TOS Crew Review: Kinderbach

Kinderbach is an early learning (about ages 2 to 7) piano course, founded by Karri Gregor. She was looking for an age appopriate music program for her young children, unable to find one, she started teaching her own lessons. 150 students later, she had to give up her lessons after her husband lost his job and they had to relocate. Later, after digging up some old tapes of the lessons she decided to start up again. Using her husband's wise advice, she stared the DVD program so more could be reached. The rest is history. You can read her bio here.

We previewed the online web video edition, also available at the website, as a less expensive option then the DVDs. My children, boys, ages 6,7, and 8, watched intently each lesson and completed the associated worksheet. With the use of a basic keyboard, we followed along with the lessons learning about Dodi's house, the train station, simple music theory, sing along songs, and some percussion instruments.

The lessons are short (around 5 minutes) and complete one objective at a time. There are 4 short lessons a week. The intro lesson lets you know what you need each week. The pages with the various activities - color, cut, and paste mostly, are right on the lesson page. Karri's sweet voice sings the songs in the program. The program slowly builds concepts as it is meant for younger children. My older boys were able to complete a week at one sitting.

Not being musically minded, we all enjoyed the lessons and did learn quite a bit, completing only level one. The activity sheet are easy to use and have age appropriate activities. The curriculum is 2 years long or 60 lessons. You can preview the first two lessons for free online.

A copy of the syllabus is available at: http://www.kinderbach.com/Classroom/curriculum.html

TOS Review: Puppetools

If you have an interest in puppets, whether for yourself or church group, you can get a ton of information on the "science of puppets" and imaginative play with children at http://www.puppetools.com/index.php. The author had put in hours of videos, patterns, and other things to get you and your child thinking about how to have a ball with puppets.

Basically you learn a basic puppet paper fold then children are encouraged to come up with there own ideas to make puppets. There are patterns there as well for those of us born without a creative gene. You can use these ideas for supplementing your curriculum by acting out a story or re-telling a history lesson. The uses are endless.

There is a 60 day trial available for $20, which should suffice most families, however the author of the website states he plans on offering an "individual" membership for $20 a year. That has not as of yet made it to the website, so you may have to email them for more information.

This website includes tons of research done over time by its' author. He definitely has a passion for this tool. His enthusiasm just bubbles over throughout.

TOS Review: Aleks

Aleks is a complete online web-based math curriculum for grades 3 though high school. Aleks' website calls itself "an artificially intelligent assessment and learning system." There are basic math, middle school math, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, statistics, business math, accounting and more available. There are no textbooks. Everything you need, including the calculator is available online. You do need to have pencil and paper handy for basic math work when you can't use an available tool.

Aleks is different then other online/computer curriculums that I have seen, in that they don't use grades. You take an initial assessment for the program you are signed up with to see what you don't know and what you do know. To picture how this works: You are given a circle pie which basically represents your brain or your knowledge in an area. The areas you know are colored in. The object is to learn the things you don't know to completely fill in the circle. You are not given grades, since knowledge /mastery is more important then an actually letter grade. The lessons only stress areas you need to work on to fill in your pie. It is a very custom program.

Also, I noted in the program is a build in "frustration preventer" (for lack of a better way to state it.) When you get stuck on something, it tries to explain it several times, then goes onto other topics you need to work on. You can stop a lesson at anytime and it automatically picks up where you left off next time. Reports are emailed to the parent weekly to see how the child is doing. You can also access assessment information anytime on the website.

Aleks is easily accessible to any computer with Internet access, 24/7. The curriculum is individualized, so you know always what areas your child is weak in or excels in. Aleks makes a great supplement or even a stand alone math curriculum, depending on what you are looking for. Price per month is $19.95 month. $99.95 for 6 months and $179.95 for 12 months subscription. Family plans are also available. The lessons I did are straight forward teach and learn. I did not see any games. There are no multiple choice questions, so there is no guessing allowed!

TOS Review: Core Learning

Core Learning is a publisher of software, books, multi-curricular projects and on-line learning applications. The products they sell seemed to be geared to the educator both at home and at school. The programs seem to be secular but did not see anything offensive in what I viewed.




For Math I previewed a demo lesson on fraction and factors. It sounded I like I had a sweet older teacher reading me information on the screen. The explanations were detailed with plenty of examples. There are no bells and whistles with this program. It is straight forward teaching and learning and quizzing.

For English Grammar II demo, I previewed a lesson on adjectives. It was very detailed with great explanations. At the end was a opportunity to print out worksheets on the topic and to complete a quiz. This is straight forward teaching and testing. Little bells and whistles. I did not notice any games.






For the above two programs there is a teacher chart which tells you time spent on the lesson, how they did on the lesson, and the ability to preview the actual quiz taken.


Also available for math is a series on Calculation Skills, Math Skills Builder and 4 math courses (decimals, geometry, measurement besides the fraction one above.) For English there is level I and level II.

I did enjoy both the math and the English grammar demos. They both taught with great detail and had excellent examples. I even learned I am not suppose to say "beautifulest", but rather "more beautiful" or "most beautiful."

From the Health Series Demo I previewed the human body we watched a few short videos that went through the parts of the mouth: the teeth, tongue, epiglottis, etc. These videos tend to remind me of "Magic School Bus" type. There are interactive quizzes that go along with the video segments. There is also a section on explore the body that has go through different systems of the body. This section is not a video but it is point, click and read. For example for the digestive system you click on the different sections as the boy swallows the food. There are clickable pronunciations of the parts of the digestive system. But the rest of the information is read by the student. The pronunciations are English (UK). They are definitely written from a modern kids perspective with common slang words for bodily functions. There are two main series available for health: Family Health Series and Health for Kids Series.

We also reviewed Crayola Art Studio. After installing it and watching a short online video we were anxious to see what we could do. You are given a blank screen to work with and the option to use 12 different mediums such as paint, pastels, crayon, and markers. There are special effects and "stamps" you can also add to your picture in several topics (animals, make a face, backgrounds, shapes, etc.) I guess with a little practice we will be able to make invitations, decorations, and greeting cards.





To say the children fought over the computer to play this was an understatement. They played this until bedtime then when they got up in the morning they started over again. They enjoyed making all kinds of pictures (we didn't save but a few.) From drawings to picture scenes they had a ton of fun with this. One of the boys commented, "I can paint with no mess!"





Here are a few of our pictures (you can save them in several different formats):

They also have a more advanced art program, Corefx- Three Level, with pictures and animation. There are add-ons for it and an activity guide to give you more details on how to animate your pictures with it.

You can find demos of some of the products by visiting their website at:

http://www.core-learning.com/