reviews

Homeschool Curriculum Review: Spelling You See

Posted by Wendy on March 28, 2014 4 Comments

I have one child who is a naturally good speller (like my husband and me), and one who definitely is not. When I heard that Demme Learning, the company that gave Math-U-See to the homeschool world, was introducing a spelling curriculum, Spelling You See, I knew I needed to try to get on this review for Seahawk’s sake. Writing and creating are very important to our family, and his poor spelling skills were really hindering him in some major ways. It was to the point of being difficult to read some of his original writings because he spelled 100% phonetically. That’s okay for some words, but as a general rule in English, you can’t rely on phonetics to get you by.

There are 5 levels of Spelling You See curriculum (each assigned a letter), and we got the fourth level up, Spelling You See: Americana (Level D). The levels are assigned mostly based on your child’s age, but reading level is taken into account a little bit, too. You can start Level A with really little kids; as soon as they start to learn that “letters make sounds and sounds make words,” they’re ready for Spelling You See. The higher levels of the program are designed specifically for elementary-age kids, but can also be used as reinforcement for students who need remedial work. That said, the program is not based primarily on your child’s grade level; rather, you work with them, and as they master the concepts from one level, you can then move them up as you, the parent and educator, see fit. There are guidelines given by the company to help you establish on which level to start your student, and then you can move them on from there.

In Americana, your child is given a paragraph to work with. They work through the same paragraph – which are little snippets of American history – every day for five days. There are different “chunks” your child is assigned to find within the paragraph, and each kind of chunk is given its own color. Vowel chunks (any two vowels in a row, as well as a vowel followed by a Y or a W) are colored in yellow. Consonant chunks (any two consonants that work together to make one sound – th or ch for example) are blue. “Bossy R” chunks (a vowel followed by an R, because that R changes the sound the vowel makes) are purple. You get the idea. The idea is to teach the child that certain letter combinations make certain sounds, and that when they hear those sounds – in their heads as they’re writing or verbally during a spelling activity – they can assign the correct letter combination to the sound.

A properly “chunked” passage

After the child has found all the chunks for the day (which chunks they’re supposed to find vary based on the lesson; during the first two weeks of a specific kind of chunk, it’s just it on its own, and then after that, they start combining them into the same lesson), they move onto copywork. The first three lessons, the child is expected to copy down the passage, limiting the time spent to 10 minutes. No more. The idea is to help your child be a better speller without making them hate the experience of learning how. The last two days of the week, you read the paragraph to the child, a little bit at a time, and have them write down the words. This is dictation in lieu of the copywork; they’ve had three days to get familiar with the words, so then they’re going to see how many they can spell correctly. On day 4, they’re allowed to ask for help, but day 5 is kind of the equivalent of the “end of the week spelling test” (but don’t ever really call it that!) and they’re supposed to just try to write the words on their own as you read them. I think the best part of the dictation on Day 5 (Lesson “E” each week) is that the workbook has a place to record how many words your student spelled right. Not wrong, not a percentage, not “this many out of this many.” How many they got right. We found that to be a huge encouragement for Seahawk. He was thrilled when after the very first week he was spelling so many words correctly.

Dictation work for Lesson 5E. The arrow at the bottom emphasizes the idea of correct words.

Spelling You See: Level D: Americana is in the form of a Teacher’s Manual for you ($14) and a pair of workbooks for your child ($30 for both). (Pricing varies from level to level.) Each student workbook has 18 five-day lessons, so one set of the books will get you all the way through the 36-week school year. All the books are softcover, and the student workbooks have perforated pages in case you want to tear them out for whatever reason (I didn’t). The student books are perfect bound, while the teacher manual is saddle-stitched (stapled).

Spelling You See: Americana (Level D) Products: 2 student workbooks, one teacher manual, and a pack of erasable colored pencils for chunking.

The program is designed to be used five days a week, and that’s exactly what we did with Seahawk. He needed this program so badly, that even on the days we didn’t do a full day of school, I still was really strict with him on getting his Spelling You See done.

And you know what?

It works.

This program really, truly works. I could tell after the very first week that it was working, and now that we’ve been using it for seven weeks, the difference in his spelling is drastic. Spelling was one of the hardest things to get him to care about; he’d pretty much just accepted the fact that he was a “bad speller.” But not anymore. He’s got the confidence to write more. He doesn’t ask for help with spelling as much anymore – and not because he’s given up. Because he’s spelling the words correctly! His spelling in the other subjects is slowly starting to improve as well. It’s not quite as strong as his spelling with the Americana paragraphs, but to a certain extent, that’s to be expected. He is, after all, writing the same paragraph five times a week.

He’s still got a long way to go, but with this program, he’s well on his way. And I definitely hope to buy Level E: American Spirit for him when he finishes up Americana. What better praise is that?

Blessings,

Wendy

You can connect with Spelling You See on Facebook and Twitter if you’re so inclined 🙂

Homeschool Curriculum Review: Mango Languages

Posted by Wendy on March 14, 2014 3 Comments

I love languages. I love reading and writing in my native English, and I love learning new languages. So imagine my excitement when the opportunity to review Mango Homeschool Edition from Mango Languages came up on The Schoolhouse Review Crew. Ecstatic!

I’ve talked before about our foreign language pursuits with the boys. Remember last summer when I posted about our upcoming homeschooling plans? I mentioned that we were going to try to learn Spanish. Well, that didn’t work out too well because I don’t speak enough (read: any) Spanish to have been able to teach the boys. So we switched to French. I speak enough French to have begun working with the kiddos, but we were quickly getting to a place where I needed more help. It has been 15 years since I graduated high school, after all, and since I don’t have the opportunity to travel often, there was no real way for me to continue cultivating my French skills.

We used books from the library, and when I was given access to SchoolhouseTeachers.com, we used the French lessons on there. But I was still itching for something even more. Mango Homeschool Edition turned out to be just the thing!

About Mango

Mango Homeschool Edition is appropriate for almost everyone in your family. The suggested age range is 7 and up – like a board game … You’re never too old! It has over 50 languages to choose from, most of them “serious,” but also a “silly” one or two, including Pirate. That was the first one my husband wanted to check out, of course! He’s just a funny guy to his core. But for the kids and me, we were pretty serious about just doing our French. Mango Homeschool Edition works using a translation method, meaning they say to you (in English) “Here’s how you say ‘Hello.’ ” Then a native speaker comes on and says the word and/or phrase so you can hear proper pronunciation. Then you get a turn to try it out. You can connect a microphone to the computer if you have one for pronunciation comparison, or you can just speak aloud to yourself.

The program uses a “slides” system, meaning it gives you the information in short bursts. You click through from one slide to another. Some of the slides, like the one above, are words or phrases that you’ve already learned. They give you a little clock, and your goal is to come up with the correct translation of something you’ve already learned. If you’re stuck, you can add more time while you think or you can just get the answer. If you don’t remember the phrase, be assured that it’ll come up in a future slide. They’re really good about repetition in Mango Homeschool Edition.

Other slides, like the one pictured below, are culture slides. They tell you things about the culture of the language you’re studying. Those are just as important as the language slides, in my opinion, because you want to know what you’re getting yourself into if you ever travel to a country in which you’ll use your learned language (and that is, after all, the ultimate goal when learning a foreign language).

Similar to the culture slides are grammar slides. It’s important to remember when learning a new language that even though they may use the same alphabet as English, they rarely follow the same grammatical rules. French, for instance, is a Romance language and uses masculine and feminine markers for nouns. We don’t do that in English, but it’s a vital part of their language, so it was one of the grammar slides.

What to Expect

Beyond the explanation I just gave with how the program works, you need to know that Mango Homeschool Edition is completely web based. You have to have a good internet connection and the current Flash player. It does not work on mobile devices.

Additionally, each member of you family will have his or her own account. If it’s just you learning, the price is $18/month or $125 a year. For each additional member who wants an account, it’s an extra $10 a month or $50 a year, up to 5 members. For 6 or more, there are special group rates, depending on the size of the group.

The program works in “Chapters,” each one based on a conversation. You hear the conversation in the first lesson of the chapter (if you’re completely new to your language, it sounds like gibberish!), and then throughout the next 4-6 lessons, you learn each piece of the conversation. By the end of the chapter, that conversation that sounded impossible to decipher is something you can actually understand!

How We Used Mango Languages

We don’t have a mic, so I sat with the kids during their lessons each day to help them with their pronunciation. It took a little more time than it would have if I’d been able to send them to do it themselves, but it was good for me, too. The kids did their lessons separately – otherwise they argued over whose turn it was to say the phrase first, and honestly, it was better for them to each have to come up with the correct answer on their own rather than repeating what their brother said.

My husband and I did lessons, too. One of our family goals is to spend some time living in France (not forever, but 6-12 months), so we’re all learning French. I took a placement test that was offered at the beginning of the course, and remembered enough from high school to be placed at lesson 17; everyone else in the family started at lesson 1. In addition to brushing up on my French, I also started started a Spanish-Latin America course. Our church is bilingual (English-Spanish), so I want to learn some Spanish to be more integrated there. (Most of the Hispanics speak English and Spanish, but not all of them.)

Pros and Cons

Mango Homeschool Edition is a really good program. It really took our foreign language lessons to the next level – something I wouldn’t have been able to do on my own. The system is attractive and easy to use. The only thing I was unsure about was the fact that it uses the translation method. In my mind, it seems like it would be harder to become fluent using the translation method because you’re always having to go back and forth between two languages in your head to say anything. On the other hand, the more you practice, the better you’ll get – regardless of method. So in the end, I think it’s a fine way of teaching languages.

In Conclusion

Mango Homeschool Edition was a great fit for our family. We still have a long way to go before we can move to France, but we’re way better off than we were two months ago in our pursuits of the French language and culture.

Blessings,

Wendy

You can connect with Mango Languages on Twitter, Pinterest, and Facebook.

Product Review: Egglo Entertainment

Posted by Wendy on March 11, 2014 2 Comments

Teaching our children the truths of the Bible is one of the most important things we do as Christian parents. I firmly believe this, but that doesn’t mean I always find it to be easy.

Enter Egglo Entertainment.

Designed by Darcie Cobos, this product is designed to teach children all about being a light in the world – because that’s what Jesus is.

There are a lot of different components to the system, but the two main ones I want to mention today are the Glow in the Dark Egglo Eggs and The Egg-cellent Easter Adventur e book.

The Egglo eggs are basically the same as traditional plastic, split-in-half-and-fill eggs with one exception: they glow in the dark. Egg glow. Get it? 🙂 Why do these eggs glow? Like I just mentioned, it’s a metaphor for Jesus being the light of the world. The eggs glow to help kids find them in the dark. Jesus is the light to help us find Him in our darkest hours.

In addition to the Glow in the Dark Egglo Eggs, The Egg-cellent Easter Adventure is an important part of the product. It tells the story of three children – Hardy, Ana, and Pascal – and how they followed clues through time and space to learn moral and behavioral lessons, eventually finding Jesus.

In addition to the eggs and the print book, I received The Egg-cellent Easter Adventure (audio book download), a packet of Egglo Treasures Scripture Scrolls, and The Egg-cellent Easter Adventure Program Guide, which is essentially a curriculum outline for the product.

The Egglo Treasures Scripture Scrolls are literally tiny scrolls with spiritual truths printed on them, including a scripture reference to back up the truth. These are designed to be placed inside the eggs (along with your candy, if you so choose) before you hide them for the hunt.

The program guide is chalk full of great ideas for putting together an Easter celebration for a group of kids. The product is designed for kids ages 4-13, but thanks to the flexibility of the ideas in the Program Guide, you can really adapt it to fit a much wider range. The purchase price of $14.99 includes a one-time download of the Program PDF, which you can then print out for your use or simply look at on your computer (or Kindle, smart phone, or other e-reader) to get ideas for your party. We’re out of printer ink right now, so I just referenced the program on the computer and made notes of what I wanted to do with my kiddos.

Like other glow-in-the-dark products, you have to “charge” your Egglo eggs before they’ll glow. This can be done by leaving them out in the sunlight or underneath a lamp for an hour or so. Properly charged, they’ll glow quite nicely for several hours. Even though my eggs were glowing bright, they weren’t bright enough for my camera (even on the nighttime setting) to pick them up, so I want to thank fellow TOS Crew member Tiffany C. for providing this picture.

How We Used Egglo

The first thing I did on “Hunt Day” was to put the eggs underneath a lamp for the afternoon so they could charge. In order to get the entire egg charged, I split them in half and put them open side down in a shallow box, then placed the box in the light. While the eggs charged, we read the storybook aloud together. When it was time to start things, I put one Scripture Scroll in each egg and then put them back together. Then I took them to the kids’ playroom and hid them. I didn’t make them too hard to find, because I wanted to be sure the boys could see the glow in the darkness of the playroom. (We did it after dark and turned the light out, which turned out to be a little risky since their playroom was only mostly tidy!) They found the eggs very quickly, and then we all went back upstairs to the dining room for the next step.

egglo 3

They opened their eggs and took turns reading the Scripture Scrolls hidden inside. We had a Bible out and I had them read the reference that was on the Scroll, and then we discussed whether they thought the Scroll was an adequate representation of what the actual Scripture said. In every case, it was.

After we’d gone over the Scripture truths, we made Resurrection Rolls. Basically, you coat a marshmallow (representative of Jesus’ body) in butter (representing the burial oils) and cinnamon/sugar (representing the burial spices) and then wrap it in a crescent roll (representing the tomb). Bake the rolls as directed on the package, and when you take them out of the oven, Jesus has risen! The marshmallow melts into the dough, and is no longer there, just like Jesus was no longer in the tomb on Easter morning.

When we’d finished our treat, we read John’s account of the Resurrection, and then sent the kids to bed.

How Much?

Egglo products are pretty affordable. You can get a package of 12 glow in the dark eggs for $11.99, and the book is 40 pages of full color for $12.99. The audio book download is $2.99 and lasts 30 minutes. It’s not necessary unless you don’t want to read the book aloud, though. Scripture Scrolls, which could also be considered optional (although I recommend them) are $4.29. And as mentioned above, the Program Guide is $14.99. If you’re good at making up your own activities, you could also get away without that, too, but it’s worth it if you think you’ll need help planning your party. It has 62 pages jam-packed with great ideas. The products are on sale for a little less right now, so if you’re interested in getting your own set of Egglo for Easter, act fast! (The prices I’ve listed are the regular price, not the sale price.)

You can also get an “all in one” kit that’s on sale right now for $64.99 that includes the items I mentioned above as well as a DVD of the storybook and stickers with which to decorate your eggs.

My Thoughts

I think Egglo Entertainment is a really creative product. It’s a great way to introduce – or reinforce – the Christian faith to children. It’s clear that Ms. Cobos has spent loads of time and energy making a great product, and she has definitely done that. My only criticism is in the storybook. There were several sections where a new character is talking, and the grammatically correct paragraph break isn’t there. That made it a little hard to predict which voice to use when reading the book aloud to the kids.

Finally

I’m glad we got the chance to review this product. I plan to donate my Egglo set to my church before Easter so other kids in our sphere of influence can have the opportunity to experience this wonderful product!

Homeschool Curriculum Review: Science4Us.com

Posted by Wendy on February 25, 2014 3 Comments

Do you struggle to teach your kids science? Looking for a great science system for early elementary kids? So was I, so when the opportunity for a Science4Us.com Online Subscription was offered to me in exchange for an honest review, I happily accepted.

What is Science4Us.com? I’m glad you asked. It’s a great program for early elementary kids, from Kindergarten through 2nd grade. It doesn’t cover experiments, but it gives kids a great foundation in a variety of subjects. Kids learn about the basics of science (starting with the tools that scientists use), and then move on to more “fun” stuff like animals and space. Each topic runs for 8 lessons, and each lesson takes roughly half an hour to teach. There are also fun activities that children can do on their own on the website. One of the cool things about Science4Us.com is that while it’s teaching science, it’s also reinforcing things kids this age learn in other subjects. One of Munchkin’s favorite activities was the “Silly Bulls” lesson, which is where key words from the teaching part of the lesson are broken into syllables, mixed up, and the child puts them back in the right order (get it? Syllables … Silly Bulls … ).

Science4Us.com has a login page for each student as well as one for the parent/teacher. You can sit right next to your kids while they do the activities, or you can set them free on the site to work through the modules and check their progress, including information/activities from their digital science notebook, in your teacher dashboard. The website allows you to assign modules to your students, and also for your students to select what they want to learn about each day, so there’s a bit of freedom in how you work the program.

While the website is geared primarily toward younger kids (Kindergarten through 2nd grade, like I mentioned above), it’s also a great place for upper elementary kids to get a refresher course in what they learned when they were younger. Even though Seahawk is in 4th grade, he’s been using Science4Us.com and loving it. Because it’s geared to the younger children, though, I’ve been focusing on having Munchkin use it and letting Seahawk on there when time permits.

Once they finished the science tools module, it was interesting to see what each kid chose to study. Munchkin was all over Life Science, which covers Living vs. Nonliving, Plants, and Animals. Seahawk wanted to study Space, which covers Exploring the Universe and Earth in Space. The Exploring the Universe module was really cool. My favorite part, and I think Seahawk’s too, was the exploration of our galaxy. It opened up a map of sorts of the Milky Way, and you could click on the different planets and it would zoom in and give you all sorts of facts about each one. You could also rotate and spin around the solar system. They provided a “ring” showing each planet’s course around the sun, which I think was helpful in keeping them straight while you clicked through them, making sure you chose the one you wanted to explore further.

This is the “main” view of the solar system page – what you see when you first open it.

And these two show you how you could flip all around to get different views.

And here’s Venus’ page. There was one of these for each of the planets, the sun, and Earth’s moon.

For a basic science curriculum for young kids, I think Science4Us.com is a great choice. There are so many choices in study topics that there’s something for everyone. With the “assign” feature, you don’t even have to strictly monitor your kids if you don’t want to. The website is ad-free, so you don’t have to worry about that while your kids are learning. As a subscription-based service, there’s a ton of flexibility, too. You can keep it during the school year and let it go during the summer, or you can keep it year-round if that’s your thing. They also provide printable pages for the kids if you’re a “worksheet” kind of teacher. You still need to have the online time, since the information is taught using online videos and interactive activities, but the worksheets are great for reinforcing what your kids have learned during their online sessions. And at $7.95 a month, it’s a really affordable option if you don’t know what to do for your young learner’s science needs.

To close, I just want to show you guys how big an impact this program had on Munchkin. We have a notebook that he and I write in, letters back and forth, and in one of his recent letters, he included this picture:

Little things like that are what I’d call a glowing review!

Blessings,

Wendy

You can find Science4Us.com on Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook, and Google +.

Zaycon Milk {a review}

Posted by Wendy on January 8, 2014 2 Comments

A fellow blogger (thanks, Tauna!) hooked me up with Zaycon Foods. I’d never heard of them before, but after visiting their website, I was definitely interested in their company. Their goal is to provide fresh meat, fruit, and milk to families all over the country, and all local to your location. The milk side of the company is new, so I was given 4 gallons for free in return for my honest review.

The milk was free, but I was not compensated in any other way for my time or pressured to write a positive review. All words are my own, unless otherwise noted.

Here are the pertinent details on the milk (I received the information from Arah, the Zaycon rep I’m working with, but I’m retyping it in my own words).

First, it comes from a small, family-owned farm in Spokane, Washington. They produce a completely natural milk for their customers – no added hormones, GMOs, or vitamins (there are plenty of vitamins, but they all come straight from the cow, nothing added later). The milk comes from a Holstein herd as opposed to the traditional Jersey of “factory farms.” Holsteins have a better cream balance in their milk, providing a creamier product for us, the consumers – with less processing. The milk from Spokane Family Farms is pasteurized, but never homogenized. Before doing this review, I’d heard of homogenization, but had no idea what it actually meant. Basically, homogenization is what most commercial dairies do to the milk in order to assure consistency from batch to batch. So, you’re going to get the same product no matter which gallon you grab from the cooler, but it’s not milk in its natural form. The non-homogenized milk from Zaycon is as close to raw milk as you can get while still meeting state guidelines for the sale of milk commercially.

What did my family think of this “newfangled” milk? We loved it. It was so much creamier than what you get from the store, even the “red cap” (whole) milk. When we first picked up our gallons, I had grand ideas of making yogurt (which I’ve never done!) and other crazy things with the milk. But that didn’t happen. We just used it the same way we always use milk: in a glass, in recipes (normal ones, not yogurt, lol), or on cereal. My favorite recipe I made was a soup I invented – a cross between chicken noodle and Olive Garden’s Zuppa Tuscana. I’ll have to remember to share the recipe sometime soon. When our sample was nearly gone, I bought a gallon of whole milk from the store so that I would have something to compare against the Zaycon (usually we buy non-fat or 2%). But honestly, there was no comparison. There was a visible difference in the glasses between the two milks. You know how when you’re used to drinking 2% or whole and you switch to non-fat, the NF looks almost blue? Well, the whole milk from the grocery store looked like non-fat compared to the Zaycon milk. No joke. The taste difference can be compared using the same analogy. Even whole milk felt thin and lifeless compared to the milk I got from Zaycon.

So, how do you get your hands on some of this awesome milk? First, go to Zaycon’s website. Sign up for a free account, and from there you can place an order. Once you’ve placed your order, you just go to whichever pickup location you’ve selected and the driver loads your car for you. You don’t even have to unload your kids or get out of the car at all. Talk about convenient! And the driver at the pickup location we went to was super nice and very helpful. My hubby had questions about the product, and Brandon was awesome at answering them and putting his mind at ease. Oh, and Zaycon doesn’t just offer milk. Like I mentioned in the introduction, they have lots of different meats, too. I haven’t tried the meat, but I’ve heard that it’s much tastier than the grocery store stuff. Way cheaper, too – they have chicken breasts for $1.89/pound right now. The only catch is that you have to buy 40 pounds at a time.

Let me be up front at the cost of the milk. If you’re used to buying your milk from the grocery store, it’ll probably be a bit of a sticker shock at first. The base price for Zaycon milk is $5.99 a gallon and there’s a 2-gallon minimum order. But like many things, the more you buy, the more you save. For example, if you buy 12 gallons (picked up two at a time, six times), you save 25 cents a gallon. If you buy 48 gallons (picked up four at a time, twelve times), you save a dollar a gallon. And there are several different options between.

The bottom line is this: If you can afford the higher price, I totally recommend switching to the milk from Spokane Family Farms and Zaycon Foods. The quality is unlike anything I’ve experienced. At least try the 2-gallon, one time pickup and make an informed decision. And if you do, let me know what you think!

Blessings,

Wendy

SchoolhouseTeachers.com {Review}

Posted by Wendy on December 16, 2013 3 Comments

Welcome to my first official review for the Schoolhouse Review Crew! I was given a yearly membership option to SchoolhouseTeachers.com in order to write a review on the site. I can sum up my feelings about the site in one word: amazing. But that’s not a review, so let me go over some of the many wonderful things you’ll find there.

I’ve spent most of my time in the “Pre-K/Elementary” tab, simply because that’s how old my kids are. There’s so much information there that so far I’ve barely been able to scratch the surface. Take a look at all the topics:

We’ve already used the French lessons. I’ve really loved having a lesson plan. I know the basics of the language, but not necessarily how to teach it. The printouts (for teaching the lesson and worksheets for the kids) are wonderful. We’ve done the first two lessons so far: the French alphabet and accent marks. Some of the things in the later lessons (counting, primarily) are things I’ve already taught them, so we’ll breeze through those more quickly than we have thus far. I just love knowing that they’re getting the foundation they need for the language.

The Science tab is also pretty cool. There are YouTube videos from Jason Lindsey explaining some of the basics of why things are (or happen) the way they are (or do). There’s a new video up each week, and they’re designed to be hands-on experiments that you can do with your kids with things you have around the house. This week’s video answers “why do cranberries pop when you boil them?”

For the parent who wants to homeschool but is completely unsure where to begin, SchoolhouseTeachers.com has a “Dailies” tab that will give you a straight up, daily lesson in each subject. No (well, very little) planning needed. Just go to the site and print. Easy.

There are topics in the “dailies” category ranging from copywork (which Munchkin is working on right behind me as I type this post) and math to spelling, art, and even tests if you want to go that route with your kiddos.

I think my favorite thing (that I’ve found so far) on the site is the planners that are included absolutely free with your paid membership. There are 5 of them, and you can download, modify, and print them to fit your teaching style/homeschool situation. There’s the basic planner for moms; a planner for parents of special needs kids; and student planners for elementary, middle, and high school kids. All I’ve had time to look at thus far is the elementary student planner, but it’s absolutely wonderful. It includes not only the planner pages (calendars), but also articles specifically geared toward the kids and pages of “important lists” – things like the planets in order and a times table.

You can start your very own membership at SchoolhouseTeachers.com for only $3. That’s right – $3 buys you your first month of full access to the site. If you like it, you can continue your membership for the low monthly price of $12.95. Based on the amount of content on the site, and the fact that not only is updated regularly but the back lessons are archived for access later, $12.95 a month is a real bargain. But it gets better. Buy a full year all at once and you’ll save 10%, bringing the price to $139. And during the month of December, if you sign up for the annual price, you’re locked in at that rate, and you get an additional membership to gift to a friend. Believe me, any mom with school-age kids would be super blessed by this gift! Oh, and one more thing: the price, whether monthly or yearly, covers the whole family. There’s no hidden “additional kid” fee.

Keep in mind, too, that just because my review focused primarily on the elementary part of the site, that’s not all there is. There’s something there for every age range from toddlers through teens. Perfect for any family!

I’m not the only one reviewing this site this week. Head on over to the Schoolhouse Review Crew to find even more opinions on the site before you buy in. It’s always best not to rely on just one person’s opinion, after all.

Happy learning!

–Wendy

Homeschool Curriculum Review: Spelling You See

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Homeschool Curriculum Review: Mango Languages

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Product Review: Egglo Entertainment

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Homeschool Curriculum Review: Science4Us.com

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Zaycon Milk {a review}

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SchoolhouseTeachers.com {Review}

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