Book Reviews - Library Books

In the last few weeks we have been discovering real treasures at the library so I thought I would share some reviews:
The If You Give...books by Laura Joffe Numeroff :
These are ones like If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, If You Give a Pig a Pancake, If You give a Moose a Muffin. They are very cute with fun illustrations. The kids enjoy them and BigGirl even tries to come up with more adventures that follow the story pattern.

Flat Stanley by Jeff Brown :
This is one lots of poeple have heard about and do a fun geography project with. In the story a boy named Stanley becomes flat(half an inch thick) when a bulletin board falls on him. He goes on adventures, including being mailed to stay with a friend, used as a kite, and more. He has a jealous little brother. I read this first and we are halfway through it as a family. Very very cute! The kids are loving it. For those unfamiliar with the geography project, the basic idea is to have a child make a Flat Traveller and send to friends in other states and countries to have adventures. The host family keeps a diary and hopefully a photo and mails it back home. Flat Travellers can be a miniature of your child, an animal, or anything really. Laminating them helps them live longer I've heard, and sending out several copies at once to different locations speeds the process some. While we don't plan on doing this right now, I'm considering it for when we study US geography in a year or two.

The Gingerbread Cowboy by Janet Squires:
Fun retelling of the gingerbread man set in the old west.

The Gingerbread Girl by List Campbell Ernst:
This gingerbread girl has heard about the misfortunes of her brother and sets out to take care of that fox who ate him.

My Heart Glow, Alice Cogswell, Thomas Gallaudet, and the Birth of American Sign Language by Emily Arnold McCully
What a beautiful book with the story of the beginnings of ASL. I loved this one.

Singing Hands by Delia Ray:
This is a chapter book set in the South in 1948. Interesting story of a hearing girl raised by deaf parents. It shows the prejudices of the time against deaf/handicapped people as well as blacks. I wouldn't read it to my kids yet, but will probably use it in the future when we are a bit older. I enjoyed the story a lot though.

Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett:
What a treasure! One where the gingerbread does NOT get eaten, and Jan Brett's drawings are beautiful. I went back to the library for more Jan Brett books and they are all gorgeous!


That's all I've got time to review for now!

Kaya-aton-my and Zoo

That is the name of the Nez Perce girl in our stories this week. Her name means "she who arranges rocks". If you've read earlier posts you'll know we already read the first 3 american girl books for Kaya last month. Now it's time to read the last 3. That's the big plan for the week! Besides the usual math and writing, we're reading a few chapters each day this week and next for the books, doing a lapbook for Kaya, and exploring the topics we come across as we read.

We have also been doing a ton of reading picture books aloud lately. The current favorites are stories about gingerbread. The Gingerbread Baby, the Gingerbread Boy, the Gingerbread Girl, the Gingerbread Cowboy, and so on. We're still reading the If You Give...books too. If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, If You Give a Pig a Pancake, If You Give a Moose a Muffin, If you Give a Pig a Party. Over and over and over.

We did go to the zoo and aquarium Monday to finish out our Finding Nemo unit study. The kids had a lot of fun, even though it was COLD! Maybe 40 degrees, windy, and raining off and on. We practically had the zoo to ourselves! Besides employees we probably saw less than 10 people there. Now, if I were a good mommy I would have taken pictures. I even had my camera with me. But we were too busy having fun to bother with pictures, so you'll just have to imagine it. Oh, and the funnest part of the day according to TagalongGirl? Riding the carousel! It is her absolute favorite, the first thing she asks for anytime you mention going to the zoo. A sweet older gentleman was running the carousel this time and he even ran it for an extra ride for free. The kids all had fun.

AHA! Children's Museum

We went to the AHA children's museum Saturday. AHA stands for A Hands-on Adventure. We love this place and even have a membership here, though it is nearly an hour away. Why do we love it so much? It is made for children from birth to age 7, just right for our kids! Usually you find places like COSI, the science center, where our 7yo is just starting to have fun there and understand that activities. Not here! They have lots of stuff for everyone. We took a ton of pictures and I still managed not to get pictures of all the toy/activity areas, so what you will see here is not everything.

One thing we can do here that the kids like is face painting. Mommy just happens to have done some face painting in a former life before kids while working at the zoo. So today we got neat butterflies, a bumblebee, and a little sailboat. Of course, looking at the photo of Tagalong Girl getting painted you might wonder just how much she really likes the process. I think it is more they like the finished product. They always have to face away from the mirror so the painting is a surprise.

Another area, which I didn't get a picture of, is a dress up area complete with mini stage, working curtains, lights, microphones, etc. AcrobatBoy found this Superman costume and wore it for a while before he got his face painted.

The first area all the kids go to is this water table. It has lots of fun things set at different heights, so even BabyBoy can play. We usually have so much fun here that everyone ends up soaking wet and we bring a change of clothes(which we used today!). I finally remembered to snap a shot later in our visit of the table.
A new discovery for us today was this sand table. Now, I have to say that as a mom, I HATE SAND! It is gritty, gross, and gets into everyone's hair. I will never be a beach mommy. But this stuff was something even I liked! I asked at the front desk and was told it is Moon Sand, which I have seen for sale at WalMart. It has weird properties and doesn't stick to your hands hardly at all, doesn't have to be wet to mold it into sandcastles, and even BabyBoy can play with it as long as we make sure he isn't eating it. I'm going to check this stuff out on my next WalMart trip - I'm going to get some.

The girls enjoyed this planting area. With all the right supplies you can pot your own flowers, fruits, and veggies in rubber chunks that look like dirt. Even AcrobatBoy did this once. Then he moved on to tearing down the house that you're supposed to build.

There is a bead table BabyBoy liked, a wooden airplane/car simulator, veterinarian's office, a play grocery store with carts and a working cash register, and a train table.

Oh, and just for my sister, I finally managed to take my own picture and not have it look awful! Ha!

Ballet Class

Today I remembered to bring my camera to BigGirl's ballet class. Finally! She loves this class and they are working hard to learn all the skills they need for recital next May. They are working on a routine adding a few pieces each week.

Now I could try to tell you the technical names for the positions and moves, but there are two problems: 1. They are in French, which I can't spell. 2. Even if I could spell it, I don't speak french. So just trust me that she is learning all sorts of neat french words while learning ballet.

Class is typically divided between time at the barre,

time practicing skills in the center or moving across the whole floor,

and routine practice. The pictures are from a bit of each, so enjoy! By the way, she's the redhead in the black leotard and pink tutu.

Finding Nemo Lapbook

Today Makayla also finished decorating her Finding Nemo lapbook! Horray! It turned out to be a great lapbook, much larger than our usual ones. Our minibooks came from a variety of places. Many are from HomeschoolShare for different units and lapbooks there(Atlantic, Coral Reel, Sharks, Sea Turtles, Nico's Octopus). Some come from Hands of a Child project packs we purchased a while back(The Clownfish Adventure, Ocean Habitats, Under the Sea, Australia). And some we made up by ourselves. Here is a picture of the proud girl with the completed lapbook:

Now let me tell you a bit about the inside as we see pictures. Here is the cover, which she decorated this morning:

For the first two page spread her topics were oceans, shells, and Australia.

On the left are the following:
Oceans of the World simple fold - inside she labeled all the major oceans and we talked about how some people call it one large ocean, others see 4 ocean, and others still see 5.

Things we need from the Sea book - talks about resources like food, oil, etc, with her illustrations for each page.

Getting the Salt out of Saltwater book - the steps and results of an experiment we did.

What Shape is Water? - another experiment we did.

Ocean Occupations - about jobs related to ocean things

Why is the Sea Salty? flap - where rivers and oceans work together

On the right are the following:

A flag of Australia - she colored it

9 Matchbooks about Australia - facts like name, language, government, currency

Australia is Unique book - three reasons Australia is special

Regions layer book - talking about the geography and climate of Australia

Sorting Shells flap - inside is a bar graph of a pile of seashells we have, sorted by shape

The next two page spread covers fish and coral reefs.

On the left you see:

Types of Reefs layer book - Inside she drew and colored the different types of coral reefs, including where they are in relation to land, water depths, etc

What is a Coral Reef matchbook - Information about what a reef is made of and how it grows

Coral Venn Diagram book - inside are the things that are different or the same about hard and soft coral

Clownfish with Shell Pull Strip - The strip tells about how clownfish and sea anemones live together
On the right you see:

Tank Gang - this is a picture folded up of all the fish in the tank in Finding Nemo

Staying Safe - you pull a clownfish in and out of an anemone, with a text flap at the bottom.

The seashell popup card - inside tells about Dory

The next two page spread is about sharks.

One the left:

Into the Abyss - a flap about life in the abyss that fit here, even though it isn't about sharks.

I'm a Predator matchbook - inside you learn what sharks like to eat

Plain Shark flap - inside you learn about the different ways sharks have babies

Shocking Shark Facts - neat things we learned about sharks as we studied

On the Right:

As Big As a Shark flap - inside is another bar graph, showing the length of several different kinds of shark, including the 3 from Finding Nemo

Sharky Friends tooth shape - inside are the names and types of sharks from Finding Nemo

Relatives matchbook - talks about who's related to sharks

Shark Diagram - has a shark inside with parts labeled

The next two page spread covers jellyfish, octopus, and sea turtles.

On the left:

What Color Would You Be? flap book - octopus change colors with different emotions and to camouflage, BigGirl picked what color she would be for different feelings.

JellyFish simple fold - a diagram of the Jellyfish life cycle.

Octopus circle book - underneath is a labeled diagram of octopus anatomy

Eating Sea Turtle Style menu - inside are flaps for the different kinds of seaturtles and what they eat.
On the right:

Octopus Defense Mthods layer book - under each layeer is a way octopi defend themselves

How a Seaturtle is born layer book - each layer tells how seaturtles lay their eggs and what happens next

Countershading flap - tells why countershading is important

Large Turtle Anatomy flap - inside are flaps with information about each part on the cover

The next two page spread is the last one. It covers starfish, Nemo friends, dentists, and so on. Really just a mix of things.

On the left:

Stingray Danger shutter fold - inside tells why stingrays are dangerous

Nemo's Friends pocket - cards of Nemo's school friends

Pocket Puppets - puppets of the animals that helped Marlin find Nemo

Dentist Words pocket - different words related to dentists

Common Sea Star - diagram.

On the right:

This side is two large pockets with photographs inside of our dissections of a fish, clam, and starfish.

Wow! I think that covers it all! Makayla learned so much and loves her lapbook. Now if I can just keep it in good condition until our portfolio review! If not, at least there are pictures...

Starfish Dissection

We did our starfish dissection yesterday! It went much better for me than the fish last week. Starfish are quite interesting inside, and rather easy to dissect. But the kids were enthralled from the moment we got the starfish out. Why? Because they are such neat creatures on the outside too! First we looked at the rough, spiny top and found the stone disk, a little circle on top that is where the starfish takes in water. This would be very important to know later.

Then we flipped the starfish over and found the mouth, looked at all the tube feet, and of course counted the arms. We talked about how each arm was the same inside, they all match. We remembered that if they have an arm break off it can regrow, and that if the starfish is broken in pieces that each piece is able to become a new starfish as long as it has part of the central disk attached. Neat fact: a long time ago clam fishermen had trouble with starfish eating their clams. They would gather starfish, break them in half, and toss back into the sea! Soon the problem was even worse as many of those starfish became not one, but two new starfish! They learned that to kill them it took very hot steam or leaving them out to dry in the sun.

Back to the dissection. We cut off the end of one ray and looked at it. We sliced the top off one ray and looked at the organs inside before clearing them away to see the groove where all those tube feet attach.

We cut the top off the central disk to see the mess inside. When we cleared it all away you could see the ring that fills with water and the tubes that go into each ray for the tube feet. Remember that stone disk we mentioned earlier? Starfish take in water and use it in the tube feet to act like suction cups and walk. Also, starfish have no heart or blood! Weird but true.We were also able to see from the inside and outside the mouth of the starfish, and even poke our finger through. All in all it was a fun and neat dissection.

A Year Old Bean

I'm feeling slightly sad today. I was looking at the pictures on the digital camera from this weekend. We had the boys' birthday party Saturday and BabyBoy, who turned 1 that day, had a fever that lasted for the next several days. He slept more than he was awake during those days. And on Sunday while I was relaxing in all my pregnant glory he snuggled up on the recliner next to me and fell asleep curled up just like a little bean. He looked so little again, just like when he was new. Where does the time go? Already my baby is growing so fast and another little one will be here before winter is over. This boy of mine has been walking for 4 months now and many days seems more toddler than baby. But just for a minute when I saw this picture I saw that he is still a baby in so many ways. And I'm not ready to let that go.

Not that I get much say in the matter.

Sometimes being a mom is hard even when you know it's good for them to grow up.

Octopus Hot Dogs

Just a quick post about a fun meal the kids had to celebrate learning so much about seashells and octopus. We made octopus hot dogs by slicing the bottom half of each hot dog into 8 "arms" and microwaving them, and served them on top of "seashell" macaroni and cheese. It turned out rather cute for a kid-friendly meal!

My Library Adventure

Ahh, there is nothing quite like a trip to the library. As a homeschooling mom my library visits have certain qualities I can't deny. We live where I grew up and are frequent patrons of the library I've always gone to. When we walk into the library it is guaranteed that we will see at least 3 people we know, usually more. Why is that? Because we know the people who work in our library. They have watched my children grow up. They watch each pregnancy with expectation for a new little library child to meet. The librarians know my children's names.

I know that going to the library with my four children in tow will be an interesting experience. It always is. I've been asking them to walk, whisper, and remember to put the books back on the shelf since they were old enough to toddle around. There are days when I wonder if the librarians see us coming and want to lock the doors. "Not that homeschooling family again! They always get so many books. They have us order books from other libraries, and we always have books to reshelve when they are done."

Really, I know better. They love helping my children find books, play with puzzles, or explore the latest display. But in my heart I also sometimes wonder if my children are welcomed with open arms so much because they are excited to be in a building full of books. How rare is that in children these days? I wonder if there are other children who come into the library to see "their" librarians, or if the librarians spend most of their time alone with the books and no children who love them. How often do they see children come in who can find many of their old favorite books and sections by memory?

Yesterday I went to the library alone. Totally, blissfully alone. Daddy and the children were playing at home, and I was on a mission to find a list of books. I wandered in the bookshelves on all 3 floors of my library, even the adult books with no pictures! I used the computer with no little fingers "helping" me type the titles or authors I was searching for. I saw our librarian friends. And every single one asked me about the children! How they were doing, what they were learning about right now for homeschool, and where they were today. They were happy to see me, but I realized they missed seeing my crowd of children.

Next time I'll bring my children along. While going to the library alone is something I enjoy, my library needs my children. In a building full of stories I saw no children who could listen. They were all busy somewhere else. It made me sad.

When I got home my welcome was wonderful. It was like I had been gone for days. "Mommy, you're home!" with lots of hugs. "What books did you get me?" chorused every voice. (So much for thinking it was me they were glad to see! It was the books.) Everyone was happy to sit around me on the floor and start looking through the stacks of books as they came out of my cart. Then they started to wander away looking at their treasures in their favorite reading spots.

For a few weeks we will read and discover new favorite stories, as well as old ones. Daddy and I will be asked to read a book "just one more time" a hundred times. And then it will start all over again with another trip to the library.

Birthday Boys

This week both my boys had birthdays! AcrobatBoy is now 4 years old. BabyBoy is 1 year old. Time certainly flies. Early in the week AcrobatBoy asked a question that nearly broke my mommy heart, "Mommy, am I big enough for cupcakes now?". For those of you who don't know, he is deathly allergic to eggs. That means nothing comes in our house that has eggs in it. No cake, no doughnuts, no scrambled eggs, no cookies, no mayo, no to a hundred different things - including cupcakes. Now it used to be worse. He used to be really allergic to cows milk too. But he outgrew that. And I have learned to cook and bake a lot of things from scratch without eggs. But cupcakes just don't hold together without egg. I have perfected a muffin recipe though, and so we compromised. We made mupcakes. They are my pumpkin muffins with chocolate icing and sprinkles.

Everyone had some.

Everyone liked them.

Except AcrobatBoy .....

After two bites he asked for a plain muffin. And to think I was worried he was feeling deprived! Ha!

Today we had a party with some family and a few friends over to play and eat ice cream sundaes with us. To get ready this morning we made a cool space mural that the kids used to play pin the space shuttle in the universe. Technically they had space shuttles, rocketships, UFOs, and sattelites. Here is our masterpiece after the game. Tomorrow or the next day we will move it to the boy's bedroom as a wall decoration.
And while we had it we took a few quick pictures of the kids and I.