Review: CrossWired Science

I don't know about you, but science is always a "problem" in our homeschooling curriculum. We just can't ever really find something that works for us that the kids like that stands the test of time. Well, that is, we couldn't find anything. But now we have! Until Enter: Sound, and Fluid Dynamics from CrossWired Science to save our science and homeschooling day!

All righty, so I've already told you this program is GREAT. Now let's break down why it is great!

Price

I'm gonna start with the question everyone always has. I get it. We are homeschooling families. By nature of the decision to homeschool, we are usually one-income families. So the bottom line is: this program IS affordable. In fact it is very affordable. For $27.95 you can give one child access to TWO incredible science programs for an entire year: (1) Fluid Dynamics (2) Sound. If you want to add a child, it is just $10 to do so. This is a digital subscription. There are currently two projects available, however, they have plans to add more over time. 

Every kid can use this!

I used this program with NINE different children ages 4-13. But in truth anyone from 4-adult could use it. This program has SO much in it. In our case, our little 4-6 year olds just watched the videos. My first-grader, Abigail, watched the videos and was able to answer the questions with my help. 

However, if I had only a young child, I probably wouldn't use this program. If they are a younger sibling, it's great because then you can homeschool everyone together. I really think this program starts off working for kids in about third grade. 

For the sake of the fact that I don't want to spend all day telling you about the program, I am going to take one of my students and break down what they did step-by-step.

A sample of a first-timer

Let's start with my ten-year-old Elijah who goes by the nickname "Sidge". He is in fourth grade. I assigned him the Fluid Dynamics portion of the program. Because Sidge is a little younger, he chose the "First Timer" section of the program. (Older children can be a "Second Timer" and get harder questions following their video. Stay tuned and I'll let Ana show you that in a few moments.)

When Sidge clicks on Fluid Dynamics he comes to a screen that looks like this:

He clicked on the turtle in the top left corner and was presented with a 3:32 second video on Fluid Dynamics & Bernouli.(Bernouli was a scientist who came up with the law that said: "If you increase the speed you will decrease the pressure.")

Here is Sidge watching his video:

After Sidge finished his video, he took a quiz. This quiz is stored in his completed assignments so that I can check in and see how he did. Here is Sidge working on his quiz:

Now this is only the beginning. After Sidge works through the first four units, watching a video and answering questions, he comes to some sections that allow him to work with his parent in deciding what he would like to do next. Sidge chose to click on the Experiments button and then chose the one that is highlighted in white below:

This presented him with a Fact Sheet: Creature Homes. He loved this. He got to learn all about termites! See those yellow boxes on the bottom? Those were links where he could go and read more about termites!

Here is a photo which shows Sidge reading about termites and taking notes on what he was learning while he was reading:

A sample of a second-timer

Now my niece Ana who is in 6th grade decided to do the "Second Timer" portion of the program. This is very similar to the "First Timer" in that you watch the same video. However, the quiz that follows is more difficult. I had Ana do the Sound portion of the program. Here is what her main screen looks like: 

Here is a screen-shot of Ana beginning the second video in her series: 

And here is Ana working through one of the videos:

A family affair

Each of the two global topics that CrossWired Science currently offers contain eight core videos. Most of these contain a worksheet that you can print off for your child to complete, and they all have an online quiz that they can take following completion of watching the video. At this time students can only take a quiz one time (I'd love to see this change in the future.) There are also opportunities for you to allow your child to complete an experiment, complete research on a topic covered in the videos, explore some web links, and browse through a U-Choose option where they can choose how they want to reinforce their knowledge. 

This means that if you are homeschooling nine children like I am, I can use the SAME program for ALL nine children. This would look something like this:

All nine children in our home can watch the video together. Then from there we would do the following:

• Genevieve (5): Just watch the videos
• Hannah (5): Just watch the videos
• Eoin (6): Just watch the videos
• Abigail (7): Watch the videos & then do the quiz with parent-help and some follow-up activities with parent-help
• Kari (10): Watch the videos & do the quiz with no parental help. Do follow-up activities with no parental help. 
• Isaac (10): Watch the videos & do the quiz with no parental help. Do follow-up activities with no parental help. 
• Sidge (10): Watch the videos & do the quiz with no parental help. Do follow-up activities with no parental help. 
• Ana (12): Watch the videos & do the quiz with no parental help. Do follow-up activities with no parental help. Brach out into more difficult activities and research. 
• Gabr (13): Watch the videos & do the quiz with no parental help. Do follow-up activities with no parental help. Brach out into more difficult activities and research. 

Discount Coupon!
I have a great offer for you. If you click on THIS LINK you will receive $5 off your purchase. This makes it just $22.50! In addition, I will receive a $5 bonus as well. Once in, use the coupon code: wk25. 

Summary
I encourage you to take the time to visit the link below to read reviews from my fellow teammates on this product. This program is still a work in progress and there are some kinks that have to be worked out. But it still has SOOOOO much already there that is truly wonderful to use. 

One of the challenges is that as of right now, each child must log-in separately, and then I, as the teacher, have to log-in separately as well in order to access the teacher section. I am hoping that this can be simplified in the future as that is a lot of log-ins to remember. However, you can set your browser to remember the different log-ins to make it easier. 

As always, I invite you to contact me personally at: flakymn@hotmail.com if you'd like to ask me any direct questions about the product. You can then get a lot more information and hear from a lot of other people before making the decision whether this is the product for you by visiting review from my fellow crew members below:

Mothers in Waiting Giveaway

I've got some exciting news! I've been given another copy of: Mothers in Waiting to give away to one Blog reader. You have to do TWO things to be entered in the contest:

1. Leave a comment on my BLOG POST with your name (and email address if I don't know who you are/can't contact you.)

2. Share this Facebook page to your own page!

From the moment you cradled your first baby doll, you imagined yourself a mom. Now here you are, a member of the club no one wants to join—the ten percent of women who struggle to fulfill their motherhood dreams because of infertility.

Meghann Bowman knows what it’s like to be part of that club. Along with best-selling author Crystal Bowman, Meghann has compiled 30 hope-filled stories of women who received the same diagnosis and experienced the heartache she did. Contributors include Valorie Burton, Katie Norris, Shay Shull, Stephanie Tait, Kathe Wunnenberg, and more—women whose journeys through everything from infertility and miscarriage to adoption and miracle births will buoy your faith.

Your story may not look the same, or have the same ending, but you don’t have to suffer alone. You are surrounded by a club of Mothers in Waiting—women willing to come alongside you to offer comfort and peace as you wait.

We Bought a Farm: good boots required

I am having a weekend away with JB and decided to get a pedicure. JB is the director of his ER now which means extra responsibilities. 

I always have polish on so I didn’t even realize until she took it off that my feet are pretty banged up. She said I’ll eventually lose both my toe nails. 

Boots are hard for me. Girls boots are rarely large enough. And men’s boots are too wide. So my strategy is to wear a wide assortment of boots to not hit any part of my foot too hard. 

Still looking for my dream boots. 

Despite all that we made it to the dinner that evening  not looking like farmers. 

With the other two doctors who help him run the ER and hospitalized side of Laughlin.

My BFF

Away for the weekend with this guy — at medical directors conference for the company he works for. 

He has always been handsome to me, but I think he’s handsomer now then he was when we were 16. 

Bald is beautiful :)

I love him. I will always love him. Oh we drive each other crazy, and I am more and more shocked how much of an introvert he is every day. 

But he works hard. He loves his God. He loves his kids. He loves his land. He loves me. 

And I love him back. 

Ballet competition works

Thank you to our friend Jessica (Bailee's mom!) for these fun pictures of the girls at rehearsals today. These three young ladies: Sarai (7), Bailee (8), and Abigail (7) will be competing in May in two different competitions. They will be doing a trio together and then will be each doing a solo separately.

Their trio is a TON Of fun and was choreographed jointly by Sarai's mom (a ballerina and a black belt in karate) and Lori Ann (Sarai's grandmother and studio director.) The girls are superhero villains. Sarai is Harley Quinn, Bailee is Cat Woman, and Abigail is Poison Ivy. It still needs a lot of work, but it is turning into a very fun dance. I really like it because it is not a typical ballet dance. It's fun to watch Abigail do something other than ballet -- as I have only ever seen her do ballet. 

Jessica also captured some photos of Abigail just goofing around. Here they are. I love this girl and love how much she loves to dance: 

We Bought a Farm: Meet Alena

The Bauernhof has our 28th visitor. Alena (a dual citizen from Germany and the USA) is here for one month. She's interested in the farm, but she's also very interested in helping me homeschool and cook which is wonderful. She's super friendly, outgoing, and helpful, and we are glad to have her here with us. 

Jacob has been with us off and on for two years now, but he's currently been here since September. So right now we have two visitors. 

For more information on our farm "helpers", please visit here.

Here are some pictures of Alena helping with craft time during our homeschool day:

And here are a picture of her daily egg collection! Thats a (1) goose egg, (2) duck egg (3) large chicken egg, (4) small chicken egg (5) some incredibly tiny chicken egg that set a farm record for smallness for us today! :) 

Do You Need a “Snow” Day?

Like much of the country, our little farm here in East Tennessee saw record-breaking cold and snow during the month of January. And even though I’m a homeschool mom, I celebrated with many of you when our activities were canceled and we were forced to stay home, hunker down, and lay low.

(I must be honest. In my short career as a farmer, I’ve learned that the animals on our farm still need water and food when the weather is bad. I’ve come to understand that farming does notshut down for the cold. But while we still had to get out and bucket sustenance to our chickens and ducks and sheep, the snow and cold did put a stop to our nonessential farm chores.)

Our family has tight rules in place that limit our outside activities so we can be centered on our life here in East Tennessee. But I still find that being a mom of four children means the words tired and busy constantly tumble out of my mouth. As we sat on the couch during this time of snow, the fire in our woodstove blazing and blankets tucked around our legs as we watched movies and drank hot cocoa, I couldn’t help but think, Why does it take God shutting down the town with snow for me to shut myself down and rest? Why does it take an act of God for us to just stop?

To read the rest of my post, please jump over to the Glorious Table by clicking here.

We Bought a Farm: Hanging with Jenny again

Jenny and I have been friends for decades.She lived next door to Joni and Roy for years and was very connected to their family. She also went to the same Christian school as me for years.

She happened to be living in Germany when I was "stuck there" waiting for Abigail to be born. Here is a picture of Jenny and her two little girls, the last time our families were together, in Germany, where her husband was working as a civilian and I was waiting to have our little lady, Abigail:

Those little girls in the front are now 10 and 12!

Here is Jenny's husband Ryan reading a book to my little guys. 

Jenny and Ryan and their (now) three kids were vacationing in the Gatlinburg  area and stopped by the farm for a day wit their three kiddos.

Jenny and me after a wonderful day together on the farm. 

Our now seven children playing together on the Ninja course.

I am not sure if I will tire of seeing how the military life connects people. I am not sure if I will ever get tired of bringing people from past to our farm and getting to see the newness of this life through the eyes of people who don't do it everyday. Kids chasing chickens. Egg collecting with eyes open wide -- taking in the amazing-ness of chickens laying eggs. Petting sheep. Seeing the ducks and geese.

I love the life I lived. And I love the life I live now. Tomorrow I am actually going to look at a house in our area for friends from our military life who are relocating to this area. 

I am not sure I will ever tire of the beauty of our world and the people I have the privilege of sharing it with. 

We Bought a Farm: Puttin' the Guineas to Bed

I've really been thinking there's probably a lot of you that would like to see the job on the farm. So I've been trying to do some videos and give ya'll a little look into my life here. This first video is about our guinea fowl. They occasionally stop going to their bed at night, and I have to walk them home. Arabelle often helps me. Here's a video  of me doing just that:



And here is a video where I discuss the guinea fowl in more detail as I attempt to get them to go to bed a little earlier than they would like:

25 Things to remember when I feel like a failure as a parent

"A good mom has bad days & great days & normal days & overwhelming days & perfect days & trying days & supermom days & just being a mom days & a whole lot of love & real & crazy motherhood days." 

What I really looked like this morning

vs. what I wish in my head I looked like this morning

Tuesday is always a hard day for me. It's jam-packed with activities (gymnastics, speech, three different ballets, and karate.) John and I have spoken often about trying to change how heavy this day is, but we simply have not been able to alleviate the load. 

John is working a lot. So it's just me. And so I'm sitting here, way past my bedtime, feeling sorry for myself. Feeling like I've failed my kids today. My husband today. Myself today.

My truth:

• I lost my cool once.
• I lost my cool twice.
• I lost my cool three times.
• I maybe lost it a fourth time.
• We had two woofers here to help on the farm. They didn't need me. All I had to do was raise the children today.
• I was tired.
• I was crabby.
• I ate badly.
• I failed to solve an argument between my boys.
• I didn't feed my kids great today.
• I had a kid get scratched and have an allergic reaction to a cat.
• I had a kid drop their entire plate of spaghetti on the floor. 
• I have a kid crying as I write this because they miss Dad, and I am not able to make them feel better.
• I dropped balls.

I could go on. But I'll stop. I realized, as I was sitting here, that dwelling on me stinking at this job isn't going to help. 

So I decided to switch it around and think about some of the FACTS of motherhood and today.

If you are feeling like me, today, or any other day in the future ... if you are feeling like you just stink at being a mom (or a dad!), here are some things for me (and YOU!) to remember:

1. That I feel worse when I am tired (or stressed!)
2. That I show up. EVERY. DAY. (Not all employees do that!)
3. That it is the sum of days (not just today!) that will define my children.
4. That my children see all of me. The bad AND the good.
5. That love goes a long way. I love them. I love them. And I love them some more.
6. That if I care about being a screw-up, then I actually care.
7. That my God is a God of grace.
8. That I can make changes. 
9. That tomorrow can be different.
10. That tomorrow can be better.
11. That talking realistically about parenthood and how wonderfully hard it is, allows us all to feel less alone in the challenges.
12. That I am not necessarily to blame for my kids' bad attitudes or behavior.  
13. That my kids are alive today. 
14. That my kids did not get permanently injured today. 
15. That my kids ate enough food and drank enough water to live today. 
16. That this job is hard.
17. That I must acknowledge all I did do today.
18. That the perfect mom I see in my mind doesn't exist.
19. That being involved in my kids' lives means a lot.
20. That I should think on what is true.
21. That I should pray.
22. That I am dearly loved.
23. That I am gifted by God for this job.
24. That I need to give myself permission to take a time-out (or a bubble bath!)
25. That I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

So proud of my Sidge

Sidge has been in the last three Geography Bee's at our Homeschool Co-op. The first year, as a second grader, he finished fourth. Last year he finished second. And he decided to give it a go one more year. Isaac didn't want to participate this year, but Sidge decided to do a ton of extra work and study for the Bee. He honestly did nearly all the studying himself. I typed in questions on Quizlet, but he disciplined himself to ge tit done.

He was so incredibly nervous. And so was I. I don't know why these competitions just make me nearly physically ill. I can't imagine if my child was in a spelling or geography bee on a national scale. I would seriously lose my lunch. 

A huge thank you to Ms. Kymberly and all the volunteers. Here are some pics of my fourth grader winning the Bee.

The Final Three

Winner!

Review: God, I know You're There

Stars, I can't touch you

Still I know you're there.

you twinkle like a coat of jewels

The universe can wear!

Rainfall, I can't count your drops.

Still I know you're there.

You ripple through the city's streets

And puddle in town square.

God, I can't see You.

Still I know You're there.

You're in the love I give away -- 

 The sparkle when I care.

And if Your love is what I show,

My heart is fuller still, I know.

God, I Know You're There was written by Bonnie Rickner Jensen and illustrated by Lucy Fleming. This book comes in a sturdy hard cover with beautiful and colorful illustrations. It moves from different events in nature (rainbows, clouds, moon and more) discussing how we can't "put our finger" on what they do, but we still know what they are is real. They then take this book-long metaphor and turn it to God's own truth in our lives. 

As it says on the description: "Each page will help children understand the many things int he world we can't see, touch, or hear are just as real as God is. And even if God feels distant, He is real and He is near."

 I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review!