Archive for November, 2009
Shopping for stocking stuffers for Christmas? How about a new Bible Card Game to add to your family games?
If your children are spending too much time in front of the TV get out a deck of ARK , gather 3-5 people around a table and create some fun memories. This Christian card game will offer teaching opportunities of Noah and the Bible story of the Flood.
Noah is tearing out his beard and the time-pressure is difficult. Clouds are gathering and the rain could come anytime. The weather forecast is not good. Meanwhile, animals are gathering before the ark. The animals slowly drag along and nothing can be said to speed them up. Fortunately, you are there to help manage the animals. Now, if only the ark can be launched without capsizing……
One of the ancestors of modern trick-taking games is Ecarte, a French game that was played in the 19th century.
It is difficult to imagine a time when card decks were not popular. Did you ever wonder just how long card games have actually existed?
The history of playing cards goes back to the history of the games themselves. Playing cards were invented for a particular reason; out of need. They may be thought to go back to the dominoes or tiles that the Chinese gamblers and game players used as the medium for their contests long before technology allowed for the creation of the cards themselves.
Trick taking games are one of the most popular types of card games today. One of the ancestors of modern trick-taking games is Ecarte, a French game that was played in the 19th century.
Shopping online for any type of card game or Christian card games will reveal many games that you have never heard of and it will be fun to select a few for you and your family to play. They also make great stocking stuffers for kids and adults alike.
1939 Copywriter Robert L. May of the Montgomery Ward Company created a poem about Rudolph, the ninth reindeer. May had been “often taunted as a child for being shy, small and slight. ” He created an ostracized reindeer with a shiny red nose who became a hero one foggy Christmas eve. Santa was part-way through deliveries when the visibility started to degenerate. Santa added Rudolph to his team of reindeer to help illuminate the path. A copy of the poem was given free to Montgomery Ward customers.
1949: Johnny Marks wrote the song “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” Rudolph was relocated to the North Pole where he was initially rejected by the other reindeer and they wouldn’t let him play in their reindeer games because of his strange looking nose. The song was recorded by Gene Autry and became his all-time best seller. Next to “White Christmas“ it is the most popular song of all time.
Our Santa in Sleigh is one of our popular 3d wooden puzzles manufactured by ImagiPLAY.
ImagiPLAY is a toy manufacturer that has been designing and manufacturing safe wooden kids toys for ten years and closely monitors their design and production. All of their wood toys are naturally safe, not only for your children but for your children’s planet.
Earth friendly and child safe – to ImagiPLAY these two concepts go hand in hand. Parents and educators can give a wooden puzzle or other educational childrens toys from this line of safe, environmentally toys.
ImagiPLAY has formed partnerships with two family-run wood shops in China with whom they have built strong relationships. These partnerships help insure their wood toys and 3d wooden puzzles are safe and of the highest quality.
Quadro is a play system designed to “grow” with all children starting with infants. As the children get older, the way Quadro is used is simply adapted to meet the new demands for age-appropriate activity, learning or play activities.
Quadro kit components comprise impact absorbing, UV-stabilized plastic (thermoplastic) tubes, connectors and panels which are quickly and easily assembled in hundreds of possible ways and then safely secured with special locking screws. The more pieces you have, the larger the designs that can be created. Additional accessories include slides, wheels, fabric roofs, netting. Each kit comes with a model handbook with suggestions on how to create a wide range of designs.
Quadro is extremely strong and rugged, has no sharp corners, contains no toxic materials, has no protruding screws or bolts and can be safely used either indoors/outdoors & summer/winter.
Consumers are purchasing earth friendly products more and more and parents and teachers may be interested in knowing that ImagiBRICKS building blocks toys, the blocks our grandparents played with, now have a drool proof coating.
ImagiBRICKS are cardboard blocks that look like bricks and come in three sizes. These blocks are printed with a soy based ink to provide the colors that are seen on the blocks. In addition to the ink, an aqueous, water-based coating is applied to the cardboard building blocks.
This coating acts to keep the ink on the cardboard and not transfer off to children’s hands, clothes, carpet etc. This coating also acts as a barrier so that the blocks can be wiped and kept sanitary.
ImagiBRICKS are produced using safe environmentally friendly products and are 100% recyclable including the packaging and the instructions and are made in the USA.
Every childhood expert agrees that having a strong emotional/social connection with your children is absolutely key to growing strong, healthy people. In order to really know your children, you must have an open line of communication; and the earlier you start the better.
Recent studies show that the toddler who feels heard and connected grows up to be a teen that is willing to open up and communicate more. Choose your timing. A preschooler who has been with 15 other children for several hours will probably feel over-stimulated and overwhelmed.
Don’t start interrogating him in the car on the way home! Let him decompress and relax back into the energy of his home. Maybe dinner time or bath time is a better choice.
Take out a wood puzzle and work on it together. When the focus is off the child he will open up and share his feelings and open ended questions won’t put him off.
Important lessons do not have to be learned in a classroom. Teaching children while they play increases their knowledge and you can all have fun while doing it together.
You could use blocks or other toys and place them in various locations in the room and discuss opposite relationships such as near and far. Have children build tall and short towers and discuss how many more blocks it takes to make the taller tower.
Children like to slide so you can talk about up and down as they climb up and down the ladder of a slide. Or, have running races and discuss how slow and fast are opposites.
For wonderful teaching opportunities use educational children’s toys, such as adventure playsets that include many different figures. This is a perfect way to teach about different animals, what they eat, where they live and so forth.
An African Safari wooden playset, such as the one pictured in the post, is a great visual tool to teach about Africa and the variety of animals that are indigenous to Africa. Children love open-ended toys such as play sets and as they use their imaginations to play you will have many teaching opportunities.
Because all kids love to climb, supervised climbing activities are your best course of action. Whether you take your kids to a park or just to your back yard make sure there are enough safety observers to go around.
When you are alert to the possibility of a falling child it is not difficult to catch them. Taking a group of children to a playground and they will begin climbing steps, up poles and around climbing frames. Take kids to a picnic and they will climb trees, leave them in the back yard and in no time you may find them on the garage roof or jumping from piles of stacked items nearby.
Given the fact that you are not going to be able to stop kids from climbing it is a good idea to provide them safe structures to climb on. One such toy is modular tubes put together in various configurations depending on the age and amount of children. Check out a Quadro Playset; a basic design is pictured with this article.
VeggieTales is a series of English language children’s computer animated films. These films feature anthropomorphic vegetables.
Developed by Big Idea, these films convey moral themes based on the Christian faith and are ofter compatible with Judaism. The films are spliced with satirical references to pop culture and current events.
Pail Vischer and Mike Nawrocki, who provides many of the voices are also the creator of VeggieTales. The films were originally released in direct-to-video format and debuted in December 1993. As of 2009 the program is now shown on Gospel Music Channel. On September 11, 2009, the show that was running on Qubo lineup was removed. The series continued on DVD afterwards.
VeggieTales has also been released as books, music CDs and branded items such as toys, clothing and seeds for vegetables and flowers. The main character’s names are Bob the Tomato and Larry the Cucumber and are popular kids jigsaw puzzles.