reviews
I love journals. It’s the writer/storyteller in me that just goes wild when I get a new journal. As much as I enjoy opening a blank book and writing away, I love journals with prompts even more. I think I have a suppressed love of filling out forms. I don’t know where it came from, but it surfaces about tax time each year 
So I was really excited when Carrie Lundell agreed to feature her This Is Me journal as part of the Winter Wonderland carnival.
Aside from the prompts in the journal, I was drawn to Carrie’s slogan: Scrap the Scrapbook and Preserve the Personality! I have never been a very good scrapbooker and as the girls have gotten older and busier, I’ve fallen farther and farther behind in getting pictures in albums. Carrie’s slogan broke through my fog created by feelings of guilt and being overwhelmed and shone like the bright sun on a new day. I was pumped to share this journal with Sammi.
And Sammi did not disappoint! She was so excited that we got a book just for her and that she got to draw and write in it all by herself. Carrie had suggested reading the parent’s guide on the last page before beginning. So with an antsy preschooler at my side, I flipped to the back and scanned. The layout made it easy to ready quickly and absorb the tips so that in just a few moments I was ready to share the journal with Sammi.
I had her start by drawing her self portrait on the first page. In hindsight, I think I should have warmed her up to drawing herself before drawing on the actual first page. She grabbed her favorite color, pink, and scribbled away. After that, I gave her a piece of paper and talked about drawing herself and got a very adorable, 3-year-old’s perspective on what Sammi looks like to herself. I’m tucking that portrait in the pocket at the back of the book to keep to show her she did really draw herself, not just crazy pink lines.
We worked through the first few pages. I turned the prompts into questions I asked Sammi and then wrote down her answers. Some of my favorite are that her favorite thing about being 3 is going to preschool. But she doesn’t actually go to preschool! I haven’t found a program that has space so we’ve visited a few, but I’ve mostly decided to do preschool activities at home. Another favorite is that if she could have any pet, it would be an elephant. And then she drew this adorable picture of the elephant. It’s hard to see, but her elephant has seven legs and a tail. She was very pleased with the long trunk she drew (top left).
While we could get any book and so some of the same things, I would choose this keepsake journal for a few reasons. First, I love the design. It’s professional but appealing to kids. Second, the prompts are already there and, after flipping through the book, there are ideas I never would have thought to include. One last reason, because it’s already formatted and bound in a book, I’m more likely to finish it with Sammi over the course of the year and then keep it for her to look through in the future.
As part of the Winter Wonderland, Carrie is offering one This Is Me journal to a BBGU reader. Make sure you comment on the Join the Winter Wonderland post to enter the giveaway. You can also comment on this post for an extra in the giveaway. This giveaway is open until January 31 at 11:59 pm EST.
What memories have you preserved that are special to you know? Would they have been forgotten if you hadn’t done something to preserve them?
What a way to start off the new year! Here’s a catchy, clever album all about the brain. Roger Day had the great idea of creating an entire album around the brain: Why Does Gray Matter? …and other brainy songs for kids! Overall, the album reminds me of all the things I love about They Might Be Giants: smart lyrics and upbeat tunes.
Roger Day appeals to my parenting side by incorporating words like ‘lycopene’ and ‘deep basal ganglia’ into his songs as he extols the virtues of healthy food for the brain and the finer details of how the brain works. Then he also brings to life the kid in me who loves corny wordplay and geeky facts.
But, don’t take my word for it! I wasn’t the only one who loved this album. We were headed out through winding roads on Saturday. So naturally I drove to avoid motion sickness. Brent typed notes for me on my phone as we talked about the songs. When I checked out what he wrote down, I found this: “Husband really enjoys this album.” And that’s coming from my very music savvy sweetheart. Sammi had something to say about it, too. A few songs into the album she commented that “these are songs to help us stay awake!” Which is a compliment since we usually try to sing them to sleep with lullabies on long road trips.
Random Things I Like
- Roger Day is from Tennessee which significantly increases our chances for seeing him live!
- On the back side of the lyrics sheet is a nifty poster for the album that I’m actually considering hanging in my office.
- He started performing his children’s music at community service shows for local Head Start programs where he was scheduled for his regular college coffeehouse shows. (One location he played was right here at Lincoln Memorial University! though I don’t know if he did a children’s performance here.)
Win Your Own Copy
We’ve got a copy of Roger Day’s new album Why Does Gray Matter? …and other brainy songs for kids! to give away to one Because Babies Grow Up reader. To enter, please leave a comment telling me something smart about you or your little one. For additional entries you can blog, tweet, facebook or delicious this post. Just leave another comment telling me what you’ve done and I’ll tally all the extra entries in when I randomly select the winner.
This giveaway is open until Monday, January 11 at midnight, EST. Please help spread the word and good luck!
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Well, I survived 15 hours of travel with two sick girls. We actually had a pretty good time. The girls slept the last 1 1/2 hours on the plane and then were happy when they saw Grandma, Grandpa and two aunts and an uncle. Then they slept the 45 min drive to my mom’s house and were so excited to see another Grandma and Grandpa that they could hardly go right back to sleep! But that’s okay because I didn’t have it in me to break up the party.
This trip reminded me of the last time I was on an airplane. Brent and I flew with Elli when she was almost 8 months old. We went house hunting in Tennessee before our big move here. We had a long day of flying and driving and I was worried about what to take with us to entertain Elli for so long.
About the same time, my dear friend Melitsa of Play Activities was getting ready to release her book about Treasure Basket Play and asked if we’d like to review it. I had no idea how it would transform my travel with a little one! Her book is full of ideas of natural items children love to discover and explore. Following some of her suggestions, we were able to pack a pocket in my backpack full of items that kept Elli entertained for the entire trip.
A Great Christmas Gift
Putting together a treasure basket would make a perfect Christmas gift for your little one! The budget’s tight at our house for Christmas this year, as I’m sure it is in plenty of other homes, and we’ve looked for ways to make the dollar stretch and to still provide the girls with toys they’ll love. Imagine your little one’s face lit with joy in digging through a basket of objects of different textures, shapes and colors, object typically high on a counter or otherwise out of reach now available for exploration.
Little ones love to explore a new object and then when the newness is gone, they move on to the next object. Treasure baskets accommodate this short attention span perfectly because they are easy to reconfigure when your little one is tired of its contents. Melitsa’s book contains tons of ideas on different combinations of objects that you can safely include in a treasure basket for your little one.
Win Your Own Copy of Treasure Basket Play!
Melitsa has generously offered a copy of Treasure Basket Play, along with the bonus resources of case studies supporting treasure basket play and an exclusive audio interview with Mary Horn of Heritage Treasure Baskets, to one Because Babies Grow Up reader! This is an amazing resource that will help you through the transition from baby to toddler.
To Enter:
- Please visit Melitsa’s site: Treasure Basket Play and find the 8 Benefits of Treasure Basket play.
- Come back here and leave a comment telling me the benefit that’s the most appealing to you.
- Additional entries: anything that helps spread the word about the giveaway! Tweet this post, share the link on Facebook, email friends about it, bookmark it on Delicious or like it on Stumbleupon. Come back and tell me what things you’ve done and I’ll add in the extra entries for you.
If you’re looking for an alternative to plastic toys that make noises you can’t control, or if you’re looking to further your little one’s imagination and creativity, then Treasure Basket Play is a great choice for you and your little one.
This was a CD of firsts for our family!
The first time I changed my laptime program on the way to the library just to include songs from this CD. We listened to it for the first time on the way to the library last Friday.
The first time my children did all the actions to the songs on very first time they heard the songs! This one really blew me away. I looked back in the rear view mirror and they were touching their toes and nose, raising their hands high and even attempting to turn around while remaining buckled in their seats. Such creativity!
The first time we have religiously carried a CD from house to car and back into the house every time we’ve gone somewhere.
We were excited to work with Waldmania! again to review a CD of music for kids that adults like too. We had enjoyed Milkshake and were hoping for something of equal caliber. We were not disappointed! We enjoyed the upbeat, energetic style of Bari Koral’s Family Rock Band in their new album Rock and Roll Garden.
Bari Koral has been compared to Jewel and Norah Jones, but for me, Bari is my soul sister, the sister to the part of my soul that aspires to change children’s lives and help parents connect with their children through music. The first time listening to her new album, I knew we had found a family classic.
This album doesn’t go on sale until January 12, unfortunately, so I can’t put it on my Christmas gift guide. BUT, I wanted to. Although it is available for pre-order though Amazon and Bari Koral’s website.
Now for the good news!
Bari Koral has offered one reader the chance to own Rock and Roll Garden before you can buy it. So, to enter for your chance to win a copy of Rock and Roll Garden by Bari Koral The Family Band, just leave a comment below. I’d love to hear how you connect with your little ones through music. Inspire me! Of course the winner will be chosen at random using a random number generator. The giveaway is open until Tuesday, Nov 24 and the winner will be announce in Wednesday’s post, Nov 25.
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Welcome to Tell Me Thursday. I’m excited to share more about our partial family photo with good friend Carol Rice at the International Storytelling Center (ISC) in Jonesborough, TN. Here’s the picture from yesterday’s Wordless Wednesday post:
Here we are with Carol Rice
We loved attending the Storytelling Festival last weekend. I probably loved it more than the girls. They were a bit restless and didn’t want to be confined to seats. But we had a fun time exploring a new location and meeting up with a friend from Utah. I’ve already gone on at length about the value of storytelling, so I’ll get right to the picture.
We are in the ISC in front of the Wall of Storytelling. Our friend from Utah is Carol Rice of Cherish Bound. She is dedicated to the art of storytelling and helping people capture their own personal stories in beautifully bound books. In case you can’t think of any stories, her company also has lots of great tools to help you find the stories that you want to preserve and share.
I Heard a Story...
The ISC has recently teamed up with Cherish Bound to help Festival goers to capture their experiences at the Festival. They’ve put together this terrific little book, I Heard a Story and Thought of You, that is easy to personalize but has professional photos from the festival already included. That is right up my alley because I usually buy postcards because the pictures are better than anything I can take! They also have a Family Tree storybook to preserve your family history.
The International Storytelling Center is also joining the world of Social Media and can be found on Twitter. They’ve recently updated their website with tons of information about ISC, where to find storytelling events and how to stay in the know on future events.
I was lucky enough to be able to share my thoughts on how to make the Festival more friendly towards parents and little ones. I’m excited they cared what I thought and look forward to enjoying the festival again next year.
So many times I have watched Sammi sitting quietly and just wondered what on earth was going through her head. I think that is the great mystery for parents about their children. You watch your child grow, you know their likes and interests. You can even guess the reactions they’ll have to different situations or food or challenges, but in the end, when they sit quietly (which rarely happens) we are left wondering what is running through their heads.
Are they complex, problem solving, abstract thoughts or simple thoughts about their immediate environment? How can we get at that information without affecting the content of what’s shared? I can figure out a lot when I watch Sammi play. She often recreates experiences she’s recently had and then manipulated them to change outcomes. But sometimes there are no leads to go from.
We had the opportunity today to use Cherish Bound‘s Child Chat cards to start conversations that gave us some interesting insight into Sammi’s thoughts. Each card contains a question to prompt a child to talk about a particular topic. The Child Chat cards contain questions that come from a variety of aspects of a child’s life: school, about me, my family. My mom fanned the deck of cards out and let Sammi choose any card she wanted. Then we asked her the question and she answered. Some questions brought back memories for me that I shared with my mom and we were able to tell Sammi some fun stories.
Sammi’s Cute Answers
Q: What do you want to be when you grow up?
S: A big girl
Q: What is your favorite TV show and why?
S: Curious George because it’s fun.
Q:On rainy, snowy or extra hot days, what does your family do for fun inside?
S: Build tree houses.
Q: What is a lesson that you learned from your teacher this year?
S: To be nice.
Q: Describe something that was really hard for you and now is easy.
S: Counting.
One of the cards asked what happens in your family when you lose a tooth. This hasn’t happened yet for our children and isn’t something we’ve ever talked about. I almost moved on after reading the question, but at the last moment it dawned on me that this had opened a door to talk about the tooth fairy in a context where Sammi was ready to understand the concept. This worked because Sammi was really engaged in the activity of reading the questions and answering them.
After we had moved on from the cards, we found Sammi playing the card game on her own. She was making up questions for her pretend friends and stuffed animals to answer. She also loved it so much she wanted to do it with her daddy when he came home. I was worried that the cards might be above what she could understand or what she’d be interested in doing. I’m glad I was wrong! I learned a lot about Sammi and what she thinks about.
As part of the Fall Fling giveaway, Cherish Bound is providing one winner with a set of Child Chat cards. They are also giving away the Fall Story Starter book to another winner. If you haven’t entered yet, the deadline has been extended to Wednesday, Sept 30. Winners will be announced Thursday Oct 1. Leave a comment on the Join the Fall Fling! post to enter. Leave a comment on this post for an extra entry. I’d love to hear what your child is thinking and how you figured it out.
I first learned about Sprig Toys when they started following me on Twitter. After exploring their website I approached them about the possibility of doing a product review. This may not appear to be significant, but for me, for this blog, it was. I want this blog to focus on how little ones develop and how parents and caregivers can encourage that development, primarily through interacting with the child.
When it comes to toys, I am highly selective. As the wife of a student, I am also very careful about where I spend my money. I’m only interested in toys that match my philosophy of how children play and toys that encourage little ones’ development. After reading through Sprig Toys product descriptions, I knew I had found a company that matched my philosophy.
I love their Company page which says:
Inspired by our collective desire to keep kids active and the planet healthy, Team Sprig is dedicated to infusing creativity, smart design, quality manufacturing, earth-friendly materials, product satisfaction and responsible business practices into a superior line of fun, kid-powered toys.
We help make the world a better place and we get kids off the couch. Pretty cool, huh?
I love that the toys are kid-powered.
So even though they have lights and sounds, they only work through energy created by the motion of the toys moving. The Discover Rig that we received to play with has a handle bar that the girls can hold onto to push the rig around. It’s the perfect height even for Elli to push as she toddles around the play room. Elli isn’t quite strong enough to push it so that it makes the lights and sounds work. Sammi can get the lights to come on, but she can’t push it hard enough for long enough to get the story sounds to play all the way through.
That doesn’t really matter to them, though. At this age, they are content to push it around, take it apart and put it back together again and make up their own stories about where they are going and what they are putting in the basket on top. They actually played really well together with this toy. I was afraid they’d argue over who got to push it, but they didn’t. They took turns well and Sammi thought of creative ways to still play with it while Elli was pushing it around.
I love their eco-friendly approach.
Another feature that I like has to do with their eco-friendly approach to toy design. They use recycled milk jugs as the material for the toys. I love the feel of it and the weight it gives to the toys. They’ve also designed the toys to be used in water, sand, dirt, any outdoors environment. We tested this when we took it to the sandbox at the park.
The Discover Rig has a man who sits in the driver seat. There is a USB looking plug that he connects to that triggers which stories are heard. I was a little worried letting the girls play with it in the sand for fear that it would get clogged from the sand and not work. As I watched them, they played pretty carelessly with it in the sand. They took the guy out and tossed him around. They dumped sand in and out. After a while I went to check on it, hesitantly. But, as far as I could see, there was no sand stuck in the USB looking connection. When I plugged the guy in, it still worked just fine. I was so happy they hadn’t ruined it and that I hadn’t ruined their fun by being unnecessarily concerned about keeping it clean. I don’t know how it holds up to water; I’ll leave that for someone else to try!
Not just for boys!
Another thing I love about these toys is that my GIRLS love them. Most of the pictures of kids on the Sprig Toys website are boys playing with the toys. But they aren’t just for boys. Girls can also enjoy loading up the rig and carting things around, even if those things are their dolls. I look forward to adding more Sprig toys to our collection. I just haven’t decided which to buy next.
The Fall Fling is still underway. Tomorrow is the last day to enter the giveaway. Please leave a comment on Join the Fall Fling! to enter the giveaway. Comments on this post will give you an extra entry. Check out the cool prizes here.
The idea for the Fall Fling really started off with the opportunity to work with CSNStores.com’s children’s site All Children’s Furniture. They carry everything from kids chairs to craft supplies with a whole lot of fun toys in between. We chose to review the Melissa and Doug Pattern Blocks because Sammi is lately obsessed with shapes.
First off, I love Melissa and Doug products. I like that they are all wood because they have great texture and feel solid. I’m not a fan of flimsy toys that are ready for the garbage the first time the girls look at them. We have the Band in a Box set from Melissa and Doug. It has withstood beatings from many children in two different states now and is none the worse for wear.
Sammi is at a stage where she is starting to see how little things can be put together to get something new. That combined with her new love of shapes led to the natural choice of the Pattern Blocks. The day we received them in the mail was like Christmas for her. We opened the box, removed the plastic and she went to town.
She pulled out each board and completed the picture. She carried them around the room and showed them to me and to my mom. She was so excited she had made the picture. She also loved talking about the shapes and the colors of each block. After that excitement had run its course, I showed her that you can turn over the picture boards and there’s anew picture waiting to be completed. She loved it!
All Children’s Furniture has a large selection of toys, furniture and other accessories for little ones. I thought their website was easy to navigate and the pricing/shipping was easy to figure out. The only thing I was surprised by was that after our blocks were ordered, I was automatically added to their email list. It’s easy enough to change your subscription status, I just wasn’t ready for the emails to start showing up.
All Children’s Furniture is offering one winner a choice between two toys: Melissa and Doug Beginner Pattern Blocks or Melissa and Doug Bug Jug Fill and Spill. Please leave a comment on Join the Fall Fling! to enter the giveaway and say which prize you’d choose if you win. You can also leave a comment on this post for an extra entry. I’d love to know what your little one is obsessed with right now: colors, shapes, letters, numbers or something entirely different?
We love music in our house. We are always singing a song or making up a melody to accompany our conversations. We listen to music constantly in the car. Now that we live in such a rural area, we spend a lot more time listening to music. We were recently contacted by Sara Fischer Hodges about her husband’s new album, KiddyDittys (A Kid’s Album for Adults). I was excited to work with Sara in sharing John Jeffrey Hodges latest CD.
We’ve been listening on and off again to this CD for several weeks now. John’s voice is deep and crooner-like. He brings energy to his music without being hyper like some kid music out there (I’m thinking camp song CDs, here). It’s a nice change of pace for evening listening or long Sunday drives.
Brent and I also really like his lyrics. This album is written from a parent’s perspective and covers everything from the humorous side of parenting (Garbage Day) to the sentimental (Your Father). We chuckled through the whole song Garbage Day because it was so true to life. They lyrics start “If you don’t do what I say, I’m going to take those toys away and put them in the garbage on garbage day. I’m gonna throw those toys away!” How often I have felt that. I have even made that threat a few times.
John Jeffrey Hodges brings a fresh perspective to the for-kids music scene. I like that his songs are from a parent’s point of view and remind me of all the aspects of parenting. He is unique as is the artwork on his CD. Sara shared this story with me about the cover:
The cover art for KiddyDittys (A Kid’s Album for Adults) was painted by Dave Osmun (“Oz”) of Temple, NH. Dave is one of Jeff’s oldest and dearest friends. He’s an amazing human being and one of the most talented people you will ever meet. Oz has been confined to a wheelchair for over 30 years as the result of an accident. He is a quadriplegic, paralyzed from the neck down, and paints with a paintbrush attached to a stick which he holds in his mouth.
The painting on the cover was done specifically for this project. Jeff and Oz met as teenagers in the small town of Siasconset (‘Sconset), MA, on Nantucket Island’s eastern shore, where their families spent summers – and where both Jeff and Oz return each year to spend time with each other and many of their childhood friends who have known each other for close to 50 years.
The painting reflects the ‘Sconset bluff as well as Sankaty Lighthouse and Sesachacha Pond. If you look closely, however, you’ll see that the painting also represents a subliminal guitar. This painting was Oz’s concept and we could not be more proud or happy to have this incredible piece of art as our cover for this album.
There are two copies of KiddyDittys (A Kid’s Album for Adults) available to participants in the Fall Fling. If you haven’t already, please comment on the post, Join the Fall Fling to enter the giveaway. Please leave a comment here for an additional entry.
Even though my little ones aren’t in school yet, Fall still means to me new crayons and pencils, new backpacks and, most importantly, new books. As an only child, I have long loved books. They were friends when I was bored and home, alone, on a mountain in Vermont. In fact, that is where I found my passion for reading late into the night. It was Little Women
But I digress. Getting a new book is always a treat for me. I think because of my love of reading and Sammi’s own personality, she has also become a little book lover. I mentioned on Saturday that we received a couple books from Scholastic recently: I’m Your Bus and Mama Says: A Book of Love for Mothers and Sons. The third book that came in our package was I Spy A To Z
Back when we lived in Utah (it feels so much longer ago than it really is) we went to the Museum of Art at Brigham Young University and saw the Walter Wick exhibit. It was fantastic. They had display cases with some of the actual objects used in the pictures positioned close to the pictures where the objects were used. Brent and Sammi spent a good deal of time choosing an object and then looking at all the pictures until they found the object again. Sammi love it.
When I saw this book, I thought it would be a great way to remember that exhibit. But I was wary of how much Sammi would get the concept of finding specific objects in the pictures. I also wasn’t sure how her attention span would hold up to the length of the book. She is only barely three, after all! But again, she surprised me.
She wanted to look at the book because it was new and exciting. We opened it up to the beginning and I read the first riddle to her. Then we looked at the pictures in the riddle and looked for them in the bigger picture. The first page she wasn’t all that sure what we were ding and I figured it was a lost cause. I was ready to put the book away for 6 months or even a year. But she wanted me to read another page. So I did.
On the second page, it clicked. She got the point of the riddle and the book came to life for her. She needed some help finding them, but she was thoroughly engaged in this book. It is now a regular bedtime book. There are a variety of layouts for the objects, but Sammi prefers the clean look of a white background with a few objects arranged in a more organized manner. She still likes to look at the other pages, but she only wants to find the objects on the “white pages” as we now call them.
I’m surprised and pleased that she likes this book already. It’s fun to look at together. As I also mentioned on Saturday, Scholastic and joined the Fall Fling by offering a copy of Mama Says to one lucky reader. Click here to leave a comment, if you haven’t already, to enter the giveaway. Please, leave a comment on this post, too for an additional entry!
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