Schoolhouse Teachers all-in-one Homeschool Buy 1 Get 1 year free sale!!

Looking for something quick and easy to get your school year started? 

SchoolhouseTeachers (The Old Schoolhouse Magazine, owner) has a great inexpensive option that is good for the entire family to use (one membership for all to use). Yet another useful home education tool provided by SchoolhouseTeachers is that it is set up by graded sections, pre/K & elementary, middle school and high school with drop down menus for all. You will find everything for homeschooling with topics such as logic, math, science, history, fine arts, Bible and many more electives as well as helps for the homeschool mom. 

Get in on the BUY 1 YEAR GET 1 YEAR FREE Sale!! Click here for more details and use PROMO CODE: SHARK20. The ENTIRE family can use 1 membership for 2 years!!! WHHHOOOO!!!!!!! You can get transcripts too.

Courses from SchoolhouseTeachers are a must for all homeschoolers, whether you are a boxed curriculum homeschooler, eclectic or unschooler this site has something for your student with 400+ classses. Our homeschool has tended towards the boxed curriculum (we have started branching out in recent years though) but it was always missing something. I’ve found what was missing and it was SchoolhouseTeachers.com, there are all sort of goodies to find on this site. 

It just so happens that my son was given an acoustic guitar as a gift and he has been getting library books on how to play the guitar, but they have been either way over his head or contained music that does not fit our family values. As we looked over the site we came across the guitar lessons.

Our son has only been using the guitar lessons from Schoolhouseteachers for about a week and a half and by no means is he jammin’ out on the guitar, but he is making music and not just noise anymore. LOL! 

A great feature of SchoolhouseTeachers site has unit for parents, it has a monthly menu feature and more.

Another area that I liked was the logic section. We have always struggled with teaching logic in our homeschool, so I was thrilled to see Logic on the drop down menu under middle school. I like how the lessons are set up so that my son can just go right in and get started. It has helped foster independence on his part. I know that we have a few years to go before college, but when I look at the SchoolhouseTeachers website, I’m thinking about how using this site will help our son out in the long run. Online college classes are the future for many of our children and what better way for them to be prepared than by teaching them in pre/k & elementary, middle school and high school with methods that they will continue to use down the road.

We plan to continue searching through all the goodies over the next year that SchoolhouseTeachers.com offers. Post and let me know what you think of the site and how it's enhanced your homeschool.

Get in on the BUY 1 YEAR GET 1 YEAR FREE Sale!! Click here for more details and use PROMO CODE: SHARK20. The ENTIRE family can use 1 membership for 2 years!!! WHHHOOOO!!!!!!! You can get transcripts too. Schoolhouse Teachers Sale!!

A No-No List For Homeschoolers

Lee Binz, The Home Scholar has got a great list of No-No's for us homeschooling Mothers.
I really think this list is good; it has some tough subjects and makes you think.

#3 Spoke to me, I was thinking that homeschooling high school would be totally different than homeschooling grade school but it is not.

I just shiver when I hear homeschoolers say that they will be putting their children back in school for high school. Why undo everything that you have done by putting them back in school?

There are so many resources out there for high school and it can and does work. Your child will have more time to explore the their passions and what drives them. They can job shadow and take part in real on the job learning, so that when/if they decide on college they will have a better understanding of what they need to be focusing on.

We have had so many doctors give the Homeschooled Young Man tips on what to do/what not to do as well as their thoughts on what they did and how they wished they had done things differently or focused on different things while in college/medical school.

High school is a wonderful time of growth and maturity for our children, why not be by their side to encourage them and guide them through this time.

I think a lot of what Lee Binz, The Home Scholar touches on in her list, is that we should not micro-manage our children. ZING! That struck me right off the bat, I remember when my 72 year old mother told me I was Micro-managing my child...lol...first off I was like "Mother, how on earth do you know what micro-managing is?" lol. Yes I was micro-managing my child and I have since worked very hard at not doing that.
Trust me on this one; it is much easier to have your child's day planned out, than to wait for him to do it. I am a manager by nature...lol...I think I get that from my BFF's son, he has taught me well...HAHAHA!!

Have a great school year!
Moe

Science For High School: Physical Science Review

As members of The Old Schoolhouse Review Crew we have had the exciting opportunity to review the Physical Science program from Science for High School. The program is called High School Physical Science In Your Home for the last several weeks in our homeschool. This course is for grades 9-12, but I think in home education you can use it with junior high aged kids if they are ready for the material. High School Physical Science In Your Home comes with a student and a teacher manual.

OK, first let me tell you what my experience with science has been. To me science was reading a chapter in the science book, memorizing the bold terms/definitions, answering the chapter checkup questions, taking a weekly quiz/test. Maybe doing a science poster or short write up once in awhile. Basically rote memorization skills were practiced in my kind of science. Toss those ideas right out the window with Science For High School.

Imagine a home school science curriculum actually written by a home school mom! After using the curriculum I am realizing that she understands that most home school Mommy’s don’t have a clue about science :O) This little sentence in the teacher manual sold me…lol. “(As in all home schools, we bend and fit all curricula to our home.) LOVE IT! Author Bridget Ardoin has been a home schooling mom for the past 12+ years. Ardoin has a degree in microbiology and has taught science in private high schools.

My student used the library, books, textbooks (what homeschooler is lacking in any type of book? LOL), science magazines and the Internet. I would caution the Internet use for research, be sure that your student is using legitimate websites. There is a lot of junk science out there.

For the High School Physical Science In Your Home review we received a Student Manual that was 3 hole punched, quizzes, a final exam for each semester and a spiral bound teacher edition. You can go here to purchase for $79.99. If you have more than one student you will need to purchase additional lab books here for $24.99. I love that you can go here to purchase the lab kit for $45.00. To save $ you can purchase the HIGH SCHOOL PHYSICAL SCIENCE IN YOUR HOME TOTAL PACKAGE for $110.00.
 

HOW THE PROGRAM WORKS:

Each week I would give our son 1 Lab Sheet and 1 Experiment Sheet to work on, he had the next 7 days to prepare, take a quiz over previous material and then present his written material for the new week in a discussion format. Pretty simple for the teacher if you ask me :O) Our discussion time usually took on some added chatter…lol. I picked Thursday as our day to do this since it’s a less busy school day for us and allows for some fun and relaxed interaction.

 

What this homeschool Momma liked about High School Physical Science In Your Home:
1) Simple to use teacher‘ manual! LOL…Have I ever said that I can’t stand a teachers manual or answer key that is hard to use? Ya know the kind, where you have to hunt through the reading materials to find the tiny little number that matches the question that you are grading! Super easy teacher manual here with Science For High School with ANSWERS!.

2) I’m seeing 4-H projects written all over this curriculum!!

3) DISCUSSION! LOVE IT!! Each week you sit down with your child and they discuss with you the research that they did that week on the assignment. If you have more than 1 child this is a great opportunity for them to absorb the information while sitting in on the discussion :O)

4) BONUS! A high school curriculum that prepares homeschoolers for college? GREAT! The author brings this up when explaining how to give quizzes and tests. “This gives the student a chance to develop skills to study for a quiz while having other assignments, something that will prove useful while in college.”

5) I think that no matter what learning style your child has High School Physical Science In Your Home will fit the bill. It touches on all learning styles

6) I’m thinking Homeschool Co-op Class with this curriculum!!! You know we are always looking for something challenging in a homeschool Co-op for our teens!

7) A good reminder! The author reminds us as homeschool moms that some colleges and universities want to see copies of the student lab notes.

8) Easy list of items needed for the experiments, so far I have not had to hunt far for items, I’ve pretty much had them on hand. Though I am glad I looked ahead to second semester, there are a few things I will need to hunt up.

9) She gives an idea of how to score the quizzes and tests, which is nice, sometimes with homeschool materials I have had to stand on my head to figure out how to give a grade.

10) EUREKA!! Second Semester we learn about the Periodic Table of Elements, you ask “What on earth is that?” lol…Yeah, homeschooling Sista, I am right there with ya! And I plan to learn this right along with my child. All I can say is Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow!

11) So far what we have worked through has really had a college feel to it, the way the material is laid out, the lab sheets and the discussion each week. Many college classes, not just science are using the discussion format each week.

12) Everything is laid out plain as day for you! LOVE IT!
　

What this homeschool Momma didn’t like about High School Physical Science In Your Home:

1) When we first got the materials someone (home school student who shall remain nameless…lol) decided to take the High School Physical Science In Your Home student materials in the car to review, without first putting them in a 3 ring binder (not included) and they dumped all over and had to be picked up and put back together. They are now secured in a 3 ring binder.

2) I thought that a few of the labs were a bit grade schoolish or middle schoolish to me. I was expecting a bit more difficulty across the board. But I think that High School Physical Science In Your Home would be a great place to start if your homeschool science program has been lacking in experiments because the first semester ones were pretty simple and the second semester ones seem more advanced. It could be a confidence booster for your homeschooler.

3) I do have some concern about this program when it comes to my son being interested in a medical career. I am just not sure that it meets the standards of the tough STEM requirements. STEM education is an acronym for the areas of study in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics in the United States.

What this homeschool student liked about High School Physical Science In Your Home:
1) I kinda got to look up things that I wanted to look up and study things the way I wanted to study them :O)

2) I liked the experiments, sometimes they did not work out, but I had fun with them.

3) I can’t wait to get to second semester to study electricity, I think this might help with my 4-H electricity project next year. COOL!

4) I like how the author tells us in our student manual that we need to do a little bit of work each day. If she had not said this I would probably have waited until the night before to work on it.

What this homeschool student didn’t about High School Physical Science In Your Home:
1) This was a totally different way of doing science that was very new to me. So I think it’s going to take some getting use to the change.

2) It was a bit hard for me to keep motivated to work each day on my own, Mom had to nag me at first, but then I started to look forward to working on my research.

I really like the program as it seems very easy to use, but as I said above I have reservations regarding the STEM and college admissions if your child will be entering a career field that is heavy on science. So if you have a student that will need a strong science background look over the material and decided if this is for you. We plan to use this as a supplement to our current science program.

 

Please see what my buddies had to say about Science For High School products, some got to review chemistry and biology.