A Literacy Filled Home

One of my goals in parenthood is to raise lifelong readers. I want my children to love books, and love reading! This Spring I watched a Google hangout (a video chat) titled Spring Into Reading: Reading Questions Answered by Kid Bloggers  where numerous awesome bloggers discussed how to instill reading and literacy into our children.

Here are a few of the questions they covered:

• How do you foster a love of reading in your home?
• How do you decide which books to read with your kids?
• How do you get kids to sit still when reading?
• How do you keep kids focused when reading?
• When do you start reading chapter books to kids?
• What are storytime rituals at your house?
• What are simple ways (that don't involve any extra materials) that you use to engage your children as you read stories aloud?

You should totally click on the link above and watch the videos! I LOVED it! It was so fun to listen to other mommies and bloggers discuss how reading occurs in their homes! I had many "ah-ha" moments and was able to take away so much from watching this video that I thought I would share what I learned with you. I implemented so much of their ideas right away.

-One idea is to read to your children all times of the day: at breakfast, lunch, or dinner, while they are taking a bath or anytime you can. I started doing this and love it. I now read to the boys at lunch time. I also now read to the boys while they are in the bath. They are splashing and having fun and they can't go anywhere! I now keep a basket of books in the bathroom to grab while they bathe. I also got really tickled one day when JP and CA both picked up books to read while using the bathroom one day!

-One blogger gave the idea to have books in every room of the house. I already had books the boys rooms and our front room, but I found baskets to put more books in each room of our home.

This is a new basket in our living room that I love! I found this new item at Micheal's and just couldn't resist buying it. It also fits quite nicely inside our coffee table.

TC loves the new basket too!

I love Sandra Boynton books so I made just one basket for this collection.

These are the books in TC's room.

This a reused book holder from my teaching days that we use to hold our library books. All of these books stay in one location of our home (on a good day).

-Another idea was to start reading chapter books when you think your child is ready. They advised if your child can sit still for 10-15 minutes and understands story elements to begin and see how it goes. I have done this with JP(age 5 1/2) and he is loving it!

I hope these ideas inspire you as much as they did me! Happy Reading! 

"Bear"

This is a funny story that I want to be sure to remember so I've chosen to document it here. I hope it makes you laugh too. 

So there really is a 6th member of our family. He is a six inch, cute, brown, teddy bear named "Bear". He is JP's sidekick. He was given to JP as a shower gift before he was born. I can't even remember when JP took to him so fondly. It just happened one day. JP loves Bear deeply and talks of taking Bear to college with him one day. Bear likes to go many places with us. Well last Thursday we went on a bike ride to the park down the street from our house. JP took Bear with us. I remembered when we got home that Bear was in the garage. Well, in the everyday tasks of dinner, bath, and bedtime we all forgot about Bear's location. Then right as I'm tucking JP into bed he says, "Mommy, where's Bear?," in the most exasperated voice.  To which I reply, "I don't know, but I'll find him." So I searched and searched the house. I looked in every nook and cranny one would look for Bear: under the couch, in the toy box, under beds, the garage, the van, and numerous locations. I prayed that God would help me find Bear. But, NO Bear! So then I went to check on JP and possibly ask him if he remembered where Bear might be. But oh no, that sweet boy was sound asleep. So I sat down in my chair as by now it is 9:15. Then when I decided to head to bed around 11:00. I then realized if I didn't find Bear that night JP would be one upset little boy come morning! So I started looking again. The sweet hubs immediately knew what I was doing and said "You looking for Bear?" Yep! So we looked again together and tried to retrace Bear's steps. The daddy then said, "I'll go to the park to look." So off he went to the park at 11:15 at night with flashlight in hand! I then prayed again and asked God specifically to help us have insight and wisdom to find Bear. I then heard God say "think like JP" and I thought "Where would JP put Bear?" Oh yes! The Freezer! And there Bear was in the freezer! I quickly called the Daddy and told him to come home from the dark park! When we returned from our walk we were all very hot and JP thought Bear needed to cool off. Oh my sweet thoughtful son!

Oh the things we do for our precious children!

Summer 2013 Bucket List

Summer 2013 is here! We are excited and ready to begin our summer fun! We have just a few days left before the Daddy of our family is off for the Summer and we are ready! We have lots of fun plans for this summer. I asked the boys what they wanted to do this summer and here are a few of their ideas:

Visit the Children's museum
Visit the Children's aquarium
Paint (JP's idea- not exactly sure what he wants to paint, but paint we will!)
Visit the Bureau of Engraving and Printing(JP has been wanting to do this for months!)
Visit Many Parks in our area and all 24 in our town!
Swim lessons/Swim at our neighborhood pool
Visit the Zoo
Participate in a Sports club Class at the recreation center
Participate in the Kids bowl free program
Attend a professional baseball game
Have many Play dates with friends and cousins
Play at many local splash pads!
Go camping in the backyard
Participate in our Local Library Summer reading program

I made a calendar on Publisher to hang on the refrigerator with picture prompts so the boys can see when the fun events are planned.

I make a Summer Bucket List to keep me accountable and to have a plan for the lazy days of summer. I want to be intentional and meaningful in all I do and my Summer Bucket list helps me do that.

We did paint birdhouses in the garage this weekend. 

I still love his serious, focused face with his tongue out! Too funny!

Happy Summer!!! We hope your summer is awesome! What's on your Summer Bucket List?

I'm Still Here!

Hello Friends! Or anyone still reading this blog,
I am still here, I promise! I have not meant to abandon blog writing. At times I just don't know what to write about. All is really good at our home. I have learned in the past year that life with three precious ones 5 and under is busy! These three blessings keep me on my toes. Thankfully our days are full with all good stuff: Bible study twice a month, library visits at least once a week( or more), play dates, laundry, reading together, working out at the gym, laundry, running errands, grocery shopping, family time together on the weekends, and oh did I mention laundry?! I love our life and my 3 blessings so much!

I try to be intentional with CA and TC on the two days a week that JP is at preschool. But if I were to be real honest these are the days we run errands or I catch up on house stuff. Balancing it all can be a challenge.

I have also realized I only have a short time with JP before he is in school full time in the fall for kindergarten. While I could be working with him more on the days he is home, I have chosen to follow his lead. He loves preschool and has really learned a lot this year! He  loves to read books, sing songs, dance, play super heros, play with legos, write his own "books", play with cars, and ride his big wheel. I realize I won't have this time back with him. The dynamics of our family will change when he is no longer home with me full time. So we just do a lot of fun things together and I feel that he is learning while we are playing and "doing life".

So that's what's been happening at our house. Stay tuned for more posts about literacy, less screen time, and the very active one year old in our house! Where did the last year go?

PS- I tried to upload pics to the post and was unsuccessful! I'll try again another day.:)

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter! He is Risen! He is Risen Indeed!

I hope your day was blessed celebrating Jesus with those you love!

We had a great day together at church and then dinner and Easter fun with our family!

Happy Birthday, CA!

I'm a little late in blogging! Oops! We had a great day celebrating our big 4 year old back in February!

I can't believe CA is 4! He is such a sweet, silly, funny little boy! He is such a blessing to our family! I'm so thankful to be his Mommy!

Baby Storytime!

The highlight of my day was taking TC to baby story time today at the library! We are so blessed to have a wonderful public library right down the street from our house! And if you are a new follower here or need a little reminder I am a library geek!

I LOVE the library! 

I love everything about the library! Books, books, and more books, dvds, books on cd, story times, the children's computers, and our awesome librarians. 

Our library calls baby story time "Babies and Books" with a 20 minute lap sit session filled with songs, rhymes and sign language. This was TC's first time to Babies and Books. He has been to the preschooler story times many times with his big brothers. But today was all about him! He loved it! He sat or stood holding my fingers a lot during the songs and stories. He also showed off his crawling abilities. All the mommies sat on the floor with their babies in their laps and the sweet librarians encouraged us to sign, sing, and read with our babies. We sang a few songs, read a board book to our babies, and then the babies were mesmorized my an awesome bubble machine afterwards. It was so much fun!

Another thing I love about our library that they encourage early literacy skills at each story time session. As a former 1st grade teacher I know the importance of each of these skills, but it is always a good reminder. Here are six pre reading skills to remember:


Six Pre-Reading Skills

1. Vocabulary: Knowing the names of things. 
2. Print Motivation: Being interested in and enjoying books.
3. Narrative Skills: Being able to describe things and tell stories.
4. Print Awareness: Noticing print and knowing how to handle a book.
5. Letter Knowledge: Knowing letters are different from each other and knowing their names.
6. Phonological Awareness: Being able to hear and play with the smaller sounds in words.

So if you have a precious baby at home too like me, I want to encourage you to read to your baby! I know at times it is hard for me to remember the importance of it in the midst of teaching my bigger boys, managing our home, and just living life. But it is so important to sit with our babies to share new words, new signs, point to the pictures and the words, and just enjoy books .

Happy Reading!
Linked to some of these awesome parties this week!