Travel Kits: A Simple Way to Bless Others

Summer usually involves vacations, visiting family and friends and maybe even exploring areas not far from home.  Do you ever wish that you had something better to occupy your children's time when traveling?  Boy, I do!  And I don't just want to "occupy" them, I want part of that time to be spent on something meaningful and maybe even educational.  Why not, right?  I mean, we only get to raise them once.

 

So, as a member of The Old Schoolhouse Crew for the 2010-2011 school year, I was given the pleasure of reviewing another great e-book called Travel Kits: A Simple Way to Bless Others written by Donna Rees.  The title is intriguing, no?  Oh!  And of course, it's not JUST for kids or for certain ages!  Well, here's some info to get you interested and then you can hop on over to the wonderful Old Schoolhouse Store to browse this and other products.  I've provided a direct link to the product further on in my write up here. ;)

Are you wondering what this travel kit e-book is about?  Donna Rees does a great job of explaining the who, what, when, where, why and how!  In fact, it's even listed that way in the table of contents, how cool is that?!  A travel kit is a collection of snacks and gifts, individually wrapped in a sturdy container to take with you on your trip!  This way, the trip is more fun and you get to feel good about giving too!  So, at this point, you're probably thinking, well, okay, I don't need to buy the book for this.  But, wait!  There are soooo many good ideas, both for items to put in the kit as well as places to get them from!  See, for me, the most fun part is having items in those kits that haven't been seen or used before.  But, just because it's "new" to my kit receiver, doesn't mean it's brand spankin' new.  Ah-ha!  Do I have your curiosity peaked?  In the grand scheme of things, I would much rather have a memorable "trip" AND vacation.

 

Without further ado, here's some tidbits of what you can expect:

• Ideas for those kit goodies
• Some great places to get the goodies from
• How to pass out the super finds
• Resources for creating things like puzzles online
• How to prepare for your trip

Whether you are a savvy, experienced shopper or a novice, this e-book would be a great resource for your library.  It's great as a first read, but would be a benefit to browse over again and again. There's wonderful potential to cultivate the giving spirit in your children as well!  By purchasing gifts for birthdays, friends, weddings, baby showers, etc., the trip can be a grand time to put together kits to be gifted to others at the appropriate time.  And, as with most books, ("oh the places you'll go, in the pages of a book") my wheels started turnin' for more uses.

 

Please, take a moment and hop on over to the TOS Homeschool Crew blog to check out what the other crewmembers are saying about the Travel Kits e-book.  It's a good value for only $12.45.

The Old Schoolhouse Magazine publishes this book and there are other  e-books worthy of glancin' at and maybe even treatin' yourself to purchasing!  One of the cool things about an e-book is the immediate access!!

*I was given this product free of charge and these opinions are my own.*

Travel the World!

I'm excited to be writing my first product review for The Old Schoolhouse Store!

Travel the World is a unit study that can be used with various ages and can be a stand alone or you can use it as a foundation for more in depth lesson plans.  Within this ebook are:

• A brief overview of Geography
• Activity pages such as word finds, rebus puzzles, poetry, coloring pages and more!
  
• Copywork pages
• Lapbook templates
• Special section to use with High Schoolers
• Recipes
• Answer Keys
• Resource links, some to The Old Schoolhouse Store and others out in the world wide web

We found this unit study to be a good asset for our homeschool as it incorporates across curriculum knowledge such as reading, writing, art and technology.  The resource links to enhance the learning experience were wonderful to have at our fingertips.  And since it's an e-book, I was able to print the pages I needed such as the reproducible worksheets.  In this way, we saved money by NOT printing out the overview and just read it straight from the computer.  :)

You can purchase this product by either buying the TOS planner, it's included as one of the monthly modules(unit studies), or as a separate unit study.  The Travel the World e-book is affordably priced at $7.95.  If you're interested in the  2010-2011 Schoolhouse Planner, it sells for $39.00.

Personally, I would have liked to see a little more information included on the continents.  Also, we haven't done a lot of lapbooks/notebooks in our homeschooling journey, but are beginning to do more and I was expecting more in that area.  It still is a good resource to have for your geography lesson plans!

**I received this product to review, free of charge. These opinions are my own.**

Mom, What does “dud” mean?

Our son loves glow sticks! In fact, people buy them for him as gifts because he enjoys them so much. Of course, we all know that on occasion, one will not work as well as it’s supposed to and only part of the stick lights up, or maybe even none of it. So, I grab another glow stick and hand it to him so he can “break” another one and tell him, “Sorry son, that one was a dud”. He repeated the word and liked the way it sounded, so over the next couple of days, anytime something didn’t work right, he would use the word dud and had a great understanding of how it should be used! A couple of weeks passed by and we get out a new glow stick about once a week. So, it’s Saturday and we’re pulling out a new glow stick and it didn’t work right, so he says, “Aw man, it’s a dud! It doesn’t work!” I giggled inside myself, the way he said it was so cute. He opened another one and it worked just fine. He didn’t have much else to say about it until yesterday and he asked the question, “Why do they call it a dud when it doesn’t work right Mom?” So, our adventure began and we were off doing research to find the origin of the term. Now that we’re all ed-u-ma-cated, (giggle) I thought I would share with you all what we discovered!

According to Webster.com, the word dates back to 1567 and is from the Middle English dudde. The meanings listed are;
1 plural a : clothing b : personal belongings 2 a : one that is ineffectual; also : failure a box-office dud b : misfit 3 : a bomb or missile that fails to explode. Now, those are just for when you use the word as a Noun! As an adjective, it means of little or no worth and dates back to 1903. And of course, I’m not JUST going to use Webster, so here’s some other information you may find interesting…

According to some Mike and Melanie, some etymologists (people who study the history and origin of language)“The term dud first appears in 1307 as dudde and refers to a `cloak or mantle made of coarse cloth.' In 1508 the term duds refers to `ragged clothing.' In 1825 the word came to be used to describe `a person in ragged clothes,' and in 1908 to describe `a useless, inefficient person or thing.' The latter meaning was transferred during Word War I to `a shell which failed to explode,' i.e. `a failure,' and the failure meaning has been with us since.” Now, if you want to see what else they post, they have new stuff each and every week! You can also ask questions about different words if you want to and under the ‘About’ tab on their page, you can read more about how the site came to be, how it’s influenced the web and more about them!

So, a little further research showed it’s thought that when the word dud was used in World War I, it became the acronym for ‘device unable to detonate’. Whether or not this part is true, I am uncertain. But, given the history of the word, it is easy to see why it has the varied meanings that it does today.

What words do you find interesting? Share your thoughts and information!

My Elastic Life!


I am just getting this blog up and running and wanted to post something witty and fantastic that would get attention, but, what I came up with was explaining away why I chose this title for my blog. Like I’m being graded or have to justify, right? Bwah ha, ha, ha. Well, anyway, you may just find it interesting and hopefully get a little laugh as to my musings here.

Okay, so why would I choose a title such as this for my blog? Oh my goodness, well, you just have to know me to understand that! My life has been crazy and somehow I always manage to “come back from it”. I persevere, press on, muddle through, or however else you want to say it. It’s not always pretty, but hey, I’m still here and breathing and have drawn a little closer to the Lord!

So, did you know that Webster gives these words as synonyms for elastic? - Flexible, adaptable, adjustable, alterable, changeable, fluid, malleable, modifiable, and variable. The word flexible means: capable of being readily changed. The word elastic means: able to revert to original size and shape after being stretched, squeezed or twisted~! You see, I have to maintain a life of elasticity to keep moving forward. There are times that I feel I’m being stretched to the very breaking point and am always amazed at how well I can bounce back. So…My Elastic Life just fits the bill. As you follow my blog and read posts, you will find the title was a good choice.

What will you find here? A little of this, a little of that, some product reviews, interesting and funny stories and well…just what makes my life so elastic!