TED talks

I love listening to TED talks. One of my absolute favorites is by Ken Robinson entitled Do schools kill creativity? Listen to it and tell me what you think.


Do schools kill creativity?

It's time to save some money $

One of my favorite things about Usborne is helping people find the best books. And it's even more fun when I can help them get a good deal on them! heart emoticon I'm starting a VIP group for our annual BOOK Friday Sale. If you want to in, let me know. smile emoticon

100 Things for Little Children to do on a Trip

It can be a challenge to keep kids entertained sometimes. This is especially true in the car, at the doctor's office, or in a restaurant. Usborne has a great solution to help you, wipe clean activity cards! These are super entertaining and easy to bring with you.

You can find all of our wipe clean activity cards here

Book storage solutions

I am a firm believer that you can never have too many books. That being said, today I thought I would share some ideas of how you can store all of your books. Most of these ideas are simple, easy, and affordable.

Here are 2 ideas that I really want to do in Spencer's room

See the steps to make this spiffy idea here

See the tutorial here

As I was searching Pinterest for ideas of creative ways to store books I found oodles of fabulous ideas. Instead of posting pictures of all of them I thought that it would be easier to just give you the websites.

http://www.craftionary.net/best-ways-organize-books-storage-solutions/

http://thesawdustmaker.com/2015/03/how-to-build-a-childrens-bookshelf-manger/

http://www.momsters.in/2013/08/top-kids-book-storage-ideas.html

Some of these will require some time and work from you but it will be worth the effort to create a space for your children to put all of their amazing books! I would love to hear what ideas you want to tackle and also any other ideas you would like to share!

Muddle and Match

It is finally starting to feel like fall around here! I am loving and hating that. I love the weather changing but I also hate that it is getting colder. Spencer LOVES to play outside. He doesn't care what the weather is like, he wants to be outside. It is nice that he wants to be outdoors but this mamma gets cold after awhile and wants to come inside. I have been thinking of some fun things to do inside for when I when I need to warm up. We of course have been reading TONS of books, playing with play dough, coloring, etc. The other day we were reading Muddle and Match and I realized what great books those are! These books are great for children of all ages. There are an abundance of possibilities for learning with these books. Here are a few ideas:

Babies and toddlers

• Let them flip through the pages. Spencer loves to just turn the pages in these books. The pages are a little different then his normal books. He loves seeing his creations that he makes.
• Talk about body parts.

Preschoolers

• These books are fantastic for building phonemic awareness! Have your child clap, stomp, shake when they hear a certain beginning sound. This is an activity that my preschoolers loved to do and it really helped them to be able to hear the differences in sounds.
• Introduce top, middle, and bottom. The pages on these books are separated into thirds. While reading the story tell your child to turn a certain section (top, middle, or bottom).

Elementary

• Have them create their own version of Muddle and Match. They can create their own creatures, animals, or people and then come up with the story. This activity will promote creativity and alliteration.
• Have a competition to see who can come up with the most creations in the book.

There are 4 different titles in this series: Adventure, Imagine, Jungle Animals, and Monsters. You can see the entire collection here.

See Inside Your Body

Today's post is on See Inside Your Body by Katie Daynes and Colin King. This is a fun, interactive, informative book that children of all ages will enjoy. It has interesting illustrations, tons of flaps, and is packed full of facts about your amazing body.

You can purchase this fantastic book here

I love this book because it informs kids about their body without dumbing it down, it has thick cardboard like pages and sturdy flaps that will hold up well to children. It also has some internet links which mean you can get even more information by going to the website listed at the back of the book.

I also love that there are so many learning extensions you can do from this book. I searched Pinterest for 'body activities' and came up with a whole slew of fantastic ideas. There were ideas for all parts of the body; blood, brain, bones, lungs, senses, etc. If you are stuck and need some ideas I recommend searching Pinterest. Why reinvent the wheel?

I wanted to be able to do an activity with Spencer this week so my main focus as I was searching Pinterest was to come up with some way to teach Spencer about his body. I found this super cute idea of making a face using felt. I thought, "I have felt! I have scissors. I can totally make that for him!" To be fun and holiday-ish I decided to make a pumpkin face.

Here is the pumpkin face I made.

 I glued the stem onto the pumpkin and I also glued the iris to the eyeball.

Spencer of course immediately ripped off my carefully glued stem! So much for that idea ;)

 Spencer loved this activity! He would walk around the house with the parts and then would run back and put them onto the face.

This is his finished work

We are still working on where all the parts go but I believe with some practice he will get it. As he would put on a part I would say what it was and also say the name and point to where it was on him (eye, nose, mouth). This really was so much fun and easy to make. If you are like me you stock up on felt whenever it goes on sale at Michael's or Hobby Lobby. You never know when you are going to need some felt ;).

What are some of your ideas for teaching your kids about their bodies?

Encyclopedias

Raise your hand if you like to read an encyclopedia. Well let me tell you, I sure do! Usborne has some amazing encyclopedias. They are full of tons of interesting facts and pictures. There are two things that make me just absolutely love these books.

1. These books are put together with children in mind. They know that kids will not be interested in reading more if they can't grab them. So with that in mind they break the information up into smaller chunks of information. Next to each picture is a description of the picture. This allows children to know right away what that is. The pages are also in different colors which helps their eyes to not get tired as they are reading.

This is in the Geography Encyclopedia. Look at those fantastic pictures and diagrams!

This comes from the First Encyclopedia of Science.

2. All of the encyclopedias are internet linked. This means that you can go to the specified website (found on several pages in the book) and get more information about that subject. This is great for helping children with reports or to just help build their knowledge. For example, I went to the website for Geography. I chose my page number (which was 64-65) about water in the ground. They had this amazing link that took me to this website:

http://www.floridasprings.org/learn/journey/ 

It was so much fun learning about the water cycle and it was also interactive which made it even better! Oh, and any image that has a star next to it in the book means that it is available for you to downloaded for FREE. This will really help with all of those reports!

Geography

First Science

 The First Encyclopedias are good for early and middle elementary age children. In this age range they have a Children's Encyclopedia, First Encyclopedia of Science, First Encyclopedia of Seas & Oceans, and First Encyclopedia of the Human Body.

Geography

First Science

For late elementary, middle, and high school there are Encyclopedia of the Ancient World, World History, World Religions, Geography, Living World, and Science. 
You can find all of Usborne's encyclopedias here.

Now do you see why I enjoy reading an encyclopedia?! Which one are you going to get first?

That's Not My...

Spencer absolutely LOVES That's not my dinosaur by Fiona Watt. It is such an engaging book. It has simple repetitive text and fun touchy-feely patches. This boy just really loves dinosaurs. Every time he sees a dinosaur book he starts growling. It's hilarious.

Skills learned from this book:

• Language development
• Vocabulary
• Sensory development

Activities to extend from this book:

• Pull out an assortment of objects with different textures and allow baby or toddler to experience touching these. With toddlers you can help build their vocabulary by introducing new words like bumpy, soft, prickly, crunchy, etc.

These are the objects I pulled out for Spencer to experiment with.

He wasn't super interested in playing with these. I only got this picture because I put the string and twine on his lap. He immediately pulled them off. He just wanted to play with mommy's camera.

• For preschoolers you could have them sort different textures or make a creature using different textures. Make sure to introduce the vocabulary words to them.
• Older children could make their own That's not my... book! This would be such a fun activity to inspire creativity and thinking outside of the box.

The That's not my... series has around 30 different books. There is sure to be something that your child would enjoy. You can find all of them here.

Big Pig on a Dig

My nieces and nephew were over today. While the  two older ones were playing with some friends, Paisley and I sat down to read a story. We chose to read Big Pig on a Dig by Phil Roxbee Cox and Stephen Cartwright. This story is part of the Ted and Friends collection.

In this story Big Pig finds a map that leads to a treasure chest full of gold. He follows the map and starts digging and digging. The only thing he finds is a rabbit. Big Pig learns that his friend Fat Cat made up the map for fun. Paisley thought this was hilarious that Big Pig got tricked. She decided she wanted to trick her brother and sister by making a map that will lead to a "cake". I thought this was an excellent idea so we got out our supplies and map the map.

Spencer's contribution to the map making was eating the crayons. ;)

We left the map on the door for Maddie and Jaxson to come find. They followed the map only to find that the "cake" was a picture of a cake. They didn't think this was very amusing but Paisley reveled in their disappointment! Score one for the little sister!

100 Paper Planes to Fold & Fly

Do you like airplanes? Do you like making your own plane and having the coolest, most awesome plane around? Well, I sure do and guess what?! I now get to have the most raddest plane ever thanks to 100 Paper Planes to Fold & Fly!! This is such a fun book for kids and adults. It has the paper, instructions on how to fold 4 different types of planes, and 3 game ideas.

What I really LOVE about this book is that you get to have a blast making planes but at the same time, you get to teach your children about science! For quite a few years I thought that science was boring. And then I married Garrett. He is a complete science nerd! He has slowly convinced me that science is actually really neat and interesting. But don't tell him I think that! ;)

Anyways here are the concepts and skills taught by using this book as well as some activity ideas.

Skills/concepts:

• dexterity
• vocabulary- gravity, lift, thrust, drag
• marksmanship/aim

Activities:

1. Teach your child about the 4 forces and then have them experiment with altering those forces. For example; add a paper clip or pencil to add weight, have a fan blowing onto the plane, throw the plane harder or softer. You can get more information on the 4 forces here
2. Create a course for the plane to fly through.
3. Select a target to hit.
4. Create your own action packed, plane movie (totally picturing some chase or fighting scenes).

If you are ready for this awesome packed adventure click here

See how excited I am. This book is so cool!

I'm a Dirty Dinosaur

My goal with this blog is to give parents ideas of how to make books fun for them and their children. Today I read I'm a Dirty Dinosaur by Janeen Brian and Ann James. This is one of Spencer's favorite books. Whenever he sees it, he starts growling like a dinosaur.  It is so much fun! I love sitting down and reading with him. Spencer is 15 months old. His attention span is not very long. When I read this book to Spencer I always use fun voices, do actions, and of course growl. This helps his short attention span to last for the story and it is a great time for him and I to have fun and be silly.

This book is fantastic because it teaches the following skills:

• Language development
• Body parts

Additional activities you can do: 

• Use a toy and do the action words (shake a maraca, tap a stuffed animal, etc)
• Make your own dirty dinosaur with paper and crayons, pudding, paint, or mud

The adventure begins

I sell books. That is still mind blowing to me. This is something that I never thought that I would do. I have always been so shy. Talking with people has never been my strong suit. I am a person who usually just likes to keep to myself. But now that is all going to change.

About a month ago I was invited to a friend's Usborne party. I attended to be nice but didn't think that I would like the party or be able to afford the books that were being shown. To my utter astonishment, I immediately fell in love with these books and was shocked when I saw that they were actually affordable. I suddenly wanted every book that I was being shown. At the end of the party the consultant was giving her pitch of why we should host a party with her and why we should join her team. A thought came into my head that I should listen and think about doing this. I started looking into the company more and debated whether or not this was something I really wanted to do or if it was just a desire to get free books. A little bit later, my family went to the county fair. While we were there we saw a booth for Usborne. I immediately ran over to show Garrett the really cool books that I wanted to get. The consultant that was there was talking with me. She asked if I had thought about becoming a consultant. My response was that I was sort of thinking of it. She gave me her flyer and then I went on my way. That night when we got home I just kept reading over that flyer and looking through the catalog. I looked up more information about becoming a consultant and by the next day I knew that I really wanted to do this. The thing that pushed me over and made me decide that this was right for me was the company's mission statement.

I taught preschool for 6 years to children from very low income families. Their parents were always asking me how they could best help their child to learn. My answer was always the same, read to them. Reading creates bonds and also exposes children to new thoughts and worlds. Many of these parents would tell me that they didn't have enough money to have many books in their house. This deeply saddened me. I would then tell the parents options that they had to expose their children to books. I would tell them where their local library was and remind them that could borrow books for free from there. Another frequent thing that parents would tell me is that they don't know what to do with their child. When they would try to read with them, the child would get bored and they found it difficult to keep their child engaged. Parents would also ask me how they can use books to teach their child. I would do everything I could to help them. I would tell them reading tips and give them ideas of how to connect stories with real issues and ways to teach them. But I never felt like I was doing enough.

I am excited for this new adventure that I am on. After reading the mission statement from Usborne, I realized that there was a way for me to make a real impact on the life of many people. I have the ability and privilege to expose families to a wide variety of books, as well as giving them tips on how to make books more meaningful. I am nervous but oh so excited for my new business. I know that this is going to be one amazing adventure!