I love watching our kids explore things with their senses ~ beyond what they can just see and observe. A toy that involves touch can be so much fun {even for the older kids!}. We recently received a fun sensory toy from Guidecraft called Feel & Find World Icons to try out with our kids. This sensory toy is part of the eco-friendly toy line that Guidecraft offers.

What’s in the Bag?

The Feel & Find World Icons come with 20 wooden disk and matching puzzle-piece shape inserts as well as a cloth bag to store the pieces in. The pieces are made from rubberwood and then stained with a low VOC aniline dye, so you don’t need to worry if they get chewed on by little ones in the home. 

Puzzle shapes range from common shapes such as a circle, a moon and a cross to worldwide symbols such as a tree, a hippo, a fish, and a bird. The pieces are chunky and a great fit for smaller hands. There are four disk puzzles in the color groups of red, yellow, green, blue and pink/purple. The chunky puzzle pieces are dyed to match the disk color, so for younger kids this is a great find and match toy by color.

To play as a game, you place the disks on the floor, fill the bag with all the puzzle pieces, stick your hand inside, grab a shape {no peeking!!} and see if you can guess which shape you are feeling. Our kids had a blast with this! To make it a little easier for Kaleb we put between 5-10 shapes in at a time, but the older kids were stuck with the whole bag {grins}.

I love that this is something that we can all do together from our youngest up to the oldest {age 10} and even I can play along with them and have a little fun! We’ll be hanging onto these for quite some time!

Find Out More

Feel and Find World Icons can be purchased directly from the Guidecraft website, via their NEW Facebook page, or from Amazon. Want to win a bag of your own? Head over to visit Thanks, Mail Carrier to enter. Giveaway ends on September 7th!

Recommended for ages 3+

As a Guidecraft Mom blogger, I was provided this product to review. I was not paid for this post and all opinions expressed in this post are mine…or my kids.

I have to admit that I am a HUGE fan of period dramas. Although my husband is a history buff, he typically isn’t interested in the movies that I like to watch. We recently heard about Colony Bay Productions, a small company of filmmakers and actors that are retelling the story of America ~ in a way that will inspire and encourage viewers.

We were both intrigued by the movie trailer and the mission of the company and couldn’t wait to watch the first episode in a new series called Courage, New Hampshire ~ The Travail of Sarah Paine.

“In the winter of 1770, the township of Courage lies on the raw edge of the frontier, in western New Hampshire. When a detachment of British soldiers arrive in search of deserters, they fail to catch their quarry, but one of them does catch the eye of the justice of the peace. Sergeant Bob Wheedle, of the 29th Regiment, was here a year before — and he left something behind.”

See the trailer for Courage, New Hampshire ~ The Travail of Sarah Paine here.

The episode follows the story of Sergeant Bob Wheedle and Sarah Paine as he is arrested for deserting her and fathering a child out of wedlock with her. Sarah is convinced throughout the story that he will realize his error and make things right, but endures the further humiliation of a public trial in a time when having a child outside of marriage was a huge disgrace.

While this is a dvd that can be used as a stand-alone movie to watch, it definitely left us wanting to see more of the series and support the company producing them. The content in this episode is something that I would be comfortable letting my children watch as we learn about American history. It gives a glimpse into life at that period of history, especially from the perspective of everyday citizens. The production quality of the film was wonderful and Colony Bay features some talented actors as well, making it overall a great film.

Colony Bay Productions is working on teacher’s guides that will include lesson plans, worksheets and more to go along with the episodes.  The Travail of Sarah Paine is the first in the series Courage, New Hampshire series, with the next episode, The Sons of Liberty, scheduled to release in October.

Disclosure: I received this product for free in exchange for an honest review. This review reflects my personal opinions and thoughts.

  

One of the things that we’ve been focusing on a bit more lately has been fractions. The focus hasn’t just been for the younger two, but also as a reminder for the older girls as well {amazing how things can just ‘slip’ our minds!}. The Guidecraft Fraction Action and Fraction Cups have been a great ‘hands-on’ math toy for just that purpose.

About the Fraction Sets

Both the Fraction Action and Fraction Cups are made from an eco-friendly rubberwood and then stained with low VOC aniline dyes, so they are safe for even super little ones to chew and drool on.

The Fraction Action Board is 9.5” square and not quite 1/2” tall and for ages 2 and up. The set has 18 stained wood pieces that fit into the nine shaped spots on the self-storing board: circles, squares and hexagons. Each shape has fraction puzzles of varying difficult ~ whole, halves and thirds.

The Fraction Cups are four great little portable puzzles containing 10 pieces that explore the fractions of halves, thirds and quarters. Both sets come with a simple activity booklet for use with your child.

Zachary was the one who took the most interest with these during the times that we pulled them out. His favorite thing to do was to dump all of the fraction pieces out onto the ground and then piece them back together. In the above pictures he was convinced he had the fractions right and trying to make them fit…and obviously having a little trouble. :) For him, the hands-on feature is great to keep his mind engaged in what we are talking about. Once the fraction fun was done, he and Kaleb had a blast to see how high they could stack all of the pieces {a wonderful lesson in balance!}.

Kaleb liked the bright colors and fitting the pieces together like puzzles. For the girls it gives them a colorful visual reminder for how they can divide things up and still have a whole. The puzzles will definitely be used as a hands-on reinforcement through our school year for all of the kids.

The Fraction Action Board and Fraction Cups are obviously wonderful for teaching and reminding children about fractions, but with the variety of colors and sizes, they can also be used to sort by shape, color, height, and more.

Find Out More

Fraction Action and Fraction Cups can be purchased directly from the Guidecraft website, via their NEW Facebook page, or from Amazon. If you’d like to win a set for your kids, Jenn from Mama Jenn is hosting a giveaway for a set of them {open to US residents until 6/26/2011}.

  

Open-ended toys, the ones that don’t scream “you have to use it EXACTLY like this!” are great to help kids use more of their imaginations. Twisters and Twister Curves from Guidecraft are construction toys that definitely let your children create and imagine away to their heart’s content.

The basic Twisters set includes 66 pieces, 24 connecting rods, and a small pair of ‘pliers’ to pull the connectors out of the pieces. The Twister Curves {91 pieces} set has all curved pieces and a great add-on to the Twister set. There are 66 curved pieces {red, yellow, blue and green} and includes 24 connectors and 1 tool.

Our kids all sat down to play with them together and start creating. Zachary immediately pulled out the small flyer that came along with the set to get a few ideas. The flyer doesn’t give directions on how to make the various objects, but just an example of them.

Out of all of the Guidecraft Toys we’ve played with, this is one that hasn’t been as huge of a hit as I expected it to be, but only with the boys. The toy is recommended for ages 3 and up, but our younger two {ages 4 and 6} were quickly frustrated with it not ‘staying together’ the way that they wanted it too. They could build something, but many times the pieces would fall to one side when they couldn’t use the connectors the way they wanted to.

The oldest two {ages 8 and 10} were very creative in their designs and more patient, so their time was much more enjoyable {for them and me ~ grins}. They actually ended up helping the boys quite a bit with their creations, and then stayed around much longer to continue playing with them.

Twisters and Twister Curves can be purchased directly from the Guidecraft website, via their NEW Facebook page, or from Amazon. If you’d like to win a set for your kids, Carisa from 1+1+1=1 is giving away a set of Twisters and Twister Curves! The giveaway ends Sunday, May 22nd {US residents only}.