Spring Into Science DVD 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 Amazon for your convenience. You can also find their DVDs at local retailers!

 For spring, NCircle Entertainment invited me to review four DVDs with science themes and offer new copies of the DVDs to one lucky winner!! All four are popular shows!! These are a fun way to bring science into your home either as a homeschooler or just to reinforce the school lessons! All four DVDs have been or are being released in 2015!

Winter Wonderful DVD 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!

Today we are sharing four fun DVDs with you and at the end of the post there is a giveaway for all four!! Thank you to NCircle Entertainment for providing these DVDs.

Christmas DVDs 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!

To help get us in the Christmas spirit, NCircle Entertainment sent us four Christmas DVDs to review and are supplying another set of four to one of my wonderful readers!! Hazel was really excited to see a few of her favorite shows represented. She insisted we start with the newly released Octonauts: The Very Vegimal Christmas.

The Ocotonauts: Deep Sea Mission 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.

Today I get to review a wonderful Octonauts DVD. The Octonauts is among one of Hazel's favorite shows. She recently told me she wants to be a scientist who studies animals when she grows up. (Of course her idea of what she wants to be changes all the time at this age.) She loves any show that helps her learn about animals. The Octonauts is one of them. It amazes me the information she retains from the show. Every once in awhile she will come out with one of the animal facts. I love it!

The DVD we are reviewing today is The Octonauts: Deep Sea Mission. Its official release date is September 2nd, however there was an early release on August 5th through Walmart and Sam's Club. If you follow the link you will be taken there. Of course you can pre-order the DVD and find all the other Octonauts DVDs and other great DVDs at NCircle Entertainment's website.

Now as I mentioned Octonauts are one of Hazel's favorites. She loves learning about the animals and the six episodes on this DVD are wonderful. They explore the Midnight Zone and the creatures that live in the deepest part of the water. I love the fact that Hazel knows about the Midnight Zone and knows some animals. I'll admit every once in awhile I google one of the creatures just to make sure they are actual creatures and not just made up, because I have not heard of them. (I recently googled spookfish from one of the episodes on this DVD. The images on Google are great, but none that I can legally use here, so you will have to Google it yourself.)

Disney Junior has some of the creatures from Octonauts available as color sheets and creature information cards. They have not kept up with all of their seasons though. Above is the one of the spookfish. Hazel had fun coloring it. 

Another part of watching all the Octonauts episodes and DVDs that I love is that Hazel wants to explore more sea creatures. Our public library recently had a program with The Whale Mobile. This is a group of people who come to a location with a life size model of a real humpback whale that has been seen off the coast of Massachusetts and you can go inside the model and see the size of things like the heart, lungs, stomach and ribs. It is so neat. They teach a bit about whales. It was really interesting. To give you an idea of the whale here is a picture of Hazel next to its head.

 

I love this DVD and all the Octonauts DVDs for the lessons they teach Hazel and how they get her so curious about the sea. Yes, our dinner conversations are sometimes about which is the largest creature in the sea. And yes, Steve and I are learning from watching them with her. And we actually enjoy the shows unlike some children's shows. 

Now I get to offer you a chance to win this amazing DVD. Follow the Rafflecopter and enter to win! Winners must live in the USA or Canada and be 18 and over and follow the rest of my Giveaway Rules. Good luck!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

For more on The Octonauts check out:

•  The Octonauts: Calling All Sharks! DVD   
• Octonauts: To the Gup-X DVD Review 
• Octonauts & The Sea of Shade Book Review 
• My Octonauts Pinterest Board

Sharing Saturday 14-25

Thank you to everyone who shared with us last week!! I know I am so inspired and have been pinning and commenting all night on so many great ones. I had a very hard time choosing which to feature, so there are three categories this week. The first, with summer officially starting here tomorrow morning, Summer Lists, the second, with Hazel and I becoming obsessed with Disney's Frozen, Frozen Features, and finally a few of my favorites plus one special one. First our special one.

From Danya Banya: Octonauts Party Starring Dashi

The perfect ideas to go with my current giveaway of the soon-to-be-released Octonauts: Calling All Sharks DVD. Have you entered yet?

Summer Lists

1) From From ABCs to ACTs: 10 Fun Camping Games for Kids
2) From Powerful Mothering: Best Summer Activities for Kids Under 5 Years Old
3) From Carrie Elle: 15 Fun and Free Outdoor Activities for Kids
4) From From ABCs to ACTs: 101 Family Friendly Summer Bucket List Ideas
5) From The Jenny Revolution: Free Summer Reading Programs for Kids
6) From The (Reformed) Idealist Mom: 3 Ways to Crush Your Summer Bucket List

Disney's Frozen Features

1) From Some of the Best Things In Life Are Mistakes: Frozen Crafts and Ideas Round-Up
2) From Here Come the Girls: Frozen Birthday Cakes
3) From Here Come the Girls: Olaf Juice Cartons for Kids

Did I mention Hazel is thinking of perhaps a Frozen theme for her next birthday party? I have already started a Pinterest Board to keep ideas for it and have added these.

A Few of My Favorites

1) From Felt with Love Designs: Ocean Exploration Finger Puppets (Free patterns!)
2) From Like Mama ~ Like Daughter: Enchanted Childhood Preschool - The Letter V
3) From Danya Banya: An Invitaiton to the Fairies: DIY Fairy Door
4) From Lou Lou Girls: I Spy with My Little Eye! Kids' Road Activity

Thank you to everyone who shared last week!! I hope you will join us and share again!! If you are featured here, please feel free to grab a featured button to display proudly on your blog. 

Featured Button Code:

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From Your Hostess: This week we visited my parents at Cape Cod and I did not get all my posts written, but we did share our creative and simple mermaid craft, our exploration of Hungary for Around the World in 12 Dishes, our review and giveaway of Octonauts: Calling All Sharks! dvd, and our seashell art!

Make sure you enter our giveaway!

Now for This Week's Party  
A Few Simple Guidelines:
1)  Please follow Crafty Moms Share via GFC (or one of the other ways that work for you).  

2)  Link any kid-friendly, child-centered post. Please no etsy shops or giveaways, etc.  Remember to link to your actual post. 

3) Post the Sharing Saturday button on your sidebar or somewhere on your blog to help spread the word.

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4) I would love it if you would follow me on Facebook,  Google+, and Pinterest 

5) If you do not have a blog, but want to share an idea you can leave it in the comments or e-mail it to me with a picture (if possible).

 

 Disclaimer: By sharing here, you are giving Crafty Moms Share permission to use your photos for features and to pin your craft at Pinterest.

Octonauts: Calling All Sharks! DVD Review & Giveaway

Congratulations to April of April's Homemaking for winning the $30 gift certificate to the Air Plant Shop!

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.

Now Hazel loves the Octonauts. It is one of her favorite shows to watch and she is so excited they are now making Octonauts DVD's and even more excited that we got a copy of the latest one to review before it is released on June 24th. Its suggested retail price is $12.99.

Octonauts: Calling All Sharks! has six episodes of The Octonauts on it including Cookiecutter Sharks, Giant Jelly, Lost Lemon Shark, Hungry Pilot Fish, Dwarf Lantern Shark, and Porcupine Puffer. Although Hazel has seen all of these episodes on television, she still loves to watch them and loves that she can watch them any time she wants. I love having her watch this DVD since each episode teaches about a sea creature. She loves learning about them. She actually has been telling me and testing me on facts she learns from the show. Plus I actually do not mind watching this show with her and neither does Steve, so needless to say we are all happy to have the DVD to watch with her.

Since so many of these episodes involve sharks, I thought I would share our shark exploration crafts again. We showed the layers of teeth in one craft and the feel of their skin in the second one. 

Now NCircle Entertainment has also been kind enough to give away a copy to one of you. All you have to do to enter is follow the steps of the Rafflecopter and my Giveaway Rules. This contest is open to US and Canada residents!

  a Rafflecopter giveaway

For more on the Octonauts check out:

• Octonauts: To the Gup-X DVD Review 
• Octonauts & The Sea of Shade Book Review 
• My Octonauts Pinterest Board

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   

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