7 Reviews/ 7 Giveaways- Day 6

As a member of the TOS Homeschool Crew, I have been given the wonderful opportunity to review many homeschool products over the next several months. I feel truly blessed to be participating in this review group and I'm looking forward to trying out the products and giving you my honest opinion. This week I will post one review and host a giveaway each day. Please read this review and make sure to leave a comment to be entered into the giveaway.

In case you haven't figured it out already, I am always a little overambitious. As I was finishing up the school year last spring, I decided that I wanted to use the summer to teach our children about US Geography. I had recently discovered that when I asked the children what state we lived in, they would promptly answer with the name of a neighboring city...yes, neighboring... not even the city we lived in. So, I created an entire US Geography unit complete with story books, notebook pages, lapbooks, puzzles, games, flash cards, and even an inflatable globe. We were ready to learn all about the 50 states and their locations. There was one tiny problem however. I was due to deliver our sixth child at the beginning of June. Well, the kids did finally learn what state we lived in, but that was pretty much all they learned about US Geography this summer.

Fast forward to about a month ago and you will find this happy Mama jumping for joy over a colorfully illustrated storybook that had just arrived in the mail. The Little Man in the Map by E. Andrew Martonyi makes learning to recognize and locate the 50 states easy...no joke, easy. Want proof? I just quizzed my two oldest (ages 8 and 6) with a blank map this morning. We've casually read The Little Man in the Map about 4-5 times and the only state they could recognize before reading this book was our own. This morning they were able to identify 31 states! That's pretty incredible!

Watch this short video to see how it works:

MIM is the name of the Little Man in the Map, which is short for his full name MinIow MisArkLou...you really have to say it a few times to get the pronunciation straight. It's the first three letters of each of the five states that make up his frame. I'll be honest, the first time I read it I was quite skeptical that my kids could remember a name like that or what it meant. But the kids picked it up right away and have no problem locating and rattling off the names of Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, and Louisiana.

The entire book is written in rhyme with fun pictures to use as memory aides to help remember each state. You and your children will have to stretch your imagination a bit to "see" some of the memory aides, but my experience is that this isn't such a hard task for the kids to do. The kids will catch on to some of the states immediately, while others will take a bit more work.

The Little Man in the Map is decorated with the Moonbeam Children's Book Award, Foreward Magazine's Book of the Year Award Finalist, Next Generation Indie Book Award Finalist, and an Independent Publisher's Book Award. It retails for $19.95 and can be purchased at several places including the Schoolhouse Store. If your children do not know the shape, names, and location of the 50 states then I encourage you to put this book on your wish list....or better yet under your Christmas tree!

So what would you like me to give away today?

Any suggestions?

Oh, okay....YOU GOT IT!

I've just ordered a copy of The Little Man in the Map from the Schoolhouse Store and its ready to be shipped out next week to our winner! Andrew Martonyi, the book's author, is even throwing in a free Downloadable Teacher's Guide and MIM Word Puzzle to the winner!! The Teacher's Guide is not even available for purchase yet, so our winner will be one of the first people to have it!

Just leave a comment to this post no later that 8pm (EST) on Wed., Dec. 17th (making sure to include your email or blog address) and you are entered! You can grab the 7 Reviews/7 Giveaways button and paste it on your blog to get two EXTRA ENTRIES into EACH of the 7 giveaways as well.

Oh, I hope you win!!!

Our last giveaway will be tomorrow, so don't forget to come back and check it out. You can also read more reviews of The Little Man in the Map at the TOS Crew blog.

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