Review of Biology 101 from The 101 Series | #101series #homeschoolscience

I am a huge advocate of homeschooling through the high school years but I am also willing to admit that some courses are out of my league. The beauty is there are so many options available for homeschooling families today that tackling these courses head on is not a problem. Science, for instance, has never been a favorite course of study for me so teaching Homeschool science doesn't exactly excite me. Thankfully, I don't have to do it alone so I was thrilled to review Biology 101 from The 101 Series. 

 

One of the characteristics I look for in a Biology course especially is that is creation based and Biology 101 is exactly that! We were also looking for simple labs and again we have found success with this course. I really cannot praise this course enough and have finally found a high school Biology fit for our homeschool.

So what is Biology 101?

It is DVD course that teaches students Biology through the days of creation as found in the book of Genesis. Now, you can simply watch the DVDs which include over 4 1/2 hours of instruction but if you would like to dive in more, resources are available for that too. The course includes a thorough 118 page Guidebook and a 12 page Accreditation Booklet. If you do this course as suggested, it is broken down into 11 segments which create 27 weeks of course work, at approximately 5 hours per week.

The segments are broken down like this:

• Introduction: Defining Life and Life Classification
• The 3rd Day - Plants
• The 5th Day - Aquatic (water) Creatures and Avian (flying) Creatures
• The 6th Day - Land Animals Part 1 and 2
• The 6th Day - Mankind Part 1 and Part 2
• Conclusion: Cells, Genetics, and a Brief History of Biology

A typical week includes watching the DVD segment, reading assigned pages in the guidebook, and sometimes a field trip or simple lab option is given.  The reading material reiterates what was taught in the video and adds in additional information and fun facts too.  The course includes 20 hours of lab work none of which are dissections.  You may add those in additionally if you wish.  Labs are also easy to complete and don't require complicated materials.  Sample lab work includes identifying plants in your yard, identifying parts of fish by catching one or using a goldfish, making a simple drawing of anatomy using a household pet, and many more.   Additional activities include other video recommendations, reading juvenile science books, and writing simple reports with a 200 word minimum.  

Quizzes are available at the end of each segment in the guidebook. They are multiple choice quizzes and the answers are included as well.

Here is a sample of how the credit hours can be given per segment and a glimpse as some of the weeks' activities.

Our original plan was to use this course to supplement our current Biology course but after seeing what was included we have decided to use it as our main course of study. My son has been able to comprehend this so much better! The course really takes complicated terms and breaks them down simply. For instance, he was taught a very simple way to remember the female and male parts of a plant that we had never seen before but made so much sense! Stamen can be remembered as the male part because it has the word men in it. Stigma can be remembered as the female part because it has the word ma in it. We both love learning by connecting simple truths like that!

The visual, auditory, and kinesthetic processes of the video, guidebook, and activities have helped him learn more about Biology than any other course he has taken so far.

The 101 Series offers two additional high school science courses as well, Physics 101 and Chemistry 101. You can purchase the entire set of 3 for $168.95 or each one individually for $69.95. Click the banner below to see reviews on those too.

Find out more about The 101 Series by visiting them on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.

Review of NotebookingPages.com

To aid in our summer studies of focusing on God's Word, we have been taking advantage of the Lifetime Membership from NotebookingPages.com.

If you are unfamiliar with what notebooking actually is, think scrapbooking for school subjects. It's a fun way for students to make subjects come to life. Students journal and draw about what they have learned and every page shows each student's own unique personality. There is no right or wrong way to notebook which is the beauty of this system. They offer pages that cater to students who may prefer to draw and students who prefer to write. There are also options available for a mix of the two.

NotebookingPages.com offers 1000's of pages to download and print in Bible/Character, Alphabet, Famous People, Fine Arts, Geography, History, Holidays, Language Arts, and Science/Nature. They also offer basic lined notebooking pages that can be used with any subject.

So far we have have just touched the surface on the pages available with this membership. The most fantastic part is your membership never expires so you can take all the time you need to complete your projects! You also gain free access to any future updates that may occur with your lifetime membership.

For our homeschool, we focused on the Bible notebooking pages. This set takes you through the Old Testament and New Testament from Creation to John's Vision on the island of Patmos. It comes in a zip file and once unzipped it contains 54 files of PDF printables. This set alone has over 500 different pages to choose from!

I used this set with my daughter, Sarah, who is 12. We used the Bible notebooking categories as our devotion point each day. We began by researching the Bible verse or verses then added our own drawings or timeline and journaling information. Some days, we added a paraphrase with our thoughts and some days we simple copied the verse from the Bible but it has been a great time to spend with each other and growing in God's Word.

One of the files included an overview of every page in the set which made it so much simpler to pick and choose which pages we wanted to work with. Below is just a small sample of what is available.

We hole punched the pages and inserted them inside this small 3 ring flexible binder.  You could also add them to the binder with a clear front and decorate with your own binder cover. 

The Table of Contents page included was great to keep us on track.  You could also number your pages to correspond with the Table of Contents if you wish to make pages easier to look back on.

Here are just a few of the Bible notebooking pages that we completed.

Sarah enjoyed this way of working through the Bible. She is very creative and loves to draw so this was a perfect fit for her. There are also pages available with illustrations for those who would rather just narrate what they have learned as well as a combination of both.

I love to do special activities on holidays so I know the holiday section will come in handy for us too. There are pages for most of the traditional holidays. Here is a sample of just one of the pages offered for the fourth of July.

Next school year, we will be focusing a lot of other countries and geography so I have already begun to explore and print some of the pages in that section for next year too. The geography notebooking pages include maps, country pages, and more.

NotebookingPages.com offers lots of free pages too. You can sign up for a free sampler to see if this unique system will work for your family. I love that there are so many options in so many subjects so I don't have to take the time to search the internet for each individual page. When you are finished with your pages, you will have a real treasure on your hands written and designed by your student.

Find out more about NotebookingPages.com on Facebook and Twitter.

Review of Essential Skills Advantage

My daughter has been using the Complete Home Learning Suite from Essential Skills Advantage (ESA) to review some of her studies for the past school year.

The Complete Home Learning Suite is a supplemental online subscription recommended for grades K-6 with thousands of lessons in Reading, Geography, Language & Grammar, Math, and Science. Science lessons are only available for grades K-3 and Geography is only available for grades 4-6. There are several options for payment including monthly, bi-annually, and annually. Prices also vary depending upon the number of students you plan to use the subscription. See ESA's pricing page for more information.

When I first looked over the Complete Home Learning Suite, I thought it would be a great review for my daughter of the states and capitals she has worked on this year. She is actually in 7th grade but we found this to be a wonderful program that she could do independently for review. 

 
Once you set up your student/students, you can require a password for them to log in with or just skip that and let them log in automatically. Students can easily jump from subjects using the subject tab as well as choose different grade levels if necessary.  I think that's a very appealing feature because not all students are on the same grade level for every subject. 

Above you are seeing what Geography lessons are available for 6th grade.  My daughter focused on American Geography. Once you click on the American Geography lessons, you will find even more lessons broken down by different activities such as...
State Names - 42 activities State Captials - 47 activities Other Major Cities - 14 activities Bodies of Water - 7 activities Physical Regions - 5 activities Biomes - 5 activities Timezones - 7 activities Natural Landmarks - 8 activities Human Landmarks - 8 activities
Activities in each lesson vary but some of the activities you will do include learning the names, spelling the names, and finding the location on a map.  Below are a few of the activities included in the American Geography portion.    

Here you are simply learning where the state is geographically, how to spell it, it's nickname and population.

For this activity, a state is highlighted and you pick the correct one from the states listed.

This activity gives the students clues about where the state is located and they pick the correct state from the right. 

This activity highlights the state and gives its name scrambled.  The student has to unscramble the letters to correctly spell the state.  

The parent and student have charts available recording the students progress, as well as certificates that can be printed out upon completion if you would like. The reports include time spent, average grade, and activities completed per section.  There is also a report card feature available.

Sarah also completed a few activities in other subject areas as well.  Activities vary by subject but include word finds, multiple choice answers, fill in the blank, dragging and dropping, sorting, etc. Some basic keyboard skills will be necessary for students to complete the lessons.  However, we found the program extremely easy to navigate. 
Here is a grammar activity where the student had to color all the abstract nouns.  First you needed to click on the color and then click on the noun.  By clicking on the little hammer at the bottom, students could be reminded of the rule for abstract nouns and given a few examples in case they became stuck or could not remember the rule. 

Overall, ESA has been a perfect resource for our summer learning activities.  It's simple, not overwhelming, and doesn't take much time to complete yet keeps students' knowledge fresh.   Sarah said her favorite subject area was reading but she felt she needed the most review in the vocabulary and math sections.  She also enjoyed reviewing the grammar lessons.  

You can find out more about ESA on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.

Review of Science Shepherd

Our science curriculum this year for my daughter seemed to be more tedious than ever. So when I heard of this homeschool science curriculum, Introductory Science from Science Shepherd, we were excited to begin.

Introductory Science offers 35 weeks of science curriculum. Each week except week 35 contains 5 videos/lessons and sometimes an additional activity video is included. All of those videos are found online where you will be given log in information to access. The curriculum also includes a spiral bound student workbook. There are 2 levels available - Level A is approximately for ages 6-8 and Level B is approximately for ages 9-11. There is also a answer key available for each level. We reviewed the Level B answer key and workbook which included 383 pages of simple daily lessons to complement the videos.

This program was developed by homeschool dad, Scott Hardin, who saw the need for quality higher level science curriculum for the homeschool community. They offer courses for middle school and Biology for high school as well.

Weeks 1 & 2 are introduction weeks introducing you creation where you will learn the days of creation. All lessons are taught from a Biblical worldview.

Week 3 introduces you to science skills and tools.

Weeks 4-10 & 14-15 cover earth science topics including meteorology, geology, oceanography, and astronomy.

Weeks 11-13 & 16-29 cover life science topics including plants, underwater creatures, flying creatures. land creatures, humans, health, ecology & natural resources,

Weeks 30-35 cover physical science topics including matter, energy, motion, and magnets.

So, as you can see by the topics discussed this is a very thorough and complete science curriculum. It is a great introductory course for science. The lessons are taught in a simplistic style that made them enjoyable for my daughter and easier for her to retain what she was learning.

As a matter of fact, she loved Science Shepherd! Many of the curriculum choices we have used in the past have been heavy on reading. Well, when all your other subjects are heavy on reading as well, the last subject you do usually becomes the most tedious one and for us that was often science. Although I would often help out with the reading portion, I could tell that she needed to make a switch. What a blessing Science Shepherd has been for our family!

Again, the lessons are taught by video instruction which cut out all the reading for us both. Each lesson has a workbook page that you complete as well. She really enjoyed the workbook lessons which included crossword puzzles, fill in the blank, matching, and circling correct answers. We could complete each lesson in less than 20 minutes a day which was a great plus too! Scattered throughout the lessons were also simple activities. Some of the ones we completed were drawing each of the days of creation, making a list of things that a parent has given you dominion over and how you can take care of those, feeling and observing objects in a bag, classifying paper flowers by petals and color. All of the activities are quick to complete and use household items, no items at all, or a given page in the workbook - for instance there was a worksheet provided for the flowers. There is also a supply list for those who like to plan ahead.

We have not completed all of the week yet and are currently taking a little "summer" break but we do intend to pick this back up where we left off. Since it includes a 12 month subscription, that allows plenty of time for you to complete the course and take breaks when needed. If for some reason you do need an extension, that option is available up to 3 additional months for $5 each.

I am also seriously considering purchasing the Biology course for my 10th grader for next school year as well. I can't wait to see what my fellow crew members thought about it.

Be sure to check out the samples to see if this curriculum might be just what you are looking for. We also thought the price was very reasonable for the content provided. The Introductory Science video course can be purchased for $35. Level A workbook costs $12 and Level B workbook costs $15. The answer keys are $3.

Check out Science Shepherd on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. ​

Review of Wonderfully Made by Danika Cooley

Has your child ever asked you the question, "where did I come from?" Often, parents cringe at those 5 words and don't know where to even start to answer that question. Well today's review is the perfect resource to help parents answer children who want answers! That resource friends is a new book, Wonderfully Made by Danika Cooley.

Although my children are older and this is intended to share with children ages 5-11, I read this with my daughter who is just a little older and she learnt so much! Quite frankly, so did I!

Wonderfully Made is filled with biblical answers straight from the Word of God as well as the science behind the miracle of birth. You see, the world has tainted the beauty of birth but God created us in His own image and that is what I want to teach my children.  Marriage, conception, and birth are His gift and beautiful in His sight!

From conception in the womb through the nine months within the mother's womb, the miracle of life is beautifully illustrated on every page of this hardback 48 page picture book.

 

To enhance the book even more, Danika is offering several free printables to go along with the release - posters, Scripture cards, and a lapbook!

One of our favorite verses - "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb." Psalm 139:13 

You can purchase Wonderfully Made several different ways:

Amazon: Wonderfully Made: God’s story of life from conception to birth

Amazon UK: Wonderfully Made: God’s Story of Life from Conception to Birth

Christian Book: Wonderfully Made: God’s story of life from conception to birth

Here is a little more about from the author and the background story of Wonderfully Made:

1. What inspired you to write Wonderfully Made?

One of my kids' favorite stories has always been the story of how God formed each of them in the womb, how they're special and loved, and how anticipated their births were. They loved hearing about the day of their birth. I wanted moms in other families to be able to share that story with their children using science, Scripture, and beautiful illustrations.

2. What was your main goal in writing Wonderfully Made? 

I want children to understand that they're individually and purposefully created by a loving God, and that there is a second birth into the Kingdom of Heaven available to them. Each child is unique and special, and each is loved dearly not only by their parents, but also by their Father in Heaven.

I also want a new generation of children to grow up understanding the marvelous truth of what happens in the womb, and when it happens. I want them to know what Scripture says about life in the womb--both the creation of life and the existence of life.

Both of those goals were heavy on my heart while writing Wonderfully Made, and I'm overjoyed to see the book available to families around the world.

3. Which part of researching Wonderfully Made was the most personally interesting to you?

Did you know that a baby's heart starts beating at four weeks? That's actually two weeks after conception. By eight weeks, six weeks after conception, all of the organs--other than the lungs--are working! And babies dream in the womb three months before they're born. How amazing is that? Learning about the development of babies in the womb was so much fun for me. I also loved going through the Scripture that talks about life in the womb.

At the end of the book is the explanation of rebirth in Christ and how that can be done. 

"According to His great mercy, He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead..." 1 Peter 1:3b

Oh how delighted we are for writers who share science, art, and love while glorifying our Father in Heaven! The price for this book is very economical and it would also make a perfect gift for expectant mothers! So don't put off answering those tough questions any longer. Celebrate God's most wonderful creation.  You are His masterpiece! Wonderfully Made will do all the hard work for you. You can just lay back on the couch, enjoy, and explore with your children!

Review of Fascinating Chemistry

Are you like me and find while reading a science textbook your eyes start to glaze over and close before you can finish the text? How about your students? Our family really loves science but I have to admit it is the experiments that we love - not so much the facts of how they work. So, when I heard that Fascinating Education offered science courses with audio-visual techniques I was intrigued.

We were given the opportunity to review the online course Fascinating Chemistry with my high school son who is in the 12th grade. At first glance of the program, you will see that it contains 18 lessons and final problems . Each lesson includes several videos introducing you to the subject matter, a script of the lessons including visual aids that were used in the videos, and an online multiple choice test. The test can also be taken in PDF format if the parent or student would prefer to take it that way. You are given a secondary password only for the parent to access the PDF version of the tests and answers. Also included with the course are 11 labs .

When you click on a lesson, there is a main menu tab that contains the video lessons and test.  There is also a glossary tab with the definitions and terms needed to know for each lesson.

We found the site is extremely user friendly but there is also a video tutorial explaining exactly what you need to do to begin.  You can see the course outline here.


In Our Homeschool

Each lesson contains a slide titled "catching your breath" which reviews what has been taught so far and there also review slides at the end of each lesson.

The course is taught and designed by author and neurologist, Dr. Margulies. My daughter overheard a lesson and said Dr. Margulies' voice sounded like one you would hear when you mash the button at a museum that explains the artifact. His voice is extremely soothing which Jonathan found made him super sleepy so he set a timer and watched the videos for the lesson for 15 minutes each day. Sometimes a little longer if he was in the middle of one.  He could usually complete 2 lessons at that pace within the week.  As he progressed with the course, he seemed to need more time to review so the lesson pace dropped to 1 lesson per week.  

Jonathan liked the way Dr. Margulies presented the information. He found the course to be very rigorous but the simplistic way that the teacher broke the terms down helped him to learn more than he ever has in a course before. Mastering the information is the end goal for the student.

With mastery in mind, we took the course at on our own pace.  I think taking notes and printing the script to have for each lesson also helped him. The test scores are not stored online but you are given your results at the end along with the required score for passing. You then have the option of printing the results or retaking the quiz if needed.

We would recommend this course to our fellow homeschoolers.  I think the video portion and visual learning along with the script to follow really helped Jonathan who has struggled with science courses in the past.  The option to pace the course is working well for us.  You will have access to the course for an entire year for $79.

Of course, for any boy and the mention of the word "fart" when describing the chemical element of sulfur makes the course complete.  

Fascinating Education also offers courses in Biology and Physics. There is a discount for purchasing access to 2 courses.  The price for 2 courses for one year is $125.  You can also purchase access to all three courses for 2 years for $175.  Click the banner below to see what the crew thought of the different courses.