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Then, Littlest got a nasty case of roseola about the same time he was cutting his top molars. It was a miserable week and a half for the little guy, and Lullabies sounded like just the ticket to soothe my suffering babe.
Lullabies includes 18 songs that have won 11 different awards. These are quality bed-time tunes, providing a diverse selection of music from various ethnic origins, including a Spanish and a Yiddish lullaby. I love this, and I’ve seen it to be especially appealing to the kids.
One of the things I love about Music Together products are the activity guides that come with the music. Each song has 2-3 activity suggestions that bring learning and parent-interaction into every musical encounter. Lullabies was no exception. From suggestions on how to personalize the songs by adding the child’s name or singing your own lyrics, to soothing “bed-time” routine ideas, this guide was the perfect compliment to the songs.
Littlest continues to enjoy his lullabies. And I found they were a great morning activity to prepare him for his nap time. He loves this music and asks for it nearly every morning, toddling over to the CD player and bouncing up and down. Who could resist that?
Other places the Lullabies have come in handy: the airport and airplane (especially after weather delays got us home one whole day late); hotel rooms; and the doctor’s office (Littlest has had quite a summer fighting germies). We’ve taken our Lullabies everywhere this summer!
I don’t have as many adorable photos, because I usually had my hands full of Littlest each time we played the music. But I do encourage you to grab your littlest and check out the samples on the website.
Disclaimer: I received this product for free in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
Kids ask some tough questions, challenging our knowledge of physics, biology, and especially our faith. Why is the sky blue? Why doesn’t a ball keep rolling? Why does my tummy growl when it’s hungry? How do we know God is really there? I don’t know about you, but I like to be equipped to give them good answers, answers that will equip them for sharing and defending their faith—apologetics for kids!
Melissa Cain Travis’s book How do we know God is really there? does an excellent job of defending the faith in a way that is easily understandable on a child’s level. It’s simple apologetics for kids that follows an engaging story line. The story takes place as a conversation between father and son as they look through a telescope in a treehouse. The dialogue throughout the story is relatable and makes the content easy to follow. The book is recommended for children ages 6 and up. However, it would be helpful for your child to understand the basic ideas of galaxies, time, and space.
The book takes a “first cause” approach to answering the question. In other words, it takes us back to “how did all this get here in the first place.” The book addresses discoveries from Edwin Hubble (that objects in space are moving further apart) and presents a case that the opposite also has to be true (in reverse, all those objects would come closer and closer until they collided into nothingness). Something outside of time and space with a desire to create (a person) had to have initiated the “something from nothing.”
Our children are 6 and nearly 5, at the lower end of the recommended age, but they thoroughly enjoyed the book and illustrations. My husband used this book during our family Bible time in the evening, taking the time to explain some things as we went along. My children did not understand everything, but it was a great starting place for us. And the kids enjoyed it enough to ask for us to read the book on the following night as well.
Apologetics is really important to our family, important enough that my husband is pursuing a master’s degree (his second) on apologetics. So not only is this kid-approved, it’s Hubby-approved too. (wink!)
Because our children are young, this will be a book we read to them a few different times as their understanding grows. I love being able to not only lay a foundation of apologetics in their life at a young age, but also to lay the groundwork for our astronomy study this next year in school. I will be bringing this book out a lot as we study more about galaxies and outer space!
I was very impressed with this book and would highly recommend it. Answering our children’s questions is one of our most important jobs as we disciple them. Having help to answer those tough questions—priceless!
How do we know God is really there? is the first in the Young Defenders series to be written and published, and I’m thrilled to begin collecting this series for my kids.
Disclaimer: I received this product for free in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
Disclaimer: I was given a free 30 day trial in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
Science4Us is an elementary science program for kids from kindergarten through second grade. I’ve been trying it out over the last month with my 6 year old and 4 year old, and it’s definitely been a hit.
This program allows us to learn science at home, through interactive videos and virtual activities in all areas of science. We’ve been exploring earth and space science in preparation for our further studies in that area later this year.
The lessons with all of the activities were a good hours worth of activity. The kids took turns each day logging in, and the other child always wanted to sit in on the lessons. The lessons are broken down into easy segments that would allow for you to spread the lessons out over several days.
The teacher’s section allows you to schedule lessons and activities for each student. But I let them learn on their own and work through what interested them (which was everything!)
Activities included keeping a virtual science notebook, review exercises, quizzes, as well as some language lessons related to the topic (alphabetizing and syllables), and more.
The lessons are secular science lessons, but I did not run across anything controversial in the studies that we listened to. And I made sure to be in the room during every lesson.
The only complaint that I had about this program was the loading time. It did take quite awhile for each segment of the lessons to load, and one particular activity did not load at all. But the fun was worth the wait time for my kiddos.
Science4us is a super fun way to bring science into your homeschool. It eliminates all the intimidation that science can bring and allows your student to be pretty independent. Some computer skills are necessary (click and draw, click and drag, etc.)
You can begin Science4us in your home for $7.95/month per child, a very complete science curriculum that incorporates math and language into each lesson. To learn more, visit the Science4us website, watch demos, and take advantage of their 14 day money back guarantee.
Disclaimer: I was given a free 30 day trial in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
Disclaimer: I received this product for free in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
We were so excited to receive another one of these fabulous CDs from Music Together. My kids have had so much fun with the original Family Favorites that this second installment had a lot to live up to. And it delivered! Family Favorites 2 is absolutely twice the fun, with 19 songs that have won 9 different awards—music and movement and learning, oh my!
These are not just silly kid songs; they are engaging songs that teach without your kids even realizing it. Each CD comes with an activity guide with suggestions for each song. Rhythm activities, language development, music and movement, harmonies, and multi-cultural appreciation are all incorporated into this selection of songs. While I love a lot of different things about this music, I love the multi-cultural aspect most of all. Each album has included a number of ethnic songs that kids love!
As I share about some of our favorites, please check out the Music Together website to hear samples. But don’t listen alone, or you won’t catch the wonder. Get your kids and watch their reaction to the music. I’ll guarantee they can’t sit still and listen.
Some of our favorites…
Two of my favorites to use with Littlest have been Wiggle! and Saying and Doing. Wiggle! also has a verse to sing “tickle,” so not only does Littlest get some great wiggles in but we finish it off with a huge tickle. Saying and Doing is great for emphasizing words and actions from “washing our hands” to “brushing our teeth.”
Rhythms and Rhymes has been my favorite for Middlest for one particular verse: “no one knows where a tippy-toer goes.” Oh my goodness, what a life-saver! Middlest runs everywhere and sounds like an elephant when she does. Trying to get her to tip-toe through the hall while Littlest naps is something we’ve been working on for over a year. But she loves this little rhyme, and I can finally get her to tip-toe! Mr. Rabbit is another of her favorites that she loves to act out.
While all of the kids enjoy the ethnic songs included on these CDs, Oldest is especially drawn to them. And I love to encourage his interest as a way of opening his heart to the unsaved in those cultures. Don Alfredo Baila and Hey-Ya-na are a couple of his favorites. Don Alfredo is similar to If you’re happy and you know it or Father Abraham, combining repeated movements with a progressively faster melody—music and movement and total engagement. It’s definitely a tune that leaves you out of breath. Hey-Ya-na is a Native American melody that has the distinct STRONG-soft beat. My little Indians love to stomp, clap, drum, and dance this rhythm—with a little “whoop” just for effect.
Our last favorite Foolin’ Around is a “grab your instrument and play along” tune. The kids have so much fun with their “instruments,” pretending to play along. And as long as my nerves can stand it, sometimes they harmonize with real instruments, too. It’s hard on the hearing, but so much fun to watch!
Family Favorites and Family Favorites 2 have definite child-appeal that use music and movement to introduce so many learning elements. Plus, the accompanying activity guides give you terrific ideas for making the most of each song. It’s great for rainy days, happy days, gloomy days, and those days when you just need a few wiggles out.
Family Favorites 2 is available as a CD for $14.95 (plus shipping) or as a download for $9.99. Visit the website and let your kids dance through a few samples. It won’t be long before these become your “family favorites,” too.
Disclaimer: I received this product for free in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
As a fun math supplement for the summer, I decided to give Life of Fred a try. I’m always concerned about bringing in the practical, conceptual, critical-thinking part of math—especially since math isn’t necessarily my strength. And Life of Fred seemed like an engaging way to get that done.
Boy, was I ever right!
We read one chapter a day, roughly five minutes of “math” storyline, and the kids are never happy with just one chapter. I’m always asked for “just one more.”
Fred is a five year old who started teaching math at the university when he was nine months old, and the antics pick up from there. My kids get so tickled with these stories. I mean, the kind of belly-busting hysterics that are the picture of childhood joy. Science, critical thinking, history, and advanced math like algebra are all woven into the most unbelievable story. It’s silly, and so much fun.
Like a sketch of what Fred would look like if his nose were deciduous. Or Fred’s idea of how to turn a circle into an ellipse (put an elephant on top to squish the circle).
Each chapter ends with around 5 math questions from topics within that chapter. It’s light and original, asking about familiar math concepts in unfamiliar ways.
Though I wouldn’t use this as my primary math curriculum, it certainly has been a fun summer study. Oldest gets some reading practice by helping read some of the chapters; he gets a review of the math concepts he learned earlier this year, plus Life of Fred expands on those concepts and provides practical applications; Middlest gets an introduction to the concepts she will be learning; and they both are having so much fun with Fred that they ask for him everyday.
“As serious as it needs to be” is Life of Fred‘s slogan—I love learning like that, especially in the summer!
Check out the Life of Fredwebsite and pick up your own fun summer math program.
No disclaimer needed for this post. I purchased these myself and just wanted to share with you what we thought about them.
Disclaimer: I received these products for free in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
Last fall, I had the opportunity to review Music Together’s Family Favorites CD and teacher book. (Read my previous review here.) It soon became an unexpected favorite and often requested part of nearly everyday. I’m not exaggerating! Now that Littlest can get around and make his wishes and whims known, he’ll often head for the CD player motioning his baby sign for “please.” I know exactly what he wants:
We all dance together, beat out the rhythms, and sing along to our “family favorites” (pun absolutely intended). We’re not just having fun and bonding, though that alone is valuable; we’re learning about rhythms and harmonies, language and cultural diversity.
So when I had the opportunity to do a follow-up review with some of Music Together’s Singalong Storybooks, made to accompany our favorite songs, I was absolutely giddy!
Music Together has taken some of their most popular songs and illustrated them as read-aloud, sing-along books, available as both board books ($8.95) and hardcovers ($12.95). We were given Hello Everybody, She Sells Seashells, and One Little Owl for review.
The day these arrived was like Christmas at my house. The kids were so excited.
There are several aspects to these books that I love. For one, there are so many interactive ideas and suggestions provided within the books themselves. (A free download of the accompanying song is also provided.) Sing the story, read the story, sing and let your child complete the phrase, make up your own verses to the song as you read, count the objects, find the characters and objects, and more. And because the books were written to our favorite, already memorized songs, the story-line and the experience went with us throughout the day, even after the books were closed on the shelf.
Each book comes with suggested activities for using the story with your child.
In addition to rhythm, music, and language, these books are great for reinforcing counting and addition, colors, and even identifying seashells!
One of our fun activities was to dramatize the “One Little Owl” song, inspired by the pictures from the book. Pictured here is the verse “The poor old tree said, ‘Oh, no!…All these things are sitting on me.”
The various ideas gave me a chance to interact with each child at their own level with the same book. My one year old enjoyed hearing me sing the song and point out the characters as we read. My four year old loved to count the animals on each page and finish the song for me when I paused. My six year old was all about making up his own additional verses to the songs.
Middlest’s favorite book
Oldest’s favorite book
Littlest’s Favorite
One other aspect that I love, especially for my Littlest, is the language development that comes from hearing the story in song. During one of our “Baby Story Times” at our local library, the librarian mentioned how songs slow down our speech and make it easier for babies to hear certain sounds and words. Adding the pictures and story to this experience of singing makes this a very powerful teaching tool. And I’m not the only one to recognize this; these books have won long lists of awards from various organizations.
Mom’s Choice Award
NAPPA Honors Award in Educational Tools
National Parenting Center’s Seal of Approval
Academics’ Choice Smart Books Award, and more!
Then, there’s the fact that these books are just plain fun—beautiful illustrations and quality books that are enjoyable all by themselves. With literally shelves upon shelves of books at our house, these are favorites that all of my kids (including the littlest of all) keep coming back to again and again.
Now, Music Together is even more of a favorite. Not only do we have the catchy tunes with lots of rhythm and movement, but now we have the added element of a fun story with pictures. It’s learning and fun that keep us coming together for more.
Disclaimer: I received this product for free in exchange for an honest review. I was not compensated in any way for a positive review, and all of these opinions are my own.
I have been casually searching for learning ideas for my littlest. When I stumbled upon Flowering Baby, I was instantly intrigued.
Flowering Baby is a curriculum of “whole child development” activities for children birth to five years old. The curriculum is about $30 for each year’s worth of lessons (organized by age: birth to one, one to two, two to three, and four to five).
I received the “One to Two” curriculum for free for this review and was able to begin at month 13 with my little guy. Each month includes titles of books to read to your baby, a classical composer to listen to, some finger-play/nursery rhymes to listen to, as well as an assortment of activity ideas that include everything from language skills and muscle development to painting and exploring.
Each month lists all books, music, and supplies needed. Most titles are available at a library or can be substituted with books from home. And the supplies are simple things that I usually had on hand.
We’ve been using this product for a couple of months, and I have loved this curriculum for two reasons. First, I love having special one-on-one time with my little one because, honestly, it’s easy for him to get forgotten in the rush to get the big kid’s lessons out of the way. Or, I tend to occupy him rather than really play with him. This curriculum gives me a very focused 15-20 minutes with him, just him! I actually send the big kids away and focus just on him. We both enjoy this time immensely.
Second reason I love Flowering Baby are for the ideas. Even as an “experienced” mother of three (that’s a joke, by the way), I often get in ruts and don’t immediately think of ways to challenge and build his little skills. Flowering Baby gives me ideas (about 25 lessons a month) and inspires me with my own variations on those ideas. It helps me to realize what he is probably capable of attempting, something that’s easy to lose track of as time flies by. Many times, I would read the plans and think “oh, he can’t do that yet” only to be amazed that he actually could (and loved trying)!
Also, Flowering Baby is teaching me! The language lessons, especially, have taught me practical things like how to talk to my baby, what to talk about, what to point out in a picture, etc. Motor skills were also surprising lessons for me, like teaching my baby to kneel rather than his default sprawl position that is hard on his little hips.
Then, there’s the fun—hide a toy; teach direction words by placing a toy under, over, beside, etc; “fold” laundry together; find faces in books and magazines; get a mirror out and look at our faces together; and so much more!
My little laundry helper. He also likes to “help” unload the dishwasher.
Just a note, I did not follow this as a step-by-step lesson, though you could. I looked through the ideas several times during a month to get ideas for our next time together and then put it away. I knew which books to read, and he quickly found his favorites. All of us enjoyed the classical music selections, which we listened to using the free Naxos app on my ipod (comes with several free playlists that coordinate with this curriculum).
Littlest’s new favorite book
And because I can only take so much mess, I modified some of the ideas to fit us. For instance, one activity was to practice pouring rice or beans. I had nightmarish visions of what this would look like, so I instead opted for our pouring lesson to be at bath time with water in the tub. Instead of painting (I tried this at Christmas for grandma gifts and am still in need of therapy), I opted for crayons.
But customizing this curriculum was really what made it a winner for me. Their ideas bred so many other ideas. If the lessons called for feeling different textured squares, I instantly thought of textures throughout our day—when we went on nature walks, when we were standing outside the restaurant waiting to be seated, or wherever we were. I loved that the lessons helped me to focus and weave in his learning during the whole day.
Littlest enjoyed creating with crayons (much sooner than my older kids did).Our sensory bottle made from adding a beaded necklace and water.
Is it worth the $30? If you’re trying to justify $30 on your little one, I’d ask you to price some of the toys in his toy box. Most likely, a couple of those (that he probably doesn’t even play with) would easily have cost you $30. And you will get a lot more out of this purchase than a new toy that he will probably quickly lose interest in anyway. Honestly, I wish I’d had this as a new mom to use with my other two children.
Also, keep in mind that this is not a list of ideas to keep your baby busy so that you can do something else. These activities require you sitting down with your baby. Many of them require you to closely supervise your baby as he explores.
Want to check it out for yourself? The website has great samples to preview for each age. The Flowering Baby curriculum is sold on CD or as a downloadable PDF (I printed mine and bound it myself to have a hardcopy). You can purchase the curriculum at the Flowering Baby store or on Currclick.com.
I’m looking forward to continuing with this curriculum, and I’m looking forward to more special “baby” moments with Littlest throughout this year.
Disclaimer: I received this product for free in exchange for an honest review. I was not compensated in any way for a positive review, and all of these opinions are my own.
We have thoroughly enjoyed our Music Together CDs (read my reviews of Family Favorites and Family Favorites 2), and I totally anticipated loving Music Together’s Lullabies as well.
One of the things I love about Music Together products are the activity guides that come with the music. Each song has 2-3 activity suggestions that bring learning and parent-interaction into every musical encounter. Lullabies was no exception. From suggestions on how to personalize the songs by adding the child’s name or singing your own lyrics, to soothing “bed-time” routine ideas, this guide was the perfect compliment to the songs.
