Blessing Others

  
In my family I have a younger sister and a brother.  Like many siblings we would often argue and fight.  It would really get bad when we visited my grandparents.  It wasn’t because we were going to see our grandparents, it was because of that very long trip confined to the car… together.  On a good day we would be in a car for a minimum of two hours one way, on a bad day it could be up to three, depending on who had to go and when, or traffic.  

We  would pile all of our stuff in the back of our station wagon, load up, and hit the road.  At that time , the torturous  fun trip began.   How we survived back then is a mystery to me, one of us would sit way in the back with the luggage, and the other two would sit in the middle seats and draw a line down the middle of the seat to separate “our space”.  I don’t think we were even out of the driveway, before the arguing all started.  Why do we do this?  I know now, but back then I didn’t have a clue.  How can we stop it? 

Well I think the answer to that came when I downloaded TOS Travel Kits.  Yes, we have a portable TV and it has often helped us but the thought of having my son sit in front it for hours doesn’t give me a warm and fuzzy feeling.  However creating a travel kit for him does, something that he can explore and learn to keep him occupied while we are on the road. 

What is a Travel Kit?  A travel kit is a collection of items used to entertain and bless travelers,  each item is chosen for that  particular  traveler to make their travel a more pleasant experience.  Travel Kits starts by teaching how to create a plan for the family that needs to blessed. It asks how many people are in the family?  What are their ages?  Boy or Girl?  Number of packages?  Will you bless the parents too?  When are they leaving?  How long will they be traveling?  Answering these questions will help you with that plan. 

After creating  the plan,  the gifts will need to be purchased and wrapped.   This e-book offers tons of ideas on what to purchase and so many creative ideas to wrap them.  I am not very creative when it comes to this kind of stuff, so this keeps me from stressing out and then not sending the gift at all. 

Next a distribution plan is created.  I think that this is where the fun lies, when a travel kit is sent with the traveler, determine when they can open them.  There are many examples to help you with this step.  For instance,  have them open one every half hour.  This way the anticipation is keep up and the travelers occupied.  All while keeping the parents at peace, and now that I’m a parent I think this is a wonderful idea! 

This e-book is full of fun ideas for plans, containers, gifts, wrapping, and snacks.  I would recommend it for anyone who would like to spread the joy and bless their friends and family.  The e-book costs $12.45 and can be downloaded immediately.  Go to TOS Schoolhouse store to find out more.


 
~I am a member of The Old Schoolhouse 2010-2011 Crew and receive free products and services in exchange for a thorough and honest review.  Though I am compensated with free products, I am not compensated in the form of cash for my reviews.  My reviews will always reflect my honest opinions, findings, beliefs and experiences on the products and services that I receive.

Blog Walk Week 6

I’ve been wanting to get my post for the blog walk up first thing on Monday’s, but so far I just hasn’t happened, and this week is no exception.   I’ve had a crazy start to my week.  First I had to teach children’s church on Sunday and then that same evening we began our VBS.  Whew!  I’m in charge of snack this year and while we are having lots of fun playing, yes playing ;-), with our food it still can zap the energy from you.  So I hope that you enjoy week 6. 

1. Deanna’s Corner
2. Light, Liberty, and Learning
3. Bunny Trails
4. Flowers N Plaid Homeschool
5. Gadow Ohana
6. His Wonderful Works
7. Expand
8. Confessions of a Homeschooler
9. The Sojourner
10. A Full Heart

Travel The World!

Remember last month when I told you that I was now apart of The Old School house Magazines’ Homeschool Crew?  Well guess what ?  This is my first official review!  I have been so very anxious to dive in and get started and I can’t wait to share this with you.  It’s called  TOS June 2010 Module – Travel The World! 

What is a module you ask ? Well according to TOS a module or e-book is an add-on for The Schoolhouse Planner, offering enrichment activities in various topics for your family each month. 

We started this e-book by learning basic map stuff like the Earth’s axis, the equator, and a compass rose.  Then we found out about the five oceans and the seven continents. It gave us tons of trusted web sites that saved me from hours and hours of searching the internet  for each little subject.  It also included lots of fun sites that had games that taught us many lesson points, like latitude and longitude. This is where Cole and I had the most fun.  We learned how to find a little girl by the coordinates given and we also learned that we didn’t know as many countries in Europe as I we should.

This e-book works for children of all ages and it included great copy work pages that Cole didn’t care for only because he is an 8 year old boy and dislikes writing.  It even has an High School Expansion where your high school student can learn about the branches of Geography and how to incorporate Geography into a home based business!

It has a price point of $7.95, and I was able to print off as many copies of the activity pages, quizzes, or copywork pages that I needed.  It also has several convenient maps that can be printed off in color, or in black and white for coloring pages. 

It doesn’t come with an outline, which I didn’t feel we needed but an outline for this module could be easily set up for those who needed one.  We aren’t homeschooling for the summer so we enjoyed the freedom this e-book gave us to read and learn casually.  Just sitting in front of the computer, playing and learning at the same time!

Overall this is a fun e-book study that I could see us using as a welcome break anytime during the year or  possibly using it monthly to help enhance Cole’s our learning experience.

A 12 pack of the 2009-2010 modules can be purchased for $83.95 saving you $11.45 over the individual module’s price.  A few of the modules included in the 2009-2010 12 pack are Wondrous Weather, Checks and Balances, Bible Stories, Astronomy and many more .  Check out The Old Schoolhouse Store website for more information.

 

~I am a member of The Old Schoolhouse 2010-2011 Crew and receive free products and services in exchange for a thorough and honest review.  Though I am compensated with free products, I am not compensated in the form of cash for my reviews.  My reviews will always reflect my honest opinions, findings, beliefs and experiences on the products and services that I receive.

Rain Gauge

We have been going through a heat wave and dry spell this month in our area, so the rain from the stray thunderstorm is welcome.  A  few weeks ago we created this rain gauge, and I wanted to share with you how much rain we got over the last couple of days. 

This past year I was a cub scout leader for a different den than the one that  Cole was in (long story, this year is different!) and I had looked this up on the internet to find out how to make rain gauges.   Unfortunately I do not know the websites to list as a reference.   

We took an empty two liter bottle and cut the top part off of the bottle where it starts to slope inward.  Like this. 

We taped it to the inside of the bottle upside down so it acted like a funnel for the rain.  Then using a ruler, we drew a line with a sharpie to create a baseline at the bottom of the bottle where the plastic slopes inward.   We then took a ruler and using the baseline drew the lines for the 1/4,  1/2,  3/4 and 1 inch increments. 

We put rocks in the bottom to act as a weight and added water to the line to act as the starting point of our measurement. 

I am happy to say that it started raining on Monday afternoon and it has rained off and on until this morning.  When we checked the totals this afternoon it showed that we had an inch and a half of rain over those two days.  I do not know if our modest little rain gauge is accurate or not, but it cannot be too far off.  Here is what we saw.   

One thing that we didn’t do and found out after the first rainstorm was that there wasn’t a way to pour off the excess water to get ready for the next rain.  I had take it apart to pour out the water to get it back to the start line.  While it was apart I also created a hole towards the top of the rain gauge to act as a spout to get ready for the next rain.  This is much easier to do than to take it apart each time and tape it together again. 

 

Blog Walk Week 4 & 5 Catching up!

I want to catch up, I need to catch up. So guess what I’m catching up!  I don’t know if you are having fun taking a walk through everyone’s blogs, but I am!!  It’s wonderful seeing their different personalities, creativities, and amount of children in their families.  It’s so interesting!!  Make sure you leave a comment on their blogs, it’s fun meeting new people!!

1. King Alfred Academy
2. Confessions of An Organized Homeschool Mom
3. Curriculum Reviews from Oak Creek Farmhouse
4. I Can't Decide
5. My Life on A Taffy Pull
6. Losing My Tale
7. Made in His Image
8. Serenades and Solace
9. Our Village is a Little Different
10. SisterTipster's Tell'n It!

11. ME! - Buckaroo Days
12. Our Homeschool Reviews
13. Reed, Party of 6
14. Training Hearts at Home
15. Along The Way
16. I Love Science!
17. Through the Calm and Through the Storm
18. Created for Home
19. Tractors and Tire Swings
20. Guiding Light Homeschool

Thank you Father

In our area it has been extremely hot,  Too Hot, triple digits even.  Temperatures that we rarely ever see in our little part of the world.  I have to say that I don’t care for temperatures over 85, much less 105!  How do people do it where it is like this all the time?  Everything is dying, we are running out of water and our electric bill is probably going to be very high this month.  But do you know what?  It rained last night!  It was absolutely wonderful!!  Have you ever missed rain so much that when it did come down, in buckets I might add, it was so refreshing. Like a weight being lifted off.  So I wanted to share part of my prayer to praise our Father this morning. 

  Thank you Father for the extreme heat that you brought to us this week to teach me to appreciate the 85 degree temperature that summer time usually brings.  Thank you for the soothing rain that you gave us last night, that  washed away the dirt and extreme heat. Which brought back life to our garden that was withering away.  I praise you for everything that you give.  In His name we pray.  Amen.

Blog Walk Week 3

Whew!  Getting ready for camping this weekend and then actually going, has really gotten me behind on my posting.  Here is week 3 and I hope that I get caught up this week.  Enjoy reading all the blogs this week. 

1. All American Family
2. Growing Fruit
3. Learning to Teach
4. Codex Young Author's Publishing Program
5. Stairsteps Homeschool Academy
6. Kingdom Academy
7. Living Sola Gratia
8. Wynfield Christian Academy
9. The Cow Queen
10. Peace Creek on the Prairie