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Coraline

November 20th 2009 01:26
My daughter loves the animated movie Coraline so loudly announced that it is Coraline week in our house giving me about five minutes notice to organise some activities for us to do.

Thankfully Coraline.com came to our aid and we were able to button eye images of both myself and my daughter as well as create online button flowers. There was also a fun print image in which the circus mice could also spell out my daughter's name.


We sat down to watch Coraline the movie for about the tenth time and if she was a little older I am sure she would enjoy the original novel from which the film was adapted from.

We also discovered a website which featured numerous Coraline pictures to colour and set out on a counting exercise to find out exactly how many windows and doors we had in our house.

Luckily I had some buttons set aside for just such a crafting exercise and we drew some dolls and created our very own button eyed dolls and button gardens.

It is amazing what you can come up with in five minutes if you put your mind to it!



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Cranberry Thanksgiving

October 2nd 2009 18:39
Cranberry Thanksgiving written by Wende and Harry Devlin in 1971 is one of those time honoured books that lends itself to family traditions - in the case of Cranberry Thanksgiving it is Cranberry Bread.

Cranberry Thanksgiving is the story of a young girl named Maggie who lives with her Grandmother near a cranberry bog in New England. The book includes some interesting characters and colourful illustrations and the story takes some interesting twists and turns, demonstrating that looks can be deceiving. It even includes Grandmother’s Famous Cranberry Bread recipe for you to bake at home.


DLTK features a fun Thanksgiving mini book for kindergarten children to colour as well as Thanksgiving crafts to do including pilgrims, turkeys and pumpkins. And those in need of a pumpkin template then look no further - Preschool Express features pumpkins in three sizes for you to copy and cut out for your crafting needs.

Crayola features a Happy Thanksgiving page to colour as well as a fun turkey craft.

The fun dolls Eddie and Amy which often come to our aid also feature Thanksgiving clothing and for those doubly organised, Halloween costumes as well.

It is is a time for giving thanks and hopefully the poems over at Thanksgiving Day manage to convey the spirit of the holiday.

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Halloween Lesson Plans

October 1st 2009 13:50
October already and that means only one thing for children (particularly in North America) - Halloween. This is a fun time for children to let their imagination run wild and it is great to incorporate monsters, goblins, ghouls and witches into the curriculum to inspire their creativity and imagination.

For history buffs it is interesting to go over the facts behind the tradition and if you are unfamiliar with the history then drop over to TIme For Kids to give you the lowdown.

It is certainly not Halloween without a pumpkin and Youth Online gives an amazing 101 Things To Do With A Pumpkin. DLTK also provides an easy pumpkin template to use with the younger students as well as Halloween printables and colouring pages.

Math Drills gets into the action with their Halloween themed spider maths page and ABC Teach have a whole page dedicated to Halloween fun.
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Don't Discount Second Hand Stores

September 18th 2009 17:35
Investigating a new area to live, I started checking out all the stores - second hand stores included and noticed what bargains they had to offer particularly in the way of kids educational computer games and books. We managed to make some great savings and many of the books and cds were priced at $2 or less!

The Little Bear Preschool Thinking Adventure normally sells for between $10 and $15 and we picked it up for $1. A definite bargain!

We found a lot of Scholastic and Disney titles and there were purchases that kept both my daughter and I very happy.

Stores like Value Village (Canada) also have a 50% off day so it is worth popping in just to see what they may have in stock. Cheap is good but cheaper is better!

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Speakaboos

June 2nd 2009 02:38
The Speakaboo website served a great purpose this week as it gave us an online version of The Ugly Duckling to read and view as well as a follow on activity, but the site itself holds an interesting premise.

Coming soon, as the site announces, is a record your own story section which will allow kids and parents to record their own voices reading (or singing!) their favorite story, song, or nursery rhyme. Anything that aids in the improvement and creation of kids wanting to read or listen to stories is a great idea.
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Ugly Duckling Week

May 31st 2009 07:02
This may sound like some poor joke but it is the book to which my daughter has chosen to base all of her crafts and activities this week. Again being a popular story like The Three Liltte Pigs, there is no shortage for either crafts or activities we can do together.

We have various Ugly Duckling and Swan pictures to cut out and glue together, although my favourite is this 3D duck. We are unable to source the plastic eggs although are going to amend it slightly by using small paper cups which should do the trick just nicely


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Send In The Clowns

May 24th 2009 02:59
Admittedly I am not a fan of clowns, preferring to see them at children's parties rather than adorned all over my wall. So the inclusion of Clown Week into our schedule took me a little by surprise to say the least.

Loonette and Molly from the Canadian Series, The Big Comfy Couch, are a particular favourite in our house so at least I had a starting point on which to base our activities. And in particular I love the concept of a 10-second tidy which we are going to incorporate with a clown based cleaning chart
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BBC Stories

May 14th 2009 00:50
CBeebies, the children's BBC website, has a great range of stories to watch and read along with and will easily inspire your children.

Currently my daughter's favourite, she enjoys listening to the stories and selecting her own depending on her mood. The stories are excerpts from the children's programs featured on the BBC channel such as The Tweenies, The Story Makers and Charlie and Lola


[ Click here to read more ]
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The Three Little Pigs

May 12th 2009 04:39
From one classic fairytale to another, this week's activities surround the ever popular children's tale, The Three Little Pigs.

Being such a popular story, it seems that there is no shortage for inspiration on the web covering all kinds of activities, colouring pages and ideas to complement the story


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Jack And The Beanstalk

May 3rd 2009 10:22
My daughter was very excited that today marked the first day of Giant Week aka Jack And The Beanstalk Week. Having changed her mind at the last minute from her original choice of The Ugly Duckling, she had me do some last minute website searching in order to come up with some creative ideas.

Thankfully the BBC had an online adapted story about Jack and The Beanstalk which she enjoyed watching which led us into a discussion about Real or Make Believe. Tina's fun little online game came to our aid just to refamiliarise her with our discussion


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The Golden Egg Book

April 24th 2009 09:21
Whilst we may be a little late for Easter, next week's topic is "bunny week" as my daughter now constantly refers. We are basing our activities on or around The Golden Egg Book originally published in 1947, written by Margaret Wise Brown.

The story tells of a little bunny who stumbles upon an egg. The bunny becomes curious as he can hear something moving inside the egg. His imagination runs wild and the impatient bunny tries to shake, push, and even jump on the egg in his attempts to break it. But all his efforts go in vain as the stubborn egg refuses to budge. The mystery unravels when the egg begins to hatch and much to the bunny's surprise, a little duck comes out. The bunny and the duck then become friends


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Free Online Children's Books

April 13th 2009 02:26
As an expat abroad, I am always searching for new stories to share with my daughter.

The Children's Library is a non-profit organisation offering a wide variety of free paper books to be read online including stories such as Axle The Freeway Cat, Blinky Bill, Cinderella and Mother Goose


[ Click here to read more ]
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Little Mermaid Week

April 9th 2009 02:07
We are taking a theme from one of my daughter's books and are basing activities and stories throughout the week on the theme of her choice. Her choice this week - The Little Mermaid - apt for someone who currently wants to be a mermaid when she grows up!

Doing a quick search on the internet so far we have uncovered sheet music and lyrics for a number of the tracks including Part of Your World and Under The Sea
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Five In A Row

April 1st 2009 01:49
Five In A Row is a unique program which is ideal for home schooling or extra learning and combines children's literature with creative lesson plans involving social studies, language, art, applied maths and science.

The main program is designed for young children from 4-8 although the Before Five In A Row, Beyond Five In A Row and Above and Beyond Five In A Row caters from 2 up until the ages of 12 onwards


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