The Octonauts & the Sea of Shade Book Review & Giveaway Reminder

Disclosure: I was sent this book digitally to review free of charge from Immedium. 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 have the pleasure of reviewing one of the Octonauts books! Hazel and I were so excited to review this book. Hazel loves to watch the Octonauts on television and loves the Octonauts: To the Gup-X DVD we reviewed and are currently giving away until March 25th. I had requested to review one of the Octonauts books to go with this giveaway. It is perfect timing as well as we have been so focused on sea creatures!

Today we are sharing The Octonauts and the Sea of Shade by Meomi. This is one of the four Octonauts books written by Meomi and published by Immedium. All four are available for $15.95 at Immedium as well as other book retailers. Meomi is the original creator of the Octonauts and these are the original books.

Our Tweak Peg Doll

The Octonauts and the Sea of Shade starts out with Tweak Bunny realizing that shadows and shade are missing. The Octonauts adventure to the Sea of Shade to find the Shade King. The Shade King is in charge of all the shade in the world. The Octonauts want to find out what has happened to cause all the shade to be missing. As they adventure through the Sea of Shade they see sad looking shadows. Captain Barnacles begins to play his accordion and the shadows begin to cheer up and remember how nice it was outside of the Sea of Shade. They all go to the Shade King and discover the Shade King thinks no one appreciates or loves their shadow since they are stepped on and such all the time. The Octonauts show him how creatures are missing their shadows and he agrees to let the shadows return as long as the Octonauts make sure the shadows are treated well.

Coloring page available at Disney Jr.

This is a sweet story with the same characters as the television show although one has a different name as Hazel was quick to point out. The underwater spaces in the book are much more creative and fantasy than the cartoon. Some of what is underwater in the book looks like it is really above water, but the pictures are beautiful and the story is so creative. I loved reading the story and seeing more basics of the characters than you get in the television show. For example Kwanzii is a kitten and I always assumed him to be a rough and gruff tomcat. The other main difference is there is not the information about a specific sea creature like the television show. However the story line was so creative and made me stop and think about how important shadows and shade are to all of us. It is definitely something we take for granted. To go with the book, I made a Tweak peg doll (see above). Now Hazel has four of the characters as peg dolls.

Our Octonaut Hat Craft

This story leads to so many things you can do with shadows. The first is the obvious shadow puppets. On Friday we went to a great shadow puppet show at our local library. We are going to try to make a shadow puppet box and some shadow puppets. The man who did the shadow puppet show gave us a card with instructions. Stay tuned for more on shadow puppets from us. An easier task would be to make some hand shadow puppets. Here is YouTube video with some instructions on making a few.




For older children, you could easily do a math lesson on similar triangles and then do a height estimation project like this one. To do similar triangles, the student needs to be able to set up and solve ratios.

Now if you would like to win a copy of the Octonauts: To the Gup-X DVD, be sure to go here and enter before March 25th!!

For more book reviews visit:

• The Wooly Hoodwinks vs. the Dark Patch 
• Sora and the Cloud 
• Year of the Horse 
• Julie Black Belt Series
• Rainbow Stew
• Princess Grace 
• Ava's Poppy   

Around the World in 12 Dishes: Iceland--Skonsur

Have you entered my current giveaway yet?

This month starts a new season of Around the World in 12 Dishes! One of the biggest changes is that we are trying to all post on the third Monday of the month and Around the World in 12 Dishes has its own blog with an intro to the country also being posted on the third Monday of the month. I wrote this month's introduction, so be sure to check it out. I will not be sharing about the country here since it is already on the blog for Around the World with 12 Dishes. 

Our first stop this year is Iceland! Now my sister happened to travel to Iceland this summer, so I have a few of her pictures to share with you! It looks so beautiful there. It makes it hard to believe its name is Iceland, however having read a bit about it, the country was named after an explorer spent a tough winter there. 

When looking for a recipe from Iceland, I discovered it was not going to be easy for us. Their main foods seem to be fish (Steve and I don't like it) and lamb (we don't like lamb either). However I found this great site full of Icelandic recipes.  I showed the recipes to Hazel, well I read the English names to her and let her pick one. She decided on the Skonsur or the thick pancakes/pan-fired bread. 

The recipe was in grams and milliliters, so I pulled out our scale to measure the dry ingredients. Hazel measured the flour for me. I am converting the recipe into cups since that is what we usually use.

Skonsur (adapted from Jo's Icelandic Recipes) 

• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 4 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1/4 cup butter or margarine, melted
• 1 cup milk (we needed a bit more)
• 2 eggs 

Mix the dry ingredients together. Add the eggs and melted butter and stir. Thin with the milk. Stir until smooth.

Pour on a greased skillet and fry on both sides at low temperature. Cakes should be like thick pancakes.

Serve cold with any kind of topping that is good with bread.

Hazel helped with the cooking, but the batter was so thick it was hard to get into the pan. While they were still warm, Hazel and I split one to taste. It tasted pretty much like our normal pancakes, but a bit different. Then we made sandwiches with them for lunch.

Steve made a sandwich the next day and liked them as well. Overall a success!

We also have been reading books about Iceland. I shared these in the introduction post, but will share them here as well.

 

Hazel has been asking if we can do this for every country around the world, so stay tuned. Oh and she wants to do every state as well. We may be busy with this idea. 

Around the World in 12 Dishes is hosted by the following amazing blogs!!

Adventures In Mommydom, Afterschool for Smarty Pants, All Done Monkey, Crafty Moms Share, Maroc Mama, Glittering Muffins, Kid World Citizen, Mermaids' Makings, The Mommy Talks and The Usual Mayhem

Around the World in 12 Dishes also has a Facebook page and a Google+ community page, feel free to like/join them, too, while you’re there.

For this month's Iceland you can print the placemat and passport pages. Then you can check out all these great recipes and feel free to add one if you have cooked any Icelandic recipe or done a craft! Also here is the cover for the passport for Season 3!

St. Patrick's Day Crafts

Have you entered my current giveaway yet?

This year we have not done much for St. Patrick's Day. (Sorry to my late Irish grandmother.) However when we went to the library on Thursday they had a free St. Patrick's Day craft set up. It was an easy paper plate hat. While Hazel made one I made three (one that Hazel insisted we bring home and two for some of the librarians to wear). The next day Hazel made another one while her friend made one since the craft had not been cleaned up and we had all been there for a free puppet show.

This is Hazel's first one. She started to copy what I did on the ones I was making but had some very creative ideas of her own.

This is the one Hazel insisted we bring home that I made. To make these you cut almost a full circle out of the paper plate center and fold it up then decorate. The librarians provided the cut out shamrocks, tissue paper, pipe cleaners, curling ribbon, sequins and silver sparkly pom poms and markers, glue and scissors. We had a lot of fun. 

Here is the one Hazel made on Friday. She did not put as much time into it, but she likes it just the same.

We have also been enjoying some St. Patrick's Day and Irish books. Here is a collage of books we have read this year and/or last year. I realized earlier this month I never shared the books we read for last year's St. Patrick's Day, so I'll share them now.

• Leprechaun Tales by Yvonne Carroll
• The Leprechaun in the Basement by Kathy Tucker
• Too Many Leprechauns by Stephen Krensky
• The Irish Cinderlad by Shirley Climo
• Daniel O'Rourke by Gerald McDermott
• Fair, Brown and Trembling by Jude Daly
• The Luck of The Irish by Brendan Patrick Paulsen
• St. Patrick's Day by Gail Gibbons
• A Fine St. Patrick's Day by Susan Wojciechowski
• That's What Leprechaun's Do by Eve Bunting
• Finn McCoul by Brian Gleeson

I also wanted to provide you with the crafts we have done for St. Patrick's Day in the past.

• Paper Plate Leprechaun and Leprechaun Trap
• Leprechaun Peg Doll
• Craft Stick Leprechaun
• Needle Felted Pot of Gold (Chocolate) Coins
• Painting with Shamrocks
• St. Patrick's Day Bracelets and Necklaces
• Ireland Map Coloring Page
• Felt Leprechaun
• Pipe Cleaner Shamrocks (Never posted these, but thought I would share them)
• Bead Rainbow and Needle Felted Rainbow

Finally, last March as part of Around the World in 12 Dishes, we "visited" Ireland. Here are the Irish Recipes we made.

• Irish Chicken and Leek Pie
• Irish Cheese Toast (with snap peas)
• Irish Soda Bread
• Irish Stew
• Irish Chicken and Leek Pie (pictured again) with salad

For more fun St. Patrick's Day crafts, recipes, and activities check out:

• Sharing Saturday 14-9
• Sharing Saturday 14-10
• Sharing Saturday 14-11
• Sharing Saturday 14-8
• Sharing Saturday 13-11
• Sharing Saturday 13-10
• Sharing Saturday 13-9
• Sharing Saturday #11 St. Patrick's Day Edition
• Sharing Saturday #9
• My St. Patrick's Day Pinterest Board

Sharing Saturday 14-11

Thank you to all the Crafty Moms and Teachers who shared with us last week!! There were so many wonderful ideas shared. But before I give you my features, I wanted to share with you my past posts for Pi Day which was Friday, March 14! There are many ideas there to celebrate Pi Day as well as some great lessons I use to use as a teacher. Now onto our fun features!! I am providing a few with two pictures so you can see the details that I fell in love with!

Friday Fruit Exploration: Blueberries

Have you entered my current giveaway yet?

Our fruit explorations continue. This time we checked out blueberries!! If you missed our first fruit exploration we explored strawberries.  We added a new element to our fruit explorations-- a fruit exploration journal! I write the name of the fruit and Hazel draws pictures of the outside and inside and sometimes I draw pictures too. Then we come up with words to describe the fruit.

First here are some facts about blueberries. A serving size is one cup (hmm, I could eat several servings in one sitting).  A serving contains 84 calories and of that 4 calories from fat. They have 14 grams of carbohydrates of which 10 grams are sugars and 2 grams are dietary fiber. They provide 16% of the recommended daily allowance of Vitamin C, 2% of iron and Vitamin A. With the powerful antioxidants in them blueberries can improve nighttime vision, may improve motor skills and may reverse the short-term memory loss that comes with aging or age-related memory diseases and may reduce the risk of infection. (Source: Driscolls)

For our exploration we examined the outside of the blueberry with Hazel's magnifying glass. We noted the smooth texture and the pointy bumps at the top. Next we examined the interior of the blueberry. Sorry my pictures are not very clear of the inside.













 
We noted the small seeds inside as well the yellow inside with a red rim.



The next part of our exploration was reading some books on blueberries or at least with blueberries in them.

I have discovered that picture books or books at Hazel's level do not exist that share the nutritional value of the fruits. There are many about fruits in general without going into much detail about the nutrients. However there were many fun blueberry stories. One of the books has only poems and includes one with blueberries in it. The last book is not a picture book either. We did not actually read it. The other ones we really enjoyed though.

Our craft was inspired by Little Page Turners Potato Blueberry Stamps. We used fingerprints instead of potato prints though I like the texture of the potato prints a bit better. This was a fast and easy craft though. Our plan is to make some blueberry jam tomorrow. We ran out of time today. Hazel also wants to make some strawberry jam. For both we are going to use frozen fruit this time. Hopefully they will come out all right.

Blueberry Picking a Couple of Years Ago

 Here are some more blueberry ideas:

• Low sugar/sweetener blueberry jam
• Blueberry applesauce pancakes
• Traditional blueberry jam
• Blueberry picking and blueberry pie
• Pumpkin blueberry pancakes
• Blueberry oatmeal bars
• Banana walnut blueberry pancakes
• Pumpkin blueberry muffins
• Banana blueberry muffins
• Play blueberries
• Fruit Pinterest Board

Craft Kits and More from Oriental Trading

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

Spring is on its way. Yesterday it was in the mid-50's and it felt amazing you. We had to get outside even though Hazel stayed home from school because she has been sick. Of course now we have rain coming that will turn to snow. Ah, New England weather--gotta love it or hate it! Needless to say we have been a bit stir crazy and cannot wait for spring, so we decided to try some of Oriental Trading's spring craft kits.

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!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Virtual Book Club for Kids: Ava's Poppy by Marcus Pfister

It is time for Virtual Book Club for Kids again! For those that do not know about Virtual Book Club for Kids, I have joined with an amazing group of bloggers to present books from a selected author each month. We then host a blog hop for anyone to add a post with an activity or craft to go with a book by our selected author. This month's author is Marcus Pfister. The amazing blogs that bring you this fun book club are:

Shark Exploration of Underwater Creatures

Today we continue our underwater creature explorations with sharks. Now we are giving you some of our activities and books that we use in preparation of our reviews of a book and DVD on The Octonauts. The review of the DVD including a giveaway will be on Tuesday!! If you missed our first underwater creature exploration, you can check it out on jellyfish.

Sharing Saturday 14-10

Thank you to everyone who shared with us last week and to everyone who visited and shared the love with comments!! I had a crazy week, but did enjoy being inspired by the amazing ideas shared last week. If you haven't had a chance to check them all out, you should!! Here are a few of my favorites!!

Lent Craft & Activity Round Up & Meatless Recipes for Ash Wednesday

Since today is Ash Wednesday, I thought I would do a round up of Lent activities and crafts that we have done in the past. This year I have convinced Hazel and Steve to give up candy with me. We will see how we all do. Last year I gave up chocolate and I was only really tempted once. All candy will be much harder though.

 

1) Lenten Cross Puzzle for Lenten Table
2) Lent Prayer Bracelet--The Pearls of Life
3) Lenten Tree on Lenten Table
4) Resurrection Garden
5) Easter Egg Grass
6) Tissue Paper Cross Craft

Then since Steve is Catholic and cannot eat meat on Ash Wednesday or Fridays during Lent, I put together a round-up of our meatless main dishes. Since we do not eat fish, it is often a pasta dish with cheese. However now that Hazel is on limited dairy, I am not sure what I am going to do this year.

1) Rainbow Stew
2) Growing Vegetable Soup
3) Gazpacho
4) Harvest Apple Soup
5) Pasta Salad
6) Vegetable Baked Ziti

What do you do for Lent? For more Lent and Easter ideas check out my Pinterest Board and stay tuned for what we do this year!