My boys (7 and 9 years old) spent the last few weeks preparing for a great Lego battle. They both built clever castles and prepared armies of men and scorpions and Star Wars creatures and bugs. Yesterday, the day before the battle, they asked to go to the Lego store for a few reinforcements. So we did.
One son got ninjas. The other got a Lego Castles set that had a horse with a unicorn horn. My boys don’t have much interest in unicorns, so it was a nice way to sneak one in.
Oh, the preparation for the battle took weeks. The actual battle took about 2 minutes – including a break for a crying fit!
In any case, here is a unicorn that even boys can enjoy:
I was browsing Amazon recently for something entirely different and look what I found! Unicorn cookie cutters! This would be a nice gift for any unicorn lover. Happy Valentines Day!
I started thinking about Pegasus when I posted my last comment about the copper Pegasus artwork. I could not find that product on Amazon – I’m not sure where we got it. I did find some neat Pegasus toys and jewelry. Here are some examples:
As I was cleaning recently I was dusting my artwork. I was struck by how beautiful this copper Pegusus piece was with the sun shining on it. I thought I’d share the image:
Click here for a wordsearch puzzle featuring fantasy animals including the unicorn. As you find the fantasy animals, click on the puzzle to highlight them. This is the first of many puzzles that will be added to this site.
In my search for unicorns and other family-friendly fantasy stuff on the Web, I came across a site called www.girlgames.com. The site says it is focused on girl gamers. The games seem to consist mostly of online dress-up and innocent romantic fantasies. The girl stereotypes are a bit over the top, but some girls like that.
They do have a dress up game for a fairy and a unicorn:
http://www.girlgames.com/fairy-and-unicorn.html
If you have a young girl who is interested in dress-up, she might enjoy this site.
Here is a link to a great blog post about an educational games using a dragon/ fantasy motif. It sounds like a MUCH more educational game than the dress the princess game referenced earlier.
The Mind Shift blog focuses on how technology impacts education. It provides a well-written review of an iPad app called Toontastic. I don’t have an iPad (yet), so I can’t vouch personally for the app. The review gives a good desciption.
Check out the review here.
With more Web searching, I stumbled across the GeekMom.com site. I’m not sure why it took me so long to find it. I am a Mom and a Geek. I read the GeekDad.com site, and my family even won a GeekDad.com Lego contest. But somehow, I never realized that GeekMom.com existed. I suspect that it will be favorite reading from here on out!
Anyway, there is a terrific review of the Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia Wrede on the site. The books are highly recommended! I plan to try reading them with my boys.
Check out the GeekMom.com review here.
In the Magic Tree House book, “Hour of the Olympics”, Jack and Annie travel back to ancient Greece. Annie is not allowed to go to the games, because she is a girl. Being a modern girl, Annie won’t put up with that. So she puts on a suit of armor and sneaks into the games. She gets grabbed by two guards. Then Pegasus arrives to save the day! He rescues Jack and Annie and flies them safely back to the Magic Tree House.
Pegasus also appears as a constellation in the sky, like Monoceros.
Check out the book and the popular series by Mary Pope Osborne:
For Christmas, my son received a young readers version of the classic Dr. Dolittle (see specific version below). In the book, Polynesia the parrot introduces the doctor to speaking animal languages. She states that she is fluent in over 2000 animal languages – including unicorn. Pretty impressive for a parrot!
We enjoyed the book so much that we rented the original Dr Dolittle movie with Rex Harrison. The movie is definately dated, but still fun to watch. Both of my sons enjoyed the movie – even the 9.5 year old.
I can walk with the animals, talk with the animals…
