TOS Review: Orphs of the Woodlands from Star Toaster

I was thrilled to get a chance to review Orphs of the Woodlands online educational resource and game from Star Toaster.

What is Orphs of the Woodlands?

Orphs of the Woodlands is probably best described as a live-action e-book that is supplemented with learning games that teach a variety of core subject matter as well as real-life skills. The book my children read through Star Toaster's Orphs of the Woodlands online educational resource and game is called "The Treasure of HighTower". Currently, this book is offered to students with a 2-month subscription and the ability to add up to 3 students and add a one-month extension to the subscription if desired.

The reader is not only reading about these orphaned animals in the woodlands, but is on an active adventure to try to save them. It's as if the reader steps into the story and becomes a part of the story he or she is reading. All the while, the parent receives progress reports of the student's activity and accomplishments.

        

The student begins by reading the story. After each chapter, he or she chooses from a list of "jobs" (learning games) where they undergo training instruction and then complete the task. If they succeed, they receive points and even are granted pay raises of extra points if they do well.

The points arrive via an on-screen animation of a toaster shooting out a gold star (hence the name of the creator - Star Toaster) with a nice chiming, "ding" sound. If the student gets the answers wrong, the toaster blows up with quite an alarming, "boom" sound that really encourages him or her to fully train (learn) the skill for the task at hand so as to avoid the booming toaster sound.

There is so much to this fun online reading adventure, that the best way to describe it is in the creators' own words. This short video gives an excellent overview of what the program is all about:

So, how does this reading adventure actually look on screen?  The first thing the student does is personalize his or her story by giving his main character a name. After everything is set up, the story begins with on-screen reading.

The bottom of each page indicates how many pages are left in that chapter.

While the student is reading, there is a lot of interactive learning. Vocabulary words are highlighted to be scrolled over for a definition, and there are even pop-out screens that show more information on items like, a recipe for nut bread or green forest tea.

Star Toaster recommends using a monitor of 1024 X 768 or higher screen resolution and a modem version browser of either Firefox, Google Chrome, Apple Safari, or Internet Explorer 8 or higher. We could access it from several devices. My older daughter used her laptop, I was able to access the reports from my iPhone, and my younger daughter used her Kurio Droid Tablet.

At the end of the reading chapters, more fun begins in the form of "applying for jobs" that earn points in the form of stars that serve as wages earned. If the student does well, he or she may even receive a raise in the number of points received for the same task. Students can use their money to build and plant their own home and plat of land.

     

How Did We Use It?

We received a full year subscription for up to 3 students. The subscriptions are normally for about 2 months. I set up the log-ins for my children, and then had them work at their own pace as a bit of a curriculum supplemental reward.

My 7th grade, 13 year-old lover of reading finished it rather quickly. I'd say within the first two weeks. My 8-year-old, on the other hand, took longer and tired faster from the lengthy reading involved before getting to the chapter breaks of the games (jobs) to earn points. Once she arrived at the end of the first chapter, she was so excited but then took quite awhile on Chapter 2 which reflects more of her reading ability than it does her interest in the online learning games.

What Did We Think?

My older daughter was beyond thrilled at the concept of Orphs of the Woodlands. She loves to read, and loves adventure. I think she has rave reviews and nothing but good things to say about it. She is at the perfect reading level for this program, in my opinion. While, my older daughter was thriving at the reading and all the other learning involved, my younger daughter was a bit more challenged by all of the actual reading. I'd love to see an offering for her level of reading as well, with slightly shorter amount of pages to read in between the learning games. But, she still really liked it and strove to finish strong.

Star Toaster is offering a FREE TRIAL to readers of this blog. Read the first chapter, and get a feel for how it all works. See for yourself through this FREE TRIAL!

  

Find Star Toaster and Orphs of the Woodlands on Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter. Read what other members of the TOS Review Crew thought by clicking on the picture below:

Giveaway: Spot-It Game By Blue Orange Review

I was thrilled recently when the Blue Orange games company contacted me to ask if I was interested in sampling their newest game (Spot-It) to write a review.  I couldn't wait to receive the game to give it a go and write what I thought.  So, here it is:

• My review of the Spot-It Game by Blue Orange

 and

• How you can win your own Brand New Spot-It Game

The company Blue Orange Games describes the game like this:

Truly Amazing. There is always one, and only one, matching symbol between any 2 cards in this game. Spot it and you win. There are only 8 symbols on each card, but 2 matching symbols may be different sizes. This challenge increases as new cards are quickly revealed in this fast-paced game.

Spot it contains four fast, challenging mini-party games in which all players play simultaneously. The Tower, The Well, The Hot Potato, and The Poisoned Gift can be played in any order, or you can just play your favorites. The bottom line is, have fun. 

My daughters wanted to play immediately upon receiving the package.  So, I sat down with my newly-turned 10-year-old and my 5 1/2 year old (even though, the package states that it is recommended for ages 7 and up).  I fully expected for my youngest to need some help.

To my amazement, even the youngest picked up on all five games fairly quickly.  Within no time at all, we were all matching pictures and having fun learning names of shapes with fun-to-say descriptions (such as the ying-yang symbol).  There are also pictures of trees, green apples, snowflakes, lady bugs, cheese, suns, hearts, and other fun shapes.

All five of the games come with well-written descriptions (which I appreciated highly since I often have difficulty understanding game rules until I actually see the game being played).  This was not the case with Snap-It.  I understood the rules as written and was able to explain each game to my daughters.



Travel Size - The game comes in a really handy (pun intended) round container that can easily slip into  your purse or suitcase for travel.  It is about the size of an adult's palm.  In fact, we plan on taking it along when we visit the beach this summer.  No, we probably won't play it out on the sand by the ocean.  However, there is plenty of downtime in the evening where the family kicks back with games.

Educational - Now for the best part.  The game is very educational (in a fun-filled kind of way).  It is all about matching, speed, identification and vocalizing your discoveries.  The games can become quite fast paced and competitive.  It is recommended for ages 7+, but I think (even if you have to slow it down for a minute) emerging readers would really benefit from this game as it uses matching skills between large and small pictures.  This is a foundation skill for reading.  It also taps into a mathematical aspect (counting, shapes and sizes) as well as vocabulary and vocalizing.

How You Can Win A Game of Spot-It - If you want to learn through play with your own game of Spot-It, here's how you can enter to win (Make sure you complete the steps that are marked as mandatory to be entered to win):

.....Click on the Raflecopter giveaway link below and follow the instructions for your change to win---