Showing posts with label DK books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label DK books. Show all posts

April 9, 2013

The Birds of North America that visited our garden

House Sparrow
Birds of North America is a complete photographic guide to every Bird species we will see in North America written by experts from Canada and US. We really enjoyed learning about birds from this jargon-free book.  This guide has close up, colourful photography that brings over 650 birds species to life. It is a wonderful reference book to people of all ages with all levels of experience. We liked learning about the social behaviours and nesting habits of the birds we encounter during different seasons. Learning and recognizing the different species of birds becomes easier with a colourful book like this.

March 22, 2013

A Quilling Project In Celebration of the National Craft Month

I enjoying doing crafts since I was a child. I find doing crafts to be relaxing and enjoy it even when the crafts don't always turn out the way it is intended. Now my children and I enjoy doing crafts together.

This fabulous Craft: Techniques and Projects book composed by a team of craft experts has loads of of ideas that is sure to please a lot of people. There are six sections in the book separated by textile, paper craft, jewelry, ceramics and glass, candles and soap, and eco crafts. All the projects come with details about the tools and materials. There are templates in the back of the book that are useful to do the projects.  

I enjoy quilling or doing paper filigree, so I chose to do this quilled flower arrangement project from the book and placed the finished project in a frame.  

Quilling is a centuries-old art of making decorative shapes with paper. This craft is lots of fun and addictive once you learn how to do it. I think to enjoy and do the projects properly we need to have the correct tools.
For this project...
I used quilling paper that is sold pre-cut, however if you wish you can cut 1/8" wide coloured paper using a craft knife.  
Quilling tool or the book suggests we use a toothpick, however I haven't used a toothpick to do quilling.
Cardstock to paste the project.
2 tweezers helped me place the pieces.
PVA or transparent glue.
Toothpick and a post-it-note paper to put the glue.

To create this project I used the quilling tool to roll the paper then let it unravel a bit. After playing with the lightly unraveled piece of quilled paper to make shapes, I glued the end so the pieces don't unravel all the way. I planned on how I want to place the pieces before gluing the quilled shapes carefully using the tweezers. After the project was completed I displayed it in a frame.
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March 14, 2013

Children's Book of Music

Children's book of Music is an introduction to the world's music and its history i.e. early music (50000BCE-1600CE), classical music (1600-1900) and modern music (1900-).  This book teaches children and adults different styles of music, about the works and lives of composers, performers and about different types of instruments found around the world.  This book includes a CD with songs and sounds that are highlighted in the book, which is interesting to listen to.
I like how music is defined in this book; it says that music is not just a tune, steady beat, one sound or a composition as we can hear it everywhere.  This reminds me of a song that we like listening to by Dawud Wharnsby "Can you hear the rhythm?"
In early music, people used animal bones and things such as a gum leaf from an eucalyptus tree to imitate the sound of birds, and hollowed out logs of eucalyptus trees and animal skins to make drums.  My children made some of their own instruments such as this drum and rattle.  
Music such as playing the didgeridoo by the Australian aboriginal men is similar to the tuba or trombone, which is believed to improve and help with breathing, reduce snoring and to sleep better.
Music and instruments from different parts of the world has been a way of people showing their cultural identity.  This book draws our attention to sounds from Africa, China, Indonesia, India, Japan and other countries.  
I enjoyed reading the details about famous musicians such as Ali Ibn Nafi also known as Ziryab or Blackbird from the 9th century Persian court, which was the center of learning, trade, music and culture.  Ziryab left the Baghdad Persian court (now in Iraq) and went to settle in the Islamic court in Southern Spain where he became famous. 
This book has lots of information about music that will benefit all those who are interested in learning about its history and interesting facts.

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March 3, 2013

Time for Play with these DK books and making gooey slime


For children play is a form of serious learning, so let this March Break be a Time for Play.  This list of specially priced DK Books will inspire and help solve the problem of "What should I do?" questions especially during the upcoming March Break.  These books will allow fun and creativity to flow. 
This Alien Robots Science Book will be enjoyed by all the children and parents, although it is recommended for children age 7 to 12 years.  I like this super cool book as it has lots of fun robots that we can assemble with our children.  
I got my children's help to find the correct pieces to assemble and make six awesome robots.  
We learned about friction, motors, levers, gears, axles and propellers.  It explains physics, mechanics, forces and motion theories.  

This video will show how the robot spun, while the robot spun against the wood it made noise so lower the volume on your computer if needed :)
This Book Made Me Do It is a fun book that we can keep looking and learning from.  We can learn many interesting things from this book and I really recommend it for everyone.  We can brush up our know how about so many things such as arts, crafts, horoscope, interesting facts, origami, sports, food and more.  
We made this gooey slime, which is a messy but a fun experiment that children and adults will enjoy.  
To make this you will need...
1 cup cornstarch plus more
1/2 cup water
few drops food colouring

Put the cornstarch in a bowl then slowly add about 1/2 cup of water, stirring all the time.  It will become a gooey mixture.  Add the colouring then stir.  We can also add glitter at this point but we didn't do this part.  
Add more cornstarch to make the mixture roll into a dough between the hands and you will notice the gooey slime melt but when it drops it will become a solid and stick to the table.    

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February 9, 2013

Beaded Jewelry: Creating our own style

Maya Brenner introduces us to simple, bold and modern jewelry making through her book Beaded Jewelry.  Her designs are worn by celebrities and are featured on many magazines and media.  

December 14, 2012

A Science Kit that Entertains and Educates

This Science Kit from DK books has taught and entertained my children and I with many scientific facts.  There are over 100 experiments inside the kit that allows us to experiment with easy to find material from around our home.  The kit also includes some material that we need to start experiments. 
Although, this kit is intended for children over 8 years my 4 year old son liked joining his sister and me to do these experiments and to be part of it.  My daughter inferred her knowledge from school when we did some of the experiments.
This type of kits and books encourage children to start liking a subject such as science and makes it a part of their lives, rather than just "school subjects".  When parents get involved with teaching and making this type of learning fun from an early age, children will not think of it as a "chore" to learn subjects like science and geography.
This Science kit has action packed experiments that teach how everyday things work, so we can see and marvel at the mysteries of science.  We don't need to be a "science whiz" to do these experiments because the instructions are step-by-step.  I just wish the book has close up pictures on some instruction that need us to cut or do things more carefully; for example when we did the spinning helicopter it didn't exactly turn out the way it is supposed to because I didn't understand on how to cut the straw correctly, but we still had fun experimenting and trying to figure it out.  After all when experiments go wrong that too is science; that is what I told my children :)
When we did this experiment of inflating a balloon without blowing on it my children were involved and looked in awe at the result :)  I felt good trying to make connections and teaching them about carbon dioxide and how gas molecules take up more space than liquid molecules.  
You will need...
a balloon
glass bottle with a narrow neck
vinegar
baking soda
funnel

1. Pour vinegar into the bottle until it fills 1/4 of the bottle.
2. Fill baking soda into the neck of a balloon through a funnel until it is half full.
3. Stretch the balloon over the mouth of the balloon and leave it to hang.
4. When you are ready for action quickly lift the balloon so that the baking soda falls into the bottle.
5. Voila the balloon will inflate.
I asked my children to record the observations of the experiment in the book that came along with the kit.  My little one drew the picture while my elder one labeled and wrote what happened in the experiment.
I like that these types of kits encourage learning while children have fun.
Contest:
DK Canada books is having a holiday contest so we can win a DK shopping spree worth $250.  The contest ends on December 17th. 
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October 1, 2012

DK LEGO books and contest

This LEGO DK ultimate sticker collection book was really enjoyed by my little one.  It is better to paste the stickers with the young children instead of them doing the book by themselves.  This way we can ask questions and talk about which stickers belong where i.e. which sticker should we put in the farm or the zoo etc.  
This LEGO DK Brickmaster brings reading and play together.  It helps children follow instructions and build creative toys.  This set allows children to recreate the story that they have read.  It was fun to build the LEGO pieces with my children and see the lego characters from the book in action as the children played with them.  

I liked that the book has five chapters so we can read and build one chapter at a time.  With each progressing chapter the amount of building increases.  Children can also get creative to make their own structures and tell their own story.  This LEGO DK book is for children over the age of 5 years although with supervision 3 1/2 to 4 year old children can participate.  
My daughter enjoyed reading this DK reader about Friends. She liked the pictures throughout the book and related the story to the LEGO characters. 

The story in the reader was interesting so she didn't mind sitting to read the whole book :) These types of DK readers are encouraging for the children to read. The books have fun stories with reading levels. The stories are not too long to finish reading from beginning to end for young children.
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August 2, 2012

My Art book Animals and artwork with foil

My Art book: Animals is full of special, easy to follow art projects.  The projects are inspired by a variety of famous masterpieces.  Animals were the inspiration of the artwork that was done by these artists. 
The step-by-step instructions in the book help us to make our own artwork.  We can add our own creative flair, discuss, discover and interpret the techniques the artists have used.
Here is a project from the book that we added our own creativity to.  The book has a project on tin tortoise, which is inspired by the wooden rhino.
Making an engraved painting with tin foil
foil tray preferably one without any markings
masking tape
scissors
tracing paper
pens
wooden skewers
paint
brush

Find an image you like and trace the outline of it.
Cut the foil tray to a slightly bigger size than the traced image.
Tape the tracing paper over the cut foil.
Using a different colour pen press firmly and draw over the outline of the picture.  
Then using another colour pen draw details.  Check every now and again without moving the foil out of place to see if the prints are visible on the foil.
Once the drawing part is done.  Colour the outside with paint.  I painted a smooth thick layer in black.  My daughter painted the background with the paintbrush in a sponge painting technique using green.
The finished artwork can be displayed or can be placed has a shiny cover for a binder or notebook.
There were instructions on how to draw animals with charcoal, making stencils with household goods, paper collage using different tones of colour, making wire sculptures using garden wires and pliers and many more projects.  The glossary in the book explains the meanings of art techniques and art media.  
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April 22, 2012

Needlecraft and Embroidery card


If you are a person who loves crafts or want to learn a new skill look for this needlecraft book from DK publishing. It has all the information we will ever need to know about knitting, crocheting, quilting, embroidery, needlepoint, patchwork and appliqué.

March 24, 2012

Learning French


Language learner French published by DK publishing is all that is needed for a beginner to start learning and talking in French. It has activities, pictures, a wordbook, 200 word dictionary, basic grammar, useful phrases, CD and flashcards.

The table of content is in English and French. The activities are organized by themes and are linked to the CD which helps improve pronunciation. There are also listening activities and games on the CD.

The picture dictionary is colourful and has 26 topics. It is organized by place and similar things. The dictionary encourages to think and converse, which in turn will increase vocabulary.
It has examples of simple questions and sentence answers that relates to each topic. The french words have the translation in english and transliteration underneath each word.


There are 5 sets of 12 cards with vocabulary and pictures. Each section of the book has fun games and puzzles to practice which uses these flashcards and dice.

There is a tip section throughout the book, which explains useful grammar. There are photographed images with speech bubbles that introduces key words and sentences with english translation. This package also has a reference section with useful vocabulary, grammar and phrases.

The learning strategies in this book will be enjoyed by children and adults who are learning the language for the first time or refreshing their French. It is reasonably priced around $20 so do check it out.


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March 7, 2012

March break giveaway from DK books and Face plate craft

Next week is March break :) We get to spend some quality time with our children during the day. It is better to plan the week;) at least some of the days so it will be smooth.


Books like My Art book and Make it today, give inspiring ideas. They have lots of familiar and new crafts and art to do with our children i.e. painting faces, making masks, picture frames and painting stones.

My Art Book published by DK publishing is a fabulous, creative book with glossy step-by-step pictures and instructions that explain and inspire children to watercolour landscapes, pastel portraits, to make mosaics etc... It is a lovely introduction to history and technique of art with young children.
Make it by Jane Bull is a book filled with craft ideas made from recycled material and things we find around our home. It teaches eco-friendly ideas to children as they create personalized artwork and jewelry.

We look forward to put these books to good use during the break.
Here is an idea from Createwithmom to make Face plates
paper plates
construction paper
oil pastel
glue
scissors
popsicle sticks optional

Let the children imagine any type of face they want to make. Then tell them to think big :) draw the features of the character i.e. bunny, a person etc... on the construction paper. Then cut the shapes. Older children can cut it by themselves and help the young children to cut.

Let the children stick the features however they imagine on to the paper plates. They might want to put popsicle sticks to create a play. You can improve their literacy and imagination by asking them to tell you a story about the characters they have made.
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