JumpStart and Preschool are 2 names that definitely go hand in hand.  JumpStart has been around for such a long time and I have always enjoyed using their products with my children.  Their new 3D and online versions are so adaptable for various family needs.

I got to try out their PreK 2 cd set and we love it.  Teaching preschoolers all the basic concepts in a very visually appealing way is one of the things I love about JumpStart.  The kids love it as well, giving them access to a world that they control and characters that are very fun.

The first CD is for Preschoolers and they will enjoy 12 activities to help them get ready for school.  On CD 2, Kindergarten children will enjoy the 35 activities created just for them.  One of the most fun activities is creating their avatar and setting up their house.  The kids love these activities, but well, I guess in the end it’s hard to pick any one thing they loved more!

With this 2-CD set, kids can:

• Design an unique avatar and decorate a house
• Choose from over 15 pets to adopt and nurture: groom, feed and buy accessories for the pet to wear
• Complete missions to unlock storybooks
• Rack up gems and then trade them in for pets, accessories or other great prizes to decorate the world
• Get creative by adding personal photos and artwork

Their new JumpStart Online program is another great option.  Even parents have great tools at their fingertips!  This is a monthly membership program that offers similar features to the cd, but even more depth.  Three to ten year olds have tons of educational (yet very fun) resources available every time they login.

With a wonderful 3D landscape, the online world offers so many features.  Be sure to hop over to the site and check it out.  The parents section really is amazing as well, totally worth checking out when you can.

The great thing is that they have offered one of you a 3 month membership to their online world!  To enter, be sure to visit the website, then come back here and leave a comment telling me why you would like to win this.

There are some great extra entry opportunities as well of course, feel free to take advantage of all of the entries for as many chances to win as possible.…Just be sure to leave a NEW comment with each entry…:

• Become a Facebook Fan of A Frog In My Soup!!!
• Tweet It: Just tweet this giveaway with a link to this post and make sure your comment has your twitter handle in it.
• Blog It: Write a post about this giveaway (with a link to this post of course) on your own blog, make sure your comment has a link to your post.
• Stumble It, Kirtsy It, Digg It, Submit to Mommy Blips: Submit this giveaway to any of these sites and earn an extra entry for each one…and make sure your comment has your Username.

It is void where prohibited, be sure to read my giveaway policies here.  Be sure to enter by November 12, 2009.  This giveaway is open to US addresses only.

Disclosure: I always give honest and forthright reviews and will not present something that poses a conflict of interest &/or that I do not like.  I received a copy of the More Beautiful You CD in order to listen to it and present the review.  You can read my full disclosure policy here.

Today’s episode of our Ready for School week is being featured at The Moms Review.  It’s a very fun set of PenPal notes and you’ll definitely want to check this one out.  You can read and enter on this page!

Enjoy!

Who hasn’t grown up with Elmer’s Glue? Those little white school glue bottles are totally a trademark of all things back to school. Sure, their label may have changed (but only slightly) over the years, but it’s still the must-have and go-to product for back to school.

Seriously moms, tell me it’s something you don’t just automatically grab off the shelf when you’re purchasing school supplies.  You don’t have to look at the list, you know it’s there.  Though more recently I have had a few years where I was required to send fifty zillion glue sticks to school instead of just the traditional white glue (and you think I’m joking).

Elmer’s Glue Crew has introduced a wonderful classroom recycling program.  I love this because it’s making school supplies even more reuseable than they already are (can I hear it from all the moms who have been known to even do crayon melting inventions with all the crayon bits..).  Here’s the details…

The Elmer’s Glue Crew Recycling Program, launched in 2008, encourages classrooms nationwide to actively learn about recycling by collecting empty glue bottles and glue sticks to be recycled. Starting on Earth Day through the end of the school year, teachers and parent volunteers simply take their boxes of “empties” to the nearest Walmart store and drop them off with the people greeter. From there, Walmart ensures the empty products are handled by facilities designed to recycle these specific types of plastics.

Whether you’re a big fan of Walmart or not (those who know me know my answer to that), all it takes is one bin in your classroom to collect the items and one person from that class who is willing to take them to the nearest store and hand them to a greeter!

If you love shopping with Upromise (great program, be sure to check it out), Elmer’s glue is now part of that program as well, so be sure to stop by their site to get all the details on everything mentioned here…and more!

Elmer’s Glue Crew Recycling Program is offering a fun back to school pack for one lucky reader.  This pack includes one of each of the following products: 8 oz. Washable School Glue, 8 oz. Elmer’s Glue-All®, Washable School Glue Stick, Extra Strength Gel School Glue Jumbo Stick, Washable School Glue Stick, All-Purpose Glue Stick, Washable School Glue, Washable School Glue Gel, 3D Jumbo Glitter Paint Pen, No Wrinkle Glue Pen.  Whew!

Yes, I’m sort of on a School supply kick yesterday and today, but just wait there’s still so much more to come.  Today’s post obviously is going up quite late, so be looking for tomorrow’s Ready for School Feature (a discount next time) to go up a little after noon.

To enter, be sure to leave a comment telling me your favorite Back to School memory!  If that happens to include something about Elmer’s glue, I’m sure our sponsor for today’s giveaway would be delighted to hear about that.   Remember, if you are a participating blogger (ie. have our back to school button on your sidebar), be sure to leave an extra comment for that as well with a link to your blog’s home page.

Extra entries?  Sure, why not!  Be sure to leave a new comment for each entry!

• Tweet It: Just tweet this giveaway with a link to this post and make sure your comment has your twitter handle in it.
• Blog It: Write a post about this giveaway (with a link to this post of course) on your own blog, make sure your comment has a link to your post.
• Stumble It, Kirtsy It, Digg It, Submit to Mommy Blips: Submit this giveaway to any of these sites and earn an extra entry for each one…and make sure your comment has your Username.

It is void where prohibited, be sure to read my giveaway policies here.  Be sure to enter by August 29th.  This giveaway is open to US addresses only.

Disclosure:  I always give honest and forthright reviews and will not present something that poses a conflict of interest &/or that I do not like.  This post was sponsored by Elmer’s Glue Crew Recycling program and I was sent the same products as are being offered in the prize pack to try for myself.  You can read my full disclosure policy here.

One of the classic fundraisers for school has to be Box Tops for Education.  These unique little rectangles can be found on products throughout your local grocery store, just clip them and send them to your child’s school to add to their Box Tops collection!

This year if you visit Box Tops for Education’s website, you can enter to win a back-to-school prize pack as well as a chance to win 5,000 Bonus Box Tops for your child´s school, free Pillsbury Toaster Strudel and Totino´s Pizza Rolls, and school supplies from Box Tops´ newest partner, Avery.  To enter, make sure you sign up on the site and enter by October 4th.

Specially marked packages of Tostino’s Pizza Rolls and Pillsbury’s Toaster Strudel have double the box tops right now.  These are fabulous fast snacks for your kids too!  The Toaster Strudels are a warm treat (served only on special occasions around here) with the do-it-yourself icing that all kids love.  Tostino’s Pizza Rolls are a nice warm (quick) snack for after school!

I personally think it’s very fun that you can now find box tops on Avery products as well!  Having them on school supplies is such an obvious place and now schools can benefit by that as well.  For all the details on the Box Tops for Education program, just visit their site.  There you can check on your school’s earnings, shop online to earn even more cash for your school, get coupons for box top products and much more!

To kick off our Ready for School week, they are offering one very lucky commenter a fantastic prize pack that includes one (1) free coupon for Toaster Strudel, one (1) free coupon for Totino´s Pizza Rolls, a Box Tops For Education certificate worth 10 bonus Box Tops as well as some great school supplies for your family.

To enter, visit the Box Tops for Education Website, then come back here, leave a comment and mention one product that you have purchased and donated the box top from.  If you have already placed our “Ready for School Week button on your site, leave a second comment with a link to your blog.

Extra ways to enter…(be sure to leave a NEW comment for EACH extra entry!):

• Tweet It: Just tweet this giveaway with a link to this post and make sure your comment has your twitter handle in it.
• Blog It: Write a post about this giveaway (with a link to this post of course) on your own blog, make sure your comment has a link to your post.
• Stumble It, Kirtsy It, Digg It, Submit to Mommy Blips: Submit this giveaway to any of these sites and earn an extra entry for each one…and make sure your comment has your Username.

It is void where prohibited, be sure to read my giveaway policies here.  Be sure to enter by August 28th.  This giveaway is open to US addresses only.

Disclosure:  I always give honest and forthright reviews and will not present something that poses a conflict of interest &/or that I do not like.  My Blog Spark sent me this prize pack to try for myself.  You can read my full disclosure policy here.

My mother has decided that the twins are in need of some serious intellectual stimulation.  I agree, but putting 3 year old twins into preschool isn’t an option…there is no discount until the year before they go to kindergarten.  Add to that the extra expense of homeschooling our oldest son this year and…well…yeah, it’s just not reasonable.

As I have mentioned in the past, I plan to home-preschool them, and I have some great resources.  I have to admit right here and now though that the reality is…I’m panicking.

It is general knowledge that our twins can outwit, out-think and outlast everyone they come in contact with (LOL, I live in an episode of Survivor daily).  Keeping up with them is a full time job, and my older sons are constantly having to help me chase them down and keep them occupied.

I’ve been watching an infomercial (ah the insanity) that claims to teach little ones to read, but although they only share the trial price on the commercial ($14.95 + Shipping&Handling), I checked it out and the full price is just under $200.  I refuse to participate in trial offers, especially with the insanity of my schedule.  Either way though it made me wonder (I think I took a very long route to ask one simple question)…

Do people really spend that much money on a product they haven’t tried for themselves or heard about from a person they trust?  I’m just curious about that.

Another school year has come to an end, yet for the past 3 months I have been busy researching and preparing for next year when we will be bringing our 13 year old home to be educated.

As I have been gathering resources for homeschooling families, one of my favorites is definitely The Old Schoolhouse Magazine!  I know that we aren’t the typical homeschool family, since we do still send some of our children to public school, but having the right resources in place for any child you homeschool is absolutely necessary whether you feel you fit the mold or not.

Just because you are “only” homeschooling one child doesn’t mean that you don’t need the same support, encouragement and resources as the family that is homeschooling 4 children.  This year I will be homeschooling 2 preschoolers and an 8th grader so it ought to be interesting.

I mentioned The Old Schoolhouse earlier and I just have to say that they have an amazing fan page on Facebook offering tons of contests, freebies and encouragement.  If anyone has a question about curriculum, they can ask it there and I’ve always been amazed by everyone’s willingness to rally around and answer each concern and question!  A definite must if you are a homeschooling family or are thinking about homeschooling!

I also subscribe to their magazine (digitally and in print) and just received the Spring edition and it is amazing.  Tons of resources, balanced advice, great encouragement and amazing ideas to educate your child well.   This is another resouce I highly encourage homeschooling families to have.

Right now is definitely THE time to subscribe because they are having an amazing promotion where you will receive 19 free gifts with any new or renewing 2 year subscription with them.  These free gifts are worth over $400.  If you have ever considered (or are now considering) getting a subscription to The Old Schoolhouse, do it now and do it soon because this offer is only for the first 5,000 people!

I have recently begun fervently planning for next fall when I’ll be desperate for activities to keep the twins busy while I homeschool our 13 year old.  I’ve been aimlessly looking about for a simple, easy to use but complete curriculum to use with them…I don’t want to be stuck creating curriculum for them myself! Enter Itty Bitty Bookworm!

Itty Bitty Bookworm is definitely now on my list for top home-preschool choices, this program offers parents (and preschool teachers) complete curriculum so that they can be confident about what they are teaching their children but not have to put in all the hours to put something together themselves. Even if I tried, there’s absolutely NO way I would be able to construct such a complete, comprehensive and age appropriate lineup of activities, pages and projects!

I’m so thankful for programs like Itty Bitty Bookworm and trust me, if you have a preschooler you’re looking to get a preschool program for, you will be too!

The Itty-Bitty Bookworm is a literature-based preschool curriculum on CD that does all the planning for you, so you can focus on what’s important ~ your children. It offers a curriculum for 18-36 month olds, called the Bailey Curriculum, and the Bo curriculum for 3-5 year olds. Both curricula are specifically tailored to meet the unique needs of in-home preschools, family child-care centers, child development centers and home-schooling families.

They gave me two months of curriculum for me to try out with my 3 year olds and we’ve been having tons of fun (since one of those months focused on bugs, even the older boys wanted to get involved)!  I love the convenience of Itty Bitty Bookworm too!  They offer their products in two forms – CD or Downloads!  When you’re ready to go, just open up the file, read through the program, print out what you need and get to it! Going green anyone?  I think it’s so great that you can choose to print out ONLY what you need and know you will use with your children.

The books that are used with this program are typically readily available (or put them on hold beforehand) at your local library, or if you love books like me, you’ll want to order the set to have on hand when you begin the month!

Want to know what comes in the curriculum?

Our curricula contain lesson plans, printables, emergent readers, patterns, manipulatives, shape/color/letter/number displays, and much more. You will need to purchase some craft supplies. You will also need the books upon which the monthly curriculum is based. We have links on our site to websites where the books can be purchased. However, the books are easily found at most local libraries.

You can also check out their website for more information and samples of their curriculum. I absolutely love the way Tara looks at their program…

At The Itty-Bitty Bookworm, “curriculum” is just a fancy-pants word for roadmap. We think childhood is a journey, and most kids just need a little guidance now and then to really come into their own. With our curriculum you can expect to see your child(ren)…

• Develop a love of books.
• Expand her creativity.
• Excited about learning.
• Self-confident.
• Experiment and play.
• Prepared for Kindergarten.

Such a wonderful way to look at how we educate our children and prepare them for the future of their education!  We all know how very important it is to start our children off right and keep their minds active even as preschoolers.  This curriculum just assists us and makes that goal easier!

Itty Bitty Bookworm is offering my readers an amazing discount!  As you prepare to do preschool with your little ones next fall, you’ll definitely want to take advantage of the “Buy One Get One Free” promotion. Any reader who purchases a CD or download will receive another CD or download for free.

To take advantage of this offer, choose the first half of the months you would like, and put them in your cart DO NOT ADD all of them to your cart or it will not work.  Then when you get to checkout, just make sure you put BOGOF in the comments section along with the list of free months you are asking for. The offer will only be good from TODAY through June 13th so take advantage of it right away.

There is no limit on the amount you can purchase. So this means that you can receive a full year of curriculum for the price of 6 months ($150 value)!!!  So if you were even remotely worried about the expense, this is definitely the time to buy this program, though all you need to do is add up how much it would cost you to send your child to a local preschool and you’ll be amazed at the savings even without the discount!

Itty Bitty Bookworm is also offering one extremely lucky commenter One Full Year of Curriculum on CD (download for those outside of the US) which is worth $300! Make sure you visit their website and then come back here and leave a comment telling us why you’d like to win this curriculum and who you’d like to use it for!   Click on the “more” link and you’ll be able to see all the extra ways to enter!

(more…)

There are many times throughout parenting when we hurt for our children.  It definitely isn’t the fun part of parenting, it’s the reality and the nitty gritty part.

Some of the heart breaks will be from your children’s actions toward you.  Sorry, I know it isn’t a great thought, but how many of us have been stunned and even brought to tears by an unthoughtful word or gesture from our children.  Often though, especially as they are younger, they didn’t even realize what they said would hurt us and they feel bad.

Then there are the times that your heart breaks simply by association.  Because your child is hurting, you are hurting.  This is the type of hurt we’ve been experiencing….ever since CJ was in 3rd grade.  Yes, that IS a long time!

The crazy thing for us is that even though hubby and I have experienced a great deal of stress over CJ and his education, and I have spent time in my knees in tears…CJ doesn’t look at it the same way we do.  This is simply how it is for him.  He doesn’t know different.  He’s been told he’s smart, but nothing proves that, so he’s fallen into a “this is just how it’s going to be” reality where he just goes through the motions, but knows he can’t learn.

Of course CJ’s view of it is entirely wrong, in fact he is quite intelligent and we have the tests to prove it.  Yup, remember those tests…we did it in January.  We took him to an outside evaluator who spent half a day evaluating our son and found that CJ has working memory and processing issues.

I’m not going to bore you with the details of how we got here, it’s been an EXTREMELY long and trying road, but suffice it to say we are here and have the information in hand.  So now what?

We asked that too.  At the beginning of the year we were told that he didn’t qualify to be tested for an IEP simply because of the way he was “exited” from it last year.  So even though we knew he was struggling (and that it wasn’t going to change) they weren’t going to take action…until I handed them the report from the evaluator.

Suddenly the process began … again.  Problem is, we’re done!  They’ve had since 3rd grade to figure out the exact same diagnosis as the evaluator we paid.  They have the same resources the evaluator has, but they did nothing.  Once they did decide to test him, lo and behold, guess what they found?  Yup, he has working memory and processing issues.  [do you sense the sarcasm? sorry]

Oh, but it gets even better…the one difference with the school district is that since that same 3rd grade year, they have been trying to have us test him for attention problems (ha).  We consistently get “He’s such a nice kid”, “never a behavior or attitude problem”, “works wonderfully with me during testing”.

So why do they keep focusing on attention?  A couple of his teachers through the years have said that he doesn’t pay attention to them for any length of time, will get distracted, etc.  Our problem with this all along is that NO child will just sit there and pay attention to something they don’t understand, or they will only do it for so long.  Our son is no exception.

What exactly do they expect us to do with that information?  What are we testing him for?  We’ve discussed this with his pediatrician for years and she thinks it’s insane!  Bottom line…would we medicate him either way just to make him “fit” into their box when he is a delightful and normal kid ALL the time?  Duh, NO!

I know this post is getting very long, and for those of you who have stuck with me, thank you!  It took saying all that to explain that this year has been especially heartbreaking for me as I watch him struggle through, enduring the frustration of teachers who can not or will not understand what he’s dealing with inside.

We have also decided that it would be best if he is homeschooled next year.  One of two reasons we said we’d pull our children out of public school is is they are no longer being educated.  I think we can all agree that he falls into that criteria!  Plus having several people tell us he learns perfectly one on one (including the school psychologist), just confirms the wisdom in that.

So my bloggy friends, I would great appreciate any and all prayer!  At this moment, we feel a little lost and have a lot of questions, so we’re definitely praying for answers.

You may have a heartbreaking reality right now with one of your children too…if so, I pray that you will take it to God and pray for direction as well!  Wishing you many blessings!!!

This is such a fun reinvention of an old PBS favorite!  And by old, I mean 1970’s and kids from my generation grew up watching it.   Bringing it into a new milennium to meet the needs of elementary age children who overall are struggling with reading in school, this is a brand new take on a classic.

The Electric Company is very well done and both my 3rd and 4th grade boys truly enjoyed the preview of the new series.  You and your children can enjoy this series every Friday (began January 30th).  Even though this series is clearly educational, my kids didn’t think it was cheesy at all, in fact they loved it!

Each episode features themes that are very kid friendly … there are heroes and villains, and words and phonics come to life in a very creative way!  What children don’t know is that the curricular goals of The Electric Company include: decoding, comprehension of connected text, vocabulary and motivation – all of which are very necessary for reading success.

The episodes have the main mission, with lots of mini segments mixed in to focus on sounds and word combinations to help children understand them in a new way. The characters will quickly become familiar to children from the troublemakers (“Pranksters”) to the main Electric Company characters who each possess a special literary skill!

Check your local PBS station’s program listings to see what time it comes on in your area and check it out with your kids! Also, be sure to check out their website for even more great information about the show and learning opportunities for your children.