Four Top Minecraft Channels For Children

My son, probably like any number of your children, LOVES minecraft.   But not only does he love playing minecraft, he also likes learning from other people how to do things on minecraft.

Therein enters the wonderful world of youtube.

I have to admit, I trust my son with youtube.  He's a responsible boy who takes life seriously, has little to no tolerance for bad language or inappropriate conversation, or people who put down faith in God.   So when I asked my lad what shows I could recommend for other children he quickly gave me a list of what's good to watch.

First off Stampy.
My son says that at the very beginning Stampy didn't always talk nice, but now he talks nice.   This is the fellow that my son admittedly watches the most and gets a lot of good ideas from.

Second: Squid also known as BallisticSquid. 

I know from listening to the odd Stampy video that if you know Stampy,  you'll meet Squid.   One leads to another, they play games together and have fun making minecraft videos.

Recently my son has added Ibxtoycat.

I want to call this fellow a boxy cat and that makes my boy giggle at me... and correct me each and every time.. I still get it wrong.   BUT I'm getting used to conversations that start with "guess what I learned from Ibxtoycat today mom?   Did you know that if you do mumble mumble and then can get mumble mumble.  I tell him show me.. and it's neat the things that he can make.  Just fascinating.

Number four is the newest addition.. probably watching Mumbo Jumbo for a couple-three weeks. 


I haven't heard a lot from my boy about mumbo jumbo but the videos keep popping up in my feed and then I'll hear the lad chortling from his room, or from the sofa or.... wherever.  So I'm guessing he's funny and his videos are good.  :)

Every once in a while my lad will try a new minecraft specialist but "Mom, he's not good for children" or "mom, he doesn't talk nice" or "mom, he's boring...why are some people boring with videos??"   So these four have made the top list for minecraft videos.

Perhaps your children will enjoy them as well.  :)   May you listen to hours of giggling and have many conversations over minecraft as well... or better yet.... see the fantastic creations your children come up with given the correct inspiration.. like blowing off the top of a mountain with a TNT cannon!  Pretty cool eh?   :)

If your children have favourite youtube channels...share, share away please in the comments below?   I want to know, perhaps my lad will like them too. 

Posted by at 11 comments
Labels: ,

Picture Books to Introduce Artists

My son and I are currently reviewing a program called ArtAchieve.   We are enjoying the program since it comes in different formats, a slide show or a video.  We are finding both formats quite useful.   If you want to give the program a look over they have sample lessons that you can try out.

Anyways, I had mentioned to my contact at Raincoast Books some of the things we were going to be doing, and she graciously sent me some art books to review.  (How cool is that eh!)

First up we looked at a book called "Mary Cassatt - extraordinary impressionist painter" by Barbara Herkert.   This book is around 30 pages long, filled with full colour illustrations throughout.

Lovely book.   We learned about her early life, her determination, her friendships, her stepping outside of what was conventional for ladies in her day.  She was an opinionated and stubborn lady who was determined to be artist, and she did what she wanted to do, no two ways about it.

BUT WOW.... have you ever looked at some of the work she did?    I found a website dedicated to the work of Mary Cassatt and all I can say is WOW.. she did excellent work.    I cannot say I love EVERYTHING that she did, but I like a lot of it.    For instance, check out this child in a straw hat.

http://www.marycassatt.org/Child-In-A-Straw-Hat.html
She drew a lot of people pictures, friends, family, people she saw at theatre and so forth.   Just an interesting lady and this book gives us a good glimpse into her early life.   The illustrator does a great job at bringing the story to life with his full colour art work.


Our next book was one on Beatrix Potter and Her Paint box, written by David McPhail. It's a short small book, running around 40 pages.  
What a nice little book.  Seriously.  My lad enjoyed this book with me.   We even learned why the Peter Rabbit books were small "little books for little hands" was something that Beatrix insisted upon.   When we learned about the snake getting away from she could paint a picture of it, my lad was quite concerned that the snake got away to a safe place to live.

Like Mary Cassatt, Beatrix Potter did best painting things her own way.

Did you know that the Peter Rabbit books became a story because of a sick boy?   It was a "let me cheer you up when you are sick book" and at the urging of the boy's mom, it was turned into a book which morphed into a whole series about the friends of Peter Rabbit.

I liked the images in the book as well, well crafted and made me think of Peter Rabbit and his friends.
Oh.. I have to tell you this part.   When we read about Beatrix's pet mouse running through the paint my lad tried to get one of his house mice to run through some dye and leave mouse footy-prints on paper.  He had so much fun trying to convince the mouse to do so.. but MilkyWay would have NOTHING to do with it.    It was fun watching him try though.  :)

 Raincoast books was the provider of these books for me.  Wanting only my honest review of them.  They were a delightful addition to our week.

You can find Raincoast at the following social media sites: 


Posted by at 4 comments
Labels: , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)