Wordless Wednesday 49

SimplyFun {Review}

If you ever have read my blog before you know that my families enjoys playing and learning through games. I share a lot about that as I blog even if it is just in some of my picture posts.

Today I am going to introduce you to SimplyFun an educational game company! They sent my family a game called Expanders to review for several weeks. Let me tell you a little about it!

SimplyFun has over 100 award winning board games. They also have games to engage and connect with kids on the Autism and Special Needs spectrum. 

The cost of the board game is $34.

The game Expanders is a game for up to 4 players and takes about 20 minutes each game. It is for ages 7 and up and covers math skills, reverse addition, spatial reasoning and critical thinking skills.

The objective of the game is to find numbers and connect them with your color tokens to find a sum. The first player to use all their tokens wins.

Okay, so in the beginning this game was just confusing for me because it was new and I do not do well with new. I asked hubby to help get us started and play the first few games with us. After that it was great!

We pieced the circuit boards together. There are actually many different ways to play the board. With 2 players you set the board up differently than with 4 players and there is also a single player game too and also you can use the other side of the circuit board fillers that have higher numbers to make it more of a challenge.

Each player gets 32 tokens of a different color. My kids loved picking their own favorite colors, Zachary said it needed a green!

Once you get the board and tokens handed out you can start to play.

The first few turns you have specific steps to take to get the game rolling. Once your to the 4th turn you just play!

I have to say I thought this game would be easy, but it is actually very hard! You really do use your critical thinking skills throughout the entire game.

We had a lot of fun and I did not always win!

We used the game for addition and subtraction sums.

The instructions suggest the best out of 3 and we actually did that a lot, almost every single time we played.

Overall thoughts

We loved the game.

We liked all the variations of the game and how it could be played because not every single time everyone could sit down and the game board is able to shift to the number of players you have.

It was a challenge each and every new game.

The only negative I have to say is that the price is high. 

Our crew members reviewed 2 board games from SimplyFun: Expanders & Shape Whiz go on over to our Schoolhouse Review Crew and read all about them!

SimplyFun also has a homeschool discount program that I am checking into! You should too!

Find SimplyFun all over the web:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/simplyfun
Twitter: https://twitter.com/simplyfun
Instagram: https://instagram.com/simplyfun/
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/simplyfun/

Wordless Wednesday 48 { Happy Birthday }

Menu Monday 7/20

 

Here is what our household is eating this week:


Monday: Stuffed Pepper Casserole

Tuesday: Chicken Enchilada Pie

Wednesday: Sausage Hashbrown Bake with fried eggs & a birthday cake!!

Thursday: Stuffed Squash

Friday: Pizza for a sleepover & birthday party

Saturday: Salmon, grilled squash and corn on the cob

Sunday: Eat out day

Getting Kids To Eat Fruit

My children have always been veggie eaters. I think a lot of that is simply because of the condition that Kyle has, we have always kept vegetables readily available for snacks and meals. We have also always grown a very large garden and at harvest time we have canned it so that it lasts during the off season. 


With all that said it is actually very hard for me to get fruit in my kiddos.

They could eat their weight in broccoli but you just about have to make them eat an apple. Odd from what I hear because most parents have the opposite problem but with any problem there has to come a solution.

Over the years I have learned how to incorporate fruits into things they love to give them servings of good healthy fruit in their diet.

Smoothies

My children will drink a smoothie everyday. We love putting blueberries, strawberries, pineapple and peaches with some kale sometimes. Sometimes we may just have strawberries and bananas too!

Every one of my children will come running when I say "Who wants a smoothie?"

Also to aid in them drinking them regularly we put some of their favorite combinations into snack size bags and then placed that in a freezer bag for individual servings. 

Dessert Panini's have become a favorite for my kids, especially Kyle my oldest. This is yet another very simple, easy way to get fruit in them.

I will add some peanut butter, butter, banana's and strawberries and grill it on my George Foreman grill or just in a pan over low heat for Kyle. He loves it.

Alexis loves for me to add Nutella and strawberries.

Last but totally not least, Fruit Pizza! 

I can not tell you how good this stuff is!

Just take sugar cookie dough and spread it out on a pizza pan cook for just about 8 minutes or so then let it cool completely. 

Mix a package of cream cheese with 1/2 cup sugar and a little lemon juice and blend. Once the cookie dough is cool then you can add it to the top and add your fruit choices.

This is a family favorite in the summer time at our home.

Hopefully this gave you some ideas on how to get those kiddo's to eat some fruit!

Wordless Wednesday Week 47

Linking up with Life at Rossmont

10th Grade Curriculum Choices

Oh yes, I said 10th grade! 

Oh, how the time flies, I can't believe for the life of me that we just completed our first year of high school homeschooling. Never in a million years did I ever give this a thought.

Last year it actually snuck up on me - the high school part! I knew it was coming but I just didn't prepare for it well at all so this year I learned a lot from reading articles and laws on high school. 

We are very lucky to live in a state that honestly doesn't require much at all. 

Here are our choices for our 10th grade year:

Math is the same publisher we have used for years. We started with Math U See in our 3rd grade math and have continued with it ever since. This year my son will be working his way through Algebra 1.

Mystery of History II is our history/geography. We actually use this with all our children, however Kyle will have additional research and projects to complete each lesson.

We wanted to incorporate more logic into his high school years so we are starting with James Madison Critical Thinking Course from The Critical Thinking Company. I thought long and hard about this and after downloading some samples and working through them with him and my husband we decided this would be a good fit. It looks fun and engaging and he loves mysteries.

Last but not least for our core subjects IEW, the student writing intensive course. We actually started this 2 years ago for a review but he wasn't quite ready for it so I stashed it away knowing we would want to use it again. Now that day has come and he is actually looking forward to it because he loves Andrew Pudewa's sense of humor.

Bible is something I hope each of my children will want to learn but we have mostly always done stories, devotionals or studies of people or verses through the Bible. This year Kyle wanted to study world religions and denominations. There are several resources we are using for this but only have the book from Usborne right now.

Science this year is going to be only hands on. This isn't all of his work load for science but the focus this year is on robotics and electronics mostly. We will start with the basic circuits kit and once he completes that we will move to the other projects. He is most excited about the toasters! Yes, you see toasters back there. His mission for those are to completely take them apart and get them back together so they will work again. He has two just in case he needs a second chance.

He has more small things he is completing but this is our core curriculum for our upcoming 2015/2016 school year.

Happy Schooling.

Weekly Wrap Up 46

I love the summer! We are so relaxed and don't really have to wake up at any certain time, we can do errands without it messing up the day even run to the Dr for an unexpected issue without any drama! Summer is such a relaxing time for me but I have to say my favorite is Fall and I am patiently awaiting it.

In Our Life This Week:

Zachary has really been into Lego's lately! Do you know how this feels for me? WEIRD! He is 10 and has never ever wanted to play with them. I have bought them and turned around and gave them away many times but for the last 2 weeks he has bought some with his own money and loved playing with them! 

Alexis has had an ear ache and I had to take her to the Dr for it. Tried doing some home remedies but when it comes to my babies pain I will just go to the Dr. She has antibiotics for the first time in years and some ear drops. 

Kyle got some wonderfully exciting news this week, he drives to finish his drivers ed next week! This is the part he has been not so patiently awaiting! He is so so very happy and I think now since he has a date he is scared! Zachary and Lexi are teasing him about wrecking the driver's ed car. Pray for him next week please.

Kyle also finished Biology 101!! This only leaves him having one lesson of math left until August.

Helpful advice or tips:

I wrote this article this week about something that was on my heart, I hope that you take a moment to read it and enjoy it:

The Homeschool Battle

My favorite thing this week...

Was Zachary being so sweet and loving. Monday morning he came to my bed while the house was still quite and not stirring and cuddled up with me and we laughed and enjoyed our sweet time together.

Things I'm working on...

This week I have been working on cleaning and organizing my bedroom. We have let it get piled up with clothing that needed sorted for seasons and just papers over taking the dresser so yesterday hubby came home and said "Wow you have really been cleaning today." I was proud that he could tell the difference because it was a lot of work. It looks like my bedroom once again and a nice, sweet place for my honey and I to relax together.

I've also been working on getting all next years school curriculum together. I have listed a lot of things that have been cleaned out that we will not be using next year.

I worked on several blog posts too! That was a huge undertaking.

Hubby has been working so very hard on finishing the boys rooms downstairs. The sheet-rock has been much cleaner than I expected. The wood for the framing was actually messier. Saturday my dad is coming to help and the plan is to have both rooms completely finished and both closets too! 

I'm cooking...

This week I cooked on the grill several times because the weather was just so hot and plus I love the taste of anything grilled.

Sunday is my momma's birthday and I have cooked several special things for her.

We had some yummy fresh blueberries given to us from some church members and we are finally getting some blackberries off our vines so we had lots of smoothies this week! We added some strawberries that we had frozen and the kids enjoyed them greatly.

I hope you have a wonderful week!

Linking up with Kris over @ Weird, UnSocialized Homeschoolers

The Homeschool Battle

Surely I can't be the only one who seems to have these situations and moods come up that hurt my homeschooling soul.

Some, well most days we are good with our homeschooling but what about the days when it is a constant fight to get through?

What do you do?

For me I have learned over the years, 10 to be exact, that there is a culprit in my home that hasn't been took care of.

The majority of the time it is simply a horrible attitude that needs fixed, whether it is quite time with the Lord or quite time to reset the mind sometimes we just have to take a few minutes for ourselves and reset for the day.

Some days I find that we are just on different brain waves and something so very small can set this huge ripple off and all at once the tidal wave comes back for us all.

It is very important to keep a well established routine in my home because I have learned my children work better under these conditions. I will not lie because I am a very well routine person and it helps me too! 

Homeschooling doesn't have to be a battle everyday. Seek the Lord for his guidance on what needs changed in your family.

Satan wants nothing more than for me to give up and allow the world to suck my children and my family into the world's way of things.

I've never been one for popularity and acceptance so the world has never had a large appeal to me this way but sometimes my selfishness of alone time and quite time gets the best of me.

When I started homeschooling high school this year I was very tempted to place my oldest in public school because I was scared to death, but then I thought why would I not stand firm in his toughest years with him? It was a spiritual battle that I had to under go. I have seen so many homeschool families do just what I was thinking of doing and not get to see the fruit of all that hard labor they have poured in. I will fight for the heart and soul of my children and you should too!

I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. (2 Timothy 4:7)

Wordless Wednesday Week 46