The World Around Us

We were given the opportunity to review the video game making tutorials at Tektoma.com. Tektoma is a company that helps kids ages 7 to 17 make their own video games. In return, we were asked to write a review.

Tektoma uses a program called GameMaker to make it easier to create video games. Younger children, like my daughter, may need help downloading and installing the program, and adding the resource files to the desktop.

My daughter was very excited to give Tektoma a try. She likes to play video games (what seven-year-old doesn’t) and had grand ideas of creating the next Super Mario Brothers. For us, reality was a little different.

The program is good, and as an adult, it is easy to follow along. Tektoma has videos that you follow along on your computer. You open the same files, see (almost) the same things on your screen, and create the same video game features. In the process your child is learning how to create video games. There are basic videos, like learning how to make a race car game or an arcade game, as well as more advanced games.

My daughter had a little trouble with these tutorials. She’s on the younger range of the kids these videos are made for, and that might be why she was having some difficulty. The video tutor used the Pro version of GameMaker, while we had the free version. There were slight variations between what was on the video, and what was on our screen, and I think that it threw her off. I tried to help her, but she was already frustrated.

I think that in a year or two, my daughter would be able to follow along a little bit better, and she would enjoy these tutorials a little bit more. If she expresses an interest in computer programming when she gets older (particularly game making), we will probably take another look at it.

You can try them out for 14 days for free. This would give you enough time to see if these tutorials are at the right level for your child.

I was recently sent a copy of two books by Zeezok publishing: Handel at the Court of Kings and Robert Schumann and Mascot Ziff. This is sold as a pack of two as part of their Great Musician’s Series.

There are many ways that a homeschool family can go about using this book. We have decided to read the book together. I have my daughter read some of the shorter paragraphs, while I read the longer paragraphs. We’ll read the story together, and then we’ll listen to the musical passages in the story.

There are several things that my daughter learns while reading this story with me. For one, she learns how to read longer words. Many of the words are fairly difficult for seven-year-olds, or at least for mine. Some of these words include orchestra, clavichord, conductor, and Medici. She is also able to learn a little bit about the lives of these musicians, and about the times they lived in. It’s done in a way that is not intimidating or difficult. When I asked my daughter what she thought about these books, she said that they were “cool.”

Each book has a study guide that goes along with the books. Each of the four chapters has a timeline in the study guide that lists what was going on in the world at the time, reading comprehension questions, notes of interest, and character qualities that the musician displayed. We haven’t really used these much, mostly because reading the book seems to be just about the right amount of work for my daughter. They would probably come in handy for older kids though.

We are able to do about a half chapter a day. We tried a whole chapter the first day, and it was a bit much for my daughter. Each book is four chapters long.

There are music notes in the book that young piano players, with a little bit of experience, can play. It uses two hands, but no chords. It’s a little advanced for my little girl to play, but would be useful for musicians with a little more experience.

We use these books in music class, but you could also use them in reading class, unit studies, or perhaps history.

I got a comment on my other web site, The World Competes, the other day by someone asking to contribute. I thought about it today, and I was about to write a response, saying that if they wanted to submit an Olympic-related, family friendly article, that I would consider it… in return, I would let them post an affiliate link or a link to their web site.

I was about to send them an email, when I saw that they had a web site. I decided to take a look at it before I wrote to them. I didn’t really pay much attention to what the web site said, because the first thing that I noticed was ads for Ashley Madison… a web site that encourages affairs. Hmmm… I think I’ll pass on that guest blogger thing… at least from that one particular commenter.

While my Olympics web site/blog isn’t generally a political site, I do filter out certain adsense ads. You can filter out provocative ads, and I do. Perhaps more people would click on them, but that’s not what I want my name associated with.

I was working on writing a car review today (my “real” job is writing for a marketing company, primarily car reviews), and I noticed a link about rear view cameras while I was doing research. Evidently, Senators Hillary Clinton and John Sununu wanted to make it mandatory to put rearview cameras on cars by 2010 (this was a while back).

While this is old news, and the bill was shelved for now, this is another example of the government trying to control people. Yes, rearview cameras are great. Could they save lives? I’m sure that they could. I know a couple of people that have been run over by cars while they were backing up (they lived). Like any other option, putting in (or omitting) rearview cameras should be controlled by the free market.

Many new cars come with rearview cameras, especially the nicer models. As technology gets better, it is likely that they will start to appear on more cars, even without mandates from the government. Mandating rearview cameras could make it so that some people are unable to afford new cars. Cars have been around for more than 100 years now, without rearview cameras. People will buy them when the price falls to a point that is affordable to them.

The same principals apply to bicycle helmets, seat belts, and just about every other safety feature that the government decides to mandate. Are these things good? Of course they are. But shouldn’t we decide to use them? Shouldn’t we decide whether we want to eat trans-fat or smoke? People take calculated risks every day. We should be allowed to be stupid. We should be allowed to buy a car, even if we can’t afford rear view cameras. They will probably be on most vehicles soon enough, without governmental intrusion.

My daughter went to spend the night at a friend’s house (her friend’s mom is my friend too) yesterday night. When I arrived at my friend’s house to drop her off, I heard some tragic news: there was a huge fire near where they were living.

Three houses caught on fire. The houses were very close together, and the flames jumped from one house to another. My friend believes that the fire might have been started by a meth lab, the flames were so hot. I know that when our house caught on fire a little less than two years ago, the fire was no where near as hot.

These people lost everything. Even worse, the fire led to a death. There was a bedridden lady that weighed about 500 pounds; she was unable to get out of bed to escape the flames. I couldn’t imagine how horrible it must have been for her.

I do know how horrible it is to have your house catch on fire though. It’s shocking… those kinds of things happen to other people. It’s difficult to go through your stuff afterwards, even if you can recover a good amount of stuff like we were able to.

Please keep these people in your prayers.

I was recently sent a copy of Marie Rippel’s Beehive Reader in exchange for writing a review. The Beehive Reader is meant to be a companion to All About Spelling, which I previously reviewed. All About Spelling really works for my daughter, and I have already decided to buy level 3 for next year (she just completed level 1 yesterday, and we will be starting level 2 right away).

The Beehive Reader is a high-quality book. I like to buy high-quality hardback books for my school, even if I have to pay a little more. We have been using Story of the World for part of our history curriculum, and I always choose to buy the hardback, even though a paperback is available. I don’t want my kids to have to worry about bending the covers or anything. It would be nice if more textbook producers would create student editions in hardback.

The stories in the Beehive Reader correlate with the spelling ideas that are learned in All About Spelling. After the student learns short vowels, they read a story that contains a lot of short vowels. When they cover blends, or double letters, there is a corresponding story to read. Each page is beautifully illustrated with a pencil illustration. The stories in Beehive Reader 1 should interest younger readers. They are simple, yet interesting.

That being said, I’m not sure if the Beehive Reader/All About Spelling combination will work well for all students. When my daughter learned how to read, she went from a stage where she could barely sound out words one day, and the next day, it was like a light went on in her head, and she could read nearly everything. The trouble was, she had difficulty with spelling. In her case, the Beehive Reader would have been quite easy for her, while the spelling would be difficult. My daughter just finished All About Spelling level 1, and the Beehive Reader was much too easy for her. She may be the exception, as we found All About Spelling after she was a proficient reader. She read her first chapter book two days ago.

The Beehive Reader is likely to work best with students that are learning how to read. I plan on using All About Spelling with my little boy from the start, and as long as he is not an advanced reader or a poor speller, the program is likely to work well. With my daughter, I used the Beehive Reader as a source of additional phrases to spell if we need to spend a little more time on an All About Spelling lesson. I would recommend this book to younger students as they learn to read (whether or not they use the spelling program at the same time).

The Beehive Reader 1 is available for $19.95 from All About Spelling.com.

The next 16 days are going to be extremely busy for me. Not only will I be busy watching and commenting on the Olympics, but Survivor is also back, with Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains. If you missed it, Thursday was the season premiere. I wrote a recap of Episode 1 for Associated Content, if you’re interested.

So we’re taking spring break a little early (kind of). We’re doing Olympics week in school, with Olympic activities, including Olympic geography, Olympic math, and Olympic reading. That should make things a little less busy.

Since last summer began, you may have noticed that I’ve had the opportunity to review quite a few homeschooling products. You may have been thinking to yourself “I wish I could try out homeschooling products for free.” The good news is, you can (maybe).

The Old Schoolhouse is looking for homeschoolers to review products for their 2010-2011 school year. Click on the link if you’d like to apply for the position.

Being on The Old Schoolhouse Crew has been a great opportunity for me. I’ve been able to try out a variety of products that I otherwise wouldn’t have had the opportunity to try out. I’ve found some things that worked really well, some things that didn’t fit our lifestyle, and other things that I could use, but probably won’t continue to use in the upcoming year. It can be challenging at time to review all the products, but it’s worth it.

Even though I’m boycotting American Idol this year (I’m not a fan of Ellen’s), I’ve found it interesting how many Christian singers have come out of that show… Mandisa and Melinda Doolittle are probably the two biggest names that come to mind, but there are several others. Ruben Studdard released a Christian album, as did Chris Sligh last year.

I was filling out the music survey for my local Christian radio station, KFLR, and I noticed another American Idol can be added to the list… Phil Stacey. Stacey’s new single, With All My Heart, was on the list of songs that they wanted me to rate. I didn’t get to hear the whole song in the survey, but I think that I’ve heard it once or twice.

So if you listen to Christian music, be on the alert for one other Christian singer that has come from the ranks of American Idol.

I was recently sent a copy of The Ultimate Guide to Homeschooling by Debra Bell to review. When I started homeschooling, I think I remember looking at an earlier version of this book, or something like it. Now that I’ve been homeschooling for four years (which is really hard to believe, but I started preschool when dd was 3 1/2, now she’s 7 1/2), it has different things for me than to a new homeschooler. But I think that it can be useful to new homeschoolers, prospective homeschoolers, and even veteran homeschoolers.

Not every person will benefit from every part of this book at all times, but it is a good reference for nearly any homeschooler to keep around.

Prospective homeschoolers are likely to benefit from Part 1: Homeschooling: Is It for You?, although people who have been homeschooling for a while probably have figured out the answer to that. While I think that almost anybody that sincerely wants to homeschool can find a way, I don’t think that it’s right for everyone. It’s a lot of work, and many people don’t want to put in the time and energy to do it. There are alternatives to homeschool, so if you’re not sure about whether you want to do it, this chapter can help. There are parents that pull their kids in and out of school multiple times, and that usually hurts the child (it also can make homeschoolers in general look bad, because often those are the only homeschooled children that public school teachers see).

Part 2: Choosing a Curriculum will help beginning homeschoolers primarily, but it can also help people who are unhappy with whatever they are currently using. I’ve found programs that I really like, but then I’ve also found things that didn’t work quite as well, or programs that are even better than what I’m currently using. For example, my daughter was having difficulty with BJU Spelling, but All About Spelling is great for her. I thought that she would like Switched on Schoolhouse for Language Arts, and that it would save me time, but she was frustrated with it, so we’re going back to BJU next year. Curriculum challenges can occur when you’re just starting out, or if your budget suddenly changes (there’s a chapter on Homeschooling on a Shoestring).

Part 4: Preventing Burnout could help veteran homeschoolers. I used one of the suggestions today. In order to let my daughter have a little more control over her education, I let her pick the order in which she did her school work for the day. I created a 3×5 card, and I told her that when she was finished, we were done with school. She was pleasantly surprised.

Part 6: Homeschooling Teens can be helpful for teachers of older kids (I’m not there yet, dd is 7). There are challenges to homeschooling for high school, including the more advanced material, different social challenges, and preparing for college. It can be done; this chapter helps you decide whether to continue homeschooling through high school (you might even choose different routes for different kids), and then gives information on how to deal with these challenges.

Other parts of the book deal with organizing and planning, what and when to teach, computers, how to deal with reluctant learners, toddler siblings, and bringing kids out of school to the home environment, and measuring success. There is also a Resource Guide at the end with organizations, publishers, and even competitions your child(ren) might be interested in.

Final thoughts: I think that this is a great book, but I have one caveat: parts of this book are opinions, not facts. They may be educated opinions, but like any homeschool book that you buy, you need to take what works for you and adapt it to fit. The methods given to raise independent learners may not all work for you. You may have your own thoughts about whether to give them an allowance or not. While there are plenty of facts to draw upon, your homeschooling goals and philosophy might be a little different than the author’s; don’t feel bad if you disagree with the author at any point.

I did really like this book, and I think that many homeschoolers could benefit from getting a copy to use as a reference in their own homeschool.