Review of The Girl Who Thought In Pictures

I was so excited when I heard there was a children's book coming out about Dr. Temple Grandin. A children's book about the woman who made autistic adults visible for the first time? Yes, please! I was even more excited when I was accepted for the opportunity to receive an advance copy in exchange for my honest review. Yay for not having to wait! But then I read and and thought, "huh." Actually, I had a lot more thoughts than that, but I second guessed myself. This was a children's book; I was probably overthinking it. But then I showed it to an autistic friend and her autistic daughter and asked them to read it and tell me what they thought, and they said a lot of what I was thinking without me saying anything first.

Logic Resources before the Logic Stage: Part 2

A continuation of what we're doing with logic before beginning formal logic in 5th grade in the fall. (Part 1 here.)

Logic Resources before the Logic Stage: Part 1

While we have been doing things differently than a strictly classical education approach in the last few years, I still like to "check in" with The Well Trained Mind to get an idea of what our goals should be close to. I started Builder Boy's 4th grade year with the goal of having him ready for the classical approach for 5th grade as laid out by TWTM. Not sure if we'll actually get there or not, but I do like the idea of introducing formal logic in 5th grade. But I didn't want to just dump it on him with no warm up, so this 4th grade year we have been having some fun with various playful logic resources to introduce him to the concepts.

Wordly Wise A, B, and C Review

We recently completed the Wordly Wise series A, B, and C and have moved on to Wordly Wise 3000 workbooks. We first started these workbooks sometime in Builder Boy's 2nd grade year, after they took the DORA for the first time and the results showed that they were ready for a vocabulary program and would benefit from one. I asked around my online homeschooling groups and purchased the first book from Rainbow Resource online. I purchased the answer key (sold separately) as well, but it really wasn't necessary. It was pretty obvious to me what the answers were most of the time.

The Pilgrims, the Mayflower, and More: Review

Oops! I found another draft that never got published! If you follow Sceleratus Classical Academy on facebook then you saw the pictures when we were doing this and were probably wondering where the post went. What happened is that we never finished the whole book, so I forgot to finish the post. Here it is now.

This thanksgiving we were actually home! So when the Scholastic Dollar Days sale was going on last time I picked up the eBook version of Easy Make & Learn Projects: The Pilgrims, the Mayflower & More: 15 Fun-to-Create Reproducible Models That Make the Time of the Pilgrims Come to Life. I usually prefer having hard copies of workbooks and things, but with the amount of scanning I would have had to do for this I am very glad I got the e-version. Also, with my scanner things get re-sized and then all the parts would not have been on the same, exact scale. I would never have paid the full Amazon price for it, but I'm delighted to have gotten this for only $1. They have sales quiet frequently, and I share the info whenever I hear about it. (If you're going to be traveling for Thanksgiving check out the Thanksgiving in the Car lesson plan I made for my holiday series at Sandbox to Socrates.)

There are a lot of paper models in this book. My boys aren't up to the amount of coloring and cutting required to finish all of the projects in a week, but that is what I wanted to do so I did quite a bit of the coloring and cutting before starting the lessons. I used these models along side the books Thanksgiving on Plymouth Plantation and Samuel Eaton's Day: A Day in the Life of a Pilgrim Boy, but there is enough information and teaching suggestions in the book that you do not "need" anything else to use the models.

I split the models into 5 days:

Day 1

Day 1: How they got there, and why: Exchanging Worlds Trifold Diorama: (double sided new world vs old world), Moving Mayflower Map, and Peek Inside Mayflower

For the trifold, Early Bird colored the "Old World" side and Builder Boy colored the "New World." That way we only had to make one and there wasn't too much coloring for them. On the moving map they each colored "their" continent. The Mayflower was left mostly uncolored except for the flag.

Day 2

Day 2: How they lived: Pilgrim Town and Wampanoag Village

I pre-colored the map parts and left the buildings and people for the boys to color. Early Bird did the Wampanoag village and Builder Boy colored the Pilgrim town. This took much longer than I expected even with the pre-colring I did.
 I thought we would also do the gardens this day but half way through the two villages I realized how unrealistic that was for us. They did have a lot of fun comparing and contrasting the two villages, so it was worth it. Mostly.

And that's all that we actually finished. The following is what I had planned.

Day 3: Food and how they cooked it: Pilgrim Vegetable Patch / Wampanoag Garden, Hunt for Food Match-Up / Trap a Fish, and What's Cooking Double Diorama (shows Pilgrims cooking and Wampanoag cooking)Same division of the vegetable patch/garden, though I did do some pre-coloring for them there as well so they wouldn't feel so overwhelmed, since they are rarely required to do anything like this.

Day 4 (Thanksgiving Day): Harvest Feast Fun-Fact Scroll

Day 5: How they dressed: Wampanoag Basket by Numbers, and Who wore what? (Pilgrim / Wampanoag wardrobes, Wampanoag pouch)

The models are all still up, three months later. The boys like to play with their fingers as people in the villages. They still remember a lot from what we talked about. Next Thanksgiving we will finish the models the week before Thanksgiving. That was my biggest mistake; thinking we could get it all done the week of Thanksgiving. But it was definitely worth it, and we'll be finishing it in November.

I definitely recommend this if you can get it during the Dollar Days sales. And if you have kids who enjoy coloring.

DORA Review

This is a continuation of my attempts to figure out my boys' reading ability.

7 months ago, before Lady Bug was born and before I was officially ordered on bed rest, I tried several different ways to assess where exactly they were. I really wanted to do an online test, but couldn't spare the money at the time. Well, out tax refund came in, so I purchased two DORA assessments from Let's GO Learn for $35 (price for two.) The tests were online, did not expire, and the results were instant. It is adaptive, which means it's not stuck on just the grade level you register your child at but instead goes (I've read) all the way up to 12th grade. They test several different areas of reading in various ways. They do try to make it game like/fun for the kids, which is nice because it took my boys an hour (of testing time) to complete all the parts of the test.

8 Tips for Giving the DORA to Children

1. Do not attempt this test all at one time with young children. I can not stress this enough. I did not know how long this test was going to take, and I did not know how many parts there are. I would say, anyone under 3rd grade or age 9 should spread it over two days, or at least spread it over the whole day.
2. Take breaks when it's clear your child needs it. Even if it's in the middle of the test section. All but the first one are NOT timed, so it's okay. Also, clicking the "Stop" button will save your child's progress, even in the middle of the section. If you want the test to be accurate, let them take breaks. In between during these breaks let them do whatever they want (within reason, of course.) I let mine play the Wii or computer games that are their reward for finishing school. Which brings me to 
3. Cancel homeschool for the day(s) and just do the test. I did this and I am so glad I did.
4. Make sure they've recently eaten, have gone to the bathroom, and have water to drink near by.
5. Don't be afraid to bribe. Ice cream is the only thing that got us to finish this in one day. Reward and encourage frequently, especially if your children are unused to testing.
6. If you have more than one child doing this, don't let them watch or distract the other. Probably obvious, but I'm going to put it on the list anyway.
7. Watch them take the test. This will give you a lot of insights that are not on the final assessment report. For example, there is one part of the test that was very different from the rest of the tests. Early Bird did very poorly in this area, I think mostly due to the format. On things I know he knows because I have done similar things with him. If I had not watched, I would not know known it was the format throwing him and giving him such a poor score. Also, if you're watching you can catch them when they're making silly mistakes from not paying attention enough, or notice when they really need an unscheduled break.
8. Remember that their testing level might be higher than their working level. Just because they test at, say, a 4th grade level, does not mean they can pick up a 4th grade book and read it all by themselves. But it can give you a good idea of strengths and weaknesses and give you an idea if changes need to be made or not. 

The results and further suggestions were very helpful, and I am very glad I did this. It was worth the money for me. (If you're a member of The Homeschool Buyer's Co-op, you can get it at a reduced price. I'm not a member but I may join.)

If you don't already have Acrobat Reader, you WILL need to install it (for free) to read the results. Pay attention when installing and unclick the McGee (or whatever it is) Security install that comes along with it, or your computer tech husband might get annoyed...

Time 4 Learning Review

I am overdue for giving Time 4 Learning their review, and I thank them for their patience. In November/December I accepted a month's trial free in exchange for an honest review. I don't have screenshots of the program like I prefer to have when I write a review because at the time my kids were using this online program I was dealing with postpartum depression. The timing was perfect because school was just not getting done when it was something I had to be responsible for. But the kids really liked doing school on the computer and would work away contentedly for some time.

There were several parental controls that I did not take advantage of, like setting time limits that had to be met before the "playground" unlocked and test score reports. I very much liked that kids were not limited to their own grade level, but had access to both one grade above and below thier registered level. Which was very helpful when you have a child that has asynchronous developments, or a child that finishes all of one level in a subject and wants to move on to the next without having to do every other subject in the level.

I did not regulate or dictate what subjects they had to do, but rather let them make their own choices. Most of the time they chose science or social studies, though occasionally they did some math or language arts. I do like that for the price of Reading Eggs plus Mathseeds you got ALL school subjects with Time 4 Learning.

I was not sure how much of the material my boys were actually retaining. They went through subjects very quickly at times, couldn't always tell me anything when asked, and often did poorly on the tests. But when it snowed outside, Builder Boy said to me "it must be zero degrees Celsius out there, because that's what temperature water freezes at!" so he clearly did retain some of it, because I hadn't taught him that.

Looking at what they had when I had access to it, I would not use it as my main curriculum. But as a supplement, a summer program, or a needed break for Mommy, it's very good and worth the money if you can afford it.

Workbook Review: Follow the Directions & Draw It All by Yourself!

Last month I got paid another $11 from my Amazon affiliate links (thank you, everyone who purchased something on Amazon.com after clicking on one of my links!) Scholastic recently had another sale so I spent $10 on 10 ebook versions of their workbooks to enhance or add a different dimension to our school year. One workbook that we've already started is Follow the Directions & Draw It All by Yourself! I come from a family of artists (my great grandfather was a commercial artist, my great grand mother was an amazing painter, and my oldest brother is very talented.) I, however, did not get the accurate drawing gene. Despite an art class in middle school, I'm pretty terrible at it. It is not something I can teach my kids to do on my own, so I was very happy when I saw this workbook.

What I liked best about the idea of this workbook was of the kids following the directions on their own. There is no reading involved; rather they have to use inference to determine from the example pictures what need to be added with each step. There are teacher instructions that can be given verbally, as well as expansion activity ideas for each picture. I'm not using those. What I have been doing for a week now is to print out a copy for each boy and put it on the table for them to find in the morning. Then, when they come down and get themselves breakfast they also have this activity that they have to figure out on their own. It started out with simple apples and balloons and has progressed to a ladybug today and will get more and more complex as they progress through the 25 pictures.

Builder Boy's ladybug on the left, Early Bird's on the right.

Builder Boy has done quiet well and Early Bird is trying his best with some pretty good results sometimes.

When we are finished with this book I am going to start them on another following directions workbook that I got at the same time; that workbook contains written instructions, so it will be interesting to see how it turns out.

Reading Eggs Review: Starting Up and a Walk Though Lesson 88

10 days ago I signed the boys up for a free trial of ReadingEggs.com. I had heard of it mentioned before on homeschooling blogs, forums, and sites, and heard other parents mention it. I knew you had to pay for it, and since we had already paid $35 for a year's subscription to MoreStarfall.com, I wasn't looking for something else to buy. Early Bird was perfectly content with MoreStarfall, even though he wasn't learning anything new reading wise (it only goes through a 1st grade level, but it stops teaching after the basics) and I wasn't really sure how much he was getting out of the math games he played.

It's the past six months of this pregnancy a lot of schoolwork has gotten dropped; more than I'd like to admit. That has slowed the kids' reading progress down, though they keep picking things up. Then two weeks ago a friend posted a screenshot of one of her son's Reading Eggs lessons, and I was impressed because not only did it have much higher level words than I had ever seen on Starfall, but it had her kid matching the words to picture, working on understanding what the word meant and not just the ability to be able to read it. So I messaged her for a link and she had Reading Eggs send me an e-mail with a 14 day free trial (you can get the free trial on your own, but by doing it through her she got to "earn" a few more free weeks herself.) She also sent me some codes she had found around the internet that got me to 70 days free before I'm going to have to decided to pay or not. (I'll post those codes at the bottom of the post.)

I don't like starting the kids on something that I don't know if I'm going to want them to continue. What if they get super excited about it, but I'm really unhappy with it, and then it has to go away? I know disappointments are a part of life, but that's not a situation I put my kids in if I can at all help it. So I'm going to write a review (actually, I'm going to write several since there are a lot of parts to this website) that is the kind of review I would have liked to see before signing up.

I started the process with Early Bird. It was a simple sign up and did not require a credit card number to get the free trial. It offered to let Early Bird start at the beginning (which I'm assuming is learning letters and sounds) or if I wanted to I could let him take a placement test. Early Bird has never done anything like that before, but I let him try. The multiple choice test that says the question progressively got harder as he went along. At any time once you got three questions wrong the test would stop and it would place you accordingly. Early Bird made it through all 40 questions, getting only one wrong and needing me to re-phrase the question (we've never used the term "word family" before) three times. Out of 120 lessons that placed him at lesson 71. (Builder Boy took the test later, missed two, and it put him on the same lesson, so I'm assuming that's the ceiling level for the test.) There is a picture map for every ten lessons. Lesson 71 was the first lesson on Map 8. At the end of the path on each map there is a 15 question quiz that goes over what was covered in that map. You must get (I think) 11 correct to move on to the next map. Because they tested ahead on the path, all the other lessons and maps that came before 71 were unlocked, but your child has to finish a lesson before continuing on.

Each lesson is made up of several smaller parts that are interactive instructions or practice type games. Each part has to be completed with a certain level of accuracy (I really like that condition) before the next part of the lesson can be unlocked, but you can go back and play/work on anything that you have unlocked. The below is Early Bird working through Lesson 88 (the last lesson he did today.)

Part 1

Part 1 of Lesson 88 introduced the "th" blend. First it had him just click on "th" as it said the sound. Then it had him select the "th" out of three blend options. Then it had him take turns clicking on Shelley Shark and then Charlie Chimp to push the two parts of the word together to make a word. It did that with several 'th-' words. When Builder Boy did this lesson a few days ago (he's going a bit faster than Early Bird, for reasons I'll mention in another Reading Eggs review) he was annoyed about how many times he had to click on both of them to make them come together. But for a new reader, I can see how that's an important step.

Part 2

Part 2 of Lesson 88 is a simple matching the word to the picture game. Once they have done it correctly the words are taken back and mix them up and the kids do it two more times so they are putting the words up because they know it, not just because they guessed right. Kids are not expected to be able to read these words (I think?) When the mouse is over the word it does say it out loud for the kid.

If my kids were not already able to read these words, I would have a problem with this. I am very strict about systematic phonic instruction and have a fear of just memorizing words as "sight words. Now knowing that they introduce words this way long before the kids know the "rules" for why these words are pronounced the way they are, I would not use Reading Eggs as my main means of instruction, and I am glad I did not put my kids on Reading Eggs before they were already reading these words on their own. But I know that not all parents are as ridged about this as I am. (Jen over at Teaching My Baby to Read wrote a great blog post about it if you'd like to read more about why people think the mixed approach that Reading Eggs is using works well.)

Part 3

Part 3 of Lesson 88 had Early Bird read a word and then decide which letter blend lane the word belongs in. Early Bird had a hard time with this game the first time because he clicked on the sign above the lane instead of the lane with the pins, so sometimes it went wrong; and if you get too many wrong, you have to re-do it. So, being only 4 years old, he insists he needs help on this one, even though all I do is remind him to click on the pins.

This game is an example of why I decided that even though the test didn't get the full extent of the boys' reading abilities, I'm glad it placed them where it did. When they first stated playing the Reading Egg lesson games, the instructions were a short description at the beginning, and that's it. They assume that you've gone through all the maps to get to this point and that this is not the first time you're doing them, so you should know what to do. The first day they boys played Reading Eggs I sat with them and helped them figure out what they were suppose to do. There are a lot of different practice formats and there was at least one that took me a long time to figure out what exactly they were looking for. But ten days in the kids have got it all figured out, mostly.

Part 4

Part 4 of Lesson 88 did not impress me. Early Bird was given a word that I knew he could read, but Reading Eggs had no reason to think he could. They told him what it was, then had him pick it out of a group with two other words that, again, I knew he could read, but they had no reason to think he could. 16 different times with different, all complex, big words around "his" word. I'm not going to write anything more about this because I don't want to come off like a ranting psycho-mom, but there is no way this is the way I would chose to teach reading to a child.

Part 5

Part 5 of Lesson 88 once again had kids working with words that they had not been taught the "rules" for. In this practice game they were given a word one at a time and were suppose to match it to the available words. It did not expect kids to be able to read them; when you hovered over a word it said it for you. That was the extent of the "teaching" in this part of the lesson.

Part 6

Part 6 of Lesson 88 has an activity that I can't quiet make up my mind about. It starts with a book that they have read/had read to them at the end of a recent lesson before this. The lower maps/lessons have books with less options of words to choose from. As the kids have only heard/read this book once before, they seem to expect them to remember a lot, or else be able to infer a lot. This is one of the lessons/games that I get called over to help with the most. I had really hoped that the boys could use Reading Eggs completely on their own; maybe after another ten days they won't "need" me anymore.

Part 7

Part 7 of Lesson 88 I really like. It's a gentle way to introduce dictation, which is something that the boys are going to be encountering in later levels of our planned writing curriculum, but isn't something they have done before. The words (sometimes they're owls on a fence, I've also see them as bricks in a wall) start up and in the correct order. The game slowly reads the words, highlighting each word as it's being read. It then asks the kid to read the words as it slowly highlights them. Then they scramble the words and take them down and ask the child to put the words back in the correct order. Here is where the kids really needed to pay attention because it expects you to remember the correct order. Like many of the other games/lesson in Reading Eggs, and unlike the games in Starfall, there is no repeat/say again button for the kids to press. So if they weren't paying attention, they're going to have a more difficult time. I think this has been good for the boys, and over the past ten days they have gotten better at this game. They are given several sentences, one after another, and some of the sentences are longer than the one pictured.

Part 8

Part 8 of Lesson 88 tests kids' words per minute speed (actually, it's words per two minutes.) Here they only use words that have had the phonetic rules explained and practiced before. They also use a limited number of words, repeating words and changing around the picture placements as you go along. Nether of my boys had any timed reading or speed pressure put on them before, but they do very well. Sometimes Early Bird panics if he can't find the picture right away and insists he needs help, but he does fine. I like that once again they are connecting the words that they are reading to a picture of it, improving comprehension.  

On a previous lesson I had noticed that they had the word "peg" and the picture they matched it to was of a wooden clothes pin. I was confused by that, but I explained that that was the picture they were looking for, and after a few reminders the kids correctly select that picture for the word "peg" from then on. On this lesson they had the word "chips" but the picture they wanted was a picture of what we in America know as "french fries." Thankfully I am a Doctor Who fan, so I had an idea of where that came from. I looked it up and apparently Reading Eggs was originally created in Australia, which explains the chips/french fries and their British accent option. This is only the second time in twenty lessons I have encountered a British/Australian/American discrepancy that had to be explained to the boys, though I don't watch every lesson.

Part 9

Part 9 of Lesson 88 was the last part of the lesson. Lessons in Map 8 (where we started) tended to have shorter lesson parts, but more of them. Lessons from Map 9 and 10 seem to have fewer lesson parts, but they take longer. All lessons end with a book. You can choose to turn the audio off, or have it "read" it to you.

Egg Hatching

Along the path for each lesson is an unhatched egg. Once the child has completed the whole lesson there is a short animation of a creature hatching from the egg . When you go back to the map the creature is there instead of the egg. If you hover over it it will move a little bit, but as far as I can tell, they don't do anything else.


So that's a walk through a whole lesson at Level 3. From Reading Eggs' website:

"The Stepping Stones Reading lessons are the core of the Reading Eggs learn-to-read program. Each lesson builds on the previous one to build skills in the five key areas needed to become a good reader: phonemic awareness and phonics, sight words, vocabulary, fluency and comprehension. The lessons are presented in three broad levels with 40 lessons in each level.
Level 1 Starting Out for absolute beginners, lesson 1-40.
Level 2 Beginning to Read for emerging readers, lessons 41-80.
Level 3 Building confidence for early readers, lessons 81-120."

I have not seen any of the lessons for the Level 1, so I do not know how well it would work for a young beginner. While searching for more information for this review (after I has almost completed this post) I found the "Try Sample Lesson" option on ReadingEggs.com. It offers two lessons from Level 1 and one from Level 2.

Overall, I personally would not use this program as the only source of instruction; and I would not sign up a beginner reader who I did not want being exposed to complex words with no instruction context. For example, in a previous lesson I watched them introduce -ide words, but no explanation of the Silent E Rule. So kids would memorize the "ide" sound, but not apply that an "e" at the end of the word makes the "i" say it's name and that's why. But I can also see how this would work for other parents and kids who don't have the same learning to read philosophy as I do.

We are ten days into our free trial and I am still not sure if I am going to pay for it once our time is up. The kids love it, there's no getting around that. But they want $50 for a 6 month subscription, just for one kid! And another $25 for a second kid. That's $75 for just 6 months! There are a lot of other features that Reading Eggs offer that comes with that price that I will review in other posts (I've worked on this post long enough, I want to get this up already.) Here are the codes I used that got me the extra 7 weeks free on top of the original 2 week trial. (You can only use two codes a year.) 5ABCSHOP & ABC88EGG. (ETA: these codes are now expired.)

ETA: My friend who got us started with Reading Eggs over at We're All Mad Here wrote a Reading Eggs review, too! Since she uses it as primary instruction and the whole-words memorization works really well for her son, I thought it would be interesting for people to see another side of this.

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I was not asked to review Reading Eggs and was not compensated to do so. I put the time and effort into this review because I wish I could have read something like this before I started it with my kids. All opinions are my own. 

Pregnancy Product Review: Belly Band

At my 5 month OB appointment I mentioned to my doctor that I had been dealing with groin pain, mostly when I walked distances longer than half the length of my house. He said that was within the range of normal for pregnancy and that there really wasn't anything he or I could do about it. The ultrasound tech (a woman) noticed I was having some pain and recommended a belly band. After the appointment we went to Walmart, but apparently our local Walmart doesn't carry any maternity wear or products. Since we're still new in town I had no idea where else to look, and I wasn't feeling well enough to walk around searching, so I stopped thinking about it.

But the pain kept getting worse. If I had to walk up the stairs more than once a day I ended up limping/hobbling. Doing anything more than just sitting reclined in my arm chair became a painful struggle. And leaving the house and going to church ended with me in tears from the pain trying to make it back to the van. Which really stank because here I was finally not throwing up every other day, no longer completely immobilized by nausea, and now I couldn't walk.

I was helpless, in pain, and at my 6 month appointment my doctor was in such a hurry because of an emergency c-section on another patient that I wasn't able to talk to him about it. I ended up needing a wheelchair to get back to our van from the doctor's office because I just couldn't take another step. On our way home we tried looking for a belly band at Target, since they had one online. But the local store didn't have them. A person there recommended Babies R Us.

A few days later my visiting mother in law drove me the 25 minutes to Babies R Us and we finally found some belly bands. There weren't many different options to choose from; I ended up getting the Babies R Us brand Maternity Support.
I should tell you that a bathroom stall with nothing to place the instructions on is not the best place to try putting this on for the first time. There are 3 different pieces and 4 step directions. But I got it on eventually and we headed out.

The first thing I noticed was in the car ride back I was much less uncomfortable than I was on the car ride there. I continued wearing it that evening and even though I had walked through a Babies R Us (and have you ever been in a small Babies R Us?) I was feeling some pain but I was still able to walk at the end of the day. The next day I wore it I was able to walk around even more; again, with a small amount of pain, but nothing compared to what it had been. I've been wearing it all day long for a week now and I've had at least two days of complete freedom from pain and increased mobility in all the days I've worn it. Yay!

Cons to this product:

• sometimes it has to be adjusted several times, depending on your position and activity. What helps for walking around is often too tight for long periods of sitting. Luckily it is easy to adjust. Unluckily, the Velcro can be loud when adjusting, especially if you're sitting in a movie theater. (But hey, I made it to the theater and through an whole movie with my husband! Yay!)
• because it squeezes you some (especially if you put it on too tight) it can lead to even more pushing up on your internal organs, which in turn can push up on your lungs and diaphragm and you might noticed that and worry you're having trouble breathing, raise your blood pressure a bit, and then freak out and worry about pre-eclampsia. (Which is totally fixed by taking it off, drinking fluids when you realize you're dehydrated, and lying down for half an hour.) Not that that happened to me or anything....
• it's an extra layer under your clothes holding heat and sweat against your body; and I'm going to be wearing this in in the summer time.
• it has to be hand washed. They made a pregnancy item, needed most in the last trimester, that needs to be hand washed. Really?!

But other than that, I am really glad I got this product. I'd still be a painful mess without it. I've recovered enough this week that I'm going to try to get back to teaching Space School again. 
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I did not get paid for this review, all opinions are my own. For an Amazon link for a similar product try the Soft Form Maternity Support Belt .

Product Review: Paint Porcelain Party

This was my Mother's Day present. Last year we lived very near a paint-your-own-pottery place, but it was expensive and we never ended up going there. But I LOVE kids made/painted/created things. So when I was looking for a place near where we are now and my Google search came across the Alex Toys Paint Porcelain Party for much less than getting in a car and driving out to a place to pay more money for the pieces, I ordered it! (Yes, I ordered my own Mother's Day gift.)

The set comes with a mug (not large, but not tiny,) a small yellow vase, a small heart shaped cup and saucer set, a shiny silver painted frame and heart jewelry box. It also comes with an acceptable range of color paints, but only two paint brushes. All the pieces but the frame should be put in the oven after at least 24 hours of drying to set the paint and make it water-proof (though you still have to hand wash the dishes.) It made a stink when I opened the oven door, but the hood vent took care of it, and it wasn't overwhelming, even to my pregnant nose.

Both boys wanted to paint the mug, though Early Bird agreed to paint the vase. He decided he was going to paint it like a rainbow. 

Builder Boy used the same colors at the same time as Early Bird, and ended up painting a red suspension bridge and a green tree on my mug. 

Principal Daddy spent a lot of thought and time on the tea cup and saucer.

Showing the scale of the teacup

I wanted to paint, too, so I painted the jewelry box.

I am very happy with the quality and variety of the pieces available with this kit. It was easy, fun, perfect for kids, and much less expensive than a pottery painting shop. I recommend it!

Afterwards Builder Boy came and told me that I was going to get a special present from him: Special Mother's Day Cuddles! It was a really wonderful Mother's Day.



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I did not get paid for this review, all opinions are my own. The picture of the box and the name of the product are Amazon Affiliate links. Thanks to you guys, I finally got my first $11 from Amazon a little while ago!

Learning Toy Review: LeapFrog Scribble and Write

Early Bird and his first word read on the Word Builder (Feb '12)

So we are huge LeapFrog fans at this house. I give their Fridge Words Magnetic Word Builder 50% of the credit for teaching Early Bird how to read. We love most of their learning videos, and the toys of theirs that we have. I have a friend who has some of their toys that we don't have and they're okay, though not all worth the money in my opinion. Early Bird received the LeapFrog Scribble and Write toy as a Christmas gift, and I thought I would share my thoughts on this product.

This is a toy that I have had my eye on for a while. The best way for Early Bird to learn is through play/games/toys/songs. (He is only 3.75 after all.) He's been wanting to learn how to write for almost 6 months now, but he wasn't interested in me being next to him and showing him how to form the letters. I found a dry erase handwriting workbook with the letters the right size for him and he just drew over the letters whichever way he thought was best. I'd read reviews of the Scribble and Write (here's Jen Bardsley's review of the same toy at Teaching My Baby to Read) and I watched the ad video clip about the toy. The way they showed writing the capitol letter "A" was weird, and not even close to how Zaner-Bloser teaches it, so that put me off from getting it. But the Warde Grandparents got it for him so when I was able to sneak it away from him a few days after Christmas (it was his second favorite Christmas gift) I sat down and went through all the letters to see how they compared to Zaner-Bloser. Of the capitol letters, only "M" and "W" were different (the middle peaks are more shallow on the S&W than ZB teaches.) The lower case letters are more like ball and stick than continuous stroke, but it's not horribly different, and I think when the time comes for "formal" handwriting lessons Early Bird won't have a big problem adjusting.

The toy has four levels.

1. The first level tells the kid the shape or type of line they are going to draw, then has lights that you follow with the stylus to make that shape. It starts with basic lines and progressively gets more complex, making triangles and hearts and the like. It's a good way to introduce the format to kids, and it's not boring.
2. The second level has the child choose which letter they would like to do, then teaches the uppercase version of that letter. It also says the letter's sound after you're done writing it. You press the paw button when you're done. There is no accurate feedback. You get fireworks or a "great job!" even if it's wrong. Which, for a little kid, doesn't seem like a problem. Early Bird's letter making on the Scribble & Write are improving, so it doesn't seem that the indiscriminate praise is hindering his learning.
3. The third level is the same as the second, only it teaches the lowercase version of each letter. The buttons have both the uppercase and lower case letter on them, which I like. And it lets the kid pick which one they want to make, which is good, too.
4. The fourth level is a "game" level. It has two different games (that I've observed.) One has the light dots appear in a random order and the kids are suppose to guess while it's forming what letter it is. I have trouble guessing it right, and I think it's unnecessary and Early Bird just randomly pushes buttons and is bored with it. The other game has the kid follow a moving light with the stylus and when it's finished tells the kid what they drew (like a butterfly.) He likes that game better, but can't select it over the other one.

Overall I am really happy with this toy and recommend it for young, independently motivated learners. I am really glad it was given to Early Bird and if I had been able to see the actual toy in action beforehand I probably would have bought it for him a while ago.
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I do not get paid for reviews and all opinions are my own. I do receive an Amazon Associate percentage if you purchase something on Amazon.com after clicking on one of my links.

Kids Book Review: Hurray for Today (Cat in the Hat Learning Library)

My kids like the Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That tv show; at least the episodes that are on Netflix. We have three of the Cat in the Hat Learning Library books, and we like them, too. They are cute and a good way to introduce topics for further learning.

Halloween is coming up and I've never really sat down with the kids and a calender and talked about holidays throughout the year. So when I saw "Hurray for Today" at the library, I thought "perfect!" and put it in the take-home bag. I am very glad, however, that I did look at it before I read it to the boys. And then I looked at it again, and I couldn't believe what was in this book.

I wrote a much longer review of this book, but it turned out to be longer than the actual book, and I thought people might think it was a big rant over a little thing. So I have condensed it to

8 Reasons Why This Is a Bad Book for Kids

(In the order they are found in the book)

1. Instead of starting at the beginning of the year and going January to December, it starts at Winter Solstice. Confused? Because I was, and I am pretty sure kids would be, too.         
2. It lumps Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanza all together and gives the reason for these holidays as just excuses to "hang wreaths, light up candles, and string colored lights" to "make folks forget they'd see less of the sun." Really? I get not wanting to offend anyone, but they couldn't even make it about peace on Earth or remembering to be nice to other people or charity? It's just an excuse to have pretty lights when it's dark?                                                                    
3. Valentine's Day, according to the book, is because a priest (religion not specified) "made sure that all lovers could be man and wife," so they made him the saint of all lovers. 
4. "A long time ago,/every Irishman knows,/snakes crawled over Ireland/(or so legend goes)./A great Irish person,/who called himself Pat,/drove out all the snakes--/and, by gosh, that was that!" A) He was English, not Irish. B) He wasn't some "person" who just happened to be there. He was a Christan Bishop. He was there because he was a missionary. C) There were never any snakes in Ireland! Is this what kids should be learning? Three things that are completely untrue to keep from having to mention God or Christianity?
5. "Easter fest." Not Easter, "Easter fest." A goddess called Eastre turned a dying bird into a bunny who could still lay eggs. He was so happy for his "new life" that he painted his eggs different colors.
6. Out of 12 lines on Mother's Day, 6 of them are about worshiping Mother Earth and the mothering cake. That's half of the whole thing on Mother's Day! But it's still better than Father's Day, which doesn't even warrant a couplet. It gets a small "banner" at the bottom of the first day of summer page, in smaller print, saying "Don't Forget Father's Day." The exact format they use to inform us about National Poetry Month and Library Card Sign Up Month.
7. "Poor Jack was a bad man/ who passed away, so/he went up to heaven. But God told him, GO!/The devil did, too, so/he just walked the night." This is where they chose to mention God?! As the mean guy who rejects "Poor Jack" from heaven?! Why avoid mentioned God for Christmas, St. Patric's Day, and Easter, but bring Him up on Halloween in such a negative light?
8. Thanksgiving: no mention of Pilgrims. No mention of being thankful! Just "pray for peace and plenty/in all the world's lands." No mention, of course, to who or what it is we're praying too. And then the book's over; at the end of Thanksgiving, because they started before Christmas.