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(** Article first published as Book Review: The ABC's of Homeschooling by Laura Ann Huber on Blogcritics.)

I really appreciates more materials (whether books, apps etc) that relates to educational topics. So when I received an email pitch from the author of this book and upon checking out further info on this book, I decided I must review this! So here goes my review for the "The ABC's of Homeschooling" book:

Title:  The ABC's of Homeschooling
Author: Laura Ann Huber
Publisher: Laura Huber an imprint of Telemachus Press, LLC (November 24, 2011)
ISBN-13/-10:  978-1937387914 / 1937387917
Paperback:  130 pages
Dimension:  8.5 x 5.5 x 0.3 inches

Description from the product page:
" The ABC’s of Home Schooling is an alphabet book with a twist. It is a guide for parents – not their children. Each letter is assigned a basic principle necessary to educating your kids at home with confidence and success. Incorporated with gentle life lessons and quotes from Aristotle to Einstein parents will learn how to bring out their child’s God – given gifts and natural talents in a cozy, comfortable, and orderly atmosphere.

E – teaches parents the importance of being a shining EXAMPLE at all times.
D – examines ideas for getting your children to help with household DUTIES.
U – states the usefulness of UN-SCHOOLING yourself to become a better teacher.
C – prepares the way of order by learning how to: COMBINE, CONDENSE, and CONTAIN.
A – reminds us that a good ATTITUDE and AUTHORITY will carry the day.
T – tells of the gift of TECHNOLOGY and how to use it to your advantage.
I – will enhance the IMAGINATION of you and your children.
O – is the leverage you need for overcoming OBSTACLES.
N – will show how easy NESTING makes learning, and ensure proper NUTRITION for you and your child."

Firstly, I love guide books like this! It explains to you from A to Z on what you need to know if you are contemplating your journey into homeschooling and I would have to say this book helped me understand more as well.

I received this book a few hours before we left for our short weekend family trip up north and I decided to bring it along so I can read it in the car when our kids nap (and yes, they did for 2 hours!) The book is not too thick and just at the right size to be easily carried around (I slot it into my diaper bag during my family trip)

When I read about Laura's experience and methods in using TV and other children's bad behaviour to teach her children about the importance of good behaviour, I can't help but to agree completely, as I use the same methods. 

For example, sometimes I need my mother-in-law to watch my kids for a while when I need to rush some accounting and invoicing for my hubby and if it is night time, she will definitely be watching TV in the living room. When I see them watching fight scenes (like a policeman fighting with robbers), I will explain to my boy that he must not get into fights like these people, and I will also explain the consequences of doing bad things, which lead to police catching and putting the bad guys into prison.

Of course, some of you might think too much TV is no good for children. Yes, everything in moderation. I have cut down TV and iPad time for Ben (currently TV only during mealtimes and after 6pm, sometimes no TV during daytime too)

It doesn't mean that everything is bad, we as parents must know how to make use of the opportunity to teach our child. There are times I even use scenes from TV shows to remind my boy not to misbehave or to maintain his cool and I can clearly see him thinking back (mind running hyper speed, no doubt!) before he nods his head in agreement and understanding.

I also appreciated the brief history on how schooling came about.

I love some of the key points shared by the author, such as "W=We The People" (page 103). As I wrote in a post in early September,  Ben threw a tantrum in Sunday school, and a friend suggested we send Ben to a preschool or kindergarten so that he could learn discipline and not easily throw tantrums. I would like to take this opportunity to explain that my boy does not throw tantrums without a reason and I do trust that being a 3.5-year-old, his actions were justified though yes, I do believe my boy needs to learn to control his tantrum outburst (but then again... he's just 3.5?!)

So anyway, what about social skills for my child? When I read this book, I couldn't help but agree as well that things weren't like this long, long ago. I feel children need to mix with people of all ages, not just with the same age group. My 13-month-old girl learns everything by observing her surroundings, her brother, my hubby and I, her grandma, her cousins, through our Bible action songs video on TV and people around us. Every moment she is learning things. Iif she is placed with children of the same age as her, what can she learn? Think about it...

I do appreciate the inspiring quotes that comes with every keypoint and the author's personal experience and her sharing of her childhood memories. Reminds me of my own childhood memories too!

One thing that I would like to recommend is to include some illustrations in this book as I personally feel all text and explanations will not keep my attention for long. I need books with pictures so I can rest a bit from reading too much text.

Another observation I noted (which I have also highlighted to the author as well) is one of the websites she suggested, pbskids.com, cannot be found. I can only see pbskids.org Turns out it is a typo, which the author said she will be rectifying.

In summary, this is a must-have book if you are contemplating homeschooling or having doubts whether you are going the right path in your homeschooling journey.

HIGHLY recommended!

You can get this book from Amazon.

I am so excited to be able to hold this giveaway for my lucky blog followers and readers! THREE of you lucky people are going to win a copy of this awesome book! And it is open for worldwide entries! Now, let's read below for the giveaway terms and conditions OK?

To enter the giveaway, kindly read and follow the instructions as stated in the Rafflecopter form below.

• You can enter either via login through your Facebook account or just key in your name and your valid email address.
  
• Please also leave your valid email address in the post comment so that I can contact you if you win this giveaway.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with a copy of the book in order to facilitate my review. All opinions expressed in this post are my own. Please do your own research when purchasing products, as your opinions may differ from mine. And if you'd like to read my previous book reviews, you can do so by reading this post of mine called "My Book Reviews"

Few months ago, I shared about my latest online hobby of buying baby food and snacks via iHerb. In this post, I'll be sharing what I got for my 3rd order hehehe...

Now if you plan to purchase from the website, do copy my coupon code below to use for your first purchase, I repeat, ONLY FOR FIRST PURCHASE! You can get up to USD10 off your first iHerb order!

My coupon code is: FOZ116

Please note that I get 4% commission from your 1st purchase and there are further commission range when the people you referred to with your own unique code started buying from iHerb too, so you save, I save, everybody save, yay!

What you need to take note when you order from iHerb are:
- Make sure your total items are below 1.8kg so that you can choose the cheapest shipping methods (USD4)
- Choose the most worth it to buy items if it is your first purchase since you can only use the referal code ONCE for your first purchase
- Don't forget to select a freebie item from the website as well (you get 1 freebie for each order)

Do feel free to ask me if you have any questions with regards to purchasing from iHerb.com! Will try to share my feedback if I can! I'll be adding my product review feedback on my iHerb.com page at: http://www.iherb.com/mypage/imafulltimemummy

I mentioned before I always have the weirdest and luckiest luck ever! Or  maybe the Twitter fairy is being kind to me again! Anyway, I stumbled upon this tweet message by Zippy Suits looking for bloggers to review their products and when they replied saying they are OK with international bloggers, I immediately got down to choosing the design I wanted for my girl and provided my mailing address details to them. It is a nice coincidence as well that the Zippy Suit arrived a few days before we were due to leave for our short family getaway. So here goes my review!

Description from the product page:
"Founder of Zippy Suits and mum to two very active children, Nicole Graham got so frustrated trying to match up poppers whilst her daughter wriggled around that in desperation she ended up making a sleepsuit with a zip instead. Research showed many other parents would want to buy such a suit and so Zippy Suits were carefully developed to meet this need and we are proud that Zippy Suits are now helping families worldwide experience less stressful baby changing. As well as making life somewhat easier, Zippy Suits, with their matching dribble bibs, look great on and are super-soft on baby's skin. Click here to see the range."

To be honest, I realised the size I stated (12-18 months) was a tad too big for my 13 years old girl. I totally did not realised us Asian babies are quite small in size. So anyway, I decided to go ahead to review this and see how it turns out. I chose the Starry
Night design in Hot Pink and I honestly think this design is uber cute and I love the colors! Really eye catching and cute! 

The Zippy Suit looks like any normal rompers (or some call it body suit) except they don't come with poppers at the bottom. Instead you get a zip all the way from one side of the foot all the way to the other foot. Creative! I was also secretly wishing that after washing the Zippy Suit, it might somehow shrink a wee bit (as mentioned in the recommendation on the packaging) but I don't noticed any obvious size change after the washing and drying. Sigh, why did I choose this size!

As mentioned earlier, the Zippy Suit arrived few days before we leave for our short weekend family getaway and I was excited to try it out despite the big sizes for my girl. Pictures taken below show my girl wearing the Zippy Suit. I would have to say she would totally rock this suit if it is smaller in size (Arghhhh! My bad!!!)

The Zippy Suit is OK on her if she is not moving much, like when I was breastfeeding her or while she lies down on the bed. But once she started crawling around on the floor (she's learning to walk by the way but most of the time still crawls around), the Zippy Suit starts to bunch up and she gets slowed down and I had to pull back the feet part and loosen up the suit on her.

In summary, seriously, this is a pretty creative product that a parent with a wriggling tot would totally appreciate during diaper or cloth changing time as you don't have to be stressed out trying to push the popper buttons while trying to hold down your child so that they can remain as still as they possibly can. What you need to do is just zip, zip, zip, all the way!

You can browse for more designs and sizes at http://www.zippysuit.com/ 

I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with the product by Zippy Suits in order to facilitate my review. All opinions expressed in this post are my own. Please do your own research when purchasing products, as your opinions may differ from mine.