Netflix Instant Que

If you have a newer TV with Internet connectivity or even a PC, I highly recommend having a Netflix account, as well. There are so many children's shows that are available for no extra charge through Netflix's Instant Que. I wish we had known about this when Grant was two or three-years-old. It would have saved us hundreds of dollars in DVD costs. I usually found really good deals on his DVDs, but I still have a vast collection that he will someday outgrow. How much better to just borrow the shows daily from the Netflix library and when your child loses interest, it hasn't cost you anything?

Update: May 18,2012
At the time this blog post was written, Netflix had not yet come out with either an iPad or Android app that would allow the portability of the Instant Que. However, sometime in the last 16 months, those apps have been made available.

Peel and Stick by Numbers

Recently, I was randomly looking for something new for Grant to play with.  Since nothing was sparking my interest through this method, I thought about all of our favorite toys. Then, I decided to search for other products made by the manufacturers of the toys we liked the best. This search method yielded one of Grant's absolute, all-time favorite things to do: Peel and Stick by Numbers from Lauri Toys (see my review of one of their other toys here: http://aweplay.blogspot.com/2010/11/model-airplanes-and-helicopter.html).

The Peel and Stick by Numbers kits come with four pictures, all related to the same theme (ie: trains, wild animals, pets, etc). It's the same concept as paint or color-by-number, except the child uses tiny stickers to "color" with. Each picture is made of tiny little squares with a number inside. There is a color code on the box, indicating which color foam sticker should be placed in each square, based on the number inside the square. The stickers measure about 1 cm square and can be tricky to get onto the picture. If your child is having trouble with fine motor skills, this is a great manipulative to use to gain finger strength!

Each picture takes a couple of hours to complete, and as I mentioned earlier, this is one of Grant's favorite things to do. We leave the picture he is currently playing with on the table, so when he wants to have some quiet time, he can sit and do stickers.  He plays with this for at least an hour every day! I'm starting to get concerned about what we will do after he's completed all of the sets Lauri has for sale. Hopefully, they have new ones in development!

Stomp Rocket

Honestly, I had low expectations for this toy. The only reason I was even shopping for a rocket was because Grant's toy rocket broke in November and he wanted a new one for Christmas. I found the Stomp Rocket through an Amazon search and it met all the criteria I was looking for: it was a rocket, inexpensive, and flew without chemicals or matches being involved (ie: not dangerous). The mechanics of the toy are pretty simple: a child stomps on a plastic block, which pushes air pressure through a tube to the rocket launch pole, causing the rocket to fly. Even though the marketing material said it would fly up to 200 feet, I seriously doubted that was true. How well could a $12 toy actually perform?

Well, I was suprised. Grant and I took this to the park. I assembled it and we placed it on the sidewalk, well away from any trees or buildings. I put the first rocket on and Grant stomped on the plastic block. The rocket flew 10-15 feet in the air, much to our delight. We kept loading rockets on and stomping. Grant (a 50-pound child) was able to get the rocket to fly 50-60 feet in the air. I found that if I jumped on the block, I could get a rocket to go higher than the trees, probably 100 feet.

One of the best features of the Stomp Rocket is that it attracts other kids, because the flying rocket looks like fun and it has the novelty of being a toy that most people have never seen before.  We spent an afternoon with a friendly little girl (and her mom) from Boston who just happened to be playing at the park that afternoon.  She came over and asked if she could play too? Later in the week, it made for great playdate entertainment with the neighborhood kids.  Everyone who sees it in action is instantly enamoured with it and wants to know where I got it? I keep ours in the car, for impromptu park fun and the opportunity to meet new friends.

Moon In My Room

My son has been fascinated with the moon, since he was a toddler. I think it started with the Scholastic video of the picture book, "Happy Birthday, Moon" (on the Goodnight Moon DVD). He loved the little bear, that talked to and shared a birthday with the moon. Another book we often read when he was little was, "Moon Plane", which combined his love for airplanes and the moon in one book!

Imagine how excited he was, when I brought home a moon to hang on his bedroom wall? It came with a remote control and at bedtime, we would lay in the dark, watching the moon move through all of it's cycles. It's been a couple of years, but he still loves this toy, which makes me believe kids of all ages will love this toy. School-age children who are learning about the phases of the moon will find it especially interesting.

KaiLan helped reinforce my son's love of the moon, with the Moon Festival episode. I'll never forget the day my 4-year-old told me he wanted to have a moon festival. He explained the entire itinerary that we needed to follow in order to have one: make lanterns, make moon cakes, take our laterns outside after dark and say hello to the moon, then celebrate by eating our moon cakes. He was so intent on having a moon festival, that I decided we should have one. We spent the afternoon shopping for supplies and decorating our laterns. Then, when my husband got home from work, we followed Grant's itinerary and we all had a great time celebrating our impromtu moon festival. Thank goodness it was a full moon on the day he decided to do this! How sad it would have been if there had not been a visible moon at the time?

Christmas Traditions

We have a few small traditions at Christmas that I like. Two involve storybooks about elves. The first is from a storybook called "The Puddinhead Story". It is the story of a very busy elf, who runs ahead of Santa on Christmas Eve, delivering pajamas to all the boys and girls. He puts the box containing the pajamas on the porch, rings the doorbell, and runs on to the next house. He's so fast, that most children have never caught sight of him. However, the delivery of the pajamas marks the fact it is time for the child to put on their pajamas and go to sleep, so that Santa can come deliver presents.  We started the Puddinghead tradition last year and the results were amazing. There was absolutely no arguing about going to bed.  Delivery of the pajamas can be tricky. Some people have neighbors deliver the package, ring the doorbell and run.  Instead, I bought a remote doorbell for about $10 on Amazon. When no one was looking, I put the package on the back porch and quietly shut the door. I moved away from the door and waited a few minutes, and then pushed the remote doorbell. My son went running for the door, but of course, no one was there!

The second elf tradition that we've started is one that most people have of heard of by now: Elf on the Shelf. I know that most people use the Elf on the Shelf, or Henry, as we call our elf, as a behavior modifier. Fortunately, we don't have to use ours in that manner very often. However, I do grow weary of hearing my son talk about what he wants for Christmas and asking if he can open presents yet. So, when he starts talking about presents, I have learned to point to Henry and say, "I'm not the one who needs to hear your list. Henry is". Grant will then walk over to Henry and have a very polite and lengthy, one-sided conversation with the elf about what he most desires for Christmas.

Bloco Wild Cats

After all of our enjoyment of the Lauri foam models, I looked to purchase others. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any other models made by Lauri. So, I expanded my search and came across the Wild Cats foam and plastic construction set by Bloco.  The kit includes pieces to make six different cats, although not all at once. In our experience you can make 2 - 3 cats at once, depending on which ones you select.

After many months of owning this product, I am less enamoured with it than I once was.  I still love the bright colors and details given to the construction of the cats. The foam is very thick and durable. However, in our experience, it is just a little too thick, or the connecting pieces are just a little too short.  This product is manufacturer recommended for 5+.  My four-year-old, who has excellent fine motor skills, is not able to put these models together by himself. Even I find some of the pieces aggravating to put togeter. Sometimes the pieces just don't stay together, because of the aforementioned problem of either the foam being too thick or the connecting pieces being too short.  Also, because the animals are so cute and colorful, my son likes to play with them after they are constructed. This leads to the animals falling apart, even if they are not being treated roughly. When a toy takes an hour to build and then falls apart, a normal child response is to want it rebuilt, immediately.  Consider the parental exasperation this could cause!

We've only tried the Wild Cat kit.  There are many other really cute kits, but they all appear to be made of the same thick foam and plastic connector pieces, so I will probably skip purchasing any other kits.  This is one of the few times I've reviewed a toy that I'm not very fond of. I've done so, because frankly it is an expensive toy and in my experience does not work well. I hope the manufacturer will fix the design flaw, but I also hope, in the meantime, I can help save someone the frustration and expense of buying this toy!

Model Airplanes and Helicopter

When Grant was three, I had this idea of finding an easy-to-construct model made out of foam, but had never actually seen such a thing. Then, I came across the Lauri Peg-a-Plane model set on clearance at a parent-teacher store. I was so excited. It was exactly what I had been hoping to find AND it was airplanes and a helicopter, which interested Grant. 

The manufacturer recommended age is 4+. I don't want to mislead anyone into thinking that Grant was able to put these models together by himself at age 3. However, he was able to find all the appropriate pieces for each model and place them on top of instruction sheet pictures. His fingers and fine motor skills were not strong enough to push the pegs through the holes, especially when this toy  was new and the holes in the foam had not yet loosened up from use. Although he could not put the models together by himself, this was a great project for us to do together. I taught him how to read the instructions, which are pictoral, not written. The pieces are clearly labeled A through Z and are meant to be put together in alphabetical order, which reinforces alphabet learning, as well. After each step was completed, I would ask him what was next, and he was able to tell me what to.

By age 4, Grant could put these models together by himself. Even though we have built them over and over again, he still enjoys building and playing with them. We have never lost or damaged any pieces. They are durable, even in little hands, and reasonable priced. If you're looking for something a little more difficult than building with blocks, but your child isn't quite ready for an erector set or regular legos, this toy is a great option!

Teaching Your Child To Read

A little over a year ago, I decided to research methods for teaching children to read. I bought a couple books on the subject. The one I found the most interesting and agreed with the philosophy was titled: "Reading Magic: Why Reading Aloud to Our Children Will Change Their Lives Forever".  Here's what I felt the basic premise of the book was: read outloud with your child as often as you can. When you read together, make it a comfortable, stress-free, special time, so your child associates positive thoughts about reading. Read and read and read with your child. By doing this, you will teach them that reading is worthwhile and enjoyable. This will foster a desire in them to want to learn to read.

It's a great philosophy and I have read to Grant since he was born. Sometimes for hours a day. I know that the process of reading with him everyday has instilled a passion for reading inside of him. However, something was still missing from the reading equation for us. The Reading Magic book seemed to imply all I had to do was read to him and soon, he'd be reading on his own. Feeling a little frustrated, I asked a friend, who is homeschooling, what she had used to teach her kids to read.  She recommended "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons".

At this writing, Grant and I are on Lesson 30 out of 100. He can read the following sample sentences: "An ant can eat a seed. That seed is in the mud" from Lesson 29. I find this pretty impressive for a 4.5 year old, especially since a couple of months ago, he didn't recognize many written words.  This book helped fill that missing gap between desire to learn and how to learn that we were looking for.  I'm giving this book two big thumbs up!

Learning Sight Words

Grant's pretty particular about what DVDs he will watch, so I tend to check them out from the library or rent them on Netflix first, before buying.  However, I couldn't find "Meet the Sight Words" DVDs at either place. So, I took a big risk and bought the set without a trial run.

Fortunately, Grant loves these DVDs. The added bonus is that I never had to teach him how to read a single sight word. He just picked them up naturally from watching these DVDs repeatedly.

A similar product that I tried out about six months ago, but Grant refused to watch at the time, was Word World. I personally thought the concept was a great one and really enjoyed the videos. I think now that he is a little older and reading, he may be more interested in the Word World videos and will definitely give them another try!

Cuisenaire Rods and Miquon Math

When it came time to think about helping my 4-year-old prepare for kindergarten, I thought back to my own kindergarten experiences and what I enjoyed. Three things came to mind, one of which was cuisenaire rods. Of course, I didn't remember they were called cuisenaire rods. I had to do several google searches before I finally found what those color coded sticks that measured between 1 and 10 cm each were called.

Once I knew what they were called, I searched for cuisenaire rods on Amazon.  This lead me to the Miquon math curriculum. I was already intent on buying cuisenaire rods, but when I found a math program specifically designed to use with the rods, I was thrilled. I had been researching many different math programs for young children, but after reading reviews about Miquon on several different sites, I decided it was the curriculum I wanted.

I purchased the full-three year curriculum, all three teachers guides and a set of cuisenaire rods. For the last month, my son and I have been sitting down about twice a week with the Orange Book and the Cuisenaire rods, learning how to add and sequence. This week, we've started to learn subtraction. The visual aspect of the rods makes math concepts easy to grasp and my son is able to figure equations out on his own, once he's given direction.

If you decide to buy this, don't skimp.  The worksheets do not have any directions on them. You need the three teaching guides to go with the curriculum. They are: First Grade Diary, Notes to Teachers, and Lab Sheet Annotations. These books not only give suggestions of what is effective, but also what is ineffective when teaching math.  There are also suggestions of other activities you can do with completed worksheets. I think these added activities make the learning experience richer. The added bonus is my son and I are having a fun time together learning something new.

Some reviewers object to the fact that the workbooks are printed in black and white, instead of the brightly colored workpages children have come to expect.  Don't worry. The cuisenaire rods are brightly colored and they are covering the black and white pages while the computations are being done. In my opinion, colored pages would detract from the rods - which are really the main point of this learning method.

Bottom line: This method is time intensive and requires parental involvement. You cannot just hand the workbook and rods to the child and expect them to figure math out.  However, for about $90 you get three years of curriculum. Miquon and cuisenaire rods also makes mathematical concepts so easy, even a four-year-old can do first grade math.

Stacking Robots

Grant got these wood stacking robots for his fourth birthday and loves to play with them.  They are not a simple stacking toy. When adding a robot layer to the pile, you need to counter-weight by stacking the new robots a little off center. Otherwise, all of the robots will come crashing down.  I explained the principle of counter-weighting to Grant and showed him what happened with and without the counter-weight process. Once he understood this, he was able to stack the robots successfully on his own.  The toy comes with easy-to-difficult suggested ways to stack the robots.

I should mention that these robots are made of wood and often crash down onto the surface they are being stacked on. As such, the paint chips and the wood dents. This toy will not look brand-new for long.

Manufacturer recommended age: 3-7 years (per Amazon)

Wood Block Set for Building Castles

Finally purchased these blocks made by Maxim. I couldn't find them on the shelf at my local Target, so I ordered them online at Target, via Amazon.com, which added $13 in shipping to the cost.  There are 200 pieces to this cute, wood block set, which I think is very reasonably priced.  It may not be a super-exciting race car toy, but they do get used almost everyday to build whatever Grant is interested in at the moment. They function as a medium with which he can create and I am totally satisfied with that.

Recommended ages: 3Years +

Fun Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Kidlee Micro Blog

I'm nuts about Kidlee (http://www.kidlee.com/).  Since Grant was born, I've been great about taking digital pictures and saving milestone items. However, I am not a scrap booker or someone who keeps a journal. I also don't like the idea of my son's life being shared on Facebook, which tends to change its security functions too often for my taste. I didn't want an open blog for the security reasons, as well, but I didn't want to force family and friends to log into a secure blog.  We tried that when Grant was born and found no one ever logged in after the initial join.

Finally, I found Kidlee. It's the perfect solution. Parents are the only account holders.  They log into their account and record micro blog snippets of their child(ren's) lives, as often as they like.  For less than $20 a year, parents can also add photos and longer posts to their micro-blog.  The account set-up allows e-mail addresses of individuals you would like to invite to view your Kidlee updates to be entered. These individuals receive an invitation to receive weekly e-mail updates from your Kidlee account.  Family and friends then get to decide whether to accept the invitation or not.

I like that the site is still in Beta and improvements are still being made. I've sent many suggestions to the technical team and I always get a personalized response back.  They provide information about whether they are currently working on my suggestion and if so, an approximation of when the update will be available.  It's one of the most responsive sites I've ever used.

The feedback I've gotten from family and friends has been phenomenal.  This tool helps Grandparents, family and friends that are far away feel as if they are participating in the growing years of the child.  My parental guilt is abated, because I feel as if I am fulfilling my parental responsibility to record some of his precious moments, even though I don't scrapbook or journal. I cannot say enough about this site!

Language TV shows

Grant knows some Spanish and Chinese, thanks to pre-school and TV.  His favorite language based TV show is Ni Hao, Kai Lan. Parents probably need to watch and learn the words with their child, because we've found that occasionally, Grant slips them into his conversation, like asking for xī​guā (watermelon) or saying thank you in Chinese. 

Mo Willems

We love everything Mo Willems writes. The man is magic. Besides having won Emmy's for his writing on Sesame Street, he now has several different children's books series.  We own almost all of his books.  The Piggie and Elephant series is brillant, as are the Pigeon books. They make Grant laugh all the time, even though we've read them over and over and he knows how they are going to end.  Great for reading to a young child and my theory is they will be great for Grant to read to me as a school-age child.  Here are some of our favorite books:

Bubbles

I'm lazy when it comes to making bubbles. I want to push a button and have lots and lots of bubbles for Grant to giggle over and chase.  We've owned a couple of these animal bubble makers with mixed results. Our first one was a puppy, that worked splendidly. It made lots of bubbles and all I had to do was grasp a handle.  However, our new hippo has only made a couple of bubbles. I am not using the bubble liquid that came with the hippo and think this may be the problem.  Note: I only got rid of the puppy because we moved cross country and I didn't want it leaking in a box, while all our belongings were in storage. It had not stopped working.

New note: Over the weekend, I found the manufacturer approved bottle of bubbles.  The hippo was half full of the old bubbles. Rather than dumping them out, I just topped it off with the "right" bottle.  It took a few minutes of priming the pump, but sure enough, the manufacturers bubbles work like a charm. We had bubbles everywhere and Grant was excited chasing them around the patio.  So, if you are going to buy this toy, skip the cheap bubbles and keep this hippo fed with the manufacturer recommended bubbles!

Alex Paper Roll Dispenser

Grant loves to draw and paint.  I bought him a paper roll dispenser for his craft table, so he always has paper handy when he wants it. The cutting process using the built in cutter works well for an adult.  After every cut, I have to refeed the paper through the cutter before he starts his next painting. Because of the dexterity required in this process, Grant probably will not be able to do it himself until he is school-aged.



  

Quadrilla Marble Sets

Okay, I know I said Magformers were my favorite, all-time toy. Quadrilla marble sets are also at the top of my list. They are sturdy and easy to fit together, unlike the cheaper, plastic versions. A toddler can assist an adult in putting the structure together. Realistically, until pre-school or school-age, a child will probably not be able to build this on their own. One draw back is that if bumped, it will topple over. You can glue the structure together, but that will reduce the creativity of the toy, since the child will not be able to change the format around.  Watching the marbles race through the ramps and holes provides a lot of fun. Grant loves this toy.

Magformers

Magformers are my all-time favorite toy, right now. They are a great gender-neutral manipulative for young children, but still interesting enough for older kids to play with. They're sturdy and easy to use. A child can build almost anything with them. Magformers come in a variety of colors and shapes and provide good imaginative play for years to come. Check QVC.com for deals.