Award Winning Educational Toys

• Family Choice Award Winner 2018, Mom's Choice Gold Metal, Tillywig & Academics' Choice Brain Child Award Winner 2017! Innovative and educational. Rock It! Roll It! Spin It! Great fun for toddlers and children.
• Early educational toy with colorful light-up mushrooms to learn numbers, colors and play music.
• Memory Games - As the colorful mushrooms light up, pay attention to the patterns and follow it. The patterns get longer as you progress!
• Skills learned include numbers, colors, music, hand and eye co-ordination, creativity and imagination, music, logical thinking, motor functions, concentration, problem solving, dexterity and memory.
• Requires 3 AAA batteries (included); intended for toddlers and early learners of ages 12 months and up.

 

• Mom's Choice Gold Metal, Tillywig & Academics' Choice Brain Child Award Winner 2017! An interactive 1 to 2 player(s) talking matching game with LCD displaying the progress and score while playing.
• Includes 48 lessons (24 cards); with over 570 questions and answers!
• 2 Modes: Versus & Co-Op, for 1 or 2 players. Fun and competitive to learn alone or with parents and friends in co-operative mode. Challenge another player in versus mode, the fastest answer wins!
• Skills learned include alphabet, spelling, numbers, math, time, animals, earth science, geography and environment, logical thinking, problem solving, concentration, professions, anatomy and memory.
• Requires 3 AA batteries (included); intended for preschoolers and early learners of ages 3 years and up.

My Thoughts

I like how versatile this Mushroom Garden learning toy is. It is like a little rock em' sock em' robot. My son can spin it, drag it, roll it around with his buddies. It is very interactive, especially for a little boy who likes to get really crazy with his toys. It has easy to press little mushrooms that can be controlled by the center button. It has music themes, numbers, colors, and patterns. It is great for hand eye coordination. It has a pattern feature where the baby can follow the pattern. It is a fun toy because it can grow with the baby. It can be for toddlers as young as 12 months and grow with the toddler. These toys have won many awards

The Connectrix Junior seems like a wonderful toy that Declan will definitely enjoy when he is a little older. He is a little young for it right now. My husband and I checked out it out, however. It is a very interactive. There are 24 cards with 48 lessons. There are games, some one player others two player. You can interact and play with your friend. My husband and I played each other on a few of the games (I won). I am excited for my son to be able to use this. These cards cover a lot of subjects like math, animals, science, time, the alphabet. These are great ideas for schools to implement as well. To turn learning into a game is the goal of any parent. These are perfect for that. 

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The Well-Armored Child: A Parent's Guide to Preventing Sexual Abuse

Author Joelle Casteix has filled the need for an easy-to-read toolkit for parents when it comes to preventing childhood sexual abuse. When her own child was born, she was deluged with tomes that covered everything from breastfeeding to choosing the right college. But one book was noticeably absent. It’s the book that can help parents take action to prevent their child from becoming another statistic.

The Well-Armored Child gives parents the tools and strategies to understand how predators “groom” children, why many of our trusted institutions cover up abuse, and how to empower children without shame, fear, or inappropriate discussions of sex.

My thoughts:

Child sex abuse is such a touchy hard subject to address to your child/children.  And I feel it something that children need to be educated on at a very early age.  This book is very well written, and makes it very easy to start and discuss with your child/children the dangers of child sexual abuse.

I have a eight and eleven year and after reading through this book, I sat both of my children down and talked about the dangers, and what strangers, friends and sad to say what family members might try to do to harm them.  Surprisingly to me, they paid attention and had questions.  And through reading this book, I was able to answer their questions in a manner they could understand.  

This is a book every parent should read and educate their children on this very sad subject. 

Review: Learning is fun with Star Wars Workbooks for kids!

Learning is tedious and sometimes, for some kids, just not fun. If you are a family that does a lot of at home teaching, and you like the Star Wars movies, these books are just up your alley! While my son is a bit older, so this is a lot of review for him, he still enjoyed all of the pages filled with Star Wars characters and phrases. 

Preschool ABC fun: This work book does just that, it makes learning your ABC's fun! From letter recognition to writing upper and lower case words and beginning phonics, your little one is sure to enjoy all the fun pictures and games! Not your typical ABC words. For example, the letter Rr is associated with Rebel troop and reek, while Jj is Jar Jar Binks and jet pack. 

First Grade Math is your typical Math book, but yet you are counting X-wings and Jawa's. You get to travel to Nabu and Tatooine. Light saber graphs make this book exciting to help them learn the basics. Word problems, addition and subtraction, and place value are just a few of the topics covered. 

Second Grade Writing teaches story construction, spelling vocabulary, and creative writing. Write a Review asks you to pick your favorite of the Star Wars movies and write your own review of it. Practicing your letters and cursive writing encourages your child to write neatly. Your child can also create their very own Star Wars species by drawing a picture and writing out the details. 

Second Grade reading encourages comprehension and vocabulary. Filled with stories about Ewoks and Podracing your kiddo is sure to go to new heights. Cross word puzzles and learning how to alphabetize are just a couple of the exercises. This book just shows that reading can be fun, and that it starts early!

We have really enjoyed these work books, and I am thrilled to have them in my arsenal. 

Check out their Website to see their other workbooks and learn where to order.

Brick Flicks: 60 Iconic Movie Scenes and Posters to Make From LEGO

It's official...there is absolutely no limit to what master modeler Warren Elsmore can create with LEGO bricks! He's wowed us with architectural icons from around the globe in Brick City. He amazed us with the wonders of the ancient, natural, and modern world in Brick Wonders. And now, Elsmore takes us to the movies in Brick Flicks, as he recreates iconic scenes from the world's most famous films. Movie fans and LEGO lovers alike will delight in brick-by-brick recreations of scenes from:

• Raiders of the Lost Ark
• Planet of the Apes
• Rocky
• Grease
• King Kong
• Lawrence of Arabia, and many, many others

Chapters are organized by movie genre and cover action and adventure, science fiction and horror, drama and classics, as well as musicals and comedy. With more than 100 gorgeous full-color photos of his creations, Elsmore provides commentary on how they were made along with interesting facts about the movies themselves. Readers will also enjoy easy-to-follow instructions for recreating many of the iconic scenes in their own homes.


My thoughts:

For anyone who loves movies and Legos, than you will want to add this book to you home library collection.

My seven year old son loves Legos, and I love movies.  So we both enjoyed going through this book.  I loved how Warren Elsmore put write ups about the films and my son loved looking the colorful pages of all the Legos.  On some pages there were pictures from the movies and also Legos that resembled the movie scene.  Two of  my favorite Lego movie scenes were from Pulp Fiction and Saturday Night Fever.  The Lego figures really did resemble John Travolta. The book is full of colorful of pages of Movie scenes and Lego scenes.

On some of the pages in this book, Warren Elsmore gives a picture of the Lego pieces needed and how to make them look the scene from that movie on the page.  My son had a lot of fun going through his collection of Legos, finding the correct pieces he needed and made the scene from the page.  One of his favorites was making the Neuralyzer from Men in Black. 

This book is a great book for us movie buffs, and also great book for children as they need to concentrate and follow directions to create the scenes from the movies with their Legos.

Groovy Lab in a Box - Review & #Giveaway

With Groovy Lab in a Box, young STEMists (your children!) will receive fun, hands-on projects and an engineering design challenge – all focused on a particular STEM topic.

All STEMists will receive a Lab Notebook, where they can read about that month’s topic, perform investigation activities and document their findings. They will investigate, brainstorm, plan, build, test and redesign their own creations.

STEMists also receive access to our special “Beyond…in a Box” online learning portal. This is a unique feature of Groovy Lab in a Box because it gives STEMists a deeper understanding of that month’s topic. “Beyond…in a Box” has videos and more interactive activities to supplement what they are learning from the box projects, which also helps the STEMist even more when completing the design challenge.

While the investigation activities have step-by-step directions, STEMists won’t have detailed directions to complete the Engineering Design Challenge. Instead, they must rely on their critical thinking skills, and what they’ve learned through the investigation process from the Lab Notebook and online activities. The Engineering Design Challenge is the culmination of your STEMist’s learning experience – the ultimate project where he/she must apply the knowledge gained from that month’s activities.

Science learning made fun!

My thoughts:

I have a seven and ten year old.  The three of us sat together and did some activities in this Groovy Lab in a Box.  My ten year old's favorite experiment was the Groovy Waterwheel.  She likes to be hands on and really enjoyed being able to do the measuring for the the two bowls.  My seven year olds favorite experiment was Paddle Boat Rolling Down the River.  He was excited that he was able to do something that involved playing in water.

 

This was a great idea having all the experiments come in one box, along with the Lab Notebook that has the instructions on how to do each one.  It says it is for ages eight and up.  But my seven year loved doing this also.  I would strongly suggest adult supervision, as my ten year didn't quite get some of the instructions.  It was great though spending the amount of quality time with my two children, while learning some great experiments.  And both my kids were eager to be involved with each experiment we did.  My daughter really liked doing the brainstorming work sheets that were at the end of the book.

Groovy Lab in a Box is a great idea, and much fun and educational for adults as well as children.

Want a Groovy Lab in a Box for your kids? Use coupon code GROOVYNOW20at at checkout to get 20% off of the first month of the Monthly Subscription.

 The Giveaway

One lucky winner is going to receive a Groovy Lab in a Box! This giveaway will end on  9/28/14. Open to the US only. The winner will be notified via email and will have 48 hours to reply. Thanks again to Groovy Lab for offering this fantastic prize.

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