"I wish I could jump in to the book"

Bella, it seems, has joined the ranks of book lovers in our family.  We were reading our chapter of Charlotte's Web tonight for the first time since before Christmas, and she was full of questions about the characters.  She tried to visualize the size of the new goslings in her hand.  And as she looked at the picture, she said that she wished she could jump into the book.  And if she could, she wanted to know what Templeton would do to her (run away) and if the goose would bite her (maybe). We read on, and I wish I had a picture of the look of horror on her face when the old sheep told Wilbur that the farmer was going to kill him.  We were relieved to hear Charlotte promise to save him.  She has a theory about how that will happen.  She thinks that Charlotte might wrap Wilbur in her web to keep him safe, and that she might bite the farmer if he tries to still get to him.  I had to reassure her that I believed that Charlotte was very smart and would indeed find a way to save him.

Helen Keller

Helen Keller Biography

My kids have been very excited about all things Helen Keller lately. It started when I handed Anna Kate an easy reader about Helen Keller. She thoroughly enjoyed the story and had her typical ecstatic response upon discovering that it was a true story - that really is the icing on the cake to her. Another easy reader, and then I pulled out an old favorite that had been my mother's and then mine, Helen Keller's Teacher. Seriously one of my favorite biographies ever. I started to have Anna read it to me, then read it with her, but before long, I was reading it and everyone was listening. I found The Miracle Worker at the library and later we also watched the Nest version of Helen Keller on Anna Kate's birthday. It kind of paled in comparison to the the first one. Apparently many prefer older versions of this movie, but I thought that the little girl that played Helen in The Miracle Worker should have won an Oscar - doesn't seem like that would have been an easy role. So today we actually finished the last two chapters of the book and it occurred to me that there surely must be live footage of Helen, and a search gave is this little video. Enjoy.

Fairy Rose

image from the flowerfairies.com - one of the many roses I love, but not the one I love the best

Do your children beg for you to tell them stories? Does this make you panic?

I used to answer "yes" to both. I usually tried to redirect with , "I'm not good at stories, but I'll read you a book." I like books. I read well. Seemed like a much better plan. Ethan went along with this. On the rare occasion he persisted in the need for an actual story, I managed to drum up a lesser known Bible character or fairy tale. I slipped through the early years of Ethan and Anna Kate this way.

But not Rose. Rose the snuggler. Rose the "will you lay down with me for just a few minutes", then inevitably, "will you tell me a story?" child. Now what?

There is a lovely storybook called Rosy's Visitors (I just bought it for a penny plus shipping - you can too!) about a little girl who hauls her treasures in a wagon to a hollowed tree and prepares to entertain many magical guests. The name and concept, not to mention the whimsical illustrations made this story stick in my imagination, and was, I believe, part of the inspiration for what happened next.

I said, "okay." And I began the Fairy Rose stories. I thought I was just telling a story called "Fairy Rose" about a little girl who found a magic fairy tree and twirled around inside and turned into a fairy. From there all sorts of little adventures have been possible. Initially, Fairy Rose's adventures were based on my girlhood daydreams of being able to turn into a fairy and sneak into homes and leave things for people who were sad or in need. Fairy Rose has done those things. One day she gathered butterflies to fly to the garden outside the window of a sad shut-in she visited earlier that day as the girl Rose. But sometimes she just has fanciful adventures.

Tonight we were reading a book of children's prayers. One illustration showed children sliding down a rainbow. Rose, in all seriousness, asked how you can slide down a rainbow (she has a gift for seeing these things as realities), and thus provided the inspiration for tonight's tale of a lake fairy named Misty who always had the best secrets. And today Misty showed Fairy Rose and Fairy Anna the secret of how to slide down a rainbow.

So the one who was unable to tell stories has become (at least in her daughters' eyes) a master storyteller. For me the secret was to take an imagining that both they and I could relate to, and then keep making up stories about that one thing. That way, I feel like I'm sort of telling a story I already know.

What stories do you tell?

this is, of course, copyrighted by Alicia (just in case I ever write a book)

Oooo, I just love this blog

And if you have kids and like to read to them, you probably will too. Go and see if I'm right. :^)

A Night of Reformation

Hey, all! While we enjoy celebrating Halloween from great costumes to the Great Pumpkin, I know that some of you do not.

This is a great resource for all of us - the opportunity to celebrate the Reformation. I don't own this book, but I do have a couple of their other books and they are fantastic.

We will have the pleasure of celebrating both this year. Our friends are having a Reformation party, focusing on the life of John Calvin this year. So we'll put aside our spiders and bats for a few hours and enjoy some Reformation history.

And then off we'll go to secure our year's supply of candy - because everyone knows that that's what it's all about (at least in our book)!



For some fun halloween activites, check out last year's post.

Favorite Childhood Biographies

My 2 year old decided to make a path out of the books on one of the shelves today. She had great fun while the rest of us read A BEKA's first grade history book (the whole thing - it really didn't take that long and we enjoyed it and got some great ideas for later study). Later, as I was picking them up, I saw one of my childhood favorites, Helen Keller's Teacher, a biography of Annie Sullivan. I read it over and over.

I thought it would be fun to share who you enjoyed reading about as a girl (elementary school). I loved the Little House on the Prairie books (and the show for that matter - I even named my cat Laura!), and I read every juvenile biography I could find on Clara Barton. I also enjoyed Shark Lady: True Adventures of Eugenie Clark, and was thrilled when I ran across it at the thrift store last year and was able to read it to my kids, who also enjoyed it.

Another book that stuck with me was Tortured for Christ. I checked it out of my Christian school library in third grade. Looking back, I think that it's kind of odd that no one questioned my reading it at that age, but I did, and although I haven't reread it since then, I still remember many details.

So who were your favorite people to read about or favorite biographies when you were a girl (or guy)?

Clip art licensed from the Clip Art Gallery on DiscoverySchool.com

Simple Toddler gift

My mother made this photo album picture book for Anna Kate last year. Anna liked it, but Rose loves it, then and now. There are favorite characters from Disney princesses to Nick Jr. pals, foods, animals, letters - anything likely to peak a toddlers interest is game. She used a stack of old Family Fun magazines.

Collecting Books

Tonight I enjoyed flipping through a newly thrifted book, Celebrating Family Traditions : An Idea and Keepsake Book by Helen Baine Bland and Mary Seehafer Sears. Books about holiday and family traditions are one of my favorite genres to collect. They always inspire me to enjoy each new day and make the days special for my family and friends.



I have a particular thrift store that is my favorite. Children's books (no matter how small, large, inexpensive, or valuable) are 50 cents and adult books are 75 cents for paperback and $1 or $1.50 (they keep changing their prices) for hardback. You really can't beat that. I usually spend too much, but I actually added up the retail price of my last cache - $85. I paid $7.50. My family traditions book, a book of patterns and ideas for shrinky dinks, a good quality workbook/activity book on outer space (that I have another brand new copy that I picked up a few months ago there - 2 new workbooks for $!), a hardcover storybook of the Sleeping Beauty ballet, about 6 Level 1 or 2 easy readers that didn't have dumb story lines (or no storyline), a hardcover If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, a large knock knock joke book for Ethan, and I think a few more. Considering that I also got practically new Land's End and American Eagle shirts for Brian for another $7.50, I didn't feel too guilty.



I also collect good parenting/tips books, beautiful storybooks, and lots of other children's books, especially nonfiction and classic fiction ( and right now large quantities of early readers). I love Trixie Belden, finding them at a low price can make my day - I only have a couple. Also some cookbooks, historical and good Christian fiction, Christian marriage and romantic idea books, books on home education, or just education in general, music books, homemaking books, and other Christian living, theology, etc. books - anything that intrigues me and doesn't look like fluff. I try to hone in on my kids favorite stuff too, so I look for bug books and ballet books, and if I ever find any Max and Ruby books I have a two year old who will be very happy with me and a library that will be relieved to have theirs back in circulation.



What kind of books do you like to collect and where do you find them cheap? And for that matter, if you're like me and love all of the books you have too much to part with them - where do you put them???


graphic from Anne's Place

Teaching the Proverbs

Sometimes, lately, I've read the chapter of Proverbs corresponding to the day of the month for family devotions when Brian is gone or feels too bad. (Tonight he had a migraine again.) I'm thinking about doing this for regular morning devotions, especially when we begin school again. I've been considering Doorpost's Proverbs book. I'm also planning to get Big Truths for Little Kids this year. I was so excited to find out that this goes along with the curriculum that our kids are using in our new shepherding group. Right now we've been working through a very detailed and rather comprehensive Bible story book for evening devotions, The Children's Bible by Golden Press.

Anyway, however and whenever we read the Proverbs, I'm trying to make them very accessible and meaningful. I also want the kids to memorize many of them. Tonight instead of reading all of chapter 11, I decided to pick out a verse. Verse 30 seemed an obvious choice. I read it first, "The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and whoever captures souls is wise."

I love teaching my children and watching them grow. They're getting a grasp on "righteous", so we spent a little time on what "fruit" was and paralleled "capturing souls" with the more familiar "fishers of men." By then, it seemed natural that we should quickly memorize it. So I made up a tune on the spot that turned out rather well, the children loved it, and Ethan even fell asleep tonight still singing it.

The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life,
The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life,
The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life,
And whoever captures souls - is wise.

I'm thinking this could be the way to go, but I'd better get a new manuscript book for the tunes so that I don't forget them.


BTW, Doorposts has a free PDF on why you should teach with the book of Proverbs and activities to help you do it.

Favorite Beach Books

Each year before we go to the beach, we check out beach books to build anticipation and to enjoy while we're there. These are some of our favorites.

• The Sea Chest -wonderful storybook
• Stella, Star of the Sea - Stella cracks me up!
• Sea, Sand, Me! - a rhythmic preschool book that is one of my own favorites. Wouldn't go to the beach without it!
• Way Down Deep in the Deep Blue Sea
• Beachcombing: Exploring the Seashore - Jim Arnosky - need I say more?
• Starfish (Welcome Books)
• Seahorse, (A Science I can read book)
• Bats at the Beach - Ethan's favorite last year, lots of fun

Old book series

Hannah was keeping an eye on her e-bay bids for some Judy Bolton books last night. She says that they are hard to find. I read a couple of Judy Bolton, but had other favorites. In first grade I read all of the Nancy Drew books and Bobbsey Twin books that I could find. By fourth grade I was hooked on Trixie Beldon, who I would have to say would be my choice to collect (but, of course, I already have the Bobbsey Twins.) Then it was Mandie books. They were gems. She and I started out the same age (12), but eventually my birthdays came faster than hers and I outgrew them. I also enjoyed the Grandma's Attic series. In high school my little brother started buying the "new" Hardy Boys casefiles and he would give them to me to read first (because he had an earlier bedtime and I would read them before mine, so he never really missed them anyway). Of course I loved the Little House books. (Click the link. It is a neat little website with quizzes on the Little House books, recipes, and my girls' favorite Little House storybooks.) And here's a funny for you. When I first read Anne of Green Gables as a girl, I remember finishing it and wishing that there was a sequel. It took me several years to find out that there were many sequels! I ended up liking L.M. Montgomery's Emily series even better, though. I think my favorite book of all, though was Heidi Grows Up, the second of the three Heidi books. So tell me, what were your favorite series of books as a child?

Wonderful book

I just fell in love with another book. I checked it out of the librar for my sunshine girl, Anna Kate. It's called Wild, Wild Sunflower Child Anna by Nancy White Carlstrom and it is such a beautiful poem that describes my own sweet girl to a T. I think that it's out of print, but check your library and see if you can find this gem - escpecially if you have an Anna living at your house. If she's anything like mine, you'll be reading it again and again.

A Gem

I just saw Dawn's "Early Spring Basket" of children's books on her sidebar, and am happy to report that I was able to find and request over thirty of them online through our library system. She has chosen great books for St. Patty's, sugaring. shearing, wind, and other spring topics. I can't wait to read them! Thanks again, Dawn.

Henry and Mudge

Thanks to my sweet little friend Leah who lent us several of her books, we have become big fans of a big dog named Mudge and his best friend Henry. The books are level 2 readers, and Ethan is at level 1 right now, so I'm reading them and the kids LOVE them!

If you've never heard of them before:

1. Take a first look at Simon and Schuster.
2. Then look inside one at Amazon.

Already a fan?

1. Find language arts worksheets for two of the books at abcteach.
2. Really cute printable stationary and additional worksheets at Marcia's Lesson Links.
3. Printable memory game and activity pages at simon and schuster, and a printable board game as well
4. Their teaching guide for the Henry and Mudge books can help with ideas for fun and sequencing. My favorite is to celebrate Mudge's birthday on May 1. Note: I can now (2/2011) only find this available at teachervision.
5. A primary level reader's theatre script at havefunteaching.

A really big fan?

• See if the TheatreworksUSA production of Henry and Mudge is coming to a stage near you! If it's not, you still may enjoy their study guide activities, (updated one here.)

Favorite Thanksgiving books

My friend Sherry asked for this list. It is primarily geared to a young child's taste.

• Off to Plymouth Rock by Dandi Mackall and Gene Barretta
• Squanto and the Miracle of Thanksgiving by Eric Metaxas and Shannon Stirnweis - most favorite
• Thanksgiving Mice! by Bethany Roberts and Doug Cushman
• N.C. Wyeth's Pilgrims text by Robert San Souci - beautiful illustrations!
• Molly's pilgrim by Barbara Cohen and Daniel Mark Duffy

We also are reading A Journey to the New World: The Diary of Remember Patience Whipple, Mayflower, 1620, part of the Dear America series. The book is a bit difficult for my children to follow, but they loved the video Dear America: Journey to the New World which is based on the book.