The LEGO Neighborhood Book

The LEGO Neighborhood Book – Build Your Own Town!
By Brian Lyles and Jason Lyles
Published at no starch press

About the Book

In The LEGO Neighborhood Book, you’ll create buildings with real-world details like cornices and facades, and try your hand at interior design by filling your buildings with furniture and light fixtures. Then add the finishing touches to your models with plants, traffic lights, scaffolding, and park benches. Snap together a few houses, shops, and apartment buildings to create your own neighborhood!

Inside you’ll find:

• Complete, step-by-step instructions for four multistory buildings
• Dozens of inspiring ideas to use in your own models
• Mini builds for a recliner, old-time lamp post, traffic light, and more
• A gallery of the authors’ designs

My Thoughts

My kids love to build with LEGO and whenever they have a new book to provide ideas for them it is a blessing because I know they will go through it with attention.  LEGO for our house is synonym to CREATIVITY.   The designs that my own kids have come up with are ingenious at times.  So I was very excited to receive the LEGO Neighborhood Book which would help them to better understand architecture and design at the same time. 

The book I geared specifically for kids ages ten and up, this book will offer plenty of ideas for your child to create buildings with details like cornices and facades.  But that’s not all, the child will be able to include finishing touches in order to make the neighborhood more alive and thriving.

The book will give you steps-by-steps instructions in order to build various items that can be found in a neighborhood – park benches, traffic lights, street lights, fire hydrants, parking meters, newspaper racks, plants, buildings of all sorts, interiors of an house with living room, kitchen, dining room, bedrooms and more.  It also contains numerous photos of ideas that the child interested in expanding his/her skills in building with LEGO.  This book is truly an inspiring one and I expect my kids to design something using the bricks that we have at home.

The parts list for the models in this book as well as free bonus instructions are available on the site of no starch press.

This book would make a wonderful gift for Christmas for the child in your life who likes to build with LEGO.

The LEGO Neighborhood Book is available for purchase at your favorite bookstore, even amazon.ca and amazon.com.

  

Disclaimer: Thanks to no starch press for sending me the above mentioned product for review purposes . I was not monetarily compensated for this review. Please note that the review was not influenced by the Sponsor in any way. All opinions expressed here are only my own.

Idiot’s Guide Crochet

Complete Idiot’s Guide Crochet
By DK Canada

About the book

Idiot's Guides: Crochet will show you how to make lovely crochet projects, from decorative bunting to a colourful cushion cover or a lace shawl.

If you're hooked on learning to crochet cute projects, this is the book for you. Easy-to-follow instructions accompanied by clear colour photos explain each stitch step-by-step and show you how to execute each finger movement and yarn movement. You'll be able to make 16 simple, stylish and fun projects, helping you try out your new crochet skills on designs like a crochet headband or coaster. Handy guides teach you how to decipher a chart, read a pattern and buy the right yarn for your project, plus the book includes nearly 2 dozen patterns, and stitch galleries for decorative stitches, such as moss, rib and chevron. Combination stitches will allow you to create puffs, popcorn and clusters, making your projects even more beautiful.

Pick up your needles and make crocheting stunning pieces your new hobby with Idiot's Guides: Crochet.

My Thoughts

As I was growing up, I observed my grand-mother knitting and crocheting various things.    Part of me wish that I would be gifted like her but I never really took the time to ask her to show me how to do it.   Today, I am blessed to have mittens and socks knitted by her hands as well as quilts and crochet items. 

On of the few things I have from her that she crocheted for me was the red dress that even my own daughter has worn when she was a baby.   She even had made a similar one for my mom.

In this picture below you can have an idea of the bedspread she had crocheted when I was younger.

Nevertheless, since I became a mother, I wish I would be able to crochet like she did so I can do things for my daughter and her doll.    So when I was offered to review one of the Idiot’s Guides from DK Canada, I immediately selected the crochet one.   I have seen marvellous crochet items on pinterest and dream of making some of my own.  So now I do not have any excuses with this book in hand apart for time to learn.

This book is packed with hundreds of inspirational color photos and easy-to-follow instructions.  you will get advices on choosing your hook, yarn and other helpful tools, you will follow lessons in learning how to make pretty and practical stitches, you will learn to increase and decrease, you will have at the tip of your finger to guidance necessary to read crochet patterns and decoding crochet charts as well as you will have fifteen projects and patterns to build.

With step-by-steps instructions and the color photos included in this book, I feel a little bit more at peace in my ability in learning to crochet.   All I have to do now is to get a crochet hooks and yarn and follow the instructions in order to learn.  And knowing that practice makes perfect, I need to remind myself to continue to persevere and try again and again.  My grand-mother was quick while she did things on crochet but I suspect that she would have been a bit slower while she learned it.   Bottom line is that anything can be accomplished if we take the time to learn it. 

If you want to learn something new this Fall, why not check the books in the Idiot’s Guides series.  You might find something that would interest you and learn a new skill at the same time. All Idiot’s Guide are on sale at 30% off on the DK Canada Website for a limited time.

The Idiot’s Guide Crochet is also available at your favourite bookstore as well as amazon.ca and amazon.com.

  

Disclaimer: Thanks to DK Canada for sending me the above mentioned books for review purposes . I was not monetarily compensated for this review. Please note that the review was not influenced by the Sponsor in any way. All opinions expressed here are only my own.

Learn and Master Piano

Back at the end of August, I presented a product that we were going to use in order to learn piano – Learn & Master Piano.   I had promised to post at the end of September in order for you to see the progress my son and I had made with the program.   Well here I am today – a month later that planned – and I want to update you on this product that will allow your child or yourself to learn piano.   First, I must tell you that my oldest son is diligently learning the piano at his own pace.  So far he has watched and practice for three lessons.  We have not schedule this on a weekly basis but he practices regularly during a week.   The main reason that it is not schedule as much as I would have hope to is that he has already a big workload with his regular lessons as well as Awana memorization.  But to top it off, he went through numerous appointment in the past two months for braces and planning for a small surgery in order to remove two teeth – one being impacted.   The appointments are not finished for the braces as we have five more weeks of scheduled appointments for him to go through to complete the braces installation.  Nevertheless, now that the surgery is in the past, I find myself this morning in front of my computer in order to tell you more about his progress on learning the piano.

What is Learn and Master Piano you ask?

Well, Learn and Master offers a wonderful package for homeschoolers wanting to learn piano.   The Learn and Master Piano is offered as a Home School Edition which makes it affordable for families.  This complete 2-year piano curriculum is specifically designed for home study.   It contains the complete piano course, a 68 pages teacher’s guide which includes a full 2-year scope-and-sequence as well as a DVD containing teacher’s resource.  Learn And Master Piano Home School Edition has been widely recognized as the best home instruction course for learning piano available anywhere and when you see how my son is advancing in his lessons, I think you will understand why. Essentially, the program consists of 20 professionally produced DVDs, 5 Play-Along CDs, a 100+ page lesson book, and a free online student support site.

I have to admit that I like the fact that it is a completely independent learning program.  My son, Alexandre, choose to do a lesson depending of his workload.   Recently, as he was doing one, I decided to take some pictures in order to show you how he does it.  Alexandre is thirteen years old and is currently in grade 8.

Once the DVD is in the player, the lesson starts.   Alexandre has set up the keyboard in the living room.  He is listening attentively while waiting for the practice part to begin.

At some point during the lesson, he sits up at the keyboard and practice at the same time as the teacher.

Here you can see him doing more practices throughout the lesson.

When we go to our homeschool coop on Wednesdays, he brings his binder of songs and practices on a full piano that is in the basement.    This past week, while he was playing a lady asked me since when he was playing the piano because she thought he was playing beautifully.   I looked at her and answered, “Since September really.”  She couldn’t believe it.  So I mentioned the program Learn & Master Piano that he was using and she thought it was interesting to have such a product on the market.    She also mentioned that my son  must be gifted musically which I am sure she is right because it is so easy for him to learn the guitar and the piano.   

Seeing him striving in learning the piano, I know without a doubt that Learn & Master Piano is a great product to have in your home.  He could easily get on the online student support line if he needs and get answers to his questions.   However, he doesn’t seem to have any issue at this point in time.   He would like to have a full size piano but for now he can advance quite a bit with the keyboard.  Besides, when we go to coop, not only does he has a chance of practicing on the full size piano but he can experience with the pedals as well.

From our experience, I think that the Learn & Master Piano is a great product to own and would make a wonderful gift for someone who has expressed an interest in learning the piano as well.   I find that this product is great for young people and adults.   It could bit a bit too advanced for children.

In my next post later this month, I am planning to include a video of Alexandre playing the piano.  

Learn and Master offers various courses if you are not interested in piano.   Check out the guitar, drums, dance, painting and even photography courses available by clicking on the image below.

Learn and Master offers Homeschool Editions of Piano, Guitar and Painting instructional courses. Shop now at LearnAndMaster.com and save BIG on award-winning course materials.

Disclaimer: Thanks to Learn & Master for sending me the above mentioned product for review purposes. I was not monetarily compensated for this review. Please note that the review was not influenced by the Sponsor in any way. All opinions expressed here are only my own.