Category: children

Is That My Hat is a fun, engaging read for parents and young children.

About Is That My Hat?

Mole is struggling to find the perfect hat. After trying on big, spooky, and silly hats, Mole ends up creating the perfect hat for himself. Full of creativity and bright illustrations, this picture book is a charming and engaging read.

Our Thoughts

I love to read and I especially love reading with my children. These moments are incredibly special and important to hold on to. I really try hard to ensure that the books we are reading are geared towards their age, but also stimulating, engaging and most importantly fun.

With a new addition to our family we have been on the hunt to add to our collection of story time and bed time books. Is That My Hat? was a huge hit in our household. It had everything that makes a child’s book fun and engaging. The sentences had a great rhythm that allowed you to change the tone and pitch of your voice to really help draw a child into the story. It felt natural to speak the words to my child and change my facial expressions to bring the story to life. While my little one is quite a bit younger, a three to four year old would have a great time with prompting questions (what items would you choose for a hat, what makes that special, etc..) to help bring this story to life.

The illustrations are simple, with clean lines and bright colours that help to deliver the storyline without being distracting. I prefer these types of illustrations in children’s stories as I find this helps encourage connection to the story itself versus being caught up trying to follow distracting images page to page.

Is That My Hat? is a wonderful story for young children and will be a welcome addition to your home library.

You can purchase a copy of this book here.

About the Creator

Kevin Payne is an author, illustrator, and poet from Devon, England. He was an elementary school teacher for seventeen years and still loves working with children to develop their skills and love of words. Away from writing, Kevin plays soccer, writes songs, and is a local town crier. Oyez!

Disclosure: I received a copy of this book to facilitate this review. All opinions expressed are my own.

Get excited for Halloween and learn some simple (and not spooky) yoga poses at the same time with Little Mouse and friends! 

About Halloween Yoga

Tammy McDoodle and her friends are dressed in their favorite costumes and so are Little Mouse and his best friend, Mr. Opus the cat, in this fun book which combines Halloween with straightforward yoga postures.

“Before you go out to trick or treat,” says Tammy’s mom, “Let’s do some Halloween yoga poses to keep calm”.

Your little ghosts and goblins will delight in simple, not-so-spooky Halloween yoga moves, such as witch, ghost, black cat, and jack-o-lantern poses. Children will get excited for Halloween while learning an easy way to stay calm and get healthy activity in this beautifully illustrated board book set to rhyme.

Our Thoughts

Yoga is a great way to get young kids (and adults!) to slow down, focus, ground themselves and be mentally and emotionally prepared to face the world. Halloween is always so much fun (it is by far my favourite holiday of the year) but with all the decorations, sounds and distractions it can be overstimulating and overwhelming for young children. How many meltdowns have you witnessed as a parent of an overstimulated, overtired (and likely had way too much candy all day) child? It is so important to give them the skills that they need to take a deep breath, perform a calming pose and then carry on with their activities. These skills, if developed and encouraged at a young enough age, will become great habits as they become older.

In this story, before the group even sets out to have a magical, mysterious fun night, they participate in some very calming (and spooky) themed yoga poses. The book itself is easy to read, fun to follow along with and to do the poses as you read it (we would stop and practice the poses and it did not take away from the story). The story has adorable illustrations that the whole family will love. Children will fall in love with the spooky and fun poses that they can incorporate into practice every day of the year (not just at Halloween). I loved how she made the practice fun – this is such an important part of encouraging, guiding and supporting young children, make it fun and they will want to do it over and over again. This will make a great addition to your child’s home library.

You can pre-order a copy of this book on Amazon.

Rating: 5/5

About the Author

Teresa Power is an internationally recognized educator, keynote speaker and bestselling author of the award-winning series, Little Mouse Adventures and The ABCs of Yoga for Kids which have been translated into four languages.

In the 1980s, she started practicing yoga to de-stress from the vigor of law school, and subsequently became a yoga teacher. She is a sought-after speaker, having appeared at conferences, schools, and libraries across the nation.

Teresa enjoys volunteering and has worked with The Boys and Girls Clubs of America, Choose Health LA, Let’s Move! West LA, University of Southern California and others. Teresa has been featured by Good Morning America, USA Today, Parenting, Reader’s Digest, Fox11 LA, Telemundo, CBS LA, and other media outlets.

In addition, she is the founder of the International Kids Yoga Day, whose mission is to make the life-changing practice of yoga accessible to everyone, regardless of age, location or finances. A graduate of University of Southern California, she earned her J.D. from Pepperdine University School of Law, and in 2002 completed a yoga training program with Indigo Yoga.

About The ABCs of Yoga

Our goal is to present parents, grandparents, teachers, and educators with a fun, unique and creative method to teach children a powerful art form, mindfulness outlet, and physical activity that they can enjoy for the rest of their lives. Yoga has been shown to have numerous mental and physical health benefits that can help emotionally balance children, encourage more acute mental focus, and also serve as a beneficial physical exercise that they enjoy doing.  Our products use an intrinsically engaging and colorful method of inspiring children to learn yoga.  Enjoy the benefits of a more focused child with enhanced clarity and a calmer demeanor—thanks to the benefits of daily mindfulness through yoga.

Disclosure: I received a digital copy of this book in order to facilitate this review. All opinions expressed are my own.

Croissant isn’t happy, and he’s taking it out on the breakfast plate!

About The Grumpy Frumpy Croissant

Croissant isn’t happy, and he’s taking it out on the breakfast plate! Toast, Scone, and Milk think he’s being mean, but Croissant thinks they’re being mean to him. A sip of Milk and ten deep breaths help everyone calm down and talk to each other.

The Grumpy Frumpy Croissant is a children’s picture book with fun and colorful hand-drawn illustrations that teach a lesson about misunderstandings any child can grasp. Croissant learns how to let anger pass, and that yelling hurts others’ feelings. It’s a simple story for parents to introduce ideas of managing feelings to children, illustrated by Korey Scott.

The book also features a delicious croissant recipe that parents can make with their children, and full-page coloring activities featuring the characters in the book (kindle and e-reader compatible too!).

Our Thoughts

This was a cute, funny way to get your children talking about their feelings – especially those big feelings around unfairness, grumpiness, feeling left out and how to deal with them.

In this book, Croissant is grumpy because Toast and Scone are taking up all of the room on the plate and he feels that they are being mean to him. But Toast and Scone feel that Croissant is being mean for no reason at all (I think we can all relate to these feelings!). Milk steps in and is able to calm the grumpy Croissant down by taking a deep breath and counting to ten. Suddenly, everyone is calmer and able to talk to each other with kindness and respect.

This is a cute book to get the conversation moving with your child about those tough feelings and how we can work together to calm those feelings. We all can feel intense emotions, and children are the same. They sometimes lack the words to express those feelings and can yell, throw and hit. It is important to teach them to how to notice those emotions that are building up, why they are and how to pause, take a deep breath and calm themselves back down again. The bonus? This book comes with a fun recipe and colouring activities to reinforce the lessons that they are learning. A win-win for parents and caregivers!

You can purchase a copy of this book on Amazon and B&N.

About the Author

Mona K is a statistician by training and loves to weave stories with numbers in her day job as a health services researcher. She is also a children’s book author who believes that picture books are a source of both wisdom and silliness. Mona loves to bake in her free time, and her love for croissants and meditation inspired her to write this debut children’s picture book. She lives in New Jersey with her seven-year-old son and husband.

Disclosure: I received a digital copy of this book in order to facilitate this review. All opinions expressed are my own.