Review of War Room

If you are an avid reader of our reviews, today's will come as no surprise to you. We love FishFlix.com! I love that they offer movies that our entire family can watch together as well as educational DVDs and TV Series. This time we were sent War Room to review.


War Room is rated PG and even the commercials before are family friendly.  It is a powerful movie on the effectiveness of having a battle plan for prayer.  In this 2 hour film, you will follow the Jordan family and their many struggles of daily life including money, marriage problems, time management, and deceit just to name a few. Wife, Elizabeth, played by actress Priscilla Shirer is a real estate agent who feels like her life is falling apart.  Her world is completely turned right side up when she meets a new client, spunky firecracker Ms. Clara Williams.  Ms. Clara makes it her mission to become Elizabeth's personal mentor introducing her to her favorite room in her house which she call hers war room.  Her war room is her prayer closet where she has placed her prayer requests all over the walls.  She teaches her to strategically pray for herself and her family and what unfolds in the rest of the story you do not want to miss!  

Our family has declared War Room our all time favorite movie!  It is a great inspiration for planning a strategic battle plan of war to fight against the real enemy of this world which is not illness, circumstances, husbands, wives, or children but Satan! 

My daughter Sarah's favorite part was when Elizabeth first tries this new prayer battle plan on her own and her daughter finds her in her closet eating chips instead of praying.  It takes her a while before she catches on and finds her way but as she continues to faithfully open her Bible and seek God for help she eventually finds the right plan for her life and you get to see how her prayers are answered.

My son Stephen's favorite part was Ms. Clara's courage and bravery in Jesus' name during an attempted robbery.

I loved that the movie points you back to the Bible and shows that when you are fervent in your prayers, God will fight your battles for you.  They may not always work out like you want but He will work them all out for your good.  This film will having you laughing out loud, fighting back tears, and cheering on family members as they go forth holding on to God's promises.  Two of my favorite quotes from the movie were from Ms. Clara when she said, "You've got to have the right strategies and resources because victories don't come by accident" and "Raise 'em up, Lord - Raise 'em up!"

The Bonus features included are amazing as well including several devotions. The stories shared behind the scenes are like little mini movies themselves!  DVD Bonus features include:

• Bloopers and Outtakes 
• Deleted Scenes 
• Commentary with the Kendricks 
• The Making of War Room
• War Room in 60 Seconds
• The Heart of War Room
• The Church On Its Knees 
• Investing In the Next Generation 
• The Art of Jumping Rope
• From Auditioning to Acting 
• Modern Day Miss Clara
• Behind the Scenes: Color Grading 
• A Pastor's Call to Prayer
• 'Warrior' music video by Steven Curtis Chapman 
• Stephen Kendrick Devotion 
• Alex Kendrick Devotion 
• Wall of Remembrance - this contains true life answered prayers!
• Redemption For the Mitchell Home - meet the owners of the home used in the movie and learn more about their story

FishFlix.com also offers seasons of popular series such as The Bible, $5 Christian DVDs, educational DVDs, documentaries, and so much more! Their mission is to provide The Greatest Christian and Family-Friendly Films in the World at Great Prices and I believe they have done a great job accomplishing that mission. Not only are the prices very affordable but they also offer free shipping on all orders of $40 or more.

You can also check out our review of two other titles - Exploring Ephesus and When Calls The Heart.

Have you noticed the great Christian movies hitting theaters lately? Our family has and we love them! We try to make an effort to visit them on their first weekend out to help give them the most support possible. Sometimes our schedules just don't allow that to happen so it's wonderful to know the option of purchasing the DVD is available too. FishFlix.com makes it so simple to have family movie night at home and you can't beat the price compared to going to the theater!


Find out more about FishFlix.com on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest. 

Review of Clued In Kids Treasure Hunts

Do you want to have a house full of laughter in less than 10 minutes?  Then, this review is for you!  We recently received 2 treasure hunts from Clued in Kids. They offer lots of different themed hunts to appeal to everyone but for this review we will focus on the Halloween Treasure Hunt and the Princess Treasure Hunt Clue Book.
Our family loves treasure hunts!  The hard part for me is often trying to come up with the clues so now the hard part is done for me so we can focus on the fun! The Halloween Treasure Hunt is downloaded as a PDF product and can be purchased and downloaded right away for $5.99.  The clues print 2 to a page so you will need to cut the page in half and then you are ready to hide the clues. Also included with the hunt is one of my favorite pages, a page telling you exactly where each clue should be hid! There is also a note at the bottom of each clue addressed to the hunt leader telling them exactly where the clue needs to be hid.  They have truly made this as simple as possible!

The clues are designed so that you can place a child's name on the top if you feel they will need it.  Sometimes the excitement of the hunt may bring on the selfishness to find all the clues and not share so this little step remedies that situation!  It is also gives the parent an opportunity to assign the easier clues to a younger child and the more difficult clues to an older child.  

Some of the activities included in cracking the clue include multiplication, logic skills, reading skills, solving riddles, unscrambling words, dares, decoding, finding hidden objects, and many more.

The places to hide the clues are easily found household items such as by the forks, in the washer, by the toothbrushes, in the sock drawer, etc.

Here you can see some of the clues and the final hiding place for the treasure was to be placed inside a pumpkin.  Since we had not carved our pumpkins yet, I had these as decoration and they worked perfectly.  

For this treasure, I chose a totally gross science kit that went perfect for a Halloween treasure.  The kit came with this little trash can which fit perfectly inside the pumpkin so I just tore off the box label and placed it inside.

So, the fun continued as we enjoyed our gross science. 

Next up, we enjoyed the Princess Treasure Hunt Clue Book. This is a physical clue pad booklet and can be purchased for $8.99.  I originally chose this product to do with our little girls at church during our annual Princess of the King party but our time ran out and we could not get it in.  So, having my own little princess, I knew exactly what to do.  Double the hunt, double the fun!
Some of the activities included with this hunt were finding the Capital letter jewels, practicing your best and lowest curtsy, decoding with butterflies and flowers, gem patterns, and much more.
Again, the places to hide the clues were easily found in a household.  If doing this hunt at church, we would have just held on to some of the clues (such as the sock drawer) and let the little princesses do an activity to receive the clue (like walk to me in high heels). 
The final treasure for this hunt was found in the washing machine.  For this treasure, I simply put together a goody bag that included some chocolate, some craft kits, and a fun card game.

These are recommended for a wide variety of ages including some for ages 4 and up.  We had so much fun with these and my children are middle school age.  Middle schoolers still enjoy fun learning too!
Here are a few pictures during the hunt.

Other Places To Find Clued in Kids

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/cluedinkids
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cluedinkids
Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/cluedinkids/

If you sign up for their newsletter, you can receive a free hunt.  Clued in Kids is offering up a Christmas special over at their blog as well.

They also have subscription packages available where you can receive a new hunt every month.  

•   3 month: $14.99 one-time
•   6 month: $25.99 one-time
• 12 month: $44.99 one-time 

Happy Hunting!

Review: Curiosity Quest

Our family was recently sent a DVD Combo Pack - Produce and a DVD Combo Pack - Swimmers of the Sea from Curiosity Quest to review.

I never heard of the show or Curiosity Quest at all so I was excited to find out more.  Each DVD Combo Pack that we received contained 3 episodes of family friendly and educational material on various topics that people had written in that they were curious about.  Each DVD combo pack costs $24.95 and can be purchased at Curiosity Quest. They offer many DVDs on different topics such as instruments, recycling, sports, and many more.
Also available is a homeschool membership that can be paid for monthly or annually and includes 2 episodes on one DVD per month with homeschool curriculum that includes follow up questions, projects and activities.  
Other places you can find Curiosity Quest: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CuriosityQuest
Twitter: https://twitter.com/curiosityquest
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCijkbeDwySOsg-pZjOeWsgg  (lots of behind the scenes fun can be found here!)

Each DVD Combo Pack had 3 episodes on 3 different topics which were approximately 30 minutes long.  Each topic also included Fun Fact information as well as much educational information.  I learned a tremendous amount of information myself.  The DVDs are recommended for ages 7-14 but fun for adults too!  Watching the videos and seeing the host go on location was like taking our own virtual field trip.  It felt as though we were right there as well. Host, Joel Greene, is fun to watch as he finds answers to the questions his viewers are curious about.
Here is just a small sample of the things we learned while watching each of the six episodes.  This is by no means all we learned! These episodes are packed with lots of information!
DVD Combo Pack - Swimmers of the Sea

• Salmon 
• what spawning is.
• the largest size of a salmon
• how they return back to their original hatchery
• visited a hatchery in Juneau, Alaska and saw from egg to fully grown
• learned what happen to the salmon after they give birth

• Penguins
• how many feathers they have per square inch
• what they eat
• average weight
• what molting is
• do penguins need vitamins
• what sound they make
• what they feel like
• what a husbandry is

• Sea Turtles
• what they eat
• what type of metabolism they have
• life expectancy
• what the largest sea turtle known weighed
• whether they are carnivores or herbivores
• differences in females and males

DVD Combo Pack - Produce

• Cranberries
• how they are grown
• what time of year and how they are harvested
• are they annuals or perennials
• are they grown in water
• what buoyant means
• how to know when a cranberry is ripe

• Mushrooms
• best growing environment conditions
• steps to grow
• are they veggies
• where the 1st mushroom farm was
• what mycelium is
• how they are harvested

• Oranges
• best growing climate
• how many oranges a typical tree will produce
• when the 1st orange seedling came to America
• how often and the best time to harvest
• the packaging and shipping process

Also in each episode are questions that are asked of different people on the street.  We loved to pause the video at that point and try to guess the answers ourselves too.
I did want to mention that the terms mother nature and over 100 million years old are used in some of the videos.
Overall, our family loved these DVDs.  We used them as part of our Fun Friday learning time and they were a great addition to our homeschool!  Click the banner below to find out what my fellow crewmates thought.