Little Homeschool on the Prairie: MarshMedia Review

Recently, we were given an opportunity to review some videos from MarshMedia. They have been showing educational videos in the public schools since 1969.

MarshMedia would like to introduce their product to the homeschooling community. They have a Homeschool Special to offer the homeschool community. Using this special you will have access to all the videos with unlimited access to watch them over again until the end of this year. This is an extremely reasonable cost to fit into a tight homeschool budget.

I have to say I was a bit hesitant at first with it being a secular company presenting topics like puberty, bullying, HIV, and other topics to my children. I decided to give it a try and watch several of the videos before I showed my kids. I honestly don’t think there are a wide variety of health curriculums available in the homeschool community and certainly not a lot of these topics that I am aware of. I have been extremely impressed with how the topics have been presented and the videos are very age appropriate from the videos I have seen.

I was pleasantly surprised that they cover some other topics other than their well known puberty videos for children. They have a wide range of ages covered in each area from K-grade 8.

Here’s a basic rundown of some of the topics available:

Puberty
Hygiene
Health/Safety
Students with Special Needs
Guidance

Currently, there are 59 videos available. They also have several of their videos available in Spanish. The videos are typical no more than 15 minutes.

All the videos have an age recommendation and the older the more information or details are given in the topics.

Puberty from how a baby is born, your changing body during puberty and they have separate videos for boys and girls offered in several different age ranges.

Hygiene covers topic you have lice, taking care of your body from your teeth, ears, importance of hand washing, and for older kid’s personal hygiene.

Health/Safety has topics on HIV, alcohol, germs and blood borne pathogens, several nutrition videos, lice, tobacco, sexual choices and consciences, and many other topics.

Students with Special Needs have a series on puberty and social skills that is very appropriate for parents with kids who have special needs. Having a 14 year old daughter with special needs I was eager to see how this was presented.

Guidance uses animals with topics like bullying, character, controlling anger, teasing, and other topics. These videos are very fun. They don’t give information about them when you click on the video. You have to click through the drop down menu and choice the topic to see which is which. This was the only thing I found frustrating. I would preferred to have them categorized on the main page by topic or have a brief summary on each one.

Navigating the website is easy. You choose which topic from the tabs at the top of the website. A bar drops down and you can choose the tab from the drop down menu or just look at all the videos available in that section. There are also a few posters available. I didn’t feel like it was something needed for my homeschool. They also have some educational videos available for teachers like what to do during a school shooting.

Once I have selected my title I can click on it and it will take me to a page that gives me more information about the video, how long the video is, and age range. I entered my code for the video to watch it. It also tells you if the video is available as a streaming option. I’m not sure if it’s the same in all situations with entering the code. I personally think it would be easier to have a log in and to be able to watch them without having to do that step on every video. Either way it was still very simple to do so with entering the code.

How did I use MarshMedia in my Homeschool?

I spent a few nights watching several of the videos myself before letting my kids watch the videos. I have an 11 year old son. I also have a 14 year old daughter with special needs both physically and mental needs.

I watched the puberty videos first. They are done extremely well. They do some basic illustrations of the body parts. The illustrations are very appropriate along with the contents. I watched the girl videos and the boy’s video separately with the kids. That way we could talk openly if needed.

We watched all the videos on Nutrient and found them informative.

We watched the Videos on my computer and on our tablet.

My daughter had more questions surprisingly than her brother did. Which I found surprising as we have had these talks one on one before. I think it was the videos as my daughter is a sponge when it comes to information through video format. She thought it was fun having mom time alone in school without her brother. The special needs video I thought would be suited well for kids without special needs.

My son said, “it was okay” We have talked openly prior to this program. I shared with him how I had this subject taught when I was his age in a large classroom setting. He thought that was horrible and was glad that he only had mom in the room. (Since MarshMedia has been around so long I could have watched them myself as a child.) He didn’t complain about the video I think it’s more of an age thing. Trust me he would tell me if he didn’t like it.

My son also was interested in the “How Will You React? A Staff’s Guide: Being Prepared For A School Shooting” video. With all the mass shooting going on in our world the last few weeks he was curious to see what the schools do. Some of the information could apply to any location. We have talked about this subject before and it scares him. I have to agree it’s a scary subject. We had a serious talk afterwards.

Typically we would do a video 3x’s a week. My daughter really enjoyed the Guidance area. She liked the animals and responded well to the videos.

Overall, I’m really pleased with MarshMedia and look forward to watching more in the coming weeks with my kids.

Other members of the Homeschool Review Crew have been reviewing MarshMedia also. Stop by and see what others are saying.