Animal Books -- Stories, Activities & More!

Disclosure: I was sent these books in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own. 

Hazel has always loved animal books and stories. I know a friend who says her five-year-old boy could care less about truck books, but a book with animals he loves. Do you have an animal lover in your life? Today we are sharing some fun books that include stories, activities and more. Several even take you on a trip around the world. Ready to join us?

Merry Monday: Sweet Holiday Picture Books

Disclosure: I was sent these books in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own. 

Can you believe Thanksgiving is this week? The holiday season is upon us. Today I am going to share with you five holiday picture books. These books have stories that are sweet. I am referring to them as holiday books because of one of them is a Hanukkah book. It combines the parents' cultures--Jewish and Indian. Talk about a multicultural mix It is Queen of Hanukkah Dosas by Pamela Ehrenberg and illustrated by Anjan Sakar. 

Press Out + Color Birds & Butterflies -- a Relaxing Friday Review

Disclosure: Candlewick Press sent me these books in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own. 

Today I am going to share with you two really fun coloring "books". They are both part of the same series by Zoe Ingram. It is the Press Out + Color Series. What is really neat about this series is the pictures you color press out to make into 3-D objects or decorations. Today I am sharing Press Out and Color Birds and Press Out and Color Butterflies. 

Picture Books that Make You Feel Good

Have you entered my giveaway for a 16 x 20 canvas print?

Disclosure: I was sent these books in exchange for honest reviews. All opinions are my own.

Today I am going to share with you five new picture books that make you feel good when you read them or have the overall theme of making the world better. Don't we all need that in our world. We will start with How to Heal a Broken Wing by Bob Graham

Historical Multicultural Books

Disclosure: I was sent these books free of charge in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Today I am sharing with yous four fun books that are  multicultural and a bit historical. Our first book is Let's Clap, Jump, Sing & Shout; Dance, Spin & Turn It Out! collected by Patricia C. McKissack and illustrated by Brian Pinkney. It is a collection of games, songs and stories from an African American childhood and is perfect for summertime.

Picture Books about Night and Sleep

Disclosure: I was sent these books free of charge in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own. 

Tonight I am going to share some new picture books about sleep and nighttime. Are your kids afraid of nighttime darkness? Or perhaps they just do not like going to sleep? These books are perfect for you then! Our first book is Time Now to Dream by Timothy Knapman and illustrated by Helen Oxenbury. 

Summer Animal Fun -- Summertime Fun Reviews

Disclosure: I was sent these products free of charge. All opinions in my review are my own and I did not receive any other compensation. As always I am providing links to the book for your convenience.

 Summertime brings thoughts of many things--beach, heat, sunshine and animals. For me there are always new and fun things to see in nature and I like to share that with Hazel. What animals do you think about in the summer? We have so many different birds, bugs and frogs that come into our lives, so today's products are going to share those things with you. This year the town cleaned out some of the creek in our back yard and we discovered frogs around. So we will begin with Fabulous Frogs by Martin Jenkins and illustrated by Tim Hopgood. 

Feathers for Peacock -- Book Review & Craft

Disclosure: Wisdom Tales Press gave me a copy of this product free of charge. All opinions in my review are my own and I did not receive any other compensation. As in all my reviews I am providing links for your ease, but receive no compensation.

Today we get to share a beautiful book that is being released in April. Feathers for Peacock by Jacqueline Jules and illustrated by Helen Cann is a beautiful story about friendship and the book itself is gorgeous!! If you hurry you can enter to win a free copy of this book over at Goodreads (the giveaway ends today)!!

Mango, Abuela, and Me -- Book Review & Craft

Disclosure: Candlewick Press gave me a copy of this book free of charge to review. All opinions in my review are my own and I did not receive any other compensation. As in all my reviews I am providing links for your ease, but receive no compensation.

What happens when a faraway grandmother comes to live with you and share your room? And what if she does not speak the same language as you? How are you going to get to know her? This is the storyline of Mango, Abuela, and Me by Meg Medina and illustrated by Angela Dominguez. 

How The Very Worried Sparrow by Meryl Doney Is Helping Me Raise My Sensitive Child

I have 2 current giveaways!! One for an Origami Toy Monsters Book & Kit (ends tonight!!) and the other for 2 DVDs.

 Disclosure: Kregel Publications sent me a copy of this book free of charge for this review. All opinions in my review are my own and I did not receive any other compensation.  As in all my reviews I am providing links for your ease, but receive no compensation.

As I have mentioned previously Hazel is very sensitive and easily frightened. She is always anxious and wants to please everyone around her but she worries about doing it. With Halloween fast approaching her anxiety shows up much more. Around the end of August we went into a store that sells many holiday decorations including the owns for lawns. Hazel had nightmares for a few days after that visit, because of the Halloween decorations they were selling. She is even talking about not going to our next door neighbor's house when trick-or-treating even though she loves their fourteen-year-old daughter and always wants to see her, but they have put out their Halloween decorations and she is scared of them. She had a bad dream about some of the things like the giant spider and the witch being at her school playground during recess and the teachers not seeing them right away. At some point Halloween seems to have become almost an adult holiday and the adults are trying their best to scare each other and in return scare the younger children. 

Crafty Weekends: The Paper Playhouse Review & Link Party

Sharing Saturday is still open for all child-oriented crafts, lessons, etc.!

Disclosure: I was sent these books to review free of charge from Quarto Books USA. All opinions in this post are my own. I did not receive any other compensation for this review. I am including links to each item for your convenience but do not receive anything if you purchase them.

Today I am beginning a new weekend tradition. A weekly craft link party. Each week I will review a craft book/product/pattern and share some craft from it and then I will host a link party to see what crafts and books, products, patterns, etc. you have been making and using this week. There will also be features starting next week. Link up is below!

The Paper Playhouse Review

Indian Crafts

Disclosure: This post contains Affiliate links where I will receive a nominal fee if you purchase through it.

Since it is the last day of the month, we are finishing our exploration of India with Global Learning for Kids and preparing to move on to Lebanon in July. To finish India we made some crafts of things we had read about. Two of the craft ideas came from Super Simple Indian Art by Alex Kuskowski. This book has several great ideas that use things most kids have in their craft supplies.

Creating a Cozy Reading Nook -- Decals Tree Product Review

Disclosure: Decals Tree gave me a wall sticker and is supplying the ones for the giveaway free of charge. All opinions in my review are my own and I did not receive any other compensation. As always I am providing links to the wall sticker for your convenience.

In Hazel's bedroom there is a little nook between her closet and what may have been another closet at some point with a window. I have always wanted to make it a reading nook for her. I wanted a cozy spot with some fun pictures to help her imagination go wild. She fell in love with bean bag chairs at the Whole Foods play area near us. So we got her one at Target and moved her fluffy rug over there. Then Decals Tree offered us any wall sticker on their site for $50 or less and are offering a giveaway of the same thing to one of my readers. 

Spring Candy Bird Houses

Have you entered my current giveaway? This is one you do not want to miss!!

We finally have spring weather in the Boston area and we definitely have a bit of spring fever at my house! The weather is too nice to stay inside all day. However we took time the other morning to make these adorable bird houses from graham crackers, Peeps and frosting. I saw the idea at Yesterfood. When I saw them, I knew Hazel would want to make them. She is after all obsessed with birdhouses and bird cages.

 
 We Had fun making them. Hazel remembered making gingerbread houses out of graham crackers and this reminded her of that. We used a tube of decorating frosting, but it took a few tries and some time to get them to stay together. 

We had two kinds of Peeps. The new birthday cake flavor (which Hazel thought was ok) and the original ones in pink (which Hazel does not like since she does not like marshmallow, but I love them). She made the house for the pink one and I did the blue one.

For similar ideas check out these posts:

• Graham Cracker Nativity 
• Valentine's Day Gingerbread House 
• Building a Bird Nest
• Yarn Bird Cages

Simple Patchwork Gifts Book Review

Disclosure: Search Press gave me a copy of this book free of charge for this review. All opinions in my review are my own and I did not receive any other compensation. They also sent me a copy to giveaway! As in all my reviews I am providing links for your ease, but receive no compensation.

Did you know that March is National Craft Month? Well, in honor of National Craft Month I am going to review some fun craft books. Today's is Simple Patchwork Gifts by Christa Rolf. Now one of the the first things I love about this book is the fun and simple projects in it. I decided to try a couple projects as handwork. They were easy to adapt as either hand or machine sewing. Since I sewed by hand, Hazel wanted to try as well. The first project I made was the Phone Charm or what we are calling bird ornament.

Pine and the Winter Sparrow Book Review

Disclosure: Wisdom Tales Press gave me a copy of this product free of charge. All opinions in my review are my own and I did not receive any other compensation. As in all my reviews I am providing links for your ease, but receive no compensation.

Have you ever wondered why pine trees keep their needles in the winter and the other trees lose their leaves? Alexis York Lumbard shares an old Native American tale explaining this to young children and weaves through the message of helping others and charity. The book is Pine and the Winter Sparrow and the story is based on a Cherokee (or at least that is where Ms. Lumbard thinks it is from) fable called Why the Trees Lose Their Leaves.

Picture Books Review

With the start of December and Advent, I thought I would share each post where our Mouse and the Miracle Mouse (Holy) has been up to. (He now has an elf friend named Elfie who often is hidden with him.)

Holy on Window with Angels and Elfie Hanging on Tree

Disclosure: Candlewick Press gave me a copy of this book free of charge to review. All opinions in my review are my own and I did not receive any other compensation. As in all my reviews I am providing links for your ease, but receive no compensation.

Today I am going to share with you five wonderful picture books that help grow imaginations and wonder. These books will help the reader learn about the world and use their imaginations. We had so much fun exploring this five books and highly recommend them. I also shared some round-ups of crafts to go with three of the books. First I am going to start with a wordless book.

Easy Cup Owl Craft

Well yesterday we went to Lakeshore Learning for their free craft. They had the kids making owl pencil holders out of styrofoam cups. (If you click the link above and then click the picture of the owl pencil holder it gives you their instructions.) We made three. First Hazel made a brown one since the craft leader told her to color the cup first.

Popsicle Stick Fish Craft & More

Congratulations to Kristen P. for winning the Octunauts DVD!!

Today I am going to share a simple craft inspired by a craft kit at Oriental Trading. Since we had most of the supplies already, we did not order the craft kit. I showed Hazel the picture and let her get to work on it. She came up with the following picture.

All the craft sticks she had left in her craft supplies had glitter glue on them. After she made this, we found more colored craft sticks. I made another one trying to spread out the sticks more. I actually like hers better. I also added some foam spots on the ends.

Seeing mine, she wanted dots on hers, so she added them.

For this craft, we glued the sticks in the order we wanted them and added the heart for a mouth and an eye. Then added the dots.Today we will also share a couple of fun things from this past weekend. First look what we saw while waiting in line at the drive through at Starbucks on Saturday.

Of course once I was at a good place to take a picture and got my camera, the line began to move. I noticed a bird fly out of the nest which is what caught my eye to it. Then I pointed it out to Hazel. So fun!!

Then one of the teenagers at church made these amazing cupcakes for the Sunday School snack on Sunday. We are using a Jungle-Themed Vacation Bible School curriculum for the summer lessons and this week's animal was a giraffe. She said she found how to do it on-line. I am guessing she found them at Sugar Sugar: Giraffe Cupcakes!

An Easy Paper Plate Sea Gull Craft

Today I am sharing a quick craft we did at our local library. Every Thursday they have a free craft and Hazel loves to go and do it. This week's craft was a simple paper plate sea gull craft. To make the sea gull you need to cut the head and neck by making a somewhat squiggly line on each side of the middle. Draw it on first to get the shape you want. I also rounded the head on mine a bit. Then you fold the wings down and add eyes (either googly or drawn), beak (red or orange paper or draw it on) and feet (yellow paper). Then if you want you can add decorations like eye lashes or color to the wings and body.

Hazel's Sea Gull

I helped Hazel with the cutting since she is not confident at cutting yet. I also cut out the feet and beaks for her. She did the rest. 

My Sea Gull

I used the markers that were out to decorate a bit more. It seemed like the perfect craft since we had been taking a closer look at sea creatures and lately we have been reading about birds.

For more ideas on Ocean Life and Birds check out:

• Shark Exploration
• Cinderella Penguin
• Wild and Free: Dolphins, Whales and Manatees
• Jellyfish Exploration
• Trip to Boston
• Ocean Pinterest Board
• Paper Plate Ducks 
• Needle Felted Birds 
• Bird Nest Crafts 
• Peg Doll Birds 
• Pine Cone Swans 
• Birds for Our Homemade Nests 
• Bird Nest Treats 
• Gift for the Birds 
• Pine Cone Ducks
• Simple Bird Nest Crafts (scroll to bottom of post) 
• Birds Pinterest Board