UMIGO Building Blocks of Math in Early Elementary #UMIGO

July 13, 2015 by Momstart 2 Comments

This is a partnered post.

This seems to be the summer of learning around our house. I never had any idea of how many different on-line services there are to help you keep your kids from experiencing the summer slide. I’ve just recently been introduced to another learning service and this one is a fantastic math site. UMIGO – You Make It Go – is a fun, vibrant world of adventure that uses the building blocks of math to engage early elementary age kids in narrative-driven “appisodes.”

Engaging kids is the only way to keep them interested in a learning program. We found one and it didn’t do that so the kids were unmotivated. This one is more interesting to them because of the fun characters and the appisodes. In partnership with the National Summer Learning Association (NSLA), UMIGO will bring its narrative-based appisodes, interactive games, activities, and educational resources to more than 70 communities around the country. You can find a location close to you by looking on the NSLA’s interactive map at SummerLearningDayMap.org.

UMIGO helps children develop the math skills they need for effective reasoning and problem solving. Another feature that keeps kids engaged are the UMIGO’s free downloadable at-home activities. These activities engage families and educators in the child’s development of math and reasoning skills and are designed to make learning easy and fun. They take the kids away from the computer screen for more reinforcement.

UMIGO’s educational content is aligned with the Common Core Standards for Mathematics for first and second grades. UMIGO is funded in part by a US Department of Education Ready to Learn grant awarded to WTTW Chicago Public Media. The Summer of UMIGO kicked off on National Summer Learning Day, Friday, June 19, in an effort to help combat the “summer slide.” We’ve been working to keep our kids from suffering from the summer slide. It’s not too late to keep your kids from sliding. Even a little work before they go back will help.

Follow along Socially:

Hashtag: #umigo
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Umigo
Twitter: https://twitter.com/umigo
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/yoUMakeItGO
Google Plus: https://plus.google.com/113522959963140582658/posts
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/umigo

Enjoy the Game All Summer Long While Learning With Flexibility #BrainChase @BrainChase

June 4, 2015 by Momstart 1 Comment

This is a sponsored post.

The summer has started for part of the country and the rest will be joining us soon. With that news means you want to keep those little brains active and energized and the game, educational hunt for buried treasure in BrainChase is going to be perfect. I’ve been looking forward to starting up and just recently received an e-mail that it’s going to begin soon. It’s going to start June 22 and an e-mail will be coming out soon with instructions on how to set up your children’s account and pick their extra language. I can’t wait to get her started. SO…….. You can still register

Alongside the regular pricing package ($199 for the first registration, and then $100 for each sibling), Brain Chase has now begun offering their premium pricing package ($249 for the first registration, and then $149 for each sibling). The premium package includes Brain Chase registration plus a Brain Chase-branded adventure backpack, a Brain Chase t-shirt and Sunstone of Cortés patch. Later in the summer, these items will be available for a la carte purchase.

And….. not worry about being behind.

Maybe…you are worried that your kids are going to spend a week in overnight camp and they will get behind. That’s not the case, BrainChase is flexible. By registering for Brain Chase, your student is committing to do about five hours of focused online academic work each week for five weeks. Because the curriculum is web-based, he or she can complete the work whenever, wherever, and in whatever order he or she prefers. And the characters look really cool. My daughter loves that there are boy and girl characters in the adventure.

Brain Chase is an online challenge, so you’ll need a high-speed Internet connection. It will work on the latest versions of Internet Explorer, Firefox, Google Chrome, and Safari web browsers. You will be able to complete math, language and reading assignments on tablets. (For the writing assignments, it’s recommended to have a desktop or laptop available.)

And don’t forget about the Teacher referral reward program. Brain Chase is offering a $15 Staples gift card to teachers for each of their students they refer to Brain Chase. Registrants who hear about Brain Chase from a teacher can simply enter that teacher’s name and school name at registration. The referral rewards can add up to substantial funding for classroom supplies – it’s a great opportunity for a class fundraiser through the PTA or other school organizations.

A 2011 RAND study explored the phenomenon of summer learning loss and how it can put students behind, which is no surprise – anybody would feel rusty revisiting topics they hadn’t thought about for months. Brain Chase keeps your kids minds active in a fun fun way! Brain Chase understands falling behind – the summer can be busy. Brain Chase allows students to catch up on missed work from previous weeks. Read more about the flexibility of the program through this post on the Brain Chase blog. Also the New York Times published a company profile of Brain Chase, and the team has unveiled a new TV ad, appearing now to audiences throughout the country.

Four Fun Ways For Four Age Groups To Have Fun While Learning

August 28, 2013 by Momstart Leave a Comment

We received samples to review.

Learning basic skills can be a little easier and a lot more fun with selections from Reeves International, a distributor and maker of quality children’s toys. While the big kids go back to school, little kids can get started with the basics. The Eggs Shape Sorter is a great hands on activity for little ones that are starting to develop hand eye coordination. Fitting the chunky easy to grab shapes into the carton is fun and encourages early learning. Plus in the middle of every egg is a different shape and color so you can work on colors and shapes as well. Sort by color, sort by shape and get the eggs in the carton.

Reeves Toys Scrambled Eggs Shape Sorter’s cute design featuring chunky pieces teaches shape sorting and color matching.

While Tolo’s electronic cash register encourages classic role play that introduces the basics of adding and subtraction.

I love registers and teaching the kids about math and counting and they love money. they have a play kitchen where they make up orders, create the orders and then make mom and dad pay for the food. The register is a great way to help them understand the concepts of addition and subtraction while exploring role playing. This register is complete with flashing lights and fun sounds.

The product I received for Miles and Zoe was the Addition/Subtraction Tables and the Multiplication magic tables. Zoe is really good at addition and subtraction and my husband told me he wanted me to help her get faster. When I showed him the tables we received from Reeves, he said yep that’s exactly what I wanted for them. It’s a simple fun keyboard they can push on to see the correct answer and they are so easy to take with us. I think we even took one on vacation with us. Zoe packed the bag and picked out what she wanted to take. She loves to learn.

The times tables are no problems for second and third graders with Multiplication Magic, a simpler, more engaging alternative to flash cards or timed tests.

Middle schoolers can even get involved with the fun with Geomag’s starter kits that combine fun construction play with the fundamentals of geometry, magnetism, and physics!

I would let both of my kids play with these guys. The Geomag’s bright magnetic rods and steel balls allow children to build complex models and geometric shapes. Plus you can explain the concepts of magnets the positive and negative attraction. When learning is fun it happens that much easier.

The cool thing about Geomag is that the magnets are fused into the rods, which are covered in plastic and are quite long – which means they pass ASTM and EN-71 testing standards. Plus, the whole range is for ages 5+, so the kids playing with it are much older. With Magnetix, the spherical balls were magnetic, which was a major cause of the problems if inhaled or swallowed.

LEGO “Make a Duck” kit: FIRST- An Educational Nonprofit @firstlegoleague

June 19, 2013 by Momstart Leave a Comment

I’m really impressed with our are and all of the low cost camps that are available to my children and our community. Through the YMCA and our city of Bothell we have quite a few camps including LEGO camp. These camps would help prepare you for a program I want to draw your attention to; FIRST.

More than 300,000 students around the globe participate in FIRST- an educational nonprofit that uses fast-paced robotics tournaments to get kids pumped about engineering and science! FIRST offers four programs; each one gets more complex as students work together to design and build custom robots and solve challenges. Watch this short informational video on FIRST LEGO League and FIRST as a whole.

You’ll also find a program called Jr. FIRST LEGO League. Students in this program work in teams to design and construct a model using LEGO bricks and moving parts. I received a starter kit from First. While the BuildToExpress kit I received is an optional component of the program, it’s a great “extra” which nicely ties in the core concepts that students will learn as part of the Jr.FLL experience:

· Team building

· Independent brainstorming

· Sharing ideas

· Listening to ideas

· Reflection

· Presentation

The BuildToExpress process builds upon skills that are developed throughout the Jr.FLL program:

· Students are presented with a Challenge;

· students will build and think; and

· students will share and listen.

My son wants to be a LEGO master when he grows up so this activity kit is perfect to get him started on challenges. What we do is we sit at the table and he has 10 minutes to come up with something. When he gets a little faster we’ll move to this real challenge.

This Challenge allows Jr.FLL team members to get to know a little bit more about each other, and to improve their skills with using the bricks and models for sharing.

· Build: Think of a time where you were doing something with your friends or family – how did you feel during this activity? Build a model that you can use to tell your teammates about this experience and how it made you feel.

· Building time: 5 minutes.

· Share: Share your model with your team. Explain what the elements in your model mean.

Other challenges:

BuildToExpress Challenge 2: This is a basic, warm-up building Challenge.

· Build: How was your mood when you got up this morning? Build a model that shows your mood when you got up this morning.

· Building time: 3 minutes.

· Share: Share your model with a partner. Explain what the elements in your model mean.

BuildToExpress Challenge 3: In this Challenge, participants are asked to think about the current Jr.FLL Challenge. The 2012/2013 Jr.FLL Challenge is called Super Seniors^SM, and asks students how we can improve the quality of life for seniors.

· Build: Think about the Jr.FLL challenge. In your mind, what is most interesting about the challenge? Build a model that shows what about the challenge you find most interesting.

· Building time: 3 minutes.

· Share: Share you model with your team. Explain what the elements in your model mean.

BuildToExpress Challenge 4: This is a basic, warm-up building Challenge.

· Build: Imagine that you and your team are a team of scientists working on a top secret project. Now, choose 10-15 minutes of your bricks and build something you think you and your top secret scientist team would need in your top secret work.

· Building time: 3 minutes.

· Share: Share the story of your model with your team.

We’ve always found LEGOS to be a very creative way for our kids to exercise spacial awareness and imaginative play because once they build it then they have characters and tell stories all about it.

Working Klutz Books into our Educational Curriculum #KlutzBooks

September 24, 2012 by Momstart 19 Comments

We’ve just recently decided to take Miles out of preschool and keep him home for this year which means, I’m teaching him at home. He’s already learned his ABC’s colors, numbers and shapes and it’s my job to makes sure he remembers all those things he learned and try to take him a step further. Plus I want to give him a lot of enriching experiences at home and Klutz books help me do just that.

As you may know, I recently became a Klutz Books Brand ambassador and they sent me six different books that I can use with both of my children and we already have two other boos in our Klutz library. I have a feeling we have another one somewhere but I couldn’t find it in the mess known as my son’s closet. I can over a wide assortment of subjects.

Math Science and Dexterity:

Gotcha Gadgets
Star Wars Folded Flyers
Fashion Forms

Art and Home Economics:

Spiral Draw
Nail Art
Marvelous Book of Magical Horses
Kids Cooking – We have been cooking out of the Kids Cooking cookbook for years now and it’s so much fun. Both of my children have such a love for helping in the kitchen and it includes clean up and I couldn’t be happier.

A Parent’s Perspective:

The thing I’ve noticed most about the kids’ experiences using the Klutz books is that they don’t realize they are learning anything. They are creating, using their imaginations, and retaining information through experience and fun. Plus each book or single activity in the book keeps them busy for about an hour, for Zoe, I think she could spend all day playing with the Magical Horses. I’ve always wanted to get her a set of paper dolls and now she has paper dolls and paper horses. Miles keeps asking a lot of question, and his dexterity has improved a great deal. I can tell because he can actually make really great cuts in the paper used to create the Star Wars Folded Flyers!

Enter to Win!!!! Wrap It Up With Klutz! Sweepstakes

Klutz launched their Wrap It Up with Klutz! Sweepstakes last week. They are giving away 1000 prizes over the next 10 weeks – 10 fans each week will win a prize pack featuring 10 Klutz Books!

What’s fun about the sweepstakes is you can enter once per week because the prizing changes out every Monday featuring new themes touching on the wide variety of titles Klutz has to offer – Science, Games, Classic Crafts, Holidays and more! The weekly sweeps start every Monday and fans can enter through November 26.

I’m a Klutz Brand Ambassador and received books to review, test out and share my results and will also be compensated for my time. This doesn’t affect my opinion of the brand at all because I’ve loved using Klutz for years!!!

Behind the Movie: Scholastic War Horse Teaching Guide

December 14, 2011 by Momstart 3 Comments

WAR HORSE is based on the young adult novel by Michael Morpurgo, first published in 1982. While the film is rated PG-13, it’s a great way to educate older children. I saw War Horse over a week ago and I really can’t wait to see it again. I found it very well made as it presented World War 1 to me in a way that it had never been presented to me before. Scholastic has created a War Horse Teaching Guide and I suggest that you check It out.

The First World War is experienced through the journey of this horse—an odyssey of joy and sorrow, passionate friendship and high adventure. “War Horse” is one of the great stories of friendship and war— a successful book, it was turned into a hugely successful international theatrical hit that is currently on Broadway. It now comes to screen in an epic adaptation by one of the great directors in film history.

You can download these worksheets at Scholastic War Horse.

Scholastic also created a children’s version of the story War Horse. It’s a very quick and easy read.

Teach My, Award Winning All-In-One Learning Kits For Babies, Toddlers & Preschoolers

June 2, 2011 by Momstart 281 Comments

When Zoe was born and I only had one child, I was really good at teaching her stuff. She new her letters at a very young age. We sang songs together and it was just easy to have that one on one time. With Miles, it’s been quite a challenge for me to sit down with him. My goal for this summer is to make sure that Miles knows his ABC’s and I wasn’t quite sure how to do it, because Zoe is also going to be home from preschool and every since preschool, she’s needed more stimulation when she’s at home. She always wants to go somewhere, and well I’m not up for doing something outside of the house every day. What am I going to do to entertain them and teach them at the same time???

This was about where my thought mentality was when Teach My contacted me and asked me to review their product.

Teach My, is an award winning all-in-one learning kit available for Baby, Toddlers, and Preschoolers. Teach My was founded in 2007 by Mompreneur, Christy Cook. Realizing that parents are the most important teachers, Christy scoured educational supply stores to find learning activities to educate her 18-month old son, Finn. Not finding an all-in-one kit, Christy aimed to make it easier and less expensive for parents, so she created Teach My Toddler, the award winning first and only all-in-one learning kit for toddlers. After the toddler kit was such a success, the baby and preschooler kit followed. I decided to skip the baby and toddler kits and jump straight into preschool activities. The Teach My Preschooler kit comes with four sections, Ready to Read, Ready to Print, Ready for 1-100, and Ready for Math.

Zoe already has already experience one year of preschool, she knows how to write most of her letters and is about at the stage of learning to read and write words. She already writes words if we give her all the letters, making the Ready to Print portion of the kit a good starting place for her.

In addition to making sure Miles knows his numbers I thought it would be good to introduce him to numbers. He jumped right into matching them and wanted to start learning his numbers beyond the first ten. With the Ready for 1-100 he will be able to learn quite a few numbers.

Each section contains coordinated learning activities. The innovative and creative teaching tools encourage preschool learning and school readiness. The consistent nature of the tools and supervised one-on-one time provides plenty of opportunity for repetition and focused learning. Children I’ve noticed in mine at least, have short attention spans, in order to maximize their learning time it’s recommended that you limit the learning period to 20 minutes a day. You can see, he quickly lost his attention and reverted to playing with the rubber band.

Enter to Win:

The kit of your choice: Teach My Baby, Teach My Preschooler or Teach My Toddler

To Enter:

Visit Teach My and tell me which of the kits would best fit your needs

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This giveaway ends June 20th. All rules can be found under giveaway rules.

The Dragon and the Turtle Children’s Book Review

January 28, 2011 by Momstart 3 Comments

By Summer:

I’m so blessed that both of my children – 4 years old and 18 months old – love to read. My sons have never met a book they don’t like, which is great for early literacy and preparation for school. My sons “read” books all the time alone just looking through the book and possibly (and hopefully) recalling the stories in their heads as they thumb through each page slowly.

A new addition to our library is The Dragon and the Turtle: Go On Safari, which is the second book about friends Roger and Padraig in what looks to be the beginning of a series of adventures. My sons, especially the 4 year old, are into dragons so this was one of the main draws for them to read this book. In this adventure of the Dragon and the Turtle, they are camping out in a surprise location where they keep coming in contact with the rarest of beasts in their natural habitat. Together they learn there really isn’t anything to be afraid of on their camping experience, especially if they’re together. The book claims to help children with their fears, but I don’t think the book really addresses this topic, not in text or picture; I had a lot of explaining to do throughout the book about the imaginary animals they were creating by combining animals such as a raccoon and an elephant.

In The Dragon and the Turtle: Go On Safari the pictures are colorful and eye catching for both parents and kids alike. However, I did find, as the reader, that the text seemed more British than American English; for my kids it didn’t seem to draw them out of the story though I did have to concentrate more on my reading as this makes it difficult for me to become captivated. I also feel many of the concepts on the book are unspoken and I had to tell my sons what was happening instead of the story explaining it, even through suggestion.

I do like that the authors have taken plain, old story telling to the next level. At the end of the book they have an interaction page where parents are encouraged to make the story real to the child through real life questions and occurrences. However, this is only scratching the surface for how children can become braver and overcome fear. On the Dragon and Turtle website you can expand your child’s adventures with games, crafts, coloring, mazes, and puzzles; and your adventures as you expand your child’s learning.

You can currently find The Dragon and the Turtle: Go On Safari on Amazon.com for about $9 plus free shipping with Amazon Prime. Also check out the original adventure, The Dragon and the Turtle. You can also purchase these fine titles at Barnes and Noble and Christianbook.com^*.

* Though this book seems to claim to be a Christian book the only reference to God, Christianity, or the Bible is a verse on the back cover, Deuteronomy 31:6.

The Dragon and the Turtle: Go On Safari book was supplied to me by WaterBrook Press in order to write this review.

About Summer:

Summer is the President of our Local MOMS Club chapter, she is the mother of two adorable active boys, and is always thinking of ways to help others. She is a friend, a wife, and always busy as all mommies are. She is very active on Facebook, addicted to Geocaching and very interested in organic and green living.

Your Baby Can Read Review and #giveaway

September 20, 2009 by Momstart 535 Comments

We were sent the introduction kit of your baby can read. It came with a DVD for the kids to watch and instructional DVD for me to watch and flash cards and a book. I’ve been quite impressed with the quality of the book and flash cards because the kids have been playing with them unsupervised.

I’ve been too busy to sit down with them and work with them for the amount of time every day that the program really requires to work. I do believe it works though, especially after reading all of the material and seeing the charts and graphs about what to expect on word recognition verses actual reading and how it increases exponentially starting around age three.

Your Baby Can Read introduces words using pictures. In a way, it’s just backwards memorization. You see the word and have to remember what the picture looks like. So the word is no longer abstract. They can see all the letters. So the symbols come together in their brain.

parents Thinking back on blogging while moving into a new house, I should have taken a break. That way I would have more time to dedicate to doing reviews, but right now I have to spend so much time unpacking and cleaning everything that I’m really not sitting down with my kids and teaching them. They are learning but I know my little sponges could learn how to read if I would follow all of the instructions that were provided in the DVD. And if I would read more to them. I don’t think once a day is enough and that’s about all I’m doing right now. Read to your children that’s what I need to do and you should to. The props that you get from these Your Baby Can Read sets are pretty cool though. It’s just memorization but isn’t that all learning is sometimes.

About Dr. Titzer

Recognized expert, infant researcher Dr. Robert C. Titzer, Ph.D., has a grand vision of making the world a better place by allowing children greater opportunities and successes throughout life by developing reading skills earlier.

A professor and teacher for over 15 years, Dr. Titzer has extensively researched infant learning and development. After teaching in the public school system, Dr. Titzer went on to complete his Masters degree at Pennsylvania State University, and a Ph.D. in Human Performance at Indiana University, where he developed this revolutionary early learning approach with his own infant children.

His research on reading during infant and toddler years captured the interest of educators, researchers, parents, government agencies, and the media worldwide. Dr. Titzer’s research has been published in scientific journals, including the prestigious Psychological Review.

Enter to Win:

Your baby Can Read Starter Kit. The kit includes the Parents’ Guide, Early Learning Workshop DVD, Starter DVD, Learn to Read Word Cards (with 1 wipe-clean word card, and 1 erasable non-toxic pen), and the Starter Book.

To Enter

Visit Your Baby Can Read and tell me something from their FAQ page.

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Vote for me for 5 extra entries

Non-bloggers get an extra entry for every e-mail they send out linking to this giveaway cc louise@looksblue.com (be sure to leave a comment for every person you e-mail, for example if you e-mail 10 different people leave 10 different comments)

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