Friday, October 15, 2010

Young Hearts Longing for God--A Preinductive study of the Psalms

 As a member of the 2010-2011 TOS Homeschool Review Crew I received this beautiful bible study from Soli Deo Resources to review.  Young Hearts Longing for God, covers 30 psalms, 1 each week.  You child will work on each Psalm for a week, answer some questions about the Psalm and then do some 'on your own' journaling to give them a place to have their thoughts centered on the Psalm.
 At $16 dollars I thought it was very reasonably priced, my only problem was that it was too difficult for my younger students and too easy for my older students.  It would be exactly appropriate for the 4th to 8th grade student that its targeted at.  The one thing that I loved about the publisher is their God honoring mission, they seek to Glorify Him in everything they produce.
Head on over here to see what other members of the crew and their family thought about these products.

Thursday, October 7, 2010

Lanschool Technologies-TOS Review

 As a member of the Old Schoolhouse review crew, I received access to an interesting new product from Lanschool Technologies.  I can't say that I was overly enthusiastic, just because I'm not terribly computer savvy; but I was pleasantly surprised.

Lanschool has created a way for the homeschool parent to network the multiple computers in their home and to remotely monitor them.  If you have younger students in your homeschool, this will enable you to look at any problems they might be having and help them from another room; i.e. if the computer freezes or something doesn't properly load.   If you have teens, I can't tell you how invaluable it is to be able to limit access to internet during school time, limit specific websites to safeguard your child and just look at their screen to see what they are working on.  For example, we found in our childs history that he may have accidentally surfed an inappropriate site, I was able to go in and block its URL.  Awesome, right!!!


This is an example of what you would see on the Teacher console of  Lanschool.  You get active screenshots of the Student computers and can work on their screen if need be.  You can even blank their screen and send messages to force them to respond.  I would say things like, "See mom, before continuing to play games."  It let them know that I was watching and able to see what they were active in.  Fun, fun, fun.

So let's discuss the nuts and bolts of it all, this product was easy and quick to download.  It is worth it's weight in gold, for the simple fact that it enables the Teacher or parent in this case to remotely control the students computer.  It allows you to block inappropriate content or all content if necessary.  We loved it and would recommend this to anyone who has children regularly using the computer.


Head over here other homeschool families have to say about this truly aweome product.


{Disclaimer: I received this product free as part of TOS Homeschool Crew to review. I received no other compensation and all opinions are my own.}




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Saturday, October 2, 2010

The Peleg Chronicles-Foundlings (TOS Review)



 As a member of the TOS Homeschool crew I was gifted with the book Foundlings-Book One of the Peleg Chronicles.  The book is a fiction book, aimed at children 10 and up, that has a strong young Earth approach and a unapologetic Biblical approach.  The author, Matthew Christian Harding, leads the reader to some strong biblical truths while weaving in magic, dragons, giants, dwarves and an unwavering belief in God and his power in our individual lives.

 I wish I could say that we absolutely loved this book and couldn't put it down.  Unfortunately, it was kind of a difficult read both for myself and for my 13yr old son.  Not that we didn't like it, we did, we just struggled getting 'into' it.

I especially liked the character McDougal, I loved how self-conscious he was, but when he let go of all that and was just himself, he was who God meant him to be.  We focus so much on what others think about us and not enough on what God thinks about us, a great lesson for all of us.  I really liked how he weaved the story together, it was just a little slow moving at the beginning for us.  I figure with his next book, he'll work out those kinks.
Foundlings and the subsequent books in the series are available from Zoe and Sozo Publishing for $11.95.  Paladins is already available, which is great because Foundlings definitely left us wanting more.  Head over here to see what other homeschool families thought.


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{Disclaimer: I received this product free as part of TOS Homeschool Crew to review. I received no other compensation and all opinions are my own.}