Little Learning Lovies "Bugs in the Garden" Lovie Packs Review and Giveaway

I was recently made aware of a neat company called Little Learning Lovies started by a homeschool mom of 4 girls who keep her "creatively inspired."

(This post contains my affiliate link.)

She has created some wonderful activities for all sorts of different themes (and is open to suggestions for others). These themes have printables for several different subjects, including math, alphabet and grammar. I love her selection of Clip Cards, Games and Sorting Activities. For math you will find activities to help learn number recognition, counting, skip counting, even/odd numbers, adding, subtracting, multiplication, division, patterns, time, graphing and place value. You will also find games and activities to help with literacy, such as: recognizing the alphabet, distinguishing between upper and lower case, phonics, sight words, parts of speech, sentence building, syllables, contractions, spelling, step books for reading and extension activities for books. Whew! There is just so much to choose from.

In addition to these great activities for your children, you will also find planners for yourself. She has a great curriculum planner and activity cards plus a menu planner.

It was perfect timing when Sandra Modersohn got a hold of me. She was just getting ready to introduce her May Lovie Packs (of which she has Tiny Packs for younger children (pre-K through 1st grade) and Little Packs for older children (1st through 3rd grade)). The theme for this month is Bugs in the Garden. We were just starting our Ii:Insect unit with My Father's World. I felt these Lovie Packs would add a great deal of fun to our lessons.

The Tiny Lovie Pack includes:

• 1. Place Value Board Game - ($5 value)
• 2. CVC Word Building Game - ($4 value)
• 3. Prewriting Pack - ($2.50 value)
• 4. Spring Garden Memory - ($2 value)
• 5. Spring Patterns - ($2.50 value)
• 6. Telling Time Clip Cards - ($3 value)
• 7. Alphabet Upper Lower Matching - ($3.50 value)
• 8. Butterfly Life Cycle Step Book And Poster - ($2.50 value)
• Bonus 1: Calendar Numbers - ($2 value)
• Bonus 2: Reward Charts - ($2 value)

And the Little Lovie Pack includes:

• 1. Place Value Card Game - ($4 value)
• 2. Multiplication/Division Memory game - ($2.50 value)
• 3. Verb Sort (Helping/Action Verbs) - ($3.50 value)
• 4. Sentence Builder Card game - ($6 value)
• 5. Intro to Complex Patterns Teaching mats - ($3 value)
• 6. US Coin Bingo! - ($3 value)
• 7. Spring Buggies Timeline File Folder Game w/ Worksheets - ($3 value)
• 8. Copywork Time: "The Caterpillar" by Christina G Rossetti - ($2 value)
• Bonus 1: Calendar Numbers - ($2 value)
• Bonus 2: Reward Chart - ($2 value)

We started our insect unit by learning about what an insect is, focusing a bit on ants and ladybugs. The first thing we tried out of the downloadable Lovie Packs was the Prewriting Pack. I wasn't sure if the older two girls would want to do prewriting practice, but they had fun with tracing and it gave them some practice on staying on the line. They also had a couple of pictures of bugs/insects to color. 

And Tabitha turned it upside down to trace the ladybug.

Amelia working on neatness.

Hannah working on staying on the line. 

During the younger children's naptime, Tabitha, Amelia and I tried out the Sentence Builder Card Game.

Sandra created a cute little box to store the cards in. 

The cards have a wide selection of words in the following parts of speech: nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs and pronouns. She also included quite a few "The" cards and Wild cards. 

(The cards are supposed to have a printed design on the backs, but I felt it would be better to leave them blank due to low ink. They are just as usable without the printing on the reverse side. I love that I had the choice to print it out with or without the design.)

In order to play the game, each player gets 8 cards.  I had the girls set out their cards face up on the table so they could manipulate the cards to form sentences. We were to draw a card from either the discard pile or the draw pile.

The girls created sentences on their turns, learning a bit about needing verbs and nouns and adjectives. 

I wasn't sure if it would be okay to change the tense of the verb, but we did to make it easier to create the sentences. The girls did get a bit antsy when they were unable to build a sentence with the words they had. This was especially true when they had just formed a sentence and didn't have many cards left. I was thinking, maybe we could draw cards until a sentence could be formed, or trade cards with other players. We will be trying that out the next time we play.

I printed out Learning Mats from the Introduction to Complex Patterns activity. As the girls are young we started with the first mat, "Naming Patterns."

Tabitha had fun creating simple "AB," "ABC," and "AAB" patterns. She was able to choose which picture tiles she wanted to use.

Then Amelia tried her hand at it. 

She was quite proud of herself. 

The other Learning Mats in this activity include:

ABCD patterns

Growing patterns

Iterations

and

Number Patterns

Another fun math activity is the Spring Buggie Timeline. I took a file folder, cut it in half on the fold and taped it back together on the shorter sides. Then I glued the file folder game inside. There are times from 6:00 am to 8:00 pm. Each time is connected to the a box with an arrow. The girls had to look at the analog clock tiles (each of which also had a cute buggie or spring picture) and match the time on the timeline, which are written in digital format.

 For an added challenge the girls had to read what the buggies were doing at each time (which is printed on the tile). For example, "All Good Buggies Wake Up" at 6:00 am. Here are a few more fun things the buggies do:

Buggies Study Math at 8:00 am

Buggie Lunch Time at 12:00 pm

Brian Buggie goes out to play at 1:00 pm

Snuggly Story Time at 7:30 pm

There are times to the hour and to the half hour, which was a bit of a challenge for the girls. 

I do believe Amelia would have preferred a simpler font for the numbers as the fancy curls tended to make it hard for her to find the correct time. 

Then the girls had a worksheet to complete. They had to answer using the time line to help them. 

After recording what time each event happened, they had to draw a line from the digital time to the analog clock showing the time. 

There is an additional worksheet, where they have to find out how long there is between different events. I wasn't sure if they were ready for that one quite yet. I will probably work with Tabitha on it while Amelia is doing something else. 

We are continuing our Insect unit this week and then moving on to Bb: Butterfly. This will give us an opportunity to use a lot more of the games and activities in the packs. 

I would love to have the girls use the Telling Time Clip Cards for some reinforcement of the times to the hour and the half hour. I plan to let them use the ladybug clocks they made last week to practice making the times.

There is also a Spring Pattern game for some more pattern fun. 

I'm sure the older girls will enjoy the Spring Buggies Place Value Race game.

And I think Hannah will really enjoy the Alphabet Match Game where she will have to match lower case buggies to upper case flowers.

When we get to our Bb: Butterfly unit there is a Making of a Butterfly Step Book 

and some copywork featuring  the poem The Caterpillar by Christina G. Rossetti with some cute art work. We can choose between Print, Manuscript and Cursive. 

I am so impressed by the quality and creativity put into these Lovie Packs! Though, be warned, you will be using quite a bit of ink. We are having problems with our printer which is why I didn't get as many of these activities printed as I wanted to. We are awaiting a new printer any day now. When we use the new games I will be sure to share. 

You can find Little Learning Lovies at the store and the blog. 

In addition to all her theme products, Sandra has been hard at work on a new project called Boxables, smaller versions of file folder games, with their very own printable file folder which fit inside the sturdy printable box that you can assemble in approximately 20 minutes. 

Don't forget to check out Little Learning Lovies on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

For now, how would you like to win your very own Bugs in the Garden Lovie Packs? You will receive the same May packs I did, both the Tiny Pack and the Little Pack. Isn't that so very generous? The packs combined are sold for $25, though you could purchase them individually for $14 each. I'm sure Sandra would love it if you head on over to Little Learning Lovies and checked out all the other fun things she offers. 

She also has a freebie section!! 

Just to let you know, the May Lovie Pack will only be available through the end of May. So, this will be a shorter giveaway than what I usually run. 

All you need to do is enter in the Rafflecopter form below. There are only 3 simple mandatory entries, with the remainder of the entries being optional. Remember, you do not have to do the extra entries, but they will increase your odds of winning. 

This giveaway is open to US to those 18 and over. 

The giveaway runs May 20th through May 26th.

Thanks for stopping by and good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Disclosure: I received Little Learning Lovies May Double Lovie Pack in exchange for my honest review. I received no further compensation. This did not in any way influence my review. I only recommend products I use personally and feel will be a good products for my readers.
This post contains my affiliate link.