Where Do Baby Animals Come From? (And Baby People Too.)

Since I just got this book at the Heartland Regional and since I just email a friend a description of it two days before that, I thought it should be my next Book Note.

This is a new book in the Pipkin series. It’s very appropriate for kids. In the book Pipkin wants to know where baby animals come from.

He finds out some come from eggs and some from the mommy’s tummy. He asks his parents, a seal friend, a whale, baby turtles, and a little boy. It has a poster in the back you can hang on the wall. It tells the names of babies, like seals are pups and lions are cubs. It also goes through the life cycle of a frog and butterfly.

The book is a pretty good size, just over 10″ by 10″. It’s a hardback with squishy embroidered/shiny lettering/snowflakes on the cover. It is by Anna Milborne and illustrated by Serena Riglietti.

Shopping Open House, 9/22/12

On Saturday, Sept 22nd (Bilbo’s and Frodo’s Birthday) I’ll be at the BATAVIA BUNCO FOR BREAST CANCER’s shopping event. I will be one of 17 vendors participating in the event. Vendors donate either a portion of the sales or product to be part of a raffle at the Bunco event in October. Please come out and support the fight again breast cancer!

Heartland Regional, 9-15-2012

I had a great time at the Heartland Regional yesterday.

Everyone got a prize and mine was Where Do Baby Animals Come From? Written by Anna Milbourne and illustrated by Serena Riglietti.

I thought I would share the things from my notes that stand out to me:

– Team growth provides stability for difficult times when you can’t do as much or need a lot of flexibility. Like when you are taking care a family member who is dying so they don’t have to go into a nursing home.

– EDC (the US publisher of Usborne books and Kane Miller) is a Debt Free publicly traded company.

– I should have a plan for where I want to be in 5 yrs (10 yrs, 20 yrs) with Usborne and life!

– This isn’t so much something I learned, but thought was funny. However, I did learn what an infographic is.

– I decided I should set up a Facebook page, but not let it take over my business “time” and I really need to schedule my work time so Usborne doesn’t take over. I should keep work time only as work time.

– If I do a door prize, have people fill it out during four different parts during the party. How do you get people to wait was always my question before. Now I know! Highlight each section in a different color.

– I don’t want to be pushy, so how do I recruit for people who could really use this opportunity? I know listening is the key and thinking “How can Usborne help this person meet their needs?” I already knew this. One thing that helped was what one lady said: “Don’t shove information down the person’s throat. If I think she can do this, tell her! Let her know you will help her and train her.” Sometimes, she wants to do it, but isn’t sure she can.

– Instead of offering a free book to anyone who brings an uninvited guest to a home show, offer to pay tax. If she doesn’t order, I’m not out anything! And I’ll offer to pay the guest’s shipping. If they both order one book, I come out ahead instead of behind if I had given a $10 book.

– I really liked the “7 Keys to Comprehension” session. I’m going to turn it into a separate post, so stay tuned!

School and Library Catalog Gift Idea

I became an Education Consultant on August 1, 2012. I intended to visit the schools I am going to be serving shortly before school started. However, my husband ended up needing surgery and that plan had to be delayed.

He is recovering well now and is cleared to go back to work on Monday! I was frustrated that I wasn’t able to schedule any parties, but I can now see it was God’s blessing as I have not had the time or energy to put on a show.

That being said, I was able to go to two schools on Tue to drop off catalogs, along with a few other things made into a fun gift. I had always wanted to make these flower pens, so this was my chance!

I also made some with chalk flowers to go along with the Usborne Chalk-It-Up Mug, which you cannot buy in stores. If you would like one but are not a librarian, I’m sure we can work out a deal, provided you live in the US.

The Flowers are the Usborne Colors. It was pretty hard to find green! Orange wasn’t too bad, the season being fall certainly helped! The Lily is a Sharpie, and the mini Carnation is 1/2 a chalk stick, I like this solution for the broken pieces.

Here they are, all ready to make the drive to my listed schools!

M Caught Learning

I caught M reading the workbook I’m using as part of his kindergarten curriculum.

I really love this workbook! It does a great job of using pictures to teach kids how to draw letters, the sound each letter makes, how the letters are put together to form words, and then checks their understanding of the words they just formed. It does this all with fun pictures, activities, and stickers!

The front cover shows how it easily incorporate the S into a picture which boys will enjoy. All of the letters have fun pictures. The “a” is half an apple, the “i” is the legs of insects, and “p” is the tail and body of a parrot.

The Phonics Workbook teaches a lot more than just how to make letters, it also teaches the sounds and how to put words together. There are also tidbits of information hidden throughout the workbook, for example, insects have six legs, frogs use their sticky tongues to grab and eat insects, and what a saucepan is.

In teaching the sound of the letter “d”, children have a page of dinosaurs at the beach and they are told to find two dinosaurs dancing, a Dino diving into the deep blue sea, three dinosaurs having a delicious dinner, a Dino dentist, and a Dino detective making a discovery. The workbook then asks if the children can find any more things beginning with the letter d.

The book also is great at helping the kids see the use of these letters. The first four letters are “s”,”a”,”t”, and “p”. Before the book teaches any more letters, it puts these together into sat, pat, and tap. On the same two page spread, the child has to choose which picture(out of three) goes with sat, which picture (three new pictures) goes with pat, and the same for tap to ensure the child understood the lesson.

Last Box of My Incentive Period

My last shipment from my 12 week incentive period came the other day. Look what was on the outside of the box! Randall White, Usborne Books & More’s President and CEO, packed the box!

This is the inside box:

DemiBooks Book App – Story Time

The Story Time app is an interactive book app. This is a new app and has added several books since I downloaded it, so I’m sure there are many more coming! One of my favorites, Hush Little Beachcomber is on Story Time. Usborne Books & More has partnered with DemiBooks to make these books available.

While the app is free, most books are available at a reduced price from their printed counterparts. Personally, I like to have the printed copy and then use the DemiBook as a supplement, but that’s just me. If you enter my Consultant ID (s3692) when you download the app (after, you can in the settings), each month you will get a FREE DemiBook!

The Church Mouse

Usborne is having a back-to-school sale right now. One of the 30% off books is The Church Mouse. This is such a sweet story. I have to admit, I don’t remember ever reading it before. The author and illustrator, Graham Oakley, is one of the UK’s best -loved children’s illustrators. And The Church Mouse is popular in the UK, although not as well know here in the the US.

I loved how Sampson, the church cat, listened to so many sermons about God blessing the meek that he wanted to be meek himself. I also loved that he had so much brotherly love, just as humans are to love those around us, even when they are so mean to us.

I also like the school mouse with all his funny sayings and misquotes. Misquoting some famous sayings, he says some nasty things about Sampson at the sad low point in the story. Later in the story, Sampson doesn’t want to do what the school mouse suggests and mumbles, “Wolves in potted sheep’s feathers aren’t very good at climbing the backs of chairs.” But when Arthur repeats the idea, he obliges. Sampson by himself cannot reach the church bells to ring for help when a burglar tries to get out of the carpet. The theater mouse has this idea:

How does the burglar get rolled up in the carpet? Will help come? Will Sampson and the mice reconcile? You’ll have to read The Church Mouse to find out!

Josh and Katie’s Surprise!

My friends are bringing home their new baby boy! I’m so excited for them! Most of my sales commission from my first month with Usborne went to their adoption fund, and now two months later, they are bringing home Titus. This was a surprise adoption! You can read all about it on Katie’s Blog. They need to raise more money to cover the costs of adopting Titus. Take a look at this post from April, the matching grant is over, but, you can make a tax deductible donation HERE.