Pinocchio

We are working our way through the Mensa for Kids reading list. This is not a Summer reading list. These are challenging lists that cover great literature for each age group. One of the books on the list is Pinocchio. This is not the Disney version or any of the short, easy readers. This is the full translation of the original. Hundreds of pages of small print with a drawing only every 3-4 pages. We read some every evening and many afternoons as well. I promised the kids if we finished it in time, I would take them to see the play Pinocchio.

We did it. We finished the entire book. One of the local children's theaters was doing the play so we went to see it. The kids sat amazed. At the intermission I wanted to know what they thought. They went through point by point all of the ways the book was different from the play. I tried explaining the play only had 7 people in it and they were limited in sets. I was amazed at just how much of the book they really processed and remembered. I like setting up the expectation of reading a book and going to see the stage show though. So much better than just watching a movie or cartoon.

Wordless Wednesday

Reading with Grandma

Sweet Son's Christmas Photos

Yesterday's post had photos Sweet Daughter took during Christmas. Today's photos were all taken by Sweet Son.

Christmas Tree

One of the best photos of my brother and me that has ever been taken.

Family talking on the other side of the stairs

Family sitting/standing around talking

Christmas Tree

An illustration from his favorite Christmas book

Math Giveaway!

Another giveaway just for my readers! This time it is 65 Short Mysteries You Solve With Math!

This book is for 11-15 year olds and is recommended by the National Science Teachers Association and endorsed by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.


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Another Science Giveaway!

Today's giveaway is the next book in the series of one minute mysteries - 65 MORE Short Mysteries You Solve With Science. It can stand on its own or be used after finishing the first book.

Recommended for ages 8-12, this book was a finalist in the National Best Books Awards, is recommended by Science Magazine! and has been mentioned on NPR's Science Friday.


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Science giveaway!

Today I'm hosting the first of 3 giveaways this month! One Minute Mysteries series has published a book called 65 Short Mysteries You Can Solve with Science! It is recommended by the National Science Teachers Association for ages 8-12.

 

The book includes mysteries from Life Science, Earth and Space Science, Physical and Chemical Science, General Science, and two bonus sections with 5 more mysteries from the other two books in the series.

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A great deal

There is another great deal on Educents that I wanted to make you aware of. 8 Hardcover Science books with Dr. Seuss style rhymes for only $35 - A little over $4 a book for hardcovers!!!

Teach your child about science and nature with The Cat in the Hat! Get a head start on learning

with the Cat in the Hat’s Learning Library. This series contains 8 hardcover editions of colorful

fact filled books written in the rhyming style of Dr. Seuss that makes Science fun for you and

your child! 

Cat in the Hat’s Learning Library includes:

8 quality, hard cover editions

Oh Say Can You Say, Dinosaur?

My, Oh My a Butterfly!

If I Ran the Rainforest

A Whale of a Tale

A Great Day for Pup

There’s No Place Like Space!

Oh Say Can You Seed?

Inside Your Outside

Dr. Seuss

Everyone has heard of Dr. Seuss and has their favorite books. Cat in the Hat, Hop on Pop, Green Eggs and Ham, and The Lorax seem to be loved and remembered by everyone. Most people have never even heard of my favorite Dr. Seuss book. Written in 1973, it took more than 2 decades before someone was able to illustrate it. It was not actually published until after Dr. Seuss' death.

"Some days are yellow. Some are blue. On different days, I'm different too."  This book goes through different colors and feelings in a way young children can understand and older children can easily discuss. After reading the book and talking about it, I let the kids each choose a color to paint with and then they had to tell me how it made them feel.

Sweet Son told me "I feel Blue like a happy tiger painting spots."

Sweet daughter said, "I feel Pink like a hungry butterfly flying to the airport."

I love discussing feeling with two year olds. You never know what you are going to get. Have you ever read this book? Do you like a Dr. Seuss book that most people don't?

Stories from the Golden Age

Stories from the Golden Age gave me an audio recording of Spy Killer by L. Ron Hubbard, but all opinions are my own.


First, yes it's that L. Ron Hubbard of Scientology and Dianetics. Before all of that, he wrote many stories for pulp magazines in the 1930's and 1940's. I am an avid reader, yet had never read any of his works. L. Ron Hubbard didn't just stick to one genre, instead choosing to write Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Western, Military, Action, and others. When given the choice I selected Spy Killer because it was the most intriguing of the Mystery & Suspense titles.

I haven't listened to an audio book in years. I believe the last one was a book on tape, so the upgrade to listening to a book on CD was a huge improvement. That would have been enough to impress most people, but Stories from the Golden Age didn't just hire someone to read the books. They hired an entire cast including Nancy Cartwright (voice of Bart Simpson), Jim Meskimem (Martin Housely on Parks and Rec), and Martin Kove (John Kreese in The Karate Kid). Then they added sound effects and original music.

I typically read 2-3 books at a time (I'm not counting kids books obviously). I try to keep them different genres since I jump back and forth so much. So adding in an audio story in another genre worked well for me. I was able to listen to it while sorting laundry and ironing clothes. It would be great to listen to on the way to work or on a car trip, but make sure the content is appropriate if young kids are listening. While most of these books are set on reading levels for 4th-7th graders, the content is better for middle school or higher. I don't want my young children listening to people being killed, but of course that is up to you.

They do have Accelerated Reader points (3 per book) for those who want to read them. These would also be great for ESL students because the audio recordings are unabridged, thus making it easy to follow along in the book as you listen to the CD.

The Stories from the Golden Age are available for most eBook eReaders and the audio books are on iTunes and Audible. 

Mardi Gras and Wonderful World

Painting Masks with Purple, Yellow, and Green. The teacher in me can't help but notice she is still using a fist grip while he is using a tripod grasp too far up on the brush.

They added feathers and had Mardi Gras Masks!

 
We were making Mardi Gras masks while listening to Mardi Gras Mambo. Sweet Daughter then requested some "good music." When further questioned she wants to hear some Satchmo. I was able to get a recording of her singing "What a Wonderful World". :) She may not know a single Disney Princess, but she knows the important stuff. haha

Here's sweet daughter's version of "Wonderful World." Yes, we have an illustrated book of the song.

 Not to be outdone, sweet son has is own version of "Wonderful World."

This is what happens when they both try singing it together... bouncy, bouncy

MLK Jr

We went to the library and I checked out 3 books about Martin Luther King Jr. The first two are simple stories about his life and the holiday. The third book is an illustrated text of the "I have a dream" speech. I read all 3 to both kids. They happily listened to the first two and for the third sweet daughter sat by me while sweet son was wandering around the room, but still listening.

After I finished, I looked at them and ask, "Did you understand any of that?" Sweet son said, "I have a dream. Free at last." Sweet daughter said, "That man wants me to hold hands with E, but I like to hug him." (E is one of her friends from school who is black.)

Holy cow. I'm impressed.

 At school, sweet daughter's teacher was telling the kids it was MLK day. The teacher said, "Does anyone know who Martin Luther King is?" Sweet daughter spoke up and said, "No, it's Martin Luther King JUNIOR." Her teacher loved this but said she never expected to be corrected by a two year old white girl. haha

Lightning Fast Language Giveaway

I was given a copy of Lightning Fast Italian For Kids and Families.

After reading it and trying it with my family for a little over a week, I have to say I'm pleasantly surprised. The theory behind it is solid. Using the language as part of your daily life is much more effective than taking a class or trying to learn it through more traditional lessons.

My first impression of the book was mixed. I read the introduction which explains that, other than the review chapter, the rest can be done in any order you want. The chapters are easy to fit into your daily schedule with topics like "Getting Dressed" "What's for breakfast?" "My toys" and "A walk outside." I was excited to try it out immediately, but then my children reminded me they still expected dinner.

After making dinner, we were sitting around the table and I opened the book to the "Time for Dinner!" chapter. The preparation for this conversation tells us we should have prepared a dinner with several choices including pizza and pasta al pomodoro. I looked around our table and realized this wasn't going to work.

The next day I started over and decided to try some of the other conversations. Asking my kids in Italian if they had brushed their teeth, were wearing pants, and if they played outside at school, initially caused confusion and concerned looks from my children. By the next day, they were catching on and answering my questions correctly. By the end of the week, I had stopped using any sign language with the Italian and they still understood. We increased our vocabulary and even my husband got in on it - though he preferred words that are the same in English and Italian.

The pros: It really is fast and easy to use in daily life. It is a very natural way to learn a language. I like how well it it arranged and that I don't feel pressure to prep for each lesson (we still haven't made pasta al pomodoro for dinner). Every word is listed phonetically every time, so I'm not expected to remember it from previous conversations.

The cons: I want more pictures in the book. It doesn't change the content, but would make it more fun. There are a few errors ("yeelllow"), but they don't take away from your understanding. My biggest complaint is that it doesn't say where the emphasis goes on each word. I don't speak Italian, though we have a few CDs that are in Italian, so for most of it I had no context for how it should sound.

Would you like to try learning a language the Lightning Fast way? Just enter below!

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Inside Fun

I've already written the post on outside fun, but of course we also spend time inside having fun. Here are some of the favorites from December.

Puppets are always fun and sweet son has the best laugh I've ever heard.

 Sweet daughter is playing a game of pretend with her doll.

 They love puzzles and I love when they work together. This is one of their favorite floor puzzles and yes, they do ride around the kitchen on it once it is complete.

Sweet son is reading a fire truck book to the snowman and Santa.

When it doesn't snow where we live, we make snow. This is called Insta Snow. You just add water and it stays cool and fresh for at least a month.

Playing in the Insta Snow

Frosty the Snowman

A Book Review

I just finished reading The Missing Alphabet: A Parents' Guide to Developing Creative Thinking in Kids. In our current educational system, creativity is typically confined to the arts. This book makes a very good argument for increasing education in creative areas to help our children succeed in the future. While reading, writing, and math are a great foundation, today's kids are surrounded by many different sense. Videos, music, and computer applications surround our kids and we need to help them understand the importance of the different areas in the sensory alphabet.

This book breaks down each of the elements and tells parents how to identify them, encourage them, and develop them. It even offers suggestions for possible career choices based on a child's sensory interests. I know I see different preferences in each of my kids and the suggestions of how to help develop these are wonderful. I also love that it's very low tech yet completely and directly translates to digital media.

The book is great at explaining how parents can incorporate each of these things at home outside of school hours. This is one of those books I'm going to save and read again when my kids are elementary age. I feel I am addressing each of these elements right now, but can see how I will need to make sure that continues as my kids get older. This book would be great for homeschoolers, but I do wish it did more to address how to do this in groups (traditional school, co-ops, camps). 

I was provided a copy of this book for free, but all opinions are my own.

Reading

You know that day you discover your two year old can read? Wait.. WTF? Where did he learn that?

Apparently an older child in his class (3.5 years old) is learning to read and he likes to stand behind her and listen to her lessons. From what he has demonstrated at home he knows M,S,T,R, short A, and long E. So far today he has read these words: sat, see, rat, at, me, eat (with a silent a, impressive). He can read them when I write them on paper. He can read them if I point to them in books. He can read them if we take sandpaper letters and put them together. I'm guessing it's not just a fluke (which was my first theory after all). Awesome!

Sweet daughter calls every letter "ABCDE Next time you WILL sing with me" while giving you a look to let you know she's disappointed you weren't already singing with her. I love my kids.

Fun at Home

Our days are busy at home and these are just some photos of the things we do every day.

In order to introduce other cultures and religions, we read books about all major holidays, even the ones we don't celebrate. Here we are reading a book about Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

A few days later when it was time to return the book to the library, sweet daughter was pretending to read it on the way to return it. This is what I heard, "I love reading. Rosh Hashanah. Not a trumpet. It's a show-far. I sorry. I be nice this year. Happy New Year. Sin-a-gong. Apples and honey are sweet. Happy New Year. They give bread to the birds. La Shan Ah Tova. I love the library. The end."

Clearly she has a 2 year old's understanding of the holiday. She gets the small things, but misses the big concepts. On the other hand, I think she knows more about it than most adult non-Jews. I'm proud

Here's sweet son painting. You have no idea how much paper and paint we go through around here. It's great! They are so proud of their art work and I hang it all up. It's also a great start for dictation, which helps with language development.

Puzzles are a favorite as well. Here sweet son is telling me he's holding a "tap-a-zoid." Sweet daughter is putting together a more complicated puzzle of Pooh Bear. If you look closely you can see they both have a place mat under their puzzles. This is something they learned from their Montessori school. Before doing their work, they get out a work mat and keep their work contained. They can't get new work until they put the old work away. I love this concept! It limits the mess and helps to keep them focused. They also know how to roll the mats to put them away - another fine motor skill.

Reading

Remember when I said we read a lot around here? I love when I can see the results in the way my kids play. Here are some great examples.

Sweet daughter first got the red blocks and built up these steps. Then she spent a great deal of time getting the two babies to sit on it, but not next to each other. She sat down in front of them and announce she was going to read them a book. I can only hope that when she got out the blocks, she was planning the entire thing.

Sweet son got out the dinosaurs and lined them up, all facing him. He then picks up a dinosaur book which I have only read to him once. He turns the book to face the dinosaurs so he's looking down at it. Then he says,

"This book is about you dinosaurs.
I'm going to read it to you.
Big A, Little A, (turns page)
Chicka Chicka Boom Boom (turns page)
This little piggy stayed home (turns page)
Twinkle twinkle little star (turns page)
Told you it was about dinosaurs!
I'm a big duck now. (turns page)
Brown bear what do you see? (turns page)
Elephants don't hop (turns page)
The End
See, this book's about you!"

This is sweet daughter "reading" one of her favorite books - Owl Babies. This is a story about 3 owls who wake up to find their mommy gone. The bigger two think she's out hunting for food and will come back. The smallest owl, Bill, just keeps repeating, "I want my mommy!" I love the way she ways it with so much emotion.

Here is sweet son "reading" 5 Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed. In case you don't know the story, there are 5 monkeys jumping on the bed and one at a time they each fall off and bump their head. Mama calls the doctor and the doctor says, "No more monkeys jumping on the bed."

Non-fiction Books

 The photos in this post are not related to the subject.

I have posted before about the variety of books that are always out for my kids to look at and have us read. Out of the many options, my kids have a strong preference for the non-fiction. They love looking at photos, instead of drawings and seem to remember and relate to the non-fiction books better than the fiction. Here are some of their favorite types of non-fiction books.

A real caboose!

Animal books are always interesting. My kids love the zoo and all animals, so reading about them is popular. We even subscribed to 3 different kids magazines about animals. The favorite, by far, is the one from the National Wildlife Federation. They have different magazines for different ages and while almost everyone has heard of Ranger Rick, my kids are still on the Wild Animal Baby stage. The second favorite magazine is from National Geographic. These also have different options for different ages and we are in the Little Kids stage. The other one we tried was through Zoobooks and while decent, it couldn't compete with the other two. That is the one we didn't renew. I guess I'm supposed to add that these are not paid endorsements, my kids just like the magazines.

Don't bother with him, look at me!

Biographies are an odd choice for this age, but my kids enjoy them. They are just starting to understand that different people have different experiences than their own. For example, as a baby, a child who likes strawberries assumes everyone likes strawberries. When, as a toddler, the child realizes some people don't like strawberries it causes a complete shift in their world. This is around the same time they realize that hitting feels different to the hitter and the victim. They lean they can cause reactions from other children and adults. They experiment with this and it often causes what adults perceive as behavior problems. Wow, I'm off topic. Ok, trying to bring it back. Biographies build off of this interest in the experiences of others. Reading about children in other countries and famous people help connect them to the world around them.

I just love photos of my husband and kids together.

We also use each holiday to read and learn. We are choosing to teach each major holiday in a variety of religions and national holidays from a few select countries. We selected the country we live in and the two other countries my husband has citizenship from to start. We live in a diverse area so there are many religious holidays that are celebrated locally and our kids enjoy understanding what is going on.

Wearing red and taking photos, is it February again?

What types of books do your kid seem to prefer?

Multicultural

One of the more difficult things to expose the babies to are multicultural experiences. Most of our time is spent at home. When we do go out to the zoo, science (children's) museum, mommy and me classes, football games, etc the kids have limited exposure to cultures and most of the people attending look/act just like us. We made a point of living in a neighborhood that is diverse, which will be great when the kids are older, but I didn't want to wait to introduce such important concepts.

Mommy and Me class

At home we have books with photos of many different cultures - race, non-traditional gender roles, people of varying ages, abilities, etc. We have puppets that also encompass many of these things. We let both of our kids play with all toys equally - trucks, kitchen, dolls, dress up clothes, tool box, and on and on. They do play with the toys differently, but that is because of their personalities, not their genders. These things are all normal and taken for granted. We don't see them as multicultural, we just see toys. However, with my kids growing up seeing the Hispanic Daddy in the book cooking, the African female soldier puppet, the child wearing glasses, and the Asian male teacher puppet, they grow up seeing all of this as normal. It should be normal, but it's difficult for me to show that to my children in my house. Let's face it - we are white. My husband works while I stay at home with the kids. We need to think about making sure our kids know there are many different types of people, many different types of families, jobs, abilities and they are all normal.

He's reading Brown Bear. She's reading Samolot Karola.

We also listen to a lot of different types of music. I can listen to typical children's music for a couple of hours a day maximum. Then I just become annoyed. We love Putumayo cds. I think we have about 1/2 of the children's cds they have produced. We also have a few of the adult ones. We sing along and dance and I don't become annoyed. Some are definitely better than others. We can even check some out from the library to see if we like them before buying. Other than our huge selection of Putumayo, we also have cds that are bilingual in French, Spanish, and Italian. We also have a cd that is entirely in  Polish. Because we sing along, my kids are getting the benefit of hearing the languages from a live speaker (remember the importance of this from my language post). I am certainly not fluent, but I can sing along with almost anything. The way our brains develop if you don't hear certain sounds before the age of 3, you will never be able to distinguish them. I'm trying my best to expose my children to most of the sounds in a variety of languages, which should help them learn those languages when they are older if they are interested.

Multicultural Books (no photos of music)

We also go to some cultural events, though I wish there were more closer to where we live. Hopefully this will get easier as the kids get older. While we don't eat out often, the two places we take the kids most of the time are the only Polish restaurant and the closest Mexican restaurant. Both involve native speakers and cultural food. Though we eat those two cuisines at least once a week at home, so I'm not sure we get credit for that!

 Traditional Polish dancers

Christmas Eve dinner for 2

As our kids get older we plan to do more, but this is what we accomplished from the beginning.