Octonauts: To the Gup-X DVD Review and Giveaway

Disclosure: NCircle Entertainment gave me a copy of the DVD free of charge and is supplying the one for the giveaway free of charge. All opinions in my review are my own and I did not receive any other compensation.

Having gone from allowing Hazel to watch very small amounts of television to watching much more after switching schools, I tend to really pay attention to what she is watching. One of her favorite shows is The Octonauts on Disney Junior. What I like about the show is it teaches something about underwater creatures and to protect the underwater life. I believe this show is where she got the idea of exploring underwater creatures. If you have missed them, we have posted two of our underwater explorations thus far: jellyfish and sharks. The show is based on books written by Meomi and we will be reviewing one of them during this giveaway as well!

Coloring Page Source

Since I know Hazel loves the show and I like her watching it, I jumped at the chance to review and giveaway a copy of the newest Octonauts DVD from NCircle Enterntainment. Octonauts: To the Gup-X is being released on March 18th. You can pre-order it from NCircle or Amazon. The suggested retail price is $12.99.

Octonauts: To the Gup-X contains six episodes including "Great White Shark", "Coconut Crabs," "Bowhead Whales," "Whale Shark," "Monster Map," and "Flying Fish." It also has a bonus feature of a close up of the Gup-X. Overall the episodes are child-friendly ways to explore the underwater world and learn about sea life you may never have heard of. For our underwater creature explorations I turned to the library for some books on the creatures and included the creatures in these episodes. I found some of the creatures.

We read these books to learn even more about the creatures. "Monster Map" has an octopus in it for the creature. The first time we watched it, Hazel was scared of the "Great White Shark" but I found after learning more about them, she was not as afraid. I think the more exciting thing is when she saw the cover of Deborah Muzzola's Whale Shark book, she told me it was about whale sharks. She is learning what the creatures look like.

To go with the video we made an Octonaut hat. I was going to make one out of fabric for her, but I wanted her to have a part in making it. I had seen a tutorial to make a sailor's hat out of a coffee filter and cardboard at Cut Out and Keep. Since our coffee filters are missing right now, we used a paper bowl. Hazel used her water color paints and painted the bowl. Then we made a rim with cardboard and construction paper. The hardest part was attaching the rim to the bowl. I glued it and then put some tape on it as well as clothespins until the glue dried. I enlarged one of the pictures over at Disney Junior for the Octonaut symbol on the hat.

I also made Hazel some peg dolls of a few of the characters. She cannot wait for me to make the rest of them, but for now she has Kwazii, Peso and Captain Barnacles. They are three of her favorites.

She has also asked me to make a full outfit for her. She decided it should be Captain Barnacles since he has the most clothes and she wants the tool on his belt. Looks like I have some sewing to do.

Needless to say we loved the DVD. Hazel has watched it several times which is a lot for her with any DVD since she usually wants to watch the shows on television and not a specific DVD. If you are looking for a DVD that will appeal to either boy or girl and will also educate them a bit, this is a great one! Now I get to offer you a copy to win for you own thanks to NCircle Entertainment. Just follow my Giveaway Rules and do what the Rafflecopter says.  Good luck!

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The Snowman and the Snowdog DVD Review & Giveaway

Disclosure: NCircle Entertainment gave me a copy of the DVD free of charge and is supplying the one for the giveaway free of charge. All opinions in my review are my own and I did not receive any other compensation.

Today I have the pleasure of reviewing The Snowman and the Snowdog DVD. Thank you to NCircle Entertainment for giving me a copy to review. Now we have not read the book, The Snowman and the Snowdog, however we have read and love The Snowman by Raymond Briggs. The Snowman and the Snowdog is a sequel to The Snowman. Both books are wordless and so is the movie. We have watched The Snowman movie on YouTube. Both movies make the book come alive. They literally seem to be the pictures of the book moving. Raymond Briggs worked with the producers to make sure the movies were what he wanted from his books and you can tell. If you do not know the books, they are lovely stories of the magic of childhood and snow.

Snow Globe

Now Hazel has been asking for weeks about when it will snow again. For several weeks we had a white sheet down on the floor of our family room so she could pretend it had snowed. Needless to say she was very excited to watch this movie and we really enjoyed. She was also excited about the crafts we made to go with it. I found the crafts and printables at The Snowman Craft Activities.

The movie shows a young boy and his mother moving into a house with their dog. The dog dies around Halloween. Around Christmas time he discovers a loose floorboard in his room and discovers a box with the making for a snowman and a picture of the boy and snowman from the first story. It happens to be snowing, so he goes out side and makes a duplicate of the snowman. He runs inside to get a new tangerine since the old one is shriveled and sees his dog's leash. He makes a snowdog next to the snowman with socks for ears and spots and using the shriveled tangerine for his nose. Similar to the first story, the snowman comes to life at night and so does the snowdog. The boy discovers this and goes on a magical adventure with them flying in the sky. They find an airplane to fly around in as well and then go sledding with other snowmen. Then they come to a Christmas tree with Santa packing his sleigh. The boy helps Santa and he tells him his Christmas wish. Santa gives the boy a small gift. The sun is about to rise, so the boy and his snowfriends must get home. I am going to leave the end a surprise for you since it is such a happy ending.

The DVD does have a bonus feature. We looked at it briefly, but it was not going to hold Hazel's attention. It was about Raymond Briggs. 

The Snowman and the Snowdog Mobile

For crafts we made a snow globe. We decided to make a dry one with fake snow and glitter instead of the liquid. We also made a mobile using the printable at The Snowman website. We also made the garland. I printed out extra of the snowdogs from the snow globe and used them in the garland so it would not be just the snowman.  I hung the mobile from the garland and hung it in Hazel's room. She can pretend it snows every day in there now.

Garland

We also made some paper snowflakes using the patterns found at The Snowman website. We hung them from the garland as well.

Finally we made some marshmallow snowmen. Again the idea came from The Snowman website. After making the first one, Hazel decided to get creative. I pulled out toothpicks since we were having trouble keeping them together. We also used some mini chocolate chips on some. I had trouble getting black frosting at first and bought the chips in case I didn't find any.

Now it is your turn to try to win a copy of this loving DVD. You can follow the Rafflecopter for what to do and follow my Giveaway Rules. Or if you cannot wait, you can purchase it at Barnes and Noble or Amazon. (Note these are not affiliate links, but are here for your convenience.)

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Halloween is Coming: Wiggly Halloween DVD Review & Giveaway with Halloween Crafts

Today I am going to share with you a few of our Halloween preparations as well as a wonderful DVD from The Wiggles: Wiggly Halloween. I was sent a copy of this DVD to review here (all opinions are my own) and I get to give a copy away to one of you! Thank you NCircle Entertainment for this opportunity!

The new Wiggles entertain in this friendly Halloween DVD. Now if you have been following me for any time, you may know Halloween is not one of my favorite holidays. I think it has gone way overboard and lost the fun and meaning somewhere along the way. I try my best to focus on the non-scary parts for Hazel since she is sensitive and we take her trick-or-treating to family and friends houses (sometimes not on Halloween) and around our neighborhood to a few of the neighbors we are friendly with on the very early side. The past two Halloweens Steve has been working Halloween night due to storms hitting our area, so I have had to deal with the many, many trick-or-treaters we get on my own as well as getting Hazel out trick-or-treating. I do however remember the fun of dressing up and of trick-or-treating, so I really try to get Hazel excited for this.

Candy Corn Rice Krispie Treat

That being said, I found this video a perfect show to express my views. They mentioned scary things like witches, ghosts and zombies but did them in a non-scary way. The songs are fun and entertaining. Hazel favorite part is that there is a female Wiggle now. Every time the scene changed she had to point out who Emma was. It was really cute. The songs had words changed so that they would not scare young children and the whole DVD is full of fun, music and dancing. There is definitely an effort on the part of The Wiggles to get the children watching up and moving around with their dances. I also love how they feature children in so many of their songs. This DVD is a perfect non-scary celebration of Halloween for young and/or sensitive children. I know Hazel is almost too old to be enjoying them, but since she is so sensitive this is one of the few shows that does not scare her.

Above is a picture of the candy corn rice krispie treats we made with Hazel's best friend and his mom. His mother found the recipe in a magazine, but I don't know which one. I found a similar one here. They made the rice krispie treats before we got there with brown rice krispie cereal. They chose not to dye the treats to match the candy corns. They also bought Reese's Pieces instead of M&M's since the colors matched better.

Next we are sharing some of the edible bugs we made to bring over to Hazel's friend. He is always giving her presents so she wanted to give him one. We found the idea in Family Fun Magazine this month. They are made out of things like dates, prunes, raisins and dried cranberries. We also used chow mein noodles, dried bananas, white chips and sunflower seeds. The instructions called for sliced almonds, but Hazel's friend has a severe nut allergy, so we used sunflower seeds instead for the flies.

The last idea we are sharing today is our Spider Web Jar that we saw on ShinDigz DIY section. I received the fake spider web as part of the order I got to review their products. It is really easy. You need a empty and clean jar, fake spider web and spiders (which the web often comes with) and a LED tea light. Follow the instructions on their site.

Now onto our giveaway!! Here is your chance to win your own copy of The Wiggles: Wiggly Halloween DVD from NCircle Entertainment. Please follow my Giveaway Rules and just follow the Rafflecopter for what you need to do. Good luck!!

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Pocoyo's Circus DVD Review & Giveaway!

Has your child discovered the adorable little boy in blue named Pocoyo yet? Our first experience with Pocoyo was at the end of the Peep and the Big Wide World episodes on PBS, there is a short Pocoyo cartoon. Apparently it is also on Nick Jr, but we don't watch it there. When NCircle Entertainment offered to send me a copy of Pocoyo's Circus DVD and offer one as a giveaway to one of my lucky winners, I jumped at the chance. Disclosure: NCircle Entertainment provided me with a free copy of the DVD for review purposes and the offer to give another one away. All opinions are my own.

Dot-to-Dot available at NCircle Entertainment Activities

Now if you have not seen Pocoyo, it is an adorable show with an adult narrator who interacts with the characters. There is the little boy named Pocoyo and his animal friends. Each episode has a cute story and usually there is a life lesson in it. Pocoyo is orignally a Spanish cartoon.

We were sent the latest Pocoyo DVD which is Pocoyo's Circus. This DVD became available in stores on August 27th for $12.99. It has eight episodes of Pocoyo available in both English or Spanish. In the first episode an alien circus comes for a visit and after some mischievous playing with their tools, the circus has to regroup, but now an angry group of aliens have come expecting to see the circus, so Pocoyo and his friends put it on. In another episode, Pocoyo and his friends are figuring out who left footprints. Once they are able to match each set to the owner, they are fine, but there are some twists and turns in the story.

Match Sheet available at NCircle Entertainment Activities

The other episodes are Pocoyo's Balloon, Who's Calling Me Now, Vamoosh on the Loosh, New to the Planet, Mad Mix Machine, and Remember When. Each has a lesson about listening to others, respecting others, being kind, not taking others things, and such. I also need to add that my mother-in-law absolutely loves Pocoyo. She actually bought one of the other Pocoyo DVDs right after we had gotten ours not knowing we had one. She bought it because she loves watching the show with Hazel.

Printable available at Earth Hour in Pocoyo Activity Book

So now is your chance to win this wonderful Pocoyo's Circus DVD. It is an adorable show that children love and I know once Hazel and I get a bit better at our Spanish we will be watching it in Spanish as well. To enter please follow my Giveaway Rules and do what the Rafflecopter asks. Good luck!!

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Room on the Broom Movie and Book Review

Book

Today I get to review one of our favorite books and the DVD made based on the book. Now NCircle Entertainment sent me a copy of the book and DVD for me to review. All opinions are my own. The book is Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson. Now Room on the Broom was one of Julia Donaldson's books we shared in March. We really loved her books and learning about her through the Virtual Book Club for Kids. Now one of the things we love about Donaldson's books is they usually rhyme. Rhyming makes books fun to read and hear.

In this wonderful story, the witch and cat go for a ride on the broomstick. The wind picks up and carries off the witch's black hat. They go to the ground and look for it, but cannot find it. Then a dog comes out carrying it. He asks if there is room on the broomstick for him. The witch says yes, and the three are off again. This time the witch holds onto her hat, but she loses the bow in her hair.

The witch keeps losing things until she has gained two more animals who want to ride the broomstick.

The frog who is the last addition is so excited he hops and the broomstick breaks in two. At this point the witch is riding in the front of the broomstick and all four animals are in the back. The animals half drops down and the witch continues to fly on her half.

The witch is followed by a dragon who loves to eat witch with french fries. The dragon catches her.

Just as the dragon is about to eat the witch, a four-headed creatures comes out of the lagoon. The creature scares the dragon and tells him that the witch is its.

The dragon leaves the witch alone and escapes the scary creature as fast as he can. Then the four-headed creature becomes the four animals and they clean the mud off themselves. The witch pulls out her cauldron to make a new broom and tells all the animals to find something to put in. Then the new broom comes out with a perfect spot for all of them.

I got all the characters and cut-out props from Making Learning Fun. They were patterns for felt board pieces to tell the story. We cut out the pattern pieces and put them on popsicle sticks, so Hazel can do it as a puppet show. The cauldron with the netting (filled with some candy) was sent by NCircle DVDs. Making Learning Fun also has headbands to have a class act out the rhyming story and play dough mats to learn letters! You can also get other activities at the NCircle Website.  And you can get even more activities at the Room on the Broom Website. (See picture below for samples.)

DVD

Now for the film!! The Room on the Broom film sticks pretty close to the book. It fills in some places so the story flows better on the screen and it shows the dragon hunting the witch. This part scared Hazel a bit even though she knew the story, but she is easily frightened and does not like to see scary things on television (in books she usually covers scary pictures with her hands or asks me to). We however loved the film. We watched it as soon as it came. She was so excited to get it.

The characters in the film look very much like the ones in the book and it is a wonderful way to see the story in action. We really enjoyed it!!

Now the nice part of this story is the witch is nice and cares about the animals. Hazel is not afraid of witches since her exposure to them for the most part has been this book and the book Big Pumpkin by Erica Silverman. In both the witch is very nice.

Now NCircle has allowed me to offer a copy of the Room on the Broom DVD to one of you, my fabulous readers!!  The suggested retail price is $9.99 and came out on DVD August 6th.  You can also check out the trailer and more information about the film here. And their Facebook page! To enter the giveaway, just do the Rafflecopter! Good luck!! And if you do not want to wait for the 26th to find out if you are the winner, you can go buy your won copy here (including a downloadable version) or here (as well as Amazon, Barnes and Noble, etc.)

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