Category Archives: mamapreneur

Book Review: Secrets of Winter

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Secrets of Winter
Written by Carron Brown
Illustrated by Bee Johnson
by Kane Miller EDC Publishing

We didn’t have a playdate to post yesterday since we took the week off for Thanksgiving last Thursday.  So today, I’m sharing a sneak-peek into yesterday’s WINTER playdate.

My inspiration for this playdate was the changing of season this month.  I had the perfect book to share, Secrets of Winter by Carron Brown & Georgina Tee. This book was new in our library this school year – I purchased it from my friend Tina, who is a rep for Usborne Books.

The story introduces the idea of exploring through a winter evening.  The pictures alternate between full color and black&white, which seemed to keep the children’s attention. There is the added intrigue of seeing an additional image revealed when you shine a light through the page!

There is no need to trim the story as the storyteller. The story moves along with 2-3 sentences and/or statements per page.  It also shows a large variety of animals and how they manage through the winter weather, so there are fun animal facts being acquired along with the visual enjoyment of the book.

Our guests and my own Sweet Peas thoroughly enjoyed the book! Their ages ranged from 2 years to 11 years old. From the endpaper printed with delightful animal prints, to the hidden surprises revealed with a flashlight on every page, there are endless ways to enjoy this book.

In fact, the children liked it so much, I sat with my legs out in front of me in order to keep the circle wide enough for everyone to see! That is definitely a first, and always a welcome sight to see children enjoying a book so much that they are piling on top of each other to get closer.

You can purchase your own copy of Secrets of Winter, other books in the “Secrets of” series, or anything else Usborne has to offer by following THIS link to Tina’s online store.  Any orders placed before 12/10/2015 will arrive in time for Christmas gifting.

Happy reading!! Stay tuned for next Thursday’s installment of “Preschool Playdate” when I share all the activites we did to celebrate winter (hint: we had a snowball fight in Arizona!!).

 

This and That

Very exciting news to share…I had the honor of being invited to an event in Southern CA.  Wow!  It’s official…I will be at the Club MomMe Spring Family Fest next Saturday!! I am so excited…I get to “walk the red carpet” for the first time.  (Mad scramble through the closet happening later today all week!)  Puma asked if she could go – bless her heart.  I am confident that in a couple more years, she will absolutely be going with me to help with pictures and interviews.  That will be a day to look forward to!

I also wanted to share a link to a post I did over on Sweet Pea Births today.  We started our journey to a greener life when we were Bradley Method® students nine years ago.  It made us aware that we needed to read labels and avoid harmful substances.  I got complacent and figured that if a product was labeled “green”, “safe”, “natural”, “-free”, then it was safe enough to be brought into our home.

I have learned the hard way that corporations can put pretty much anything they want on the label.  It is up to us as the consumers to educate ourselves on the toxic ingredients and read every.single.label before we put it on our shopping cart.

If you are interested in seeing the breakdown of ingredients in baby wipes, click HERE.  As I did the research for this post, I was so grateful for the friends in our lives who aren’t afraid to get on their soapboxes and make us open our eyes and hearts to new ways of living.  We have used diaper wipes as often as ten times a day when our Sweet Peas are little, and many of us are used to keeping them in our bags long after a Sweet Pea is out of diapers because they are just so useful!

Now that we know better, and we want to teach our children to be good stewards of the environment, we are happily entrenched in our cloth wipes and cleaning spray solution.  So consider me the friend on the soapbox, and please take a look so that you and your Sweet Pea can eliminate another set of toxins from your everyday exposure.

*Steps off SoapBox*

Once it’s up, I will post a link to the interview with the wonderful MomMe’s organizing the Club MomMe Spring Fest.  Be sure to check in on the SPB blog tomorrow to see what kind of family fun can be had in the Valley of the Sun, aka Phoenix, AZ.

HAPPY FRIDAY 🙂