Last Minute Gift Ideas

I've always been a fan of children's gifts that are educational, or that encourage activity or creativity. In a time when most gifts for youngsters require batteries or monthly payment plans.... here are a few non-technological gifts your nieces and nephews can enjoy this holiday season.

  Journal - A simple and inexpensive gift, a journal makes a thoughtful gift particularly for tween and teens. As a long-distance auntie, I often struggle with feeling like I can't be there for my neices as they go through a transitional time in their lives - middle school, boys, cliques, school dances... a journal makes a nice outlet and a way to sort out feelings our nieces (or nephews) may not quite yet understand.

Scrapbook - What better way to capture memories than to create a scrapbook with your niece or nephew. Take photographs and mementos from a holiday or a special time you shared with your niece or nephew and create a scrapbook together! You can both look back on it and remember the occassion and the fun you had creating it!
American Girl Learn to Scrapbook Kit

Magnetic poetry - encourage creativity with magnetic poetry! These magnetic words let you piece words together to create poems or messages, yet another way our nieces/nephews can express themselves!

Kids' Magnetic Poetry

Elf on the Shelf - Another good one for youngsters that will help keep the magic of Santa alive! If you haven't heard of the Elf on the Shelf, the idea is that Santa sends the elf to watch the children to see whose being naughty or nice. Each night the elf reports back to Santa and reappears the next day in a different spot. The gift set includes the elf doll, hardbound children's book and keepsake box.

Elf on the Shelf

Easel - great for younger nieces and nephews to get creative! Kids can create art with paint, chalk, pens crayons and more. The two-sided easel allows two children to work at one time. Because it has a dowel to hold a butcher paper roll, just tear off once the child is done and pull the paper through to start on the next project! The downfall here is the paper and art supplies aren't included.

Melissa and Doug Deluxe Standing Easel

Turtle constellation night light - How cute is this? The Twilight Turtle nightlight lights up a nursery or child's room, creating a starry night sky. The nightlight displays eight major constellations (Big Dipper, Big Bear) and comes with an illustrated Star Guide and so has an eduational element as well. Also include a story about how the tutrtle, separated from his father, uses the constellations to find his way home. A soothing way to fall asleep and teach little ones about the sky above - love it!

Cloud b Twilight Constellation Night Light

Crayola Crayon maker - If I were a kid, I would want one of these! I love that crayola is continuously coming out with unique new toys to keep boys and girls creative. Kids can melt their favorite crayons and re-form them into their own one-of-a-kind crayons as they watch! They get to create their own creative color combinations and have crayons that are all their own! Best of all, this product is safe!

Crayola Crayon Maker

Rory's Story Cubes - I recently heard of this game, and I absolutely love the concept. Rory's Story Cubes is pocket-sized creative story generator. It comes with nine dice with different picture on each face. Roll the dice and use the images to create a story. The child can create a story on their own or play with multiple players so that each player adds to the story to collaborate on a story together! What I love about this game is that it promotes imagination and story-telling. Also seems like it would be a great confidence booster to help with literacy development. This game is great for all ages!
Rory's Story Cubes

War Horse - I love to give books as gifts and I've heard nothing but rave reviews for War Horse. I've heard its a great read for all ages and perfect for animal lovers.and it's unique because it's narrated by the horse. This book is on my wish list.  Would make a great companion gift with some movie passes to see the movie version with your niece or nephew!

War Horse






Happy shopping!!

Tis the Season...

The holidays are a hard time to be a long-distance auntie. It's difficult to spend the holidays apart from our nieces and nephews. Fortunately, this year I will be traveling to spend Christmas with my family.

But if you aren't able to be with your nieces and nephews this Holiday season you can still find ways to feel close to them. Consider sending tree ornaments as Christmas gifts. You can personalize them to reflect each child's personality or highlight something memorable that happened this year. Or get a photo frame ornament and fill it with a photo of you and your niece or nephew together.

This could become a yearly tradition and the ornaments can become part of their own collection that they will cherish!

Magazine Subscriptions

With Christmas around the corner, I've been trying to find a magazine that might be appropriate for both my nieces. While they're very close in age, they're two very different girls and different phases of their lives. At 9, Bailey is still into Barbies, and toys. At 11, Hannah is a tween and wants to do more grown-up things.

As I began searching for age-appropriate magazines, I found that while a 'tween' magazine seemed too mature for Bailey, other mags seemed like they'd be too young for Hannah. I started to realize that one magazine might not be appropriate for both of them.

Here's what I found in my research:

American Girl: Yes they still have American Girl Magazine! And it's just as you remember it from back in the day. I picked up a copy of the December 2011 issue and it's full of recipes, crafts and activities that I think are perfect for Bailey's creative side. I love that they featured art submitted by readers. A great feature in this issue is: "My Life on the Road," written by a 13 year-old girl who spent a year traveling Europe in an R.V. with her parents. The story of her family's adventures was complete with a map showing their route and the countries they visited.
I think this magazine is perfect for girls in the 7-12 range, though tween girls may find it "babyish."

Discovery Girls: I had heard of Discovery Girls but wanted to check it out for myself. I love that it features Real girls - there are no models - all over the mag including their: "Meet the Discovery Girls" section and "I'm in DG!" Readers will see girls, just like them, featured in Discovery Girls. The mag has an advice column, embarrassing moments, and fun quizzes just like teen magazines that might be appealing to girls, but that are more age-appropriate for tweens. This particular issue (October/November 2011) featured a lot about friendship, something that's very important to tween girls. I loved the "Be your Own Best Friend" article that advises girls on ways to stop putting themselves down.
Discovery Girls says for ages 8 and up, I think it will appeal most to tween girls.

Girls Life: The suggested age for Girls Life is 10-15. It has a similar look to teen magazines with fashion and beauty, and talk about guys. This magazine seems to have a more celebrity and appearance based focus, and seems more fitting for tweens and teens. Because of this I focused my attention on mags geared toward a slightly younger audience.








My first impression was that American Girl and Discover Girls were a bit thin, but for a good reason: NO advertisements! I like that both American Girl and Discovery Girls feature REAL girls and have a more down-to-earth feel. I think these are two magazines that my nieces will enjoy. I think there will be an overlap in appeal to both magazines, so that Hannah might appreciate American Girl and Bailey might find things she enjoys in Discovery Girls so that perhaps the girls will share with one another.

A magazine subscription is great gift that your nieces or nephews can enjoy all year 'round!

IlluStory

My niece Bailey is turning 9. This weekend is her birthday party, and I won't be there to celebrate. I won't be able to watch her open gifts or blow out the candles on her cake. Instead I will mail her a card, ship some gifts and call her afterward to find out how it all went. Birthdays aren't an easy time to be a long-distance aunt.

I've been searching for the right gift for her birthday. BarnesandNoble.com has a nice feature that allows you to search for toys, games and books by age. As I was searching for gifts online I stumbled upon Illustory -its a way for kids to write and illustrate their own story. It comes with the pages to write the story with room to draw the photos, markers for the artwork and a postage paid envelope to mail the manuscript.

The bound and finished book is returned within a few weeks, a professionally published version of your child's story! What a great way to express creativity and have a memorable gift. Bailey loves to tell stories, I think this is a great way to preserve one of them in a nicely bound book! I thought this was a nice gift idea and wanted to share. 

I hope she likes it!

Girls Rule!

There’s no denying girls are growing up faster these days, and they’re being inundated by the media and their peers with negative messages about the way they should look and the way they should act. How can we combat those messages and remind the girls we love to stay true to themselves?

I’ve been searching for ways to reinforce that message for my young nieces, through books and movies with positive female protagonists and inspirational quotes.

I came across a book called “Girls Rule” by Ashley Rice.

The one you see here is the updated edition and it’s a slim book full of positive writings, poems and fun drawings just for girls. There are several other books in the series, narrated by Penelope J. Miller, with themes of following your dream and believing in yourself. Other titles include: "You Go Girl... Keep Dreaming" and "You Are an Amazing Girl: A Very Special Book About Being You and Making Your Dreams Come True."

I gave this book to my niece “Hannah” for her eleventh birthday and she LOVES it. I bought myself a copy so we can talk about it and share our favorite parts. I hope that perhaps it will be a springboard for some fun and insightful conversations.

“Girls Rule” covers uniqueness, courage, friendship and handling change. This is just the thing I was looking for. I will be checking out other books by Ashley Rice as future gift possibilities! You can check out her website here: http://www.ashleyrice.com/