Advent, launched this morning! I have decided to make this years theme gifts and tools. God has given us all the gifts and tools that we need to excel in life. To illustrate the point I will be using the phrase "you have everything you need", 24 letters. On the 25th the grand finale will be GO!, go use the gifts and tools you have been given and impact the world around you.
I wrote one letter per ornament which will be discovered each morning by a different kid, once found the ornaments with the letters are strung on a ribbon, eventually spelling out the phrase. Additionally, I have wrapped a large gift box and written down fruits of the spirit, each day will bring a new focus and call to action. Today we began with peace, go be a peace maker, record it on the gift box.
The stockings have been hung by the chimney with care and from time to time I will put a treat in them to carry out the theme, albeit loosely at times. Today they found vanilla milk, white, when you hold up a white flag you are surrendering and looking for peace.
As a bonus my husbands gifts are all in this large box, he will be thrilled with what the kids record on the box. Probably, he won't pay much attention to it until I give it to him on Christmas, I know he will really like seeing what the kids have done with their gifts.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
RE: The Master Ruler
Recently I received The Master Ruler, an unusual tool used for teaching measurement. I must say this is a very clever and useful device. The Master Ruler, English, is 12 inches long, just over an inch wide, with 5 layers of light plexi glass attached to a set of blue coils enabling them to flip. The Master Ruler Decimal is and 4 layers deep with the same basic design. The genius behind this product is the flipping tabs have colored lines denoting measurements, 1/16, 1/8, 1/4, 1/2, 1, for the decimal system, 1mm, 1cm, and 1dm. The color and the flipping tabs make it very easy to see and teach differing measurements, especially those hard to see 1/16 and 1mms. This is a difficult ruler to paint a picture of, a glance at the website, http://www.themasterruler.com/, will give you a much better idea of what the ruler looks like and how it functions.
Along with the rulers came a measuring activity book that containing activities for both rulers. The activities cover basic measurements, mixed numbers, equivalent fractions, area, decimal conversions and other measuring functions. There is a good mix of activities for kids of a wide age range to engage in. I found with my kids that The Master Ruler lends itself to discovery learning, give the kids the rulers, and the activity book and let them go. It is a nice alternative to rulers in print and the traditional ones used in the home, the kids really to grasp the break down of the ruler.
This product is a great resource to have around the house, and is a really clever way to teach measurement. It is very versatility and can be used for simple measurements with younger kids and more complex measurements and conversions with the older ones. This is a very hands on approach to learning and should appeal to most learning styles, the methodology is straight forward and easy to understand. The rulers run $9.95 and the workbook $15.95. Additionally they offer a package deal of the whole shi-bang for $41.25. Also, note that other products available from this vendor are: Master Clock, Master Fractions and Master Angles. This ruler is such a great tool I think the other offerings are worth looking into.
Members of the TOS Crew received free items for review purposes.
Along with the rulers came a measuring activity book that containing activities for both rulers. The activities cover basic measurements, mixed numbers, equivalent fractions, area, decimal conversions and other measuring functions. There is a good mix of activities for kids of a wide age range to engage in. I found with my kids that The Master Ruler lends itself to discovery learning, give the kids the rulers, and the activity book and let them go. It is a nice alternative to rulers in print and the traditional ones used in the home, the kids really to grasp the break down of the ruler.
This product is a great resource to have around the house, and is a really clever way to teach measurement. It is very versatility and can be used for simple measurements with younger kids and more complex measurements and conversions with the older ones. This is a very hands on approach to learning and should appeal to most learning styles, the methodology is straight forward and easy to understand. The rulers run $9.95 and the workbook $15.95. Additionally they offer a package deal of the whole shi-bang for $41.25. Also, note that other products available from this vendor are: Master Clock, Master Fractions and Master Angles. This ruler is such a great tool I think the other offerings are worth looking into.
Members of the TOS Crew received free items for review purposes.
Friday, November 5, 2010
RE: Collectorz.com
If you are interested in cataloging books for a fee of $19.95-$49.95 which will net you a down loadable app then you may want to Collectorz.com a go. The program seems very simple to use, but for whatever reason this program did not run well on my computer. This has left me a touch sketchy on some of the ins and outs of it. I spent some time trying to get the bugs out, but it was to no avail.
Basically, you can put the name of a book in the search engine and they book compete with author and ISBN number will show up in your collection. From there you can sort and rate books. This seems similar to the visual bookshelf I use on Facebook for free. As I only have an interest in discussing books I am currently reading this is a more reasonable option for me.
Collectorz offers a variety of other products: Movie Collector, Comic Book Collector, Photo Collector, Music Collector, MP 3, and Game Collector. I imagine some very detailed techy person, who wanted a detailed catalog of all the books they owned might garner some benefit from this product.
Members of the TOS Crew received free download for review purposes
http://www.collectorz.com/shop/
Basically, you can put the name of a book in the search engine and they book compete with author and ISBN number will show up in your collection. From there you can sort and rate books. This seems similar to the visual bookshelf I use on Facebook for free. As I only have an interest in discussing books I am currently reading this is a more reasonable option for me.
Collectorz offers a variety of other products: Movie Collector, Comic Book Collector, Photo Collector, Music Collector, MP 3, and Game Collector. I imagine some very detailed techy person, who wanted a detailed catalog of all the books they owned might garner some benefit from this product.
Members of the TOS Crew received free download for review purposes
http://www.collectorz.com/shop/
Friday, October 29, 2010
RE: Buckets-O-Fun
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/
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/
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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