I am very excited about the December specials for Story Time Felts.  These two sets are my absolute favorites for preschoolers.  The subject and materials are sure to engage your little one in lots of meaningful play.

December Specials are availabel now!

Christmas Ordering Deadlines:
East Coast: Dec. 7
Midwest: Dec. 12
West Coast Dec. 17

Also, all Story Time Felts products are made in the USA!

Carrie Lauth of Natural Moms Talk Radio has written a wonderful guide with tips on selecting toys for your children tha tare safe and timeless.  I am happy to say that she is letting me share her guide!

Pick up your copy today:

I think that many stores are listening to their customers because I am finding that more an more online stores are creating specific categories for their American made toys.  The latest store to add this category is HearthSong.

I am glad that they did this because I have gotten their catalog many times and have wondered if any of their unique toys were made in the USA.  Now it is easy to figure it out.

This is a great resource if you like to shop at Amazon.com.

I have set up a selection of American made toys that you can purchase at Amazon.  The toys are grouped by age range for easier shopping.

American made Toys at Amazon

I almost forgot to add Heirloom Wooden Toys to the list of online stores that carry a wide variety of toys that are made in the USA.  Their large selection includes wood blocks, baby rattles, cars, trucks, beautiful wood kitchen sets and many more items.  I think they have the largest selection of American made toys that I have seen in one store.

You can check it all out here:  HeirloomWoodenToys.com

I think that this was one of my favorite things to do when I was little.  If you don’t know what it is, it’s a potholder loom.  I remember making these for EVERYONE in my family and I think that my mom still has at least one left.  This is on my list of things I am going to get my daughter for Christmas.  She has gotten really crafty lately and I am sure she will love it.

Even better, this one by Harrisville is American made.
Kids’ Weaving Classic Potholder Loom

When I think of critical thinking I think of math even though it is something that is used in every aspect of out lives.  My kids love to play games, as do most kids, and the most basic games can develop critical thinking.

When my son was younger we were playing the card game War.  During the game I say that light bulb go off in his head.  He grasped the concept of what numbers are bigger than others, number value.

More recently we have been playing a lot of Mastermind.  We have the kid’s version which I think is a good place to start.  You have to match 3 colors instead of 4.  I have really seen Eli “get it.”  It took some time and I had to model my own thinking when it was my turn to figure out the color pattern, but he definitely gets it now.  Actually, I know that he understand because he talks out his thinking which is what he has watch me do.

I always love watching those light bulbs go on.

Here is the Mastermind game that we play if you’ve never seen it before.

I wanted to share a color science activity that I did the other day.  This is a very simple activity to do, but it is very good at showing a child how the colors that they use every day are often made up of other colors.

Here is how ours turned out.  It is not easy to see all of the seperation from the picture.  The green seperating into blue and yellow can be seen pretty good in the picture though.  One of the colors that suprised us was grey.  When it seperated we could see purple and yellow.  Try this yourself and see if any of the colors suprise you.

Well, it has taken me a little bit of time to get these picture off of my camera, but we had a really fun Halloween.  We had great weather and our neighborhood goes all out.  I have really never seen anything like what happens in my neighborhood.  Down the hill there is a chef who puts out a huge spread of cookies, cider, hot chocolate, soups, meat balls…  It is amazing.  He even had Monsters Inc. running so people could sit down and take a rest.

There are many, many houses decorated beyone belief and most people are sitting outside their houses passing out the candy.  It is really a great atmosphere in this wonderful neighborhood with hundreds of kids out in costume.

Here are my kiddos as a pioneer girl and Under Dog.

I had to include pictures of my parents because they are too cute.  They came trick or treating with us.