Family Game Night Linkup for January

Happy New Year! I hope 2014 brings you many great days with which to make great memories.
 

For 2014, I am starting up my Family Game Night Link Up once again. It will take place at the beginning of each new month. I will share a game that our family is enjoying, and invite others to link up one of their favorite games, to give us all some new and fresh ideas!

May 2014 be a great year of fun family memories for all of us!

The girls received this game for Christmas from some dear friends of ours. We had never even heard of it before!! It quickly became a family favorite and definitely was one of the Top Ten Favorite Gifts this Christmas.

The game comes in a small canister. There are three levels of play: beginner, intermediate, and expert.

First, remove all the pieces and sort them in order from largest to smallest. 2-4 people can play, and the pieces get divided equally between all players. Extra pieces, if there are any, are placed in a draw pile.

The pieces, as you will see below, consist of one base, and a number of notched rods in various lengths. Each length is identified by a different colored end.

For the beginners level, players compete by 'suspending' their rods on the sculpture of pieces in order from largest to smallest. There is a lot of thinking and planning involved, because pieces must be balanced out or they will drop. Any pieces that fall must be picked up and added to that player's pile. Of course, the first player to run out of rods wins, so you don't want to be picking up extra rods along the way!

In the intermediate level, players roll the die and play the color shown. This can get tricky because if the first piece you must play is the shortest one, it is more difficult to find stable spots for the longer rods. Again, first player who runs out of rods wins.

The expert level can be played like a tournament, where rods are worth points depending on how many notches they have. It can get very challenging and involves multiple rounds.

I love the rule sheet - it includes an option for single players....and encourages them to "ignore the rules listed above, and have fun just building their own metal sculpture"!

This game is quick and easy, and is different every time you play it! We have played almost all variations of it, from 2 player beginners, to more advanced multiple player rounds. This is one of those games that is so fun the kids don't realize it is also educational (can you say physics??)

Here is one of our metal sculptures from a recent game!

The age recommendations on this game are 8+. I think children younger than that would enjoy it as well.

Copyright 2012-2013 - "Be The One" - www.aclassofone.blogspot.com  All rights are reserved. No text, photos, or content may be reproduced without direct permission from the author.


Please feel free to grab the button and link up your favorite family games here!

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Blog Year In Review: My Top Ten Posts of 2013

This was my first year blogging full time. I learned a lot and found it fun and rewarding, as well as challenging! My creativity and inspiration was definitely stretched to new levels, and it was interesting to learn many new things about computers as well!

Looking back over the past year, the many reviews I wrote, the recipes, and the fun projects we completed as a family in our homeschool, I went into the blog stats to see which posts were the most visited and shared. It was pretty interesting, and gave me some good insight as to what direction the blog should go in for 2014.

Here, in order of popularity, are my top ten posts of 2013!

1) Breakfast burritos - an easy recipe that can be made ahead and warmed up for busy mornings.

2) Quick Breakfast Sandwiches - another easy and quick breakfast recipe!

3) Review for Song School Spanish from Classical Academic Press. This was one of my first reviews, and was a product that we loved and still use nearly a year later.

4) My post about Free Lego plans that includes a link. I have used this link extensively - glad to see it has helped others as well.

5) We took a camera everywhere we went one day, and joined up with a blog cruise chronicling A Day In the Life of Our Homeschool.  It was just a typical day, so I found it amusing that so many people visited and enjoyed this post! The kids have been asking to do it again, so I guess we will have to make it point to put a few more of these 'real life' posts on! :-)

6) Another recipe - Christmas pretzels with an allergy free alternative.  This post is on track to make it to the very top of my list of 'most popular posts of all time'. It had only been up a few days before it went 'viral' on Pinterest. In just over a week, it has already made it to number 6 on my 'most visited posts' list.

7) A random breakfast recipe posting, that included homemade granola. But what really catapulted this post to the 'all time favorites' list was my notes on "the world's easiest way to cook bacon." Once again, thank you Pinterest!

8) Another photojournal - Youth Group Game Night.

9) Combination of a photojournal and a review: my review of Spanish For You. We had a lot of fun with this review, and I have chosen it as my top review of 2013.

10) How To Build A Flexible Spine - An Anatomy Project that we made when studying the spine. It was a quick and easy project, and made a cute blog post. (Note to self - making cute pinnable graphics makes my pins spread like wildfire on Pinterest)


So there you have it! I have my marching orders and some direction and goals for the blog for 2014. I will be focusing on adding allergy friendly recipes more often, as well as sprinkling some fun photo journal type stuff more frequently into the mix as well.

Thank you to all my readers and followers who helped build this blog from scratch over this past year!

This post is linked up with a "Looking Back" series from The Old Schoolhouse Review Crew. Click the button below to reminisce this past year with the Crew!




Copyright 2012-2013 - "Be The One" - www.aclassofone.blogspot.com  All rights are reserved. No text, photos, or content may be reproduced without direct permission from the author.

What To Do With Your Bible?

A year ago, I posted a challenge to Read Through The Bible In A Year.  Are there any readers that did it? Did you take up the challenge and dig into the Word of God this year?

If not...its ok. Today is a new day, and tomorrow starts a brand new year. I always encourage folks to jump in and pick up anywhere in a Bible reading plan. We need the Word of God more than we need daily food. It is vital to our survival in this crazy world in which we live. The Word of God is the only absolute that never changes, and makes sense. It is where we get the reasons and principles for WHY we do what we do. If we don't have a Biblical basis, we will end up changing according to our surroundings.

Why is it so important to have a plan for reading our Bible? Because we can get easily distracted with all the noise of daily living and modern technology, and quickly fall into bad habits of neglecting the things that are most important to us, even if we mean well!

 

Following a plan will build character in your life. While character is not essential to becoming a born again child of God, (God already did all the work for that - all we have to do is believe it and accept His gift), having good character is definitely helpful to live a life that will be pleasing to our God. Having character strengthens us to resist temptation and strive to live right, even on the days we might not feel like it.

 

Here are two more sets of Daily Bible Reading Schedules that I recently came across. Both of them have been graciously allowed free distribution from the people who created them, so rather than making them available here, I am simply including a link to the sites where they can be found.

 

The 52 Week Bible Reading Plan breaks the Bible down into small daily readings. It is for those who might not want to read through the Bible from beginning to end, but would be more interested in skipping around and mixing things up a bit. In a week, you will read portions of Scripture from the Epistles, the Law, Poetry, Prophecy, History, Psalms, and the Gospels.

 

A traditional daily Bible reading plan that starts in Genesis and ends in Revelation. It is written by weeks, not dates, so you can jump in anywhere and at any time.

 

Here is a link to a page of interesting and unique Bible reading plans that will allow you to choose any number of ways and time frames to read through and study your Bible.

 

What can we do with our Bible? Here is a list,  A-Z. I challenge you to make this list a part of your everyday life, and embrace and cherish the Word of God this year like never before!

 

Jeremiah 26:2, "Diminish not a WORD."

 

• We need to accept God's Word;
• We need to believe God’s Word;
• We need to cherish God’s Word;
• We need to depend on God’s Word;
• We need to enjoy God’s Word;
• We need to feed on God’s Word;
• We need to grasp God’s Word;
• We need to hear God’s Word;
• We need to include God’s Word in our life;
• We need to join with God’s Word;
• We need to keep God’s Word;
• We need to love God’s Word;
• We need to memorize the Word of God;
• We need to need God’s Word;
• We need to obey God’ Word;
• We need to preach God’s Word;
• We need to quote God’s Word; 
• We need to read God’s Word;
• We need to study God’s Word;
• We need to treasure God’s Word;
• We need to understand God’s Word;
• We need to value God’s Word;
• We need to want God’s Word;
• We need to examine God’s Word;
• We need to yearn for God’s Word;  
• We need to zip to God’s Word daily.

 

 



Copyright 2012-2013 - "Be The One" - www.aclassofone.blogspot.com  All rights are reserved. No text, photos, or content may be reproduced without direct permission from the author.