Home School Product Reviews

Here’s how we play Buzzword.
We sit in the family room and take turns reading the cards while everyone guesses from the clues. It’s super fun and casual and that’s exactly the type of game we need when we are too tired to play a table game with the kids. They love it and so do we. We have lots of laughs and giggles. You will be surprised when your kids guess answers you didn’t know they knew! Supper funny.

We are looking forward to playing the original way with guests, but so far like our way, just as well, for casual family time. I’m glad we have this game in our collection and it will be what I grab for when we have guests.

BOB Books

While we borrowed some of these from our local library, our kids liked them so much that we eventually bought three sets.   Our second child needed a little more phonics reinforcement and these did the trick and were fun at the same time.  I’d highly recommend them.

Kumon Workbooks

Quite good

I have found the Kumon series of workbooks to be useful for all of my children who have used them.  The books dealing with fine motor skills are excellent; some of the pages can be done by young children with practically no assistance (such as in the cutting, tracing, and maze books), while others need a bit of direction from a sibling or parent (such as folding and crafts).  I have mixed feelings about some of the math skills workbooks:  The money workbooks are quite good and have some variety in the pages, but I think the time books are somewhat tedious and aren’t as effective.  The number workbooks have some pages that involve a lot of writing which my children found boring and tiresome, but are still useful overall.

The Global Puzzle

A great tool for our four boys ages 6 – 13

This has been a great tool for our four boys ages 6 – 13. They spent hours working on it and have memorized many countries that were new to them. They have all been asking to get it out again. Some pieces are very small so we had to watch the toddler and baby and also be very careful to pick any pieces that fall so we won’t lose them.

Reading To Learn Series

They make GREAT gifts!!

This series of Mennonite readers is wonderful!!  Plenty of challenging words in an interesting format means both my daughter and I, as her teacher, were satisfied.  I have bought several books in this series, and will continue to do so!!!  They also make GREAT gifts!

Sequential Spelling

We have used Sequential Spelling now for 18 months and I cannot say enough things about how much improvement I have seen in my son’s spelling.  He is dyslexic and spelling has always been so difficult for him.  Not anymore!  His writing used to be full of errors, now there are very few.

But the best part is that he now enjoys spelling and considers himself to be a “pretty good speller” since starting this program.  Definitely 5 stars from this family!

The following is a guest review from faithfamilyandfun.com.

Some days, I am an amazing, inspired mom. And the kids all get along and play intense strategy games with educational value while working together around the beautiful coffee table I gave them for games and eating brownies…

Ok, So there were no brownies, only pretzels. And, ever since I put an adorable coffee table downstairs for them, they want to play on the floor.

But, still, the kids all got together to play the Settlers of America Trails to Rails, from the Catan history series.

I asked them to help me review the game…but I did have a secret plan…a plan to find a game that was difficult enough to hold their attention, yet fun…and one where they would not fight…you know, the trifecta.

I definitely hit the mark on finding a game that would challenge the kids. And the X Box stayed silent. I think kids really like board games deep down, sometimes where they don’t even know it.

This game has…game. Seriously. To begin, just take a look at the pieces:

• 120 railroad tracks (in 4 colors)
• 48 cities (in 4 colors)
• 8 train engines (in 4 colors)
• 8 settlers wagon (in 4 colors)
• 1 outlaw
• 40 goods cubes (in 4 colors)
• 40+ die-cut gold coins (in 1 and 5 denominations)
• 4 building cost overview charts
• 1 map board
• 2 dice
• 12 die-cut number tokens
• 95 resource cards
• 24 development cards
• 1 rulebook

And you will need the rulebook for the first games. I liked the quality and artwork of the board and cards and the wooden pieces. Our little one liked them, too. I liked that she was able to get some ideas about the settling of America while just hanging out with her brothers.

So, we began by getting all the pieces together and checking out all the resource cards. The game action is set in the 19^th century and the players are in on the quest for westward expansion. This educational game is the latest in the Catan History Series, and just one of the many educational games Timberdoodle carries.

As play progresses, players collect and trade resources in order to build settlements, acquire locomotives and railroad routes, then race with other players to deliver the most goods.

I did especially like that the players have to work together during each turn. While ultimately there is one winner, the game had a feel that everyone was working towards a common goal. (I love that!) There was a lot of trading and building going on.

You know, I did not get this game specifically to “go” with a homeschool curriculum. I was looking for a game that had a good storyline…a theme…and wasn’t too easy.

The fact that the game could also be used to reinforce or to introduce American History and the concept of westward expansion, well that is just icing on the cake.

Overall, I think this is a good game. It is difficult, I believe. The game lasts about 2 hours and requires 3-4 players. It is marked for ages 12+ and I agree with that…although we did have one 5 year old playing.

She enjoyed all the playing pieces and really got into the resource cards. I think she learned a bit. I have no idea why her hair looked like she was from the Netherlands somewhere back in time.

I think the kids will be playing again soon…we even added a player towards the end…

The list price is $54.95, but it is on sale right now at $44.95. Also, I have not played any Catan games before and this one has me curious to go look at the others. For families, this would be one to play with your kids. Like I mentioned, it is not easy the first time, but is fun and worth learning how to play.

Check out Timberdoodle’s homeschool vodcast for all kinds of educational ideas for your kids. I really like their games and other homeschool curriculum and homeschool supplies.

As a member of Timberdoodle’s Blogger Review Team I received a free copy of Settlers of America in exchange for a frank and unbiased review.

This is an excellent science kit for young ones. I liked how durable and unbreakable the test tubes were. The experiments were fun and most of them have quick reactions, which makes them exciting. I love that they give you enough materials to do the experiments over and over. This has been played with for many hours at my house.

This a guest review from the blog My Life on a Taffy Pull

Settlers of America-Review

Excellent product with a couple of small downsides

I used A Reason for Writing during this past school year for my sons, ages 6 and 8. I loved the concept of the Bible verses. I loved that the lessons were brief. My boys have a short attention span. I was using book A for my 6yo and book B for my 8yo. I saw no difference in difficulty or verse length between the two books. In the end I think both of my boys have good handwriting and I won’t have either of them go through another printing workbook. They were helpful, but one was enough. My boys didn’t get the border sheets. I tried to inspire them, but they just wanted to do the writing and be done, not color the page and share it. This is a personality thing. My daughter, who is 4, will eat that concept up in a year or two. So keep your child’s personality in mind. Lastly, the pages are hard to tear out. When you tear our their special paper for them to do their Very Best Work on and it RIPS, it’s frustrating. Be very careful tearing out your border sheets.