Create Abilities for Kids

I don't know about you, but my kids are always looking for ways to entertain themselves. They love to create, color, and draw. When they were in preschool, I was always amazed at the ideas that their teachers had for crafts and creative expression.

I like to believe that I am creative, but I think that in reality I am good at creating something when I have an example in front of me. I look for inspiration (or full-blown direction) when I am creating scrapbook pages, decorating a cake or doing a needlepoint. Same is true when it comes to activities for the kids. I am not good at coming up with the ideas, but am great at working with them to complete a craft or activity.

We recently had the chance to check out Create Abilities for Kids.

"Create Abilities for Kids offers a unique solution to busy parents looking for ways to maximize quality time with their young children. [Their] age-appropriate art kits are designed for ages three, four or five. They contain all of the materials and instructions needed to create an art 'masterpiece'. And these all-inclusive kits will be delivered to the subscriber's mailbox each month. This saves the parent time in planning, getting the materials, and doing the prep work because [they've] already done all of that for them."

I really like that the kit comes with everything that is needed for the activity. It even includes the glue and the paint brushes!

My daughter was looking for something to do, so I pulled out one of the kits. It was nice because I could simply open up the zipped storage bag and pull out all of the supplies that she needed. The project that we had chosen was a Cinnamon Acorn. The pieces for the acorn came pre-cut and there was a container of paint, a container of glue and a container of cinnamon. There was also a foam brush and a small paint brush.

Paint the bottom of the acorn:

Sprinkle cinnamon over the wet paint on the bottom:

Place the black diamonds on top:

The finished acorn:

I liked that I was able to set her up with the activity and guide her through each step. She thought it was pretty cool and as she was making it asked if she could hang it in her room when it was done. When she was adding the cinnamon to the craft, she kept saying "I like the smell of cinnamon, it smells so good". It was a simple and straight-forward craft. I liked that the directions were simple and that there was flexibility - she could put the diamonds on the top in whatever way suited her and she could add as much cinnamon as she wanted. There was no right or wrong.

In addition, the instruction sheet also includes some facts to share with your child. These are not only interesting, but can spur additional conversation. On the acorn activity, one of the facts was that a 100 year old oak tree produces on average 2200 acorns. So, we started to talk about how Scrat (from Ice Age) would love to find a mature tree. For all the trouble that he had with that one acorn, imagine if he had an old oak tree around - he would have more than he would know what to do with.

Creative Abilities for Kids offers monthly subscriptions for their kits. You can choose to receive 2, 3 or 4 kits per month and can select them for a 3, 4, or 5 year old. If you have several children that you are buying for, they do offer discounts for kits for multiple children at the same address. Many of the kits are themed around holidays or events - the acorn craft was for the celebration of the start of fall.

With Creative Abilities for Kids, you can have a steady supply of activities and crafts, without having to maintain an extensive amount of supplies or having to buy more than you need of the supplies.

No compensation was received for this post. A complimentary set of kits was provided so that we could experience them and share about our experience. All opinions expressed are my own or that of my family.

Sam's Club Bonus Box Tops for Education

For as long as I can remember, we have collected the Box Tops for Education points from our cereals, snacks, tissues and more (turns out, as I learned on their website, that it has only been around since 1996). For a long time, I had no kids in school, but still we collected them. When my son went to kindergarten, we had a lot of points to send to school right away. The schools are able to save up those points, up to $20,000 annually from the clip program, to use for school supplies, playground equipment and more.

"It’s back-to-school time, and this year Sam’s Club is providing more opportunities to earn cash for your school than ever before. Not only can you collect Box Tops for Education on your favorite General Mills products, but you can also check out these additional opportunities which are available exclusively to Sam’s Club members!

500,000 Box Tops Giveaway 8/1/12-9/30/12
Sam’s Club is giving away 500,000** eBoxTops®. Members can earn 5 eBoxTops when they shop at Sam’s Club until the 500,000 are gone. Earn your 5 eBoxTops (a .50¢ value to any BTFE participating school) by following these simple steps:

- Purchase any product at Sam’s Club and save your receipt
- Beginning 8/1/12, log in or register at btfe.com/clickandearn and enter the code found at the bottom of your Sam’s Club receipt
- Answer a few survey questions and earn 5 eBoxTops for the school of your choice!*

**Limit one earning opportunity per email address. Limit of 100,000 earning opportunities thru 9/30/12.

Box Tops Membership Bonus 8/1/12/-9/1/12
- New Plus Members will receive 100 Bonus Box Tops.* (a $10 value to any BTFE participating school)
- Upgrade your current Membership to a Plus Membership to receive 50 Bonus Box Tops.* (a $5 value to any BTFE participating school)
- New Advantage or Business Members will receive 25 Bonus Box Tops.* (a $2.50 value to any BTFE participating school)"

Want to learn more? You can check out Box Tops for Education on the Sam's Club Website for more information on the promotions and you can learn more about the Box Tops for Education on their website.

You can find Sam's Club on Twitter and Facebook.

a Rafflecopter giveaway


Giveaway will remain open through August 30th. Giveaway is open to residents of the US only. One winner will be selected through Rafflecopter. The winner will have 48 hours to respond or a new winner will be selected.

No compensation was received for this post. The gift card, information, and additional sample have been provided by Sam’s Club and General Mills through MyBlogSpark. All opinions expressed are entirely my own or that of my family.

Free Entrance Days at National Parks

Over the past few years, my parents have spent at least part of their vacation time visiting and exploring the National Parks. There are so many beautiful and interesting parks and monuments out there to explore - in every state except Delaware. I've been to a couple of National Parks as a child with my parents. I can remember going to the Petrified Forest in Arizona and the Grand Canyon. There are a number of other parts that I would love to explore someday.

Have you explored many of the parks? Do you plan to anytime soon? Did you know that the National Parks offer several Fee-Free days? We've already missed the first fee free days for 2012 back in January, but in just under two weeks, during National Park Week, you can once again visit the parks that normally charge an entrance fee for free.

"America's Best Idea - the national parks - gets even better with several fee-free days at more than 100 national parks that usually charge entrance fees.

Mark your calendar for these fee-free dates in 2012:

January 14-16
Martin Luther King Jr. weekend

April 21-29
National Park Week

June 9
Get Outdoors Day

September 29
National Public Lands Day

November 10-12
Veterans Day weekend

Here's a tip - many of your 397 national parks NEVER charge an entrance fee."

You can check out their Free Entrance Days page for more details.

As I was exploring the site, I learned two things. You can buy an annual pass for $80, or if you are over 62 and a US Citizen/Permanent Resident, you can buy a Senior Pass for $10. The National Parks and Federal Recreational Lands Pass Series will provide you access to over 2000 National Parks and Federal Recreational Lands. The annual pass, as you might guess, is good for one year. The Senior Pass is good for your lifetime.

No-Work Spanish

I recently was introduced to No-Work Spanish AudioBooks. In concept, I really like the idea behind these audio books. Their website speaks to how we learn our first language by listening as people talk and slowly you began to understand what they were saying. The idea with No-Work Spanish is that by listening to the store in English and Spanish, you can connect the two and little by little, you start to become familiar with the words and how they sound. Already learning (or teaching) Spanish? They indicate that listening to the audiobooks will increase the understanding.

"No homework. No language drills. Just listen and learn."

The audio books are available on CD or if you prefer, you can purchase a copy to download (mp3 format). There are currently three titles available for this new program. For each, the book is read in parts. Before beginning the chapters, the reader shares the Spanish word for a few of the new words that you will hear in the next chapter to make the listener more familiar with those words. Each chapter is read, sentence by sentence first in English and then in Spanish. After the chapter is complete, the entire chapter is re-read just in Spanish.

Learn better by seeing and hearing? No problem, if you insert the disc into your computer, you can pull up a document in pdf format that contains the full story, just as it is read to you, including the new vocabulary words presented at the beginning of each chapter.


I listened to Poster Girl in my car. I found myself continuing to listening along to see what happens to Paula. I recognize that the idea is to slowly gain understanding of the language as you listen to the story and link the English and the Spanish, and maybe I am just not a language person (I think I am more of a math and science person - I took Latin in high school, in hopes of doing okay on the Verbal part of my SATs and still managed to score 200 points higher on math than on verbal), but I honestly think I would have to listen to the story several times to really think I was beginning to understand the Spanish. Out of fairness, I have only listened one time, so maybe I would find that the familiarity of the story would have me recognizing and understanding the words the second time around.

Unfortunately, neither of my children really got into it. My son immediately was uninterested in Poster Girl, because it was about a girl. Of course, you probably don't need to listen to every title anyways. He did listen to Yaks March on Washington for a little while. I had hoped that he would listen to more since he has studied some Spanish in school. I think part of the problem is that he only had the laptop to sit at and listen. I think that if he had had a cd player in his room still, that he might have listened to it while building legos or was coloring and probably would have enjoyed it.

I still think that the product has great potential. I think that obviously increasing the number of titles, which they are in the process of doing, would be very helpful. Providing age guidelines for the books might help too. I understand that since the "reader" is listening, that those guidelines vary slightly from actual books, but as an example I was able to find the original book for Poster Girl on Amazon and the age is 9 - 12. That might explain why in part, my daughter was not as interested in the story.

I also think that everyone learns differently. For those that are audio learners and don't have time or access to sign up for a class where they can listen to the teacher, the No-Work Spanish provides a way for them to learn the language in a fashion that works for them. The No-Work Spanish Audiobooks provide an alternative to the traditional ways of learning Spanish. I really like the No Homework, No Language Drills, Just Listen and Learn slogan. Listening to audiobooks certainly allows for a lower effort way to learn. For commuters and others that find themselves with time to listen and not time to study, this could be a great resource to start or enhance their learning of Spanish. Hearing the story spoken, rather than reading it yourself, really allows you to hear the inflections and accent of the Spanish - which I think is an important part of learning a language.

You can find out more about No-Work Spanish and even try the product (they will send you the first three chapters of one of their books for free) on the No-Work Spanish website. You can also find No-Work Spanish on Facebook.

No compensation was received for this post. Through MamaBzz, I received a copy of the first two No-Work Spanish Audiobooks, so that my family could experience the product and share that experience through a review on my blog. All opinions expressed are my own and that of my family.