Monthly Archives: October 2015

For the second time this year, my family has been lucky enough to be chosen as reviewers for products from a company called Koru Naturals.

All of the Review Crew members were given the same two main products, Skin Clear Cream and Manuka Honey Propolis Soap, along with a third product. My additional product was Argan Oil and Sandalwood Hair Tonic, while other reviewers received either this same product or one of several others.

My previous review discussed some other products than this review will be about, but we really liked them, which is why I am sharing the link here.

First, let me tell you about the wonderful Skin Clear Cream.

I received a 4 ounce jar of this product. The two basic ingredients that have always been in it are raw, unpasteurized Manuka Honey (rated at 20+) and pure steam-distilled East Cape Manuka Oil. Koru Naturals has, however, added the following:

1. Kawakawa and Harakeke: two traditional Maori remedies for many skin conditions

2. Burdock Root: a Chinese root rich in several minerals and used traditionally for skin conditions

3. Thyme: a natural astringent and anti-inflammatory extract from leaves

4. Canadian Aspen Bark: a natural preservative

What this product does NOT have, which I know will make many people very happy, are parabens, artificial colorants or fragrances.

I am not prone to acne, but it is also a very nice morning and evening face cream to use after washing my face.

Fair disclosure, do not use on anyone under the age of 12, and avoid using during pregnancy.

This truly is a very good product, and I highly recommend it, especially if you have a preference for using natural products as much as possible. My face is feeling very soft and nice during this review. 🙂

The second product that every reviewer received was Manuka Honey Propolis Soap.

This has been a huge hit here. 🙂 First, *I* love it! it feels so nice, and it smells so good, and my goodness, it seems like it is going to just last forever! This is a 4.93 oz, boxed soap, yellow in color. The soap combines Manuka Honey and Propolis, which have natural intense moisturizing and skin protective properties, something I can sure use.

I am not the only one in our family who loves this soap, though. One of my twins, “The Puzzler” just loves it. He asks to use our shower so he can use my “Bee” soap, lol!

Now, on to the Argan Oil and Sandalwood Hair Tonic.

I wanted to review this product mainly for my twins, who are bi-racial. Our hair stylist recommends using oil in their hair, and one of the boys, if his hair gets a bit long between hair cuts, gets pretty frizzy.

Argan Oil and Sandalwood Hair Tonic contains Vitis Vinifera (Grape) Seed Oil, Argania Spinosa (Argan) Oil*, Santalum Spicatum (Australian Sandalwood) Oil,* Helichrysum (Helichrysum) Essential Oil*, Citrus Bergamia (Bergamot) Essential Oil, Citrus Paradisi (Pink Grapefruit) Essential Oil.*organic ingredient, making it yet another great product for those who have a preference for natural products.

“Mr. Loquacious” was not a fan, I’m sorry to tell you. He did not care for the sandalwood scent, telling me that it reminded him of sandalwood incense used in his foster home before coming to us. For him, it brought back a lot of trauma, so he’s not using it. His twin has no issues with the scent, and on his own is using it whenever he washes his hair. *I* like the scent, but then again, when I was a teen (back in the dark ages, y’all) my friends and I burned incense, and we did use that scent.

I would very much recommend this company, and any and all products hat I have reviewed from them. 🙂

To read what other review crew members thought of these and other products from Koru Naturals, please click the banner below.

As always, I would love to have you along on all of my “Journeys Through Life”. Just go to the “sign me up” space at the top of the blog, enter your email, and you’ll always know when something new is happening here! 🙂

“The Batman”, The Artist”, me and our piano teacher Mrs. Aubrey Grantham, after our last recital together before she and her family moved to Ohio to serve in her husband’s father’s church.

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I have a confession to make right here and now. I was never taught Geography when I was in school. In fact, to this day, I cannot read a map. I have to rely on GPS to get me to just about anywhere! I really had despaired of teaching Geography to my kids, and along came a lovely review copy of the digital version of Drawing Around the World: USA, which came from a company called Brookdale House.

With Drawing Around The World: USA, my kids and I can learn the states and capitals for our entire country, in just minutes a day. We are also learning the capitals, and the actual placement on the map of the United States of each state.

One of the things my kids enjoy is finding out interesting facts about each state. They are looking forward to Michigan and New Mexico, because they were born and raised in Michigan until three years ago when we moved to New Mexico. I think they are looking forward to those states because in Michigan, there is a very special state stone, and here in New Mexico, they were thrilled to discover that our new home has a state cookie! 🙂

The suggested schedule is a four day week.

1. Study the new state, complete the State Fact Table, and locate and label each new state onto the dashed, black and white map. Then, the student is to draw all states studied thus far.
2. Locate and label each new state onto the dashed, black and white map, and draw all states studied up to now.
3. Locate and label each new state onto the dashed, black and white map, then draw all states studied so far.
4. List, from memory, the states studied thus far. Then, within the blank box, draw from from memory, all of the states you have learned.

If you follow this schedule, you and your children will have learned the placement of each and every state in the United States of America, along with Washington D.C. in only 27 weeks. We are going somewhat slower though, so it will take longer. Only two of my kids have real artistic ability, “The Artist” and “Mr. Loquacious.” In fact, “Mr. Loquacious” has, on his own been working on a notebook of state flags for the last few years, so he already knew the capitals and some facts about some of the states! 🙂

Because we are having trouble with drawing the correct shapes and placements of each state from memory on the blank map, for now we are sticking to the map which has the dashed black and white spaces. Since this is a digital product, we can go back and do it again later when we all feel a bit more comfortable with the drawing part.

We do enjoy this program, and recommend it to anyone, in particular those who enjoy learning at a gentle, slow pace. I believe something which takes only minutes a day certainly fits that bill. 🙂

To read more about what the Review Crew members thought of this and other products from Brookdale House, please click on the banner below!

As always, I would just love to have you join me on all of my “Journeys Through Life.”
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All of the boys with our favorite hairstylist Jody Muniz, at her brand new, owned by her, shop! I’ll probably post more about it after her big grand opening open house this coming Saturday!

When given the opportunity to review one of several DVD’s from the online company FishFlix.com, I knew that for us, the only choice was going to be Living Waters: Intelligent Design in the Oceans of the Earth.

My children, especially “The Artist” and “Mr. Loquacious” have been known to sit for hours watching nature programming on television (although Mr. Loquacious has a short attention span and drifts in and out), so I expected they would really like this one.

The company which became FishFlix.com was actually started over a decade ago. Dr. Enis Sakirgil, a Turkish citizen, became a producer in the making of Apostle Paul and the Earliest Churches. This film was produced by leaders in the Turkish Church in order to make Christians in the west aware about the great amount of Biblical history in their country (Turkey.) Turkey is currently one of the nations least reached with the gospel.

Dr. Sakirgil emigrated to the United States with his family and began selling the film online, eventually selling other Christian mocies. At that point, FishFlix.com was born.

FishFlix.com is now based out of Mora Minnesota. They continue to expand the gospel in Turkey via a partnership with a Turkish radio ministry.

Living Waters is a BEAUTIFUL film! While exploring the lives of dolphins, sea turtles, pacific salmon and humpback whales, we learned through wonderful filming, along with perfectly integrated drawings how absolutely impossible it is to reconcile the theory of evolution with intelligent design. This film shows, in just 68 minutes, that it would be simply impossible for the mutations called for in Darwinianism to have happened.

Here is a short trailer of the film for you:

When we see that the dolphins have been created with far better sonar than anything we could invent, it amazes me. We see them traveling through the ocean, zeroing on one fish in a whole school, and going after it. Dolphins are such beautiful creatures, and when we watched the film showing herds of them playing alongside a boat load of tourists, it was so pretty! It is obvious how very friendly they are.

Next up were the sea turtles, which were so cute, as they crawled from their nests in the sand! They immediately began their own trek toward the ocean, after which they would swim for at least 48 straight hours to escape the area they were in and get out into the deep ocean. We learned that they are imprinted with magnetic memory to get them where they needed to be, and then to eventually return to the very same hatching place they came from in order to lay their own eggs. It was fairly easy to see that the randomness of Darwinian theory could never have produced this.

Next up, the Pacific Salmon, which also travel from their birth place, but later come back to the exact place. They don’t use the same method as the sea turtles, but they do it just the same. How could this be possible, if they were simply a result of random mutations and natural selection? It was plain that this is the Lord’s design, as it is with the humpback whale.

The humpback whale is the most difficult to reconcile with the theory of Darwin. Pretty much everything about this creature directly defies that theory, but I would rather have you watch this film rather than give it all away.

Living Waters is a wonderful film, whether you view it as a lesson or simply as a nature film. I will say, however, that even as a nature film, you will learn a lot, without even realizing it.

As always, I’d love to have you join me on all of my “Journeys Through Life.” Just go to the “sign me up” button at the top of the blog, and you’ll be notified everytime there is something new! 🙂

My family has been fortunate in receiving from Progeny Press a review copy of the digital download copy of the literature study guide for the book Stone Fox. The book was written by John Reynolds Gardiner, and illustrated by Marcia Sewal, and the study guide was written by Andrew Clausen and Rebecca Gilleland.

Progeny Press has a mission statement that I definitely appreciate. From the about us section on their website:

“To teach our children to think clearly, to understand literature, and to rely on the scripture for truth and values, and enjoy themselves while they do it!”

Well, as anyone who has read this blog for a while already knows, I love it when learning can be enjoyable! 🙂

Below, please watch this little video with the founders of Progeny Press, Michael and Rebecca Gilleland, as they tell you more about how and why they came up with this idea.

Although the books that the study guides are written for can be purchased from Progeny Press, we were able to find Stone Fox at our library.

Stone Fox is a very good book. It got to me, even though it is written for children. The book is based on a Rocky Mountain legend that was told to the author in 1974. The characters in the novel are fictitious, but the ending of the story is from the legend, and is said to have truly happened.

The study guide is about 60 pages long, and can be printed out to put in a notebook, or the student can do the pages on the computer, typing in his or her answers. We chose, however, to do the majority of it as discussion pages, because my twins are struggling with reading and writing.

We did use the book Stone Fox as a read aloud, and all four of the boys were drawn to the story. It is suggested in the study guide that you read through the entire book first, then go back and go through it again, two chapters at a time, while doing the portion of the study guide pertaining to those chapters. Given that we almost always have to be different, we sort of followed along with comprehension questions, definitions, etc, as we read the book, which we did in two days!

There are plenty of activities in the study guide as well, to aid in teaching vocabulary and comprehension. There are also puzzles, and a map to fill in. The study guide also gives a list of many other resources, including websites, to help you dig further and allow rabbit trails based on any area of interest from the book.

I really like when the study guide goes deeper in depth to show Biblical context. Along the way, it will talk about a particular section read, ask what it meant, and have the student read a text from his or her Bible, discussing what the text means, and how it goes along with what they just read. This is a great way of applying the Bible to real life.

All in all, we very much liked this study, and would definitely use Progeny Press again. It is easy to use even when the need to tweak it is there, such as the way we used it orally for the most part. The study guide definitely digs into a piece of literature and makes it into more than just a book to read, helping the children to learn much more than they even realize. This was a fun product to review!

Please click below to see what my fellow crew members thought of this and other Progeny Press Study Guides.

As always, I would love to have you join me on all of my “Journeys Through Life.” Just go to the “sign me up” space at the top of the blog and enter your email, and you’ll be notified whenever there is something new here! 🙂

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I have reviewed the original Reading Kingdom Online before, as you can see here. However, this time I have been fortunate enough to be given a newer program from the company Reading Kingdom! I have one child at least, who is on the autism spectrum, and one who may be, but who is not diagnosed, and both are struggling readers. So, we have been among the lucky crew members who were given ASD Reading, which is a new, online reading program for children who are on the Autism Spectrum.

ASD Reading is an online program which teaches students with ASD to read, write, and to comprehend. This is done in a fun and colorful way, so that the child (hopefully!) will not become bored.

ASD Reading uses unique methods that I have not seen in other programs. All children can use this, even if they are non-verbal. There is extensive use of graphics, audio and animation  to reinforce everything the child is learning. Written and spoken language are linked, so that one mirrors and reinforces the other. This program customizes instruction that adapts to each child’s specific skills and needs. Finally, It tests the child’s skills, and overcomes error patterns and difficulties.

This is a groundbreaking reading program for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). It  was adapted from the award-winning and patented “6-SIM” Six Skill Integrated Method for teaching reading & writing with comprehension, done by Dr. Marion Blank.  ASD Reading holds the key to opening up the world of literacy to children with ASD – even when they are non-verbal. To learn more about why these methods work so well, please read about it here.

In our case, I was given a one year subscription for up to two students, so I chose to use ASD Reading with our twins, “Mr. Loquacious” and “The Puzzler.”

I knew upfront that this was going to be a hard sell when it came to “Mr. Loquacious,” and I was absolutely correct on that. And it still is, so even though you all know I prefer if possible that learning be fun, sometimes, like now, I find myself saying “suck it up, buttercup, sometimes we just have to do stuff we don’t want to do.” This has become one of those times, with “Mr. Loquacious.” Just as an FYI, this is not the fault of ASD Reading. Not at all. It is because “Mr. Loquacious” would rather do just about anything other than learn to read. He came to us at age 8 not knowing how to read or spell anything but his name, and has, because of other issues, has not gotten as far as he would like. So now, it embarrasses him, and he doesn’t want to try.

“The Puzzler,” on the other hand, has been thriving! He zipped right through the assessments, and even when the animated dinosaur tells him he can be done for the day, he often wants to keep right on going! Of course, this is making me VERY happy, because (as I said above, and have said so many times before,) if it is at all possible, I think learning SHOULD be fun, so that children (and adults!) will want to continue to learn for their entire lives.

In My opinion, one of the best things about ASD Reading is that fairly soon, “Mr. Puzzler” began using the program totally on his own, with no need for me to supervise at all. Anytime I want to, I can log into my account, and I will see a report which shows me exactly where he is in the program, and how he is doing. A progress report is regularly emailed to me, and if he needs help, the program will let me know that, as well.

I am definitely going to recommend ASD Reading to anyone who even THINKS their child is on the Autism Spectrum. Thus far, it is serving us quite well! 🙂

To find out what other crew members think, please click the graphic below:

AS always, I’d love it if you join me on all of my “Journeys Through Life!” Just go to the “sign me up” button at the top of the blog, enter your email, and you’re good to go!