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Description
Wooden Melissa and Doug Abacus with Pattern CardsThis busy bag is perfect for toddlers, preschoolers, those with special needs and occupational therapists! It is a Montessori and math inspired busy bag that uses a classic wooden abacus toy that is a favorite among children. I created pattern cards to go with the colorful toy so children can count and recreate the pattern using the 11. 9" x 12" x 3" wooden abacus. How to Play: Draw a card and recreate the pattern using the 11. 9" x 12" x 3" wooden
This busy bag is perfect for toddlers, preschoolers, those with special needs and occupational therapists! It is a Montessori and math inspired busy bag that uses a classic wooden abacus toy that is a favorite among children. I created pattern cards to go with the colorful toy so children can count and recreate the pattern using the 11.9" x 12" x 3" wooden abacus.How to Play:
Draw a card and recreate the pattern using the 11.9" x 12" x 3" wooden abacus.
What is included:
1. A 11.9" x 12" x 3" wooden abacus.
2. 6 double-sided pattern cards (12 patterns total). Cards measure 3.5"x3.25" and are professionally printed on 100# card stock and laminated with 5mil lamination. These cards are thick and classroom tough, no other cards can compare!
What they are learning WHILE having fun:
- Hand/Eye coordination - Being able to manipulate the wooden beads and move them to the correct spot spatially on the abacus.
- Color recognition – Kids need to recognize the differences in the colors in order to follow the pattern cards
- Concentration. This activity has 100 wooden beads to count and organize by the pattern so it offers a great opportunity to sit and focus on a task before it is completed.
- Counting - Children need to count the beads on the left, center and right of the abacus to create the patterns correctly.
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Curious Minds Busy Bags is dedicated to developing original kid-friendly learning activities for children to explore while building essential skills needed for school success. Parents, early childhood teachers and occupational therapists trust my learning activities in their home, school or home school classrooms. They are classroom-quality educational toys that promote independent play that builds essential skills. My activities are perfect for toddlers and preschoolers and beneficial for individual who have special needs that need to be developed such as those with autism, sensory processing or dementia. My learning games and sensory toys have been enjoyed by children in daycares, Montessori schools, and early intervention classrooms!
This busy bag is an original activity created by me. I kindly ask that you respect my creative design and refrain from copying my activities and posting them in your shop. Bloggers, you are welcome to write about or recreate my activities for personal use, but please link back to me. Thanks!
These bags contain small parts that may not be appropriate for children under the age of 3. Adult supervision is required.
Facebook – Follow me to see my new bags and sale items https://www.facebook.com/buybusybags
Instagram – See my bags in action on Instagram https://instagram.com/curiousmindsbusybags/
************ More information about busy bags ***************
HOW AND WHEN DO YOU USE BUSY BAGS?
-- My personal favorite way to use busy bags is to have a quick “in case of an emergency” distraction for mischievous toddlers. Any time my twin boys are getting a little reckless and needing a change of pace I pull out an activity for an immediate distraction from the behavior. Playing and learning with an activity is a lot more fun for both parents and children than being frustrated and disciplined. Let them focus on play instead of bad behavior and you can sit down and relax and watch their little minds at work!
-- Parents, do you need a little time to make a phone call without a toddler hanging on you? Do you need to cook dinner…..or feed the new baby? My learning activities keep children actively engaged in a healthy activity while you cook or do other tasks. My boys love to “play something at the table” while we cook. We get out their trays and an activity and they are happy!
-- Do you have a longer than expected wait while waiting at a restaurant or doctor’s office? Busy bags are portable and make a great quiet activity for when your toddlers are having a difficult time sitting still and being quiet. Parents often find these games perfect for quiet activities at church or out and about.
-- Do you need a quiet activity to engage your older child while your baby naps? Or perhaps you need a quiet activity for quiet time when your preschooler gives up naps? Parents also use busy bags to give to younger children while the parent is giving a lesson to the older home schooled child. -- Teachers use these activities in learning centers or for children who finish their work early and need a quiet activity.
-- Did your child’s early intervention teacher or occupational therapist recommend you work on certain skills with your child? My learning games are perfect therapy toys.
-- Are you unexpectedly stuck inside due to a snow day or rainy weather?
-- Are you traveling or vacationing? Many busy bags are perfect for on the go fun and travel to keep kids entertained in the car or airplane.
Busy bags make great birthday presents for your child or their friends. They are perfect for big brother or sister gifts or for those who are having a new baby with a toddler in the house.
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Exchange/Return Notes
- We offer a 30-day return/exchange service after receiving.
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4.1 ★★★★★
Based on 27 reviews
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Product Reviews
★★★★★ 4
High on Tropes and Satisfaction
Format: Kindle
This is a great Romantasy book full of action, adventure, and everything you look for in this genre.
I won’t lie: it does kinda feel like the author found every common trope from every successful book of this kind and threw them all into this novel. But if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Especially in romance, there’s a large audience who has specific expectations, and they want them every time. Nothing wrong with that and many times I’m one of them.
I have no idea what defines a spoiler honestly, so
spoiler alert!!!!!!!
Tropes include:
Only one bed at the inn/bar
Dissatisfaction with life before hunk appears
Lost royalty
The chosen one
Montage of dress up time followed by shocked hunk
Forbidden romance between two from rival peoples
Power that cannot be controlled, simply guided/asked
Gathering intel at the inn/bar
FMC who knows how to fight/use weapons well
There’s probably more but no need to list them all.
Good story and I would recommend!
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Reviewed in the United States on June 14, 2024
★★★★★ 5
Astonishing, Fun, Entertaining, Fantastic
Format: Kindle
I consider The Martian my favorite fictional novel of the last 15-20 years. The movie was incredible in that they actually followed the book closer than 99% of other films based on books. It remains my favorite movie of the last 15 years or so as well. I don't know anyone (personally) that loves either of them as much as I do.
With that said, I was REALLY looking forward to Artemis. It was good...but, it was certainly not in the same caliber as The Martian was (at least not for me). I enjoyed it a lot, however and appreciated how author Andy Weir chose to go in a completely different direction and not just rehash another similar story, which I am certain would have been great as well.
As a result, I was cautious regarding Project Hail Mary. It sounded a little too close to The Martian, but yet, also different in that the circumstances simply could not be more opposite and the stakes so much higher. I'm trying to figure out the best way to summarize without giving too much away from this utterly compelling novel. As I read several reviews, I noticed a recurring theme: SCIENCE. Lots and LOTS of science. Holy cow, they were right. Many years ago I read Apollo 13 and Jim Lovell and his co-writer, try as they might, simply could not dumb down Orbital Mechanics anywhere near enough for me to have even a minor clue as to what they were attempting to say...I just skipped 90% of it and hoped that the sentences written afterwards, would help to make sense of what I had just skimmed over. I'm a lot of things, but a math wizard is definitely not one of them. Michael Crichton (Jurassic Park) had an amazing talent for dumbing-down the science of what he was trying to explain in ways that genuinely made sense (most of the time). Not everyone has this talent, and I would say Andy Weir falls squarely in between. He's certainly better than Jim Lovell, but not quite as good as Crichton. But then again, outside of a science textbook, I haven't really read anything with quite as MUCH science as Project Hail Mary. So maybe he's just as good, but he just puts more science into his books than Crichton, maybe that's it...? Either way, be prepared for a lot of astonishingly interesting science within the pages of this novel...and I DO mean a LOT. I don't say this to make you wary or steer you away...on the contrary, Andy Weir has a special talent for making hard science truly entertaining.
The book opens with an absolutely amazing and frightening premise: an astronaut awakes from an induced coma to find the only other two people on board have died at some point along their journey...but it gets worse. He has no idea who he is, or why he's on the ship, and oh yeah, they look to be a long way from home. A really, REALLY long way from home. In fact, the sun he sees isn't actually OUR sun at all. He's managed to leave our solar system entirely. And he has no idea why.
((Minor Spoilers)) The book goes through some clever flash-backs, which set the stage for why the mission happens, and slowly, carefully explains how they managed to get so far away from earth in such a short amount of time. Basically, earth's sun seems to be dying. At the rate of decay, we have maybe 19 years left before the gradual cooling has catastrophic consequences resulting in the death of billions (best guess). Why the sun is dimming is quite the conundrum in the first place. Turns out it really isn't dying, it's being killed by an outside source...which turns out to be easily the greatest find in history. It's alien life, and they are using the sun for food, essentially. It's alien life, but not intelligent life. But still, wow! ALIENS, right???
After this monumental discovery, and some tremendous research done by the most improbable scientist, the investigation into what is happening and why and what to do about it expands exponentially to other nations in order to pool all the resources possible to hopefully save the sun, and by extension, the human race as well. They learn. A LOT. A plan is put together, and with the help of the newly discovered microscopic alien life, which can also double as a power source (along with a few other nifty surprises), they begin to create one last, Hail Mary that could very well be the last chance we might have to save earth. It's audacious. It's dangerous, and it is absolutely critical that it succeed.
As our astronaut's memory slowly unravels, so does his identity: Ryland Grace. He's a teacher on earth. Just a science teacher. Not even a college professor. He's amazingly smart, though. But he's no astronaut...and certainly not one who would volunteer to go on a one-way mission to another solar system to "try" and save humanity. Yet here he is. Alone. light years from earth, trying to solve the biggest riddle in all of human history. Ryland accepts his situation, such as it is, with relative indifference (for the most part). It doesn't matter HOW he got here. He's here now and he may as well use that time to be as productive as possible, right? Along the way, he unravels even more information regarding the microscopic alien life which is slowly dimming our sun during some additional flashbacks. The aliens, dubbed, "Astrophage" are quite the galactic plague as it turns out. Stars all over the galaxy are also losing their light, all due to the little buggers. All that is, except one particular star named, Tau Ceti. Now why would that one star be unaffected by Astrophage, when every single star around it has been affected to some degree. The plan is to go there and figure it out and send the information back, hopefully in time to save the sun before the damage to earth is beyond repair.
There is an incredible amount of stuff going on. The story switches from Tau Ceti to flashbacks of how the whole mission was planned and implemented (which is VERY entertaining, especially Director Stratt, who may actually be my favorite character in the entire novel). Weir is becoming quite adept at building tension, and abruptly switching the story from Tau Ceti back to earth and building more of the backstory then switching back to Tau Ceti. Keeping it all in check and most importantly, interesting all while mixing in a healthy dose of science, which I am to understand is pretty much all genuine, is quite the juggling act. I have long known science can be astronomically entertaining (see what I did there?) when done right...but unfortunately very few people in a position to teach science actually know the best way to create that interest in others. I can say without reservation, Andy Weir definitely knows how to do it...at least in written form.
There is so much I want to say more regarding this truly phenomenal story, but I simply cannot without ruining a lot of the fun and surprises revealed along the way...and it is killing me to keep it locked in. Though I labeled a spoiler warning earlier, I don't think it gave away any more than what the author himself has revealed in interviews he has done regarding the book, and what you can glean from reading the summary here and just a couple other reviews. Tying all of that science together is truly astonishing to me. The creativity to put it into a novel that is remarkably exciting to read is nothing more than incredible talent. Kudo's to Andy Weir for not just hitting a home run, Project Hail Mary is a Grand Slam all the way. I truly did not want this story to end. By the way, I enjoyed the ending quite a bit. I don't know if everyone will. But it was fine for me. I think the ending screams "sequel" at some point too. A lot was left open-ended (IMO) and I wouldn't mind reading a follow-up to this. It doesn't HAVE to happen, but there are a lot of ways where the story could go if Andy chose to do it. Just sayin'.
Just run out and buy this book.
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Reviewed in the United States on May 10, 2021
★★★★★ 5
Wonderful
Format: Kindle
The amount of detail in this book is so interesting and the specifics of so much theoretical ideas revolving around true ideas makes it so fun to read. The writer does a great job and describing every situation enough where you get the point but not too much to try to bore you . The book is very easy to follow, keeps you on your toes, was pretty funny to me, and truthfully just a great book for anyone!
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Reviewed in the United States on May 20, 2026
★★★★★ 4
Read it in 2 days
Format: Paperback
This is science based science fiction. How refreshing to read science without turning the story into horror. Without a plethora of characters, it is easy to remember who is who. The story moves along well enough that I wanted to keep going. It us a p age turner in many respects.
All this said, there were too many crises suddenly resolved like some Star Trek episode from 1966. It reached the point where I said to myself, "OK, this doesn't matter. Move along, nothing to see here."
There was good humor, some surprising twists, and enough involvement with characters that I didn't want to put it down.
As science fiction goes, it was good like pulp stories go. It wasn't like Ursula LeGuin or Robert Heinlein but I would probably pick up the next book he writes.
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Reviewed in the United States on May 21, 2026
★★★★★ 5
Excellent story
Format: Kindle
This book is worth your time. It is a great introduction to a variety of scientific disciplines without insulting the reader. It also respects and understands humanity, engineering, history and political science. Then it lays that foundation to tell the story of a unique friendship of two beings with mutual goals who have to communicate and problem solve together. Along the way, you can really contrast how Grace and Rocky do it, vice the Hail Mary team did it.
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Reviewed in the United States on May 22, 2026
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