Tag: giveaway

Safari Ltd.: Review and Giveaway!

Grace-Filled Writer


I’m so excited to partner with Safari Ltd. for this review and giveaway! My girls love to play what they are learning about in school whether it is history or science. I love all of the beautiful figures Safari Ltd. has created for both science and history. This company strives for excellence in accuracy and detail which shows in all of their figures. 

Our family owns several sets from Safari Ltd. Our collection includes both historical and animal figures. This Christmas we pieced together a Chronicles of Narnia playset and one of my favorite parts is Mr. and Mrs. Beaver which came from Safari Ltd. 

I love their motto: Discover the frontiers of your imagination. Imagination is what leads to invention, art, and discovery. I love giving my girls tools which encourage imagination rather than box it in. I also love seeing how what we learn integrates into their play. Our early American histories studies have been greatly enhanced. Rose would often pull out our Jamestown settlers and act out the various stories from history I read. We studied the Powhatans extensively this year, so I was thrilled to receive this Toob ® to review. 

The Safari Ltd. Toob ® series are affordably priced and come with 12 different figures. My girls love them because they get so much in one container! We have purchased several of these including penguins, Jamestown settlers, baby sea life, dino babies, and arctic. Other sets in the Toob ® series include other historical figures, world landmarks, trees, instruments, people…there are just so many to check out! 

I especially like that the historical figures are based on actual individuals in history like Pocahontas, Wahunsenacawh (her father), and John Smith.The effort to make these figures appealing in clear as they are all beautifully painted and have such intricate detail.  

You can see what effort and care have been made in these figures. I love the natural look of the rumpled clothes. I also appreciate how carefully the faces have been painted. Many children’s toys don’t always take care to make sure the eyes are even in the right spot for toys this small. Every little detail has been monitored with each figure. 
My kids rarely play with just one set of toys. We often have the feel of the movie Toy Story with dinosaurs playing with the early settlers or the Powhatan tribe traveling in a car. Beth enjoyed using the background scenery from her older sister’s origami set and Rose preferred our set of Nature Blocks. One day I found Grace had included her miniature princesses into their play! That’s the point though…imaginative play. It doesn’t matter that they are playing with figures from different eras or even fantasy and reality. Imaginative play is the key, and these particular sets of toys bring out imagination in such a beautiful way! Our curriculum incorporates living books for both history and science. What better complement to this than actual figures to make the history jump off the page! 
We were also given the Toob ® set Land Down Under to review. The girls liked them so much I couldn’t get them to slow down their play enough to get some good photos! The set is also beautifully crafted and includes an Aboriginal trail guide to make sure everyone stays safe. (At least that was his job in our house!) Just as with the historical figures the detail included for each of these figures is exquisite. The frizzled lizard was a particular favorite among my girls! 
Now I am privileged to host a fun giveaway for you all! Safari Ltd. will give one winner the Toob ® of their choice! The winner will also receive a second surprise if following one of their social networks! (The links to those networks are listed in the rafflecopter below) There are lots of ways to earn extra entries so don’t forget to enter as much as possible! 

Draw and Write Through History: Review and Giveaway

Grace-Filled Writer
Rose has done a great job transitioning to cursive as a 7-year-old second grader. This is a little earlier than most schools teach it. She began learning some cursive last year and has continued to do very well this year. Her only big issue is being able to think about both how to spell the words correctly and form each letter correctly as well. When I mentioned this problem to a more experienced homeschool mom she said this is typical and explained how copywork helps this issue. Draw and Write Through History has given her the opportunity to combine her love of drawing alongside cursive practice. 

There are many things I like about how this enhances history studies. The first is its biblical worldview. It is a privilege to teach my daughter the Bible is 100% true and I strive to make sure all of our curriculum reflects that.

It is also independent. There may be times when she needed a little guidance with perspective at first, but this is meant to be done independently which is helpful when teaching multiple children.

I also really liked that it used traditional handwriting paper for the cursive copywork. This made it much easier for Rose, still in the learning stages of cursive, to copy correctly. I did have to remind her to proofread because she sometimes forgets to cross and dot letters, but overall this was a much better way for her to practice handwriting than merely requiring her to write in cursive for her schoolwork.

Rose didn’t complain once about doing this work! I can’t say that is always true about our usual handwriting program. Coupling this with whatever history you are studying gives double purpose to the assignments. All of the copywork is related to history so students are learning at the same time that they are practicing handwriting.

Here is one of her assignments. She has been learning cursive for a little over a year and is now 7 1/2 years old to give you perspective. I was pleased that both the issues of letter form and spelling seemed to clear up almost completely! This is a part of the recommended Heart of Dakota curriculum so I’m excited to see it incorporated more fully next year into our days!

Are you ready for the giveaway now?

There are new options for entries! Grace-Filled Homeschooling has finally made it to Twitter and Tumbler! There will also be TWO winners! Each will receive a copy of the newest book: Invention, Exploration, and War: The 20th Century

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Draw Write Now: Review and Giveaway!!!!

Grace-Filled Writer

One of my favorite past times from childhood was drawing pictures using coloring books. I would work for hours getting the dimensions just right. In our school we had a choice: Music or Art. You could not participate in both and I chose band over art. Still, drawing was a fun pastime of mine until I went away to college and other things seemed to take up my time. Rose especially has seemed to acquire my love of drawing. She has several notebooks of different categories where she draws everything from Angry Birds to real birds! When I told her we were going to get to review some drawing books she was over the moon!

The Draw Write Now series from Draw Your World is a clear instructional series which combines handwriting and drawing. These non-consumable books encourage looking at handwriting as art and combines the two skills seamlessly. Each lesson includes several sentences about what the child will draw and clear directions for how to draw the picture. The sentences are written in manuscript, but can easily be transcribed into cursive you like. They generously sent me a fun package to review including the eight-book series and a variety of pencil grips.

I used paper which had room for a picture at the top as well as handwriting lines at the bottom. I first had the girls practice their handwriting, then move on to the picture. My reason was that I knew they would become so engrossed in their pictures the handwriting would possibly be forgotten. I was very pleased with how quickly they completed their copywork and how neat it looked!

I knew Rose would enjoy this series, but I wasn’t sure about Beth. She likes to do things her own way and I’m having a hard time teaching her it’s not always okay to decorate her words with smiley faces and flowers! She has clear artistic tendencies, but getting her to conform to set standards is not easy. I actually love her decorated letters and words, but I also want her to know they aren’t always appropriate. I was shocked at how quickly her handwriting improved! She was incredibly focused on neatness and proportion of her letters for the first time.

Rose enjoyed drawing the pictures and also adding the background scenery. She made it her own and enjoyed coloring the scenes as well. She was so pleased with her work and I appreciated the simple instructions for her to follow. The books do not need to be completed in any particular order, but book 1 has the simplest pictures and instructions. Other topics in the series include a variety of science, historical, and geographical themes. These will be a lot of fun to include as we continue our studies throughout the years!


Although Grace is not really to the drawing or handwriting stage, the various pencil grips worked well for her. We tried several different ones and her favorite was the basic Pencil Grip. I love how it helps her know exactly how to hold the pencil so as she grows the grip will become second nature. From one who still doesn’t hold a pencil correctly this is a great product!

The girls tried out the other grips as well. Beth particularly liked the Twist ‘n Write. She uses this one frequently for a lot of her work! She likes to do things out-of-the-box by nature so I think that is why she is partial to this one!

Rose liked the idea of The Writing Claw, but said she felt like her fingers were too big to fit it. I think it was more a matter of too many years of not using a pencil grip. She did use one when she first started writing, but it has been about 3 years. I like how flexible this particular type was because it give the writer more individual control.

 I also really loved the pencils! They were so easy to use and had such smooth flow for writing. I have relegated these for handwriting/drawing only because they are so nice and we tend to break a lot of pencils around here with learning how much pressure to apply and all that.

Here is an example of Rose’s artwork: 
Rose – 7 years old
Here is an example of Beth’s artwork:
Beth – 5 years old

I am so proud of my girls, especially Beth. She always used to say, “I can’t draw pretty pictures!” Now she says, “Can I PLEASE draw using my drawing book?” What a beautiful change.

Are you ready for an incredibly giveaway now? Draw Your World has generously donated a $50 gift card to be used on their site! Enter several ways below.

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Disclaimer
I received the 8 book set of Draw Write Now and a pencil grip starter set in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review. No other compensation was received. 

Cookie Sheet Challenge Volume 1: Review and Giveaway!

Grace-Filled Writer
I’m so excited for the another week of the Cookie Sheet Challenge! If you missed my first two reviews you can see Volume 2 here and Volume 3 here! These lovely manipulatives are made by Julie at Make, Take, Teach. They are incredibly easy (and cheap!) to put together and will provide endless amounts of educational fun. 
Volume 1 is great for students learning their alphabet, rhyming, and word building. Grace recognizes her letters and can recite them so now we are working on learning more about their order. Beth is working on basic spelling. She is an excellent reader so spelling is the natural next step. Visually seeing the words correct is one of the ways we’re beginning spelling. This Cookie Sheet Challenge is perfect for them both!

One thing I love about the Cookie Sheet Challenge sets is just how simple they are to put together. Print (I like photo paper to get a sturdy, laminated feel), get out your magnetic letters, put it on a cookie sheet and you are ready! This particular set needs a small sized magnetic letter set, so you’ll want to double check that you have those! I happened to have a second set from my sis-in-law since her boys have outgrown the magnetic letter stage. I’m so glad these were small! It took about 10 minutes to print the sheets and everything was ready for my girls!

Grace wanted Beth to help her so on the first sheet, which has all the letters of the alphabet, they worked to see how fast they could match up the letters. The second page for the alphabet has letters missing. This was fabulous for Grace. I haven’t ever tried an activity like this so I wasn’t sure how she would do. First we put all the letters which were listed on the page. Before I even had a chance to explain what to do next she was starting to fill in the missing letters! She didn’t get them all correct, but we’ll keep working at it!
The word building pages are a perfect fit for my Beth. She is doing very well with our spelling curriculum, but I’ve been looking for something to help her think about word building with a more hands-on feel. I particularly liked that Beth practiced matching lower case letters with upper case. You can find lower case magnetic letters, but this is one area she is a little weak in, so this was my preference. 
Also included in the packet are rhyming activities. This is a little beyond where Beth is at and I’m not quite there with Grace, but when I get there these will be great! There are several different rhyming pages along with small pictures to place in the right category. 
Julie, the creator of Make, Take, Teach, has a wonderful store at Teachers Pay Teachers. I’m certain you’ll find something there to catch your eye!
Are you ready to enter the giveaway? Don’t forget to spread the word to your homeschooling and classroom teacher friends! These activities are excellent for either type of learning.
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Disclaimer
I received Cookie Sheet Challenge 1 in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review. No other compensation was received. 

Cookie Sheet Challenge Volume 2: Review and Giveaway!

Grace-Filled Writer
Having three young girls to teach every day means I have had to train them all from day one to be somewhat independent because I have to work with each of my girls independently. This is not too difficult for Rose (2nd grade) and Beth (kindergartner) but Grace (Pre-K3) is entirely different. She’s in the beginning stages of this training.
You might wonder how this works with one so young. First of all, she sits right beside me while I teach her sisters, but the activities I give her require minimal participation on my part except for showing her how to do the activity. When she was two we used the idea of busy bags, although they weren’t in bags! Now that she has progressed academically far beyond what I expected for her age I’ve had to get a little more creative. Having challenging hands-on-manipulatives are a key element to this training.  
I love the activities made by Julie from Make, Take, & Teach, especially the Cookie Sheet Challenges! The entire Cookie Sheet Challenge series focuses on early literacy and mathematical concepts. I am thrilled to be able to review two of these sets over the next two weeks and giveaway a copy of each to one blessed reader! 
Grace surprised me one day a few months back when she showed me she recognized numbers all the way up to 20! I was expecting to be teaching her this skill, not having her show me she already knew it. Then she proceeded to look at the number and use counters to match the number. What do you do with a three-year-old, or any age, who has already mastered these skills but is still too young to move into other areas of math? Julie has created a wonderful, hands-on manipulative which is challenging my little smarty pants while not delving into some of the more complex areas of math! Cookie Sheet Challenge Volume 2 focuses on number order, recognition, and other early math concepts. 
All you need is provided in the downloadable pdf file available at the Make Take Teach, Teachers Pay Teacher’s store for $5.25. You provide the paper, a printer, magnets, and cookie sheet large enough to place a piece of standard letter sized paper. Full instructions for creating these manipulatives are also included. Rather than gluing magnets to printed numbers, I opted to purchase two packages of magnetic number sets from our local dollar store. I also like using photo paper rather than card stock. The pages last longer and gives a laminated feel without the expense of lamination. 
Grace couldn’t wait to get her hands on these. I had everything sitting in the schoolroom the night before I planned for her to start using them and she begged me to get them out! There are many activities included. The first pages she worked on were number recognition. I like that the words are written under the printed number so she can begin to associate them together. Several pages like this are included in the set with numbers missing so eventually the student is putting in all the numbers!
Another activity that Grace really enjoyed was using counters. Students are intended to find the matching number word for the digit, but since Grace isn’t there yet I just had her match the numbers and count using her star counters. She loved this and counted so well! This is her finished cookie sheet. She’s very proud of herself! 

There are many other activities included to help students learn to count all the way to 100 as well as remembering what numbers come before and after one another. These can be used in so many ways for several different ability levels.

I was snapping pictures while she worked, but except for changing the pages and a simple explanation Grace worked completely on her own. This is an excellent example of how I train them to work on their own. I used to just try to get Grace to play on her own in another room, but that failed miserably! She of course wanted to be with everyone else and like many younger siblings wanted to do school like her big sisters! Manipluatives like these from Make Take Teach have been the answer for how to meet her needs.
Now for one of you to get to win this set! Yay!!!!
(And check back next Monday for another Cookie Sheet Challenge giveaway!!!!)

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Disclaimer
I received Cookie Sheet Challenge 2 in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review. No other compensation was received. 

Always Ice Cream: Review and Giveaway!

Grace-Filled Writer

My daughters really enjoy using the computer, but we limit the time and limit what games they play. My girls are allowed to use a small handful of websites and a few games we have loaded on to a laptop given to us by a friend. However I’m rather skeptical of some kid-friendly sites because of the amount and type of advertising. Wouldn’t it be great for our boys and girls to have a safe, educational, advertisement-free website? I have some great news! I found one!

  and   
These sibling sites are geared respectively towards girls and boys. The idea is to provide something safe, educational, and fun! After watching my girls play and learn for the past month I can tell you they have succeeded! As kids play the educational games they earn scoops (for girls) or gold coins (for boys). They use these to purchase pets, items for their pets, or items for their house or castle.
You can choose games within a range of grade-levels (k-8th) which is nice since no one child is exactly the same as another. The learning games span a wide range of topics including language arts, math, science, music and art, Bible, geography, history, life-skills, and foreign languages. New games are being added all the time and as students complete a level they move on to a harder level. Students also create a person and can customize it using hundreds of possibilities for skin, hair, eye, and outfit colors/styles. 
Rose has been begging me to learn how to type for several months now. She is fascinated by how quickly I am able to type and often mimics my fingers on the keyboard. Until finding Always Ice Cream I honestly thought she would need to wait a few more years before beginning typing skills. So far, this has been her favorite game.  
The typing game keeps her attention and has gradually taught her letter placement on the keyboard. Rose always wants to get to the next level and she loves the challenge! I like that she can see the letters and finger placement on the screen so she is not looking down as much at her fingers. I also like that there is an option on screen to move to an easier level. This way if she is unable to practice for a few days she isn’t stuck with a level beyond her skill. 

This particular website has been a great incentive for my girl. She knows she’ll have a chance to use Always Ice Cream when she completes her other schoolwork for the day…although, she also begs to play on the weekends as well. We still limit their time because I recognize that too much screen time is not healthy for them, but it is so nice to have such a good option for learning and reward.

Since I had surgery over Christmas all of my great ideas for things to do with my girls went out the window. I found myself happily allowing my girls more screen-time than usual because I knew they were learning and I could trust what they were doing was safe without my having to look over their shoulder the entire time.

Ideally each of your children should have their own account.The benefit to doing this is you get weekly reports unique to each specific child and you can customize each student’s account. For now we only have one, but it would be great to have an account for each of my girls. There are several purchasing options so you can choose what is the best fit for your family. 

I know you are really interested now! When you purchase your order (because I KNOW you will want this for your kids!) be sure to put my name, Melissa Williamson, into the “how did you hear about us” field during registration!

And now for the giveaway!!!!
The great people at Always Ice Cream and Clever Dragons are generously giving away a full year membership (valued ta $47.40) to the site of your choice! WOW! Enter through rafflecopter below. 
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Disclaimer
I received a free year subscription of this product from Always Ice Cream in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review. No other compensation was received. 

Grapevine Studies: Review and Giveaway!

Grace-Filled Writer
I’m always looking for new ways to share the story of Christmas to my girls. We love Christmas and they have heard all about it since they were first born in various forms. My girls can recite it backwards and forwards, and even enjoy acting it out with their toy nativity sets. They love the meaning of Christmas, and I don’t want it to become so familiar that they lose the wonder that God with us still holds for me. 
I had seen on several homeschool blogs that there are a lot of families using Grapevine Bible Studies for their Bible curriculum. Our base curriculum has Bible woven into everything so I hadn’t looked outside of that for Bible studies for my girls. They get a lot of additional Bible at church through Sunday school, the church service, children’s church, AWANA, and family devotions, not to mention our day-to-day conversations. Yet I was still intrigued by the rave reviews I kept hearing about Grapevine Bible Studies. 
After checking out their site I was further intrigued and I liked the idea of how the studies were laid out. I think the idea of a timeline for Bible stories is a great way to help kids make connections in Scripture. So many times the story is divided into small, teachable chunks, but not always connected together. Timelines really help all of us see the flow of the entire story. I also like that the timeline is revisited frequently throughout the study, which lasts for several days. I adore the stick figures. My girls enjoy drawing people and are already all about stick figures, so this was a great way to move them into a new way to study the Bible. 
With Christmas approaching so very quickly I was running out of time to find a new way to present the story of Christ’s birth. This seemed like a great opportunity! The multi-level version of The Birth of Jesus was a great fit for us even though my girls are young. Both Rose and Beth are reading well above their official grade-levels (2nd and Kindergarten) and are so steeped in Scripture and theology that it was a natural fit for them.
Gathering supplies was a breeze. One of my favorite features of my Kindle is being able to access pdf files without needing to print pages or use my computer. I only needed to print the student pages for my girls, pick up a Bible, make sure the girls had some colored pencils, and pull out my whiteboard markers. Talk about easy! This is about as effortless as a Bible curriculum for kids can get.
I love how simple the layout of the lessons are. So many times I find myself rereading curriculum for clarity, but these studies are very much open-and-go style. Although I did read and review the lesson before teaching it, everything was so clear I could have taught this without any preparation.  
When the whiteboard markers came out Rose, Beth, and Grace were convinced this was going to be good! I’m not sure why the white board is so impressive to them, but they eagerly sat down and couldn’t wait to get started! 
I didn’t have different colored markers, but I told them which colors to pick for the different characters they drew as we went studied through the Birth of Jesus. As you can see, you don’t have to have great artistic ability for this to succeed! 
All three worked diligently although each insisted on taking a turn erasing my pictures!  Rose enjoyed answering my questions about the story and drawing the pictures, but she kept trying to jump ahead. She started adding extra details to her stick figures as she waited for her sisters to finish up. 
The stick figures are very simple to make and yet clearly represent the key points in the story. My sweet three-year-old, Grace, did an amazing job with this. She has been drawing pictures of people for a while, but I was very impressed with her ability to follow the directions for drawing. She was the first to lose interest, but she is three after all and this is geared for older kids. She thoroughly enjoyed being included in this!
My middle daughter also did quite well. She is in a phase where she gets frustrated when she doesn’t get something perfect. This was good for her because she felt from the start she could succeed. She was very particular about copying my drawings exactly. Her favorite part to draw were the baby bumps on Elizabeth and Mary. She even put a smiley face on one of the bumps because she was sure Jesus was a happy baby!
Grapevine Bible Studies are a great way to engage students of Scripture for many ages. Although my girls are young, I am sure this would be fun for older students as well. It definitely gave me a new way to teach the familiar story of Christmas to my girls. They were so excited they eagerly retold what we had learned to the mother of one of my piano students. It was great to see how they could narrate the story in their own words to someone else and be so very accurate in the order! 
Now YOU get a chance to win this same Bible study for your kids! There are several ways you can enter through the rafflecopter link below.
Although there can be only one winner in the giveaway I’m excited to provide you with a special page of deals you can only reach through this site! Check them out here!!!
Do you want to try Grapevine Bible Studies before you buy? For a limited time you can download the lesson The Announcement to Mary for free! 
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Disclaimer
I received a free copy of this product from Grapevine Bible Studies  in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review. No other compensation was received. 

Let’s Go Bananas!!!! (Review and giveaway)

Grace-Filled Writer

We are a game family. Both my husband and I grew up playing games in our families so we have continued the tradition with the girls. We also have a monthly game night at church and have so much fun just spending time with our church family. This is where I discovered Bananagrams. I had seen the oh-so-cute banana-shaped game in stores, but hadn’t had a chance to play it until one lovely game night when a friend brought it.

I have always enjoyed the typical tile-letter board game. While my husband was willing to play with me, he honestly didn’t have much fun. He considers himself a poor speller and since my major was in English I think he sort of felt like he never had a chance to begin with! I tried to convince him otherwise, but to no avail.

…and then came Bananagrams

Wow! It’s fast paced, and isn’t about spelling long words, just spelling quickly. I loved the game and I was so happy when he had fun too! Basically you make your own crossword-style grid out of letter tiles. Everyone plays at the same time and you are working to be the last one to finish first. Fun! I thought after playing just one round how much fun my girls would have playing this game…when they were older.

…and then came new games!

The makers of Bananagrams created two new games with a younger audience in mind….Pairs in Pears and Appleletters!

               

         

I have been giddy ever since I found out I was going to get the opportunity to review these two wonderful games! I had no idea how to play either game, but I knew they would be fun. They come in adorable packaging that instantly drew my girls’ attention. Each came with instructions for multiple game variations and I couldn’t wait to try them all!

Pairs-in-Pears
In this game each player is given a set number of tiles. There are four complete sets of the alphabet with four different designs. The first to make a set number of pairs of words crossed in the middle wins. The number of tiles and number of pairs changes depending on the number of players. For instance, in a two-player game each player is given 52 tiles and must make 4 pairs of words to win.

In addition to the directions for the original game there is a small booklet with a variety of variations and activities. The activity ideas are separated by levels including pre-readers, early-readers, and solid readers.

I loved Pairs-in-Pears for my youngest daughter who is three. She is learning her alphabet and really enjoyed sorting the tiles into letter sets. Another activity she enjoyed was sorting the four patterns. She sat in the floor for 45 minutes playing with these tiles! For a three-year-old, 45 minutes of focused, structured learning-play is almost unheard of. She frequently asks to play her fruit game which is a great way for her to stay focused and still be learning while I’m teaching her older sisters.

Appleletters 

This game is a fun way reinforce spelling for students of all ages. In Appleletters each player starts with nine tiles. Players then take turns building words in the center of the table. The catch is that each word must begin or end with either the first or last letter of what is already on the table. In the end you have a word worm of sorts.

My older daughters really enjoyed this game. They played well together. I had to help Beth the most who is five. She is learning to spell through All About Spelling, but was struggling to see words with the letter tiles she had in front of her. She eventually caught on and was quickly making words on her own. Her sister, Rose, was a little quirky about this game. She would think of a word before she really looked at her letters. It took her a little while to figure out that she should look at her letters before she decided what word to use.

The girls really did have fun and worked together to get the entire pile done! We’ve played this several times now and each time they have more fun. I love that their spelling skills are being reinforced in such a fun way. There are a variety of other ways to play this game as well, but they are intended to make the game harder, so for now we’re sticking to the original version.

Remember the church game night I mentioned? I took Appleletters to game night and we had a great time playing with just the adults! I wasn’t sure how it would go over since it was created for a younger audience, but the four of us who played really had fun with our word building.

Here is our final word worm from the night!
Are you ready for a giveaway now? I know you are!!!! Check out what the wonderful people at Bananagrams is giving to one lucky winner!!!!!
Did you notice the third game? Zip-It is a face-paced two-player game. The 24 letter cubes are divided between two players. Using any letters on the cubes each player creates a cross-word style grid. The first to do so wins. Wow! Each round typically lasts lest than a minute. My husband and I even played one round in 20 seconds! The first player to win 10 rounds wins the game. I am very good at this game. My husband is determined to beat me, no matter what!
So now I’m sure you’re asking how to enter? There are several ways to enter through Rafflecopter below. I wish you all could win, but for everyone else don’t forget to pick this game up while you’re doing your Christmas shopping. The entire line of Bananagrams games are great stocking stuffer ideas! 
When you have time, take a look at the story of Bananagrams. It’s a family run company and their story is really inspirational! 
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*I received Appleletters, Pairs in Pears, and Zip-It in exchange for an unbiased review. No other compensation was received. 

Family Time Fitness Review, a Coupon…and Giveaway!

Grace-Filled Writer

Fitness 4 Homeschool Physical Education Curriculum
There are many types of exercise…

Leaf Jumping….
Bike riding…
Leaf raking…
Playing games…

These are all great forms of exercise, but…
1. They are typically unplanned
2. There is little opportunity for learning new skills
3. The girls don’t have to work together
I’ll be honest…I’m not really a physical education kind of girl. I dreaded PE when I was in school and the thought of actually forcing them to do PE within a homeschool context didn’t even enter my mind. To be honest, I was glad the girls didn’t have to go through some of the annoyances I did. 
Maybe you can relate to some of these…
Chosen last when picking teams
Your team getting upset because you didn’t run fast enough
Having the kickball rolled at you repeatedly because you missed
Secretly being thrilled your doctor’s appointments overlapped PE class.
Most of my trouble with PE came because I would get really, really nervous whenever we had to do anything in PE. My strengths lied elsewhere…like in music or academics…really anywhere that didn’t require athletics or competition. 
Fitness 4 Homeschool Physical Education CurriculumSo this is my background…then one day I saw an add for Family Time Fitness. I was intrigued by the name and that it was on a homeschool blog I was visiting. After taking a look at the program I wondered if maybe there was more to this PE thing than I thought.

We’ve been using Family Time Fitness now for several weeks and I can honestly tell you I am surprised that not only are my kids having fun…I am having fun! The program is intended to be used 5 days a week. Because of our schedule it works better for us to use it 3 days a week on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday.

I love that the program comes as a pdf. I use it on my kindle and it has been so easy to take wherever we decide to exercise. Although the font is small, it is readable and the best part is I can access the sample videos at the same time! 

Each day begins with warm ups…

A lot of these warm ups involve practice in balance and coordination. Even just in the short time we have been using Family Time Fitness I have seen an improvement in the older girls’ coordination. Grace really enjoys the warm ups too, even though she’s only 3. She seems to think it’s some sort of dance!

Then there is an indoor activity…

After several warm up activities there are a few indoor activities. They are quite varied and the girls have had so much fun playing them! One of my concerns was space. I wouldn’t say our home is small, but there isn’t a lot of open space for activities, but even the small area of our living room that is open provided plenty of room.

The girls really liked the jump the river game in particular. They have asked to play it over and over again. They have even set up their own river and took turns jumping over it!
I could  keep writing a whole lot about how great these are, but I think you’ll see how much fun the girls are having if you watch the video.

Next is the cool down…
I wasn’t sure how much the girls would enjoy warming up and cooling down, but they really do! They see each stretch as a challenge and the results can be hilarious when directions get lost in translation…


Finally there is an outside activity…

There are usually a few minimal supplies needed, but they are typically thing we have around the house already and even if you don’t, you can easily modify with what you do have on hand. One example was for a game that suggested using cones. I didn’t have any cones, but I do have sand buckets! Turned upside down, they were just the the thing! 

Using Family Time Fitness I’ve realized a few things…
1. My girls enjoy more structured playtime!
2. I’m teaching my daughters healthy habits about exercise.
3. My girls like encouraging one another through a team effort.
Are you ready for the giveaway now?
The prize is the complete Family Time Fitness – Fitness for Homeschools Core 1 for K-8th grade.
You can enter several ways through rafflecopter. 
I wish you all could win, but if you aren’t the blessed one I still have some great news! Family Time Fitness has generously given me a coupon code to share with you to get 20% off your order!

Fitness 4 Homeschool Physical Education Curriculum
Coupon Code: LCC20
Expiration: November 9, 2012

*I recieved Family Time Fitness in exchange for an unbiased review. No other compensation was received. 

Cookie Sheet Activities Review…and Giveaway!!!!

Grace-Filled Writer

Homeschooling three little girls fills my heart with joy…and sometimes my life with challenges. My biggest challenge is keeping my girls productive and engaged while I’m working individually with one of their sisters. I am fine with letting them play on their own, but really like to keep them in learning-mode as long as possible before we switch to play-mode. My girls get so caught up in their pretend play that pulling them back to focused learning isn’t always easy.

This summer I gave in to Pinterest and was soon falling in love with lots of great ideas to keep my girls learning while I was teaching the others! The only problem was how much time each of these great activities took to make. With the school-year already underway, I kept looking and found The Cookie Sheet Challenge over at the Make, Take, and Teach Blog.These engaging activities were the perfect compliment for the educational level of all three of my daughters (Yay!), they were colorful and engaging (Double Yay!!), and already created (Triple Yay!!!). I couldn’t wait to try them out!
Volume 3 was a great choice for Beth (Kindergarten) and Rose (2nd grade). I love that there is more than one activity included in each challenge set! There was something for both girls. Even Grace (K-3) could enjoy portions of this set. 
Since we already had a large set of magnetic letters, and some extra cookie sheets, all the preparation this took was printing. I prefer to use photo paper for printing activities I know I’m going to reuse. It creates an almost laminated feel and lasts much longer than traditional card stock. I also like the shiny look the pages had. It didn’t take long to print the whole set, but there were SO many pages! I didn’t realize just how much came with this until it kept printing…and printing…and printing! The girls always know when I’m getting something special ready for them. They were watching the printer as much as I was!
Beth is already an excellent reader. She is also unbelievably creative and loves to make up stories. Building sight words with magnetic letters is a great way to help her start to learn how to transfer all those great ideas from her head on to paper! I was pleased with how quickly she took to this activity and really enjoyed searching for the right letters to create the correct word. There are so many of these pages she won’t ever get bored! She was so proud of herself for finding all the right letters.
Another neat aspect to this activity was my youngest daughter was also able to build these words. While she is not yet reading, she is learning her letters. This activity is a great for pre-readers as they begin to recognize letter relationships and how they build words when placed together. (Grace was feeling a little big camera shy this morning, so you’ll just have to take my word for it!)
Another activity included in this set is placing the correct site word in each sentence. Included in the set is a page of these words which you cut and place in the squares at the bottom. I cheated 🙂 I already have a magnetic sentence building set which includes all of the typical sight words so I used those. This was a great activity for Rose because she often wants to make up whatever she thinks the word is. she is also an excellent reader and loving books far above her expected reading level, but she likes to read so quickly she often just looks at the first couple of letters and then guesses what will come next. Filling in the words helped her see context and forced her to think about what should be there. This was the first page and they become progressively more difficult. 
Rose really liked this and was so happy she was able to have a fun activity as well! Now I just have to convince Beth she can do this activity just like Rose. She often thinks that because she is younger she has to wait to do the same things as her older sister! This will be a great activity for her as well as she moves towards context word connections. 
So, are you ready to win Cookie Sheet Activities Volume 3: Sight Words!?! There are lots of ways to enter! Don’t forget to head over to the Make, Take, and Teach Blog to check out all of her great ideas! Also visit her store at Teachers Pay Teachers to check out Volume 3 which I reviewed,  all 5 Volumes of Cookie Sheet Activities, and many more other learning activities! The giveaway begins October 1st at Midnight and will run until October 8th. 
a Rafflecopter giveaway

*I received Cookie Sheet Challenge 3 for this review