My Little Polar Bear is a great story for old and young alike. This story not only introduces your kids to polar bears, but also shows them a great parent/child relationship. The story is about a mother polar bear teaching her child (just like we teach our children about ourselves and the world). This is a great bedtime story, since the colors in this books are muted.  This is a great book for a new reader too.  The words are simple and the pictures explain everything.

This book is short and sweet and perfect for little kids!

We recently were introduced to a new cartoon that is on CBS called Busytown Mysteries. It’s based on the characters from the works of Richard Scarry (who has sold over 150 million copies of his books over the last 40 years!).  The program is about 20 minutes long and shows 2 eleven minute stories.  The stories revolve around Huckle Cat and Lowly Worm as they solve mysteries all over town (like who knocked all the cherries out of the farmer’s tree).  These stories engage our kids and makes them question who, what, when, where, and why.  I love it when they are learning and not even realizing it!  Will (my 2 year old) wasn’t all that interested in this cartoon.  However, my 5 year old did enjoy watching it, and she enjoyed the interactive games and activities that Busytown offers online!  Online, they can interact with the characters and explore the different neighborhoods.  They can even set up an email address (we aren’t ready for that in our house quite yet!).

You can check out the tv schedule for Busytown Mysteries and see where it is playing in your area, so your kids can check it out!  Check it out and tell me what you think!

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A great fun game to play with your family has to be You’ve been Sentenced! It’s for 8 and up, but with some help, even your new reader can play it.  Each player gets 10 cards.  You take your ten cards and make a sentence that makes sense.  Your sentence then goes to the jury — that is, your fellow players.  You have to justify why it makes sense to score.  Some of the sentence you are forced to make up are pretty funny.  It really makes you think fast and having to justify your sentence makes you have to think even faster!  The game comes with 540 cards that are five sided, so you have hours and hours of unique games ahead of you!  If you manage to make it through all of the cards, there are even add on decks!  You can add on the Reader’s Digest National Word Power Challenge, Gourmet Cuisine, Pop Culture (this is our personal favorite), Sci-Fi/Fantasy, and Sports Highlights.

You’ve Been Sentenced is a game that is fun for any child or adult who can read!

With Madison only being 5, it’s hard sometimes to get her to understand about money. At this point, she only understands that there is rectangle money and circle money. That being said they do have a treasure chest at school where you can donate money to (which, in turn, gets donated to the church. For those of you who don’t know, Madison attends a Catholic School).  That is the beauty with this bank.  The kids can actually see where they money is going towards.  I love that each chamber actually can be emptied out through a different foot (would that be a hoof on a pig?).  No worries about mixing the money.  There are goal setting stickers that you put on the bank.  For example, for invest, you could put the graduation cap, because you are going to use that to save for school.  You can also draw your own ideas of what your goals are on the blank stickers.  There is also a great booklet included with ways to talk to your kids about money.

The Money Savvy Pig is a great way to start teaching your kids about money.

I live in Chicago where we have crappy winters. Really, we do. We have lots of snow and lots of cold here.  That being said, to get through a Chicago winter you need a great quality boot.  Sorel fits that bill.  They make their boots for purpose first.  I have admit I loved all the women’s boots.  It was really hard for me to decide which boot I wanted to go with.  I love the high boots, but my legs are short and they tend to look dorky on me.  These boots aren’t high, but are perfect for me instead.  I love that they have handles for my to pull on (with two kids I really hate having to tie anything).  They are super comfortable and warm too!  They also don’t make my feet look fat (all you women out there know what I mean about how winter boots can sometimes make your feet look a lot bigger than they are).  I love that they are fashionable too!  These will be the boots I pick Madison up from school with once the snow falls.

I love that Sorel gets that boots can be fashionable and serve a purpose too!  I can’t wait for it to snow!

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One of the most frustrating things I’ve come across is finding a belt for Madison. The kid needs an actual belt not just a pretty thing to hold up her pants (I wish I had that problem). The problem we were having was that I couldn’t actually find any belts in the stores that she could do by herself.  Step in Myself Belts.  These belts are a lifesaver in my house.  They are velcro, so Madison can do it herself.  Actually, Will my 2 year old can do it himself too.   It’s a great way to promote independence with your kids.  These are perfect for special needs too, because they literally can undo and do this belt with one hand.  They even have adult sizes (which I think is awesome since I can imagine how difficult a regular belt must be if you have arthritis).  Price wise, these belts are cheaper than anything I found in the stores (which Madison couldn’t do).

I can only highly recommend these belts.  My kids can do them by themselves, they are hardy, and the price is right.  What more can you ask for?

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