A Review of a Writing Course by BetterRhetor

This summer, we were given access to the course College-Ready Writing Essentials™ by BetterRhetor for review. This course covers the topic of essay writing for students as they prepare to enter college level courses. It is a complete and practical writing course with step by step instructions. It also gives valuable background information that will raise the awareness of any student embarking on the challenge of college level academics.

My interest in have my daughter use this course despite her recent graduation was to give her one more writing experience to boost her confidence in her knowledge and ability to communicate effectively with the written word. She has written throughout her homeschooling experience but an essay format was not the norm. I want her to have an understanding of for what will be expected of her and to approach it with more confidence. The college essay assignments seem to produce anxiety for many students regardless of the approach to their high school education.

The first section of College-Ready Writing Essentials™ includes lessons and worksheets that prep a student for the process of writing an essay.  The information also includes a discussion of what to expect and what will be expected from students in a college academic setting. This information is presented in a straight forward way and presents useful considerations for a student about to enter a college environment. As a homeschooling parent, I appreciate this aspect of  the course. Having another voice contributing to the importance of taking what will be expected of a college student is helpful. The material covered in the preparation section is a solid reminder of what "the college experience" is really about. Learning, incorporating, presenting and communicating are all necessary skills for successful careers no matter what field of work someone plans to enter.

That this course emphasizes that college is a place to learn and to take that learning and "transform it through your own creative intelligence", from Lesson 9 College-Ready Writing Essentials TM. 


Beyond the background and preparation lessons College-Ready Writing Essentials™ covers all of the essentials of writing a college level essay. It walks the student through the entire writing process step by step. it covers the importance of how to evaluate source materials for credibility and provides ways to discern what is high quality and trustworthy as sources for a student's investigations. The course requires a fairly high level of reading comprehension skill. It gives a range of  topic exposure in general terms including some current events and societal issues.

The full package course includes 25 lessons. Each lesson contains thorough teaching material, examples and some include downloadable pdf worksheets for student use.

Given our very busy summer and the big changes in our family this summer, it was difficult for my daughter to get through the entire course. Even in a normal summer, I think it would be hard to complete the full course. It would be a great course to use over an academic year. It could be worked through at a student's own pace finishing quickly or over a school year's time frame.

The course is easy to access online. However, since we spent much of the summer in a variety of locations and not all together as a family, we struggled with what has typically been an easy, just jump on the computer, to read and do lessons from our home desktop. For most of the summer, my daughter has only had internet access via her phone and that has been spotty at times. It was this experience that gave me the idea and the wish for College-Ready Writing Essentials™  to be available in a text book/workbook format. An old school idea perhaps, but having the course in a book to take along would have made it possible for my daughter to use our travel time as an opportunity to continue to work through the course.

Technically, this year is somewhat of an academic gap year for my daughter while she is pursuing her dream of ballet training. However, we will soon be solving the current online access issue for her so that she can complete the course this year for added preparation for college classes. College-Ready Writing Essentials™ is an extensive and valuable course for any student wanting to improve their writing skills in preparation for college.

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A Book Review of a New Title by Julie Polanco, God Schooling: How God Intended Children to Learn

For Homeschool Review Crew, I received and was delighted to read a copy of the book God Schooling How God Intended Children to Learn by Julie Polanco. While reading the first pages and through every chapter, I have been creating a gift list of those I'd like to share this title with.

First, a bit of an upfront disclosure.. As a home school mom in Chicago-land, Julie and I have crossed paths on occasion over the years. We met early on in our parenting journeys at a friend's house for a play date with our little ones, later at a home school mom's book group that met at Julie's home and once again at a Special Olympics gymnastics meet. It has now been several years since and though over those years we didn't spend enough time in each other's company to develop a closer friendship, we did both develop a similar homeschooling approach. Our children's interests have led us down different paths, with fewer opportunities to meet, but with a shared understanding of learning.

It has also been a while since I've read a book from cover to cover about education and learning generally, or even homeschooling specifically. In the early days of our family's homeschooling journey, I devoured books about homeschooling from cover to cover late into many nights. John Holt, John Taylor Gatto and David and Micki Colfax, were a few of those who truly spoke to me and reassured me about my own observations and our approach to guiding learning in our home, with our children.

Julie's book falls in line with these authors, who's observations resonated with me then and still today. This is the homeschooling genre that I have read and collected from early on, these are the writings and the views that sustained me, they will always remain in my collection. I think Julie will be pleased to read that her book will join those authors on my shelf.

Learning all the time, natural learning, free range learning, child led, are all descriptive phrases that have been used in an attempt to explain an approach that takes the child into full consideration as their adult teachers and mentors guide them through a topic of interest. It is from a child's own innate curiosity that leads a child into a greater understanding and to continue through the study of any subject matter.

Julie takes a reader through her understanding of this approach, how she has developed a deeper appreciation of a plan bigger than her own for her children. In her well organized writing she reveals her Christian faith as the basis for her approach to homeschooling.

http://www.juliepolancobooks.com/

Julie discusses topics that I have often considered while on this journey, not just of homeschooling but of parenting. My desire to increase the chances of my children maintaining their love of learning and internal drive to continue to acquire new skills and learn throughout life led me to books like Punished by Rewards by Alfie Kohn. Julie references Kohn's book as well. She sums it up with this statement "The extent to which the environment is controlling through rewards/punishment, threats, survveillance, evaluation, deadlines, being ordered around or by competition is the extent to which a person will lose their intrinsic motivation." Julie Polanco
I think she would appreciate the story of my oldest learning to ride a bike with onlooking neighbors. To their dismay, I did not cheer in excited positive exclamations as my first born rode a bike down our suburban sidewalk for the first time. Without fanfare, I was pleased, I did smile and he did continue to ride a two wheeler!

Julie gives similar examples from her own family. She describes the evolution of her own journey and provides us with a clear and deep understanding of learning and the benefits of following God's lead, as seen in the blossoming of those in our care. This book is a welcome bridge between the many homeschooling communities that I have been aware of in Chicago-land, from the undisciplined unschoolers to the strictly book work, no nonsense scholars, Julie's book could help us see our similarities, in our hopes and in God's plan for our children. Easy to access and easy to share, I am glad Julie followed the calling to put it all into a published book. I will be sharing this title with the gift list I began while reading the very first chapter. I hope you will, too. It is also available in e-book format for half price through August 22nd.

God Schooling How God Intended Children to Learn by Julie Polanco

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A Review of Home School in the Woods - Resources for History Study

Home School in the Woods is an educational publishing company that creates visual materials for the hands-on learning of history. They provide many products created with a unit study approach in mind. The products are excellent supplemental materials to add to any history curriculum. Their hands-on products are especially useful and adaptable when considering a range of learning styles. Adaptable to multiple ages, Home School in the Woods, has hands-on resources for both American and World History. They have multiple product lines that include; Hands-on History Lap Paks, Project Passport World History Studies, Time Travelers American History, Hand -on History Activity-Paks, Hands-on Activity Studies and the A La Carte Timelines.

This summer, we were given the opportunity to use and review the A La Carte, Science, Invention, and Mathematicians Timeline,  this is single product that includes illustrations of important events, inventors and scientists for use in a timeline creation of important scientific discoveries and innovations from the 2nd millennium B.C. through 2015.

 Science, Invention, and Mathematics is a collection of well done illustrations that focus on scientific events and personalities in history from the Through the Ages Timeline materials created by Home School in the Woods. 

We have incorporated Home School in the Woods Ala Carte projects into our homeschooling activities in the past. I have found that using a timeline can give us all an overview of events in history that puts our place in time into perspective. We included the Science, Invention, and Mathematicians Timeline that was provided for us to review into a brief history review for my daughter. Currently, in a light academic summer mode, we scanned, viewed and discussed the illustrations and began placing them in a timeline.

We used illustrations of events and inventors that we have previously studied, been made aware of or have some other understanding or even a simple connection to, for example; having previously read Listening to Crickets, a biography of Rachel Carson, my daughter knew about the work of Rachel Carson and was eager to place the related image into the time line, as a result, she has a better understanding of Rachel Carson's contributions to science based on when they happened. The image of Ada Lovelace was of interest because her name is in common (almost) with my teen daughter, Adah. It was through the timeline illustrations that we first became aware of Ada Lovelace. She is an interesting historical example of developing God given talents despite the cultural expectations surrounding an individual during the times in which they lived.



Using the multidisciplinary approach of unit studies, Time Travelers: New World Explorers and Project Passport World History Studies are series' of unit study resources. These sets are a way to dig deeper into history without having to track down as many reference materials yourself. The Project Passport set has the recently added pack of Ancient Rome and makes the ancient history series more complete. It is also now included in a bundle of this series.


I always appreciate resources that accompany curriculum materials that are directed at the parent/home educator. Articles with background references, tips for making the best use of a product and any words of encouragement are valuable to me as a homeschooling parent. The additional articles for parents are written from the perspective of an experienced homeschool parent and are both practical and encouraging. Suggestions for incorporating games and skill development, like penmanship, while using the timeline materials, are good reminders that as homeschooling families, we are constantly covering more learning than we are sometimes even aware that we are or can cover with a simple change of activity or viewpoint.

It is clear that Amy Pak, president, creator and illustrator for Home School in the Woods and the writer of parent help articles, has been there as a home educator of her children. Her guide "Teaching With Timelines" is helpful and informative for using Home School in the Wood's products. It is available on the Resources,etc page of Home School in the Woods website.

Spend some time exploring the resources available from Home School in the Woods, you will find some valuable components to add to your children's study of history. If you'd like to read other reviews of their products click the image below.

NatureGlo's eScience Review

For myself, as a homeschooling mom, if life gets busy and academic subjects get short changed, it is usually math that suffers first. Despite having wonderful resources available, it is so easy for us to let slide the needed ongoing regular practice that is so important for maintaining the fundamental skills of math. So when we were offered access to NatureGlo's eScience curriculum of MathArt Online Class Bundle for reviewing it was an excellent opportunity. It provided added incentive to keep the math study going.

Math Connections with the Real World 6-week class

Math Art in Ancient Cultures 6-week class

Mathematics in the Arts and Sciences 6-week live or recorded class 

MathArt Patterns in Nature 6-week live or recorded class

For the review we focused on the course Math Connections with the Real World. Like the other courses available in the Bundle, it is laid out in lessons, for a six week class. Each class has between 5 and 9 lessons within. The lessons are divided into sections and consist of slide show power point lectures and videos from a variety of sources. There are downloadable and printable pages with questions encouraging interaction with the material presented in each lecture. Each class includes an online quiz at the end of the series of lessons. Each class also includes achievement awards for students to keep track of progress. A certificate of completion is also provided following the completion of the entire course.

A pyramid photo accompanys a
lesson achievement award.

MathArt Online includes a substantial amount of varied resources that reinforce the subject matter being presented. I went through the lessons of Math Connections with the Real World with my teen daughter. I was amazed to see all of the related video sources that Gloria Brooks has pulled together in one place to describe specific concepts. We were (o.k., I was) even delighted to view, as supplemental material, a 1957 Disney film featuring Donald Duck, explaining in quack speak, the magic of mathematics. There is so much information available to all of us online these days that finding the best and narrowing it down can be time consuming.

Connecting math and art.

I truly appreciate having someone else pull together this great variety of information into a lesson format. It reinforces the subject matter. Different videos or activities are useful for different people. Art activity suggestions aid in understanding the concepts. Including many videos from different sources also increases the chances of each student understanding the material. However, my daughter felt there were actually too many videos to view for completing each class. For her, for the presentation of certain concepts, less would have been more.

Gloria Brooks, the creator of NatureGlo's eScience, offers live online classes classes as well as the recorded lectures. The option to take a live class online has many benefits. And would certainly be a preference for some homeschooling families. For us, at this time in our homeschooling journey, adding a predetermined time to our schedule would have been difficult. The slide show lectures we viewed had previously been recorded from an online class. These recordings included the added interaction of students from the live class. The student voices increased the feeling of being in a class with others even though we were listening to a recording.


Initially getting started with the online course structure was a bit confusing but after following through a few times we had it down. After each activity, in each of the lessons, there is a mark complete button. It's a simple thing but because we thought we might return to review a section we didn't initially make use of the button. The general lesson on that was - follow directions - it made viewing through the sections much easier to navigate.

Overall NatureGlo's eScience courses are thorough, interactive and very well researched. We will continue to work through the series of classes and broaden our appreciation of and understanding of math connections in the real world. Thanks, Gloria for creating this comprehensive program!