Wordless Wednesday!

linked to Wordless Wednesday over here.

Travel Kits- A Simple Way to Bless Others

Travel Kits:  A Simple Way to Bless Others  Retail $12.45

As a member of the TOS Homeschool Review Crew I received this e-book to review.

I have to admit that, up until reading this e-book, my idea of travel kit was a bag of books and a cooler of pop. By author Donna Rees,  this book is packed full of ideas, useful for kids of all ages, to enable the "kit" creator to meet every ones entertainment needs.  From origami to snacks, card games to calculator games; this 93 page e-book has awesome ideas.   For a sample of the table of contents and a few pages click here and enjoy a small download.  This e-book is one of the many offerings created by the publishers of Old Schoolhouse Magazine.

I probably wouldn't utilize this book to it's fullest extent, mainly because we don't travel a bunch and neither does anyone we know.   On the other hand, I found a few simple ideas to entertain the kids on small trips to and from Gma's and Gpa's.  I absolutely loved the puzzle books and card games that were suggested.  The travel size handheld games and small two person travel board games, were great ideas.  The individual sized snacks were so ingenious, rather than passing around bigger bags of things that often get spilled.

The other problem is that I'm just not "crafty".  Never have been, probably never will be.  I don't have a creative bone in my body.  To me stuffing all of this in a backpack makes sense.  I can see how it would be more fun wrapped and pretty, just probably wouldn't do it.

I'm sure if you pop over here,  you'll be able to find a whole bunch of fun reviews on this product from people a lot more creative and craftier than me. 

{Disclaimer: I received this product free as part of TOS Homeschool Crew to review. I received no other compensation and all opinions are my own.}

Travel the World eBook-Review

As part of the TOS Homeschool review crew I received the June 2010 Module of the Schoolhouse Planner, entitled Travel the World.  If you are not familiar with The Old Schoolhouse Magazine or it's eStore that has just about everything a homeschooler needs, this would be a great way to get to know them.

The TOS Homeschool Planner is a great tool in and of itself, but each month they release a 'module' that concentrates on a theme, a unit study if you will.  Travel the World  is a geography or discovery curriculum, it is packed with hyperlinks, coloring pages, word puzzles and so much more.

It seems appropriate for just about any age student, we used it with our children 4-15.  It was a fun experience for the younger students and a great review for the older students.   At $7.95, this product is hard to beat; especially since you can print off as much as you need for your family.

My younger children really enjoyed the coloring sheets, while my older two had a great time with the hyperlinks, it even has extensions for the high school set.  The module hyperlinks to many fun websites and online games that help enrich the experience and take the student more in depth about the study topics.  It is packed full of fun facts too, which pleased my 13yr old especially.  He likes to dazzle people with his trivia knowledge and knowing the largest continent, lowest point on the planet, largest ocean and biggest rain forest; was right up his alley.

If you are a fan of unit studies and like to combine all children in the same thing, than this is probably a great product for you. All of the work is done for you, the research is all at your fingertips and you don't really have to do much or at least very little planning.   You don't have to use the Schoolhouse Planner to use the modules, there are really no extra purchases to make, but the Planner is packed with a ton of great organizational tools that would help any homeschool parent.  The product is complete within itself, packed full of information to keep everyone working for days.  While I'm not a big fan of unit studies, mostly because of the work involved in putting them together, I would definitely use this product.  The work is done for you, allowing you more time to "learn" with your child, which is what homeschooling is really all about!!  Go here to see what other homeschool parents are saying about Travel the World.

{Disclaimer: I received this product free as part of TOS Homeschool Crew to review. I received no other compensation and all opinions are my own and of course the children's.}

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Speaking to me!

I love this new song by Sanctus Real.  It speaks so much to me, as much about what I want from my husband; as what I need to be as a wife.  I struggle mightily with Submission in the biblical sense, but really want my husband to be the Leader of our home.  It's as much about him as it is about me.

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Weekly Wrap-Up--Ramblings

I haven’t participated in a couple of weeks, so I’m going to do a general Summer update.  In case I haven’t announced it yet, I am a new member of the TOS Review Crew.  I have already received my first products to review and we are excited to get started.
We’ve had some big and stressful changes in our house; first and foremost, Hunter Storm has received his driving permit.  I’m not exactly sure how that happened, that he grew up I mean, but it did.  It makes me kind of sad in a proud mama sort of way, he’s growing up whether I’m ready or not.  I’m not, ready that is, I’m really not.  The other decision we’ve made is to move, probably by Sept or Oct, this will mean giving up the babies.  Not the kids, the dogs, I don’t know of any townhome or apartment that will take 2 one hundred pound dogs.  So we’re contacting the Great Pyrenees rescue to try to find a safe haven for them, hopefully they’ll be able to help us!  Anywho, we hope to be moving out of this neighborhood and into a better one, surprisingly, the kids are really ex cited about the idea.  I thought they might be upset about moving, turns out, not so much.  They don’t feel like they can play outside and have fun in their own neighborhood, mainly because they get picked on because of their color.  Sad.
We’ve had a great summer so far, spent time at the pool, zoo, movies and playground.  The movie theatres in our area have a summer movie program, so we’re able to see a movie each week for next to nothing, great to get out of the heat for a while.  Well, that’s about it, I’m going to include some random pictures from this week to make this post more fun.  Head on over to Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers to see how others spent their week.