Schoolhouse Review Crew: French Essentials

All year long, my 9 year old has been asking me when we were going to be able to review a French curriculum.  He really, really wanted to learn French. I was very excited when I found out he would get his wish when we ended up being able to review French Essentials.  We received the Full Access Online Program for review purposes.

French Essentials is a complete French curriculum for students in grades 3-8, although when all the modules are completed High Schoolers will be able to use as as well as completing all 10 modules will be equivalent to two years of High School French.  French Essentials does not teach Parisian or Quebec French but instead teaches International French.  No prior knowledge of French is needed to take this course.  The course is taught through downloadable muti media lessons and online exercises, tests, and culture lessons.  French Essentials can be used both by PC and Mac users although you will need to have Adobe Reader and Adobe Flash if you are a Mac user and Adobe Reader, Adobe Flash , and Quicktime if you have a PC.

There are currently 5 modules of French Essentials available.  When French Essentials is complete there will be 10 modules available.  You can purchase single modules for $69.95 with 90 days to download the files to your computer.  Or you can purchase the entire package for $149.95 with a full year to download the materials.  To order click here.

Now that I have told you a little bit about the program, let me tell you how it works.

Once you purchase the program you create a user name and password.  Once you go to the student log in, this is what you will see.



When you go to the download area, you click on which module you are working in.  We of course are working in module 1 since we just started the course a few weeks ago.  There are 20 lessons in module 1. You will also find a module checklist (very helpful to parents), student workbook, and answer key (download these first.)

Each lesson downloads in a zip file that you have to extract to open (don't worry this is very easy!)  Once you extract your files you can begin your lesson.  The lessons are interactive so you have the ability to not only read the lessons, but you get to hear the words (or in lesson one the letters) pronounced for you.  All you have to do is click on the box.  Depending on your security settings you may have to click on something to allow your computer to play the audio and videos.

There are also videos in each lesson so you can see and hear what you learned again.  The videos pause to give you an opportunity to repeat it back.

After you go through your lesson, you complete your workbook page.

Beginning in Lesson 4 there are online activities and tests as well.  You can log in to your student account, click on online exercises, the module you are in, and your lesson.  There are online flashcards, exercises, and games to play to help reinforce what you have learned.  There are also online tests you can complete.


 There is also a culture section for your student to learn and explore.

As I mentioned above I have been using French Essentials with my 9 year old son.  He is really enjoying it! We have never done French in our homeschool before, and I personally have never taken French and have been learning right along with Alex.  We have been using the program 3 days per week completing 2 lessons a week and using the third day for the online activities for review.

If your child is a really strong reader, they will be able to complete the program on their own.  If not, you may have to do it with them or at least be available to help as needed. Alex is mildly dyslexic an struggles with reading and spelling (although he has made great improvements!)  So, I read the lesson portions to him.  The audio and video in each lesson are awesome!  That really is my favorite feature of French Essentials.  By being able to hear the words and listen to them on the videos, he really is learning French very easily!  I think it is so cute when he speaks French to his brothers and sisters, and his pronunciation is MUCH better than mine.  You have the ability to play the videos and audios as many times as you want or need to. The lessons are broken down in easily digestible chunks and not overwhelming at all. Some of the worksheets he would have been able to do on his own, but others have been a little challenging for him, especially the ones where you have to write the French words.  Instead of having him do them on his own, I just have him tell me the answer and I spell it for him.  Our favorite part of the online exercises are the flashcards and a game that you drag the word card to the matching one as fast as you can to make them disappear.

Some people may think that needing to download the lessons to your computer is a negative, but I think it is a positive thing.  That way they are stored onto your computer and you will have access to the lessons even after your online subscription is up allowing you to complete lessons if you did not have time to finish or to go back and review lessons at a later date.  It is simple to create a folder on your computer to store all the files in as you get them downloaded.  The download time varies depending on the lesson.  My internet is pretty slow and each lesson only takes a few minutes to download.

We really are enjoying French Essentials and plan on continuing with it to the end of our subscription period.

To see what my Crew Mates had to say, click on the banner below.

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Favorite Recipes: Egg Free Pumpkin Bread

Have you ever wanted to make pumpkin bread but discovered you were out of eggs?  Or maybe you are allergic to eggs and can't eat them?  I found a recipe the other day for egg free banana bread, and I switched out the banana for pumpkin and it was delicious! This recipe also uses less oil and sugar than others I have seen. Of course in my house I had to make two loaves :)

1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp salt

3 tablespoons apple sauce
1 cup pureed pumpkin
3/4 cup of sugar
1/4 cup oil

Combine dry ingredients in one bowl and wet ingredients in another. Add wet mixture to dry mixture and stir until moist.  Or if you are like me, dump dry ingredients into your Kitchen-aid mixer, add wet ingredients and mix.  Whichever works better for you :)  Spoon into greased loaf pan.  Bake at 350 for 50-60 minutes or until toothpick inserted in the center of the bread comes out clean.  Cool and enjoy!

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Schoolhouse Review Crew: Apologia Exploring Creation With Chemistry and Physics

Apologia Educational Ministries is a company that is well known in the homeschooling community for their Books and Resources  for parents and of course their homeschool science curriculum.  Throughout my years on the Schoolhouse Review Crew, I have been so blessed to review several different products from Apologia, and this time I was very excited to have an opportunity to review Exploring Creation With Chemistry and Physics.  I received Exploring Creation With Chemistry and Physics text, Exploring Creation With Chemistry and Physics Notebooking Journal, and Exploring Creation With Chemistry and Physics Junior Notebooking Journal for this review.




Exploring Creation With Chemistry and Physics is the newest book in their Young Explorers  Elementary Science series.  This series of books was designed for children in grades K-6th grade.  This hardcover, colorful text ($39) will give students an introduction into the world of chemistry and physics showing young students how God made everything in the universe.  In addition to the conversational text, students will have an opportunity to do many hands on experiments that will show them what they have just learned.  Students will be able to repeat back what they have learned through narration and will also keep a notebook storing everything they have learned in one place.

The text has 14 chapters with each chapter taking around 2 weeks to complete.  Chapters include:

Chemistry and Physics Matter
Moving Matter
Building Blocks of Creation
Compound Chemistry
Multitude of Mixtures
Mechanics in Motion
Dynamics of Motion
Work in the World
Sound of Energy
Light of the World
Thermal Energy
Electrifying Our World
Mysterious Magnetism
Simple Machines

Some of the hands on projects include: making a bouncy ball, formulating a smoke bomb, building a solar oven, constructing a working periscope, fashioning a a miniature motor, creating a lava lamp, and many, many more.

If you visit this page you can download a sample chapter, view the table of contents, and see the supply list for the course.




As a companion to the course, Apologia offers to different types of notebooking journals.  The regular notebooking journal ($24) is for the upper elementary ages.  It is a spiral bound bound that provides a place for the student to keep all of their project work for Exploring Creation With Chemistry and Physics.  In it you will find: a suggested schedule to follow, full color mini books, notebooking assignments, projects, activities, narration questions, vocabulary crosswords, fascinating facts pages, project pages, field trip sheets, Scripture copywork, and "Test it Out" sections with further experiments, activities, living books, audio and video resources.  The answers to the crosswords and final review are also included.  If you go to this page, you can download the journal Table of Contents and a sample of the journal.




The Junior Notebooking Journal ($24) is for younger elementary students.  It too is spiral bound and provides a place for your student to keep all of their work in one place.  In this notebook you will find: suggested schedule, coloring pages, notebooking assignment, activities, projects, full color mini books, copywork, project pages, field trip sheets, and "Test It Out" sections with additional experiments, activities, living books, and audio and video resources.  The answers to the crosswords are also included.  On this page you can download a sample and Table of Contents.

I used this course mainly with my 11 and 9 year olds with my 8,6,4, and 2 year olds tagging along for the experiments.  My 11 year old used the regular notebooking journal and my 9 year old (who is not a strong reader or writer) used the junior notebooking journal.  We followed the suggested schedule in the journals working two days per week completing a chapter in two weeks.  I read the text aloud to the children, they worked on their notebooks independently and we did the experiments altogether.

I think that Chemistry and Physics was a wonderful topic for the newest book in the Young Explorers series, especially after just tackling High School Chemistry with my oldest daughter.  I think that if the foundation and the interest would've been laid in at a younger level, she wouldn't have struggled so much with it.  Exploring Creation With Chemistry and Physics is another outstanding book in this series.  The first thing that caught my eye is that it is very bright and colorful.  It is written from a Biblical perspective and gives glory to God in all things.  The tone of the book is conversational and written to the student making it easy for older elementary students to complete independently if you choose.  Although we chose to follow the suggested schedule the program is very flexible allowing you to go at your own pace.  The only advanced teacher prep is to gather the necessary objects to do the hands on activities.

But quite honestly, the best part of the book are the "Try This" activities and experiments.  Reading about something is great, but doing it yourself is even better.  This book is packed full of hands on activities!  And they are fun!  Most everything you need is something you have laying around the house, or can be easily found at Walmart.  It didn't take long for my younger children to figure out either.  My 6 year old asked me if it was a science day.  When I said yes he went running to get his brother saying, " Anthony it is a science day.  We get to do something cool today!"

Some pictures of a few of the hands on activities:

Density Activities

Lava Lamp Project

Amorphous Solid

I think the notebooking journals are a great way to keep everything your child has learned together in one colorful, convenient place.  We love the notebooking journals!  We have used Apologia Science for several years, but this was the first opportunity I have had to see the Junior Notebooking Journal.  In the past, we have shared journals because my 9 year old was just not able to complete the Regular Journal on his own.  I was very impressed with the activities in the notebooking journals.  The junior is similar to the regular, but the activities are more appropriate for the younger ages, or those who are not strong readers and writers.  I love the variety of activities and the colorful mini books that are included in the journal.  I also liked that in the junior journal they included both print and cursive, but the lines are a bit wider with the dashed middle line for younger writers.

Here are some photos of the journals:

Regular Journal

Junior Journal

Junior Journal

Regular Journal

Junior Journal

If there was one thing that I could think of to make it even better, I wish that there were mini lab sheets made up for all of the experiments in the notebook.  There are project pages to record your project and what you did, but if I were to have everything I wanted in the notebooking journal it would be to have the pages made up already for the projects listed in the book.

We have had a great time with Exploring Creation With Chemistry and Physics!

To see what my Crew Mates had to say, click on the banner below.

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Learning About the Caddo Indians

Today was our homeschool group's monthly visit to Rick Evans Grandview Prairie.  The topic we were learning about today was the Caddo Indians.  We had lots of hands on projects to help the children learn (and remember) these Indians that used to live in our area.

Instead of doing the presentation via power point, we got to make lapbooks instead!  We have made several lapbooks in our homeschool over the years because I think they are a great hands on way for children to learn about a topic and keep everything they learn all in one place, so I thought this was a great idea!

There was a lot to cover with the Caddo Indians: where they lived, how they lived, what they ate, plants they used for foods and medicine, wildflowers, story telling, and how they used everything and nothing went to waste.

Here are some pictures of us working on the lapbooks at Grandview.

We did not get to finish them there, but here are some pictures of Christians's finished lapbook that we finished this afternoon.  He was the first one to finish so I took pictures of his.  Christian does not like to color, so it is a little plain, but he is quite happy with it!

Then we made a plant press.  It is raining today, but hopefully it will dry up soon so the children can try it out.

And then the children were given bars of ivory soap and plastic knives to carve arrowheads out of soap. Some of worked on them there but it was about time to leave so some of the children waited until we got home.  I did not get a picture of it, but Christian's carving turned out really good.

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Homeschool Wrap Up Week 12

Twelve weeks of our 2013/2014 school year finished!  This week started out with a field trip to the Bee Farm.  Even though that only took up our morning school time, I admit we didn't get much accomplished that afternoon.  We did get Math done though.  The rest of the week we took it a bit easy.  We still have been trying to get rid of these colds.  At the beginning of the week, it seemed that those that were a bit under the weather last week were starting to get better.  But towards the end of the week (and especially today) there was a new round of sickness happening.  I am thankful though that it is not more serious, and really the children stay very healthy most of the year and usually only get sick once or twice a year.  Because of this sickness, we have not done a whole lot of afternoon school work this week, just math and writing everyday.  We left out spelling and reading and Alex only did French one day.

One of the great advantages of homeschooling is that the younger children learn from the older children.  Everyday we start out our day with our Bible lesson.  We have been using the Beginner's Time Line from Bible Study Guide For All Ages.  They are like big flash cards.  I hold up the card and ask a question like: Who was the first man? or How many sons did Jacob have? in order of the events happening in the Bible. This week it was really cool that Emmie (2) was also answering the questions with the other children.  She is picking up so much from hearing the older children's lessons!  That was one of the biggest loses the school system had when it went to age segregated classrooms, but thankfully in homeschools those younger children can still benefit by listening to you teach your older students!


We had a chance to dress up and go to the Trick or Treat Trail at our local park on Thursday.

Friday we had our Homeschool Art Class and started learning about Georgia O' Keefee.  We did our weekly grocery shopping and had pizza and a movie that night.

Saturday was the youth hunt, and even though he wasn't feeling 100% Alex still wanted to try and get a deer.  So him and his dad sat out in the deer blind for a few hours, but they didn't see any deer.

This morning I was planning on going to church and just let Alex stay at home with his dad, but I was woken up at 5:30 with a child (Christian) who had a stomachache and a fever.  So I figured he would stay home with his dad too, but then Anthony woke up with a headache and Emmie with a fever, so we all just decided to stay home.  The boys are downstairs watching Star Wars and I am watching Cinderella with the baby upstairs hoping she will fall asleep.  Hopefully everyone will be better soon!!

I have started a series of " A Homeschool Day in the Life" starting with my first and second graders so you can see exactly what goes on in our homeschool for each grade level.  You can find my first post here.  This week's post will be my 4th grader.

I hope you had a great week in your homeschool!

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Schoolhouse Review Crew: Carole P. Roman

We recently had an opportunity to use and review 4 books by Carole P. Roman  with Away We Go Media that teaches children about different cultures around the world.  We received :

If You Were Me and Lived in...Mexico
If You Were Me and Lived in..South Korea
If You Were Me and Lived in...France
If You Were Me and Lived in...Norway

The If You Were Me series was written for ages PreK-8 years old.  These books were designed to teach children about different cultures, allowing them to appreciate different cultures while at the same time showing them that people around the world are basically the same.  Each of the books follow a similar format.  The first page shows a picture of the country and the capital.  The second page shows where on the globe the country is located.  The next page discusses the capital city.  Then the book talks about common names of the country, what you call your parents, what type of money is used, and where you purchase food.  Then there is a page on where you would take family that visits, and where you would take them to eat, the most popular sport, national holiday, and where children go to school.  Each book finishes with the words, " So now you see, if you were me, how life in France will really be" and an illustration of children holding hands around the globe.  Each of the pages are beautifully illustrated with  two children from the country you are reading about taking you on a tour of the country through the book.  At the end of the book there is a pronunciation guide for the words that are used in the book.  Three of the  books (France, Mexico, South Korea) are available in paperback format for $8.99.  Norway is the newest book and is available for $10.79.  The books are also available for Kindle and Nook.  Click here for more information on ordering.

I used the If You Were Me... books as read alouds for my 4,6, and 8 year olds.  We used a little globe to find the country we were talking about and took at look at where that country was in relation to where we lived.  We also talked about how we would get there if we were going to travel to that country.  We read one book each day starting with Mexico, then France, Norway, and South Korea.  We have read the books several times over the last couple of weeks.

I think the books are a great introduction to different countries and cultures for this age group.  It includes many topics that the children can relate to.  The text is short making the book a quick and easy read for those with short attention spans.  The illustrations are very colorful and interesting.  Since the books all follow a similar format, it is easy for children to see the similarities of different people around the world.  I like that the books not only covered countries were are somewhat familiar with like France and Mexico but also countries we didn't know very much about like Norway and South Korea.  Adding the pronunciation guide in the back was very helpful as well.  Our favorite book was If You Were Me and Lived In...Norway.  The children really liked the Kirkenes Snowhotel, skiing, and the dogsleds.

To see what my Crew Mates had to say, click on the banner below.

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