Family Game Night!

Salutations!  I wanted to share just a bit again about why I blogged and why I am back to it now.  I love sharing my passion for children's books but it is also to have a catalog of all our favorite reads from over the years for my own memory all in one place.  So I have a lot of work to do!  We are BIG library fans so many of the fantastic books that we have found do not grace our personal shelves.  Also well loved favorites become well worn, or get lost or donated when out grown over time. 

Today I have a little different of a focus for my subject for this post and am going to be more broad then just books going forward.  I may include a favorite games, toys, activities, crafts, trips and all sorts of great memories that I want to save here. 

So often I see on the mommy pages I frequent request for favorite games so I thought I'd start a fun little post series aptly titled Family Game Night.  I plan to go back to the younger ages and of course share those that frequent our game time picks right now.   I wanted to start with the new hot game of the moment in our house.  We got it last summer for my daughter's birthday and it is still going strong.  It's called Sleeping Queens, and is a Gamewright game.




It's a card game played with two decks of specialty cards.  The goal is to wake up queens until someone collects 5 queens or reaches 50 points.  Each queen collected has a point value.  There's lots of fun twists to the play such as stealing a queen from another player or putting someone else's
queen back to sleep.  Game play is fairly quick and easy.  It's recommended 8 and up for 2-5 players.  Younger players could play if they have a grasp of simple addition as there is some adding beyond totaling the points of your queens that helps with your game play strategy.

Another fun note is that it was created youngpreneur who at the age of 6 invented this game! There's note in the instruction explaining all about her and how she came up with the idea.  I love this!

Hope you enjoy as much as we do should you decide to add it to your family game night line up!  

Snowflakes ❆❅❄

I love snowflakes...well at least looking at them.  Making snowflakes has always been a favorite activity for my kids.  We've made so many over the years and they are simple and fun to do.  Though as the kids get older making more elaborate snowflakes keeps this activity still going.    You can find some great templates for imaginative designs in Cindy Higham's two snowflake books. 

Snowflakes:Creative Paper Cutouts and Snowflakes for All Seasons which keeps the snowflake making fun continuing year round!

 

If you'd rather sit back and enjoy the beauty of snowflakes without all the mess and work these are two of my favorites.

First up is a beautiful pop up book of paper snowflake art titled Snowflakes by Jennifer Preston Chushcoff and Yevgeniya Yeretskaya



Then I also love enjoying the snowflake photography of Kenneth Libbrecht.  I have this book of his, The Little Book of Snowflakes.



Hope you enjoy the beauty of this season! ❆❅❄

Interactive Stories

Hello Friends!  I wanted to share about interactive story book apps and add some of our favorites to our growing lists of good reads we've found along our way.  The kids are a bit older since my last post but recently we were remembering favorite stories together.  My daughter noted some interactive story book apps that we used to enjoy.  We downloaded them again to our Kindle.  They were still fun to listen to and click around on that we looked to see if our favorite had any new storybooks to download.  If you are looking for entertaining and interactive story book apps here's what we have liked best. 

First up is IckyPen's Mr. Icky Fox stories were an instant favorite.  The story lines are short and simple but the art work and the ways to interactive are fantastically fun!  There are four available but their Facebook page indicated a little bit ago that they have been working on something new.  The first we downloaded was The Icky Mr. Fox and quickly wanted more.  We have since added Icky Mr. Fox's Rainbow, Missing Friend, and Icky Animal Alphabet.  They range in price from free to $1.99.

 



















































The Trip Little Critter Reading Adventure, was another favorite.  Sadly it looks like it is no longer available.  Many of the other 'Little Critter' storybooks by Mercer Mayer are available to download but they are not very interactive, more just read along.  The Trip, had route decisions you could make, you searched for and collected items.  This is what we are looking for in interactive storybooks.

I took sometime and did a quick search and tested out a few books that came up when I did a search for interactive storybooks.  I continued to not find many options but I did like were Sandra Boyton's book apps.  There's a fair amount of animation that you can create with a tap on the different pages.  They have that whimsical, and engaging quality that we are looking for.  I downloaded the free collection of books to try out.  You can download a couple different individual stories too.



I think interactive storybooks are a fun way to enjoy a story.  I really wish there were more readily available and easy to find.

If you have found any that you love please add in the comments below!

It's been awhile but I just had to share

Well, as the title says it's been awhile but I just had to share a recent book find, I love it so much!
It's titled ' Mother Bruce' and is written and illustrated by Ryan T. Higgins.   It's a book about a bear, a bear that happens to become the proud parent of some baby geese.  Besides Higgins humor I love that the book has a fresh modern feel and references in it.  It takes our modern day lives to the woods.  There are fun surprises to find on each page through illustrations and subtext.  I can't wait to check out Ryan T. Higgins other books now and may just be back to post about those here soon.

Hunt for the Devil's Dragon

The Hunt for the Devil's Dragon by Marianne Hering, Wayne Thomas Batson and illustrated by David Hohn is the 11th in the Imagination Station series.  I've got to repeat once again how much I really enjoy this series.  I can't believe there is only one more to go!  This is simply a refreshing series for young readers.  These books are filled with learning, history, values and excitement.  This one has a real dragon in the story; I know my kids are excited about that.  The Hunt for the Devil’s Dragon deals with the topic of bullying and more specifically standing up to bullies.  It's a tough subject and too many of our children face bullying in schools.  This would be a great read to share with a child that is dealing with this issue. It would be a great starting point to open up the discussion with your child.   It gives many examples of bullies/bullying and reinforces that you should always stand up for yourself, your friends and for what if right.  This series keeps surprising me.  I love the wealth of time periods and cultures that we’ve traveled.  The books are filled with Biblical truths.  All this packed into the adventure of a good read! 

I received a copy of the book for the purpose of this review from Tyndale Publishing. 

Humble Heart: A Book of Virtues

Humble Bumbles' Humble Heart a Book of Virtues by Amy Meyer Allen is a collection of nine stories that teach children about the Biblical virtues of; humility, love, thoughtfulness, faithfulness, mercy, encouragement, comfort, courage and joy.  The stories are bright and simple and the illustrations follow suit.  They are understandable and relatable for young children.  They are also charming and enduring for older children to enjoy and learn from as well.  There is a definition of each term at the beginning of each story and an applicable scripture verse at the end.  My children loved going through this book of virtues with me.  We read one a night during our devotion time.  There are fun features too that many children books have.  Humble honey bee can be found on each page and there is a highlighted item from the illustration on the opposite page of text like a hat or a flower which can then also be found in the illustration.  They loved playing this game as we went through the stories.  This is definitely a book we will read time and time again. 

I received a copy of this book from Tyndale Publishing for the purpose of this review.

Challenge on the Hill of Fire, Book 10

 Book 10, Challenge on the Hill of Fire from the Imagination Station series is out!  Authors Marianne Hering, Nancy I. Sanders and illustrator David Hohn have given us an suspense filled story focusing on a bit of the history of St. Patrick's Day.  Personally I love that they are covering the Holidays in this series.  This is the second time they have focused on a Holiday, the first was with Book 6, Problems in Plymouth.  I have not started reading this series to my children as I think they are still a little young for fully understanding some of the historical context of these stories but when I do I will plan the reads to correspond with the right Holiday.  I am very excited to be able to add a fun story, with Historical context and Biblical truths to help us celebrate the different seasons!  This book has been one of my favorites so far.  I've never really studied this time period and am intrigued to learn more about Bishop Patrick.  I also appreciated the tie in with the St. Patrick's tradition of the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and comparing/relating it to something that's even more valuable to a pot of gold, the knowledge of God.  I hope you'll check out this fun series!   I received a copy of this book from Tyndale publishing for the purpose of this review.