BOO! IT'S HALLOWEEN !

CUTE HALLOWEEN DANCE OF A 21-MONTH-OLD PUMPKIN AND A COWGIRL'S SINGING

HALLOWEEN WITCHED PUMPKIN AND COWGIRL ON THE WAY TO TRICK OR TREAT

HALLOWEEN WITCHED PUMPKIN AND COWGIRL DANCE TO THE RHYMTHE OF THE WHEEL ON THE BUS

HOW TO MAKE TRAVEL HANGMAN GAME

Do your kids always need something to entertain themselves, keep them occupied without boredom during travel, at the dentist's office or at the waiting room of the hospital or even while waiting for orders at the restaurant? What is more suitable than a travel set of a popular game such as HANGMAN that is compact enough to toss in your tote, self-contained (i.e. including as few as possible extra components to minimize the risk of lost pieces), being reusable (instead of wasting tons of pieces of paper), and finally costing as little as possible?

A lot of great products in the market offer the first 3 features, such as Hangman Flip-to-Win Wooden Travel Game by Melissa & Doug, Imaginetics Magnetic Hangman Travel Games, GO Magnetic Hangman Travel Game, Magnetic Game Tin: Hangman, but only a home-made product would satisfy the 4th crucial requirement of the lowest cost possible.

I reused the erasable memo board sent by 3 Amigos to advertise their restaurant for this purpose. That its size is only as big as a notebook sheet is perfect for a travel game. The board is heavier and more sturdy than a normal sheet of paper, thus no worry for creases, etc. You can try any erasable memo/fridge board available around.

The erasable memo board I got also has the marker attached to it so it made my project easier. However, you can be creative with attaching a dry-erase marker to the board by using adhesive pad, a flexible string, a chain, etc. If your marker's end tip has the eraser already, it would be a plus. If not, you can stick small piece of soft cloth (such as the kind of cloth for cleaning glasses) or sponge to the back of the board by a paperclip. Do not forget to toss in your bag  a pocket-sized pack of facial tissues and a small bottle of hand sanitizer solution. It not only serves to sanitize the little hands quickly but also helps to dampen the cloth or sponge to clean the marks left by the dry-erase marker as effectively as a whiteboard marker eraser.

Some sheets of Post-it could be glued to the back of the board so that your kids may scribble his words of the game, keep track of the game's scores, etc.

On the front of the whiteboard, to the left, use the permanent marker with a different colour to the dry-erase marker to draw the gallows where the hangman will be. To the right edge of the board, write all 26 letters of the alphabet in upper case in rows of 3 or 4 letters each with enough space between them so that your kid can use the dry-erase marker to circle any letter called in by the guesser. At the end of the white board, below the gallows and the ABCs, draw in permanent ink a row of dashes where the letters of the word would be written down in their appropriate places (usually 10 dashes in kids' game).

To play the game, the person who sets the word must announce in advance how many letters there are in his word, e.g. 6 letters so only the first number of dashes equal to the number of letters in the word (6 in this example) would be used in the game. His opponent (the guesser) then tries to guess the word by guessing letters. Once a letter is guessed whether correctly or not, the wordsetter will circle that letter by the dry-erase marker to show that it has been guessed.

If the guessed letter is included indeed in the word, the wordsetter would fill in the corresponding dash(es) with the letter. If the suggested letter does not occur in the word, the wordsetter draws one element of the hangman diagram as a tally mark, starting with a head. The amount of parts of the man can vary, affecting the number of chances of guessing. Usually the player guessing the word gets 6 chances (traditionally the head, then the torso, then the arms & legs one by one). Many players include a face on the head, either all at once or one feature at a time.

The game is over when either the guessing player guesses the whole word correctly or the wordsetter completes the diagram of a hanging man; whichever is earlier. In the first case, the guessing player wins the game. 

This Hangman game can be used to play in both English and French and is absolutely a great game for reinforcing and improving kids' vocabulary.

And do not forget to check out a very neat flash Hangman online game for English-as-a-second-language learners at www.manythings.org/hmf/.

MA VA LA (THE LITTLE FROG)

Both Mew and Tom have recently become addicted to listening to this song originally written by a Vietnamese composer Phan Nhan (Chu Ech Con) and converted into Italian to be presented in an international children music programme on RAI channel of Italy in 2003. It was proudly and confidently performed by Huong Tra, a 8-year-old Vietnamese school girl, together with an orchestra of Italian girls and boys.

XMAS IS COMING! LET'S SHARE A PERSONALIZED VIDEO MESSAGE FROM SANTA

Don't you love to send a personalized video message from Santa to your little prince or princess? They will be so happy to see their own picture with personalized message to encourage them to make greater efforts for the coming year. It takes just a few minutes to prepare the message and above all, it is totally FREE. Let's start sharing Christmas joy with Santa Claus.

1. Portable North Pole (supports UNICEF)
http://www.portablenorthpole.ca/home
Santa Claus and his amazing PNP (Portable North Pole) console will be online during the entire holiday season. With just a few clicks, this technological marvel will let your loved ones receive a personal message from Santa Claus, sent directly from his village in the North Pole. Rediscover Christmas with this immersive and unique experience that brings the holiday magic back to life.


2. Magic Santa
http://magicsanta.ca/
Send a magical card to the North Pole on behalf of a child and Santa Claus will send back a personalized video. The video from Santa can be either in French or English.


To watch the message from Santa for Mew:
http://magicsanta.ca/gateway.html?code=EJOQPW
http://www.portablenorthpole.ca/watch/guest/JlUDvNggAZRlZ_D35pYZQw

HOW CAN YOU NOT LOVE HELLO KITTY?

Want to share your favourite characters of Hello Kitty's theme with your friends? Simply want to brighten the day for another person? An adorable (and of course, completely free) ecard from Hello Kitty's post office can surely help you to convey your loving message to the recipient in an instant.

Create your own artwork: coloring a picture, writing letters, making paper dolls, swapping secret note, etc. - you shall find a lot of creative ideas and activities at Hello Kitty's Art Centre.

For young online game fans, what could be more interesting than entering Hello Kitty's arcade to solve jigsaw puzzles, to play matching games or to help Hello Kitty save a sunny day?

Don't forget to spare some moments to download free exclusive Hello Kitty's egoodies inclusive of wallpapers, paper craft projects, calendars and emoticons to your computer for later enjoyment.

Just in case you are not aware of Hello Kitty as the main character in cartoon series of the same name, it would be a good idea to check out these at Youtube and I am sure that regardless of your age or your nationality, you will soon fall in love with this lovable kitty. Now I am dreaming of buying Mew a Hello Kitty wrist watch in her future birthday (cannot tell exactly when, lol, since it is way too expensive for my budget just for a kid's watch however) or indulging myself with a Hello Kitty's pendant (well, perhaps I can expect it as a gift from Mew once she can earn her living - but then I will be too old to wear such a cute pendant, don't you think?)

FREEBIES AND MORE FREEBIES (MOSTLY DISNEY-THEME)

Very nice 2010 (and 2009) Calendar with Disney characters free for download in both Word and PDF formats at Free 2010 Disney Calendar. Best of all, there are no pop-ups, viruses or any other sort of baggage with the files.  Just a nice calendar with Disney pictures.  In the Word version you can add your own birthdays and special days.

At this site you can also find free colouring book and free ebook about Buzz-lightyear (the character in "Toy Story" movie of Disney/Pixar) - great for your little boys.

Free Ebook of Hidden Mickeys of Disneyland also in both PDF and Word formats.

Here is site that has a lot of Tinkerbell coloring

and another site with Disney Character Avatars

If you like craft projects, you can download the large versions of Cinderella collage 8"x6"  (1Mb) or Cinderella collage (13" x 11") (2Mb) or Peter Pan collage (2Mb)

Try to treasure-hunt in the champ of Disney-related sites including both official and non-official ones.

This site will allow you to read the full text of some of the popular Little Golden Books FREE

Little Golden Books Online. This is the list of books you can find there:
Golden Book: Mister Dog
Golden Book: The Big Little Book
Golden Book: The Adventures of Brownie and Puff
Golden Book: My Big Dog
Golden Book: Baby's Mother Goose
Golden Book: Corky's Hiccups
Golden Book: Doctor Dan, the Bandage Man
Golden Book: The Animals of Farmer Jones
Golden Book: Five Little Firemen
Golden Book: How To Tell Time
Golden Book: The Little Golden Book of Hymns
Golden Book: Numbers: What They Look Like and What They Do
Golden Book: Counting Rhymes
Golden Book: Little Black Sambo
Golden Book: The Lively Little Rabbit
Golden Book: Words
Golden Book: Little Red Riding Hood
Golden Book: Dogs
Golden Book: The Fourteen Bears
Golden Book: The Taxi That Hurried

CIRQUE DU SOLEIL - TOTEM SHOW

Yesterday was a pedagogic day and Mew's school organized a trip to the Club de trampoline acrosport Barani. 

It was a heavily rainy and windy day and my hubbie had to take her by bike to the school to catch the school bus in early morning. Quel temps de chien! Luckily that it was not an outdoor activity day so the kids did not have to suffer from the bad weather. Mew did not want to go at first (she always just wants to stay at home with us whenever she has a day-off) but we encouraged her to participate in collective activities with other kids to improve her social and French skills. It turned out a great success as Mew enjoyed the trip very much. So did her classmates! They had a lot of fun climbing, jumping, running, sliding, etc. and Mew told us non-stop about her day.

Later in the evening, we came to the Quay of Old Port to watch TOTEM - the latest touring show of the Cirque du Soleil. Totem's theme concerns the evolution of mankind from its primordial, amphibian state toward his ultimate desire to fly. The show is inspired by many of mankind's founding myths and is recreated through visually stunning acrobatics and state-of-the-art performance technology.

For a video preview of this show, follows this official link.

It was a wonderful night with unbelievable acts by talented performers of the world famous circus group, from aboriginal hoop dancer to acrobats jumping on planks, performers on Russian bar, trapezing performers, etc. with the marvelous image effect by videos and movable stage. The Big Top Tent where the show was presented was full of audience and the quality of 2-hour show was undoubtedly worth the money. We were also lucky to grasp the chance to buy the promo tickets at 50% discount in advance, hence the show was affordable for our budget. This was Mew's first time of watching directly a circus show and we were glad that she could admire at a world-class quality show of acrobatics and imagery as such. 

 

 

It's no wonder that its theatrical, character-driven approach and the absence of performing animals helped define Cirque du Soleil as the world brand in the contemporary circus today. And we were so pleased to be one of their spectators last night despite the falling snow and rain trouble.