NOTEWORTHY: Highlights for March 2021

MARCH

Taste of EPCOT International Flower & Garden Festival

This family-favorite festival will be in full bloom March 3-July 5. This year’s event features 20 different gardens for you and the kids to explore along with 20 outdoor kitchens to savor. If you love a good scavenger hunt, Spike’s Pollen-nation Exploration will take you ‘around the world’ to find the buzzz-iest bee! The Goodness Garden Butterfly House presented by GoGO SqueeZ is also returning this year.

JOIN THE CLUB OF CHAMPIONS: THINGS WE LOVE:

Tampa Bay’s pro sport teams gave us the glimmer of hope we all needed after a crazy year...and boy did they deliver! Hello CHAMPA BAY! Though many of us can't physically attend games these days, we can still support our champion home teams. One of our favorite ways is by gifting kiddos with a membership to one of the local fan clubs created just for kids.

A KIDS BOOK ABOUT...

There’s a good reason why the A Kids Book About collection of books by Black authors made it to Oprah’s Favorite Things List in 2020. Each book opens a conversation about important issues in our lives, allowing us to both challenge and empower our kids. The books focus on topics like racism, belonging, failure, gratitude, empathy and diversity. aakidsbookabout.com

Jr. Bucs Fan Club

Kids under the age of 14 can join the fan club designed just for them! For a one-time registration fee of $24.99 + shipping, your child will receive a Jr. Bucs Fan Club welcome kit that includes an official membership card, Buccaneers hat, Jr. Bucs notebook, Jr. Bucs football and Jr. Bucs lanyard. Join by visiting www.buccaneers.com/fans/jr-bucs

ThunderBug Kids Club

The memberships for the current season are FREE and totally virtual this year as the Lightning are not playing in front of fans at Amalie Arena. ThunderBug will share all sorts of cool things including virtual lessons and field trips, coloring pages, games and more. www.nhl. com/lightning/fans/kids-club

SMATH BOARD GAME BY PRESSMAN TOYS:

Family fun and learning all in one, SMATH is a game for kids ages 6 and older that gets their brain gears turning as they put their addition and subtraction equation skills to the test in crossword-style play. The game is for 2-4 players and you can adapt it for different skill levels. Available on Amazon for $16.99.

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ERIC CARLE XMORI

This is one of our favorite new collabs: some of the softest clothing pieces and towels for babies, toddlers and kids featuring The Very

Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle.

The organic cotton and bamboo blend fabrics are silky soft and totally cuddle worthy! The new collection is available online exclusively at minimori.com.

MEET Johanna Sanchez, Creator of the NEW Local Mom Box:

“As a former elementary school teacher turned into a stay-at-home mom, then a working mom with three kids (including twins), I noticed that our quality family time was slowly slipping away. Other busy moms expressed the same thing. I just felt in my heart that I had to do something.

That’s when the Local Mom Box was born. We believe that busy moms with young children can build fun, lasting memories with their families and accomplish all of their dreams and goals. We do that by providing a monthly subscription box, including simple kid-friendly crafts and activities with all the materials needed in the box and a calendar highlighting different local events each month to help keep family fun times more organized. Because we believe in self-care, we include a product for the mom in the box from a local Tampa Bay Area Business.

We absolutely love Tampa! My husband and I met at the University of South Florida back in 2006 and have been married for over 10 years. We have planted our roots here and love to support small businesses and watch them grow.”