Tricky Trivia

What is the snowiest city in the U.S?

Take a guess in the comments below!

Simple Sunday Twitter Hop Coming Soon!

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Pocket Referee Review and Giveaway (3 Winners)

With summer starting and all the kids home from school, I have the perfect product for you! The Pocket Referee is a great tool that was created about 30 years ago by George Vraney to help his children learn the importance of compromising. In 2006, George teamed up with his daughter Jennifer to create the Vraney Inc., in order to share this great product with the world.

“The Pocket Referee is designed to give kids a fun fair way of taking turns getting their way.” One side of the coin has a picture of a referee and the other side has a picture of a treasure chest. Let the kids choose a side and flip the coin to see who gets to be the coin holder first. My girls love that the coin comes with its own cute bag with a carabineer. The coin holder holds the power to make a final decision. Kids can’t decide which game to play next? Let the coin holder make the choice. Once they make their decision, they must pass the coin to their sibling so they can be the new coin holder. If the coin holder doesn’t want to waste their turn on this particular argument, they must pass the choice to their sibling, but they get to keep the coin. With the Pocket Referee, the parent no longer has to pick sides or be the bad guy. They even have a variation that works when you have more than two kids!

My girls are a little young to be coin holders, so we created an alternative way to use the Pocket Referee until they get a bit older. Mommy holds the coin until it is needed. When they can’t agree on a toy, game, book, or show, we pull out the Pocket Referee. We take turns on who gets to flip it. The person flipping gets to make the choice if it lands on the referee and the other gets to make the choice if it lands on the treasure chest. This method has worked well for us, but I will definitely change it up once they can understand the other way better. The girls love the Pocket Referee and I love squashing argument quickly and quietly! Does your family need a Pocket Referee? Well, the generous people from Vraney, Inc. are going to give three lucky readers of Between the Lines their very own Pocket Referee! Can’t wait to win it? Buy it today at Amazon.com.


Mandatory Entry: Visit Pocket Referee and leave me a comment on something you learned.

Extras: (Remember each entry must have a separate comment and an email address is needed to contact winner.)
~Follow Between the Lines (3)
~ Subscribe to my email (5)
~ Grab my button and leave a link of where it’s displayed (5)
~Add me to your Blogroll and leave a link (5)
~ Follow 2 Teach is 2 Touch Lives Forever (3)
~Follow me on Twitter (2)
~ Follow Pocket Referee on Twitter (2)
~ Like Pocket Referee on Facebook (2)
~Tweet this giveaway leaving me your link. (3x a day not back to back) (1 entry each)
~Blog about this giveaway and leave me a link (10)
~Make a purchase from Pocket Referee (10)

This giveaway will end on June 23rd@ 10p.m Eastern

*This giveaway is open to US and Canada only. Winner will be chosen randomly. An email notification will be sent to the email address provided by the winner. The winner must respond within 48 hours. Failure to do so will result in being disqualified and a new winner will be chosen.

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary Pocket Referee in exchange for my honest review. The opinions & thoughts expressed are my own. I received no other compensation for my review nor was I under any obligation to give a positive review.

Recipe Corner: Pepperoni Caesar Pasta Salad

Now that the grills are being fired up, it’s time to start thinking of some new side dishes. A cold pasta salad is always a great addition on a hot summer day. Enjoy! And don’t forget to contact me if you are interested in having your blog and your yummy recipe featured in a Fabulous Food Friday Post. Whether you bake it, sauté it, or just microwave it, send it in! Share your yummy food and you may find yourself with new visitors. Please email me directly if you are interested. (betweenthelines-kam@hotmail.com )

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups uncooked medium pasta shells
• 1 cup cubed mozzarella cheese
• 1 (3.25 ounce) package sliced pepperoni, quartered
• 1/2 cup fresh broccoli florets
• 1/2 cup prepared Caesar salad dressing

Directions

1. Cook the pasta according to package directions. In a large bowl, combine the mozzarella cheese, pepperoni and broccoli. Drain pasta and rinse in cold water; add to the pepperoni mixture. Drizzle with salad dressing; toss to combine. Refrigerate until serving.

Tricky Trivia

The healthy human eye can distiguish about __________ different colors.

Take a guess in the comments below!

Summer Learning Series: Learning with Cheez-its

Every child loves summer. Summer is a time for playing outside, swimming in the pool, and hanging out with your friends. Unfortunately, summer is also a time when kids lose a lot of what they learned during the previous year of school. As an elementary school teacher, it was frustrating to watch my students struggle at the beginning of each year with objectives that they had mastered the previous year. As a parent, I want to make sure that this doesn’t happen to my children. This summer, I will be setting aside a little time each day for some fun learning activities for my kids. Starting in June, check in each Monday if you are looking for some activities for your kids. I will be posting a few things we did the previous week to share. Also if you are interested in doing the same thing, I would love to link up with all you creative moms out there! Just shoot me an email and let me know you are interested. (kellymalinowski@hotmail.com ) Let’s work together to help our children have a fun, but educational summer!

This week the girls and I did a fun little exercise with our Cheez-its. That’s right, I said Cheez-its. If you go to your local grocery store, you will notice that they have many different types of Cheez-its. Last week, I picked up a box of Scrabble Cheez-its. Every cracker in the box looks like a Scrabble tile with a letter on top. This activity can be done in many different variations depending on your child’s age. First, give each child a blank piece of paper, a pencil, and a pile of Cheez-its. For my six year old, I told her to make ten words out of her Cheez-its. Every time she found a word, she wrote it on her paper so that she could use her Cheez-it letters again.

She had a lot of fun and got so excited every time she discovered a new word. Although she only wrote her ten down, she continued finding words after the activity was done. For my 4 year old, I altered the activity a bit. Since she can read most three-letter words, I gave her one word at a time to find. This was easier for her than pulling a random word out of her head, but she was still practicing her letter sounds and spelling words. After she found her words, she also wrote them on her paper (very proudly, I might add).

If you have a child that is just learning letters and sounds, you can simplify this activity even more. For the younger kiddos, write the words on the paper for them. Then have them search through the pile of Cheez-its and find the matching letters. If your child is more advanced, challenge them to find 4-letter and 5-letter words. This activity also works real well with Alphabits. When the activity is done, let the children eat their well-deserved snack!