Homeschooling Resources: Great Courses for Everyone in the Family

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We have been homeschooling for about three years now but we have never attended a homeschool convention. I had been so excited earlier this year because we had decided to go to a Homeschooling Convention. I was looking forward to speaking with vendors, previewing new homeschooling products, and getting a swag bag of homeschool convention goodies. Unfortunately, conventions have been cancelled or postponed. There are great deals still to be found – including an exciting tote bag of gifts from a variety of homeschooling and educational companies that accompanies a great sale.

One of my favorite resources for teaching my children is SchoolhouseTeachers.com. I became a member several years ago when I was writing lessons for their curriculum site. I then became a member of the Homeschool Review Crew where our family receives homeschooling products in exchange for our honest opinions and reviews. From that time to today, we have enjoyed using many courses at SchoolhouseTeachers.com. I love the fact that there are courses for our kindergartner, soon-to-be second grader, and our son in high school. There are even courses for parents such as Building Faithful Marriages and Heritage Crafts.

One of the courses designed for preschoolers through high school students is Schoolhouse Spelling. Our two youngest are currently taking Schoolhouse Spelling. With the multiple levels, all your children can complete the course together. There are lists for preschool, lower elementary, upper elementary, middle school, and high school, as well as the option to use lists that are either phonics-based or Charlotte Mason-based.

Our second grader is taking Hands-On Notebooking: The United States in which he is learning about each of the 50 states through reading and researching. He has read about Helen Keller, Lon Chaney, and Martin Luther King, Jr. and completed biography pages as well as completed several projects during the course's study.

While studying California, our son experimented with different types of paper to build bridges.

The Old Schoolhouse® 19 Gifts Sale is a great chance to receive access to SchoolhouseTeachers.com as well as 19 awesome gifts. They teamed up with over a dozen homeschooling and family-friendly companies to provide NEW SchoolhouseTeachers.com members with 19 gifts (available while supplies last) when they purchase the Ultimate (PreK–12) Annual Membership this May with the code 19GIFTS to lock in the annual price of only $139 (reg. $224.97). (This is a non-refundable rate and available in the US only.)

There are so many great gifts included. If you purchase your Ultimate Annual Membership before June 1 you will lock in the annual price of only $139 (reg. $224.97) and receive $527.71 worth of gifts from IEW, Writing with Sharon Watson, The Brinkman Adventures, Chess House, Learn to Play Publishers, and more!

I would like to highlight a few that would fit in with our family's homeschooling year. For example, Learn & Color Books is offering a printable PDF of Color Thru History™ – The People of Early Civilization which features 30 historical figures from early history like Abraham, Hammurabi, and Hatshepsut. Our children enjoy coloring and love history, so this is a perfect combination! I could also see us using 100 Women Composers Through the Ages to introduce the study of music into our homeschool. And, finally, our family would enjoy listening to the audio dramas being offered by Brinkman Adventures as we sit outside and enjoy the beautiful weather.

If you are thinking about purchasing an Ultimate (PreK-12th) Annual Membership to SchoolhouseTeachers.com, now is the perfect time! Use the code 19GIFTS for the gifts and discount.

#19GIFTS

Art for the Whole Family: A Review of Beyond the Stick Figure Art School

Disclaimer: I received a FREE copy of this product through the HOMESCHOOL REVIEW CREW in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way.

For the past several weeks our family has been working through the Beyond the Stick Figure Complete Drawing Course PLUS 3 Bonus Courses together. These courses are offered by Beyond the Stick Figure Art School and can be by everyone in your household. It is designed to be used as a daily program for the homeschool year but we have been working on different parts in a quicker fashion as fits our needs and homeschool style. With over 60 lessons, we can incorporate art into almost every day of our homeschooling week.  

What is Beyond the Stick Figure Art School? 

Working on the premise that famous artists use techniques and skills that they have learned and practiced, your family will learn the very basics of drawing that they then can take with them into more artwork. The person behind Beyond the Stick Figure is Sally who is from England (so expect an English accent while you are learning your art!). She homeschools her children and wants to share her passion for art with other homeschooling families. 

What Are the Courses? 

There are four courses that we have access to for the review: 

• The Beyond the Stick Figure Complete Drawing Course 
• The Complete Pen & Ink and Watercolor Course
• Introduction to Acrylic Course 
• Introduction to 3D Design Course 

The courses focus on techniques that you can use to develop your drawing skills using various materials. In the first drawing course, the short videos are sometimes accompanied with PDFs to download for drawing, tracing, and practice.

There is a list of materials that you will need to purchase before you begin creating your art that is now available before you start looking at any lessons. You can then view specific videos within the courses that show and discuss the necessary materials. (For example, Acrylic Part 2 Materials, you can view the video that shows the paintbrushes, paints, and other items you will need to create a beautiful brown and white lake scene.)

We had to pick and choose which supplies to purchase for the review of Beyond the Stick Figure courses. As our teenager was going to be working on the painting portion of the course with me, we spent the money we allocated to the course on those supplies. In the future, we will purchase the marker set but with the current state of things we were unable to purchase them. We also had to substitute a few other things (like picking a different color paint) due to being able to go to the craft stores and online supplies being limited. (Personally, I don't think using a different color for our watercolor painting was too detrimental.)

The picture was supposed to be drawn with a black fine point sharpie marker but I couldn't find ours anywhere in the house!

How are the courses set up? When you log into the site, you will see that you need to go through each lesson and watch the videos and then mark them as complete. You cannot skip ahead to the further courses (I went through and marked the courses as complete so we can do the different drawing and painting lessons. This was a bit time-consuming.)

Here you can see the parts of the course are listed to the left side of the screen.
There are a couple of ways to navigate once you have checked off courses as completed. 

But beyond getting the materials you need ready (purchasing or printing out documents) and have accessing to the lessons online, Beyond the Stick Figure Art School can be very easy for homeschooling parents. There is no need to write out lessons or spend time doing the teaching yourself. The instructions are provided in each video.

How Are We Using the Courses in Our Homeschool? 

Our younger children and I are working on the beginning Drawing Courses. There are three parts to the Drawing Course which focuses on the basics of drawing. Our children have been drawing straight lines, curved lines, circles, and dots. They then took those skills and worked on drawing abstract pictures and flowers.

I really like that the children work on 8 x 11.5 papers cut into fourths. It makes it a lot easier to provide them with page after page for drawing as well as being less intimidating, as is talked about in the lessons. (You aren't staring at a huge drawing page that you have to fill.)

For many of the beginning lessons, our children worked on mastering drawing lines and shapes.

There were also some parts in the early lessons of the Drawing course where children practiced dots, circles, straight lines, and curved lines. We printed out the pages for our younger son to complete included pages that examined primary and secondary colors.

I watched and completed the first Pen & Ink drawing myself. I plan on working on the second one from Part 2 but I need to purchase tracing paper prior to completing the tree scene. I also went through and watched the Introduction to Acrylic Course videos.

I am really looking forward to completing this painting. I just need the tracing paper!

I am looking forward to painting with acrylics. 

At the end of each course, there is a rubric that you can download so you can determine how well you think you did during the course. The rubric focuses upon self-reflection. So, if your children are younger, you may want to complete it with them.

Our teen and I sat down to complete the watercolor course together. As we did not have access to the recommended gray color paint, we each choose a different color to create our small painting. I think I will have fun practicing this painting more and more to get the technique and details to my liking.

What Are We Looking Forward To?

Our teen son and I are looking forward to working with acrylics. This part of the course is in three parts. We have about half of the supplies we need but with the current state of affairs, it has been difficult to get all the materials suggested or needed. I have gone through and watched them. I can't wait till I can start to practice painting a lovely sky, a mountain scene using brown and white, and another lovely countryside scene.

The final course, which we have not started, is on 3D Design. There are three parts to this course. I think our children will enjoy working on this part as they will get to create an animal.

There are a few things that I feel could make the online courses even better that mostly deal with navigation. I wish that the lessons were labeled with more detail. As in Watercolor Part 1, Day 9: Foreground. It would make it easier to navigate back to lessons when taking a break. And while I understand the skills taught in the courses are meant to build upon each other but it is difficult when one child wants to work on art while another is more interesting in painting. We had to go through and click complete on parts of the courses we actually had not finished yet. Perhaps each course could be individual rather than be grouped together.   

The lessons are full of some great advice – including a video just for moms (or dads) that encourages us as parents to not crush the spirit of our children when they are going through the lessons. Another piece of advice I enjoyed hearing was that of not squeezing the paintbrushes in the paper towel. Never thought anything of doing that till watching the videos at Beyond the Stick Figure. I really think everything is presented in a very clear manner to help those who are not used to drawing or working with the different types of paint or clay used in the courses. If you are looking for a beginners course to help you or your children get started as artists, Beyond the Stick Figure Art School will be a great resource for your homeschool.

Do You Want to Learn More?

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There were many families who had the chance to review the Beyond the Stick Figure Art School courses. Be sure to check out the Homeschool Review Crew reviews!

Back to School: Homeschool Style: What is New to Our Homeschool?

It is always exciting to start on a new journey. We are at the start of our homeschooling life; so pretty much everything we are using is new to our homeschool.

I am excited this year to really dig into SchoolhouseTeachers.com for our teenager. We hope to use the following courses:

• American Literature in Historical Context
• Addressing Cultural Issues 
• General Biology by Core Academy
• Geometry with Mr. D. Math 

I have started printing out lesson plans for those courses that have them and the necessary documents. I have also bookmarked the courses for our teen so he will be able to easily find them online.  

American Literature in Historical Context 

One of the things I was incorporating into my AP US History course as a teacher was more literature and primary sources. I think it is very important not to study history (or literature) in isolation. Therefore, I think this will be a very interesting course for both our teen and myself. 

During American Literature in Historical Context we will be taking a look at American literature from pre-colonial times through the present day by reading such authors as 

• Washington Irving 
• Edgar Allan Poe 
• Louisa May Alcott 
• Mark Twain 
• Ray Bradbury 
• and others 

Addressing Cultural Issues 

I hope to incorporate a few shorter courses that will help our teen be able to navigate the world with a Biblical perspective. Addressing Cultural Issues is a course with 6 hours of video and several worksheets to help fuel discussions. Three of the videos are available through RightNow Media with no expiration date but three of the six videos are licenced from Day of Discovery with an expiration of August 2019. There are few courses where parents and students are notified upfront that the material is under licence. 

One of the reasons why I wanted to use this course is because as the course description states: "traditional biblical values are not only rejected, but it seems as if they're attacked on every front." How can we, as Christians, handle ourselves in today's world? I am hoping this course will help us answer some of the many questions that we find ourselves asking each day. 

General Biology by Core Academy 

As biology is the typical 10th grade science course for students in our state, I chose General Biology by Core Academy to serve as our course. It is a general high school biology course covering human biology, ecology, zoology, botany, microbiology, cell biology, genetics, and origins over the course of 32 weeks. There are over 25 hours of video instruction along with reading assignments, notes, worksheets, vocabulary, and quizzes. 

I like that General Biology is divided into two semesters and multiple units. This will make it very easy to schedule our time. 

Geometry with Mr. D Math 

Last year our teen attended public school and took Algebra I. The recommended next course for math is Geometry so we decided to use Geometry with Mr. D Math. It is a full-year course with twelve chapters of video-based instruction, tests, semester exams, and answer keys. Some of the topics covered include: points, lines, planes and angles, triangles, area and perimeter, and circles – to name a few. 

While our teen has struggled at times in his math courses in the past, I am hopeful that since we will be able to move at his pace – work towards his own mastery of information – that he will succeed more easily. I think he may find that homeschooling will help him achieve more mathematically. 

We look forward to using SchoolhouseTeachers.com for both our teen and five-year-old as we embark on our homeschooling journey. 

If you have a moment and are looking to find new curriculum, ideas for field trips, or other homeschooling tips, please visit a member or two of the Homeschool Review Crew! 

Christine Howard – The Simple Homemaker – Schoolin' Swag – Footprints in the Butter –Homeschool Review – Homeschool 4 Life –  A Stable Beginning – Thou Shall Not Whine –  A Glimpse of Our Life

Crafts: G is for Green Grass

This post contains affiliate links. For more information please see my Terms of Use and Disclosure Policy page. Thank you.

While talking about letters, we create a very simple craft this spring. 

Materials 

• Glue sticks
• white construction paper 
• green construction paper or green tissue paper 
• scissors 

Steps 

1. Gather all your materials. 

2. Trace the letter G onto a piece of paper or print out the letter G from an online worksheet. I wrote the following poem on their page: Green Grass Grows in the Garden. 

3. Cut out pieces of tissue paper or construction paper to glue onto the letter G for the grass. 

4. Glue on the pieces of tissue paper or construction paper onto the letter G. 

5. Display the completed project! 

Do you have an older child who is interested in plants? Why not check out SchoolhouseTeachers.com's Botany Course? 

And the great thing is Botany is not just for students planning on a career in science. The topics covered are perfect for a student interested in gardening as a hobby or those who wish to supplement the family food supply with a vegetable garden. The course itself can be completed in 16 weeks. Students are introduced to individuals like Gregor Mendel, Carl Linneaus, and George Washington Carver as well as being taught about plants can be used as medicine and how plants defend themselves. There are also two unit tests to aid your student in assessing their mastery of the knowledge. 

If you are looking for a great opportunity for your family, why not become a member of SchoolhouseTeachers.com and get access to over 400 courses, like Botany, for your children.

I linked up with the following blog(s):

  

Reviewing Drive Thru History Adventures - A Fantastic Homeschool History Curriculum

  

We love history in our household. So, we were very excited to review Drive thru History Adventures, which offers curriculum for three courses – Ancient History, American History, and The Gospels. We focused upon Bible History Adventures, an 18-part series on the Gospels introducing children and families to the life of Jesus.

Each set of curriculum contains a half-hour program that transports viewers to locations around the world as they learn about the topic of that episode. The episode is accompanied by readings, sometimes another brief video, and a discussion worksheet with questions and answers to further the conversation.

Using the Adventures TV app on my phone, I was able to stream some episodes of The Gospels for us to watch together as a family in the living room. This was great because it meant that not only was my 15-year-old teen viewing the episode but so were my 2- and  and 4-year-olds. We were able to discuss the episodes together as a family. Additionally, closed-captioning is now available for The Gospels series after viewers requested it. This is great for hearing-impaired viewers. It also makes it easier to view with small children (who like to provide their own commentary!).

As a new member to Drive Thru History Adventures, Dave Stotts welcomes you in several emails and videos to help you on your journey.  There are eight videos to help you get started that introduce you to the curriculum, Dashboard, community, and the Adventures TV app.  Receiving each email a day or so apart was great for me because I didn’t feel overwhelmed that all the information was given to me at once.  It was all available for you to dive right in from the minute to become a member but if you need to take things one step at a time, these reminders were great to introduce you to the key features available as part of the membership.

We were all blown away by the very first episode of the Bible History Adventures. The introduction of The Gospels (The Historical Landscape) is very impressive.  Dave Stotts walking by famous individuals of history is a memorable image.

After watching each episode in the Bible History Adventures, students are presented with discussion questions along with images, paintings, maps, scripture readings, and additional readings and videos from scholars and others. In the Dig Deeper section accompanying the second episode – The Announcements, for example, there is a brief video about Roman coins which uses the American penny with Abraham Lincoln depicted on it to introduce the idea of learning from coins. Episode 6, Jesus Returns to Galilee, is accompanied by scripture readings from all four Gospels, and several articles and a video discussing the geography of the area in the Dig Deeper section. Articles are posted on a regular basis, adding new content to the Adventures you are studying.

One of my family’s favorite parts of our membership is the community that is fostered through the private Facebook group for members, regular email updates from Dave Stotts, YouTube videos, Instagram posts, and other social media avenues. We love the weekly updates and the holiday-themed videos. We have watched the brief holiday videos – like that on Groundhog Day and Valentine’s Day – at the start of dinner. These videos then give something for the whole family to discuss together – from the 2-year-old to my husband and me. The welcoming community atmosphere of Drive Thru History Adventures makes you feel like you personally know Stotts and his family as he provides updates through emails and the Facebook group.

I asked my 15-year-old stepson what helped bring home the message of The Gospels. He said, “I think (Dave) actually being where the Bible took place helped, like at Herod’s palace. Being there gave you a sense of how grand it was.”

I also asked him what he thought of the host, Dave Stotts. He said, “Dave Stotts is quite the character. He is charismatic and awkward at times but in a good way.” I would agree with this sentiment. Stotts is down to earth while sharing his passion for history. In each episode, it is evident that Stotts is “passionate about history” as he said in a recent update video.

What we loved about Drive Thru History Adventures:

• Ease use of the Adventures TV app – for both my teenage son and myself: it remembers your viewing progress in each episode
• Images used to illustrate the events in each of The Gospels episodes – they were one of the first things my teenage son mentioned after he started following the Bible History Curriculum
• Videos that are uploaded to their YouTube channel are available within their Drive Thru History Adventures website so we don’t have to go to YouTube directly – and thus avoid the distractions of other non-related videos
• Inclusion of discussion questions and an answer key for parents
• Article and video supplements
• Updating via new articles and resources
• The community atmosphere
• The presentation of the scripture readings side-by-side on the website made it very easy-to-read. As an example, reading about John the Baptist this way in each of the four Gospels was interesting. Your children can still use your preferred translation by simply changing it at the top of the embedded Biblia.com application.
• In the concluding episode of The Gospels, “Who Is Jesus,” each prophecy that Jesus fulfilled is stated, along with the scriptural reference appearing on the screen. Accompanying archeological evidence is also provided.

My stepson summarizes the series for us:

“The host, Dave Stotts, takes you through the history of the Gospels using Bible verses as he explores such places as Nazareth and Galilee.”

Included with the subscription to Drive Thru HistoryAdventures are two other curriculums that we will be checking out when we complete the Bible History Curriculum – American History and Ancient History Curriculums.

In the American History Curriculum, your child will watch a series of 12 episodes and explore the history of America from Columbus to the Constitution. Through viewing the episodes and reading primary source documents like the Mayflower Compact and George Washington’s First Inaugural Address (which are available to both read online and to download and print), your child will learn about the Christian worldview, courage, and character. 

Through the 12 adventures in the Ancient History Curriculum, your child will learn about the empires of Greece, Rome, and Asia Minor, read excerpts from Herodotus’ Histories, Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, the Bible, and other works. By the end of the 12-week adventure, your child will have learned about the role of the ancient empires in the rise of Christianity and Western Civilization.

Subscribers to Drive Thru History Adventures also have new programs to look forward to in the summer of 2018. That is when the new Acts to Revelations Series is planned for release. The series will have eighteen 30-minute episodes and curriculum materials to accompany it. Stotts also said they have many other ideas in pre-production. So, we have more to look forward to in the coming months and years!

My family wholeheartedly recommends a Drive Thru History Adventures subscription because you gain access to so many valuable resources including the videos, curriculum, and a growing community.

Preschool: Learning through Art

This post contains affiliate links. For more information please see my Terms of Use and Disclosure Policy page. Thank you.

One of my children's favorite activities during the day is when we color, draw, or paint. After giving them a copy of a book which includes paintings by the Impressionist artist Claude Monet, I decided we could venture beyond just the basic arts and crafts that we had been doing.  So in addition to the crafts we have continued using together, I have started using Learning About Art from SchoolhouseTeachers.com.

There are a series of 10 lessons that focus upon such artists as John James Audubon, Albert Bierstadt, Grant Wood, and Franz Marc.  Included in each lesson are instructions for drawing simple designs, animals, and such with your children.  I admit I really like that the steps are laid out because I do not consider myself a great artist.

The first lesson is A is for Audubon.

We talked about the artist John James Audubon and several of the birds he painted including flamingos, crows, and bald eagles, as well as the letter A.

My four year-old son and I drew one of the birds in the lesson together. This is one of the reasons why I really like the course Learning About Art: there are step-by-step guides to drawing pictures. 

 On another day, we painted flamingos after reviewing about how to make the color pink.

I think my daughter's favorite part was mixing the paint. 

I simply searched for pictures of flamingos to print out for them to paint. If they were a bit older, I would have asked them to draw their own pictures to paint.

In addition to the material provided by the author of the course, Sharon Jeffus, we picked out some books from the library to extend our lessons.

The next lesson is B is for Bierstadt, Buffalo, Bears, and Butterflies.

We talked about landscape paintings and looked at some images of the Rocky Mountains (both paintings and photographs). Following along with the lesson, we talked about and drew different buildings, including a tepee.

 We used my daughter's new Kwik Stix to paint our tepee pictures.  (They work really great for fast projects. I discuss them more in my Painting with Kwik Stix blog.)

As part of the second lesson, we also drew a buffalo and butterflies.



To extend our lesson of butterflies, we read See How They Grow: Butterfly and created our own life cycle of a butterfly craft.

One of my favorite parts of these courses from SchoolhouseTeachers.com is that I can extend them with more materials and information when my children show interest. And one of my favorite things about art is that you can combine it with so many other subjects like mathematics, history, science, and language arts.

I linked up with the following blog(s):