Premium Subscription from LightSail for Homeschoolers: A TOS Crew Review

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew

Premium Subscription  from LightSail for Homeschoolers

Premium Subscription 

from LightSail for Homeschoolers is an online subscription to help build 

reading, writing, vocabulary, and fluency skills for grades PreK-12.

LightSail for Homeschoolers Library gives you access to over:

• 12,000 books - including 3,500 classics and many faith-based titles 

• Over 50,000 World Book Encyclopedia Articles with Maps, Atlases & Timelines

• Lerner Sports Encyclopedia

• Audio Books - over 13,000 titles including - standard audiobooks, audiobooks with text highlighting by word, and audiobooks with text highlighting by sentence

• 360 degree Images

• Videos

• Augmented Reality

• Livestreams 

It's truly a complete digital library that you can access anytime (with no overdue fees!) In addition, this program is designed specifically for homeschoolers with lessons in reading, writing, vocabulary, and fluency skills built in.

The ability to track reading minutes, use bookmarks, highlight quotations, and create memory lists are just a few more nifty features designed with homeschooling in mind.

Students are given an assessment as they begin to accurately determine their Lexile reading level.  This helps determine the books and assignments.  "Power Texts" are at the student's reading level, and are the tool for helping increase reading, writing, vocabulary, and fluency skills with educational features like fill-in-the-blank assessments to check reading comprehension, a full dictionary, read-aloud ability, related content while tracking reading minutes and offering incentives.

All student reading is overseen through the parental control features that let parents monitor and control content, assessments, media, features, chats, and more.

We are HUGE book lovers and were excited to see what LightSail has to offer.  With multiple children using this program, it was easy to find tons of great content, they can even read the same titles, and participate in a family chat or answer challenge questions.

Since we do love a good book with actual pages to turn, while cuddled up together, and my kiddos are all proficient readers - we focused mainly on all the great ways to use Lightsail, other than tracking reading minutes and building literacy skills, which this program is great at with an adaptive platform that customizes to your child's reading level! 

They have an entire library of interesting things to discover.  Like the World Book maps and timelines to go with our history studies.

The 360 degree images that really wowed us - visiting the Sistine Chapel or the inside of the airplane cockpit!

The Lightsail library is interconnected, so frequently related images, books, and articles are just a click away.

Their Video section is jam-packed too!  You can check out videos from a wide range of subjects, but our favorite has to be the Ted Ed talks...or maybe the Livestreams...

Who doesn't love a good Unit Study to spice things up?  Lightsail has over 150 to choose from - fully integrated with books, encyclopedia articles, videos, or any other multimedia content designed by homeschool moms, for homeschool moms.

The Library collections are impressive, you can pick from dozens of genres and thousands of titles.  Handy search features help you find books customized to your child's reading level as well.  I appreciate that they also have faith-based titles and an impressive collection of classics (especially after seeing some of the "Most Popular" reads... making me thankful for the ability to control the reading material options for my children!)

There is SO MUCH to this program, I feel like we will be unpacking all the treasures for a good time to come.  Best of all... it's easy to take on the go with you.  

Find LightSail for Homeschoolers on Social Media:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LightSailEd
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lightsailed/

Hashtags: #hsreviews #homeschool #homeschooling #reading #ebooks #edtech #elearning

See what other members of the Crew thought here

                  

Vocabulary Virtuoso: Mastering Middle School Vocabulary from The Critical Thinking Co.™: A TOS Crew Review

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew

Vocabulary Virtuoso: Mastering Middle School Vocabulary from The Critical Thinking Co.™

Vocabulary Virtuoso: Mastering Middle School Vocabulary is a great tool for helping your middle school student expand their vocabulary!

We were delighted to get a chance to give another product from a family favorite The Critical Thinking Co.™ a try. We got the eBook version - just a quick warning - it doesn't work on Max IOS yet, but we are have both Mac and PC at home so we were able to access.

Once you purchase and register your eBook, you can print all the pages you want, which is a handy feature for multiple students.

Vocabulary skills are proven for success in many areas and this book will introduce your 6-8th graders to 180 new words and their meanings, as well as, the context for use. The words are selected from PSAT (Preliminary SAT–a great primer for the SAT)  and are real-life words they can use.

The 15 Vocabulary lists each include 12 words with:

• definitions
• pronunciation keys
• parts of speech
• alternate choices for each word made up of synonyms, idioms, and/or phrases

Each of the 15 Vocabulary Lists each have 6 exercises to complete, using the new words.  Students complete fill-in-the-blank style exercises, word scrambles, writing sentences and other exercises that help put the vocabulary words into practice.

In addition, the lessons teach other related language arts skills of:

• critical reading and writing
• alliteration
• idioms
• fallacies in reasoning
• foreign words and phrases
• mythology
• journalistic writing

In our coop, we are are focusing on communication skills by adding new vocabulary words to our conversation.  This was a wonderful resource to get her started!

The eBook format is a great option for working on this book - you can pick and choose your vocabulary lists and print them as needed to work with your schedule.  We plan to work on lists on and off throughout the year to keep building our vocabulary skills and putting them into practice!

Check out some of the other great products the Review Crew is using:

• Building Thinking Skills® Beginning 2
• Tell Me a Story
• Science Mind Benders®: Animals
• Science Vocabulary Crossword Puzzles 
• Understanding Fractions

Find The Critical Thinking Co.™ on Social Media:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheCriticalThinkingCo
Twitter: https://twitter.com/criticalthinks
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thecriticalthinkingco/
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/criticalthinks/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsVEVNa6UpVqXxo_t5sbb7Q

Hashtags: #hsreviews #thecriticalthinkingco #criticalthinking #athomelearning #homeschooling #criticalthinkingskills

See what other members of the Crew thought here 

                      

Failure Free Reading Home Edition: A TOS Crew Review

Disclosure: I received this product free through the Homeschool Review Crew

Failure Free Reading Home Edition

Everyone can use help polishing their reading skills. We have been taking a look at the 

Failure Free Reading Home Edition.

This is an online program designed to help struggling readers master those vital reading skills with a new and varied approach based in brain research. The focus of this program is to help build the neural pathways needed for reading skills via a non-phonics based approach.  If you are one of the many families that has students that struggle with phonics, this may be a great fit for you. 

I was intrigued by science behind the program and had 4 of my testers give it a try.  Quick note, all of my students have mastered phonics and reading skills, one of the things I like about this program is that it offers benefits for all readers, not just struggling readers. 

 It's a fairly easy-to-use program that begins with a single login and individual placement tests for each student to determine their level.

My students all scored well above their grade level for this program, so we can't really speak to it's efficiency in helping struggling readers, but - we can show you how it was helpful for building vocabulary skills.

Once their level has been determined by the placement test, each student can begin the "Instruct" portion of the program with the option of self-paced, computer guided lessons (the option we used) or a more scripted teacher directed path. A combination of both online and teacher assisted lessons are the recommended path.

The lessons are grouped into levels, clusters and units. Each include online lessons and downloadable instruction materials - 

Illustrated Reader

Student Workbook

Teacher Manual

The Online lessons include guided audio instruction and are designed to take about 20-30 minutes of independent work for the student to complete.  Lessons begin with a short video definition of vocabulary words, there are 5 new words in each unit for a total of 30 new vocabulary words in each level.

The lessons focus on learning the meaning of the vocabulary, with a variety of activities like identifying synonyms, fill in the blank, spelling exercises, using the word in proper context and matching exercises.  

Vocabulary skills are frequently strong determiners of success on standardized tests like the ACT and SAT.  My high school level testers found this program a great tool to help practice and learn new vocabulary and my middle school testers used this program to help refine their vocabulary and spelling skills. It's a rare program that can truly meet the needs of all levels, and Failure Free Reading Home Edition passed our test with flying colors.

The online lessons were engaging with variety and easy to complete, plus the program allows me to see reports of each student's progress to pinpoint what they are working on.

Overall, we found this to be a well-designed program and a fun way to practice reading skills at all levels!

Find Failure Free Reading Home Edition on Social Media:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FailureFreeReading/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/thereadingdr
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/failurefreereading
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/FailureFreeReading

Hashtags: #hsreviews #FailureFreeReading

See what other members of the Crew thought here

Critical Thinking Detective: Vocabulary from The Critical Thinking Co.™: A TOS Crew Review

Critical Thinking Detective: Vocabulary from The Critical Thinking Co.™

One of the most important skills to teach our children is how to think critically!  One of our favorite companies- The Critical Thinking Co.™ has a full catalog of great books and programs to help you.  We have been using  Critical Thinking Detective: Vocabulary to help increase our vocabulary while giving our critical thinking skills a workout!

This book, available in downloadable ebook or softcover,  is designed for grades 5- 12+ (I promise...it's fun for adults too!).  We choose the physical book.

Did you know that a robust vocabulary is one of the best predictors of success on the ACT and SAT tests?  Helping boost vocabulary can have a huge impact on future opportunities.  This book makes learning upper level vocabulary fun.

This book works on increasing vocabulary by solving short mysteries. There are 12 mysteries to solve in this edition.  Each "case" to solve features around 20-25 vocabulary words that either "implicate or exonerate" the subjects.

Your job is to use your best thinking skills and vocabulary knowledge to read, analyze and solve each of the mysteries.

Each case also includes a second activity that allows you to practice using your new vocabulary in a new context, outside of the mystery.  This is done with a word list and fill-in-the-blank questions using the vocabulary.

My testers and I loved reading the mysteries together and working to solve them.  Mysteries are one of our favorites!  With words like cogent, superfluous, and senescent in our first mystery - we knew we would need to keep a dictionary handy if we wanted to solve the case.

Not only did we learn new words, but we got to give our dictionary skills a workout.  We learned synonyms and antonyms too.

This is a fun way to get our day started, and "warm up" our thinking skills.  My husband loves them as well - and has even taken them to work for his team meetings!

The book includes answers (but, don't look...unless you get completely stumped).  Each vocabulary word is listed in the answers with the definition.  You can use this area to check on their comprehension later.

I reward my students writing when they use new vocabulary - this is a great way to introduce them to new words.

I am a huge fan of Critical Thinking Company, and many of their products are staples at Bentz Academy.  This is a fun one you do not want to miss!

They have two great offers for you - get Free Critical Thinking Puzzles!A $75 Value! Delivered weekly to your inbox. Choose PreK – Grade 8. Sign Up Now!

and

 Free Shipping and 15% off any size order!! Use Coupon Code: TOSCREW18. This expires 12/31/2018

Other members of the Crew reviewed different products - be sure to check them out!

• Understanding Pre-Algebra
• Critical Thinking Detective Book 1 
• Something Fishy at Lake Iwannafisha
• Dare to Compare Level 1
• Vocabulary Riddles Book 1

Find The Critical Thinking Co.™ on Social Media:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheCriticalThinkingCo
Google+: https://plus.google.com/+TheCriticalThinkingCo
Twitter: https://twitter.com/criticalthinks
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/criticalthinks/

Hashtags; #TheCriticalThinkingCo, #HSReviews

See what other members of the Crew thought here

WordBuild: Elements, Level 1 Set (Includes WordBuild the Game) from Dynamic Literacy: A TOS Crew Review

   

WordBuild: Elements, Level 1 Set (Includes WordBuild the Game) from Dynamic Literacy

 

 

 

 

WordBuild: Elements, Level 1 Set from Dynamic Literacy  - 6th-10th grades (or 7th-12th for remedial work) is a vocabulary program that teaches 25 Latin and Greek Root morphemes (parts of words) that help your children learn how words are built with prefixes, roots, and suffixes.  You can peek at a sample online here. 

 

prefix + root + suffix = WORD

 

The Student Activity Book is broken down into weekly units. Each week is broken down into a five day plan. The program is intended to be used just 15 minutes a day - 5 days per week, for an entire school year of learning.

The Teacher Manual is a necessary component of this user friendly program.  It is filled with all the teaching tools you need, answers, fun facts, checkups (aka... quizzes) and discussion points.

 

The WordBuild the Game CD game contains 209 roots and 18,000 words and allows your student the ability to play games, learn and create words!

 

The Bentz Test Laboratory chose our 7th grader  for this review.  In the past, we have used vocabulary programs that introduce lists of words and depend on rote memorization through several exercises, often out of context.  WordBuild: Elements, Level 1 Set from Dynamic Literacy is an entirely different approach - and we LOVE it!

 

Each week a new morpheme is introduced.    This program is not an independent study.  The teacher must introduce the information.  But, don't worry!  It's not a teacher intensive study either.  The Teacher Manual is very well designed.  It tells you what you need to know, gives you fun facts to share, shows how this word is used with cross-curricular examples and offers plenty of tips.  You can go online to their website to get information on how to differentiate your teaching for multiple ages as well.
 

 

The exercises are short, but effective. Instead of rote memorization, they learn how words are put together, and the meaning of each part.  This allows them the ability to conquer new vocabulary by breaking down the parts they do know.  Why haven't we done this before?

Each week's lesson follows the same pattern.  My tester enjoyed the Root Square activity the best - seeing how may words she could create with the morphemes.  The Magic Square activity adds a little math twist (not her favorite).  Stair Steps is a great visual of how the prefixes and suffixes can make new words.  Comprehension Boosters allows these new words to be used in context.  And of course, you can do Check-Ups to see what they remember.

 

 

The WordBuild Game is a fun way to reinforce the learning.  In fact, all my testers are using this to compete against each other.  It works on PC or Mac (Windows 98 or higher and Mac OS X) and can support up to 99 players.  So, mom and dad can get it on it too!  You can set timers to see how many words you can create with prefixes, roots and suffixes.  You can customize the background music with anything from Vivaldi to Hip Hop.   If you try to build words that are not "words" the program stops you.   It's so much more fun than completing workbook exercises.

This is a much more effective way to master vocabulary, and it's way more enjoyable.  I am a convert... no more word lists!  Instead, we plan to focus on learning the building blocks of vocabulary.  With these tools, they will be able to decode the meaning of any word. 

JUST FOR YOU!  - Use discount code momofmany at www.dynamichomeschool.com for 25% off the books or at www.wordbuildonline.com for 10% off.

Other members of the Crew reviewed WordBuild: Foundations, Level 1 - 2rd-5th grades (or 5th-9th for remedial work) and WordBuildOnline.  Be sure to check these out!
 

   

Find Dynamic Literacy on Social Media:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Dynamic-Literacy/77106927761?ref=hl     
Twitter: https://twitter.com/dynamicliteracy       
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/dynamicliteracy/

 

 

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