The Canadian Flag - February 15, 1965

We have released the second of four new courses on Canada based on requests from Canadian home schoolers. The course is:

160 - Canadian Flag Facts

This is the smallest of the four new courses. It provides a few fun facts on the Canadian flag and is similar to the US Flags course in content. We strongly encourage students in the US to take the Canadian Flag course too, impress your Canadian friends with your knowledge about what happened on February 15, 1965.

Knowledge Net on Canadian Prime Ministers

We have released the first of four new knowledge net course on Canada based on requests from Canadian home schoolers. The course is:

320 - Canadian Prime Ministers

This course provides a history knowledge net for Canadian students in a manner similar to the US Presidents course for US students. Because of the strong historical connection, we encourage students in both countries to take the British History course, 420 - British Monarchs.

US students may wish to learn the Canadian Prime Ministers as well, if only to impress your Canadian friends.

2000 More SAT Vocabulary Words

HomeSchool Advantage has added 2000 more SAT vocabulary words to our Language Curriculum in four additional courses. If your student begins studying these words around 9th grade and continues through all of the SAT and GRE words they will have a true power vocabulary by the time they are in college.

It is important when studying SAT vocabulary to use the "Rate Yourself" feature so the student does not waste time reviewing words that they already know.

Of course, as always, this new content is Free to Members!

Yes There Will Be More Canadian Content

Canadian HomeSchool Advantage users have been asking us if we plan to add more Canadian content to HomeSchoolAdvantage.

The answer is YES.

And we encourage our students in the United States to take the Canadian Courses too! All US citizens should learn more about our most important neighbor, friend, and trading partner to the North.... well, to the North and to the South East.

We have assigned one of our volunteers to create Canadian content on Prime Ministers, Canadian Government, Key Dates in Canadian Political History, and the Canadian Flag.

We have already created courses on Canadian Provinces, Capitals, and Borders.

Please post here additional ideas for new Canadian Courses. If there is content or a table in wikipedia (or another on-line source) you would like us to include, please send us a link to that specific content.

Go Canada!

24 Additional Geography Terms

We have added 24 additional terms to the Geography curriculum in a new 350 level course on Earth Basics. By the time the student gets to this point in the curriculum they will know hundreds of states and capitals and around 70 geography terms.

Sample terms to learn include: Archipelago, Estuary, Fjord, Geyser, and Isthmus.

Parents - To assign these and other terms to your student goto the student assignments page and select 350 - Earth Basics. This course will appear in your students curriculum plan after they have completed all of the lower number Geography courses that you have assigned.

1500 SAT Vocabulary Words and Counting

The SAT Vocabulary Curriculum is now up to 1500 words. These words are also important to learn for those studying for the GRE. Math Problem: If a student adds 4 SAT words a day to their vocabulary starting at 12 years old, how many word will have been learned by the time they are 18?

Answer: Over 8760 (perhaps 8,766 depending on leap years). Interestingly enough, this is the number of vocabulary words we plan to have in our SAT and GRE courses combined.

New Spelling Contractions Course

I can not wait to turn can not into can't.

HomeSchoolAdvantage turned on a new course today, "Spelling - 230 Spelling Contractions." This new course contains spelling contractions that every speller should know such as can't, didn't, shouldn't, we've, they've, and you've. The course contains over 40 contractions.

An essential addition to any spelling curriculum, this new course is FREE TO MEMBERS! Now, are there any spelling errors in this post?

NEW SAT Vocabulary Course

SAT Vocabulary curriculum is now here! We have uploaded today the first of a series of SAT Vocabulary Words courses. The most frequently used words are in this first course. We suggest for advanced students that they start reviewing these words while in middle school.

The list of words to review will ultimately be over 5000 words. We introduce 5 new words at a time in this course. If the student already knows a word well they should rate it as being well know the very first time they see it in a question, or they should suppress the fact altogether.

We are delighted to provide this tool to help raise your child's SAT score by 100 points or more, while equipping them with a rich vocabulary they can carry into adulthood.

We advise that the student do a google article search on new words that they do not know, and that they read at least a sentence or two of the article that includes that new word. It is really fun to see a word that you are learning listed in an article in today's paper somewhere in the world. For example, searching boisterous today in google news produces:

Reading each new word in three or four articles will help ground that word and its usage for the student. Have fun growing your vocabulary!

What is the difference between a Mesa and a Cape?

Do you know the difference between a Mesa and a Cape? Do your students? Teach your students 24 geography terms that they should know by the time they graduate from homeschool.

Our new course, 250 - Earth Basics. makes it easy!

This course contains the following twenty-four terms - Atoll, Bay, Bog, Brook, Canal, Cape, Cave, Cove, Creek, Delta, Forest, Gulf, Hill, Lake, Marsh, Mesa, Moor, Plain, Pond, Reef, River, Sea, Swamp, Valley.

This course is free to members.

http://www.homeschooladvantage.com

Advanced Advantage

A powerful new feature is now available in HomeSchool Advantage. This feature allows students to declare how well they know a fact. The students' self evaluation directly alters their review schedules.

Student now have dramatically more control over their studies in HomeSchool Advantage. They can go much faster and reduce unnecessary repetition. This feature is especially valuable when students already know a large number of the facts in a new course, but they do not want to delete the facts, they just want to review them more sparingly.

How does it work? When a student answers a question correctly, a set of blue boxes appears showing how well the student knows the fact. The student has the opportunity to change this evaluation.

The better a student knows a fact, the more filled blue boxes. The more filled blue boxes, the more time will pass before the student is asked a question about that fact again. This time can be as long as a year if the student presses "I will Never Forget It."

Students can also decrease the rating of how well they know a fact. A student can set their level to zero by pressing "I Don't Know It At All." In this case, the student will be asked to review this fact again in one day.

Students should be careful when telling HomeSchool Advantage they know a fact very well, we take it very seriously. The highest levels should only be selected when the student know a fact exceptionally well and doesn't need to review it for over a year!

Let us know if you have any questions. And please, tell us what your think!