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

Emus and Hippos!! Book Reviews

Disclosure: Candlewick Press gave me a copy 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.

Today we are sharing two fun and educational animal books from Candlewick Press. They are written in the same style as Grandma Elephant's In Charge and Big Red Kangaroo which Candlewick Press sent previously to me to review (and we bought one as a birthday gift for one of Hazel's friends because we love them so much!). These books tell a story about a particular animal and/or group of animals as well as have aside facts about the animal.

The first we travel to Australia to learn about emus, with Emu written by Claire Saxby and illustrated by Graham Byrne.

http://www.candlewick.com/cat.asp?browse=Title&mode=book&isbn=0763674796&pix=n

Mini Knitted Woodland and Safari Book Reviews

Disclosure: I was sent these books to review free of charge from Search Press. 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 reviewing two fun knitting books. Both books make miniature animals and accessories, one is safari animals and the other is woodland animals. Both are written by Sachiyo Ishii. 

http://www.searchpressusa.com/bookdetail.asp?pISBN13=9781844489916

We will start with Mini Knitted Safari. I mentioned my knitted hippo back in April when I began it, but then the end of the school year stuff got in the way. I finally finished it, and it really should not have taken more than a day if I knitted consistently and was not so tired and distracted. Once I picked it up again I finished it right up.

Sharing Saturday #15

Wow, another amazing week last week. If you missed seeing any of them, please visit it here and check them out. So many wonderful ideas. I know I pinned some for next Easter. Also be sure to check out our new link party Happy Family Times. A place to share your quality family times so we can all be inspired to have more of it. And come back on Tuesday to share what you and your family have been up to lately!

Paper Quilling Chinese Style -- Getting Ready for Chinese New Year

 

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

The lunar new year begins this week (on the 12th). The most famous celebrations of the lunar new year are the Chinese. I thought in preparation of the Chinese New Year I would share two paper quilling books both in Chinese style that has projects that will lend with the Chinese New Year as well as spring and more. The first book is Paper Quilling Adorable Animals Chinese Style by Zhu Liqun Paper Arts Museum.  

Two Beautiful Picture Books about Growing Up and Mindfulness

 

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

Today I am going to share with you two absolutely beautiful picture books. The books are recommended for pre-K through grade 3. One is about becoming a big girl and putting away toys and the other is about learning to meditate. The first book is Nasla's Dream by Cecile Roumiguiere and illustrated by Simone Rea. 

Getting Ready for the Real Christmas

Disclosure: I was sent these products 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.

Yesterday I was the storyteller in our church's Goldy Play classroom. I got to share with the kids the first two weeks of Advent since the kids will be upstairs in the service for the second week. (Click here to see the Godly Play story of Advent.) As I told the kids about the mystery of Christmas and the busyness of people at this time of the year I realized that my early holiday preparations that I have been sharing since the beginning of November are so my family has the time to prepare for the glorious mystery of Christmas. My shopping is mostly done and my holiday cards are just about ready to mail, so now I can slow down and enjoy and reflect on the season. I have even shared some new Advent books that are also calendars and the gifts I bought for Hazel's big Advent calendar. Today I am going to share five books that help us focus on the true meaning of Christmas. The first three books are part of a series by Arnold Ytreeide. I reviewed the newest one last year: Ishtar's Odyssey. This year we get to read the other three books in the series. Jotham's Joruney, Bartholomew's Passage and Tabitha's Travels. Hazel was so excited to read one about a girl so we started with Tabitha's Travels and have been reading it each night. She LOVES this story!!

Sharing Saturday 17-8


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 full of many great ideas, crafts, lessons and more!! There are ideas for celebrating Dr. Seuss's Birthday, Lent, Easter and St. Patrick's Day and more! Our features are just a sampling of them so if you haven't checked them all out, you should! This week we have three groups of features: Books & Learning, Math, and Everything Else Features.

Creating a Cozy Reading Nook -- Decals Tree Product Review


Disclosure: Decals Tree gave me a wall sticker and is supplying the ones for the giveaway 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 wall sticker for your convenience.

In Hazel's bedroom there is a little nook between her closet and what may have been another closet at some point with a window. I have always wanted to make it a reading nook for her. I wanted a cozy spot with some fun pictures to help her imagination go wild. She fell in love with bean bag chairs at the Whole Foods play area near us. So we got her one at Target and moved her fluffy rug over there. Then Decals Tree offered us any wall sticker on their site for $50 or less and are offering a giveaway of the same thing to one of my readers. 


Chapter Books for Ages 7 - Young Adult

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

How are you surviving this self-isolation/quarantine? How are your kids surviving? One thing that Hazel and I have been enjoying is reading. I decided it is time to finally share the stack of chapter books (or at least most of them) that I have on my review shelf. I'm hoping you might find something for your kids to read while stuck at home! We will go somewhat by age. The first book is for the younger chapter book reader. The suggested ages are 7-10 but I would say this series is good for 6-8. We reviewed the other two books in the Fairy Mom and Me Series previously.

Informative Animal Picture Books & Activity Books

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

Do you have an animal lover between the ages of 4 and 8? I have some fun books for you. There are three domesticated animal stories and four wild animal books. The first is actually a wordless book called Pip & Pup by Eugene Yelchin. 

Diversity Calendar

Disclosure: I was sent a free digital copy of this product for this review. All opinions are my own and I received no other compensation. I am providing links for your ease.

Do you try to teach your child(ren) about different cultures? I find it so hard to keep up with all the various holidays and celebrations that there are around the world, but also find it important to teach Hazel about it all. I like to supplement what she learns at school and add more about other cultures and religions so that she will have a better understanding of the world. After all if we all had a better understanding of each other perhaps we could live in peace. Well Becky Morales of Kid World Citizen has made it easy for everyone with her new Diversity Calendar of Multicultural Holidays for Academic School Year 2016-2017. It is available at Teachers Pay Teachers for $3.50 for a digital download.

Mystery of the Golden Temple -- Multicultural Book Review

 Disclosure: I was sent these items to review free of charge from Pack-n-Go Girls as part of the Multicultural Kids Product Promotion Services. All opinions in this post are my own. I did not receive any other compensation for this review.

Every night Hazel and I enjoy reading some stories. Lately she reads one to my parents over the phone and then I read a few picture books to her and then we read a chapter or two from a chapter book. She is very into the Rainbow Magic series, but this past week we also enjoyed reading Mystery of the Golden Temple by Lisa Travis. This book is in a series of books by Pack-n-Go Girls. This is the first book set in Thailand. They have books set is Austria and Mexico and are hoping to come out with a new one this fall set in Brazil. They are also hoping to come out with Pack-n-Go Girls dolls. To do this, they need people's help. Please consider donating something to this kickstarter campaign. It will be open through June 25, 2015. They are almost at their goal, so go help them make it!




The Year of the Pig -- Fun Facts, Craft Round-Up and Book Review

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

It is officially the Year of the Earth Pig according to the Chinese Zodiac. I thought it would be fun to celebrate the Chinese New Year with a look at fun facts about pigs as well as the Year of the Pig and of course some pig crafts and a fun Chinese pig story. We will start with fun facts about pigs!!

Picture Books that Make You Feel Good

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

Today I am going to share with you five new picture books that make you feel good when you read them or have the overall theme of making the world better. Don't we all need that in our world. We will start with How to Heal a Broken Wing by Bob Graham

Books that Make Imaginations Soar for Ages 2 - 8

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

Today I am sharing some fun picture books that are for ages in the range of 2 to 8 and they make your imagination soar. The first book is Pop! by Jason Carter Eaton and illustrated by Matt Rockefeller. 

Books to Celebrate World Animal Day!

 

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

Did you know today (October 4th) is World Animal Day? It is celebrate annually on October 4th which is also the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi, patron saint of animals. I know our church always has a blessing of the pets day around October 4th to honor St. Francis. The idea behind World Animal Day is to work for increasing the status of animals and helping keep them from becoming endangered and/or extinct. (Source and more information on World Animal Day.) Hazel is a big animal lover and especially loved learning about animals when she was younger. She was a huge Wild Kratts fan. Over the years we have shared many animal themed crafts, books and activities. Today we are going to share two more animal-themed books in celebration of World Animal Day. The first is a book I wish was around when Hazel was younger. It is Howl Like a Wolf! by Kathleen Yale and illustrated by Kaley McKean. 

Seeds, Sprouts, Plants, Flowers, Fruit & Vegetables

So back in March, one of my Sharing Saturday features was from The Artful Child on investigating peas growing in your window with contact paper and a water paper towel. We tried this in Hazel's bedroom window. She now calls our pea plants elephant trunks. However it is neat to see the roots.

A great book to help see the plants and roots is How Does a Seed Grow by Sue Kim. It has fold out pages and shows both the underground and above ground parts of the plant to grow different fruits--tomato, pepper, peas, oranges, blueberries, etc. Hazel of course loves it because of the fold out pages.

On the Monday after Easter we planted some seeds with my father. My parents are avid gardeners and grow amazing flowers and vegetables. We are going to bring some of our seeds to my parents to grow in their garden since they have better space and sun for gardening. However I promised Hazel we would try some gardening. The one thing I want to do is grow a sunflower garden for her to hide in. So sunflowers are on our list as well as watermelons, pumpkins, celery, carrots, zucchini and green beans oh and snap peas, of course.
By Friday we had some sunflowers already popping out. It was so exciting for Hazel to see. My father had cut two milk cartons in half for us and we used them to plant some of the seeds that would take the longest to harvest. Here are the seeds we planted.
We just filled the carton halves with soil and planted the seeds as deep as the package said. Then stuck them in nice sunny windows and watered them often.

We labeled the carton on the top part with what type of seeds we planted. We have one sunflower container, one pumpkin, one watermelon and one celery. Once they start growing we will replant them into cups and then eventually outside in our garden. We will also grow some carrots, marigolds, basil, zucchinis and tomatoes. Do you have a garden? What do you grow?
Sunflowers Day 9
Pumpkins Day 9
Watermelon Day 9



Since our sunflowers popped up first, we have started doing some sunflower crafts.I went to DLTK's Crafts for Kids and found many sunflower crafts. All of these came from there.
Sunflower Mask
Tissue Paper and Sunflower Seed Craft
We also started the You Are My Sunshine Frames for Mother's Day gifts. Now I just need to get a good picture of my little sunshine. She is in her I hate pictures stage. She colored these with her dot markers and they remind me of the flowers in one of her favorite books (see below). We will share them when they are completely done as well.

We also read How a Seed Grows Into a Sunflower by David Stewart, and one of our favorites is My Garden by Kevin Henkes.










This is where I link up...

Let's Read About Black Characters & People -- Round-Up of Children's Books


The other day as I talked to Hazel about current events on our walk and was telling her my plans for Crafty Moms Share, she said, "Did you ever notice that when there is a black person in a book there is just one in a group of white friends?" Oh, yes, we still have the token black person in our society of books and television shows. She even commented how sometimes the group is made up of one person of different races like in The Start-Up Squad Series. I recently read an article about how white people need to do more than talk to our kids about racism. Where we live, who our neighbors are, books we read/provide our kids, who our friends are, the diversity of the school we send our kids to all play a part in how our kids grow up and understand race relations. Now I cannot change your neighborhood or their school but I hope I can change the books in your house and your library. I asked some fellow bloggers as well as authors that are part of the Multicultural Children's Book Day group for any books, activities, and reviews they had with black people as the main characters. Today I am going to share a round-up of books shared and some others I found (on Amazon). I will link reviews and activities whenever possible. It is important that all of our kids read books that have people like them but it is also important that our kids read books with people who do not look like them. This will build their understanding and help them to grow and learn about race and culture and hopefully not be racist when they grow up. I have the books separated into picture books, fairy tales, chapter books/novels, and non-fiction/biographies. There are some separation within some of these genres as well. 

Animal Fun -- Summer Fun!

Disclosure: I was sent these products 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.

Hazel counted the days and realized she has eleven days of summer vacation left. We are trying to enjoy all of them!! So today we are going to share some animal fun with great activity books and kits!! Let's start with Disney Zootopia Collector's Tin.

http://www.parragon.com/9781474826297/


Books for Father's Day

Disclosure: Macmillan Publishers gave me 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.

Can you believe Father's Day is next week? Are you ready for it? If you need ideas for a DIY gift make sure to check out last week's Crafty Weekends features. Macmillan Publishers sent me some books about fathers for different ages. The first two books are board books for the younger kids. The first is Daddies Are Awesome by Meredith Costain and illustrated by Polona Lovsin.