A Giveaway

I just wanted to let you know that I am hosting a giveaway on my other blog, The Happy Wife. Head on over and check it out. The prize is a Fiber One yogurt meal pack like the one shown below.



Bonus entry: If you are a subscriber or a public follower of Homeschool Unit Studies, leave a comment saying so on the contest post and I will give you an extra entry.

Things I have Found

So, I know I have not posted anything in a while. I am working on getting some units together, but I wanted to share some contests I have found that have prizes I think would be great for homeschoolers.

Frugal Mommy of 2 Girls has 2 giveaways I thought you would like. The first is a set of silicone letter trays from the Spoon Sisters. These trays allow you to freeze, cook, or refrigerate in them, creating letters out of ice, Jell-O or cookies. The other giveaway at Frugal Mommy of 2 Girls is for 1 3-month subscription to Little Passports. This is a program where each month your child receives a package in the mail from "Sam" and "Sofia". Sam and Sofia travel around the world and each month they include a letter telling about where they are, some "souvenirs" from that country and a password to get online and play some games and activities. You can see some sample packages on their website.

Over at The Giveaway blog, they have a 69-piece Crazy Fort from Crazy Forts. This is like a giant Tinkertoy set of 25 solid, plastic balls and 44 sticks that the kids put together and then put blankets/sheets over to create a custom fort.

Centsable Momma has the 4th of 4 Crayola Creativity Packs that she is giving away. The pack includes markers, colored pencils, crayons and all sorts of Crayola goodies that homeschoolers love.

Bellaziza's favorite things is giving away a Springfree Trampoline. I am not a trampoline person as I feel they are so dangerous, but this one has eliminated many of the dangers of traditional trampolines. Watch the video on the company's website and you can see for yourself.

There are so many more giveaways out there in Blogland and because this is "Back to school" season, many have school-related prizes. Entering blog giveaways are great because you have much greater chances of winning. I have been blessed to win several blog giveaways in the past year and every time a prize arrives, it is exhilarating for me and the kids. I hope you will enter these ones and if you win, please leave a comment.

Free e-cards and free Printable cards

I am always looking for fun e-cards to send to loved ones and quite often, when I need a “real” paper card, I end up looking online for one I can print at the last minute before running out the door. Even with these “needs”, I have not been able to justify the cost of joining one of the online card companies. I guess I am just too cheap, plus I am not one who likes to give all my personal information to a website in order to print or send a card.

Then it happened, I discovered a new website called Got-free-ecards where they offerFree ecards and Free Printable Cards. Imagine how thrilled I was when Free ecards and momdot decided to sponsor a Jump Start Your Blog Contest and all I had to do was blog about this great website I had already found. So here it is, my review of this fun, new site.

Aside from Free Birthday Ecards, Got-free-ecards offers a wide variety of e-cards including love, sorry, miss you, friendship, thank you and congratulations, as well as seasonal holiday cards. The cards are cute and family friendly. You can even add your own photo and voice to the card.

For those times when you find yourself needing a paper card, they also offer Free Printable Cards in the same categories as the e-cards. You can also create your own cards with your uploaded pictures and their template (there is also an e-card using this option). They also have color your own printable cards like the one below that would be great for including in homeschool lessons.


The best part of all is that it is all FREE, no strings attached. No forms to fill out at all, not even your name or e-mail address. There is an optional spot to enter comments, but it is just that, optional. There is also no advertising on the site, so I can truly say these are free cards.

I know that I will be sending lots of these cards as birthdays approach and I am sure to print many as well. I am also looking forward to using some of the color-your-own cards as special projects for the kids. I hope you all enjoy this site as much as I do. Let me know what you think.

Disclosure: I just want to repeat that I am participating in the Jump Start Your Blog Contest” sponsored by got-free-ecards and momdot.

eBeanstalk

Things are still settling here, but I am on track to begin regular postings again June 1st. In the meantime, I wanted to share a website I have come across, eBeanstalk. Here is what they have to say:

Ebeanstalk is dedicated to a baby's development. And we select the best baby toys matched to a baby's development. To see great information on how a baby grows up, check out the info on our baby toys page.

Picking toys for a baby is not as simple as it sounds. Here are some quick baby facts:

• Toys for a newborn baby: A newborn baby is briefly looking at objects and attempting to imitate facial expressions. They can follow objects with their eyes and usually quiet down, when they are picked up.


• Toys for a three month old: They will enjoy ‘frolic play', reaching for objects and will repeat enjoyable activities. Believe it or not, they will respond to ‘no' (about half the time) and will start babbling.


• Toys for a six month old: They'll search for hidden objects (object permanence). They'll reach for themselves in the mirror, play peekaboo, crumple paper, roll from their stomach to their back and even respond to their name.


• Toys for a nine month old: They are pushing toy cars, playing pat-a-cake and looking for hidden sounds. The baby toys they are playing with are also getting more fun.

They are also offering a 15% discount on any first purchase at ebeanstalk. Just enter code TGS345 at the shopping cart.

My absence

As you have probably noticed, I have not been blogging for a while. It is a long story, but it boils down to several moves and the lack of opportunity to blog, along with a few periods of illness. We spent several months living with other families in two different houses, but I am happy to announce that we bought our OWN house on April 21st and we are back to just "us" (me, hubby and kids). Now, we just need to unpack and get settled and I will feel life is back to "normal".

Due to unpacking, my blogging will still liely be sporadic, but I have a goal to blog at least 3-4 times a week on my daily blogs and once a week on my "sporadic" blogs. Also, I have thought a lot over the past several months as to what I really want to blog about and how often, so there is likely to be many changes over the next several weeks and months. I have ideas for new blogs and ideas for my existing blogs.

I apologize for my absence and lack of regularity over the past several months. I am so grateful to all of you and I promise that in the future any extended absences will be announced and I will try to get guest writers for when I am gone.

Math Monday: Dental Care

In honor of Febraury being Children's Dental Health Month, we will be studying dental care this week.

Counting/Arithmetic
- Count how many teeth are in your mouth. How many are on top? How many on the bottom? Add the two numbers together.

- SoftSchool.com has a neat way to include math and vocabulary.


Graphing
- Interview your friends and young family members to find out how many of their baby teeth have fallen out so far. Make a bar chart to show your results. You could also do this by asking people what their favorite flavor of toothpaste is.

- Keep a tally chart of how many times you can brush your teeth with one tube of tooth paste. Start the chart when you open a new tube of tooth paste and make one tally each time you brush your teeth.

- Create a chart to remind you to brush twice a day and floss once. Be sure to fill in your chart as you do each thing.

Help requested

I am not sure what is going on with this particular blog. My stats were reading fairly high for a while. I then tried to do something to the blog and all of sudden my stats are sayng there are only 0-1 visitors each day. If you are reading this could you help me by answering a few questions? I will not post responses unless you ask me to. Here are my questions:

1)Did I mess something up with how the "hits" are being recorded and you are still here and reading when I post or have you stopped coming to read? If you are reading less regularly, did I do something to offend you or are you just not interested in the topics I am posted or something else?

2)What topics would you like to see covered in the coming weeks/months?

3)How can I improve this blog to help you more?

I appreciate any help you can offer. I enjoy this blog and enjoy putting together the units, but I also want to be sure you are being helped by it. I am still dealing with some health issues so my blogging is still sporadic, but I am working on that as best I can. Thank you for your continued support.