Written by Jeanne McNaney and illustrated by David Cochard, Miracle in Sumatra: The Story of Gutsy Gus is one of the most original picture books that I’ve read. Gabriella, the guardian angel of the Sumatra forest, transforms a young girl named Maya into an orangutan to help Gus the orangutan rescue his parents and [...]]]>

Written by Jeanne McNaney and illustrated by David Cochard, Miracle in Sumatra: The Story of Gutsy Gus is one of the most original picture books that I’ve read. Gabriella, the guardian angel of the Sumatra forest, transforms a young girl named Maya into an orangutan to help Gus the orangutan rescue his parents and to help the adult humans understand the devastation caused by animal trade and deforestation. The story introduces religious elements into what I would typically consider a legend-style narrative. The illustrations are colorful, with highly expressive faces, but they contain a couple of inconsistencies. At one point the story says that a man is hanging over a “raging waterfall”, but the illustration shows him dangling above two crocodiles in still water, and Maya’s outfit changes from t-shirt and jeans at the start of the book to a dress at the end. The style of illustration is one that I could see appealing to a wide age range of children. There is a lot of text, more than my kids were willing to sit through at their current ages (two and nearly four). They did, however, enjoy looking at the pictures while I narrated an abbreviated version of the story – and I think an older child would enjoy hearing the book or reading it on their own.

I think the book could be enhanced by including an educational section at the back with a few scientific facts, as I have found in several other books on similar topics. You can find more information on these topics through the book website. As it stands, the book is a great way to get children thinking about the impacts of animal trade and deforestation, and it encourages young people to stand up for others.

I received a copy of this book to review, and I have been offered a second copy as a giveaway. I’m excited to say that this giveaway is open WORLDWIDE! To enter:

• Tell me why you are interested in this book (mandatory entry)
• Tell me which of the charities listed at the book website you find most interesting (1 extra entry)
• Follow this blog (1 extra entry)
• Subscribe to this blog via email (1 extra entry)

You can leave separate comments, or you can tell me which things you did in a single comment – I’ll compile all entries into a spreadsheet to choose the winner so it doesn’t matter to me which one you do.

This giveaway runs until 9am US Eastern Time on February 15th, at which point I will choose a winner via random.org.

Asian New Year and Valentine’s Day fall on the same day this year, so I thought I’d combine my favorites on both topics into a single post.

We took our 2009 calendar and cut out the big pictures and the little ones from the back of the calendar to make a matching game. Not an original idea – I’m sure I’ve seen it somewhere in blogland and I remember doing it as a kid as well – but simple, fun, and [...]]]>

We took our 2009 calendar and cut out the big pictures and the little ones from the back of the calendar to make a matching game. Not an original idea – I’m sure I’ve seen it somewhere in blogland and I remember doing it as a kid as well – but simple, fun, and a good opportunity to talk about scale (in very simple terms).

If so, check out Andrea’s sew-along! Click on the button to go to her blog, where you can learn all about it!

Congratulations to LiEr, the winner of my Bamboo Leg Huggers giveaway!

January ended with a week of sickness reminiscent of the virus Emma and Johnny had for the entire month of August last year. I took them to the doctor on day three this time around, but they still weren’t able to do anything. We’ll be [...]]]>

Congratulations to LiEr, the winner of my Bamboo Leg Huggers giveaway!

January ended with a week of sickness reminiscent of the virus Emma and Johnny had for the entire month of August last year. I took them to the doctor on day three this time around, but they still weren’t able to do anything. We’ll be going back this week (as soon as I get an appointment) since they aren’t much better than they were a week ago. Last week was a bit of a nightmare, with all three children crying miserably for large parts of each day and me wracking my brain with ideas of new ways to distract them from their misery. I’ve never been more grateful for baking soda, vinegar, and food coloring.  I even resorted to Barney, whose voice irritates me but who sends Emma into a trance that I typically find alarming but was grateful for as an alternative to misery. I am extremely grateful I am for my children’s good health the vast majority of the time.

We had a lot of fun during the first part of January, and so I was able make reasonable progress on my goals for the month. I had dinner on the table for the kids at (roughly) 5pm most evenings. They were much happier on the nights when that happened, so it’s definitely something I want to continue. We exceeded my donation goal, with Emma even agreeing to give away a few toys she actually liked instead of offering to simply give away more of Johnny’s and Lily’s toys. Emma played around with reading games and exercises, but she wasn’t interested in actually learning to read in a studied fashion. I’m in no rush for her to read, so we’ll take things at her pace.

I am happy to report that we made a LOT of progress on playing gently with Lily, although I caught both Emma and Johnny trying to pick her up on their own. It helps that Lily is getting more interactive every day, and so Emma and Johnny are learning that her laughter is much more rewarding than her tears.

Goals for February (based off of my annual target areas of health, peace, education, gratitude, and charity, which you can read more about here):

• Keep a rotating list of five possible dinner options. This is my alternative to a planned menu. If I make one thing, I have to add a new fifth item to the list – and I have to have all of the ingredients for all five dinners in the house. I like the greater flexibility of this option over a daily planned menu, since sometimes I plan to make one thing but the kids are too high-maintenance for it to work. I’m not allowed to include frozen pizza, which I like to keep on hand as my emergency back-up dinner. Here are my first dinner ideas: lasagna, chicken soup with alphabet noodles, burritos, chili with rice, and black bean soup. Have a favorite recipe you think we’d like? Please share! Target areas: health and peace.
• Do something fun for Valentine’s Day (set the standard high in terms of doing stuff for Mike last year). Our local mother’s club is planning to deliver valentines at the local nursing home, so hopefully my kids are healthy in time for that. Target areas: gratitude and charity.
• Keep a list of at least five activities the kids can choose from of things to do with me. Like the dinner options list, I have to have all the materials set up for all five activities, and I want to rotate activities in and out. Some starter activities: play piano/violin (Emma and Johnny both have violins, which they love to play most un-melodiously), build with pattern blocks, play with the spelling puzzles I picked up at Costco on Saturday (Incidentally, did you know that Costco sells products through Amazon? Their products are cheaper through their actual site, though), play “Guess what Mama is trying to make with play dough”, and pick out one of the new kitchen science experiments from the fabulous comments on this post.  Target areas: education and peace.
• Plan and celebrate Emma’s birthday. I’m hoping to get lots of ideas from Emma on what she wants to do for her birthday and how to plan fun activities for her friends. Any great fourth birthday party ideas that will work inside a small house on a cold day? Please do let me know? Target areas: gratitude.
• Have a (home) photoshoot of Lily on her six-month birthday. I can’t believe she turns six months old this week! Target areas: gratitude

What are you hoping to achieve this month?

Thinking about science reminded me of using toothpicks and marshmallows to build molecular models, buildings, and bridges as a child. So I pulled some out for the kids.

Johnny mainly [...]]]> A huge thank you for the fantastic comments on my kitchen chemistry post yesterday – I see many fun experiments in our future!

Thinking about science reminded me of using toothpicks and marshmallows to build molecular models, buildings, and bridges as a child. So I pulled some out for the kids.

Johnny mainly ate them (I had to remove the bag after his third or fourth marshmallow), but Emma had a great time playing. She even (unwittingly) built a beautiful H2O model:

Her final masterpiece? This monster:

He is still being admired, three days later.

I generally recommend using mini marshmallows for this type of activity, but we didn’t have any in the house – and the jumbo marshmallow made a lovely monster body. But check out this post from The Living Classroom for examples of some of the cool things you can make with mini marshmallows if you have slightly older children!

We made play dough for the first time last week, and I am wondering why I didn’t try making it earlier. It was fun for the kids, super easy, and way softer than the store-bought stuff. Here’s the recipe we used, handed down from my mom (I halved her recipe to make a smaller [...]]]>

We made play dough for the first time last week, and I am wondering why I didn’t try making it earlier. It was fun for the kids, super easy, and way softer than the store-bought stuff. Here’s the recipe we used, handed down from my mom (I halved her recipe to make a smaller batch):

1/2 cup flour
1 Tablespoon oil (we used olive oil, because it’s what we had)
1/2 cup water (add food coloring to water)
1/4 cup salt 
1 tsp cream of tartar

Mix dry ingredients together. Add oil and water (we heated our water first, to make it cook a little faster). Heat over medium heat. Stir constantly until it comes away from sides of pan. Knead slightly. Store in plastic bags or Tupperware. 

Inspired by this post at Filth Wizardry, I brought out a bunch of googley eyes for my kids to use. Emma made one monster (the tiny one in the photo on the left), but cute as it was it didn’t meet her expectations – so she started a new game called “stuff as many googley eyes into the play dough as possible”. Then the eyes would peek out on their own, creating interesting monsters (see the picture at the top of this page) and occasionally scaring Johnny.

If you like the idea of googley eyes and play dough, you might want to check out the other materials Nicole’s son used in addition to googley eyes in this post at Tired, Need Sleep.