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Meredith
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| Posted: June 12 2007 at 5:50pm | IP Logged
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Mackfam wrote:
My big box from Kid Advance just arrived. I have to say I'm very pleased with the quality!
I do have one sad thing  to report. The knobbed cylinders, while beautiful, do have a few problems. Some are slightly tight, some very tight. I think this can be remedied with some very, very fine sandpaper as the tops are varnished, but the sides are not. It's nothing that can't be fixed. And I'm not complaining because I had to order the cheapest set I could find!! Just thought some of you might want to know!
All in all, the whole lot is just beautiful! It's a little different putting everything immediately in the locked rotation closet, but I don't want to set up any bad habits right off the bat, and I'm still organizing my presentations. The kids are begging to start school tomorrow   |
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Thank you so much for sharing this, I am awaiting my order from them as well, so I'll let you all know how mine turn out. Could be just that one, maybe call them and ask if this is normal and if they will replace it??? Just a thought! How fun! 
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Meredith
Mom of 4 Sweeties
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Mackfam
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| Posted: June 12 2007 at 5:58pm | IP Logged
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I might call Meredith. But in the end - repackaging, and shipping the whole darn set back would be such a drag! And it is just a few cylinders from 2 of the blocks. I might still call and see what they say though - you're right!
Thank goodness for talented brothers!
The other materials are sooooo beautiful! Lori was right, the beauty does draw you in, and it is attractive to the kids. The materials are simple, uncluttered (as compared to the millions of lights and sounds on today's toys) and I am soooo happy I was able to purchase a few things this year. I can see this is going to be an ongoing delight for us!
Should I have started a new thread with this Meredith??
ETA: I moved it, great new thread!
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Jen Mackintosh
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Meredith
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| Posted: June 16 2007 at 1:55pm | IP Logged
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Well, I just received my order from Montessori Concepts and I am thrilled with their quality, their packaging and how quickly they shipped out!! Playing here today
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Meredith
Mom of 4 Sweeties
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Elizabeth
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| Posted: June 16 2007 at 2:16pm | IP Logged
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I'm trying to go through and do some linking to resources. Please bear with me if the link fairy edits your post.
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Elizabeth Foss is no longer a member of this forum. Discussions now reflect the current management & are not necessarily expressions of her book, *Real Learning*, her current work, or her philosophy. (posted by E. Foss, Jan 2011)
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Kristin
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| Posted: June 18 2007 at 8:44am | IP Logged
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Meredith,
I'm so glad that you are happy with the materials you ordered from Montessori Concepts! How fun!!!
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Bunch 'o Honey to my Honey Bunch and Mama to five - Noah 10y  , Rose 8y  , Dominic 2.5 y  , Oliver 16m 
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Erin
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| Posted: June 18 2007 at 9:00pm | IP Logged
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Meredith
Did you order the puzzle maps from Montessori Concepts? If so or if anyone else did is the quality as good as Alison's maps?
I am still wandering through websites trying to find the best way to stretch my dollars, and I note that Montessori Concepts are the cheapest by far. Although Alsion's offer to match competitors price if the quality is as good. So I wonder is M Concepts as good as Alison's?
I have heard back from Kids Advance and the freight doubles the purchase  Still waiting to hear back from the other sites recommended here. 
So Meredith, what did you get in your box? It must be so exciting unpacking.
Btw, in case anyone isn't aware there are all these summer sales on at present
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Erin
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Meredith
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| Posted: June 18 2007 at 9:16pm | IP Logged
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Erin, I purchased my Cabinet/Map set from Alison's and I'm still waiting for it, should be later this week  And the freight was high here too, I think it's pretty standard, so if Adena has free shipping for you, it's probably worth it!
I received all of the Gold Bead Material and many Math works: Stamp Game, Negative Elem. Snake Game, Hundred & Thousand Chain, Small Wooden Number Sets, Wooden Cubes of 1000, and Wooden Squares of 100, & Binomial Cube. They forgot to ship my Decanomial, so I hope he shipped it today! Then we'll really be cooking! My kids can't get enough of it all, it's great quality and shipped in 3 days!
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Meredith
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Mackfam
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| Posted: June 18 2007 at 9:21pm | IP Logged
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Erin,
I just received my Montessori Concepts order. I'm very pleased! The quality is beautiful, wood is lovely, paint is smooth and high gloss - no nicks of any kind. The golden beads are just lovely, and quite substantial, not cheap looking at all.
I notice that the boxes from Montessori Concepts are EXACTLY the same as those from Kid Advance - same markings and all. Their supplier is exactly the same I believe. Judging from the relative closeness of pricing I think you can probably expect about the same quality across the board no matter who you order from. All things being equal, order from someone with the best pricing that can ship to you without it costing an arm and a leg.
I didn't order any puzzle maps though...not yet anyway  and I'm really struggling with my source if I do order. I know Alison's carries much that is manufactured in China (I'm betting the same supplier) and I love their $400 cabinet with 8 puzzle maps. I prefer the cabinet style to the others available. But, is that worth the extra $$? And I too would really like wooden posts on the map...
Meredith...anybody else...do you have any insight? I wish Suzanne were back and could jump in here because I think she was going to order a geography cabinet.
Oh! I just saw Meredith already posted...sorry. Ignore my pleas for info then Can't wait to hear what you think of the cabinet Meredith. Which one did you order??
I guess bottom line - I really believe all of these online stores are getting all of their merchandise from the same source. Shop for the best price, shipping, customer service you can afford.
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Jen Mackintosh
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Erin
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| Posted: June 18 2007 at 9:49pm | IP Logged
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Jennifer and Meredith,
Thanks for your sound advice, I really think I will be going with Adena as I won't have to pay shipping. Their maps are a little dearer than Montessori Concepts (try $15 each) but it may well be better in the long run, just waiting for replies to my emails.
Mackfam wrote:
| I love their $400 cabinet with 8 puzzle maps. I prefer the cabinet style to the others available. But, is that worth the extra $$? |
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You know I have been studying the cabinets with great interest and I really think that they wouldn't be that difficult to make. Not the stand leggy ones they look tricky but the box type. All it would be is a box shape, I'd use pine as it is the cheapest here and you could stain it. Then you could screw in those square pine strips to run the maps on. I was thinking it could be a project for ds12.
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Erin
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Mackfam
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| Posted: June 19 2007 at 1:14pm | IP Logged
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Erin,
I don't think it would be difficult to make either, and who knows - I might have to. But, I'm sort of interested in the whole package that Alison's offers - set of maps, controls, cabinet, wooden knobs. I know something is going to have to give. I'm going to wait and see how Meredith likes hers - which one did you order by the way Meredith? (I know you ordered it from Alison's.)
And then, I'm going to have to decide if there is anything I feel is just essential to have, and which attributes of the cabinet set I am willing to compromise on in order to offer it as a resource this year.
I'm going to have to bring dh in on this - cause you're right - he could make the box (the one I prefer anyway) easily. That's another good variable to consider - thanks for reminding me.
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Jen Mackintosh
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Meredith
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| Posted: June 19 2007 at 5:33pm | IP Logged
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Mackfam wrote:
| I'm going to wait and see how Meredith likes hers - which one did you order by the way Meredith? (I know you ordered it from Alison's.) |
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Jennifer sorry I missed this one from earlier today. I am awaiting this Alison's Geography Cabinet that holds up to 12 puzzles in all, but comes with 8 puzzles and the colored control charts!! I'm so excited I can't wait! I m also going to put together some Continent Boxes (ala Theresa) and the Push-pin maps idea I got from Lisia's Montessori Albums.
I'll alert the media as soon as it arrives...
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Meredith
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SeaStar
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| Posted: June 19 2007 at 7:12pm | IP Logged
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I showed my dh the picture of the Alison's cabinet, and he estimated it would cost around $50 to make it out of nice ply wood. So we might be getting a homemade one- dh can put wheels on the Alison's version, which would be great. I bought all the clearance maps, so I need something to put them in.
FYI- Alison's has that 10% off geo stuff this month with the code GEO, but on top of that you can put in the 5% off HS code for extra savings.
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Erin
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SeaStar wrote:
FYI- Alison's has that 10% off geo stuff this month with the code GEO, but on top of that you can put in the 5% off HS code for extra savings. |
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I put the GEO in the coupon code box, was that the correct place? Because then when I added in the HS code they told me I couldn't have both and HS wasn't a valid code 
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Erin
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Meredith
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| Posted: June 19 2007 at 8:09pm | IP Logged
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If you type in STALVEY you will receive 10% off your total order, it's not 15%, just FYI. I know Suzanne checked on this a while back and I called them as well, so it's a straight 10% off the top which is great IMHO!
HTH!
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Meredith
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SeaStar
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| Posted: June 19 2007 at 8:43pm | IP Logged
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I'm sorry- the HS code is really "HSBC".
Last night I was able to stack codes, but not tonight.
But the STALVEY code is even better- thanks, Meredith!
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Melinda, mom to ds ('02) and dd ('04)
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Meredith
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| Posted: July 06 2007 at 5:42pm | IP Logged
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Well, I just finished unpacking my boxes from Kid Advance and I have to say I am thrilled!! They were packed so nicely and everything is excellent quality.
My Trinomial Cube has a wierd mark on the outside of the box like it was scraped by something before being wrapped and when I called he said no problem that he'd send another out right away. Also, the triangular prism inluded in the Geometric Solids has some nicks in each of the corners and the paint has chipped so he's sending me another one but it will not match exacly Overall though I am VERY happy with the quality and the materials are just beautiful!!
Blessings! My Alison's order comes on Monday so I will post about that next week
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Meredith
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Mackfam
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| Posted: July 06 2007 at 6:58pm | IP Logged
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Oh wow Meredith. I hope the majority of your order is ok. I just received my metal insets from Kid Advance on Tuesday. I was so pleased with them! They're just lovely! I'm really glad I decided to order them after the many discussions we've had here on handwriting in general. I also got in my color box 2, and geometric solids from them. Mine were all fine. I guess I've gotten pretty lucky so far. Still waiting my binomial cube and the replacement knobbed cylinders. I'll post when they arrive and let you know if they're any better than the first set. I hope they will be!!!!!
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Jen Mackintosh
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SuzanneG
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| Posted: July 08 2007 at 2:30pm | IP Logged
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I received my orders from Alison's and Kid Advance. Very pleased with both! They are beautiful!
There are a few minute things, that I'll call about tomorrow.
Jennifer - my knobbed cylinders were all fine execpt for ONE that sticks. So, you had defective for sure and it sounds like they were so great with the customer serv from your ohter thread!
One of my squares on the No. American Botany leaf cabinet is a bit warped, so the leaf doesn't fit well....I'll ask Alison's about that.
The geography cabinet from Kid Advancehas a couple dings/scratches in it (I'll ask about this) and I'm not crazy about how the puzzles sound when you push them all the way in. The backboard is very thin and it makes a hollow kind of slam that makes me think I'm pushing it in too far and it's going to fall off. The rest of the cabinet is 1/2" wood. I wonder why this piece so thin?
The cabinet actually holds 9 puzzles, not 8 as they advertised.
The puzzles themselves are great. They DO HAVE plastic knobs, not wooden. But, my knobs on the leaf cabinet from Alison's are plastic too. Two of the puzzles from Kid Advance are on backorder, so I have only six of them.
This set DOES NOT come with the control maps, which I'll probably end up buying eventually. My shipping was significantly less on this cabinet/puzzles compared to Alsion's because Kid Advance is on the west coast. Like Theresa mentioned somewhere, the cabinet is lower, so it's not high enough for bigger kids to stand at to work.
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Kristin
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| Posted: July 12 2007 at 11:13pm | IP Logged
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Well, my second shipment from Alison's finally arrived today! I am overall very pleased with the materials (which were mostly bead).
However, there were a couple of things about the order that were not correct. One thing was that the sandpaper globe I ordered was not in the shipment, another that they sent the wrong set of landforms cards. Disappointing, yes, but I do feel fairly confident that Alison's will rectify the situation --- they have had excellent customer service up to this point!
I'm wondering if any of you ordered the color resemblance task from Alison's? I seem to recall a few people mentioning it but I'm not sure.
Believe it or not, this is the second time I've ordered this particular item from them!  The first time (about a year and a half ago) I had a problem with the colored pegs not matching the colors on the boards! I sent it back but had to eat the shipping cost. Well, I decided to give it another try this time around since I was already ordering other items from them and so could combine shipping. Plus I figured they must have fixed the problem or else they wouldn't still be selling them, right?
Well, this time they were better; only one color set has a problem! The two pegs of lighter shades of pink are identical (from what I can tell) making it very difficult if not impossible to "correctly" match them to the color board. At this point I'm planning on asking them if they can send me another set of pink pegs (and board) but wanted to first find out what your experience has been if you ordered this same item from Alison's? I don't really think I'm being overly picky. This is a matching task, right? The colors are supposed to match!
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saintanneshs
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| Posted: July 13 2007 at 12:27am | IP Logged
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I just rec'd my (very small ) order from Alison's. Everythings looks absolutely lovely!! (but)... the wooden number cards are really mothball-y.  I'm hoping they'll air-out before the boys get a chance to use them, as they tend to have aversions to non-farm smelly things.
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4Real Forums : Nurturing the Years of Wonder
Topic: Boxes are arriving!!!
