Friday, July 27, 2012

REVIEW: SchoolhouseTeachers.com

I had the opportunity to review the totally revamped subscription website from The Old Schoolhouse Magazine at www.schoolhouseteachers.com.
From the Website:

You might have heard about Teacher’s Toolbox in the past, and this new membership site is a massive expansion on the old. Just wait until you see what The Old Schoolhouse has in store for you!
SchoolhouseTeachers.com is bigger, better, brighter, and easier to navigate for you. Membership is yours for the first month for just $1! You’ll have full access to daily, weekly, and monthly assignments for your students and tons more material for you. Every month after the initial one, it keeps coming—new daily, weekly, and monthly lessons—all for the price of one fancy coffee ($5.95 each month).

Log in every day—come do your homework with us!

Spend time with the biggest names in online and home education: Kim Kautzer (writing), Diana Waring (history), Terri Johnson (geography), Adam Andrews (literature), the Hands of a Child team (lapbooking), Malia Russell (home economics), George Escobar (filmmaking)—and many more. Each month, new teachers in new subject areas will join the SchoolhouseTeachers.com team.
immerse yourself into the world of TOS Schoolhouse Planners – all YOURS with your membership to SchoolhouseTeachers.com!
Point, Click, Teach!
Our Experience:

There are so many resources here, all in one place, that it would be nearly impossible to go through all of them! But what I want to do is summarize the resources available there and then highlight a couple of things I liked best for my family.
The website is organized into 4 main sections of material with lots of subsections in each:
    1. Schoolhouse Teachers
      • Career Exploration
      • Chemistry
      • College Choice Guidance
      • Economics
      • Figures in History
      • Filmmaking
      • Geography
      • High School Math
      • History
      • Home Economics
      • Lapbooking
      • Literature
      • Music – Voice
      • Reading Lessons
      • Special Needs
      • Technology
      • Writing
    2. Schoolhouse Dailies
      • Summer Olympics
      • Daily Grammar
      • Daily Math
      • Daily Writing
      • Ditch the Desk: Hands-On K-5
      • Everyday Easels
      • Everyday Explorers – Canada
      • Everyday Explorers – USA
      • Pre-K Activities: Read and Play
      • Summer Shakespeare
      • This Day in History
      • This Month’s Menu
    3. Schoolhouse Extras
      • The Old Schoolhouse Magazine
      • TOS Back Issues
      • Monthly Bonus E-Books
      • Free E-Book
      • Schoolhouse EXPO
      • Schoolhouse Planners
    4. Schoolhouse Library
      • Copybooks
      • Homeschool Life
      • Monthly Theme
      • Reading List June
      • Reading List July
      • Reading Lists Summer
      • Teacher Lesson Archives
      • Art Shelf
      • Craft Shelf
      • Homemaking and Housekeeping Shelf
      • Nature Shelf
      • Spelling Shelf
Shew! That’s a lot of stuff! And the best part is that it’s expanding all the time. New material is constantly added and changed. There are so many lesson plans and printables here! If you’re a “boxed curriculum” type of family that already has a full schedule, you might find this much “extra” stuff a bit overwhelming to add in, but it’s simple enough to pick and choose the things your kids might enjoy. The site is so well-organized that it’s a piece of cake to spot something you’d probably like. For the eclectic homeschooler or one that likes the unit study approach, you’ll love having all of this stuff gathered together for you in one place. 


 
I know a lot of homeschoolers enjoy making lapbooks, and there are plenty of those, as well, complete with a tutorial on how to prepare them!


Now for my favorite resource: The Schoolhouse Planners! There’s such a wealth of planning pages, forms, and record-keeping materials, plus organizational ideas…I spent days just perusing the pages and sparking all kinds of ideas in my head! It inspired me to reorganize my school room and all of those supplemental materials so they could actually be accessible and easy to find and GET USED! It led me to organize my office area and have a log of our electronics, warranties, etc. I was in a frenzy of getting things in order, all because of the planners! There is a Schoolhouse Planner, Primary Schoolhouse Planner, Intermediate Schoolhouse Planner, High School Schoolhouse Planner, and Special Learners Planner. Each planner is filled with hundreds and hundreds of useful articles and forms to get you and your students as prepared as they can be for the school year and beyond! They are downloadable .pdf files, so you can browse them and print only the pages that you find most helpful. You can also type right onto the pages before you print them, which makes the lesson planning pages especially neat and useful. I loved how they had various versions of the planning pages to help you organize all of your children on the same page, whether you have one or five. I also loved the planning pages for the high school years…everything from planning out required credits to creating transcripts. I feel so much better prepared to tackle this period that had brought me such anxiety and trepidation up until now. The Schoolhouse Planner is a resource beyond words! It will literally organize every aspect of your life at home and at school. I *LOVE* it! This alone would be reason enough to join the site!

My 7-year old daughter's favorite resource was the Everyday Explorers: USA. Each month focuses on another state in a period in history. In daily lessons throughout the month, the student gets to explore places and people related to that state and time period. It provides lesson plans, online links for research, and leveled activities for various grade levels so you can have age-appropriate learning for multiple children studying the same topic at the same time. This is great for larger families! She got to make a travel journal and learn all about New York. She enjoyed it very much!

I have also enjoyed reading the digital issues of The Old Schoolhouse Magazine. They are easy to navigate and to view just the articles that interest me most, right here on my computer. They also contain Schoolhouse Review Crew product reviews and ads that led me to discover homeschooling materials with which I was previously unfamiliar. I even made a purchase after seeing an ad in one of these issues!
You can join the first month for just $1, a monthly subscription is $5.95/mo., or a 1-year subscription is just $64.26 and saves you 10%! You can cancel at any time if not completely satisfied. Read about the benefits of membership here. To view samples of the various types of lesson plans and planners, take a look here.

In summary, this PK-12th grade resource is a one-stop shop for tons of teaching materials and supplementals to add some excitement and variety to your homeschool!

Check out what other Crew members had to say about this awesome website by clicking the banner below.

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I was provided with a subscription to SchoolhouseTeachers.com at no charge for the purpose of completing this review, but all opinions are my own and reflect my family's honest use of the product.

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