Journey Homeschool Academy (A REVIEW)

Disclaimer: I received a FREE copy of this product through the HOMESCHOOL REVIEW CREW in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way. 

 

We had a fun time learning all about biology at the elementary level with this review. We received access to the Experience Biology: Elementary course from Journey Homeschool Academy. Not only were there great videos packed with new information, but there were also fun activities, good book recommendations, and more. Read on to see what we did!

What is Elementary Biology? It's an online video course with many supplemental offline activities to choose from. It is set up to study about one lesson per week, with watching the video first and then completing as many or as few of the activities as you'd like. We like all the "hands-on" stuff so we tried to do as much of the printables and activities as we could each week.

Our course page where we access all the lesson content including videos, printables, and resources.

To begin a lesson we'd first start by watching a video. The videos are about 15 minutes long, and they are really fun to watch. They have beautiful, colorful footage as well as a lot of interesting facts and information. They all begin with the same upbeat music at the beginning to introduce the course, and then instruction/talking from the teachers while showing illustrations or footage of what they are talking about. They are packed with REAL biology vocabulary and concepts. I was impressed with how equally challenging and simple the content is. The instructors are clear and easy to understand too.

Our setup usually included us at the table watching the video on the laptop. Sitting around the table was the comfiest for ease of working on the worksheets and activities.

Completing lesson 2, watching the video first!

After the video, either on the same day or another day, we'd start working on the worksheets and activities to go along with the lesson. All of the extra material for each lesson will contain a list of books to read, a hands-on activity, Memory work, Copywork, and a quiz.

Here are some examples of the worksheets (from various lessons):

Recommended reading list

An activity for lesson 2

The copywork by Alex 4th grade, lesson 1

The Memory cards from lesson 1

The quiz, lesson 1

Lesson 1:


So how did the first lesson go? It went awesome! Before we started I rounded up the recommended books from the recommended reading list (Pictured below). I was able to access books either through my library or purchase them cheaply from various websites. Again, you don't have to acquire the books, but these books are a great supplement.

We watched the video and Alex got a little creative "taking notes" on a poster as we were watching. This wasn't part of any of the lesson, just something he did on his own.

His completed poster! (This was not an assignment from the course, just something my son created. I love when curriculum inspires the student to go above and beyond.)

We decided to fill in some of the worksheets during the video too! He needed to copy the words to get the spelling correct for the activity later. That's all we did the first day, watching the video.

Filling in the worksheet during the video. I paused so they could copy the words correctly.

A few days later we did the activity. Determining what's alive.

Activity/experiment for lesson 1, determining what's alive.

Throughout the week we read the books.

What's smaller than a pygmy shrew is an awesome book that really solidifies the video lesson.

Then, finally, we worked on the copywork, memory cards, and the quiz. I won't picture them again because they are in the worksheet examples I already shared above. And that's about how a lesson goes!

How did the rest of the lessons go??

The lessons continued to be fun, challenging, and interesting. In lesson 3 we built a candy DNA...

The activity actually calls for colored marshmallows, but I couldn't find them at any of our stores. So, we opted for gummy bears. It made it a little more difficult and heavy, but it worked!

Overall we really enjoyed this curriculum. It's engaging and fun. The videos are enjoyable to watch, and capture the attention of the children. It was even challenging enough for my middle schooler who worked on it with us, so even though it says "elementary" I do believe middle schoolers could learn a lot too if you want them to join in with their younger siblings for lessons. We have many more lessons to watch as the course is meant to last a whole school year. They are still adding videos/lessons as they create them, but as of writing this review they have 19 weeks worth of lessons. They also offer other courses at Journey Homeschool Academy including astronomy, and the high school level courses of both biology and astronomy. Some of the other crew members tried these other ones. If you want to see what others had to say about this and the other courses, click on the banner below.

The 52 lists project: list 29

Today's list is my dream job. In a sense, I feel like I already have a lot of hats or "jobs" that I wear that are some of these "dream" jobs. So, I guess this list is a mixture of things I dreamed of as a kid, things I do as a Mom and adult that I think would be fun to do professionally, and things that I've never done but look like they would be a great way to make a living. I will try to label each dream job's origin. I also will say that I am not necessarily good/knowledgeable about any of these things and whether I could do/perform them is completely a different topic. This is just my dream!

List your childhood and current dream jobs:

• Teacher--Definitely a childhood dream. I used to play "school" all the time and dreamed of being a teacher. I also homeschool so I feel like I have kinda fulfilled this dream. Unintentionally.
• Librarian--I have used the library way more as an adult and homeschool mom than I ever did as a kid, so this is definitely an adult/current life dream.
• Restaurant owner/chef--I'd say this is more of a dream that I developed as an adult as I have developed more skills in the kitchen.
• Actor--This is definitely a childhood dream. I remember having conversations with my mom about this. I have to say as an adult I don't see myself in this role at all, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't be fun.
• Dancer--Childhood dream. I have loved dancing all my life. I remember making up dances as a kid. I dreamed of ballet. I remember my Mom taking me to see about ballet but it being way out of our league money wise.
• Artist--Adult dream. It's my favorite subject in our homeschool.
• Author--Adult dream. Writing/keeping a blog has been eye-opening in that I have realized I love to write. Again, whether I'm good or not is a different subject. I'd love to learn to be better.
• Art Teacher--Adult dream. I love teaching kids, so definitely a kids art teacher.
• Music Teacher--Adult dream. I love music. I'd certainly need lots more training in this area though. I would probably be a kid's music teacher too.
• Seamstress--Adult dream. I never sewed as a kid. I've had to self teach a lot of what I know, but I think it'd be fun to learn more and make cute things.
• Florist--Adult dream.  I arranged some flowers the other day with my youngest and thought it would be a fun thing to do on a regular basis.
• Park Ranger--Adult dream. I love being outside. I love seeing what the park rangers do at the state and federal lands. I have thought it would be a cool job a time or two.
• Arborist--Adult dream. This would take a lot more education, but it ties into my love of nature and being outside.
• Master Gardener--Adult dream. I would love to know enough to teach others and do it as a full-time job.
• Photographer--Kinda childhood dream, but mostly an adult dream. I have loved pictures all my life. When I got my own camera as an adult though it hit me how much I love taking pictures. I was such a fan that I would go to great lengths to set up scenes for my firstborn to take her picture every month of the first year of her life. I haven't stopped taking pictures since. I have even done some families and one wedding. It is not my dream to be a wedding photographer, too much stress!
• Hairstylist--Adult dream. I cut my husband's hair after watching the first few times I was able to do it on my own. He hasn't had to go to the hairdresser much at all. My boys on the other hand are harder. I also think it'd be fun to be better at it. Making people look awesome would be a fun job.
• Nurse--Adult dream. I actually almost switched to this major in college. But, then I didn't finish college, so whatever.
• Writer/Journalist--Adult dream. Same as Author.
• Disney Cast Member--Adult dream. I'd love to be one of the characters that get to dress up or be in one of the shows. Even being in charge of a ride there seems like it would be a fun job.
• Lego Masterbuilder--Adult dream. I love legos. As an adult. I never really played with them too much as a kid, but I love them now.
• Veterinarian--Kinda from childhood, but mostly adult.
• Zoo/Seaworld animal keeper--Childhood dream. I went to SeaWorld with my Grandmother once as a kid. Probably around 9 or 10 years old. I saw the people that got to train/play with the dolphins and thought that would be the coolest job. Thought the same thing when I went as an adult.
• Midwife--Adult dream. Delivering sweet babies and helping their families/mom through the birth process would be just amazing.
• Cake Decorator--Adult dream. I have dabbled in cake decorating the past few years and think it would be fun to do for a living.
• Exercise Instructor--Haha, this is the perfect one to follow cakes! This is an adult dream. Maybe because of my love of dancing.

That is my list of dream jobs. I may decide to pick one of these up over the next few years as my kids grow and leave the house. What is your dream job right now.

My weekly notebook: Switch, surgery, and swimming pool

Life this week...

This will be known as the greatest week ever by one member of the family. We have been searching for a Nintendo Switch for a few months. They have been very scarce (hard to find). Stores can't keep them on the shelf and ordering one from eBay or Amazon right now you have to pay a higher price. So, we waited and kept checking stores and online. Finally, a bundle with things we wanted and a switch showed up at GameStop online. We ordered it, just before Aric's birthday, and it arrived a few days after his birthday. That wasn't a big deal since it wasn't specifically for him. It's a family gift, and he has the joy of playing it and getting games and such as part of his birthday celebration. He is the one that wanted it the most and worked the hardest to get it. We challenged him to walk on the treadmill for 300 miles and we'd consider getting one. He walked that 300 miles and finished just before his birthday!

Aric was so excited about it that he waited outside the day it was supposed to come. It didn't come that day, unfortunately. Somehow it missed the delivery truck. It did come the next day though!

Homeschool this week...

I absolutely love these 3-tier rolling carts. They make good portable storage. I purchased another one this week at Michael's. Alex put it together all by himself at his insistence. It will probably be used to put daily assignments in.

We did some reading from Alex's Mosdos Press Literature book.

The story this week was A Cane in Her Hand. A story about a girl who had to learn to deal with blindness as her vision worsened. I enjoy reading the stories in this book with Alex.

Reviews we are working on...

We've got a lot of great reviews going right now. Superteacherworksheets.com is one of my favorite resources, and we get to review them again!  This week I printed up one of the summer-themed worksheets for my middle schoolboy. I love the simplicity and creativeness of their worksheets.

Helpful homeschool tips and advice to share...

If you are just starting to think about homeschooling and don't know where to start I suggest this Homeschool 101 series. She even has a printable for you to jot some things down to get them on paper. I have found that with homeschooling it's good to write things down and not try to keep it all in my head. It's too much for my brain. She also has some great thoughts.

Places we're going and people we're seeing...

On Tuesday, April had to have a procedure done to help remove a very large kidney stone. It was a long day, but she was home by the evening. She spent the rest of the week recovering. We are hoping this resolves the issue and no more pain for her.

This was my view during her surgery. I was planning to go into the hospital with her (only one parent could accompany her since she's 18 due to Coronavirus restrictions), but I woke up that morning with a tickle in my throat and runny nose. I didn't want to deal with that with a mask on. I also wasn't sure if it was allergies or sickness, so I figured her Dad should just go in with her. So, while Grandma sat with the boys at home, I stayed near the hospital in the van. It was okay in the shade for most of the morning, but by afternoon I was getting toasty. I headed home as soon as I knew she was recovering well. Dad brought her home a few hours later.

What we're reading...

Aric is reading the Percy Jackson books, and he started the 3rd one this week.

Movies we watched...

We watched a Disney classic, Cars. I had forgotten how funny it is. And, 3 of the 4 kids watched it with me!

I'm cooking...

I made cinnamon rolls for dinner last night. They were delicious. That is all.

I'm grateful for...

Our swimming pool. It has been a source of fun and relaxation this summer so far.

Summer Fun activity: Farmer's Market

We have a summer fun list of sorts. This is our "summer bucket list" tree. It has some activities that we hope to get to this summer. I have no idea if we'll get to all of them and we are even still adding things as we think of them (we have lots more leaves), but I'm not going to put too much over-thinking into it. If the activity fits, we'll do it.

On Saturday we were out and about and decided to swing into a farmer's market. We had time, and we knew it was on our list of things to hopefully do this summer. There are not any farmer's markets happening close to us currently (at least none that I know of), so any farmer's market we go to will be at least a 15 minute drive. We were near Sherwood which happened to be having one that day!

I don't usually buy fresh flowers for myself, but this big bunch was calling out to me. This is a huge bouquet, by the way. The picture might look a bit small because it definitely doesn't capture the enormity of the bunch. Alex helped me arrange them.

Then we headed to another farmer's market because Sherwood's was very small. This one was in Beaverton. We also went on a walk. The only thing we purchased from Beaverton's market was lunch. It was delicious. Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of it. I was too excited to eat something new, Ethiopian food. I did take some pictures of pretty flowers though!

Before we made it to the Beaverton market though, we took a nature walk at Tualatin Hills Nature Park. It was beautiful, and amazingly like walking through the forest even though it's in the middle of a city.

Alex striking a pose in the bright sun.

Everything was so green and beautiful with the sun's rays coming through the trees. It was a perfect retreat for us.

Some clover

These stumps would be so fun to sit around and talk about nature on. We didn't want to sit with the heavy traffic through the park, but the boys had fun jumping on them.

We spotted a few creatures too. Lots of birds and this barred owl. It was amazingly still and quiet. We were able to stare at it for quite some time. I am sure the owl was not happy with us staring and making noise (although we were trying our hardest to be quiet, really) because it looked like it was asleep. But, we couldn't be sure because it also looked awake. The head never turned to face us, it was completely still like this the whole time, so I assumed it was sleeping. Or maybe half asleep. It sure did give us a long time to gaze at it.

These activities sure did feel nice. We need to make it a point to get out in nature more! I just love it.

Wordless Wednesday: movie night

Paused for ice cream and movie snacks...

My Weekly Notebook: Swimming, rocks, and blueberries

Life this week...

I noticed at the beginning of the week that the patio was bugging me. It needed some freshening up. Plants needed to be moved and it needed a sweep and spray down. It took me quite a while, and I'm happy with how much better it looked afterward. The kids (including neighborhood kids) play in this area a lot so it can get pretty dirty with their dirt creations, or whatever they decide to play with at that metal table every day. I'm glad they like to hang out here though.

Speaking of kids. I found the sidewalk chalk box with old wet chalk lying in between some of the flowers. It hadn't been touched for some time. There was a little water in the box that wouldn't drain because it was a plastic one. There were also dead flowers in it that had fallen from the hanging basket. But, even though the chalk was all wet there was still a ton of usable chalk in there, so I decided to fix it up. I found a different box that would drain better. We had a white planter box just lying around with nothing in it, so I grabbed that. Took the still good pieces of chalk and put them in the new box, set the box out in a more open spot, and wrote sidewalk chalk to see if it would attract any attention. Just about 5 minutes later... they had chalk in their hands! It worked! Hoping this gets it all used up by the end of summer.

 

Homeschool this week...

Our classroom was this pool.

We did some math playing this game, tossing ping pong balls onto a target. We played 10 rounds. The boys had to add up their scores. It was tough keeping track of all the numbers without a paper and pen, but we did it! Alex won with like 380 points I believe.

Other than reviews (which I will talk about next) that's about all we're doing for school right now. Just natural learning through games and being outside. Hoping to start getting some nature studies in soon.

Reviews we are working on...

We just started reviewing Superteacherworksheets, so this was our first "worksheet" activity. Spelling in the pool. See, I told you we did a lot of school in the pool this week!. I taped spelling words to the dive rings, and they had to find the word I said and then spell it out loud. We did the first 5 words because I only have 5 rings. We might have to see if we can find some more rings to do the whole list. It turned out to be an awesome activity.

Places we're going and people we're seeing...

We went to Hobby Lobby this week to find a few things and ended up picking up a foam airplane for Alex to try out. Then we took it to the park. It was a beautiful day to fly a plane.

My favorite thing this week was...

Getting a ton of rocks from Costco. Literally a ton. 2,000 pounds. It's not very often you see a pallet of rocks sitting in the middle of Costco, but it was exactly what we needed.

These rocks or flagstones or quartzite to be more specific are beautiful. It was exactly what I was imagining putting around our pool for a walkway so it wouldn't be muddy.

It was a lot of work but we got them unloaded from the truck. Those rocks are super heavy! We had to unload them one at a time because we don't have any forklifts around here. We started just roughly laying them out. It's a start. We have to do some rearranging, but it is so nice having places to step that aren't muddy. Eventually, we'll put gravel around the stones. It will help keep mud and dirt out of the pool too!

My kids' favorite thing this week was...

This was Alex's favorite thing this week. Blueberry picking. He has been wanting to pick berries since summer started. He is the reason we went on this blueberry picking adventure because I wasn't so sure I still wanted to go on the morning of. But, I asked him if he still wanted to go and it was a definite yes. A very excited yes. Then, the whole time we were picking he just kept thanking me for bringing him. I'm so glad I did.

He eagerly picked a ton of berries.

Despite my lack of excitement that morning I was glad to be picking berries with him. They were so tasty too!

Random things the kids worked on...

Alex and I tried out the new LEGO dots bracelets. We worked on these together.

What we're reading...

Reading seems to be a miss a lot this summer. Now that we're starting to get more books from the library now I'm hoping that will change. I also finally got a few pictures of the things we read. I find that if I snap a picture right after we read it I'm more likely to remember that we read it.

Steamboat School by Deborah Hopkinson. A book about African American children who couldn't go to school because a law was made that prevented them from learning to read and write in the state of Missouri. But, the reverend found a way around that. I'm glad we checked this one out.

The Scrambled States of America by Laurie Keller. We have this game, and I recently discovered that there was a book too. It's all about a talent show where each state features a talent. Such a fun book.

I'm cooking...

I made a blueberry pie with some of our fresh-picked blueberries. It was delicious.

Photo of the week...

That about wraps up the last week. Now time for a new one. Hope you have a good one!