Nina's Little Fables

Recently after a trip to pick up dinner or going to the store, I let Noah stay up a little later because we had been in the car for quite a while and he didn’t get to watch The Good Night Show on PBS Sprout. That was when we were introduced to Nina’s Little Fables. From the moment we watched Nina’s Little Fables we became instant fans. I really like how Nina and Star share a fable. I have always liked fables growing up. I love that there is always a moral of the story and it teaches our children things through a story which I think sometimes has a bigger impact than just being told. Sometimes children need validation or a reason for things and fables are a great tool for that.

We have been staying up a little later at night and sitting on the couch and occasionally sharing a little treat while we watch Nina’s Little Fables. It is a special time we share together although every moment we share is special. It is definitely a privilege and if he misbehaves he will not be able to stay up for Nina’s Little Fables. I love how the animals are shadows. I have a pair of red pajama pants that have white animal shapes on them. Noah informed me that I have Nina’s little Fables on my pants. I looked at them and was like yeah you are right. I didn’t even make the connection. Noah is really smart.

I recommend getting your family together and watching Nina’s Little Fables on PBS Sprout during The Good Night Show every night. It is a lot of fun in our house.

Sprout For Parents!

I wanted to share with you guys an article I wrote for Sprout for Parents. Sprout For Parents is the parent’s website for PBS Sprout. It contains all kinds of really cool information and ideas from everything from parenting to recipes to craft ideas for adults. It is a great addition to Sprout Online. I really enjoy reading the articles and learning new things. It is something every parent should check out in my opinion. There are things there for parents of any age not just preschoolers.

I am incredibly honored to be a part of Sprout, as a member of The Band of Bloggers and now part of Sprout for Parents as an expert and contributor. My article is about scrapbooking, which is such a fun hobby of mine. I really enjoyed writing the article and I hope it helps people that want to learn more about scrapbooking.

So, go check out my article called Scrapbooking 101. and look around and make sure you bookmark it and come back often because they are always adding new content.

Lets Grow: Let's Lend A Helping Hand DVD Review and Giveaway!

As you all know I am a member of PBS Sprout’s Band of Bloggers. I had the opportunity to review the new Let’s Grow: Let’s Lend a Helping Hand DVD. It is a fun children’s DVD about helping others and lending a helping hand to anyone who might need your help. Sprout has teamed up with HIT Entertainment to start a new series of DVD’s called Let’s Grow; that focus on areas preschoolers encounter daily such as helping out, manners, safety, friendship,
cooperation and more. Our friends Kelly and Chica from the Sunshine Barn on The Sunnyside Up Show host this wonderful gem of entertainment.

It features episodes of Barney, Thomas and Friends, Bob the Builder, Fireman Sam, and Angelina Ballerina. All of the shows are on Sprout and produced by HIT Entertainment. Kelly and Chica also award the characters The Good Egg Award which Sproutlets get for being great helpers. You can even nominate your little Sproutlet for one HERE.

Noah saw the Let’s Grow: Let’s Lend a Helping Hand DVD on the counter and constantly talked about Barney and Thomas and “Fire Sam”. Last night I promised we would watch the DVD in the morning. Noah and I sat down together and watched the DVD. Noah loved it. He sat there and watched it, occasionally commenting on what was on the screen. It caught his attention and he wanted to watch it again after it was over. Noah can be pretty picky about what he watches when. So, it was great that he was really enjoying the Let’s Grow: Let’s Lend a Helping Hand DVD. I really like that there is an episode of Fireman Sam as that show is one of Noah’s favorites and it is harder to find. I love Kelly’s energy on The Sunnyside Up Show and everyone loves Chica. Chica is definitely awesome. Noah talks about Chica all the time. If your children love Sprout this is a must have DVD to add to your collection. The Let’s Grow: Lets Lend a Helping Hand DVD is in stores now.

For more information please visit Sprout’s website.

Thank you to PBS Sprout for The Let’s Grow: Let’s Lend a Helping Hand DVD for my reviewing purposes and providing one for the giveaway.

One lucky winner will win their very own copy of the Let’s Grow: Let’s Lend a Helping Hand DVD.

You must do the mandatory entry for the extra entries to count.

Mandatory Entry:
Tell me how your child has helped out lately

Extra Entries:

Subscribe to my blog via email. You must verify to count

Follow my blog

Tell me your child’s favorite Sprout character

Follow @Sheilacakes7 and tweet about this giveaway including a link to this post. This may be done once a day.

This giveaway ends February 2, 2010 at 11:59 pm ET.

This giveaway is open to US residents ONLY.

December PBS Sprout Update!

Here is a PBS Sprout update that I received as a member of the Sprout Band of Bloggers!

We have enjoyed watching the Preschool Musical preview on Sprout everyday. Noah loves Caillou’s Christmas Eve and all of the other holiday themed shows. That is just a warm up for next weeks Preschool Musical on TWO sticks. Preschool Musical on Two Sticks: a musical Sproutacular with stick puppets featuring a variety of favorite characters on an exciting journey through a snowstorm. The show premieres Dec. 24th at 5:30pm ET.

We will be watching that as well of course. Noah loves Sprout. It’s not too late to make your own Sprout friends on sticks. You can go to the website and print off the pictures, then color them any way you choose and then have a grownup attach a craft stick on the back and you can play right along with your Sprout friends!

On Christmas Eve Sprout is having the Third Annual Snooze-A-Thon. It is a show that will help your children sleep on Christmas Eve. It is 12 hours of uninterrupted segments that encourage kids to go to bed on time since all of their favorite characters are already sleeping. Starts Dec. 24th at 6pm ET and continues through 6am ET on the 25th. I can’t believe Christmas Eve is on Thursday. Time has flown by this year. Hopefully it will help Noah sleep. He is really excited about Christmas but he is only three so he doesn’t completely have the concept of time and days down. So I am thinking he won’t have problems sleeping. Me on the other hand, I always have trouble sleeping on Christmas Eve. I get so excited and even more so now that I am a mom.

To count down to the New Year Sprout is having Countdown to Noon. Celebrate the New Year the preschool way as The Sunny Side Up Show crew counts down to noon starting December 31st at 11:30am ET. I think that is a great idea! Young kids won’t stay up till midnight nor would my son be allowed to. I had trouble staying up until midnight even when I was young. I used to spend New Years with my grandparents and my cousins. Most years we would change the clock to midnight at like 9 or 10 pm and go out and bang on our pots and pans and go to bed. We would have a huge party too. It was a lot of fun.

For the complete holiday schedule, please go to Sprout's Holiday programing guide
I hope that everyone tunes in to these wonderful Sprout programs. I want to wish you all Happy Holidays and I hope everyone has a safe and fun filled season.

PBS Sprout Thanksgiving Call-in number

As I mentioned before Sprout is having their phone lines open so your Sproutlet with the permission of a grown up Sprout can call in and tell the on air host of The Sunny Side Up Show what he or she is thankful for LIVE!

Please note that the phone number will not be active UNTIL 8:45 am Eastern Time on Thanksgiving Morning.

The number is 1-877-91CHICA

Noah and I look forward to hearing what your Sproutlets are thankful for!

I hope everyone has a safe and wonderful Thanksgiving!

November PBS Sprout Update!

It’s November so it is time for another PBS Sprout update! I am a member of the Sprout Band of Bloggers so I get the opportunity to share what’s up on Sprout each month. November of course means Thanksgiving is coming.

PBS Sprout has a really cool programming schedule for Thanksgiving week. You can tell them what your Sproutlet is thankful for. It might even be on the scroll at the bottom of the screen starting Monday November 23rd 2009. On Thanksgiving morning your Sproutlet can call in with a grown up Sprout and speak live to the on air host and tell them what they are thankful for. That would be so cool to do. If your Sproutlet calls in make sure you have your family and friends watching Sprout too for your child’s debut.

There are all kinds of really cute Fall and Thanksgiving crafts to make. There are many things to keep your kids busy and they could be used to help decorate your table for Thanksgiving. Some of the crafts are place cards, napkin rings and even woven placemats. There are also some really cute coloring pages too. I really like the Sprout’s Thanksgiving Coloring Page because it has all of our favorite Sprout friends on it.

I hope you all watch Sprout with your kids and visit Sprout Online there is so many great activities  for your Sproutlets to do. Parents check out Sprout for Parents for great resources on parenting and other interesting things.

Noah and I will be watching on Thanksgiving week. We hope to hear and read what you are thankful for. We will be also on the lookout for our homemade hand turkey that we had so much fun making and sending in to Sprout.

Toilet paper, light bulbs, Socks for Rosie, Crayons

Toilet Paper, Light Bulbs, Socks for Rosie, Crayons has been stuck in my head all day. We went to the store today and Noah saw light bulbs and said Light bulbs and then he started singing Toilet Paper, Light Bulbs, Socks for Rosie, Crayons. I was walking around the store singing it. I don’t know what is worse the time I was singing Mr. Rogers Neighborhood in Wal-mart which I complete blame my friend Brittany for.

The song I have stuck in my head is from Caillou. Those of you that are familiar with Caillou probably figured it out by Rosie. It’s the episode where Caillou and his mom go shopping and she tells him to make up a song to remember what they have to buy. It’s a very cute show. My family loves Caillou regardless of what other moms say about him.

At the store I sampled a chocolate covered pretzel crisp. I am not sure who makes them but they are delish. Noah even tried to take and eat mine after his was gone. I gave him half of mine. Noah ate two little strawberry muffins too. I love free samples. They were having a special one day sale so it seemed like they had more samples than normal. Noah was a crumbly mess twice each time he ate a muffin. He loved them though. I probably should of bought some. Maybe next time we go there.

I don’t really like that store. We don’t go there very often because it is weird. Everything is little cubbyholes with smaller aisles in the middle. It seemed like we were in there for hours. It is great if you are running in for a few things but not for normal grocery shopping. It is way too confusing. You don’t know where you are going or where you have been. Oh and if you are with another person besides your child who is with you in the cart don’t walk away from them cause it will take you a long time to find them again. It’s not like you can walk down one “hall” and look down all the aisles. Of course when that happened I tried to call and my cell phone died.

In other news, I finally went and got a new cable box. My bedroom cable box messed up the day I went to my friend Rene’s for a visit on July 28th. Now I can watch all the local channels again. I went two months without watching like 5 channels. I didn’t get CBS, FOX and NBC and a couple local local channels. Now I can watch SVU on Wednesdays and Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy again. I have a cable box downstairs too that has never had problems. I am now on my fourth bedroom cable box. I don’t know. I must get defective ones. I have had many issues with Comcast. Everything from defective cable boxes from going down stairs during nap time and glancing at my tv which was on Noggin (which is a preschool channel) and there was a naked woman on it. I totally called and complained I was really upset. Somehow Comcast messed up or something. I never did find out what was going on.

Noah loves Comcast. About a year ago we were driving down the road, out of the blue Noah said I see Comcast. I look out the window and sure enough there was the Comcast office. He always talks about Comcast. I think it has to do with commercials and the on demand. Today he said go on demand when I got out of the car and he waiting with my mom while I ran in. I was carrying the cable box. He is so silly.

Today has been a good and relaxing day.

What's happenin' in September on Sprout?

We love PBS Sprout. Noah and I watch Sprout all the time. We enjoy the programs that are on and we also watch Sprout On Demand. I wanted to share with you first of all how wonderful and educational all of the programming is. There are shows like Caillou, Sesame Street and Barney to name a few. I know that when Sprout is on that I have complete confidence that there will be mom and kid approved content. The shows are very entertaining and Noah has learned a lot from his Sprout friends.

Sprout has launched an exclusive contest on their Facebook page asks viewers to submit a photo of their best Wiggly face. The winners will be chosen by user votes. There will be weekly prizes of a Flip Video camera . The grand prize is a Nintendo Wii and a Wiggles autographed shirt! How cool is that? I can’t wait to check out all the Wiggly Faces!

Noah loves the Good Night Show. The Good Night Show is on every evening starting at 6 pm ET. It stars Nina and Star. They also have a friend named Lucy who is a firefly. Each show has a theme with episodes of Sprout shows that are based on the theme. Nina also does an evening stretch that Noah loves to do. They sing songs and do a craft as well. It is a great way to wind down after a busy day and it keeps Noah entertained while I make dinner.

There will be a new season of the Good Night Show starting September 21st . The new season of The Good Night Show will also feature a new show called the Rubbadubbers. In celebration of the all new fun shows Nina will be joining Chica in the Sunshine barn for a Pajama Party! Noah and I decided we were going to celebrate right along with them and have a pajama party as well. It will be a lot of fun.

All children should have comfortable pajamas to sleep in. Unfortunately not every child has them. The wonderful people at Sprout have realized this and have teamed up with The Pajama Program for the Great Sprout Tuck in. The Pajama Program is a charity that helps children get comfortable pajamas and books to read.

Noah loves to wear pajamas. He will ask me for some jammies to wear sometimes even in the daytime. He has a pair of fire truck pajamas that he loves and asks to wear often. My heart sinks every time he asks to wear them now because he has out grown them! Not to mention they are more Winter pajamas. I think that every child should have a favorite pair of pajamas. Not only to keep them warm at night but for the comfort.

One of Noah’s favorite things is to look at books and have me read to him and tell him stories. Children who are read to when they are younger tend to have a greater love of reading as they get older. Some children don’t even have any books to read or look at. You can help! Here’s the deal… You can purchase NEW pajamas and NEW books and send them to PBS Sprout and then they will help give them to children in need. They will also match every single donation. They request that the items be new. They need all sizes of pajamas and all sorts of children’s books.

They need your help. They have almost reached their goal of helping 75,000 kids with new books and pajamas. Wouldn’t it be great to help them surpass their goal? The Great Sprout Tuck in is trying to hit their goal of 75,000 by Oct. 1st. Please help these children have a Good Night.

If you don’t get Sprout call your cable company or 1-866-9-Sprout and say Sprout Please!

Let's talk TV Kids edition!

I wrote about what shows are my favorites so I thought I would do the same for Noah. Noah loves Sprout. He enjoys watching pretty much anything on Sprout. He loves the Good Night Show. I actually have on video with my cell phone of Noah saying I love the Good Night Show. I don’t have a video camera. He also enjoys watching Caillou. Caillou is a really cute show. We also watch Barney as most almost 3 year olds do. He likes to watch Thomas and Friends. Noah has a love for trains and loves Thomas stuff. He likes the sprout originals as well such as Fireman Sam (Fire Sam), Dive Olly Dive (Dive Dive), and The Mighty Jungle.

Noah also enjoys some of the shows on Noggin like Maggie and the Ferocious Beast, Dora and Diego and Yo Gabba Gabba. Thanks to the wonders of On Demand he can watch certain shows when he wants to see them. I wish they would put more shows on demand but I am happy with the ones we have.

He enjoys watching DVD’s as well. We love Baby Faith DVD’s. Baby Faith is a series of DVD’s like Baby Einstein except they are based on the Bible. They are hosted by Jodie Benson who was the voice of Ariel in The Little Mermaid. They are so cute. My favorite is God made Music which is the story of David and Goliath. There is a rap in there that is so adorable. You should check them out. We also have some of the Baby Einstein DVD’s. Noah still enjoys watching them too.

A lot of the time Noah isn’t plopped down on the couch with a bag of candy doing nothing but watching TV. He runs around and plays and does other things. He will stop what he is doing to watch something if it catches his eye. For the most part he is a multi-tasking little boy.