A Review: CrossTimber-Name Meaning Gifts

 

Learning about the meaning behind your name is so fun and exciting. We loved being able to review Your Amazing Name – Personalized Adventures for EVERY name by CrossTimber-Name Meaning Gifts.

CrossTimber creates beautiful products for your children to let them know how special their name is. One of the products they create are personalized animated videos. These are brand new so we were super excited to be one of the first people to see them. I started the process by sending them my child’s name (I chose to use Carter since he is the youngest), as well as a piece of artwork your child has created. You also submit a letter from yourself to your child. Everything you send them is then used for the video to make it super special and personalized just for them.

Each video is around 30 minutes long. Here you can see the opening scene titled, “Carter’s Amazing Name Story.”

 

The story starts in “Carter’s Room,” where you can see a few things in the room are personalized with his name. There is a talking pencil in this room that will be the one telling the story throughout the movie.

 

In the picture above, you can see a rocket. This rocket is made out of Carter’s artwork that I submitted. My only regret is that I would have had him create something new. What I could find was an old drawing he did that was very basic. I didn’t realize the artwork would be so heavily used in the story. I love that it is so I wish I would have had him create something new and colorful.

The story follows the pencil while he tries to find someone who knows what your child’s name means. He finally comes to a wise owl, who after many jokes, finally reveals the origin and history of the name. The few minutes spent on puns by the owl had me laughing out loud.

Towards the end of the movie, the owl delivers a letter to your child that is personalized with their very own address if you want! Carter thought this was really cool.

My favorite part was the personalized letter from whoever submitted the product request. This was a chance for me to write Carter a short letter explaining how I picked his name and why. When they read the letter in the movie, I teared up. It was a sweet moment and really cool to see be part of his own story.

The finale presents them with a plaque with their name and the meaning of it. You are able to personalize this as well from many options. I chose to use a soccer ball as that is Carter’s favorite thing to do. I love that the whole movie talks about God’s love for you and how your name is special and picked just for you. It talks about how God has a purpose and plan for your life.

At the very end, they show your child’s name written in the stars and it also has a place for you to send a picture of your child.

Above, you can see Carter’s reaction to the movie. We both really enjoyed it! Carter is 9 and thought parts of it were a little childish but still enjoyed watching it. I would agree that is probably best suited for younger children but I will still treasure this movie forever. The video quality is really amazing and the animation is fantastic. The storyline is easy and fun to follow. CrossTimber has many other products you can order from their site too. So if you have older children and want to gift them something about the meaning of their name, you should check it out!

 

 

In the email with our digital file, we received an attachment with some fun worksheets pertaining to Carter’s name. I love the writing practice ones as that is something he still needs help with. There are mazes, coloring pages and more!

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Creating a Masterpiece Review

Do you have a budding artist in your household? My teenager is a pretty good artist but his brother and I draw like a 4 year old. Stick people all the way! This has recently changed for me though thanks to our recent review of a wonderful Drawing Program by Creating a Masterpiece.

We received a one year subscription to Creating a Masterpiece. This program was designed by Sharon Hofer. Sharon is a master artist and teacher who creating a really great program that teaches children and adults of all ages to be an artist. She truly believes that anyone can be an artist, that it isn’t just a gift some people are given. The program is designed for your whole family to use. It’s hard to find a program that both of my children can do side by side and this is one of them!

When you subscribe to the program, you can start with the beginner lessons which allows to create simple but beautiful pieces of art. As you progress, the techniques get more advanced. I really like that there is a variation of mediums used as well. She has lessons on charcoal, pencil, watercolors, colored pencils, markers and more! We created quite a few pictures but I will take you through the breakdown of one of the drawings I created called Simplicity.

In the picture above, you can see the lessons that are available for beginning artists. This is where I started. I thought a lesson in pencil would be easy enough and since it’s fall, I decided to draw the picture of the trees.

When you click on the lesson, a project description will be displayed as well as the materials needed. There is also a place on the website where you can purchase the supplies.

Once you have your supplies, you’re ready to begin! When you click on the lesson, a group of videos will pop up. You simply just go through each video at your own pace, pausing when you need to. The videos are very easy to follow and the point of view is perfect. You’re able to see exactly what she is doing and she is really great at explaining each and every step. She has a nice calm voice and is super encouraging in the videos we have watched.

I followed her steps exactly and my finished product is below. I have to say, I am pretty proud of myself!

 

My oldest son completed some projects as well. We really had a lot of fun with this program and will continue to use it to improve our artistic abilities.

 

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Channie’s Visual Handwriting & Math Workbooks Review

Channie’s Visual Handwriting Workbooks has been really helping my two boys with their math each day by using One Page A Day 2 Digit Multiplication Practice.

Channie’s was established in 2015 by a mom who realized her sons handwriting was really poor. She noticed that traditional handwriting worksheets were not helping him so she created something that was more visual. Now, the products are available to homeschoolers, wholesale and even in your major stores. There are over 67 products designed to help children with their handwriting and in our case, completing multiplication problems.

We reviewed the One Page A Day 2 Digit Multiplication Practice. This workbook is geared towards students in 3rd through 5th grade. IT is designed so that you complete just one page each day. This is the perfect amount of practice! The layout of the workbook was created so that you can see the numbers and where they should be lined up. Everything is perfectly spaced in boxes so there’s no room for error when it comes to the placement of your numbers. You can see what I am talking about in the picture below:

I like how the first page starts off with two-digit numbers being multiplied by 1 and 0. I like this approach because it doesn’t seem too daunting. Everyone knows their 0 and 1 multiplication facts so your student is able to focus on where the numbers are placed and where their answers go. The next page has the 2’s facts and so on. I also like how this is done because they are able to practice their fact families while working on 2-digit multiplication. After the facts through 9 are done, they start mixing up all of the facts. This is really great practice as my boys still struggle with memorization. Once they have mastered 14 pages of 2-digit by 1-digit, they move on to 2 digits by 2 digits. Every place value they will need here is in its own box, including color coding. You can see an example below:

 

Once they have mastered this, by completing a page each day for a while, the workbook takes out the color coding and lets them practice this way. I also like that their is an answer key in the back of the workbook so they are able to check their work.

I really enjoy using this product to supplement our math program. Both of my boys have really bad handwriting so I am interesting in trying some of the products she has for that too!

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Smartick Review

If you are looking for an awesome math enrichment program, look no further. We have been using Smartick for the last couple of months and I am IN LOVE! (I am not being paid to say that!)  My children have been supplementing their online math curriculum by using Smartick. Smartick is the only online math program that combines: Math + Reading Comprehension + Logic and Reasoning.

It uses artificial intelligence to figure out exactly where your child is at in their learning and where they need to go. Your child only has to use Smartick 15 minutes a day to help them improve their math skills. It is geared toward ages 4-14 but the program goes beyond your child’s age and/or grade level and helps them right where they are at. Even if your child is gifted in math, it will realize this and work to your child’s level.

Below, I will take you through some of the site and what it has to offer.

The first picture is what your child will see when they log in. When you create your account, your child is able to customize their avatar. I love the user interface on this website. It’s really bright and easy to use. It’s set up more like a game which most children love!  The second picture shows their “world.” Here they can do all sorts of things!

One place they can go is their classroom which has a lot of different places they can visit. One of my favorite places is the chalkboard which has tutorials for all of the concepts as you can see an example of below:

 

There is also a place where they can play games and can even add other Smartick users to play against. They have their own house they can personalize as well as the “gym” where they can train with their math facts.

They can train in competitions and here is where they can play with real people who also have a Smartick account. All of this added stuff is not necessary but just enriches the program and makes it more fun! My 9 year old LOVES this part of the program.

Now, on to the actual lesson part of the program, which is MY favorite part.

Here you can see some sample pages from a lesson Carter completed. In the upper left hand corner you can see his avatar and the green circle around it, this is the timer for the lesson. As you move through each page, the green fills in and gives your child a visual for how much is left. Beside that, you can see the “ticks.” Students earn ticks by getting problems correct. They can then use those ticks to buys things for their house and pets. Your child can go back and correct problems they missed the first time to earn extra ticks.

The pictures above, show the parents setting which is really helpful. It shows their progress and sessions they have completed, with detailed information from each session. There is a place where you can add motivational rewards and mesasges. I love this option because it allows you personalize your childs experience. You can also access tutorials from the parents page as well. There’s a section called Smartick Brain which takes you to some games to help strenghten your brain power! (Picture below)

 

This has been my favorite math program we have ever used. I’m excited about continung to use it to supplement our math curriculum.

Are you interested in trying Smartick? You can get a free 15 day trial on their website. If you wasnt to subscribe, you can use this link and receive 25% off your first subscription!

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Progeny Press Review

Reading good literature is important to me in our homeschool life. Having a great study guide to go along with a great book makes it a lot more fun! Recently, we have been using The Little House on the Prairie Study Guide from Progeny Press. We also were sent the study guide for The Shadow Spinner have been using that one as well!

The Mission of Progeny Press
“To teach our children to think clearly, to understand literature, and to rely on the scripture for truth and values, and enjoy themselves while they do it!”

I was really excited to get The Little House on the Prairie because just a few weeks earlier, I found a cute copy at a thrift store. I couldn’t wait to get started with the study guide for it. This study guide is best for grades 4-6.  Progeny Press does such a great job with their study guides. They are easy to follow and there are so many great resources in it. Each one starts off with giving you information about the study guide author as well as a background of the author of the book. They give you some pre-reading activities before you actually read the story which is fun to introduce the literature. Progeny Press recommends you having the student read the complete book before starting the activities in the study guide. Then they can work through the study guide using the book as a reference. Having a dictionary, thesaurus and Bible are also recommended to have close by while working. The study guide is broken into chapters of the book. There are also ideas for essay writing as well as additional resources you can use for the book study. I like that they include a separate answer key for checking your answers.

 

 

I had never heard of the Shadow Spinner but was excited to read it and complete the study guide. We didn’t get as much done on this study guide because I like to focus on one book at a time but I am looking forward to finishing it with my boys. This study guide is recommended for Grades 5-8. I got the audio book from our local library and we listen to the story in the car.

Here’s an example of a page from the study guide for Shadow Spinner.

 

 

One thing I really like about these study guides is grades 4 and up are able to use fillable online pages which makes it more interactive. This is great for students who would rather work on the computer than have printable pages. My oldest son likes to do his work on the computer and my younger son likes to have worksheets. The study guide allows them to do both!

Progeny Press is great and we love using their study guides. Last year, we did the study guide for The Josefina Story Quilt. It was a lot of fun! You can read the blog post about that here.

 

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HiGASFY Art History Video Series Review

Teaching art education can be a struggle when homeschooling but HiGASFY Art History Video Series made it very easy to add to our weekly studies. Mrs. Beth and Gasfy (the animated paint drop) help make learning about art history really fun! The curriculum is geared towards grade 1-8, for a 16 week course, and uses a multi-dimensional approach.

Each week, Mrs. Beth and Gasfy, teach your child about the artists and artwork from 4 times periods: Renaissance, Baroque, Impressionist, and Post-Impressionist.

The curriculum is designed for large school groups, homeschool co-ops or for at home use. You are also given access to the curriculum bundle that includes a wealth of information to go along with the video series.

 

You can start the series at whatever time period you want so we started with the Renaissance Period. This includes 12 video lessons which are about 20 minutes long each. With the curriculum bundle, you are given a 66 page lesson plan that includes lessons to help support the videos. The lessons do not just focus on the art itself, it also includes: Vocabulary, Science, Writing, Geography, History, Critical Thinking and more! There are also fun games like crossword puzzles and word searches.

Here, you can see the table of contents of the lesson plans for the Renaissance Period.

 

Name That Artist PowerPoint- For the Renaissance Period, there are 45 beautiful images of art work that you can show to your students.

In addition to all of the above in the curriculum bundle, there are also flashcards. For the Renaissance period there are 49 pages of images designed to enable you to learn the artwork and the artist for the time period you’re working on.

What We Thought:

I think the information in the program is really great! You can tell that Ms. Beth knows her stuff! She makes the videos fun and enjoyable. The curriculum bundle is really awesome, with so much information in the lesson plans to really create an awesome art history class. I really enjoyed seeing all of the beautiful art work showcased throughout the videos and extras in the curriculum bundle.

I have two boys, ages 9 and 13. They enjoyed learning about the information provided but were definetly slow to warm up to the animated character. I think that is just their personalities and trying to be “too cool” for animated characters. I thought Gasfy was great!

If you would like to try out a free sample lesson, you can click this link: https://www.higasfy.com/free-episode-sign-up.

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Easy Grammar Systems Review

Grammar is a very important subject to teach in your homeschool. I try to focus on it when teaching reading and writing but having a specific workbook to tackle all of the concepts that come with grammar is really helpful! For the past few weeks, we have been reviewing Daily GRAMS: Grade 3 by Easy Grammar Systems. 

What We Received:

We received a physical student workbook that my 9 year old has been working through. The Daily GRAMS workbook has 180 lessons that should take 5-10 minutes a day. It is designed so that your child can practice their grammar skills to work up to mastery of the skills. Each page is set up the same which is really helpful.

What It Is:

Sentence #1 : Capitalization Review- This may include days of the week, months of the year, a persons name, initials or a title used with a name, holidays, states, towns, countries and more!

Sentence #2 : Punctuation Review- This may include periods after abbreviations, commas used when writing dates, ending punctuation, commas between cities and states, as well as punctuation involved in writing friendly letters.

Sentences #3 and #4:  General Concepts- These sentences address general concepts in grammar. The book advises to skip or replace the concepts if you have not taught it to your student. The topics include but are not limited to: Adjectives, adverbs, verbs, nouns, alphabetizing, subject/verb agreement, dictionary skills, sentence types, plural nouns, antonyms/synonyms as well as writing a friendly letter.

Sentence  #5: Sentence Combining- This section takes 2-3 sentences and your student will combine the sentences to create more complex sentences.

What We Thought:

I think this is a great warm up for your grammar lessons. I like that it’s designed to take 5-10 minutes a day and repeats the same sort of topics so that your child can master them. Carter was recently diagnosed with dyslexia and in his testing, he struggled with sentence combining. I really enjoyed seeing his work on sentence combining in this workbook. He struggled at first but has since really improved. I like how each day is on one page but do wish the format was a little different. I think having some page breaks, or boxes would be helpful. It was difficult for him to see where the next question or concept was because it is a little bunched together. Once he got the hang of it, he did ok. This product can be used for homeschools, co-ops or even classrooms. I will continue to use this to help Carter master his grammar skills this year.

 

 

Other crew members reviewed Daily GRAMS for other grades as well as other products that Easy Grammar has to offer. Click on the banner below to read what they thought about it.

 

 

My School Year Homeschool Record Keeping Review

 

Record keeping is really important in the homeschool world. There are a lot of things we have to keep up with and the best way to do this is to keep records as best as you can. The flexibility with homeschool  means you can record keep as much or as little as you want. I’ve been able to review the Annual Membership Plan from My School Year Homeschool Record Keeping.

This online subscription can be accessed anywhere you have an internet connection! This means you can access it from your computer, laptop, tablet and even your smart phone. With this program, you can fully customize and record your homeschool life and more. In this review, I will go over some of the awesome parts of this program. We haven’t started our homeschool year yet so I don’t really have any records kept in it, other than extra curriculars. I am excited to give this program a real shot once we start our school year. I’m already so pumped by just checking out all of its features and how well it’s going to help me keep track of our days, weeks and school year!

Here is your homeroom. From here you can access your classes, attendance, awards, readings, extra curricular and tests. You can quickly see the days you have completed as well. You’re able to change your term from this page to see what has been done for each term. You can also switch between your students to see the progress and information for both.

 

In the reports section, you can see reports for attendance, events, lesson plans, awards and much more. Here you can also change the type of report you want to see! I like that you are able to view and print transcripts and you can even do this from your phone.

 

On the calendar tab, you can view all of your appointments, events, extra curricular, lessons and reading list. You can change your view to see the agenda, the day, week or month at a glance. I really love how customizable this calendar is! I also like that you can switch between students so you can see what is on the calendar for each of them.

 

There is a section called the Teacher’s Aid. Here, you are sent “notices.” I look at them as notifications about your record keeping. They alert you when you’re missing things and also prompts you to add some things that you may not have added yet. As you can see, mine is letting me know I haven’t added days but this is because we have not started our school year yet. Once we do though, I know this section will be super helpful because “mom brain!”

 

 

There are so many parts to this program! Another one of them is the Setup section. Here you can customize the grading scales, materials, schools, students, subjects and terms.

In the Tools section, you can copy classes/lessons and reading log/list. You can also create a plan for your students, reschedule lessons and track attendance.

If you need extra support within the program, there is help section that has video tutorials, FAQ’s and Guides. The site also has its own blog which is accessible through the website.

 

With this program, you can also allow your child access where they can keep up with their attendance, classes, activities and even chores! Since it is 100% user friendly they are able to check all of this from their phone! I can’t wait to really utilize this feature with my 8th grader. I know the upcoming school year will run a lot smoother and more efficiently with the use of this program!

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CTCMath Review

Over the summer, our family has been using the 12 Month Family Membership from CTCMath. CTCMath was created by a homeschool dad to 10 children! He wanted something different for his children that would cater to different learning styles and be fun at the same time. This program is an online math program from K-12th grade.

We received a 12 month membership and have really enjoyed getting to know all that the program offers. When you sign up, you will create accounts for each child as well as the parent. I like how this is set up because it gives each child their own little math area where they can see everything they need to learn, have learned and so much more.

When your child logs in, they will see all of their lessons. From here, it will show how well they understood as well as a grade for the lesson. As you can see from above, there are also diagnostic tests that they can take to see what they already know.

When they are ready to start a lesson, they just click on the title of it. Then a screen like the one above will show up. Here, they are able to watch a short video explaining the concept. I really like how the videos are short and to the point. If they were any longer, my kiddos would check out.

Once your child has watched the video, they click on the “Questions” tab. Here they are given about 10 questions to answer based on what they learned. I like that there is one question per screen so it doesn’t seem overwhelming to them. If they get the problem wrong, the correct answer is show immediately. They are able to go back and try the task again if they do not get it right the first time.

You are also able to complete worksheets for each lesson as well. You can print out the worksheet and there is a spot for your child to write in the answers.

CTCMath also offers practice with speed skills. From addition all the way to the order of operations. This is a fun way to get your child practicing their basic skills. My students liked doing this as well because it breaks up the idea of a formal lesson.

The times tables practice was one of our favorites. It reminds me of a math game I played in elementary school. They can choose which number family they want to work on. Then they have to use their rocket ship to answer the problems by shooting the answer. Once the do it 3 times successfully, they speed it up so they can improve their fact fluency.

Your child will also be able to see reports and see exactly how they are doing with each concept. They can ear badges and awards for their success as well!

The parent dashboard is really helpful as well. You are able to add tasks for your student if you want them to work on something specific. You can also add questions from the question bank which allows you to personalize their lessons/tests. You’re able to see all of their activity on the site as well as reports of their progress.

We love CTCMath and will definitely continue to use it throughout our school year!

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Crafty Classroom Review

 

Recently, we have been learning all about the USA with USA Activity Bundle Pack from Crafty Classroom. 

This has been the perfect addition to our summer schedule. The Crafty Classroom has fun, engaging activities designed to help your children learn while having fun! They offer activities to help your children learn more about the Alphabet, the Bible, Science, Geography, Math, Reading and Writing. There are SO many cute and awesome activities. One look at their website and you will be ready to get your hands on these materials. I am a girl all about aesthetics and their website, font choices, color choices…all of it…it’s just really cute. It doesn’t stop there though, the products really are awesome!

I was sent the USA Activity Bundle which includes:

+U.S.A. State by State Activity Notebook
+U.S.A. State Bird Art Cards
+U.S.A. 50 State Mazes

These products are a downloadable product and were sent to my email as pdf’s. They were super easy to open and navigate through. I chose to print out what pages we need as we go through them and decided to add them to a notebook to keep it all organized and together.

U.S.A. State by State Activity Notebook:

The activity pack has a page for each of the 50 states. On each page, students are able to map the location, capitol, state abbreviation, landmarks, state flower and bird as well as the nickname for the state. They can also color the flag, bird and flower. There is a space on each page to add extra notes about the state. The notebook also includes 2 games: USA Bingo and Roll Across America. These activity pages and games will help your child learn all about the 50 states of the USA.

U.S.A. State Bird Art Cards:

This set includes 27 state birds as some of the states share the same bird. Students are able to look at the realistic picture of the bird and copy the coloring of it by looking at its unique markings. There is also a memory matching card game that you can print out to give your students more practice with the state birds.

 

U.S.A. 50 State Mazes:

This set includes a maze for each of the 50 states. This is a fun way for your child to get familiar with the states while completing an activity to help their brain work. Carter, my 9 year old, really enjoyed completing these mazes.

 

We have had a great time using this product. It is a nice change of pace from traditional school work and reading. Even though the products from The Crafty Classroom are geared towards Pre-K through 3rd grade, my 9 year old son and 12 year old son have both used a lot of the workbooks and I haven’t heard one complaint. I think it’s always a great idea to make learning as fun as possible. Even the preteens/teens like to color! I plan to continue to use this product throughout our school year and I am excited to try out some other resources from The Crafty Classroom.

 

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