Earthy Mama: June 2015

Tuesday, June 23, 2015

Circle C Adventures Review

Vendor: Circle C Adventures

Product: Tales from the Circle C Ranch

Tales of the Circle C Ranch Bookk Review

Andrea Carter's Tales from the Circle C Ranch Learning Lapbook

Price: $7.99 Book

$7.00 e-book lapbook

Age: 9-14

About: Circle C Adventures allowed me to review their book Tales from the Circle C Ranch. This is written by Susan K Marlow. You can download and read the first story to get a view of the book. The book is written in two parts, part one being the early years, and part two, being the in-between years. This book is the one that fills in all those questions from the other books. Fan inspired questions were answered to fill you in a bit more. Set in the 1800's there is things from ranch life, US history, California history, to state fairs. At 150 pages your child will have an exciting adventure reading it.

How we used: My 10 year old read this book to herself during her reading time. She tried to get through a story/chapter each day. She was very interested in it because she is always curious about different time periods and how kids lived then. This book gives so much information for her that she couldn't wait to read more to see what else was hidden inside. I must say though, even if the books main character is a girl this book would be fit for any gender to read. We did receive the lapbook as well and we looked over it. My 10 year old doesn't really like to do lapbooks but it is something that I will be using with my 9 year old after she reads it. She enjoys the hands on learning, my 10 year old just prefers to go to the next book and keep reading. The lapbook covers things from and 1800's general store, photography, state fairs, limericks, king snakes, and much more.

This book is a companion book to the others but it was good and a fun read as a stand alone book as well. I think this would be good for any middle school child to read, especially if your child likes learning how others lived in the old days. This would be a great read also for any child that needs a good book to read for whatever reason. The lapbook would make a great addition to a unit study of the 1800's as well.

Be sure to check them out via social media.https://www.facebook.com/CircleCAdventures
http://twitter.com/SuzyScribbles

Also read what my other crew members and their kids thought of the book!

Monday, June 22, 2015

Yummy snack

1pk cream cheese

1c sugar

2 cans crescent rolls

1 ts vanilla

melted butter

cinnamon and sugar mix

Use one can on rolls to layer the bottom of your pan. Cream together cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla and then spread over rolls. Put second can of rolls over the top and brush with melted butter. Sprinkle cinnamon and sugar mix on top. Bake at 350 for about 20 minutes.

Tuesday, June 16, 2015

Dynamic Literacy Review

Vendor: Dynamic Literacy

Product: WordBuild: Foundations, Level 1

Price: $82.99

About: WordBuild: Foundations, Level 1, by Dynamic Literacy, is a three book set. The set includes the teacher edition which has the answer key, tips, test, and more. There is a basic student activity book that is 20 pages long. It is a color workbook that introduces compound words, prefixes, and suffixes. Then there is the student activity book, a 184 page workbook. The book uses 5 different activites to slowly introduce the topic. You start with affix square, then affix adder, then magic square, then word search and finally a comprehension booster. The program is planned out in 5 days of lessons. The lessons break down words into three parts: root, prefix, and suffix. By doing this you are able to teach a few which will give them the understanding of many words.
How we used: We normally only school about 4 days a week but since my child I used this with is dyslexic and has a harder time learning reading and words we took the 5 days with it. We worked about 30-45 minutes a day on each lesson. This may not take the average learner this long but we have to go over things several times to get it to click with her. It is more like a game, you put words in a square and you see what other words you can make out of it. This is kind of funny when you mix things that do not go well together. Once you get the hang of your new word then the rest of the week is restating what you learned and helping retain that information. The basic book we started out with because she is a bit behind. I did show it to my other child and she was able to get the idea of this book quickly. Overall I think if you have a child struggling or even one that is just working on prefix and suffix then this would be great for you. Many places and teaching make it hard for a child to learn it and this one makes it simple.
They also offer an online program to go with the book if you choose. I did not review this but some of my crew members did so you might want to check what they had to say.
Also some of my crew members have a discount code on their reviews in case you decide you would like to try it at home with your own kids. I really think it would be good for homeschoolers or even parents that want to give their children a little extra boost.

Friday, June 12, 2015

Missing you

Some days you do some thing in life that brings a flood of memories to you. While I wash shopping in Walmart I was thirsty and grabbed a pop on my way to the check out. I was a Coke drinker but lately I had be back to drinking Dr. Pepper. As I get to the cooler I decide Coke sounded better and I reach in and grabbed one. I was pushing my cart forward and look down to read my brothers name on the bottle. My brother loved his Coke and the thought of sharing one with him made my heart jump. I miss him so but I'm sure he pushed my hand to grab the one with his name so he could show me he is still there with me.

Wednesday, June 10, 2015

Apologia Educational Ministries Review

Exploring Creation Field Trip Journal Review

Vendor:Apologia Educational Ministries

Product: Exploring Creation Field Trip Journal

Price: $22.00

About: Apologia Educational Ministries has created the Exploring Creation Field Trip Journal. This journal is a way to document your field trips and adventures that you take with your family. The book has 64 pages. It contains the following sections:

Preparing for a Field Trip- These two pages give you information on what do do in order to plan your trip. It gives things to remember, what to pack, have your objective for the trip, and many more things.

Field Trip Ideas- This gives over 100 different ideas for field trips. They are organized in categories; plants, animals, earth, space, human body, history, municipal, business, culture, and others.
Places I've Explored Maps- These pages give you a section to put where you explored and the date. It is more of a listing type section with just when and where.
How to Use the "Specific Trip" Pages- This page tells you some tips on what you want to write in your trip pages.
Field Trip Pages- These are the pages where you record your trips. There is a section to draw a map, emergency contact plan, what you want to see or do, a photo or drawing, story of your day, and something you never want to forget.
How to Use "My Special Spot" Pages- This page gives details about how to use the special spot pages. This is about picking a wild area anywhere. Then you want to go back about 4 times through the year in order to see how it changes.
My Special Spot Pages- These pages you will document the changes of your spot through each season.
As I See it Pages- These are just blank pages that you can document anything you wish how ever you wish.

How we used: We are field trip junkies in this house. We seem to lose our printout sheets I had found that I tried to use to document our trips. I loved the fact that this was in a spiral bound book and just all ready for us to input our information. Not only can we preplan some things in them we can preplan trips so I can just take the book along to get the information I need about where it is. I also loved being able to have the listing section of short trips or places we visit often and really didn't have stuff to write about. It helped keep it documented for hour tracking for my state as well.

Another great thing is everything is self explanatory and labeled so that my kids could go in and write things themselves. This also allows us to remember these trips. We can remember places we have went and how we enjoyed them. This helps when things are good for certain ages and you want to take other kids when they reach the age. Or if some places were not good for certain ages so you can skip it. They will store well and little room will be taken up so once you fill one up you can move to the next one.

This is great for me to keep things planned while I have younger kids but also great for older kids to be able to keep their own notes on their trips. It can be sort of a scrapbook for them in order to remember the things as they see them. We will be continuing to use this book and I am sure we will be purchasing new ones as we use them up.