At times traveling, being in a new town, moving a lot, and homeschool can be really hectic! For 2014 I decided I wanted to get my life organized!! While researching ways to organize I ran across Erin Condren Life Planners! I was immediately attracted to the bright colors and the ability to personalize the planners!

I did some research and found that Erin Condren Life Planners had rave reviews! So, I took the plunge, personalized one and ordered it! I am so glad I did!! This thing is functional, fun and beautiful!

These are a few of my favorite things about Erin Condren Life Planners:

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What is LOVE WITH FOOD? 

Love With Food is a monthly subscription box JAM PACKED with all-natural, organic foods for you to try! The curated box is delivered right to your door! Subscription memberships start as low as $10/month, and make a great gift too.

Why LOVE WITH FOOD? 

Not only do YOU get an awesome assortment of all-natural, organic foods to try, but for every box you get a meal is donated to food banks such as the Feeding America Network or Share Our Strength – No Kid Hungry.

What do I do after I receive my LOVE WITH FOOD box? 

Review the snacks you try each month and earn points. Buy more of what your love from our shop or redeem them with your points.If there are snacks you love you can order them online right from the Love With Food website… sometimes with a coupon if you join their mailing list!

The Unboxing: 

^ See? Jam PACKED!! 

^^ The Love With Food Box comes with a card that tells you all about each item in the box and where you can find them to purchase later!

Just for my readers Love With Food is offering a coupon code:

 Use FESTIVE2013 to get $5 off a Love With Food subscription (it is valid till 12/1)! Also for every 6- and 12- month subscriptions purchased from now till 12/1, Love With Food will be adding on a bonus 2-year subscription to Rachel Ray magazine! This promotion is also valid if current subscribers switch their plan to 6 or 12 month plans.

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MusIQ lessons take about an hour and teaches  variety of music theory and history. There is a game to reinforce the lesson and printable activity sheets to go along with the lesson they just learned!

MusIQ comes with everything you need for a well rounded music curriculum. For this particular review we reviewed Children’s Music Journey Volume 1.  Volume one has 25 lessons which is plenty for the year!  The lessons begin with a fun, interactive, well-known composer who teaches the lesson. My kids were glued to the screen!

There is no way that I could teach them anywhere close to what they are learning with Adventus Children’s Music Journey Volume 1! I can’t wait to see how much more they learn as they progress.

Adventus MusIQ is very affordable.  You can buy the program wholly or you can download the software and pay a subscription fee of $10.95 per month.  When we were doing traditional music lessons they were $90.00 a month! This is a great deal!!

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Release Week Celebration!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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This month I have had the pleasure of reviewing Lone Star Learning‘s Target The Question for 1st grade! Target The Question is daily math program that only takes about 10 to 15 minutes. The purpose of Target The Question is to help children learn how to focus on the question and pick out extra information that is within a word problem. Each day there is a new word problem. The program also has printable worksheets, answer keys, and reference pages available for the parent to print out.

The program itself is simple and easy to use! It consist of minimal buttons and navigates easily! There is one button for the Question of The Week and subsequent buttons for the daily word problem.  There is also a note pad that can be used by the child to help work out the problem.

This program is great if you have a child like mine who is easily distracted by extra information in a math word problem! It really helped him to pick out the information he needed and to discard the information that was not important. This is something he has just started before the review period and now he is a pro! It really helped with his problem solving skills.

The great thing about this program is it takes very little time to incorporate into your home school… or to use after school to boost your child’s ability to Target the Question! The program only requires about 10 to 15 minutes a day! That is fantastic! It is long enough to work your child’s brain and short enough to keep their attention.

This program is compatible with Windows and Mac computers. The Lone Star Learning‘s Target The Question cost starts at 59.99 for a one year subscription depending on the program you chose!

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I recently had the opportunity to review  Handwriting Without Tears Kindergarten Workbook and Teachers Guide. We have had more progress in the last month of using it in our home than we have had the entire year of printing out worksheets! Grant, who is 4 years old, is actually excite to work on his handwriting daily. Handwriting Without Tears teaches the children proper handwriting skills in creative, multi-sensory ways that really stick in their little minds! I overheard Grant in his room writing on a piece or paper. He was writing the letter “F”. He was repeating, out loud, to himself “big line, frog jump, little line, frog jump, little line”. That is when I knew that what he was learning from Handwriting Without Tears was working! We used it daily for a month and the difference in Grant’s handwriting was amazing!

Handwriting Without Tears is effective because of the way it is taught. The lessons are ACTIVE! There is singing, movement, talk and experiences to go along with the handwriting practice. Handwriting Without Tears is child friendly because it uses simple terms that small children can understand like “big line, frog jump and small curve instead of left, right and clockwise”. The program is able to be used by left-handers and right-handers alike. The pictures printed on the pages are more than just illustrations. They are simple black and white illustrations that also promote proper left to right directionality. As a bonus the kids can color the pictures at the end of the lesson which my son loved to do as a reward!

Lessons are easy to follow and inventive. Each lesson in the Kindergarten Teachers Guide contains:

• Information about how to teach the lesson.
• A main activity with step-by-step instruction.
• Additional instructional resources, tips and activities online.
• Support for modifying or reinforcing the activity.
• How to check and assess if the activity is being utilized correctly.
• Ways to extend learning by adding complexity and variety.

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Handwriting Without Tears not only makes the program easy to follow and FUN… they also put a lot of thought and effort into TEACHER SUPPORT. They offer digital teaching tools to help teach letter formation. Also Handwriting Without Tears  makes it simple to make and print worksheets from their A+ Worksheet maker for extra reinforcement. You have access to video lessons which is an online library full of videos featuring teachers and occupational therapist using the materials with students as well as seminars and an E-Newsletter full of helpful tips, resources, activity ideas and more from experts!

Because Handwriting Without Tears is a multi-sensory program here is a list of a few materials that can help your child learn easier while having fun:

Wood pieces set for building letters.

Music and Movement CDs which makes learning letter fun!

Slate chalk board and/or Wet, Dry, Try App that adds multi-sensory learning to handwriting with their wet, dry, try approach.

Flip crayons which promote proper finger grip and fine motor skills.

Pencils for little hands that are smaller and easier for children to use a proper grip!

Handwriting Without Tears Kindergarten workbook retails for $8.25

Handwriting Without Tears Teachers Guide retails for $9.25

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To me this is such a small price to pay for progress you can clearly see! We look forward to continuing Handwriting Without Tears and I plan to purchase it for my 1st grader as well!

I received a free copy of this product through the Schoolhouse Review Crew in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way. All opinions I have expressed are my own or those of my family. I am disclosing this in accordance with the FTC Regulations.

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Have you heard of Bountiful Baskets?

Bountiful Baskets Food Co-op (BBFC) “offers a conventional produce basket every other week (or weekly) which is generally ½ fruit and ½ veggies. The monetary contribution is $15.00 and is generally worth $50.00 retail. Organic baskets require a contribution of $25. To participate visit http://www.BountifulBaskets.org and check the schedule to see when your state is available to make your monetary contribution using a debit or credit card. Then, pick up your basket on Saturday morning at the time and place you chose when you contributed!” The process is very simple and so rewarding!

I get excited to go pick up my basket or baskets on Saturday mornings… it’s a surprise every week since you never know what is in the baskets! This week I decided to purchase one conventional basket and one organic basket to see if I could get a variety of produce and to be able to price compare them. I am happy with both of them and the boys can’t wait to dig in!!

This week I will be comparing my contribution to Bountiful Baskets to the retail cost of produce at the grocery store and will report back with my findings!

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SchoolhouseTeachers.com Review

Have you ever just wished that you had a little extra help teaching your children?

I did!

Sometimes as a homeschooler I would run out of creative ideas or I would lack the expertise to teach a certain point. Well, not anymore! I found SchoolHouseTeachers.com by The Old Schoolhouse Magazine! Schoolhouseteachers.com is like having 25 or more professional experts at your fingertips!

Schoolhouseteachers.com offers daily, weekly and monthly lessons and activities! The site has expert teachers, 14 academic subject and growing with unit studies in the summer. If you homeschool your children this site offers just a little extra help!

The site is split into sections like Dailies, Library, Archives, Family, Elementary, Middle school, High school and much more! While reviewing the site the kids and I enjoyed the Dailies section! This section is jam packed with daily games that are simple and entertaining for the whole family, crafts, astronomy, spelling and Everyday Explorers. My favorite in this section (of course) is the monthly menu! The menu contains a recipe a day for a month! If you love to cook (like I do) this is a great way to add more recipes to your arsenal and to get a chance to cook with your kids!

The Library contains the craft shelf which is where I was able to put together a simple craft for the kids to enjoy. Often I lack creativity (give me math any day!!) so I just end up not doing arts and crafts. SchoolhouseTeachers.com craft shelf was easy to access and the kids loved the wintery snowman craft we did!

This site is packed to the gills with so much educational fun there is no way to write about it all! You’ll have to see for yourself! A membership to SchoolHouseTeachers.com is only $5.95 a month with the first month being only $1.00!!! It is a small price to pay for the LARGE amount you receive! With your membership you not only have access to lessons taught by experts, but you will also get free E-books. The longer you are a member the more books you have access to.

SchoolhouseTeachers.com also gives you access to five downloadable Homeschool planners with hundreds of pages. Just print them out, put them in a binder and get organized!! The site has a simple layout and is easy to use! I had no problems just jumping right in and learning with my kids. It REALLY is as easy as Point, Click, Teach.

Disclaimer:

I received a free copy of this product through the Schoolhouse Review Crew in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way. All opinions I have expressed are my own or those of my family. I am disclosing this in accordance with the FTC Regulations.

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This month The Old Schoolhouse Magazine has our family really excited! As most of you know… we travel. A lot! Currently we are in Tomah, Wisconsin which is home to a large Amish population. Naturally, being from Texas, we are curious about the Amish lifestyle and want to know more about them! This month The Old Schoolhouse Magazine November Issue has a few great articles about the Amish way of life.

One article that had me hooked was A Day in the Life of a Young Amish Mom. Liz Lane interviewed an Amish mom in her home. The interview was interesting and informative about the Amish lifestyle. I love that it made me feel like I was there with them in the peace and tranquility of their home. I will have to try Rachel’s breakfast muffins!

Another article in The Old Schoolhouse Magazine November Issue that I really enjoyed reading was Just Plain Interesting: Springboards for Research on the Amish. Often my boys, ages 4 and 5, will ask question about the Amish people that we encounter when we are in town. Most of the questions are about their choice of clothing or why they use a horse and cart. This article gave my family a chance to look deeper into the Amish community and learn a little more about their ways. Within this article are great suggestions of books for children to learn more about the Amish as well as thought provoking questions for the kids to answer after we have read the article together.

The Old Schoolhouse Magazine November issue is JAM PACKED with great articles, stories, history lessons, recipes and much, much more! It is easy to access and navigate. You can also access The Old Schoolhouse Magazine from several mobile devices. I have downloaded the app from the app store and now have access to it on the go! The best part is that the magazine is FREE and requires no further purchasing to read it.

We are looking forward to the December issue of The Old School House Magazine!

Feel Free to check out other reviews at the Schoolhouse Review Crew Blog!

Disclaimer:  I received a free copy of this product through the Schoolhouse Review Crew in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way. All opinions I have expressed are my own or those of my family. I am disclosing this in accordance with the FTC Regulations.

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