Lone Star Learning is a Texas-based company that has educational products developed “by teachers, for teachers”. They have multiple products for many subjects, including math, science and language arts. Our Crew reviewers got to sample a few of their products for this review.

Target the Question Digital is an online daily math program for students in 1st-7th grades. It’s designed to take only 10-15 minutes per day and allows children to practice skills such as “focusing on the question, identifying extraneous information, and applying problem solving strategies”. Children log-in at the beginning of the week, and are given a scenario, or a data set. Each day they have a word problem to solve that applies to the data set or scenario. The program inlcudes downloads for the parent with answer keys, reference sheets, and worksheets students can use to solve each days problem. Target the Question digital costs $59.99 for a one year subscription.

Target Vocabulary Pictures, Set 1 are math vocabulary cards that use visual pictures to help your child remember what the words mean. There are 3 sets total, and they come in both large and small sizes. The cards are brightly colored, and coated to make them last. They come in sets of 50-56 cards. Rather than being arranged by grade level, the sets are labled by number, and you can look at the word list for each set to decide which one would suit your child best. A small set of the cards our reviewers got to try costs $29.99.

The Science Vocabulary Pictures come in 40 card sets and are similar to the math cards. They teach science vocabulary using pictures. The full-color and coated cards show the word and it’s meaning in picture form. There are 5 different word lists to choose from, including a K-2 list. Again, words are not arranged by grade level, so you would want to look at the word list and see which one would be best for your child. Science Vocabulary Cards cost $29.99.

The Greek and Latin Roots vocabulary cards help students remember the roots because the pictures look like what the roots mean. There is one set of 60 full color cards, printed on heavy cardstock. The cards are divided with 30 Latin roots and 30 Greek roots in the set. You can see the list of roots on the webpage. The Greek and Latin Roots set will cost $39.99.

College Common Sense is a program designed to help families understand the process for finding and obtaining financial aid for college.  Developed by Denise Ames, a financial aid counselor at a university in Texas, College Common Sense is applicable to parents of students of any age.  This program is available in both a DVD/workbook format, which costs $50 + $5 shipping/handling, or a one-year online access to the video and workbook materials, which costs $25.

Through the College Common Sense program, users have the option to sign up for a free newsletter, full of helpful college planning tips, as well as free lesson plans to help parents and students alike navigate through the video and workbook portions of the program.  With the online version of the program, the workbook pages are included as .pdf documents which are printed out by the user.  Overall, there are approximately 30 pages to print, including the introductory material.  Some of the information covered includes:

1.  Steps to go to college

2.  What is financial aid?

3.  What is a FAFSA? Do I need one?

4.  How does financial aid work?

5.  Taking a college visit

6.  Where can I find free money for college? How do I apply for it?

7.  How do I fit into the whole picture of college and financial aid?

Through 6 video sessions, the workbook pages, and the lesson plans students and parents alike will gain a great understanding of these questions as well as many, many more.  Denise is also available to answer questions through a contact link on the College Common Sense website.
 

For the past few weeks, the Review Crew has had the pleasure of reviewing many products from Activity Bags.  The products reviewed include the following:

Science Experiments in a Bag E-Book 1: This book provides examples of 25 simple science experiments in Biology, General Science, and Nature that you can do at home.  Science Experiments in a Bag E-Book 2: Like E-Book 1, this book provides examples of 25 more experiments, but this time in Chemistry, Human Body and Science, and General Science.  Science Experiments in a Bag E-Book 3: Focused all on Chemistry this time, there are 25 more great science experiments on-the-go in this collection.  The Science Experiments line is for Grades K-8, and each E-Book is $15.00.  A special bundle price of $39.00 is available for all three books.

Some Crew members also received Reading Games in a Bag, 20 reading game instructions for new and beginning readers.  This E-Book is $15.00 and is for, well, new and beginning readers!

Crew members were also treated to Travel Activities in a Binder,  a collection of classic (and some new!) ways to divert kids on car trips.  As a slight departure from the typical “in a bag” format, all you have to is print off the activity pages, put them in plastic page protectors, avail yourself of dry erase markers, and go! This E-Book is $15.00 and is for Elementary ages.

The Crew recently had the opportunity to use a product from an award-winning company that specializes in multisensory teaching resources – Crossbow Education.

National Tax Training School is “the nation’s only nationally accredited correspondence school specializing in tax training.” They offer several courses that prepare you to become fully capable to start your own tax practice, land a job in an accounting or tax preparation firm, or simply to be more knowledgeable in preparing your own individual taxes. Whatever your aspirations, National Tax Training School has a course for you.

After completing the Federal Income Tax course, you will be prepared to take the required IRS Registered Tax Preparer (RTRP) exam. The Federal Income Tax course is for those individuals with little or no previous experience in the tax field. This course will train you to be able to prepare taxes for individuals and small businesses.

For individuals with previous experience in tax preparation, National Tax Training school has the Higher Course in Federal Taxes which trains you for preparing taxes for partnerships, corporations & fiduciaries, and will prepare you for the IRS Special Enrollment Examination.

Lastly, for California residents who are required to obtain a CA Tax Preparer License in addition to registering with the IRS, there is the California Tax Preparer Course.

Several of our Schoolhouse Review Crew Members received the Federal Income Tax course for free from National Tax Training School.

The Federal Tax course provides the individual with 20 easy to follow lesson units which require approximately 8 hours of study time per unit. A student can complete this course in as little as 8 weeks but is allowed to complete it up to a year if needed for a slower paced study.

To find out what our Crew members had to say about National Tax Training School’s Federal Tax course, just follow the link below!

A big thank you to Barbara of Alive In Spirit for writing this introductory post.