Leatherwood Books Newsletter March 2010

LATEST NEWS March already! 1 March 2010
We've had a very busy start to the year and March just sneaked up on us. We really enjoy talking to you (email or phone) so thanks to those of you who have been in touch. Let us know if you want us to add more of a particular type of book to the site, please. Do remember that we enjoy finding books for you, so don't hesitate to ask. We'll give you an obligation-free quote, so you have nothing to lose! The previous newsletter was quite substantial, so we trust you won't give us a hard time about this short one. Peter is working in Cambodia and Vietnam for a few weeks and we're carrying his LWB workload, so have a few extra tasks to get through.
Human Biology The focus this month is on our human biology resources. DK's Eyewitness Guides are excellent to use for enthusiastic or reluctant readers. The books are very carefully designed... the cut-out style pictures engage the reader immediately while the captions and small boxes of text draw him/her in. For those who want to know more, the bigger blocks of text will provide plenty of answers. So each reader can pick how much or how little reading to do without feeling cheated. Just click on the pictures to find out more about these titles.


Colouring Books As mentioned before, we now have plenty of colouring books on the site. We're really happy with the quality of the books (paper, illustrations and text component), so recommend these strongly. Over the next few newsletters we'll be showing the different titles. Let us know if you want a colouring book on a specific topic and we'll do our best to find one. These have been selling so well that we're waiting for the second batch to arrive!


Website of the Month Lila introduced me to this BBC site which offers plenty of short lessons on many different topics in several learning areas. The lessons are ideal for late primary or high school age students to use independently: http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize. A handy tool is this mindmap creator which can be used with the available learning areas and lessons or with typed labels of your choice: http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/maps/index.shtml. As those are not too exciting for the younger ones, let them have a look at National Geographic's children's site... and as they would go straight to these in any case, here is the link to the games page: http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/Games/. Of course, as always, we recommend that parents check content before leaving their children to navigate a website. It is also a good policy to keep internet-linked computers used by children in a shared area. About Us This month Lila will tell you a bit about herself:
Hi, I’m Lila and I’m 13 years old, turning 14 in August. I am homeschooled, and have been for about 3 years. Before that I had been homeschooled for a year when I was 7. My favourite subjects are Music and Technology and Enterprise. For Music I am part of two choirs; a homeschool choir and the Cottage Choir. I also do the advanced Musicianship class, where I am learning a lot of stuff I had never even heard of before! This is my eighth year doing piano lessons and I enjoy writing my own compositions; so my music is pretty full on. About 8 months ago one of my homeschool friends and I started a monthly eMag (called Free Range) for homeschoolers aged 9-17. Mum taught me the basic skills to put together and design each issue. Please consider contributing or subscribing (it is free)! If you would like to look at it go to www.freerangemag.com/emags.htm. Since December I have been doing it by myself as my friend has returned to school and is too busy with homework to help me. I read a lot and my favourite authors are Gail Carson Levine, Angie Sage, Elen Caldecott, Fiona Dunbar, Kate Forsyth, Anna Fienberg and, of course, Jackie French. Whenever Leatherwood needs a helping hand, I take stock, package books and add books to our site. It’s nice to have something that always keeps us busy. Jackie French says: “People who say ‘I’m bored’ are boring” and I agree!
Contact Us Let us know if we can help to find a book or audio book. We can get hold of titles that are not on our site and enjoy finding books on request. Happy reading! Elsa, Peter, Seb & Lila

March already!