Pea of Sweetness

Beautiful Roses From VIVAROSES

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I just love beautiful roses. They brighten up a room and smell great, too! Finding beautiful, quality roses isn’t always easy, though. I don’t know about you, but I’m not often impressed with roses from the store. They don’t last very long, either. So when I was presented with the opportunity to share a Viva Roses review I was definitely excited.
Beautiful Roses VIVAROSES Review
Disclosure: I received product complimentary to facilitate my VIVAROSES review. All opinions are my own and those of my family. This post contains affiliate links. Please refer to my Disclosure Policy for more information.
VIVAROSES offers gorgeous eco-friendly roses. They have a fun and beautiful story behind VIVAROSES as well. Similar to a story of love back in the 1600’s, a third generation farmer’s son, James, was in love with a girl named Marissa, and he wanted to give her beautiful roses. Much like I, he was frustrated by the process of ordering roses, and they just weren’t what he’d hoped.
Luckily, for them (the now happily married couple) and us, he connected with a local farmer that was growing beautiful volcanic roses. He shared his secret with James, and he was able to give Marissa fresh and beautiful roses. They knew everybody could benefit from these beautiful roses, and so VIVAROSES was born!

Beautiful Roses – Review

For my review I received a gorgeous Farmer’s Choice Medium Bouquet. When I received them I was so impressed by how much more beautiful they are in person! They arrived in a large box separated into two bouquets.
Beautiful Roses from VIVAROSES
Amazing, right? The VIVAROSES are just absolutely beautiful. Oddly enough, I didn’t realize until now that I no longer have any vases. So I got out two pitchers. I kept one as a gorgeous centerpiece in the living room. Aurora took the other one for her room. There were still some left, though!
So what do you do with beautiful roses? Dry them out for potpourri, of course! Beautiful colors and that beautiful rose smell!
The Farmer’s Choice Medium Bouquet contains a total of 50 roses in a variety of colors of their most beautiful roses. In our bouquet we received red, pink, green, yellow, and peach. It’s a beautiful combination and it was rather fun to arrange them in the pitchers. I cut them to different sizes to layer them for a full presentation. I was tempted to just take them out of the boxes as-is because they already looked fabulous!
VIVAROSES Beautiful Roses
And last they did! They started to bloom, of course, and I couldn’t get over how gorgeous they were many days later! The colors were still vibrant, and the blooms looked healthy overall! It most definitely beats most other roses I’ve had that start to droop within days.
Here they are already looking full (and still vibrant) a few days later:
Blooming Beautiful Roses from VIVAROSES
Overall, I definitely fell in love with my Viva Roses. They are so beautiful and healthy. I love that they are eco-friendly, fresh and beautiful, and volcanic! Plus, there are so many different options! They’re perfect for brightening up your home or given as a gift!

*Discount!*

Great news! If you’d love to order VIVAROSES my readers can save 15% by using code PEASWEET-15!

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Can Do Cubes Review

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A couple days ago I shared my Jolly Grammar and Jolly Phonics Review. We have had also had the opportunity to review another great product from jollyliteracy.com – Can Do Cubes. This great resource from just2ducks LLC is a great companion to Jolly Phonics, and we’ve been using them well together!
Can Do Cubes Review
The Can Do Cubes are a great hands-on supplement for phonics. They work particularly well with Jolly Phonics because the letter sounds are presented in the same order. They would definitely work as a resource for any synthetic phonics program, though. They were created based on many factors including various research on reading instruction, activities which are commonly used in successful programs, and teaching experience.

What is Synthetic Phonics?

To be honest, this is the first time I’ve heard the term “synthetic phonics,” so I, for one, was curious what it means. I know now Jolly Phonics is one, but when it mentioned it can be used with any synthetic phonics program I wanted to know what that meant.
On jollyliteracy.com Synthetic Phonics teaching is defined as “a simple to complex program where learners are taught the alphabetic code.” So they first learn the basic alphabetic code (one spelling for the basic sounds) and progress to the more complex alphabetic code (multiple spelling variations for these sounds).

Can Do Cube Review

The Can Do Cubes Starter Set Includes:

  • 1 Tray of Stage 1 Cubes
  • 1 Tray of Stage 2 Cubes
  • Handbook for Stage 1
  • Handbook for Stage 2
  • DVD
  • Phonics Chart
  • Word Chart

Amazing, right? Honestly, I would have been thrilled just to have the hands-on cubes, but I was impressed with all it includes. I love all the additional, helpful resources. As we progress I plan on adding the charts to our wall.
Because Chaz started Jolly Phonics at the beginning we have been using the Stage 1 cubes. The Stage 1 cubes are further broken down into groups called Cubes. So we started with Cube 1 which included the first 6 letter sounds “s, a, t, i, p, n.”
Can Do Cubes Reviews words
Chaz has been doing well and having fun building words. What I find so fascinating is he was already familiar with many of the letter sounds, and he could sometimes read the short words but struggled putting them together himself. Since using this hands-on approach with the Can Do Cubes, he’s been putting together many different words! Plus he’s having fun doing it!
With the Can Do Cubes they will naturally progress to building longer words and working with more letter sounds at a time. The Stage 2 Cubes even include capital letters and basic punctuation.
Overall, Can Do Cubes has been a great resource for our son! In fact, our oldest son is a delayed reader due to his special needs, and I’m going to start using them for his phonics as well!

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Different members of the Schoolhouse Review Crew shared their Can Do Cubes review. Check them out by clicking on the banner below!
Can Do Cubes
 
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Jolly Phonics and Jolly Grammar Review

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Our once resistant six year old has been loving Jolly Phonics from jollyliteracy.com. He has been learning his letter sounds in a whole new way and has been making amazing progress! Plus he’s had a great time singing songs in Jolly Songs to help reinforce his learning! just2ducks LLC also sent us Jolly Grammar from their jollyliteracy.com division for our Jolly Grammar and Jolly Phonics review.
Jolly Grammar and Jolly Phonics Review

Jolly Phonics Review

Chaz has been using Jolly Phonics regularly (3-4 days per week). I started him at the very beginning because he has writing challenges due to his special needs. Although he does know many letter sounds, I thought it would be best to follow the progression as it is presented in Jolly Phonics.
The Jolly Phonics program includes three Jolly Phonics Student Books – Jolly Phonics Student Book 1, 2 and 3. It also includes the Jolly Phonics Teacher’s Book in print letters which covers all three of the Student Books.
The Teacher’s Book offers daily guidance for teaching the Jolly Phonics program. It includes a detailed introduction as well as detailed information for the concepts the child will be learning including:

  • The Letter Sounds of the English Language
  • Learning the Letter Sounds
  • Learning Letter Formation
  • Reading (Blending)
  • Identifying the Sounds in Words
  • Tricky Words

I was impressed with all the details it includes. Once it breaks down into the Daily Guidance for Teaching, it explains the best way to go about teaching the lessons. We have been using Book 1, so each lesson includes a story to read to introduce the letter sounds. Each letter sound is taught using an action to help them remember the letter sound, so the story helps to introduce this action as well.
Jolly Phonics and Jolly Grammar Review

Jolly Phonics Review – Student Book 1

Chaz has been happily working through his Jolly Phonics Student Book 1. He’s been learning individual letter sounds as well as progressing to blend those letter sounds as the new letter sounds are introduced. He has been working on writing his letters as well as identifying pictures/words that contain the letter sound.
We have been treating each letter sound as a lesson. So each one is one page long. So each lesson only takes around 15-20 minutes. His biggest struggle is writing the letters. He has been enjoying the lessons so much, though, that he is actually attempting to write the letters, which is major progress. Generally he refuses to even try. We also brought out the white board to give him more practice as well.
Jolly Phonics Review

Jolly Phonics Review – Student Books 2 & 3

We haven’t yet progressed to the Jolly Phonics Student Book 2 and Student Book 3. They are quite a bit different. In Student Book 1 we continue to progress through letter sounds and blending them together through the basic 42 letter sounds. Starting in Student Book 2 there are already full words presented right at the beginning. It presents alternative letter-sound spellings, more handwriting, tricky words and words and sentences. Capital letters are also introduced.
Jolly Phonics Student Book 3 presents more letter-sound alternative spellings, tricky words, comprehension and words and sentences. Of course, it also includes handwriting, but in this book there is free writing and dictation.

Jolly Songs Review

Jolly Songs complements what we’ve been learning in Student Book 1. It presents the letter sounds in songs written to familiar tunes. It includes a music CD you can play to sing along. I found knowing the tune alone made it possible to sing the songs without the CD. The songs also include the motions he has been learning to remember the letters.
Jolly Phonics and Jolly Grammar Review

Jolly Grammar Review

We haven’t yet progressed to Jolly Grammar. It includes the Jolly Grammar 1 Teacher’s Book in print letters and Jolly Grammar 1 Student Book. If following the recommended progression, Jolly Grammar follows the completion of all three Jolly Phonics books. It builds on what they have learned in Jolly Phonics and covers a variety of grammar concepts including: common nouns, pronouns, plurals, verbs (including conjugating verbs), adjectives, adverbs, definite and indefinite articles, sentences, questions, identifying parts of speech, improving vocabulary and using a dictionary.
I am really surprised by all it covers! The Teacher’s Book once again provides detailed information about the concept they’ll be learning as well as lesson information. Each lesson is one page long and has a corresponding page in the Teacher’s Book.
Jolly Grammar Review

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Other members of the Schoolhouse Review shared their Jolly Grammar and Jolly Phonics review as well. They have children of different ages and abilities, so be sure to check out their reviews by clicking on the banner below!
Jolly Phonics and Jolly Grammar Review
 
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Free to Be Crabby with Maxine

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If you’re familiar with Maxine, you already know her crabby character. I was only 5 years old when crabby Maxine was first introduced when Hallmark launched Shoebox. Here we are 30 years later, and she’s not only still around, but she’s also still a pretty prominent character! What started as a character on a card has grown and expanded to today’s day and age and can be found in a variety of internet memes. Additionally, she has her own books, comic strip, calendars and website.
Free to be Crabby Maxine
Disclosure: I received complimentary products to facilitate my review. Regardless, all opinions are my own.
Hallmark has a lot of great Maxine products including the new “Free to Be Crabby” products. For my review I received the Free to be Crabby Maxine socks, Love it or Leave me Alone Maxine Tumbler, Gripe About Anything Maxine Mug, and the limited edition Maxine Stars and Stripes itty bitty.
In general, I would say I have a sweet disposition – especially with others. I am definitely a bit of a grouch, though. Just ask my husband, and he’ll tell you how crabby I am in the mornings! Ha! I have always found Maxine’s sarcastic and straight-forward humor to be hilarious. It’s like what she’s saying is what people are thinking but wouldn’t say out loud! My mom is always finding some great Maxine posts! There are always great posts on the Maxine Facebook Page!
And you have to love Floyd, too, right? He’s so cute!

Crabby Maxine

I’m loving the new Maxine products! It’s a great way to celebrate all that is crabby Maxine throughout the day! The Maxine socks say “Free to Be Crabby.” They’re comfortable. Plus they are long, so they’re perfect for the days (or weeks! Ha!) you don’t feel like shaving! 😉
Free to Be Crabby with Maxine Socks
The mug and cup are both great for your drinks throughout the day. The ceramic mug is nice and big (11 ounces) which is great when you need a big cup of coffee in the morning. The mug says “In America, you can gripe about anything. No wonder I love it!” lol Plus, it’s dishwasher and microwave safe!
The cup is a BPA-free plastic tumbler with a lid that screws on, and a plastic straw with a stopper so it’s easy to keep with the lid. It holds 20 ounces and is hand wash only.
Free to be Crabby Maxine drinkware
The limited edition Maxine itty bitty is so stinkin cute! She has bunny slippers, and I love the little puffs of hair. Of course, it has a classic crabby Maxine expression!
Limited Edition Maxine itty bitty
If you love Maxine, you definitely don’t want to miss out on these fabulous products! Head over to your local Hallmark store to pick them up!

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*Giveaway!*

Would you love to win these great Maxine products? One winner will receive the Free to be Crabby Maxine socks, Love it or Leave me Alone Maxine Tumbler, Gripe About Anything Maxine Mug, and the limited edition Maxine Stars and Stripes itty bitty. This giveaway runs through September 3, 2016 and is open to US residents ages 18+.

Enter the Giveaway Here