 Hey everybody, welcome to the Waldoch Way. Today's video is going to be a summer haul. Today's summer haul is from Usborne and this brings us to our summer of hauls in. So this will be the last back to school haul that I have to share with you guys. Again, as per all of these haul videos, make sure you stay tuned to the end because there is going to be a giveaway announcement and this one is exclusive to you guys right here on YouTube. All right, I am just going to jump in because like all of the rest of them I have a ton to show you. The first thing that I grabbed was the improve your survival skills, to be honest. I couldn't believe we didn't already own it. I'm not sure how we didn't already own it but I knew that I wanted this to finish out our survival unit study. So it actually looks really, really awesome. There is a ton of stuff packed into this little book and honestly, you guys, it was $5.99. So I'm a little like blown away with how much is in here for the price that you get. So if you were doing the survival unit study, pick this up because it is totally, totally worth it. Okay, I also grabbed Emily because she was looking over my shoulder and really wanted them the School of Monsters series. I believe there are, yes, five books. At least that's what there were when we ordered. And they are by Sally Ripkin, which is the same author of the Billy B and Hey Jack book series, which is kind of what drew her in. Gonna be honest, these are way simpler than what Emily could read. But I am a huge fan of if your kid is reading, who cares? So this is what the level looks like. So if you have a kid who is kind of, you know, looking for something a little bit beyond those super, you know, easy books but isn't really ready for a chapter book yet, I feel like this is perfect. It's really colorful. It has big, bold words. I mean, I'm pretty impressed. And there's even a how to use this book for adults reading with children section in the back. And it talks about how there are some words in bold. There is also a section from the illustrator on how to draw in the back of each one for some of the different characters. So each one is a different character. So I just, I was very, very impressed. I really do wish that we had found this series or that the series was around when Emily was a little bit younger because it's just so awesome. I mean, how often do you get to read a book, have, you know, discussions about the book and then learn how to draw the characters. And like I said, each book has that section. So you have a younger kiddo. You probably really want this series. Okay, some of these were just me completing our selection on things, which if you guys are new here and you haven't been around very long, I have a problem. The first step is admitting it. So I have a problem. I have to complete series of things. It's an addiction. I'm just kidding. It kind of is. But I really like having like the full collection. So even though, for instance, like the peak inside the seashore right here and lays a little bit older than this even really needs to be, but we have all of the rest of them. And at this point, I can't not have this one. And I just really love these books. And I still think even at her age, they're still fun to read. So that is one of the ones that we picked up, peak inside the seashore. Along those same lines of needing to have the full collection, I also have the first question and answer of what is a virus, which obviously, you know, couldn't have come at a better time. We get to, you know, learn more about viruses. Also the first questions and answer, how can I be kind? I don't really care how old you are. I think this is a fantastic book. Learning to be more kind is amazing. And I love that it has, you know, those traditional flap that as warrants are known for. And then the next three I have are from the Look Inside series, which Emily still very, very much enjoys. I feel like they're still really on target for her age-wise. So we have Look Inside Math. Which, I mean, anything that makes math more fun is awesome. And these have those wonderful as born flaps as well. Look Inside the Woods. And probably my favorite new Look Inside is Look Inside the World of Bees. I'm so excited to use this one in the spring because I'm sure we're gonna do some sort of insect, something we always do. And this will just be such a fantastic addition to it. Okay, we also grabbed the Getting Started with Math. Now you guys saw me show the Getting Started with Science book probably about a year ago. And I was blown away. I really feel like the Getting Started with Science and the Getting Started with Math honestly could be almost like an elementary curriculum. In fact, I just shared on Instagram the other day about, can I let me move so you guys can see them. These big fat notebooks for middle school and how much they were phenomenal and they would be a great reference point for middle school kids. And they also carry them in the high school level. I think these Getting Started books from Us Born would be phenomenal for the same things for elementary school. The reference that they make or the reference that they make or would make is excellent. They have examples for all of the different things that they're showing you. And it's pretty thorough in my opinion. I really, I mean, I really, really do think that this could be a good place for a homeschool mom to start if you really didn't want maybe a math curriculum. And they're only $12.99. So really affordable for that. I got this mainly because I thought Emily would enjoy reading it by herself just to learn more because sometimes she's really interested in different math topics. I also liked that there were so many different visual aids to learning different topics. And I thought it would not hurt because it never hurts to have enough extra things for math, especially with her, to have it on hand as another way to explain something. So if me and Kevin aren't doing a very good job or if she's not understanding that this would be kind of a great, younger, childish way to explain different math topics. So there is that. And then obviously this isn't the math one. This didn't come from Usborne, but we have the middle school math of this if we need to explain it in a more grown up, mature way. Okay, moving on. Lift the flap questions and answers about music. Again, this one completed our series, but I was really, really excited to see it. There isn't a lot of music books out there for kids. So I'm always excited when there is a one to add to our collection, especially when it's a fun lift the flap one like this. The Neverboard learning series is great. We have the original Neverboard learning, the outdoors. They just came out with an art one, I think, or a craft one. This is cut, fold, and stick. So it is another kind of crafty one. It says make boredom a thing of the past by cutting, folding, and sticking your way through this book. It's just a time, like I said, of cutting, folding, and sticking type of activities. Perfect for those moments when your kids are bored, you can just hand it to them and they have something to do. I love having things like this on hand for those moments and Emily's really crafty, so I like to encourage that with books like that. So something I think we were all excited for is the new magic painting book. We love magic painting, and this one is even more exciting because it is famous paintings. So it is, I mean, some of the most famous paintings and that you get, like Dancers in Blue by Edward Degas, The Scream, I mean, it's just all these phenomenal famous paintings, Vincent Van Gogh, and your children get to paint them with nothing more than water. So they put water on the page and it's, I mean, it's beautiful. They just paint with it. It's simple, it's fun, and then what I love even more is that on this back, the thing that you use to keep it from going in between pages has the famous paintings and how they look as well as more information about them. So for instance, you know, it says, the Scream, this nightmarish painting shows a figure clutching his head in agony. His mouth is open as if to scream, but according to Munch, the picture was inspired by a scream he felt mysteriously coming from the world around him. Swirly lines suggest this terrifying noise. So if you are wanting to get into picture study with your kids, this is a fantastic way to do it because you could just read off of this to them and then have them paint with water. It would be a great addition to your morning basket. It would be a great, like I said, kind of gateway into a picture study. Just, it would be so awesome. Like I was so, so excited to see that as a homeschool mom. Okay, we also have the escape room. So can you escape the museum? I really hope they do more books like this because this looks like so much fun. We haven't done it yet, but it is, you know, you literally trying to escape a museum. So your footsteps echo inside the deserted Egyptian gallery and a shiver goes down your spine. Something doesn't feel right and you try to leave, but the doors won't budge, they're locked. You better hurry up and work to escape. And then there are all of these items back here in this little envelope, like these press items that you're going to use to set up your escape room. So such a fun way to have some fun at home as a family and not need anything more than that book. This one, of course I had to have it, you guys, because it is a new release that has to do with the National Parks. Now I haven't had a chance to look through here extensively, but I have seen some chatter on the Waldoch Way community page that some parks have like four pages and some parks only have two and then it's not the most in-depth look at all of them. And that does appear, as I'm flipping through here, to be the case. However, it has a little bit of a history of the National Parks. It kind of has like a little what to pack when you're going to the National Parks. It's park ranger approved. And it does include, I believe, all of them. So let's see here. It's split up by area. I mean, the images are beautiful. I do like what's in here for each of them. They are right. Some of them have more than others. Some have a little bit less, but I still think it's a great book and it's really as beautiful. So if you were setting the National Parks, I would still highly suggest this because I think it's a great book. And then we have the book of the brain and how it works. This just seems like a really fun book to me because it seemed a little bit more than your traditional like, here's the brain and what's inside it. And it was more kind of the science behind it and how it works and what it does. So I thought that would be really fun. We also grabbed the internet-linked Medieval World Encyclopedia. We just didn't have this one and I love all of these internet-linked encyclopedias from Usborne, so I wanted to add that to our collection. And when we were actually at the FPEA Home School Convention, Kevin almost picked this book up and bought it, which of course I was like, don't do that. We'll just buy it directly from Usborne. But he wanted to have this in our collection, the World Wars. So we have it in our collection now. A few other kind of like activity type things that I got are the Neverboard in a car cards. We have all of these, the Neverboard cards, the Neverboard on a plane. There's multiple different versions of them. They are basically just double-sided, dry erase cards that have activities that you can do in a vehicle on the go on a plane, whatever. And they even come with the dry erase marker. So all of this just fits in that box. And you have, I mean, a ton of cards. Let's see, does it tell us how many? 50 white clean cards. So that means a hundred different puzzles because like I said, they're front and back. And they just fit in this box. So you could just put this box in your car and have all of these different puzzles, activities, mazes, spot the differences, just all kinds of different things for your kids to do while you were on the go. We have every other version of this. So when I saw they released a new word search, we grabbed it. This is the travel word searches. I really like these word searches because they are almost always educational in some form. I mean, outside of the fact that they're just word searches, like these are done by places you would travel to. And they have all of the different words that relate to that destination. So this would be really fun for even like traveling the world. If you were doing a traveling type of curriculum and you just wanted some sort of something for your kids to do like while you're reading aloud or whatever, this is all travel based word searches, like traveling the world type word searches. And they're colorful and they're fun. Like I think anyway, Emily really loves them. She likes the quality of these books too versus like some of the cheaper word searches that you get at the dollar store but just like fall apart in your hands. So there's that. We also grabbed the space puzzle pad. You guys know I keep telling you in all of these halls that we're gonna be doing a very large astronomy unit. So this seemed like it would be really, really fun. These little pages are just little different kind of mazes and puzzles for kids. The pages rip off. If you wanted to just do one or two at the time, it would be great for in the car or morning basket to keep their little hands busy. Just something to give them when you're working with another kiddo if you have multiple kids. And they're kind of, I mean, they're really affordable. It's like $7.99. So in good quality again. So we have that. And then we already own both of the other My Year and we have really enjoyed them. We have My Year of Art and My Year of Writing and this is My Year of Nature. Capture your creativity every single day this year with super fun drawing and writing journal. It's a really great way to get your kids drawing and writing every day. Journaling without it being like, it's kind of guided so it makes it a little bit easier for them to journal. So you have things like, you know, look outside your window and draw what you see. Describe a stormy night. Think about the sounds, the sights and the colors. Imagine you're standing at the bottom of a waterfall and describe the sounds you hear. So if you have a kid who really likes nature and you want them to get into journaling, this is a great way to do that. If you could live as an insect for a day, which insect would you choose and draw it here? It's just really fun drawing and writing activities, you know, based on nature. All right, you guys, we are getting down to the end. Okay, the dinosaur mazes, this one is big. Emily loves dinosaurs. She saw this and had to have it great quality again. And then we actually got this to take on a beach trip with us and it is under the sea mazes. We are going to the beach for Emily's birthday and this just looked like something fun. In case we get rained out on a day or two, I want to have just a few activities that we could do inside. And this looked like it would fit the bill. So we have that. And then this I'm really excited about. I have the beginner and the intermediate. And now I have the advanced. Sorry, they're stuck in here, you guys. So it is the white clean set. They call them key skill sets from Usborne and they come in this really nice, plastic, it's not really plastic. It's like a poly envelope that has a zipper top. So the advanced has four books in it. They all have four books. Two are always some sort of English type of book and then two are always math. So this set for the advanced is fractions. And then all of the white clean pages inside have to do it with fractions. And there is also always an answer key, notes for the adults to kind of help teach it. And then a grid, like graph paper for the kids to do their work on, like if they needed to do, like scratch paper, telling time is the second book. And then for English, we have grammar and punctuation and spelling. And I just like to have these kind of on hand for, I don't know, busy activities, things when I need a second reinforcement, things that she needs to practice over and over and over because they're dry clean or white clean dry erase. You can just do them and erase them and do them again and again and again. So I like that because it doesn't feel wasteful. Not having to print a ton of stuff out. I like them. They're great for car schooling too. We also grabbed two new puzzles, the Jigsaw Tree of Life here. And all of the Osborne puzzles also come with a book of some kind. Let me see if I can get this one open to show you what book it comes with, which is something that I love about it. Actually, I almost always give these puzzle sets as gifts because they make such nice gifts because you get a really high quality puzzle in a nice book. Okay, so this is the Tree of Life book and it has all of this information in this book. And so this is what you get with the puzzle, with that puzzle. And then we also have the new dinosaur timeline puzzle. And I believe the book that this one comes with is the dinosaur timeline book, the fold out dinosaur timeline. We have that already and we love it. So I'm excited that it also still comes with it because, let me open it, see if I'm right. Yes, what I love is that in the puzzles, you get the same information, but the books that come with them are a little bit, I guess, less expensive to make. So when you buy the dinosaur timeline, normally it has like the hard cover, but when you get it in the puzzle, it's just the interior, which actually is easier to store in my opinion. They just didn't have this set out when we first bought the timeline, but I think that's easier to store than the hardback. But we will love them both equally. Okay, so that is all of that. The only thing I have left to show you guys is my Usborne splurge and it was the illustrated originals and I bought all of them. I really, really wanted these classic books for Emily. I think this is like in the next year or two would be the perfect time to read them and these make it more fun because they're beautiful, they're small, they're easy to hold. They still have those color images that make it exciting for her. So I went ahead and got them all for her. So we have little women around the world in 80 days, White Fang, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, The Jungle Book, Black Beauty, The Wizard of Oz. You guys seriously, look at how pretty that is. Treasure Island. This is the one Kevin's the most excited about. Illustrated Odyssey, Heidi, The Railway Children and then the one that started it all, Anne of Green Gables. So Emily actually picked up the classic starts Anne of Green Gables to read to herself. And she was like, mom, I just don't like this. Like she could tell that it was kind of watered down and she wanted to read something a little more mature. But then when you go to the more mature ones they are not as fun to read. And so that's when we were talking back and forth. She's like, I just wish there was a picture every now and then. Like it doesn't have to be time just every now and then. And that's when I remembered that Usborne had the illustrated ones and so she could get that color picture that she wanted every now and then within still the unabridged version of the book. So she's very, very excited and I think that's the one she's gonna start reading. So that's it. That is our Usborne haul for back to school and now for the giveaway. Two people who have a US mailing address because unfortunately Usborne will only mail within the US or at least this portion of Usborne will only mail within the US will be entered for the chance to win a $50 credit so you can buy some Usborne books to add to your homeschool. All you have to do for a chance to win is be a subscriber, like this video and leave a comment down below.