Homeschool Happenings

Wednesday, August 5, 2020

Home School in the Woods ~ The Industrial Revolution through the Great Depression - A Review

Disclaimer: I received a FREE copy of this product through the HOMESCHOOL REVIEW CREW in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way.

Over the past weeks my 7th graders has been learning history with Time Travelers U.S. History Studies from Home School in the Woods. This hands-on history study is geared for grades 3-8. The Industrial Revolution through the Great Depression in America contains 25 lessons and is intended to be spread upon 5-10 weeks of study. Each lesson contains reading, projects, writing, and quotes. There are over 50 activities in this Time Travelers history study.

The 25 lessons are:

Railroads, Gold, Snow & Fire
Wars in the West
A Gilded Age
Innovations and Inventors
Project Day - 1
Immigration Day in America
Work Conditions Worsen
The Arts
America Continues to Grow
Project Day - 2
People of Interest
War on the Islands!
The Progressive Era
Other Happenings - Part 1
Project Day - 3
Other Happenings - Part 2
World War 1 - Part 1
World War 1 -Part 2
The Roaring 20s
Project Day - 4
The Stock Market Crash & The Great Depression - Part 1
The Stock Market Crash & The Great Depression - Part 2
Project Day - 5
Pulling Together the Lapbook™
A "Depression-Era Dinner!"

Your child will create/make a:

Lapbook
3 ring binder of activities
3-D projects
Recipes
Games
Penmanship/Cursive pages
Timeline
and more...

Parents, don't worry about TEACHING because Home School in the Woods has you covered. What is unique about the Time Travelers Series is that older kiddos can pretty much do most everything on their own. For the younger child they will need parental assistance. Each lesson has a section entitled, "Lesson Projects" which gives the parent/teacher detailed directions as to what needs to happen for each lesson. It also has instructions and pictures for the activities. Home School in the Woods really could not make it any simpler. The ONLY WARNING I will give you is that their is A LOT OF PRINTING INVOLVED WITH HOME SCHOOL IN THE WOODS SO BE PREPARED TO PRINT!

Here my daughter is working on the Timeline for

The Industrial Revolution through the Great Depression.

America Enters a Modern Age...

This is a page about famous Business Tycoons such as John Davison Rockefeller,

John Pierpont Morgan, and Milton S. Hershey.

My daughter learned some of the WWI products and foods sold along with

their prices. Some of the activities such as this one go in the 3-ring binder.

This was a list of vocabulary words that had come up throughout the

Lesson readings. The 3 sets were entitled:

Words of WWI

What was That?

Modern Century Vocabulary

This was a great way to review what was learned in the lessons up until

this point.

Did you know that the first car was referred to as a "horseless carriage."

Here my daughter is working on a fun flip book that will show people gazing on

as the Wright Brothers are flying their plane.

The Wright Brothers take flight!

My daughter can never wait until the end of the study to create her Lapbook

so we work on it throughout the study.

There is specific spots for each activity placement.

Frank Lloyd Wright and his architecture.

We had fun listening to music by George M. Cohan

on You Tube such as "Over There", "Give My Regards to Broadway",

"Yankee Doodle Dandy", and "You're a Grand Old Flag."

Isn't this COOL!

U.S. Growth from 1850-1959

Once this is put together with a paper fastener it will be a People of Interest, Fan Deck.

Cutting these out was LABOR INTENSIVE, LOL!

Each lesson has a Lesson Project page which explains what the student needs

to complete for each lesson. Supplies are listed. Directions as well as

pictures of the activities are shown.

Each lesson has a 2-3 page student text for them to read. I find

the text to be quite interesting myself. My daughter usually reads these

aloud. This is her preference. She HATES reading and so for her

reading aloud is helpful. While she is reading I usually cut out the

activity materials for the lesson. I find this to be BUSY WORK and

I would rather my daughter spend her time on other more important school

work instead of cutting out all of the stuff that need to be cut out for each

lesson. There is A LOT OF CUTTING WITH Home School in the Woods.

I like that Home School in the Woods includes famous quotes

in their materials. Students copy the quotes throughout the lessons.

I absolutely love using Home School in the Woods for teaching my children history. I find that when children are actually involving physically in activities, projects, and play, and etc. they tend to learn and retain history so much better than just sitting down reading or listening to a teaching lecturing then on a period or time in history. Definitely check out what my Fellow Crew Members had to say about this Time Travelers Study as well as many of the other Home School in the Woods curriculum that was reviewed.

And be sure to check out the U.S. Elections Lap-Pak!

There are many other great topics of study in the History Through the Ages ~ Time Travelers U.S. History Studies including:

New World Explorers
Colonial Life
The American Revolution
The Civil War
The Early 19th Century
World War II

Our family has used Home School in the Woods many times in the past and we have enjoyed each of our experiences. Here is a list of my past reviews:

Social Media

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Saturday, August 1, 2020

Chai Tea

I have been listening to many of Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai's videos and they are wonderful. This particular one video entitled, Dr.SHIVA LIVE: How to Make Real Chai Tea. Your Body, Your System is a must watch.

I started making his recipe for Chia tea and absolutely LOVE it.

It calls for all organic ingredients.

Ginger

Cinnamon Sticks

Cloves

Anise

Cardamom

Pepper Corns

Black Tea

Whole Milk

Water ( I used filtered water from my Berkey)

Sweetener ( your choice )

Dr. Shiva explains step-by-step how to make the Chia tea in the video.

Basically this is what you do.

4 cups of water

I use 2-3 Black Tea bags

2-3 inches of Ginger (remove skin and use mortar and pestle to grind the ginger up)

2 Cinnamon Sticks (grind with mortar and pestle)

4 Cloves (grind with mortar and pestle)

2 Anise Stars (grind with mortar and pestle)

Cardamom 1/8 tsp

4 Pepper Corns (grind with mortar and pestle)

2 cups whole milk

Jaggery for Sweetener

Grinding the spices and ginger.

Boiling the spices.

Adding in the milk.

Enjoying my wonderful cup of Chai tea!

Wednesday, July 22, 2020

A slow start...

Over the years of homeschooling I have found slowly starting back up with schoolwork one subject at a time makes for a much better school year for everyone. In July we usually start back up with math. Math is the one subject that all of my kiddos struggle with and dislike the most. Getting a jumpstart on math helps to make significant progress before co-op classes start the end of August. Over the summer I usually have my kiddos read FUN books as well as at least one book of my choosing. This summer that one book for my older kids was Uncle Tom's Cabin. My incoming 7th grader will spend most of the summer working on a history lap book project from Home School in the Woods on The Industrial Revolution through the Great Depression. In July my 7th and 9th graders got their co-op summer reading assignments for co-op. My 7th grader will be taking Intro to Literature and General Science and my 9th grader will be taking American Literature and Biology. In August we add in another subject or two and continue on. Kind of like a turtle, slow and steady wins the race.

Friday, July 17, 2020

Sourdough Bread

About two months ago I decided to start making sourdough bread again after a couple of years gap. I started working on tending to a starter and it was working pretty good for awhile and then it just petered out. I was able to get a wonderful starter from a friend that is a sourdough guru and instantly I had sourdough. I am still playing around with different recipes. Some tend not to give me the rise and texture that I really like. I found this recipe to be my favorite. I am still a beginner and hope to use my family's mouths and stomachs over the coming months to experiment as I perfect my sourdough skills.

My friend told me the best place to put the starter after feeding it

is on top of the fridge because it is a warm place.

Here is a picture of my bubbling starter.

Tuesday, July 14, 2020

Smart Buddies™ ~ A Review

My daughter has been having fun playing with her Smart Buddies at Home, Jodi from Pitsco Education. There are eight different Smart Buddies™available. The target grade is 3-5. With that said my daughter is just finishing the 6th grade and has really enjoyed her Smart Buddy experience. There are both boy and girl Smart Buddies™. Each Smart Buddy™ has a different hobby/talent and educational strength. For example, "Jodi loves fun and adventure, and her world is always filled with tons of excitement. Between studying organic chemistry in Italy and cooking up new creations, Jodi is always busy! She combines her love for cooking and science and uses chemical reactions to create tasty dishes for her best friend and family to enjoy. But Jodi struggles to find her place in an all-male science class and can't help but feel like the odd girl out."

Each Smart Buddy™ comes with:

Your Smart Buddy™
Smart Buddy™Siggy robot scooter with integrated LiPo rechargeable battery
USB charging cord
Access to the Smart Buddies™app
Printed quick-start guide

So what exactly does the Siggy do? The Siggy moves, lights up, makes sounds, and solves a series of code based missions. You simply balance your Smart Buddy™ on the Siggy for a couple of seconds using the wrist clips and placing your buddies feet in the footings base. Once you hear a beep you know that your siggy is adequately balanced.

We were having an issue with our Siggy glitching. It was stopping and falling. We got on the website and there was an option to talk to someone via a virtual chat. I chatted back and forth with a representative for awhile. The representative asked multiple questions to try and trouble shoot common problems and issues. It was finally determined that we had a defective Siggy. This transpired in the evening. The next day I had a representative contact me via e-mail to collect a bit more information and a new Smart Buddy™ was sent out. The new Siggy worked great! They sent a pre-paid label to send back the defective Smart Buddy™. Awesome customer service.

The Smart Buddies™ App is easy to download. The App is the one in the

lower right hand corner of the screen. There is an App for Android and

Chromebook, iOS, and Kindle.

Each Siggy has its own identifiable license plate.

There are 6 activities included in the app. Activities include free play to coding.

The following activities included are:

E-books ~ Each character has his/her own book.
Free Play ~ A joystick gives your child free control of the Siggy. Free play moves can be recorded and stored for later replay.
Path ~ Your child can draw a path for the Siggy to follow.
Learn ~ Takes your child through 10 coding lessons that teach basic block coding elements. Each lesson poses problems that introduces new elements that build on knowledge acquired from previous lessons.
Sandbox ~ Learners implement their knowledge gained from the Learn activity.
Missions ~ These are tasks. Users have to code the Siggy's path through a maze and the task has to be solved accurately.

There are two different reading levels, Primary and Intermediate.

The Smart Buddy™ is geared for grades 3-5.

My daughter used the Free Play activity mode the most.

Coding was a brand new concept for my daughter as well as for myself.

I was very grateful for the Coding Program Parent Guide available

on the Pitsco Education Website.

The guide gives easy to follow step-by-step instructions, learning objectives,

and materials needed for each activity. They even provide definitions or

"Smart Buddy™ Lingo" as it is called such as pseudocode - a set of step-by-step

instructions that is translated into code.

Here is my daughter using Jodi on the Free Play mode.

Here are some of the Activities that I printed out from the website. While on the

website I also found a fabulous treasure trove of helpful videos to watch that various

people have posted. These are very helpful when you still don't quite understand an

activity. These can be found on the Pitsco website under Resources and then Video Gallery.

This is a drawing done on the Path Activity section of the app. Your

child simply has to use their finger to draw any shape and a small virtual

Smart Buddy™ on a Siggy will show up on the screen and follow the path

that your child has draw. Your child can then choose to have their Smart Buddy™

duplicate the same path. Your child can save the paths that they create or erase

them once they are finished.

Using the Path Activity for the Siggy to follow.

Smart Buddies™ has so many valuable learning values.

I was quite impressed with the Smart Buddies™ capabilities. My daughter has greatly enjoyed playing with and learning about coding with her Smart Buddy™ Jodi. I love the company's philosophy which is to, "help more children identify with STEM, be much more inspired to continue their coding and STEM education journey, and ultimately contribute to bringing much-needed diversity to the STEM workforce." Definitely check out what my fellow Crew Members had to say about Smart Buddies™ as well as many other fabulous educational products from Pitsco Education.

Pitsco Education is generously

sponsoring a giveaway!

Be sure to ENTER for your chance

to win a Smart Buddy™ for your child!

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