CHRISTEPHI

Here on Sycamore Hill, we love audio dramas.  It probably stems from my own childhood memories of living without a TV.  There I’d be sprawled out on my back in the middle of the living room floor, listening to Children’s Bible Hour on the radio and watching the ceiling fan go ‘round.  I can still “see” many of the dramas that played out over the waves just as I “saw” them in my mind’s eye way back then. Nowadays we don’t listen to the radio much but we have plenty of options via CD, mp3, and internet streaming.  My kids especially love to listen to audio books and audio dramas as bedtime stories to help them wind down and prepare for sleep.  So when we received  Who Created Everything?  from Wizzy Gizmo  to review, we were ecstatic! Who Created Everything?  is a 36 minute audio drama about the events found in the first chapter of Genesis.  Professor Wizzy Gizmo puts the Bible on his Gizmovision machine and before you k...

This time of year many people begin to celebrate the Advent of the Christ.  My kids love the activities, the calendar, the Christmas books, and the pageantry of it all. But yesterday I asked them why we celebrate Advent. Why is Christmas different from any other famous person's birthday? And what  was  the message the angels gave to the shepherds anyway? Our celebration of Advent is the simulation of the waiting, the longing for, the intense anticipation of the coming of the Messiah.  Christmas is more than just "Happy Birthday, Jesus." It's the fulfillment of that long-ago promise by God to send the Seed, a Savior to the world.  The angels didn't say, "Dudes, check out the cute tyke that was born tonight!"  No, they announced: Unto you is born this day a Savior, the Messiah, the Lord ! Babies are born every day of the year, but this was a special birth. This was the birth of the long-awaited Seed promised to Adam, the Messiah who cam...

Okay, let's cut to the chase on this one. This book is AWESOME! I love it. You will too. So go buy it! The end. What? You think I should tell you why it's so awesome? Okay, fine. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. It's based on Scripture. It has the most gorgeous illustrations. I'm a total sucker for books with excellent artwork. It is meant to be shared by parent and child. Cuddle time! It helps little kids learn their ABCs. Each page has a picture of God's creation that begins with the letter featured on that page. The name of the plant or animal pictured does not appear anywhere on the page, leaving room for the reader's intelligence. I've been known to hug books that treat their readers as intelligent beings. The creature from the previous page can be seen in the background of the next page. I adore details like that! It helps kids identify both the capital and lowercase forms of each l...

Many families are discovering the value of allowing their kids to play educational apps on their smartphones or tablets.  We don't have any such device, but sometimes the kids play on their Nana's iPad or their Lola's Android tablet. When the call went out to the Mosaic Reviews team members for volunteers to review iTooch apps, I raised my virtual hand and borrowed a tablet to give it a try. iTooch apps are put out by EduPad , a France-based company whose mission is to put out the best educational apps "based on the US National Common Core Standards" for elementary and middle school students.  Their apps are available on iOS , Windows 8 , and now on Android devices too ! We downloaded the free 3rd Gr Language Arts , Music , and TOEFL apps from the Google Play Store. I would really have liked to try the 3rd Gr Math , but it would not download/install, so I gave up.  As far as I understand it, the free apps have limited content, while the full versio...

After having been homeschooled through early elementary, my mom put me in public school in the 5th grade.  The school, not having any academic history for me, randomly placed me in the highest level math class (and the lowest level English class).  The first day of class we were given timed tests: 5 minutes to complete a page of 100 addition problems.  Then subtraction.  Then multiplication.  By then I was getting in over my head.  I understood that multiplication was essentially a form of addition, so I started frantically making hash marks to count up to the answers.  I didn't finish my 100 problems, but I struggled through the 5 minutes and did the best I could.  Next we were given a page of 100 division problems.  By this time I was completely overwhelmed and burst into tears.  The teacher gently ushered me next door to the lowest level math class where I spent the rest of the year, cheerfully using my multiplication cheat shee...

My dad is a computer programmer.  Like many youngsters, his passion for computers started out as a hobby.  When he realized people would   pay   him to program it was like in the cartoons: jaw dropping, eyes popping out, AHH-OOO-GAH!  And he's never looked back! My love for technology also developed in my youth.  We first got dial-up internet when I was in 8th grade...good old AOL.  Before long I was dabbling in HTML and launched my first website on GeoCities, in a virtual neighborhood with a street address everything!  How times have changed! Technology may have changed over the years, but the pull it has on the imaginations of young people remains the same.  Many computer programmers write their first programs in middle school.  Homeschooled kids are uniquely situated to excel in this area due to the ability to streamline their time spent hitting the books and allocate their remaining time to learning a coding language. ...

Here on Sycamore Hill we love all kinds of games, but  especially  word games!  Typecrush is a brand new word game with a single rule: whoever solves the first word gets to choose the next word.  And, boy, is it fun!! How to Play  Spell a word making sure no one is looking. Flip the letter circles over to hide your word. The rest of the players try to guess the word using the letter frequency chart.  This chart groups letters by how frequently they appear in the English language and they are the clue you need to solve the word puzzle. This game is wonderful for any age, from the beginning reader to the avid logophile.  It can be made simple by adding extra hints ["it's a color word"] or by more complex by giving no clues as to the type of word.  Hubby and I discovered that longer words are actually easier to guess than short ones!  He really killed us when his word was toe . We've had a lot of fun playing Typecrush!...