McDuff Saves the Day, by Rosemary Wells

If you are familiar with children's literature, you know you'll never go wrong with Rosemary Wells.  Even Nickelodeon has figured that out with it's popular Max and Ruby series.  Our family feels the same way.  One of our family favorites is the McDuff series by Rosemary Wells.  I was reminded just how wonderful the series is today, as I put my 3 year old down for her nap.  The story she chose to have me read was McDuff Saves the Day.  If you have a dog around you are sure to recognize your furry friend in the antics of McDuff.  Well's storylines feature McDuff's personality and quirks and will grab the heart of any dog-lover!   These books are a must have for your personal library!

P.S.  I am still looking for any great book suggestions for my Valentine's! 

Looking for Good Books

We started a new Valentine's day tradition last year.  One of the things I really love is books, so I told my kids that each year they could pick a book for Valentines day.  Last year Valentine's was a Saturday and it happened to be the day my husband was moving his office so he had to work.  I took the kids and let them pick their book at Barnes and Noble and then we bought ice cream cones at Ben and Jerry's.  Since Valentine's Day is on a Sunday this year, I decided that I need to get some really cool books for them.  I am looking for any great suggestions you may have.  I have a 7 year old boy who loves football, Harry Potter, and The Boxcar Children books.  I also have two daughters, a 3 year old and a 7 month old.  Share any and all favorites!  By the way, don't you love this darling vintage Valentine?  It's a public domain image from this site.

The Mitten, by Jan Brett

First of all, as you can tell, my New Year's resolution to try and post reading activities I was doing with my kids every day was way overly optimistic.  I am sincerely trying to concentrate on doing more learning activities each day, but not all of them are fabulous and "post-worthy" and let's be honest, they are not happening as often as I would like, but I figure some improvement is better than nothing.  This last week Paige and I had a really great time reading the mitten and doing a great activity that was as simple as can be because the author/illustrator did all the work.  The Mitten, by Jan Brett is a great book.  I happen to own the board book version, which I think may be abridged, but either copy is great.  Paige and I read it fairly frequently, but this week I was reminded by this post, that Jan Brett has a great website with all kinds of cool projects you can print.  This is the one that we picked.  We cut out two mittens and stapled all around them so that it would hold the animals, then we printed out the animals and Paige colored them.  I cut them out and she was able to put them in the mitten, just like in the story.  Paige loved it and carried the mitten around for several days and told everyone about it.  It took me until today for her to forget about it enough that I could finally throw it away.  I know from teaching that authors and illustrators and even publishers do all kinds of free stuff like Jan Brett's website to promote their books, I don't know why I don't think of it more often and take advantage of it! 

Looking for a great Regency Romance?

I just finished reading The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer.  It was such a fun book.  If you are looking for a good clean romance, this is for you.  My cousin recommended it on GoodReads so I picked it up.  It was the perfect light read.  I love to read and my biggest pet peeve is getting part way through a really good book and realizing it is full of trash.  It probably won't win any awards for the most ingenious novel.  I have read several of Georgette Heyer's books, and they are a bit of Jane Austen knock-offs, but I am totally okay with that.  In fact I fully embrace Jane Austen knock-offs.  My only irritation is with the authors who claim to be writing Jane Austen style books and completely run in a different direction.  I can't remember the book I started that was suppossed to be something to do with Pride and Prejudice and the author completely ruined the story.  None of the characters keep the type of values that Jane Austen promoted, it just made me crazy!  I finally gave up.  Anyway, The Grand Sophy was great!  By the way, I am always looking for great new books to read.  I love http://www.goodreads.com/ because I am constantly able to see what other people are reading and it gives me ideas of what to read next.  If you haven't joined, do it!  Then add me as your friend!

Baptism Towel

My nephew got baptized today.  It was a wonderful baptism and we are all so proud of him.  I found directions for making this towel here, and I knew I had to make one for him.  It was such a simple project, plus it was quick!  The most time consuming part is cutting out the letters, but even that only takes a few minutes.

My Many Colored Days, by Dr. Seuss

Paige just started a new little dance class that is absolutely wonderful!  They have been using this book and colored scarves as part of their classes the last few weeks.  The book is called My Many Colored Days.  It is written by Dr. Seuss, but he did not illustrate it.  I loved to use it when I was teaching for teaching art and it is great to use for creative writing.  It talks about how you feel like different colors on different days.  In Paige's dance class they use colored scarves to dance the different feelings.  Since I have the book, we decided to adapt it to use at home.  Last night we had a great time reading the book and each time I would say a different color, she would run around with a different colored scarf.  Reading this book also provides the perfect opportunity to talk with your kids about feelings.  I started asking Paige what color her day was and my older son even joined in and told us what color his day was.  We didn't do this last night, but this activity could be extended to making your own book.  Have your child draw pictures for different colored days.  You could get out paints and paint each different colored day or make collages in different colors from pictures cut out from magazines. 

Scrapbooking

http://www.beckyhiggins.com/blog/

I have always loved scrapbooking, but once I started having kids, time just got away from me.  I love taking pictures and have a ton, but rarely find time to do anything with them.  I bought this kit with my birthday money back in November and I got it recently and started using it with the new year.  It is set up so you can use it in lots of ways, but I am using it the way Becky Higgins suggests and trying to take a picture a day.  I am thrilled with it!  I have been trying to print off pictures every week or so and then I can just sit down for an hour and do all the little journaling cards for that week.  I am absolutely loving it!  I spent some time on it last night and I am feeling so good that I am keeping much more of a journal of my family's life and it is so manageable.  I hope she keeps making these kits for each year, because I will keep buying them!  It is an amazing system! 

Writing Letters

For our project today, Paige and I read the book Toot and Puddle by Hollie Hobbie. It is a story about two friends, one who loves to travel and one who loves to stay home. The one who stays home gets postcards from the other. After we read it, Paige and I decided we would write a letter to her big brother who goes to school all day. She was thrilled and wanted to make sure we used an envelope. She picked to use markers instead of crayons and decided what color marker I should write with. She told me what to write and I wrote it. We also talked about what letter Blake's name starts with and what letter her name starts with. I wrote Blake's name on the envelope and she decorated it. Then she put it on his pillow.

Finger Puppet Stories

I have a little collection of finger puppets and today Paige and I decided we would use them to tell stories. We went through a really simple nursery rhyme book that we have and found nursery rhymes that we had finger puppets to go with. We improvised a little, we didn't have any sheep, so Little Bo Peep had a sheep that looked an awful lot like a deer, but 3 year olds don't care. We had a lot of fun. I've had my finger puppets for a long time. I bought them when Blake was a baby, but we've never used them much. I thought my kids would just automatically come up with creative stories for them, WRONG! However, using them with a familiar story worked out great. We also did the Mrs. Wishy-Washy story from yesterday and that was fantastic because Paige could remember it from yesterday. If you don't have finger puppets, use stuffed animals or Barbie dolls or matchbox cars. You and your kids will have a great time. After awhile Paige even suggested that she wanted to draw a picture of the nursery rhymes we were doing. She is really into drawing and coloring at the moment, so above are her versions of Little Bo Peep and Little Miss Muffet.

A Crooked Kind of Perfect by Linda Urban

I had heard good things about the book A Crooked Kind of Perfect and when I saw it on a display at the library a few weeks ago, I picked it up. It is a quick and easy read aimed at the 'tween' audience. I read most of it while I was riding my exercise bike today, so it won't take you long to get through, but it was such a cute story. The main character, Zoe, is struggling with the same social issues most 11-year olds face. She feels like her family is a little on the crazy side and getting along with other 11 year old girls is hard! The book has a great message about life not being perfect and that is actually just perfect!

Fablehaven

The last few months I have been making my way through the Fablehaven books by Brandon Mull. If you haven't read them you need to. They are fantastic! I drug my feet a little with this series. I always seem to with the fantasy genre because somehow I always think I don't like fantasy books. I have no idea why I think that because lately I pretty much love any fantasy book I find myself reading. The more fantasy books I read, the more I realize that the genre is huge and covers far more subject matter than I can imagine, so I guess that is what I have to try and convince myself, there are certain types of fantasy books I do not enjoy, but the majority of them I find that I love! Anyway, the first book in the Fablehaven series started a little slow for me. I read it mostly because I was sure it was something my son would like, so I thought I better read it. Plus we were going on vacation and the paperback was dirt cheap at Wal-Mart, so I could have a small, lightweight book to travel with. From the descriptions I had read, the book seemed a little "out there" for me and frankly, pretty juvenile. Well, about halfway through the book I was hooked and by the time I got to the second book I couldn't read it fast enough. I finished the last one over the holidays and it is killing me that the final book doesn't get released until March! If you are a Harry Potter fan, it is pretty much a given that you will like Fablehaven. Like Harry Potter, the series appeals to adults and kids alike. I actually think a little younger child could read this series than could read Harry Potter. While it is definitely a book where good and evil battle and there are loads of bad guys, the scary parts aren't quite as dark and scary as some of the parts in Harry Potter. My seven year old Blake has heard all about it from one of his best friends who is reading the series and he has it all planned out that as soon as his dad finishes the last Harry Potter with him, we'll move on to the Fablehaven series.

Reading Activities

Like most of the rest of you, this new year has me thinking of things I want to do better. One thing I have been thinking about is that I want to really focus on finding time each day to spend teaching my children. I am hoping if I write about some of my efforts on this blog, it will motivate me to actually do it. Since today was the first day back to school, I took advantage of some time I had with my 3 year old daughter this morning. One of our favorite books is Mrs. Wishy-Washy by Joy Cowley. We read it with the baby this morning and then Paige and I decided we were going to act it out together. It is a very simple, repetitive story and the characters in addition to Mrs. Wishy-Washy are a cow, a pig, and a duck. The animals worked out perfect because we could make the animal noises. We spread two blankets on the floor because there is a mud puddle and a bathtub in the story. In the story, the animals get messy in the mud and Mrs. Wishy-Washy gives them baths. We read the story and acted it out together, then I read the story and Paige acted it out, then she told me she wanted to read it and tell me what to do. Of course she can't actually read it, but she pretended she was reading it and told the story back to me the way she remembered it. It was the perfect pre-reading activity. I was excited because before children begin to read, they pretend they are reading. For example, that story you have to read over and over again so that it makes you crazy! When your child can begin to repeat it verbatim, they are showing signs that they are getting ready to read. The next step is that you start pointing out words in the story that are there multiple times, something easy at first, like 'dog ' and have them look for that word and point to it everytime you read the story. Gradually, they will start to recognize that the words you are reading correspond to the words on the page, another baby step toward reading. Anyway, our Mrs. Wishy-Washy reading activity was a success. It took no real planning or supplies, only lasted 5 or so minutes, so it fit the needs of a 3 year old, and we had a great time. I just hope none of my neighbors were walking by looking in the window and wondering why we were jumping on blankets and making animal noises in our pajamas this morning!