Saturday, March 09, 2019

Review: Kids Read Truth 1 & 2 Corinthians

Welcome to my new readers. This is a special edition blog post and my first blog post since 2011! I started this blog as a series of musings on things that interested me. It's been such a long time since I regularly blogged and I don't really remember what sort of things I wrote about. My views on things may have changed and my understanding about many things has grown over time as well so I wouldn't waste your time in looking back at any of my old posts. The one post I do remember was my review of Vegemite Chips which I still to this day believe were the best tasting chips I've ever had and it's a bit of a sore point to me that they no longer exist.

Anyways... This special blog post is to review the 'daily activity and scripture book' made by Kids Read Truth. In particular I'll be reviewing their 1 & 2 Corinthians book which I bought as we are studying 2 Corinthians at church at the moment.



First impressions:
It's so beautiful! If you've ever come across the She/He/Kids Read Truth stuff, you'll know that everything they produce is very aesthetically pleasing. The designs in the book are very cute and the quality of the book is really nice (you'd hope so as it's super expensive - more on that later). The pages are nice and thick so you could write in them with a Texta or pen and not have to worry about the ink coming through. The font and size makes it really clear to read and gives you space to scribble. Each daily reading is spread across two pages with lots of space for new writers to fill in their responses. Everything inside is in black and white, so if your kid loves colouring this book will provide hours of entertainment.


Bible stuff:
One of the things that drew me to the She/He/Kids Read Truth scripture books is that it's not a devotional book which gives an explanation of the passage. It includes the full text of the passage and provides 1-2 questions relating to the passage. The rest is up to you! This may be a bit daunting to some parents who may be unsure what a passage is talking about though I like that it forces you to focus on what the Bible text says instead of what some unknown person has said about it. The translation of Bible that is used is the Christian Standard Bible (CSB, formally known as the Holman Christian Standard Bible HCSB). I'm not used to reading CSB myself, I'm more familiar with a ESV or NIV. As I've read this CSB translation with my 5 year old, I've found that the language is very difficult for him to understand. I'm sure other parents will think the same. With that being said though, it has forced me to try and simplify it for my son which I think is always a worthwhile activity to do when trying to understand the Bible for myself.

This 1 & 2 Corinthians book doesn't go through the whole text of 1 & 2 Corinthians but rather looks at some of the major themes in those books: wisdom, Jesus as our foundation, the Spirit, the church, etc. The book is presented as a Boy Scouts/Girl Guides adventure where you earn badges (stickers) along the way as you learn about what life with Jesus is about. At the end of each week, there is an "Old Testament rewind" which links the weeks topic to a verse in the Old Testament. I also purchased another one of their books on Matthew to do at a later time which works chronologically through the narrative of Matthew and provides a memory verse from Matthew to learn at the end of each week.

The activities:
There are a range of different activities to do: find-a-words, mazes, list making, colouring in, drawing, code breakers, connect the dots and more. I'm sure your child age 6-9 (the target audience for these books) will find something they enjoy. At the end of each week's readings there is a sticker/badge that you are awarded. There are other stickers included to use at your discretion. Some of my favourite activities in the book are the ones where you have to analyse the text. We had to circle all the times the word 'wisdom' appeared and my 5-year old emerging reader was able to find the word 3 times and was very chuffed with himself about it. When asked "who are the wisest people you know?" he suggested "The Wise Old Elf" (from Ben and Holly's Little Kingdom) which is a bit of a silly answer... but he's recognised the idea of wisdom in a kids TV show and linked it to the word wisdom in the Bible passage so I'm taking that as a win! At the end of the book is a page to summarise what you learnt as well as write a bit about yourself so you can look back and remember what your little one was like when they completed the book.






Is it worth it?
I mentioned before, the biggest negative for me with these activity books is that they are very expensive. You can only purchase them online from the US and there is a whopping $20US flat rate shipping fee. They are a very high quality (although single use) book and I bought a few things at a time (their advent cards and some other scripture books) so in that sense I thought it was worth it to give it a try. I have to admit that we really struggle to read the Bible with our 5 year old so I was hoping that this resource would make things easier. We have previously tried to read a number of children's Bibles with poor response ("The pictures are boring." "There are too many pages." "It's too long."). So far, my son has enjoyed doing the daily readings with me. He's happy to listen to the Bible reading even if he doesn't understand it (I think he likes the 'grown-up' language) and he has enjoyed the activities (even though he can't read or write yet... but he has developing literacy skills). The characters in the book are attractive and the stickers (for the moment) are providing sufficient motivation to keep reading each day. I think that these books are worth a try but because of the cost of them it's not something that I'll be doing regularly through the year. I think it's probably a good idea to have a bit of variety in terms of reading a children's bible, doing a devotional, doing an activity book and reading an adult Bible. I guess the goal is to keep the whole family immersed in the word of God in everyday life. It's not always easy but reading God's word is always worth it. I hope that by starting with these Kids Read Truth books that our son will develop a love of God's word and will grow in his understanding and love of Him.

I hope this review has given your a glimpse of what is included in these daily scripture books and has helped you to decide whether you want to give them a go or not.

Are there any other questions or things that you'd like to find out about these books? I'd love to know. Write a comment below!

 

Monday, October 10, 2011

Review: Smiths Vegemite Chips

On the 7th of October 2011, I was perusing Coles in Carlingford with my mum when I noticed these smiths chips: Vegemite flavoured! At first I just walked past them thinking them to be a cruel joke of some sort but as I walked through every aisle of the store I couldn't stop thinking about them.

Could it be? Two of my favourite types of food (chips and Vegemite in case you were confused) put together to make one superior flavour experience? On the way out of the checkout, I did the classic impulse buy and threw a packet of Vegemite chips on the conveyor belt.


When I got home, I opened the bag. Aroma: a regular plain chip with a hint of Vegemite saltiness.

Eating experience: Very pleasant. Knowing that Vegemite is quite a strong flavour (this coming from someone who likes Vegemite on their toast thick) I feared that the flavour would be too overpowering and I was unsure if I could get through the 90g NET bag by myself (because Rob was certainly not going to have a try for himself). Though I was pleasantly surprised that as I got to the end of the bag, my tastebuds were still working and longing for more. The flavour is subtle enough that you don't feel like you are eating spoonfuls of Vegemite but by some act of ingenious they have been able to recreate that Vegemite tingly aftertaste.

If you like chips and you like Vegemite - you'll love Vegemite chips. As the packaging says "The ultimate Aussie flavour combo."

Cost: Personally too expensive for me at around $1.50 for the 90g (can't remember the exact cost)

For a limited time only (the grapevine tells me 12 weeks) and exclusive to Coles and Bi-Lo.

Highly recommended to Vegemite lovers - it will be an eating experience to remember.

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Friday, August 19, 2011

1 Cup Tea Cosy


I just quickly whipped this up!

I was trying to knit a lining for another tea cosy but it didn't fit - though I realised that it fit my 1 cup tea pot perfectly! I've added the pattern here for you all so that you too can have a cosy for your cute little 1 cup tea pot.

Why not have a play around with different colours or stripes? You could also add a pom pom or flower on the top.

You could also take this plain pattern and adjust it to fit a tea pot of your own size.

Enjoy knitting!

Here is the pattern:

1 Cup Tea Cosy


Yarn: 8ply Easy Care (Heirloom) – uses less than one 50g ball

Using 2 sets of 4mm circular needles, cast on 73 stitches (72 plus 1 st, for joining in the round), placing 36 on one circular needle and 37 stitches on the other circular needle.

Rounds 1-8: *K2, P2, repeat from * to end of round.

Divide for the sides as follows:
Side One
Row 1 (wrong side): K3, purl to last 3 stitches, K3.
Row 2: Knit to end of row.
Repeat this 2-row pattern until you have completed 18 rows in total. Leave stitches on needle. Break off yarn to darn in later.

Side Two
With wrong side facing, join in the yarn to the stitches on the other needle and work Side Two to correspond with Side One.

Upper Body
Begin working in rounds again.
Round 1: *K7, K2tog, repeat from * to end of round
Round 2: Knit to end of round
Round 3: *K6, K2tog, repeat from * to end of round
Round 4: Knit to end of round
Round 5: *K5, K2tog, repeat from * to end of round
Continue in this decreasing pattern until 8 stitches remain (4 on each circular needle).
Knit one round.
Break off yarn and thread through remaining stitches. Draw up tightly and weave in all ends.

p.s: this is the first pattern I've done so if you have any comments or pick up on any mistakes just let me know.


p.p.s: This cosy is knitted on two pairs of circular needles - for more information on how to do this just search on youtube! There are plenty of videos there.

Wednesday, January 05, 2011

Fishy Tales

At the end of last year I had:
-3 sunset platys
-2 red wag tail platys
-1 zebra dannio
-4 male guppies

Just before Christmas, Rob and I went away for a week. When we returned... the mystery begun.

You see, when we returned from our holiday we had:
-3 sunset platys
-2 red wag tail platys
-1 zebra dannio
-3 male guppies

I searched high and low for my lost male guppy but it was too late. It was nowhere to be seen and I could only assume that it had died and then been eaten by it's fishy "friends."

A few days after, I had:

-3 sunset platys
-2 red wag tail platys
-1 zebra dannio
-2 male guppies

Though this time I found the poor guppy dead at the bottom of the tank. Very sad - it was a very pretty guppy. Not only was this guppy dead but one of my other guppies had shredded fins. I had now worked out the culprit. The pretty blue fish was the one to blame. I saw it with my own eyes - he was attacking my poor little red and black guppy.

I decided to remove the little red and black guppy in order to let it's fins heal... but to my horror, the pretty blue guppy started chasing my platys and my dannio! So I put the little red and black platy back with his friends and isolated the blue guppy.

Unfortunately, the little red and black guppy did not survive the attack. It was in too much shock from his fin damage and could not swim properly so I let him rest in the freezer. RIP.

Did I also mention that one of my red wag tail platys was found dead in the morning as well? I can only assume it was a result of stress due to the bullying (or old age) as it had no fin damage or other signs of illness.

At this point I decided to let my bully blue guppy have one last chance... being the only guppy left, maybe it wouldn't be as aggressive. However this blue guppy would not give in and attacked my dannio, leaving a big painful looking bite in his back. So I took the meany blue guppy back to the fish shop and swapped him for a peaceful red and black guppy (in memory of it's predecessor).

I was going to get some medication for my dannio this morning to help his tail heal quicker... however alas by morning almost his whole back half had disintegrated so I let him rest in the freezer. RIP.

I still went to the fish shop this morning as planned and decided to get 4 female guppies for my remaining male guppy. Guppies are supposed to breed really easily and hopefully this will mean that I wont have to keep on buying fish to replace those that don't survive. They are so far swimming happily.

But will this fish tale have a happy ending? After putting the new guppies in the tank I noticed some white spots on one of the new guppies - oh no! White spot disease! I promptly put in the required medication. Hopefully there won't be any more fatalities. I've had fish with white spot disease before and they have survived... so let's hope so.

Now I have:
-3 sunset platys
-1 red wag tail platy
-1 male guppy
-4 female guppies

From Car-O-Line

Video of my fish before they all went

Friday, December 10, 2010

hello out there?

Hey!

Are there people still out there there reading my blog? It would be nice to know.

Anyways... I have 2 more days of teaching left this year and then the staff christmas luncheon. I have sorta come to a point where I'm really glad that I'm finishing my teaching for the moment because these past few days/weeks have been really sucky. So that's kinda sad because it would have been nice to leave school on a brighter note.

From Car-O-Line

Friday, November 12, 2010

a heads up

Just letting you know that I have opened a tumblr blog and have been experimenting with it. That blog will most likely have to do with all things MTS related. So this blog shall live on another day.

From Car-O-Line

p.s: my tumblr will be released at a later date

EDIT: I decided to ditch the tumblr because it wasn't working out for me the way I wanted. My new blog is at carolinefreitag.blogspot.com :)

Friday, November 05, 2010

yucky pine nuts

I had some pine nuts in the fridge which said that they expired in may... but I didn't believe it so I ate one. And it tasted disgusting... and now I can't get the taste out of my mouth! It's so gross!!!

In other news... I met up with Cler and Chris yesterday and we read a chapter from the book 1-2-1 Discipling by Christine Dillon. It was a good read. The chapter we were reading was encouraging us to take a broader view of discipling. Often we think of it as the formal 1 hour set apart for bible reading that happens once a week. But discipling can also be about sharing your life with someone else - letting them hang around as you do the mundane tasks and see how you live Christ-like lives in everything. It sets the challenge to strive to be more like Christ in everything and then so be willing to share your life with someone else. Think about this - Jesus disciples followed him around everywhere and lived, ate and breathed with him. That time would have been so valuable for them in learning how to live God honouring lives.

From Car-O-Line