Amazing Geography & Art Project to Discuss Landforms! Perfect for Families or Classrooms!

Do you and your children like learning about world geography and art? 

Are you looking for a neat long term project related to landforms for either your home or classroom?

Well, today's post has some great ideas for you if you are doing just that!

Our family has been exploring landforms in the scope of homeschooling.
We are always adding to our learning by integrating additional projects into our geography studies.
Since the boys love art projects, we have been adding more art into our day-to-day, based on the boys' interests as well as current topics we are studying.

For any of you discussing landforms with your children, here is an awesome art & geography project courtesy of Crayola that highlights landforms:

Source: crayola.com via Colleen on Pinterest

What is fun is that Crayola has a lesson plan that is all mapped out so if you are a parent and want to do this as a family weekend project, or if you are a homeschool family who would like to do this as part of the homeschool week, or if you are in the classroom as a teacher or guide, you can take the lesson plan that they give and tweak it for your needs while your children make a fabulous display that could work well as a wall hanging or bulletin board. The lesson lays out all of the supplies you would need to make this project happen, although you could easily switch up the art supplies depending on what you have in your home or classroom...

Disney FamilyFun also has a great felt landscape banner project that would work very well with little ones. What is nice about the Disney FamilyFun project is that it has printable pages of the felt pieces that you would need to make, so that a child can use these as templates to cut out their felt pieces.
 Also neat is that in addition to just having the landscape, the banner also features some of the animals and plants from that biome:

Source: familyfun.go.com via Colleen on Pinterest

The shapes and the concept of the Disney FamilyFun banner look a little more simplistic than the one from Crayola. Might even be neat to integrate the two projects from both Crayola and Disney FamilyFun into one big project!


Our family plan is to make this and tweak the materials a bit, instead of paper, we intend to use felt.
We are big fans of felt here! Think that most of the paper pieces for this project could easily be made with felt instead of paper.

As far as background materials to cover the concepts of landforms, we have some wonderful materials from Laughing Star Montessori that have helped to lay a solid foundation for the boys.
From handwriting materials to three and four part card sets, we have been so happy with their materials. We are very blessed to have a wonderful relationship with Laughing Star Montessori.
Every Laughing Star Montessori material we have either been given to review or we have purchased has been an instant favorite with the boys!
Susan, owner of Laughing Star Montessori,  has made such wonderful materials for children in early elementary, ages 3-6, as well as children in elementary, ages 6-9.

If you are a new Montessori guide, you should consider building all of your card materials around what Susan has to offer and purchasing the lovely materials from her for your classroom needs.
The laminated cards Susan has are simply amazing! They are unmatched in the Montessori materials industry! They would last you and your students a lifetime, as they are so durable.

What makes Susan's materials stand out from the rest is that she gets it that non-Montessori trained folks also might want to incorporate Montessori-inspired learning into their day-to-day, whether they are homeschool parents, parents of a child attending a traditional school, or a classroom teachers in a traditional school.
Laughing Star Montessori card materials come with a wonderful sheet that explains how to present these cards, as well as the actual idea for the lesson and for lesson extensions.
If you are thinking that you would like to explore how to integrate a Montessori approach into your home or traditional classroom but are not sure of where to start, using her lovely materials will be an excellent introduction to what can be possible with Montessori-inspired learning.
Her cards give such wonderful background information, along with fabulous photos of the images for each card.

My sons simply love using materials made by Laughing Star Montessori!

For those of you, who like our family, might be studying landforms, here are some terrific sets from Laughing Star Montessori to get you started:

World Land & Water Set - Elementary*
(*There is also an Early Elementary version of this work for little ones):

Source: laughingstarmontessori.com via Colleen on Pinterest

Here is a super set for Cave Formations for Elementary:

Source: laughingstarmontessori.com via Colleen on Pinterest

We have the Cave Formations Set and just love it!
It is one of Big Bro's favorite works!

Here is Big Bro enjoying exploring Cave Formations!  So cool to learn about caves and caverns!!!

Laughing Star Montessori also has a great handwriting series. The Beautiful Handwriting Series: World Geography Masters is perfect for the study of landforms! We have this book and it is great!
You can get it in cursive, print, or d'Nealian. Here is a photo of our cover of this book:

The Laughing Star Montessori Beautiful Handwriting Geography Masters helps to give a young child a solid grasp of geography vocabulary. We have this book and use it pretty regularly.

Having excellent card materials and handwriting materials will be a solid way to get your children the background information that they need to get landforms, although it could work to do the art project and then, drive home what has been created with Montessori-inspired shelf work based on the card and handwriting materials.

You could either make the landforms art project first and then, explore the Montessori-inspired cards or you could do what our family is doing: use the Montessori card sets first and then, make the landforms banner...

Either way would work...just have to do what works best for you and your children...

Well, hope that this will inspire you and your children to want to do a cool long term project to drive home the concept of landforms.

We will probably do bits and pieces of our felt landforms project over the course of the year, but from time to time, will upload some photos of our work in progress.Will probably add the photos to my Pinterest Felt Projects Pinboard.

If you have not joined Pinterest yet, you should! It is awesome!!!

Do your children enjoy integrating art into their daily learning?

How has it worked for you to integrate geography and art? 

If you have done any neat projects related to landforms or geography in general and you would like to share, please leave a link in the comments section of this post!

Speaking of hands-on learning and family fun, have you checked out our family's entry in the DIY Crash Me Please contest???

Hope that you will take a few minutes to see our entry and to please leave a comment. We are hoping that DIY will select us to make over our back yard and lanai into an amazing outdoor classroom and play area...we want to go from Snake Pit to Sanctuary!!! Please pop by and tell us what you think of the boys' ideas for an outdoor classroom and play area!

Full Disclosure: 
As a family, we review materials for Laughing Star Montessori, in addition to being a paying customer of the business. Opinions expressed in this post are my own honest opinion of the materials and the projects mentioned in the post. Was not expressly asked to highlight Laughing Star Montessori, Crayola, Disney FamilyFun, Pinterest, or DIY but am happy to do so!

Recent Works Selected by the Boys

The boys have chosen a variety of works lately so thought that I would share a few with you...

Both boys have been selecting Learning Palettes for the last few days.
We have these for grades 1-3 for both language arts and math. Let me tell you, the boys just love to use their Learning Palettes!
Learning Palettes are great, in that they focus on a particular skill set at a time, are colorful and interesting to use, have a built in control of error, and are a self checking - self correcting work.
The math ones in particular are great, in that they correlate with the NCTM standards for math. We also like the reading ones, in that the skills covered are similar to how Montessori covers reading and language with children.

Big Bro has been having fun learning about caves and caverns. He has been working with the Caves and Caverns Elementary Work Pack by Laughing Star Montessori, a material that we were sent to review. He has enjoyed not only learning the terms and seeing the photos that tie in with caves and caverns, but also, playing the Who or What Am I? game that goes along with this work.
What a great pack of Montessori inspired materials!
So interesting and very challenging to boot!
This work goes way beyond stalactites and stalagmites.
Big Bro loves this work!!!

A work that has been a keen interest of both boys is the Road Trip USA Animal Unit from Confessions of a Homeschooler. They have enjoyed matching the animals to the cards, finding the various states on the map, and researching animals that are new to them since doing this work.
They have done some of the work together, some in tandem, and some separately.
Thanks so much to Confessions of a Homeschooler for this lovely work!
My boys really have gotten so much out of it! It continues to be a family favorite in our home.

Little Bro has been also selecting to do a fun twist on language objects work. One variation  / extension to his regular Montessori inspired language work is a work made by Lakeshore Learning called Mystery Word Builders. The work features round balls that can be opened by the child. Inside each colorful ball, there is a language object, along with foam letters that spell out the name of the object. There is a control of error built into this work, in that there are only the exact letters that a child needs to spell the word, but then, in addition, the actual word is spelled on one of the two halves of the interior of the ball for the child to be able to self-check.
Even though we have a huge tub of language objects, and many different Montessori-inspired language works, this twist from Lakeshore Learning seems to be a favorite with Little Bro.
He loves the colorful balls, how they look and feel.
Plus, it adds another element of interest to be able to shake the balls first and to guess what might be inside of them...

Big Bro has been selecting to work on his cursive. He has been using a wonderful wooden movable alphabet set of cursive letters from Alison's Montessori.
He chose to have this set in dark green so he practices writing his cursive words in dark green pencil or marker.
Big Bro enters them into a dark green notebook.
So very like Big Bro, as everything goes together so well!
In addition to the cursive practice with the movable alphabet from Alison's Montessori, he also has been enjoying doing work from Laughing Star Montessori's Beautiful Handwriting Series.
The work he creates from these books turns out so nicely!
The Laughing Star Montessori Beautiful Handwriting Series has really helped to improve Big Bro's handwriting.

We also updated Little Bro's bedroom recently, as he had outgrown some of the decor from his original room. He wanted to have a dinosaur theme room, so we switched things around and voila! Dinosaurs galore! One of the things in his room now is an activity table where he can play with dinosaurs. We have a nice collection of plastic dinosaur figurines.
Several of his dinosaurs are from the Safari Ltd. Carnegie Collection. They are attractively hand painted, interesting, and detailed. Little Bro loves to play with these dinosaur figures in his room. He also has enjoyed reading about dinosaurs, so we have been doing just that, for pleasure reading, bedtime stories, and as homeschool reading too.

Last but not least, since the temps have been slightly cooler than normal, the boys have spent a great deal of time at the park playing, riding bikes, checking out insects and other interesting critters, and climbing trees. What a great way to take in the sunshine and to enjoy the cooler temperatures!

Here are some photos of the work and play times here in our home:

Little Bro doing his language work, Mystery Word Builders from Lakeshore Learning.

Big Bro doing Road Trip USA Animals Unit from Confessions of a Homeschooler.

Here, the boys chose to work together on the Road Trip USA Animals Unit ...they worked hard and matched up all of the animal cards!

Little Bro is working hard by himself on Road Trip USA Animals Unit here...

Little Bro is having fun using his Learning Palette for this math work. Big Bro also loves doing his work using Learning Palettes. He uses the ones for older children. It is so nice that Learning Palettes are for a wide range of ages, for both language arts and math!

Big Bro is working on his Caves and Caverns Elementary Work from Laughing Star Montessori. Such a cool work!!! He absolutely loves this work!

Little Bro's new dinosaur table in his newly re-decorated dinosaur themed room. Some of the neat dinosaurs are part of the Safari Ltd. Carnegie Collection. How he loves this activity table! What fun!

This is one of the black line masters books from Laughing Star Montessori's Beautiful Handwriting Series. Such a neat collection of works for children to practice their writing! Big Bro is enjoying learning how to do cursive!

This is the map showing the Continents of the World. This is the page that Big Bro decided he wanted to practice for the day! Very highly motivating program for handwriting! Thanks to Susan from Laughing Star Montessori for creating this super series!

Fun in the cooler temps! Great days for climbing trees, playing outside at the park, and riding bikes! Yay!

What have you been doing in your homeschool or classroom? 

We would love to hear what you are doing!

Please feel free to leave a link if you wish to share what you are doing for early October work in your room.

Full Disclosure: 
We were given a set of the Caves and Caverns Cards Elementary Pack by Laughing Star Montessori for the purpose of reviewing it and using it in our homeschool. We were given some of the Beautiful Handwriting Series blackline masters books from Laughing Star Montessori, although in addition to what was given to us for the purchase of review, we also have been very happy customers of Laughing Star Montessori and their materials. 
The Road Trip USA Animals Unit is available as a free download from Confessions of a Homeschooler.  
To download this work, please visit the Confessions of a Homeschooler blog directly. 
Our family purchased all of the following materials:
Learning Palettes for both math and language arts, 
Mystery Word Builders activity from Lakeshore Learning, 
the cursive movable alphabet from Alison's Montessori, 
the activity table and all dinosaur accessories and decor featured in Little Bro's room.
We did receive some of the Safari Ltd. Carnegie Collection Dinosaurs as part of an arrangement for me doing an earlier project for Safari Ltd. and those are featured in the photo of Little Bro's room.
All opinions expressed in this post are my own. 
My boys thoroughly enjoyed all of the materials that were mentioned in this post, regardless of whether the products were given to us or whether we paid for the materials ourselves.

Tuning Out to Tune In...Plus a Little Discount Code To Boot!

For those of my blog readers and Twitter followers who noticed that I have been M.I.A. for the last week or two, hope that all is well with all of you!

Things are well here too...I have not been under the weather, but actually, the opposite...have been very productive at focusing on my family and also getting things ready for our new school year!

Decided that in order to really accomplish things here on the home front, that I would have to tune out a little from all social media in order to tune in and focus on the needs of my household and most importantly, those living in my household...my sons and my Dear Hubby.

Dear Hubby has had to spend time out of town for training so the time that he has been gone, the original plan was that that would be a perfect time to get things done around the house, but the boys and I decided instead to take some time to just have a relaxing time together.

One of the highlights of our many unplugged days was going to a park area near my parents' home, watching the boys play on the playground and then, taking a walk along the nearby trail, followed by the boys going around the town square jumping in every single puddle that they came across, as long as there weren't people around who would have gotten soaked from their splashes!
It was truly one of the most fun, most joy filled days I have spent in a long time!!!
The boys had an absolute blast and so did I!

Well, following the hiatus in actually getting errands done and accomplishing projects around the house, we all came back to our home and then, it just seemed like a good time to get moving with the overhaul of the boys' bedrooms, and the playroom / classroom.
So, while Dear Hubby took the boys out and about each day over the last week, I went into over drive and plowed through the job at hand and got things ready for our upcoming school year.
We were able to give some items to some friends who have a little one and that felt great to be able to give them some of the boys' favs from their toddler days.
Then, we took four bags and a huge cardboard box filled with things to Goodwill.
Had some great items in there so hopefully, they will go to good homes too.

Well, am getting slowly back into the groove of social media.
Have not looked up my Klout Scores or my Grader scores, as I am sure that my hiatus from all social media will make my numbers with them take a nose dive. Was up at 61 on Klout and was at 95 on Grader and no doubt have fallen from their grace, as their algorithms don't know that life happens and sometimes, spending time watching your sons ride their bikes or splash in puddles or organizing homeschool materials or donating to a worthy cause means that there is not time left in the day or night to Tweet or write a blog post...not that I have not been lacking for things to say or comments that have wondered through my head while doing all of this though...

Happened to catch a couple of seconds of Octomom on The Today Show, and surprisingly, I handled it way, way better than when I first heard her tale...when the news originally broke about Octomom, I was trying to get over my  miscarriage
I was in the throws of depression from losing the baby and then, happened to hear and see all of the coverage about Ocotomom and was so totally devastated and really questioned the fairness of the Universe that this woman would bring eight more babies into the world with no real plan on how to care or provide for them and yet, if our baby would have survived, it would have had such a nice life here with us. We would have loved for Little Sis, our baby that did not get to spend time on Earth getting to know her brothers. We wished like anything that our Brynne Elizabeth could have been chosen to spend more time on Earth with us...but that was not meant to be...
During a momentary lapse of trying to commit to being unplugged, I caught a few seconds of seeing her on with Ann Curry.
It did not bring me to tears this time, as enough time has passed that I was not feeling like I did when the news first broke.
She certainly has her hands full and so do her older children who act like the responsible ones in the situation as they were the ones running after their little sibs trying to keep them out of harm's way...

The good thing is that this couple seconds of slipping up with my vow to be unplugged helped me to realize that life may not be fair, but it is what you do about your own life, your own day-to-day that matters most to your own children:

My sons were so totally thrilled when we spent the day literally playing in the rain.
To them, that was more important than any of the other things going on in the world...

So, sometimes, tuning out for a bit of time to be able to tune in towards your children and to really enjoy their company is key...other times, tuning out from social media to get jobs done around the home is the way to go...the last little bit of tuning out is for Dear Hubby and I to tune out to the world around us so that we can re-focus on each other and our relationship.
We have a strong marriage and love each other very much, but half of the time, we are far too tired to really enjoy each others company.
Yesterday was supposed to be the start of tuning in to each other.
We went to IKEA and dropped the boys off at Smalland, their playroom / babysitting area, for a whole 45 minutes. We have done this a few times before and normally, it gives us 45 minutes to enjoy each others company and to sit and have a little snack.
But yesterday, we had eaten prior to coming to IKEA so having a snack did not seem like an option...so we started to loop around, but Dear Hubby was so tired that he wanted to find a place to sit...he initially found a chair on a display and plunked down on that but it made me nervous to have him sitting on a display piece of furniture, so instead, we made our way down to the loading area of the store and voila! What do we see but two leather couches! Yay!!!

We sat down on one together. I had given some thought to each of us having our own sofa, but figured that we should keep some room in case people who were waiting for their orders to be filled would have a place to sit and wait. We sat and talked for a few seconds and then, it was lights out for Dear Hubby...he was sawing some serious logs!!!

As we were sitting there, at first, it did not bother me and was almost funny, as he had pretended to have a conversation with an IKEA employee about how folks can't fall asleep at IKEA and how he then would say to the young employee, Go get your manager...
Is he married? Yes? Does he have children? Yes? Since he is and he does, then your manager will know why I need a nap and want to sleep here at IKEA!!!

So I realized that Dear Hubby had mulled over whether or not he should actually fall asleep, but the sofas were comfy enough that he could not resist and fell sound asleep.

Along came a college couple who plunked themselves down across from us, all perky and happy and very touchy feel-y as they sat and enjoyed their hot dogs and cinnamon buns together...picture Disney's Lady and the Tramp sharing where the pups sit and share a plate of spaghetti only insert two happy, very involved with each other 20 somethings...giggling, sharing their morsels of IKEA cafe specialties together...

Oh, but the romantic moment was interrupted by the rather frequent, loud, and rhythmic snoring of Dear Hubby.

At one point, I finally felt the need to share with them:
My husband is exhausted as we have two young sons who have kept us super busy and we have also been doing all kinds of house projects , plus he had to travel for training, so this is what a tired daddy look like on a Sunday!

I shared this story with my buddy this morning and her comment was something along the lines of,
What great birth control for this young couple! 
They'll probably think about abstaining for a bit when they see how tired y'all  looked!!!
(So true, Honey, so true...) 

But really, enjoying things like sharing a hot dog or a cinnamon bun and looking very in love is what we all should strive to be, right? Dear Hubby and I do enjoy each others company but like was so blatantly obvious yesterday is that we are a little overly tired to really have that vim and vigor you do early on in a relationship...we need to work on getting that back though, so again, will still take a little more tuning out from social media time to be able to tune in to my wonderful hubby. 

Life is a work in progress and striking the right balance is so key...I really do love blogging and tweeting, and even on occasion, find it fun to catch up with folks on Facebook, and doing blog giveaways and Twitter parties can also be fun at times, but then, sometimes, there is a greater need calling me to spend time with my family and that is what matters most at the end of the day...

So hope that you will all understand that from time to time, I might take a break from doing regular blogging and tweeting and that it is probably because I am working hard at creating priceless memories with my boys and hubby, looking for some puddles to jump in or for a snack to share!!!

Happy Monday, Everyone!!!

On a happy side note: A nice little discount code for you from Laughing Star Montessori.
Susan is offering a discount to my readers and friends...


If you are trying to get ready for the upcoming school year and wish to order some lovely Montessori items, please pop by Laughing Star Montessori and use the code Sunrise in your order to get a discount from Susan. She and her son, Will, approved this code for my readers so please be sure to use it and also feel free to share this code with your blog readers or with your co-ops. A few people tried to use the code this morning and the system said it was expired, but I received the email from Susan this morning, so hopefully, they have the code working this afternoon...if you do not see a discount showing up, then you may want to call her 513-683-5682 or else email her.


We love all of the materials we have either purchased or have reviewed for Laughing Star Montessori!

The Awesome, The Good, the Bad, The Ugly: Customer Service 101

Saturday night, right before we were putting the boys to bed, I happened to see a Tweet by
Ted Rubin:   @TedRubin 

When a shopper refers 2 "my store," she means a merchant who knows her tastes & suggests products she loves.

As I was laying there trying to get the boys to fall asleep, it kept coming back through my head, as Ted hit the nail on the head with this one...

True not only for stores, but also for restaurants, salons, and anything that really involved customer service. So I tweeted back to Ted, mentioning that this is true for not only stores but for salons, restaurants, etc. and that people like to feel special. Ted agreed, tweeting back "Yes"!

Well, it really got me thinking about how earlier on Saturday, I had driven twenty-five minutes to have my hair done at an Aveda-affiliated salon by my favorite hair stylist at Sage Salon & Spa...
Stacy does a fab job with cutting my hair, but also, she makes the visit fun and makes her customers feel special...she remembers her clients when they come in, asking them how things are going with them. Stacy remembers minute details from previous visits. She also keeps track of the color(s) and cut(s) she has done for me in the past. Could go to loads of salons that are closer, but I choose to go to her, as just like the "my store" idea, this is "my salon"...

Then, thought about where I go for coffee several times a week. There are four Starbucks that are reasonably close to my home but generally, I choose to go to a particular one that is inside of our Super Target store: Target #1382 / Starbucks #72660. The workers there are awesome! Some of them know my name, my boys' names, what we generally order, and so on. Ashley, one of the baristas, even asks the boys about what they are studying in our homeschool! She is friendly and really gives customers the sense that she cares how you are doing and how your day is going.
All of the baristas at the Starbucks inside the Super Target store are polite, kind, and make you feel happy that you chose to come to them for your cup o' Joe.
I asked them who trains them and was told by Allyson, one of the nice people that works at this Starbucks, that they get training both by Target and Starbucks.
Kathy who is the manager there also indicated that they get a great deal of training and mentioned Vincent Cook from Starbucks and Richard Jablonski from Target.
Not sure exactly how the combination of training works, but boy, is it effective!

Let me tell you, it is a winning combination of training.

A real role model for others!

What makes it interesting to go there is that you see people that are pleasantly surprised at first that these baristas remember their customers like they do...they say hello and in many cases, get your drink started as you wait in line. I happened to get to speak with the two baristas and the manager there, but they are all fabulous and truly seem to enjoy their work.

Then, enter the realm of the homeschool market. There is a huge spread of how companies treat homeschool families.
Some companies really cater to homeschool families. They get that a family does not need 12 or 16 of something. They get that a family does not need to hear why children should be in a real school for the purposes of socialization. They get that families do not want a lecture about leaving certain such things to professionals. These stellar companies also get that there are many, many reasons for homeschooling children.
Some awesome companies take business from the homeschool market just as seriously as if it was a school system purchasing these items. They get to know their base of homeschool customers on a much more personal basis.
One that is awesome at getting homeschoolers and making them feel special:
Karen at A Montessori Marketplace. Karen does all that she can to practically bend over backwards to be helpful to their customers. She is so personable, professional, and kind. Much, although not all, of her business is from homeschoolers.
If you are on Twitter or Facebook, be sure to follow @yiayiamama (Karen Tyler on FB).
She treats you like family when you call, is extraordinarily helpful, and goes out of her way to help you with getting the materials your family needs at a very reasonable price.
Karen returns phone calls and emails, and in general, she make the experience of dealing with them a nice one.
Cannot say enough positive things about Karen!
She attended the #montecamp Twitter party, even though Karen's hometown was under a tornado warning. Karen still attended all that she could before and after the warning.

How's that for dedication??? 

She added to the fun feel of the #montecamp Twitter party. They helped to welcome everyone like greeters do when you go to church. Really was nice of her to do that...
If she had an actual storefront, A Montessori Marketplace would be on "my store" list...but even though she doesn't  have actual storefronts, I still feel that she is "my store", albeit online.

It is Karen's birthday today, so if you pop by her website or check her out on Twitter, be sure to wish her a happy birthday!!!

Then, there are some wonderful companies that do not specifically cater to the homeschool market, but totally get homeschool families and have tons of super products that work great within the framework of homeschooling.
There are two standouts that would also be on "my store"or "my company" list...
These companies are truly top notch with their customer service and their product lines, namely:
Melissa & Doug and Safari Ltd.
Our family has purchased many products from both of these awesome companies.
Generally, we purchase their products through local stores that carry their products, but since it is such a pleasure to deal with these companies, for future purchases, I would consider buying straight from them instead of through local stores that carry their products. Either way, I feel like they are "my companies"...I will always have brand loyalty to them for how both how personal and how personable they are.
We love their product lines but we also love how they treat their customers!
What has really made these two companies leap off the pages is getting to know them via Twitter and Facebook.
If you are on Twitter or are on Facebook, and sign to follow or like these companies, you will start to see messages that they direct to you. You feel like they know you and get you. They are very personable on Twitter and Facebook. It is no wonder that MelissaAndDoug has a FB giveaway going on set up to celebrate each time they reach a new milestone of 1,000 more customers, along with a prize for everyone when they reach 100,000. Melissa & Doug give out prizes for these milestones, but really, they care about each and every one of their followers along the way to their goal of 100,000. If you decide to follow them, please tell them that I sent you if readin this made you go check out them on FB.
It is not just one or two people at Melissa & Doug, it is the whole company's ethos / mantra / etc. to treat people in such a personable way. I have interacted with Melissa, Christine, MJ, Chris, and Doris and literally every single one of these people are as nice as the next person at Melissa & Doug! They all seem to actually enjoy their jobs and are committed  to helping those who connect with their company.

Have no doubt whatsoever that Melissa & Doug will reach their 100,000 followers goal, because anyone who has children or anyone who likes to buy presents for children would want to follow Melissa & Doug if they would know what I know about their company...how they are so genuine, so hard working, so caring, so passionate about providing quality products for little ones, the list goes on and on...but then, the icing on the cake is that they call you by name and take the time to get to know you personally when you get to know them on Twitter and Facebook.

Melissa & Doug and Safari Ltd. truly get the concept of social media and see the value in making connections with people through social media. Both companies get a great deal of business from homeschool families, as in many cases, both Melissa & Doug and Safari Ltd have excellent quality items that are more affordable than some of their competitors' products, plus then, phenomenal customer service on top of well-priced items just makes them shine.

Had the pleasure of working with both of these companies in the course of doing the #montecamp giveaway. They returned phone calls and emails, they agreed to ship out prize packs to the winners, and then, they sent Tweets of support before, during, and after the Twitter party.

If someone wants to see how to do social media right so that their followers feel special, follow Melissa & Doug and Safari Ltd., as they not only get it...they are setting the bar for others to get it...

Not-so-social companies should take note of how to be personable on Twitter, Facebook, but also via phone and email from these two leaders... 

Whatever these Melissa & Doug and Safari Ltd.  are doing in terms of customer service and social media, it is working very well...

When I was so nervous about doing my first Twitter party, Wendy and Norma @SafariLtd sent some very kind reassuring DM tweets and emails to me and then, did public replies saying how excited they were about the party.

Both Safari Ltd. and Melissa & Doug knew that we were going out of town and so lo and behold, Safari Ltd. mailed their package of beautiful figures and great lesson plans for our family out right before we left for our trip and Melissa & Doug actually sent something fun and fab to us while we were at our hotel.

How's that for awesome???

During the Twitter party, right when I was super focused on keeping track of my Tweets so as to not end up in "Twitter jail" as well as the order of the trivia questions I had prepared with a list of winners as they answered the trivia questions, along pops up @MelissaAndDoug, interjecting some fun questions about kids jokes and folks' plans for the weekend. @Melissa & Doug had a wonderful #montecamp Twitter party presence.

It totally made the #montecamp Twitter party relaxed and happy! 


Am starting to get to know Larry from Shiller Math and Leanne from My Personalized Print.
Am also getting to know Luke and the crew from Sonlight.

These three seem to care for their customer base as well, and seem to get the homeschool market too...
Larry and Leanne both were very quick to ship out lovely materials to our family.

Similar to Melissa & Doug, Safari Ltd., A Montessori Marketplace, and Montessori Print Shop, the items that Shiller Math and My Personalized Print sent us were of high quality and design.
On a follow-up call with Leanne from My Personalized Print about the giveaway and #montecamp Twitter party prize winners, we got into talking about education as a whole, about how her mom is a teacher and how I used to be a classroom teacher...things that might not directly relate with place mats but that do relate to building rapport with a customer and product reviewer.
My Personalized Print plans to come out with a whole line of personalized products, so if I need an item that I would like to have personalized either for my boys or for friends or family, they will be "my company" for these items.

Not all companies give off the sentiment that they want to be your go-to company, believe me, especially when you are a homeschool family. 

Whether it is how they treat you via Facebook, Twitter, via email, phone,  or in person, when you are in their store or at their booth at a conference, some companies do not care for homeschoolers.

They are the antithesis of the "my store" concept that Ted Tweeted about...they don't make you feel special, they instead make you feel awkward and try to out you for homeschooling or that you are a charity case, that you are not truly "a paying customer"...

I have worked with companies in the capacity of doing reviews and giveaways, as well as in the capacity of being their actual customer. Mostly the experiences have been quite positive, but some...Well, hmm...so it has been a mix of the good, the bad, and the ugly...

A few years back, I attended a conference that was not directed at homeschoolers but that was education related and actually brought the boys to the vendors hall to see the products for sale, as we were just getting into homeschooling.
We paid for the conference and paid to use the facilities at the hotel. We came as a family so it was not a small undertaking. I turned out to be the only homeschool mom at this entire conference, even though it had been publicized that homeschool families were most welcome. Unlike the majority of people at the conference, we paid for the conference ourselves. It was not a cost picked up for us like the majority of the education-related folks who were there.
Dear Hubby and I wanted the boys to help select some of the wonderful materials that were on display from this conference, as we value their input about their learning. So we had decided, in advance, that we would spend several hundreds of dollars to buy materials at the conference from these vendors, as long as we felt that they were items we would love to have in our homeschool...

The Good
One company at this conference who stood out as being kind and personable was Laughing Star Montessori. Susan, who owns the company, asked my children how they enjoyed their work, and then, as we were perusing the materials, she showed us some of her materials and actually showed them directly to my sons and to me, as she gets that we intentionally had brought our sons in to be a part of the selection process. We ordered several materials from Susan that day.
Our purchases from her on that day have been extraordinarily useful to the boys throughout the last two years of homeschooling.
What also was super nice is that Susan heard the boys talk about how we were going to go on a Carribean cruise shortly thereafter...she sent us away with a fabulous free gift, an awesome set of cards all about Sea Life in the Carribean!
We bought several of her products but that day was also the start of forming a great relationship with Susan and subsequently her son, Will, from Laughing Star Montessori.
Susan has yet to dive into social media but she has a great family run company, truly connects with her customers, and is a wonderful person with fantastic resources for homeschoolers.
Some of her items include: woodworking books, a whole unit study on Antarctica, complete with a handcrafted knobbed puzzle of Antarctica, and really unique copywork type books to have a child work on his or her handwriting.

The Bad
On the flip side of our great connection with Susan at this conference, there was a company there who had just nice things, but such lousy interpersonal skills, that it was a total turnoff...
This company's representative also happened to be the owner. This person initially was happy to see that my sons were engaged in looking at the company's wares.
This business owner showed the boys different items but this was all the while this person assumed that my children attended a "real school". As soon as this person realized that my sons were homeschooled, the tune changed and comments started about how this or that item was designed specifically for in-class use, by trained professionals...(never mind that I am a trained professional and that if things were different, I had fully planned to open my own private Montessori-inspired preschool back when we lived in Virginia. Never mind that we have very strong reasons for homechooling and that at the moment, it is really our only viable option...)
This business owner went from wanting to feature my sons in their advertising (yes, my little boys are quite cute) to this person suggesting that I look elsewhere, as these items were intended for classroom use...

If anyone has ever seen the movie, Pretty Woman, there is a scene where the lead character of the movie, Julia Roberts, walks into a very high-end boutique sort of store. She is completely looked down upon by the store owners and treated very poorly, to say the least.

Well, unfortunately, sometimes, when you homeschool your children, people give you that same sort of disgusted look, the look that makes it clear that they do not want you to even consider purchasing their items or perusing their store...or even ordering from them online...

The Ugly
Have had several very notable reactions that fall under this category...the one at the conference to start, plus a few others...
One was stands out as the most "ugly" of interactions...
Occurred a couple years ago at a home party where a person had made up and was selling their own line of organic cleaning products. Had been invited by an acquaintance to attend this home party.
Mind you, this acquaintance knew we homeschooled our sons and she actually was contemplating homeschooling hers as well...
I had fully intended to not only purchase several of the organic cleaning products, and was actually all set to provide free word of mouth and actual advertising on my blog for this person, as I thought it was neat that she was a start-up business and made her own product line. The creator of the organic products line was reasonably friendly but when she found out that my family homeschooled our sons, she turned into a completely different person, and went off on a tirade about how it is just horrible that a family would homeschool their children, and extra awful that I would do it, considering that I was a former classroom teacher. She said it was akin to a doctor operating on themselves or their family. This woman said  something along the lines of
In absolutely no circumstances would a doctor ever, ever operate on themselves nor on family members, and to boot, that a doctor would never be okay with having others who claim to be in the field who assist with such a thing...that to do such a thing, even in the most dire of circumstances, would be in violation of the Hippocratic Oath.
What made all of this so incredibly ironic was that it was right around the time when Dr. Jerri Nielson Fitzgerald had passed away. 

Dr. Jerri Nielson Fitzgerald had diagnosed herself (as having breast cancer) when she was the only doctor working at the National Science Foundation's Amundsen-Scott Station in 1999.
The station was cut off from the world due to severe weather, so Dr Nielson was forced to treat herself using a machinist and a welder, and anti-cancer drugs which were delivered to her in a dangerous US Air Force air drop.
She also trained a small group of non-medical colleagues to help with her treatment and followed the advice of doctors via satellite link. Source: ABC News. Here is a link to the full story.

Dr. Jerry Nielson Fitzgerald did not die because she had to do her own procedures or because she had to use non-medical colleagues to assist her. She lived for another ten years after the procedure had been completed. Dr. Jerry Nielson Fitzgerald did the best that she could with the circumstances she had been given.

In many respects, that is why some, including us, do homeschool: due to specific circumstances, it is the best we can do at a particular time. Our family does not homeschool to be different, we are doing it because it is the best we can do for our sons under our own particular circumstances. We might not be stranded in Antarctica, but we certainly have had hings thrown at us that make it the only viable option for an excellent education for our children.

Have not checked to see if this person's organic cleaning products business is still in existence, but would suspect that it is not, as there are many, many fine homeschooling families who would be totally turned off if they happened to be present at a home party where this woman would most likely again launch into her feelings of total resentment and hostility towards homeschoolers. 

Making connections is what people generally want from a business. People who are potential customers or potential partners for promotions, giveaways, and reviews want to feel like the company gets you, know you, and believes in you. 

With social media taking off like it is doing, some companies better start to take a BIG CLUE from the companies doing things right, or the ones who do not will inevitably fail.

People do not like doing business with companies who treat them in a less than stellar way.

Hope that someone reads this and will reflect upon how they treat their customers, how personal and personable they are, and how they make their customers feel welcome.

Well, that's it for today...

Disclaimer: 
Was not asked to do this blog post, nor was I endorsed for it. I have been a customer of all of the companies I have mentioned, have reviewed some materials from some of the companies I have mentioned, and have worked in the capacity of Twitter party hostess and giveaway partner for some of them as well.
Wrote this blog post based upon my personal reflection of Ted Rubin's Tweet that subsequently got me to think about my own personal experiences with different companies and the ones that treat you special versus the ones who do not...
The opinions expressed herein are my own.

World Reptiles: Cool Work from Laughing Star Montessori

Recently, the boys and I had the privilege of reviewing two versions of wonderful Montessori inspired work: World Reptiles  - Early Childhood Version and World Reptiles - Elementary Version.
Laughing Star Montessori created these lovely cards and the work that goes with them.
Worked out great, as Little Bro completed the Early Childhood Version and Big Bro did the Elementary Version.
For the first Early Childhood Presentation, the child is shown the cards and then, does a choosing and naming activity.
We then sang the Continents Song we sing here:

North America

South America 

Asia...Africa...

Antarctica

Australia

and Europe!

Little Bro laid out the continents label cards in the order from our song, from left to right on top of his rug. He then sorted the cards based on their continent labels. He then did his best to read the names of each animal from his cards. I helped him with some of the animal names.
As an extension to his work, he selected his favorite one from all of the cards. He drew a picture of it and then, did some completed the sentence about where his favorite animal was from by writing the word Africa.

For the Elementary Version, Big Bro had a great time learning various facts about reptiles from around the globe.
First, he sorted the cards by continent. Then he read the cards independently, and then, later in the morning, he shared the information on the cards with Little Bro. Both of the boys loved sitting together and learning facts about the reptiles.
As an extension, Laughing Star Montessori suggests that an elementary child could pick a card and draw it in their journal or on paper. Big Bro did this extension and enjoyed doing it!

Our family really found these cards to be interesting, well done, and informative. We liked that the work was already differentiated for younger and older children, as many times, I have to work to make Montessori work more challenging for Big Bro...this time, the work was done for me!
Would highly encourage you to check out Laughing Star Montessori's collection of World Animals work. We really enjoyed these cards and think you will too!
Here are some photos of the boys doing their World Reptiles work:

Disclaimer: We were given pdfs of both of the version of this World Reptiles work. In exchange, we agreed to provide an honest review of the products. The opinions expressed in this post are genuine. We really found this work to be enjoyable and educational and were glad to have the opportunity to review it!

Whole Lotta Love Giveaway - Neat Farm Themed Fun!

This farm themed giveaway is pretty awesome, if you ask me...

The lucky winner will receive a variety of farm themed items that will be perfect for a classroom or for homeschool use. Many of the items in this giveaway are Montessori inspired materials, and since many of my readers use Montessori materials in their homeschools or in their classrooms, think that there will be loads of interest in this giveaway...
So, what is included...well, a set of lovely farm themed three part cards from Laughing Star Montessori, a set of farm themed works for shelf work, a miniature felt farm with small farm animals, a farm themed picture book, and an app for either an iPhone or an iPad of a farm themed book from Pic Pocket Books.

We had the chance to review several fabulous farm themed iPhone picture book apps featuring the character Tractor Mac by Billy Steers. These stories are just great! The boys just loved these stories and have listened to them again and again...
 What makes Pic Pocket books a real stand out is that they have a nice variety of children's book titles and have titles in both English and Spanish. So, if you are trying to teach your child either English or Spanish and you want to have them listen to a fluent person reading a lovely story in their native tongue, these books are great! Our boys have been learning both French and Spanish but I am not a native speaker of either language, so any opportunity for them to hear a story told by a native speaker is a huge plus!!!

What makes them special is that in addition to the adorable illustrations, the story is read to your child in a lovely narration voice, pls it is interactive for your child, as your child can touch the animals throughout the book to hear the sounds that they make. If they touch Tractor Mac, they get to hear the sound of a tractor engine. Really clever way to make it more interactive and fun for children. Both sons loved these iPhone picture book apps, along with a few others that I will be reviewing in the next few days...
We had the pleasure of reviewing both the farm three part cards from Laughing Star Montessori  and the Tractor Mac iPhone app books from Pic Pocket Books and let me tell you, they were a hit with the boys!
 The farm cards from Laughing Star Montessori include a label, a picture card, and the control of error - picture with label card, but then, in addition, the set also includes a factual sentence about each animal.

 

Laughing Star Montessori cards that you purchase from them as cards come with rounded corners on all of the cards. If you purchase a laminated set from Laughing Star Montessori, it comes to you with an amazingly durable, thick laminate. These cards would last for years and years...but what makes it nice is that for homeschool or smaller classroom use, Laughing Star is now starting to offer some of their materials as pdf downloads that you can laminate or else run on card stock and skip the laminating, if say you only have one or two children who are going to use the cards. So nice that they give you options for purchasing...

These additional sentence cards are a real plus to this farm work, as it adds another level of complexity to the work. 

This makes the work more challenging for an early reader.
It also makes something for an older one to share reading to a younger one.
Having this extra little sentence to go with each animal really expands what you can do with these cards in a Montessori inspired homeschool or classroom.
We just really enjoy these farm cards from Laughing Star Montessori
In addition to the farm three part cards,  Laughing Star Montessori has other tie ins for your Montessori inspired farm work.
These additional items include:
Barnyard Bingo
and Farm Story Writing Masters.
We had reviewed Farm Story Writing Masters a few months ago and both boys did a wonderful job with improving their writing, as well as learning some neat farm animal facts, with these writing masters.
Here is a link to the review I wrote about the Farm Story Writing Masters a while ago...
They are very cost effective, as you can purchase them as pdfs in either Cursive, D'Nealian, or Print.
Well, hope that you are as excited as I am for you about this awesome farm themed giveaway!

WHOLE LOTTA LOVE GIVEAWAY - FARM THEME PRIZE PACK:

UPDATE: 

The winner of this Farm theme giveaway, as chosen by Random.Org is Comment #8, Lindsi.

Congrats to Lindsi. 

Lindsi Commented: Hoping to win!Lindsi Archabald larchabald@roadrunner.com Great site!! 

This giveaway started 2/15/11 and ended  2/16/11 

This giveaway has ended, therefore the giveaway info. has been removed and the comments have been removed. 

All comments on this post are now closed.

Disclaimer: I was given a set of Farm Cards from Laughing Star Montessori, as well as some iPhone apps from Pic Pocket Books.

Originally, our family had purchased some materials from Laughing Star and that is how I struck up a relationship of doing reviews for Laughing Star Montessori. My review I have given of all of their materials is honest and reflects how well these materials have worked for our family in the scope of Montessori inspired homeschooling.
As for Pic Pocket Books, initially I had won a few books from them and then, had contacted Pic Pocket Books directly to see if they would like me to review any of their other titles. 
Since they had mentioned the Tractor Mac books, I was very happy to have my sons review these. 
Our family has thoroughly enjoyed these iPhone picture book apps and the opinions I have expressed are genuinely my thoughts about their neat products.

Review, Part 2: World Classification Photo Cards by Laughing Star Montessori

We were so fortunate to receive three items from Laughing Star Montessori from their World Classification Photo Cards Series. With this series, you receive a pdf that contains cards that are meant to be cut out and laminated, as well as a directions cards. The directions card for each one of the pdfs received was great, in that it laid out how you could use the cards.

Our family was already familiar with their World Classifications Cards Series, as we had purchased the wonderful Caribbean Sea Life Cards and the all of the World Animals Black line Masters at last year's Montessori conference in Sarasota, so we already knew how nice their cards and masters are before even trying out these cool pdfs. 
We love what we had purchased from them last year and were just thrilled to get to try out their pdfs. We actually took the Caribbean Sea Life Cards with us when we went on our Caribbean cruise and will do this again when we go back to the Caribbean in the future. Was so nice for the boys to be able to identify many of the Caribbean sea creatures, largely due to using these cards and doing this work.



World Transportation - Elementary
This pdf included a directions card plus fifteen land vehicles, fifteen air vehicles, and fifteen water vehicles photo cards per continent, as well as land, air and water label cards.
The photos on the cards are great. The variety and interesting attention to detail makes this transportation work enticing to an elementary aged student, as we quickly found out with Big Bro.

Even though this work is geared for Elementary, both boys enjoyed the cards. Big Bro did them as a work as suggested by Laughing Star...
Little Bro had fun using the cards as sorting cards for land / air / water transportation.
Both boys also had a great time playing a version of I Spy, where they had to look for vehicles similar to the ones on the cards while we were on vacation.

World Reptiles - Primary
This included a directions card plus eight cards per continent with the label of each reptile underneath the photo of the animal (It includes seven reptiles per continent, plus one Montessori color coded Continent card per Continent.). Little Bro used these cards and enjoyed working with them. He learned a great deal about reptiles using these cards.


World Reptiles - Elementary
This included a directions card plus eight cards per continent with a two to three sentence description of each reptile underneath the animal. The descriptions present interesting facts to the child, but also could be used either for discussion during group time or else, as sentences for copy work, if the cards are being used in a homeschool setting that uses copy work in conjunction with Montessori presentations. Big Bro loved these cards!
He also used the sentences on the cards for grammar work. Big Bro copied the sentences from the cards onto paper and then, used the grammar symbols to do the grammar work.

By having both the Primary and the Elementary cards, I was able to compare the two sets of cards. It is nice for a younger child to just be given the name of the animal, but then, it works great for an older child to have more factual information on each card. Really makes the lesson presentations and the accompanying Montessori work very age appropriate, although you can use the older cards with younger children and have that work pretty well, too. It all depends on if you want to be able to use the cards for the purposes of naming the animals or for being able to learn some neat facts to accompany the names.  
Again, highly encourage you to check out  Laughing Star Montessori. They have terrific materials for both the classroom and homeschool,  including their newest offer of high quality,   affordable pdfs, as well as free downloads for you to try.

There are also some things that would work great as holiday gift items, especially the two woodworking books, Children Can Build! and Children Can Build More! 

Laughing Star Montessori also offers a free newsletter you can sign up for that will keep you up-to-date about any special offers they have. they also offer free shipping in the continental U.S. only.  

Full disclosure: 
 Our family was given six free pdfs to try in exchange for an honest, thorough review of their materials. 

The feedback is my honest perception as to how my sons enjoyed using these materials, how effective these materials were at presenting concepts, and the quality of the materials we were given.