 Hey everybody, welcome to the Waldoch Way. I'm Jessica and today's video is going to be an Amazon haul. Now it's not a huge Amazon haul, thankfully. It's just a few things that I have purchased over the last month to two months since the last time I did a haul with you guys which was a huge back to school haul. This is just a few things that I have picked up along the way that have been kind of important in our home school or we needed and didn't have or Emily kind of wanted. And then a few things that Emily got for her birthday that have made an impact in our home school so I wanted to make sure that I shared them in the haul. And the first of which I didn't know I was gonna buy this for her at the time because I wasn't planning to buy it for her for back to school. But she ended up getting it for her birthday and that is a Kindle Paperwhite. So you guys know that I love my Kindle Paperwhite. I wasn't planning to love it but I absolutely did. And Emily was constantly kind of almost jealous. Like all I was able to read multiple books one to go especially when we were gone to the beach she finished her book and she had only taken two books with her so when she finished them she was done but I was able to just get more books on my Kindle. And so she was like, man I wish I had one so I could get multiple books. And I just gave in and got one for her because she wanted to read more books you guys. So I'm not gonna say no to that. And plus we live in Florida so being in the pool or at the beach or in some sort of water situation is extremely common and this is waterproof so I don't have to worry about her getting drops of water on it. And it's a really, really great for her in the car. She doesn't get car sick luckily so she can read on the go. It takes up less space. I can throw mine and hers in my purse if we're going like to an appointment or something. So for me it was worth the investment. Now I did purchase a refurbished one for her and I did purchase the smaller storage size. So mine is a 32 gigabyte hers is an eight gigabyte that hasn't been an issue yet. I probably didn't need the 32 gigabyte but I wanted to save some money and I didn't want for it to be an issue if something happened to it. Like I didn't want to lose it. So luckily the refurbished was less than a hundred dollars. So it wasn't a huge investment. I mean I spent that in books so it was definitely worth it to do that. And then when I purchased this one for her I was able to call them and have them switch the Kindle Unlimited to the Kids Unlimited or Kids Plus or whatever it is they call it. It's like a 90 day trial. And so I was like, hey, it's for a kid. And so they swapped out the Kindle Unlimited that came with it for the kids version. And so we're trying that out for 90 days. So I will let you know if I think it's worth it so far it has been. Cause she's read like 12 books that have all been included on that. And so I haven't had to pay for them. So it's been kind of nice. But I can also use library books on it just like I do for myself. So there is that. The other thing that she got for her birthday was a kids Fitbit. This was not something that was on her list. She had cousins come visit her at the beach and they had them and she fell in love with it. She thought being able to account her steps and things like that were just really, really fun. And I thought, I mean, it's a watch. It really wasn't that expensive. And the fact that it helped counter steps, it keeps your sleep schedule for you. It would tell her if she slept enough hours. There was just a lot of benefits to it. And I thought, huh, it's got a timer on it. It's got alarms on it. So I got one for her. And then it wasn't three days after she had hers that she was bragging to me and Kevin about how many steps she had. And we made the joke that it was a good thing. We didn't have one because if we did, we would be doubling her in steps. So I started looking, surprisingly, the adult Fitbits were much more expensive than the kids. But I was able to find the Galaxy Fit, which we both have Samsung Galaxy phones. So it just made sense for a very reasonable price if we got the model before last. And so me and him both got one of those. So it tells us our steps. It tells us our stress levels, the weather. One of my favorite things about it though is that you can receive notifications on it. You cannot tech, well, you can quick text. So you can have like five pre-programmed things that you can reply, but you can't text back on it. So what I love is that during the homeschool day, because I tend to really get distracted if my phone is in my hand. So during the homeschool day, I can leave my phone, I can put my Galaxy Fit on, I can get any text messages or phone calls and see, oh, it's important or it's not. And not have that feeling of, oh, I'm gonna miss something, you know, that's important or that's somebody that needs me. And I'm not lost on my phone during our school day. And then I take most of our pictures of like things we're doing with my big camera anyway. I don't tend to use my phone for that. So it's been a huge time management tool for us, for multiple things. So she times herself on her watch all the time. She's constantly doing countdowns and how long can I do this or how long can I read or how long will it take me to do this? And then we're doing the math because we're constantly, oh, I have X amount of steps more than you or 3,000 more until I hit my goal. And it's just been a really fun family thing, a little bit competitive, but I've seen a lot of sneaky learning coming out of it. Plus we're all getting extra steps in because we're like pushing to get more and more in. So that's always a plus too. So we'll call that PE. Okay, I'm gonna start with games because I have less of those. So the first game that I have, I actually, let's see, it's in a box. I don't know the actual name of it. Here we go. It's catch the golden snitch, which it is a Harry Potter game. It is super fast paced, but it is so much fun. Like so much fun. So it comes in a box that looks a whole lot like the Quidditch trunk. And then inside the box, you have your bludgers and your quaffle and the snitch is back there on the back. I don't know if you can see it. I don't wanna dump everything out. You have your snitch and you have cards and you're like racing to lay down the most cards and you're throwing balls at each other and the snitch pops up all of a sudden and whoever catches it gets a certain amount of points. And it is a very fast paced game the first couple of times when we played it, we were like, wait, what? But it is a lot of fun. It's probably been my favorite recent new game purchase because it's totally different gameplay than anything that we normally would play, but it's a lot of fun. Now the others I have not played yet so I can't tell you a ton about. This is Quick Pucks. I actually saw this on Tori's Instagram from Oglesby, Ohana. And it is something that we absolutely love. It's a logic game. So you see and you're racing to try to match them and then whoever rings the bell first gets to keep that card and kind of be the winner. And we only love games where we're like competing head to head. So that seemed like a really great way to do some competing logic. And I like games that force her to kind of stretch her visuals because she has eye muscle issues. That's why Spotted is such a huge game for us. Anything that stretches her visually and that will do that. It'll stretch her visually and make her really think at the same time. So it's like a win-win. And then the other game that I like never added a game to my cart quicker in my life was the Halloween version of Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza. Emily is obsessed with this game. Like obsessed with it. She will pick it every single time. And it's kind of funny because Kevin is not easy. He will slap you and make it hurt. Not intentionally, he's just that strong. So she'll be like, wait a minute, is Daddy playing? And she has to really decide if she wants to play or not. But it is one of her recent favorites. We have the original Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza. We bought the Christmas version last year and now the Halloween version. Now they just need like a Valentine's and an Easter. And I would buy all those too because it really is a fun game. And it's a speed game. And again, it helps her with those visuals because you have to be fast at it. So I like those. The other things that I purchased were to go along with our space and moon unit studies. We got a solar system planetarium. This is something that Kevin and Emily will do together probably on one of their stand days. And then we have the Earth Moon Model Making Kit. And I just really mostly liked that with these two, you were making the models but that the things actually moved the correct way. So she'll actually see, you know, how the moon orbits around the Earth. So just kind of fun hands on things to go with our unit studies. All right, next up, we're almost to the books, you guys. I picked up the History Timeline Notebook from School Nest. Megan has a ton of these. They're absolutely fantastic quality. I wanted the History one because I thought it would be a fun way for Emily to start to see where things hit or fit into the full timeline of things and kind of like how it all goes together. And so we are going to use this for a couple of different things. We're gonna start putting our who was units in here when we're done with them. And then each time we finish a unit study, I'm gonna have her pick probably five to 10 like significant things that happen. So like during our space unit study, for instance, like, you know what I mean? I walked on the moon or the first woman in space or whatever. I'm not gonna guide her. I'm gonna let her pick whatever five to 10 things stood out the most to her. And we're gonna add them to this so that at the end of years of homeschooling, she'll have this completed History Timeline that will be kind of everything that we learn together. But that way she can reference it and see where it fits in. And it's super nice because in the very front, it has my history. So you can kind of do like your own timeline or your child's own timeline. And there's no years on that, so it could be whatever. And then it goes into prehistory, ancient history. And then there's years and little tabs at the top. And then you have, you know, your medieval history, or middle ages, sorry. So middle ages, early, modern, and then modern times. And it goes all the way through 2000 and 99. So I just really liked that it was done for me. I mean, yes, I could have probably made something, but I love Megan, I wanted to support her and she did all of the hard work and it's beautiful and you can get them in any color you want. Of course, Emily picked pink. All right, onto the books. I only picked one book out that I have added. I've been reading most of my books on my Kindle, but there are certain ones that I just like to have to add to my library. And this was one I wanted to add. And it is The Four Hour School Day by Durinda Wilson. She is the author of Unhurried Home School and I love that book. It's one of the first ones I read. So when I saw that she had a new book out, I wanted to add it to my library and it's how you and your kids can thrive in homeschool life. So that is the book that I purchased for myself. And then Emily has a whole bunch of books here, you guys. So we were doing Space, obviously, and I wanted to find her a book that she could read kind of for fun that still tied into our unit study. And she's been really, really in love with those You Choose Stories, where you get to choose your own path. So I found these You Choose Stories in the series, it's called A Field Trip Mystery is the series. And this one was The Outlaw from Outer Space. So I grabbed it so that she could read it during our Space Unit Study. She read through it in like three days, like every possible outcome she kept going back and changing and reading through it and she loved it. She immediately was like, mom, look, there's other books in the back of here. And she was like showing me the last page, mom, look, look, look. So I went ahead and got her, I believe all of the ones that they have for the Field Trip Mystery. So we have The Missing Bully, The Carnival Caper, The Disappearing Fruit, and The Library Shelfs. And if you are not familiar with the You Choose, I'm just gonna kind of show you. It starts off and it, like you get through almost what would be like a chapter. And then at the end of that chapter, instead of you going to the next page, for instance, here it says to investigate who has the Elfs and Spells book turned to page 20. To try to find out what's scratching the vents turned to page 50. To try to solve the nonsense notes, turn to page 81. And so that's what you're doing is you're going through turning to different pages based off of what your decisions are. And then you can go back and make different decisions. So most of them have like three totally different paths and 12 different endings, 12 to 13 different endings, at least in that series. And then I fell down this huge You Choose, like rabbit hole. And I found a couple of different ones that were nonfiction that I knew she would love. So I got her the You Choose, can you protect the coral reefs? So it too has 25 choices and 14 different endings. Can you save an endangered species? So that one has 33 choices and 18 endings. Can you save a tropical rainforest with 37 choices and 20 different endings? And then these, could you survive? One's looked really fun. So I got her the, could you survive the Jurassic period? Which again is a You Choose, so it has all the different choices and endings. Could you survive the Cretaceous period? Could you survive the New Stone Age? And then could you survive the Ice Age? And seriously, you guys, there were so many of these different, could you survive and You Choose? There was like ones based off of World Wars and Civil Wars and there was ones based off of, just, I mean, all kinds of stuff. And the story ones, if you have a kid who likes Scooby-Doo, the You Choose stories, there was like 20 different Scooby-Doo ones. So if you are looking for a way to get your kid to read some more and they like making those kinds of choices, look up the You Choose stories or the You Choose because there are so many different ones. And the You Choose stories are in color. Like they have color pictures in them. Not a ton, but they are in color, which makes Emily super, super happy. So I highly suggest them. I wish I had found them even earlier. Okay, moving on. Dragon Masters. We went ahead and bought book 19 and I pre-ordered book 20. I feel like I pre-ordered book 21 too, but now I can't remember I looked at it. If it was available for pre-order, I pre-ordered it. And I also pre-ordered the new Zoey and Sassafras title. It doesn't even have a date out yet, but I did go ahead and pre-order. I know at least one Dragon Master and one Zoey and Sassafras because we love those. And then speaking of dragons, I found this really, really awesome DK Dragon World book that I knew we had to have. It's called Dragon World Meet the Fiery Breathing Beast of Mythology. And it is gorgeous inside. And it's split up by the world of dragons. So you have Asian dragons, European dragons, dragons of the world, and dragon discoveries. And like I said, it is absolutely beautiful. And I went ahead and also found this illustrated maps of the Americas. It's the national parks. We are hopefully years crossed, planning a national park trip. We try to do one every fall. And I think if everything works out, we are going to one this year. I don't wanna say it and jinx it, but I'll let you guys know. So I was looking for some things for that specific park and I stumbled upon this one. Now this has all 62 American national parks. And I just liked that it was like the map of the park. So it's a little bit, I mean, it has a few facts about it. It tells you a little bit about it. Not a ton, but it is actually the map of the park. So I thought that was just kind of cool. It was a different kind of take on it. I mean, we have a ton of the national parks books, but I just liked that, you know, what you were seeing was actually the layout or the map of the park. That was just something different. And it is very pretty. I also got the water cycles book. I actually had pre-ordered this. So it came in whenever it was released. We have life cycles, which is the first book in this series. And we love it. It's beautiful. It's like little snippets of information. It's perfect, but I was thrilled to see hurricanes in this one. I know that seems kind of silly, but it's Floridians. It's something we deal with a lot. So when I saw that, I was thrilled. And you have ocean waves. I mean, it's just all of the different stuff. It's the source of life from start to finish. And just tons of different, and you have the periwinkles, and it's all these little snippets of information about it. And it's not just, I mean, here's a manatee. So it's kind of everything water. It's not just specifically, there's an orca, elephant seals, so it's not just the water. You have water on earth, using water, life and water, and then waters and water and humans. So it even has like the hydropower. The Life Cycle and the Water Cycle books by far, probably some of our most used books. We just love getting them out and reading them. This is one I got for Emily. We haven't even tried it yet. I don't wanna mess it up, but it is a Shine the Light book, which we have from Us Born and Love. But this is a Magical Creatures and Mythical Beast. It may end up being a little kitty. I don't think it's going to be though, but it's beautiful. So it has like different adventures that you're going through, and they're kind of based on, so you start with the adventure beginning in Oxford, England, and then you move on to the legendary lake serpent, the Loch Ness in Scotland, then the footsteps of the giant, which is the giant causeway in Northern Ireland, and as you're moving along throughout the book and all of these different magical, amazing places, there's all of these, like, I don't know if you're gonna be able to see it, but there's all of these, like, things that you can find when you shine the light through different places. So it says, can you see the lake serpent shine your magic flashlight? So once you shine it, you would be able to see the Loch Ness monster in here. And it's just really fun. It's got a little bit, not a ton, but it does have a little bit kind of background information. Like I said, maybe more for younger kids, but I just thought it would be a fun way to get her exposed to even more of the magical creatures of mythical beasts because she tends to always want to gravitate towards unicorns and dragons and hippogriffs and that kind of thing. And I thought this would be a really fun way to get in even more, especially while we were doing a little bit of Waddox wizards and wands, even though we're not doing magical creatures per se, we're doing astronomy, I still thought it would be fun. So that is it. That is my most recent Amazon haul. This is a few things we've accumulated over the past few months. I would love it if you would tell me down in the comments some of the things you have been buying from Amazon lately because maybe I need to add them to my cart.