Victus Study Skills System Review

Everyone needs to learn how to study. Victus Study Skills System is a great option to help your child learn to study correctly. They offer several different levels that so they can start learning to study early on.

Level 1: Primary is for grades K-2/3
Level 2: Elementary is for grades 2/3-4/5
Level 3: Is for grades 5/6- 10/11
Level 4:  is for grades 10/11- college

There is a teacher supplement and a student work book for each level. Additionally you can get a student planner and power point. All of which can be found at https://www.studyskillssystem.org/products/. This system is based on the premise that effective study is best when it is a system of study and when it becomes a way of life.

The Snoopy is doing the level 2 elementary because she is in 4th grade.  Gabby is doing the Level 3 because she is in 6th grade.

The teachers edition for level 3 seems simple enough. It gives a course plan Day 1- 5. Day 1 you are to cover lesson 1-2, day 2 you review day 1 and teach day 3. Day 3 you review he previous day and teach lessons 4-6. Day 4 is some more review and your teach lessons 7-8. Day 5 Your review the previous days and then do lesson 9-10. You finish day 5 with the evaluation.  Each segment is roughly 15 min in length. The hole program is only about 5 hours in length.

The teacher supplement for the elementary is similar to the level 3. I did not see a course plan. But it lays out each lesson and which pages to cover each time you work in the program.

The lessons in the books cover things like: strength and weakness, making a goal, time management, study skills for test, note taking, how to be an active listener, test prep etc.

We have worked through a good amount of this book. It starts off helping the girls to identify there learning styles. It does this with some simple questions they they check off, then they total how many questions they checked in each area to determine which is the primary learning style and the secondary learning style.  The program then offers them some ideas on how to use there learning style to help them study and learn more efficiently. Snoopy scored highest as a doing learner and secondly as a visual learner. Gabby scored highest as a visual learner and an auditory learner. They will learn what a mission statement is and how to create one. They cover a section on setting goals for the school year. From there it explains what the an objective is and then they have to create an action plan for how to achieve that goal. The program has them do this for several different areas in there life: Like Non-school goals, and goals for the summer.

Under the how do I get there section they learn about things like time management. It goes overs how to make an assignment schedule, how to use a planner. Gabby found the staying organized tips to be the most useful. She has implemented several into her current study habits. Savannah found the test taking preparation section to be helpful. It gave her ideas on how reduce test anxiety, and things she can do to prepare her self for an upcoming test.

For the most part we found the work books to be self explanatory. The girls needed guidance on several things but I think this has given them a good jumping off point. I can already see them starting to use some of the things they have learned so far. They are both using the learning styles they identified at the beginning a little more than they used to. Snoopy is doing more of the hands on projects in science class and Gabby has found out that she remembers more if she listens to an audio book as she follows along with it in her text.

I have thumbed through the other books for the different grade levels and I think as a whole this could be a good program to start early on and continue through the high school years. I think the collage level would be great for a student at the end of there senior year and preparing to enter collage.  It's so important for kids to know how to use there learning style to study efficiently to reach there long term goals in life. I encourage everyone to click the link below and take a look at how the other review families used the different levels of the Victus Study Skills System.


Social Media Links: 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/VictusStudySkillsSystem/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/victusstudy
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/victusstudy/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZQ_3UrSbjae4ooEJhJI4bA

Night Guards O my

After a recent dental appointment I found out that I have been grinding my front teeth. The dentist tells me that they are becoming thin and are starting to get very small chips in them. He recommended a night guard. But when I found out it was going to cost me a whopping $380 I about fell in the floor. I was thinking I just can’t afford this right now. I ended up online researching night guards and I found this dental lab where you can order a kit make the mold your self send it in and they send you the guard. The price is less than half of what my dentist was charging. After some more reasearch and looking around It began to sound better and better. Being the blogger that I am I decided to see if they wanted to participate in a review. I was able to get in touch with https://www.proteethguard.com/. ProTeeth was kind enough to send me a kit to review and I am going to tell you how I went.

First off they offer 4 different nightguards. They offer a soft guard for light grinding or clenching, A hybrid which is a combo of soft and hard for moderate grinding, a hard guard for heavy grinding and finally a ultra thin guard for daytime grinding. Pricing for each one is different and ranges from $139.99 to  $189.99. Even there most expensive heaviest guard is way less than what my dentist sells his for. They offer a money back guarantee which is amazing you really have nothing to loose on this one. Ordering is easy if you have a question send them an email customer service is great they got back to me very quickly when I ask them crazy questions.

Shipping of the kit was quick they ordered the kit for me on Friday afternoon and it came Tuesday. You will need to choose if you want your guard to for the upper teeth or the lower teeth. The kit contains two upper trays and two lower trays, one in a regular size and one in a small, impression putty, instructions and a bubble envelope that you will use to send your impressions back to the lab. They offer a great how to video on how to do the impressions and the written instructions are clear and easy to follow.

First you need to decide which size of tray you need to use. You don't want it to be tight because you

need to have room for the putty inside the tray plus your teeth. I went with the medium standard size tray. You will have 60 seconds from the time you start mixing the putty to the time is starts to harden up so mix quickly. Really 60 seconds doesn't seem like a lot of time but I did not feel rushed and it the putty mixed easily. I kneaded the putty tell it was a uniform color I rolled it into a snake shape and laid it in the tray. Lick you lips put the tray into your mouth lining it up with your teeth. Now you need to push the tray straight up and into your teeth. DO NOT wiggle it around straight up make sure to use your fingers to press it straight up into your back teeth. Then you wait 4 minutes for it to set. This will be the longest 4 minutes ever. The girls sang to me and tried to get me to laugh which is not advisable. When your 4 minutes is up and the putty is set you can pop it out by pulling straight down. You will want to take a good look at your impression and make sure you have a clean impression. Take a look to see that the impression is centered and that you can clearly see all of your teeth in the impression. You will then repeat the process for the lower teeth. Once you have good impressions you will stick them in the bubble envelope and send them back to ProTeeth Guard. The lab makes your guard the same way that what ever lab your dentist uses makes your guard. You will receive your fancy new night guard in 4-11 days. If you have a problem with your guard they will do what ever they can to make it fit.



I followed all the steps and sent off my impressions. They sent me a nice little note in my email basically letting me know I did the top impression wrong and they wanted me to do it again. They sent me an additional upper impression kit at no cost. The lab techs sent a nice little note letting me know what I did wrong the first time and how to get a better impression. Back in the bathroom I went I repeated the process getting the impression more centered and allowing one extra minute for it to harden up. I stuck them back in the prepaid envelope and sent them out again. A couple days later I got a nice email from them telling me my impressions were good and my order status was now CREATING TEETH GUARD. I have no idea why but I was excited to see this update. The note also said it would take 7 to 11 days for my guard to be created and I would receive a chipping notice when it shipped.

My guard arrived in a bubble wrap envelope secured in a hard plastic box. As you can see the guard is crystal clear and is an exact match to my teeth. This is a lower guard day guard so its ultra thin. The fit is great it is very comfortable and after 4 weeks I have had zero issues with it rubbing. It does take a bit to get used to if you plan to talk with it in your mouth. For the most part its not all that visibly noticeable. Since this one is a day guard you should be able to talk with it in your mouth and it should be comfortable. I can talk ok with it. My speech is slightly different sounding. Like any dental appliance it takes some getting used to. You can not eat with the day guard so you will need to remove it. I can drink with it after some practice. How ever I don't recommend drinking dark colored drinks because it could stain the guard over time.

Over all I am very pleased with my Pro Guard. If your dentist is recommending you to get a day or night guard you might take a good look at Pro Teeth Guard.

Disclaimer: I received this product free in exchange of my honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Come on Spring

Me and the girls have started seeds for the garden. We have the seed flats near a heater vent to keep them warm and help speed up the sprouting process. We have two varieties of lettuce and two varieties of tomatoes coming up so far. One luffa has sprouted and we hope to get a couple more to sprout this week. 

We have an EGG!

This is our first Egg! I meant to post it last week but life got crazy and I didn’t realize I hadn’thit publish on this post. So here it is in all its glory a beautiful tiny brown egg. A neighbor gave the girls a pair of chickens that stay small. Don’t ask me what kind they are because I have no idea. Takes a look at the pictures and if you know what they are leave me a comment because we would love to know. Any way the female has started laying and the girls are excited. 

Chicken coop ..... $100

Chicken feeder.....$20

Chicken water thing....$15

Chicken Feed..... $10 a bag 

The Girls excitement when they found that first egg

....... Priceless

Soaping Shenanigans

So I got brave and decided to try making shampoo bars with SCI noodles. There was a bit of a learning curve with getting these pressed hard enough but I think I have it down now. I’m looking a getting a nicer mold but for a practice run these worked out just fine. They smell amazon they lather well and my curls have never looked better.

IXL Learning Review

Has anyone ever tried IXL Learning? We are trying out a annual membership. This is an online supplemental curriculum. There is math and language arts for grade pre-k through 12. Then they offer 2nd through 8th grade science and 2nd through 8th grade social studies. Then they have an intro to Spanish. The amount of content covered in each subject area varies from 48 to 300+ different skills. An annual membership for the combo package is $159 for one child and you can add additional children for $40. They have a few other options in different price ranges that you can find on the website https://www.ixl.com/membership/family/pricing.

Set up is very easy. You log in create your profile and those of your children. Each of the girls has their own log in. Parent goodies: I get a weekly report in my email so I can see if they are logging in and how much they have done and how well they have been doing.  They use some handy dandy charts and graphs to display this information. It also gives me suggested lessons for each child. When I logged in I found a tab at the top that for me says MO standards. Under this tab I can find a listing of the different standards that are covered in this program. Depending on what state you put in your profile this should change to fit your needs. I love that the standards are printable. I printed them off then I highlight each one that we have covered with a lesson through IXL. I will then add these to each of there portfolio boxes at the end of the year. The analytics tab will give you loads of info on how your kids are doing. You can view there usage how many questions they have answered, how much time they have spent on the program, number of skills covered. You can also get a preview of the questions they have been working on. There is a diagnostic tab that tells you what they need to work on. A trouble spots tab that simply tells you what they are having a hard time with. Then a scores, questions, and a progress tabs.

Both of the girls have been working in IXL. I ask them to start off with the diagnostic area. This will ask them some questions then give them recommended areas that they need to work on it basically gives them a jumping off point and helps you to see what they need to work on. The diagnostics on this program is a little different from what we have done with other programs. It is called continuous diagnostics. Which basically means it never really ends this was hard for the girls because they didn't know when to stop. To start off your child should do enough to get a good picture of what they need to work on. The girls did questions tell I had a little info on what they knew for each of the subjects offered this takes some where around 120-150 questions. I did not have them do all of these questions in one sitting. I had them work on it for about 15 min at a time. The program recommends your child continue to answer 10-15 questions in the diagnostic section every week to help you see what areas they need to work on.

 I ask them both to work through the recommended lessons that the diagnostics test recommends one day a week. As they work through those lessons and answer more diagnostic questions it gives them different recommended lessons. This helps to fill any gaps that they may have. I can then compare what they have completed and done well on with the standards for our state and keep track of how they are doing over all. After they do those recommended lessons they are then allowed to work on any subject area that they want.

Snoopys favorite subject out of everything she tried is Science. She says the lessons give her good information that is easy to understand and follow. She said the questions fit the information and it doesn't ask her anything crazy that was not covered in the lesson information. She has also started working through the history section because she just finished up our primary history curriculum. She had trouble explaining to me how it worked so I logged into my parent account and did few of these sections my self just to see how it worked. It started me off with some questions if I answered wrong it gave me the correct answer and an explanation. Some times when I gave the correct answer it gave me a more in depth explanation which is great. The explanations often times came with a picture or photograph. I was please with the topics covered under history and we will definitely be doing more with it in the coming weeks.

Gabby likes the Spanish section best. She has zero experience with Spanish other than what she orders at the local Mexican restaurant. She says that as you work through it you can earn different virtual prizes likes stickers and stuff. She said she would like to see it offer something like a digital books. She tells me that the lessons offer audio so she can hear the letter and word sounds. It tells you if its right or wrong in Spanish. She is hoping she will pick up enough to be able to have short conversations with the lady that owns the local Mexican restaurant. The second subject area she worked with was  math. Math is a trouble area for her and we are always willing to try something that might help her understanding in a certain area. So far she has not learned any new methods but she was happy to see that it gave her an explanation when she got the wrong answer to something. She would like to see more instruction before beginning the problems.

Over all I am pleased with the topic offered in IXL Learning. I think its a great supplemental program that could be helpful for filling in any gaps you may be worried about in your primary curriculum. Click the link and take a look at what the other crew teams are saying about IXL.

Social Media Links:


Facebook: facebook.com/IXL
Twitter: twitter.com/IXLLearning
Pinterest: pinterest.com/IXL
YouTube: youtube.com/IXL

A beautiful winter sunset. The Lord sure did give me a beautiful place to live.

So I found this one line last summer and I am thinking this would be amazing in our back yard. I can just see me and the girls hanging out on this making hotdogs and marshmallows.  I can see the girls sprawled out on the swings when the weather is nice. So this is the next thing on my do it yourself list. It will come right after we rebuild the front deck and a little bathroom remodel. OR maybe I can squeeze it in between the two projects shouldn't take but a weekend to build right?

As I watch the snow falling out side my window I am ordering this years seeds for our garden. Seems funny to be ordering seeds when its snowing out side. But the reality is we will be starting early seeds in March in our green house. This year I am ordering from Baker Creek. Its a company that here in my home state and I trying to support more businesses where I live. This year almost our entire garden will be filled with new varieties. Because, well no reason other than I like to try different things. The only varieties from last year that we will be planting again will be our favorite pickling cucumbers and yellow squash and russet potatoes. 

This fall I put the garden to bed a little differently. I turned in some composted chicken manure. Some lime and some wood ash. A neighbor told me that an old timer gardening trick was wood ash and lime to improve soil quality. So we are giving these old timer tricks a try this year and I cant wait to see all the yummy things our garden brings us this year.

This is our gardening list: 

Brad's Atomic Grape Tomato

Barry's Crazy Cherry Tomato

Chinese Red Noodle Bean

Landreth Stringless

Lollo Rossa Lettuce

Tennis Ball Lettuce

Landis Winter Lettuce

Yellow Monster Pepper

Habanada -Sweet Pepper

Albino Bull Nose Pepper

Art Verell's Sweet Corn

Tendercrisp Celery

Costata Romanesco Squash

Disclaimer! I take no credit at all for this Image. A friend sent it to me on Facebook a while back, I would love to know who made it. So if you are the maker of this image Thank YOU! Give me a shout in the comments and I will gladly give credit where due.

WELCOME TO THE NEW YEAR!

As me and my family begin 2019 I want to thank each and every one of my readers for coming to my little blog to see what shenanigans we are up to. I pray 2019 brings some fun new products and some great new family adventures in our rocket ship. 

Happy Homeschooling and Happy Travels 

Another Project

I made these little beauties for a friend who flys a powered para-glider. They are media etched with 220 Aluminium oxide.  I started out just making him one then I decided that a set would be nice. I think they came out nice and my etching is getting better and better. I also made a few more ornaments for my girls other karate instructor and their new baby but my silly bum forgot to take a picture of them and the Babies first Christmas one came out amazing.

Anyone else making these ?

Thanks to my sister a few years a go my girls got an Elf on the Shelf. Then I introduced them to shrink a dinks and they decided that miniature letters to Santa were in order. Today we made our shrink a dink letters to Santa. Now our Elf has agreed to take the letters to Santa then bring them back so that Mommy can hang them on the tree. They now sell a kit to do this but its more pricey than a pack of shrink a dink paper. I buy either the frosted like you see below or the white. You want to make sure it is not the glossy one or the pencil or marker will not stay after its shrunk. If you by chance get the glossy one you will need to get some steel wool and then scrub it tell there is no shine left. I buy a pack of 8 1/2 by 11 shrink a dink paper then I cut them in half and round the corners or use some scrap-booking scissors to give them a shape around the edge. You then bake them at 325 for about 3 minutes. My tip to you is to watch them carefully and have a wooden tooth pick handy because if it curls up and the ends touch each other they will not flatten back out. So if the edges start looking like they are going to touch another part of the paper simply use the tooth pick to gently stop it. Once they flatten back out let them bake for another 30 seconds or so then take them out and let them cool slightly. Don't forget to punch the hole and put the kids name and year on it.

This is happening in our house

There is trend among most youth sports where kids smack talk to each other and parents argue and fight with other parents cotches and referees. The amazing group of kids you see before you is changing that trend. 

The girls began martial arts classes about 3 months a go. Next to Homeschooling this was the best decision I have ever made for them. The kids in there classes amaze me every week. They support and encourage each other at every session. This week GabbyGirl went up for yellow belt testing. As she stood in line waiting for her name to be called every other child there whether they knew her or not either wished her good luck or said something encouraging like you've got this. When she was awarded her yellow belt every one of them shook her hand. Near the end of the night the kids that were yellow belt and above came out to spar. Each kid shook hands before the match. They battled it out martial arts style and when it was over they shook hands and told each other how well they had done. I even caught snatches of conversations where opponents were helping each other by showing them how they could improve a kick or punch or stance or form.  Not all the kids in this photo are from our regular class but they are all from with in the same organization they compete together they practice together and they learn together. 

Training Principles that we Live by:

Be Polite

Be Patient

Be Brave

Be Alert

 Do Your Best

Respect Yourself and Others 

Never Give Up!

I found these silicone donut pans on amazon a few weeks a go and thought the girls would like to have donut soap. This is my first try at it. They look realistic enough although I will probably do something a little different for the sprinkles next time. The coloring on these transferred a little to the white frosting. All and all they look great and I think the kids will have fun with these in the tub.

Rocket Ship Trip

We went camping a back in October and I forgot to share our camping projects. We were expecting rain so my sister brought the kids some modeling clay and these are a few of the creatures they came up with. This kept them busy for hours I couldn't believe it. We are defiantly keeping some of this in the camper from now on. The last picture is of our dog, she has an issue with her eye something that happens with older dogs. She was stuck in the cone of shame for a few weeks while it healed. This is how she chose to ride in the truck. She needed comfort from her best human.

Happy Veterans Day. There will never be enough words to express the gratitude that my family and I have for the men and women that have served this great country. 

Soaping fun

Me and my sidekicks grew our own sponges in the garden this year. The girls didn't believe me that you could actually grow your own sponge. So we did and they were completely amazed. So now I have a bucket of luffa sponges hanging out in my basement. This week I finally decided what to do with all of those sponges. We made home made luffa soap scented in North Pole. This fragrance smells just like Santa's house at least what I always pictured Santa's house smelling like. 

Master Kitz The Starry Night Review

Snoopy girl has gotten into painting and drawing lately. She was very excited when I told her she we were given the chance to review  the Master Kitz The Starry Night by kidzaw.com. You can locate it on their website http://www.kidzaw.com/the-starry-night/. 

This is a kit to help your child easily recreate Vincent Van Gogh's Starry Night painting. This kit comes in a box with 2 sheets of heavy weight water color type paper, one stencil for making the buildings, some round stickers to make the void for the stars, one textured roller that makes the swirl design, one foam roller for applying the black on the stencil for the buildings, it also contains a couple of colors of acrylic paint crayons, one bottle of blue acrylic paint, one bottle of white, and one bottle of black.

We received this kit a few weeks a go and my girls quickly wanted to jump in. The paper and stencil came rolled up in the box so the first thing we did was lay it out flat and put some books on top of it. We read through the directions and took a look at all the items that were included in the box. The directions are very easy to follow they are broke down into steps with little pictures to show you what you need to do. We started off by taping down the white paper. The next step has you use the round stickers to make the voids for the yellow stars. Then it has you use the textured roller to apply blue paint across the hole paper, then you will roll on a little white with the same roller. Next they tape the stencil over the paper you just painted, lining it up with the top edge. They use the solid roller to roll black paint over the stencil. Then you carefully remove the stencil. The next step has you peeling off the round stickers this is easier said then done. Ours stuck so well that they started to tear the paper they were stuck to. I ended up having to help get them off and we managed to remove them with out tearing the paper all the way through. After this you must wait for the paint to dry. We sang the baby shark song while we waited. Takes about 10 min for it to dry depending on the humidity in your house. The steps then have you using those acrylic paint crayons to finish up the details.

Since the kit came with two sheets of paper both of the girls tried out this project. They enjoyed almost every aspect of it except when the round stickers started to tear the paper. I think their painting came out great and for a beginner artist kit this was fun. Do their paintings look exactly like the original? Of course not they used stencils and foam rollers instead of brushes and pallet knives. But when someone looks at it they can recognize where the idea came from. They got a little art history because we looked up some of his other works of art. They also got to try out some new painting methods. All in all they had loads of fun with this one and we would are interested in other products by Kidzaw.

So here are the final paintings. The final paintings they look great don't you think? Be sure to click the banner below and see what amazing art the other Crew Kids have done.

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