One of the days last week I had to run up to BYU to buy some of my ballet CD's. It was the dead middle of the day. It was also probably the last true warm day we will have this year. The sun was shining bright and Madalynn was skipping along singing. She was trying to engage me in the song, but I was in a hurry to get my kids home and get back to work. Of course, she grew more and more frustrated.....and so did I. She started lagging behind complaining about her legs hurting. However, I was determined to not loose my temper and was trying to figure out how to get her to move quickly.
I don't know where thoughts come from in my mind...however, all of a sudden I stepped on her shadow and called out to her, "you can't catch mine!" Well, naturally all the college kids were staring at us as we were running up the walks across the square in front of the library, all the way up the walk to the visitor parking at the MOA. By the time we were done, I was sweating from running, dying from laughing and she was having the time of her life. I didn't always let her get the shadow. Sometimes I hid behind the stroller, sometimes I let turned a little and made it fall on the stroller, and sometimes I let it fall right under her feet. We talked about how shadows are created. She watched and then tried the various ways to get it to change direction. We talked about the sun and its placement. We watched how it was different when we were running along a diagonal across the square and when we were running in a straight line up a hill.
It was just a good reminder to me that playing/learning are always combined. It was a small, but very significant moment to remind me how to have patience with my daughter. Man, she moved right along once we were having some fun. My son of course was super jealous...as he was strapped in a stroller. I would have let him out if I wasn't trying to get on and off campus in less than 15 minutes. Next time we will have to let him play too.
Hope you enjoyed our outing.
Thursday, November 13, 2014
Wednesday, November 12, 2014
Puppet Show Wed 11/12/14
Well, the kids had a long 7 hour day at the babysitters today. It was a really hard day for me. I usually get to at least come home for two hours with them at lunch and enjoy some game playing during lunch or some reading time on the couch after lunch. However, today I had a rehearsal at BYU after I got off work at UVU. So, I came home in full force to create and spend time with the kids.
Madalynn wanted to a puppet show when we got home. So I sat down on the recliner to watch. These pictures are her show earlier. Oh, how I love our theater.
I remembered that I wanted to look up some tutorials about how to make a stuff animal into a puppet. We have like 50 stuffed animals that the kids never touch. Well I found this tutorial and it is on the list of things to do this next week. (Here is a second Tutorial. I won't be doing this one, but I liked it a lot.) Madalynn sat in my lap and watched the youtube videos I found. We talked about making the puppets and which animals we would do.
Then I asked her what new puppets she wanted to make today. We googled chickens and she picked out a bunch of pictures to use. She wanted to show the life of a chicken from egg, birth, to adult. It was creative. As I was watching her cut out her chickens today, I was noticing just how much more meticulous she is with her cuts. All of a sudden in the past week she is seriously attempting to stay in lines with her coloring. She is taking her time to cut really close to the edge of the picture and not cut into it. It is amazing to me how well her small motor skills are working. That doesn't mean she didn't cut off some parts, but I repaired them with tape and we went on. I love her concentration face.
Two years ago I bought some puppet kits from Hobby Lobby to make Madalynn some puppets for Christmas. I got the pieces glued on before I realized that I should have sewed the felt first. I couldn't use my machine without gumming it up. I pulled them out tonight. I tried unsucessfully to sew them with my machine again. Russ got out the needle and thread and tried to sew them too. Eventually we decided to just hot glue them. They were super cheap and I don't care if the kids destroy them. I just don't want to loose small pieces around the house. We will see what happens. I let Remington watch me while I was using the hot glue gun. I let Madalynn hold the heat gun to help me glue. It was certainly a family affair.
We did do a puppet show before bed tonight. Russ was doing dishes while listening so we didn't get any pictures, but it was fun. I am thinking that we are going to do pictures of the the Little Red Hen story tomorrow night. That is a fun story that Madalynn will be able to repeat without any problems.
Hope you enjoyed.
Madalynn wanted to a puppet show when we got home. So I sat down on the recliner to watch. These pictures are her show earlier. Oh, how I love our theater.
Then I asked her what new puppets she wanted to make today. We googled chickens and she picked out a bunch of pictures to use. She wanted to show the life of a chicken from egg, birth, to adult. It was creative. As I was watching her cut out her chickens today, I was noticing just how much more meticulous she is with her cuts. All of a sudden in the past week she is seriously attempting to stay in lines with her coloring. She is taking her time to cut really close to the edge of the picture and not cut into it. It is amazing to me how well her small motor skills are working. That doesn't mean she didn't cut off some parts, but I repaired them with tape and we went on. I love her concentration face.
Two years ago I bought some puppet kits from Hobby Lobby to make Madalynn some puppets for Christmas. I got the pieces glued on before I realized that I should have sewed the felt first. I couldn't use my machine without gumming it up. I pulled them out tonight. I tried unsucessfully to sew them with my machine again. Russ got out the needle and thread and tried to sew them too. Eventually we decided to just hot glue them. They were super cheap and I don't care if the kids destroy them. I just don't want to loose small pieces around the house. We will see what happens. I let Remington watch me while I was using the hot glue gun. I let Madalynn hold the heat gun to help me glue. It was certainly a family affair.
We did do a puppet show before bed tonight. Russ was doing dishes while listening so we didn't get any pictures, but it was fun. I am thinking that we are going to do pictures of the the Little Red Hen story tomorrow night. That is a fun story that Madalynn will be able to repeat without any problems.
Game play
I am a sucker for playing games. I love the complexity of card games and board games. We own several hundred games in our house. It is nice and intense all at the same time. One day about a year ago one of my friends posted a picture of her 6 yr old son playing Rummikub with her. I was SOOOOO jealous!! It is one of my favorite games I have played since I was a kid. I can't wait for the day that Madalynn can play it with us.
I have learned that learning take place best when my daughter is having fun. Duh, I know, but I have to be reminded of this on a reasonably regular basis. Games play is perfect for teaching lots of concepts to kids. Wining vs Loosing. Taking Turns. Strategy. Numbers. Sequences. Value of Numbers in comparison to each other. Colors. Statistics and Odds....just to name a few.
So, I started to mull over what I could do to get Madalynn ready to play games, Rummikub specifically. I started to think through the games I had played as a kid. I posted a question to friends on facebook of their own kids favorite games.
I was thinking that one of the best ways for Madalynn to learn is to have her observe. So, Russ and I started playing cards games during meals. If we are home together for either lunch or dinner we are constantly playing a game. She quickly learned her numbers and their values through this process, started learning strategy, learned how to take turns and learned that sometimes you win and sometimes you loose. Russ always wins SkipBo. Seriously, I don't know how he does it, but for everyone 10-15 times we play I might win once.
I started collecting little kids games. I am definitely going to do the tradition my mom started when I was a kid. Santa always brought either new individual card games or one family game. I am getting kids Sequence for this Christmas.
She now plays and loves the following:
Rat a Tat Cat
Memory
Guess Who
Connect 4
Cherry Ho
Go Fish
Spot it
Trouble
Sorry
Candyland
Chutes and Ladders
and Phase Ten Dice
I try and make sure we play at least two as a family on Sundays and at least one other game every other day. Remington has started to get interested in being invovled. It is harder with a 2 yr old but obviously we make it work. He gets strapped into a booster and he already understands turns. He learned about turns from his jealousy when we have reading time..but that is for another post.
I keep a small set of memory cards in my purse to pull out when I have to wait somewhere. I also keep our regular spot it card game in the diaper bag. People of all ages get involved when we start playing it and it makes time pass so much faster. Madalynn does actually practice spot it on her own and makes up her own games. I usually put the game in front of her when I need to get dinner in the crockpot. Sneaky learning moments that also help me do my jobs quicker. I didnt' get the kid spot it versions. My 4 1/2 yr old keeps up with the adults quite well. She usually ends up with just as many cards as the slowest adult. When we play with just Madalynn, Russ and I, there are times that I count to three and let her look before we shout it out, but that is becoming more and more rare.
I do change up rules on games, add outside learning things to various games, and make it fit what we are currently learning. I was amazed how quickly she learned her numbers when she knew that she could play with mom and dad if she learned them.
Hope you enjoy.
I have learned that learning take place best when my daughter is having fun. Duh, I know, but I have to be reminded of this on a reasonably regular basis. Games play is perfect for teaching lots of concepts to kids. Wining vs Loosing. Taking Turns. Strategy. Numbers. Sequences. Value of Numbers in comparison to each other. Colors. Statistics and Odds....just to name a few.
So, I started to mull over what I could do to get Madalynn ready to play games, Rummikub specifically. I started to think through the games I had played as a kid. I posted a question to friends on facebook of their own kids favorite games.
I was thinking that one of the best ways for Madalynn to learn is to have her observe. So, Russ and I started playing cards games during meals. If we are home together for either lunch or dinner we are constantly playing a game. She quickly learned her numbers and their values through this process, started learning strategy, learned how to take turns and learned that sometimes you win and sometimes you loose. Russ always wins SkipBo. Seriously, I don't know how he does it, but for everyone 10-15 times we play I might win once.
I started collecting little kids games. I am definitely going to do the tradition my mom started when I was a kid. Santa always brought either new individual card games or one family game. I am getting kids Sequence for this Christmas.
She now plays and loves the following:
Rat a Tat Cat
Memory
Guess Who
Connect 4
Cherry Ho
Go Fish
Spot it
Trouble
Sorry
Candyland
Chutes and Ladders
and Phase Ten Dice
I try and make sure we play at least two as a family on Sundays and at least one other game every other day. Remington has started to get interested in being invovled. It is harder with a 2 yr old but obviously we make it work. He gets strapped into a booster and he already understands turns. He learned about turns from his jealousy when we have reading time..but that is for another post.
I keep a small set of memory cards in my purse to pull out when I have to wait somewhere. I also keep our regular spot it card game in the diaper bag. People of all ages get involved when we start playing it and it makes time pass so much faster. Madalynn does actually practice spot it on her own and makes up her own games. I usually put the game in front of her when I need to get dinner in the crockpot. Sneaky learning moments that also help me do my jobs quicker. I didnt' get the kid spot it versions. My 4 1/2 yr old keeps up with the adults quite well. She usually ends up with just as many cards as the slowest adult. When we play with just Madalynn, Russ and I, there are times that I count to three and let her look before we shout it out, but that is becoming more and more rare.
I do change up rules on games, add outside learning things to various games, and make it fit what we are currently learning. I was amazed how quickly she learned her numbers when she knew that she could play with mom and dad if she learned them.
Hope you enjoy.
Tuesday, November 11, 2014
Normal Play night 11/11/14
I wish I had taken a picture of Madalynn putting on the flag today with Russ. However, I was jumping in my car for a long 9 1/2 hour work day. I worked at UVU from 9-1 and I taught piano from 2:30-8pm tonight. I don't get much done on Tues. However, like I said before, I work long hard days so I can spend time with my kids on the other days.
I learned about 6-9 months ago a fascinating thing about my son. When I am near him and sitting on a piece of furniture he is constantly trying to get into things and quickly moving from one activity to another. However, if I sit on the floor...even if I am not paying attention to him, he can sit and play with the same toy for an hour. Crazy huh!!! I can't believe I even figured this out. So, we started closing his bedroom door and playing on the floor about that time. Well, on Tues nights I put the kids in his bedroom...with a door knob child proof handle on the inside. I can watch them from my video monitor while I am teaching, but they stay out of my way. I only do this for the last two lessons. Russ has to leave for his calling at church and I still have to finish my last two lesssons.
Recently he has taken to emptying every box in the closet during this time. It is driving me NUTS!! Seriously!! Well, last Tues he got the train tracks out. He has loved trains since he was really little. When he first started talking, one of his first imitations was a train whistle. We live by lots of train tracks so he sees them a lot. It never ceases to amaze me how he can spot a train anywhere when we are driving. Well, I cleaned the floor last Sat and moved the kitchen table and let them build with the train tracks. It is amazing the skills that are used...just to create a track. The small motor skills to put the pieces together. The logic that a child needs to use to get the pieces to turn and line up. As I watched Madalynn trying to get a bridge to stand up and watching her decided how many supports it needed, I was just amazed at her patience. Usually if something doesn't work, she gets super super angry and won't try again. Well, she tried a few times until she got the bridge to work. Simple play moments, really create huge teaching moments. I talked to her about how to add tracks to help the trains turn around, how to make quick turns with tiny pieces and how to make large turns with the longer pieces. I could really go on and on, but it is not necessary. We had to clean up all TOOOO soon because I had to get to a family party thing. There is a certain time frame that my kids seem to need to have ample child play and I probably cut it an hour short.
Well, tonight my son dumped out the Lincoln Logs. There are two sets combined in this box. The ones my dad played with when he was a child in the 60's and a newer set my grandparents had purchased when we were kids. The newer set has an instruction booklet on several different forts you can make. I had Russ show Madalynn how to do one of those about 2 months ago. When I came in from teaching, she had made this one.
Well, she wanted to know more about building tonight and I decided this was going to be our playing/teaching time for the day. I told her that first she had to clean his room before we could build. I told her our limited time period, since I got in there at 8:15 and she needed to get ready for bed a 9. Clean up is an important part of play, and they did it super super quick. Remington is constantly amazing me with his ability to understand how to play with building/boy toys. He started stacking the small pieces with no problem. I talked to Madalynn about height, directions, windows and doors, stability at the base, strong and weak points based on how wide or skinny a tower is. I showed Remington to how to put on the roof and let him line up roof pieces. I let her talk through several design ideas giving input as needed. We were all fully engaged. We talked about hitting, as Remington of course just wanted to destroy after 20 min and they started hitting each other and crying. We learned about how to put the piece in the box with long and tall pieces stacked and little pieces just falling around them. Etc. It was the perfect end to a very very long day. I look forward to some playing/teaching moments tomorrow after I pick them up from the babysitter.
I can't find the exact quote, but in the book I am reading it states (paraphrasing), that the more a child sees you taking pictures and notes about their work, the more it validates their ideas. I take LOTS of pictures of each activity that we do. I want my daughter to know her work matters to me and her ideas are strong and important. So while each picture may not have been necessary to view, it meant the world to her as she moved through each stage of building. She would yell out when she wanted a picture and after the whole night, she wanted to look through them again and discuss what she was doing in more detail. So, if I post a ton of pictures this is my reasoning for taking them.
Hope you enjoyed.
I learned about 6-9 months ago a fascinating thing about my son. When I am near him and sitting on a piece of furniture he is constantly trying to get into things and quickly moving from one activity to another. However, if I sit on the floor...even if I am not paying attention to him, he can sit and play with the same toy for an hour. Crazy huh!!! I can't believe I even figured this out. So, we started closing his bedroom door and playing on the floor about that time. Well, on Tues nights I put the kids in his bedroom...with a door knob child proof handle on the inside. I can watch them from my video monitor while I am teaching, but they stay out of my way. I only do this for the last two lessons. Russ has to leave for his calling at church and I still have to finish my last two lesssons.
Recently he has taken to emptying every box in the closet during this time. It is driving me NUTS!! Seriously!! Well, last Tues he got the train tracks out. He has loved trains since he was really little. When he first started talking, one of his first imitations was a train whistle. We live by lots of train tracks so he sees them a lot. It never ceases to amaze me how he can spot a train anywhere when we are driving. Well, I cleaned the floor last Sat and moved the kitchen table and let them build with the train tracks. It is amazing the skills that are used...just to create a track. The small motor skills to put the pieces together. The logic that a child needs to use to get the pieces to turn and line up. As I watched Madalynn trying to get a bridge to stand up and watching her decided how many supports it needed, I was just amazed at her patience. Usually if something doesn't work, she gets super super angry and won't try again. Well, she tried a few times until she got the bridge to work. Simple play moments, really create huge teaching moments. I talked to her about how to add tracks to help the trains turn around, how to make quick turns with tiny pieces and how to make large turns with the longer pieces. I could really go on and on, but it is not necessary. We had to clean up all TOOOO soon because I had to get to a family party thing. There is a certain time frame that my kids seem to need to have ample child play and I probably cut it an hour short.
Well, tonight my son dumped out the Lincoln Logs. There are two sets combined in this box. The ones my dad played with when he was a child in the 60's and a newer set my grandparents had purchased when we were kids. The newer set has an instruction booklet on several different forts you can make. I had Russ show Madalynn how to do one of those about 2 months ago. When I came in from teaching, she had made this one.
Well, she wanted to know more about building tonight and I decided this was going to be our playing/teaching time for the day. I told her that first she had to clean his room before we could build. I told her our limited time period, since I got in there at 8:15 and she needed to get ready for bed a 9. Clean up is an important part of play, and they did it super super quick. Remington is constantly amazing me with his ability to understand how to play with building/boy toys. He started stacking the small pieces with no problem. I talked to Madalynn about height, directions, windows and doors, stability at the base, strong and weak points based on how wide or skinny a tower is. I showed Remington to how to put on the roof and let him line up roof pieces. I let her talk through several design ideas giving input as needed. We were all fully engaged. We talked about hitting, as Remington of course just wanted to destroy after 20 min and they started hitting each other and crying. We learned about how to put the piece in the box with long and tall pieces stacked and little pieces just falling around them. Etc. It was the perfect end to a very very long day. I look forward to some playing/teaching moments tomorrow after I pick them up from the babysitter.
 |
| Building a castle tower |
 |
| Tearing down and rebuilding the wall |
 |
| Learning how to take turns as they build a larger and larger tower |
 |
| He is watching Madalynn take her turn |
 |
| Putting on the roof |
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| Determined to get the roof finished. |
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| Mom, take a picture...and she smiles. |
Hope you enjoyed.
Monday, November 10, 2014
Websites I follow
When I started looking into homeschooling in general...which happened over quite a period of time, I started following a couple blogs and website. I have looked at hundreds of different website, but these are the three that I always come back to.
Education.com I did pay for a plus membership. Best thing I have ever done as a working mom was pay $15 on a special they had last year.
Katie from Gifts of Curiosity...her emails are great and her free packets are amazing!! I don't know what I would do without them. You do have to subscribe to the emails to get the passwords for some of the packets. It changes every little bit. In the link of her blog I linked it to a page of free Thanksgivigin sudoku that I will be printing out this week for Madalynn and my husband to work on.
House of Brown. I have just enjoyed her emails.
I find some free stuff on Teacher to Teacher quite a bit. I follow a few other sites, but mostly for the future. There is a lot of stuff that I enjoy learning about that it takes me a while to figure out how to introduce in smaller form. This is where my pinterest board/google are awesome. I am grateful for those out there that share their talents and time so i can help my daughter. I don't have all the time to make fun packets, but I do have time to learn and play.
Hope you enjoy.
Education.com I did pay for a plus membership. Best thing I have ever done as a working mom was pay $15 on a special they had last year.
Katie from Gifts of Curiosity...her emails are great and her free packets are amazing!! I don't know what I would do without them. You do have to subscribe to the emails to get the passwords for some of the packets. It changes every little bit. In the link of her blog I linked it to a page of free Thanksgivigin sudoku that I will be printing out this week for Madalynn and my husband to work on.
House of Brown. I have just enjoyed her emails.
I find some free stuff on Teacher to Teacher quite a bit. I follow a few other sites, but mostly for the future. There is a lot of stuff that I enjoy learning about that it takes me a while to figure out how to introduce in smaller form. This is where my pinterest board/google are awesome. I am grateful for those out there that share their talents and time so i can help my daughter. I don't have all the time to make fun packets, but I do have time to learn and play.
Hope you enjoy.
Copying the Masters
About a month ago one of my close friends posted the coolest picture on instagram. Her 6 yr old daughter is a gem in the world. One Sunday they were painting and her mom posted a picture of J looking a picture of the painting Starry Night by Van Gogh on her ipad and attempting to copy it. She did this on a couple different occassions. While i knew that Madalynn is only 4 1/2 and still working on the small motor skills of staying in lines and patience when she colors or paints, I thought this is something we could definitely do in conjunction with Museum Fridays.
Did we already take pictures of quilts to make quilt blocks? Didn't she loves copying something and making her own?
Well, I showed Madalynn the pictures of J doing the painting and she said, "J is older than me mom. I will stick to my paintings until I am older like her." So....we left it alone.
I checked out some artist biography books at the library three weeks ago. Renoir, Van Gogh, Picasso, Rembrandt, and Michelangelo. I thought that would be a good mixture of styles and mediums to look over and discuss. Well, she was looking through the Van Gogh book last Friday and just identifying landscapes, portraits and still lives and she came across Starrry Night. Well, this time he interest was peeked. Finding a picture yourself in your own book has that affect apparently. Well, I took lots of pictures..naturally.
At our house we use my acrylic paints to paint. We use a sturdy ice cube tray for the paints. She has her own set of brushes that we purchased a Habor Freight...like 10 brushes for $2. We put a dry erase board behind the painting. This minimizes the clean up of painting to almost nothing. She never gets any paint on the table. The cardboard on the back of the dry erase board is completely ruined from washing, but it was never needed anyways. I always make her wear a bib. I am sad because I know somewhere in this house we have a kid painting bib and I just can't seem to find it anywhere anymore.
The following pictures range from the beginning, Daddy's instructions and helps, to finished product. Russ followed up afterwards and explained the color wheel to her again. I am going to start only giving her the primary colors in a couple months and make her start mixing to create the colors she wants. It is the next step to painting. The last picture was taking an hour after she went to bed that night. I got side tracked and we didn't take a picture or get it put up on the door. She came out of her room and insisted that we put it up before she would go back to bed.....so, we did and she went straight to bed and sleep. Silly girl.
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| She took seriously had silly faced pictures with her painting. Sigh, I love my little girl |
Hope you enjoy.
Sunday, November 9, 2014
Designing a little girls room
So, my daughter has the most elaborate castle bed. We started working on the design of her bed before she was born. My husband would love to create custom kids beds for a living. A castle bed was a no brainer for us after she came out as a girly girl. The planning of the design took MONTHS of discussion. Today I am going to talk about her turrets and their importance in our home.
My piano teacher from high school gave us the best baby shower gift ever. It has become one of the most well loved books in our home with both our kids. As I was designing a nursery plan in my head before our first was born I had the following list of items I wanted to display in her room:
A handmade quilt by her mother
Cute window covering
Crib
A seat (which we used a glider we owned and took the bottom of an old glider and made an ottoman)
A toy box (which Russ made and she still loves)
Pictures on the wall that reminded her of how important she was to us and also her Savior
However, the biggest...most important thing:
A basket full of my favorite books
I put this basket in a prominent place on her dresser. The only other thing on her dresser was a lamp and a table runner covering the bad chipping paint of the dresser. My daughter was a crier. Seriously, she cried A LOT. In hind sight and after having the best second baby ever, I call her the devil child. She truly is not as bad as the worst, hardest kids out there, but she was a really HARD baby. As a first time mother however, you just go with it and think that this is how it should be. Whenever i was home and she wasn't screaming, I found myself sitting in the glider reading to her. It was so fun to use her fingers to point at the pages. There were days when I would read the book super super fast to get all the way through the pages before she was done and there were other days I would hold each picture open long after I had finished reading the page and let her point at everything on the page.
At that point I started to set aside $5 a month for our book collection. I would go to our closest thrift store...which at the time was Deseret Industries run by the LDS church. I would sort through their board books and hard backs and find a few new books to bring home each month. Lets just say, by the time that she was 2, we had twice as many children's books as we had children's toys. I wanted reading to a prominent part of her life.
So, when we were discussing the bed design I told my husband that the turrets had to be bookshelves. I needed a place to store all our books. So we put her toy box under the bed, added a light to the design and now I often find her under her bed reading to herself.
Because we never have time to go shopping, I now scour ebay for used books. I have already purchased all the books I am giving my kids for Christmas. It is awesome. They are going to love them. Madalynn is getting a whole collection of the Madeline books and Remington is getting a couple construction books. Last year Madalynn got the entire Fancy Nancy collection. I got all the hardbacks used for probably less than $20. I had to wait and search for a while and collect each book one at a time for several months, but seriously 40 books for less than $20 is hard to beat.
We use our local library....a lot. We did their program, Read a 1000 books before Kindergarten, in less than 4 months. We check out a lot of books and Madalynn loves reading. I will write a separate post about what we do with her to learn how to read.
Hope you enjoyed.
My piano teacher from high school gave us the best baby shower gift ever. It has become one of the most well loved books in our home with both our kids. As I was designing a nursery plan in my head before our first was born I had the following list of items I wanted to display in her room:
A handmade quilt by her mother
Cute window covering
Crib
A seat (which we used a glider we owned and took the bottom of an old glider and made an ottoman)
A toy box (which Russ made and she still loves)
Pictures on the wall that reminded her of how important she was to us and also her Savior
However, the biggest...most important thing:
A basket full of my favorite books
I put this basket in a prominent place on her dresser. The only other thing on her dresser was a lamp and a table runner covering the bad chipping paint of the dresser. My daughter was a crier. Seriously, she cried A LOT. In hind sight and after having the best second baby ever, I call her the devil child. She truly is not as bad as the worst, hardest kids out there, but she was a really HARD baby. As a first time mother however, you just go with it and think that this is how it should be. Whenever i was home and she wasn't screaming, I found myself sitting in the glider reading to her. It was so fun to use her fingers to point at the pages. There were days when I would read the book super super fast to get all the way through the pages before she was done and there were other days I would hold each picture open long after I had finished reading the page and let her point at everything on the page.
At that point I started to set aside $5 a month for our book collection. I would go to our closest thrift store...which at the time was Deseret Industries run by the LDS church. I would sort through their board books and hard backs and find a few new books to bring home each month. Lets just say, by the time that she was 2, we had twice as many children's books as we had children's toys. I wanted reading to a prominent part of her life.
So, when we were discussing the bed design I told my husband that the turrets had to be bookshelves. I needed a place to store all our books. So we put her toy box under the bed, added a light to the design and now I often find her under her bed reading to herself.
Because we never have time to go shopping, I now scour ebay for used books. I have already purchased all the books I am giving my kids for Christmas. It is awesome. They are going to love them. Madalynn is getting a whole collection of the Madeline books and Remington is getting a couple construction books. Last year Madalynn got the entire Fancy Nancy collection. I got all the hardbacks used for probably less than $20. I had to wait and search for a while and collect each book one at a time for several months, but seriously 40 books for less than $20 is hard to beat.
We use our local library....a lot. We did their program, Read a 1000 books before Kindergarten, in less than 4 months. We check out a lot of books and Madalynn loves reading. I will write a separate post about what we do with her to learn how to read.
Hope you enjoyed.
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