TOS Crew Review: Super Star Speech Homeschool

So your sweet darling is starting to sound like a Cindy Brady, Elmer Fudd or Tweety Bird-and well, it is sort of cute say when they are 2, maybe 3-but it won't be cute when they are 10 or 25.  So what is a concerned parent to do?  What are normal speech patterns for young children, and what are considered true articulation issues?  What kind of expense is involved when you have your child work one-on-one with a speech therapist? Well, what if you were able to work with your child right in your own home, and do it for under $25?  Deborah Lott, has created a most useful program to assist you with just that.  Now since my youngest is a few months shy of 9, and speaks rather clearly-we did not review this product. But many of my fellow mates did.  So be sure to head over to our TOS Crew Homepage to see what they have to say about the Super Star Speech Therapy materials.    

What we did get to review was 3 of the Homeschool Games.  I found them to a be easy to download, print and assemble-which is always most helpful to a busy mom, like me.  I have a mini-ditty next to each game, along with how I store/assembled them to suit our workbox needs.  Each game is only $3.50-so these get a piggy bank for their budget friendly cost.

grades K-5

The All About Animals game is my son's favorite at this point.  You have two options-just placing the picture cards on the correct classification or reading the questions then deciding which area the critter fits. The winner is the one who fills their fish, reptile, amphibian, bird and mammal spots. I made my son put all the cards on his game board, since he was the lone player-helped cement the type of animals that went into each section. This is a fun way to reinforce your animal studies, and an easy, fun addition to one's workboxes.    

ages 6-10

Covering the Continents is interesting and fun.  I teamed up with my son to be the giraffes (erasers) and my daughter and the cat were the tiger team.  We decided erasers would work better than the strips of paper that are included (to be cut) in the game set.  Basically one asks the fellow next to them a question and they decide what continent it is describing.  To win, one must have the majority of the 5 tokens allowed to claim it.  Now with 2 teams (don't need to be in teams-but since my son is a beginning reader-it just made sense) there was a minor problem.  As it turned out, each team had 3 that they owned, and we were only asking questions that would fit the continents that were left (after all, why ask a question on a place that was already claimed?)  so what do we do with the 7th-it would be obvious which one we meant [and we each had 2 erasers on it]? So to be fair, we decided to just flip a coin to get our winner.  That was the only snafu we came across, well that and the fact that the Middle Eastern countries are a color of their own, when they should be blue since they part of Asia.  I found it to be my favorite of the 3. 

grades 3 and up (I mean up to adults here! LOL)

The Planets, Moon and Stars! game is more challenging than the others we tried.  Mainly because we are still working our way through the study of the solar system, so some facts are new to us [well, I kind of remember them but it has been 4 years since I taught this material]~so again, this one is going in the workboxes several times during our lessons, as another great way to reinforce what we are learning.  Basically, one answers a question, and if correct, they draw a planet/sun card out of the pile.  The one who completes their solar system first, is the winner.  I even tested the young adults in the house, and had a blast giggling at them trying to answer the questions. It proved that a little refresher on such things is always a good thing.  

Idea for the storage of the games:

I packaged them in large envelopes.  Taped over the sticky seal (so a child with a sense of humor didn't lick it shut) and laminated the game boards (the game cards will soon follow once I get some more sheets), then baggied the cards up. A heads up here: I had to glue construction paper to the backs of the cards first, to prevent the wording from showing through (I ran them off on white card stock-so maybe colored paper won't?) then cut them out.  

If one is looking for a fairly inexpensive way to add some games into their children's lessons, this is a great option. And there are several more to choose from.  Of course, there is the ink issue-but by printing most of the cards in gray scale, which doesn't "ruin" the presentation, eased the cost issue.  My family enjoyed testing these out, and I am glad to have had the opportunity to do so.

outside of the initial printing, cutting out, and packaging of it

Non-readers or new readers will need some assistance

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Super Star Speech Homepage
and Debbie is offering a 20% discount if you order directly from her site, until June 30, 2010.  Put in the code: TOS. **note that this does not apply to the games because they are not available thru her site.

Homeschool Games page- $3.50 each

 Head to CurrClick  to download the games.  I see they currently have several on sale, including the Super Star Speech Therapy materials

Don't forget to read up on what my TOS mates had to say about this and many other fine homeschooling products on our TOS Review Crew Homepage.

***Super Star Speech provided me with a free download each of the All About Animals, Covering the Continents and the Planets, Moon and Stars games, to test out and enjoy with my family.  I did not receive financial compensation for providing you with my honest review.