Free Online Story Time

Ok, this is cool! I just found this while doing a little link hopping (bad habit of mine, but sometimes I find some real gems) This is a free read-a-loud story time on the Barnes and Noble website. Each month an author or celebrity reads a book that your child can watch and listen to on-line.

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/storytime/

This month is Llama, Llama, Home with Mama by Anna
Dewdney

Parenting Special Needs Magazine

Here is the Sept/Oct issue of the Parenting Special Needs Magazine

http://parentingspecialneeds.org/currentissue

Target Children's Book Festival

  I stopped to get coffee this morning so I could make it through church and there was an advertisement on the cup insulator for Target's Children's Book Festival. This is at the Hyland Lake Park Reserve. Ok, I'm curious, what is a book festival. How handy that there was also a website for me to go find out more about it. First thing I noticed: FREE! Well, it can't get much better than that.
http://sites.target.com/site/en/company/page.jsp?contentId=WCMP04-054912 


Free: musical performances
Free: story readings


Activities for kids age 2-10, did I mention it's free?


This is the schedule of events
http://sites.target.com/images/company/our_company/community_outreach/book-festivals/resources/bookfest_lineup_Minneapolis.pdf 


Here is the link to the map for parking
http://sites.target.com/images/company/our_company/community_outreach/book-festivals/resources/bookfest_Parking_Map_Minneapolis.pdf 


I have to plug one of the musical groups. My daughter is SOOOOO excited to see Choo-Choo Soul. This is seen on Disney channel or on their website. Autumn LOVES Geneveive and is always be-bopping around the house singing bits of these songs. 
Want a sneek peek? 
http://disney.go.com/disneyjunior/choo-choo-soul/choo-choo-soul-videos-episodes/abc-1167470

Oobleck (under construction, working on the picture issue)

I've been trying to get these pictures rotated correctly and the things that usually work aren't this time. So bear with me, I have a fun video clip too but it's also sideways and my brain can't take it today. :)




Yep, it's as messy and as fun as the name sounds. Ooblek is a non-newtonian liquid. That is, it acts like a liquid when being poured but like a solid when a force is acting on it. You can grab it and then it will ooze out of your hands. Make enough and you can even walk on it (Mythbusters did this on one episode). Scientists haven't decided yet what makes oobleck behave like this. Of course none of this will make sense to your kids. But for the science geeks out there.....(my husband is one so of course we had to look up the properties).

Oobleck is a classic science experiment that's perfect for entertaining little kids and big kids (that includes adults). If you haven't seen it in action it's fascinating stuff and before long you'll have your hands covered with it, happily making a mess that can be washed away with water.


Oobleck gets it's name form the Dr. Seuss book Bartholomew and the Oobleck where a gooey green substance, Oobleck, fell from the sky and wreaked havoc in the kingdom.

I pre-measured all the ingredients and then let my daughter pour them together and mix them up. We decided to play with mixing colors at the same time so she picked two colors and we played till we got a new color. My daughter is at an age where body functions are funny so when our blue and yellow turned green.....yep, boogers! Think ahead on this one :)


2 parts corn starch
1 part water
food coloring of your choice (will stain, may want to use newspapers and an apron)


(we ended up adding a little more water as we went along because it got too hard to play with)

Homemade Microwave Popcorn

Yep ~ it can be done!

What You’ll Need:

Fold end of bag over, and tape shut.

• Place in microwave, and lay bag flat.   Stop once there is approximately 5 seconds between pops. {you’ll just have to experiment with this part, and see what works best with your microwave}.

• Transfer to a bowl and eat as is or sprinkle with salt. Now, if you’re really living it up, go ahead and top this with some drizzled butter… mmm…

• Enjoy!!

• 1/3 cup Popping Corn
• 1 brown Paper Bag {lunch sack size}
• 1 piece of Tape
• Salt {optional}
• Melted Butter {optional… and delicious!}

What You’ll Do:

Pour popping corn into brown paper bag…

Family Tree

This is a project we did a couple of years ago and finally got out and put up in our new house. I saw this in the Disney Family Fun magazine. We had everyone in the family send us a tracing of their hand and then attached a picture to their hand print (that I had traced onto construction paper). On the fingers of each hand I wrote the person's name, their relationship to our daughter, and their birth date. Then we got all of them laminated as well as laminating the tree. It's been a great way to learn all the people in our family. We need to add a couple more kiddos and update the ones that have been growing, so that makes it a fun on-going project. :) 
The first time I made this I just put it all up on the wall myself. So I had it arranged according to each side of our family. This time Autumn got to choose each person that was going up and where to put them. So our tree is rather mixed up but she got to make all the decisions so she's thrilled!


So let your kids decide who goes where. As you are putting them on you can talk about "first" "second" "third" "next", etc. We also work on colors (the leaves), family member's names, counting (fingers on each hand and the hands themselves), gender recognition (counting works here too, how many girls/boys?), some of the hands are right side up and some upside down so we can work on orientation as well. (I can work learning into just about anything, it took me a while to learn how to do that). Heck you can even sort these before they get taped up on the tree (same concepts as above).

Kid Safe "you tube" type sites

My daughter loves watching the video clips I find on you tube, but the links to "similar videos" aren't always appropriate for her to click on. I found a couple of sites that we LOVE and are now bookmarked so she can go straight to them herself. She loves being independent and I love keeping her safe.

www.zui.com  (on this site type in paper ripping in the search bar and watch the little girl and then Ethan, i've watched these about 100 times and I still crack up, Autumn adores Ethan) "baby laughing hysterically at ripping paper" and "laughing baby ripping paper" (the second one is my favorite!)

www.littleclickers.com 

Check them out!