Menu Plan Monday

The last week of soccer. This week will hopefully be our last chaotic week for a little while. This is what our supper menu is looking like this week.

Sat 10/30- hot dogs and grapes after trick or treat (when Halloween falls on Sunday our town does trick or treat on Sat so it doesn't conflict with church)

Sun 10/31-lasagna and bread

Mon 11/1- Soccer Pizza Party

Tues 11/2- bacon, egg, and cheese biscuits, fruit

Wed 11/3- chicken, brocc, rice casserole

Thurs 11/4- grilled cheese, tomato soup

Check out some great menus at http://www.orgjunkie.com/

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TOS Review: Buckets O Fun

Wondering what on earth these pictures are of? We recently had an opportunity to review a sampling of Yuck! from Buckets O Fun. Buckets O Fun carries unique products for recreational and social events. "From things that fly to a bucket full of slime we are your source for fun and unusual products for all your events."

Chunky Yuck- starts out the size of rock alt and hydrates to the size of machine ice cubes. Takes 24 hours to completely hydrate.

Saucy Yuck- starts out as a powder and turns into the consistency of applesauce.



Snowy Yuck- starts out as a powder and turns into fluffy white snow that can be formed but not packed.



Sticky Yuck- super sticky yuck
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For Yuck game ideas click here.
For a free sample of Yuck (one per person/organization) email orders@buckets-o-fun.com.

The price of Yuck starts out at $16 for a pound and also can be purchased in 5 pound and 50 pound amounts. There are also Yuck accessories such as tints and water ballons you can purchase to enhance your Yuck fun.

What We Liked- Most children (especially boys!) like to play with things that are gooey or sticky. The children enjoyed measuring out the water and seeing what the powder was going to turn into. They had fun freezing and thawing the snowy yuck, dying and blowing bubbles in the sticky yuck, and playing with the chunky and saucy yuck.

Some Things to Consider- The Yuck products absorb water and cannot be poured down the drain because it will clog your pipes. This can make cleanup a little difficult. We used disposable containers and threw them out when we were done instead of trying to clean the bowls. We also worked outside so we could clean up the picnic table with the outside faucet and water hose. I did not want to take a chance of Lily putting any of this in her mouth, so we did the experiments while she was napping. The sticky, snowy, and saucy yuck absorbed the water right away, but the chunky yuck took a long time (about 24 hours) to absorb.

My Final Thoughts- With 6 children messes aren't anything new to me. I personally would not buy something just for the "fun" of getting messy and gooey. If it has educational value (like a scientific experiment) I would. I think Buckets O Fun is tapping into that market with the suggestions for scientific experiments that were included with our samples and as they expand on that it may bring even more interest into their products.

I received complimentary samples of Yuck products for the purpose of writing a fair and honest review. I received no other compensation.

To see what other crew members are saying click here.

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It's A Girl!

What a day! It sure was an exciting one! Art took a half day of work so we could load up the children and go to the doctor to have our ultrasound. After driving over an hour to get there, they informed me that they had me down for yesterday. The lady that did my appointment scheduling over the phone made a mistake and out me down for the wrong day. So, they squeezed me in for the ultrasound and to see the Nurse Practitioner since my doctor wasn't there. we got into the ultrasound room when the tech had to step out for a minute. 30 minutes later she finally returned. I must say how good the children were even though they had to sit quietly in room without even a window to look out of or one book or magazine for all that time. Then they had to sit through the 30 minute ultrasound. The baby looks great! All of her parts are present and functioning the way they should. She is measuring a little small right now but I am sure she will catch up later on. The children are very excited that we are going to have a sister! The tech felt bad that we had to wait so after she took all of the pictures for the doctor, she switched to a 3D ultrasound and got this picture of her face and made me a DVD. Isn't that sweet? I told her it was no problem to wait. It was a great lesson to work on our patience (adults and children included.) I had never had a 3D ultrasound before and it was pretty interesting (the children thought she looked like a skeleton.) In the picture the baby s opening her mouth and bringing her hand up to it, and you can see her eyes, nose, and ear pretty clearly also. After the ultrasound I had my weight and blood pressure checked. I did gain two pounds making my total weight gain 5.5 pounds so far. With the holidays coming up I am sure I will make up for that later on. After being at the doctor for a total of 2 hours, we went to Pizza Hut for supper and then to Lowes to get some things for the house. The children and I were too tired for Walmart so that will have to wait for another day. We did get to eat a chocolate bar on the way home because everyone was so well behaved all day. Now they are all in bed and I am heading there myself.

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A Dinorama (Dinosaur Diorama)

Last week I shared that we would be working on this creation based unit study on dinosaurs. To go with the lessons, today's project was to make a dinosaur diorama. We used an empty diaper box and the boys covered the bottom with green construction paper and the back with blue (they didn't think anything needed to go on the sides.) Trees were also constructed and taped to the back. After I took the picture Anthony added some clouds and drew God sitting on one of them (isn't he cute.) The boys made a volcano, a pond, and some nests with eggs out of modeling clay. The dinosaurs I printed off of this website. After it was done Christian and Anthony had a lot of fun playing with the dinosaurs in the diorama. Tomorrow we will be making fossil prints and later in the week dinosaur eggs.

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Menu Plan Monday

This week is a little uncertain because even though our 6 and under soccer team is finished, our 8 year old's tournament starts today and how long we play will depend on how they do. So I planned some meals that are quick and easy or can be made in the crock pot.

Friday 10/22- pizza
Saturday 10/23-meatball subs, sliced peaches, carrot sticks
Sunday 10/24- ham, mashed potatoes, creamed corn
Monday 10/25- tacos and rice
Tuesday 10/27- chicken spaghetti and homemade bread
Wednesday 10/28- Dr. appt. Picking up Pizza Hut (free for 3 of the kids with reading certificates)
Thursday 10/29- Bacon, egg, and cheese biscuits, fruit

Check out what others are cooking up this week at http://www.orgjunkie.com/

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TOS Review: Brill Kids Little Reader

Usually when we are working on our regular school work or review items, I have to keep Lily occupied with something else so she will stay out of trouble so we can get our work done. Not this time! We got to review a product just for Lily (well Christian and Anthony like it too) Brill Kids Little Reader Learning System.



Description: Brill Kids strongly believes in early learning and that parents can do many things with children at an early age that can help them achieve their full potential. They have a line of products for early learning including: Little Reader, Little Math, and Little Musician. We have been using the Little Reader Basic Learning System for the last several weeks. The cost of the Little Reader Basic Learning System is $149 for one semester or $199 for a full year curriculum with a lifetime license key that is able to installed on two computers. The full year curriculum contains over 3000 words in 180 categories. The software is compatible with computers using Windows only.

The Little Reader Basic Learning System is:

• engaging and fun for your child lessons are never the same
• easy for a parent to use just load the software and follow the lessons
• parent and educator approved
• able to be used in just minutes a day
• taught with the Flash method, multisensory method, and phonics method
• able to grow with your child progressing from words to simple sentences and stories
• able to be personalized with your own pictures and videos

Benefits of using Little Reader:

• helps your child read at a younger age by sight words and learning natural phonics decoding
• help your child develop clearer speech
• helps foster a geunine love of reading
• can teach your child different languages using content files downloaded off of the Brill Kids Forum

There is a Deluxe Little Reader System also available. Click here for more information.

For a free 14 day trial of Little Reader click here.

What We Like: The program is very easy to use. Click play and the lesson begins. The lessons are fun and engaging for children and do not take long to do. Each lesson only lasts around 5 minutes. Lily (18 months) absolutely loves the program. She wants me to turn it on everytime she sees me open the laptop. She interacts with the program often laughing and pointing at what is on the screen. She also makes many of the animal sounds and will repeat many of the words. Her vocabulary has definitely increased over the last couple of weeks. Christian and Anthony really like it too and will crowd around the computer to be able to listen along. Their tech support was great when I had a question. I received an email respnse the next day with very clear concise directions. Good tech support is very important especially when working with computers.

Some Things to Consider: One thing I thought was a little strange was what categories some of the pictures were in. For instance, two of the categories are common animals and kids' things. But chicken and rabbit are in the kids' things category and not in the common animals category. Also, there was a glitch in downloading the files using Internet Explorer as your web browser. Using another web browser to download was recommended or tech support offered a way to solve the problem.

My Final Thoughts: The baby really enjoys using this program and her vocabulary has definitely increased. It only takes a few minutes a day and all I have to do is follow the lessons already planned out. Will she learn how to read at an early age? I guess we will find out after we continue using the program for awhile. In the meantime she is having fun learning.

I received a complimentary download of this product in order to write a fair and honest review. I received no other compensation.

To see what other crew members are saying click here.

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Review:TOS High School Student Planner E-book

Over the summer I made a confession that I had never written lesson plans before, but now that Chelsea has entered High School I felt that I really needed to be more organized. I purchased the TOS Homeschool Planner and wow was I impressed. It was everything I could have wanted in a planner and more. Now TOS has taken it one step further and come out with Student Planners in 4 age groups: Primary (K-3), Secondary (4-6), Middle School (7-8), and High School (9-12.) I have had the opportunity to use the High School Student Planner.







Description: The High School Planner E book comes with a 14 page parent pack and a 293 page High School Student Planner for $29. The Parent Pack contains four great articles: The 4-1-1 on Dual Enrollment, High School: Time to Prepare, How to Create A High School Transcript, and You Are the BEST High School Guidance Counselor. The Planner comes with everything your High Schooler needs to learn to balance their home and school responsibilities plus "must know" lists to help remember important facts and figures.

A Wide Variety Homeschool Forms Included Are:

• goal sheets (daily, weekly, monthly, semester, yearly)
• daily, weekly, quarterly, marking period, 4 year planning pages
• to do lists (today, tomorrow, next week etc.)
• week at a glance
• calendars (monthly, yearly 2010, 2011)
• marking period planners
• log sheets (field trip, audio video,reading, extracurricular activities, musical instrument practice, etc)
• wish list
• science experiment sheet
• general book report
• chore charts
• future plans
• Vocab study sheets
• Test Preparation checklist
• journals
• high school transcripts
• test recording, assignments and due dates
• attendance
• GPA calculating and tracking forms
• address book
• Bible study/memorization
• website log in/password
• family tree

Examples of some of the "must know" lists included are:

• common Latin and Greek roots
• basic Roman Numerals
• kitchen conversion sheet
• famous artists, composers, authors
• basic sign language
• US Presidents and their wives
• 13 colonies
• Elements, planets, cloud formation
• wars involving US
• timeline, miracles and parables of Jesus
• States and Capitals, Countries and Capitals
• bodies of water, mountain ranges, wonders of modern and ancient world

To see a sampling of the planner click here.

All E books published by The Old Schoolhouse Magazine come with a 7 day 100 % money back guarantee.

What We Liked: The High School Student Planner puts some of the organization and planning back on the student shoulders. By this age they should be responsible for a lot of their own work and having a place to write it all down and keep it organized makes life much easier. Any kind of organizing/planning form you could think of that you would need for a High Schooler is included in this planner. There are different options for several forms so you can pick what works best for your family. You only have to print out the forms that you need/want to include in your planner. We like the "must know " lists. They make finding specific information on the included topics easier. I found the articles in the parent pack to be informational and encouraging.

Some things to consider: There is of course going to be an added cost for printing out the forms. I did not print out all 293 pages, just what we needed and I didn't find that each page used a whole lot of ink. Many of the forms and "must know " lists are the same as in the Homeschool Planner planner so you could create your own High School planner out of the pages in the Homeschool Planner if you already have one.

My Final Thoughts: A great way to help keep your teen and yourself more organized. Chelsea is very glad to have a planner of her own. Includes any form you could possibly think of and more!

I received a complimentary copy of this planner in order to write a fair and honest review. I received no other compensation.

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