I Heart Black & Decker

I am in love.  Love, love, love.  I am in love with my new lawn mower.   No mocking, please.  It was love at first sight.

Behold: The Black & Decker CM1936.
It is a 19-Inch, 36-Volt Cordless Electric Mulching Lawn Mower

Isn't she a beauty?  And, she purrs like a kitten. 

Ok, I'm exaggerating about the kitten part a little, but the humm of motor is so quiet that I could hear birds singing while I was mowing the lawn with a ridiculously big grin on my face this morning.  No lie, the birds were chirping along (and I really did have a goofy smile too). 

Zero emissions.  This mower runs off a rechargable electric battery.  So, the garage does not smell like gasoline.  Side benefit:  No pull cord.  You push a button, pull the safety lever, and starting mowing. 

AND (there's more!) the mulching attachment comes pre-installed, and there is a bag for clippings if you want to go that route.  Allow me to step onto my environmental soapbox for a moment, but if you always bag your grass, please consider the mulching option -- even occassionally. Not only does the grass unnecessarily clutter your local landfill, but you are robbing your lawn of the nutrients (especially nitrogen) provided by decomposing grass. Grass clippings are 80% water and 5% nitrogen (plus other nutrients too), and are an excellent organic fertilizer.  For more articulately explained reasons about why you should consider mulching, see PADEP's "Let it Lay" program or Mulching vs. Bagging on All About Lawns.  Your lawn will thank you! (stepping off my soapbox now...)

Our new mower replaces our old style trusty reel mower that served us well for the last decade.  The little push mower cut (and still does cut) grass really well.  Unfortuantely, ours never cut crab grass or dandelion stems or the thicker seed bearing grass stems.  Also, it gets jammed on every stick, which is kind of jarring.  I looked into electric mowers a few years ago, and I couldn't find one that I really wanted to try.  But, then I found the CM1936.   And, it's a match made by Black and Decker.

Product Review: Rock N Learn Phonics

I've been working with Caroline this summer on learning to read.  She has most of her letter sounds down, and definitely can identify all uppercase letters, but she still sometimes has some trouble distinguishing among lowercase and b and p and g and d.  Although, if I cue her with a "that's a B" she can sound out short vowel sound words. We've been using the Kindergarten Level 1 Hooked on Phonics program.  It's been going slow.  Slow and steady.  I'm happy with her progress, but sometimes it is tough to get her to sit down and work through a whole page of words.

I thought it would be nice to try out some new learning to read materials, just to see if there was a system better suited to Caroline. Caroline is quite the singer and dancer, so Rock n Learn Phonics on DVD seemed right up her alley.

The Rock N Learn Volume 1 DVD features 28 lessons, starting with short vowel sounds and beginning consonants with vowels. It progresses through blending consonants (e.g, sh), three letter blends, word families, silent e, consonant digraphs, read along sentences, and read along stories. Volume 2 DVD continues with long vowels, vowel combinations, syllables, ending sounds, silent consonants, rule breakers, and more read-along sentences and read-along stories.  This program covers a huge amount of phonetic material.

So far we've watched the first 10 tracks several times.  The animation, music and characters are really catchy, and I've caught Caroline singing the short vowel song a few times. A-E-I-O-U!  Each individual lesson covers quite a bit of material, so it will be a while before we're ready for the later lessons on this DVD.  Abby, who is an established reader, would still benefit from the later lessons on Volume 2.

Scattered among the songs on both DVDs are interactive portions to allow the kids to practice their skills.  For example, a word will appear on the screen, and there is a pause for the young person watching to try to read it. Then the answer is provided. Unfortunately, the pause isn't long enough for Caroline.  Even though she's been sounding out words all summer, she not fast enough for this DVD.  Even though she's happy to watch the songs, she isn't participating as fully as the intended by this program. 

With that said, the age range for this program is listed as Age 6 and up, and Caroline is only 5 1/2.  I bet in 6 months this program will be exactly the right level of difficulty for her.  In the meantime, she can watch the catchy vowel song and some of the other early tracks and reinforce all those consonant sounds. 

One other thing I really love about this DVD is that they have close-ups of someone's mouth when sounding things out.  As a veteran of speech therapy, I know that kids in Kindergarten are still developing portions of their speech (like r's and f's and l's).  So, watching the mouth reinforces correct tongue placement and sound pronounciation and they don't even realize it!

Summary: We will continue with the Hooked on Phonics for reading instruction and practice because it is better paced for Caroline, but we are definitely going to supplement her reading with this set of DVDs because this program is catchy and fun. This program is simultaneously entertaining and educational.

Disclaimer: I was provided a free copy of Volumes 1 and 2 of this Rock n Learn Phonics in order to write a review on my blog.  All opinions are my own.

Final Note:  Abby has thoroughly, and I do mean thoroughly, reviewed the list of other Rock N Learn products and is literally begging me to buy the Solar System DVD.