Online Media Library for Homeschoolers {TOS Crew Review}

Have you got the summer blues?  Not sure what to do to help make your kids excited for school?  We get that way in the summer sometimes because it’s just too hot to do a lot of outside things.  But this summer is different!  We discovered an awesome online media library for homeschoolers!  As part of a recent Crew review we have a year subscription to SmartKidz Media Library for Homeschoolers which is a part of Smartkidz Media.

We don’t normally watch a lot of television in our house.  We don’t have cable or satellite or anything so our television is rarely on unless we’re watching a movie.  But this summer we’re hooking the computer to our television via a HDMI cable so that we can all watch the same video at the same time.  Most of the videos are short at only half an hour-long.  So I don’t need to worry about being in front of the television for hours and retaining nothing.

This online media library for homeschoolers is designed for your children over the age of 13 to use independently.  None of my children are at this age yet so of course we’re watching as a family and I’m previewing what they’re watching.  With kids from the ages of 2 up to 10 I still feel it’s very important for me to know exactly what they’re viewing.

Some things that make this wonderful for us as a homeschooling family who is very careful at what we let our children watch.  We love that these are all child appropriate.  I haven’t watched every single video on the site(there are way too many) but they are purposely uploaded and made available for homeschool children and that says a lot to me.  I have not watched any yet that I would not want my children watching.

Let me take a moment to say that while we love this online media library for homeschoolers because of the educational videos it offers, it also offers so much more!  There are also interactive ebooks, study guides, games, music, and more!  Over the course of the summer they are expanding this by adding 100 more hours of video as well as more games, etc.  I don’t think we’ll get through the entire video library this summer or even in the entire year subscription we’ve been given!

I do want to note that there is a special area of the online media library for homeschoolers for special needs learners.  We have explored this section somewhat but not as thoroughly as I want to.  I do have some special needs learners and I’m sure this will be a great resource for us.

The main area of the library we’ve been using so far this summer is the Documentaries and Cultures section.  We’ve been doing some geography and history learning about other cultures and where they live.  Most of these are cultures of ancient times.  There are three videos in the Ancient Cultures series.  Two are 25 minutes long while the third is only 10 minutes.  

Did I mention that you don’t have to be using your laptop to access this wealth of videos?  You can use any device!  I’ve heard some good things about Roku and you can access your SmartKidz Media account through that as well as your TV, PC, Mac, iPad, iPhone, Tablet, or mobile phone.  So you can essentially take it with you where ever you go!

We are anxiously awaiting for the study guides on foreign language to be available!  They’re marked coming soon.  We can’t wait to try out the French.  There are study guides available covering other topics though and we are trying some of those out.  Right now we have access to Shakespeare’s Language Art Basics(love the tying in of Shakespeare and grammar), Newton’s Genius Math Basics(levels 1 and 2), Ben Franklin’s Social Studies Basics, and Einstein’s Genius Science Facts.  These are not your normal study guides though.  It’s not a pen and paper with black and white words type of boring mindless work.  These make learning fun by having fun covers and allowing you to choose which area you’re looking at.

The series we started after our cultures series is all about animals!  Over the summer we take a few trips to the zoo.  It’s always fun to research and learn all about an animal before we head to the zoo to see it.  And then while there we can choose a new animal to research and learn about!  There are lots of great animal related videos on here!  

You can find out what others thought of this wonderful online media library for homeschoolers by visiting the main TOS Crew Review page for other reviews.  We all received access to the same video library with our year-long subscriptions but of course we all have different interests.  You can also connect with SmartKidz Media through facebook and twitter.