Sharing Saturday 14-44

Thank you to everyone who shared with us last week!! And a very special thank you to all who took the time to check out what others shared!! If you haven't yet, you should. There were some amazing ideas shared!! We did not have a most clicked, so my features this week are based on a few things, fall and what I found interesting. I divided up the ones for younger children and then older children, food and art.

Halloween Round Up

It is hard to believe tomorrow is Halloween. This year is the first year except for Hazel's first Halloween that she will be wearing a costume that I did not sew. She is going to be a kangaroo and where the Kigs Kigurumis Kangaroo Outfit that I reviewed last December. I am not sure if the joey is going to come trick-or-treating or if it will be just Ducky.

Autumn Peg Dolls -- Autumn Fairy

Perhaps you saw this week's Sharing Saturday and how I featured the Autumn Leaf Peg Dolls from In the Playroom. Before seeing hers, I had thought of using our fake leaves as clothes for the peg dolls, so we finally found time to do so when Hazel was home sick this week. Since our fake leaves were so small we used the girl peg dolls. I pulled out autumn colored felt and the pack of fabric leaves and let Hazel do what she wanted with them. I clothed a few as well. After all the glue (and on Hazel's there was a lot of glue) dried Hazel added faces and hair to each one.

Now Hazel is talking about the season fairies and how we need to build the summer fairy a house to sleep in since it is autumn. Hmm...guess fairy houses will be a craft soon!

I have leaf paper doilies too, but have not pulled them out yet. I think that may be next. I found all the autumn peg dolls all over the couch this morning. I think Hazel was making up stories with them. So fun!!

Personalized Children's Book Review--Hazel Can Change the World!

Disclosure: I See Me! Inc.  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.

Today I get to share with you a wonderful product. This book is now Hazel's favorite!! What child would not want to see their name and a child who looks like them throughout the book. Hazel's name is right on the cover.

Skeleton Crafts, Activities, and Books

In the past years we have read relatively non-scary Halloween books that have had witches, mummies, ghosts, vampires and bats. This year I decided to expand out to include skeletons. Hazel has been asking to learn more about the human body. We started with some books from the library.

Sharing Saturday 14-43

Thank you to everyone who shared with us last week and to everyone who shared the love by visiting posts that others shared. As a result we have a most clicked! From In the Playroom, Sensory Play with Chocolate Cloud Dough.

Last week we had many Halloween themed posts (I will be featuring some skeleton posts on Sunday). There were also Frozen themed posts, spiders, math and lessons and so much more. If you have not had the chance to check them all out, you should! Today I am featuring some pumpkin themed posts and a few favorites of mine.

Beautiful Rainbow World Book Review

Congratulations to Marilyn N. for winning the 5 DVDs from NCircle Entertainment!

Disclosure: Daria Marmaluk-Hajioannou 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.

Today I get to share with you an amazing book for celebrating diversity!! The brand new book is called Beautiful Rainbow World created by Suzee Ramirez and Lynne Raspet to the words of Daria Marmaluk-Hajioannou's song Beautiful Rainbow World. Now I have posted about this amazing song before. Hazel and I spent some time doing activities to many of Daria's songs on her I Have a Dream CD, which I reviewed last year. 

Around the World in 12 Dishes--Mongolia Buuz

We have had so much fun learning about Mongolia this month!! It has been so interesting to learn about a culture that is so different from ours. I have such respect for the strong and hard working Mongolian people. To learn a bit more about Mongolia and their lifestyle check out my post over at Around the World in 12 Dishes blog on Season 3 - Mongolia.

Multicultural Monday: Korean Language Product Reviews

 Disclosure: Tuttle Publishing gave me a copy of these products free of charge. All opinions in my review are my own and I did not receive any other compensation. They also sent me a copy to giveaway! As in all my reviews I am providing links for your ease, but receive no compensation.

Today I am going to share with you two products to introduce children to the Korean Language and a little to the culture itself. The first item is a wonderful book called My First Book of Korean Words: An ABC Rhyming Book by Henry J. Amen IV and Kyubyong Park. I love this book (and the others similar to it from other countries like Japanese and Chinese which I have previously reviewed) because it is a wonderful introduction for young children to the language as well as to the country. For example we learn that Koreans often eat vegetables and rice for breakfast, and that they believe there is a rabbit in the moon like we say there is a man in the moon. This book has beautiful illustrations and have the word in Korean letters with the pronunciation and then the English. The words go along with the English alphabet and the book mentions which letters are not in the Korean language.

Creative Kids Culture Blog Hop #20

Please note this is NOT Sharing Saturday, but the Creative Kids Culture Blog Hop. If you do not have multicultural activities, crafts, etc. to share, you can still share at Sharing Saturday.

Hi, and welcome to the Creative Kids Culture Blog Hop!

The Creative Kids Culture Blog Hop is a place where bloggers can share multicultural activities, crafts, recipes, and musings for our creative kids. We can't wait to see what you share this time!

Created by Frances of Discovering the World through My Son's Eyes, the blog hop has now found a new home at Multicultural Kid Blogs.

This month our co-hosts are:

Multicultural Kid Blogs

Crystal's Tiny Treasures

Marie's Pastiche

Mundo de Pepita

All Done Monkey

Kid World Citizen

Crafty Moms Share

Let the Journey Begin

Sharing Saturday 14-42

Thank you to everyone who shared with us last week and a special thank you to everyone who took the time to visit some of the other posts shared!! Once again I found the ideas to be amazing!! There was not most clicked, so I picked some favorites. There are so many Halloween ideas, that I decided to go with non-Halloween, but you should check them out especially if you want some Halloween ideas!

Friday Fruit Explorations: Pumpkins

Today we are sharing our pumpkin exploration! Now Hazel loves pumpkins. She loves pumpkin bread, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin pancakes, and so much more! She insisted on growing pumpkins in our garden. We planted sugar pumpkins only this year. Last year the white pumpkins took over the garden and since we had used seeds from a white pumpkin the previous year they were orange on our vines. (Many of the new fruits and vegetables only grow that way for the first year.) We picked our first pumpkin and wanted to make pumpkin bread with it.

Autumn Lights for Darker Days

Autumn has definitely begun even if the temperatures in New England have been in the 70s this week. How do I know autumn is here even with unusually warm weather--the shorter number of daylight hours. It is getting dark much earlier. This time of year always makes me think winter is coming too fast. It is also reminds me of our days at the Waldorf school and the holiday Martinmas. Martinmas is not until November, but I feel like I could use it now. In past years we were part of the lantern march at the Waldorf school. It is where the children carry lanterns they make at school with a lite candle and march around together singing.

Back To School DVD Pack Review and Giveaway

Disclosure: NCircle Entertainment gave me a copy of the DVDs free of charge 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 DVD on NCircle Entertainment's site for your convenience. You can also find their DVDs at local retailers!

 With all my giveaways ending tomorrow, it is time to kick off another one! This month NCircle Entertainment has changed the monthly review and giveaway of one DVD to a prize pack of five DVDs which will not be monthly. Since we have recently started school in the United States, they put together a Back-to-School Package. It includes the newest Octonauts: Deep Sea Mission, and The Wiggles: Apples & Bananas as well as The Cat in the Hat: Show & Tell Sure Is Swell!, Sid the Science Kid: The Ruler of Thumb and Animals Atlas: Animals ABC. So today I will review these five DVDs and then at the end you can enter to win all five of them!!

Multicultural Monday: The Last Kappa of Old Japan By Sunny Seki Book Review and Craft

Disclosure: Tuttle Publishing gave me a copy of these products free of charge. All opinions in my review are my own and I did not receive any other compensation. They also sent me a copy to giveaway! As in all my reviews I am providing links for your ease, but receive no compensation.

Last week I reviewed a wonderful Japanese book, Yuko-Chan and the Daruma Doll for World Sight Day.  Tuttle Publishing sent me two copies of the book so I could offer one to giveaway and they included another book by the same author, Sunny Seki, called The Last Kappa of Old Japan for me to review. This is a wonderful book that introduces the popular Japanese legend of kappas. It is also a book I will pull out again for Earth Day. I actually enjoyed this one more than Yuko-Chan and the Daruma Doll and that is high praise since I really liked Yuko-Chan as well.

Disney's Frozen -- Marshmallow Olaf and Party Activity Ideas

With Halloween fast approaching, I know the holiday season is not far behind and then it will be time for Hazel's birthday party. Her theme this year is Disney's Frozen, so we are going to do it for her real birthday (well a couple of weeks after so it is not during the holidays). I have seen all over the web the bags with the tag "Do you wanna build a snowman?" and the supplies for a marshmallow snowman. I decided to see how they would come out. I have to say our tries did not turn out well. So this is something we will not be doing for the party. Now for full disclosure, our large marshmallows were stale, but I do not think this is what caused the issues.

Sharing Saturday 14-41

Thank you to everyone who shared with us last week and to all of you who took the time to check out what others shared! There were so many amazing ideas from math, books suggestions, recipes and just about everything Halloween. There were so many great ideas, I have had a hard time choosing which is why this Sharing Saturday is opening so late!! Our most clicked was from Dabbling Momma: Halloween Rock Garden.

Friday Fruit Exploration: Apples!

Well it has been awhile since we posted a fruit exploration, but this past month we had fun exploring one of Hazel's favorite fruits--apples! Now we have done many apple crafts over the last few years, but this time we pulled out the magnifying glass and fruit journal.

Apple Page in Journal

Our adventure began with a school field trip to go apple picking! I got to be a parent driver/chaperone. First the farmer took us on a hayride to the apple orchard. He saw me and another mom lifting our girls up, so he brought the girls an apple picker. Here is Hazel with it and an apple she picked with it.

Multicultural Book Review & Giveaway -- Princess Nevaeh by Paulette Harper

Disclosure: Paulette Harper sent me a digital 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.

Today I have the pleasure of reviewing Princess Nevaeh by Paulette Harper as part of the Multicultural Kid Blogs Product Promotion Services. This book is about a young girl who wants to be a princess. She wants everyone to call her Princess Nevaeh instead of just Nevaeh. She goes to ask her Mimi what it takes to be a real princess. Her Mimi tells her all the wonderful characteristics a princess has like being kind to everyone, obeying her parents, teachers and other adults, etc. This book is a wonderful reminder to young girls about the proper behavior. Since it is focused on being a princess its reach is really for girls. The book reminds the girls to be things they most likely usually are--kind to friends, good behavior, not to bully, etc. The book ends with Mimi telling Nevaeh she will always love her and Nevaeh will always be a princess to her.

World Sight Day--Book Review: Yuko-Chan and the Daruma Doll

Disclosure: Tuttle Publishing gave me a copy of these products free of charge. All opinions in my review are my own and I did not receive any other compensation. They also sent me a copy to giveaway! As in all my reviews I am providing links for your ease, but receive no compensation.

Did you know Thursday, October 9th is World Sight Day? "World Sight Day is an annual day of awareness held on the second Thursday of October, to focus global attention on blindness and vision impairment." (Source) This year's call to action is "No More Avoidable Blindness".

To celebrate World Sight Day, Tuttle Publishing asked me if I would be interested in reviewing a picture book about a blind girl and how she saves her village and they offered to send me one to giveaway. I of course said yes! So today we review Yuko-Chan and the Daruma Doll by Sunny Seki.

Quinceanera -- Exploring Hispanic Heritage

Congratulations to Sara S. for winning the WordWorld Kooky Spooky Halloween DVD!

Since Hazel loves birthday parties, I thought reading some books about a quinceañera would be right up her alley. A quinceañera is a fiesta for a Latina girl who turns fifteen. The fifteenth year is traditionally when girls turn into women in Latin American cultures. The traditional celebration differs from country to country. Most include a special dress for the quinceañera and a dance with her father (often a waltz) followed by a meal, dancing and a cake. Often there is a mass before the fiesta to honor the girl. In some countries the quinceañera has a court of friends ranging from 7-14 of each gender. (Source)

Exploring Korea from Home Reviews of Two Books

Disclosure: Tuttle Publishing gave me a copy of these products 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.

Today we are going to share with you two wonderful books from Tuttle Publishing. The first is All About Korea by Ann Martin Bowler. This book is a wonderful introduction to South Korea. It includes stories, songs, crafts, recipes and what life is like there. We really enjoy trying the different things and Hazel insists on trying all of them. This book also has additional resources on the Tuttle Publishing website. The book does a nice job of explaining about the split of North and South Korea and how the focus of the book will be on South Korea.

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!

Book Review: The Pandas and Their Chopsticks and Other Animal Stories by Demi

Have you entered my current giveaway?

Disclosure: Wisdom Tales Press gave me a copy of this product 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.

Today I am going to share a fun book which was recently released by Wisdom Tales Press. The book is The Pandas and Their Chopsticks And Other Animal Stories by Demi. I asked to review this book because lately Hazel has been really into panda bears and figured she would love it.

This book takes ten classic Asian animal fables and adapts them to have universal appeal. Each of the ten stories has a moral or lesson stated at the end. Needless to say Hazel loved it.  I enjoyed reading the fun stories and with morals like learning to share, being careful around people who brag, it is sometimes better to listen than talk, our faults will follow us unless we change them, who couldn't love to read and teach your child these lessons. Some of the morals were written in words that Hazel had trouble understanding, so each one was a starting point to talk about what it means with the story to illustrate it. I always love books that give us a starting point for conversations about things that matter in life.

The pages themselves are beautiful. The colors and illustrations make the story come alive with room for the imagination to full in the story as well. The stories are short and clear and presented beautifully on the pages. It is truly a wonderful book.

For more posts about books from Wisdom Tales and about Asia check out:

• Everyone Prays by Alexis York Lumbard
• Korean Folk Songs
• Asian Pacific Islander Book Round-Up
• Asian Kites
• All About Japan
• Learning Japanese with books and flashcards
• Exploring Japan with books and more
• Sora and the Cloud
• All About Indonesia 
• Mei-Mei's Lucky Birthday Noodles 
• Mulan and My First Book of Chinese Words