A Trip to the Zoo

Kids looking at the apes

A great benefit of being part of a group (like a homeschool group) is that many places you might be interested in going on a field trip to offer group discounts. My children (except for Chelsea) could not ever remember going to the zoo and started asking to go after Chelsea just went to the Little Rock Zoo on a 4-H trip. I checked out the website to see how much admission was and it was $10 for adults and $8 for children 12 months and up, but if you go in a group of 15 or more, it is only $5 per person. What a difference! At the last homeschool meeting I asked if anyone was interested in going and we had enough people to get the group discount so I called and made a group reservation for Friday April 8th.

Otter swimming (photo by Alex)

We had a great time! The weather was a beautiful 85 degrees and sunny. The children were all very excited and well behaved. Poor Christian, he thought after we saw the first exhibit that that was all there was and we would have to go back home. Once he realized there were a lot of different exhibits to see he was quite excited (but too stubborn to ride in the stroller....they are for babies you know.)

Alligator (photo by Alex)

Giant Turtles (photo by Alex)

The reptile house was a big hit in my family and we had to look in every tank to find what was in it so we spent a good amount of time in there. The monkeys were another big favorite of all the children. The otters and the penguins provided quite a bit of good entertainment. Alex took over my camera which was good because it was hard to try to take pictures and count heads at the same time. I never even knew he liked to take pictures but he had a great time doing it and wants his own camera for his next birthday. Unfortunately, my zoom does not work on my camera so some of the pictures did not turn out as good as they could have. We uploaded the pictures to Walmart Photo and made a photo book which will arrive next week.

Alex took this picture of Lily sliding in the play area with her cotton candy

Emelia did so great! I carried her in my brand new Ergo Baby Carrier for about 1 1/2. I took her out to feed and change her and she was pretty sweaty so I put the carrier in the stroller and carried her in my arms so she could catch the breeze. When Chelsea got tired of pushing the stroller we switched and she carried the baby while I pushed the double stroller.

Emelia sleeping in her carrier

After about 3 hours we had made it through the zoo and were hot, tired, and hungry (our picnic lunch was in the van) so we decided it was time to head out. Nick was not ready to leave yet because there were 2 things he wanted to see and didn't get to but everyone else was ready to go. I must admit that I was tired and still had a 2 hour drive home. I also am not in as good shape as I should be (trying to use the excuse that I just gave birth a few weeks ago) and my legs are sore. The children asked first thing if we could go back again today but I told them we will have to wait and maybe go back in the fall.

Chelsea, Emelia, Christian, Anthony relaxing in the shade while we were getting ready to go

Tweet

TOS Review: Science Weekly

By 2025 80% of jobs will require 2 years of math and science after High School. To give your students a good background in science Science Weekly wants you to "put a little science in your week" with a subscription to their publication. From the website, "Science Weekly develops and reinforces students' reading, writing, mathematics and critical thinking skills, all through interactive science content." Science Weekly is a 4 page publication in a newsletter type format that is available in 6 different reading levels for grades K-6. It contains a multidisciplinary presentation with reading, writing, math, and a science lab in every issue. It helps develop critical thinking skills and provides hands on experiences in topic areas kids are interested in. Some examples of previous publications are: The Flu, Composting, Caves ,Poisonous Animals, The Moon, Scuba Diving, and pulleys.There are several issues online in their new interactive format that you can find by clicking here. They also have coloring books that you can download and print out. Find those by clicking here.

The cost of Science Weekly is $19.95 for an individual subscription per student per year for 15 issues. A classroom rate is $4.95 per student per year for 15 issues with a minimum of 20 subscriptions. Teacher Notes and an answer key also come with every issue. You can order by clicking here or by calling 1-800-4-WEEKLY or faxing 1-301-680-9240.

We recieved from Science Weekly The Flu in 6 different reading levels from K-6th grade and the Teacher's Notes. Each colorful issue contains age appropriate reading, vocabulary, lab (adult supervision required), math and writing. The older grades get more complex reading and activities and also fun scientific facts in "Did you know?" boxes.

Front page of Level D

Front page of level Pre-A

Inside pages of Level Pre-A

One of the things I like the most about Science Weekly is that it is available in so many different levels making it easy for families with a range of ages to study one topic. The only preparation needed is to look at the lab and make sure you have the necessary supplies. It doesn't take a lot of time to teach although it is possible that a lab may take some time to develop. The interactive online issues are also colorful and a lot of fun to do. My boys really enjoyed doing the Space issue and learned a lot from it.

It does seem to me that Science Weekly is geared for more of a school type setting. The math questions in our issue dealt with counting the number of students in your class and the rest of the questions were based on that number. Even in our house we really don't have enough students to make a "class" so we really didn't focus a whole lot on the math problems. It would work great in a homeschool group or co-op type setting. The younger levels have very little reading and so there is not a whole lot of background information on the topic. You may want to find additional books or information to read aloud.

To see what other crew members have to say click here

I received 6 levels and Teacher Notes of Science Weekly The Flu for the purpose of writing a fair and honest review. I received no other compensation.

Tweet

Favorite Recipes: Pork Chop Casserole

I found a recipe for Pork Chop Casserole on Teacher's Toolbox, a great online tool for those with a subscrition to The Old Schoolhouse Magazine. If you have a subscription you should check it out there is a ton of great stuff on there including recipes:). If you don't have a subscription you might think about getting one. It is a great homeschool magazine. I modified the recipe on there a bit to make it suit us a little better.


6 potatoes peeled and thinly sliced
1 can cream of celery soup 1 1/4 cups water
6 slices American Cheese
1 pk thinly sliced boneless pork chops
Shredded Cheddar Cheese Grease a 13x9 baking dish.


Place half of the potatoes in the pan and top with 6 slices of cheese. Add the rest of the potatoes. Place pork chops over top. Sprinkle with salt and pepper if desired. Pour soup and water mixture over top. Cover with foil and bake at 375 degrees for one hour or until potatoes are tender. Sprinkle with shredded cheese and return to oven until cheese is melted.

Tweet

Pictures of Our Week

I have not posted very many pictures of the children lately.I meant to get this up Friday and do a weekly wrap up, but I just never got the time. This week is very busy too with several activities that we have going on. Even now, I am nursing Emelia and typing left handed so it takes a bit longer and I make a few more typos. I can't believe it is already April and our school year is winding down. The boys will be finished with their History and Science this week so I will find something new we can do until our school year finishes up in May. So, on to the pictures.

Alex working on Reading Kingdom and Lily with the toy laptop because she needed to do her schoolwork too!Nick working on Big IQ Kids while Christian "reads" through one of our books that I am reading aloud that he enjoys (review coming soon.)

Chelsea keeping Emelia occupied while I made supper.

Anthony watching Nick and Alex play chess during "recess."

Emelia is so happy that she figured out how to suck her thumb!

Tweet

A Story About Standardized Testing

I don't have a very good opinion of standardize Testing. I really think it is pointless actually. It is also very sad that basically our Public School System teaches not to educate our children , but to achieve good test scores. Arkansas requires homeschooled students to take the Math and Reading portions of the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills every year in grades 3-9. Individual test results are sent to the parents and results of homeschool students as a group (not individual results) are reported to the state. Our homeschool group (which is pretty small) has its own testing site and we test at a local church. When I started homeschooling Chelsea, she had gone to Public School for K-2 so she had taken Iowa Tests before and was used to a fill in the bubble kind of test. Nick has always been homeschooled so he has never taken this kind of test before. Also, Nick does not like to be in unsure situations. He likes to know exactly what will happen and when it's going to happen. Even though it does not really matter to me how the children do on the test I wanted him to be comfortable taking it. So, I ordered a practice test booklet to show him what type of test it was going to be and how to fill in his answers on a separate sheet. Well, I sat down with him a few days ago to work on the practice test and he got very upset because there were questions he didn't know the answers to. I stressed to him that sometimes you might not know the answer and on this test all he had to do was guess and move on. Of course he was not at all happy with the thought of that. He likes to have all the answers. Last night he was a little stressed about the test and again I told him just to do his best, it would be an easy test, and to guess and move on if he didn't know the answer. Parents are not allowed to be in the same room with their children who are taking the test and I had all my little ones so I was in the nursery during the test. When he got finished Nick came over to where I was and told me it was a super easy test.....the questions were like Kindergarten and he knew most of the answers. It was nothing like he expected it to be. So, in my effort to prepare him and try to make him not worry, I actually caused him more worry because the practice test questions were much more difficult than the actual test. Well at least we are done for this year and don't have to worry about it again until next year.

Tweet

TOS Review: Go Go Kabongo

Go Go Kabongo is an online world of brain boosting games for children ages 4-7 designed to teach the cognitive skills children need to learn in order to be able to read such as attention and focus, memory skills, processing, planning, visualization, and comprehension. View this chart to see all of the skills your child will learn. Kabongo does not teach by right and wrong answers. Instead, they guide children toward better thinking by using an exciting game design. There are 3 different fantastical habitats for children to explore each with three different games and 6 levels to each game.

Galaxy Gardens-Rocket into outer space to explore among the starts and play 3 brain boosting games. Each of the three planets is a home to challenging learning games: Photo Safari, Rocket Racer, and Robo Bobo

Twister Top-Ride through the mesas on a twister top train bound for adventure. While exploring the cactus clad cliffs play 3 mind challenging games:Design A Door, Desert Dash, and Crazy Maze.

Laughter Lake- Bubbling with fun and adventure Laughter Lake is a fun filled habitat where you can play 3 fun learning games:Critter Sizer, Scuba Dude, and Going Buggy.

Children get to make their own fun character by choosing the head, body, and wheels. They also can decorate their treehouse, skate park, and comic book with the rewards they earn by completing the games. Parents receive detailed email reports showing what their child has been working on and what they have completed. There are also several printable activities for your child to enjoy and activities to practice the skills your child has learned.

Your child can start playing Go go Kabongo free with access to all of Laughter Lake's games and activities. You can purchase the two additional habitats for $4.95 each. There is a limited time offer that if you sign up now you will get Galaxy Gardens habitat free.

I used this website with Christian (4) and Anthony (5). I thought it would be great for them to have an age appropriate game to play that would teach them the skills they needed to have before they were learning to read. Their favorite part was making their own characters and collecting the sticker rewards for their comic books. The games are a lot of fun. Anthony and Christian's favorite game was Going Buggy where they hear a story and then recreate it by placing images into a scene. Kabongo is very colorful and engaging for children. The detailed email reports are a great tool for parents to see exactly what learning skills their child is working on.

There are a few things I think could be improved on. It is a beta version so there have been a few technical problems such as games freezing and not loading at times, and server errors when we get to rewards page that we have encountered that I am sure will be corrected. The site takes a long time to load. Then each time you enter a habitat you have to wait again for it to load which can be very hard for impatient small children. I am very put off by the way the characters talk. For an educational website, I don't think the characters should be talking in slang and also at times the characters sound rude to me. For example in the treehouse the character says, "Hey, hello what are you waiting for?" when you don't click on something right away. Another of the characters says, "That wasn't very clever dearie." when you get something wrong. I couldn't find any way to skip the instructions if you had already played the game before. Even though Christian and Anthony liked the Going Buggy game, I found that it was very hard to understand exactly what images you were supposed to place. In Desert Dash, it is hard for the boys to hear the sound that they want you to click on the letter for.

To see what other crew members had to say click here.

I received complimentary access to Go Go Kabongo for the purpose of writing a fair and honest review. I received no other compensation.

Tweet

TOS Review: Z Guide to the Movies The Adventures of Robin Hood

Zeezok Publishing believes, "It is better to build children than to repair men." They work to provide quality literature and educational books for teaching the next generation. They have products in categories such as American Government, Character Building, Curriculum, Great Musician Series, Presidential Series, and Z Guide to the Movies. We had the opportunity to use and review one of their new products Z Guide to the Movies.


Z Guides are a great way to incorporate media into your history/social studies curriculum. There are several Z Guides available for different movies in different time periods in history. Choices include: 12 Angry Men, A Man for All Seasons, A Tale of Two Cities, Amazing Grace, Ben Hur, Cromwell, Driving Miss Daisy, Father Goose, Flyboys, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, Inherit the Wind, Jason and the Argonauts, Johnny Tremain, Kit Kittredge, Knights of the Round Table, Les Miserables, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, My Side of the Mountain, One Night With the King, Scarlet Pimpernel, Sergeant York, The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Boy in the Stripped Pajamas, The Count of Monte Crisco, The Hiding Place and the Red Badge of Courage. You can purchase Z Guides in two formats either as an e book or on CD for $12.99. Those not showing an e book version will be coming soon. Most of the Z Guides available are for High School age children with a couple being geared for elementary/middle school. The guides do not come with the DVD. Many of the DVD's can be purchased on the http://www.zeezok.com/ site and also many can be found on http://www.netflix.com/ if you have a membership.


We chose the movie The Adventures of Robin Hood 1938 Warner Home Video. The 32 page Z Guide is written for High Schoolers and the topics covered are:Middle ages, Medieval English History, Ethnic Conflict, Chivalry, and Civil Disobedience. The guide contains a topic overview, movie synopsis, and 10 learning activities split into a 5 day schedule based on this famous film. Some of the activities are: Movie Review Questions, Research Questions on Prince John and Richard the Lion Hearted, Are you Norman or Saxon Research Activity, More about the Feudal System Research Activity, Take the Oath Activity, Target Practice Activity to practice your skills at something you enjoy, Robin Hood Word Search, Feast for your Enemies Activity to improve your relationship with an "enemy", Worldview Activity to evaluate your beliefs, and the Filmmaker's Art Activity to probe the director's mind. The Guide also has a list of questions for family discission and an answer key.


We really enjoyed watching the movie The Adventure's of Robin Hood. It is even better to view it not just as a great movie but to use it as a learning experience. One of the first questions Chelsea asked was what was the difference between a Norman and a Saxon as it is mentioned several times in the movies. The next day she had an opportunity to find out as she woked on the research questions from the activity, "Are You a Norman or a Saxon?" The questions on all of the research activities give the student a thorough understanding of the topic being discussed. Chelsea is now an expert on Normans and Saxons, the fuedal system, Prince John and Richard the Lion-hearted. The worldview questions are also very well done and make for great family discussion questions.


One thing that Chelsea did mention is that she wished there were more hands on activities included. Her idea was that it would have been better with some arts and crafts ideas, or some time period appropriate recipe ideas. She thought that adding those things in would make this study even better. I also hope that they come out with more for younger age students so we could have the whole family involved.


To see what other crew members had to say click here.

I received a complimentary copy of The Adventures of Robin Hood Z Guide to the Movies for the purpose of writing a fair annd honest review. I recieved no other compensation.

Tweet