See the Light

I was given the wonderful opportunity to review See the Light Art Class Volume 1: Art Lessons 1-4 DVD, from See the Light Shine.

    The DVD is wonderful! 

My kids loved watching and learning from it. She is easily engaging for children and adults. 

Volume 1 is about the basics…

Lesson 1 Tools of the Trade         

Lesson 2 It all Starts with a Line   

Lesson 3 Contours and Composition              

Lesson 4 Draw What You See                 

                   

The following pictures are from my daughter who is 8 years old…she drew these while watching the video for the very first time. I think she did an amazing job.

This picture depicts Lesson 2---She teaches about lines and the differences in how a line is drawn depending upon how you hold your pencil. The picture and the following two pictures shows Lesson 3 about contours and composition. She was told to draw an apple without looking at her hand. She was to draw just strictly looking at the apple. Lesson 3 also teaches her positioning items in your drawing or “composition”, such as the two apples. The picture on the left shows how my daughter positioned them in the center, but put a line to show they weren’t necessarily floating.

The next picture shows Lesson 4---She was told to get a shoe and draw what you see, not what you know. She was to only draw what she could see.

I really am thrilled with this product…I would love to get the other DVD’s.

This set of DVD’s for $99.99. Apparently you can also get a monthly online subscription that is $10 a month. Here is some info I gleaned from our TOS forum…

{ With your initial subscription you'll receive access to the first four lessons. Each month thereafter your subscription unlocks the following four lessons while still giving you access to all the lessons you've already worked through!
So, essentially you are getting one DVD's worth of lessons each month.  You will still have access to the lessons you have already worked through as long as you continue your subscription.  So, at 4 lessons a month (or 1 DVD's worth) at $10 a month for 9 months (in order to get all the lessons from the 9 DVD's) you will pay a total of $90 to get all the lessons. }

So it is $10 cheaper, but you will only get 4 new lessons each month…so it would take 9 months to get all the lessons, but a great option for those who can’t pay the $99.99 at once.


 click here for a FREE copy of Volume 1

Also, the following links will take you to a free view of lessons 1-3
http://vimeo.com/10705906
http://vimeo.com/10706126
http://vimeo.com/10706594

I would completely recommend this DVD Art Lessons Series…especially for a budding artist who wants a more professional approach to art. I have several budding artists who would love to do more art…and this seems to be a great way for them to do it…being taught by a master artist, for which I am not.

I am going to save my pennies (or dollars )  to purchase this set.

If you want to read other TOS crew reviews click here.

Disclaimer---I received this product for free in exchange for my honest review.

KinderBach

I received the opportunity to review an online program called Kinderbach. It is a preschool piano program, for ages 3-7.

I had my 3 1/2 year old son start doing the program and he really loves it. He enjoys doing the activity sheets that go with it and placing Dodi’s house behind the keys. The levels are slow, easy and a fun way for children to learn how to play piano or at least introduce them to the music notes, beats, and the keys. I think that this would be a great addition to a music-loving family where you want even the youngest member to love and learn music.

Meet the characters of KinderBach!

Each level has 10 weeks of lessons and there are 6 levels. I do believe, if my memory serves me, which most of the time it doesn’t :), they are in the works of making a level 7. Within each week there are 4 sessions with an introduction to what they will be learning and any tools or activity sheets you might need. The sessions are very short…good for short attention spans, but I was able to do more than one session each time with him. As I mentioned there are activity sheets you can print and have your child do along with most of the sessions. I personally know nothing much in the way of reading or playing music, so this is teaching me as well. Also this program can used with a keyboard or a piano, as long as you have access to a computer near whatever you will be using. We have a piano and a laptop, so I just placed the laptop on top of it. This program works well for all learning styles… 
                         
Are you interested? click here for a free trial.

Online Membership

{ * Access to all web lessons (over 240 sessions!)
* Accompanying downloaded PDF pages 

$7.99 a month - Billed in a one time annual payment of $95.88
(Great Value! Save 60%)
or
$19.99 monthly subscription - Billed monthly for a year
(12 separate payments)

Simply Discover Piano Online!

The Year Membership gives access to 6 Levels of entertaining music education for 3 to 7 year old children through about 22 hours of video and interactive coloring pages. Miss Karri introduces preschoolers to the keyboard characters, as well as the Grand Staff clefs. Kids will enjoy playing simple songs, identifying music direction, learning new rhythm notes and their beat value. Level 1 to 6 covers proper hand and finger position for the music scale, as well as staff note reading by pattern for voice, and keyboard. }

If you want to read additional TOS Crew reviews on this product, click here.

Disclaimer---I received a free subscription in exchange for my honest review.

a good one on comparison

Comparison get you nowhere, but the gospel takes us far

How to Develop Patience Toward Others

Doorposts of your Home blogpost...good ideas...even for mommies to practice:)
How to Develop Patience Toward Others

Oh... I just love this woman!

Sally Clarkson

http://www.itakejoy.com/discipleship-relationships-take-a-lot-of-time/

Ten Days of Biblical Parenting Giveaways

Ten Days of Biblical Parenting Giveaways

Here is a new blog from Doorposts...it will have character building projects, as well as parenting and bible study tips/ideas/information. It is having ten days of giveaways as they introduce their new blog.

Reading Kingdom

I was given the opportunity to review an online reading program called Reading Kingdom. It is an online program that teaches children ages 4-10 how to read and write to a third grade level. It customizes itself to each child who uses the program. Reading Kingdom says it’s the only system that teaches all 6 skills needed for reading and writing…sequencing, motor skills, sounds, meaning, grammar, and comprehension. Reading Kingdom was created by Dr. Marion Blank, who is a leading expert in literacy.

I got the following information about the program straight from the Reading Kingdom website…

{ How the Program is Organized

The Skills Survey The program begins with your child taking a Skills Survey. Through simple, game-like activities, it reveals the skills a child has and does not have so that the program can start at exactly the right place to encourage the greatest success.
The Teaching Once the Skills Survey is completed, the teaching begins. The program is organized into six levels.
Pre-reading Level Teaches the Visual Sequencing and Keyboarding Skills that underlie reading and writing. A child goes through one or both of these programs if the Skills Survey shows that these components are needed.
Level 1
Gets your child reading, understanding and writing meaningful ideas by teaching key nouns (kids, girl, bird), verbs (actions such as eat, walk, fly) and "helping" words (the, some, is, can, are). Once a set of words has been taught, the child gets to read a book containing those words, along with words previously taught. As in all subsequent levels, there are six books in Level 2.
Level 2 Greatly expands the range of ideas your child reads and writes by adding new nouns (puppies, man, water), verbs relevant to those nouns (run, fix, move, including words that convey motivation such as need, want, like), pronouns (she, I, we), additional "helping" words (that, also, both, of) and question words (who, what, which).
Level 3 Enhances your child's ability to tell and understand stories by teaching the words to convey past tense (was, did, were), along with increasing the range of nouns (ground, rocks), verbs (push, think, hurt), "helping" words (most, on, any), and adjectives (sad, happy, nice, -y as in dirty, rocky).
Level 4
Gets your child reading subject matter that is different from typical stories and essential to school success. It introduces a wide variety of objects and beings from the natural world (animals, rainbow, moon, tongue, group, people, earth) and higher level question words (why, when, how). These are then incorporated into books that convey science type information.
Level 5 Has your child reading rich stories which provide a sense of fun while teaching complex cause and effect relationships by expanding the range of nouns (computer, letter, fish) and verbs (change, know, float), and introducing a set of complex ideas (luck, true, never, change, sure).
Keeping Track Within a few weeks, many children are using the program totally on their own. Even though you may not be there during the lessons, you'll have no trouble keeping track of how your child is doing. After a session is completed, you can open a link that offers you a summary of how the session went, where your child is at, what's happening next and so on.
Progress Check The Reading Kingdom has been designed so that a child moves ahead only if the learning is solid and secure. At regular points, a child is given a brief Progress Check to see if there is mastery of the material that has been taught.
If the Progress Check shows that your child is doing well, in the next session he or she moves on to new material.
On the other hand, if the Skills Survey shows some weaknesses in the learning, then in the next session, your child starts a set of review lessons that enable him or her to get past any difficulties. The review process may take one to two weeks to complete. Once it is completed, the child returns to learning new material. }









Being a visual person, I like the colorful graphics. I also like the fact that it is teaching multiple skills that every child needs to be successful at reading. I like the hands-on that the computer gives to the program. My kids like to use the computer, though I heavily restrict their use.

I had two of my kids work with this program…my newly turned 8 year old daughter and my 10 year old son (yesterday turned 11) work on this. My daughter is already at a third grade reading level, but I had wanted her to do it anyway to make sure all needed skills are there. My 10 year old, who has some learning difficulties, is at least at a third grade reading level, but lacks confidence in his reading ability. First off, I want to say that this seems like a really great program and this is in no way a negative review. The following is from our experience only thus far. They each started out doing the skills survey to begin customizing the program to their ability…and unfortunately haven’t moved much more than the pre-reading level. It seems as if it is either our computer or the program that doesn’t always register when they would actually do as instructed. They would hit the keys or click the mouse and it didn’t seem to register that they did anything…the lady would then speak and say how to do what was instructed as if they hadn’t just done it. Needless to say they got frustrated. I also think that their lack of experience with using the computer could have something to do with it. I think that once they get past the beginning stages they will actually really enjoy the program…we have graciously been given a wonderfully long subscription, so we will keep plugging along at it. My son is a visual-kinesthetic learner so this is perfect for him. As is also good for audio-visual learners, like my daughter. I believe I would still recommend this program regardless of our beginning experience because I know my kids would enjoy doing the program once they got farther along.

Pricing---You will receive a free 30 day trial. After that, subscriptions to Reading Kingdom are $19.99/month (with no monthly minimum), or $199.99 per year. You can cancel your subscription at any time.
If you would like to read other TOS Crew reviews on this product…click here.

Disclaimer---I received this subscription for free in exchange for my honest review.