Virtual Book Club for Kids: Hopper Hunts for Spring

We have been having so much fun with Marcus Pfister books this month, we decided to share a second one. If you missed our first post for Virtual Book Club for Kids this month, we shared Ava's Poppy. Today we are going to share Hopper Hunts for Spring.

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   

Around the World in 12 Dishes: Iceland--Skonsur

Have you entered my current giveaway yet?

This month starts a new season of Around the World in 12 Dishes! One of the biggest changes is that we are trying to all post on the third Monday of the month and Around the World in 12 Dishes has its own blog with an intro to the country also being posted on the third Monday of the month. I wrote this month's introduction, so be sure to check it out. I will not be sharing about the country here since it is already on the blog for Around the World with 12 Dishes. 

Our first stop this year is Iceland! Now my sister happened to travel to Iceland this summer, so I have a few of her pictures to share with you! It looks so beautiful there. It makes it hard to believe its name is Iceland, however having read a bit about it, the country was named after an explorer spent a tough winter there. 

When looking for a recipe from Iceland, I discovered it was not going to be easy for us. Their main foods seem to be fish (Steve and I don't like it) and lamb (we don't like lamb either). However I found this great site full of Icelandic recipes.  I showed the recipes to Hazel, well I read the English names to her and let her pick one. She decided on the Skonsur or the thick pancakes/pan-fired bread. 

The recipe was in grams and milliliters, so I pulled out our scale to measure the dry ingredients. Hazel measured the flour for me. I am converting the recipe into cups since that is what we usually use.

Skonsur (adapted from Jo's Icelandic Recipes) 

• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 4 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1/4 cup butter or margarine, melted
• 1 cup milk (we needed a bit more)
• 2 eggs 

Mix the dry ingredients together. Add the eggs and melted butter and stir. Thin with the milk. Stir until smooth.

Pour on a greased skillet and fry on both sides at low temperature. Cakes should be like thick pancakes.

Serve cold with any kind of topping that is good with bread.

Hazel helped with the cooking, but the batter was so thick it was hard to get into the pan. While they were still warm, Hazel and I split one to taste. It tasted pretty much like our normal pancakes, but a bit different. Then we made sandwiches with them for lunch.

Steve made a sandwich the next day and liked them as well. Overall a success!

We also have been reading books about Iceland. I shared these in the introduction post, but will share them here as well.

 

Hazel has been asking if we can do this for every country around the world, so stay tuned. Oh and she wants to do every state as well. We may be busy with this idea. 

Around the World in 12 Dishes is hosted by the following amazing blogs!!

Adventures In Mommydom, Afterschool for Smarty Pants, All Done Monkey, Crafty Moms Share, Maroc Mama, Glittering Muffins, Kid World Citizen, Mermaids' Makings, The Mommy Talks and The Usual Mayhem

Around the World in 12 Dishes also has a Facebook page and a Google+ community page, feel free to like/join them, too, while you’re there.

For this month's Iceland you can print the placemat and passport pages. Then you can check out all these great recipes and feel free to add one if you have cooked any Icelandic recipe or done a craft! Also here is the cover for the passport for Season 3!

St. Patrick's Day Crafts

Have you entered my current giveaway yet?

This year we have not done much for St. Patrick's Day. (Sorry to my late Irish grandmother.) However when we went to the library on Thursday they had a free St. Patrick's Day craft set up. It was an easy paper plate hat. While Hazel made one I made three (one that Hazel insisted we bring home and two for some of the librarians to wear). The next day Hazel made another one while her friend made one since the craft had not been cleaned up and we had all been there for a free puppet show.

This is Hazel's first one. She started to copy what I did on the ones I was making but had some very creative ideas of her own.

This is the one Hazel insisted we bring home that I made. To make these you cut almost a full circle out of the paper plate center and fold it up then decorate. The librarians provided the cut out shamrocks, tissue paper, pipe cleaners, curling ribbon, sequins and silver sparkly pom poms and markers, glue and scissors. We had a lot of fun. 

Here is the one Hazel made on Friday. She did not put as much time into it, but she likes it just the same.

We have also been enjoying some St. Patrick's Day and Irish books. Here is a collage of books we have read this year and/or last year. I realized earlier this month I never shared the books we read for last year's St. Patrick's Day, so I'll share them now.

• Leprechaun Tales by Yvonne Carroll
• The Leprechaun in the Basement by Kathy Tucker
• Too Many Leprechauns by Stephen Krensky
• The Irish Cinderlad by Shirley Climo
• Daniel O'Rourke by Gerald McDermott
• Fair, Brown and Trembling by Jude Daly
• The Luck of The Irish by Brendan Patrick Paulsen
• St. Patrick's Day by Gail Gibbons
• A Fine St. Patrick's Day by Susan Wojciechowski
• That's What Leprechaun's Do by Eve Bunting
• Finn McCoul by Brian Gleeson

I also wanted to provide you with the crafts we have done for St. Patrick's Day in the past.

• Paper Plate Leprechaun and Leprechaun Trap
• Leprechaun Peg Doll
• Craft Stick Leprechaun
• Needle Felted Pot of Gold (Chocolate) Coins
• Painting with Shamrocks
• St. Patrick's Day Bracelets and Necklaces
• Ireland Map Coloring Page
• Felt Leprechaun
• Pipe Cleaner Shamrocks (Never posted these, but thought I would share them)
• Bead Rainbow and Needle Felted Rainbow

Finally, last March as part of Around the World in 12 Dishes, we "visited" Ireland. Here are the Irish Recipes we made.

• Irish Chicken and Leek Pie
• Irish Cheese Toast (with snap peas)
• Irish Soda Bread
• Irish Stew
• Irish Chicken and Leek Pie (pictured again) with salad

For more fun St. Patrick's Day crafts, recipes, and activities check out:

• Sharing Saturday 14-9
• Sharing Saturday 14-10
• Sharing Saturday 14-11
• Sharing Saturday 14-8
• Sharing Saturday 13-11
• Sharing Saturday 13-10
• Sharing Saturday 13-9
• Sharing Saturday #11 St. Patrick's Day Edition
• Sharing Saturday #9
• My St. Patrick's Day Pinterest Board

Sharing Saturday 14-11

Thank you to all the Crafty Moms and Teachers who shared with us last week!! There were so many wonderful ideas shared. But before I give you my features, I wanted to share with you my past posts for Pi Day which was Friday, March 14! There are many ideas there to celebrate Pi Day as well as some great lessons I use to use as a teacher. Now onto our fun features!! I am providing a few with two pictures so you can see the details that I fell in love with!