Last January I told you about an up and coming company developing online programs for kids, Flying Rhinoceros. I enjoyed my experience reviewing PrezQuest for them so I was thrilled to hear that they have expanded their offerings to include three new experiences.Carter and I jumped in for the Insects class last week and yesterday my 81 year old mom did the Presidents experience with him. We all found it really it easy and fun to use. The character in the Insects kinda freaked Carter out though (in a funny way). He kept telling me that "That is NOT a kid it is a creepy old man". I kinda have to agree. He found the 'boy' hysterical. Next week we are looking forward to the How To Draw Cartoons class. He actually has this one marked on the calendar so he doesn't forget.The live teacher really is an ingenius way to grab the kids attention. The first day of whatever series you choose, the class is live and interactive. There is an actual 'teacher' there to guide you through the activities. You sign in on the top of the hour any time between 10am-7pm MST. My son LOVES asking questions just to make sure that the person is real and not a set up :) They are. The teacher calls your child by ...
Legend of the Cottonwood Tree Star
Today was our first park day with the homeschool group I agreed to take over here and we were lucky enough to come across our first cottonwood tree star. The people were really nice, the kids very accepting of Carter, it is just that parks here are NOT accessible....grrrrr! In any case, it was a beautiful park with hundreds of old cottonwood trees lining the river that the kids played in. Again, Carter couldn't get down to the river area but this is how we learned something new. In an effort to include Carter some of the kids went out scouting for cottonwood twigs. Did you know that if you are very lucky and you snap a cottonwood tree twig right on the lines, you can find a star hiding inside? I grew up with cottonwoods all over Arizona and never knew this. The group knew there was a Native American legend surrounding this little oddity of nature so when we came home we looked it up. According to Arapaho and Cheyenne tribes, they believed that this is where the stars in the sky come from. According to this legend, the wind sent them to the sky from the trees. There is also another legend that the stars hide there during the day. The Lakota use the cottonwood tree as the ...
My WordPress
I am a busy mom so I am always looking for things to make my life more productive both online and off. Since lots of my friends are bloggers, I thought today I would share my favorite plug-ins for an installed wordpress blog to pass along what works well for me. I hope that you find a useful plug-in or two here and if you have one not listed, please leave me a comment. I am always looking for things to make my blogging life easier!So, first off, all four of my active blogs use the Studio Press Lifestyle Theme. I use Studio Press because of the ease of customization, excellent support and because they are both well coded and ahead of the curve.Because I use that theme, three of the blogs use the Featured Content Gallery plugin to make the scrolling pictures box at the top. On this blog, I replaced Featured Content with the Whrrl Widget so that as I take pictures from my iPhone, you see them. I also recoded this one to show my latest full post on the home page.So, what else do I think is blogorific? Add Graphical Signature-This one is old but still works well on my blogs. It is how I get the nifty little signature to show in each post. Comment Luv- Adds a line to each comment ...
PrezQuest Review: Kids Discovery With Live Teacher
Looking for something unique to do this week for the Inauguration? This may be your answer! This week the kids and I had the opportunity to do our first live online learning event. It was really cool. There is a live teacher that walks the kids through the lesson which makes it different from any other online learning program that I know of. When the kids answered questions correctly, our 'teacher' would give them a high five, which they thought was really neat. They enjoyed being actively engaged in the lesson and hearing their names used.The event that we did was called PrezQuest. During the event the live teacher acted as the kids campaign manager. The teacher walked them through the qualifications to be the President, the five main jobs of the President, and the Election process. The event is peppered with cute animations of past presidents that share fun facts and interactive games. I loved that the process is meant to be shared with a parent. This is not something you sit the kids down to do while you make dinner. The intent is to spark conversation and interaction between parents and kids. In other words, it is the perfect medium to do something a little different ...