Rainforest Journey ~ A Review

Over the past few weeks we've been reviewing Rainforest Journey, a fun online science program from EdTechLens as part of my 2nd grader's school day.

We were provided with a one year subscription to Rainforest Journey in order to write this review.

What is Rainforest Journey

Rainforest Journey is the the first interactive digital learning program released by EdTechLens. This product is aimed at children in grades K - 5. The thoughts behind it is to deliver an aesthetically pleasing program that you would normally only see delivered in the higher education levels but for the elementary aged child. The concept is that of a photo book, filled with video clips, photographs and audio that the children can easily interact with. Each level covers the same concepts, however they increase in complexity as the grade level increases.

First Impressions

The EdTechLens website is bright and fresh with stunning photographic images on the home screen. These create a sense of what is to come for the user and you know already from the home page that a great deal of passion has been put into this site.

The site is laid out in an easy to navigate fashion, with all of the regular links  across the top that one would expect to see within a website such as this. After clicking on the programs link you can read in more detail all about Rainforest Journey, including access to a few free sample lessons across the various grade levels. Be sure to watch the introductory video found on the bottom of that page.

How We Used Rainforest Journey

We used Rainforest Journey exactly as detailed within the program. At this stage we haven't added any extra's as for us right now this is a nice little bonus learning opportunity.

My son logs in using the user name supplied to him by EdTechLens and he is taken directly to the first lesson. From then each time he logs in the first screen he sees is exactly where he is up to in the program.

There is a course outline link to the left where you can move back to review complete lessons and see what is coming up.

The lessons in the grade 2 level include a couple of stunning photograph's of either the rainforest itself or of some of the animals found within a rainforest. From time to time there are also short videos to watch.

With each image there is a small snippet of information that can either be read or the option to hear the details being read aloud is also there right on the screen.

There is a brief enrichment section, which contains just that little bit extra information about the topic being discussed right there alongside the lesson too.

So far we have looked at all the layers of the rainforest, some of the many animals that reside within those layers and various types of rainforests

At the end of each lesson there is a printable PDF of review materials. For the grade 2 option he has been asked to draw what he is learning about the layers and to describe each layer with several words. This is simple enough for him to complete and does help him to listen closely to the audio as knows he needs to come up with some describing words at the end of the lesson.

Each unit finishes with assessment quizzes. There are 5 units with a total of 34 lessons. Each lesson only takes around 10 - 20 minutes to complete, with end of lesson hands on activities as an extra.

We have also been using the Grade 5 level and it covers the same lesson concepts just at a higher level, with each lesson, being slightly longer and with more reading material. It still includes that audio link though which is a huge plus for me as so many programs remove that option for older children. The Grade 5 level also expects short paragraphs in terms of lesson review output as compared to just a few short words that is required in the Grade 2 level.

What We Didn't Like

At first logging in and getting ourselves all set up with user names for each student was a little confusing, but I contacted EdTechLens straight away and they were more than helpful in getting us all ready to go.

With each lovely photograph there is a piece of information that can either be read or listened to, however the links for the audio aren't aligned right there on the screen, so I found myself scrolling up and down a bit so that we could listen and look at the pictures at the same time. I'd love to see the audio button right there alongside the image.

Being an online program, if like me, you don't have fabulous internet, can make things a little tricky at times. This is just something to be aware with your own situation.

What We Did Like

The stunning large pictures and the audio voice overs is what makes this program so unique. We can listen to the audio and sit and discuss the images included. At times choosing to go and find more information than what is provided.

I really liked that this can be used exactly as is, as an easy supplement to your current science program. Or if you choose it can be fleshed out into one entire year long theme of study, that adds an element of audio visual, video's, photographs and voice overs to the unit.

Looking Ahead

This has been so easy to add into our week that we will most definitely continue along with the remainder of the Rainforest Journey.

I'm very interested in seeing what other 'journey's' EdTechLens may be working on. This is a great way to add supplemental information to a larger theme that you may be studying.

Details & Pricing

A 1 year license for the Rainforest Journey program for 1 child is $50.

To see more from EdTechLens visit them via your favourite social media outlet.

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/edtechlens
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/edtechlens
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/edtechlens/
Google +: https://plus.google.com/+Edtechlens
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/edtechlens

I hope you found this review helpful. If you would like to see further reviews of Rainforest Journey from members of the Schoolhouse Review Crew, please visit this link.

Happy Homeschooling,
Kylie

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Outdoor Hour: Fungi & Printable Note Book Pages

The Outdoor Hour challenge this month was Lichen, Moss & Fungi. With all of the rain we've had here this year we didn't even need to leave our yard to hunt down and discover an array of fungi.

Once we started looking I couldn't believe my eyes with all of the different varieties right here in our own back yard. The kids were pretty excited running here, there and everywhere looking for fungi. I could here shouts, "I've found a different one over here!"

I wanted a record of our time spent looking more closely at the fungi but didn't want to turn this into a chore, so I put together a very simple notebooking page for the kids to illustrate the fungi of their choice.

Everyone agreed on water colours for this exercise. Lego Lover (11) chose a single stand alone specimen.

From the Fairy Princess, 8.

Little Surfer Dude, 4.

We also completed a second page with the all of the photographs taken during the backyard fungi hunt.

After Fungi we were on a bit of a roll and notebooked some of our backyard flowers and birds. I'm sharing these simple notebook pages over at my box storage.

Download the note book pages by clicking here.

I'm linking this post up to the Outdoor hour Challenge over at Handbook of Nature Study.

Plants: Free Printable, Story Writing Cards

I put together these Picture Story Writing Cards for the kids.

These were totally inspired by Montessori For Everyone, they truly have some fabulous stuff. I had to make my own though as I needed them to be as compact as possible.

In an endeavour to have as much on our shelves as possible I need to utilise things that are compact. Where possible I can store items in Index Card Holders and thought that I could include several theme related cards in the one Index Card Holder.

So these cards fit inside a 3 x 5 Index Card Holder perfectly. Since we looking more closely at plants at the moment these are out on display, but once we move on they will have a rubber band around them and will go into the "Story Writing Box" along with any other theme story writing cards I put together along the way. When inspiration strikes the kids can simply go to the Story Writing Box and pull out some theme related cards to help them along.

We've had fun with them this week. We began by writing a 3 way story, each choosing a card and taking turns. We turned the cards over so we didn't know what we were going to get. Having a simple picture to look at helps plant the idea (we just need to work on the fact that it doesn't always have to be so literal) and we can then focus on character building, following the story and listening to what the person prior had added to make sure that the new sentence flows with the storyline, and trying to build in an ending (that part was tricky).

Eventually I'd like the kids to use these independently to work on their stories but for now it will be with me or each other.

Sorry about the photo's below they are pretty awful. As we chose a card we placed it on the table so we could back and read our story along the way. The below layout is B's.


His story (written with me) is as follows:

M: In the pretty pink flower bed lived a

B: little man watering his flowers.

M: He grew enormous pumpkins in his garden.

B: And he grew some grapes too.

M: The little man spent a lot of his time raking leaves. One day,

B: he saw a little lady beetle.

M: She helped him to mow his lawn. The lady beetle was a very good
gardener.

B: When the little man had finished raking he planted some flowers.

M: The flower sprouted on the other side of the big stone bridge.

B: Next to the flower was a little girl on a slide.

M: She also loved gardening very much.

B: She had a little friend too, a little bee.

M: The little bee was busy chatting to her cousin the butterfly.

B: All of them decided to go over the big red bridge back home for
dinner.

The following is K's.


Her story is as follows:

M: Susan was feeling very hot mowing the lawn.

K: Whilst she was mowing the grass she walked past her friend called Bumble Bee.

M: Bumble Bee was busy raking his area of the garden.

K: When Susan was finished mowing the grass she walked to her friend, to say hello, called Matar.

M: Matar was using her favourite watering can to give her flowers a drink.

K: When she finished watering the flowers she went over the bridge and she saw

M: Harry, her dad, pushing his wheelbarrow full of leaves.

K: And then she saw some pumpkins that her dad grew.

M: Matar decided to stay awhile and help her dad trim the pumpkin vines.

K: On her way back from the bridge she saw some beautiful flowers and thought she was

M: very lucky to see a butterfly fluttering near the flowers.

K: On her way home she saw a little girl playing in a slide.

M: Matar thought about stopping and playing awhile but she could hear her mum calling her from the other side of the red bridge.

K: When she was walking over the bridge she saw some grapes growing on a vince.

M: She wished she had time for a swing, but she knew she had to get inside for tea.

I've uploaded these so you can grab a copy for yourself if you like. The file includes two versions, one set of cards with just the pictures and another with a word or simple phrase.

Download them here >>

Plants: Parts Of, Experiments, Puzzles, Collages & More

We've had a few Plant Presentations this past week and to my surprise both of them have been extremely interested. We went into this already having quite a good knowledge of plant parts, how plants 'feed' and the things plants do for us but I wanted to quickly revisit the topic, more for K's sake ( just to make sure she did know what I thought she knew, plus it never hurts for B to revisit topics) during these last 2 weeks of the term.

We began by inspecting a plant more closely, starting with what we saw above the ground, the stem and the leaves etc. We then talked about how the plant stays upright, what they need to grow, how they obtain 'food' and what we thought was below the soil.

We noticed that really you could barely see any roots at all when you first take the plant out of the pot (thankfully this little specimen was not root bound) but once we started to shake away the dirt from around the roots the whole root system became much more obvious and intricate.

It's really quite strange seeing a plant like this, without any dirt around it all and I know that once we delve deeper and look closer at the root system itself the kids will want to 'attack' this poor plant again. Don't worry we potted him back up and he is here on our shelf doing just fine, until the next time he is uprooted!

We completed the white flower in the coloured water experiment. Neither of the kids had seen this and I did not give anything away. Whilst they both told me that the flowers would 'drink' the water they were both very pleasantly surprised to see coloured flowers after only a couple of hours. (the colour really intensified overnight).

In case you have been living under a rock and have never seen this, all you need is some food colouring, water and white carnations or even celery will work. You do need plenty of colour, we used red, blue, green and yellow. It took a couple of days but all of our colours worked, the red and the blue were the most intense. We also kept one carnation in plain water to use as the control.

In hindsight I probably should have had them write up an experiment log, oh well, there's always next time.

K was given this Garden Girlz set some time ago and we've had it in the cupboard just waiting for us to do a plant study. I actually think she forgot all about it to be honest, but once I reminded her she was straight to work setting it up. There's been no growth so far though so it isn't looking good. We may have to leave it until spring and try some fresh seeds.

The Montessori puzzles are fabulous aren't they. It really helps to be able to isolate the parts with the puzzle pieces.

Most days I set the kids up with some kind of quiet activity whilst I go and put little C down for his nap. On this particular day I laid out a range of collage materials, along with some bunches of flowers I had picked up at the $2 shop and then pulled apart to make simple individual flowers.

The plan was that they would create their own 3D Flower Gardens. We talked about the layers of the garden beforehand and things we might see in the garden, but apart from that what they did with it was entirely up to them.

K's garden above is featured during a spring shower, with both blue and orange rain.

B on the other hand did this. This came as a complete surprise to me, he had chosen red pipe cleaners for the roots, some glitter for soil, green crepe paper for the grassy layer and then proceeded to build his flower. Although at this stage we had only discussed parts of a plant and not a flower he went ahead and labelled it anyway.

He was so engaged with this and I was so proud of him for taking a few simple lessons from earlier in the day and week and turning what was initially a pretty basic craft activity into an impressive piece of art depicting what he had learned.

Every time I feel like we might be missing something or that I worry if we are doing enough or if the Montessori approach is one that we can really implement he goes and does something like this. Reminding me that really it's ok, everything is ok and we are right where we need/want to be.

We spent some time working with these 3 part (with definitions) cards from here >>> These are great for both ages. B has started working on his own booklet and I am doing my best to not push it. I am just hoping that he will choose to finish the work off himself. If not it's no big deal, just because he hasn't produced something on paper doesn't mean he hasn't learned anything from it.

We also read lots of books too but I just realised I didn't take any pics. I will try and do that over the next couple of days and include them in the next post on our plant study.

Have you seen the Gardening/Plant story prompt cards that I have available for FREE download? Check out how we put them to use at this post. 

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