A few, fun educational ideas have found their way from my Amazon wish list into my cart for Christmas presents this year. Wanna take a peak at my list? Just don’t tell my littles! 😉
GeoPuzzle Jigsaw puzzles – these are amazing! The puzzle pieces are the actual shapes and approximate scale of the countries which you are building with to form the continents. We own one set already and can’t wait to add more!
Popular Mechanics for Kids DVD sets – My husband and boys are all about how things work stuff, so I thought this would be great fun for them. I have not seen any of the episodes yet, so please (naturally) do your own screening!
Classical Baby: The Poetry Show and more. We started with The Poetry Show after a friend recommended these videos. Even though they are for babies, all of my littles have enjoyed them and they’ve even memorized some poetry through it. We plan to add The Art Show and maybe The Dance Show to our collection for Christmas.
Catan: Junior or Ticket to Ride will be added to our game closet. Do you prefer one over the other? Trying to decide between the two…
Puffin Classics – I love these beautiful hardbacks, not just for the great stories inside, but for how great they look on the outside. I’m a sucker for a pretty hardback book. I *think* most of these are the original stories, but be sure to check the description because some may be abridged.
Art Fraud Detective: Spot The Difference – you might remember my friend Christy recommending these while talking about teaching fine arts. Children use their detective skills to find the frauds which have replaced the masterpieces in The Museum of Art.
Liberty’s Kids: The Complete Series – DVDs of the fun, American history show by PBS. We own this set already & love it, so I wanted to share it with all of you!
What’s made your list this year? I’d love to hear your ideas!
I vote for Ticket to Ride – #1 – Cycle 3 (and U.S. geography) is coming soon. #2 – my 7 and 8 year olds are playing “real” Settlers with us already. #3 – We aren’t fans of playing that we are pirates since pirates are real and bad, and I think that’s what Catan Junior is (so we didn’t buy it).
We love games here so my kids are getting a bunch of games for Christmas as well (mainly ones they can play together without grown-ups). The kids are getting the Jesus Storybook Bible dvds too. Elijah’s getting a Chemistry book with all the stuff to do the experiments (he loves chemistry a lot). Isaiah asked for a book on peregrine falcons so I think he’s getting a “birds of prey” book, Ruthie’s getting American girl books, Gideon is getting preschool activity things. Some of these presents aren’t from us but from other family members. I often end up with more books and puzzles at the last minute because I can’t resist them. 🙂
thank you, becki! i appreciate the feedback! that sounds like excellent advice on the ticket to ride game. you may have told me that before about catan junior, but i forgot? but, we try to be careful about pretending to be “bad things” also.
Settlers of Catan and Ticket to ride are under our tree as well this year! Something else you may want to look at is the Child’s Garden of Verses DVD. It is produced by the same people who put the Classical Baby DVDs, but it is geared toward older children. Our guys really enjoy it.
Asher is getting Peterson’s Field Guide “Birding by Ear” CDs. He loves birds and I know these are going to get a lot of use. Grace is getting a couple more Calla Edition books to add to her collection. These are beautiful collectors editions of the classics with gorgeous illustrations. This year she will be getting Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Grimm’s Fairy Tales. Of course a Christmas at our house isn’t complete without some musical addition. The kids are getting a mandolin to share and Naomi is getting another ukulele book (she recently started lessons and loves it). There are other things, but that is what I can think of off the top of my head.
Thanks for the GeoPuzzle recommendation. I had seen those and they look great. They would be a good addition for us this year since we are missing our CC geography.
Thanks, Christy! We’ve been reading the A Child’s Garden of Verses book, so maybe it’s the same poetry? They would love that!
The Bird CDs would also be a hit. My boys love bird books we have & listening to them. Actually, I bet my father-in-law would love those too…
I’m excited about adding more GeoPuzzles. We gave K one for his birthday & he loves it!
Wait, I think I just found it on Amazon — A Child’s Garden of Poetry? Looks good!