Halloween Pictures

We went to a church trunk or treat 

and then went down the busy street 

of town. The kids did not yield much 

as past years but they still had fun!

He is a witch hunter lol.

Clued In Kids Review

Vendor: Clued in Kids Product: Thanksgiving Treasure Hunt 

and Winter Treasure Hunt

 

Age: 4+ Price: PDF file is $5.99
About: Clued in Kids is a company that makes learning fun using treasure hunts.  My kids absolutely love treasure hunts but I have to be honest and say that I have always sucked at making them.  I also never thought about using them for learning either.  Clued in Kids  uses many different subjects to make a clue.  This was an awesome concept I thought.  I have a couple children that hate to do work and so I have to make things fun in order to get them interested.  I was very excited to get this review.
The Thanksgiving Treasure Hunt's PDF file is 8 pages long and the first page being the instructions. There are 12 clues and they all have to do with Thanksgiving.  There are things like questions about Thanksgiving to dares of flapping like a turkey.  They aslo have a clue that you put in the mirror to be able to read, and many more. There is also subtraction problems to complete to figure out clues as well.  The last page has the answers to it. 
The Winter Treasure Hunt's PDF file is 8 pages long as well.  The first page being the logo and instructions for setting up the clues. Each page after that has 2 clues per page. The clues are made up of things like letter decoding, word scrambles, multiplication, telling time and many more. There are 12 clues in all.  The last page has the answers for you as well.
How we used: My children that used the hunts are 9, 8 and 6 years old.  I printed out the clues and placed them around the house while they were told to play in their room.  Once hidden I brought them down and gave them the first clue along with basic instructions on what they were going to be doing.  Some of the clues were definitely far to hard for my 6 year old and would not have been able to do them on his own.  Some of them were even a little tricky for my 9 year old.  She is pretty advanced but we have not really went over specific details of Thanksgiving, like dates and such.  One on the clue cards for that one wanted to know the year and how many passengers on the ship.  Had we not been doing Halloween theme things I probably would have did a whole lesson on this before we did this hunt so they would have been prepared.  So really it is not that big of a deal when you are picking these out for the right time frame for you.  Being a review I had to just put them in the mix of things with not much prep time. 
Overall these are super fun but for younger children be prepared to help out or have older kids that they can team with to help them answer the questions. I do believe everyone should try at least one out.
Be sure to check Clued in Kids out on social media links below as well as what my other crew members have to say. They reviewed other titles than me so they are worth looking at too.
Clued In Kids on Social Media

Twitter: @cluedinkids
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cluedinkids
Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/cluedinkids/

New Liberty Videos Review

Vendor: New Liberty Videos

Product: Mysteries of the Dead Sea Scrolls

Age: Good for a variety of ages. May want to preview it to make sure all parts are ok with your child.

Price: $19.95

About: New Liberty Videos makes Christian DVDs.  The company was founded by Brian Barkley, whom was a Hollywood television editor. The Mysteries of the Dead Sea Scrolls is one of the DVDs by New Liberty Videos that I watched for this review. Mysteries of the Dead Sea Scrolls DVD is approximately an hour long. The DVD is divided into three parts; Dead Sea Scrolls with Joel Lampe, Hebrew Word Pictures with Dr. Frank Seekins, and The Forbidden Book with Dr. Craig Lampe. 

Part one, Dead Sea Scrolls with Joel Lampe, is of course about the Dead Sea Scrolls.  This is something I was interested in when I was in school but really couldn't remember much about them so this was a great find for us.  Since this video is not very long the segment is short but Joel Lampe did a great job talking about everything and making it understandable.  He talks about how the scrolls were found and that there was actually one one full intact scroll found.  He also goes over what the scrolls were wrote on and the language they were written in.  He also tells you about why they were left where they were.  It was really great which made a great starting point to dive further into the study.

Part two, Hebrew Word Pictures with Dr. Frank Seekins, was very interesting.  Dr. Frank Seekins shows you about the Hebrew language is written.  He uses both words and pictures to show you this. This was really fun for the kids since they were able to learn some of the language that the Bible was originally wrote in.  

Part three, The Forbidden Book with Dr. Craig Lampe was about the Bible and how it was not available to ordinary people at first. It goes over how the Bible was translated in Latin but that it had many errors in it.  Dr. Craig Lampe went over how men sacrificed themselves in order to get the Bible read.  Many people were burned at the stake for reading it to their children.  Even Tyndale, whom translated it in English, was burned at the stake.  This was really a very exciting segment and I do not want to share much because it is better to watch it and be amazed.

How we used: Since my children are younger, 9,8, and 6, we broke our watching down to 3 days.  We watch one segment each day and then took time to talk about what we watched.  This made it easier for them to get into it and understand what they watched with out getting overwhelmed with the seriousness of the DVD. After the first part we ended up diving into Google in order to learn to more about the scrolls.  Part two was super fun because we ended up watching it a couple times with the second time using pause a lot to practice writing the words our self.  Then we went on to search how to write other things in Hebrew as well.  The last segment was a very serious one and I only let my girls watch it.  My 6 year old gets real worried and is very sensitive so I did not think it would be good for him to watch something so sensitive and for him to really be able to understand it.  The girls had many questions about it and we talked about how we have come so far in the world to have our freedom to love God and read his word when ever we wanted.

Overall this was a great watch for us.  We had fun with it and we are still diving into the Hebrew writing as the kids think it is just to cool.  I think that the first two segments are pretty interesting for children of all ages and could be easily talked about for them to understand them.  I do feel the last segment you really do need to preview before letting the younger children watch in case it scares them or confuses them. However I think it is a great way to teach the older kids not to take things for granted.  We now have the freedom of loving God and talking about him all we want and it used to not be that way.

Be sure to check out the other New Liberty Videos and then at the bottom you can read the reviews from my other crew members that reviewed those titles.

Collage.com Reivew

Create a professional photo book with a single click using Collage.com's One-Click Photo Book. Select photos of any size from Facebook, Instagram, Flickr, or your computer and they will instantly suggest a clean, professional layout that you can further customize.


Collage.com is very simple to use.  You create an account and then choose the photo book.  Everything is labeled out for you to pick where you want to upload your photos from.  I am always posting my best photos on Facebook so I loved that I could just upload my pictures from there.  You can even upload from your computer as well.  Once you pick out all the pictures you want to put in your book you can then start placing them.

There are many different background designs you can choose from to place your pictures on.  You can add one picture or a whole collage of pictures on each page.  There is also an option to type a title on your page.  I made a little story on the first of mine since I made it a family book.  There are options to help you randomize your pictures on your page if you do not feel creative enough to place them.

I did 20 pages and the process probably took me about 30 minutes once I picked out all the pictures I wanted.  Everything is so easy to do, it is just choosing from all of the options.  

Shipping was quick and the book made it in excellent shape.  The pages are clear and exactly how I wanted it.  The hard cover is sturdy and does not take away from the picture quality either.  The pages are thick sturdy pages, great for flipping through to show off your wonderful book.  Overall greatly pleased and will be making more of these for our family

Deal: Use this link for 51% off a 20-page 11.5"x8" Hardcover Photo Book From Collage.com: http://bit.ly/collagepbdeal

Homemade Syrup

Syrup

Ever run out of syrup and not realize it until it is to late?  We do this often and so I finally decided to try to make my own for once.  It actually turned out really good and it is kid approved.  It also has to be better than the store bought stuff, even though it is still just sugar :).

Ingredients

1 cup white sugar

1 cup brown sugar

1 1/2 cup water

Instructions

Mix all in medium sauce pan and bring to boil.  Turn on medium heat and cook for about 5 minutes.  Let cook some but serve still warm. Store any left in fridge.

LEGO KidsFest

The LEGO® KidsFest kicks off its seventh year on the road with new tour stops in St. Louis and Nashville and a return to some popular markets.

The 2015 tour stops include Phoenix, AZ (Feb. 27 – March 1), St. Louis, MO (March 20 – 22), Nashville, TN (April 17 – 19) and Austin, TX (Sept. 4 – 6).

In its seventh year of touring, LEGO KidsFest is visiting a few less markets this year to focus on its new LEGO Creativity Tour.

“With the pilot of the LEGO Creativity Tour in Biloxi, Mississippi in December, we expect to be sharing some news about new tour dates early next year,” said Vince Rubino, Events Manager for LEGO Systems, Inc.

“Right now through year’s end, our focus is on testing new concepts and continuing to deliver an amazing and fun-filled LEGO experience for families around the country.”

Covering more than three acres of space, the LEGO KidsFest extravaganza brings all of the hands-on, minds-on fun of LEGO building and experience together in an activity-filled event for all ages and builders of all skills.

Five sessions — all identical and 4½ half hours in length — are held at each tour stop. LEGO KidsFest tickets can be purchased atwww.LEGOKidsFest.com.

On tour since 2009, previous LEGO KidsFest tour stops have included major cities such as Chicago, Boston, Dallas, Atlanta, San Jose, Cleveland, Richmond, Phoenix, Portland and more.  Tickets generally sell out and attendance averages 27,000-30,000 visitors at each venue. 

 

Some of the activities at the shows include: 

• •          LEGO Model Gallery: dozens of life-sized models made entirely from LEGO bricks
  •          LEGO Master Builders: live demonstrations and activities from the crew who get paid to play
  •          Race Ramps: build a custom car, then race it down the ramp against friends and family 
  •          LEGO Fusion: test out a new, fun and creative way of combining real LEGO brick building with a smartphone or tablet.
  •          LEGO Chima: choose a tribe and test battling skills with the whole family
  •          LEGO Star Wars™: build and display a Star Wars model
  •          LEGO Disney™ Princess:create a princess scene to add to a LEGO story book
  •          LEGO Super Heroes: build a badge and pose with a bigger than life Spiderman model
  •          LEGO DUPLO®: younger visitors can explore imagination through building
  •          LEGO Retail:purchase LEGO merchandise and official KidsFest tour goods
  •          LEGO Friends: build for the five empowered friends from Heartlake City
  •          LEGO Ninjago: spin the way to being a Spinjitzu member
  •          LEGO Mindstorms: build and program robots and snakes
  •          LEGO City: using the imagination to create buildings and vehicles to the urban diorama
  •          LEGO Technic: get hands-on with the cool, realistic vehicles at the booth
  •          Creation Nation: build your own creation to add to a custom map of the U.S.
  •          Brick Pile: a gigantic pile full of LEGO bricks for creative play and enjoyment
  •       Monochromatic Builds: bricks of a single color foster group creativity

 

 Based on sell-out attendance in previous markets, advance ticket purchase is strongly encouraged. Tickets for all 2015 tour stops are on sale at www.LEGOkidsfest.com. 

Standard Deviants Accelerate Review

Vendor:
Standard Deviants Accelerate

Product:
Standard Deviants Accelerate Homeschool Courses

Age: 

8 and up

Price: 
One student is $99 for a year, or $24.95 per month.
AP courses for one student are $14.95 per month.

About:
Standard Deviants Accelerate has the Standard Deviants Accelerate Homeschool Courses that is online based learning. Lessons are taught with videos with problems to answer as well. There is also an option to view the written transcript of the lesson. The program includes the following subjects:

Arithmetic

Fundamental Math

Earth Science 

Nutrition

Algebra 

Biology 

Chemistry 

English Comp.

U.S. History

AP Biology

AP Chemistry

AP U.S. Government & Politics

AP U.S. History

AP Eng. Composition 

The course starts out with you watching a video. There is also a bit of humor added in to keep things exciting. Next tab is vocabulary where it helps go over the words from the video.  It even helps you pronounce the words and hear them spoken. Third tab was diagram, where you drag and drop answers and it tells you if you get it wrong. The fourth tab us where the Quiz is for the section. You take the quiz over the information you learned from the video as well. The last tab is written answer.  This one is not graded by the computer but by the parent. 

A great feature to this program  is that you can print all the work.  This is great for those of us that need to keep copies of work or have a portfolio of work to show the state.  We do not have to do this but I like to have it just in case.

How we used:

We used the program 4 days a week, Monday through Thursday. My daughter used the Arithmetic section.  This was a good way to introduce subjects to be able to elaborate on them later in our studies.  Most things she was able to catch onto easily and go through quickly but somethings it was just a good starting place. She usually spent about 30 minutes on a lesson.  Sometimes if it was an easy section she would continue on with another. 

You are shown all of the topics for the course and you are able to pick which one you want to learn and it is easy to go at your own pace.  We had just started fractions and it was nice to be able to start on fractions with this program even though it was not first on the list.  I think this is my absolute favorite part of this course. 

Also we didn't really work to much on the other subjects but we did explore them some.  One thing to remember is that this program is secular based and no mention of God or creation is mentioned at all in the Earth Science. That is good for those that may believe in using only secular but those that don't may want to skip Science and just do the other programs.  Overall it is a great supplement and even though we don't believe in evolution we were able to skim some things in the Science section as well.

The only part of the program I didn't like was that we had to make a new email account for my daughter.  She doesn't get free range of the computer as she is only 9.  So that means I have to keep up with two emails while using this account which is a bit overwhelming at times, especially at set up of the course. After that then the email is not really a big deal but it would be so much easier just to use my own still.  Though they have said they are going to work on making the set up process easier so maybe that is something to consider for the lower grades.  I am sure if you have highschoolers they already have their own email so it wouldn't be an issue for them.

Overall great program and we will continue to use it this year to dive into new topics with my daughter. 

Be sure to check then out on Social Media

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SDAccelerate
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SDAccelerate
Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/SDAccelerate/
Google+: http://google.com/+Sdaccelerate

Also see what my fellow crew member's had to say about the program,

Norfork Arkansas Hatchery

Lots of babies swimming around right now!

Usually when we go there are no babies!  We were very happy to see them this time.  It was a learning experience for us all.  When they still have the yolk sack they do not swim much and the kids thought that meant they were dead.

Changing the Path

Sometimes when we look back at our path we have made in life we see some cuts we may not like. As I have laid awake in bed the last few nights,with much on my mind, I have reflected on those paths. It seems I would get a good path started and in order to please someone I would make a cut in that path. Then I think back on those times and every time I try to please someone besides myself havoc is brought in. 

Matthew 6:14-15 NIV

For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

After lots of prayer and talking with God this last few weeks I have re-devoted myself to him. I will no longer do things to please others but to please him. I hae followed others leads so no one would get mad at me and in turn I made life worse for myself. Recently the devil presented himself in my life and made a huge "war" with some of the people I love the most. While I know everyone envoled was hurt, I can't stop hearing God tell me it was the devils doing. The devil likes to sneak in and break people apart. If he can isolate you he thinks he can have you. Well I have been isolated enough!! He will not win with me. All I can do is pray the other people in my family can search deep enough to seek God and his word. 

2 corinthians 2:5-8 NIV

If anyone has caused grief, he has not so much grieved me as he has grieved all of you to some extent—not to put it too severely. The punishment inflicted on him by the majority is sufficient. Now instead, you ought to forgive and comfort him, so that he will not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. I urge you, therefore, to reaffirm your love for him.

With all that I have also decided to change my path in school. I am going to get my degree in Physcology. I want I be able to work in the mental health world. People in this world do not understand mental health and they brush it off like it is not real! Or that it can't make people say and do the things they do. In reality mental health is as serious as cancer or dementia.

Luke 17:3-4 NIV

So watch yourselves. “If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents forgive him. If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says , ‘I repent,’ forgive him.”

It is time I step forward and I follow what God has put in my heart. I may not have always been the best Christian but God loves me the same. He will listen to my cries and he will answer my calls the way he sees fit. I hope those in my life will understand that and seek peace in their heart through God as well. He is the only one that will get is to our final destination.

To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable, because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you. - C.S. Lewis

Preschoolers and Peace E-Book Review

Vendor:

Preschoolers and Peace 

Product:

Preschoolers and Peace: Homeschooling older kids with success while loving the little ones at your feet (e-book)

Age: 

For Moms

Price: 

$2.99

About:

Preschoolers and Peace's book Preschoolers and Peace: Homeschooling older kids with success while loving the little ones at your feet was written by Kendra Fletcher.   Kendra has homeschooled 8 children, one of which has just graduated college. This book talks about planning a preschool day with a 2 year old.  This is an encouragement book to help show you that you can homeschool your older children at he same time as having a young one. The book has the following chapters:

What a Homeschooling Mom Needs 
Preparing Yourself to Homeschool Older Kids With Little Ones Underfoot
 Planning Around Preschoolers 
How Do I Keep Them Busy? 
What Does a 2-Year-Old’s Day Look Like? 
How Do I Get Any Preschooling Done? 
How Not to Just Kill Time
 Circle Time: Or How We Pull the Little Ones In 
Preschool Boys 
When All of Your Kiddos Are Preschoolers 
Preschool Chores 
Planning for Preschool 
When Mama is Worn Out (or Pregnant) 
Meal Planning 101 

Thoughts:

Reading a book from a mom who has been there, and more times than I have, was a blessing.  Many times when I read something from someone I feel they are just giving text book answers or ideas.  It is really hard to find the truth out there and get answers from someone that has actually done it and done it with several kids. Kendra talks about a schedule being the biggest help, but the schedule is more routine. I have to agree with her, small children thrive on a routine.  If they know what to expect everyday they will get used to it.  This is where I fall short though.  I live by the seat of my pants and I know that is what makes it harder for me to deal with teaching my kids and trying to keep the baby occupied. Another key is circle time, this is something we do.  I try to do as much as a whole family as we can.  If I can do one subject with everyone we are in heaven.  Plus reading books together is fun for us all and allows us to to activities together over the book.  Then of course you must have Christ in your heart.  If it wasn't for Christ pushing me to homeschool I would never survive.  I have tried several times to put my children in public school and each time something has made it impossible.  I know this is the work of him and telling me that it is my job to teach them, not the school.

This was a great easy read.  I suggest any mom schooling more than one kid read this no matter their age.  I think there are things that everyone could benefit from it. We all can use tips in how to wrangle the kids at school time, and this book gave some great ones.

Check Preschoolers and Peace on Social Media:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PreschoolersandPeace
Twitter: https://twitter.com/KendraEFletcher
Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/kenj/
Google+: https://plus.google.com/+KendraFletcher/posts
You Tube: https://www.youtube.com/user/preschoolersandpeace