Monthly Archives: October 2016

As I am sure you know, generally my reviews are homeschool related, of educational products to use with my children. This time, however, I was fortunate enough to be chosen as part of team to review a wonderful product, one which I freely admit to you that I had never even heard of! This is one of the reasons I was glad to have been chosen, because now I get to tell all of YOU about this company! 🙂

CrossTimber is a company which specializes in beautiful name plaques with the name meaning and a Bible verse which goes well with the meaning.

Besides the beautiful framed plaques, they have full color coffee mugs, music boxes, and many different styles of pictures and themes to choose from.

As a reviewer, I was allowed to choose my own Personalized Framed Plaque with Name Meaning and Bible Verse.

My very first email was from John Dehnart, who with the support of  his wife Katie and their children, owns and operate CrossTimber. He asked me to hit reply so that they would know I had received my notification of being on the review. Little did I know that the REAL reason was so that he could right away send an email back with MY name meaning and Bible verse! This is what I was told about my first name:

Lori – Honor and Fame. She who is crowned in victory.

1 Chronicles 19:13

“Be of good courage, and let us behave ourselves valiantly for our people, and for the cities of our God: and let the LORD do that which is good in His sight.”

I wrote back and told him that my REAL name is Laurel, and asked if that made a difference. He said the meaning and verse would be the same, but gave me the following additional information:

The name Laurel come from the Greek word for the Laurel Plant. The laurel is a fragrant evergreen plant. In Roman Times, its leaves and young branches were woven into a crown to be awarded to the champion of the first Olympic games. A similar crown was given to the victor of military battles, and as a special sign of honor. The laurel itself is not mentioned in the Bible, but much is written about crowns of honor, and that God rewards His children with “the crown of glory that fadeth not away.” (1 Peter 5:4)

When I told John that my mother had told me all of my life that she named me after the flowering laurel, he wrote back and said “victorious flower!”

I have four children, so I went outside of the family for this one. I had a baby shower coming up for a wonderful young woman in our church family, and I knew what name she and her husband had chosen for their soon to be born daughter, so I chose my Personalized Framed Plaque with Name Meaning and Bible Verse to give as part of my baby shower gift.

I was very happy to find out that the verse the company had already chosen for this name and meaning was from the King James Version of the Bible, as that is the only version we use, but when I asked, I was told they will customize that for a minimal ($2.00) charge.

My friend was so happy with this beautiful plaque with her baby’s name, what it means, and an accompanying verse! I chose this design with my friend in mind specifically. She loves color, and I thought that the varying colors would appeal to her. Besides, I think the owls are so cute!

Here she is opening her gift:

I think she loves it, what do YOU think? 🙂

CrossTimber also has discounts and free extras:

And they are holding a wonderful giveaway. Click the banner below to enter!

To read 89 other honest and fair reviews from my fellow Homeschool Review Crew members, please click on the banner below!

As always, I would just love it if you join me on all of my “Journeys Through Life.” Simply go to the subscription box at the top of the blog and enter your email. After that, you will always know when there is something new posted. Hope to see you here real soon! 🙂

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Spending time together, and showing off some paintings that “Mr. Loquacious” made that day.

As always, I’d love to have you join me on all of my “Journeys Through Life.” Just go to the subscription box at the top of the blog, enter your email, and you’ll always know when there is something new going on. Hope to see you here!

After many years of doing this homeschooling thing, I very recently discovered that one of my boys (Mr. Loquacious) much prefers to use worksheets and regular lessons. Of course, he COULD have said so long ago, but you know boys, right? So I was pleased to be put on the review for Educeri Lesson Subscription Service. We received a twelve month subscription to this service for the purpose of this review.

From the company Educeri …….  Educeri a division of DataWORKS, this is a vast assortment of lessons (over 1000 lessons!) which you can use from pre-kindergarten all the way through twelfth grade.

Within those 1000 plus lessons, you will find the following:

• Math – 413 lessons covering all grades
• English Language Arts – 525 lessons covering all grades
• Science – 22 lessons which will cover mostly middle through high school
• History – 26 lessons which will cover mostly fifth grade  and  higher
• Art, PE and Music – there are one or two lessons in each of these catagories

With all of this available, there is simply no way you would not be able to find useful lessons, whether to add them in as part of your regular curriculum, to use as a supplement.

I like that each lesson is already laid out for you, the parent/teacher. I have never been very good at lesson planning, so I much prefer having it done for me. At the same time, I long ago let go of the whole “school in a box” sort of curriculum, because i felt stressed when we couldn’t keep up with days in the lesson books!

Older kids can probably do this on their own, but in my case, I have special needs kids. In this case, or the case where your kids are much younger, you will want to sit with them at the computer to go through the actual lesson of your choice (for us, we used mostly early math, telling time, and counting money.) After doing the actual lesson online, there are generally printable pages to go with it so that the child will have extra practice.

Although we don’t do testing, there will be quizzes coming soon, and we may use them, just to see how each child is retaining what they learn.

This subscription is very well organised, in my view. The lessons are categorized by grade AND subject, making it extremely simple to browse, or to just look up a specific thing that you want your child to work on.

The primary concentration on Educari at this time is in Math and Language Arts, and while I do hope they will expand their offerings in the other subjects, the fact that they have a great number of lessons (and worksheets!) in these two areas are great for us! These are topics that will greatly benefit my boys for the next year. I’m very pleased to be able to wholeheartedly recommend Educeri Lesson Subscription Service from Educeri …….  Educeri a division of DataWORKS
To read 64 other honest and fair reviews from my fellow Homeschool Review Crew members, please click on the banner below . . .

As always, I would love to have you join me on all of my “Journeys Through Life.” Please go and enter your email into the subscription box at the top of the blog, and you will always kow what’s hppenng. Hope to see you here very soon! 🙂

Somebody has taken over my outside chair! Thinks he’s “all that,” too!

As always, I’d love to have you join me on all of “My Journeys Through Life.” Please go and enter your email into the subscription box at the top of the blog, and always know when there is something new here! 🙂

I have had the pleasure of being given a wonderful resource by the company Everyday Education, LLC for the purpose of this review.

This time around, I decided to be the “student” and work on the product myself, although I think I may use it later with my kids, too.

Everyday Education, LLC gave the Homeschool Review Crew members three different products to choose from:

• Perfect Reading, Beautiful Handwriting (elementary or remedial)
• Excellence in Literature Handbook for Writers (high school into college)
• Working it Out: Poetry Analysis with George Herbert.

I was fortunate enough to receive Working It Out: Poetry Analysis with George Herbert. I received a PDF version of the book, along with an introductory PDF to help understand what I would be doing. It is also available as a physical book, for those who really prefer to hold one in their hands and actually feel the pages (grin.)

I enjoy poetry, but to be completely honest with you, I had never before even heard of George Herbert. He was a poet in the seventeenth century, and focused largely on poetry that he seemed to be writing to “work out his own salvation,” as the Apostle Paul instructed the church at Phillipi. He is considered to be one of “only a few extraordinary devotional poets in the English language.” (from a quote by Harold Bloom in “The Best Poems of the English Language.”

“Working It Out,” by Joseph L. Womack, is a wonderful, year long study/devotional using the poetry of George Herbert. This book has over 50 of George Herbert’s poems within it, which really show the spiritual struggles and peace that Herbert worked through, and found. Each poem has with it a commentary along with reflections (questions for personal thinking) as well as scriptures for further reflection, which for me, do help in my ability to connect with the poems on a personal level.

In using this book to both learn how to study poetry, we see the above mentioned commentary, reflections and scripture, but prior to that (after reading a poem) we see the following:

• The Big Picture (or, what the poem is about)
• The Parts of the Picture (this is a stanza-by-stanza explanation of the poem)
• The Parts of the Picture Come Together (putting the “parts” back together, giving a better understanding of the flow and meaning of the poem.

Janice Campbell from Everyday Education, LLC  discovered the book Working It Out when she was working on the first edition of British Literature (English 4) for a curriculum company, and found that it worked perfectly to be added to the context resources for the course. She did just that, and then offered it through that curriculum’s website. Eventually, the author let her know he was retiring and would no longer be publishing it, at which time Ms. Campbell offered to keep it in print for him. Because she was able to do this, we continue to have this wonderful study to work through and learn from!

Working It Out was written mostly as a devotional, but truly, it also teaches a thoughtful way of reading and understanding poetry in general, which means it would help when studying other poets, as well.

I am enjoying this study, and plan to continue with it. It can be done over a year’s time, or if you wish to take your time, maybe two years, by taking two weeks per poem for study. This is most likely what will work best for me, as I find it difficult to get through one per week. I feel confident in recommending Working it Out: Poetry Analysis with George Herbert to you, my readers. I think you will find it a thoughtful analysis, and a good way to study poetry in general.

To read what other Homeschool Review Crew members thought of this and other products from Everyday Education, LLC, please click on the banner below, and you will find 99 other fair and honest reviews!

As always, I would just love to have you join me on all of “My Journeys Through Life.” Just go to the subscription box at the top of the blog and enter your email, which will let you know whenever there is a new post. Hope to see you here very son! 🙂

“The Puzzler” thought this was a really cool set up in front of a restaurant we were near one day, so I took a photo of him!

We were in Las Cruces, NM overnight, and this place was right next to the motel we were in. No, we did not eat there, we went looking for much more inexpensive places! 🙂

As always, I’d love to have you join me on all of “My Journeys.” Just go and enter your email in the subscription box at the top of the blog, and you’ll always know when there is something new on “My Journeys Through life.” Hope to see you here very soon! 🙂