My Access Online Writing Program

I received as a gift a one year subscription for 6 students from Vantage Learning to their MY Access!^® Home Edition to review.

MY Access!® Home Edition, by Vantage Learning, is an online writing program designed to guide students through the writing process with engaging and interactive writing activities, self-guided instruction and motivating feedback.

Each 12-month subscription to MY Access!^® Home Edition includes one parent account and your choice of three or six student accounts.

• MY Access!^® is completely Web-based, so there's no software to load and it's accessible anywhere you have a computer and Internet connection—at home, at school, or at the library.

• 90 pre-loaded writing topics for three different distinct age groups (8-10, 11-14, and 15-18) encourage students to begin writing immediately.

• Parents can easily enter their own writing topics to make writing across the curriculum a reality.

• Self-paced and interactive lessons guide students through the writing process: planning, organizing, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing.

• Graphic organizers and other printable resources help students plan successful essays.

• Essay scoring and individualized feedback is available immediately through a powerful, award-winning artificial intelligence scoring engine

• Detailed, prescriptive revision plans focus students' revision activities on the key traits of writing: focus, content development, organization, language use, and grammar.

• Individual progress reports are easy to access and share with others.

• A writing portfolio enables students to monitor their own progress and easily share their writing with family, friends, or teachers.

• Dozens of annotated samples of actual student writing help students see the potential in their own writing.

• A word processor with editing and writing tools including a thesaurus, grammar-checker, spell-checker, and word bank lists help students vary and develop their vocabulary.

I used this with my kids 8-17 , it was very easy to set up our account and get each one of the kids started. They really enjoyed earning the points by doing lessons and aiming for their personal goal. I knew this would be a challenge for my youngest ones as our focus is on reading still so writing is still a beginning endeavor for them, but they did enjoy trying and watching the improvements they made. The older kids could move through this much easier and with less of a struggle. I like that its self paced and that each child could move at their own pace.

That being said we did have some difficulty with the point system as the kids figured out that they could get points for doing work without very much effort. Also my 16 year old worked very hard on one of her first essays for well over 45 minutes and had to leave before she was finished and we could find no way to save her work except to submit it before she was finished. The corrections the children received were too vague for them to be helpful, with comments like "write your sentences correctly" or "run on sentences" leaving them frustrated.

With that being said, I still believe that this is an excellent program, and that it's best use would be as a tool for intermediate writers.

Each 12 month subscription to My Access! Home Edition includes one parent account and your choice of: 3 students at: $99.95
6 students at: $129.95

If you would like to see what other CREW members have to say on their review of this product and others please click here.

STUDYPOD

What is a STUDYPOD? It's a book holder for starters but in reality, so much more!

Here's a quote from the STUDYPOD website:

"Developed by a teacher, the STUDYPOD book holder provides a simple way to improve your studying. It holds any size textbook and study sheets upright at a comfortable level (similar to the angle of your computer screen) helping maximize your focus. It holds virtually any textbook wide open, freeing hands for writing, typing or eating. You’ll love the book-like design and the handy internal pocket that can hold your other study supplies.

Think about this- 30 years ago, not many students used a backpack for school. Mostly hikers and outdoorsmen used them. Fast forward to today- Every student uses one. They ease students’ loads, organize their belongings and come in a variety of shapes and colors. We believe the STUDYPOD book holder is the next backpack. Once you use it, you’ll wonder how you ever studied without it!"

This is one versatile tool! I have used it for so many things... a cookbook holder and a notes holder during our TOG discussions to name a few.

This item is great for holding a book while you work or while you are multi-tasking and holding a baby! I really like that it holds my pens, pencils and hi-lighters all together with the book or notes that I am using. This is one tool I could use in almost every room in our home. The children love to use the STUDYPOD when they are studying too, so much so that I am going to need to buy one for each of my kids.

Christmas is just around the corner and the STUDYPOD is a great gift!

The STUDYPOD and BOOKPOD book holders are physically the same products but are sold under different names and colors. The STUDYPOD is available in Black, Blue, and Pink and the BOOKPOD is available in Black, Gray, and Beige. You can buy one unit for $19.95 and if you buy two or more you can buy them at the discounted price of only $16.95 each. You can mix and match the STUDYPOD or BOOKPOD to take advantage of the available colors and the still get the discounted $16.95 price. And as a CREW review reader you can save $5 buy using the code: TOSBLOG5

If you would like to see what other crew mates have to say about the studypod please click here

Title: Subscribe to The Old Schoolhouse™ Magazine for only $7.95!

Homeschooling is a Labor of Love, and the Old Schoolhouse™ Magazine is celebrating your hard work as a parent by putting their one-year print subscriptions on sale! For a very limited time, you can subscribe or renew for $7.95! (US only). International customers can subscribe to the digital edition for only 7.95!

You can buy a gift sub for friends, too! To gift a subscription:
1. Go to the one-year subscription page (uS only)
2. Scroll to the bottom of the page.
3. Enter the name, address, email, and phone information for each recipient
4. click "Add this to my cart".
5. The information will display in your cart and simply proceeed to check out.

There are only 2000 of these available, and they are going quickly! Your subscription begins with their Fall Issue.

If you live in an international location, you can subscribe to their digital edition for only $7.95! It's the same great content as their print magazine, except it is instant and interactive!

Here are the two links:
http://www.theoldschoolhousestore.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=175_176_181&products_id=12261

http://www.theoldschoolhousestore.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=175_178_185&products_id=2330

Web Design For Kids (...and Curious Grown-ups!)

Web Design For Kids (...and curious grown-ups) is an instructional DVD that will take you step by step through the process of building a web page. You will using Notepad, Internet Explorer and paint. These 3 basic programs are included within Microsoft Windows

Brian Richardson, a middle school computer literacy teacher, guides you through each lesson. He demonstrates each of his verbal instructions on his computer so you can see each of his instructions being carried out. A wonderful plus for us visual learners!

There are 7 lessons that will teach you the basics of HTML code. This is accomplished as you build 3 different web pages.

Some of the topics covered on this DVD are:
basic HTML code
adding pictures
designing backgrounds
making text move across the screen
The DVD also includes a bonus section on file management featuring information on saving and organizing files.

My daughter was very excited to get this one! She was supposed to spend some time working with this program over the course of a few days. When she got started, she was so excited and engrossed with the material that she spent all day working through the lessons and then promptly asked when the next level of the program would be available! The kids all loved learning about the moving text (and all of the topics). I was called over numerous times to see their creations. This is truly great for kids. (Also a great tool for some of us clueless adults who do not have even a faint idea of what HTML is!) :-)

Please click here to view a sample of the DVD

Web Design For Kids sells for $40.00. For a limited time it is on sale for only $19.99 plus shipping!

Another great thing about this product is that a portion of the sales of Web Design For Kids goes to the following charities:

The Smile Train
Ronald McDonald House
Children Miracle Network
Miami Project to Cure Paralysis
The American Foundation For The Blind

See what other TOS Homeschool Crew members are saying about Web Design For Kids here

Homeschool Lounge Open House

Hi, Thanks for stopping by to read my THL open house 2009! My name is Cynthia I am a mother of 13 children and Grandmother of 2 with another grandchild to join us soon!
I just discovered the Homeschool lounge! It's a fun place to connect with other homeschooling mom's. This month they are having an open house so I am joining in the fun!
We call our school Ark Covenant Academy because our home is the ark that our children can run to from the trials of the world. Not that our home is perfect or overly peaceful or even free of trials, But we do love each other. Of course "the ark" is quite full when every one is home too, as there are19 of us! Our home is still full even with our oldest children out on their own.
This year for school the twins and my grandson (all who are 5 years old) will be joining in the mix this year! This means I will be teaching and learning with 9 children, both a blessing and a challenge. We are using a classical/Charlotte Mason approach and lean toward the eclectic. But this year we have chosen Tapestry of Grace volume 1 as our core curriculum.
I am really excited and have been planning up a storm and putting together our student notebooks. I love using lapbooks and notebooking pages to get our learning into the hands-on mode. The children are responding to the lessons and I find they retain the information easier, and enjoy the learning process using this method, because its FUN.
This year I really want to have a special time of encouragement with my daughters and spend some time going through some of the books I have collected over the years. Here are a few that I recommend and will be using:The Women God Designed, Raising Maidens of Virtue, Before You Meet Prince Charming and Beautiful Girlhood .I really want my girls to know that being a strong women of God is truly a blessing and a path worthy of following .I am amazed at the number of books that I have gathered together over these last few years. Life is busy in this household and sometimes "girltime" takes the back burner, Soooooo this year I am making time for just being together with my girls and learning about Godly womanhood, modesty and courtship with purpose!
I have not forgotten my little men either. We will be using Boyhood and Beyond with them. God desires strong Godly servant leaders in our boys.
We will also be using various curriculum that I review for the homeschool crew. We are blessed with a wonderful of curriculum to review this year, and we are all so excited! Please bookmark this blog and check it out from time to time so you can see how we are doing and pick up what I hope will be some valuable insights on all of the wonderful curriculum we will be experiencing!
I am still very busy with planning and organizing but we will be starting school next week. My ideas, schedules and plans do not always mesh with the reality of life! So I have to remind myself to stay flexible and make adjustments, after all, we are all "works in progress!"

The Home school Lounge has some awesome prizes for the open house. My choices are:
#1 Rainbow Resource $50 gift certificate
#2 Currclick $50 gift certificate
#3 Families with a Purpose $25 gift certificate