It is a rare kid that show any interest in studying vocabulary at all, let alone one that will pick up a book and study vocabulary.......well if you can call it studying. When I received my copy of Vocabulary Cartoons I went through it and left it out hap hazardly about the house. I nearly always find it laying open to the last page my kids have been looking at. This book is great because just like the title says it reads like a cartoon, and has reasonably high entertainment value in an other wise dull topic of study.
One of the really nice features of this book is that there are no writing or copying of definitions, in fact there are no assignments at all. The logic behind the design of this book is word associations, and pictures. For instance, in the word catapult you are given the word on the top of the page with the phonetic pronunciation and the definition. Below that is the word "cat", the association word, followed by the cartoon. The caption to the cartoon is the word association in the case of catapult: "Testing the first cat in the catapult." The cartoon shows the dog catapulting a cat. Rounding out the page is the word being used in three differing sentences.
I really like learning outside the traditional box, and when kids will pick up a book and read vocabulary words, it is a good thing.
This reasonably priced book can be purchased from their web site for $12.95. http://www.vocabularycartoons.com/home/
Members of the TOS Crew received a free book for review purposes.
Friday, September 17, 2010
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
RE: MathTutorDVD.com
The latest product I have had the opportunity to review is the Math Tutor Pre-Algebra and The Texas Instruments TI-83 and TI-84 Calculator produced by MathTutorDVD.com. These are by no means comprehensive curriculum's, however, are an excellent resources to reinforce concepts being taught in your math curriculum.
On the Pre Algebra DVD the instructor uses a white board to solve problems and explain concepts. His teaching style is very straight forward. You may not find him exciting, but you will find his explanations clear and easy to understand. There are nine sections, absolute value, powers, exponents, order of operations are some of the topics covered.
The Texas Instruments TI-83 and TI-84 Calculator DVD is set up with the calculator on screen, and voice instructions. The instructor gives the viewer a blow by blow of how to perform each the function. Just plug in the DVD and see how to execute sin, cos, tan, graphing, logarithms, mortgage rates, statistical functions, graphing and a host of other mathematical functions. To my mind it is much easier to go through these simple and clear explanations than follow instructions in a textbook. We are not quite there yet, but I envision getting a great deal of mileage out of this DVD.
In terms of grade level math curriculum's tend to very wildly, and I would think the concepts presented in the Pre Algebra could be easily understood by younger students to reinforce some of the more basic concepts such as, real numbers, greater than, less than, the number line etc. The bulk of the Texas Instruments TI-83 and TI-84 Calculator DVD is more advanced math.
These DVD's are housed in cases with excellent indexes of where to find everything contained. This gives the user great topical flexibility and they are very easy to navigate. If you have a child who is particularly drawn to media based learning these reasonably priced DVD tutors should work well.
MathTutorDVD can be purchased at http://www.mathtutordvd.com/public/main.cfm for 26.99 each.
Members of the TOS Crew received a free DVD's for review purposes.
On the Pre Algebra DVD the instructor uses a white board to solve problems and explain concepts. His teaching style is very straight forward. You may not find him exciting, but you will find his explanations clear and easy to understand. There are nine sections, absolute value, powers, exponents, order of operations are some of the topics covered.
The Texas Instruments TI-83 and TI-84 Calculator DVD is set up with the calculator on screen, and voice instructions. The instructor gives the viewer a blow by blow of how to perform each the function. Just plug in the DVD and see how to execute sin, cos, tan, graphing, logarithms, mortgage rates, statistical functions, graphing and a host of other mathematical functions. To my mind it is much easier to go through these simple and clear explanations than follow instructions in a textbook. We are not quite there yet, but I envision getting a great deal of mileage out of this DVD.
In terms of grade level math curriculum's tend to very wildly, and I would think the concepts presented in the Pre Algebra could be easily understood by younger students to reinforce some of the more basic concepts such as, real numbers, greater than, less than, the number line etc. The bulk of the Texas Instruments TI-83 and TI-84 Calculator DVD is more advanced math.
These DVD's are housed in cases with excellent indexes of where to find everything contained. This gives the user great topical flexibility and they are very easy to navigate. If you have a child who is particularly drawn to media based learning these reasonably priced DVD tutors should work well.
MathTutorDVD can be purchased at http://www.mathtutordvd.com/public/main.cfm for 26.99 each.
Members of the TOS Crew received a free DVD's for review purposes.
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