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First Milking Experience – Wordless Wednesday

Posted by html404 on October 29, 2014
in Animals, Family Stuff, Farm Stuff, Homeschooling, Humor, Kids Stuff, Things to Do in Chicago, Uncategorized, Wordless Wednesday

I always said B’s first milking experience was when we visited a working farm in Schaumburg, IL called, Volkening Heritage Farm at Spring Valley…but then I came across this photo not too long ago. It is funny because it kind of predicted the future. What was a fun little homeschool activity turned into what real life would be like 12-13 years down the road. B milking, B has the bonnet on, with O helping her. O is standing at the chair by B’s side.

By the way the Volkening Heritage Farm is an awesome place to visit as a family. For a few years we went there after an early 8:30am morning church service and visited the farm. Some Sundays we just walked, other Sundays we participated in farm events. One of which was B’s first time milking a real, live cow. She went to its tail first! She was only four at the time and had never been around a cow. It still makes us chuckle.

Gotta love memories, eh? What memory made you smile this week.

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Scripture Talk – Making Bible Memory Fun through Hand Motions – And Giveaway

Posted by html404 on September 26, 2014
in DVDs & CDs, Faith and Family Reviews Friday Giveaway, Family Stuff, Fun Stuff, Giveaways, Homeschooling, Kids Stuff, Parenting, Reviews, Uncategorized

We have been lax in our scripture memory of late. We usually just sit around the table or living room and quote it in a sing song voice. Sometimes we have been known to clap or march as well, especially when the children were younger. In our busy household, I am always interested in new ways to teach our children scripture. When the opportunity to review “Scripture Talk – Making Bible Memory Fun through Hand Motions” DVD came across my email. I said yes.

Scripture Talk – Making Bible Memory Fun through Hand Motions

The DVD uses fun, active hand motions, creative teaching, and visual aids to help children memorize 79 verses of Scripture (from 10 passages) and also know how to apply the Scripture to their lives. We have seen dozens of children of all ages (2 years to 18 years) use this method, and get excited about memorizing large amounts of Scripture in a short amount of time!

Scripture Talk Review

Our children really like watching Scripture Talk. After a few days they were coming to me quoting scripture, or portions of scripture while doing the hand motions. Here is what each of our younger children had to say:

14 year old daughter, “I really like it. It was very encouraging. It helped me with memorizing. I like all the teachers.”

12 year old son, “It was encouraging.”

11 year old son, “I liked it. It was funny. I memorized a verse. My favorite teacher is Mr. Richard.”

8 year old daughter, “I love it. I memorized a verse. The bloopers were really funny. The teachers were awesome. My favorite teacher is Miss Kate.”

6 year old son, “I loved it. I really liked the bloopers.”

4 year old son, “I hate it.” He did grumble the most when it was time to watch it. But he also just said last night that he liked it. So he is being a flip-flop!

I liked that I could let them sit down and watch the DVD without having to worry about the content. It gave me some peace and quiet to get my work done, which is very helpful to this busy mama.

To learn more about the DVD, you can visit www.scripturetalkministries.com. On the “Media” page of their site, you can find a promo video to see sample footage of the DVD. Scripture Talk was also featured on the Duggar family’s blog – http://duggarsblog.blogspot.com/2014/06/scripture-talk-giveaway.html

Scripture Talk DVD Giveaway

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Best Colleges 2014 Book

Posted by html404 on April 14, 2014
in Books, Education, Homeschooling, Money & Finances, Parenting, School, Uncategorized

This is a sponsored post.

I am entering a new phase of parenting in that I have a child looking at colleges! Very weird for me! Bobbie is doing all the research for college requirements, SATs, applications, etc. U.S. News & World Report provides college rankings every year. I thought their new Best Colleges 2014 book would be helpful to my daughter as she narrows down her college choices.

About Best Colleges 2014

Here are four things Bobbie took from the book and the rest of the post is basically written by her, not me:

• It provides information on colleges all across the United States for students of all backgrounds and interests.

• Gives advice for students who don’t have straight A’s and encouragement and support for getting into college.

• Provides a checklist for preparing for college, which she thought was really helpful.

• It offers information on everything from the application process, getting financial aid, to finding the right school.

Best Colleges 2014 was very helpful and gives you a good idea of what you need to do to prepare for college, as well as offering encouragement and advice from high school students who have already gone through the college process.

The checklist provides a detailed step-by-step list of everything you need to do starting at 9th grade and ending with acceptance into college.

They didn’t limit the advice to students seeking to gain entrance to an Ivy League college; they had several sections dedicated to helping B- students get into a great college.

The sections on gaining financial aid were incredibly helpful and something we definitely need help with in knowing how to apply for the different financial help available to us.

If you would like to pick up a copy of Best Colleges 2014 , use the following code SCHOOL25 to receive a discount!

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Dabby Dill & The Hiccup Pickle iPad App Plus $50 iTunes Giveaway

Posted by html404 on January 30, 2014
in Apps, Downloads, Ebooks, Education, Fun Stuff, Giveaways, Homeschooling, Kids Stuff, Parenting, Reviews, School, Technology/Electronics, Uncategorized

This is a featured review.

Dabby Dill & The Hiccup Pickle iPad App Review

by Brande

Dabby Dill woke up in a Pickle, she had the hiccups! Follow Dabby on her journey to find the remedy for these hiccups. This book app is recommended for kids 4 to 8 years old. This iPad app requires a 6.1 operating system or later.

There are 4 modes in the book app.

Story Mode – You have a narrator reading to you and you touch the arrow for the next page.

Read Along – You narrator will read to you again. However this time each word is underlined as the narrator reads, helping your child as they read & follow along.

Self-Read – Your child will read by themselves. Allowing your child the freedom to read at their own pace.

Play Game – Great memory game! Follow the hiccup pattern with Dabby and her 3 friends. It’s very similar to the game Simon.

I found this book app very educational. My favorite is the read along. With the words underlined it really helps my daughter learn her words and vocabulary. I love each mode, this book app can grow with your child.

Click here to find Dabby Dill & The Pickle Hiccup in the iTunes store!

Dabby Dill & The Hiccup Pickle App Giveaway Plus $50 Giveaway

by Theresa

Five of you have the opportunity to win an iTunes’s code to download Dabby Dill & The Hiccup Pickle iPad app for free, plus each of you will also receive a $10 iTunes e-gift card with the app code! Enter to win below!

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Motivation Monday is Back!

Posted by html404 on January 6, 2014
in Cleaning, Family Stuff, Farm Stuff, Homeschooling, Monday Motivation, Organization, Uncategorized

It has been a long time since I did a Motivation Monday post. Let’s see when was the last time? Wow, back in August! The purpose of Motivation Mondays was originally explained here, which was to help me get motivated and get more done. Since that time I have become more busy but still need motivation to stay on track towards my goals.

I have a lot to do now that the new year is here. It’s easy to get overwhelmed if I think too much about it. I have to take one thing at a time and do things one day at a time.

Here’s what I *think* I am looking at for this week and possibly the rest of the month with slight variations:

– Teaching my five year old to read. Hubby is home so he’s helping.
– Getting the children back on track for their school work. It’s always tough after a break. Gotta shake off the lazies.
– Cleaning
– Organizing and reorganizing my office, again! Getting ready for tax time….again.
– We need to make some farm decisions – how many chicks to buy, will we buy pullets from the hatchery in March, what seeds do we need, how many plug trays will we plant or buy to get our veggies started, will we take on an intern and worker shares this year? Are we raising turkeys, if so, how many? Will we add any other farm ventures? Will we do any farmers markets? How will we meet our goals?
– Apply to more VA jobs. My goal is to take on one client for 10 hours per week or two clients for 5 hours each per week. This will help us in replacing my husband’s income, just in case he cannot find a job.

What about you? Do you have a list of to-dos or goals for the week?

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GS Preschool Games for Android

Posted by html404 on January 3, 2014
in Apps, Downloads, Education, Entertainment, Family Stuff, Free Stuff, Fun Stuff, Homeschooling, Kids Stuff, Reviews, School, Technology/Electronics, Uncategorized

Most of you who are regular readers know nearly all the apps on my cell phone are educational. Our children love to go on my phone to play with the apps. They also love it when I change the apps by downloading new ones. GS Preschool Games for Android has a cool little app our children have been enjoying the past couple of days.

GS Preschool Games has ten different activities children can enjoy and learn from:

- Jigsaw puzzles
– Match the Objects
– Solve the Maze
– Memory
– Burst the Balloons, which teaches letters, numbers and colors
– Count the Objects
– Compare the Objects
– Find Odd Items
– Find the Correct Count
– Scratch the Pad to Paint – while doing this activity our three year old son passed me the phone and said, “Scratch Mommy”….it took me a minute to figure out what he meant!

The characters are whimsical and fun. Not to mention attractive to a little one’s eye, as the colors are bright.

GS Preschool Games app is easy to use. Simply choose your activity with a click and then swipe and click to play. The skip button allows children to skip and choose a game based on his or her interest at that moment.

One thing I noticed while doing the balloon activity is when you earn your sticker for clicking the correct balloon, the pop up has this pause and there is barely enough time to catch the rest of the balloons as they float up and off the screen.

Even our five year old and seven year old had fun with this app. The app is recommended for ages 3-6. My daughter who is seven said it was fun and it has rewards. They love earning something for their effort. It’s very motivating for them as they learn and play. However, we could not figure out if the stickers led to more activities or bonus features or if they were just a reward pop up with an encouraging word. We are inclined to think it’s the latter. After a few activities within a game they do get to choose their own animal sticker reward.

Each game contains approximately 16+ individual exercises within that category, providing ample fun and entertainment for children at home or on the go. One thing to be aware of is a parent does have to be involved and read the instructions to a child who does not yet know how to read.

This app is available for yours and your child’s educational pleasure for Android here:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.greysprings.games

and is also available for iOS as well:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/gs-preschool-games/id726944785?mt=8

Enjoy!

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Chicago Field Museum: 1893 World’s Fair Exhibit

Posted by html404 on November 21, 2013
in Education, Family Stuff, Fun Stuff, Homeschooling, School, Things to Do in Chicago, Travel, Uncategorized

My husband is a history buff and he has passed on his love of history to our children. We love visiting museums. Last weekend we went to the Chicago Field Museum to visit the 1893 World’s Fair Exhibit, which will be here in Chicago until early next fall. We took advantage of one their free admissions day knowing we’d have to purchase a Discovery Pass for the Fair exhibit.

Those of you who live in the Chicago area you may be interested in knowing upcoming free admissions days at The Field Museum:

December 2
December 5
December 9
December 10
December 11

For all the storms Illinois experienced last weekend, it did not deter people from venturing out in the cold and rain to visit The Field Museum.

What is the 1893 World’s Fair Exhibit about?

The Field Museum was born out of the 1893 World’s Fair and belongs to the people and the history of Chicago. The World’s Fair exhibit are all original collections that were all displayed at the Fair and is the single largest collection of items displayed at the Fair. The truth is, The Field Museum is the legacy of the Fair; scientists conduct ground-breaking research on the ever-growing collections.

The Field Museum Tours App

The Field Museum Tours App is available to help visitors with their tour. We had downloaded the app before we got to the museum so all we had to do was connect to “FieldMuseumWiFi” upon arriving. You can download the Field Museum Tours App too. The Wonders of the 1893 World’s Fair takes visitors back to that time in history, to the World’s Columbian Exposition – one of the greatest events in the history of Chicago. The exhibit shows visitors what visitors back then saw at the Fair 120 years ago.

The app is informative as you can see from the following screen shots.

What did we see?

We saw more than 200 artifacts and specimens from the the Fair’s ground.

We find it interesting to learn about different aspects and cultures in history. It’s amazing what you can learn! Below is a photo of a small stuffed female lion, but there was also a stuffed male lion as well. One of our sons loves lions so he was interested in this display. He was also interested in the tigers and seeing inside the mummy. There were over 20 mummies! All the children thought the pyramid was really cool to go inside!

The children thought the computer from the World Fair looked like the computer from the show S.H.I.E.L.D Agents. They thought that was really cool too.

Another cool thing they liked was the DNA lab.

Below you can see in the display cases a trench drum/log drum and behind them on hanging from the ceiling was an octopus! (Pictured in a photo below in the photo with our children)

There was an Inuit display from a group of Inuits who came to the Fair from Labrador (Canada).

There was an Inca Active Instruments display that had a simulator allowing us to play the instruments. We found that pretty interesting.

Our daughter B was quite interested in the oils and herbs displayed in their original bottles. All from different countries around the world. Her words, “It was amazing! To see Frankincense and Myrrh from all around the world.” None of any of these items have been displayed since the 1893 World’s Fair.