CompuScholar Tech Essentials Timberdoodle Review

I’m old enough to remember when my teachers told us we wouldn’t always have a calculator in our pockets, and we were excited to spend an hour a week in a computer lab playing Oregon Trail and Reader Rabbit. In today’s world, not only do I carry a calculator in my pocket, but also a computer (my phone) that can perform tasks a computer lab computer could not.

My children are growing up in a world where computers are everywhere, and they have been using different forms of computers from a young age. However, as comfortable as they are with computers in their lives, they still need to be taught the skills to use them effectively.

CompuScholar Tech Essentials from Timberdoodle can help students understand how to use computers for a variety of school and personal tasks, from the basics of files and spreadsheets to basic programming.

CompuScholar Tech Essentials is a semester-long course, but students have access to it for a year and can complete it at their own pace.

What is Included in CompuScholar Tech Essentials?

Thirteen regular chapters with three supplemental chapters covering

File Management
Spreadsheets
Word Processing
Multimedia
Online Research
Presentations
Group Presentation Project
Coding Concepts
Program Flow
Algorithms
Software Projects (coding and designing your own program)
Digital Citizenship
Digital Safety
Operating Systems
Math Connections
Databases

How Does CompuScholar Tech Essentials Work?

Each chapter includes several lessons, each with a video, text, and a computer-graded quiz. In addition, each chapter includes several activities to give students a real-world, hands-on application of the skills. Finally, there is an exam at the end of each chapter. The videos are all very short, in the three to five-minute range, so that lessons do not take long to complete each day.

Students work through each chapter, and the computer grades most of the assignments. The teacher can log in through the teacher portal, review grades and assignments, and make any adjustments. Once a student submits an assignment, they cannot change it unless the teacher reopens it. However, they may retake quizzes as needed.

CompuScholar Parent Portal

The parent account for CompuScholar contains a great deal of helpful information. There are answer keys, the ability to change grades, hints for activities, a teacher guide with discussion questions, a syllabus, and an optional course schedule. Parents can go in and change grades or reset activities. They can view students’ progress and the gradebook through the parent portal.

Our Experience with CompuScholar Tech Essentials

My son has been slowly working his way through CompuScholar Tech Essentials. Since we were adding it to an already full course load, we decided to have him complete it on a year-long schedule. Our fall schedule includes some light weeks and several hectic ones due to his 4-H participation and competitions. The flexibility of this course worked really well for us because during his lighter weeks, he could work through several lessons, and it was no problem if he skipped them altogether during his busy weeks.

Overall, he is enjoying the course and feels more confident using his laptop and completing other school assignments on it. He did struggle with a couple of sections, but since I could go in and look at his grade and reset things, we were able to work through his confusion and allow him to continue working through it independently.

As a parent, I love that I can adjust grades as I see fit, work it into our schedule, and reset assignments. However, I also love that it is primarily self-grading and independent, so it does not take a lot of my attention for him to work through it.

Conclusions

Overall, CompuScholar’s Tech Essentials course is easy to use and covers a wide range of essential computer skills that help students use computers safely and efficiently for schoolwork, future jobs, and personal use. I highly recommend it for middle and possibly even high school students, particularly those who have used computers for entertainment but have not yet learned all of the skills needed for more “professional use”. You can find out more and purchase this course (and other CompuScholar courses) from Timberdoodle. It is also included in their 6th-grade curriculum kit.

Simply Draw with Bob Parsons

Simply Draw is an easy-to-use art curriculum from Timberdoodle that teaches students how to draw through simple, easy-to-understand lessons with clear illustrations and supporting video materials.

What is Simply Draw with Bob Parsons?

The 178-page book includes 77 lessons; approximately 20 of those lessons have accompanying videos. In addition, there are three extra video lessons to complete at the end of the curriculum.

In addition to the curriculum, students will need a few materials. They can get started with a couple of pens, pencils, and a good eraser. However, the curriculum also recommends some cardstock and cool grey markers. A good list of recommended pens and pencils is included in the first lesson.

What Lessons Are Included?

The lessons are short and take my son around fifteen minutes to read and complete. They start with the basics of drawing, including grip, posture, and drawing lines. The lessons become gradually more complex, so they are not overwhelming for the student.

Topics Covered:

Getting Started
Short Parallel Lines
Seeing Angles
Basic Shapes
Basic Drawing
Hands
Lettering
Stick Figures and Action
Textures and Patterns
Additional Lessons

Each lesson includes instruction given in short, simple statements with example pictures. The student has the opportunity to work through each step in the space provided, right there in the spiral-bound book, where they can still see the examples. The first few were basic lines, but then it moved on to having them use different techniques to shade pictures, including an apple, a rose, and Chuck Norris’s face. My son is a Chuck Norris fan, so this lesson was a big hit!

What We Loved About Simply Draw

Unlike some books that only teach students how to draw specific things, students can easily transfer the skills and techniques learned in this book to other drawings. Once students understand lines, angles, and basic shapes, they can begin putting those skills together to create different drawings.

I have noticed over the years that art, as with many other subjects, comes more easily to some students than others. Sometimes programs move too fast, and students get behind and feel like they cannot keep up. However, with Simply Draw, students can work through the book at their own pace. This program is easy to implement for both parent and student.

In addition to the instructions, there are many funny, comic-style drawings and silly sayings in the book that make it fun to work through and add an extra layer of enjoyment. For example, in the lesson with the cube, a man is “trapped” under it. He says, “When they said this job would be “smashing,” I thought they were British.

A Student Opinion

My eleven-year-old son loves art and has been doing a variety of painting and other art lessons for several years. However, he has really wanted to learn more about drawing and sketching. He loved taking this course and is excited to continue improving his drawing skills as he progresses through the rest of the course.

He said he enjoyed the program because it was easy to understand and that he felt it was improving his drawing skills.

Conclusions

Overall, Simply Draw is an easy-to-use program that only requires a few materials. It works well for students from elementary school through adulthood (it is best if they can read or have someone available to read to them). I’d highly recommend this program for students who want to learn to draw and sketch. Go to Timberdoodle to find out more and purchase your copy of Simply Draw with Bob Parsons.

Hnefatafl or Viking Chess Timberdoodle Review

Our family owns a fairly impressive array of board games; we get at least one new game every year for Christmas, but we often pick up games throughout the year. Included in this collection are several chess boards. With this in mind, I was intrigued by the opportunity from Timberdoodle to review the game Hnefatafl, also known as Viking chess.

What is Hnefatafl?

When I first saw that the game was called Viking chess, I wondered if it was just chess with different pieces. I’ve seen a variety of themed chess games (for example, we own a Lord of the Rings chess game that uses figures from Lord of the Rings for the pieces) that are played just like chess but with different pieces.

However, Hnefatafl is not chess. It is similar to chess in that it is a two-person strategy game in which you move pieces around on a checkered board. However, the board is set up differently, the game’s goals are different, and it has its own set of rules.

There are two distinct sides in Hnefatafl; there is the side of the king, and their goal is to get the king safely to any of the four corners of the board. The other side’s goal is to keep the king away from the corners and to capture the king by surrounding him.

Our Experience with Hnefatafl

Our game arrived at our home a few days before we were to leave for a camping trip. Since we did not have time to try it out before we left, we packed it into the camper and brought it with us. I’m so glad we did because there were many rounds played on that trip (and continuing at home).

I was expecting it to be a big hit with my eleven-year-old, and he does enjoy it, but I was pleasantly surprised by how much my seven-year-old also enjoyed it. He was happy to challenge his siblings, dad, and even his cousins to rounds of the game.

We found that defending the king seemed to be a bit easier side to play, so we made sure to let people take turns being on different sides.

My daughter was quickly reminded that despite the term “Viking chess,” it is not actual chess when she got so busy trying to take her brother’s pieces that she forgot to watch the king and lost in just a few moves.

Most of our rounds only took a few minutes to play, although they did become a little longer as everyone started to figure out more effective strategies. I was grateful that the rounds were short, as I find that games that go on and on tend to lead to drama in our home (I’m looking at you, Monopoly), and it’s also harder to find time to fit those into our days. However, this game works great for them to play while I finish fixing dinner or when they have a few minutes before the next activity.

After several weeks of learning to play, my seven-year-old son pulled it out while we had an extra teen in the house, and it turned out he had the game and had been playing for years. They loved getting to play with him and learn so extra strategy from someone who had been playing for awhile.

Who Would Benefit from Hnefatafl?

While it will undoubtedly vary from child to child, children as young as five or six could learn to play Hnfatafl, and it is a game that adults can still enjoy. The game helps work on attention to detail and strategy. It will make a great addition to your family’s game collection.

Overall, we may not be able to pronounce Hnefatafl correctly, but we can highly recommend it for children and adults who enjoy strategy games. We love that it’s great for a variety of ages, easy to learn, only takes two players, generally each round is not too long, and it helps develop skills like attention to detail and strategy. You can find out more and order your set from Timberdoodle. It is also included in their fourth-grade curriculum kit.

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Critical Thinking Company The Language Mechanic (Review)

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

At the end of every year, I like to take a few minutes to evaluate our school year, my children’s academic progress, and test results. Then I try to make sure I have a plan to work on any areas of weakness. This year, I realized I needed to spend more time with my eighth-grade daughter on grammar. I had the opportunity to review The Language Mechanic from The Critical Thinking Co.™.

What is The Language Mechanic?

The Language Mechanic is a paperback grammar book with eleven different units. The theme of the book is “Tuning Up English with Logic.” The book is designed for fourth- seventh-grade students, but I felt it would be a good fit for my daughter. She knows how to write papers but often struggles with the grammar conventions, such as commas and other punctuation.

Each unit is divided into smaller lessons (ranging from two to ten lessons per unit) and a unit review. Each lesson has a short teaching component, including examples, logic, and rule. That is followed up with practice questions that can be done together, “your turn” questions for independent practice, and challenge questions.

Also included in the book are a glossary of important terms, an answer key, and a few pages of instruction for the parent/teacher.

What is Included?

Capitalization
Run-Ons and Fragments
Pronouns
Modifiers
Verbs
Agreement
Unnecessary Words
Punctuation: ‘ ” ?!
Punctuation: Commas
Friendly Letter: Greeting and Closing
Spelling and Vocabulary

How We Used The Language Mechanic

For younger students, the parent or teacher would spend a few minutes teaching each lesson, and then the student would independently work on the “your turn” questions. However, since my daughter is older and just needed extra help with grammar, she worked through the program independently.

She was able to read the lesson and then go through the practice problems before checking her answers. Each lesson took her about ten to fifteen minutes, and we worked through a few lessons each week. I chose not to make her work through the units where she had already shown proficiency. She will finish the other units throughout the summer to be more prepared for her high school writing courses.

What My Daughter Thought

“Even though everyone dislikes the word grammar, this curriculum is good. I understood it, and it was not too hard for me to work through. There were many problems for me to work through to help me fully understand and grasp what we were talking about, and it was easy to follow and figure out what it wanted me to do.” Elizabeth, Age 14

What I Thought

I loved the book’s layout because it was simple to understand and use. I appreciated that I could skip around and choose the areas of concern. Using it with an older child, I appreciated that she could do it independently, but even with a younger child, it would be easy for the parent. It is very open and go and would not require prep work.

I also really appreciated the logic portion of this book. Most grammar programs teach the rules but not the “why” or logic behind them, and I believe that it helps it make sense and stay with them better.

Recommendations

The Language Mechanic is a great way to help children work through standard grammar rules and improve their writing. I think that, in general, the fourth through seventh-grade recommendation is correct, but it could go up or down a little bit depending on the student’s readiness and understanding.

Be sure to click on the graphic below to read more reviews of this product and other great products from The Critical Thinking Co.™.