New 2012 Sticker Dolly Dressing Dolls are Here!

My daughter, even though she is 10 now, still loves Usborne's Sticker Dressing Dolls.  They are a HUGE hit at every book fair I do - from preschool on up through Jr. High believe it or not.  Girls just can't get enough of these dressing sticker dolls!I'm excited to report that we have two new ones. The two new girly girl sticker books are Sticker Dolly Dressing Dream Jobs and Sticker Dolly Shopping Girls.  For boys we have a new Dressing Heros.  Such fun! 


Enjoy!

Kristie

The Snowy Day by Anna Milbourne - Great Way to Teach Young Kids About Cold Weather and Snow

The Snowy Day, by Anna Milbourne, is a fun, fun book to teach kids about cold weather and S N O W!  We live in the south where a snowflake is a rarity and ponds don't freeze over, so this was a loved book by my kids.  I often wish we lived up north just so they could play in the snow.  But then I remember how awful it is to live in S N O W for a few months out of the year.  Snow belongs on ski slopes according to me.


For kids who don't experience snow much, and for those who do, this is a beautifully illustrated book that explains in story form what snow is, how it's made and even what happens to the frogs in ponds when the pond freezes over for the winter.  It's a great supplement for any school weather curriculum for young children.  It's also a beautiful picture book to read to your children, especially in the HOT summer months when we are wishing we had a snow day ourselves. 


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Dr. Seuss's Books Can Instill a Love of Books in Any Child and Makes Reading FUN!

I always loved when my mom read any Dr. Seuss book to me.  I particularly loved the Sneeche's and the Sleep Book.  When I was pregnant with my son, my dad surprised me with a box of all my Dr. Seuss books from when I was young.  I was so happy to see them!  They were like long lost friends coming home!

My kids have grown up the same way I did - being read to each and every night.  Even though they are starting to get a little older, I still read to them, and they still love to be read to.  They even still pull the Dr. Seuss books off the shelf to read.


Reading Dr. Seuss books to your kids can be so much fun!  These are the best books to just get down and utterly silly with your kids.  My kids just laugh and laugh with some of the inflection and tone I put into reading Dr. Seuss. 


My favorite Dr. Seuss book to read to my kids is Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You?  It's a fantastic book that rhymes and has great rythm as you read, just as every Dr. Seuss book has.  This one is particularly fun because it immitates all sorts of different sounds and eventually you and your kids are immitating the sounds too.  This turns out to be a fun and great exersice as your kids are learning their letters and sounds.  There's lots of "hoo, doo and moo"  which shows kids that the "oo" sound most of the time is made with two "o's" together.  There's other fun sounds as well, such as "tick tock", "grum grum", "pop pop" and "blurp blurp".

Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You? was even voted #25 on the list of Best Read Alouds for Young Children on Listopia.  You can find other fascinating read alouds for you and your children on this list as well.

Below is the main reason why I love this book so much.  By the time we get to the last page of the book, we are reading a little faster very rythmicly and everyone is excited!  Then the last page comes and I read it as fast as I can.  The kids are still amazed to this day that I can read it as fast as I do.  Before my son learned to read, I remember him saying "I want to read like you mommy!" - which is music to any mom's ears.

So how fast can you read this?

"MOO MOO
BUZZ BUZZ
POP POP POP
 
 EEK EEK
 HOO HOO
 KLOPP KLOPP KLOPP

DIBBLE DIBBLE
DOPP DOPP
COCK-A-DOODLE-DOO (although it does take some extra time to say DOOOOOOOOOOO)

 GRUM GRUM
 GRUM GRUM
 CHOO CHOO CHOO

BOOM BOOM
SPLATT SPLATT
TICK TICK TOCK

 SIZZLE SIZZLE
 BLURP BLURP
 KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK"

Quoted from Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You? , by Dr. Seuss, c. 1970, Random House, Inc., New York.

What's your favorite Dr. Seuss book to read with your kids?

Kristie

Usborne Books Internet Specials - Great Savings for Great Books

Did you know Usborne Books provides their customers with savings of up to 70% by purchasing from their internet specials?  These sales change every two weeks, usually on a Monday, so you can come back for more great savings!  All purchases from the internet sales page are elegible for customer special rewards and FREE books with purchases of $85 or more.  You can really stock up on a lot of great books by taking advantage of all these specials!

USBORNE BOOKS INTERNET SPECIALS

Running a Home Business While Home Schooling

No sooner did we decide to home school our oldest son, then I decided to become an Usborne Books consultant. I thought it would help provide the extra added income we would need. Plus it just looked like too much fun with all these books!

 Running a home business can be hard when your top priority is supposed to be the education of your kids. Since we are "free" to manage our own school schedule and our own business schedule, mixing the two can be difficult at times. And keeping the two separate can be difficult as well. Below are tips on how to successfully manage both without pulling your hair out. These tips are not in any particular order. They are all tips I have acquired either from my own experience or from others' whom I know have dealt with the same situation. We all have survived. Some others' businesses haven't, but that's ok. At least all the kids have survived and are educated. That's the main thing, right.

All these tips can be applied to any home business too, not just an Usborne Books or direct sales business.

 

Tips on How to Successfully Home School

While Mom is Running a Home Business Too

1. On our dry erase board in the kitchen I keep this posted:

God

Family

School

Usborne

It keeps me in check as to what comes first. Notice the Usborne business is last on the list AFTER school.

2. DO NOT answer the phone while school time is in session. The kids get frustrated, and you get side tracked. Utilize your voice mail.

3. Make sure you preplan your school day the night before. It's so easy to get wrapped up in preplanning your work day that you forget to plan the kids lessons for the following day. Or you could do it on Sunday evenings and plan the whole school week.

4. If you have meetings or events that need to be done during a school day make sure the kids still get their work done. Consistency is key to learning and the kids need to stay on track.

5. If you bring the kids with to an event, bring along their school work. In the fall I do a lot of booths at the fairs. The kids love coming along. They get to hang out at the fair, work the booth, but they also bring their backpack of school work with so they get their daily work done. They may have a lightened load on those days, but they still need to do it.

6. Let your kids help with your business. If they are younger they can help by putting stickers on your information, they can help by carrying stuff out to the car. My daughter has become my best helper at setting up booths. By letting them help in your business, they learn about business, they see what you do to be successful, and it instills a great work ethic in them.

7. Keep balance in your family life. I've seen many consultants and moms trying to get a business up and running who will put all their time and effort into creating a big business fast instead of devoting the time to their kids' education. I know for some moms, they need recognition. Some of you may strive to be the top in your company and earn all sorts of National awards. If you don't earn those, does that mean your not successful? Of course not. I have watched too many people who were obsessed at earning the awards, that they put their kids education on the back burner. Everyone of those moms I know, no longer do the business they were striving so hard to achieve at. And luckily they saw the light and are now putting homeschooling ahead of business.

Here's a story from my own struggle with that - Last year, I picked up a bunch of events from two other consultants who had decided to retire. I added in WAY too many events last fall. Balance was not happening properly in family life. Luckily I have a husband who has a flexible job and is home a lot so he was able to take care of them. They ended up a bit behind on their school work - which was ok, we finished later than usual that school year. But I could tell things were "off" that whole year. And do you know...when I went to our National convention this summer...I earned a National Award for largest increase in personal and central group sales! For me, that was confirmation of how I had felt all year - I did too much.

8. Just as I mentioned to be consistent in the kids' school work. Be consistent in your business. Make sure you set aside time each day to work on your business. Even if you can get 5 phone calls in, you are working your business. On Fridays, which seem to be our crazy run around activity day, I still try to get some calls in before we start all our running around.

9. If your kids are sick, still set aside a little time to work on your business. I know someone who let their business go totally downhill when their son was sick for 2 months. It wasn't a life threatening illness, and we knew he was going to get better. But she sat and snuggled with him the whole time to make him feel better and didn't make those 5 calls a day like I had mentioned. Didn't do one event. Life happens. But if you let it get in the way of your business, your business can suffer to the point where you have no business anymore. I've seen consultants who have given birth to their 7th kid continue to keep their business going by still doing just a little bit during those first weeks of new motherhood. I've seen consultants who have nursed their dying mothers keep their businesses running because they chose to stay consistnet. Staying consistent doesn't mean working 8 hours a day at it. It means making a few phone calls each day, and getting out there and still doing an event every week or two. You spent the time to build your business, why let it go. If you had a boss, would he you quit your job just because your kid was sick, you had an accident, or someone you love has died? I think not. Your business is your job, treat it like one.

10. Weekends are NOT for working. Unless, of course, you have an event for your business on the weekend. If you don't, weekends are family time. Turn off the computer, let the voice mail pick up messages and relax. If you do have a business event on the weekend, make sure you make up for that fun time during the days following with your kids so they don't resent you being gone.

11. Have fun! Let your kids see the fun you have with your business. Have fun with them while educating them. We've been blessed with this extra special time with our kids. Enjoy it, and make the most of it.

By keeping balance in your home life, home school and business, it is completely possible to run a successful home business while home schooling. I have home schooled for six years, and have built a business during that time that was able to provide for our family while my husband was laid off. I also have built a team of over 300 during that time and am in the upper management level of Usborne. I've done that all while homeschooling my children! So YES! You too can build a business AND homeschool your children.

Kristie

Teaching Kids The Difference Between Animal and Plant Cells With an Expansion About the Vacuoles in Plant Cells

Today for school we were working on the difference between animal cells and plant cells.  Of course having just about every science book Usborne has to offer, we had plenty of books to choose from to expand more on this topic.  We chose What's Biology All About?  It has a great figure of the difference of an animal cell and a plant cell.  As you can see there's a HUGE difference.

Animal Cell

Plant Cell

All cells are quite similiar, but plant cells have a few extra features to them.  Notice the added features in the photos above, and I will list them below. Definitions of each are listed below that as well.

Animal Cells                          Plant Cells

Nucleus                                 Nucleus           
Cytoplasm                             Cytoplasm
Cell Membrane                     Cell Membrane
Mitochondrion                      Mitochondrion
                                              Chloroplasts
                                              Vacuole

Nucleus - the control center or "brain" of the cell
Cytoplasm - a thick liquid that fills the cell
Cell Membrane - controls what enters and leaves the cell
Mitochondrion - breaks down simple substances to provide energy for the cell
Chloroplasts - makes food by using the green chlorophyll that's inside them
Vacuole - little pockets in the cytoplasm of the cell

Something the kids were interested in was to learn more about what the vacuole of the plant cell is.  So we went on an online hunt and found this fascinating video by J S Mead that shows food vacuole formation and contractile vacuole action.  Watch the full video.  It got more interesting as it went on, and at the end, according to my son..."The cell poops!".

CELL VACUOLE VIDEO

ONION CELL EXPERIMENT

Can you see cells?  YES! You can!

If you have a microscope at home you can look at some onion cells.

Here's how:

1.  Cut an onion in half and in half again. Pull apart the layers and snap one layer in half.

2.  Peel off the thin onion skin.

4.  Put the onion piece on the microscope slide with a little dab of water.

5.  Fasten the slide under the clips.

6.  Turn the knobs on your microscope to lower your lens.  Use your eyepiece to focus and you should see rows of cells.

7.  Find some other items to look for cells under your microscope.  What types of items can you find cells on?  Please post them below. 

Have fun looking!

Kristie



Everyone Needs a Pirate's Handbook for International Talk Like a Pirate Day

                                                       

It's International Pirate Day!  That means if you don't already know how to talk like a buccaneer, you just may need this book to help ye.  Full of pirate tidbits on how to talk and act like a pirate, Usborne's Pirate Handbook, is a must read for any up and coming matie who wants to sail the Seven Seas.  It also covers what a pirate's life was like, the ship, the food, the flags, disease, and the the not-so-niceties of living the "pirate life". 

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Other books in this series are Knight's Handbook and Princess Handbook