Moving This Blog to a New Home

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Recent Picture Book Reading

We've read so many picture books over the last few months from both the library and our own collection that I couldn't list them all but these are a few of our favorite finds:

Baby/Toddler Books for C:
Up! by Kristine O'Connell George - a great Daddy and daughter sotry
Giddy Up! Let's Ride! by Flora McDonald - C crawls to this one and says "booooook" and slaps the cover with glee. We decided we had to get our own copy. I wish it was still in print!
Maisy's Morning on the Farm - C has fallen in love with the Maisy books and this is her favorite of the ones we've read so far.

Longer Picture Books for M:
Patrick's Dinosaurs by Carol Carrick - A Little Boy imagines dinosaurs all around him while on a trip to the zoo.
The Library by Sarah Stewart - This one is about a woman who loves to read so much she literally fills her entire house with books.
Chewy Louie by Howie Schneider - A boy is afraid he will have to give away his new puppy because the puppy chews everything, even the back porch.
Chicka Chicka 1, 2, 3 by Bill Martin - We've checked this one out several times and it's been a big inspiration for M to learn to count to 100.
Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes - We love all his mouse books!

A Picture of My Little Readers

Here's M reading one of our favorites, Boo Boo by Olivier Dunrea to C before wake up time.

Recent Chapter Book Reading

In the last few months, M and I have read all four books in the Mrs Piggle-Wiggle series by Betty MacDonald. I don't know how I missed reading these when I was a child, but I'm glad I got the chance to read them now.

For those who don't know her, Mrs Piggle-Wiggle is an older woman who has no children of her own. However, she adores having children over to play, cook, make messes. and generally have a blast. She knows so much about children that parents call her for help when their sons and daughters are giving them trouble. Each chapter is named for a certain type of cure that Mrs Piggle-Wiggle comes up with like the Won't Pick Up Toys Cure or the Never Won't To Go To Bedders Cure or the Slow-Eater-Tiny-Bite-Taker Cure.

As a parent, I particularly enjoyed seeing how the parents in the book had such similar experiences to ones I've had even though the books were written in the late 40s and early 50s.

We are currently reading The Moffats by Eleanor Estes, another great book that I missed as a child. It's about the adventures of the four Moffat Children, Sylvie, Joe, Jane, and Rufus, who range in age from 5-15, and it was first published in 1940. There are several sequels and I'm sure we'll read them as well.

Some other chapter books we've read recently are:
The Littles by John Peterson
Chocolate Fever by Robert Smith
The Mystery of the Blue Ring (Polka Dot Private Eye) by Patricia Reilly Giff - This one inspired M to start playing detective and asking for more mystery books.

Chapter Book Read-Alouds For 4-6 year Old Girls

M has really gotten into listening to chapter books and she is able to sit for longer and longer ones. I've had a lot of fun searching for book lists and discovering titles that I think she'd enjoy. I wanted to share the links to some of the booklists that have been most helpful.

Here in the Bonny Glen is one of my favorite blogs and Melissa post about Favorite Fictional Families has given us several ideas for books we want to read together.

I also love this list of Cool Girls of Children's Literature from Jen Robinsons' Book Page, another great blog.

During an Amazon search, I ran across a few cool lists:
An Amazon Guide to Children's Series Books
Novel Read Alouds for a Gifted 3 Year old Part 1
Novel Read Alouds for a Gifted 3 Year old Part 2
Chapter Series Books for Six Year Old Girls

In a search for books for a 5 year old girl, I found this post about read-alouds at Little Acorns Treehouse.

And I love the Telegraph's list of the Top 50 Children's Books

Heart of a Child Reading Challenge

Wow! It's been even longer than I thought since I posted here. I've got great intentions of doing more posting but we'll see how that goes :)

I'm going to be participating in the Heart of a Child Reading Challenge. I just re-read The Boxcar Children as a read aloud for M. For the other books, I'm planning to read Dicey's Song , Sister of the Bride by Beverly Cleary and Fog Magic by Julia Sauer. All were favorites of mine when I was 10-12.

Booklist in Omni Outliner

For some time I've been wanting to start recording all the books I check out from the library for M and C. I could have just made a list of them in a Word document but I wanted a way to tag and organize them by categories with some books in multiple categories. What I need is something similar to the way iTunes organizes music with a general library and then the ability to group those songs into different playlists except my playlists would be book categories. I haven't figured out a way to do exactly what I want (working within the constraints of my system and budget) but I have developed a workable substitute in Omni Outliner.

I made an outline of all my books separating them into categories by type: baby board books, short picture books, long picture books, easy readers, chapter books. For each entry, you can make notes so in the notes section I add tags like: Halloween, animals, anatomy, fall, etc. I can then do a search of the document to find all books with the word "animals" in the notes.

Science Exploration

This week we checked out What Makes a Magnet? From the library. It's part of the Let's Read and Find Out About Science series which I highly recommend. On Wednesday morning, I usually keep M home from preschool so we can meet some of her friends from the toddler playgroup we used to have. During C's nap, we have some Mommy and M school time and this week, we did the experiments from the magnet book. We gathered objects in a cardboard box, some that would attract a magnet and some that would not. Then we tied a magnet from the fridge to a pencil and M "fished" for the objects. Then we used the magnet to make another magnet using a needle and turned the needle into a compass. M couldn't wait to tell her dad all that she'd learned we he got home. It was definitely a successful lesson!

Car Survival Kit

I was talking with a friend yesterday about what we keep in our cars so I thought I'd make a list of all the things I've found handy to keep in the car:

diapers
wipes
change of clothes for both girls
first aid kit
poison care kit (added after M ate a mushroom in a friend's yard when she was 18 mos)
towels (good for wiping water off park equipment and many other things)
snacks
water bottles
plastic bags
umbrella stroller
sweaters for everyone (and hats and gloves in the winter)

This Week's Books

Since I last posted we've done lots of chapter book reading. I'm amazed by M's capacity to listen to longer and longer stories. I love seeing her face light up at the prospect of reading. Today when I picked up from preschool, I told her that C and I had gotten a whole new stack of library books for her. She was thrilled and began looking through them the moment she got inside the house.

We're currently reading Half Magic by Edgar Eager. The chapters are very long so we're splitting them up into two or three reading session . I thought M might find the storyline too complex or be frustrated by the many literary and cultural references she wouldn't recognize but we're over halfway through and she still wants to keep going. As we read the chapter where the children meet King Arthur, M said she wanted to read some of the stories the children were talking about so checked out Young Arther by Robert Sans Souci.

I'm enjoying this stage of reading where M can enjoy such a wide range or books from short picture books to fairly complex chapter books. Having so much to choose from is wonderful.

Chapter Books We've Read Recently:
*Pony-Crazed Princess #7 and Ellie's Summer Vacation
*Goldie the Sunshine Fairy by Daisy Meadows (a bit insipid for my taste but M enjoyed it)
*Betsy Tacy by Maud Hart Lovelace and the next three books in that series
*Mercy Watson Princess in Disguise by Kate DiCamillo
*We started reading The Penderwicks but the themes were a little too advanced for M so we decided to stop and read it when she's a bit older.

Picture Books We're Enjoying
*Many Moons by James Thurber
*Big Brother Little Sister by Papa Oyibo
*The Three Little Witchs' Storybook by Georgie Adams
*O'Sullivan Stew by Hudson Talbott
*Let's Make Rabbits by Leo Leoni
*Leon the Chameleon by Melanie Watt

Science Exploration

M and her dad had a great time the other day using the computer to answer some of her myriad questions about anatomy, both human and animal. Using Google Images and Wikipedia, they were able to find pictures and info about the human skeleton as well as the skeleton's of frogs and several other animals. M would announce what she wanted to see and then her dad would type in a search in Google Images to get a picture and then find further info in Wikipedia if need be. The spent the better part of an hour exploring and it turned out to be a great Daddy/daughter bonding experience as well as terrific science learning.

They also read from The First Encyclopedia of the Human Body, an Usborne reference book that is one of M's favorite reads. I would recommend it for anyone child interested in learning about the body. The Usborne catalog lists is as age 8 and up but M is happy to listen to it anytime.

This Week's Books

M filled up her stamp card for the library's summer reading program so she got to pick out a free book. She picked Anansi the Spider by Gerald McDermott and she love it!

Other picture books we're enjoying this week:
The Fool and the Fish, a tale from Russia by Alexander Nikolayevich Afanasyev
New Socks by Bob Shea (very silly, reminds me of Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus)
Pumpkin Jack by Will Hubbell (author of Apples Here, one of our all times favorites)
T. Rex by Vivian French (great for any child interested in paleontology)

We just finished reading Betsy Tacy by Maud Hart Lovelave which M adored. We'll start on one of the sequels soon. We just started the first book in The Unicorn's Secret series. M likes it so far but we've only read one chapter.

I'm reading a great historical romance by an author I've been wanting to try, Gaelyn Foley. This book is the first in her new trilogy set partially in India. I can hardly put it down. The title is Her Only Desire.

Activities To Do With A Preschooler

As mentioned below, when I was pregnant with C, I started making a list of activities that I could do with M so I wouldn't have to wrack my brain every time I needed a fresh activity or something to get up out of the house. I'd been working on the list and my plans for the summer when I ran across this post on Zen Habits and found a lot of activities I hadn't thought to add.

A few caveats: I've left activities on the list that I have found difficult to do now that I understand the reality of having a baby and a preschooler like going swimming. We regularly do lots of crafts, so I didn't include activities like painting or using markers.

Here's my list in no particular order.
Do a cooking project
Go swimming
Go to the park
Make a playdate with friends
Play in the yard
Watch a movie
Do errands we can walk to (for us that includes going to the post office, renting a movie, buying bread at a local bakery, and going to the library, buying coffee beans from our favorite roastery)
Check out books from the library
Go to a coffee shop for a snack
Go to our local nature center/zoo
Play with sidewalk chalk
Pull out a toy we haven't played with before or a new toy from my stash (I keep a few inexpensive toys in a closet for special days when we need something new)
Go to the children's museum
Play with playdough
Paint with water
Do some pages in an activity book
Go to Barnes and Noble and read and play with the Thomas set.
Go see the animals at Pet Smart
Set up the tent to play in
Go for ice cream
Do a treasure hunt
Play games on the computer (like those at PBS Kids)
Dance to fun music
Water play outside
Decorate cookies
Find an educational show like on Animal Planet, Discovery, etc
Take a collecting walk and search for special rocks, leaves, pinecones, etc.

Summer Structure

After reading a post at Parent Hacks about structured versus unstructured summers and a message on a homeschooling list about how to structure learning for a Pre-K aged child, I was inspired to write up the structure we're using for Mommy and M school.

When I was in my last month of pregnancy last spring, I worked myself into a near panic about the weeks of summer during which I would have a newborn baby and no preschool for my 3.5 year old. Being a chronic planner, I decided to make some lists of crafts and get supplies for them. I also made a list of activities we could do both at home or to get us out of the house, since I was afraid that my sleep-deprived post-partum brain wouldn't be able to come up with any ideas on the spur of the moment (I'll write these up in another post.) I also thought up a loose schedule for our early mornings. M is an early riser so we usually have several hours together before any of her friends are ready for a playdate.

As the end of M's preschool year neared, we made a chart for the fridge that shows the things we want to accomplish each day. She drew a picture for each, and I wrote a word or spelled it out for her. The eight things on our chart are: getting ready for the day (dressing, brushing teeth, etc), letter lesson (from Modern Curriculum Phonics), number lesson (from Singapore Kindergarten Math) art, chores, snack, taking a walk, and reading together. We don't do all these every day, and we hardly ever do them in the same order, but it's a nice structure for us.

So on weekdays, once we've eaten breakfast, I let M choose what she wants do to first (assuming C is co-operating) and we get started on our "school' day. Then in the late morning when C is up from her nap, we leave the house for an outing, a playdate, or errands. Our afternoons tend to be much slower, lots of creative unstructured play, occasionally with a friend, and maybe another walk or some park time, or a movie if we're tired or too hot to get outside.

Fantasy Read-Alouds and Other Cool Books

I'm so exicted that M is now soaking up chapter books. She loves to be read to and is really getting the longer stories. We just finished The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe and she asked for more stories about magcial worlds. I asked for fantasy read-aloud suggestions at The Denim Jumper. Here's a list of the suggestions I've gotten as well as a few from a librarian friend.

Fantasy Read Alouds

The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe as well as the other Narnia books
The Unicorns of Balinor by Mary Stanton
The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge
The Tail of Emily Windsap (and sequels) by Liz Kessler
Thora: A Half-Mermaid Tale by Gillain Johnson
The Adventure of the Wishing Chair by Enid Blyton
I, Houdini by Lynn Banks
Phantom Tollbooth
My Father's Dragon series by Ruth Stiles Gannett
Half Magic by Edward Eager
Dealing with Dragon (and sequels) by Patricia Wrede
The Unicorn Secret series by Kathleen Duey
The Secret of the Unicorn Queen by Josepha Sherman and Gwen Hansen
Moomintroll books by Tove Jansson

Here are some other (non-fantasy) read-alouds that are on our list for the future:

The Railway Children
Little House on the Prairie series
The Wind in the Willows
The Penderwicks
Cricket in Times Square
Stuart Little
The Secret Garden
Betsy Tacy series
Harriet the Spy

Read-Alouds We've Already Done
Winnie the Pooh
The House at Pooh Corner
The Boxcar Children
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Pony-Crazed Princess Books 1-6
Mercy Watson To the Rescue (and the two sequels)

In researching these titles on Amazon, I also found a great list of read-alouds for preschoolers who are ready to listen to longer books.


Picture Books we're enjoying this week

The Gingerbread Girl by Lisa Cambell Ernst
Scarecrow Boy Margaret Wise Brown
A Tree is a Plant (Let's Read and Find Out About Science Series)
Olivia by Ian Falconer
A Bargain for Frances by Russell Hoban
Amanda Pig and Her Best Friend Lollipop by Jean Van Leeuwen
Little Rabbit Runaway by Harry Horse

Turtles, Gingerbread, Reading and Charlie and Lola

Last Monday, I took M and C to our local Nature Center. C slept in the wrap most of the time but she did get a look at the otters. The highlight for M was getting to hold a box turtle which was handed to her by one of our new babysitters, who volunteers there. M says she wants to volunteer too when she's bigger.

We had a fun playdate on Friday where we rolled out and decorated gingerbread cookies with one of M's friends. We told her friend about The Gingerbread Girl, a book we recently discovered. We're going to have to get it again from the library.

We'd been trying to get Charlie and Lola Volume 4 to watch for the last several weeks and it was finally available. We had a blast watching some new adventures. I'm so glad M is wanting to watch something that I really enjoy too. I think the shows are well-made and Lola's personality is quite similar to M's so M really gets her. We've been enjoying the books too.

M continues to get closer to reading on her own. During our school time this week, she finished the phonics books we've been using, Modern Curriculum Press Level K and I was amazed how well she did on the last few lessons. Every few lessons there is a tear-out four page book. At first, M wasn't very interested in them, but we went back to review and she recognized several sight words I didn't think she knew. I'm loving getting to experience her journey into reading.

This morning, I described several chapter books to her since she wanted to start a new one. As soon as I said the words "magical land", she chose The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. She's fascinated by magic and imaginary worlds right now. We read the first two chapters, and she's hooked.

Crib Sleeping Hack

I'm a big fan of Parent Hacks. I've found some wonderful advice there and after being a regular reader for several months. I now see hacks everywhere, and like many of the people who write to Asha, the editor of Parent Hacks, I often assume everyone already knows about these hacks. Then I end up surprised when I pass it on to a friend who had never thought of it. So in the spirit of sharing even if everyone already knows it, here's a hack I just implemented.

C is 12 weeks old today and rapidly outgrowing her bassinet. She sleeps well in it and I'm concerned that the transition to the crib will be rocky. Here's the plan I implemented. First I started putting the removal top of her bassinet in the crib. She's been sleeping like that for about two weeks. Now, I've started keeping the bassinet hood down and getting her used to seeing what is in the room around her. Next I will stop using the vibration on the bassinet which I rarely use now but still occasionally turn on when she's having a hard time settling herself. A few days after that, I'll remove the bassinet completely.

C takes her afternoon naps in my room since she shares a room with M who has a very noisy "quiet" time in the afternoon. To help C get used to sleeping elsewhere without the bassinet, I'm going to start putting the bassinet top inside the pack-n-play today.

Diaper Bag List

I've been reading a lot of posts about organization on my various feeds lately, and they've inspired me to try to get back to some of the routines and organizational strategies I've used in the past. When I was packing my diaper bag/purse to go to our local Nature Center today, I decided to revise the list I used to keep detailing what needed to be in the bag and share it here:

Diapers
Wipes
Changing pad
Plastic bags for dirty diapers or clothes
Burp rag
Small blanket
Change of clothes for the baby
Pacifier
Pony-tail bands for me and my 3yo
Tissues
Snacks
Water bottles (one for me, one for my 3yo)
A baby toy or two
Crayons and a small notebook
Small can of playdough
Small first aid kit (band-aids, alcohol wipes)
Sunscreen
Sunhat for the baby
Cell phone
Wallet

Sarah's Reading

I'm longing for more reading time right now, but I have manged to finish a few books since C was born along with re-reads of the relevant sections of Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, which saved my sanity with my first daughter. I'm a fairly ecclectic reader, I typically turn to romance or chick lit for fun reading but I also enjoy sci fi and fantasy and I've found myself doing more non-ficiton reading lately. Some of what I've read in the last few months:

The Shia Revival by Vali Nasr - This one nearly took too much concentration for my post-partum mind, but I found it fascinating when I could focus on it. Seeing the interplay between religion and politics in the Middle East that most of our leaders have ignored was both disturbing and enlightening.

Imperial Life in the Emerald City by Rajiv Chandrasekaran - After reading The Shia Revivial, I was inspired to read more about the situation in Iraq, and I chose this book based on my dh's recommendation. I found it insightful and well-written. It gives a very revealing look at life inside the Green Zone where the Coalition Provisional Authority was stationed from May 2003-June 2004.

The Baker's Apprentice by Judith Ryan Hendricks - This book is the sequel to Bread Alone which I thoroughly enjoyed. I wanted to become a bread baker myself after reading it. I didn't like this volume quite as much. The shift in narrators (back and forth from the main character to her love interest) didn't work well in my opinion, but I would still recommend it to anyone who enjoyed the first book.

The Language of Baklava by Diana Abu-Jaber - I sought out more books that celebrate food after reading The Baker's Apprentice and this turned out to be as good as the blurb I read about it sounded. I loved Abu-Jaber's descriptions of the food of her childhood and how it shaped her vision of her Jordanian/American heritiage. The essays also got me thinking more about the experience of immigrants in America.

The Bargain by Mary Jo Putney - A great Regency romance read. Mary Jo Putney is one of my favorite romance writers. Several of her books have remained on my keeper shelf for over a decade, and it was nice to re-visit some characters from other stories I'd read.

I'm currently re-reading Charlotte Mason's A Philosophy of Education. I first read her 6 volume homeschooling series several years ago when I was teaching high school and doing a lot of thinking about what is wrong with our educational system.

What We've Been Doing This Week

It's been hard to enjoy all the summer activities I'd like to be doing with my family since we have a 3 month old. I'd expected lots of things to be difficult in the first months with a new baby, but I hadn't anticipated how difficult it would be to take a tiny baby who can't have sunscreen on to the pool or even out to a park. We have managed to do some of what we'd planned though and we're still hoping to go berry picking some time in the next few weeks and I'm figuring out the logistics of the pool party one of M's friends is having next week.

This week we went to the farm at the Biltmore Estate and M was able to hold a 1 week old baby chick which was very exciting for her. We saw lambs and horses and goats as well. Then we went up to the restored horse barn where M got to climb on some antique tractors and farm wagons. We wrapped up the morning with a picnic and some ice cream. C spent most of the time asleep in the Moby Wrap (the one piece of baby equipment I could not do without).

M has summer preschool for the next few weeks and on Wednesday they had water play day which she thought was a blast. We also got to have several friends over to play and on Thursday we went to one of the summer reading program activities at the library. A woman make some very intricate balloon art and did magic tricks. It was loud and cheesy but M adored it. C got squirmy and fussy so we didn't get to check out too many books but we did find a few that M is really enjoying - Hot Hippo by Mwenye Hadithi and Adrienne Kennaway, a fable about why the hippos lives in the water during the day and comes out at night to eat grass and Fabian Escapes by Peter McCarty , a very simple story about a dog and a cat and how they spend the day.

M has also been begging for chapter after chapter of books 5 and 6 in the Pony-Crazed Princess series by Diana Kimpton. The books arrived in the mail mid week and we're already on the second one. We've also been having fun with our other book purchase - Charlie and Lola's Picnic Sticker Stories.

M loves to help me bake, something I'm looking forward to doing more and more as the girls get older. On Friday, we made raisin scones before some friends came over. It's been a long time since we've decorated cookies. I'm hoping we can make some gingerbread men next week.