A Round of Robins Picture Book {Review and Giveaway}

It's been a while since I've had the opportunity to review a picture book and offer my readers a giveaway. I just couldn't pass up the chance to share this cute book with you.

We received A Round of Robins by Katie Hesterman and illustrated by Sergio Ruzzier. This 34-page, hardcover picture book is published by Nancy Paulsen Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC. 

What a perfect time of year to receive this adorable book. It is perfect for springtime, as we love to watch the robins returning and building nests in our trees and around our house. This book shares the cycle of the robins' lives, starting with finding a place to build a home, through the egg laying, hatching, and growing up of the baby robins, to moving on to another brood. However, this book is not a non-fiction book. This lifecycle is told through a series of playful poems, which made the book's arrival even more timely, as we got to read it during National Poetry Month. 

Each poem describes one part of the cycle, with cartoon-style artwork to illustrate the verse, and is one to two stanzas in length, taking up one to two pages. 

Each of the poems has a title, some of which were quite entertaining.

Here, let's look at some of them.

"Turf Tune" is the first poem in the book. It tell of daddy robin claiming his territory, while the illustrations show dad standing at the edge of a branch while three angry birds look on in disgust. 

In "Home Sweet Home" mama robin is shown building the nest and getting comfortable in it.

"EGGcessories" shows the happy couple looking down on their nest full of the perfect amount of eggs, four.

 "Red-Hot Mama" talks about how mama incubates the eggs, while sharing pictures of her in her nest dreaming about her babies.

"Inside Job" tells of the babies in the egg, cramped in tightly as they only have one more night before they hatch. 

"Pop Patrol" shows daddy robin chasing away birds who were invading his space.

In total there are 16 poems included in this book. As you can see, the titles are quite intriguing. I found the poems to be quite cute and humorous, while telling the true story of a robin family's life. And I am a huge fan of rhyming verse in poetry, so that was a big plus in my eyes. I've read books with rhyming verse where it was quite the chore to read. I am happy to say that is not the case with this book. The verse flowed well as did the rhyming. Plus, the illustrations complemented the text very well. I loved the soft colors which are done in pen and ink and watercolor. 

If you are looking for a fun spring book, a book about robins, a poetry book, or all three, may I suggest checking out this debut book by Katie Hesterman. It is recommended for children ages 5-8, though I can see slightly younger or older children enjoying it as well. My children all did, and they range in age from 6-11. 

About the Author and Illustrator:

Katie Hesterman dreamed of being an ornithologist as a child, but now contents herself with watching them through her window and writing about them. She lives in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Sergio Ruzzier is a picture book author and illustrator whose work has received awards from American Illustrations, the Society of Illustrators, Communication Arts, and the Society of Publication Designers. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

And now for the great news! One of my readers will get to win their own copy of A Round of Robins!

Giveaway Time!

All you need to do is enter in the Rafflecopter form below. 

There are only 2 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 residents 18 and over. 

The giveaway runs April 30th through May 13th!.

Thanks for stopping by, and good luck!

By entering the giveaway, you understand and agree that your contact information will be shared with the sponsor.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Disclosure: I received a hardcover copy of A Round of Robins in exchange for my honest review. No further compensation was given. 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.

Making the Bible Come Alive with the Planet 316 Story Bible {A TOS Review}

As Christians, it is very important to my husband and myself that we bring the children up in the Lord. In light of this, our core curriculum is focused on the Bible and on God, plus we've been memorizing Bible verses during school time for years, and just recently the older girls started a daily Bible reading schedule with me, though we have to work on being a bit more diligent. All of the girls have a Bible of their own, and Harold will be getting one when he gets a bit older. Until then, I thought it would be neat for him to have this really cool interactive Story Bible which we recently received. 

Thanks to the Homeschool Review Crew, we had the opportunity to check out the Planet 316 Story Bible and the companion Planet 316 Story Bible App from Planet 316 and WorthyKids/Ideals. 

The colorful, hardcover Story Bible in and of itself is a wonderful addition to our home. This 303-page book contains over 100 stories from the Bible. I was pleased to see that there was a nice variety of stories, unlike other children's Bible storybooks that I have seen. Yes, there are the well-known tales such as Creation, Noah, Moses, David & Goliath, Jonah, and Daniel from the Old Testament. And in the New Testament you will find the familiar retellings of the different aspects of the Christmas story, Jesus as a boy in the temple, The Good Samaritan, The Prodigal Son, Jesus's death and His resurrection. But there are other, not so-well known stories included as well. Stories such as Jacob wrestling with God, Moses and the Egyptian, Israel disobeying God after the Battle of Jericho, Saul's disobedience, Jesus miracle of turning water into wine, Jesus and Nicodemus, Philip and the Ethiopian, and stories of Paul. 

This book begins with a letter to parents and grandparents, and then gives instructions on how to download and use the app.

There is a Table of Contents in the beginning of the book and an index of "People, Places, and Things in the Bible" at the end. Both the Old and the New Testament begin with a lovely double page spread which includes a collage of images found in the stories (some of which even "come to life" but more about that later). 

Each story is between 2 and 6 pages in length, perfect for children with shorter attention spans. There are some full page illustrations, and the occasional full page of text, but the majority of the time text is printed above or below the main picture.

With 55 Old Testament stories and 49 New Testament stories, this Story Bible does a wonderful job of sharing the story of God's love with the reader. 

Now that I shared a bit about the book, let's look at the app that goes along with it, the app that makes it come alive. 

First of all, the app is FREE! Yes, free. However, without the Planet 316 Story Bible it won't do you much good, so you do need to have the book. 

Now, before I decided I would like to request to be on this review, I had downloaded the app and checked out the sample pages, which you find by clicking on the purple "Pages" button on the screen shown above. I was then able to confirm that I would be able to use the app with my phone. I was so glad that the app is available in both the App Store and Google Play. 

Once the Story Bible was in hand, and the app was on my phone, we were able to begin bringing these stories to life. I just click on the green "Start" button in the bottom right corner of the screen, and it brings up a screen which says "scanning." You have to have the phone pointed at the page of the book so it can scan the image and utilize the augmented reality (which funnily enough I had never heard of until receiving this product, even though my hubby now tells me he has used apps that use augmented reality). 

If there are no pictures on the part of the page we have it pointed it, it will just sit there scanning, until we move the phone to show the image.

You do have to hold the page and the phone still, plus we have noticed this app works best in a room with decent lighting, or the image becomes a bit shaky. Once it has an image scanned, that image will pop up on the screen, becoming three dimensional, music and/or sound effects will play, and you will be prompted to tap the characters. 

The children love being able to take turns tapping the characters to hear them talk.

What we found quite impressive was that if we were holding the book and phone just right, it appears as if the images are popping right off the page, like a pop-up book.

Not only that, some of the characters and objects become animated. For example, we've noticed people walking around and fire from a sacrifice exploding off the page.

We've even noticed additional characters showing up.

If you couldn't tell, we are quite impressed by this new technology which makes stories jump to life. Our nighttime Bible time has definitely gained an extra dimension. What's been really cool is that there have been stories to go along with most of the passages we have been reading out of the Bible during our school time. We have been making our way through the time of the Judges and Kings with our core curriculum. Then at night we cuddle on the bed or the couch and find the coordinating story in the Planet 316 Story Bible and bring the story to life. Plus I think it helps the younger children that we get to reread the story in a way that is easier for them to understand.

We've read about Joshua, Gideon, Samson, Ruth, Hannah and her son Samuel, King Saul, David (both as a boy and as king), King Solomon, and the prophet Elijah. During Holy Week before Easter, we put our curriculum on hold, so at night we flipped to the New Testament to read some stories about Jesus.

If you would like to bring these Bible stories alive for your children, I would highly recommend the Planet 316 Story Bible and the companion Planet 316 Story Bible App. And if you don't have a tablet or phone to utilize the app, I would still recommend this Bible for young children. The stories are perfect for a short Bible time for younger children, and older children could even help read the stories. I love that the Bible references are given under the title of the story. You could even have older children find these passages and read them during their own Bible time. 

You can find Planet 316 on Facebook and Twitter.

Don't forget to click the banner below to see what my fellow Crew Mates had to say about this wonderful, interactive Story Bible. 

Wordless Wednesday: April 25, 2018 (w/linky) : Fun With the Granddaughter

We had a lovely surprise visit from my son, daughter-in-law and our granddaughter Annika last week. Here are some of my favorite shots.

She loved this baby doll.

And Harold's teddy bear.

The dreaded Jack-in-the-Box

It actually didn't scare her at all.

Let's get that walking thing going now.

We ended up giving her Tabitha's old horsey.

And then there was the chocolate pudding...

Perhaps a bath?

In the sink of course.

I'm sure I have a picture of her dad taking a bath in the sink somewhere.

Some more play time.

Can't wait to see them again. We had a lovely time. Now, if we could only see the other grandchildren more often.

Looking forward to seeing your Wordless (or not so wordless) Wednesday posts this week.

No button currently, and there won't be one until I can figure it out seeing as Photobucket has changed things. Feel free to still share the picture in place of the button on your Wordless Wednesday post or in a list of Wordless Wednesday linkies. Just link it to my Wordless Wednesday permalink please.

An InLinkz Link-up

Littles Learning Link Up: April 24, 2018

 Each month you will find:

• A seasonal round-up (usually toward the beginning of the month)
• Posts where I share what I have been up to with my early elementary children (including occasional highlight posts where I share how we used ideas that have been linked up here on Littles Learning Link Up or shared as a part of a Littles Learning Link Up Round Up).

Each week, I will host a link up, where you can share either what you have been up to recently, or old posts that may go with the theme.  Feel free to link up more than one post.

Each week I will continue to feature a couple of posts from those that have been linked up. 

I hope you will continue to share your wonderful posts, and I hope you will find something new to try with your child(ren).

It would be great for everyone to stop by and visit the other linked-up posts as well. Check them out, leave some comments, pin those that interest you. Let's make this a real party and socialize with each other.

What have we been up to?

In our Bible reading we have been reading from 1 Kings. We have moved on passed King David and King Solomon and have been learning about the kingdom of Israel dividing. These last few lessons have been focused on the prophet Elijah. In world history we just started learning about Ancient India. 

We are slowly making our way through The Children's Homer. We did finally finish the third book of the Kane Chronicles, and have started the final book, The Serpent's Shadow.  Let me tell you, there are definitely some funny parts in this book. I had trouble reading yesterday through the laughter. During our bedtime storytime we are reading Percy Jackson's Sea of Monsters. So, some ancient Greece and ancient Egypt right there. 

I have been focusing on grammar and science for the older girls using HelpTeaching.com. Plus the science experiment Amelia is working on where she is observing what solution works better to keep cut flowers looking good longer. 

Our new language arts lessons are coming from Home School Navigator. Right now we are focusing on fairy tales and learning such things as writing paragraphs. Of course, they are getting practice writing "letters" while using Kids Email.

Let's take a look at that review schedule real quick:

Since the last time I posted our review schedule, I have posted three reviews. Two weeks ago I shared my review of Traditional Spelling II from Memoria Press and the movie titled Princess Cut from Watchman Pictures. Last week my review for HelpTeaching.com posted. This week I will be sharing our thoughts on the Planet 316 Story Bible and the companion Story Bible app.

Next week I will be sharing about some books from Weigl Publishers, along with the multimedia content we have been granted access to. Plus we are also reviewing Kids Email, Home School Navigator, and a children's alphabet book titled T is for Tree from Reformed Free Publishing Association. All of these reviews will be posting in May.

Here are some things I would like to share with you:

We are so glad it is finally starting to feel like spring around here. Are you looking for some springy crafts or activities to do with your children. I invite you to check out these past round ups.

Flower and Gardening Fun Literature and Craft Round Up (featuring our Complementary Color Flowers)

Creepy, Crawly Buggy Round Up

April Showers Brought May Flowers Round Up

Springtime Fairy Round Up

Now onto:

Littles Learning Link Up Features

On my last Littles Learning Link Up post, there were 10 wonderful posts linked up. I will be sharing a randomly selected post and the top clicked on posts as there were three that tied this week. (Yay for socialization and checking out the other posts!!)

Please, don't forget to stop by other posts that are linked up. See what catches your eye, stop by, pin the post to a relevant board, and perhaps leave a comment to let the author of the blog know you have been by for a visit. I know I appreciate others commenting and letting me know they have read my posts, so I am sure others do too.

This week's randomly selected post is:

Small Worlds Preschool shared Spring Sensory Activities for Preschoolers.

And here are this week's top clicked on posts.

Small Worlds Preschool shared Play-Based Learning vs Traditional Preschool.

Preschool, Naturally shared Nature Sensory Activities for Preschoolers.

Lisa from Syncopated Mama shared NIV Beautiful Word Bible for Girls.

Join the Party!

I would love to have you join in this week! What sort of activities do you do with your young children? Do you have some favorite activities you would like to share? I invite you to link up below. I will be pinning posts on one of my relevant boards, and I would love to feature some of the activities each week from what is linked up.

Please know I may share a picture from your post and link back to it, along with sharing how we used your idea in our school time. By linking up you are giving me permission to use a picture from your post. I will ALWAYS give credit and link back. Additionally, if you choose to try out any of the ideas with your child, please make sure you give credit where credit is due.

Linky will be open through Monday night, to give me time to check out all the posts and get the Features organized. Please take the time to visit some of the other wonderful posts linked up.

No button currently, and there won't be one until I can figure it out seeing as Photobucket has changed things. Feel free to still share the picture in place of the button. Just link it to my Littles Learning Link Up permalink please.

I am sharing over at

An InLinkz Link-up