Mystery Science

Overview:

Mystery Science provides video-based lessons, which are accompanied by a hands-on experiment or simulation. This curriculum is available for one year in Early Elementary (usually grades K-2) and one year in Upper Elementary (usually grades 3-5). 

The videos and activity sheets are provided; Families will need to provide their own household supplies (items such as paper clips, scotch tape, vinegar or lemon juice, etc.) for some units.

Key Characteristics:

  • Material is presented in a very clear, engaging format

  • Every lesson includes both a short video and a hands-on experiment or simulation

  • Multiple elementary students may be able to do the same level of Mystery Science together

Things to Think About:

  • This curriculum provides an engaging introduction to many science topics but does not go into much depth on any single topic

  • Provides enough materials for 2 days/week of Science

Mystery Science Website

History Pockets

Overview:

The History Pockets program explores events in history by having students create folder-like pockets out of paper and cover them with written facts and information about events. Students who enjoy crafts and hands-on activities will especially enjoy this program.

Key Characteristics:

  • Brings history lessons to life

  • Content is not heavy or overwhelming – just enough information to keep interest high

  • Many hands-on arts and crafts activities

  • Retain information through writing

  • The student-made history pockets are great keepsakes

Things to Think About:

  • Available for one year in grades 1-3 and two years in grades 4-5

  • A good amount of prep time is needed for lessons

  • Writing, coloring, and cutting activities can be time-intensive

  • Surface level information rather than in-depth

  • Extra pages may need to be printed

History Pockets Website

eDynamics

Overview:

eDynamic Learning is a teacher-founded company, established with a mission of helping students find their passion. They are dedicated to developing programs of study in pathways that lead to industry-recognized certifications. With over 200 courses available on all technology platforms and devices, they are the largest publisher of CTE and elective courses in North America.

The eDynamic Learning middle school and high school curriculum is used in a variety of online and blended learning environments. Courses are designed to be flexible for teachers and ensure that students leave high school with the knowledge and preparation needed to make life-shaping college and career decisions.

Click here to visit the eDynamics site.

Acellus

Overview:

Acellus uses innovative video-based lessons to accelerate learning for grades K-12. Outstanding teachers and content make learning relevant to the real world. Each lesson is followed by a set of multiple-choice questions to assess comprehension. After completing the lessons in a unit, students can review all of the videos to prepare for the unit exam. If the student passes the exam, they move forward to the next unit. If they do not pass, the program moves them to the beginning of the unit to review and re-take the unit exam.  

Key Characteristics:

  • Good for auditory learners who learn best by listening.

  • Students can progress quickly if they pay attention to the lessons.

  • Lessons are easy to follow with a predictable format.

  • Students can quickly calculate how many lessons need to be completed each day to stay on pace for the course.

  • Easy to catch up if students miss a day or even a week.

Things to Think About:

  • Can be monotonous.

  • If a student has trouble mastering a concept, they will be required to repeat lessons.

  • Students learn at the recognition level vs. higher-order thinking. In other words, there is limited analysis, reflection, or critical thinking built into Acellus.

  • Students must do assignments in 2 programs to receive full credit for the course: Acellus for lessons and tests; Canvas for written assignments and projects. There is no analysis or writing in Acellus, so students do extra projects in the associated Canvas classrooms that have been created by the teacher in order to flesh out these areas – deeper thinking, and more writing.

  • Students can’t go back and see previous questions or videos except in the Review lessons before tests.

  • Parents cannot see what the student worked on. Teachers can see records of time worked, lessons completed, answers, and scores for lessons and the whole course. The student (and parent) can only see how many lessons have been completed and what the next lesson is. Parents cannot go back to see a previous lesson.

  • The videos often start out short and may get longer throughout the course. Therefore, students may underestimate how long it will take to finish the day’s lessons.

    Learn More:

Acellus Website

Course Outlines for Acellus

All About Reading

Overview:

All About Reading is a fun and engaging program that has everything your student needs to become a fluent reader for life! Using direct instruction phonics rules, hands-on alphabet tiles, and engaging worksheets and readers, this program is for Pre-K through Fourth Grade.

 Key Characteristics:

  • Clear, systematic reading and spelling instruction

  • Interesting and effective

  • Hands-on, and multisensory

  • Research-based

Things to Think About:

  • The learning coach (parent) needs adequate time to prep

  • Lots of worksheets

  • Moves quickly

All About Reading Website

Aleks Math

Overview:

ALEKS uses artificial intelligence to assess students’ knowledge by giving them a pre-assessment and placing them in their course based on their answers helping them to work on the topics that they are ready to learn. The students have a pie graph that represents the total number of topics they have mastered along with the total number of topics in the course.  

Students have the freedom to move through the topics in their pie graph and pick from a number of topics that are available to them. After selecting a topic, they read and study a tutorial to learn the concept. Then the student is expected to correctly answer 3 or 4 similar questions before the topic is considered mastered and then added to the pie graph.

Key Characteristics:

  • The student can test out of content and move ahead based on the outcome of the initial pretest. If the initial pretest indicates a mastery of less than 15%, the student is moved to the previous course. If the student tests at higher than 80%, that student is moved to the next course.

  • At any time students have between 5 and 20 choices of topics to work on.

  • This curriculum is VERY thorough–the typical gaps in a student’s math skills are solved with this curriculum. If a student earns a credit in pre-algebra via ALEKS, there is no doubt that the student is prepared for success in algebra.

  • The Mastery Checks continue to verify that a student’s mastery of an idea is solid. Students don’t slide by with “almost” knowing the content and getting lucky on a couple of sample problems.

Things to Think About:

  • There is no variety in how the material is presented; no secondary options when the student needs a second approach to a topic. There are no videos within the ALEKS curriculum itself. However, some ALEKS courses do include BWA teacher-created videos.

  • If a student’s knowledge in a topic isn’t solid, the Mastery Checks will remove pie-slices and send the student back to redo that topic. If students don’t know that this is possible, they may get frustrated.

ALEKS Website

Bookshark

Overview:

BookShark is a complete, literature-based, curriculum that uses a variety of educational resources including literary fiction and nonfiction, biographies, illustrations and hands-on experiments to deliver an engaging and complete education that extends beyond textbook memorization.

Bookshark is easy for parents to teach, providing 36-week, 4-day schedules designed to save one day a week for sports, field trips or other extracurricular activities.

BookShark combines a proprietary History, Science, and Language Arts offering with a wide range of math options, to ensure you have everything you need for an entire school year.

Learn More:

Bookshark Website

Cathy Duffy Review

Elemental Science

Overview:

Elemental Science offers easy-to-use plans that feature the three keys to teach science:

  1. Performing hands-on scientific experiments

  2. Gathering information

  3. Keeping records

Hands-on experiments provide the chance for students to interact with science face-to-face. These experiments and demonstrations come with a supply kit and have step-by-step instructions, expected results, and clear explanations.

Each program contains a reading plan that will teach the student the facts they need to know. Depending upon the series, students will be reading from living books or encyclopedias. Lastly, each program includes customized notebook pages and experiment sheets to help the students organize and share what they have learned. For grades first through eighth.

Learn More:

Elemental Science

Cathy Duffy Review

Exploration Science

Overview:

Exploration Science uses a hands-on approach allowing students to explore the foundational principles of physical science. Using the text and lab activities, students study forces, machines, motion, energy, electricity, magnetism, sound, light, density, and buoyancy. Students will also study general chemistry concepts including the structure of matter, the periodic table, chemical bonds and reactions, mixtures and compounds, and the chemistry of food and living systems. In addition, students will learn the fundamental physics concepts of the earth and solar system, thermodynamics, and fluid dynamics. Throughout this course, students discover the relationship between science and daily life. The students will gain a solid understanding of the scientific method and learn to write thorough and accurate lab write-ups. There are three levels: K-3 Pack, 4-6 Pack, 7-10 Pack.


Learn More:

Exploration Science-Physical Sci

Cathy Duffy Review

Flexpoint (FLVS)

Overview:

Flexpoint is an innovative digital curriculum. While it is predominantly text-based, it also includes interactive technology such as games for review, Discovery videos, virtual labs, and even some avatar clips. These core subject-area classes are very solid and great preparation for students planning to go on to future education after high school. The content presents real-world situations and asks questions that connect back to real events and situations as often as possible. K-12th grade.

Hybrid Option:

  • Online Lessons with a workbook packet sent from BWA

  • Online subjects: math, language arts, science, and social studies

Key Characteristics:

  • Rigorous

  • Includes text to speech options

  • Includes videos and interactive lessons

  • Discussion-based assessments

  • Compelling and varied

  • Students and parents can go back to content when they need to review

  • There are opportunities to work with the teacher and other students in the course if the teacher has set up these assignments as an option.

  • Although the math is partially multiple-choice, it has “real world” problems. The lessons present the material in a way that relates back to how math is used in the real world.

  • Students can see how much each assignment is worth so they can gauge how much time and effort to spend on each assignment. This is a great skill to learn.

Things to Think About:

  • Requires strong reading and writing skills.

  • Assignments vary in complexity, so it is not always possible to set a consistent daily goal. In other words, finishing 1 lesson per day could mean a short quiz or a long paper.

Learn More:

Course Outlines

Flexpoint Virtual Course Tours

Get Oregonized

Overview:
Get Oregonized is a history book for students in 4th or 5th grade that focuses on Oregon’s history and regions. Both the student book and Teacher’s Guide meet standards in social sciences for historical knowledge, geography, economics/finance, civics and government, mathematics, science, and the arts.

Get Oregonized is divided into two sections: Oregon’s history and Oregon’s geographic regions. The history section highlights various Native American tribes and the arrival of white people to the region. Students learn about famous explorers including Lewis and Clark, pioneers on the Oregon Trail, and about Oregon life through the eyes and words of children their own age. Important historical pioneer figures are featured including Henderson Luelling, Tabitha Brown, Asahel Bush, Asa Mead Simpson, and Abigail Scott Duniway.

The second half of the book explores the regions of the state. Students learn about Oregon’s diverse geography, geology, climate, economy, and agriculture.

Get Oregonized Website

Math-U-See

Overview:

Math-U-See is a hands-on math program that uses building through blocks and manipulatives to show and express math concepts. Best for students who like to work with their hands and for students who need to have repetition. K-2nd grade.

Key Characteristics:

  • Good hands-on manipulatives

  • Benefit from moving objects to represent numbers

  • For hands-on learners and students who struggle with math

  • Mastery based learning

  • Great online fact practice support

  • Lots of repetition

  • Comes with a DVD of instruction

Things to Think About:

  • Non- traditional form of math

  • Students sometimes complain about the repetitive nature of the problem sets

Math-U-See Website

McRuffy Language Arts

Overview:

McRuffy Language Arts programs cover phonics, reading, spelling, grammar, and composition. Optional handwriting workbooks easily integrate with the other components of each course. It is adaptable to students learning needs and provides spiral instruction so skills are revisited throughout the level. K- 5th grade.

Key Characteristics:

  • Students benefit from increased spelling, reading, and writing skills

  • Great for students at or above grade level

  • Great leveled readers come with curriculum

  • Detailed lesson guide

  • Spelling, vocabulary, and comprehension tie in very well with the reading

  • Has online games available that work with each lesson

Things to Think About:

  • Numerous books and worksheets

  • This curriculum is probably not the best choice for a struggling reader

  • The parent needs time to prep

McRuffy Website

Mosdos Press

Overview:

Mosdos Press presents outstanding classic and contemporary literature and is dedicated to excellence in the teaching of literature, writing, vocabulary, and language arts. Meeting the most stringent academic standards, the content is intellectually challenging and morally framed. The curriculum is rigorous and engaging and thoughtfully explores positive ideals. Students who learn from Mosdos Press often become lifelong readers, thinkers, and writers. 3rd-8th grade.

Learn More:

Mosdos Press

Cathy Duffy Review

Moving Beyond the Page

Overview:

Moving Beyond the Page is a unit study approach based on constructivist theories of learning that primarily targets gifted children. Each year’s curriculum is designated with an age range rather than a particular grade level.

  • Age 4-5 (Recommended for kindergarten or advanced pre-k students)

  • Age 5-7 (Recommended for first grade students or advanced kindergarten students)

  • Age 6-8 (Recommended for second grade students or advanced first grade students)

  • Age 7-9 (Recommended for third grade students or advanced second grade students)

  • Age 8-10 (Recommended for fourth grade students or advanced third grade students)

  • Age 9-11 (Recommended for fifth grade students or advanced fourth grade students)

  • Age 10-12 (Recommended for sixth grade students or advanced fifth grade students)

  • Age 11-13 (Recommended for seventh grade students or advanced sixth grade students)

  • Age 12-14 (Recommended for eighth grade students or advanced seventh grade students)

Key Characteristics:

  • Connects literature across many different subjects

  • Students benefit from literature-based thematic learning

  • Great for students above grade level and are good listeners (k-2nd) and independent workers (3rd+)

  • Project-based learning – hands-on

  • High-quality materials

  • Great literature collection

  • Offers an age range rather than grade level

Things to Think About:

  • May be more challenging to use if teaching multiple children at once

  • Significant amount of reading or lessons to be read out loud to students

  • Significant 1:1 time for instruction and parent prep time

  • Weak spelling instruction

Moving Beyond the Page Website

Nancy Larson Science

Overview:

Nancy Larson Science is a complete hands-on elementary science curriculum with
challenging content that engages students and is easy to teach. The lessons are fully scripted with explicit instructions, worksheets, and assessments. Real books (three to six books per level) and hands-on activities mix with structured discussions, worksheets, drawing activities, and assessments to provide challenging science content in a format that is easy for any parent to use. K-5th grade.

Key Characteristics:

  • Material is presented in a clear, easy to follow format

  • Students benefit from a strong curriculum at grade level

  • Very informative but to the point

  • Well laid out

  • Scripted

  • A supply kit is included

  • Great Language Arts connection

Things to Think About:

  • Somewhat repetitive

  • It may not stimulate a lot of creative thinking

  • Materials are not really for experiments but rather to play with

Nancy Larson Science Website

Odysseyware

Overview:

Odysseyware includes standards-based core courses and electives designed to support personalized learning. In many ways, this is a textbook online with a limited number of games and videos. Odysseyware is straightforward and easy to use; the program establishes a reliable routine with each unit following the same pattern of instruction, quizzes, and projects. 3rd-12th grades.

Key Characteristics:

  • This is an online, teacher-graded curriculum

  • Struggling readers may use the read-aloud feature to have all lessons read to them

  • It has been around for a long time and includes a large variety of courses, especially high school electives in the area of computers, technology, and career fields

  • Students and parents can go back to content when they need to review or check information

  • Students choose 2 projects out of a larger list of projects for each unit

Things to Think About:

  • Lots of reading is required, but the text is not difficult

  • The projects include short research papers and posters; students are encouraged to reflect on and apply their own experiences

  • Students use the percent progress to determine how much to do each day

  • Assignments vary in complexity, so it is not always possible to set a consistent daily goal. For example, one lesson may be a short quiz while another lesson may include a longer research paper.

Odysseyware Website

Saxon Math

Overview:

Saxon Math takes an incremental (little by little) approach to math, introducing a new skill or principle each day, then reviewing these concepts and skills day after day for weeks. This approach helps build students' confidence in their ability to "do" math successfully. A great traditional program for every type of student. K-Algebra 2.

Key Characteristics:

  • Skills learned will continue to re-occur throughout the whole level

  • Classical math instruction

  • Great for independent workers

  • The daily lessons are all in a similar format which allows students (who can read) to work independently

  • Great for kids who need repetition

  • Scripted lessons

  • Comes with a manipulatives kit

Things to Think About:

  • There are a significant number of problems per day

  • The parent will need to plan time to walk through the initial lesson

Saxon Math Overview

Saxon Math Website

Story of the World - History

Overview:

Story of the World History covers the sweep of human history from ancient times until the present in a four-volume series. While these books are written at increasing levels of difficulty, they might be read aloud to younger children and read independently by older. Provides a classical education approach to history. 1st - 5th grade.

Key Characteristics:

  • Siblings from multiple grade levels can work on curriculum together

  • Includes many optional project suggestions to deepen students’ understanding of each time period in history

  • Parents often enjoy reading/listening to the history

  • Vol. 1 -4 will give you a chronological account of the history of the world

Things to Think About:

  • There is lots of reading out loud and explaining concepts in the early grades

  • Book and workbook are not colorful

  • Some of the histories include descriptions of violence

Story of the World Details

Teaching Textbooks Math

Overview:

Teaching Textbooks is a math program that provides computer-based lessons and workbooks. A student can use one or both to move through the lessons. Instruction is clear and easy to understand and there are plenty of practice problems. 2nd-8th grade.

Key Characteristics:

  • Students can do both workbook and/or online

  • All instruction is given on the computer

  • Lessons provide clear instruction and quality practice

  • The system will auto-grade each lesson, quiz, and test

  • When an answer is wrong a pop up will appear that tells the student why

Things to Think About:

  • Not aligned to the SBAC standards used for state testing of grades 3 – 8.

  • Not being standards-aligned makes it challenging to switch to a new curriculum without having gaps in knowledge

  • Numbering system is not intuitive. Teaching Textbooks 3 = 2nd grade curriculum; Teaching Textbooks 4 = 3rd grade curriculum; Teaching Textbooks 5 = 4th grade curriculum; etc.

Teaching Textbooks Website