Review: KBTeachers

Recently I was selected to review the PDF worksheets available by subscription to KBTeachers' website.  Now I have to confess upfront that we're not really a worksheet using family--with only one student I don't need them to occupy his time while I work with another child.  I have however looked through the available material to share with others that do like to use worksheets.  Actually, you can see all the material yourself.  You just have to look at it with a giant KBT watermark in the foreground.

One of the  largest  categories is  Math Activities.  You can start off your youngest learners  with sheets to practice counting images then progress to worksheet generators for the basic four math functions.  Supplemental studies are available for counting money and telling time. 

A second category that can grow with your student is English Language.  The basic sheets provide printing practice for each letter and the sheet is covered with images of objects whose names begin with that letter.   Cursive letter practice would be the next level of skills.  Older students can find worksheets on homonyms, synonyms,  nouns and verbs.

Other categories include Science, Biology (I'm not sure why this is separated from other science) and Social Studies.  The worksheets in these areas are definitely written from a secular world view.  The astronomy pages cover the Big Bang, though not by name.   The Dinosaur worksheets reference Cretaceous period, etc.--another way of refering to millions of years.    The pages available for Thanksgiving show cartoonish turkeys, pilgrims and indians for posters, mazes and stickers.  There is no actual teaching about the origins of Thanksgiving or that the one we are thanking is Almighty God.There is actually very little American history available--5 sub-topics geared at 7th and 8th graders.  The one test one the causes for the Civil War boils it down to slavery being the only issue. 

The website is getting ready to undergo an overhaul before the end of the year.  I'm assuming this will mean more content available.  The material will be based on standards set by several national teacher councils so I doubt that the Christian worldview will be represented in whatever is added.

A one year subscription is $29.00 and grants you permission to print and download an unlimited number of worksheets.  This just isn't a fit for our family cost-wise or worldview-wise.   You may go to their website and get a 10 day free trial to see if you think it a worthy investment for your family.

You can read what my fellow Homeschool Crewmates thought of KBTeachers subscription website by clicking here.

Disclaimer: I received a free 2-year subscription to KBTeachers.com for the purposes of completing this review.  I received no other compensation.

Review: Corp of Re-Discovery

One of Fritz's favorite annual field trips is to visit Lewis & Clark days in St. Charles, Missouri.  Their journey to explore the newly purchases Louisiana territory and search for a water route to the Pacific ocean covered many future states, but we Missourians like to think of them as our own.  Their trip started and ended here.  Clark was governor of the Missouri territory and is buried here.   A homeschooling family from southwest Missouri obviously shares that pride by naming their business The Corps of Re-Discovery.  Their products allows children make their own leather goods and pioneer crafts.  Fritz received a Tomahawk kit for our review.

 

This kit retails for $7.99 and includes a wooden handle, a leather "blade", lacing, and assembly instructions.  

 

 We used our  permanent markers to decorate the handle  but you could also use paint.

 

The instructions suggest wetting the leather and using a tack hammer to apply texture to the edges of the "blade," giving it the appearance of  a chipped flint rock.  This hammer came from Fritz's handyman helper tool kit.

Here's the finished product.  I tried to leave it large enough so you could see the texturing.  Total decorating and assembly time took less than 20 minutes (your child may take more care in the decorating portion of the project).  We did allow a little drying time for the leather blade.  I assumed it might have swollen slightly and drying in the slot would have left it loosened.  Fritz, now eight, did everything except tying the cording without my help.  The blade, being leather, will not cut anything so it should be safe for all children.  That doesn't mean it won't hurt if you hit yourself in the noggin with it (vigorous product testing discovered this fact).

We're going to see the Lewis & Clark re-enactors again in Hermann, Missouri next month and I'm sure this tomahawk will be taken along for the ride.  Other projects available from the Corp of Rediscovery include: leather headbands, vests, moccasins,  cornhusk and clothespin dolls, weaving kits, and quill pens.  Older children may consider flint and steel fire starters and actual throwing tomahawks and knives.  You can check out the entire catalog online at The Corp of Re-Discovery.  Also follow them on Facebook as they announce special coupons and discounts. 

You can see what fellow Homeschool Crewmates thinks of their Corp of Re-Discovery products by clicking here.

Disclaimer: I received a free Tomahawk kit for the purposes of completing this review.  I received no other compensation for my honest opinions.

Orienteering: Meramec State Park

An new month means a new orienteering meet and at the largest venue so far--Meramec State Park.  Once again there was a MOJO (Missouri Junior Orienteers) training before the main event.  Today's lesson was on contour lines on the map.  It's easy to tell where the terrain is steep because the lines are closer together.  We also got some clues how to tell which way is uphill and which is down.  The easiest clue is to search for water--on our map the obvious water was the Meramec river.  Closer examination revealed the think blue lines marking creeks emptying into the river.  Since water travels down, we knew the creeks represented the low points on the map and heading toward creeks would be downhill.  Contour lines that form small circles or ovals probably represent the tops of hills, at least in Missouri that's a good probability. 

There were two training exercises this morning as well.  In the first, ten maps were placed on a picnic table, each marked with only the starting point and one control.  The kids were allowed to study the maps as long as needed, but they had to leave the maps on the table and find the controls based on their memory.  This reinforced last month's lesson on using catching features and handrails to hone in on the target area.   Schnickelfritz found a few on his own and then asked me to accompany him as the controls  were further away from our picnic table base.  I wasn't much help in finding the day-glo colored pieces of tape.  At one point we knew the control was located on a switchback on the trail but I started looking one whole turn too soon.  Fritz kept going on the trail and found the control tied around a small sapling.  He also spent the rest of the morning saying "I told you so," to his Mama.

The next exercise was a line course.  The map had a very specific path drawn in red, but no contols were marked.  If the path showed we were supposed to leave the trail and walk around a boulder then we might find a control that wasn't visible before.  We weren't told where the controls were or how many to find.  As we found them we had to remember the letter written on the tape and where they were located (I wished I had brought a pen with me).  As it was we had to walk the path, watch for pink tape, and repeat over and over the letters from the controls we had found and a description of where they were located.  Control M or W was on a boulder, control B was at the base of a impassible rock face, control T was near a man-made object, etc. 

Then it was time to gather for the main event.  The 70 degree weather had brought out a lot of new faces--there were at least two Boy Scout troops and members of the St. Louis Adventurers club.  There were grandparents and families with toddlers in backpacks.  Registration and marking controls on the maps took over an hour.   There were five courses to choose from:  white being the shortest and easiest and the others being longer, more change in elevation, more deviations from marked trails, etc.  We chose the yellow level,  still a beginner course but slightly longer.

Up til now all the events we had attended had a set time limit in which to find as many controls as possible.  Today we  only had nine controls to locate and the winner would be determined by the shortest time.  The teams and individuals took off at two minute intervals from the starting point.  Right away I knew we could gain on our competition because the Boy Scouts just in front of us veered way off course to the left and they were all walking.  When Fritz and I got the signal we trotted (since this was one of the few areas of open ground) to the right and immediately found our first control.  More importantly, we reached the trail head before the troop.

At control #3 we met three boys catching their breath--another group of scouts.  These boys had to have left at least four minutes before us and as Fritz and I started down the trail, they realized we had passed them.  One did ask politely if we were going to be walking of running.  When I answered "Walking" they asked to pass us as they wanted to run.  Their strategy misfired because when we reached Control #4, they were still there catching their breath again.   While Fritz descended into the pit to punch our control card, the boys sprinted down the trail to gain some ground on us again.  This was unfortunate; had they consulted their map they would have realized that the course left the trail here and cut through the woods, crossed a stream, and went to the base of a rock face on the other side.  I don't know if the boys realized their error on their own or heard Fritz and I crunching leaves and twigs first but soon they were on our tail again.  We reached the rock face together and were enjoying a sip from the water jugs left there when the boys heard the other part of their troop walking on the the trail.  They were determined to stay out of sight from these boys lest they give them a clue where the next control was hidden.  We decided to travel together down the creek-bed, which was almost entirely dry.  One boy did manage to slip and get his pants wet.

We continued together to the eighth control--at the mouth of a cave.  Fritz wanted to explore the cave, but I pointed out this was a timed race.  With one control to go, any alliance was broken.  One Scout said he knew where the last control was and the three older boys headed toward the river.  He may have seen a control but he failed to remember that there were five courses going on at once and it might not be a control for our yellow course.  Fritz and I consulted the map again and ran along the roadside to found  Control #9 on a ledge five feet off the ground.  I boosted him up to punch our card.  As I prepared to help him down the three boys arrived--again they were following us, not their map.  I knew we were going to have the briefest of leads.  Fritz and I sprinted towards the finish line 250 meters away.   I handed him the control card and told him to run ahead.  I have to give him credit--he looked behind twice to see the older boy gaining, but he never gave up and ran all the way to the outreaching hand of the scorer.   We finished the course in 34 minutes.

Birthday Party

I should have known I was worried for nothing.  These kids know how to entertain themselves.  The hits of the party were the two leaf piles on either side of the yard.  Someone found a yellow baseball which they would chuck in the leaves and then there would be a mad scramble to retreive it.  We also ended up having to search for a size 3 boot at one point--a little tougher since it was brown and blended in so well.  Toolman put the yardcard on the lawn tractor and was giving little rides through our woods for the younger kids.

Birthday Party Plans

This Friday my Schnickelfritz turns eight years old and we're planning a birthday party/cookout to celebrate with some other homeschooling families.  I have to confess I feel myself getting caught up with the notion that I must be entertaining rather than  showing hospitality to our guests.   We'll have hot dogs and marshmallows to roast over the fire.  Fritz wants one of those giant cupcakes made in a silicone mold he's seen on TV (we found the mold at a hardware store for 1/4 of the television price).  I'm also making a pineapple upside-down cake in our 14 inch dutch oven. 

My main concern is what the kids will do.  They range in age from 12 down to 3.  Most are homeschooled (and the parents are staying), so I'm not too worried about a riot breaking out if they're not entertained every minute.  These are the simple ideas I've come up with.

• An Orienteering Course--this is Fritz's favorite activity right now.  We got out the compass and plotted a course to various trees and objects around our three acres.   I'll give a quick lesson in how to get a bearing and determine distances.


• A Scavenger Hunt--I've got a list of common objects in our yard--different species of oak leaves, rocks, sticks that look like letters of the alphabet.  I've got posters from the Dept. of Conservation to help the kids determine which tree is which.


• A Squirrel game--I've been saving plastic juice bottles to make bird feeders for our Flying Creatures' curriculum.  For now, the kids will act like squirrels preparing for winter by gathering acorns and depositing them in the bottles.  The first team to get their bottle full wins.  I figure even the 3 year old can participate in this game. 

 Thankfully, it looks like we'll have decent weather for Saturday.   If all else fails the kids can play in the giant leaf pile we've raked to the back of the property.  I still have memories of forts and hide and seek in the leaves.

What's Cookin

All summer long I've been doing my best to avoid the kitchen--fruit smoothies, cold sandwiches, etc.  The last thing I wanted to do on a hot, humid day was spend time making my kitchen hotter.  Although we've still had warmer than average temperatures, a cool breeze and falling leaves always motivates me to cook.  Maybe it's some built in instinct to stock up for winter or maybe it's the thought of  hearty soups and stews to warm me up from the inside out. 

A fellow homeschool mom gave me to boxes full of apples at Spanish co-op this week.  They weren't in the best of shape--a lot of bad spots to cut out.  I reasoned that just proved the apples weren't saturated with pesticides , as close to organic as I could come and free!  I always wanted to learn how to can.  I picked up a Squeezo strainer on ebay and all the pint jars on clearance at Tractor Supply over Labor Day weekend.  I cut up and cooked the apples.  Schnickelfritz, still intrigued by the machine from our pear butter experiment, lent a hand at turning the crank at pressing the fruit down.  My 10 quart stockpot only held 5 pints so I had to process two batches.  But we ended up with 9 pints of practically organic, sugar-free apple sauce.

Second,  I received an email about an e-course in freezer cooking by Shelley from One Roast Vegetable.  This is something I've dabbled in from time to time.  I'm the first to admit that our homeschool day goes SOOO much better when I know dinner is already taken care of.    Shelley has seven lessons online so far.  She has started with some experiments on what is really freezable or not--dairy, vegetables, and fruits.  I'd rather learn from her trial and error than ruin my own food in experimenting.  And the course is free, free free!  You can sign up yourself at Fresh From the Freezer.

A second e-course (and really a third) was shared by a fellow Homeschool Crew member.  She's friends with Wardeh Harmon, who espouses "God's Natural, Organic, Whole Foods, Grown Locally, In Season," hence the website GNOWFGLINS.com.  The course is like the lab work for the book Nourishing Traditions.   I'm learning the traditional ways to prepare grains, beans, and dairy foods to make their nutrients more bio-available.  This week I learned how to soak brown rice to eliminate the phytic acid that binds to the calcium, magnesium, and iron in the grain and prevents their absorption.  Wardeh provides lists of ingredients and equipment,  mp3 lectures about each topic, a whole binder-full of notes and recipes, and best of all for my learning style--videos of the step-by-step procedures.   There is a second course available on this site that is strictly to learn how to use sourdough in creating breads, pizzas, tortillas, etc.  The two courses are NOT free, but they are made available on a pay as you go/pay what you feel it's worth system (please don't take advantage of Wardeh's generosity by downloading everything without any compensation).

Review: PGKey

Most homeschoolers will agree that to some degree their decision to keep their children at home is to protect them from the violence and sexuality so pervasive in the world today.  And yet, we often leave major gaps in our armor by allowing that world in through television, popular music, and the internet.  Recently I received a product to review designed to help boost our defenses in the last category.  The PGKey SafeKey, which  looks like a thumb drive, touts "Protection for Your Children. Peace of Mind for You." 

According to the packaging PGKey includes:

• SafeKey Session Recorder


• SafeKey Encryptor


• Safe Key Safe Search


• SafeKey Time Lock


• SafeKey Alerts

You simply plug the PGKey into an empty USB port, the software loads automatically, you select a password for yourself as administrator and set up user ID's for the children you want to monitor.  When you go online you can customize the system by either blocking certain websites or only allowing access to a list of specific websites.  You can set  time limits  for computer usage and you can set up alerts if you child types certain words or phrases.  When I set up accounts for myself as administrator and my son as a user, the program automatically set us up as separate users when we start up Windows.  For myself, I had to type in a password at start up.  My son had no password but the computer would lock up unless the PGKey was plugged in--not just for internet access but any computer usage.   Now let's go through those features one by one:

Session Recorder--Most of the space on the PGKey is set aside to record screenshots at intervals of time you set.  As administrator you can then view the screenshots as a slideshow.  This is not just internet time, but any time used by the child ( I got to see a lot of solitaire games).  When the key fills up (60 hours worth)  it should discard the oldest data to make room for the new information.  I don't know if that actually occurs because my son is not allowed that much computer time.  I do know that when I first installed the PGKey, I would get a "write stream error."  The technician discovered that a dummy file they use to test capacity had not been removed from my key before shipping.  It would not record any screenshots until the dummy file had been removed.

Encryptor--The PGKey  relies on a parents password to disable its use, change blocked sites and alert words, and allow additional usage time once the limit has been reached.  If the key has been removed or someone tries to "hack" it, the information will be recorded.

Safe Search--The PGKey changed our default search engine to its own Google based Safe Search.  We use Google anyway, but this new version only allows for web searches not video, images, books, etc.   Of course you can always go to the search engine's website and use it rather than using the one on your menu bar.

Time Lock--I tested this by setting the limit to 10 minutes.  The feature worked perfectly--after ten minutes (not all internet time) a window popped up saying the limit had been reached.  The was a place for me to type in my password giving Fritz an additional 10 minutes of time.

Alerts --  To test this feature I set up an alert any time the phrase "Mississippi River" was typed.  When I put the phrase in the search engine I got an email alert within the hour.  Not satisfied with that (and assuming some teens will spend a lot of time and energy devising ways around the system), I typed in "river near St. Louis."  I used one of the phrase words and received a list of sites and images with the phrase "Mississippi River" in their titles and texts, but no email alert.  As a parent, you'll have to spend a lot of time inputting phrases and individual words if your goal to know when your kids are delving into forbidden areas.  NOTE: the keywords do not deny access to information, they just trigger an alert to the administrator.

The final feature I tested was blocking websites.  The online tool indicates that any website I list will be in addition to a list kept by PGKey (I'm assuming they've researched the seedier sites I don't even want to know about).  I chose a benign little site--Ultimate Disney, that provides information on Disney movies and DVDs.  When I typed in the address I was redirected to their main host site that has a completely different address (DVDizzy.com) and the site was not blocked.  I set up a new blocked site (Amazon.com) and this time the blocking worked.

Since my Schnickelfritz is so young and has such limited computer usage anyway, I think the best use for us at this time is to just allow access to a short list of sites.   As he gets older, we may take advantage of other features.  The PGKey is more of a reminder that "Mom is watching" than a real shield against filthy language and inappropriate images and videos.

The PGKey retails for $49.99.  Once it's purchased there are no continuing fees but you will need  to purchase separate keys for each computer in your house.  On their website  you can request a free trial (it doesn't say how long the trial period is).  You can see what my fellow Crewmates thought of the PGKey by clicking here.

Disclaimer: I received one free PGKey for the purposes of completing this review.  I received no other compensation for my honest opinion.