David and I spent part of the day yesterday assembling Christmas cards for grandparents, uncles and cousins. We bought a few kits from The Oriental Trading Company, but the what really sparked the creativity was paper artist Robert Sabuda’s site, where he offers patterns and plans for a bunch of simple pop-ups, many of which are great for Christmas.

My favorite was the Christmas tree, while David liked the snowflake best. We finally had to stop experimenting when we ran out of cardstock.

Since my blogging has been slow lately, and I really have not much to blog about, I thought I’d offer some suggestions for toy purchases for the younger set seein’ as there’s only four weeks till Christmas…

So, here are the best and worst toys I’ve purchased this year, as well as a short list of toys I am considering and those I’ve scratched off my list entirely.

The Best Toy Purchases I’ve Made This Year

A dollar store super-size Snakes & Ladders game. For a buck, this plastic sheet of a game board and super sized pieces has gotten TONS of use.

David’s Puppet theater (plus an assortment of puppets) has been used constantly since we got it. My only regret is that we didn’t buy one with a larger stage like this.

LEGO Mosaics — These are great fun. The patterns that come with the sets are neat, and you can get more online from the Lego site.

AquaPlay - We got a set before summer, and it was a constant outdoor amusement. Water, boats, waves, pumps… what’s not to love? It would be an even better buy if it weren’t too cold to play with water outside for six months of the year.

LeapFrog Leapster — While this isn’t a constant plaything, it always comes along for long car, train and plane rides, and always passes the time quickly. Well worth the investment.

Rush Hour — While the box said it was for ages 8 and up, David first played this at his uncle’s house, and was hooked on it instantly. He bought it with his own money a few days later, and hasn’t lost interest in it after several months.

ScienceWiz Balance Scale - This $10 item was an impulse purchase that’s had more use than I ever imagined. It’s been fun seeing David weigh various things, as well as figure out how to balance the weights themselves. It’s tiny, and not very robust, but we’ve been careful with it and it has weathered frequent use quite well.

The Worst Toy Purchases I’ve Made This Year

Mega Blocks Spiderman 3 building set — not only was this Spider-Man vehicle set too hard for David to figure out how to build on his own, it was too hard for me to help him with, and nearly stumped his dad. The Mega Blocks blocks don’t hold together nearly as well as Lego, and the thing fell apart soon after it was assembled, whereupon it got put in a box and hasn’t been looked at since.

Marble Run — This one amazes me. I thought this would be a hit, but it’s been out of the box maybe twice in half a year.

Toys I Might Buy

Crazy Forts Construction Set
If I can find this in stock somewhere before Christmas, I’m pretty sure it’ll find its way under the tree. “Simply connect the balls and sticks and cover the structure with bedsheets to create places where imaginations flourish. Durable, portable and best of all, there’s no batteries required! You can build your own creation, a playhouse for parties, tunnels or connect with friends for spectacular structures.”

Sno-Paint
There’s no shortage of snow this year (or any year) around here, so this might be a fun addition to fort and snowman building. It’s not expensive, and I’m absolutely certain David would have fun with it so long as the painting process isn’t too difficult to do with mittens on.

Eskimold
It seems expensive for what amounts to a plastic block with a little shovel, but if it truly does make it easy to build an igloo, it might be worth looking into. And as I mentioned, there’s no shortage of snow expected any time soon.

Toys I’ve Ruled Out

Eye Clops Bionic Eye
I admit I love the concept, but since it’s tied to a TV, its utterly useless for us. Maybe EyeClops version 2 will have a built in LCD and a card slot for storage, or a USB connection at the very least and we’ll invest. But what good is a bionic eye if you can’t take it on a hike, or save the images you see, or compare two things side by side?

Fisher Price Smart Cycle
David’s begging for this, but it’s just so wrong in so many ways. I simply told him that he’s got video games and he’s got a bike. There’s no need to mix the two.

It’s always weird to come back to work after a vacation. Two weeks of doing nothing in particular but visiting with family and checking out neat places, and now I’m supposed to jump back into work and schooling.

Two days later and I’m still sleeping according to the wrong time zone.

David’s favorite memories were having chickadees eat out of his hands at Hawrelak Park, riding all the rides at Galaxyland, and going for a shopping spree at Toys R Us with Uncle Gerry.

“Have you blogged about the puppet box yet, mom?”

Oops. Things got busy and I forgot to post a picture of the puppet box my son painted this weekend.

He’s got about 20 puppets now, 8 people puppets and a dozen or more animals of the domestic, zoo, and farm varieties. Up till now they’ve been living in a cardboard box in his bedroom.

So when I saw large canvas bins on sale at Zellers (that’s like a Canadian version of Target, for my American readers), I picked one up in hopes all the puppets would fit.

I ALWAYS have a good supply of paints on hand, fabric paint, acrylic paint and tempura paint all live in my house in abundance, so I dragged out some primary colors of fabric paint and set David working on personalizing his puppet box.

He did a fantastic job, if I do say so myself.

And he’s happy he gets to have another personalized item in his room for his toys. He’s shown it to every visitor we’ve had since it’s been done, and he’s been after me to show it on my blog too.

See, kiddo!? I’ve done it. I’ve blogged about your puppet box.

Technorati Tags: puppets, puppet theater, painting, fabric paints, art, crafts, homeschooling

David was very excited today to learn that paleontologists have discovered a nearly complete fossil of a hitherto unknown species of dinosaur in Patagonia.

The herbivorous Futalognkosaurus dukei measured an estimated 105 feet to 112 feet from head to tail and was as high as a four-storey building. It is one of the three biggest dinosaurs yet found in the world.

And here’s proof that with enough money you can have anything named after you…

Futalognkosaurus dukei’s name is derived from the indigenous Mapuche language meaning “giant chief of the lizards”, and the name of U.S. power company Duke Energy Corp, which financed a large part of the excavation in Argentina.

I’m surprised that David hasn’t gotten sick of me buying toys that remind me of my childhood, but so far he’s remained very interested in what I was like as a child, and what I liked to do.

So he was game when we unwrapped this morning’s delivery of mosiac peg boards and colored pegs. I found them at The Oriental Trading Company for a great price. The standard set (which includes six boards and 2000 pegs) is $19.95, but if you get the “Inspirational” set, which includes Christian themed patterns on cardstock instead of generic, you can get the same boards and pegs for less than $10.

I’d recommend the cheaper version, since most of the fun of playing with these pegs and boards is making your own designs. If you want more pattern ideas, coloring books for very young kids often have great simple pictures of objects and animals that are easily adapted. You can either ‘wing it’ or color the picture, then put it under the peg board as a guide.

Since the boards are 8.5X11″, a standard coloring book page will fit right underneath it.

If you decide to make the same purchase and find some other neat stuff at The Oriental Trading Co, you can get free shipping on orders over $60 by using coupon code RLS100 at the checkout.

Watching the hockey game tonight, instead of the regular hollering and yelling at the Leafs to get in front of the net, and SHOOT for goodness sake!, this is what you would have heard in our living room…

“How many points do the Leafs have, David?”

“How many points does Ottawa have?”

“How many points have been scored altogether?”

“How many goals does Ottawa have to score to win the game?”

Not to mention the discussion of thirds when discussing periods, and the various reasons there might be intermissions between periods… like giving the players a chance to go to the bathroom… and the need for the television network to show advertising to show the game on TV.

What are we becoming, turning Canada’s sacred national sport into a learning experience, rather than the bloodthirsty team rivalry it ought to be?

We were in Walmart the other day, looking for “dark blue pants that aren’t jeans” for David to wear for Beavers, when we saw a display of Leapster games on sale for under $10, which is about a quarter of the regular price.

I bought David a Leapster when he turned 4 so he’d have something to do during the long drives, train and plane rides that seem to pop up a dozen times a year, so I stopped to see what was offered. I picked up two games for David and one, I’m embarrassed to say, for me. I couldn’t help it. Nostalgia got the better of me when I saw “School House Rock!”

And last night, curled up on the sofa in my office, I could be found blissfully singing along to “Conjunction Junction” and “Rufus Xavier Sarsaparilla” while the rest of the family did… well… whatever they were doing. I was too wrapped up in the game to notice.

I’m happy to say today David reclaimed his Leapster, and even watched and played the School House Rock games with me. He was fascinated to see stuff I watched as a kid, and did quite well on the grammar game after watching the videos.

As your body grows bigger
Your mind grows flowered
It’s great to learn
Cause knowledge is power!

David has a serious fascination with fall and Halloween. I’d say he probably likes Halloween more than Christmas. He loves dressing up in costumes. He loves candy, and he loves crunching in the leaves.

Already he’s noticed the Halloween stuff in the stores and started asking me to make jack-o-lantern sandwiches (which are just english muffins with a slice of cheese cut to look like a jack-o-lantern).

He’s also started thinking about fall crafts.We made this cute little scarecrow face after seeing a similar craft package here. We had all the supplies necessary in our overflowing craft box, but if you’ve got a group of kids or would like to make a whole batch, the price for enough stuff for a dozen of these can’t be beat.

We did place an order for a bunch of other neat crafts for autumn and Halloween, though. We bought this pack of six fleece silly monster tied pillow craft kits as a Halloween craft. I plan on taking most of them out with me when I visit family so David and his cousins can all do their own pillow monster together, but I opened one to see if David was able to do the craft on his own. I’m happy to say that the tying is easy (though he got some of the pieces mixed up, fudging it after the fact didn’t make the pillow look bad at all).

I almost decided on the witch pillow craft kit, but thought the monsters were a little more generic, and could stay on the bed all year long.

And, a sucker for a bargain, I also grabbed a pack of 12 wooden hockey game craft kits for four bucks, only to wonder, now that they’ve arrived, what the heck I’m going to do with a dozen of the darn things. Maybe his Beaver group will be able to use them.