Star Toaster - Review

Oh, what a wonderful thing this was for us to try.  Eventually.

It is from a company called Star Toaster and the product is called Orphs of the Woodlands, which was designed with 4th through 7th graders in mind.

It is wonderful.....and.....sort of hard to explain.  But, I will do my best!



It is a book.

It is a video game.

It is an adventure.

It is a job.

It shows responsibility and accountability.

And, it even gives you a taste of parenthood.

Confused yet?

Here is how A-man explains it.

"It is sort of like Reading School, but you can do other things.  Math, language arts, history and stuff like that.  By doing this stuff, you earn gold stars.  You earn 6 gold stars after you finish one lesson.  Then, you use those gold stars to give the orphs water and food and stuff.  The orphs are little mice that are orphans that you rescue by doing projects and you give them a place to live.  Then, you go read some more and keep going back and forth.  I get to be the squirrel that saves them.  There was a bad guy that came and burned down the squirrels house with his little minions.  There was a prophecy that I (the squirrel) would be the person that would stop them and free all the orphans and help them get actual homes.  The squirrels parents threw me out the window to save me and yelled something out the window when they tossed me out.  I couldn't hear what they said and they died in the fire.  So, part of what I am doing as the squirrel is searching for the evil guy's secret lair where he keeps his minion guys.  I am not going to kill him or anything when I find him, I am just going to put him in jail....or something."


Hahahahaha!



So, do you understand yet?

Here is my interpretation/explanation of Orphs of the Woodlands for you:  You read a chapter in their on-line book.  Then, when you are done with the chapter, you can go do "jobs" to earn stars to then turn around and feed, clothe, medicate your orphans.  It is really kind of ingenius.  You work on vocabulary, reading comprehension, memory skills, math, and even sneaky school stuff like developing character and learning recipes.

Super cool, right?

That being said, we got off to a rough start.  This was designed with A-man's age and gender in mind.  I was so excited because he hasn't really embraced fiction reading the way I would like him too.  He always has bigger and better things to do than sit down and read a book...even if it was a great one.  So, yes, unfortunately, when we started the Orphs of the Woodland, I briefly turned into a nag.  I totally had to force everyone to log on.  Well, not entirely true...L-girl went on with no trouble.

But, S-girl and A-man.....moaned and groaned....complained and whined.  Every.  Single.  Time.  If I hadn't had the obligation to keep pushing on because this was a review product, I would have let them quit and that would have been a shame.  Because somewhere around the middle of Chapter 2, actually probably closer to the beginning of Chapter 3, everything changed.  Somehow it was interesting.  Somehow there was concern for the orphs and their lack of parents.

I only have one negative/drawback.  It is small and sort of petty.  But, I will admit to it anyway.  I don't like that one of their selling points is "improved standardized test scores".  I understand why it is there.  That kind of thing just bugs me because, it is just seems a little like teaching to the test.  To me, it implies that they aren't really learning....they will just do better on the test.

But, that is my only disappointment with Orphs of the Woodlands.

Take a look at a little video explanation of some of the cool things you can find whilst saving little orphaned mice.

You can get the 60 day subscription to the first book in Orphs of the Woodlands, The Treasure of High Tower for $19.99.  The good thing is that you can use the same subscription for up to 3 children, at the same time.  You also have the option to extend the subscription another month for a small fee, if your kids move slowly.....like mine did in the beginning

It took a little bit, but we all love this one now.  It isn't just one of those ones that mom thinks they should love, but, in reality, they hate.  They are interested.  They are engaged.  They have a sense of responsibility for their orphans and want to see how good of a spy they are.  All good.  Really.  You can even get a free trial, if you aren't sure.  We are excited about the second book....coming soon!

Take a look at what other TOS Reviewers thought of Orphs of the Woodlands.  I suspect that we were not alone in loving this one!

Ready To Teach - Review

Heavy into review season here at Shut The Fridge, I know.  But, I am finding lots of good stuff that you can use in your school next year, like this one from Ready to Teach called Greek Morphemes Lessons - (It's NOT Greek To Me!).




A few years ago, I got on a kick that the kids were all going to learn their Greek and Latin root words.  I made up flash cards and everything.  Like all of my education fads, it sort of faded, and, of course, the kids lost some of the flash cards.  :)

So, I was super excited when we got the chance to try out an official curriculum designed to do what I had sort of pieced together myself.  Greek Morphemes Lessons is a vocabulary program that is based on over 200 Greek Roots, Prefixes, and Suffixes.



Because, honestly, let's face it, the older I get and the longer I have homeschooled, I realize how helpful it is to understand some of these basic things like Greek and Latin roots for words ...and how completely useful they can be in life, or while watching Jeopardy!

L-girl was in my targeted range for this one, so she got to be the guinea pig.

So, who out there can tell me what a "morpheme" is?   LOL  It really just means that big words are made up of smaller word parts - those smaller word parts are morphemes.  See?  I can teach you usable stuff here at Shut The Fridge!

So, for instance, take a word like...

Microarchaegynophobiac

Scary word, right?  Wrong....because if you break it up into its morphemes, you can figure out what it means....or get a pretty good idea of what it means.

Let's break it up together:

Micro - means something small
Archaeologist - is someone who studies old stuff
Gynocologist - is a doctor who specializes in lady stuff
Phobia is a fear of something

See what we just did there?  So, Microarchaegynophobiac is a person who is scared of little old ladies. 

L-girl was very independent with this curriculum.  I basically just handed the book and the thumb drive over to her and off she went.  I corrected things and answered a few questions for her along the way, but other than that, she was on her own.  I will say though that this was one of the school things we have around here where I wouldn't have minded being a little more hands on (if I actually had the time) because I think this stuff is really interesting, so I know I would have learned a bunch too!

But, I didn't have the time, so L-girl was off and running on her own.  She actually worked on this 5 days a week and according to her each lesson took about 30 minutes or so.  The lessons had various assignments for "working" a word (basically just dividing it into parts and figuring each individual part out).

L-girl did accidentally go a little off track was when she was making her study cards.  She neglected to take note of the fact that the book came with color coded sheets in the back for her to write her words on......or already created perforated cards.  She just created her own with index cards and even after I told her about the colored paper in the book that she was supposed to use, she didn't change them, because she thought the pre-determined size of the cards in the book were too small.  She liked having the larger sized cards that were easier to read.  Plus, I am a strong believer that you retain and remember stuff longer if you write it down in your own handwriting....so, that would be a bonus too!

When I corrected her work, I just went to the Instructor's Manual and corrected things.  (There was a separate printed and stapled together chunk of corrections to the manual.  I am assuming that these will be corrected with additional printings of the texts)

The only issue we really had was when she tried to use the accompanying CD for Self Review before she took her tests.  I think it was supposed to be interactive and accept your answer, then give you feedback on whether it was right or wrong - but, for us, it didn't accept any of her clicks or answers, so it didn't really do her any good to work through the Self Review sections. Not sure if we got a dud CD, or if this is a real glitch that needs to be addressed (and I will admit that I never followed up and sent the information to the creators of Ready to Teach).  But, that is the only issue we had with this whole program.

L-girl admitted that sometimes she thought the work and lessons were boring (but, let's be honest, ALL school stuff is sometimes boring!),.  However, the day that she got a Jeopardy question right because of Greek Morphemes Lessons - was enough to hold her over for awhile!

We gauge success around here by whether or not we can beat each other (and especially  Rainman) to the "question" in Jeopardy.  She beat us all!  What did she know that we didn't?

What is Philophobia?  Fear of love.

I feel like Greek Morphemes is one of those sneaky school things that you won't really know the true value of until years later, when you can decipher the meaning of a word when you are sitting around watching Jeopardy or taking the SAT test.....and you will actually be able to successfully break apart a scary word and figure out what it means. So, for us, this curriculum is a definite keeper (it would be just for the Jeopardy advantages alone)!

You can incorporate Greek Morphemes Lessons (Student book, teacher book and CD) into your household for $69.95, plus shipping and handling.

Find out what the other TOS Reviewers thought of Greek Morphemes Lessons.

Snake Oil - Party Potion - Review

Okay, all you game lovers, listen up!  Here is one that is NOT just for homeschoolers!  We got a chance to play (and review) a game from Out of the Box Games, called Snake Oil, the Party Potion edition.



If you know us, or pay attention to my blog, you will know that we LOVE games at our house.  I know games annoy and irritate some people (I don't understand those people), but all 8 of us love games.  This game is designed for ages 8+, or younger, if they can read.

 (It has won all sorts of awards from organizations like Dr. Toy, The Old Schoolhouse - also known as TOS, and Mensa....yes, that Mensa!)

This was one of those games that once we got started, nobody wanted to stop.  I will say that D-man and A-girl weren't chomping at the bit to play the first time.  But, like any good parents would do, we forced them.  I will tell you how that went over later.

Here is how you play this game/what the premise is:

Back in the Old West, there were men that were "Snake Oil Salesmen" that could get people to buy even the unlikeliest of potions and elixers.  So, in this game, you take turns being the Snake Oil Salesman...AND the unsuspecting customer.  The Snake Oil Salesmen make their pitch about why their product is best.  The customer chooses and whoever has the most Customer cards at the end of the game wins!



We used the Party Potion version of this game, which is just the version for slightly younger kids.  Snake Oil is for ages 10+ and Snake Oil Party Potion is for ages 8+.


Here is how you play:  You can play with anywhere from 3 to 6 players (Again, all 8 of us played, but we played as a team).  You take turns being the "customer".  The customer chooses a card that says who they are, like, Fisherman, Grandma, School Bus Driver, Janitor, or Robot, for some examples.  The rest of the players have 6 snake oil cards in their hands.  They pick 2 of those cards to put together to create their "product" .

So, you could have cards in your hand that say:  Lantern, Coat, Butt, Spider, Curse, and Rug.  You would look at those and decide....."I am going to sell a Butt Lantern"  (That one actually happened at our house.  Yes, Rainman is really a 4th grade boy trapped in a grown up body!)

All of the Snake Oil salesmen present their product to the customer.  When everyone has taken their turn, the customer picks what they think was the best product and the Snake Oil salesman keeps the customer  card.  Then, someone new gets to be the customer and you repeat the whole thing.  The person or team that has the most customer cards at the end of the game wins.  Each game should take 20-30 minutes (ours usually last longer....see.....giggling....see long sales presentations, etc.)




It only takes a few minutes to explain how the game works to everyone.  Our littler ones were a bit confused during our explanation.  But, all we had to do was give them one example and show them how to create a product to pitch,and they were good to go!

(D-man, not excited to be playing....yet!)

We played as teams because then V-girl who is a brand new reader could play.  It didn't take her long to get into the swing of things and understand what she needs to do.

(Yes, as usual, ignore my mess!  Our desktop computer heats up and turns itself off if it is on my new desk....so it is sitting on my dining room table where it can get plenty of air flow...so, since we aren't eating there right now...it has become the dumping ground....for pretty much everything!)

Back to Snake Oil Party Potion, S-girl is 7 is already a good reader, so in that aspect, she could have played by herself, but the concept of "selling" or persuading someone to buy her product was a strange one....because it sort of went against her personality.  She was very shy and tentative at first, but warmed up to it quickly.

The people that surprised me with their....ahem.....talent....at selling their product to the customer were Rainman, A-man, and D-man.  Oh, my word! 

D-man was very good at outrageous, off the wall descriptions.  I wish I had video of him absolutely giggling his way through most of his sales pitches.  They were outrageous, off-the-wall, and hysterical most of the time.

(This was a good one.  He was selling the concept of a Pimple Forest to a Toddler!)

A-man had a very smooth delivery that had you believing every word.  Not sure what I think about him being able to wax poetic about just about anything.  He was also the reason that we started timing our sales pitches, because, if we let him, he would have just kept going on and on and on about why you needed whatever he was selling!

But, Rainman, was absolutely fantastic at both.  He always came up with a great concept/product and sold it to you like you had to have it or you would be crazy!  He may have missed his call when he became a Meteorologist!  Seriously!  Who knew he had such a creative mind hidden beneath his scientist exterior?!?!  I refer you to his salesmanship of the aforementioned "Butt Lantern" as my example.  He made it seem like a great idea for you to have on a dark and stormy night traveling in the woods.

These games are great family games.  They would make a great family gift at Christmas.  They would be great to bring to a party.  (That was one comment Rainman made.... this would be a great party game.)  Snake Oil Party Potion for younger players to get started, costs $14.99.  The Original Snake Oil game for slightly older players, costs $19.99.

We loved this game.  All of us.  Even the teenagers!  I am sure that this is teaching my children all kinds of life skills.  Ha!  I actually said that as sort of a joke, but really, it is teaching them public speaking skills, vocabulary words, and even marketing skills.  But, even if it didn't, it is still loads of fun.  Remember, it had my 16 year old giggling and all of us laughing.  Rainman can sell a Butt Lantern, and  V-girl asks almost everyday if we can play Snake Oil.  (She puts the emphasis on the second word, which is adorable).  So, it is most definitely a winner in our book!

See what other TOS Reviewers thought of their Snake Oil games!

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