It’s Stickinormous!

By, Michelle Rothwell

Wow!  What a word, “stickinormous”.  Who has ever heard of that word before?  Not me.  I tried to look up stickinormous in online dictionaries and good old Webster’s dictionary but couldn’t find it.  You will never guess where I did find that big word.  It’s the title of the latest educational children’s book by Helen McGlasson of Sniff and Wag Publishing.  Helen is the author and creator of the “Frog the Dog” books.

Frog the Dog lives with Bimmy by the seaside, where they have lots of fun with their friends Ginger Jelly and Obi-Sven-Kenobi, to name a few.  These cute characters bring fun to learning the English language.  And when I say English I mean the original English from England.  No, stickinormous isn’t a typical English word but I believe this word will soon be known in Great Britain as well as the United States as Frog the Dog books will be travelling the world.

From a teacher’s standpoint, whether you’re a Homeschool teacher or a public school teacher, you will find “It’s Stickinormous!” will work well for supported reading from age 3 to 5.  Then for kids to be able to read alone consider ages 5 to 8.  This will give plenty of flexibility for the difference in children’s individual abilities.

I believe talking about “It’s Stickinormous!” fits right in with my Homeschool website because I believe this book and others by Helen, is a great example of the English language.  This book shows a difference in spellings of English words.  For example, in the US we spell the word “color” like such and in England they spell it like “colour”.  Now I wouldn’t show this to young kids as they might get confused but this would be an interesting word study for older kids.

We have a foreign exchange student living with us this year and she was telling me when they learned English in Germany they were taught both spellings for the word “color”.  But on their tests they were required to know the American spelling.  Both Helen and I were amazed at this information.

Typically when studying languages you can have more than one spelling of the same word depending on what country you want to learn about.  In Spanish you can find the spelling of a word one way for Mexico and one way for Spain.  Same thing in French.  A single word could be spelled one way in France, one way in Morocco and then one way in Haiti.  It’s always good to decide at the beginning of your education which country you would travel to most and learn their way of spelling and speaking.  If you focus on one form of the language you will have less confusion and better scores on your spelling tests.

One thing I haven’t told you about is the CD-Rom that goes with the book called, “It’s Stickinormous Too!”  I totally love the c.d.!  The c.d. brings Frog the Dog to life as well as his friends with sound effects.  Helen reads the story in her very British accent, but it isn’t a thick cockney accent so us Americans can understand her completely, which adds to the atmosphere of the language.  There are phonics worksheets, math worksheets, a fun game called Snakes and Ladders that you can do on your computer, lesson plans, and so much more!  Helen has created a fabulous product that can be used on a Mac or a PC.

For more information on purchasing this innovative product, visit Frog the Dog at http://www.frogthedog.com.  If you want to give your kids a little taste of Frog the Dog, they can visit Frog and the whole gang daily at http://www.frogblogdoglog.blogspot.com. 

On behalf of Dora & Diego Homeschool Spanish we would like to thank Helen McGlasson for giving us the opportunity to preview her frogtastic new book and learning curriculum, “It’s Stickinormous!”  Helen you’ve done a fabulous job creating a fun, safe and family friendly learning environment for our children.  Thank you for using your talents for others.

We rate this book and CD-Rom a whopping 10 jalapeños.

Michelle Rothwell is the Founder of Dora & Diego Homeschool Spanish where she has written Spanish curriculum from the Biblical world view and teaches online Spanish classes to Homeschool children of all ages.  Michelle has been a Spanish teacher for over six years and joined the Homeschool teacher’s world in 2007.

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