Frugal Homeschooler: Free Educational Dvd's

Sometimes homeschooling frugally just means keeping your ear to the ground. Opportunities can just crop up that you need to seize! I stumbled across some educational dvds on some of my homeschool yahoo groups and thought I would share!

Nasa and the American Museum of Natural History are offering a free dvd and educator's guide! It is called Journey to the Stars and they say it is available for both teachers and parents. As a homeschooler I am filing as a teacher.

The History Channel has a new series called America: the Story of Us going right now. I know many people who are dvr'ing it but don't bother (unless you want to see it now;). They are offering it on a free dvd! You have to request it before July 1, 2010 and they won't send it until August.

For both of them you just fill out a form!

Roadtrips, Fundraisers and a Giveaway!

(This has been moved from NerdFamily Food)

So who loves Sweet Tomatoes or Souplantation (depending on location;)? And how does helping support Boys and Girls Clubs of America? Me too!

Sweetie, the beloved mascot of Sweet Tomatoes and Souplantation, recently kicked-off a Great American Road Trip to help raise money for Boys & Girls Club of America. In each tour city, 20 percent of the entire day’s sales will benefit the local chapters of the Boys & Girls Club! And, Sweetie will be making special guest appearances at select restaurant locations in each market. Guests located outside one of the 12 tour stops can still celebrate May’s Great American Road Trip in stores and follow Sweetie online throughout his travels via a map that will show him moving across the country.

Here is the schedule of the remaining stops!

May 20 – Downtown San Jose, CA restaurant location from 4-5pm

May 20 – Fremont, CA restaurant location from 6-7pm

May 20 – Pleasanton, CA restaurant location from 7:30-8:30pm

May 24 - Los Angeles – TBD

May 25 - Orange County – TBD

May 26 – Encinitas (San Diego area) location from 4-6pm

May 26 – Mission Gorge (San Diego area) location from 5-7pm

They are even going to have some featured dishes for Sweeties Trip!

- California Cobb Tossed Salad

- Chesapeake Corn Chowder soup

- Texas Longhorn Beef Chili Soup

- Neighbor Joe’s Gumbo Soup

- Orange Creamsicle Lava Cake

- French Quarter Praline Muffin

But if you are going to miss out on this charity promotion you can join them to help support Easter Seals in June! From June 1-30, guests who visit any restaurant location in the Pacific Northwest will have the option to donate $2 to Easter Seals, raising money and awareness for children and adults with disabilities in the community. In exchange for the $2 donation, guests will receive a bag of cookies and a coupon for their next visit to Sweet Tomatoes. In addition to the Pacific Northwest, this will also be available in restaurant locations in the following areas: Chicago, Kansas, Missouri, Colorado and Utah.

Win it!

Souplantation and Sweet Tomatoes have given me some dining passes to giveaway to my great readers! I am going to give 2 winners 3 dining passes each!

To enter:

* Just leave a comment telling me your favorite dish at Souplantation and Sweet Tomatoes!

* A random winner will be selected and notified on June 3rd.

* The winner will then have 3 days to claim their prize.

To earn extra entries, you may do one or all of the following. Each one counts as an extra ticket but you must leave a separate comment for each one.

* Subscribe to my feed (if you already do, that counts).

* Mention this giveaway on your blog with a link back here.

* Subscribe to my Twitter and then Tweet about this!

* You can tweet everyday for an additional entry, just make sure to leave a comment for each time!

If you want to see more giveaways pop over to Making Money Keeping Money to see more giveaways on Contesting Monday

Free Kindle Readers

As you can tell I like books, my kids like books and my husband likes books. So why wouldn't we want to get in on some of the free Kindle downloads out there? Well, since we don't have a Kindle (and are too cheap to buy one;) we would need a way around that;).

So I was stoked to read about Amazon's free readers for the PC. Those of you with an iPhone might also be happy to hear that there is a free reader for the iPhone too! You just download and install them. That is it. Then partake in all the books!

AppleCheeks Review

I admit that I was traumatized as a child by cloth diapers. See when my closest sister was born I was about 8 years old. My mom decided to use cloth diapers with her and even had a diaper service. But there was still a lot to traumatize me. I remember the rubber pants, the diaper pins and rinsing the diapers out in the toilet (which was my job). I remember when these super wet diapers would be taken off the baby they were these huge sopping messes which led to diaper rashes. I also remember my sister getting poked with the diaper pins and there being tears both from the poker and the pokee. But that was 25 years ago.

I had been hearing for about 8 years that cloth diapers have so much so I was stoked when I got an opportunity to review AppleCheeks. I got the Mini Test that has an envelope cover and 3 bamboo inserts. I decided to use this on my 2 year old during her nap time. Let us start with this cover. Nerdpud really gave these a good test because she had been holding it all morning (because we are potty training). Putting it on her was a snap. Literally. They have adjustable snaps on the front where I tightened up one side more that the other to give her a custom fit. But when I picked her up I wasn't sure that she had even wet it at first. Not only was there not a drop that got out but also the insert wasn't clumpy (but soaked). Then I just slipped out the insert and it was ready for another. The microfiber lining seemed perfectly dry. So if we were doing this system exclusively we could have totally put it back on her. Then the insert just got thrown into the washer and dryer.

My final verdict? Cloth diapers seem pretty awesome. They have come a long way from rubber pants and pins. The AppleCheeks system works beautifully! I would totally recommend it! I love the fact that they sell sets (Mini Tests, Starter Kits and more) so they make great baby shower gifts! It is time we all give cloth diapers another go with the AppleCheeks system!

(This is a Family Review Network review. AppleCheeks provided the product for my honest review!)

En Mi Casa by Sing-A-Lingo

Who doesn't want their child to learn a new language? I know that I want my children to develop that part of their brain that is tied to foreign language. And nothing seems to help stuff stick in my children's heads like music. So I was excited to receive a copy of En Mi Casa from Sing-a-Lingo.

En Mi Casa is all in Spanish. The cd case has all the words listed in both English and Spanish. The music is super catchy and my kids, who had never heard Spanish and didn't have the words in front of them, loved it!

A problem we did have was since I hadn't made copies of the words (and not all my kids could read) only 1 kid could really work on learning the words. I think that we are going to order the same cd in English so my kids could learn all the words in English first. That was my only problem with the cd. But if we had already been working on Spanish I would just make sure that their vocabulary words matched up with each song.

I think that Sing-a-Lingo has a great program going here! I enjoyed the music and it helped refresh my Spanish from high school. If you or someone you know is learning Spanish I highly recommend En Mi Casa!

(This post was written as part of a program for Family Review Network and Sing-A-Lingo,

who provided the CD for this review)

LilyMe

We are in the age of charms and personalization for said charms. I just got the cutest bracelet with an adorable "love" charm from LilyMe. Now I see why these are so popular. I also love that this bracelet is adjustable! It is that perfect bracelet to wear all the time with anything so it is the perfect design for a sentimental piece.

But this simple bracelet isn't all that LilyMe does. They have all kinds of necklaces and bracelets with pre-designed charms as well as personalized charms. So you can get a great present with someone's children, siblings or a memorable verse.

You can us the coupon code "mother" to get 10% off any product at LilyMe!

(This review is part of the Family Review Network and I was provided a product by LilyMe to review.)

Family Friendly Comic Book!

We love comic books here in the NerdFamily! NerdDad and I both read comic books but finding good ones for that are appropriate for the kids take a little looking. So when I received a review copy of Boy, I'd Hate to be Made Out of That Stuff! through FRN I was stoked!

Lunar Antics sets up this comic series where moon people invade earth to avoid the outrageous tax on the moon. It is advertised as science fiction for normal people;). This is a clean and fun comic. It has some sarcasm and a lot of wit! It is so cute! While the main characters are moon people (who are bright, a bit egotistical and very good at math) the strip is really about humanity.

I recommend this book! I think it is a fun gift for your favorite comic lover be they children or adults! Right now if you order a copy you can get it signed for free! I am a sucker for autographed books;).