I am really excited to promote the fact that I was approved to have The Land of Nod as one of my sponsors. I am so excited because I really love that site and have spent a fair amount of money there; now I can link to it from my blog! In case you are not familiar with it, The Land of Nod is affiliated with Crate and Barrel and is a classy little children's boutique store with quality products. I was so impressed with the gifts that I ordered there for Christmas that I harassed my girlfriends into letting me show them all to them and going on and on about how much I love them. Sometimes I talk too much.
I recently bought them a beautiful set of 5 x 7" alphabet flash cards. I love the style and the pictures, and they are made of excellent cardstock which has taken a lot a beating and are holding up just fine. I originally bought them for Em but Jax is completely obsessed with them. We play the nifty game of 26 Card Pickup, meaning he dumps them out into a huge pile, then I go in another room and call out letters and he find them and runs to bring them to me. Sometimes we go in alphabetical order, sometimes not. The only caviat to this game is you must be sure to keep all 26 cards in the box. There is nothing worse than when you ask for the letter E and then he can't find it, so you finally get yourself up to go look and then realize, he's right. The letter E isn't there, so you have to go search for it. Kind of a buzzkill.
The other game that I wanted to share is great on two levels. First we pull out a book, usually one of the First 100 Books that I told you about the other day, and he chooses a word. In this example, it was fish.
Rule #1: it can't have the same letter twice unless you have more than one set of alphabet cards. We only have one set, so he has to choose words like tiger, fish, ladybug.
Then he runs and gets the correct letters of the alphabet cards to spell the word. Sometimes it takes him a while to find it...
...so I usually get to talk to him about the letter sound it makes while he's looking.
Then when he finds one, we line them all up to spell the word we were looking for.
F-I-S-H.
Then we start again. Do this a couple times plus play the pick up game at the end, and you've burned about 45 minutes and your kid may have actually learned something, too. Or at least burned some energy!
One more quick thing that I love before I go. Their puppets. Adorable.
So to prove how much I really do mean it, here are some examples of items I have bought there and how much fun my kids have playing with them.
I recently bought them a beautiful set of 5 x 7" alphabet flash cards. I love the style and the pictures, and they are made of excellent cardstock which has taken a lot a beating and are holding up just fine. I originally bought them for Em but Jax is completely obsessed with them. We play the nifty game of 26 Card Pickup, meaning he dumps them out into a huge pile, then I go in another room and call out letters and he find them and runs to bring them to me. Sometimes we go in alphabetical order, sometimes not. The only caviat to this game is you must be sure to keep all 26 cards in the box. There is nothing worse than when you ask for the letter E and then he can't find it, so you finally get yourself up to go look and then realize, he's right. The letter E isn't there, so you have to go search for it. Kind of a buzzkill.The other game that I wanted to share is great on two levels. First we pull out a book, usually one of the First 100 Books that I told you about the other day, and he chooses a word. In this example, it was fish.
Then he runs and gets the correct letters of the alphabet cards to spell the word. Sometimes it takes him a while to find it...
...so I usually get to talk to him about the letter sound it makes while he's looking.
Then when he finds one, we line them all up to spell the word we were looking for.
F-I-S-H.
Then we start again. Do this a couple times plus play the pick up game at the end, and you've burned about 45 minutes and your kid may have actually learned something, too. Or at least burned some energy!
One more quick thing that I love before I go. Their puppets. Adorable.
They are so well made, soft yet durable, with a cute little pocket in the front and a tail in the back. They're big enough that both Jax and I can use them and Em loves to kind of wave the bunny around. Sometimes they get propped up on a glass and join us for lunch.
And they're inexpensive--you're not going to believe when I tell you that they are on sale right now for $4 each! I thought they were a steal at $9 each and now I'm going to go buy some myself and keep them for Easter presents. Darn, I wish I didn't already have the bunny.
So there's my gigantic plug, but only because I love these things so much. I wouldn't otherwise go on and on about a brand for so long. Just please, if you do decide to buy something, click on the Land of Nod ad in this post or at the top of the sidebar so I get a little credit for sending you their way. You won't be disappointed!
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go buy some puppets.
One week later:
Still loving them! Go buy some yourself!
1 comment:
LOVE that store! Congratulations! Your kids should be in their commercials. They're so cute! :)
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