5 Must-Have Baby Books for Boys

Posted on | by KD Novelties

baby books for boys

So you’re the proud parents of a bouncing baby boy. In addition to nurturing and caring for him, you’re going to want to give him a fantastic childhood and prepare him as best as you can for a successful future. That often starts with reading to your child from a young age and encouraging language skills, critical thinking, creativity, and more through books.

Here are 5 Must-Have Baby Books for the little blue-blanketed bundle of joy in your life:

1- Customized Fill in the Blank

Customized baby books are a fun and unique gift for a child, but they also provide a treasured family heirloom for your child as he grows. You can pick something specific to maintaining a record of your baby’s firsts — from a book that provides space for you to record details and special memories to a Sesame Street themed book that will teach your child about important first experiences like using the toilet, playing on the playground, and more. If you want something more playful, there are plenty of options for personalized books that can be customized with your child’s name and make them part of the story. Rather than speaking to their specific life experience, it will make them feel special by including them as a character in a book.

2- Superheroes

Little boys (and not so little) love superheroes — get them a book featuring their favorite heroes or comic book characters that they’ll want to revisit again and again. You can get them a picture book featuring their favorite heroes from the Justice League to the Avengers (or go even more specific with Spiderman, Batman, Superman, and more). If you want something more generic, but still love the idea of a book featuring a caped crusader, try something like Superhero ABC by Bob McLeod, which will teach your son his ABC’s featuring an alphabet’s worth of superheroes.

baby books for boys

3- Sports

Chances are your son is likely to be a sports fan at some point, whether he’s playing Little League, AYSO soccer, or just rooting on your family’s favorite teams. Capture that love of sport early with baby books that make use of yours (and his) favorite sports. Get him a personalized book making him the star of his own football, baseball, soccer, or hockey game. Or there’s loads of fun picture books out there that use sports in their storytelling from Bill Martin Jr.’s Swish, which chronicles the last minutes of an exciting basketball game, to Little Granny Quarterback, a fun rhyming tale of a grandmother who goes back to help her football team win the big game. No matter whether you’re a baseball lover or a basketball fan, there’s a sports themed book out there for you and your little one.

4- Classics

Classics are classics for a reason — choose a time-honored children’s book to share with your song and create an even more special bond if it’s one of your favorites from childhood. From the delight of The Very Hungry Caterpillar to the lesson of the importance of perseverance and TLC in The Carrot Seed, there’s no shortage of classic children’s books to choose from. If you’re looking for something playful, try the rhyming animal lesson in Is Your Mama a Llama?. Or maybe you just want something that expresses how much tenderness and love you have for your new baby — Guess How Much I Love You shares that beautiful theme accompanied by lovely illustrations.

5- Books that Encourage Learning

One of the main reasons to read to your child as a baby is to help cultivate their language skills and promote critical thinking. Many children’s books are specifically designed to help teach your ABCs, counting, or more complicated tenets of wordplay and more.

Tana Hoban’s 26 Letters and 99 cents will help your child grasp letters and numbers (as well as some aspects of currency) with colorful pictures and an emphasis on patterns that reinforce learning, while Chris Van Allsburg’s The Z Was Zapped makes every letter in the alphabet memorable with an illustration for each letter involved in a letter-specific act. Chicka, Chicka, Boom, Boom is a fun rhythmic play on the ABCs and Jamberry is a fabulous choice for helping small children learn the sounds of our language and gain valuable building blocks for further reading.

No matter what you want your son to learn, there’s a book out there that will turn it into a fun storytelling experience. That’s why it’s easier than ever to teach your son the joy of reading from his earliest days!

Test Prep Strategies for Elementary-Middle School Kids

Posted on | by KD Novelties

Taking tests can be scary. For American children, regular tests are about as common as standardized tests, but there are some tips and tricks that may help kids learn how to study and perform better on both. After all, tests are a lot less scary if you’re prepared.

Build Confidence

Test time can be panic-inducing for some kids, and others may choose to stay in denial until the night before when they finally decide to cram. The key to performing well on a test is preparation, but it also helps to be relaxed. Even kids who studied non-stop may perform poorly because they were too distracted by their own nervousness to focus properly. Sure, the idea of test-taking and the grade that follows is a difficult one to swallow, especially since the American school system places a lot of value in these numbers and statistics. This is where parents need to remind their child of their strengths. A test is not the end of the world, whether they fail or pass. However, if a child believes they are not good at a particular subject, no amount of studying may help them perform better. Remember to encourage your child to do well, but not to pile on the pressure. Every kid is different, but a little bit of cool confidence can go a long way.

Pacing Can Make it Interesting

If your child is preparing for a test, studying is key. But the idea of sitting down and reading over notes and textbooks can seem boring and tedious. You can try to instill small study sessions periodically throughout the week to help kids remain familiar with the test material without asking them to sit down for hours on end just before the day of the test in hopes of remembering it all. Learning things and reinforcing ideas little by little allow kids to build on previously learned information more effectively, which also makes it much easier to remember. You can incorporate reading, reviewing, or even study-based games throughout the unit or lesson to help keep kids engaged with their school work. As a parent, you may not exactly know what your child is learning in school, but it helps to ask. Make it part of the conversation, or have them teach you. There are many fun ways you can turn studying into learning and the process may not seem as daunting.

Tips and Tricks

Subject material aside, there are some good test-taking skills that could help no matter what a given test happens to be about. Try and share some tips with your kids to help them feel more confident in their general test-taking abilities:

  • -Remember to read all directions thoroughly before beginning the test or beginning to tackle a question.
  • -Skip questions that you don’t know the answer to or are taking you too long to figure out. Finish the questions you know first and come back to the others later. This will give you time to return to the question with fresh eyes, and you may have a better idea of what the answer is by coming back to it later after finishing other questions.
  • -Highlight or underline keywords in short answer questions that follow long passages, it could help you find your answer quicker once you get the appropriate section. Reading the questions before reading the passage can help, too.
  • -Read through all choices when answering multiple choice questions. Try to eliminate as many answers as you can if you get stuck.
  • -If you have time, go back and check your answers.
  • -Don’t forget to utilize scrap paper or the margins of tests (where allowed) to work out your thoughts and reasoning if you need to.

There are plenty of other ways that you can help your child with test prep, but the main thing is that they feel confident in their abilities. Having the right tools and the proper mindset are almost as important as being familiar with the subject material, but the most important thing is that they do their best.

Unique gift ideas for Babies and Toddlers

Posted on | by KD Novelties

Gifts for babies and toddlers shouldn’t be limited to toys and clothes. Often, parents have enough toys to make a child’s room into a mini toy store. While clothes may be passed down to younger siblings, some still sit unused or may even be the wrong gender, season or size to reuse later.

Choose gifts that make an impact…and that don’t add more of the same. When the occasion arises, and you need to shop for the perfect baby or toddler present, keep these 10 unique gift ideas in mind.

Personalized stepstools.

Little ones often need a step-stool, especially to reach big potties during toilet-training. Wooden stools personalized with a child’s name are a cute way to make an everyday item a fun addition to a child’s room. Name stools are often created with the name pieced together like a puzzle; children can remove each letter of their name and then piece it back together. Name stools also help kids learn to spell their name and to identify letters. Most companies allow letters to be painted in either pastel colors or brighter hues, so the look of the stool may be customized for the child.

Personalized story books.

Integrating a child’s name into a simple storybook adds a sentimental touch to a traditional gift. When the child becomes part of the story, it draws them into the reading journey. As they get older and delve into books, children also can appreciate their role as a lead character in a story. This is a gift that parents will cherish for a lifetime, and kids can read the books to their own children.

Lovies!

Babies and toddlers love ‘lovies!’ A lovie is a cross between a stuffed animal and a blanket. Typically the blanket is the ‘body’ and features a plush character head. Lovies come in a variety of animals and characters. The blanket portion of the lovie is usually made from soft fleece or a microfiber and can be embroidered with names, monograms and birthdates. Many kids use their lovies as their comfort objects, and parents can same them as special keepsakes after kids outgrow them.

College funds.

Start a college fund for a niece, nephew or grandchild. With student loan debt becoming a huge burden on many young adults, give a child a headstart on saving for their college fund. It’s never too early to begin saving for higher education! This is a gift that parents will appreciate, and money may be added for every birthday and holiday!

Art supplies.

Most kids love to draw and color. Crayons break, and markers dry out. Give little ones art supplies to nourish their creativity. For babies, opt for chunky crayons (for a super cute option, choose crayons in the shape of animals!) and fingerpaints. Introducing baby to different textures also is important for sensory development. Don’t forget construction paper! You can also purchase child sized easels to let toddlers have their own art studio.

Plush chairs and bean bags.

Gift a child with their own little reading chair! Pint-sized plush reading chairs or bean bag chairs may be purchased with a slipcover bearing the child’s name or monogram. Choose different fonts and slipcover colors or designs. Kids can grow into these chairs and use them as a comfortable space for silent reading when they get older!

Make a clothing quilt.

While you don’t want to add to a child’s ever overflowing wardrobe, you can offer to help parents preserve their favorite pieces. If you quilt or know someone who is an avid quilter, offer to make a quilt made from cherished favorite baby, toddler and childhood outfits. Often, parents want to keep a baby’s going home outfit, first day of school shirts and other significant clothes that hold special memories. However, besides storing special outfits in a cedar chest, there aren’t many ways to preserve those pieces. By making a quilt out of memory-filled clothes from a baby’s infancy and childhood (this is a multi-year task), you will create a quilt that parents can treasure for the rest of their lives.

Gift an experience.

Sometimes the best gift a child—especially a toddler—can receive is the gift of a new experience.  Kids who love trains may be excited to receive a trip to a train museum. Keep  child’s interests in mind, and select an experience that embraces a child’s personality and hobbies. Just make sure the experience is age-appropriate.

Choose gifts for babies and toddlers that are unique and that help children save for the future, invest in their favorite hobbies or offer personalized touches that will be treasured in later years. Gifts have the ability to create memories and magic; impactful gifts show originality, creativity and convey thoughtful planning. Opt from the expected, and, instead, gift the unexpected.