TOS: All About Spelling Beehive Reader

In my opinion, the hardest part of teaching a child to read is finding decent reading material.

No, really. That's it: the hardest part. It's not selecting a curriculum, explaining blends, or motivating a reluctant reader. Uh-uh. It's finding something decent for the child to test their budding skills on.

There are options. Hoo, boy ... are their options. Sadly, they range from the inane to the insane. If I had a dime for every time Jo looked at me, cocked her head and asked why on earth she should care that "Pat can tap a hat" ... I'd be a rich momma. And that's no joke.

My solution to avoiding the entire bland genre of See Dog Run has thus far been to spend a couple of afternoons whipping up a handful of handmade, customized readers. Right about the time each of my children has sat on the cusp of literacy, I have pulled together what professional educators would call, "high-interest, phonetically controlled primers." I target the child's specific bent. (Jo's revolved around pets, Atticus' around a superhero named Rad Chad, and Logan's around Star Wars ... which probably means that I owe George Lucas lots of money.) I kept it simple. I used some free clip art from the internet. Then I printed up a couple of copies, stapled them into booklets and sat down to read them with my offspring. When they finished a book, they got to color the illustrations.

It worked well. But you won't be surprised by this next statement: It was a reasonable bit of work.

What I wanted was a high-quality, classic set of readers that neither confounded my children's ability to reason nor insulted their intelligence. I also preferred that the vocabulary not be so limited as to impede actual comprehension. I found a handful of things that fit the bill over the years, but not enough to form a library.

But, thankfully, I can now look forward to teaching Oli and Manolin with a whole new set of readers: AAS's Beehive Readers. I received a copy of Beehive Reader 1 for review and was instantly struck by how lovely this book is. This is the kind of tome that presents reading as a lovely, cherished thing. The hardcover is a nice touch, and the illustrations are simply enchanting. To tell you just how compelling the actual packaging of the book is, know this: I left the book on the kitchen counter while I made dinner. In that 45 minutes, Jo, Atticus, Logan, and Mr. Blandings all walked by. Each one of them stopped to pick up the book, asked what it was, and thumbed through it. Jo smiled at several of the animal illustrations and declared them, "adorable." Logan sat down with the book and read from it until dinner was ready, despite being able to polish off Boxcar Children books quite well at this point.

The stories themselves are far more interesting than your garden variety primers. There is no drivel-y patting of hats. Instead, children are lured in to the very first story with a soft-focus pencil illustration of a sweet girl named Jill holding a wet frog. Later on, there are camping adventures, grumpy ducks, castles, and puppies falling out of teacups.

This is the kind of silly yet drawing literature that children need to spark a love of reading; Not the dry, foolish absurdities one finds in 95% of what is marketed as first reading material.

As an added bonus, if you're already using the All About Spelling Program, this reader will correspond perfectly with the lessons being taught in level 1. Please don't think that it's only for users of AAS programs, however--even if you're not using AAS, I recommend this primer. This book is available from the AAS website for $19.95, and while I don't think it will completely replace the need for some of Oliver's very own Oli Readers, I am certainly glad to have it in our library for new readers to enjoy!

Disclaimer: I was given a free copy of this product for review purposes. Refer to my general disclaimer for more information on my policies regarding reviews.

ZPG, indeed

Our large, white 12-passenger van pulled into a parking spot at our local mall. This is your average, upper end, wear-nice-clothes-or-you'll-look-like-a-redneck mall. The kind of place where teen girls charge outfits that cost more than my monthly food budget in a single spending spree.

Mr. Blandings and I--not fans of McCommerce in general, and true loathers of the faux "you can have it all!" fantasy shoveled in these kinds of arenas--had put off making some post-Christmas returns until the 11th hour. Armed with a fistful of gift receipts sweetly sent our way by Madame Blandings, we were ready to do battle with the Powers That Be at some of the trendier chain stores. We would no longer glower guiltily at the $95 GAP sweater lying on the floor in our closet. No--we would send it back to the pit of h@ll from which it came.

But first we had to squeeze into a parking spot. And unload the kids. Put Manolin in the ergo. Harness Oli into the stroller. Make sure everyone had their coat, their water bottle, their marching orders. Double check the snack supplies and ...

Yes, we can go in now.

Three steps from the end of our vehicle, the older kids started snickering.

Directly across from our van was a small, derelict Geo, circa 1989. It had once been metallic blue-green, but was now a mostly forgotten shade of tired dirt brown and road film grey. The tires were bald. The back taillight was missing on the driver's side, and had been artfully replaced with a series of red bumper stickers. The area around the sagging tailpipe was sooty with discharge.

What caught our attention, however, was a prominently displayed sticker on the bumper:

REPRODUCE RESPONSIBLY! 2 IS ENOUGH!

Just to the right of that was another sticker:

ZERO POPULATION GROWTH! ENSURE THAT WE CAN ALL EAT!

"People?" Jo asked innocently. "They mean people?"

We enjoyed a brisk walk to the shops while explaining the premise of zpg to our children. They were, to put it mildly, amused.

Some of the questions were pedestrian, child-like insights:

"How is telling someone else how many kids to have o.k. in a free country?"

"That's like China."

"How rude!"

Others were a bit more thoughtful--the questions that start a true intellectual dialogue:

"But what happens if everyone starts doing that and all of the older people keep getting older, and there are fewer young people to support them?"

"Does that work with our kind of government?"

"What if you end up with more males than females, or more females than males?"

"If our country decided to do that, and no other country did, wouldn't we eventually be so weak that we'd be kind of picked off?"

"Why are they concerned about people not having enough food when we're standing on acres and acres of what used to be farmland that's now a bunch of coffee shops and Apple stores?"

I love raising intelligent, free-thinking children. I love the fact that we have largely crossed over the border from parroting back what mom and dad say to reasoning through arguments and positions to form their own positions. And I love the fact that no topic is too big, too small, or too obtuse to catch their fancy. A bumper sticker can ignite a debate; What an amazing gift to see your children grab hold of knowledge in that way!

In the end, we all decided that, if nothing else, it was ironic that our emissions-spewing 206 E350 van was parked alongside an emissions-spewing 1989 Geo. And that we were probably that particular person's worst nightmare. Who knows... maybe we even passed by the Geo owner, and gave him his own reproductive nightmare for the day.

Prayer for the day

Something Beautiful
Needtobreathe

In your ocean, I'm ankle deep
I feel the waves crashin' on my feet
It's like I know where I need to be
But I can't figure out, yeah I can't figure out

Just how much air I will need to breathe
When your tide rushes over me
There's only one way to figure out
Will ya let me drown, will ya let me drown

Hey now, this is my desire
Consume me like a fire, 'cause I just want something beautiful
To touch me, I know that I'm in reach
'Cause I am down on my knees, I'm waiting for something beautiful
Oh, something beautiful

And the water is risin' quick
And for years I was scared of it
We can't be sure when it will subside
So I won't leave your side, no I can't leave your side

Hey now, this is my desire
Consume me like a fire, 'cause I just want something beautiful
To touch me, I know that I'm in reach
'Cause I am down on my knees, I'm waiting for something beautiful
Oh, something beautiful

In a daydream, I couldn't live like this
I wouldn't stop until I found something beautiful
When I wake up, I know I will have
No, I still won't have what I need

Hey now, this is my desire
Consume me like a fire, 'cause I just want something beautiful
To touch me, I know that I'm in reach
'Cause I am down on my knees, I'm waiting for something beautiful
Oh, something beautiful

TOS Review: Kinderbach

Last year, our family had the chance to review Kinderbach, an online music curriculum aimed at preschool and early elementary students, as a part of the TOS Homeschool Crew. As a repeat vendor, we got to try it out again.

Once again, I turned to Logan to hit the keyboard. He's my closest child to the stated target audience (ages 2-7), but again, I have to say that I think they overestimate the interest level for this program. While I can completely see Oli being entertained by the jangly clowns and happy little characters, funny exercises and silly tunes in a year or so, it was sheer torture for Logan.

This is a lovely, colorful, engaging preschool program, however. Don't let my reluctance to endorse their recommended age range turn you off. Through a slow, gentle process (albeit replete with a whole lot of preschool-friendly shazam!) a whole lot of music theory is covered. Bonus: it requires no car travel, and your own purchase outside of the program itself is a keyboard. Print-outs are easy to access, the program is simply laid out for parents, and you can use it with multiple children at a time.

The entire program retails for $95.88, but can be purchased monthly for $19.99 if you wish. A free 2 week trial is also available. A dvd version of the one-year program (with corresponding activity books) is now available for$222.88, and would make people with slower internet connection speeds much happier in the long run.

Disclaimer: I was given a free copy of this product for review purposes. Refer to my general disclaimer for more information on my policies regarding reviews.

Any questions?

I'm a bit of a political junkie. A degree in Political Science will do that to you, even if you somehow manage to finagle a concentration in the Reconstruction Era South into an actual sheepskin.

At any rate, I love politics. I love the give and take. I love the discourse. I love the crafting of ideas, the intellectual back and forth, the challenge of bringing polar opposites into agreement.

Which, of course, is why I loathe a good portion of what goes on in the U.S. political arena. Aside from being self-serving and utterly useless, the theatre of American politics commits the ultimate sin of keeping to the tradition of bandstand monologues--great, puffed personalities, waxing poetic about their ideas, their progress, their way of trumping all the odds and somehow managing to save the day.

Which is very, very boring, not to mention being as intellectually stimulating as a nice warm serving of milktoast.

For a taste of the real thing, I like to peek in on what The Brits have to offer in their rousing, slightly nutty, and always relevant Question Time. It's something akin to discovering organic bananas, folks: once you've tasted the real thing, the bland substitute will never again truly satisfy.

In this vein, Americans from across the political ideological spectrum have banded together to put forth a modest proposal to institute our own version of Question Time here in the Colonies. I invite you to investigate the matter and make up your own mind. Then pop back here and share your thoughts. Who knows ... we might even have our own little Parliamentary exchange right here.

TOS Review: FactsFirst

The fact that I had two math-oriented reviews going at approximately the same time left me in a bit of a bind.

Because of the specific make-up of my family and the leanings of my individual kids, I am very choosy as to who I elect guinea pig for the various review items that come my way. I don't want to introduce bias, frankly, where there ought not be any. For example, very rarely would I call upon Atticus to try out a new science unit with a solar system theme. The fact is that the boy knows more about the inner core of Saturn than your average bear, and would therefore declare any program not written at college-text level absolutely lacking ... whether it was or not. As for Language Arts, I know better than to ask Logan to help. Even if it's below grade-level and ought to be a breeze, he will cringe and crouch with his shoulders to his ears and act as if he has never in his life been asked to identify a verb before.

So I have staked out specific territories for curricula that is best tested with an individual child. Math, (un)fortunately for Atticus, falls in his court.

But as I said, he was already in engaged in a math review. What to do?

Jo was out. Absolutely out. Math is not her thing, and I have chosen to respect that by not adding more to her plate.

Which left Logan, my resident math wizard. The boy who had to be moved from his last math program because he was so eclectically advanced that it was impossible to teach him from the 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade levels at the same time. The boy who relishes Pascal's Triangles. Oooooh, boy. This could either be very good, or very bad.

As it was, it was very, very good. Saxon Harcourt's factsfirst.com passed Logan's strenuous math tests with flying colors.

Factsfirst is a subscription service. One year's access is available for $49.99. The program, importantly, was not developed to work alongside Saxon math specifically; It complements any curriculum. As a matter of fact, if you're familiar at all with Saxon's line of math texts, you'll be as surprised as I was to see the overall look and feel of this program. When I say, "Saxon" and "facts drill," my mind immediately conjures blank stares and black and white flashcards. Like Logan, I was delighted to find that those notions were way off base.

Silly and approachable, this arcade-style program allows children to interact not only with the numbers themselves, but also with the entire game platform. Games are varied and fun, and students customize avatar versions of themselves to accompany their journey. Addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division facts are covered in a spiral, mastery-oriented fashion. When students respond quickly and correctly, they feel immediate satisfaction as the game pops up a simple reward or encouragement.

Using the program, Logan was able to easily cement several division facts that have plagued him for the past few months. First, he had to complete a pre-test of fact subcategories, which he should have by rights found tedious (as he aced most of it), but somehow didn't. His take?

"I loved it! I got to play a computer game during school! It was really, really fun."

Oh, yes. Logan wants me to tell you one more thing about his foray into the math reviewing world:

"My guy had green hair. It was really cool, because you just don't see too many people with green hair like that unless you're in downtown Seattle."

So there you go. Great math drilling. Seattle-approved avatars. What more can anyone ask for?

Disclaimer: I was given a free copy of this product for review purposes. Refer to my general disclaimer for more information on my policies regarding reviews.

TOS Review: Mathscore.com

In homeschooling, you have almost limitless options when it comes to drilling math facts. One of the most popular is turning to the computer and allowing for some variation on the general "drill and kill" theme that reigns supreme in the flashcard mindset.

Why, exactly, are computer programs so popular? Because they jazz it up. They offer incentive. They make the dull, dry work of regurgitating information fun.

But for some parents, the glitter and glitz of playing games and earning points takes away from the focus of the work at hand. Now, maybe it's because their children are especially distracted by such things. For some kiddos, a game replete with sound and lights is just plain overwhelming. For other parents, though, they just simply prefer plain vanilla math, thankyouverymuch. No bells and whistles need apply.

And this, I think, is the group that will be most interested in mathscore.com.

Designed to keep strictly to the job at hand, Mathscore.com doesn't employ much beyond a very basic points-towards-trophy system and an occasional graphics display to steer the mind away from a refresher lesson (which must be read onscreen by the student) and a series of digital worksheets that must be completed by typing in the answers and hitting return. Parents or students select the topics to study, and parents have access to their own account to keep tabs on things. From here, parents can add extra response time per individual problems (the worksheets are timed) as well as change the grade level to access higher or lower levels of skills.

I received access to this subscription service (price details below) for review, and I have to be honest, it did not float the collective Blandings barca. Perhaps we've become too enamored of other, similar programs that leave users feeling as if they've been entertained, not simply edutained. Or perhaps it's a simple case of the shoe not fitting. Whatever the reason, while Atticus (my elected math guinea pig) complied with the work offered, he did it with little joy and even less enthusiasm. In my book, that's not a keeper.

The details:

• $14.95/month for the first enrolled student (homeschoolers get a reduced rate of $9.95/month for the first 2 months)
• $5/month for the second student
• $3.95/month for each additional student

Disclaimer: I was given a free copy of this product for review purposes. Refer to my general disclaimer for more information on my policies regarding reviews.