A Walk Down Memory Lane – Tiny Planets Review

Product: Tiny Planets Website
Company: My Tiny Planets Ltd.
Price: Free to various pricing options explained in further detail below.
Ages: 4-12

Once upon a time, I was a very emotional new mother…..

Bing and Bong, Bing and Bong, Bing and Bong
There’s a tiny planet calling

Bing and Bong, Bing and Bong, Bing and Bong
Heroes of the Universe
Adventure every day, from their home in space

Bing and Bong, Bing and Bong, Bing and Bong
There’s a tiny planet calling
A new exciting day, and we’re on our way

-Tiny Planets Theme Song

There was a children’s television show that came on CBC that I would wait for every morning, eventhough my baby couldn’t be more than 3 or 4 months old and certainly wasn’t watching TV. I’d hold my wee baby in my arms and think of the wonderful adventures he would have exploring this beautiful tiny planet of ours and tears would come to my eyes, EVERYDAY. Well fast forward 7 1/2 years and my wee baby is an active and inquisitive boy who has a fascination with space. The Tiny Planets of his baby days has long been forgotten. The was some excitement among my TOS Homeschool Crew friends when we found out that we’d be reviewing Tiny Planets. I thought for sure that this was some amazing site about space exploration from the excitement around the review. Imagine my surprise when I realized that this was the Tiny Planets of my son’s baby days. Not at all what I was expecting but I did enjoy listen to the theme song, this time without the tears!

Tiny Planets is an online space where your child, ages preschool to twelve according to the developers, can go on adventures with two friendly aliens (I’ll admit to thinking they were some kind of funny arctic animal when I saw this show many moons ago), Bing and Bong. The website include 6 areas that your child can explore.

* On Tiny Planets TV you can watch any of the Tiny Planets television episodes. Each episode follows Bing and Bong as they explore an a area of children’s emotional development (fears, sadness, etc) or educational topic. A narrator gives you a brief overview of the episode and then Bing and Bong explore. These characters don’t speak besides in squeaks and mumbles but their facial expressions are vivid and your child will use logic and their imaginations to understand the concepts presented in each episode.

* My Tiny Planets is a new online community and virtual world that combines social elements (your kids have “friends” that they can engage with to a limited extent so things remain safe and anonymous), arcade style games and missions, along with other more educational activities to care for their own tiny planet with Bing and Bong.

*Tiny Planets Fun has games, worksheets, and coloring pages for your child to enjoy.

*Tiny Planets Books has a collection of interactive story books to enjoy with younger children.

* Tiny Planets Learning, probably of most interest to homeschoolers, has many lesson plans for educators. At the beginning of each lesson you are invited to watch an episode of Tiny Planets and will then use a science activity or other hands on activity to explore the concepts introduced in the episode.

* Tiny Planets Labs is an area where new features of the website are added (as My Tiny Planets Ltd, participate in other research projects in other to continue to bring new, quality material to your children).

Overall, I found that the layout of the Tiny Planets website to be confusing and not all that well laid out. When you go to sign up your child (cadet) you are not given the option to make up your own user name for the child. This presents a problem from the get go. Some of the names were bordering on inappropriate in my opinion and many certainly weren’t going to easy for my child to remember and/or spell. After flipping through 30 names or so we finally chose on that was appropriate. After this, we were able to go to the website. We first explored the books and TV area but were only able to view 1 or 2 of each, without purchasing keys (which you need a parent account for and which in my opinion were a bit expensive, more on the pricing in a bit). My son then took some time to explore the My Tiny Planets area. He seems to have had more success in this area than I have (despite trying several times, I still can’t quite figure it out, I think I’ll need some lessons from my 7 year old!) The arcade games in this section seem to be more of the classic shooter games (think Asteroids). Fun, but not terribly educational. I never did find the educational area of this part of the game and neither has Liam.

I was pleasantly surprised by the activities/experiments presented in the lesson plan section of the website. Each lesson begins with a synopsis of the episode of Tiny Planets that you will be exploring. Then you child is given an easy experiment or questions to answer. After this you are invited to watch the episode and will often be given other online activities/games or a worksheet to complete. This area seems to quite complete, however, to watch the episode of Tiny Planets you have to pay with keys.

* 10 keys $1.95 (about 20 cents per key)
* 25 keys $3.95 (about 16 cents per key)
* 85 keys $9.95 (about 12 cents per key)
* 250 keys $25.95 (about 10 cents per key)
* 600 keys $49.95 (about 8 cents per key)

Each episode costs 10 keys as lasts only about 4-5 minutes. Once your episodes are purchased, you have access to them forever. I, however, have a hard time justifying the purchase of TV programs that I have already seen previously for free on television. That being said, the activities can easily be used without the purchase of keys and the synopsis of the episodes are really quite complete. I’m really quite pleased with the learning activities provided and will likely use some of them for FREE with my children. However, the episodes are cute (really, I’ve always thought that the characters were some of the cutest on TV….though I like them a tad more when I believed they were mismatched polar bears!) and if you have extra money to spend they do add some to the learning experience and can be a bit of reward for doing the activities if you are into such things.

All in all, I found Tiny Planets to be somewhat perplexing but was happy with the lesson plan section of the website. Quite a bit of the content of the website needs to be purchased with keys with episodes and interactive books being 10 keys each. Areas of My Tiny Planet also need to be unlocked with keys (usually 3 or 5 for each thing). While buying keys 10 at a time seems a bit expensive, buying in bulk would help with that problem and it is my estimation, just an estimation, that one could unlock pretty much all the material on the website for 600 keys for $49.95 which is reasonable if you really love the characters and the material that they teach. While the developers of Tiny Planets say that this website is for children up to twelve years of age, I would think that most twelve year old would find the characters babyish and the material much to easy. My 7 year old son, found the site interesting but not particularly challenging. I cannot imagine him want to play with it a year or two from now. I would consider the website to be better suited to preschool/Kindergarten children. That being said, that characters are cute and engaging and I think the story lines very much appeal to the young children in the family as Bing and Bong explore topics that they often want/try to explore naturally. Children not yet reading will need a lot of help with this site as nothing is read to them so it is not a site that they can explore independently but it’s nice to site and explore with your little ones anyways.

As much of the website is available for FREE I invite you to check it out for yourself and see what you think!

**Any products reviewed by me as a member of the TOS Homeschool Crew have been given to me free of charge in order for me to provide you with an honest review of the product and/or how we used the product within our family. I do not receive any other form of compensation for the reviews posted on this blog.

Wits and Wagers Family Edition – A Review

Product: Wits and Wagers Family
Company: North Star Games
Price: 19.99$US
Age Range: 8 and up
Players: 3 or More
Length of Game: Approximately 20 minutes

We love Meeple!

Meeple: A generic term for little wooden figures used in German board gaming.
-UrbanDictionary.com

These easy to love characters became a favorite of ours when we started playing Carcassonne several years ago and we were thrilled to see that they made the voyage across the Atlantic Ocean safely when we received Wits and Wagers Family to review as part of the TOS Homeschool Crew. My husband and I have always played board games together and we love to get a good quality game, however, I wasn’t expecting much when we were told that we were getting this game to review. I’ll admit that we do not buy really cheap board games. They are the one thing that we splurge on and we’ll often spend fifty or sixty dollars on a game so we weren’t expecting to get anything of great quality for 19.99$US. When the package arrived, I actually put it aside for a few days without even opening it. Sure, it looked cool, but I still wasn’t expecting much. Imagine my surprise when I opened it and found that the materials were of really good quality! The box was very sturdy, the cards were beautiful and glossy, and of course there were ten lovely and familiar Meeple.

This trivia game for 3 or more players is the family edition of North Star Games’ award winning party game Wits and Wagers. Each player (or group of players if you have a large group) gets a dry erase board and pen. You are then asked a question that has a numeric answer. The fun part is that you aren’t supposed to know the answer and are supposed to guess closest to the answer without going over (reminds one a little of The Price is Right, doesn’t it?). Each players answers are then lined up from smallest to largest and then each team takes turns placing their large (worth two points) and small (worth one point) meeple on whatever answer they think is closest to the right one (don’t worry, like the Price is Right, you can bet 1 if you think everyone has guessed too high). You then flip the question card and the answer is relieved. The teams with meeple on the card closest to the answer recieve their points and play continues with the next question. The first team to make it to 15 points in the winner.

My husband is not really big on trivia games so I ended up playing it with just my 5 and 7 year old. I was a little apprehensive about playing it with my daughter because it is recommended for 8 years and over, however, my son and I would write down our answer to the question first and then have her answer and we’d write her reply for her. I though she might get bored of the games but she had as much fun guessing the at the answers as we did (it helps that one of the questions was “how many Disney princesses are there?”….Liam and I were missing a few!). This game went quickly so it was fun to play with my children. We don’t play board games with them frequently as they both have trouble sitting and holding attention for much more than 30 minutes so the fact that this game didn’t take longer than 20 minutes was definitely a plus.

I was very impressed with the quality of this game for the price and I would not hesitate to pay 19.95$US for it. With 150 different questions, you’ll be busy for quite a while and I suppose you could always come up with questions of your own (perhaps a nice homeschooling project). I think that it would be especially fun to play in a larger group with teams but it was still quite enjoyable with our little group of three. I definitely look forward to playing with it more this holiday season! North Star Games also sells a few other party games that you can learn more about here with a couple new games set to arrive in 2011 (including a family edition of Say Anything…another popular game). North Star Games can be purchase directly on the North Star Game website or from other fine game stores and department stores in your area. If you love good quality games then I invite you to check out Wits and Wagers Family as I think you will be pleasantly surprised!

**Any products reviewed by me as a member of the TOS Homeschool Crew have been given to me free of charge in order for me to provide you with an honest review of the product and/or how we used the product within our family. I do not receive any other form of compensation for the reviews posted on this blog.

What? Another New Approach?

I’ve been “officially” doing this homeschooling thing for 3 years now and we’ve used a variety of approaches. I was amazed with how much my friend’s children who use Sonlight knew so we started off on that path. Then I had friends using “The Well Trained Mind” and well, that’s totally up my alley with hands on projects and such richness in history. Then, in a desperate attempt to simplify we turned towards Waldorf. Well, I’m about to shake things up to a degree again. A couple weeks ago we were going along our Waldorf path and it was Thursday and I somehow only managed to get the stuff from Monday taught. I felt a wee tad discouraged but then I was showering the next morning and it hit me, I’m the one that wants to do Waldorf. My kids LOVE the Waldorf approach. There’s a TON that they get from the material that they enjoy but really, they want to explore all kinds of other things, too. I struck me that I, personally, could learn the things I want to learn and if my children are interested then they will likely come over and express an interest in the material and ask questions. There is absolutely nothing wrong with having a Waldorf inspired home yet, becoming a mostly unschooling family. There’s nothing wrong with order, simplicity and routine (in fact, it probably leads to better learning as the children aren’t overwhelmed with TONS of materials). I’ve learned to embrace the idea that we are happiest when we are each doing our own things. That forcing children to learn certain material when they are not interested or ready is what I’ve been trying to avoid by keeping my children at home. So why, oh why, should I prescribe what they should learn? Sure, I may know them better than their teacher might but I don’t know them as well as they know themselves and I have the utmost confidence that they will learn what they need to learn to be successful and delightful adults with minimal input on my part.

My friend, Shannon, has started posting about suggestive unschooling and I am a pretty big believer in this method. The only time I involve myself in their homeschooling with suggestions are when they are driving me crazy with their “I’M BORED!”(s). A certain amount of being bored is good for learning and creativity but there are times when Mum needs silence and in those moments I will suggest something like Mammoth Math or a workbook but the kids know that they are only suggestions that if they really don’t want to then they’ll need to find something else to do. Usually they do what I suggest. Other times they disappear and go do something equally (or usually more) stimulating. Another suggestive approach that I use (unknowningly to them) is to fill my house with certain books on a topic that I think is interesting. They’ll often start reading/looking at those books, too. Or, as I said, I’ll start learning about something that interests me and then before I know it, they’ll be asking to learn about it, too. I’ll admit to very, very occasionally learning about something I’m NOT interested in, in order the pique the children’s interested but that is a rarity.

My children are most definitely learning even without me actively giving them material to learn. Morgaine spends hours drawing and making up songs and stories (especially when she thinks that we aren’t listening). She’s learning to spell (but not read) by trying to put letters together to see what happens. Liam very often pulls out his world map to write new information on. He is interested in many, MANY topics and spends much time hanging out with his encyclopedias learning about different countries, animals and space. He reads from his Bible daily and actively gets involved in teaching Morgaine (which goes significantly better that me trying to teach Morgaine as it seems like a game when they do it together….the poor “I don’t want to learn anything” child is learning without even realizing it!)). My job is to provide the environment in which they can learn and be available to answer their questions and guide them and let them blossom in their own time.

Trust your children, given the right environment, they know what they need.

Stealing From a Friend

I hope you don’t mind, my lovely Shannon, but I thought this material was presented particularly well and can’t help sharing as well (friends be sure to check out Shannon’s blog at Mom Loves Books to learn about how she is exploring “suggestive unschooling” with her family)

TOS Blog Cruise – What do my Kids Think of this Whole Homeschooling Thing

Well, now they have the chance to answer. Here’s Liam (7) and Morgaine’s (5) take on homeschooling.

Question: Why do we homeschool?

Liam: We wouldn’t like to learn all the things that we would HAVE to learn at school. At home we can learn what we want.
Morgaine: We like to stay at home.

Question: What do you like most about being homeschooled?

Liam: I like to stay at home and I really love Mammoth Math and want to keep doing it for as many grades as they have. I’m doing 3rd grade now and they have up to 8th grade!

Morgaine: It is nice to be able to stay at home and I like being homeschooled.

Question: What do you want to be when you grow up?

Liam: An world traveller and a chef.

Morgaine: A veterinarian so that I could keep animals safe and healthy.

Holiday Bliss 2010 – Dec 11th

A long, long, long time ago when I was just a little girl I received a special present….

I loved my Kindergarten teacher so much that day. She started my love of reading by blessing me with such a beautiful book.

Maybe this beautiful picture started my obsession with pregnant women (I know I looked lovingly at it many, many times).

On of my favorite moments each year is gently pulling out this book….thank you so much, Mrs. Haynes….I will never ever forget you!

The Solution – Rituals

I’ve fallen a little behind on my series of simplifying parenting posts but I’m back now to share with you a couple little rituals that we’ve added to our day that have helped TREMENDOUSLY. Most often we think about rituals as being religious in nature but even if you aren’t religious there are certain patterns you can use to bring a sense of peace to the household. Here are a couple of our favorites.

Daily Talk

At the end of the day we all come together for a few moments with a cup of tea. We light some candles and then one by one we share our favorite moments of the day. It causes us to slow down and take a few minutes to reflect and the candle light seems to draw our children in and bring them down, down, down into their bodies. This few minutes of quiet reflection each evening has virtually eliminated the regular nighttime stand off between the children and two tired parents. The ten minutes we take for this seems to be the transition that has been missing from a busy day to slowing down for sleep. We’ve always had a bedtime routine (milk, teeth, book, bed) but this seems to add something a big magical to the routine. Over the past two month I can count on one hand the number of times the kids have had trouble settling to sleep and that my friends, is a HUGE change.

Meal Time Blessing

Along with bedtime, mealtime was also an area where we were particular stressed. Liam could not sit still for the life of him and Morgaine just hated everything we offered her with a passion and had no trouble telling us about it. In an attempt to bring a little harmony to the dinner table we started to say a short little blessing before each meal giving thanks for the world around us and the food that we’ve been given. You wouldn’t think that something so simple would have profound effects but it has. While Liam still has trouble sitting still at the very end of meals it has gotten much better. Morgaine rarely complains about the food anymore and when she does it is more of a calm “I don’t like” that than an all out tantrum. They both also remind us to say the blessing if we are in a rush at meal times and let it slip our mind. I’ve also caught them saying blessing when they’ve prepared their own snack or breakfast as they sometimes do in the mornings if they are up very early. It’s a nice way again just to bring the family together.

Do you and your family have any rituals that you use to bring little moments of peace to your family?

Fit Mama Friday Challenge – Week 3

*cough* *couch* *gag* *sniff* *achoooo*

There you have my excuse for my less than stellar performance this week on the Get Fit Challenge. I’m sick. Two of my three kids are sick, including the baby who will now only sleep upright in the Ergo on my back or attached to my breast. I’m tired. Since I can’t taste anything AT ALL, you’d think I’d loose weight. However, when Mike made me chocolate cookies last night and I took one and couldn’t taste I took another and then another because they just weren’t satisfying. Opps! The right thing would have been to say “no thanks, I’d better not.”

Ah, well, here’s the summary of my week.

1. Six glasses of water a day (with 1 before each meal). Check! I’m pretty sure I have this goal down pat now.

2. 15-30 minutes of exercise 5 days a week. Nope. I walked three times this week at a pretty brisk pace but besides that I have not done anything. A drippy nose and nasty cough is not conducive to getting a good workout.

3. To loose about a pound (okay 2 pounds) a week. Noppers. I’ve lost about half a pound and am pretty certain that I will not make it close to my goal for the end of the month unless I really double my efforts for the next three weeks.

4. To stop the mindless snacking and to sit down at the table EVERY time I eat. Okay, it is unrealistic to sit every time I eat but I am doing pretty good on this front, too. I’m trying to at least be mindful of everything that I put into my mouth and I’ve decided not to eat certain things that I’ve picked up.

5. Hunt down an exercise video to use. Well, the lovely Jillian Michaels arrived at the library and I managed to pick it up with every intention on giving it a go this morning but I didn’t manage it. I’m hoping to see about it this afternoon. I’m slightly apprehensive about exercising at home as the TV is in the front room and people have a tendency to look in (and wave) as they are walking by. Small towns! Maybe I’ll start a new trend *lol*.

Wishing my friends a lovely, fit week! Be sure to visit Got Chai? to get on the journey of getting fit, too!

How Happy Are You?

“If you were suddenly alone in the wilderness without distractions, how happy would you be?”

This was the question that my husband asked me this weekend. His impression was that I spend my life looking for something to make me happy instead of just being a happy person. How would I feel if I suddenly found myself with nothing? No children, no hobbies, NOTHING? Would I be a happy person?

Well, it’s actually a very good question. Does my happiness come from within or is it external sources that define happiness for me? My first thought was that no, I’m not a terribly happy person. There’s depression in my family. It must mean that my set point for happiness is in the lower end of the spectrum. I’ve certainly had my moments of feeling really quite blue. On further reflection, though, I would have to say that if I was left entirely alone in the wilderness then I would not be terribly unhappy. I’m not that unhappy of a person, I just let external issues sap me of my energy and take issues that I can’t change and make them a personal reflection of my “failures”. If my kids misbehave then it’s my fault and something I’ve done terribly wrong. I happen to have a child who takes a lot of energy and patience to parent. There’s not a thing wrong with her except she’s the total opposite of myself. She’s strong willed, independent, loud, artsy and creative. Me, not so much. I can’t change her, and really, why would I? Those skills will get her far in life. I shouldn’t let our differences effect our relationship and my views of myself. When I let go and let her be who she wants to be and let her magnificent tantrums be her own, and not mine, I’m generally a happy person.

That being said, I don’t think there is any thing wrong with doing things that make me happy. So what if I like knitting for a few months and then get on a gardening kick? It’s doesn’t mean that once I give up on knitting I’m suddenly unhappy and need to go look for a replacement. I like to try new things. I don’t expect to master anything. The enjoyment comes from learning new skills, so please don’t assume that I’m on quest to finally find that one thing that will make me happy. I am a generally happy person (even when I take things out of my control a little too personally).

I think for most people happiness is a reflection of both internal and external sources so to throw someone into the wilderness and say “so would you be happy” is a bit silly, however, I’m really glad that this question was asked of me because it got me thinking and able to see that I’m not just an unhappy person because I expect to be an unhappy person but that I tend to let the things I perceive as negative reflect on me while at the same time letting the positive around me reflect on others and never taking any credit for myself.

If I was left all alone I would take a very long nap and then probably wake up a relatively happy person. However, I wouldn’t trade the wild and wonderful distractions in my life for anything in the whole world!

And there you have my personal rambling for the month….*lol*

Holiday Bliss 2010 – Dec 7th

So I didn’t keep up with the meme daily….I’m not always good at that as I am sure that you’ve noticed.

I’m back and today I’ve been impressed with the amount of crafting and gift making my children are doing – secretly and not so secretly. It’s the first year that they, themselves, have been interesting in giving during the holiday season. I am little ashamed to say that it’s usually been about the getting in this family (not that there’s no talk this year about what they are expecting to get). There’s been lots of cutting, pasting, sewing and folding going on in the house and this makes me very happy to see.

What things are your family working on this holiday season? Click the holiday Bliss 2010 image and share your moments of the season as well.