Of all the products we have pulled out of the mailbox this fall to review Buckets-O-Fun has been far and away the clear winner. I like everything about this and so did the kids, it provided days of enjoyment and fascination. We received three products, all of which you hydrate with water to develop in to distinctly different and moist products.
Chunky Yuck: It arrives the size of rock salt, add water wait 24 hours and you will have chunks the size of small ice cubes. What is fun about this is over the 24 hours you check it and note the gradual changes in the size taking place. One pound will run $16, and net you 35-60 gallons of chunks.
Sticky Yuck: This is a powder that turns into sticky goo, similar to slime but way sticker. Sticky Yuck can be difficult to get off your hands. One pound of this will make 5-10 gallons for $20, and you can purchase up to 50lbs.
Snowy Yuck: This starts out about the size of sugar and ends up feeling cool and dry like snow. I could not help but think it would make a great center piece for my Christmas table, but alas it will not make it that long, too much handling. This is a bargain at $20 for one pound that will produce 25-50 gallons.
All of these products are fantastic, I will be purchasing more.
Members of the TOS Crew received free Yuck for review purposes
http://www.buckets-o-fun.com/
Friday, October 29, 2010
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
RE: PG SafeKeY
Several weeks ago I was given a PG SafeKeY,which is an Internet filtering system. This is a dandy little device looks like a flash drive, but installs software to keep your kids safe on line. The product provides on line protection with website blocking and filters. Attempts to access blocked materials or phrases are emailed, or texted to the administrator, which is a really great aspect of this product. The installation is a snap and the set up is fairly easy, picking phrases and words that you want blocked can be a little cumbersome, but does provide a very tailored result.
What is nice about the PG SafeKeY, or not so nice, depending on your perspective is that a PG protected user can not access the Internet with out the PG SafeKey in the port. I like this feature on the one hand, and dislike the hassle of trying to keep track of it on the other.
One can certainly see the benefit of using this product as it is very user friendly and affordable. At $49.99 and $8.95 shipping it is a bargain relative to other programs and monthly fee monitoring systems. It can be purchased at a variety on online stores or the vendors web site: http://www.pgkey.com/WhyPGKey.aspx
Members of the TOS Crew received a free PG SafeKeY for review purposes
What is nice about the PG SafeKeY, or not so nice, depending on your perspective is that a PG protected user can not access the Internet with out the PG SafeKey in the port. I like this feature on the one hand, and dislike the hassle of trying to keep track of it on the other.
One can certainly see the benefit of using this product as it is very user friendly and affordable. At $49.99 and $8.95 shipping it is a bargain relative to other programs and monthly fee monitoring systems. It can be purchased at a variety on online stores or the vendors web site: http://www.pgkey.com/WhyPGKey.aspx
Members of the TOS Crew received a free PG SafeKeY for review purposes
Friday, October 8, 2010
RE: Digital Frog
Recently arriving in my mailbox was a DVD from the Digital Frog. This is a really fun alternative for gaining information about echo systems without traveling to one, reading a textbook, or watching it on television. The DVD takes the user on three digital field trips: the wetlands, the rain forest and the dessert. Each one is packed with an amount of information that is difficult to describe.
Every field trip is laid out with four prompts to investigate each of the systems. The prompts are study, which contains general information about the system, followed by types, for instance temperate vs. tropical rainforest's, next, mechanisms which covers things likes water, rocks, minerals, soil etc, finally human impact.
Within the prompts are layers and layers of additional information about topics,subtopics, more topics and more subtopics. Sound complicated? It really isn't and is an easy system to navigate. I would say that the amount of information contained in each of these ecosystems can be a bit overwhelming. One could easily devote hours to surfing within just one ecosystem. I would not consider this to be a curriculam, but a fantastic, well laid out multi medai tool for research and exploration.
It is evident that this field trip series has taken hours of thought and a tremendous amount of work. The quality of the information, graphics, sound effects must have taken years to produce. One of the most helpful features of the Digital Frog is that you can click on any word and get a definition which really brings the understandability level up, great feature if you are delving into this topic for the first time.
The field trip portion was the clear favorite of my kids. One begins with a map and numbers. Click on the number and you are taken to a close up screen shot of the area. Adjacent to that are field notes with details about that particular area, a journal if you will.
Next year my daughter will be in third grade and I am all ready to go with My Fathers World Exploring Countries and Cultures, the science has an ecosystem focus. I see it tying in nicely to that program and her being able to glean quite a good deal from this product.
The Digital Frog can be purchased at http://digitalfrog.com/ for $199.
Members of the TOS Crew received a free DVD for review purposes
Every field trip is laid out with four prompts to investigate each of the systems. The prompts are study, which contains general information about the system, followed by types, for instance temperate vs. tropical rainforest's, next, mechanisms which covers things likes water, rocks, minerals, soil etc, finally human impact.
Within the prompts are layers and layers of additional information about topics,subtopics, more topics and more subtopics. Sound complicated? It really isn't and is an easy system to navigate. I would say that the amount of information contained in each of these ecosystems can be a bit overwhelming. One could easily devote hours to surfing within just one ecosystem. I would not consider this to be a curriculam, but a fantastic, well laid out multi medai tool for research and exploration.
It is evident that this field trip series has taken hours of thought and a tremendous amount of work. The quality of the information, graphics, sound effects must have taken years to produce. One of the most helpful features of the Digital Frog is that you can click on any word and get a definition which really brings the understandability level up, great feature if you are delving into this topic for the first time.
The field trip portion was the clear favorite of my kids. One begins with a map and numbers. Click on the number and you are taken to a close up screen shot of the area. Adjacent to that are field notes with details about that particular area, a journal if you will.
Next year my daughter will be in third grade and I am all ready to go with My Fathers World Exploring Countries and Cultures, the science has an ecosystem focus. I see it tying in nicely to that program and her being able to glean quite a good deal from this product.
The Digital Frog can be purchased at http://digitalfrog.com/ for $199.
Members of the TOS Crew received a free DVD for review purposes
Monday, October 4, 2010
RE: The Foundlings
The latest book I have had the opportunity to review is Foundlings by Matthew Christian Harding. It is $11.95 and available from the web site http://www.matthewchristianharding.com, as well as Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
Foundlings is book one of The Peleg Chronicles. The novel is set in the post flood era after the Tower of Babel and is a mix of fantasy and historical fiction. The reader will follow McDougal, the Lord and his servant Fergus as they face giants, swords, mysterious inventions such as wet-fire, dragons, lords, castles and the like. The books is wholesome and presents Godly character, as well as providing suspense and dangerous adventures for the reader.
With so much fantasy available on the market that one might not prefer their kids reading this presents an alternative with a Biblical worldview. If you have a reader who enjoys fantasy this may be worth a go. Unfortunately, we are not a family who prefers this type of reading so it was not a hit with my kids. That said, I certainly appreciate what the author is trying to accomplish with this series.
Members of the TOS Crew received a free book for review purposes.
Foundlings is book one of The Peleg Chronicles. The novel is set in the post flood era after the Tower of Babel and is a mix of fantasy and historical fiction. The reader will follow McDougal, the Lord and his servant Fergus as they face giants, swords, mysterious inventions such as wet-fire, dragons, lords, castles and the like. The books is wholesome and presents Godly character, as well as providing suspense and dangerous adventures for the reader.
With so much fantasy available on the market that one might not prefer their kids reading this presents an alternative with a Biblical worldview. If you have a reader who enjoys fantasy this may be worth a go. Unfortunately, we are not a family who prefers this type of reading so it was not a hit with my kids. That said, I certainly appreciate what the author is trying to accomplish with this series.
Members of the TOS Crew received a free book for review purposes.
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