Monday, November 29, 2010

Homeschool Review: Nanuq (My Animal Family)

I LOVE books!! And all three of my kids LOVE animals!! So I was excited to hear I'd get to review an animal book! What more could I ask for? We were sent Nanuq from the My Animal Family (MAF) series.

We received the book, and I was immediately impressed with the look of the book. It's full of beautiful pictures and bright colors, to catch children's attention right away.  And tucked inside the front cover is a DVD and access code for the MAF website.  You receive all of this for $12.99.

We all snuggled down to enjoy our new book. It's an adorable story "told by" one baby polar bear (Nanuq) about him and his brother Suka. We all enjoyed the story, it's cute and entertaining while still teaching us about polar bears. After we read the story, we popped in the DVD and enjoyed another story about Nanuq and Suka on the DVD. Also on the DVD is more information about polar bears, and a song.

These books are geared toward children, age 3-8 and this seems accurate. My 7 year olds enjoyed the book and the DVD. While this seems like a good target age, this book works well as a read-aloud the whole family can enjoy, Little Bit (1 1/2) liked the pictures, and while an older "tween" probably wouldn't choose the book for themselves, I don't think they would object to hearing it in a family setting, or reading it to younger siblings. 

When I asked the girls what they thought of the book and DVD, they both said they liked the book, and that the story was the best part of the DVD, but they watched the whole DVD without complaint, so didn't dislike the "educational" part too much, just liked the story better.

The third "piece" of this product is the secret code to give access to the MAF website "habitat".  Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get our code to work and before I had a chance to contact customer service to see what the problem was, I stepped away from my computer and, I assume, Little Bit walked off with the card that had the code on it. So, we haven't been able to try out this part of the product. Since this is a TOS Crew review item, I'd recommend going to the TOS Crew blog to see everyone else's reviews of this product, including their use of the online program. 

Even without getting to try out the habitat, I think these are great books for anyone with kids who love animals. These would make great Christmas presents for any children age 3-8 on your list too.

In addition to the polar bear book that we received to review, My Animal Family includes stories about an elephant, lion, dolphin or chimpanzee.

Disclaimer:  I was sent a free book, including DVD and online code, in exchange for writing this review. No other compensation was received and all opinions are my own.


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