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Online Art Lessons with Cross-Curricular Connections {ArtAchieve Level II Review)

May 1, 2017 by Emilee Evans

I, personally, enjoy art much like my daughter. Even my boys have been enjoying it more. It’s surely not because I come up with a bunch of great ideas, though! Last summer we had the opportunity to share our review of online art lessons from ArtAchieve. We really enjoyed it and were looking forward to moving on to the Entire Level II for this review! It offers a variety of great art lesson ideas from around the world!
ArtAchieve
ArtAchieve makes teaching art easy by offering online art lessons with detailed instructions available in both a Power Point and video format. Currently there are five levels available that are suitable for a variety of ages (including adults). It requires no background in teaching art so anyone can both take the lessons or “teach” them! What makes ArtAchieve even more unique, though, is that it goes beyond just teaching art to actually teaching culture as well. Plus, it breaks down resources to include Writing, Science, Exercise, Literature and more! One art lesson can break down into a whole day of learning through these various suggestions!
ArtAchieve lessons are accessed online through an internet based account. Once logged in to the account, you can access all of the lessons you have purchased. Lessons can be purchased individually or as a package. Each lesson has a drop down that shows the components which includes the video lesson, Power Point, a Warm-Up and a Printout. Plus, when you click on the individual lessons it brings up a page that features the Description, List of Supplies, Suggestions for Cross-Curricular Connections, and the Approximate Time for the lessons.
ArtAchieve Cross-Curricular Connections

Online Art Lessons – ArtAchieve Level II

My daughter (age 9) has been using ArtAchieve Level II online art lessons which we access easily through a laptop running Windows 10 and using the Google Chrome browser. I’ve even done a couple myself! Because the lessons don’t build upon each other, there is really no specific order that must be followed. So she has just been choosing the lessons that interest her most. She started with a cat, which was no surprise! Really there is no “wrong” place to start. I find the Lesson Description helps because you can see what medium is used (and therefore what supplies are needed). Plus you can see how long it is estimated to take and go from there! I find for us, personally, these are the main points we used to determine which lessons to do on particular days.
ArtAchieve Lesson Description
Because we had shared an ArtAchieve review in the past, I used the methods we found best for us last time. What I discovered was we weren’t really choosing between either the video lesson and Power Point. We use both for each lesson. For each lesson I play the video, and she follow along as instructed. We pause when necessary and refer to the Power Point during those times when she needs a still shot of the project. This works well for her!
The Power Point is mostly just the steps needed for the project. I definitely wouldn’t use it by itself, but it’s definitely great to use along with the video. Within the video is not only the steps for the project, but the cultural references and information are woven throughout the video. He talks about it as well as even showing things like flags and maps.
ArtAchieve Lesson

Warming Up

Although the lesson times vary per project, I have found they are pretty similar in length. The Warm-Up is usually fairly short. She completes a quick activity to help prepare her for the lesson. Plus I love that it also recommends way to relax to help prepare. This has just helped in general as she does sometimes have a hard time focusing. Plus these are skills she can use to prepare for any subject!
ArtAchieve Online Art Lessons Warmup

Lessons

The video lessons themselves are generally between 20-30 minutes. She does pause as needed to complete steps. So overall, the lessons for her take a total of around 45 minutes up to an hour at the most. That may seem like a lot for one art lesson, but it’s not *just* an art lesson. With all the other elements woven throughout she’s learning so much more! Generally, she does complete 1-2 lessons per week.

ArtAchieve Review

Online Art Lessons Art Achieve Review
Overall, I think ArtAchieve is a fantastic online art program. No art experience is necessary to use it. It can be accessed from wherever you are with internet access. The art and corresponding mini lessons within the art lessons are presented in a way that is easy to follow. Plus it’s fun and unique! It’s definitely a great fit for our homeschool.

Get Connected with ArtAchieve

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Other members of the Homeschool Review Crew reviewed the the various levels of ArtAchieve. See what they thought by clicking on the banner below!
Art Lessons Inspired From Around the World {ArtAchieve Reviews}
 
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Camp Genesis Curriculum Review

June 4, 2015 by Emilee Evans

Is your ministry looking for the perfect Vacation Bible School Curriculum this summer? Are you a homeschooling family looking to add to your homeschool curriculum? Are you a family looking to add to your family devotions? The Camp Genesis Curriculum is a great curriculum designed for Preschool – Grade 5!
Camp Genesis Review
Disclosure: I received the curriculum complimentary to facilitate my Camp Genesis review. Regardless, opinions are my own and those of my family.
About Camp Genesis:

Camp Genesis leads children on an exciting exploration of both God’s Word and His Creation, building a foundation of faith in their lives as they get to know their Creator better. Through fun games, creative crafts, tasty snacks, and interactive Bible lessons, children will discover God’s care for all of His Creation — each family, each child. As children take a closer look at God’s created world, may their response be to praise the Creator who designed it all and put their trust in Him.
Designed for children in preschool through grade five, this curriculum contains five days of lessons, crafts, snacks, and games that can be used in a variety of ministry settings including Vacation Bible School, day camps, mid-week programs, family devotions, or special events.

For our review we received the full Camp Genesis Curriculum, which includes:

  • Director’s Guide
  • Game Leader’s Guide and Printable Resources
  • Bible Lesson Leader’s Guide and Printable Resources
  • Snack Leader’s Guide
  • Craft Leader’s Guide and Printable Resources
  • Opening and Closing Leader’s Guide
  • Opening and Closing Slideshow Presentations
  • Volunteer’s Guide

It also includes additional printable resources:

  • Certificate
  • Daily Activities Overview Chart
  • Rotation Schedule
  • Postcards
  • Station Name Posters
  • Bible Memory Verse Posters
  • Promotional Posters
  • Registration Form
  • Volunteer Appreciation Resource

Because the curriculum is received via download, it is received quickly and ready to use right away! When I received it, I was in awe of all the resources! This is definitely a curriculum you can use whether you often organize events or are brand new to organizing an event! I am particularly a fan of the craft ideas because it is something I’m surprisingly not good at on my own!
Camp Genesis Curriculum Review Crafts
We have been using the Camp Genesis Curriculum with all three of our children who are ages 5, 7, and 9. We used the Camp Genesis curriculum for a week, and it worked in with it very nicely! It gave us a new transition into the summer months (during which we still homeschool), and gave me a nice idea of what it’s about so I could recommend it to our church as well!
What I love most about the Camp Genesis Curriculum is that it can be used with a few children within a family but includes materials to facilitate a large group even considering things like volunteers – applications and appreciation resources! I love that it encourages parents and leaders to reach out to children and share God’s creation with them. Although we homeschool all summer, I know many kids need to have additional activities during the summer, and I love that Camp Genesis offers a great curriculum for kids to be engaged and learn about God’s creation!
Overall, I think Camp Genesis is a great curriculum for homeschoolers, parents, and ministry leaders alike! It offers a lot of great resources, is very throrough, and is a curriculum with hands-on crafts and projects, music, Bible verse memorization, and more! Everything is laid out from the activities to even the words to speak out loud! It takes the guess work out of everything!

For More Information:

Visit the Camp Genesis page on Small Publishing
Connect with Small Publishing on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest

*Giveaway!!*

Would you like to win the Camp Genesis Curriculum? This giveaway runs through 6/18/15 at 11pm Eastern Time and is open Worldwide ages 18+. Enter the Giveaway Now!
 

A Journey Through Learning Lapbooks Review

April 4, 2013 by Emilee Evans

Journey through Learning

A Journey Through Learning offers a variety of subjects that help kids learn through Lapbooks. We have never done Lapbooks before, and I think their quote explains it well “Scrapbooking with an Educational Twist.” It definitely adds a more hands-on experience to education. For our review we reviewed Letters, Numbers and Shapes with our almost 3 year old (recommended for ages 3-5) and The Earth with our 1st graders, which are ages 5 and 6 (recommended for grades 1-5). Because we have never tried lapbooking I was definitely curious. My biggest challenge as a “new” lapbooker was finding the right folders. I saw so many great pictures of beautifully colored folders, but after many attempts to find such folders I had to settle on plain manilla folders. Luckily, once you start adding things it really starts to look nice regardless!
 
Letters, Numbers and Shapes
Because Chaz isn’t quite 3 yet (he will be 3 in a couple of weeks) I was not sure how this would go. I figured it would be a great way to help him feel more involved when his older siblings were working on things. He is obviously not proficient with scissors, so I would have him do the different things as directed such as: coloring, tracing, drawing, etc. and then I would cut it out and allow him to help staple things together and then glue them to his folder. Chaz isn’t always cooperative, but most of the time, he was surprisingly eager and agreeable to work on his lapbook. There were a couple of days he just said “no,” and I took his cues so as to not turn him off from it completely. He really enjoyed learning his letters, shapes, and colors through these projects! I would have him help me pick out the colors, and he didn’t always color everything completely, but he would at least make a few scribbles with that color where indicated. He couldn’t quite draw the shapes yet, either, but he had fun trying! He would say his letters and numbers as he traced them. I was pleasantly surprised how interested he was! The hands-on learning approach really seems to be encouraging to him. He also loved to watch me cut with the scissors, and I think it made him feel proud that he could staple and glue things on his folder. It was really nice to see him learning and having fun!
Letters, Numbers, and Shapes is part of their “I Can Do School, Too” series and does have a general guide on how to put the lapbooks together and how to have the child work on each part, but it does not include a study guide like the lapbooks for older children do. View a sample of Letters, Numbers, and Shapes. We aimed to work on Letters, Numbers, and Shapes four days a week (which is our “normal” homeschooling schedule), but as I mentioned, there were a couple of days here and there that he wasn’t cooperative, so we didn’t work on it on those days. Letters, Numbers, and Shapes makes up 3 different folders. Working on it regularly, it is noted it takes about one month to complete a lapbook. It even includes tips for multiple ways to attach them together! Letters, Numbers, and Shapes can be purchased for $13 as an instant download, $14 on a CD, $20 printed, and $29 assembled.

Chaz

 
The Earth
The Earth includes a study guide, which corresponds to the projects the kids are working on in their book. So, I would read the lesson while they would cut out the pictures, and then we would go over the answers together. I would then write their answers on our whiteboard so they could copy them on their projects. Unfortunately, this didn’t go as well as I had hoped due to their both having fine motor concerns/delays. They both receive occupational therapy where they work on this, but at home they tend to “push back” when we try to work on holding scissors (and even a pencil) properly. Since there is obviously a lot of cutting involved this often affected how they absorbed the information they were hearing, which ended up leading to very little retention of the information. They both have a hard time retaining information as it is, but because they were concentrating so hard on cutting they really couldn’t take in the information, so I found myself repeating the entire lesson over again – sometimes 3 times. Writing information in small spaces also led to a bit of frustration. Once we figured out these hang-ups we changed everything up a little bit so I no longer read the lesson while they were cutting, and I was more hands on in helping them with the lapbooks, and this helped everything to go more smoothly. It also helped them to retain the information more! It was a great learning experience for us, but we definitely had to take it at a different pace than the one study guide and mini-booklet a day. Of course, being homeschoolers themselves they recommend you find your own pace, which is what we had to do – and that’s OK! We did try to work on them 4 days per week, but I took cues for when they were overwhelmed or frustrated to take a break. This was also a great experience in following directions because they kept trying to glue things in a different spot, so we had to go over directions again, which made them realize they need to pay closer attention to directions!
The Earth also has great tips for putting the 3-folder lapbook together as well as tips for putting multiple lapbooks together! It also includes information on what supplies it needs. One of the storage ideas includes duct tape, and there are so many different designs for duct tape now you can use to really spruce them up! The Earth covers topics such as: what the Earth is made of, the Earth’s crust, the different types of rocks, the Earth’s spheres (which I discovered I cannot say quickly! haha), how the Earth moves, parts of the Earth, landforms, detailed information on mountains, the atmosphere, the water cycle, ocean zones, volcanoes, and more. View a sample of The Earth. It really covers a lot of detail and requires 2 folders. The Earth can be purchased as an instant download for $13 or printed for $21.

JTL

Although, the lapbooks were a little challenging for our older two kids I really like the hands-on aspect, and I was surprised to see how many different topics/subjects they offer! Now that we found “our groove” it’s definitely something we’ll be looking more into! I am very excited we found something that motivates Chaz as well! To read more reviews from the Crew – including reviews of some of the other lapbooks offered – click on the banner below!
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ABeCeDarian Review

April 3, 2013 by Emilee Evans

ABeCeDarian

ABeCeDarianABeCeDarian Company offers a reading program for new readers (Kindergarten or early 1st grade) up to 6th grade. It is divided into 4 levels: Level A for students reading at kindergarten through mid-1st grade level. Level B for students reading at mid-1st grade through 2nd grade level. Level C for students reading at 3rd and 4th grade level. Finally, Level D for students reading at 5th and 6th grade level. For our review we started with a placement test to see where our kids should begin. Our 5 and 6 year old are both learning at the 1st grade level, but reading has been a struggle for both of them. I had heard that ABeCeDarian is great for struggling readers as well as readers on target. So, I was very eager to try it for our ABeCeDarian Review.
At first I was a little disappointed that both kids tested to start at the very beginning. Instead, though, I decided to view it as a blessing we are able to take a new approach by using ABeCeDarian. So for our ABeCeDarian review we have been using the Student Workbook A1, Teacher Manual A1, and Set of 10 Storybooks once we got to Unit 4 in the Workbook. The Lesson A-1 workbook is divided into lessons as well as Units. At the end of each Unit we review everything learned up to that point. Each lesson is made up of 3-4 activities. Most days we did one lesson per day, but if they were doing really well we would do two lessons.
ABeCeDarianThe Teacher Manual offers a step by step guide on how to conduct each lesson. I was impressed by the detail! It not only breaks down each activity but also includes what you should say out loud and what to do when a mistake was made. Nothing is left to guess work! My particular personality appreciates such detail! I did notice some discretion between the examples in the Teacher Manual and what was in the Student Workbook, so that caused confusion a couple of times. I had to look at their workbook to make sure I had the right words in front of me. Now I just verify that I have the same thing in my manual as they do in their workbook before beginning to avoid any confusion.
ABeCeDarian ReviewWe started the first storybook when we reached Unit 4 in the A-1 Workbook. The first storybook starts with our daughter’s favorite animal – the cat! They were very eager to read it right away, but I wanted to make sure we followed the program as suggested! When you read the first storybook it contains all the words they have learned up to that point, so it really instills repetition. This definitely aids in the learning process and helps build confidence! I always appreciate that as our kids are often hesitant when they don’t feel confident. Having a story they can read offered a lot of encouragement for both of them!
ABeCeDarian definitely takes a unique approach to learning to read. Instead of using letters as we traditionally know them we jumped right into recognizing letters by their common sounds. After our first week of using ABeCeDarian I was talking to my husband about this approach and how I wish we could “unlearn” the way we had been approaching reading and had started with this approach instead. I truly believe our kids would be reading at a different level if they had started learning with this approach initially. They also don’t throw “site words” into their program right away. Site words have been a huge challenge for us. I was extremely grateful to not approach the dreaded “site words” immediately.

ABeCeDarian Review

We started with “the” in level 16, so the pace worked well for us. We did actually have a lot of stumbling blocks when first starting because when I would make the “sss” sound Brayden would automatically say “c.” In this case, though, “c” makes the “k” sound, which is a typical sound for “c.” Because he hears that “sss” sound, which is how the name of the letter “c” sounds it took a few times for it to click. This is actually one of the very common problem for both of them in general.
Because ABeCeDarian is so good at giving tips for guiding your children when there is a mistake we were able to proceed without any negative feelings or meltdowns. We have also been working on spelling and writing as well! Since using this program, I have seen this is a really great approach to reading. I truly do wish I had known about this when we started our reading/writing journey! I’m so glad I do know about it now, though! I think of what a great start Chaz will get when he is ready to start reading!
ABeCeDarian Teacher Manual A1 costs $28.50, and the student workbook costs $12.25. The storybook collection is a set of 10 softcover readers and costs $21.50. For more great reviews from the Schoolhouse Review Crew (including reviews of the other levels) click on the button below!
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