Geography Awareness week is coming

Over the next four weeks, through the 19th of November,  there will be several posts about Geography Awareness week coming.  This year, the week of November 13 through the 19th is dedicated to GA week.  I've received the same poster twice with some cool ideas about getting involved in GA week and things you can do with your family or in school with classes.  The theme this year is "The Adventure in Your Community."  What better way to get involved in your community awareness than checking out the JGDS series and learn about different states.  Community is not just your immediate town or state; it is world-wide.  Take the challenge and become more aware of the adventure in your own backyard as well as places a bit outside of your town.  Read a geography based book.  Do some activities.  Earn some badges from the National Geography Educational website.  Remember to have fun and share what you learn during this week of "Adventure in your Community."  See you all in the postings.

Savannah Children's Book festival

I'm a little late posting this but overall the day was fun. I talked to a lot of people, sold a few books and had a good contact, although I wish I had gotten more contact information from him so that I could followup on his statement. Mr. Bob bought a copy of Train of Clues to take to school, stating that he was a 5th grade teacher (yay!! because the series are perfect for that grade) and that he was on the committee that buys books for the classes and library, not sure if it is district wide or just his school. Anyway, he said they had a meeting last week and that he was definitely going to make sure my books made their way into the school. So, hopefully that will be coming soon. I'm sure it is a process to go through to get books approved for classroom use and to have in the library and all, but this could be a little break that I need to get started.

I'm glad Benjamin went me this year as having him sitting at the table allowed me more freedom to walk around and see some acquaintances and friends and make a few new ones on the way.

I saw some signage I would like to have - Meet the Author, book signing type things but that will have to wait until I get some decent orders and the series starts taking off or until next spring when I start all over again with the homeschool conferences and other events I plan on attending.

Here are a few pictures from the event - enjoy - see you all in the postings - Mrs. E & the JGDS :)


This is my table setup from the front side showing my map. The map is getting a bit used since I am hanging it on all my table displays wherever I go; I'll have to replace it with a new map soon - lol (thank goodness for Dollar Tree - yep, that map came from Dollar Tree with my wording added to it).




This is the "freebie" banner I ordered from vistaprint (my cost came out to about $10 for shipping and the plastic grommets that are self adhesed to the banner - not bad for a "freebie") Eventually the banner and map will be together as a meet the author type banner on a stand -






A friend of a friend (a new friend to me) took this one while I was away from the table of Benjamin - as you can see there was a bit of a crowd there while I was gone.


Overall it was a good day and hopefully Mr. Bob will come through with a nice order for the first five books for the school/district/libraries. See you in the postings - Mrs. E & the JGDS :)

Mint Hill success/license plate game

Mint Hill Sunday in the Park was very successful this year (not as much as I would have liked to seen for my books in the way of homeschoolers, but still succesful). I took Benjamin with me to help out; he stayed to himself most of the day - did set up the canopy and went to get some pizza and ice cream later in the day for us and helped Shelley take her stuff to her car.

Shelley was selling like a madman - she sold 7 copies of Radium Halos and 2 copies of "The Moose Next Door" (an interative write and illustrate your own essay story book for grades 2 through 4).

I sold my special deal (the first three books with study guides), a copy of "Wilderness" and a copy of "Train of Clues".

The booths on either side of us housed a young girl who is homeschooled selling "dragon eggs" and hair ribbons (flowered and ribbons hanging down type of things) and they were fun to talk to. Ms. Gabrielle, the 4-year-old sister to the girl selling, opened up to me as we were getting ready to leave or close to that time; she just pulled her little Disney Princesses chair next to me and gave me a life story. She was so cute. The young fellow next to me on the other side was doing macrame type parachute cord bands (wrist and keyrings) to benefit the military fallen heroes funds or something like that - he was an ex-marine. He also told us about a festival in Banner Elk, which is in October - the Woolly Worm Festival. It is held at one of the schools in Banner Elk and I've made contact and am hoping to add this to my events this year. So be on the lookout for more information on this if I get in and can possibly do a school visit the Friday before the event - that would be awesome.

I've already added another festival to the October line-up - so check out my website for the calendar of events. This one is very local - right in the town where I live so no major travel time and no staying in a hotel or with friends or anything like that; just need Benjamin to help set the canopy up and take it down but that should be an easy setup.

After getting the car packed up and heading out, Benjamin started checking out license plates on vehicles as they passed us. We saw a good many of the different states - 11 in total, not including South Carolina and North Carolina (obviously being in those two states, those two tags were expected to be seen). One trucker we passed actually had an Ontario plate - so we actually saw international plates - lol.

The states we saw included Ohio, Virginia (heading south for whatever reason, must be going back to school somewhere down this way), Mississippi, Indiana, Kentucky, Florida, New Jersey (again, heading in the wrong direction - since Jersey is north of us), Tennessee and Georgia (this is pretty much expected coming from North Carolina to South Carolina on I-85, which is a direct route to Atlanta. We saw two cars together with New York plates and one of them actually said "DR BOOK" - now how cool a plate is that. I'm thinking of doing a vanity plate for me but I don't think anyone would really get it (I want it to look something like this but may be too many letters - JGDS ATHR). And the winning plate from the furthest place is Washington state. He really is a long way from home so hoping his trip is successful wherever he was heading. It was fun to see several different states from many different regions of the country.

Remember on any trip you take - play a game and have fun. Mrs. E :)