Looking for a little BrainFood, check out this fun Mammals DVD

 We recently received a fun DVD from BrainFood Learning to review and share our thoughts here.  The boys selected The Fascinating World of Mammals as their first choice. The day we received it in the mail, the boys immediately put it in the DVD.
The DVD retails for $14.99 on BrainFood's website and is for all ages which made it fun when Papa arrived for a visit and watched it along with the boys. (at that viewing we covered ages 7-82, not too bad for a educational DVD)
The boys enjoyed watching the DVD even though much of it was review from previous unit studies and along with our various studies of the creation story. Each of the boys did a very good job with the quizzing in the movie. It was a nice break for Mommy, as I was able to work in the kitchen (fixing lunch and cleaning up breakfast) while the boys and their Papa enjoyed some very relaxed school time.  The easy going style of the review questions on screen and the vivid cinematography kept the boys attention so well, they even watched the credits go by.

BrainFood Learning was started by parents looking for educational programs that would keep the attention of little ones and when they didn't find it, they decided to create the content themselves. As a parent I really appreciate that aspect as well as the style of the videos. Seeing the animals in their native habitat helped my boys see the animals as real, I can't really explain it , but with the various cartoon movies portrayal of animals, my boys often times forget that animals are part of God's amazing creation and have their own homes and families.
BrainFood Learning is also a Pacific Northwest company out of Bellevue, Washington, I love when my kids get excited about a program and it is what I consider local.

Another feature of the DVD that I really appreciated, a lesson plan, while I didn't incorporate the extra goodies into their summer viewings, I am creating a notebook with these activities as an option on our Science shelf.  There are 3 lesson plan pdfs to download on their website (free is even better), 1 set for each of the 3 Fascinating World of DVDs. We are also heading to the zoo for a summer concert series but will also be looking for some of the mammals seen in the video and talk about their habitats in the wild versus in captivity.

Below is a short preview (including the credits that caught my boys' eyes) so you can check out this wonderful DVD. After watching the preview again, myself, I am considering offering it as an option for our Auntie School sessions if the little boys would like, maybe let them play with some of the animal toys I have stashed while we watch it together.


Other crew mates reviewed this DVD along with 2 other DVDs from BrainFood including  Fascinating World of Insects  and Fascinating World of Birds. Your can check out previews of their DVDs on their YouTube Channel and be sure to check out what the rest of the crew thought by clicking on the graphic below.

I Spy Animals Game Board

Getting ready for school to start in just a couple of weeks we decided to make an “I Spy Animals” Game board to go along with Cameron’s science notebook lesson plans.  We started with some basic supplies. 

The Game board: an Elmer’s Tri-Fold Science Board

Elmer’s School Glue: Dual Tip Glue pen

Elmer’s School Glue X-TREME glue stick

Red Cardstock

Crayola Color Markers

Various Animal pictures printed from the internet or cut from magazines

We started by having the boys color the back ground of the tri fold board with water area, grassy lands, sun, and clouds.

Next we cut the pictures out and began gluing them to the board. 

We used the Elmer’s X-TREME School Glue Glue stick to glue the pictures to the board. The large glue stick is great for Nathan’s smaller hands and being a stick glue spread an even amount of glue onto the computer paper and doesn’t muddy up the paper.

Finally we used cardstock cut letters to spell ‘I SPY animals’ and glued those on the top of the tri-fold board to title the game.  We used the Elmer’s School Glue Dual tip Glue Pen because of the find tip to trace the letters. I really like the Dual tip pen style; it is the best of both worlds with 

white school glue. One end is a fine tip pen style perfect for tracing outlines and putting just a little bit of glue on a piece of paper  or other small bit of craft pieces. The other end of the glue pen is a wide rubber spreader great for larger areas or pieces of felt (something we like to use a lot in crafts). Being Elmer’s School Glue gives me the reassurance I need.

We set the board up and were ready to play “I Spy”. For those that don’t know how to play this is what we do.

1.       First player says “ I spy with my little eye, something _______”

2.       Everyone else tries to guess what the player has spied.

3.       The person that guesses correctly gets to spy next.

To go along with our game board  all our “I Spy” sentences are similar to “ I spy with my little eye an ______________ animal” the clues will be something related to animal classification, color, habitat, etc..

(Sorry Cameron for taking a picture when the sun was in your eyes)

This was a super fun summer project thanks to #GlueNGlitter for some fun inspiration. 

****This project was compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Elmer’s #gluenglitter #chbias, all directions and opinions are mine ****