Thursday

Twinkl, Twinkl - How Good are you?

You have all heard of "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" but today I want to talk about another
"Twinkl" which is also a star.


No I haven't spelt it wrongly.

It is Twinkl.

But what is it?  you ask.

Well before I tell you exactly what it is, what I use it for, and what a great resource you will find this to be;  I want to explain that I heard about this from my daughter-in-law and then met someone who works for this website in a Facebook blogging group we are both members of.  Due to all this I was offered a year's free subscription membership to the website in return for an honest review of the site.


So let's look at just what Twinkl really is:


Well it is a website full of educational resources made by many different people.  Some items are free to download and some require a subscription membership fee.

There is also the facility to make your own resources on their site and to offer your own resources for use there.

This is how they describe their site:

Screenshot of part of the Twinkl Homepage


My daughter-in-law is a Primary (Elementary for our US friends) School Teacher and her school has a subscription to the Twinkl website.

She uses it for  Posters,  Banners,  Games,  Worksheets  and especially loves it for Themes throughout the school year.


When I heard of it I thought of how I love to look at any types of resources with templates, worksheets, pictures etc. because they just might have something to suit some of the things I am involved in but I wasn't a Primary School teacher in fact I wasn't even a Mathematics Teacher any more.

However I have been involved in doing Kids Sunday School Curriculums in 3 different churches and I can always hope to find something to help me in that.

Then also I had just done a TESOL course and visuals would be very helpful in teaching basic English in a class we were setting up in our current church.


Although neither my daughter-in-law or myself have been involved in Homeschooling I know this would also be a great resource for all those Homeschooling parents around the world.


Now let's look at just how good Twinkl really is:


I'm going to show you some of the ways I have used resources from Twinkl for both of the things I mentioned above that I am involved in with our church.



Kids Work at Church

I'm always on the lookout for good pictures to illustrate items for the Kids Work and not just something for a Bible story.  We like to have posters to decorate the room,  attractive memory verse handouts,  attendance incentives,  nicely designed games and worksheets that the children will enjoy.

Twinkl also comes up with excellent resources that we can use.


They have PDFs to provide Flash Cards for bible Stories like the story of Easter





Printouts to make flip books




Pictures to illustrate stories that the children can colour in



          





Backgrounds for powerpoint presentations




Pictures for using as game cards




and  powerpoints of songs




Their illustrations are good, well-suited to children and very varied so you do not need to worry about everything looking the same and the children getting bored.



Teaching English as a Second Language

So far I have used some of their products for different teaching levels in almost all of my English classes and I especially like the variety of the many items like

          worksheets,
                      games,
                               posters,
                                         powerpoint presentations,  etc.



The first basic English lesson we taught was using the ipad to mirror to the TV screen and the subject was Food.

What better than the flashcards from Twinkl - they looked great on the ipad screen itself and also mirrored to the TV.



A few weeks later we tackled the topic of Colours and used Twinkle pictures in a powerpoint presentation.





A week or so later we were onto clothes for another powerpoint display




Then of course for using to teach the alphabet they have lots of cards etc. and when printing out you can make them the size to suit you for whatever project you want so you can have small cards like the size for playing a game of snap



or large cards for wall displays.




Instructions for games are also included in the PDFs you download




One of my favourite games to use is the Game of Concentration (matching game) and it is so easy to get resources for this in Twinkl


  



Another great game they offer in may different topics is Bingo




At the start pf each PDF you have a page which you do not print out but gives info on copyright so you always know how you are permitted to use the product.




Having had a long period of time to hunt through the website and see what resources I could use for specific topics I have been very pleased with the standard of the materials as well as the quantity.  I have also looked at other items that I would not need for my interests but which I know my daughter-in-law has used and would use for her school activities and I can definitely say I know why she loves this site.
                                                           
Have a look around the site  www.twinkl.co.uk  and join up for the free membership to try out some of the resources.


Disclaimer:
If you like the site and decide to take a free membership or a paid subscription membership I WILL NOT benefit in any way. 



Monday

What's on our Bookshelves? - Coffee & Conversation.

Do you enjoy reading?

        Do you have a lot of books?








I have 5 bookcases in my study:

  • 1 completely full of Christian novels; 
  • another has Christian novels, devotionals and Bible Study books;
  • the third has bibles, commentaries, biographies and my Agatha Christie collection (Heron Books); 
  • the fourth has language books, photo albums, map books and my hoard of books to use for the Sunday School Curriculum for Church;
  • the last one has the rest of my non-Christian novels by various authors but quite a few of Nelson DeMille, Jeffrey Archer, John Grisham, Brad Melizer, Linwood Barclay & Lee Child.






We have lived in 8 different houses since we got married and each time we move we have all these books to pack up and then find the right places in the next home for the bookshelves.  

We keep saying that one day we should be thinking of downsizing so where will we put the books then?  

If they were all available as ebooks would we throw them out and buy them as ebooks? 

I know I would be tempted to keep my nice matching Agatha Christie novels at least as I really am enjoying sitting in the sun room with my hardback copies of these as I read through them all in Chronological Order and then review them here on the blog.

My husband and I read a lot of the same books, just as we watch a lot of the same TV series and this was always very handy when it came to travelling as we took the books we both wanted to read and shared them instead of each packing our own.  

Now of course it is so much handier to just carry our iPads and Kindles and we don't have to spend time beforehand deciding on the joint book list.








The only problem now is that not all the Christian novels we would like to collect are in ebook form.

We also find that those which are available as ebooks are very expensive compared to other novels.

However I do like to keep an eye out through Twitter and Facebook for any indication of free offers on ebooks or reduced prices and swiftly go on Amazon to snap them up.
One way is to try HERE

The great thing about ebooks (apart from the fact that they are easy to carry around in the kindle or iPad) is the fact that you don't need extra bookshelves to store them in, well not real ones anyway.


"Is a book in your hand better than an ebook?"


My oldest son says a book in your hand is so much better than an ebook.
He is worse than us as he has a full wall of his apartment lined with books from floor to ceiling, plus another bookshelf on the wall beside this, then some boxes of books under his bed and of course we must not forget the several boxes of books he still has in our house under the snooker table.









This is like the Daddy.......Chips? question I mentioned in a previous post.

Books........Ebooks?     Which is it to be?




If you are interested in some recommendations for your book shelves - here are some of my favourites:

The Blue Bottle Club by Penelope Stokes

The Presence by Davis Bunn

The Panther by Nelson DeMille

The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie









Sunday

Pondering the Psalms - Psalm 146

Each Sunday I choose a Psalm and write down some brief thoughts on it.


Today I'm looking at Psalm 146 


This is one of those Psalms I feel is overlooked at times.







This Psalm falls into five parts:

V. 1-2
When to Praise the Lord.

V. 3-4
Who not to Trust in.

V. 5-7
The Hope we have in the Lord.

V. 8-9
The Deeds of the Lord.

V. 10
The Crescendo!



"When should we praise the Lord?"



When to Praise the Lord.
We must praise Him while we are alive.
Not just some of our years but all the years we we live knowing that He is the Lord.









Who not to Trust in.
Oh we should know this but still it has to be mentioned.
Humans are human they are not perfect as God is perfect.
Man has been given life by God and one day each man will lose that life he has been given.
We are finite so can not be the true inspiration for anyone.



The Hope we have in the Lord.
We have true happiness & help when we trust in God because He is our Hope.



The Deeds of the Lord.
Look how much we are told God does just in these few short verses.
He is the Creator, the Truth, the honest Judge, the Provider, the Rescuer, the Healer, the Uplifter of our souls, the Lover of Righteousness, the Carer.
But we must not forget He is also the one who will confront the wicked.



The Crescendo! 
The Psalmist again ends as he started this Psalm with Praise for the Lord.







We are not to choose when or how often we should Praise the Lord.
We are to do it while we live.
While we have breath.



We should start our days with Him in Praise and end them in Praise
to the only one who is worthy of that Praise.

To God be the praise forever and forever!












Tuesday

The Thirteen Problems - Book Review



I am reading through the novels of Agatha Christie in the order in which they were written and writing a review on each one.









The Thirteen Problems 



1932



Description



The Tuesday Night Club is a venue where locals challenge Miss Marple to solve recent crimes…
One Tuesday evening a group gathers at Miss Marple’s house and the conversation turns to unsolved crimes…
The case of the disappearing bloodstains; the thief who committed his crime twice over; the message on the death-bed of a poisoned man which read ‘heap of fish’; the strange case of the invisible will; a spiritualist who warned that ‘Blue Geranium’ meant death…






My Thoughts



This is the 16th book by Agatha Christie and the 2nd Miss Marple Mystery.

It is a book of short stories with the following titles:

The Tuesday Night Club
The Idol House of Astarte
Ingots of Gold
The Bloodstained Pavement
Motive v Opportunity
The Thumb Mark of St. Peter
The Blue Geranium
The Companion
The Four Suspects
A Christmas Tragedy
The Herb of Death
The Affair at the Bungalow
Death by Drowning


The first story sets the scene for the rest - there are a certain group of people gathered together in a relaxed atmosphere who each present a mystery and the others are to suggest the solution to this mystery.  

Miss Marple's nephew features here along with some others who may or may not appear in further books.

Miss Marple may seem like the one who would have the least experience of the "big bad world" but she is in fact the one who has seen many things in her small village and thus is the one who can provide the solutions.

Some of the short stories here have actually later been used as the ideas for other Christie stories.

As much as I enjoy a full story where the reader has to read carefully and uncover all the clues hidden within to solve the crime at times I really do enjoy a group of short stories like this to read.  Somewhat like enjoying a cryptic crossword puzzle because each correct answer written into the puzzle brings a sense of satisfaction itself.
Or perhaps these short stories are just a series of quick fixes for us mystery lovers.

A good read with such a varied group of stories.

Also a good start for someone to get introduced to the books of Agatha Christie.



 Here is a link to a list of her novels on Amazon
Books by Agatha Christie




















Monday

8 Pet peeves! - Coffee & Conversation







I know you are more like me than you think you are.

I know you have some Pet Peeves.


Here are 8 of my Pet peeves. 


Disclosure:  they may have been rather influenced by not getting my full night's sleep.








1. People who park where they shouldn't so that it is difficult for the people who should be able to park there to get a spot.



2. People who say you never told me that when you know you have but they don't pay proper attention.



3. People who say they told you something when it was really the other way round.



4. People who start telling you about something you should do when you had told them about that ages ago.



5. People who leave everything to the last minute.



6. Movies made from books but the endings or even more than that are changed, the book was good because of how it was written and the outcome so why change it. 



"I've got 8 Pet Peeves today!"



7. Dogs who bark early in the morning and wake me up.


8. Husbands who wake you up 10 - 20 mins before your alarm is due to go off and you know you have no chance of getting back to sleep, why do I have to miss out on that last bit of sleep? Makes for a bad start to a Saturday morning, and this is from the man who has shared nearly 39 years of Saturday mornings with me.







Feel Free to list some of your Pet Peeves in the comments.



Sunday

Pondering the Psalms - Psalm 95


Today I'm looking at Psalm 95 

This is one of Encouragement to come to God with Praise and Worship







This Psalm falls into 5 parts:


V. 1-2
A Call to Praise

V. 3-5
The Reason Why

V. 6
A Call to Worship

V. 7
The Reason Why

V. 8-11
A Prophetic Word of God


"The way to go deeper with God"



A Call to Praise.
The way to come and approach The Lord: singing, joyfully, knowing He is our rock, thankfully, remembering our Salvation.



The Reason Why.
He is a Great God.
He is a Great King.
All of the Earth is His.
All of the Sea is His.
Everything is His.






A Call to Worship.
The way to go deeper with God: with reverence, humility and awe of our Creator.



The Reason Why.
We are His People and He is our God.  He is the one who protects and cares for us.



A Prophetic word of God.
A Reminder not to be like the Israelites in the wilderness when they hardened their hearts, tempted God and looked to themselves and not God.




The first part of the Psalm seems to be the instruction of how we are to pursue 
our relationship with the Lord


The second part is how not to have the right relationship.



















Tuesday

Peril at End House - Book Review

Disclaimer:
There is an affiliate link on this blogpost.



I am reading through the novels of Agatha Christie in the order in which they were written and writing a review on each one.








Peril at End House 



1932



Description



Nick Buckley was an unusual name for a pretty young woman. But then she had led an unusual life. First, on a treacherous Cornish hillside, the brakes on her car failed. Then, on a coastal path, a falling boulder missed her by inches. Later, an oil painting fell and almost crushed her in bed.
Upon discovering a bullet-hole in Nick’s sun hat, Hercule Poirot decides the girl needs his protection. At the same time, he begins to unravel the mystery of a murder that hasn’t been committed. Yet.









My Thoughts



This is the 15th book by Agatha Christie and the 7th Poirot Mystery

The clues are always there.  No matter what they say - the clues are always there.

That is exactly how it is with this book which means that once you have read it (and no doubt missed some clues) you will enjoy reading it again later even though it is one of those books that you will remember who the murderer is.

But would anyone other than Poirot have solved this one?   In fact I actually think Miss Marple would also have spotted the very deviousness of this murderer.

A clever thought out murder mystery with a clever and vile murderer.

Great read.  Great deduction.



If you would like to know more about this book then click on the title or picture above.


 Here is a link to a list of her novels on Amazon
Books by Agatha Christie


If thinking of reading this book in the future why not pin this pic to go back to later.

















Disclaimer:
If buying through Amazon via the link above I get a little commission but that does not mean any extra expense to you.