The World's Greatest Stories Review

We read the Bible often during our school day. The stories are a wonderful way to teach virtues and character traits that we are studying in our Konos curriculum.

I'm always looking for interesting ways to tell the stories. Sometimes we draw a picture about the story or re-enact it. But I recently discovered an audio collection of Bible stories that are told so well that you can't help but sit on the edge of your seat to hear what happens next. I'm so glad I was asked by the Homeschool Crew to review The World's Greatest Stories CD by George W. Sarris.

There are six volumes. We have listened to Volume 1: The Prophets which contains the following stories:

1. The Blazing Furnace, Daniel 3
2. The Handwriting on the Wall, Daniel 5
3. Daniel in the Lions' Den, Daniel 6
4. Elijah and the Prophets of Baal, 1 Kings 17-18
5. The Prophecy of Jonah, The complete book of Jonah

These CDs are beautifully rich story telling, word for word, straight from the Bible. The voices and drama on these CDs is so good that you are really drawn into the story. I am really impressed.

Nicholas loves listening to stories on CD so I'm excited to actually have Bible stories for him to listen to. He listens to them when he is in his room building with LEGOS or as he's lying in bed at night. We also listen to them when we are driving around town in the van. Nicholas has a memory like a sponge and easily remembers the stories and enjoys retelling them.

Nicholas even made some dioramas about some of the stories that we listened to.

Here Daniel is praying in the Lions' Den when an angel comes to save him.

This is Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego tied up in the fiery furnance with King Nebuchadnezzar looking on.

And of course, Jesus joins them in the fires and the four of them walk among the fires unharmed (well, except that one that is missing his hand but that was from a previous incident!).

I love how The World's Greatest Stories CDs bring the Bible to life and help enrich my children's learning of these great stories.

The stories come in either CD or cassette tapes and you can choose NIV or KJV. They are $7.95 each and can be purchased on the World's Greatest Stories website. You can also listen to sample clips from the CDs here. There are a total of 6 volumes - The Prophets, The Life of Christ, Beginnings, Joshua and Esther, Joseph and His Brothers, and Defeating Giants. Right now you can get free shipping when you order 6 or more items!

Check out what others on the TOS Homeschool Crew had to say about The World's Greatest Stories HERE.

I received this product for free in order to complete this review. The opinions are entirely my own and I would not bother reviewing a product that I did not truly want to recommend to others.

A Card From Grandmama

Rachel got a card in the mail from my mom. I love how excited she got as she squealed and hugged the card as soon as I gave it to her.

It's hard being so far away from our families. I appreciate that our children's grandparents make great efforts to keep building strong relationships with them even though we only see them once or twice a year.

As you can see, little Rachel appreciates it too.

Nicholas' First Cowboys Game

Stuart has a friend who often invites him to go to Dallas Cowboys games with him. They have lots of fun tailgating before and after the game.

But what a treat! This time Mark invited Stuart to the game against the NY Giants and asked if Nicholas might want to come along too.

Of course!

So we got Nicholas a Cowboys sweatshirt and loaded up some tailgating food and the boys had a great time. They grilled burgers and snacked on chips and cookies before the game.

Nicholas was really excited to be at the game and had a great time. He doesn't watch much football so Stuart had to explain a few things to him. I love it because I remember having so much fun tailgating with my Dad and his friends at LSU football games and I remember him having to explain a lot of things about what was happening on the field. I may not have understood much about the game but those are cherished memories for me. I'm so glad that Nicholas got to make some special memories with his Dad at a Cowboys football game.

The only thing that would have made it better was if the Cowboys had won!

Fractazmic Card Game Review

Fractazmic by I See Cards is a fun card game to help children learn and practice calculating with fractions.

The cards are colorful and eye-catching. They come in three suits:
Red cards are Sixteenths - 1/16, 1/8, 3/16, 1/4, 5/16, 3/8, 7/16 and 1/2
Blue cards are Twelfths - 1/12, 1/6, 1/4, 1/3, 5/12 and 1/2
Green cards are Tenths - 1/10, 1/5, 3/10, 2/5 and 1/2

The basic Fractazmic game can be played with 2-4 players. Each player gets dealt a set of cards and they try to make a "hand" by collecting a set of cards in the same suit that add up to 1. This involves converting fractions, multiplication, and addition. The rest of the cards are placed face down in the middle of the table with one card turned up to start the discard pile. If a player can not make a hand with the cards they have they can either choose a card from the stack that is turned down in which case they then have to place one of their cards in the discard pile or they can pick any card in the discard pile but they must take all cards placed on top of the card they want.

The game ends when the first person runs out of cards and the winner is the person with the most hands that add up to 1.

Although the game states that it is geared for students in grades 1st-8th grade, I think most 1st graders would have a hard time with all of the calculations that have to be done. My son is in 2nd grade and he seemed to take a long time doing the calculations to determine if he had the cards he needed to make a hand or if pulling a card from the discards would make a hand.

However, he never grumbled about doing the math and seemed to have fun the whole time.

...especially when he beat Daddy!

There are many different ways to play with the Fractazmic cards. There is a booklet on the I See Cards website that explains some of them.

Fractazmic include 60 cards and an instruction sheet. They sell for $6.95 and are available on the I See Cards website.

Summary:
Fractazmic is a fun way to help teach and practice math skills with fractions. It can be challenging for younger children but game play can be adapted to accomodate early fraction skills. My son gives it a 4.5 stars out of 5 because game play can slow down at times if there is a lot of calculating that needs to be done. He would also like to see the corner numbers adjusted so that they don't appear upside down if the card isn't turned just the right way.

Some other games by I See Cards include Pyramath where students add, mulitply, subtract & divide their way to perfect math and Prime Bomb, the most fun kids will have learning prime numbers.

Take a moment to go over to the TOS Crew Blog to see what my other crew mates are saying about the Fractazmic card game.

Note, I See Cards sent me a Fractazmic game for free as a part of the TOS Homeschool Review Crew, in exchange for my honest review.

Hockey Game at Arlington

Nicholas had a hockey game at the Ice at the Parks at Arlington mall today. Sometimes there are two games going on the same ice rink where each game is just played on 1/2 of the ice with a barrier across the middle. But today was a full ice game which means a lot more skating for the boys.

The team looked good on the ice and have really showed improvements since we've added a Saturday morning practice to their schedule.

They have been working on making sure the boys understand their position and know where to be on the ice instead of everyone just following the puck in a tight little group. We were really proud to see Nicholas at the side of the goal, right where he was supposed to be.

He still looks to us for praise during the game which is sweet but distracting for him since he's not watching the puck if he's watching us!

I love watching the boys all huddled around the coach. I know they think they are big tough boys but I just think they are so stinking cute!

Nicholas made a few good attempts on scoring a goal but it wasn't meant to be today.

While we still haven't won a single game, we are making progress. I think this is the first game where we had 6 goals on the board and it was a hard battle to get those.

I'm proud of our Grapevine Wolves!