Educational Toys at Alphabet Trains & Toys

 

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

Today I get to share an online educational toy store with you. When Hazel was young, I loved getting educational toys for her and especially loved when they were made from natural materials. Today I get to share with you my experience and a toy from Alphabet Trains and Toys. I was approached to review a toy and share my experience with you. 

Famous Seaweed Soup -- Book Review & Giveaway

 

Disclosure: I was sent a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I will receive a small stipend for participating in The Children's Book Review & Purple Butterfly Press's Virtual Book Tour with this post. All opinions are my own.

Spring is popping up all around me and that means summer is around the corner. Today I get to share with you a fun book that is perfect for those summer beach trips and more! It is Famous Seaweed Soup by Antoinette Truglio Martin and illustrated by Penny Weber. And there is a giveaway including the grand prize of an entire classroom set of this fun book!!

Where to Shop This Holiday Season

Disclosure: Some of these links will pay me a small percentage of any purchase made when clicking them at no cost to you. Thank you for supporting Crafty Moms Share!

Can you believe it is already Black Friday? Do you know why today is called Black Friday? Traditionally this is the day stores would finally show a profit for the year or they would be in the black instead of the red (loss). Can you imaging running a store for almost the entire year in a loss? In honor of Black Friday I thought I would give you some suggestions as places to shop or at least some of our favorite places to shop. A few of these are affiliate links and will provide me with a small payment if you shop there, but most are just places I find amazing and want to let you know about them. Next week I will do a post on our favorite things from our reviews this year with gift suggestions for people of all ages!!

Asian Book Reviews -- Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month Blog Series and Giveaway

Have you entered my current giveaway yet?

Disclosure: Tuttle Publishing gave me a copy of these books free of charge for this review. 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.

This post is part of the Multicultural Kid Blogs Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month Blog Series and Giveaway. More details about all of this below including the giveaway!!

Since May is Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month, I contacted my friends at Tuttle Publishing. It was a logical choice since this is their specialty. They publish books on Asian cultures, languages, and history. They have books for children and adults. It is a wonderful publishing company that puts out high quality and beautiful books. They also have provided five of the books for the giveaway below! The first book we will review is one of the prizes.

The History of Zero--Asian Pacific American Heritage Blog Series and Giveaway Post

This post is part of the Asian-Pacific American Heritage Blog Series and Giveaway on Multicultural Kid Blogs. You can enter the giveaway at the end of the post. There is a link party for all Asian-Pacific American Heritage posts on Multicultural Kid Blogs. We also have a link party for Japan posts in our Global Learning for Kids this month. Next month will be India.

History of Zero:

Can you imagine a world without zero? Or perhaps you wonder why we need to represent nothing at all? For centuries there was no mark or symbol of zero. The history of the number zero begins in Asia. It is believed that the first people to have a symbol for zero were the Babylonians. The Babylonians had inherited the counting system of the Sumerians which was the first to have a symbol instead of hash marks for each number.

Around 1450 B.C. By Свифт/Svift (my work) 
[Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Asian Pacific American Heritage Month Prize Review

Have you entered the Asian Pacific American Heritage Month Giveaway being hosted over at Multicultural Kid Blogs? It is part of our Asian Pacific American Heritage Month Blog Series. I will be co-hosting two posts in the next couple of weeks as part of the series and I wrote the first post for the series on Multicultural Kid Blogs. I also played a roll in getting some of the prizes for the giveaway. I thought I would take some time to review the prizes since I wanted to check some out for myself. There are three prize packs that you can win and each has a good number of books. Some of the books we have reviewed previously and others we have not. Today I am going to review four books published by Lee & Low Books that I got out of the library. I will also share information about the other prizes that I have previously reviewed or know something about. I will provide links to where prizes can be purchased for your convenience. I do not get anything from you purchasing them besides the joy of sharing wonderful resources.

 The Prizes

Mother's Day Celebration with Link Party

This year for Mother's Day Hazel and I went to a tea house on Friday for afternoon tea. I had promised her we would do something like this when I had to miss the Mother/Daughter Tea Party at her school in April. I figured Mother's Day weekend was the perfect time. Hazel dressed up for the occasion with gloves and all. We had a wonderful time. 

Discovering Sushi -- Global Learning for Kids: Japan

Disclosure: I was sent this playset to review free of charge from Melissa & Doug. 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. They also sent one to me for the Asian Pacific American Blog Series and Giveaway!!
 
On Monday I shared that I am teaming up with Multicultural Kid Blogs to begin a new series called Global Learning for Kids. This month our focus is Japan. You can find my introduction to Japan on Multicultural Kid Blogs as well as the amazing Asian Pacific American Heritage Giveaway!! Our focus this week has been on sushi. Now I have only had sushi a couple of times in my life and as a non-fish eater, it has only been vegetarian. However we got this great Wooden Sushi Slicing Playset from Melissa & Doug, so I thought I should teach Hazel a bit about it. 

Sharing Saturday 15-1

Happy New Year!! Welcome to the first Sharing Saturday of 2015!! This New Year's Eve was the first time we really celebrated with Hazel. We counted down to 8 p.m. with her and let her have noise makers, jump on bubble wrap, wear hats and drink sparkling cider. She loved it!! Did you have a fun New Year's celebration? If you want ideas for celebrating with kids, make sure to check out last week's Sharing Saturday. There were some wonderful ideas shared. Thank you to everyone who shared with us last week and a very special thank you to all of you who come to see what others are up to. For this week's features I picked nine non-New Year's posts to share. I hope you will check them out!

Features

Prayer Beads for the Jesus Prayer

Have you entered my current giveaway?

Ok, I know I have mentioned how active I am at church. I am a Christian and I truly believe in God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. I tend not to be one who discusses it everywhere, however I do try to keep God in my life every day. When I visit my parents I have my favorite shops to go to and one of them is the Priory Shop at the Community of Jesus. It is located right at Rock Harbor and it is always so calming to visit there. You can also get tours of the Church of the Transfiguration, their million or maybe even multimillion dollar church that opened about ten years ago. While there I always love to browse the books and often find some inspiring books. This last visit was no different. While keeping Hazel busy with samples of the homemade jam on crackers and granola, I was able to find a new book. I'm only in the second chapter, but I am very interested in it. The book is The Jesus Prayer by Frederica Mathewes-Green.

Knowing nothing about the Jesus Prayer, I was intrigued. The book says that learning the Jesus Prayer and praying properly will bring you closer to God and hear God speaking to you. The prayer is simple, "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me." is the simplest form of it. A longer form is "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me, a sinner." Now the trick is you need to say it one hundred times each day. To do this, you need some prayer beads to keep track of it. So I had Hazel help me make a prayer bead necklace and she wanted one too, but we did not put one hundred beads on hers.

I used the cross I had gotten that is made out of olive wood from Jerusalem. Then we lined out ten rows of ten beads. It was great to see Hazel figure out what one hundred looks like. I changed the first and last beads of each row so I could count by ten by the feel of the beads. I did not use a pattern to the beads beside that since I figured my prayers and my sins will be both small and large. Then while I strung my beads, Hazel laid out some for herself. She decided the round ball ones rolled around too much, so she used the flatter ones and we had a butterfly bead left from the Melissa & Doug butterfly bead collection she was given for her birthday, so we used that one.

We made hers into a necklace so she can wear it even when she is not praying. Then I taught her the Jesus Prayer. We of course did not make it through all the beads on either necklace before she got bored and I have yet to take the time to do it one hundred times let alone each day, but I'm still reading the book, so at least I am ready when I finish it. Supposedly doing this practice will get you to the point where your mind is praying continuously even when you are doing other things and thus living out the instructions Paul gives in several of his letters including 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

^"16 Rejoice always, ¹⁷ pray continually, ¹⁸ give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus."

and in Romans 12:12

^"12 Let your hope keep you joyful, be patient in your troubles, and pray at all times."

and in Ephesians 6:18

"¹⁸ Pray in the Spirit at all times in every prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert and always persevere in supplication for all the saints."

and finally in Colossians 4:2

"² Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with thanksgiving."

The Jesus Prayer is widely taught in Eastern Orthodox Churches. The book goes through some history of it as well as some of the difference between Eastern and Western Churches. However if you want more information you can check out the book or you can read some more on Wikipedia.

So this is what I am exploring right now when I have time to read something that is not a children's book.

Felt Zoo Preparation

Sharing Saturday is still open and waiting for your child-oriented crafts and activities!

For Christmas we are giving Hazel a finished version of her zoo mat with a castle play mat on the other side. We also bought her the Melissa and Doug Castle Block Play Set. I wanted to make her some animals for her zoo, so I got started on them this weekend. I made her this adorable penguin. I got the free pattern at Nuno Life.

Zoo Play Mat Unfinished

I also made a lioness. I got the pattern from my Joan Russell book, The Woman's Day Book of Soft Toys & Dolls. It is out of print but you can buy used copies at Amazon. I will be making the male lion as well which is similar but has a mane. Are you making any Christmas gifts for your little ones?

Another Turkey & Winners!

First some announcements:

The winner of the Best Halloween Costume is: Sarah from Happy Lil Lamont with her daughter's beautiful flamingo costume!

The winner of the Melissa & Doug Big Rig Building Truck Play Set is Shannon F. Congratulations, Shannon!! You have three days to email me your address! Please check out Melissa & Doug's Terrific 20 List! Melissa & Doug are giving away a toy from this list every day on their Facebook page!! Plus some of the other blog's contests are still going on. There is a list at the bottom of my contest post of the other ones.

Today I thank God for not having to be in Hazel's picture with Santa Claus this year! (She even had a conversation with him on her own!!)

The other day I was poking around Pinterest and found this great turkey suncatcher from Learn Create Love. Learn Create Love even provides the printable for the turkey. I did mine a bit different however. I used contact paper and put the sticky side up over the pattern and had Hazel stick on fall colors of tissue paper squares over the pattern. Then I cut out a body from brown construction paper. We sealed the tissue paper by folding the contact paper over it. Then I cut out the tail part of the pattern from it. I glued the head/body on and added the face details.

A very easy, quick Thanksgiving craft.

More turkeys and pilgrims

You still have time to enter my current giveaway to win a Melissa & Doug Big Rig Building Truck Play Set!

There is also plenty of time to share your family's activity this week to inspire us all to have more quality family time at Happy Family Times!

Today I am thankful for being able to stay home with my daughter!

Today, we made some more turkey crafts. First though I need to share a turkey craft Hazel made at the library story time with the garden club. 

They have one from last year hanging on the bulletin board in the craft room and I fell in love with it.

When I found out they were going to do it again this year, I signed her up for it. They taught them all about seeds as well. 

Then we made some lollipop turkeys. I got the idea from Spangler Candy. I changed it a bit to what I had.

Then we tried some lollipop pilgrims. They are not what I invisioned, but they work for what they are.

So there are a few more Thanksgiving crafts for you.

Happy Family Times #33

One more day to vote for your favorite Halloween costume!! Please come help me choose a winner!

Also make sure you enter my current giveaway for a Melissa & Doug toy!! Oh, and while we are talking giveaways, Kelly at Happy Whimsical Hearts (our co-host) teamed up with Hinterland Mama for a worldwide giveaway. Go over and enter to win their fabulous homemade prizes!

Have you done something fun or different this week with your family? Kelly at Happy Whimsical Hearts and I would love to hear about it. Please share below (and visit Happy Whimsical Hearts to check out what Kelly and her family have been up to this week).

Ok, this week we were recovering from having Steve working so much the previous week dealing with the power outages of Superstorm Sandy (apparently it was worse than a hurricane since they are calling it a superstorm now). Then of course he got called into work (on a day he scheduled to take off) because of the Nor'easter coming our way. Luckily it was not too bad here so he only had really one night of lost sleep. Anyway between his crazy work schedule and all of us fighting off colds, we did not do much as a family besides relax. However over the weekend, Hazel did ask for us all to play a few games and do some puzzles. However I did not take pictures since I was busy playing, but here are what we played together.

We played several games of Zingo!! Hazel got into having her animals and dolls take the other cards so we would play with the maximum number possible. We had fun.

Ok, this is one of those games that is very simple, but Hazel loves it because it has the princesses on it. Not a very exciting game, but she loves it.

This game is one where you have to spin to get all the things needed for a birthday party: invitation, hat, noisemaker, drink, dessert, gift, and party favor. Whoever gets all the things first wins though we play until everyone wins. You can also play that you cannot get any of the items until you get the invitation, but we do not do this yet. Another game that she loves.

Today I thank God for my friends who are always there when I need them whether it is for a favor or to vent.

Now it is your turn to share how your family has spent some quality time lately.

~ please link up (family time oriented giveaways are ok, but please no Etsy shops)
~just crafts will be deleted since this is to share family times ~ use our button so others can join the fun

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~ check out our Happy Family Times Pinterest board where we will be pinning some of our favorite ideas

Ok, now for our PARTY!! Please share your FUN Family Times!!

Sharing Saturday #45

Ok, before we start I have an amazing giveaway going on from Melissa & Doug!! Please go enter and also check out the other Melissa & Doug giveaways at the blogs below the Rafflecopter!

And I need your help on selecting a winner of the Best Halloween Costume Contest. Just go visit and click like on your favorite(s)!

Once again I was blown away by the creativity shared last week. If you have not had a chance to check it out, go do so (and show some blog love with a comment).

Our Most Clicked was from Wesens-Art again!

For my favorites this week, I have two categories: Fall/Thanksgiving Related Favorites and Personal or Must-See Favorites and Resources.

1) From Little Wonders' Days: November's 10 Ways to Show Your Kids You Love Them
2) From The Good Long Road: Autumn Decorated Tree
3) From Science Sparks: 20 Autumnal and Fall Science Activities
4) From The Good Long Road: Daily Thank You Cards
5) From Ginx Craft: Conkers--an explanation for those of us in the US
6) From Frogs & Snails & Puppy Dog Tails: Fall Hand Print Tree

1) From Art Mama Says: What Sandy Left Behind (A wonderful reminder of those in need after Superstorm Sandy hit and some ways to help!)
2) From Adventures at home with Mum: Car Wash
3) From Frontier Dreams: Finger Knitting (and dyeing yarn!) (Love the colors!!)
4) From Sweet Boutique: The Perfect Gift for Any Harry Potter Fan
5) From Waldorf By Me: A Lantern Round-Up (Perfect for Martinmas this Sunday! And yes we went on Hazel's first lantern walk tonight at school!)
6) From PlayDrMom: Favorite Children's Books about Anxiety (What an amazing resource!)
7) From Hey Mommy, Chocolate Milk: Yarn Germs (Teaching kids about germs and washing hands!)

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.

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From Your Hostess:

Turkey Crafts: Nature and Paper

Today I thank God for love and light!

 

Now for This Week's Party   

A Few Simple Guidelines:
1)  Please follow both hosts via GFC (or one of the other ways that work for you).  

Hosts are Crafty Moms Share and Mama Mia's Heart2Heart. A reminder: Mia is taking a blogging break. Hopefully she will be back soon to host again!!

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 button on your sidebar or somewhere on your blog to help spread the word.

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Disclaimer: By sharing here, you are giving Crafty Moms Share and Mama Mia's Heart2Heart permission to use your photos for features and to pin your craft at Pinterest. 

Melissa & Doug Terrific Twenty List and Giveaway

As you know Christmas is fast approaching and being a Waldorf mom, I love all natural toys. As much as I love to support the handmade crafters, financially I cannot always. So I turn to companies like Melissa & Doug. I love their wooden toys and often are getting them for Hazel. They are so creative and build the imagination and are well made. So when I heard about this opportunity, I jumped at it.

Melissa & Doug are giving away a toy each day on their Facebook page. They started on Tuesday. Go over and enter to win something each day!!

Now since Hazel cannot read I can tell you that Santa is bringing her Melissa & Doug's Castle Blocks. I am going to sew a back side to Hazel's zoo playmat to be a castle play mat and that will be her main present from us. Then she and Steve will have a wonderful time building and playing with her castle. She is so into princesses now. Steve still has his Lego castle from when he was young and she loves to look/play with it, but it comes apart easily.

Now for the exciting part!! Melissa & Doug have offered to send me one of their Terrific Twenty Holiday Gifts for 2012 and one to one of my followers!

It was hard to choose what to get and giveaway, but I have decided on the Big Rig Building Truck Wooden Play Set, because Hazel loves to play with her tools and build/fix things and I would love for her to have some wooden tools as well as something they actually work on. Right now she has plastic ones and just pretends with them. This will actually build some fine motor skills as well as her imagination. So if you have a little one or a big one who would love to play with this and live in the U.S.A. (sorry to my international followers), please enter below. We will be following my Giveaway Rules. Good luck!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Also there are other blogs giving away Melissa & Doug toys. Make sure you go enter for these great ones:

Living Life Intentionally   -  Glittering Muffins  -   Let Children Play   -  
 Royal Baloo  -  Reading Confetti  - This Reading Mama   -   Putti's World  -  KC Edventures   -  Creative Learning Fun - True Aim Education   - 
Hey, Mommy, Chocolate Milk   - No Twiddle Twaddle   -  In Lieu of Preschool  - Coffee Cups & Crayons  -  School Time Snippets  -  Toddler Approved  -  Preschool Powol Packets  - Home Learning Journey  - The Enchanted Tree  -