TOS Review - HomeSchool Scholastics WAY Comes Home Kit Wellness Academics You Fitness for Homeschoolers

Talk about receiving a packaged that is loaded with tons of surprises, I was thrilled to get a chance to review the WAY Comes Home Kit from HomeSchool Scholastics, an i4 Learning Company. WAY stands for Wellness, Academics, and You designed and field tested specifically for homeschoolers. When it arrived, I felt like it was Christmas morning or a birthday celebration as I kept pulling new items out of the box.

The kit comes to us via HomeSchool Scholastics, an i4 Learning Company. The company seeks to serve the homeschooling community by asking what we want, and then field tests everything with homeschoolers.

~ * ~ * ~

SPECIAL OFFER FOR MY READERS: The complete kit and all print material normally sell for $49.95, but you will receive it for $39.95 plus an additional $15 discount, which should cover shipping costs for most locations, when you use: 
COUPON CODE GC0737011

~ * ~ * ~

What is WAY Comes Home Kit?

The original kit was created in 2005 and is now in schools and endorsed by several national organizations as well as a peer review published in a Medical Journal from Stanford University and a Research Journal from the University of Alabama-Birmingham, School of Public health. This is a program that has been developed with the help of educators, health professionals and homeschoolers from all across the USA. It has been tested for two years with homeschool families who provided feedback about the program and pricing. It has been proven to boost academic performance in subjects such as: Math Science Reading Writing

The kit includes:

• Guide Books
• Printed Materials with 5 Modules including Lessons for Each Academic Level
• Consumable Journal To Be Used With One Student Per Journal (Grades K-1/2-3/4-5)
• Packet of Consumable WAY Vocabulary Cards and Illustrations (Grades K-1/2-3/4-5)
• Two foam yellow balls
• A plastic scale
• 3 plastic baskets
• A bunch of plastic eggs
• Counting discs
• Access to Online Content Which Includes New Lessons Each Month

The lessons are presented in a 10-part layout

1. Parent Prep
2. Lesson at Glance
3. Get Things Ready
4. WAY Vocab Words
5. What To Do
6. Art Attack
7. Weekends with WAY
8. Pray/Reflect
9. WAY More Resources
10. WAY More Fun

The Journals cover three levels of learning for each lesson module:

WAY Health Safari - K-1 Grade

WAY Me Mysteries - 2-3 Grade

WAY Innerspace Adventure! - 4-5 Grade

There are 5 Modules. Within each of the 5 modules, there are lessons directed toward each of the 3 levels - Safari-Me Mysteries-Innerspace Adventure! They are marked as .1, .2, or .3 after the Module number:

1.1 - Come on a Health Safari with Me
1.2 - Look at Me
1.3 - Story of Me

2.1 - What is My Role?
2.2 - What is Wellness?
2.3 - Am I Well?

3.1 - The WAY/ My Body Moves
3.2 - Exercise and Pulse
3.3 - Getting Active

4.1 - Food to Grow On
4.2 - Keep It Balanced
4.3 - Balancing My Plate and My Day

5.1 - Happy Hands, Healthy Me
5.2 - From You to Me
5.3 - Collecting, Reporting, and Analyzing Data
.

How Did We Use It?

Our rendition of food art!

 

 

 

Glitter was included to use in a demonstration of how germs spread.

Since the kit is set up with lessons that each take about a week to complete, I thought one lesson a week would be a good way to start. However, once I got into the lessons, I noticed there were weekend suggestions and WAY More Resources that made each lesson stretch out for longer than a week. Since I wanted to get the most out of the kit, we explored everything.

I presented the entire kit to my 9-year-old! She exercised to the DVD, and then I let her sample each of the journals. Even though her level is the Way Innerspace Aventure! level, she had a lot of fun coloring and doing the activities for the WAY Health Safari journals.

What Did We Think?

The box was packed with materials! It was like opening a Christmas present when it arrived in the mail. I really appreciate that a wellness program has been created with the homeschooler in mind. It's nice to feel as if we don't have to miss out on these kind of programs yet are invited to modify it and change it as needed to fit our individual needs. I also really like that there is an opportunity to express yourself through the Art Attack segments in each lesson.

FIND HomeSchool Scholastics, an i4 Learning Company ON SOCIAL MEDIA @:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WAYComesHome
Twitter: https://twitter.com/WAYComesHome @WAYComesHome
Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/i4learning/

Read what other members of the TOS Review Crew thought by clicking on the picture below:

Fitness Friday Goals For The New Year

I sat down the week before the new year and began making plans for bright and amazingly successful weeks ahead. Among these goals were health and fitness.

OK, ok. I admit it! I am generally very conscious of overall health & wellness, but I have let some things slide.

This year, I managed to tip the scales at the heaviest I have been in my entire life. Though, some will argue – Big deal! You were among only less than a handful of girls on the high school synchronized swimming club who was actually told to gain weight, and you fit nicely into that teensy tiny sized wedding dress years later. Even at 9 months pregnant, your doctor complimented you on how little weight you had gained with your third child. So, why are you talking about weight?

I’m talking about it because it’s not all about my weight. It’s about health.

I also came across some pics where I am at my healthiest weight, and feeling good about how my clothes fit.  I decided to post them up on my fridge for inspiration:

So, I have entered the new year with some fitness goals. To the fitness enthusiast, these goals are going to sound like preschool easy peasy. To others, they just might be the key to get you up off that chair and burning some fat.

I believe in baby steps and have learned the hard way about beating myself up with guilt when I come to a weak moment and “fail”. Everyone experiences those days, and they are truly not a time to throw out the baby with the bath water, but rather, to start anew.

I’m inspired by inventors like Thomas Edison who never referred to his thousands of attempts, I believe it was, at inventing a light bulb as any kind of failure. He, instead, said he simply learned ways it wouldn’t work and kept going.

I also loved the information in this article about fitness from Believe.com, called

Top Ways to Tone Up and Build Muscle

My first goal has nothing to do with exercise, but rather the fuel I am using to get my body healthy and active. I am consciously drinking more water. My goal is to drink no less than nine 8-ounce glasses of pure water every day. Believe it or not, even for this water-loving gal, this is a concerted effort. I have also joined a Facebook group with some juicing mammas to help encourage me to start juicing fruits and veggies again. So far, the result has been a rousing thumbs up by even my picky eater child about the juice tasting yummy, even after I added carrots and cucumbers to the mix.

My second goal is to simply get up and move. I write at home for a living, so sitting in front of a computer and typing all day is common for me. I have found that it’s not good for my overall fitness and weight, however. So, I am simply choosing to stop every hour or so and get up to move around away from the computer. I am also committing to at least 20 situps/crunches a day and arm exercises using small weights. I remember once seeing a special on a woman who didn’t have weights and couldn’t afford a gym membership, so she instead used soup cans that had not yet been opened. Whatever works is success!

My third goal is to flatten my abs and lose the flabby arms and thighs. I have some old video tapes (that’s right tapes) that I loved to work out with in the past, such as Buns of Steel, Abs of Steel, Stormie Omartian workouts, and one on breathing. My main goal, for starters, is to find these or similar ones on a digital media that will play on my new HDTV that is conveniently mounted in my living room, leaving me ample floor space to get in a good at-home workout.

What are your fitness goals? I’d love to hear about your goals in a comment below. Also, see what other bloggers are hoping to achieve in fitness this year.


Visit:

Spark Your Motivation

~ * ~

Lip Gloss and Yoga Pants

~ * ~

Inspire Me Well

~ * ~

My Journey With Juicing Begins Again

Several years ago, my husband bought me a really nice juicer. At the time, I had seen infomercials touting the wonders of juicing.

I was sold!

So, we began juicing.  Only, I found it to be cumbersome and messy. Though, I still did juice from time to time.

As this new year begins, I was approached by the head of a Facebook group and asked if I was interested in joining a group with other juicing mommas.  I agreed.

Even though I'm not ready to take the 40-day fasting plunge that some have agreed to, I figured, it would be great encouragement to me to start juicing again.

I started with what I had on hand which was grapes, a couple apples and a tangerine.  To my surprise, all three of my kids unanimously received the juice with happy comments. With homeschooling, adding juicing to my children's daily diet is a lot easier than if they were away all day.

In fact, they wanted more.

Encouraged, I pulled out some more fruit that was actually beginning to be on the verge of rotten.  I was hoping that by juicing it, I would be able to salvage the fruit.

It worked!

And, again, all three kids had a unanimous rousing - yum!  Though, I will admit my one daughter was a little more reluctant this time around since she is not a fan of citrus.

Because most of the fruit I used was not organic, I began by soaking it in a bowl of water with a bit of vinegar to clean off the skins.  I then peeled the tangerines before I began juicing them.

It is my goal to juice once a day. I am not ready to completely fast, or too chicken.  But, I am wanting to integrate more healthy foods into mine and my family's diet.

I also have been starting my day out with a protein drink, as my body needs protein or I sometimes get shaky.

I also have been adding more water to my daily diet.  I discovered that, while I always seem to have my big Tupperware cup with me, I noticed that I rarely actually drink it.

So, it's been my ambition lately to consciously drink at least nine 8-oz. glasses of water a day.  And, while I am a water lover, let me tell you - It's a conscious effort to remind myself to drink.

We'll see how it goes; but so far, I'm hopeful, which is good because HOPEFUL is my word for the new year! (Click to read more about being hopeful!)