Dunromin Farm

This morning my husband went and bought a dozen chickens, 11 hens and 1 rooster. So far today they have laid 5 eggs! I am so happy, and Ive missed hearing a rooster crowing outside.

They are all black, and so far are getting along well with the 2 hens we had left from our original flock.

Our original flock was killed by a neighborhood dog. They offered to pay for new chickens but we werent able to find any to buy at this time of year until today.

I hope the laying continues!

I recently participated in a swap hosted by The Homeschool Post. My swap partner was Bon from MathFour.com, she really spoiled me! Take a look at the fun things she sent to me and the kids :0)

First, there’s a funny story behind the box it all came in. My husband brought in the mail that day, and since the box arrived the day before our 10th anniversary, AND the box itself just looks like a present for a guy, he was sure it was his. LOL

Next I opened the card, isn’t that pretty stationary? It just happens to be my initial also :0)

The kids were all gathered around like ants on a pile of sugar by this time. I let River pull out the first item, a very cool game called Tricky Fingers

The colored marbles are trapped inside the box. You have to use your fingers to move them around through the holes underneath, and be the first one to match up your marbles with the pattern on the card to win. It can be tricky! This game gets played a lot.

Skye pulled out the next item, a zipper bag, and inside were mechanical pencils and a pen for each of them. They are all little artists, and Skye loves to write. They were glad to each have a different color pencil, they get pretty possessive sometimes.

Star pulled out a Hello Kitty watch! I am a HUGE Hello Kitty fan, and I actually needed a watch. I LOVE IT!!

There is a tag for each day of the week too, so cute!!!

Brae pulled out a box of window markers. I saw these at the store and thought about getting them but didn’t. I used them that night to draw a big heart on the kitchen window that said, “I LOVE J”. The next morning I found my husband had replied and wrote, “I LOVE B” underneath it. That was incredibly sweet :0) I could not get a picture of this no matter how hard I tried, but it is still there almost a month later.

The last items were 4 flower shaped wooden picture frame, one for each of my little ones, and a box of mints (not pictured) I hid those away in my purse for when we are out, I love mints :0)

Thank you So much Bon for your thoughtfulness! I hope you enjoy the things we sent you as much as we have enjoyed what you chose for us. May God richly bless you!

The Reading Game was created by the author of Wordly Wise, Kenneth Hodkinson. It’s designed for early readers, but can also be used to help out young struggling readers. I used The Reading Game with my 5, 7, and 8 year olds for this review.

My 5 year old was very excited about trying this out, she looked through all the books and couldn’t wait to get started. The game is played like a game of memory. You start with the first 10 cards, and play one on one with your child. Each time you play, 5 words are practiced. By the time you use up all of the cards in set 1, your child is ready to read the first book, titled “Skunk”.

The stories in the books are cute and funny and interesting. My 7 year old is a pretty good reader at this point, but she could always use practice, and sight words that cannot be sounded out phonetically throw her for a loop. The Reading Game was helpful for her with those trickster words. She breezed through the first 3 books, book #4 was a little more challenging. She was determined to get to the Unicorn book!

My 8 year old didn’t really like playing with the cards, he just wanted to read the books. I was OK with that since he has really taken off with his reading this year. He enjoyed the stories, he laughed pretty hard at the skunk book. ( The skunk defends some cats from a dog by spraying him. )

I know they enjoy playing the game because they ask to play it. I know the game is helping them with reading because I have seen improvement in my 7 year old, and my 5 year old has memorized quite a few words and remembers them when she comes across them later.

I would recommend The Reading Game for beginning readers, or readers who struggle a bit with common sight words. After completing all 6 books, 180 words have been set into their memory. This is not a reading program by itself, it is a supplemental tool that can be used along with any reading program you may be using already.

The Reading Game contains 6 books (Skunk, snake, bear, penguins, unicorn,and zebra) , and 6 sets of matching cards, one set for each book. Plus a parent/teacher guide. It all fits nicely in a sturdy box to keep everything together and organized. You can read more about what can be learned by playing the game HERE. Assessment and test worksheets can also be found on that page.

The Reading Game sells for $24.95 ($27.95 in Canada) and is available from The Reading Game website.

Read what other members of The Homeschool Crew thought of The Reading Game!

Disclaimer ~ We received this product free of charge in exchange for an honest review as a member of the TOS Homeschool Crew. No other compensation was given. All opinions are my own and may vary from those of others.

Have you ever stopped to imagine living without grace? In America we take so many little things for granted. Something as simple as someone letting you go first in line because you only have one item to check out, or someone holding the door open for you when you have your hands full. These are things we do appreciate, but we halfway expect them at the same time. Why? Because whether we realize it or not, we live in a country where Grace abounds.

In The Grace Effect, Larry Taunton gives us a taste of what living in a graceless society is like. He lived it for a while along with his family, while in the process of adopting their daughter, Sasha, from Ukraine. He tells of how the people in Ukraine know very little grace because they do not know God.

Larry’s wife and sons went on a mission trip to Ukraine and returned home feeling so much compassion for the orphans that they went to help. While there they fell in love with a girl named Sasha, and felt led to adopt her. God opened doors that seemed impossible, there was no denying that this was God’s will for them.

This story was so powerful, and very eye opening for me. I couldn’t put it down, I looked forward to the few pages I could squeeze in at a time to read right now. When the book ended I wanted to read even more. i love those kinds of books!

In this season of Thanksgiving, we have so much more to be thankful for than we realize. Reading this book will change the way you think about a lot of things. I highly recommend this book! You can read more about Larry Taunton and his ministry at Fixed Point Foundation.

From the book…..

“Simply defined, the ‘grace effect’ is an observable phenomenon—that life is demonstrably better where authentic Christianity flourishes.”

What does Christianity give us beyond televangelists, potlucks, and bad basketball leagues?  Not much, according to the secular Left.  The world, they say, would be a better place without it.

Historian and Christian apologist Larry Taunton has spent much of his career refuting just this sort of thinking, but when he encounters Sasha, a golden-haired orphan girl whose life has been shaped by atheistic theorists, he discovers an unlikely champion for the transforming power of grace.

Through the narrative of Sasha’s redemption, we see the false promises of socialism; the soul-destroying influence of unbelief; and how a society cultivates its own demise when it rejects the ultimate source of grace.  We see, in short, the kind of world the atheists would give us: a world without Christianity—cold, pitiless, and graceless.

And yet, as Sasha shows us, it is a world that is not beyond the healing power of “the grace effect.”  Occasionally infuriating, often amusing, but always inspiring, The Grace Effect will have you cheering for the courageous little girl who shamed the academic elitists of our day.

The Grace Effect: How the Power of One Life Can Reverse the Corruption of Unbelief is available from Amazon for $10.98 with free shipping on orders over $25.00. It is also available for Kindle

One of my readers will win a copy of The Grace Effect, leave a comment below to enter! Leave a separate comment for each thing you do, one entry per comment. Winner must be 18 and live in the US to win.Winner will be contacted via email. Winner will be drawn on November 27th 2011 at midnight EST.

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