TOS Crew Review: Lobster Network

LobsterNetwork.com

If you want it, chances are someone else already has it, and they may be willing to lend it, sell it, trade it or even give it to you. Give LobsterNetwork a try!

Wow! What a concept! Invented by a Canadian Homeschool Family... Here is a FREE site where you can keep a home inventory online (including pictures!) for either your own personal use or have available for others to be able to borrow. You can post things to sell and you can buy things with the option of searching for items by locality.  Did I mention all of this is free?

All you need to do is set up your FREE account and you are good to go! One thing we need to do is to get the word out.  If we can get people locally to try this out - we can share amongst ourselves.

This is a great place for homeschool resource centers and libraries to post their items that are available.  You can then share items among your own group locally. Also great if you lend out a lot of your homeschool material - you can keep a record of it to recall at anytime.

I think the ideas on how you can use this are endless.  But we need to get the word out about this so we can have things to borrow and someone to buy our stuff, LOL!

To Visit Lobster Network - Click Here!

TOS Crew Review: Keyboarding For Christian Schools

One of the greatest and most useful skills I ever learned was touch typing. It was mandated at the high school I went to, that everyone must take it. It should be mandatory for all students, in my humble opinion!  I have used this skill nearly daily the past 10 years. My children are amazed at my "talent."  I have purchased several typing programs for them, but the problem is the content.  While I haven't found anything specifically offensive in them, they just don't have a purpose. Imagine being able to type and copy passages that contain biblical truths!  That is where this program comes into play.

There are two version of this typing curriculum, one for elementary and one for grades 6 and up.  The elementary version contains just the basics for getting started in 31 lessons.  This covers all the letter keys plus the number and top row keys (@%&) you use with the shift key and the number pad.  For practice Psalms are used to copy as well as using "how to have a personal relationship with Christ."

The upper level curriculum has 43 lessons. This curriculum covers the same topics above more quickly and then goes into business letters, bibliographies, works cited, envelopes, etc. that you would normally be covered in a high school level keyboarding class. There is also emphasis on timed typing.  What I really appreciate is the Christian topics that are used for typing exercises.  For example for report writing a report is presented on "The test of true discipleship."

This course presents typing the way I learned with the same introduction I used. This is an effective traditional way to learn to type.  Along with discipline and practice, this method works.