Review: Five In A Row

When I received this curriculum I was thinking "not another one". But as I have found, this is by far my favorite unit study that I have came across. It fits my criteria for what I want in a literature unit study. It is easy, simple, and I don't have to go find a bunch of books to go along with it. I just had to find the one book per section and use a few library books for supplement, encyclopedia, or Internet. I really can not stress enough how SIMPLE this is. I did not have to stress on anything.

The directions of what to do were laid out very clear, short, and oh, that word again SIMPLE!

This program caused me no stress or frustration at all. I am now a HUGE fan of the curriculum. I wish I had found it sooner. I also have become a fan of notebooking with this program. I use to think notebooking was hard and time consuming, but now its easy and a time saver. And not to mention all I have to do is buy paper and not more curriculum!

Let me tell you about the Beyond Five In A Row Volume 2 that I used for this review.

• for ages 8-12
• Covers: Language Arts, History, Geography, Arts, Science
• 4 book unit studies (Sarah, Plain and Tall, and Skylark, both by Patricia MacLachlan)

Some area's of study:

• George Washington Carver, & Helen Keller
• Career Paths
• Baby Development
• Segregation
• Human Relationships
• Birds
• Composting (something we are going to start doing this spring)
• Making bricks out of clay
• Analogies
• Anatomy of an Eye

There are just so many interesting things to learn about. I really could not have came up with all the different things to learn about from one chapter of a book. There are so many things that can be used as inspiration from one chapter. And that is what they do. They take a chapter from a book, that you are reading for the lessons, and pull ideas from that chapter to teach on. Like from Chapter 1 in Sarah, Plain and Tall. They talk about babies growth, Maine, Eastern USA, writing a letter (which we enjoyed and used to mail a letter to a great grandpa in Florida).

There are just so many things to do and learn about.

Please check out Five In A Row. It has become one of my favorites and I would like to have the whole collection sitting on my book shelves so I can just pull one down and start a new study, or redo a study and make it more challenging as the girls get older.

They also offer other studies and age ranges 2 and up.

To read other Reviews about this volume or other volumes go HERE.

Collecting Books!

I am collecting books on decorating and painting. I have joined and I am really enjoying it.

People request books from me, I mail them, they receive them, and I get a credit.

Each book "costs" a credit. So when I ship a book I receive a credit and then

I can request a book from someone else, and I pay a credit.

How do you get credits if you have never shipped a book?

Well when you join and post 10 books they give you a few credits to get you started.

There is also the option to buy credits if that is what works best for you.

But the best part is that its FREE to join.

For more info please click on one of my links to take you directly to

the website to learn more and to join.

Review: Math Tutor DVD's

These DVDs are pretty cool! Let me tell you about them.

One of my biggest fears with homeschooling

was teaching math. I was not a star math

student in school and so I do not have the confidence

to teach math, especially the older my children get.

I received 2 Math Tutor DVDs to review and I felt

a bit blessed to receive them (or God was giving me a hint).

The first DVD is called:

The Basic Math Word Problem Tutor

and it is packed with 8 hours of lessons including

• addition and subtraction of whole numbers
• multiplying and dividing whole numbers
• adding and subtracting decimals
• fractions
• percents
• ratio and proportion
• and more

Now I really like this DVD for my youngest.

She struggles with learning like I did.

And this DVD is perfect for her.

The second DVD is called:

The Algebra 2 Tutor

and is packed with 6 hours of lessons and includes

• graphing
• slope of a line
• solving systems of equations
• expressions
• radicals
• and many more

The Tutor, Jason Gibson, speaks clearly and is professional.

His directions, examples, and illustrations are clear and simple.

If you have a child who learns easily, they may get

bored after they have learned the problem and wish to go on.

The Tutor does take each problem step by step

and explains each step fully.

I really can't tell you how easy it was to follow and how easy

he makes learning math.

Math Tutor offers and extensive product line and you

can check it out HERE.

There is a course for almost every math subject.

So if you need help teaching math, then visit the

Math Tutor website HERE.

Read more reviews HERE.