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Showing posts sorted by relevance for query dog. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query dog. Sort by date Show all posts

Spot a Lot Vehicle Adventure Book Review

Have you entered my current giveaway?

Disclosure: Parragon Books sent 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 always I am providing links to the book for your convenience.

So recently I became a Parragon Books Buddy. They are going to send us a picture book each month to review. This month's book is Spot A Lot Vehicle Adventure by Steve Smallman and Nicola Slater. I have to admit when I saw the title I was thinking it would be a book we would read, review and pass on, however when we got it Hazel fell in love with it! Usually vehicles are not really her thing, however she loves to play "I Spy" and loves this book as a result. 
http://www.amazon.com/Spot-Vehicle-Adventure-Picture-Book/dp/1472350979

Summertime Books

Don't forget to sign up for our US state postcard exchange!!
Disclosure: Candlewick Press gave me a copies of these books 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.

Friday was Hazel's last school day!! So we have begun our summer vacation!! Today I am going to share some books with you that are prefect for summer!! So if you are looking for some summertime fun reading check these books out. The first book is And Then Comes Summer by Tom Brenner and illustrated by Jaime Kim. 

Sharing Saturday 18-12



Well Easter has passed. Did you get to see our Easter Round-Up last week? It included features from our last party as well as the last Crafty Weekends.  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!! And for all your diverse/cultural posts be sure to share them at Creative Kids Culture Blog Hop

The True Story of Nick the Firedog with Fire Safety Tips

 

Disclosure: I was sent a digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I am working with The Children's Book Review and Timothy P. Dexter, Jr. and will receive a small stipend for this review. All opinions are my own.

When you hear firehouse dog, I am guessing you don't think about a pit bull. Today I get to share with you a fun new picture book about a firedog who is a pit bull!! This sweet picture book is fun and introduces pet care as well as fire safety to young children. The book is The True Story of "Nick the Firedog" by Timothy Dexter, Jr. 

This Is Clare -- a fun new rhyming picture book

 

Disclosure: I am working with The Children Book Review and Lindy Nelson and will receive a small stipend for this review. I was sent a digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Today I get to share with you a fun new rhyming picture book. It features a sweet dog named Clare who lives in China. The book is written for people learning English but also works well to share a bit of the culture of China with English speaking people! It is This Is Clare by Lindy Nelson and illustrated by Ingrid Lefebvre. 

Sharing Saturday 18-22



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. 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!! 

Sharing Saturday 17-7


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 smaller party than usually, 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 two groups of features: Educational Lessons and Book & Craft Features.

Origami Kits -- a Crafty Weekends Review & Link Party

Disclosure: Tuttle Publishing sent me these kits in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Wow, where did this week go? It has been very crazy here. What about with you? Tonight we are sharing three fun origami kits. With dragons, animals, and a city, there is a little something for everyone. We will start with Flying Dragons Paper Airplane Kit by Sam Ita and Paul Frasco.

Snoopy Play Date

Disclosure: Oriental Trading sent me these products in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Hazel LOVES Peanuts®!! She cannot get enough books out of the library to read the old comic strips and we take out all the DVDs as well. She also watches whatever she can On Demand. Therefore it is no surprise she wanted to have a Peanuts® or Snoopy Play Date. (She wanted a Snoopy birthday party, but didn't want to wait that long!) I showed her the many Peanut products at Oriental Trading and she got so excited!! Her absolute favorite thing is the Color Your Own Peanuts® Snoopy Playhouse.

All in Just One Cookie Book & Fun Activity

So while browsing at the library we found a wonderful book that we have to share: All in Just One Cookie by Susan E. Goodman. Now the premise of this book is a grandmother is preparing for a visit from her grandchildren, so she is making their favorite cookies--chocolate chip. Her cat and dog get excited to have her cooking. The cat uses the internet, library and encyclopedias to find where each ingredient comes from and the dog just cannot wait to be able to eat.

After the beginning/introduction each page is about an ingredient. It says what and how much the grandmother used and what the cat found out. Now the recipe is the same as the Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe, except she did not put in nuts (nor did we since we were sharing them with Hazel's best friend who is severely allergic to nuts).

In the story we find out from where the ingredients that grandma used came. The butter is from Vermont, the eggs are from New Hampshire, the flour is from Kansas, the salt is from California (the Pacific Ocean to be exact), the baking soda is from Wyoming and the sugar is from Hawaii. The chocolate comes from Dominican Republic, Ecuador, West Africa and Indonesia and the vanilla from Madagascar. At the end of the book there is a map of the world with arrows saying what came from each location.

Now of course our fun activity to go with this book is to make the recipe that the book provides. Hazel of course pulled out our aprons and her chef hat. Then we got going. She helped measure things out and add things to the mixer as well as crack the eggs, scrape the sides and more.

Of course that required some help from Mom, so we did not get many pictures. Then we started scooping out the dough.
My mother got her this great cookie scoop for part of her Christmas gift. We finally got around to making scoopable cookies to try it out. My other big aha moment was putting some of the dough in a smaller/shorter bowl for her. These two things made this process much easier than the last time. Plus she loved her new scoop.
Then we baked them. The book talks about the baking process and what is happening to the ingredients in the oven as well. Hazel is sleeping at Nonni's so she took some to share there and also brought some to her best friend (since he is always baking and sharing with us). I should add that we only had mini chocolate chips, so that is what we used.

Now isn't that a fun book and yummy activity!




Sharing Saturday 18-4



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!! And for all your diverse/cultural posts be sure to share them at Creative Kids Culture Blog Hop

Family Time at a Country Fair

Today Steve took the day off so we could go to the Topsfield Fair. This fair pride's itself as the oldest agricultural  fair in America. This was my third time attending it. Steve took me for the first time when we had just started dating six years ago. We took Hazel again last year on a Saturday morning when it first opened for the day, but by the time we got to the young children rides the line for tickets was too long for her to go on any and there were not many she would have been able to go on due to the minimum height requirement. This year she made it by two inches for most of the rides.

We also had gotten two free ride tickets and a voucher for a hot dog and drink from our local library's summer reading program. We actually entered this time right at the young children rides since the entrance near where we parked was next to the flood of the Ipswich River. We headed for the rides first. Hazel wanted to go on the train first thing. She enjoyed being the only person on it.
Then the three of us went on the carousal. She didn't want to try the horses so we sat on a sleigh together. Next we went on the spinning strawberries. Steve didn't get a picture though. Then she drove a race car.

Then we bought some kettle corn and walked around. We found a magician who was quite silly and Hazel (and we) found quite entertaining. His assistant did acrobatics with silk ribbons hanging from the top of the stage. Really beautiful.

Then we found the petting zoo. Hazel of course said she wanted to pet the animals and wanted to feed the animals, but was afraid to when we got closer. She laughed as I fed the goats though. And we watched people ride the elephant and camel. She was fascinated with them, but definitely did not want to go on them.

Then we found more sheep and a cow to see. Then we realized it was lunch time and we were at the place we could get Hazel's free hot dog and drink. We also got hot dogs and some cheese fries for us to share. Then we went to see the pigs, but the line was too long and not moving so we went to see the bunnies. Hazel loved seeing all the rabbits and wanted to be lifted to see them better.

Now we knew our time was running out since we needed to be home by 1:30 for an appointment (and hopefully a nap--which did not happen). So we had one more ride ticket and that was where we needed to exit. So Hazel drove a purple car and I went off to buy apple cider, apple cider donuts and an apple (which they gave me a knife to slice for Hazel). The donuts were just coming out of the fryer when I got them and were still warm when we got them home. They were the best I have ever had.

Overall it was a perfect fall day. The weather was cool and comfortable and finally sunny. The fair was just getting crowded when we left so we timed it all perfectly. The traffic to get into the fair when we left was horrible, so we were really glad we did it how we did.

Do you do any fun fall family activities?

Board Books, Lift Flaps, Pop-Ups and More

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

Yesterday I did a mega review of picture books!! There is one there for everyone, so be sure to check it out. Today I am going to share new board books, pop-ups, lift flaps and more!! These are some fun books, so be sure to check them all out. We will start with a simple board book for Halloween. It is Peep and Egg: I'm Not Trick-or-Treating  by Laura Gehl and pictures by Joyce Wan. 

Jonathan London's Froggy Series Themed Birthday Party Ideas and Giveaway

Disclosure: Penguin Kids gave me a copy of these books free of charge for this review and are providing the book for the giveaway. 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 been following the fun challenge Penguin Kids gave this month? It all started because Froggy's Birthday Wish by Jonathan London and illustrated by Frank Remkiewicz was released on March 10th! We were lucky enough to receive a review copy as well as two other Froggy books, Froggy Builds a Tree House and Froggy Gets a Doggy. Have you discovered the Froggy series yet? They are so fun. We are going to provide some general Froggy birthday party ideas as well as ones from each book. For even more Froggy birthday party ideas check out my Froggy Birthday Party Pinterest Board!

Exploring Japan with Books and More


Disclosure: Tuttle Publishing 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.

In the next few weeks we will be sharing our exploration of Japan. We started our exploration with an exploration of cherries which we will post about as one of our Friday Fruit Explorations. When I went to look at books about cherries I was reminded of the Cherry Blossom Festival in Japan and thought it was the perfect tie in for our exploration. I contacted Tuttle Publishing and asked for some books about Japan and Japanese. Today I am going to share/review two of them with you. The first book is My First Book of Japanese Words: An ABC Rhyming Book by Michelle Haney Brown.
As with My First Book of Chinese Words which I reviewed in July, this book goes through the English alphabet sharing a Japanese word that starts with that sound. In the beginning the book has an introduction to Japanese as well as a pronunciation guide. To me one of the best part of these books is learning a bit about the culture and life in Japan. For example, t is for tanuki which is a raccoon dog. I did not know what a raccoon dog is, but found it interesting to see an animal we do not have that lives there. They also mention that Japan does not have skunks. Did you know that in Japan they have a version of Rock, Paper, Scissors? In this book you learn more about the train, food and animals of Japan. I find this book as a perfect introduction to studying Japan. It gives you an overview of things that are the same and different with our cultures and introduces the language at the same time.


The next book is Japanese Children's Favorite Stories by Florence Sakade. This is a fun book of traditional Japanese tales. This book has sequels since it has been so popular for sixty years. We love it! Hazel asks me to read her a couple of the stories each night. Through these traditional stories the reader learns a bit about Japanese culture. From the food and animals to jobs you see what life in Japan is and was like. Some stories talk about the islands of Japan and others tell you about things in the culture like tea, fans and such. The pictures are spread throughout the stories give a glimpse of the things that are happening in the stories as well as the traditional clothes.

These wonderful books are as always of the highest quality and well made. I love the books Tuttle Publishing puts out. They were the perfect introduction to a look at Japan. As I mentioned we will be exploring more about the country, language and culture in the next few weeks.

For some more on Japan check out:

Adventures Outside Using our Senses and Imaginations


We spent much of the day outside on Saturday. Hazel has decided that the stuffed llama I got for my first Mother's Day (Heifer fundraiser--Buy a Llama for Your Mama) is a dog and it is Ducky's dog to be exact. Well she has me tie a string on to it as a leash and she drags it all over the place inside and out. Above she is running with Doggy. She would do this and then say Mommy needs to take a break now Doggy and come sit with me for a few minutes and then be off again.

As I have posted we are taking a class at Drumlin Farms on using our senses around the farm in the spring. This week we discussed sight. So today while outside we decided to pay attention to our senses. The first thing we always discuss is the sky--at least ever since we read Blue Sky by Audrey Wood. This book just shows different skies and labels them like blue sky, cloud sky, rainbow sky, etc. So now we always notice the sky and label it. Today was definitely a blue sky day.

Then we got to see a bird's nest--a sparrow's nest to be exact. We have a sparrow family that always nests on our house. So I pointed out the nest to Hazel today.
We also saw and heard lots of birds especially after we filled the birdfeeder.
Taking an idea from Living and Learning at Home (I featured this at Sharing Saturday this week), we drew pictures of what we saw, what we heard and what we felt today. I labeled all of our pictures so we would know what they were--especially Hazel's.
Hazel decided to go barefoot so she felt the grass on her feet as well as the woodchips. She didn't like the feeling of the woodchips.
She had fun filling the birdfeeder and carried the birdseed bag herself. She also liked walking on her stumps in her bare feet. I thought it would hurt, but apparently it didn't.
When we talked about what we see she mentioned the clothesline. I guess that is because we hung the clothes out when we first came outside.  Here are the pages from our journal.

 Then it was lunch time, so we had lunch outside.
Nothing like bringing in another sense to the day. Daddy wasn't home so he wasn't there to complain about having to eat outside. Hazel really wanted to so we went for it. After lunch she wanted to go for a walk. She decided she wanted to go in her stroller. I'll share in another post about our walk.  Then when we got back, Hazel was still a bit tired so we made her a place to rest.
After resting she wanted to play train. So we took the train to the zoo.
Hazel spots a red kangaroo out the train window...apparently we are visiting her pen pal in Australia.
She warned me it would be a long train ride and thought I should bring a book. I won a giveaway over at This Cosy Life which included a book, so I grabbed it.
I read the first chapter aloud with many interruptions to ask "Are we there yet?" per Hazel's request. Then she wanted to hear the first chapter again. Then I read the second chapter and at the end of it we were there and got off the train.
Then she played hide and seek with the sun. The sun went behind some clouds and she asked me where it was. I told her it was playing hide and seek so she went off to seek it. When it came back out she claimed to have found it. Then she went to hide from the sun.
I guess since she is in shade she is hiding from it.
Hazel's Talking Electric Toothbrush--or at least that is what she said it is

Next the chalk came out. She had fun drawing and then asked me to make 3 hopscotches for her. One for her, one for me and one for Daddy. She told me what to put in each box. She also drew two squares. It is the first time her squares actually looked squarish.

Then Mr. and Mrs. Mallard came for a visit. (Hazel had been asking me all day if they would.) We fed them some bread.
Hazel loves feeding them!
They were still out there when Daddy came home so we fed them some more. In fact they may be nesting out there. They seemed to not like us seeing them in one part of the brook.
After that we went out for ice cream--but I'll share that for Tuesday's Happy Family Times post. Hope you had a great weekend!!