Easy-View Microscope ~ Lakeshore Learning Review & Giveaway

In my years teaching preschool in the public school system, Lakeshore Learning was one of my favorite catalogs to browse through and find fun things to add to my classroom. Recently, Lakeshore Learning contacted me and asked if I would be interested in sharing one of the items from Lakeshore Holiday Brochure with you all ~ and I was so happy to find the Easy-View Microscope.



The Easy-View Microscope {$49.99} has a magnification of 640X and comes with a 10X and 16X eyepiece that can be interchanged. The main lens includes 4X, 10X and 40X objectives which rotate to the viewing position. The lamp and mirror are underneath the slide area and the slides are held in place with two metal clips. The microscope comes with 19 additional accessories including:

~ prepared & blank slides
~ a Petri dish & stirring rod
~ tweezers, scalpel, spatula and dropper
~ collecting vials and more

The microscope requires 2 AA batteries {not included} to run the lamp. The intended age range is for 8-11 year olds, but adult supervision is still recommended.

Our Thoughts

Truth be told, I was a little scared to pull things out of the box. I may not have mentioned it before, but biology…not some of my most well-loved subject in school. My husband on the other hand is a biology nut {he majored in it} and has a very long history with microscopes from his work in the lab.



 

The microscope itself is really nothing to be afraid of {don’t ask me why I was scared}. It is very easy to figure out how to use, comes with a short instructional guide and a variety of prepared slides with samples of cola, coffee, tea, and foam. My husband pulled everything out for us to use the first time and get the microscope set up so we could use it together.



  

We have been catching fruit flies around our house in anticipation of seeing them up close and personal. We were able to see the wing pattern on the flies and so many other fun things {I tried so hard to get an up-close picture…but it just wouldn’t work!}.

When using slides that have transparent or translucent liquids/items on them, the light is able to shine through the objects and you can see them clearly. Because the light comes from below the object, it is more difficult when attempting to look at opaque objects {like our fruit flies}, although not impossible. We could see through the wings, but the head was a little harder because of the opacity.

My husband was really happy with the microscope overall and said that it will be a wonderful help for the kids and I to use in our science studies. Based on the intended age/grade range {ages 8-11 or grades 3-6} it is a great quality microscope, especially for the $49.99 price.

Find Out More

You can purchase the Easy-View Microscope {$49.99}, as well as many other great items, online from Lakeshore Learning or find a store near you. Be sure to check out the Lakeshore Holiday Brochure as well as their fun new educational apps {currently free until 12/30/11}.

The Giveaway 

Lakeshore Learning offered to giveaway an Easy-View Microscope to one of my readers!! This would be such a FUN Christmas gift for your children or a wonderful addition to your classroom!  To enter, simply follow the directions in the widget below. You can earn multiple entries, so start clicking to enter!




 

Visit these great companies!

• Red Wagon Tutorials….Science classes for junior and senior high
• What’s in the Bible? ~ Save 50% with this great Christmas special! 

I received an Easy-View Microscope from Lakeshore Learning to review in exchange for my honest opinion. I was not paid for this post and do not need to return the microscope. All opinions in this post are solely mine or those of my family.

Nancy Larson Homeschool Science {Review}

Until this year, science was one of my LEAST favorite areas to teach the kids. It was the one thing that I went to our homeschool convention hoping to find. When I passed the booth for Nancy Larson Homeschool Science, I was intrigued. After stopping by, I ended up spending {literally} hours talking with the ladies there. It was the BEST stop of my convention trip.

We’ve been using Nancy Larson Homeschool Science 1 for the last 6 weeks and science time has become one of the most enjoyable and fun subjects we work on together as a family. The kids don’t want to stop and because of how the lessons are put together, neither do I!

About the Science Program

Nancy Larson Homeschool Science is a complete homeschool science program that currently has three levels available with an emphasis on Life Science for Science 1, Physical Science in Science 2, and Earth and Space in Science 3.

We are using Science 1 with our oldest three children, and it focuses on the following areas:

• Developmental Biology: life stages of human beings
• Botany: observing trees
• Earth and Space: exploring sunlight, water and soil
• Zoology: investigating animals and their habitats
• Anatomy: discovering what is inside our bodies
• Entomology: examining the characteristics and life cycle of insects

The Science 1 complete program includes a Teacher’s Manual, Student Materials, Resource Materials, and a Tool Kit ~ almost everything that you need to begin using it immediately {minus the pens, pencils and some basic household items} with one child. Additional student units can be ordered if you want to use the same level with more than one child.

The Teacher’s Manual is AMAZING!! The lesson plans are scripted, giving examples of what the teacher and student dialogue should be and lessons are completely laid out for the teacher. Supply lists are included at the start of each lesson, so you can quickly grab what you need and have it ready for the lesson {a big help!}.  You can view a sample of a lesson here.

Each level of the Nancy Larson Science program includes the following learning tools in the Student Material packet:

• Student Booklets ~ help children highlight important information from the lessons, draw pictures that correspond to the lessons, and record information that they are learning during their lessons
• Lesson Reviews ~ questions to help the children review information from the current and prior lessons
• Study Guides ~ a review of the information in the student booklets
• Assessments ~ a little something to help you assess what your child is learning from the lessons.

Laurianna illustrating a lesson in her Student Booklet

Each Science Level also includes a Teacher Resource CD that provides extra information relevant to that level: complete supply lists, photographs to go along with lessons, word lists, and more.

The Tool Kit for the Science 1 program includes all of the hand-on manipulatives and books that you will use throughout the year: pine cones, tree cookie, hand lens, x-ray set, Live Butterfly Garden®, Butterfly Larvae Coupon, Ladybug Land™, Ladybug Larvae Coupon, insect learning cards, plastic insects and spiders set, and the following books: What Do Scientists Do?, Peterson First Guide to Trees, Trees to Paper, Familiar Insects and Spiders, Your Insides, and The Seasons of Arnold's Apple Tree.

You can view more information on any of the homeschool science programs on Nancy Larson’s website.

My Thoughts

I don’t know that I can say that I have one favorite thing about the program, because it all fits together as a wonderful program. Having  everything I could possibly need included in the Complete Program is definitely wonderful. I didn’t have to run around town to find random items or hunt down random books to use with the program. I also love that I don’t need to plan any lessons because it is all done for me!

I mentioned that we’ve been using it with our three oldest children {ages 5, 7, and 9}. Nancy Larson Homeschool Science has literally turned our science learning time around. We have our science time twice a week and when we have finished one lesson, the kids all beg me to keep going. This is a huge difference from year’s prior when the kids did not want to work on what we were supposed to…and neither did I. We all look forward to science time now and I look forward to using future levels of Nancy Larson Homeschool Science.

While talking to the ladies from Nancy Larson science at the homeschool convention, I was amazed to hear that seven years of research, planning, and development go into EACH level of the curriculum. It is field tested for several years of that time, so that when it arrives on your doorstep you are ready to go. I can’t say enough how thoroughly impressed I am with the curriculum as a whole ~ or how highly I recommend it to other homeschool families.

Find Out More

You can view and purchase all of the products available from Nancy Larson Homeschool Science on her website. A few other things to note:

• Science 1 is designed for ages 5-8; Science 2 for ages 7-9; Science 3 for ages 8-11
• Science K Homeschool Kit is scheduled to be released the summer of 2011. Science 4 Homeschool Kit should release the summer of 2012. Science 5 Homeschool Kit is scheduled to be released summer of 2013.
• Check out the Blooming Scientists blog ~ the homeschooling parent community from Nancy Larson.

Please feel free to ask any questions in the comments or contact Madon Dailey directly, a representative of Nancy Larson Homeschool, if you have any specific questions. She is wonderful and would be happy to help you out!

Nature Friend Magazine {Review}

Not too long ago I had some sample science/nature magazines sent to us {I'm not naming any names} and I later found Laurianna with a Sharpie marker blacking out text in places. I was a little upset with her at first, but she innocently looked at me and said, "Mom, they were saying the earth was billions of years old. That's not true, so I was crossing it off."

A few weeks later, Nature Friend magazine showed up in our mailbox to review for the Homeschool Crew. The kid's and I have loved pouring over the pictures, articles, art lesson, and the many other features that this magazine offers.

Helping Children Explore the Wonders of God's Creation

Nature Friend is written from a Creationist perspective and is geared toward children ages 7-16. The magazine publishes twelve issues each year and every other month the issues are focused a little more for older kids, making it a magazine that the whole family can really enjoy and use. The magazine was:

"...born out of {the} desire to encourage children to believe in God as their Creator and to seek out, recognize, and appreciate His handiwork....Nature Friend...policy has been to simply stand on the truth of God’s Word and to present it as enjoyable fact while learning about the creatures God has created."

It is a full color magazine that offers features similar to secular nature magazines for kids. The artwork and photography are wonderful!! Some of the features Nature Friend has:

• You Can Draw ~ a monthly art lesson that details how to draw specific objects from nature {flowers, animals, etc...}. Children can submit their drawings to the magazine to be featured in future issues.
  
• Scavenger Hunts ~ Each issue has several different things hidden in it for you and your children to find
  
• The Story Behind the Photo ~ Photographers share the story of the picture that they took
  
• Creation Close-ups ~ great close-up shots sent into the magazine
  
• Pictures and Poems ~ contributions from readers that are shared and published in the magazine
  
• Invisibles ~ a hidden picture game where you find smaller objects in a large picture
• Learning by Doing ~ experiments and activities to further reinforce science at home

Study Guide Feature

Nature Friend also has a 'Study Guide' option available with your magazine subscription. For an additional $2/issue, the guide comes as an insert in the magazine and provides you with additional activities and resources that go along with the monthly issue, including crossword puzzles, research questions, writing activities, and more. The activities can be copied {for those with multiple children}. You can view some sample study guides here.

Our Time with Nature Friend

The August issue of Nature Friend had an article on cicada bugs. Not necessarily my favorite topic, but the kids were completely enthralled with the bugs. So much so that they spent hours outside hunting down their skins and presenting them to me with utter joy and lining them up on my windowsill.

I would show you the mound of skins they discovered, but in all honesty, those empty skins were grossing me out {and even scared Rick the first time he saw them!}...so they are no longer with us.

Laurianna and McKenna have really enjoyed the fun activities the magazine offers and the stories are just the right length for sitting down and reading together. I love knowing that the focus of the magazine is on God and His creation ~ and that I don't have to worry about what the kids will come across in their reading.

The option of having the Study Guide to go along with the magazine makes the magazine even better. The two issues that we received included a 'photo critique' on how to take better pictures as well as a recipe, writing lessons, true/false questions, additional research questions, crossword puzzles, and art ideas.

Purchasing a Subscription

A full year's subscription consists of 12 monthly issues. Study guides are available for each month's magazine. Yearly subscriptions to Nature Friend magazine are $36.00 and Study Guides are also available on an individual or yearly basis {$24/year}.

You can use the coupon code BLOG93 to save an additional $3.00 off a new subscription to Nature Friend {valid until November 30, 2009}.

The Nature Friend website offers several sample issues of the magazine as well as the teacher's guide so you can get a better understanding of the magazine.

Click on the Homeschool Crew banner to read other reviews about this product.
As a member of the Homeschool Crew, I was given this product to review,
and I do not have to return the product to the vendor. I was not paid for this post.
All opinions expressed in this post are mine.

Nutrition 101: Choose Life! {Review}

The foods that we eat affect our body in so many different ways ~ for good and for bad. Over the last few years our family has been making changes bit by bit in an attempt to eat healthier, change bad eating patterns and habits and gain a better understanding of nutrition.

Growing Healthy Homes recently sent our family Nutrition 101: Choose Life! to review for the Homeschool Crew. At first I was a little overwhelmed with the product because the e-book is 448 pages. Over the last few weeks as I've looked over the curriculum and started working through it, I am rather impressed with the depth and flexibility it offers.

About the Curriculum

Nutrition 101: Choose Life! is a complete curriculum for all ages covering a wide range of subjects: science, nutrition, health and human anatomy and 'understanding the real relationship food has on our bodies.'

The curriculum is broken up into six units {with 4 chapters each} that cover:

1. The Brain and Nervous System
2. The Digestive System
3. The Respiratory, Olfactory, Auditory and Visual Systems
4. The Muscular and Skeletal Systems
5. The Cardiovascular and Immune Systems
6. The Endocrine System and Emotions

The chapters were designed to be covered in a week's time {24 weeks total} but are flexible and can be extended if needed. Units contain discussion questions, activities, recipes, additional resources, an activity guide, and appendix for related charts, tables, and articles that elaborate on the text. The curriculum is Biblically-based and includes over 80 recipes for you to try with your family along with hands-on projects and experiments.

My Thoughts

I mentioned that we've been steadily changing things in our own house in the area of nutrition. Our kids have become involved and are understanding more and more the impact of how our food choices affect so much more than our immediate hunger. As I've been trying to learn more, this curriculum came along and is a wonderful opportunity for us to learn together as a family.

The units work well as a lapbooking or notebooking study {this is how we're using it}. We're working at a much slower pace right now ~ just a bit at a time. Having our kids involved in the process encourages them to be more proactive in their choices and when they help with recipes they are more likely to try and enjoy the results!

We have the e-book and personally, I would prefer the CD/book combo, mainly because I am a hands-on kind of girl. We are very happy with the e-book we have and have been printing off much! Why do I suggest both? Both have the same info, but the CD allows you to reprint copies of charts, recipes and other pages without having to photocopy ~ much more convenient if you have multiple children.

Find Out More

If you would like a peek at Nutrition 101, Growing Healthy Homes has a sample of the curriculum on their site available for download/review. They also have a video summary on their main site.

If you are interested in purchasing Nutrition 101: Choose Life!, it is available in several different formats:

• CD-rom for $79.95
• Print book version for $99.95
• Print and CD combo for $129.95
  

Click on the Homeschool Crew banner to read other reviews about this product.
As a member of the Homeschool Crew, I was given this product to review,
and I do not have to return the product to the vendor. I was not paid for this post.
All opinions expressed in this post are mine.

Apologia: Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day

Several months ago we took a trip to the Museum of Natural History with our girls. During our time there I grew more and more irritated looking at what my tax dollars were paying to teach other children. Watching people gape at a little bronze rat, 'our earliest ancestor', made me sick to my stomach and I returned home with a renewed passion to instill a deep understanding of Creation and a love for its Creator in our children.

I asked a friend of mine about different science curriculums and she recommended the Young Explorer Series from Apologia to me. Before I even had a chance to do much research on the company, I received their book Flying Creatures on the Fifth Day to review - a complete and total blessing! We started working through the book a few weeks later and can say that this is a curriculum series we will continue to use in the years to come.

Exploring Creation with Zoology 1: Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day is the first book in the Apologia's Young Explorers series on zoology. It is a creation-based curriculum using a Charlotte Mason approach for learning. Students are encouraged to notebook along with their studies. The text is written directly to children, targeted toward children ages 6 to 13. In Flying Creatures...

"...children will begin exploring the dynamics of flight and animal classification, understanding why the design we see in these incredible creatures points us to our Creator God.

Then, get ready for the exciting adventure of learning about birds. Your children will learn how to attract various bird species to your yard and identify them by looking at their special physical characteristics, diverse nests, and interesting domestic practices.

They will also learn the anatomy and the glorious design that enables birds to do remarkable things. After becoming amateur ornithologists, your children will explore the world of chiropterology, which is the study of bats."

Flying Creatures provides 14 lessons packed full of information (you can view lesson one here). The lessons can seem overwhelming at first, but they recommend breaking each chapter/lesson up into segments. Once lesson one is completed you can continue with the remaining lessons in any order you choose. If the weather is warm in your area, you can study insects or whenever it is convenient for you.

Our girls were a little overwhelmed when they first saw the book, but we have been slowly working our way through the first chapter and they are picking up so much! We are notebooking and lapbooking along with our learning to record what we have been talking about. Their favorite part has been learning about how animals are classified and learning the meme to go along with the classification system: "Kings play chess on fine glass sets." The first letter in each word matches the first letter in the words of the classification groups: Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, and Species. And you know the girls think they are too smart now that they know all of those!

Some things I love about the book:

• Projects and experiments ~ Each lesson includes different hands-on experiments and projects to do with your children. The experiments generally use common household items. The book provides a list of the items needed for all the experiments for quick reference also. Each lesson generally provides several things to try.
  
• Notebooking - Each lesson provides notebooking activities so that your child can keep a record of what they are learning in the lessons.
• A full year on a focused subject - Rather than just touching on the subject of 'God made birds' the curriculum spends the entire year on one subject, allowing children to do more than just scratch the surface of the subject
  

If you would like more information on Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day, there are several pdfs available for viewing online: the table of contents, an introduction to the book, a course overview, notebooking examples, lesson examples, zoology flashcards, and lab information.

Apologia also has other books available in the Young Explorers series focused on astronomy, botany, swimming creatures and land animals. There is also a great Yahoo group for Apologia that focuses on the elementary science books by Jeannie Fulbright where I have found some great resources ans answers to questions. If you have older children, be sure to check out the other science options that Apologia offers too.

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about this book and others available from Apologia.