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Time for Kids: Big Book of Science Experiments Review

Another review for Mama Cheaps!

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This book was reviewed for us by our site contributor Jenny and her son David.  Thanks to both of them!

Do your kids ever ask you WHY?  Of course they do and if your kids are anything like my five year old son they probably ask you “why” thousands of times a day.  That is why Time for Kids Magazine created a great new book.  The book is titled Time for Kids Big Book of Why–1,001 Facts Kids Want to Know.

My son David was very excited to finally be able to get the answers to so many of his questions.  Now instead of asking me a question that I have no answer for, David can refer to the book and get the correct answer to his question.  Here are a few samples of some of the questions answered in this book. Why do dogs turn around before lying down? Why do monkeys and apes prefer bananas over other food? Why can’t penguins fly?

There are several chapters in this book.  Everything is covered from animals to space to history and people just to name a few.   This is another book that I can see David using as a great reference as he continues into his elementary school years.

One negative that I took from this book is that it did not hold David’s attention as much as the “That’s Awesome” book.  For one thing, there were far less pictures and illustrations to help convey an idea which caused David to become disinterested.  Also,  I think that the information contained in the Big Book of Why may be a little too in depth for a younger reader causing them to become disinterested with what they are reading.   I think that the Big Book of Why might be better suited for kids who are a bit older than my son David.  (MC Note: Amazon describes this book’s reading level as 9-12 years old- so Jenny’s observations are right on!)

This book is 192 pages long.

Order: You can purchase Time for Kids: Big Book of Why from Amazon

Price: $13.57 – ships FREE with Amazon Prime.

Time for Kids provided us with a complimentary copy of this book in order to facilitate our review.  All opinions are 100% ours.

Another Mama Cheaps Review!!

Check out our review here on the Mama Cheaps site!!  Look under her review heading to see it!!

This book was reviewed for us by our site contributor Jenny and her son David.  Thanks to both of them!

Our new product to review this week from Time for Kids: That’s Awesome! The World’s Most Amazing Facts and Records! The book is an off shoot of the Time Magazine for Kids publications.  The book is set up like a Guinness Book of World Records publication only it is filled with interesting facts that even young kids can understand and relate to.

This was a huge hit with our 5 year old son David.  It was probably a hit because he is a bit of a “fact fanatic.”  He really enjoys asking everyone if they know the same facts that he does no matter how obscure they may be.  The book is broken down into different sections.

You can learn facts about everything from facts about the tallest buildings and smallest circus to the most expensive dog and baseball cards to historic space explorers and UFO’s.  The section that David found most interesting was the section on animals, most specifically, the giant tortoise.   Did you know that “the giant tortoise would need five hours to go one mile?” “That’s a rate of 1/5th of a mile per hour!”

If you ever run into David reading this book he’ll probably ask you if you knew that fact.  That’s Awesome! had wonderful large and detailed pictures that kept him very interested.   I am confident that as David progresses into his elementary school years, this book will come in very handy for  use in reports and such. This book is great; very educational and interesting!

Some of the topics in this book:

• The world’s biggest and smallest
• Most expensive cars, toys, and more
• Biggest volcanic eruptions
• Biggest sports upsets, longest games
• Longest space walks, largest and smallest stars
• Highest and lowest places on earth and beyond
• And much more, including unusual museums extreme weather, and unexplained mysteries

This book is 208 pages long and it will release on 10/5/10.

Pre-Order: You can pre-order That’s Awesome! The World’s Most Amazing Facts and Records! now on Amazon and receive it in plenty of time for holiday gift giving!

Price: $13.46 – ships FREE with Amazon Prime.

Time for Kids provided us with a complimentary advance copy of this book in order to facilitate our review.  All opinions are 100% ours.

Remember our Mama Cheaps review??

Well tonight is your last night to enter on her site to win of the great kits we reviewed.  So head over to her Mama Cheaps for your chance to win!

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Click here to see our Disney's Family Fun Race Car review for Mama Cheaps!

You can only imagine my excitement when Mama Cheaps asked Dave and I to review some products for her! We are huge fans of Disney's Family Fun magazine. They always have cool make at home projects and recipes. I love when my new issue arrives in the mail. I make myself a nice pot of tea, sit down and read it from cover to cover. I was ecstatic today when a package arrived on our door step from Family Fun! Dave sat waiting to see what was in the brown box. To his sincere delight it was Disney's Family Fun Create Your Own Race Cars! Before I could even take a look at the box Dave began to exclaim "Mommy lets do this right now, I can't wait to make them!" I had one very happy 5 year old that had to get to work right away!

The directions were super easy to understand and came complete with easy to follow illustrations for Dave. The cars are tubes similar to a toilet paper roll and come ready to be customized by your child's imagination. The only things that have to be done are painting, customizing the car with stickers, and adding wheels. The first step was to paint the cars. At first I thought that the paint brush included in the kit was going to be too small. However, as Dave started to paint it seemed to work perfectly. The smaller paint brush also helped to occupy Dave for at least 20-30 minutes as he tried to get the paint job just right. I think that a larger paint brush would have caused him to complete the craft too quickly and may have resulted in frustration that the paint job didn't look "just right."

After painting the exterior of the car it required a short period of time to allow for the paint to dry. Although I did not actually time the amount of time for the paint to dry I would estimate that it took no more than about 30 minutes. I did notice though that as the cars were drying, some of the tube seams began to peel away from the rest of the tube. A little scotch tape mend and they were back to normal. I think that the wet paint just made the tube peel apart a bit. It wasn't a major problem and easily fixed.

After the cars were all dry it was time to add the stickers. This was fairly easy for Dave to do. Some of the longer stickers presented a challenge with being placed straight and neat. The longer stickers required some adult help but for the most part Dave was able to do it himself. Once the cars were decorated it was time to add the wheels. I had to do this part for Dave. He found it hard to push the wheels all the way onto the little metal bar so that they would click in place. The kit comes with two small metal rods that act as the car's axel. The kit also supplies four wheels that are installed onto the axel by the child. Once the car is painted and stickers are in place the child must then thread the axel through two small holes in the car tube. Once in place the child must then install two small wheels per axel . The wheels should "click" into place to ensure proper installation. Once the wheels were on it was time to play!

Along with the directions for the construction of the race cars were a few suggestions of other crafts that you could make to accent your playing experience with the race cars. The other crafts included a milk jug car wash and billboards and a race track made from cereal boxes. I'm certain Dave and I will be adding the carwash, billboard, and race track to his collection in the very near future. In the meantime we went onto www.familyfun.com and searched "Street scene mat." The website provided us with a printable street scene that only required me to tape the pages together in order to create the scene. Once again, this process was quite simple. Thanks Mama Cheaps for asking us to review this product for you.  We had a fun time creating the cars and playing with them. Dave and I would both highly recommend this fun product!