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Shed to Clubhouse Transformation


For as long as I can remember Hazel has loved little playhouses. She has really wanted one, but we never got around to getting one. We kept wanting to get her a special one that she would want to use for many years, but we never found the money since those tend to be so expensive. Since we added a garage to our house, Steve has not been storing as much in his shed and decided to give Hazel the shed as her clubhouse/playhouse. She was excited for this and we talked about decorating it with curtains and a rug. While out shopping Hazel chose the pink shag rug for the clubhouse. I pulled out pink sparkly curtains I had bought on clearance and planned to use for a birthday party, but never did. We hung them with a thin branch from a tree that had fallen in the yard and used nails to keep them up. 

Book Review: Hello Bali! by Giselle Shardlow

Disclosure: Kids Yoga Stories 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.

http://www.kidsyogastories.com/product/hello-bali/


Multicultural Kids Blog has started a new Multicultural Kids Product Promotional Services. I signed up to help promote an wonderful kids yoga book by Giselle Shardlow. We have already enjoyed two of her books previously and Hazel loves doing yoga along with the book. This book is called Hello, Bali and is about a girl from India visiting Bali with her family. Since Bali is in Indonesia, it ties in perfectly with All About Indonesia that we reviewed last month.
Hello, Sun

Going through this book introduces you to a bit of the Bali culture. The book starts with saying hello to the sun in Bali. Then it goes through some of the sights in Bali from the beach (sailboat, dolphin, sunbathers) to the mountains.

Sailboat
Dolphin
Surfing
Sunbathing
Then you get a bit of the culture with dancing Ganesha.

The book talks about the mountains and the market as well as the waterfalls. The beautiful illustrations help the reader to picture what Bali is like and also models the yoga poses for the child. It goes on with poses for the priests in the temples and the farmers in the fields. As well as the monkeys in the trees.

Farmers Planting in the Muddy Rice Fields
Going through this book gives the reader a wonderful picture of Bali and the yoga motions help the images stick as well as being perfect for the child who has trouble sitting still during a book. 
Excerpts from the Hello, Bali

As with all of Giselle's books, it is available in English or Spanish! The book ends with a list a picture of all the yoga positions as well as a bit of Indonesian language and a map of Bali. We have once again enjoyed this yoga book and loved learning more about Bali. The book and movements gave each of us an image of what it would be like to be on vacation in Bali and what we would see. We highly recommend the book!

For more on yoga for kids and Indonesia, check out:

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: