Wordless Wednesday/ School and sneaking chips

And the Reviews Begin...

I am so excited to begin the review year with The Homeschool Review Crew!

I have already been given several upcoming review opportunities, and they are all great products!

I wanted to share what I know I will be reviewing so far so you'll know what to look forward to. 

The first review I'll be doing is for Starfall. I'll be posting this towards the end of Feb. 

The second review is for Wulf the Saxon by Heirloom Audio Productions. This will be coming out mid Feb. 

The third is UltraKey Online. An online typing program. Also mid Feb.



The 4th one that I have coming is one that I am super excited about. It is a 24 pack of Magix Stix Washable Markers.



These are supposed to last 7 days without the cap on and will not dry out. We will be testing this out for sure!!  This one will be coming out in the beginning of March.

I will be sure to let you know if they really won't dry out or not!

The review year is off to a great start!! See you soon!

The YUMMIEST Chocolate Chip Cookie Ever!

I was looking back through some of my old posts to see which one I wanted to use for this week's Throw Back Thursday. 

I saw this post and knew it was the one. 

MMM.....I made these back in 2010! I forgot about this recipe.

I will definitely be making these again. 

You can find the full recipe HERE. 

Let me know if you made these and if you enjoyed them.

Off to add these ingredients to my shopping list!

Organizing Toddlers/Young Children's Rooms

I don't know about you, but I get beyond tired of cleaning up the same old messes over and over again. 

Toddlers rooms seem to be one of the worst. They take all of their toys out at once and the entire room is covered in toys. 

I wish I had taken a before picture, but I am pretty sure that you all know what I am talking about. lol

Now I have cleaned and organized his room many times before. I'be had shelves and crates and canvas boxes....all sorts of organizing containers. 

Everything still ended up dumped out everywhere. 

I went through everything (AGAIN) and got rid of the items he doesn't really play with or has a lot of (cars), and made a give away box. 

I I decided that I wanted to put everything in tubs with lids and put them under the bed so that there will be more floor space. 

I fit as many cars and trucks as I could fit into the big tub on the right, and got rid of the rest. (These are just big cars, not hot wheels). 

I put hot wheels and  Schleich animals in shoe box size tubs. 

I put blocks, robots, action figures, ponies, etc... in larger tubs. (My niece also stays with us, hence the ponies and pink tub full of girl toys.)

I put as many stuffed animals as would fit in the blue tub on the left. ( A few stay on the bed), and got rid of the rest. 

Then I threw all of the balls and Nerf guns in the blue crate. 

I am LOVING this loft bed that a friend gave me. You can store all kinds of stuff underneath it and not be taking up any more room that a normal bed would!

I went ahead and kept the one shelving unit that I had to store some other items that don't go into tubs very well. 

Now, what really gets me, and probably most other moms, is all the "miscellaneous" items kids have. I got rid of as much of that as I could and only allowed one of these drawers to hold miscellaneous toys. The top drawer holds the items that go along with the other toys on this shelf. 

And of course I just put all of the tools in the bins underneath the tool bench. 

Now there is nothing on the floor other than the shelf, tool bench, rocking horse and dresser. 

The best part about organizing in tubs with lids is that since they do have lids, the kids don't just go dumping them out everywhere. 

Brently has actually been getting a box out to play with it and then putting it back up before getting another box out! And he's been doing it all by himself, without my asking him to!

It almost seems as if he doesn't have many toys anymore. lol 

But, trust me, when it's all over the floor it looks like a lot! 

I hope this gives you some ideas. I am really loving the tub idea. You can stack them on top of each other saving even more room. They have lids which helps prevent them from getting dumped out, and it will be so easy to pack up his room to move. It's practically already done!!

SchoolhouseTeachers.com/ TOS Review

 

 As part of the Old Schoolhouse Homeschool Review Crew I received a free Yearly Membership to SchoolhouseTeachers.com. 

I was super excited about this because I've heard nothing but good things about it. 

This is going to be one of those reviews that is kind of hard to write because there is just SO much to write about that there is no way I can cover it all. 

Let's start out with what SchoolhouseTeachers.com is. 

This chart may help a little in beginning to understand. 

I would explain it as one site that has curriculum, and all kinds of extras for any subject and any age.  If your looking for something, you can probably find it here. 

I am currently homeschooling a 3 and 6 year old, so I was particularly interested in the Preschool Playground. 

As you can see you can find something for preschool on any subject, as well as certificates, and articles for parents of preschoolers. 

You can find outlines on activities and lessons to use to go through the alphabet. You can find printables for your child to color and learn the alphabet. 

You can even find certificates that you can print out for your children!

There is an awesome selection of Bible videos to choose from. Here are just the Charlie the Church Mouse videos. There are many more.

There is an entire video library on all kinds of topics to choose from. 

 Honestly, this alone is one of the BIG reasons I like SchoolhouseTeachers.com. It is hard to find christian shows for our kids to watch, and it gets expensive buying all of the DVD's. This is a HUGE bonus to this site. 

There are also videos to help your children learn their alphabet. It is great to be able to add some fun videos to reinforce the letters. 

There are activity packs you can download to reinforce other lessons. 

Something new, and very awesome, is that Schoolhouse Teachers now has access to World Book. This is pretty major!!!

Your child can look up and learn about anything they want to!

It's so cool and interactive. 

I think the subscription would be worth it just for the Preschool Playground. 

However there is just as much for your students in other grades. I took some screenshots of just some of the lessons available for 7th graders.

As you can see, there is more to choose from than just the basic subjects. 

Here are a few samples of the Math section. I like the printables.

There is a wide selection of history, geography and social studies lessons. 

The same goes for science. There is just so much to choose from. I don't think you'd have any problems finding lessons for your child. You could even build your lesson plan around what you find on Schoolhouse Teachers. The selection is awesome. 

There are even courses just for parents! 

You can find courses on marriage, homeschooling, organization, parenting, etc...

It is really unbelievable everything that is offered. I seriously doubt one person would ever use everything available to them. That's how much there is. 

There are free printable help charts for a variety of topics. 

They even have a section where lessons are divided by holidays and celebrations, making it easy to find a lesson to go along with an upcoming holiday. 

I will say, that with so much going on, it is a little confusing to figure it all out. I came across this tutorial page, and think that it would be very helpful for new users, or even veteran users, to use to help navigate the site, and understand how to use it better. 

There is so much that I could say about SchoolhouseTeachers.com, but there is just not enough time to do so! 

I say that you could use SchoolhouseTeachers.com as a full curriculum, or pull things as needed to go along with what your already studying.  

The value of this site is unbelievable for everything that you get! 

They are always adding new things as well. Just in the past couple of weeks they have added several new things. One of them being Molly Green's digital content. If you are familiar with Molly Green, you know what a value this is in and of itself!

They have added 3 new classes: Exploring the World of Art, Home Based Business and On the Homestead.

There are literally hundreds of new things being added right now. 

They are offering a Fresh Start New Year Special on the Yearly Membership. 

This is an amazing offer and I highly encourage you to get in on this deal before the price goes back up!

Also, be sure to read what other Crew Members thought of SchoolhouseTeachers.com.

Be sure to check them out on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google+.