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

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.

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.

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.