Busy Week Ahead!

Looks like it'll be another busy week ahead, and I'm glad!  I have three Usborne parties coming up this week, closing out my incentive period.  Hoping to hit my Success Goal by Sunday!  I have several eShows closing at the end of this week, so if you want to support any of these people/organizations by shopping through their link, click on the image to go to my home page - then click on their name and have fun browsing!

Click here to shop!

Hate to say it, but the holidays are most definitely creeping up on us!  Books make wonderful gifts!

Read Aloud Thursday: September 22nd

Read-Aloud Thursday @ Hope Is the Word  is a fun weekly meme to showcase the books you are reading aloud to your children.  It is so important to continue reading to your kids, even after they've learned to read themselves!  Read to them until they move out if you can!  I read to my 5 1/2 year old a book or chapter every nite at bedtime, and read to him and his younger brother all throughout the day.  Sometimes my older reads to my little, which always blesses my heart!  I also use this opportunity to highlight some of the great Usborne Books & More titles I have to offer.

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We read one or two books each day with our schooling in addition to other books throughout the day or at bedtime.  We read books that we have or check out from our library to go alongside the topics we're discussing in science and math.  This week we are discussing Seasons, and we read a really cute book yesterday called A Bear for All Seasons, written by Diane Marcial Fuchs and illustrated by Kathryn Brown.  It's about a Bear who is all snuggled up and ready for his Winter hibernation nap, but is kept up by his Fox friend.  Fox keeps reminding Bear about why the other seasons are better than Winter... and then he ends up complaining about each one as well.  That doesn't phase Bear, though.  He continues to declare that each season is FAVORITE for different reasons, usually based on the foods he eats during those times.  It's a sweet story with lovely illustrations of the woods and the friends doing seasonal activities like picking berries, swimming, fishing or throwing snowballs.  My son liked this story because he thought it was funny how the Bear was so sure that this season was his favorite, then would turn around and turn his mind declaring that no, THIS season is his favorite.  A Bear for All Seasons is a great way to emphasize the features of each of the four seasons while not coming across as a mere book of seasonal facts (my son wasn't as interested in those books this week). 

I've started reading to my little one before he goes to bed.  I hadn't before simply because it's been a difficult time getting him into a bedtime routine and it was just better for me to put him in his crib and leave him so he could put himself to sleep.  Lots of trial and error on that one.  But the past few nites, I've taken him alone in his room (Big Brother was occupied playing Angry Birds with Daddy, ha!), sat in the glider and read to him before placing him in his crib.  We read Are You Ticklish? and How Do Dinosaurs Learn Their Colors?.  We have many Jane Yolen books, and have always adored them.  They were some of the first books that Preston learned to memorize and recite back to me before learning to read them.  If you haven't read any of the dinosaur books to your kids, PLEASE find some and do so!  They are too fun!

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And now a spotlight on an Usborne book we read from this week: Find The Duck! This book is a crowd favorite amongst kids and parents alike!  The kids enjoy finding the little yellow duck (the Usborne mascot!) on each page and get such a sense of accomplishment by doing so!  I used this book at a story-time I did a few weeks ago, and the kids went CRAZY.  They all wanted to be the first to point on the little yellow guy.  Honestly, I'm not sure they heard any of what I read from the book, they were too busy yelling "THERE HE IS!" but it was such a lot of fun anyway!  The kids even took turns with it after I was done reading it to them so they could look for the duck on each page themselves.  I love the interactive books that get kids excited like that!  There are several other books in this series as well.  You can Find the Teddy, the Kitten, the Bird, the Piglet and the Puppy.  The illustrations are all equally adorable and fun!  The little yellow duck is a reoccurring character in several Usborne books, including the The Complete Book of Farmyard Tales, where he appears on every page!

Mama Jenn Review, eShow & Giveaway!

Oh my stars, I adore Mama Jenn.  If you don't know Mama Jenn and her fantastic websites, you are MISSING OUT!  She is amazing.  She is a homeschool mom of 5 (she has TWO sets of twins, ya'll, c'mon!!) who blogs super creative and inspiring ideas and offers tons of free, fun printables to use with your kids.  I completely stole her ideas for my Morning Board which I just absolutely LOVE.  I have her My Father's World First Grade Proverbs printables, which we use every day now!  And I have my eye on her neat Education Cubes program next!

Anyway, the wonderful Mama Jenn wrote a review on a couple of Usborne products I sent her.  That's not all, though.  She's doing a giveaway and hosting an eShow as well.  So, go check out her post - CLICK HERE!  Enter the giveaway!  Shop her eShow!  And then make yourself cozy and check out all the other awesome things she has for you!

Read Aloud Thursday: September 8th

Read-Aloud Thursday @ Hope Is the Word  is a fun weekly meme to showcase the books you are reading aloud to your children.  It is so important to continue reading to your kids, even after they've learned to read themselves!  Read to them until they move out if you can!  I read to my 5 1/2 year old a book or chapter every nite at bedtime, and read to him and his younger brother all throughout the day.  Sometimes my older reads to my little, which always blesses my heart!  I also use this opportunity to highlight some of the great Usborne Books & More titles I have to offer.

Today is the FIRST day of FIRST GRADE for my oldest!  I am so excited to get started, and cannot wait to share about our successes (and failures, eek!).  But first, here's what we've been reading aloud this week:

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We actually got this book last year but didn't start it until just a few days ago.  Preston earned it as part of Borders Summer Reading Program (aww, poor Borders are soon going to be no more!).  There weren't a lot of choices available for his age, but I figured he'd grow into it.  The book is called Miss Daisy is Crazy!  It's the first installment of the "My School is Weird" series, written by Dan Gutman. It is about a 2nd-Grade class that gets a teacher who, according to them, is "dumb."  She apparently doesn't know anything about reading, writing or arithmetic!  In fact, her students know more than she does and they have to teach her!  Now, I wasn't exactly thrilled to read the part where the kids were saying their teacher was "dumb."  I explained to my son, we don't call people that!  We are nearing the end, and I don't know for sure, but I'm HOPING that Miss Daisy turns out to be smarter than she lets on - and that she is, in fact, teaching her students more than they realize! 

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And now a spotlight on an Usborne book we read from this week: Mini Stories From Around The World! This is a fun "little" book (5 5/8 x 7 inches) with 22 traditional stories of heroes, strange creatures, magic, myths and fables from all around the world, including Morocco, Greece, Spain, Japan, Scandinavia, Italy and so many other places.  There is even a fun world map in the front so you can show your child where the story is from! You can actually take a little peek inside of this book to see how lovely the illustrations are, click here.  I have discussed with Preston about fables and legends, so he understands that just because this story says this is the way a bird got his bright feathers, does not make it true. God gave birds those bright feathers!  It is interesting to read different stories from various cultures and how they try to explain things (like the birds getting bright feathers from a snake that ate colorful flowers.... lol!).  Since this is a mini version of this book, I'm sure there are more details to these traditional stories that are not included, but having them in this version makes for an an easy and quick read for younger children.  There is also a full size version of this book available if you prefer to have it slightly bigger.  Some other titles in this series include Stories from India, Greek Myths for Young Children, Mini Greek Myths for Young Children and Aesop's Fables.