The Presidential Game Review

Our family has a whole host of serious board gamers!! When we were offered the chance to review the The Presidential Game we jumped at the chance to review this product. As you will see, sometimes you roll the dice and don't get what you bargain for in the end. The Presidential Game is a game of strategy to see who can get the most Electoral Votes: 270 wins the game. Teams consist of Republicans and Democrats.

The Presidential Game comes with a 20" x 30" GAME Board, Score Pad, 3 Blue Dice, 3 Red Dice, 80 Politics Cards, 40 "Write-Your-Own" Politics Cards, 150 Republican Votes (red chips), 150 Democrat Votes (blue chips), 1 Electoral WebMap™ Calculator Access Code. The game is for ages 11 & up, I would think that most 9+ year olds could play on a team with an older child or adult. The game retails for $35.00 plus shipping. Either 2 players can play or you can set up 2 teams.

 

What this homeschool Momma liked about The Presidential Game.

1) Games works on math skills, lots of dice to count! More math comes into play when chips are used.
2) Works on reading skills.
3) You can decide how long you will play, picking 15 weeks runs about an hour. We played 30 weeks the first time and it took us about 2 hours, but we had a few interruptions along the way. After that when we played the games went pretty quickly.
4) Once we got the hang of the game it was pretty easy to play.
5) Nice large sturdy board game.
6) The website has a nice FAQ section.


What this homeschool Momma did not like about The Presidential Game.
1) The Presidential Game website says "entertaining and educational". I would say it's more entertainment than it is educational, as you really only learn the total number of Electoral Votes that you need to win a particular state.
2) I have a minor in political science and I had hoped for a bit more education in this game, such as campaigning laws and fundraising laws. It would not take much effort to include a few definitions in the instructions.
3) I thought we would learn how the number of Electoral Votes are decided upon for each state.
4) As parents we were very disappointed in some of the Political cards that were not too our liking regarding our family values. Here is just a sampling of the cards that we removed from our deck when we played. Let me just say that we are NOT sheltering our child, but we do not wish to make light of serious matters in our country that can result in jail time such as the "arrested for disorderly conduct" card. Some of the Political cards awarded chips or took chips away based on what the card topic was, including the following topics: legalizing marijuana, gambling, arrested for disorderly conduct, drunk uncle, separations in marriage, drinking beer, there were a few others we were not thrilled with, but to a Mom the ones that I listed were the worst offenders.
5) I was expecting a family friendly board game, but for our family the The Presidential Game did not deliver. Based on my review you can decide if those cards effect your buying decision as each family has their own values that they follow.  Had we known ahead of time that the Political cards dealt with adult themed items (or cards for mature audiences), we would have been prepared to answer questions that were brought up, but while we played the game, we were caught off guard by those cards.
6) We play a LOT of games in this house, yet we found the instructions were difficult for us to follow.
7) Wish that the Political cards gave the name of the candidate that they were speaking of, it would be a nice history lesson.

Electoral WebMap™ Calculator on our Kindle Fire

What this homeschool young man liked about The Presidential Game.

1) I liked Electoral WebMap™ Calculator and how I could keep score on the Kindle.
2) I liked trying to plan ahead what I was going to do in my game play.
3) Learned to work with teammates on game play.
4) I liked the write your own political cards.
 
What this homeschool young man did not like about The Presidential Game.
1) I was not real happy about some of the Political cards, especially living in a state where many of our political leaders are now in prison.
2) The game instructions were hard to follow, and I am still not sure that we are keeping score just right. I'm a numbers kinda guy and this bothers me! lol
3) The Electoral WebMap™ Calculator kept locking up on our Kindle, not sure if it was an Internet issue or not, but it happened each time we played. Maybe I was inputting info too quickly for it to process?
4) I did not like that Mom kept winning! LOL!
 
The concept of the The Presidential Game is AWESOME! But I think that they may need to tweak a few things to make the game more family friendly and more educational. Because think about it folks, what better way to learn about our political system than through playing a game!

Seed Sowers: Gospel-Planting Adventures Book Review

We have been given the privilege to review the paperback version of Gwen Toliver's book Seed Sowers: Gospel-Planting Adventures. The paperback is available at Grace and Truth Books for $12.50, there is also a Kindle Ebook version. The book is full of 21 true missionary stories. Some of the missionary names have been changed because of the sensitivity of the country (this protects the missionaries from being found out).

 

As a side note, Gwen Toliver is a fellow TOS Crew Review member, homeschool mom and her family serves with Wycliffe Associates which is a ministry for Bible translating organizations. And as I think of it, our church has supported the Burnham family as missionaries, Gracia Burnham wrote the Foreword for Seed Sowers: Gospel-Planting Adventures. The book would be for ages 5+, with the younger ones being read to and the older ones reading alone or as a family.

The homeschool young man is writing this review so you will be getting the homeschool student perspective on this review. As the homeschool Mom, I read over the book very quickly (in about an hour) and found it to be a real page turner! I wanted to know what was going to happen next in the story. Very exciting! I loved that it was a GOOD book that captivated my 13 year old son! It's hard to find a good, clean, wholesome and quality paperback for a teenage boy!

 

What this homeschool young man liked about the book Seed Sowers: Gospel-Planting Adventures:

1) I liked how they had examples of he whistling man.
2) I liked how the website had extra stuff, the pictures were really cool! The photos were too old to be used in the actual printing of Gwen Toliver's book Seed Sowers: Gospel-Planting Adventures so they put the pictures up on the website just click here to see them pictures.
3) I really liked how the forward was actually a shortened story.
4) I loved all the fun stories.
5) I liked how some of the missionaries were related.
6) My favorite story was "The Blood Arrow."
7) I was already familiar with the story "The Five Empty Vessels" with Don Johnson, but it was nice to read it again.
8) I think back to when I was younger, this would have been a great book for my parents to read to me before bed.
9) The stories would be fine for girls, but I really think that little boys and young teen boys would really enjoy reading Seed Sowers-Gospel Planting Adventures.
10) I liked the drama, excitement, suspense
11) I liked to read about how the missionaries never gave up, they just kept on serving the Lord, many of them never seeing the fruits of their labor.

 

What this homeschool young man did not like about the book Seed Sowers: Gospel-Planting Adventures:

 

1) I thought some of the stories were very short.
2) I think that there should be chapter breaks in the longer stories so that they can be read up to a exciting point and then leave a cliff hanger for the next days reading. Boys like books like that  :O)

Over all it was a fun book. My mom used this as a free read book for me as a treat when my school work was done for the day. It was nice to have something exciting to look forward to at the end of my school day. I was never disappointed. I enjoy reading missionary stories and seeing how missionaries don't just give up, they keep on doing the Lord's work, even though they may never see the harvest.

Life Busy?

Is your life busy?  September & October are notoriously busy for us. Never fails, every year we have a full calendar on those 2 months. Field trips, apple orchard, pumpkin patch, driving to look at fall leaves changing, Civil War Re-enactments, camp fire school and much more!

I've had a week that feels like it's spinning out of control, lots to do, a full calendar and 4 deaths in a row. One was a TOS Review Crew wife and homeschooling mother of 2 small children. That is all enough to knock you for a loop for sure. But we have to sit back and remember that God is in control, He is still on the throne, even though we may allow ourselves to feel like life is spinning out of control.

At times like this I look to one of my favorite books of the Bible: Philippians. In chapter 4 verse 13, it read "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." That should do it for me, but sometimes I need a bit more encouragement, so I head over to the book of Hebrews chapter 13 verse 6. "So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me."

I think that sometimes that man that the verse is talking about is that man (woman) that planned my calendar page! I need the Lord to protect me from myself and my ease of becoming too busy!

I am a sinner (yes being too busy can be a sin), I am a work in progress and have lots of irons in the fire, as well as being a wife and mother of a homeschooler. As I feel my world spinning, (well it's starting to slow down as I move my eyes back to Jesus and off the calendar) I think of 1 John 5:14 & 15 "and this is the confidence that we have in Him, that, if we ask any thing according to His will, he heareth us: And if we know that He hears us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him."

So what to make of this blog post? Life Busy? Talk to the Lord MORE!

PeopleKeys Review

We received the StudentKeys Student Binder Package from PeopleKeys which included a 3 ring binder to keep everything together and the following assessment workbooks geared towards ages 13-adult and or students in high school through college.

StudentKeys Student Binder Package includes the following workbooks, see the website for more details.

DISC Personality Style Workbook-Works to explain and show personality styles through "strengths, limitations and motivations".

Perceptual Learning Style Workbook-Allows students to find out if they are auditory, visual or kinesthetic learners.

Cognitive Thinking Style Workbook-Helps find out if your student is a literal, theoretical, intuitive or experiential learner.

Values Style Workbook-Helps the student identify Values Styles such as "loyalty, equality, personal freedom and justice."

Career Choice Workbook-This workbook helps to match students with career fields that match their styles.

Goal Setting Workbook- Helps students set goals regarding "education, career and personal development."
All this for just $49.00 complete. Below is a YouTube video for you to get more information.

I was a little concerned at the start of this review, because I thought this might be a bit above the thinking skills for my 13 year old son. But he jumped right in and started filling in the ovals with his personality traits in his DISC Personality Style Workbook. Sometimes stopping to look up a word in the dictionary such as pioneering, we knew what the word meant, but not how it related to personality style. He has some lofty career goals and the StudentKeys Student Binder Package was an AWESOME tool for him.

We worked on this together, he would fill in the ovals and then ask me what I thought of his answer. Most often we answered the same, so I feel that this StudentKeys Student Binder Package is pretty accurate in gauging where the student is in different areas of life. We had fun coming up with stories of how/why he does the things that he does, some of which drive this Homeschool Momma BANANAS!! So if your children have a tendency to drive you a bit batty on certain things, I highly suggest ordering the StudentKeys Student Binder Package, it showed me how some of my son's quirkiness could work for him on the job and in relationships.

What this Homeschool Momma liked about StudentKeys Student Binder Package by PeopleKeys:

1. Easy to use!
2. Fun!
3. Learned some interesting things about myself (I went through the booklets orally and learned a lot about myself that way)
4. Extra learning, by having to look up words in the dictionary to get their full meaning, we knew all the words, but were not sure exactly how to define them in terms that the workbook was looking for.
5. Not boring at all!
6. Learned some life skills.
7. Learned some new vocabulary.
8. Very nice customer service, I had a question and they were very helpful.
9. My favorite workbook of all was the Goal Setting Workbook, as I don't think many young people today have any idea how to set goals for themselves.

What this Homeschool Momma did not like about StudentKeys Student Binder Package by PeopleKeys:

1. I would have liked to have a bit more instructions. Starting on page 8 of the DISC Personality Style Workbook there were really no instructions besides to place a check mark if you agree that characteristic describes your personality, then really nothing more to go by. I was at a loss at to what to do after that in that book.
2. You all know I like color and flare! These books are all black and white, but work well. Just a personal dislike of mine  :O)
3. The assessments are timed and I know some people don't much care for that, but they were pretty simple to get done in the allotted time. Though as I said, we had to look up a few words in the dictionary to find out the meaning that went along with the assessment we were working on.

What this Homeschool Young Man liked about StudentKeys Student Binder Package by PeopleKeys:

1) I liked how it was so true.
2) I learned a lot about myself.
3) It was easy to do.
4) It was a lot of fun to learn more about myself.
5) My favorite workbook was the Perceptual Learning Style Workbook, because it helped explain to my mom the way I learn.
6) I learned some better study habits that fit my learning style, like listening and repeating information to myself.
7) My Mom figured out why I like to touch and handle things while I am learning.

What this Homeschool Young Man did not like about StudentKeys Student Binder Package by PeopleKeys:

1) There could have been more instructions.
2) I had to look up several words in the dictionary such as systematic, analytical, methodical and experiential thinker.
3) Taking the assessments was fun but made my brain tired. So I would have your student take these assessments when they are fresh and well rested.
4) In the Learning Style Workbook on page 16, there is a grammar mistake in the last paragraph (the question reads) "Was it a quiet or did you have music?" I'm a stickler for grammar errors!

This review was a real life changer for us, I was surprised by a few things and not surprised by some. Using the StudentKeys Student Binder Package helped us both learn some new ideas for the school year. Please click the bottom box below to see what other great products the TOS Review Crew got to try out from PeopleKeys.