Showing posts with label Geography. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Geography. Show all posts

Monday, July 19, 2010

TOS Homeschool Crew Review - Travel the World



This is my first review of the 2010-2011 Crew year. I am reviewing the E-book: Travel the World - June 2010 Module. One of the first things you may have noticed is that the e-book is labeled Schoolhouse Planner. Each month in the planner there is an topic to study. Along with the yearly planner TOS puts out, which has a lot of great forms in it, they put out an e-book each month that goes along with the monthly topic in the planner. These modules can be used in addition to the planner or separately from it. Each module is designed to be its own stand-alone unit study. And they are great.

This e-book's topic is world geography. The e-book Travel the World has 56 pages with color photographs, the activity pages are mostly black and white to make it cheaper to print. One of the lapbook pages does have color as does the rebus puzzle, the rebus picture could be looked at only on the pdf and the lapbook element could be printed black and white if you wanted. Most of the e-book modules use the same format. This e-book includes: information about geography, a song, links to additional activities all over the Internet, links to games to help you learn about the continents, fill in the blank, word search and other activity pages, coloring pages, lapbook elements, copywork (in this case from the Bible as well as other sources), recipes, and even a High School section for older students. One of the other nice features is an answer key, always nice to have to make the teacher's job easier. There is also a link list to other TOS products and products from other companies that TOS sells that pertain to the topic. These can help you expand your study. The information in the e-book is good but the links they have included in the text give you a lot of ways to expand on that information and were especially wonderful. I am a resource junkie and it was lovely to have so much work done for me, with great new links I have never seen before. They have done a lot of work to make these unit studies easy to use for us. 


The boys and I love unit studies. These are very well done. I liked the whole thing, I did not see anything that needed improving. It was a good study to do for the summer and gave the boys some activity to keep them busy. One son loves the lapbooks, he said this was "the most fun way to learn geography, ever!" They both like the crossword and other activity pages. They love online games so the links to the games were a favorite part too.

Click HERE to see a sample of this item!
Click here to see more information about this product: E-book: Travel the World - June 2010 Module.

Not much teacher preparation is necessary if you are just using this unit study as is. These are good e-books as I said and can be used alone or would complement any study you are doing. I highly recommend them to anyone that is trying to expand their study of a topic that TOS covers with one of the modules. There are a variety of activities and so the e-book would be good for all ages from Early Elementary to High School. I printed out the information pages in color (you could just have your children look at the pages in the pdf if you don't want to print them) and the activity pages I wanted the boys to do and gave them to them to work on during our summer break. When they finished the pages, I gave them the pdf so they could explore the links for further study. Because this is an e-book you can use this product more than once with your children expanding on their use as they grow.

There are many topics already available and they make a new one each month. You can order one e-book for $7.95 or you can buy 3 at a time for $17.88. The buy three at a time page has a convenient list of all the modules they have produced so far which makes it easy to pick the ones that you will need for the coming year. You can also order the whole 12 pack of modules from the 2008-2009 year and/or from the 2009-2010 year for $83.95 for each year. You can order the 2010 planner here for $39.00 and right now if you buy the planner you get a year of the TOS magazine for free.

TOS also has many other products specifically made for homeschoolers so you should check out their store.

Out of five stars I give the E-book: Travel the World - June 2010 Module


Check out what my fellow reviewers thought of Travel the World at TOS Homeschool Crew Blog.


*** TOS provided me with the E-book: Travel the World - June 2010 Module so that I could do my review. Though I received this product for free I have given an honest review of it here in this post.

Friday, March 19, 2010

TOS Homeschool Review - Olde World Style Maps

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I have to say that I just love Free Emoticons Homeschool in the Woods. You will see below that we own a lot of their stuff. We have never been disappointed in the quality of products we get with this company. Now they have New Map Sets!!


In the World Map set there are over 130 maps. It comes with a bonus of over 40 Notebooking pages! Each of the maps comes in at least 3 forms:
    1. With Text
    2. Without Text
    3. Without Title

The map with the whole world on also has a map without boundaries and it comes in large and small so there are 8 world maps to choose from.

Besides the maps of each country, there are other very helpful maps to match time period studies like Ancient Greece, Ancient China, Ptolemaic Map, Paul's Missionary Journeys, the 12 Tribes of Israel, and more. There are also maps of the Arctic and Antarctic regions and the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean. These are great maps. The black and white format makes it so that your kids can color the maps themselves and it also saves on ink for your printer. The maps are well done and the quality is high as you would expect from Homeschool in the Woods.

Some of the coolest things in the World Map Set are the Notebooking Pages. The boys did some of these this week and they are great! Some of the pages include basic geography information the kids should know and fill out like Longitude and Latitude, Map Keys (they get to make their own symbols for this page, neat!), Geography Vocabulary, and more. Then there are pages for Explorers, a Brochure to create like you are visiting a place, Daily Life in the Country of... and you put in the country and the information for clothes, work, education, faith, holidays and more. These pages are a great bonus and great addition to any homeschool curriculum.

The U.S. Map set includes over 180 maps and comes with bonus Notebooking pages for each state! In this set there are three types of maps for each state:
    1. With Text (names of rivers, capital, and border states)
    2. Without Text (rivers are shown but not named)
    3. Outline only (just what it says outline only, add what you want)

There are some additional maps in this set also. Some historical maps like: Colonial America, Growth of the US from 1800 to 1959 in a number of increments, Native Tribes and others. There are also complete US on one map as Political and Physical. Each of these maps come with text and without.

There are many Notebooking pages included with the US set as well. Including a Fact page for each state which has information to be filled out like: number of state to enter the Union and date that happened, State Bird, State Rock, State Motto, and a place to put the state flag, along with other info.

There are also cover pages to use if you are doing a map set for either the World or the US maps.

These pages can be used for Ancient History to Modern History, Geography studies, Bible class, a study of the 50 states and more, they are so versatile and they can be used by all ages. You could even give the maps that are more filled out to younger students and the blank ones to your older students. I know we will be using these maps for years.

There is a Freebies and Sampler page so you can check out their stuff and they have a lot of freebies.

Other Homeschool in the Woods Products that I own and Love :
    1. Record of Time (timeline book)
    2. History Through the Ages (timeline figures) [I have the complete collection on CD and we love these!] {oh and if you do Mystery of History III there are bonus figures that cover each of the chapters not already in the packs on the Freebies and Samplers Page ...
   3. Placement Guide [so you know exactly where each figure should go on the page in the Record of Time]
   4. Time Traveler Series [I bought the Explorers Unit for this year and it is just packed!! the boys have really enjoyed it.]

On the website they also have the following pages and more:
Out of five stars I give the Homeschool in the Woods Olde World Style Maps

Because value and amount of maps and extras in these sets, I am giving Olde World Style Maps my Good Value Icon. You can order these sets individually in an Instant Download for $18.95 each or you can order them together in a Combo-Pak download for $28.95. You can also get each set on CD is $19.95 or you can get both sets on one CD as a combo for $29.95. Orders are made from this page: Homeschool in the Woods Olde World Style Maps.

To see what my other crew members have to say about Homeschool in the Woods Olde World Style Maps check out the TOS Homeschool Crew Blog.

***Homeschool in the Woods provided me with the Olde World Style Maps as an instant download so that I could do my review. Though I received this product for free I have given an honest review of it here in this post.

I hope you found this review to be informative and helpful,
Debbie

Monday, August 4, 2008

Great Idea from a friend's site

Here is a link to another ladies blog with a great idea for back to school for this year, especially if you have early elementary school children. I wish I had thought of this when my kids were little and were doing Saxon Math and we had a "Meeting" every morning to review some basic facts before doing the workpage for the the day. It is similar to a mini office but much more interactive... I just love it.

If you use Saxon Math this is a great idea... if you don't use Saxon this is a great idea!!!

The Geography stuff on the back is great too!!!

I ALMOST wish I had little ones to do this with... guess I will have to wait for future grandkids... someday!

Here is the site...

http://www.wayzleyacademy.homeschooljournal.net/2008/08/02/portable-circle-time-revisted/

Debbie

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