book review Archives - JDaniel4s Mom

We Love Awesome LEGO Creations with Bricks You Ready Have

November 4, 2016 By Deirdre

Some children dive right into a bucket of LEGO and start building. They just know what they want to build. Others love to build with LEGO, but don’t seem to know what they want to build. If you have kept the manual that came with your LEGO kits then your children may look through them for ideas. Another wonderful new source for building ideas is Awesome LEGO Creations with Bricks You Already Have by Sarah Dees.

Your children will love building the creations featured in Awesome LEGO Creations with the blocks you already have. They will love building things like vets office and a giant monkey.

One of the best things about Awesome LEGO Creations is that beyond being a building book it gets kids’ minds thinking about other things they can build. It will totally inspire your children to think of what they can build similar to the project in the book.

I love that the book has complete lists of what bricks you will need to create each object or scene. JDaniel has been given so many LEGO sets for this birthday and Christmas. We have buckets and bins overflowing with bricks. We will probably have most of the bricks listed for an building project in the book. I bet your children do too.

If you are looking for a wonderful birthday or holiday gift to give to your favorite LEGO builder, Awesome LEGO Creations with Bricks You Already Have. Awesome LEGO creations really should be at the top of your shopping list. The LEGO Classic Large Creative Brick Box would be great to give along with the book. It has close to 800 traditional and special bricks.

Here are some LEGO creations we have made at our house:

Ocean Life Creation and Ocean Building Mat

Groundhog Made with LEGO and Shadow Experiment

LEGO Snowflake Patterns

LEGO Rainbow Hexbug Track

Science Fair Projects- Blowing Up a Balloon

October 12, 2015 By Deirdre

I have seen this blowing up a balloon experiment done as a classroom or home kitchen chemistry experiment. It would also be a or wonderful science fair project. To make it meet the guidelines for science fair projects you need to add some variables to it. After reading about ways to add challenges to this experiment in Asia Cistro’s new book calledThe Curious Kid’s Science Book: 100+ Creative Hands-On Activities for Ages 4-8, I came up with some variables we could try at home.

Wait! Didn’t I say this is one of those experiments that would be great for science fair projects. Yes, I did. We don’t have a science fair at our school until the spring. It made sense for us to start this now and see if we wanted to do it for the fair later on.

Asia suggested adding differing amounts of baking soda to vinegar to get the balloon to blow up. We decided to try varying them and added a few more variables. We also used different sized bottles and different sized balloons.

This gave us a number of variables and some constants. The constant was that the same proportion of vinegar to baking soda were used.

What were were testing? Our hypothesis was that the smallest bottle with the most baking soda would blow up the fastest.

What happened? The small balloon on the small bottle did inflate quickly. We did not find that it inflated a lot faster than the other balloons on the larger containers.

After adding the vinegar to the balloon with a funnel and adding the baking powder, they all seemed to miraculously inflated quickly.

I confess that we didn’t use a timer to keep track of how fast it inflated. If this were a true set of science fair projects, we would have to time it.

Hints:

It took a long time for the baking soda to leave the funnel and enter the balloon. Using a small amount helped keep my son interested in the process.

Actually I think we got too caught up in the chemical reaction created by the vinegar and baking soda. If you do this as a science fair project, you may want to give your children time to this experiment and react to it. Then you can change the variables and keep track of the inflation time.

Ingredients for Our Science Fair Projects:

baking soda
balloons
vinegar
bottles of various sizes
measuring spoons
small funnel

If your children like to experiment and complete science challenges, you will want to have your own copy of The Curious Kid’s Science Book. It contains over 100 activities for kids 4-8. I personally think it would be a great birthday or Christmas present.

I love that many of the experiments walk you through making a guess (hypothesis), things to consider, thoughts on data, and helpful hints. There are also a number of challenges that are open ended. They share what you will need and hints, but leave the rest up the the experimenters.

Here is a little about the book’s author Asia Citro:

Asia Citro has an M.Ed in Science Education and was a classroom science teacher. She has used that knowledge and experience to bring creative ideas and activities to parents and teachers around the world.

I first discovered Asia’s wonderful experiments and fun ways to play on her blog Fun at Home with Kids blog. I was blessed to get to review Asia’s first book,150+ Screen-Free Activities for Kids: The Very Best and Easiest Playtime Activities from FunAtHomeWithKids.com! and am equally blessed to get to review her new book.

You can find more science experiments from this blog and others on my Early Learning- Science Pinterest board.

Minecraft Creeper Craft & 150+ Screen-Free Activities for Kids

November 4, 2014 By Deirdre

If you are looking for screen-free activities for kids 150+ Screen-Free Activities for Kids: The Very Best and Easiest Playtime Activities from FunAtHomeWithKids.com!. This book contains recipes for fun and exploration. Let me share with you the ten reasons I love this book and think you need to own a copy of it. At the end of this post you will find the Minecraft Creeper we made using one of the recipes in this book.

Ten Reasons to Buy 150+ Screen-Free Activities for Kids

There aren’t just one or two great activities in this book. JDaniel and I struggled to pick which one to do first when we got the book in the mail. We will probably end up doing each of them.
Many of the recipes in the activities are corn free, gluten free, dairy free, nut free, egg free, and soy free. Children with allergies won’t have to be excluded from joining into the fun.
The activities are open ended and invite children to tap into their imagination and create while doing them.
You have many of the ingredients needed for the recipes and activities at home already. The ones you don’t have won’t be very expensive to purchase.

Many of the recipes are edible and child safe like the edible banana play dough. (There are thirteen dough recipes in this book.)
These activities will leave kids of all ages wanting to do them again and again.
This is more than just a recipe book. It shares eighteen do it yourself toys and play mats. They make you wonder why you didn’t think of them and rejoice that Asia did. The giant lacing box and hatching egg bath bombs are favorites of mine.
You will have ten amazing go to ideas for sensory bin fillers. The book shares how to create miniature water beads and colored salt. We will be exploring both of them.
The chapter on small worlds will show you how to create play lands for your kids. My son has loved the lands we have created. They inspired great discussions and storytelling at my house. Small worlds are also great ways to introduce you children to various textures too.
If you host a playgroup, teach in an early childhood classroom, or have children that you want to open avenues of play and adventure to, all you will need to do is open this book to any page and you will have something fun to do.

Minecraft Creeper Craft

JDaniel is into Minecraft so, we created Minecraft Creeper from it using the directions for baked cotton balls in 150+ Screen Free Activities for Kids.