Story Stretchers: Ten Little Fish

Did you know that March is

National Reading Month??

Well it is. And I'm just a teensy bit thrilled about that piece of news (which I just learned about this week)! A whole month to celebrate one of our favorite hobbies? Yes, please! So, as I mentioned the other day, you can expect a bunch more book/reading posts here this month. In addition to our weekly library visits and reading lists, I thought it would be fun to take it a step further and try out some "story stretchers". I'd read about the idea of story stretchers some time ago, thought they sounded interesting and just never got around to pulling anything together. It's a super simple concept... just takes a little creativity. You read a book... and then you work with your child to do some sort of extension activity that applies to the story. Could be a game, a craft, a recipe, a song, whatever. The child then applies what they learned to doing an actual activity and it helps solidify that new knowledge and also helps with reading comprehension.

Sophie's been really into counting lately, as I mentioned before. Since the last time I posted about it, she's even improved her counting ability! She can now count to seven on her own and then always skips to nine. Big brother is helping to reinforce this interest with her.

So we borrowed a book called Ten Little Fish by Audrey Wood and read it several times. Both kids enjoyed counting down the number of fish on each page as one disappeared each time.

Then we did a bubble counting game that I saw on a Montessori school teacher's blog. I like activities that are quick to put together and don't require a lot of crafty skills, of which I am lacking. I cut out these fish from craft foam, wrote a number from 1-10 on each with a Sharpie, and then added a googly eye just to make them cute. My jar of marbles substituted for the floral rocks that the other blogger used. And that's it.

Will counted out the appropriate number of "bubbles" and placed them above each fish. Sophie tried to count along with him but she mostly just played with the marbles and sifted through them with her hands.

It was really cute to hear Sophie counting as she put each marble back in the jar.

Then, just to keep up with our fish play, I pulled out our old magnet fishing game from way back when. The hoola hoop is our "ocean" and each fish has a paperclip taped to its mouth. Dangling the magnet ("bait") from above proved to be pretty tricky, but they worked at it for awhile and seemed to enjoy the challenge.

Tips from big brother.

I'm going to keep presenting Sophie with counting books while she seems to be in a sensitive period for learning a bit about numbers. We borrowed a book called Ten Sleepy Sheep by Phyllis Root this week, but it didn't hold her attention nearly as much as the fish book.

I pulled out these two books that we already own and she has loved both of them.

I'm hoping to do a few more of these story stretcher activities this month. Maybe one per week or so? Do you have any ideas for these?

Somebody Wants What You Have

I read this post while blog hopping today and it was one of those things that stops you dead in your tracks and forces you to soak in every word. I paused in my day to give thanks to God for the life and the family that I've been blessed with. The blog was called The Finer Things In Life but I'm not sure if the writer was actually the author of this? Anyway, maybe you're like me and, from time to time, you appreciate writings that give you perspective in life? I hope this gives you pause as it did me.

At the top of the page, there was an image of some bright green blades of grass with a few dew drops on them and this is what it said:

It's easy to think the grass is always greener in your neighbor's yard. And perhaps it is. At least the part you can see.

But remember:

When you're weary of fixing another meal and doing dishes yet again, somebody wishes they had food to put on the table.

When you've folded and put away a(nother) mountain of laundry, somebody wishes their children had proper coats and hats to wear to school.

When you're groaning over the highest heating bill yet this year, somebody wishes they weren't so cold.

When you're losing sleep and gagging over a child's stomach bug episode, somebody is praying for a miracle over her child's hospital bed.

When the exhaustion and nausea of the first trimester are about to do you in, somebody is weeping (yet again) over a negative pregnancy test.

When your headache intensifies over your teen's college financial paperwork, somebody is visiting the site of her teen's fatal wreck.

When you wake up to another cloudy, rainy day, somebody is praying for moisture to end a season of drought.

When you pick up your husband's dirty socks and take out the trash because he forgot, somebody is wishing that for just a moment she didn't have to do it all alone, all the time.

The next time your situation threatens to steal your joy, try to remember... somebody wants what you have.

Give thanks in all circumstances...

1 Tessalonians 5:18

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The last line {the scripture verse} is my favorite part: Give thanks in all circumstances. God is good and He works in ways we may not understand. In all the trials we face in life, there is a purpose and perhaps a lesson to be learned. A person's true character shines through amidst the challenges and I think it is those that learn to give thanks in all circumstances that are truly the most blessed. Perhaps it is simply because they are able to recognize the gifts they've been given?

Cousins!

We got to play with cousins a couple times over the weekend after quite a long dry spell of not seeing them! The Rethman family has been on quite a roller coaster this past month with the very sad passing of Wes's stepmom. They've been out of town a ton to be with Wes's family (understandably) and we've missed them! Plus, with my kids not going regularly to the babysitter (that we shared) over the past couple months, the kids have barely seen each other.

So on Friday evening, we met up with my sister's family for dinner at their house. I am completely shocked to tell you that I, too, had Friday off of work on account of the "icy roads", which really weren't that bad! Two days off in one week???!! And three days total for the month/season, when normally I'm lucky to get ONE snow/weather day per year??!! Wahoo! So I've enjoyed some extra time at home with my family and was happy to have dinner made for US on Friday! :)

Check out these new pics of the three girls together. I can't believe how they've grown! They are all talking so much more and it is so exciting to see how that enhances their interactions. It's clear they've missed each other! And I couldn't help but think about how I cannot wait for them to be a little older and start having sleepovers!! :)

Love this one of Stella & Mya.

Cracks me up: Stella's wearing a tutu over her clothes and Mya has one rain boot... on the wrong foot. :)

Casey was drying her hair here and the girls were squealing when she pointed the dryer at them for a second. Casey will probably be mad at me for posting this picture with their laundry on the bed in the background but they were just packing for another overnighter out of town. :)

Poor Will. He needs some boy cousins in his life. We're counting on Lincoln (Cora's little brother) to fill that gap... but Casey or Kelly, if you want to get working on that... Just sayin'! He does a pretty good job doing his own thing amongst the girls though. In this case, that involved a ladybug backpack and a kitchen set, apparently. :)

Sophie climbed into the girls' baby doll play pen. Haha!

And they worked together to rock her. Stella's face cracks me up here - she looks like she's up to something.

Dinner time!

The next morning, Nana had the twins while Casey and Wes were in Columbus and Will and Sophie and I came over to visit again after our trip to the library.

Mya was very intrigued with Sophie's shoes and kept trying to put them on.

We had lunch at Nana's house and she didn't have enough portable high chairs for all three girls so Stella got to sit up at the big counter! She did so well. And look! She's eating on a super old plate that belonged to her mommy when she was little. It says Casey's name on the umbrella. :)

Puzzles.

Good times. We need them to happen more often!

What We're Reading

I have been so pleased to find Sophie sitting with her nose in a book multiple times a day for the past few weeks. She's really getting into the joy of reading and that's something I've wished for both my children since before they were born.

This past week, Sophie really enjoyed a book called Too Purpley by Jean Reidy - a silly book about a little girl being very choosy about what she's going to wear. We left this and three other books on her night stand for the duration of the week and read them most every day.

Here was our stack from last week:

Top to bottom:

Daddy Calls Me Doodlebug by J.D. Lester

Mommy Calls Me Monkeypants by J.D. Lester

Let's Talk About Being Careless from Joy Berry's Help Me Be Good series
Let's Talk About Being Selfish from Joy Berry's Help Me Be Good series

Let's Talk About Being Destructive from Joy Berry's Help Me Be Good series

Little Pea by Amy Krouse Rosenthal

A Dora book - I can't remember the title - :(

Little Einsteins: Music of the Meadow by Susan Ring

Heavy and Light (My World of Science) by Angela Royston

Too Purpley by Jean Reidy

Poetry for Young People by Robert Frost

Let's Make a Joyful Noise by Karma Wilson

Mama Always Comes Home by Karma Wilson (kept for the 3rd week in a row)

Keep Love in Your Heart, Little One by Giles Andreae

Heaven is Having You by Giles Andreae

Giraffes Can't Dance by Giles Andreae

K is for Kissing a Cool Kangaroo by Giles Andreae

Dinosaurs Galore! by Giles Andreae

While the World is Sleeping by Pamela Duncan Edwards

My First Day at Nursery School by Becky Edwards

I Know Why I Brush My Teeth (Sam's Science) by Kate Rowan

We kept Mommy Calls Me Monkeypants for another week because Sophie loved it so much and also picked up another book by this author: Daddy Calls Me Doodlebug. Both are adorable and I love that they're board books.

This is a new author I recently read about and thought her Children's Help Me Be Good series looked interesting. She has lots of titles that address many (sometimes difficult) things to explain to children. We only read through each of these one time but Will did like them (especially the illustrations that went along with) and I found him browsing them on his own a couple times. I was also very impressed with his responses when I asked him (while reading) "Do you know what it means to take turns?" or "Do you know what it means to take care of your things?" He gave good answers and even an example here and there! :)

This book is hilarious. It's about a little pea (and his mommy and daddy) who eat candy for dinner every single night. Little pea hates candy and gags through the five bites of candy that Mama Pea says he has to eat in order to get his dessert. Finally dessert arrives and it's spinach and little pea is soooo excited. :) I wish I could have taken a picture of Will's expression while he listened so intently to this story. He looked so confused... like we had just entered some sort of alternate universe. Haha!

Probably Will's favorite of the week... surprise, surprise! We borrowed several by this author, Giles Andreae, who also wrote Cock-a-doodle-doo! Barnyard Hullabaloo that we loved a long while ago.

This one is very sweet. Scroll down for a few excerpts from the text.

Get ready for a lot of book/reading posts next month. Details later!