Archive for Education

Back to School Supplies #BagItForward #CBias @Elmers @Walmart


We are only a month into summer but school will soon be starting back up again as back to school sales indicate. Most show their teachers appreciate at the end of the school year. Some may not even show their appreciate at all! For shame! But if you forgot to do it a month or two ago, I am going to share a way you can easily do for this back to school session.

As you know, we homeschool, and just like any other family purchasing school supplies is a little like Christmas around here. New glue sticks, new markers, new crayons, new pens and pencil and erasers you can actually find, are a source of rejoicing in our home. Seriously.

The other night my two older daughters and I went out to Walmart at 11:30pm to shop for quality school supplies at low prices for Elmer’s simple service project, which is a campaign supporting teachers by offering a donation of buy 2 school supply items and Bag It Forward to the teacher of your choice. My daughters were tickled to be out a midnight with mom shopping and we had fun.

To help with our shopping experience, I downloaded Elmer’s 1st Day App, which is also available at the school supply list holder. I simply went to the website clicked download and it was quickly downloaded to my iPhone. It is an app to help parents and children to capture the memories of the first day of school. It is available for a free download here. Using the 1st Day App will actually help drive donations to the Kids in Need Foundation which provides funding to teachers and ultimately kids.

We shopped for notebooks, pens, pencils, erasers, more notebooks, glue, glue sticks and more pens and pencils.

Our donation gift is not wrapped in pretty paper or anything because our teacher is very practical and did not want wrapping paper or a gift bag wasted when the school supplies were just going on shelves.

This is going to be very weird and out of the norm for me in the giving back projects I usually participate in. My daughter was suppose to write this for me but she slept in! But here’s it is…we chose me as the teacher.

I admit my family doesn’t take time to officially show their appreciation at specific times of the year for all I do, other than Mother’s Day and my Birthday. However, there are little ways all throughout the year they thank me – my husband surprises me with big and little gifts when I least expect it or my oldest daughter will say she’s so thankful she’s homeschooled and will share that gratitude with me. There’s never been a time when we’ve taken our children on a field trip or another place that our children haven’t thanked us. So this simple service project was a way for us to get a jump start in purchasing school supplies for our eight children, as we go through a lot of school supplies. We are very grateful for this opportunity and privileged we have the option to homeschool.

My children woke up to the bags of school supplies yesterday and cheered, “Mom got school supplies!” And were soon asking for new markers and crayons to color. ;)

I am still deliberating over who we could share a bag of school supplies with, as it just doesn’t feel right that we gave to us! Maybe I can call an elementary school and see if there’s a family in need of school supplies and give back that way.

Be sure to visit Bag It Forward on Pinterest, Elmer’s Facebook and Twitter. The Pinterest board has some very creative ideas!

“I am a member of the Collective Bias™ Social Fabric® Community. This content has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias™ and Elmer’s. #BagItForward #CBias #SocialFabric. All opinions are my own.”


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Drawing, Art and the Magic Whiteboard

My children love to draw. They create paper dolls, they draw pictures of families, animals and have lots of fun doing so. What’s that old saying about idle hands? Well drawing keeps my children mostly out of trouble because their hands are kept busy. They can draw for hours on end and be pretty quiet while doing so…until they start fighting over markers or crayons (grimace). Drawing has been a great activity to do inside during this hot spell we have been experiencing.

Last summer I invested in a number of wipe off activity books so my younger crew could practice writing their names, alphabet and numbers. I thought this would help save on the amount of paper we used, in addition to saving money. They worked really well, except now we go through more white board markers!

Speaking of whiteboard markers, drawing, art and the Magic Whiteboard have been lifesavers for me during times I need to get work done.

Magic Whiteboard is a roll of whiteboard paper that has 25 sheets per roll ($59.99 retail value). It is portable so setting up a whiteboard on the go never got any easier. The surface wipes off really well and is completely reusable. Ripping the sheet of whiteboard paper off straight and in one piece is challenging at times, especially now that my children broke the box the roll came in. :( Update: Let me amend this by saying I completely missed the perforated sheets! It works great even with my broken box. (wry smile)

It works great for keeping little boys busy too. What do you think, is it a keeper? I would have to agree!

Interested in the Magic Whiteboard for your family? Feel free to connect with Magic Whiteboard on their website, Twitter , Facebook or Pinterest. Be sure to check out their other products too while you are there!

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.


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Kohl’s Cares Campaign – A Review

Kohl’s is one of my favorite stores… not only because they offer a great variety of fashion but because of their low prices and great deals! But Kohl’s is awesome because they also give back though their Kohl’s Cares campaign.

Kohl’s Cares Campaign features merchandise for children and 100 percent of the net profit benefits children’s health and education initiatives nationwide.

Items available through the Kohl’s cares campaign for the Summer 2012 campaign feature Vibrant Guy Parker-Rees illustrated Books, Coordinating plush toys, and tote bag.

Kohl’s Cares Cause Merchandise for Kids Books include:

  • Down by the Cool of the Pool Children will love to sing and dance along as the story comes alive with animal sounds and celebration! 
  • Giraffes Can’t Dance This adorable story will teach children about the importance of individuality in a tale of a giraffe with two left feet. 
  • Dinosaurumpus! Read this fun story aloud to children and watch their excitement as they get a glimpse into the life of a dinosaur. Who knew dinosaurs could dance? This book and coordinating plush are available exclusively at Kohls.com only.

NEW ITEM: Down by the Cool of the Pool tote bag – Resourceful and cute, this multi-purpose tote bag is great for the pool, a sleepover or even a trip to the grocery and features a vibrant illustration from Down by the Cool of the Pool a must have for summer!

All items are ONLY $5.00 each

 

Kohl’s Cares Cause Merchandise for Grown-Ups

Kohl’s is treating adults to a tasty way to support children’s health and education with two cookbooks that are great for the entire family. Beat the summer heat and treat friends and family to a variety of homemade popsicles featured in POPS! Icy Treats for Everyone by Krystina Castella.  Adults can also learn to master the art of outdoor grilling with Good Housekeeping: Grilling cookbook. Each cookbook is available for just $5 – a real value!

In addition to the merchandise program, Kohl’s Cares features the Kohl’s Cares Scholarship Program, which last year recognized more than 2,100 young volunteers with a total of $410,000 in scholarships and prizes; the Associates in Action program, which encourages associate volunteerism and provided more than $10 million in grants last year to youth-focused nonprofit organizations and fundraising gift cards for schools and youth-serving organizations. For more information, visit www.Kohls.com/Cares.

OUR REVIEW:

We were very excited to have the opportunity to review items from the Summer Kohl’s Cares Campaign. We received a plush monkey and two books (Giraffes Can’t Dance and Down by the Cool of the Pool). The monkey plush is so cute…my youngest (3 years old) totes it around everywhere and has deemed it her best friend. The books are also a favorite in our household. The stories are very cute and the illustrations are wonderful. The illustrations make the stories pop to life…my children absolutely love hearing the stories again and again.

I would not hesitate to purchase more from this series…not only because the kids love the books and plush but because all of the profit goes to charity. I actually went to Kohl’s today and stopped by the Kohl’s care campaign Kiosk to grab a tote bag…and to my disappointment the entire Kiosk was empty. So…this must be the hot campaign this summer. I hope my local Kohl’s restocks so that I can get some more goodies real soon! Stop by your local Kohl’s and check out what they have to offer!

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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Melissa & Doug Giveaway on Facebook!

I’m a HUGE Melissa & Doug fan and wanted to share about this great giveaway!  Every week they pick a new winner for a great Melissa & Doug Camp Sunny Patch Product – virtual camp for you and your kids! I missed the first 2 weeks, eek! Forgive me! The sprinkler above was for the week ending the 19th. According to their terms page here’s the weekly line up:

6/21 to 6/26 – Spark Shark Floating Target Game

6/17 to 7/3 – Happy Giddy Bug Net

7/5 to 7/10 – Speck Seahorse Sand Ice Cream Set

7/12 to 7/17 – Winner’s Choice Role Play Costume

7/19 to 7/24 – The Box Girls Camp Bunk Box of Questions

7/26 to 7/31 – Backyard Explorer Role Play Costume

8/2 to 8/7 – Spark Shark Fish Hunt Pool Toy

8/9 to 8/14 – Activity Cones – Set of 8

8/16 to 8/21 –  Trunki Prize Pack (includes 1 Trunki Suitcase, 1 Trunki Saddlebag, 1 Trunki Tote Bag, 3 packs of Trunki Stickers)

8/23 to 8/28 – USA Map Floor Puzzle

Let me know which Melissa & Doug Giveaway your kids would love!


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Pottery Barn Summer Reading Challenge

*Pictures are from the Pottery Barn Website*

Select a book, track your child’s progress with the book(s), get a reward!  Sounds good to me.

With summer nearing, it’s hard to keep your child still reading.  Here’s an incentive and a reading challenge!  Download the book list, progress chart, a certificate from Pottery Barn’s Website ( http://www.potterybarnkids.com/design-studio/articles/summer-reading-challenge.html ).  Once your reading is done and tracked, you then print a certificate for your child and visit your local Pottery Barn and your child will receive a book!  You can also enter to win a backpack with books!

Happy Reading!


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Learning a New Language


Ever since I was a little girl taking fourth grade French, I have been interested in languages. I took French from 4th-12th grade and even tried to do a correspondence course on top of my college work – I went to an itty bitty school that did not offer languages. After all that, I am still not fluent in French. I was a good student, my school’s program just was not set up to allow for students to become fluent speakers of the language. :-( That’s the sad part. I was always told that total immersion was the best way to learn a new language. In that line of thought our tenth grade class went on a Quebec trip to “learn” French. Imagine my disappointment (and others) while trying to speak the language to the locals they spoke back in English! That’s right they could tell we were not French speaking and probably didn’t want us butchering their lovely language. It defeated the purpose of our whole trip though. I did have a friend who went on what was called a French Immersion trip, which was longer than the week we took to go to Quebec, as I believe it was a 6-week long course. She was not suppose to speak English at all during that whole time so she learned a lot more French that way.

The plus side to all of that is that I can pick out words in print or understand some of what is being said when people are speaking French, if they are not speaking too rapidly. And I do remember enough that I can toss out a phrase or question and have my family look at me blankly because they have no idea what I just said. My husband being the goof ball that he is will usually come back with, “Donde es la bano?” (“Where is the bathroom?”) in Spanish because that’s about the only thing he knows. ;)

Now that I have children, I really try to encourage their interests. My oldest daughter has long been interested in learning Spanish. We have tried kids vocabulary books, a small little Spanish program on cassette and asking our Spanish speaking neighbors how to say certain words. But nothing has been consistent or easy, as those of you who have studied another language know. It takes a lot of discipline and a real interest to learn a new language. So much of what we have done has been things that were done when my daughter was younger, as I have never wanted to spend a lot of money on Rosetta Stone type programs in case they sat and collected dust. “O me of little faith” I know, but I’ve been there and had that happen.

More recently though when my daughters expressed an interest in another Spanish learning resource, Lightning Fast Spanish, I was willing to give it a try. As the title denotes, it sets children and adults up for success to learn every day words in it’s easy to follow activities. My daughters have only looked at it, as have I. We have not been consistently trying to work at memorizing any words or phrases.

Each lesson is broken down into:
Concept
Preparation
Conversation
Vocabulary

The lessons cover topics like: different pieces of clothing, colors names of places or places to go timing of events, getting dressed, brushing hair, packing lunch, comparison words, toys, food, items you see walking around the block, games sports, playground equipment, body parts, school activities, dinner time vocabulary, household items etc. are covered in these 15-lesson book. Plus there is 20 pages of fun activities and games for additional practice – bingo, scavenger hunts, the Hokey Pokey (remember doing that song in Music class? I do!) twister and more.

What is great about this 63-page book is that each of the activities and lessons are stand alone so you can start anywhere. Other advantages is that the book is short, as are the lessons and it’s every easy to understand. Best of all it is very budget friendly – $14.95 for a paperback version or $9.99 for the ebook. It may be purchased on Amazon.

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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Barnes & Noble Kids Club

I just signed my daughter up for the Barnes & Noble Kids Club!  It’s FREE! Here’s all the great information she will receive!

“30% off list price on any one kids’ book or toy for your children”

“$5 reward for every $100 you spend on kids’ stuff”

“Free cupcake from our café for all your children’s birthdays”

“Free digital book created by your child on Tikatok.com”

“Monthly email newsletter featuring even more savings”

“25% off every day on books created by your child on Tikatok.com”

Make sure you read the fine print, they say there are exclusions!  

It’s easy to sign up and FREE!  Head over to Barnes & Noble Kids’ Club!


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Stargazing #Brandcation #GulfCoast

I have to finish telling you all about the rest of my Brandcation trip now that my house is quiet. My last post was about our trip to Adventures Unlimited, which we did during the day on Saturday, May 5. Two weeks ago today actually. Then after a dinner of subs we went stargazing. I don’t know what I expected but it was better than I anticipated and I thoroughly missed having my family with me because they would have loved it. Especially my husband and my second oldest daughter as she studies astronomy for fun and often coaxes us outside to see what she sees, but I don’t always see it that’s the problem!

Dewey and his friends had their telescopes and binoculars all set up in stations for those of us attending, which not only included our group but a few others as well. We were there to see what is known as the Super Moon. At the first station I went to Dewey actually had an accessory that enabled us to attach our iPhones to the telescope and take pictures and video It was so neat. I was able to text video and photos to my husband so they could share in the experience in real time, but of course from home. Dewey even put a screen on the telescope so he could make the moon look red, but I cannot remember why.

I believe the next station was of Venus and the clouds were covering it at the time so while I tried to see it, it was too late. :-( Then at the next one I was able to use these huge binoculars to look at the moon, I believe. See already starting to forget little details like that! Getting to look at Saturn was very cool and I so wished I could have got a picture of that but Amy from Grinning Cheek to Cheek did and offered to share.

The last telescope was huge and it was powered by the man’s truck battery, which I didn’t know they could do but it doesn’t surprise me as much as it struck me funny in an ironic sense that it could be done.

The beach was beautiful that night with a gentle breeze and full moon. I wished my husband was there for a romantic walk on the beach, but alas I enjoyed seeing the Gulf side of Portofino Island with Sheri from Kidsumers, Johanna from Mama Chocolate, Lisa from Between the Kids, Amy and a few others that I am probably forgetting were also on the boardwalk with us. I actually did go down to the water very briefly as it is said sharks feed at night and because of so many stories of sharks being close to shore in Florida and I did not want to be a shark snack. Therefore, I quickly felt the water because I wanted to see how cold it was at that time of night – it was warm! Much different than what I am use to coming from living on the Atlantic side for more than half my life, that’s for sure!

Many thanks goes out to Dewey and Escambia Amateur Astronomers Association for sharing their knowledge and time with us! It was amazing. It has motivated me to find local astronomers here to get help learning how to use a telescope that was given to us – thanks to one of Dewey’s friends for suggesting I do that! Oh and by the way Dewey and his friends do this on their own time and for FREE! How awesome is that?


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Organic Valley Farm Friends

This was the first time I visited Organic Valley’s Website!  Shame on me, right!?

We are all trying to keep our families happy and healthy, well Organic Valley will help.  They have a fantastic website and even two apps for Apple devices (Organic Valley and Organic Moo Can), they are FREE and you can download them from Organic Valley’s Site!  **Sorry, they don’t have it for Android at this time**

On this site you can Find your Farmer, Organic Valley Products, Recipes, Reason to Choose Organic Products, and more.  Organic Valley’s website is full of wonderful information.

Head to the Tab “Community” – on the right you can a subscribe section.  Enter your email and zip code.  It will then take you to where you can sign up for newsletters and the “Farm Friends Welcome kit” – “The Kit contains Rootstock Magazine, a Kid’s Activity Booklet, a Go Organic! bumper sticker, and a booklet of useful Organic Valley coupons.”  Sound good to me!

Head to Organic Valley and start your next organic journey!


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