Innovators Tribe Thinking Like an Engineer Course Review

My family had the privilege of trying the Thinking Like an Engineer Course from Innovators Tribe for this review to use in conjunction with our own homeschool curriculum. This is a Homeschool Review Crew Review. All opinions expressed are my own or those of my family.

Innovators Tribe provides teachers and homeschoolers curriculum that teaches innovation, creativity, and discovery. Currently Innovators Tribe has these courses: Thinking Like an Engineer and Thinking Like an Architect. These two courses include 3D design software. Thinking Like a Carpenter is another course that will be coming soon. These courses are packed with interactive lessons and multimedia and hands-on activities. They have great instructors teaching them that are well versed in what they are teaching and deliver the course in a engaging and enjoyable way. These courses are not live, but pre-recorded and fully online. Each course is approximately 30 hours long (including activities) and can be done at the students own pace. They cover topics such as: engineering, nano-technology, architecture, innovation, 3D design, future technologies, robotics, bridge building, construction, manufacturing, and much more. These courses give online exercise in applied math, science, innovation, design, and construction. These can be used as a part of a science course for one school year quarter or an elective course for 1/4 credit towards high school per course. These courses are recommended for grades 6-12 and would be perfect for those students who like to design, build, and/or create. A single subscription can be used for an entire household.

Thinking Like an Engineer is one of the courses that is offered by Innovators Tribe. This course is taught by Mr. Kroeplin (Mr. K), an award winning certified Technology and Engineering instructor. In this course the student will learn: what an engineer is and does, the many different types of engineers, some of the math and science used by engineers, some of the problems engineers are trying to solve, the worlds greatest engineering challenges, about a particular man that solved an engineering problem 300 years ago, how to think like an engineer (innovator). In this course the student will utilize 3D CAD software that is included to design and build a: roller coaster, bridge, and Rube Goldberg machine. Challenge activities include designing and building: towers, structures, water filters, etc. Comes with a free mini course called Thinking Like an Innovator which goes into how to brainstorm, use innovative thinking, solve problems, have more ideas, etc.

How to Get to the Course and What you can do in the Course Dashboard:

1. Go to the Innovators Tribe website
2. Click on the Student Login link in the upper right hand corner
3. Login with your user name and password
4. Click on resume course in your Student Dashboard
5. Once in your Student Dashboard you can view the teacher in the upper right hand corner, advance slides with an arrow button, and get to resource documents. 

How We Used This and Our Thoughts:
We received a 2-year subscription to the Thinking Like an Engineer course from Innovators Tribe. As a homeschooling family we love anything that has to do with STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math). I chose this course because my husband is actually going to school right now to get his Bachelors in mechanical engineering technology with a minor in engineering management. He already has experience in the Navy on a fast attack nuclear-powered submarine. I wanted to have my oldest son, Delbin, take this course and see if he would be interested in becoming an engineer too and perhaps expand his career interest possibilities for the future. He is 17 years old and in 11th grade and already loves to build and create things. I sat in on the course as well because I too wanted to learn more about this field. We did this at our own pace and have enjoyed what we have learned so far.

After seeing the course syllabus and seeing how to maneuver in the Student Dashboard we started the course. First we downloaded and printed a Unit Journal so that Delbin could keep a log of what he was learning. Then we started into the Introduction to Engineering.

Delbin with his tower he built.

In lesson 1 they had a bunch of videos and slides that went into what engineering is. We also went to a link to a website that was all about female engineers. The first challenge was building a freestanding tower that was taller than 5 feet tall with only 4 sheets of printer paper and 1 foot of 1 inch masking tape. Delbin built one 5 feet and one inch.

Teela with her Weight Challenge project.

In lesson 2 they had a bunch of videos and slides that talked about types of engineers. There was a Activity Guide that we downloaded to do some internet research on what type of engineer we were interested in. I've always thought it would be cool to become an Environmental Engineer and Delbin now is thinking how fun it would be to become a Gaming Engineer because he loves to play video and computer games so much. There are so many types we hadn't even thought of! Then there was another challenge to create structure that could hold the most books up 1 inch off the flat surface with only using 1 piece of printer paper and 24 inches of 1 inch masking tape. Delbin's younger sister who is 9 wanted to do this one.

This course has been great so far. The activities were really fun and challenging. The videos and slides were engaging and entertaining. I do wish that I could after watching the video go back and re-watch it...we weren't able to do so. The unit journal tied everything together with questions about what was learned and helped recall the things in the videos, slides, and activities. We have really enjoyed everything it has to offer thus far and can't wait to dive into it even more. We especially are excited to use the 3D CAD software. We recommend this highly for homeschoolers in grade 6-12.

BUY IT
Innovators Tribe Thinking Like an Engineer Course is now on sale for $96 (regularly priced at $149).

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Apologia Educational Ministries Exploring Creation with Marine Biology 2nd Edition Advantage Set Review

This post contains affiliate links that will benefit my blog. My family had the privilege of trying the Marine Biology 2nd Edition Advantage Set and the Marine Biology 2nd Edition Audio CD, read by Marissa Leinart from Apologia Educational Ministries for this review to use in conjunction with our own homeschool curriculum. This is a Homeschool Review Crew Review. All opinions expressed are my own or those of my family.

Apologia Educational Ministries, Inc. is the #1 publisher of creation-based science and Bible curriculum. They focus on Christian based homeschool curriculum. Their products are all taught from a biblical worldview. They have creation-based science, apologetics, language arts, Constitutional Literacy, and resources and books to help homeschooling families succeed.

Exploring Creation with Marine Biology 2nd Edition is a creation-based marine biology curriculum consisting of a Student Textbook, Student Notebook, Tests and Solutions Manual, and Audio CD. It is geared towards college-preparatory high school homeschool students who have already taken Biology. Here students will explore God's marine habitats and the ecosystem and marine wildlife within them. This is the newest and most revised edition, now in full color and with even more experiments. Students will explore our oceans, life in the sea, marine life, marine ecology, different communities and places in the ocean, ocean resources, and effects of humans on the sea. This course, like most Apologia high school science courses, is designed to be completed in two semesters, spending about 45 minutes, five days a week, on the subject.

We Received The Exploring Creation with Marine Biology 2nd Edition Advantage Set Which Includes:

• Student Text
• Student Notebook
• Tests and Solutions Manual

We also received an Audio CD as well to review.

Delbin reading the Apologia Marine Biology Textbook.

Exploring Creation with Marine Biology 2nd Edition Student Text is a hardbound textbook. This textbook has a total of 16 modules and 557 pages that explain marine biology and its many wonders. The book starts out with Apologia's Instructional Support that explains the different learners. It then has Student Notes which has notes on: what you will be learning, about the book, experiments, laboratory equipment, and learning aids. After that is the table of contents and Welcome pages which has scripture passages and things to ponder. Each lesson has colored boxes or colored paragraphs of text that contain: Dive In, On Your Own (OYO) Questions to be done after reading the material, Think About This (things to contemplate), experiments to do, vocabulary words in bold, color pictures/figures and charts/tables, Creation Connection (how what was learned ties to Creationism). At the end of each module there are answers to the On Your Own questions to check your students work and a helpful Study Guide to get your student ready for the tests. At the end of the textbook there is a Glossary; an Appendix with reference figures and tables, module summaries, and a complete list of lab supplies, and an Index to help find things in the book.

Modules:

1. The Oceans of Our Planet
2. Life in the Sea
3. The First Four Kingdoms
4. Marine Invertebrates I
5. Marine Invertebrates II
6. Marine Vertebrates I
7. Marine Vertebrates II
8. Marine Ecology
9. The Intertidal Zone
10. Estuary Communities
11. Coral Reefs
12. Continental Shelf Communities
13. The Epipelagic Zone
14. The Deep Ocean
15. Ocean Resources
16. Effects of Humans on the Sea

Delbin finishing a page in the Apologia Marine Biology Student Notebook.

The spiral bound Student Notebook is a consumable workbook and is intended to be used by a single student. At the beginning of the notebook there is an Introduction. This Introduction has Parent Notes, Rubric for Grading Experiments, Grade Recording Charts, Student Notes, Taking Effective Notes from Science Texts and a suggested Daily Schedule that outlines reading pages, OYO questions, and experiments for the student to do per day. The middle section of the workbook consists of lined pages to take Module Notes & OYO questions, Study Guide questions, and optional Summaries to be filled out by student. The last section in the workbook is Lab Reports and Presenting Your Research: Creating a Presentation Poster.

The Marine Biology 2nd Edition Test Pages and Marine Biology 2nd Edition Solutions Manual are packaged together. The test pages has a test for the student to complete after each module and quarterly tests as well. This comes in a softcover and is in black and white. Within the solutions manual are answers to the study guide, summary and tests. This comes in a glossy softcover and is in black and white.

The Audio CD contains the complete audio recording of the course Exploring Creation with Marine Biology 2nd Edition. It is read by Marissa Leinart. This is great for auditory learners, slow readers, or students with other learning disabilities that make reading difficult. This is an MP3CD so you have to play it in a MP3-compatable CD player or a computer.

I also want to mention that Apologia Educational Ministries has a Marine Biology Slide Set, Marine Biology Dissection Set, and Marine Biology 2nd Edition Video Instruction DVD as well. We did not receive these items, but they would be a great addition to the Advantage Set as well. These items would enhance the learning experience even more and provide a more hands-on environment for the student.

How We Used This and Our Thoughts:

I used this curriculum with my son Delbin who is 16 years old and in 11th grade now. We did an average of three days per week. Starting at the beginning of the book this got us through Module 1 (The Oceans of Our Planet) and Module 2 (Life in the Sea) during the review period.

Both the textbook and notebook have a lot of  wonderful full color figures and tables that make the learning a lot more fascinating. We also made spelling lists with the vocabulary words from each chapter too. I loved the wonderful lesson by lesson supply list located in the back for knowing what to have on hand for the experiments from each lesson. Having an answer key for the "On Your Own" questions was also a tremendous help to me.

Apologia Marine Biology Mountain Formation from Plate Movement Experiment.

The experiments were really fun to do as well. In Module 1 there were 5 different experiments: Mountain Formation from Plate Movement, Removing the Salt from Saltwater, The Effects of Salinity and Temperature on the Density of Water, The Coriolis Effect,  and The Motion of Waves. In Module 2 there were 3 different experiments: Photosynthesis, Respiration, and Osmosis. We can't wait to do more hands-on experiments.

We loved using the link to the course extras website that is referenced in the textbook. It had a lot of fun third party websites that contributed more information to the study of different things. We loved the ReefVid to see real life videos of different creatures and things in the coral reef, Oceanwide Images that shows cool pictures of marine life, Plate Tectonic Animations, and Coriolis Effect Animations. There was a lot more too.

The Audio CD is very useful when Delbin got bored of reading the textbook on his own. He liked listening and following along a whole lot better and the lady that reads has a nice voice that makes it more interesting. I liked that I was given the option of listening too because I could hear what he was learning about without reading the text myself. My younger daughter, Zari, who is in first grade and does not read much yet could listen as well and glean information from it too.

I love the Apologia Educational Ministries Exploring Creation with Marine Biology 2nd Edition Advantage Set. I would recommend this homeschool Marine Biology from Apologia highly to anyone searching for a creation-based marine biology course for their homeschool. Apologia also has other great homeschool curriculum for science as well that I would love to check out.

BUY IT
Exploring Creation with Marine Biology 2nd Edition Student Text is $68. The Student Notebook is $39. The Marine Biology 2nd Edition Solutions Manual is $22 and the Marine Biology 2nd Edition Test Pages are $5. The Audio CD is $29.

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MySchoolYear.com My School Year (Homeschool Record Keeping) Review

My family had the privilege of trying the Annual Membership of the My School Year (Homeschool Record Keeping) from MySchoolYear.com for this review to use in conjunction with our own homeschool curriculum. This is a Schoolhouse Review Crew Review. All opinions expressed are my own or those of my family.

MySchoolYear.com is an online homeschool planner. It is great for record keeping, tracking, reporting, planning, and making lesson plans. This online database is wonderful for anyone that needs to totally organize their homeschool. It keeps grades, attendance, transcripts, report cards, awards, etc. for your students right at your fingertips. The My School Year (Homeschool Record Keeping) makes it easy to add, subtract, recreate, and save information. Since it is stored online you can access it anytime and anywhere you need to with internet.

Registration Wizard. If you click the need help buttons it will help you with all processes.

The My School Year (Homeschool Record Keeping) is very simple to use. You start out by picking what time frame for your school term you would like to use: traditional (September through May), quarters, or semesters. Then you can pick the name of your homeschool. If you have more than one place your student has instruction, for example, a music instructors home, you may also enter that.  Then you can begin entering all of your students and their subjects and classes. Under each class you are able to enter the curriculum that will be used for each student for that school year.

Teacher's Aid

The website is easily navigated as well. At the top left you will see a pull down menu you can click on under "My Homeschool". This shows many pages that you may go to within the website...

• Homeroom: This webpage lets you select a student a view an overview of everything with charts of their current homeschool status. This is a great place to see classes, attendance, events, awards, readings, extra curricular, and tests all on one screen for each student. You may also add, edit or view these as well from here. 
• Planbook: On this webpage you can update lessons, mark lessons as complete, reschedule as needed, and/or change them altogether. With this you can know exactly what is overdue, current, or upcoming. The Planbook also has a search, filter and sort options to easily find a lesson you are looking for. 
• Reports: This webpage gives you access to awards, course descriptions, events, extra curricular, instructional hours, lesson plan, materials - lesson plan, materials - reading log/list, reading log/list, report card, standardized tests, and transcript. You may sort these by: all reports, all-student based, all-term based, non-term based, and reference.
• Teacher's Aid: This webpage will alert, warn, and/or recommend what you should be doing next. This takes the guesswork out and reminds you when something needs done. There is also a orange circle up by the pull down menu that tells you how many alerts you need to fix or remove.
• Tools: Copy classes/lessons, copy reading log/list, create-a-plan, reschedule lessons, and track attendance with ease. Create-A-Plan lesson generator can create lessons in bulk. Use Rapid Repeat, a repeater tool for if your student is doing something more than once, and Quick Split, a tool to help you know how many pages to assign of a book if you want an equal amount per day, to help you too. 
• Setup: You can setup grading scales, materials, schools, students, subjects, terms (school years) with these pages.
• My Account: You can view your profile, settings, and password and update these if needed.

  
How We Used This and Our Thoughts:

We received an annual membership of the My School Year (Homeschool Record Keeping). I am not much of a planner and usually homeschool with the flow of the day, so at first this seemed like a daunting and overwhelming task to me. Oregon state law is fairly lenient on homeschoolers that live here. Oregonians do not have to send in lesson plans, curriculum, or a portfolio of the students work. We only have to let the Educational Service District (ESD) know we are homeschooling and have our students test at grades 3, 5, 8 and 10. I know my homeschool needs a bit more structure and organization though, so I was happy to try out this planner to see if it would help me with this.

I placed my four children in the program and set their classes up for the upcoming school year (2016-2017). I made a curriculum of what they were going to study and when for each class. I love the Create-A-Plan lesson generator and the Rapid Repeat and Quick Split makes it so much easier to configure. I like that I can receive weekly and/or daily emails of the lessons that need done each day and my students can get sent one as well of their lessons needing accomplished. This is especially great for my sons in high school because I can create documents like transcripts and report cards and MySchoolYear.com shows me exactly how and gives me samples of each to pull from. I am happy to know that my homeschool information that I enter in is secure in the cloud as well. There is still a lot to add and fill in for next year, but I love this program because of how simple it is to use and set up.

BUY IT
You can try the free month trial to see how you might like this program. There are two Membership Plans: Monthly for $5 per month or Annual for $40 a year (save 33%!). Both plans also include a free month trial and the annual plan has a price lock guarantee.

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Visual Learning Systems Digital Science Online Review

Visual Learning Systems Digital Science Online.

My family has always had a love for science. We love doing science experiments at home and love learning about the world around us out in the field. The more interactive and hands on it is the more my kids love doing it. Ever since my children were very, very little they have been extremely inquisitive. My kids love to explore everything and find the answers.

I believe that teaching science is very important. It helps us unlock the mysteries of practically everything. Visual Learning Systems is an online based educational science publisher that has top of the line visual curriculum from kindergarten though twelfth grade. We have been given the chance to use both their Digital Science Online: Elementary Edition (Grades K-5) and Digital Science Online: Secondary Edition (Grades 6-12) if we wanted to.  We also have access to ALL the levels with Admin, Teacher, and Student accounts for a full year. For this review I have already used it for 3 days per week for 6 weeks with my children. This curriculum is great for teachers in public school as well as homeschooling parents.

Visual Learning Systems Digital Science Online full screened video.

Visual Learning Systems Digital Science Online is an annual K-12 digital subscription online to a vast variety of visual tools for science education. This wonderful media includes: videos, animations, images, and activities. The videos are a wonderful visual aid. The live action footage from all over the world on these videos is colorful and engaging. Chapter video clips are indexed within the lesson. You can either play them individually or play all. If you choose to play all they will be about 10-20 minutes long per unit study or lesson. You can make the video full screen too. They have vocabulary words that show up on the screen to go along with the lessons. A video review quiz follows each video and there are "you decide" questions throughout the program. This can be paired with the worksheets in the teacher's guide section or just done aloud with your student. The animations are easily accessed within the videos or all on their own by clicking the tab. In the images tab their are images that are annotated to give you more information. These also are in the video as well. The resources for the student/teacher include: printable worksheets, lab activities, vocabulary exercises, reading activities, assessments, quizzes, and tests.

Vocabulary words to go along with the program show up from time to time.

Teela answering the question asked in the trees video for Life Science.

Navigation is pretty simple. Once you are logged in you can see that the lessons are categorized into subjects and grade level along the bottom left hand side for easy access. Once you click a grade level then you may also pick a subject. Under each subject there are lesson titles which show up in the mid-bottom part of your screen. Above those there is a search bar to search for keywords in their database. Up at the top will be the lesson title you have picked and the clickable links to the videos, animations, images, and teacher's guides off to the right. Under those you will see chapter video clips within the lesson that you can either play individually or click to play all. If you click on the teacher's guides it will give you how to introduce the video to the student, student activities, learning objective list, and the video script. This whole program makes for a wonderful well rounded science curriculum.

Visual Learning Systems Digital Science Online: Elementary Edition

Visual Learning Systems Digital Science Online: Elementary Edition is geared to grades kindergarten through 5th. These lessons are split into two grade groups: Primary (K-2) and Elementary (3-5). My daughter Teela is six, going on seven in April and fits comfortably within the primary grades (K-2) under this edition. I don't have any children that fall into the grade group for elementary grades (3-5) right now.

Teela working on a tree worksheet for Life Science.

Teela worked through the Life Science units of study in the primary Elementary Edition section. We didn't want to skip around too much, but this subject interested my daughter the most and because it is Spring time I thought it was fitting to start there. The other science education subjects that are in this are Physical Science, Earth Science, and Health. We will be working through these at a later time, but I still wanted to mention them. The elementary grade level of this edition has Physical Science, Earth Science, and Life Science, but no Health.

Teela had lots of fun learning the lessons in Life Science. She learned about life cycles, food chains, classification and grouping, plants, trees, and specific groups of animals, etc. She loved the videos which were so informative and doing the worksheets too. We had her do a lesson per day, 3 days per week, for 6 weeks. This had her completely done with Life Science by the allotted time that I had to do this review. She said that her favorites were learning about the parts of the plant, about the rings on a tree, and the life cycle of a butterfly.

Visual Learning Systems Digital Science Online: Secondary Edition

Visual Learning Systems Digital Science Online: Secondary Edition is geared to grades 6th through 12th (middle/high school). My oldest son Delbin is 14 and his younger brother Jaedan is 12, going on 13 in May and they both fit comfortably within this edition. Besides Physical Science, Earth Science, Life Science, and  Health the secondary studies have Integrated Science and Biology. We have not started this with my boys yet, a lot of this for them is refresher. I do know they will also love it though and plan to have them do it in upcoming months.

I love that this is so accessible to so many. This is available for subscribers 24/7 as well as seven days a week for the student, teacher, and/or parent. It is also accessible to so many different platforms. You can use it on digital whiteboards, LCD projectors, iPads, handheld devices, and all computers. This integrates with all networks and no servers or software is needed. You can also have closed-captioned on for the visually impaired.

This whole program works really well for us and so far we absolutely love it. I can't wait to dive into more of the lessons with more of my kids.

Pricing:

$.90 per student (minimum $300/year). They have multi-campus discounts as well. Also, homeschool pricing is available for $99 per edition (elementary or secondary), up to 8 students.

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