Review: The Kindness Club

Meet Chloe, a girl with a good heart having to make a fresh start in a new home and a new school.

Trying to make the best of it.  Her best friend left behind, and wanting desperately to make some new friends.

What is a girl to do?

She's to think positive, that young lady is.  "I have the best friends at my new school, I have the best friends at my new school".  

Chloe, finds herself in a science with Mr. Dibble, and he assigns her, along with Lucy and Theo a science experiment.  They are to come up with an hypothesis, test it out and report back to the class.  They have two weeks to complete the project and thus the Kindness Club is born.

Chloe is also invited to join the "It Girls" club, a club only for the cool girls of the school.

Chloe has more new friends than she bargained for and soon finds herself "worried about upsetting all her new friends".   As events unfold in the book, she truly learns how importance kindness is.

My thoughts: 
I actually thought I wouldn't like this book when I started reading it, but I did.   It was neat to see the affect the kindness had on a wide range of people.   Such an interesting assignment Mr. Dibble gave to his students.  A great way to put thought into action.  

Now do I think upper elementary/middle school students will like it?   My son was intrigued by the idea and thought it would be interesting to try something like that. He was even coming up with ideas he thought would be neat to try out.  When I asked if he wanted to read it, he said "it's a good book for girls".  :)   He likes the idea, but sees it as a girls book.

I think if the cover was changed, it might appeal to him more.

The Kindness Club : Chloe on the Bright Side

By: Courtney Sheinmel
Size: 7.19 x 8.53
224 pages
Ages 8-12 years


Published by: Bloomsbury USA

Reviewed for: Raincoast Books

STEM: PopCan Robot

Fridays are our do it differently days, learning happens we just have fun doing everything differently.   One of the things we do is do some sort of STEM activity.

We had SO MUCH FUN putting this fellow together.  OH MY OH MY.

To make this fellow you need the 4M kit and one popcan...that's it.

Add to that some laughs.
Lots of questions.
Scissors.
and a wish for a coverup for a can.



On to the joy and wonder of making a tin can robot.

One of the things I like about 4M kits is they are very clear about what the kit does and does not contain.   In this case we need to supply two batteries and one popcan.

The box is a nice size to store on a shelf, recyclable, and easy to open. .. HEY>> it's good to know that stuff.. I've gotten kits before that opening them is a pain in the ... well you know... but easy to open bags with all parts conveniently grouped.

The back of the box clearly indicates the parts contained which is a great help to know if it's age appropriate or not.


OH.. I almost forgot... we did need to supply our own screwdriver.

 As you can see the instructions are clearly labeled, with colour markers to help with placement and understanding.   The lad found it very easy to understand and rarely needed my assistance.    It's great to see his confidence building more all the time.

 This fellow currently resides in my son's room and makes regular circuits up and down the floor during our night time reading.

You gotta admit, he is rather cute don't you think?   :)

As you can see.. he works!  We learned he works on smooth floors best, with couches working as well... but the carpet... never got him to like that.  We do wonder, what if we put traction on the wheels.. would that work better but we haven't test that theorem out yet.

And the cat is well....unimpressed.

Others in this series
Salt Water Spider.
Solar Oven.
Sand Art.
Spy Case.
Practical Math.
Light Up Planetarium.
PopCan Robot.

God's Chooses to Weaken Egypt

²⁰ In the eleventh year, in the first month, on the seventh day of the month, the word of the Lord came to me: ²¹ “Son of man, I have broken the arm of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and behold, it has not been bound up, to heal it by binding it with a bandage, so that it may become strong to wield the sword. ²² Therefore thus says the Lord God: Behold, I am against Pharaoh king of Egypt and will break his arms, both the strong arm and the one that was broken, and I will make the sword fall from his hand. ²³ I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations and disperse them through the countries. ²⁴ And I will strengthen the arms of the king of Babylon and put my sword in his hand, but I will break the arms of Pharaoh, and he will groan before him like a man mortally wounded. ²⁵ I will strengthen the arms of the king of Babylon, but the arms of Pharaoh shall fall. Then they shall know that I am the Lord, when I put my sword into the hand of the king of Babylon and he stretches it out against the land of Egypt. ²⁶ And I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations and disperse them throughout the countries. Then they will know that I am the Lord.”

I have to admit, i don't get what's going on here. 

We already learned from the previous 19 verses that God was going to execute judgement against Egypt for her treatment of Israel.   So when they talk in this section about breaking Egypt's good arm and also breaking her broken arm again, I don't get it.

I understand the end result of what God wants.  He wants Egypt to see that he is the Lord.  That none of their 'gods' is God ONLY he is.

I guess the point is, when I stop and think about it some more is this.   God could have just let Babylon come in and fight and eventually defeat Egypt.

What God did though is he weakened Egypt.   He weakened her in such a way that Pharaoh was groaning about it.  

It tells me that God strengthens those he will strengthen and weakens those he will weaken.
God is Lord.
It is very apparent to me in these verses, God is Lord.  

He used a nation that was evil in the sight of God to discipline another nation that had treated his people badly.  In that process he weakened Egypt so that Babylon could wreak devastation upon her.