AVKO Review

I'm betting many of you think you have NO idea who AVKO is...but if I say "Sequential Spelling" I'm guessing a few light bulbs will go on...at least that's how it was for me. Sequential Spelling is a totally different sort of spelling program that gathers words into rime families or "chunks" and teaches them collectively so that through association students are able to spell words they've never been exposed to before. It's a really interesting approach, but it was NOT what we were asked to review, LOL.

AVKO asked us to take a look at their website, and more specifically the "member" section of their website. Before I tell you more about that though, let me tell you a little about this amazing company. AVKO was started by Don McCabe who himself had overcome dyslexia to become a high school reading teacher. It was while teaching that he saw the value in breaking words down into their smaller base words and teaching students to spell in rime chunks (so "at" leads to "bat", "flat", "scatter", etc.). He founded AVKO (which stands for Audio, Visual, Kinesthetic, Oral-four of the five learning modalities) Educational Research Foundation with the goal of helping students of any age master reading and spelling. According to their website, AVKO's mission is to provide free and low-cost resources to home and school educators in order to achieve literacy for all, even despite learning challenges or dyslexia.

AVKO has many totally free resources on their website, and that makes it well worth checking out. There is literally TONS of information about spelling and reading, and the research that has been done that explains why today's students are not good spellers. But the members site really shines. For only $25 a year for basic membership, members get access to all the free stuff and much, much more. Members get five free downloadable e-books worth hundreds of dollars including The Patterns of English Spelling, which is a 10 volume set. That book will allow you to create your own spelling curriculum along the lines of Sequential Spelling, and if you use it, it more than pays for your membership. Membership also includes access to Don McCabe's most popular conference talks downloadable in MP3 format. You also get access to a member's only section that has other reading and spelling resources, the AVKO newsletter, placement tests, answer keys, and a 25% discount on all AVKO's printed materials (including Sequential Spelling). There is also a too-rich-for-my-blood $100 premium membership that includes all the benefits of basic, plus read-only access to ALL AVKO's curriculums expect Sequential Spelling and the Engaging Language Kits.

The bottom line for me is that AVKO's site is very much worth checking out, and if you have a student who struggles with spelling at all, I think the membership is well worth it, at least for one year. The downloads are substantial and exceedingly helpful. As someone who has a struggling speller, I have a renewed committment to help her overcome her challenges thanks to all the materials on AVKO's site, and since she just handed me a piece of paper with the word pottery spelled "pudry", I think I'd better start tomorrow!

To check out AVKO's resources, go HERE. TO read what other members of the TOS Crew had to say, go HERE.

Legal disclaimer:
As a member of the TOS crew,I received FREE access to AVKO's member site in exchange for my honest review. That free product is the only "payment" I received for my opinion.

I ♥ Faces contest-Autumn Beauty

This week's theme is "Autumn Beauty", but here in sunny FL, we don't get the natural beauty that the more northern parts of the country enjoy. We DO, however, get an annual Renaissance Faire, and Loony Lucy is a cast regular. I think she's beautiful, but more importantly, she is a beautiful person on the inside too :-).

American Heritage Education Foundation Review

I first heard of American Heritage Education Foundation and their FREE American History curriculum a few years back. I even ordered the FREE CD at the time. And then it has sat on my desk ever since. To be fair, we haven't intentionally covered American History yet, so I had no reason to use it, but you'd think I would have at least looked at it!

Thank goodness the TOS Crew was asked to take a look at the AHEF curriculum!

The first thing that blew my socks off about this curriculum is that it is developed by a PUBLIC school system, but openly refers to GOD. Yes, you read that right. Now, don't get me wrong, this isn't a "point to God's providence in everything" curriculum, but it does strongly emphasize the faith of the founders and their intent that that faith's principles would be the unifying moral standards for our nation (while still giving the individual citizens the right to even accept that faith or not). In fact, the curriculum, which is provided at three levels (elementary, middle, and high school), highlights four themes throughout American History: Freedom, Unity, Progress, Responsibility. The CD, which is also available in bound format for $19.50 per level, also contains a Spanish version of the elementary level. It has all the documents and activity pages necessary to complete the lesson plans, and references the national standards the lessons address.

The pros: It's FREE. In today's day and age, that's just CRAZY, but here it is FREE for the asking. The lessons are purposeful and really lay a solid foundation of our American Heritage. Although it was designed for a public school system, it certainly is easily adaptable for homeschooling application, and it is very easy to take what works for you and leave the rest.

The cons: This is not a complete American history curriculum, but rather a supplement. IT covers people and topics into the early 1900's, but after that you are on your own. And it is not really chronological, but rather topical (studying the Mayflower Compact, etc.). While I think that makes it easy for you to add it in to any existing curriculum you are using, it may be a detractor to some. I do think that you could just use this curriculum over the course of a year even without supplementation, and your students would have an amazing framework on which to build any future learning you do.

The bottom line to me is that this is a no-brainer. Of course you should order it. IT'S FREE, for goodness sake, but more than that, the AHEF is dedicated to the understanding and teaching of America's factual and philosophical heritage to promote constructive citizenship and Freedom, Unity, Progress, and Responsibility among our students and citizens. How can you go wrong with that? Plus, you control what you do with it, so you really have nothing to lose. I love that each level of the CD devotes time to WHY this public school system has chosen to acknowledge and embrace America's faithful heritage and even includes letters from the Secretary of Eduction explaining the "official" position of the government on religious education in the schools (not so applicable to homeschoolers, but interesting nonetheless).

To order your CD, go HERE. You can also download the lessons directly from their site for free if you have a high speed internet connection. To see what other members of the TOS CREW had to say, go HERE.

Legal disclaimer:
As a member of the TOS crew,I received a FREE CD of American Heritage Education Foundation's curriculum in exchange for my honest review. That free product is the only "payment" I received for my opinion.

Bright Ideas Press Review

If the name "Bright Ideas Press" doesn't sound familiar to you, I assure you you are familiar with their products. They are the Hogans and are the wonderful family with a passion for God, Geography, and History that has brought the hoemschooling world familiar curriculums like Mystery of History, Hands-On Geography, and the Christian Kids Explore Science books. I was fortunate enough to receive both Mystery of History Volume 1 (MOH) and Hands-On Geography for use with my kids.



When it comes to "spine" books for homeschoolers that provide a classical approach to learning about history, two main curriculums are suggested time and time again. Following a friend who had an older child than my oldest learner, I chose the one she was already using. The problem was that where her kids loved it, mine hated it. And the other thing was that while it was a nice, concise secular history, it totally neglected Biblical history. It wasn't right for us.

Enter Mystery of History. I had heard people talk about it for years. Some of my friends use it. And I knew it was the Christian alternative to the type of history program I was looking for, but I had never looked into it further for some reason. So, of course, I was excited to get to review it for the TOS Crew.

MOH Volume 1 covers Creation to the Resurrection. It is a classical, chronological approach to history that incorporates pre-tests, lessons, activities, memory cards, quizzes, reviews, geography, and timeline figures to help you teach your students about God and HisStory as it has been played out through the ages in the history of our world. MOH was written for 4th-8th graders, but is easily adaptable for the entire K-12 spectrum. It includes an extensive bibliography and supplemental book and video list if you want to dig deeper into each lesson/period of time, although the book on its own provides a nice overview and a very "do-able" history curriculum without any supplement. It also includes everything you need as a teacher, including activity pages, tests/answer keys, pronunciation guides, and outline maps. Volume 1 has 36 lessons, and it is suggested that each one take one week to cover, with four days on and one day off.

So what are the pros? Although unit studies have proven not to work well for my family, this one did. It is easy to use, the lessons are short, and after we read the information together, I can assign them each their activities based on their age level, and put things like their index cards and timeline stuff in their workboxes for them to do individually. I LOVE that the activities are easy enough that I am likely to actually DO them with my kids. I love that they are enjoying MOH. And despite the fact that I am a very laid back homeschooler, I actually like the pretests and review tests for that I can easily see what my kids already know and what they have learned as we study. And I love that we can dig deeper if we want into a certain person or event, but I can also feel at peace with just doing the book work because it does such a beautiful job of pointing to God's had in all of history. And MOH keeps getting better. They recently have added folderbooks (lapbooks) for those of us who like those types of activities, and they have supplements specific to MOH like craft activities, reproducibles, and an audio version of the book available from Bright Ideas Press too.

I can't really think of a con, unless you don't want a Christian history program, or you don't want to study history sequentially.

The bottom line to me is that MOH is great. I look forward to using it for years to come. At $49.95 for one year's worth of curriculum (and then usable again for many years to come) I think it is affordable, and a wonderful investment for any homeschool family.


I also was fortunate to receive Hands-On Geography: Easy & Fun Activities for Exploring God's World. Hands-On Geography has 12 chapters chock full of ideas for how to make teaching geography fun, meaningful, and hands-on. It also has an entire chapter of outline maps with suggestions on how to use them, and two appendixes. The first has a flash card geography game, and the second is full of Geography resources.

The pros for this book are endless. Geography is one of the most challenging subjects to get kids to care about and remember. If you need proof of that, just watch any of the late-night talk show hosts as they find some hapless American to ask geography questions to and watch the subject squirm. And yet Geography is SO important. It's where we live, and it impacts everything about our lives. I love Maggie Hogan's creative ways to draw kids in and get them involved. Whether it's making a country notebook, or organizing a passport fair, or following the travels of a particular Bible character, the ideas are all simple but fun.

I didn't find any cons to this book. If anything, it inspired me to take her ideas and then keep going with more of my own.

The bottom line is that this is a great resource book to have on your shelves and then USE with your kids. At $14.95, it is affordable, and more than pays for itself with all the creative ways it offers for getting your kids to care about and love geography.

To order any of these books, or see more of the products Bright Ideas Press has to offer, go HERE. To read what other members of the TOS Crew have to say (many of them reviewed other products by Bright Ideas Press), go HERE.

Legal disclaimer:
As a member of the TOS crew,I received a copy of Mystery of History Volume 1 and Hands-On Geography free of charge in exchange for my honest review. That free product is the only "payment" I received for my opinion.

abcteach Review

Given our family dynamics, I've always been more of a relaxed homeschooler. And for us, "relaxed" didn't really include many worksheets. But then came my third child who thrives on worksheets, (and his little sister seems content to do them, just don't ask for perfection) and suddenly worksheets gained a little ground in my opinion.
And then there was the recent incident where my 10 year old daughter asked me (in public) how to spell OUR LAST NAME! Yeah, maybe we need to do a few more worksheets, especially taking the time to fill out the "Name" blank at the top!

Enter abcteach. abcteach is a website for teachers, parents, homeschoolers, and anyone else who works with students in elementary and middle school. To list everything the site offers would take months, and WAY more space than I have in this post, but you should know that they offer about 5000 FREE worksheets. The member site though is where the site really shines with over 35,000 pages of printable worksheets and activities. If you aren't into worksheets, abcteach may seem at first to be a product to dismiss, but let me assure you it offers way more than your typical worksheet site. abcteach has TONS of education clip art, unit studies, shape books, sudoku, learning center signs and activities, flash cards, power point presentations, and much, MUCH more.
But the best part of abcteach is abctools. abctools allows you to make customizable worksheets for, well, almost anything. Math, spelling, vocabulary, and educational games all have customizable worksheet options. But to me the most impressive is the handwriting options. They have fonts for A Beka, Handwriting Without Tears, D'Nealian, Getty-Dubay Italic, Zaner-Bloser, Loops and Other Groups, and Queensland, as well as many common standard computer fonts. They are all available in cursive or print, but also have options like dotted letters or dots and directional arrows. I have used it extensively to generate worksheets for my children to finally learn cursive. Because they are customizable, I have incorporated our other studies into what they are practicing in their handwriting. For example, we can use it to reinforce our root word studies by having them write, "A means 'not' or 'on'." Or chose a Bible memory verse for them to write. It has been great for us.

The pros for abcteach are endless. If you have students in the K-8th grade, I challenge you to NOT find a way to use abcteach. With printables covering Math, Science, Social Studies, and Language Arts, and clip art for anything educational under the sun, it wouldn't take much for abcteach to pay for itself.

I didn't encounter any cons except the standard science concerns for Christians with a young earth view. But it is very easy to avoid by just previewing the sheet before you print it. If it doesn't line up with your beliefs, don't use it. With 35,000 things to chose form, there is sure to be plenty more to use.

The bottom line is that I think abcteach is probably an indispensable resource for most homeschoolers. The yearly membership is $40 for one year/$70 for two years. You should definitely check the site out since that's the best way to see if it would work for your homeschool, but we have used it every day and that makes it totally worth it to me!

To check out abcteach or sign up for membership, go HERE. To read what other members of the TOS Crew had to say, go HERE.

Legal disclaimer:
As a member of the TOS crew,I received a one month membership to abcteach free of charge in exchange for my honest review. That free product is the only "payment" I received for my opinion.

Virginia Soaps and Scents Review

The TOS Crew was recently asked to review some products from Virginia Soaps and Scents. I was THRILLED, because in our house we have been using homemade soaps and other products for a few years, but I had not tried Virginia Soaps and Scents because they didn't exist when I first started buying homemade soaps (and now I make my own).
Virginia Soaps and Scents may seem like a strange company to ask a Crew of homeschooling product reviewers to look at, but actually its a perfect fit because VSS is a homeschooling success story. The company itself was born out of a unit study by a homeschooling family, the Spargurs. They decided to make a batch of homemade soap as a history lesson, and a passion was born. And being true homeschoolers, they decided that if they were to make a business out of this passion, they would learn to do it all themselves, and they have. Beyond making soap, they handle every aspect of the business, even down to the packaging.


We received three different products from them to review. The first was their regular bar soap. I found it to be quite attractive, and was happy to see that it was scented with real essential oils, not perfumes (although it appears some of their specialty bars are scented using fragrance oils.) I particularly liked the scent of the Oatmeal, Milk, and Honey bar. I thought the sample size is quite nice, and the soap is beautifully irregular on the top-as nice to look at as it is to use. If you haven't used a bar soap in a while, you will be surprised the difference it will make in how your skin feels, and if you've never used a homemade bar soap, then you've never experienced soap the way soap was intended to be-with all the glycerin in tact. Compared to other homemade soaps, the VSS soaps lathered with small but rich bubbles, and was perfectly fine for shaving with as well as washing. The bars are 4.5 oz each and are $4.50 for one, $12 for 3, $35 for 10, or buy 4, get one free.
We also received a sample size shampoo bar. Now again, we've been using shampoo bars for years in our house, but for most people it is a strange concept indeed. But "back in the day" there were no specific products for body vs. hair. One soap did it all. Today, most homemade shampoo bars are slightly different from homemade soaps. The process for making them is entirely the same, but soaps are often "superfatted", or left with some of the oils not converted to soap by the lye, therefore they are left suspended in the soap as moisturizers. Shampoo bars are typically not superfatted, and that's the basic difference. Shampoo bars take a bit of getting used to...when you first make the change you have to remember that you've spent a lifetime coating your hair with plastics (just look for anything in your hair products that says "vinyl") and you have to get your hair back to a natural state. Once you do that though, you'll never go back. Shampoo bars get your hair SO much cleaner, and because it is a more natural clean, you can go longer between washings and not have your hair look dirty or oily. And they travel with much less mess, especially on airplanes (as a bonus, you can carry them on in your luggage and not have to worry about liquid product limits). I liked the VSS Shampoo bar a lot, and the Coconut Lemongrass scent was nice. The 5.5 oz bar sells for $5.50, or two for $10.



Lastly, we received a sample of their homemade laundry detergent kit. Homemade laundry soap is really easy to make, but if you are at all apprehensive about it, this kit is the way to go. The instructions are easy to follow, and everything you need (except the water) is included. Their instructions are for making a gel-like liquid, although the same ingredients can be used without water as a powdered detergent. I'd never made the liquid kind, so I was excited to try this one. The advantage to the liquid is that you can add a few drops of your favorite essential oil to make your laundry smell good. I added a tiny amount of lavender to mine. I've been using homemade laundry soap for a while now, and their recipe is essentially the same as the one I use, so I didn't see a difference with their product, but I can tell you you will save a ton of money with homemade laundry soap, and like I said before, this kit is an easy way to start. The kit is $4.95 and will do 64-72 loads of laundry.

The bottom line to me is that the products we tried from VSS were all great. I would definitely recommend them to anyone who wanted to save money and be more natural in the way they clean themselves and their clothes. Homemade soaps typically sell for $1 and ounce or more, and their soaps are right in line with that. Plus, they look and smell nice too.

To order any of their products, or see some of the others they offer (lotions, etc.) go HERE. To read what other members of the TOS Crew had to say, go HERE.

Legal disclaimer:
As a member of the TOS crew,I received 3 sample bars of soap, a shampoo bar sample, and a laundry kit free of charge in exchange for my honest review. That free product is the only "payment" I received for my opinion.

Amazing Bible Timeline Review

My kids and I have started a chronological study of history based on the Bible, so receiving this Amazing Bible Timeline to review right now was perfect timing. Or at least it should have been. Unfortunately, it's kind of a double edged sword. Let me explain.

The Amazing Bible Timeline is HUGE-it's size alone justifies the "amazing" part of its name. (It's 38" x 46".) Here's a picture of it that shows its size a little better.
But that same huge size means it has to be curled up to be shipped, and because it is on heavy duty card stock with a varnished top, it took quite a bit of convincing to get mine to lay anywhere close to flat. We started with it face DOWN on the dining room table (to get it to uncurl) and then eventually flipped it upright, but had to cover it with a vinyl clear shower curtain to protect it and keep the edges from curling, and then the kids couldn't really see it, so now it's taped to our wall, and that seems to be working better. Except my dining room is now decorated in "early homeschooling".

The goal of this timeline is to present the events of the Bible in a way that you can see the whole Bible timeline at once...and see it concurrent with the other world events of that time. It covers everything from creation to the end times, with the BC stuff to the right as you view the timeline, and the AD stuff to the left. The centuries come out from the middle on spokes and are numbered along the outer edge too. Four different colors are used to show the descendants of Noah's sons, and also to show the major acting influences on the church (the reformation, the catholic church, etc.). It attempts to allow the viewer to get an idea, at a glance, of all the things that were going on around the world at the same time as any Bible event they are studying. It is an awesome task to undertake, and hard for any one resource to do well.

The pros to this product are that it really does help you see how things overlap in history. Even the early Bible genealogies are helpful. To SEE how Adam was still alive during the lifetime of Noah's grandfather, and even FATHER, was very eye-opening. And to see when Buddha or Confucius or the other major characters from other "religions" fit into the Bible timeline is all very interesting to me as a history buff. The timeline bases itself on the research of Bishop Ussher, who in the late 1500's, put together probably the most comprehensive Bible timeline ever, so it begins with a solid foundation (for Christians who subscribe to the "young earth" idea).
And it comes with a few free downloads, including a smaller version of the Amazing Bible Timeline for your computer, and an interactive map of the Holy Land.

Oh, but the cons...they are numerous too. First, there's the whole, "I can't get it to lay flat"thing, which is compounded by the fact that I did not want to have to tape it to the wall, but that proved to be the only way to make it usable. Then, there's the fact that it's not laminated, so you can't mark on it, and that tape that I used to tape it to the wall will now have to be a permanent addition because It would rip the timeline apart to remove it. Then there's the issue with it taking a bit of time to "wrap your brain around it" so you can really read it-this is not a tool a younger child could use. I'd say you are definitely looking at upper middle school and up. And the colors were confusing to me. I'd rather have seen the histories separated out clearly by continent, and then a side notation of which son of Noah they are believed to descend from. Except you couldn't do that because Africa is totally skipped over other than Egypt. Apparently nothing interesting in the history of the world happens there. But oddly enough, there's a LARGE focus on the pre-Colombian history of the America's.

It starts here.

And continues here (it's the outermost ring).

And keeps going HERE...and you might want to actually READ above, because yes, there is cited as a reference the Book of Mormon.

That explains a LOT of the emphasis on the history of the Native Americans, since the Mormons believe Jesus came to visit the Native Americans after His resurrection. That doesn't line up with God's Word, and so those references are not valid in my opinion. Now, I don't mean to take issue with anyone else's belief system, but I know personally that God's Word tells us in Jude 3 that we should earnestly contend for the faith against false doctrine, so that is what I must do here. The link to Mormon beliefs also renders all the references to end-time prophecy null, since their understanding of the prophecy of Daniel and mine are totally different. And since my kids are currently studying Daniel (they'll move to the end-times stuff in January) and they spent last year doing Revelation, that information being presented as fact when it is contrary to our understanding is just not okay.

The bottom line to me is that if you are among the 90% of the population out there who would take no issue with the incongruencies caused by the Mormon beliefs being presented as fact on the chart, than this is a good reference for you. And if you are handy with a sharpie marker and don't mind permanently disfiguring your timeline, than this is a good reference for you too. In fact, I want to be clear that I won't be ripping it off my wall anytime soon, because I do think it is a good tool, and since it's not laminated I can mark through things in sharpie marker to rid our chart from the information that runs contrary to our beliefs, so that's what I plan to do.

The Amazing Bible Timeline and the accompanying free downloads, are available HERE for $29.97 plus $6 shipping. To read what other TOS Crew members had to say, go HERE.

Legal disclaimer:
As a member of the TOS crew,I received the Amazing Bible Timeline free of charge in exchange for my honest review. That free product is the only "payment" I received for my opinion.