The Dreidel That Wouldn't Spin -- Book Review & Math Application

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.

Hanukkah started on Sunday at sun down and lasts eight days. It is a Jewish holiday that celebrates several miracles that occurred during a time when Judaism was outlawed and their temple was desecrated. Last month we explored Hanukkah as part of the Multicultural Kid Blogs' Hanukkah for Kids Series by taking a look at dreidels. I mentioned a few books we had read and one we had not gotten our hands on yet. Well today we get to share this beautiful book with you. The Dreidel That Wouldn't Spin by Martha Seif Simpson and illustrated by Durga Yael Bernhard is a story that takes place in Prague a century ago that reminds us all that money does not buy miracles.

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Thank you to everyone who shared with us last week!! Even with the issues I had with Linky Tools last weekend, there were many amazing ideas shared. I had trouble choosing between them for features!! Our features are just a sampling of the wonderful things shared, so if you haven't checked out the rest you should!! The features for this week include Christmas, Holidays and Parenting and Gift Advice. I have also started a new craft link party (the crafts just have to be family appropriate and not kid related) and it is a place to share crafts, reviews of patterns, craft books, etc. and patterns. I hope you will come check it out tomorrow.  Creative Kids Culture Blog Hop is a monthly party, so be sure to stop by to share your multicultural posts and ideas and recipes there.

Odd Squad, Peg + Cat, and Word World Christmas DVDs from PBS Kids

Disclosure: PBS Kids gave me a copies of these DVDs free of charge. All opinions in my review are my own and I did not receive any other compensation.

Looking for something to entertain the kids this long weekend? Here are three fun and educational DVDs to pick up while doing your shopping. The first we will share is Word World: Merry Christmas! This is a fun filled Word World DVD. Word World is perfect for the younger viewers who are beginning to read or learn letters. As with all Word World the objects are formed by the letters of their words.

Holiday Gift Suggestions--Books for Kids to Create Their Own Play

Disclosure: I was sent these books to review free of charge from Storey Publishing. 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.

In honor of Black Friday I thought I would share some fun books for kids of different ages to create their own fun and play. The first is Teddy Bear Doctor  by Deanna F. Cook, and we have already reviewed this amazing book. This is our go to gift for Hazel's friends. We buy a copy of the book with a small stuffed animal and it is perfect! The age recommendation is ages 3-8. Some of the crafts in the book would be difficult for a 3-year-old, but it is perfect for the 5-8 range.

Wampanoag's Cranberry Day -- Native American Heritage Series & Giveaway

I have a confession to make. Until recently, I did not understand why the Native American mascots were so offensive. I went to a high school where our mascot was a warrior and being a child of the 80's the song, The Warrior, was very popular at our school. Our cross town rival's mascot was a chieftan. I saw these as a way to honor Native Americans and not to insult or hurt them. This fall I have read several articles on-line (Huffington Post and The Guardian) that made me understand why they are hurtful. For some people these are the only images they have of Native Americans. This had not occurred to me since I have always had a fascination with Native American lifestyles, stories and such. I also understand why many Native Americans consider Thanksgiving the National Day of Mourning (see Huffington Post for more on this). Although Native Americans have always held days to honor and be thankful for the harvest, it is hard to watch the country celebrate and reenact a day that lead to so many of their own people's death and the loss of their land. I have written about the Wampanoag, a bit on Squanto and this year we explored Metacomet (King Philip) and I wrote even more about Squanto over at All Done Monkey. To honor the Wampanoag and to learn more about them as part of our Thanksgiving I thought we would explore one of their harvest holidays. I should also refer you to our post on cranberries since the holiday is Cranberry Day.  Our first discovery of this holiday was the book Cranberry Day by Jannette Vanderhoop. 

Dreidel Fun! Hanukkah for Kids

Disclosure: Daria Music gave me a copy of this book 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.

As part of the Multicultural Kid Blogs Hanukkah for Kids Series we decided to explore dreidels with the help of Daria Music's Dreydel (Dreidel) Song and Game Activity. 

Dear Santa, Love Rachel Rosenstein -- Book Review

Disclosure: Penguin Random House Books 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.  As in all my reviews I am providing links for your ease, but receive no compensation.

Rachel loves Christmas!! She loves everything about Christmas--the decorations and lights and all the excitement. There is only one problem, Rachel is Jewish. What she really wants is to have Santa come to her house. Now she just has to figure out how to make it happen. This is the story of Dear Santa, Love Rachel Rosenstein by Amanda Peet and Adnrea Troyer and illustrated by Christine Davenier. 

The Perfect Gift for a Child: Personalized books

Disclosure: I See Me! Inc.  gave me a copy of this book and ornament 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.

Last year I had the pleasure of reviewing a personalized book from I See Me! Inc. Hazel describes Hazel Can Change the World as her favorite book ever!! She often pulls it out just to look at it and now reads it to herself as well as to my parents at story time. (She reads to my parents over the phone almost every night.)

She has literally made paper hearts for all of her classmates because there is a page in it where the brown haired girl gives out hearts to spread love.  I have to say it is one of the best things I have gotten her. Therefore I jumped at the idea of getting another personalized book for her. This year we got My Very Own Fairy Tale by Maia Haag and illustrated by Joyce Patti.

Learning about the Day of the Dead with Books & Crafts

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

 Not being Mexican or even Hispanic and not being Catholic, I did not know much about the Day of the Dead. In fact I found the skeletons a bit creepy. The past few years I have explored the holiday with Hazel and realized what a touching holiday it really is and now I like the skeletons and especially the skulls. This year we took two new books out of the library to explore the holiday a bit more. 

Monstrous Fun: A Doodle & Activity Book -- Product Review

Disclosure: Penguin Kids gave me a copy of this book free of charge for this review in return for an honest 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.

Well, Hazel is often scared of things like monsters, but there are some she likes (Elmo, Cookie Monster, etc.). This year her fears seem worse than usual, but this monster activity book she is enjoying! Monstrous Fun: A Doodle & Activity Book by Travis Nichols comes with a warning. It is for monsters only. Hazel finds the warning amusing. Once you turn past the title page with the warning the book is divided up into sections of various monster holidays. Each holiday has different activities, coloring, find the differences, matching, mazes and more! It begins with All Hallow's Eve of course. After all Halloween is a monster's holiday lately. The next holiday is Fangsgiving. It is a feast to celebrate when the Noobs and Lil'Grims met. 

Exploring Hajj with Books at Home

 Disclosure: Tuttle Publishing 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.

This post is part of the Multicultural Kid Blogs' Hajj for Kids Blog Series. As we are Christian I did not know much about Hajj. I knew that Muslims try to make the hajj at least once in their lives and that it involved visiting Mecca. As a member of Multicultural Kid Blogs I learn new things about other cultures through the group and one thing I found out was there is actually a time in the year called Hajj when the trip is suppose to take place. This year Hajj falls between September 21-26. It of course changes each year since the Muslim calendar is different from our calendar. To explain Hajj to Hazel and myself, I turned to our library. I did not find much. However we did find Hajj Stories by Anita Ganeri.

Exploring Ramadan

We are participating in the Multicultural Kid Blogs Ramadan for Kids Series. This is our post for the series. As a Christian family, we do not know much about Ramadan except that it lasts a month and includes fasting. So our first step was to find out more about the holiday. We started with a DVD from the Holidays for Children series called Ramadan.

It is an older video we found at our library. It explains the holiday and some of the why for the holiday. It also shared a craft that was similar to the craft on In the Playroom: Watercoulour Mosque Silohouette Pictures. So we did not do this one. Next we read some books from the library.

God's Amazing World! Book Review for Earth Day

Disclosure: I was sent these books to review free of charge from Ideals Books. 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.

This year for Earth Day I thought I would focus on the holiday in a different way. There are so many ideas floating around for crafts many using recycled materials and others looking like the planet. There are also all the ideas to help protect the earth. Many people talk about the reasons why we need to do this, but I am going to give you another--a religious point of view. In Genesis 1:28

God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.”

 God gave us dominion over the creatures of earth. He gave humans the job of keeping the earth. To teach this lesson, I found a great book called God's Amazing World! written by Eileen Spinelli and illustrated by Melanie Florian.

A Seder Dinner: Exploring Passover

Have you entered my current giveaway yet?

As a Christian I have only been to a Seder Dinner twice in my life. The first was as a child and the second was as an adult. Both were held at churches. I have always been fascinated by it. Perhaps it is because of the Last Supper being a Seder Dinner. Our exploration has brought with it many questions from Hazel with things like why don't we do this if Jesus did, but that is another story. My goal for this year was to look at what is involved with a Seder Dinner. We of course first looked at books like we always do.

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Happy Spring! Thank you to everyone who shared with us last week and a very special thank you to all who took time to be inspired by what others shared! Once again I feel there were so many amazing ideas shared. As spring begins here, there is a light snow flurry. I am so ready for spring and no more snow!!  For features this week we have Spring Holidays, Spring, and a few of my favorites.

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Thank you to everyone who shared with us last week!! This week we have two days of features!! For Christmas I chose some Christmas themed posts to feature. Please take the time to check them out and pin them for next year's crafts! For this week's features we have some December holidays and snow themed posts as well as  a couple of extras.

Holidays

1) From Living Montessori Now: Free Kwanzaa Songs and Rhymes for Circle Time

2) From A Life in Balance: Kid-Friendly New Year's Eve Party for Families

3) From The Practical Mom: Glitter Stars with Popsicle Sticks

4) From Powerful Mothering: How to Make a Quiet Book

Creative Kids Culture Blog Hop #22

Please note this is NOT Sharing Saturday, but the Creative Kids Culture Blog Hop. If you do not have multicultural activities, crafts, etc. to share, you can still share at Sharing Saturday.

Welcome to the Creative Kids Culture Blog Hop!

The Creative Kids Culture Blog Hop is a place where bloggers can share multicultural activities, crafts, recipes, and musings for our creative kids. We can't wait to see what you share this time!

Created by Frances of Discovering the World through My Son's Eyes, the blog hop has now found a new home at Multicultural Kid Blogs.

This month our co-hosts are:

Multicultural Kid Blogs  
Crystal's Tiny Treasures  
Discovering the World Through My Son's Eyes 
 All Done Monkey

Crafty Moms Share  
For the Love of Spanish

Eva Varga  
Tara Kamiya

Creative Kids Culture Blog Hop is a place for you to share your creative kids culture posts. It's very easy, and simple to participate! Just follow these simple guidelines:

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Thank you to everyone who shared with us last week! While I was busy taking care of my sick little girl, many amazing ideas were shared as well as a few germs since now I have the illness. Our features are completely holiday related. With the start of Hanukkah this week there are a few Hanukkah Features and then lots of Christmas Features including a section on Christmas trees (crafts and crafts for the tree).

Hanukkah Features

1) From Living Montessori Now: Free Hanukkah Songs and Rhymes for Circle Time

2) From Royal Little Lambs: Celebrating Light

Holiday Shopping -- Products Review -- Uncommon Goods

Disclosure: I was sent these items to review free of charge from Uncommon Goods. All opinions in this post are my own. I did not receive any other compensation for this review.

Before I start this post, I will warn my family that they should not read this one until after Christmas since it contains gifts I am giving them!!

Have you started your holiday shopping yet? I try to have mine done before Thanksgiving so I can enjoy the holiday season and not have to deal with the crowds at the mall. Now I do all the Christmas shopping for our family including my own gifts. After the first few Christmases I realized I needed to because even with a list, I was not getting what I wanted. When Uncommon Goods asked if I would review some products I jumped at the chance since they offer unique and unusual gifts.  They offer handcrafted gifts and more that are in harmony with the environment and there is no harm to animals or people with their products. Not only that, they stand behind their products and there is no date that things must be returned by. Plus with every purchase they donate $1 to a non-profit of the buyer's choice (from their list of non-profits to which they donate). This is not an ordinary company. 

Flag Day Books, Activities and Crafts

Have you entered my current giveaway yet?

In the United States, June 14th is Flag Day. To many this is just a holiday that is written on the calendar. I really do not ever remember a celebration for it in my life, but I do remember learning a bit about it in school. Of course being mid-June when school is out or almost out makes it hard for even that to happen. It is the perfect time to start thinking about patriotic crafts with Independence Day coming up and focusing on the flag and its meaning as well as the Pledge of Allegiance. To do these things, I found some books at our local library. But before I share the books and activities with you, I want to share a bit of history. The date June 14th was picked because it is the day the Second Continental Congress adopted the flag. It is unknown who made the first flag and therefore who designed it. There are many legends and rumors about it. It is known that Betsy Ross made one of the earliest flags. (Source)

I Pledge Allegiance by Pat Mora and Libby Martinez is a story told in a girl's perspective. She and her family are excited because her great aunt is about to become a citizen of the United States. She helps her great aunt practice the Pledge of Allegiance and the girl's teacher has her lead the class in the Pledge of Allegiance the day before her aunt becomes a citizen to help celebrate. It is a wonderful book that explains why some people want to become citizens and a great book to start conversations about citizenship and what it means.

F Is for Flag by Wendy Cheyette Lewison is a book that talks about the flag and its meaning as well as a small amount about flag day. The history of the flag is also touched upon in this book.

The Flag We Love by Pam Munoz Ryan is another book about the flag. It goes into a bit of history of the flag, the Pledge of Allegiance as well as the national anthem.

An easy activity/craft for children is to make a flag from paper or felt. Or to have it as a felt "puzzle". It is also a great way to demonstrate how the flag has changed over the years with the number of stars. I cut the pieces out of felt (well the stars are paper and I got bored of cutting them). To get the dimensions somewhat correct I looked them up and used the ones at USFlag. I started with a white rectangle 9 inches by 17 inches. I made a pattern for the various pieces so you will not have to do the math.

We also did some activities on the Pledge of Allegiance and flag last September to go along with the book I Pledge Allegiance by Bill Martin, Jr. This was a wonderful book to teach children the meaning of the words in the Pledge of Allegiance.

We also made flag placemats and windsocks for a Fourth of July party a few years ago.

And a fun states craft with a flag frame.

For more ideas we are going to try some of the crafts and activities (educational) in Little Hands Celebrate America! by Jill Frankel Hauser.

For more patriotic ideas check out my Patriotic Round-Up and my Patriotic Pinterest Board.