Friday, April 26, 2013

Winner of the Joy Cowley Classroom Giveaway Big Book!!!


Congrats to:




Melissa Mize
mizemelissa@gmail.com

The winner of a Joy Cowley Big Book.  


I will be sending you an email shortly to get the information needed so you will receive the big book.

Thank you to everyone who checked out the Joy Cowley Giveaway.

Monday, April 8, 2013

Joy Cowley Classroom Giveaway!!!

Recently we used the book "Mrs. Wishy-Washy's Farm" by Joy Cowley for our "5 Day Read".  You can view that post here.  I loved using that book and my preschoolers loved using that book.  You can still here them in their dramatic play saying, "wishy-washy, wishy-washy" as they are cleaning something or referring to the story in some way.

I was sent two books from Hameray Publishing for review.  Both titles involve Mrs. Wishy-Washy.  I can't say how wonderful both titles were!

The first title I reviewed was Mrs. Wishy-Washy and the Big Wash.  Children are often fascinated or completely afraid of a car wash.  It's almost like the roller coaster ride for the little one without a height requirement! This book presents a problem and a solution in how to get the animals clean when there is no water at the farm.  And we know that with Mrs. Wishy-Washy around the duck, cow, and pig need to be cleaned.  But where can they go to get clean?  Where can they find water?

The second title I reviewed was Wishy-Washy Clothes.  This is another book I feel my children would love.  It is simple, funny, and has an easy story line for little children.  This book talks about how Mrs. Wishy-Washy washes her clothes and hangs them out to dry.  What will pig, duck and cow do when they see Mrs. Wishy-Washy's clothes hanging on the line?


I have big plans for both of these books and will be creating material to go along with them... so keep an eye out for them!


The best part in reviewing these books is I get to announce the 
Joy Cowley Classroom Giveaway
Teachers, parents, friends, relatives and anyone else who wants to nominate a classroom to possibly win 90 new titles for The Joy Cowley Collection and The Joy Cowley Early Birds Collection by the beloved author and Mrs. Wishy-Washy creator, Joy Cowley this is your opportunity.  The collections of leveled readers, for Kindergarten to 2nd grade classrooms, are developed for shared, guided, and independent reading.  And if that isn't wonderful already... the winner will also receive finger puppets and 3 audio CDs which is a value greater than $400!

So you may be asking how do you nominate someone... click on Mrs. Wishy-Washy below and it will take you directly to the giveaway.

You can find out more about Hameray Publishing, Mrs. Wishy-Washy, and other fun activities at:

And that's not it...
I am hosting a bonus giveaway!!!

One lucky reader will receive a free Joy Cowley big book
All you have to do is leave a comment on this post with a working email address so that I can contact you. You may recieve an extra entry for liking me on Facebook (please note in the comments that you liked me on Facebook to receive the extra entry). This contest is only valid for readers living in the United States or Canada (no PO Boxes, please).  This contest will end on April 25 and the winner will be announced on April 26.  So good luck to all of you.



All of my readers will get a 20% discount that expires on 6/30/13 by using the code:  ZJCC13



Hameray Publishing Group is dedicated to publishing innovative literacy materials for Pre-K to Grade 8 students. Combining research-based methods with cutting-edge content, Hameray develops titles for striving readers, English Language Learners, and children requiring reading intervention, as well as those children reading at grade level.

Hameray offers informational text and fiction for early readers, high interest books with low vocabulary for older students, and wordless books to stimulate oral language development. We aim to keep reading fun for children of all skill levels by presenting them with engaging storybooks and fun facts about the world around them.
For more information, please visit www.HamerayPublishing.com

 “Disclosure: I received complimentary products for review.  All opinions are my own and this is not a compensated post.”

Sunday, April 7, 2013

Time 4 Learning Review


We signed up to do a free month with Time 4 Learning.  I used it with my 2 preschool daycare girls and my son who is in the 5th grade.

For daycare we used it as a supplement to our regular curriculum.  The girls loved the activities they tried and looked forward to computer time each day.  It was nice to have something that was actually reinforcing what we were already doing during our learning time.  I'm not sure at the preschool level if I would use it as the sole curriculum though as I feel children of that age need actual hands-on experiences with the ability to express themselves and what they are doing/discovering vs. sitting at a computer.

My 5th grader goes to a full time public school so this program was hard for him to do a lot with as he has a lot of homework and needs time to be a child.  I really could see the value in using this site in a home school situation and am strongly considering using it as our summer supplement for him.  I also assign some form of reading/math homework daily during the summer to keep skills up and this would work as a wonderful alternative to what we have been doing.  I was impressed with all the topics and level of work he could do with this program.

You can get your free month trial here.

***Disclosure:  I was able to obtain a free month of "Time 4 Learning" in return for a review of the product. All opinions are my own and I was not compensated for this post.***

Monday, February 18, 2013

"Mrs. Wishy Washy's Farm"

Our next "Five Day Read" was "Mrs. Wishy Washy's Farm".


The children really enjoyed this book and I still hear them in their play using ideas from this book.  I did get lucky in planning this book as I had purchased the month from Itsy Bitsy Bookworm that had this book.  This is a great literacy program that I highly recommend!  So many of the ideas I used came from this program.

Since we already did letter Ww (the obvious letter for the book) I decided to do letter Ff for farm.  As always we did a letter book and here is what was inside our book.





And some of the projects we did...
 We did a paper piecing from Making Learning Fun.



 We painted water and bubbles in the wash tub.  Idea from Itty Bitty Bookworm (October).



 We made an "In the Barnyard" emergent reader... I forgot to take a picture of the
pig page.


 We did a positional word activity with the characters in the story.


 We put the animals in the animal jail.


We did a cute version of the Hokey Pokey putting the animals in the tub from Making Learning Fun.





 We made some props for Mrs. Wishy Washy using Making Learning Fun and DLK's
site.  We used aluminum foil to make a wash tub.




And we had a great deal of fun playing with our set.

 And we did some counting activities.

This is just a few of the things we did with this book.  Hope you enjoyed.
Next up..."Brown Bear, Brown Bear".

Best,
Rose


Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Time4Learning

I've been invited to try Time4Learning for one month in exchange for a candid review. This online curriculum can be useful for those wanting homeschool materials or for those seeking help with topics such as homeschool record keeping. Find out how to write your own review!

You can too by going to Time4Learning.  

As soon as we have tried this in our daycare and with one of my own children I will review this product.

Best,
Rose

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

"The Snowy Day"

Our next "A Five Day Read" is on the book "The Snowy Day".  Too bad all our deep snow melted the day before beginning this book as I had some great ideas using real snow.  And who ever heard of 60 degrees in NE Ohio in January!?! (and don't think I'm complaining as I am not a snow person... I like it warm)


You can see a video of the book here...

As always, I picked a letter to go with this book.  Since we've already completed Ss and Pp I decided to go with Ww since the book talks about winter weather. Here are some pictures of our letter book.
 On the left we dot markered the letter Ww and colored the wagon.  On the right we did 
some letter Ww recognition activities.

On the left we matched shapes and talked about the picture and what sound they heard
at the beginning of each picture.  On the right we circled letter Ww's, circled pictures that began
with letter Ww and traced letter Ww's.

 On the left we followed directions to color the letters or Ww pictures and then at the bottom 
we colored spaces with W green and w blue.  On the left we glued pictures into the water 
that began with the /w/ sound and we traced letter Ww's.

 On the left we dot markered the path of Ww's to help the spider find his web.  On the right
we colored each circle that had a Ww.

 On the left we made our own letter Ww's and we found pictures that began with the /w/ sound.
On the right we put a six piece puzzle of a wagon together.

To introduce the book we did two activities.


 We talked about activities we like doing in the snow and then dictated and drew our favorite.


We talked about what we wear on a snowy day and drew us in some of those clothes with a
dictated response as to what the picture shows us wearing.

Some of the art projects we did with the book...



We drew in our faces with crayons, used my marker to trace names (not washable), and then
we waterpainted ourselves on a snowy day.


 We fingerpainted with blue, added cut snowflakes which they could color, and 
put dabs of glitter with glitter glue onto the paper.



We made winter necklaces

 We made cotton ball snowmen.


 We cut snowflakes.

Some of the concepts we worked on...
 On the left we colored things you can do in the winter and circled our favorite thing.  On the right we
did a pre-writing activity from Homeschool Creations.

On the left we did some critical thinking by looking at the picture and deciding whether a sled, ice skates, roller skates, or shovel would best go with the picture.  We also drew a picture of what they could make looking at the picture (this one is a snowman).  On the right we did some predicting ~we decided which picture would come next after I read the sentence.

 We sorted winter vs. summer clothes from Homeschool Creations "The Snowy Day" pack.

We sequenced the story.

We also did a lot of number 5 activities.

 A number 5 activity sheet.

 Number puzzles.


 and a few more activity sheets.

Hope you enjoyed "The Snowy Day" as much as we did.  Next up... "Mrs. Wishy Washy's Farm".
Best,
Rose