Category: childrens books

August 7, 2014

Eyewitness Dinosaur @DKCanada #review

The iconic Eyewitness book series has been the most trusted non-fiction series in classrooms and in homes for 25 years! DK Canada has updated this popular series to paperback (a first in North America!) as well as adding new covers, improved layouts and a better ratio of text to photo. You can check out the full twelve updated Eyewitness Series books here on the DK Canada website.

My kids are huge dinosaur fans (as if you couldn’t tell from my other post here!). To be able to combine that love with learning is my number one goal as a parent. Eyewitness books are perfect for this! With clear and bold heading they highlight for our son what the page will be about. In Eyewitness Dinosaurs the images on each page are striking and in full colour making you feel as if they are really bringing the dinosaurs to life. With over 150 images this book kept him (and me) engaged for hours!

I read the book before giving it my son (I have to be honest with you, I love learning new things and this book was incredible for this). I spent an hour going through each page reading all the tidbit information and looking at the beautiful photographs. I learned so much (who knew they can classify dinosaurs into two groups and many had feathers?!). If we stumbled on anything we were not sure of there was a fantastic glossary at the end of the book. Together we were able to follow their evolution straight to extinction.

Right now DK Canada is offering 30% off the Eyewitness series (making the books only $7.69 CDN!). Make sure to check them out here.

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

August 4, 2014

The Big Book of Things To Make from @DKCanada #review

Are your kids hitting the mid summer slump yet? You know the point where the idea of school being out has worn off and now they just want to do be doing more (anything more – science, physical activity and learning to name a few!) – mine are.

The Big Book of Things To Make from DK Canada has over 200 activities ranging from simple to a little bit more complicated to keep your child learning and having fun at the same time. Activites include simple science experiemnts, learning to juggle, building castles as well as outdoor activities. There is the perfect combination of physical activities and more sedentary activities to keep your child engaged.

We did several of the experiemnts already including making solar systems and soap monsters. We cooked, we were outside playing our favourite games (those ones that they always say they hate but now somehow they are super cool because they are in the book – yup those ones!), they practiced juggling (ouch!) and so much more. We have so much more to get through in this last month of the summer and can’t wait!

Feeling like you need some more summer time fun to keep the kids active and learning? Don’t forget to check out the Summer Fun Boutique running now over at DK Canada with 30% discounts!

Disclosure: I received the above mentioned product free of charge. All opinions expressed are my own.

April 8, 2014

Raincoast Board Book Bundles #review & #giveaway

It should not come as much of a surprise that we love books in our home!

Books have a special way to take us on an adventure. They teach both adults and children a like important moral and life lessons. Reading together also helps to build bonds between parents and children as well as building language skills.

We received a Raincoast board book bundle that we fell in love with at first sight. In the bundle we found the You Are My Baby collection, A Tree for All Seasons, Daddy Wrong Legs and Peek a Zoo. Each board book is strong and durable with bright colours as well as an unique design. The board book bundle is suited for ages 1-4.

Our favourite out of this collection was the You Are My Baby series that included ocean, farm and garden animals. This series of books pairs a larger board book with a smaller inset book. The larger portion contains the images of the adult animal and the smaller portion has their baby.We were able to turn each page and our youngest was able to learn how to match up the animals based on the images and the sounds they make. We also had a great time making all the accompanying sounds!

A Tree For All Seasons shows the life of a tree in a year. The book is designed to look like a tree and the top part of the tree opens up with each turn of the page. It was a very unique design (my first time seeing a tree shaped book!) with easy words and pictures.

Daddy Wrong Legs will provide lots of comic relief! The book opens in two and allows readers to mix and match Daddy’s legs to the appropriate upper body. We also had fun making silly matches with the legs to the wrong upper body. Even our eldest son got in on this and had fun with the match ups!

In Peek-a-Zoo by Nina Laden readers are able to read the clue, guess the animal and then start all over ago. This book is colourful and full of rhymes. The little windows on each page allowed us to get an even better picture of which animal was waiting for us next.

You can purchase your own copies of these books at Amazon, Indigo and KidsBooks. You can also follow Raincoast books on Facebook and Twitter.

Raincoast Books is offering my Canadian readers the chance to win the book bundle featured in this post! You can enter via the Rafflecopter form below.

GOOD LUCK!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Disclosure: I received the above mentioned board books in order to facilitate this review. All opinions expressed are my own.

February 11, 2014

Beating the Indoor Blues with #DKCanada Sticker Boutique

Sticker time is always fun time! From beating boredom, adding to crafts and fixing boo boos at the doctor’s office – stickers have always fascinated kids!

I was (and still am) a huge sticker fan – I actually still have my large collection of stickers in the original tin box I collected them in. My boys are able to go through them and use them in their own pictures – although they are full of hearts and animals which I never hear the end of. Stickers have come along way since my childhood – you can now even purchase favourite characters (from Disney to Lego to Superheroes, the possibilities are endless!).

With the deep freeze we have been under lately (and not to mention the constant colds!) my boys have been itching to find new things to keep them busy. For them the chance to try out some of the DK Sticker Books from their boutique was the best news they had received in a long time.

My boys were beyond thrilled when they received their books. Superheroes and Lego, yes please! Our youngest is going through a huge Hulk and Spiderman phase – he even slept with his book that night!

The boutique offers sticker collections ranging from Disney princesses and movie characters to Lego and superheroes as well as animals and dinosaurs. There are over 1000 reusable stickers (the pages are made so that they can stick them on and peel them off – not sure how many times they would last through this process but my boys peeled them off about five times without causing them any problems with how effectively they stuck on). The book itself is thick which is perfect for little ones as you know it wont tear easily and cause tears. The selection in each book was perfect and also had extra stickers because if your children are like mine – many will end up on a nose or cheek or even as a pretend tattoo!

We fell in love with the DK Canada Sticker boutique and the boys rated them a 5/5 for being awesome, superior collection and downright fun.

http://cn.dk.com/static/cs/cn/11/nf/features/stickerbookboutique/index.html

Disclosure: I received the above mentioned products in order to facilitate this review. All opinions expressed are my own.

January 5, 2014

The Other Bears: Teaching Acceptance and Respect for All

It is so important to teach our youth to accept and respect people that may be different then us whether it is by culture, skin tone, gender, etc. For young children it can be hard to help them understand (to be honest – I can tell my two year old the same thing many times and he will probably still repeat the same action). Books and movies are an excellent avenue to help children learn that we may look or act differently but on the inside we are all the same.

The Other Bears written by Michael Thompson follows the Koala Bear family. The Koala Bear family are taking a trip but the trip is made difficult by Mother and Father Koala Bear who are suspicious of all the other bears. Mother and Father Koala Bear find faults with all the differences the other bears have. All of these feelings melt away when they watch all of the little bears play together.

This children’s book touched on some great topics – acceptance and love for all types of people. I love how it shows the love that children have for all people and how this should be fostered by the adults in their life. Although they did address the topic of acceptance briefly I would have loved to see it expanded a little bit more at the end. It would have been nice to speak more about the Koala Bear parent’s mistakes in misjudging the other bears and how they would accept the other bears.

It did a great job of opening up the conversation with my eldest about his own experiences at school where he is exposed to bullying and racism towards other children (he is not the victim nor the aggressor but has been a witness and has numerous times acted to their defence or told a teacher). I realized we do not have these conversations enough.

Rating: 3.5/5

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