Children | Page 5 of 40

We Are The Dinosaurs is picture book magic for 6 and under

Do you or the kids watch Dinotrux? Its transition from solely being a book to also include television was seamless. Of course a show about trucks as dinosaurs going about their life is entertaining you say now. It might not have thought like that initially though. This is much like the classic song from Laurie Berkner, We Are The Dinosaurs. Unless you’ve had a child go through pre-K in the past 20 years that song doesn’t mean anything to you. However, if you’ve seen your kids stomp, march and roar then it’s probably one of your favorite memories of their school play. Whaddaya think of that?

We Are The Dinosaurs is now a book by Laurie Berkner with illustrations by Ben Clanton and it has a lot going for it. For starters it’s got a built in audience of young readers who know the words and love dinosaurs.

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Smurfs The Lost Village, better than you think and good for the kids

Know your role. My wife and I use that phrase as a way to slyly accept our greatest strengths and to play to them. In our case it’s not meant as a pejorative, rather a rallying cry to do something, establish a goal of doing better, as well as a subtle reminder that we can’t be great at everything. Smurfs: The Lost Village knows its role. After two previous films that brought the Smurfs to the big screen in a CGI/live action format, Smurfs The Lost Village is 100% animated.

It’s good animation, visually on par with a major motion picture. Because of that it looks world’s better than the TV counterpart that old school fans will remember and even the 2013 television short, The Smurfs: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

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PJ Masks-Here to save the DVD day

We stream all of our television. Because of that our children have little patience with commercials and want their programming now. Hear the hoards of children 8 and younger scream with delight as they discover PJ Masks–Let’s Go PJ Masks as they’re favorite pajama wearing heroes arrive on DVD for the first time!

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Toilet paper rolls fly high at Launch Party for National Geographic Kids

One thing that most kids do well is collect things. Even our 5 year old has little stacks of ‘prizes’ that pop up around his room like lemmings. Kids are also great at wanting to be the greatest at things. National Geographic Kids and Toyota Highlander are teaming up to set a Guinness World Record that you-and your kids can be a part of.

To make things even cooler this Guinness World Record attempt allows kids to collect something that you’re already using in your house, toilet paper rolls! National Geographic Kids wants to make the world’s largest toilet-paper-roll sculpture and they need your help to make it happen. To make things more symmetrical to the shape of a toilet-paper-roll, the sculpture will be in the shape of a rocket.

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National Geographic Kids book bundle giveaway

We’re a National Geographic Kids Insider and received a copy of these for our use. All thoughts are our own. Our kids love some Nat Geo Kids. Even if we weren’t a National Geographic Kids Insider they’d still love these books, pester us to get them and spend hours looking through the images and graphics in each book. There are 4 new National Geographic Kids books out that will entertain ages 9 and up for hours. National Geographic Kids Almanac 2017, National Parks Guide U.S.A., famous FAILS!, and Weird but True! 8 are all different, yet retain the thread that makes them distinctively National Geographic.

“Some dog’s paws smell like corn chips. The South Pole is the sunniest place on Earth”, our son said from the back seat. During the trip to the grocery store he was that blond kid in Jerry McGuire. The only thing he didn’t tell me was how much a human brain weighed. Weird but True! 8 is one of those essential bathroom reads with large font factoids on each page. It also has vocabulary that an elementary school student can read by themselves.

National Geographic Kids book bundle giveaway

Open up National Parks Guide U.S.A.at your discretion because you will immediately discover a severe case of wander lust. This is a detailed look at the National Parks all over the U.S.A., complete with hundreds of photos, maps, insider tips and more. This is the kid’s version so it looks at things from their perspective, what areas are fun to explore, what sorts of adventures there are to do, games, history and more.

The world’s tallest empty building is in North Korea. The flying car, movie goofs and bungled buildings are things that were mistakes, but might have led people to greater success. Famous FAILS! is a book of failure. Some failure added up to better things, while others were just wrong from the get go. Either way, kids 9 and up will love reading about these inventions, their original intention and what else they accomplished. As with all National Geographic books the photographs in here are top notch.

Page for page the National Geographic Kids Almanac 2017 has the most information, images and fun content of any book we’ve received this year. Hundreds upon hundreds of images, quizzes, maps and more make up this book that has information on everything about everything. From animals, ecology, science, geography and more there is something in the book for any kid. At the price of $14.99 it’s a virtual steal too.

How Do Your Kids Play Over The Holidays?

We’re a Play Ambassador for Let’s Play and were compensated for this post. Let’s Play is an initiative by Dr Pepper Snapple Group that provides kids and families with the tools, places and inspiration to make active play a daily priority by building and improving playgrounds and donating sports equipment to groups in need. All thoughts are our own.

With the holidays here let’s get down to brass tacks about how the kids will play. There’s a lot going on this time of year and with school breaks, errands that need running, colder temperatures and kids that need to play, it can be difficult to fit everything into the same amount of waking hours. Here are a couple of the ways that we manage to do the trips and make it work. For all of our play ideas, please check out our column at Let’s Play.

Explore the differences

The tree that you see now is different than it was a couple of months ago. You can see its bark, the limbs look like arms and its leaves are blown all over the place. This time of year is perfect for going for a walk and pointing out those differences to children. If your experience is anything like ours, then this conversation will lead to more talk about nature, all the while continuing to get the exercise and play we all need.

New “icy” play

Regardless of where you live, there are some ‘ice’ opportunities for kids to play in. It could be the real icy deal if you live in a cold climate, or your community could have a temporary ice rink and snow pile at your city center to explore. Either way, this is golden playtime for kids. They’ll love it! Just remember to dress appropriately.

Shake up the errands

You’ve got food to buy for the holiday party, the kids need a new bike tire and you need to get some pants. These errands can all get done and the kids can play too. In our area we have a handle on the indoor (and free!) recreation and shopping centers that cover all these needs and we plan our days accordingly. This way, we can still do the things we need to do and get the kids some play time.

How do you play during the holiday time? If you have a go-to idea on keeping the play going during the holidays we’d love to hear it in the comments or on Twitter.

DC Super Heroes Little Library is new-parent geek mandatory

My wife and I are done having babies. One thing that I still read-and review on the site are some good board books. The DC Superheroes Little Library is a collection of 10 board books from the DC Universe all about things that pre-k kids through 2^nd grade need to learn. It fills a huge void in board books and is almost enough to make me want to have another baby.

I don’t regret the board books that our kids read. Brown Bear and Boynton Books are fabulous and we’re saving those for the grandkids. And to be clear, Downtown Bookworks has been producing these DC board books for a while. The DC Super Heroes Little Library simply collects all ten previously released books at a substantial discount. The individual board books cost anywhere between $7-$10. The DC Super Heroes Little Library costs $30 online, more in some other place, but why pay more?

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Dressing two kids to the holiday nines with OshKosh B’Gosh

This post is sponsored by Everywhere Agency on behalf of OshKosh B’gosh; however, all thoughts and opinions expressed are my own. For any parent one of true joys in the holiday season has got to be those photos. Those photos are the ones where the kids are at their seasonal best or you just happen to catch them when they’re trying to (poorly) disguise them from sneaking something. With our two boys it’s never quite clear which version you’ll catch. Ever since our kids were born we’ve made the trek to OshKosh B’Gosh to get their kid’s fashion on.

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