I have a bit of an obsession with fonts. I have a multitude of them installed on my computer, but there are several ‘go-to’ fonts that I use when making many of my preschool printables ~ the bulk of which come from the Fonts 4 Teachers Deluxe program.

The new Fonts 4 Teachers Deluxe can be used to created student worksheets for home or school use. It includes Print, Cursive, D’Nealian, Math, Phonics, Decorative, Box, and Seasonal (Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas) fonts. User can trace lines, dots, arrows or to work on math and writing assignments.

The Fonts 4 Teachers Deluxe program includes a total of 57 Fonts:

• 6 Print Writing Fonts
• 6 D’Nealian Fonts
• 6 Cursive Writing Fonts
• 2 Phonics Fonts
• 2 American Sign Language Fonts
• 3 Math Fonts
• 6 Decorative Fonts
• 8 Box/Block Fonts (New)
• 18 Seasonal Fonts – Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas (New)

Fonts 4 Teachers Deluxe Download:
Regular Price: $39.95 $29.95

Fonts 4 Teachers Deluxe Download & Hard-copy (CD & Manual):
Regular Price: $49.95  $39.95

You can try out the fonts on the Fonts 4 Teachers Deluxe webpage. Just select the font set you’d like to test out and have fun testing it.

Fonts 4 Teachers also has a fun cd-rom called the Pop-up Alphabet, which has the entire alphabet available in 2 Dimensional Pop-up activities. The letters can be used individually or can be put together to make a fun interactive book for your child.

The Pop-up Alphabet cd-rom includes step-by-step instructions as well as a video tutorial, but it is really simple ~ all you have to do is print, cut, color and glue. These would be great for preschoolers working on their alphabet!

My Thoughts

I’ve loved the fonts that I’ve used from the program over the past several years. I purchased the initial program almost three years ago and recently upgraded to the Deluxe version.

I will admit that reading the manual is extremely helpful. Who knew? My original purchase was the downloadable version and I couldn’t remember where the manual was on my hard drive. When I received the cd-rom version of Fonts 4 Teachers Deluxe, I sat down and read through the manual ~ ever so helpful in showing how to create certain characters, etc…when making worksheets.

If you enjoy creating worksheets for your children or a classroom of children, Fonts 4 Teachers Deluxe would be a great addition to your font collection. Downhill Publishing also offers school licenses for many of their font programs, and bundles of other font and software programs.

Want to take a little trip across the USA without ever having to leave your home? Looking for a well laid out US geography curriculum? Not sure where to start…and maybe not to certain with your own history and geography skills?

Road Trip USA may be exactly what you are looking for in your learning! In 136 lessons your family will learn about life in the United States starting with the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Through the use of games, trivia and more, you will discover facts about each state, learn from historical events, study state symbols, famous people and more.

The curriculum in divided up into 5 regions {the Northeast, Southeast, Midwest, Southwest, then finally The Western region of the U.S}, so you can focus on specific areas at a time {see how they are color-coded in the graphic?}. The Teacher’s Manual has 274 pages of maps, day-by-day lesson plans, fun facts, links, recipes, craft ideas and more! In a typical week, you will learn about 2 states. Along your trip there are several opportunities for learning review to make sure that your child is retaining the info that has been covered.

The Road Trip USA curriculum also includes a Student Workbook that has all the printables your child will need, including coloring pages, lapbook pieces, and notebooking pages.

Here are just a FEW of the many topics covered in the Road Trip USA curriculum:

• State Capitals and Abbreviations
• Famous Landmarks
• Historical Figures
• Historical Events
• US Presidents
• The Constitution
• Revolutionary War
• Underground Railroad
• Civil War
• Pioneers
• Westward Expansion
• Native Americans

Find Out More

Age Range: Road Trip USA is recommended for students level K – 4th grade.

Price: The downloadable pdf file for the curriculum is $18 and a cd-rom version is available for $23.

Erica has done an amazing job putting this curriculum together!! It is well organized, laid out and will be easy to implement with your kids. For more info and to see more images from Road Trip USA, be sure to visit Erica’s blog.

The Giveaway {now closed}

Congratulations Dony on winning Road Trip USA!

One of my readers will win a copy of the Road Trip USA {teacher’s manual and student pack pdf}. If you purchase the Road Trip curriculum and win the giveaway, your purchase price will be refunded to you!!  Leave a comment below letting me know which state you would most like to learn more about!

You can also earn additional entries by doing any of the following {be sure to leave an additional comment for each entry}:

• Subscribe to Homeschool Creations or Confessions of a Homeschooler for an extra entry {or two!} 
• Send out a tweet or note on Facebook to spread the news!

Enter to win Road Trip USA curriculum from @ericahomeschool. Giveaway hosted by @jolantheerb ends 5/11 ~ http://bit.ly/bNXEsN

A little more info…

• The give away will be open until midnight EST Wednesday May 11, 2011. Winner will be announced by Sunday May 15, 2011.
• Please leave a separate comment for each entry, winner will be chosen at random!
• Please leave a way for me to contact you in your entry otherwise another winner will be chosen.

Mama Jenn is one of my wonderful blogging buddies and I am SO excited to share a learning tool that she has put together that is hands-on and makes learning FUN for kids! While Jenn was trying to find some dice for her daughter with the numbers 5 through 10 on them to use for a math assignment, she looked around and found some photo stacking cubes that she could repurpose. That one need started her thinking about what else she could do with the cubes and she began creating different learning inserts to fit inside…and Education Cubes were born!

Once you join the Education Cubes Members Only site {on special for $10 until the end of January 2011}, you will have access to over 100 sets of insert cards for the photo stacking cubes as well as any cards that are added after you join!

Here’s a peek at what she has already added to the site:

• Early Learning: Alphabet, Calendar, Colors, (Numbers & Shapes coming soon)
• Language Arts: Alphabet, Dolch Site Words, Word Families (SWR Spelling coming soon)
• Math: Addition, Subtraction, Measurement, Numbers, Ordinal & Roman Numerals, (Multiplication, Division and Shapes are coming soon)
• Science: Earth Science (Biology & Chemistry coming soon)
• Geography: US Geography, US History (World Geography & World History coming soon)
• Electives: Bible & Spanish
• Misc: Christmas

Jenn is constantly adding new educational inserts. She recently added inserts to go along with Carisa’s Raising Rock Stars Preschool Program and also with Erica’s Letter of the Week curriculum.

We printed of a bunch of the inserts to use with the kids {and still have more to go!}. The younger two kids and I spent most of the time playing together with the cubes, but it is going to be something that the girls will use more in the near future to practice multiplication, division and more.

Kaleb and I rolled the number cubes back and forth to each other {numbers 1-10 on two cubes  and then he would name the number that was rolled to me.  We also did the same type of game, but with the letters of the alphabet in the photo stacking cubes.

Zachary and I worked with several different sets: Addition {+2, +3, +4}, word families, and also money. With the money, I put the pictures of the coins into two of the photo cubes and then he would roll the cubes and add the money up together and tell me the total.

For the word family cards, I filled one cube with 6 of the different word family cards {the endings} and then the other cube with 6 of the consonant cards. He rolled each one, put them together to make a word, read the word, and then told me if it was a ‘silly’ word or a real word. Below he is reading the words ‘lin’ {a silly word} and ‘rap’ {a real word}.

The boys have loved the hands-on aspect of the cubes and think it’s great that they can throw/roll the cubes as part of school. :) The cubes used with the Education Cubes are soft-sided cubes/dice. If you are wondering WHY that is important, I’ll let you borrow Zachary for 5 seconds so he can drop-kick one in your living room. You will quickly understand the beauty of the soft dice. :)

Don’t forget that the Education Cubes membership is on special for $10 until the end of January 2011, so grab a set of the photo stacking cubes and join in the fun before the special ends!

I was provided product in exchange for my honest opinion and review. All opinions expressed in this review are solely mine.