I is for In Review

I can’t believe in less than 3 weeks that this year will be over and it will be 2018.

Here are my top posts for each month for this year. Click on the pictures to see the post.

January

February

March

April (there was a tie)

May

June

July

August

September

October

November (there was a tie)

December (so far)

I am linking up at:

Hopkins Homeschool

F is for Favorites

It’s time for the annual Blue Ribbon awards from the Homeschool Review Crew. You can find the post here of all of he favorites from the crew. Last year, I mentioned our top five favorites. This year we have so many favorites, I am going to post our favorites in the different categories.

ART ~
We have a couple favorites that we used this year in the art category. The first one is the Thin Stix from The Pencil Grip, Inc. We were actually lucky enough to review this product twice this year. This product is one of my girl's favorite art supplies.

Another art product we enjoyed this year was the  ACTÍVA rigid wrap that we used to create a butterfly. We plan to make some Christmas items with the product that we have left.

HISTORY ~
This year, we have reviewed many history curriculum and supplements it was difficult to choose our favorites because there are so many great ones. We narrowed it down to the following products.
Drive Thru History ~ This was a favorite of my high school boys. We all learned so much from the videos and look forward to watching more.

Another favorite history curriculum is from Home School in the Woods. We reviewed Make A State and The Middle Ages. Even though there is a lot that needs to be printed, this curriculum is packed full of information and hands-on activities.

Our favorite history supplements are from Heirloom Audio Productions. We reviewed two of them this year, In the Reign of Terror and Captain Bayley’s Heir.

BOOKS ~
We reviewed so many great books this year and we are looking forward to the next books in both of these series, Imagine…The Great Flood and The Secret of the Hidden Scrolls.

Here is a link to all of the products we reviewed this year and past years. You can read through to see how we used and how it fit or did not fit for us to learn more about these different companies.

Be sure to stop by the Homeschool Review Crew blog to see the rest of the crew’s favorites from this year.

I am linking up with:
Hopkins Homeschool

Thin Stix Creativity Pack Review

Having reviewed Kwik Stix and Thin Stix in the past, we were excited to be chosen to review the Thin Stix Creativity Pack from The Pencil Grip, Inc. We love these paint sticks because they dry quickly and are easy to clean up.

The thin stix creativity packs comes with twenty four different colors to choose from. There are twelve assorted colors, six metalix colors, and six neon colors. They range from dark green to bright orange and everything in between.

I wanted to try something different this time and I saw these 5X7 canvases at the store. I used one to create a keepsake from my six year old daughter. I drew her hand on a piece of paper and cut it out. Then, I traced it onto the canvas with a pencil. After I copied it with pencil, I traced it with the black thin stix to outline the turkey. I used the metalix colors for the “feathers” and used the brown and red for the other part of the turkey. I added the year to it and used the gold metalix color on the outside for a frame.

My six year old daughter used one of the canvases to create the scene to the right. She had started out with something different, but messed up, so she went with a nature theme.

The paints dry quickly, so we didn’t have to let one part  dry for hours before working on another part. Although, it did take a little more time to dry on the canvas than it does on paper, we were still able to finish our projects in under thirty minutes (which included drawing, painting, and drying).

My twelve year old daughter made the painting on the left. She was going for an autumn theme. I think I would title it “Falling Leaves.”

It is so easy to use colors on top of colors without having to wait a long time for them to dry since the thin stix dry quickly.

We also used the thin stix on paper and drew some things to check out all of the colors.

I’m thinking of buying more little canvases to use to draw Christmas scenes onto. It would make a cute gift for a grandparent. Another idea is to buy a bigger canvas that you could write a Bible verse or quote onto and draw a little picture to go with it. The thin stix are thin enough that you can use them to write with, but they are also great for coloring in a drawing too.

I just quickly made up the picture on the left so you can see how these are used to write and would look great on a canvas or maybe a piece of wood.

There are so many ways to use the thin stix and the creativity pack gives you so many colors to choose from. These stix will always be number one in our house for creating, drawing, and making gifts.

You could even buy these kids art supplies for the artist in your family to give to them as a Christmas present.

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Thin Stix from The Pencil Grip ~ Review

Imagine…letting your kids paint without a mess being made. You may be thinking, “that is not even possible.” I can assure you that it is possible. My girls love to get out the paints and fill up some cups with water and start creating something. It always seems to happen around dinner time and now there is a mess on the table. Now that we have Thin Stix 6 pk of Classic Colors from The Pencil Grip, Inc. the above scenario doesn’t happen anymore. They get out the sticks and start painting with them. Their works of art are dry within minutes and we don’t have a messy table anymore.

 

What are Thin Stix?
Thin Stix is a solid tempura paint that is packaged in sticks (like a glue stick) to take the mess out of painting. Thin Stix is also fast drying. You no longer have to wait hours for your creation to dry. Thin Stix dry in 90 seconds. They also work on paper, wood, or cardboard. And best of all, it's a fast and easy cleanup when the kids are finished painting. These paint sticks are thinner (hence the name) than the original Kwik Stix so you are able to have better control and paint with finer detail. Thin Stix paint also comes off of your hands easily. I’ve been able to just rub it right off and of course, it comes right off with soap and water.



Who are Thin Stix for?
Anybody of any age will enjoy painting with these sticks. My children are 15, 13, 11, and 6. They all equally enjoyed making pictures with these paints. Even I got in on the action and painted some pictures. These are fun at any age!

How we used Thin Stix: We used them almost daily, especially my girls. I never had to tell them not to paint, because Thin Stix is easy to get out and easy to clean up. I even printed some coloring pages to try out the thin stix and it worked out good. You can see some of our creations in the picture above. I can't tell you how long they last, but we have been using them almost daily and they are still quite full. My kids even use these in their bedrooms! I am not worried about messes anymore. We used the regular kwik stix in the past but only used them on paper. This time we bought some wood cutouts (below) to try the thin stix paints on. It worked perfectly and we were happy with the results. We also were able to print out some coloring sheets to use with the thin stix. We were able to get better detail using the thin stix.

 

What we think of Thin Stix: We all love them! I love that it is easy to clean up after using. My girls love that they can still paint whenever they want to. We love that we can take them wherever we want and don’t have to worry about messes. We give these paints 5 stars!