The Giving Manger from WorthyKids: A TOS Crew Review

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew

The Giving Manger from WorthyKids

Our family loves traditions, and advent!  The Giving Manger from WorthyKids is a wonderful new advent tradition for the entire family!  This 32 page, hardcover book comes packaged with a wooden manger, straw and a "baby Jesus".  

The story, written by Allison Hottinger, mom of 5 children,  centers around Matthew 25:40 - and focuses on giving acts of service, instead of receiving presents, as our "gift" for this season.  What a timely message!  

The book tells the story of a young father that decides to lead his family to give gifts of service each day of advent, instead of presents.  The story details that the children, while disappointed at first, come to understand the joy found in giving to each other. The family places a single piece of straw into the manager for each "gift", making a soft bed. On Christmas Day, they place the Baby Jesus in the manager, "full of love".

The illustrations by Emily King are delightful cut-paper style collage pictures.  I love that she left the faces blank, so you can imagine yourself.

The book includes several pages of "Manager Moments" with suggested service activities for children, teens and families.   The activities are all aimed to create a heart to give, instead of receive.

"Manager Memories" are a couple of lined pages for you to record your families memories from the year, creating a family keepsake.

I love filling our home with Christmas books, beginning in Advent.  The Giving Manger  is sure to become a family classic!

Find WorthyKids on Social Media:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WorthyKidsBooks
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/worthykidsbooks/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thegivingmanger/
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/worthykids/



Hashtags: #hsreviews #TheGivingManger #adventtraditions       

See what other members of the Crew thought here

                       

Elf Louise

One of our favorite December activities is wrapping presents for Elf Louise - a San Antonio ministry for underprivileged families.

Our Honor Society (and extra Coop friends) spent a few hours picking out presents and wrapping them.

We specialize in the BIG families, and we pray over every package!

 It's a very impressive stack of presents - it will take hundreds more Santa volunteers to deliver them!

Egglo Entertainment : A TOS Crew Review

I love discovering new family traditions!  Especially those that bring the true meaning to our holidays and celebrations.  I am so excited to get to introduce you to Egglo Entertainment featuring their  Glow in the Dark Egglo Eggs & The Egg-cellent Easter Adventure (book). Designed for ages 4-13 (but, I thought they were pretty neat too!)
 Egglo Entertainment is committed to helping our children discover the true meaning behind Easter.  I know, it seems like our culture thinks it has something to do with chocolate bunnies and colored eggs...  We have never focused on that at Bentz Test Laboratory - but, we do like to have fun with our holiday celebrations.  
The entire product line is a basket of fun  focused on John 1:5 - "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it."  (cool... we just memorized that!).  The  Glow in the Dark Egglo Eggs - $11.99  & The Egg-cellent Easter Adventure (book) - $12.99- are the basic teaching tools.  



We were also blessed to recieve: The Egg-cellent Easter Adventure (book audio download) - $2.99 Egglo Treasures Scripture Scrolls - $4.29  The Egg-cellent Easter Adventure Program Guide - $14.99 

I fell in love with this product as soon as I saw it.  We have always had an egg hunt (my hubby's childhood tradition). But, I have struggled to find ways to make this more meaningful and keep the focus off all the candy.  

The Glow in the Dark Egglo Eggs were a HUGE hit!  You "charge" them under light (we just used natural sunlight) and they will glow. My testers are so fascinated by anything that glows!  The 12 eggs are made of sturdy plastic, some are decorated with a cross, others are plain.  I really liked the sturdy construction (not like the discount store plastic eggs) 

 In just a short time, they were off and glowing. So many fun ways to use these eggs - a scavenger hunt at night,  a treat in a basket, or even better - a memorable object lesson!  The glow reminds children of the TRUE light of the World - Jesus! 

The Egglo Treasures Scripture Scrolls are tiny plastic scrolls printed with a scripture verse, perfect for putting into your eggs and a great alternative to candy! My testers wanted to keep these for their dolls, they thought they were  very cute...

The Egg-cellent Easter Adventure is a full color, 40 page, paperback book.  My testers told me "this is a good one!"  The story in the book follows three children on an egg hunt to various times and places.  It's a bit lengthy, but my testers did not want to stop the story until they got to the treasure.    I liked how the story incorporated the egg hunt and the gospel story of  Jesus.  For busy moms who spend a lot of time in the car... check out the The Egg-cellent Easter Adventure (book audio download)  - it is a quality audio telling of the storybook. 

Ever the homeschool mom, I loved the extra ideas in the  The Egg-cellent Easter Adventure Program Guide.  This 60 page resource includes suggestions for incorporating the lesson, coloring pages, snacks and even a printable scavenger hunt.  This would be a great program to use in your next Sunday School or Awana classes too!    

This collection is sure to become a new  family tradition!

Find them on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram,  Pinterest, YouTube, and Google +

Check out what others on the Crew had to say!

New Years Fun!

Being a  lover of tradition...  Homemade chili, the Lewis Family, and Shout out the Movies DVD games, and Christmas Punch on New Years Eve .  Here's our new addition -

Thanks to extra time home (from our white Christmas) I had plenty of time to browse on Pinterest (best description I've heard - Pinterest is like Fantasy Football for women!)  Oh, did I mention that I won our Fantasy Football Championship too?!

Anyway - the "New Years Eve Bags" tradition was born...

I filled a cute paper sack (thank you Hobby Lobby clearance) with enough trinkets for all children, and even some for the adults, each bag was labeled on the 1/2 hour, starting with 6:00, 6:30, etc.

Some things I included:

noisemakers - note to self...not so many of those next year!
New Years Eve hats
Pop Rocks candy
Confetti
Ring Pops
Glow Sticks
Sparklers
Poppers

you get the idea...cheap, but fun.  The kiddos LOVED these!!  It made the evening fly by, and everyone (well almost everyone) stayed up for the last bag opening.

We also started our 2012 Timecapsule, which we will finish this week.  And - our very own 2013 Blessing Jar!

So, 2013 - how do I top this?