the surface of SchoolHouseTeachers.com. In addition to all the great courses, your membership also provides your family access to hundreds of streaming videos. Have you seen Drive Thru History? If not, you (and the kids) are missing out! I have purchased several of these in the past, and they are available right here, along with so many more! You have access to hundreds of videos on RightNow Media. I can only hope we don’t become couch potatoes!
Another bonus is the World Book Online Resource Library. The library is packed with articles, ebooks, interactive maps, and timelines that you can even add events to, edit details, and create your own timeline! Lessons, videos, experiments, activities, quizzes and tests are all available for your use. For older students, they even have a citation builder that you can fill in the fields and print. Where was this when I was writing papers? I can absolutely see where this resource can be a fantastic tool to use.
As you can see by now, I may be forgoing some of those spiral bound teacher’s manuals in the near future! Maybe you too, are in need of a big change in your curriculum, or simply wanting to try an elective, or freshen things up? It is very affordable as is, but I have a special discount code below so you can get this amazing resource at 50% off!
The cool pencil picture taken by my daughter is part of a photo challenge course that is also offered!
Be sure to click the banner below to see what other reviewers like me have to say, and what they tried!
So many great options, I hadn’t seen the scavenger hunt one. I’ll have to check it out.
I was amazed at all the cool things available! The other hunt I’d like to do is outside – it would be great for one of our hiking days!