Monday, July 19, 2010

Geography e-book review!





I am new to the Crew!!! The Old Schoolhouse Homeschool Review Crew that is. Our first item to review is The June Module on the subject of geography from Schoolhouse Planner / Modules which can be found HERE and it sells for $ 7.95. You can find other module sets here including the entire set for the 2009-2010 school year. They are timeless topics that can be used any year. TOS has an abundance of fabulous products that can be found on their website. You can find all reviews done by my crewmates by clicking group blog.



The e-book starts out with text on what 'geography' means and then leads into specific information for each continent. Some of it was over Andrew's head (9 years old special needs). What I did was begin by giving him a worksheet from the text and asking him to fill it out. I could then use the materials in the e-book to focus in on what he needed to learn that was at his level. This really can be used for many levels and there are even specific pages targeted to older (high school) learners. These are called 'mini-unit studies' but I have to say, I didn't think they were so mini!

The website really does outline the nuts and bolts of the e-books (including samples from the book) so I thought i'd tell you about how WE used it!

We never do things exactly as outlined and this module was easily adaptable. For example, they had a word scramble exercise. For Andrew, I wrote each letter on an individual piece of paper. He had a go at unscrambling it himself and then would look to me for a thumbs up or down if he had the next 'right' letter. I had him cut out the various matchbook style books on each contentent and we took some delightful rabbit trails down the links that were given in the book. Did you know that the giraffe has a blue tongue? (It is kind of blue- black. Here is a picture I pulled off the internet.)






We did all our reading via the e-book (vs. printing) and Andrew did quite well with that. We cut out the matchbooks and then went to visit one continent per day. There were short lessons or longer ones for each continent. The copywork was extensive and available in both manuscript and cursive. We printed out the manuscript and then gave him his "Smart Start" paper to write on.

Because we are slower with our academic work here than most (and it is summer), this may take us awhile to finish but we will be putting these all in a lapbook or notebook to review at a later date. This is an e-book that can be easily set aside for awhile and returned to later. That is what we will do! I plan to continue to use it as a resource throughout the year.



As part of The Old Schoolhouse Crew of reviewers, I was given a complimentary copy of Travel the World from The Old Schoolhouse. I am not compensated for this review and am not obligated to provide a positive review.


3 comments:

Tim @ Families Again said...

Fantastic job! I knew I would be proud.

Dawn said...

Hi! Stopping by as a fellow member of the Crew. Nice review! I'm a first timer too!!

Catherine said...

I'm visiting from the TOS crew. I love the picture of the giraffe tongue! Nice!

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