3. December 2008 by Shannon.

And one of my favourite stores EVER is having a Christmas Sale!! 

Blessings!!

Posted in W is for Websites | Print | No Comments »

19. November 2008 by Shannon.

Media Angels is one of my favourite websites… Felice Gerwitz is an incredibly knowledgeable teacher of Creation Science.  I am a creationist.  I say it boldly and proudly.  I believe that those scientists who have deluded themselves into believing that science has “proven” there is no God will be sorely disappointed come the day of reckoning.  I pray for them, that they will stop being “willfully ignorant” of the Truth.  I read somewhere online… (and I’m sorry to the author, if you are he, please let me know so I can credit you properly) The Truth is hardest to see when you believe you already have it.  I think it was in reference to apologetics, but I believe it applies to Science as well. 

Media Angels is a website is a valuble tool for the parent teaching their children the truths of Creation Science.  There are so many free resources, and articles of interest and now there are even MYSTERY NOVELS!  I know how much I would devour Nancy Drew when I was a “Tween”… and these teach important lessons that equip our kids with the knowledge they need to stand up for what they believe when faced with the members of the ”church” of Evolution (after all, if believing in God takes faith, wow… I can’t imagine the mountain of faith it must take for those evolutionary scientist faced daily with evidence for God’s wonderful creation). 

Christina, Felice’s daughter, decided while she was just a young teen, that she wanted to write a novel.  Felice was daunted, confessing that she didn’t know anything about writing novels… yet her motivated daughter assured her that they could “find out”… and out of that came the Truth Seekers Series of novels.  Action packed and full of examples of how real kids can glorify God while standing up for what they know to be His Truths, the Truth Seekers head off on an adventure not soon forgotten!

I was asked to review the first book in the series, “Missing Link: Found!”.  After having read it myself, and realising that although I found it entertaining on a young level, I asked my 14 year old son to read it.   These were his comments:

 ”The Missing Link book was exciting but I found it to be somewhat unrealistic because there were lots of scenes that didn’t make a lot of sense or were irresponsible of the kids - and at the end it all seemed to come together too easily.  I think this book would be good for younger kids than myself.  I like that another homeschool has a book published but probably woudn’t want to read any more of the series.”

Now, mystery novels are NOT Ev’s genre… he’s a fantasy fan (which makes the above comment about being “unrealistic” even funnier to me… LOL!) - so dragons, griffins, warriors and elves are more his “thing”.  SO… to be completely fair, I asked my friend’s daughter who is also 14 but is not such a die-hard genre fan, and enjoys reading all styles of books (she loves the Dear Canada series right now).  Katherine said:

“This book is very good for those who really like mysteries that are not to hard to get in to.  The end of the story is more or less predictable, but it’s interesting too.  I like the fact that this book actually makes you consider God in everything that happens to us.  Not many authors do that enough as they should.  I hope my mom gets more of the Truth Seekers Mysteries for us.” (she’s also sharing the book with her 13 year old sister, so I may be adding in Angelik’s thoughts too… and when we get it back, I’ll get my daughter who is also 13 to read it and tell me her thoughts… so check back in a month and I’m sure I’ll have even more opinions!)

Reflecting on it, I think that I will most likely be picking up the rest of the 3 book series at only $22.00 US, that’s a wonderful gift under the tree… maybe I’ll get the set for my un-churched neices as well!  I think it’d be a great series to have available, not only to get the kids talking and thinking, but also to use as a resource (there is THAT much Good Science in the series!!). 

Blessings!

As a review blogger,  I am provided a free copy of the book, curriculum or product to test and use in order to write an honest review. I receive no other compensation and the opinions I share are my own and not influenced by the company in question.

Posted in W is for Websites | Print | 1 Comment »

12. November 2008 by Shannon.

As part of the TOS Crew, I’ve been given the opportunity to review www.puppetools.com - a website dedicated to learning through play, particularly with PUPPETS!  Now, we all know kids learn well from puppets… after all, it is to puppets that Sesame Streets owes it’s incredible (and very long running) success in the children’s education television milieu, right?  So, I was very interested in learning more about this resource.

After checking out the site to the best of my abilities (I”m on dial-up and there are a lot of videos that took forever to play, but I did download a and read a lot of the literature available to members)earlier this week, I made a date to head over to my sister’s yesterday, who is also (very newly) homeschooling my neice. My sister has a educational background of “Educational Resources and Special Needs”.  She is VERY crafty and imaginative on things like that, and even has a “clown ministry”… SO, ya, right up her alley.

I explained what I understood (from watching all that I COULD watch and reading as many pdfs as I could find on the site)… and we set up little tables, and made puppets with a 3.5 year old, an almost 6 year old and a 7.5 year old.  They liked it, I guess.. but it was my neice (at 7.5) that got really into it.  They played with them for about 15 minutes afterwards before heading off to play with other things.  Hmm, it didn’t mesmerize them as much as I initially thought.  I started to wonder about maybe the age range and application of this tool, so…

I made a puppet too!  Yup, UNcrafty me made François la grenouille (Frances the Frog - in french… sorry, bad pun, but I like it.. French Quebeckers are often called “frogs” .. not sure why, but when I was thinking of making a tool to encourage the Littles to try to speak french, a French Frog was what popped into my head.. hehe).  ANYHOW… *ahem*

The kids responded well to him (well, my 3.5 and almost 6 year old, this was after I left my sister’s house)… actually trying to answer François’ questions in french and in learning to introduce themselves in french… but there were a few things I noticed:

1. If you make a body, it will flap and rustle when you operate the “mouth hinge”… kind of annoying, I might cut François down to his face only… not decided yet.

2. Paper quality COUNTS… seriously!  The kids made theirs with construction paper I bought for them to play with (read: not the most expensive kind) and within minutes we had small rips and tears.. (tears as in crying… and tears as in paper.. two birds, one rip.. sorry, stone! LOL!).  We reinforced the hand places with duct tape… which I love, but still, it does make things a little more complicated.  François was made with top quality construction paper.. quite pricey… but he is A LOT more solid and durable… The difference doesn’t show well in pictures, but believe me, it will make ALL the difference in your puppets.

3. Seeing as my sister has highspeed and I don’t… I decided to check out the site at her end to see if I got “more” from it there than I could here… I’m sorry to say that I wasn’t overly impressed with the qualities of the videos available (guess I wasn’t missing much after all! LOL!).  But I did find one audio/video (not sure if it was the video that had a problem or if it was designed to just be stills to background the audio file… it’s the Grade 5 Part 1 file… not only was the teacher enthusiastic, but gave some really great insights into how this could work in a classroom of older children.  And although there is a recommendation to “watch the kids” - I got nothing from that video, which was poorly shot and didn’t even have an audio track (on either of our computers). 

4. Jeffrey Peyton, the man who is behind this patented hinge, and who is featured in many of the videos and audios on the site, can be rather dry to listen to - which is unfortunate as he is quite knowledgeable and concerned with the eduction of children.  I know that he’s capable of more enthusiasm, as I heard a spark at the end of one of the audios encouraging us to EXAGERATE! *grin* 

5.  As for the website itself, I wish he’d spice it up a bit more, make some better videos… it would be SO easy to do, even just a burst of COLOUR would improve the site dramatically.  I also found the site a little less than user friendly in it’s layout, but I’m pretty picky, since being on dialup means searching more pages means a lot more time wasted.  However, as an educational resource, the site has a wealth of information that would best suited to a classroom teacher, but might not be as useful to a homeschooler.  I guess I shouldn’t predict that, though since every homeschool family is different. 

Wow… I sound like I’m complaining… but I’m not.  Really!  I did learn something about myself and my kids yesterday.. they do respond to puppets, and although I made François out of paper, I’m thinking a fabric puppet of a frog might serve me longer and better… so now I’m on the lookout for this.  I can’t see using this tool all too often, maybe as a literature aid… like having the kids make puppets of the main characters and being able to “play” the story over and over… but it would definately take me leading them in it… and I’m not sure I’m “that kind of Mom” - You know?

So, all that to say, if you are like me and are “creatively challenged”, www.puppetools.com might be just the place to spark you full of ideas, but at .. this isn’t much more than a paper bag puppet using construction paper as a base instead of a paper bag (which gives you a neater and less obvious base, as well as seems just a little “higher end” crafty than a paperbag as well - you know, for the older kids who are very “looks” oriented *grin*). 

However, I think if you are limited to discount materials, for something as flimsy as a paper puppet, I’d probably suggest you to just go to the dollar store, pick up a hundred paper bags for a buck and use that as  a base.  It’d be easier for small hands to do the sticking and glueing and is far more cost effective for me since I wouldn’t need to invest in the expensive construction paper.

And although the site has hundreds of “teacher submitted” images, “student submitted”, and even some printable templates -  I bet my frugally minded friends could google “PUPPET+CRAFTS” and get a million hits full of ideas FOR FREE… but if search engines aren’t your thing (just because I love them doesn’t mean everyone does… grin!) or you are interested in the “educational philosophy of puppets in the classroom” www.puppetools.com would be a great site to check out.  A one-year membership is only $20 US for individuals, or $99 a year for a group membership (like a school or a co-op). 

Blessings!

As a review blogger,  I am provided a free copy of the book, curriculum or product to test and use in order to write an honest review. I receive no other compensation and the opinions I share are my own and not influenced by the company in question.

Posted in W is for Websites | Print | 2 Comments »

5. November 2008 by Shannon.

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh… I just found a place to get more books!  DON’T TELL MY DARLING HUSBAND!!!!

heehee…

Homeschool Library Builder has this fantastic promotion for my American friends… Free Shipping!!  The rest of us get 10% off our orders (depending on the size of your order, that could be an even better deal! LOL!).  But wait!  Who are these people??

Homeschool Library Builder is basically a couple of  homeschool moms who thought it would be a neat thing if homeschool moms like them didn’t have to wade through all the “garbage” books out there on every other site, just to find the gems that most of us are looking for in a book.  So they keep their eagle eyes peeled for “common” books in homeschooling circles, snatch them up at a deal, and then resell them on their site to you.  One stop homeschool book shopping!   

Many of the books on HSLB are priced similarly to what you could find by scouring the net.. but Time is Money too… so this way you have one place to go to look first, and when you can sort by CURRICULUM (yes, you read that right… if you use Tapestry of Grace, just use the simple filters to sort out books that are used in that program…same goes for Sonlight, Ambleside Online, and many more!).  Now THAT is a useful tool!!!

Anyhow, this promotion only lasts till November 6th.. so I hope you take advantage of it!  And if not, these crazy ladies always have something exciting going on to “enable” the book-a-holic in us homeschool moms…. *grin* 

Oh, our poor husbands… *wink*

Blessings!

As a review blogger,  I am provided a free copy of the book, curriculum or product to test and use in order to write an honest review. I receive no other compensation and the opinions I share are my own and not influenced by the company in question.

Posted in W is for Websites | Print | 1 Comment »

8. October 2008 by Shannon.

Now, normally on Wednesdays I will share some fantastic new site that I’ve stumbled across… or maybe one of my “Golden Oldies” (read: my favourites *grin*) but for today, because I would love to have it all in one place… I have decided to tell you all about some of the work that *I* do on websites.

I taught myself HTML years ago when I had only two little ones who took naps in the day… ahh for those days of peace and quiet.. LOL!  My first sites were pretty rudimentary, but still, I took time to learn frames, tables, stuff like that from the blank “notepad” screen up… I believe this has helped me tremendously over the years that I’ve used WYSIWYG programs such as Front Page, PagePlus, and Xara.  It helps me find that “itty bitty toopid piece of code” that is messing up what I’m trying to get to happen on the screen.  Many WYSIWYG programs throw in SO much unnecessary code snippets that the whole site slows down in loading and functioning because of the “muck in it’s wheels”.

Here are some sites I’ve worked on in the past few years… many for free, some as a thank you gift, some as ” real,live, lookit me being professional”CONTRACT!  *grin*  Many sites are maintained by the persons or organizations I created them for… but some I maintain as a courtesy to family or friends.

www.ratcliffeblessings.com (this is our family site - in sorry need of updating, I’m afraid)

www.homeschoolinghorizons.com (THE only monthly Canadian Homeschool Magazine.  *Oct 2008*)

www.realjoyministry.ca (the church my parents attend in Alexandria, Ontario)

www.visitseakindly.com (my Father in law’s Bed & Breakfast in Nova Scotia, Canada - check ‘em out!!)

www.signingsmarttots.ca (a friend of mine’s site devoted to Infant Sign Language in Windsor, Ontario)

www.lemetro.ca (a friend of mine’s consulting business)

(I used to have St. Georges Church in this list, but they’ve recently redone their website.  So that is why it is missing, for those who notice! LOL!)

www.prayersat830.com (my new friend Stan’s site, and I’m hoping he’ll let me work on some of his other sites too! *Oct 2008*)

www.personneloasis.com (currently being maintained by the website owner *March 2009*)

My son is hoping to follow in my footsteps in this webdesign thing (probably as a part time hobby as well since he’s planning first to be a best-selling author) and is learning using Motherboard Books “Let’s Make a Webpage“.  Who knows, maybe you”ll read about his new webpages on his blog at www.homeschoolblogger.com/ratcliffeauthor where he blogs weekly on his learning adventures of the week!

Enjoy “my” hobby! :o)

Blessings!

Posted in W is for Websites | Print | 2 Comments »