40 Fundamentals of English Riding: Essential Lessons in Riding Right (Book & DVD) Review

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(More customer reviews)Hollie McNeil's new guide is essential to every rider who wants to master English riding. Her fresh and unique approach has spurred me on to new levels of exploration and learning. Whether you are a casual rider or a highly competitive one, this book will elevate your experience. It has for me.


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Master the 40 basic elements essential to all riders in the classic disciplines of dressage, jumping, and eventing with this book and 90-minute DVD showing action sequences for each fundamental. These fundamentals include correct seat, leg, and hand positions for the rider; the three basic gaits of walk, trot, and canter; how to perform halt and half-halt; how to direct a horse's movement correctly and energetically; the stages of the training scale (rhythm, looseness, contact, impulsion, straightness, and collection); and how to perform basic schooling figures in the arena, from circles and serpentines to diagonals. Each fundamental is defined and explained in text and photos throughout the book, as well as in the 90-minute DVD, with an emphasis on how to avoid common errors. The DVD won a Telly Award for excellence in video production.

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Food: 25 Amazing Projects: Investigate the History and Science of What We Eat (Build It Yourself series) Review

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(More customer reviews)I am a home educating mama of two children, ages 5 and 9.
We have a few of the "25 Projects" books from Nomad Press in our house, and have enjoyed all of them.
FOOD - 25 Amazing Projects is no exception.
We appreciated the author's presentation of modern sustainability issues as well as had interesting discussions throughout our reading of the book - including tossing around ideas and concerns regarding hydroponic and aeroponic food-raising.
Aside from the serious stuff, this book is packed full of fun and interesting points, surprising us and making us laugh often.
A wide range of issues are covered, from historical preservation to nutrition and the odd things people eat.
It's a very interesting and engaging book, and we highly recommend it.
Stephanie S.

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Giving new meaning to the phrase "food for thought," this revealing activity guide summarizes the history, science, and culture of what kids eat day after day. Presenting a fascinating array of projects and activities, this exploration demonstrates how certain foods evolved as well as how modern technology plays a part in food production, packaging, and delivery. From the methods vegetarians use to balance their diets to why some cultures rose and fell based on a single food source, this fun-filled investigation also illustrates the traditional route from farm to table, the impact of eating locally grown foods, the importance of nutrition, and even the role of food in ancient times. Going beyond the basics of the food pyramid, this comprehensive examination encourages children to understand their daily diets from both a local and global perspective.

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Sorting Shapes, Show Me, & Many Other Activities for Toddlers: 13 to 24 Months (Creative Resources Infant and Toddler Series) Review

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(More customer reviews)I am not disappointed in the book per se, but it surprised me to find that the majority of the suggestions were things that we were already doing. I think that this book would be great for first time moms, teenage moms or dads who don't carry a playlist of nursery rhymes in their iPod. The book does encourage you to use positive and encouraging language with the children which is something that many people benefit from a reminder once in a while (myself included). Borrow it if you can....buy a more advanced book if you think you've already got the basics down.

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Creative Resources for Infants and Toddlers Series is a cluster of resources divided by child-care center and classroom criteria.This series explores child development at the critical stages of life such as predictable and universal patterns of development that occur in all domains, including physical, cognitive, language and communication, social, and emotional.The resources are arranged by age: Infant Resources: birth to 6 months, and 7 month to 12 months, and Toddler Resources: 13 to 24 months, and 25 to 36 months.Understanding developmental norms allows caregivers and parents to create and implement experiences that support and enhance the various levels of child development.With additional references, Web links, and on-line resources associated with each individual age group, Creative Resources for Infants and Toddlers Series provides all the information needed to understand the developmental needs of the child.

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The 2,000 Best Games and Activities (2,000 Best Games & Activities) Review

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(More customer reviews)There are about 600 activities in the book instead of 2000 as the titile suggested. Most of the activities are just common sense. I don't know why the book received all 5-star reviews.

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help your children reach their full potential --through playWant your kid to be the next Einstein, Olympic gold medalist or CEO? Maybe you're just looking for some great playtime ideas, with a little creativity and brain building thrown in? This fun, easy guide contains 2,000 games and activities that will help your babies, toddlers and children reach their full potential--through play. The 2,000 Best Games and Activities will keep your kids laughing while learning seven essential life skills:-- Communication-- Curiosity-- Decision making-- Kindness-- Playfulness-- Self-control-- Self-esteemIncluding activities that mostly take five to ten minutes and use ordinary household items, this book is essential for parents or caregivers of children from babyhood to eight years old. MOre than a recipe boko for dazzling children or filling theri time, this is a guide to how to use play, the most natural of childhood activities, as a teaching tool.

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Rand McNally Kids' Road Atlas (Backseat Books) Review

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(More customer reviews)I bought this expecting simple maps that my daughter could use to track the routes we were driving. Well, it's simplistic all right. It doesn't mark many of the cities we drive through. It is more of a car activity book. It's got puzzles and games to keep children busy, but its maps are more like general overviews of the states. For children younger than seven, this is probably good. Older children would most likely prefer a real road atlas with all the roads and cities marked.


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Rand McNally's Backseat Books series is your source for fighting those boredom blues. Kids' Road Atlas features real road maps, great travel games, state-by-state puzzles, state facts (including the nickname, capital, flower, tree, and bird), an index, and much, much more. An answer key is also included in the back of the book. These colorful, fun-filled books are perfect for keeping the kids busy at home or during those long stretches. Backseat Books. Boredom cured.80 pages; 8.5" x 10.75".

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The Thurber Carnival (Perennial Classics) Review

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(More customer reviews)"The Thurber Carnival" was a beloved companion of my early youth; I laughed out loud again and again at the stories of "My Life and Hard Times," the hilarious "Fables for Our Time," "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty," and other classics. What was really important to me about Thurber was that he came from the same part of Ohio that I did, and actually had had relatives and attended family reunions in Sugar Grove, Ohio, where I grew up. That meant all the world to me, because it showed me that someone who had ties to Sugar Grove could be a famous writer. Now, I love Thurber's work more than ever; as an adult, I can better appreciate the nuances of a story like "The Catbird Seat." Thurber's work is a precise, funny, yet deeply serious portrait of an America which had just recently completed the transition from a frontier to an urban society. Women, having just won the right to vote, were flexing new-found muscles; men, divorced from the need to wrest a living from the soil, felt suddenly unmoored and emasculated; a new breed of self-help authors arose to make a quick buck from the newly uncertain populace; and oceans of alcohol fueled the newly stirred resentments between the sexes.Thurber recorded it all, in a prose style as elegant and lucid as any in the history of American literature. "The Catbird Seat," "Fables for Our Time" and the self-help parodies of "Let Your Mind Alone!" are every bit as fresh and pertinent as when Thurber wrote them 60-odd years ago. Unfortunately, some aspects of his work--most glaringly his portrayal of African-Americans--have not stood up so well. But one can only say of Thurber what the Duc de Saint-Simon said of Louis XIV: "His virtues were his own, his faults were his times'." The best of James Thurber ranks with the best of Mark Twain, Ring Lardner, Woody Allen and any other American humorist you can name.

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History Speaks : Pledge of Allegiance Review

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(More customer reviews)Pledge of Allegiance issues are examined in this book about the flag and related topics. The book could use some updating with more historical information about the topic addressed. For example, the Pledge was the origin of the stiff-arm salute that was adopted later by the National Socialist German Workers Party. The early salute for the Pledge of Allegiance was the straight-arm salute. Francis Bellamy was the author of the Pledge (1892) and cousin to Edward Bellamy, author of an international bestseller that launched the nationalism movement. Edward's book was translated into every major language, including German. Francis and Edward were both self-proclaimed socialists in the Nationalism movement and they promoted military socialism. They wanted government to take over all schools and impose robotic chanting to flags. When the government granted their wish, government schools imposed segregation by law and taught racism as official policy. That behavior even outlasted German National Socialism. The Pledge's early right-arm salute was not an ancient Roman salute, and the 'ancient Roman salute' myth came from the Pledge. In addition to the notorious salute, American socialists (e.g. Edward Bellamy teamed with the Theosophical Society) also bear some blame for the notorious symbol usd by the National Socialist German Workers Party on its flag. While Edward and the Theosophical Society worked together, the same symbol was used by the Society. It was used as alphabetical symbolism for socialism, and adopted later by German socialists as their flag symbol. Although an ancient symbol, it was altered for use as overlapping S-letters for 'socialism.' It was deliberately turned 45 degrees counter clockwise and always oriented in the S-direction. Similar alphabetic symbolism is still visible as Volkswagen logos. People were persecuted for refusing to perform robotic chanting to the national flag at the same time in the USA and Germany (to the American flag, and to the German symbol flag). All of the above are modern discoveries (do a web search for "stop the pledge") by a different writer, America's leading authority on the Pledge of Allegiance (the author of "Pledge of Allegiance Secrets").

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The Pledge of Allegiance introduces students in grades 4-8 to two Supreme Court cases, editorial cartoon and a wealth of other materials which require them to think about issues central to the U.S. Constitution itself.Handouts, discussions and primary source materials (including a reproduction of the 1892 magazine page which first printed the Pledge of Allegiance) are included in this lively, easy-to-use resource.For too many students, history was then and this is now.The implications, the lessons and the relevance of past events are never discovered because that door is slammed shut before it is every fully opened.This series involved students in examining historical documents and understanding their impact on our present lives.

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