Wednesday, May 2, 2018

Weigl Publishers - Lightbox Digital Series Review




Let's face it....the Digital Age is here to stay and the coolest educational tools are now available for homeschool studies.  We recently had the opportunity to review the Media Enhanced Books from Weigl Publishers.  I wish we would have had these when we first started homeschooling!!!

We had the opportunity to try out three stories from Weigl Publications -

Glaciers - Earth's Water

A Lion's World

There Once Was A Cowpoke Who Swallowed An Ant



Caty and I really enjoyed going through these three stories.  The non-fiction stories were full-color photography.  The books are great alone, but the added digital content made learning amazing!!  Just to give you an idea of how cool this series is.....

Once we entered our secret code to open up our Glaciers book, each page of the book is brought up on the screen.  (FYI....we used a MacBook Air to read/study these books.)



Each page had it own surprises.  Since Caty struggles at times with words being overwhelming on the page, I loved that each page would/could be read to her.  She could just follow along to the highlighted words.



Some of the pages also offer video links.  The extremely user-friendly interface just required we click on the icon and....



BAM...a video popped up on our screen.  This is great since I didn't have to worry about her being taken out onto webpages that had not been pre-screened by myself.



Many of the pages had printable worksheets that you could use to reinforce material that you are reading about.



Even though we were not studying glaciers at this time, this was a great non-fiction story for just a fun science day.  I liked the information that was presented, and that is was done in such a way as to use lots of visual photographs and videos.  This was great to keep Caty's attention span.  These books are written at a elementary school level, I am gauging them as upper elementary.  But you could easily use this material when teaching multiple grade levels at the same time (since many homeschool families are like ours, and try to combine kids together for learning).



Lydia absolutely loved reading and playing in A Lion's World, even though she is way above the suggested grade level!  The video reading was very interesting and were great refreshers for learning about this ferocious feline family member.  It is definitely recommended for early readers. 

I think pre-school students and students with special needs would really enjoy the "video" book that they could watch on the computer or even a tablet.  The interface is extremely easy, with just a click to turn the page.



But not all the books they offer are non-fiction.  We also had the opportunity try out the fiction story - There Once Was A Cowpoke Who Swallowed An Ant. 



The online access codes are located on the inside cover of your book.  Kids are asked another verification question once you enter the code number, just to make sure you actually have the book.  It was super easy to enter this information also.



I loved the fact that the book could be read by the student or have the book read to them, with the words highlighted as we went along.  



Caty thought this story was funny.  It's definitely written for early readers.  But the story is so funny that it really had her laughing and enjoying it.

Here's a great informational video about this innovative reading technique that is patented by Weigl Publications.


The Lightbox Digital Series books from Weigl Publishers are amazing!!!  They are the perfect addition to any learning library.  They currently have a large catalog of over 300 titles available for almost every subject including science, social studies and fun reading also.  There are even several early chapter books available for elementary level students.

Several members of the Homeschool Review Crew were given the opportunity to review the Digital Series from Weigl Publishers.  Be sure to click on the link below to see how they used these publications in their homes, and what they students thought of them.


Multimedia Digital Books {Weigl Publishers Reviews}
Crew Disclaimer


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