Sophie came with us to the library on Saturday morning.
This is only her second(?) time going, but the first time was in the Ergo and this time she actually participated.
First, Will showed her how we return our books.
Then she selected a book and sat down at the table to look at it while I found most of the books on my list. 
Have I mentioned that I almost always go with a list? I keep a running notebook filled with Tot School ideas, recipes I want to try, crafts and activities for the kids, and of course books I want to borrow. I love reading book suggestions/recommendations and lists. Then I often find authors we like and just hunt for more books by that author. So I get on our library's online catalog to do book searches during the week. I make requests from other branches if our library doesn't have them and then I just write down what I requested and what I still need to find when we go on the weekend. So I often make a stop once or twice a week on the way home from work to pick up requested books as they become available. And here's Sophie with one of our books before we left the parking lot. :)
At home, however, her heart still belongs to about 10-15 ritual books that we read OFTEN and then she just enjoys tearing through her (& Will's separate) bookshelf and plopping down to flip through the pages of lots of other books. I frequently find her quietly surrounded by piles of books now just browsing quietly. :) Love. She's gotten much more careful with paper pages (pop-up books, though, not so much) and also does a great job making sure the books are right side up and turning pages from right to left. Hooray! Early reader skills!
Since my last book post, Will and I have finished book #2 in the Magic Tree House series and are over halfway through book #3.
1) The Knight at Dawn was (admittedly) slightly less interesting to Will than the first book about dinosaurs, but he is becoming attached to the characters (siblings Jack & Annie) so I think that will help hold his interest through books he finds less fascinating. And maybe he'll learn a thing or two about something new. For example, in this book, he learned that a knight wears very heavy, metal armor for protection that may weigh as much as 40# or more! And that the water that surrounds a castle to protect the residents is called a moat and is usually crossed with a drawbridge. He is also able to distinguish between the numbers that represent chapters and page numbers and is really good at reading double digit page numbers. One things I'm not sure he comprehends is that the characters are traveling into a time in the past. So when the castle guards were afraid of Annie's flashlight because there were no flashlights back then... I'm not sure he got that. But it's not taking away from the excitement of their adventures.
2) Mummies in the Morning is the book we're reading now. We finished chapters five through seven last night, so just three chapters left and then we'll move on to book #4. This one obviously takes place in Egypt and since Will is totally into maps right now, we found Egypt on a map and Will pointed out that Diego went to Egypt in another book we read. I was hesitant to get into details about dead people and funerals and stuff, but he seemed to just take that information casually. And I guess it is part of history, so... So far we've learned that the coffin that contained these royal people in the tomb was called a sarcophagus and that the Egyptian form of writing (with pictures) are called hieroglyphs. Ha! I'm sure he won't remember that, but hey... it's just planting the seed. One day when he learns more about this culture in school, he just may trigger a memory. He already knew that the shape of those desert tombs are called pyramids. Now we're just waiting to see if the ghost-queen is able to use the book Jack & Annie found for her to move on into the afterlife. She has been waiting for thousand years for someone to help her!
Okay, besides chapter books, we're still borrowing and reading plenty of picture books. I like to find topics about things that we're already doing/learning/experiencing currently in life so that our reading can really be an extension of what Will's already learning.
2) Mummies in the Morning is the book we're reading now. We finished chapters five through seven last night, so just three chapters left and then we'll move on to book #4. This one obviously takes place in Egypt and since Will is totally into maps right now, we found Egypt on a map and Will pointed out that Diego went to Egypt in another book we read. I was hesitant to get into details about dead people and funerals and stuff, but he seemed to just take that information casually. And I guess it is part of history, so... So far we've learned that the coffin that contained these royal people in the tomb was called a sarcophagus and that the Egyptian form of writing (with pictures) are called hieroglyphs. Ha! I'm sure he won't remember that, but hey... it's just planting the seed. One day when he learns more about this culture in school, he just may trigger a memory. He already knew that the shape of those desert tombs are called pyramids. Now we're just waiting to see if the ghost-queen is able to use the book Jack & Annie found for her to move on into the afterlife. She has been waiting for thousand years for someone to help her!
Okay, besides chapter books, we're still borrowing and reading plenty of picture books. I like to find topics about things that we're already doing/learning/experiencing currently in life so that our reading can really be an extension of what Will's already learning.3) Dappled Apples by Jan Carr is just a uniquely illustrated, poetic book about all things fall.
4) Apples & Oranges: going bananas with pairs, by Sarah Pinto. Don't you just love that title? So cute - love the puns. Anyway, this book is a comical comparison of how certain things are similar and different. I loved that it made Will really think about how two things are alike and I asked him to give me examples before we flipped the page to hear the author's humorous idea of how they are not alike.
5) Leaves! Leaves! Leaves! by Nancy Elizabeth Wallace. I LOVE this author. We've borrowed several of her books and I loved them all. They're SUPER educational and filled with fun activities and ideas for extension learning. In this book, Buddy and Mama go for leaf walks in the spring, summer, fall and winter and talk about how the leaves/trees change and how the daylight hours and a special chemical called chlorophyll cause the green color of leaves to change. We also inhaled and exhaled to talk about the oxygen and carbon dioxide relationship that humans have with plants.
6) We All Fall for Apples by Emmi Herman was just an easy early reader book that Will and I used to sound out words.
7) Costume Fun, Max & Ruby (by a Corporate Author) was not a Halloween costume book as I expected, but it was still cute. They're actually just playing dress up at grandma's house and Max doesn't want to look too "girly".
8) It's S! by Oona Gaarder-Juntti. Another letter book - this time about the letter "S". I love how these books help practice recognizing how letter sounds may fall at the beginning, middle or end of a word. In this book, Will also learned about the /Sh/ sound and that sometimes the letter "S" makes a /z/ sound as in "roses" or "daisies".
9) How Do Dinosaurs Count to Ten? by Jane Yolen. Eh - whatever. I'm not the biggest fan. Will picked it out.
10) At the Firehouse by Anne Rockwell was the perfect extension to follow Will's visit from the Fire Department at school! This book is actually very educational too and Will already recognized many of the things such as their oxygen tanks and masks that are part of the uniforms. 
11) When Sheep Sleep by Laura Numeroff (the author of If You Give a Mouse a Cookie) was really just a rhymey counting book with animals, but Will enjoyed it.
12) The Great Monster Hunt by Norbert Landa was sort of like playing "telephone" where the message from one person to the next changes. In this case the message was about a "monster under the bed" and with each relay to the next animal, it got scarier and scarier. Turns out... it was only a mouse.
13) The Toy Farmer by Andrew Pelletier was just weird. I mean, I guess it was imaginative but the illustrations were almost creapy and the plant that grew reminded me of the Little Shop of Horror. And what was the message? Just a secret, shared experience between father and son that doesn't really even make sense.
14-16) Mighty Machines books - just because Will's totally into construction vehicles right now. He LOVED the backhoes book. Seriously - he knows the names of ALL these things and corrects you if you say it wrong. :)
4) Apples & Oranges: going bananas with pairs, by Sarah Pinto. Don't you just love that title? So cute - love the puns. Anyway, this book is a comical comparison of how certain things are similar and different. I loved that it made Will really think about how two things are alike and I asked him to give me examples before we flipped the page to hear the author's humorous idea of how they are not alike.
5) Leaves! Leaves! Leaves! by Nancy Elizabeth Wallace. I LOVE this author. We've borrowed several of her books and I loved them all. They're SUPER educational and filled with fun activities and ideas for extension learning. In this book, Buddy and Mama go for leaf walks in the spring, summer, fall and winter and talk about how the leaves/trees change and how the daylight hours and a special chemical called chlorophyll cause the green color of leaves to change. We also inhaled and exhaled to talk about the oxygen and carbon dioxide relationship that humans have with plants.
6) We All Fall for Apples by Emmi Herman was just an easy early reader book that Will and I used to sound out words.
7) Costume Fun, Max & Ruby (by a Corporate Author) was not a Halloween costume book as I expected, but it was still cute. They're actually just playing dress up at grandma's house and Max doesn't want to look too "girly".
8) It's S! by Oona Gaarder-Juntti. Another letter book - this time about the letter "S". I love how these books help practice recognizing how letter sounds may fall at the beginning, middle or end of a word. In this book, Will also learned about the /Sh/ sound and that sometimes the letter "S" makes a /z/ sound as in "roses" or "daisies".
9) How Do Dinosaurs Count to Ten? by Jane Yolen. Eh - whatever. I'm not the biggest fan. Will picked it out.
10) At the Firehouse by Anne Rockwell was the perfect extension to follow Will's visit from the Fire Department at school! This book is actually very educational too and Will already recognized many of the things such as their oxygen tanks and masks that are part of the uniforms. 
11) When Sheep Sleep by Laura Numeroff (the author of If You Give a Mouse a Cookie) was really just a rhymey counting book with animals, but Will enjoyed it.
12) The Great Monster Hunt by Norbert Landa was sort of like playing "telephone" where the message from one person to the next changes. In this case the message was about a "monster under the bed" and with each relay to the next animal, it got scarier and scarier. Turns out... it was only a mouse.
13) The Toy Farmer by Andrew Pelletier was just weird. I mean, I guess it was imaginative but the illustrations were almost creapy and the plant that grew reminded me of the Little Shop of Horror. And what was the message? Just a secret, shared experience between father and son that doesn't really even make sense.
14-16) Mighty Machines books - just because Will's totally into construction vehicles right now. He LOVED the backhoes book. Seriously - he knows the names of ALL these things and corrects you if you say it wrong. :)
2 comments:
I love the magic tree house books!! Dinosaurs at Dark or something was my fave!
Don't know if you've read him much from Robert Munsch (besides Love You Forever) because he is my all time favorite children's book author. His books are hilarious and my class always loves them. We read Boo! today and they were laughing so hard.
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