Monday, July 19, 2010

Review: The Schoolhouse Planner - Travel The World! (June 2010 module)

The timing of this item being given to me to review was perfect.  After the Australia unit study, Ausonie has been asking to learn more about continents and geography in general.  I was going to introduce her to basic world geography with a new game:  Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?, junior edition.  I already had the game and was waiting for a rainy day to bring it out.  The Travel The World! module gave me just the right context to make it into a light, summer-appropriate unit study that could compete with the sunny outdoors for her attention.



I haven't yet explored everything The Old Schoolhouse offers, but I have spent a significant amount of time browsing their store.   The Schoolhouse Planner is a school / home / life organizer, and the modules, such as this June 2010 Module, are e-books that can be used as add-ons to the Planner, or by themselves. 

When I told Ausonie we had an e-book to review, she wanted to dive right in before I had a chance to look it over myself, and we did 10-15 pages of it in one sitting.  I was thrilled!  The language is familiar and understandable and ALL the terms that were unfamiliar to my 6-year-old were explained in plain English.  The pace was slow and the material enjoyable.  However, it gets to a point where the information becomes too much too soon, such as an explanation of latitude and longitude, tropics and climate zones, all within half a page.

Although no specific age/grade level was given for this ebook, it looks to me like it was intended for those in middle school.  The links to various websites and online games vary widely in terms of the degrees of difficulty.  Still, we got a lot out of it:  an overview of the continents and oceans, an introduction to geographical jargon, a quiz, and of course, the lapbook!  Ausonie had fun searching for the Hudson Bay, Greenland and the Andes Mountains on our atlas, unscrambling words, searching for words in a grid and playing an online game with geographical coordinates.  As you can imagine, she skipped the highschool extension part, but I read it and it looks very interesting and interactive.

There is also some copywork, some of which we found helpful with remembering the names of the continents and oceans.  I liked that there was even something for my toddler to do - the coloring pages.  The 2 recipes included were not particularly 'ethnic' and felt a bit out of place, but I appreciated the material touching the area of homemaking for older children who are so inclined.  Given the extensive nature of the material (the whole world!), it took some re-directing and re-focusing to stay on track, because clicking on so many links, as many as 8 per paragraph, got distracting very quickly.  After a short break, we started doing a continent a day, or sometimes a week, so we had time to explore everything this module has to offer. 

The TOS resources listed at the end look like a great way to elaborate on a specific topic that piqued your child's interest.  For the moment, mine was not interested to continue learning about any specific part of the world, and when I showed her the list and asked her what she would like to do next, she picked the 'Where In The World?' e-book (you can guess why!).  We enjoyed using this module and spent some quality time that felt like playing, yet was very educational.  If the next materials to review are half as much fun as this one, it looks like we are going to have a blast sailing with the TOS Crew this year.  Thank you TOS Magazine!

If you would like to see what my Crew mates thought of this program, click here.

Disclaimer:  I received this product free of charge for review purposes only.  The opinions stated here are my own.

5 comments:

  1. Hi Alina,
    Just stopping by from the Homeschool Crew. I realize I was not following your blog, so I made sure I am now following.

    Enjoyed reading your great review!

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  2. Stopping by from the CREW. I enjoyed your post. Blessings, Kimberly

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  3. I enjoyed your review! I am a fellow member of the Crew. The year is off to a great start!

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  4. I'm stopping by from TOS crew. The lapbook came out great!

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  5. Looks like you made it work for you!

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