The Big Bad Wolf Murder -- A Fun & Deadly Twist on a Fairy Tale

 

Disclosure: I was sent a copy of this book in order to provide an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Do you love a good mystery? Did you know February 26th was National Tell a Fairy Tale Day? As a lover of fairy tales and mysteries today's book is perfect for me. I am describing it as a Little Red Riding Hood meets The Hunger Games mystery. It is recommended for ages 10-14 and I have to say older readers will enjoy it too. I know I did. The book is The Big Bad Wolf Murder by P.G. Bell. 

New Picture Books Sharing Chinese Culture and Holidays

 

Disclosure: I was sent copies of these books in order to provide an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Lunar New Year is in February this year. In Chinese astrology 2026 will be the year of the fire horse. Many countries celebrate the lunar new year, but we often hear about the Chinese culture. Today we are sharing three new picture books that share a bit of Chinese culture celebrating different holidays: Lunar New Year and Ghost Festival Month. Lunar New Year begins February 17 and ends March 3 with the Lantern Festival. Our first book is about a young girl traveling with her mother back to her mother's childhood home for the lunar new year. It is We Always Had Wings by Jess X. Snow. It is recommended for ages 4 to 8.

Potatoes for Pirate Pearl -- Picture Book Review for Hunger Awareness Month

 

Disclosure: I was sent a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Do you know that September is Hunger Awareness Month? About ten years ago I joined with other mom bloggers to bring more awareness to the month. We shared different activities to help kids understand the need for food and how people across our country are food insecure. According to Feeding America 34 million Americans are food insecure and 9 million children in America are as well. (Source) Today I am sharing a new picture book that spreads information in a fun way about nutrition, hunger and even a bit about growing food. The book is Potatoes for Pirate Pearl by Jennifer Concepcion and illustrated by Chloe Burgett. It is recommended for ages 4 to 8.

New Picture Books about Amazing Women

 

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

I love Women's History Month because it gives me time to focus on some amazing women and learn more about them. However, I also know there people out there that do not have the time to research these women, and sometimes you just want a book to read that will help celebrate the month. Today I get to share three picture books about three amazing women that will be instant role models for children. The women are Kip Tiernan, Betrice Shilling and Daphne Caruana Galizia. Come learn about these books and a bit about the women. I will share some ideas of ways to expand these on these books as well. We will start with Kip Tiernan. The book is called Sanctuary: Kip Tiernan and Rosie's Place, the Nation's First Shelter for Women by Christine McDonnell and illustrated by Victoria Tentler-Krylov. It is recommended for ages 7 to 10. 

Anne Bradstreet: Poet, Pilgrim, Rebel #womenshistorymonth

 

Disclosure: I was sent a digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Today we are continuing our celebration of Women's History Month. Today I am featuring Anne Bradstreet. She was the first American poet to be published! As I was doing my research and looking for children's books about her, I discovered Poet, Pilgrim, Rebel: The Story of Anne Bradstreet, America's First Published Poet by Katie Munday Williams and illustrated by Tania Rex. Sadly, I could not find a copy at our local library, but I was able to get a digital copy to review, so I get to share it with you!

2022 is the Year of the Tiger--Tiger Fun Facts & Craft Round-Up

 

The lunar new year begins on February 1, 2022. Many countries celebrate the lunar new year and see it as one of the most important holidays of the year. I have shared about different countries and different celebrations over the years. I always enjoy checking out the Chinese horoscope that goes with it. The legend says that the Jade Emperor wanted twelve animals to be his guard. He sent an immortal to tell the animals and they raced to the Jade Emperor. The first twelve animals became his guard and are the animals of the Chinese Horoscope. This year we are on the third animal of the horoscope, the tiger. 

A Place Inside of Me -- #blacklivesmatter

 

Disclosure: I was sent a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

It is Labor Day, a day for rest. I have been taking this weekend off somewhat so I can get Hazel ready for the new school year. It begins tomorrow and she is going back in person. After being home for six months it is a hard transition. But I wanted to continue our Black Lives Matter Series. Today's post will be different. I have had this book to review that is a poem meant to heal the heart from all the riots, hatred and wrongs going on in the world these days. As a white person I find it powerful to read and get a glimpse into what my Black friends are experiencing. I have been trying to figure out how I wanted to share this book with you. It is powerful yet simple. I knew I didn't want to group it in without picture books, because its message is too important. So here it is, A Place Inside of Me by Zetta Elliott and illustrated by Noa Denmon. 

Fun Facts about Honey Bees and Honey -- National Honey Bee Day!

Today (August 18) is National Honey Bee Day. It is the third Saturday in August each year since 2010. (It was the fourth Saturday in the first year, 2009.)Why do these buzzing little stingers deserve a special day? Well the numbers of honey bees is way down and life without these little flying miracles would be awful for us all. There has been so much out there about helping the bees. I thought today I would share some fun facts about these amazing pollinators and the delicious food they make themselves (besides all the food they help grow for us).

Sharing Saturday 17-51

It is time again for Sharing Saturday! This is a link party to share all of your child-oriented crafts, crafts made for kids, activities and lessons as well as your parenting and/or teaching posts. So glad you joined us!!

On Sunday night we also host Crafty Weekends for all your crafts (done by any age), patterns, and craft product reviews! It is the perfect place to share your creative side!! 

Sacagawea and the Shoshone -- Native American Heritage Month Series & Giveaway

Disclosure: Quarto Knows sent me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

As much as I love Native Americans, I tend to stick to the Wampanoag. Perhaps it is because they live in Massachusetts or because they are the ones in the "first Thanksgiving" story. Plus they are often the ones I see displays about or meet because of the locality. Well I already wrote a post about the Wampanoag for Multicultural Kid Blogs for our Native American Heritage Month Series this year and several over the years here, so today I decided to look at another tribe, the Shoshone. I am going to review one of the books that is a prize in our giveaway and take a look at one of the most famous Native Americans--Sacagawea and her tribe the Shoshone. Last month I had the pleasure of sharing another book that is one of our prizes--I Am Sacagawea by Brad Meltzer. I also reviewed a book about Sacagawea a few years ago. Today's book is Path to the Pacific: The Story of Sacagawea by Neta Lohnes Frazier. 

Sharing Saturday 17-22

It is time for Sharing Saturday!! This is a link party to share all of your child-oriented crafts, crafts made for kids, activities and lessons as well as your parenting and/or teaching posts.

On Sunday night we also host Crafty Weekends for all your crafts (done by any age), patterns, and craft product reviews! It is the perfect place to share your creative side!! And for all of your cultural posts come share them at the monthly Creative Kids Culture Blog Hop.

Thank you to everyone who shared with us at our last party! It was a small party but had some great ideas! Our features are just a sampling of them so if you haven't checked them all out, you should! This week we have one group of features.  

Sharing Saturday 15-37

Thank you to everyone who shared last week!! We had so many fun posts shared!! Our features this week are Autumn Features, Halloween Features and some of my favorites. Have you noticed all the Halloween ideas floating around on-line. I personally do not really like Halloween and hate seeing everything this early, but I also know to make crafts for the holiday you have to start early, so enjoy these features!!  Remember the features are just a sampling of the things shared so if you did not get a chance to check them all out, go back and be inspired!

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.

Sharing Saturday 14-40

Between meetings at church on Thursday nights and having Hazel home on Fridays (which we have now named Mommydays), I do not seem to get my Friday post written. This week at least I put the pictures together of our latest fruit exploration. Now to write the post before Thursday night so it will get up next week. Well at least it is time for Sharing Saturday! Once again I am blown away by the great ideas shared last week. Thank you to everyone who shared and to those who took the time to visit some of the other great ideas shared. We did have a tie for the most clicked--it looks like people are in the mood for fall and Halloween. We had a good number of spider themed posts, so I featured them as well as a couple of the fall ones (besides the most clicked) and of course some of my favorites including some multicultural ones as well as a spring one for those of you in the Southern Hemisphere!

Fairy Tales in Different Cultures: The Persian Cinderella

Today we are going to share The Persian Cinderella by Shirley Climo. Now Persia is known today as Iran. Iran is known to be home to one of the world's oldest civilizations. In the 7th century, Rashindun Muslims invaded Persia (putting an end to the Roman-Persian Wars). During the Islamic Golden Ages Persian literature, art, philosophy, and medicine played important roles in the development of the Muslim Civilization. 

Source: Samuel Augustus Mitchell [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Baker's Passport--Product Review

Disclosure: I was sent this product to review free of charge from Baker's Passport. 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 going to share with you a wonderful experience and together time. Hazel and I tried Baker's Passport Little Bites in Spanish this weekend. We had so much fun. Now I will admit this is definitely meant for slightly older children (who can read and write), but we had fun reviewing our Spanish and baking cookies. Baker's Passport sends you a little packet that includes the recipe with Spanish lessons built in. The Spanish is the numbers, colors and some other phrases. They have places to read and write in the Spanish as well as trace some words. They offer Little Bites in Spanish, French and Japanese and I get to give one of each away, so three winners!!

We got to work. First of course the instructions are to wash your hands. We also put on our aprons (and Hazel put on her hat). Then we got right to work. Here are some pictures of Hazel softening the butter (in the microwave), measuring the brown sugar, mixing and scooping the cookies.

Then there were places with Spanish lessons like matching, a crossword and just vocabulary. Plus all the steps were numbered in Spanish. And the answers are available on their website, so you do not have to know the language to make sure you are doing it correctly!

 Now this was a fun day of baking and learning. Even if you do not bake often or like to bake, this is a fun and easy recipe to follow. The instructions are very clear and easy to do. Oh, and I should mention that we all loved the cookies. They were gobbled right up and Hazel insisted on bringing some to Nonni's since she was going there for her weekly playdate with her grandmother.

 

The even better part of Baker's Passport is for every purchase $1 is donated to Action Against Hunger. So there are three positives with every purchase, learning, baking and helping. Now if you do not want to wait for the giveaway to end, you can get 15% off today on your purchase with the code: BAKINGFUN14. This code is only good through February 7, 2014. 

Now for our fun giveaway!! Please follow our Giveaway Rules and do what the Rafflecopter asks. There will be three winners!! Each winner will get one of the Little Bites.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thanksgiving Books and Being Thankful!

Congratulations to Rebecca P. for winning the Snowman and the Snowdog DVD! 

This year we discovered a great book that really helps hit home the whole Moms Fighting Hunger. Since Thanksgiving is so much about food around here, it is the perfect time to think about giving to those who do not have enough to eat. The book is The Can-Do Thanksgiving by Marion Hess Pomeranc. The story is about a class who does a can food drive and one little girl wants to know where her can will end up, so she writes her name and the school name on a label on it. The class gets invited to serve a Thanksgiving meal at a soup kitchen and the girl finds her can there. She also is able to save the day when the vegetable platter gets dropped on the floor. It is a great book about caring and sharing.

Hazel noticed the other day that the library was collecting food and asked about it. I told her that the library collects food for the local food pantry every November and December. If you bring in food for it, they forgive your overdue fines. Hazel wanted to bring some food to it, and since we were going to the grocery store I let her pick out some cans. Of course, I didn't take a picture of those, but I did buy some more to drop off there.

I hope you will join us in giving to those who are hungry this holiday season!


While on the topic of food, we did a quick corn craft. I am calling it our Thanksgiving Corn. I found it on Pinterest earlier today, but it comes from Highlights for Kids. I love how they do it for the Thanksgiving table, but we did it putting in things we are thankful for since we haven't done that yet this year. I also had Hazel use fingerprints to be the kernels since I knew she would not like drawing that many circles.

At Thanksgiving time we have fun reading books about Thanksgiving, turkeys and Native Americans. Here are some we have read and/or shared in the past:

 1) Thanksgiving on Plymouth Plantation by Diane Stanley
2) Gracias the Thanksgiving Turkey by Joy Cowley and Joe Cepeda (will be sharing about this one soon!)
3) 'Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving by Dav Pilkey
4) Squanto and The First Thanksgiving by Joyce K.Kessell and Lisa Donze and here
5) A Child's Story of Thanksgiving by Laura J. Rader
6) Turkey Trouble by Wendi Silvano
7) The Very First Americans by Cara Ashrose
8) The Naragansett by William S. Simmons
9)  Native American Stories by Joseph Bruchac
10) Children of the Wind and Water by Stephen Krensky
11) Algonquian Indians by June Behrens and Pauline Brower
12) The Wampanoag by Laurie Weinstein-Farson
13) Crafts for Thanksgiving by Kathy Ross
14) Messner Holiday Library Thanksgiving Fun by Judith Hoffman Corwin
15) Holiday Handiworks by Gillian Souter
16) Thanksgiving Day Crafts by Arlene and Herbert Erlbach 
     and more crafts here

We also shared a round-up of our Thanksgiving crafts here in case you missed it!

Sharing Saturday 13-38

Thank you to all who shared with us last week and to all who came to visit and left comments! I apologize for not getting to visit all of them yet. I was sick for a good portion of the week and then Hazel did not have school today, so I did not get my time this morning to visit. However the few I dropped in on were amazing, so I highly recommend check them all out!! This week we had a tie for most clicked.

From Buggy and Buddy: Felt Monarch Butterfly Wing Tutorial 

and

From Living Montessori Now: Montessori Monday - Do You Need to Buy Montessori Cards and Counters?

A few of the ones I loved that I visited.

1) From Spoonful: 20 Easy Art Activities for 4-Year-Olds (there are also ones for 3- and 5-year-olds)

2) From Where Imagination Grows: Fun with Window Blocks and Shadows

3) From Imprints From Tricia: 5 Foam Apple Activities

4) From LalyMom: Halloween Fine Motor Activities That Promote Cutting Practice

5) From Crafting Connections: Nature-Made Play Silks (Free mini-mag when you sign up for newsletter)

6) From Racheous: DIY Story Stones

7) From StrongStart: Apple Boats for Snack

Thank you to everyone who shared last week!! I hope you will join us and share again!! If you are featured here , please feel free to grab a featured button to display proudly on your blog. 

From Your Hostess:
This week I spent several days sleeping at least while Hazel was at school, but I got a few posts up. Luckily I had some projects we had completed previously that I just haven't had time to post on (and there are still more coming). We shared a Cinderella Tale from Argentina, Apple and Nature Prints to Welcome Fall, some books to introduce hunger and activities to get children involved in fighting it, a spider web craft to go with Charlotte's Web, and our ping pong golf ball flamingos.

This coming week there will be a giveaway and a product review! Plus we will be continuing our celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month and of course begin some of our Halloween posts since October will be starting!

Now for This Week's Party  
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Hunger Action Month

Today I am going to remind you that September is Hunger Action Month. I have joined a group of amazing moms to try to fight hunger for children. Did you know that hunger affects 16.2 million American kids? Or that kids go to school hungry every day and in fact 3 in 5 teachers say they have students who come to school hungry every day in their class? Did you know that we are raising the largest generation of kids in hard times since the Great Depression? Did you know that just $1 can help connect a child to as many as 10 healthy meals? (Source: No Kid Hungry)

Stone Soup Plan

Now much of what we did for Hunger Action Month, we actually did in August in preparation. I e-mailed local public libraries and preschools with story time plans to start a food drive. I already shared all of this in August. I shared to ideas using the classic tale, Stone Soup and The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. For the Stone Soup plans I used ideas from the story time food drive I helped organize at my library last year as well as a few ideas I found on-line and a memory game I made. The Very Hungry Caterpillar plan came from several blogs and things I found on-line. The original idea came from The Good Long Road.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar Plan

The next thing we did was to host a canned food drive at Hazel's butterfly party. Between me cleaning out our cabinets and what Hazel's friends brought we had a very full bag of food for our local food pantry. When Hazel is older I am hoping to volunteer with her at the food pantry and the local soup kitchens.

I also would like to share some more books to help start the discussion of hunger with children. For the younger children a good short story about hunger is The Hungry Monster by Phyllis Root. This story is about an alien monster that lands on Earth and is very hungry. He tastes things he sees--a daisy, a rock,  a tree, and then he sees a girl who gives him her banana (instead of him eating her) and he finally finds something he likes to eat. The girl is a little disgusted since he eats the peel and all. It is a wonderful introduction to talk about people who do not have enough to eat or enough good food to eat. The Very Hungry Caterpillar will also work for this. An activity following this discussion could be going to the grocery store and buying some food for your local food pantry. Let your child pick out some nutritious canned food and then bring it to the food pantry together.

For older children I like Kids Against Hunger by Jon Mikkelsen. In this story two friends wonder why their soccer coach does not get upset when a teammate missing practice every Wednesday. They decide to follow him one Wednesday and discover he is volunteering for an organization called Kids Against Hunger. The teammate explains that when he was younger his family went through rough times when they did not have enough to eat and now he likes to help others in that situation. The boys want to help to and suggest that they ask the coach to move their Wednesday practice to Thursday so the whole team can volunteer. It is a nice story to show how kids can help by donating their time. And of course the obvious activity with this book would be to volunteer at a food pantry or soup kitchen. To find a food pantry in your area look here. 

Another easy thing to do is Dine Out for No Kid Hungry. There is still five days left to have a portion of your meal donated. Just click the link to see what local restaurants are offering near you.

So I hope you will join us in trying to end hunger throughout the world even if it is making a donation (food, money or time) to your local food pantry and/or soup kitchen. Also feel free to join us in this link party to share what you have done to end childhood hunger!

Teddy Bear Picnic & Butterfly Party

Last week we went to a Teddy Bear Picnic run by recreation department of one of the towns near us. Hazel's best friend lives in the town and his mother told me about it, so we met them there. It was really cute. They had different stations with crafts and a few first aid stations. The first station we saw was a face painting/tattooing station. They had tattoo markers and drew designs on the children. The next station was to make a teddy bear purse out of a paper plate and a cut paper bowl (see two pictures below). Then there was a teddy bear mask station and a teddy bear clock station. They also had a first aid station. Here we had Ducky repaired since he had a small hole in him. Then they had a teddy bear check-up station where they weighed and measured and listened to the teddy bear's heart. Hazel brought my old teddy bear that I got when I was born. She calls him Teddy. At both of these stations they gave the children forms to say their teddy bears were healthy. They also gave a band-aid. Ours had teddy bears on it. They also had a station to make fruit cereal loop necklaces and finally a teddy bear treat station. The treats are gummy bear and Teddy Grahams. Sorry I forgot to bring my camera to the park, but at least you can see all our different crafts.

After going to all the stations, the kids played on the playground and we had lunch. It was a fun day!

The next day we had our butterfly party where we also asked people to bring cans of food for Hunger Action Month. I shared the invitation previously. We spent the morning decorating our patio and then of course it started to rain, so we quickly moved things inside.  We did not decorate as much inside, but we had our butterfly candle holders, butterfly frames, butterfly lantern and a few paper butterflies. We gave each person a frame and candle holder as well as a goody bag with butterfly bracelets, magnets and erasers. We also gave butterfly noisemakers and talked about how it worked like the butterfly's proboscis. We also read two stories, The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle and Waiting for Wings by Lois Ehlert. The girls also played pin the antennae on the butterfly. I drew a butterfly on a piece of posterboard and Hazel decorated it. Then I drew antennae on construction paper and wrote each girls' name on one and we put a piece of tape on the back. We did not blindfold them since Hazel is very afraid to be blindfolded. We also had several crafts for the girls to make. 

They made butterfly bracelets with pop beads. We had butterfly beads to string, but no one wanted to do this. We made lollipop butterflies with a lollipop and a cupcake liner. Finally the one the girls loved the most was decorating foam and paper butterflies. We gave them crayons, glitter glue and stickers. The glitter glue however was the big hit. Finally the rain stopped so we went outside. The girls were going to put on a show, so two of them put on their butterfly wings, but then Hazel spilled her colored bubble stuff and was upset that I didn't have more pink. (I bought three bottles on clearance at Michaels that week.) She is mad in the picture that she couldn't have more right away. I blocked her friend's face since I did not get permission to post her picture, but she was having a great time playing. Overall it was a fun day!! Plus I cleaned out my cabinets so we have a whole bag full for the food pantry.