TOS Review: Crossbow

 

 

Our most recent review product came from Crossbow Education. We received their set of Reading Rulers. 

I had heard about these types of color overlays in the past and wanted to give them a try. My son is dyslexic and supposedly they are beneficial for dyslexia and vision issues.

In my opinion dyslexia and visual weaknesses are two separate issues. My son doesn’t have any visual weaknesses, to my knowledge. But, being a mom who would do anything to help her son read better, I wanted to give these a try.We used them a few times but, they seemed to distract him more than anything so we had to set them aside. I really wish they had worked better for his reading issues but they just didn’t. I believe these would work well for a child or adult who had eye teaming or visual strain issues but not necessarily for the child with dyslexia.

If you feel that your child may have trouble focusing or suffer from eye strain, perhaps these could work wonders for him. They come in a pack of ten different colors and, according to their website, their purpose is to reduce page glare and dancing or blurring text.

They are made of hard plastic and offer a narrow window at the top or a wider window at the bottom. The narrow window would help the older child or adult who is reading books with smaller print while the wider window works with larger print.

The cost for all 10 rulers is $16.95 or you can choose a pack of 5 for $9.95. They come in the following colors: pink, celery, sky, magenta, grass, yellow, aqua, purple, orange, and jade.

In addition to the Reading Rulers, Crossbow also has a selection of other learning aids such as Phonics Games and Junior Learning Products. Also on their website you can try their Virtual Color Overlay for free.

If you’d like to see what other members of the Crew thought of this product, you can read more reviews on this Schoolhouse Review Post.

 

**Disclaimer: As a member of the TOS Homeschool Crew, I received this product free of charge, in exchange for my honest opinion/review. All opinions are mine. For more honest reviews from real homeschoolers, visit the Schoolhouse Review Crew website.

Molly Crew Review: Everyday Homemaking

The Schoolhouse Review Crew has a new review team known as the Molly Crew. As a part of this crew I will be trying out products that aren’t necessarily home school related, but rather home life related. Want to learn more? Visit this Molly Blog post.

The first product I was given to review was from Everyday Homemaking. They offered our crew two items to choose from, both were books. The Everyday Family Chore System (spiral bound 19.99) or Everyday Cooking (spiral bound 100pages, 17.99 or eBook 14.99) or you can purchase both for $34.98 (this is a sale so I’m not sure how long they’ll offer this price). There are samples on the website so you can check it out before you buy (I ALWAYS take advantage of the samples), there are even some sample recipes!

 

I chose Everyday Cooking. I love cookbooks, probably because I struggle to find something my kids will eat. My husband and my children are simple eaters. They like meat and potatoes. They don’t care for any veggies and they absolutely hate casseroles. They prefer to have their food not touching so it’s best not to “throw everything in a dish and pop it in the oven.” I feel like I cook the same 7-8 meals all the time, over and over. They like it that way, I don’t. I like trying new things, but since it’s 5 of them and only 1 of me, it doesn’t usually go over well when I try. Therefore I always welcome a new cookbook to help me find something to add to my repertoire. Everyday Cooking did not disappoint.

Everyday Cooking is more than a cookbook. I would describe it as a cooking manual. There are lots of instructions on things other than just cooking. Such as, shopping, storing food, and multi-tasking in the kitchen. Things that you would teach your daughter (or son) as she works alongside you in the kitchen. Some examples are: how to cook beans by soaking them overnight and how to cook them if you forgot to soak, ideas on freezing meat to make it easy to pull it out of the freezer and have it ready for the meal, substitutions when you don’t have what you need, lots of breakfast ideas to give you a healthy breakfast with little effort, and much more.

I found a couple recipes that were easy and my family actually liked (Porcupine Meatballs was one) but what I liked most about the book wasn’t the recipes. It was the tips. There are hundreds of tips scattered throughout the book that teach you things that, if you grew up in the kitchen you probably already know. But if you didn’t grow up in the kitchen, these are basic how to’s that will make your cooking experience so much better. I loved those tips!!

The one thing I didn’t like about this book was the tips! Didn’t I just say that's what I loved about this book? Yelp! It was a love hate kind of thing. What I didn’t like about the tips was, they weren’t listed in the index. As I stated before, there are tips scattered throughout the book and they’re usually placed close to a particular recipe where they are most applicable. That’s great. But I had a hard time finding some of the tips later. I’m probably being picky but, I encountered this problem several times. When I first got the book I started reading through it and later when I was ready to cook and wanted to go back and find something I had read, I couldn’t. It was hard to find it because the tips are just scattered here and there. I think they need to be listed in the index so we can find them more easily when we’re not looking at the recipe they’re dealing with. I will say this, they have them in a shaded box so that did help me as I was scanning for a particular tip.

Okay so now you know how I felt about Everyday Cooking. If you want to see what others thought of it and Everyday Family Chore System visit the Crew's blog.

**Disclaimer: As a member of the TOS Homeschool Crew, I received this product free of charge, in exchange for my honest opinion/review. All opinions are mine. For more honest reviews from real homeschoolers, visit the Schoolhouse Review Crew website.

My Mom Voxbox Arrived!

 

With our school year being so hectic I chose to step down from TOS Crew this year so I could focus more on the subjects we enjoy and need to succeed in, without having to add in the review products (oh how I love some of those products. I will miss it).

So in an effort to fulfill my desire to try new products, I decided to join the Influenster team. I had no idea I would be chosen so quickly (I feel blessed), but I was and I received my very first Voxbox this week.

A little about Influenster, straight from their website:

What is an Influenster?

Community of trendsetters invited to share their lifestyles and show off their influence to qualify for personalized product shipments, special rewards and exclusive deals from the brands they love. Members love testing the latest products, giving insightful feedback, and spreading the word on their favorite finds!

If you’d like to know more or if you’re interested in registering, click here. Be sure to tell them mom244now sent you

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My Mom voxbox included:

Language Learning video

Stash Tea

Nektar Honey Crystals

Dentek for Kids

Dentek for Adults

Ivory Soap

Quaker Soft Baked Oatmeal Cookie

imPRESS nails

There were also a couple coupons included, that always makes me

So over the next few weeks Ill be trying this out and posting my opinion and reading to see what others thought of their items.

TOS Review: Go Science DVD

 

Go Science is a DVD  series with 6 volumes:

Volume 1: Motion & the Laws of Gravity

Volume 2: Simple Machines, Sound, Weather,

Volume 3: Magnetism, Electricity, Engineering, and Design

Volume 4: Chemistry, States of Matter, Life Sciences

Volume 5: Air, Flight

Volume 6: Water, Space, Solar System

These video’s are recommended for ages 6-14 years (see my opinion below) and last approximately 1 hour each. If you purchase from Library and Education’s website you can purchase them for $8.97 per video or you can purchase all 6 for $47.95 (this is a substantial savings off the original price of $14.95 per DVD and $79.95 for the set).

 Library and Education is a company I’ve used in the past and value greatly because of the wonderful savings they offer. They have tons of items at a fraction of the cost you’d pay from the original retailers.

The DVD’s that we received were Volume 3 and Volume 4. They were definitely fun videos to watch and required no parental involvement, unless we wanted to duplicate an experiment, which in this case my children never requested. The host of these video’s is Ben Roy and his goal is to teach teach the children about God through Science, in fact after each lesson he says “Every time we learn something about SCIENCE, we learn something about our CREATOR GOD!” 

The suggested age range for these video’s is 6-14 years old but I must say I think 4-10 years old would be more appropriate. My oldest son age 12 didn’t enjoy these at all. My 10 year old was a little more interested but still not truly engaged due to the childlike manner in which they were presented. If you notice the cover of the video, you’ll get an idea of what I mean. Everyone is dressed alike with this cheesy backdrop, almost like Captain Kangaroo from day’s gone by. It’s important to look past these things in order to get the meat offered in these videos. It was just a little harder for my older kids to do that. If you’re kids aren’t used to watching shows like Man, Woman, Wild (one of my kids favorite shows and a far cry from Go Science) then they may really love these. But for us, it was just slightly more juvenile than what they’re accustomed to at ages 10 and 12. My 5 & 6 year olds seemed to enjoy them a little more.

We used these DVD’s as a simple way to expose ALL of my children to some basic Science information. With the younger kids we typically learn Science by following our interests and just picking up facts here and there as we go. This fit in to that way of learning greatly. My expectations were not particularly high so I was not disappointed. The experiments Mr. Roy shared were very neat and he was wonderful at explaining the Science involved.

If you want to read more reviews for Go Science and Library Education, visit this TOS Blog Post.

**Disclaimer: As a member of the TOS Homeschool Crew, I received this product free of charge, in exchange for my honest opinion/review. All opinions are mine. For more honest reviews from real homeschoolers, visit the TOS Crew website.

TOS Review: Amazing Science

Science and Math.com sent us Volume 1 of their Amazing Science program. There are 23 science experiments that my boys found to be truly AMAZING. You have two options for purchasing the program: 1) You can download it for $17.99 or 2) You can receive the two DVD set for $19.95

The boys enjoyed all of the experiments they watched and they also tried many of them with no difficulty at all. I love that they were able to do most of them with little to no assistance from me (they actually allowed their younger brother and sister be their ‘assistants’). They were quite impressed with what they could do with ordinary items from our house. Our favorites so far are Lift an Ice Cube with a String, Matchstick Speedboat, and Cloud in a Bottle.

 

Jason Gibson is the Science teacher in these videos and he shows you step by step what to do and explains the science behind why it works. You can then do the experiment yourself if you wish, but it isn’t required. By watching the video you will have learned all you need to understand the science, but my kids weren’t happy with just watching, they wanted to actually do the experiment themselves. The video’s are pretty short, about 10-15 min each, as you can see from their demo HERE.

Science and Math.com also offers video’s for Basic Math, Algebra, Geometry, and Calculus as well as Chemistry and Physics.

I would suggest Amazing Science as a great supplement for any Science program and even a stand alone program for the younger children who really don’t require a lot of science instruction.

Visit Amazing Science and sign up for a free experiment delivered to your inbox. You can also find a list of all the experiments on these DVD’s.

If you would like to hear what other TOS Reviewers thought of Amazing Science please visit the blog here.

**Disclaimer: As a member of the TOS Homeschool Crew, I received this product free of charge, in exchange for my honest opinion/review. All opinions are mine. For more honest reviews from real homeschoolers, visit the TOS Crew website.

TOS Review: Write with World

  
As a member of The Old Schoolhouse Crew, my family was given an opportunity to review Write with World created by God’s World Publications, publishers of God’s World News and WORLD Magazine.
I was given year one of a two year program, it included a student manual and a teacher’s manual. The teacher’s manual was an exact copy of the student text with a side margin listing some extra details and hints. There are 16 Lessons (4 Units) and each lesson is broken into 5 sections (called Capsules) making it easy to complete a capsule per day usually. Here’s a Sample Lesson to give you a better idea.
This program was designed for middle schoolers but can actually be used with 6-9th graders. While Write with World is loosely linked with it’s magazines and can be used very well with either one or both of them, but according to the publishers, it is not necessary to have the magazines in order to use this program.

The publishers list several reasons for creating this program on their website, including the need for “Christian’s to be heard in this era of conflicting worldviews.” I found this very interesting because, just today I was talking with my son about how difficult it is to get the actual truth from any media outlet. Our family enjoyed a membership to two of the God’s World News magazines last year and I really enjoyed hearing current news from a Christian perspective. If we can get our children interested in writing, while teaching them current news, we’ll be accomplishing so much more than just preparing them to write well for college. Not only that, they will be equipped to discern what they are reading in all media outlets. I think it’s a wonderful idea and my son loves the program!
When I asked my 11 year old his thoughts on the program, this is what he had to say: “Write with World helps you see the potential of a story in everything around you. I really like it.”
He has been used to using a pretty complex writing program so this seemed like a breeze to him, I guess. My problem with it was, yes it was fun and interesting, but it didn’t translate well. In other words, I saw very little actual writing. Perhaps I wasn’t monitoring him closely enough or we didn’t get far enough in the program. Another problem I had was being able to easily glance at the book and know what was going on. It’s written in paragraph form so you really have to read to get the jest of the lesson. There isn’t a bullet list or a “What You Will Learn In Lesson _”  to give you an overview of what to expect. There is a “General Overview” and a “Detailed Overview” in the teachers manual, but even the ”General Overview” is just paragraphs. I need short and to the point.
These are just personal preferences and shouldn’t stop you from checking out this program. There are plenty of good things about Write with World that I hope will encourage you to give it a try such as, your child learning current events from a Christian perspective while applying these to writing. Also, unlike what I grew up with, the variety this course offers in each lesson is fun and keeps them interested. Write with World doesn’t toss out a thought/topic and expect your child to write a couple paragraphs about it, which is exactly how I was first introduced to writing, in 7th grade. We had a journal and the first 5-10 minutes of class we wrote about whatever topic the teacher had on the board. For example “This weekend I plan to…”  It was very dull and ineffective.
The cost of this program is $95 for one year or $165 for two years (you receive a teacher and student manual for each year). Also, Write with World is in the process of creating an online site that should be ready in September. This site will have 3 primary functions: 1) provide additional prompts and subject matter for the child to work with, 2) allow students to submit their writings for publication, and 3) offer a place for students and teachers to discuss what their learning and provide feedback to Write with World.
If you are interested in reading more reviews on Write with World, please check out this post.
**Disclaimer: As a member of the TOS Homeschool Crew, I received this product free of charge, in exchange for my honest opinion/review. All opinions are mine. For more honest reviews from real homeschoolers, visit the TOS Crew website.

Review: The Woodcarver DVD

I was blessed with a copy of The Woodcarver, a family friendly Christian film from Christian Cinema.com

ABOUT THE WOODCARVER (taking from the Christian Cinema site)

Matthew Stevenson is a troubled kid from a broken home. When he vandalizes the local church to get back at his parents, Matthew has to repair the damage to the church to avoid criminal charges. While working at the church, he meets Ernest, an accomplished wood carver who created the intricate woodwork decoration that Matthew destroyed. Ernest has become something of a hermit, but reluctantly comes out of reclusion to help repair the church. Now Ernest and Matthew must work together to preserve the church's beautiful antiquity, and along the way, they also manage to restore their faith in God and in life

You can purchase the DVD today for $10.92, just click here

Disclosure: I received one of the products mentioned above for free in the hope that I would mention it on my blog. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.  I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255

TOS Review: K-5 Learning

 

We’ve been using an online program as a supplement to my 4th grade son’s reading. It’s called K5 Learning and I was introduced to it through the the TOS Homeschool Crew.

K5 Learning isn’t an all inclusive program, it is meant to be a supplemental program that helps children who are struggling in the areas of reading, math, or spelling. It’s just a way to give them a little extra boost by helping them focus on the area(s) in which they’re struggling. Kind of like an afterschool tutor, only cheaper and more convenient. Since it’s web based it’s available whenever your child has the time or desire to spend working on it. Also, It’s fun, so they’ll enjoy it while learning, instead of just feeling like they’re doing more school!

The cost for K5 Learning is $25 monthly ($15 for each additional child) or $199 yearly ($129 each additional child). I would recommend that you take advantage of their 14 day trial just to see if this will benefit your child.

K5 offers four reading and math programs

K5 Reading covers phonemic awareness, phonics, sight words, vocabulary and reading comprehension

K5 Spelling is an advanced vocabulary program with a database of over 150,000 words

K5 Math aids student in learning math concepts in multiple areas  including time, money, algebra, data analysis, and geometry

K5 Math Facts uses mastery to help child retain all the important facts of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division

(All four of these are all included with your single subscription)

 

In my opinion this program is perfect for busy parents because it’s 100% independent and its safe. No chat, ads, or external links. My son worked with K5 Learning but not nearly as much as I would have liked. He is really working hard with reading these days and he felt like this was just more work. However, I’m not giving up on K5 Learning. I will still encourage him to log in and work as often as possible, especially on days that I can’t invest a full amount of work on his reading program. I think K5 is a good option for any child needing a little extra work in one of the above mentioned areas.

 

If you would like to see what other TOS Crew members thought of this program, click here.

**Disclaimer: As a member of the TOS Homeschool Crew, I received this product free of charge, in exchange for my honest opinion/review. For more honest reviews from real homeschoolers, visit the TOS Crew website.

TOS Review: All About Reading

 
Recently my family was lucky enough to be chosen to review two All About Learning  products: All About Reading  Level 1 and the Deluxe Reading Interactive Kit. These two products actually go together but the Deluxe kit isn’t necessary to complete the program. This is All About Learning's brand new program designed to help children, with or without reading struggles, learn to read easily and effectively. I used this program with my six year old son and my four year old daughter.

The Deluxe Reading Kit I received came with everything you see below.

I feel really blessed to have been given an opportunity to look over this program and try it out with my children for two reasons. First, we had just completed a pre-reading program that introduced the letter sounds, so the next obvious step for us would be to begin blending. Second, this program teaches the way I believe my children need to be taught, using multi-sensory methods that are straight to the point, with lots of review, and not overshadowed by flash and bling. You know what I mean by that, lots of distracting colors and busy worksheets that take away from the real task at hand, learning to read.
Learning to read is such a vital, yet difficult task for many children that, in my opinion, every program should be taught with the idea that the child learning, may not fit the cookie cutter mold. In other words, you may have a struggling reader on your hands and not know it until you’ve been using the typical phonics program, that only 80% of the students are able to learn to read with, for quite awhile. By then you’ve wasted valuable time with the child and, unfortunately,  you may have to go back to square one.
The All About Reading program uses all five of the key components of reading:

• Phonological Awareness
• Phonics and Decoding
• Fluency
• Vocabulary
• Comprehension

---> The Level 1 Kit is $99.95 and consists of a teacher’s manual, student packet and three hardback readers
--->The Interactive Reading Deluxe Kit for Level 1 is $48.95 and it includes the Letter Tiles and magnets, a cute Tote, Phonogram CD, Reading Divider Cards, Star Stickers, and Reading Review Box (**Note I love all the bells and whistles that come with a deluxe anything but if money is an issue, there are other options available besides this deluxe kit, such as the Basic Reading Interactive Kit  ($28.95) or getting just the Letter Tiles ($11.95). This program is worth the investment, but you don’t have to get everything).

Before you Begin

There is a little bit of time involved initially because you have to pop out all the cards and letters and even put magnet's on the backs (We purchased a magnetic dry erase board for $15 and we keep our letters on this board, this was the company’s recommendation). I did my prep work while watching TV and riding in the van so it wasn’t too bad. After that the prep work is basically over. You open the book and go each day. It’s laid out in a very easy to understand and follow plan. I LOVE that about this program!

How it’s Supposed to Work

The All About Reading Level 1  program has 49 lessons. The first two lessons are slightly different but after those are complete you will follow this basic 5 step plan:

1. Before You Begin: This is your prep work. Usually not much here to do.
2. Review: You review what you’ve taught thus far
3. New Teaching: Using the letter tiles, activity sheets, fluency exercises and/or reader you will teach the new concepts. (By lesson 5 your child will be reading out of their cool hardback reader, “Run Bug, Run!”) The activity sheets are kind of fun without being overwhelming. My kids enjoy the variety and we use them over and over for review purposes. (You can see a picture of one of these activities below “Feed the Monster”)
4. Read-Aloud Time: Spend 20 min reading to your child (So important! I love that they schedule this in!)
5. Track Your Progress: The easiest part, and my kids favorite part, adding a star to their progress chart for completing a lesson

  
    Feed the Monster

A cute review game that uses bones with words for the kids to read and ‘feed the monster’

 

The author of this program, Marie Rippel, suggests doing five short lessons each week. Let your child determine the length of the lesson. If after 10 minutes they seem to not be paying attention or showing much interest, find a good stopping point and end your lesson for the day. If your child is older you may want to do two 20 min sessions per day. Another idea, for little kids especially, is to set a timer for 15-20 minutes and get as much done as you can in that amount of time. Always begin your day with 2-3 minutes of reviewing their cards, then move on to where you left off.

 

Making it Work for Us

So that’s how it was designed to work and it really does work that way, but I thought I’d add more detail and share some of the changes I had to make to suite my kids.
If you notice in the top picture there is a yellow box, this is for storing the phonogram and word cards. Each day we review about 10 of these and once they can read the word or say the sound without hesitation, the card is moved to the mastered pile (we haven’t moved many of the words but they know their phonograms really well). The magnetic board is where the kids use the tiles to build words, this is part of the Orton-Gillingham method of using multisensory (sound, sight, and touch) tools to teach reading and spelling.
One of the main purposes of Orton-Gillingham or multi-sensory learning is to engage the three main pathways of learning, which are visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. In doing so the child is taught in the way they were created to learn best (whether it be visual, auditory, or kinesthetic) and they are more likely to retain what they learn when they learn it all three ways simultaneously.
Since the blending wasn’t really ‘clicking’ with my kids I sort of paused after a few lessons and worked on practicing our blending using the multi-sensory approach. This is what we are doing:
I will choose one of the words in their word stack and decide whether I want them to spell it or read it, then we follow these steps for each:
-For spelling a word I will say the word and have them repeat it after me. Then they will build the word by saying each sound and pulling down the corresponding letter tile. I then have them touch and say each letter sound and then blend the sounds to see if they spelled the correct word.
-For reading a word I will build the word with the tiles and have them touch each individual tile while saying it’s sound and then run their finger under the word and blend it together.
We also had M&M drills. They took turns drawing a card from their word stack and if they could read it correctly they received a reward

The reward for a correct answer…

This worked amazingly well!!!

As I stated earlier, the blending process has proven to be really difficult for my kids so we are just going at our own pace. I know some will be able to complete a lesson in one day (it’s definitely doable if your child can blend easily), but I didn’t think it was the best for us, so we decided to take several days for each lesson. I want blending to be easier for them before we continue adding more and more words for them to recognize. We already have a pretty hefty stack and they have to sound out each of these (with difficulty).
**Update: 5 days after writing this review I was working with my 6 yr. old son and as we worked through his fluency chart, he began sounding and blending almost effortlessly. He was able to correctly blend the majority of the words, phrases, and sentences on the page. This is the first time he’s been able to have a long reading lesson with no frustration (he is easily frustrated with anything that is the least bit challenging for him). This is truly amazing because we have dyslexia on both sides of our family and I have seen several early signs of it in him. Praise the Lord! This is more than wonderful! My 4 yr. old is doing okay but it hasn’t really clicked like that for her…yet If I could just get her to read the words from left to right I think it would happen for her too.

The Highlights of My Review

What you will get with All About Reading is a very easy to follow plan to teach even the struggling reader how to read without becoming discouraged (that means you too!). By starting with Level 1 or even Pre-Level 1 your child will get everything he or she needs in order to become an avid reader, there are no gaps in this program.
As a parent I couldn’t ask for a better program to teach my child to read. The Teachers Manual was laid out beautifully without a lot of extra details that would cause me to want to shut it and put it away. It has just the basics that I need to achieve my lesson for that day. I could simply glance at it and go. After doing a couple lessons you kind of get an idea of what’s happening next and it becomes even easier. Love it!


We really enjoyed the fun, simple activities that can be carried out easily without a lot of pre-planning. This is a picture of one of my older boys helping his younger siblings with phonogram and word BINGO. We’ve already made some nice memories. Thank you All About Learning!

I really felt like All About Learning was committed to seeing my children and me succeed. I spoke with them on several different occasions about my children’s individual weaknesses and needs and each and every time they responded in a quick and helpful manner.
Make sure you visit the All About Reading website, there are tons of downloads, samples, and useful information to help you determine whether this program will work for your family. And I will say they offer a sweet guarantee:

When you purchase through us, you get our "Go Ahead and Use It" one-year guarantee. You have one full year to try out our programs. If you find that any of the curriculums do not meet your needs, simply return the materials at any time within one year of purchase for a full refund of your purchase price.
In addition, you'll get lifetime support, so if you ever have a question, we're here to help!

If that doesn’t make you want to give this company a try I don’t know what will
So if you didn’t get all the info you wanted from my review head on over to the crew blog for more reviews.
**Disclaimer: As a member of the TOS Homeschool Crew, I received this product free of charge, in exchange for my honest opinion/review. For more honest reviews from real homeschoolers, visit the TOS Crew website.

Teacher Geek’s Catch the Bug

 
There is a neat, family owned and operated company on the web known as Teacher Geek.  This company was started by a technology teacher by the name of Darren Coon, who was having trouble finding suitable products to challenge, engage, and instruct his students,  so he began developing his own resources.  This eventually lead to the birth of his company, Teacher Geek.
Teacher Geek has a long lists of products available including the two given to the members of TOS crew for review, Catch the Bug and the Hydraulic Arm. Along with the learning products, Teacher Geek also offers tools to help with your project.


My family was given Catch the Bug which retails for $22.98. When I opened this packet I was truly amazed at all that was included. In addition to the parts needed for the bug (wires, batteries, tubing, motor, etc) there was also a brand new, still in the pack, soldering tool! Maybe it’s because I’m a girl and don’t own tools but this really impressed the socks off me. My son now has his very own soldering iron!
Although most boys and many girls will love them, Teacher Geek’s products are not toys and should be supervised at all times by an adult. This project was very well laid out and the instructions were easy to follow but my son would not be able to do this without his dad’s assistance. Most dad’s will love this as much as their children anyway so why not do it together.
Catch the Bug had three steps involved in putting it together:
Building the Body this involved putting the parts together and forming the bug.
The Bug Lab this step included lots of learning and experimenting with the wires. Among other things this step taught about voltage, resistors, and short circuits.
Final Wiring this is where the finishing touches were performed, wires were soldered, and the bug was made a bug for good.
I feel so blessed to have been given the opportunity to review Catch the Bug. I have three boys who are all very different and each one of them enjoys doing projects like this. However, I have one son who really seems to ‘get it’ when it comes to doing anything with his hands. Teacher Geek is right up his ally and I love that we have this resource available for our homeschool.

**Disclaimer: I received this product free of charge, in exchange for my honest opinion/review. For more honest reviews from real homeschoolers, visit the TOS Crew website.