NotebookingPages.com (A Schoolhouse Crew Review)

This is a product that I had my eyes on for quite some time after seeing it over and over again on my friend Marcy's blog/facebook page.  She's talked about NotebookingPages.com  and what a great deal the Lifetime Membership is and how she has incorporated notebooking into her homeschooling with her son.  The idea of notebooking really intrigued me and a number of times I came close to buying this resource for myself but something always prevented me from doing so.

Yup, this was me!!!

You can only imagine the happy dance I was doing when I was offered the Lifetime Membership to review for my own blog.  It probably looked very similar to the Numa Numa guy mainly because my dancing greatly resembles the Numa Numa dance.. Point is, when I was asked to review NotebookingPages.com, I was absolutely ecstatic.  

What is Notebooking?

In the homeschooling community, Notebooking is the learning style of creating folders or binders filled with journaling,  drawings, lap reports, reports, scrapbooking pages,and timelines that the student works on through their study of a subject.  Notebooking allows for more flexibility to study topics more indepth then a stuctured curriculum and allows for you to cut out the "busywork" that clogs up most homeschool schedules.  Notebooking can be used in addition to oral narration and instead teaches the student to write/draw about what they are learning rather than just vocalizing it.  Then all these pages are kept neatly in the students binder/notebook.

The flexiblity that notebooking provides means that it can be used with practically any subject or course of study and for any age/grade of student.  

NotebookingPages.com

NotebookingPages.com is the brainchild of Debra Reed and was a result of years of her frustration while homeschooling her own family of 10 children.  She was frustrated, discouraged and suffering from burnout from chasing that "perfect curriculum".  We've all been there, a slave to the schedule and trying to force our kids to complete a set amount of work day after day because we feel we need to have it to prove that they are learning something. Debra got tired this neverending cycle of busywork and schedules and decided there had to be a better way to educate her children.   She discovered the Notebooking style and found it worked perfect for her family.

Her next goal was to help other homeschool families to break free from the same vicious cycle.  Designing hundreds of pages and templates to use for notebooking, she started NotebookingPages.com to provide a valuable resource for those wanting to do notebooking.   The site has grown and a subscription now gives members access to thousands of notebooking pages on a plethora of subjects such as Science/Nature, the Bible, Famous People, Geography, History, and Language Arts to just name a few.

The Member's Section is very easy to navigate. Simply select the Subject and a drop down menu of sections is displayed.  Selecting one of these sections (example: The American First Ladies Notebooking Pages section) then brings up a second menu of the topics available for that section (such as Martha Washington in the American First Ladies section).. Clicking on Martha Washington will start a download of a PDF file that contains all the Notebooking pages in that section on Martha Washington. At this screen, you are also given the options to download the printable catalog to place in the Reference Guide as well as a Zip file containing all 437 pages available in regards to American First Ladies.  Each section follows the same format regardless to subject, making it very easy to learn and navigate quickly.

User Friendly Format makes it quick and easy to locate pages to fit your topic of study

Our NotebookingPages.com Experience (So Far)

I cannot begin to even describe how amazing of a job Debra Reed has done in designing and executing this site.   The meticulous detail and explainations that she provides upon joining her site shows that she honestly does care about your success as you venture into Notebooking.  This site could easily be overwhelming to a new member, considering the thousands upon thousands of pages available and one could quickly become discouraged.  This is prevented almost immediately as Debra provides a series of Tutorials ( the "EasyStart Guide") that walk you step by step through the site along with suggestions for organizing and quickly referencing the available pages over the course of 5 daily easy to read PDF lessons.

Over the course of those first few days, with the help of Debra's EasyStart Guide, I put together my

time saving Reference Notebook.  This notebook is highly suggested as it gives you a very quick visual of all the available pages by subject.  Each pages is listed in the reference pages that lets you know what section of pages it can be found in (history, geography, language arts, ect) as well as which page number it is.  This saves HUGE amounts of time as you can find the page you want in the reference book and go straight to it in the downloaded PDF file for that section.  For example, the kids have used two very specific weather pages daily and I print out every Sunday night.  Using the Reference guide, I know that the pages I want are located in the Nature Study pages and are pages 276 and 277 out of 399 available pages in the Nature Study Section.  I HIGHLY recommend taking Debra's advice and making this reference guide as it will save loads of time in the future.  I will most likely trade my three ring binder and instead have this reference guide spiral bound with a cover in the near future.

Once I was done with the five days of Tutorials, we were ready to jump in with both feet.  I picked out a few subjects/topics I thought the kids would enjoy each week, printed them out and tested the waters with the kids.

The very first pages we started with were the weather pages located in the Nature Study section.  The kids check the weather each day as part of their daily nature study and I wanted them to start being able to read current temperatures, highs and lows for the day and wind speeds.  I was pretty happy to find not one but two pages that worked out really great for this goal.

The first page worked great for a weekly log where the kids could record a simple forecast for each day .

The second page allowed for a more in depth daily and I would print 5 of these each week - one for each school day.   These worked perfect for us because the pages didn't focus on precipitation (we live in a desert so we don't get much rain) but instead allowed us to concentrate more on wind speed - something we have lots of.  However, there are plenty of pages that also concentrate on precipitation for those who want to chart daily rain/snow fall.

I wanted to use a variety of pages from different sections, so I decided to print out one of the mapping pages - this one about North America.   The kids had fun labeling what they knew and I was pretty shocked to realize that Garrett remembered Greenland..

The kids are pretty excited about our upcoming camping trip to Yosemite.  I found a number of notebooking pages for Yosemite in the Geography section along with other National Parks and Monuments.

There's also a nice selection of Holidays pages so I printed out a few of the 4th of July pages that were available and told the kids to draw what they thought of when I said 4th of July and then write about it.  I had to laugh when Ashleigh drew fireworks and then proceeded to write about how the base fireworks always seem to set the base on fire.

In the course of the few weeks we've had access to the NotebookingPages.com website, we have done many different pages on different subjects, and we're in a slower, easier mode because of the summer. Yet we haven't even scratched the surface of the offerings available.

Just a few of our Notebooking Pages

Pages can be used over and over again in different ways - how Ashleigh and Garrett use a page right now while in 2nd (about to begin 3rd) grade will vary greatly as to how they will use the same page in 5th grade, 9th grade and 12th grade.  The lifetime membership means that we will have full access to the website for the life of the website.  It also means that we're not rushed trying to download and use as much as possible in the span of a yearly membership - when we're ready to do American History or to learn about the State of Idaho, the pages I need will be ready as well.

Currently a Lifetime Membership is available for $97 with a four month payment plan available with only $10 down.  There is a Free Membership Option also available that gives you access to hundreds of free pages which provides a wonderful introduction to Notebooking as well as to the PDF Tutorials.

In my opinion, it's well worth the cost and I can see why my friend Marcy has been talking about how wonderful this site is and I expect my friends will hear about it from me now.

For more information about NotebookingPages.com, be sure to check out their website or visit them on one of their social media sites:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/debrareed.notebookingpages/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/NotebookingPgs  @NotebookingPgs

Camouflaged Hichhiker (Wordless Wednesday)

The Camouflaged Hitchhiker who took a ride on my husband's arm

To submit your own Wordless Wednesday photo or to see other wonderful submissions, be sure to visit Tots and Me :)  Just click the picture below.

Veritas Press (A Schoolhouse Crew Review)

In our family, teaching the Bible is very important and the kids and I really enjoy learning about the Bible together, especially Ashleigh who really enjoys hearing the various stories from the Bible and learns very quickly.  However, there were some parts of the Bible that even though we covered the material, I couldn't say we learned it completely.  For example, while we covered the 7 days of Creation, we discussed what was created on each days but it wasn't something she could recall.   So when we were given the opportunity to review a one-year family subscription to VeritasBible.com from Veritas Press,  I knew that it would be right up Ashleigh's alley and I had hopes that it would help fill those gaps.

Veritas Press is a well known name in the Homeschool community when it comes to Christian education with a Biblical sound foundation. Well known for their Self-Paced Biblical history courses, Veritas Press also offers the VeritasBible.com, a series of Self Paced lessons that walk students through major events of the Bible from the book of Genesis to Joshua, Kings to Judges and The Gospels( the Chronicles to Malachi and Job as well as from Acts to Revelations is planned for the future).  

We opted to review the VeritasBible.com subscription. These are the same lessons offered with the three Veritas Press Self Paced Bible courses.  Both the Self Paced courses and the VeritasBible.com subscription covers the same information, however, the grades for the VeritasBible.com activities are not stored by Veritas Press.   The program uses multi-sensory techniques to help teach students a comprehensive and thorough understanding of the Bible.

Animated Roadmap

We began using the VeritasBible.com program for the last 6 weeks doing three lessons per week on average.  This has quickly become a program that Ashleigh asks to do.    Upon logging in and creating an account for the kids, we were given access to the three classes (Genesis to Joshua, Kings to Judges and The Gospels).  We decided we would start from the beginning with Genesis to Joshua course.  We were put on a cute animated "roadmap" that we would continue down as we traveled through the Bible.

Each section has it's own animated path which changes as you progress through the section. Sections are broken up by main topics of the Bible, such as The Creation, Cain and Abel, Enoch and Methuselah and The Flood.  Each of these sections consist of landing circles that indicate a lesson. A flag or banner on the circle indicates that the lesson has been completed making it very easy for younger students to quickly see where to go to continue.

Each lesson for the Genesis to Joshua is taught by brother and sister Asher and Abigail along with their animated companions Teb the Cat  and Tizzy the Gnat.  The Gospels course is taught by a carpenter named Benjamin as well as his apprentice Jude and Spyro the Dove and Uz the Termite while Kings to Judges is taught by Levi, an inventor, along with Vasko the Frog and Pallu the Badger.

The Main Characters for Genesis to Joshua- Asher, Abigail, Teb and Tizzy.

Through their interactions with each other as well as with other friends and family in a series of short video clips, they teach the main point of each section of the Bible.  Each lesson takes roughly 30 minutes and is comprised of several video clips as well as interactive activities that help to reinforce the material that is being learned.  Some activities also refer back to previous lessons to review past information and make sure the student is still retaining it.

Activity about the Days of Creation

Mapping Activity about the possible locations of the Garden of Eden

Activity about Cain and Abel

Progress for each course is tracked on the student dashboard .  This tracking is both by percentage and by the colored "ring" around the course.  Again, this makes it great for younger students as they can visually see their progress as the ring progressively gets more color.

Once a lesson is completed, a table of contents for each lesson is available to allow students to go back and review what they have already learned.  This is only available once the lesson is complete, however, and shows as being locked out until that section is passed.  Students are also not able to skip videos or activities until they have already passed the section which keeps them from fast fowarding through the videos or skipping activities they don't find interesting.

 One of Ashleigh's favorite parts of the VeritasBible.com lessons is the memory song.   Each course has it's own memory song that helps students to remember the order of how each of the 32 events covered in the course occur in the Bible.   The song is very catchy and Ashleigh really likes it.  Here's a video of a VERY short clip of the song to give you an idea of how it works.. For the Genesis to Joshua course, the song is 4:05 long.


My only complaint about the program is that it can be a tad bit glitchy, especially when using the Google Chrome browser and would constantly flash black, lock up or cause my video card to crash. I did find that the video lessons ran much smoother on the new Microsoft Edge browser and would recommend it if problems arise from using another browser. I did not try it with Mozilla Firefox nor did I try it on any tablets.

We're really enjoyed using VeritasBible.com as our guide through the Bible and look forward to continuing to use it throughout the year..   Also, as this is my first introduction to Veritas Press, I plan on looking into other courses offered by Veritas Press such as their Self Paced American History course as their format seems to be great for Ashleigh and Garrett.

VeritasBible.com offers a free trial (no credit card required) that gives you immediate full access to their program to allow you to try it before you buy it.

For more information about Veritas Press and VeritasBible.com, be sure to visit their website or visit them at one of their social media platforms:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/veritaspress/

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/veritaspress/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/veritaspress/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/veritaspress  @VeritasPress

My School Year (A Schoolhouse Crew Review)

As I've mentioned before in other reviews, I've only just recently gotten to where I enjoy and actually stick to planning out my homeschool day with lesson plans and assignments.  I'm one of those who enjoys having both a physical planner and an online planner that I use during the day so I was pretty excited to get to try out an annual subscription of My School Year (Homeschool Record Keeping) from MySchoolYear.com which is an online record keeping and planner all in one.

My School Year is chocked full of useful features designed to help homeschool families keep their school year running efficiently and more organized. It's also extremely flexible as it can be accesses both from the computer, tablet or smartphone.

My SchoolYear takes the guess work out of planning by offering a neat feature called Teacher's Aide Homework Helper that walks you through the steps of adding students, planning classes, scheduling assignments and exploring other features of the program that you might overlook.   It also brings to your attention items that need addressing, such as marking a class as complete or to enter grades.

Another feature, the Planbook allows you to schedule,  modify, mark as complete or reschedule assignments.  This is probably the feature that we used the most during this review period.. As it is summer, the kids course load has been reduced and they are only doing a few things each.  I was able to plan the assignments that they are working on throughout the summer.

Actually planning the assignments themselves is super easy..  From the Planbook, you simply click on the "Actions"  button and a drop down menu gives you the option to View and Add classes.  Then, just add the lesson, the date it is assigned for and any grade value, how much time you want the student to spend on the assignment and what type of grade the assignment will be considered (test, daily assignment, laboratory experiment, ect).   Marking an assignment as complete is as easy as just clicking yes or no and BOOM! it's done.

The Homeroom Page allows you to see a quick overlook at what the student has been working, on, attendance record, and how many assignments have been completed.  These reports show your current classes, a pie graph chart that shows both attendance days and attendance hours, any events the student has done and awards given, their reading log, test grades and their extra curricular activities.

These reports just give a very quick visual overview but more detailed reports are accessible for each student.   For example, the above Orange/Blue cart shows attendance hours as a whole but a more detailed report can be published that breaks down attendance by month and hours.   Attendance is automatically tracked by the program based on the time appropriated for classes and the assignments assigned.

Another report that can be easily accessed is the student's reading log.  Garrett has really been working on his reading during the summer and we are able to keep track what he has read. The Homeroom page shows that he has read 8 books, however, the reading log allows me to show that one book he had to break down into multiple sections and it was read over a longer period of time.

Since I homeschool two 2nd Graders , I didn't use the high school transcript generator however, this option is available with the program.

I really like that this program is designed with the homeschooler in mind and the reminders through the Teacher's Aide really helps to bring my attention to things that need to be addressed.  Overall, it's a great program.

For more information about MySchoolYear and My School Year (Homeschool Record Keeping) then be sure to visit their website or their social media sites:

Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/MySchoolYearWeb/

Twitter:  https://twitter.comhttps://twitter.com/@MySchoolYearWeb

Google+:  https://plus.google.com/+MyschoolyearWeb

What' In Kenny's Pet Treater Box??

This week has been the week of Subscription Box Deliveries .. and Kenny has been spoiled rotten this week, for sure.  He had a second delivery this week and received the June Pet Treater Box.

Pet Treater is a subscription service that sends your spoiled poochie treats, toys and other dog related items to your door every month.  They're a bit unique from other pet subscription services as they are very personal (there's a letter every month addressed to your pet) as well as there's always a few items for the human.  Boxes come in Small (up to 20 pounds), Medium (21-50 pounds) and Large (51+ pounds).  Kenny receives the Medium box even though he's not quite 21 lbs. The price for the Pet Treater box is $24.99/month with a a month-to-month plan.

This was our first Pet Treater box and when we signed up we used Coupon Code PT-BED to get a free pet bed with our first box.   So when we got up and found a big box outside our door, we knew that the goodies had arrived.   Even Newton showed up temporarily to see what was going on.

Inside we found the bright colorful Pet Treater box.

And underneath the box folded up was our free pet bed.  

 Each box receives a different pet bed that is picked out by Pet Treater based on your dog's size and sex.  Since Kenny is a medium sized male dog, he got a more male orientated pet bed, but I have seen everything to Pink Zebra print beds for small female dogs.  

Our pet bed turned out to be the Precision Pets Snoozzy 25x20 inch bumper crate bed in Ocean Wave Aqua.  Honestly, this is a really nice pet bed and way more than I expected for a freebie. I did look up the bed on Amazon and found that they sell it for $32.52 so not a bad value at all.   Kenny immediately tried it out and found it worthy.  (And now it sits on my couch where he is currently dozing).

Kenny Approves

With the pet bed out dealt with and Kenny relaxing, we dug into the actual subscription box. Upon opening, you can see this box is jammed pack with goodies.  And there's the letter addressed to Kenny. Inside was a welcome letter addressed to Kenny as well as a letter telling us about another dog who was adopted from the shelter.  One of the great things about Pet Treater is that for every box purchased, they supply either a pet bed, blanket, or bag of treats to a local shelter for animals in need so not only is my pound puppy getting spoiled rotten, we're also helping another pound puppy who hasn't been adopted just yet.  That was one of the main reasons I started the Pet Treater subscription - I had this ordered even before Kenny came home. LOL

Kenny too lazy to get off his bed but still checking out the goods. 

The June box theme was called "Unleashed" but I really didn't see how anything in the box really fit that theme..  There was a card telling us the theme and that next month's theme is "Dog Days of Summer".

Now for the goodies!!!   

Dogs Unleased Ritz Absorbent Pet Bowl Placemat

The first thing we pulled out was an Absorbent Pet Bowl Placemat from Dogs Unleashed (maybe that goes with the theme, I guess?). This bat is shaped like a bone and measures 13x20inches.  I found this on Amazon for $6.99.
 

Kenny isn't a sloppy eater/drinker but his bowls do tend to "travel" a bit while he's eating so this might be nice for him.  It's not particularly thick and is made more like a shammy towel  so I don't know how grippy it will be to our tile floor but it will be worth trying :)  

Redbarn Naturals Sweet Potato Fries (16oz)

Our first treat from our box was a very nice size bag of Redbarn Naturals Sweet Potato Fries.  The total weight of this bag is 16oz and contains a lot of the product.  These say they are made only of dried USA grown sweet potatoes which are a good source of vitamins, minerals and complex carbohydrates. These treats are grain free, gluten free and 100% vegetarian.  I found these treats on Chewy.com for $13.49 and on Amazon for $11.96.

Kenny seemed to like these well enough. I gave him one upon opening the bag (before I took pictures) and he gobbled that one up no problem.  Kenny is a chewer and I expected the treat to be gone pretty quick so I was pretty surprised that it took him a good 5 minutes plus to have the treat completely devoured.  However, when I gave him the second treat, it was after he had had one of the second treats that were in the box and he really liked those more so he was more interested in getting a second one of those.. LOL   Kenny is very peculiar about his treats and he like what he likes I guess. . LOL  



Whole Life Tail Mix Carrots and Apples  (2oz)

Here's the treat that won Kenny's heart from this box. Unfortunately it does appear that this particular treat has been discontinued and so Pet Treater probably bought up some of the remaining product for a discount.  Such a shame as Kenny really likes these treats.  Unfortunately, because it is a discountinued product, I cannot find a pricing for these treats.  However, other treats from Whole Life appear to run between $13-15 per page on both Amazon and Chewy.

Kenny Approved

Even more unfortunate is that the bag is only 2oz and contains about 30 treats which means I'll have to give them to him sparingly as it appears that once they are gone, they are truly gone and Kenny will have to find another new "favorite" (although he's still enjoying the S'mores treats from our Barkbox and I'll probably order him more of those here in the upcoming weeks.. lol)..

Anyway, ingredients in these particular treats are chicken, potato, water, apples, carrots, flax seed, and sea salt.  They look and feel like they are probably freeze dried puffs and they are very light weight.  And of course, they are made in the USA.

Happy Tails Tuff Purple Tug Toy

This appears to be another discontinued item from Happy Tails.  This toy is about a foot long with a rubber handle on one side and a canvas tug filled with stuffing.. Seems simple enough.  Kenny didn't show much interest in it, which is shocking because he loves to play tug of war.  But I think part of that was he was super comfy in that new bed of his..  I'll let Charles try it tonight with him as Charlie tends to get Kenny to play much rougher than I can.  I found this item on Amazon as a $6 add on item.

Multipet Frontier Hat Toy for Dogs

Okay, I'm going to be honest.. This thing looks like Coon Roadkill more than anything.. LOL  This is a 17" Faux Racoon hat with a crinkle interior and a squeaker in the tail and is designed for small to medium sized dogs. It is stuffingless so no mess but anyone who sees this laying on your carpet is going to think they just entered Deliverance or something.. LOL    I did find this toy on Amazon for $10.82

 And of course, Kenny liked it.  

Every month, there's an item for the human.. I've seen previous boxes that have had a silicone pot holder,  a knee padding for gardening or bathing your dog, a salad tote and even a lil artwork box to put on the shelf.. What did I get????

Umm. yeah, that's going into a junk drawer and will probably never see the light of day again.. LOL

However, they made up for it with this :)

Cobble Creek Pet Backseat Car Cover

This is a 10.5'x10'  fabric seat cover to prevent mud, fur and whatever other yuck from

getting on the backseat of your car when your pooch is in the car with you.  Honestly, I can see this coming in handy with the three humans who usually sit in the backseat as well ;)   This snaps behind the headrests and then draps down the entire seat to allow for full coverage of your seats.    

It also looks like it zips up to keep the yucky parts closed and sealed when not in use and can fold up to fit into the map pouch in the back of some seats.   It does appear to be made of washable material but I haven't taken it out of it's packaging yet to check the label to see what it's made out of and if indeed it can be thrown in the wash or not.  

I can see us using this, especially with upcoming trips camping and to the beach, ect.  And like I said, not just because of the dog but to keep the kids from getting my back seats dirty. 

I found this product for sale on Amazon for $8.98 and a similar item (but made by a different company) at Walmart for $15.98.

Overall, I think this was a great box.. I know that Pet Treater is a fairly new company in the Pet subscription box game so I can forgive the Warehouse toys.  Both bags of treats we received were still within the expiration date on the bag.  I love the fact that my purchasing a box allows for a pound puppy in Tennessee (where Pet Treater is located) to get a pet bed, treats, a blanket or a toy so in a way adopting Kenny not only helps Kenny but continues to help other dogs in need.  I also like that all the treats are made in the USA. And I like that there's more to the box than just treats and toys like other subscription boxes - the Car seat cover and the Slip mat will both be a welcome addition.  The Mustache keyring?? Not so much ;) 

Value wise, the cost of the box on a month to month subscription is $24.99 (I believe it is cheaper when you purchase a longer subscription length but that requires full payment up front). I estimate that the total value of the items in the box comes out to roughly $60, not counting the pet bed, so it's a really good value.  

If Pet Treater seems like something you might be interested, be sure to use the Coupon Code PT-BED when you check out so that you can get your free bed with your first box.