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Credit Cards

Posted by html404 on July 30, 2013
in Education, Money & Finances, Tuesday Tip, Uncategorized

This is a featured guest post.

What type of credit card is right for me?

If the time has come to get a new credit card you might find you’re presented with a slightly overwhelming number of options to choose from. This can make it hard work knowing where to start, which is why it’s a good idea to educate yourself about how best to go about it.

Know the different kinds of card

When credit cards are mentioned, many people will think of them in simple terms – a piece of plastic that lets you purchase goods or services and pay for them at a later date. However, there are different types of cards to suit different circumstances.

Balance transfer cards – if you have existing debts then the 0 per cent interest period offered by a balance transfer credit card could help you pay the balance off at a more manageable rate. The interest free period can vary, so be sure to know how long it lasts before signing up.
Rewards cards – if you’re able to regularly pay off your balance each month and want to get a little something back then it might be worth going for a card with a reward scheme. What you get in return for your spending is likely to vary so be sure to compare credit cards to find the best one for you.
Platinum cards – a range of additional benefits are typically offered along with this kind of product, such as insurance. They normally offer a higher credit limit and are only those with a good credit rating are likely to be approved.

Pre-paid cards – if you’re travelling overseas or want a little added security while shopping online then a pre-paid card might be the right option for you. It can be loaded with a set amount of cash, so might be a good option for parents to give to older children heading on school trips.

Compare fees and interest rates

Perhaps the easiest way to get an overview of the interest rate you’re likely to pay on a card is to compare the Annual Percentage Rates (APR). In terms of your monthly repayments you’re always best paying for what you’ve spent by covering the full balance each month, but if you can’t do this then it’s typically better to find the lowest APR on offer. It’s also worth looking in to the charges you will face for any missed payments, or for using your card in another country.

Time to apply

Once you’ve done all this it could be time to apply. Make sure you’re aware of your credit rating before doing so and avoid making multiple applications, as this is one of the things that could harm your chances of getting accepted.

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Flourish Magnetic Schedule Review & Giveaway

Posted by html404 on July 21, 2013
in Contests, Education, Family Stuff, Giveaways, Home, Kids Stuff, Organization, Parenting, Reviews, School

Faith and Family Reviews received the following product in exchange for writing a review. While we consider it a privilege to receive products to review, our reviews are our honest opinion and thoughts of the product.

Flourish Magnetic Schedule Review

Do you desire to be more organized before school starts? Is summer getting away from you without getting daily tasks accomplished? I discovered a handy little tool to help me keep our children on task and to know what to expect each day in our daily routine. It’s the Flourish Magnetic Schedule.

It is very easy to use. Open it up and stick the magnet on the back of the main card, put it on the refrigerator and add the task magnets in your preferred order….ta-da! Done!

Our children like to put the magnets back up after their little brother initially took them all down and stole the task magnets! So far it is staying in place and after the novelty Junior (our youngest) has left the magnetic schedule alone.

Both the children and I like to work with lists for daily tasks and scratch them off when complete. This magnetic schedule allows us to use less paper and gives the younger children who cannot read a little visual of what they need to do.

We’ve only had the magnetic schedule for a couple of days but I like it. The magnets and schedule are made of sturdy material. My hope is it helps the children have something to refer to and learn what needs to be done when and where they should be. I haven’t added any times or anything. I try to be flexible or else I get bogged down by the actual schedule.

Not only does Flourish have this product but also other products helpful to all moms – because the products have been created by moms.

About Flourish

Moms Flourish is a new direct sales company providing innovative products for moms and kids. To make life just a little easier. Moms can also earn a little extra money for their families by joining for as little as $59.

Flourish Giveaway

Right now there’s a contest going on, which ends August 7th, the winner will be announced during the Twitter party on August 8th at 6pm PT/8pm CST/9pm ET #momsflourish. You can enter the giveaway below or visit their Facebook page. Look at all the products offered in the giveaway!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Be a Shield CPR Refresher

Posted by html404 on June 18, 2013
in Education, Safety

This is a featured post.

Protecting your family is obviously important to everyone. This summer the American Medical Learning Center is trying to raise awareness on the importance of learning CPR with their Be a Shield campaign.

Learning CPR isn’t as difficult or complicated as one might think. Thanks to ACLS campaign, the statistic of over 70% of adults who aren’t comfortable administering CPR can change with their free program. In just six easy steps you can brush up on providing CPR to not only infants, but children and adults as well.

Through the campaign they are trying to raise awareness and knowledge for the need to have life saving skills like rescue breathing and chest compressions. The steps are simple enough that even tweens and especially teens can learn them as well. Who knows, but you might just need the refresher course. Hopefully, the life saving skills won’t be needed, but you never know what might happen. And it’s never a bad idea to be prepared.

It doesn’t take much time to brush up and re-learning or learning CPR this summer doesn’t sound like a half bad idea to me.

Protect your family and find out more about the Be A Shield campaign here.

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Morton Subotnick’s Pitch Painter App Review

Posted by Brande on May 9, 2013
in Education, Fun Stuff, Kids Stuff, Reviews, School, Technology/Electronics

Morton Subotnick’s Pitch Painter App is an award winning app that is available in your iTunes store for iPad with an iOS of 5.0 or later. Finger Painting and Music combine 2 things that your 3 to 5 year old love to do! Without the Mess!

First choose the regional instruments you’d like to play. The regions are Europe and North America, West Africa, Middle East, or East Asia. Each region gives you 3 different instruments to choose from.

For example – Europe and North America has a Clarinet, Trumpet, and Piano. When the clarinet is selected it will give you a tone of a clarinet, then just finger paint and the tone will follow your child’s finger. Then change to a trumpet and get another color and sound. Your child can record their music and play it back. There are options to play the music backwards or upside down!

I really like this app, it’s soothing to the ears and fun! My daughter really enjoying recording her finger painting music and playing it back for us to hear. It’s a big hit in our house! I think your pre-school aged child will like it too!

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Eggy Spelling Grade 1 App Review

Posted by Brande on May 6, 2013
in Education, Fun Stuff, Parenting, Reviews, School, Technology/Electronics, Uncategorized

The final installment of the Eggy apps is the Eggy Spelling Grade 1 app. The app is available in your itunes store for an ipad with an iOS of 4.0 or higher.

Look at all the options available for your speller! Each game you can choose has 5 levels. A is the easiest and E is the hardest level.

#1 – Beat the Bomb!

Your pirate ship is in the water. You have 15 tries to fill in the blank letter to spell the word. If you can’t spell the word in 15 tires, the bomb goes off and your pirate ship sinks!

#2 – Check Mate

You need to help edit the “Backwater News” sentences. Your given a sentence with a word spelled incorrectly. If you correct the spelling you move to the next sentence. Incorrect answers lead to a “wrong” sound, you get 2 tries before you move to the next sentence.

#3 – Compound Word Snaps

Aboard “Gallicus 1″ you snap words together to make compound words.

Your given 10 words at the bottom of the screen. You then must drag each word to make 5 word that will “snap” together or make compound words. When you finish making your 5 word you click check. It will them check your work and let you know if you missed any words, then tell you how they should have been.

#4 – Helping Hands

You’ve arrived at “Wendy’s Wonderful Word Factory”, time to start working. Your given a sentence with a highlighted word, to which you must choose a “helper word” to complete the sentence. For example – The sentence is ….

“May all your wish come true!” With the word wish highlighted. Your then given “s” or “es”. Then you type “wishes” – so then wish becomes wishes. Making your sentence “May all your wishes come true!”

#5 – Hit and Miss

Let’s play balloon pop!

#6 – Quiz Master

Ready to play everyone’s favorite quiz show?! Do you have what it takes?

“What is the first month of the year?”

J _ _ _ _ _ _

“What do you sleep in at night?”

B _ _

After you type the answer, click check to find out if you spelled the correct answer!

#7 – Stop the Clock

Are you ready? Think fast.

You are given 5 sentences. Each sentence has a missing word and each missing word starts with the same letter.

Once you fill in the spaces, let’s hit the check button and see how many you got correct!

#8 – Two Minute Dash

Here we are back at “Wendy’s Wonderful Word Factory” and the workers need help building a new word wall. Wanna help?

Each brick shows part of a word. You have 2 minutes to to make proper words.

#9 – Word Factory

Let’s go back at the factory. You need to help the workers! They forgot to add some important letters!

Most of the missing letter are vowel letter. example “T_ KE” Then you would choose from the available choices, to make the word TAKE.

#10 Word Works

Some of the words are broken at Wendy’s Factory and need they your help fixing them!

“I like to do jigsaw Puzzl _ _.” you need to type in the correct letters to finish the sentence.

Once all the levels are finished your child will receive a Certificate of Achievement that can be emailed! Really cute and your child will love to hang up their achieve award!

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Home Depot – Free Kids Workshops

Posted by Brande on May 2, 2013
in Education, Family Stuff, Free Stuff, Fun Stuff, Kids Stuff, Kids Toys, Uncategorized

Looking for a fun and free activity for your kids!? Check out Home Depot’s FREE kids Workshops! The next workshop is focused on the upcoming movie “EPIC” and your child will be building an herb planter! It’s on May 4th! Home Depot also has 2 more upcoming workshop’s in June & July!

So far, my daughter built a bird feeder, here she is painting it.

She received her very own Home Depot apron, pin for her build, and a certificate! She is very proud of her accomplishments!

Head here or go to Home Depot’s site for more information!

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Tap the Cat – Reading Eggs Review

Posted by Brande on April 29, 2013
in Downloads, Education, Fun Stuff, Kids Stuff, Parenting, Reviews, School, Uncategorized

Continuing with the Eggy apps, here is Tap the Cat – Reading Eggs Review. Available for iPad (ISO 4.0 or later)

Reading 1

When you begin and tap the play button the balloons pops.

reading 2

Then you are brought to this screen,to choose which of the 9 activities you’d like to do. There’s writing, letters, smart quiz, speak and listen, making words, draw and paint, time to rhyme, vocabulary, and sight words.

Writing – A piece of lined paper and a word are on the page, your child will then trace the word and asked if they like their writing.

Letters – You find the matching letter (only 4 are given at a time). They tell you the letter as well as the sound that letter makes. Great for beginners!

Smart Quiz – listen to the question and find the matching picture. Example “Carrot begins with c. Which on begins like carrot” the pictures would be a lion, rabbit and cat. Once you choose cat you get a little tune. The questions do change to keep you child involved. The next example question is Ï look like a mouse, but I am bigger. Who am I?” The pictures are a chicken, rat and frog.

Speak & Listen – This is a recording one. Your given a written word and asked to tap to record yourself saying the word. Then you can play it back and are asked if you said the correct word.

Making Words – A picture of a word is shown (Example – Pan), the app will then sound out the word Pan and you are given blank tiles to fill in the word out of 4 letters.

Draw and Paint – Is just that, you pick a picture and color it.

Time to Rhyme – A figure of a house is given with this phrase “On the house I see a _____”, above the house are 3 pictures a mouse, hat, and ear of corn. Then you move the mouse to the house and get a congratulations.

Vocabulary – Tap the word to hear it and then match it to the picture.

Sight Word – Help the bunny get home. In this repetition app, the bunny jumps on about 6 carrots all the same word to get home. Another great one for the beginners.

I really like this series of apps, lots of learning and not realizing it. There’s one more! Look for my last Eggy app – Spelling!

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Lowe’s Build & Grow – Free Activity for Kids!

Posted by Brande on April 25, 2013
in Education, Family Stuff, Free Stuff, Fun Stuff, Gardening, Handmade Items, Kids Stuff, Kids Toys, Uncategorized

I’m always on the hunt for free and fun activities for my family. Lowe’s has a fantastic program called Build and Grow. On my daughter’s first visit she received a Lowe’s apron, a hammer & protective goggles to borrow and her project. When she/we finished the project we returned the hammer and protective goggle and she was given a certificate and a patch for her apron! She loves the iron on patches that she earned and loves to show them off on her apron.

So, far we’ve built 2 monster trucks and a “Croods” the movie planter. Our next build is a sweetheart frame on May 11th.

Click here or head over to Lowes.com and search for Build & Grow to sign up at your nearest Lowe’s for the next free activity for kids!

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Healthy Classroom Station Review

Posted by Professor on April 3, 2013
in Cleaning, Community Issues, Education, Health, Personal Care Products, Reviews, Uncategorized

The Healthy Classroom Station Review

Kimberly-Clark Professional is taking the lead in helping transform schools into healthier learning environments.

Good Hygiene habits should begin early. The Healthy Classroom Station brings accessible product solutions to the classroom. Students learn to WASH, WIPE, and SANITIZE to help reduce the spread of germs.

Statistics show that the average student misses 4.5 school days each year due to preventable illness. Symptoms of illness are bad but so are the side effects… when children are ill their performance suffers. Student absences are linked to lower achievement and higher school dropout rates. Even when ill students are physically present but they often perform poorly. Further more, it is not only the student that is affected but parents’ work in affected. In the U.S., caring for a sick child results in 126 million lost workdays and $14.5 billion lost in productivity annually. This affects schools because schools spend over $2 billion on substitute teacher pay each year. Studies show that teacher absenteeism also affects student achievement.

Absenteeism starts with presenteeism ~ coming to school sick. When ill students touch a doorknob, keyboard, desk or other surface, they leave germs that can live up to 48 hours. Other students and teachers pick up those germs, and the cycle continues.

Kimberly- Clark Professional has come up with a solution to combat germs in the classroom. The Healthy Classroom Station!

The classroom Caddy creates a fun, engaging way to promote good hygiene in the classroom. Fill it with the hand sanitizer, tissue, and surface wipes to create a Healthy Classroom Station. The Classroom Caddy boasts a durable design, suitable for use by children age 3 and above (patent pending).

Contents of the Caddy:

KLEENEX Hand Sanitizer ~ effectively kills germs on hands with a foam formula that is perfect for schools. It is 99.9% effective against most common disease-causing germs in as little as 30 seconds. One step sanitizing solution. NO rinsing required.

KLEENEX Anti-Viral Tissue ~ moisture-activated middle layer that is scientifically proven to kill cold and flu viruses.

SCOTT Surface Wipes ~ safe enough for children to use. Clean high touch surfaces by removing soil, dirt, and other contaminants without the use of disinfectants. Alcohol and bleach free. Safe for children to use.

Our Review:

This is a neat innovative product! We really liked the Classroom Caddy and the Kimberly-Clark products. We used the products at home in order to do this review… but I WILL be giving a caddy filled with new products to my daughters preschool class. I wish I had more of these to go around as my other two children’s grade school classes could certainly benefit from a germ fighting kit!

On to the review… the caddy effectively fits all of the products securely and it easily fits next to the sink on the counter. The Hand sanitizer option is a nice plus. Having the sanitizer in a convenient pump and in the handy caddy location proved useful. I also liked that the sanitizer was of the foam variety. The foam seems to be easier for the children to dispense with less mess. The KLEENEX anti viral tissue is very nice. I must admit that I have not used this version of KLEENEX before this review…. But it is very soft and easy on the nose…plus it has the anti viral properties that are a large plus! Most of all I LOVED the SCOTT surface wipes. This is a great product! I often use regular sanitizing wipes on my counters and sometimes a bleach spray on the doorknobs. I LOVE the option of having an alcohol and bleach free product to wipe off the doorknobs and children’s toys, etc. This is a much safer option!

Overall we LOVE the Caddy and all of the contents. As I mentioned I intend to refill it and give it to my daughter’s preschool. I think that these are wonderful product to combat germs. How convenient not only for schools, but for anyone really! Think about it… homes, homes schools, daycares, in home daycare, etc… Wow! So many places…so many uses! Thank you Kimberly-Clark Professional!

For more information about these products and other solutions for your home or school, visit www.kcprofessional.com

Faith and Family Reviews received the following product in exchange for writing a review. While we consider it a privilege to receive free products to review, our reviews are our honest opinion and thoughts of the product.

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Eggy Sight Words App Review

Posted by Brande on March 30, 2013
in Education, Fun Stuff, Parenting, Reviews, School, Techie Stuff, Technology/Electronics

Here’s the next review of the Eggy Apps – Reading Eggs Sight Words. Available for your Apple products.

Eggy Sight Words App Review

When you first begin this screen will pop up and they will ask you to select a level. This app has a total of 10 levels and 250 sight words.

The options are Chicken Run, Turtle Tap, or Penguin Plunge.

All of the options games are the same, it just matters on your animal preference you’d like to start with first. You are given a sight word and then eggs are tossed around they have many sight words on them. If the egg matches your word you touch it and the app will say the word. If you choose the wrong word or miss your sight word it cracks. As you continue to play the game the eggs go faster, watch out for the flying animals, objects and rotten eggs! Don’t forget to collect puzzle pieces and happy face eggs along the way!

When you continue on to the next round you spell the word. It will toss eggs into the air with letters on them. Then you choose which eggs spell your sight word.

They have a bonus round with gold eggs – you must try collect/tap 100 eggs. If you tap an animals, pan, or other flying object, the game ends and you need to retry. This is a great hand eye coordination tool.

In the tools section you can select and appropriate setting – Slow (age 3-4), Medium (ages 4-5), Fast (ages 6+).

Really cute app, my 4 year old daughter did okay when the eggs were going slow, once the eggs sped up it was hard for her to keep up. This will be a great app for her once her motor skills and eyes can recognize the words faster. When the eggs were going really fast, it was hard for me to keep up sometimes. lol….otherwise, great learning app!

Look for my next Eggy App Review – Eggy Reading

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Archive for Education

Credit Cards

What type of credit card is right for me?

Know the different kinds of card

Compare fees and interest rates

Time to apply

Share and Enjoy

Flourish Magnetic Schedule Review & Giveaway

Flourish Magnetic Schedule Review

About Flourish

Flourish Giveaway

Share and Enjoy

Be a Shield CPR Refresher

Share and Enjoy

Morton Subotnick’s Pitch Painter App Review

Share and Enjoy

Eggy Spelling Grade 1 App Review

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Home Depot – Free Kids Workshops

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Tap the Cat – Reading Eggs Review

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Lowe’s Build & Grow – Free Activity for Kids!

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Healthy Classroom Station Review

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Eggy Sight Words App Review

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