Homeschooling Schmomeschooling
One thing I know I’ve done is slack off on my homeschooling posts. Some of you may be relieved by that as you follow this for adult book reviews. However, this is something I plan to be more consistent about in the year 2014 (what’s a new year without resolutions to fail at?). So, I’ll start with our wonderful Christmas gifts and how that has altered our January plans for the better.
Series Title:The Cat in the Hat’s Learning Library
Title: There’s a Map on My Lap!
With her birthday money, kiddo picked out and purchased Oh Say Can You Seed? (All about flowering plants) and If I Ran the Rain Forest (All about tropical rain forests). I was so proud of my three year old, she picked them out herself without being swayed by me and she continues to select them to be read at bed time – obviously not swayed by me because bed time is when I want to read the shortest book possible.
Each one of these books includes all sorts of information, new vocabulary words, and everything a kid needs to know to get started with that particular topic. There’s even a handy glossary at the end that could later serve as a spelling word list.
So when we saw There’s a Map on My Lap we were pretty excited. And when Grandmom got her a Wall Map too – well, it was all over. We have been having ‘map time’ every chance we get.
Title: Magic Tree House
Author: Mary Pope Osborne
We did a pretty extensive Titanic unit awhile back. We read both Magic Tree House books as well as a few of those early reader books. There was a picture book we tackled, and we even found a replica of an old newspaper page from the day the Titanic sunk.
Kiddo likes history and really likes boats and ships. She built our very own Titanic out of play dough one day, which was pretty exciting.
I will not have a kid that watches the Leonardo DiCaprio movie at 16 and says, “I didn’t know that was REAL!” (http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/titanic-tweets-some-say-they-didnt-know-titanic-wasnt-just-a-film/2012/04/10/gIQA8fZY8S_story.html).
Even though I’m not a big fan of the movie and what it has to say morally, I can’t wait for Kiddo to see it – even if it means me letting her watch it at a younger age and fast forwarding through the inappropriate parts (you know, the ones that made the film PG-13) – because seeing the ship in all its glory is a phenomenal experience. Already, she enjoys looking at diagrams of how the ship was set up and pictures that were taken. We liked this National Geographic list and pictures too: http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/kids/stories/history/10-cool-things-about-the-titanic/
Other Projects…
Christmas was kind to us in regards to school projects. Already we have started the year off by growing rock crystals of our very own.
This was more of a lesson in patience than anything else. She thought the science lesson was cool, but really it was about learning to go check on it every hour on the hour and how long an hour was.
We’re pretty excited about 2014 and what it has in store for us. Kiddo turns four in October and we have so many fun things to do before then.
A Pocket Full of Kisses
Remember when I had a Weekly Low Down on Kids Books… yeah, this is me remembering that I’m supposed to do those!
Title: A Pocket Full of Kisses
Author: Audrey Penn
Illustrator: Barbara Leonard Gibson
Some of you may be familiar with The Kissing Hand, it’s a story of Chester the Raccoon and his mother. It’s a beautiful tale between mothers and children and one my daughter loves. As she grows, I have found myself often opening her palm to plant a kiss there.
Did you know there are sequels?
A Pocket Full of Kisses is great for only children and siblings alike. It’s mostly about the jealousy that comes from having a younger sibling and thinking there won’t be enough love from your mother to go around – but just like the stars, a mother’s love is limitless.
Out of all the Chester the Raccoon books, this is Kiddo’s favorite. She just brought it to me to read this morning, insisting that I pay closer attention to her than just mindless morning snuggles. I don’t know why this is her favorite – but it is. In the vast world of kid’s books (millions and millions of book written, of course, FOR the children) this says a lot about a book.
The Latest from M.G. King!
Title: The Clock Snatcher
Author: M.G. King
Illustrators: Angela A. Corson & Sebastian Alvarado
Genre: Children’s Picture Books
NOW AVAILABLE ON AMAZON!
Bartholomew the Dragon
When I heard M.G. King was writing another book, I was pretty excited. We love Librarian on the Roof! here at our house and I completely devoured Fizz & Peppers. Anything M.G. King touches, pretty much turns to gold in my opinion. She’s Texas’ very own Rumpelstiltskin.
This latest picture book is 47 pages long, with a lot of glorious black and white pictures. Think The Spider and the Fly when Tony DiTerlizzi did the illustrations – a myth to last the ages in combination with high quality sketches can’t go wrong.
Right now the book is only $3.99 on Kindle. Maybe if everyone buys one and supports our favorite local kid’s author there will be a hardback edition in our future. My bookshelves are already itching for a copy… I can hear them calling for it… this book belongs in every mother’s library… and child’s, and dragon lovers’, and clock collector, and art appreciator, and…
Where the Windwalk Begins
Title: Where the Windwalk Begins
Poet: Todd Dillard
Illustrator: Paul K. Tunis
Too cute. These poems are ideal for lazy breakfast reading or luncheons on the patio. We love to read over our meals and kiddo has really enjoyed Where the Windwalk Begins.
I personally loved Airlephant, mostly because I have a ridiculously large soft spot in my soul for all things regarding elephants. Kiddo’s ears perked up the most, however for Flock of Flying Carpets, which I admit is pretty awesome. The alliteration of that particular poem fascinates little people, and her eyes lit up with delight at hearing the same sounds over and over again. We’ve been working on our phonics lately and you could see the recognition of certain letter’s sounds all over her face.
The poems are really fun and the illustrations are equally so. I was pleased with how well paired the illustrator was to the over all vibe of the book. Sometimes you can have a great illustrator and a really great storyteller or poet, but they don’t necessarily make the best pairing, but these two seemed pretty in tune to each other. Spunky and very light heart-ed, moms and dads everywhere should keep this title in their personal library stock.
Introducing the Octopus… and Tolkien Week
Weekly Low Down on Kids Books and Adventures in Homeschooling with an Octopus and Tolkien…
Title: Squishy the Octopus
Author: Mary Reason Theriot
Illustrations: Zoie Mahaffey
The last few weeks have been exciting. With the start of fall and the new school year and kiddo turning three in October, we’ve been diving more heavily into “school time.” There was a video floating around on facebook, courtesy of the Libertarian Homeschooler or maybe Practical Homeschooling – not sure which, dealing with the camouflage abilities of the octopus.
The video we watched (Where is the Octopus?) is here: http://www.sciencefriday.com/video/08/05/2011/where-s-the-octopus.html.
Add in discussions of legs, all things regarding the prefix “oct,” and an a event where Mary Reason Theriot debuted her children’s books, we’ve had quite a big week!
Authors Mary Reason Theriot & Jennifer Theriot
Theriot is quite a popular novelist on Amazon. Living in Louisiana with her husband and daughter, she avidly writes spooky thrillers with a southern twist that only the home of the Cajun seem to be able to offer. But most recently, with the aid of her extremely enterprising daughter, she’s branched out and started writing children’s stories as well.
In Squishy the Octopus, a little octopus with a big anger management problem learns to control his temper with the help of his other sea creature friends. On various pages, like in the video above, Squishy changes color. My own little kiddo got really excited when this happened, “Let me see the picture!” she’d exclaim, “What color is he now?”
Unrelated to sea creatures, but highly related to our homeschooling life, is the fact that this week is Tolkien week. September 21st was the 76th anniversary of the publication of The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. An day that was celebrated with the first annual Fall Festival at
Archie Rocks Acoustic, little Theriot and my own kiddo in the garden at GBITW.
Good Books in the Woods. There was a costume contest, a toast to Tolkien, Mary Reason Theriot doing a book signing, Aoristos portraits being drawn and more. It was a pretty neat event, which we wrapped up at home with the kiddo indulging in a long time favorite The Lord of the Rings cartoon (the 1978 one, we have it on VHS… and yes, we still use our VCR).
September 22nd (yesterday) was Bilbo and Frodo Baggins’ birthday! They were born in different years, but on the same day! Something, I suppose, only truly geeky Tolkien fans care about. So this week is Tolkien week.
I may work for Half Price Books, a company I absolutely adore for so many reasons, but I spend a good chunk of my spare time at Good Books in the Woods. It is definitely my home away from home these days. My kid plays in the garden and with the toybox set up in the kids section while I absorb the ambiance of a house taken over by books. If my husband ever let me, the inside of my house would look exactly like Good Books…
This Is Monstropolis
A Weekly Low Down on Kids Books and Guest Blog by Maura M! (2 in 1!)
Title:This Is Monstropolis!
I’m excited to share this little piece of toddler entertainment gold. This Is Monstropolis is an adorably illustrated flap book that is stuffed to the brim with things for little hands to explore. There is not much text here. The real beauty of this book is the vast amount of things there are in the illustrations to describe to your little one. In the 3 days that we have owned This Is Monstropolis, I’ve probably spent more than an hour discussing the scenes on the 14 pages of this book and what is happening behind each flap. This book is recommended for 3 year olds and beyond, but my 2 year old enjoys it immensely. The Richard Scarry-esque illustrations can be adored by child and caregiver alike and curious 2 year olds can’t get enough of the flap flipping.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Kings
The Weekly Low Down on Kids Books/ Adventures in The Magic Tree House
Title: Crouching Tiger
Author: Ying Chang Compestine
Illustrator: Yan Nascimbene
This book was an unexpected treasure from the public library. Kiddo picked this book out herself and I was really excited about it once I was in the middle of reading it.
As a third degree black belt who grew up around a lot of Chinese culture, I love finding unique children’s stories like these. It teaches etiquette, respect for your elders, culture appreciation, diligence, perfection through practice, and each page also has a diagram of a Tai Chi stance.
This was an excellent book to jolt us into our week on Ancient China.
Title: Day of the Dragon King
Author: Mary Pope Osborne
Publisher: Scholastic
Although we don’t have a research guide for this topic, we’ve been perusing all things Ancient China while reading this book this week. There are pages from Life in the Ancient World
Although we didn’t do anything crafty with this week’s topic, we did enjoy some stir fry for dinner and kiddo got to practice eating with her toddler chopsticks.
The kiddo’s chopsticks are an orange elephant, but the concept is pretty much the same. These things are so handy and I think they are a great way to give your tiny person an ounce of how other countries live.
If I Were a Frog… or a puppy…
A Weekly Low Down on Kids Books
Title: If I Were a Frog
Author: Duncan Jones
If I Were a Frog is cute and clever. A detailed journey of constantly trying to see the world as another animal who is wishing to be another animal, Jones teaches children the concept that the grass may seem greener on the other side but only because you’re seeing it from far away – up close it’s still just grass.
The kids at the Half Price Books Humble story time really enjoyed this one. They caught on really quickly that the animal in the background was soon to be the featured subject and they couldn’t wait to find out about the the Lion King and the Bear.
I’m proud to have this as a part of my child’s library. She already picks it up from the stack and asks to have it read. We cheated and have been reading it every day this week before story time, even though the author specifically sent it for us to read AT story time… it was too good to resist.
Title: Tell Me How You Say Goodnight
Author: Teddy O’Malley
Photographer: Angie Dickens
This was another we received from the author this last week to read at Half Price Books Humble story time. The kids could not stop gushing about puppies and how cute they were. Obviously, using puppies to get a kid to go to sleep while teaching them how to say goodnight in languages around the world was a good call!
Kids love practicing saying new words and phrases just as much as they love playing with tiny puppies and snuggling things that are soft. What a cool way to document the lives of a litter of puppies! Have them be household names and teachers to children around the world.
I find it is the simplest books that are the most appealing to kids. My kiddo sees me flipping through ‘the puppy book’ and immediately dictates: Read it again, read it again!
Polar Bears Aren’t Really White…
…And other fun facts you learn with your two year old while reading Magic Tree House…
So onward with The Magic Tree House Adventures. We read Ghost Town at Sundown
Then, we moved onto Polar Bears Past Bedtime
Kiddo really loves looking at the pictures of all the animals. From identifying the baby bears to asking me what “those things are on him” hanging off the lion (his testicles), we’ve had a full two weeks learning about different kinds of predators and their environment. She finds Africa vs. the Arctic fascinating and is now able to identify the two places on the map.
Yay for little tiny humans being enormous sponges for knowledge!
Finder’s Keepers
THE WEEKLY LOW DOWN ON KIDS BOOKS
Title: A Rock is Lively
Author & Illustrator: Dianna Hutts Aston and Sylvia Long
Genre: Non-fiction Picture Books/ Children’s
As a child, I collected rocks. I think many children do this… bright, shiny objects with a splash of color are enticing. Small pebbles from river sides are exciting and make you feel like a million bucks when they are so tiny in your own tiny hands. I had a rock tumbler and every little piece of nothing could be made magical. On family vacations I used my pocket money to buy gems and stones native to the area we were visiting. With my sister and cousins, we would go on exploratory rock hunts together. I remember hearing shouts of: Finder’s Keepers!
I have also always adored books, and as an adult I try to find the most awesome of children’s books to share with my daughter. Last week at the library, while I browsed the children’s section of Baldwin Boettcher, I stumbled across A Rock is Lively
Except I will have to return this particular book and go buy a copy.
A Rock is Lively is an excellent introduction to geology – for all ages. My daughter will be three in October and she was riveted by all the colorful detail of gold, amethyst, peridot, and gypsum. The page about how rocks are mixed up and the description of how calcite, sodalite, pyrite, and lazurite becomes Lapis Lazuli excited her. She enjoyed telling me about all the colors she was seeing as I told her what the rocks were called.
Over and over again this week she has brought me the book, “What’s that?” she’ll say as she points to hematite… “What’s that?” she asks as she opens up the two page spread on obsidian. “What’s that?” she wants to know about the geodes…
A Rock is Lively is a must have. We will definitely be finding our own copy to own as well as the other books in the series: An Egg is Quiet, A Seed is Sleepy, and A Butterfly is Patient.
Anakalian Whims 