I am not quite through with Etsy yet, but I have an item to review that was set up for review with an agreed upon deadline, so I have to fit this review in now. Plus this is homeschool stuff and back to school is upon us! After this review it will be more Etsy for at least another week. Yeah okay so technically Etsy month is over, but I fell behind so I’ll be continuing to finish it up. Now for today’s review:
The Old Schoolhouse magazine and planner! I had a chance to review the digital magazine and full planner and have a lot to say! If you homeschool I’m sure you’ve heard of them before. The digital magazine was neat. Personally I just can’t seem to jump on the digital magazine bandwagon, I prefer a paper thing I can carry in the bathtub with me or stuff in the diaper bag, but on the other hand it does save paper (and money since digital subscriptions are cheaper.) Leaving my input on digital magazines aside I decided to pay attention to the text not the format in which I read it. It was well assembled, smooth moving, and a decent read. It was large, quite a few pages to scroll through and I can imagine the print magazine is quite fat. It was separated into sections that contained quite a bit of info in each and were separated well and smoothly. It did contain inspiring articles not just about homeschooling but life in general. It also contained lesson ideas, info and lots of great ads. Sometimes I do read magazines JUST for the ads.
The digital set up was very nice. Easy to scroll through. Nice to use. Really it was THE best digital magazine I have used. It was very easy to find pages I was looking for or to scroll through randomly. When zooming in to read an article or ad everything was very clear, and you could actually read quite a bit without zooming. When you zoomed it happened quickly and smoothly and it zoomed out just as well. If all digital stuff was this good I would have to reconsider my outlook on digital media.
There is one MAJOR point to consider though, it is a Christian magazine and very strongly so. If you are not Christian, or even just a liberal Christian it may be to religious for you. It is NOT a magazine where you can simply skim over religious items. If you are religious I think you’ll really love it. It will probably even be your favorite. $17 for the digital subscription or $30 for print for one year. The digital really is just the print version but on your computer, not an inferior or abridged copy. When you subscribe you also get some GREAT freebies. In retrieving my freebies, which was a bit of work (not enough to take a whole day, but enough to take a chunk of the day) I actually found even MORE freebies! I think the freebies alone are worth the $17 even to non-religious people who may not enjoy the magazine!
I can sum up the planner in just one sentence: I was wowed by the time I reached page 80 of this 250+
page e-book! The price seems a bit steep at $39 but in reality it’s a priceless resource! Not only does it have tons of forms for homeschooling but also helpful printouts, theme ideas, AND wonderful home resources! Large monthly calendars plus recipes and suggested projects made this a personal favorite of mine. Add in the forms, organizers, articles, and more and this thing is a miracle! It has articles written by various well known homeschoolers that I found to be a great read. Also some great info is gathered into this resource everything from a list of the US Presidents (plus a separate chart with Presidents AND their First Ladies) to a complete copy of the Constitution!
The negatives? Well I think that some of the info (such as the Constitution) could have been a link to a separate website instead of included. It could save file space (this was a relatively big file) and also not have to be scrolled over by people who simply don’t need it. I can imagine homeschoolers with older kids think it is great to be included, but with me homeschooling for preschool I don’t need to scroll over the complete Bill of Rights every time I try to print a new page for my address book. Which leads to my other negative, the address book pages. Beings it is an e-book you can obviously print as many copies of each page that you need, if you need five pages for addresses print 5, but for some reason instead of one page to print copies of I counted that they included more then 30! It just seemed really unnecessary to me. I still think it was a great resource. It still had lots of religious features you’d expect from The Old Schoolhouse, but it is easily skipable and not overwhelming. I truly love it. $39 is more then I’d usually pay for any e-book, but I can’t seem to think of anything that they left out of this book! Everything you need to organize your homeschool AND your home all in one place.
You can subscribe to the magazine on their site, buy the planner here, AND even buy lots of great supplies from their store!
I give both of these great resources the Baby Joys Seal of Approval!
in her bold work is amazing. Her work has a bright, whimsical theme and now that I’ve found her I can’t imagine a room, especially a child’s room or nursery, without one of her prints. Her prices are excellent to, only $5 for a 4×6 print, and only $12 for an 8.5×11! She has a few other sizes too. The prints arrive carefully packaged so no creases and it’s ready to frame and hang.
