Fermentools - Crew Review

 

Disclaimer: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew.

The Starter Fermentation Kit from Fermentools has everything you need to make quality, healthy fermented foods. The Starter Fermentation Kit includes one stainless-steel lid (made from 304 surgical stainless steel so the corrosion resistant lid will last a lifetime), one glass fermentation weight (made to fit inside a standard wide-mouthed Mason jar), one airlock system, one rubber stopper, one rubber canning gasket, and Himalayan powder salt.

Fermenting vegetables might seem like a daunting task, but it’s actually easier than canning vegetables. During the process of canning, the food in the jar is boiled to kill any micro-organisms that might be living in the food. During the boiling, a vacuum seal is created and oxygen cannot enter the jar. During fermentation, you also eliminate the food’s exposure to oxygen by keeping it submerged in a slat brine. Canning focuses on killing exposure to spoilage, whereas fermenting focuses on suppressing bad bacteria and encouraging good bacteria.

While you can ferment any vegetable you like, you will want to make sure the ingredients in your jar are roughly the same shape and size. This will ensure that they all ferment at the same rate. For this review, our family fermented cucumbers using the following fermenting steps for a tasty, probiotic-rich snack.

1.       We packed a wide-mouthed Mason jar with sliced cucumbers and fresh dill.

2.       We covered them with saltwater (a mixture of Himalayan powder salt and non-chlorinated water).

3.       We placed the glass weight on top of the cucumbers to ensure they would stay below water level.

4.       We place the rubber canning gasket on the rim and placed the stainless-steel lid on top of that before we tightened it down with the ring from the Mason jar.

5.       We placed the rubber stopper in the stainless-steel lid.

6.       We filled the airlock half way with non-chlorinated water and placed it in the rubber stopper.

Leave your vegetables to ferment on the counter for 2-3 days. By 2-3 days, you should start to see some tiny bubbles forming at the top of the brine. Start tasting your vegetables. Once they reach a flavor that is to your liking, you can remove the weight, cover the jar tightly, and place fermented vegetables in the refrigerator. Fermented vegetables can last six months to a year in cold storage and taste better the longer they sit. The joy of fermenting is making each recipe unique to your palate!

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Greg Landry's Homeschool Science - Crew Review

 

Disclaimer: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew.

Greg Landry’s Homeschool Science has created a Virtual, Interactive Homeschool Laboratory for 7^th-12^th grade students learning about biology, anatomy, and physiology. Students within a subscribed family have access to the virtual lab experiments for a full year and can work at their own pace through these virtual biology labs.

Lab 1: Measurement in Science

Lab 2: Diffusion and Osmosis

Lab 3: Blood Type

Lab 4: Protein Synthesis – mRNA Codons

Lab 5: Cell Mitosis

Lab 6: Urinalysis

Lab 7: Cellular Respiration

Lab 8: Frog Dissection

Lab 9: Bacterial Inhibition

Lab 10: Muscular Work, Power and Caloric Expenditure

Lab 11: Density Determination

To begin, students login to the virtual lab and choose the experiment they want to perform. Students watch a video of professor Greg Landry explaining the background information on the topic of that experiment as well as details on performing the experiment.

With their mouse and keyboard, students follow a step-by-step method to perform all the steps in the experiment; and they record data from the experiment in their (paper) lab notebook.

After students have watched the video lesson and performed the lab experiment, they create a lab report based upon the experiment they performed and the data they collected.

After recently completing biology, my daughter enjoyed working through the labs each Wednesday during her infusion time because it was like playing a computer game. She was very quick to determine the blood types in lab three! I really thought it would be time consuming to go through fifty slides; but it really didn’t take her long at all. When finished, she said she already knew this information so she breezed right through it. Landry has created a fun learning tool that guides students through the process to perform experiments online using a computer. These realistic, interactive, virtual lab experiments require no supplies! Everything is done online! Students simply take notes and record data to create their lab report.

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Summer Summit

 

You have one more week to register to attend our annual Summer Summit on July 31, 2021! For six years, our homeschool conventions have been a blessing to new homeschoolers, seasoned homeschoolers, and those who are just thinking about homeschooling. No matter where you are in your homeschool journey, you belong at the Summer Summit! The four sessions to the Summer Summit are empowerment, enrichment, entertainment, and encouragement - the four ingredients for a happy homeschool mom!

09:00 Check-In & Summit Shoppe

09:45 Empowerment: Homeschooling in Texas

10:30 Empowerment: Tailoring Curriculum to Learning Styles

11:15 Empowerment: Joy in the Journey

12:00 Enrichment & Summit Shoppe

01:30 Entertainment

02:15 Encouragement: Q&A Panel

03:00 Door Prizes 

Registration includes access to speakers, vendors (with convention specials), door prizes, luncheon, and a take-home-tote filled with many resources that will equip and encourage homeschool moms! Register today to attend the Summer Summit and join moms like you to celebrate the homeschool journey together!

Using Literature to Teach about World War One in High School

 

Many of us use a curriculum to teach history; but using literature to teach history can be a great teaching tool. I am continuing this history literature series with some of the best books to teach about World War One. Using literature to teach history illuminates the time period, helps integrate the history curriculum, and enriches social studies. With my love for literature and history, it only makes sense to combine the two, so I have gathered some of my favorite books that teach about World War One in high school.

The Clever Teens’ Guide to World War One by Felix Rhodes covers all the major facts and events giving you a clear and straightforward overview: from the pre-war tensions, the assassination that sparked the war to its bloody conclusion four years later. Read about the huge battles on the Western Front, the Eastern Front, the war at sea and in the air, and the war in Africa and the middle East.

The War to End All Wars: World War I by Russell Freedman illuminates for readers the complex and rarely discussed subject of World War I. The tangled relationships and alliances of many nations, the introduction of modern weaponry, and top-level military decisions that resulted in thousands upon thousands of casualties all contributed to the “great war” which people hoped and believed would be the only conflict of its kind. The author shows the ways in which the seeds of a second world war were sown in the first. There are numerous photographs that give the often disturbing subject matter a moving visual counterpart.

World War One: 1914-1918 by Alan Cowsill brings history to life as we see the war through the eyes of the young conscripted servicemen on all sides of the conflict. Introducing the advent of tanks, airplanes, air raids, submarines and gas attacks, we take a close look at the first modern war. From the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo to the Treaty of Versailles we see for ourselves what life was like in the trenches, on the home front, at sea and in the air.

Daily Life During World War I by Neil M. Heyman brings to life the military and civilian experiences of ordinary people on both sides of the war. This engagingly written narrative focuses on the real details of living in wartime: how men were recruited and trained, the equipment they used, what they ate, trench warfare as a way of life, and the phenomenon of combat. The life of seamen and the novel experience of the first airmen provide contrast to the life of the soldier in the trenches. Also described are the medical systems for treating casualties, the life of a prisoner of war, and the experience of military nurses and the first women in uniform. This book also details how life on the home front changed in myriad ways, including the education of schoolchildren, the fevered prosperity of a wartime economy, and the change in woman’s traditional roles from homemaker to essential laborer.

These are only a few of my favorite books that teach about World War One, there are so many more out there! Feel free to share in the comments what you consider the best book to teach about World War One in high school.

Happy Homeschooling!

CTC Math - Crew Review

 

Disclaimer: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew.

CTC Math is an online math curriculum for students in grades K-12. For this review, I was given a 12-month subscription which gives one access to all grade levels. CTC Math believes in the importance of teaching math the traditional way, so they are not aligned with common core.

Video tutorials present the concepts of the math lesson, step-by-step, with clear, spoken explanations. Using synchronized audio and animation which is great for auditory and visual learners.

Worksheets test how well the video lesson was understood. The traditional pen-to-paper allows students to work out the problems.

Students also have the option to complete interactive questions and the program automatically grades each problem and scores the students results in their ongoing progress report. The program emails weekly progress reports to the parent. Every math lesson a student attempts is logged and the results are scored along with statistical information detailing lessons viewed, tasks completed, average score, and more. These extensive reports are valuable in monitoring your student’s progress.

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Timeline Set: America's History - Crew Review

 

Disclaimer: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew.

Home School in the Woods makes it easy to add hands-on learning to American history studies with their Timeline Set: America’s History (Explorers to the 21st Century). This product can be used with all grade levels K-12. Please note, the pdf file must be extracted before use. Once you have extracted the file, you have the freedom to print the timeline figures in notebook size or wall size, both with name and date or text description.

This timeline covers America’s history from the life of Leif Erikson 1000 AD through the Terrorist Attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon September 11, 2001.

As a teaching tool, timelines are usable in a variety of way. They meet the needs of various learning styles and offer uses relating to many subjects. For the visual learner, a wall timeline is a daily reminder of lessons learned, something students can reference at any time. For the kinesthetic learner, you can cut out each image and have the students arrange them in chronological order. You could even print two copies and use the images as a matching game.

Home School in the Woods offers many hands-on learning projects. Visit the Crew Blog to read more reviews from the Homeschool Review Crew.