Tag - Josiah

Tried It Tuesday: My Kids’ New Favorite Board Game

April 5, 2016

This post contains an affiliate link, which means at no additional cost to you, I may receive a small commission when you make a purchase through the link.

With Josiah’s recent birthday, he has had an influx of new toys, clothes, and games to enjoy.

Of all the things he received for his birthday, there is one thing that both he and Elijah have been playing with more than any other: The Sneaky Snacky Squirrel Game.

I could claim all kinds of “awesome parent” points for this since it was from Mommy & Daddy, and I picked out the game… except that with Easter and birthday party prep, I kind of overlooked getting him a present until a couple days before his birthday. (Brad and I have been considering getting the boys a swing set or playset for our yard, but we hadn’t found one yet, so we kept putting off getting Josiah’s birthday gifts, just in case we came across a swing set before his birthday.)

Thankfully, my instincts were good on this one. I knew I had seen comments about how much families liked this award-winning game, so I figured it would be worth a try. Besides, we (read: Mommy) can only play so many games of Candyland.

The boys even played this game in their blanket fort.

From the minute we opened the box, the boys were intrigued (and fighting over the adorable “squirrel squeezer”). With their little tree trunks in front of them, they barely let me read over the very easy directions before they started trying to play.

It’s a really simple game with a spinner, acorns in five different colors, tree trunks for “stashing” your acorns, and the aforementioned cute little squirrel squeezer that you use to pick up the acorns. The object of the game is to collect all 5 colors of acorns before anyone else, but you have to watch out for obstacles on the spinner that slow you down: the Sad Squirrel that causes you to lose your turn and the wind storm that blows all your acorns back to the main tree.

Without a doubt, our boys’ favorite thing to land on is the Sneaky Squirrel because then they get to steal an acorn from someone else. They are positively delighted to get to be so mischievous. Of course, they don’t really enjoy it when someone else steals their acorn, so it’s been a great game for teaching them to be a good sport.

That first day we played several rounds of the game, and we’ve played it nearly every day since. They played it with their grandparents, and Josiah even took it over to his cousins’ house this past week to introduce them to the fun. Watching the four boys play it together was hilarious and precious. They all loved the sense of accomplishment when they managed to collect all their acorns and win a game.

As a parent, I appreciate the simplicity of the game, which makes it easy for my 3-year-old to play without help, while not being too young for my 5-year-old (or Brad and I) to have fun. The game is designed to help encourage color identification, as well as matching, sorting, strategic thinking, hand-eye coordination, fine motor skills and pre-handwriting skills, and I can already see improvement for Josiah in some of those areas.

So even if it was more of a last-minute gift, it has turned out to be a great one, one that our entire family enjoys playing, and one that has easily become our boys’ new favorite board game.

The Happy Talent of Play

March 31, 2016

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Life in Lape Haven: The Happy Talent of Play. We need to encourage our children to develop their talent for play and make sure that our own skills in that area stay sharp, too.

The other day as I was folding clothes in the living room, the boys were playing a few feet away. Elijah is on Spring Break this week, and while they had been crazy earlier, fighting and whining, Elijah and Josiah were behaving well now and getting along happily. In fact, they were loudly enjoying themselves.

As I worked, instead of blocking them out, I intentionally tuned in through the chaos of the boys playing together to listen to what and how they were playing together.

Just on the other end of the couch where I was stacking clean clothes, the boys had constructed a “fort” with a blanket stretched from the main couch to the end table to the smaller chaise we’d brought down from upstairs on Saturday for more party seating for Josiah’s birthday.

From their little corner hideaway came the giggles and chatter that only come from true play and imagining. With nearly all the pillows in the house either underneath them as their floor or propped up against the piano bench as doors, the boys were pretending to be a king (Elijah) and a prince (Josiah).

I’m not certain what their storyline was because it changed frequently. However, I gathered that there was a “bad guy” that they had to fight, but they didn’t want to leave their castle. With my suggestion that they post trustworthy guards at the gate when they went to battle, Josiah’s new stuffed Chewbacca was recruited and placed at the opening of their fortress.

Probably the best thing I heard that day was their conversation with their new guard as they prepared to go fight:

Elijah: “How many people have tried to get into the castle?”

(Elijah pushes the button on the talking Chewbacca): “Arrrrgghroooowrrr arraaggh.”

Elijah: “Eleven million?”

Chewbacca: “Arrrggghrooowrrr.”

Elijah: “Ok.” To Josiah, “He’s put them all in the jail. Let’s go.”

Josiah: “Ok. Let’s go get the bad guy.”

Chewy makes a pretty impressive guard – he put eleven million people in jail in one day!

I love it when my boys really play like this, using their imaginations and creativity, rather than just wanting to sit and stare at a tablet or TV screen (we like technology and media, but we don’t want our children to be bogged down by it). Actual play allows them to build memories together and bond as brothers and friends, learning how to get along and find unique solutions to resolve their imaginary (and real) conflicts.

I especially love when I can witness them playing together or better yet, join in with them. (Post-birthday-party clean-up had me playing a bit of catch-up with the housework first, though. I did, however, get to play some “Sneaky, Snacky Squirrel” with them a bit later.)

From the time our boys could speak, one of their favorite questions for Brad and me is, “Will you play with me/us?”

And while we know we can’t be at their beck and call all day long, we do our best to get down on the floor, or under the blanket fort, or out in the yard, and play along.

Today we had a chance to visit a local park as a family for about an hour or so, running around the huge playground and exploring the pathways and pond. As we wandered around the area, we went through a rather nice shelter house that had this saying carved over one of the two fireplaces (seriously, fireplaces in the shelter house):

“It is a happy talent to know how to play.” Emerson

Brad laughed at me for snapping a picture of the quote, but I wanted to make sure I didn’t forget it later.

We were there with our boys, playing, nurturing a talent that I want them to use every day for the rest of their lives and making sure that Brad and I don’t let our own talent for play get rusty.

As parents, we like to encourage our kids in practicing piano or learning to draw or developing any other number of skills, giftings, and abilities that God has given them. This little quote reminded me that I also want my boys to be very talented in knowing how to play, to create their own fun, to make-believe and pretend, and to find joy and adventure in a simple walk around the block or a dash across a field.

We can’t forget the importance of this talent, in both our children and ourselves.

If you need a little inspiration, here are some fun quotes about the importance of play:

“Those who play rarely become brittle in the face of stress or lose the healing capacity for humor.” –Stuart Brown, M.D.

“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.” – George Bernard Shaw

“Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do. Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.” – Mark Twain

“Children need the freedom and time to play. Play is not a luxury. Play is a necessity.” – Kay Redfield Jamison

“Play keeps us vital and alive. It gives us an enthusiasm for life that is irreplaceable. Without it, life just doesn’t taste good.” – Lucia Capocchione

“Do not…keep children to their studies by compulsion but by play.” – Plato

“Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood.” – Fred Rogers

“Surely all God’s people…like to play.” – John Muir

“A child who does not play is not a child, but the man who does not play has lost forever the child who lived in him.” – Pablo Neruda

Josiah’s Star Wars Birthday Party

March 28, 2016

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Life in Lape Haven: Josiah's Star Wars Birthday Party. Our littlest boy just turned three, and we celebrated with a fun Star Wars birthday party. Here is the scoop on our costumes, decorations, cake, and more with links to all the printables and recipes I used.

This post contains a couple of affiliate links, which means, at no additional cost to you, I may receive a small commission if you use the links.

Three years ago we welcomed our little daredevil, Josiah, into our family, and this past weekend, in addition to all the Easter festivities, we celebrated his third birthday, Star Wars style.

Now before I get too far into this, I just want to say that we do birthdays the way that we do because our family enjoys it. Before I was a stay-at-home mom, most of the jobs on my resume had event planning as part of my job description. I have fun planning, creating, and setting up our parties and putting my own DIY touches on them. Of course, even though I love doing parties, I also love not spending a ton of money on them because after all, it’s just a kid’s party. So, I try to do a fun party frugally.

In addition, my boys have inherited their mother’s love of playing dress-up, and ever since Elijah attended a cousin’s pirate-themed costume birthday party when he was two, he has wanted to do costumes for his birthday. Since we can usually throw together fun costumes really inexpensively, and we try to pick themes that lend themselves to easy, simple costumes, this has become our family’s tradition.

If you see parties as just a bunch of fuss and bother, that’s fine. Celebrate your way. Even though I scroll through Pinterest for ideas and inspiration, I NEVER feel as though I HAVE to throw a perfect party such as you see on there. We just take the things that will be fun for us and forget the rest.

I also ALWAYS ask my boys what they want to do for their birthday. They are free to say they don’t want to dress up, or we can go to the park or out to dinner, or whatever they’d enjoy (within reason and budget). So far, they have always wanted a party at home with family and costumes. I also let them help decide on the theme.

When Josiah chose Star Wars for his party this year, I was surprised, and I wasn’t. They’ve only seen parts of the original Star Wars movie (you know, the REAL Star Wars), so I didn’t think they were that into it. However, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Star Wars stuff is kind of EVERYWHERE this year. So, yeah.

THE INVITE

With every party we do, I always start with a plan: a theme, color scheme, costume ideas, menu, and an invitation, which I always create in Photoshop. (You could probably use PicMonkey, too, although I never have.) I generally make my invites as a 4×6 or 5×7 because then I can just have them printed like photos if I need to have actual copies to hand out or mail. I also create an event on Facebook, which works well for most of our family. Since we have about 25 people when both sides of our families – Great-grandparents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins – all come, we usually only have family at these parties.

Here is the invite I created for Josiah:

I found the characters on a free print-out that I downloaded, and I cropped each character out in Photoshop. The font I used is the free font, Star Jedi.

THE COSTUMES

When Josiah picked his theme, I knew I was going to be Princess Leia because she’s really the only girl character from Star Wars that my boys know. However, wearing a white long-sleeved, long gown when hosting a 3-year-old’s birthday party is not the most practical idea. Thankfully, Leia had some better options in the other movies, and with white pants, a white turtleneck, and a white puffy vest, plus my snow boots and an updo of Heidi braids, I was able to recreate her look on the ice planet of Hoth from The Empire Strikes Back.

Of course, my hubby had to be Han Solo to my Leia, and he had the easiest costume of all: jeans with red masking tape, cream-colored shirt, black vest, and a silver-spray-painted, cardboard cut-out belt buckle on his gun holster.

The boys went back and forth about who they wanted to be, but thankfully Josiah decided on Luke Skywalker (tan pants, a cream tunic, brown belt, and a too-big brown hoodie) over Darth Vader, and Elijah lucked out when I found a Finn costume (from the newest movie & who he really wanted to be) on clearance! Most of the pieces for our costumes were either stuff we already had (I always save our costume items) or things I picked up at the thrift store. Our guns came from the Dollar Tree.

: Josiah as Luke Skywalker and Elijah as Finn.

: My littlest nephew, Aiden, made an adorable Yoda.

Our Labradoodle, Vinny, was our Chewbacca. I just cut off a piece of brown shelf liner that we had and looped it over him to create a super simplified bandolier. I don’t think he truly appreciated the honor it was to be the coolest Wookie ever.

THE DECORATIONS

For parties I usually decorate rather minimally. I make sure that we have a backdrop or decorations at the food table, and then I come up with a background for pictures in the living room.

In the kitchen, I used a black plastic tablecloth hung behind the food table to create an outer space feel. I bought a pack of white paper star cut-outs, spray painted some of them gold and silver, and then taped them to fishing line that was thumb-tacked to our ceiling in front of the background.

A gray paper lantern with a couple of tweaks became our “Death Star” looming over all the goodies. I found a diagram of the Death Star online and printed it out so that the circle for the laser beam was the right size to be proportional to my paper lantern. I also took a black Sharpie and made an equator around its middle.

The addition of a Star Wars movie poster on another wall in the kitchen completed that room.

Our picture backdrop was again made from black plastic tablecloths. Since I’ve used these kinds of tablecloths before for backgrounds, I’ve discovered that the easiest, most secure way to hang them is to fold it over to the length that you need it and tape a hem on one end. You basically create a curtain out of the plastic. I then run a piece of string through the hems and tie it up over our living room pocket doors.

A few more strands of fishing line with stars tacked in front of the plastic curtains, and our picture area was done. It wasn’t anything fancy, but it was better than just a plain wall.

THE FOOD

We always hold our parties in the afternoons, which means we don’t need to feed everyone a full meal. However, we always have fruits, veggies, and cheese and crackers to snack on before the cake and ice cream are served, plus tea and lemonade to drink. To carry the Star Wars theme through the goodies, I printed out these super fun food labels that were full of great ideas and delightful puns. My favorites were Han’s Rolos and Luke Skywater. I totally bought Rolos just so we could use that. 🙂

: The boys helped add “ammo” to the Wookie Cookies.

: The Wookie Cookies and Han’s Rolos.

: Teehee – Luke Skywater

: Food table – complete with a note to “Use the Forks.”

We also made our version of “Wookie Cookies,” decorating my regular recipe for No-Bake Cookies with a chocolate candy melt bandolier and white chocolate chips as the ammo. I let my boys add the “ammo,” which they thoroughly enjoyed.

THE CAKE

I have made every birthday cake for my boys since Elijah’s very first one, and this year was no exception. I’m not a great cake decorator, but I try to do something fun with them.

For Josiah’s cake, I made a classic white cake and filled it with strawberry jelly and one of my favorite icings, Cloud Frosting. Made with cream cheese, cream, and powdered sugar, this easy, yummy icing is always a hit, plus I knew that it would go well with the strawberry jelly filling.

To make the strawberry filling, I heat a few cups of an all-natural strawberry jelly in the microwave and then stirred in a little over half a package of unflavored gelatin to help it set up better and not make the cake soggy. I had never tried that before, but it worked really well and tasted delicious.

: Strawberry jelly filling

: Adding the fondant stars.

: Blowing out the candles.

: Even though I could have used more strawberry filling, this was a delicious cake.

To decorate the cake, I looked everywhere for a simple star decoration or candy. Finding none that would work, I decided to try my hand at homemade marshmallow fondant, using a recipe I found on Pinterest. It worked really well and was actually a lot easier than I anticipated. The worst part was all the powder-sugar fingerprints I left around my kitchen. I only made about ¼ of the recipe, initially thinking I’d just try it out before I made my stars, but when it came together so easily, I went ahead and cut out my stars ahead of time. Once they dried out a bit, I brushed them with a gold icing and let them set up.

Through my Pinterest searching for Star Wars ideas, I came across these free printable Star Wars cupcake toppers, which gave me the perfect toppers for the cake. I cut out the characters and taped them to some bamboo skewers, and with my stars surrounding them, it made a perfectly fun cake for Josiah’s day.

ATMOSPHERE, FAVORS, & FUN

One thing that I always try to have ready for our parties is a playlist that matches the theme, and a Star Wars party is nothing without an epic soundtrack in the background. I loved being able to use our Amazon Prime access to their music library and create a playlist with all the songs we needed. Try Amazon Prime 30-Day Free Trial

Technology also helped us create a memorable encounter for Josiah with Darth Vader. My oldest nephew, Jericho, who is a big Star Wars fan, is in the Airforce and stationed in South Carolina. Knowing that he had a Darth Vader costume from last Halloween, I asked him if he would be so kind as to call us on Skype during Josiah’s party while in his Vader costume.

Josiah’s reaction was priceless. While we were all talking to my niece-in-law over Skype, she played a sound bite of Darth Vader’s breathing as Jericho walked into the frame in costume. Josiah ran from where he’d been standing in the middle of the room to the couch along the wall, squeezing in between my sister-in-law and my grandpa. After the initial surprise wore off, though, our little guy had fun getting birthday wishes from one of his favorite characters.

While I had planned to play a game of “Find the Droid” with the kids, one of the Star Wars party games we found, they were all too busy just having fun together to focus, so after Josiah opened his presents and thanks his guests, we handed out the favors for the kids so that they could just keep playing.

Favors are always a maybe-maybe not thing for us at parties. As a parent, I’m not thrilled when my child brings home little trinkets and extra stuff that they didn’t really need. However, as the hostess, if I can find something that is fun token, I try to give the children something. Plus, I think this also encourages my birthday boy not to be as selfish about his day, since I generally have the boys hand them out.

For Josiah’s favors, we gave out Star Wars tote bags (from the Dollar Tree) and bubble wand “light sabers.”

Then just like that, our boys were outside enjoying a beautifully sunny day with their cousins, blowing bubbles and fighting off imaginary Storm Troopers.

I’m pretty certain that the Force was strong with this party, or at least our little Jedi thought so. 🙂

Tried It Tuesday: How to Get Grease Stains (Even Set-In Ones) Out of Clothing

March 21, 2016

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Life in Lape Haven - Tried It Tuesday: How to Get Grease Stains (Even Set-In Ones) Out of Clothing - After finding grease and oil spots on my son's shirts, ones that had already been washed and dried, I decided to find a simple way to get the grease and oil stains out of his clothing.

My children are really doing wonders for improving my laundry skills and stain-treating know-how lately. First it was the hunt to figure out how to get rid of dry erase marker on my 5-year-old’s pants. Then, thanks to my 2-year-old, I learned how easy it is to remove silly putty from fabric.

This week, Elijah’s sloppy eating habits have sent me on a new quest: How to get grease stains – set-in ones, too – out of clothing.

(This post may contain affiliate links, which means that at no additional cost to you, I may receive a small commission when you use the link.)

Last week my son wore a brand-new yellow polo shirt to church and at lunch spilled pasta sauce on it. My hubby used cold water to sponge it off, and I thought we might have dodged a stain bullet. I even pretreated it before washing it, just to be safe. However, I was disappointed when I went to fold the laundry and saw three very obvious oily, grease splotches on Elijah’s only-worn-once new shirt. Ugh.

Then that night as I was pulling clothes out of his dresser for him to wear to school in the morning, I picked out a long-sleeved dark blue shirt, only to toss it back down in defeat when I noticed that it had some mysterious greasy-looking stains on it, too.

: Elijah’s yellow shirt with oil spots

: Close-up of grease stains

: His blue shirt has lots of little spots

Determined to salvage these two shirts, I looked for solutions online for how to remove grease or oil stains from clothing. Having tried the chalk idea in the past with little success, I skipped that, and we didn’t have any WD-40 on hand, so that knocked out a good number of Pinterest search results for removing grease spots.

Then I found one that promised that I could get the grease out, even if the item had been through the dryer, using only items that I had in my house!

It required Spray ‘N’ Wash stain treater, baking soda, dish detergent, and an old toothbrush. Check, check, check, and check!

I was ready to treat, scrub, and wash, and hopefully save two shirts.

Following the directions I had found, I treated the shirts with Spray ‘N’ Wash and used the toothbrush to scrub it in. Then I heavily dusted the treated areas with baking soda and scrub some more. (Actually, Josiah came in and wanted to help, so I let him do some scrubbing). After that I added some dish detergent, scrubbed a final time, and then let the shirts set about 10-20 minutes. (The instructions online said you could leave it anywhere from 5 to 30 minutes.)

: They suggested placing cardboard inside the shirt.

: Sprayed with stain treater.

: Josiah helped scrub in the baking soda.

: Scrubbing the shirt once the dish detergent was added.

: Stain treater on the blue shirt.

: Ready to scrub this one, too.

After washing and drying the shirts as usual, I laid them out on the table for inspection.

Sadly, the yellow shirt still had some visible staining, even though it was much less than before. The blue shirt actually looked completely stain-free, however, which made me very happy. It wasn’t until I took a picture of the blue shirt, using my flash, that I could even see even a hint of a small stain or two that I must have missed treating the first time through.

: The blue shirt came clean!

: The oil spots on the yellow were still visible.

: So, the yellow shirt got a second treatment.

Having evidence that the solution would help, I put the yellow shirt through a second complete stain treating and scrubbing, then washed and dried it again.

This time, the stains were pretty much gone. Again, it only shows up vaguely when I took a picture with my flash on. To the naked eye, it looks like a stain-free shirt again!

So, now I know that Spray ‘N’ Wash, baking soda, and dish detergent are a great combination for getting grease and oil stains out of our clothing.

I wonder what new stain my little boys will find for me to become an expert on next…

Here’s a hint: It’s grass stains! 🙂

Walking Closely

March 10, 2016

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Life in Lape Haven: Walking Closely: How Doggie-Doo & My 3-Yr-Old Point to God. Walking a child through a yard littered with dog leavings is tricky, especially when your child won't stay close.

How Doggie-Doo & My 3-Year-Old Point to God

Due to my hubby’s and Elijah’s allergies, when we got a dog a couple years ago, we knew we would have to go with a more hypoallergenic breed. Through God’s provision, we were able to bring home a 5-year-old chocolate Labradoodle named Vincent, or Vinny for short.

This giant teddy bear of a dog has brought lots of joy to our home…and occasionally some frustration. For example, he likes to “counter-surf,” meaning snatching food off the kitchen counters whenever he can, and since his muzzle is almost at the same height as the counters, he can grab things rather easily if we aren’t around. (He once ate an entire box of beautiful, delicious cookies that we’d just brought home from a friend’s wedding!)

With the spring thaw, another frustration has come back into play: Vinny’s…umm…”doggie-doo” – all over the yard where my boys are very excited to play. Of course, we understand that this is all part of having a dog, and even the Bible says “where no oxen (or dogs, in our case) are, the trough is clean…” (Proverbs 14:4).

But have you ever tried to direct a clumsy nearly-3-year-old, who INSISTS on running full speed AND in a zig-zag, across a yard littered with dog leavings?

The odds are generally NOT in your favor, but thankfully, I beat the odds the other day.

On the return from the mailbox, though, Josiah was excited to be carrying a flyer into the house for me, so getting him to pay attention to me or his steps sounded more like this:

“Come here, Josiah. Walk over here by Mommy. No, this way. Stay with Mommy. No. Watch where you’re stepping. Don’t go over there. Josiah, come here. Careful! Grab my hand.” All the way to the back door.

*Sigh*

Technically, he was walking with me, but he wasn’t walking as “with me” as he could. He was determined to prove his independence (being almost 3, he’s been showing his “threeness” early, but thoroughly), while all I wanted to do was keep him safe from potential disaster. He would wander a bit closer to me, but then dart off again, just out of reach. I saw all the near-misses he somehow managed to pull-off even though he was completely oblivious to them.

Kids, huh?

And yet…we can do the same thing to God that Josiah did (does) to me.

We want to do things our way. We want to make the decisions. We want to be walking with God, but maybe not as “with Him” as we could be. That would mean giving up some of our independence. At times we’ll draw closer, but do we STAY close? And how many near-misses does God see that we are completely oblivious to?

Just like my heart toward Josiah, God doesn’t want us close so He can just dictate to us or prove He’s in charge.

He wants us close so He can lead our steps, direct us, and protect us from things we aren’t even aware of.

He wants us close so He can hold our hand, and we can share the adventure together.

“The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and He delights in his way.” ~ Psalm 37:23

My Kids’ New Favorite Fun App

March 8, 2016

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Life in Lape Haven: My Kids' New Favorite Fun App. While we limit our boys' screen time, we do like it when we find good, educational children's apps that they love to play. There are some they enjoy a lot and a new one that is their favorite.

(Shhh! It’s Educational!)

By the way, this post contains affiliate links, which means that at no additional cost to you, I may receive a small commission when you make a purchase through the links.

This Christmas my hubby really, really wanted to get our boys a tablet so they could play their ABCMouse.com and other learning apps and games without risking Daddy’s Surface or draining Mommy’s phone. When he found a good deal on a Kindle Fire, I acquiesced, even though I didn’t think my boys’ needed access to yet another screen.

However, with parental controls for when they can play, what they can play, and how long they can play, the tablet has actually been a very good tool for our boys. (Yes, Brad was right.) My favorite parental control setting is the one that requires the boys to spend at least a certain amount of time playing the educational apps before they can even see the icons for the “fun only” games.

This meant, though, that we needed to find some really good educational app options for them. We definitely included ABCMouse, but we wanted them to have more to choose from. I also preferred they be inexpensive, or better yet, FREE. Some of the good ones we found are totally free, while others are free but have more with the paid upgrade, and still others are, at most, a few dollars.

Since the boys each have their own profile, we can customize who gets what apps, so Josiah’s educational apps are the counting, colors, shapes, and ABC ones. Ones that he seems to really enjoy are Toddler Counting 123, Phonics Island by 2 2Learn (we upgraded from the free), and Monkey Preschool Fix It! (I really like that one)

For Elijah, some of the apps we included were Phonics Island (even though he’s reading well), Sight Words & Flash Cards Volume 1 by 2 2Learn (also upgraded), and Monkey Word School Adventure, plus some free Kindle books that he can read.

They have been doing well with using their learning apps, and I can definitely tell that the boys are learning, especially Josiah, who has been counting things and trying to identify letter sounds.

However, the other day, Elijah asked if we could find him a new game or app for the tablet and offered to pay for it with his own money from his piggy bank.

We did a quick search on Amazon for apps for kids, and I sorted the results by the highest customer rating. That’s how we found ThinkRolls 2. This app had a 5-star rating from 97-percent of the reviewers, with the remaining 3-percent giving it 4 stars.

If you’ve never heard of the app (we hadn’t), here is some of the game description:

“Thinkrolls 2 is an enlightening logic puzzler for kids 3-9…Children must use all their wits to navigate 28 spunky characters through 235 levels of increasingly complex mazes (117 for ages 3-5 and 118 for ages 5-9)… This clever game of logic keeps kids on their toes as they use properties of matter and basic physics to make their Thinkrolls not only roll, but float, glide, and teleport through a series of themed chapters. Each gradually introduces a new scientific concept in an accessible, easy to understand way. As kids explore and master, through trial and error, how to navigate the twists, turns and many pitfalls, they gain confidence in their deductive reasoning and ability to problem solve.”

It intrigued me, so I looked for reviews outside of Amazon and found this YouTube video, which shows you how the app is played.

Elijah watched along with me, and just a little way into it, he was saying, “Yes, I want that one.”

Not only does Elijah LOVE it, but so does Josiah, and I have been very surprised and impressed to watch them figure out how to move their character through the maze and the obstacles. They are learning how to think through steps to solve a problem, and when they make a mistake, the character doesn’t die. They just hit the do-over button at the top corner, and they can try again. Plus, the game lets them keep trying and trying until they get it. It isn’t timed, there’s no limit on do-overs, and no help prompts, unless you, as the parent, give them a nudge.

Each time they finish a level, they unlock a new little character, which Elijah said is his favorite part. Once he completes the “easy” levels, we can bump him up to the harder levels and see how he does, so the game can kind of grow with them. You can also have up to 6 player profiles on the game with different difficulty settings, so you can have your preschooler and elementary kids playing at their own levels. The game automatically starts wherever you leave off.

By the way, this game isn’t only for kids. When I had Brad play it the other night, I later had to suggest that he quit playing and get ready for bed. Haha. It IS really fun.

It is a purchased app, but the few dollars have already been more than worth it for my boys…all three of them. 🙂