Sweet Childhood Memories - Old Time Candy Discount

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Are you looking for special Valentine sweet for your significant other, friend or child? Then I highly suggest checking out Old Time Candy. They have some really great old-fashioned candy from the 1950s, 60s, 70s and 80s. You can purchase candy in bulk, create a Pack-a-Bag assortment or choose one of their Decade Boxes stuff with candy from your favorite era. They also have some really cool party favors, gift boxes, retro toys/ games you played with as a child (like slinkies, balsa planes, pick-up sticks), lunch boxes and more. The website is really easy to navigate and the prices are very reasonable. They even have a section where they list just the candy that is made in the USA!

Can you believe that this candy is still around after all these years? Do you still remember all the candies you ate as child? What was your favorite?

One of my fondest childhood memories was walking to our local corner grocery store in Lancaster, PA. The name of the store was Joanne's. I used to visit the store at least once a day sometimes more (I often visited before and after school). The coolest thing about this store was the penny, 5 cent and 10 cent candy. You could fill up a brown paper bag of assorted candy for a couple dollars. Do you remember Bananaramas, Chupa Chups, Cow Tales, Cry Babies and Nerds. Can you tell what era I grew up in? Yes I'm a child of the 80's. Chupa Chups also bring back memories of my Grandmother. She bought me all of the Chupa Chups tin milk pails. Boy did I love those lollipops. I haven't seen them in years and am so happy that I finally found a place that sells them so I can share them with my kids. 

So why not get your Valentine candy that will bring back special childhood memories.Through February 28th you can get 10% off at Old Time Candy with code VALENTINE10!


"This post was created in partnership with eAccountable. All opinions are my own."

FreeBEE Friday Link Up - FREE Valentine's Day Resources

*This post contains affiliate links. Please see my Disclosure Page for details.

Welcome to a New Year of FreeBEEs. Every Friday I will share a great list of educational FreeBEE resources. PLUS...there's the added bonus of this being a monthly link up...where you can showcase your freebie posts or discover more amazing freebies from my blogging friends. The blogger link up will start on the first Friday of every month and end on the first day of the following month. Each month there will be a new link up. Link up anything that is educational and FREE including GIVEAWAYS!

Valentine's Day is right around the corner so to help you out with some Valentine's Day learning fun I have compiled a list of FREE (or very inexpensive resources) along with some fun crafts too!

Valentine's Day FreeBEEs:
With all of the upcoming holidays I decided to make my kids a holiday journal page. Be sure to download your FREE Holiday, Celebration, Festival Journal Page (you can also click on the photo below).

-Valentine's Day activity placemats
-Valentine's Day coloring pages
-Story of St. Valentine study

-Valentine's express lapbook ($1.00)
-100 FREE Valentine's Day worksheets

-Valentine math worksheets from A+ Interactive Math

-Valentine's day measurement math 
-Valentine's day idioms booklet
-February calendar cards
-Notebooking Valentine's day

-Friends and Heroes has a free music video, plus a couple of downloadable puzzles that highlight the Biblical idea of love and the real story of St. Valentine.
-Valentine's day book lapbooks and chocolate lapbook from Homeschool Share
-ABC Teach Valentines Day worksheets

-What's In The Bible? Printable Valentine cards.

Valentine Crafts:

My kids wanted to make their close friends some personalized Valentines. So I picked up a bag of foam sparkly hearts at Dollar Tree and here is the craft we came up with.

Buggy Valentines:
Materials:
-Pipe cleaners
-Foam, sparkly hearts
-Wiggle eyes
-Pom poms
-Felt
-Sequins
-Glue
-Scissors
-Magnets
-Construction paper (if you want to make a card too)

What to do:
1) Decide what bug you want to make using your hearts and let your imagination run wild. Use pipe cleaners for antennae, pom poms for heads, etc. My kids came up with butterflies, caterpillars, bees, worms, ladybugs and spiders.

Then the kids also had the great idea to turn their creations into magnets for their friends. They also made some cards out of construction paper. They wrote their fun phrases (see below) on the outside of the card and taped their bugs onto the inside.

You can come up with all sorts of fun phrases like, "I will worm my way into your heart," "I'm buggy about you," "Bee my love bug," "Bee my Valentine," "You are cute as a bug,"  or for someone you don't want as a Valentine, "You bug me."

For more fun Valentine crafts head over to my friend Joanne's blog!

Videos:
I made this YouTube playlist with several Valentine's Day videos.


eBooks/Audio Books:
-Valentine's Day! Learn About Valentine's Day and Enjoy Colorful Pictures - Look and Learn! (50+ Photos of Valentine's Day)

-Valentine's Day Love - 25 stories and a coloring book

-Valentine's Day Poems for Kids

-Valentine's Day is... The Story of Saint Valentine (Picture Book for Kids)

Also be sure to head over to Schoolhouse Review Crew Blog to find more amazing Valentine's Day resources (link live on February 5th).

I hope you find these resources useful. If you ever have any questions feel free to leave me a comment or email me. Also be sure to follow my Facebook Page where I post FreeBEEs daily.

If you have homeschool FreeBEEs to share

please link up at the bottom of this post!

You can copy the button from my right sidebar to share

somewhere on your blog.

Link up: FreeBEE Fridays with Kathy's Cluttered Mind.

Remember when it comes to FREE resources the internet and a good search engine are your best friend. Oh and a library card!

*Don't miss a single FreeBEE... Subscribe to Kathys Cluttered Mind*

  
Linking up with 3 Boys and a Dog, #getyourcrafton

Museum Of Design Atlanta (MODA) Homeschool Day Review

*This post contains affiliate links. Please see my Disclosure Page for details.

Museum of Design Atlanta (MODA) is a modern art museum in the heart of Atlanta off of Peachtree Street (it's Atlanta everything is off a Peachtree something or other). MODA's mission is to advance the understanding and appreciation of design as the merging of creativity and functionality. They do this through their amazing exhibitions, education and programming for visitors of all ages.

A moms review:
My children love art! But they are both passionate about art in different ways. Gwyn loves drawing animals and exploring different art mediums like pastels, watercolors and colored pencils. Rowyn loves building 3 dimensional creations. So art museums and art events are always on our fieldtrip list. Recently we found out that one of our local art museums here in Atlanta, which we have never visited previously, started offering homeschool days. So it was a great time to take a visit to the Museum of Design Atlanta (MODA) to check it out.

Homeschool Day Info:
The homeschool days require setting up a tour time so they can group age appropriate children together. The homeschool day runs from 10 am - 5 pm so just send them an email to RSVP and arrange your tour time (it's really simple). The rate for the program is fantastic and only $4 per person (parents and children). The day we visited we did the 10 am, Paul Rand tour. The tour is 90 minutes long and geared towards K-12. Jenn Allen was our tour guide and she did a fantastic job of keeping the children's attention and presenting the information in a way that they could understand. They plan to offer homeschool days for each 3 month exhibit and there will be 3 different programs offered (1 a month). See below for the next exhibit information. The museum has been focusing on incorporating more hands on experiences throughout the museum for the younger crowd since last April. And they certainly did a fabulous job with the Rand exhibit. There were several hands on activities throughout the exhibit like an artistic brain teaser, colorforms, and audio stations. The children were thrilled...a museum where you can actually touch and explore!

Here is what is included in the homeschool tour:

• A Guided Tour of the Museum
• A Scavenger Hunt of the Exhibition (the day we visited the kids got a little prize too for completing the scavenger hunt)
• A Hands-on Design Activity Related to the Current Exhibition
• A Standards-Based Lesson Plan for Home Extension (this is really awesome, it's several pages long)

The Rand museum was fantastic. It was engaging and presented a style of art work that we had not really explored - graphic design. The children were able to really identify with the art and for the rest of the day they were pointing out logos!

The Museum:
MODA looks amazing from the outside and it's even more amazing on the inside. The museum lobby is very open and includes the registration desk, small gift shop, benches and an intro to the exhibit. The gift shop does have breakable items so be aware of small hands touching items. The day we visited there was a giant glass table filled with white Legos which kept the kids busy for awhile before our tour started. They were encouraged to build space ships and they did! Restrooms are located near the front of the museum as well.

The museum is bright white inside with lots of natural lighting which gave it a nice, peaceful feeling...perfect for a museum.

After you take a peak at the exhibit intro you walk along a long hallway, filled with pieces of artwork, timelines, etc. The hallway leads to two large exhibit rooms.The placards with information about the pieces were terrific. They provided lots of information, yet were simple to read. The museum only has one exhibit at a time and in between exhibits the museum closes down for about a month, so make sure you check the website for exhibit dates. You can easily walk through the museum in about an hour or less. It took us a little longer because Gwyn likes to look at everything twice and she also draws her favorite piece of artwork in her fieldtrip journal.

We have been to many art museums and MODA is now one of our favorites in Atlanta. We enjoyed the hands on activities for the children and the relevancy of the more modern artwork to our everyday lives.

Next Exhibit:
February 23 - May 11, 2014 - Hidden Heroes. The Genius of Everyday Things highlights the stories behind the design of 36 ordinary objects that have revolutionized the way we live, such as paper clips, bubble wrap, and pencils.  Organized by The Vitra Museum in Germany, the products showcased in this traveling exhibition illuminate four aspects of their design: innovation, production, evolution and inspiration.

To find out about the other exhibits for the year visit the website.

Extra details:
-Photography is allowed in most exhibits.
-The museum is stroller friendly and handicap accessible.
-There is no food or drink is allowed in the museum.
-There is a gift shop in the front with some cool items. Watch children there are breakables.
-You will need to park at LAZ Parking 1337 Peachtree Street (requires fee) or across the street at the Woodruff Arts Center (requires fee).
-Educational trips are available for: schools, homeschools, girl scouts and educators.

SPECIALS:
-On the Final Friday of every month, MODA offers “pay-as-you-wish” admission. You choose the admission fee that’s right for you.
-Also the second Sunday of every month, MODA offers “pay-as-you-wish” admission. In 2014, pay-what-you-wish days will fall on March 9, April 13, May 11, June 8, July 13, September 14, November 9, and December 14.

Where:
1315 Peachtree Street
Atlanta, GA 30309
Phone: 404.979.6455
info@museumofdesign.org

When to visit:
The museum is closed Mondays, and open Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday 10 am - 5pm, Thursday 10 am - 8 pm and Sunday 12 pm - 5 pm.

Cost:
Adults - $10.00
Seniors, educators and military - $8.00
Child (6-17) and college students - $5.00
Children 5 and under are free

*Homeschool days and special programs may be a different cost.

Links to follow:
-MODA Website
-MODA Facebook
-MODA Twitter

*Prices indicated in post are subject to change.

NV Able Items Giveaway - Rustic Wooden Coat Rack W/Hand Forged Hooks

*This post contains affiliate links. Please see my Disclosure Page for details.

I love supporting online friends especially those that own small businesses. Well one of my fellow TOS Crew friends needed some help launching her husbands NEW Etsy shop, NV Able Items, so I jumped at the chance! He makes the most beautiful handmade creations and when I saw a photo of his work I immediately fell in love. They are amazing and I think you will agree...especially if you like rustic, old antique looking things like I do!

The Blacksmith

Meet Noah

"I live in Virginia on a small farmish piece of land with my wife and children. We are trying to live completely off this piece of God's creation. So we live here, grow our food here, teach our children here and now work here. The Items we create here are aesthetically pleasing and intentionally useful. A picture is nice but it is even better when it covers a hole in your wall. I enjoy reworking things considered worthless, making them beautiful and useful again!"

~ Noah V.

  NV Able Items

Noah creates all of his beautiful creations by hand, in his shop, located in Southwestern Virginia. Blacksmithing has always been a passion of his. Developing work from discarded materials continue to provide him with new challenges and a sense of adventure.

Whether it's a knife made from an old railroad spike, or a rustic spoon from old rebar, Noah delights in making something beautiful, creative and useful, from old materials!

Custom orders are welcome at NV Able items! If you have a need in mind, Noah is willing to help you design or create whatever you may need. The possibilities are endless!

Coat Rack 

Jewlery Holder

Kitchen Utensial Organizer

Pot and Pan Holder 

 Towel Holder

Custom Made Valentine's Day Gifts

Father's Day Gifts

Click HERE to View Etsy Shop

 or 

To Order A Custom Design

Noah is continuing to develop new items, creations and designs. If you would like to be notified when NEW ITEMS ARE ADDED to his shop, please enter your email below! Emails are only sent out occasionally and your email address will not be sold, traded or used for any other purpose.

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GIVEAWAY TIME!

 In honor of the opening of his new Etsy shop, NV Able Items, Noah is giving away a beautiful coat rack with 3 hand forged hooks and brackets on reclaimed wood from a rustic Virginian barn. 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

MIRA Glass Digital Kitchen (And Homeschool Room) Scale Review

*This post contains affiliate links. Please see my Disclosure Page for details. Disclosure: I got this product as part of an advertorial.

MIRA Brands Inc is a California based company that provides numerous lifestyle products including bathroom scales, kitchen scales, luggage scales as well as stainless steel lunch containers. Their goal is to make great looking yet functional products for home and personal use.

A moms review:
We received a MIRA Glass Digital Kitchen Scale to review and utilized it in both our kitchen and homeschool room. The scale has an 11 lb capacity so it is perfect for just about any project. Its terrific small, slim size makes it easy to deploy at just the right moment, without taking up too much work space. It looks great displayed on the counter or it can easily be stored in a cabinet, drawer or shelf. The scale is about the size of a tablet so it is very portable and light enough to move from counter to counter or from room to room. The small rubberized feet on all four corners provide a secure resting grip on any surface. The scale comes with a 2 year warranty and uses 4 x AAA batteries (included)!

It has a stylish design that is very modern yet basic enough to fit with any kitchen decor. The extra large, backlit LCD display provides clearly defined units of measure in bright bold numbers (no squinting required). There are two easy to access bio-static, sensitive touch buttons to either side of the display which are clearly labeled. One of the buttons will turn the scale on/off and enable the tare feature. The other button will let you select your unit of measurement. The scale provides measurements in pounds, kilograms, grams, and ounces (lb./oz, kg/g, fl.oz., ml). The buttons also function great with flour coated fingers and wet hands. Clean up is a breeze. The tempered glass surface looks great and provides a sanitary, easy to clean surface. The glass is 4 times stronger than normal glass. We received a brown scale but the scale is also available in black, red, blue, white and grey.

The scale was terrific in the kitchen made measuring out meat to freeze, recipe ingredients and more a breeze. And as I mentioned above we not only utilized the MIRA Scale in the kitchen but also our homeschool room too for some math and science fun. Yes my children were a little excited about the scale when it arrived (they thought it was a tablet at first). It was very easy for the kids to use (ages 6 and 8).  The tare function allowed accurate measurements to be made during the most ambitious of science experiments. While the choice of units allowed for smaller more precise readings. The kids learned a new science term - TARE! The tare function allows the scale to ignore the weight of plates and dishes, only weighing the contents inside! And they also learned some new units of measurement too. They had lots of fun exploring and playing with the scale and it has become a part of our homeschool science and math lessons!

Links to follow:

- Website
- Facebook 
- Twitter 

Where to buy:
You can purchase the MIRA Glass Digital Kitchen Scale (choice of color) on Amazon for $22.95 currently!

I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

Quarantined And 10 Facts About Lice

*This post contains affiliate links. Please see my Disclosure Page for details.

Last week we were quarantined. I shared via social media that I would be sharing the most bizarre unit study topic we have ever explored with you this week...and well here it is - LICE!!! Every parents worst nightmare, yet a great unit study topic. Yes homeschool kids get lice too!

Last Monday my sweet little girl turned 8 years old and ended up getting some uninvited guests for her birthday celebration. As a result we ended up being quarantined to the house for the entire week!!! Gwyn was a little worried about having lice and did cry for a few minutes, but then she asked if she could learn about them...so we did! So for the week we learned and explored lice and combed through Gwyn's hair two times a day.  We covered science, history, math and more!

So in case you ever want to do a unit study on lice here are some resources and 10 facts you may not have known. Oh and if your child should ever get lice I highly recommend the Fairy Tales Terminator Lice and Nit Comb, it was a huge help along with some lice shampoo, coconut oil, baby oil and vinegar!

Louse (plural: lice) is the common name for members of over 3,000 species of wingless insects of the order Phthiraptera; three of which are classified as human disease agents. They are about the same size as a sesame seed. The scientific name for head louse is Pediculus humanus capitis.

Here are some close ups of the lice we collected from Gwyn's head and looked at under the microscope!

10 facts about lice:
1) Adult head lice only live for about three weeks.
2) They feed on human blood.
3) Head lice only live on humans, so there is no worries about your pets getting them.
4) They can only live for about 24 hours off of their human host.

5) Each head louse can lay up to 10 nits (eggs) a day).

6) The term nitpicking is the act of removing nits (the eggs of lice, generally head lice) from the host's hair.

7) There are three species of human lice: head, body and crab (pubic) lice

8) Everyone can get head lice. Rich, poor, royal or not. The head louse is an equal opportunity parasite. Although school-age children get head lice more often than adults, girls slightly more than boys, the fact is that the pesky head louse can and does infest anyone.

9) Head lice have been around forever! There is mention of lice in the Bible during the 10 plagues in Exodus. Cave men were crawling with lice and scientists have found lice on the scalps of ancient Egyptian mummies.  Even Cleopatra, Queen of the Nile, had a solid gold nit comb. There is a rumor that Queen Elizabeth's elaborate white neck ruffle was worn to protect her clothing from lice. And what about those elaborate headdresses that covered the heads of women in medieval and Elizabethan times? In Williamsburg, Virginia, it was discovered that men wore wigs partly to protect themselves from head lice but since some wigs were made from infested human hair, it didn't always help. 

10) Louse eggs (nits) cannot move and are not transmissible.

Check out these great YouTube videos:
-Head Lice to Dead Lice Part 1 and Part 2
-It's Head Lice

-I Didn't Know That: Secret Life Of Head Lice
-Dr. Itchy: Emily Finds Out She Has Head Lice
-Dr Itchy: Emily Gets Treated For Head Lice

More resources:

-Head lice games
-Head lice slideshow
-Great list of head lice facts and here is a great website explaining all of the stages of a louse.

Photo from Lice MD

-Lice health and social studies curriculum guide

-Biblical lice plague coloring page, lesson on lice plague

-Head lice coloring and story book (with facts)

-Louse coloring page

-Louse life cycle coloring page

So now you probably think we are totally weird and insane. Heck I can't even believe I wrote this post. But I wanted to hopefully make a point that literally everything can be used as a learning experience...even LICE! 

So what is the most bizarre unit study you have ever done?

Linking up with: Top Ten Tuesday, Ben and Me

Greek Myths - Poppins Book Nook January + A Giveaway

*This post contains affiliate links. Please see my Disclosure Page for details.

We are having lots of fun with the Poppins Book Nook blog series and we will be continuing that fun all throughout 2014. Be on the lookout for the 2014 themes! This month's theme was Greek Myths. We love myths of all kinds especially Greek myths. Keep reading to learn more about the Greek myth books we read, fun crafts we did and grab your FREE myth journal page too. The giveaway is at the end of the post!

Myth Journal Page:
Here is a Greek Myth Journal Page I made to go along with this months theme. Download your copy here or click the picture below. The kids had a lot of fun with this journal page...especially the drawing parts.

Books:
We read the Greek Gods and Goddesses book this month. The book included 15 stories about some of the most well know Gods and Goddesses including Zeus, Hera, Hercules, Hermes, Apollo and more. The kids learned lots of fun things like how Athens was named, how the dolphins were created and how the peacock came to be! The illustrations were quite cute as well! We really enjoyed this book and think you will too!

We also utilized some of Ancient Greece eBooks and curriculum from Heritage History. They have lots of great FREE ebooks that you can read directly off of their website as well!

Craft Projects: 

We did three fun crafty projects to go along with our mythology book!

Clay Greek Pots:

These were lots of fun to make and super easy and inexpensive. We used our cards that the Emory Michael C. Carlos Museum hands out to children, as inspiration.

Materials:
-Terracotta clay pots
-Black paint

What to do:
1. Paint your rendition of a Greek myth onto the terracotta pot.
2. Let it dry and then use your amazing creation to store your most valuable treasures in.

Medusa Hat:
Have some fun role playing the story of Medusa with these fun hats. They are quick, easy and fun to make!

Materials:
-Paper plate
-Pipe cleaners
-String

What to do:
1. Poke holes into the paper plate.
2. Put pipe cleaners into the holes and on the underside twist the pipe cleaner into a little knot to secure it. You can also add a dab of hot glue.
3. Attach a string to each side of the paper plate and tie under your child's chin

Handmade Clay Figures and Coins:
My kids love working with clay. For this project they made their own ancient Greek tetradrachm coins and mythical creature statues.

-Clay - we love the crayola air dry clay
-Various tools (plastic fork, knife, toothpicks, etc)
-Acrylic paint

What to do:
1. Have your child decide what they want to create. Each of my children made a Greek coin. And Gwyn made Pegasus one of her favorite mythical creatures.
2. Start with a lump of clay and mold it with your hands or carve and etch using various tools.
3. Let the creations dry for the recommended time, generally about 1-2 days.
4. Paint the creations with acrylic paint.

More Resources:
-We studied mythology for over entire month last year so be sure to check out all those posts for more resources and fun craft ideas.

-Ancient Greece lapbook from A Journey Through Learning

-Greek and Roman Mythology lapbook from In The Hands of a Child

-Greek Mythology Scholastic Activity Book on CurrClick

Fieltrip Fun:

We got in one little fieldtrip to the HIGH Museum of art to see the Louvre exhibit. There were several really great Greek statues. Gwyn and Rowyns favorite was Hercules batting the serpent. I enjoyed the fauns and nymphs.

Here is a list of the wonderful bloggers participating in the Poppins Book Nook be sure to visit them for more fun pet and animal themed ideas:

Enchanted Homeschooling Mom - 3 Dinosaurs - Monsters Ed - Chestnut Grove Academy - Growing in God's Grace - Life with Moore Babies - Teach Beside Me - The Usual Mayhem - Kathys Cluttered Mind - Adventures in Mommydom - Edventures with Kids - Learning & Growing the Piwi way - A Gluten Free Journey - Preschool Powol Packets - To The Moon and Back - Our Craft ~N~ Things - Fresh Farm Adventures - Are We There Yet? - Afterschool for Smarty Pants - Hopkins Homeschool

NEW! Every month the Poppins Book Nook group will be offering readers a chance to win a brand new storybook that ties in with our theme for the month. This month one lucky winner will win a copy of D'Aulaires Book of Greek Myths. The winner must reside within the United States. Just enter the Rafflecopter below to win:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Linking up with: Jay Daniel 4's Mom, Mama to 4 Blessings