The Best Bad Luck I Ever Had by Kristin Levine

If someone confronted me with the question, "What is your favorite genre?" I'd be hard-pressed to narrow it down to just one. Last year, my five favorite books were all from different categories: Unbroken (nonfiction, historical, biographical), The Happiness Project (nonfiction, self-help), Edenbrooke (fiction, Regency romance, chick lit), A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (realistic fiction, historical fiction (early 20th century), classic), Rebecca (fiction, Gothic, classic). (Disclaimer: I'm no English major, so I'm categorizing these books to the best of my knowledge.)

But I definitely have favorites genres (emphasizing the plural), and one of those is historical fiction. Of course, once you say "historical fiction," that opens up a whole new set of classifications. For me, I tend to gravitate toward books set in the 20th century in the United States or Europe but am willing to try almost any time period.

This is all just background fluff so that when I tell you that my book club selected The Best Bad Luck I Ever Had (historical fiction set in 1917 Alabama), you'll know that I was more than happy to read it.

Harry "Dit" Sims is twelve years old and somewhat lost in his family of ten children. When his best friend goes on vacation, he resigns himself to a summer of boredom. But then, a new postmaster moves into Moundville, and Dit is hopeful that he will have a son just his age. When Emma Walker steps off the train, Dit can see instantly that she is refined, intelligent, and definitely not a boy. She is also black. Dit befriends her out of a sense of duty, a spirit of kindness, and a fit of boredom. But as tension increases between Big Foot (the sheriff) and members of the black community, Dit and Emma's friendship grows into something real. Soon they team up together to save the town barber from an unfair death sentence, and Dit realizes that Emma is not only a girl worth knowing but also his best friend.

This book reminded me so much of a middle grade version of To Kill a Mockingbird. It's set in the South (Alabama even). It deals with the trial and subsequent  sentence of a black man. It examines questions of race and friendship and fairness and loyalty. It definitely didn't pack the same kind of punch as To Kill a Mockingbird, but then, it also ended happier.

I loved the contrast between Emma and Dit. Emma comes from the North (Boston, I think). She is well-bred, has fine manners, reads like crazy, speaks well, is honest, and is very kind. Dit is an average student, has grown up on a farm, is polite with an unsophisticated way of talking, and loves going hunting and fishing. I've read a lot of books with friendships between black and white children (or adults) but never one with quite these same dynamics, and I loved it.

I listened to the audio, which was narrated by Kirby Heyborne. I was somewhat hesitant about him as a narrator, but I ended up liking it quite a lot. He had to do a lot of variations on the Southern accent, and it was well done. I always like it when I can distinguish the voices just by how they sound, and I definitely could with this one.

There were some really great and insightful moments in the story. One of the scenes that happens several times is Big Foot (the sheriff I mentioned earlier) coming into Doc Haley's barbershop. Big Foot brazenly picks up a bottle of hair tonic and walks out without paying for it. Dit becomes so frustrated and annoyed by this, and he asks Doc why he doesn't demand payment. Doc says, "Well, Dit, there are some things in life that are worth making a stink over, but a bottle of hair tonic ain't one of them." Even though Doc eventually changes his mind and decides to take a stand, I still think this is some great advice. I know for me, there are many times when I get angry, but the more I think about, the more I realize the repercussions of lashing out would be far worse than just dealing with or overlooking whatever is bothering me. For Doc, he finally realized there was an underlying issue that was big enough for the repercussions to be worth it.

One of the sub-themes is Dit's desire to become a man (he turns 13 during the course of the story). I loved how choosing kindness and non-violence actions were major factors in letting go of immaturity and becoming a real man. If only more men would value these characteristics.

If you're like me and love good historical fiction, particularly of the middle-grade variety, I would definitely recommend this book.

Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne

After my kids' lukewarm reaction to Half Magic followed by a brief and unsuccessful stint with How to Train Your Dragon, I decided that a return to a tried and true children's classic was in order. And what could be more of a classic than Winnie-the-Pooh?  

Wow. Even I was impressed with how Aaron and Maxwell responded to it. It was one of our best readalouds yet.

I'm assuming that all of you know the story: Winnie-the-Pooh (also known as Edward Bear) is the stuffed bear of Christopher Robin. Most of the story takes place in the Hundred Acre Wood (created by the boundless imagination of Christopher Robin and his father). Winnie-the-Pooh and all of his friends (Piglet, Rabbit, Owl, Eeyore, Kanga, and Roo, with occasional appearances from Christopher Robin himself) go on lots of adventures: hunting for Woozles, looking for Eeyore's tail, saving Piglet from drowning, etc. This story encapsulates all the magic of childhood.

Okay, confession: this was my first time reading this book. My mom read a lot of wonderful classics to me when I was little, but not this one. There are just too many good books out there, you know? So now, as an adult, I've been picking up a lot of the classics that I missed: The Phantom Tollbooth, Matilda, Bridge to Terabithia, to name a few. Even though I have truly enjoyed these missed classics, I can't shake the undeniable feeling that something is missing from my reading. And that something is almost certainly nostalgia. Since I didn't read these books as a child, I have no memory attached to them and therefore no expectations or anticipations. While this can be a good thing if you're trying to look at a book objectively or analytically, it usually leaves me with a sort of sad, lonesome when I don't have any memories to fall back onto. (Luckily, since my mom did read to me a lot, I do have lots of other books that I've been revisiting as an adult that have lots of memories attached to them.)

But here's what I've discovered: if I read one of these overlooked classics to my children, it's almost as good as having my own childhood memories: I still get to have the benefit of reading it from an adult point-of-view, but I also get to see how they like it and therefore how I might have liked it if I had heard it when I was three or four.

And the truth is, they loved it. I know this was in part because of the abundance of illustrations scattered on almost every page. Most of these were quite small (just Eeyore in some silly position or Pooh Bear touching his toes), but it didn't matter. It gave Aaron and Maxwell something to anchor their eyes to and therefore, their minds were engaged with the story.

Even though I didn't read the book when I was younger, I did watch the Disney adaptation many times (which follows the book pretty closely). I wondered if this colored my experience with the book? (Who am I kidding? Of course it did! I couldn't read the part about Pooh pretending to be a little black rain cloud without hearing Sterling Holloway's voice.) Would I have thought Eeyore's doom-and-gloom view of life and Owl's ridiculous monologues were clever and endearing or confusing and strange?

Just for the record, I do find the characters clever and endearing (more on that in a minute). I'm only asking this because while I was reading the first few chapters, I felt like there were many introductions and explanations left unsaid and sometimes what was said added more confusion than clarity. For example, in the chapter when Piglet is introduced, the entire first paragraph is about Piglet's grandfather who was supposedly named Trespassers W. This paragraph gets funnier with age, but the first time through, it's rather bewildering and would, I imagine, be even more so if you didn't already have some inkling as to who Piglet is.

Speaking of humor, the wit and charm of this story cannot be overlooked, mainly because it is witty and charming for both children and adults. Truly an impressive accomplishment. One of Maxwell's favorite stories was the one where Winnie the Pooh is desperate for some honey--so desperate that he's willing to roll in some mud and float on the end of a balloon in the hope that he will be mistaken for a little black rain cloud. He thought it was funny because it was perfectly obvious to him that Winnie the Pooh did not look like a rain cloud . . . but at the same time, he was overcome with the exciting prospect of fooling bees and floating in the sky.

Aaron, on the other hand, loved the story about the expedition (or "expotition," whichever you prefer) to the North Pole. There was something so delightful and entertaining with the idea of looking for a "pole" when everyone knows (especially know-it-all four-year-olds) that the North Pole isn't just any old random pole. 

For me, the clever and absurd dialogues were the best part. Here are a few of my favorite lines:

"There's just one thing," said Piglet, fidgeting a bit. "I was talking to Christopher Robin, and he said that a Kanga was Generally Regarded as One of the Fiercer Animals. I am not frightened of Fierce Animals in the ordinary way, but it is well known that, if One of the Fiercer Animals is Deprived of Its Young, it becomes as fierce as Two of the Fiercer Animals. In which case 'Aha!' is perhaps a foolish thing to say."

"Now then, Pooh," said Christopher Robin, "where's your boat?"
"I ought to say," explained Pooh as they walked down to the shore of the island, "that it isn't just an ordinary sort of boat. Sometimes it's a Boat, and sometimes it's more of an Accident. It all depends."
"Depends on what?"
"On whether I'm on the top of it or underneath it."

I also loved all of the references to Rabbit's relations, which is a detail that Disney left out entirely (as far as I remember) and which I find so incredibly funny: "And all Rabbit's friends-and-relations spread themselves about on the grass, and waited hopefully in case anybody spoke to them, or dropped anything, or asked them the time."

I'm sure this is a favorite book for many of you, and so I have to ask: Do you like the ending? I'm asking this because, to be perfectly frank, I didn't. I loved the rest of the book but was both surprised and sad about the ending. Maybe I'm just too used to contemporary novels where everything has a moral and where kindness is the ultimate objective. But, guys, what about Eeyore? Did your heart not break when he stands up to give his acceptance speech and you know he's in for a bitter disappointment when he finds out the party is actually for Winnie the Pooh? Did you not want to cry when Piglet says, "I'd sooner it was [your party] than Eeyore's." Did you not silently wish that Pooh would see Eeyore's disappointment and give him one of his pencils or say a kind word or give him a little shout-out? Did you not cry out in disbelief, "What?! This is the end?! You're going home?!"

When I got to the end of the story, I did all of those things. Aaron and Maxwell looked at me strangely. It didn't bother them in the same way it did me. And to be honest, I've never heard anyone else even mention the ending, so am I just being overly sensitive? Maybe I just have a soft spot for Eeyore.

In spite of the ending, this book was a treat. The boys and I couldn't wait to read it every night, and the chapters went by much too quickly. It is so fun for me to see how a book that is almost 90 years old can still hold a young audience completely captive.

Virtual Book Club: Inch by Inch

Leo Lionni was the featured Virtual Book Club author for May (yes, May--since I was posting about Christmas last week, it should come as no surprise that I'm a month behind with the Virtual Book Club as well).

We checked out several Leo Lionni books a couple of months ago and immediately fell in love with Inch by Inch.

In this book, a little green inchworm is on the verge of becoming a hungry robin's breakfast, but he hurriedly explains that he is an inchworm and therefore a very useful creature because he can measure things. The robin is intrigued: "Measure my tail!" he commands. The inchworm stays busy after that, measuring the legs of the heron, the beak of a toucan, etc. All is going well until a nightingale says he must measure her song or be eaten. The inchworm tells her to start singing and then slowly inches away...

Bradley adores this book. I do, too, but I must confess that at this point, I've read it so many times I'm rather thrilled at the prospect of it going back to the library tomorrow. And yet, I can see why he loves it: it's kind of like a seek-and-find book for babies. The inchworm, albeit the main character of the story, takes up no more than an inch of space on each page. So even though he holds a prominent position on each page, it is still a bit of a challenge to find him, what with him being so small and blending in with the grass and all. So it gives Bradley an inordinate amount of satisfaction to point to him on every page and exclaim, "There he is!" (And you better believe that he will not let you turn the page until you acknowledge his job well done.)

The story itself is somewhat unique because of its focus on different kinds of birds instead of just showcasing a variety of animals. I also like the emphasis on why measurements are useful and how it's possible to measure with something besides a ruler.

It was the measuring aspect of this story that made me come up with the following activity.

My boys love using measuring tapes to determine the length of various objects. I always think it's funny when they say something like, "Mom, this is seven pounds long."

I wanted to help them make their own inchworms, so they could use them to measure things. At first I was going to have the length of the inchworm translate to an actual number of inches, but then I realized it really wouldn't matter to my kids. The point of this activity was really just to teach them that we can use different things as measuring tools and that even though "seven inchworms" and "seven inches" may not mean the same thing, "seven inchworms" still gives us a relative idea of how long something is.

If you want to make your own inchworm, here's what you'll need:

• a piece of elastic (it can be any length (the pieces we used were about three inches long) and any width (we used 1/2" wide elastic))
• some colorful yarn
• hot glue gun
• fabric paint or googly eyes

I let the boys stretch the elastic to figure out how much they wanted. Then I glued the end of yarn to one end of the elastic.

Then the boys wound the yarn all the way up the length of elastic...

 

...and back down (that way, you still had pretty good coverage even when he was completely stretched out).

 

I found that it needed a little dot of glue here and there along the way (especially at the ends) to keep the yarn in place. A long stripe of glue along the finished worm didn't work because it all just cracked when the inchworm was stretched out. In all honesty, I never found the perfect method for keeping the yarn in place, but what we did was enough for the boys to still have fun with the worms for awhile.

After they finished winding, and I finished gluing, we added a couple of fabric paint dots (you could use googly eyes instead), and the inchworms were ready to use!

We took them outside, and the boys stretched them out...

...and scrunched them up...

...and then definitively declared: "This step is 22 inchworms long!"

KidPages: Four Books For Father's Day

With Father's Day just around the corner, I thought it would be appropriate to share a few of our favorite picture books that give the spotlight to dear ol' Dad. I hope you enjoy them!

1. The Daddy Mountain, Jules Feiffer
What is it about kids and climbing? Or are my kids the only ones? They're like little monkeys. (Bradley nearly gave me a heart attack a couple weeks ago when he scaled to the top of a six-foot fence and almost made friends with a cow at a farm we were visiting.) But perhaps nothing is so inviting as their tolerant, patient dad.

That's what this book is all about: a little girl trying to make it to the very top of her own tolerant, patient dad. She begins at his feet and narrates the arduous climb with detailed instructions: "I have to be brave. I crawl up a leg of the Daddy Mountain. I hold on tight and go not too fast. It's harder than you think." She eventually makes it, and victory is hers...until her mother sees her.

I am annoyed by one small thing about this book, and that is that it feels like a couple of the pages had to be added in because the book wasn't long enough to meet the standard page requirement for picture books. I won't mention which ones; you just get the book for yourself and see if anything stands out as unnecessary and redundant. Maybe I'm crazy.

I love the illustrations. For most of the book, the dad (aka, mountain) is still and immoveable, gray and granite-looking. Since the book is narrated by the little girl, we see her dad through her own eyes--and she is so lost in the intensity of her climb that she really sees him as an obstacle to be overcome (although she does have the presence of mind to remember that if she grabs his skin (instead of his clothes), he will get mad).

The real reason I love it though is because I have seen my own three boys treat Mike like a mountain--sometimes alone, sometimes all three together (if it's a group hike). I am so happy that a talented author/illustrator observed this favorite past time of children and decided to capture it with words and pictures.

2. The Fathers Are Coming Home, Margaret Wise Brown, illus. Stephen Savage
Lest you be fooled, this book is not about a father coming home from war. Maybe it's just me, but when I first saw the cover and the title, I totally thought I was going to find a story about a Navy father returning home to his young son after serving in World War II.

But, no. Instead, this book is about a wide variety of fathers returning home to their children after a long day's work. There is a fish father and a rabbit father, a bird father and a dog father. And yes, at the end, there's a sailor father who "comes home from the sea, home to his little boy."

One of the things I found so interesting about this book was that, and I quote, "the lion father lives alone, so he comes home to himself." I wasn't disturbed that they showed a father who didn't come home; certainly nature is full of fathers who are totally oblivious to the fact that they even have children. I just thought it deceptive that the lion was singled out as the anomaly, the one and only father who does not care anything about his young, when the book also features a fish, ladybug, daddy longlegs, and snail, all of which, I'm pretty sure, have absolutely nothing to do with their offspring. I just don't really understand the point of the lone lion.

Aside from that, the book is very sweet. There are so many sentimental books about mothers (too many, actually, for my tastes), so I really liked seeing the dads get some of that attention. And this is a sentimental book that actually holds the attention of my kids, which is very rare. It jumps from animal to animal, and so they're kept busy anticipating the next one instead of yawning with boredom. The illustrations are simple, mainly silhouettes, which complement the "end of the day" feeling of the book.

I don't think there's any part of the day that my boys anticipate more than the fifteen minutes every evening when they're watching for Mike to round the corner on his bike. This book perfectly captures that joy.

3. Faster! Faster!, Leslie Patricelli
I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm a huge Leslie Patricelli fan. It took me a couple of tries to really warm up to her style (and I still can't say that I love The Patterson Puppies series), but now I'm hooked. Most of her books contain very little text (I think The Patterson Puppies are the only exception to this, which is maybe why I don't like them as much?), and I am consistently amazed with the wit, insight, and creativity she expresses on each simple page.

Faster! Faster! is a perfect example. A little girl begs her daddy for a ride. He gets down on his hands and knees, she grips his necktie in her small hand, and they're off. With her cry of "Faster! Faster!," he picks up speed, and soon she is racing away on a "dog." Then she challenges him again, and with a new burst of energy, she's on a "rabbit." They make their way through a series of faster and faster animals until suddenly she is on a "turtle" and asking, "Faster? Faster?" At that point, they flash back to reality where the daddy is collapsed on the grass, his tongue hanging out in obvious fatigue. But it is enough for his little girl who happily exclaims, "You're fast, Daddy!"

As with The Daddy Mountain, this book celebrates how much fun it is to play with Dad. I'll be honest: I don't give my kids a lot of piggy- or horsey-back rides. Sometimes. On occasion. But not a lot. But Mike? It's pretty much a nightly activity, and Aaron, Maxwell, and Bradley live for it. There is something so different in the way the two of us play with our kids, and they definitely seem to thrive on the variety.

I also love the way this book races through the animals. Each page shows the animal the little girl just abandoned (panting and worn out), the animal she is currently riding, and a hint of the animal that's coming up next. It's such a great way to engage my 20-month-old.

I'm convinced that anyone who says board books can't be great literature (or great entertainment, for that matter) has never read Leslie Patricelli.

4. That's Papa's Way, Kate Banks, illus. Lauren Castillo
This story is narrated by a little girl who goes fishing with her papa one day. She describes their adventures from sunup to sundown: the worms they dig out of the ground, the way her papa whistles as he rows the boat, the waiting, and the first catch of the day. She makes note of the things they do differently but also the really important things that they do exactly the same.

Throughout the story, the little girl frequently makes the observation, "That's Papa's way." Because this phrase is repeated several times, the story could have easily become formulaic and fallen into a predictable pattern of, "we did [such and such] because that's Papa's way." But it didn't. The repetition of "That's Papa's way" ties the story together but doesn't dictate how the story is told.

I love the illustrations, which, to my untrained eye, appear to be done in colored pencil and watercolor. This mixed media has the effect of softening some edges and sharpening others, and even though my lack of artistic talent renders my opinion completely negligible, I still think they're really lovely.

I was instantly endeared to this book because I've always called my own dad "Papa." So even though fishing was never one of our past times, I still felt a certain kinship with the little girl in the story. 

Even though all of these books refer to "dad" or "father" or "papa," each of them could easily be adapted to uncles or grandpas or friends or whoever fills that special place in your life.

Aaron's Preschool: The Legend of the Candy Cane

Note: This last school year, I participated in two different preschool co-ops--one for my three-year-old son and the other for my four-year-old son. For the older group, we loosely based our curriculum on Five in a Row. For more of my preschool posts, click here.

I'm sorry to revisit December two posts in a row, but this was one of my favorite lessons I did this last year for Aaron's preschool, so I couldn't just let it go undocumented.

The Legend of the Candy Cane is not a Five in a Row book, but I wanted to use it anyway. One of the good things about using Five in a Row is it teaches you how to extend stories and illustrations in ways you never would have thought of before. Consequently, even though I didn't have an actual lesson plan for this book, I was still able to think of lots of ways to extend it and learn from it (and of course random strangers on the internet also helped a great deal...).

The story begins with a stranger riding into town, stopping in front of a boarded up store, and saying, "That will do." He quietly begins working while the townspeople speculate about what he is going to use the store for. Everyone watches from a distance, except for a little girl named Lucy who asks the man if he could use some help. He lets her unpack glass jars and then fill them with candy. That is when Lucy realizes that he is opening a candy store, which is exactly what all of the children were wishing for. In the midst of the unpacking, Lucy discovers a box of candy canes; the man gently explains that the candy cane is a symbol of Jesus Christ--of His birth, His life, and His sacrifice for all of us. Amidst the joy and excitement of a new candy store, the two of them share the message of Christmas with the whole town.

Obviously, this story contains strong Christian themes. Since all of the children that participate in our little preschool co-op are Christians, I knew this would be an appropriate story to share. (Although, I will disclaim that even if you are a Christian, you might not agree with everything in this story: I read a review from one mother who liked the story well enough until she reached the part where it explains that Jesus "bled terribly" and that the red on the candy cane reminds us of His blood and infinite sacrifice. She was horrified at the thought of sharing this with her young daughter. For me personally, I want my children to know that we celebrate the birth of the Baby Jesus because of what He would eventually do for us, and I thought this detail in the book was treated both simply and reverently, so I was not at all offended by it. I share this contrast only to make the point that everyone has different opinions and expectations.)

The illustrations beautifully depict a small town, probably somewhere in the Midwest, around the turn of the century. I saw that a few years ago a new edition of this book was published with new illustrations by Richard Cowdrey. I prefer the original illustrations that were done by James Bernardin. They have a more realistic look about them.

There are a lot of fun Christmas books that I like (and also a lot of fun ones that I find absolutely ridiculous and stupid), but I have a hard time finding serious ones that are both interesting to my children and treat the details of the Christmas season with the quiet and joyful respect I feel they deserve. This book is absolutely perfect because it places those details against the backdrop of a candy store, which is something that intrigues almost every child and makes those details easier to remember and relate to. 

Speaking of candy stores, after reading this book to Aaron and his preschool friends, our first activity focused around our own little candy store.

.

First, I did a little money lesson with the kids. I explained that a penny is equal to 1¢ and that a nickel is equal to 5¢ or five pennies. We worked on a little addition: 6¢ = one nickel + one penny, 4¢ = four pennies, etc. I don't know how much they actually grasped, but I gave them each their own handful of nickels and pennies and turned them loose in the "candy store."

They were in heaven! They all stood in line and took turns coming up to the candy counter, choosing what they wanted, and paying for it at the cash register (I played the part of the clerk). I think they would have been happy to rotate through the line for the full two hours. Even though there were only five varieties of candy, each time they came through the line, it was like they were experiencing the delight and wonder of the choice and the purchase all over again.

(And no, in case you're wondering if actual candy canes were sold in the store, they were not. Instead, candy canes were featured prominently in the snack. See below.)

The book began on a "dreary evening in the depths of November." Later on, "the town was whipped round by blizzard winds." I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to discuss winter weather, particularly blizzards.

I grew up on the plains of northeastern Colorado. There, it is so windy that almost every snowfall turns into a blizzard.  But here in Salt Lake City, we are protected and sheltered by the mountains, and to see the snow fall sideways instead of straight down is definitely a rarity.

So rare in fact that when I asked the children what a blizzard was, I got a line-up of blank stares. And when I told them about blizzards, they thought they must be one of the coolest tricks winter could offer.

With that in mind, they all sat down to make personalized snow globes. A few days before preschool, I had all of the parents send me a picture of their child bundled up in winter gear. Then I printed the pictures, laminated them, and cut them out.

I took an old Christmas wreath and disassembled it so that we could use the leaves, berries, and evergreen needles in the snow globes as well.

I had each child take the lid of their jar and assemble all of the pieces the way they wanted them. We used a pile of small rocks to make a little nest for the other items to stick into. I used the hot glue gun to glue everything into place.

We filled the jars with water, a little corn syrup to help the glitter fall more slowly, and glitter. Then we carefully inserted the little scene and screwed on the lid.

 

The kids gave the jars a good shake and watched the glitter swirl around themselves in a beautiful "blizzard."

(Aaron and Max kept their jars for all of December. By the end of the month, some of the pieces had come off the base and the lids were leaking a little bit, so we threw them away, but we loved them so much, I think we'll make them again next December!)

By this point, the kids were very hungry, so we took a break and made candy cane shakes. As far as snacks go, I have a really difficult time thinking of one that will please everyone. This time, a couple of the children objected to the crushed bits of candy cane and went with a plain vanilla shake instead. Sorry, no pictures. I'm sure you can imagine it: ice cream, milk, candy canes...YUM.

For our final activity, we talked about patterns since all candy canes, even the non-traditional ones, feature a repeating pattern.

We made candy cane ornaments out of pipe cleaners and beads.
 

Some of the children were happy to create repeating patterns; others decided to follow a less-restrictive route.

Even though we only had time for these activities, you could do a lot more with the book: make candy, learn more about life in America at the turn of the century, learn to use carpentry tools, start a business, practice cooperation, do a kind deed, and focus on the religious elements.

Maxwell's Preschool: L is for Light

Note: This last school year, I participated in two different preschool co-ops--one for my three-year-old son and the other for my four-year-old son. For the younger group, we focused on a different letter and number each week. For more of my preschool posts, click here.

I hope you all don't mind if I finally write up the details to a lesson I did several months ago for my three-year-old son's preschool. It includes some Christmas elements, which, of course, seemed like a fabulous idea when I carried it out in December, but which seem far less fabulous now that it's JUNE. Ah, well. If you want to plan a similar lesson, you can adapt the Christmas segments to something more summery or leave them out or just save the entire outline for December when it will be seasonally appropriate once again.

The letter of the week was L, so I chose to focus on different kinds of lights.

I began by reading Red Light, Green Light by Margaret Wise Brown. The book follows a small town from dawn to dusk and centers around the motion created by the traffic lights: Green Light they can go. Red light they can't. 

There are many traffic picture books out there, but I specifically chose this one because I love the muted illustrations and the soft rise and fall of the text. Color is used sparingly: mainly black, grey, and brown with splashes of green and red. The subdued colors are especially appropriate as the day fades into night: everyone returns home, the noise and bustle drift away, and the pages slowly become more dark and quiet.

The text follows the activities of a truck, car, jeep, horse, boy, dog, cat, and mouse. Their paths cross and then diverge, and their lives intersect in interesting and unusual ways. I love the gentle repetition (The truck came out of the truck's house / a garage. The car came out of the car's house / another garage) with just the right amount of change (The cat climbed down from the cat's house / a tree. (This was a wild cat.)).

This doesn't seem to be an especially well-known book, but it is one I would definitely recommend if you get the chance. And it was the perfect lead-in to a discussion about lights.

After reading the book, I taught the children a little rhyme called "Green Says Go." I got the idea from RovingFiddlehead KidLit.

I made a flannel traffic light to use with the rhyme: 

I made the flaps so that I could cover up the other lights when they weren't being spoken about in the rhyme:

But honestly, the kids were just happy saying the rhyme and acting it out, so I really think it would have been better to just prop up a picture of a traffic light and then have fun acting it out without worrying about covering and uncovering the various lights.

The rhyme went as follows:

Green says, “Go!” (march quickly)
Go! Go! Go!
Yel­low says, “Slow!” (march slowly)
Slow…slow…slow
And red says, “Stop!” (stop and freeze)
Go! Go! Go! (march fast)
Slow…slow…slow (march slowly)
and STOP! (stop)

Then we went to the kitchen to make our own traffic lights. I got the idea for this project here. I gave each of the kids a black piece of cardstock (1 1/2" x 8", folded in half), two green circles, two yellow circles, two red circles (all cut out of craft foam), and a 24" circle of braided red yarn.

They glued the circles to the front and back of the cardstock.

Some were more generous with the glue than others.

Then we put the yarn between the fold of the cardstock and glued the sides together.

And finally, it was ready to be worn for a rousing game of Red Light, Green Light or just shown off as a pretty awesome fashion piece. 

Next, I wanted them to be able to experiment with light and shadows. I threw up a sheet in our basement and plugged in a lamp behind it (okay, I lied--Mike set the whole thing up, but it WAS my idea).

Then the kids took turns going behind the sheet, while the others stayed on the stairs to watch the shadow show.

They also wanted to see what two people looked like and also what would happen if one person was close to the light and the other person was farther away.

For the snack, we had lemon bars (we had to have something that started with "L"!). (In case you're wondering, I made these lemon brownies which I far prefer to a more traditional lemon bar.)

In keeping with our light theme, we stuck birthday candles into the lemon bars.

I had a feeling that this would be the favorite activity of the morning, and it totally was. What three-year-old doesn't like blowing out a birthday candle? They still really wanted to sing "Happy Birthday" even though it wasn't close to anyone's birthday. But then one of them suggested that we sing to Jesus (remember, we were doing this in December). I love how perceptive kids are.

After the snack, I pulled out another book: Christmas Lights by Ann Fearrington.

One of our favorite activities in December is driving around at night and looking at Christmas lights. This book is one family's tour around their town. The reader gets to see all kinds of lights--from elegant trees in the forest to a tacky snowman at the fast-food place. Of course, seeing the lights in real life is definitely better, but at 10:00 in the morning, that wasn't really an option. I think this book captures the real experience so well that if you have gone for a drive at night to look at lights, then looking at these pictures will instantly take you back to your own memories.

A few weeks before planning this preschool lesson, I had seen this adorable thumbprint Christmas light craft. When I started putting this lesson together, I realized it would go along with the theme perfectly, and I was so excited to have a reason to help the kids make one of their own.



Prior to that morning, I free-handed a light string on a piece of cardstock for each child, leaving off all the bulbs.



I ended up helping with the entire process of dipping each child's thumb into different paint colors and placing it on the paper. Slightly older children could have done the picture completely on their own.

Besides the letter "L," this preschool lesson also featured the number 12. I had seen a cute idea for a Santa number game at No Time For Flashcards and thought I could adapt it to stay with our light theme.

I printed several full-page light bulbs and then covered them with the numbers 1-12. All of the "game boards" included all 12 numbers, but there was some variation, as some of the boards had three 2's while others had only two 2's, etc.

Each child received a game board and a pile of cereal (for game pieces).

We played the game like this: one child rolled the twelve-sided die (stolen from the game Killer Bunnies) and then covered up the corresponding number with a cereal piece. Then he passed the die to the next child and she would do the same thing.

The idea was to continue playing until one of the children filled up their entire board, after which they would be called the winner. But in the end, eating the cereal was more fun than putting it on a boring piece of paper, so we wrapped up the game a little early.

However, as I was preparing this post (six months later...), Aaron and Max saw the game boards, and it was like an entirely new activity for them (one of the benefits of waiting six months to post anything). They had so much fun rolling the die and finding the numbers. It actually worked far better with two kids than five and was a great way for Maxwell to review his numbers.

As long as I'm doing a little Christmas in June, tomorrow I will be posting the lesson I did for Aaron's preschool in December. And then, I will leave all things Christmas until at least November. Promise.

P.S. I am sharing this post with Show-and-Share Saturday and the Kid's Co-op.

Raising a Reader: A Mother's Tale of Desperation and Delight by Jennie Nash

To say I was a little excited by the prospect of Aaron learning to read would be the vastest of understatements. Just before he turned two, I read a book called How to Teach Your Baby to Read by Glenn Doman (no, really, I'm serious). Although I didn't fully subscribe to his method, I did teach Aaron to read a big stack of sight words (much to the delight and amazement of the person sitting in the pew behind us at church). When Aaron was three-and-a-half, I just couldn't stand it any longer and began "formal" reading lessons using the book Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons.

As a mother, I don't know that there's any other single thing that has brought me more joy and filled me with more excitement than watching all three of my children develop a love of reading. (First steps? First words? So overrated.) 

I picked up Raising a Reader simply because the title caught my eye. I usually don't go for subtitles, but this one--A Mother's Tale of Desperation and Delight--described my own emotions so perfectly that I felt compelled to see what was inside.

It is a memoir of sorts: a memoir of reading. Doesn't that just sound lovely? It is broken into sixteen short chapters, each one of them focusing on a different attribute (characteristic? quality? element?) of reading. For example, in the chapter entitled "Obsession," there is a somewhat humorous and (for me) all-too-relatable story about the first time Jennie's oldest daughter tore the page of a book (out of frustration and spite). In her own words, Jennie "yelped" and drastically brought two large boxes into her daughter's room and began packing away all of her books. This story was meant to illustrate what can happen when we become a little too obsessed with our passions (although I think it made such an impression on her daughter that she never mistreated books again).
Through these different topics (abundance, delight, arrogance, togetherness, etc.), Jennie explores what reading has done for her family.

This will not be a five-star book for everyone. In fact, it probably won't be a five-star book for most people. But it definitely is a five-star book for me, for the simple reason that this is my story. Yes, I'm aware that I have three sons instead of two daughters and that I'm not a professional writer and that I do not live in California. But those things are all beside the point.

The point is, I have tried before to describe why I love reading so much and why I am so completely obsessed with guiding (a much better word than "forcing") my children to love it, but I haven't been able to find the right words. Jennie Nash found them.

When she said that their trips to the library weren't just about "getting something good to read at bedtime, it was about feeling like we were getting away with something too good to be true [my emphasis]," I knew exactly what she was talking about. (I currently have 55 items checked out from my library. That's hundreds of dollars worth of literature! You tell me that's not too good to be true.)

When she said they would bring "home fifteen, seventeen, twenty books, and pile them at the end of the girls' beds where they could, almost literally, wallow in them [my emphasis]," I looked at the state of my own bed and saw our own wallowing pile (which Mike sighs about almost every night as he's stacking up book after book to make room for himself).

When she told the story about the little girl in her daughter's class who was absolutely brilliant, and she realized that "a talent like Alexandra's [the classmate] that had obviously sprung fully formed seemed so much more pure than a talent like Carlyn's [her daughter] that had been coddled, nurtured, and maybe even tricked into fruition [my emphasis]," I recognized my own silly pride in Aaron's success with reading.

It was these examples and more that made this book cross the bridge for me from something that was just an enjoyable read to something that spoke to my soul. Her words resonated with my own ambition, passion, and interest. It's always nice to know that someone else, even if you don't know that someone else, understands exactly the way that you feel. It's even better when she can put those feelings into perfect words.

I will say that if you're looking for a book to actually help you "raise a reader," this is probably not the book you want. Although Jennie does give little tips or ideas at the end of every chapter (things like word games you can play or how much of a chance you should give a book before giving up), it is less a step-by-step guide and more just a recounting of one family's journey with books. Inspiring for sure, but maybe not very hands-on-helpful.

Also, even though it was written in 2003 (which really does not seem that long ago to me), some of it already feels dated. For example, her suggestion to keep a "What to Read" file where you can write down the names of future books you want to read. Um, ever heard of Goodreads?

If you find yourself reading this blog and thinking you and I might be kindred spirits, than chances are you will love this book, too. I think I'm just going to buy my own copy (since it's going for cheap on Amazon), so I can revisit a chapter here and there whenever I feel like it...or whenever I need a little reassurance that there are other people in this world who are as obsessed with books as I am.