Last January I told you about an up and coming company developing online programs for kids, Flying Rhinoceros. I enjoyed my experience reviewing PrezQuest for them so I was thrilled to hear that they have expanded their offerings to include three new experiences.

Carter and I jumped in for the Insects class last week and yesterday my 81 year old mom did the Presidents experience with him. We all found it really it easy and fun to use. The character in the Insects kinda freaked Carter out though (in a funny way). He kept telling me that “That is NOT a kid it is a creepy old man”. I kinda have to agree. He found the ‘boy’ hysterical. Next week we are looking forward to the How To Draw Cartoons class. He actually has this one marked on the calendar so he doesn’t forget.

The live teacher really is an ingenius way to grab the kids attention. The first day of whatever series you choose, the class is live and interactive. There is an actual ‘teacher’ there to guide you through the activities. You sign in on the top of the hour any time between 10am-7pm MST. My son LOVES asking questions just to make sure that the person is real and not a set up They are. The teacher calls your child by name and interacts with them one on one. The remaining days of the series are activities that you work on with your child. Fraboom provides a very well done activity guide for you to download and print (my only complaint is that it uses a TON of ink so I don’t print the first page).

Seriously, you all really need to check this company out. I absolutely love them. The series of three classes is $9.99. They were nice enough to offer 5 memberships though for me to give away to my readers.

Would you like one of the memberships? Here is your chance to win!

REQUIRED Initial Entry: Just leave a comment on what you think your child might like about Fraboom. You can go to the Fraboom site for more ideas. This company is all about listening to us parents, so honestly tell them what you think!

Optional Bonus Entries. If you already do these, that counts too, just tell me in separate comments:

* Receive 1 Entry for following @chaotic_barb on Twitter (Leave your Twitter ID.)

* Receive 1 Entry for following @fraboom on Twitter (Leave your Twitter ID.)

* Receive 1 Entry for adding me to your blog roll (leave a link to where)

* Receive 1 Entry by Faving me on Mom Faves (Leave your Mom Faves ID)

* Receive 1 Entry – (You may do this one time per day) for tweeting about this giveaway. Copy and paste this —–>@chaotic_barb has a great giveaway going on for @fraboom & I want to win http://bit.ly/Rq2dZ

*Receive 1 Entry- (leave your ID)

*Bookmark the http://elementaryspirits.com on delicious

*Subscribe to my  feed

Please leave a separate comment for each entry.  Must be 18 years of age or older. We reserve the right to remove any entry from this giveaway that doesn’t have the requested information. This giveaway ends Sept 4, 2009 11:59 pm EST. Please allow up to 4 weeks to receive your item. If the winner does not respond within 48 hours another winner will be chosen.

Find some more cool giveaways in the Blog Hop:



and don’t forget to add yours to my weekly giveaway linky!

Here is a way to video games as an educational tool. Can’t get a better game for deductive reasoning than this!

In Nancy Drew: The White Wolf of Icicle Creek, players find Nancy far from home in the middle of the Canadian Rockies where she is investigating several suspicious accidents that have occurred at Chantal’s normally cozy Icicle Creek Lodge. To make matters worse, an eerie wolf’s howl in the distance is haunting the guests at night, causing Nancy to wonder if the accidents and the mysterious wolf are connected.

Playing as Nancy Drew, you embark on a mystery adventure that will tax deductive reasoning skills as you tackle intricate puzzles and master a variety of gesture-based mini-games with the Wii Remote™.

Need a clue on how to win??

Here is the deal:

INITIAL ENTRY: Leave me a message and tell me who your favorite female role model is or was and why. You must complete this entry to be eligible for the Bonus ones listed below. *You do not need to be a homeschool family to win!

Bonus Entries: You can do any of these that you want. Do 1 or do all!

1. Follow me on Twitter @chaotic_barb (leave your Twitter ID)

2. Tweet This Giveaway. You may do this once a day. Just Copy and Paste this —-> @chaotic_barb is giving away a Nancy Drew Wii Game and I want to win it http://bit.ly/Df42r

3. Blog about this giveaway. (You must leave the link to the post, not your blog)

4. Stumble this giveaway. Leave your stumble ID.

5. Favorite this site in Technorati. Leave your Technorati ID.

6. Digg the site. Leave your Digg ID

The fine print: Please leave a separate Comment for each Entry. Winner chosen by random.org by comment number. Giveaway is open to anyone 18 years of age or older. Any posts not including the requested information will be deleted. I reserve the right to remove any entry from this giveaway. This giveaway ends 6/15 at 11:59pm est. Please allow 4-6 for mailing.

A few weeks ago I reviewed a great new software program for teaching music, Music Ace Deluxe. I am delighted to be able to offer the software to one lucky winner!
To Win:
INITIAL ENTRY: Leave a comment telling me about why you think Music Ace Deluxe would be great for your home. You can see what I thought of the product here. You must complete this entry to be eligible for the Bonus ones listed below. *You do not need to be a homeschool family to win these

And the winner is…………….Carla! I will contact you on twitter!

Bonus Entries: You can do any of these that you want. Do 1 or do all!

1. Follow me on Twitter @chaotic_barb (leave your Twitter ID)

2. Tweet This Giveaway. You may do this once a day. Just Copy and Paste this —-> @chaotic_barb has cool new music software that I want! http://bit.ly/F46Bu PLS RT!

3. Blog about this giveaway. (You must leave the link to the post, not your blog)

4. Stumble this giveaway. Leave your stumble ID.

5. Favorite this site in Technorati. Leave your Technorati ID.

Please leave a separate Comment for each Entry. Giveaway is open to anyone 18 years of age or older. Any posts not including the requested information will be deleted. I reserve the right to remove any entry from this giveaway. This giveaway ends April 19, 2009 at 11:59pm est. Please allow 4-6 for mailing.

As you all know, my kids love music. My oldest plays the guitar and my youngest is a walking dictionary of classic rock (ugh, am I that old that Bon Jovi is classic?). Since my youngest has very poor fine motor skills though due to both of his disabilities (spina bifida and autism) it has been hard to really teach him an instrument. But, he is very interested. So, when I was contacted by a very nice PR rep for Harmonic Vision and asked to try Music Ace Deluxe I was thrilled. Harmonic Vision claims:

“This interactive program gives homeschooling parents a fun way to bring music into their kid’s (aged 6+) lives. The game-type Windows and Mac-compatible CD-ROM features 36 self-paced lessons shored up by games that introduce kids to the basics of music — rhythm, pitch, note reading, listening and the keyboard — while entertaining them at the same time.”

and it certainly delivers. My youngest (10) and I sat down to do a few lessons together before I turned him loose on it alone. He seemed to really benefit from the visual clues given in the pitch lessons. And even I learned some new terminology. Maestro Max (the animated teacher) provides a fun and non threatening way for everyone to learn music theory.

So, would I recommend this? Absolutely! Music Ace Deluxe is available directly from Harmonic Vision, http://www.harmonicvision.com for the MSRP of $79.95. More importantly, it is available from other sources such as http://www.amazon.com and http://www.jr.com/ for between $45 and $50. Also, a Homeschool Instructional Guide is available for download at no charge from the Harmonic Vision website for owners of Music Ace Deluxe. I love it when companies realize the power of the homeschool community and provide products tailored to our needs!

Congratulations to the winners of the Train Your Brain More giveaway! Send me your info to mail the books to at info at chaoticcommunications dot com

Michele
Heather

Last week I received an email from a publicist asking if I would like to review this latest book by Dr. Kawashima. I recognized the name, and you probably will too, from the popular Brain Age games we play on our Nintendo DS. Definitely intrigued, I said yes and I was glad that I did.

This book was not what I expected. It was much more ‘workbook’ like than I had thought it would be.
Click here to see and print a sample page!
But, it was fun to time our progress. In the 5 days I had Connor (12 year old) work on it, he became faster and faster. While I do call him my little math genius, it was interesting to see the first day how the simple calculations were, well, not that simple anymore. Proving that we can all use a little daily brain exercise. The pages take less than 3 minutes (for him) and it is a great little vitamin boost for the day.

I loved the first few pages of the book where it shows images taken by a brain imaging device while people performed certain activities. Now I had proof that watching TV was not nearly as good for you as reading a book!

Not only do I recommend this book but I am giving away 2 Train Your Brain More books. Would you like to win one?

INITIAL ENTRY: Leave me a comment below introducing yourself! You must complete this entry to be eligible for the Bonus ones listed below.

Bonus Entries: You can do any of these that you want. Do 1 or do all!

1. Follow me on Twitter @chaotic_barb (leave your Twitter ID)

2. Tweet This Giveaway. You may do this once a day. Just Copy and Paste this —-> Win Train Your Brain More book by author of Nintendo Brain Age http://snipr.com/b6m6v @chaotic_barb PLS RT

3. Blog about this giveaway. (You must leave the link to the post, not your blog)

4. Stumble this giveaway. Leave your stumble ID.

Please leave a separate Comment for each Entry. Giveaway is open to USA and Canada Residents 18 years of age or older. Any posts not including the requested information will be deleted. I reserve the right to remove any entry from this giveaway. This giveaway ends February 12th at 11:59pm est. Please allow up to 2 weeks to receive your item.

Looking for something unique to do this week for the Inauguration? This may be your answer! This week the kids and I had the opportunity to do our first live online learning event. It was really cool. There is a live teacher that walks the kids through the lesson which makes it different from any other online learning program that I know of. When the kids answered questions correctly, our ‘teacher’ would give them a high five, which they thought was really neat. They enjoyed being actively engaged in the lesson and hearing their names used.

The event that we did was called PrezQuest.

During the event the live teacher acted as the kids campaign manager. The teacher walked them through the qualifications to be the President, the five main jobs of the President, and the Election process. The event is peppered with cute animations of past presidents that share fun facts and interactive games.

I loved that the process is meant to be shared with a parent. This is not something you sit the kids down to do while you make dinner. The intent is to spark conversation and interaction between parents and kids. In other words, it is the perfect medium to do something a little different during your homeschool week.

I was most impressed to have Ranjy Thomas, the president of Flying Rhinoceros (the development company behind PrezQuest) personally call me after the event to ask for my feedback. We talked about a few of the ‘glitches’ I encountered, namely the initial log in process not going smoothly and he assured me that they are working on ironing small things like that out. He was very warm and friendly and had a real interest in learning about the homeschool community and how their company can best serve our needs. They plan to do many more live events with different topics. PrezQuest is available to families for $6.99 per event, or $11.99 for the event and the book “Wooden Teeth & Jelly Beans.” In either case you get a great activity book to print and access to the online games after the event as well.

I absolutely recommend PrezQuest and I am looking forward to see more from this company. I think they are a real bright star to watch in the future of children’s online education! They already have a great site of free educational games to play on so even if you don’t get to do PrezQuest, make your way over to The Fraboom Network and check them out. If you do take part in PrezQuest please leave me a comment and let me know what you thought of the experience!

I first saw this advertised in an education magazine and was pretty excited about the concept. Basically, the concept is that the Pokemon characters teach mini lessons. The lessons are VERY similar to the ones found on brainpop.com or time4learning.com except that Ash, Brock, May and Pikachu take on the ‘teachers role’. In theory, this could be a great thing for those young Pokemon fans. Unfortunately, we found the program lacking in many ways. The site claims that it is targeting grades 3-6. From the site:

Primarily for grades 3-6, Pokémon Learning League can also be used with young gifted students, special needs students, and English Language Learners. Because it is a supplemental resource that supports differentiated instruction in core content areas, the program can be used with a diverse range of students and in a variety of learning environments and programs.

My 6th grader has absolutely no interest in Pokemon and the lesson content was far inferior to what you would expect on a six grade level. They are using the characters as a draw and lacks some real substance to the lessons. In contrast, my third grader loves Pokemon. He has what the public school terms ‘special needs’. The lessons were far above his head. The only thing he got from them was the fun of watching the characters walking around.

I probably would not have felt the need to write a review of this program if it weren’t for the price of it! For a family with three children an annual membership is $99!!! I would hate for anyone to plop down that kind of money without a little warning. There are far better online sites to spend that kind of money. Here are three of my favorites:

I Know That
Time4Learning
Brain Pop

We won’t be buying a membership to Pokemon Learning League. It is too bad because it is a fabulous concept. I would like to see it provide more drill challenges. The characters would be great in motivating kids to practice facts. Thank goodness they provide a 30 day trial. Try it out and if you disagree leave a comment. Maybe I am missing something…

When I first started looking into homeschooling the first question was, of course, “What will I teach?”. My son is 9 years old and has high functioning autism. I knew that he has always learned well from TV shows and computer games. I needed to find a curriculum that was disguised as a game. He was at the point where he hated school and anything ‘educational’. Time4Learning absolutely was the answer for us. The lessons were short and to the point. The characters did a very good explaining the concept and then demonstrating how to complete the problem without losing his interest. The math curriculum was so effective for him that he completed an entire grade level in three months. I had purchased MathUSee to supplement Time4Learning for Math but right now we don’t need it. Time4Learning is our complete curriculum for math. The success and confidence in Math that he has gained from Time4Learning has been remarkable.

He has a lot more difficulty following the Language Arts program because the characters talk very fast and it times out with a message that says “Need more time?” within a few seconds during the reading portions. He always needs more time to process the information. He is more successful with the Language Arts Enrichments than the core Language Arts program and I have simply made the decision for now to use something else for comprehension and story elements. The ILA (Integrated Language Arts) sections of the Language Arts section is interesting and he likes to complete those.

The Science and Social Studies sections are too small to be used as a core curriculum but he likes to do them. We are participating in the Cornell bird study right now and we use Brainpop.com as well to supplement. Not mention, real life!

He loves being able to check his online portfolio and goes to check his progress after every lesson. I love being able to print these reports once a month. Even though I am in a state that does not require homeschool reporting on testing, I still keep a portfolio for him. Every month I print off a report of his lessons and stick it there.

So, as a homeschooling mom and a former public school teacher I would have to say that Time4Learning is well worth the time, money and effort we spend on it. My 6th grader who is still enrolled in public school has a membership as well and uses it to supplement lessons that he needs extra practice on. The fact that he enjoys Time4Learning in addition to a full day in public school speaks volumes in my mind. There is a free trial available so I would suggest taking advantage of it and see if it works as well for you!

We do a lot of our lessons here on the computer. We use Time4Learning mostly (which I promise to review later) but tonight I was surfing around for some money lessons and came across this incredible non profit site E-Learning for Kids. The quality of the lessons presented were amazing for any site, let alone a free one! I plan to have my kids play around with this a bit this week and I will let you know of any great lessons we find. I just went through the Kindergarten money one and was pretty impressed. It was actually more comprehensive and understandable than the Time4Learning ones. The site aims to provide K-8 lessons in math, language arts, science, English, computer skills, and health and life skills.